Rain Rain Go Away

Skip answers listeners' phone calls all morning.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Katie r. H GardenLine with skimp Rictor. It's trip.
Just watch him as well. Thingsthe suprasy not a sign. Good morning,

(00:37):
Good Sunday morning. Glad to haveyou joining us bright and early until
bright outside. Glad to have youwith us today. You are listening to
the Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to
talk about plans. How do wehave to help you have success with the
kind of plant should want to grow. One of the fun things about horticulture

(01:02):
is that you can grow all kindsof different things. There are people who
just care about flowers, just careabout vegetables, just care about herbs,
really care about their lawn. Youknow, it just goes on and on.
Maybe you want to attract hummingbirds,Maybe you want to attract butterflies.
What are you interested in? Howabout house plants? You know. One
other nice thing about horticulture and gardeningis that you never age out of it.

(01:27):
And I was visiting with some onethe other day about you know,
they had been a very active gardener, just really active outside, and as
they got significantly older and a littleless physically able, they just shifted over
to other things. Working with houseplantsand other types of things that they could
do inside. I was in asenior living facility a few weeks ago where

(01:53):
they had a built table inside.It was beautiful. It was just imagine
a raised bed indoors, but abet on wheels that was a pied like
wheelchair height, had lights over itand everything, all the grow lights,
and it was just a place wherethey would have gardening classes for the residents
to come down the hall and beable to grow herbs and flowers and all

(02:15):
kinds of things. It was reallycool. I thought that was a good
idea. You know, gardening keepsyou young. It does, and Thomas
Jefferson even do this, he said, though I am an old man,
I am a young gardener. Andso anyway, just a little upbeat thing
to kick off show today. We'regoing to head first thing out to Port
Netches and we are going to talkto Eric. Hello Eric, good morning,

(02:39):
Skip, How are you sir?Well, thank you. I've got
an olive train I've had in thepot for about five years and it never
produced well. This year it produceda lot quite a bit. And what
I've noticed is after the rain,I have these these brown spots almost like

(03:01):
like a rot. It appears onninety percent of the fruit use. The
only fertilize I use is the markLife six two four water regularly, the
leaves look good, everything else looksgood other than the fruit. And it
happened on with silver Nce. Interesting. Well. Olives are not a big

(03:22):
crop, especially in this part ofthe state. They've they've been working on
trying to grow them over further westfrom here. I am not familiar with
the specific fruit rots that would attackan olive. That it could be one
of the more common, uh,you know, fruits rots that we have.
We have brown rot on peaches andwhatnot, and it may be something

(03:46):
like that. But as far aswhat to do about it, if it
truly is a rot, you're goingto need to be able to put a
fungicight on ahead of the rot arrivingso that the surface of the fruit is
protected from a spore that would landand initiate that rot. Olives are happiest

(04:08):
in a more arid place, sowhenever we're going to have a period of
rainy weather or if you have asprinkler that happens to get them wet frequently,
that just kind of exacerbates the problem, makes it a little more common,
makes sense because if it didn't show, we had a heavy rain on
Thursday. Yeah, yeah, well, and actually, if we're just looking

(04:30):
back to Thursday, this had tohave infected before then to already show up
as a as a yeah, showup as a rot right now. That
that's too fast to come from thisrain. So I'm just trying to think.
I've never heard. We've got anolive specialist at Texas and M who

(04:55):
works with the industry, a coupleof folks that work with the industry,
and I just don't No, I'venever heard them talk about any kind of
a particular fruit route. I knowthey are there, and you'll find them
in other parts of the world whereolives are grown more commercially. Yeah,
I might reach out to them becauseit was it was twenty four hours the

(05:15):
day before the fruit looked fine,okay, And it was like a twenty
four hour period in Bam Well,I'd say probably ninety percent of the fruit
and it might not be rotten.It might be something else. Yeah,
it may be. It may besomething else. Could you take some pictures
of it up close? If youmay. You may need to pick two
or three olives and bring them in, set them on a table where you

(05:35):
can really get as close as possible, good sharp focus, and send them
to me and I will run thoseby some folks then focus on olives to
see there may be something else goingon there. I'm going to put you
on hold and my producer will geton the phone and give you an email
address that you can send them to. Okay, thank you so much,

(05:58):
skill you've met. Thanks, Iappreciate that call very much. If you
haven't fertilized your lawn yet, sweetgreen from nitrofoss is an organic option.
It is a very pleasant smelling fertilizer. You don't usually say pleasant smelling and
fertilizer in the same sentence, butthis one is. Because it's a molasses
based product. It's eleven percent nitrogenso and it dissolves quickly and moves down

(06:24):
into the soil. Microbes go nutswhen you start adding carbohydrate sugar based substances.
The beneficial bacteria and whatnot. Lovethat now. Sweet green is widely
available. You can get it ina channing gardens down in the Richmond Rosenberg
area. Shades of Texas up inthe woodlands also carries it, as do
the Fishers Hardwares in South Euston onSouth Moore and the one over in the

(06:48):
Port on Broadway Street. Good places. Stop in and get your sweet green.
We're going to go now to Jasonand Magnolia. Hello, Jason Skip
Harry this morning. I'm good,sir, awesome. Well, hey,
my question also regards a tree.We had a Japanese magnolia tree that was

(07:08):
planted by the previous summers and thisis our third spring season with it.
First two years have produced, youknow, tons of leaves and tons of
those beautiful pink flowers. This yearthough only like two of the it's kind
of like fifteen individual skinnier trunks,and only two of them actually produced any
leaves, and even then not muchand we maybe got five flowers out of

(07:31):
it this year. So just tryingto maybe ask what could have led to
that, and what can we doto encourage it to bounce back if at
all? All right, I'll tellyou what I'm gonna do. I'm going
to take a break here. Wegotta do a little quick news break.
When I come back, I willI will answer that, and it's gonna
be related mostly to cold weather.But i'll be I'll be right back.

(07:53):
For those of you listening our phonenumber seven one three two kt r H,
welcome back to Guardenline. Good tohave you with us. I'm going
to get back to Jason's question hereabout the Japanese magnolia. Jason, I
think this is one of the questionsI would call a fuzzy question. And

(08:16):
what I mean is it's not justa black and white Okay, it's absolutely
this. This is the problem.Go do this and it fixes it.
It could be a number of differentthings. The amount of sunlight that a
plant gets affects its ability to createcarbohydrates which make blooms and fruit ultimately on

(08:37):
fruiting plants. And it could bethat where you have it planted, it's
not getting enough light. So whileit bloomed initially, then now you're looking
at going through a season and notsetting the bloom buds to actually provide bloom
again. That's one possibility. WhileJapanese maple is generally hearty enough for our

(08:58):
area, it is possible with suddendrops in cold to have cold damage.
To one. They're not super hardyhere, I mean they're dependable here,
but we can have conditions that dothat. We had crape myrtles, which
grow all the way up to Washington, d C. Get cold damage two
decembers ago for that exact same reason. The thing that puzzled me a little

(09:22):
bit was the lack of leaves comingout on those shoots, and either cold
damage or I did a quick check, because there's something called chilling hours where
a plant has to have so manyhours in order for the buds of the
leaves and the buds of the bloomsto open normally. Even if they did
you do have them, they don'topen normally. That happens to peaches a

(09:43):
lot. When you plant a peach, it should be planted further north than
here. But I could not findanything indicating that on a Japanese maple.
So I guess takes me back tofuzzy as a fuzzy answer. And at
this point that's all that I wouldknow to tell you. Uh, tell
me again, how long you've hadit in that spot? Yeah, I

(10:07):
couldn't take it along the Japanese.I know who has been there. It
was planted before us by the previoustime owners. Okay, this is our
it's our third spring with it atthis point, it's boom, it's almost
sudden. Yeah. Yeah, Andit's on the southern most point of our
property. It's full somat exposure.So I would you know your point about
chilling hours makes more sense because thispast winter we hardly we had one freeze

(10:28):
as maybe not even twenty four hours, so brief. Yeah, and but
but chilling hours are are not evenfreezing that it's like forty five degrees as
chilling hours. So I'm gonna haveto say, I don't know. Is
the ultimate answer from me on that. I will look into it and see
if I can find anything else onit. If anybody else has had this

(10:50):
problem, that'd be interesting to hearabout. But would there be anything we
can do to look at like thetips of the different branches to see like
maybe to break a few back andsee I should be going on a side.
I would take my thumbnail on thelittle small branches that are out near
the ends and just scrape, scrapethe bark back. It should be a
cream color to a light green colorright underneath that thin bark. Uh.

(11:13):
And if it's paper sacked brown,pecan brown, or if it snaps real
easily, uh, and it's clearlydry and it's dead. Uh. But
you if you have to use alittle pocket knife to scrape it, you
know, you don't have to whittleit away or anything, just just scrape
back the thin outer surface. Okay, all right, thank you very much.

(11:33):
I appreciate that. All right,let's see we are gonna go to
copper Field. No, I'm sorry, I'm trying to catch people in order.
Here. We're gonna go to Spring, Texas and talk to James or
Jacob. How you doing James,good morning. Uh. My father in
law grew beautiful roses and what ispassing looking in the cabinet. The old

(12:00):
thing he has was miracle grow.My question is what are the dews and
don't with miracle grow? Well,miracle grows a product you mix up water
and the nutrients are then dissolved inwater and you apply it to plants.
It's one that's quickly available. Rosesthey number one. What they need depends

(12:24):
on what your soil is. Okay, they do need nitrogen. We know
they're going to need nitrogen. Buteverybody's soil is a little different. That's
why soil test is a good wayto know exactly what roses in your soil
at your property are going to dobest with that said, there are a
lot of products out there that arefor rose fertilizing. You know, the

(12:46):
Nelson plant food and nitroposs both makea product for blooming plants like roses,
for example, or a rose foodspecifically, and those would be the way
that I would go, in theabsence of knowing exactly what it's already in
your soil. As a good show. Now, if you got something on
hand, good and use it,follow the labels mixing it up, don't

(13:07):
mix it too strong, good anduse it up. But I would switch
over to something granular that you couldwork into the soil around the plants to
support good growth. They bloom onnew shoots. So when you have when
you prin them and what was oneshoot, now you got two or three
sprouting where it was. That meansyou have increased the number of potential blooms.

(13:31):
And so you need the vigor fromnitrogen. You need really good sunlight
as much as possible, and thenthere's some occasional pruning to get the most
out of those roses. Well,I think he bought Miracle Girl every time
he passed the store. I probablygot two to three years worth of it
sitting in the Okay, so thequestion is do I spray it on the

(13:54):
leaves? Do I spray it onthe bottom? How often do you spray
how often do you fertilize any comments? Well, you can spray it on
foliage that just follow the label.There's gonna be a super low rate for
a folio type application. But Iwould mix it up, probably use a

(14:15):
watering can, drench it in aroundthe roots until you've used that up.
All right, Well, I appreciate, thank you very much for your time.
God bless all right, thank you. Good luck with those with those
roses. That's a cool plant.I love love growing roses. Have you
been to enchanted gardens recently? Theyare stocked up on a lot of really

(14:37):
cool plants, which of course isnothing new. They're always stocked up on
things. Their bootleas are outstanding.If you haven't ever grown a bootlia,
you ought to try it. Boodliashave these giant spikes of flowers, typically
in a pink, purple, white, in that range, blue, in
that range of colors. They're fragrantand they are butterfly magnets. Butterfly bush

(14:58):
is one of the names Boodlia becausethey love they love this plant. The
more you share a Boudleia, themore ballooms you get, and they can
get you set up at in ChendiGardens, you need to go by and
see those. They're really really pretty. They have a lot of different things
in stock right now. You canalways depend on them to have the best

(15:18):
of plants. They're stocked up forMother's Day, lots of wonderful gifts and
including the gift shop and everything else. There's some beautiful planters they put together,
some in white metal bucket containers,kind of a farmhouse. Look,
I think you're really attractive. Whateveryour mom likes, you're going to find
it there and it's easy to getin, easy to get out. It's

(15:39):
on FM three fifty nine just northof Richmond Rosenberg. The website go ahead
and write this down Enchented Gardens Richmonddot com. They're open today from ten
am to four pm, normally Mondaythrough Saturday. You're going to find them
open from eight to five and inChenny Gardens on the Katie Folsher side of
Richmond on FM three fifty nine.We are going to now go to let's

(16:02):
see Kim in Copperfield. Hello Kim, Hi, Good morning, Skit,
Good morning. Yesterday I was doingsome weeding in a bed that we are
redoing. Soil was soft after therain, and it was a good time
to do that. I was noticingwe have a lot of carolina snail seed
in that bed, and as Iwas pulling those out, I found many

(16:26):
of them were connected to deep rootsthat were quite thick. So I was
pulling out all of those roots thebest that I could, and some of
the roots I could not pull outall the way. And I wanted to
ask you what is the best wayto control that so that I don't have
to continue to pull these roots outyear after year. And then secondarily,

(16:51):
I was finding a few little spotswhere carolina snail seed was popping up in
my yard, and so knowing howdeep those roots are, I'm a little
concerned and so wondering what's the bestway to control that. Yeah, yeah,
that's true. Well, you're goingto need to go to a product
that's more aimed at controlling brush andpoison ivy types of things than your typical

(17:12):
lawn weed control products. The ingredientthat you should look for when you go
to a garden center or go toa Ace hardware store where wherever you're shopping
is tri Clo Peer t r Ic l O p y R tri Clo
Peer. It may be called poisonivy killer. It may be called brush

(17:34):
begone. I mean, it's gota lot of different names. But the
ingredient's what you want. You needto If you can spray it on the
leaves, that's fine. You needa spreader sticker because those they're not totally
glossy, but there's a spray's rollofoff of Carolina snail seed, and so

(17:55):
a spreader sticker like Turbos an exampleof one of many, and you put
that in the mix and it makesthe droplets spread out and stick to the
leaf. If you've got larger vinesof it, you can take a little
paint a foam paintbrush like you wouldget at a hardware store for painting there

(18:17):
on little wooden stick you know thekind I'm talking about, just a little
one, and you dip that inyour triclo paer and then you just sort
of paint it on the stems,the sides of the stems, and you
can do about a eight ten inchsection like that. It will soak in
and move down. You're not goingto get it all with one application because

(18:37):
there's a lot of storage root undergroundstorage structure. But you go back and
do it again when you need to, and then just realize that there are
a lot of berries that those thingsproduce, so you could have seedlings started
to pop up too. It's gonnabe a little bit of an ongoing task,
I see. So can I alsopaint it on the roots that I

(18:59):
cut? I don't know, I'venever you know, that's just not a
normal application for it because people generallydon't you dig up a plant. But
if it's if it's anything above groundthat you have cut, you can paint
it on the cut surfaces too.That works really well. Okay, alrighty,
looks like I'm going to have alonggoing project on this one. Yes,

(19:22):
and the birds or you're breaking theirheart. They love those, they
love those, but I know they'rebreaking your heart too by plantinum everywhere.
Thank you, cam, I appreciatethat. Thank youkiye bye bye. You
know. Ace Hardware is a placewhere you get all kinds of things like
that tricle pair I just talked about. For those of you dealing with water

(19:42):
issues. You know, they've gotall of the things we do after a
flood, you know the things weneed, fans and dehumidifiers and rubber boots
and gloves and definitely bleach and bucketsand everything like that. You know,
the quick damn sandless sandbags. They'vegot those there. They've got bags of
tops well too. By the way, you use top soil as a sand

(20:02):
bag as well. UH utility knives. The damp Rid is a product that
dehumidifies. But that that tractor payeris talking about. Those are at ACE
Hardware. Forty of them are onthe Houston area. Ace hardware dot com.
Welcome back to Guardline. Good tohave you with us today. You'd

(20:25):
like to give us a call ourphone number. I'm going to write this
one down seven one three two onetwo k t r H seven one three
two one two k t r H. You hear me talk about Nitrofoss's Superturf
a lot because it is an outstandingfertilizer to provide a gradual feed two year

(20:48):
lawn through the summertime. If youhaven't put down a slow release fertilizer yet
this year, now's the time toget that done, and superturf is uniquely
formulated because the nitrogen in it.By the way, it's a nineteen four
to ten fertilizer, nineteen percent nitrogen. That nitrogen half of it is in
a slow release form. So youapply it today, let's just say you're

(21:12):
essentially applying too much today for onepoint in time. If it were a
fast release, it would be toomuch. But it's not a fast release,
and so that fertilizer keeps releasing overthe next three or four months to
your lawnch so you'd get a niceeven feed. And that's how lawns take
up nutrients, and that is howyou have success. When you overdo at

(21:34):
a single point in time the nitrogento your lawn, you get a lot
of top growth. It grows fast, it grows big, it grows green,
and you mow mom. But thatcomes at the expense of root growth.
We don't want to over apply aquantity of nitrogen at one time,
but with a slow release, weovercome that, see, because it's releasing

(21:55):
slowly over time. So what happensis you get a balanced lawn. Balanced
meaning it's got good top growth,it's got good color, but it also
has good root growth, so whensummer comes and it's dry, you're all
right. You got a good resilientroot system there to do it. And
Superturf is designed to feed like that. It also has four percent iron,
which is usually when you look atyour lawn and you see yellowish areas that

(22:19):
you usually iron deficiency. So Superturf'sin a silver bag. It's really easy
to pick out when you go tothe garden center. Just swing in there,
ask them for the silver bag,and that is Nitrofus super Turf,
And I say, go to thegardens. You can find it a day's
hardware stores all over the place.Southwest Fertilizer, I mean, the superturf
is widely, widely available, easyto find a lot of our feed stores

(22:44):
as well. Even we'll carry theNitrofus Superturf. I am heading to do
some yardwork this week, and Ihave actually been gone. I was out
out of town all week this pastweek. And with the rain, I
tell you, I don't know ifI really want to see my lawn or

(23:06):
not. I think lions and tigersand bears will come crawling out of that
thing. By now, it's gotto be a jungle. But anyway I
got away from it, I mowedit right for a left though, But
when I get back, I'm gonnahave to do some mowing. And so
what do you do when your lawnhas grown significantly and now you got to
mow it? You know, Ialways say return the clippings. Return the

(23:29):
clippings. Well, the two timesin the year when I are two situations
where I wouldn't return clippings. Numberone, when you have winter weeds gone
to seed and the seeds are allthere on the plants, or when summer
weeds have gone to seed the seedsare on the plants. Could you're just
returning those seeds to the grounds.Better to bag as many of them as
you can and get them out ofthere. The other time is when you

(23:52):
haven't mowed for a while and thegrass has gotten really tall, and it's
hard. When you mow it,your yard looks like a hayfield rasley and
everywhere. A good multing more helps. But sometimes it's too much for that,
and that would be a time whenI'd bag those clippings, don't throw
them away, use them, spreadthem lightly as a malt in your vegetable
gardens. And flower beds and things. They are packed with nutrients. All

(24:17):
the nutrients you put on your lawnare showing up in those clippings, and
you don't want to throw those away. But another thing I will often do
is mow twice. I will mowat a higher setting and then I'll drop
it down to the desired setting andmow again. And my mower mult is
but not well, And so that'sa way that I can actually chop those

(24:38):
clippings up a little bit more.Remember, when the lawn is wet,
you don't want to be mowing it. Then that just makes a real mess.
They get stuck underneath the housing ofthe mower and whatnot. But whenever
it does quit raining around here andyou get back to your lawn, if
it's getting a little ahead of you, those are just some thoughts to think
about to getting things back in hand. If you are about to do some

(25:03):
gardening beds, and that would eitherbe creating a bed or renovating a bed
and improving it, you need toget a hold of some of the many
products from airloom soils. Airlom soilshas a rose soil that does not just
roses, but pretty much any kindof shrub you're going to plant in a
bed will do well with that.They've got their veggie and herb mix.
They got it in bags. Youfind it all over town in bags.

(25:25):
You can have them deliver it.They can dump it on the driveway,
or they can bring a supersack,which is a cubic yard sack that they
set on your driveway. You cango get it, go out to porter
and grab it in your trailer ortruck, bring it back if you want
to go that route. They havefruit berry and citrus mix. They've got
the compost top dressings, the leafmore compost top dressings, a lot of

(25:48):
quality things there. With airloom soils. Now, there are unfortunately too many
places that sell crummy soil. What'scremy soil, Well, it's rushed through
the composting process, not fully compostedto the point it needs to be.
It's not screened well. You openthe bag and it's like you got a
bag of wood chips in there.There's just a lot of things people do

(26:12):
to make a buck that are notgood for your plants. Airloom soil is
quality. That is the bottom line. If you want a bundant yield,
if you want healthy plants that isthe result of planning them and a quality
mix like an heirloom soil. Youcan go to Airloom Soils off Texas dot
com Airloom Soils of Texas to findout more, as well as to find

(26:34):
their really cool calculator online where youknow you're looking at this area going well,
I got a flower bed, howmuch do I need? Well,
the calculator will tell you exactly howmuch you need. We're going to go
now to Row Sharon and talk toDennis. Hello, Dennis. Hello,
I'm good, I'm good. What'sup. I've got a question I've been

(26:56):
thinking about. I've got a yardfull of a lot of weeds. Mode
and so I modeed and then Iwas gonna apply look wid weed killer on
it, and I said, youknow, maybe that should go on before
and then let it sit you.Yes, yeah, that's right. Let
those weeds grow leaves so the weedspray you're putting down has something to soak

(27:17):
into. Do that and uh,and then do it spray early in the
morning. Some of these products,once it gets up in the upper eighties,
they're a little stressful to your grasp, but that as simple as that
go online to Gardening with Skip.That's my website, Gardening with Skip.
The guide is on there for pestdisease and weed control. It's free and
it tells you what to apply andwhen to apply it. Awesome. I

(27:41):
had one other quick question. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to hold
you over break for that one.I gotta I gotta head to some commercials
here and I'll be right back,all right, phone number seven one three
two one two K t r H. Welcome back to guarden Line. Good

(28:02):
to have you with us today.Hey, what are we going to talk
about? Will you tell me whenyou call in at seven one three two
one two K t r H.Buchanan's Native Plants in the Heights on Eleventh
Street is one of those awesome placesto go and just experience. And I

(28:22):
really mean that. This isn't justa boring nursery with a bunch of things
sitting on tables and that's it.No, this is a you wander through.
You you see all the different kindsof plants that they have, and
wow, do they ever have awide selection. If you're looking for something
for mom for Mother's Day, Ohwell, the gift shop would be a
good place to start. Going intothe house plant greenhouse. It's huge,

(28:47):
it's full of things that even ifyou're into house plants, there's a lot
in there that I guarantee you don'tknow the name of it. You've never
seen one of those before. Thatthat is typical if you begin, it's
plants. Do you want a nativeplant? Number one place to go,
so I can think of Buchanans plotseven down to the location of like I
want native to Harris County specifically.Yes, they have that. They have

(29:07):
got them separated out for you thereright now. Tropical color is the thing.
We're entering the blazing hot season andthey've got some blazing hot color.
Bougainvillias and mandavillas. That vine,oh my gosh, mandavia, beautiful little
vine. You can put a littletrellis pole, you can put it in
a container with something to climb onin there. Plumerius, jungle jack,

(29:32):
plumerius the Hawaiian lay flower. That'swhat plumerias are. They are outstanding plants,
and it's they're not hard to grow. Just a few simple, few
simple practices and you can have successwith them. Your backyard can become a
tropical paradise in a place that islike entering into a whole nother little secluded

(29:55):
nook that again, I love visiting. It's just fun to walk around there
and every time you turn a corneryou find something else that you need to
take home with you. That's whatI do at Least eleven Street in the
Heights. Buchanansplants dot com. Youneed go visit them, check them out.
We are now gonna go let's seehere if i'd find the buttons,
We're gonna go back to Dennis andRoad Sharon, Dennis, I think you

(30:18):
had a follow up, Yes,I did. My question is about wheat
killers that come in an apple hitor you just hook to your garden hose,
yes, and does that have surfactantin those? Typically not. I'm
not a big fan of those.I guess we would have to talk about

(30:38):
what weed are we going after.I prefer to use either a granular,
especially if you're doing a pre emergentwith a granular, or to do a
spray, especially with the post emergent, to put a spray down where you
can direct it to the leaves themselves. With a garden hose, you're putting
out a lot of liquid, andso some of the products you don't want

(31:02):
to drench them down and have themgo soap down deep into the soil and
affect tree roots or some other kindof thing. So I generally would say,
just get your product, mix itup in a sprayer, and go
through there and hit the weeds youneed to hit with it. Great answer
my question. I appreciate you,all right, Dennis, Thank you for
the call. You take care thoseof you that are out there dealing with

(31:27):
the weather as it's been this pastweek and as it is today. You
got a band going through again today. I certainly do wish you well,
and our hearts go out to thoseof you who have suffered through some of
the flooding. And you know there'slevels of concern that of course, first

(31:48):
is human life. Secondly is someof your very valuable property from your home
to other things that we're concerned about. We are happy to entertain questions about
landscapes after flooding and things like thatas well. It's a little early probably
for that, but I just wantto mention that we can talk about those
kind of things. Also when weare dealing with storms, we have to

(32:14):
remember that our trees are very susceptibleto that. After these past few days
of storms, I mean, obviouslywe're in storm season. Hurricane season officially
starts June first and goes to theend of November. With it almost here,
now is the time to get yourselective pruning done. And Martin Spoonmore
from Affordable Tree is the one tohire for that. Martin knows what he's

(32:37):
doing. He'll come out, he'lltake a look at him do some selective
pruning. Maybe there's some dead areas, Maybe you have a plant that died,
a tree that died or has hugedead limbs. You got to get
those out of there. Those bigones they call widow makers for a good
reason. You never know when they'recoming out of the tree, and you
better not be underneath them when theydo. He can make your tree safe

(32:59):
for the heavy one, even thehealthy green growth. Uh. Proper pruning
can help set up your trees forstorm readiness. It's as simple as that.
And you don't want them falling onsomething valuable. I can't stress enough
the importance of getting proper tree pruningdone as we get ready to head into
that storm season, even if it'snot a hurricane I mean there's you know,

(33:22):
last week's storm came through high windsand we saw some huge limbs come
down on some trees in the area. Call Martin spoon Moore please seven one
three six nine nine twenty six sixtythree. Seven one three six nine nine
two six six three, or youcan go to his website, which is
a fftree service dot com. Whenyou call seven one three six nine twenty

(33:46):
six sixty three, either Martin orhis wife are going to answer the phone.
The owners do answer their own phone. If you get something else,
you've called the wrong If you getsomeone else, you'd call the wrong place.
Hang up dial seven three six ninenine twenty six sixty three. But
don't delay. He stays busy andyou you want to get this work done

(34:07):
before instead of waiting until after.And now he's he's in cleanup mode and
a tree that's got broken limbs andthat causes a whole different kind of damage,
So don't delay on that. You'relistening to garden Line and I'm your
host, Skip Richter. We're hereto answer your gardening questions this morning at
seven one three two one two ktR eight seven one three two one two

(34:30):
kt R H you may have heardme talk about a new product by Medina,
and this product I'm really excited about. It's called has to Grow.
Well, there's a number of hasto Grows by Medina. This one is
has to Grow super Grow plus superGrow Plus. It's a sixteen zero two
fertilizer. Now, of that sixteenpercent nitrogen, about a fifth of it

(34:52):
is slow released, so you getan immediate and we're talking about hose en
spraying. This is a fertilizer youhook up to a garden hose. It
covers about four thousand square feet.The quart bottle you buy with the garden
hose attachment about four thousand square feetand it's going to give you the immediate
release with a little bit of slowrelease also in there. It's going to

(35:13):
give you iron and a chlated form, and that's important to keep that aren't
available for the plant. It hasseaweed extract and other things that are just
excellent like molasses and humic acid arein there to improve soil to feed the
microbes. I just think it's acomplete package, and I like that ratio.
The sixteen zero two that is athat is a really good blend for

(35:35):
summer fertilizing. You can do itperiodically, you can use it as a
as a spring greenop, you canuse it in a lot of ways.
And I even have pictures that someonesent me of somebody that uses it on
their tomatoes in the garden, andof course they're getting good results from that
as well. Remember fertilizers, Idon't care what's on the label. They
can't read. And so if itsays if it says lawn fertilizer and you

(36:00):
want to put it on your herbsor flowers, I mean you can do
that. You know, it's nutrients, it's nutrients. We just kind of
go for general ratios on these things. But supergril Plus is just many many
uses, but especially for your lawn. Another quality product from the folks they're
at Medina. Yesterday, I wastalking to Jorge of Jorges Hidden Gardens on

(36:23):
the phone and just talking about whatall they have down there. They've got
their Mother's Day sale on on rosesgoing on right now, and I'll go
all the way up to Mother's Day. Three gallon Peggy Martin roses are also
included in the Mother's Day sales.So if you've been driving around admiring other
people's Peggy Martins, now's the chanceto get you one yourself. They are

(36:45):
on Elizabeth Street and Alvin, justsouth of Highway six Jorges Hidden Gardens.
They also have citrus like Satsuma's oneof the hardiest citrus we can plant here,
oranges and limes and lemons. Sothey have many other things from trees
and shrubs to vegetables and flowers andfruit and all kinds of things at Hoges

(37:08):
Hidden Gardens. They are open onthe weekends also, by the way,
Friday from eight am to four,Saturday from eight am to four, Sunday
from eight am to four, andthen during the week from nine am to
three pm. So Hoorges Hidden Gardens, Elizabeth Street and Alvin. Yep Oh.
He also has that three sixty treestabilizer that's kind of cool. I've

(37:32):
talked about those all the time.It's a really cool new tool. I
want to mention the landscaper's prideline ofproducts. You've heard me talk about them
before, but this company local justquality products for your soil. It could

(37:52):
be black velvet malts not dyed,naturally beautiful velvety black malts for the top
of the soil hardwood mults, notground up pellets. True hardwood multch for
the top of the soil or forpathways too. It's good to put on
your garden pathways as an all weathersurface. Pine bark molt one of the
most popular slow decomposition right really beautifulpine chunks, and the garden Gardener's Magic

(38:16):
Soil. Gardener's Magic Soils, apine based Blant's got Humus, green pine
compost risols and Chicken pillot fertilizer lastsup to three months. Landscapers Pride go
to Landscaperspride dot com. They're widelyavailable through area. You can find out
all the sources and learn more abouttheir products when you're there. Well,

(38:37):
I do want to mention that Igot something for your calendar for next Saturday.
I will be at the Arbor GateSaturday, May eleventh, next Saturday,
from eleven thirty am to one thirtypm. Eleven thirty am to one
thirty pm next Saturday at the ArborGate. So you folks up there north
and east are really wherever when Igo to these appearances. As surprising me

(39:00):
sometimes people will drive a pretty gooddistance across town to go. So hey,
wherever you're listening to my voice.Uh, if you are out of
town and you've never been to thearbor gate, here's your excuse. I
mean, as if you needed morebeautiful nursery, and we're gonna have a
good time there too. We'll beright back. Welcome to Katie r.

(39:23):
H. Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's crazy just watching as well.
Give me things the ups again,you're not a sound Welcome back to garden

(39:57):
Line. Good to have you withus this morning. We are here to
answer your gardening questions, and soif you would like to ask a question,
here's the phone number seven one threetwo one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. That auto make pretty
easy. I enjoy visiting with gardenersbecause I just find a I don't know,

(40:24):
uh kind of a connection with peoplethat are interested in growing plants and
doing better. I know that whenyou get involved in growing things, it
is good for us all in somany ways. Number One, there's an
exercise getting out there in the gardenand walking around. I mean, you
know people I saw one of mydaughters is interested in getting a walking pad

(40:49):
that goes under your desk. Sowhile you're at the desk, you know,
when you're caught all day in frontof a computer and sitting at a
desk. Now we have the desk, we can stand up. Well,
now they have a low walking padslike a try underneath your desk. So
she's interested in one of those.And I was just thinking about you know,
when you garden, when you gooutside, you're walking all the time,
and they always say, after somany minutes, get up and walk
around. Well, gardening is exercise, and it can be It can be

(41:14):
a mild amount of exercise, verylow impact. It can be a heavier
amount of exercise. I mean ifyou get out and start turning swill with
a spading fork or shoveling compost,well, yeah, you're doing a little
more work there. But it's enjoyablein that way. It's enjoyable in the
sense of accomplishment too. You know, even a task like weeding, which

(41:35):
we generally think, okay, that'snot a pleasant thing to do. But
I can tell you this. WhenI go in and I've got a mess,
I've got to clean it up.At the end of a given amount
of time, you look back andyou see the work you've done and you
see the difference you've made, andthere's just something mentally rewarding about that.
A lot of our jobs we goand we you know, bang our head
against the computer all day, orpush papers all over the place, or

(41:59):
deal with people, and at theend of the day you kind of go,
what did I accomplish today? Well, with gardening, you can see
what you accomplished today, and it'sa rewarding kind of thing. The health
of getting outside and working in thegarden and just being able to enjoy nature.
We are made to be connected withnature. That is just a fact.
And piles of research studies have shownit in all kinds of ways,

(42:22):
benefiting children with the ADHD, olderadults that are dealing with mobility issues,
things like dementia, even for example, the sense of well being. Just
studies of looking at what if wepull you off these meds and instead you
go garden and things. Yeah,it's amazing, it's amazing the benefits that

(42:44):
are there. And many years agothey discovered a bacterium, a bacteria in
the soil that releases substances that causeour bodies to produce the serotonin effect.
In other words, soil makes youhappy. That's the bottom line on it.
There are bacterium in the soil thatactually have that mental cognitive beneficial effect

(43:09):
on our bodies. That's just oneof a million examples. Gardening is good
for us. We need to getout there and roll around in the dirt
and have some fun. That isa fact. If you haven't fertilized your
lawn yet and you're looking for aquality, slow release product, the Silver
Bag by Nitrofoss Superturf nineteen four ten, that is example of what I'm talking

(43:34):
about. Superturf releases gradually over time. It gives even feeding to your soil.
You fertilize once and you're done.It takes you all the way through
the summer pretty well, actually threeor four months actually of a feeding out
of that. Now it's got ironin it as well, which helps green
up the garden or the lawn,because when we have various issues from certain

(43:57):
root diseases to highlight levels of pHor phosphorus in the soil, we start
to have iron deficiency and there isalways a benefit when we can add a
little bit of iron to help getthat grass a little bit greener. And
Superdurf does just that. Superderf's widelyavailable like all nitropost products. You can
get it at Gem's Hardware up inMontgomery. You can go out to a
Tascasita to the ACE Hardware out thereon Timber Forest Drive. They have it

(44:22):
out there as well as does theACE at Sincle Ranch on Mason Road out
there in the Kadi area. I'mgonna now go to let's see, we're
gonna go back and find the buttons. Today we're gonna go to Cypress and
talk to Sandy. Hey, Sandy, Hi, good morning, Skip morning.
I have a question about my eggblack Beauty egg plant. When do

(44:45):
I know if when it's I'm readyto harvest, like, uh, well,
it doesn't. It doesn't ripen inthe sense of like a peach ripening
or something. So but we letit get about as big as it's going

(45:05):
to get. But but harvest itwhile the skin is still glossy. Once
the skin gets dull, uh it, it starts to lose quality significantly.
So as far as the size,don't worry so much about the size.
Just kind of get it up toclose to the size that you would expect
Black Beauty to be. But lookat watch that skin and don't let it

(45:29):
start to dull. Okay, Anddid you get my I didn't put my
name yesterday, but I as redflower weeds. Yes I did. I
actually replied to that a little bitearlier, replied to the photo of all

(45:52):
the different kinds of weeds and thenalso the red flowers. I'm working on
the red flower still. It lookslike a type of verbenu, but it's
not quite right for burbinas, soI'm trying to nail it down a little
bit better. Okay. I don'tknow how you have that in your yard.
I've never seen such a beautiful weedin the yard. It looks like

(46:15):
a plant or a flower. AndI said, I didn't plan it though,
but my my email is three slatlow Gallire. Yeah, if you
got it yesterday, I sure did. And like I said, you have
an answer in your email box.So oh, okay, okay, we're

(46:36):
good. All right, Thank youso much. All right, thank you
had a great day. You too, you too, sir, Thank you.
I wish you well. RCW Nurseryis one of those places where,
for example, you can get nightsuper turf. They carry that and a
lot of other products that you hearus talk about here on Garden Line.
RCW makes it a point to carrywhat you are interested in and what will

(47:00):
help you have success. Do youwant a planet a tree? They have
all kinds of products to help youget that tree off to success. You
know, they grow their own treesup in Plannersville and they bring them down
to the nursery and it is justit's I put it. It's like,
you know, when you go thereand buy a tree, you're going to

(47:21):
get a species that wants to growhere. You're also going to get it
planted right. They'll go out andplant it for you too, and they'll
do it right, or they'll giveyou the instructions on how to do it
yourself with the products you need inyour hand to have success with that.
It's Mother's Day coming up, andboy do they ever have a beautiful They
have a nice stock of roses.They've got a nice stock of some of

(47:42):
the landscape art that mom might likeand things like hibiscus, beautiful, beautiful
hibiscus. It's just you got togo buy your and see it for yourself.
RCW Nursery is one of those places, fun to visit, easy to
get to Palmbo Parkway and RCW Nurseriesdot Com. RCW nurseries dot Com.

(48:05):
We're gonna take a little break here. We'll be right back and get back
to your questions. Well for backto the garden line. Good to have
you with us as always if you'redoing some container planting outdoors, and you
should be. Containers are gorgeous.You buy a beautiful quality container and it's

(48:29):
with you for years and you putit wherever you want to put it.
You can move them around, youcan grow vegetables, you can grow flowers.
It's just containers are awesome way tohave I would say instant beauty,
almost instant beauty out there in thegarden. But you need to have a
container that drains well and you needa quality potting mix to go in it.
And Jungle End is that kind ofmix. Jungle Land distributed by Nitropos

(48:52):
has a four different kinds actually ofaged organic matter. It's got microhizal fungi
as well, and it drains theexcess water away, but it holds on
to the moisture that the plants aregoing to need. So it's kind of
the perfect thing of too. Youknow, you don't want something dries out
too fast. You don't want somethingto stays soggy and mucky like a swamp.

(49:15):
Jungle In does the best of bothworlds. You can get jungle in
in a lot of different places.Dney Feed and Tomball has got jungle nd
Lake Hardware down in Angleton. They'vegot jungle in. You know it's you
find it pretty much. Any acehardware store that you go to, like
Fisher's Hardware for example, is anotherone that has jungle land down in Baytown.

(49:35):
So check it out, get someand use it in your containers so
that you have quality success. Weare now going to go to Marty and
Fairfield. Hello Marty, Good,good morning. Step Hey. Yesterday you
talked to him about his little acornsgrowing into trees and his lawn, and
you said just to mow them.What about the acorns that have grown into

(49:57):
trees in your garden? What canI spray and up till now? I've
just been taking the weed eater andbut they just for three years now,
I've had bumper crops of acorns.Yeah, and I just I want to
get rid of them right now.I don't have a whole lot, but
I do have lots of ferns andstuff underneath the trees. Yeah, so

(50:22):
is that what the acorn? Whatare the acorns growing? What are the
good plants that are growing with theacorns? Oh, I'm a cottage garden
person. I like whatever. Ilike whatever. I wander around and see
that I like, I just pickit up. Yeah, okay, put
it in. Well, the problemwith spraying the acorns is you're gonna have

(50:43):
to use a potent stuff for woodybrush type control, and you're going to
hurt other plants when you get iton them. So there's not really a
good way, especially in a cottagelike setting like that, where you're not
going to get it on the desireplants that you have around. There Actually
is a little device I can't rememberwhat they're called, but you set it

(51:06):
down around the stem and you pullback on the handle and it literally pulls
the tree out of the ground.I mean, use it on trees up
the size of your thumb. I'mtalking thousands of little trees in my garden.
Okay, there's no way I canknow. Well, and I guess
I'm not going to talk into gettingin your hands and knees with moist soil

(51:27):
and just pulling them up. That'swhat that's what I do in mind,
if they're if they're at that stagethat many, I don't know a good
solution. You know, you spray, you're gonna kill good things. Uh,
they're just too many physically to remove. So that kind of leaves you
with Uh, I don't know.I just I'll just weed eat them and
put some molt on them. Iguess that's It's about the only thing I

(51:51):
can do. Then there there actuallythere's one other option. Uh. You
can take a product that would killbrush and you can put it in a
wiper type applicator and like the spongeon the sponge on the end of your
clipper your grabber tool thing. Yeahyeah, yeah, one of those.
Okay, if you can rig thatup, you could put put triclop peer

(52:15):
on it. And triclop peer isthe ingredient. It's sold in many brands,
many things. You know up therein Fairfield, you got some good
Ace hardware stores nearby there, they'regoing to carry that that triclo peer for
you up. Uh. No,it's a tricl Peer is more like a
poison ivy killer. It's different.It's not the ingredient and roundup. Roundup

(52:37):
isn't as good on woody brush astriclo peers. Uh. And you do
the wiper and just dab it onthe you know, squeeze the sponge on
the leaves of the acorns. Nowagain you said you have hundreds of them,
but are thousands? Uh, Soyou're gonna have to get out there
do a little bit. And nextSaturday morning, with a cup of coffee
listening to the garden line, youcan just speer it on some more.

(53:00):
Now you see what I'm saying.Just keep on it, and I think
that would be a good option.Probably put a little bit of a spreader
sticker in the mix to help itstare to those slick oak leaves. All
right, okay, all right,thank you, you've bet. Thanks Marty.
I appreciate your call. Piercecapes isthe company you call for pretty much

(53:22):
anything you need around the landscape.And here's what I mean by that.
It's been raining. That's no news. Right When it rains as much,
you have standing water everywhere. Andwhat do you read when you look at
what a plant wants? Good drainage? Almost always I want good drainage.
Piercecapes can turn a swamp into awell drained area. They can do that.

(53:43):
They can work on landscape lighting.They can help get your irrigation system
in working order, and that isimportant. They can create hard scapes,
they can do all kinds of things. I mean, go online to the
website and you'll see what I'm talkingabout. They do some really beautiful upper
end work. They can do anumber of things at piercescapes dot com pierscapes

(54:06):
dot com. They also have aquarterly maintenance for your beds. So here's
what happens. You sign up withthem and they come out quarterly, four
times a year. They'll do trimming, weeding, fertilizing, they'll check your
irrigation system. They'll do seasonal colorchanges. You can choose how many of
those you want to do in agiven year. Two changes a year,
three or even four. And they'llreplenish the multch keep it looking good and

(54:30):
blocking that light to whole weeds down. Quarterly maintenance for beds from Piercescapes just
another one of the mini services thatthey offer. Here's the phone number two
eight one three seven to zero fivezero six zero. We're going to go
now to Northwest Houston and talk toRalph. Hello, Ralph, good morning,
Good to hear from you. You'vegot having a Saint Augustine grass and

(54:53):
doing like you said, leave italone, but you got long runners and
all on top instead of any dirt. Only should I put a for some
dirt around all majority or something,cause they did not grab it on the
Uh, they're going on top andthe long runner. But I'm not gonna

(55:14):
get out there and they're not rootingin. They're not rooting in. They're
going on top of the other.And it's okay, did like you said,
do I take care of that?Yeah? Compost top dressing can help
with that. When you have runnerson top of runners. Uh, then
you've got that thatch and it's keepingthem from from pegging down to the ground

(55:36):
like you want to. If I'munderstanding your question right right, And so
when you put a little compost topdressing out there over the top, it
helps to speed the decomposition of thoserunners. And and then you're you essentially
are using nature to compost away thethatch that you're describing. Okay. Also,

(56:00):
my boy, cajun hibisinus, it'snot doing near as good as my
other hobbistiness. Oh really, Ohyes, Oh, I love that.
I love Cajun hibiscus. I gotsome at home that is loading up with
buds right now and can't wait tillsee it. I don't know i'd get,
I'd get a good quality of hibiscusfood. And uh, you know,
I know that Nitrofoss makes one thatdoes well. Nelson's makes one called

(56:23):
color Star. Color Star food youcould use. Just keep them fed,
keep them vigorous, keep them inplenty of sunlight. The more the better,
don't let them completely dry out.Uh. And you they should kick
in and do better for you.Okay, fine, thank you, all
right, sir, Thanks very much, Ralf appreciate your call. I it's

(56:45):
talking about Nelson's and you know,having the Color Star and things. Nelson's
also has their turf Star line.That turf Star means for your lawn.
Uh. They've got two products thatboth last to six months, but they're
different. One of them is Bruce'sBrew. Bruces Brew is good for quick

(57:07):
green up in the spring because mostof the nutrient releases pretty quickly, but
there is some slow release. It'llgo out about six months. Not the
bulk of the product but a littlebit in there, so you could do
Bruce's Brew now, you could doit again midsummer and that'll carry you all
the way to fall. Slow andEasy is a very slow release product.
It gives you some feeding now,but you're going to have Slow and Easy

(57:29):
going four months from that. Infact, if you do Slow and Easy
on your lawn, you don't needto fertilize again until we hit fall.
Just return the clippings. That's allyou got to do. It's an acidifying
fertilizer, which is a good thingfor a number of reasons. But both
Bruce's Brew and Slow and Easy availablefrom Nelson Plant Food, and they are
quality products and you will have goodresults with those. Let's see here I

(57:54):
am what's good. I tell youI'm not going to be able to take
call. With just a few secondsleft here, I think Nicky may want
to do the news instead of listeningto me. Continue to talk to callers
through it. When I come back, Steve you will be the first up,
and John you will be next.Our phone number is seven to one
three two one two fifty eight seventyfour seven one three two one two five

(58:17):
eight seven four. You can giveme a call here. Our producer will
get you on the line and readyto talk when we come back. I
just want to remind you that nextSaturday, I'm going to be at Arburgate
from eleven thirty to one thirty.That's the eleventh Saturday, May eleventh,
eleven thirty to one thirty. Ihope you will come see me, and
I hope you'll come see Arborgate infact, parking back that brand new parking

(58:40):
lot they've got that is just absolutelyawesome. Hey, we're going to do
news. We'll be right back.I see you don't don't super Man's game,
you don't speak with you, don'tpull a mask on, hold on
range around your tom Welcome back,Reguardline. Good to head with us this

(59:00):
morning. We're here to answer gardeningquestions. How can we help you have
a bountiful garden and a beautiful,beautiful landscape. That is the goal.
And listen, it is not thatdifficult. I know, you know,
you may be one of these folks. It feels like I just have a
brown thumb. My grandma could justput something in the ground that grew and

(59:21):
looked good, and she just hada green thumb. Well, let me
tell you something. There's no suchthing as a brown thumb. What there
is is an uninformed thumb. Youlearn a few simple principles of taking care
of plants, let us help youalong as we go, and suddenly it's
like, maybe you don't have abrown maybe you do have a green thumb.
Because I'm telling you it is notrocket science. We can do it.

(59:43):
You just have to follow a fewfew basic guidelines as you're going along.
And one of them rule number one. Soil first. Soil first.
I know it's exciting to get buya tomato plant and think about it,
even taste the tomatoes when you takethe to made a plant home. I
know it's fun to buy a rosebush. You can just imagine the fragrance

(01:00:05):
of those roses in a bouquet orwhatever. I get it. I understand
that those are great. I feelthe same way. But soil first.
Get excited about the soil and makethe soil right, and then you will
be on your way to success.By the time you put a plant in
the ground, you are eighty percentof the way to success or failure.
You've picked a spot that's sunny orshady, and plants are going to have

(01:00:25):
an opinion about that. You've pickeda spot that drains well or drains poorly,
and plants are going to have anopinion about that. You've selected a
species and or a variety, andthere's some that do better than others.
So you've made a lot of decisions. But the most important decision is you've
either improved the soil so the plantcan thrive or you haven't. See anamalts

(01:00:47):
is about improving the soil. Whenyou go into cianamalts, load up and
come home or have them delivered.They deliver within twenty miles of their location,
which is down just north of Sharonon Highway five FM five twenty one.
When you come home from there,here's what you got. You got
compost, You've got rosesoil, youhave leaf mow compost, you have bed

(01:01:13):
mixes, you have mulches, youhave every fertilizer I talk about on guardenline.
They have it there, including thingslike asimite. They have it there,
and you come home. You createthat setting and then when you get
a good quality plant take it home. You will have success. That's how
that works, and Cienamultch can getyou started. Sienna mulch dot com.

(01:01:34):
That's that's what you need to know, Siena multch dot com. Go check
them out and you'll see what I'mtalking about. They will help you do
the first step, which is brownstuff, before step two, which is
green stuff. I'm gonna go nowto John in a Tascasita. Hello,
John H. Scalp Hi. I'vegot got a pear tree in my front

(01:01:57):
yard and it's got fired light.Had this before and I'd like to like
to do something about it. Okay. Fire blight is a bacterial disease.
It typically hits in the spring.As you probably notice, it likes to
enter through blooms. It also thetender new growth gets it in there.
For those who haven't had fire blight, I'm kind of explaining it. I

(01:02:20):
know you know some of this stuff. The bacteria causes complete and rapid collapse
of the whole shoot, and itjust ends up hanging their chocolate brown with
leaves still on it, chocolate brown. The way to deal with it is
the first step is sanitation. Soyou want to go to all those strikes,
all those burned ends of branches andthings, follow them down until that

(01:02:46):
you get a healthy branch and cutit off just a little below there.
So typically those things are about maybeeight inches a foot long. In severe
cases it can be more. Butyou got to print it out because that
is loaded with bacteria that when itrains, will splash onto healthy new growth,

(01:03:06):
especially next spring, and you'll beright back where you are when you
prune. Have some lysol or somesimilar product on hand. Spray your printers
after each cut. That way,if you did happen to cut into the
bacterial infective part, you wouldn't justbe spreading it with printers now, So
I spray them with lysol between cuts. That's a good practice in general.

(01:03:28):
Get it all pruned out, getit out of the area, out of
don't drop it on the ground,just get it out of there. And
then on pairs I would I wouldalmost say don't don't fertilize them. There
are situations where you need a littlefertilizer. But if you push them with
succulent new growth lots of nitrogen andwater and things like that, fire blight
is much worse. And we're that'syeah, that's seculent new growth. You're

(01:03:52):
just setting it up for fireblight.Now. The weather is a huge factor.
Some years are worse than others.Variety as a huge factor. There
are some that are fairly tolerant offireblight. There are some that just get
toasted, and so those are allsome of the concepts. There is a
spray with streptomizin in it that youcan buy in garden centers. Not all

(01:04:15):
of them have it. You haveto look around a little bit or go
to your ace hardware store and askthem if they have it, and it
is. It has streptomcin in andit's for fireblight. So basically you're using
an antibiotic type spray to control that. It's got to follow the label rule
carefully. Most people don't want toget out there and have to spray to
try to stop it, so weuse these cultural and sanitary techniques I just

(01:04:38):
talked about. I think spraying wouldbe an easier option for me than even
my tallest lad or I couldn't yethalfway up the tree. Well, just
know that, you know, withthe infected there, it's like spray is
not a complete panacea. So yeah, but those are your options for fireblight.

(01:05:00):
I'm about in the in the offseason, when the can I spray
the bear tree, it won't witsomething no, it won't do any good.
No, you got to get yougot to get that done early on.
It'd be like taking an antibiotic now, because you might get a cold
in the fall. There's there's yousee what I'm saying. Yes, yes,

(01:05:23):
all right, well good luck,good luck with that tree. I
understand. I've I see your pain, and I've seen a lot of fire
blight this spring. Okay, I'mgoing to get busy with that. All
right. Thanks for the call.I appreciate it. Nelson Water Garden,
boy, they had their little shindigout there yesterday evening. I was not
able to go, but I betit was a blast. Nelson Water Garden

(01:05:45):
is a destination. It's and Ishould not say water gardens, it's Nelson
Nursery and water Gardens. Although they'vealways been known nationally for their quality water
gardens, they're a leader and alot of things. You know, they
invented you see these disappearing fountains whereit's like a large glazed vase type container

(01:06:09):
that water's spilling over the sides andgoing down into a rock bed where it
disappears and then it gets pumped backup through the container. They invented that
that kind of thing, and thoseare so cool. And when you go
to Nelson's number one, it's funjust to walk around. But Nelson Water
Garden is inspirational. You'll see allkinds of different waterfalls and fish and water

(01:06:30):
plants. And then their garden centeris just awesome. I mean they have
a wide, wide selection of things. They're in Katie Katie Fort Ben Road.
When you get there, just turnright on Katie Fort Ben just as
stones throw up the street and youwill enjoy it. I promise you you
will be very inspired. And whetheryou want to hire them to come out

(01:06:51):
and put in a waterfall for youor a water garden of whatever type,
or you want to do it yourselfand have them advice you, they'll do
that too. Uh. You know, it's certain tasks, certain jobs are
pretty involved. Then you're probably gonnawant to hire it done. But for
do it yourselfers, they can helpyou with that too. Nelson Watergardens out

(01:07:11):
there and Katie, here's the here'sthe website Nelson Watergardens dot com. You
need to go check them out.You're listening to garden Line, I'm your
host, skip rickor we're taking abreak here, I will be right back
if you want to get on theboard for a call seven one three two
one two kt r H. Youcan dance heavy, dance with the gardens.

(01:07:35):
You thee I let them hold youtake you can smile. Welcome back
here, garden line, good heavywith us today. What are we gonna
talk about? I think probably I'lldo a little bit of talking about some
of the things that we can bedoing indoors as well. Your house plans

(01:07:56):
need to be periodically bumped up toa bigger container. If you want to
have success with them. You needto check the light levels on things,
see how they're doing. You know, there's a survival level of light and
there's a thrive level of light,and those are very different. I often
will move my houseplants to a brighterarea gradually for the summertime. I got
a little front ports. It's real, real, really really shady, but

(01:08:18):
in much brighter than it is inside. That gives them a chance to make
some carbohydrates and rejuvenate. So youcan do that. Check the watering on
them, see how they're doing.Every now and then if you've been fertilizing,
just put them in the sink anddrench them with water and wash all
the excess salts and things out ofthere. Let them fully drain out,
and then you're back in business again. A lot of these things we can

(01:08:41):
do for the plants. Try somenew houseplants. There's a lot of cool
species out there. If you wanta full proofast plant, we're just going
to start on that end. Sansavariamother in law's tongue. I didn't name
it, mother in law if you'relistening, but anyway, Sansavaria, that
one shake deep, dark areas,bright areas. Let it get too dry,

(01:09:03):
forget to water it, and waterit again. It survives it all.
If you can't grow sens Ofvaria,I can't help you. I mean
it is probably easier easier to haveas a plant than silk and plastic plants
are. I mean it is atough one. Another good one. ZZ
plant that's been a popular one nowfor a while, fairly new as far
as houseplants go on the list.ZZ plant again. It likes light,

(01:09:28):
but it can take less. Youcan forget to water and it does just
fine. You know, with mosthouseplants, the biggest problem we do is
when we overwater them and roots staysoggy. And can't get oxygen start to
rot. But Zzi is another easyone. And then there's some others.
I love Aglionima, also called Chineseevergreen. They come in so many colors.
I'm kind of into colored foliage houseplants, so something like a Chinese evergreen,

(01:09:51):
a Moranta prayer plant, some ofthose types of things. I kind
of like them because they bring alittle color in as well. Your hometown
feed store if you are up inthe twenty nine seventy eight area in Magnolia,
that's FM twenty nine seventy eight.It's Spring Creek Feed Center. They're
just minutes away from Graham Parkway highWay two forty nine. Spring Creek Feed

(01:10:14):
carries all the fertilizers I recommend they'rethere. If I say this is a
good one, you go there.They're going to have it. They have
supplies for your lawn and garden likepest control, disease control, weed control,
and so on. Very friendly,courteous staff, and it's a beautiful,
beautiful store. I mean just walkin and it's just fun to get
in there and shop quality pet feed, quality livestock feed. Of course,

(01:10:38):
if you are in four h orFFA, if you were in the military.
If you're a senior citizen, there'sdiscounts for all of you. And
if they need a special order,they're more than happy to special order the
particular things you were looking for.And they even have a delivery service.
Again Spring Creek Feed in Magnolia onFM twenty nine seventy eight. Let's go
to Cove, Texas and we're goingto talk to RUFUS mornings. Yep,

(01:11:03):
when do you start pulling up onions? Mustflying onions the harvest dry out and
reap again. Yeah, anytime youwant, Uh, you can leave them
and not pull them up. Youcan pull them up once you at least
want to get them to multiply andhave shoots that are let's say, a
good size for eating. But there'sno particular time yet to do it.

(01:11:29):
Well, I noticed that some ofthem have died back to the to the
dirt line. And when I pulledup, I pulled up one row of
my most flying and I noticed theywere still there and they still were solid.
Yeah, any way, well maybethey're still good. So I got
them out there drying. That's theother thing I was asking, how I'm
going to leave them on the tableto dry out, just just enough for

(01:11:50):
the outside to dry the roots.I don't know, I'm getting a feedback.
Are you hearing that on your end? Rufous hell? That sound that's
much better? Uh so okay we'llgo off. Yeah the uh you just
just enough to the tops dry.You don't want to put like green green

(01:12:11):
onion top or fleshy wet root materials, you know, into storage. It'll
just just decay right away. Sojust yeah it. Don't overthink multiplying onions.
They're pretty durn simple. Yeah.I know people that forget about them
for a while and then a yearlater they go in and divide them and
get going again. Right right?How often do you have to cut the

(01:12:33):
gentlemen? You have wall? Gowith the fire blake? This tree is
really tall. I cut mine backabout five years ago and got it down
the badge wall, and it startedto get up about twenty five foot.
Okay, what's a good what's agood height to? Just okay, what
it gets here? I need tocut it back a third. Oh boy,

(01:12:54):
that varies on the person and thesize of the ladder you have and
the kind of tree you've got.Uh, there's not a good side.
Just keeping it manageable. But here'sthe thing. When you prune a pair
tree back severely, it takes offlike a rocket and all the shoots go
straight to the sky real quickly.So you got to stay on it as
much as possible. If you canlean shoots out to the side kind of

(01:13:16):
forty five degree angle or so,that helps spread the growth from just the
tips going straight up like a fishingpole or bamboo, you start to get
shoots occurring on the sides along alongthat stem that was shooting for the sky.
So a lot of the people trainingthey part of their training is to
lean them out rather than trying toprune them into submission, because they they

(01:13:40):
they don't respond well to being severelypruned. They just redo what you just
try to prune out. Hey,Rich, I didn't shoot out as bad
as when I put that black stuffon it. Yeah, yeah, I'm
gonna have to run. But thankyou for the question and good luck with
that. I appreciate your call.The b Supply in Dayton, Texas is
a really cool place to go.They've got an observation hive there. If

(01:14:03):
you've got kiddo's or just you're curiousand like stuff like that like I do.
Go and do the honey tour.Learn about the different kinds of honey.
You get to taste a bunch ofdifferent kinds. You learn about bees.
You can watch the bees in thestore inside an observation hive. It
is super cool. If you havefive to twenty acres and you're within fifty

(01:14:25):
miles of the bee supply in Dayton, Texas, you can do their be
rental program. Go to their websiteand they will explain how it works.
Basically, they bring the bees,they set them up, they take care
of them for you. And beesare something you can use in an egg
exemption. You have to have theright amount. They understand how to do
it. Just go to dbsupply dotcom. Dbsupply dot com also check out

(01:14:49):
their beginner bee keeping classes. Veryhelpful, good classroom and good hands on
both in those classes. Love loveto do that. Uh let's see,
We're gonna go to Melvin in Parland. Hey Melvin, Hey nice used today

(01:15:10):
morning? You know I brought inthat little old stunted tomato plants. Yes,
I told you previously the year fourI had a lot of weeds and
I sprayed it with spectrocide. Igot to think that, you know,
I was wrong about what I sprayed. I used that bear breast killers when
I did so, I didn't knowif there was any makeup and that you

(01:15:30):
know, absolutely absolutely, Yeah,No, that that explains the symptoms you
had. Uh. It's a hormonetype herbicide and that was damage from it.
Uh. These tomatoes are probably goneers. Uh, but it's not like
it's in your soil now and youcan't replant. You can pull them out
and replant with something else if youwant. But yeah, that does it.

(01:15:54):
Melvin. Hey, Melvin, Yeah, I've got to run, uh
if you thank you. Yeah,and it was good to see you in
Paarland. By the way, Iappreciate that. Yeah. And also I
did poketo pinto beans around her anyway. But yeah, I figured out what
it was. Yeah, that's it. I just want to make sure they
all right, you know, staythere all right. Thank you, thank

(01:16:14):
you for your help. N niceto meet you too. Hey. Arburgate
has a brand new parking lot youknow about that up in Tomball twenty nine
to twenty just west, just westof Tombull Parkway out there on the edge
of town. The Arborgate has everythingyou need to have success, including staff
that knows what they're talking about thatwill guide you well while you're there.
And by the way, I'm goingto be at Arburgate next Saturday, that's

(01:16:39):
the eleventh of May. But whileyou're there, you got to pick up
some stuff for mom. They havewonderful gift shops, they have outstanding plants.
There are probably a thousand things thatwould make your mom really happy that
you can find there at Arburgate.In fact, just bring her with you.
How about that? Bring her withyou, bring her Saturday you get

(01:16:59):
to pick out our own. Yet, if you come out, you can
bring samples of plants. Put themin a zip lock bag or plastic bag,
close them up, bring me theplants, will identify them or we'll
diagnose them. You've got a bug, put it in a bag and bring
it out there. I love tomeet people that listen to garden Line,
so this is another opportunity. It'sgoing to be this coming Saturday, eleven

(01:17:21):
thirty till one thirty, and I'llbe there answering your gardening questions. We'll
talk about whatever you're interested in.You just want to come in and bring
me some pictures and say, hey, I've got this area. What plants
might do good there? What canI do to you know, enhance that.
We'll do all of that kind ofstuff again at the Arbitate, which
is in Tomball. Now, ifyou're going to drive out there, you

(01:17:42):
want to look for Trishel Road.It goes around behind Arborgate. You can
get it on one end or theother. Drive in the back and there's
an awesome parking lot, easy easyaccess. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with
scamp Direct. It's just watch himas so many things beginning. Hey,

(01:18:24):
welcome back to the garden Line.I am your host, Skip Richter.
It's good to have you with ustoday. Got a question you'd like to
give us a call? Here isa phone number seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven onethree two one two five eight seven four.
Now I know it's gardeners. Whenwe have rainy weather's kind of cooped

(01:18:46):
up and we don't do well withthat, do we. I mean we
want to get outside enjoy it.I guess you could work in the rain.
There have been times when I haveworked in the rain. How many
you all remember doctor Dolittle? Idon't know. This just went through my
head. Doctor Dolittle the song ifyou remain out in the rain, you'll

(01:19:08):
think you're drinking pink champagne and youwill spend your life praying for thunderstorms.
I don't know where that came from, but the past, long long time
ago. Yep. I enjoy gettingoutside. I don't mind it a little
wet, that's fine. I mean, I'm just gonna stand there because it's
rainy. But you know, it'sgood to get outside and do some stuff,
enjoy it. Now would be agood time to go ahead and get

(01:19:30):
your summer lawn fertilization, get thesupplies you need to get that done.
And if you would like to havea high nitrogen level in an organic natural
type product, Sweet Green by nitrofossis that it's got eleven percent nitrogen.
It's a molasses based product. Sonumber one, it smells good. That's

(01:19:51):
what it's called sweet green. Andwhenever you put molasses on the soil,
it is rocket fuel for a lotof the benefit. Microbes they love that,
and in this case, you putit on your sweet green water it
in and the microbes take it fromthere and they get real happy about that
Sweet Green is a product you canput down. You put about Oh,

(01:20:12):
let's see, I'd do it atabout a rate of ten pounds per thousand
square feet. For sweet Green it'seleven percent nitrogen, and uh, just
spread it evenly. Then, wheneveryou're spreading fertilizer, you should do it.
Don't look at how much you're goingto apply and try to put it
on at that rate. It alwaysit never seems to work out right.
What I'll do is I'll do halfthat rate and go across the yard one

(01:20:35):
way, let's say east west,and then look at how much you have
left, and if you've used halfof it, okay, good, then
you go the other way using theother half. If you've used two thirds
of it, then you go theother way using the other third. But
you know, you got to crankit down a little bit and move a
little faster or something like that,because you want to get a good even

(01:20:58):
application, so you have a goodEVA lawn unless you like stripes. I've
got some picture I wish I couldshaw you pictures on the radio. I've
got some interesting examples of not furtilingcoand properly. But sweet Green put it
out evenly. Water it in andwatch your plants jump by the ground,
your grass plants that is, andbe very very happy going forward with it.
It is one of the many productsthat are on my lawn care schedule.

(01:21:24):
If you go to Gardening with SkipGardening with Skip that's me dot Com,
you can find two schedules there.The lawn care schedule that's how do
you make your grass grow schedule andthe lawn pest Disease and we'd management schedule
that's the what's going wrong with mylawn schedule And it tells you when to
apply everything and what to apply,and it makes it really really easy.

(01:21:47):
By the way, if you're lookingfor sweet green, you can go up
to D and D Feed and Tombolethey're going to have it up there.
You can go to the Plants forAll Seasons on Highway two forty nine.
They're going to have it there.You can go to Shades of Texas up
in the woodlands or Aspass up inthe woodlands. Those are all places you
want to go further north. Howabout Willis Growers Outlet another place carries our

(01:22:11):
night frost products. Makes it easyeasy to find them and they are good
products to use as a result.Our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four sevenone three two one two five eight seven
four. I'd like to give usa call, Feel free to do so.
Actually have an open board right now. So, boy, yesterday got
crazy for a while and I alwayshate for people to have to sit online

(01:22:34):
very long. So now would bea good time if you want to give
a skull. Moss Nursery, Seabrook, Texas. Moss Nursery, seventy year
old, family operated grocery on eightacres of land. Allow yourself time to
wander. It is a not onlyis it a garden center with every time

(01:22:59):
you turn a corner there's plants.They may be on tables or the ground
or hanging from something or Not onlyis it that, but there's different kinds
of art in the garden. Youknow, maybe a carved kind of an
ethnic mask type of thing. Andthere's a carved canoe, a real one,
old old carved canoe out there.Lots of different cool sculpture type things,

(01:23:21):
water feature type things that moss,but tropicals, that's the one I
want to talk about right now.With moss, I'd be talking about anything,
but oh my gosh, their tropicalsare beautiful. We're talking about things
like elephant ears. Ten to twelvedifferent kinds of elephant ears. Yeah,
you heard that right, five tosix different varieties of bananas. There's a

(01:23:42):
cool tropical, the bird of Paradise, the orange and blue bird of Paradise.
They've got those there. The ligularia, the big lily pad looking foliage,
they have it. And now theyhave a lot of tropicals in combo
planters. So you may have abig bold, almost chocolate brown black elephant
early sticking out the top. Yougot colius around the sides, and you've

(01:24:02):
got let's say a sweep a datacharts, you sweep a data mine spilling
over the side, and many versionsof that. So if you got an
area that's got some shade and youwant to bring a lot of color into
it, maybe it's a very shadysitting area outside, these would be perfect
for it. Always something to seenew at MOS Nursery in Seabrook, Texas.

(01:24:23):
Here is the website. You wantto go there, sign up for
their newsletter. Where there Mos Nurserydot com, m a A S Nursery
dot com. On to Toddville Roadthere in Seabrook, Texas. Remember I
said allowed time, because when yougo, it's not a run in and
run out. It's a experience,and a fun one at that. We're

(01:24:45):
going to go now to Lake Jacksonand we're going to talk to Robert.
Hey, Robert, I'm starting tocall here with about a minute before a
break. But let's let's get goingand we'll hang on after break if we
need to. Ah ready, howcan I help? Okay, so I've
got in. All I can callhim is big clover and small clover.

(01:25:08):
I follow the schedule organic style,except I do use the uh, the
barricade okay for weeds. And outof all past two years, I'm covered
up with huge clover and the smallclover. Okay, what do I do
about that? All right, well, let's uh, I'll dive into that

(01:25:28):
when we come right back. Ithink you're probably talking about a true coat
clover and probably about something called oxalis, which is a has a clover leaf
to it. But we'll be rightback in just a second and we'll dive
right in into that question. Thephone number seven one three K T R
H. I'll be right back.Welcome back to the garden line. Good

(01:25:56):
to have you with us today.We're going to head back out and late
Jackson and uh continue our conversation thatwe're having with Robert. Robert, you
said you had a big, abig and a small clover, and uh
you, I think you prefer todo things organically. Based on what I
was hearing you say, is Icorrect? Well, I followed the organic
fulization schedule, but I put outwheat beater complete and I do spot treat

(01:26:21):
with all the various uh weat killers. Okay, and last last year I
wound up springing wheat beater ultra cominginto spring on the clover, and it
killed it, but it came back, okay. And I want to these

(01:26:42):
something out there that like kills itforever without hurting my I have some Saint
Augustine grass. Okay. Well,the the ultra, yeah, it should
have killed it. If it's trulyclover, it's it's it's a coming back
from seeds there. It's an annual. Well, so what I've done is
I've dug down and actually pulled theI'm gonna call them nuts out of the

(01:27:06):
ground, and that's what I'm tryingto do it. Okay, constantly coming
back, all right, so whatwhat you have there is not clover,
that's ox salas uh ox salis,and it does have those storage organs underground
like a bulb type structure, andso it it is harder to kill h

(01:27:30):
and it does also recede and itcasts the seed all over the place.
So you're dealing with both a preemergent type thing for the seed coming up,
but you're dealing with the post emergent. You know, when it comes
to the bulbs. Uh, theWindpeter Ultra should have done a good job
on those bulbs, but you mayhave to redo it if you're if you're
trying to uh. Typically one applicationis not going to do it. Now

(01:27:55):
you could switch to a different producton my chart there uh post emergent products
uh And because each of the threethings I have listed under post emergent herbicides
have different combinations of ingredients and sothat those they're not the same same product.
And you know, we only havea thousand different weeds we could have
in the yards. So just likewith medicines and sickness, you know,

(01:28:19):
each medicine works best on certain things, but not everything. Uh And and
that certainly is the case for weedcontrol. Too, so you might want
to try that. There are someorganics you can sprinkle on the foliage.
It burns the foliage back. Foroxalis, that's not gonna not going to
kill it. It'll burn it back, but it won't completely kill it.

(01:28:40):
So if you're if you're wanting totranslocate down in there, the products that
are on the list of the onesthat that you probably need to use,
very cool. I got go ahead. I just wanted to say if you're
if you're on that, if you'relooking at the long pest disease, and
we'd management schedule that I put togetherdown in the corner bottom right corner,
that's where you and you mentioned we'dbeat LTRA those. But also there's two

(01:29:04):
organic products that are listed there thatcover a wide variety of weeds. One
of them does really well on clover, burning it back, and then the
other one is listed for oxalis,but it's gonna bounce back. Yeah.
Okay, I got one more questionabout lagustriums. Okay, I've got I've

(01:29:24):
got lots of lagustriums and all ofa sudden this year they look good,
but they're losing a lot of leaves. Okay, are their leaves turning yellow,
Do they have brown spots on them? They do? Okay, that
is a disease that affects lagustrum.It's one of the reasons I'm not a
fan of lagustrium. Whenever there's wetconditions, that proliferates. If you can

(01:29:49):
pick off infected leaves, eat ifyou look closely at one of those leaves
with the spots, you'll see littletiny black specks in the spot. Those
are like little tiny volcanoes blowing sporesout everywhere. And that's why it just
reinfects and reinfects. So if youcan pick up all the fallen leaves,
rake them all up, pick offleaves that have the spots on them,

(01:30:13):
and I realize that may leave yourplant without any leaves. But and then
as it begins to regrow whenever wehave a rain spell like we just had.
Now you can follow that up witha fungicide spray to protect it from
infection. But it does no goodto spray a leaf that's already got spots
because they're already there, you know. But so sanitation was my first suggestion

(01:30:35):
there. Picking up all the materialthat's producing spores that you can and then
number two. When we have arain spray the foliage. We have rain
spray the foliage. You can alternatebetween a couple of types of fungicide.
But yep, that's a problem withlagustriums. Cool deal, Well, I
appreciate all right, you take care. Good to talk to you. If

(01:30:57):
you are planting a tree or planningon planting a tree, tree, the
three sixty tree stabilizer is the bestproduct I know for staking them. Listen,
I have bought the cable, thewires. I have cut up garden
hose and made that little you know, steak the tree down three different corners,
then trip over the wires when youtry to walk by. It's just

(01:31:18):
it's time, it's money, it'shassle, it's all that kind of stuff.
Just get a three sixty tree stabilizerand I would get a T post
the standard iron post to hammer inthe ground. This stabilizer comes in a
form that has a T post attachmentand you attach it to the tea post,
attach it to the tree, andthe T post is a vertical post

(01:31:40):
going in the ground just a littleover a foot away from the tree,
and so it holds the tree verywell. You can do two of them.
If you've got winds blowing north southeast west, you want to do
two at a right angle to holdon to it. They're easy, easy
to come by. You can goto RCW or Buchanans or arbor Gate Plants
for All Seasons, Horrees, hiddenGardens Done and out. Southwest Fertilizer carries

(01:32:01):
them as well, of course theydo. They carry everything. But the
three sixty tree stabilizer is it's aquality product and it lasts and it works
right. And by that I meanit holds the tree well, but it
allows a little bit of movement withthe soft strap that goes around the tree,
so that you strengthen the trunk androot upper root system with a little

(01:32:23):
bit of movement. And that's importanttoo when you're staking a tree down.
And those are just a really goodquality product. Now I mentioned they had
them at Plants for All Seasons.Plants Frail Seasons is on Highway to forty
nine. That's Tomball Parkway. Ifyou're going north toward Tomball from Houston,
you exit Lueta crossover Luetta and it'sright there on the right hand side,

(01:32:45):
right on two forty nine. Now, the folks at Plants for all seasons.
The Flowerty family, they've been doingthis since nineteen seventy three. They
know the area and people in thearea know them, and they have many,
many loyal customers that come back andwhy because they have great plants.
They have great products. Ever fertilizeryou hear me talk about, is it
plants for all seasons, and theyhave super advice to help guide you plants

(01:33:11):
for all seasons. Dot com isa website. The phone number if you'd
like to write it down two eightone three seven six, sixteen forty six.
You can go in there and youcan find anything that you hear me
talk about, like Microlife. Youknow, they've got the green bag of
Microlife fertilizer. They've got the hummats plus that's a zero zero four,
the Purple bag. That's kind ofthe lawn combo, by the way,

(01:33:33):
from Microlife for your summer, springthrough fall really up to fall lawn fertilizations.
It's the green bag six two fourand then the humants plus the Purple
bag, which is concentrated compost ina bag. You put it out and
over time when the organic system isthat you work with nature to build soil

(01:33:54):
over time and you have better plantresults because of that, and that is
what that combo would do for you. And both of them are excellent products
for use on your lawn from thefolks at micro Life. You want to
go to micro Life Fertilisure dot com. You can find out where you can
buy it. It's pretty much everywhere. Uh, and you can also find
out more about their products there.Let's see here. I'm going to go

(01:34:15):
to Patterson now and talk to Susan. Hello, Susan, Hey, good
morning, Skip. I hope youcan hear me. I'm sitting in my
car outside of church and it isjust pouring down rain. My question are
you are you? Am I keepingyou from going to church? No?
It doesn't start till nine, soI'm good. But I appreciate you asking.
How can I help? I liketo plant kind of for wildlife when

(01:34:40):
I can. And I was lookingat the honeysuckle and I was wondering from
there with one called Major Wheeler.Uh, it's kind of a red yeah,
red one wheelers. Honey, Iam yes, but the major was
throwing me there. But anyway,so what you're wanting to know how it
does one place I read it setup to zone eight, and then a

(01:35:02):
couple other places said zone nine andone even said ten. So I never
know who to believe on that stuff. So I wanted to ask you,
what's your opinion. Oh boy,uh major wheeler honeysuckle. The I'm trying
to think you like better. No, I like it. It's it's a
type of coral honeysuckle. It's notthe it's not the kind that's invasive,

(01:35:25):
you know, So that's that's agood thing. I don't see why it
wouldn't grow here. I don't I'venever heard of it. Only going to
zone eight. We we have coralhoneysuckle that does well here. It's just
a cultivar, yeah, just acultivar of that plant. So yeah,
I like it. It's tame.It doesn't take over the world. I

(01:35:46):
used to have some kind of ona lamp post out in the front yard.
We had a little lamp gas lamppost out there and we just trained
it to that. I've seen ittrain to you know, portray lns and
other things because it is tame andyou want to get it up close fairly,
because you want to watch the hummingbirds. They love it. Yeah.
Yeah, we have a little spotright off the front porch that I want.
I wanted to fit something there,so okay, yeah, I had

(01:36:09):
seen it called Major Wheeler, andthen another place it was just Wheeler,
so I guess nobody's really sure whatthe name is. But well, all
right, well good good luck withit, and thanks for the call,
yes or thank you you take careby bye. We're going to go now
to Paul in Keema. Hello,Paul, Hey, how's it going.
I'm good for you, Thank you, sir. I have an outside storage

(01:36:33):
area that's surrounded by chain link fenceand I want some like a privacy screen
or something so that people on theoutside I can't really see what's on the
inside. And I've used tarps.Didn't like those. I used that messed
up. Didn't like those. Lastyear, Bend we took over my chain
link fence, and I love theway it looked. I may not be

(01:36:56):
calling this the right thing, butit's I did an image search on Google
and that's what I came up with. It's a flowering vine and it climbs
right up the fence and then justkind of spreads and completely takes over.
Okay, it's like it's kind oflike a morning glory. I believe it's
somewhere that looks to that. Yesit is. Yeah, what can I
do? What can I do tomake that grow faster and wider? Because

(01:37:18):
I want to get my chain linkfence covered up a little good well,
just you know, water and fertilizer. The proper name on it is bind
weed, bind weed. It isdetested by farmers. It's a it's a
mess and pastures and I mean andfarms and stuff. But it is in
the honeysuckle family. That's another goodone. There's another one called Alamo vine

(01:37:42):
that is in that similar family,and it has a different looking leaf,
but a similar morning glory looking bloomto it. But it's just a matter
of you know, getting adequate waterand fertilized little fertilizer to it. Doesn't
take much. I mean, itgrows. It grows wild just out in
the pasture. I'm you know,yeah, pasture but also a farm.
So so is it gonna help meif I pull up pieces from areas that

(01:38:06):
I don't want it in and stickit in the ground near where I do
want it, Well, you could, but you know, you're you're putting
me on the spider. I feellike someone's asking me if they can transplant
nutgrass, because that's that's a problem. We also it's not evergreen, I
don't believe, so you might wantto try something like a coral honeysuckle on
there. There are several nice evergreenvines that also bloom for you real pretty.

(01:38:30):
You may want to try one ofthose as well. But yeah,
yeah, obviously it's willing to volunteer. Okay, all right, well thanks,
all right, thank you, Paul, appreciate that, appreciate that question.
Uh, well, time for thenews, So I'm gonna pass the
baton to Nikki. Seven one threetwo one two k t r H is
a number if you'd like to giveus a call back the pine trees running

(01:38:59):
the wine in rule. I've gotto be welcome back. Good to have
you with us. We are goingto be talking plants for the next hour
and a half this morning. We'regoing all the way to ten am,
So if you'd like to give usa call and ask a question, our
phone number is seven to one threetwo one two KTRH. Seven one three

(01:39:19):
two one two KTRH. One ofthe most important things you can do to
enhance your lawn to help it growbetter is to do a cororation followed by
a compost top dressing. Now,soils around here often are clay, and
they often are compacted, and whenyou have that combination, the root system

(01:39:41):
has trouble thriving deep down into thesoil because there's not good oxygen levels down
there. And as a result,when you do a core aeration that means
popping a plug out of the groundand leaving it on top of the ground
surface, you help get oxygen downin the soil. The compost top dressing
that post finely screen goes down inthe swad Those are important, uh.

(01:40:02):
And it's not an inexpensive process becauseit's it's it's special equipment and it's it's
bulky bringing in mults wherever, whereverthey're you're coming to, they're coming to
to do it for you. Butit is a very very helpful, very
excellent way to enhance. You gotan area that the grass just don't want

(01:40:23):
to thrive. You've watered it,you fertilize, it's just not working.
Tri compost top dressing followed following agood aeration. Now BnB turf pros if
you live down south and to thewest, they are the ones that you
need to call b B Turfpros dotcom. Bb turf Pros dot com.

(01:40:45):
Here is the phone number. Writethis down, keep it handy seven one
three two three two fifty five ninetyeight now bn B turf Pros. They
focus on customer satisfaction. They focuson doing high quality work. I've seen
the jobs that they do. I'vetalked to them. We you know,
as we were bringing them on asa sponsor, we talked about a lot

(01:41:08):
of things. They focus on qualityproducts too. They only use products and
companies that I trust here on gardenLine. So when I say get a
leaf mo compost, that's what they'regoing to use. They're going to use
a high quality leaf mo compost.In fact, they use the one from
Cienamulch, which you know, Ihave no qualms at all about saying way
to go. That's that is agood way to go. They do the

(01:41:30):
aeration and the compost stop dressing.They do have to schedule, so they
need to give them a call,but they really go above and beyond to
make a personal contact with their clientand to ensure your satisfaction. So where
did they serve? Well, ifyou can go as far west to sugar
Land up in Missouri City as fareast as Pearland. If you're going to
be down on along Highway six,well up up in Fresno, down in

(01:41:53):
Siena or Cola, Iowa, Colony, Manuville. That all through that area
right there is their service area,So just give them a call again.
Bbturfpros dot Com seven one three twothree four fifty ninety eight. I'm gonna
go now to Crosby and talk toMary. Hello, Mary, Hi,
how are you. I'm well,I'm well, how are you? Thanks?

(01:42:16):
Great? Thanks. I have awillow tree that I planted three and
a half years ago and it hadbeen doing great and this year the leaves
you know, butted on it,and then probably a few weeks after that,
all the leaves started to drop offand it's completely barren right now.
And I checked the leaves. Therewas no you know, spots on them

(01:42:36):
or anything. So I'm not surewhat happened. And I know that they're
you know, heavy water, youknow drinker. And it did well through
the drought last last summer, theonly and I used nitrofoss fertilizer on my
on my grass, and this yearI tried the weed and the nitrosoft boss

(01:42:58):
we didn't feed. That was theonly thing I did different. But I
can't imagine that that would do somethingto him. You know, I can't
tell you just the symptom being theleaf fell off. I mean, because
it could be a lot of things. This year has been moist enough to
where I would certainly rule drought outall the way along. The willows are
not super resilient long lived trees.Sometimes you get older ones, they just

(01:43:23):
you kind of get lucky, andthat happens. But there's things that can
happen to them along the way.There are some root rots that can affect
a willow, and with what you'redescribing, it almost sounds like a collapse
with the root system. I wouldwatch it go out and scratch your thumbnail
on some of the small twigs branches. See if there's still some creamy color,

(01:43:44):
green color underneath the outer thin bark, and that's an indication that it's
probably still alive, at least fornow. If you see, if you
see paper sacked brown pecan brown color, that twig's dead. Just keep em
and you to switch over to littlepocket knife work in your way back down
a branch until you find green andtry to determine if it's if it's still

(01:44:05):
alive. There's nothing to put onit. There's no magic cures for any
of this. At this point,you just kind of wait and see.
I wouldn't give up on it tooquick. But once you can't find green
or a pretty creamy color underneath thebark, that section is dead. It's
not going. What about a fertilizerwould that help it at that point?

(01:44:27):
Not if it's a root rot orif it's a sole moisture issue or whatever.
It's not dropping leaves because it's lackingnutrients. There's more than enough nutrients.
If you'd never fertilize that soil,ever, then there'd still be enough
nutrients for that tree to at leastsurvive, may thrive and grow. But
this is something else. Something's gonewrong, and I'm going to put it

(01:44:51):
this way. And the plumbing ofthe plant, you know, getting moisture
and nutrients out there to the leavesand what happened. I don't know the
description, but time, okay,I'll just watch it. Yeah, check
and wait, check the stems andwait. Okay, all right, thanks
much, all right, thank youappreciate that call. I talk about fertilizing

(01:45:15):
your lawn. You know, azamiteis a mineral supplement. It is a
trace mineral supplement mind and utah upin Utah comes right out of the ground,
and it provides those nutrients that areneeded in tiny amounts that are essential
to plants, but they're needed intiny amounts, and so I always encourage

(01:45:35):
people to have a soul test andsee what your soul needs. That you
know, a sew tests the bestway to fertilize period, because your soul
may be different than your neighbors becausehow they or you have fertilized over the
years maybe different, and so what'sbuilt up what's depleted could change. But
as a general guide, putting asmite down once a year would be a

(01:45:58):
good place to start, just tomake sure you're getting those micros applied to
the soil. Follow the label.It goes a long way. Remember these
are micros. These aren't nutrients youneed in the levels, the amounts,
the quantities that you do regular fertilizer. These are micros. So like a
forty four pound bag of azmite willcover six to twelve thousand square feet.

(01:46:18):
You can go to Azomite Texas,Azo Mitetexas dot com find out more about
as might if you'd like to learna little bit more about it. You're
listening to Guardline. I am yourhost and we are here to answer gardening
questions. If you would like toask a question, We're about to take
a little break here, but youcan go ahead and give the producer a

(01:46:41):
call. We will get you onthe boards and you can be first up
when we come back from our break. I just want to remind all of
you that next Saturday, I'm goingto be at Arburgate in Tomble. Here's
your official Do you need an excuseto go to Arbrogate? I don't think
so, but here's your official invitation. How about that to head up to
Arbrogate now Saturday, that's May eleventh, eleven thirty to one thirty. I'll

(01:47:03):
be there answering your gardening questions.I can identify plants, I can do
plant diagnosis, any kinds of questionsyou might have like that, bring me
photos on your phone. Mainly,just come and meet me and shop one
of the coolest nurseries you're going tofind anywhere. Uh and by the way,
just a hint, Mother's Days comingup right Okay, so here's your

(01:47:25):
here's your official opportunity to bring momout there with you and get her something
really cool, because Arburg has gotplenty of that. Believe me. We'll
be right back. Hey, welcomeback to garden Line. Good to have
you, Good to have you withus today. We're talking about all kinds

(01:47:47):
of things related to gardening, talkingabout some of the products and the places
and things like that where you wouldget these quality supplies too. For example,
Ana Plants produce up in Montgomery.A and A is your hometown garden
center. If you're up there inthe Lake Conroe area, especially lots of
beautiful neighborhoods up there. Do youneed somebody to come out and do some

(01:48:10):
work. Call A and A andhave their landscape crew, their expert landscape
crew come out and visit with themabout what you need done, what they
can do up there. You know, A and A is going to be
a place where you're always going tofind color. You're always going to find
quality plants. No matter whether youwant trees or shrubs, or vegetables or
herbs or flowers. There's always stuff. Beautiful, beautiful containers, beautiful hanging

(01:48:34):
baskets. Ana Plants and Produce alsocarries all the fertilizers that we talk about
here on gardening, and I meanall of them, and soil tests too.
By the way. For example,you're going to find Nitrofoss and Nelson
plant food, including the turf Starline that we're talking about a little bit
earlier. You're going to find microlifeproducts there. You're going to find heirloom
soils. You're going to find Nature'sWay resources like the leaf mold compost for

(01:48:59):
example. They've got it makes itreally easy to do. They keep my
schedules there at the counter. Mostof the time they haven't given them all
out on a particular day. ButAna Plants and Produce is the place you
need to go. You need checkout. You've probably driven by it one
hundred times if you going up anddown one oh five. They're on the
east side of Montgomery. On theeast side of Montgomery. You can follow

(01:49:19):
them on social media and know thisseven days a week from nine to five,
knowledgeable staff, seven days a week, nine to five, easy easy
to get. Buy Ana Plants andProduce, find them open and find the
stuff that you're looking for inside,like this Imperial Nitrofoss Imperial. That's another
good example of what they carry.Nitrofoss Imperial is the one we used in

(01:49:45):
the spring. That's the red bag. But now we're talking about Nitrofoss's Superturf
fertilizer, the silver bag. Theyhave that too. They carry all these
products, the Sweet Green eleven zerofour as well. Well. Let me
tell you about the Superturf a littlebit more though, that I like that
because it puts half the nitrogen ina slow release form, so you fertilize
now, but it is fertilizing foryou when you get to the month of

(01:50:10):
June and the month of July,and even into the month of August,
it is still fertilizing for you becauseit's gradually releasing those nutrients. So you
get a gully washer rain. Ifyou put an immediate release down, just
think about it's putting salt or sugarand then spraying it with water hose.
It dissolves and it goes it goesaway in a heavy rain. Now,
with the slow release, you're notgoing to get that. You're going to

(01:50:32):
get a gradual release over time.Just another reason why you might want to
use a slow release in the summer. Four percent iron promotes a nice uniform
green color to your grass. Andwhere do you get it? Well,
I just told you just go rightup there to ana plants and produce,
and you can find it there.Of course, wherever you live. You

(01:50:53):
know, maybe you live somewhere wherethere's an ace hardware store, or a
feed store or a nice garden center. Just widely available one of the many
widely available products. We're gonna gota friends with now and talk to Francis.
Hello, Francis high skill. Ihave a problem with my Saint Augustine
grass. The runners are standing abovethe ground, looping in an arc.

(01:51:15):
They're not connecting. Yeah, yeah, usually, Francis, that happens when
we get a lot of growth onour Saint Augustine lawns. The Saint Augustine
lives on top of the ground.In other words, it doesn't have underground
rhizomes. It just has the runnerson top. And as you get a

(01:51:36):
lot of them forming, then whena new runner forms, it tends to
crawl over the top of the oldrunners, and so it can't touch the
ground to get a root down inthere, and that can happen. That
is the equivalent of what we wouldcall thatch in a Saint Augustine lawn.
The ways to deal with it arenumber one, look at your fertilizing schedule.

(01:51:58):
And if you're overdoing the fertilizer,you're going to get a lot of
growth and you're going to build intoa thatchy kind of situation faster. So
you want to avoid that. Thegrass is not thick underneath it. We've
hit some diabeg from last year.Oh okay, so the runners could touch
the ground. They could. Theother thing that can happen is when you

(01:52:27):
use a lot of a pre emergentherbicide. Most of the pre emergent ingredients
that are out there work by preventingthe roots of a seed that's a weed
from being able to grow. Theroot comes out and it stops it,
it can't grow. That can happento your Saint Augustine too, especially when
you overapply it, apply too much, apply it too often, and the

(01:52:51):
Saint Augustine makes roots. At eachnode you know you got a runner,
and then you have a spot wherethere's a node with leaves and woofs and
then part of the runner each ofthose nodes. If you lift up your
runners, look for the roots comingout of them. And if you see
little roots maybe a quarter inch longand they're stubbed at the end, we

(01:53:11):
call those club roots like a kMan club those. That is because of
the pre emergent doing that. Okay, so time is the solution to that.
Okay, well it'll wear down allproducts like you're going to break down.
But they work a while. Soit's just another reminder that when we
use those, we want to usethem at the label rate, not too

(01:53:34):
much and not too often. Okay, well, thank you so much.
Skip. I enjoy your program.Thank you, Francis. Appreciate your call
very much. You know me andsoil right round stuff before green stuff.
Nature's Way Resources has been providing qualitybrown stuff for a very long time.
John Ferguson at Nature's Way and nowSonny i In who's working there with them.

(01:53:59):
They have created a beautiful place.I mean it's the garden center they
have there, the plants and atelots of good quality native plants. It's
just nice to go. If youwant to drive up to Nature's Way,
you go up Interstate forty five andwhere fourteen eighty eight comes in, just
south of Conro, fourteen eighty eightcomes in from magnolia into forty five.
You turn right across the tracks inyour Nature's Way, Now Nature's way,

(01:54:23):
What are you gonna get there?Well, you're gonna get fungal leaf compost.
Every Friday is fungal Friday. Tenpercent off bags, twenty percent off
bulk. You're not gonna beat that. You're gonna get leaf mold compost that
we talk about for top dressing.By the way, a finely screened fungal
compost is also great for top dressing. Just a communication with Liam the other

(01:54:44):
day. He did a little sideby side in his yard with the leaf
mold compost and the fungal based compostthat had been finally screened, and they
both looked great, did a goodjob. You're gonna find roast soil there.
You're gonna find soils for other typesof plants, specially blended for uh,
you know, fruit plants, orfor some other other use. They're

(01:55:06):
each each type of blend that they'vecreated is ideal for those kinds of plants.
So what do you do well?Number one? I would suggest you
go to the website, the Nature'sWay website. I would also suggest you
just give them a call by theway. The website is Nature's Way Resources
dot com. The phone number ninethree six three two one sixty nine ninety

(01:55:31):
nine three six three two one sixnine nine zero. Whether you go there
and pick it up bag or book, or whether you have them deliver it.
Check out the fine products that Johnand Liam now have up there at
Nature's Way Resources. We're gonna now, let's see here. We're gonna go
real quick to Marsino and Cyprus.Hello Marsino, good morning, ched morning.

(01:55:57):
I sent a picture to you,okay, of my newly planted crape
myrtle. Three months ago, planteda crepe myrtle, had it professionally planted,
okay, And this morning I noticedthat the bark is peeling off at
the bottom. I see that thatis natural exfoliation. Nothing to worry about.
Crepe myrtle bark pops off in littlepapery slivers like that, and that

(01:56:17):
is perfectly okay. What's happening isthe tree's growing and the dead outer bark
is just coming loose, kind ofunique. A few plants to do that.
Crape myrtle is definitely one, sohey, good news. You don't
have to worry about that. Thatis great news. Thank you so much
for and thank you for your humor. You really are as funny character.
Oh my gosh, Okay, thankyou very much. I appreciate that,

(01:56:38):
Mercina, and thank you for thecall. Shape that very much. Wow.
Another hour in the books. Timeflies, you know, time flies
like an arrow. They say.Kermit the frog says, let's see,
time's fun when you're having flies.I think that's what he says. All
right, one more time joke.Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies

(01:57:00):
like bananas. I love that one. I'll leave you with that one.
We'll be back seven one three twoone two k t R H seven one
three two one two k t R. Give the producers a call and let's
get you on the board. Wewill talk to you when we come back
from break. Don't forget next Saturday. I'll be at Arburgate nayth eleventh,

(01:57:23):
eleven thirty one thirty. So rightafter the show, I'm going to be
line over there. I hope youwill be lining too and join me over
there. You know, we gotsome Mothers Day shopping to do, don't
we. Arburgates got you set upon that. Bring me samples of plants,
bring me things to identify, todiagnose, or just pictures to Hey,
what can I do with this areahere? I'll be happy to help
you with that. I always lovegoing out to Arburgate. It is always

(01:57:45):
a blast to be out there.Welcome to KTRH Guarded Line with scamp Ricker.
It's so trim, just watch asso many good things to a s.

(01:58:24):
Hey, welcome to garden Line.Good to have you back, good
to be by. You live outin the Kingwood area, Well you're fortunate.
You got Kingwood Garden Center and you'vegot Warren's Garden Center. These are
both quality places. You're gonna findeverything you're looking for when it comes to
plants, of course, you're goingto find people that know what they're talking

(01:58:45):
about when it comes to help,and you're going to find really, really
excellent prices. I'm telling you thewarranted Earlier this year visiting they they've dropped
prices significantly on things and just thisextra special deal. Really, I mean.
And when I go to Warrens,I'm always impressed just with the layout
and the beauty. It makes youwant to run in and go, oh

(01:59:05):
my gosh, I can see thisin my patty, I can see this
in that flower bed, and nomatter what kind of plants you want,
they're going to have it. Theyalso have a good stock of all the
fertilizers I talk about, and thingslike heirloom soils. Lots of quality bag
products from heirloom soils there at Warren'sGarden Center in Kingwood. Not difficult at

(01:59:26):
all to get to. For thoseof you up in the northeast kind of
direction of Kingwood, You're fortunate.It is a really really cool play.
I hope you go by there andpick it up. They got lots of
good lots of good heat tolerant colortoo, including some really attractive color combo
planters. That is just the fastway. You know. You got a
party to night, run out,grab a planter, bring it home and

(01:59:48):
everything looks good instantly. You can'tyou can't get faster than that. I'm
going to run now out to friendsWood and talk to Andy. Hello,
Andy, they skip Good morning morning. I've got I've got a question,
a problem with my myra lemon that'sin the pot. The leaves are curling
on the underside of the leave ortrails. It's dropping foliage. I know

(02:00:14):
it's got something. What do Ispray myra lemon with because it's it's set
some fruit. What's the best path? All right? What you got is
something called the citrus leaf miner.Leaf miner as in coal minor. The
little fly lays an egg and theleaf and the larva crawls in between the

(02:00:35):
upper and lower surfaces, leaving trailsand causing curling and silvering coloring of the
leaves. Uh. First of all, it's not a citrus killer. Now,
if you have a young plant,it's gonna set them back because they're
losing leaf area. But in generalsome people just ignore it and go on

(02:00:55):
despite it. If you want tocontrol them, you need to spray when
you're getting a new flush of growth. Leaf minor doesn't attack old, dark
green, leathery leaves. It attacksfresh new growth. And so you would
spray with a product called spin Nosaid, And I'll spell that here for
you if you have a pin orpencil hand I have yeah, S P

(02:01:16):
I N spin O S A D. Spin No said, And that that
is not the brand name. Well, I guess it could be, but
there are a lot of brands ofSpino said. Uh. And just find
that you want to cover the foliage, especially the new growth. You don't
have to wet all the foliage ofall the leaves. Uh. And then

(02:01:39):
when leaf minor tries to chew in, it shuts them down right there,
it stops it. All right,all right, well, thank you very
much. All right, you takecare, good luck with that. Good
luck. Yep. Leaf minor issomething we have to deal with here,
that is for sure. Ace Hardware, those of you who are dealing with
water problems, I just want toremind you is the place for even that

(02:02:01):
as well. I remember back inHarvey when we were cleaning out houses down
streets, just kind of helping peoplethat have just been wiped out. What
do you need? What you needfans, You need dehumidifiers, you need
some rubber boots and gloves and buckets, and you certainly need bleach because when
it gets wet, black mold iscoming right around the corner. You're gonna

(02:02:21):
need that. Utility knives. Theyeven have something called the quick damn sandless
sand bags. By the way,you can take top soil bags, bags
of top soil, not floaty mulch, but top soil, and punch some
holes in them just to kind of, you know, allow air to escape,
so that they weigh down even betterand use those as a sandbag and

(02:02:45):
then use them in your garden orin your yard, filling in holes and
things. When you're done, itworks really well. Ace Hardware's got all
of that. They've got things likefire ants, bait and direct individual mound
tree and listen, after this flood, you're going to see firet mounts popping
up all over the place. Uh, they'll get their mounds up out of

(02:03:06):
the wet, wet soil. AceHardware has got you set up on that
to forty different stores in this scenario, forty stores. Acehardware dot Com is
the website, use the store locator. You're going to see a lot of
red dots on the map when yougo there and you find the ones,
there'll be more than one near you. That makes it really easy easy.

(02:03:26):
Uh. Let's go to Ken inBeaumont. Hello, Ken, Hey,
Hey, Kim, Hey, I'mcalling on the half a mom. Thanks
wife. Okay, I'm trying toget her to call you before. But
she has these outcroppings of Johnson grassin her yard. Okay, what can
rid this? Johnson grass has gota lot of underground rhizomes and it's you

(02:03:53):
don't it's not just real easy toget rid of as you know. Uh,
other than han digging, which isquite a job. You can spray
them with a product like people talkabout round up all the time. It
kills just about everything you can dothat. Now, if you get the
round up on something good, it'sgoing to kill that good plant too.
So some people use wiper applicators.It's where you would put a product in

(02:04:17):
and you can just you rub itover the plant and it wipes it on.
Think of a sponge, I guess, and it wipes it onto the
leaves and then translocates down. Andthe nice thing about a wiper is the
Johncon grass could be coming out ofa bed full of roses and flowers and
you're wiping it up above that andnot killing the good stuff down below.

(02:04:40):
Okay, this wiper you're talking about, that's the buyer. Well, there
are some on the market. WhatI usually tell people and if you've got
a lot of Johnson grass, thisis a little tedious, but you can
use one of those grabber tools thatyou get a jar off a shelf with.
They're about three feet long, andinstead of having grabbers suction cups,

(02:05:01):
just figure out a way to bolta couple of sponges on there. I'll
use a little metal plate like theones with the holes in them they use
to attach to two by fours togetheror something as you're framing, and and
that then put the sponge in frontof that, and then a little boat
with a washer to hold a spongeon, and then you can just squirt

(02:05:23):
that sponge and go through there wipingany kind of weeds that you have.
You can reach under a rose bushand wipe nuts edge if you want.
I mean, it's it's a veryversatile tool. Uh. There are wipers
you can buy. Just last night, I was doing some searches and I'm
not real happy with the stuff onthe market, but I've seen people do

(02:05:44):
home own homemade versions of all kindsof things. To apply a contact killer
like that to a weed. I'msure you can. I'll bet you can.
All right, all right, thanks, appreciate you too. Take care.

(02:06:05):
Yeah, uh, I need toput I'm gonna put that online.
I'm just telling you right now,I'm gonna put plans for building one of
those online. I just got toget around to it and get it up
there and done. It's time fora break. Our phone number seven one
three two one two kt r H. Katie and Katie will be with you
first when we come back. Welcomeback to the garden line. Good to

(02:06:32):
have you with us today. Ifyou are putting a container out on the
patio, you need to know aboutjungle and flour and vegetable planting mix.
It has the qualities that you needin a mix. Number one. It's
got like four different sources of organicdecomposed organic matter in it, which is

(02:06:55):
good. It's got mic rhiz offungi in it, it is good.
It drains away excess water, butit onto water enough for the plants to
survive. It is not a droughtprone type of mix like some can be.
And now jungle lands available widely.I mean you're going to find it
in places like Stanton Shopping Center andAlvin. You're going to find it at

(02:07:15):
the Arbor Gate up in Tomball whereI'm going to be next Saturday from eleven
to one. By the way,You're going to find it at the ice
Hard Restaurant in Kingwood, for example. Lots of places you can get jungle
in. You can get quality productsfrom the folks at nitrofoss. I want
to head over. Now, let'ssee who's next one. Look Katie and
Katie. Hello Katie, how areyou? I'm good? How are you?

(02:07:40):
I'm good? What's up today?Well, yesterday I noticed I have
three high biscus plants in pots onmy patio, and I noticed that a
couple of the high biscus blooms hadthese perfect little circles through them. And
when I went to look, ithad this little it was a little green
caterpillar. Okay, I guess thelittle green caterpillar. And even one of

(02:08:03):
the blooms that hadn't opened up yet. I pulled off of the high biscus
to kind of open up and seewhat was going on, and that's when
I saw the green caterpillars. Yeah, it's on two out of the three
plants, and I want to knowwhat I can do to get rid of
them, and what can I doto prevent it from getting to the third
plant. Okay, Well, thesimplest, safest, most targeted thing you

(02:08:28):
can use is BT. Thesylothuringiensis isthe fancy name we just call it BT.
If you go into a garden centerhardware store, feed store, we're
ACE hardware. For example, you'regoing to find just need some BT and
they'll get you fixed up. Yougot a couple of nice ACE hardware stores
out there in the KD area,like the KD Ace Hardware for example.

(02:08:48):
A Signal ranch another good one.But anyway, the BT you sprayed it,
it's only going to last a dayor two out there in the environment.
But the caterpillar eats BT. Soyou spray it all over the plant,
and then it eats it and itgets sick. That doesn't make good
bugs sick. It doesn't even makebeetles and grasshoppers sick. It just kills

(02:09:11):
caterpillars. The next step would besomething like spinosid, which will also work
lasts a little longer out there inthe environment. But I think I'd start
with the BT. And is thatsafe for pets and other animals that are
outside. Absolutely yes, yeah,it is a disease. Only a caterpillar
has the intestinal tract that is rightfor BT doing its killing work. Anything

(02:09:37):
else, it's not going to killthem. I need to spray the third
plant to prevent the caterpillars. Iwould I would spray it and then I'd
get out, you know, threedays later, look over the plants and
if you see any new damage oranything, spray them again. But usually
one or two BT sprays will getyou through that cycle with a caterpillar.

(02:10:00):
And you know, maybe that threeweeks from now something shows up and you'd
have to do it again. ButI like to start with the safest thing
that has the least environmental damage andBT is that okay? All right?
Well, thank you, you bet, thank you. I appreciate your call
very much. So when was thelast time you went out to enchanted forest

(02:10:20):
out in the Richmond Rosenberg area enchantedforests is I love going there. I
just love the setting. It isfun to shop there, and great staff
to help you. And selection isincredible. Their selection on herbs, on
vegetables, on flowers, and onand on down the line. It is

(02:10:41):
just amazing out there and enchanted forest. Now you're going to find all the
perennial plants that you would want toplant. You're going to find things that
are not so common. You know, the little one that I referred to
as frog fruit because that's its name. It is a native groundcover that has
little time any white flowers that areattractive to beneficial insects. They have it

(02:11:03):
there. You can buy that therethe Jumping Jack's plumerias. If this is
your gateway drug into plumerius, Okay, go buy there, get one and
get it started. Find out howeasy it is to grow a plumeria,
and you will just enjoy those beautifulflowers you can make. You can make
lay flower necklaces for everybody that showsup at the house. I can kind

(02:11:24):
of do a little Honolulu stuff goingon there. That's the plumeria. They
also have a great selection of plantsfor butterflies, things like pentas that are
just a butterfly crack. When itcomes to bringing in things like the some
of the swallowtails, for example,Uh, they're gonna have plants like passion
vine to go fridlary caterpillar, likethe oh gosh, pipe vine swallowtail,

(02:11:48):
the pipe vine vines, and thenthey're gonna of course, there are things
that attract the adults. There's stringsthat feed their larvae, and you want
both, and they have both.In fact, chances are when you go
buy a larval food so enchanted forest, they're going to give you a larva
or two to take home if youwant it. I mean, they got
plenty butterflies. Know the place theyhang out there. I mean it's it's

(02:12:09):
on all the social media for butterflieslike you got to go here, and
it's because they have so many coolplants like that. I love to go
there. Now, where is it? Well, it's on FM twenty seven
to fifty nine outside of Richmond headtowards sugar Land fifty nine. It's off
to the right FM twenty seven fiftynine. Just go down there. Here's
the website, enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Just go go

(02:12:35):
check it out. Sign up forthe newsletter too. By the way,
great website as well. We're goingto go out to Westbury now and talk
to Anthony. Hello Anthony, howare you going, sir? I remember
you from my Sugarbille days and youwere working with John. Oh yeah,
John Drumgal. Yes, oh man, that goes back a while. I'm

(02:12:58):
sixty five years I'm sorry anyway,Okay, Well I'm only twenty seven.
So well, I know I've gotshirts that are twenty seven years old.
Go ahead, how can I help? All right? At worked there were
given away these roses and I gotto a point where they were begging us
to take them so anywhere. Igot two uh, they are. The

(02:13:22):
little card on it called them TiffanyRose hybrid tea. And one really did
well. It got blooms and theit opened up and they were very very
fragrant, like I said on thecard. But the second one, the
the bloom never opened up and justkind of dried up. And I cut

(02:13:48):
a couple of them over, dissectedthem and said they were bugs. I
couldn't find any kind of insects,so I don't know why the second one
didn't do well. I used theNelson rose feed good and some puzzled now
described to me that the blooms formedbut didn't open. Right. That's correct,

(02:14:09):
Yes, sir, did you noticethem having brown around them or green?
Was it just normal? Green?Just never opened? No, there
is brown. Okay. So wheneverwe have rainy weather, we can get
petal blights. It's a fungus thatinfects and kills the petal tissues. And

(02:14:30):
when that petal dyes, that softsupple rose petal that's around the bud,
when it dies, it gets hardand it's like putting a plastic wrap around
the rosebud. It cannot open itphysically, isn't able to unfurl. And
that is probably what's going on thoseduring rainy period. You could use a

(02:14:52):
fungicide to spray those to prevent thatfrom happening, or you can just kind
of consider it like, well,it's it goes with the weather here and
there, and I'm gonna overall,I'm going to cut them off when they're
like that, but I don't worryabout spraining all the time for them.
But those are your two options,Anthony, okay, and then dad headed,
how do you recommend I've done twodifferent things. Just experiment because it's

(02:15:16):
what I do about a quarter ofan inch below each bloom and then on
different stems. I've got a lotof stems. I went down to the
fifth plant, on fifth leaf,you know, okay, and cut about
a quarter of an inch above that. What's the best thing for me to

(02:15:37):
do? In general, what werecommend for roses is start at the bloom
and work your way down. You'regonna find leaflets, leaves that have three
leaflets. And then you go downlow further and you see leaves that have
five leaflets, and go down tothe first five leaflet and cut it off.
There. You can go a littlefurther below if you're trying to kind
of cut the bush back and invigoratemore branching and things. But just above

(02:16:00):
that leaflet quarter inch above it isfine. There's a bud at the base
of that leaflet that will take offand grow. Broo. All right,
thank you sir, all right,good luck you bet take care. Microlife
fertilizers are natural fertilizer products that arechalk full of biological activity and the nutrients

(02:16:22):
that you need for your plants,whether you're using the green bag sixty four
to fertilize your lawn, whether you'reusing the pink bag for acid loving plants.
Yesterday I was out at by theway, thanks to the folks at
wild Birds Unlimited down there in Pairlandfor hosting me. We had a great
time and thanks to all of youthat came out. But I was talking
to more than one person and thetopic came up. But they needed an

(02:16:45):
acid fertilizer. It may have beenfor blueberries or azalias or something. Micro
Life has a pink bag for that. It's more it's got self for in
it, which is an acidifying compoundthat helps out with that sort of thing.
Then they got the humane plus thepurple bag. Lots of options for
Microlife. Now where do you getit? Well, it's widely available,

(02:17:05):
but I'll tell you you can getit. And then one place is Southwest
Fertilizer. Southwest Fertilizer. They basicallyare the place that has everything they do.
If something new comes out, Iguarantee you Bob is going to get
it. We talk all the timeabout some new thing here, how do
we deal with that over there orwhatever. He's always trying out new things

(02:17:26):
and bringing him into the store.So if I talk about a fertilizer,
I guarantee you Bob has it there, like Microlife for example, and many
many others. If you need apests disease or weed control, he has
several options for everything. Knowledgeable staff, they know what they're talking about.
You can bring them a sample,you can bring them a picture. They'll
diagnose it, they'll identify it.They'll put you in contact with the product

(02:17:48):
that works. That is very important. You don't want to just buy stuff
and spray it because someone who doesn'tknow what they're talking about told you to
use it. You want to purchaseonce, and you want to purchase correctly,
and you want to know how touse it. And they can do
all that for you. Southwest Fertilizercorner of bus Nut and Renwick in Southwest

(02:18:09):
Houston. Corner of bus Nut andRenwick, Southwest Houston, if you want
to go to the website Southwest Fertilizerdot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot Com.
Well, we're coming up here ona break, so got a few folks
to get to out there. We'regoing to start off with Jeff down at
Ale and I'll be going let's see, we're going to talk to Biff,
Henry and Mark after that. Hangon, guys, we'll be right with

(02:18:33):
you. Welcome back to the Guardline. Good to have you back. Let's
keep going here. We got abouta half hour left today. I want
to make sure you get to asmany of these calls as we can.
I do want to mention to youthough, if you are looking to purchase

(02:18:54):
a tree, Burden Tree Farm makesit easy for First of all, they're
in three locations around Houston. There'sa there's a location up where Yale Street
comes into it, kind of NorthCentral Heights sort of area. Out west
on Barker Cypress there's a location,and then down south in Parland there's also
a location for Verdant Tree Farm.The website is Verdant Treefarm dot com.

(02:19:16):
You need to go there because theyhave you can look at the various trees
they have and there's information on eachone, very helpful. Like what is
information on a cypress versus a montha Zuma cypress. It's all there.
All the palm trees, there's informationon that. They have very hearty palm
trees. They can direct you to. In fact, you can go sit
down with them and say, hey, look here's what I want. Here's

(02:19:37):
what I'm out of a tree.Here's a picture of the right yard where
I want to put it, andthey can direct you the right one.
They'll sell to you. You goout and pick the tree out you want,
They tag it, they bring ithome to your house. They bring
it not home, they bring itto your home, they plant it,
and you're ready to go. You'vesuccessfully been set up for success by Verdant

(02:19:58):
Tree Farm. Easy easy, andthey know what they're doing. The largest
tree farm in the Houston area,the largest independently owned tree farm here in
the Houston area. We're going togo now to Jeff and Ileve Galveston.
Hey, Jeff, okay, sir, how are you today, I'm good.
Thanks for waiting, no problem.I was on the listening to you

(02:20:20):
earlier and I couldn't get to mypen fast and I fast enough to write
down the product that you suggested alady use on her augustine grass that is
getting kind of spongey with a lotof thrush under it. What was that
product called? I was talking aboutusing like a leaf mold compost top dressing.

(02:20:41):
So of the Saint Augustine grass plant, you've got roots, you've got
nodes and runners and then grass blades. Grass blades right fast. They decompose
fast. That's why we return ourclippings. When you fertilize a lot,
you can end up with a lotmore runner. And runner is slower to
break down. It's not like wood, but it's halfway between grass blades and

(02:21:03):
wood in terms of its resistance torotting. And so when you put a
compost hop dressing over it, youkeep it moist. You got a lot
of microbial activity there and it justspeeds up the process of turning all those
runners back into organic material in thesoil. And that that is what I
had suggested for her, But thenwe found out she really didn't have a

(02:21:24):
thatch, so well I've got thethatch. It's almost like walking on tundering
parts of my yard of yeah,yeah, you don't touch any solid surface.
Yeah, so a I'd back offon the lawn fertilizing amount. It's
still important to fertilize, but themore you push runner growth, the more

(02:21:45):
they're going to start crawling on eachother. And you end up with that
so so moderate that a little bitreturn the clipping. Still, it's still
a good idea. That's part ofadding, you know, some high nitrogen
material down there in the thatch tohelp decomposition speed up. Is there a
specific brand of sab dressing or whatever? I look at it. I prefer

(02:22:05):
leaf mold compost by either nature's way. You can get it from airlom soils
delivered. Both of those are along ways from you. Down Closer to
you is Siena Multch, which isdown south of Houston in the Siena area.
They probably, well, I don'tthink they. I'm pretty sure they

(02:22:26):
don't deliver as far away as youare, but you can find a way
to get it there and use thatas a top dress. They do have
leaf mold compost at Sienna. Allright, sir, I appreciate the help,
and you have a wonderful day youtoo, Thanks a lot. Appreciate
appreciate that call a lot. Let'ssee now we're going to go to Beff

(02:22:46):
in Houston. Hey, Beff,Hello, thanks for taking my call.
I appreciate it. Sure. Lastsummer really killed my yard. All I
had was weeds, had it scrapedby a landscaper and new sod put in
and it looks great. They tellme to water every day for the first

(02:23:09):
month, but now it's looking great. I'm through the first month. So
my question is how do I youknow, how do I cut back my
water schedule? And what fertilizer orwe control shit I put on it?
Now? Okay with this new sod. All right, well, since this
is going out on the airways,I just want to want to qualify something

(02:23:30):
that they said, you do notneed to water every day for a month.
If you can water, I usuallywill water twice a day, morning
and evening because the plant has zeroalmost zero roots. When you get the
grass sod for the first week andthen once a day for a week,
and after that, you bet youstart to back off. That's plenty,
but how do you do it?I think your grass is going to be

(02:23:52):
very, very wet, probably gota little bit of rain and all this
stuff we've been through here, andso you you probably probably won't need to
water for at least I'd say threeor four days after this rain dries up
and quits, and then I wouldgo to a twice a week schedule.
I think at this point, ifit's been in a month, you have

(02:24:15):
got very well established rooted grass.And I would on my lawns, I
try to water once a week witha good soaking and let it dry out
in between waterings. So that isa schedule a lot aim toward. But
i'd start with every other twice aweek. I would start with twice a
week, and then i'd go toonce a week after two or three weeks,

(02:24:35):
or even two weeks isn't enough,okay? And then what about fertilizers.
Okay, well, it's been ina month, so you can start
fertilizing it. I would at thispoint, I would get me a slow
release fertilizer, something to gradually releaseover the next few months. I would
always return the grass clippings back intothe lawn. They'll decompose also and help
feed it. But it already iswell established enough where you can begin to

(02:25:00):
fertilize it. It probably looks prettygood. And even without fertilizer, right
he does, it looks great.What slower release would you recommend you got?
You got several good options. Uh. The Nelson's makes one called Slow
and Easy. Nitroposs makes one calledIt's the Silver Bag, it's super turf.

(02:25:20):
Those are going to be widely available. I don't know what area you're
in, but I'm over by SouthwestFertilizer. Walk in the door. They
Southwest even has their own proprietary slowreliefs, So yeah, walk in,
talk to them. They'll they'll showyou what they got and uh, you're
not going to go wrong with anyof those. All right, great,

(02:25:41):
all right, Beth, Well,I appreciate very much. That helps.
All right, sir, thanks appreciatethat. Appreciate that call a lot.
Let's see, now we're going togo to Crosby and talk to Mark.
Hello. Mark, Hello, Igot a question. Uh, how can
I get rid of poison going upoak tree without digging the roots up?
Is the solution? Absolutely? Yes, I'm gonna I'm gonna cut to the

(02:26:03):
chase because I'm short on time.You need to find something with trimech in
it tr i MC that could bea poison ivy killer. Maybe what you
see on the label it may saybrush be gone or something trimech tr imec.
You want to cut that vine offwhere it's attached to the tree,

(02:26:24):
take a section out with a saw, and then immediately take a spongebrush like
for painting on a little wooden handle, and dab the trimec right onto that
fresh cut right away. Just dabit right onto that fresh cut. It'll
translocate down and kill it. Sometimes, if it's a big strong bind,
you may have to do another applicationat some point. But that is the

(02:26:46):
fastest, easiest, least toxic,least product way that you can do it,
and it works very well. Andthat'sing what happened to the tree.
No, not because you're dabbing itonto the fresh cut surface. That no
problem. Oh don't bine see theeYeah yeah, Because you're saying, if
you got a buy and going upa tree, uh, then you you
can just dab it on them,but you gotta you gotta cut it.

(02:27:07):
Essentially, you're creating a little poisonivy stump and you're and you're dabbing that
stump with TriMet Okay, so puttingit on the leaves and like they spend
it down the roots. I don'tdo the job. Well, it can
also do the job, but youget it in better this way, and
uh, you avoid the potential forthe spray going onto something that you don't

(02:27:30):
want to kill. Well, Ihad I had a charrange, I was
going to dab it on the leaves. I would just do the trunk cut.
Trust me on this one. Yeah, Okay, it's like cutting artery
and trying to drop it down inthere. Okay, I got you,
all right, Mark, all right, thank you very much. Good luck
with that. Hey, we gotto take a break. Seven one three

(02:27:52):
two one two k t r H. When we come back, Henry Cyprus,
You'll be the first stop. Youbelieve me say it? I love
you. When you know I've beena liar all my life. You've had
a reputation since you were a youth. I must have been and said the
thing you tell me the truth.Can you believe me when I said we'd

(02:28:13):
marry when you know I'd rather hangthan have a Why I know I said
I'd make you mine. But whocould know that I could go for that
olt? Right? I want youto hear a little bit Danny k remember
that boy? That was a longtime ago. Uh, pretty silly song
too. All right, you're listeningto the guard Line. I'm your host,

(02:28:37):
Skip Richter, where we play someweird stuff ever now and then just
for fun, we're going to headout to Cypress now and talk to Henry.
Hello, Henry, good morning,good soggy morning. Skip. Yeah,
no kidding. We'll take it.We'll wish we had it in July
and August. Really, I've gota thirteen or fourteen year old b I
repair big tree and this year,first year started in the spring. New

(02:29:03):
growth is on the ends of thelimbs, and the like turns yellow,
turns brown and dies. The restof the tree is fine, okay,
and it's not all the limbs,but it's enough so it's worse. Yes.
That is a disease called far blight. And when it dies, you
probably have brown, chocolate brown leavesstill stuck through the dead branches. Far

(02:29:28):
Blight is a bacterial disease. Inthe spring, we get some rain splash
in bacteria around they land on abloom they land on new tender shoots and
they infect it and kill it.That we call it a shepherd's crook effect
because typically the very succulent ends bendover like a shepherd's crook, like a
walking cane. And so what youneed to do two things. First of

(02:29:50):
all, you need to back offon any kind of fertilizing you have been
doing. If you had been doingany every time we invigorate a pear tree,
we increase the incidence of fireblight.It loves lots of tender growth.
So fertilizing with nitrogen, a heavypruning or pruning period, it just it

(02:30:13):
creates new vigor, and that's wherewe're in the problem. Second thing you
need to do is go in andtake pruners and prune out all those dead
ends that you can get to.You will see that it's sunken in.
It has a canker in the wood, and it's sunken in. And then
you get down to a certain pointwhere you're back to healthy wood. Prune

(02:30:33):
below the dead and then each timeyou prune a limb out, spray your
printers with lysol to kill anything onany microbes bacteria in this case, on
those prunter surfaces because you don't wantto then make a new cut and spread
them to another spot. So sprayin between cuts and then get those out
of there, and that will minimizeit. So minimizing vigor as best you

(02:30:58):
can and send monetarily removing as muchof it as you can, or your
two tricks of the trade. Thereare there is an antibiotic called streptomize,
and that's available for fire blight insome garden centers, and so if you
if you want to look for that, you can spray that in the spring

(02:31:18):
fall of the labels instructions. Mostpeople don't go to that trouble, uh,
just because you're having to do itahead of time. You're you're get
if you wait until you have everything'sbrown, it's a little late to treat,
and so you're having to do itin the spring, but during that
spring rainy period that the infection isstarting. Okay, Now, much of
this tree is so tall that evenwith my handy dan the eight foot ladder,

(02:31:43):
I'm not going to be able andlong handled cruiers, I'm not going
to be able to reach that high. Yeah, I know, I know,
it's a it's just the way itis. Uh. You know,
once you have a tree and it'sbig and you got fire blight, you
just do the best you can withit. With the name of the disease
again, so I can for theresearches. You bet, fire blight of

(02:32:05):
pair F I R E B LI G H T. Okay, thank
you so much, Skip. Iappreciate that you bet. Is this an
edible pair or an ornamental? Thisis a Bradford Bradford Yeah, I think
you said. In fact, thisis the first issues we've had any real
blossoms. Frost has kill them everyyear in the four years we've lived here

(02:32:28):
except for this year. Finally weget some blossoms and then it's followed by
this blight. Yeah, it's oneof the one of the issues with Bradford
pair. But uh anyway, yeah, go look at look it up.
You can learn a lot about itand hopefully that'll help. Thank you,
sir, much appreciate it. Youbet, thank you it. A while

(02:32:48):
ago, who is that talking about. I was talking to Bef Bith and
we were talking about fertilizers for hisnew lawn, and I mentioned Nelson Slow
and Easy. Nelson's has a lineof fertilizers called turf Star. There's a
number of them in the turf Starline. Two for this summer that you
need to know about are Slow andEasy and one called Bruce's Brew. Now,

(02:33:09):
Bruce's Brew puts a lot of thenitrogen as immediately available, but there
is some slow release that may takeup to six months to fully release.
Slow and Easy is primarily a slowrelease. It does have some immediately available
nitrogen, of course, but it'llbe releasing all the way the next time.
If you do Slow and Easy now, the next time you need to

(02:33:31):
fertilize is in fall. And ifyou get my launch schedule at gardening with
Skip dot com. Gardening with Skipdot com, you can find out all
about when to fertilize and what touse. If you're organic, if you
like synthetic product, whatever you like, it's on the schedule there. It'll
guide you on that. Slow andEasy, though, is a great way

(02:33:52):
to provide slow, even growth.It's also a somewhat acidifying fertilizer, so
not only at releasing nutrients slowly,providing things that microbes too enjoy, but
it's also slightly acidifying the surface asyou use it. And it's always good
to move our lines in that direction, especially in this part of the state

(02:34:13):
where we tend to have higher peachsoils in the heavy clays often but anyway,
Slow and Easy is a great oneto use, and Bruce's Brew is
another great one to use. Theyeach have their own pluses and they each
are quality products from Nelson that youcan find widely available. I wanted to

(02:34:33):
thank the folks out in Pairland atPaarland wild Birds Unlimited yesterday hosting me.
We had a great time out there. I think all of you came out.
I was impressed and the questions wereawesome. Lots of samples out,
a box full of dead plants.I felt like the Statue of Liberty.
Remember the Amma Lazareth poem, bringme you're tired, you're weary, you're

(02:34:58):
huddled masses yearning. Well, well, I think people were bringing me they're
sick, they're dead, they're infected, and we just put them in a
box as we went through diagnosing.But thank you for having me out there.
It was a good time. AndMother's Day is a great time to
go to Wildbirds Unlimited. You knowthere's six wildbirds here in the Houston area

(02:35:18):
and If you want to find theones near you, it's easy. Go
to here's the website wb U dotcom forward slash Houston WBU as in wild
Birds Unlimited dot com forward slash Houston, and you can find them near you.
They're all over the place now.They have things like the ecotyp Classic

(02:35:39):
feeder. It looks like it madeout of wood, but it is.
It's beautiful, but it is madeout of milk jugs, believe it or
not, real cool recycled plastic milkjugs. They have the High Perch hummingbird
feeder, my favorite hummingbird feeder.It really works well. It has several
advantages. I'm time to go intoall those right now, but it is

(02:36:00):
an excellent hummingbird feeder that make anexcellent gift. And if you only go
to the Cadillac. My favorite feederof all in my house is the Eliminator
squirrel proof feeder. You put yourseeds in there. It does not allow
squirrels in. It is really wellmade and this is a lifetime warranty,
so something goes wrong on it,you can get the part. You can
fix the feeder. I mean,it's that kind of quality. There are

(02:36:22):
many other things the flying Bistro cylinderfeeder. You put the little cylinders of
bird seed in there for that.They have a beautiful, wonderful book called
The Joy of Bird Feeding by thefounder of wild Birds Unlimited. Really cool
wild Birds Unlimited. All right,I'll tell you what here. I'm gonna

(02:36:45):
Ashley, if you will hold on. As soon as we're done here,
I'm going to take your call.Okay, we just don't have enough time
right now, but I will takeyour call. I will be next Saturday
at Barbaragate Barbergate Garden Center in Tomball. If you've never been, I don't
know how that's possible, but youneed to go. If you have been,

(02:37:05):
you know how cool it is.Drive around back on Dreshal Road.
See the brand new parking lot thatI keep raving about on. You know
how much rain we've gotten here.I guarantee you right now you could drive
to Arbigate. You can drive acrossthat parking lot because it absorbs the rain
down into the soil and it isall weather. It is so cool.
I'll be there from eleven to eleventhirty to one thirty. Come see me.

(02:37:26):
Look forward to seeing you next Saturdayat the Arbor Day Hey, thanks
for listening to Garden Me