Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richter.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Just watch him as so many.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Go things to seeprazy not sald.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Well. Welcome, Welcome to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to answer gardening questions. Actually, why I'm
here is so that you can have more bountiful garden
and more beautiful landscape and more fun in the process. Boy,
if we could achieve those three things, I would feel
(00:59):
like that's a home run. You know, gardening is supposed
to be a blast, and we have the ability to
create a little spot of eden whatever that looks like
to you in your property.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
We do.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Maybe you're a lawn ranger, one of the guys that
likes large expenses expenses excuse me, oh, maybe expensive to
large expenses of turf grass. That's that's what you like,
the perfect cut, the weedless lawn. Uh, just seeing everything
nice and edged and pretty. Maybe you're on the other
(01:34):
end of the spectrum and you like it wild, native plants,
cottage gardens. You know, no straight lines, no orders, no,
definitely not an engineer. If you feel that well, maybe not.
If you feel that way, maybe you're somewhere in between.
Do you like vegetable gardening? Grownk things you can eat,
vegetables and fruit and herbs. Oh my gosh, we can
(01:57):
grow all kinds here in the Greater Houston area. We
are fortunate. You know, we're about to get into some
cold and we'll be talking about that a lot today.
I bet, and yes that that's a rough one. But
by and large, this is a very temperate climate and
the amount of really hard freezes that we have are
very few and far between. That's why you see cetresol
(02:20):
over the place. That's why you see avocado trees down here.
For crying out loud, I mean, this is a great
place to grow a lot of things. It's not. There
are not a lot of places where you can grow
apples and avocados in the same spot. But this is
actually one where it could be done as long as
you're willing to go to some links in order to
(02:42):
do it well. The way we get from here to
there is for you to give me a call. Seven
one three two one two KTRH seven one three two
one two KTRH. Let's help you get the kind of
success that you're looking for. All Right, we'll start off
with the elephant in the room, and we'll come back
to the elephant. I bet a bunch of times today
(03:02):
the elephant in the room is it's going to get
really cold. And I realized that I've talked to someone
the other day that listens over almost to San Antonio
in that area, listens on the radio to the show,
and some folks down Corpus direction over Louisiana and Huntsville.
It's kind of hard to say how cold's going to
get at your house when we're covering that kind of area.
(03:23):
But we're looking at everything from the teens maybe down
to just a little bit into the twenties below thirty,
depending on where you live as you're listening to this broadcast. Well,
that means that what you need to do has a
big range as well, you know, and we're going to
get down in the mid twenties. We got a lot
(03:44):
of plants that are commonly grown here that are really
going to need some protection to not have a significant
loss to them. Fortunately, we have a lot of plants
that are able or resprout from the base. I was
just out doing a video, which by the way, I
posted to Facebook yesterday on protecting plants from the cold,
just kind of real quick went over basically how to
(04:06):
cover a plant and put heat underneath it and so on.
And I was using a plant that's kind of a
semi tender one. And we have a number of plants
like that, you know, the Pride of Barbados, sometimes called
Redbird of Paradise. That's one that is not hard to
kill that to the ground. It cannot take much cold
(04:28):
at all and it'll go to the ground. But if
you mound soil or compost or mulch over the base,
I like to use finer textured things because they don't
allow the air to move through as easily. Like a
big old chunky mulch isn't as much unless you put
it read deep. Isn't as much protection let's say per
inch of depth as would be compost or soil. But
either way you go, you want to mount something over
(04:49):
the base of it, and it killed it to the ground,
that's fine, and it'll come right back out of the ground.
In fact, plants like that do well if they get
killed of the ground. They just come out fresh and
same as true with esperanza yellow bells. Plant it all
over the place. Those plants are marginally hardy. Depending on
where you live in the listening area, they're gonna get
(05:10):
killed part way to the or killed back a little bit,
or often killed all the way to the ground. When
we have a good coal snap. If you have a
plant like that and it gets half killed back and
it looks horrible, cut it to the ground. I cut
mine to the ground every year because they come right
back out of the ground. And if you do that,
the plant won't be so scraggedly. You know, you had
(05:31):
one long stem that kind of half survived and then
sums coming back out of the ground. Cut it all
the ground, have it all fresh, come back out again,
and you'll be good to go. Don't forget. Don't forget that.
You can do that. Thry Alice. Thrialice is a well
it would be evergreen if it didn't freeze. Hard bush
(05:52):
that has yellow blooms, and it blooms probably more months
of the year than almost any plant you're going to
put in your landscape really continues blooming. Mine has a
little bloom on it still. I don't know what that's about.
We went through upper twenties. The other day, it's underneath
the eaves of the house on the south side, and
it didn't kill it back. I was a little surprised.
(06:14):
I figured that might take it down. Well, we're going
to take it down this week because I'm going to
be down in the upper teens probably where I live,
and so that is going to take it back. But
I was talking about those. That's another one thry alis.
It could be killed to the ground and it'll come
right back out again. Duranta Golden showers is another name
(06:34):
people use for that. Duranta will be killed the ground.
Just mulch the base. I would say, don't worry about
trying to protect those plants unless you're way south and
you're in an area where you almost never killed those
back to the ground. Then if you want to give
some protection protect the above ground parts, you can. I
just like coming out fresh with them. That's my approach.
(06:57):
So you choose how you want to go about that.
But that's that's like cold protection. One oh one is
mult the base, Well, you don't have to cut it
back now. In fact, I would suggest you don't cut
them back prior to mulching uh. And the reason is
pruning is an invigorating process. Pruning is an invigorating process,
(07:19):
and I want to I want to make a couple
of comments about that. We're gonna take a little break
here in a minute, and when I come back, I
want to discuss what happens to a plant when you
prune it, and why we do or don't prune prior
to going into a cold season or a cold weather
and coming up soon. So we'll do that in just
(07:41):
a moment. I do want to remind you if you'd
like to give us a call and get on the boards.
It's always quiet as early in the morning, so you
kind of have first shot without waiting in line seven
one three two one two k t r H seven
to one three two one two k t r H.
Stay tuned. We'll be right back to talk about pruning
and its effect on plants. All right, folks, we're back.
(08:06):
Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us.
We've got a lot of things to cover today. I'll
be talking about freeze and frost protection, certainly that some
other concepts talk about printing here in just a little bit.
As we get going, you know, when it comes to
the cold weather, though, you need to be ready for it.
(08:27):
And ACE Hardware stores have got you covered. Boy are they.
I was talking to somebody from ASA other day and
they are stocked up. They have everything you're gonna need.
Do you need things like faucet covers? They've got that.
Do you need that gadget called the freeze miser. You
screw it into the end of your faucet and you
turn your faucet on, just crank it up full force,
(08:48):
and nothing happens. It just sits there and it as
a temperature coals, something inside shrinks up and it starts
to trickle water. And so the colder it gets, the
more it's protecting that faucet. Doesn't that make sense? And
then when the weather warms up, it stops dripping again,
so you're not running water all night at a trickle
trying to protect your lines. Fustymiser's really good. They got
(09:10):
those at ACE. You can get insulation for your pipes.
You can get that tape that you wrap around them,
you know things. They have all kinds of things. Do
you need to maintain your generator, make sure fires up
in case there's some sort of issue with the power.
They also can refill your propane tanks. They have propeane heaters,
all kinds of heaters, electric heaters, overtype. You can imagine.
(09:31):
You need some lugs for the fireplace. We always get
excited when it gets cold because we get to run
our fireplace. And so they've got that for you. Heat
lamps for your for your plants, and I talk about
that on that video by the way that I did
on Facebook. Heat lamps for your plants and how to
use them properly, and on and on and on. At
your Houston Ace Hardware stores and I'm telling you Ace Hardware,
(09:54):
they're a bunch of them all over the place. You
can go to Ace Hardware dot Com find the one
near you, or I'm just this. You've got Sinco Ranch
on South Mason Road. There's an Ace Hardware right there.
Ace Hardware, Sinco Ranch, Evaldie. Ace is on the east
side of town, Crosby up in Crosby, Ace Hardware, Bay
Cliff Ace Hardware just just south of the Chema and
then Spring Ace Hardware. Those are just a few examples
(10:16):
of the many Ace Hardware that we have. I'm gonna
head out to the phone, said boy. I said Colin,
it's quiet. Nick sorted, be not so quiet. We're gonna
go to Mary in Houston. Hey Mary, good morning and
welcome to garden Line. All right, Mary, are you there?
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Yes, I'm here.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Good morning, Well, welcome to garden Line. How can I
help this morning?
Speaker 7 (10:42):
Thank you?
Speaker 6 (10:43):
So I want to get someone a like a fruit
tree or something like that that they can put on
their patio and plant later. But they live in Brian
Hollis Station. Is there a good okay nursery and nerbar?
Is there a good fruit tree that you could recommend
for that air.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well?
Speaker 4 (11:02):
There are a couple of places up there that do
carry some fruit trees, not going to quite have the
same selection as you would find if you know you're
it's about an hour from from Arborgate up up to there,
and so I would you're not gonna find a better
selection of fruit they then Beverly has there at Arborgate.
(11:24):
I think that's worth the drive just to have the
selection that you're looking for. As far as the types,
pretty much everybody likes peaches, that's a safe one to
go with. They do require pruning and care, and so
if this is somebody that wants the least care fruit
they can have, then it might be something like a fig,
a fig tree. You can grow satsuma oranges up in
(11:46):
Brian College Station. You just occasionally need to throw a
cover over the top. Once they get established, they're going
to take it down in the low twenties and so
without cover, and so that that would be a sis
type of option. Plus they get the fragrances from it.
I mean, there are a lot of other kinds of fruit,
but those are just a few that come to my
(12:07):
mind when I just think about either easy or very
very popular, or or offering some extra bonuses in addition
to the fruit that you get off of.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
Okay, that's a good option, thank you. I was thinking
about some kind of citrus tree.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Yeah. Yeah. If you're going to give a citrus to
someone in Brian Collis Station, it needs to be a setsuma. Now,
there is a bush of a citrus called kumquat, and
those are the little green, the little orange things the
size of the end of your thumb that you basically
make marmalade with because the skin tastes probably even better
than the inside. They're heartier than satsumas. But it's a
(12:49):
little bush and so a lot of people aren't wanting
citrus for just marmalade.
Speaker 6 (12:54):
Okay, all right, that works, thank you so much. I'll
have to head head out to heart Gate.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Then there you go, yeah, go down, and when you
go there, they're going to tell you about some other
things too.
Speaker 7 (13:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Another option. I don't know how much of a gift
you want to make this, but if it was in
a large container one of those looks like a half
whiskey barrel, but it's it's plastic, you know, something with
size on it, then you could be growing a mere
lemon or even some types of limes. They just would
have to roll them into the garage when it's going
to get you know, below the upper twenties for sure.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
Okay, all right, that could be Thanks, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Bye, yeah you bet bye bye. See here we're going
to go now to Spring Branch and talk to Sally. Hey, Sally,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Good morning.
Speaker 9 (13:41):
I'm concerned about by and ever littlest bulbs and irish bulbs,
spider plants and wandering jew How can that particular?
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Okay, well, Emeralist is going to be fine. It's just
that's what winner does. They die to the ground. It's
not a problem. They'll be okay. You may find that
they make it through. You know, in the in the
city we have a little bit warmer temperatures than you
do in the outskirts. There's that heat island effect of
the city. If you want to throw a cover over them,
(14:15):
just to protect that foliage that's there, you could throw
any kind of a blanket or something over just to
hole some of that warm soil heat in. But the
bulbs won't be killed by this, nor will the iris
bulbs be killed by this. They're pretty tough.
Speaker 10 (14:31):
Now.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
The wandering jew is probably gonna gonna get top frozen,
but it'll it won't die out completely again. A cover,
just a sheet or blanket or anything over it, just
to just to hold that soil heat in a little
bit is going to be enough to get it through.
If you don't want to have a lot of die
back on the top.
Speaker 9 (14:51):
What about crotons.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Crotons are very cold, tender, and you're gonna have to
put a cover over them and then put light under them.
And if you will, do you happen to be on
Facebook by any chance? Yes, okay, fine, garden line Facebook page,
my Facebook page, garden Line Facebook and I just posted
yesterday a video on how to cover and this would
(15:17):
apply very much to your crotons. It's a cover over it,
a light under it, and it explains how did I
explain how to do it? And I can do a
better job if you watch that video than trying to
describe it to you.
Speaker 9 (15:31):
Okay, any protection for the wandering jail or just leave
it just a cover?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Well you could leave it alone, or you could throw
a cover over it to just maybe you know, not
have freeze damage on the top part above ground parts
and stuff.
Speaker 11 (15:47):
Oh I see.
Speaker 12 (15:48):
Alright, Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
All right you bet Sally, thanks for the call. Appreciate that.
Are we on time? All right, We're good here. Let's
go to Scott in Houston. Hey, Scott, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Thanks. Yeah, I recently removed the shed from my backyard
and I've got a big dirt patch back there. Is
there anything I can put on their rye grass or
something or which one do you suggest until I can
resaw it in the spring.
Speaker 8 (16:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:17):
There.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
You know, there's a couple of approaches to it. One
would be to try to side, but then we're kind
of late and if we have some cold weather that
that rye grass is not going to grow much until
it's we have milder temperatures. I think you might consider
like a bail of hay that you just spread over
across that as something to kind of walk on and
(16:39):
maltz the ground, or even some bags of compost and
mulch or mulch itself would make it something you you
could walk on, wouldn't be so muddy, and things like that,
and then you just rake that up when it's time
to serve. But you could you could do the rye grass.
I just think at this point, I don't know that
you would get the size of rye grass plants that
(17:01):
would accomplish what you want before it's about times but
sawed down anyway.
Speaker 11 (17:06):
Yeah, okay, well, thank you, all.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Right, you've got thank you appreciate that. I'll zip right
through these here. We're going to go out now to
Seabrook and talk to Carol. Hello, Carol, Hi, I.
Speaker 13 (17:20):
Have a potted manned vilia and it has decided to
start blooming. So I'm wondering if I should just let
it treze and you know, let it come up from
the roots, or should I move it into the garage.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Yeah, you know down at Seabrook, your your amount of
cold is less. If it were me, I would move
it into the garage because Vanderville as an almost tropical
kind of plant and it's not going to take a
lot of hard cold and in a pot. Now instead
(17:58):
of the roots being insult the soil, those roots are
exposed to essentially below thirty air temperatures and that you
can get significant killing damage to the crown and roots
of the plant too there. So I would roll that
thing into the garage and that way you're on the
(18:19):
safe side. Plus you don't lose all the top growth
that you have.
Speaker 13 (18:24):
Okay, okay, I do have one more question, if I may,
is there a day lily society.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
In the area, say that one more time, please a.
Speaker 13 (18:37):
Day lily society or club.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
There is. I don't have a contact for them. If
I find that, I'll mention it on the air. But
I'll tell you what. Let's do this. If anybody's listening
from a daily society or group, give me a call
on guarden Line and let us know about how people
can get in touch with you. Well, we'll do it
that way as well.
Speaker 13 (19:03):
Okay, okay, thank you very much. Have a good day.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
You you bet you as well. Thank you very much
for the call. Appreciate that you All right, folks, there
we go, we got that caught back up again. That's good.
Let's see, we're looking at coming pretty close up to
a a break here. I'm not going to get into
(19:27):
let me think about Yeah, I'll tell you what I will.
I will. I told you there was talk a little
bit about some of the issues with pruning and plants.
Pruning is a invigorating process. So when you prune, it
causes new growth to take off and push out. And
so although if you know, if it's freezing, there's not
(19:49):
going to be much of that happening, but if you
do it prior to a freeze, it actually is. There's
a decrease in heartiness of the parts of the plant
there that you're pruning, especially because it is going to
push new growth. So I would not prune which is stimulating,
prior to going into cold weather. And I don't mean
just the day before, but I mean, you know, if
you do it, we don't prune things in the fall
(20:11):
for that reason. That's one reason you get a good
hard freeze. So what you're going to want to do
is hold off on that pruning until after the winner,
and then cut all the dead stuff out and do
the pruning at that point. Just go ahead, and sometimes
the covering even helps protect underneath. I also did a
video just a little while ago on leave your dead
(20:32):
antanas and dead Mexican heather tops and things because they
are protecting the plant's base. We'll be right back, all right,
Welcome back to Guardline. If you're planning any fishing in
the dark, you better be getting it done while it's
dark now, because it's fixing to get cold and we're
(20:53):
going to get some wind in here and the chills
are going to be a little high to be up there.
And I have been up on a lake with the
wind blowing, and I can tell you this, it's better
bring an extra coat for that. Well, you're listening to
garden Line. We're here to help you have a more
beautiful landscape, a bountiful garden, and like I like to say,
(21:13):
it more fun in the process. That's important, you know,
it's not. Some people get real I don't know, anxious
about trying to garden. And I've had gosh, I have
so many people tell me like, yeah, I tried that
and it didn't work. And I can just tell they
just feel like frustrated and that's too hard. I can't
(21:33):
do it. I don't have a green thumb. Nope, no, no,
none of that is true. None of you you. It's
your thumb doesn't have a color. If you want to
say brown and green thumbs, then I'll say it this way.
All you need is to educate your thumb, and it
makes it turn from brown to green. That's how that works.
Grandma the reason she could do anything in the garden.
(21:54):
It seemed to grow everything she touched. It's because you
know how to take our plants. She just had some
base sick understanding of what plants need and she provided
them that along with picking plants that are going to
do well in the area. And that just makes it
look like you have a green thumb. So let's let's
get that thumb educated. Give me a call. Seven one
three two one two k t r H. Seven one
(22:17):
three two one two k t r H. We will
talk about the kinds of things that are of interest
to you. Answer those gardening questions. Uh RCW RCW nursery.
You've probably been there many times before, but it's the
one right there where Beltway eight and Highway two forty
(22:40):
nine Tomball Parkway come together. They have gotten in their roses.
And when RCW gets in roses, it is it is
like an invasion. I mean, they have over two hundred
varieties of the finest roses you're going to find in Houston,
and they're available bars now two forty nine and belt
(23:01):
wag eight. That's where you go by the way. They're
open Monday through Friday seven am to four pm, today,
eight am to five pm, and tomorrow ten am to
five pm. So go by there and get that. I
got a copy of that. In fact, I printed out
you can do this off their website RCW nurseries dot com.
I printed out their roselist, and I mean it is
(23:22):
a chart that tells you about each rose, what growth
hapen of row is a climber or a shrub ros
for example? What class is a grand of flora, a
Flora bunda. You know that kind of thing, whether it's
fragrant or not, how big it gets a disease resistance.
And let's see turn it over here, almost six pages
(23:45):
like five and three quarter pages of roses. Yeah, two hundred.
So if you're looking for a rose and you want
some selection, and you want some people that know roses.
RCWZ RCW nurseries dot Com. Again easy to get to
Timball parkway bo wait eight, just put it in your
maps and head that way. Grab you some really quality plants.
(24:08):
Of course, they have a lot of other kinds of plants.
They have some frost clout there as well. Of course
they're ready to go on that. You need fertilizers to
go along with the plants you purchased. They've got that
other kind of supplies and good advice. They know what
they're doing, very very important. RCW. Let's see, we're going
(24:28):
to head out and now to Manville, Texas or Manville
and talk to Patty. Hey, Patty, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 9 (24:36):
Hi.
Speaker 14 (24:36):
How are you this morning?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I'm well thanks.
Speaker 14 (24:42):
I have a question about where I can send soil
samples locally. Are there companies in the Houston area that
will test my lawn soil to see why my Santa
Augustine grass keeps dying?
Speaker 10 (25:01):
All right?
Speaker 15 (25:02):
Well that's that keeps dying.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Well, that's several questions in one. What what I would
recommend you do is is send it. Just send it
to the soil lab. It's I mean, it just up
at college station. You can mail it if you don't
want to drive it up there, you certainly can mail
it in if you go to my website gardening with
Skip dot com. There is a publication on soil testing
(25:28):
tells you how to take a sample. It's very important
that you take the sample right when you send it in.
They have just hundreds of thousand dollars worth of equipment
that will do a much better job of analyzing soil.
Then you know, these little kits you buy, or maybe
someone sticks their own pH meter or in it or something.
(25:49):
You'll get a much better answer to it. And you
can just do the standard soil test. When you get
the results, if you want, you can email them to
me and I could take a look at them and
then call in and we'll disc us what you might need.
If you're Saint Augustine is struggling, though, Patty, I would
think soil would be probably about five down the list
(26:11):
of what's likely a mount of sunlight, the watering diseases, insects,
those are all more important than soil, I mean, than
the nutrient.
Speaker 14 (26:22):
We treated it for everything. Since we had a chinch
bug infestation, and then we got you know, associated farm
dyeing whatnot. Because it was weakened from that. We have
treated it with everything we can think of, and it
just it keeps dying.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Well, I'll tell you what we need. Yeah, those are
great products. You need to We probably need to take
this kind of a month at a time, going into
it and look at what's happening at that time. Do
you have you ever seen my schedule online or printed
it out?
Speaker 14 (27:00):
Oh no, I haven't.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Okay, if you go to gardening, yes, okay, Well you
may have one that Randy had done. I've done one
that has multiple colors and goes into all of the
different things. You might just check and make sure you
have the most current one that that is gardening with
skip dot com. If you look on there as you
(27:25):
go across, it tells you when chinch bugs might be attacking,
It tells you when sod webworms might be attacking, when
to treat for take all root rot, when to treat
for brown patch or gray leaf spot or whatever. And
I think looking at that timing is going to be
very important. And then be careful when you use products
(27:47):
that prevent weeds or that kill existing weeds. If you
misuse them in application or in timing of it, you
can cause problems that also weaken your lawn and make
it more likely to have to be killed by something
like that.
Speaker 14 (28:06):
Okay, all right, well I'll print that out and we'll
change it over to that schedule. And I've often thought
that I'd rather not use any products that prevent we
just pull them up.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Okay, thank you for getting Yeah, and as you go
into twenty twenty five launch season, anytime you see a problem,
take a picture, send it to me, and then give
me a call. Let's let's get to the bottom of it,
because I think we can solve this. Thank you very
much for the call. I have to run to break you.
Take care. We'll be right back. Folks. Hey, welcome back
(28:46):
to garden Line. Glad to have you with us. We
have got a lot of stuff to talk about. We
have got all kinds of things talk about regarding the
freeze and whatnot. Before I do that, though, I just
want to bring up a topic that you're probably not
thinking about today, and that is the foundation of your house.
The Houston soils, the heavy clay, the black Houston clay soil,
(29:10):
and the other kinds of soils that have a lot
of shrink and swell potential can wreck havoc on your
sidewalks and your foundations and certainly your driveways as well
and fixed. MYSH Lab Foundation Repair is the company you
need to call if you have any kinds of questions
about that. Ty Strickland is native Houstonian, fifth generation Texan.
(29:32):
As a matter of fact, he has been doing this
for twenty three to actually twenty four years now and
he knows what he's doing. So you know signs of this.
Of course, you see the visible, like when your sidewalk
heaves or your driveway heaves up. But inside the house,
you'll notice sticking doors. You know, they stick sometimes and
they don't stick sometimes that's movement. You'll see cracks. Typically
(29:54):
they start at the corner of a window, but they
could be anywhere, could be in the ceiling, can be
you know, all over on the outside. He cracks in
the brick. Those are all signs you need to call Ty,
and he will not oversay you on this. I have
called him before and asked him questions about things, said,
you know what, that's not worth even having to worry about.
That's that's a normal amount of movement. We're not going
(30:14):
to worry about that. That's okay. So that's that's kind
of how he is. He's honest, he's on time. If
he says he's going to show up, he shows up,
and he shows up when he's going to show up.
If he fixes it, the price is going to be
fair and he's going to fix it, right, And what
more can you ask for? Fixmislab dot com as his website.
Here's the phone number two eight one two five five
(30:35):
forty nine forty nine. Two eight one two fi five
forty nine forty nine. Now write that down. And you
may have friends or family or whatever and you're at
their house and you see this and you go, hey,
I Skip talks about this guy all the time. He
says he's honest, he does good work and reasonably priced.
Give them the phone number. Because foundation problems are not
(30:56):
something you want to put off. Don't stick your head
in the sound like an ostrich. Just go ahead and
call them, find out, and you will know exactly what
you need to do to protect one of the largest
investments you've ever made that's in your home. Let's head
out to sugar Land and we're going to talk to Lynn.
Hey Lynn, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
Hi, good morning.
Speaker 16 (31:18):
Yes, I want to know do I need to cover
my back boxwoods and my.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Hedges box woods? Probably not. I don't know what what
other kinds of plants do you do you have that
you're wondering about?
Speaker 16 (31:35):
The wax leaf, lagostrum.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
M generally not you your way. You know, sugar Land
is pretty far away from where it's going to get
the kinds of cold where we would expect a lot
of burn. If you wanted to throw, you know, something
over the top just to kind of hold hold some
of the heat of the soil in there, you could
do it. It's it's not going to be the kind
(32:00):
of cold probably that you get the damage in your
area that would really say no, you've got to get
out there and cover these things. So if you've got
if it's easy enough to do, you can get to it,
go ahead and do it. Prevent a little bit of
leaf burn and some of that kind of thing.
Speaker 16 (32:15):
Well, I had some wonderful friends who came yesterday and
we covered all my high biscus and my burn of paradise,
hoping that all that and I didn't even look at
the hedges, and I thought, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Well the ones you covered, No, the ones you covered
are much more coal sensitive than the hedges you mentioned.
So I think you're gonna be all.
Speaker 16 (32:40):
Right, Okay, great, have a good day, all.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Right you two. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two k t r H. Seven one three
two one two k t r H. I'ld like to
give us a call. Uh the if you if you've
not been by plants for all seasons there on two
forty nine Timball Parkway. That is, it is the kind
(33:07):
of place you go where you not only have the
selection of plants that really do well here, they will
not sell you something that doesn't do well here. But
you've got the expertise to help you have success with
those plants. And that is very very important when when
you're looking at you know, what's wrong with this plant?
(33:29):
How do I plant this plant? What would be a
good plant to go with this other plant to look good?
How can I get something for this shady spot over
here that you know? Blah blah blah. Whatever your question is,
you go in there and you're gonna get help. You
throw you got a problem, clip it off, throw it
in a baggie and take it in and say what's
going on here? Throw a bug in a bag if
(33:51):
you want take a picture on your phone. Go in there.
They've got the expertise, they know what they're doing. I mean,
they've been doing this since nineteen seventy three. They are
true lawn and go garden Experts, as they like to say,
get your green on at Plants for All Seasons. I
think that's a good way to put it. Doesn't matter
if you're a master gardener or a first timer. They're
(34:11):
going to be able to help you from education to
selection to delivery planting. They even do custom potting their
True Lawn and Garden Experts Plants for All Seasons dot
com two eight one, three, seven six sixteen forty six.
Say hey to Sherry and the rest of the Flowery
family when you head over to Plants for All Seasons.
(34:32):
We uh one of the one of my favorite things
to be able to do is visit with gardeners, and
that's exactly what we're doing here this morning with you.
Speaker 17 (34:42):
UH.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
If you want to give me a call seven one
three two one two KTRH, we can do that. We're
coming up on a break here. I'm going to take
a call real quick and then we can take your calls.
You may be the first up if if you want
a call now and hang on until we come back
from break. Let's head out now to Cypress and talk
to Melanie. Hello, Melanie.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Hi.
Speaker 18 (35:03):
Oh no, Randy Yip got a question.
Speaker 8 (35:06):
That's what my familia is.
Speaker 19 (35:07):
They've got all these they're starting to bloom now, so
I was going to go ahead and cover them.
Speaker 11 (35:14):
Should I put some heat under there.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
To try to keep those just a lost call for
the blooms?
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Well, now you protect them a little heat, would I
did a video It's on my Facebook page. It's the
garden Line facebook page. A video just posted yesterday that
shows you how to properly cover a plant and how
to put heat under it and what to watch out for.
So I'm going to refer you to that because it'll
give you a better answer than I have in the
short time we have before break here. But I would
(35:44):
do that. Make sure the break goes all the cover
goes all the way to the ground. Don't wrap the
camellia like a lollipop, don't wrap it around the trun
let the cover goes straight down. You need to get
some weights to hold that cover down, whether you scubas soiled, Okay,
whatever it takes, you gotta hold it down because we're
(36:04):
gonna have breezes it'll blow it right off of there.
And then the lighting is the extra. You probably don't
need the lighting, but just to be safe to protect
the blooms and things, I would put at least one
hundred and fifty watt flood lamp bulb on a clamp light.
I don't think you need a heat lamp under there
for this. And now, if it's a huge plant, it
(36:27):
comes down to this, Melanie, what's the volume of air
you're trying to warm up? You know, if it were
a little plant, one hundred and fifty what we find.
If it was a big, old giant thing, you're gonna
need blood, heat lamps inder there to do it.
Speaker 18 (36:40):
So just watch it.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
It'll really tell you what you need. Yeah. Also on
my website Gardening with Skip dot com, there's that publication
in a freeze protection. Thank you man, good luck protecting
those all right, folks. One hour in the books, we'll
be back with your calls.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Welcome to Kate r. H. Garden Line with Skip, Richard's.
Speaker 20 (37:02):
Shoes, Gas Trip just watch him as many.
Speaker 21 (37:19):
Things to seep blot basingsta not a sid gas.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
The sun beamon done.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
All right, welcome back, Glad to have you with us
here on garden Line. We are looking at a cold
spell coming through here. It's gonna be a long one too.
Some areas are going to have below freezing temper days
or nights that drip down below dip down below freezing
(37:58):
for about five nights, and so it depends on where
you live. In the listening area. We've got varying degrees
of cold. The bottom line is going to be cold
for a long time, and so you need to be
ready for that. Get those things done ahead of time,
get ready to go so you're when you do go
out there and try to protect your plants. You've got
(38:20):
the supplies and things that you need on hand. That
is important. I was the other day looking around at
some supplies I had in my storage shed, and I
couldn't find some things that I thought I had. I
think they may have gotten thrown away or something like that. Anyway,
I thought I was ready to go for yesterday to
(38:42):
load up some stuff, get it prepared and ready for
the freeze. And sure enough I'm not so anyway, got
to do it, get some of those supplies. Picked up
a couple of things yesterday, so I'm good to go now. Anyway,
this week, someone who was it I think Ronnie. Yeah,
ron had emailed me talking about his memories of feed
(39:07):
store growing up, and you know, the the fragrance of
the feed store, you know, it's that pleasant, enjoyable feed
store experience. And he was bragging on D and D
feed He loves going in there, visiting with Jeff and
and of course that's understandable. It's a great place. They
take good care of you in there. But I love
going into feed stores, you know that. I just there
(39:28):
is a there's a certain ambiance and fragrance to a
feed store that I just really enjoy. I grew up
raising animals for this dock show, and so that was
part of the experience. We had a little small cattle operation,
and so we were often taking care of the cows
going in, taking care of getting the things that we needed.
(39:48):
But D and D is that kind of feed store,
you know, any kind of feed you can imagine they're
going to have, by the way, they have their onion
transplants and their seed potatoes in at D and D.
And it is time to get those in the ground.
You know, not to plant them today right for the
hard freeze, but go ahead and get them, get the bundles,
because what happens is they get picked over and they
(40:08):
sell out in time. So go ahead and get those there.
And they carry the kinds of onions, the kinds of
potatoes you need for your garden when you're there. While
you're there, you're going to find a good supply of
heat lamps and the little shields that can hold the
heat lamps and the flood lamps too, not just the
heat By the way, when you're purchasing a shield, a
(40:29):
clamp on shield for a lamp, if it's a heat lamp,
you know they kind of have the red glass cover.
You need to get a quality when don't put it
in a little dinky shield. They're not made to hold that.
You need the kind with a little ceramic a place
where you screw the bulbin. But when you go by
(40:49):
D and D, they can explain to you what you
need and what will work. You know, if you need
to wrap your pipes, they got the stuff of that too,
and certainly all the supplies for your lawn and garden,
from fertilizers to pesticide to weak controlled disease control. Everything
they've got all that there, uh and a really nice
selection of high quality pet food and other kinds of
supplies that the pets like as well. D and Defeed. Oh,
(41:11):
by the way, whereas it D and Defeed is on
twenty nine to twenty west to Tomball. So if you're
in the big middle of Tomball from two forty nine,
you just head out twenty nine to twenty to the
west and you do not have to go out very far,
and D and D be right there on your left
hand side, and you will enjoy it when you go.
I can tell you that they treat you right. You
were listening to Garden Line. A phone number is seven
(41:33):
one three two one two KTRH. If you'd like to
give me a call, we'd be happy to visit with
you about the kinds of questions that you might have
out in the garden. I've got some soil work that
I need to do, and that's kind of been postponed
a combination of some real wet conditions where I couldn't
get in there without slashing through some muddy areas. I'm
(41:55):
going to be getting that done because I'm putting in
some fruit tree and I'm also revamping a section of
my vegetable garden where I need to add some soil in,
mix it up and get those beds ready to go,
and don't plant until you get the soil ready. It's
very important to have the soil right first. If you've
listened to Garden Line once, you've heard me say brown
(42:18):
stuff before green stuff. And that's the simplest way I
can put the fact that you need to get the
soil right before you put the plants in very important,
especially for plants that are going to be there a while.
You know, an annual maybe in for a season, part
of a season, and then you pull it out. So
that's not you can always fix it after you that
(42:41):
season if you need to. But when you're putting in
something like a perennial or a shrub, a rose bush,
or fruit trees and things, those are long term and
so you've got to get that soil right for those
kinds of plants, and that is very important to be
able to do that. If you're doing planting, By the way,
(43:02):
I would recommend that when you put the plant in,
you put a quality drench over that root ball. And
we are in the big middle of planting season for
perennials and for woody ornamentals especially. There certainly are annuals
and herbs and things we can plant now. But I'm
talking about a product like has to Grow six twelve six.
(43:27):
Has to Grow six twelve six is a combination product
by the folks at Medina. By the way they carry
Medina products there at d and de Feed, as well
as a lot of other quality brands. The has to
Grow six to twelve six has Medina Soil Activator in it.
That's a product in and of itself that stimulates biological activity.
(43:47):
It's got humate, which is humic acid, improves your soil structure,
helps with nutrient more effective nutrient update as that happens.
It's got seaweed extracts in it. You can use it
as a folier spray. But I'm talking about right now
being planting season. When you put a plant in the ground,
drench that plant after you plant with it. Or what
(44:08):
I will do sometimes is just have a little container
and I take the plant out of the pot and
set it in the container, and I can feel that
container full of a root soak like has to grow
six twelve six, and you just let that soak into
the root ball, put it in the ground, and you've
done your work. You're ready to go. You can do
another drench a week later. You can do another drench
(44:29):
a week later. After that, you can do all three
of those, helping that plant get well established. NaSTA grows
six twelve six has many uses. One is the planting use.
I'm talking about transplanting use. One is just going into
the flower bed or the vegetable garden and drenching it
down the row. That's legit, and then there's full of
your applications, not gonna burn your plants. You use about
(44:49):
a tablespoon per gallon and just spray the foliage with
your plant. Now, that's primarily I use that during the
growing season as things are warming up and plants are
starting to grow. Not so important to do the folier
right now, although you can. Some people believe that it
does help with some of the cold heartiness and things
(45:11):
like that, so I totally would support that approach to
it as well. Well, let's do this. I'm going to
head out to Cypress now and we're going to visit
with Joe, Hey, Joe, Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 7 (45:24):
Hello Skip. I have a few questions. First is on asparagus.
I planted asparagus for the first time in my organic garden,
and so now it's like six em feet tall, but
it's starting to get brownish and some of the tall
you might be familiar with asparagus, like, some people cut
(45:46):
it down for the winner and some people just let
it go. I have straw around the base of it now,
so just let it go through this cold period.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Yeah, I would definitely for sure now if this cold
period were to kill back the tops even more, which
up in Cyprus, I bet it does. Go ahead and
then cut it down and get ready to begin a
harvest asparagus. We are so far south that asparagus doesn't
know what to do with our weather. If you were
(46:19):
to go if you were to go up, you know,
if you were to go up into warmer, I mean
further north, asparagus does really well, you know, Joe. They're
telling me I'm hitting a hard break. Will you hang
on just a second. I want to spend some more
time on this with you, and I'll pick you right
back up when we come back from break.
Speaker 7 (46:37):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
All right, folks, welcome back to Guardline. I'm going to
head back out and continue the conversation that we have
going with Joe. Hey, Joe, welcome back. So we're talking
about asparagus, and I was just making the point that
further north, we have long cold winter, asparagus dies to
the ground and stays dormant and all the stored carbohydrates
then when it does come out in the spring produce nice, strong, thick,
(47:02):
healthy spears for a good while. Down here, it just
kind of keeps going in the winter and never really
dies back well, and so we don't get the volume
of harvests that you would further north. So what we
kind of have to do is cut it back and
create that top freeze back event. And if after this
(47:26):
freeze at some point, I would just cut all the
dead or whether dead or not, the top growth back
and begin your harvests. It's a little early for that
because we're probably gonna get some more freezes, but I
still if you want to, if you want to get
going on it, you could cut that top back and
start your harvest season well after the freeze.
Speaker 7 (47:48):
Okay, that's good. I was thinking of putting some straw around.
I have some straw ready around it right now for
the cold, I thought, and to get it through, help
get it through. And then it's only the first year,
so they say, wait, maybe to the second or third,
Well the third d yes, that's right through the same process.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
So okay, all right, yeah, that's absolutely that's absolutely true.
Speaker 7 (48:16):
Okay, good, good, good. And two peach trees. Do you
think I'm gonna cover them up with some I have
like they call plankets or blankets, like do you think
that a peach trees?
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Are your peaches? Are the buds swelling or are they
still dorm fully dormant?
Speaker 7 (48:33):
They're dormant. Now the trees they're only about okay, some tall.
Now they they're one year old.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
Basically all right, no need to cover them. Don't worry
about them. They're good. Okay. They have buds where you
could see pink. If they had blues under one, I
would cover them.
Speaker 7 (48:51):
Oh okay, okay, in variegated Pitt's form. It's like a
shrub kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Cover that that is actually little coal tender. And what
will happen is not just the killing of the leaves,
but you'll get splits in the trunk at the base
underneath of those plants when they get ural cold. I
would definitely cover those, put a cover over them to
the ground, weigh it down on the ground so it
doesn't blow off, and a cover should be sufficient in
(49:19):
your area to get them through the cold we're going
to have. But yes, I would cover the barrigated pit
of s form. Thank you so much. All right, man,
good luck getting all that taken care of. Appreciate you call.
We're gonna go out to the port now and talk
to JC. Hey, JC, what's up?
Speaker 22 (49:36):
Good good morning. I have a question on some soil testing.
I've got eighteen raised beds, four twelve and they just
don't seem to be producing like they used to. One
bed will have giant green foliage and the other one
will be squatty looking. And over the years I've added
(49:57):
composts and organics as I could get my hands on
them and whatnot, and I just feel like, right now
it's not producing like it should be, and I want
to know where I can get some tests done and
how to do it. Is it going to be one
the charge for each bed or should I just take
a sample from each bed?
Speaker 4 (50:18):
Well, you know, no, it's it's per sample that you
pay for it, but it is well worth it, especially
a troubleshoot, the fact that one bed does good and
another bed does not. So I would, because you tend
to fertilize crops in a vegetable garden by the bed
you even have tomatoes in this bed, and I don't
(50:38):
know green beans in the other. Well, you're not gonna
put some nitrogen on your green beans as you do
on your tomatoes, and so over time those bed levels
are going to get different, and you know, and so
I would, I would fertilize. Make a note though, to yourself.
You can you can say sample one A is good
(50:59):
and maybe use a letter A for good or B
for bad if you want.
Speaker 5 (51:03):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (51:03):
And they don't need to know that. But when you
get the results back, you'll go, oh, this is from
the bed that didn't do good, and this is from
the bed that did do good.
Speaker 5 (51:13):
A and M still do it.
Speaker 4 (51:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's the best place I would
recommend for getting your soil tested. And the website is
really easy. It's the it's one word soil testing, soil
testing and then dot T A m U which stands
for Texas and M University t A m U dot
(51:36):
e ed U sell Testing dot TAMU dot ed U.
You want here's the important part, and I do this
in the on my website. I've got a soil testing
publication at Gardening with skip dot com that tells you
about this. But you want to make sure your sample
is a good representative of that whole bed. So take
some here, some there, you know, put and mix them together,
and then take your pint of soil out of that
(51:59):
to send in. You want to use the urban soil test.
There's agriculture seal test, it just said, and then there's
an urban salt test. You want the urban because on
that form it'll allow you to say this is roses,
or this is vegetables, or this is lawn, you know,
and that's the urban and use that form. You can
(52:20):
do the regular, which is fine if you want to
go a little further, which if you haven't had to
soil test in a long time, you might do the regular.
Plus the micro nutrients costs a little bit more. But
that way, if iron or zinc or some other thing
like that is an issue, you'll know it.
Speaker 22 (52:40):
Okay, you don't have an all time better how much
less yards you know, I haven't had it done.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
That's a good question. Yeah, let me, uh, let me
see what we're talking. I'll just go I'll just go
check and see that. I'm going to guess, but I
don't want to guess. Things change on me, and then
i'd be I'd be lying to you.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
We're on.
Speaker 4 (53:03):
Yeah, Well, I can tell you about two seconds here anyway.
But when the results do come in, you're going to
want to make sure and do all those amendments, mix
them down as far far as you can down into
the soil. And when you do that, then you're going
to be able to have a good, even uniform soil test.
(53:26):
Now that the routine analysis at A and M is
twelve dollars, the routine plus micro nutrients is nineteen dollars.
That's the current.
Speaker 18 (53:37):
Okoyd, all right, sir, I appreciate you.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
All right, you take care.
Speaker 18 (53:43):
I have a good one.
Speaker 4 (53:45):
As well. Thank you. Oh where are we here? Yeah,
we're going to go to Orange and talk to Susan. Hey, Susan,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 11 (53:53):
Thank you, thank you, Skipp And just a note, I'm
no longer in Orange. We've moved to for Glynn. A
question for you the first thing. I found this nasty
weed in my yard yesterday. I emailed you pictures of it,
wondering what it is and how what I need to
do to get rid of it.
Speaker 4 (54:14):
Uh, you sent me pictures of it. Let me go
put good it up? Did you say, did you say, Brooklyn?
Speaker 11 (54:20):
Yes, it's right near Sam right.
Speaker 7 (54:25):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
Okay? Are you listening on the radio or about on
the internet?
Speaker 11 (54:29):
I am well no, I can't get it on the
radio anymore.
Speaker 15 (54:33):
Time listening to it through I hearts.
Speaker 4 (54:37):
Okay. Would this have come from MG? Yes, Okay, that
weed is Uh, it's It's called pig weed or amaranth
is another name for it, and it is a prolific receder.
(54:58):
One amaranth plant can make two hundred thousand seed. That's
what you're up now. So you got to if you
if you get all those out of there, all try
to not shake them a lot, because all the ones
that are mature, you're just gonna shake the seeds loose
in the ground, off onto the ground. Get as much
of it out as you can, and then it's not
(55:19):
gonna shouldn't be a problem until we get back to
warm weather and it starts re sprouting a lot then,
and all you need is a good mult over the
soil and it will not come up if you if
you shade the soil surface really well.
Speaker 15 (55:33):
Okay, perfect, all right, we'll do that.
Speaker 11 (55:35):
Also, I tuned in like this morning, so you may
have already covered this. But as far as the freeze,
I've got guardenas and dwarf as alias that we find
to do about six months ago. Do I need to cover.
Speaker 4 (55:49):
Vm, you know, just to be safe? I would, Uh,
They're probably going to be okay, especially the azalia, but
a new plant isn't as hardy asn't a state abolished
plant of the same species. It just doesn't work that way,
So I would, I would, I would give them a
cover just to be safe. You're you're you're north up
(56:11):
in sam Rayburns.
Speaker 11 (56:11):
So yes, yes we are, we are.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
What is your what's your forecast? Uh for the coldest Tuesday?
Speaker 11 (56:19):
Well it's it's going to get cold. I'm not as
cold as county where we used to be, but we
definitely will have a hard freeze, possible snow.
Speaker 4 (56:32):
Okay, all right, Well I'd be safe and cover them, all.
Speaker 11 (56:36):
Right, And one one last thing quick quickly skipped last
weekend you said it was good, good time to plant
the Amarilla's bulbs, and.
Speaker 15 (56:44):
So we did.
Speaker 11 (56:46):
Yes, Is that going to be an issue?
Speaker 4 (56:50):
Oh no, not at all. They're they're fine bulbs you
just put in the ground. They're going to be perfectly Okay,
you don't have to you have to worry about them.
Speaker 11 (56:58):
Okay, okay, great, right, thanks, Skip, have a good day.
I enjoy your show.
Speaker 4 (57:02):
You bet, Okay, take care, Bobby. All right, it's time
for me to run to a break, folks, so I'll
be right back with your calls at seven one three
two one two KTRH. All right, folks, welcome back. Good
to have you with us. A number of things to
talk about this morning. You know, the landscape's gonna look
a little rough when we get out of the freeze.
(57:25):
It's just the way it is. And uh, this may
be a good time for you to consider some renovations.
I For example, maybe you got some plants that are
a little bit too cold tender. They're just not going
to be good for the long term for you. Maybe
you're looking at your landscapes and it's kind of bleak.
I could use some more evergreen bushes here there. You know,
(57:45):
there's a lot of things we can do to make
our landscapes better, but I tell you peerscapes can take
care of all of it. Pierscapes they do everything from
landscape design. If you want to like create a landscapeer
on your pool, they're very good at that. If you
have poor drainage areas, maybe you need some French drains installed,
pier scapes can they got you covered. They absolutely are
(58:07):
professionals when it comes to landscape designing, landscape installation. They
even do seasonal maintenance. You know, come have them come
out every quarter and do maintenance in your garden beds.
You know, do some weeding or adding fresh mulch out,
checking the irrigation, make sure everything's working. Doing color changes,
you know, from one type of flower to another type
(58:28):
of flower as the season's change. They can do a
dry creek bread bed, so you know, you get the
extra rain and the water is just kind of gully
washing off in an area. Create a dry creek bed
and it's attractive, and yet it's a channel that when
we do have too much water, it can drain away.
Those are just a few examples of what peer scapes
can do. You really have to just go to their
(58:49):
website site Peerscapes dot com, pier Scapes one word, pierscapes
dot com. Check out the work they do if you
want to give them a call. Two eight one three
seven oh fifty sixty. Now is a good time where
the season is still a little distance away. It's time
to go ahead and start that process and have them
come out and do magic to your place. Oh and
(59:11):
by the way, if you need landscape lighting, they are
awesome at creating beautiful landscape lighting around your home, around
your pool, around your patio, you name it. I'm going
to head out to Richmond now and we're going to
talk to Karen. Hey, Karen, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 23 (59:30):
Good morning, Skip.
Speaker 11 (59:32):
I'm out in the garden this morning.
Speaker 19 (59:37):
Pronouncing distances on those things I'm not going to attempt
to save and okay, a way of salvation for the
ones that I am. My question is on my broccoli
crop I have here. I've cut the heads that I
believe you know are completely ready. I have quite a
(59:58):
few that are nice that they're not as large as
I would normally like to get them. Do I need
to cover those?
Speaker 8 (01:00:06):
Will?
Speaker 5 (01:00:06):
Be? Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
Well, it would help to when broccoli is cold hardy,
like all those blue leaf vegetables are. But when you
have a really good hard freeze, especially the areas in
between the veins on the leaves, you'll get burned back there,
you get some burn and the broccoli heads, those little
buds will get cold damage to them, and so I
(01:00:30):
would especially be concerned about the heads. So just throwing
any kind of a cover over them, just to hold
a little soil warmth in it should be sufficient for
the kind of cold that you're going to be getting.
Speaker 19 (01:00:42):
The ones that I have cut. Should I go ahead
and pull the plant.
Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
Out, well, they will re sprout and you will get
side shoots from below where you cut. They won't be
big heads, but they'll be worth and keeping them to
harvest those.
Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 19 (01:01:03):
I only have two rows of this and they've done
so well. Another question is in the same bed, I
planted two little rows of broccoli, and I skipped a row,
and then I planted cauliflowers. The cauliflower. I have beautiful plants.
(01:01:25):
You wouldn't couldn't ask for more beautiful plants, but they
have not made a single head of cauliflower.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
What the broccoli? She's gone.
Speaker 4 (01:01:38):
Well, the two possibilities. Number one, it's not cauliflower. Sometimes
I have bought I had a friend one time who
bought collars and he was eating the leaves off the colors,
and all of a sudden they started producing broccoli heads
because it was really broccoli. But the cauliflower, just give
(01:01:59):
it time. You should get some heads forming in the
interior of that. It just may take a little bit
more time for some reason.
Speaker 19 (01:02:05):
Okay, should I cover them? I mean I did not
cover them well, and they seem to have done well.
Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
But yeah, well this one's going to be a little
bit colder, so you know, like the broccoli, if you
want to be safe, throw a cover over them. It
may be that they'll get through just fine. But we're
gonna get kind of cold, so I would I would
be a little safe on it.
Speaker 19 (01:02:30):
Okay, okay, well all right.
Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
Hey, you got some happy birds there. I hear happy birds.
I wonder, I wonder what kind of birds those are?
They are happy to be in the garden.
Speaker 19 (01:02:47):
This neighborhood that is a very old neighborhood. And I've
only been here about three years, and I've taken down
some old trash trees that you know, they weren't good
trees to create more light for my garden. But my
(01:03:09):
neighbors have consider.
Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
Fifty years old.
Speaker 19 (01:03:12):
I mean they're huge, and the birds just flock, you know,
they're in the neighbor's yard. I keep out some feed
and stuff around. But yes, of a morning, I'm surprised
you're not hearing the roosters. They're not quite out for
it because several of them.
Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
Okay, all right, all right, Well if hey, if you
want something cool, there's an app called Merlin, as in
Merlin the Magician, and this Merlin app you It's free
from Cornell University. It's free and you can tell it
listen and tell me what bird that is, and it
will listen and tell you what bird is making that
sound I'm hearing in the book. It's pretty cool app. Anyway,
(01:03:57):
you want to have some fun, you may check that out. Hey,
and thank you for thank you for calling in this morning.
I'm all run, but I appreciate it.
Speaker 19 (01:04:04):
Good luck with the get to cover in these things
takes me in most people. I'm a little older to
be gardening.
Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
So you oh no, no, no, you're never too old.
A garden gardening keeps you young.
Speaker 19 (01:04:20):
You do slow down.
Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
So yeah, all right, bye bye, all right, folks, I'm
right up on a break right here, Wesley. We're going
to come to you and Lawrence when we come back
from this break. Just hang on, we'll be right back
with you. All right, we're back. Welcome to garden Line again.
We are going to head now out to Lawrence and
(01:04:43):
talk to Wesley. Hey, Wesley, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 18 (01:04:48):
Hello.
Speaker 15 (01:04:50):
All right, So my question is I have planets some
craig myrtles me October and that last freeze we had,
I left them wrapped probably a little too long in
blue tarp and not knowing I should have used burlap
or something like that, and I unwrapped them and the
(01:05:12):
leaves are crunchy. Uh. I was wondering if possibly did
I kill them because the inside of the tarp may
have gotten too hot on those warmer days.
Speaker 4 (01:05:25):
I am not sure I'm following. What could you elaborate
a little bit more on this? Did you say crape myrtle.
Speaker 15 (01:05:35):
Crape myrtles?
Speaker 5 (01:05:35):
Yes, yes, sir, uh.
Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
Huh okay, And it was under a tarp and it's it's.
Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 15 (01:05:43):
I wrapped them when it got cold, and I put
three steaks around it, those labs, and I wrapped it
really good and that blue tarp like that plastic material,
and uh, there was pretty much no airflow. And I
may have left them wrapped too long, and I know
(01:06:05):
I got the temperature got way above freezing, and whenever
I did uncover them, the leafs are really crunchy.
Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
Okay, well, yeah, that's hard to say, but it could be
the heat also from building up in there. I don't
know on that, but basically, when you're are you wanting
to cover them again for the cold that's coming.
Speaker 15 (01:06:31):
Or what yeah I need. Yeah, I was gonna go
ahead and cover them. But if I may have killed them,
I might may not wrap them. It might be hard
to say. I had to wait till I guess marks
when they start, if they start blooming, I know they're alive.
Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
Yeah, I think they're probably gonna be. Okay, you can
take your thumbnail and scratch back. Find a little stem
that's about size of a pencil or something. Just scratch
the bark back on it. And if you see a
little bit of a green or creamy white color, it's fine.
If you see pecan brown or paper sack brown, it's dead. Uh.
So that it should be showing that by now. But
(01:07:12):
when you ever you cover a plant, you want to
just put a cover over the whole plant and straight
down to the side. Don't wrap them up.
Speaker 14 (01:07:19):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
And and if it's something like a tarp, just leave
it on overnight and take it off the next day
to allow sun in and air and you know, to
ventilation that is, and then you can put it back
down on it again the next day. Are you it,
says Lawrence, Are you up in the Dallas.
Speaker 15 (01:07:36):
Area, No, sir, I'm an orange orange Taxas.
Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
Oh orange, okay, okay, okay, got you got youa. I
just had it wrong, all right, Yeah, no Orange, that's fine. Yeah.
And you should never have to cover a crape myrtle
an orange Texas.
Speaker 15 (01:07:51):
Okay, even with it being so young. Yeah October okay.
Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
Yeah, it should be fine. They're hardy now, there's nothing
wrong with covering them. It's just great. Myrtles are pretty hardy.
The only time we run into problems with creat myrtles
is when we have a real warmfall and then suddenly
we get like into the teens, that hits real suddenly
and they're not ready for it. We have seen those
kind of problems before.
Speaker 15 (01:08:21):
Okay, right, one more question. I have a rosebush that's
four years old. Should I be rapping? Should I go
ahead and wrap that one as well?
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
You shouldn't have to if it's got tender new If
it has tender new growth coming out. Roses are willing
to grow in some pretty cold weather, and if it
sends out some tender growth, I would cover it to
protect that. If it's gonna get what is your predicted
temperature Tuesday, the coldest it's gonna get.
Speaker 15 (01:08:54):
I believe low twenty.
Speaker 4 (01:08:56):
I believe, yeah, yeah, if it's gonna just to be safe,
if you want to cover it, if it has new growth,
if it's not really pushing new growth already, then I
would I would just leave it. It should be fine.
Speaker 15 (01:09:10):
Okay, all right, well, thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
All right, thanks appreciate that call. You take care. Let's
see here, we're gonna go to Candy and Spring. Hey Candy,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
Good morning, Skip.
Speaker 24 (01:09:25):
I have a ton of iris that because of the
warm weather, have all come up and they're big.
Speaker 23 (01:09:31):
Do I need to cover those or will they survive?
Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
They'll survive. You may get a little cold damage on them.
I've never tried to take an iris into you know,
the kinds of temperatures we have, and paid attention to
that with with new growth. But I think I think
that they'll be fine. You shouldn't need to cover them
with the temperatures we're having. If it's getting down, you know,
down weigh in the teens, maybe we would think about
(01:09:57):
it a little bit. But I think you're all.
Speaker 24 (01:09:58):
Right, okay, very good, thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:10:02):
Yeah. And even if they get burned back, they're gonna
come right back just fine. All right, Thank you, Kenny.
Appreciate appreciate that very much.
Speaker 18 (01:10:10):
Boy.
Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
I tell you, the folks that enchanted forest are ready
to go on the freeze. I mean they've got the
frost cloth by the foot. By the way. That's a
nice way to buy it, because you just roll out
this big roll and you know, you say, I want
twenty feet of it or I want five feet of it,
I mean, whatever you want, They'll roll it right out
there and you can get out there. It's like it's
they have the heavy kind, the kind that is better
(01:10:32):
at holding in heat and with frost colth. You don't
have to take it off every day. You can you
can leave it on for a few days if you
need to, We're not going to have that much cold,
but if you if, we are going to have several
nights below freezing, so you can just cover it and
leave it on till you take it off, really really good.
They also have got a nice selection of camellia still.
(01:10:53):
If you need color like pansies and flowering kale, they've
got that. They've got some dowar feupon Holly's Little Nana Nana,
a variety that does so well here, and a lot
of other things. And by the way, Enchanted just kind
of a little news out there from Enchended. Enchanted just
had Danny Millican join the team. He probably heard Danny before.
(01:11:15):
He has been around this area for a long time,
got a good horticulture background, done a lot of environmental education,
sustainable design. It just brings a lot of years of
experience to that team out there at Enchanted Forest. He's
going to be working on educational programs out there at
Enchanted enhancing the experience for visitors and supporting their conservation
(01:11:36):
initiatives that are going on. So stop, I say hello
to Danny out there at Enchanted Forest, and we look
forward to working with Danny as well in the months
to come. You are listening to Gardenline our phone number
seven one three two one two k t r H
seven to one three two one two k t r H.
(01:11:57):
By the way, Enchended Forest is on FM twenty seven
fifty nine out there in Richmond, Texas. It's a great
nursery to go visit. And again, I just want to
one more thing. Don't forget they got that rollout long
rolls of frost cloth that can really help you with
the frost that we're about to get. They're going to
(01:12:17):
be with me at the Home and Garden show that's
coming up down there in the the Richmond Rosenberg area,
and I'm really looking forward to getting out and doing
that very soon. It's next Saturday, next next Saturday, so
you want to come out and see us there. I'll
talk about that more in a little bit here. It's
(01:12:39):
never a bad time to prepare your soil. It's always
a good time to prepare your soil. Nature's Way resources
they know how to prepare your soil. You go out there,
talk to Ian, talk to any of the staff out there,
and they can get you fixed up with rose soil,
with leaf mole compost with various types of quality mulches.
(01:12:59):
You can go out and buy it and pick it
up on your trailer or pickup. You can have them
deliver it, and a lot of areas around town will
sell many of their products by the bag as well.
Nine three six, three two one sixty nine ninety. They're
up I forty five right where fourteen eighty eight comes
in from Magnolia. You turn right, cross the railroad tracks
and that is there street. Right there Sherwood Circle right
(01:13:23):
there in that area, Nature's way resources well worth your visit.
Uh sit here, looking at my watch, it looks like
we're about to go to a break here. I should
hear music starting out pretty quick here, So I've quit talking.
Just remember that if everybody's going to be hole up
inside because it is getting really cold. But you need
(01:13:47):
to get ready because spring preps. We are in the
middle of spring prep. There's there's planting to be done,
there's soil building to be done. You need to get
those pruning chores done. Its best to prune before the
plants begin their growth in the spring. If you miss it,
you can prune a little bit later, it's fine, But
go ahead and get the pruning chores done. We're gonna
(01:14:07):
be talking about pruning, uh and not this weekend. But
once we get past those freeze, I'll start talking a
little bit more about some of the printing tasks that
we have how to do them for so that you
can have success. All right, would you like to give
us a call beyond the board when I come back
seven one three two one two kt r H.
Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rickards.
Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
Just watch him as well.
Speaker 4 (01:14:50):
All right, welcome back to guard Line. I'm gonna jump
in right here. Somebody left the gate open while we
were in. All the cows have gotten out and called
garden Line. I don't know that that was a weird
way to put it. Anyway, we got a lot of calls.
I gotta get to that is the bottom line. We're
going to start by going out to Scott in Tumbull. Hey, Scott,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 25 (01:15:09):
Hey, thank you very much. A quick question for you.
I got my soil test results back and it's showing
my PHS DOULB five like right around a four point
nine I think, And I was doing a little bit
of research, said lime is the best way to correct that.
Speaker 4 (01:15:24):
Yes, this is a is this a bed that had
been acidified or they put a lot of peat moss
in or what's the story there.
Speaker 25 (01:15:36):
So we're coming up on this is gonna be my
first full season with the house. We moved in back
in June, so I kind of just started doing a
little bit more soil tests when I moved in. So
this year I kind of started with my soil test
and was going to kind of implement my program coming
this year. So I'm not sure what happened there beforehand.
Speaker 4 (01:15:55):
Okay, all right, well, what you're going to need to do.
Lime is the best way to raise the soil pH.
There are other things that are higher pH that you
know can work in that direction. But if you go
online and look at do a search for lime, you
know to raise soil pH and you're going to find
(01:16:18):
In fact, let me let me give you one other tip.
If you have a pen or pencil handy, if after
you put any search into Google or whatever search you're using,
you put in the word site colon dot e d u,
So it's s I T E a colon a period
an e ed u. That tells the search engine that
(01:16:40):
I want you to look for raising soil pH with
lime and then but I only want you to look
in in sights that are university related sites. What you're
going to get is some real good, accurate information and
it'll tell you if you have a clay soil, it
takes more lime than if you have a sandy soil
that's going up or down with the pH it takes
(01:17:02):
more of something. So it'll tell you exactly how many pounds.
You know, be very careful to follow that because you
don't want to move it too far. But you can
raise the soil pH significantly by using lime, but you
have to mix it down into the soil for it
to actually have that effect on down deep.
Speaker 25 (01:17:20):
Okay, real quick question for you then, So this is
on my lawn. I have seen augustine grass, clay soil.
Is there anything different than I need to go about
knowing that that information.
Speaker 4 (01:17:32):
On the lawn. You're not going to be able to
mix it in, of course, and so I would just
maybe gradually put a little bit of line in it
with some air rating. You're going to get things down
in the soil. But I'll tell you this, our soils
number one, I'm kind of questioning if that four point
something pH was accurate, because that is incredibly low. But
(01:17:54):
assuming it is, you can gradually bring it down in
a lawn. But lawns are pretty tolerant of a range
of soil phs. So is it Saint Augustine grass or
bermuda or what do you have?
Speaker 25 (01:18:06):
I have Saint Augustine and right I took my soil sample.
It was just from the front yard, and I took
it from multiple spots in the front yard. I mean,
I don't have a very big front yard, so I
just get it there because the backyard kind of needs
a whole renovation on its own at some point when
I got time.
Speaker 4 (01:18:19):
But okay, yeah, well it sounded like you took a
good soil sample. So that's that's what I would say.
If the lawn looks okay, I wouldn't worry about it
a lot. But if you wanted to add a little
bit of lime, you could, but do it very gradually
in the lawn watered in really good and then provide
maybe some aerration. You just want to watch it because
(01:18:41):
when you get the surface of the lawn really higher
in pH you're gonna have more problems. Will take all
a root rot on that lawn, and so I my
first thought is, don't do anything if the lawn looks
halfway okay with proper care.
Speaker 25 (01:18:57):
Okay, so the lawn, you know, like I said, the
lawn from the road looks be so once you get
up and you can see some issues with it. So
if I was gonna plan this year, don't try to
from what I read getting into like the right around
pace level six is kind of ideal. My goal was
need to try to get to six of this year,
(01:19:17):
it'd be kind of trying to just bite at it
a little bit at a time.
Speaker 4 (01:19:21):
Yeah. So so yeah, because here here's the problem when
you when you go to raise the pH in a garden,
you can mix a lot of linemen and raise the
pH throughout that root zone. But when you're when you're
looking at a lawn, uh, you're putting it right on
the surface and it doesn't just go way down in
the soil. So you end up with a real high
(01:19:46):
pH at the top and not as much of a
raising pH as you go down. And so that's what
I'm trying to say is, uh, you want to be
extra extra careful with that because it's not good to
have a high pH, right up there where your runners
are when it comes to certain things like the disease.
Take all root rot.
Speaker 25 (01:20:06):
Okay, I appreciate the information.
Speaker 4 (01:20:08):
Thank you, you bet you take care. Thanks for the call.
All right here, we're gonna we're gonna now head out
to Jill and full Sure. Hey Jill, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 26 (01:20:20):
Hey, good morning, Skip. My question is concerning you pawn.
And we have property up in Centerville, and we have
a lot of ypon on our property, and so we're
slowly clearing it. But I just I wonder about my
my other trees on my property. We're spraying. We cut
it and we spray it with remedy and diesel, but
(01:20:43):
is that going to impast my freeze?
Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
So you're spraying the cut stumps of theypon? Yeah, no,
uh it doesn't, you know. I mean, if you you
can overdo it, but you're All you need to do
is barely get that stump wet. And you need to
do it right after you cut it. Don't don't wait
hours later to come in and and and spray it.
(01:21:09):
Get it done as soon as possible.
Speaker 8 (01:21:11):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
So it doesn't take much product just to wet those
little stumps. Uh. And you know you'll miss a few
and you come back later and do it. But no,
it won't hurt the other plants as long as you
don't misapply it.
Speaker 26 (01:21:23):
So it really does matter that you cut it, that
you spray it immediately.
Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
I mean we I say immediately. Okay, yeah, Well, here's
here's the thing. The the the tricle peer, which is
what's in remedy. Uh. It has taken up best when
the cut is fresh. As that cut begins to dry
out and the tissues die up there at the surface
of the cut, it you're not able to get the
(01:21:49):
tricle peer in as well. You'll get you'll get some result,
but not as well. And so if you're using the
diesel oil that helps it stick. And you can even
spray diesel a trickle pair on the sides of the
base of those yopons without doing the cut, and it'll
kill them because it soaks through the tender thin bark
(01:22:10):
thats have down there. But just just you know, it's
it's a relative thing. It's just that the sooner you
do it, the more results you're going to get. The
better the results will be.
Speaker 26 (01:22:22):
All right, thank you, thank you, you.
Speaker 4 (01:22:27):
Bet good luck with that. Yep, bye bye. All right,
I'm gonna have to go to break here. Jill and
a task Asita will be with you first when we
come back. Well, welcome back, welcome back to the garden line.
We are now, I said, go to talk to Jill.
We're gonna talk to Cheryl in a task Asita. Hey, Cheryl,
(01:22:49):
welcome to garden line.
Speaker 12 (01:22:53):
I have a two quick questions about plants to cover.
Speaker 27 (01:22:59):
M you hear me?
Speaker 12 (01:23:00):
Open? Okay, Yes, I can a dwarf upon on the
west side up against the windows. Uh, and they're two
years old. And then I have ginger plants under an
oak tree and I covered them last year, but they
they're friendly off they came back. Do I have to
cover them? Even though they're going.
Speaker 15 (01:23:19):
To die back?
Speaker 4 (01:23:22):
You shouldn't have to cover them. It'd be nice to
have a nice little mult around them. A lot of
ginger has its rhizomes right up near the surface, and
you could get a little coal damage to an exposed rhizome.
But if you got a little mulch over them, they
should be fine. What kind of ginger do you have?
Do you happen to know?
Speaker 12 (01:23:40):
No, they're they're they they're the yellow and green leaves
on the end. They're mainly yellow.
Speaker 4 (01:23:47):
Oh yes, huh, that's a variegated alpinia type of ginger.
And yeah, you know those. I got some of my
ginger through the last frost just by having it. I
had them in the pot, but I just moved it
under the eaves of a house. If you wanted to
throw a cover on, you can protect some of the
top growth. If you still like that ornamental color. Uh,
(01:24:07):
it might be enough to protect the top growth. But
I would just let it do its normal thing, die
to the ground, then leave it dead and ugly until
you know, we get a little past the dangers of freezes,
and then you can clean out all the dead and
let the fresh new come through.
Speaker 12 (01:24:24):
Okay, And how about the dwarf you find up against
the house on the west.
Speaker 8 (01:24:28):
Side years old?
Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
They will be Yeah, they'll be fine. No problem for them,
no problem, all right, all right, hopefully we've saved you
a little bit of work there. Thanks, appreciate your appreciate
your call. All right seven one three two one two
k t R H. If you'd like to give us
a call talk about gardening kinds of things, well, we're
(01:24:52):
happy to do that. That's why we're here help you
have a bountiful garden, beautiful landscape and more fun in
the process, is how I would put it. You know,
there are a lot of natural microbes that are ruling
the world out there, taking care of our plants and microlife.
The folks at Microlife they're all about that. Their products
contain microbes. Their products enhance microbial activity and growth. Now,
(01:25:18):
so all you got to do is apply one of
the products and you're going to be adding some of
those to the soil. There's one in particular I just
want to talk about. It's a liquid. It's called micro
Grow liquid AF. Micro Grow liquid AF. It's a beautiful
maroon label for those of you non Aggie's out there.
It's a beautiful burgundy label, all right. And what it is,
(01:25:40):
it's loaded with eight extremely dominating beneficial microbes that get
down in your soil and do good to plants. These
are good guy microbes. I talked about it last weekend
quite a bit. But it's got things like strupt, a
certain type of two types of structo mices that are
actually disease fighting. It's got two types of trichoderma that
(01:26:01):
help fight disease. Several types of Bacillus one, specifically basilla
subtless is even can be applied to foliage to help
prevent disease sportes that fungal spores that land and attack
the plants. Micro grow liquid AF the maroon jug. You
can get it by the gallon or I believe they
(01:26:21):
have about a quart as well. But all you do
is you apply it with You can put some in
some molasses in a gallon of water to drench around
the soil. You can do it to spray the foliage
on the leaves. Either way, it's going to work very
very well. Micro Grow liquid AF. We're gonna head out
now to Spring and talk to Jonathan. Hey, Jonathan, welcome
(01:26:42):
to garden Line.
Speaker 5 (01:26:43):
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 17 (01:26:45):
I've got two Mexican fan palms and one Canary Island
Day and they've all got about a foot in a
half of trump foot heights. They're all super healthy, and
they're all in a bed of lavarack. And I just
wanted to make sure that I was doing the right
thing to the freeze. I've got the fronds tied up
to where it kind of covers the kind of covers
the heart and the new growth, and I wanted to know.
(01:27:07):
I've got the burlap sack to cover the plant with.
Do I need to wrap the base in the trunks
in a in a in a blanket at all or
should the burlap sack and the front thought that'd be enough.
Speaker 4 (01:27:19):
Yeah, you know, wrapping the trunk slows the cooling of
the trunk, and uh so that is helpful in that
it slows the cooling. Uh the most important part of
your palm trees or the buds at the top of
the trunk. That's the growth point, and so that's where
we most need to protect it. So I mean, you
(01:27:40):
could you can throw a cover over it up there
if you can, if it's not too big to do
that or reach it. I've known people that take like
the little it's the gosh. I don't know how the
proper term for it, but it's a little heating cable.
It's a it's a wire coated wire that you plug
in to an extension core and you wrap it around
(01:28:01):
a pipe to barely keep that pipe warm, warm enough
to protect protect against freeze. You could wrap some of
that around up at the top and put a little
cover over it, and that would provide a little bit
of heat for the top of that palm tree as well.
You just have to run extension cord up to the
top on those. But anyway, however you want to go
about it, it's that that key bud that's the growing point.
(01:28:22):
And if it dies. On most types of palms, if
it dies, the whole tree is dead. Some palms will
re sprout at the bottom, and Mexican fan is a
it's a pretty tough palm anyway.
Speaker 17 (01:28:34):
The end the Canary Island day, the same thing, a
little less, a little less cold, hardy on the Canary
Island date. Okay, all right, perfect, well, thank you very
much for the information.
Speaker 4 (01:28:46):
All right, you take care, appreciate that. We are going
to now go out to Full sher and talk to David.
Speaker 23 (01:28:52):
Hello, David marin Skip, how are you doing.
Speaker 4 (01:28:57):
I'm doing well, Thank you good.
Speaker 11 (01:29:00):
Uh.
Speaker 23 (01:29:01):
I was just going to call in and suggest to
some of the listeners out there about uh I've talked
to you before. I have a bunch of fruit trees
out in Full Shrik and I wrap them. I wrap
them with drop claws on the construction company and I
wrap them with drop clalls and protect them. And uh,
so far the little c seven lights have worked perfect
(01:29:22):
keep anything from freezing, and I wrapped the trunk as well.
And uh, now with this the with the real cold
weather coming, I'm going to put little tiny heaters in
there to keep them a little warm. And I was
going to suggest that today with our technology that we have,
there's these little things you can buy and you can
hang them in the in the wrap. Whatever kind of
(01:29:45):
bush or tree you have, you can hang it in
there away from your heater, and it can tell you
what the temperature is inside there, and you can stay
in the house to monitor it to see what you're
doing and how effective it is.
Speaker 4 (01:29:57):
That's pretty cool stuff. Hey, I appreciate that those are
Those are good tips there, David. Thank you. I'm gonna
have to run. I got some more callers I need
to get to, but I appreciate those tips. And good
luck with your trees, keeping them, showing them nice and protected.
We're going to run now to Spring, Texas and doctor Connie.
(01:30:17):
Hey Connie, welcome to Guardline.
Speaker 28 (01:30:20):
Hi, Skip, thank you for taking my call. I've got
this bush and I want to say I'm going to
call it a Rose of Sharon, although I don't think
that's the right name.
Speaker 4 (01:30:32):
Okay.
Speaker 28 (01:30:33):
It has kind of little arrow shaped leaves that are
kind of fluted on the ends. You know, it has
three different.
Speaker 24 (01:30:41):
Forks to it.
Speaker 28 (01:30:42):
I guess you'd say, okay, And I'm wondering if I
need to cover it. I didn't cover it this last time,
and it's fine. It is trying to put new leaves
on already. I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 4 (01:30:59):
Well, if it really is Rosa Sharon, you you should
you shouldn't have to cover.
Speaker 7 (01:31:03):
It, okay, Yeah, well I don't know that will be my.
Speaker 13 (01:31:09):
Okay?
Speaker 8 (01:31:09):
And what about jasmine?
Speaker 4 (01:31:12):
Uh, like Asian jasmine, the groundcover no, no, the oh mine, Yes,
Carolina Jessamine should not need to be covered either, okay.
Speaker 28 (01:31:26):
And the so that's the yellow one. And then I
have one and I don't know the proper name for
that one either, but it's it has the white flowers
that blooms pretty much all the time in the summer.
Speaker 4 (01:31:36):
Uh. There are some true jasmines that are a little
bit cold tender. I would cover those. Since we don't
know for sure which one it is, I'd suggest you
cover it, okay.
Speaker 28 (01:31:45):
And my zail user trying to put buds on, they'll
be fine.
Speaker 4 (01:31:50):
That should be okay. I mean, if you don't throw
a little blanket or something over the top, just to
minimize any kind of damage, that azelias should be okay. Anyway,
they can take freeze, but if you want to, you know,
just avoid a little bit of that, you could throw
some cover over them. That would be fine.
Speaker 28 (01:32:08):
Okay, Well, thank you, yes, thanks.
Speaker 4 (01:32:11):
All right, thank you appreciate that very much. Thanks for
being a caller. For those of you who have not
been out to the Arborgate recently, you've got to go
check it out. They have loaded up on fruit trees,
a extensive selection of fruit trees and berries and grapes,
and you know talking the other day about some grape
(01:32:33):
varieties that do really well here, of course Arbrogate's got those.
If you're looking for apples or blackberries or dragon fruit
I mean figs, and then unusual things like elderberries. You
know what they grow wild, But did you know their
cultivars of elderberries that you can buy that do really well.
They have their selection of avocados, their selection of blueberries,
(01:32:55):
or selection of palmgranites, and I could just talk and
talk about all the things they have at Arborgate. Now
they also have seed starting kits. It's time to get
the seed starting done, so you need to go ahead
and get those done as well. They've got wonderful selection
of cool season color and it's still okay to plant
(01:33:15):
cool season color, so you can carry you on in
to when we get all past all the freezes and
things and we might start to think about the warm
season color then, but go ahead and get some things
in now and make things look good out there. They
also I want to mention this. The parking lot is
the way to go. That's in back. You just turned
(01:33:35):
down Trasher Road before or after Arburgate. He goes right
around to the back of Arburgate. You can pull in there.
It's an all weather parking lot, super easy access, super safe, easy, easy,
easy to do, and I highly recommend you use that.
That's the parking lot I prefer to use. And don't
forget that their soil and their compost materials that we
talk about, they're also available in bulk and they will deliver.
(01:33:57):
So talk to Beverly kennon the whole group there at
Arburgate if you're interested in having a bulk delivery of
their soil and compost types of products. Well, It's time
for me to take a break. Got a lot of
folks holding on here, y'all. Hang on, I'm gonna get
to you as quick as I can when we come
right back. Welcome back to the garden Line. Just go
(01:34:18):
jump right back in here. So we get out and
get us some bundy of these taking care of here.
We're going to go to let's see, we're gonna head
out to Nadville and talk to Vernon. Hey, Vernon, Welcome
to garden Line.
Speaker 22 (01:34:33):
Hey, Hey, you doing.
Speaker 29 (01:34:34):
I got a couple of questions for you real quick.
The only time I've got left in my garden is
onions and cabbage, and I wonder if I need to
cover those. I'm not too worried about the cabbage, but
the onions need to be covered.
Speaker 4 (01:34:48):
Well, it kind of depends how cold it's going to
get for you there. I leave mine uncovered in minor cold.
You know, when we're gonna get down and the I
don't know, the mid twenties or lower, I start to think,
you know, we better, we better do something about that.
And so it wouldn't hurt to cover them. It just
try to have something to hold the cover up a
(01:35:10):
little bit. So you don't just crush the plants with
the cover. Put some steaks down the row or whatever
works for you to hold it up, off the off
the plants.
Speaker 29 (01:35:20):
Okay, and one more thing, and when it gets closer
to spring, I'm gonna do a lot of cutting on
my plamreas and my pencil cactus with a Rosealvka with
pearlit spin ord. I need a cactus soil.
Speaker 4 (01:35:34):
I would get a cactus soil. There's a good mix
that airlom soils makes them cells. It's a cactus mix
comes in little bags and it's got a lot of
grit in it.
Speaker 10 (01:35:44):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:35:44):
The others like you mentioned, they don't have that the
amount of grit. And with cactus, you do want it
to be very very well super well drained. That that's
very important. And and so that's what I would do.
And you're gonna find airroom soils mixes in a lot
of different places, so that would be pretty easy to find.
Speaker 29 (01:36:04):
Okay, when I cut that pencil cactus, I've got one
branch that's probably a half inch. Do you just had
the milk run out of it?
Speaker 15 (01:36:11):
Or is there a way to stop that?
Speaker 4 (01:36:15):
Oh? I mean you can just leave it it's gonna
drip and stuff on some things, Like when I'm cutting
a ficus tree, I usually have like like a handkerchif
not a handkerchief, Kleenex stop there, and I'll cut it,
and I'll just stick that cleanex up against and it
just absorbs that sap and then it drives on there
and you got to pull it off, but it's just
(01:36:36):
a little absorbent thing there to keep it from dripping
all over, because those kinds of SAPs often will really
stain your clothing or carpet or wherever it's whatever it's
fallen on.
Speaker 29 (01:36:46):
Yeah, I know they're toxic, all right, But that's all
I needed, all right.
Speaker 4 (01:36:53):
So thank you, appreciate, appreciate very much your call. We're
gonna go to Nick and Cypress. Now, Hey, Nick, welcome
to garden Line.
Speaker 30 (01:37:00):
Hey you ship, how you doing? Hey, I'm here.
Speaker 20 (01:37:03):
A beautiful lives the list, and.
Speaker 30 (01:37:05):
She's got me kind of in the She got me
kind of basically into the planting thing.
Speaker 8 (01:37:10):
And she had a question for you regarding our high buscus.
Speaker 5 (01:37:14):
All right.
Speaker 31 (01:37:17):
So we had her in a really big pot for
a while and she got her root system just got
too big. So we finally planted her in the ground
this summer, so she's been in the ground for about
three months or so. The last cold snap we did
cover her, but she is still kind of trying to
bounce back. Her leaves are very wilted, and with this
next breeze coming, we're just a little concerned if just
(01:37:40):
the the plant wrap is good enough or if we
should be doing something different for her so she can
bounce back the spring.
Speaker 4 (01:37:47):
Yeah, Okay, about how tall is it?
Speaker 31 (01:37:51):
It's probably about three foot tall.
Speaker 4 (01:37:53):
And probably about the same three Okay, I've got one
like that, and it's Mine's in a container, but I
don't know. I'm experimenting with mine. I'm going to leave
it out in the container and do what I'm about
to tell you. If you will, get you some pieces
of PVC pipe, half inch pvc, it's very inexpensive. Get
the gray type if you have, if you're able to.
(01:38:15):
If not, the white is fine. The white is just
it breaks down in sunlight faster. But anyway, I'll get
a little eighteen inch piece of rebar at a good
lumber type store, hammered into the ground in four places
around that plant, and then get that PVC stick it
(01:38:36):
over the rebar, bend it, stick it over the rebar
on the opposite side. So let's say you have a
north south and an east west piece, and then take
a zip tie or some twine and tie the PVC together.
So now you've created a little igloo over that plant.
Then cover it. Then secure the edges, yes, like a frame.
Secure the edges, and you've created dead airspace. You got it.
(01:39:00):
Not let air blow up underneath there or it defeats
what you're trying to accomplish. Then get you a clamp
light and one hundred and fifty watt flood light bulb
should be enough. You can use a heat lamp, but
it shouldn't be needed on the coal we're having. And
put it not shining onto the plant or the stems
of the leaves. Shine it down on the ground and
(01:39:21):
that heat will rise up underneath there, and that will
that will do the trick. If you've created dead air space.
I use plastic because I'm going over the PVC and
plastic absolutely doesn't allow any air to move through it,
And so that's how I do it.
Speaker 31 (01:39:38):
Yeah, we had bought one of those plant bags, but
I don't think that was enough. During this last one,
so I'm really concerned about her this time. So we'll
follow your advice and I'll get some plastic and some
PVC and rework. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (01:39:51):
Yeah, and the plat bags are fine for slowing the
cooling of the plant itself. But what we're trying to
do is create a bare soil area underneath it. By
the way, pull the multz back where the warmth of
the soil rises up and is helping with that. You know,
when you just create a landscape lollipop it oftentimes at
(01:40:11):
the very base of the trunk you'll get damage where
it's not covered or it just you can't get the
heat in there like you can the way I described it.
Speaker 31 (01:40:19):
Okay, perfect, all right, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (01:40:21):
All right, you bet, thank you. Thanks for the call.
We were talking a while ago talking about birds. I
can't remember who was it called, had all the birds
going in the background. Whybird's Unlimited has got us covered
on every kind of thing you need for your birds.
I mean feeders. You need a quality bird feeder. You
need quality birds seed. Right now, wind are super Blends
(01:40:42):
the one you need to be feeding. They also have
something called bark butter. Bark butter is a spreadable suet,
So think of it like peanut butter, but a little firmer.
You smear it on the tree trunk and birds come up,
grab the tree trunk and sit there and pack at it.
I mean they really like it. And the one they
have is created by their found under Jim Carpenter. It's
called Gem's Birdaceous bark Butter. Good name and they have
(01:41:07):
documented over one hundred and fifty species of birds being
attracted at bark butter. That's pretty cool. They have bark
butter bits, little bite sized nuggets you can put in
a feeder. There's a bugs and bits that has dried
millworms and our birds is like you've created this fine
dining restaurant, you know, a Michelin restaurant there for the
birds in your backyard. They also have Cardinal Confetti blend
(01:41:32):
for cardinals. It attracts o the birds too, but it's
got a great mix of all kinds of things that
cardinals likes. A brand new blend. They're gonna have it
all year. Cardinal Confetti all at Wallbirds. Go to WBU
dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot com forward slash
Houston and find the Wallbirds near you. There's six of them,
(01:41:53):
so it's easy, easy to find one close to you.
We're going to take a break. When we come back,
Sue and Houston and Addie Huffman, you'll be our first
two up. All right, welcome back to Garden nine. We
are glad you're listening. Continuing on with our phones this morning,
we are going to go to Sue in Houston. Hello, Sue,
welcome to Garden Line.
Speaker 8 (01:42:14):
Good morning. Several months ago, I noticed I lived in
an apartment building. I'm on the fourth floor. I had
looked over the balcony and I noticed that the flower
bed was completely clear of any kind of weeds. The
(01:42:37):
knockout roses were there, but the weeds weren't there. And
I know flower beds have weeds. Some of my plants
were dying. And one of the things that I was
concerned with is any residual chemical that the cat may
(01:43:01):
walk through on the floor of the balcony. So I
called two different vest offices and they said, call your
apartment office. They have to tell you what they've been using.
Of course, they said nothing. So I called Texas Apartment
of Agriculture.
Speaker 26 (01:43:21):
And I asked for.
Speaker 8 (01:43:24):
Some help to see if there was an herba said
news that had drifted up and the guy came out.
Speaker 12 (01:43:37):
And the report said.
Speaker 8 (01:43:41):
No pesticide found. And I talked to the guy after
the report and I said, did you take a soil
sample in that flower bed?
Speaker 24 (01:43:52):
He said no.
Speaker 18 (01:43:53):
I said, did you.
Speaker 8 (01:43:54):
Take any samples from my plants or the dirt in
the plants? He said no. So I'm back to starting
all over again. Now I'm seeing weeds in the flower bed.
So now I'm thinking the apartment has been alerted that. Uh, oh,
(01:44:15):
she's aware of something. We need to knock this soft well.
Can't use anything. So since there's weeds growing, I know
there's no erbit said, and it's been too long, so
uh the herb said is dissolved or you know it
can't be tested right now.
Speaker 4 (01:44:36):
Well, the herbicides they don't, Yeah, they don't. They don't
last forever. I mean they go away different length of
time for different ones, but in general they break down
and they have to be reapplied, so that what was
done before, I wouldn't be worried about it now. Uh.
In general, there's not a threat from most herbicides to
(01:44:57):
a cat walking across, scratching through the soil or something
and like that, just unless you know, like they walked
on it with their wet wet with their paws or something.
But I wouldn't worry about that, I think, and I
don't think the you know, the apartment company is trying
to hide anything. They just they hire somebody to go
take care of the weeds and the beds and things.
(01:45:19):
As to what they use, I don't even know. But
the company ought to be able to tell you they
they There ought to be a way for them to
provide that information if you're curious, I would say in
the meantime, just you know, try to keep an eye
out on it out there, and you should be. Did
you say, when you looked at it, did you see
(01:45:40):
weeds that had been growing, that had been killed, that
were dead and dried up?
Speaker 8 (01:45:44):
Yeah? Yes, And I pointed that out to him. And
also in a different location at on the property, but
a different location, you can see where something was clearly sprayed.
I mean there's a spray line that is not weed
eat or damage.
Speaker 27 (01:46:04):
It was clearly spray.
Speaker 4 (01:46:08):
Okay, all right, well, I think you know that's kind
of what I can tell you at this point. There
should be there should be a way for them to
tell you what we've used. That information is supposed to
be made available. So that's all I know to tell you.
In general, it's I don't think the actual risk is
(01:46:28):
going to be that significant for the animal. You know,
if you had something sprayed on foliage and the animal
was eating you know, the weed, which sometimes animals will,
you know, go out. My dog goes out and eat
eats grass out of the yard and stuff, So that
would be different. But as far as just walking on it,
there shouldn't be a great Once it's dried, fully dried
(01:46:50):
and stuff, there shouldn't be a great concern.
Speaker 8 (01:46:54):
Well, now that you say that I have put lemon
seed in a pot and I probably have six little
twelve inch lemon trees coming up, and I have a
cat that is attracted for whatever reason to those leaves
and who will chew on them so much. I just
(01:47:18):
don't like the idea of that, you know, and something
especially that I don't know what they're using and why
they would keep that a secret of it is concerning
to me.
Speaker 4 (01:47:33):
Well, it's I doubt that it's a conspiracy thing, you know,
where they're keeping it a secret. They probably just don't
know most of those places, you know, it's the harsh
somebody to go out there and take care of it,
and that's all they're worried about.
Speaker 8 (01:47:47):
If it happens again. Who do I How do I
get a soil sample for something like that.
Speaker 4 (01:47:55):
I can just tell you there's not going to be
a good way for you to do that. And you
can search for chemicals in an analysis. It costs a
ton of money, and you got to tell them what
to look for. They can't just look for quote chemicals.
You got to say is there this chemical in that?
And they can search and say yes or no, or
how much or whatever. But I think I've helped you
(01:48:18):
about as much as I can on this one. But yeah,
I don't know where else to go on this one.
But I do appreciate your call. Thank you very much,
and give us a call back if we can help
with them. Let's see who was next here. We were
gonna trying to think of who. There we go. We're
(01:48:40):
gonna go out to Huffman and talk to Betty. Hey, Betty,
good morning.
Speaker 32 (01:48:46):
I'm wondering what to do with my guardenia bush. My
daughter bought me this for Mother's Day last year and
there was no flowers on it, and so I gave
it so coffee grounds, and all of a sudden it's
sprouted a lot of like maybe four or five six
(01:49:07):
branches and they were good okay, two feet tall, but
no flowers.
Speaker 7 (01:49:13):
I still don't have any flowers. So should I okay?
Speaker 3 (01:49:18):
What should I do?
Speaker 15 (01:49:19):
I need?
Speaker 8 (01:49:20):
I want to.
Speaker 4 (01:49:22):
All right real quick because I'm about to run out
of time on us or the leaves a healthy green color. Yes, okay,
I would get an acid loving plant food. They number
of different manufacturers make plants foods for acid loving plants.
Microlife has one that is in kind of a pinkish
(01:49:44):
bag that is for acid loving plants like Gardenia's adrangea, azalea, blueberry, camellia,
those kinds of things. And I would use that as
you fertilize, continue to water as needed to support good
growth when it's dry, and get good growth on it.
If it has good growth and good light, it will
settle down and start blooming for you. But it does
(01:50:07):
need good light, doesn't necessarily need full sun. It just
needs good light, good nutrition, good growth, and it ought
to bloom for you well. So that would be my
suggestion going through this twenty twenty five year to try
to turn that around.
Speaker 32 (01:50:19):
Betty, So an eastern side of the building is okay,
you say it?
Speaker 4 (01:50:26):
East is fine? Yeah, that east is a great place
for a GUARDENA sure.
Speaker 3 (01:50:32):
Okay, I'll just I'll wait and see.
Speaker 4 (01:50:34):
Thank you all right, Thank you very much. I appreciate
appreciate your call very much. Let's see here, we're about
to hit our out time. I believe for this hour.
You know, this morning is going fast again. I know
this happens all the time, kay, apparently, and I wanted
to get to you, but I want to be able
to give time for your call. So we're going to
take you right when we come back from break. For
(01:50:56):
right now, I believe we're about to head into a break.
I just want to remind you our phone number seven
one three two one two KTRH. Also, please hear this.
My website is where I put all kinds of information
and please write it down. Please bookmarkt so that you're
ready to go. The publication, nine page full color publication
(01:51:20):
for free. Everything's for free on there is available on
my website. Gardening with Skip dot com. Someone called earlier
about killing yo pond with a product I have a
new publication I just put up last night on how
to do a stump cut treatment. So when you're trying
to get rid of woody weeds like poison ivy and things,
(01:51:40):
you don't want to spray the whole weed and kill
stuff all around it and cut off the base and
you treat the stump and I tell you exactly how
to do that. Dow publication on just another example of
the kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:51:50):
You've done find.
Speaker 1 (01:51:56):
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with skin Rickyard.
Speaker 5 (01:52:07):
Trip.
Speaker 2 (01:52:09):
Just watch him asks.
Speaker 3 (01:52:25):
A sun.
Speaker 4 (01:52:30):
All right, folks, glad to have you back. Let's do this.
We are entering our last hour of the morning here
Saturday on guarden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor, and
we're here to help you have a more bountiful garden,
more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. We're
going to start by going out to kay in Pairland.
Speaker 5 (01:52:49):
Hello.
Speaker 4 (01:52:49):
Okay, welcome to garden Line, and thanks for hanging on.
Speaker 33 (01:52:53):
Yes, thank you, that's no problem.
Speaker 4 (01:52:55):
Uh.
Speaker 33 (01:52:56):
I have a question about covering the plant. How long
i'd like to cover my plants that I'm going to
cover today while it's not so cold, and I just
wonder if it goes if the freeze goes on, you know,
that's kind of a little uncertain about how long it's.
Speaker 4 (01:53:14):
Going to be.
Speaker 33 (01:53:15):
If it's two or three or four days of you know,
freezing temperatures, that's kind of a long time to keep
a plant covered, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (01:53:24):
Yeah. Now, if you're going to use something that blocks
all the light out, like a tarp, for example, I
would suggest not leaving it under there for more than
a day or two. Open it up and let it
have some light. It's it's not like it's going to
die on day three. It's just you know, the longer
you leave it shaded, the more likely it is it's
(01:53:45):
going to drop leaves and things. If you use something
like freeze blankets.
Speaker 33 (01:53:49):
I have freeze blankets.
Speaker 4 (01:53:50):
Okay, I think they let some light through, don't they right?
Are they white or are they like dark green or
green green? Okay, I'm not sure how much light is
going to go through those. You may hold some up
to the light and you know it's God's ide, and
hold it up, look through it and see what you think.
Speaker 22 (01:54:09):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (01:54:09):
Well, I can.
Speaker 33 (01:54:09):
See my work glowing through it when I had it coverage.
Speaker 4 (01:54:14):
Okay, last week. So okay, well they're gonna allow a
little light through then uh, you're probably good to go.
I mean, you know, we down in Pairland is not
going to be as cold uh as it is going
to be you know, further north in the listening area,
So you're you're probably okay, we're talking about, uh, just
(01:54:35):
trying to get them through. It's going to come down
to a cave depending on the plant. So you know,
if you're trying to keep a tropical hibiscus from freezing,
versus if you're just trying to keep you know, something
that's fairly cold hardy from freezing, Uh, the tropic hibiscus,
you're gonna have to leave it on. Okay, Well that's you're.
Speaker 33 (01:54:54):
Gonna is the other one?
Speaker 4 (01:54:57):
Okay, yeah, well they're gonna be on for a while,
so I think they'll be okay. I would if you
don't mind going out and letting them have a sunny
day or something that would be good. That also warms
the soil and allows a little bit of warmth to
rise up around the plants as well taking the cover off.
But uh, it's there's not a black and white line
(01:55:17):
on this one.
Speaker 28 (01:55:19):
Okay.
Speaker 33 (01:55:19):
Well, I just thought it's not too good to leave
them too long. And I don't know that it's going
to be that cold that long, but we'll see.
Speaker 4 (01:55:27):
Okay, we're going to hope not. But yes, all right,
good luck with that. Thanks for the car you as well.
Thank you very much our phone number seven one three
two one two k t r H seven one three
two one two k t r H. Listen. It's always
a good time to malt It is always a good
time to build your soil. It just is twelve months
(01:55:50):
out of the year. Unless the soil soggy, sop and wet,
it's a good time to build the soil. And it's
a good time to always replenish your malts. Maults in
the wintertime deters weeds and it also helps moderate soil temperature,
protects the crown of that plant against extreme drops in
temperature as well. Cnimalts noticed malts in the name Cnimaltch
(01:56:12):
is the go to place for all the brown stuff
that helps your green stuff to thrive. That's how that works.
They're open Monday through Friday, seven thirty to five. You
got there on a Saturday seven thirty to two, closed
on Sunday. They're on FM five Point twenty one near
Highway six and two eighty eight. Best thing I can
tell you is just go to the website Sienna multch
(01:56:34):
dot com. Simple as that, cnmultch dot com. They're down
south of town again. So all of you out in
communities like see in a plantation, Riverstone, Sandy Point, Meridian,
First Colony, Iowa Colony, pear Land out by the Brasis
Bend State Park, all through that region. This is your
backyard spot to go get the maltches you need and
(01:56:56):
the soil blends that you need, and the fertilizers that
you need. They carry products by Microlife by Nelson, by
nitrofoss by Landscaper's Pride by Medina, by Heirloom Soils. They
have Airloom soils of Veggie nerdmex. They've got Landscaper's Pride
in bolt black velvet malts, and so it's just the
(01:57:20):
place to go when you drive out of there with
your stuff, or you can have them within about twenty miles.
They'll do a delivery for a small fee. When you
get that set up, you're ready to go. Then your
plants will thrive, and money spent on the soil is
very important. Before you spend money on. Let me put
it this way, spend a dollar in your soil before
(01:57:40):
you spend a dollar in your plants. Are do them
both at the same time. Take care of the soil
and then put the plant in. That's how you do it.
And see anumult is where you can get the kind
of quality products that you need. I mentioned that, you
know they have products by Nelson, and Nelson Fertilizer has
a number of lines. They've got the Turf Star line.
(01:58:00):
We'll talk about that when we get back to lawn
fertilizing discussions again. They've got the color Star line, which
if you're going to have a flower bed and you
want flowers in it, you want color. Colorstar is an
awesome product for it's been around for forty years now
and it's used not just here in our area, not
just in Texas. I mean they shift that stuff all
over the country. People figure out it works and they
(01:58:22):
go send me some because it's worked for me. If
it ain't broke, I ain't gonna fix it. In other words,
and it's popular. They also have Nelson has a product
called Nutristar Genesis, and this is a plant food designed
to blend into the soil at planting. It's got indo
and ectomycroiza that helped that root to reach more nutrients.
(01:58:43):
It has bacteria and other fungi that benefit that soul microbiome.
It's got hum maates in it. It's designed to be
mixed in so you just when you dig your planting hole,
just mix some into the soil. As you plant that
plant and put that soil back in. Have some of
the Nelson nutristarch genesis in the planning hale. If you're
growing transplants, you're gonna bump them up from a six
(01:59:04):
pack to a four inch pot, or a four inch
pot to a six inch or gallum pot. That new
potting mix mix the Nelson genesis. That's how I use
it during this time of the year because I'm growing transplants,
I'm potting them up Nelson's neutral star genesis. It really
helps after the plant gets going, then you can use
things like Colorstar and other fertilizers on top of the soil.
(01:59:27):
But this will help them get them off to a
good start. Well, I am looking at a break coming
here too fast to go out to Huffman and talk
to Jerry. Jerry, if you can hang on when I
come back from break, you will be our first call
up and we will visit you at that point. I
want to remind you again my website, Gardening with Skip
dot com, is where you're going to find information about
(01:59:49):
all kinds of things, including protecting plants from cold, if
you will follow garden Line on Facebook. Just yesterday I
posted a little video on how to cover a plant,
put light underneath it and protect it and some of
the things you need to know, things to avoid, things
to do. It's all there on the Facebook page and
we post periodically to that. I've got some others that
(02:00:11):
are coming up pretty quick here to post a Facebook
so you always need to follow us on Facebook. In
the meantime, I'm going to take a break. I'll be
right back. All right, folks, welcome back to Guardline. Good
have you with us. We are going to head straight
out to Huffman and talk to Jerry. Hello Jerry, and
(02:00:34):
welcome to guard Line.
Speaker 34 (02:00:36):
Well, I'm calling about that person that called about this
to pray something on our plants, and they do you
know what it was? Anytime you do that, you're supposed
to have a material Safety data sheet. It's called a
MSDS tells you what's in the stuffs to put in
your property.
Speaker 4 (02:00:57):
That's right, that's the rules. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 15 (02:01:03):
So that's all I had brought.
Speaker 34 (02:01:05):
Thank you for your program, but.
Speaker 4 (02:01:10):
I appreciate you providing that that information. You take care, Yeah,
that's true. You know, I try to try to stay
out of some of the weeds on this stuff. You know, people,
I'm hearing what somebody is telling me on the air,
and I don't know, I don't know how to put
(02:01:33):
it other than I'm not going to get entangled in that.
There there is a way to find out if somebody
apply something. It's it's true what he said. They're supposed
to provide information, so whoever they apply it for. In
this case of be an apartment company should have received
that information. And if the apartment receives the information, they
should be able to provide it for you. That's not
(02:01:54):
a secret. But anyway, well, you are listening to guard Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to
help you have a bountiful garden. Help you have a
bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape. So my suggestion would
be give us a call seven one three two one
two k T right, seven to one three two one
(02:02:16):
two k T right, and we are gonna be happy
to visit with you and help you have success. You know,
one way that you can have success is to stop
myself as a fertilizer. I don't care what it is
you need for your plants. They're going to have it.
Do you need to fertilize them? They have more fertilizers
(02:02:37):
than you can imagine. Everything I talk about on guarden
Line and way way past that, they've got the best
selection of organic fertilizers of anybody in the whole region.
The same thing is true with insect control, The same
thing is true with disease control. The same thing is
true with weed control. If you need tools, quality tools,
(02:02:57):
like maybe you went on my website and saw that
grab or weed wiper tool that I have. Well, the
little thing you start with, the tool you start with.
Bob's got him at Southwest Fertilized. You can make your
own if you don't do that, but he's got him there.
When you go to Southwest Fertilizer, you're gonna find selection,
but you're also going to find expertise. You walk in
with a picture with a plant samples could always bring
(02:03:19):
in a plant sample, and they're gonna be able to
tell you what's wrong with it and what to do
about it. And I frequently stop by there to check
on what's the latest, because you know, a company comes
up with some new product, organic or synthetic, they're not
going to call me up and say, hey, we got
this new product. I have to find out myself and
I go into Southwest. If it's a new product on
(02:03:40):
the market, it's probably gonna be there, and we bought
and I discuss things like that all the time. What works,
what doesn't work, how's it working? You know what's available,
and it's just that kind of place. It's been around
since nineteen fifty five. Corner Abyssinet and Renwick. And here's
the website, Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilize dot com.
(02:04:02):
I don't care where you live. When you drive over there,
you'll see why I am so big on that place,
and why pretty much if you don't if they don't
have it, you don't need it. I think that's the
simplest way to put it. We're going to head out
now to friends would and talk to Ed this morning.
Hello Ed, Welcome to Garden line, Hi, skip power.
Speaker 11 (02:04:21):
You all.
Speaker 4 (02:04:23):
Doing well, sir, thank you.
Speaker 10 (02:04:27):
We have three date palms and they're probably about twenty
five years old, and okay, we lose to frons every
time it can get a hard freeze. But how much
freeze can they can they take before the fronds turn
brown and die?
Speaker 4 (02:04:43):
You know, you can go online and see numbers that
people have posted. Palm companies even have posted as to
how cold it gets. It's a it's a function of
several things. There is a roughly it can take this
cold kind of number, but the condition of the plant
a lot of course how cold it gets, but the
(02:05:05):
conditions going into that cold. You know, any of our plants,
when we are just having nice, mild conditions and suddenly
that temperature drops way down, it's going to cause more
damage than had there been a natural slowing and cooling
of a plant in terms of what it could take.
Date palms are not among the heartier palms. They're among
the less hardy palms. They can be grown, but when
(02:05:28):
it comes to freezes that separate one palm from another,
date palm's going to be one that is going to
sustain more damage than some of our hardier palms. That
we have. The most important thing to remember on any
palms is the terminal bud at the top of the trunk.
That is where new growth comes out of. A few
palms can reach sprout from the bottom. Date palm can't.
(02:05:50):
Most palms can't. So if you can get something up
there in the top, like a little cable on an
extension cord the kind you wrap around a pie that
keeps a pipe from freezing, provides a little bit of warmth,
and then have any kind of cover over there on
the top, you can get them through a lot. You
can have damage to the trunk during a freeze.
Speaker 15 (02:06:14):
Go ahead, they throve They survived. Glass too freezes the
blast you heart freezes.
Speaker 10 (02:06:20):
So hopefully this one will be as bad as those.
But uh yeah, I guess it takes probably about a
good solid year to throw those wrong back into a
bull a bullet umbrella brown.
Speaker 29 (02:06:36):
How tall are they The trunks are probably about.
Speaker 25 (02:06:41):
Anywhere from ten to twelve feet.
Speaker 4 (02:06:45):
Well, it is feasibly pop.
Speaker 30 (02:06:49):
They're they're probably about it.
Speaker 4 (02:06:54):
We're talking over each other. Okay, Well, uh, it is
possible to get up there and throw a cover over
the whole thing. Use the tarp or whatever. You got.
That's handy. Put a little bit of warm th underneath it,
just a little bit, just like those little pipeworm and things.
Wrap it up around. This is one time when a
landscape lollipop would be the thing to do, because draping
(02:07:18):
it all the way to the ground is going to
be very difficult to do. Although if you can do that,
that's even better. But at least warm warm the fronds
and the top bud in it, and you should be
good to go. And you can leave that on there
for a few days if you need to, if it's
gonna keep stay cold on you.
Speaker 25 (02:07:33):
Okay, all right, well thanks three time.
Speaker 4 (02:07:37):
Yes, sir, Yeah, I wish there was a way to
protect them other than that, but it's just not a tree.
That's why you don't see those palm trees up further north.
They're just really hard to protect, all right, ed, Thank
you appreciate that. Our phone number seven one three two
one two kt r H seven to one three two
one two kt r H. In Chanted Gardens down in
(02:08:00):
the Richmond Rosenberg area. It's an outstanding place to go
visit and if you haven't been there, you need to.
They are loaded up. They got a really good list
of fruit trees now that they've got in. By the way,
they got a program coming up next Saturday as January.
No excuse me to day. I'm sorry. I'm looking at
my calendar wrongs today January the eighteenth, and it's this morning,
(02:08:24):
and it was John Penzarella, and I'm looking now. It
starts at ten am, so basically when garden Line ends
is when it kicks off. So I don't know. We'll
give you permission to quit listening to the Garden Line,
to put it on the radio on the car and
head over there. John has been growing citrus on the
Gulf Coast for a very long time. He knows how
(02:08:47):
to grow all kinds of centrus. And this is a
free program. They've got a tent out there that's heated,
so you're gonna be comfortable. Just head out to Enchanted Gardens.
That's FM three fifty on the Katie fullsher the north
side of Richmond and Chanty Gardens and go check that out.
By the way, I'm going to be out there on
February fifteenth, about a month from now, from twelve noon
(02:09:10):
to one thirty, and I'm going to be talking about
tips for making gardening less work. Does that not sound appealing? It's,
in other words, the way I like to put the subtitle,
how to get more from your gardens with less sweat
and less abuprofen. Okay, tips for making gardening less work.
We'll make it more easier, more fun, more productive. Out there.
(02:09:31):
That's February fifth. I'll tell you more about that as
we get close to it. By the way, in Chanty
Gardens is open Saturdays, Monday through Saturdays eight to five
and Sundays eight to four. So get out there. When
you're out there, you're going to find all the many,
many kinds of plants. I mentioned fruit trees, but my gosh,
they got your seed potatoes. They're ready to go out there,
got products for frost protection, and their seed selection is outstanding.
(02:09:55):
Inside the building there really good selection of all kinds
of seeds. We could go on and on and on
with that. Just go out there and Shendy Gardens. Go
see John Penzrella today. I'm telling you it is. It'll
be one of the best talks you ever heard on
how to grow all kinds of centrus and answers your
questions too. All right. I don't know how I can
(02:10:15):
promote it any more than that. I wish I was
at that moment I could get out there and get
time to get there in time, I would go, I
love love hearing that guy talk. Well, you're listening to
Garden Line. Here's the phone number seven to one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, seven to one
three two one two five eight seven four. We love
(02:10:36):
our feed stores here on Garden Line and down south
of Houston. League City feed in League City, Texas is
an outstanding when it's got that old time feed store feel.
I even like. I just like the fragrance going into
a feed so I love that smell of fresh feeds
and things. And League City is that it ain't s
been around for forty years. It's on Highway three, just
(02:10:57):
a few blocks south of ninety six in League Sity.
So all of you in that whole region, like Lamark
and Webster and elcame Ino Reale and Santa Fe, Dickinson,
Clear Lake City, this is your hometown feed store. Go
check them out. They've got nitrofoss products, they have azamite,
they have microlife products, they have Nelson plant food products.
They carry heirloom soils for example, anything you need to
(02:11:19):
crow pass weeds and diseases. They've got it there at
League City Feed, as well as some real premium types
of pet food as well. All right, I'm going to
head out now to Conroe and we're going to talk
to Sym Hello, Cyan.
Speaker 18 (02:11:33):
Hice, Diane.
Speaker 24 (02:11:34):
But I like to listen to your show and on
my way to work, so I've been going to do this.
I said, this is a time while I'm sitting in
a car. I'm fine, Rose, So I have that horrible
play for soil. My yard is nothing but weeds. I
bought the house new, so they just want to look
cute till you get some closing and you're done. So
(02:11:54):
I'm trying to get the yard aerrated. I'm seventy three,
so I not a strong person.
Speaker 18 (02:12:01):
They used to be.
Speaker 24 (02:12:02):
I did go to one place to a piece of equipment.
They want three hundred and sixty dollars for one day
and then three hundred and twenty dollars for delivery and
pick up, which is outrageous. And that's not even do anything.
Speaker 4 (02:12:15):
I'm trying to hey saying, I'm I'm sorry. I have
to cut you off here. We're there. We got a
heartbreak coming. When we come back, I will tell you
about that and answer any other questions you have. Just
hang on for one second, folks will be right back.
All right, folks, we're back. We're going to head straight
out to the phones and continue our conversation with Saying
(02:12:40):
and Conro. You were discussing wanting to do some aeration
and what I'm having a.
Speaker 8 (02:12:49):
Problem finding what I'm looking for.
Speaker 5 (02:12:54):
To do it?
Speaker 4 (02:12:56):
Got you? Well, if you're having to pay three almost
four hundred dollars just to rent equipment, I got a
way better way. You need to call green Pro Green
Pro Services your area, Conro, and they will come out
and they will do the compost top dressing and aeration both. Uh.
And you know it's the prices will start. I believe
(02:13:18):
they still start around five seventy five. But that's all
the equipment, better equipment than you can rent. And that's
the compost top dressing, couple of yards of composts going
out there on it. You will be way better off
than trying to rent a machine and find somebody to
run it and buy all the composts and stuff like that.
I would just call it Greenpro. There. If you have
(02:13:40):
a pen or pencil handy and give you a phone number.
I sure do, okay, it's two eight one three five
three five one forty seven thirty three forty seven thirty. Yeah,
I'll repeat it one more time. Two eight one three
five one forty seven thirty three. Or if you're don't
(02:14:01):
go online, it's Greenpro dot net. That's an easy way
to get hold of them. But they can do they'll
do the job right, and they got the equipment that
does it better.
Speaker 24 (02:14:10):
That's gonna be like half priced and getting more done.
So it sounds like a.
Speaker 4 (02:14:15):
Well it is and it yeah, you bet, good luck
with that. Thanks for the call. All right, we're gonna
go to Sugarland now and talk to Fred. Hey, Fred,
Welcome to Guardline.
Speaker 22 (02:14:28):
Good morning, sir. I want to ask you about Carolina
jasmine in the freeze.
Speaker 4 (02:14:33):
We replaced our Asian.
Speaker 22 (02:14:34):
Jasmine after we've lost it before with Carolina jasmine.
Speaker 11 (02:14:38):
Is that or not?
Speaker 4 (02:14:41):
It is hardy Carolina jasmine. Oh, I know it'll go
to a zone seven, which is way north of us,
and so yeah, you shouldn't have a problem with that
at all. It's a it's a very tough, hearty plant
native in the southeastern United States.
Speaker 7 (02:14:55):
Good well, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (02:14:58):
Is that it just okay? Well that was easy? You
take care? Hey, yeah, there you go. All right, we
beat that. Well. I got a weird, funky song that
I'm going to play for you every nine and then
I like to play some stuff. I promise you you
never heard before if you have called me and tell
(02:15:20):
me I'm wrong. But I'll do that when we come
back from break here in a little bit. You know,
I talk about ACE all the time, and it's like,
where do you begin? You know, ACE Hardware. Their motto
is ACE is the place, or at least it has
been for a long time, and it is it is
the place for all kinds of things that you might need.
I mean, right now, it's all about cold weather, right,
(02:15:43):
That's what we're worried about, is cold weather. How do
we you know, how do we protect our plants? Well,
when you go to ACE, you're going to find things
like the pipe insulation to wrap around your pipe, the
heat lamps that you need under your plants. By the way,
if you want to know how to use one, go
on Facebook garden Line facebook page. I did a video
(02:16:04):
yesterday explaining how to do that. And you want to
be careful when you use those. There's a right way
and wrong way to do it, but it's on there.
ACE has got that. ACE is going to be the
place where you find all kinds of interior heaters. Maybe
you want to put something out in the garage to
keep it a little bit warmer because you put all
some plants in there. Brought a bunch of plants into there.
They've got that the frost covers to go over your plants.
(02:16:25):
They've got everything you need when you think of cold weather.
You know the covers that go over your faucets outside
the miser, the freeze miser that is a gadget. You
just screw it into the garden fawcet bib. You turn
it on all the way. Nothing comes out because it's
not until it gets cold cold that that freeze miser
starts to water trickle out. So you don't waste water
(02:16:47):
all night like you do when you have to leave
your faucets trickling. But it works, and ACE has got it.
Ace has got every kind of thing you might possibly need.
For example, they've they've got those ac film that you need.
In fact, the hardware city of Memorial may have the
largest selection of AC filters in all of Houston. But
we got Ace stores all over the place. You can
(02:17:08):
go to fullshre Ace Hardware up in Spring. There's All
Star Ace Hardware. There's another All Star Ace Hardware in
Magnolia and Port Lavaca. Ace Hardware just another example of
the many Ace Hardware is in the greater Houston area.
If you went to Acehardware dot com and find the
store locator, you can find the one near you. And
it's as simple as that. And I could just sit here,
(02:17:30):
item after item reading off everything you need from Ace Hardware.
The cause we're getting into cold, cold weather, so get
by there, don't alike, get by there and get that
taken care of. And then when things warm up a
little bit, I want to tell you about some of
their gardening supplies that they carry, because they have a
nice full supply of gardening options at your local Ace
(02:17:51):
Hardware store. Ace is the place that is true. Well
let's see here, where are we. We're getting pretty close
to the break. Well, I've got time for a call.
If someone'd like to, you might call it seven one
three two one two k t r H. Seven one
three two one two k t r H. I'm gonna
(02:18:14):
talk a little bit about some non freeze type of thing. Uh,
and that would be This is the time to get
your fruit trees in the ground, any kind of woody ornamental.
The sooner you plant it, the better. Our garden centers
are loaded with ones. Now, when you go to a
good mom and pop garden center, I'm not talking about
national chains that sell hammers and everything else. I'm talking
(02:18:37):
about a garden center that's locally owned. You're gonna they're
gonna be able to tell you what are the best
cultivars for your area. Because you know, the cultivar of
peach you would grow on Galveston and Huntsville are very different.
They're gonna be able to tell you do you need
a pollinator for that kind of fruit? Peaches don't need
(02:18:58):
a second pollinator out do. And then I'm not going
to go through every fruit tree, but they'll be able
to tell you that, they'll be able to tell you
how to plant it, They'll be able to provide the
products you need to have success with it. That's true
with fruit trees. That's also true with camellias. It's true
with tho zalias. It's true with all kinds of shrubs
and trees that you might want to plant there at
your property. The best time to plant a tree is
(02:19:20):
forty years ago. Second best times today. So if you're
looking for a nice shade tree or a nice blooming tree,
my favorite spring bloomer is a tree called Chinese fringe tree.
There's a native fringe f East Texas Native fringe. The
showiest thing is the Chinese fringe and I love it.
It is absolutely wonderful, has nice fragrance to it as well.
(02:19:42):
So anyway, go to a good, trustable local garden center.
We got them north, south, East, and West. We're lucky
here in Houston. I'm going to take a break and
when I come back, Danny, you'll be our first up.
Oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start,
so I'm just not gonna say anything. I promised you
(02:20:04):
something you haven't heard before. If you've heard that before,
number one, I don't believe you, but call in tell
me you're wrong. Skip. I have heard that. It's probably
some barbershop enthusiast out there. Hey, we're going to go
out to the phones now and talk to Breen in Hitchcock. Hello, Bring,
Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 27 (02:20:22):
Oh yeah, Hi, Hi, Skip love your show. I had
a raised flower bed with three established hibiscus. One is
a cage in one, one's a double bloom, and the
other one is I think it was called Americana.
Speaker 18 (02:20:40):
It's got yellow, yellow, red, and pink blooms on it.
I think it's a hybrid.
Speaker 27 (02:20:45):
But they've gone on the ground, so probably at least
three years. I did hear you say something this morning
about putting.
Speaker 18 (02:20:57):
My PBC pipe in and maybe.
Speaker 27 (02:20:59):
A flood lamp, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 18 (02:21:01):
It's like a eight to ten foot long bed.
Speaker 27 (02:21:05):
The largest hyperscus is the Cajun and it probably stands
four four and a half feet tall. So do I
just need to wrap it in plastic and put a
couple of flood lamps in there between each plant?
Speaker 4 (02:21:20):
Well you could? What would you could? Yeah, you could
do that. I think if it were mine, it or
eight feet long. I would take PVC and make arches
to go over the plant, so you're making like a tunnel,
and then you put the plastic over the whole tunnel,
and then you put a couple of lamps. You know
it's eight feet long, so put the lamps about four
(02:21:42):
feet apart underneath there, and that would definitely protect them.
The the PVC holds plastic up, plastic keeps air from moving.
You don't want plastic to touch plants. But with those hibiscus,
you know they're already the leaves are probably falling off
and not looking very great anyway, and fresh growth will
come out next spring. But if you go to the
(02:22:02):
if you go to garden line Facebook page, I just
kind of show you how to do it on one plant.
It may make it easier to kind of picture what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 27 (02:22:13):
Okay, I think I can get kind of a mental
picture because you're talking about the PDC pipe that those
really long.
Speaker 18 (02:22:21):
They're probably at least ten twelve feet.
Speaker 11 (02:22:23):
Tall or whatever.
Speaker 4 (02:22:25):
Yeah, probably.
Speaker 27 (02:22:26):
Okay, what about what about blankets on the ground? Does
that help it all?
Speaker 4 (02:22:33):
Well? You could you could put anything over the PVC.
I mean you could use tarps, you could use rope,
the thick row cover fabric, if you had a blanket
that size, you could use it. We're just trying to
create a dead air space underneath there so that the
soil warmth rises up underneath that tunnel or underneath that
PVC hoop, and it helps protect the plant and when
(02:22:57):
you warm the air a little bit, it kind of
stays warm because wind is not blowing the air right
out from under there. That that's the goal. So uh yeah,
you can. You can go about that either way.
Speaker 27 (02:23:09):
Okay, Well, I understand that. I was thinking though of
putting like some old comforters or whatever to cover the
ground to keep it warm with the flood lambs under it.
Bit at that point it would probably block the heat
from rising.
Speaker 4 (02:23:23):
I see, yes, that's correct. You do not want. In fact,
I have a plant that I've covered like that, and
first thing I did is scrape all the mult back
from underneath that PVC hoop because the soil will warm
and the soil will radiate that heat up, and molts
help pull the soil in the soil warm thing. So yeah,
you want you want bear soil. You don't want to
(02:23:44):
blanket over it. You don't want mulch over it for
best results. Now, these are all, you know, like ten
different things you can do that each one helps a
little bit. So if you don't do them all, that's okay.
Speaker 18 (02:23:54):
But okay, okay, well they're they're like my babies.
Speaker 5 (02:23:58):
So.
Speaker 4 (02:24:00):
I know, well, I have a cajun hibescus that I
really love. Those are outstanding.
Speaker 27 (02:24:06):
Yeah, they're just you know, and I just stumbled across
it in a flea market and it has just been
the most beautiful plan. I get so many compliments on it.
Speaker 18 (02:24:14):
So okay, well, thank you.
Speaker 27 (02:24:16):
I really appreciate your health.
Speaker 18 (02:24:17):
It was very informative.
Speaker 4 (02:24:20):
All right, Well, good, that's good. Thanks for the call.
Appreciate you being listener.
Speaker 18 (02:24:23):
Have a great thank.
Speaker 4 (02:24:26):
You as well. We're gonna go out now to Houston.
Talk to Danny. Hey, Danny, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 30 (02:24:31):
Hey, yeah, good morning, sir, Thank you for taking my call.
I have two mule palms that are still in their
pots pots, meaning they're big. They're like, you know, four
foot circles.
Speaker 22 (02:24:45):
Right.
Speaker 30 (02:24:46):
You just scared me when you were talking to that
other young lady about the mult because I went and
bought like eight bags of mulch and I put it
inside the pot around the base to keep it warm
during the last little Coltsville. Can you give me some
suggestions on how to take care of these during this
(02:25:06):
hard reason?
Speaker 4 (02:25:08):
You bet so. For everybody listening, I want to clarify
that mult thing that I said. When I said the
molt thing, I'm talking about where you completely cover a
plant and you got the bare soil warmth rising up.
When you're talking about a palm tree, you're talking a
big old trunk up there with something at the top,
and that doesn't really apply. You're not putting the same
kind of cover over it. So for you to mound
(02:25:30):
up soil or cover soil or put a tarp over
that root ball and protect the roots and things, that's fine.
Meal palm is very cold hearty. They can take temperatures
down into the teens when they're you know, in decent shape.
I just wouldn't necessarily want to try that with the
roots getting that cold. But yeah, once they're established, they're
(02:25:53):
quite hearty. But for this one, let's just protect the
base of it, the roots a little bit there. And
I don't see what the kind of weather we're having
here in Houston area that you need to you need
to be that concerned about a mule pom.
Speaker 30 (02:26:07):
Okay, so so so me stacking the mult all the
way around the base and they're still in their pots
and putting that most all around there, then it should
be okay.
Speaker 4 (02:26:19):
Yes, because you're insulating the roots. Okay, that's what the
mulch is doing for that palm tree, then saying, I
don't know that that's necessary. It may it may not be,
but I'm just saying, don't what I said about mult
does not apply to what you're doing to that move.
Speaker 30 (02:26:35):
No, I totally understand, sir. I totally understand, Thank you.
But I did hear the previous conversation.
Speaker 4 (02:26:40):
I was like, oh, right, so, yeah, that happens a
lot on garden line, and I always like that to clarify, Yeah,
you picked a you picked a great palm. Mule palms
are awesome. They're hearty, they're fast growing, they're they're just
they're great.
Speaker 30 (02:26:54):
Okay, one more question, sir. So I haven't put them
in the ground because when we got them, which was
like a month ago, I thought to myself that it's
not a good time to plant them. Right, So when
when is a good time to put them in the ground.
What would you think?
Speaker 4 (02:27:10):
We usually plant palms when the weather worms up a
little bit. You know, they they don't really want to
mess with growing and stuff until things warm up. So
whereas with a lot of our trees and stuff, we're saying, hey,
get them planted and fall in winter, you know, before
the heat of the summer arrives. People plant palm trees
in the middle of hot summer, so you don't you're
(02:27:31):
not in a hurry. But when it warms up a
little bit, you can get that thing in the ground.
Speaker 30 (02:27:35):
Okay, all right, thank you for taking my call. I
love to shows.
Speaker 17 (02:27:39):
You're awesome.
Speaker 4 (02:27:41):
Thank you appreciate that. Good luck with that. Well, there
we did it. We put another, put another show in
the books. Wish you well, stay warm this this week.
This is the kind of weather that gives our fruit
trees great chilling. Chilling hours occur primarily around forty degrees
(02:28:02):
forty five thirty five somewhere in there. We're going to
have a lot of that weather as we go through.
So who knows, maybe you have a good bloom and
a good fruit production coming there with fruit. Talk to
you tomorrow.
Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richter.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Just watch him as so many.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Go things to seeprazy not sald.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Well. Welcome, Welcome to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to answer gardening questions. Actually, why I'm
here is so that you can have more bountiful garden
and more beautiful landscape and more fun in the process. Boy,
if we could achieve those three things, I would feel
(00:59):
like that's a home run. You know, gardening is supposed
to be a blast, and we have the ability to
create a little spot of eden whatever that looks like
to you in your property.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
We do.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Maybe you're a lawn ranger, one of the guys that
likes large expenses expenses excuse me, oh, maybe expensive to
large expenses of turf grass. That's that's what you like,
the perfect cut, the weedless lawn. Uh, just seeing everything
nice and edged and pretty. Maybe you're on the other
(01:34):
end of the spectrum and you like it wild, native plants,
cottage gardens. You know, no straight lines, no orders, no,
definitely not an engineer. If you feel that well, maybe not.
If you feel that way, maybe you're somewhere in between.
Do you like vegetable gardening? Grownk things you can eat,
vegetables and fruit and herbs. Oh my gosh, we can
(01:57):
grow all kinds here in the Greater Houston area. We
are fortunate. You know, we're about to get into some
cold and we'll be talking about that a lot today.
I bet, and yes that that's a rough one. But
by and large, this is a very temperate climate and
the amount of really hard freezes that we have are
very few and far between. That's why you see cetresol
(02:20):
over the place. That's why you see avocado trees down here.
For crying out loud, I mean, this is a great
place to grow a lot of things. It's not. There
are not a lot of places where you can grow
apples and avocados in the same spot. But this is
actually one where it could be done as long as
you're willing to go to some links in order to
(02:42):
do it well. The way we get from here to
there is for you to give me a call. Seven
one three two one two KTRH seven one three two
one two KTRH. Let's help you get the kind of
success that you're looking for. All Right, we'll start off
with the elephant in the room, and we'll come back
to the elephant. I bet a bunch of times today
(03:02):
the elephant in the room is it's going to get
really cold. And I realized that I've talked to someone
the other day that listens over almost to San Antonio
in that area, listens on the radio to the show,
and some folks down Corpus direction over Louisiana and Huntsville.
It's kind of hard to say how cold's going to
get at your house when we're covering that kind of area.
(03:23):
But we're looking at everything from the teens maybe down
to just a little bit into the twenties below thirty,
depending on where you live as you're listening to this broadcast. Well,
that means that what you need to do has a
big range as well, you know, and we're going to
get down in the mid twenties. We got a lot
(03:44):
of plants that are commonly grown here that are really
going to need some protection to not have a significant
loss to them. Fortunately, we have a lot of plants
that are able or resprout from the base. I was
just out doing a video, which by the way, I
posted to Facebook yesterday on protecting plants from the cold,
just kind of real quick went over basically how to
(04:06):
cover a plant and put heat underneath it and so on.
And I was using a plant that's kind of a
semi tender one. And we have a number of plants
like that, you know, the Pride of Barbados, sometimes called
Redbird of Paradise. That's one that is not hard to
kill that to the ground. It cannot take much cold
(04:28):
at all and it'll go to the ground. But if
you mound soil or compost or mulch over the base,
I like to use finer textured things because they don't
allow the air to move through as easily. Like a
big old chunky mulch isn't as much unless you put
it read deep. Isn't as much protection let's say per
inch of depth as would be compost or soil. But
either way you go, you want to mount something over
(04:49):
the base of it, and it killed it to the ground,
that's fine, and it'll come right back out of the ground.
In fact, plants like that do well if they get
killed of the ground. They just come out fresh and
same as true with esperanza yellow bells. Plant it all
over the place. Those plants are marginally hardy. Depending on
where you live in the listening area, they're gonna get
(05:10):
killed part way to the or killed back a little bit,
or often killed all the way to the ground. When
we have a good coal snap. If you have a
plant like that and it gets half killed back and
it looks horrible, cut it to the ground. I cut
mine to the ground every year because they come right
back out of the ground. And if you do that,
the plant won't be so scraggedly. You know, you had
(05:31):
one long stem that kind of half survived and then
sums coming back out of the ground. Cut it all
the ground, have it all fresh, come back out again,
and you'll be good to go. Don't forget. Don't forget that.
You can do that. Thry Alice. Thrialice is a well
it would be evergreen if it didn't freeze. Hard bush
(05:52):
that has yellow blooms, and it blooms probably more months
of the year than almost any plant you're going to
put in your landscape really continues blooming. Mine has a
little bloom on it still. I don't know what that's about.
We went through upper twenties. The other day, it's underneath
the eaves of the house on the south side, and
it didn't kill it back. I was a little surprised.
(06:14):
I figured that might take it down. Well, we're going
to take it down this week because I'm going to
be down in the upper teens probably where I live,
and so that is going to take it back. But
I was talking about those. That's another one thry alis.
It could be killed to the ground and it'll come
right back out again. Duranta Golden showers is another name
(06:34):
people use for that. Duranta will be killed the ground.
Just mulch the base. I would say, don't worry about
trying to protect those plants unless you're way south and
you're in an area where you almost never killed those
back to the ground. Then if you want to give
some protection protect the above ground parts, you can. I
just like coming out fresh with them. That's my approach.
(06:57):
So you choose how you want to go about that.
But that's that's like cold protection. One oh one is
mult the base, Well, you don't have to cut it
back now. In fact, I would suggest you don't cut
them back prior to mulching uh. And the reason is
pruning is an invigorating process. Pruning is an invigorating process,
(07:19):
and I want to I want to make a couple
of comments about that. We're gonna take a little break
here in a minute, and when I come back, I
want to discuss what happens to a plant when you
prune it, and why we do or don't prune prior
to going into a cold season or a cold weather
and coming up soon. So we'll do that in just
(07:41):
a moment. I do want to remind you if you'd
like to give us a call and get on the boards.
It's always quiet as early in the morning, so you
kind of have first shot without waiting in line seven
one three two one two k t r H seven
to one three two one two k t r H.
Stay tuned. We'll be right back to talk about pruning
and its effect on plants. All right, folks, we're back.
(08:06):
Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us.
We've got a lot of things to cover today. I'll
be talking about freeze and frost protection, certainly that some
other concepts talk about printing here in just a little bit.
As we get going, you know, when it comes to
the cold weather, though, you need to be ready for it.
(08:27):
And ACE Hardware stores have got you covered. Boy are they.
I was talking to somebody from ASA other day and
they are stocked up. They have everything you're gonna need.
Do you need things like faucet covers? They've got that.
Do you need that gadget called the freeze miser. You
screw it into the end of your faucet and you
turn your faucet on, just crank it up full force,
(08:48):
and nothing happens. It just sits there and it as
a temperature coals, something inside shrinks up and it starts
to trickle water. And so the colder it gets, the
more it's protecting that faucet. Doesn't that make sense? And
then when the weather warms up, it stops dripping again,
so you're not running water all night at a trickle
trying to protect your lines. Fustymiser's really good. They got
(09:10):
those at ACE. You can get insulation for your pipes.
You can get that tape that you wrap around them,
you know things. They have all kinds of things. Do
you need to maintain your generator, make sure fires up
in case there's some sort of issue with the power.
They also can refill your propane tanks. They have propeane heaters,
all kinds of heaters, electric heaters, overtype. You can imagine.
(09:31):
You need some lugs for the fireplace. We always get
excited when it gets cold because we get to run
our fireplace. And so they've got that for you. Heat
lamps for your for your plants, and I talk about
that on that video by the way that I did
on Facebook. Heat lamps for your plants and how to
use them properly, and on and on and on. At
your Houston Ace Hardware stores and I'm telling you Ace Hardware,
(09:54):
they're a bunch of them all over the place. You
can go to Ace Hardware dot Com find the one
near you, or I'm just this. You've got Sinco Ranch
on South Mason Road. There's an Ace Hardware right there.
Ace Hardware, Sinco Ranch, Evaldie. Ace is on the east
side of town, Crosby up in Crosby, Ace Hardware, Bay
Cliff Ace Hardware just just south of the Chema and
then Spring Ace Hardware. Those are just a few examples
(10:16):
of the many Ace Hardware that we have. I'm gonna
head out to the phone, said boy. I said Colin,
it's quiet. Nick sorted, be not so quiet. We're gonna
go to Mary in Houston. Hey Mary, good morning and
welcome to garden Line. All right, Mary, are you there?
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Yes, I'm here.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Good morning, Well, welcome to garden Line. How can I
help this morning?
Speaker 7 (10:42):
Thank you?
Speaker 6 (10:43):
So I want to get someone a like a fruit
tree or something like that that they can put on
their patio and plant later. But they live in Brian
Hollis Station. Is there a good okay nursery and nerbar?
Is there a good fruit tree that you could recommend
for that air.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well?
Speaker 4 (11:02):
There are a couple of places up there that do
carry some fruit trees, not going to quite have the
same selection as you would find if you know you're
it's about an hour from from Arborgate up up to there,
and so I would you're not gonna find a better
selection of fruit they then Beverly has there at Arborgate.
(11:24):
I think that's worth the drive just to have the
selection that you're looking for. As far as the types,
pretty much everybody likes peaches, that's a safe one to
go with. They do require pruning and care, and so
if this is somebody that wants the least care fruit
they can have, then it might be something like a fig,
a fig tree. You can grow satsuma oranges up in
(11:46):
Brian College Station. You just occasionally need to throw a
cover over the top. Once they get established, they're going
to take it down in the low twenties and so
without cover, and so that that would be a sis
type of option. Plus they get the fragrances from it.
I mean, there are a lot of other kinds of fruit,
but those are just a few that come to my
(12:07):
mind when I just think about either easy or very
very popular, or or offering some extra bonuses in addition
to the fruit that you get off of.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
Okay, that's a good option, thank you. I was thinking
about some kind of citrus tree.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Yeah. Yeah. If you're going to give a citrus to
someone in Brian Collis Station, it needs to be a setsuma. Now,
there is a bush of a citrus called kumquat, and
those are the little green, the little orange things the
size of the end of your thumb that you basically
make marmalade with because the skin tastes probably even better
than the inside. They're heartier than satsumas. But it's a
(12:49):
little bush and so a lot of people aren't wanting
citrus for just marmalade.
Speaker 6 (12:54):
Okay, all right, that works, thank you so much. I'll
have to head head out to heart Gate.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Then there you go, yeah, go down, and when you
go there, they're going to tell you about some other
things too.
Speaker 7 (13:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Another option. I don't know how much of a gift
you want to make this, but if it was in
a large container one of those looks like a half
whiskey barrel, but it's it's plastic, you know, something with
size on it, then you could be growing a mere
lemon or even some types of limes. They just would
have to roll them into the garage when it's going
to get you know, below the upper twenties for sure.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
Okay, all right, that could be Thanks, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Bye, yeah you bet bye bye. See here we're going
to go now to Spring Branch and talk to Sally. Hey, Sally,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Good morning.
Speaker 9 (13:41):
I'm concerned about by and ever littlest bulbs and irish bulbs,
spider plants and wandering jew How can that particular?
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Okay, well, Emeralist is going to be fine. It's just
that's what winner does. They die to the ground. It's
not a problem. They'll be okay. You may find that
they make it through. You know, in the in the
city we have a little bit warmer temperatures than you
do in the outskirts. There's that heat island effect of
the city. If you want to throw a cover over them,
(14:15):
just to protect that foliage that's there, you could throw
any kind of a blanket or something over just to
hole some of that warm soil heat in. But the
bulbs won't be killed by this, nor will the iris
bulbs be killed by this. They're pretty tough.
Speaker 10 (14:31):
Now.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
The wandering jew is probably gonna gonna get top frozen,
but it'll it won't die out completely again. A cover,
just a sheet or blanket or anything over it, just
to just to hold that soil heat in a little
bit is going to be enough to get it through.
If you don't want to have a lot of die
back on the top.
Speaker 9 (14:51):
What about crotons.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Crotons are very cold, tender, and you're gonna have to
put a cover over them and then put light under them.
And if you will, do you happen to be on
Facebook by any chance? Yes, okay, fine, garden line Facebook page,
my Facebook page, garden Line Facebook and I just posted
yesterday a video on how to cover and this would
(15:17):
apply very much to your crotons. It's a cover over it,
a light under it, and it explains how did I
explain how to do it? And I can do a
better job if you watch that video than trying to
describe it to you.
Speaker 9 (15:31):
Okay, any protection for the wandering jail or just leave
it just a cover?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Well you could leave it alone, or you could throw
a cover over it to just maybe you know, not
have freeze damage on the top part above ground parts
and stuff.
Speaker 11 (15:47):
Oh I see.
Speaker 12 (15:48):
Alright, Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
All right you bet Sally, thanks for the call. Appreciate that.
Are we on time? All right, We're good here. Let's
go to Scott in Houston. Hey, Scott, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Thanks. Yeah, I recently removed the shed from my backyard
and I've got a big dirt patch back there. Is
there anything I can put on their rye grass or
something or which one do you suggest until I can
resaw it in the spring.
Speaker 8 (16:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:17):
There.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
You know, there's a couple of approaches to it. One
would be to try to side, but then we're kind
of late and if we have some cold weather that
that rye grass is not going to grow much until
it's we have milder temperatures. I think you might consider
like a bail of hay that you just spread over
across that as something to kind of walk on and
(16:39):
maltz the ground, or even some bags of compost and
mulch or mulch itself would make it something you you
could walk on, wouldn't be so muddy, and things like that,
and then you just rake that up when it's time
to serve. But you could you could do the rye grass.
I just think at this point, I don't know that
you would get the size of rye grass plants that
(17:01):
would accomplish what you want before it's about times but
sawed down anyway.
Speaker 11 (17:06):
Yeah, okay, well, thank you, all.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Right, you've got thank you appreciate that. I'll zip right
through these here. We're going to go out now to
Seabrook and talk to Carol. Hello, Carol, Hi, I.
Speaker 13 (17:20):
Have a potted manned vilia and it has decided to
start blooming. So I'm wondering if I should just let
it treze and you know, let it come up from
the roots, or should I move it into the garage.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Yeah, you know down at Seabrook, your your amount of
cold is less. If it were me, I would move
it into the garage because Vanderville as an almost tropical
kind of plant and it's not going to take a
lot of hard cold and in a pot. Now instead
(17:58):
of the roots being insult the soil, those roots are
exposed to essentially below thirty air temperatures and that you
can get significant killing damage to the crown and roots
of the plant too there. So I would roll that
thing into the garage and that way you're on the
(18:19):
safe side. Plus you don't lose all the top growth
that you have.
Speaker 13 (18:24):
Okay, okay, I do have one more question, if I may,
is there a day lily society.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
In the area, say that one more time, please a.
Speaker 13 (18:37):
Day lily society or club.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
There is. I don't have a contact for them. If
I find that, I'll mention it on the air. But
I'll tell you what. Let's do this. If anybody's listening
from a daily society or group, give me a call
on guarden Line and let us know about how people
can get in touch with you. Well, we'll do it
that way as well.
Speaker 13 (19:03):
Okay, okay, thank you very much. Have a good day.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
You you bet you as well. Thank you very much
for the call. Appreciate that you All right, folks, there
we go, we got that caught back up again. That's good.
Let's see, we're looking at coming pretty close up to
a a break here. I'm not going to get into
(19:27):
let me think about Yeah, I'll tell you what I will.
I will. I told you there was talk a little
bit about some of the issues with pruning and plants.
Pruning is a invigorating process. So when you prune, it
causes new growth to take off and push out. And
so although if you know, if it's freezing, there's not
(19:49):
going to be much of that happening, but if you
do it prior to a freeze, it actually is. There's
a decrease in heartiness of the parts of the plant
there that you're pruning, especially because it is going to
push new growth. So I would not prune which is stimulating,
prior to going into cold weather. And I don't mean
just the day before, but I mean, you know, if
you do it, we don't prune things in the fall
(20:11):
for that reason. That's one reason you get a good
hard freeze. So what you're going to want to do
is hold off on that pruning until after the winner,
and then cut all the dead stuff out and do
the pruning at that point. Just go ahead, and sometimes
the covering even helps protect underneath. I also did a
video just a little while ago on leave your dead
(20:32):
antanas and dead Mexican heather tops and things because they
are protecting the plant's base. We'll be right back, all right,
Welcome back to Guardline. If you're planning any fishing in
the dark, you better be getting it done while it's
dark now, because it's fixing to get cold and we're
(20:53):
going to get some wind in here and the chills
are going to be a little high to be up there.
And I have been up on a lake with the
wind blowing, and I can tell you this, it's better
bring an extra coat for that. Well, you're listening to
garden Line. We're here to help you have a more
beautiful landscape, a bountiful garden, and like I like to say,
(21:13):
it more fun in the process. That's important, you know,
it's not. Some people get real I don't know, anxious
about trying to garden. And I've had gosh, I have
so many people tell me like, yeah, I tried that
and it didn't work. And I can just tell they
just feel like frustrated and that's too hard. I can't
(21:33):
do it. I don't have a green thumb. Nope, no, no,
none of that is true. None of you you. It's
your thumb doesn't have a color. If you want to
say brown and green thumbs, then I'll say it this way.
All you need is to educate your thumb, and it
makes it turn from brown to green. That's how that works.
Grandma the reason she could do anything in the garden.
(21:54):
It seemed to grow everything she touched. It's because you
know how to take our plants. She just had some
base sick understanding of what plants need and she provided
them that along with picking plants that are going to
do well in the area. And that just makes it
look like you have a green thumb. So let's let's
get that thumb educated. Give me a call. Seven one
three two one two k t r H. Seven one
(22:17):
three two one two k t r H. We will
talk about the kinds of things that are of interest
to you. Answer those gardening questions. Uh RCW RCW nursery.
You've probably been there many times before, but it's the
one right there where Beltway eight and Highway two forty
(22:40):
nine Tomball Parkway come together. They have gotten in their roses.
And when RCW gets in roses, it is it is
like an invasion. I mean, they have over two hundred
varieties of the finest roses you're going to find in Houston,
and they're available bars now two forty nine and belt
(23:01):
wag eight. That's where you go by the way. They're
open Monday through Friday seven am to four pm, today,
eight am to five pm, and tomorrow ten am to
five pm. So go by there and get that. I
got a copy of that. In fact, I printed out
you can do this off their website RCW nurseries dot com.
I printed out their roselist, and I mean it is
(23:22):
a chart that tells you about each rose, what growth
hapen of row is a climber or a shrub ros
for example? What class is a grand of flora, a
Flora bunda. You know that kind of thing, whether it's
fragrant or not, how big it gets a disease resistance.
And let's see turn it over here, almost six pages
(23:45):
like five and three quarter pages of roses. Yeah, two hundred.
So if you're looking for a rose and you want
some selection, and you want some people that know roses.
RCWZ RCW nurseries dot Com. Again easy to get to
Timball parkway bo wait eight, just put it in your
maps and head that way. Grab you some really quality plants.
(24:08):
Of course, they have a lot of other kinds of plants.
They have some frost clout there as well. Of course
they're ready to go on that. You need fertilizers to
go along with the plants you purchased. They've got that
other kind of supplies and good advice. They know what
they're doing, very very important. RCW. Let's see, we're going
(24:28):
to head out and now to Manville, Texas or Manville
and talk to Patty. Hey, Patty, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 9 (24:36):
Hi.
Speaker 14 (24:36):
How are you this morning?
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I'm well thanks.
Speaker 14 (24:42):
I have a question about where I can send soil
samples locally. Are there companies in the Houston area that
will test my lawn soil to see why my Santa
Augustine grass keeps dying?
Speaker 10 (25:01):
All right?
Speaker 15 (25:02):
Well that's that keeps dying.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Well, that's several questions in one. What what I would
recommend you do is is send it. Just send it
to the soil lab. It's I mean, it just up
at college station. You can mail it if you don't
want to drive it up there, you certainly can mail
it in if you go to my website gardening with
Skip dot com. There is a publication on soil testing
(25:28):
tells you how to take a sample. It's very important
that you take the sample right when you send it in.
They have just hundreds of thousand dollars worth of equipment
that will do a much better job of analyzing soil.
Then you know, these little kits you buy, or maybe
someone sticks their own pH meter or in it or something.
(25:49):
You'll get a much better answer to it. And you
can just do the standard soil test. When you get
the results, if you want, you can email them to
me and I could take a look at them and
then call in and we'll disc us what you might need.
If you're Saint Augustine is struggling, though, Patty, I would
think soil would be probably about five down the list
(26:11):
of what's likely a mount of sunlight, the watering diseases, insects,
those are all more important than soil, I mean, than
the nutrient.
Speaker 14 (26:22):
We treated it for everything. Since we had a chinch
bug infestation, and then we got you know, associated farm
dyeing whatnot. Because it was weakened from that. We have
treated it with everything we can think of, and it
just it keeps dying.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Well, I'll tell you what we need. Yeah, those are
great products. You need to We probably need to take
this kind of a month at a time, going into
it and look at what's happening at that time. Do
you have you ever seen my schedule online or printed
it out?
Speaker 14 (27:00):
Oh no, I haven't.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Okay, if you go to gardening, yes, okay, Well you
may have one that Randy had done. I've done one
that has multiple colors and goes into all of the
different things. You might just check and make sure you
have the most current one that that is gardening with
skip dot com. If you look on there as you
(27:25):
go across, it tells you when chinch bugs might be attacking,
It tells you when sod webworms might be attacking, when
to treat for take all root rot, when to treat
for brown patch or gray leaf spot or whatever. And
I think looking at that timing is going to be
very important. And then be careful when you use products
(27:47):
that prevent weeds or that kill existing weeds. If you
misuse them in application or in timing of it, you
can cause problems that also weaken your lawn and make
it more likely to have to be killed by something
like that.
Speaker 14 (28:06):
Okay, all right, well I'll print that out and we'll
change it over to that schedule. And I've often thought
that I'd rather not use any products that prevent we
just pull them up.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Okay, thank you for getting Yeah, and as you go
into twenty twenty five launch season, anytime you see a problem,
take a picture, send it to me, and then give
me a call. Let's let's get to the bottom of it,
because I think we can solve this. Thank you very
much for the call. I have to run to break you.
Take care. We'll be right back. Folks. Hey, welcome back
(28:46):
to garden Line. Glad to have you with us. We
have got a lot of stuff to talk about. We
have got all kinds of things talk about regarding the
freeze and whatnot. Before I do that, though, I just
want to bring up a topic that you're probably not
thinking about today, and that is the foundation of your house.
The Houston soils, the heavy clay, the black Houston clay soil,
(29:10):
and the other kinds of soils that have a lot
of shrink and swell potential can wreck havoc on your
sidewalks and your foundations and certainly your driveways as well
and fixed. MYSH Lab Foundation Repair is the company you
need to call if you have any kinds of questions
about that. Ty Strickland is native Houstonian, fifth generation Texan.
(29:32):
As a matter of fact, he has been doing this
for twenty three to actually twenty four years now and
he knows what he's doing. So you know signs of this.
Of course, you see the visible, like when your sidewalk
heaves or your driveway heaves up. But inside the house,
you'll notice sticking doors. You know, they stick sometimes and
they don't stick sometimes that's movement. You'll see cracks. Typically
(29:54):
they start at the corner of a window, but they
could be anywhere, could be in the ceiling, can be
you know, all over on the outside. He cracks in
the brick. Those are all signs you need to call Ty,
and he will not oversay you on this. I have
called him before and asked him questions about things, said,
you know what, that's not worth even having to worry about.
That's that's a normal amount of movement. We're not going
(30:14):
to worry about that. That's okay. So that's that's kind
of how he is. He's honest, he's on time. If
he says he's going to show up, he shows up,
and he shows up when he's going to show up.
If he fixes it, the price is going to be
fair and he's going to fix it, right, And what
more can you ask for? Fixmislab dot com as his website.
Here's the phone number two eight one two five five
(30:35):
forty nine forty nine. Two eight one two fi five
forty nine forty nine. Now write that down. And you
may have friends or family or whatever and you're at
their house and you see this and you go, hey,
I Skip talks about this guy all the time. He
says he's honest, he does good work and reasonably priced.
Give them the phone number. Because foundation problems are not
(30:56):
something you want to put off. Don't stick your head
in the sound like an ostrich. Just go ahead and
call them, find out, and you will know exactly what
you need to do to protect one of the largest
investments you've ever made that's in your home. Let's head
out to sugar Land and we're going to talk to Lynn.
Hey Lynn, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 7 (31:16):
Hi, good morning.
Speaker 16 (31:18):
Yes, I want to know do I need to cover
my back boxwoods and my.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Hedges box woods? Probably not. I don't know what what
other kinds of plants do you do you have that
you're wondering about?
Speaker 16 (31:35):
The wax leaf, lagostrum.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
M generally not you your way. You know, sugar Land
is pretty far away from where it's going to get
the kinds of cold where we would expect a lot
of burn. If you wanted to throw, you know, something
over the top just to kind of hold hold some
of the heat of the soil in there, you could
do it. It's it's not going to be the kind
(32:00):
of cold probably that you get the damage in your
area that would really say no, you've got to get
out there and cover these things. So if you've got
if it's easy enough to do, you can get to it,
go ahead and do it. Prevent a little bit of
leaf burn and some of that kind of thing.
Speaker 16 (32:15):
Well, I had some wonderful friends who came yesterday and
we covered all my high biscus and my burn of paradise,
hoping that all that and I didn't even look at
the hedges, and I thought, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Well the ones you covered, No, the ones you covered
are much more coal sensitive than the hedges you mentioned.
So I think you're gonna be all.
Speaker 16 (32:40):
Right, Okay, great, have a good day, all.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Right you two. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two k t r H. Seven one three
two one two k t r H. I'ld like to
give us a call. Uh the if you if you've
not been by plants for all seasons there on two
forty nine Timball Parkway. That is, it is the kind
(33:07):
of place you go where you not only have the
selection of plants that really do well here, they will
not sell you something that doesn't do well here. But
you've got the expertise to help you have success with
those plants. And that is very very important when when
you're looking at you know, what's wrong with this plant?
(33:29):
How do I plant this plant? What would be a
good plant to go with this other plant to look good?
How can I get something for this shady spot over
here that you know? Blah blah blah. Whatever your question is,
you go in there and you're gonna get help. You
throw you got a problem, clip it off, throw it
in a baggie and take it in and say what's
going on here? Throw a bug in a bag if
(33:51):
you want take a picture on your phone. Go in there.
They've got the expertise, they know what they're doing. I mean,
they've been doing this since nineteen seventy three. They are
true lawn and go garden Experts, as they like to say,
get your green on at Plants for All Seasons. I
think that's a good way to put it. Doesn't matter
if you're a master gardener or a first timer. They're
(34:11):
going to be able to help you from education to
selection to delivery planting. They even do custom potting their
True Lawn and Garden Experts Plants for All Seasons dot
com two eight one, three, seven six sixteen forty six.
Say hey to Sherry and the rest of the Flowery
family when you head over to Plants for All Seasons.
(34:32):
We uh one of the one of my favorite things
to be able to do is visit with gardeners, and
that's exactly what we're doing here this morning with you.
Speaker 17 (34:42):
UH.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
If you want to give me a call seven one
three two one two KTRH, we can do that. We're
coming up on a break here. I'm going to take
a call real quick and then we can take your calls.
You may be the first up if if you want
a call now and hang on until we come back
from break. Let's head out now to Cypress and talk
to Melanie. Hello, Melanie.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Hi.
Speaker 18 (35:03):
Oh no, Randy Yip got a question.
Speaker 8 (35:06):
That's what my familia is.
Speaker 19 (35:07):
They've got all these they're starting to bloom now, so
I was going to go ahead and cover them.
Speaker 11 (35:14):
Should I put some heat under there.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
To try to keep those just a lost call for
the blooms?
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Well, now you protect them a little heat, would I
did a video It's on my Facebook page. It's the
garden Line facebook page. A video just posted yesterday that
shows you how to properly cover a plant and how
to put heat under it and what to watch out for.
So I'm going to refer you to that because it'll
give you a better answer than I have in the
short time we have before break here. But I would
(35:44):
do that. Make sure the break goes all the cover
goes all the way to the ground. Don't wrap the
camellia like a lollipop, don't wrap it around the trun
let the cover goes straight down. You need to get
some weights to hold that cover down, whether you scubas soiled, Okay,
whatever it takes, you gotta hold it down because we're
(36:04):
gonna have breezes it'll blow it right off of there.
And then the lighting is the extra. You probably don't
need the lighting, but just to be safe to protect
the blooms and things, I would put at least one
hundred and fifty watt flood lamp bulb on a clamp light.
I don't think you need a heat lamp under there
for this. And now, if it's a huge plant, it
(36:27):
comes down to this, Melanie, what's the volume of air
you're trying to warm up? You know, if it were
a little plant, one hundred and fifty what we find.
If it was a big, old giant thing, you're gonna
need blood, heat lamps inder there to do it.
Speaker 18 (36:40):
So just watch it.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
It'll really tell you what you need. Yeah. Also on
my website Gardening with Skip dot com, there's that publication
in a freeze protection. Thank you man, good luck protecting
those all right, folks. One hour in the books, we'll
be back with your calls.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Welcome to Kate r. H. Garden Line with Skip, Richard's.
Speaker 20 (37:02):
Shoes, Gas Trip just watch him as many.
Speaker 21 (37:19):
Things to seep blot basingsta not a sid gas.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
The sun beamon done.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
All right, welcome back, Glad to have you with us
here on garden Line. We are looking at a cold
spell coming through here. It's gonna be a long one too.
Some areas are going to have below freezing temper days
or nights that drip down below dip down below freezing
(37:58):
for about five nights, and so it depends on where
you live. In the listening area. We've got varying degrees
of cold. The bottom line is going to be cold
for a long time, and so you need to be
ready for that. Get those things done ahead of time,
get ready to go so you're when you do go
out there and try to protect your plants. You've got
(38:20):
the supplies and things that you need on hand. That
is important. I was the other day looking around at
some supplies I had in my storage shed, and I
couldn't find some things that I thought I had. I
think they may have gotten thrown away or something like that. Anyway,
I thought I was ready to go for yesterday to
(38:42):
load up some stuff, get it prepared and ready for
the freeze. And sure enough I'm not so anyway, got
to do it, get some of those supplies. Picked up
a couple of things yesterday, so I'm good to go now. Anyway,
this week, someone who was it I think Ronnie. Yeah,
ron had emailed me talking about his memories of feed
(39:07):
store growing up, and you know, the the fragrance of
the feed store, you know, it's that pleasant, enjoyable feed
store experience. And he was bragging on D and D
feed He loves going in there, visiting with Jeff and
and of course that's understandable. It's a great place. They
take good care of you in there. But I love
going into feed stores, you know that. I just there
(39:28):
is a there's a certain ambiance and fragrance to a
feed store that I just really enjoy. I grew up
raising animals for this dock show, and so that was
part of the experience. We had a little small cattle operation,
and so we were often taking care of the cows
going in, taking care of getting the things that we needed.
(39:48):
But D and D is that kind of feed store,
you know, any kind of feed you can imagine they're
going to have, by the way, they have their onion
transplants and their seed potatoes in at D and D.
And it is time to get those in the ground.
You know, not to plant them today right for the
hard freeze, but go ahead and get them, get the bundles,
because what happens is they get picked over and they
(40:08):
sell out in time. So go ahead and get those there.
And they carry the kinds of onions, the kinds of
potatoes you need for your garden when you're there. While
you're there, you're going to find a good supply of
heat lamps and the little shields that can hold the
heat lamps and the flood lamps too, not just the
heat By the way, when you're purchasing a shield, a
(40:29):
clamp on shield for a lamp, if it's a heat lamp,
you know they kind of have the red glass cover.
You need to get a quality when don't put it
in a little dinky shield. They're not made to hold that.
You need the kind with a little ceramic a place
where you screw the bulbin. But when you go by
(40:49):
D and D, they can explain to you what you
need and what will work. You know, if you need
to wrap your pipes, they got the stuff of that too,
and certainly all the supplies for your lawn and garden,
from fertilizers to pesticide to weak controlled disease control. Everything
they've got all that there, uh and a really nice
selection of high quality pet food and other kinds of
supplies that the pets like as well. D and Defeed. Oh,
(41:11):
by the way, whereas it D and Defeed is on
twenty nine to twenty west to Tomball. So if you're
in the big middle of Tomball from two forty nine,
you just head out twenty nine to twenty to the
west and you do not have to go out very far,
and D and D be right there on your left
hand side, and you will enjoy it when you go.
I can tell you that they treat you right. You
were listening to Garden Line. A phone number is seven
(41:33):
one three two one two KTRH. If you'd like to
give me a call, we'd be happy to visit with
you about the kinds of questions that you might have
out in the garden. I've got some soil work that
I need to do, and that's kind of been postponed
a combination of some real wet conditions where I couldn't
get in there without slashing through some muddy areas. I'm
(41:55):
going to be getting that done because I'm putting in
some fruit tree and I'm also revamping a section of
my vegetable garden where I need to add some soil in,
mix it up and get those beds ready to go,
and don't plant until you get the soil ready. It's
very important to have the soil right first. If you've
listened to Garden Line once, you've heard me say brown
(42:18):
stuff before green stuff. And that's the simplest way I
can put the fact that you need to get the
soil right before you put the plants in very important,
especially for plants that are going to be there a while.
You know, an annual maybe in for a season, part
of a season, and then you pull it out. So
that's not you can always fix it after you that
(42:41):
season if you need to. But when you're putting in
something like a perennial or a shrub, a rose bush,
or fruit trees and things, those are long term and
so you've got to get that soil right for those
kinds of plants, and that is very important to be
able to do that. If you're doing planting, By the way,
(43:02):
I would recommend that when you put the plant in,
you put a quality drench over that root ball. And
we are in the big middle of planting season for
perennials and for woody ornamentals especially. There certainly are annuals
and herbs and things we can plant now. But I'm
talking about a product like has to Grow six twelve six.
(43:27):
Has to Grow six twelve six is a combination product
by the folks at Medina. By the way they carry
Medina products there at d and de Feed, as well
as a lot of other quality brands. The has to
Grow six to twelve six has Medina Soil Activator in it.
That's a product in and of itself that stimulates biological activity.
(43:47):
It's got humate, which is humic acid, improves your soil structure,
helps with nutrient more effective nutrient update as that happens.
It's got seaweed extracts in it. You can use it
as a folier spray. But I'm talking about right now
being planting season. When you put a plant in the ground,
drench that plant after you plant with it. Or what
(44:08):
I will do sometimes is just have a little container
and I take the plant out of the pot and
set it in the container, and I can feel that
container full of a root soak like has to grow
six twelve six, and you just let that soak into
the root ball, put it in the ground, and you've
done your work. You're ready to go. You can do
another drench a week later. You can do another drench
(44:29):
a week later. After that, you can do all three
of those, helping that plant get well established. NaSTA grows
six twelve six has many uses. One is the planting use.
I'm talking about transplanting use. One is just going into
the flower bed or the vegetable garden and drenching it
down the row. That's legit, and then there's full of
your applications, not gonna burn your plants. You use about
(44:49):
a tablespoon per gallon and just spray the foliage with
your plant. Now, that's primarily I use that during the
growing season as things are warming up and plants are
starting to grow. Not so important to do the folier
right now, although you can. Some people believe that it
does help with some of the cold heartiness and things
(45:11):
like that, so I totally would support that approach to
it as well. Well, let's do this. I'm going to
head out to Cypress now and we're going to visit
with Joe, Hey, Joe, Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 7 (45:24):
Hello Skip. I have a few questions. First is on asparagus.
I planted asparagus for the first time in my organic garden,
and so now it's like six em feet tall, but
it's starting to get brownish and some of the tall
you might be familiar with asparagus, like, some people cut
(45:46):
it down for the winner and some people just let
it go. I have straw around the base of it now,
so just let it go through this cold period.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Yeah, I would definitely for sure now if this cold
period were to kill back the tops even more, which
up in Cyprus, I bet it does. Go ahead and
then cut it down and get ready to begin a
harvest asparagus. We are so far south that asparagus doesn't
know what to do with our weather. If you were
(46:19):
to go if you were to go up, you know,
if you were to go up into warmer, I mean
further north, asparagus does really well, you know, Joe. They're
telling me I'm hitting a hard break. Will you hang
on just a second. I want to spend some more
time on this with you, and I'll pick you right
back up when we come back from break.
Speaker 7 (46:37):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
All right, folks, welcome back to Guardline. I'm going to
head back out and continue the conversation that we have
going with Joe. Hey, Joe, welcome back. So we're talking
about asparagus, and I was just making the point that
further north, we have long cold winter, asparagus dies to
the ground and stays dormant and all the stored carbohydrates
then when it does come out in the spring produce nice, strong, thick,
(47:02):
healthy spears for a good while. Down here, it just
kind of keeps going in the winter and never really
dies back well, and so we don't get the volume
of harvests that you would further north. So what we
kind of have to do is cut it back and
create that top freeze back event. And if after this
(47:26):
freeze at some point, I would just cut all the
dead or whether dead or not, the top growth back
and begin your harvests. It's a little early for that
because we're probably gonna get some more freezes, but I
still if you want to, if you want to get
going on it, you could cut that top back and
start your harvest season well after the freeze.
Speaker 7 (47:48):
Okay, that's good. I was thinking of putting some straw around.
I have some straw ready around it right now for
the cold, I thought, and to get it through, help
get it through. And then it's only the first year,
so they say, wait, maybe to the second or third,
Well the third d yes, that's right through the same process.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
So okay, all right, yeah, that's absolutely that's absolutely true.
Speaker 7 (48:16):
Okay, good, good, good. And two peach trees. Do you
think I'm gonna cover them up with some I have
like they call plankets or blankets, like do you think
that a peach trees?
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Are your peaches? Are the buds swelling or are they
still dorm fully dormant?
Speaker 7 (48:33):
They're dormant. Now the trees they're only about okay, some tall.
Now they they're one year old.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
Basically all right, no need to cover them. Don't worry
about them. They're good. Okay. They have buds where you
could see pink. If they had blues under one, I
would cover them.
Speaker 7 (48:51):
Oh okay, okay, in variegated Pitt's form. It's like a
shrub kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
Cover that that is actually little coal tender. And what
will happen is not just the killing of the leaves,
but you'll get splits in the trunk at the base
underneath of those plants when they get ural cold. I
would definitely cover those, put a cover over them to
the ground, weigh it down on the ground so it
doesn't blow off, and a cover should be sufficient in
(49:19):
your area to get them through the cold we're going
to have. But yes, I would cover the barrigated pit
of s form. Thank you so much. All right, man,
good luck getting all that taken care of. Appreciate you call.
We're gonna go out to the port now and talk
to JC. Hey, JC, what's up?
Speaker 22 (49:36):
Good good morning. I have a question on some soil testing.
I've got eighteen raised beds, four twelve and they just
don't seem to be producing like they used to. One
bed will have giant green foliage and the other one
will be squatty looking. And over the years I've added
(49:57):
composts and organics as I could get my hands on
them and whatnot, and I just feel like, right now
it's not producing like it should be, and I want
to know where I can get some tests done and
how to do it. Is it going to be one
the charge for each bed or should I just take
a sample from each bed?
Speaker 4 (50:18):
Well, you know, no, it's it's per sample that you
pay for it, but it is well worth it, especially
a troubleshoot, the fact that one bed does good and
another bed does not. So I would, because you tend
to fertilize crops in a vegetable garden by the bed
you even have tomatoes in this bed, and I don't
(50:38):
know green beans in the other. Well, you're not gonna
put some nitrogen on your green beans as you do
on your tomatoes, and so over time those bed levels
are going to get different, and you know, and so
I would, I would fertilize. Make a note though, to yourself.
You can you can say sample one A is good
(50:59):
and maybe use a letter A for good or B
for bad if you want.
Speaker 5 (51:03):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (51:03):
And they don't need to know that. But when you
get the results back, you'll go, oh, this is from
the bed that didn't do good, and this is from
the bed that did do good.
Speaker 5 (51:13):
A and M still do it.
Speaker 4 (51:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's the best place I would
recommend for getting your soil tested. And the website is
really easy. It's the it's one word soil testing, soil
testing and then dot T A m U which stands
for Texas and M University t A m U dot
(51:36):
e ed U sell Testing dot TAMU dot ed U.
You want here's the important part, and I do this
in the on my website. I've got a soil testing
publication at Gardening with skip dot com that tells you
about this. But you want to make sure your sample
is a good representative of that whole bed. So take
some here, some there, you know, put and mix them together,
and then take your pint of soil out of that
(51:59):
to send in. You want to use the urban soil test.
There's agriculture seal test, it just said, and then there's
an urban salt test. You want the urban because on
that form it'll allow you to say this is roses,
or this is vegetables, or this is lawn, you know,
and that's the urban and use that form. You can
(52:20):
do the regular, which is fine if you want to
go a little further, which if you haven't had to
soil test in a long time, you might do the regular.
Plus the micro nutrients costs a little bit more. But
that way, if iron or zinc or some other thing
like that is an issue, you'll know it.
Speaker 22 (52:40):
Okay, you don't have an all time better how much
less yards you know, I haven't had it done.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
That's a good question. Yeah, let me, uh, let me
see what we're talking. I'll just go I'll just go
check and see that. I'm going to guess, but I
don't want to guess. Things change on me, and then
i'd be I'd be lying to you.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
We're on.
Speaker 4 (53:03):
Yeah, Well, I can tell you about two seconds here anyway.
But when the results do come in, you're going to
want to make sure and do all those amendments, mix
them down as far far as you can down into
the soil. And when you do that, then you're going
to be able to have a good, even uniform soil test.
(53:26):
Now that the routine analysis at A and M is
twelve dollars, the routine plus micro nutrients is nineteen dollars.
That's the current.
Speaker 18 (53:37):
Okoyd, all right, sir, I appreciate you.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
All right, you take care.
Speaker 18 (53:43):
I have a good one.
Speaker 4 (53:45):
As well. Thank you. Oh where are we here? Yeah,
we're going to go to Orange and talk to Susan. Hey, Susan,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 11 (53:53):
Thank you, thank you, Skipp And just a note, I'm
no longer in Orange. We've moved to for Glynn. A
question for you the first thing. I found this nasty
weed in my yard yesterday. I emailed you pictures of it,
wondering what it is and how what I need to
do to get rid of it.
Speaker 4 (54:14):
Uh, you sent me pictures of it. Let me go
put good it up? Did you say, did you say, Brooklyn?
Speaker 11 (54:20):
Yes, it's right near Sam right.
Speaker 7 (54:25):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
Okay? Are you listening on the radio or about on
the internet?
Speaker 11 (54:29):
I am well no, I can't get it on the
radio anymore.
Speaker 15 (54:33):
Time listening to it through I hearts.
Speaker 4 (54:37):
Okay. Would this have come from MG? Yes, Okay, that
weed is Uh, it's It's called pig weed or amaranth
is another name for it, and it is a prolific receder.
(54:58):
One amaranth plant can make two hundred thousand seed. That's
what you're up now. So you got to if you
if you get all those out of there, all try
to not shake them a lot, because all the ones
that are mature, you're just gonna shake the seeds loose
in the ground, off onto the ground. Get as much
of it out as you can, and then it's not
(55:19):
gonna shouldn't be a problem until we get back to
warm weather and it starts re sprouting a lot then,
and all you need is a good mult over the
soil and it will not come up if you if
you shade the soil surface really well.
Speaker 15 (55:33):
Okay, perfect, all right, we'll do that.
Speaker 11 (55:35):
Also, I tuned in like this morning, so you may
have already covered this. But as far as the freeze,
I've got guardenas and dwarf as alias that we find
to do about six months ago. Do I need to cover.
Speaker 4 (55:49):
Vm, you know, just to be safe? I would, Uh,
They're probably going to be okay, especially the azalia, but
a new plant isn't as hardy asn't a state abolished
plant of the same species. It just doesn't work that way,
So I would, I would, I would give them a
cover just to be safe. You're you're you're north up
(56:11):
in sam Rayburns.
Speaker 11 (56:11):
So yes, yes we are, we are.
Speaker 4 (56:15):
What is your what's your forecast? Uh for the coldest Tuesday?
Speaker 11 (56:19):
Well it's it's going to get cold. I'm not as
cold as county where we used to be, but we
definitely will have a hard freeze, possible snow.
Speaker 4 (56:32):
Okay, all right, Well I'd be safe and cover them, all.
Speaker 11 (56:36):
Right, And one one last thing quick quickly skipped last
weekend you said it was good, good time to plant
the Amarilla's bulbs, and.
Speaker 15 (56:44):
So we did.
Speaker 11 (56:46):
Yes, Is that going to be an issue?
Speaker 4 (56:50):
Oh no, not at all. They're they're fine bulbs you
just put in the ground. They're going to be perfectly Okay,
you don't have to you have to worry about them.
Speaker 11 (56:58):
Okay, okay, great, right, thanks, Skip, have a good day.
I enjoy your show.
Speaker 4 (57:02):
You bet, Okay, take care, Bobby. All right, it's time
for me to run to a break, folks, so I'll
be right back with your calls at seven one three
two one two KTRH. All right, folks, welcome back. Good
to have you with us. A number of things to
talk about this morning. You know, the landscape's gonna look
a little rough when we get out of the freeze.
(57:25):
It's just the way it is. And uh, this may
be a good time for you to consider some renovations.
I For example, maybe you got some plants that are
a little bit too cold tender. They're just not going
to be good for the long term for you. Maybe
you're looking at your landscapes and it's kind of bleak.
I could use some more evergreen bushes here there. You know,
(57:45):
there's a lot of things we can do to make
our landscapes better, but I tell you peerscapes can take
care of all of it. Pierscapes they do everything from
landscape design. If you want to like create a landscapeer
on your pool, they're very good at that. If you
have poor drainage areas, maybe you need some French drains installed,
pier scapes can they got you covered. They absolutely are
(58:07):
professionals when it comes to landscape designing, landscape installation. They
even do seasonal maintenance. You know, come have them come
out every quarter and do maintenance in your garden beds.
You know, do some weeding or adding fresh mulch out,
checking the irrigation, make sure everything's working. Doing color changes,
you know, from one type of flower to another type
(58:28):
of flower as the season's change. They can do a
dry creek bread bed, so you know, you get the
extra rain and the water is just kind of gully
washing off in an area. Create a dry creek bed
and it's attractive, and yet it's a channel that when
we do have too much water, it can drain away.
Those are just a few examples of what peer scapes
can do. You really have to just go to their
(58:49):
website site Peerscapes dot com, pier Scapes one word, pierscapes
dot com. Check out the work they do if you
want to give them a call. Two eight one three
seven oh fifty sixty. Now is a good time where
the season is still a little distance away. It's time
to go ahead and start that process and have them
come out and do magic to your place. Oh and
(59:11):
by the way, if you need landscape lighting, they are
awesome at creating beautiful landscape lighting around your home, around
your pool, around your patio, you name it. I'm going
to head out to Richmond now and we're going to
talk to Karen. Hey, Karen, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 23 (59:30):
Good morning, Skip.
Speaker 11 (59:32):
I'm out in the garden this morning.
Speaker 19 (59:37):
Pronouncing distances on those things I'm not going to attempt
to save and okay, a way of salvation for the
ones that I am. My question is on my broccoli
crop I have here. I've cut the heads that I
believe you know are completely ready. I have quite a
(59:58):
few that are nice that they're not as large as
I would normally like to get them. Do I need
to cover those?
Speaker 8 (01:00:06):
Will?
Speaker 5 (01:00:06):
Be? Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
Well, it would help to when broccoli is cold hardy,
like all those blue leaf vegetables are. But when you
have a really good hard freeze, especially the areas in
between the veins on the leaves, you'll get burned back there,
you get some burn and the broccoli heads, those little
buds will get cold damage to them, and so I
(01:00:30):
would especially be concerned about the heads. So just throwing
any kind of a cover over them, just to hold
a little soil warmth in it should be sufficient for
the kind of cold that you're going to be getting.
Speaker 19 (01:00:42):
The ones that I have cut. Should I go ahead
and pull the plant.
Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
Out, well, they will re sprout and you will get
side shoots from below where you cut. They won't be
big heads, but they'll be worth and keeping them to
harvest those.
Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 19 (01:01:03):
I only have two rows of this and they've done
so well. Another question is in the same bed, I
planted two little rows of broccoli, and I skipped a row,
and then I planted cauliflowers. The cauliflower. I have beautiful plants.
(01:01:25):
You wouldn't couldn't ask for more beautiful plants, but they
have not made a single head of cauliflower.
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
What the broccoli? She's gone.
Speaker 4 (01:01:38):
Well, the two possibilities. Number one, it's not cauliflower. Sometimes
I have bought I had a friend one time who
bought collars and he was eating the leaves off the colors,
and all of a sudden they started producing broccoli heads
because it was really broccoli. But the cauliflower, just give
(01:01:59):
it time. You should get some heads forming in the
interior of that. It just may take a little bit
more time for some reason.
Speaker 19 (01:02:05):
Okay, should I cover them? I mean I did not
cover them well, and they seem to have done well.
Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
But yeah, well this one's going to be a little
bit colder, so you know, like the broccoli, if you
want to be safe, throw a cover over them. It
may be that they'll get through just fine. But we're
gonna get kind of cold, so I would I would
be a little safe on it.
Speaker 19 (01:02:30):
Okay, okay, well all right.
Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
Hey, you got some happy birds there. I hear happy birds.
I wonder, I wonder what kind of birds those are?
They are happy to be in the garden.
Speaker 19 (01:02:47):
This neighborhood that is a very old neighborhood. And I've
only been here about three years, and I've taken down
some old trash trees that you know, they weren't good
trees to create more light for my garden. But my
(01:03:09):
neighbors have consider.
Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
Fifty years old.
Speaker 19 (01:03:12):
I mean they're huge, and the birds just flock, you know,
they're in the neighbor's yard. I keep out some feed
and stuff around. But yes, of a morning, I'm surprised
you're not hearing the roosters. They're not quite out for
it because several of them.
Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
Okay, all right, all right, Well if hey, if you
want something cool, there's an app called Merlin, as in
Merlin the Magician, and this Merlin app you It's free
from Cornell University. It's free and you can tell it
listen and tell me what bird that is, and it
will listen and tell you what bird is making that
sound I'm hearing in the book. It's pretty cool app. Anyway,
(01:03:57):
you want to have some fun, you may check that out. Hey,
and thank you for thank you for calling in this morning.
I'm all run, but I appreciate it.
Speaker 19 (01:04:04):
Good luck with the get to cover in these things
takes me in most people. I'm a little older to
be gardening.
Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
So you oh no, no, no, you're never too old.
A garden gardening keeps you young.
Speaker 19 (01:04:20):
You do slow down.
Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
So yeah, all right, bye bye, all right, folks, I'm
right up on a break right here, Wesley. We're going
to come to you and Lawrence when we come back
from this break. Just hang on, we'll be right back
with you. All right, we're back. Welcome to garden Line again.
We are going to head now out to Lawrence and
(01:04:43):
talk to Wesley. Hey, Wesley, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 18 (01:04:48):
Hello.
Speaker 15 (01:04:50):
All right, So my question is I have planets some
craig myrtles me October and that last freeze we had,
I left them wrapped probably a little too long in
blue tarp and not knowing I should have used burlap
or something like that, and I unwrapped them and the
(01:05:12):
leaves are crunchy. Uh. I was wondering if possibly did
I kill them because the inside of the tarp may
have gotten too hot on those warmer days.
Speaker 4 (01:05:25):
I am not sure I'm following. What could you elaborate
a little bit more on this? Did you say crape myrtle.
Speaker 15 (01:05:35):
Crape myrtles?
Speaker 5 (01:05:35):
Yes, yes, sir, uh.
Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
Huh okay, And it was under a tarp and it's it's.
Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 15 (01:05:43):
I wrapped them when it got cold, and I put
three steaks around it, those labs, and I wrapped it
really good and that blue tarp like that plastic material,
and uh, there was pretty much no airflow. And I
may have left them wrapped too long, and I know
(01:06:05):
I got the temperature got way above freezing, and whenever
I did uncover them, the leafs are really crunchy.
Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
Okay, well, yeah, that's hard to say, but it could be
the heat also from building up in there. I don't
know on that, but basically, when you're are you wanting
to cover them again for the cold that's coming.
Speaker 15 (01:06:31):
Or what yeah I need. Yeah, I was gonna go
ahead and cover them. But if I may have killed them,
I might may not wrap them. It might be hard
to say. I had to wait till I guess marks
when they start, if they start blooming, I know they're alive.
Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
Yeah, I think they're probably gonna be. Okay, you can
take your thumbnail and scratch back. Find a little stem
that's about size of a pencil or something. Just scratch
the bark back on it. And if you see a
little bit of a green or creamy white color, it's fine.
If you see pecan brown or paper sack brown, it's dead. Uh.
So that it should be showing that by now. But
(01:07:12):
when you ever you cover a plant, you want to
just put a cover over the whole plant and straight
down to the side. Don't wrap them up.
Speaker 14 (01:07:19):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
And and if it's something like a tarp, just leave
it on overnight and take it off the next day
to allow sun in and air and you know, to
ventilation that is, and then you can put it back
down on it again the next day. Are you it,
says Lawrence, Are you up in the Dallas.
Speaker 15 (01:07:36):
Area, No, sir, I'm an orange orange Taxas.
Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
Oh orange, okay, okay, okay, got you got youa. I
just had it wrong, all right, Yeah, no Orange, that's fine. Yeah.
And you should never have to cover a crape myrtle
an orange Texas.
Speaker 15 (01:07:51):
Okay, even with it being so young. Yeah October okay.
Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
Yeah, it should be fine. They're hardy now, there's nothing
wrong with covering them. It's just great. Myrtles are pretty hardy.
The only time we run into problems with creat myrtles
is when we have a real warmfall and then suddenly
we get like into the teens, that hits real suddenly
and they're not ready for it. We have seen those
kind of problems before.
Speaker 15 (01:08:21):
Okay, right, one more question. I have a rosebush that's
four years old. Should I be rapping? Should I go
ahead and wrap that one as well?
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
You shouldn't have to if it's got tender new If
it has tender new growth coming out. Roses are willing
to grow in some pretty cold weather, and if it
sends out some tender growth, I would cover it to
protect that. If it's gonna get what is your predicted
temperature Tuesday, the coldest it's gonna get.
Speaker 15 (01:08:54):
I believe low twenty.
Speaker 4 (01:08:56):
I believe, yeah, yeah, if it's gonna just to be safe,
if you want to cover it, if it has new growth,
if it's not really pushing new growth already, then I
would I would just leave it. It should be fine.
Speaker 15 (01:09:10):
Okay, all right, well, thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
All right, thanks appreciate that call. You take care. Let's
see here, we're gonna go to Candy and Spring. Hey Candy,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
Good morning, Skip.
Speaker 24 (01:09:25):
I have a ton of iris that because of the
warm weather, have all come up and they're big.
Speaker 23 (01:09:31):
Do I need to cover those or will they survive?
Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
They'll survive. You may get a little cold damage on them.
I've never tried to take an iris into you know,
the kinds of temperatures we have, and paid attention to
that with with new growth. But I think I think
that they'll be fine. You shouldn't need to cover them
with the temperatures we're having. If it's getting down, you know,
down weigh in the teens, maybe we would think about
(01:09:57):
it a little bit. But I think you're all.
Speaker 24 (01:09:58):
Right, okay, very good, thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:10:02):
Yeah. And even if they get burned back, they're gonna
come right back just fine. All right, Thank you, Kenny.
Appreciate appreciate that very much.
Speaker 18 (01:10:10):
Boy.
Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
I tell you, the folks that enchanted forest are ready
to go on the freeze. I mean they've got the
frost cloth by the foot. By the way. That's a
nice way to buy it, because you just roll out
this big roll and you know, you say, I want
twenty feet of it or I want five feet of it,
I mean, whatever you want, They'll roll it right out
there and you can get out there. It's like it's
they have the heavy kind, the kind that is better
(01:10:32):
at holding in heat and with frost colth. You don't
have to take it off every day. You can you
can leave it on for a few days if you
need to, We're not going to have that much cold,
but if you if, we are going to have several
nights below freezing, so you can just cover it and
leave it on till you take it off, really really good.
They also have got a nice selection of camellia still.
(01:10:53):
If you need color like pansies and flowering kale, they've
got that. They've got some dowar feupon Holly's Little Nana Nana,
a variety that does so well here, and a lot
of other things. And by the way, Enchanted just kind
of a little news out there from Enchended. Enchanted just
had Danny Millican join the team. He probably heard Danny before.
(01:11:15):
He has been around this area for a long time,
got a good horticulture background, done a lot of environmental education,
sustainable design. It just brings a lot of years of
experience to that team out there at Enchanted Forest. He's
going to be working on educational programs out there at
Enchanted enhancing the experience for visitors and supporting their conservation
(01:11:36):
initiatives that are going on. So stop, I say hello
to Danny out there at Enchanted Forest, and we look
forward to working with Danny as well in the months
to come. You are listening to Gardenline our phone number
seven one three two one two k t r H
seven to one three two one two k t r H.
(01:11:57):
By the way, Enchended Forest is on FM twenty seven
fifty nine out there in Richmond, Texas. It's a great
nursery to go visit. And again, I just want to
one more thing. Don't forget they got that rollout long
rolls of frost cloth that can really help you with
the frost that we're about to get. They're going to
(01:12:17):
be with me at the Home and Garden show that's
coming up down there in the the Richmond Rosenberg area,
and I'm really looking forward to getting out and doing
that very soon. It's next Saturday, next next Saturday, so
you want to come out and see us there. I'll
talk about that more in a little bit here. It's
(01:12:39):
never a bad time to prepare your soil. It's always
a good time to prepare your soil. Nature's Way resources
they know how to prepare your soil. You go out there,
talk to Ian, talk to any of the staff out there,
and they can get you fixed up with rose soil,
with leaf mole compost with various types of quality mulches.
(01:12:59):
You can go out and buy it and pick it
up on your trailer or pickup. You can have them
deliver it, and a lot of areas around town will
sell many of their products by the bag as well.
Nine three six, three two one sixty nine ninety. They're
up I forty five right where fourteen eighty eight comes
in from Magnolia. You turn right, cross the railroad tracks
and that is there street. Right there Sherwood Circle right
(01:13:23):
there in that area, Nature's way resources well worth your visit.
Uh sit here, looking at my watch, it looks like
we're about to go to a break here. I should
hear music starting out pretty quick here, So I've quit talking.
Just remember that if everybody's going to be hole up
inside because it is getting really cold. But you need
(01:13:47):
to get ready because spring preps. We are in the
middle of spring prep. There's there's planting to be done,
there's soil building to be done. You need to get
those pruning chores done. Its best to prune before the
plants begin their growth in the spring. If you miss it,
you can prune a little bit later, it's fine, But
go ahead and get the pruning chores done. We're gonna
(01:14:07):
be talking about pruning, uh and not this weekend. But
once we get past those freeze, I'll start talking a
little bit more about some of the printing tasks that
we have how to do them for so that you
can have success. All right, would you like to give
us a call beyond the board when I come back
seven one three two one two kt r H.
Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rickards.
Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
Just watch him as well.
Speaker 4 (01:14:50):
All right, welcome back to guard Line. I'm gonna jump
in right here. Somebody left the gate open while we
were in. All the cows have gotten out and called
garden Line. I don't know that that was a weird
way to put it. Anyway, we got a lot of calls.
I gotta get to that is the bottom line. We're
going to start by going out to Scott in Tumbull. Hey, Scott,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 25 (01:15:09):
Hey, thank you very much. A quick question for you.
I got my soil test results back and it's showing
my PHS DOULB five like right around a four point
nine I think, And I was doing a little bit
of research, said lime is the best way to correct that.
Speaker 4 (01:15:24):
Yes, this is a is this a bed that had
been acidified or they put a lot of peat moss
in or what's the story there.
Speaker 25 (01:15:36):
So we're coming up on this is gonna be my
first full season with the house. We moved in back
in June, so I kind of just started doing a
little bit more soil tests when I moved in. So
this year I kind of started with my soil test
and was going to kind of implement my program coming
this year. So I'm not sure what happened there beforehand.
Speaker 4 (01:15:55):
Okay, all right, well, what you're going to need to do.
Lime is the best way to raise the soil pH.
There are other things that are higher pH that you
know can work in that direction. But if you go
online and look at do a search for lime, you
know to raise soil pH and you're going to find
(01:16:18):
In fact, let me let me give you one other tip.
If you have a pen or pencil handy, if after
you put any search into Google or whatever search you're using,
you put in the word site colon dot e d u,
So it's s I T E a colon a period
an e ed u. That tells the search engine that
(01:16:40):
I want you to look for raising soil pH with
lime and then but I only want you to look
in in sights that are university related sites. What you're
going to get is some real good, accurate information and
it'll tell you if you have a clay soil, it
takes more lime than if you have a sandy soil
that's going up or down with the pH it takes
(01:17:02):
more of something. So it'll tell you exactly how many pounds.
You know, be very careful to follow that because you
don't want to move it too far. But you can
raise the soil pH significantly by using lime, but you
have to mix it down into the soil for it
to actually have that effect on down deep.
Speaker 25 (01:17:20):
Okay, real quick question for you then, So this is
on my lawn. I have seen augustine grass, clay soil.
Is there anything different than I need to go about
knowing that that information.
Speaker 4 (01:17:32):
On the lawn. You're not going to be able to
mix it in, of course, and so I would just
maybe gradually put a little bit of line in it
with some air rating. You're going to get things down
in the soil. But I'll tell you this, our soils
number one, I'm kind of questioning if that four point
something pH was accurate, because that is incredibly low. But
(01:17:54):
assuming it is, you can gradually bring it down in
a lawn. But lawns are pretty tolerant of a range
of soil phs. So is it Saint Augustine grass or
bermuda or what do you have?
Speaker 25 (01:18:06):
I have Saint Augustine and right I took my soil sample.
It was just from the front yard, and I took
it from multiple spots in the front yard. I mean,
I don't have a very big front yard, so I
just get it there because the backyard kind of needs
a whole renovation on its own at some point when
I got time.
Speaker 4 (01:18:19):
But okay, yeah, well it sounded like you took a
good soil sample. So that's that's what I would say.
If the lawn looks okay, I wouldn't worry about it
a lot. But if you wanted to add a little
bit of lime, you could, but do it very gradually
in the lawn watered in really good and then provide
maybe some aerration. You just want to watch it because
(01:18:41):
when you get the surface of the lawn really higher
in pH you're gonna have more problems. Will take all
a root rot on that lawn, and so I my
first thought is, don't do anything if the lawn looks
halfway okay with proper care.
Speaker 25 (01:18:57):
Okay, so the lawn, you know, like I said, the
lawn from the road looks be so once you get
up and you can see some issues with it. So
if I was gonna plan this year, don't try to
from what I read getting into like the right around
pace level six is kind of ideal. My goal was
need to try to get to six of this year,
(01:19:17):
it'd be kind of trying to just bite at it
a little bit at a time.
Speaker 4 (01:19:21):
Yeah. So so yeah, because here here's the problem when
you when you go to raise the pH in a garden,
you can mix a lot of linemen and raise the
pH throughout that root zone. But when you're when you're
looking at a lawn, uh, you're putting it right on
the surface and it doesn't just go way down in
the soil. So you end up with a real high
(01:19:46):
pH at the top and not as much of a
raising pH as you go down. And so that's what
I'm trying to say is, uh, you want to be
extra extra careful with that because it's not good to
have a high pH, right up there where your runners
are when it comes to certain things like the disease.
Take all root rot.
Speaker 25 (01:20:06):
Okay, I appreciate the information.
Speaker 4 (01:20:08):
Thank you, you bet you take care. Thanks for the call.
All right here, we're gonna we're gonna now head out
to Jill and full Sure. Hey Jill, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 26 (01:20:20):
Hey, good morning, Skip. My question is concerning you pawn.
And we have property up in Centerville, and we have
a lot of ypon on our property, and so we're
slowly clearing it. But I just I wonder about my
my other trees on my property. We're spraying. We cut
it and we spray it with remedy and diesel, but
(01:20:43):
is that going to impast my freeze?
Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
So you're spraying the cut stumps of theypon? Yeah, no,
uh it doesn't, you know. I mean, if you you
can overdo it, but you're All you need to do
is barely get that stump wet. And you need to
do it right after you cut it. Don't don't wait
hours later to come in and and and spray it.
(01:21:09):
Get it done as soon as possible.
Speaker 8 (01:21:11):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
So it doesn't take much product just to wet those
little stumps. Uh. And you know you'll miss a few
and you come back later and do it. But no,
it won't hurt the other plants as long as you
don't misapply it.
Speaker 26 (01:21:23):
So it really does matter that you cut it, that
you spray it immediately.
Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
I mean we I say immediately. Okay, yeah, Well, here's
here's the thing. The the the tricle peer, which is
what's in remedy. Uh. It has taken up best when
the cut is fresh. As that cut begins to dry
out and the tissues die up there at the surface
of the cut, it you're not able to get the
(01:21:49):
tricle peer in as well. You'll get you'll get some result,
but not as well. And so if you're using the
diesel oil that helps it stick. And you can even
spray diesel a trickle pair on the sides of the
base of those yopons without doing the cut, and it'll
kill them because it soaks through the tender thin bark
(01:22:10):
thats have down there. But just just you know, it's
it's a relative thing. It's just that the sooner you
do it, the more results you're going to get. The
better the results will be.
Speaker 26 (01:22:22):
All right, thank you, thank you, you.
Speaker 4 (01:22:27):
Bet good luck with that. Yep, bye bye. All right,
I'm gonna have to go to break here. Jill and
a task Asita will be with you first when we
come back. Well, welcome back, welcome back to the garden line.
We are now, I said, go to talk to Jill.
We're gonna talk to Cheryl in a task Asita. Hey, Cheryl,
(01:22:49):
welcome to garden line.
Speaker 12 (01:22:53):
I have a two quick questions about plants to cover.
Speaker 27 (01:22:59):
M you hear me?
Speaker 12 (01:23:00):
Open? Okay, Yes, I can a dwarf upon on the
west side up against the windows. Uh, and they're two
years old. And then I have ginger plants under an
oak tree and I covered them last year, but they
they're friendly off they came back. Do I have to
cover them? Even though they're going.
Speaker 15 (01:23:19):
To die back?
Speaker 4 (01:23:22):
You shouldn't have to cover them. It'd be nice to
have a nice little mult around them. A lot of
ginger has its rhizomes right up near the surface, and
you could get a little coal damage to an exposed rhizome.
But if you got a little mulch over them, they
should be fine. What kind of ginger do you have?
Do you happen to know?
Speaker 12 (01:23:40):
No, they're they're they they're the yellow and green leaves
on the end. They're mainly yellow.
Speaker 4 (01:23:47):
Oh yes, huh, that's a variegated alpinia type of ginger.
And yeah, you know those. I got some of my
ginger through the last frost just by having it. I
had them in the pot, but I just moved it
under the eaves of a house. If you wanted to
throw a cover on, you can protect some of the
top growth. If you still like that ornamental color. Uh,
(01:24:07):
it might be enough to protect the top growth. But
I would just let it do its normal thing, die
to the ground, then leave it dead and ugly until
you know, we get a little past the dangers of freezes,
and then you can clean out all the dead and
let the fresh new come through.
Speaker 12 (01:24:24):
Okay, And how about the dwarf you find up against
the house on the west.
Speaker 8 (01:24:28):
Side years old?
Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
They will be Yeah, they'll be fine. No problem for them,
no problem, all right, all right, hopefully we've saved you
a little bit of work there. Thanks, appreciate your appreciate
your call. All right seven one three two one two
k t R H. If you'd like to give us
a call talk about gardening kinds of things, well, we're
(01:24:52):
happy to do that. That's why we're here help you
have a bountiful garden, beautiful landscape and more fun in
the process, is how I would put it. You know,
there are a lot of natural microbes that are ruling
the world out there, taking care of our plants and microlife.
The folks at Microlife they're all about that. Their products
contain microbes. Their products enhance microbial activity and growth. Now,
(01:25:18):
so all you got to do is apply one of
the products and you're going to be adding some of
those to the soil. There's one in particular I just
want to talk about. It's a liquid. It's called micro
Grow liquid AF. Micro Grow liquid AF. It's a beautiful
maroon label for those of you non Aggie's out there.
It's a beautiful burgundy label, all right. And what it is,
(01:25:40):
it's loaded with eight extremely dominating beneficial microbes that get
down in your soil and do good to plants. These
are good guy microbes. I talked about it last weekend
quite a bit. But it's got things like strupt, a
certain type of two types of structo mices that are
actually disease fighting. It's got two types of trichoderma that
(01:26:01):
help fight disease. Several types of Bacillus one, specifically basilla
subtless is even can be applied to foliage to help
prevent disease sportes that fungal spores that land and attack
the plants. Micro grow liquid AF the maroon jug. You
can get it by the gallon or I believe they
(01:26:21):
have about a quart as well. But all you do
is you apply it with You can put some in
some molasses in a gallon of water to drench around
the soil. You can do it to spray the foliage
on the leaves. Either way, it's going to work very
very well. Micro Grow liquid AF. We're gonna head out
now to Spring and talk to Jonathan. Hey, Jonathan, welcome
(01:26:42):
to garden Line.
Speaker 5 (01:26:43):
Thank you, sir.
Speaker 17 (01:26:45):
I've got two Mexican fan palms and one Canary Island
Day and they've all got about a foot in a
half of trump foot heights. They're all super healthy, and
they're all in a bed of lavarack. And I just
wanted to make sure that I was doing the right
thing to the freeze. I've got the fronds tied up
to where it kind of covers the kind of covers
the heart and the new growth, and I wanted to know.
(01:27:07):
I've got the burlap sack to cover the plant with.
Do I need to wrap the base in the trunks
in a in a in a blanket at all or
should the burlap sack and the front thought that'd be enough.
Speaker 4 (01:27:19):
Yeah, you know, wrapping the trunk slows the cooling of
the trunk, and uh so that is helpful in that
it slows the cooling. Uh the most important part of
your palm trees or the buds at the top of
the trunk. That's the growth point, and so that's where
we most need to protect it. So I mean, you
(01:27:40):
could you can throw a cover over it up there
if you can, if it's not too big to do
that or reach it. I've known people that take like
the little it's the gosh. I don't know how the
proper term for it, but it's a little heating cable.
It's a it's a wire coated wire that you plug
in to an extension core and you wrap it around
(01:28:01):
a pipe to barely keep that pipe warm, warm enough
to protect protect against freeze. You could wrap some of
that around up at the top and put a little
cover over it, and that would provide a little bit
of heat for the top of that palm tree as well.
You just have to run extension cord up to the
top on those. But anyway, however you want to go
about it, it's that that key bud that's the growing point.
(01:28:22):
And if it dies. On most types of palms, if
it dies, the whole tree is dead. Some palms will
re sprout at the bottom, and Mexican fan is a
it's a pretty tough palm anyway.
Speaker 17 (01:28:34):
The end the Canary Island day, the same thing, a
little less, a little less cold, hardy on the Canary
Island date. Okay, all right, perfect, well, thank you very
much for the information.
Speaker 4 (01:28:46):
All right, you take care, appreciate that. We are going
to now go out to Full sher and talk to David.
Speaker 23 (01:28:52):
Hello, David marin Skip, how are you doing.
Speaker 4 (01:28:57):
I'm doing well, Thank you good.
Speaker 11 (01:29:00):
Uh.
Speaker 23 (01:29:01):
I was just going to call in and suggest to
some of the listeners out there about uh I've talked
to you before. I have a bunch of fruit trees
out in Full Shrik and I wrap them. I wrap
them with drop claws on the construction company and I
wrap them with drop clalls and protect them. And uh,
so far the little c seven lights have worked perfect
(01:29:22):
keep anything from freezing, and I wrapped the trunk as well.
And uh, now with this the with the real cold
weather coming, I'm going to put little tiny heaters in
there to keep them a little warm. And I was
going to suggest that today with our technology that we have,
there's these little things you can buy and you can
hang them in the in the wrap. Whatever kind of
(01:29:45):
bush or tree you have, you can hang it in
there away from your heater, and it can tell you
what the temperature is inside there, and you can stay
in the house to monitor it to see what you're
doing and how effective it is.
Speaker 4 (01:29:57):
That's pretty cool stuff. Hey, I appreciate that those are
Those are good tips there, David. Thank you. I'm gonna
have to run. I got some more callers I need
to get to, but I appreciate those tips. And good
luck with your trees, keeping them, showing them nice and protected.
We're going to run now to Spring, Texas and doctor Connie.
(01:30:17):
Hey Connie, welcome to Guardline.
Speaker 28 (01:30:20):
Hi, Skip, thank you for taking my call. I've got
this bush and I want to say I'm going to
call it a Rose of Sharon, although I don't think
that's the right name.
Speaker 4 (01:30:32):
Okay.
Speaker 28 (01:30:33):
It has kind of little arrow shaped leaves that are
kind of fluted on the ends. You know, it has
three different.
Speaker 24 (01:30:41):
Forks to it.
Speaker 28 (01:30:42):
I guess you'd say, okay, And I'm wondering if I
need to cover it. I didn't cover it this last time,
and it's fine. It is trying to put new leaves
on already. I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 4 (01:30:59):
Well, if it really is Rosa Sharon, you you should
you shouldn't have to cover.
Speaker 7 (01:31:03):
It, okay, Yeah, well I don't know that will be my.
Speaker 13 (01:31:09):
Okay?
Speaker 8 (01:31:09):
And what about jasmine?
Speaker 4 (01:31:12):
Uh, like Asian jasmine, the groundcover no, no, the oh mine, Yes,
Carolina Jessamine should not need to be covered either, okay.
Speaker 28 (01:31:26):
And the so that's the yellow one. And then I
have one and I don't know the proper name for
that one either, but it's it has the white flowers
that blooms pretty much all the time in the summer.
Speaker 4 (01:31:36):
Uh. There are some true jasmines that are a little
bit cold tender. I would cover those. Since we don't
know for sure which one it is, I'd suggest you
cover it, okay.
Speaker 28 (01:31:45):
And my zail user trying to put buds on, they'll
be fine.
Speaker 4 (01:31:50):
That should be okay. I mean, if you don't throw
a little blanket or something over the top, just to
minimize any kind of damage, that azelias should be okay. Anyway,
they can take freeze, but if you want to, you know,
just avoid a little bit of that, you could throw
some cover over them. That would be fine.
Speaker 28 (01:32:08):
Okay, Well, thank you, yes, thanks.
Speaker 4 (01:32:11):
All right, thank you appreciate that very much. Thanks for
being a caller. For those of you who have not
been out to the Arborgate recently, you've got to go
check it out. They have loaded up on fruit trees,
a extensive selection of fruit trees and berries and grapes,
and you know talking the other day about some grape
(01:32:33):
varieties that do really well here, of course Arbrogate's got those.
If you're looking for apples or blackberries or dragon fruit
I mean figs, and then unusual things like elderberries. You
know what they grow wild, But did you know their
cultivars of elderberries that you can buy that do really well.
They have their selection of avocados, their selection of blueberries,
(01:32:55):
or selection of palmgranites, and I could just talk and
talk about all the things they have at Arborgate. Now
they also have seed starting kits. It's time to get
the seed starting done, so you need to go ahead
and get those done as well. They've got wonderful selection
of cool season color and it's still okay to plant
(01:33:15):
cool season color, so you can carry you on in
to when we get all past all the freezes and
things and we might start to think about the warm
season color then, but go ahead and get some things
in now and make things look good out there. They
also I want to mention this. The parking lot is
the way to go. That's in back. You just turned
(01:33:35):
down Trasher Road before or after Arburgate. He goes right
around to the back of Arburgate. You can pull in there.
It's an all weather parking lot, super easy access, super safe, easy, easy,
easy to do, and I highly recommend you use that.
That's the parking lot I prefer to use. And don't
forget that their soil and their compost materials that we
talk about, they're also available in bulk and they will deliver.
(01:33:57):
So talk to Beverly kennon the whole group there at
Arburgate if you're interested in having a bulk delivery of
their soil and compost types of products. Well, It's time
for me to take a break. Got a lot of
folks holding on here, y'all. Hang on, I'm gonna get
to you as quick as I can when we come
right back. Welcome back to the garden Line. Just go
(01:34:18):
jump right back in here. So we get out and
get us some bundy of these taking care of here.
We're going to go to let's see, we're gonna head
out to Nadville and talk to Vernon. Hey, Vernon, Welcome
to garden Line.
Speaker 22 (01:34:33):
Hey, Hey, you doing.
Speaker 29 (01:34:34):
I got a couple of questions for you real quick.
The only time I've got left in my garden is
onions and cabbage, and I wonder if I need to
cover those. I'm not too worried about the cabbage, but
the onions need to be covered.
Speaker 4 (01:34:48):
Well, it kind of depends how cold it's going to
get for you there. I leave mine uncovered in minor cold.
You know, when we're gonna get down and the I
don't know, the mid twenties or lower, I start to think,
you know, we better, we better do something about that.
And so it wouldn't hurt to cover them. It just
try to have something to hold the cover up a
(01:35:10):
little bit. So you don't just crush the plants with
the cover. Put some steaks down the row or whatever
works for you to hold it up, off the off
the plants.
Speaker 29 (01:35:20):
Okay, and one more thing, and when it gets closer
to spring, I'm gonna do a lot of cutting on
my plamreas and my pencil cactus with a Rosealvka with
pearlit spin ord. I need a cactus soil.
Speaker 4 (01:35:34):
I would get a cactus soil. There's a good mix
that airlom soils makes them cells. It's a cactus mix
comes in little bags and it's got a lot of
grit in it.
Speaker 10 (01:35:44):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:35:44):
The others like you mentioned, they don't have that the
amount of grit. And with cactus, you do want it
to be very very well super well drained. That that's
very important. And and so that's what I would do.
And you're gonna find airroom soils mixes in a lot
of different places, so that would be pretty easy to find.
Speaker 29 (01:36:04):
Okay, when I cut that pencil cactus, I've got one
branch that's probably a half inch. Do you just had
the milk run out of it?
Speaker 15 (01:36:11):
Or is there a way to stop that?
Speaker 4 (01:36:15):
Oh? I mean you can just leave it it's gonna
drip and stuff on some things, Like when I'm cutting
a ficus tree, I usually have like like a handkerchif
not a handkerchief, Kleenex stop there, and I'll cut it,
and I'll just stick that cleanex up against and it
just absorbs that sap and then it drives on there
and you got to pull it off, but it's just
(01:36:36):
a little absorbent thing there to keep it from dripping
all over, because those kinds of SAPs often will really
stain your clothing or carpet or wherever it's whatever it's
fallen on.
Speaker 29 (01:36:46):
Yeah, I know they're toxic, all right, But that's all
I needed, all right.
Speaker 4 (01:36:53):
So thank you, appreciate, appreciate very much your call. We're
gonna go to Nick and Cypress. Now, Hey, Nick, welcome
to garden Line.
Speaker 30 (01:37:00):
Hey you ship, how you doing? Hey, I'm here.
Speaker 20 (01:37:03):
A beautiful lives the list, and.
Speaker 30 (01:37:05):
She's got me kind of in the She got me
kind of basically into the planting thing.
Speaker 8 (01:37:10):
And she had a question for you regarding our high buscus.
Speaker 5 (01:37:14):
All right.
Speaker 31 (01:37:17):
So we had her in a really big pot for
a while and she got her root system just got
too big. So we finally planted her in the ground
this summer, so she's been in the ground for about
three months or so. The last cold snap we did
cover her, but she is still kind of trying to
bounce back. Her leaves are very wilted, and with this
next breeze coming, we're just a little concerned if just
(01:37:40):
the the plant wrap is good enough or if we
should be doing something different for her so she can
bounce back the spring.
Speaker 4 (01:37:47):
Yeah, Okay, about how tall is it?
Speaker 31 (01:37:51):
It's probably about three foot tall.
Speaker 4 (01:37:53):
And probably about the same three Okay, I've got one
like that, and it's Mine's in a container, but I
don't know. I'm experimenting with mine. I'm going to leave
it out in the container and do what I'm about
to tell you. If you will, get you some pieces
of PVC pipe, half inch pvc, it's very inexpensive. Get
the gray type if you have, if you're able to.
(01:38:15):
If not, the white is fine. The white is just
it breaks down in sunlight faster. But anyway, I'll get
a little eighteen inch piece of rebar at a good
lumber type store, hammered into the ground in four places
around that plant, and then get that PVC stick it
(01:38:36):
over the rebar, bend it, stick it over the rebar
on the opposite side. So let's say you have a
north south and an east west piece, and then take
a zip tie or some twine and tie the PVC together.
So now you've created a little igloo over that plant.
Then cover it. Then secure the edges, yes, like a frame.
Secure the edges, and you've created dead airspace. You got it.
(01:39:00):
Not let air blow up underneath there or it defeats
what you're trying to accomplish. Then get you a clamp
light and one hundred and fifty watt flood light bulb
should be enough. You can use a heat lamp, but
it shouldn't be needed on the coal we're having. And
put it not shining onto the plant or the stems
of the leaves. Shine it down on the ground and
(01:39:21):
that heat will rise up underneath there, and that will
that will do the trick. If you've created dead air space.
I use plastic because I'm going over the PVC and
plastic absolutely doesn't allow any air to move through it,
And so that's how I do it.
Speaker 31 (01:39:38):
Yeah, we had bought one of those plant bags, but
I don't think that was enough. During this last one,
so I'm really concerned about her this time. So we'll
follow your advice and I'll get some plastic and some
PVC and rework. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (01:39:51):
Yeah, and the plat bags are fine for slowing the
cooling of the plant itself. But what we're trying to
do is create a bare soil area underneath it. By
the way, pull the multz back where the warmth of
the soil rises up and is helping with that. You know,
when you just create a landscape lollipop it oftentimes at
(01:40:11):
the very base of the trunk you'll get damage where
it's not covered or it just you can't get the
heat in there like you can the way I described it.
Speaker 31 (01:40:19):
Okay, perfect, all right, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (01:40:21):
All right, you bet, thank you. Thanks for the call.
We were talking a while ago talking about birds. I
can't remember who was it called, had all the birds
going in the background. Whybird's Unlimited has got us covered
on every kind of thing you need for your birds.
I mean feeders. You need a quality bird feeder. You
need quality birds seed. Right now, wind are super Blends
(01:40:42):
the one you need to be feeding. They also have
something called bark butter. Bark butter is a spreadable suet,
So think of it like peanut butter, but a little firmer.
You smear it on the tree trunk and birds come up,
grab the tree trunk and sit there and pack at it.
I mean they really like it. And the one they
have is created by their found under Jim Carpenter. It's
called Gem's Birdaceous bark Butter. Good name and they have
(01:41:07):
documented over one hundred and fifty species of birds being
attracted at bark butter. That's pretty cool. They have bark
butter bits, little bite sized nuggets you can put in
a feeder. There's a bugs and bits that has dried
millworms and our birds is like you've created this fine
dining restaurant, you know, a Michelin restaurant there for the
birds in your backyard. They also have Cardinal Confetti blend
(01:41:32):
for cardinals. It attracts o the birds too, but it's
got a great mix of all kinds of things that
cardinals likes. A brand new blend. They're gonna have it
all year. Cardinal Confetti all at Wallbirds. Go to WBU
dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot com forward slash
Houston and find the Wallbirds near you. There's six of them,
(01:41:53):
so it's easy, easy to find one close to you.
We're going to take a break. When we come back,
Sue and Houston and Addie Huffman, you'll be our first
two up. All right, welcome back to Garden nine. We
are glad you're listening. Continuing on with our phones this morning,
we are going to go to Sue in Houston. Hello, Sue,
welcome to Garden Line.
Speaker 8 (01:42:14):
Good morning. Several months ago, I noticed I lived in
an apartment building. I'm on the fourth floor. I had
looked over the balcony and I noticed that the flower
bed was completely clear of any kind of weeds. The
(01:42:37):
knockout roses were there, but the weeds weren't there. And
I know flower beds have weeds. Some of my plants
were dying. And one of the things that I was
concerned with is any residual chemical that the cat may
(01:43:01):
walk through on the floor of the balcony. So I
called two different vest offices and they said, call your
apartment office. They have to tell you what they've been using.
Of course, they said nothing. So I called Texas Apartment
of Agriculture.
Speaker 26 (01:43:21):
And I asked for.
Speaker 8 (01:43:24):
Some help to see if there was an herba said
news that had drifted up and the guy came out.
Speaker 12 (01:43:37):
And the report said.
Speaker 8 (01:43:41):
No pesticide found. And I talked to the guy after
the report and I said, did you take a soil
sample in that flower bed?
Speaker 24 (01:43:52):
He said no.
Speaker 18 (01:43:53):
I said, did you.
Speaker 8 (01:43:54):
Take any samples from my plants or the dirt in
the plants? He said no. So I'm back to starting
all over again. Now I'm seeing weeds in the flower bed.
So now I'm thinking the apartment has been alerted that. Uh, oh,
(01:44:15):
she's aware of something. We need to knock this soft well.
Can't use anything. So since there's weeds growing, I know
there's no erbit said, and it's been too long, so
uh the herb said is dissolved or you know it
can't be tested right now.
Speaker 4 (01:44:36):
Well, the herbicides they don't, Yeah, they don't. They don't
last forever. I mean they go away different length of
time for different ones, but in general they break down
and they have to be reapplied, so that what was
done before, I wouldn't be worried about it now. Uh.
In general, there's not a threat from most herbicides to
(01:44:57):
a cat walking across, scratching through the soil or something
and like that, just unless you know, like they walked
on it with their wet wet with their paws or something.
But I wouldn't worry about that, I think, and I
don't think the you know, the apartment company is trying
to hide anything. They just they hire somebody to go
take care of the weeds and the beds and things.
(01:45:19):
As to what they use, I don't even know. But
the company ought to be able to tell you they
they There ought to be a way for them to
provide that information if you're curious, I would say in
the meantime, just you know, try to keep an eye
out on it out there, and you should be. Did
you say, when you looked at it, did you see
(01:45:40):
weeds that had been growing, that had been killed, that
were dead and dried up?
Speaker 8 (01:45:44):
Yeah? Yes, And I pointed that out to him. And
also in a different location at on the property, but
a different location, you can see where something was clearly sprayed.
I mean there's a spray line that is not weed
eat or damage.
Speaker 27 (01:46:04):
It was clearly spray.
Speaker 4 (01:46:08):
Okay, all right, well, I think you know that's kind
of what I can tell you at this point. There
should be there should be a way for them to
tell you what we've used. That information is supposed to
be made available. So that's all I know to tell you.
In general, it's I don't think the actual risk is
(01:46:28):
going to be that significant for the animal. You know,
if you had something sprayed on foliage and the animal
was eating you know, the weed, which sometimes animals will,
you know, go out. My dog goes out and eat
eats grass out of the yard and stuff, So that
would be different. But as far as just walking on it,
there shouldn't be a great Once it's dried, fully dried
(01:46:50):
and stuff, there shouldn't be a great concern.
Speaker 8 (01:46:54):
Well, now that you say that I have put lemon
seed in a pot and I probably have six little
twelve inch lemon trees coming up, and I have a
cat that is attracted for whatever reason to those leaves
and who will chew on them so much. I just
(01:47:18):
don't like the idea of that, you know, and something
especially that I don't know what they're using and why
they would keep that a secret of it is concerning
to me.
Speaker 4 (01:47:33):
Well, it's I doubt that it's a conspiracy thing, you know,
where they're keeping it a secret. They probably just don't
know most of those places, you know, it's the harsh
somebody to go out there and take care of it,
and that's all they're worried about.
Speaker 8 (01:47:47):
If it happens again. Who do I How do I
get a soil sample for something like that.
Speaker 4 (01:47:55):
I can just tell you there's not going to be
a good way for you to do that. And you
can search for chemicals in an analysis. It costs a
ton of money, and you got to tell them what
to look for. They can't just look for quote chemicals.
You got to say is there this chemical in that?
And they can search and say yes or no, or
how much or whatever. But I think I've helped you
(01:48:18):
about as much as I can on this one. But yeah,
I don't know where else to go on this one.
But I do appreciate your call. Thank you very much,
and give us a call back if we can help
with them. Let's see who was next here. We were
gonna trying to think of who. There we go. We're
(01:48:40):
gonna go out to Huffman and talk to Betty. Hey, Betty,
good morning.
Speaker 32 (01:48:46):
I'm wondering what to do with my guardenia bush. My
daughter bought me this for Mother's Day last year and
there was no flowers on it, and so I gave
it so coffee grounds, and all of a sudden it's
sprouted a lot of like maybe four or five six
(01:49:07):
branches and they were good okay, two feet tall, but
no flowers.
Speaker 7 (01:49:13):
I still don't have any flowers. So should I okay?
Speaker 3 (01:49:18):
What should I do?
Speaker 15 (01:49:19):
I need?
Speaker 8 (01:49:20):
I want to.
Speaker 4 (01:49:22):
All right real quick because I'm about to run out
of time on us or the leaves a healthy green color. Yes, okay,
I would get an acid loving plant food. They number
of different manufacturers make plants foods for acid loving plants.
Microlife has one that is in kind of a pinkish
(01:49:44):
bag that is for acid loving plants like Gardenia's adrangea, azalea, blueberry, camellia,
those kinds of things. And I would use that as
you fertilize, continue to water as needed to support good
growth when it's dry, and get good growth on it.
If it has good growth and good light, it will
settle down and start blooming for you. But it does
(01:50:07):
need good light, doesn't necessarily need full sun. It just
needs good light, good nutrition, good growth, and it ought
to bloom for you well. So that would be my
suggestion going through this twenty twenty five year to try
to turn that around.
Speaker 32 (01:50:19):
Betty, So an eastern side of the building is okay,
you say it?
Speaker 4 (01:50:26):
East is fine? Yeah, that east is a great place
for a GUARDENA sure.
Speaker 3 (01:50:32):
Okay, I'll just I'll wait and see.
Speaker 4 (01:50:34):
Thank you all right, Thank you very much. I appreciate
appreciate your call very much. Let's see here, we're about
to hit our out time. I believe for this hour.
You know, this morning is going fast again. I know
this happens all the time, kay, apparently, and I wanted
to get to you, but I want to be able
to give time for your call. So we're going to
take you right when we come back from break. For
(01:50:56):
right now, I believe we're about to head into a break.
I just want to remind you our phone number seven
one three two one two KTRH. Also, please hear this.
My website is where I put all kinds of information
and please write it down. Please bookmarkt so that you're
ready to go. The publication, nine page full color publication
(01:51:20):
for free. Everything's for free on there is available on
my website. Gardening with Skip dot com. Someone called earlier
about killing yo pond with a product I have a
new publication I just put up last night on how
to do a stump cut treatment. So when you're trying
to get rid of woody weeds like poison ivy and things,
(01:51:40):
you don't want to spray the whole weed and kill
stuff all around it and cut off the base and
you treat the stump and I tell you exactly how
to do that. Dow publication on just another example of
the kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:51:50):
You've done find.
Speaker 1 (01:51:56):
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with skin Rickyard.
Speaker 5 (01:52:07):
Trip.
Speaker 2 (01:52:09):
Just watch him asks.
Speaker 3 (01:52:25):
A sun.
Speaker 4 (01:52:30):
All right, folks, glad to have you back. Let's do this.
We are entering our last hour of the morning here
Saturday on guarden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor, and
we're here to help you have a more bountiful garden,
more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. We're
going to start by going out to kay in Pairland.
Speaker 5 (01:52:49):
Hello.
Speaker 4 (01:52:49):
Okay, welcome to garden Line, and thanks for hanging on.
Speaker 33 (01:52:53):
Yes, thank you, that's no problem.
Speaker 4 (01:52:55):
Uh.
Speaker 33 (01:52:56):
I have a question about covering the plant. How long
i'd like to cover my plants that I'm going to
cover today while it's not so cold, and I just
wonder if it goes if the freeze goes on, you know,
that's kind of a little uncertain about how long it's.
Speaker 4 (01:53:14):
Going to be.
Speaker 33 (01:53:15):
If it's two or three or four days of you know,
freezing temperatures, that's kind of a long time to keep
a plant covered, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (01:53:24):
Yeah. Now, if you're going to use something that blocks
all the light out, like a tarp, for example, I
would suggest not leaving it under there for more than
a day or two. Open it up and let it
have some light. It's it's not like it's going to
die on day three. It's just you know, the longer
you leave it shaded, the more likely it is it's
(01:53:45):
going to drop leaves and things. If you use something
like freeze blankets.
Speaker 33 (01:53:49):
I have freeze blankets.
Speaker 4 (01:53:50):
Okay, I think they let some light through, don't they right?
Are they white or are they like dark green or
green green? Okay, I'm not sure how much light is
going to go through those. You may hold some up
to the light and you know it's God's ide, and
hold it up, look through it and see what you think.
Speaker 22 (01:54:09):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (01:54:09):
Well, I can.
Speaker 33 (01:54:09):
See my work glowing through it when I had it coverage.
Speaker 4 (01:54:14):
Okay, last week. So okay, well they're gonna allow a
little light through then uh, you're probably good to go.
I mean, you know, we down in Pairland is not
going to be as cold uh as it is going
to be you know, further north in the listening area,
So you're you're probably okay, we're talking about, uh, just
(01:54:35):
trying to get them through. It's going to come down
to a cave depending on the plant. So you know,
if you're trying to keep a tropical hibiscus from freezing,
versus if you're just trying to keep you know, something
that's fairly cold hardy from freezing, Uh, the tropic hibiscus,
you're gonna have to leave it on. Okay, Well that's you're.
Speaker 33 (01:54:54):
Gonna is the other one?
Speaker 4 (01:54:57):
Okay, yeah, well they're gonna be on for a while,
so I think they'll be okay. I would if you
don't mind going out and letting them have a sunny
day or something that would be good. That also warms
the soil and allows a little bit of warmth to
rise up around the plants as well taking the cover off.
But uh, it's there's not a black and white line
(01:55:17):
on this one.
Speaker 28 (01:55:19):
Okay.
Speaker 33 (01:55:19):
Well, I just thought it's not too good to leave
them too long. And I don't know that it's going
to be that cold that long, but we'll see.
Speaker 4 (01:55:27):
Okay, we're going to hope not. But yes, all right,
good luck with that. Thanks for the car you as well.
Thank you very much our phone number seven one three
two one two k t r H seven one three
two one two k t r H. Listen. It's always
a good time to malt It is always a good
time to build your soil. It just is twelve months
(01:55:50):
out of the year. Unless the soil soggy, sop and wet,
it's a good time to build the soil. And it's
a good time to always replenish your malts. Maults in
the wintertime deters weeds and it also helps moderate soil temperature,
protects the crown of that plant against extreme drops in
temperature as well. Cnimalts noticed malts in the name Cnimaltch
(01:56:12):
is the go to place for all the brown stuff
that helps your green stuff to thrive. That's how that works.
They're open Monday through Friday, seven thirty to five. You
got there on a Saturday seven thirty to two, closed
on Sunday. They're on FM five Point twenty one near
Highway six and two eighty eight. Best thing I can
tell you is just go to the website Sienna multch
(01:56:34):
dot com. Simple as that, cnmultch dot com. They're down
south of town again. So all of you out in
communities like see in a plantation, Riverstone, Sandy Point, Meridian,
First Colony, Iowa Colony, pear Land out by the Brasis
Bend State Park, all through that region. This is your
backyard spot to go get the maltches you need and
(01:56:56):
the soil blends that you need, and the fertilizers that
you need. They carry products by Microlife by Nelson, by
nitrofoss by Landscaper's Pride by Medina, by Heirloom Soils. They
have Airloom soils of Veggie nerdmex. They've got Landscaper's Pride
in bolt black velvet malts, and so it's just the
(01:57:20):
place to go when you drive out of there with
your stuff, or you can have them within about twenty miles.
They'll do a delivery for a small fee. When you
get that set up, you're ready to go. Then your
plants will thrive, and money spent on the soil is
very important. Before you spend money on. Let me put
it this way, spend a dollar in your soil before
(01:57:40):
you spend a dollar in your plants. Are do them
both at the same time. Take care of the soil
and then put the plant in. That's how you do it.
And see anumult is where you can get the kind
of quality products that you need. I mentioned that, you
know they have products by Nelson, and Nelson Fertilizer has
a number of lines. They've got the Turf Star line.
(01:58:00):
We'll talk about that when we get back to lawn
fertilizing discussions again. They've got the color Star line, which
if you're going to have a flower bed and you
want flowers in it, you want color. Colorstar is an
awesome product for it's been around for forty years now
and it's used not just here in our area, not
just in Texas. I mean they shift that stuff all
over the country. People figure out it works and they
(01:58:22):
go send me some because it's worked for me. If
it ain't broke, I ain't gonna fix it. In other words,
and it's popular. They also have Nelson has a product
called Nutristar Genesis, and this is a plant food designed
to blend into the soil at planting. It's got indo
and ectomycroiza that helped that root to reach more nutrients.
(01:58:43):
It has bacteria and other fungi that benefit that soul microbiome.
It's got hum maates in it. It's designed to be
mixed in so you just when you dig your planting hole,
just mix some into the soil. As you plant that
plant and put that soil back in. Have some of
the Nelson nutristarch genesis in the planning hale. If you're
growing transplants, you're gonna bump them up from a six
(01:59:04):
pack to a four inch pot, or a four inch
pot to a six inch or gallum pot. That new
potting mix mix the Nelson genesis. That's how I use
it during this time of the year because I'm growing transplants,
I'm potting them up Nelson's neutral star genesis. It really
helps after the plant gets going, then you can use
things like Colorstar and other fertilizers on top of the soil.
(01:59:27):
But this will help them get them off to a
good start. Well, I am looking at a break coming
here too fast to go out to Huffman and talk
to Jerry. Jerry, if you can hang on when I
come back from break, you will be our first call
up and we will visit you at that point. I
want to remind you again my website, Gardening with Skip
dot com, is where you're going to find information about
(01:59:49):
all kinds of things, including protecting plants from cold, if
you will follow garden Line on Facebook. Just yesterday I
posted a little video on how to cover a plant,
put light underneath it and protect it and some of
the things you need to know, things to avoid, things
to do. It's all there on the Facebook page and
we post periodically to that. I've got some others that
(02:00:11):
are coming up pretty quick here to post a Facebook
so you always need to follow us on Facebook. In
the meantime, I'm going to take a break. I'll be
right back. All right, folks, welcome back to Guardline. Good
have you with us. We are going to head straight
out to Huffman and talk to Jerry. Hello Jerry, and
(02:00:34):
welcome to guard Line.
Speaker 34 (02:00:36):
Well, I'm calling about that person that called about this
to pray something on our plants, and they do you
know what it was? Anytime you do that, you're supposed
to have a material Safety data sheet. It's called a
MSDS tells you what's in the stuffs to put in
your property.
Speaker 4 (02:00:57):
That's right, that's the rules. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 15 (02:01:03):
So that's all I had brought.
Speaker 34 (02:01:05):
Thank you for your program, but.
Speaker 4 (02:01:10):
I appreciate you providing that that information. You take care, Yeah,
that's true. You know, I try to try to stay
out of some of the weeds on this stuff. You know, people,
I'm hearing what somebody is telling me on the air,
and I don't know, I don't know how to put
(02:01:33):
it other than I'm not going to get entangled in that.
There there is a way to find out if somebody
apply something. It's it's true what he said. They're supposed
to provide information, so whoever they apply it for. In
this case of be an apartment company should have received
that information. And if the apartment receives the information, they
should be able to provide it for you. That's not
(02:01:54):
a secret. But anyway, well, you are listening to guard Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to
help you have a bountiful garden. Help you have a
bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape. So my suggestion would
be give us a call seven one three two one
two k T right, seven to one three two one
(02:02:16):
two k T right, and we are gonna be happy
to visit with you and help you have success. You know,
one way that you can have success is to stop
myself as a fertilizer. I don't care what it is
you need for your plants. They're going to have it.
Do you need to fertilize them? They have more fertilizers
(02:02:37):
than you can imagine. Everything I talk about on guarden
Line and way way past that, they've got the best
selection of organic fertilizers of anybody in the whole region.
The same thing is true with insect control, The same
thing is true with disease control. The same thing is
true with weed control. If you need tools, quality tools,
(02:02:57):
like maybe you went on my website and saw that
grab or weed wiper tool that I have. Well, the
little thing you start with, the tool you start with.
Bob's got him at Southwest Fertilized. You can make your
own if you don't do that, but he's got him there.
When you go to Southwest Fertilizer, you're gonna find selection,
but you're also going to find expertise. You walk in
with a picture with a plant samples could always bring
(02:03:19):
in a plant sample, and they're gonna be able to
tell you what's wrong with it and what to do
about it. And I frequently stop by there to check
on what's the latest, because you know, a company comes
up with some new product, organic or synthetic, they're not
going to call me up and say, hey, we got
this new product. I have to find out myself and
I go into Southwest. If it's a new product on
(02:03:40):
the market, it's probably gonna be there, and we bought
and I discuss things like that all the time. What works,
what doesn't work, how's it working? You know what's available,
and it's just that kind of place. It's been around
since nineteen fifty five. Corner Abyssinet and Renwick. And here's
the website, Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilize dot com.
(02:04:02):
I don't care where you live. When you drive over there,
you'll see why I am so big on that place,
and why pretty much if you don't if they don't
have it, you don't need it. I think that's the
simplest way to put it. We're going to head out
now to friends would and talk to Ed this morning.
Hello Ed, Welcome to Garden line, Hi, skip power.
Speaker 11 (02:04:21):
You all.
Speaker 4 (02:04:23):
Doing well, sir, thank you.
Speaker 10 (02:04:27):
We have three date palms and they're probably about twenty
five years old, and okay, we lose to frons every
time it can get a hard freeze. But how much
freeze can they can they take before the fronds turn
brown and die?
Speaker 4 (02:04:43):
You know, you can go online and see numbers that
people have posted. Palm companies even have posted as to
how cold it gets. It's a it's a function of
several things. There is a roughly it can take this
cold kind of number, but the condition of the plant
a lot of course how cold it gets, but the
(02:05:05):
conditions going into that cold. You know, any of our plants,
when we are just having nice, mild conditions and suddenly
that temperature drops way down, it's going to cause more
damage than had there been a natural slowing and cooling
of a plant in terms of what it could take.
Date palms are not among the heartier palms. They're among
the less hardy palms. They can be grown, but when
(02:05:28):
it comes to freezes that separate one palm from another,
date palm's going to be one that is going to
sustain more damage than some of our hardier palms. That
we have. The most important thing to remember on any
palms is the terminal bud at the top of the trunk.
That is where new growth comes out of. A few
palms can reach sprout from the bottom. Date palm can't.
(02:05:50):
Most palms can't. So if you can get something up
there in the top, like a little cable on an
extension cord the kind you wrap around a pie that
keeps a pipe from freezing, provides a little bit of warmth,
and then have any kind of cover over there on
the top, you can get them through a lot. You
can have damage to the trunk during a freeze.
Speaker 15 (02:06:14):
Go ahead, they throve They survived. Glass too freezes the
blast you heart freezes.
Speaker 10 (02:06:20):
So hopefully this one will be as bad as those.
But uh yeah, I guess it takes probably about a
good solid year to throw those wrong back into a
bull a bullet umbrella brown.
Speaker 29 (02:06:36):
How tall are they The trunks are probably about.
Speaker 25 (02:06:41):
Anywhere from ten to twelve feet.
Speaker 4 (02:06:45):
Well, it is feasibly pop.
Speaker 30 (02:06:49):
They're they're probably about it.
Speaker 4 (02:06:54):
We're talking over each other. Okay, Well, uh, it is
possible to get up there and throw a cover over
the whole thing. Use the tarp or whatever. You got.
That's handy. Put a little bit of warm th underneath it,
just a little bit, just like those little pipeworm and things.
Wrap it up around. This is one time when a
landscape lollipop would be the thing to do, because draping
(02:07:18):
it all the way to the ground is going to
be very difficult to do. Although if you can do that,
that's even better. But at least warm warm the fronds
and the top bud in it, and you should be
good to go. And you can leave that on there
for a few days if you need to, if it's
gonna keep stay cold on you.
Speaker 25 (02:07:33):
Okay, all right, well thanks three time.
Speaker 4 (02:07:37):
Yes, sir, Yeah, I wish there was a way to
protect them other than that, but it's just not a tree.
That's why you don't see those palm trees up further north.
They're just really hard to protect, all right, ed, Thank
you appreciate that. Our phone number seven one three two
one two kt r H seven to one three two
one two kt r H. In Chanted Gardens down in
(02:08:00):
the Richmond Rosenberg area. It's an outstanding place to go
visit and if you haven't been there, you need to.
They are loaded up. They got a really good list
of fruit trees now that they've got in. By the way,
they got a program coming up next Saturday as January.
No excuse me to day. I'm sorry. I'm looking at
my calendar wrongs today January the eighteenth, and it's this morning,
(02:08:24):
and it was John Penzarella, and I'm looking now. It
starts at ten am, so basically when garden Line ends
is when it kicks off. So I don't know. We'll
give you permission to quit listening to the Garden Line,
to put it on the radio on the car and
head over there. John has been growing citrus on the
Gulf Coast for a very long time. He knows how
(02:08:47):
to grow all kinds of centrus. And this is a
free program. They've got a tent out there that's heated,
so you're gonna be comfortable. Just head out to Enchanted Gardens.
That's FM three fifty on the Katie fullsher the north
side of Richmond and Chanty Gardens and go check that out.
By the way, I'm going to be out there on
February fifteenth, about a month from now, from twelve noon
(02:09:10):
to one thirty, and I'm going to be talking about
tips for making gardening less work. Does that not sound appealing? It's,
in other words, the way I like to put the subtitle,
how to get more from your gardens with less sweat
and less abuprofen. Okay, tips for making gardening less work.
We'll make it more easier, more fun, more productive. Out there.
(02:09:31):
That's February fifth. I'll tell you more about that as
we get close to it. By the way, in Chanty
Gardens is open Saturdays, Monday through Saturdays eight to five
and Sundays eight to four. So get out there. When
you're out there, you're going to find all the many,
many kinds of plants. I mentioned fruit trees, but my gosh,
they got your seed potatoes. They're ready to go out there,
got products for frost protection, and their seed selection is outstanding.
(02:09:55):
Inside the building there really good selection of all kinds
of seeds. We could go on and on and on
with that. Just go out there and Shendy Gardens. Go
see John Penzrella today. I'm telling you it is. It'll
be one of the best talks you ever heard on
how to grow all kinds of centrus and answers your
questions too. All right. I don't know how I can
(02:10:15):
promote it any more than that. I wish I was
at that moment I could get out there and get
time to get there in time, I would go, I
love love hearing that guy talk. Well, you're listening to
Garden Line. Here's the phone number seven to one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four, seven to one
three two one two five eight seven four. We love
(02:10:36):
our feed stores here on Garden Line and down south
of Houston. League City feed in League City, Texas is
an outstanding when it's got that old time feed store feel.
I even like. I just like the fragrance going into
a feed so I love that smell of fresh feeds
and things. And League City is that it ain't s
been around for forty years. It's on Highway three, just
(02:10:57):
a few blocks south of ninety six in League Sity.
So all of you in that whole region, like Lamark
and Webster and elcame Ino Reale and Santa Fe, Dickinson,
Clear Lake City, this is your hometown feed store. Go
check them out. They've got nitrofoss products, they have azamite,
they have microlife products, they have Nelson plant food products.
They carry heirloom soils for example, anything you need to
(02:11:19):
crow pass weeds and diseases. They've got it there at
League City Feed, as well as some real premium types
of pet food as well. All right, I'm going to
head out now to Conroe and we're going to talk
to Sym Hello, Cyan.
Speaker 18 (02:11:33):
Hice, Diane.
Speaker 24 (02:11:34):
But I like to listen to your show and on
my way to work, so I've been going to do this.
I said, this is a time while I'm sitting in
a car. I'm fine, Rose, So I have that horrible
play for soil. My yard is nothing but weeds. I
bought the house new, so they just want to look
cute till you get some closing and you're done. So
(02:11:54):
I'm trying to get the yard aerrated. I'm seventy three,
so I not a strong person.
Speaker 18 (02:12:01):
They used to be.
Speaker 24 (02:12:02):
I did go to one place to a piece of equipment.
They want three hundred and sixty dollars for one day
and then three hundred and twenty dollars for delivery and
pick up, which is outrageous. And that's not even do anything.
Speaker 4 (02:12:15):
I'm trying to hey saying, I'm I'm sorry. I have
to cut you off here. We're there. We got a
heartbreak coming. When we come back, I will tell you
about that and answer any other questions you have. Just
hang on for one second, folks will be right back.
All right, folks, we're back. We're going to head straight
out to the phones and continue our conversation with Saying
(02:12:40):
and Conro. You were discussing wanting to do some aeration
and what I'm having a.
Speaker 8 (02:12:49):
Problem finding what I'm looking for.
Speaker 5 (02:12:54):
To do it?
Speaker 4 (02:12:56):
Got you? Well, if you're having to pay three almost
four hundred dollars just to rent equipment, I got a
way better way. You need to call green Pro Green
Pro Services your area, Conro, and they will come out
and they will do the compost top dressing and aeration both. Uh.
And you know it's the prices will start. I believe
(02:13:18):
they still start around five seventy five. But that's all
the equipment, better equipment than you can rent. And that's
the compost top dressing, couple of yards of composts going
out there on it. You will be way better off
than trying to rent a machine and find somebody to
run it and buy all the composts and stuff like that.
I would just call it Greenpro. There. If you have
(02:13:40):
a pen or pencil handy and give you a phone number.
I sure do, okay, it's two eight one three five
three five one forty seven thirty three forty seven thirty. Yeah,
I'll repeat it one more time. Two eight one three
five one forty seven thirty three. Or if you're don't
(02:14:01):
go online, it's Greenpro dot net. That's an easy way
to get hold of them. But they can do they'll
do the job right, and they got the equipment that
does it better.
Speaker 24 (02:14:10):
That's gonna be like half priced and getting more done.
So it sounds like a.
Speaker 4 (02:14:15):
Well it is and it yeah, you bet, good luck
with that. Thanks for the call. All right, we're gonna
go to Sugarland now and talk to Fred. Hey, Fred,
Welcome to Guardline.
Speaker 22 (02:14:28):
Good morning, sir. I want to ask you about Carolina
jasmine in the freeze.
Speaker 4 (02:14:33):
We replaced our Asian.
Speaker 22 (02:14:34):
Jasmine after we've lost it before with Carolina jasmine.
Speaker 11 (02:14:38):
Is that or not?
Speaker 4 (02:14:41):
It is hardy Carolina jasmine. Oh, I know it'll go
to a zone seven, which is way north of us,
and so yeah, you shouldn't have a problem with that
at all. It's a it's a very tough, hearty plant
native in the southeastern United States.
Speaker 7 (02:14:55):
Good well, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (02:14:58):
Is that it just okay? Well that was easy? You
take care? Hey, yeah, there you go. All right, we
beat that. Well. I got a weird, funky song that
I'm going to play for you every nine and then
I like to play some stuff. I promise you you
never heard before if you have called me and tell
(02:15:20):
me I'm wrong. But I'll do that when we come
back from break here in a little bit. You know,
I talk about ACE all the time, and it's like,
where do you begin? You know, ACE Hardware. Their motto
is ACE is the place, or at least it has
been for a long time, and it is it is
the place for all kinds of things that you might need.
I mean, right now, it's all about cold weather, right,
(02:15:43):
That's what we're worried about, is cold weather. How do
we you know, how do we protect our plants? Well,
when you go to ACE, you're going to find things
like the pipe insulation to wrap around your pipe, the
heat lamps that you need under your plants. By the way,
if you want to know how to use one, go
on Facebook garden Line facebook page. I did a video
(02:16:04):
yesterday explaining how to do that. And you want to
be careful when you use those. There's a right way
and wrong way to do it, but it's on there.
ACE has got that. ACE is going to be the
place where you find all kinds of interior heaters. Maybe
you want to put something out in the garage to
keep it a little bit warmer because you put all
some plants in there. Brought a bunch of plants into there.
They've got that the frost covers to go over your plants.
(02:16:25):
They've got everything you need when you think of cold weather.
You know the covers that go over your faucets outside
the miser, the freeze miser that is a gadget. You
just screw it into the garden fawcet bib. You turn
it on all the way. Nothing comes out because it's
not until it gets cold cold that that freeze miser
starts to water trickle out. So you don't waste water
(02:16:47):
all night like you do when you have to leave
your faucets trickling. But it works, and ACE has got it.
Ace has got every kind of thing you might possibly need.
For example, they've they've got those ac film that you need.
In fact, the hardware city of Memorial may have the
largest selection of AC filters in all of Houston. But
we got Ace stores all over the place. You can
(02:17:08):
go to fullshre Ace Hardware up in Spring. There's All
Star Ace Hardware. There's another All Star Ace Hardware in
Magnolia and Port Lavaca. Ace Hardware just another example of
the many Ace Hardware is in the greater Houston area.
If you went to Acehardware dot com and find the
store locator, you can find the one near you. And
it's as simple as that. And I could just sit here,
(02:17:30):
item after item reading off everything you need from Ace Hardware.
The cause we're getting into cold, cold weather, so get
by there, don't alike, get by there and get that
taken care of. And then when things warm up a
little bit, I want to tell you about some of
their gardening supplies that they carry, because they have a
nice full supply of gardening options at your local Ace
(02:17:51):
Hardware store. Ace is the place that is true. Well
let's see here, where are we. We're getting pretty close
to the break. Well, I've got time for a call.
If someone'd like to, you might call it seven one
three two one two k t r H. Seven one
three two one two k t r H. I'm gonna
(02:18:14):
talk a little bit about some non freeze type of thing. Uh,
and that would be This is the time to get
your fruit trees in the ground, any kind of woody ornamental.
The sooner you plant it, the better. Our garden centers
are loaded with ones. Now, when you go to a
good mom and pop garden center, I'm not talking about
national chains that sell hammers and everything else. I'm talking
(02:18:37):
about a garden center that's locally owned. You're gonna they're
gonna be able to tell you what are the best
cultivars for your area. Because you know, the cultivar of
peach you would grow on Galveston and Huntsville are very different.
They're gonna be able to tell you do you need
a pollinator for that kind of fruit? Peaches don't need
(02:18:58):
a second pollinator out do. And then I'm not going
to go through every fruit tree, but they'll be able
to tell you that, they'll be able to tell you
how to plant it, They'll be able to provide the
products you need to have success with it. That's true
with fruit trees. That's also true with camellias. It's true
with tho zalias. It's true with all kinds of shrubs
and trees that you might want to plant there at
your property. The best time to plant a tree is
(02:19:20):
forty years ago. Second best times today. So if you're
looking for a nice shade tree or a nice blooming tree,
my favorite spring bloomer is a tree called Chinese fringe tree.
There's a native fringe f East Texas Native fringe. The
showiest thing is the Chinese fringe and I love it.
It is absolutely wonderful, has nice fragrance to it as well.
(02:19:42):
So anyway, go to a good, trustable local garden center.
We got them north, south, East, and West. We're lucky
here in Houston. I'm going to take a break and
when I come back, Danny, you'll be our first up.
Oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start,
so I'm just not gonna say anything. I promised you
(02:20:04):
something you haven't heard before. If you've heard that before,
number one, I don't believe you, but call in tell
me you're wrong. Skip. I have heard that. It's probably
some barbershop enthusiast out there. Hey, we're going to go
out to the phones now and talk to Breen in Hitchcock. Hello, Bring,
Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 27 (02:20:22):
Oh yeah, Hi, Hi, Skip love your show. I had
a raised flower bed with three established hibiscus. One is
a cage in one, one's a double bloom, and the
other one is I think it was called Americana.
Speaker 18 (02:20:40):
It's got yellow, yellow, red, and pink blooms on it.
I think it's a hybrid.
Speaker 27 (02:20:45):
But they've gone on the ground, so probably at least
three years. I did hear you say something this morning
about putting.
Speaker 18 (02:20:57):
My PBC pipe in and maybe.
Speaker 27 (02:20:59):
A flood lamp, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 18 (02:21:01):
It's like a eight to ten foot long bed.
Speaker 27 (02:21:05):
The largest hyperscus is the Cajun and it probably stands
four four and a half feet tall. So do I
just need to wrap it in plastic and put a
couple of flood lamps in there between each plant?
Speaker 4 (02:21:20):
Well you could? What would you could? Yeah, you could
do that. I think if it were mine, it or
eight feet long. I would take PVC and make arches
to go over the plant, so you're making like a tunnel,
and then you put the plastic over the whole tunnel,
and then you put a couple of lamps. You know
it's eight feet long, so put the lamps about four
(02:21:42):
feet apart underneath there, and that would definitely protect them.
The the PVC holds plastic up, plastic keeps air from moving.
You don't want plastic to touch plants. But with those hibiscus,
you know they're already the leaves are probably falling off
and not looking very great anyway, and fresh growth will
come out next spring. But if you go to the
(02:22:02):
if you go to garden line Facebook page, I just
kind of show you how to do it on one plant.
It may make it easier to kind of picture what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 27 (02:22:13):
Okay, I think I can get kind of a mental
picture because you're talking about the PDC pipe that those
really long.
Speaker 18 (02:22:21):
They're probably at least ten twelve feet.
Speaker 11 (02:22:23):
Tall or whatever.
Speaker 4 (02:22:25):
Yeah, probably.
Speaker 27 (02:22:26):
Okay, what about what about blankets on the ground? Does
that help it all?
Speaker 4 (02:22:33):
Well? You could you could put anything over the PVC.
I mean you could use tarps, you could use rope,
the thick row cover fabric, if you had a blanket
that size, you could use it. We're just trying to
create a dead air space underneath there so that the
soil warmth rises up underneath that tunnel or underneath that
PVC hoop, and it helps protect the plant and when
(02:22:57):
you warm the air a little bit, it kind of
stays warm because wind is not blowing the air right
out from under there. That that's the goal. So uh yeah,
you can. You can go about that either way.
Speaker 27 (02:23:09):
Okay, Well, I understand that. I was thinking though of
putting like some old comforters or whatever to cover the
ground to keep it warm with the flood lambs under it.
Bit at that point it would probably block the heat
from rising.
Speaker 4 (02:23:23):
I see, yes, that's correct. You do not want. In fact,
I have a plant that I've covered like that, and
first thing I did is scrape all the mult back
from underneath that PVC hoop because the soil will warm
and the soil will radiate that heat up, and molts
help pull the soil in the soil warm thing. So yeah,
you want you want bear soil. You don't want to
(02:23:44):
blanket over it. You don't want mulch over it for
best results. Now, these are all, you know, like ten
different things you can do that each one helps a
little bit. So if you don't do them all, that's okay.
Speaker 18 (02:23:54):
But okay, okay, well they're they're like my babies.
Speaker 5 (02:23:58):
So.
Speaker 4 (02:24:00):
I know, well, I have a cajun hibescus that I
really love. Those are outstanding.
Speaker 27 (02:24:06):
Yeah, they're just you know, and I just stumbled across
it in a flea market and it has just been
the most beautiful plan. I get so many compliments on it.
Speaker 18 (02:24:14):
So okay, well, thank you.
Speaker 27 (02:24:16):
I really appreciate your health.
Speaker 18 (02:24:17):
It was very informative.
Speaker 4 (02:24:20):
All right, Well, good, that's good. Thanks for the call.
Appreciate you being listener.
Speaker 18 (02:24:23):
Have a great thank.
Speaker 4 (02:24:26):
You as well. We're gonna go out now to Houston.
Talk to Danny. Hey, Danny, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 30 (02:24:31):
Hey, yeah, good morning, sir, Thank you for taking my call.
I have two mule palms that are still in their
pots pots, meaning they're big. They're like, you know, four
foot circles.
Speaker 22 (02:24:45):
Right.
Speaker 30 (02:24:46):
You just scared me when you were talking to that
other young lady about the mult because I went and
bought like eight bags of mulch and I put it
inside the pot around the base to keep it warm
during the last little Coltsville. Can you give me some
suggestions on how to take care of these during this
(02:25:06):
hard reason?
Speaker 4 (02:25:08):
You bet so. For everybody listening, I want to clarify
that mult thing that I said. When I said the
molt thing, I'm talking about where you completely cover a
plant and you got the bare soil warmth rising up.
When you're talking about a palm tree, you're talking a
big old trunk up there with something at the top,
and that doesn't really apply. You're not putting the same
kind of cover over it. So for you to mound
(02:25:30):
up soil or cover soil or put a tarp over
that root ball and protect the roots and things, that's fine.
Meal palm is very cold hearty. They can take temperatures
down into the teens when they're you know, in decent shape.
I just wouldn't necessarily want to try that with the
roots getting that cold. But yeah, once they're established, they're
(02:25:53):
quite hearty. But for this one, let's just protect the
base of it, the roots a little bit there. And
I don't see what the kind of weather we're having
here in Houston area that you need to you need
to be that concerned about a mule pom.
Speaker 30 (02:26:07):
Okay, so so so me stacking the mult all the
way around the base and they're still in their pots
and putting that most all around there, then it should
be okay.
Speaker 4 (02:26:19):
Yes, because you're insulating the roots. Okay, that's what the
mulch is doing for that palm tree, then saying, I
don't know that that's necessary. It may it may not be,
but I'm just saying, don't what I said about mult
does not apply to what you're doing to that move.
Speaker 30 (02:26:35):
No, I totally understand, sir. I totally understand, Thank you.
But I did hear the previous conversation.
Speaker 4 (02:26:40):
I was like, oh, right, so, yeah, that happens a
lot on garden line, and I always like that to clarify, Yeah,
you picked a you picked a great palm. Mule palms
are awesome. They're hearty, they're fast growing, they're they're just
they're great.
Speaker 30 (02:26:54):
Okay, one more question, sir. So I haven't put them
in the ground because when we got them, which was
like a month ago, I thought to myself that it's
not a good time to plant them. Right, So when
when is a good time to put them in the ground.
What would you think?
Speaker 4 (02:27:10):
We usually plant palms when the weather worms up a
little bit. You know, they they don't really want to
mess with growing and stuff until things warm up. So
whereas with a lot of our trees and stuff, we're saying, hey,
get them planted and fall in winter, you know, before
the heat of the summer arrives. People plant palm trees
in the middle of hot summer, so you don't you're
(02:27:31):
not in a hurry. But when it warms up a
little bit, you can get that thing in the ground.
Speaker 30 (02:27:35):
Okay, all right, thank you for taking my call. I
love to shows.
Speaker 17 (02:27:39):
You're awesome.
Speaker 4 (02:27:41):
Thank you appreciate that. Good luck with that. Well, there
we did it. We put another, put another show in
the books. Wish you well, stay warm this this week.
This is the kind of weather that gives our fruit
trees great chilling. Chilling hours occur primarily around forty degrees
(02:28:02):
forty five thirty five somewhere in there. We're going to
have a lot of that weather as we go through.
So who knows, maybe you have a good bloom and
a good fruit production coming there with fruit. Talk to
you tomorrow.
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