November Nurturing

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to kt r H Garden Line with Skip ricteres.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
A trip. Just watch him as.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
So many things to sup blot basic as the double
back not a side glass and gas.

Speaker 4 (00:41):
S well.

Speaker 5 (00:43):
Good morning, good morning on a great heay for gardening.
I tell you, as we get further and further into
this fall season, the temperature start to modify a little bit,
it just makes you want to get outside. There's a
lot to be done, you know, all is the planting season.
And I keep saying that, and I hope that I can.

(01:05):
You know, if I could do one thing. I've said
this before, but if I could find some little drops
of fall fever and put them in the water supply
for all the communities around here, so that people would
get the excitement from spring gardening, that they would get
it in the fall, because fall is at least as
good of a season as spring, and it's actually even

(01:25):
a better season. When you're planning woody ornamentals, any kind
of perennials, whatever, whatever you're putting in, it follows a
planning season. It's the good one. It's the best one.
You can plant twelve months out of the year here.
That's one of the advantages of living down this far
south in the country that we can plant every month
of the year something out there in the garden and landscape.

(01:48):
Summer's a tough time. We have to that's the price
to pay for getting to grow things like avocado or
a citrus, or a lot of things that are kind
of cold, hardy, cold tender. Excuse me. In other areas
we have to deal with the summer. But hey, that's
behind us. It is time to get fall fever and
get excited because there's a lot that we can be planning.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
You know.

Speaker 5 (02:12):
We love our feed stores here on guard Line and
Leak City. Feed down there in Leake City. It serves
that whole area, so I don't care if you live
anywhere around there, Lamark Bay, Cliff, Webster, League City, Santa Fe, Dickinson, Elka, MI.
In a real color, Lake City, all those areas. Leake
City feeds your hometown feed store. They're on Highway three
in Leake City, just a few blocks south of Highway

(02:33):
ninety six, very easy to get to. The Thunderbergs have
run that store now it's third generation now running. That
store's been there over forty years ago, and you can
go in there and get that old time feed store service.
You know where they carry the bags out for you. Also,
when you get in there, you hear me talk about
fertilizers and products and soils and things to control this

(02:56):
pest or that disease or prevent this weed or whatever.
It's all there. City Feed. It makes it really easy.
Monday through Saturday, nine to six, closed on Sunday, closed
today or tomorrow, So you can get out there today
or any day after work during the week. Just stop
by and get the products you need to have success.
Sales products of course, feed, premium pet food, some supplies

(03:17):
for various kinds of craters around the place. League City
Feed again Highway three, a few blocks south of Highway
ninety six. When see when was it, I don't know,
recently checking out the plans for all seasons. It's a
little blank there in the morning checking out plants for

(03:39):
all seasons. They have gotten in one of the coolest
plants that is way underutilized around here, and that is
the adenium. It's also called desert rose. And boy did
they ever have a great stock of it desert rose.
I can't even describe the ballooms, do you. I'll just
tell you all kinds of shades of red to burgundy

(04:01):
so deep that it's black, to petals that are speckled
and striped, and all kinds of beautiful. That is a
tough plant. I mean, in fact, you know how you
kill doesn't rose. You overwater it. So all you got
to do. All you got to do is just get
it in a really well drained soil, which is what
it comes in when you buy it, and then make
sure it gets full sunlight and just watered occasionally. You

(04:23):
don't have to water it a lot. Just if it's
going to freeze, you got to bring that little pot
in protect it. But oh my gosh, the blooms are stunning,
and they got them there plants for all seasons. They
are stocked up and ready to go. Of course, while
you're by there lots of other things. They have a
really good supply of roses. And I know everybody thinks
about roses on Valentine's Day, right, That's when you pun

(04:44):
your roses. That's when you plant your roses. It is
better to plant a rose today than on Valentine's Day.
So go by there and get a rose, get it
in your landscape, get it established. By the time Valentine's
Day comes, the rose you planted now will already be
establishing roots out in the soil and have a big
head start on summer. They also have pots of marigoals,

(05:05):
you know, marrigals. We call the big African type marigals
marramums because if you plant them in the fall, they
just glow like big old palm palm mums. I mean,
they're beautiful, beautiful. And so if you have a chrysanthemum,
or don't have a chrysanthemum, why not try marigold from
Plants for all seasons just a few of the brazilion

(05:27):
plants they have there, And you know when you go there,
you're going to get great success. Family owned business owned
and operate since nineteen seventy three. And when we talk
when we brag about mom and pop garden centers, local
garden centers, the knowledge you get, the service you get.
We're talking about plants for all seasons, full service retail
garden center since nineteen seventy three. Go to the website

(05:48):
plants for All Seasons dot com or give them a
call two eight one three seven six one six or six.
Well garden line is a call in show and if
you would like to call in, our phone number is
seven to one three two one two k t r
H seven one three two one two k t r H.

(06:10):
It's always kind of quiet first thing in the morning.
And I tell people that, you know, that's the easiest
time to get through and not have to wait long
on a on a call, first thing in the morning.
So the word of the wise, we'll get pretty busy
as things go through the day. Here. Uh, it is
fall fertilizing season. It is time to get that done.

(06:32):
It is also the time to put down something to
prevent the weeds that come up in your lawn. If
your lawn is thin, maybe drought hit it, maybe just
you know, compacted soil. I don't know, uh, whatever the
reason is. If sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed.
And if you want to get your fertilizing done and
your weed prevention done in one step, Nelson carbl load

(06:54):
is the thing you need to do. Nelson carble load.
So all you have to do is go buy your
local garden center, feed stores, Ace hardware stores. You know
Southwest Fertilizers, people carry Nelson's Plant Foods and carbo Load
covers five thousand square feet. It's packed with the right
ratio of nutrients for fall. Carbo Load is the fall

(07:17):
fertilizer from Nelson's and it also has that pre emergent
so put it down soon. If you wait until weed
seeds germinate, it's hard to prevent them germinating and establishing
if they're already up and growing. Get it down and
watered in immediately. When you finish with the fertilizer spreader,
turn on the water about a half inch water. Get
that down in the soil. That gets the nutrients down.

(07:38):
It gets the prevention of weed, the product that prevents
weeds down in the surface where it locks into the
soil and says no weed can come through here. Nelson
carbo Load from the folks at Nelson Fertilizer. We're going
to head out now to League City and talk to Jackie.
Good morning, Jackie, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (07:58):
Good morning. I have a question. I have purchased what's
called a root beer plant. I don't know what the
proper name for it is, but is it okay that
I put that plant that in the ground now, or
should I wait, like overwintered in the greenhouse and then
prying it in the spring.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
You can do it either way. It is a root
hardy plant, so if you plant it now, just throw
a bunch of mulch over the soil, just kind of
give a little bit of a blanket to hold that
soil temperature in h and it should be fine.

Speaker 6 (08:31):
Yeah, Okay. I also bought a Oh, I can't think
of it right now. I think it's in the same
line of that. So I was just you know, I'm
just on the fence of should I put it in
the ground or like just baby it or just go

(08:51):
ahead and put it in the greenhouse, so I might
just protect it.

Speaker 7 (08:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (08:58):
Yeah, you can do it either way. It doesn't really matter.
You know, in a good cold snap, it'll it'll it'll
take the back top back, but the roots roots will
be fine. If if that's why I throw the mulch on,
that's a little extra insurance if you're gonna.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Go and plant it out.

Speaker 6 (09:12):
Okay, And what about Pride Barbados? Is that a freeze tolerant?

Speaker 5 (09:20):
That one is on the on the line. Uh And
most winters it comes back just fine here, no problems
of uh it just if we have one of the
doozy winters that we can have, uh, you know, you
can get some damage on it, but just know this,
go ahead and plant it out, don't don't hold off
on that one. And do mulch it too at the

(09:42):
base pretty good. I'd put about four inches of mulch
over the crown and base of the plant, okay, and
it will freeze back most likely. And uh in spring,
you're gonna think it died. It didn't. It just it's
like a teenager on a Saturday morning. It doesn't want
to wake up until that.

Speaker 8 (10:00):
Okay.

Speaker 5 (10:00):
So if you don't see signs of life movement, I
just think of it the way I've described That's the
best way I can describe that plant.

Speaker 6 (10:09):
Well, I've learned to kind of hold off. I've learned
to hold off and like it might be.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
So much.

Speaker 9 (10:16):
It is.

Speaker 6 (10:17):
Will thank you so much.

Speaker 5 (10:19):
All right, you take care, you have a good day.
All right, folks, we're going you two, We're gonna take
a little break here. I'll be right back. Welcome back,
Welcome back to garden Line. On a great day for gardening.
You know, every day is a good day for gardening.
I know it hadn't rained since I don't know when.
Maybe you got to look up the other day. But
first I'm still high and dry. But you know, it

(10:41):
don't matter if it's pouring rains. A good day for
gardening because we've got all kinds of things that we
can do inside, from planning to starting seeds, to take
care of house plants. There's always stuff to be doing
propagating plants indoors, so the weather does not stop us
from gardening. There is lots and lots to do. In fact,
I got a box full of seeds. Then I wanted

(11:03):
to start some transplants from a cool, cool season garden
and I still haven't got them planted. With our nice
mile winters here out and plan all winter, so I'll
get it done. But anyway, always something we can be
doing out there for gardening. Ace Hardware Store is going
to have you covered with whatever you're going to be
doing for gardening. You know, when it comes to the
fall season, we got three big activities that happen in

(11:25):
the lawns. There is the fertilizing with the fall fertilizer
there is the weed prevention. The cool season. Weeds germinate
in the fall, so those things you deal with in
spring that are just sprout and everwhere, and weeds you know,
clover and chickweed and handbit and all that stuff that
started in the fall, and a pre emergent would prevent that.
Third thing is disease prevention. The big brown circles. They

(11:48):
are appearing in lawns already. I'm seeing them everywhere, and
you got to get ahead of them by the time.
When you apply a product, it gets in the plant
and it stops it from getting sick, if you will,
from the brown path, your large patches it's now called.
But you got to get down ahead of time. If
you already got some circles, you can put it down
prevent additional ones, not going to make the ones you
have green, but the sooner the better. And ACE Hardware's

(12:11):
got you covered on all those things to care for
your lawn. It makes it super super easy when you
just go to ACE. For example, they've got the Texas
three Step, which is Nitroposs's products that do exactly what
I just said, three steps fertilizer, weed prevention, turf funge aside,

(12:33):
those three, So do them all. Do them all the
same time, same date, not in the same hopper. Just
do them all together. You can apply them and then
you want to water the whole nine yards, all three
of them. Water men. About a half inch of water
gets a fertilizer in the ground, gets the weed prevention
in the soles surface, and it gets the fung aside

(12:55):
in the ground. And this is interesting. You think, well,
why I want to put on a lawn, Why don't
I want to wash it down in the soil. It
takes up by the roots. It's systemic, and it's like
you take in an antibiotic and now a disease comes
or is attacking your body, and it shuts it down
from the inside. That's what Eagle turfungicide does. You can
find nitro foss products a lot of different places. You know,

(13:15):
Ace Hardwur's has them, Katie Ash Hardware, which is where
I'm going to be a little bit later. I'll tell
you about that in just a second. If you go
to Aspase Ace up in the Woodlands, for example, or
if you were to go down to Ace Hardware City
on Memorial Drive, all those are places you can get
the Nitrofoss three step and yes, I'm going to be
at Katie Hardware. Katie Hardware that is on pin Oak

(13:38):
Road and Katie I'll be there today. I hope you'll
come out and see me. Do you have a plant?
This is a last appearance of the year that I'm
doing anywhere toward the West side. So if you live
in central to West Houston or this whole area, see Lee.
You know Waller down in Heck, Doune and Wharton, if

(14:02):
you're down there, come on them and see me at
Katie A's Hardware. I'll be there answering your gardening questions.
I'm going to have some information on hand to guide you.
I've got some new schedule, I got my schedules. I've
got some new publication stuff that I'm going to be
bringing with me. But come on out. I want to
get picture made with you. I want to visit with
you on the phone. Here on the radio show, we

(14:23):
visit for a short time. There it's face to face.
We've got time to talk about things. And what usually
happens at these events is, you know, people will gather
and when someone walks up with a question, I'll just
start talking about to the whole group because I don't know,
maybe you brought in a picture of a weed and
somebody else has that weed, but they didn't happen to
come in for that today. But they can learn from
what I'm telling you. And that's kind of how that works.

(14:45):
It's a fun time. We always have a good time. Boy.
Nitropos is going to be given away a lot several
bags of each of the three steps from the Nitropaus
three Step, the fertilizer, the barricade, and the Eagle Turf
fund aside. But you got to come out to Katie
Ace Hardware, Katie Hardware on Pinoak Road. It's an Ace
store Katie Hardware on Pinoak Road. Come out and see me,

(15:09):
and you got a good chance to win. I mean
that there's a lot of products that they're gonna be
given out. All right, Well, there you go. I'll tell
you more about that as we go through. But right now,
just you know, wake up if somebody's house is sleep
and just say wake up and get ready because right
after the show today we got to we gotta go
to Katie Hardware. I'm gonna head out to Jay now

(15:29):
in Deer Park. Hey, j welcome, to garden.

Speaker 10 (15:32):
Good morning, Hey, Skip, good morning, Good morning. I've got
some of the brown spots showing up in my yard.
I send over some pictures. I'm not sure if you've
got those available, and I wanted to get your expert
opinion before I start throwing stuff at it.

Speaker 5 (15:46):
All right, I don't see the name Jay on a picture.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
Let's see.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
Uh can you tell me? Would it have come from
another name?

Speaker 4 (15:59):
Maybe Jane? The title of it was Jay from Deer Park.

Speaker 5 (16:07):
Well, I'm not seeing it. Let's keep talking about it,
and I'm gonna keep looking.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
But all right, it's a pretty healthy yard.

Speaker 4 (16:16):
I follow most of the schedule.

Speaker 10 (16:18):
I haven't put down any of the fall stuff yet
to plan on doing it this weekend. But the past
week or so, I've noticed some brown spots that have
come in. They're not their regular in shape, but they're
definitely not as green and a little bit different than
the rest of the yard.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
And I'm assume.

Speaker 5 (16:38):
They don't look like that brown patch you're saying, Well,
they're not circular, Okay, James or j I didn't I
did not get your email. I don't know what's happened,
but all right, Uh, we can do we can do
a couple of things. I'll give you a quick answer here,
and then if you want to try Reese, I'm gonna

(16:59):
put you on hold and have the producer regive you
my email to make sure you have the right address,
and if you want to resend it, if I see it,
I'll just talk about it on the air. If there's
anything else to add. Okay, So if they're not circular,
brown patch doesn't have to be circular, but it generally is,
and it generally you kind of have a yellowing going

(17:20):
on and then it actually you know, rots and the
leaves rot and turned brown. If it's not that, it
could be it could be taken root rot just finally
showing some symptoms on there. It could be I don't know.
There's not really another disease other than those two that
is that we see these kind of symptoms on, especially

(17:42):
this time of year. It's not chinchbugs. So I still
am leaning toward some type of rizoctonia. That's the group
of diseases that brown patches in.

Speaker 10 (17:56):
And the treatment for that, whether it be take our
rot rot or the brown patch, it's still I cross
eagle or something like that.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
It's the same.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
Yeah, eagle turf fund, eagle turf fund, just side, follow
the label, put it down, and then water it in
right away and get it in the ground, get so
the roots can take it up. And you got that
product in the plumbing of the plant to fight against
whatever might might attack.

Speaker 10 (18:19):
And and the thought as far as just the application
of that, if I do my pre emergent and fertilizer first,
water those in and then lastly go over with the
fund side with the water in, that is that I
would do.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
If in my yard, I would do all three and
then water it in. I mean, so you could get
fill your hopper full of fertilizer, do it, come right back,
get the barricade, do it, come right back, get the eagle,
do it, and then water the whole thing in. Just
don't appreciate it together in the same hopper.

Speaker 10 (18:49):
Yeah, I've heard you say that before, so I appreciate that.

Speaker 5 (18:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. All right, let's see it. Well,
I'm gonna put you on hold and go ahead and
send me the pictures. Just maybe i'll see something that
didn't occur to me. Okay, I will thank you. All right,
you take care, all right, folks, you are listening to
garden Line our phone number seven one three two one

(19:13):
two fifty eight seventy four. Uh, have you been to Cienamulch.
Cienamulch is down south of town, and it's the place
I talk about as being the place to get the
brown stuff brown stuff for green stuff, meaning get the soil.
Right when you go to Sienna. You've got by bag
and by bulk all the famous garden line, famous mulches

(19:37):
and soil products from all kinds of place. You got
all the fertilizers that I talk about here. You know,
whether it's Nelson's or Microlife or as amide or nitrofoss
or Medina. You're gonna have landscapers, pride, you're gonna have airloom.
So everything you need you can go pick it up yourself.
They'll deliver within twenty miles. They are located on five

(19:57):
twenty one FM five twenty one, just in Well, just
north really or near rather the highway six and two
eighty eight. Here's the website, Sienna Mulch dot com. You
really need to check them out. They're open today till
two o'clock. All right, we're gonna go to break. I'll
be right back, all right, welcome back, Welcome back to gardening.

(20:19):
We are a call in show, meaning you got a question,
you may call seven one three two one two k
t r H. Seven one three two one two k
t r H. I was really impressed checking out Ugandas
Native Plants, which is on Eleventh Street and the Heights.

(20:41):
For those of you haven't been there yet, you really
need to go. They specialize in natives. Now they don't
only have natives. I mean they have a ton of
other things, any kind of you know, do you want
annual color, do you want vegetables, do you want herbs?
Their houseplant greenhouse is huge. It's it's unbelievable. You need
plants for shade, you need fruiting plants. But natives, that is,

(21:02):
they have the best selection natives anywhere in the region,
really really good selection. And I was just looking at
some of the different kinds of plants that they have
and it reminded me of something. And I don't talk
a lot about a yopon. You know, there are a
number of different types of yopon, but they're berries are
just gorgeous during the cool season. Now, I will say this,

(21:22):
you got little bitty kids that don't know not to
put stuff in their mouth. Well, yopon berries are a purgative.
In other words, they make you throw up. Do you
know what The genus of our species of yopon is
Vomitoria ilex vomitoria. That ought to tell you something. Sorry
for that so early in the morning. But I love
those plants. I got one in my backyard and it

(21:43):
loads up with berries. Bring them in for decorating, just
enjoy them in the landscape. But they don't have yopon.
They've got a lot of other things. How about possum
hau Possum hauw is like a deciduous think of a yopon,
this decidious sort of like that's the different species. But
it drops it sleeves and now you have all of
these branches, naked branches with berries all over them in

(22:04):
the cool season. That's another great one. They have things
that are just well. I could just go on and
on naming specific natives, but you need to go You
really need to go by and check it out. If
you want flowers, if you want berries, if you want
fall color, do you want shrubs, trees, groundcovers. They have
natives for everything there. And native plants are well, if

(22:27):
they're native, that means that they like it here, right.
We bring plants in from all over the world. Sometimes
it works, sometimes they're not very happy here. Natives are
and that you can get natives that are just native
to Houston area at Buchanans Native Plants, or you can
get natives that are native to our region. It really
really is cool and when you go in there, you're
gonna enjoy it. It's a great place to shop, just

(22:49):
just enjoyable. Leven Street in the Heights Buchanan's Native Plants.
Go to the website Buchanansplants dot Com. Go to that
website and then sign up to receive their newsletter. It
is very informative and you'll find a lot of good
informative stuff on their website as well. Out in my
yard this week, I've been working on a number of things.

(23:11):
I've got a patio that i'm creating or building. I
started it a while back and then I got sidetracked
doing some other projects that were kind of more front
burner things. But this is going to be It's a
flat stone patio. I've got a nice base laid down
for it, and I'm fixing the laith the flat stones.
We were just out picking out some stune the other
day and the grit that's going to go in between them,

(23:34):
and it's expanding. Arnold patio is not big enough for me.
I want it bigger. And because you know, when you
have more than a half dozen people or something, you
need space to kind of spread out. So anyway, we're
putting that down. That is a project that now has
made it to my front burner and just really looking
forward to. I got some beds that I'm redoing also,

(23:54):
in fact, just finished yesterday doing some repotting. My wife
love strings a string of and I think she has
a string of everything, you know, pearls and tears and hearts.
I'm trying to go through in my head all these things. Anyway,
she's got a string of just oh, bananas, dolphins, andy.

(24:16):
We're repotting them up and getting those set up inside
the house. See, I told you gardening you can do
it on any kind of day, and this was at
night we were working on them. Last night was dark
out side. Still gardening, but it's just fun to get
out and do it. I encourage you. What kind of
gardening have you not done much of, or if any like,

(24:37):
for example, have you ever tried to grow African violence inside?
They are not that difficult. You just give them a
few things they really want and they will do very
well on their beautiful plants. Have you ever tried to
grow the holiday cacti? There's a Christmas Thanksgiving an Easter

(24:57):
cactied named for a when they bloom, I've got a
bunch of them. Seems like every year I buy another
one and then I keep it, so I probably have
five different holiday cac die from the last five years
that are still around there. Tough, easy, easy plants to grow.
They do well. Have you ever grown a vegetable garden?
You don't have room for one, Well, then get you

(25:20):
a container you can grow vegetables and a candentate. Try
that this year. Try make a fresh salad garden. I've
done that before. You take a big old pot something
I have, whiskey barrel size, let's say, and you plan
a little bit of kale in it. You plant a
little bit of a regular, a little bit of lettuce,
a little bit of spinach. Do you see what I'm saying?
And when it's time to harvest, you just have this
mixed salad of all kinds of things that you can grow.

(25:41):
It's really easy to do. You should try that. What
kind of gardening have you not done before? Why not
try that one? How about? Do you have things that
attract butterflies in your landscape? Do you have things that
attract hummingbirds to your landscape? I was out this past
late summer spring and we had some things blooming vy

(26:04):
Texas still blooming out there, and the hummingbirds were just
coming to it. I was watching those things go after it.
Right now, I'm looking out the window at some lantanas
that I'm not right now, but it's dark outside, but anyway,
the lantanas are blooming, and here come all kinds of
butterflies and bees. A little. We have a number of

(26:24):
plants that we planted for the bees. Mexican heather, surprising
little bitty thing with tiny little blooms, and boy, the
bees love that stuff. What kind of gardening have you
not tried to do? What kind of plants have you
not tried to grow? How about trying that? If you
had any questions about them, give us a call. We
can help you have success with that. I'm gonna go

(26:45):
now to North Houston and we're going to talk to Robert. Hello, Robert,
welcome to garden Line. Good morning, skib Hey.

Speaker 11 (26:52):
I want to talk to you about how you propagate
plants from root cuttings and is it just pretty much
any plants you can propagate with root cuttings or is
it just specific now just specific ones?

Speaker 5 (27:07):
You know, it depends on the plant. Some plants are
able to propagate that way and others are not, and
you would just have to kind of go online to
a search for whatever plant you're looking for. It's real
common with like blackberries, they'll propagate from root cutting. So
people that have a single plant can make more plants
out of that very easily by digging up the roots
six inch long and moving them down the road, making

(27:29):
your row longer. But there are some that will do
that and it basically is just a matter of cutting
the roots. And again you got to know the type
of plant as to exactly how you would go about it.
But root cutting is about the easiest type of propagation
you can do. Okay, let me ask him.

Speaker 11 (27:47):
Would you use the hormones to like dip the roots
in the hormones when you're doing root cuttings.

Speaker 5 (27:55):
No, you don't need to do that with root cuttings.
You just plant them and get them in the ground.
Watermen real good and you know they'll they'll make it.
They do not need hormones. Okay, you can you have
the hormone portion, yes, one more, go ahead.

Speaker 11 (28:12):
You know, have you seen those pictures like up in
the Alaska, like I think it's maybe Fairbanks, it was
Alaska much seeing the pictures of the six hundred pounds
cabbages and they say it's because of the it gets
six months the daylight and six months of darkness.

Speaker 5 (28:27):
Yeah. Yeah, could you could you.

Speaker 11 (28:31):
Like put grow lights out at night here and when
it gets dark kind of simulate that by doing that
with grow lights?

Speaker 5 (28:39):
Well, is it possible? Yes? Is it practical? No, it
takes a lot of light and grow lights. If you
had very nice, expensive grow lights and you were almost
making them think it was daytime out there. Number one,
the neighbors are going to not appreciate that. But uh,
you could make a plant grow a little bit longer,
but it it. Yeah, it just depends that and good

(29:03):
soil and good fertilizer or kind of all added together.
That's how they grow those monsters. Okay, Hey, Robert, thank
you I appreciate your call very much. Call us again.
Sometimes you take care, you know. I talk about Medina
products a lot, and Medina is an outstanding brand. It's
been around for a very long time, and the Medina

(29:26):
Soal Activator is one of their most well known and
appreciated products. Well, they now have Medina Plus, which is
Medina Sool Activator Plus over forty trace elements. It includes
natural growth hormones in it. It's got a number of
different actual mineral nutrients in it, various kinds of vitamin
T like substances in it. It's going to increase blooming.
Leaf growth is going to be better. I would say

(29:48):
it's fall season. A lot of people are planting and transplanting.
Have some Medina Soil Activator on the shelf twelve months
out of the year. Because you put it in a
watering can and you water, there's new plants in with it,
get it on the leaves and everything. It won't burn. Fact,
it's a good foldio feed to Medina plus with Medina
Soil Activator Plus. Lots lots more from the folks at Medina.

(30:10):
Time for me to take a break. I'll be right
back side seven one three, two, one two KTRH. Hey,
welcome to garden Line. Welcome back to the Garden Line.
I have got a number of things I want to

(30:31):
talk about today. One of the things that I wanted
to mention to you is we deal with nematodes in
our gardens, and I have found them in two different places.
You know, we're in a home we've only been in
about four years now, and the the types of soil

(30:53):
beds and things, most of them I haven't built. Most
of them. I'm rebuilding as I go through. And I
I pulled some boxwood that just wasn't doing good out
of a bed and pulled it up, and boy, there
are Nema toads all over the route. So, okay, we
got Nema toads here. I went out in the garden
and I had a spot in my garden where I'd
never had nematoads before. And suddenly there are some nematodes.

(31:14):
And I'll tell you how I got them. I brought
in kind of a sandy soul mix. And nematods can
be in any soul, but they love sand. They love sand.
Had they just proliferate better. And so I basically unknowingly
brought them in. You can't look at a sand to go, oh,
it's got nematodes in it. It does or it doesn't. Anyway,
I pulled up some okra, and boy, there they are.

(31:35):
And okra is something that I kind of get obsessed over.
I do okrah breeding and crossing, and I'm creating new varieties.
I'm going beyond the normal okra grower to the I'm
the abnormal okra grower. Anyway, nematodes is bad news for
okra and figs and bazillion other types of plants. I

(31:56):
put something online. If you go to my website, which
is gardening with Skip dot com, we just put up
a little publication I wrote, managing root not nematodes in
gardens and landscapes. You do not eradicate root not nematodes.
There's no spray that kills all the root not nematodes.
You manage them once you have them. And there are

(32:18):
a lot of things that you can do, and this
publication goes through each one, and I would suggest do
as many of them as you can. In areas that
you have nematodes. Number one, don't bring them in, and
we sometimes bring them in on plants too. I have
turned a plant upside down, pulled the pot off of it,
looked at it and saw little nematode roots. And not
the garden centers I talk about here on guarden Line,

(32:38):
but I've been to a garden center that I found
nematodes on the plants. So somebody just used a sandy
mix in the growing mix to grow those plants and
there they were. Don't bring that plant home, I mean
that one. Let the garden center know they need to
not be selling that. And it's not the garden center's fault,
you know. They bring the plants in and they come

(32:58):
from a grower. Almost always a few people grow their own.
But anyway, managing root not nematods and gardens and landscapes,
there's a lot of things you can do to suppress
them and still have a really good productive garden. And
that's what I'm going to start doing. You know, I
find that whenever I have a problem, Number one I

(33:18):
get I'm annoyed by that, but number two, I kind
of get a little bit excited about it because it
gives me a chance to experiment and to try some
new things and to learn. You know, I did a
nutsedge publication a while back, and I have been working
on nuts edge with a number of different approaches and
as a result things I learned. It's like, okay, here's

(33:39):
how you do it. Well, here's the name of toad one.
And I'm dealing with those as well. So I feel
your pain. All right, We're going to go out to
Kingwood and talk to Liz. Hello, Liz, good morning.

Speaker 12 (33:52):
How are you today.

Speaker 5 (33:54):
I'm well, thank you.

Speaker 13 (33:57):
I'm calling because we got over the last couple of years.
We are randomly losing trees around our fence line. They're
not sweet thems, they're not oaks. Some of them are pines.
They've been here for a really long time. The trees,
some are not pines. We were gone for two weeks,

(34:18):
came back and I have a tree in my front
yard that's absolutely stunning. At the pine it's like a
twisty pine, is a very unique almost like a stunt pine.
It's very interesting and it's goodly dead and there's nothing
in the trees. There's no sap on it, like, I'm
not seeing any bugs. I'm not seeing anything that will
indicates that I have any infestations.

Speaker 8 (34:40):
And I know king was the unique air, but.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
You need our trees, all right, okay, Liz. So are
these trees ones you've planted in the last five years,
or are these some of them that are just in nature,
coming from nature? Are they there long long before you
you start gardening?

Speaker 13 (35:00):
Are definitely from nature, and some have just been there
planted since the house from the seventies, so I would
assume some of them have been around that.

Speaker 9 (35:08):
Are right.

Speaker 14 (35:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (35:10):
Well, whenever we see a loss of plants of different
species all happening at once, it usually is signs of
a weather related type problem. It's usually not a disease.
There are some diseases that will kill a bunch of
different kinds of plants by rotting the roots. There's one

(35:32):
one called oak root rot that occurs in some of
the acidic soils, which a lot of the soils out
there in the Kingwood area can be. Anything that's once
a forest out in East Texas area is potentially an
acidic soil, and it can attack a number trees, but
doesn't attack pine trees. So I think what we're looking
at is the results of a combination. Typically, droughts will

(35:55):
stress the trees, and we've had a couple of doozies
in the last five years, and then the cold and
we've had some really serious cold damage occurs inside. One
thing leads to another and eventually the plant gets weak
and trees. I guess the analogy that helps it make
sense a little bit is if you were standing on
the edge of a table and you leaned forward. You

(36:17):
could lean and lean and lean, but there's some point
where you start to go over and you can't stop right,
You're going to fall off the table. And it's like,
these trees are there, they're resilient, they're looking good, but
at some point they just hit that spot where they're
going downhill and it's hard to stop it. And I
think that is probably what you're looking at, combinations either

(36:40):
cold and or drought, drought being more likely, or if
you change anything where suddenly an area that was dry
now becomes a swamp, or an area that was swamp
suddenly becomes very dry. Those kind of sudden changes, trees
can't react to them fast enough.

Speaker 13 (36:56):
Okay, So I shouldn't be concerned about taking them up
and replacing a different tree or bush in those places.

Speaker 5 (37:05):
I don't think so. I don't think so. The only
exception would be the root, the root rod. But you
know they've been there a long long time, and root
rod doesn't didn't just drop out of an airplane and
land on your property one day. So it I don't
think that's you know, the description you're giving me. Tree
has been there a long time, lots of species. All

(37:26):
of a sudden we're dying. I think, yeah, I think
that's accumulated stress and it just it just finally hit
the point where it's too much.

Speaker 13 (37:36):
Okay, well, thank you for your advice.

Speaker 15 (37:38):
I appreciate that, all right.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
Liz, thanks, thanks, Lacole, appreciate that. Hey, I'm going to
be out there in Kingwood. Let's see here where I
get my schedule right here to ago Warbirds in Kingwood
on November the ninth, next Saturday. So tell all your
friends come out to Warbirds and Kingwood next.

Speaker 8 (38:00):
Okay, we'll definitely do that.

Speaker 13 (38:02):
Thank you so much for your help.

Speaker 5 (38:03):
I appreciate it, all right, you bet take care. I
talk about quality home products of Texas often quality is
the place you know that sells the Generaic automatic standby generator.
These are cool. I mean you have power goes off
the automatically. You don't have to run outside and turn
something on. They are hiring licensed electricians and plumbers right now,

(38:24):
trying to meet the growing demand for all these generators.
These power losses we've had this year that went on
for a long time, two of them have really got
people realizing, hey, I need to get a generator. Well
when they come so that if you are an electrician
or plumber with a license, generaic, competitive pay, comprehensive metal,
dentical vision, four oh one K, retirement plans, holiday time off,

(38:47):
they give you quality training. Go to Quality TX dot com,
Quality TX dot com and sign on everyone. I've talked
to it at Quality Home Products of Texas. I can
just tell I love working there. I've asked some of
them specifically. It's a great place to work. Quality t
X dot com. All right, I hear music That means

(39:11):
I gotta go to the top of the hour break.
We're having fun here. If you got any questions and
calls and want to get on the board seven one
three two one two k t r H, We'll be
right back. Don't go away.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Welcome to kt r H. Garden Line with Skin Richard.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
It's just watch him.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
As many things to supposa, not.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
A sud.

Speaker 5 (40:00):
Hey Welcome back, Welcome back to the garden Line. I'm
your host, Stip Richter, and we're here to answer your
gardening question work kind of questions. Do you have that
your wand garden, vegetable gardens, flowers, bugs and diseases, weeds,

(40:21):
pridgrass in the garden of life. There you go, Hey,
I wanted to tell you a little more about RCW
Garden Center RCW Nursery. I was there the other day.
We had a really good time, just folks coming in
when they had the big shindig just to just the
other day. You know, the folks have at RCW have

(40:43):
got an incredible cell going on right now. They've got
fifty percent off all the Cajun hibiscus, twenty percent off
all their shrubs, and fifteen percent off all trees. And
that includes citrus. Did you hear that cetris too. Now,
when it comes to the time to plant anything woody, well,
now's the time, the time to plan anything perennial, and

(41:03):
now's the time. And you know, the wise folks will
recognize an opportunity and that is absolutely a great opportunity.
Do you want a beautiful magnolia like the deed he
blintered That is a gorgeous tree they have, you know,
the Schumard redoak another great tree, excellent tree. You know,

(41:23):
they grow their own trees up in Plantersville, and the
stock is outstanding. Of course, when you go to RCW,
you and find things like your cool season color pansies
and violas and whatnot. When I was out there, I
was just looking at some of the different color plants
that they had. It's just a beautiful place. But if
you want to get a woody on a millimal ground,
do it now. So look around. Do you want a

(41:45):
blooming tree? Do you need a shade tree? After this
summer you probably realize I could use the shade tree. Well,
go buy RCW. If it's a small thing, you can
take it home and plant it. But they have stuff
all the way up to a couple hundred gallons. They'll
come out, they'll plant it for you, establish it, make
sure it's done right. They know how to do it
and they know how to help you have success. So

(42:07):
now'd be the time to go out there and grab
that and take advantage of this really good sale again
fifty percent off Cajun hibiscus, that's my favorite tropical hibiscus type.
I've got my most beautiful one, and the whole landscape
is a Cajun hibiscus. Twenty percent off shrubs and fifteen
percent off all trees including centrus. Now they're located where
Tambo Parkway comes into belt Wait eight RCW nurseries dot com.

(42:30):
That's the website. You need to go check them out
if you'd like to give us a call here seven
one three two one two KTRH seven one three two
one two kt r H. All right, folks, just like
at the end of the night at the dance hall,
last call, right, well, here we go, last call for

(42:52):
all of the things you want to be doing in
the lawn. Every week you wait from here on is
a week that the benefits you can achieve go down
a little bit and a little bit more and a
little bit more. And here's what I'm talking about. Nitrophos
has their three step. It is a fertilizer. It is
a weak prevention, and it is a disease prevention. You
wait until disease shows up. You can stop more disease,

(43:15):
but you still got those brown circles in the yard.
Weed prevention, you wait until some weeds sprout. Well, you
got them, you can prevent additional sprouting which will continue
to go on, and then fall fertilizer. The longer you wait,
the less time the grass has with nice, warm soil
conditions where it can take up those nutrients. So that's
the three step nitrophos fall special winter riser designed for

(43:39):
fall fertilizing. It will make your grass heartier in the
winter and come out stronger in the spring. Second nitropus
barricade to prevent weeds. Third, prevent weeds, not killing an
existing weed, but a weed seed trying to sprout, which
they're going to be doing here. Some may already be
trying to sprout. And then finally, if i's eagle turf

(44:00):
funge a side taken up by the roots to prevent
that plant from being attacked by brown patch now called
large patch, or by take our root rot. All three
and where do you get these things? Well, you can
get them at Court Hardware and Stafford. You can get
them at Plants and Things at Brenham or Grower's outlet
up in Willis Night of f Us. Three step you

(44:24):
can do them all on the same dage. Why you
got the hopper out, just do one come back load up,
do the next one, come back, load up, do the
next one, and then half inch of water, get them
in the soil and you're off to the races. Don't delay.
He who hesitates is lost. How many other adages can
I think up to say? Well, anyway, you get the

(44:44):
idea our phone number seven one three two one two
k t r H seven one three two one two
k t r H. Landscapeer's Pride is widely available here
in the Houston area. You know it's a it's a
it's a regional company here and you could even say local.
The Landscaper's Pride folks really help you amend your soil

(45:09):
to make it better. And I know we talk about
all the time. Now it's time to mend the soil
because we're going to be planning. Well, now the time
to amend the soil too. For spring planting. You can
add composts to your lawn and to your flower bed.
You can do a top dressing and stuff. You can
build up a bed, you can create a new bed.
They have a product called Healthy Soil Composts one hundred
percent locally sourced green materials composted into a high quality product.

(45:33):
They have a product called mushroom compost. It's created from
clean local mushroom substrate. You know, we grow mushrooms at
different places here in East Texas and when they finish
growing mushrooms, all of that substrate they grow them on.
I mean it is just rich black gold comes out
of there and it's available and folks at Landscaper's Pride

(45:55):
have that available to you. It is super super rich,
high high qualit. For more details for a store locator,
go to Landscaperspride dot com, follow them on social media,
which those links are at the website as well. Landscaperspride
dot com. We're going to go now out to Spring
and talk to Calvin. Hello, Calvin, Hello, how are you doing.

(46:18):
We're good, We're good. How can we help?

Speaker 16 (46:22):
It's my first time calling in. I've been been wanting to.
I have a single story U shaped house. It's small footage,
it's like sixteen hundred square feet maybe, but the sidewalk runs,
you know, inside the you to the entrance door, and
on both sides of the sidewalk do you get to

(46:42):
the structure. It's about thirty inch by ten feet, let's say,
on both sides, and it doesn't get much sun because
of the structure itself. And I'm looking what to do
there in that area, and I was thinking some kind
of groundcover. We're but I'm looking a course for well

(47:03):
not a course, but I'm looking for something inexpensive, but aesthetics.

Speaker 5 (47:08):
Okay, Well, Asian jasmine is a great groundcover. It probably
needs go ahead.

Speaker 16 (47:16):
I'm sorry, Or is there something I need to do?
Maybe the yard, the soil. I've fed it several times
this last year and it seems like it's improving as
far as the San augustine crawling, But I mean, can
you can you get sant augustine to grow in there?
Or that's I believe that's a's the historic problem.

Speaker 5 (47:35):
Right, all right, Calvin, I'm up against the heartbreak here.

Speaker 15 (47:38):
Hang on.

Speaker 5 (47:39):
When we come back, I will give you some matchers
to that. We'll be right back, all right, Welcome back
to guard Line. Got a lot of things to talk
about today. You know, it's it is fall, and fall
is the best planning season of the year. We're in
the big middle of it. Let's get right to it.
If you're going to plan a tree, first of all,
now is that underdo it? I've been saying that morning.

(48:01):
But one thing you need to know about. Grab you
a three sixty tree stabilizer. Now I've done the thing
where you get steaks and those wires and kind of
piece of garden hose off so the wire doesn't cut
into the tree to put around the branch there. It's
a lot of work and time and then you go
tripping over those things. You don't need to do that.

(48:21):
You get a three sixty tree stabilizer and just like
a I would use a teepost. Drive it into the ground.
You can plant a post in the ground like you
building a fence kind of post if you want to
do that, but I would just use a teapost. You
hook that stabilizer up to the tree post. It's only
going to be a couple feet away from the tree
even less, and it hooks onto the post very firmly.

(48:44):
And then it hooks on to the tree with a loose,
soft metal strap so the tree can move just a
little bit, which is very important, as those branches, as
the trunk bends a little bit in the wind, and
as the roots are pulled on a little bit, they
get stronger, and that principle of nature that and you
bend something when you work something it gets stronger. That
is exactly what happens with the tree three sixty tree

(49:06):
stabilizer when you set it up like it's designed to
be set up. You can get them at RCW. You
can get them at Jegesit and Guards down in Alvin
Bukens Native Plants in the Heights, Southwest Fertilizer Southwest Houston,
Arborgate and Tomball Plants for all seasons on two forty
nine up on the way to Tomwall and Sienna Maltch
down south near Sienna. All those places carry the three

(49:26):
sixty tree stabilizer. We're going to go back out to
the phones now, and Calvin, I'm going to jump back
into our conversation. Basically, if that area is as you describe,
I wouldn't try putting grass in it. I don't think
it'll be successful. The Asian jasmine is an inexpensive groundcover
because it spreads, so you can plant a few plants

(49:49):
and they kind of fill in over time. But I
don't think it's going to be really happy in that area.
But you may want to give that a try. If
I were you and you're looking to save some money,
I would maybe put something like cast iron plant around
along beside the house. It's about knee high, and just
do a strip of that around the sides. And then

(50:10):
I would use some as tech grass or another thing
that you as tech grass is not a grass, it's
a it's like a riopy, but it's white and it
helps brighten up a shady area. I would use that
and I've done that in my front bed and I
bought oh, I don't know, I had them. I probably
planted them about or so apart, putt and a half apart.

(50:35):
And then at the end of a season, you go
in with a shovel and you divide each of those
and you plant them in between. And so you went
you doubled your amount and save some money by just
being patient and then doing that division later. So that's
another way that you can cover.

Speaker 16 (50:52):
Are life and that's called as tech grass.

Speaker 5 (50:57):
As tech as tech grass, but it it's a if
you know what loriapi is, it's got a strappy green leaf.
Aztec grass has a green and white striped leaf, mostly white,
and it really brightens up a shade area. So those
and then just put a multch, put a real thick
multch through that area, and then in time you can
add more to it. But the maltch keeps weeds down

(51:19):
and I think it looks fine. So those would be
some tips for you. I got to run to another call,
but thank you very much and good luck getting that
getting that going in Chena Forest is the garden center
down there. As you are in let's say you're in
Richmond Rosenberg, you're you're heading up fifty nine toward Sugarland direction.

(51:41):
Well it's down FM twenty seven nine twenty seven to
fifty nine, so it's south of Brases River down there.
It is a garden center that has everything you're looking for,
including expert advice. Now that's just the way it is there.
By the way. Today out there this afternoon, they're going
to have a meet and great with the Houston Society,

(52:03):
let's the SPCA. I think they're going to be talking
about native wildlife. They're going to bring what they call
their ambassadors. I think that would mean some living furry
things and maybe feathery things for a show and tell.
The four ben Master Gardeners will be out there from
ten to two answering your questions about the Superstar program,
you know, and Chenned Forest has lots of Superstar plants

(52:23):
for sale. So when you learn about these wonderful plants
that are proven tested by Texas A and m Agrolife Extension
and Research, you can just pick one up there and
then they're gonna have a puppy and dog adoption with
the saving our Companion Animals Fort Ben County. So if
you're looking for a special little furry friend, stop buying.
See if one steals your heart. And of course they do.
I mean, who doesn't like puppies anyway. Around the nursery,

(52:48):
they got cycomanes in fall, veggies, fall color, lots and
lots of trees. I talked earlier about maybe a flowering tree.
How about a Chinese friene one of my favorite flowering trees, white,
shaggy blue in the spring with a faint fragrance. It's wonderful.
Red buds. I got a lot of types of red buds,
the native Mexican plum, walter I Burnham, rough leaf, dogwood.

(53:09):
It's all there. Just go out to Intended Forest. They're
out FM twenty seven fifty nine, specifically twenty seven fifty
nine FM twenty seven fifty nine. Go out and check
them out. We're going to go now to sugarland and
talk to Carol.

Speaker 17 (53:23):
Hello, Carol, good morning.

Speaker 12 (53:26):
I wanted to plant a small, a small tree, something
that won't get more than maybe fifteen feet, but I
still need some shade and it's going to be in
full sun, so I wonder if you have any recommendations.

Speaker 5 (53:43):
I put a Chinese fringe tree there. They are a
medium rate grower and they're only it'll take them a
while to get bigger than fifteen feet. They can they
will get bigger in time, but you can do a
little proning on them too. But a Chinese fringe gives
you those spring blooms and it's just wonderful. A red

(54:04):
bud would be okay. Generally we put those in a
partial shade area, but that would be okay. Mexican plum
is a native plant that that would fit that bill
pretty good. And then there are crape myrtles in the
medium size range. If you go if you do this,
do a web search and put in crape myrtle and

(54:26):
my name Skip Richter. If you do a web search
for those two things, you're going to see a chart
that I put together a long time ago, and it
has crape myrtles from three feet high to thirty five
feet high, and it tells you the color, it tells
you the size and other factors about them. Now, not
ever crape myrtle is on that list, but it'll at
least get you thinking in the right way. You probably

(54:47):
want one that's going to get, you know, fifteen seventeen
somewhere in their feet range, and it wouldn't be a
bad idea for that. Plus crape myrtles will give you
a little bit of fall color. Two.

Speaker 12 (54:58):
Do those look good true the winter?

Speaker 4 (55:03):
Well?

Speaker 5 (55:04):
Uh, I think crape myrtles do because they have that
smooth bark. Some types have a cinnamon colored bark that's
even prettier. A lot of types have kind of a
putty colored bark, but it's smooth, and so it is.
It is an interest, a winter interest in and of itself.
You know, in the wintertime, you're not really having trees blooming.

(55:26):
You may have something with berries on it. So you
could do something like a possum haul, but that's more
like a large multi stem shrub. But it would have
berries on it in the winter, but it wouldn't look
like much during the regular main part of the growing season.

Speaker 12 (55:43):
Okay, thank you very much.

Speaker 5 (55:45):
You bet, Thank you for the call. Appreciate that our
phone number seven one three two one two k t
r H. Seven one three two one two k t
r H. Folks that know some plant food have a
product that I know you've heard it, you've probably used
it before. It is basically it is a famous fertilizer

(56:06):
called color Star. A color Star is for anything that flowers.
So you know, if you're going to plant some pansies
and violas and a lissa and snap dragons and what
else goes in the cool scene of stock can go
in the cool season, all those kind of plants, get
some color Star and mix it into the soil and

(56:27):
then plant and then you can apply it about every
three months or so during the throughout the growing season
of whatever plants you're planting right now it's a cool
season and you'll be planting warm season. Created over forty
years ago, professional landscapers use it, homeowners across taxis, even
outside of state. People buy it outside of state. Five
different sources of nitrogen. It's got organic bone meal and

(56:49):
organic blood meal to feed the soil and your plants.
Color Star has a phosphorus they need for good root
system and good flower development. And it has a boost
of nitrogen that is going to provide that feeding and
just keep things looking good even in the cool In fact,
especially in the cool season, the biological activity slows down,
and getting that extra boost of nitrogen keeps your pansies

(57:13):
and violis, as an example, keeps them blooming because you've
got to have good vegetative growth to provide the carbohydrates
to create the bloom. So you want your pansies and
violas blooming all winter. Give them a boost with color
Star from Nelson's available little little jars at garden centers.
It makes it real easy to scoop out and put
down what you want. Nelson Plat Food another good quality

(57:36):
product from those folks. We're going to go now to
Cindy and Friends with Hey, Cindy, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Hey, good morning.

Speaker 18 (57:45):
I got a quick question for you.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
We had a peachtree.

Speaker 7 (57:49):
We had a peachtree in our backyard and it died
and we had to pull it up, and I'm wanting
to replace it, and I'm trying to find out if
now it's a good time to do that, and what
kind you recommend for this area?

Speaker 5 (58:02):
All right, Yes, now's a good time to do that.
If you're going to plant it from a container, you
can plan any month of the year, but this would
be the best. Now in winter are the best. If
you're going to do bear root plants, then those those
go in and in late January typically is about when
you try to aim for some time around then. As
far as the types, there's a lot of good peaches here.

(58:25):
If you go to the Aggie Horticulture website, just search
for Aggie Horticulture on the front page. There is a
link to the Fruit and Not publications, and when you
go to Fruit and Nut there is a publication on
everything from avocados to whatever is at the end of
that list, and peaches and stone fruit and plums or

(58:47):
one of them, and they give you a list of varieties.
And with peaches, it's very important you buy a variety
that has the same number of chill hours. So you
are a little bit south of Houston there and so
you're gonna to want one hopefully that's going to be
in about the three four hundred range of chilling hours
somewhere roughly in there, and you want to aim your

(59:09):
purchase for that zone that you're in down there. But
when you look at the publication on Aggie Horticulture. It's
a free multicolor publication. You'll see exactly how many hours
to aim for there.

Speaker 7 (59:20):
Okay, okay, And do you have any idea of like
what stores are around my area would have a good
selection of.

Speaker 5 (59:27):
Them down in your area. You go over to Moss Nursery,
they're going to have them there. And Jorge's Garden Center
down in Alvin he always has fan. In fact, right
now he's got a good deal on a bunch of
fruit down at Horta.

Speaker 19 (59:42):
Awesome.

Speaker 5 (59:43):
Okay, well, great, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (59:48):
Thank you. I appreciate that very much. All Right, Well,
it's time for me to take a little quick break here.
I will do that up. Before I do that, though,
I just want to tell you Heirloom Soils and Orange
Rock and Molds has this. They're continuing their deal on
the one Qbyard supersack so now the in fact they're
expanding it. You can get a one Qbyard sack of

(01:00:08):
either their leaf mold compost or their veggie and herb
mix for one hundred and twenty nine dollars and you
get to keep the sack. That's kind of cool. They
just bring it and set it in your yard. If
you want delivery, there's a cost for delivery and you
have to do a three sack minimum for delivery. Or
you can just take your truck or trailer out there
and go get it in Porter, Texas at Orange Rock

(01:00:28):
and Moltz. They are open out there from seven am
to four pm Monday through Friday, seven to three today,
closed on Sunday. All you have to do is go
to this website, Rock the Letter n Mulch dot com
slash Delivery, Rock the Letter n Multch dot com slash Delivery.

(01:00:49):
And while you're out there, there are a lot of
other great, great products, such as the Premium lawn Mix,
which only seven four dollars a sack. It's good for
leveling out your sword's got some sand in it. You know,
you know you're going to redo your yard. You're on
level some areas. It's an excellent product just for that.
All right, folks, I'll be right back, all right, welcome
to Guarden Line. Good to have you with us. We're

(01:01:11):
glad to be back with you and with your calls
before we went to break. Let's see who was Oh,
Cindy was asking about getting a peach tree, and I
mentioned Jorge down there in Alvinjorge Hoges Hidden Gardens, that's
the name of the place. It is down there in
the Alvin area. They are on Elizabeth Street in Alvin,

(01:01:32):
just south south the Highway six. So all those of
you down in that region, Alvin, Santa Fe, Dickinson Hillcrest, Algoa, Arcadia, Altaaloma,
all those communities, this is your hometown garden center. Right
down there. They do carry this three sixty tree stabilizer.
And right now they have got a lot of great
shade trees. They've got the elm and the oak, and
the magnolia, the they've got maples. They've got the Chinese fringe,

(01:01:55):
and the red bud and the vitex three flowering trees
that are excellent in our area. He's stocked up on
all of that. His hours are Monday, they're closed, so
today and tomorrow eight am to four pm. Got a
lot of shopping hours today and tomorrow and then on
Tuesday through Friday nine am to three pm at Jorges
Hidden Gardens. I'm going to head now to a norm

(01:02:20):
if I can find the right button. There we go.
Norm welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 19 (01:02:25):
Hey, I'm driving listening to you love your show. I
have a question about growing grass on the north side
of my house. I've been in fifteen years and I
just can't keep grass. There is there a Saint Augustine
type of grass that's made for the shade.

Speaker 5 (01:02:45):
Well, Saint Augustine is a species. Is about our most
shade tolerant of the grasses. Now there are some that
claim to have a little bit better shade tolerance, but
actually I the difference is minimal, and in some cases
I wouldn't recommend the variety for other reasons. I would

(01:03:06):
just get you a good, good quality Saint Augustine, and
there are a number of them out there. Depends on
what you're looking to achieve. Uh, there's yeah, so it is.
It just kind of depends on, you know, specifically what
you're you're looking for.

Speaker 19 (01:03:22):
It's under a pecan tree that I ascend. Should I
take the tree out to get it more sun.

Speaker 5 (01:03:31):
Well, I mean that would give it all full sign
But do you want the pecan tree? I mean, that's
a that's a pretty drastic measure to have a long
But that's that's your that's your business.

Speaker 19 (01:03:41):
Okay, Well it's on the north side of my house,
so I don't look at so yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
Well you even disappoint a lot of squirrels.

Speaker 19 (01:03:52):
Well that's one of my problems too, so I could
lose one.

Speaker 8 (01:03:57):
I also have.

Speaker 5 (01:03:58):
If you can't eat pecans, you need squirrels, norm.

Speaker 19 (01:04:02):
I have I have. I have an orange tree. This
turning yellow?

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
Is that?

Speaker 19 (01:04:07):
Is that possibly overwatering? I've tried the osma coat things
like that, but nothing orangetree.

Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
When you when you overwater and dam and the roots
literally are submerged and can't get oxygen, that's hard on
almost any plant. But drought can also be the same.
And we've had some hot weather for as late as
it is, and we've had some real dry weather for
an extented period of time. And sometimes when we water,
we think we're giving a good soaking, but we're really not.
So I would lean more toward maybe a little bit

(01:04:36):
of a lack of water or just going from soggy
to to row wet. Uh. If the yellowing is on
the newest growth and the older leaves look good, maybe
you're looking at an iron deficiency. If the yellowing is
just all over the tree, Uh, it may need maybe
the water, but it also may need some nitrogen. But
I tell you I wouldn't fertilize much now because you

(01:04:58):
don't want citrus to start growing when we're about to
have a freeze. That's not a good combination.

Speaker 19 (01:05:04):
Okay, thank you appreciate this talk.

Speaker 5 (01:05:06):
All right, all right, Norman, you take care. We're going
to go now to sugar Land and talk to Nick. Hey, Nick,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 20 (01:05:16):
Hi. So I have a yard and my kids often
go out and play in the yard, and I've noticed
lately that they're picking up a lot of tree cockroaches,
really like baby or adolescent keep tree cockroaches are all
over our lawn, and I was wondering if there's a

(01:05:36):
safe way of dealing with them, whether it's you know,
repelling them or killing them, or what's a good way.

Speaker 21 (01:05:44):
Of dealing with this issue.

Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
You know, you kind of have a combination of issues.
That's hard to find a one size fits all answer
for that. First of all, you know, roaches out in
the landscape, that's just kind of like part of nature,
and that you're going to have things like that out there,
part of the bugs that are out there. And so
I have that in my landscape, especially in my garden
where I have a lot of leaves, there's little roaches

(01:06:09):
come out of there and I just ignore it because
I don't want to treat them. But there are insecticides
that you put down in the soil and they will
kill insects that come out. Nitrophos has one called bug
out Max that is sprink It's a granular. You sprinkle
it out and you water it, and it would be
probably helpful for that. There are others that you would

(01:06:31):
spray down, but then you got kids and dogs and
stuff rolling around playing in the grass, and so I
don't know, it's your call on it. I would I
would probably lean toward just not worrying about it. But
if you do want to treat, those are those are
some options.

Speaker 20 (01:06:49):
Okay, all right, that sounds that sounds good, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
Yeah. Yeah, there's also I should mention this too, and
I don't have a name of a product in my head,
but there's also insect growth regulators that you can put
out that that's what people do in the yard, like
with fleas, and that the little critters when they try
to go from one stage to another, it shuts them
down and they're not able to do that, so you

(01:07:15):
might want to think about that.

Speaker 20 (01:07:16):
Okay, are those less like? Are those less dangerous?

Speaker 5 (01:07:24):
Yeah they're not. Yeah, they're not a poison. They just
they because of insects having to make kite in their shells.
Outside the insect it stops that. So we don't have kite. Kids,
dogs don't have kite. It's not an issue that affects
kids and dogs. Well, Nick, I wish you well with that.
Go ahead? No, no, go ahead, No, I was just

(01:07:46):
saying I wish you well. I was I was moving on.
But did you have a follow up?

Speaker 9 (01:07:51):
No, no follow up.

Speaker 20 (01:07:52):
I think this is this is good information and I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:07:57):
All right, thank you. I appreciate that call. You know,
we've been talking trees a lot today and Affordable Tree
Care is who I would call for anything needing to
be done around your trees. We're in the big printing
season and you know we talked about printing out some
branches in a pecan to get more light in down
to the ground, any kind of printing. Martin is an

(01:08:17):
expert at that. Martin spoon More at Affordable Tree You
need to call seven to one, three, six nine, nine
two six sixty three, seven one three, six nine nine
twenty six sixty three. You can go to his website
aff Tree service dot com. When you call Martin or
his wife, Joe will answer. If you don't get Martin
or Joe, you've called the wrong place. Seven one three,

(01:08:39):
six nine nine two six six three. From deep root
feeding to pruning to advising you on you know, maybe
you're going to do a landscape change like a driveway
or a trench or something like. Call Martin first. Seven
one three, six nine nine two six six three. Time
for me to take a break. I'll be right back, Karen,
you'll be our first up. Welcome back, it's the garden Line.

(01:09:01):
Welcome back to garden Line. Hey. Someone asked me the
other day about azmie. What's in as min? Well, what's
in asmite is the micronutrients. Uh, you know they looking
at trying to build the soil and things like that.
Another common question I get is, you know, is it
gonna make my grass grow? Well, A micronutrients are needed
for grass growth. It's the nitrogen in fertilizer, those three

(01:09:24):
numbers in the bag. We need lots of that stuff
with with micros we just need a little bit, just
a little bit, but they are essential. So if let
me put it this way, if you could take every
molecula zinc or iron or manganese for example, out of
the soil, you can't grow a plant. It has to
have those three, but it only needs a tiny trace amount.

(01:09:46):
That's why we call them trace elements. As might provides
that ASMI Texas dot com is the website if you
want to learn more. This is a mind product. It's
a dug out of the ground, ground up for you
to apply to your lawn or your vegetable garden. A'smit
Texas dot com for more information. Now it'd be a
good time to do that. Let's see. We are now

(01:10:07):
going to go to Karen. Hello, Karen, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:10:12):
Oh, good morning.

Speaker 18 (01:10:12):
How are you skip?

Speaker 5 (01:10:15):
Well? Thank you?

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
Okay.

Speaker 18 (01:10:17):
My question is I moved to Magnolia about four years
ago and I was down in the Parland area and
we had a full landscape design done for our house
down there, and we added to We didn't do everything
at once, but we added over the years to to there.

(01:10:39):
We I guess acted on the planned and added plants
to our yard. So I'm looking for a recommendation to
kind of do the same thing in the Magnolia area,
and I just don't know like who to turn to
for that type of full plan that is, you know,
drawing out with.

Speaker 5 (01:11:00):
A with a big I'll tell you. I'll tell you
exactly who you need to call. Okay, great, you need
you need to call Pierce Scapes. Pierscapes has designers on staff.
You if you go to their website Piercescapes dot com
p e A r CE s c A p e

(01:11:22):
S Pierce Scapes dot com, you will see the kind
of work they do and it is unbelievable. They're excellent.

Speaker 9 (01:11:29):
Edit.

Speaker 5 (01:11:29):
They can do anything you need out there too. I mean,
if you need quarterly maintenance, they come do that. If
you need your irrigation system worked on, they can do that.
You want landscape lighting, do you have poor drainage in
an area? Do you want to have a rock pathway
or patio or they can do all of that kind
of stuff at Peerscapes. Here's a phone number for them.
You got your pin ready, right?

Speaker 9 (01:11:48):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (01:11:49):
Uh?

Speaker 9 (01:11:49):
Huh?

Speaker 5 (01:11:50):
Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight
one three seven zero five zero six zero, Yeah, and
they'll they'll work up there in your area, and uh yeah,
give them a call telling me you heard about it
on guardline.

Speaker 18 (01:12:06):
Oh perfect, that's that's good to know because it's it's
difficult to find, you know, reliable company.

Speaker 5 (01:12:12):
You bet, yeah, thank you, you bet all right, absolutely,
thank you, thank you for the call. Uh. If those
of you living down in the far South and east,
uh here down in let's say the Seabrook area, you
know about Moss Nursery already, Moss has been around, Gosh,

(01:12:34):
I don't know how many decades, has been a long time.
They're on Toddville Road there in Seabrook.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:12:40):
Check out their website Moss Nursery dot com. It tells
you the information you need, how to find them in
phone and all that kind of stuff. M A A
S Nursery dot com, Moss Nursery. I love going out
to Moss. When you go to Moss that they always
have really cool stuff. Right now, I mentioned earlier, uh
Chi lenging to try some new plants about African violence.

(01:13:02):
They've had a great selection of African violence out there.
They have a wonderful selection of bulbs for forcing. Hey.
Thanksgivings around the corner. You want to take a gift
to somebody, Try that forcing amarillas or something so beautiful,
really really cool. Now they're going to have everything else
at Moss. You know, their houseplant greenhouse is just unmatched.

(01:13:23):
It's just unbelievable. If you love succulents, if you like
foliage house plants or flowering house plants, do you want
to put some cyclement out in the yard? Beautiful color.
I keep telling you fall is for marigoals. They're beautiful,
and of course everybody knows about moms this time of year. Well,
you think of a plant and you can get it
at Moss Nursery. That's just it a plus unbelievable pottery

(01:13:46):
and that landscape bling these unusual structures and things to
really set your landscape apart again. Moss Nursery, Toddville Road
and Seabrook Moss Nursery dot Com. I'm gonna head out
now to Brenham and talk to Rooster.

Speaker 4 (01:14:02):
Hey, Rooster, good morning.

Speaker 21 (01:14:05):
I've got a problem that's been so dry up here.
I'm having to put out my soaker hose under my
two really nice trees oak trees in my front yard
and in the Saint orgestringe grass keep them off from
trying to.

Speaker 4 (01:14:20):
Die on me.

Speaker 21 (01:14:21):
And every time I do that, there's some barming and
I think it's the armadella. I'm not sure it comes
in it and he digs holes everywhere there's six seven
inches deep, and uh, it's just a real nuisance. I
was wondering if I think there after the grubs, it's
in the in the soil under to kill those grubs,

(01:14:46):
maybe that would make the it might even be deer also, Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:14:51):
Okay, well, I don't think killing the grubs. I don't
think killing the grub is gonna help a lot because
earthworms they dig earth worms too, and when you start watering,
the earth worms get interested in coming up. For that,
it will be helpful to know what the varm it is,
so other than a wild game camera to sit there
at night and take pictures of Yeah, if you can

(01:15:16):
find out what they are armadilla's, you can trap them
in live traps. And let's just say it's an armadilla,
because what you would do is you'd figure out their
little pathway. They typically well, if you've got like a
privacy fence or side of the house. They they're bumbling creatures.
And they tend to kind of bounce along the wall there.
And you can put a live trap out and put

(01:15:37):
two boards coming out like the shape of a V
out of the entrance to the trap, so you're basically
hurting them into the trap. Yeah, leads them into it
if you boil elbow elbow macaroni in beef bo yon uh,
and then you drop though, don't put too many. You
don't want them to get full before they get in
the trap. But you put one here and then one

(01:15:59):
little for they're one a little bit further, and then
put something that lead them right into the trap. You
can trap an armadella that way. Now, if it's a
I don't know, maybe possum would go after that too.
I don't know. But depending on the animal, the approach
to capture them is gonna be a little different. But
I think a live trap at night is probably your
best bet.

Speaker 4 (01:16:19):
Okay, all right, Well, if you got a moment.

Speaker 21 (01:16:22):
I got another question I had last week, and you
told me to send you a picture, And every time
I do that, I don't know anything about computers and
I have to get somebody else to do it. So
I haven't been able to do that. But my box
was dying, and I know they're not dead. So I
was asking now if you could suggest somethings long thirty

(01:16:45):
foot bed in front of my house that I've had
those box woods there before. I'm trying try and from
now I'm going to get something different.

Speaker 4 (01:16:54):
I'd like some kind of.

Speaker 5 (01:16:58):
Okay, there are a number of different shrubs depending on
what kill the box. Would you you probably would be
okay with a dwarf jopon that's been hedged, they make
a little plant. If you want something taller than that,
there are a number of hollies that will will do
good they get taller than that. How big is big?

Speaker 21 (01:17:18):
When you say big, i'd say not quite three feet tall.
I just I don't want to sort of a border
there that looks nice and in front of the house
it's a long porch there. Yeah, and it has to
come up a little bit even like it's something not elephantears,
but something like that, but that I won't have to

(01:17:40):
replace every year because they get frozen. Yeah, I don't
want to do that.

Speaker 5 (01:17:45):
Well, I'd go back to dwarf jopon as being a standard.
You know, you got yopin that run wild out in
that area, So it's a it's a plant that's very
adapted to that area.

Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:17:57):
The thing with elephant ears, they die on in the
winter and you got to cut all that mush out
and then they come back. There's nothing wrong with an
elephant who they probably get too wide for you too.
But those would be a few options. Ornamental grasses are
beautiful if you get one that's not so tall. There
are some some fountain grasses that are that are dwarfed

(01:18:17):
there and others that'd be an option.

Speaker 4 (01:18:20):
But I think you'll call my best look of.

Speaker 21 (01:18:24):
The box would but I'm just getting tired of them
dying on me.

Speaker 5 (01:18:28):
And okay, then I dwarf. A dwarf you opon is
probably going to be your best bet.

Speaker 21 (01:18:36):
Hey, thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:18:37):
I won't.

Speaker 21 (01:18:38):
I think I'm gonna.

Speaker 5 (01:18:39):
Try that out, all right, you take care, all right?
All right? I hear music that means we're about to
go to a break here. Listen, I'm gonna be at
Katie Hardware today. I'll when i I'll be there from
twelve to two today. Now, Katie Hardware is on pin
Oak Road and Katie just not far from E ten.

(01:19:00):
Come on, I'm seeing it. I'll be giving away like
I don't know, twelve or so bags of microfoss is
one two three system their three step really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
Welcome to Katie r h Garden Line with Skip Rictor's shoes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
The crazy gas can trim. Just watch him as wolf.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Many things to seep, batrasy in bags and gassing not
a sign glass gas.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
The sun beaming down between.

Speaker 5 (01:19:48):
All right, folks, let's jump right in here and get
this hour going. There's a lot to talk about. There's
always a lot to talk about. You know, it doesn't
matter what day of the year it is. There is
so much more culturally going on that you need to know,
you need to do, you should do, and we're here

(01:20:09):
to help you with those kinds of things. RCW Nursery
is the garden center there where two forty nine two
forty nine Tomball Parkway where it comes into belt WAYA,
and it's been there. I don't know, you guys have
probably known it for a long time. I think it
opened in nineteen seventy nine by the Williamson family who
still run it. So that is a history here in

(01:20:32):
the Greater Houston area of providing quality plants. That's why
they have the reputation of the get It, Got It nursery.
What that means is give them a call. If they
don't have it and it's out there available, they can
probably get it and bring it in for you. You're
going to go in there and you're going to find
the fertilizers that I recommend here on garden. You're going
to find things like Landscaper's Pride, the molt products and

(01:20:56):
soil products that they have there. RCW is a great
source of roses too. You know, of course typically the
February times when everybody is thinking roses, but now's a
good time to plant roses. Now's a good time to
plant trees. And they've got some really really good specials
going on. Fifteen fifty percent off half price Cajun hibiscus

(01:21:18):
that is really really good and that there's not a
pretty year hibiscus out there, twenty percent off all shrubs,
and fifteen percent off all trees including citrus. You're thinking
about having a citrus tree in the landscape, or maybe
one in a large container, you know, a myer lemma
or a lime or something like that. They've got them

(01:21:38):
there at RCW. It's part of that November sale stop
in there, take advantage of it, don't delay. I mean,
you're not going to find a better deal than that.
And RCW also of course has the expert advice and
direction to help you have success. Our phone number if
you would like to give me a call is seven
one three two one two k t r H seven

(01:22:02):
to one three two one two k t r H.
I was visiting with Ian up at Nature's Way Resources
a while back. I was up there for their Fall festival. Gosh,
that was back mid October, and they are continuing to
have their Fungal Friday Sale. It's still on up there,

(01:22:23):
so twenty percent off fungal compost. Fungo compost. That's what
happens in the woods. You know, when leaves fall on
the ground in the woods, it's primarily fungi that are
doing the decomposition in that environment. And a fungo based
compost is excellent for plants that are broad leaf plants
like your shrubs and trees and flowers and vegetables and

(01:22:43):
herbs and things like that. Fungo composts outstanding. Also if
you want to use it as a top dressing, it
works very well. You know, we talk about leaf mold
compost well, a fungo compost or leaf old compost, get
them screened down to a good size, and they make
an excellent top dressing material. Also, all of that is
up there at Nature's Way Resources. If you go up

(01:23:04):
Interstate forty five where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia,
you just turn right and go across the railroad tracks
and you were there at Nature's Way. You need to
have a vehicle that can hold some stuff. I mean,
whether it's a pickup or a trailer that you're bringing
back bulkloads with or just bringing back bags from them.
By the way. Their bags are also available in local

(01:23:25):
garden centers and ace hardware stores, just all kinds of
places all over the greater Houston area, all part of
the product line. There at Nature's Way where a lot
of our best soil products began. You know, you hear
people talk about rose soil born it Nature's Way. You're
about talking about fungal or leaf mo compost born it

(01:23:45):
Nature's Way. That's what I'm talking about. Super quality products
and just friendly service and easy to get too, easy
to get out, and they can deliver too if you
would like that. Let's see here We're going to go
now out to the west side and talk to Joe. Hey, Joe,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 22 (01:24:05):
How you doing good to hear.

Speaker 5 (01:24:06):
You, I'm well, yeah, what's up?

Speaker 22 (01:24:09):
So we have so my problem is I have some
wild violet in my yard. It's that root that's like
a carrot that goes underneath it, and I've been trying
to get rid of it into Santa Augustine. And I
was wondering if you had a product that would help,
you know, get rid of that and not hurt the
Santa Augustine.

Speaker 5 (01:24:29):
Yeah, products that contain two four D, which is in
things like Trimac, for example, it's one of the products
in there, Dicama, Trimac, those things, those are pretty effective
against it. There are some things that are more effective,
but they're going to hurt your Saint Augustine. And so
unless you just have solid violets and you can, you know,

(01:24:51):
just spray something to kill them all, then I would
just go with a trimac or just a two four
D type lawn product labeled for Saint Augustine.

Speaker 4 (01:25:03):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 22 (01:25:04):
I'm having a hard time hearing you, so I'm gonna
hang up, but thank you.

Speaker 21 (01:25:07):
For that information.

Speaker 5 (01:25:10):
Yeah, and if you need to check back, if you
need to check back on it. All the shows are
put on podcasts there we can go re listen to
them on KTRH.

Speaker 17 (01:25:17):
So, all right, thank you on the podcast.

Speaker 5 (01:25:19):
All right, thank you you Take care by H. Nitrofoss
has their three Step program, and I've been talking about
it and talking about it this fall, and I guess
I'm just telling you. I don't know it's last call,
but I will say he has He who hesitates is
lost because nitrophoss is three Step is their fall special

(01:25:40):
Winter Riser designed for making your southern lawn go into
winter stronger and come out stronger in spring. Second barricade
pre emergent herbicide prevents weed seeds from being able to
sprout and establish. It forms a barricade over the soil
surface and says no, no, you cannot you cannot grow here.

(01:26:01):
And then finally Eagle turf fungicide that is a systemic fungicide.
It gets in the plant. So when brown patch those
big circles up here, when take all root rot tries
to attack, you've got a grass plant that has got
the protective fungicide inside of it to prevent that. Now
you're going to find this at Bearings Hardware, both the
one on Biscinette and the one in Westtheimer. You're going

(01:26:23):
to find it at Lake Hardware, both the one in
Angleton and the one at Lake Jackson, and of course
at RCW Nurseries, Nitrofoss Texas three step. Well, I am
looking at the clock here. I don't have time to
take another call. When we come back from a break,
Jose and let's see Vernon and Darryl. You'll be our

(01:26:44):
first three up and we'll visit with you. I did
want to tell you about spring Creek Feed though. Spring
Creek Feed is up there on FM twenty nine seventy
eight to Magnolia, just north and east of Tomball. Spring
Creek Feed has fertilizers that I talk about on Garden Line,
like the Nelson Turf Star Line, like Microlife Mike, Nitrofoss.
They've got lawn and garden and pond supplies, herbicides, fungicized pastes,

(01:27:07):
whatever you need to control issues in your plants. If
you are ffa military or senior citizen, there's discounts for
you and they'll even do special order and they have
a delivery service as well. I think one of the
best things is you walk in. It is a wonderful place.
You're greeted by friendly, courteous staff. I think you would
expect from a quality feed store like Spring Creek. Feed

(01:27:28):
again in Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight, just
minutes away from Graham Parkway and Highway two forty nine.
All right, here I go. When I come back again,
Jose and Vernon and Daryl, you'll be our first. Welcome
back to garden Line, folks. Good to have you with us.
We're gonna jump right out there on the phones and
we'll start. Let's see here, I think we said Darryl

(01:27:52):
in Northwest Houston. Welcome to garden Line. Darryl. Hello, hey, Darryl. Yes,
I'm here.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
I am.

Speaker 4 (01:28:05):
Perhaps blueberries.

Speaker 23 (01:28:07):
Wow, I don't even remember the can be honest with you,
but I have them in pots and I'm curious as
to how to prune them.

Speaker 5 (01:28:15):
Okay, so what we do on blue Yeah, late winter
is the best time to go ahead and prone them.
You don't have an acre blueberry seat, yeah, so what
you want to do is a blueberry We call them canes.
The shoots coming up out of the ground. They should
live up about five years and then be removed and replaced.

(01:28:38):
And that way you have a constant twenty percent of
the plant being rejuvenated each year. As a blueberry king
gets really old and it's just been there a long
time and it's produced several times, it just it loses
vigor and it isn't as productive and the branch growth
is real twiggy. And and so after you've had one
for you know, about four or five years. Uh, just

(01:29:01):
look on it and you see some of those old
growths that are just twiggy and not really productive. Just
take it out at the base, cut it off at
the base, and you will continually have new new ones
coming up and growing.

Speaker 9 (01:29:13):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:29:13):
And that that's how you do it.

Speaker 4 (01:29:16):
Sounds good, Like I said that the plant.

Speaker 23 (01:29:17):
The plants have been in a pot for about a year,
and I don't they weren't maybe too foot tall at
the most, so they're not real old.

Speaker 5 (01:29:25):
Okay, well they're.

Speaker 4 (01:29:28):
Okay.

Speaker 23 (01:29:30):
Just I wouldn't need to be anything out just wherever,
like the branches are crossing each other or something or well.

Speaker 5 (01:29:37):
I mean, if you have little tiny twiggy stuff as
you grow blueberries, notice in late winter that the buds
that are real plump, those are the ones that are
gonna have blooms, and the ones that aren't plump don't
have blooms. And you can see on that kind of
burgundy colored wood that they develops and that that is
that's fruiting wood. And you kind of learn and then

(01:29:58):
from there, if you've got little twiggies that and I
mount anything, just take them out because they're not doing
the okay.

Speaker 23 (01:30:05):
Also, also, I had a it's a red berring peach
and it's been in the ground for a year. Should
does it require any top of pruning? Maybe some of
the lower lowers.

Speaker 5 (01:30:19):
Well, when we prune a peach, we're going to eat,
which you can eat red barren fruit. We generally make
it a big, big open bowl to allow light inside
so you get more fruiting wood and fruit inside. Otherwise
a tree, a peach tree, will become an umbrella of
foliage and fruit on top and it's all dead and

(01:30:40):
twiggy inside, So you got to keep that light coming in. Now,
if you're just looking for a just a flowering tree,
then you don't have to go through that pruning, uh,
just kind of thinning them out A little bit is
all you need to do.

Speaker 4 (01:30:54):
I will I want to eat.

Speaker 5 (01:30:57):
Okay, well, there you go. Uh go go to the Aggie, hey, Daryl,
go to Aggie Horticulture website. Just do a search for it.
There's a fruit fruit link on it, and there's a
peach publication and it shows you exactly how to prone
it better than I can try to describe it over
the air. Okay, Horticulture, it's free.

Speaker 4 (01:31:18):
I will do that. Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:31:23):
Appreciate that. Appreciate that very much. Let's see we're going
to go out to Vernon in Needville, speaking of peaches. Hey, Vernon,
welcome to garden Line. Do we have Vernon with us? Still? Okay? Vernon?
Hey Veron, Hey, welcome to garden Line. This is Skip.

Speaker 24 (01:31:44):
Yes, sir, Hey, I've got a I got a good
deal on a couple of brown Turkey figs and a
couple of Celestie figs and a couple of Florida Pride peaches.

Speaker 4 (01:31:55):
I've got them in containers.

Speaker 24 (01:31:57):
Should I go ahead and put them on the ground now?
And if I do, I need to protect them through
the any freezes or what do you think?

Speaker 4 (01:32:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:32:04):
You can you can go ahead and plant them now,
that's fine. The the the peaches are not going to
be cold tender. You're fine on those. The figs. You know,
you get a doozy of a of a cold snap
this winter and you can get damage to a fig.
But I would still plan them. Get them in the
ground and then mulch them, roll well at the base,

(01:32:26):
and if we're going to have a freeze, I would
just mound up soil or or or compost around the base,
uh to protect that during the freeze. I have also
seen people put a little cage around them, uh and
then fill it full of leaves and things, just to
provide some extra cold protection in there. And again it's
just because it's a brand new tree and they're a

(01:32:49):
little more susceptible to issues, so to do that.

Speaker 24 (01:32:54):
Yeah, I believe the celesti is a little more cold
hardy than the other one. But okay, well and get
them in the ground.

Speaker 5 (01:33:01):
Yes, well good, have fun with him now. You know,
on garden Line, we don't charge for advice, but I
do ask you to bring me half the produce you grow.
So just drop that off and you'll call it even.

Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
All right, I'm hoping to get some figs the price
is a fig.

Speaker 24 (01:33:13):
Now they I'm gonna grow them all.

Speaker 5 (01:33:16):
Oh man, everybody ought to have a fig tree. They're good.
Oh my gosh, I don't get me started on fixed. Hey,
thanks Vernon, I appreciate I appreciate your call very much.
Have you guys been to the Antique Rose Emporium? Antiqu
ros and Porium Anti CROs and Porium is out there
in just north of Brunham. Actually it's an independence text.

(01:33:37):
It's been destination since nineteen eighty three for gardeners and families.
They're overflowing with roses. They got lots of navy plants too,
lots of color. Do you need some violas or snap
dragons or dianthus or whatever? Do you want perennials like
Salvia's and fall Aster to plant their newest rose relief
Zenna is an American rose exclusively bred or an anti rose

(01:34:00):
imporium exclusively bread Variety's got Patentspenny. It's new and they're
releasing a lot of new roses out there. But right now,
here's what you need to know. Fall Festival of Roses
is on right now now. Friday was a garden party
today and tomorrow it's free and it's open to the public.
They're gonna have talks by Paul Zimmerman, Chris Weisinger, the

(01:34:21):
Bulb Hunter, Mike' Surround of Microlife, Henry Flowers, and I
mean these are expert spokes and that doctor Steve George
with the Earthkind Program. Doctor George. He is a character
and he knows more about earthkind gardening than just about
They're gonna have artists and market and food trucks. You
need to follow him on social media. Just go here's

(01:34:42):
what you need to do. Go to Antique Roseemporium dot
com Antique Roseimporium dot com. That's where you get information.
That's where you get tickets to the upcoming events. That's
where you can join their social media following and always
stay up to date. If you'd like to give him
a call nine seven nine eight three six fifty five
forty eight. And here's this is very important. When you

(01:35:05):
go tell them I sent you, and you get ten
percent discount. When you check out, you got to tell
them SKIP sent me. Or if you're going to order online,
which you can do from there, they'll show up enter
coupine code skip twenty twenty four Skip twenty twenty four.
Don't leave money on the table, do that. That is
a great deal that they're doing out there. All right,

(01:35:25):
you're listening to garden Line and we are here to
answer your gardening questions. If you'd like to give me
a call seven to one three two one two kt
RH seven one three two one two kt RH. Boy,
that antique rosing porium place is gorgeous. You need to
get out there and see it. It's not that far away,

(01:35:46):
just a short little drive out in the country, and
it's like you've entered a whole other world, a whole
nother time and place. It is really really cool. If
you are thinking about having some aeration and compost top
dressing and you live in south let's say the Southwest
quadront of Houston, BMB turf Pros is your company, you

(01:36:12):
need to call them. And why do I say that,
It's because if they're a family owned service, they provide
honest and honest honesty, which is important, and quality work.
Their goal is to make sure their customers are happy.
They go above and beyond to make that personal connection.
It's not just like Okay, I did it, give me
my money, Give me my money. I'm on down the road.
Now they care about that relationship. Uh, and both Fernando

(01:36:36):
and Elvia Barrera are just focused on that and that's
why they're so highly rated. You can go to their
website bb there's not an end there in the website
b B Turfpros dot com. BB turf Pros dot com.
Give them a call seven one three two three four
fifty five ninety eight. Right now, is there fall special?

(01:36:57):
Don't It's only good the next and that is free
aeration when you schedule them to do a compost top
dressing service. So if you're anywhere from the west end
to Sugarland, Missouri City on the east end Pearland, or
down south Fresno or Colos Siena, IWA, Colony Manul, that's
the region that they focus on, and you need to

(01:37:19):
give them a call. If your lawn is your soil
is compacted, if your grass has been struggling, and then
getting that oxygen in the roots, getting that organic matter
on the surface to fall down into those aeration holes
very important and you will see results from that. We're
going to go now to talk to Jim in Montgomery. Hey, Jim,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:37:40):
Hey, I got some seeds from for the desert rows.
And it didn't come with instructions. As far as I know,
they're hardy only in like ten I think I'm in
nine or eight up here in Montgomery. I was wondering
when should that plant? What I grow licral greens under

(01:38:01):
grow lights in the window in the south part of
the house. So I got that down pretty good. Can
I start those seeds now or should I wait till spring?

Speaker 4 (01:38:14):
Well?

Speaker 5 (01:38:14):
You can. You can start them now and get them
going if you've got really really good.

Speaker 9 (01:38:21):
Light.

Speaker 5 (01:38:22):
And you know, greens they do best and as much
light as you can give them, but they'll grow in less.
But what does it rose? I would want to make
sure you get that light right down on the plants.
Get as much.

Speaker 9 (01:38:36):
Light the lights. And I got like three or four
led grow lights that I use for the greens, and
it seems to work fine for that. And they're in
a window as well, so that they get some natural
light a little bit well, I mean, you know during
summer anyway, but this winter, you know, it's a little

(01:39:00):
it's not quite as bright, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:39:03):
Okay, yeah, I understand, But get them as much light
as you can if sometimes windows are a little bit
of a cold spot in the house, so they're a
little heating match you can put down just to kind
of keep it a little warm on the warm side. Uh,
that would be better on helping them get going and
starting from seed. But you want a very gritty, well

(01:39:23):
drained mix, like it's got a lot of pearlite and
sand and grit kinds of things in it, because it
needs to drain really well. Water them very sparingly, keep
it slightly moist, but be very careful not to over
water them, and they'll do it. They'll do well for you. Hey, Jim,
I got a run for a break here, but good
luck with your project. I wish don't definitely wish you well. Folks.

(01:39:46):
It's time for me to take a little break. I
want me come back. Let's see goodness sake. Brett and
Bill and Jason, you'll be our first ones up. Welcome
back to the garden line. Glad you are listening in today.
Good to have you with us. For those of you
who walk to garden organically, well you probably already know

(01:40:07):
about microlife, but you need to know about microlife. Microlife
is a number one selling organic fertilizer throughout the Greater
House scenario in fact, is sold a way beyond the
Greater Houston area. They have a product called Microgrow Liquid AF.
It is of course a liquid product, but it is
loaded with beneficial microbes, the types of microbes that fight

(01:40:29):
disease specifically, so when you put it down, it goes
down into the root system of the soil, protects roots,
and actually some of these microbes actually communicate with the
plant and cause the plant to grow different. Is that
amazing or what that a microbe would signal a plant
and cause that plant to grow in a way that
makes it more difficult for a disease to infect it.

(01:40:51):
Micro Grow Liquid AF from Microlife Fertilizers. You can go
to the website Microlifefertilizer dot com and you can find
a lot of information there as well as where to
get it, and it's pretty much available everywhere just about
everycause microlife products. While you're there, check out the micro
Grow bio andoculent that is an organic biological inoculent. It

(01:41:14):
has even more beneficial microbes in it. It's a dry
granular you can buy by the bag or bye by
a large plastic jar container. Use it any kind of
soil that you're using any kind of plants. I would say,
with the micro grow bio inoculant, I'll put it on
the lawn and I would do that this fall and
water it in and get those microbes working for you.
Time for me to head out to let's see we

(01:41:38):
have a Brett in Richmond, I believe was the next
one up. Hey Brett, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 25 (01:41:43):
Hey Skip, thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 4 (01:41:46):
I just had a question.

Speaker 25 (01:41:48):
My wife and I have a little ranch down in
Mattagorda County, and you know, of course he always the
battle down there is the McCartney rose or the wild roseheads,
and so I kill that with tricle per. But I
was noticing yesterday while I was in the pasture that
in the Bermuda field, I've got tons of dewberry vines

(01:42:13):
coming up. Is there a way to kill those where
my grazing cattle will not get poisoned?

Speaker 5 (01:42:23):
Same same thing. There are tricle peer products once called
remedy for ag use that are made for a grazeline.
Just read the label when you go in to buy them.
Just check the label. But they should be safe to use.
And the BlackBerry if you'll hit them in the fall
hit them. Now they're pulling in a lot of sugars
to go into the dormant season, and you get a

(01:42:45):
little bit better killed than you do. Sometimes in spring
it's like the growth the flow is going the other way,
you know, out from the roots to push new growth.
But fall is an excellent time to make that first
good hit with those products.

Speaker 4 (01:42:58):
Perfect.

Speaker 25 (01:42:59):
Perfect, that's what I need to know.

Speaker 4 (01:43:01):
Thank you, all.

Speaker 5 (01:43:02):
Right, sir, thank you for the call. Appreciate that. All right,
let's see here, let's head out now to Brett in
No excuse me, Bill in Montgomery. Hey, Bill, welcome to
guarden line.

Speaker 8 (01:43:18):
Yeah, thanks for taking my call. I had a question.
I've got to several crt myrtles in the yard. I
think over the last couple of years the heath cold
has kind of stressed them a little bit. I typically
have probably made a mistake over the years when I
in the winter time go to throw them back, I

(01:43:41):
have just sort of locked them off at the top.
Now I tend seem to have kind of gnarly growth
at the top. Seems like the in the spring, the
new growth isn't as healthy as it has been in
the past. Did a problem to just lop off those

(01:44:06):
gnarly formations.

Speaker 5 (01:44:10):
No, you can do that. It. Crapes are a challenge,
and everybody overpruns them like you're describing, and you end
up destroying that beautiful structure of the plant. You can
knock those off, but what's going to happen is you're
going to get a whole bunch of sprouts where you
cut it back. And so if you can follow one
of those gnarlies that you're describing, follow that that stem

(01:44:32):
back to where there's a side branch and cut it
off just above that, and then when it tries to resprout,
break off all the sprouts as they're trying to grow
and let the new growth be more natural. That would
be the best bet. Now, if if the whole thing
just looks horrible and there's no side shoots to work with,
you either have to live with the narlies or you

(01:44:53):
cut the whole thing back to the ground and let
fresh new growth come out. But at this point in
the season, I would not do that. They don't have
time to be established.

Speaker 4 (01:45:01):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:45:01):
We had a freeze couple of years ago that killed
some crapes to the ground, and people were doing that.
They were selecting two or three or four branch or
shoots to come up and cutting all the rest away. Uh,
you know, in that retri process.

Speaker 8 (01:45:15):
Okay, one other question regarding them. For myrtle's uh uh
mine tend to have uh mold or a black mood
develop on uh the trunk and the limbs. I think
it's if it's I don't know what is it? Is
it dormant oil is the best treatment for that? Or

(01:45:36):
and when would you applish it?

Speaker 5 (01:45:39):
That's actually scale most likely if it's can do that.
There are other insects that can do it on crepes.
If if you look in the black, what you're going
to see is little white things in the black, and
that this scale themselves. Uh and so yeah, at this point,
you could use a systemic product if you do it

(01:46:01):
before long, because the leaves are coming off those things.
You want the plant to take it up. But systemics
get in the plant and anything sucking juices out of
the plant gets that poison out of the plumbing of
the plant. And so there are a couple of good
products out there, a couple of ingredients that will do that.
You just want to be careful if you do that

(01:46:22):
right for bloom season, that products are up in the
plant and then when bees come to the flowers they
could be exposed to some of those products, and we
don't we don't need that.

Speaker 8 (01:46:33):
Okay, well, thanks for your information.

Speaker 5 (01:46:37):
Yeah you bet, Thanks and good luck with that. Yeah,
all right, folks, thank you very much. All Right, we
are let's see here. We are gonna give us a call.
If you do have a call seven one three two
two k H, I'd be happy to help you with that.
I just wanted to mention again Ace Hardware. You know,

(01:46:59):
I'm going to be at the hardware store in Katie.
It's called Katie Hardware and it is really really easy
to get to. You know, you're sitting right there on
I ten wherever you're coming from toward Katie. And if
you if you will stop in this after this afternoon,
I'm gonna be there from twelve to two. Excuse me,

(01:47:21):
I'm trying to do three things at once here. Uh,
if you stop in, I will have a number of
bags the folks from night Foss is gonna be there.
We're gonna have a number of bags of the nitrofoss
texas three step. That's three different products. But we're gonna
have several bags of each one that we're gonna be
given away. And it's just uh, this hardware is just

(01:47:42):
south of IT ten, just a little bit on Pinoak Road,
so it's really easy to get to. I'm sorry, south
north wrong direction, in between Highway ninety and I ten
on pin Oak Road. Goodness Sakes. If you haven't been
to this before, it's a really cool ice store. Now
a stores independently owned. Each one's unique there, each one

(01:48:02):
is special in its own way. It's always fun to
go into an Ace Hardware because you're going to find
everything that I talk about in the way of taking
care of your lawn. You like fertilizers, like a weed prevention,
like disease prevention in the lawn. You're going to find
products for every kind of plant you would want to grow.
You're going to find things to control diseases, to control

(01:48:24):
weeds that are already existing. You're going to find things
to control insects when you need to do that. Plus
you're going to find all the seasonal items that you
need have a beautiful both indoor and outdoor part of
your home, and so ACE Hardware come out and see
me today at the Katie Hardware again, Katie Hardware on
Pinoak Road, just north of IT ten and I look

(01:48:47):
forward to seeing you. Bring me plants, samples, will identify them,
will diagnose them. Bring me photos from your phone, we'll
talk about those. If you want to take some pictures,
we'll do that too. I always like tapictures of folks
that are listening to guard Line. I'm gonna have to
go to a break here, and when I come back,
let's see who we got. We've got Les and Lisa,

(01:49:08):
Oh gosh, Melanie and Herte. All right, we got a
full board there, folks. We'll be right back. Welcome back
to Garden. I'm good to have you with us. Lots
more to go here on Garden. I'll stick with us.
We'll be here till ten am this morning and back
six to ten tomorrow morning as well. For those of
you down in the Richmond Rosenberg area, have you been

(01:49:30):
to in Chenni Gardens there on the Katie Fullsher side
of Richmond. So you just head up FM seven twenty
three and when you get to three fifty nine you're there.
Corner is seven twenty three and three fifty nine in
Chenny guards In Chennigardensrichmond dot Com is the website and

(01:49:50):
Linnemann family has been part of that community since nineteen
ninety five when Chenni Garden's first opened. This is one
of those independent garden centers. It's just an absolutely unforgettable experience.
There is no match in their selection when it comes
to plants and trees and certainly knowledge. They've been in
the nursery business a long time. They've seen it all,

(01:50:11):
they know it. You have issues to ask them about,
you know, what about this plant or what's this problem?
Or name that bug or what's wrong with this? They
can do that. Bring them a sample, bring them a picture.
Their helpful team is so enthusiastic and body as enthusiastic
as they come. So just bring those examples and photos
and things like samples in to get the expert advice.
Why you're there, Not only are you going to find

(01:50:33):
every kind of plant you could possibly need, You're going
to find fertilizers like microlife and nitroposs and Nelson and Medena.
You're going to find soil and multch products from Nature's
Way and Heirloom and Landscaper's Pride. They are open Monday
through Saturday eight to five and tomorrow ten am to
four pm. If you've never been there, you got to go.
If you've already been there, you know what I'm talking about,

(01:50:54):
head back out there. It's a good time to visit.
The weather is perfect out there where in Jenny Gardens.
I always love to go. I love the folks, I
love the plants. It's just a good time. We're going
to head out and out of the phones and we
are going to talk to Less in Dickinson. Hello, Less,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 19 (01:51:13):
Good morning.

Speaker 4 (01:51:14):
How you doing.

Speaker 5 (01:51:15):
I'm good, sir. How can I help?

Speaker 4 (01:51:18):
Okay? I got a couple of questions. BlackBerry we're talking
about that earlier.

Speaker 26 (01:51:24):
I've got one that I'm trying to grow and planeted
it and spring now it's it's starting to take over
the ground.

Speaker 4 (01:51:36):
Pruning it.

Speaker 26 (01:51:37):
Is there any special way I need to look at
pruning that?

Speaker 5 (01:51:42):
Or blackberries are on a two year schedule, So this
spring a shoot grew and it'll go through winter and
its fruiting year would be next year, and then after
fruits it tends to eventually die. So once you've harvested
the fruit, you cut all the fruiting shoots off at

(01:52:03):
the ground because you're gonna have new shoots coming up
from the ground that'll be the next year shoot. So
there's always two different types of shoots in your BlackBerry patch.
One is the growing shoots we call those prima canes.
Prime is in one first year and the second year
they become flora caanes as in flowering. So it's a

(01:52:24):
BlackBerry shoot coming out of the ground only lives. You
only leave it two years after the fruit happens. Cut
it out and new ones will be back and you
have the best looking patch.

Speaker 26 (01:52:35):
So since this is the first year I planned it,
pretty much everything that's growing.

Speaker 5 (01:52:40):
Is yeah, just leave it, no pruning, right, no pruning
this year, and it'll be kind of probably, you know,
not real impressive the first year. But next year you'll
start see some better growth and it just gets stronger. Okay, okay, okay,
I got to come home more. Okay, let me do
them real quick, because I got to row row folks

(01:53:01):
here waiting, So let's do plant.

Speaker 4 (01:53:04):
Is this the time to plant free trees?

Speaker 5 (01:53:09):
Yes, it's an excellent time all the way. Now through
winter is the best time of the year. You can
plant them any month of the year, but now's the
best time.

Speaker 26 (01:53:16):
And can you grow a fig tree and a pot?

Speaker 5 (01:53:20):
You can? There are figs that are smaller, uh. You know,
I'm a variety called miss Figy I think is one
of those, uh that you can grow them in a pot.
It's just the kind that want to be real big bushes.
Unless your pot has some some volume to the soil,
you're going to have trouble with that. So it was

(01:53:42):
a big of a well. I mean, you know people
that don't have space or they just want to fig
on the patio. Get you something the size of a
half whiskey barrel that'll stand up and you know, to
time whiskey barrel won't uh, And and plant a fig
in that and get one that's a little more compound size.
You'll be all right. All right, Thanks, Les, appreciate the

(01:54:06):
calls you take care of. We're going to Lisa and Brian. Hey, Lisa,
welcome to the garden Line.

Speaker 21 (01:54:10):
Hello.

Speaker 6 (01:54:11):
Hello.

Speaker 15 (01:54:12):
I said, some pictures of some vica that I have
that is declining. You can see the healthy vinka in
the part. I just don't want the healthy part to
start looking like the other. And then I also have
a question about the weeds and whether we can use
a pre emergent and post emergent to keep the weeds
out of it, out of the venka.

Speaker 5 (01:54:33):
Okay, So first of all, that picture wasn't taken in
Brian area, was it.

Speaker 6 (01:54:38):
No, it's in Hunt Hunt Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:54:41):
Yeah, Look it looks look more hill country to me.
So outxactly, you got some higher you got some higher
pH soils. Uh. And when the pH goes high, you
start to get iron chlorosis, which is when the yellow
the new growth shows yellow and the old growth remains green.
So I would get a helated kelated iron product. I

(01:55:03):
would apply it to that area, especially next spring when
new growth is going to begin. It's going to kind
of slope right now when it cools off. But akelated iron.
Make sure you do that, and then blow it off
those limestone walkways because iron will stain concrete and limestone
stain at kind of a reddish brown color, a rust color,

(01:55:25):
and you don't want to do that, so blow it
off and then water it all in. What's really the
problem on your plants though, is the vink of leaf roller.
And if you go up and look real close, you'll
see leaves that are folded over. And if you hope
if you pull them open, there there's webbing holding them
folded over and inside is either a caterpillar or a
pupa or there used to be. And so that you

(01:55:45):
can control with either products containing bt B as in
boy tea is in tom or spinosid s p I
n O s A D. Both are organic. The spinosid
soaks into the tissue and gives you a little longer control.
BT only lasts about a day before you have to
spray it again. Uh, And so I would do the

(01:56:07):
spinosid version on those, but pretty much how many sex
side's going to kill them. But I like the spinosa
because it soaks in that that leaf tissue and that
that will shut it down for next year. I wouldn't
worry about them right now. They're they've kind of done
with their don't.

Speaker 15 (01:56:20):
Do anything right now, Wait until the spring.

Speaker 5 (01:56:24):
New leaves being If you see some new leaves being
folded over, you can do it now. But it's primarily
when the spring growth and then you see them more,
not just in spring. They come a little bit later.
But the first sign of those little boogers, that's when
you get the spinosid out.

Speaker 15 (01:56:38):
Okay, okay, and then can we use barricade or something
like that as a pre emergent on the vinka like
you would with the grass.

Speaker 5 (01:56:46):
You can, yes, and then both emerge.

Speaker 15 (01:56:52):
What about post emerged or something I can use.

Speaker 5 (01:56:58):
Yes, grassy weeds. Okay, uh, there are two products. I'll
tell you what. Go to my website gardening with skip
dot com. Yeah, and there's a publication that says herbicides
for the weed wiper. And if you look at those herbicides,
go down to the grassy weeds and then go across
to the right. There's two ingredients and then there's a

(01:57:19):
list of products that have those two ingredients. Do that
Having said that, you're talking about the barricade, I would
I'm not sure that would help a lot. And here's
why that vinka is so dense. Sunlight isn't hitting the soil.
And I don't think you're getting weeds seed sprouting. I
think you're having perenny weeds. I don't know, viudograss or
something that's coming up in there. So it's probably just

(01:57:41):
hitting them after they come up with the products that
are on my list there.

Speaker 6 (01:57:45):
Okay, okay, all right, thank you so much.

Speaker 5 (01:57:47):
All right, Lisa, all right, you bet, thank you. I
appreciate appreciate your call very very much. You know, D
and D Feed is up in the Tomball area. They're
just three miles west of two four on twenty nine
to twenty, So if you're heading west on twenty nine
twenty about three miles on the left, you'll see D
and Defeat. It's been around since nineteen eighty nine. The

(01:58:09):
Dover family has been operating it and they still do.
I'd expanded it earlier on and it just keeps getting better.
But when you go there, you're going to find a
wide variety of products that you hear me talk about.
Things from nitrofoss, things from microlife, things from Nelson's, things
from Medina, heirlooms, soils, landscaper's pride, Everything you need to

(01:58:31):
control any kind of pastor, disease or weed is going
to be there. They always stay up and supply if
you want to give them a call. Two eight one
three five one seventy one forty four. I hear music
going that means I have to shut up melody and
heard it. I tried my best. You will be our
first two up when we come back from break. If
you're able to hang around. We'll visit with you at

(01:58:52):
that time again. One more reminder and not one more.
I'm gonna do it again and again. I'm going to
be at the Ace Hardware store over in Katie, Texas.
It's called Katie's Hardware. It's on pin Oak Road. If
you're heading out I ten or coming in it ten
for me the way, just go north on pin Oak
Road and a little bit before you get Highway ninety on

(01:59:14):
the left, that will be katie a hardware store. I'm
going to be doing samples and diagnosing and just helping
you find success and giving away a lot of great
nitrofoss products.

Speaker 1 (01:59:26):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Scamp Richter's.

Speaker 2 (01:59:37):
Trim.

Speaker 3 (01:59:39):
Just watch him as.

Speaker 5 (01:59:46):
Many Hey, welcome back to garden Lines. Welcome back to
garden Line. Those of you in Kingwood, you know you're fortunate.
You got two great guard centers out there. You've got
Kingwood Garden Center which is over on Stone Hollow Drive,
and then you got Warren Southern Gardens North Park Drive,

(02:00:07):
and they are still effect. Today is the last no.
Tomorrow is the last day of the what they call
the Pansy Party. You can buy a flat of pansies.
That's four inch pots, eighteen containers, eighteen pansy plants for
twenty five bucks. Just under twenty five bucks. Now, don't
forget to grab some fertilizer to keep them blooming. Remember

(02:00:28):
I was talking about that before the importance of keeping
that nutrient going all winter. When you push growth on
these cool seasoned flowers, that foliage captures sun that helps
them keep blooming. It takes a lot of carbhydrates to
produce a flour and then plants it fruit to fruit.
So you got to keep them growing, keep them going.
They've got Marilla's bulbs and stock lots of fall veggies.

(02:00:50):
You know, I challenge you this year, grow something different.
You've never grown a vegetable before. Grab a container out
there at Warren Southern Gardens and then grab use some
veggies to go in it, some herbs to go in it.
Still got beautiful moms out there. When you're out there,
make sure and join their newsletter. You can tell them
in the store to do that you want to do that,
or you can go online to the Inga McCall if

(02:01:10):
you want to do that. But join the newsletter because
there are special coupons and offers, especially for example, they're
monthly lawn care coupons. That's real easy to do, and
you just want to make sure you're plugged in that
way so you can stay on top of things and
get some great deals. Let's go to Lamark and we're
going to talk to Melanie. Hello, Melanie, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (02:01:32):
Good morning. I have a question.

Speaker 15 (02:01:35):
My grandmother passed away a.

Speaker 12 (02:01:37):
Couple months back.

Speaker 27 (02:01:38):
She lived in South Dakota, and we've been invited.

Speaker 2 (02:01:42):
H to dig up her garden.

Speaker 15 (02:01:46):
She has tulips and hyacinths and hollyhawks and daffodils.

Speaker 7 (02:01:53):
I'm wondering, well I'd be able to transplant them successfully
down here.

Speaker 5 (02:02:02):
Well, tulips down here are one shot wonders, meaning you
plant the bulb, they bloom, and they because of our climate,
they just aren't able to get all set up to
do it again the next year, so you kind of
get a one shot out of them. I don't know
if that's worth the trouble. You know, there's a lot
of things that can get in the way of that.
But if you can get them planted, let's say sometime

(02:02:24):
just after Christmas, right around New Year's or a little later,
even you may get one shot out of those tulips,
So that would be one thing. What was the other
two plants you said.

Speaker 13 (02:02:36):
As the highacins, the daffodils.

Speaker 22 (02:02:39):
And hollyhawks.

Speaker 5 (02:02:41):
Hyacinth again one shot wonder daffodils. Depending on the cultivar,
it may naturalize here or it may decline slowly. We
have certain types. If you knew the exact names of them,
then you could check that out. There's a place here
in Texas called Southern Bulb Company that specializes in things

(02:03:04):
that come back year after year after year. They've collected
these things from old homesteads that are abandoned and whatnot.
And so if you want some of those kinds of plants,
I would I would get them from Southern Bulb here
and some of our local garden centers will carry those two.
By the way. As far as the hollyhawks, they do
okay here, but there's a disease called rust that gets

(02:03:24):
on them and creates some issues for them. But you
could give that a try. It Just you know, when
we go that far away from here to get a plant,
the chances are less than fifty percent it's gonna like
it here. Okay, thanks, all right, mil Sorry to be

(02:03:45):
the bear of bad news on that, but why don't
you try one of those and prove me wrong? Maybe
maybe you maybe you will, all right, Thank you appreciate that.
Talked about microlife fertilizers a little bit earlier that micro
grow liquid AF. Microgrow liquid AF is the fertilizer, a

(02:04:07):
liquid that is loaded with some in fact, about eight
extremely dominating beneficial microbes that live in the soils. Some
of me can exist on the leaves for a little bit,
helping make that an inhospitable place for diseases to attack.
That's how beneficial microbes work for our plants. They also

(02:04:28):
have a different product, not liquid AF, but microbioanoculant that's
a granular. You can buy it in bags to put
on your lawn, you can brighten containers to put around
all kinds of other plants, and it has sixty three
different of those same kinds of microbes. When basically, here's
the point. Microbes rule the world, and if you want

(02:04:49):
your plants to be healthy, you got to have a
lot of healthy microbes around the plants. Those exist naturally
in the soil, and we can always enhance with products
that provide those These two products for Microlife are examples
of that type of supplementation. Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You
can find Microlife pretty much everywhere. It's widely available feed stores,

(02:05:12):
ace hardware stores, garden centers, Southwest Fertilizer, all places you
can get microlife. Now we're going to go to Hurda
and Spring Brands Herder. Congratulations, you have waited longer than
any human being is probably weighted.

Speaker 27 (02:05:27):
If I've been picking away at some paperwork. My questions
about foxtail ferns, mine all died, but at any rate.
At the Credit Union war I Bank, their gardener has

(02:05:49):
put in just two fronds. Now I bought two three
gallon pots of foxtail firm. How do I separate them?
Do I take a knife and cut those roots? Or
do I just take fingers and work the roots apart

(02:06:11):
to plant to well you'll.

Speaker 5 (02:06:13):
Wear Yeah, you'll wear your fingers out doing that. Thing
for the plant is to just plant the whole plant
in the ground. But I have taken them before. If
you get a good butcher knife kind of thing, kind
of break them apart and then pull on them a
little bit, and then cut and pull a little bit
and you can separate them out and they'll they'll do fine.

(02:06:33):
You just have to get a good stem connected to
some roots and some of those underground swollen structures that
are important to get with the plant. But yeah, you
can separate them.

Speaker 27 (02:06:44):
Okay, they kind of swell.

Speaker 4 (02:06:49):
After.

Speaker 5 (02:06:52):
Yeah, it's kind of like a little water holding type structure.
It looks like a little potato underground but almost translucent.

Speaker 27 (02:06:58):
Okay, I did.

Speaker 5 (02:06:59):
Not anyway anyway. Yeah, just divide them in half and
you'll do fine.

Speaker 27 (02:07:04):
We're all right.

Speaker 5 (02:07:05):
Good luck with those. You got to get them going,
because yeah, you got to get them going so you
can show up the credit Union.

Speaker 27 (02:07:14):
They can't have a prettier landscape than right now. Step
right and plant right now now.

Speaker 5 (02:07:22):
Be fine. If you want to wait and do it
in spring, that's fine too, It doesn't matter. Okay, thanks RDA.

Speaker 27 (02:07:26):
Thank you, Bye you.

Speaker 5 (02:07:29):
Bet bye bye. All right, I'm gonna take a little
break here. We'll be right back with your calls. Alrighty, alrighty,
we're back. We are back here on guard line. Glad
you are joining us today. Appreciate you listening in hope
you are enjoying yourself. You know my goal on guard
line is to help you have a more bountiful garden,
a more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process.

(02:07:51):
Because gardening is fine. Don't worry about if you kill plants.
If you kill plants, that just means you're becoming a
better and better gardener because we all kill a lot
of plants in our life. That's part of the way
we learn. Sometimes tough for the plants, but it's part
of the way. The part of the way we learn.
We're going to go to Baytown now and talk to Alan. Hey, Alan,

(02:08:11):
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (02:08:13):
Good boy.

Speaker 8 (02:08:14):
I have a quick question, pardon my boys. Four lots
of spreads. I had to buy a new one, and
it's a.

Speaker 22 (02:08:21):
Well known brand, but it's not listed on any of
the bags of nitro falls ye by, So I'm curious
where I'm setting that dial.

Speaker 8 (02:08:31):
It's minus in zero, just fifteen.

Speaker 5 (02:08:35):
All right, zero and fifteen. So general rule of thumb
for people with a fertilizer spreader and they don't know
where to put it, your best guess is to do
a notch or two above half. So for fifteen, if
you put it on eight, that should be about right.
I've been doing it eight or nine yeah, what else

(02:08:55):
will do? Yeah, getting getting to know this reader a
little bit better and you'll you'll adjust that. But here's
the thing. It doesn't hurt to underspread. You don't want
to overspread. Like if you put a bag of fertilizer
in your thing and and you're spreading it and you
get halfway across the yard and it should have covered
the whole thing and you've already run out, Well that's

(02:09:16):
a problem. So if you underspread, you can always go
back sideways or crossways. In fact, I like to put
about half of it out like north south and half
of it out east west, and that way you get
a nice even blend and everything looks good. So that's
just a tip.

Speaker 8 (02:09:33):
Okay, that's what I normally do.

Speaker 4 (02:09:34):
It's how I'm molograss too anyway.

Speaker 5 (02:09:37):
So yeah, there you go. There you go. Good luck
with that. Thank you, sir, Congratulations on your new spreader.
You bet by bye. It's not of a fertilizer. It's
speaking of fertilizers and spreading and really spreading any of
the products you hear me talk about, whether it's stuff
like barricade to prevent you know, weeds from sprouting or
putting out a product like Eagle to prevent diseases and stuff. Well, Southwest,

(02:10:02):
first of all, they carry all those products. They also
have fertilizer spreaders and they also have the little handheld
spreaders you crank. I use those for putting out fire
at bait oh and Southwest has firet bait. In fact,
let me make this easy. If they don't have it,
you don't need it. They have everything you need at
Southwest Fertilizer. I've been around since nineteen fifty five, and

(02:10:22):
they're in Southwest Houston corner Bisonett and Runwick. While you're
in there, you're going to see a ninety foot wall
of tools, gardening tools, so every kind of tool you
can imagine. Someone contacted me of the day they want
to make my little fertilizer or my weed wiper that
I have on my website at Gardening with Skip dot com,
and I just said, well, go to Southwest. They sell

(02:10:45):
the little grabber tool that you used to make a
weed wiper. It's a really cool too. If you haven't
seen one before, go to Gardening with Skip dot com.
Check out that weed wiper. I'm telling you I use
it all the time for different things. If you got
poison ivy coming up under eat the rosebush. You can
get the you can get the product on the poison
ivy without killing your rosebush. You see what I'm talking

(02:11:05):
about has a lot of good uses. Southwest Fertilizer is
always going to have stuff. They have a little shop
in the back for your engine repair. They've got they're
able to sharpen mower blades, which hey, mowing seasons coming
down here to winding down. Go ahead and get those
blades sharpen. That's very very important. And anything you want
to take in there and show them, Hey, what do
I use for this? What is this? Is this bug dangerous?

(02:11:28):
Or is it harmful to my plants? They can tell
you that. Southwest Fertilizer dot Com seven to one three
six six six, seventeen forty four. We are now going
to go out to talk to one in Cyprus. Hey one,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 28 (02:11:43):
Hey guys, how are y'all doing? Yeah, we love Southwest Fertilizer.
By the way, anyways, I have this oleander that I
just realized. My wife told me that I guess it's
poisonous and kind of I guess. We have little kids
and dogs I'm not sure if it's which is kind
of gets one of replace it with something else.

Speaker 5 (02:12:02):
Okay, Well, oleander's an evergreen shrub, so I guess you're
looking for kind of an evergreen shrub. Does it need
to be a certain height or what?

Speaker 28 (02:12:13):
It's right next to the wind somewhere out right next
to the windows and kind of by the door, so
maybe maybe four to five feet.

Speaker 5 (02:12:22):
Okay, in decent It takes decent sunlight to grow a
good dense shrub, and I assume if oleander was there,
it must be getting some sun, right.

Speaker 28 (02:12:32):
Yeah, it is facing southeast, we get the morning all
morning sun. In the afternoon, well yeah, kind of in yeah,
the morning sun, so it does get a lot of light.

Speaker 5 (02:12:43):
Okay, Well, there's a lot of good options. There are
some dwarf types of Chinese witch hazel. Chinese witch hazel,
the new growth comes out burgundy, especially in cooler temperatures,
and in spring they produce these hot, pink, shaggy blooms
that are really pretty. Now, some of the Chinese witch
hazel can get huge, and you don't want to have

(02:13:04):
to be printing them all the time to keep them small.
So when you go shopping for one. You're up in
the Cypress area, you know, you can head up to
Arbrigade or over to Plants Rail Seasons. Both those places
are going to carry these shrubs. Get one that's a
little more dwarf and you can look on there. There
are several that'll be in the four foot range. Could

(02:13:26):
be kept a little smaller if you had to. But
I think it's a pretty shrub, and so I would
try that one. It likes a little bit of an
acidic soil, so if you can put a lot of
compost and a little bit of sulfur down in the
soil to lower the pH it does even better. Or
you can just add keylated lime to it if you
start to see yellowing new growth. But it is a

(02:13:46):
pretty shrub.

Speaker 4 (02:13:49):
All right.

Speaker 9 (02:13:49):
That sounds good.

Speaker 5 (02:13:50):
I appreciate it. Yeah, And when you're up at either
of those garden centers, they know so much about everything,
they probably have five or six different shrubs. They would
tell you, hey, consider this one too while you're up there.
Good luck with that one.

Speaker 4 (02:14:05):
Thank you so much, all.

Speaker 5 (02:14:06):
Right, take care you bye. Appreciate your call. By by h,
we wanna we want to go to Memorial now and
talk to Chad. Hey, Chad, welcome to guarden Line.

Speaker 9 (02:14:19):
Gay.

Speaker 17 (02:14:19):
Thank you for having me. And you mentioned earlier killing
plants you learned, So here we are. But uh, I
got a question for you. We wrote back on buffalo
value in the Memorial area and have a uh. We
have eagleson hollies and southern wax myrtles aligning the fence
lines in the back for privacy hedges. And I had
about a twenty foot section of scents that was was

(02:14:40):
partial shade that we came in the last spring. I
did a bunch of Japanese used. They were thirty gallon
Japanese used. The reason we went with them is they
weren't getting full sun in that area at the time,
and we thought they could. You know, it's partial son.
They were getting some but not not full on like
the rest of the backyard. Anyway, during the storm the
hurricane we lost lost a huge retto that was shading

(02:15:03):
providing partial shade to these us And ever since then,
starting about I guess about forty five days ago, I'm
starting to get these brown stalks on the US and
they're dying back and I'm just I'm perplexed. I don't
know if I'm underwatering them. I don't know if I'm
overwater them. I don't think i'm overwater them. I don't
know if it's just too much sun coming in there now.

(02:15:24):
But these are thirty gallon used, and there was a
little bit of an investment here, and I'm just trying
to decide if I need a kind of maybe these
or if I just working out coming in with something
something else.

Speaker 5 (02:15:33):
So yeah, Japanese use can take the sun now. A
supply change with any plant catches them off guard. But
the branch is turning brown is not a sun symptom.
The only thing sun is doing is it's making the
water use go way way up on those plates compared
to partial shade. So it could be a lack of water.
We have had an extended period of dry and most

(02:15:54):
of the listening area here, and I would lean toward that.
If you get a little hand trowel and go out
about a foot or so from the plant and dig
down about four to six inches and feel the soil
moist soil, you know you can feel what moist is.
I mean if if you squeeze soil and water drips out,
that's too wet. And if you if you can tell

(02:16:15):
by you're just feeling it if it's not moist or not.
I my guess is you need to give a good
soaking when you water a better more volume gradually applied
to solve the soil deeply, and you don't have the
water as often. But you don't want to water shallowly
and and where the root system develops real shallow because

(02:16:37):
that's much more erratic in terms of performance.

Speaker 17 (02:16:40):
Yeah, I think what happened here is I got in
August when this drought was settling in. I got a
little behind schedule, and I've been trying to catch up
what I've learned about these uses.

Speaker 4 (02:16:49):
Once they start going brown, there's.

Speaker 17 (02:16:50):
Really no recovery hard.

Speaker 5 (02:16:53):
So we'll get Yeah, give them those good soakings, I
think probably my guess. I mean, of course I'm having
to guess, but lack of water, I think is probably
what you're you're looking at. And also follow a branch
that's brown downward until it attaches to something that has
green leaf, in other words, that's alive. And just see

(02:17:14):
if you see any splits in the bark along there,
if you've see any holes in the bark like something
drilled in, or look for those splits could be due
to cold, they could be due to a canker. But
prune all the dead out just in case a canker
were involved, cut it back to where it joins a
living stem, and then in between cuts, spray spray your

(02:17:36):
pruners with lysol just in case, like there were a
bacteria or something that's on it. You don't want to
spread it with new wounds that you're going to make,
So just disinfect between cuts. We're being extra cautious in
case a canker disease were involved.

Speaker 4 (02:17:51):
Gotcha, gotcha? All right?

Speaker 20 (02:17:53):
I appreciate your time, appreciate you buyes.

Speaker 4 (02:17:54):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 5 (02:17:55):
All right, you bet, thanks for the call. You take care,
appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (02:18:01):
You know.

Speaker 5 (02:18:01):
I love birds. I talk about birds all the time
in my landscape, and now is the time to be
taking care of the birds for the winter season coming up.
You know, as the days get shorter, and isn't you know,
get weather gets colder, birds need fuel and they have
less time out there to fly around looking for food.
So a good feeder that is stocked up with wild birds,

(02:18:23):
unlimited super blend, it's a winter super blend. I know
it's not winter but it's time to use the winter
super blend. It's packed with fat and protein. And always
remember these dry conditions. I was just visiting about there
which had birds need water every day. I mean it
could be zero degrees outside in the winter, they got
to drink that day, so they got to have water

(02:18:45):
every day of the year. Keep a reliable water source,
especially with this drought we've been having. If you want
to keep one of your humming bird feeders up, maybe
just one, a small one through the holidays, you may
find a wintering roofous hummingbirds sticking around. Some of them,
you know, head onto Mexico go, but a lot of
them kind of hit our way along the Gulf coast
and hang out here. Wildbird's Unlimited is the place to go.

(02:19:07):
By the way, next weekend, I'm going to be in
Kingwood at the wild Birds Store there. I'll tell you
more about that tomorrow. But anyone out at Kingwood, if
you've never been to a wild Birds store, come out
and see me out there too. By the way, wildbirds
feed feeders, houses, quality bird seed, everything you need, and

(02:19:28):
oh most importantly, perhaps is really good advice from wildbirds. Well,
it looks like I am seeing another break approaching here. Wow,
that went kind of fast. I want to mention the
folks at Nelson Water Gardens. If you are out in
the West Houston area, this is your i'll say hometown, hometown,

(02:19:52):
West Houston garden center. It's really a destination place. You
go to Nelson Water Gardens. Of course you're going to
find things like water gardening plants and fish for water gardens,
and the water gardens themselves and the beautiful, disappearing fountains
where the water spills over this tall, tall vase looking
structure in the land. Oh, those are so gargeous. The

(02:20:13):
sound of water is therapy and you need something like
that for your backyard, and Nelson Watergardens has it. Nelson
Nursery and water Gardens actually, because they are loaded with
lots of quality plants. Whatever the plants for the season are,
you're going to find them and more, that and more
at Nelson Water Gardens. Got to I tend to Katie

(02:20:33):
turned north on Katie Fort Ben Road and they'll just
be just a little bit down the road there on
the right hand side. Nelson Watergardens dot com. Nelson Watergardens
dot com. Go check out their website, follow them on
social media. It's a really cool place. All right, folks,
I'll be right back. Welcome back to garden Line, folks.
It is good to have you with us. We still

(02:20:55):
got stuff to talk about, stuff to talk about. How
do we hope you have success? Earlier I was talking
to some folks about planting fruit trees a couple different calls,
and I mentioned something called chilling hours. Chilling hours are
an important thing that you need to be aware of

(02:21:16):
when you're doing any kind of gardening with fruit trees.
All right, so let me explain chilling hours. Basically, a
chilling hour is an hour spent at a temperature around
forty to forty five degrees in the wintertime, of course,
and what happens is your fruit trees go dormant and

(02:21:38):
the leaves fall off and the fruit buds are already there.
They formed in late summer and fall early fall, and
so they're on the trees. Now, those buds don't just
start growing because they have an inhibitor in them. And
when temperatures are around forty to forty five degrees, that's
when you get the most chilling hours. Colder, a little

(02:21:59):
bit warm, a little bit but not much, but that's
the sweet spot our spent at that time. It's breaking
down those inhibitors so that when we get warm weather
then the buds burst forth and grow. So if you
have a tree that's low chilling, like let's says that's
two hundred hours, and you live in an area that
gets five hundred hours or six hundred hours, well it's

(02:22:21):
going to have achieved that two hundred hours chilling requirement
way before spring. So the first warm days in January
or February, it's busting out in blooming and we may
still have another freeze left. On the other hand, if
you have a variety that needs six hundred hours and
you only get two hundred, well here comes spring. It
warms up and everything else is growing, but this thing

(02:22:42):
is still inhibited. It's still going wait, wait, wait, I'm
not done with getting my chilling hours. And it sputters
out of spring. It doesn't perform well. You get some
leaves at the end of the branch and then long
sections of branch with nothing on them either way is
a mess. Always look for the chilling requirement of your pair,
your peaches, plums, apples, those kinds of things. Those fruit

(02:23:04):
trees have a certain chilling requirement. You want to make
sure and buy varieties that have that requirement that match
where you live, and they'll do real well. You can
go to Aggie Horticulture's website, find the fruit and nuts section,
click on those publications by for apples or four pears
or for peaches, for example, and it'll tell you the

(02:23:25):
chilling ranges across the state and the varieties that might
fit that. Pretty well. Let's see, We're going to go
now to Clear Lake and talk to Mario. I'm good,
what's up?

Speaker 4 (02:23:43):
Well?

Speaker 21 (02:23:43):
I planted a I planted.

Speaker 5 (02:23:45):
A Japanese blueberry in the spring and it has not
grown at all in height.

Speaker 8 (02:23:53):
Now I'm wondering if I if they.

Speaker 21 (02:23:55):
Come in various varieties.

Speaker 8 (02:23:57):
Where some of them just play us at height, or
if I'm doing something wrong.

Speaker 5 (02:24:04):
I'm not aware of a dwarf when it may exist
out there. Most of the ones I know get pretty
pretty large in time. Yeah, it's establishing. It's establishing itself,
so it should grow a little bit first year, not
like it'll grow in future years. But I would say
maybe a lack of water. Maybe water is enough to

(02:24:25):
keep it alive, but not enough to restimulate growth. I
wouldn't at this point in time do much because we're
going into winter and you don't want to stimulate succulent
new growth that's just going to be cold burn, cold
killed when we have a hard freeze. So I would
have I would avoid I would avoid pushing it now,
but in spring, I would start off with a good

(02:24:46):
quality fertilizer. You know, I've I've talked about a lot
of the different fertilizers that we have. The folks and
Nielson plant Food. They have a fertilizer that is excellent
for tree and shrubs that you may want to consider. Well,
those are some ideas.

Speaker 8 (02:25:05):
Now, should I put heavy watering before it gets cold
or just leave it alone?

Speaker 5 (02:25:14):
No, not heavy watering, just a good soaking. Just put
enough water out there so that you know so that
it's going to capture about an inch of water, so
that you know it. Maybe that it runs off before
you put on on the inch, so you water a
little while, let it soak in water a little while. Again,
if you got a sprinkler, just set a straight sided

(02:25:35):
can or rain gage or anything to measure rain or
irrigation and water until you've caught an inch. And again
if you have to do that in two waterings.

Speaker 8 (02:25:44):
That's fine, okay, great, Well, you've always been very helpful.

Speaker 21 (02:25:48):
I really appreciate your advice.

Speaker 19 (02:25:50):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 5 (02:25:52):
You bet, thank you very much. Appreciate your call. All right,
let's see here, Bye bye. Arburgate is one of the
most well known garden centers in our area, and for
good reason. It's because it is a destination. You go
out to Arburgate, which by the way, is a mile
and a half west of two forty nine on twenty
nine to twenty in Tomball, So go up to tom

(02:26:14):
Ball if you're going from Houston area, go up, turn
left on twenty nine to twenty gobout a mile and
a half and it's on the left there. They have
a nice parking lot in the back on something called
Trichel Road, which is a little loop that goes around.
So whether you're before Arbrogate or after Arburgate, there's a
Trischel Road. You turned on either one and it'll swing
around behind it and you really really good parking there.

(02:26:36):
Arburgate always has whatever you need for the season, and
their gift shops are always stocked with really nice gifts,
really nice things for a gift, so you're going to
go see Grandma or family for Thanksgiving, good night, grabbing
something from Arbigate could be a plant, could be something
from the gift shop. I like to get plants because
you know, plants just keep on giving a year after

(02:26:58):
year after year. And I look at plants someone gave me.
I always remember who gave me that plant, and it's
just a it's a fond memory. But Arbigate will get
you set up. Make sure when you go to Arbigate,
you go home with the plants you want, but also
with the three bags Arbigates Organic Food Complete, Herbrigates Organic
Soil Complete, and Arbigates Organic Compost Complete. Those three are as,

(02:27:24):
I like to say, the brown stuff that makes the
green stuff grow. Always go home with that. And when
you're out there, you're going to find fruit trees. You're around,
you're gonna find flowers and herbs and vegetables and just
whatever plant. But I would say most importantly, other than
the fact that it's just fun to go, is the
staff that knows what they're talking about and can steer

(02:27:46):
you right. They've got experience, they've got knowledge. I talk
to them all the time, and I mean we sometimes
we work out some really hard problems on plants and
issues that come in. But they are on top of it.
They know their stuff that, as they say, is worth
the price of admission right there by the way, it
doesn't cost anything to get into Urbrocade. All right, Well,

(02:28:07):
I got to take a little break. When I come back.
David and Clare Lake, you'll be the first. All right,
Welcome to Goldline folks. Good to have you with us.
Just want to remind you that I'm gonna be heading
over to Katie Hardware on Penoak Road after the show today.
I'll be there from twelve noon to two pm. Come

(02:28:29):
on out and see me. Katie Hardware, Pinoak Road that's
north of I ten, north of I ten, a little
easy to find. We will be giving away twelve or
three different nine to five products that are part of
their three step program. We're gonna be at twelve backs,
like four bags of each, I believe is the number.
It's like stuff's gonna be going everywhere. Come on out,

(02:28:52):
you got a good chance to win. I'll be there
answering your questions. Bring me samples in a bag, bring
me pictures on your phone. We will solve the problems
and get to the bottom of it, get a good
photo taken. And while you're out there you can see
a really cool Ace Hardware store. That is a really
nice place, and I hope you'll come out again twelve
to two pm today Katie Hardware on Pinoak Road, just

(02:29:16):
north of Y ten out there in Katy by the way. Again,
kind of wanting you to be aware of this. I've
been doing a lot of appearances this fall. This is
the last one I'm going to do that's anywhere toward
the west. Next time I'm do it an appearance way
out in Kingwood to these So for all of you
from Central on to the west, this is a good
chance to come on out and see me. Maybe last

(02:29:40):
call I should say, we're going to go to clear
Lake now and talk to David. Hello, David, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 4 (02:29:47):
Hey Skip, good to talk to you.

Speaker 8 (02:29:49):
Quick quick question.

Speaker 17 (02:29:50):
I was going to put down carbaload on my yard.

Speaker 6 (02:29:53):
Can I put it into the flower beds?

Speaker 3 (02:29:55):
That?

Speaker 9 (02:29:56):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (02:29:58):
Are you ever going to plant c in the flower beds?

Speaker 17 (02:30:03):
Not not this year.

Speaker 5 (02:30:06):
The next year, next year? Okay, then then you could.
Carbo looad has a pre emergent herbicide in it and
so you know, if you were going to seed, it
will prevent flower seeds just like it prevents weed seeds.
So you could do that. If I were you, though,
I would grab a different product from Nelson. Nelson has
a lot of good products out there. Carverload is fine.

(02:30:28):
I mean it's awesome for the lawn, but just to avoid,
you know, adding the herbicide into the bed, should you
decide to plan any seeds, why don't you grab one
of their other products. Bruce's Brew is one that they
have that would be an excellent one going in for
winter color. It's it's got a good boost of nitrogen
in it, and it would be a good choice. That

(02:30:50):
is a Nelson product that would work real well.

Speaker 17 (02:30:54):
And then should I put that before I remote for
the winter?

Speaker 5 (02:31:00):
Yeah, you would do that. I mean if you had
mulched down, you could sprinkle it kind of rake the
maultch just so the particles fall into the soil and
then water it in. But if you haven't meltched yet, yeah, Now,
I said Bruce is Bury. You know you were talking
about lawn fertilizers and Bruce's Bruce is a lawn fertilizer
you could use for that You could also get color Star,
which is made for that It's made for blooming beds,

(02:31:23):
blooming plants, and so Colorstar comes. You probably buy it
by the bag, but typically in garden centers you're gonna
find the little jars of it that you can sprinkle out.

Speaker 17 (02:31:34):
Okay, perfect good information.

Speaker 5 (02:31:37):
Okay, all right, thank you very much. Have fun creating
a beautiful place out there. You know. Green Pro is
a company that provides aeration and compost top dressing for
the northwest quadron of Houston. And when I say that,
I mean intertate forty five to I ten basically. So anyway,

(02:32:00):
the other way to put it is about forty five
miles from Magnolia. So if you're up north and you
know the Woodlands and Conroe and Willis direction, if you're
down towards Spring and Cyprus up in Montgomery and Magnolia
up kind of north and west down to Katie West
Houston over to Central Houston, you know, kind of up
north central area of Houston. That's their area. And they

(02:32:24):
had a really good deal going. They'll aerate your lawn
for free. If you purchase the compost top dressing service.
You have to buy two yards at compost on that offer.
They're not going to drive tim buck two with one
yard at compost to do it, so you need to
buy two but rice to start at five seventy five
plus tax. Of course, it depends on how big your
yard is and how much composts you're putting out and

(02:32:44):
all that kind of thing. All you have to do
is go to the website greenpro dot net, greenpro dot net.
Here's a phone numbers two eight one three five one
forty seven thirty three two eight one three five one
forty seven thirty three. Listen. Aerating and composttop dressing helps

(02:33:05):
whole moisture. It allows you to get a good deep
soaking from rain or your irrigation, which means you're watering
a little bit less because you're getting that water you're
plying down into the soil. They've been doing this longer
than anyone here in the Houston area. And although it
is an investment to do aeration and compost stop dressing,
it's a lot cheaper than resotting. And a lot of

(02:33:26):
lawns I've seen around the area from the heat the
drought we had take all root, rock, chinchbugs, all the
stresses are really losing sections of the lawn and green
pro is can come out and do that aeration compost
top dressing in a way that helps you get your
lawn growing and back in business again. Greenpro dot net

(02:33:51):
go check them out. That's a good deal too, by
the way, free aeration with a two yard minimum comp
top dressing. I like that well. Our phone number if
you'd like to give me a call seven to one
to three two one two kt RH. I got time

(02:34:12):
for a really quick call. I mean, if it's really quick,
I got one in me left, so let's do that.
I just want to remind you again, I've talked about
a number of things today, but this is the last call,
uh pretty much on taking care of those lawns and
getting ready for spring. Every week you wait makes the
things you're doing a little less effective. You know, you

(02:34:35):
wait too long to put a P for emergent down
the weeds are very sprouted. You wait too long to
put disease prevention down the rompat circles already there. You
wait too long to fertilize, and it's cooling off enough
to where the grass is kind of in a holding
pattern and it's not taking up and utilizing those nutrients
as well, and that fall fertilization is so important. And

(02:34:56):
it's hard to convince people of this, but the most
important furtize of the year is the fall application. And
here's why. It strengthens the plant coming out of the
summer that we just had. It also puts the carbohyd
It helps the plant make carbohydrates for winter heartiness. Sun
shines on leaves. It's right now, they say, make hay

(02:35:19):
while the sun shines. Make carbohydrates while the sunshines. And
your grass is doing that right now, and that helps
for winter hardiness. And then finally, do you know that
when the grass starts to grow in the spring, it
is not your spring fertilizer that's making it grow. It's
the fall fertilizer because the energy is stored in the
plant and form a carbohydrates to support spring growth. So

(02:35:41):
when things warm up a little bit and the grass
begins to grow based on that fall fertilization energy, then
we put our spring fertilizations on. When we begin to
mow the lawn, that's time to start the spring fertilizations
out there. Fall is so important. So if you're only
a fertilized once a year, I'd say do it in
the fall, but I hope you do it twice at
least fallen spring, and then of course summer if you

(02:36:03):
want to just take a notch further. We're going to
see if we can get a call in real quick care.
We're gonna go to Sabrina. Hey, Sabrina, how can we
help today?

Speaker 20 (02:36:12):
Hi?

Speaker 14 (02:36:13):
Very quickly. I've got a weed and it's in my backyard.
It's kind of a wiry, bright green weed with the
little white flower that's bloomed with a little yellow dot
in the center. They're very hard to pull. I was wondering.
I know you've talked about your your weed things that

(02:36:33):
you dabber, but what kind of We put down the
nitrophoss barricade, and we did the fall special fertilizer. But
with this rain, all of a sudden these popped up
all over. How can I resolve this?

Speaker 5 (02:36:46):
Okay? Does the white flower look like almost like a
little daisy with little white strappy palace?

Speaker 6 (02:36:51):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (02:36:52):
Yes, okay, that is fall that's fall aster and you
need to hand pull them right now. No post emergency.
Oh one fall aster plant. I posted something to to
facebook page. Go look at our guardline Facebook. I talked
about them. One fall will produce, can produce thousands of seeds,
and pull that plant as soon as possible before the

(02:37:14):
seed pods all dry and start to fall apart. It
comes out of one spot. It may be as big
as the steering wheel on your car. It's got one
tap root, and if the soil is moist, you can
grab it and wiggle as you pull, and it comes
right out. I have a neighbor that never controls their weeds.
Their fall asters come onto my side and every fall
I go out there with the five gallon bucket and

(02:37:35):
pull them out. And this year I didn't see one
fall aster on my side coming out. Okay, because you will.
You will win that war if you don't let them
produce seed.

Speaker 14 (02:37:45):
Okay, okay, great, thank you so much. I will go
out there and pull up my whole yard. You have
a wonderful weekend.

Speaker 5 (02:37:54):
All right, weekend too, take care of thank you. You know,
growing up, growing up, I have to pull weeds whenever
I misbehaved. And I'm just gonna say this, and you
can see if you can make a plus B equal C.
We had the most weed free garden in town. Let

(02:38:14):
you figure that out. It's a wonder I ever became
a horticultures of My basic experience was hoeing. Hey, I'm
about to leave and head to Katie Hardware on Pinoak Road.
Out in Katie, come on out and see me. Bring
some plants, bring some pictures. Mainly bring yourself and perhaps
win some Nelson or scanning nitrophos lots of bags of

(02:38:37):
nitrofos fall special and barricade and egle