Rabbit Revolution

Skip Richter answers your questions all morning long!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ricard shows the crazy here listening the basis gas can
use a trim.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
You just watch him as wols gas many gas to.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Seep back basic quick gas again, you dass back again.
We're not a sound Gassi gas the sound beat demon
down between.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
The gas, gas can boot starting and.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Gas You.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Already Saturday. I don't know where this week went, but
it was in a hurry to get there, that's for sure. Hey,
welcome to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're
here to help you have of succession your garden. I'm
glad you tuned in this morning. This shows all about
your questions and the things that things you want to

(01:10):
know to help you have success with a garden. Gardening
is supposed to be fun and it can be, sure
certainly can be. It's one of the iving one of
the best hobbies there is. I want to say the
best hobby, but I'm biased. But as I like to say,
I'm biased, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. I just
admit that. Yeah, it's a It is a wonderful hobby.

(01:32):
And when you start to learn how to take care
of things, take care of your plants, your landscape, whatever
you're into gardening for you know, some people it's just
all about the lawn. I call them the weekend lawn rangers.
They that is what they're all about, and that's good.
That's part of gardening. That certainly is what we'd say
a division or an area of horticulture. There's also folks

(01:56):
that are just one about doing things inside the house,
house plants and hobbies and stuff like that of gardening.
And then we got the folks that are all about
stuff you eat. You know, if they can't eat it,
they're not interested. There's a lot of things you can
grow that are pretty, but I've known some people that, yeah,

(02:17):
you can't eat it, what's it doing in my yard?
All right, Well that's you. That's good. You can do
that whatever you want to do, however you want to
go about it. The main thing is that you need
to have fun and you need to have success. That's
that is what we want to make sure you have
because when gardening becomes that kind of a hobby for you,
it just is really fulfilling. It's a lot of fun

(02:38):
to do, and we get to enjoy ourselves while we're
doing it. If you have a question you'd like to
ask today or like to reach out, you can do
so at seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. So if you look at my schedule, which,
by the way, for those of you who I got

(03:00):
I don't know, maybe tuning in for the first time.
My schedule's online on my website. It's free, it's multicolored,
and it goes from January through December, and it's about
your lawn one I actually there's two schedules. One of
them is lawn care that is mowing, watering, fertilizing, air rating,
micronutrient additions, those kinds of things. The other schedule is

(03:22):
the lawn pest weed Disease Management schedule. That one's everything
goes wrong, insects, diseases, how to prevent weeds, how to
kill existing weeds. We're kind of at the end of
the season now, a lot of our warm season weeds,
especially the one they call slender aster. It's a little

(03:44):
pretty purplish lavender daisy like blooms that are about dime
sized out there in your lawn, maybe penny sized. Anyway,
it's all about getting those out of their you know,
once a weed becomes reproductive, meaning it is blooming and
setting seed. The post emergent herbicides we use almost without

(04:05):
exception that it's just not going to work. It's not
going to be very effective at that point in time.
So what we want to do is make sure and
get that weed out of there by hand. And I
know when you say, you know, when I start telling you, oh,
you need to go pull your weeds by hand, a
lot of people are like, yeah, no, I'm not going
to do that that I would die if I did that.

(04:25):
I can't. I can't pull my weeds by hand. That's
too much work. And for some people, you know, just
getting out there and physically being able to do that
kind of work is really difficult. I understand that, and
so you know, I realize I'm talking to a wide
range of folks here, but bottom line is getting out
of there is important. I did a little post to

(04:47):
our Guardline Facebook page a while back talking about the
slender aster, and I discussed how many seeds one plant
can have, and it is technically a lot. That is,
that is how many literally thousands of seed. So if
you go, well, I can't reach down and pull that weed,
then you're basically saying I get one thousand or thousands

(05:09):
of seeds, more than a thousand of that weed now
in my lawn, and that is certainly a problem to
have to deal with. So what do we do about
those things?

Speaker 5 (05:18):
Will we?

Speaker 1 (05:20):
What I do is, you know, I get tired of stooping,
bending down, standing up, trying to get pull weeds and things.
I just I have a little thing called a kneeling bench,
and they're available a lot of places online, different places
like that I where I would suggest you get one.
A Southwest Fertilizer Bob has them at Southwest and they're

(05:41):
very handy. So you flip them one way and you
sit on them. You flip them the other way and
you kneel on them. And when you have them upside
down seeing kneel on it, then those legs become handles.
It's easy to get up and down. And I'll get
me a cup of coffee, and you know, in a
tumber where it won't still go out there, kneel down,
five gallon bucket by my side, and a little weeding

(06:04):
tool to reach down and pop those things out of
the ground. And if the soul's moist, it's not hard
to do, and you can cover quite a bit of
ground and you're not moving up and down and up
and down. You just go on once and then kind
of scoot along. It's almost I actually I use that
kneeling bits like a walker. You know, you grab the
handle and you scoot it forward, and you know, you
kind of work your way through the garden that way. Anyway,

(06:26):
it's I can fill a bucket and some sometimes I've
got a neighbor that does nothing to control their weeds
and r the seeds I'm talking about right now, and
every year along the edge, I get these weeds in
and so I even don't tell anybody, but I even
pull weeds in their yard a little bit just to
give me, you know, can I get a five foot

(06:46):
break here? Just to keep them out of mind? As anyway,
that's the bottom line. It's getting them out of there
so you don't have to don't have to deal with them,
because what if they say one year of weed is
ten years of seed or something, and that is certainly true.
You're listening to Garden Line. We're here to help you
have success. And I was just talking about Southwest Fertilizer,

(07:09):
and they are a great place where you can find
the things you need for success, whether it's products to
control weeds, prevent them, products to kill existing weeds. Whatever
you got. Southwest Fertilizer has got you covered. Corner of
Bisinet and Runwick. I would just say this, if they
don't have it, you don't need it, because they have it.
They have everything of value that you will need to

(07:32):
have success in your loan and garden. So get on
by their corner of Businet and Renwick and you'll see
what I'm talking about. That's for sure. Driving down the
road the other day, I saw some metal furniture out
at the curb side somebody. It was rusty and falling apart,
somebody who was getting rid of it, and I didn't
have time to stop and look at it. But I

(07:53):
can tell you this. If you've got furniture that is rusty,
it's not pretty, the bolts and everything's rusting and whatnot,
I don't care what it is. It could be that
aluminum tubular furniture, you know, the bright colored chairs with
the metal bottoms and tops. It could be the kind
of the mesh like expended metal looking types of furniture.
It could be cast iron. It could be wrought iron,

(08:14):
it could be illuminum, and whatever it is. If it's metal,
Houston Powder Coats can make it new again. And it
is amazing what they can do because they bring it
in and they don't just like spray paint it. They
do a powder coating, which is a powdered paint that
adheres because of an electrostatic charge to the metal and
it just sort of melts onto the metal surface that way,

(08:37):
so all the nooks and crannies are covered. They shut
down the rust, They replace all the things that are needed,
you know, the thow bolts and whatnot, slings, straps, feet,
caps and things. They get all that redone and they'll,
by the way, they'll pick up your old junkie furniture.
They'll come in, redo it and bring it back to
you and it's brand new. And this would be a

(08:58):
great time to give them a call. And the number
is two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight.
Go to their website Houston Powdercoders dot com. You see
what I'm talking about, Over one hundred colors to choose from.
Amazing and if it's metal, they can probably code it
no matter how big it is. They have an incredible
shop there. Let's take a little break here and we'll

(09:20):
be right back with your calls. If you would like
to be first up this morning. Seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. All right, we'll die. Hey,
welcome back to guard Line. Glad to have you with
us today. What are we going to talk about? You
tell me? And I've had some things that are seasonal.

(09:40):
I always have stuff in mind because there's always something
to be done outside. Uh, but what are you interested in?
What would you like to talk about? Those are the
topics that well we'll focus on. You can do that
by giving me a call. Seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. We'll talk a little bit

(10:00):
about weed control.

Speaker 6 (10:03):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
It is a it is a almost universal truth that
it is much easier to prevent a weed than to
kill it once it's up. And so what is what
do we mean when we say that, Well, when you
prevent a weed, you're you're doing it by one of
two ways. Primarily, you're either growing a dense, healthy lawn

(10:25):
where sunlight cannot hit the soil, and any weed seed
that tries to germinate doesn't have adequate sunlight, and it dies.
That is should be the goal for everybody to do that.
But sometimes our lawns get thin, they struggle with with
drought and pests and diseases and things uh, and inevitably
there there will be some weeds here and there. The second,

(10:50):
the second approach to preventing those weeds would be with
a pre emergent herbicide, one that you put down and
it prevents the weeds from sprouting and coming up. So
a pre emergent herbicide you just never see the weeds.
You put it down, it goes into the sole surface
and it kind of sticks there most of the one,

(11:11):
well the ones you hear me talk about here on Guardland,
they stick in the surface quite well because that's where
the weed seeds germinate. And then when the weed tries
to come up, it never does. You never see weeds
in that area because it's shut them down. So that
is preventing weeds. That's the better way to go about it,
because once the weeds are up, now we have to

(11:31):
do things like, okay, well this product will kill a weed,
but it sure does weaken your Saint Augustine lawn, for example,
and when that happens, then you start opening the door
to some other issues. So the post emergent products, you know,
they're an option, but they're not the best option. And
so I encourage people whenever possible to do the things

(11:53):
that prevent them. And again that starts with a good, dense,
healthy lawn. Gardening is not just about applying chemicals to
control problems constantly. It's not a treadmill of just doing that.
We have those products, they are available. There's some organic,
some quite a few synthetic products that do these sorts

(12:14):
of things. But it's better to start with a good
healthy lawn. And how do you do that. Well, you
go to the first of my schedules, the lawn care schedule,
which is mow water fertilized in a nutshell, and you
grow a good dense, healthy lawn. So that is what
we try to do.

Speaker 7 (12:29):
Now.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
The folks at Nelson Plant Food they have a product
that's called carbo load, and it's called carbo load because
the secret to a good dense, healthy lawn and a
strong lawn and a winter hardy lawn when we have
those real bad call snaps come through, is to have
a lawn that is, let's just say it has anti

(12:51):
freeze in its veins. That's carbohydrates. So when the sun
shines on the leaves and that lawn can get a
good supply potassium the third number on the fertilizer bag,
and a little bit of nitrogen the first number. That
lawn is able to build winter hardiness, and my fall
fertilizers on this schedule are designed for that. And if
you look at carbo load, it's a purple bag. It's

(13:11):
a ten, ten to twenty fertilizer, but it has that
pre emergent that when you apply it, it gets in
the soil surface and it does its work there. That's
just an example of what I'm talking about. There now
carbo looads available all over the place. It's from the
folks at Nelson's. You know, the Nelson family has been
here in Texas a long time. In fact, since the
late eighteen hundreds. They've been in the Kadie region and

(13:34):
north over there and that's where north of Katie up
in that direction is where Nelson products are made. You
know they're here. They're a local regional company that makes
fertilizers for here here. They make them here, so we
look at those products, we see how they work. I've
used them myself. They're very effective. So that's the thing.

(13:55):
Main thing is don't delight because every bit that you delay,
that's more we seeds that are already up. And we're
talking about a preventative, not something that kills existing weed.
So go ahead and get that done. Plus you need
to your fertilization done pretty quick too. You are listening
to garden Line, I'm your host, Skip Richter, and if
you have a question, feel free to give me a call.

(14:15):
Very happy to visit with you about the things to
help you have success get out of gardening what you want.
I was checking out some of the feeders at one
of our six wild Birds Unlimited stores here in the
Houston area recently. I was over at the Kingwoods store

(14:36):
and visiting with John and Susie over there and just
checking out the products and stuff. They have so many
great feeders. You know, my favorite is there. It's called
the eliminator and it's a long tubular feeder that you
can set the tension of where birds sit so that
little birds can sit there and it doesn't push the

(14:56):
gate closed, but any you can even said it we're
a bit bird can't sit there, but certainly a squirrel can't.
And every time they try to reach down and get
in that hole, their weight just closes the gate. And
I think that's great. I love my squirrel. It's not
it's calling it squirrel proof.

Speaker 8 (15:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
I don't know that the Fort Knox's squirrel proof, but
I let's just say this, I don't have problems with
squirrels on that feeder. I love it.

Speaker 9 (15:24):
Now.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
There's hopper feeders that are really nice and beautiful ones
even made out of recycled materials. And when you're looking
for what birds seed do I put in them? You're
not going to ever do better than wild birds Unlimited
as blends right now, the Winter Super Blend is the
one we're talking about. It's the one to be using
right now. And the reason is as the days get

(15:45):
shorter and with the cold weather that will come, birds
have a harder time. They have less time to be
out finding seeds, and then things start to become kind
of scarce as it gets cold and everything's frozen, dried
up and stuff. When you use the Winter Super Blend,
you're providing a food that has extra fat and protein
to help the birds through the winter, and it works super,

(16:07):
super well. It's excellent. Now when you go to a
Wildbird's Unlimited store, you're going to find they have some
blends that they have an n M as in New
Mexico M on the name, and that stands for no mess,
So that means if there's sunflower seeds in it, it's
they're already shelled. There's no shells that drop on the ground.

(16:28):
And that is the neatest, cleanest way you can go
about any of this. But the main thing is get
to one of your six Wildbirds Unlimited stores. You got
one over in clear Lake on El Dorado. For those
of you who are down southeast, there's one up in Side.
Let's head to the opposite corner. Northwest, there's one in
Cypress on Barker Cypress. Going south, there's one on bel Air.

(16:49):
In Houston, there's one Memorial Drive on the west side
of Houston. Over in Kingwood where I was recently on
Kingwood Drive is the Kingwood Store. And then down in
Paarland South in the least well East Broadway Street. Now
I say way South. Those of you live in Galveston,
go no, it's north. Well, it's South in the area.

(17:10):
WBU dot com Forward Slash Houston. That's how you find
your wild Bird's Unlimited store. Listen, we're coming up on
the holidays. Awesome, awesome gifts. Very I think it's really
unique some of the cool stuff they have at wibirds Unlimited.
To give us a gift, they don't even have to
be a gardener in your list anyway. I had a Oh,

(17:34):
I'm talking about weeds. It's easier to prevent them.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
And the.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Mindset that I was talking about is the mindset of
let's grow a plant or in a way that helps
prevent its plant problems. When we overfertilize a plant, when
we push it into lots of lush growth, a number
of things that are not as pole can happen. But

(18:02):
one of them is that that lesh new growth is
more susceptible to certain insects and diseases. Aphids, for example,
love tender, succulent new growth. They're especially drawn to it.
You take a fall disease in our lawns, large patch
or brown patch, the big circles that are around. You

(18:22):
over fertilize with nitrogen and you water water, water, water,
and you're going to see lots of large patch of
brown patch in your lawn. You pull it back a
little bit and it's not so bad. It helps reduce it.
But it's the way we care for our plants that
have either positive or negative results on what we're trying

(18:43):
to do. So again, the goal is kind of like
human health. You know, you eat right, you get some sleep,
you get some rest, hopefully a little bit of exercise,
and your body has this best chance to stand well,
to do all the opposites and then depend on meds
to just keep you upright. That's not a good way
to go about life, nor a garden. So think about

(19:06):
that as you're growing plants. Good quality soil and extensive
root system, adequate nutrition so it's not lacking for anything.
Proper watering, not overwatering. Those are all parts of setting
your plants up for success. And when we do that,
we find that we just have better plants, more productive,
more beautiful flowers, and more productive vegetables and fruits. That's

(19:30):
how we want to go about it. I was in
D and D Feed, which is outside of Tomball to
the west three miles west of two forty nine, on
twenty nine to twenty the other day talking to the
folks out there. You know, they carry the fertilizers that
I talk about on garden Line from nitrofoss and Microlife, Nelson, Turf, Starline,
Medina products. They've got it all there. They also carry

(19:50):
heirloom soils by the bag, a number of different types
of heirloom soils. Of course, it's a feed store, quality
feeds for your livestock animals, but also so for dogs.
Really high end lines like Origin and Diamond and Victor
and Star Pro are there at D and D Feed.
Here's a phone number two eight one three five one

(20:11):
seventy one forty four. Two eight one three five one
seventy one forty four. Let's take a little break for
the bottom of the hour news and we'll be right back.

Speaker 6 (20:21):
All right, but let's look back.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Welcome back to the garden Line. I was thinking about
some of the questions that I I've heard in the
past few weeks and the ones that I typically get,
you know, the you could. In fact, I wrote a
book on gardening. It's Month by Month Gardening by Cool
Springs Press, and it basically is what you do in January, February, March, April,

(20:47):
mage and so on through the year, and it talks about,
you know, the things that you plant, the things that
you're fertilized, the pests and diseases you typically see, and
and basically it's just I've been doing this for a
very long time as a horticulture of the Texas and
a agrolife extension service. I spent thirty five years there.
I was a fruit grower advisor. But prior to that,

(21:11):
with the Southwest Missouri State which is now Missouri State,
for three years, I wandered off for three years to Missouri,
came back, and it's after all these years, you hear
the same questions again and again, and the same cycles
come through, Like where once we get through the holidays
and stuff, as we start to get into January, February, March,

(21:34):
and all of a sudden, here people are the tomato
questions come up. You know, how do I start seeds
and what varieties do I plan? And you know all
of that, and it's a cycle, and it's okay. There
are things new every year that we deal with that
we maybe new or just not very common that only
occur once in a while, but in general it's the

(21:55):
same kinds of things and questions are the same ways,
so that it's just part of the cycle that we do.
During the cool season. People tend to think of fruit planting,
you know that, because it's just kind of how we've
always done it's the best time to plant. Actually, fall
is the best time to plant any kind of fruits

(22:17):
or any woody shrubs.

Speaker 9 (22:19):
You know.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
It could be ornamental shrubs, could be trees, it could
be a woody vine, it could be a fruit tree,
it could be a fruit bush like blueberries. Even strawberries
are better planted in the fall season of the year,
And so you get them planted and started, and then
the question has become about how do I care for it,
how do I prune it, how do I and when

(22:40):
do I prune it?

Speaker 7 (22:40):
And so on.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
And there's a lot of good information on all of
that at the Aggi Horticulture website Aggie Horticulture website, and
just go there and look at the fruit section. There
is a whole multi page, full color publication on every fruit. So,
for example, let's say you had blackberries that you wanted
to grow, there's a publication on blackberries, and that publication

(23:04):
talks about the varieties to grow, It talks about planning
them and pruningum and BlackBerry pruning is a little bit
of a trick for people, and it has evolved over
the years because breeders have given us new kinds of blackberries.
Now the standard normal, old type of BlackBerry that's still great,

(23:25):
wonderful variety varieties to grow. What it does is a
shoot grows one year. Let's say this twenty twenty five.
You had a shoot that came up out of the
ground in the spring, and it grew through the year,
and now it's going garment. The leaves are going to
fall off. Next spring, it'll bloom, it'll set fruit, and

(23:46):
then it'll die while new shoots are coming up that'll
be your fruiting canes. We call them the following year.
So it's a two year cycle for each cane that's
a standard type. Now they're blackberries that are primo cane bearing.
Primo means first year. So if you want to get
nerdy about this, that we called the shoot during its

(24:08):
first year a prim o caine prime number one primo.
And then the second go through winter and now it
becomes a flora. Cane isn't flowering, So that's that's the
two cycle. But now we have prima cane bearing berries,
so they grow one year. In the same year they
start setting fruits, which is kind of cool. But the
standard BlackBerry approach for the standard types of blackberries is

(24:33):
a shoot grows up when it gets about say chest high,
shoulder high or something like that. You cut the tip
out of it when you can pinch it out because
that succulent little tip it has thorns, but they're all
soft thorns. They don't You can just snap it out
with your hands, or you can snip it out of printers.
That causes it the shide shoots to form and make
long shoots going to the sides. Now instead a one

(24:56):
shoot that berries can be on, you have several shoots,
so you get more production when you tip your canes,
and you do that again about the time they reach
chest higher, so chester shoulder high, and then typically they're
tied to a wire just for ease of harvest. Then
at the end of the harvest season you cut the
whole thing off at the ground because there's brand new

(25:18):
ones coming up to continue that cycle. But if you
go to the Agahauticulture website and look for the BlackBerry publication,
you can learn all about what I'm talking about I
can't explain all the blackberries on the air, but that
is at least a good start to get you going
in the right direction. I love Buchanan's Native Plants. Every

(25:38):
time I get a chance to go by there, I
do because it's it's just a fun place to go.
It's really cool now they are. Of course they have
the best selection of natives in the whole region, so
hands down that. But coming up is their holiday open house,
and this is a big shindig. Buchanans by the Way
is on Eleventh Street and the Heights and on December sixth,

(26:01):
that's a Saturday from ten am to three pm, about
five hours here from ten am to three pm. They're
gonna have live music, they're gonna have crafts for kids.
San will be there, They'll be drinks and a lot
more going on. It is really a cool annual, free
event that they do every year. While you're at Buchanans
by the Way, check out their gift shop. Unbelievably beautiful

(26:24):
stuff in there. So if you're looking for a gift
for a friend, there you go. You can got your
points at as yet I hope you haven't by now,
probably not. You can get them at Buchanan's. They also
have Norfolk pines. We bought our Norfolk one year and
it is gosh, that was probably it's probably ten years ago,
this Norfolk and it just keeps getting bigger and beautiful.

(26:45):
It spends at Summer's Outdoors. Bring it inside, pack some
bows and ribbons to it, and you have your holiday
holiday plant right there. But you got to go to
Buchanans to check these things out. So don't forget the
holiday open house on December sixth and always the best
time for planting, and Buchanans has the plants that you're

(27:06):
going to want to have, whether it's attracting birds and butterflies,
are just a love for native plants that are from here,
that know how to live here. That is the place
you go. Microlife fertilizers. They've got their fall special that
is the brown bag and it is for fall applications.
It's got an extra stock of good microbes, sixty three

(27:30):
different species of good microbes that are in that fertilizer.
You put it out, you water it in really good,
get those things splashed around and they are there to
help your plant in various ways. Some enhanced growth, some
fight disease. But Microlife Fertilizer has been around for a
long time. Right now, we're in the season for the
Microlife brown bag. The brown bag it's called, it's called

(27:51):
brown Patch because of the disease fighting stuff that's in it.
Microlifefertilizer dot Com is the website that you want to
go to for that. It's easy to find. And I
guess whether it's a feed store, hardware store, mom and
pop nursery, the independent garden centers we have around here.
Everybody carries Microlife real easy to find. We're gonna take

(28:13):
another little break here, and if you are interested, I
have a question seven one three two one two five
eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four give me a call. We'll talk about
the things that are most of interest to you. All right,
Welcome back, folks. Good to have you with us this morning. Hey,

(28:39):
are you looking to make your place something special? I mean, magical, beautiful? Well,
Pierce Scapes is the only name you need to know.
The work they do is amazing. Go check them out
on their website Piercescapes dot com. They do all kinds
of things like do you want to add lighting to
your landscape and go go check out the lighting they

(29:01):
do online, see what they can do, and it's like,
oh my gosh, that that changes the whole setting of
my home. Do you need a hardscape done, maybe a patio,
maybe a walkway, maybe some beds that are raised up
and lined with beautiful rock, just giving that relief in
the landscape. You know, this not just all flat and

(29:23):
one level. Do you want to have your irrigation fixed?
You do you need to fix drainage? You know, we're
just areas that just stay two saggy, wet. Or do
you just want a beautiful design for your garden beds
for the whole layout. Pierce Scapes can do that at
any level. They also offer a quarterly maintenance service where
they come out they you know, do the basics. They

(29:43):
make sure your beds are all spruced up, the weeds
are out, the new mulch is down, the irrigation's working,
all that kind of thing. Just talk to them. Here's
the phone number two eight one three seven fifty sixty
two eight one three seven five zero six zero. We're
going to go out to the height now and talk
to Alan. Hello, Alan, Welcome the garden.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Line by your moan share. Uh, Verry Park, I have
a I'm becoming disabled senior and I used, uh, I've
been here about forty five years. I used to hav
the most beautiful, perfect Saint Augustine Alon and over the
last few years it's all guide and so it's taken

(30:26):
over by Bermuda. And I'm uh, pretty well convinced that's
what I'll keep. But it's wispy and uh it you know,
it's jumped in and we know there's we control applications,
but I sometimes mistaken. I heard that you can buy

(30:46):
bermudy grass seed is said something, and that's what my backyard.
The grass is pretty much gone because it's shady back there.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Yeah, Bermuna needs son. Bermuda needs son. If you're in
the heights, there's not a lot of sun in the lights,
So I suspect Bermuda may not be your best shot.
If you got full sun, you can do that. You
can start it from seed. Uh it's a challenge because
you end up getting a gully washer rain and it
washes all the seed off to one spot. And when
the ceilings are young young, you got to keep them

(31:21):
moist so they can get established, but you're not going
to do any of that until we hit about April
and it really warms up and that seed will come
out faster and you can do that, but not anymore. Yeah. Yeah, well,
I would say Zoysia or Saint Augustine would be better options.
But the only way to do that at this point, Allen,

(31:44):
would be to have somebody go in there and kill everything,
get it at Bermute out and everything, and then replant
with a SOD that. Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Can buy the seed that send of these local businesses
you recommend you, you can, You just have to ask.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Not everybody carries those kinds of things. If you go
online to the Aggie Turf website, that's the day is
Aggie Turf dot tamat on the front on the front page,
lower left, there's a thing called turf Grasses for Texas
or something. You click on that and it'll show each one.
If you click on Bermuda, it will show you the

(32:32):
ones you can buy by seed and the ones that
you buy by sod. And so you go down to
the seed list, print that out or something, and then
go shop and see if you can find one of those,
because you want a semi dwarf bermuda. You don't want
the stuff that's out in pastures, you know, ranches and stuff.

Speaker 5 (32:50):
It's a different kind.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
But it's on that at the Turf website. Hey, I'm
gonna have to run and go, but I wish you
luck with that. Good luck. I know that's bermuda in
Saint Augustine is a challenge, that's for sure.

Speaker 6 (33:04):
Oh yeah, I thank you.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Bye you, bet bye bye, thank you very much. Somebody
was asking me that they about tea, uh the what
we would call China tea, the black tea that you
know when you make you a cup of hot tea
kind of thing, and and I was telling them that
you can actually grow that here. There is a type

(33:27):
of camellia that tea is made from. So when you
buy when you buy tea, what you're buying is a
type of camellia leaf. When I say tea, I mean
black tea, not herbal tea and all the but regular
regular tea. Uh So it's camellia sentensus And you can
grow them here. You just kind of protect them a
little bit with some cold and things. But they do

(33:48):
really well. The flowers are kind of fragrant too, bees
and pollinators like them. If you're looking for one of those,
I was checking out and Moss Nursery is carrying those now,
they have for a while now. But just sound what
the the tea camellia and they'll know what you're talking about.
And they've got those there. What a novel gift too
for somebody, you know, especially somebody that likes tea. That'd

(34:09):
be kind of a fun thing to give them as
a gift.

Speaker 7 (34:11):
You know.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Moss Nursery is down in Seabrook, Texas. It's eight acres
of wonderfulness to wander through it. I think their houseplant
greenhouse one of the best I've ever seen anywhere. Lots
of different things that are not so common, as well
as the common types of houseplants you're gonna find down there.
Wander through Moss, check out the flowers, check out the vegetables.

(34:32):
Check out the shrubs, trees, and fruit and everything else
that they have, including those houseplants. You're going to enjoy yourself.
I would say, if you combine a botanical garden with
a museum and fill up with gorgeous plants and pottery,
that's Moss nursery in Seabrook, Texas. It has been there
a very long time, seventy years. This family operated eight

(34:53):
acre source of everything you need. Toddville Roads, Seabrook, Texas.
Mossnursery dot com. That's a s nursery dot com two
eight one four seven four, twenty four eighty eight. Check
them out. Not too long ago, I was down at
Jorges Hidden Gardens, which is south of Houston, down in

(35:15):
the Alvin area. Jorge started off as kind of a
live oak tree production operation, and they through the years
that he has just expanded and expanded. It's a family operation.
His wife and kids are all involved in fact, you
go on a weekend and shop and you'm probably going
to have the kids come out and greet you when

(35:36):
you get out of the car, because they're part of
the deal too. Now, all of those communities down in
that region where Jorge is, by the way, he's on
elveth Elizabeth Street in the Height and in the Heights
in Alvin. It's an Alvin address actually between Alvin and
Santa Fe. Jorges Hidden Gardens. Let me give you a
phone number seven one three six three two fifty two

(35:58):
ninety seven one three two five two nine zero. So
those of you listening in Alvin and Santa Fe and Arcadia,
al Gooa, Alta, Loma Hillcrest, that whole region down there,
this is your hometown. Garden center's not very far at
all for you to go. And he has beautiful selection
right now of fruit trees, fruit shrubs like blueberries and things.

(36:22):
He's got a nice selection as citrus, and it's always
evolving there. He sells the three sixty tree stabilizer that's
something we definitely need with a new tree to hold
it in place. And he also has his own proprietary
line a fertilizer made by the folks at Nelson Fertilizer
down at Jorges Hidden Gardens again Elizabeth Street, Alvin, Texas,

(36:45):
address seven to one three six three two fifty two ninety. Well,
I believe it's time for me to shut this one down.
We're hitting the top of the hour of our first
hour here on garden Line. Look forward to visiting with
you about the thing things that are of interest. If
you would like to be first up when we come back,
go ahead and give the producer a call and get

(37:06):
in get in that front of that line seven one
three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I want
to remind you about my website Gardening with Skip dot com.
Gardening with Skip that's mean dot com. There you'll find
my schedules for the lawn. You will also find information

(37:29):
on all kinds of aspects from controlling things like the
evil weed, nuts edge. How do you how do you
really understand and get control of it? I got a
really good publication for that. Your lawn been dying out
from take all root Rut. There's a good publication for that.
The self freed to download or read it on the
computer if you prefer. And also what you're gonna find

(37:49):
on the website is a publication about frosts and freezes
that season is coming. You should you should go look
at it, read it and kind of get an understanding of, Oh,
I see, here's what I need to do to protect
that plant effectively. Here's what works, there's what doesn't work.
And then get the supplies ready to go, because I'll

(38:10):
tell you this, when the first freeze is forecast, people
are going to hit the stores and clean them out
for all the things you need. You know, heat, lamps
and all the stuff people do to protect their plants.
There you go, you've been forewarned. Let's take a little break.
I need to refill my coffee. You do the same.
We'll be right back here in just a bit.

Speaker 6 (38:46):
Watch him as the world.

Speaker 10 (39:02):
Not a sign.

Speaker 11 (39:08):
Sand's morning, gardeners, Good morning on a wonderful Saturday.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
I think they call this chamber of commerce weather. We
are really enjoying some nice temperature. Actually as a little
on the warm side, getting up in the eighties. Hey,
come on, man, it's November. We need to quit that.
But it's not bad, not bad compared to what we've
been through, that's for sure.

Speaker 7 (39:42):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Here we are on the doorstep of fall. In one
of these days, the weatherman's going to come on and say,
guess what, We're going to frost or freeze, and we're
going to be ready for that. So I do encourage
you to download that publication on my website. It is
protecting plants from frost and freezes, landscape plants and gardens
and things. It's free. It's free to look out. I
wrote it with one of the Texas A and M

(40:03):
horticulture specialists up there back when I was working with
ager life extension as a horticulturist. And you know, weather
information is as pertinent today as it was yesterday when
it comes to how do you protect a plant? How
does frost occur? How does freeze occur? And did you
know here's a fun fact. Did you know that you

(40:25):
can have a frost without a freeze. Well, of course
we talk about them as separate, but how can that
be because frost is ice on the surface of a plant.
So if you don't have a freeze, how can you
have a frost. I'm gonna leave that one. Let you
chew on it. Maybe I'll remember to come back to
it a little bit later. But that publication goes into

(40:46):
it and it helps you understand that and how to
protect them. I always hate to drive around town and
before a freeze is about to hit and see people
that have turned their plants into landscape lollipops. What does
that mean? It's a little stick coming out of the ground.
That's a try. And then they put a cover over
the top end, wrap it around the trunk, just like
a lollipop with a little plastic wrap over the top. Well,

(41:07):
that's not how you protect a plant. Get that publication
and find out why that's not and also how to
do it correctly. ACE Hardware stores are all over the
Greater Houston area and to find yours, you just need
to go to ACE Hardwaretexas dot com. Don't forget the
word Texas. Ace Hardware Texts dot com. That's my ACE

(41:30):
Hardware stores here in the greater region, all the way
from Orange down to Portoransas and everything in between, north
southeast west. You will find at your ACE Hardware store
the decorations that you're looking for, the lights, the Christmas lighting,
that kind of thing is. You know, they always they
had a great selection of Halloween decorations. Of course, now

(41:51):
we're hitting Thanksgivings time for those, but you know how
it is these days. We start preparing for Christmas the
day after the fourth of July. But seriously, we're getting
close to it. It is time to get ready, and
they've got a great selection up there, all the things
you need for indoors and outdoor of your home. I
posted something I think it was from Aspa's Ace in
the Woodlands. I believe that's what it was. I posted

(42:12):
it to our Facebook page and as a guy walking
through Ace Hardware, you know I'm always telling you they
have Yes, they have everything a hardware store should happen more.
But they also have all this cool home stuff and whatnot.
And a caller last weekend said that the biggest mistake
he ever made was taking his wife to Ace Hardware
Store because now she wants to go there and buy

(42:33):
stuff all the time. And it is in this video
clup of guys walking through the Kendra Scott section of
this Ace Hardware store. Some of you are going, what's
Kendra Scott? Well, I learned what kender Scott was the
hard way, and I was taught about the importance of
kender Scott. Anyway, he's walking through, He's going, hey, where's
the men's section, And she takes him over to the

(42:55):
cash register to the credit card machine. So this is
the men section right here. But although that's funny, there's
there is a lot of cool stuff from out at
Ace Hardware Store. You're d Walt and Milwaukee and Stanley
Blackendecker and all that the quality hand tools we're looking for.
Right you need propane, you need barbecue pits, you need
all the cool stuff for the outdoor. There's a lot

(43:18):
of men's store at the Ace Hardware store ACE Hardware
Texas dot com. Go check it out. You're gonna find
an Ace Hardware and Magnolias called All Star Ace. There's
also an All Star Ace in Spring on Rayford Road.
You go out to Kingwood and you've got Kingwood K
and m Ace. Rather on Kingwood Drive you got kN
m and a task Caseta too. By the way, there's

(43:39):
Kilgore's Ace. H it's actually kil Gore's clearly Lumber on
East Main down there, Ace Hardware Store, Port levake A's
on Calhoun Plaza and Katie's out there in Pinoak in
Old Town Katie. Just a few of the stores you'll
find at Ace Hardware Texas dot com. So anyway, I

(43:59):
like to go into My wife likes to go into
them too. By the way, it's just cool stuff. Well,
you are listening to Gardenline. Here is the phone number
seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
By the way, at Enchanted Forest in Chenny Forest, by
the way, if you don't know, is down in the

(44:20):
Richmond Rosenberg area. It's between Richmond Rosenberg as you're going north,
kind of like you were going to go to sugar Land.
It's off to the right to the south of fifty nine.
It's on FM twenty seven fifty nine to be specifically
FM twenty seven fifty nine. Just go to their website
and find out what you need to know. Enchanted Forest, Richmond,
TX dot com. Something you do need to know here

(44:43):
is a minute I quit talking on the microphone. At
ten am, there's going to be someone call at Enchanted Forest,
Aaron Mills, talking about native bees, protecting our most precious pollinators,
and she'll take you on a deep dive into nativebe
b biology all the ways that these these bees are special.

(45:03):
And everybody knows about honey bees, right, but we have
so many cool native bees. It's free, it's an enchended forest.
It's today at ten am. You need to go check
it out. Really cool stuff. By the way, while we're
talking about in Chenne Forest, Sanna is going to be
there in Channet Forest on Saturday, November twenty ninth, a
few weeks away, but time to get ready for it.

(45:26):
There'll be photos with center from ten am to two pm.
There'll be a holiday succulent make and take. Now that's
a thirty dollars class because you're gonna get all the
parts and pieces you need to put together succulent plants
in a really cool arrangement. For the holidays, they're gonna
have cookies and everything there as well, So it's a
fun time when they have events out there. At in

(45:46):
chenned Forest, I just saw they got a shipment in
of lots of nice vegetables. They always have vegetables and
herbs and flowers. If you want beauty, that's the place
to go in Chenni Forest.

Speaker 9 (46:00):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Let me give you that web address again, enchanted Forest, Richmond,
t X dot com. Go check them out. Well, you're
listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
our goal is to help you have success. We want
your efforts in gardening to be ones that make you
happy because you're getting good results. That's what we're trying

(46:23):
to do. And there's so many ways to learn to
think like a plant, you know, that is exactly what
success in gardening looks like, learning to think like a plant, or,
as one fellow put it, learning to see things from
a plant's point of view. When you understand what a
plant wants and you give it that it's going to thrive.

(46:45):
We'll talk more about that in a bit. Let's take
a little break and I'll be right back. Can you Withmia,
I'm the only one that you love dream Hello again? Simple,
open cholos? Where did you get.

Speaker 8 (47:04):
All right?

Speaker 1 (47:06):
I feel like we were about to have a sockhop
or something here. If I know what a sock cop is.
You know what a sock cop is? Tell me when
you call. I want to know that. That's a term
that used to be used long time ago. Hey, you're
back with garden Line. I'm back with garden Line, and
we're here to help you have success. If you'd like
to give me a call. Seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one

(47:29):
two five eight seven four h Let's help you get
more out of your gardens. Let's help you do the
things you want to do to make your place a
showplace and fun. Your garden is a playpen for gardeners.
It is it is mine is I get out. I
get to play in the dirt, and that's a fun thing.

Speaker 9 (47:48):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
And so what I would recommend is you start with
the soil in order to have success with any plant
you're going to put in the ground. Every plant has
soil conditions at once. A cactus likes to be out
in a dry most of them a dry climate with
really good drainage. Does find out there put in a

(48:08):
zella out there, and it's not going to be very
happy about that. It wants to be in a forest
floor environment with acidic soils. You give the plant the
soil at once, you give it the conditions at once,
and watch how happy it gets. It's as simple as that.
If you live down in the League City area, you
need to know about League City Feed. The Fergusons have
run League City now there's third three generations now down there.

(48:31):
And by the way, League City is located on Highway three,
just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. So
the all of the communities down in the League City region,
this is your hometown feed store. League City Feed. They're
open Monday through Saturday, nine to six, closed on Sundays,
but I like that nine to six because you can
swing by there after work and grab what you need.

(48:52):
You're going to find all your gardening supplies, you know,
fertilizers from nitrofoss and Microlife and Nelson Plant and azomite
and also medina products. You're going to find the soils
from heirloom soils. They have a number of different heirloom
soel bags they carry there, as well as pesticides, herbicides,
bonge of sides, things to deal with the problems that

(49:15):
occur when we have a garden or a lawn two
eight one three three two sixteen twelve. League City Feed
two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. I was
discussing the importance of getting the soil right, making the
plant happy. I always on guardline. I always say brown
stuff before green stuff, and to me, it's it's the

(49:37):
most simplified way that I can put it. And I
know maybe for some people it's like, what does that
even mean? Well, what it means is before you put
a plant in the ground, you get the soil right
so that plant is set up for success. It's it's
like your insurance making sure that that plant is going
to thrive because you've given it what it wants. That's

(50:00):
I say brown stuff before green stuff, and when you
do that, you're going to find success. I see so
many people that purchase and PLoP a poor plant into
an unprepared plot and That is the recipe for disaster.
You've spent money on that plant. You don't want to
watch it die or just struggle and never accomplish anything

(50:22):
that you want. Prepare the soil first. Now's the time
to do it, because now's also the time to plant.

Speaker 8 (50:28):
Now.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
If you're down south of Houston, Cienamal has got you
covered on all of that. I don't care what you
need for your soil. They've got you covered. Composts and
bed mixes. You know, they carry the veggie nerd mix
for example, from the folks at Heirloom Soil. They carry
the fertilizers that's part of the brown stuff. That's the
nutrient level, the nutrient bank account. And the soil. They

(50:52):
carry fertilizers from nitrofoss from Nelson's, from Medina. They carry azamite,
and they do carry airlom soils a way. Well, now
when you go there, you're going to find that they
also have beautiful flat rock for for patios, patio stone,
They've got the river rock, they have any kind of
a rock surface materials that you're going to be looking

(51:13):
for to create that beautiful outdoor setting.

Speaker 10 (51:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
They their store just keeps getting better. All kinds of
cool decorations for the garden indoor things as well. Cienamultch
dot com they are near Highway six and two eighty
eight on FM five one five twenty one Sienna Mulch
dot com. If you're within twenty miles, they can do
deliveries for a small fee. They do it by the supersack,

(51:39):
which is a cubic yard sack set on your driveway
for the neat and clean way to go about it.
Or they'll bring out a bunch of yards and just
dump them on the driveway. I've done it both ways myself.

Speaker 7 (51:50):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
And you know, main thing is just get a good
quality saw mix and get it in the ground and
get ready for success with plants, and Cenamulch helps should
do that. They also carry beds too, by the way,
if when you go, and I would recommend going by
there because you're going to see some really cool landscape art,
yard art, metal rustic types of art. You're going to

(52:11):
see the veggo beds that are planted. They kind of
get them an idea what they look like, and when
you see one, you're going to want one. I can
tell you that Cianamalch cianimals dot com. It you know, gardening.
There's a few things in gardening that I try to
convince people of and just feel like I never quite

(52:32):
can turn the corner on that with folks. One of
them is preparing the soul before you plant. It is
much more fun to go buy that fruit tree or
that flower, a flat of flowers that you're going to
take home and plant, or tomato plants and all that.
It's much more fun to do that than to come
home with a bag full of brown stuff to put

(52:53):
on the ground to prepare for the green stuff. But
oh my gosh, the most important thing you do is
to prepare the soil. One way that I like to
put it is that when you have planted a plant
or a seed and you stand up and walk away,

(53:13):
you are seventy five percent of the way to success
or failure. Way over half of your chance of success
or failure has already been determined. And why can't I
say that? Don't you need to water and fertilize and
deal with pessen. Yeah, you need to do all those things,
but listen to this. You've picking a spot. You've picking
You've you've chosen a spot. I got in between pick

(53:36):
and chosen. You've chosen a spot that is either sunny
or shady, and the plant's going to have an opinion
about that, a strong opinion. You've chosen a spot that's
either well drained or can get really soggy soppy during
wet weather, and the plant's going to have an opinion
about that. The soil pH is either going to be

(53:57):
what a plant wants or what it doesn't want. The
soil levels that you've mixed down in there or either
right or they haven't been checked at all. You've chosen
a plant species and a plant variety that may want
to grow here or may rather be in Kansas or
Colorado or New Jersey than here. Okay, you've chosen and

(54:19):
planted them in the correct way, or you haven't. This
is what I'm talking about about. When you stand up
and walk away, you're seventy five percent of the way
to success or failure. So think about all those things
that we do ahead of time, and it starts with
picking a good spot and getting the soil right. And
it's not that hard to do. In fact, sometimes it's

(54:39):
almost effortless. You get you a raised bed box, set
it on the ground, and you just dump a bunch
of good soil in it and you are gardening that
same day. You're on your way to gardening that same day.
So it can be as simple as that. But the
main thing is just do it.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
Just do it.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
Find out what the plant wants, as we say, learn
to see things from the plant's point of view, and
you're setting yourself for success. The folks at Arburgate it's
just always a showplace there. You probably have been there
a bunch of times yourself, but Arburgate is just it's
just a fun place to go. It's a fun showplace

(55:16):
to go. If you are interested, you need to get
by right now and see the beautiful, beautiful decorations in
their gift shops. They are unbelievable, so pretty now going
on today at Arburgate again, when I quit talking on
the mic, here, Angela Chandler from the Garden Academy is

(55:37):
going to be at Arburgate talking about temperate fruit trees
the first three years. What is temperate fruit tree means? Well,
that means the things we plant here that basically it's peaches, plums, apples, pears, mulberries,
all those kinds of fruit, fruit plants that we have
as opposed to tropical fruit plants. The first three years
are so important, from actually beginning before you plant, like

(55:59):
I've been talking about, to taking care of planning them right,
taking care of them and so on down the line
now costs ten bucks per person. It's it's non refundable.
You need to call them make sure they still have space.
But it's two eight one three five one eighty eight
fifty one. Arbigate has fruit trees year round and they
are stocked up very well right now. This is a

(56:20):
cool deal because you get the class, really quality information
from Angela. She knows what she's talking about, and they
are gonna then have all the trees and things you
might want after you learn and ask your questions and whatnot.
Two eight one three five one eighty eight fifty one
at the arbor gate today temperate fruit trees. The first

(56:41):
three years starts at ten am. So you listen to
the rest of the Guardline on your radio on the way.
How about that. We're glad you're listening today. If you'd
like to give me a call our phone number seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four, or
feel free to give me a call. We'll be happy

(57:02):
to help you have success. Let's head out to Katie
right now, and we're going to talk to Dwayne this morning. Hello, Dwayne,
go on to start line.

Speaker 12 (57:10):
Thank you, good morning. How can we help since she's
an email of my Joey avocado tree. The leaves are
kind of burning. I just want to see what your
thoughts are on it.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Oh yes, yes, uh, that is a strange kind of
pattern on them. My first thought is that something was
wrong water wise in the soil. It could have been
too wet, too dry, or something like that. The spots
don't look like diseases to me, although there could be
a fungus that's involved in them. But it's not like

(57:39):
there's a fungus in your tree and you need to
spray your avocados. It's not it's not not kind of
a disease thing. I think it's it's something physiological with
the soil and the roots and water. That's my best
guess on it. You might check. I think if I'm
I looked at those yesterday, I think, if I'm not mistaken,

(58:01):
they are worse. It's worse on some branches than on others,
and let me see if I can see yes, photo here,
uh and and so follow those branches down and just
see what's going on. Are there are there some little
borer holes in them? Is there like a canker where
the bark is like sunken and not you know, not healthy,

(58:21):
like either a physical injury or a fungus affect the bark.
And just see because I'm I don't know why certain
leaves would do that and not others unless something was
done very specifically in a spot around that tree that
affected certain roots, because roots tend to feed this, you know,

(58:42):
a branch like an a normally ground.

Speaker 12 (58:45):
I'm not actually looking at it now, and it looks
like there's actually maybe the the limbs on where a
lot of these are coming off of, like maybe the
limb itself got marked now that you mention it, maybe
sunskuld or something on the limb that could be.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
It could be a sunken it may it may heal over.
There's nothing to spray on it, even if it was
a canker. There's not a canker spray that we have,
so I would just make sure it gets what it needs.
We're about to go into winter, right now what it
needs is not to freeze. By the way, I'm looking
at my clock, I got five seconds. I'm gonna have
to go Dwane. But good luck with that, and I

(59:20):
appreciate your call. Folks, will be right back with your call.
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Welcome back to guardline, folks. Hey, nobody's nobody has yet
told me what a sock cop is, so we're going
to get some calls here. In a second, maybe we'll
get an answer. So when it comes to the nutrients

(59:43):
that your plants need, we need to remember that there
are the big three nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium symbolized np K.
Always the three numbers on the bag. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium,
always in that order. Each number represents a person, Okay,
So if you go past that, then we get nutrients

(01:00:05):
that plants do need to sulfur, calcium, magnesium. Those are
kind of secondary, and then we have the trace minerals.
The trace minerals are the ones that are absolutely as
essential as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. They're just needed in tiny,
tiny amounts. That's why we call them. Trace minerals are
micro nutrients. Azamite is a product that contains all the

(01:00:28):
micro nutrients your plant needs. Now when you put it out,
you're putting them down in the bank account of the soil.
Those are not nutrients that make the plant take off
and grow like nitrogen does. You don't nitrogeneral plant and
it just gets all vigorous and everything that pushes bigger.
But asmite is essential for all kinds of things that
plants need, all kinds of functions within the plant. And

(01:00:52):
a forty four pound bag of aza motel covers six
to twelve thousand square feet a long. It goes a
long way because it's a trace mineral. Putting out the
volume you are on the other types of fertilizers. But
don't let the fact that you don't need a lot
of it change the fact in your mind that it
is absolutely essential to have those nutrients. You can go

(01:01:14):
to azimite Texas dot com find out more. Look at
my schedule azamites on there. You'll see exactly you have
options of when you want to apply it. You can
apply it right now, you can apply it in the
midwinter if you want to. You can apply it in
the spring when you do your spring fertilization. There's flexibility there.
The main thing is just make sure that your soil
has everything it needs. A good sol test, by the way,

(01:01:35):
is a great way to find out exactly what all
the nutrient levels are in your soil. We're going to
head now out to Jersey Village and talk to George
this morning. Hey George, welcome to garden Liner.

Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
Good morning, Skiff. Good to talk to you again. I
happen to work sock copy is because i'd been to
them when I was a teenager and I was in
high school. Yeah, I graduated in nineteen fifty seven.

Speaker 10 (01:01:57):
That's why.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Oh yeah, you do know it copy?

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's what You take your shoes off and
you get there and you you have you know those
argall socks that used to buy those weird colored fancy shocks,
and there dances in your socks, and that's what that's
what it was for.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
So they were there. You go, look that was that
was long before my time. But I love I love
the music from that era.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
Yeah, how about my sweeping the outcome they're so small
when I themut of the ground or only hinger size
and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Water the water, Uh, it's a number of things. Uh,
sweet potatoes number one, just go back to when you
plant it. I'm starting with good, strong, healthy shoots that
you know you put them, you put the slips or
the sections of iron in the ground to grow. And
a little spendly one is that you're you're behind from

(01:02:49):
the beginning with that. A good healthy getting it in
the ground, making sure it gets adequate water and fertilizer,
not too much or too little to be the one.
But keeping growing is through the season as best you can.
That is also important. Uh. And when you do that,
they really load up those roots with carbohydrates and you

(01:03:10):
get what you would expect out of a sweet potato plant,
you know, the nice large roots, the starting with spinley
little starts, and then anything that stresses them along the way.
You end up with these a little type of root
that it has some storage in it. I mean technically
you could eat it, but it's probably the size of
your fingers as opposed to a potato.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
Yes, all right, that's tough plants to grow, then, right,
and do it right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Well, not necessarily, I mean, you just give it what
it wants. And there's there's some good information if you
go to the Aggie Horticulture website. There's a vegetable section
of vegetable gardening and and there's an easy Gardening series.
So there's like a publication on every vegetable you'd want
to grow, and there's a sweet potato one. You can
click on it. It's a PDF. You can look at

(01:03:59):
it in your screen. You can printed out if you want,
read over that and it'll give you the basics of
a sweet potato success. Sunlight also, sunlight's absolutely critically important. Yeah,
in the spring time like that when it know, when
it warms up. They like warmer weather. So you know,
typically you're not putting sweet potatoes out in March, but

(01:04:21):
as it warms up a little bit, your feed stores,
your garden centers are going to start to carry the
little bundles of sweet potato plants.

Speaker 9 (01:04:28):
And that that is why I would go in next
year and you get half of them, right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Next year, I get half if they if they're successful.
Don't bring me those little skinny fingers sweeping. I've done
that myself. I don't need help with that. Thanks George,
have a good day, say trouble you too, Bye bye,
our our soils. Sweet potatoes like a sandy soil or
a sandy loam soil that's ideal. Now, if you get

(01:04:56):
a bed mix that's really good. As long as there's
not too much nitrogen in it, you can grow good
sweet potatoes and those as well. I tell you what
we do have though a lot of here, and that's
clay soil. And what happens when clay soil gets wet,
it shrinks or it swells, and when it gets dry,
at shrinks. And that's why you know. You go to
some neighborhoods in Houston downtown, they've been around a long time,

(01:05:17):
and it's like going on the sidewalk is like walking
across the top of the Rocky mountains. I mean it's
up and down and sideways, and I don't know how
you ride a bike across there anyway. Fix my slab
foundation repair they know the soils. Ty's been doing this
for twenty three years, no, twenty five years now, I
believe Ty Strickland. Fix myslab dot com. Fix myslab dot com.
If your doors are sticking sometimes and then they're not

(01:05:39):
sticking others, that means something's moving. If you see cracks
in the sheet rock and cracks in the brick, on
the outside. That means something's moving. You need to have
him come out and give you a free estimate. Free
estimates for your gardenline listeners at fixmyslab dot com. He'll
tell you what he thinks. I'll tell you it's moving
a little bit. But let's just watch it. It's okay
for now, or say no, we need to go ahead

(01:05:59):
and do this and step in now before worst problems occur.
Ty does business the way it should be done. He
shows up on time, he fixes it right, and he
charges a fair price. Fixmslab dot com two eight one,
two five five forty nine, forty nine. We're going to
go now to Michael and Clearlake. Hey Michael, welcome to Guard.

Speaker 13 (01:06:21):
Good morning Ski.

Speaker 9 (01:06:21):
How are you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
I'm doing well, thank you.

Speaker 13 (01:06:24):
We had our talk about that we just had our
pool refurbished, and now that the construction is wrapping up,
we're left our beautiful yard is nothing but bare dirt,
clay and mud patches. So we're just wondering if there
anything we need to do right now to cover that
up and prep for the spring.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Uh is this going to be a lawn?

Speaker 5 (01:06:44):
This area It was a lawn before, So.

Speaker 13 (01:06:47):
We're considering lawn, but would also be openingdie recommendations for
some plants that are good landscaping around a pool without
shedding too much as well.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
Yeah, well, every every plant that has a leaf sheds leaves,
you know, even you know, magnolias, and those leaves come off.
They don't live forever. But yeah, typically around the pool,
you know, you're looking for things that look really good
in the summer, especially, you know, flowers and things, things
like a hibiscus, and it could be the perennial types

(01:07:19):
of hibiscus would be pretty around there. Anything blooming is nice.
If you're going to have an area the water is
always splashing and keeping too wet, you may want to
make sure and get a plant that can put up
with that most of the time. Around the pool, it's
not quite that way, So I would say go esthetically
with what you want. Now, if having a block of

(01:07:40):
a view is important to you, then an evergreen gives
you a twelve month screening from view. But I would
use a mix of them. Try some things out. I
don't know if you if you are looking to do
it yourself or are you wanting to hire somebody to
come in and do it.

Speaker 13 (01:07:59):
Yeah, we probably were like to do it ourselves and
listen to your show and take guidance to you. But
we're also looking for the.

Speaker 10 (01:08:04):
Bare dirt right now.

Speaker 13 (01:08:05):
Is there anything we should do to prep for the
spring or anything we should do right now?

Speaker 9 (01:08:09):
Just leave it and wait?

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Yeah, improving the soil with some compost, especially if you're
doing beds, getting some bed soils and stuff brought in,
and that way it'll settle over the winter with the
rains and things, and you're ready to go and planting
in the spring or late winter whenever you're going to
start doing your planting on it. But I would just
decide what you like the look of there's so many options.

(01:08:33):
I guess I'm better helping you by going, hey, I'm
thinking about these two plants. What is your opinion? Skipt
You know, I can give you the pros and cons
then just like here's the seven plants you need to
put around a pool for example.

Speaker 10 (01:08:47):
All right, well, thank you appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
You bet, Yeah, I might include one plant. Well, there's
a lot of good plants out there. But you hear
me through the course of time talking about different things
on a garden line and trialis T H. R. Y
A L L I S is a perennial. It dies
back to the ground when we have a good freeze,

(01:09:09):
and then it comes back and it blooms for more
months of the year than just about anything. It just bloom, bloom, blooms.
It's yellow. You can share it. It makes a dense
hedge if you do, or you can kind of let
it be open. But it's a beautiful plant that gives
you yellow color for a very long time. So that'd
be one I would put in the mix and consider.
All right, thank you, thanks sir, appreciate your call. All Right,

(01:09:33):
we got to run here to a break ted in
San Leon. You are first when we come right back.

Speaker 7 (01:09:39):
All right, we're back.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
A let's do we got some yakin to do here
on guarden line. Hey, Warren Southern Gardens in Kingwood Garden
Center out there in Kingwood. Both of them open seven
days a week. Warrens is on North Park, Kingwood is
in a stonehaller. They have got some really cool stuff
going on. Kingwood especially has unbelievable selection houseplants. Both of

(01:10:04):
those places do. But if you are looking for something different,
and maybe you've got a friend that loves houseplants, they're
gonna be things they do not have that you find
at Kingwood Garden Center. Really unusual beautiful philodendrons. They have
an agloinema that's called red ruby and it is the
reddest leaves in the world. It would be a great
plant for the holidays because of the red. It's like

(01:10:25):
a point set of color red, very beautiful. I love agloinemas,
by the way, one of my favorite plants, and so
it's just cool go by and see them and pick
one up. And you know how it is with plants.
If you delay, somebody else gonna get them, and you
know you're kind of picking through what's left over. By
the way, the Christmas trees are supposed to be arriving

(01:10:47):
out there a warren Southern Gardens. They are scheduled to
arrive tomorrow. You need to call them for you head
out to get yours. Make sure that is still the case.
But it was November sixteenth, Sunday that the Christmas trees
are arriving. By the way, they also have wreaths, they
have beautiful decorations like that. Get them soon because they

(01:11:07):
do get picked over in time. You know, people are early.
Bird gets the worm and that is exactly what's happening
on those while you're out there. Check out the color. Beautiful,
beautiful color. Both locations we're in Southern Gardens and Kimbo
Garden Center. You got to go check them out. We're
gonna go now to talk to Ted in San Leon. Hey, Ted,
thanks for being patient. Welcome to the garden. Yes, sir,

(01:11:29):
can you hear me? Good morning?

Speaker 10 (01:11:33):
Can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
All right?

Speaker 8 (01:11:35):
A Randy Lemon version of a sock cop was to
put your socks on, walk around the grass and pick.

Speaker 10 (01:11:41):
Up the grassburgers.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Yeah, okay, I hadn't heard that one yet. Oh, you
totally talk about that. Hey, that's funny.

Speaker 8 (01:11:53):
I talked with you last week about the slender astor
and uh my friend Cheryl around my friend Cheryl around
Hobby Airport said, Ted, get out there and just pull
it up. And we sent you right a picture, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
As simple as that. Yeah, just pull them up.

Speaker 5 (01:12:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:12:12):
Yeah, So it was a it was a total carpet
coverage of this stuff. And we picked up four bags
of that stuff and uh now we've got bare dirt
and uh I sent you a picture of it, and
uh so, uh King Ranch Sod said their grass is
still green and not dormant yet.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
But so do I lay sod down or what? You know,
Normally I wouldn't plant sod this late, but you can.
And since you've pulled all that up and you got
bare dirt, all that's gonna become is a bunch more
weeds because the sunlight soil. So I would go ahead
and get the sod down. Now, just do it. Uh,
you know we're gonna guarden line ends at ten, so

(01:12:56):
try to get your sod finished and laid by eleven
if you can. In other words, don't wait till next
week and the week after. At some point here growth
and rooting and stuff continues to slow where you can
keep souid alive over the winter, but it's better to
get it rooted in really well, and the more warm

(01:13:16):
days it has to do that the better. So for
those of everybody listening, I'm not saying everybody should go
plan along right now, but we're looking at a situation
where we got bear dirt. Can you lay sight on
it and get it rooted in? You can, but just
be aware of the fact that it's going to be
moving a lot slower.

Speaker 8 (01:13:35):
Yeah, So I'm going to put some premium topstall and
maybe some age heritage composts, leaf mo compost, how about
some how about how about putting spray in a little
has to grow for plants on it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
You could do that, but I have no hold off
on the hust grow. The hast on has a good
boost of nitrogen in it and it's a great product
to use. But wait until it comes out in the
spring to start using that on it. Right now, just
watered and you do not need to fertilize along the
first month after you plan it, and if that month
is going into winter, you don't need to fertilize it

(01:14:16):
until spring. Just watered in really good. Want to keep
the that little thin layer of aside from drying out,
and it does dry out. Uh, even in the kind
of weather we're having, you're going to need to water
about once a day just to keep it moist to
get those roots in the ground for about a week
or so.

Speaker 10 (01:14:37):
Great.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
I replied to your email and gave you a little
kind of watering schedule. Also, I asked a question about
using those photos, So check that check that email out
because I'd like to use those photos if I can
get your permission.

Speaker 6 (01:14:49):
Yeah, yeah, I've got more.

Speaker 13 (01:14:56):
Permission.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
Uh huh, all right there, okay, take ca all right,
We're gonna real quick run out here to talk to Debbie. Hello, Debbie,
welcome to garden Line. Good morning.

Speaker 10 (01:15:10):
So I have a go ahead, no, go.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Ahead, we're running short and we're going to see if
we can answer you before I have to go to break.

Speaker 14 (01:15:20):
How do I keep cats out of my garden and
my flowering pot.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
Well, well, they're not a great way. I've talked to
people who put a little took a little wire and
cut out a wire mesh to sit on the surface
because they can't dig in there because of that wire
on their paus. Could be a little piece of chicken
wire or something that's tedious, but you can do that.
Some people have tossed out some mothballs around an area,

(01:15:48):
and cats absolutely can't stand that odor, and that's going
to keep them out too. Those are just a couple
of ideas to keep them out because they do haveing
a nity for you know, using your plants as a potty.

Speaker 12 (01:16:06):
Yeah yeah, they actually sleep in the plants and in.

Speaker 9 (01:16:09):
The garden they do their business.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Oh okay, well yeah, yeah, Well that's that's if you
want to get them out of there. Otherwise it's quite
the novelty conversation piece. When you do some catscaping uh
and curled around the top of your pots, Well go ahead,

(01:16:35):
as would say.

Speaker 12 (01:16:35):
The comment to me is always get rid of them.

Speaker 14 (01:16:37):
I'm like, you want one.

Speaker 12 (01:16:39):
Nope, that's that's my conversation with anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
Well, if you want to get rid of them, if
you toss a mothball or two in there, I'm pretty
sure CA's not gonna want to hang out. See it.
I try it. If you try it, will you let
me know how it does for you. I've talked to
people that do that, and I always like to hear, yeah,
that really works. Yeah, okay, I will give you. Thank you,

(01:17:06):
Thank you, Debbie. I appreciate that. Oh but the cats
don't like me suggesting that. All right, folks, we're going
to take a little break here. We'll be right back.
I just I need a cup of coffee that for
some reason I'm needing to fuel up a little extra
this morning. We'll be back, folks. We're back in the

(01:17:28):
saddle again. Good to have you with us here on
Guardline this morning. How can we assist if you'd like
to give me a call seven one three two one two,
fifty eight seventy four seven one three, two one two
five eight seven four. Feel free to give me a call.
We'd love to visit with you and help you have
success whatever kind of plant you're wanting to grow.

Speaker 9 (01:17:52):
I have.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
I go through phases in my horticultural interests, and there's
times when you know, I'm really interested in a certain
kind of plant, really you know, learning about it or
just really wanted to grow it, and then there's other
times where you know, my interest switch. I kind of
went through a house plant phase here the last few years,

(01:18:15):
just because that was an area where I just had
never rebothered to learn a whole lot about them. I mean,
I knew the basic stuff, but really expanding and trying
some new things and seeing which ones are easy to
grow which ones aren't. It just makes it better then,
because I can answer your questions a little better if
I've done it myself. Anyway, That's a fun thing about plants.
You can always try something new. I always try something new.

(01:18:38):
RCW Nurseries Outstanding Garden Center. By the way, it's where
Beltway eight comes into Tumbull Parkway Highway to forty nine
easy in and out access r c W Nurseries. Now
they're November sale. They've got some great things still going
on there. The citrus trees are forty percent off, Metal arbors,

(01:19:00):
benches and yard are thirty percent off. Crate myrtles thirty
percent off. A great time to get a cranite myrtle,
azaleas and camellias fifteen percent off at RCW. Now they've
got everything else too. They still have all the standard
things that you would expect them to have because they
do a great shrub selection.

Speaker 8 (01:19:16):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
I wish I could convince more people to plant shrubs
and trees and woody vines in the fall season. It
is the season to get it done. And they grow
their own trees, so they have the species varieties that
do well here, and they're grown right so when they
go to your yard, they read in really well and
they turn out to be a really valuable plant for you.

(01:19:37):
RCW has got you covered on all those kinds of things.
You just need to go by there and check them
out again. Corner of Beltway eight and Tumble Parkway Hiaway
two forty nine rc W Nurseries. We're going to head
now out to sugar land and talk to Fred this morning.
Hey Fred, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (01:19:57):
Good morning, sir. We have use dianthus as a fall
and winter plant in our landscape, and we found that
the rabbits and squirrels really like the flowers. Do you
have any remedies for us?

Speaker 9 (01:20:11):
We tried the repel boy, We've.

Speaker 7 (01:20:13):
Tried cayenne pepper. They just don't seem to keep them away.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
You know, I don't know what's in repel.

Speaker 12 (01:20:25):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
There are there are some scent related things that will tend,
you know, to keep animals away. There are, oh gosh,
everything from the deer repellent things that are often pretty smelly.
They're made out of egg solids, kind of what they
call putrescent egg solids, which sounds horrible. But anyway, there's that.

(01:20:50):
I just don't know. Other than that, there are some
products that have unusual components, Like there's one made with
coyote urine, and so that's a predator thing that they
smelled out, and that there's something in ate in them
to want to stay away from. At least the rabbits
would be the only other thing would be some sort

(01:21:11):
of a little low electrical fence where they couldn't hop
into it. But that probably esthetically is not a go
for your for your landscape, so that that is a challenge.
You said, you said rabbits and was it caps the
other one or.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
Squirrels.

Speaker 7 (01:21:27):
We have a fork right behind our house and we
saw squirrels and how they're eating the plants, eating the flowers.

Speaker 1 (01:21:34):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 7 (01:21:36):
Yeah, last year we made a wild thing which was
not very esthetically pleasing either, but.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
Right I kept him, kept them out of there at
least there There are there are hot pepper sprays, but
some of those are oils, and I just would think
the oil sprayed on the plant might cause some damage
to the plant. You know, they're made for putting in
bird seed and things to keep the squirrels out the

(01:22:04):
bird seed and the rabbits, both of those low mammals
that would burn their mouth. So you might check around
and see what you can find for that. Call out
to one of the enchanteds in Channey Forest and Channa
Gardens and see if they have anything that they would
recommend as effective. Onwards. Off the top of my head,

(01:22:25):
I've never tried those sprays, so I just don't I
just don't know what to tell you I don't want
to steer your role if I don't know. Thank you
very much, all right, Fred, thanks for thanks for the call.
I appreciate that We're going to go now to Anne
in Spring. Hey, Anne, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 15 (01:22:41):
Thank you. I have mums small, the little small mum's
bit and their big, nice bushy plants that I've had
for well a year or so more and they keep,
you know, I take care of them. I felt I
should have covered them, and when we had the cool
spell kind of took a little bite out of them.

(01:23:02):
And they're heavy, so they're kind of leaning over a
little bit. But some of them are looks like it
kind of I don't know if they're dead, but the
planet itself is not dead. So can I trim it
back and you'll come back? Is it too cold to
try it?

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
Yeah, no, no, not at all. And the mums are
fine that The thing that goes wrong with these florist
moms that people bring home is they dry out. And
once they dry out, it is hard, you know. They
the blooms shrivel and that's the bloom for the season.
They don't put more blooms on after, you know, after

(01:23:41):
they set them for the fall. The other thing that
happens is people water them on the top instead of
putting the water down at the base, and they get
rots to get decays and things like that they get
in them. But you can keep those from year to
year if you provide them with a fairly decent amount
of unshine and really good drainage. And then next year

(01:24:02):
you're gonna want to be sharing them periodically to get
them to form more of a nice bush like what
you bought. If those mums you bought that look so
pretty and rounded in nature, that would just be a
very sprawly plant, not so nice and neat. It's because
it's been sheared properly.

Speaker 15 (01:24:20):
Okay, sounds good. I will do that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
Thank you so much, all right En, thanks a lot.
I appreciate, appreciate your call very much. Let's see here,
we're gonna go. We're gonna go to Charlie and Beaumont.

Speaker 6 (01:24:36):
Hey, Charlie, Hey, yep, you're enjoy the program.

Speaker 16 (01:24:42):
A little only light side on that saw hop.

Speaker 6 (01:24:47):
Back in nineteen.

Speaker 16 (01:24:50):
You didn't dare walk on the gym floor with your
street shoes, so you had to take them off and
dance in your sock.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
There you go.

Speaker 16 (01:25:01):
And we were in the fifth grade.

Speaker 17 (01:25:03):
Yeah, that's right, and we were in the junior We
were playing in the junior high gym. In the fifth grade,
we went we went in on Saturday morning to play basketball,
and that floor was flicker than al grief. And because
they just had a dance so they could they could

(01:25:26):
put a coating on the gym floor and you could
dance on it. But you couldn't play in your tennis shoes.

Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
It was slick. Oh boy, all right, Well, at least
you could get the jitterbug and done. Thanks for that
update there. I know I can count on my listeners
to know about all these obscure things that are.

Speaker 13 (01:25:47):
Obscure now they are so late and bringing that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:51):
That's okay, Well, Charlie, I appreciate.

Speaker 16 (01:25:57):
That you have something on the pig tree.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
What what's the question?

Speaker 16 (01:26:05):
Okay, keeping barmits off your fig tree when you're about
when you're ready to pick pigs?

Speaker 1 (01:26:14):
Yeah, uh, you know there there are little there's netting
to keep out birds.

Speaker 5 (01:26:20):
That is not easy.

Speaker 16 (01:26:23):
Yeah, you trap the birds and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:26:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:26:27):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
Some people will put little organza bags on fruit. Now
a fig because of the way it grows that'd be
a little challenging, but because there's so many of them.
But these are a little like mesh mesh bags that
I'm told to help. You got other than other than
you know, like one person had rats that were coming

(01:26:49):
in and chewing on it and stuff, other than trapping
something like that. I don't know a good there's not
a good repellent or anything. It's just something that we
kind of have to live with.

Speaker 16 (01:27:00):
You're tried and true method. Get out early and take
your figs.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
Yeah, there you go, there you go. All right, Charlie, Hey, thanks,
I got a run. Time for a break. Appreciate your
call very much. John and Tomball you'll be first when
we come back. All right, we're back. Hey, welcome back
to the guard Line. Good to have you with us. Listen,
we are entering that holiday season where you're gonna want

(01:27:27):
to have a lot of cool decorations and your Ace
Hardware store, as you covered they're lighting their Christmas lighting,
for example, is just outstanding. The options that they offer there.
While you're in there, everything that you need to have
beauty to have success, both the outside, beautiful landscape, beautiful lawns,
beautiful flowers and things to inside beautiful decorations. You need

(01:27:52):
to go to ACE Hardware and see what they have.
It is really amazing. I keep telling you this and
occasionally get somebody to go, wow, I didn't know what
you were talking about, and I saw it and it
is pretty cool. It's not your father's hardware store. It's
everything dad and Grandpa's hardware store had, for sure, but way, way,
way more. ACE Hardware Texas dot com. That's where you

(01:28:13):
find your local ACE Hardware store. ACE Hardware Texas dot
com stores like aspaus up in Ospas, As up in
Kirkandal in the Woodlands, all Seasons, ACE up on Willis
that's Interstate forty five north of Willis, Euvaldi ACE on
neu Valdi Road in East side of Houston and Chambers,
ACE down on Broadway Street, and Galveston Bay City ACE

(01:28:35):
on Seventh Street just some examples of the many ACE
Hardware stores you'll find at ACE Hardware Texas dot com.
Make sure and sign up for their ACE Rewards program.
It's special discounts and offers only for ACE Rewards customers,
and they email them directly to you. It's easy to do.
I belong to myself every time you shop you're gaining

(01:28:56):
some cool benefits from the folks at Ace Hardware. We're
gonna going out out to Tumbaugh and talk to John
this morning. He John, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:29:07):
Good morning, Skip. I have a couple of questions for you.
I never would have bought willow oaks, but when I
bought this house, there were two willow oaks in the
front yard. And now it's like something's bearing into the grass,
like they're dropping acorns or something and tearing up my yard,
going in and my grass about two inches looking for

(01:29:30):
food or something.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
Okay you suggest so, Yeah, it's either squirrels or it
could be armadilla's. They do some rooting around, you know,
looking under the surface. If the soil is moist in
our yards it typically is, and they can get their
nose in the ground. It's gonna be one of those two.
And you know, I don't know how good a good
way to keep them out. I mean, you can't you

(01:29:56):
know that you can't spray stuff all over the whole
yard to try to stink them out of there. And
if it's a squirrel, then there's no fence that's going
to keep them out. The armadillas can be fenced out,
but uh, I see that a lot. Occasionally get some
other varments that can do similar things to that. But yeah,

(01:30:17):
it just it's the way it is. You can see, yeah,
I know, I know, and if you can see which
of the critters is doing it, maybe you know, come
up with a strategy for that particular thing. But it
could be squirrel as, it could be armadillos, it could
be could be some other things as well. But they're
just out there trying to survive, you know.

Speaker 9 (01:30:38):
Is it mainly this time of year? I didn't notice
it in the springtime?

Speaker 1 (01:30:43):
Oh you different, Well, you see it at different times
a year. If it's like if they're burying like acorns
or something like that in the ground, then that is
typically a fall thing.

Speaker 9 (01:30:54):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
You know, it depends on when the crop of acrons comes.
Sometimes you're going to get them early, or things like
pecans or being produced in the fall, and so you'll
see that. If there if it's a critter searching for grubs,
Let's say it's an armadilla looking for some grubs or
something something in the soil, then that is going to

(01:31:16):
be whenever they can do that. That could be in
the spring. It could be in the fall, but also
when you see that kind of snooting around down there
in the soil, again, there's not much you can do
other than treat for grubs, but they'll still be back
for earthworms or anything they can find. If the soil's
moist there, that kind of activity is going to be

(01:31:38):
going on.

Speaker 9 (01:31:40):
So is there pretty much willow oaks that this happened,
because I've never noticed oak trees just becoming a problem
to be any tree.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
No, I don't know why it's out there around the
willow oak, but I don't see it as related to
your willow oak unless there's acorns from an oak or
something like that. But I just think it unfortunately, it's
just one of those things that we just don't have
a good solution for, a good cure for.

Speaker 9 (01:32:07):
Okay, thank you. Skip one more quick question, you bet landscapers.
Landscapers composts, mushroom composts. Is that okay? Per se around
magnolia trees, is that going to be a problem or
is that okay?

Speaker 1 (01:32:23):
It's typically high pH and sometimes it has some higher
salts in it. If it's been produced into a bag,
hopefully they've they've taken care of some of that, I
would tend to use it more sparingly because of the
higher pH. Magnoia likes it a little on the acidic side,
but you're not going to put mushroom compost out and
drastically change the pH by doing that. So I wouldn't say,

(01:32:45):
you know, if you need to use it, use it,
But in general I would look for a more acidifying
type mult than the mushroom compost for around acid living plants.

Speaker 9 (01:32:56):
I'm just trying to get for the fall.

Speaker 5 (01:32:58):
It's cold.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
Yeah, I got you. I'm gonna have to run, but
thank you for the call back anytime we have to
visit with you. Folks at Nelson have a product called
Genesis Transplant Mix, and I love this product. I've used
this product. I still use this product. It's a blend.
It's gotting microariza and bacteria and fungi that enhance that

(01:33:20):
soil microbiome. But it's got the nutrients in it too,
in a form that's not going to burn the plants,
and so you mix it into the soil where you're
going to plant. So maybe you've got a flower pot
on the patio and you want to move it to
a larger flower pot. Well, that soil you're going to
add to it. Mix some of the Nelson Genesis transplant
mix in that. If you're going to put a rosebush

(01:33:41):
or fruit tree in the ground outside, mix some of
the Nelson Genesis transplant mix into that soil where you're
going to plant. It works well, it'll get you, it'll
help them get established better, and then as they begin
to grow, you can continue to fertilize with other products
like we normally do from Nelson's, like the Color Star

(01:34:01):
for example. Nelson Plant Food been around here since well
a long long time family has been run since the
eighteen hundreds. But they make quality products locally. Let's go
now to Kathy in mag Ata Gorda. Excuse me, Magnoia, Katy,

(01:34:22):
welcome to guarden Line.

Speaker 18 (01:34:25):
Hey, my Saint Augustine grass has got weeds in it.
One of them is like it's got all these little
balls on it. It's like nut I call it nut grass,
but it's it's just like it's trying to choke out.

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
Yeah, and I need to know what Well that weed
is Virginia button weed most likely, uh, and it loves
wet conditions. So one thing we do is make sure
not over water. You can't control rain, but you can
avoid over water in yourself, or if you've got a
poorly drained area, improving the drainage does help with this.

(01:35:07):
As far as the weed itself, at this point in
the season, the only thing that you can do is
pull out as much as you can, get out as
much of those little knots or buttons on it as
you can and throw them away so they don't release
those seeds into your soil for next year. Then next year,
when it begins to warm up, that weed will begin

(01:35:28):
to grow again, and that would be a time when
you would put on a post emergent spray. You don't
have to spray every sqranch of your lawn, just direct
it wherever you're seeing the weeds grow and come back.
About six weeks later, you're probably going to need to
do it again, and you can keep it suppressed and
in some situations even control it pretty well. There's a

(01:35:52):
product I like to recommend called Celsius, like the temperature Celsius,
and it works well and as the weather warms up,
it's not so hard on your Saint Augustine. So the
Virginia button needs a warm season. So typically when we're
controlling it. It's a little hot to be using a
lot of the other post emergent broadly control sprice.

Speaker 4 (01:36:15):
Okay, all right, well, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
It takes a lot. Appreciate your call. You take care, yeap.
That's one of the top five pain in the neck
weeds that we have, Virginia button weed.

Speaker 9 (01:36:28):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
The three sixty tree stabilizer invented recently, by the way,
it is a product that if you're going to plant
a tree, you need to have one of these. They
hold the tree in place. They allow a little movement,
which is important for developing strength to the trunk, but
they prevent it, you know, from blowing over, and they
help it stay in place until that tree can get

(01:36:50):
a good root system down and be well anchored. You're
going to find three sixty tree stabilizers at RCW Nurseries.
You're going to find them at Buchanan's Native Plant Jorges
Hidden Gardens down in Alvins seen them ault. You'll find
them at Arbor Gate. You've going up two forty nine.
You'll find in plants for all seasons. They carry them
in a lot of different places. And if you're gonna

(01:37:12):
plant a tree, you need. You need to have one
of these. You drive a t post in the ground,
attach the stabilizer to it, and then attach it to
your tree with a soft rubber strap. You want to
leave it a little loose to allow for a little
bit of movement, and it just works. It adjusts two
different you know links. So typically you're going to put

(01:37:33):
that post about a foot and a half from the
tree something like that, and the tree stabilizer takes it
from there. Simple as that. I love those things. It's
one of that is a new invention, new in the
in the sense of it's just been around for a
few years now and it really really is a good product. Well,

(01:37:53):
you're listening to guardline. I'm gonna take a little break
here and we will be back in a bit with
your calls at seven to one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. You can give us a call
during the break and be one of the first ones up.
Right now, we've got some open lines, so that would

(01:38:15):
be a good time to give us a call. Uh,
let's see, Oh I did want to mention go to
my website Gardening with Skip dot com. And download the
publication on protecting plants from frosts and freezes. It will
get here soon. You need to be ready. You know
you can't do a weekend on guardenline without at least
one treating us clear water abotue. Welcome back, Glad to

(01:38:38):
have you with us today. Hey, Uh, I was talking
before break about downloading that publication, the free publication on
my website about protecting plants from coal damage.

Speaker 4 (01:38:49):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
One of the things we can do is put down
a frost blanket around and over the plants. You want
it to drape all the way over to the ground
and be secured so the wind doesn't blow up underneath.
And I just noticed the folks out at Nelson Water
Gardens and Nursery out in Katie have got some frost
blankets on hand there, six foot wide, twenty five feet long.

(01:39:11):
Works really good for going over planting beds, vegetables and
flowers and other things. You've got some strawberries that are
starting to bloom. Our strawberries start to bloom here a
little earlier in the spring, actually late winter, early spring,
and you need to protect those blooms. The first ballooms
on a strawberry plant or the biggest berries in that cluster.

(01:39:33):
That's a whole nother discussion, but you want to protect
them and you can get your frost blanket there at
Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens in Katie. Also, they are
stocked up on the micro life brown patch and the
carbo load from the folks at Nelson fertilizer. The carbo
load which is the fall fertilization from the folks at Nelson.

(01:39:53):
The other thing that I want to mention is they
have a nice selection of blueberries. A lot of rabbiti
blueberry is especially out there, but not just rabbit eyes.
And this is the time to get implanted. If you've
been thinking about growing blueberries but you just haven't really
done it, or maybe you've never even considered it, you
ought to. Blueberry is a native American fruit. It also

(01:40:18):
can be grown in areas that don't have acidic soils.
It wants acidic soil, but if you don't have acidic soil,
you can create a mound on the ground with an
acidic bed mix and plant the blueberries in that and
use acidic fertilizer and it does just well. The kid
to blueberry success is water quality and So if you've
got water that has is sodium or iph you're going

(01:40:42):
to want to use your rain water to water those blueberries.
But a lot of people have water that's a decent
quality along with our frequent rainfalls, and you can have success.
You want two different varieties to have the best fruit set.
But head out to Nelson Water Garden and Nursery. They
can fill you in on all of us and get
you started again. Katie Fort Ben Road north of the

(01:41:03):
Katie Freeway. That's where it's located. Nelson Watergardens dot com.
Nelson Watergardens dot com. Let's go now to Cove, Texas,
and we're going to speak to Rufus this morning. Hey, Rufus,
welcome back to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (01:41:18):
How are you.

Speaker 19 (01:41:20):
I heard a gentleman talking about trying to keep animals
out of his garden. When I first came over here,
an old man teach me how to keep animals.

Speaker 10 (01:41:28):
Out of your garden. It was go down to the
barber shop.

Speaker 19 (01:41:33):
If you'll get human hair from a barbershop and sprinkler
around out there in your fire beds and stuff, and
criticals will stay back.

Speaker 10 (01:41:40):
I'm about the.

Speaker 1 (01:41:40):
Smell, Yeah, they don't They don't care for it. I
did that when I when I lived up in in
Conroe area, we did some barbershop sweepings, uh, to go
around plants and and it worked for a while. You know,
some areas, though, you have such deer pressure that it's

(01:42:00):
it's hard to think them away with human smells, because
there's human smells all over the place. But but it
can it can help a little bit. I don't I
don't know if it would work on squirrels though.

Speaker 7 (01:42:11):
Well.

Speaker 19 (01:42:12):
The other thing what we used to do around fig trees,
if we take the old lids off of their fruit
jars when you can, and we'd punch them hole with
them and we'd hang them up out there like ornaments
and Christmas, and that flashing light fun kept the birds
going back and forth crazy and lost too, goes down
all their eyes and that flash dries and crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
Interesting. Interesting, Yeah, all right, are you.

Speaker 12 (01:42:43):
All right?

Speaker 4 (01:42:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:42:47):
Okay? Yeah, thanks, well, Rufus, thanks for the thank you
for the call. I do appreciate that. And so there's
some ideas, there's some ideas for you folks keeping the
pests way. There's also I don't know, this show's becoming
about pests and things. But there's also a watering device.

(01:43:10):
Well it's not fore watering, it's called The original brand
was called Scarecrow. There's some other brands out there, but
the original one was a little motion activated sprinkler on
a steak painted black and the end of it they
I think painted it like a yellow beak or something
and put an eye on it so it looked like
a scarecrow. That wasn't what kept things away. It's that

(01:43:30):
when something moved, that sprinkler would come on like a
machine gun and just strafe across the area real quick
for about eight seconds, and it would startle things. You know,
you're a little scraw out there and you get hit
in the face with a water spray every time you
hop around. It's discouraging.

Speaker 3 (01:43:47):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
I know, animals get used to stuff and just any
one thing, especially when you're talking about deer, they just
get used to it. But if you move it around
and things, maybe that's a strategy to there. I don't know.
I have seen success with the little scarecrow type waters,
But then also I think if you leave them long enough,
the animals are probably just going to get him a

(01:44:09):
soap on a rope and show up in your yard
and take a shower and so that that may not
work anymore, but it's an idea to get squirted in
the face with water. There you go, all right, you're
listening to Guardline phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three, two one
two five eight seven four. Now it is time to

(01:44:31):
call Martin spoon More with Affordable Tree and get on
the schedule for some mid winter or not in midwinter,
but just dormant season pruning. Martin stays busy, he's booking up.
He probably is booked in November. I don't know. You'd
have to call him to be sure. I know he
stays busy. Seven one three six nine nine two six
six three seven one three six nine nine two six

(01:44:53):
six three. Every tree Martin prunes for you, he'll give
that tree a free deep root feeding, not the trees,
unless he prunes the whole yard of trees free deep
proof feeding on that. Now you can find out about
his other services at Afftree Service dot com. Aff Tree
Service dot com. When you call, either Martin and his

(01:45:14):
wife or is my wife Joe or maybe his mom
will answer the phone. This is a family operation. Third
generation now and he can do all kinds of things
from deep roof feeding to pest and disease controls, stump grinding,
and very very important is a pre construction care. If
you're going to do anything around a valuable tree that's

(01:45:35):
over the top of the soil or creates a trench
in the soil or anything, you got to call him
first to come in and advise you and do the
things that can be done to minimize any damage. Don't
wait until the trees dropping leaves next year because you
didn't prepare for this. Call Martin. Affordable Tree Service haven't
come out and do the pruning for you, and any
kind of consultations and things. They do those as well.

(01:45:58):
Affordable Tree Service seven three six nine nine two six
six three I told you last weekend about this, but
John Ferguson from Nature's Way Resources recently passed away. John,
I don't know he's he's kind of like the grandfather

(01:46:20):
of quality soils here in the Greater Houston area. He
created Nature's Way many years ago with a goal of
creating products that are based on what nature already has
known for a very long time, how to build the soil,
how to creature Plant's foundation to set him up for success.

(01:46:41):
John's passing was a great loss for certainly his family
and his friends, but really for all gardeners here, because
many of you are benefiting from the things that John
has taught for years. He loved this topic. He studied
more about it than anybody I know, and he preached
and practiced what he preached on that. And there are

(01:47:04):
many quality soil blends like the Rose soil and Leaf
more compos that came from Nature's Way Resources. By the way,
the website, go check it out Nature'sway Resources dot com.
They're on an off Interstate forty five on the way
up to Conro. They do have some locations here in
the Greater Houston area where some of their products are

(01:47:24):
available by bulk. You can also buy their products by
the bag, whether you're planting fruit trees or vegetables, or herbs,
or flowers or blueberry bushes. As I was talking about
a minute ago, they've got blends for all those plants.
Let's take a little break here, we'll come back with
our last segment of the hour. Welcome back to Guardline, folks.

(01:47:45):
Good to have you with us. Hey, I've talked about
plant fall seasons a lot here on Guarden Line, and
it's because you know, it's a great place. They carry
plants that grow here. They don't say something's going to
die the day after you put it in the ground.
They advise you in ways to help you have success.
Very important, very important stuff. But they also have a

(01:48:06):
lot of services, and I just want to mention a
few of those. They have something called pot to Trot.
It's a custom container gardens made easy. Basically, if you
would love a beautiful planted container and you don't know
how to do it, you don't know what to do. Well,
first of all, you could go in and ask them
for the pieces and parts and put it together yourself,

(01:48:27):
or you could have them do it. They absolutely can
do just that and it's gorgeous. Go you ought to
see the kinds of things they do. They do tree
planting too. They also do delivery. Now there's a fee
of course associated with that, but if you're not able
to get out and get the plants you want, you
can buy them and have them bring them to you.
They will also do that. Just want you to be
aware of some of those things. By the way, when

(01:48:49):
you're out at plants for all seasons. Check out their
ornamental peppers so beautiful. These would be great. You could
plant them in beds and things, but I would just
use them as holiday plants. Is one of the many
gorgeous plants to brighten up the indoors. Put little foil
around that thing and it is really attractive. You got
to go see them though at Plants for All Seasons.

(01:49:10):
They are on two forty nine, just north of Luetta.
Let's set out to tom Ball now and we're going
to visit with Sandy. Hello, Sandy, Welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 14 (01:49:21):
Hey, good morning. About twenty years ago when I moved
into my home, I had a mole infestation that was
cutting across the lawns in the backyard property. This year,
about a month ago, it started again. I hadn't had
anything in between those years. Here they are traveling along

(01:49:43):
the slab of the house, along the concrete walkways, and
this morning I woke up and they're now traveling between
the concrete slabs and my dragway. The first time I
had it, I used the battery operated stakes to put
in the ground since it was going through the This year,
I started with pepper flake, tabasco sauce and juicy free

(01:50:07):
gump and nothing seems to deter them. They keep coming right.

Speaker 1 (01:50:14):
Yeah, well that that's true for the moles, did you
you said moles? Yeah, not go first for the For
the males, there's a couple of options. One of the
ones people use is trapping, and it's a little spike
trap that you set on the ground. What you do
is you find a run that they're using actively and

(01:50:36):
press the soil down and you set the trap over that,
and as they go through there and push the soil up,
it springs the trap and that is the it's one
of the more effective ways. But how do you know
which run they're using. Well, if you go step on
the soil in a spot and a run and you
come back the next day and that soil is pushed
back up, that is one of the active runs that

(01:50:57):
they're using, so that you don't all have to set
it right. But it's a little it's a little trial
and error, but that's an option for them. Most of
the other things, although people recommend them and stuff, I
don't know that they actually are going to be that
effective kinds of things like that.

Speaker 14 (01:51:18):
Yeah, Sabasco sauce, the battery operated steaks that I used,
you know, years ago. Those worked wonderfully. It seemed like
within days it had stopped going through the lawn. But
you know, I can't find them. I don't know if
they quit manufacturing those or not.

Speaker 1 (01:51:35):
Yeah, we all once I.

Speaker 14 (01:51:39):
Caught them like out in the woods somewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:51:41):
Oh no, no, no, it's not that kind of trot, man,
it's a it's a spike that goes through them all.
It's killed them. Trot, not a life.

Speaker 7 (01:51:49):
Oh I.

Speaker 13 (01:51:51):
Understand, okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:51:53):
And they're they're out there. They're out there searching for food,
you know. I mean they eat gosh all kinds of
things in the ground, and typically their main diet is earthworms, grubs, beetles,
and other insects. That's what they go after. A better
fun fact is moles can eat seventy to one nd
percent of their body weight each day. Can you imagine

(01:52:15):
you I did that. That would be a lot of food, right.
But that's why they're running around there. They're trying to
hunt these things down. But trapping is the way. Basically,
there are some other traps out there. Let's see, you're
in Tomball head out to D and D feed West

(01:52:36):
of Tomball on twenty nine to twenty or maybe you
want to call them first and just ask, you know,
do you have do you carry mole traps?

Speaker 5 (01:52:45):
Okay, a chance they do.

Speaker 1 (01:52:48):
But here's here. Let me give you this phone number.
It's two eight one three five one seventy one forty four, yeah,
forty four two eight one three four one seven one
four four. Yeah, that's it. I would see if they
have them out there, because that's that's gonna be your
best bet. If you go online to a website, it's

(01:53:12):
Agra Life Learn. It's the the A n M bookstore Online.
You can download a free publication on controlling moles. You
just have the tight Moles into the search box. It's
and I'll give you the website. It's Agra Life A
g R I L I F E Okay, yeah, learn

(01:53:33):
Agrolife Learn dot t A m U dot E d
u as in Texas A and M University t A
m U A E d u as an education. It's
a lot of free publications on gardening and on this case,
on environment control. You know they're they're there on that
website to kind of guide you.

Speaker 14 (01:53:53):
All right, Oh wonderful, thank you skipped.

Speaker 12 (01:53:56):
Have a last day.

Speaker 1 (01:53:57):
Yeah, all right, you take care. Thank appreciate your call.
The folks at Medina have a product that I talk
about a lot, especially in this fall season because we're
doing so much planting right now. But it's has to
grow six to twelve six. Plant food has to grow
six twelve six, has everything that plant needs to hit

(01:54:17):
the ground running. That high phosphorus for the root system
is very very helpful. It's got humate humic acid in it,
It's got Medina's soil activator in it. It even has
seaweed extracts in it. You can use it for folier
application too. But if you're going to plant a plant,
I would drench them in with has to grow six
twelve six in a watering can, and then repeat that

(01:54:39):
drenching about a week later, and another a third time
about a week after that. I think you'll see some
pretty good success. Let's go now to Blake and Kingwood.
Hey Blake, welcome to Gardenline. The music is going to
start playing. We'll see how much of your question we
can get done for.

Speaker 2 (01:54:54):
We have to go to break all right, I'll try
to make it sass more and sCOD.

Speaker 1 (01:55:00):
My situation is I have.

Speaker 9 (01:55:04):
My situation is my situation.

Speaker 1 (01:55:07):
If we have a.

Speaker 2 (01:55:10):
School district property behind our back fence, and we had
we had the privilege of having a nice, submature forest
for many years until the school district decided they needed
to build a fifty five thousand square foot building behind
the backyard. Here, so it's about done. And what I
need to do is build plant some sort of a
large shrub or small medium sized tree along the fence

(01:55:32):
line for privacy. And I just need some suggestions. I
want to go with, you know, something that's fast growing,
maybe wildlife beneficial. I'm thinking maybe some kind of evergreen
that doesn't lose its leaves during you know, the winter,
or something to.

Speaker 1 (01:55:50):
Block out the wet. Let's do this. We're going to
go to break hang on, we'll come right back and
I'll answer your questions. All right, Hey, we're back. Welcome

(01:56:12):
back to the guardline. Folks. Good to have you with us.
If you have a gardening question. Here is a phone
number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four Uh. Microlife Fertilizers, so many good products from the
folks at Microlife. One of the ones that I use

(01:56:33):
just all the time is the Microlife Biomatrix orange label
seven to one three fertilizer. That's a liquid. It is
the seven nitrogen one phosphorus three potassium. It's a good
ratio for most things that you're gonna want to fertilize.
It's works really well. I use it on all house plants.

(01:56:54):
I also use it outdoors. It's very good for any
kind of an application like that.

Speaker 12 (01:56:59):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:56:59):
It provides that boost the plants need. You know, most
of your houseplants are foliage plants. That's basically what you're
growing in the house is foliage and that seven one
three is an excellent product for doing that. You're not
gonna burn with Microlife products or not salt based. You
can use them as you wishing, fool your feed with
them if you want. I basically do most of my
feeding just drenching the soil with these products after mixing

(01:57:23):
them up. Folks at Microlife have a lot of different options,
and if you go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com you
can find the full list of retailers and the products
that they carry. Let's go back now to Kingwood and
we're going to talk to Blake again. All right, Blake,
thanks for hanging out, hanging around a little bit. So basically,

(01:57:45):
for those of you just tuning in, Blake is asking
about creating a hedge or something to block a view
on on site. Leave you and what are some plants
that would do good at doing that? And Blake, there's
a couple of options. Certainly, you want things that are evergreen,
so that year round you get that blocked view. Something deciduous,

(01:58:07):
then you see through it when the when the winter comes.
So magnolia's would be an option. They're a very slow
growing tree. But that is a there, beautiful evergreen tree.
There's a somewhat compact form. Uh it it gets taller
and time you get twenty plus feet in time.

Speaker 9 (01:58:25):
But it is.

Speaker 1 (01:58:27):
It is the southern magnolia. It's called bright. Excuse me,
I was going to a different species there, Hang on
one second, just went blank, little gem, little gim magnolia.
There is a plant called cherry laurel that is related
to peaches and plums and cherries, but it's not fruit
to jevityat it makes a nice, nice hedge and it

(01:58:50):
gets pretty good size too. There is a variety of
it called bright and tight bright the litter in, and
then tight because it's more dense packed growing form of that.
Our native yopon sheared on a fairly regular basis makes
a nice thick hedge, as does the southern wax myrtle.

(01:59:12):
Both of those, you know, aren't going to get as
tall as the other two plants. One thing about a
hedge blake is you have to look at how tall
is the thing you're blocking and from your eyes, from
where you would stand or sit, how far away is
the hedge going to be from you? So let me

(01:59:33):
just give an example. You know, Let's say you're six
six feet tall and you have a hedge that's seven
feet tall, but you put it five feet from you. Well,
little block a two story house some distance away, you
know what I'm saying, Because the hedge is close to you.
But as you get closer to the two story house,
then you're now you're gonna need something giant. You know,
You're gonna need, you know, a large tree that is

(01:59:55):
reasonably evergreen to do it.

Speaker 5 (01:59:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:00:00):
I think probably something in the range of twenty to
thirty feet max is probably what.

Speaker 1 (02:00:06):
We need to be able to block out the view.

Speaker 2 (02:00:08):
I don't need anything that's gonna get eighty or one
hundred feet. But yeah, certainly the twenty to thirty foot
range I think is what I'm looking at.

Speaker 1 (02:00:17):
There are some lifeks that are more columbnar. There's some
live oaks that are more columbnar in their growth habit. Now,
doing this is not going to be inexpensive, because you know,
you're gonna be buying a lot of trees and then
fertilizing them and pushing them along for faster growth. If
you beyond live oak, for something that's evergreen that gets

(02:00:39):
that tall, that doesn't just get so wide that it
eats up your yard, there's just not a lot of
great options that are coming to mind right now. But
that's a pretty tall I may have to go with.
There are also some other plants that are in a
columnar form, but most of those are deciduous.

Speaker 9 (02:00:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:01:00):
Yeah, I'm talking probably about a thirty to forty foot
long stretch.

Speaker 1 (02:01:04):
In particular.

Speaker 2 (02:01:05):
I have a shed that's going to block part of it,
but it's the other portion that I'm looking to fill
in with some sort of tree or shrub. And you know,
we've got a six six and a half the wood
fence there, but it's not enough. I'm hoping the school
district quant some trees on the other side. Maybe we'll
get lucky, but I'm not counting on it.

Speaker 18 (02:01:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:01:29):
Yeah, that having to go that tall that I think
you're kind of looking at a more of a columbar upright,
deciduous tree. Probably most of your options for something to
go go faster. But anyway, that's that is what what
I see as your your basic options. You've got to

(02:01:51):
challenge that situation there with the height that you need.

Speaker 2 (02:01:54):
Yeah, we may be moving to an enclosed patio.

Speaker 1 (02:02:00):
Okay, there you go, there's another option, all right, sir, Well,
thank you for the Colin for hanging around. Hopefully that'll
help a little bit. You bet. You take care. Let's
go now to Colin in Houston. Hey, Colin, Welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 10 (02:02:16):
Hi, good morning, Scope.

Speaker 20 (02:02:18):
I'm calling on the path of my parents. They live
up in the Tomball Rose Hill area and they're looking
to plant a few more trees in their backyard. What
they had previously has blown over or died off over
the years.

Speaker 13 (02:02:31):
But they're too constraints already some trees and.

Speaker 10 (02:02:35):
Growth in the area.

Speaker 20 (02:02:36):
So whatever they plant, it needs to be able to
handle a good amount of shade at least early in
its life. And then it's far enough at the property
that it's where their septic system sprays pretty regularly when
it's emptying out, and so it stays pretty damp as well.
So what is your recommendation for something that can grow
in pad early on and then doesn't mind being a

(02:02:56):
little damp about its life.

Speaker 1 (02:02:58):
Yeah. There's a type of red oak called nuttall and
new t t a l I believe, I believe I'm
spelling that. I always I always have to remember how
many teas and how many els are in that word.
But it's nut all oak uh. And it is like
a Schumart oak, a pretty red oak, but it takes
the wet conditions a little bit better, I would. I

(02:03:19):
would suggest that is a consideration. There's another tree called tupelo,
also known as black gum. Now it may be hard
to find. It's a native that grows in East Texas
and it has beautiful fall color. It's one of the
few great fall color plants we have. But it can
take a wet condition as well a black gum or

(02:03:40):
tupelo uh. And you just have to search around, you know,
to see what you what you can find on that,
you might talk to the folks at R. CW Nursery.
They grow plants up at Plannersville for this area, and
they might have them. But like I said, the tupelow
may be a little hard to find. But that that
those are two that I would consider that they try.

Speaker 20 (02:04:04):
Okay, that you said it was nuttall and black gum.

Speaker 1 (02:04:11):
All not all oak and black gum. That would be
two ideas. I mean, there's one hundred thousand trees out there,
but those are two that considering it being a periodic
wet area, I might start with those. Now, there's also cypress,
you know, the ball cypress that those form knees. So

(02:04:31):
if it's an area they have to mow, they're not
going to like having a ball cypress in that area.
If it stays wet, they're going to be wooden knees
coming up out of the ground.

Speaker 20 (02:04:40):
Okay, Thankfully they don't have to mow it, so that
wouldn't be something they'd worry about.

Speaker 1 (02:04:45):
Okay, Well, then cypress a little bit of a fall
color in the sense of it being bronze, but they're
a very beautiful tree, so that they grow fast too.
Good luck.

Speaker 13 (02:04:56):
All right, thank you very much, thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:05:02):
I'm going to go to a break here. When we
come back, Mike and Linda, you'll be our first two up.
All right, now, that's first I'm I've ever heard that song.
I guess all right, here we go, we're back. We
are going to jump out to your calls in just
one moment here. In the meantime, I want to tell

(02:05:23):
you about Pest Bros. You heard me talk about them
a lot this summer. I was dragging on the buckets
for controlling mosquitoes and talk about their termite controls and
all the things they do. Right now, there's a couple
of things going on. Number One, you got people coming
over to eat Thanksgiving dinner here pretty soon. You don't
want them to be chased around the house by a cockroach.
Well call the folks at Best Bros. They can get

(02:05:45):
that under control for you, as you would expect. Also,
the varmits man this weather, they're gonna be coming in.
You know things that go bump in the night. You
got those rats up in the attic, You got squirrels
up in the attic, maybe something big up in the inch.
They know how to search around your house and find
out where they get in and you would be surprised

(02:06:05):
at how small of a space a mouse or a
rack can squeeze through. But these folks are professionals a
pest Bros. They know how to look for that. They'll
show you what they're looking for and they'll shut that down.
And if you need something removed from the property, they
you know, they have ways of going about it. But
basically it's trying to get that house shut up so
that they can't get in and that is a service

(02:06:25):
that they offer. You want them to come out and
do that. Hey, you can get ahold of them two ways.
One go to the website dpestbros dot com, pest brosbros
dot com, or call them two eight one two oh
six forty six seventy two eight one two oh six
forty six seventy tell them you need them to come
out and take a look at your house and varmit
proof it so they don't get in there and cause

(02:06:48):
your problems. Uh, let's see, let's go to Mike in Spring.

Speaker 17 (02:06:55):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:06:55):
Hey, Mike, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (02:06:58):
Well, good morning, Rick.

Speaker 6 (02:07:00):
I like to get your opinion on this beautiful fall
like weather we got and using a bone eye like
I do in the spring for this dollar weed control.
It seems like it's coming back a little bit, and
I thought, well, man, this is just like spring time.
Why not use it?

Speaker 1 (02:07:20):
Well you can, you can. Dollar weed is still fairly
actively growing. It doesn't like cold weather. But if you
could get some on it now and make sure and
put a spreader sticker into that spray however, whatever form
you're going to use. Some people use a regular but
it needs to stick to the leaves. The leaves need
to be wet, and they're pretty slick and shiny, and

(02:07:42):
spray drops just roll right off, as you know. So
spreader sticker is very important for that dollar week control.
But I'd give it a shot. Now. You're going to
be coming back and doing it again in the spring
because you won't get it all, but you can certainly
knock it way back.

Speaker 6 (02:07:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:07:56):
Very cool.

Speaker 5 (02:07:57):
Oh and hey, I got a suggestion for the guy
that need some privacy fence back there. The same thing
happened to me. Did lots of research and I chose
I don't freak out. I chose bamboo, but I chose
the clumping type of bamboo. I found a lady up

(02:08:17):
around two ninety up around Waller back to road. Something
up there. Very knowledgeable. I planted this stuff about three
or four or five years ago, put irrigation in. It
was about one foot of plants in a bunch there.

(02:08:38):
Now it's about three feet around and it's about fifteen
feet tall. It's supposed to go up to about twenty.
The only bad downside is, as you know, it's a
grass thing, so you are susceptible for freezes. But so
far I hadn't got any and it is working beautiful
for me.

Speaker 1 (02:08:57):
Well good, well, thank you, thank you for that tip.
I appreciate that, and I appreciate you calling in the
garden line today. Yes, bamboo was a thing that it
crossed my mind. The thing you need to know about
bamboo is the bamboo growers have a saying and it
is the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps,
and the third year it leaps. And what that means

(02:09:19):
is you plant it and you look at it and
you think, why isn't it growing? Just be patient. The
second year you get a little bit of growth. By
the third year that thing is taken off. They have
some bamboos to get very tall thirty feet tall, you know.
I mean, they're kinds out there. But the clumping type, clumping, clumping, clumping,
you do not want it taken over. So as Mike
was saying, a clumping type is good. A lot of those, though,

(02:09:42):
are marginal in their cold heartiness, and you just have
to talk to somebody that knows what they're talking about,
that's selling them, and get a type that is going
to have the best shot at being to make it
through the cold weather without being killed back. But if
you don't mind waiting a few years to get it
up there, of course, no matter what your plant, you're
gonna have to wait a few years to get it

(02:10:04):
up to the height that we were talking about before.
All right, you are listening to Garden Line and our
phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four Ciena Malts. That is the place you need
to know. If you are south of Houston and you
need quality soil materials, quality stone, quality gravel, all of

(02:10:27):
those things. Cienamulch has got you covered. Cianamulch has the supersacks,
which is a cubic yard and they can deliver them
within about twenty miles for a fee. But it's a
three supersack minimum, so you can't just have one sack
out there, by the way, you need more in a
QB cayard of soil anyway. But they have quality blends.
They carry the veggie ner bics from the folks at

(02:10:48):
Airlomb Soils, for example, and then they carry all the
fertilizers and whatnot. All of you down in that region
where Cienamulch is. That would be Meridiana, Pomona, Alvin Lake, Olympia,
Manvil Riverstone, Quell Valley, Fresno, Iowa Colony. I keep going.
I can't roast Sharon Sweetwater first colony Paarland sun Creek

(02:11:08):
estates there near Brazispin State Park. That's Ciena Mulch's backyard.
So get on over there check them out. They are
on FM five twenty one. But just go to the
website and you can find out all that Cienemulch dot com.
We're going to go now to Galveston and talk to
Linda this morning. Hey, Linda, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 18 (02:11:28):
Thank you, good morning. Yes, we have mbers in our grass.

Speaker 3 (02:11:34):
Can you hear me?

Speaker 5 (02:11:35):
Okay, sure, can you hear me?

Speaker 13 (02:11:40):
Yes, you can hear me?

Speaker 18 (02:11:42):
All right, we have sambers in our grass, and we're
wondering if there's anything in the fall that we can
do for them.

Speaker 1 (02:11:50):
Not in the fall, they're going to sprout in the
spring as the soil begins to warm a little bit.
We talk about in the spring putting down a barricade
application in February. That is for a lot of different
warm season weeds, including sandburds. They sprout a little bit
later than some of the other weeds like crabgrass, but

(02:12:11):
not too much. So do that you probably will want
to reapply it about sixty to ninety days later because
any product like that eventually breaks down and it's no
longer preventing weed german seed establishment. So just maybe a
second application about two months later or so would be advisable.

(02:12:36):
But that's the time to go at it. The more
you fertilize and water and take care of things, the
sandburs get choked out by the grass, which is getting thicker.
Sandbers like a sandy soil that is poor low nitrogen,
gets draggy and stuff. They survive in that kind of thing.
So as you do the things you're lawn wants you

(02:12:57):
to do. It helps also to give the lawn the
upper hand over the samburs for sure.

Speaker 14 (02:13:06):
Okay, so get a barricade for like in February.

Speaker 1 (02:13:09):
Ish, Yeah, in February. Just follow my schedule. Yes, If
you go to my lawn pest Disease and weed Management
schedule and look under weed prevention, you'll see the first application.
Let's see, you're calling from Galveston, so you're going to
want to put the first application on probably late January
to maybe early February, and then you're going to do

(02:13:31):
a second one, probably late March or sometime in April probably,
I would say April for that second application.

Speaker 5 (02:13:41):
Okay, great, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (02:13:43):
All right, take care, appreciate your call very much. Southwest
Fertilizer I talk about them all the time because if
you are looking to get something to make your plants thrive,
to control weeds, to control diseases, to controls, Southwest Fertilizer
is a place. When I do garden line, I talk

(02:14:05):
about different products and fertilizers and things. You just heard
me talk about barricade, recommending that well, Southwest Fertilizers, all
of the things. If it comes out of my mouth,
it's at Southwest Fertilizer in other words, if you hear
me talk about it, it's as Southwest Fertilizer. It's a
good time now to go by too. We're looking at
the holiday season coming up. Don't delay you want if

(02:14:27):
you have a gardener in your list, they need to
get a quality toolect prunters from Falco and Corona. Those
are really special. They have some really nice soil knives too.
They One of my top five favorite tools is a
soil knife, and Bob's got at least one has two
different kinds of soil knives. There at Southwest Fertilizer, it's
on the corner of Bisonette and Renwick in Southwest Houston.

(02:14:50):
You know when you go in there that they're going
to greet you. It's really friendly service. You know that
you're going to find a selection of more than any place,
you're going to find anywhere of everything that you need
for your garden success. And then finally you know that
they're going to have quality products on hand to not
just sell you junk. That is Southwest Fertilizer in a

(02:15:11):
nutshell corner business and Runwick. Here's a phone number seven
to one three six sixty six one seven four four
seven one three six sixty six one seven four to four.
I talked about a number of things earlier. Today we're
talking about fruit and we were talking about you know,

(02:15:32):
weed controlling, and weeds are easier to prevent than they
are to control after they're up and growing.

Speaker 3 (02:15:37):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:15:38):
As we enter into this cool season and the leaves
begin to fall, I want to encourage you to capture
those leaves and stock polym for your landscape. You can
stock polm. Run over I run over mine with a lawnmower,
Chop them up, dump the bag into a regular leaf bagging,
use same bag that you would normally put your leaves in,
and then set them in an out of way place

(02:15:59):
where the sun doesn't make down on the bags and
break down the plastic. All next year you're gonna have
opportunities to use them as mulches, to compost them, to
you name it. But that's a valuable resource. About three
fourths of the nutrients that a tree takes up during
the year or in its leaves, so when they hit
the ground, just like a grass clipping, you have a

(02:16:20):
decision to make. Do I want to pay somebody to
haul it away, or do I want to recycle those nutrients?
In the nature's own, organic, natural, multious and composts. That's
a decision. I think it's an easy one to make.
All right, take a little break here and we'll be
right back. Hey, welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line.

(02:16:45):
Good to have you joining us today. Is we talk
about all things plants, how to have success with plants.
You know, rc W nurseries. We call it to get
it got a nursery because if they don't have it,
they can get it. That's just how they are. I mean,

(02:17:05):
I mean, if it's available nearby, they can bring it.
They'll bring it in for you. And right now they've
got that great sale going on. I mean citrus trees
forty percent off. You cannot beat that. I mean that
is a really good special. All their metal arbors, all
their benches, all their yard aret and they have some
real cool stuff thirty percent off, as are the crape
myrtle trees. Now now would be the perfect time to

(02:17:27):
plant a crape myrtle. Really is, Well, there you go,
thirty percent off. You're not going to do better than now.
Remember when you buy a crpe myrtle, you want to
pick the color of the flower you want, but you
also want to pick the size of the plant you want.
Don't plant thirty a plant that wants to be thirty
feet high and try to print it off at twelve
feet all the time. That's a losing effort. So get

(02:17:49):
a variety, and they've got good varieties. There also azaleas
and camellias fifteen percent off. Now I want you to
think about this. You want your landscape to look good
twelve months out of the year in the spring and
maybe fall. You know, and you want it twelve months
out of the year. There are not many things that
bring color in the winter other than our bedding plants,
but camellias do. There's Commillia japonico, there's Camillia susanka. And

(02:18:15):
these things they bloom at a little different times. There
are some that start blooming in December, and then you
have others that are blooming in January or February. Beautiful,
beautiful camellias. They're available there at r CW Nurseries. They
have a number of really quality lines, gorgeous plants, so
go buy RCW. They are at the corner of Tomball

(02:18:36):
Park we belt Way eight. Easy to get to, easy
to get in, get out, our CW Nurseries dot com.
Go buy there, check out the sales that they have,
but also look at the other plants. You know, if
you need fertilizers, you hear me talk about these brands
and things. They do have a nice selection of fertilizers
as well as products to deal with certain kinds of

(02:18:57):
pests and other things. RCW Nurseries. We actually have cleared
the lines here on the on the phone, so if
you have a gardening question you would like to call about,
now would be a good time to do it. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I
know we've had some folks caught trying to call in
and the lines are busy, but all right now, so

(02:19:19):
there there it is if you'd like to just call.
I've got a little bit of time left, about twenty
minutes here before we end the day. Uh and uh
so seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Heirloom Soils is a they're just a purveyor of quality
blends for the garden, for the lawn, you name it.

(02:19:41):
I mean, do you want a top dresser lawn with
leapmore compost? They they can they can get you that.
They got it by the bag. They also have it
by the book. By the way, if you're gonna do
any kind of a little raised bed garden, They're veggie
and herb mix is an outstanding option for that. If
you want to grow roses or come, you know, other
things that are flowering, maybe some quality hibiscus and other stuff.

(02:20:06):
They've got a rose and other bloomers blend that works
really really well. They have plants soils that do well
for acidic loving plants, you know, like azaleas, communities and
blueberries and things like that. And then all the way
down to house plants. You know, the standard houseplant mix
that they carry is outstanding. I use it myself. And
then they have the blend for plants that need really

(02:20:30):
good drainage like succulents and cactie. They've got those as well.
Now you can go out to porter and take your
trailer or truck and pick up by bulk. That's the
least expensive way to get soils. Go get it yourself
by bulk, or the other end of the spectrum is
just by the bag. All over the place. Heirloom soils
are readily available all across the Houston area. Or you

(02:20:51):
can have them deliver it. That's another option. They can
deliver by the supersac, or they can deliver by bulk
and just dump it on the driveway or wherever you
want it. It's quality stuff that works. I know because
I've used it. It's excellent, excellent product. Go to their
website airloomsoils dot com. Airloomsoils dot com. Find the calculator there,

(02:21:12):
find out how much you need and all the contact
info you need and everything is on there so that
you can do what I over and over and over
tell my listeners to do, and that is brown stuff
before green stuff. Create the foundation first and put the
plants in second. And that's the formula for success. Simple

(02:21:32):
as that. Holy mackerel. The phones lit up like our
Christmas treeth. All right here, let's go start working on
that bill in Houston. Welcome to garden, sir. Thank you
real quickly.

Speaker 12 (02:21:45):
I just caught the tail end of your advice on
how to keep rabbits out of your guard.

Speaker 1 (02:21:50):
Could you quickly repeat that? Well, the simplest thing is
is just a fence that they, you know, can't jump
over or go over down low. You can also do
a single wire electric fence down low that if they

(02:22:11):
get popped by that, they're gonna they're gonna want to
stay away from that. There are some repellent types of
things that can be put out, and you just have
to kind of shop around to see which ones they
have at the places where you shop. But that can
be helpful. Other than that, the only other thing would
be to get a recipe for a rabbit barbecue or soup.

(02:22:34):
And that is horrifying people that are listening to me
say that right now. Well, my wife rejected that earlier.

Speaker 9 (02:22:40):
But thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (02:22:44):
You bet well, sorry about that. I know, I do,
I do know your pain. I've seen that for sure.
All right, thank you, sir. I appreciate your call. Bill,
Thank you, thank you. All right, We're gonna go to
Celi now and talk to ness. Hey, welcome to Guardline Nests.

(02:23:06):
Did I not push the right button? There we go? Yes,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (02:23:10):
Hey, good morning. Actually I mean clear like that silly?

Speaker 1 (02:23:15):
Oh okay.

Speaker 21 (02:23:15):
So I so I've always gone by the schedule, the
nitro file schedule, and every day I have two small dogs,
and I always struggle with laying you know, the granules,
because I have I feel like I have to soak
in those granules because I don't want my dogs licking
their paws and getting an upset tummy throughout the day.

Speaker 10 (02:23:38):
I noticed that.

Speaker 21 (02:23:39):
You've mentioned that you wait twenty four hours to let
the dogs that in the grass. So my question is
where where do your dogs go for those twenty four hours?
How do you What do you suggest we're going to
go to you?

Speaker 1 (02:23:56):
Well, I would do a walk on a leash. That's
the simplest price practical way. If that for what the
arrangement with you and kinds of dogs you have and everything.
If that's not practical, uh, they would just have to
go on out there and do it. I don't worry
a lot about it, but at least I'm sorry, uh ness,
could you remind me what was the product that you
were applying and asking about.

Speaker 21 (02:24:17):
I've always I've always used nitral falls. I do the
Randy schedule and then uh now I just do regular. Yeah,
fertilizer fund just.

Speaker 1 (02:24:30):
Okay, premium once once once a spray is dry, or
if it's just a granular sitting out there, grand dogs
could yeah, but you're gonna you're gonna want to You're
gonna want to water them in really well. And once
you've watered them in really well and then the surface
of the plants and things are dry, the dogs could
go on out. Uh it's just when you have a

(02:24:52):
spray on the foliage it's wet, or if you just
watered granules and they're tracking through those, Uh, that would
be the time I'd be most concerned about. But in general,
I think what I just suggested is is probably going
to be sufficient.

Speaker 21 (02:25:08):
Yeah, we've always struggled, like, oh my gosh, when do
we let the dogs out? You know, did we soak
it enough into the soil, you know, did we.

Speaker 1 (02:25:17):
Get and.

Speaker 21 (02:25:19):
Yeah, and then you know, if they upset, Tommy's were like,
oh my gosh, you know, we see we didn't soak
it enough or we didn't put enough water, and you.

Speaker 1 (02:25:26):
Know, yeah, well, and that's you know, it's not a
black and white line on any of these things like that.
But in general, don't just assume because the dogs have
about some you know, of course, it's it's that. But
our here's our goal. Our goal is to try to
minimize their contact with a product that might harm them.

(02:25:47):
And people have that there they are, they just joined
in the conversation. They people have a wide range of
what they can tolerate and what they feel like they're
comfortable with. In other words, so a lot of people
don't worry about it. They just do it. Things are fine.
But technically, can some products damage your pets? Yeah they can.

(02:26:10):
But if you just do the precautions that I just
was mentioning, don't let them get out there on the
wet stuff, that that is usually sufficient. And I just
have to leave it at that, and then of course
your options are to do things to minimize that need
to use those kind of things. Ness, I've really gone
way past my time here. I'm gonna have to run,
But good luck with that. A good question, and I

(02:26:32):
do appreciate your call. We're going to take a break.
We'll be right back and Ron and Conro. Looks like
you're going to be first up.

Speaker 7 (02:26:40):
All right.

Speaker 1 (02:26:42):
That would be a left from the path, and we
need to find some giveaways for garden Line, and that
I could ask trivia questions of what was John Denver's
real name? That would be good and you can just
look it up these days. There you go. Hey, welcome back.
Good to have you with us here on Guarden Line.

(02:27:04):
Enchanted Gardens is basically the halls have been decked that
place down in Richmond Rosenberg. They've got all kinds of
cool stuff, you know, the cool season color plants that
go out in our landscapes. They're loaded up on that.
If you are looking for some decorations for indoors during
the holidays, you want to see their holiday cactus. The

(02:27:25):
holiday cactus is just gorgeous. They're at in Chended Gardens.
They also have a little they have some little plants
that are a they're a type of cypress called lemon
cypress basically, and it's kind of the foldo is sort
of a golden, a golden kind of yellowish to the green.
It's just pretty, that's the bottom line. That's how I

(02:27:48):
would describe it. But they're in small containers, so you
could use them. You can bring them inside and you
could use them for decoration. You know, hang some little
things on them, maybe some dried peppers that would be
kind of cool on one of those. They can be
planted outside as well, so it's just something to be
another decoration to have inside. Remember, anytime you're decorating indoors, though,

(02:28:10):
with these plants, you need to be able to put
them outside where they get sunlight during the day, and
then bring them in when you're needing them for the
decoration indoors. Okay, Because like you take a rosemary or
you take this lemon cypress at Enchended Gardens and you
just leave it for weeks and weeks in the house,
it's going to start to stretch and get a little
spindly on you and stuff. So just give it a

(02:28:31):
little bit of good, good light intensity as much as
you can and they will keep looking their best for
the longest possible time. I love going to Chenda Gardens.
There's always something to see there. They consistently are bringing
in gorgeous plants, and you've got to go to their
gift shop too. It is time to check that out

(02:28:52):
if you have them already. Really really nice stuff makes
wonderful gifts, as do their plants. While we're talking about it.
They are located on FM three point fifty nine on
the Katie Foster side of Richmond Encented Gardens Richmond dot
com in Chenny Gardens Richmond dot Com open Monday through
Saturday eight to five Sunday ten am to four pm.

(02:29:15):
Let's go to the phones now for our last color
of the day. We're gonna head up to Conroe and
talk to Ron. Well, Hello, Ron, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (02:29:23):
Well, hello, Skip, good to talk to you. We just
completed our home in the woods and had to bring
in a lot of phil which was all clay, which
is not much good for growing anything but weeds. And
we're gonna put our beds in now, and I need

(02:29:45):
to know how deep or small shrubs not trees, How
neat do we cut it out? And how what's the
height the depth of the bill that we want to
put in the bed.

Speaker 1 (02:30:00):
Okay, well, anything that's going to have size on it,
like a tree, Amending a little spot doesn't do much
because that tree, as it gets bigger, is going to
have roots two and a half times the height that
the tree in all directions. So in other words, your
own property would be amended to do just shrub Well,

(02:30:20):
same thing is true, though the shrubs are going to
have roots that go way beyond that bed. So what
I would recommend doing is get you a quality bed
mix and put it down on the ground and mix
it in a little bit with the clay you have.
That way, you don't have a very dense clay and
on top of it is sitting this wonderful soil mix,
and you have this sudden transition between the two. What

(02:30:43):
happens is water goes down there and hits the clay,
and we have what's called a perched water table as
a result. So you're blending a little bit and then
get more of that good mix and put it on
top of that. So there's sort of is a transition
from the good bed mix down into the soil that
you have that plants that are going to be able
to grow, and that kind of clay too. That is
always helpful. But the bigger of an area you can amend,

(02:31:06):
the better, And that would be my suggestions. If if
it is a dense clay, you get some benefit from
expanded shale, but you got to put quite a bit
of it into a clay to get the benefit of that.
I think in the three inches and trees that's a
port two or three inches mixed in to the surface
six inches or so, we'll make a difference in a

(02:31:29):
clay soil. But I think you know, longer term, getting
those raised beds so the excess water drains away, that
would be one of the top goals and then the
quality mixes going in on top of it, you know,
would just add to the to the benefit for those plants.
Do all that and then dig the whole plant the
plant and use the soil you dug out of a

(02:31:49):
hole to put back in.

Speaker 10 (02:31:52):
Yes, sir, well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (02:31:55):
Well, good luck with your new little home in the woods.
I hope you're enjoy it, all right, you take care,
bye bye. All right, folks, there you have it. Well,
that was a fast show that went by fast. It's good.
I've got a little as some of you know. I
am an aggie as Randy was, and I'm going to

(02:32:17):
take my daughter to the game today. We'll see what happens.
South Carolina coming to town. So I may not have
a voice tomorrow after I get through yelling at things.
But anyway, that's how that goes. Hey, I appreciate you
listening to garden Line. Glad to have you guys as lessens.
Definitely don't take that for granted. Anyway we can help you,
We're happy to do that. I'm going to continue to

(02:32:39):
add things to the website, so just always be checking
back in at Gardeningwithskip dot com. Things that are important,
things that are seasonally appropriate. I'd today, I made a
little note and I'm going to create a little publication
on planting a hedge or a screen, and I'll put
it up there on the website because I get calls

(02:33:00):
all the time on that, and there's a lot of
different plants and there's a lot of different strategies for
going about that, depending on what you're trying to block
and how far away it is and stuff. So look
for that to head up there pretty soon. We are
always trying to add more helpful information, so even when
garden linees not on, you can go check it out

(02:33:21):
and get that information. By the way, you can listen
to past garden Line shows at the KTR website in
the garden Line section, or if you download the iHeartMedia
app and other apps. Other apps will do this too.
Just find garden Line, which our shows are we weather
posted up there as a podcast. Like in other words,

(02:33:41):
you're listening to a shorter version of the show that
you can listen to online if you miss the show
and you want to catch up. So there you go,
all right, folks, I hope you have a wonderful day
in the garden. We got two great days to be
outside and enjoin it, get some air, get some sunshine,
have some fine to talk to you, and be back

(02:34:02):
six in the morning.