Put Nature to Work for You

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with skimped Richard's.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Crazy trim.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Just watch him as well.

Speaker 4 (00:19):
That so many.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Birthdays to see botasing not a sound j.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Sun Well, good morning, Good Sunday morning, gardeners. Stop glad
you're joining us this morning. We got plenty of gardening
stuff to talk about today. We had a great time
yesterday out at Arbor Gate. I don't uh tell you

(00:57):
that place was hopping, and you know it was just
like people were hauling stuff at one end and trucks
are coming in the other end. It was. It was
a busy day and a good reason for it too.
I mean, good selection out there. But the weather, oh
my gosh, it was incredible. Nice nice day. So thanks
for folks at Arbrogate, for Beverly and all the team

(01:20):
there for having me out. Had a good time. Thanks
for everybody that came out too. I enjoyed visiting with you.
And it's always kind of fun when people come up
to ask questions. Happens on the radio too, of course,
but you know someone's walking toward you that you eye
contact ice meat, and all of a sudden they reach
in their persure their pocket and out comes this little

(01:41):
zip lock bag with plant material in it, and it's
kind of like a mystery gift, you know, you open
it up and let's see what this one is. And
so we had some really good, really good questions that
came out as well. So anyway, I have to I
have a confession to make this morning. My garden needs help.

(02:02):
It needs me to actually be a gardener, not just
a guy who talks to other people and helps them
with their garden. And so that is my plan for
this week. I've got a number of projects that we're
working on, a lot of planting that still needs to
be done. And you know, the sooner you plant, the
better off you're going to be because it's easier when

(02:23):
plants have a little bit of a head start on
the heat. You can plant on the hottest day of
the year in the middle of summer, but it's touch
and go. You got to keep that root ball moist
without keeping it too wet. And think about that. So
when the pot you bought from the nursery, the container,
when it goes in the ground, that whole root system

(02:44):
is still You might as well have just stuck the
pot in the ground because that's where all the roots are,
so when you water, you need to think about that
water in that little area. And now does that mean
you drench it every day? No, you will kill a
plant that way, especially in a clay soil because think
about this. Dig a hole in a clay soil and
fill it full of water. Does it all run right out?

(03:05):
Of course not. It sits there, and it sits there
and it's it's there. It takes a long time for
water to move out of a clay and when you
put a plant in the ground in a clay hole,
that is what happens. So you you've kind of got to,
uh do some bed prep ahead of time to have
good success. And that would mean uh, mixing some organic

(03:25):
material down into the soil. If you're putting in a
raised bed, get you a good quality bed mix, put
it on the ground and go for it that way.
Uh you know, make then dig the hole. Okay, then
you're digging a hole into mixed soil and things are
just going to go better. And some plants just absolutely
can't take wet feet and we can put we can
plant those. I like to say plant them on top

(03:46):
of the ground. And by that what I mean is
imagine that You're going to put in a zella in
the ground, for example, and you got this clay hole. Uh,
And it's like, nah, that's that's not good long term,
probably going to stay too well down there. So you
set the azella on top of the ground and then
you bring a bed in around it. Now that that

(04:06):
is a little bit of a ridiculous example, but it
creates the mental picture that I want to create with you,
is your plant is above the soil level. What I'll
usually do is spread out some good quality bed mix,
mix it in a little bit with the soil that
I have. That creates kind of a transition zone. So
it's not like you're going from potting soil to solid

(04:28):
clay and then continue filling the bed with the bed
mix and then dig the hole to plant the plant.
But in essence, that plant is like above or a
little bit at least above the original soil level. And
that helps when we get our gully washers or frog
stranglers as they say. And it happens here, it sure does.

(04:48):
Now in a container, you want a quality mix. And
I talk about jungle land all the time, jungle land
flour and vegetable planting soil goes into a good container,
and a good container means that it has a drain
holes and it has adequate volume of soil capacity to
support that plant during the heat. The hotter it gets,
the more water plants need. The container is the entire

(05:11):
root system of available soil and moisture. So I've had
containers that had water twice a day because the plants
were big, the containers were small, and it was hot,
and you just need to think about that. The bigger
your container, the better off you are. But Jungle lends
a quality mix to put in there. It's got decomposed
organic matter and four different sources of it actually Canadian

(05:32):
blomb pede and microhizal fungi to help those plants thrive.
Now you can find nitro fross products like the Jungle
Land distributed by Nitroros. You've fded plants and things at
in Brennam. You head down to Clute, Dixie Drive, Lake Hardware,
They've got it down there, Fishers Hardware and Baytown Alexander
another place you find quality night foss products. I would

(05:54):
encourage you this year. I always trying to give you
some ideas or things like, hey, have you tried this
have you considered this before, Consider some big beautiful mixed
container plantings. And I don't care if you go and,
you know, get the most expensive, beautiful, giant glazed pottery
in the world, or if you just get a big

(06:17):
old black nursery bucket and plant in it. Get a
big container and fill it full of mix and put
different kinds of plants in it. And if you need inspiration,
Arbrogate would be a good place for that. I was
out there yesterday and they had combo planters that had
all kinds of different things in them. And you walk
by and you look at it and you go, I

(06:38):
like that, or you know what, I like that plant
in it, But I like these over here too, and
it's like it gives you inspiration. And a mixed planter
is like bringing the garden beds right up to the
house or bringing them to your patio. I have mixed
planners for shady areas. I have mixed planners for sunny areas.
You just choose the plants accordingly, and a quality nurse

(07:00):
she's going to help you do that. Like Arburgate, Arbrogate
up and Tomball. For those of you who weren't out
there yesterday, Arburgate is on twenty nine to twenty just
west of Tomball and it's easy to get to and
when you park, remember to park in the back. That's
the best place to park out there. Also, I just
want to tell you that next Saturday, May seventeenth, at

(07:21):
ten am, Angela Chandler is going to be doing a
program on tropical dazzlers. This would be a good one
for mixed containers too, or just single plant containers. Bold beauties,
you know, like Allocasia and colocasia. Think about people call
elephant ears that kind of plant kalladiums in a shady spot.
Oh my gosh, you can have a gorgeous kalladium container

(07:42):
Zantho soma. If you like showy plants thrive in our climate.
It never gets too hot and humid for them. They
laugh at that. They love that. Go to Angela's class
Tropical Dazzlers next Saturday ten am. All you do is
call Arburgate and they'll tell you about it and get
you signed up for it. It's a ten dollars per
person and it's limited seedings, so don't delay. If you're interested,

(08:06):
go ahead and give them a call. Time for me
to go to a little break here when we come back,
we'll talk to you perhaps. All right, y, welcome back
on a good Sunday morning. Good to have you with
us here and garden line. I want to ask you
to think about soil and nutrients a little differently. And

(08:27):
here's what the It's a common concept that when I fertilize,
I'm feeding my plants. So you know, it's like you
give them a low fertilizer, they suck it up and
grow and do whatever they do, and then you got
to give them a little bit more and do that. Well,
that does happen, But think instead, turn that around and
think of your soil as a bank account. And every

(08:48):
nutrient and the soil that plants have to have, if
it's not there in adequate quantities, it limits plant growth.
There's twenty something nutrients that plants can take up and use,
but if one of them is limited, that's as much
as the plant can grow. So you're building the sole
bank account when you fertilize. Some plants, some nutrients like
nitrogen go away. They don't stick around. They volatilize or

(09:12):
taken up by microbes or washed away, and nitrogen especially,
but others stick around a while. But it's the bank
account you're trying to build. And if you fill that
bank account with all the nutrients that the plants need,
you're going to have plant success because when they want
to make withdrawals, and they make them every day, they're there.
Asamite is a trace mental supplement that does just set okay.

(09:36):
It has things like boron in it or you know
other micro nutrients that you would never think, oh, I
need to go fertilize my law with boron now. Azemite
has the micros that they need. But it's building the
bank account. That's why you can do it anytime of
the year. You don't have to just do it during
fertilizer season. It's just easier when you're not fertilizing your
lawn to go ahead and bring it, bring the hopper back,

(09:56):
fill it up with as mite, and go out and
do that again with the asmite Asmytexas dot Com for
more information build your soul's bank account. Let's head out
to a task Acita now and we're going to visit
with Jim. Hey, Jim, welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Well, thank you very much, sir, and I hope you're
having a great day. Here's a question root bound. Okay,
I've got a thirty down by tech I just bought,
and I want to plant it right, and then all
the other plants I just bought. I'm you're doing my
whole front yard. Okay, about twenty plants. Now? Do I

(10:33):
do the same process with every plant?

Speaker 4 (10:37):
In other words, when I.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Buy a new plants and it's in the container and
it's been for a while, don I separate those roots
and cut certain ones that are tangled up?

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah? Well, I'll say yes. It's most important on trees
and to somederground shrubs where you can have a root
going around in a small circle. Maybe it was in
a gallon pot, let's say, and it made a gallon
size circle around the trunk. And then as a trunk
and the root get old bigger, they strangle each other.

(11:10):
The root strangles the trunk. But it's also important to
get plants to establish well. Roots that are all wrapped
up in a pot aren't going to unwrap underground. So
I'll cut mine. I plan one the other day, and
I cut it in three or four places vertically used
a little box cutter knife. If it's bigger roots, you
need little pruners in there, but don't be afraid to

(11:31):
cut them. Just like if you cut a branch on
a tree, what happens is it sprouts out two or
three more branches from where you cut it. That's what
happens in the ground, and it'll happen within a couple
of weeks. It'll start sprouting new roots and those go
right out and establish faster. So don't be afraid to
cut those, especially those circling roots.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Is basically the same process with every plant that you planate.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yes, but you know, if you're putting in a little
tomato plant and it's not super root bound, I mean
you sometimes people use their little fingers to tease the
roots apart a little bit, but to the degree it's
root bound, it's more important. I'll just put it that way.
But I generally look and if roots are all wadded up,
I just kind of loosen them up a little bit.
If it's a little small perennial or annual or something

(12:19):
like that.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Right, and on you to thank you, sir, and have
a great day.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
You too, and thanks for your calls. Have a great Sunday.
Nature's Way Resources has been making quality mixes for a
long time, and it you know, it's it's almost like
like boutique mixes if you will, I mean they they
I talk about garden mix or garden bed mixes. Well,
Natures has a bunch of them. You know, they've got

(12:47):
like the roast soil, They've got soil for vegetables and
herbs or fruit trees or whatever. There's a number of
different mixes. They have one called Garden Light Mix and
it basically is a little higher and composted organic matter.
Therefore it's a little bit lighter and so if you
need something with some extra excellent drainage, it can do that.
It's got lead, more composts in. It's got some topsoil

(13:10):
and mortar sand just to provide good loose strangers beca. See,
that's one that's one of the many products that they
carry there. It Nature's way. When you go talk to them,
whoever you talk to there, you know, they've got a
lot of folks that really know what they're doing. You
talk to Ian, you can talk to Leo or some
of the others, and you just say, look, this is
what I want to grow. What do you recommend for that?

(13:32):
And they're going to be able to tell you what
to use and why. And you can do it by bulk.
You can do it by the bag. You can go
pick it up, you can have it delivered. You can
find the bags in a lot of garden centers around town.
So just remember too that Fungal Friday. Every Friday is
Fungal Friday. It's fungo based compost, which is a high
quality organic product. Ten percent off bags, twenty percent off

(13:55):
bulk at Nature's Way. Here's how you find out more
about them, how to find them, how to get a
hold of them, everything, Nature's Way resources dot com, Nature's
Way Resources dot com. Try it out. I I you know,
I talk about all the time that if I'm recommending

(14:15):
some product, it's because I've used it, and I just
some of these, you know, natures we have so many
products it takes a while to get through them all.
But just picked up some other things the other day
for some new beds. We're putting in a couple of
new mulches. I hadn't tried from them, and we're trying
those out now, just to make sure you know that
the claims are true. Of course, I have no doubt

(14:36):
about that them being true. I just like to try
it and you know what I find out when I
and this is true. Now I've got book knowledge. I
went to school, I got a master's in horticulture. I
got the book knowledge. But it is it's on knowledge
that is so very important, you know, I don't. I'm
not dissing book not I'm just saying that when I

(14:58):
try something, I learned things that I didn't know. I
didn't know. You know, they say you don't know what
you don't know. That's true. So when I start trying something,
it could be a new plant that I'm trying out,
and I may have it in a little too much shade,
or maybe I put it in more shade than I
thought it would take, and it performs well, and I
learned something, And I encourage you to do that out

(15:21):
in your garden. There is no don't think about failing
or not failing. Really believe me on that one. Don't
think about failing or not don't worry about that. Do
everything you can to have success. But if something isn't
doing good, it's okay. You've learned something, and oftentimes you
can fix it. One time, I had a rose bush
that was in a spot that was a little too shady,

(15:42):
and it bloomed, but it was like, eh, not that great, Okay,
So one fall I dug it up and I moved
it to another spot that had more sun, and boy,
it was happy there. And that's what I'm talking about.
You learn and you try new things, and you get
better and you grow, and it's all part of the
cultivating of the earth. And with all the wonderful plant

(16:04):
options we have, oh my gosh, so many plants, so
little time. That's how I like to look at it. Anyway, Yeah,
there you go. Nitropas Superturf is their product for slow
release summer fertilizing. And when I say slow release, I
mean like sixteen weeks. It's going to be releasing nitrogen

(16:25):
out slowly and it's got on the nutrients and as well.
It's a nineteen four to ten fertilizer. It's going to
be releasing those out slowly over time during that period
and you get nice even growth through your lawns. It's
the silver bag from Nitrofoss. It's easy to find when
you walk into a store. You're going to find night
Foss products at places like Fisher's Hardware down there in

(16:45):
Baytown in Angleton, in Lake Hardware, Angleton on Velasco. I
go to Clare Lake M and D and Clare Lake
on Bay Area Boulevard some other places you'll find nitropas,
superturf and other nitrofoss products. I need to get out
and do some more land fertilizing. I haven't fertilized one
of my lawns. Haven't fertilized in quite a while. And

(17:06):
I say one because my lawn is a big experiment.
I have four different kinds of grasses. I know you're
thinking that must look horrible. No it doesn't. I have
two Saint Augustine's in the front with a big driveway
in between them, so you kind of don't. No, it's
not like, you know, it looks like a checkerboard or anything.

(17:28):
But I'm learning about two new Saint Augustine varieties as
a result of that. So there we go in the back,
two different Soisier varieties, trying those out in some sunny spots,
some shady spots. We have two golden retrievers, which when
they talk about the petty patter of little feet, these
guys are like, I don't know the trampling of a

(17:49):
buffalo herd. So if you want to test a grass.
You can rent my dogs and they will tell you
if it can hold up or not. But it's all
part of the learning curve and I enjoyed doing that.
Have you ever been out to antigurosm for him? It's
up north of Brenham in Independence, Texas and it is
an awesome, awesome place. I love the anti g rosing

(18:11):
for him. You go there and you're going to find
pretty much any kind of roads you can imagine. I mean,
they have an awesome collection right now. They got a
deal going on bue twenty something different roses that are
on a good little sale if you jump out there
and take advantage of it. And there's some really good
ones in that group too. I was looking over their

(18:31):
list thinking I haven't tried that one yet. Also, don't
forget that today is, let's see, today's Mother's Day. Be
a good time to run out there and grab a
rose to bring for mom. Also, on Memorial Weekend, which
is May twenty four and twenty six, tax savings on

(18:51):
water conserving products, so that'd be a good day to
plan getting out and getting some shopping done. If you
haven't been there, you need to go go to the
website Antique Roseemporium dot com Antique Rose Emporium dot com.
There you'll find out about events like their beneficial insects
seminar and kids activities on May seventeenth. You need to

(19:14):
follow them on Facebook and Instagram because they're always posting
some really good stuff there as well. But when you
go to the website Antique Roseemporium dot com you can
find out a lot more about them. They got some
great perennials and other plants also that just thrive here
and it is such a fun place to visit. Take

(19:35):
some friends with you. In fact, if you want to
give them a call nine seventy nine eight three six
fifty five forty eight, they can give you more information
on your visit. But I promise you this is a
beautiful place and you have a very very good time.
Plus you need to leave room because you're going to
want to bring a lot of plants on once you
see those things growing out at the Antique Rosenporium. Must

(19:58):
must visit Destiny. I'm gonna take a little break. We
will be right back. We'll head to forest in Galleria
first and then the rest of you for your calls
at seven one, three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Welcome back to Guardline on a nice Sunday. Glad to
have you listening with us today this morning. Won't you

(20:20):
get a cup of coffee and go outside for just
a minute. It's starting to get light, which is about now.
I believe it's just brightening up pretty good out there. Uh,
and just listen, listen to the birds. It is the
most soothing thing. It's one of those nature sounds that
I just love and it's like therapy for me just
to listen to the running sound of running water and birds.

(20:41):
I love that Wildbird's Unlimited here in the Greater Houston
area is a place to go to bring the sounds
in to your landscape. Folks at Wildbirds Unlimited have every
kind of equipment you need, from bird feeders to the
little bird baths, to quality quality bird seeds and blends.

(21:03):
Right now, they've got the seed of the season. I
guess the blend of the season is Nesting Super Blend
and it's only available at Wildbirds Unlimited. It's got all
the things in it that birds love and need when
they are doing things like laying eggs and bird young
birds are developing in need that calcium for support in
their skeletal development. You can get Nesting super Blend with

(21:25):
loose seed bags or seed cylinders or compacted cylinders, however
you want to go about it, and you can get
it anywhere at one of the six wild Birds Unlimited
stores in the Greater Houston area. That includes the one
in Cypress up on Barker Cypress, the one in West
Houston on Memorial, the one in south West East Snow
in bel Air in Paarland on Broadway, in clear Lake

(21:46):
on El Dorado in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive. Why there,
make sure and check out my favorite humming bird feeder,
which is the wild Birds Unlimited hygh Perch hummingbird feeder.
You can see all the birds. It's a little flat
feeder where you can see all the birds when they
come to it. It's really simple to use and clean
and everything like that. So I like it so much,

(22:07):
which isn't a surprise, because I love going to Wildbirds
in Limit already do Let's see, we're gonna go out
to the galleria now and we're gonna visit with Forest
this morning. Hey, Forest, welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 5 (22:19):
Thank you Skip. I've got an issue with my tomatoes.
I'm finding little holes where it looks like things are
boring into it. I think it might be a caterpillar
or a worm problem, and I'm wondering what your Yeah,
what your recommendation is for putting on that to prevent that.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, it could be a tomato pinworm, or it could
be one There's several caterpillars that will chew on a tomato,
and pinworms make a little tiny holes. Some of the
worms will tend to push in right up where the
klyx where the tomato attaches. They kind of squeeze in
there and go in. Others just grab the side of
a tomato and chump their way in BT, Bacillis threne

(23:00):
gensis is the ingredient in a number of brands of sprays.
BT is one natural worm or a caterpillar disease, and
so you spray it. Caterpillars get sick. Nothing else gets sick,
which is a nice thing about BT. But you got
to use it pretty often. It only lasts a day
or two in the environment, and then you need to

(23:20):
respray it periodically to make sure that you get them
spray the foliage and the fruit.

Speaker 6 (23:28):
I have some I have some nme oil.

Speaker 5 (23:30):
Does nem oil have that in it?

Speaker 2 (23:34):
No, it doesn't. It is that neme oil is also
a natural product. It would work really well when you're
smothering mites or aphids or even young scale crawlers that
are out and about name works it? Actually, you know
what would name kill a I don't, okay. There's two
forms of name for us. One is the name oil,

(23:55):
which they squeeze the oil out of the seed of
the plant, and that's what you're purchasing. The other is
the ingredient as a direct and it is found in
the name tree, but it's an extracted ingredient that comes
out of it, so they they're different. That as a
directing form might do a good job for you. The

(24:17):
oil form for this particular problem, I don't think would
be as good of a job.

Speaker 5 (24:23):
But you mentioned you mentioned said BP is the active
ingredient in the in the other chemical.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, B as in boy teas in tom B t
O B. Yeah. There's a lot of brand, a lot
of brands of that. You go into any A's hardware store,
you know, garden Center, they're gonna know what BT is.

Speaker 6 (24:43):
Got it all right?

Speaker 7 (24:45):
Thank you, sir?

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Having good morning. You bet for us. Now, you know
on guardline we don't charge for advice, but I do
expect to see half the tomatoes at the station sometime
this summer, so we'll call it even.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Thank you guys, take care, Sorry.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
You bet all right. B and B turf Pros is
the source you look to when it comes to compost
stop dressing and corporation down in the south and southwest
Houston region. You know, from Sugarland across from Missouri City,

(25:21):
all the way down Highway six. You know our Cola
Manvil Alvin, all the way over to Dickinson and League
City just across forty five, Friendswood, Paarland. That whole region
south and southwest, a little bit southeast. They covered that
and they're a family owned service that does quality work.
They are all about customer satisfaction. Their review show it.

(25:42):
They make a personal connection with you. They want to
know you are satisfied now. Prices for corrodoration and compost
stop dressing they are around They start around five hundred
dollars depending on the yard size and how far a
company has to travel. Because it is it is a
cost the endeavor for them to do it, but it works.

(26:03):
It does work. Now through the month of May, they
are offering free aeration with the purchasing of the top dressing.
Through May free aerration. You buy the top dressing materials
and service and they come do the aeration for free
and then do the top dress on top of it.
BB Turfpros dot com b B turfpros dot com. That

(26:27):
is where you need to go see the work that
they do. It's amazing. I mean, they transform landscapes. But
you just need to check them out and get on
the schedule. Let's see here. Oh I was I wanted
to visit a little bit this morning about some free
tree questions that I've been hearing. Got some yesterday when

(26:49):
I was out at Arburgate, and I hear these from
time to time, and I just remember, you know, I
need to mention the more because I mentioned something on
the radio and you're not listening now. You may be
listening in five minutes from now or later today, later
this morning. But when it comes to fruit trees, a
lot of fruit trees pollinate themselves, meaning that an insect

(27:11):
can move the pollen from one flower on the tree,
or we even within a flower to the other flowers
and so you don't need to have a second pollinator variety.
Some tree like well figs, for example, don't even need pollination.
The kind of fig we grow here doesn't need pollination.
If you go out to California, a different type of
fig out there that is pollinated by a little wasp,

(27:33):
but ours don't need it here. But if you are
going to grow a lot of citrus, trees are going
to be self pollinating in terms of they don't. You
don't have to have two different varieties of satsuma orange
to have oranges. And then there are trees that peaches
are self pollinating. By the way plums mostly there is
a plumb or two that doesn't need a pollinator. But

(27:56):
in general it's better if you plant too. That's true
blueberries too, whether it's rabbit eye blueberries Southern high bush blueberries,
the two primary kind we grow here. If it's just
one variety, you can get some blueberries, but if you
plant two varieties you will get bigger and more blueberries.
And the reason is a little nerd alert here, but

(28:19):
I think it's interesting. Blueberries can have dozens of seeds
inside and in any fruit. When a seed is successfully
pollinated in forms you're going to end up getting a
release of a hormone from that seed that makes the
fruit get bigger. If you see an apple that's lopsided,

(28:40):
cut through it sideways and you'll see the seed is
dead on that side, that's not growing. Okay, So more pollination,
more seed development in a blueberry means bigger berries. And
that's true of a lot of kinds of fruit too.
So two for pollination. Apples, you gotta have pollinators. Pears
for all practical purposes, have two for pollinating, and you
kind of go through all the fruit and see, but

(29:02):
check on that before you purchase fruit. A good unpop
garden center, independent garden center like you hear me talk
about on garden Line. They're gonna know, they're gonna know,
and they are gonna send you in the right direction
on that. So you don't even have to worry about.
Just ask them. They'll make sure you get set up right.
I'm gonna take a little break here. We'll be back
with your calls in just a moment. All right, Welcome

(29:23):
back to garden Line on a lovely Sunday morning. Good
to have you with us. Hey, I have a tip
for summer vines. Vines. We do not use vines enough
in our landscapes here in this area, we don't. And
there's so many good vines out there, and you know,
there's vines for pretty much every situation. There's old, tame vines,

(29:43):
you know, like the flowering pea vine that is sun nice.
People use the flowers to flavor drinks, and then there's
vines that like. Coral vine is one of my favorite vines.
It blooms late in the summer and early fall. It
basically is coming out of a sweet potato like structure underground.
But the only thing about coral vine is it likes
to run, and it will run like a kindergartener on

(30:05):
the first day school. You gotta be careful, don't just
let it take over. But if you have it on
antin contained structure, it is wonderful. And boy, are you
supporting pollinators They will that place will be that thing
will be a buzz but beautiful fruit. Anyway, I was
thinking about that added enchanted gardens down in Richmond Rosenberg,

(30:26):
they've got a nice selection of vines. There's one called
snail vine that looks it's curled up kind of like
a snailshell, and you have to use your imagination a
little bit, but it's pretty cool. Things like passion vine
a beautiful, beautiful vines. So many good options out there.
Mexican flame vines another good one. Put them on an
arbor for shade. Plan them where they can cover a

(30:46):
west wall for saving on your electric bill. We need
to use vines, more annual vines, perennial vines, woody vines.
There are so many options. You ought to did that.
By the way, if you get a chance, go to
Enchanted Gardens Richmond and find out more about the garden center,
how to get there, everything you need to know. It's
open today from ten am to four pm Monday through

(31:08):
Saturday eight am to five pm. Lots of beautiful plants there.
Let's head out to Cove, Texas and we're gonna speak
to Dnnis this morning. Hey, Dennis, welcome to gardline.

Speaker 7 (31:21):
Thank you, Skip. I sent a couple of pictures. They're
the same thing. I meant to take pictures last evening
and then for good. So it's still a little dark
this morning, but I got a big tree and just
one limb. I saw this yesterday I was doing yard work.
All the leaves are practically they're just shriveled up brown

(31:44):
right fall, and the rest of the tree is fine.
I examined the limb, you know, all the way down
and I can't see like any damage to the limb itself,
you know. And he's like it's broken away at the
base like that.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, yeah, I saw that email in the photos and
your description. There's a plumbing problem. Something has just shut
off the flow of water nutrients to that branch. Now,
I can't tell you what it is. I mean, it
could be little tiny holes of a bore in there.
It could be a stem canker somewhere along the branch
or something else. I would take your thumbnail and kind

(32:22):
of scratch the bark back on that branch. It's early
enough to where it may not be fully browning yet,
but it will be, and probably that whole branch is
going to need to come out down at the ground level.
Oh just cut that branch out of the tree. Now.
Any other pruning you're doing, you're going to want to
sterilize those punters just in case. So get you some

(32:43):
ly salt and after you proNT it, clean them up
and spram with lisoalt to get make sure you kill
anything on it. That way, if you were to cut
on another branch, you wouldn't If that the canker is
the problem, you wouldn't be spreading it. But that that's
what I would do, all.

Speaker 7 (32:57):
Right, okay, and I where I cut it? Is there
anything that it would be useful to put you know,
where I make the cut, any kind of I don't know,
killing agent or something.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Need to do any of that.

Speaker 7 (33:13):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Now, figs are vigorous, you should get some more unless
you just have a root rot in the ground, and
then that's a whole different monster. We don't have a
good way to control root rots on figs to be just.

Speaker 8 (33:24):
To be blunt about it, that's only the one branch.

Speaker 7 (33:28):
So I'll remain hopeful.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Okay, Yeah, something that's as far as it goes, Yes, sir,
thank you, Dennis, appreciate your call this morning. Uh Nelson
plant Food. They have a number of products, you know,
the church Star line for the lawn, the bags of fertilizer,
and then they have the nutri Star which is specific
to different kinds of plants. The one I want to
talk about is nutristar citrus fruit and avocado food. So basically,

(33:53):
if it grows something you eat, the fruit you eat,
this is for it. I don't care if it's a
percimin or a fig or a plumber, a pair or
you know, grape vines or avocados or lemons and limes
and oranges, and it's a fruit and this is for that.
Especially formulate. It's got a balance ratio of nutrients, promotes
vigorous growth, good root development, and therefore you're going to

(34:15):
get better production. This formulation also includes micro nutrients that
help prevent some of the common deficiencies that we can
see on some of our fruit plants. Nelson plant Food,
nutri Star citrus fruit and avocado food comes a little jar.
You're going to find it at garden centers, sometimes these
hardware stores. Sometimes these stores they set on a lot

(34:36):
of different places, but it's one worth having. If you
have some fruit trees. Good list a little bit here,
I'm gonna go. We can head out to Clear Lake
and talk to joy this morning. We got an orchid
event coming up down there south in excuse me, the
Galveston Bay area. Hey, Joey, are you there?

Speaker 6 (35:00):
Yes, this is Joyce all right?

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Can you give us the details on this? Yes? I can.
Can you give us the details on this orket event.

Speaker 9 (35:09):
Yes, today's the last day and it's our it's otis
anniversary of the Galveston Bay Orchie Society Orchid Show.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Okay and okay.

Speaker 9 (35:22):
Today from ten am to four pm. It's free admission,
free parking, and we have raffle and silent auction and
with that vendor selling very unusual orchids, not the usual
one lets you see at the big box stores and
all that. So let me give you the address. It's

(35:45):
at the Webster Civic Center, three to one, one Pennsylvania Avenue, Webster.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Okay, all right, Webster Civic Center. Just folks, just get
your maps out, maps out up and find the uh
and the Orchid Show. Give the hours again one more
time today.

Speaker 9 (36:05):
Ten am to four pm.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Ten to four And were there recent people on hand
that you can ask questions about orchids and maybe learn.

Speaker 10 (36:13):
A lot more.

Speaker 9 (36:14):
Yes, yes, all right, all right, Well we have for
them and everything, all the information they need. Yes, looks
like it.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Might be a good place to grab a quick Mother's
Day gift.

Speaker 9 (36:29):
Well, that's exactly right, and that's what a lot of
people have been doing it.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
All right, Well, Joy, thank you, thanks for the call
in that report. I appreciate that. All right, Orchid Show,
Webster Civic Center. I think I said that right this morning.
All right, folks, that'd be a fun thing to get
out and do. Well, let's see here, we got it.
We don't have much time, so it looks like I'm
gonna have to hold the next call until we come
back for the next hour. I want to let's see

(37:01):
this when we come back, I want to visit with
you a little bit about success with the lawns and
some of the steps and stages and things to watch
for that we're looking at right now. In the meantime,
you got a minute, go to my website, gardening with
Skip dot com and look at the lawn schedules. There's

(37:21):
one for lawn care, which is basically mowwater, fertilized and
micronutrients and aeration, all the things you do to make
that lawn healthy and pretty and vigorous and dense. Okay.
The other schedule is basically everything that goes wrong in
the lawn from the standpoint of pests and diseases, weeds

(37:42):
that you may want to prevent, or weeds that you
want to kill that are actually growing currently and those
two schedules are free to download. They tell you products
to use for various things that are out there. They
include organic and synthetic options for those of you who
want to go one way or the other on that.
But they're free. And check out that website. I think

(38:04):
you'll find some interesting information. We keep adding to it.
We just put some things up recently that I'll talk
about a little bit later in the show today. But
when we come back, I want to talk about some
secrets on lawns like that if I can get through
the phone calls when we get back. I hope you're
having a good Sunday morning, and I do hope that

(38:26):
this afternoon you get a little bit of time and
or break get by one of her garden centers. They
are just burgeoning with beautiful plants right now. It looks
so good and there's so much inspiration. That's one of
the things that I like to do is go to
garden centers and get inspiration. See new plants, see new
ways of combining plants. I like to drive around town too,

(38:49):
for the same reason. You know, very if possible, when
I go somewhere, I don't use the major thoroughfare. You
know if I'm going through a town, I'll zigzag through
streets just because you never know what you're going to say.
And that includes a good, the bad, and the ugly.
And I've got pictures to show to prove it. But
you always you get some inspiration when you see what
other people have done. Maybe it's just the shape of

(39:10):
a bed, maybe it is a particular plant, maybe it's
a combination of plants. What is appealing esthetically to you,
And so keep an eye out when you drive around,
go see botanical gardens, and like I said, go see
garden centers, and it's been inspiration. Excuse me for you
to have success with what you do. Take a little

(39:31):
break here, we'll be back and with your calls. All right,
welcome back to the garden Line. Hey, thanks for joining
us this morning. We got a lot of things to
talk about this morning. I was mentioning before we went
to break that I don't want to make a couple of
comments about lawns. And right now we are transitioning into

(39:56):
the warm season. It's it's kind of it doesn't feel
like right now, but it's cool. I appreciate the cool.
Don't complain because that's going to change. But in the
warm season, our grass is everything's happening fast down in
the soil. Microbes are going crazy. There's organic matter and
they're decomposing it, and all kinds of things are transitioning
in the soil and making the grass really happy. And

(40:19):
all you got to do is add water, as they
put it, when we don't have water, good soaking on
a periodic basis is important. People miss water, miss water.
They overwater, and they miss water lawns. That happens a lot.
And what I mean by miswatering, well, when you're going
to spend money on drinking water and you're going to
squirt it out there on the lawn, you want to

(40:41):
get every straw, every bit you can out of every drop.
And so if you squirre Let's say you take an
inch of water, which is about what a lawn needs
during a week in the absence of rainfall, and you
put an inch on at one time by watering a
while letting it sit for forty five minutes, watering a
while letting it sit forty minute. You know, like that

(41:01):
cycling soak is what they call it. That one inch
basically almost all gets in the soil. You know, some
evaporates off the foliage of the grass at the end
when you quit watering. But on the other hand, if
you took that inch and divide it into four quarter
inch irrigations, you would barely with the soil at all.
I mean hardly at all to be on the grass blades,

(41:23):
to be in the thatch, and it just wouldn't with
the soil well at all, And each of those then
would evaporate all away, so you get very little water
in the soil when you do a little squirt on
a frequent basis. It's better to give it a good
soaking and then to let it dry out in between waterings.
When I say dry out, I don't mean go into
stress and die and all that. I just mean to

(41:45):
really get to the point where that grass needs a
drink of water, okay. And by doing that, that soil
volume that was full of water from that one inch
soaking then begins to bring air back in as as
the grass uses the water and pulls it out of
the soil, and those spaces that had water in them
now are filled with air, which means oxygen down into

(42:06):
the root system. When you constantly keep it soggy wet
at the top. You're not going to get oxygen down
in the root system, you're not going to get the
healthy grass. You are going to increase disease, and you're
wasting your money on water. What else can I say that?
That's the bottom line water wisely, and it's not that
hard to do. I'm sure I'll be talking about it
as we go through the summer, but water wisely, let's

(42:31):
head out to Jim in a tascasita. Hey, Jim, welcome
back to Gardenline.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
Well, thank you very much, sir. And the question is
is it asthma nite. The comparison to ozma cot is
that basically the same group no.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
No. Ozma coat is a sulfur coated product that looks
like a little bbes and it has depending on what
kind of ozma, know what you buy, it can have
different nutrient groups in it, but it's primarily the macro
nutrients primarily that that you're putting out with the osma
cote and then it gradually releases those into the soil

(43:11):
over time. The warmer it is, the faster it releases.
So it may say it's going to last four months
on the label, but not in summer. Here in Texas
not in our area. So that's that. Azemite is a
trace mineral supplement. It's not codd it's not made to
be slow released, and it doesn't need to be because
it goes down in the soil and is there in

(43:32):
the bank account for the grass to get it when
it wants it.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Thank you very much, sir.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
All right, good luck with that, Thank you, sir. You know,
maybe I ought to maybe I ought to talk about
fertilizer a little bit in some of the forms and
and why we do what we do. That that'd be
another good topic for today. Grows Outlet and Willis Is
it's it's a unique garden center. Okay. First of all,

(44:04):
you can go to the website Growers Outlet in Willis
dot com. Growers Outlet in Willis dot com. It's on
Highway seventy five, just south of Willis. You go to
the website and they put their availability up there so
you can see what they have in stock. And they
also put their pricing up there, which is really rare

(44:25):
for anybody to do. I mean, they takes a lot
of work to keep up with all of that, but
they do. It's a place where you can go and
find every kind of plant you can imagine, and if
you want to follow them on social media, they're always
doing little tours through the garden, I mean the nursery,
showing you what they got growing in the greenhouses and
other things. Every kind of plant you can want, fertilizers

(44:47):
from Microlife, Nitropos Medina for example, products to control pests
and disease and weeds and whatnot. I would just like
to have you take a look at their macho fern
hanging baskets. They have a lot of different kinds of
hanging baskets, beautiful flowering hanging baskets, but the macho fern
is just the big fern, I mean, and it can

(45:07):
get big and boy, you can buy smaller ones from them,
but when one of their macho firms ferns gets big,
I mean it's it's like five feet across or something's huge.
Beautiful baskets and they have them there. They've got a
good gift shop too, with lots of home and garden
related items, so you ought to check them out. Growers
Outlet in Willis dot com. Pretty much any kind of

(45:29):
plant you're going to want to grow, great availability. As
we go through the seasons, and you can go online
to that website, Growers Outlet in Willis dot com and
learn a whole lot more about them. Let's see, We're
going to run out now to Lakeside Estates and visit
with the Maureene this morning. Hello Maureene, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (45:51):
Thank you very much. I think I have a simple question,
and it's really an identity problem. I have runners traveling
in an area which got intense heat last year, and
plus my lawn person really cropped it. So I'm dealing

(46:11):
with the question that these runners are filling in an
area I had called in and asked you and he said, no,
don't put any sad long time of the year, and
so these runners are sort of filling in. But I
have normal hYP grass and then I have these runners

(46:32):
which flat, so my lawn person is not able to
laun you know, to cut properly. So what should I
be doing pulling those runners out and putting in a
piece of sod that looks like grass.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Well, Maureen, for me to really help you, I need
to see them. I need to see what we're talking about.
When if you will take some pictures, I'll put you
on hold and Alhandro. Give you an email and say
me those pictures, and then after you send them, come
back this morning and let's talk about it where I
actually can see for sure what we're talking about, because
I don't want to lead you in the wrong path.

Speaker 11 (47:08):
That sound good, Okay, I'll take a picture.

Speaker 12 (47:10):
Yep, sounds good.

Speaker 11 (47:11):
I'll hang on.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Thank you appreciate that very much. Uh. ACE Hardware stores
are all over the greater Houston area. And when I
say all over, i'm talking about you know, you go
to you go over to Orange, you go down to Rockport, Texas.
I mean they are all over the greater Houston area.
There is the the Jnr's ACE up in Porter Lake

(47:33):
Conrace Hardware on Highway one oh five. Down in Siga
Ranch on Mason Road. I got an ACE Hardware store
down there, as well as one in north On North
Austin and Brenham, Texas. ACE is the place you're looking
for fertilizer. You're looking for some product to control weeds,
pester or diseases. Maybe you looked at my schedule and
you go, hey, I need this product. Go to your

(47:54):
local ACE Hardware store and ask them about it. They
probably have it. You can go to Acehardware dot com,
ACE Hardware dot excuse me scratch that. We want our
local ACE Hardware stores here, Ace Hardwaretexas dot com. Acehardware
Texas dot com, and you can find the Acehardware stores
throughout this region where you can find everything you need

(48:17):
for the lawn, for the garden, for beautifying indoors and outdoors.
Ace Hardware. If you're planning on doing some outdoor development
of the patio with barbiecue bits and stuff like that,
Oh my gosh, go to Ashardware Texas dot com find
out more. I'm going to take a little quick break here.
We'll be right back with your calls in just a moment.
Welcome back to the garden Line. Thanks for joining us

(48:40):
this morning. Appreciate you listening in. I hope you're having
a good Sunday morning so far. You know, it rained
and it rained and it rained this past week, and
a lot of areas got a lot of rain, and
everywhere you get a little bit of water, standing mosquitoes
are going to breed and we are on the verge
of a big outbreak here coming up. That's just what

(49:00):
happens in our area because we do get a lot
of rain. Mosquito dunks are made to fix that. They
are not a poison in the sense of some chemical
to kill mosquitos. They are a disease of mosquitos. And
now I have a bird drinks out of it, your
family cat, if ladybug goes up to it, or anything,
it doesn't affect them. It affects mosquitos. And mosquito dunks

(49:23):
are small beige donuts. They float in water. One dunk
covers one hundred square feet about thirty days of protection
there and it really works well. And what some people
will do is they'll take one and kind of hit
it with a little hammer and break it up into
little crumbles and throw those around in small spaces. Maybe
you got a little a bird bath or the plant
reservoirs underneath plants that whole water. Boy, mosquitoes love to

(49:46):
breathe those. But whatever you do, get dunks them in
the house, be ready to go. And because mosquito season,
we're in for months of it here. And if you've
got stagnant water, you will have mosquitos, and mosquito dunks
will make sure you do not have mosquitoes growing in
that water. Easy to find them sold in bead stores,
ace hardware stores, garden centers. You go down Southwest Fertilizer

(50:11):
and find them. They're easy to find. We're going to
head out to Brownsville now and talk to John. Hello, John,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
Good morning Skip.

Speaker 13 (50:21):
I have a question about using art Do you have
an opinion on using artificial intelligence to I don't know,
diagnose something that you see, or identify or you know,
anything to do with plan.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Yeah, that's a good question. So there are lots of
forms of artificial intelligence if you're looking for the diagnostics.
I see these ads where they show a picture of
a leaf that's brown, and it's like they took a
picture of it and this app told them what was wrong.
And I've looked at what it says is wrong, and

(51:01):
there's no way they can know that. It's just what
they took a picture of. Could be several things, and
so people think it's handy, and if they don't understand plants,
they're going to think, oh, well, this is the truth.
And it isn't all the time. And I can't speak
to every app and every form of AI, but in general,
be very skeptical of that sort of thing. Now, there

(51:24):
are forms of AI, such as like a facial recognition
kind of thing where it can look at well. Google
has something called Google Lens and I use it a lot.
But if you can isolate the plant you want identified
maybe by a bloom or by leaves, unless it's just

(51:44):
a really common looking leave, it does a pretty good job.
It does real good on insects too, but it just
looks at the form and it searches all through you know,
Google Seed and heard everything over the years. It searches
through everything and it says, this is what I think
it is, and it often gives you several options, and
even if it doesn't find the exact insect, at least
you go, oh, this is the family of insects, and

(52:06):
you can kind of look into it a little more yourself.
But I use that there are plant apps too early on.
I tried a bunch of them, and they seem to
be more for other areas than for our area here.
But that is not fair for me to make that
as a permanent, ongoing statement. I'm sure they've gotten better,

(52:27):
but because I use Google NS, I just don't I
don't worry about all the other apps. But I'm sure
there's some good ones out there. Okay, well, I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah,
I talked about one the other day the other day.
For birds, you out in the morning and you're sitting
there listening to all these birds, you can open the

(52:48):
the what's it called Merlin app It's free from Cornell University,
and it'll listen to the songs and you'll just start
to see birds appear on your screen the name I
heard this bird, I heard that bird. That's pretty cool
stuff too. So there's a lot of good coming with AI,
as well as some real concerning things. But it's getting better. Okay, Well,

(53:13):
thank you very much, all right, sir, you bet yeah,
take care. Appreciate your call. Place well, Seasons is the
place where people go for advice and for quality plants
and products too. It amounts to that. I like the
fact that when you shop the garden center, as you

(53:36):
go to a checkout, you have to go into where
the fertilizers and the soils and things like that are
because brown's up before green stuff. Right, don't go home
with a plant without going home with this stuff to
make that soil, that foundation for your plant a success.
And that's how it is there. Now you're going to
find products to solve problems. They've probably heard every kind
of problem in the world. Been around since nineteen seventy three.

(53:58):
They're located on Tamboil Parkway Highway two forty nine, just
north of Luetta, and it's easy to find them, easy
to get to and when you walk in there, you
can take them a picture. You can take them a
little sampled in a bag. They'll look at it, identify it,
and then tell you what to do for it. They're
true lawn and garden experts. You can go to the
website Plants for All Seasons dot com or give them

(54:19):
a call to eight one three seven six one six
four six to eight one three, seven, six, one six
four six. Let me make here. I wanted to We
had a question a while ago about about some fertilizer specifics,
and I want to I want to make some comments

(54:39):
about that plants need nutrients, and there's you know, it
depends on the count that you you read, but there's
around twenty different nutrients that plants need, and some some
things are only used at certain times in a plant's
life or at certain stages and things. But in general,
just say I run twent nutrients that a plant is

(55:01):
going to need. Those nutrients come in many forms, many
of them in multiple forms, and there's forms plants can
get and there's forms plants can't get. You could have
a let's say, an azalea or gardena that's showing iron efficiency,
just clear as a bell with yellow new growth at
the ends of branches, and you send a sauce sample

(55:23):
in and they say, there's lots of iron in the soil. Now,
how can that be. It's because a higher pH and
or hyphosphorus has made that iron a form that's unavailable
to the plant. Nitrogen goes through forms. There's nitrode, there's ammonia,
and bacteria and other processes in the soil are constantly

(55:46):
changing the form of nitrogen. The nitrogen the air you're
breathing is about seventy eight percent I think nitrogen something
like that. Well, you set a houseplant on the table
in this seventy eight percent nitrogen air, and it's not
going to turn green because it can't get the endto molecule.
The nitrogen that we breathe in every day way more

(56:07):
than what we breathe in of oxygen. But bacteria can
transform things. There's bacteria in the soil that can take
air nitrogen and can turn it into a form plants
can use, and it's constantly evolving in the soil in
that way. So when we look at fertilizers, we just
need to realize that in that fertilizer are nutrients in

(56:29):
hopefully in a form that plants can use or that
microbes can use to break that down. So if you
have a synthetic fertilizer, typically a salt based fertilizer, it
gets wet, it dissolves, and those nutrients go out there
for the plants to be able to take up. An
organic type fertilizer, it is in an organic form, but

(56:50):
in that form something like nitrogen gets released as microbes
work on it into the soil and a form plants
can use. That's how nature runs. I mean, long before
there were fertilizers around, Nature is doing fine just taking
care of its plants and the soil, you know, by
the beautiful natural system that was designed to take care

(57:12):
of plants as organic matter decomposes. But when a plant
takes something up, it's going to take it up in
whatever form of that nutrient that the plant can take up,
whether it's potassium, or nitrogen or magnesium, you know what
I'm saying, So are phosphorus, and so those forms are

(57:32):
out there and they're available and there they typically in
many cases are kind of cycling and changing around. Now
a lot of the micronutrients, if they're in the right
form that plants can take up. I said that about
iron a while ago. Uh, those need to be in
the sole bank account, as do other nutrients. And just
be aware of the fact that you get a gully
washer rain and you're going to lose some nitrogen because

(57:54):
it's going to wash away. Nitrogen on the surface is
going to volatilize and go off as a gas. That's
something that can happen too, and there's ways we lose
nutrients like that. But our goal is to build that
sole bank account. And then there are things called slow
release fertilizers, and these are done in a number of forms.
There's different chemistries if you will, that can release slowly.

(58:18):
I mentioned a sulfur coated products that are little prills
as type of fertilizer that slowly It's like little pits
and holes in the coating around that that the nutrients
inside can get wet from moisture and then they can
leak out and make it available to plants. There's other
forms that microbes have to break down. There's other forms

(58:40):
that are totally well. They don't respond to getting wet
and water. There's a different way that those typically nitrogen
can release, and that's where we get some of the
really slow releasing nitrogens. And when you see these products
that are going to feed for months, that's probably what's
going on in those. You don't have to worry about
all of that, but just be aware that the soil

(59:01):
is a bank account and these nutrients are in different forms.
A soil test is always helpful. I recommend fertilizers all
the time here on guarden Line that are your general guide.
Probably going to work on ninety five percent of people's
yards is exactly what they need, right, But there's always exceptions.
If for whatever reason in the past, your yard was misfertilized,

(59:23):
or the type of soil you have just didn't have
that nutrient and adequate numbers, you may need a little
different combo for your yard, but a soil test would
tell you that, and that's why I recommend getting your
sol tested. You can go to my website Gardening with
skip dot com. Gardening with skip dot com. There is
a SOL testing publication on there, tells you how to
do it, tells you how to get to the form,
tells you how to send it in, and that is

(59:46):
your foundation. You have to do that every year, just
maybe over five years. Just check on it and make
sure you're in the right ballpark so that you fertilize
intelligently rather than going with the probably in most cases
good advice, but not the best answer for your specific yard,
because your yard may be different than your neighbors because

(01:00:07):
of past fertilization. All right, well, that's a lot of
information right there. We're gonna take a little break here.
I speaking of those, I wanted to mention Ciena Maltz.
That is the place you go for the quality brown
stuff that sets the foundation for success. You can go
to their website Sienna Maltz dot com. They're down near
Highway six and two eighty eight south of Houston. Just

(01:00:29):
go to Sienna Maltz dot com. You can find out
how to get there. Whether it's compost or bedmixes or
multches or fertilizers. Everything you need for the foundation for
success is at Sienna Maltz. Go check it out cienamultch
dot com. All right, now, welcome back to the Guardline.
Good to have you. We've got a lot of things

(01:00:50):
to talk about today, including what you want to talk about.
Give me a call seven one three two one two
ktr H seven one three two one two KTRH. Will
is it about whatever kind of horticultural topics that you
might have? I was talking about nutrients going into that
break there. Microlife is the number one selling organic fertilizer

(01:01:11):
in the Greater Houston area. This is a six two
four bag, the green bag that I'm referring to. It's
a standard, you know, elephant in the room with Microlife
fertilizers used on lawns by people for many, many years now.
Microlife's been around for over thirty five years. And when
you look at a product like the sixty four the
green bag, you're getting a three one to two ratio

(01:01:32):
of nutrients, which isn't the ratio that grass takes up
nutrients in, so it makes sense for the lawn. They
also have products for acid loving plants. They have products
for if you're growing fruit trees and things. They make
special products for various kinds of plants. And they have
both the granular that we put out with the spreader

(01:01:53):
around the yard, and then they've got the containers that
are granulars that are smaller. They're not the big bags,
but they're smaller containers. And then they have liquid products.
And the liquid products include a lot of different things.
You know, in granules, you can get the humates plus
concentrated compost in a bag to put out with your
lawn fertilizer just not a don't think of it as

(01:02:15):
a fertilizer. Think of it as a product to help
improve the soil and nutrient availability. But with the liquids,
you can get products that are just specifically certain microorganisms
that are beneficial to plants, that help fight disease and things.
They built their product line around using nature principles in

(01:02:39):
order to help make plants healthy and more successful. Whether
you're trying to grow fruit or vegetables, or flowers or
a lawn or trees or shrubs. Microlife's got products for everything,
and they work. Microlafertilizer dot Com that's the website. Check
them out. You're going to find them everywhere. It's hard
to walk into a place that doesn't have microlafe fertilizer
these days, and that is a good thing. We're going

(01:03:00):
to go now out to Lakeside of States and talk
to Marine. Hello, Marine, got your photos.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Okay.

Speaker 11 (01:03:09):
I tried to take it face down, and then I
realized I had to take it sort of squatting down
so you could see the difference that it's making in
the lawn appearance.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
So yeah, I can see it. So here, here's here's
the here's the first thing I see every other than
a little bit of weed here in weeds here and there. Uh,
that is all your Saint Augustine lawn. The upright grass
is the established hasn't been damaged or hurt grass coming up.
Those runners that are flat and going out across that's

(01:03:43):
Saint Augustine trying to fill back in. Something killed the
grass in that area and now it's trying to regrow
runners into that area. I see iron deficiency, which is
probably due to a disease called take All Root Rot.
If you go to my schedule on my website, it's
gardening with skip dot com. Look at the disease schedule

(01:04:05):
for lawns and you'll see take All Root Rot. Mentioned.
October is the big month for controlling it. But something
I think would be helpful for you to do right
now is if you can get some peat moss, the
compact peat moss and spread it out over those areas
about a third of an inch thick, just a little bit,
but spread it out and then water it in really well.

(01:04:29):
And then your next step is to get a product
from Fertiloan that is liquid iron and other micronutrients from Furloan.
It's a gray bottle by fur Loan, liquid iron and
other micronutrients. Follow the label and Follier spray that grass
with that in those areas because it's struggling. What's happening
is the roots are dying back down the runner and

(01:04:52):
the grass is trying to stretch out grow as fast
as it can to get new roots in the ground,
but the disease is also catching up those And by
using the fertilough, you're going to sort of bypass the
fact that it doesn't have the roots that take up
a lot of these nutrients. You're going to kind of
fold your feed your grass in a sense with those nutrients.

(01:05:12):
So I would do those two things, and then in
October look at my schedule and it tells you what
to use. You want a product. The first thing it's
listed is called a zoxystrobin. It's on the schedule. We
don't have to write it all down now, it's there,
just a prontout and you want to treat it in
October and again in November to try to get ahead
of this. Anything you do to prevent stress gives that

(01:05:37):
grass the best chance of surviving.

Speaker 11 (01:05:42):
Okay, I've been busy writing it down. It sounds like.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:05:49):
Now I listen to you every moment that I can
when you're on the air, so I don't catch you
today exactly, so I'll listen again and thank you so
much for your health.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Okay, well you bet, you bet, and take some take
some pictures of this process. I'd like to see how
it goes for you. So if you don't mind that,
maybe in the future, this is gonna this is gonna
take a while, and you may even see before I
got the patients.

Speaker 12 (01:06:16):
But if I yeah, no, I'll handle that.

Speaker 11 (01:06:19):
Because I trust you. Gardening is a wonderful process, but
it's slow.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
Yeah, I'm good, I'm good.

Speaker 12 (01:06:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Thanks Marie, appreciate that. Thanks very much. Nelson Water Garden
and uh Nursery out there in Katie four Ben area.
Uh not Katie for Ben and Katie. I don't know.
Sometimes those two go together out of my mouth. Nelson's
is a destination garden center. It really is.

Speaker 5 (01:06:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
When you go out there, you're going to see, of course,
water gardens and all the things. Some things they invented,
like the disappearing fountain out there. If you want a
water garden, they can come put one in for you.
Are they can tell you how to do it yourself.
Even those some of the little disappearing fountains are just
grabbing go. Makes it real easy to have the sound
of water, which is so important out there in the

(01:07:11):
garden center. They are open today from eleven to four
with twenty five percent off of a number of things
including roses and fruit and citrus trees and some of
the decorations you like the cast stone animals and fountains
and stepping stones and those self contained glazed fountains that
I'm talking about. Twenty five percent I was a really
good deal. All you gotta do is head out to

(01:07:32):
Katie Go north on Katie Fort Ben Road and it's
just up the street a little bit on the right
hand side. You can't miss it. When you're there, you're
gonna find awesome plant selection. You're going to course find
the water garden selection and everything from fish and plants
to whatnot. If you got little kids, take them with
you and tell the folks at Nelson that you would
like your kids to be able to feed the koyfish.

(01:07:55):
And in the back there's a pond where you can go.
They'll show you the'll give you kids a little handful
of food and they can go feed the cooy and
it is the coolest thing. They will really kids will
really well, I really enjoy it. But then I'm still
trying to figure out what i want to be when
I grow up. So anyway, but it is a really
really cool deal and it's a fun time to go out.

(01:08:17):
Quality Home Products is who you hear me talk about
all the time. For generators. You know about the storms
we have and what it does to power when a
branch falls on our power lines and then for two
weeks you're waiting to get water on water, waiting to
get power. The nice thing about a generator that is
a Generac automatic standby generator which they carry at Quality

(01:08:39):
Home is it just comes on. Mean, it's not like
you have to oh the power is off when you
walk through the darkness and try to go outside and
put gas in it and fire it up and get
it going. Know that it does. It just comes on.
It doesn't itself for you, and so it's like you
never lose power. And some people, you know, the big
concern is, I don't want if I'm on a trip,
my refrigerator and freezer to to go out and then

(01:09:01):
all the food rots I have come home to that
that is a mess. You do not want to experience that.
Maybe though you need twenty four to seven power, you know,
your job is primarily online and you've got to have
that internet access and you got to have, you know,
the constant power. You don't want your house to get hot, hot,
hot because the air conditioner can't come on. Talk to

(01:09:23):
the folks at Quality. They can make sure you get
the generator you need. And their service is impeccable. I
mean I go on and on all the time about
all the awards that they've won. Go to QUALITYTX dot
com QUALITYTX dot com seven one three Quality. If you
want to give them a call seven to one to
three Quality, Go check them out. They know what they're doing.

(01:09:45):
They've proven it for years. I'm gonna take a break
and we'll be back. Welcome back to the guarden line.
Good to have you with us. Uh. When it comes
to success with plants, you hear me think You hear
me say things all the time like Brownston up before
green stuff, which basically just means, don't PLoP a poor
plant into an unprepared plot. Peter Piper picked a peck

(01:10:08):
of pickle peppers. Prepare the soil, give it a foundation,
let those roots hit the ground running, and you have success.
That's an example of the kinds of things that I say,
because that is what works. It is easy to get
excited about flowers and vegetables and fruit trees and you
bring them home and you're dreaming about the production that
they're going to have. It is sometimes for some people

(01:10:31):
hard to get excited about soil. You know, it's a
big pile of dirt to them, and so like, well,
I want flowers, I don't mess with all that. Well,
if you want flowers, you better give them a foundation
for success. If you want fruit, if you want vegetables,
it's all about the soil. And I say all about
and you're probably thinking, well, it's about water, and it's

(01:10:52):
about fertilizer, and it's about sunlight. Yes, yes, yes, I
get that, but everybody understands that. But the soil is
the foundation. That's where it all comes from. I mean,
if you're going to build a house and you're going
to go out there to a field and start laying
two by fours on the ground and nailing them together,
that is not going to be a house that lasts
or does very well. Right, You've got to have a

(01:11:13):
good foundation for success. Soil is the foundation is It
is what you build from. It is not something you
plant and your plants struggling and then we try to
fix it without digging up the plant. It's so much
easier to get it right before you plant. I've talked
to several people that are redoing their lawns this summer
and they're taking time, number one, to get rid of

(01:11:36):
the weeds that are there, because it's way easier to
get rid of weeds before you plant the lawn then
once you got long grass in there, because then sometimes
you can hurt the grass trying to control the weeds.
They are filling in low areas, you know, getting you
a good lawn fill mix. It could be kind of
a topsoil mix. It could be kind of a sand
with a little bit of compost sprinkled into it. There's

(01:11:59):
a lot of blends that, but getting those areas filled
in and level because the more level it is, number one,
the prettier it is. But your lawnmower isn't you know,
bumping and bouncing and gouging and you know, as it
goes up and down or drops in a hole and whatnot,
getting all that leveled out is important and then bring
your side in and do a good job of that.

(01:12:19):
We had some great sad producers. We're fortunate we live
here on the Gulf Coast and so we've got we've got,
you know, the sod factories right down around us here
and lots of good varieties, good availability, and some of
the new varieties are really exciting. I'm trying out some
new things myself. I'm about to put in another yard

(01:12:43):
for my daughter and we're going to be trying some
things out in there and just learning and experimenting with them.
But sod is it's not difficult to grow if you
give it what it wants. Just like any plant, SOD
wants mainly sunlight. That's the number one thing we see
go wrong. Lack a soil prop is also a factor.

(01:13:04):
And heavy clays that are compacted from the piti pattern
of not so little feet. That is another thing that
can create problems for and once a grass plant gets stressed,
then it's more likely to get sick. It's like us.
You know, if you're healthy, you eat right, you exercise,
you get the idea that whole nine yards and you

(01:13:26):
go out, you gather with a bunch of people, maybe
someone's coffin in the room. I don't know. Your body
has a little bit more resilience to it. I mean
you won't get sick. It just means it's less likely,
depending on what sick means. But if you don't take
care of yourself, you're not sleeping, you're not eating right,
you're not exercising. Your body is not a resilient, strong organism,

(01:13:50):
then you're more likely to get sick. Same thing with plants.
Take all root rot in lawns, for example, that is
primarily a secondary invader of stressed grass. That's the main thing.
It's not like takeoll just flew through the neighborhood and
landed in your yard and now it's tackling your grass.
It's a ubiquitous problem. But when the grass gets stressed,

(01:14:12):
suddenly you see take all root rot move in and
start to attack it. And it's because that disease has
an opportunity. When that grass gets weakened from shade, from compaction,
from you know, wear and tear, from a use of
certain chemicals that weaken the grass, I can also open
the door for take all to have a chance. There's

(01:14:34):
a disease of oaks called hypoxylan canker that kills the tree.
I mean it kills the tree at least major limbs,
if not the whole tree. That disease is everywhere. I
talked to a plant pathologist one time who told me,
you go out in the forest and you sample an
oak tree, and you can find the hypoxylin organism out there.
It's in nature. It's out there. But when that tree

(01:14:55):
gets stressed, then hypoxyla moves in and kills a tree.
Well what caused the death of that tree? Well, you
could say hypoxylon, or you could say stress that led
to it. And once the disease gets in, it's too
late for the tree. I saw a tree one time
an oak tree. It was perfectly healthy oak tree, post

(01:15:15):
oak in this case. And they put a pin around
it and filled it full of goats. I guess they
wanted the goats to have shade. And they stomped and
trumped and put their little feet up on the trunks
and stuff. And that tree turned a toast and it
was a poxlin canker and it why did that happen? Well,
stress and the disease got its chance. Now I've been

(01:15:37):
spending some time talking about this, but it's an important concept.
Keeping getting the soil right, keeping our plants healthy, choosing
things that aren't likely to get sick. Those are all
secrets to success with that. For your lawns, if you
haven't done your summer fertilizing, it's time to grab you
some night topass Superturf nineteen four to ten, nineteen four ten.

(01:15:58):
It's going to feed your lawn for sixty weeks during
the summer. It's easy to find superturf because it's a
silver bag. And so whether you go to a hardware
stores or south Its fertilizer, or you go to a
garden center, you go to one of our feed stores
here on Guardline, Superturf's easy to find. You're going to
find it at places like my Swell Seasons right there
on Highway to forty nine. You're going to find it

(01:16:18):
at D and D Feed up there in Tumble. Go
down to Laport Fisher's Hardware on Broadway Street. You'll find
nitrofass products there as well. As The main thing is
get it done and then return your clippings and recycle
those nutrients that you are putting down, and you're going
to see success probably in fact, if you do the
clipping return, you may not if you fertilize at this point,

(01:16:41):
you may not need to fertilize again before the fall application.
If you use something like superturf and return your clippings
at RCW Nurseries the other day, and you know RCW,
it's just a great nursery. It's been around since nineteen
seventy nine. That is a long time. Was that forty
six years? If I did the math right, that's a

(01:17:03):
long time. The Williamson family opened it. They still run it,
and they also have Williamson Tree Farm, that family up
there in Plantersville and they sell those trees, among other
places at RCW nurseries. So you get quality trees that
need to grow here, that want to grow here, that
are the type you want a plant. They'll plant them
for you. You can get a smaller one planet yourself. The

(01:17:24):
selection is outstanding on trees and on shrubs, and then
you can just keep going. You know, they are well
known by rosarians for their roses. Every time I pull
up and the summertime, first thing I see is Boogain
v is just look fantastic. They are awesome. They have
beautiful vines, annuals and perennials. Everything you need to know.

(01:17:46):
Just go by there. They're at the corner of Beltway
eight and Highway two forty nine. It's easy to get to,
very easy access, and you're going to find people that
know what they're talking about. They can guide you and
help you and a good selection at RCW Nurseries RCW
nursery dot com, corner of Tombo Parkway and belt Way eight. Uh,

(01:18:09):
I've got a little I got a break coming up
right here. I can't go into too much at this point.
If you'd like to give us a call and maybe
be first stop, or if you call sooner enough when
we come back from break seven to one three two
one two kt r H seven one three two one
two kt rh. That makes it easy to get in

(01:18:31):
and we'll visit with you about the things you're interested in.
If your question might involve a diagnosis, or I might
need a photo, like, well, there's a bug on my
plant and I don't know how to describe it. Well,
there's a lot of bugs on plants. Send me a
picture first. Uh my grass is dying. What does it
look like, Well, it looks like dying grass. Okay, send

(01:18:51):
me a picture first. It helped me in order to
help you. You give me a picture and I can
do it now. It's got to be into good our focus,
and especially with things we're trying to identify that are smaller,
Get up as close as you can and take the
picture from as close as you can. It's not the
only picture, but one of them really close up so
I can see it and identify it. Make sure it's

(01:19:14):
in sharp focus. If you send me a fuzzy picture,
you're going to get a fuzzy answer. And you don't
want fuzzy answers. We want to get it accurate, we
get it right. I want to waste your time and
money on products and treating and doing whatever you're going
to do. If we're not on the right track, so
help me help you with a good sharp focused photo.
All right, just call out one Hundro, my producer. He

(01:19:36):
can get you an email if you want to send
a photo, and I do ask if you send emails,
you need to follow up with a phone call. And
I'm not able to type out just too many emails
to type out the answers and things to everything, and
some things are more involved. It would take a long
time to write it out. So follow up with a call,
simple as that. Okay, here's the number again, seven to

(01:19:58):
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two k t r H. It'll
be back. Welcome back to the guard Line on a
beautiful Sunday morning. I hope you are enjoying today. Glad

(01:20:22):
to have you listening with us today. Thank you for
listening in You got any questions you'd like to ask?
Seven one three two one two k t r H.
Seven one three two one two k t r H.
I was visiting with Cliff Carson from Year Round Houston
dot Com the other day, Year Around Houston dot Com
that's a company, that's the website. Uh. These guys are
specialists when it comes to core aeration and compost top dressing.

(01:20:45):
We're actually standing in a yard where we're I was
doing some filming and stuff. As they did the aerration
and the cost compost top dressing and whatnot. I talked
to the person who actually owned the place, uh two
or three weeks to maybe three weeks later, and they
were just talking about how the yard was coming in
so nice. It was filling in. They had had some

(01:21:06):
kind of die back in some areas there's gaps and
you know where sunlight hits the soil, nature plants of weed,
and so you got to get that lone dense and
compost top dressing following corperation is a very important way
to do that. They come out, they take care of
the job. If you're inside the Beltway, that's the primary
area I talk about for year round Houston dot com.

(01:21:26):
Inside the Beltway. Go to the website year round Houston
dot com or give Cluff a call eight three to
two eight eight four fifty three thirty five eight three
two eight eight four fifty three thirty five. They'll get
back with you and get a good quote. Get out
there and get that job done, so you'll set your
line up for success to be well on its way

(01:21:47):
to success. Let's head out to Sugarland now and we're
going to talk to Judy. Hello, Judy, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (01:21:55):
Good morning, scip. I want to fact, I want to
thank you for coming to the Sugar Creek Goar Club
last month. Everybody enjoyed you so much. I want to
book you again.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
Well, that was a that was a good group. I
mean you guys got quite a group there.

Speaker 12 (01:22:12):
Yes, they were around seventy seventy five people there. I think.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
I felt I felt out numbered.

Speaker 12 (01:22:23):
Yes, I do have some.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
Your next talk, Well, how can I help this morning?

Speaker 12 (01:22:35):
Yes, I am having any problem with worms on my tomatoes.
My neighbor John has just been a John and Carol
had been wonderful neighbors to me, and they have mixed
up some inseexicidal soap that I have sprayed on numerous times.
And I appreciate that seat. But there is there something

(01:22:59):
else I shoul should be doing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
So when you see leaves being eaten, when you see fruit,
you know, with a little caterpillar hole in it or something.
The product called b t that's it's actually the ingredient
name b as in boy teas and tom It's sold
in many brands, but it is an organic control of
caterpillars only, and so it's a really good one to use.
You're not going to hurt any of the good guys

(01:23:24):
in the garden. But it only lasts a couple of days,
so you need if you spray it. Let's see spray today,
you would probably again on Wednesday or Thursday, want to
spray again. And maybe you do that two or three
times over a couple of weeks. And you ought to
be able to break that cycle and enjoy your fruit
rather than the caterpillars enjoying your fruit.

Speaker 12 (01:23:45):
Great, because they had been really getting into my tonatoes too,
and you know, shame. Also, what do I do soil
when it's time to pull the tomato plants up?

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Usually when I when I'm transitioning from one crop, if
we can use that ag word for a garden, when
one crop to another, I will put about an inch
of composts down and mix it into the soil and
then go on with the next crop. Just so you're
transitioning to maybe three times during the year in an
area whether it's flowers or gard or vegetables. H and

(01:24:25):
just just about an inch of composts mixed in and
about all you need to do.

Speaker 12 (01:24:30):
Okay, good enough, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
Hey, thank thank you for the call. I appreciate that
very much. Okay, you're listening to garden Line the phone
number seven one three two one two k t r H.
Seven one three two one two k t r H.
If you haven't been done to Moss Nursery, you need
to go. I keep telling you this. I don't care
where you live. It is worth a drive down to Moss.

(01:24:57):
This this is a unique place. Okay. We're talking about
eight acres cram full of gorgeous plants, eight acres to
wander through, and wander is the right word for it.
You're gonna go around corners and see statuaries and fountains
and pottery and oh gosh, just stuff you would never
expect to see, like a carved wooden canoe hanging from

(01:25:19):
the ceiling of one of the pottery sheds. It's just
it's a cool place. It's fun. And Jim is very
eclectic and he has all kinds of unusual things, so
you're gonna find like ask him to show you his
quirky t shirts. The eyeball plant that's one of them.
He designed it, and it's just it's just off the wall.
It's just different, you know, not the same old same.

(01:25:40):
Oh they're flowering things everywhere there at Moss Nursery. Hanging baskets. Gosh,
they have gorgeous hanging baskets, beautiful plants of all kinds.
The house plant greenhouse alone is worth the drive down.
It is full of tropicals and of succulence. You know,

(01:26:00):
maybe you want a string of fill in the blank,
they've got them. They've got them all there. A really
good selection of houseplants and then things that are more
tropical that for example, stackhorn ferns, beautiful staghorn fringing. Buy
a small one already mounted to a board. They have
some huge ones as well. It takes a long time
to get them to that stage. But it's just the

(01:26:22):
place to go and see all kinds of things that
maybe you didn't expect to see. And whether you're looking
for flowers from as lissam to zenias a to z
they've got them there. But check out the hanging baskets.
That's really listen. Moss Nursery is not just another garden center.
This seventy year old family operated place is well worth
it because they got everything you need for your landscape,

(01:26:43):
for your garden and the interior homescape. Remember we homescape
our plants with house plants as well. Moss Nursery maas
Nursery dot com two eight one four seven four twenty
four eighty eight. Two eight one four seven four twenty
four eighty eight. Someone was asking me a question the

(01:27:05):
other day about where can I get and it was
some product that you know, they'd look for and looked
for and they couldn't find it. It's like, okay, well,
if you listen to the guardline, you should know the
answer to that. The answer Southwest Fertilizer. I don't care
what the question is. The answer Southwest fertilizer. If they
don't have it, you don't need it. Really, ninety foot
walle of tools, do you think you can find the

(01:27:25):
tools you need? Their quality tools too? By the way,
on ninety foot wall of tools, if you go on
my website and see Skip's weed wiper. This a little
thing I invented. It's easy to build. Bob's got the
grabber tool. That has the section cups that you need
to build the weed wiper, he's got it there. You
grab one off the wall, he's got him there. You
hear me brag about the kneeling bench, he's got him there.

(01:27:46):
It's just everything that you would need product wise, from
fertilizers to insect control, disease control, weed control, we'd prevention.
If you need help identifying something, let them get your
eyes on it. As we say, they know what they're
looking at, they know what the products are and what
is needed for various things. They'll point you in the

(01:28:07):
right direction. You need some little bit of lawn equipment,
sales and service, or getting blade sharpened. They do all
of that in the back of a store there. Southwest
Fertilizer dot Com. Southwest Fertilizer dot Com two seven to
one three six sixty six seventeen forty four seven one
three six sixty six one seven four four. We're gonna

(01:28:29):
take a break and we'll act with your calls. All right,
we're back, we're back. Yeah, you got a gardening question,
you'd like to give me a call? Seven one three
two one two k t R eight seven one three
two one two k t R H you hear me
talk about airloom soils all the time, and it's because
airloom Soils has quality products. They do, you know, whether

(01:28:53):
it's their rosen bloomers blend. Think of it as a
rose type soil, but a soil for anything that blooms. Really,
you know, we talk about rosas, but rose is good
for a lot of things. They got the works Potting Sauce,
Outstanding Cactus and succulent kind of a gritty mix for
things that need extra good drainage like cactie succulents. They
got the Veggie Nerd Mix, Fruit and berry and citrus Mix,

(01:29:15):
Landscape bed mix. I mean, I could just go on
and on and on. They also have a product that
you can buy bulk and have them deliver it to
you and it's called a lawn mix. The lawn mix
is a very economical product that if you're redoing a lawn,
you should get a delivery of this and use it
to fill in low spots to kind of smooth out
over the soil to get ready to lay that grass down.

(01:29:37):
It is an excellent product. You can buy it as
a QB card Supersac, you can have it as a
delivery I believe they do both on those So however
you want to go about it, just if you're going
to redo a lawn, their lawn Mix Bulk QB card
is the way to go. It really is. It's outstanding now.
Of course, airloom soils is available by the bag and

(01:30:00):
all kinds of garden centers all over the place. You
can go to the website airloomsoils dot com airloomsoils dot
com find out where you can get it. Or you
can just flat go out to porter and pick it up.
You can pick it up, take your truck or trailer
out there and get some, or you call them and
have them delivered to you in a supersac or just
a dump truck drump drop right there on your driveway.
However is most convenient for you, that's how you do it.

(01:30:23):
But the main thing is just do it and you're
not gonna be disappointed with an airloom solce product. Every
time I try one and grow something in it, it's like, yeah,
that stuff or that's what we're talking about when I
say building a foundation, brown stuff before green stuff. Airlom
soils perfect for just that. I was redoing a bed

(01:30:46):
this past not this past week, couple of weeks ago,
doing some revamping of it and whatnot, because you know,
you have to continue to maintain soil over time. It
didn't mean every day you're doing something. It just means
you need to build up a bit. Whether it's a
potting soil in a pot, they tend to decompose down
and it helps just spruce them up and get some

(01:31:07):
fresh material in there, top it off and make sure
that the plants continue to have good drainage and everything
they need. And I was trying out some different products
on it. I'm always experimenting with something or the other,
and I discovered that I was in a container actually
in the specific case I'm telling you right now where

(01:31:27):
the container had been there for years and I had
topped it off with some stuff several times. But I
dumped it out because I was going to use the
container for something else. And I noticed at the bottom
the soil had really decomposed a long way. I wasn't
a humus yet, but it was getting there, and it
was very tight. Very if it was watered a lot,

(01:31:49):
it'd be a little on the mucky side, you know,
not really draining as well as it could and it
just reminded me. Sometimes people say, can you reuse potting soil?
Well off, you can. If the plant died of a
root disease or a fungal disease, root rot something like that,
Or if you got nematodes in it, because maybe they
came in with some soil or on a plant or something,

(01:32:11):
then I wouldn't reuse it, don't even think about reusing it.
But if it's just one like my case, where to
you know, it kind of decomposed a little further, I
could just get something a little on the chunky side.
I put it in there, mix it in real good,
you know, a decomposed bark, a little bit of rosemex
or anything like that, and just rejuvenate it and keep going.

(01:32:31):
And think about this. I hear people say sometimes potting soil,
don't don't use old potting soil, you know, like it's
out there, it's gone bad or something. Well, what does
nature do?

Speaker 8 (01:32:46):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:32:46):
How is nature designed to work? Do somebody go in
the forest and clean out all the old decomposed stuff
because it's been there for years?

Speaker 8 (01:32:53):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
No, it just so it just gets better and they
drop new leaves on the top and nature gardens from
the top down, whether it's grass clippings on a lawn,
whether it's grass leaves out in a meadow, whether it's
tree leaves in a forest. Organic matter falls on the
ground in some cases, like roots, they literally rot underground
when they die. But it builds the soy out, it

(01:33:15):
opens up channels, and it just gets richer and richer
and richer. And so use those principles in your landscape,
I would say, and I'm not meddling here. You do
what you want at your yard, but I would never
let a grass clipping or a leaf leave my landscape.
Those are valuable. They are very valuable. And you can

(01:33:36):
run over our leaves with a lawn mower. If you've
got a little grinder, you can use that, but chop
them up so they stay in place, and use them
as mulch everywhere you can. In my garden pathways, one
leaves every year. I don't know how many bags of
leaves I bring home. My neighbors are so nice they
back and for me and put them out at the curb,
and I just bring them home and I use them

(01:33:58):
as an all weather pathway. And I can tell you
this after about a couple of years of that, and
actually just one years enough you can scrape those dead
leaves off the surface and there's some good stuff underneath
there in that pathway. So put nature to work for you.
Put your grass clippings back in your lawn. If if
it rains and rains and you can't mow and the

(01:34:20):
grass is knee high, all right, bag it. But use
those clippings. They can be laid out on a bed
as a surface mulch. I don't put them thicker than
about an inch, because you don't want them to just
get all gooey and messy like they would in a bag.
But spread them out and use them. Mix them into
the soil your rotor tillings. No reason you couldn't use
grass clippings. Mix them right in the soil and make

(01:34:41):
your lawn better. That's all I'm saying. Then, look, organic
matter decomposes, just add more. That's how that works. I
hope that's helpful for you. Hey, if you'd like to
give me a call, and that'll be a good time.
We've got open lines seven one three two one two
kt r H seven one three two one two kt
r H intended forest. I hope you've been there. If

(01:35:05):
you have it, you need to go. It's a garden
center down there in the Richmond Rosenburg area. Specifically, it's
on FM twenty seven fifty nine just south it kind
of in between Richmond and sugar Land, but south of
I sixty nine. They have a great selection of plants.
But today in Mother's Day, you know that if you're

(01:35:25):
looking for a perfect gift or an outing, maybe to
take mom and go out and do they have some
cool stuff. Maybe Mom likes rosebushes or tropical hibiscus. Oh gosh,
those are gaudian beautiful, A wide variety of perennials. Salvia
is a milkweed, necanation, a lot more maybe herbs. Moms
into herbs. How about an herb plant or just some

(01:35:46):
herbs to scatter around in the landscape or in the garden.
They have gift cards from intended forests that are a
nice gift for really anybody that's a gardener in your list.
And you got to see the fairy gardens. Take your
kids out to see that. They're fairy garden items are
fun for kids and adults. They've got one, you have
to go see it. It's kind of the left of
the building. There there's a big tree and it's like

(01:36:07):
ferry gardens all around it. On the ground they're really
cool little miniature gardens. So anyway, you need to get
out there. Though last time I was out there again,
I'm always surprised at just how extensive their herb selection is.
I'm always surprised at the selection of butterfly attracting plants,

(01:36:27):
both the flower plants that the butterflies go the flowers for,
but also the larval food sources. So if you want butterflies,
you need to feed the babies. Okay, So milkweed feeds monarchs,
passion vine feeds the gulf fritillary. A number of different
things feed various types of butterflies, So don't just plant

(01:36:48):
for the adults to have nectar plant to raise their
young as well. And Enchanted forest specializes in not for sure,
great selection of trees and shrubs too, And it's fun.
It's a fun place to visit. I love the big trees. Gosh,
you know when it gets hot and you know it's
like it's hot, go there and enjoy shopping underneath those big,

(01:37:12):
beautiful spreading trees. It's cool, literally cool compared it's been
out in the sun. So on garden line, I generally
give advice. I try to stay kind of general in ways,
like here's some principles that plants want, but sometimes we
have to get down to specifics on specific things that

(01:37:35):
you need to provide for plants. And as you give
calls to garden, as you call in, I'll be guiding you,
you know, specifically in the situation that you have. Someone
called earlier today and asked about AI as a way
to is it dependable? Can you use it? And the
problem with answering is it dependable, It's just there's there's
so many kinds of AI and so many levels. A

(01:37:57):
lot of times as AI is learning, it's not very
good and misses a lot of things. But as it
gets better and with some applications, it's amazingly good. But
I wouldn't depend on it too much. And that's kind
of what I was saying earlier. There's a lot of
gardening advice out there. Sometimes I feel like, as a

(01:38:19):
horticulturist that I kind of understand how a doctor might feel,
because everywhere a doctor goes number one. Everybody when they
find out he's a doctor or she's a doctor, they
start pointing at something on their body, going, so I
got this sore right here that you know, and so
suddenly they get to give free advice where they go.

(01:38:40):
Number two, people have a lot of medical opinions. You know,
they may feel like this kind of an oil or
this kind of a I don't know, a supplement, or
is what they need. And the doctor's got to be
sitting there going, Okay, I hear what you're saying, but
you know, there's there's always a yeah butt and that's
kind of what the doctors think. And well, I feel

(01:39:01):
that because people always give me advice on plants, and
I said, listen, I'm not going to sit there and
be the integrate and say no, you don't know what
trum about. I know what I'm talking about. But I
hear a lot of advice and I see it online
and I just want to My public service announcement today
is gardening friends. Don't let gardening friends get their advice

(01:39:23):
just off of social media. Now, if it's a good,
dependable source on social media, yes, but oh my gosh,
I have quit going to Pinterest because it's like it
makes my eyes bleed to look at what people put
on there. In fact, I could do a whole talk
and somebody, I'm gonna do this somewhere, I don't know where.

(01:39:46):
I'm going to do a whole talk just on what's
wrong with this picture? And I'll take I'll take pictures
of social media things and put them out there and
say what's wrong with this? What you know, and just
kind of teach people what the foreign things. I saw
the other day a rose it was I called Bengal
tigers stripe or something, and it had stripes that were

(01:40:09):
it just it's not true. There's no such plan as that.
And there's a couple of accounts out there that are
doing this all the time, and they drive me nuts,
like pouring a ton of rose seeds into a crack
in the sidewalk and then showing a picture of a
wall full of roses that are in full bloom, and

(01:40:31):
it's basically one rose that has been copied and pasted
all over the wall. It's like no, no, no, no no.
So anyway, there I griped. I have more griping to
do about that, but I'll let you go from now,
take a little break, and we'll be back. It looks
like with Diana and Cyprus, all right, now you're thinking
that's not Simon Garfunkel, right.

Speaker 4 (01:40:54):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
I play that occasionally as a way to remember Randy.
The bed is called the Lemonheads. That's right, there's a
band called the Lemonheads. All right. Randy was a good
friend I beloved here. I know many of you listened
to him for twenty five plus years here on guard Line,
and we miss him. But every now and then we're

(01:41:16):
just gonna remember back those days. Good good friend. All right, folks. Well,
the other day I was out in my yard and
I was looking at a patch of a regano in
a raised bed, and I was looking at it. These
little bugs are coming crawling out of the air. It
looked like ants, and I looked at him, but they
had wings, And what it was was a fire ant

(01:41:38):
mating flight. A fire ant mating flight. So basically, these
fire ants, after a good rain or something, they'll come
to the surface. The reproductives have the wings. They fly
up in the air. Male and female ants fly up
in the air. They mate until several hundred feet up
in the air. Now, first of all, how do you know,
how do some entomologists know they have a hot air

(01:41:58):
balloon and They go up in the air one hundred
feet and have binoculars and go up there's two hey Louis,
take it up another fifty feet. I don't know how
they know how high they fly up in there and mate,
but they do. And then they fall to the ground.
The female falls at the ground, digs in the ground,
and here we got another fireance mess started. That's what happens.
And when we get these rains they are spreading. Termites

(01:42:19):
do the same thing. Termites will fly out the hovery
reproductive flight. I'm told that they go way up in
the air too late at night. Uh. And how do
you avoid this? You call pest bros. Pest bros can
control fireance, they can call termites, they can control household pests,
they control mosquitoes outdoors. They've got it all covered and
they know how to do it effectively, and they do

(01:42:40):
so in the safest possible manner, so you get long
term results without the worries. Now go to the website
thepestbros dot com dpestbros dot com two eight one two
o six forty six seventy. They cover a wide area.
I don't care if you live down in Texas City,
if you live up in the woodlands. If you live

(01:43:01):
way over western Katie or to the eastern Baytown, you're
in pest Bros Region depestbros dot com. We're gonna go
now out to Cyprus and talk to Diana. Hey, Diana,
I got the pictures finally, and I'm ready to talk.

Speaker 14 (01:43:16):
About Okay, go ahead to see if you had an
opportunity to look at them.

Speaker 2 (01:43:23):
I sure did. Yeah. So, first of all, the azaleas,
what I notice is as you move away from the house,
the plants get worse, uh, And the bed is real
high up by the house, and then as it kind
of goes down, it's a lower bed, and that's where
the worst problem is. What I see is symptoms of
iron deficiency and of roots just struggling. And it could

(01:43:47):
be maybe soggy soil conditions. Maybe down there it's a
little lower and the roots are in a wetter area
than they are higher up. I don't know exactly why,
but it is struggling on that end. That's also the
north end of the row. If I'm not mistaken, I
believe that's the east side of your patio. Either way,
it is struggling along. So you may need to put

(01:44:13):
some sides on the bed a little bit so you
can build it up a little better and raise those
plants on that end. Probably way to fall to do that,
and you may need to replant one of those. Looks
real bad down there, but that may be a longer
term solution. Otherwise, you could use a keylated iron keylated iron,
apply it especially to the yellowing plants. That may help

(01:44:36):
some to fix some of the yellowing, but it's not
going to solve the problem of soggy wet soil. So
that would be my suggestions on those particular plants. The
roses are really hard for me to make out in
the pictures what's going on. I see the lack of vigor.
It looks like some leaves have been chewed off, but

(01:44:58):
I can't from the distance really tell that for sure.
Uh whenever, oh, well, we put them out.

Speaker 14 (01:45:09):
I have four I have four uh roast bushes that
were that we've had, you know last year that I
had mentioned to you and we Those were put in
when we moved into our home, which was a new build,
and they were all doing the fine up until about
last year. So I don't know if it was the
trauma of the poplet of going through a freeze and
then a draft situation and that they eventually turned black

(01:45:34):
and we had to they just died. I mean I
pulled them all up and then I just wanted to
buy two to put in to replace them because I
didn't want to take that chance again. And they and
they're starting to do that where they lose the leaves.
But I know we have bunny rabbits and that's the
that's another concern that maybe they're eating the foliage off
the leaves.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
Well, I guess it's a possibility. I don't know what
kinds of plants rabbits eat, uh you know, and uh
so that may or may not be the case. Are
these roses in full sun or are they getting quite
a bit of shade?

Speaker 14 (01:46:09):
They're mostly in full sun.

Speaker 8 (01:46:11):
You know.

Speaker 14 (01:46:11):
They're right along the back wall of our of our
property have a bird bath in the clean and then
but it's went on either side and you know, you
can tell this there's new foliage, I mean, leaves coming in.
But then something seems to happen to them. Would as
last year, and we took out all that old soil,

(01:46:33):
the mulch and everything, and we placed with some of
that good soil that you'd recommended and mulish, and so
we were hoping that then all this has happened, and
now so our holidays in this prens is another story.

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):
All right, You're off to a good start. One thing,
real quick observation. That soil looks like it's pretty high
up on that brick, and you need to get it
down below the wheepholes for sure. That's how termites get entrance,
and you want to be able to see if they're
building a little mud nest going up in there. It's
one of the things the entomologists will do from the
pest control company. But it looks a little high. But

(01:47:07):
that's that's an aside. Just to keep in mind, I
would say i'd get a good rose fertilizer, or you
know what, You can use a lawn fertilizer on those
roses too. Just put about a quarter cup of fertilizer
around each rose and a big old four foot diameter circle.
If it's an organic fertilizer, you can use a lot

(01:47:28):
more than that. If it's a synthetic, I wouldn't go
above about a quarter cup. And that's that's actually quite
a bit. But sprinkle it all around. Just don't dump
it in a circle or anything. Sprinkle it around and
then scratch it into the surface with a little rake
or something, and then water it in really good. And
I think you can push some vigor on that if
it's getting good sunlight, and then let's see how they do.

(01:47:49):
And as far as if it's rabbits, you know, I
don't know on that.

Speaker 15 (01:47:52):
The fire.

Speaker 2 (01:47:53):
Finally, the hollies, and I've got a break. Come in here.
The hollies. Nothing causes the lack of leaves and a
straight line across the bottom of the bushes. That's related
to insects or diseases or nutrients or anything like that.
So something else is going on. I don't know if
if rabbits eat holly leaves or not, but you know,

(01:48:16):
it might be worth trying. You there are catch alive traps,
the box traps where you can lurd things and capture
them and then took them somewhere else to relocate. Yes,
if you feel like that's the problem, that is work
in trouble. But at least that way you would know
what the problem was for sure.

Speaker 14 (01:48:38):
But anyway, okay, well on that back on the rose bushes,
that's on a back on the very back of our property,
and it's a brick wall that's put in by the
developers and so it's not up against the house and
there's no weepoles in that, so it's just good no wall. Yeah,
but I'll try.

Speaker 12 (01:48:59):
Some of those.

Speaker 14 (01:49:00):
I have used the Neilson's uh fertilized on that, you know,
pretty much like what you suggested. So I already did that.
So I'm hoping that maybe maybe by chance they'll come out.

Speaker 2 (01:49:12):
Okay, keep them, keep them adequately moist.

Speaker 14 (01:49:15):
Six years we've lived here, you know, so this is
all just kind of a curve last year.

Speaker 2 (01:49:20):
Keep keep keep those adequately moist without keeping the assagi
not soggy, but adequately moist. And we'll see how that
turns out. I got to run, but thank you. I
appreciate your call very much. We'll be right back, folks. Alrighty,
we're back. Welcome back to guardenline. Hey, if you got
a gardening question, give me a call. Seven one three
two one two kt r H seven one three two

(01:49:43):
one two k t r H. Jungle land potting soalt
for indoor plants. It's called water saving potting salt because
that has crystals in it that soak up a lot
of water, many times our weight and water when your
soul gets a little dry, should you forget well, I
know you don't forget the water. Should your neighbor forget
to water? They're indoor plants. The crystals hold moisture a

(01:50:04):
little longer, and the roots can get a hold of
that moisture and it helps those plants not go into
drop stress. So it's not that you should never water,
but it just means a little more forgiving jungle and
water saving potting soil distributed by Nitropas. Night Foss products
are located all over the place. You can find them
at Ace Hardware City I'm a moral drive. If you
go to Hiding and Feed on a student airline, you'll

(01:50:26):
find nitofoss products there. Maybe down in mont Bellevue on
FM thirty one eighty at Fishers Hardware. They carry nitofoss
products in those places as well. Those of you who
are familiar with Buchanan's Plants, you know they're on Eleventh
Street in the Heights. Have you seen the new building

(01:50:47):
that they put in, the new checkout center that they
put in. It is a nice strong metal roof, structure
that it just if it's raining, you don't stand in
the rain to check out. If it is blazing high,
you don't stand in the blazing hot sun to check out.
Is really cool. You know, they've been through a lot
at Buchanans. Twice last year storms came in knocked tree

(01:51:10):
limbs on their checkout area and just crushed it and
had to rebuilt, had, you know, reconstruct everything. So they said,
that's enough. We're putting in a nice new barn structure
here that we'll use for our checkout and you're gonna
love it. If you haven't already seen it, it's open now,
by the way. Buchanans Plants is the website Buchanansplants dot com.

(01:51:31):
They specialize in natives, but they have everything under the
sun in addition to native plants. But let's say you're
looking for a native that attracts hummingbirds, Well they'll walk
you right over and show you the natives more than
one that attract hummingbirds. Maybe you're looking for something to
attract pollinators or butterflies. Maybe you need a plant that

(01:51:54):
will grow in the shade and bring color to the
shade the whole section for that their house plank greenhouse
is huge and it has tons of home I'm telling
you unbelievable selection foliage, plants, succulents, strings of you fill
in the blank, cacti. I mean it's all in there
in the house plant greenhouse. You need to go see that.

(01:52:14):
When you're Buchanans, they understand bronze stuff comes before green stuff.
That's why they carry a full line of microlife products
nitrofoss Nilson plant food. They have soils from Nature's way
and soils from heirloom soils, for example. They have their
own all purpose blended mixes and things as well. When
you walk out of there, not only are you going

(01:52:35):
to have the products you need to set the foundation,
but you're going to have the plants that are ready
for success. They're experts at this. They know what they're
talking about. Buchanansplants dot Com, Leventh Street and the Heights.
Go check out the website and sign up for their
newsletter too. By the way, it is outstanding. Gosh, I

(01:52:56):
what have we can talk about next? I have a
confession to make. There's a saying that the cobblers kids
go barefoot. Have you ever heard that? The guy that
makes shoes, doesn't have time to make his kid's shoes. Okay,
it's true. In horticulture, I have not planted okra this year.
I know, I know what's wrong with me. You know.

(01:53:16):
I thought that I was so obsessed with okra I
was gonna have to, I don't know, go wherever you
go when you're maybe the Betty Ford Clinic has an
okra section or something. But seriously, but I just had
been too busy to get out there and do it.
So that's going to happen this week. I'm going to
get the okra in the ground. You know, just because
summer comes and it gets blazing hot doesn't mean we

(01:53:37):
can't plant things in the vegetable garden. There's a lot
of great vegetables that thrive in hot, hot, sunny conditions.
Okra is one. Another one is malabar greens. Malabar greens,
they're a little bit, a little bit on the slippery side,
as people say salaimey. I prefer to say musilaginous because
it sounds better anyway. But it's a good one, a

(01:53:59):
very good There is molokia, which is popular and a
lot of Middle Eastern and some other areas around that
whole region really, But it's a great green with rice
dishes and lamb and different things like that. I grow
that in my garden. Purslain greens. Yes, there's perslaine weed,
there's personalaine flowers, and there's just vegetable types of perce
lane that are grown for eating that can take the

(01:54:21):
heat as well. We got many other options. A maringa.
It's actually a little tree. You can cut it back,
make a bush out of it. The foliage kind of
has a nutty taste. I like actually use it in smoothies.
Adds nutrients and a unique flavor to the smoothie. But
you can cook it as well. Lots of good greens.
There's no reason to stop gardening. In vegetable gardening in
the summer. We got a lot of good options. And

(01:54:43):
if you want give me a call, maybe I ought
to put something on the website, make a note of that.
That'd be good. Summer greens and summer vegetables would be
a good addition to the website, a good handout for that.
If you had planted a tree, you need a tree hugger, sprinkler.
I mean if you planted a tree ten years ago,
you still need a treeoggor sprintler. Here's why, goes around

(01:55:05):
the tree. If it's a brand new tree, you barely
turn it on and it waters that root cylinder that
you just put in the ground, keeps it alive and well.
If it is a big tree, you turn it on
a lot and you can water as big of an
area as you want. To rescue those established trees during grout.
Not just rescue them, but keep them growing fast. That's
very important. Rosarians love this product too. It's good for

(01:55:26):
roses as well. You're going to find it a lot
of places. Southwest Fertilizer of course has its single ranch
ase katiace K and m ace and a tasca set
of foolshere Ace. You're can find it at D and
D Feed, Spriing Creek Feed Center up in the Tamboul area,
Leake City Feed Arborgate, Nelson Water Gardens and Nurseries, adding
in Katie RCW Nurseries, Warren Southern Gardens and kingwo Of

(01:55:48):
Garden Center adding Kingwood and go down to Richmond Rosenberg
area and Chenny Forest and Channing Gardens all carry tree
hugger sprinklers. Get you one. You need to have it,
keep it in the garage because it is not only
great for new trees, but helping those established trees to
grow faster and better. That is important. It's all about water,

(01:56:08):
all about water. That is where our trees get into trouble.
You know, we do fertilize trees, and I do, and
it's important. It helps. But you know the research that
I've seen fertilizing isn't a huge thing on trees. I mean,
it helps, but it's not like you know, if you
just fertilize a lot that trees are going to grow
trice as fast. But water really matters. Water stresses and

(01:56:32):
things really slow it down. And you know, when you
plant a tree, your goal is to hang a hammock
in it as soon as you can. So we got
to get that thing growing right. That's important. When you
fertilize your lawn, the trees get the nutrients from that
because their roots are up in the top foot of
soil primarily. Yes, I know, forget the image you've seen
online or on the side of a tree truck that

(01:56:54):
makes the tree look like a mirror image top and bottom.
No trees have a spreading fat lat root system goes
out about about twelve inches deep. The majority of the
root system is twelve inches deep, and then the top
as what the top is so up in that grass
area you got a lot of tree roots. So for example,
you get this superturf I keep talking about from Nitrofoss

(01:57:15):
Superturf nineteen four ten. When you fertilize your lawn with that,
it's releasing all summer and it's helping your lawn. But
there are nutrients that those trees are also getting from it,
and they will benefit from that as well. When we
fertilize our lawn, there is a benefit to the trees.
Superturf releases slowly, which is what I like about it.
It's going to go about sixteen weeks out or four

(01:57:35):
months and it works well. And you're going to find
it where you find other night foss products. For example,
go to Langham Creek a hardware on on FM five
twenty nine right there in the backside of Copperfield, katie
As hardware on Penoak, the Ace hardware on Mason Road too.
On a single ranch is going to have it. You're
just going to find it in a lot of different

(01:57:56):
places that sell nitofoss products like Fisher's Hardbrown sophomore done
in Pasadena. Well, let's see here, it's a little too
short uh time here for me to start another discussion
of something, So we're gonna move out of this session.
We got one more hour left today. If you'd like

(01:58:17):
to give us a call, in fact, if you'd like
to be on the first up, if you call now
and just don't mind hanging through the top of the
hour news seven one three two one two KTRH, you
can be one of the first ones up when we
come back. We'd love to visit with you about the
questions that you have and to help you have success.
You know, gardening is supposed to be fun and if

(01:58:38):
you do the right things, if you learn to think
like a plant, if you can find out what a
plant wants and give it that, your thumb looks greener
to everybody because you're just giving a plant what it wants.
That is all that it amounts to. So, h let's
give you some tips on that. Let's have success with that.
I want to remind you my website, gardening with Skip

(01:59:01):
dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com, you'll find my
two laun care schedules, lun Care and lawn pest Weez
and disease schedules. On there you'll find some other good things.
In fact, when I come back, I want to tell
you a little bit about some of the things that
we have put up recently on the schedule. I have
a number of questions that have come up regarding things,

(01:59:22):
and when I get a question over and over, I'll
probably create a little factiont on it and stick it
up there on the schedule, And I mean on the website.
That way you could download it wherever you are bookmarket.
I hope you bookmark the website Gardening with Skip dot com.
That lots of good information on there based on the
kinds of questions that people ask. Some things it's hard

(01:59:44):
to fully answer on the air. I mean, it takes
too long, too much detail, and when you say it
people doesn't you know, we don't retain stuff. I forget
stuff by the end of conversation sometimes. But when you
can get a printed out of it, then that way
you've got reference. That's what we're about. When we're back, Hey,
Leslie in Baytown, you're gonna be our first stop. Good morning, gardeners.

(02:00:16):
What are we going to talk about today? Well, that's
up to you. At this point oh. I actually have
a few things I want to add too. But one
of the questions you have, how can we help you
have success? And listen, how can we help you have fun?
Gardening should be fun. It should be It is not.
You know, we don't live in the days where if
our crop fails are going to start the death. Okay,

(02:00:36):
so we can the pressures off. We are just learning
and having fun out in the garden and enjoying being
out with the nature. I was talking to somebody yesterday
when I was at the arbor gate and we were
just talking about the fact of how therapeutic gardening is,
and you know, all the benefits and stuff, and then
you know, you're just talking about getting outside in the
garden and just being there and nature and plants and

(02:01:00):
how it made them feel. Well, that's true. Well let's
do this. Let's head out to Baytown now and we're
going to talk to Leslie. Hello, Leslie, welcome to garden Line. Hey, Rick,
how are you doing. I'm doing well. I'm doing well.
Thank you.

Speaker 9 (02:01:17):
I wanted to ask.

Speaker 16 (02:01:19):
I'm gonna have a really really big pot and I'm
putting two two gallons shrimp plants in there, and I
wanted to know what I can put in that big,
big pot. I want to say, it's like forty gallons
just take up space besides just a bunch of potting soil, Like.

Speaker 6 (02:01:38):
What's a good mix?

Speaker 8 (02:01:39):
Okay, Pete Moss.

Speaker 2 (02:01:42):
Well when you say a big pot, what are what
are we talking? How big? How far across? You know,
as the biggest steering.

Speaker 16 (02:01:50):
Three feet across, about three feet across, two feet down?

Speaker 14 (02:01:56):
Because I want these shrimp plants to just grow and
grow and grow.

Speaker 2 (02:02:01):
Okay, Well, the more soil you have, the better plants
will perform, and the less stressful they'll be when things
get dry. You know, if you if that's a big pot.
You know, but if you take away too much of
the soil, the roots don't have that volume of soil
to take water and nutrients out of, and you're gonna
be water more often and so on. So that that's

(02:02:23):
the first thing I understand that there can be too
much area to buy all the soil to fill the
whole thing. So if it's that size one thing you
can do. There's a couple of ways to go about this.
One way would be to take some plastic bottles, you know,
like the two liter coke bottles, like the little drinking
water bottles. Screw the caps on tight and just let

(02:02:44):
them be full of air. Put them in the bottom
and fill up a bunch of volume just just with that,
and then you can throw your soil in. I mean,
if you wanted to put something over them, you could.
I would just throw the soil in around them, and
so they're taking up whatever percentage of soil of space
you need them to, and then fill in the soil

(02:03:06):
in around them. Okay, okay, that's great.

Speaker 10 (02:03:10):
That's what I wanted and easy, and yeah, there you go.
Well I appreciate it, you bet you too.

Speaker 2 (02:03:20):
You take care. I did that one time. I had
those chimney liners, those terra cotta type clay. Uh they're
they're sort of rectangular to square, but but they have
rounded corners, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, they
stand about, oh gosh, three feet high something like that.
And I was gonna put some little flowers in the top. Well,

(02:03:41):
those flowers don't need roots that are three feet deep,
and so I put a bunch of those in the
bottom of those bottles. And then actually, in this case,
I laid a piece of hardware cloth that little square
inch stuff you put underneath the rabbit cage. I cut
a piece out to fit perfectly in there and set
it on top of them. And then I took a
little liner that was like weat fabric and put it

(02:04:03):
on top of the soil, I mean on top of
the wire. And then when I feel it was soil,
the soil didn't fall all in because I just didn't
need that much soil, okay, And that's what I did.
And then that way, when I had to clean it out,
it was easy to dump it over and get the
bottles out of the way and easy to go. So.
But in general, be careful about replacing soil because the

(02:04:24):
more you have, the happier those plants will be, especially
in the summer hot weather conditions. Medina products are widely
available and have been for a very long time here
in the Greater Houston area. Medina Plus is an example
of that. You know, the original Medina sial activator has
been very popular customers for a very long time, and

(02:04:46):
then they added the Medina Plus which is fortified with
essential micronutrients and seaweed extract, so you still get all
the natural soil building advantages of the Medina hastergro or
excuse me, Medina sal activator. I'll but you also have
these extra ingredients which make it too a good folier
feed for plants, tree shrubs, for lawns. The seaweed extracts

(02:05:08):
are in there. They help plants with achieving their maximum
growth and yield potential. And it's just a good product.
You should have it on hand. I like the Medina
has to grow six to twelve six plant food, which
I primarily use for trenchplanting. It has other uses. That's
just the one where I most use. It's got a
lot of phosphors in it, good for root development and

(02:05:28):
so on. Whatever you do when you go with the
Medina product, try it out, see how it works for you.
I know you're going to be happy with it. And
they're so widely available that I don't even have to
have to tell you where to get them because they're everywhere.
I always see those when I go into feed stores
and hardware stores like ACE and garden centers and places

(02:05:50):
like that. Medina products I was looking at. I follow
my sponsors Facebook pages and Instagram pages and just see
because it always tells you what's going on, what they're
doing in various locations and so on, and a Kingwood
Garden Center and Warren Southern Gardens. Those are two that

(02:06:13):
are out there in Kingwood. I don't know how Kingwood
got two garden centers like that, but they did good
for you, Lucky Kingwood. Kingwood Garden Center has an outstanding
gift shop inside. Now, these two garden centers have much
of the same kinds of plants, but they're each unique
in their own way. And so when it comes to

(02:06:33):
that gift shop, that Kingwood Garden Center just amazing as
well as a lot of really nice cool plants. And
then there's Warren Southern Gardens amazing in its own way.
And in both of those you're going to find soil products,
you're going to find fertilizer products, and then the plants
to help you have success. That's what it's all about.
Warren's is on North Park Drive, Kingwood Garden Center is

(02:06:56):
on Stone Hollow Drive. Both of them are open seven
days a week, so today it'd be a good day
to get out there. This afternoon. Let's head out to
Friends with now and we're going to talk to Alan. Hello, Alan,
Welcome to garden Line. Hey, Skip, how you doing today?
I'm well, thank you. How can we help.

Speaker 1 (02:07:16):
I've got a question about my miracle berry.

Speaker 2 (02:07:17):
I've had trouble getting it to put on any berries.

Speaker 6 (02:07:20):
I'm starting to think I should call it it's a
miracle if you get a berry.

Speaker 2 (02:07:22):
Bush that's good, miracle berry? Do you have another name
for that?

Speaker 1 (02:07:32):
I don't, but it's one of those where you taste
something sweet, you eat the berry and it tastes sour.

Speaker 2 (02:07:37):
It flips the flavor opposite.

Speaker 1 (02:07:40):
That's why they called it a miracle berry.

Speaker 2 (02:07:43):
Okay.

Speaker 15 (02:07:44):
And last year I got two berries and I took
care of them, and then birds got them before I
could get them.

Speaker 2 (02:07:51):
Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. I
think I know it's called there's a miracle fruit that
I've heard of before. Makes might be a yeah, it's
it's a They one time they thought that it might
be a good way to create a natural, non caloric sweetener,
kind of like sweeten low kinds of things, but a different,
different ingredient for it.

Speaker 8 (02:08:13):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:08:13):
The The plants need good sunlight. They don't want to
grow in a lot of shade. They're very not a
lot of pests and diseases. You can get meatlely bugs
and spider mites on them sometimes about the only ones
I'm familiar with. But you just need to keep them
adequately moist that that is important. They they don't need
to dry out. Uh if given time. Their root system

(02:08:36):
is adequate, you know, for for mining the soil for
nutrients and creating a nice, good root system. But the
bottom line is just fertilize them lightly as you go along.
They like it a little acidic. So if you want
to get you a fertilizer for azaleas and camellias and things,
that would be fine. You could you could just do that. Uh,

(02:08:58):
you know a lot of people grow yeah, yeah, yeah,
the Microlife the one for acid loving plants would be good.
I'm hearing that. I got to go to a break here,
but they can growing containers but at least at least
twenty gallons and give them a good quality potting mix
and some of the Microlife type fertilizers. That's the right

(02:09:21):
ratio for this particular plant as well. Thanks thanks man
for the call. So I have to run all right,
you get a free break from weeds for the year
if you can name that band. There you go, you
name it, and no weeds will come up in your lawn. Okay,
all right, whoever believes that, call in with the name

(02:09:43):
of that man you're listening to guarden Line. We're here
to help you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful garden,
a very productive landscaping garden, and more fun in the process.
That is important. Ace Hardware is the go to source
for everything you need for not only indoors but also

(02:10:03):
outdoors for success with your plants, your gardens, your flowerbeds,
your roses, your lawns. They've got the products for all
of that. Fertilizers, products to control pests, products to deal
with diseases as well, and to manage weeds. And then
of course on the patio they've got everything you need
from the strings of lights that I just love for

(02:10:24):
ambiance in the evenings, which is when we spend the
most of our time outdoors in the summertime when it
gets really hot here to barbecue pits and other things.
In fact, they recently just had a good sale going
on on barbecue pits. I don't know, I need checks
if they're still doing that, because I'm in the market
for one myself. You go to ACE Hardware Texas dot

(02:10:45):
com Ace Hardware Texas. Don't forget the Texas Acehardware Texas
dot com. And you can find all the stores here
in our region. My garden line stores for Ice here
in the region can be found there. Check them out,
you will love it. Go to an ACE hardware start.
Each one is independently owned, and so when you go
to a store, whatever that owner wishes to do in

(02:11:07):
the store, then they can add all kinds of different things.
Sometimes you find ACE Hardware is that just have all
kinds of unusual things as well as the standard stuff
you've come to expect from an ACE Hardware. So you
go up to Cyprus on Jones Road, for example, there's
an ACE Hardware there. There is a Hardware City on
Memorial where I was a while back, not too long ago. Uh,
And there's Kilgore ACE hard Run East Main down in

(02:11:29):
League City. How about one more? How about Bay City
ACE hard Run Seventh Street in Bay City. Those are
just examples of the many, many ACE Hardware stores you
can find at ACE Hardware Texas dot com. That is good.
When I sugon with some of the folks from Nelson
Plant Food the other day about some of the new

(02:11:51):
products and things that they have, and there's a product
that's not new, uh. It is called Bruce's Brew. It's
part of the turf Star line, and we were just
talking about the details of different kinds of fertilizers, especially
the nutri Star line that's specific kinds of plant foods,
you know, hibiscus and flying tropicals is one example. Bruce
Is Brew is unique. We talk about early in my

(02:12:13):
schedule in the early spring, if you want to do
a court green up early on, we use an immediately
release fertilizer for that because it's available right away. You
put it down, you water it, and the nutrients are
heading into the soil and the planet roots are taking
them up pretty quick. Then they're slow release that we
do all summer. Bruce's Brew is like a hybrid. You
get an immediate release from it, initial release of nutrients

(02:12:35):
and then it evens out over time for more regulated
growth and so you get nice, good root development without
the extra mowing in your turf during the summertime. It's
carbon based nitrogen sources. You know, microbes love carbon and
they really stimulate them in the soil. Keeps the soil
in its best shape. When you have healthy soil, you

(02:12:56):
have healthy grass, less vulnerability to pests and weeds. U
brew can do all of that, and it's widely available
here in the Greater Houston area. Nelson planned food turf
star line product called Bruce's Brew. We're gonna head to
Magnolia now and talk to Joel. Hello, Joel, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 6 (02:13:16):
That's nice. Good morning, Skip.

Speaker 2 (02:13:18):
How you doing. I'm well, all right.

Speaker 6 (02:13:22):
Hey. I treated my lagustriums with some backanhol because of
the fungus that I get on them. And right after
that I got a white powdery substance and I thought
it was just the residue from the deck and all,
but now it's spreading. So I'd like to know how
to treat this white powdery mildew stuff that's on the

(02:13:42):
leaves spread.

Speaker 2 (02:13:44):
Well, it probably it probably is powdery mildew. There are
some lagustrims that can certainly suffer from that, as well
as other plants. The organic end of it is to
use the horticulture oil and spray over the surface of
the leaves and it kills the pottery mildew that's growing
on the leaf surface. Now, once it starts to malform
leaves and discolor the leaves. Uh, you're not going to

(02:14:06):
cure that, but you can prevent additional infection for a
longer term. A product called Belton b A Y L
E t O n be Leton is a synthetic that
is soaks in. It soaks into the tissue and it'll
give you longer control of the powdery mildew. But there's
your options organic ins that I.

Speaker 8 (02:14:25):
Can use you the one so alrighty, And this is
not fatal the planet.

Speaker 6 (02:14:34):
It's just going to be depolage.

Speaker 8 (02:14:37):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:14:38):
Yeah, it is. The foliage forms, it deforms it because
it can't grow normally.

Speaker 8 (02:14:43):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:14:43):
And it causes some kind of staining brown. Sometimes you'll
see that in some plants. It's just an ugly but
if it if it's bad enough, it's taking away the
solar panels that the plant needs for energy. So by
taking away the leaves. So that's the concern with powder,
they'll do other than the aesthetic.

Speaker 6 (02:15:02):
All right, fantastic. I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (02:15:04):
Thank you, you bet, thank you, Joel. I appreciate your call. Uh,
Houston powder Coders. The first time I went in there,
my jaw hit the ground. I couldn't believe what they
can do for furniture for outdoor metal period. Doesn't it
just have to be furniture, but aluminum patio furniture, things
made out of wrought iron or cast iron. They can

(02:15:24):
coat it and they know how to fix things. If
it needs a little well tack weiled here or there,
if it needs a little bit of maybe maybe the
old bolts and things are rusting. They got nice stainless
steel ones. They'll replace them with. They'll take care of it.
Replace those plastic feet and end caps on some of
that tubular furniture you know has a little plastic foot
at the end of the metal tube. Then they can
take care of all of that kind of thing and

(02:15:45):
make it like new. That free pickup and free delivery
in the greater Houston area. You can go to the
website to learn more Houston Powdercoders dot com. But here's
another idea. Take a picture of something you want coded.
It may be out landscape art, inside of a building,
metal or something. Take a picture of it. Email it
to sales at houstoncoders dot com for a quick quote

(02:16:09):
that's almost effortless. Check them out and see what they
can do. Over one hundred color options. We're going to
head now to Brenham, Texas and talk to rister. Hey, rister,
welcome back to guardline.

Speaker 4 (02:16:24):
Good, good morning. I'm having a continuous problem with the
oak tree, large nice oak tree in my front yard.
I thought I had rectified a problem by this weedying.
The suckers that were coming off the roots stand out
from the tree about ten twelve feet right at the
top of the ground. Then suckers would come off of that,

(02:16:46):
and I was just knocking them off with a weed
eater for a long time, and that seemed to reduce it.
But then I put mulk on top of it about
three inches deep, and now they're just coming up everywhere.
And I'm afraid to put a thought about putting wipe
out or something on them that said that might hurt you,
treat it would do.

Speaker 2 (02:17:06):
That's a good that's yeah, you can't. You can't kill
them like that. There's not a lot to do for it.
The more you disturb soil, that includes like you know,
putt a little rotor tiller bed in there or something,
or over watering a lot, and when you have flower
bed at the base, you're watering a lot. Those kind
of things make the suckers occur. Even faster and more.

(02:17:29):
But there's there's not a way to just kill that sucker.
I mean, you could burn the leaves off of it
with a with a product that's toxic or you know
that burns the foliage, but that doesn't change anything. It'll
just keep growing with new leaves. There is a product
called sucker stopper, sucker stopper. It's not really easy to find.
I'm sure they probably have it at a Southwest fertilizer.

(02:17:53):
But if you can treat a sucker at the base
after you cut it off, it is a hormone that
is the plant't don't regrow shoot here, and it's not
like forever, but it is a suppressive thing that it
would probably help a little bit on this. Typically I
would recommend it for like the base of crape myrtles
where you get all those shoots coming out of the

(02:18:13):
base for that, But you might try sucker.

Speaker 4 (02:18:17):
Stuff all the mulch on top of it to get
to that.

Speaker 2 (02:18:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you want to get down to
where it's going to rea sprout for Yeah, it is.
There's not a good That's why I said not a
good answer to it. It's not Some people will put
a really nice groundcover fabric, a good heavy one over
the base and then put a weighted mulch over that.
You know, it could be gravel or something like that,

(02:18:43):
and that will hold them down. They just won't be
able to come up and do much. But you know,
you got to. It's a challenge to be able to
control them. Unfortunately, some not all live oaks. Some live
oaks are really prone to that.

Speaker 4 (02:19:00):
All right, long routes. That does it. I'm just going
to live with it, I guess, isn't that. I thank you?

Speaker 2 (02:19:08):
Yeah, all right, sir, thank you. Sorry I couldn't give
you a nice, easy solution today. You take care, appreciate,
appreciate your call.

Speaker 15 (02:19:19):
UH.

Speaker 2 (02:19:19):
Affordable Tree Service is the company we send people to
here on Guardline. Affordable Tree has been around a long time.
It's a family owned operation. So when you give them
a call, you're probably going to talk to Martin's mom
Martin Spoon Moore, that's his company and it is a
family business. You can you can dial them up. Just
go to seven one three, six nine two six sixty three.

(02:19:42):
Probably talk to Martin's mom. Tell her you heard about
us on guardline. Because Guardline customers are their priority that's
seven one three six ninety nine two six six three.
And it doesn't matter what you need. Do you need
uh pruning or deep root feeding or pest control, disease control,
stump grinding uh? And the most important is reconstruction care.
And I say that because by the time people get

(02:20:03):
out there in trench or put down a driveway over
a tree's root system, the damage is done and there
we can try to help them, but way better to
call Martin's team first and have them come on out.
Affordable Tree Service seven to one three six nine nine
two six six three. I'll be right back with Marty
from Fairfield. All right, here we go, Welcome back to

(02:20:26):
guard Line. We are in our last half hour of
the weekend. If you'd like to give me a call
seven one three two one two kat r H. Now's
the time to do it. As they say, speak now
or forever, hold your piece. Well, call now or hold
your piece for six days and we'll be back. We're
gonna go out to Fairfield now and talk to Marty. Hey, Marty,

(02:20:46):
welcome back.

Speaker 9 (02:20:47):
Hi, good morning. Hey.

Speaker 17 (02:20:50):
That guy just reminded me about his little oak trees
that are growing out of the gardens. I've been weading
for a couple of years, but yesterday I started pulling
him out with some fires. We get the whole route
all the way down if you grab him right there

(02:21:10):
at the soil.

Speaker 18 (02:21:12):
I thought i'd share that.

Speaker 9 (02:21:13):
Okay, anyway, work great for me.

Speaker 2 (02:21:17):
Well, that sounds like a plan. Thanks for that report.
Are you pulling straight up or are you kind of
pulling at an angle or what works best for you?

Speaker 17 (02:21:26):
Well, I tried to pull them straight up and and
then I I kind of whiggled them a little bit
sometimes if they were real tough to get out, and
it just however, I could get him out. I got him,
and I'm it's a lot that I have to get up,
but it works.

Speaker 8 (02:21:43):
It works for me.

Speaker 2 (02:21:44):
Yeah, all right, thank you. I appreciate that all. Hopefully
he's hopefully h Rouster's still listening. All right, take care. Uh.
You know, it's interesting with with weeds. I do a
lot of him pulling of weeds and I'm shipping off
a tree roots or tree suckers here. But it's just

(02:22:05):
because you know, I take your good care of my lawn.
By and large, I don't have a lot of wheat issues.
You know, there's some that come in, but by and
large I don't let them go to seed if at
all possible, And that saves me a lot of trouble
because you know, what do they say one years of
weed is ten years of seed or something. So I

(02:22:29):
try to do that. But anyway, I've learned that. You know,
some weeds have spreading root systems, like a grassy type
clumping weed has a fiber spreading root system. And on those,
if you grab them real load to the ground, hold
on to them and kind of wiggle your hand back
and forth as you pull, you'll kind of hear the
individual little tiny roots ripping and tearing as you do that,

(02:22:49):
and they come right out. If you grab them and
try to pull, it just breaks off a lot of times.
But that sideways wiggle as you pull works good. Here
I am giving advice on how to pull a weed
or for crying out loud anyway, what does life come to? Anyway?
That works for me. Then there's roots, the weeds that
have tap roots, and the fall aster, oh boy, we'll
be here this fall. That one has a tap root,

(02:23:12):
and so you got to get a good base pull
on it and the tap root comes right out. If
the soil is moist. It is amazing how much weed
pulling you can do. And I've been through the yard
a bunch of times with a five gallon bucket and
my handy dandy kneeling bench getting weed pulling done. And
so now can you pull Virginia button weed? And that
doesn't work that way Other than getting the little buttons

(02:23:35):
with the seeds out, that's about the only benefit that
that does. You're not going to get the weed itself.
Can you pull dollar weed over crying out loud, No?
Or dichondra no, absolutely not, But a lot of weeds
you can. And right now I still have some annual
bluegrass going to seed, little tiny plants that have escaped somehow.
You see them when they put the little seed head up.
Every one of those is coming out of in my yard.

(02:23:57):
I am not going to deal with that anymore. Just
stay on it and get the job done. But it's
kind of therapeutic for me. It's one of the things
in life where you know, you work for a little bit,
you stand up, you look around, you see what you've accomplished.
That's therapeutic, I think. So anyway, I like that, Well,
let's go out to clear like now we're going to
talk to Jim. Hey, Jim, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 1 (02:24:18):
Hey, hey, good morning. How are we doing.

Speaker 2 (02:24:22):
We're doing well? Thank you? Good good. Hey.

Speaker 19 (02:24:25):
I've got a mulberry tree fifteen foot with about a
four inch pace, and I grew it from a little
sprout got to be about three foot and then I
transplanted it out of the pot. But any rate, every
season it sprouts out beautifully, the leaves of healthy, looking

(02:24:50):
nice and green. And about a month or so after that,
some disease or something just hits it. All the leaves
start turning brown, patchy and falling off.

Speaker 15 (02:25:06):
And it happens every season. Next season sprouts out beautifully,
leaves fall off.

Speaker 2 (02:25:15):
What happens after the leaves fall off, because obviously the
planet didn't die. What do you see next? Yeah?

Speaker 15 (02:25:21):
Actually, I've noticed after they all fall off, they actually
start to sprout again.

Speaker 2 (02:25:28):
Uh huh. And does a second set of leaves do that?

Speaker 7 (02:25:32):
Well?

Speaker 15 (02:25:32):
I I guess they do. Maybe maybe it gets late
in the season and I don't notice, but they do
sprout out again. And honestly I can't remember what happens
after that. I just look a frustrated to it.

Speaker 2 (02:25:52):
Yeah, well, that that is curious. So you can get
leaf spots on mulberry leaves, that's a possibility, but that
generally doesn't turn the whole leaf brown. It's strange that
the whole leaf is turning brown. You know, my brain's

(02:26:12):
out there searching the periphery of possibilities here, and I'm
thinking things like, well, does it coincide with when you
put a certain kind of herbicide out on your lawn? Maybe?
Or you know what else can we connect this too
to try to find an answer. If it were a
root rot, the plant wouldn't come back. If it didn't
enough to knock all the leaves off, it would kill

(02:26:32):
the plant. So it's not a root rot. I don't
think it's a folio disease. If the whole leaf is
turning brown, if you get in brown spots, maybe a
bacteria or fungus can do that. Yeah, that's weird. I
don't know.

Speaker 15 (02:26:45):
It seems to be spotty in the beginning of the process,
but eventually it just all turns brown eventually.

Speaker 2 (02:26:54):
Okay, Well, maybe send me some pictures of it when
you see it happen, and let me look at Maybe
if I look at it, I can go oh, I
know what that is. You know, but right now I'm
drawing other than my kind of example there, I'm kind
of drawing a blank on it. So but I'm going

(02:27:14):
to put you on hold and Alejandro give you an
email so you can send me something. You hear me
talk about microlife products all the time because they work,
They absolutely work. I want to talk about a couple
of kind of unique products on the market by Microlife.
One of them is called bio inoculant, And what it

(02:27:34):
is is it's an organic bioinoculant. It's got sixty three
different strains of beneficial microbes, a lot of different strains
in the basillas group. And I'm looking at the names
of all these microbes that are in it. It's like, oh,
you can buy that as a fungicide. Oh, you can
buy that as you know what I'm saying. And they're

(02:27:55):
good for plants and they're part of nature. And it's
micro grow bioinoculating by a big bag. Or you can
buy it buy the little canisters, uh Clark canisters with
a screw top lid that works. Here's another one, micro
grow liquid AF. Now liquid AF specifically has eight strains
of extremely dominating beneficial microbes that we know fight disease issues.

(02:28:19):
It's not a fungicide, but it works. It's safe, it
doesn't have an as an adverse effect on beneficial microbes.
These are microbes from the soil. These are microbes from nature,
but they've been identified, they've proven to do this or
to do that, to be beneficial. They put them all
together in this gallon jaw a bottle or I believe
it comes in a court to micro grow liquid af.
It's a maroon kind of label as is by the way,

(02:28:41):
the micro grow bioanoculant granule. Two more products from microlife
that do work. We're going to go to a break here,
David in Houston. Hang on, you're gonna be our very
first step when we come back, a right. Nice enough
of that, this isn't a music show, although we do
have fun with music on Guarden Line. Welcome back for
our last segment of the day. Listen. If you are

(02:29:02):
looking for a showplace, landscape, or the next step toward one,
Pierce Scapes is all you need to know. Pierce Scapes
dot com, p E A R C E S C
A p e s dot com, Peerscapes dot com. That's it.
Give them a call, get an appointment two eight one
three seven oh fifty sixty. I would like you to

(02:29:26):
go to that website peerscapes dot com and see the
work they do. Follow them on Instagram, follow them on Facebook.
I mean, you will get inspiration, you'll get ideas. And
I'm telling you, if you want to add to the
value of your home, and I've done some of the
do it yourself for kinds of things myself, it's not
the same. I mean when you get professionals in with
design and the ideas that they have that might not

(02:29:48):
have occurred to me, and you, oh my gosh, it
adds value, incredible value to your home and also makes
your house sell if you're selling a house, because people
walk in and they just go, I want this house.
That's it. That's as you're not selling. It's a place
you can enjoy. Their hardscape work as unbelievable, their drainage
work as unbelievable, The way they do irrigation and landscape

(02:30:13):
lighting and everything, it's all unbelievable. Just go to it.
Don't believe me. Just go to this pierscapes dot com.
Go look at what they do. Stunning, stunningly beautiful. All right,
let's head out to David Now in Houston. Hey, David,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (02:30:30):
Good morning. How are you today?

Speaker 2 (02:30:33):
Doing well? Thank you?

Speaker 8 (02:30:35):
I have a oak tree, and I'm not sure the
variety that was growing in my backyard and a couple
of years ago I had to transplanted to the front yard. Okay,
the tree when I transplanted, it was about three foot tall.
Now it's at least six foot. Last season we had

(02:30:55):
branches from halfway up to the top of the tree.
And this spring, after the winter, I've got leaves and
branches growing from almost ground level all the way to
the top. So what caused that? And Quinn, can I
trim those extra branches and leaves or should I trim them?

Speaker 2 (02:31:15):
Is the original one? Is it dying? Or is it
still as healthy as it ever was?

Speaker 8 (02:31:21):
Oh, it looks as healthy as it ever was. The
all the leaves or vibrant green from the from the
base all the way to the top.

Speaker 2 (02:31:29):
Okay, Well, I would I would leave the original one,
the tall one, the one that was doing real well
for you, and I'd cut all the rest of them
back as close to where they attached as you can.
Sometimes someone will hit a long tree, young tree like
that with a weed eater or a lawnmower or something
and damage the bark and it and that is almost

(02:31:50):
like a semi pruning of it, and then it's cutting
off tissues and so the tree will rea sprout from
the base as if you just cut it off. But uh,
and I just want to make sure we still got
a good trunk there sounds like we do, so I
take all the others off. I don't know what caused it,
Maybe it was a nick or something from machinery, but uh,
you want to cut all those off and just have

(02:32:10):
a single trunk coming up. And then if you can
give it a multched area, David, that is even better.
Trees hate grass. They grow in forests with leaves on
the ground. So the bigger the multch bed, the happier
and faster that tree is going to grow.

Speaker 8 (02:32:27):
Okay, do I need to put up the grass around
the base of the tree before I put the molts down?
Or just put the moltch down right on top?

Speaker 2 (02:32:34):
Is it Saint Augustine?

Speaker 8 (02:32:36):
I believe so, yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:32:39):
You can pull it. Yeah, I'd pull it out about
a foot away from the trunk because you don't want
to palm. You don't want to palm multch against the trunk.
But if you put it out of foot the way,
mow it or weed eat it, weed eat it down
real low, real low, and then you just you can
cover it with a good thick mulch and if it
blocks light out, Saint Augustine's not going to come through it.

(02:33:00):
But if you know, if you have any doubts, you
can just you know, get that grass out in the
bigger area. But but that mult bed, that forest floor
environment of decomposing launch is tree heaven, tree heaven. So
that's the best thing you can do for the tree. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:33:15):
Now, when pruning those those small branches and leaves from
the base to about half way up, should I do
that now or just wait until the tree goes dormant
in the winter.

Speaker 2 (02:33:26):
I would do it now. I would get rid of
them because you want all the growth to go in
what's left so the sinner you get to walk. Yeah,
and wherever you have a shoot coming up, there's gonna
be little dormant buds around the base of it. That's
that's how trees we sprout. You know, you got just
bark on the side of a tree and suddenly a
branch comes out. Well, that was a bud. That's a

(02:33:46):
sleep down underneath there. And so you want to cut
those out at the very base, not leaving even an
inch stub. I mean, cut them out at the base
to minimize the re sprouting. There's a product called sucker
stopper that is a plant tormone that you apply and
it tells the plant not to regrow. Shoot right there,
right then? Okay, So if you get too much of

(02:34:07):
a problem with suckering, you may want to try sprain
some of that on it, but I don't think it'll
be necessary. I think if you just keep them removed,
don't let them come up, I think you'd be all right.

Speaker 8 (02:34:17):
Okay, all right, we listen. I appreciate your help.

Speaker 2 (02:34:20):
Thank you, sir. Yeah, thanks for pasionally waiting. Good to
talk to you today. I hope you have a good
rest of your weekend. All right, all right, folks, we're
gonna now, let's see, I've got one more call where
I'm on. Yeah, I've got time for a call here.
We're going to take one more call here in just
one second. And in the meantime, just a little few

(02:34:41):
tips out in the lawn, landscaping garden. Always maintain a
good thick layer of mulch. Never tear the old mulch out,
and you don't have to replace multch again, you know,
as like I was saying about putting soil earlier. In nature,
nobody replaces mulch. The design is that leaves fall on
top of old rotting leaves and it just gets better

(02:35:04):
and better. So when you need to add mulch ad maults,
don't take the olmulch out. It's just getting good. I mean,
it's it's gonna become part of the soil at that time.
That's how nature does it, so no need to take
it away, Just add mulch. Is it. If the mulch
is chunky, you gotta make it thicker because you're trying
to block all the sunlight from getting to the soil.

(02:35:24):
The finer texture to mulch is the less deep it
needs to be to block the sunlight from the soil.
So I'm not going to give you. I mean, the
real time is about three inches for mulch, but I've
seen times rowing a little deeper in that, and I've
had times where I didn't have to go that deep. Anyway,
Let's go to Lake Palestine now and we're going to
talk to Nancy. Hey Nancy, calling from far away.

Speaker 18 (02:35:45):
Good morning, how you doing today?

Speaker 2 (02:35:50):
I'm well, thank you, good great.

Speaker 18 (02:35:53):
I've seen cheese and pictures. I've got able to see them.

Speaker 2 (02:36:00):
When did you send those?

Speaker 18 (02:36:02):
About a minute minute and a half ago?

Speaker 2 (02:36:05):
Oh okay, they haven't come through yet. Maybe you send
them to the wrong place. I'll wait and see, maybe
they'll pop up. Let's let's go ahead with the call.
And because we're not real kind of short on time,
so let's see if I can help you without the pictures.

Speaker 18 (02:36:20):
Okay, okay? Is Isaiah's I am using them? The Dina
partucts and Isaiah and they have gone crazy. They lose
lose their way, but they look like just really sprawly
goofy bush because they've just gone crazy. Should I should
I cut those back?

Speaker 8 (02:36:40):
Now?

Speaker 2 (02:36:41):
Are they are they in a lot of shade, a
deep shade or is it pretty bright shade?

Speaker 18 (02:36:50):
B they have done and they break all right.

Speaker 2 (02:36:55):
So if if you've got lanky, gangly shoots, now's the
time to cut them off. And you don't want to
do any more cutting. Once we get past about June,
because zella needs time to regrow shoots and set flower
buds on it in late summer and fall for next year.
So you can do printing to shape or to bring
gangly shoots and bounds now if you.

Speaker 18 (02:37:16):
Okay, great, great. And the other thing was only tomatoes
since there they're big now, but they've got the very top.
Something is eating the tops hot. I had a friend
so that it might be a cutworm. I guess this's
where that picture would help a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:37:38):
Well, a cutworm isn't going to feed up there. What
that may be is something called a tomato hornworm. And
they start as little tiny caterpillars, as all do caterpillars do,
but they can grow up into something the size of
your little finger. I mean, they get bad, and at
that stage you can see them. They are the color
of the foliage. So when you see areas of a

(02:38:01):
plant without any folk with foliage missing, what you need
to do is just go in and look for that cutworm.
The music's gonna start playing. We're gonna be out of
time today, but I would do a very careful search
wherever foliage is missing and find that booker and uh,
and there's no need to spray for him, you just
pick them off.

Speaker 18 (02:38:21):
Oh, thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (02:38:23):
Have a great week, all right, Nancy, you too. Thanks
appreciate the call. All right, folks, there you go. Another
weekend in the books. Uh, don't forget uh during this week.
Go check out the website. I've got some new stuff
on it. Maybe I got time to tell you real quick. Uh.
There is an article called gray Gardens begin with great Soil.
You need to read that. It is very helpful. There

(02:38:45):
is an article called lawn Care one oh one that
I put up recently. Lawn Care one oh one Everything
you need to do about long care in simple terms.
Go check those out. Running out of time. Take about
more next week.