Outside Feels Right, Plants Need to Follow

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skip Richard.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Basis gas.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Can you want the trip you just watching as work going?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Basis?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Can you brats to see Britain in the bay?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
The basis the gas?

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Can you dislo back again?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Not sad brasses the gay and you.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
So be.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
All right, folks stop. Welcome to garden Line. Good to
have you with us on this Sunday morning. Going to
be a great day out there. If you're a if
you got one drop of gardening blood in you, this
week ought to be really excited. I mean exciting. You
got to be excited about the weeks. What I'm trying
to say is early in the morning for me anyway.

(01:27):
You know, it's kind of like if you ever listen
to Footloose, you know by Kenny Loggins. If you can
listen to Footloose and your foot's not tapping, you need
to check your pulse because something is seriously wrong. If
you're a gardener and you are not excited about the
weather this week, oh my gosh, wow, it's going to
be great this afternoon. Be a good time to get
out to a garden center and get you some supplies,

(01:49):
get you some things you need stop buy your you
know your ace hardware stores, stop buy your feed store.
We got a lot of great places here in town
to get you ready to have a great spring, and
that's what we're working on today. You know, products for example,
like Microlife. Microlife fertilizers have been around a long time,
fact for over thirty five years now. It's the number
one selling organic fertilizer here in the Greater Houston area.

(02:11):
And it's not just Greater Houston. I mean to go
all the way to San Antonio, Austin place that you
see Microlife for sale A long long region around here
are a wide region. And the reason is it works.
That's the bottom line. Microlife fertilizers are based on microbes.
That's why it says micro Life microbes rule the world.
They definitely keep the plants happy. Nutrients go through microbes

(02:35):
in order to be turned into a form plants can use.
That's what they do. Microlife fertilizer is designed around that
it's loaded with microbes. When you purchase a product from Microlife,
you're going to be getting along with it a lot
of microbes.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
A couple of the products I particularly like, one of
them is the Blue label. That's Ocean Harvest. The Microlife
Blue label. It's a four to two three fertilizer fish based,
So you want to use that out side. That's a
primary place you're going to use this. It's not going
to burn. You can use it as a you know,
as a diluted solution for you know, starting a little
seedlings or something like that. You can fold your feed

(03:11):
with it. You can you know, drench it over a
root system to give plants a boost. Another one I
like is Microlife Biomatrix. That's an orange label. You can
use it indoors or outdoors. These are both liquid. You
can buy them in a quart or a gallon. Well,
anyway you you mix it up according to the label. Again,
you're not going to burn with it, but that higher
nitrogen content in it really pushes leafy growth. So it's

(03:33):
great for house plants for example, but it's good for
any kind of plants anywhere you want to give plants
a real quick boost to get them going. That's what
I use. I basically keep the orange label near me
all the time when I'm doing gardening stuff. It's right
there in the shed with me, and it works. That's
about that's the bottom line. That's why we use it.

(03:53):
And you know you can get microlife again anywhere all
through this region. For example, Southwest Fertilize, Southwest Fertilizer in
the corner of Business and Runwick. You hear me talk
about them all the time. This place has been around
for seventy years. They're having their seventieth birthday this year. Now,
you don't stick around seventy years if you're not doing
something right, that's for sure, and treating your customers right.

(04:16):
But you go in to Southwest Fertilizer, you're going to
find microlife. You're also going to find all the full
range of products you hear me talk about here on
garden Line. You're going to find things to control pests, weeds,
and diseases. And if you are are looking to prevent
weeds or to control weeds that exists, they've got everything
you need for that. If you're an organic gardener, you're

(04:38):
not going to find a larger selection of organic supplies
anywhere in Houston than right there. You're just not. It's
the one stop shop. And when I say one stop shop,
i'm talking about also mulch also, you know, compost and
soil amendments. They're going to have azamite in there. You're
going to find Nature's Way and heirloom soil resources. You're

(05:00):
gonna find all the Medina products that you need in there.
For sure. They have a nice seed selection, both the
little packets and the bins where you take the little
scoop and you fill your own envelope. That's the most
economical way to buy seed right there. You know the tools.
I can just go sit there and drool and look
at the ninety foot wall of tools. Because quality brands,
you know, Falco, Corona. Don't buy cheap tools. Buy tools

(05:23):
that are quality for a reasonable price, and you will
save a lot of money in the long run, plus
a lot of headaches. I've thrown away a bunch of
cheap tools in my life. Unfortunately, I learned long ago
not to do that. Ask them to see the garden
kneeling seat that I always talk about. They've got those
in there as well. Just go in and check it out.
I don't care where you live. You're listening to this,

(05:44):
sometimes you need to get over there and check out
Southwest Fertilizer Corner Bissinet and Runwick. You're gonna get friendly service.
You're gonna get quality products, and you're going to get
not just great selection, but unbelievable selection. Southwest Fertilizer dot
Com six or seven to one three six one seven
four four if you would like to try that, and

(06:06):
I hope you will. In fact, I haven't been by
there in over a month now. I need to get
back over there. I always I always stop in to
visit a Bob and see what's going on over there,
because they they definitely have the things that are that
are happening in my own garden. I've got some containers
that are waiting for me to take care of them.
Some of them are just bare because I pull the

(06:28):
soil or the plants out from last planting, last falls planting,
and they're just waiting on me to put new plants in.
You notice sometimes that you have to top off containers
that maybe it was full in the spring, and then
by the time you get to next spring, it's like whoa,
it is really sunken down in this container. That's the

(06:48):
natural process of a gosh, you can't say oxid is oxidation.
We you know, we just think of it as composting. Basically,
leaves become common post composts becomes humous, and so all
the way down that line, things are breaking down more
and more and more, and in that oxidation process. That's good.

(07:09):
That's nature. That's what nature does. You just need to
remember to top things off a little bit and get
you some good fresh material and build that back up.
Whether you're using a very fine textured potting soil, whether
you're using a chunkier thing and a larger container, either
way you're going to have success with that. So if

(07:31):
you haven't tried a lot of containers before, you really
ought to, because it is one of the simplest, easiest
ways to garden that anybody can garden. And I mean
it is very, very easy, and it's beautiful too. And
the nice thing about containers is no matter where you
need something, you can stick a container there. I've got
containers sitting out a little concrete pad in my lawn,

(07:54):
you know, one of those disks you move around. I've
got containers on driveways. I've got containers on pad. You
can make beauty anywhere, and you can make beauty fast.
That is the way to go. Hey, I need to
take a little break. I'm going to do that right now,
and I will be right back. All right, welcome back
to the guard Line. Glad to have you with us today.

(08:18):
Looking forward to talking to you about the kinds of
things that you are wondering about. Whatever, whatever the topic is,
we're here to help. And you know what I wanted
to This is the time of year where I make
it's a gardening bug. I understand that spring is the time,
the main time people feel that way. I wish people
felt that way and fall more they do in fall,

(08:39):
but I fall out to be equal or greater than
spring when it comes to gardening excitement. But anyway, spring
is the time. And if you have been looking at
your place and you just don't like the look of it,
and you're thinking, you know what, I don't have the skill,
I don't know how to design. I don't want to
do the work you need to call Piercescapes because they

(09:00):
do all the above and more. There are preferred landscaper
for a reason because when they come in, they change
things and they make them beautiful. They do really good
work there. They a lot of their employees hold you know,
distinguish landscape, irrigation, drainage, backflow, pesticide certifications, licenses, I mean,

(09:21):
these are quality trained staff. They have designers who know
how to design something beautiful, whether it's a whole landscape
design or a portion of the landscape. If you need irrigation,
you know, repair and getting it working right, lighting, drainage,
whatever it is, they can do it. And hard scapes,
oh my gosh, they're so good at that as well.

(09:41):
You need to go to the website piercescapes dot com
piercescapes dot com, and I tell you what, go there
and look at the pictures. If you want to give
them a call, it's two eight one three, seven fifty sixty.
But just go there, check out, look at examples of
the work they do. Get an idea for what I'm
talking about and you'll see it. You'll go, oh my gosh,

(10:03):
I never even thought about lighting like that. For that,
that is stunning. They can do that and give them
a call. Go buy there, check it out, sit down
with them, you know, take some pictures. Just talk to
them first. They'll tell you what they need you to do,
and when they get through with your place, it will
be amazing. It's turkey. They know their work.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
I'm a I'm a horticulturist, but I'm not a designer,
and so I'm a plant person. I'm a I somewhat
jokingly refer to us as plant collectors. Those people like me. Now,
how do you know a plant collector versus a designer? Well,
a designer, the place looks beautiful. You drive by, you
may not even care about plants, and it's pretty. It's beautiful.

(10:44):
A plant collector, our place looks like a bomb went
off in a garden center and everything rooted where it landed,
and that's our landscape. It's just that's a little harsh.
But we go somewhere, we say I want that plant
without a thought of where is it going to go?
Is it part of a place?

Speaker 5 (11:00):
Land?

Speaker 2 (11:00):
And I want that plant? And then we walk around
trying to find someplace to squeeze it in or pull
something else out to put it in. And that is
not a good way. That is not a good way
to go about designing your landscape. You may be you
may also be a plant collector like me. So anyway,
if that makes sense, I guess you get it. Have

(11:22):
you ever been to Spring Creek feed Supply that's out
there in the Magnolia direction area from Tomball. It's really
close to Grand park Way and two forty nine both
Spring Creek Feed Center is a place where you walk
in and number one, it's impressive. It's just a it's
a gorgeous, beautiful place. So much product inside, so many

(11:44):
different kinds of things, not just feed, not just feed,
of course, they have feed quality feed for your pets,
for your farm and ranch and whatnot. They have friendly folks,
friendly folks that greet you, take care of you. They
make sure that you get what you need. They get
your hands on that product. If you're a backyard chicken
person and you just love backyard chickens, well they're going

(12:04):
to have all the supplies that you need now Spring
Creek Feed. If you want to get a call, here's
the number. Two eight one two five two five four
zero zero two eight one two five two five four
zero zero. They are on FM twenty nine seventy eight again,
FM twenty nine seventy eight, just minutes away from Graham

(12:25):
Parkway and Highway two forty nine Combat Parkway. They call
that one. I love going into feed stores. I love
the smell of feed stores.

Speaker 6 (12:35):
I just do.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
I grew up when I was a kid, you know,
toddled in with my my dad to feed store and
you know, to buy things for the farm, and it
just I don't know, it's just a nice, familiar, old fragrance.
You know. Fragrances, They they last someone can I'm going
off topic here, but someone can be struggling in a

(12:57):
lot of ways mentally, and you bring in a certain
and smell, maybe a fresh baked cookie smell, and suddenly
they go back eighty years to Grandma making them one
or something. You know, it's a it's a cool thing
the way fragrances work for us. Well, we're gonna go
out to the phones and talk to Tim. Hey, Tim,
where is braskin State Park? Or where are you? All right? Tim,

(13:24):
I'm not able to hear you. Let's see if I'm
gonna put you back on hold there hopefully hopefully there
we go. All right, now we got Tim? Hey, Tim, Hey,
how are you doing this morning? I'm good? Where are
you located? Oh?

Speaker 7 (13:41):
I'm out here by the brides Fork?

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I got you? All right? What can how can we
help today?

Speaker 7 (13:47):
I have a bailey bush and I have these black
spots on the leaves, and then the leaves eventually start
turning brown and fall off.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
All right, is this U Is this the native red
bay or is this the culinary bay that you use
for cooking one for cooking? Okay, all right? That that
blackening of the leaves is typical when things go wrong
on that plant. It could be different things. It could
be a root problem such as soggy wet conditions, or

(14:20):
it could be due to even droughty conditions can but
that usually doesn't turn the leaves black. Another possibility is
some cold damage. We've had some good cold snaps, and
that is not a fully cold hardy tree. And although
it can take some cold, if we're having warm weather
and then cold hits, it makes that less hardy and

(14:43):
you would get damage at a temperature you wouldn't have
expected to get damage at. Okay, So go ahead.

Speaker 7 (14:52):
When I bought it from Danny in Channa Garden or forest, whichever,
that one is overall in booths twenty fifty nine.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, that's intended for us.

Speaker 7 (15:03):
Yeah, chen forest, that's.

Speaker 8 (15:04):
What it is.

Speaker 7 (15:05):
And then I took a leaf back and they give
me a like a three. She said it was like
a spot, a black spot, mold or something. Okay, and
she give me a h like an insistence a face
the side, fung your side, all that kind of mixed
together and once spray, okay, and I've been spraying it

(15:26):
once well one, I was supposed to pray once a week.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
I kind of get around there, you know, best I can.

Speaker 7 (15:32):
And it's still not taking care of it. That's been
two to three.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Months, so it's not getting better. You're saying, well, no, sir,
I don't have the leaves in my hand, and they did.
They may have seen city mold on it. Is it?
Is it something that's on the surface of the leaf
that's black, like if you wet your thumb and rubbed
it over the leaf and go away, or is it
the whole leaf itself is actually black.

Speaker 7 (15:56):
No, it's just spots on it, and I really haven't
tried to wipe it off.

Speaker 9 (16:00):
With my thumb.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
But okay, that is probably cudy mold due to some
type of scale. And these scales suck juices out of
the plant. They get the nutrients out of the juice,
and they basically excrete the sugary substances because they don't
need the sugar in it, and then it falls on
leaves and citimoe grows on sugary stuff, and so that

(16:23):
that's why you have those spots controlling scale. You can
use dormant oils, you can use summer oils rather spraying upward.
But on a bay tree, there's so many leaves and
they're so stiff that it's kind of hard to get
one hundred percent coverage of the undersides of all the leaves.
But if you could achieve that oil would work. Other

(16:43):
than oil, you're left with a systemic that you put
in the soil and goes up in the plant, and
then anything sucking juice out of the plant gets that
systemic insecticide. So are those are the two ways to
go about it. I don't know if bay trees are
on the list of of plants on those particular products
or not. I did just have to grab one and look.

(17:06):
But if you go, if you go to enchanted forest
and tell them you're looking for a systemic insecticide to
use in your bay tree, they can put your hands
put your hands on one, and I would try that route.
If you turn some leaves over and under the leaves,
you see little tiny it's like fish scales, but they're tiny.
They're smaller than a lowercase typed. Oh, they're real tiny,

(17:29):
little kind of yellow shark truse green kind of things
sticking to the bottom of the leaf. That that's what
the scale probably looks like. There are several types of
scale though.

Speaker 7 (17:41):
Okay, but I appreciate I'll send some back. Go over
there and check with them one more time.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Then all right, you take care. Why are you over there?
Grab some tomato plants. They got some good ones. All right,
all right, thanks a lot, appreciate that call. There you go.
All right, Well, you're listening to garden Line and I'm
your host, skip Rick or We're to answer your gardening
questions to help you have success. That is what we're

(18:07):
trying to do. That is what we're looking for. Hey,
you know, Ace hardware stores are a place where pretty
much everything you need inside now they've got it. I mean,
of course they're a hardware store. You know, they got
everything from lights, so electricity, to plumbing, you name it.
But their outdoor section is just amazing. The wide range

(18:29):
of fertilizers, products to control pests, the tools that you
need to work outside, they're all there. And if you're
fixing up the patio, you know, we need those little
strings of lights. I call them beer garden lights. That's
kind of what they look like. They've got stuff like that.
Of course they've got barbecue pits. Don't even get me started.
I can talk about that for an hour. Their selection
of top quality lines is unbelievable, very important, very important

(18:54):
for sure. The thing that I'm interested in right now
that has been going on on at ACE is all
their storage and spring cleaning types of supplies. If you
can dream it up, they've got it there. Because I've
been redoing my garage. Oh my gosh. You know garages
where junk goes to just pile up. You get it clean,

(19:15):
and next thing you know, it's junkie again. Well, you
need shelving, you need bins, you know, bins to store
stuff in, You need cleaning supply. They have it all
at ACE. Walk into an AM. Let me just ask
you to do this next time you get a chance,
walk into an ACE. You can find your local A
store by going to ACE Hardwaretexas dot com Ace Hardwaretexas

(19:37):
dot Com and walk into one and just walk around
a little bit and check it out. I mean you
may walk on. You know, each one's independent. They so
each owner can do what they want to do in
their store. I mean, it's still all ACE. It looks
like ACE. It is ACE, of course, but one may
have You may walk up to a fudge bar in
one who knew at a hardware store you can get
a fudge bar. Well, ACE is way more than just

(19:58):
hardware Ace Hardware Texas. I'm coming up on another hard
break here. I am going to be talking when I
come back a little bit about herb gardens and herb gardening,
maybe growing herbs without an herb garden. So just hang
around and we'll be back with your calls in just

(20:19):
a moment. I want to remind you my website, Gardening
with Skip dot com is where all the schedules are,
and when you hear me talk about a publication, it's
going to be there. All right. Welcome back to garden Line.
Got a little mix up mix in the music there, somebody.

(20:39):
Yesterday I was out at the Home and Garden show
up in Montgomery County up in Conroe at the Lune
Star Center up on Airport Road. By the way, they're
going on today. Still, if you didn't get out there yesterday,
you ought to go on. It was this great show.
The master gardener's from Montgomery County were out there answering
gardening questions and things. You got to get out there

(21:00):
and check it out. Anyway, somebody told me it came
by and I get this every now and then they say,
I appreciate the fact that you play a lot of
weird music. I think what they meant. I think what
they meant as a mix of music. But anyway, I
hear that from time time people like that. You never
know what's going to come on. That's true. We even
have yodling chickens here occasionally when we need to. Don't

(21:22):
make me have to pull out barbershop, I will, I
promise anyway. Hey, in Chenity Gardens down in the Richmond
Rosenberg area is one of the destination nurseries that people
go to from all over. I've said this before, but
I was there one time and someone from Austin was there.
What are you doing visit? No, we just came. They

(21:43):
didn't come visit family. They were just over there because
they love in Jenny Gardens. So they actually made that
up to go there. That's pretty cool, but that's kind
of nursery it is. If you want to go to
their website, I would write this down. You know, a
lot of times I give here's their dress. Here's a
phone number. If you used to go to the website,
it's all right there Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. In

(22:03):
chenned Gardens Richmond dot com you can sign up for
the newsletter. That's great. You lot of good information on
that that you will want to have. They're on FM
three fifty nine on the Katie fullsher side of Richmond.
So if you're in Richmond heading up Northway FM three
fifty nine, you can get there and it's an unforgettable
place to visit. And I'm telling you this. They have

(22:24):
a very enthusiastic team. Yah. You can bring in photos
or samples to get expert advice from them. Their knowledge
of the plants is extensive, and so when you start
talking about well I try to plant there and it
didn't work that, they can probably tell you, well, it's
because this or that want you this other one. You know,
maybe it's drought resistance, maybe it's shade, maybe who knows why,

(22:46):
but they can point you to the plants that you
have success with. And while you're there, you can do
the brown stuff before green stuff thing. Because they have
Nature's way, they have airloom soils They have fertilizer from Microlife,
Nelson Plant Food, and Menina, so you can take the
take care of the whole thing to have success with
your plants. And it's a fun place to visit. That's

(23:08):
in Chenni Gardens Katie Fosher Side of Richmond in Chenni
Gardens Richmond dot com. If you would like to give
me a call our phone number, it would help if
I gave you that out, wouldn't it seven to one
three two one two ktr H seven one three two
one two kt r H. Whatever you want to visit

(23:28):
about today, I said I was going to visit about herbs,
and I want to talk a little bit about herbs.
There are traditional formal herb gardens and you see those,
you know it may see a big estate with this
beautiful thing that's all geometric and it's got circles and
angles and it's you know what is the mirror images

(23:49):
from left to right or up and down or whatever.
It's just all designed beautifully. Okay, you can do that,
that's fine. You can do that. But if you just
have a normal landscape and you don't want to put
in an herb garden, why not use herbs in your landscape.
Here's some ways you can do it. Containers. Herbs are
great for containers. You could have a container that you're

(24:10):
growing flowers in, but you could have time spilling over
the side of that container. See what I mean. You
can grow mint in a container too, and that helps
confine it. Because mint likes to take off running. It
can outrun bermuda grass, that's for sure. So don't just
turn it loose in your gardens. It'll take over. But
mint is great for in a container. What about rosemary.

(24:32):
Rosemary is an evergreen shrub that is adequately cold tolerant
for our area. It is very drought tolerant, and as
long as you don't have it in soggy, wet roots
over the wintertime or anytime, it's going to perform well
for you. It doesn't like to be in a swamp.
But rosemary is incredible. Years ago, I remember we went
through a drought. I can't remember, it's a long time ago,

(24:54):
and the master gardeners up in North somewhere in North Texas,
they went through town and they did it as assessment
of all the plants. What survived, what didn't you know?
That kind of thing. Rosemary was the very top of
the list as a plant that made it through that drought,
So that's pretty impressive. Plus it has flowers, especially the
trailing kinds of rosemary that attract bees in and that

(25:14):
is also very cool. So I'll keep talking about herbs
here in just a little bit, but I'm pretty excited
about using plants where we want to use them. You know,
if you want a cut flower, you don't have to
have a cut flower garden. You can put some zenias
among whatever you got going. I mean, it comes down
to aesthetics and what you like, but don't feel like,

(25:36):
you know, have to have a vegetable garden over there,
and a flower garden over there, and an herb garden
over there. I grow several kinds of flowers and vegetable
gardens because they attract beneficial insects and I need them
to patrol the garden for me. Well, when it comes
to an organic plant food, nitroposs has really done their
homework and the product that they came up with after

(25:59):
many years of research is called sweet Green organic plant food.
Now what that is sweet green It reacts with water.
It has a unique level of organic compounds in it
that as the microbes break it down and they love
it because they like carbon materials, and it's a molasses
space is a carbon material. It just the soil comes alive.

(26:22):
There's revitalization there when microbes get busy, and when microbes
get happy, the soil gets better and plants get happy.
That's how it works. So it increases the health of
the soil by increasing the population of beneficial microbes, and
you just get the optimum health and performance out of
It's eleven percent nitrogen, one of the highest rates of
nitrogen any organic you're gonna find anywhere in the country.

(26:44):
And it works, sweet green, smells wonderfully, and you're going
to find it at Ace excuse me, Ace Hardwall, of course,
Ace hardware source. But you're going to find it all
kinds of places all over this area of the state.
For example, Baytown Fisher's Hardware, Plants and things in Brenham
Lake Hardware, both the one include and the one in Angleton.

(27:06):
Those are all places that carry nitroposs products. Let's see
our phone number seven one three two one two k
t R H. If you'd like to give me a
call on this good Sunday morning. I hope you're awake
and doing good son's about to come out. But if
you look next door and your neighbor's lights aren't on,
go bang on the door. Tell them they're missing guarden line,

(27:27):
and they will rise up on this beautiful Sunday morning
and call you blessed, or they may call you something
else actually, but in the long term they will appreciate it. Okay,
I shouldn't say I just get a kick out of that.
Someone said, you know, when the kids on me one time, Dad,
your jokes aren't funny. I said, yes, but they're funny

(27:48):
to me, and so I don't care if they're funny
to you or not. That's called a dead joke because
it's the cause of more rolling eyes than any other
thing on. Best Brothers is a pest control company here
in the Greater Houston area. Serves a whole Greater Houston
area all the way from up to the Woodlands down

(28:10):
to Texas City, from Baytown to Katie. They control pests.
What is your pest? Is it rats and mice? Runner
around inside? Or outside? They can do that. Is it
mosquitos outside? Is it fire ants outside? They've got some
very innovative ways to get to get ahead of those
I was talking about their bait buckets that have like
a disease of mosquitos. The mosquitoes come in there and

(28:32):
they pick it up, and it's it's just all exciting stuff,
you know. If you feel like mosquitos about mosquitos, like
I do, get pretty excited about that. Anyway, you can
contact them for a quote at two eight one two
oh six forty six seventy talk to them about a
termite check and the kinds of ways they can control
termites longer term. And they have some ways of doing that.

(28:55):
If you're dealing with household pasts like cockroaches, for example,
Oh my gosh, there they got that hands down. They
know what they're doing. At the Press Brothers, it's the
pestbros dot com. The pest Bros b r os dot
com two eight one two oh six forty six seventy.

(29:16):
All right, I'm gonna take a little break here and
I'll be right back with your calls at seven one
three two one two kt r H. Alrighty, good Sunday morning.
If you will look in the eastern sky, there is
a glow over there that is saying this is gonna
be a good day. It's always you do It's always

(29:37):
a good day for gardeners.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
It is.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
And you're thinking, oh yeah, what if it's like twenty
degrees outside and haling and the winds blowing seventy miles
an hour. You take care of your house plants, you
plant seeds to start for planting outside. Later, you get
online and you learn about gardening. It's always a good
day for garden But this day is gonna be a
good day to be outside. You know, if you've been

(30:01):
here in Houston for one year, you know what summer's like,
and it's a challenge. We still can garden in summer.
We just work earlier in the day, maybe later in
the day. But wow, now, no excuse, I mean, you know,
this is it. And spring is such an important season
to get things ready. Got to get the soil ready.

Speaker 10 (30:23):
Now.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
You know, a lot of times we think of fertilizing
is feeding plants. And I understand that. I understand the
concept of I'm putting these nutrients down, plants are going
to take them up, so I'm feeding my plants. But
I want you to think of it a little different way,
and that is the soil being a bank account and
fertilizer being deposits in the bank account, and the plants

(30:47):
they go to the ATM and they make withdrawals. But
it's not just the same thing money money money, it's
all the different nutrients that they need. And azemite is
a product for trace minerals. Trace minerals. These are minerals
that are absolutely essential. A plant cannot grow without any
of the essential trace minerals. And there's a lot of them, okay,

(31:09):
but they're not needed in large amounts, so we put
out just a little. So they're essential, but we don't
need a lot of them, you know, kind of like
us and maybe vitamin D. You need some, but take
too much and you're in big trouble. Right. Azamite is
that trace mental supplement. You put it down any time
of the year. You can put it down now. We're
getting into the spring fertilization season, so you could put

(31:30):
it down now. That's fine. In fact I would. But
if you're in the middle of summer and you didn't
do an azemite in the spring, go ahead and do it.
It's okay to do it. And it's not a substance
that pushes the plant to grow like nitrogen does. It's
a substance that is there for building. Everything a plant needs,
from healthy leaves to fruit, to flowers to roots to stems,

(31:53):
everything it needs is in the minerals that are in
the soil bank account. Go to azimite Texas dot com
to find out you're gonna find azamite all over the place.
They've got it at garden centers, they have it, at
feed stores. You're going to find it in play like
ace hardwaster. You're gonna find it a Southwest. There's just
a lot of places they carry asamite because they know

(32:13):
it works. People know it works. Let's see, I was
looking at I've got I have a place where I
keep my fertilizers right and keep them somewhat cool and dry.
I don't like them to be eight hundred degrees, which
gets to be that in the summer sometimes. And so
I was looking through there and just kind of making

(32:35):
my plans for spring fertilization. Say what am I short on?
What do I need to purchase and those kind of things,
making sure we have everything we need. And I think
it'd be a good idea for you to take that
kind of assessment if you go on line to gardening
with skip dot com. You can find my lawn care
schedule and my lawn pest Disease and weed management schedule.

(32:57):
They're free, they're multi colored. They go from January through
December telling you what you need to do when and
the products that are best for that particular thing that
particular time. Okay, and so if you will do that,
check it out, and then as you're out and about shopping,
take it with you, because then you can kind of
point in and go, do you have any of this

(33:17):
this particular thing, And that way you don't have to
remember what it is and they can put that in
your hands. I love going to the Anti Grozenport. That
is a must visit destination.

Speaker 5 (33:28):
It is.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
I can't tell you how many times I've been there,
and I've gone out there before when I wasn't even
looking for a particular rose or plant. I was just
wanting to enjoy the place and take pictures. Of course,
when you do that, you end up going home with
plants because they have so many. Their nursery and display
garden is gorgeous. Now, I want to tell you about
some events coming up right now, by the way, Spring

(33:51):
Events Spring Garden Party March seventh, at six pm times ticking.
We're almost there. You need to check it out. You
can go to get tickets. This is a ticketed event
because you're going to get a really nice meal. There's
going to be craft beer and mead from Wildlife, Wildflyer
meter meter excuse me up there courtin Annesota and Kathy

(34:14):
Bolton will also be there providing some music and there's more.
But anyway, go to Antique Roseemporium dot com. But you
got to get those tickets today. Today is the last
day to grab those tickets. Antique Roseemporium dot com also
for today. The next two days of the Spring Deal

(34:36):
is the annual Spring Celebration March eighth and ninth, full
weekend event, lots of good speakers, there's hands on ticketed workshops.
There's gonna be artists and vendor market and they have
some really cool stuff there, food trucks and of course
roses and roses and roses and plants of all types galore,
which is what you expect at the antiqu Roseenbrium. Finally,
the Spring Break Workshop March tenth through thirteenth, that is

(34:59):
part of their Children in the Garden program and basically
it's a hands on workshop that starts each of those
days March ten through thirteenth at ten am, and you
get those tickets also on the website. Everything's on the website.
If you are a group and you'd like to go
out and check out Antique rosen Poium, I highly recommend
you do that. You can email them at events at

(35:19):
we Areroses dot com for more information. Antique Roseemporium is
the website dot com and all that you need is
right there talking about soil and the importance of soil
and getting things right. You're not going to find a
better place than Nature's Way Resources for a wide variety

(35:41):
of every kind of soil that you might need. Maybe
you're going to put in some blueberries, maybe you're going
to put in some azaleas or camellias, and you need
a soil for acid loving plants. Well, Nature's Way Resources
they've got it. They've got it right there. They have
an excellent supply of all all kinds of things. They
have a thing called fungal based compost. It's a high

(36:04):
quality compost that is on sale every Friday, high quality
organic product. Ten percent off the bags every Friday and
twenty percent off bulk you can say get a bulk delivery.
People use it for a compost op dressing too. That's
Nature's Way Resources dot Com. Nine three six two seven

(36:25):
three twelve hundred nine three six two seven three twelve hundred.
And while you are going to the website Nature's Way
Resources dot Com, check out the Spring Garden Festival that's
March twenty second, from eight am to two pm. They're
gonna have plant sales. Of course, they're gonna have food
and drinks and vendors. There'll be talks, three different hour

(36:48):
talks on plants, nine eleven and one pm. Costs nothing
to get in and you will enjoy yourself. I've been
to it more than once and it is a blast.
Now Nature's weighs up. You go up forty five to Conroe,
when fourteen eighty eight comes in from the left, go
to Magnolia. You turn right and go across the railroad
tracks and you're there. Well, let's see. Oh herbs. I

(37:13):
keep saying I'm gonna talk about something, then I drift
off and talk about something else. I like to use
herbs in my vegetable garden. I will put herbs that
have flowers on them in the vegetable garden because that
attracts a little small, tiny parasitoid wasps and other beneficial
insects like lace wings need little flowers for the adults
to get to get nourishment. I will use a trailing herb.

(37:36):
I've used a regano. In fact, I had a row
that had tomatoes and oregano and basil in it in
the same row. So guess what. You walk one row
and you've made a whole dish right there. You're all
set up to make some sauce or something, pesto or whatever.
And I like using herbs and vegetable guards. They work
really really well for that. And so if you don't

(37:58):
have room, you don't want to make a big formal garden,
you still want to do herbs. There are herbs that
are good in the landscape. Chives make a nice little
like a it's almost like a little a riopy row,
you know, along a sidewalk or something like that. Salad
burnett has little leaves that taste like cucumbers, and it
makes a tiny, tiny it makes about a one foot
high mounting plant. It's not an herb you see a lot,

(38:21):
but the leaves taste like cucumbers. Throw them in a
salad and it's like putting cucumbers in the salad, and
that's a cool herb. There's just so many There's so
many good herbs that we can use in our garden.
Some of them flower like Mexican mint marigold flowers in
the fall, with beautiful yellow flowers. It is a substitute
for terragun. It makes a nice little upright herb. I

(38:42):
love the smell of the leaves that if you've ever
smelled black jelly beans, that's what Mexican marigoldiaves smell like.
I think that's cool. Anyway, I already told you about rosemary.
Rosemary for trailing like a coming over a large container,
or maybe as a groundcover and a very sunny. Are
lots of good options here for herbs. Think of other

(39:04):
ways to use them containers in the flower garden, in
the vegetable garden, in the landscape, and even in hanging baskets.
Some herbs are suited to that as well.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
Well.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
The music means I got to quit talking. Guess what
is going to happen next Saturday. I'm going to go
out to Hoorges Hidden Gardens in Alvin south of Houston
Orges Hidden Gardens. You hear me talk about it all
the time. Come on out, Come on out and see
me out there. I'm going to tell you more about
it as we go through the show this morning, but
I'll be there from one pm to three pm, so
it's a Saturday afternoon thing. I'll be answering gardening questions.

(39:38):
We'll have some plants there. You know. I can explain
how to do this or that or the other with plants.
As always at these appearances, you want to bring me
a sample of a plant or a picture of a plant.
We did some of those yesterday up at the Montgomery
County Home Show. Here's your chance, and we spent a
lot of time visiting about it. We'll have some product.
Getaway it's too ballway next Saturday or hey Kidden Gardens.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skip Richard's.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Shoes, crazy gas trim, just watching as well, go.

Speaker 10 (40:24):
Us.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
So many good things to supp brazy.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Gas, A sorry sun beam and down.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
All right, we're back. Welcome back to Garden Line. I
can see outside now, you know I I tell you
this often, but you can listen to garden Line on
the radio because it's a radio show. But you can
also take your phone, put iHeart Media app on it.
Fine garden line. There's only two guarden lines in the
whole country. When I'm some lady somewhere else, I don't

(41:06):
even know where that is. Anyway, find a garden line,
the guard line, and turn that phone in your pocket
and go outside and get some work done. This morning.
We got weeds to pull, got soil to work, and
who knows. When the sun comes up a little bit more,
you may see a picture, or see a bug or something,
take a picture of Call my producer. You can email
it to me and we have live from your garden

(41:28):
and answer to your question. So you can't beat that, right.
Tree hugger sprinklers are the ultimate watering device for either
newly planted or established trees and shrubs. So maybe you
put a rosebush in this February, you can get you
the smaller tree hugger. It's a seven inch and it
goes around that rose bush. You turn on the water
just a little bit and it waters that root ball

(41:48):
and just beyond that. Now, as plants get bigger, you
just turn the tree hugger up more. I mean you
could have. You could have a seven ten year old
tree and you put that fifteen inch tree hugger around
it and turn it on and crank it all the
way out where it's going all the way to the
branch spread of the tree. And this summer when we
go through heat and drought, you can do rescue treatments

(42:11):
of your tree that way. You don't have to run
the water and everywhere. You can take care of that
tree that way. Rosarians love the product because it works.
Now you're gonna find tree Hugger at a lot of places.
They got it at the arbor Gate. You're gonna find
it at Nelson Water Garden and Nursery out there in
Katie RCW has it, Warrens and Southern Garden and Kingwood
Gardens Center in Kingwood, in Chanted Gardens and in Channa

(42:33):
Forests down there in Richmond, Rosenberg D and D Feed
and Tomball Spring Creek Feed up just north and east
of Tomball, a League City Feed down in League City
Southwest Fertilizer. And then how about here's some ACE Hardware
store Sinkle Ranch as Katie, ace K and m Ace
and a test Asita, a test Asda and full Share
Ace hardware all places you can get a tree hugger,
and listen, you're gonna have many uses for this. It's

(42:57):
not it's called tree hugger, but it could be called
shrub hugger. Or two. It's for all sizes of woody ornamentals,
helping rescue them, but especially also helping them get off
to a good start those first months after a plant
is planted or critical to its survival. I'm gonna go
out to Katie now and talk to Greg. Hey, Greg,

(43:17):
welcome to garden line. All right, let me try one
more than Greg. Are you there? All right? All right?
All right, well we're having a little glad here. We'll
fix that. We'll get Katie or get Greg here from
Katie in just one second. You know the you've heard

(43:41):
me talk about plants for all seasons a number of times.
It's the garden Center up there on FM two forty nine,
which is Tomball Parkway. So let me see here. It's
we're trying to fix this audio problem right here. Anyway.
It is the garden Center at two forty nine just
north of Loo Okay, so right now you should see

(44:03):
the police. It is loaded with herbs and vegetables and
flowers and everything. I mean, it looks like spring there,
and spring means everything. I don't know how they fit
everything in on the lot because there's so many great
plants that they get in there. But they have expert
advice and you know, yes they have good plants. Yes,
they know which plants to sell here and not sell here,

(44:24):
and they sell the ones that grow here because their
gardeners have been doing best for all seasons, been around
since the nineteen seventies. All right, So anyway you go
in there. But the most important thing I think in
a garden center is you get people who know what
they're talking about, that can guide you, that can help
you to you know, take the time to explain things,
listen to your questions, look at your sample problems, and

(44:45):
then help you find the solution that, as they say,
is worth the price of admission. That is so important
to have a garden center like that, And that is
exactly the kind of garden center Plants for All Seasons says,
you will find everything you need. Check out the new
Indoor store where they have really high quality pruning tools.

(45:05):
They've got seeds and you know, when you're looking for
potatoes and planting onions and stuff. That's all. Stuff's always
in the store there too. Well, let's run out now
to We're gonna go to Katie and talk to Greg. Hey, Greg,
is it working this time? My bad? There we go.

(45:26):
We're having to go the back We're having to go
through the back door today, Greg. And so I think
I finally got you on how are we doing?

Speaker 4 (45:34):
I'm doing great?

Speaker 11 (45:35):
Thanks?

Speaker 12 (45:37):
Quick question for you. I recently bought a really nice
Washington Nabel. You know, it's either a five or ten gallon.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
Tree.

Speaker 12 (45:48):
And two quick questions on planning it. Number one, should
you go ahead and soak the the after you take
it out of the container. Soak it in like super
thrive or a root stimulator before planning it. And then secondly,
I've read different things about whether or not you should

(46:10):
use fertilizer on it the first year. Okay, your thoughts
on few of those?

Speaker 2 (46:14):
You bet? Number one, put it in the sun. Number two,
mix a large area. Mix some compost in the soil
if you can, or get a bed mix or something.
But mix it in a little bit, not just the
planning hole at all. It's got to be large because
those roots are going to be way out Secondly, when
you put it in the ground, set it at the
exact same level that it was in the container, not deeper. Uh,
And don't dig the hole deeper because if you dig,

(46:36):
like let's say you have a one foot deep root
ball and you dig a two foot deep hole, that
is going to settle and it's going to end up
too deep. So I dig it just as deep as
a root ball, set it in there, and then I
would get some Medina has to grow six twelve six. Okay,
that is a liquid. It's got the twelve percent phosphorus,
which is important for root development, but it's got a

(46:59):
a all the six percent nitrogen and six percent potassium too.
It has medina sill activat around. It's going to stimulate
the biological activity. I would drench it, drench it. You
could soak the root ball before you put it in
the ground if you want to, that's fine, But then
after you plant it, I would make sure one way
or another you're giving it medina that day, But then
a week later medina has to grow six twelve six,

(47:22):
and then a week after that medina has to grow
six So three times you're giving it a drenching to
do everything you can to stimulate the root growth and development,
healthy development of that plant. And then after that going
on in the season, Yes, you can fertilize it, and
you should. You don't need to put a lot, but

(47:44):
a small amount gradually over time, you know that root system.
However wide that container is, the roots are going to
be only in that area for a while. And then
as we get a few months down the line, you
got roots that are going out a little wider and
then a little wider, and so so you just want
to be careful not to dump a bunch of salt
based fertilizer right on top of those roots in the container,

(48:05):
because you can burn them that way. Just put a
light application and continue to move it out as far
as the branch spread, or a little beyond the branch spread.

Speaker 12 (48:15):
Okay, And then you know, I've also read that even
though it's hard to resist, supposedly the first year, you're
not supposed to allow it to fruit.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Yeah. Correct, Actually, you know, if you were doing it commercially,
it'd be two or three years. You know that you
would be trying to hold off so you could grow
a big tree and the energy doesn't all go into
that fruit. But yes, Hey, I've got about fifteen seconds
before I have to go to break. But if you
can pull that fruit off, it's hard to do, but
if you can do it at least the first year

(48:50):
or two, that would be better. Maybe the second year,
leave yourself a fruit or two just to taste. All right, man,
thank you, Thank you, Greg, appreciate your call. M All right, folks,
we'll be right back. All right, we're back. Welcome back
to the Guarden Line. Glad to have you with us today.
We're gonna go straight to the phones and talk to

(49:12):
Sean and Katie and I have to not pick up
that call. It a different way, all right.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Sean, Hey, good morning, Skip. Can you hear me?

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Yes, I can hear you. Call.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
I got a quick question, and so I got a
Saan on this team full of weeds.

Speaker 13 (49:31):
And I bought microfoss barricade and weed donator by turf Star.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
I just had a question.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
Can I put both of them down?

Speaker 2 (49:42):
If I can?

Speaker 4 (49:43):
Doesn't matter in which order.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
No, what you what you would do if you if
you were gonna do that, hold on to the weed
nator for another time. Uh. And with the barricade you
could get that Nitropos has a blue bag. That is
it says it has trimac in it, it's it's a weed,

(50:08):
it's a it's a it's a weed and feed. It
has both in it. But this is one time of
the year when that is very appropriate to have the
two together. Normally sometime with things the timing it right,
but the blue bag and then you would put it
on with the barricade. So that's two nitro fash products.
The barricade prevents the weeds that are on their way.

(50:28):
The the blue bag, the fifteen to five ten with
trimec is is going to kill the weeds that are
there now, but you have to wet the weed first
before you put the fertilizer down. Now, later when you
when you're gonna use your Nelson Weedenator, because you're gonna
have it on hand, you can do that in the
in the fall if you want, you're gonna you are
gonna also wet the weeds before you put that down

(50:51):
so you could use it. The weedinator is killing existing weeds,
and the barricade is stopping the weeds that are coming.
And both the nitroposs blue bag and the weed nator
work in a similar way. They fertilize and they kill
the existing weeds. So you can use either one now
or later. It doesn't matter either way you want to go. Okay,

(51:15):
all right, thank you, You bet appreciate that call. All right, yeah,
let me tell you another nightfoss product is there? Imperial,
the Imperial fifteen five to ten. That is a reddish
orange bag, reddish orange, and it is strictly fertilizer, and
it is strictly a fast release fertilizer and it's used.

(51:36):
We were using it this time of year for an
early green up. If you put it down, the lawns
warming up, it's starting to kind of wake up a
little bit, and you get some nutrient down there, especially
the nitrogen. You're going to get that green up from it.
It's been around for nearly a half century now because
it works. The fifteen five to ten. The three one
to two ratio is a standard ratio used throughout the

(51:57):
South for lawns because research at universities on turf have
found though that's the ratio that lins typically need, you know,
so in absence of a soil test, you go with
a three one two ratio, unless the soil tests were
to tell you something different. But you're you're not going
to go wrong with a fifteen to five to ten
like product like that. Now you're going to find nitoposs

(52:17):
products all over town. They're available, I say all over town,
all over the listening area. For example, Dan and Alvin
Stanton shopping Center, M and D. There's an M and
D and Sagemont on Beamer. It's called Beamer.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
There is a M and D in clear Lake on
Bay Area bay Area Boulevard. Getting tongue tied here, and
how about one of the Fishers hardwarees. There's one in
Pasadena on Southomore, one in Laporte on Broadway one in
Mount Bellevue on FM thirty one eighty. All places that
carry Nita Fross products. You were listening to garden Line.

(52:52):
The phone numbers seven one three two one two kt
r H seven to one three two one two kt
r H. Give us a call. We'll talk about the
things that are most of interest to you. If you've
never grown cetrus before, you really ought to grow it.
Citrus is just it's just a wonderful plant. First of all,

(53:15):
it's an evergreen. So you know where you would want
an evergreen job? Well, put a citrus in right, because
it's evergreen. It is a plant we plant for its
wonderful fruit, whether it's lemons or limes, or satsuma oranges
or regular oranges, whatever you're gonna plant. The fruit is wonderful.
But the blooms. If you don't even care about citrus fruit,

(53:37):
it's worth growing for the blooms. The blooms are heavenly scented.
I always like to try to plant things where I
will smell the fragrance. Okay, So like typically in summertimes
you kind of have a southwesterly wind. You just figure
out it's your house which which direction. Maybe you have
something on both sides of the patio, but that way,

(53:58):
when you're sitting there, when some things in bloom, you
just enjoy it. And we have so many great scented plants,
and Centrius is definitely one. But I would encourage you
to do that. You know, as we're getting here, we're right,
depending on where in the listening area you are, we're
kind of on the verge of passing that last average prostate.
And so you know, if you're done in Galveston, that

(54:19):
comes much earlier than if you're up in Huntsville, for example.
But the bottom line is once we kind of get
past the worry about frost or freeze, then we go
ahead and put our citrus in and that way you
are sure that you have no damage occurring to it. Now,
you could have planted citrus in February been ready to
cover it up if we had a hard freeze, but

(54:40):
I just like to make it a little easier on myself,
and I wait till it warms up because that's when
citrus wants to grow anyway. So but get them now,
because supplies don't always last. You know, some of the
rarer things or the more popular things, they may be
gone when you go get them later. So that's just
a little tip there. And our garden centers here I

(55:00):
have a wonderful selection of centrus plants, just so many
types and it's just great. So if you haven't had
a citrus, you need to do it now. If you're
going to do one in a and it needs to
be in a container, then it could be a mier
lemon meer lemon that gets to be a bigger plant,
but you can keep it in a container with some pruning,

(55:21):
and it needs to be a very large container. So
think about a half whiskey barrel. Now, I wouldn't put
it in a wooden whiskey barrel because wood rots over time,
and whiskey barrels aren't made to be rot proof. But
that volume of soil, I guess you could do a
whiskey barrel if you lined it with plastic and punch
some holes in the bottom. Maybe I don't know anyway,
but that volume of soil that would also be good

(55:43):
for a lime tree. There's several types of lime, a
Mexican lime, key lime, you know, there's a lot of
different kinds of limes that can grow. I'm going to
have I'm putting two citrus on my patio in containers
this spring. I've already started getting my plants and getting
ready to go, and so I'll also have some going
in the ground, kind of do a little mini citrus
planting orchard this year. Looking forward to that. But anyway,

(56:08):
now's the time, get out there, get your selection, just
take care of it. I know, I had to drive
out of town for a couple days the other day
and I got a large like a washtub, and I
set all my little citrus plants in it, and I
put about two inches of water in the bottom and
that's my babysitter until I get back, making sure they
don't dry out while I'm gone out there to water
them each day. So that's just a little tip too,

(56:30):
so you don't do that. South of Houston is Sienna Moultch.
Siennamultch is the go to place for the brown stuff
for the foundation for setting plants up for success. They
have the moltch, they have the blends, the bed mixes
like Veggie nerd mix, just being an example of one

(56:51):
of many. They have the mulches to go on top
of the ground. They have the nutrients to go in
the ground. So if you go to Siena, you're gonna
find days Mite was talking about that earlier. They got
it there. You're gonna find products from mairloom soils too,
like their vegione or mixed. They're gonna have fertilizers from Medina,
from nitrofoss from Nelson, and they also not just the
Nelson turf Star, but they also carry the plant fuud

(57:13):
jars that Nelson has and then Microlife too. You're gonna
find there at Ciena Mulch. They are on Highway six
or near Highway six and two eighty eight. They're actually
on FM five twenty one. But let's just do it
this way. Go to the website. Everything you need to
know is there Sienna Maltz dot com, Cienamultch dot com.
And they also deliver within twenty miles for a small fee,

(57:37):
so you can go pick it up or you can
have them deliver it if you're within twenty miles of
their location. I always like going in there. It's just
it's one of the friendliest places you're gonna go. They
the way they greet you, the you know, the products
they have are excellent and a lot of people have
learned that over the years that that that is the
place to go get your stuff. If you're doing a

(57:59):
container of soil. Night Fuss has a product called jungle Land.
Jungle Land is for containers so indoors. There's a jungle
Land that has water saving crystals. Now, these crystals, when
they're dry or just like a little hard I don't know,
rock candy or something maybe smaller than that, they're very tiny, uh,
but when they get wet, they swell up and they

(58:20):
really hold that water. So when you forget okay, I know,
you don't forget. When your friends and family forget, then
those crystals help contain that or help supply that plant
for a little bit longer to keep him from going
into drought stress until your friends are family. Remember to
water their plant. Okay, Now, I won't admit on the

(58:41):
air that sometimes I forget to water my plants, but
I do jungle Land water saving potting soil for your
indoor plants. Just remember that that will get you out
of some trouble and the plants will love it too.
By the way, they have a jungle land outdoor called
jungle Land Flour Vegetable Planting soil too. You can also

(59:03):
use that one. And where do you find it? Well,
where they sell nitropos go to a nitrofos type place.
So if you went to D and D feed up
in Tomball, if you went to the Arbigate, if you
went to Plants for all Seasons, if you want to
the RCW Nursery or Hidning Feed on Stubner Airline, those
are all places that carry nitroposs products, and there are
many many more. You're listening to garden Lined. Our phone

(59:26):
number here is seven one three two one two kt RH.
We got some room on the phones if you'd like
to give a skull. We're about to about three minutes
away from our half hour, right but we have time
here to take a call if you'd like to do that.
In my gardens, I am doing a sol revamp right now.

(59:46):
I have some areas, some beds that I made, and
they're nice beds, but they kind of sunk down as
that organic matter decomposed. And so I'm putting some fresh material,
some fresh bed mixes up into those beds and then
mixing it in a little bit just to blend it
with the soil. And my nutrient content is good because

(01:00:07):
i always have decomposing organic matter, and I'm always using
a fertilizer with each planting, you know, the appropriate fertilizer
for growing the plants. But I'm getting all that ready,
and when I do, and this is just a little tip,
I'm going to be away from the garden for a
little while after I get it ready. And so I've
got a bunch of multch. I'm actually I collect leaves

(01:00:29):
and use leaf mulch a lot in my vegetable gardens,
and I'm just going to spread that over the beds
and create a blanket to block out the light, so
when I come back, I can just pull the multch
back and do my planting and I won't come back
to a little chia pet of weeds that have all
sprouted and the whole bed solid green. That is just

(01:00:49):
a tip that I use a lot of times. Sometimes
I'll prepare my soul in the late fall, and then
in spring I can pull the mulch back and I'm
ready to go. So you may find that to be
hopeful for you. But there's a lot of a lot
of good ways to go about gardening. Warren's Setting Gardens
and Kingwick Garden Center are your go to garden centers

(01:01:10):
out there in Kingwood. Warrens is on North Park, Kingwood
Garden Centers on Stone Hollow, and you just have to
go see the places they are. Warrens the other day
got so many where they still are getting so many
shipments of plants in that's just beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Both these places are open seven days a week, so
this afternoon would be a good time to go check
out these places. They each have their unique flavor, if
you will, and they're both definitely worth stopping in and
checking out. They serve that whole community out there and
Ukainey and Valley Ranch, Humble, Kingwood and Taska Seed a
porter that whole area out there. They sell the products

(01:01:49):
I recommend on garden Line like nitrofoss and Microlife and
turf Star and heirloom sauce and other Nelson plant foods
for example. All you got to do is go check
them out. We're in Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Center
runs on North Park Kingwood Garden Center on Stone Hollow Drive.
Time for me to take a break and turn it

(01:02:10):
over to Jared to tell you everything exciting happening in
the news. Don't go away. You need to know this.
No somebody, all right, good Sunday morning to you. We
are officially bright outside, or we can see around get
some gardening done out there. Have you topped off your

(01:02:30):
maltch this year?

Speaker 11 (01:02:31):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
You know someone I get this call often, and I
don't know where the mindset comes from, but someone will say, well,
I'm pulling all my ole malt out to put fresh
melts in, and you don't. You don't need to do that,
and you shouldn't do that. And I'll base my case
on the forest. If that was necessary, then how would

(01:02:54):
the forests thrive on the fact that we put new
mulch on old malts. You're after year when the leaves fall, Okay,
that it's actually the case that the old malts is decomposing,
and that's a good thing. That's releasing organic matter to
the soil. It's becoming compost over a very very slow
period with mulches. Depending on the kind of multus is

(01:03:16):
a rate of decomposition. The bottom line is you've got
this great stuff right when it's at its almost best stage.
You're pulling it out. But fresh mulch in let that
be a soil building material. If you want to go
to mix it into the surface a little bit, if
it's truly decomposed, that's fine, but I would just let
it be a gradient.

Speaker 5 (01:03:35):
So on.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
If you're cutaway looking at your soil on the top
is fresh mulch, brand new mult As you go down,
there's some kind of chocolatey brown starting its wet, and
maybe you see some fungal activity breaking it down there.
And then as you go down a little further, it
just gets richer and richer all the way down into
the soil, and earth worms are coming up and they're
doing their thing through there. And that's the way you

(01:03:57):
do it. That's the forest floor effect, and that's the
way it is designed to work for trees to thrive
and do well. So whatever your plants are, shrubs, trees, flowers,
even ornamental grasses. When you molt, just put fresh molts
on top and leave that stuff that's just really starting
to get good for the soil. And people will get

(01:04:18):
confused about what's the difference between mult and composts sometimes
and compost goes in the soil because it's ready to
go to the roots and do its thing in the soil.
Mult goes on top of the soil because it's a
let's call it a raw material, you know, like a
wood chip would be a raw material.

Speaker 4 (01:04:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Well, these these shredded bark mulches, the quality mulches you're
going to get from our places, you know, like Nature's
Way resources and airloom soils for example, those are quality materials.
They go on top that they they're there to block
the weeds. And so don't put molts in your soil.
Put it on top of the soil. Now a common

(01:04:58):
question I get, I'm kind of running off down a
rabbit trail here, but I think it's an important one.
A common question I get is, well, if I put
like wood on top of the soil, won't that tie
up soil nitrogen? And the answer is no. And here's why.
If you I'm going to go to an extreme, if

(01:05:19):
you mixed sawdust and fresh wood chips, you know, like
chopped up chips in the soil, it would tie up
nitrogen because microbes need carbon and nitrogen to break that down.
So you're getting a loss of nitrogen for the plants
because it's being used to help break down those wood chips.
But most sitting on top, even as a tuba four

(01:05:42):
sitting on top of the ground, does not tie up
nitrogen down in the soil right at the surface, maybe
right on a quarter inch right there, you know where
the decomposition is occurring. But don't worry about that. You
don't have to worry about that. That's another reason why
I don't like to mix mulch into the soil. That's
not a good effect to have. Once it gets decomposing,

(01:06:04):
then that nitrogen starts cycling. You know, the nitrogen that
was taken up to help break down the woody materials,
it's not lost. The microbes die and the nitrogen goes
back into the soil, I mean it starts cycling in there.
So anyway, little too nerdy maybe for you. But those
are fairly common questions or fairly common misconceptions that I

(01:06:27):
hear about all the time. Hey, I'm going to be
at Jorges Hidden Gardens this next Saturday. I don't know
if you've ever been down there before. If you haven't,
there's your chance. This is your what excuse to go
as if you needed one. Jorges Hidden Gardens. You hear
me talk about them all the time. They are down
south in the Alvin area. So if you were to

(01:06:51):
let's say you're in Alvin, you're gonna go kind of
down six a little to the south and east of
the actual town of Alvin, and they're out there on
Elizabeth Street in that area. So Hoorges Hidden Gardens is
the kind of place where when you go, you always
gonna find the things you need. Of course, they're gonna
have they always have like fruit trees and shade trees

(01:07:14):
and roses, and like the Lady the Lady Martin, the
Peggy Martin Rose for example, they've always got they got
really good selection. Right now, of vegetables and herbs and
other things. But I'm gonna be there next Saturday from
one to three pm. So it's a little bit later
than my normal start time because I got a little
bit further to get on there Hoorges Hidden Gardens in Alvin.

(01:07:35):
I'll be answering your questions. Well, I don't know. We'll
probably pull some plants out of pots and talk about
roots and planting them and trimming them and and other
kinds of things. While we're there. We're gonna have a
good time, and I hope you will come down and
see me. Just put that on the collar next Saturday,
March eighth, one to three pm. Hoeges Hidden Gardens and Alvin.
I'm looking forward to that. It's been a little while

(01:07:57):
since I've been down to see Jorge, and I really
had a good time last time I went down there.
You know, he carries some good stuff, really good quality plants.
And by the way, it's a place where you know,
you can get some of the supplies and things that
I talk about here on garden Line all the time.
So anyway or he hid in gardens, that's the place
to go. Well, let's see we are time I get

(01:08:22):
to talk, and I forget about what time we are
actually in because I'm having too much fun I actually do.
My favorite place, in my happy place is talking to gardeners.
I love it. I just love it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
You know what.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
Nineteen eighty five, I started as a county extension or
actually as a experimentation specialist up in Missouri and came
back to Texas. And I've been answering gardening questions that
whole time, and I've heard so many and I've learned
a lot. You know, there's never a day goes by
as a gardener. If you're out there and you're paying

(01:08:56):
attention that you're not learning something. I'm telling you the
the amount of information there is in horticulture. And if
you had learned it all, let's just say you did
know everything, which is absolutely impossible not going to happen.
Next thing, you know, here comes a new tomato variety,
a new rose bush, Here comes a new type of

(01:09:17):
some sort of product, or some sort of changes to plants,
or a disease we've never had before, an insect we've
never had before. And you never quit learning. But let
me tell you that keeps you young. Don't need one reason.
You see a lot of times. Older people, you know,
gardening is number one. It's so therapeutic, it's so good.

(01:09:39):
But younger people gardening too, and it keeps your mind fresh,
it keeps you optimistic. Listen to gardener. You got to
be an optimist to open up a little seed envelope
and see these little bits of detritus in the bottom
that they're saying is going to turn into a tomato
plant or whatever seed it is. And you stick that dried,

(01:10:00):
dead thing in the ground, and all of a sudden
you're getting luscious tomatoes or flowers or whatever you've planted.
That's called faith, and that is called a renewal, and
that is just the way the world works. And I
think that's a really cool thing, absolutely cool thing. I
am having to take a little break here. I want
to remind you that my website is gardening with Skip

(01:10:22):
dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com. You can find
out more information there. You know, the folks at Nelson
Plant Food, they have absolutely come up with a wonderful selection.
I could spend hours just talking about all the products
that they have. But they have one called Bruce's Brew,
and that is a lawn fertilizer it's part of the
turf Star series. Now, Bruce's Brew is going to give

(01:10:46):
you a fast release like you would expect from a
spring early spring green up fertilizer, but it releases for
two three months going down the line, so it's not
just a one and done. It's going to give you
a continued feeding, an initial fast and then an evening
out over time for regulated growth. What that does is

(01:11:07):
it helps form a good deep root system to not
just overdo it all at once. The carbon based nitrogen
feeds soil microbes. That's in Bruce's Brew. You're gonna find
it at a lot of places like other nils, some
plant foods, so you need to check that out Bruce's Brew.
It would be a great time right now to put
some down. I have to take a break. I'll be

(01:11:27):
right back.

Speaker 6 (01:11:30):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
If you're thirty years or younger and you know who
that is, let me know you get a free rose bush.
I'm making that up. Abba. How many people remember? Abba?
Oh boy, that was a big deal at the time.
Let's head out to Pinehurst, Texas. We're going to talk
to Greg this morning, and I have got to do

(01:11:52):
the right kind of click here in order to get Hey, Greg,
Thanksgiving for you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:58):
Hey. Couple two unrelated questions.

Speaker 14 (01:12:01):
One was, I was listening to you yesterday and I'm
getting ready to put down my pre emergent and my
my Imperial and I did my first knowing of the season,
and I had a bunch of that. But the green
Saint Augustine's are kind of coming up. But I have
a bunch of the kind of I guess you call
it dead grass and almost turns into hay. And I

(01:12:22):
bagged it yesterday, but I wanted to. I saw a
lot left over. My neighbor has one of those kind
of de thatching machines. Did I use one of those
as well? Or Am I fine?

Speaker 2 (01:12:34):
Just kind of leaving it there? You said, Saint Augustine, Yeah,
don't put don't do de thatching on it. It tears
it up. Yeah, Saint Augustine. If it was Bermuda, that'd
be different. But yeah, don't do don't do that. It'll
be okay. It will decompose away. You know, you think
about where Saint Augustine is native and every leaf that
ever grows dies in rots and goes to the soil,

(01:12:56):
So it'll be okay. If you know, if you mow
it a little. Then you're gonna mow it. Let's say
you're gonna keep it at three inches or something. You
may be mowed down to about two right now and
or a little bit lower and then get the fresh
new growth up. You can do that and if you
can return all that mowing back into the soil, if

(01:13:17):
it doesn't look bad, you have to test it and see.
But if you have a good mulching more that chops
it up in the little pieces, it'll settle down and
then it'll be a surface mulch to help fight weeds.
Because you just cut all the leaves off and now
the sunlight's going to hit the soil. So I try
to return that if I can. Sometimes you have to
bag it up because it's too much. Okay, Okay, that's

(01:13:38):
good to know. Okay, super helpful.

Speaker 14 (01:13:40):
And my other question, total related, is around I've got
to I've got have a ninety feet of rear fence
that I'm going to plant some privacy screens. I think
I've finally decided on eagles and hollies.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Okay.

Speaker 14 (01:13:56):
My question is is a is that good for what
I'm trying to you? And be how far apart should
I plant and assuming I'm getting like you know, already
kind of nine ten foes forty five gallons.

Speaker 5 (01:14:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
So so with whatever plants you're going to plant, you
want to look at what it's mature size. Is mature
with okay? And if you know, if if you look
at the mature with, that's how big you expected to get.
Then it depends on the balance between spending money and
faster results. So if you put it at half that distance,

(01:14:34):
you're going to get a complete closure faster, But you're
spending money on some pretty expensive plants. Uh, if you
put it, if you put it, if you want to
save somebody, you can do it about eighty percent, But
you're not going to have the wall of foliage as fast.
You're going to be individual plants for a little bit longer.
So that that's the trade off on them. It's a
it's a great plant, you know.

Speaker 6 (01:14:55):
I I.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
Love Eagleston Holly. They're they're one of the one of
the popular. Are those berries? Ah, good question. I don't know.
I would have to go look that up. And boy,
I definitely don't want to say on the air.

Speaker 15 (01:15:08):
My best guess sure not are My wife was concerned
about dogs and kids, and I was like, well, I
think they have been just quite a bit of them
to make a big difference, but I wasn't entirely sure.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
So yeah, I'm trying to remember how wide the eagleston gets.
I know it can get up to like twenty feet
high eventually.

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):
Yeah, yeah, you're pretty big.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
Trying to remember the width on it. But anyway you
can find that out.

Speaker 11 (01:15:32):
And then.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Depending on how.

Speaker 14 (01:15:37):
Fast okay, and underneath those like say, playing them whatever,
call it eight ten feet apart, whatever it is, should
I do a bed underneath them? Or should I do
should I play them individually? Or is that just kind
of personal present person.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
I would do. I would do a bed all the
way down the road, and I would mix in some
high quality organic matter. These kind of plants love to
be in a forest floor environment where you have a
lot of rotting materials over the decades you know that
have built the soil. Make sure they have good drainage.
A little bit of a raised bed helps a little bit.
And then when you do get them planted, mosts a surface,

(01:16:16):
but the first year, if you can hand water as
much as possible, I would do that. Sprinklers get blocks,
blocked by other plants, and they don't. You don't always
get good coverage. And Holly's are real picky that first
year about having little droughty spots around them and stuff,
and so I would you can use your sprinkler, but

(01:16:37):
I would make sure and you do handwritting, because then
you know you're getting a good drench and that root
ball is gonna that's where all the roots are and
it's going to take a while before they fill that bed.
So don't forget that root ball is especially where you
need to put your water, because everything the plant gets
comes out of that little cylinder for the first month
or so before it gets real step Okay, okay, thanks

(01:16:58):
very much. You bet, thanks a lot, but I appreciate
your call. Houston Powder Coders is the biggest powder coder
in this whole region. I mean, the property is like
six acres, like seventy five more than seventy five employees.
They can do anything. They have a bay that is
like I don't know, forty or fifty more feet long

(01:17:19):
or somebody you put a gooseneck trailer in the darn thing.
It's huge. And then they have things for your little
patio furniture. That's what you're interested in, you know, the
wrought iron, the cast iron, the aluminum patio furniture. Rather
than painting it, if you do a quality powder coating,
and that's what they do there. It will give it
a new life and they'll if it has bolts and
stuff that are rusting, they'll take them out. They'll put

(01:17:40):
fresh stainless steel hardware on it. They'll replace the little
plastic end caps that are on the ends of some
of that tubular material used to make patio furniture, for example.
If it needs a little bit of welding here and there,
they can do that as well. That's another service that
they offer. Here's what you need to do. Go take
an em Go take a picture and of your furniture,

(01:18:01):
whatever you have. Maybe it's a wall hanging that's iron
that you want to get coated to go to sales
at Houstoncoders dot com. Sales at houstoncoders dot com and
send your picture and they'll give you a quick quote
on what's going to take. If you want to go
to the website Houston powder Coders dot com or two

(01:18:23):
eight one six seven, six thirty eight eighty eight. We're
going to go out to Humble now and talk to Helen. Hey, Helen,
welcome to garden line. I keep going in the front
door and we have to use the backdoor. Hey, Helen,
welcome to garden line.

Speaker 8 (01:18:40):
Well, good morning, good morning.

Speaker 10 (01:18:42):
I got a two fold question for you. My husband
seem to think if I make my sane augustine grass stronger,
it will choke the weeds out.

Speaker 8 (01:18:55):
That is, and I want okay, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 12 (01:19:00):
Want to waste money on weed killer.

Speaker 11 (01:19:03):
Good for you.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Your number one weed control is a dense, healthy lawn.
So you don't plant a lawn and it's not thick,
but you just plan on using herbicides every month. You're,
you know, trying to keep weeds out. Herbicides are there
as your back up. But if you create a dense,
healthy lawn, you're going to get rid of most especially

(01:19:24):
weeds coming from seed. Most weeds. There's some weeds, Helen,
that can live in a dense, healthy Saint Augustine lawn,
like Virginia button weed and like dollar dollar weeds. One
can live in that lawn. But a lot of them
crab grass and grass burr and hind bit and chickweed
and clover and all those. If you have a dense,
healthy lawn in sunlight can't get to the soil, those

(01:19:46):
weed teats can't come up. Your lawn becomes a mulch
that mulches out the light and prevents weeds from coming in. Okay,
got okay, so you're both right. I'm well, you're both right.

Speaker 10 (01:20:00):
I got one last thing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:20:02):
Also, when I mulch my flower beds, what is too
much and what is too little?

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
What is too much and what is too little?

Speaker 11 (01:20:12):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Generally about three inches. The chunkier the mulch, the thicker
it has to be to block out the light, the
finer texture of the mulch, the less you need to
do the job. But about three inches is a pretty
good number.

Speaker 10 (01:20:24):
Okay, okay, all right, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
Well, I appreciate your call. Y'all have fun. I'm glad.
I'm glad we have peace in the family. No marriage
counselor need it out there and humble, We're.

Speaker 10 (01:20:36):
Good to go. I'm glad he's got one thing right
this year.

Speaker 2 (01:20:40):
Okay, apparently he did something right when he married you.
How about that? I bet he agrees with me.

Speaker 5 (01:20:45):
I love it.

Speaker 10 (01:20:47):
Thank you, though, y'all have a good garden day.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
Oh my gosh, iy you know away. Sometimes people I
get a call and someone says, well, my husband thinks this,
and I told him that, and I can see there's
a battle brewing. Look, I don't do I do do
marriage counseling. Oh I do, but it's three hundred dollars
an hour, and you don't want me to do it.
But I will give you horticulture advice for free. So
and we'd like to have some fun with the callers.

(01:21:12):
As you can see. Hey, stick around for the news.
I'll be right back. Don't go away. We've got lots
more to talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
Welcome to kat r h Garden Line with scamp Rickards.

Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
Just watch him as well. So many birties not sor alright,
welcome back to the garden line on a beautiful Sunday morning.

(01:21:59):
I'm telling you this afternoon you need to figure it out.
But you gotta go somewhere and get something and get
out in the yard and have some fun there. This
is the time. Are there's stuff to do in the lawns.
Right now we are putting a pre emergent for warm
season weeds. If you are going to do a pre emergent.
You gotta do it now.

Speaker 6 (01:22:18):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
If you have cool season weeds before they finish setting
seeds and stuff, get a post emerging on them. The
sooner the better if you're gonna get rid of them.
If you just got a few, you can hand pull them.
You've got a few, you can spots spray. I'm here
and there. You don't have to do that all that, uh,
but that's what it's what I do in mind most theories.
But listen, when there's a bunch that and pulling just
not practical unless you'd enjoy doing that. There are people

(01:22:42):
who do. But anyway, you got to. You gotta take
care of them because once a cool season weeds such
seeds that one weed plant now has created hundreds of
potential offspring, so next fall they'll sprout and next spring
it's going to be even worse. And so the goals,
you know, we talk about a lot of products for

(01:23:03):
doing a lot of things, and they work, they do
work that works. But our goal is to build the densest,
healthiest lawn in the world. And regular mowing, proper watering
with a good soaking on an infrequent basis, and then
fertilizing with a high quality fertilizer is how we do that.
It's lawn care is really simple. Mow water fertilized. That's

(01:23:26):
the simplest I can make it. And then when a
chinchbug shows up or a brown patch circle or cool
season weats or warm season weaeds, we have ways of
dealing with that. But our goal is mow water fertilized
to create the densest, healthiest lawn that you can do.
That's what we're after.

Speaker 6 (01:23:45):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
In your garden beds, your goal is to create beauty.
You want it to look good. Colorful flowers, colorful foliage shrubs,
and maybe some evergreen, maybe some blooming shrubs. Moss Nursery
done in Seabrook is a place where you can get
all that and more. This nursery. If you've not been
to Mosque before, you need to just make a plan

(01:24:06):
to go, you know, go get lunching chema or something
and go visit Moss or it's down in Seabrook off
Toddville Road, and they are so loaded right now with
all kinds of plants, and they carry standard things that
you would expect at a garden center, you know, junipers
after the four varieties of junipers, ozelia's, red buds, magnolias,

(01:24:27):
you know, Holly's and ewes and Chinese witchy or Chinese
witch hazel, laura pedal and ball cipers. But they have
other things like Brazilian rain trees. Go look that one up.
That's a cool plant. Portula carria. Yeah I didn't say
porta laca, said portulacaria. So think of think of portulaca,
or person, think of purcelaine or porta laca and imagine

(01:24:49):
it being a little like not shrub, but a little
bit of a woody plant or small plant, not just
like a groundcover that's all succulent. That's what that is.
Pretty cool stuff. They have hundreds of bon bonseye starters.
If you I took somebody yesterday that was a bonesye
grower at the Home and Garden show up in Montgomery County,

(01:25:09):
which by the way is still going on today. Uh
and we were talking bones eye. But you go downto
moss you can. There's hundreds of plants you can choose
from and start that hobby yourself. Have you ever tried that?
You know, it's kind of building a ship in a bottle.
Something you get out and play with and work on
and stuff. Bonesye is a is a really cool fun
anyway I'm going on about bones Eye. Moss Nursery is

(01:25:31):
a place to go. It's not just under the garden Center.
You're going to wander through eight acres and you're going
to find everything you need and they are loaded up
with plants ready for you right now, and lots of
yard art. We'll call it landscape bling. They've got plenty
of that too. Toddville Road, Seabrook, Texas. Moss Nursery dot com.
Moss has two a's in it two eight one four

(01:25:53):
seven four twenty four eighty eight to eight one four
seven four twenty four eighty eight. If you are interested
in giving a skull here on garden Line, we'd be
happy to visit with you our phone number seven one
three two one two kt RH seven one three two
one two kt RH. I mentioned earlier that you got

(01:26:15):
to get the pre emergent now, if you're going to
put one on. Some people use them, some people don't.
But if you're going to put a pre emergent on,
and if you've got a thin lawn where sunlight hits
the soil, nature will plant weeds there. That's how it works.
That's why we build as dens of a lawn as
we can. But barricade by nitrofoss is an excellent product

(01:26:36):
for preventing weed seeds from sprouting. Here's how it works.
I'm not going to go nerdy on you. Just in
a nutshell, you need to know this. You put the
barricade down, You water it with about half inch of water.
It goes into the soil and it ties up at
the surface. It doesn't wash off the surface. It doesn't
wash through the soil. It's made to tie up to
the soil. If it didn't do that, when the weeds
germinate up at the surface, there wouldn't be any barricade

(01:26:58):
there for them. It's a barricade. It's named that for
a reason. It ties up to the soil. A weed
tries to sprout and it can't come through it. That's
how barricade works. And there are other pre emergents in
the market. I'll tell you this. Nothing grabs the soil
and sticks in place as well as barricade does. That's
that's just a fact. Okay, broad leaf weeds, grassy weeds,

(01:27:20):
whatever's coming up this spring and summer, you get ahead
of them with barricade. Now, now you're gonna find barricade,
like other nitrofuss products in many places around town. If
you go to Bearings Hardware on Bissonet, if you go
to the Bearing Hardware that's on West Teimer, for example,
you go to Hiden and Feed on Stubner Airline, or
Ace Hardware City, which is a memorial drive. How about

(01:27:42):
all Spas Ace on kirkandall oor Ace out a Sinkle ranch,
all places where you're going to get quality night fuss
products like the barricade. People get confused, and you know,
in answering questions, I hear it a lot. I hear
where two things are said and they're both true, but
then when they put them together, they get mixed up

(01:28:03):
and it gets a little confusing. Herbicides come in two types,
whether it's an organic product or synthetic product. There's going
to be things that prevent weed seeds from sprouting and establishing,
and there's gonna be things that kill existing weeds. And
you gotta you want to do one or the other. Now,

(01:28:24):
if you're looking for a quality nursery and you're out
in the Kadi area our West Houston nursery is an
awesome one. You're fortunate. Nelson Water Garden and Nursery and
Katie Nelson Water Garden is a full service local nursery.
I know it says water garden in the name. It
also says nursery in the name. Nelson Nursery and Water Garden.
For two generations, they've been a leader in water gardens

(01:28:45):
and their garden center and nursery is just awesome. Walk
through from the house plants you walk through when you
come through the building to the vegetables and herbs you
get to and flowers next to the shrubs and trees
and fruiting plants and everything. You're out there in the
koy posey and the coy ponds and the water plants
that they carry their nationally recognized experts. Nelson Watergardens dot Com.

(01:29:09):
You go out to Katie Turn North on Katie Fort
Benroad and it's right up there, Nelson Watergardens dot Com.

Speaker 11 (01:29:18):
Like the frame.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
There we go.

Speaker 12 (01:29:20):
It's still.

Speaker 2 (01:29:23):
And more marriage advice for all you guys out there
today on garden Line. See we're a we are a
multi service show. We don't just do plants, you do music.
Welcome back, We're good to have. It's good to have you.
Glad you're here. Seven one three two one two kt
rih if you'd like to give me a call and
that'd be a good time. Wildbirds Unlimited is they are

(01:29:46):
the ones response. I blame Wildbirds Unlimited for getting me
into backyard birding.

Speaker 4 (01:29:51):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:29:52):
It's their fault because I go in there and I
see products that are amazing, you know, like they have
feeders like I just got their hop it's called the
Classic Eco Tough hopper feeders designed by the owner of
Wildbirds Drains Well. Keeps your seed dry, which some hopper
feeders she'd get soggy wet. I just got one, putting
it out in the yard. I love the eliminator. The

(01:30:13):
eliminator feeder is just awesome. It keeps the squirrels from
getting in. It works really really well. My squirrels hate
it on a Sunday morning. The language that they use,
they should be ashamed of themselves because they can't get
in that feeder. Which makes me happy. All right now,
right now, you need wild Birds Unlimited Nesting super Blend.

(01:30:35):
That is the one. For now. Our birds are nesting,
they're laying eggs, they need the calcium in wildbirds unlimited
nesting super blend. They need the protein in that feed
as well. You can buy it in loose seed bag.
You can buy it in seed cylinders, which are kind
of cool.

Speaker 5 (01:30:50):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
It's like one of those little candles. It's about I
don't know, four inches across or so. They come in
different sizes, by the way, but it's like all the
seed is sort of glued in there and the birds
have to kind of peck it out whatever's convenient for you,
whatever you want to do, and whatever kind of feeder
you need, Warbirds is going to have that kind of
feeder for you. That's what they do. The most important
thing they do is that they give accurate local advice.

(01:31:15):
They can tell you when the hummingbirds typically arrive, when
the Purple Martin Scouts show up, and when you need
to get your Martin houses up. It's an amazing place.
They told me about the Cornell app and it's called Merlin,
like Merlin the Magician, Merlin me R L A N.
It's free. You need to go get it. Just do this,
do this for me today. Download Merlin on your phone.

(01:31:39):
It's free and try it out. If you see a
bird and take a picture. Merlin will tell you what
that bird is. I mean, unless it's like five hundred
yards down the way there. If you go out in
the morning and you hear a bird, go to Merlin
and say listen, and it'll tell you what the bird
is and tell you about that bird. It is free,
it is cool. War birds s time out. See it's

(01:31:59):
their fault. I would have been this enthusiastic if it
hasn't been for them. Well, you're fortunate.

Speaker 10 (01:32:04):
Here.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
You've got six wild Bird stores. If you live in
Pearland on Broadway, if you live in Kingwood on Kingwood
Drive down in Houston on the west Side at Memorial
on bel Air in Houston, up in Cypress on Barker Cypress,
or in clear Lake on Eldorado Boulevard. All great stores,
all great wild Birds, unlimited stores. You got to check

(01:32:26):
these things out. You'll love it. I promise you you will. Well,
you're listening to Garden Line and we're here to answer
your gardening questions. So if you want to give me
a call, the number is seven one three two one
two KTRH seven one three two one two KTRY. I
know you're probably getting ready for church or something. Who
knows what you got planned today? And you're busy, so

(01:32:48):
that's good. You just keep listening. It will be good
with that too. But if you have a question, I'm
glad to help you. I've got an open line right now,
which is which is a good thing if you were
interested in asking a question. I was out in the
yard the other day taking care of some mulching that
I needed to do in my front bed. I had
a real nice craws. I'm trying out some different multas

(01:33:10):
you know, when I talk about a product on guarden Line,
most of the time I've used it, or I've read
about it in research, or I've seen it and you know,
been around it and familiar with it. And this was
I got some molts things from the folks at Nature's
Way up in forty five North and I was trying

(01:33:30):
them out, and you know, I try this one out,
see how it does, hot looks and stuff, and try
a different one out.

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
And I was.

Speaker 2 (01:33:35):
I was replenishing one of their double shred it's called
a double shredded molts that they have. Look really good.
It's really doing the job and it works well. And
they have many others as well. But I'm always trying
different things out out there and seeing you know how
it works. And you can always tell where you don't
have your molts thick enough because the weed comes up.
It's true, looking at us, I can eat be a weed.

(01:33:56):
I moltzed it and I walk over there, and it's
like this little gap in the malt sunlight hits the soil.
Wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed. That's
how that works. Unfortunately, nature does not like bear soil
because bar soil gets eroded. Bear soil gets crusted, and
nature takes care of soil that way. It's a beautiful
design system, all right. Sweet Green from Nitrophis is an

(01:34:21):
organic fertilizer with eleven percent nitrogen. That's a lot for
an organic fertilizer being a carbon based product. Sugar is
a string of carbons, and molasses is a sugar type
and so basically your molasses product goes in the soil
and microbes go nuts. I mean it's like crack, a

(01:34:42):
micro crack. I love this stuff. And when they go nuts,
they are turning loose all the things that your plants
need to grow. The nitrogen that's in it you know,
and their activity is breaking down organic matter and it's
just making the soil better. So you're not just adding nitrogen.
You're doing things that help the soil as well. Now
you're going to find Sweet Green a lot of places

(01:35:03):
around town. If you go, oh, let's say to Rosenberg,
there is Sweet Green at M and D in Rosenberg.
If you go to Court Hardware in Stafford on South Maine,
you're going to find or M and D there Court Hardware,
You're going to find the nitrophos products there. By the way,
there's also M and D and Cyprus on Luetta that
you can go to, and Langham Creek Ace Hardware on

(01:35:26):
five twenty nine. You need to go see that story.
It's got They did a total renovation recently and it
looks great. Anyway, Sweet Green's easy to find. That's the
bottom line. Try it out. So I'm out and I'm
replenishing mults. I'm taking care of some things like that,
and I have some semi sensitive plants, like it's the

(01:35:49):
pride of Barbados. It's also the proper name is Sey Sulpinia,
but Pride of Barbados or Barbados Pride is something that
people call it a lot. It's a tropical type of
plant that dice to the ground here and usually comes back,
but it doesn't like cold cold, and we had some
pretty cold this winter. So I took a bunch of
maltch and just piled it up over the stems of

(01:36:11):
the plant, and it killed it all the way back.
And I know this that once we're done with all
the coal, which we're pretty much done, I'll just pull
that mulch back off there, let that crown breathe, and
we'll have fresh new growth. But that plant is a sleepyhead.
It's not going to show up till about May. It's
like a teenager on Saturday morning. If you see them
before lunch, you're lucky, all right, it's a sleepyhead. But

(01:36:33):
I love that plant too, But just a tip when
you're mulching, mulch is one of the best ways you
can protect those tender plants like that as they're coming up.
Enchanted Forest is a wonderful garden center. I was talking
to somebody this morning about who called in, you know
about Enchanted Forest, and I believe it's tim And they

(01:36:53):
have everything that you would want a garden center to have.
The setting is just amazing when you drive up. I
don't know how to describe it. I don't say it's
like an old Western town, but just the whole building
and everything. It's rustic. It's a barn look rustic, but
it is so cool. And then you go there and
then there's buildings on the site. There's like structures on

(01:37:13):
the site with the plants in them that you just
walk in free air float through there and they're loaded
tomatoes of every type, you can imagine, herbs of every type,
you can imagine, annual flowers, perennial flowers, hanging baskets. They
really do a great job on pollinator plants and on

(01:37:35):
specifically butterfly plants, both the ones that attract the adults
and the food sources for the young. Everybody knows, you know,
monarch butterflies need milkweed. Well, passion flower butterflies need passion vine.
That a gulf fridillary butterflies. Excuse me, gulfridillary butterflies need
passion vine. They've got all that and during the season

(01:37:57):
you're going to find caterpillars on the plants. They'll let
you take the I got a pillar home too, so
you got your little it's like having a sour dough starter.
You got your your butterfly garden starter going home with
the plant. They're located on FM twenty seven fifty nine,
and that is south of fifty nine or sixty nine
the interstate. If you're going from Richmond, Rosenberg to a Sugarland,

(01:38:18):
it's off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine.
Enchented Forest. The website Enchented Forest Richmond, TX dot com.
You need to go check this place out tonight this
afternoon'd be a great time. Let's go out to Pasadena
now and we're gonna let's see who are we talking
to in Pasadena. He is Steve Steve, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (01:38:43):
Yeah, Skip, we appreciate you longtime garden Line listener, Andy Lemon,
rest of Soul, and that I appreciate you stepping in
and doing such.

Speaker 4 (01:38:52):
A great job.

Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
Thanks for being a listener.

Speaker 6 (01:38:55):
Oh yeah, you got your help so many people. Hopefully
you can help me today. All right, I got a
yard my daughter's property in Pasadena and it became a
rent property and they didn't do anything. And we have
two big trees and the leaf malts, not malt, just leaves.

Speaker 2 (01:39:13):
Three years of it.

Speaker 6 (01:39:14):
I begged about almost thirty contractor bags of leafs out
of there this last week and everything's dead and it's a.

Speaker 12 (01:39:24):
It's a pretty good sized yard.

Speaker 6 (01:39:27):
It used to have some grass and we don't know
if we're going to keep it or rent property or
or sell it. But I didn't want the cost. I mean,
sod's gone up in such a I mean, I can't
believe the price of sods these days, these last years.
But yeah, I've never seen the yard. I never I thought, man,

(01:39:47):
what's what's a good way to go about? I mean
it's it's pretty hardpan too.

Speaker 8 (01:39:51):
You know, it's like it's just it's a flat surface.

Speaker 6 (01:39:55):
And yes, so anyway, but I guess my question to you,
and I just stopped and listen, what would you do
to prep that up?

Speaker 8 (01:40:02):
And I guess so it would be the easiest thing.

Speaker 6 (01:40:04):
And I've done that before. I've brought into the top
soil laid sod.

Speaker 8 (01:40:08):
But okay, i'd really have been interested in your ideas.

Speaker 4 (01:40:11):
Go thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
How sunny is the spot?

Speaker 6 (01:40:14):
Well, I'm taking I'm having a tree service come in
and get rid of one of the trees.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
So we're going to bring a lot more sun in Okay.
So there is one.

Speaker 6 (01:40:22):
There's one really large oak, and I'm going to have
that trimmed up.

Speaker 2 (01:40:26):
So that's what all.

Speaker 6 (01:40:27):
It should be decent for growing. After I do that,
and that's next week, I'm going to have the tree
service come in.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
Okay. If you've got good sunlight, you can grow any
of our main southern grasses, which is Saint Augustine, Zuysia,
and bermuda. If you start to get into shade, the
bermuda drops out, you get into a little more shade,
and the zoysia drops out, and then you get into
more in the the Saint Augustine drops out. There actually
are some zoysias that are comparable to Saint Augustine in

(01:40:53):
shade tolerance. But so depending on the spot, you're going
to pick one of those. And the reason that matters
is what whever you do, you are going to want
to fertilize it consistently and water it consistently to get
it to cover as fast as possible you can sell.
There's a couple of strategies.

Speaker 4 (01:41:10):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
Of course, you fill the whole thing with sid that's fast,
that's easy, it costs money. Okay. The next step would
be to start somewhere laying side, and then later by
more sod to go further and let that side creep
out a little bit, and then more sid and more side,
so you're sort of taking over, maybe starting at the house,
working out or whatever. That's another strategy. A third strategy

(01:41:33):
is to get rid of everything. Get the dirt right,
you need to make sure and get you know, get
that loosened up if you can row a tail or
break it up a little bit, or bring in some
full soil to fill holes and things. And then once
you've done that, you want to put your side out
as more like plugs or strips. You can take a
piece of sod it's like a doormat size, and you

(01:41:54):
cut it into strips and you put those a foot apart,
and now you've made it go a lot further, maybe
three times as far as it would have. But then
you have to wait on it to fill in. And
so those are your three options that you got on
I've got about I've got about ten seconds before I
have to go. I'll put you on hold if you
want to keep this going.

Speaker 6 (01:42:12):
No, it's okay, It sounds like I could probably do
the human checkters game.

Speaker 2 (01:42:16):
With that. That that is it and the and the
the thing to keep in ling is you're going to
be dealing with weeds. But that's okay. It's the it's
a cost effective way. Hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate
it a lot.

Speaker 6 (01:42:26):
Yes, thanks appreciated.

Speaker 2 (01:42:29):
All Right, we're back. Welcome to Garden Line. Welcome back
on a beautiful sunday. Oh my gosh, the temperature. It's awesome.
This this is the way it should be year round.
I wish well, if you'd like to give me a
call here on Guarden Line my number seven one three
two one two K.

Speaker 4 (01:42:49):
T R H.

Speaker 2 (01:42:50):
We're here to answer your gardening questions, to help in
any way we can to help you have success. Uh,
pests spoil the show. I don't care if it's a
cockroach crawling across the floor causing panic screams, people are
jumping on furniture, throwing shoes. I mean it's a mess, right,
Or if it's termites that are doing significant potential damage

(01:43:12):
there to your house. Pest Brothers can take care of
all of that. They specialize, that's their name, pest Bros.
Pest Brothers, pest Bros. They specialize in this out in
your yard. How about fire ants? Would you like a
very effective, very low talks safe way to control fireance.
They can do that. They have the kinds of extremely

(01:43:35):
low concentration baits that work on fire ants, but they're
not a problem for your pets that are out there.
Maybe you're dealing with mosquitos. They've got that cool bucket
system that I talked about, you know, not blasting, not
essentially nuke in the yard, trying to kill mosquitos that
might be flying by at the moment or in a bushy.
These bait stations draw the mosquitoes to them, and that's

(01:43:56):
where the problem for the mosquitos begins. They lay eggs
in the water in the but those eggs can never
develop into mosquitoes because the product falls into the water.
The product gets on the mosquito when it lands on
the little screen, and then it goes flying off and
wherever it lands in water, it introduces a very cool product,
very safe product that prevents mosquitos from growing. And guess what,

(01:44:18):
here's the best part the mosquito that picked up that product.
It's actually two things in that little dust. The other
thing is a fungus that attacks mosquito's bodies. I mean,
and I could get gross here, but if you hate mosquitos,
you can always let you imagine it for yourself. It
doesn't end well for a mosquito. It's a natural control.
It doesn't hurt ladybugs, doesn't hurt birds, doesn't hurt you know,

(01:44:40):
fish or anything else. This is very specific, very safe,
which is typical of the pest Bros. The pestbrosbros dot com.
That's the website two eight one, two oh six forty
six seventy long term control without the worries. Let's see,
I've got a phone call here. We're going to go

(01:45:00):
out to Crosby now and talk to Gerald. Hello, Gerald,
welcome to garden Mine.

Speaker 4 (01:45:06):
Good morning, Skip, how you doing well. I have a
question about can you put as and mite in that
sweet green down at the same time?

Speaker 2 (01:45:16):
Absolutely? Yeah, absolutely. Sweet green is pretty specific to being nitrogen.
That's that's pretty much what it is, and so asumite
is going to give you the trace minerals. Now, I
would not mix as and MTE with other fertilizers in
the same spread or hopper at the same time, So
put out one and then put out the other. Because

(01:45:38):
the particle size is different and you won't get even application.
But yes, same day, same time, put out one, come
back load the other one. Put it out. You're good.
Same as is true with you know, fertilizers and then barricade.
You know, the fertilizers are different particle size and barricade,
so you got to do them.

Speaker 4 (01:45:54):
Separate, right, Okay, Well that's what I needed to know
because I don't want to put some down before this
one gets.

Speaker 2 (01:46:01):
Yeah, how much are we supposed to get? I haven't
looked at the weather.

Speaker 4 (01:46:04):
Here, I don't know how much.

Speaker 2 (01:46:09):
Okay, all right, Well, just I always watch the amount
because you know, if we were going to get like
two or three inches of rain, I wouldn't fertilize ahead
of that because you will have some wash away. But
if it's if it's more moderate, let the rain save
you some irrigation. So yeah, good plan man, all righty bro,
thank you, all right? Thanks Jered, take care, Yes, sir,

(01:46:31):
you as well if you bet. If you're looking to
do a compost, stop dressing and or a core aeration
of your lawn, And by the way, that is one
of the best things you can do for a lawn,
especially clay soil, especially compacted soil I would call year

(01:46:51):
round Houston. If you're located inside the Beltway or out
in the Richmond Rosenberg area, you know, we have different
folks if we talk about on guarden line for different
parts of the area, because hauling the equipment and all
the composts for top dressing and stuff around, I mean,
you just can't. You can't go two hundred miles all
over the place trying to do that. You're around Houston

(01:47:11):
serves that area inside the Beltway and out at Richmond Rosenberg,
and they are composting specialists for both compost and specialists
for corration. So when they use a product, it's a
quality product. When they do aeration, it's the type of
machinery you can't rent that does a nice core popped
out of the soil, dropped on the surface. That's how

(01:47:32):
it should be done. That's how it should be done.
Don't just rent some cheap machine that squeezes a hole
in the soil. You want to do cor aeration, pop
it out. That's what they do. Now you can breathe
a new life into your lawn literally because with each
corrooration you get oxygen down in the soil, the root
system is enhanced fertilizer and this compost does fall into

(01:47:53):
that hole. The compost helps hold it open. And each
time you do corroortion, you are making an area that
is struggling with the clay compaction in things, you're making
it better and year round Houston does it. Here's the website.
It's not hard. Year round Houston dot com eight three
to two eight eight four fifty three thirty five. Year
round Houston dot Com eight three to two eight eight

(01:48:16):
four fifty three thirty five. Let's go out now on
the phones. We're going to talk to AJ. Hello, AJ,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (01:48:25):
Oh, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:48:26):
Hey.

Speaker 11 (01:48:26):
I got a question about I've got a raised bed
garden out in my backyard and over the years just
kind of settled down and I wanted to put something
over the top of it that would enrich that soil.

Speaker 2 (01:48:39):
What do you suggest? Is this a vegetable garden, right,
you said ub guard. Yeah, I would get There is
a product called Veggie and Herb Mix from Heirloom Soil,
and it's available just everywhere by the bag. And so
if you're just topping off a bed, you could just
do it by the bag. You can also get a

(01:49:00):
bulk delivery of it or go pick up a bulk
amount of it yourself on a truck or trailer. Uh,
if you want more than if it's gonna take too
many bags to do what you want to do. But uh,
that is.

Speaker 11 (01:49:12):
Maybe picking up a yard.

Speaker 2 (01:49:14):
I got to pick it up that I could pick
it up with what pass for uh veggie and herb mix.
And what you're gonna what you're gonna want to do
is you want you want to go where you can
get the soil bulk in Porter that that's hang on
one second, I'm trying to reach and get the address here.

(01:49:35):
Uh in the Porter yard is where they basically produce
and distribute from out there, and it's Warren's Rock and
Moltz is the location where you get it.

Speaker 13 (01:49:45):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:49:46):
The the address is US fifty nine Access Road in Porter.
But if you want, you can go to the website.
It's rock inmlts dot com r O c K the
letter in and then Malts dot com. Let me give
you a phone number to eight one to eight one
three five four nineteen fifty to eight one three nine

(01:50:09):
call them up. You got options. They can put a
super stack in your truck, or they can dump it
in your truck, but they know all the details of
that and set that up with them. I think they're
open seven to four Monday through Friday, seven to three
on Saturday, and definitely close today.

Speaker 11 (01:50:24):
Okay, one more question. I heard you talking about Core Areation. Yes,
do you suggest I call here the Spring area?

Speaker 2 (01:50:33):
In the Spring Area, I would call green Pro Green
Pro and a right. Let me, I'll see their address here.
In a minute, I have to run to a break,
but when I come back, I'll give an address or
information on Oh I haven't here, it is right here.
I'll just do it Greenprotextas dot Com. That's the website,

(01:50:55):
so just go there and that's got the phone number
and everything on it, Greenprotexas dot Com.

Speaker 11 (01:50:59):
All right, all right, certainly appreciate, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:51:02):
You bet bye bye? All right? Votes, Yeah, that's a
who is singing footloose there. I don't know that artist.
That's different, but you know what, that's what they call
cover song called right. You make a good song and

(01:51:23):
everybody becomes Elvis when you sing one of his songs.
All right, Well, I was talking about airlom so before
we went to break. Heirloom soils is uh they serve
the whole region. In fact, I've seen their products way
you know, towards san Antoni, Austin direction and everything. They
they produce a quality product and as a result, you

(01:51:44):
got a lot of people interested in it. And they
also give you versatility. They sell their bags in so
many places around town that it's easy to find heirloom
soils and they give you a variety, so you can
get a soil that is for roses and other blooming
and shrubs in general. You can get a veggie and
herbmex which is good for vegetables and herbs, and you

(01:52:05):
cant even grow flowers, little annual flowers and things that
do you discried for that. You can get one for
fruit trees, you can get one for acid loving plants.
They've got it all there. Also in the versatility, you
can buy it by the bag, but you can have
them bring it to you two ways. You can have
them bring a dump truck and dump it in the
driveway and you shovel from there. I've done that many

(01:52:25):
times building up my beds. You can also get it
in what's called a supersack. That's a one cubic yard
sack that it lifts up, they set it on your driveway.
It's neat and clean. I've still got one. I haven't
finished up a supersack setting on my driveway that I've
been shoveling out of. I just need to get more
time to get to it. It's neat, it's clean, it's easy, easy,

(01:52:46):
easy to do. Now, if you're going to get a
delivery of supersacks, there's a three supersacked minimum, So you
can't just get like a one yard and have them
drive eight hundred miles smart, so you got to you
got to do the minimum there on three. But however
you want to go about it? Do you want to
drive out to Porter I was just talking someone just
a moment ago about going out there at Wrang's Rocket

(01:53:09):
Melch and picking it up right there. Heirloom soil products
right there. While you're out there, you know you're gonna
find things like black star gravel, crush, granite, pea pea gravel, sand,
things like that. They have a really beautiful thing called
rainbow gravels, a little different colors of a little gravel.
It's real pretty. And then of course mulch is cedar, mulch, hardwood,

(01:53:29):
mulch pine bark, mulch. It just they have a lot
go to. You need to check them out. Heirloomsoils dot
Com is where you go to learn about all the
airlom soil products. And if you are deciding that you
want to do a delivery, I would just give them
a call at two eight one three five four nineteen
fifty two eight one three five four one nine five zero.

(01:53:55):
I get excited about soil. The way I like to
tell people is I get I love dirt, and yet
people remind me gardeners, some master gardener's going to go.
It's not called dirt, y'all taught us in master gardening.
It's not dirt. It it's oil. That's right. It is soil.
Dirt is soil where you don't want it. Dirt in
your house. Soil in your house is called dirt, all right. Anyway,

(01:54:20):
Semantics green Pro I was just talking with I think
it was it was it aj about green Pro. He
was asking about Core Aeration. Green Pro is our core
aeration specialist that services about a forty five mile range
from Magnolia. So to make it a little simple there,

(01:54:43):
all you got to do is think of Interstate forty
five and Interstate ten. That's the northwest quadront of Houston.
That's where they serve. Basically, Okay, their correation services are impeccable.
They've been doing this a long time. They know what
they're doing. They only use top quality comp and when
they fertilized fertilizer as well. But they'll come in, they'll

(01:55:05):
do a corrotion with a machine that does it right,
and then they'll put the top quality compost down. And
when you do that, you're feeding the biology the soil,
the microbes, and they need that. You're getting oxygen in
the soil, which helps both the scent the sand, the
turf roots, and the microbes themselves they need oxygen too.

(01:55:26):
You're improving the internal drainage because now there's a way
for water to soak in faster down into the soil
because you've increased that area by the corrooration. If your
soil has been or your sod has been struggling with
chinchbugs or brown patch or take all patch, corretion's the
secret if you've got that. I was talking yesterday when
I was up at the Montgomery County Home and Garden Show.

(01:55:49):
It's still going on today, still going on. If you
haven't gotten out there. I was talking to some people
that had thatch problems and we were talking about what
causes that and all that kind of thing. The number
one way to get rid of that is to core air, right,
because it brings those little little cylinders of soil up
to the surface and drops them there in the thatch,
and when they dissolve into the thatch, it makes it

(01:56:09):
rot real fast. Also, the compost top dressing helps because
it keeps it moist. When you have organic matter that
stays moist, decomposition will occur. And that's how you get
rid of that.

Speaker 5 (01:56:20):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:56:21):
What more can I say? Greenprotexas dot com, Greenprotexas dot
Com eight three two three five one zero zero three
two A three two three five one zero zero three two.
I've got time for one more call this hour. If
you are fast on the dial, we'll get to you

(01:56:42):
before the end of the hour. I love RCW Nursery
for several reason. Number one is convenient. It's just right
there where FM two forty nine comes ato bout way eight.
You know, you just do it on your maps, phone
maps or whatever, and it'll take it right down to
It's easy to get to this right there, and so
that location, and I mean whether you're northwest or east
or south or wherever, it's easy to get there to

(01:57:04):
RCW Nurseries. RCW Nurseries has all kinds of good deals
going on right now, and they grow they sell everything.
You know, we're talking about herbs and flowers and vegetables. Yeah,
they have all that stuff. The roses, I don't know
anybody carries the many types of roses as RCW Nursery
pages and pages full of roses. That is something all

(01:57:26):
the rosarians know about that place. And it's still okay
to plant roses. For crying out loud, this is a
great time to get your roses planted. So stop by RCW.
See what they got there. Check them out. They also though,
when it comes to shrubs and trees, they have a
very good selection and they grow their own trees. Most

(01:57:47):
of the trees they have they grow their own, coming
from up in Planetersville where they have their field, the
Williamston Tree Farm up there, And so you're going to
get species that want to grow here. They don't sell
you a blue spruce, for example, because they know it
didn't grow it. They've been doing this, they've been doing
this since nineteen seventy nine. That's how long RCW has

(01:58:07):
been in business. So what's that forty six years? I
think they probably know what they're doing. And when they
grow a tree, they grow it right, so it's going
to establish and succeed. And if it's of any size
at all, you're going to want to get help in
planning it. And they do planting services as well. And
if it's a small tree and you're going to plant yourself,
they have things like roots Stimulator. They certainly carry the

(01:58:27):
fertilizers we talk about here on Guardenline and things like Nitrophoss, Microlife,
turf Star. It's just the place to go and if
they don't have it, they probably get it. We call
them they get it, got it nursery because if they
don't have it, ask them. I bet they can find
it because they do their best to find anything that
you're interested in. All right, website rcwnursries dot com. Simple

(01:58:51):
as that, We're going to go out to pair Land
now and talk to K. Hello, okay, excuse me to
do this called in the backwards way. Hey K, Hey,
how you doing. I'm good.

Speaker 5 (01:59:06):
I thought you got rid of me. I have a
question on the big elephant foot plant I have. It's
not the fringy one. It's one that has the big branches.
It has a spread of probably four feet or so,

(01:59:27):
and I had it covered and had a floodlight on
the base of it. But I think some of the
ends of the branches it looks like they're dead. I
scraped them and they're they're not. But the whole, the
whole branch is not. That's grape that and there's still life.
Can I just clip those off?

Speaker 2 (01:59:49):
Or yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I don't
know what plant we're talking about. Kay, elephant ear, it.

Speaker 16 (01:59:57):
All comes out of us, not elephant ear, it's elephant foot.
It's okay, okay, you know what them most of them
have this fringy stuff coming out of them.

Speaker 2 (02:00:11):
Now, okay, the music is on. I'm about to be
cut for the news. Hang on, don't go away. I'll
come back to you. Okay, if you can hang on,
I'll be back. Okay, All right, folks, Hey, I want
to remind you all that I'll be at Jorges Hidden
Gardens in Alvin next Saturday. Now I'm doing this a
little later down there because I have to drive down

(02:00:34):
one pm to three pm Jorges Hidden Gardens and Alvin.
I hope you'll come out and see me. We do
the regular old thing, you know, where you bring me
samples or pictures or whatever and we diagnose and identify.
But I'm going to be talking about secrets of planting
success when we're down there, and a lot of other
things and answering your gardening questions at Jorges Hidden Gardens.

Speaker 1 (02:00:58):
Welcome to kt r H Guarden Line with Scared Rictor.

Speaker 2 (02:01:02):
It's trim. Just watch him as a man again a

(02:01:27):
sun All right, we're back. Guess what we got one
more hour today, which means we got one more hour
this weekend. You got a question and they can't wait
until next Saturday. Well that'd be a good time to ask.
We'll be happy to help you with that. For those
of you up in the Greater Willis area, And when

(02:01:48):
I say Greater Willis, I mean you know the lake
like Conrad out there, the Conroe up north New Waiver,
just that whole reeve of the woodlands, even growers outlet
in Willis is a place you need to see. I
bet you haven't been there before. The website is exactly
that Growers Outlet in Willis dot com. They're on Highway

(02:02:10):
seventy five, just minutes away from forty five, just a
little bit south of Willis. There they serve that whole area,
of course, and they've got the fertilizers you hear me
talking about all the time, you know, microlife and nitroposs
and medina for example. Their selection of vegetables and bedding plants, ferns, perennials, shrubs, trees, fruit.
They've got a bunch of fruit in the other day,

(02:02:31):
I was talking to them up there. They've got figs
and there's like four different kinds of figs. I have
a bunch of different kinds of figs. Maybe more than that.
They have blueberries, and then you know all the standard
fruit trees, you know, the peaches and whatnot that you
would expect a really nice selection. The cool thing I
think are a cool thing about it is products that

(02:02:52):
they have are viewable online. You can look at availability
and pricing. Not many nurseries do that, but you go
to Growers Outlet in Willow dot com and you can see,
i think every Wednesday evening they update their vegetable list
of what they have. Huge, beautiful baskets, Oh my gosh.
And when you're looking at perennials like verbena and geraniums,

(02:03:12):
they grow those in house right there. They've got a
really nice gift shop. It's just a good place to visit.
And you go first, go to the website. Check it out.
Growers Outlet in Willis dot com on Highway seventy five,
just south of Willis, just a few minutes away from
Interstate forty five. We're gonna go now and go back
to K. We were visiting with K before we went

(02:03:34):
to break there. Hey, Kay, welcome to garden Ope. I
messed up. I messed up. Hang on, all right, we're
gonna try that again. Hey, K, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (02:03:42):
Yeah I called back, I got cut off.

Speaker 2 (02:03:44):
It was it was weird. Yeah all right, Well.

Speaker 5 (02:03:47):
Boy, I'm talking about the elephant.

Speaker 2 (02:03:51):
Yeah, elephant foot, Yeah, elephant foot. For those other folks
that are listening, that's a plant that's also called ponytail palm.
You're probably familiar with it a big old sweat.

Speaker 5 (02:04:00):
But that's not what I have.

Speaker 2 (02:04:02):
Oh, you don't have a ponytail.

Speaker 5 (02:04:04):
I don't have a ponytail has large long branches coming
out and then they're clusters of big leaves.

Speaker 2 (02:04:14):
At the end of the Okay, Okay, do you know
now I have never I have never grown that plant before,
but I can tell you this about it. I know
what you're talking about. I just my experience with it.
It's very limited. Okay, you said you have some cold
damage right to it on the on.

Speaker 5 (02:04:32):
The tips, like three or four inches on the two ends.

Speaker 2 (02:04:35):
What what I would drink?

Speaker 4 (02:04:37):
Where?

Speaker 2 (02:04:38):
Ahead?

Speaker 4 (02:04:39):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:04:39):
I'm sorry, go.

Speaker 5 (02:04:39):
Ahead, No, I was just saying where the frost blanket
was out too far? I guess from the heat source
at the base, but so so some of it I
think froze and it I just am afraid it's going
to affect the rest of the branches.

Speaker 2 (02:04:59):
Well I I wouldn't. I would just say this, what's
been effected is affected, and you can't change that. You
can't take dead and make your live, of course, But
if you just wait and see, you may see some
areas that start to be sunken. And if it's just
a little spot, the branch is probably going to have
enough structural integrity to hang on and keep going. If

(02:05:21):
it's a bigger spot, you may have to do some
cutting out, but it can put out some fresh new growth.
So you're going to have to just kind of wait
and see on it. And I always like to let
the plant tell me when to prune. You know, we
do the thing where we scrape the branch and see
if it's brown underneath or if it's a healthy color,
and you can do that, but the plant will tell

(02:05:42):
you pretty quick here. And if you see stuff really
sinking in, sunken and soft, almost spongy like, then that
definitely is is not alive.

Speaker 5 (02:05:50):
I have scraped it and there's some of these ants
are brown underneath, but then the rest of the branch
is green, yeah, or you know, lives looking.

Speaker 9 (02:06:01):
So that's why I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (02:06:03):
What where did you get that thing?

Speaker 4 (02:06:04):
That?

Speaker 2 (02:06:05):
I don't think I've ever seen that for sailor it was.

Speaker 5 (02:06:07):
I've had it for over fifty years. It came from
a friend of ours. My husband was an orthodonist, and
he had a young man that was a teacher and
he had he did lab work for it, and they
he and his wife had a small nursery and when
my husband opened his new office, they gave us that plant, okay,

(02:06:30):
and I took it home and I had it, but
I always had a big garage that I could put
it in when the weather was bad.

Speaker 2 (02:06:38):
Well, and I don't have that now, so okay, I'm
going to put you. We're gonna good job. My producer
is going to pick up. If it's okay with you.
Would you get an email to send me a picture
of that plant. I'd love to see it, and especially
the area before and after. I would love to see that.

Speaker 6 (02:06:53):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (02:06:54):
It happens to it and it loses its leaves in
the fall every fall. It acts like a diak it.

Speaker 2 (02:07:00):
Okay, well, thank you, thank you, thank you very much
for that. You bet. And let's see. We're gonna go
to Pasadena now and talk to Valdo.

Speaker 4 (02:07:09):
Hey, Stip, how you doing?

Speaker 2 (02:07:11):
Hey Skip, how you doing? I'm doing good.

Speaker 4 (02:07:14):
Yeah, I'm just gonna.

Speaker 2 (02:07:15):
Ask a question, then hang up and listen on the radio.

Speaker 9 (02:07:17):
I bought a Eagleston Holly.

Speaker 17 (02:07:21):
I don't know if it was a twenty five gallon,
twenty five gallon or thirty gallons. I bought it just
right before winter in twenty four, put it in and
then I'm just now noticing that it's starting to grow
another or it has another trunk, so it has the

(02:07:41):
main trunk.

Speaker 2 (02:07:41):
Where it's tied off to bamboo stick for it to
stay straight. And now there's another one off to the
side of that. Yeah, can I just can I just
remove that? You can? Yeah, you can. And I can't
see the plants, so I you know, I can't really
advise you on whether you should or not, but you can.
You can prune it off close to where it attaches

(02:08:02):
to the trunk. Uh and and uh and the plant
will continue on from there. Sometimes they do that. That's
that's not a big issue. But you know, structurally, I
think it sounds like you want to take that little
one off because it's kind of comparing. You can leave it.
I wish I could see it, and then I know
for sure. But Egleston, on a lot of plants, you're

(02:08:24):
going to get multiple trunks like that that come up
sometime when they're a really narrow angle, like if you
hold up two fingers, you know that narrow angle between
your fingers. That's that as each gets bigger, it's a
place where a plant can split. And we don't like that.
We'd rather plants come out at a at a wider angle.
But I'm speaking generically because I can't see what you

(02:08:45):
got all right, thank you, all right, thank you for
the call. I appreciate that very much. Uh Nelson. Plant
Food has a lot of different products, and I want
to talk to you about a couple of them this time.
I talk about turf Star all the line. The turf
Star line all the time. They got a lot of
great products. The Azalea and the it's called Azalea and

(02:09:06):
all acid loving plants. It's a nutri Star comes in
a jar. That's one. The other one is Vegetable Garden.
Those are products. They come in a jar. You just
take your little tablespoon, scoop out or whatever and sprinkle
them around according to the label. Right, Vegetable Garden's got
five different sources in nitrogen, so you're getting a release
of nitrogen over time. You're not having to fertilize your

(02:09:27):
garden ever a couple of weeks. I mean it's going
to last for several months there. It's a very good
product designed for the nutrient types that vegetables are going
to most need. Basically, that's how it's designed. Nutri Star,
Azalia and acid loving plant. That one is an acidifying fertilizer.
If it's blueberries, kalladiums camellias, if you've got dogwoods or gadenas,

(02:09:50):
if you got hollies, hollies or plants that appreciate a
little bit of an acidic environment, hadranges of course, yes,
the magnolias. There's a lot of plants we didn't have.
I didn't. I didn't say az alias, but that's in
the name. Those all like acidic soils and they do
better in those soils. It has four different acidifying sources,
and it's got a slow release nitrogen as well, so

(02:10:12):
you're gonna get two or three months out of that.
Nutristar azalea and acid loving plants and nutristar vegetable garden.
Look for those canisters in a garden center near you.
I got to take a break here. When I come back,
Gene and Katie, you'll be our first step. All right,
welcome back to the guarden line. We're here to help
you have success with your garden. That's what you want
to do, because if you have success, you're gonna have fun.

(02:10:34):
And if you've got fun, you're gonna do more of it.
And if you do more of it, you're gonna live
along in happy life. See how that works. It does
if you've got outdoor containers and you are looking for
a quality soil, you look no further Jungle in flour
and vegetable planting soil. Jungle and flour and vegetable planting
soils from nitrophiles. It has specially blended Canadian blond peat

(02:10:56):
with four different sources of aged decompose bark and I'm
telling you it all.

Speaker 4 (02:11:02):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (02:11:02):
It also has microrise of fungi, which you know work
with plant roots to help the roots take up nutrients better.
And they just have a number of functions that they
do to help roots. So you got an outdoor potted plant,
you are going to have a happy plant, long lasting,
vibrant color. You get the most is that you can
out of plants when you put a mix like jungle
Land from nitrofoss. When you put a mix like that

(02:11:25):
in that drains well so it never soggy, too boggy,
and it holds moisture so it never it's slow to
dry out. Let's put it that way. You're not watering
it three times a day trying to keep it going. Now,
you're gonna find nitro fross products at a number of places.
You go up to Cyprus, to M and D on Luetta.
You're going to find them there. Langham Creek Ace Hardware
five twenty nine, you're going to find them at the

(02:11:49):
excuse me, all Spas ACE up in the Woodlands and
Sinkle Ranch Ace. Katie Hardware Ace is another place that
you're going to find those. And how about we throw
one more in out there in Richmondberg Plantation Ace Hardware
on three point fifty nine. The same road that in
Jenny Gardens is on by the Way, which also carries
these products. It's easy to find night Fast products. These

(02:12:11):
are all examples of the many places you go looking
for them. We're going to go now to Katie and
talk to Jane Op. We're going to go there. If
I push the right button. Now, let's try hello. I'm
going to get one caller right today, Jane. Maybe one.
I'll call it one in a row. Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (02:12:32):
Thank you. I have three questions if you have time.
I have a bay beef tree and a lemon tree,
and I need to know what to spray them with
because they get this black, sticky, gooey stuff on the leads.

Speaker 2 (02:12:50):
Okay, there are several insects that can secrete the sugary
water that creates that black city mold. The blacks is
not the problem. It's just growing on sugar water that
the insect made. My best guess, and I'm about ninety
percent year of this is the case, is that you're

(02:13:11):
dealing with scale. Now, if it's can do this, white
flies can do this, meatlely bugs can do this. But
when you told me the trees, I bet you're dealing
with scale. If you turn a lemon leaf over and
look at it close, and you should see some little
things they're like a fish scale and that they're flat,
but they're only they're smaller than a typed lower case

(02:13:32):
O in the kind of scale that's on these cent
and I think that's what you're going to see. There
are some other types of scale you might see under
the leaf. But the way you control scale is you
smother them with oil. So if you can get a
spray of an oil horticultural oil oil used to spray
on plants and spray it upward to coat the bottoms

(02:13:54):
of the leaves. And the more coating you get, the
better it's going to be. Like if you have a
leaf and you spray and ninety percent of the bottom
of the leaf gets oil. That ten percent is going
to have life scale that are going to reproduce and
refill the leaf. So one hundred percent coverage is your goal.
If you can do that, you got to get turn
that sprayer upside down and get under there and really
work on them. But you can do it that way.

Speaker 10 (02:14:16):
Can you name a product that I can I have
tried name and it didn't seem to work.

Speaker 2 (02:14:20):
Okay, Well, whenever, whenever you're shopping you look for an oil,
where are you located Jeane, Katie, kat Okay Katie. Well, yeah,
you've got like you've got Katie's Hardware that's right there
that that would be an example of one that is
very close to you. And there's also an Ace Hardware
and single ranch in that part of Katie. But go

(02:14:42):
by there and ask them for a summer oil or
a horticultural oil. And different companies make it. I mean,
you know, you may find it from Fertile Home, er
bo Nite or Monterey or High Yield or something. There's
a lot of types out there, but they're made for
coating the plants and and they're made to not burn
the plants. The old time dormond oils could burn tissue

(02:15:05):
when you got it on it. So you can do that. Now,
that's gonna be hard, and you're gonna to do it
more than once because you never get it all and
you just got to watch out for it. The alternative
would be to put a systemic insecticide in the soil
around the plant and have it taken up by the plant,
But you would have to find one that's labeled for
use on an edible like a lemon tree or a

(02:15:27):
bay tree. And so it works well because the roots
take it up. And like if you had a lady
beetle crawling around the leaves of the plant, it wouldn't
get poisoned because it's not sucking out of the plant.
The poison that's inside the plumbing of the plant from
a systemic you see what I'm saying. So those are
your two Those are your two options and ways to

(02:15:49):
go about it. I hesitate. The reason I didn't start
with the systemic is you know, if you've got your
lemon is blooming, then that product can be present in
the blooms and effect bees, and we like to try
to avoid that. It's the best way to kill the bug.
But it has these you know. Yeah, but you know, uh,
and the oil is the safest way. But it's hard.

Speaker 5 (02:16:12):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:16:12):
Those leaves on a bay tree are so stiff. It's hard.
One leaf blocks the spray from getting on the leaf
right above it, you know, so you spray well.

Speaker 10 (02:16:20):
When I lived in Bernie, I didn't have any problems
like this. When I moved here to Katie, I developed
a problem.

Speaker 2 (02:16:28):
Okay, well you'll stay with it. I one way or another.
If you want to use the systemic, maybe when the
lemon is not blooming or fruiting, Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:16:38):
Yeah, I would prefer check. Yeah, I would check with ace.

Speaker 2 (02:16:42):
Yeah. And the bay produces those bay trees, don't they
produce enough bay leaves for the entire city of Katie,
including Sincle ranch.

Speaker 4 (02:16:52):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:16:53):
Yeah, you need a few bay leaves and you got
ten thousand on a tree, So pick you a couple
of branches of leaves.

Speaker 10 (02:16:59):
It would be nice to be able to sell them
because bay leaves are expensive.

Speaker 2 (02:17:04):
I know they are, and you can't make gumbo without them.
So what I would do, I would pick me about
twenty leaves off, dry them and put them in a bag,
and then you can do what you want the tree,
and you don't have to harvest anymore leaves for a
year far more.

Speaker 10 (02:17:18):
Okay, this other thing has baffled me for quite a
few For about four years. I have a small raised
bed garden and every day I collect my kitchen scraps
in a container. I put them in the freezer. Then

(02:17:38):
the next morning I go out to the garden, dig
a hole and dump the scraps into the hole and
cover the scraps up, and I keep going rotating around
the garden with it. Now my question is I don't
have a single worm in my guarden. I can't understand.

(02:17:59):
The scraps are totally gone.

Speaker 2 (02:18:01):
Yeah, no worms. Well, okay, the worms that like scraps
are the little red wigglers. And if you had a
little place where you wanted to do that, go online
and learn about what's called verma culture with a v
There bins where people tear up newspaper put those red
wigulars in and bury their scraps in it, and they

(02:18:21):
eat it and they turn it into worm castings. You
can do that kind of thing in a garden, but
you got to learn a little bit about it. The
nightcrawlers and things aren't as interested in those scraps. They
more want to come to the surface and pull organic
matter down in their tunnel. But the scraps will decompose
by some of microbes, and so it's still working whether
you got worms showing up or not.

Speaker 10 (02:18:42):
Oh okay, great, that's my last question. What is the
best tomato for Kati area?

Speaker 2 (02:18:49):
Oh my gosh, twenty there's twenty different problems. Do you
want to do? You want a cherry, a grape cherry,
A great person. Tycoon's perfect can if you can find it.
It's not easy to find, but it's an awesome tomato.
The plants of Tycoon.

Speaker 10 (02:19:08):
Yeah, yeah, I bought with them.

Speaker 2 (02:19:13):
It's a good tomato.

Speaker 10 (02:19:13):
So this will be the first time that I have
grown it before, all right, Prior.

Speaker 9 (02:19:19):
To that it was ye.

Speaker 10 (02:19:21):
Well, I also grow jewel yet. I love jewel yet. Yeah,
and I haven't been able to find those yet.

Speaker 2 (02:19:27):
All right, Well, I got a run gene. Thanks for
the call. I appreciate I appreciate.

Speaker 12 (02:19:31):
That very much.

Speaker 10 (02:19:32):
Thank you. Come bye.

Speaker 2 (02:19:34):
Micro Life makes a lot of different kinds of fertilizers.
They make something called humates. Plus it's a purple bag.
It is a zero zero four. That's what the numbers
on the label, but you're not putting it on for those.
You're putting it on because it's the final decomposed stage
of organic matter humus humantes. It has the the compounds
in it, like humic acid and fullvic acid and things

(02:19:57):
that are part of that whole microbial one world down
there in the soil that builds soil structure. So when
you're doing your fertilization, don't think of this like a fertilizer.
You don't use it in place a fertilizer. You use
it also when you fertilize or any time of the year.
You don't have to wait till fertilizer season. You just
put it on. It gets, it's gonna work. Its win

(02:20:18):
the soil over time, and it works. It's a purple bag.
It's from microlife and you need to try it out.
We're going to run let's see what's our time right here. Yeah,
I got a little bit time. We're going to run
out to Katie and talk to Henry. Up. Hey, Henry, Henry, Welcome,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (02:20:39):
Well, thank you, skip listen. I've been collecting. I have
a bunch of outdoor pots full of potting soil and weeds,
and I'd like to reuse that potting soil, but i'd
like to I think I need to pasteurize it before
I can.

Speaker 2 (02:20:54):
All right doing that, I've already done the work for you.
Go to my website gardening with Skip dot com Gardening
with Skip dot com on there is a publication. Click
on the publications, scroll down pasteurizing soil. Basically, you're gonna
take it, you're gonna moisten it, you're gonna put it
in a turkey bag, one of those oven turkey bags

(02:21:16):
or something like that. There's different ways to do it,
and you're gonna heat it, but you need to do
it to the right temperature for the right amount of time.
And it's all in that in that free sheet that
tells you how to do it.

Speaker 9 (02:21:27):
Oh boys, Skip, I mean I have, I got quite
a pile of dirt out there with well there, okay.

Speaker 2 (02:21:35):
There there's one other option, and that is oh boy.
I don't have the link to it, but it's a
University of California. University of California Extension Service did something
on a solarising soil and it's about solarizing soil in
your garden. But there's a section where you take your
pots and you stack them up on a pallet so

(02:21:56):
there's air movement underneath, and you cover them with plastic
in the hot sun and the middle of summer, and
it heats up enough in there to pasteurize them. And
that's a way to do a lot more. But you
got to find the University of California publication on solarizing soil.
All right, good luck with that?

Speaker 9 (02:22:15):
Can I can? I?

Speaker 4 (02:22:16):
Can?

Speaker 9 (02:22:16):
I just do like ground up, just saturated with a
round up Wait for a while, now.

Speaker 2 (02:22:21):
No, that's not going to do it. There's not. Those
are the only two ways without the commercial equipment to
pasteurize it. I've got to run. They're about to They're
about to cut me off here. Thank you very much.
I appreciate you call, Henry. Good luck with that. All right, folks,
turn it over to Jared here. I'll be right back.
If you want to give us a call, you can
dial seven one three two one two kt r H.

(02:22:43):
All right, folks. Oh, it's a good day. It is
a beautiful Sunday, and I hope that this afternoon you
will get out, take a deep breath of fresh air
and enjoy nature. I've told you this on the air before,
but I actually enjoy pulling weeds. Now, if I have
an acre of weeds to pull, I you know, I

(02:23:03):
dread that, of course, But when I look at a
little garden area and there's some weeds, I go, ah, gosh,
I got weeds. And then I sit down and I
use a hoe or a hand or whatever. I get
rid of them, mult over them, and you just stand
up and you look and it's beautiful and you see
what you accomplish. There are a lot of areas in life,
and some of you may be this way. You know,
you go to work, you work all day, and at

(02:23:24):
the end of the day, you go, what have I accomplished? What? Really?
You know you've worked, but it's hard to get that
gratification of seeing a visual, big difference. And I guess
that's why I like to pull weats, because I can
make a mess look really nice. And if you know
how to use newspaper, put it about four sheet to
six sheets thick. Now, I know most people are not

(02:23:46):
taking the physical paper, but if you got that, throw
some mult on top and you go from weeds to
wonderful and like fifteen minutes, I mean it's it's it's
the horticultural equivalent of sweeping the dirt under the rug.
You heard it here first Arbigate and tom Ball. What
a nursery. I've loved going to Arbigate for a long time.

(02:24:09):
And do you know how long Arbrogate has been around
twenty ninth year anniversary. They're celebrating their twenty ninth year anniversary.
So go out and say happy anniversary to Beverly and
the whole crew out there at the arbor Gate. When
you go to Arbigate, you're gonna find lots of cool stuff.
You know, they've got beautiful, beautiful flowers. One of my

(02:24:30):
favorite flowers in the last ten years that I've just
fell in love with has been the daisies. Now, daisies
come in so many colors, not just the white daisies,
you know, we're talking about certain series that have been
bred with just bright colors that are so gorgeous. Also,
and this is a public service announcement. Next Saturday, Saturday

(02:24:53):
March eighth, at ten am for ten dollars, you can
go to the Arborgate and you can listen to it.
Talk on rose punting by Gay Hammett. Now let me
tell you something Gay has forgotten more about roses than
most people know. She's past president of Houston Rose Society.
She knows everything. And this is about as good a

(02:25:15):
well spent ten dollars. You have to get out there
to the Arborgate and do. That's next Saturday, ten am.
So they only have forty attendees. Space only space for
forty because this is a you know, this isn't an
auditorium type thing. This is a very intimate and personal
thing where you will learn how to prune roses and
you get a lot about rose answers as well. Bring

(02:25:36):
a friend two eight one three five one eighty eight
fifty one two eight one three five one eight eight
five one. That's where you can find out more about that.
And I just got to say this, why you're there,
ask them to show you the deciduous magnolias, or let
me put it this way, just look up and look
around and you're going to see them. These things are

(02:25:56):
the hottest pink with a purplish hue. They are gorgeous.
They bloom when there's not a leaf on the plants.
And we live in a part of Texas where you
can grow deciduous magnolias. Very successfully. There's several types of them,
but when you see this, you got to put one
in the landscape because when spring comes, the first plant
to show up with a trumpet and announced spring one

(02:26:18):
of the first ones down here. If you live further north,
it's a pcithia, But down here it's these decidious magnolias.
They're great and you can get them at Arbrogate. By
the way, where's Arbrogate? Okay, if you haven't been there,
a mile and a half west of two forty nine
on twenty nine to twenty out of Tumbel, just west
of Tumbul, you'll see it on the left. Turn down
Treshe Road which goes around Arburgate. Go in the back

(02:26:40):
park there. It's a great parking lot, safe, easy access.
Can you tell I like decidious magnolias were Let's see.
We're going to go out to Katie now and talk
to John. Hey, John, Welcome to dark Derk.

Speaker 5 (02:26:55):
Good morning, Skip.

Speaker 18 (02:26:57):
You're talking about trumpets announcing spring. My favorite one is
is is there anything better than the smell of the
meyer lemon flowers?

Speaker 2 (02:27:04):
Oh my gosh, they're intoxicating, I mean a control substance.
Because I'm sure people have gotten drunk sitting by one
smelling enough of it.

Speaker 13 (02:27:14):
Like gardens, I called last week about I got two
avacado trees from the enchanted garden Mexicola, which is doing
absolutely beautiful.

Speaker 18 (02:27:26):
It's hopefully going to be start giving some fruit soon.
But then another one of Leela, which they only warranty
their plants seven days out. But last week I was saying,
it's uh lost half.

Speaker 12 (02:27:39):
Of its leave.

Speaker 18 (02:27:39):
Now the other half of its leaves are wilting and
the sticks they're starting to turn black based on the top.
So I want to get your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2 (02:27:52):
How long would you plant it?

Speaker 18 (02:27:55):
I thought it about a month ago.

Speaker 4 (02:27:56):
I've had to.

Speaker 2 (02:27:58):
Do you think it could have have you had a cold.
I'm trying to remember when the coal snaps were. If
you had a coal snap, we brought them inside for cold. Okay,
who turning black? Other than cold, saggy, soggy, wet soil
conditions that drowned the roots. I guess could be a
play a role, but I don't know. You know what

(02:28:19):
I would do, I would take a picture of it,
and I would go back in there and explain you
bought a couple of them from them and see what
they think about those. They may be able to work
something out with you or something on that one. If
if you brought it in from the cold. I just
don't know, other than wet soil, what would cause them
to turn black and fall off that.

Speaker 4 (02:28:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (02:28:39):
I talk to Connor and he says, sorry, there's nothing
we can do, only guarantee plants of these.

Speaker 2 (02:28:44):
Well, and there's I understand that. I mean, you can
imagine why they did that, but no advice on, no
thoughts on what would have caused it.

Speaker 18 (02:28:51):
Okay, Well they said basically, good luck, we'n't glad that
we got one that looks great.

Speaker 2 (02:28:56):
Yeah, yeah, I understand, Well I would boy. First of all,
I don't there's nothing to do for you right now.
I wouldn't spray it. I wouldn't say spray it with
this in sex side or fungicide or whatever. I don't
think it's it's definitely not a lack of nutrients. It's
eat the colder water. Somehow one of those is involved.
I guess if a bunch of roots were damaged in

(02:29:18):
the planting. But even at that, those are pretty tough plants.
They shouldn't they shouldn't break down like that. Yeah, I don't.
I don't know what else to tell you on this one.

Speaker 11 (02:29:30):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (02:29:30):
No disease that I'm aware of. Okay, all right, thanks
a lot, appreciate your call.

Speaker 18 (02:29:35):
All right, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:29:36):
All right. Yeah, that was a stumper, and that that
does happen sometimes. Listen, uh, Ace hardware stores are everywhere,
and A stores hardware stores have everything, right, That's why
their motto is ACE is the place. It doesn't tell
you what it's a place for, because it's a place
for everything. You know, you need plumbing, you need wiring,
you need light bulbs, you need all the standard hardware stuff.

(02:29:58):
Of course they got that, but they have a lot
of other things. You're revamping your garage, cleaning it up.
You need some binge, you need some shelving, they've got that.
You need cleaning supplies for that spring cleaning we all
get into each spring. They've got a wide variety of those.
You need things for the outside patio, like a string
of lights or maybe some barbecue supplies. Oh my gosh,

(02:30:21):
just go see it. An unbelievable selection of that. And
then when it comes to the yard, you hear me
talk about fertilizers, They got them you hear me talk
about even soils, so mixes, soill blends and mulches and
things you're going to find those there tools and then
things to control weeds. I talk about barricade. You know
the importance of preventing weeds. Well, they got that. They

(02:30:42):
talk about the post emergent things. They've got that. The
things that control insects and disease, including organic products, they've
got that at ACE Hardware stores. And you've got a
lot of ACE hardware stores to choose from. You can
you know where do you want to go? I mean,
because there's going to be an Ace Hardware pretty much
every where that you want to be. You know, a
K and M and a task a Seeda, the Bay

(02:31:03):
City Ace Hardware down in Wharton, the Wharton feed and
Ace Hardware, or the Hamilton Hardware Highway six near Bear
Creek are just examples of the many, many, many ACE
Hardware stores that you can choose from. Time for me
to take a break. I'll be right back. All right,
we're bad.

Speaker 4 (02:31:22):
Folks.

Speaker 2 (02:31:23):
We got about ten to fifty minutes left in garden
Line today and they've been a good day. I've enjoyed
visiting with our body and talking about gardening night fass barricade.
I've talked to you about it and talked to you
about it and talk to you about it. If you're
going to prevent warm seasoned weeds, you need to do
it before the weed sprout. It's much easier to prevent

(02:31:44):
a weed than to kill a weed that's existing. Barricade
is watered in with a half inch of water. Don't
forget to water it in. That activates it. Otherwise it
can't work if you don't get in the soil. Half
inch of water puts it in the soil where when
a weed sprouts for about sixty days, it's to prevent
that weed from coming up. Depends on the weather and conditions.
It could be a little longer, little short, or whatever,

(02:32:05):
but about sixty days is the amount of protection it's
going to give you. So if you got things that
sprout all through the summertime, you like grass burrs and
things are constantly out there sprouting, well, you may need
to redo it in about sixty days, but for right now,
do it. Follow the label very carefully. The label is
your key to success. If you go out and be
the lawn ranger and weigh it well, let the buyer. Beware,

(02:32:29):
you should not do that. Should not do that. Labels.
I don't care what the product is, always follow the label.
That is very important. Barricade works grassy weeds, broad leaf weeds.
It prevents them. It works well, and you're going to
find it in a lot of places like nitrofoss products.
For example, in Memorial a Memorial Drive, Ace Hardware, City Ospostion,

(02:32:50):
the woodlands on Kerkandalt. I mentioned that one before hiding
and feed on Stuben or airline, go down to one
of the Mini Fishers hardware. There's one in Pasadena on
the port, when in Mount Bellevue, when in Baytown. Those
are all examples of places where you can find nitrofoss
products like the s barricade. We're gonna got the phones
now and talk to Nancy. Hello, Nancy, I.

Speaker 19 (02:33:16):
Did you get my emails?

Speaker 6 (02:33:17):
Do you get my pap?

Speaker 10 (02:33:18):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:33:18):
Let me look, I'll have to check that out. I
don't know now, Nancy. I got to ask you first.
It says you're from Flint. Are you calling from Flint?

Speaker 10 (02:33:27):
Yes?

Speaker 19 (02:33:27):
Yes, we talked to them my watermelons in a while
back right in between Palestine and Tyler.

Speaker 2 (02:33:34):
Yeah, I know, just south the tyler. Yeah, I know
you don't get the radio signal up there.

Speaker 19 (02:33:41):
Well, you know, I haven't tried.

Speaker 2 (02:33:42):
I just do with the app Okay, always have.

Speaker 19 (02:33:45):
I've been listening for thirty years.

Speaker 2 (02:33:48):
Well, thank you. Hey, I'm looking at your pictures. What's
your question?

Speaker 19 (02:33:53):
Okay, the the three palms that look horrible you're outside.
We set them on the front porch. Well, we put
them inside to where you have a pool table and
just let them in there. And they were doing fine.
And I took them out about two days after the
last freeze up here. It gets a lot colder here
than it does even with the say, because we're on

(02:34:15):
the lake, and put them, put them outside, and then
they they've been gorgeous plants, and all three of them
look like that.

Speaker 5 (02:34:23):
Should I should I cut it?

Speaker 2 (02:34:26):
It's cold, it's cold damage. And what remains to be seen, Nancy,
is whether the stems were killed and these uh palms
and yeah, palm you have drsina uh. And I'm trying
to look at all those things like that. But like
on the dsina, I think I see a little green
growth coming out of the top of one of those stems.
So the leaves that are brown and the leaves that

(02:34:50):
have just kind of gotten almost a gray brown green,
dark color, water soaked. Look, uh, those are all gone,
but I would just wait, Let's wait, let's watch them,
and the tree will tell you if it's going to
make it or not. If it's round, you might as
well clip it out. It's not coming back to life.
But hopefully the damage wasn't too extensive. And as I'm

(02:35:11):
looking at the plants the way the leaves covered some
of them, I think you're going to be Okay, what
was your other question?

Speaker 10 (02:35:17):
Okay? The other one was okay.

Speaker 19 (02:35:19):
And then I had a picture of my lemon and
my plum, which those were in my sunroom. Yes, and
I'm just asking that those look pretty healthy. And then
the other picture was a picture of my raised garden
outside the sun room. Can I plant I'm going to
do water on tomatoes a get out there, but I'm
not going to go crazy. I can I do an
avocado tree in that avocado garden or any any kind of.

Speaker 6 (02:35:44):
A fruit tree.

Speaker 2 (02:35:44):
You are so far north that I wouldn't even try
an avocado. I mean, unless you wanted to build a
giant greenhouse over the thing. You're not going to have
success with that.

Speaker 19 (02:35:53):
Yeah, it does have to where you can cover it.
But I'm not going to What fruit tree could I
put out there instead of having it in a pot?

Speaker 2 (02:36:04):
Well, that area looks partially shady. How much sun does
it get?

Speaker 19 (02:36:10):
It gets a biled sixty, you know, all day long
because it's only okay, And the thing isn't that it's
electrical pants surround it. So I can keep my dear
from getting into it. I just planted in wheels on
the property, okay, dear.

Speaker 2 (02:36:29):
Will Yeah, So you've got a couple of options, do you.
Since you liked a garden in that spot, I hate
to have a big tree that's shading the whole area.
But how about how about a raspberry a rabbit eye.
I've served raspberry, forget I said that. A blueberry? Okay,
rabbit I blueberries. You need a type that's called a

(02:36:52):
rabbit eye, and you need to get two different varieties.
There's one. There's a number of varieties. There's one called
bright blue, there's one called climax, there's one. There's just
a bunch of them. But get two different ones and
plant too. If you want to plant more than two,
you can, but you need two different varieties for cross pollination.
Tiff blue is another rabbit EI blueberry. They need high

(02:37:14):
quality water.

Speaker 19 (02:37:15):
So yeah, okay, I absolutely love blueberries and i's a
great and I have had strawberries and yeah, all kinds
of other things out there, so that that is great.

Speaker 2 (02:37:25):
Drawback on blueberries is just going to be water quality
and so a pH. Okay, so you want to use
acidic fertilizers.

Speaker 11 (02:37:32):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:37:32):
And you know you'll see if you see yellow growth
on the new growth that the pH is too high.
You got to get it down a little bit more. Okay,
but that would fit that spot really well. They'll put
up with a little bit of shade and do okay.
Fruit doesn't like to be in shade, but blueberries will
do okay with a little bit.

Speaker 10 (02:37:48):
Okay.

Speaker 19 (02:37:49):
Okay, Hey, that that sounds great. And it is a
beautiful day, and thanks for everything you do, and everybody
go out there and make some beautiful memories.

Speaker 4 (02:37:58):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (02:37:59):
Well more. You know, I don't know if if you
listen to Guardline you've heard me say this, but I
expect half the produce from these blueberries to be delivered
to the station. Now look for you to drive three
and a half hours that's not a problem to fulfill
a promise, right, So right, yes, there you go. Put
the onus on me. Hey, I'm joking with you. Thanks

(02:38:21):
for the call, Thanks for being listener. Tell your neighbors
and Tyler to listen.

Speaker 10 (02:38:25):
In I constant.

Speaker 2 (02:38:29):
All right, you take care. We've got to have a
little bit of fun here. If you want to get
out this afternoon, especially if you're around in the Houston area,
you got to swing over by Buchanans Native Plants. I
absolutely love that place. Every time I go, I see
something I haven't seen before, and I want to tell
you it is Buchanan's Native Plants. Now, does that mean

(02:38:52):
they have only natives. No, they have more plants than
you can imagine. But when you go to Buchan's Naty Plants,
you're going to find a selection in they It's like
nowhere in the greater Houston area. It is unbelievable all
that they have. They're always featuring different native plants. If
you sign up for their newsletter, which you should do,
there's a lot of good information and things that pay back,

(02:39:14):
you'll see a lot. And in fact, this week they
featured Maximilian sunflower that is a late summer fall, blooming
sunflower that blooms on tall stalks, I mean like six
foot high stalks. And it's a perennial planet. Once find
a wet spot, it'll love that, Maximilian. That's just an
example of the bazillion of things that they have up
there at Buchanan's Native Planet. It's a fun place to shop.

(02:39:36):
It's on eleven Street on the Heights. The website, please
write it down, Buchanansplants dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. That website.
You can sign up for the newsletter. You need to
do that, you really do. But there are videos that
are educational. There's web pages that you read that are educational.

(02:39:57):
It is a really really good site with all a
lot of good information. When you walk in there, you're
talking to people that have been doing this for a
very long time. They know their stuff. And when you're
out looking at plants, swing in the gift shop, it
is unbelievable. It's really cool and oh why you're there.
You remember brown stuff before green stuff. Well, they've got

(02:40:18):
products from Microlife, a full line liquid solid granulars. They
have products from Nitrofos, products from Nelson plant Food Products,
from heirloom soils. They have their own all purpose blends
called Life Below and Tropicore. You just ask them about that.
Bucuntis NATed plants. We're going to run out to Katie
now and talk to Logan. Hello, Logan, Hi, how's it

(02:40:42):
going well. I'm doing well. I actually took a call
the right way, so we got right to it. We
got about forty five seconds. Let's see if we can
help you.

Speaker 12 (02:40:52):
I got brown patch in my yard.

Speaker 9 (02:40:54):
What can I use to get rid of it?

Speaker 2 (02:40:56):
At this stage? If the circles are there, you're not
going to make them green with the spray. Sprays prevent it,
so I would say, don't worry about it. It's going
to go away. The weather's going to heat up, the
grass is going to regreen in those circles, and be
ready to deal with it next fall because it'll be
back next fall. My schedule on my schedule online at
gardening with Skip dot com tells you right when to treat.

(02:41:19):
And I know now is the time you can treat,
but I'm just telling you you're not going to gain
enough this late in the game probably to be worth
treating now.

Speaker 4 (02:41:28):
Okay, so just to weed and feed and let it green.

Speaker 2 (02:41:30):
Up on its own. Uh yeah yeah yeah, don't worry
about the brown patch. And now thanks for the call man,