Rebuilding a garden

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Katy r h Garden Linewith skimp Rickard. It's crazy trip just
watching as well, so many goodthings to super busy. Not a sorry

(00:33):
gas the sun beamon between Well,good morning and welcome to garden Line.
We are happy you're here today andlooking forward to talking gardening. That's what
we do, and we talk aboutthe things that you're interested in. I

(00:55):
know I can say a lot ofcomments based on questions I get during the
week. I've certainly been through thisa few seasons myself, so I kind
of know the things we're dealing withhere. But at the same time,
what's happened in your yard? Doyou have a question about your lawn,
your trees, your flowers, yourherbs, your vegetable garden or even house
plants. What is of interest toyou. We're here to help with that.

(01:19):
I always like to say that gardeningis a fun hobby, and it
should be and we shouldn't have toworry about whether we're going to fail at
gardening or not. You don't failat gardening. You can only give up,
which I hope you don't do.So, in other words, you
just try it again. Nature throwsus a curve every year. I mean
this year it was two storms tooearly really to be honest, and it's

(01:42):
been a doozy. Last summer wasincredible drought and heat. We so far,
knock on wood, have not experiencedthat this summer. But that's how
nature is. You never know.It can change in a minute, and
as gardeners, we just learned howto ride with it. We know how
to respond to things, We knowhow to water gardens when it doesn't rain.
We are able to choose plants thatwant to grow here in Southeast Texas

(02:06):
and also choose plants that are goingto be very resilient when it comes to
pests and diseases and droughts and otherthings like that. And that's kind of
how we put the whole thing together. I like to say that here on
Garden Line, we want to helpyou have a bountiful garden and a beautiful
landscape. That is the goal,a bountiful garden and a very very beautiful

(02:27):
landscape. And for example, thearbor Gate, they are all about the
same thing. You know, yougo out to the arbor Gate and talk
about Beverly and Kennon and the wholeteam out there, and they have got
the advice you need. They've gotthe plants you need. They it's just
a complete package. And if youhaven't been out there in a while,
you need to go. They're offon twenty nine to twenty just to the

(02:50):
west of tom Ball, just alittle distance to the west. And the
way to park there though, issomething that if you haven't heard me say
it before, I almost say itagain. You turn down Trish Road,
which it is a loop that goesbehind Arburgate. So whichever way you're coming
to Arburgate, when you see Trishel, you turn turn down that road,
go behind Arburgate. And if youget to Arburgate and you didn't see it,

(03:13):
well there's gonna be another Trishel Roadright after that coming back in because
it is a loop behind it.The parking lot in the back is all
weather. I mean it can rangesix inches and that thing is easy to
drive on, easy to walk on, and takes you right on in there.
And when you get in, whatyou're going to find is a wonderland
of all kinds of plants. Everytime I go there, I see plants

(03:34):
I'd never even grown before, nevereven seen before, because they're always coming
up with new things. They're alwaysbringing in new things and their experience helps
you to have success. So youwalk in and you go, you know
what, I've got a shady area. I need some help with it.
They can provide the palette of plantsto show you, and you choose what's
appealing to you, and then theygive you the advice on what to do

(03:57):
about them. Maybe you bought aplant weeks ago and you're struggling with it
for whatever reason the past. Itis he who knows what. You go
in and you talk to him aboutit and they'll give you advice on that,
bring them a picture or whatever.It's a complete independent garden center package
all in one there at Arborgate,and I will promise you every time you
go, you're going to have agood time and you are going to find

(04:20):
a lot of really cool stuff toturn your garden into something that's more beautiful
and more bountiful. Well, youare listening to garden Line this morning,
and since we are a call inshow, wouldn't it be a good idea
if I gave you a call innumber? I think you would seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two fifty

(04:43):
eight seventy four. Give us acall. We'll talk about the things that
are most of interest to you.Now, these storms that we just went
through have been brutal. That wehad the one a while back that wasn't
connected to a hurricane, and Imean it knocked power out all over the
place. Trees were down. SometimesI wonder that there's still a living tree

(05:04):
in Houston. After the effects ofthese two storms, it really wiped them
out. And then we had ahurricane barrel come through and again lots of
trees destroyed, lots of power outagesand things like that. It is important
to get ready for future storms becauselook, we live here on the Gulf
Coast. It's just part of hurricaneseason, which runs June through November.

(05:29):
But remember that first one wasn't evena hurricane. We can have heavy storms
that do heavy damage in any timeof the year pretty much. It is
not just part of the package here. But what you can do is you
can choose trees that are very strong, that are not the grow fast,
dye young trees that often get soldand shouldn't that are trees that are stable,

(05:54):
that have strong branches. You cantrain them properly, have people prune
them, who know what they're talkingabout out properly, so it gives them
the best chance of all of lettingthat excess wind get through the through the
canopy of the tree and yet stillhad that strongest possible branch structure to do
the best job possible during those storms. And that's what Affordable Tree does.

(06:15):
Martin Spoon Mooret Affordable Tree. Uhyou know, I I love sending people
to Martin because I know the kindof work that they do. An Affordable
Tree is there. You know,it's easy to get a hold of them.
Just seven one three six nine ninetwenty six sixty three. Let me
give you that again seven one threesix nine nine two six sixty three.

(06:36):
If you want to go to thewebsite, it's also very helpful to go
that route Afftree Service dot com.I cannot express enough the importance of proper
tree care. We got a lotof storm season and this is one where
they're predicting quite a few hurricanes thisyear. Don't mess around. Get Martin

(06:56):
out there telling me your guardenline listener. That helps you get toward the front
of the line, which is importantbecause he stays busy because he does good
work that's just how that works.People know the kind of work that Martin
does. Affordable Tree Service seven onethree six nine nine two six sixty three,
get those trees properly pruned. Idrive around town all the time,
and I see hack jobs and treesalmost look like hat racks. When some

(07:23):
of these uninformed let's give him thebenefit of the doubt, uninformed tree services
get in there and just chop thingsup. Just because you want to pick
up in a chainsaw does not makeyou a tree service or a tree specialist
in any way, shape or form. You have got to hire somebody that
knows what they're doing and does aproper job. That is very important because

(07:46):
listen, when you miss prune atree severely, and you know, get
that chainsaw in there and do alot of very ill advised cutting, that
tree is now weakened, if notruined for life. It is hard to
grow your way out of a butcherjob on a tree. Well, I'm
gonna take a little break here,we'll be right back. Hey, here's
the number if you want to geton the on the boards with Chris seven

(08:09):
one three two one two k Tr H seven one three two one two
k T r H. I'll beright back. Would you like to talk
about today. Let's figure that outand let's solve some problems, identify some
plants. Maybe there's some diagnosing wecan do to help out. We're happy
to do that. You know,if you go online to my website Gardening

(08:31):
with Skip dot com Gardening with Skipdot com, you can find my two
schedules on there, and you willfind one is called the lawn Care Schedule.
The other one is the Disease,Insect and Weed Management Schedule. And
these two schedules I've put together aftera lot of research, visiting with various
kinds of specialists and entomology and plantpathology and soul science and you name it.

(08:56):
Uh And they're a wealth of information. I've got them color coded so
it's really easy to follow them along. So, like if you're going to
fertilize, let's say there's two rowsacross from January to December that tells you
exactly when to apply fertilizer. Oneis if you're using synthetic products, one
is if you're using organic products.And also in there is the trace mineral
supplement. Now, the trace mineralsupplement that would be azamite. We put

(09:22):
asmite down to provide trace minerals thatthe turf needs. What is a trace
mineral, Well, you can callit a trace mineral, you can call
it a micro nutrient. Doesn't matterhow what you call it. The bottom
line is it's something that is essentialfor plant growth, but in tiny amounts.
So you know, just because it'sneeded in small amounts doesn't make it

(09:43):
essential. And the way I explainit to people is if you could take
every molecule of zinc out of thesoil, or if you could take every
molecule of you know of iron orany tiny trace mineral out of the soil,
a plant cannot grow because it's essential. So our goal is to make
sure the soil bank account has anadequate amount of all these nutrients. And

(10:03):
that's why we have asamite. Asmiteis a product that is mined out a
Utah. It is widely available throughthe Houston area, not a problem finding
it. You don't need to useit every time you fertilize. You just
once a year is enough and ifyou get a soil test that'll helpe guide
you as well when it comes toas might application. What is needed,
what isn't needed in those kinds ofthings. But the key thing to remember,

(10:26):
by the way, if you wantto learn more about it, you
can go to azamitetextas dot com,azmite texts dot com find out more about
it. But it is widely availableand you should have some on hand because
you're gonna want to apply it periodicallyto the soil, especially when you see
certain kinds of deficiencies there in yourturf. But also on the schedule when
you're looking at it, there isaeration, there is proper mowing that you're

(10:52):
thinking, I need to be toldhow to mow my lawn. I know
how to start a lawn more andrun around. Well, this goes into
more detail than that. It talksabout how high you mow and basically the
frequency and the importance of all ofthat. Also, watering is on there.
I've got the historic average inches ofwater that a Houston lawn needs through
the year. Now historic versus whatactually happens this year are always two different

(11:16):
things. But at least you knowthat you don't have to apply an inch
of water a year, a week, every month of the year. We
just don't need that. But itkind of guides you in that, and
then there's a list of all thedifferent products. So you can take the
schedule with you when you go shoppingand say this is the one I want,
where is it in your store?And people can be you know,

(11:37):
garden Center, these Hardware, SouthwestFertilizer, the feed store, wherever you
go to buy your stuff, they'regoing to be able to direct you to
it. Now. The other scheduleis the lawn pest, disease and weed
management schedule, and the very firstrow on the top of that is the
insect row. So from January toDecember, what are the insects that attack

(11:58):
our lawns? And fortunate to nothave them ail here, but from June
to September, we have various insectsthat can hit our lawns. And we're
in the big middle of that rightnow. So we are in the season
where chinchbugs and sideweb worms can attack. Typically they the worst of them comes
a little bit later than we arenow, but I mean we are on

(12:18):
the doorstep of it. And youcan have a chinchbug problem in your lawn
at any point in time in thisseason. They like hot weather, and
so what do you do about them? Look at the schedule. The insects
are all in yellow. The insectinformation is all in yellow. You go
to the bottom of the page andit gives you all the controls for insects

(12:39):
in yellow in the box at thebottom. Do you want to do it
organically? Do you want to doit synthetically? Do you not care?
It's all there for you to pickit out as you want it. And
when it comes to insects, especiallythose chinchbugs that are you know, we're
in their time of the year nitrofuss. Bug Out Max is a product that
you put on as granule and youspread it out. Follow the label.

(13:03):
Always follow the label. It ison there for a reason. It is
important. And do not believe thatif a teaspoons good, a tablespoons better
follow the label. Apply it evenlyto your lawn. You water it in
and it is going to continue toprovide control. It'll be it'll knock them
out within forty eight hours the peststhat you got there, but it'll continue

(13:24):
to provide you to control all throughthe summer growing season. And I trust.
Bug Out Max is easy to findaround town. You're going to find
it in places like plants for allseasons up on two forty nine. You're
going to find it in place likeplants and things out there in Brennum or
maybe aspas ace up in the woodlands. All of those are examples of places
that carry nitrofoss products. If you'dlike to give us a call here on

(13:48):
garden Line, the number is sevento one three two one two k t
r H seven one three two onetwo kt r H makes it easy,
easy to give us a dial andwe can help you with the kind of
things you're interested in. I wantto talk a little bit about some of
the issues that we're having. Firstof all, we've had quite a bit

(14:11):
of rain, a lot of rain. As a matter of fact, when
we had a lot of rain,we see in our lawns an increase in
gray leaf spot in this summer season. A gray leaf spot is a disease
that you notice it from a distance, is like the grass is yellowing.
Then you get up close and youknow these spots on those grass blades,

(14:33):
the yellow grass blades, and grayleaf spot is best if treated promptly.
You can certainly have something in theturf that's preventing it. Some of the
systemic type products that are in theturf prevented. But anything we can do
to minimize the frequency and the lengthof time that our turf is wet.
So if you have an irrigation systemand you're watering three times a week,

(14:58):
you need to change that. Ourturf does not need to be watered three
times a week. I've got areasof my lawn that I have watered once
this year, once in the sunonce and it w was number one.
We're getting good amount of rain.But my point is that if you've got
a sprinkler running all the time,you're probably watering too shallow, or you've

(15:22):
got a swamp. You're spending moneyon drinking water that you don't need to
be spending, and you're making diseasesreally happy. And they're already pretty happy
to be living here in the GreaterHouston area because of all the rain we
get and the temperatures we have andwhatnot. But watch for that gray leaf
spot. Look for it and anythingyou can do to brighten an area.

(15:43):
If we get in deep shade andyou get a lot of frequent moisture that's
just constantly staying on the grass plant, then gravy spot takes over and there
are fung again, that's on theschedule. That's on the schedule. There
are funge of sides, and thereare cultural price just as we can do
to help avoid or control gray leafspot. But that's something you're going to

(16:06):
be seeing right now whenever we getinto the summertime on the One of the
key cultural things we do to avoidturf issues is number one. Don't mow
too low, especially something like SaintAugustine. You don't see golf course screens
made out of Saint Augustine. Itis a wonderful grass for the places we
use. It's most shade tolerant,one of the most shade tolerant grasses we

(16:30):
have. But you don't want tomow it too low. I would say
two and a half inches to threeinches to three and a half inches is
all good range for Saint Augustine.I keep mine on the taller side,
and the taller it is, theless often you have to mow to cut
off one third of an inch onethird of the leaf blade. But anyway,

(16:51):
avoid super low moing heights. Donot apply excess nitrogen. You hear
me talk about our slow release fertilizershere in the summer time, Excess nitrogen
causes fast top growth, which meansyou got to mowmore. It actually creates
top growth at the expense of rootgrowth. Did you know that when you

(17:11):
overdo nitrogen on the lawn, youactually have less of a root system than
if you fertilized properly. Fertilizing isgood, it creates density, it makes
good green color and all of that, but don't overdo it. That's why
I like slow release fertilizers. Don'twater so frequently. The more often you
water, the more problems you have. And excess nitrogen and excess water is

(17:34):
one of the reasons why what usedto be called brown patch people still call
it that, but the name nowis a large patch. That's one of
the reasons you see those big circlesin the fall and in the spring is
we're promoting it with excess water andexcess nitrogen. Aeration is always important when

(17:55):
you have a compot, when youhave a compacted clay soil is very important
in order to keep the root systemwith plenty of oxygen a heavy clay soil,
oxygen just can't move down in thesoil. It can get very wet
and there's just no oxygen down therefor roots. Aeration changes that add some

(18:17):
compost top dressing to it to falldown in the hole, you create a
better and better root zone. Andthe better you create a root zone for
your Saint Augustine grass, the moreyour lawn is going to thrive. That's
true of any plant. A plantwith a very shallow, very limited root
system is going to be prone todrought. It's going to be prone to

(18:37):
all kinds of things because it doesn'thave the development of an extensive root system
where you can draw on it forwater and for nutrients. So aeration and
compost top dressing is very important.That also helps with promoting the microbial activity
and the lawn. And the morethat we do to create optimum health by

(19:00):
building good soil and yes, evenin an established lawn you can build soil.
You're not using a rototiller, butyou are using aeration, compost,
top dressing and other practices. Themore you minimize disease issues that you might
have, and the more you developa deep, resilient, deep rooted,

(19:22):
resilient grass plant. So when youhave a little drought, you've got a
better root system to withstand it.When a few grubs come along and chomp
off a few roots, you stillhave a very good, extensive root system
for that grass to thrive. That'swhat we're talking about. You know,
we talk here a lot about here'swhat you kill that weed with, or
here's what you kill that insect with, or here's what you kill that disease

(19:44):
with. But the foundation is alwayson cultural practices, selecting plants that don't
get sick whenever possible. And rightnow in the industry, you will not
find Saint Augustine de class up turf. Well, there are a few obscure
places that will sell you just generalold time Saint Augustine that gets the virus

(20:08):
that can't be cured, Saint Augustinede client. But it's been bred.
Resistance has been bred into our modernSaint Augustine varieties. Doesn't it make sense
to have something that doesn't get sickrather than going, Okay, how do
I control this problem? And that'swhat we aim for. When I say
cultural practice, I mean setting theplan up for success. All Right,

(20:29):
we're going to take a little break. Here. Our phone number if you'd
like to give Chris call, befirst up. When we come back.
Seven one three two one two kt RH. Hey, we are here
to talk about gardening. Whatever isof interest to you. Feel free to
give us a call if you like. Seven one three two one two k
t r H. Seven one threetwo one two k t r H.

(20:52):
I was discussing some principles of takingcare of your lawn and some of the
issues that lawns are gonna have andare already this summer here in the Greater
Houston area. And whenever we startdealing with lawn problems, we just always
need to remember again just to reiteratecultural conditions. Cultural practices are so very
important. The more often you mowalawn, the better it looks. And

(21:17):
think about this if you had ahead, because when you mow alawn,
what you're doing is you're hedging yourlawn. That's that's an analogy that I
think helps explain how things work inthe lawn. If you have a hedge
and you were to go back andshere it twice a year and let it
grow way out, and then youshare it way back, way out,
and then you share it way back, it would be ugly. First of

(21:38):
all, after you shared it,it'd be all brown and sticky. Then
it'd have to twiggy is what I'msaying. That theo the hedge would have
to regrow. You'd get these newshoots, it start looking good again,
and then it grows and grows,and then you share it. That would
be a horrible way to take careof a hedge. It would look terrible.
It wouldn't be good for the plants, and it certainly wouldn't be good

(21:59):
for us. Your lawn is similarto that. Let it grow up real,
real tall and then cut it wayway back, and let it grow
a real tall and cut it wayway back. That's stressful to the grass
plant and it looks bad. Butthe more often you mow the better.
And so regular mowing with a sharpmower is important. And I say a
sharp more and you probably that probablyjust kind of flies by and doesn't reregister.

(22:22):
But that's important. And here's acouple of reasons why. Number one
is less strained or your lawnmower.That is important. But number two,
when you cut grass blades with anice sharp mower, it makes a nice
clean cut. When your more getsreally dull, basically it's just slashing off
the end of the grass blade,leaving it all frayed and split. And

(22:45):
torn up instead of a nice cleancut scissor like cut. And so when
you end up with that, youhave brown areas that are bigger on the
end of each grass blade. Sogo with me on this just for one
second. So if you take thosebrown areas and think of them as pixels
on a screen, and you havethe screen full of green, and then

(23:07):
you just fill it with about youknow, twenty five percent brown pixels,
what's it going to look like?Less green? Right? You may not
notice specifically the brown, but theoverall appearance of the lawn is not as
good. And when you multiply timesa billion grass blades, it makes a
difference. So clean cut is importantfor several reasons, even in some cases

(23:29):
for disease related reasons can be affectedby that. So just my suggestion is
keep that look more blade sharp andmow often. Our goal is to cut
off a third of the grass bladeevery time we mow. So when you
do that, when you mow offa third of the grass blade, that's
a that is a minor shearing thatthe grass just gets denser and denser and

(23:49):
denser and looks better. And Irealize when it rains for five days you're
going to get behind. I haveit in mind. Several times this year
because of rain, I've bagged myclippings, which is not what I normally
do. But I don't put themat the curb side. They're in garden
beds, they're in garden walkways thatthey get they get sprinkled, all kinds
of places where they end up helpingrely contribute to the soil by releasing those

(24:15):
nutrients back into the soil. We'regoing to go out to the phones now
again. The number is seven onethree two one two fifty eight seventy four.
We're going to talk to Malcolm.Hello, Malcolm, Malcolm. Oh,
yes, or I am yes,I'm here, you know. Hey,

(24:36):
good hey, good morning. Hey. How do you get rid of
chamber bitter a weed in Saint Augustinelawn? There are there's two approaches.
One is to use a pre emergentproduct. Well, let me back up
even further. I've been talking aboutcultural The denture of your lawn gets the
less chamber better. You're going tohave chamber bitter. Like other weed seeds,

(25:00):
needs light to germinate and establish aplant and a dense lawn. It's
very difficult for it to get started. Wherever sunlight hits the soil, you're
going to see needs like chamber butter. Secondly, though, as a pre
emergent, will prevent seeds from germinating, that would be another step and you
need to do that. Chamber bitteris one to sprout a little later than

(25:22):
a lot of other weeds like crabgrassis way ahead of chamber better when it
comes to when it sprouts, soyou don't have to worry about getting your
pre measure down exactly in early tomid February. You can go a little
bit later with it. And thensometimes a second application is needed, Malcolm,
because any product you put out likethat is going to break down in

(25:45):
time, so maybe forty five tosixty days later a repeat application helpful to
that. Once it's in your lawn, then you're talking about a post emergent
broad leaf control herbicide. So ifyou can, you can ignore it and
mow it. That's always one option. Organic gardeners and not gonna spray stuff

(26:08):
on their lawn like that. Theyjust mow and ignore and work their way
out of it by building density overthe seasons and years to come. If
you spray with a post emergent,I would probably use something called celsius.
I talk about that a lot ongarden line. Celsius is like the temperature

(26:30):
celsius, and it is a productthat you can use when the weather is
a little warmer. A lot ofthe other post emergent products, the trimeac
types of products that are often usedin spring. In the summertime, they'll
really they can damage your Saint Augustinelawn in hot temperature. So even with
celsius, I would do it inthe morning. But if you get the

(26:52):
celsius on the leaves of the chamberBetter, it's pretty good at controlling it.
But you need to do it promptlybecause have you ever looked closely at
a chamber Better leaf and seeing thelittle balls underneath the leaf? And I
haven't really close, but no,I've got a lot of it. I
can find it. Yeah, Well, when you pick one, it's got
that compound leaf with all the littleleaflets going down the stalk. If you

(27:17):
look underneath there along that little stemthat's holding all the leaflets, they're little
balls, and that's the flowers andseeds of chamber Better. So once you
create a new crop, even ifyou kill the old chamber better. You
just sentenced yourself to a season ortwo more of weeding, certainly in a
year or two of weeding, soprompt action is important, got you.

(27:40):
I sure appreciate it, all right, good luck with that. Appreciate that.
Thanks, Thank you girl. Iwish you bet. I wish we
could eat chamber better. You know, they say if you can't beat him,
join them. When it comes tosome weeds, if you can't beat
them, eat him. Did youknow you can eat chick weed? You
can, sure can. There's someother weeds that you can eat. I'm

(28:02):
not going to go into all thosenow, but yep, there's some edible
weeds. People eat dandelions. That'sanother one. I'm not a fan of
dandelions, so I can tell youthat person lane is a weed that you
can eat. All right, we'retalking about edible weeds. But if you
can't beat them, eat them insome cases. But hear me, clearly,
don't eat everything in your lawn becausethere are some some weeds you do
not want to eat as well.You're listening to garden Line. My phone

(28:27):
number here is seven one three twoone two kt r H seven to one
three two one two kt r hthe the we were talking about cultural practices
and things we do to have success, and I mentioned mowing and how important
that is when it comes to ourflower beds I have had. I've got

(28:49):
some multiple flower beds, but thereare some areas I was in a hurry
putting it out and I sprinkled aroundand I didn't get it quite thick enough.
And what is thick enough? Well, how deep should mulch be?
What depends on the mult If youhad let's say some people use compost as
a surface mulch, Well that's veryfine textured and it doesn't have to be

(29:11):
as thick to block the light fromhitting the soil surface, although weeds will
land in the compost and they'll grow, so that's just something you have to
deal with. But the chunkier yourmultch gets, the thicker it needs to
be in order to adequately block thelight. And I was using a shredded
mult was kind of in the mediummedium to find texture. But I have

(29:32):
some thin areas and I got togo out and do some hand weed pulling
yesterday because some sprouts had come upthrough the multch. It wasn't the mulch's
fault. It was the mulch applicator. That would be me. It's the
mulch applicator's fault. I didn't putit thick enough. So now that I've
pulled those what's going to happen inthose areas? More weeds are going to
sprout. I got to put moremulch on top. And I have heard

(29:56):
on more than one occasion a collaror someone will say, well, do
I need to get that old multout of there to put the fresh molts
in? And I guess I cansee how that may sound like a good
idea, but don't do it.Think about nature. Let's follow nature's lead.
Does do you ever see a deerin the forest raking all the old

(30:17):
leaves out so that the new cropof leaves and fall can land on fresh
soil. No, of course,not that that's a Gary Larson cartoon.
I'd like to have a T shirtwith that on it. But what happens
is you drop the new organic matteron top of the old because the old
is still helping, and the oldis decomposing away and releasing nutrients into the

(30:40):
soil and stimulating microbial growth and benefitingthe plant. So just add fresh mults
on top of the old malt.Don't rake the old stuff out. Wells
time, take a little break here. I will be back again. Our
phone number if you'd like to givea skull seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four with us talkingabout all kinds of things related to lawns

(31:03):
and plants and success and cultural practicesand whatnot, but just talking about the
importance of malts and the molts needsto be deep enough, and the kind
of molts you put on, howchunky it is determines how deep it needs
to be to truly block the soilsurface. Well Landscaper's Pride has a wide
variety of mults and a number ofdifferent mulches. One of the ones that

(31:26):
I think is beautiful is their blackvelvet. It is not dyed. It
is naturally dark colored, very velvetyand dense. It does a very good
job through the summertime, and Ithink it's very attractive. Don't use dye
mulch, but you can use thisone. I think that's a great one.
They have a hardwood mults. It'sshredded hardwood. You know, it's
just part of the natural land clearingprocess. You get these hardwood materials that

(31:48):
are shredded up. It's not groundpalettes like some of the cheap junk you
see on the market. Is thisis true shredded hardwood. Great use for
walkways too, for flower beds,recreational area. Then they have pine Mark
the most popular one. That's theone that again very very attractive, very
slow to decompose, so you're nothaving to top it off as much because

(32:09):
of that. And then Cedar wholeCedar logs ground up beautiful air aroma as
it comes in, very nice,beautiful red color as it comes in.
And then the Cypress multch is locallysourced Cypress logs and it's known for durability.
It kind of when it's wet,it kind of stays in place very
well, does a very good jobof that. A's supposed to floating all

(32:30):
away, very light in color.All from Landscaper's Pride. You can find
it everywhere in bags wherever you shop. Just go online to Landscaperspride dot com
and find the store located there whereyou can find the ones or the places
that are closest to you to beable to get some of their quality products.
We're going to go now out toSharon and Hello Sharon, and welcome

(32:52):
to guard Line. Good morning.I have a problem. I was told
it's box would light, uh,and it was a fungusment. And what
what can I do about that?I don't need a name, but who
told you that? Was it alandscaper or was it a a garden center?

(33:15):
I just described what was going on, and that that's what he said
he thought it was. It couldbe it could be buck boxwood light.
It also could be other things,though, and so the only way to
know for sure, uh, youknow, if someone's just seeing a dead
boxwood, it's hard to diagnose.That way is to send a sample up

(33:37):
to the university UH plant clinic.There's a state plant clinic up at A
and M. The website is PlantClinic dot t A m U dot E
d U t A m U standsfor Texas and M University Plant Clinic dot
TAMU dot E d U UH.Get dig up the boxwood, shake off

(33:58):
excess soil, but don't cut offthe roots. Uh. I think with
something the size of boxwood, Iwould just drive it up there. You
can drop it off at the clinic, but you can also mail it if
you want to go that route andlet them diagnose it. They will get
it in a lab, they willculture it out in a Petri diish,
and they'll give you a definitive answerof what it was that caused it.
That way, you're not wasting timeon products and money spending money. That

(34:22):
may not be what you need todo. But box with blight is very
difficult to control. I don't knowthat it has a good chemical control.
I'm have to look, and Ithink once a plant has it, it's
going to be very difficult to turnthat around. But my suggestion would be
to get a more lab based diagnosis. Okay, all right, all right,

(34:45):
thank you so much. Appreciate thatyou pull when you see the plants
and when you see the plants inyour landscape sharing. Is it like here
and there plants are dying or doesit start at one spot and then the
plant beside those get it and thenthe plants beside those get it. Yeah,
It's it's like the tip of theleaf starts to kind of turn yellow

(35:10):
and then it turns you know,it goes down the branch and it just
becomes like hay color. And I'vebeen cutting that part out and Uh,
then the rest of the plant seemsto be okay. Uh. I have
I have pulled up three These areyoung plants. I planted them last year,

(35:35):
and I pulled the plants up entirelyand dug that soil out that they
were in and then replanted, andthose plants seem to be doing okay.
But uh, you know it,just like not every single one. I
have a hedge row of boxwood,and they're young, and just like every

(35:59):
third or fourth plant will show thesesigns. And I was just wondering,
you know, what I could doto stop it and prevent the other ones
from you know, being infected.Yeah, well, I tell you,
with the possibilities of nematodes and rootrots and other things like that, I

(36:21):
wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it'sblight. And depending on what it is,
you may or may not have controloptions. And so that's that is
its best to replace. Once theblight is in an area, it's best
to replace them with something else youcan spread. If it were blight,
you could spread around printing tools.If it were blight, you could use

(36:45):
preventative fungicides on the ones that aren'tsick. So that is an option,
but you're gonna have to spray prettyoften. And again, you know,
I hate to send you out tobuy something and the time and money applying
it and everything if we're not goingafter the right thing. So that's kind
of why I think it's since youhave a lot of box woods and there's

(37:07):
a lot of money tied up inthat, I would rather get a good,
accurate diagnosis and then they will ifthey when they diagnose, they will
tell you what to do about it. And there are there are some resistant
boxwoods to the blight, so youknow that would be a possibility. I
guess what what are these are?Japanese boxwood? Let's see what you know

(37:34):
what? Off the top of myhead, I can't think of the name
of a of a type. Ohgosh, I would have to look that
up. I just don't know offhand. Most of the time what people do
is they try to come up witha different plant that is kind of similar,
Like dwarfyopond is somewhat similar to boxwoodin terms of being a little shrub

(37:57):
with small leaves and dents and someand stuff that that would be one of
the things you could do. Dorothiopondoesn't seem to get so much show.
All right, thank you very much, appreciate your call. All right,
you are listening to guard Line here. We are all right about to hit
another another break for the news.I'll be back and in the meantime,

(38:22):
if you'd like to give us acall, we got an open board.
Feel free to get Chris a call. Here's a number. Seven one three
two one two k t R eightseven one three two one two k t
r H. We will be backin a moment. In the meantime,
I did want to mention I talkedabout the importance if you've gone fertilized,

(38:43):
the fertilizing with something that is thatis a slow release product. And when
I come back from break, Iwant to talk to you a little bit
about that. How that works,uh, and how how you go about
doing that. In the meantime,have a night, so break with me
and we'll be right back. Welcometo kat r H Garden Line with Scarp

(39:09):
Richter's crazy trip. Just watch himas many good things to see. Not

(39:35):
a sign. Welcome to garden Line. Welcome back to the garden Line.
Good to have you with us today. We've got plenty of things to talk
about and I am going to jumpright into this. First of all,
I wanted to tell you a littlebit about Plants for All Seasons, which
is the garden center up there ontwo forty nine just north of Louetta.

(39:57):
So if you if you exit forLuetta across over Luetta, it's going to
be on the right hand side.I'm telling you this, and probably most
of you know it because you've beenthere. It's one of the most popular
garden centers we have in the greaterHouston area. And the reason is they've
been around since the nineteen seventies andthe Flowerty family has developed a reputation of
carrying the kinds of plants that dobest here, of hiring and training their

(40:21):
folks to absolutely be dependable resources ofinformation, and then finally to give their
customers service. If you come inthere and you have a bug and a
bag, or if you have apicture of a dead plant or whatever,
they're going to be able to directyou to the kind of things that you
need. And that's what you're lookingfor. When you go to an independent

(40:43):
garden center like Plants for All Seasons, you know that you're going to get
something that will grow here and adviceon how to grow it here, and
if something ever goes wrong, whatto do about it. That is very
very important. And I'm telling youto throw your money away at some plant
that doesn't want to grow here.That's not going to happen. It plans

(41:04):
for all seasons. Unfortunately, thereare places where it does be nine Plans
for all seasons. You can goto the website Plans for All Seasons dot
com or give them a call toeight one three seven six sixteen forty six
two eight one three seven six onesix four six. We're going to go
now out to Conroe and talk toVICKI. Hello, Vicky, welcome to

(41:24):
garden Line, Hie. Can youhear me? How can we help?
I can? How can we help? Okay? I have a knockout rose
that has the blooms are tiny anddon't have very many peckles on them like
they used to. Okay, andI've heard like every month any other symptoms

(41:52):
that you're seeing, Well, ithasn't ever looked good since that hard freeze
we had. Okay. The lowerbranches are pretty bare. All of the
foliage is out on the like theupper quarter of the plant. Okay,
And you're sure it's a knockout rightfor sure. Yeah. Yeah, I've

(42:15):
had it since I you know,got it. It just doesn't look the
same anymore. Yeah, well that'skind of strange. How much sunlight is
it getting? Bull sides both signwhen you said that the ends of the

(42:40):
branches have foliage, but further downthere's not. Did you notice that the
leaves turned yellow or had spots oranything like that on them before they fell
off? No, they just didn'tcome back after the freeze, the part
that's down below. Okay, I'lltell you what what I want you to

(43:01):
do is I'm gonna in second here, I'm gonna put you on hold and
Chris will give you an email andif you could take some pictures of it,
check them before you send them,make sure they're really well focused.
But I'd like to see some branchesup close, the bush as a whole.
Let me take a look, becauseof the bush at a hole kind
of shows me the setting that it'sgrowing in. And let me take a

(43:23):
look at that, because what you'redescribing shouldn't be happening on a knockout rows
And I just want to see theleaves toward the end of the branch.
Any leaves that don't look normal.I'd like to see the little twigs out
toward the end of the branch,the growth that's fairly new, and so
let me look at that and I'llget back with you then with probably a

(43:45):
more accurate diagnosis, because what you'redescribing I haven't seen on knockout. So
can we do that? Okay,sure, all right, thank you,
Just hang on, put your onhold. Chris will be with you in
just a moment to give you thatemail. We're going to go back now
to Pasadena, Texas and talk toJohn. Hello. Excuse me just one

(44:09):
second. If I pushed the rightbutton, We're going to talk to John.
Hello, John, Welcome to gardenLine. Hello, how are you
this morning? I'm good, sir. How can I help? I have
two citrus plants, one's of Myerslemon and the other ones of satsuma.

(44:29):
On the Myers lemon, the twolast freezes have devastated that tree, and
the last one it lost all theleafs, all the branches died. I
left it there for months and thenfinally after I trended it way back,

(44:52):
I got two shoots that came offthe bottom by the close to the ground
and one shoote has these little,tiny, tiny leaves that came up.
The other shoote has leaves kind oflike the Mar's lemon. And I'm wondering
if that, huh, or theleaves that are tiny in groups of three

(45:17):
as opposed to a Meyer lemon justhas one big leaf or these small leaves
like in groups of three. Well, I don't know that. I didn't
look at Let me look at it. Okay, that's okay. So at
the bottom of the mar lemon isa graft union. It's a place where
the plant was butted, where theytook a rootstock and they put a Meyer

(45:38):
lemon on top of it, thatrootstan. And I'm aware of that,
so I'm thinking, go ahead,Yeah, I think that. I think
you got a rootstock in those littletiny leaves. But one of the types
of rootstock they use is called trifoliateorange because it has three leaves try fulliot,

(45:58):
three foliage altogether. And I thinkthat's what you're describing. You just
got to print it out right upagainst where it came out, because it's
of no use to you. Ifthe okay, you're just producing normal leaves,
then it sounds like you that isworth keeping that may still be a
mere lemon. Yes, okay,and that's kind of what I thought.
I thought that it came up belowthe graph, but I couldn't tell because

(46:22):
the graphs so hard to tail onthis lemon tree. But yeah, okay,
so I can just cut off alittle tiny leaves, sute cut it
off, and the other one leaveit fertile it to fertilize it. Huh.
Yeah. Yeah, there's a brandnew shoot and you know it's not
got some size and woodiness to it. You can just grab it and break

(46:45):
it off, pull it downward andit just breaks right off the stem.
But you can also print it,but print it close, don't leave any
nub. And as far as fertilizing, you have a number of different options.
There are some really good fertilizers outthere that work well for ctrus types
of plants. H See where areyou? You're done in Pasadena area?

(47:07):
You got some really good ACE Hardwarestores in your neighborhood down there. You
can go to Ace Hardware dot comfind find the ones closest. You may
know where they are they're going tocarry. They're going to carry stuff like
from Nelson plant Food that is acitrus specifically fertilizer. They may have one
from Nitrofuss as well that's designed forthat or from a microlife. All three

(47:29):
of those guys produce fertilizers that arevery good for use on fruit and ceterus
and those types of plants. Okay, we are we looking at a non
an instant shot of fertile fertilizing,but a long term slow fertilizer for that
plant since it's since it's trying tocome back. Yeah, I don't worry

(47:52):
about an instant shot yet. Justgo ahead and put the fertilizer around it,
Scratch it into the soil. Youknow, this will a little rate,
get it the surface or down inthe mulch, and then watered in
really well and it you'll be goodto go. I'm hitting up against a
hard break here, but I hopethat helps, uh, and I'll wish
you well with it. All right, thank you, sir? Are all

(48:13):
right time for us take a littlebreak. I'll be right back phone number
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. Scott, glad you're
listening today. By the way,thank you for listening to garden Line.
It's always great to be able tovisit with gardeners in the Greater Houston area,
and we certainly get to do thatevery Saturday and every Sunday from six
to ten am. Well ago Isaid, I was going to talk a

(48:35):
little bit about slow release fertilizers andwhat that's all about. What it's about
is when you take a slow releasefertilizer such as nitrophos superturf that's their silver
bag in it. The nitrogen init is in more than one form,
and so some of it gets releasedright away and then some of it gets
released gradually over time. They cantake nitrogen and put it in forms that

(49:00):
are water soluble that would be floatimmediate release. They can put it in
other kinds of forms. There's morethan one option. Some of them a
bacteria and microbes and the soil breakit down and release it. There just
is a number of mechanisms that releaseit. But it gives you a gradual
feeding because your lawn feeds every day. Every day, the lawn is taking

(49:23):
up nutrients and small amounts to supportgrowth. It doesn't take a big lunch
at the first of the month andthen not take up anything else again for
the rest of the month. Youknow that. I mean, that's kind
of ridiculous, but it feeds everyday. So when you put a fertilizer
like nitrofive superturf down, now youknow that for three maybe more months,

(49:45):
depending on the weather, you're goingto get a release of nutrients. And
it's a nineteen. That one isa nineteen four to ten fertilizer and that
first number nitrogen is high nineteen,but it's not going to get the nineteen
all at once. That nineteen isgoing to feed, feed and feed and
feed over time, and that isan excellent way to produce good even growth.

(50:08):
It also it cuts down when you'remowing. It makes it easier,
you know, when you're doing yourwatering and things, you don't worry so
much about washing all your nutrient away. Nitropas Superturf, like other night foss
products, is available in a widevariety of places. In Chenny Forest carries
it down in the Richmond Rosenberg area. You can find it a growers outlet

(50:29):
up in Willis RCW. Nursery onTombail Parkway where it comes into Sam Houston
Beltway is another place that carries nightfoss products like the super Turf the silver
bag from Nitrofos. We're going togo now to the phones and head to
Cypress and talk to Ruth. Hello, Ruth, are you there? Ruth?

(50:53):
All right, I'll tell you what. I Am going to put Ruth
back on hold, see if wecan fix that, and I'll check right
back with her in just a moment. I mentioned in gended Forests being down
in the Richmond Rosenberg area, andchenned Forest is one of those outstanding destination
garden centers, and I really meanthat. When I go in there,

(51:15):
I feel like I've entered another worldof just beauty and bounty and their vegetable
section. By the way, it'stime to be getting that fall vegetable garden
go and we got to get thosetomatoes and peppers and eggplants and things like
that in. There's a lot ofother things coming soon. They've got a
wonderful herb selection too, extensive,like basil, several different kinds of basil.

(51:38):
And if you were interested in abutterfly garden or a garden to attract
birds or to bring in bees andother pollinators, they have an outstanding selection
of plants to do that. Awhole region. Of course, there's plants
all over the garden center in chantedforests that attract those kind of things.
But they have a whole section justdedicated to butterfly, lauval food sources for

(52:01):
example, ad enchanted for So nowthey're on FM twenty seven fifty nine outside
of Richmond, So if you're inRichmond, you're heading Sugarland direction up fifty
nine. It's off to the right, FM twenty seven fifty nine. It's
always a good day to be outthere. I love visiting with them,
Clay and the whole team out there. They have really created a lot of

(52:23):
beauty and they have the expertise tohelp you have success. So if you
hadn't been out there, I don'tcare where you live, you need to
drive out there and see this place. It really really is cool and good
house plans, good gift shop,all kinds of good things. Let's go
back and we're going to give anothershot here at Ruth in Cyprus. Are
you there, Ruth? Ready,Ruth, If you're talking, I can't

(52:50):
hear you, so I'm going toput you back on hold. We'll give
it another try here. I'll tellyou what, Ruth. But if you
can hear me, go ahead.And just hang up and call back in
and we will We'll try this againwith a different line. I'm not sure
what's exactly going on in that situation. I was out in the yard and
my bird feeders are a little low, and that was on purpose. I've

(53:12):
got a couple of types of birdfeeders I have. The rain can get
to them if it's really blowing andsplashing a lot. I mean, they
have a little roof over them.And I didn't want to put a bunch
of bird seed out there and haveit go bad and get moldy, because
it'll do that. And if you'vegot that in your yard, you need
to dump those out, clean themout, let them dry, and then
put some fresh seed in them.And I've been feeding the birds a little

(53:35):
bit here and there as we go. But wild Bird's Unlimited is going to
have a selection of everything that youneed for that. I like their nesting
super Blend. I still am usingthe Nesting Superblend. It provides a lot
of things that the birds need.It's loaded with sunflower chips, peanuts,
dried mealworms, something called bark butterbits, safflower tree nuts, calcium carbonate

(53:58):
too, which is important and I'mtelling you that I was watching blue jays
out there and cardinals at the feeder. I've got another feeder that the little
birds tend to hang out at.It's harder for the big birds to get
to. But anyway, all fromWallbirds Unlimited. You can go to WBU
dot com forward slash Houston WBU dotcom forward slash Houston find the wildbirds in

(54:21):
their shoe. They're about six ofthem are in the Greater Houston area.
Also, if you're about to takea little vacation trip this summer, grab
one of their seed cylinders. It'sa cylinder of firmly packed seeds. Looks
like a little candle shape, youknow, those little tall candles, thick
wide candles. The birds have tokind of pull those seeds out of there,
so it takes them a little whileto do it. And when you

(54:42):
come back from vacation, your birdsare still having something to eat while you're
gone. Plus, if you're homewatching it, they takes them a little
longer to get that seed out,so you get to watch them a little
bit longer. I think that's funtoo. From Wallbirds Unlimited, we love
our birds here. I've got waterfeatures from oh by the way, now
we've had a lot of rain thissummer and birds are doing okay because of

(55:06):
that. But when we're in hot, dry summer weather, you've got to
make sure they have a source ofwater. We keep ours out, keep
them not too far away from thefeeders, and also where we can watch
them. And I've got a coupleof different water features that they really really
enjoy if they can hear the soundof water, like if it's splashing,
like we have a little multi tieredfountain where it's splashing. I enjoy that

(55:29):
sound. It's so soothing and nice. But the birds, it brings them
in and they love it. Theyabsolutely love it. Here on Guardline,
we love our feed stores too.You hear me talk about feed stores and
down in If you're south of Houston, let's say you're in the League City
area. League City feed is rightthere on Highway three, just a few

(55:51):
blocks south of Highway ninety six inLeague City, so that whole area,
this is your hometown feed store.Do you live in Bay Cliffs, San
Leon or Lamart. Do you livein Dickenson or clear Lake City or Webster.
Do you live in Santa Fe orohkame Into Realey. League City Feed
is your hometown feed store. Theycarry every fertilizer that I talk about here
on Garden Line. They do.They've got them. They've got the soils,

(56:13):
you know, they carry the heirloomsoils, for example, and they
just know how to provide exactly whatyou need to take care of whatever you
have in your lawn. So areyour garden so do you need an insecticide
or a fungicide? Do you needan herbicide to fight weeds? Are you
looking for organic products? They havethose two there. Premium pet food is

(56:35):
always available. They're at League CityFeed. Do you have backyard chickens?
They can get you set up onthat and they're going to carry the sacks
to the car for you. It'sthat old time feed service. This place
has been around. I think theirgrandfather built it over forty years ago in
an Okra patch. And anything thatstarts in an Okra patch can't go wrong.
I mean that's my personal opinion becauseI'm a big fan of Okra.

(56:57):
But the Thunderbergs, they've been runningthis three generations. Now here's our phone
number two eight one three three twosixteen twelve. I'll give it to you
again two eight, one three threetwo one six one two Open Monday through
Saturday nine to six, so youcan stop in after work. Closed on
Sunday. So hey, here's yourdeal today. Get over there, grab
the kind of stuff you need.I'll try one more time here to go

(57:22):
to the phones. This time we'reheading to Willis to talk to Kirk.
Kurt. How are you this morning? We've got a break coming up,
and let's see if we can helpyou before the break or we'll hold you
aft too. Yes, Skip,I'll try to make it quick. I
have the makeriage out here in Willis, Texas with just full of mature oak

(57:45):
trees, and periodically I'll go outand, you know, trim them.
And what's important to me, justfor the visual effect is remove these little
I've kind of little sucker branches thatgrow on the trunk until it gets to
the pe. Know, they're oneto three feet long, and I cut
them off, and they always seemto grow back. Is there any prevention

(58:09):
method? Are you? Are youcutting them off real close to the trunk
or are you leaving a little bitof I learned that mistake for the first
time. I didn't uh, youknow, maybe a have bitch, and
then I started getting real close.But they still kind of want to come
back. You can, you canjust cut them back to the trunk.

(58:32):
There is something sucker stopper that youcan buy, and there's another sucker spray.
I can't remember what the name ofit is. One of them is
called sucker stopper. You sprayed onthe fresh cut and it takes care of
them. Listen, I got aheart break here for the news. If
you want to continue this conversation,just hang on and I'll be back once
we get through it. Thanks alot, kirt. All right, folks,

(58:52):
here we go. We'll be rightback. You'd like to give us
a call, My number is sevenone three two one two k t r
H. Seven one three two onetwo k t r H. Let's help
you have a more beautiful garden,more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape.

(59:13):
That's what we're here for. Whateverkinds of questions indoor or outdoor plants,
we'll talk about it. Be happyto do that. Try to get
some good diagnosis and advice as wego along. Speaking of good advice,
if you are looking for a productthat you can hook up to your garden,
hose and spray over the lawn andget really quick results. That would

(59:36):
be Medina's has to grow line.They have a has to grow lawn for
example, there's regular has to grow. There's a has to grow for lawns.
It's got a like a three onetwo or yeah, three one two
type ratio a fertilizer that is exactlywhat your lawn needs. They also have
a product that's newer, new,it's newer. It's a brand new one
that they've got called super Grow Plus. And I think, I think a

(01:00:00):
lot of all of these products,but the Supergrill Plus is a sixteen zero
two. That's zero that middle numberphosphorus. Phosphorus tends to stick around,
and there's not a problem not addingphosphorus every time we fertilize. In fact,
in some parts of the country theyare they actually have laws to where
you can't just use phosphorus without theequivalent of prescription, believe that or not,

(01:00:22):
because it washes off into places.Florida has a number of waterways are
concerned about. Chesapeake Bay up therein the northeast around the DC area is
another example of those kinds of places. Well, this one it works great
for here sixteen zero two. It'sgot a slow release fertilizer in it.
About a fifth of the fertile ofthe nitrogen in it is in a slow

(01:00:43):
release form. It's got iron ina chelated form, meaning the iron has
a little bodyguard so the soil can'tsteal it and tie it up, but
the plant can have it. It'sgot seaweed extract in it. It's got
molasses in it, it's got humicacid in it. It's got all the
kinds of things to stimulate microbial activityand stimulate your lawn growth. Uh.

(01:01:04):
If you've got areas that are struggling, I have an area that had some
take a root rot due to heavyheavy shade. I've been working my way
back out of that and get thatgarden hose. Go over there and just
give it a quick fix with that, and it works really well. Supergrow
plus. If you return your clippings, you can do it about twice during
the summertime and I'll cover it.If you are bagging your clippings, number

(01:01:27):
one, stop it. Don't dothat. You're throwing away free fertilizer.
If you're bagging your clippings, probablyneed to do it about three times.
During the summertime. But supergrow plusfor Medina, a product that works,
a product that I personally can vouchfor. You are listening to Guardline and
our phone number if you wish togive us a call is seven to one

(01:01:49):
three two one two kt RH sevenone three two one two kt RH.
You know the the garden centers inthe Houston area, the Independent, we
call them Mom and Pops. Thosegarden centers are outstanding here and I'm telling
you I've been, you know,all over Texas to garden centers, and

(01:02:12):
I love when I travel. Iam a gardening or horticultural tourist. You
know, I'm going to find thethe garden centers in a town. I'm
going to find the botanical gardens ina town and visit them. I was
out in North Carolina at the RalstonArboretum in the University of North Carolina and

(01:02:32):
it just outstanding. Love to dothat. Well, here in Houston,
we've got more than anybody. I'mtelling you that. I mean, I've
been to these big cities, north, south, east, West, and
central. Here in Houston we haveplaces that are worth driving for and people
drive a long way. I've runinto people all the time that if from
out of state, maybe they're visitingfamily, or maybe they drove from Austin

(01:02:55):
to get over here to go tosee some of our outstanding garden centers.
Example of that is Buchanans Native Plantsdone in the Heights, right in the
big middle of town. Buchanan's PlantsNative Plants is on Eleventh Street in the
Heights. Their website and this isplease write this down because it is an
outstanding website, Buchanansplants dot Com.There's advice there, there's videos there,

(01:03:22):
there's lists of plants there, there'sdescriptions of plants. Buchanan specializes in natives,
but they have everything. They haveeverything. Do you want house plants?
Go check out their selection. Youwill agree that it is one of
the absolute best selections of house plantsyou're going to find anywhere in the region.
Buchanansplants dot Com on Eleventh Street inthe Heights. Do you need the

(01:03:44):
fertilizers I talk about on guardline.They're there, high quality plants, educated,
helpful people and a really fun shoppingexperience too. Of Buchanan's Plants in
the Heights. Remember website, BuchanansPlants dot com click around that thing,
and you'll see why I think somuch of it. You are listening to

(01:04:06):
garden Line our phone number seven onethree two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. Okay, we're going
to have a quick garden Line quizfor those of you who've listened to garden
Line more than once, because Isay this every time. What is the
most important thing that we do tohave success with plants? Now, there's

(01:04:29):
a lot of important things. It'simportant to get plants that want to grow.
Here, it's essential to get plantsthat want to grow. It's important
to put plants in the amount ofdrainage they need. There are a few
plants that can take a swamp.Most of them can't. It's important to,
uh, let's see, get plantsthe amount of light that they need.
It's important to fertilize. But whatis the most important thing we do

(01:04:50):
when we're going to have success?And the answer is build the soil.
I like to say it this way. Plants live in their roots, and
if you think about it that way, you'll reckon. I know we do.
All these things on top of theground are pruning and that's our visual
of the plant. But underground,that's where it all happens. That's where

(01:05:12):
the microbial activity that so stimulates andsupports root growth is. That's where it's
either drained or not drained. You'dhave a raise better you don't, And
if you've got a soggy spot,you better have a raise. Bit.
That's where the organic materials are putin. And Nature's Way Resources, you
know John Ferguson in Ferguson up inNature's Way. They they've known this a

(01:05:32):
long time. John was Nature's WayResources. You know. It was the
place where rose soil was born.That's the place where the leaf moow.
Compost we talk about all the timeis compost, top dressing, and many
other mixes. Do you have aveggie garden, They've got a mix for
it. You can go to aNature's Way. They're up there on Sherwood
Circle south of Conroe. So ifyou're driving up forty five where fourteen eighty

(01:05:57):
eight comes in from the left,you just turn right across the tracks and
you're there. You can take atrailer, take a pickup, get a
bulk amount of it. If youwant to load up on bags, you
can get it, and around towna number of our places carry their bags
as well. It doesn't matter whatkind of a mix you're looking for.
Nature's Way Resources has it, andthey've got they've got some great deals going

(01:06:19):
on. They've got a deal rightnow that if you tell them that you
heard about it on guarden Line,you're going to get a significant discount.
And this includes the soil, blends, the composts, the multius covers the
whole nine yards, and you needto don't forget to mention you heard about
them on guarden Line. Here's anumber nine three six three two one sixty

(01:06:42):
nine ninety nine three six three twoone sixty nine ninety They're open eight to
five Monday through Friday today eight amto two pm. Close tomorrow. So
here's your chance. Whatever you do, if you want to have success,
you've got to start with the soil. You may the soil right, and
that means organic matter, that meansdrainage, that means nutrients that the plants

(01:07:05):
need. You get that right,and it's gonna look, it's gonna make
everything. You got a green thumb, you just have an informed thumb,
an informed thumb that says, fixthe saw first for success with plants natures.
Will hope you do that. We'regonna take a little break here and
I will be right back if youwant to get on the boards. We've
got to open board here. Wo'dbe a good chance to get in without

(01:07:26):
having to wait seven one three twoone two kt r H. Hold all
right, folks, that's just alittle bit of a kickback remembering Randy Lemon.
That band is called the lemon Heads, And I know Simon and Garfuncle

(01:07:47):
did Missus Robinson, but like thatlittle upbeat version by the Lemonheads. Uh,
we fondly remember our friend Randy Lemon, who held this seat for many,
many years, just was an iconin the greater Houston area. I
know that I very beloved and reallyone of the reasons that Garden Line has

(01:08:10):
become the show that it's become,as through the many years of Randy's work
as well as the people that camebefore Randy. This this show has been
going on since the nineteen fifties.That is an unusual run for a gardening
show to be able to have.And I do not hold that lightly.
I promise you for sure. Weare going to now head straight out to

(01:08:30):
the phones. A segment, andwe're going to go to cot Road to
talk to Larry. Hello, Larry, Good morning. Skip. Last weekend,
you had a gentleman call in askingabout fast growing trees, and you
had a good explanation to maybe notget the fastest growing tree. But you
named three or four trees, andI was not in the position to where

(01:08:51):
I could make some notes on thosetrees. What did you recommend and also
where would you recommend getting them?Okay, you're talking about me naming trees
that you should plant that grow fast. Yes, we should plant. Yeah,
Well you said he was named somethingthat was going to grow six feet
a year or something, and yousaid, well, something that grows that

(01:09:13):
fast, it's gonna last very long. So well, grow fast, die
young, is the way I liketo put it. They folly about the
time you should have a beautiful treethat's of great value to the value of
your property. You're pulling them outto start over, and that's just a
huge, huge mistake. Okay,fast, right, trees that grow moderately
fast that if you've give them goodcare, will be very long lived as

(01:09:39):
well because the species is well adapted. Here not a lot of pest problems
and things would include red oaks.If you are in a very good,
well drained soil, shoe mard sh u m a r d schumard red
oak is a good one if youare in a soil that sometimes is a
little on the soggy side, notonly for soggy sauce, but this one

(01:10:01):
can take saggi sauce. Is thenut tall red oak n utta. I
think it's one L. I needto look that up. Nut tall n
u t t a L. Let'sjust say that's close. That one would
be a good one. The Chineseelm. Chinese elm has beautiful You've seen
these all around town. Especially theyput them in parking lots because they're so

(01:10:23):
tough, but you can put itin. It's got a kind of a
rusty colored and gray, splotchy bark. It breaks off in little chunks,
very thin, kind of like acrape myrtle doesn't have real thick bark.
It's smooth. This one is kindof like that, and it little flex
breakof and it's it's rusty and gray. It's very beautiful bark. So even

(01:10:45):
in the winter. I think it'sa pretty tree. Gross grows pretty fast
and spreads out really well, castsa life shade, which I like because
if you want to grow grass orother things underneath, it can do that,
but it's still a shade that willkeep you cool. Those are the
ones I remember talking about. I'mtrying to think what else I might have.
You mentioned an ash also, Ijust I remember something about an ash.

(01:11:09):
Yeah, green ash. There's onewe call Texas ash. That may
be a little hard to find onecalled that, but it's a it's more
of a native to this this region, the region be in Texas. Uh,
Texas ash or green ash are good. Arizona that was planted decades ago.
Is probably the worst trash tree wegot. Well, let's just say

(01:11:32):
it's in the top five. Butgreen ash is a decent tree for fast
growing and whatnot. Let's see,there's there's gonna be some other options.
They're just not hitting my head rightnow. You go to a where do
you recommend? I would where areLet's see, you're up in the Conroy

(01:11:53):
area. You're gonna yeah, they'regonna have some well, they're gonna have
some trees out there at A andA on the east side of Montgomery.
You could call them, say,what do you have and what can you
get and if they don't have anything, probably bring them in. Uh,
you know, if you're if you'rejust looking at a place that grows their
own trees up and they grow them. Oh gosh, where's the Renaissance Festival

(01:12:17):
Plannersville? Right right? Okay,all right area, But it's r CW
Nursery. That's where two forty nineand belt Way eight come together. And
they can bring in any of thequality trees they grow, and I know
they have not to all oak andread other quality trees, many types.
You could give them a call itRCW Nursery. They might even you know,

(01:12:39):
they may even you know, haveyou just go pick it up up
at the farm. I don't know, they may have you come down.
Probably have you come down to thegarden center to get it. Okay,
Going on on tree places of urdentree farms. Another good one. There's
one you know, I didn't askyou. I wish you mentioned something with
the b vernon Okay. I thinkthey have two or three locations. Yeah,

(01:13:02):
the one's closest to you is goingto be out there on Barker Cypress
on the west side of Houston,just a little north of Ien on Barker
Cypress. Okay, I appreciated thehuge tree. Yeah, sure, thanks
for calling. And boy, Ijust commend you for asking, because a

(01:13:23):
lot of people don't ask, andthen they call me when the trees got
all these problems, and it's betterto ask. Thank you. Sounds good
things, all right? Yeah,absolutely, we you know, now's the
time when we need to be doingwhat we need to do to have success
with our lawns. If you haven'tfertilized this summer, how about some Nelson

(01:13:45):
Slow and Easy. Slow and Easyby Nelson Plant Food is an outstanding fertilizer.
It's going to feed for like overthree months, even four months.
You're not gonna fertilize again until fall. Your fall application. When you put
on Slow and Easy, it isit is one that helps lower the pH
a little bit too up there atthe soul surfits. It's got that in

(01:14:05):
it, and it's got those thosechemistries that allow a gradual release of nitrogen
over time. Nutri Star line byNelson Plant Food things like the Hibscus and
flowering tropicals like the nutri Star forindoor plants. Many different nutri Star in
their color Star line and these arethese come in the low canisters or also
some of them by the bag aswell, and you they're widely available and

(01:14:29):
they're all excellent products by Nelson plantFood. Visiting with Dean the other day
talking about some of the new productsand some of the things going on there,
and they're always up to improving andcreating more new quality things there at
Nel some plant food. We're goingto head out now to College Station,
Texas and talk to Andrew. Hello, Andrew, Hey, good morning.

(01:14:51):
Got a question here. New tothe Brass Valley and uh, first time
in my life I've had mutographs,so I'm learning a little bit about it.
I know I can kind of basicallytreat it like San Augustine as sour
as the free and the feeding andeverything like that, and that's worked out
pretty well for me. Question though, is proper height to cut? I've

(01:15:12):
been keeping it a little bit higher, and I've heard some people say,
oh, you need to cut thestuff a little lower. Thoughts on the
height to keep bermuda at I'm assumingyou've got a Semidorf bermuda and that's I'm
about eighty five percent sure that's whatyou got in the lawn. If you
sow it at about two inches.That's probably a good height for it.

(01:15:36):
You can go lower, but yougot to mow more often for it to
look good. Bermuda grass, whenyou mow it regularly, it makes a
beautiful density. But if you letit grow and then cut it way back,
it's like you're cutting off the green, which tends to be at the
top of the grass plant, andthen you have all this brown, twiggy
stuff. It'll regreen, but itlooks bad when you've missed a mowing.

(01:15:59):
So you got to mow regular Theshorter you mow, the more often,
you know, and if you getreal short Josh Andrew, you're going to
be probably using a real type mower, one of those candy cane blades as
opposed to a propeller blade. That'swhat they do on the golf courses for
the top quality. Okay, perfect, I appreciate it. Thank you very

(01:16:23):
much. All Right, you takecare, good five folks. Here,
here we go. We're putting anotherone in this hour in the books.
I'll be back next hour, Josh. You'll be our first up when we
come back. In the meantime,I want to just leave you with remember
when it comes to successive plants isabout the soil. I remember to pick

(01:16:45):
things that want to grow. Yourplantam white and you can have successful.
Promise you from as green and we'llmake it greener by informing it on Guarden
Line. K t r H GardenLine does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line

(01:17:15):
with Skip Rict. It's just watchinga look back back to the garden Line.

(01:17:38):
We got some plant talk to dohere, so let's get going on
plant talking. Glad to have youwith us today, by the way,
looking forward to helping you have amore bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape.
Uh. You know one way youcan do that is by finding a
quality garden center. And and youknow that it makes all the difference in
the world. There are places ofI'll sell you a plant, and they'll

(01:18:00):
also sell you a hammer in atwo by four, and you know the
painting things and whatnot. When you'relooking at buying plants, you want to
buy them from a place that knowswhat they're talking about. And in Jenny
Gardens down in the Richmond Rosenberg areais a place like that. When you
go to in Chenne Gardens, youknow the plants are going to be in

(01:18:21):
top shape. They are going tobe species and varieties or cultivars that want
to grow here. You know thatpeople that wait on you, that come
talk to you are going to befriendly and they are going to be knowledgeable,
and they're going to help you havesuccess. Now in Jenny Gardens,
if you haven't been there, it'son FM three fifty nine. So if
you're in Richmond and you head towardKatie, that is the direction you want

(01:18:44):
to be FM three point fifty ninenorth of Richmond. Here's a website,
Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. It'san excellent website. You need to check
it out. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dotcom. It's an unforgettable experience to go
to visit their garden center. Theirselection of plants, trees and shrubs,
their knowledge it's just unmatched in theKaty area. And so all of you

(01:19:09):
that are looking for some special plants, some maybe some bling to go with
your garden, like a fountain,a chimes, a whimsical garden art.
They've got that and so much more. When you walk around there, plan
some time for your visit because itis a wide spread out, beautiful place

(01:19:29):
and it just like you just needtime to take it all in because there
is everything you possibly want. They'regoing to carry the fertilizers I talk about
on Guardline, They're going to carrythe soils I talk about on guard Line,
and the mulches I talk about ongarden Line. They're open Monday through
Saturday, eight to five on Sundayfrom ten am to four pm, so
you can get out there today andtomorrow as well and pick up some of

(01:19:53):
the things that will help you havesuccess. And one of the things you
pick up when you go to UnchantedGardens is quality, advice, ice and
instruction. If you got a problem, put it in a bag, bring
it in, take a picture ofwhatever, show it to them so they
can help you have success. They'vebeen doing that since nineteen ninety five when
the Lindermann family, uh, youknow, when in Chenny Gardens opened up.

(01:20:15):
It's a place that you do needto visit. And I'm telling you
people know and they take their friendsthere there. The other day and somebody
from Austin, Texas was over thereshopping because they'd heard about it and they
wanted to see it, and theirmouth was hanging wide open. That's the
effect that has on people. AllRight, you're listening to garden Line our
phone number seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four. We're going

(01:20:38):
to go out to Josh in SpringBranch, Texas and talk to Josh.
Hey. Welcome to garden Line,Josh, Hey, schipe. I appreciate
it. I got a question ona lat peliciana peach. When I planted
it, I was doing it basedoff of the you know, projected sigh
that w ten to twelve feet.There was a little fight up against my
fence because it's getting bigger than thoseranges that they indicated, And so I'm

(01:21:02):
serious on is it okay to justgive it a really hard pruiting and take
the whole tree back to some ofthe bigger branches and kind of regain its
size over the next couple of years. Or is that bad crudent practice for
a peach tree? Yeah? Good, good question, Josh. How big

(01:21:24):
did they tell you it was goingto get? I mean, I'm planning
it a couple of years ago,but I think the tag sent like ten
to twelve feet, and so Igave it kind of tick feet off of
my fences kind of. It's ina corner section in my yard. It's
starting to creep into the neighbor's yarda little bit. It's okay. They

(01:21:46):
they don't want free peaches, youknow, I told them. I told
them, if you guys ever needto prune it, go ahead. But
you know, I'm just serious.What's the best way to manage the Yeah,
sure, okay, So in goodgoing conditions, that can get big,
and that's for sure. I wouldn'thack it way back. That creates

(01:22:08):
a weak branch structure. But ifyou'll start with, let's just use the
limb going into your neighbor's yard.Come back from that limb to far enough
to where there's a side branch thatif you pruned it back just above that
side branch, that that would beacceptable. And what that's going to do
is it's going to stimulate new growth. Peaches produce on one year old wood,

(01:22:31):
meaning the shoots that are growing thisyear will fruit next year and then
they'll never fruit again. Branches thatcome off of those next year will fruit
the following year. So every timeyou prune back, if you can,
rather than just hack it off likethe end of a broom handle, find
a side shoot and cut it backto that. Like think of it as
a highway system where you're going toblock the highway, so you do it

(01:22:56):
just past an exit ramp. That'skind of what we're looking at visually on
these branches, and that is abetter way to prune. And as you
stay with that, you can keepit in bounds. But just remember there's
sometimes when you take a branch allthe way back to where it attaches off
the main scoffolds, and new brancheswill grow because you're always wanting to produce
new wood toward the inside of thetree. That's why we don't let stuff

(01:23:19):
go up in the top of thetree to shade out the interior. That
interior ought to be getting like sothat it can be fruitful. Yea,
all right, well, good luck. Hey. If you go to the
Aggie Horticulture website, it's Aggie hyphenHorticulture. I think there's a fruit and

(01:23:41):
nut button on the very front pageand if you click on that, there's
a whole publication dedicated to peaches andplums and how to prune them. And
so that may be also helpful foryou to take a look at all.
Right, thanks, Josh, Iappreciate the call. You bet take care.
You know, we talk about theimportance of getting a quality fertilizer down

(01:24:04):
in your garden, and I talkabout slow release products all the time because
they gradually release over time. Sweetgreen from nitrofoss is not slow release.
It will release, go ahead anddissolve and release away. But here's what
you do with sweet green. Sweetgreen is an organic type fertilizer that really
stimulates beneficial microbes because it's a molassesbased and organic gardeners have known for a

(01:24:28):
long time. Molasses stimulates the microbialactivity in the soil, being a carbon
source that those bugs. If youwill need in the soil, sweet green,
you just take the application of it. It's about ten percent nitrogen,
about eleven percent nitrogen. Cut itin half, put about five pounds on
now if you haven't fertilized in awhile, and then wait about six to

(01:24:49):
eight weeks up to two months,and then put the other five pounds on
and that spreads that release out overtime. You get much more even growth,
but you get sweet is a wonderful, wonderful fertilizer works well, wonderful
fragrance to it and it provides thatboost that your lawn needs. Just remember
when you apply it, let's spreadit out in a couple and you put

(01:25:10):
in three applications if you want it, but just a little bit over time
to help support that good growth.We're going to have to take a break
here for the news. Alan inBeytown, you will be the first when
we come right back. Welcome backto Guardline. Good to heavy with us.
We are here to talk about thethings that help you have a more

(01:25:31):
beautiful lawn, a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape. By the
way, if you want a beautifullandscape on day, who can do it?
And that is Peer Scapes. Yougot it. Let me just give
you their website first thing, becauseyou've got to go see it. I
can describe it, but when yousee it, it's like wow, pierscapes
dot com. That's easy, isn'tit. Peerscapes dot com. You can

(01:25:54):
go to peerscapes dot com. Seethe work they do. They do all
kinds of things at peer scapes.They will do irrigation work for you,
they will do drainage work for you. They can do hardscapes. You know,
like stone walkways and patios for example. They can do landscape lighting.
They can do quarterly bed maintenance.You know, come in. You just
go look these beds. I can'tget them. I can't keep them up.

(01:26:15):
They're not looking right. I wantyou to come in. I want
you to weed them, to fertilizethem. Check the irrigation, do any
trimming needed, put some malts down, change out the flowers season as seasonally,
you know, to do it twicea year, three times a year,
four times a year, whatever youwant, and have them come in
and do it with Peerscapes. Peerscapesdot com. That's the website. Here's
a phone number two eight one threeseven o five zero six zero Peerscapes.

(01:26:42):
We're going to go now out toBaytown and talk to Allen. Hello Ellen,
and welcome to Guardline. Good morning. My question is brand new home,
just moved in last week. Frontyard is in a pretty good shape.
I can deal with that backyard intoa blank canvas, sand and weeds.
But my main issue is I haveabout I could be underestimating over thousands

(01:27:06):
and thousands of snails everywhere. Ineed to get rid of one. I
mean, they love the rain we'vebeen having. If you get go ahead,
do you want to say about threeweeks ago and the first looked at

(01:27:28):
the place. I mean, theywere everywhere to being called this rain kit
even before barhited. But well theythey they love decaying organic matter of course,
moistures. They're happy with that.Uh. What you're going to need
to do is get some bait.That's the best way to approach it.
There are a number of products outthere that are snail and slug baits.

(01:27:53):
One of the more common ones iscalled slug O s l U g g
O. There's also a Slugo plus, a Slugo plus that also has spinosa.
By the way, Slugo is aniron an iron compound that causes a
terminal case of constipation and snails.Isn't that a pleasant? But Slugo plus,

(01:28:14):
as Spinos said, and the baitas well. Uh, and with
the Spino said, in the bait, it'll also get some other insects that
are out there as well. Butone of those two, there are other
slug baits. You know, yougo to an ACE hardware store. You've
got several ACE hardware stores there inthe Cypress area. One on Jones road.
You know, M and D isa low further north up in the

(01:28:35):
Cypress area. Just h just swingby there and sandy to snail bait and
they'll point you to it. Now, snall boat needs to be fresh,
so don't store it in an oldhot you know building behind the house.
Uh it. And you need toput it out in small quantities in several
different places because snails, you know, they don't run back and forth across

(01:28:58):
the yard. Uh. And justif it rains, dump it out and
get some fresh bait and put itin because it's important that the bait is
attractive to the snails, and oldbait, soggy baits and stuff are not
going to be attractive. Okay.I can do all over the picket fence,
everywhere, up and down the wallof the house. Yeah. Well,

(01:29:19):
it's only when they chewr plants thatthere are problems. You know,
it's not necessarily a problem. Youknow, they say, when life gives
you lemons, make lemonade. Haveyou ever heard of s cargo? Ah?
Yeah, I won't touch it,not on my plate. I don't
even know what kind of snails theymake that. Out of keeping that beat

(01:29:39):
attitude here on guard Line, Okay, thanks for your under control. Yeah,
advice is free sometimes the free advicemay be. And that's so sure
about that. All right, We'regoing to go now out to Cypress and
talk to Tom. Hello, Tommore, can you hear me? Okay,

(01:30:00):
we're sounding kind of okay, you'resounding front of you on this end,
but anyway, I'm yeah, that'sgood. Okay. I've bought some
cucumber seeds off a rack here thisspring and planted them, and they said
they were English cucumbers, said they'reboth less and long slender. But when

(01:30:24):
they when I grew some cucumbers,they're they're not like that at all.
They grow about almost completely spherical,and they get about five inches in diameter,
and I've never seen cucumbers like that. I like them. They're real
crisped and they taste good. Butcan you tell me what those are so
I can buy some next year?Or alternately, how would I treat my

(01:30:47):
seeds so that I can just savesome seeds and grow the next year.
Yeah. I don't know the nameof the variety you got, but there
are those kinds of cucumbers. Arethese by any chance to they are?
They kind of yellowish when they're stillright before they get all old and and
tough skinned, they do they turnyellow as opposed to No, they were

(01:31:11):
the only one to turn yellow runI was laid in the water and went
bad. But they stay kind oflight green and they're not They're not waxy
feeling. They just kind of adry skinned rather than like the ones you
buy in the store kind of Youknow what I do is there's some great
seed companies out there. This isgonna be an unusual thing that you don't

(01:31:32):
just buy at every garden center.I would probably do a search for round
cucumber seed seeds and places like ohgosh, h high chances would be Johnny's
Seed Company. It's up in Maine, but they have a huge selection of
stuff. Who else might have that. You might find something like that at

(01:31:53):
parks or Burpies one of those seedcompanies to get those seeds in. But
I do I do a search forit. Okay, Well, how about
saving the seeds and growing next year. I mean that's what people have done
for thousands of years. I guess, yeah, that should work if it's
not a hybrid. If it's ahybrid, then the offspring will be different

(01:32:14):
than mama, they'll be yea morereflecting the parentage, you know, up
the line. So you guys,if you like them, it's worth the
try. And you know, Imean, I don't know if you want
to become the next plant breeder inthe world. But you could always plant
a bunch and if some are around, some aren't, pull up all the
ones that aren't round and save theseeds on the one that are round.

(01:32:35):
You do that two or three timesand you probably end up with a pretty
stable seed seed. Yeah, butwhat's a good way to store them?
I mean, I've got a few. I just put them in a little
paper cup, put them in arefrigerator. But what's a good way to
save them so they're viable? Yeah, put them on the counter, let
them dry out completely. It's veryimportant to get all the water out of

(01:32:58):
the seed. Okay, several weekson the counter to do that. Then
put them in something that's air tight. It can be one of those little
containers that you put frozen food downwith the pop down lids, you know,
that are air tight. If youhave these little packets of the descont
that typically come in vitamins and electronics, you get those little packets to keep

(01:33:19):
moisture box. Throw those in therebecause they'll help with that. And then
refrigerator storage is fine. You shouldget several years out of cucumbers and stored
in the refrigerator. Just remember whenyou take it out, let it warm
to room temperature before you open itup. Otherwise it'll be like anything cold.
You pull out the refrigerator, youstart to get condensation on it,

(01:33:41):
and you just defeated. You're tryingto keep it dry. So let it
let it hit room temperature before youopen it up. Okay, Well,
I appreciate the information, and Ilike these things. I mean, slice
them in there. I call thema garden cookie. You know, they're
just really good at a refrigerator bya half an inch thick and they're five
inch diam cookie. So anyway,I appreciate it. Thanks. The last

(01:34:04):
thing you need to do is namethem Tom's softball cucumbers and uh then you
can you can be famous and sellthem like that. Yeah. Okay,
I thought you're going to say Ineed to bring you half of them,
but I could do that too.Oh my gosh, I am not doing
my duties. Absolutely, this soundskind of fast. About half of the

(01:34:25):
produce or two seeds. Either way, Well we'll call it even. Thanks
Tom, all right, well thanksto all right, bye bye bye.
That's good. I like that.Uh. You know, the ACE Hardware
stores are all over the Greater Houstonarea, and I was telling somebody earlier.
You know, it's go to ACEup in the Cypress area. You
know I mentioned too, that areright up there. You head down south

(01:34:45):
the Cypress and you got Langham Creek, you know, in the Barker Cypress
or the Copperfield area rather a hardware. There's forty eight hardware stores around Houston.
And when you go into ACE,you know you're going to find insecticite,
fertilizer, funge, your side herbicideto control weeds. You're going to
find all the tools you need.You're gonna find a lot of other products,

(01:35:06):
organic, synthetic. It's all thereat ACE, as well as folks
that'll greet you, smile and pointyou in the right direction. ACE Hardware
is the place. By the way, after this rain, fire ants will
be boiling up out of the ground. You'll see the mounds start to appear.
Get you your fire ant bait fromACE and be ready to go.
Treat them. Now's the time.After this rain, mosquitos will be breeding

(01:35:30):
and they will be everywhere. Getyour mosquito dunks and your mosquito repellents or
your fogers or whatever you need fromRace Hardware store Acehardware dot Com. Find
the store locator and you can findone of those forty stores close to you.
We are going to now head tosugar Land and talk to Johnny.
Hey, Johnny, welcome to gardenLine. I got about a minute before

(01:35:51):
I have to take a break here, but we'll hold you over if we
need to. Yes, So,miss h about side. I just pended
to pallets aside and with all thisrain, and then I had a tree
cut down in the backyard that theykind of trampled over the new slide.

(01:36:13):
Will that come back or do Ineed to pull out what's kind of all
dirt, no grass and reslotted.Yeah, Johnny, I'd give it a
chance. You may lift one.If it's kind of like crushed in,
you may lift it up, smootha swill line underneath it, and then
lay it back down. If it'salready got roots in the ground, just
leave it. I think, Yeah, it's been down, it's been down

(01:36:36):
eight weeks and well this was allgreen when I put it down, but
because of the shade, it kindof started going away. Well, hang
on, I'm gonna run. Ihave to run to a quick break.
If you want to stick around,we'll continue this discussion just a bit of
somewhere. I got the Boostky Brees, hang on back in the guard line.

(01:37:00):
Good to have you with us today. Hey, if you've been out
west to Katie, your West HoustonGarden center is Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens
outing Katie. It's just a hopskipping a jump outside of town. Here's
what you do. You head outof ten, you turn north on Katie
Fort Ben Road crossover and you're justright. It's right there on the right
hand side, easy to get to. Now you know, they're known for

(01:37:24):
the water garden. They're nationally knownfor their water gardens, disappearing fountains and
waterfalls and oh my gosh, allkinds of things. They'll come do it,
create that kind of thing at yourproperty, and believe me, it
is so wonderful to have the soundof water and the beauty on your property.
They'll help you if you don't doit yourself. They can provide you

(01:37:45):
some materials and guide you tell youa little bit about how you go about
it to do itself. You won'tdo that. They got the fish,
They got the water, plants andeverything else you need. By the way,
right now out there Nelson Water Gardenand Nursery. Don't forget that nurse
because they have a lot of greatplants. Their fruiting trees and shrubs are
half off fruiting. This is yourchance to get a really good deal on

(01:38:08):
some fruiting trees and shrubs. Specifically, the citrus is even a little over
a half off. Lots of varieties. They have a huge selection oft crius.
Last time I was out there,I was really impressed and surprised just
how much they had. Nelson WaterGarden and Nursery just north of itown on
Katie Fort Ben Road. Go toNelsonwatergardens dot com. You can find out

(01:38:29):
more information there. We're going tohead now to back to talk to Johnny
and sugar Land. Hello Johnny,Hello, how you doing. I'm the
one with the new slide that Ilaid down, and I just had a
tree cut down because they had somekind of bugs and it, so I
cut it down and then the newslide wasn't growing or sand green because too

(01:38:54):
much shade. But when they cutit down they trampled over it. Well
that's not good. So you know, all you can do is if in
this wet soil, if you gotsome divots and sunken areas and stuff,
you know, get that patched sothat it's nice and level, so your
lawnmowar doesn't feel like it's going overthe top of the rocky mountains when you

(01:39:16):
mow the lawn. But as faras the shade, I don't know how
much shade you have, and there'sno way you know on the radio to
communicate how much. But the warshade you get, the less sun energy
the grass gets, and the lesssun energy it gets, the slower it
is to recuperate to fill in toget thick, and so there's the trade

(01:39:40):
off. So more shade shade andmore shade less energy, less energy,
less energy. So that that's whyI didn't know if I needed Yeah,
I didn't know if I needed topull that thought out. That's just got
mainly a couple of twigs here andthere, and so I can rea sot
it. And it's probably a sixfoot by ten foot piece. Okay,

(01:40:04):
well, if it if it's true, if it's that bad, a couple
of twigs and a piece of side, you definitely got to pull it out.
You need some healthy grass, notnot more than a foot apart,
uh, in order for it tobe able to crawl back and close over,
you know by the end of thesummer. Right, That's what I
was afraid of. Yeah, soyou don't want to leave that because the

(01:40:26):
bear soil means you're gonna have weedssprout there. Yeah, you're gonna help
do that. But when you doit, even though it's been raining,
when you do it, put alittle application of water on twice a day,
because that's what I did for thefirst four week. Yeah. Yeah,
we still have to do it eventhough the soil is wet. Below
that, that little clay that hasn'twhat half inch or three quarters of an

(01:40:48):
inch or root grassroot, you gotto sustain that until it gets a root
down in the nice moist soil.So okay, all right, Well,
appreciate your help. Thank you somuch. You bet, Yeah, thanks
a lot, Johnny, appreciate that. Hey, if you want to give
us a call to ask a gardeningquestion. Seven one three two one two
kt R H seven one three twoone two k t RH. Well,

(01:41:13):
I don't have to tell you thatwe just went through two heck of a
storms over two million. Some peopleare saying up to three million homes without
power initially after Barrel and forty eighthours later, there's still a million people
without power. And this is notthe first time we've done this. People
are now interested in generators. Theygot our attention right. It matters where

(01:41:34):
you buy a generator, it mattersquality. Home Products of Texas has Generaic
generators, high quality generators right now. They got five hundred dollars off and
zero percent interest for eighteen months.Or if you've got a portable generator,
trade it in, just bring itin. They'll give you fifteen hundred dollars

(01:41:54):
for it, no matter what conditionit's in. Fifteen hundred dollars for no
portable generator. Now GENERAK. Thereason that I say you need to call
them is because of the service thatthey provide. Over fourteen thousand and five
star reviews. Listen, they've servedover seventy seven thousand homeowners that people go
there because of their reputation. Eighttimes they've won the most prestigious Customer Service

(01:42:17):
Award the Better Business Bureau gives.When you sign up their turnkey, they
take you from the beginning and pickingout the generator you need. They talk
with you. They discussing there's alot of factors and what kind of generator
do you need and what do weneed to do so that when the power
goes off it comes on twenty fourto seven three sixty five customer service.

(01:42:40):
It's just visiting with some of thefolks from Generak the other day and as
they began to spill their knowledge outabout all these details, like for example,
some places just come in and dropa lot thin slab on the generator,
plops down on it. There's noprotection from a lawnmower coming by and
bumping it. It's going to overtime. No, they pour a slab

(01:43:02):
steal reinforced slab that sticks out beyondthe generator to keep the lawnmower away.
So why am I going into that? That's just one example of how Quality
Home is different. I could giveyou one hundred examples of how they're different.
Qualitytx dot com is a website sevento one three Quality that's the phone

(01:43:23):
number everybody's interested in generators. Don'tdelay. We got a long hurricane season
coming, uh and so now it'syour chance to give them a call.
Quality home seven to one three quality. We're gonna now head out to Tomball,
Texas and talk to Amy. Amy. I got about a minute,
but let's see if we can getit done or need to hold it over

(01:43:43):
after the part. Okay, well, dond's freeing. I've got major mushroom
barb in my yard. Is thattelling me something's not in balanced by lawn?
Not at all. That's nature.Nature is happy. There is organic
matter underground, there is dead roots, there is thatch, there's all kinds
of things, and fungal organisms willgrow on that and then when the weather

(01:44:09):
gives a change, they pop upthese little mushrooms. That's their fruiting body.
Sometimes they're in circles in your yard. Sometimes they're just random here and
there. Don't worry about that.They're gonna go away. You don't even
need to do anything about them.That's just nature doing what nature does,
and that's taking organic matter and turningit back into quality soil. Okay,

(01:44:30):
great, thank you, you bet, thanks for the call. Appreciate you
call it. By the way,they are fine. If you've got a
golf club to go after them with, you don't have to get rid of
them. And that won't get ridof them, my god, think,
oh my gosh. All right,all right, maybe take care of there

(01:44:50):
in tom Ball. Appreciate, appreciateyour call. We're going to take a
little break here for the news paminLake City. Will you'll be first when
we come back. It's good tohave you with us today. I always
brag on our garden centers, ourquality independent garden centers here in the Greater
Houston area, and RCW is anexample of that. I was talking about

(01:45:11):
talking to someone just a minute agoabout getting a tree, and I was
saying, yeah, RCW. They'relocated where Tumball Parkway, which is how
we two forty nine for those ofyou new to the area, comes into
Beltway eight. But they have aplace of Plantersville where they grow trees and
they know the kinds of trees thatdo well here in Houston. They just

(01:45:32):
the quality of what they grow,the species they choose, and everything.
It's top notch. And RCW Nurseriesis the kind of place where you're always
going to go and find whatever kindof plant you're looking for do you need?
You know, there's during the seasonswe plant vegetables and things, herbs.
They've got that, the flowers,they've got that. Roses outstanding.

(01:45:54):
They have a huge selection of rosesright now that are on It's an excellent
sale. You know. RCW isone of the widest selections of roses you're
going to find anywhere they are.Go online to their website RCW nurseries dot
com and look at their roselist.It is long, and I mean long.

(01:46:15):
For example, right now they gotfifty percent off select roses in their
collection. There, fifteen percent offall trees, and fifty percent off the
Cajun hibiscus. And if you haven'tseen Cajun hibiscus, go to the garden
Line facebook page. I posted onefrom my yard just a while back,
just the other day. There it'sscroll down a ways, but you can

(01:46:35):
see what I'm talking about. CajunHibiscus corded fifty percent off beautiful beautiful plants
rcwnurseries dot com. Tomball Parkway atBELTWAA. They're open Monday through Saturday eight
to five. Sunday Tomorrow they'll beopen from ten am to five pm.
Take advantage of that. We're goingto head out now to the phones and

(01:46:58):
talk to Pam in Lake City.Hello, Pam, welcome the garden line.
Good morning. How are you.I'm well, Thank you? Okay,
So I have Saint Augustine grass inmy subdivision. Are our our water
drains down the side of our houses. So I've got quite quite a bit

(01:47:18):
of rain, you know, becausewe've had so much rain, I think
I have brown patch in my yard. I know we're not supposed to treat
that until fall. Can I treatthat now? Uh? Describe to me
what you're saying. Okay, Sothey are they are round patches of grass
that are turning brown round about howuh what's the diameter? Like three foot?

(01:47:46):
No, they're big, They're big. Okay? Are they are?
They kind of yellow around the edgesand brown towards the sun? Yes,
yes, okay, Well you mighthave it brown patch called large patch,
is a disease called riizoctnia, andthere's a several species of rhizoc Tonia that
can attack our Saint Augustine lawns.And in the summertime we usually have a

(01:48:11):
different species than we do in thefall, when it's cooler. But look,
we've had we've had some really mildweather lately for summer for this time
of the year, and so thatdoesn't surprise me. You could go ahead
and do a fungicide treatment on it. When you do that for brown patch
large patch kinds of things, youdon't fix the spots, but you prevent

(01:48:31):
additional infections. Okay, if it'syeah, if it's the brown patch,
the runners are still alive and it'llregrain and you've got time for it to
regreen, but you would go youwould go ahead and put that fungicide down.
Uh, And that way you kindof have a just it soaks into
the tissues of the of the grassand it provides that ongoing protection for it.

(01:48:58):
So for example, Microlife brown PatchMicrolife brown Patch would help. That
is not specifically a fungicide, butit's designed with microbially to create an environment
where the brown patch doesn't thrive.You know, I think once you see
the circles, it's hard to getanything to work really really well for that.

(01:49:23):
But I know night Fross has abrown patch control. They provide a
product called Eagle. Those are bothchemicals that fight it from an organic standpoint,
getting it to quit raining would benice because when it rains and rains,
it's just going to set us upfor diseases. We can't control that.
But aeration with compost stop dressing willbe very helpful. Microbially enriched fertilizers

(01:49:46):
done over time will be helpful.And the one that Microlife makes is called
Microlife brown Patch. I an exampleof that kind of thing, and it's
going to have again microbially things tohelp that because when you get down to
the plant level, there's a diseasethat's attacking the tissues, and you can
put microbes on there to make ita less hospitable place for the disease,

(01:50:11):
to out compute the disease, tocrowd out the disease and things, and
that would be the organic approach.But again, those we need to be
doing ahead of time in order tohave the best right, I just put
that on LATA. Okay, good, Well, you could do it now
if you had. When was thelast time you fertilized? Actually I'm getting

(01:50:31):
ready to do that. I'm winninga little bit behind, but I bought
the fertilizer yesterday. Well that's okay, perfectly, Okay, have you seen
my schedule online? Have you download. Yeah, I af through July.
I have a couple of days left. Well, don't worry about that.
That's when we want you to applyit, and we're just trying to not
apply it so close that when wedo fall fertilization. Now we got too

(01:50:55):
much. That's why I stop itin July. But don't worry about that.
You can do it now. Isthere fun Is there a funge of
side I should be putting on it? Also? Well, if you did
on my lawn pest disease and weedmanagement schedule, the fungicide that I would
recommend is a nitroposs the Total brownPatch Control, or you can use their

(01:51:15):
product called Eagle. But again,just okay, so that's going to prove
go ahead. I'm sorry. Iput that on on the fall. So
if I should, I just leavethe brown patch alone and put it on
again in the fall. That's anoption. If it quits raining and you

(01:51:38):
don't over water, she shouldn't watermore than once a week on that Uh,
it will start to regrain and youshould be then looking at it for
fall. If you want to stopit right now, you can put an
application on, but don't do itwhen you know within twelve hours it's going
to start raining. Okay, okay, okay, thank you so much.

(01:51:58):
Thanks you. I appreciate your callvery much. We're talking about products and
all this kind of stuff. Wherecan you find stuff? Well, I
tell you where you can find stuff. You can find stuff at Southwest Fertilizer.
And it's worth driving from anywhere toget there. Southwest Fertilizers on the
southwest side of town. There isnot a product fertilizer, pest control,
disease control, weed control that Irecommend that's not at Southwest Fertilizer, plus

(01:52:24):
many many more tools eighty foot wallof tools. They carry organic, they
carry synthetic, and they know whatthey're talking about. You bring them a
sample of a plant, you bringthem pictures of plants. What is this.
They'll put you in touch with theproduct. If one is needed,
that we'll control it. Southwest Fertilizerdot com. That's the website corner of

(01:52:44):
this nut and runaway. If you'venever been there, you need to go
just to see what I'm talking about. By the way, when you get
buy there, lest I drag ason will music is playing. They have
a thing called the folding knealing batchthat I think is outstanding. It'll change
your gardening life. I mean,I really mean that. Uh if you

(01:53:05):
sit on it as a bench andmove it around with you very lightweight,
and flip it upside down and youcan kneel on it and then what was
legs now or handles to get backup. When you're north of forty getting
up and down eight hundred times ona good saturday working in the yard,
you wake up in the pre natalposition next morning. What I'm talking about

(01:53:27):
talk about ask for that olding kneelingbench to take a look at, or
promise they become your favorite tool.Welcome to kzy Rh garden Line with Skip
Richard's pa. Just watch him aswelcome back to garden Line. Good to

(01:54:26):
have you with us this morning.We got plenty still to talk about here,
and I thank you for hanging aroundand listening in. How can we
help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, that's what
we're looking for. Earlier I wastalking about the importance of the microbial activity
that is down around the soul.We were talking about even with helping fight

(01:54:46):
disease and things, having the goodmicrobes there to help fight bad microbes.
There are many examples in nature ofinstances where that happens, and it's important
and Microlife has built their products aroundthat. When you by a Microlife product,
you're not just getting the numbers inthe bag. You're getting it chalk
full of all kinds of microbes,including microhizal fungi that grow in or around

(01:55:12):
the root and then reach out andbring food to the root. I need
a micro hizal fungi in my lifethat just kind of hangs out and goes
and gets me stuff out of thefridge. That's what I need anyway.
That's how microbes microhyzol can work.There are many other beneficial essential microbes that
are there, and whether it's theirstandard six y two four green bag kind
of the main one that we thinkof when we're thinking about lawn fertilizing or

(01:55:36):
the humans plus concentrated compost in abag, the zero zero four, those
products are all going to do that. There are many liquid blends. There
are the Ocean Harvest that is thisfish based product. There is a seaweed
based product. There is the Orangelabel that I use for my houseplants,
which is an excellent product for furlingis all kinds of things I use for

(01:55:59):
housebunfs. Go outside, when youplant a plant, drench the soil with
that product. You're going to getthe same good results from it. Microlife's
widely available. You're going to findit all kinds of places. For example,
if you're if you're up in theConroe Montgomery County area, certainly over
in the Montgomery area, well,Ana Plants and Produce carries microlife. You

(01:56:19):
know an A. You drive pastthem all the time. They're right there
on the on the north side ofone oh five, just on the Conro
side of Montgomery, Texas. Andwhen you go to A and A you're
going to find a nice selection ofeverything. Any fertilizer I talk about here,
anything you need to control diseases andweeds and pests in your lawn,

(01:56:40):
and an excellent selection of plants andsome really cool landscape bling from iron structures
you know, arches and so on, to chimeneas to put out there on
the patio to enjoy the evenings.Uh, just lots of stuff at Ana
Plants and Produce, including microlife.Bitch, they have an outstanding selection of

(01:57:01):
microlife right there. Ana Plants andproduce on the east side of Montgomery on
Highway one oh five, just northof the road. Stop in, say
hey to them, and always checkback because they are changing what they get
all the time. There's always newstuff coming in. There's always this time
of the year. You're gonna findsome really good deals on some really good
plants as well as good advice.We're going to head now out to let's

(01:57:27):
see, We're going to go toFriendswood and talk to Brian. Hello,
Brian, Hey, how are youtoday? I have thank you. I
have an issue with basket grass.And Okay, in small, small areas,
I can pick it up, butI have an area that is just
overrun. What can I do tokill it? When did you first notice

(01:57:53):
this? Is it something that's justgrown over the years, or did it
seem to almost here suddenly? What? Well, it came it came in
and then I kick most of itout, and then the neighbor's yard just
it grows from the neighbor's yard overand I let it grow. And it's

(01:58:15):
in an area doesn't get a wholelot of sunshine. M hmm, yeah,
and it just it just got tothe point where I can't pick all
of it out. Wow, okay, Well, there's not a great basket
grass is like wandering jew It's likethe tratiskenches and others. It's in that

(01:58:38):
group of plants that it kind ofdoesn't is not a grass, even though
it has that name. It's nota broad leave really, and trying to
find control for it is a littlebit of a challenge. Some people will
just use a extent, you know, a post emergent we control product that
kills everything, like a glafe ofstate like product, and the just kill

(01:59:00):
it all with the basket grass andall and then replant in that area.
That's an option, but it's amess and a lot of areas of the
country it gets out in the woods. It's very invasive, taking over state
parks and other things like that.And we certainly experience it here in the
Houston area. Like you're like,you're talking about I don't know a selective

(01:59:23):
herbicide for it. You might Isthis a huge area you said, not
just a small Oh it's probably tenfoot by two foot area. Oh,
okay, it's but it's slowly movingover. It's slowly moving over into my
Saint Augustine that it's taking it over. Yeah, well, and it can

(01:59:45):
do that. But a couple ofthings are happening there, Brian. The
low light levels are keeping Saint Augustinefor being strong and thick and dense and
everything like that. And so thatis part of the reason that basket grass,
which is willing to grow in thoselevels, is able to take over

(02:00:05):
when icy stuff from across the countrywhere it's more of a takeover nature out
in the wild than it is here. And they talk about hand removing,
I mean that is that's a job, but clearing all of it out as
much as you can, getting asmuch as the roots because it breaks off,
that is a legit way to goabout it. But the other would

(02:00:29):
be just to use a non selectiveherbicide product, knowing that whatever you get
it on it's going to kill it. There are there is another option where
you would use a granular pre emergentproduct like barricade to shut that down from
re sprouting from seed. But that'snot going to kill the existing plants that
you have. Okay, well,I will endeavor to kill it somehow.

(02:00:59):
Yeah, you know, I'm Thethings I'm telling you aren't good answers,
But there's not a good answer toit. And you look around the country
where they're trying to fight it,like I said, taking over a state
park or something, and they're giventhe same answers. You know, it's
basically I'll try some round duve d. Yeah, just be careful, try

(02:01:19):
to avoid getting it on the goodthings as much as you can. Uh.
And I think that's that's probably youryour best approach. You know.
There's there's one other thing and Ihave not Well, let me give you
one other thing to consider. Let'ssee, you're located up down and friends
with. There is a cinnamon basedproduct, agral On, and it's a

(02:01:43):
It comes in a little round canister, paper canister, and you sprinkle it
on weeds. First, the weedsneed to be wet so that the dust
sticks to the weed, but itjust fries the foliage of stuff down.
It works on doveweed. I knowthat that's kind of a similar issue that
we have, uh. And itmight work on basket grass. Off the

(02:02:04):
top of my head, I can'tpromise you that it would, but I
think you ought to look into thatand see because it if it would,
that would be a way that youcould sprinkle something that is not going to
kill your Saint Augustine, but wouldkill the weed. It's pretty good that
that agrolon is pretty good on ona lot of kinds of weeds. Not
cheap and you're buying little canisters,but a ten by two. Uh,

(02:02:27):
that that's very reasonable to use itfor that. Well, I will give
that a try to see if Ican find it somewhere. Okay, yeah,
all right, you take care ofThank you, thanks for the call.
Appreciate appreciate that. We're going tonow go to Spring Branch. Uh
And oh, I'm sorry, wegot to take a break. It's done
for another commercial HURDA. When wecome back, you'll be first up,

(02:02:49):
and David you'll be right after that. For this morning, I'm gonna you
remember that. All right. We'regoing to now go out to Spring Branch
and talk to her. Hello,Herta, Welcome to garden Line. Good
morning. Thank you. My questionsabout my cheffleua. It's almost five feet

(02:03:13):
tall. It's outside though nice Randyabout moving it in, and he said
I'd kill it. So that's howit is. This. No, it's
got about six stems. The leavesare yellow, and I don't know what

(02:03:33):
to do or give it or puton it. Yeah, something's wrong in
the roots that it could be aroot rot if it stayed too wet.
It could just be too wet sidethe soil. Something went on down there
in the roots system. I think, just you know, dig down.

(02:03:54):
You've had a long time, youknow how to take care of it,
so I don't need to tell youthat. But I dig down trying I
feel the soil. See if it'smoist a couple of two or three inches
below the surface. And if itis, don't water it again. Those
those plants can take a period ofdrying out, not extended drought. Little.
They do better if you let themdry out a little bit and then

(02:04:14):
get them overall with all this range. But the other thing, I have
some leaf mold compost will be goodto work that in around the top soil.
Oh yeah, you could, butin it's it's is it in a

(02:04:34):
container of the ground? I didn'tcatch that's the ground in the ground.
Oh okay, okay, all right, Yeah, you could work a little
bit of a leaf more compost,all right, A little bit of a
housepunt type fertilizer in the ground aroundit. That would be another good choice.

(02:04:55):
What you need to do is youneed to find somebody to come over
there and stand with an umbrella overthe plant every time it rains. That's
the last thing to do. Well, keep this is too much water for
that thing, that's the problem.Oh listen. Well, I didn't have

(02:05:15):
it as bad as some motive sectionsdid, but it poured and for a
long long time. I guess that'sthe problem. Good, well, good
luck with it, Hurda. Thankyou for calling. Appreciate it well,
thank you for being there. Byebye, all right, you take care,
bye bye. I talk all thetime about the importance of preparing the

(02:05:40):
soil, preparing this oil. SiennaMaltch is south of Houston. C Maltch
is down south. They're near ourhighway six and two eighty eight are Ff.
The actual road is FM five twentyone, just north of road Sharon.
Let me give you the website SiennaWaltz dot com. There you'll find
out how to get there, howto call them, all that kind of
stuff. Us know this that ifyou're anywhere in that region like ro Sharon,

(02:06:03):
Meridian, First Colony, Lake Olympia, or maybe Fresno, Quilla Valley,
Sweetwater, Pearland, do you getwhat I'm talking about in your Brizespen
State Park, Sandy Point or Cola, Iowa Colony. This is your local
multch and soil provider and they havequality composts. They have veggiean herb mix
from Maryland Soils for example. They'vegot quality mulches as well, bulk by

(02:06:25):
the bag. They deliver within abouttwenty miles if you need a bulk delivery.
They're open Monday through Friday seven thirtyto five and Saturday from seven thirty
to two. And people that knowquality soils go to Siena Mulch. You
know we I was just talking tothe other day about B and D Turk
Pros super high quality compost top dressingaeration company. They get their stuff from

(02:06:46):
Cienamulch because they know Siena Multch meansquality stuff. And what is the most
important thing we do for success withplants. Prepare the soil brown stuff before
greens. When you go to Cienamaltch, you get everything for the brown stuff.
That includes the compass. It includesall the fertilizers I talk about on

(02:07:08):
guardline. They're all there. Whenyou drive off from Ciena malt you have
everything you need to make a foundationfor success. I don't care if you're
growing vegetables, herbs, fruit,flowers, you name it. They've got
it at cnamals cianamalts dot com.I'm going to head now out to Cleveland
to talk to David. Hello,David, Hey, Skip, good morning.

(02:07:31):
I have a question about tomatoes.I lost all my tomatoes in the
hurricane. Is there something I canplant? Some type of tomato I can
plant that I can have time toproduce some tomatoes yet this year? Yeah,

(02:07:53):
there are a number of varieties.But here's the important thing, more
important than just the name of thevariety of right now is how many days
to harvest is it? And youcan go online and you can learn that
celebrity is a pretty good one prettyfast. There's some that are a little
faster, but ex actually what I'mex actually what I like to grow a
celebrity, Yeah, celebrity. Somelike brandywine, maybe seventy eight to eighty

(02:08:20):
days. Now you may think,well, that's just a little over a
week past celebrity, but not whenyou get in the fall and it starts
to cool off, because then seventyeight to eight it may take it ninety
days before it reaches because it coolsoff too much. So find the fastest
tomatoes you can plant, get themin the ground, and you have the
both best success and it's still okayto plant celebrity in your area. Okay,

(02:08:45):
the garden center is out in thisarea, like in Kingwood or whatever
are they would they still have plantsin stock? Maybe? I think they
would. I'd call Warren Southern Gardensor Kingwood Garden Center, see what they
have. This is the time ofyear when there are not a lot of
people showing up going hey, Iwant tomato plans. There are some,

(02:09:07):
but not a lot, and sothat's why you don't see them widely available
now like you would in the spring. But I would try those and see
what they have that that would beyour best bet out in your area.
Already. I appreciate it very much, sir, Hi, good luck,
and if you have success, justremember, bring half half your tomatoes to

(02:09:28):
the K T R H studio dropthem off and as long as you as
long as you like a good spaghettisauce, I'll do it. I can
do that. Take care, baby, take care. Oh my goodness.
Uh, let's see, we're goingto go down to Cleveland and nope,
No, we just did Cleveland.We're going to go to Champions and talk

(02:09:50):
to Ruben. Hello Ruben, Hello, good morning, Skip, good morning,
Welcome to garden Line. I gota question, so I'm looking do
you recommend any dense shade plants forour area, in particular here in Houston.
Yeah. Absolutely, It depends onwhat kind of plants you want.

(02:10:13):
If you're looking at a groundcover,there's nothing to shade more tolerant than monkey
grass or mondo grass, mondo turf. It's very, very shade tolerant.
The ast that grass is kind ofa it looks like a white and green
stripe ariopy that does really well.And in deep shade, that white really

(02:10:35):
lightens up the area well, causeattention to it. Lariope would do good
there. If you're looking for flowers, impatients, kalladiums and wishbone flower are
three examples. Uh, they needsome decent amount of light, but they
don't need direct sun in order toperform well. And then of course there's

(02:10:56):
shrubs and that grow in that area, but those would be a few off
the top of my head ideas.Okay, I appreciate it. Add ferns
to the mixt if you can keepit moist down in there. Cast iron
plants. Another one cast iron plantgrows in a lot of shade, and
it is a tough plant. That'swhy it has that name. Uh it's

(02:11:18):
taller than the groundcover. But wekind of lump it into that group.
All right, already, I appreciateit, all right, you take care,
appreciate your appreciate your call very much. Thank you. Let's see where
are we here? Okay, wegot time to go to another call.
We're going to go to Scott inMontgomery. Hello, Scott, Hey,

(02:11:39):
good morning, sir. I'm well, how can we help today? I'm
doing that. How can we helptoday? Hang on one second, I
turned off my speaker. One question. In the past, I've called you
about my Myer's lemonry. You tellme about some of my think micro life
for my proditional limit. I've gotfive good lemons are coming up. But

(02:12:01):
forgot the name of the dog onit. Didn't write it down for the
micro heard a lot of that,and then I'm questioning about mushroom popping off
everybody's jar with all this water,right, okay, Well, for the
for the myr lemon you're in Montgomery. You need to go out to the
east side of town to a NAPlants and produce, Yes, sir,

(02:12:22):
they carry They carry every fertilizer Italk about on the garden line, including
the microlife products that would be forlike fruit and centrius type things. Now
you can use the microlife's on there. You can use any of them all.
But that that was where I wouldgo to an A Plants and produce
to get that. I don't soundlike the plants. The mushrooms are just

(02:12:46):
part of nature. When we oftensee mushrooms, like when we get into
fall and we get a little coolfront come through in some rain, mushrooms
will pop everywhere and it's just everywhereout here. Yeah, well there aren't
hurting anything. Uh and and sowe have fourteen rain out here in the

(02:13:07):
past since this past they lose.That's a lot of lot of brother vegetable
garden. Turn your vegetable garden intoa rice paddy. It sounds like out
there, ye know, my sprinklerare all sprinkler are all. Yeah,
Well that's a good thing. You'redoing the right thing there and all you're
up against some break. You havea great day, so you can't you

(02:13:28):
have a great day, sir,God bless you by bye. All right,
you take care. Don't don't worryabout those mushrooms. If you have
mushrooms, here's my recommendations. A. Don't worry about them. B.
Find a golf club and have somefun. Uh see, Remember that what
they are is there the fruiting bodyof something that was growing underground, and

(02:13:50):
is there all the time right nowin your yard. If you don't see
a single mushroom, there are fungiliving in the decaying organic matter on top
of and underground, and when theweather is right, you get these things
popping up. And there are manykinds of hundreds and hundreds of kinds of
mushrooms we can have around our landscape. That's part of how nature turns organic

(02:14:11):
matter into soil. Think about aforest. It's been there for one hundred
thousands of years. You think aboutthat, and how does that not be
two miles deep in tree trunks.You can thank fungi for that. We'll
be right back than you are.Old Houston's News, Why there are traffic

(02:14:33):
plus freaking news twenty four to seven. This is US Radio seven forty KTRH
five everywhere. Boyd the IRP.More of what's happening now from the John
Morris Services Studios. A new firechief for the city. I'm Jarre at
Lewis six nine thirty on news radioseven forty KRH with traffic and weather together.
Here's Gary Macks perfectly so in theright lane of the sixteen sand Flupe

(02:14:56):
you spanund A forty five the GoldFreeway and a couple of crashes too.
Back to it in the Katie Freewayin the Manage lanes again westbound, affecting
travel on the connector to the WestSand Houston Tollway. Doctor Bob in Spring,
Hello Bob, Welcome to garden.Morning. Hi. I garden and

(02:15:20):
squirrels are getting in it, andbirds and whatever. So then I put
plastic pipe and hoops and put downchicken ware on those and they close the
thing. And everything I planted inthere is being eating tomatoes, squash,
you know, you name it.They eat the bugs off before it ever

(02:15:41):
gets to grow. I was wonderingwhat kind of critters I might be galing
north on how to get rid ofthem. So what you're seeing now is
just the loss of buds or areyou seeing the leaves eating off? Uh?
It's more of the buds. Okay, well tomatoes une. Yeah,

(02:16:05):
tomatoes will abort their buds for differentreasons if they hit the bloom stage.
The temperatures that we typically experience inlate spring through summer, basically summer temperatures,
it's too hot from set fruit andthey just fall those buds fall off.
Other stresses can cause a boarding ofthe buds, but I think probably

(02:16:28):
temperatures that. Now on the onthe squashing things, I can't think of
anything that would eat a bud offof a squash plant because well they don't
they don't have buds per se.They they either have a little baby squash
that hadn't opened the flower and beenpollinated yet, or have a male flower.

(02:16:50):
Uh. And so you got tohave both of those to get pollinated.
Sometimes we see rots that occur onthe belly button end of those little
baby squash that haven't already started togrow yet or even after they start to
grow, and that's a disease,fungal disease brought on by wet conditions,
uh to water it too much,uh yeah, splashing rain typically and the

(02:17:16):
kind of temperatures that we have,the warm, muggy, warm temperatures.
The disease is called chow an offeror rot and but the only way to
most people ignore it. They pickoff the little whiskery rotting squashes and throw
them away somewhere and go on.And when the temperature, when the rain
and stuff stopped, then you startgetting regular squashed. You can spray for

(02:17:39):
it ahead of time, but mostgardeners don't want to apply fungicides all the
time just in case it might showup. So fungicide, okay, that
kind of stuff, if you gotit on ahead of time, Like well,
yeah, I'm saying, most peopleignore it, just pick off the

(02:18:00):
loss and go on. But ifyou want to spray right when it quits
raining, you got to spray afund side on on the squash fruit down
at the base there, so thatwhen the disease tries to infect in those
wet conditions, it protects it.If you do it before the rain,
it just washes off what you sprayed. Okay, yeah, you know there's

(02:18:22):
a well other things replaying in there, you know, just something's eating all
the buds off of all sorts ofstuff. Well, you know what,
could you send me some pictures ofthe thing, because a general like things
aren't a budget get eaten. Ifthey're truly being eaten, it's probably a

(02:18:43):
caterpillar, but it could be abeetle, it could be a grasshopper,
it could be a slug or asnail, but probably a caterpillar. But
if you'll send me some pictures upclose of what you're seeing, I'm going
to put you on hold and haveNick pick up the phone and give you
an email to send pictures to.I'll take a look at them and see

(02:19:03):
what I might be missing. Butthat's pretty much, Bob, what I'm
able to tell you. Now,just hang on just for a second.
We're going to get you here onhold. For those of you up in
the Tombol area, you're looking fora feed store, and it's out west
of Tombald twenty nine to twenty.There's a lot of new neighborhoods going in
out there. D and De Feedis your hometown feed store. You're going

(02:19:26):
to find Nitropos fertilizers there. They'regoing to have things like sweet Green that
you heard me talk about, orsuper Turf or the Imperial and a lot
of other things. They're gonna havethe barricade. They're going to also have
things like leaf moore compost and heirloomrose soil, and fruit and berry and
citrus mixes, and veggie and herbmixes from heirloom soils. They're going to

(02:19:48):
carry the microlife products pretty much whatyou would need for your garden. You're
going to find it. D andDE Feed. Their phone number is two
eight one three five one seventy oneforty four. When you're in there,
you hear me talk about snail bait. Earlier I talked about you know,
we're talking about all funge asides forthis last call. All of that at

(02:20:09):
D and D Feed. They're westof tombul on twenty nine to twenty,
just a little bit out of townthere on the left hand side. You
need to stop in. They havea selection of plants from time to time
out front and it's just a greatplace to shop and they treat you right.
That's really really important. I wantto head out now to Huffman,
Texas. We're going to talk toJerry. Hello, Jerry, Hey,

(02:20:31):
how you doing. I'm good sir. How can we help? Well,
you were talking about mushrooms and wegot a bunch of them goes up in
my yard and my wife She saysthat the person I said, they'll kill
my little dog if you eat some. And I want to know from you,
what do you think. I thinkyou ought to call a bet about

(02:20:54):
that, to be honest, becauseI'm not an expert. Some mushrooms are
poisonous, not all. Uh.Some just taste the bad things, don't
eat them. Uh. But youknow the problem is, there's ten bazillion
different types of fungi mushrooms out therein the environment, and it's hard to
paint with a brush, you know, as to as to what will happen.

(02:21:16):
But that could help you. Yeah, I understand that. Well,
what you could do is the minuteone pops up, just go break it
off, get rid of it.Uh. And after this weather pattern passes,
you shouldn't see as many until weget to fall and have some cool
weather in a rain and rain comesback. Odd mane Well, I'll call

(02:21:37):
the big neck Jim and then probablytell me the same thing. Take some
picture. Some say, I don'tknow how to do that, odd bro?
Thanks, okay, good well,well, I just yeah, it's
just there's so many kinds of mushrooms, you know, Jerry. Uh.
They there are people that go outin the woods and they find ushrooms to

(02:22:00):
eat, and they have to beable to know the difference between poisonous and
not poisonous. And there's a sayingthat there that when people get out there
and they start picking things and tryingthem and they don't know what they are,
it may be okay or it maynot be. They say, there's
old mushroom hunters, and there's boldmushroom hunters, but there aren't any old

(02:22:22):
bold mushroom hunters. You see whatI'm saying. So you got to be
careful with that as you're doing allyou bet absolutely, Hey, thank you
for the call. All right,folks, we're going to go to break
here if you like the number sevenone three two one two kt r A
a beautiful, bountiful garden and landscape. That is the goal. And you

(02:22:46):
know we I say on garden lineall the time, there's no such thing
as brown thumbs. There's uninformed thumbs. And our goal here is to inform
your thumb and you can watch itturn green when you have the facts.
When you know how to plant,when you know how to start with the
soil, remember, and you knowhow to pick good plants, and you
know basically the simple things that plantsneed to have success. You just get

(02:23:09):
greener and greener in that thumb,it just gets better and better. That's
why we're That's why we're here.That's what we're trying to do because gardening
is a fun hobby. It oughtto be enjoyable. Some people say,
I tried gardening and I failed.No, you didn't fail. You quit.
We all have times who fail.One of the most well known horticulturists
in the country from the over eastof here in North Carolina direction. He

(02:23:33):
said, to be a good horticulturist, she got to kill a lot of
plants. And I would agree withthat. That's how that's part of how
we learn. And sometimes nature throwsus a curve. But you don't fail,
you just quit. So don't quit. We can help you have success.
Give us call seven one three,two one two fifty eight seventy four
and we can help you do justthat. Now you've heard me talk about

(02:23:56):
ACE Hardware stores before. Ace Hardwareis all over the Southeast Texas area.
In factor, in the Greater Houstonarea, there's forty Ace Hardware stores.
It's really easy. You just goto the website Acehardware Dot com find the
store locator, it'll well know,can I use where you are and say
yes, and it'll give it toyou. Or you can type in a

(02:24:16):
zip code or something and it'll showyou all the stores around you. And
ACE Hardware is where you're going tofind every fertilizer I talk about on guard
Line. It's where you're going tofind the pest, disease and weed management,
whether it's organic or synthetic. Onguard Line, where you're going to
find tools, where you're gonna findeverything you want to make that outdoor area
enjoyable. Quality barbecue companies like BigGreen Egg and Treyger and Weber and others.

(02:24:43):
There's all kinds of equipment to gowith that. There's everything to make
that outdoor sitting area wonderful, includingright now then rain and right what does
that mean? Two things. Mosquitosare on their way. It doesn't take
them long, just a few daysand next thing you know, you got
to new crop and fire ance.They'll pop up out of the ground.

(02:25:03):
When you see this kind of rain. What you didn't even know you had
a colony underground and all of asudden, here comes the soil up high.
As they're building up above the waterto come up. ACE can cover
it. Get a good quality bait. Start with a bait for fire ants
from ACE, and you can shutthose things down. You just put a
sprinkle here and there. There's syntheticbaits and organic baits, but even the

(02:25:26):
synthetics, you're putting so little productout and it's such a low level.
It didn't if it was strong insex sight, it would kill the ant
that picked it up and it wouldnever make it back to the colony.
But it's a very slow, gradualacting shut that queen down. Shut things
down. ACE has got that.Ace also has mosquita dunks to put in
water to stop the mosquito larva fromturning into adults. ACE has got foggers.

(02:25:52):
Ace has got you know, anykind of repellent. They have it
all. Ace is a place makesyour outdoor area even more enjoyable, and
with forty stores, it's not hardto find one near you. So those
mosquito dunks are an important one.You know. Though some people have asked
me, well will that hurt birdsand fish? And no, no,

(02:26:13):
and no, it won't hurt yourpets. It won't hurt the birds,
it won't hit the fish. Itwon't hurt a grasshopper, it won't hurt
a ladybug. The reason is it'sa disease of mosquito larvae. So you
can relax, you can rest assured. Throw it up in an old hollow
tree area where it stands in water. That's where mosquitoes are breeding. Toss

(02:26:33):
them up in that gutter that's hanginga little low. You haven't fixed yet,
where water stands, mosquitoes are breeding. Put them underneath the catch bases.
Put them in your bird bath.I mean, wherever you got a
little pond that doesn't drain well,back in the area it's poorly drained soil,
throw some mosquito dunks or some breakthem up into granules and throw them

(02:26:54):
in there, and you will shutit down. It's a great product.
I mean, there are very fewproducts that are safe as mosquita dunks.
We're going to head now out toMemorial and talk to a Lane. Hello,
Elaine, Welcome to garden Line.Good mornings, Good good morning,
good morning. You probably have apretty simple answer to this question. But
we lost two trees and had thestumps ground. They were able to evacuate

(02:27:20):
most all the sawdust. So nowwe're just left with two piles of yard
dirt. So is there any isthere any best use of that? Well,
you can do a number of thingsto it. If it were mine,
I don't know's If it's mostly chips, I would probably use it as

(02:27:43):
a mulch in beds and things.It'll decompose away and do that. If
it's got a lot of soil init, you could pot it up and
let it decompose and you would endup with a really rich soilmex that could
be used in a lot of placesaround the landscape. If you don't want
to see it sitting there and don'thave a place to put it like that,
then you can also try to filterout some of the chips and just

(02:28:09):
get the soil out of it.It depends on how much trouble you want
to go to a lane. Tellwhat I did is I built a little
I took two by fours and madea little frame that sits on top of
my wheelbarrow. So a picture acapital letter H, except two bars in
the middle instead of one, andthey're separated. So those long ends sit

(02:28:33):
on the sides of the wheelbarrow andthe box is inside. And I put
a half inch hardware cloth underneath it. That's the stuff they put underneath the
rabbit cage for the rabbits to hoparound on. Half inch and I'll use
it to screen compost. I'll useit to screen. I think you could
put those chips in there. Youset them in. You just take shovelfuls
of it, shake it around andthen dump the stuff out of the screen.

(02:28:58):
That's all wood chips, and youcan use it around your landscape and
then the soil you've sifted out.So there's a lot of options depending on
how much trouble you want to goto. But that is it's probably good
soil, and it's certainly a goodmulching top material. Well, we have
some low spots in the landscaping wherewe've lost trees before and the soil keeps

(02:29:22):
thinking and so we could also usethat as a fill and periodically, right
you could, Yes, you could. The problem is that any fill as
it decomposes is going to sink downagain, and that's where screening out the
chips and using just the soil wouldbe better. And if you use both

(02:29:43):
of them, I would pile itup like a picture's mound in a low
area so now it's a high area, and let's say six inches high,
because it's going to settle down andthen it'll be more level when it's all
said and done, right right,Okay, Yeah, it just you know,
it really comes down to a lane. How much? Yeah, well

(02:30:05):
it comes You said it was goingto be simple, and I made it
complex. But it all comes downto how much wood, what percent would
what percent soil is in that pile? If it's fifty fifty, pretty good
at getting all the wood out,wood chips. I can't even tell you
that there are wood chips in there? They have, is it? And

(02:30:26):
they were they were the vacuum wassucking up all the sawdust as they ground.
Okay, so really pretty much whatwere left with is yard soil.
All right, Well, there yougo. That's that's what I would do
with it. I still would pileit a little higher than level, because
anytime you dig up soil and loosenit, then it sinks down. It

(02:30:50):
settles, of course, and soeven if this was one hundred percent soil,
I would make it just two orthree inches higher because it is going
to settle in. All right,Well, thank you so much, skimp,
all right, thank you Elene.I appreciate the call very much.
All Right, folks, well weare out of time here today, not

(02:31:13):
time to take another call. Ido want to remind you of a few
things coming up On Saturday, Augusttenth. A group called Obahba Organic Horticulture
Benefits Alliance is going to have theirbig annual event. And this is quite
the shindig that's the official term forit, shindig Oba Palooza. Doesn't that

(02:31:37):
sound like a shindig Oba palues.This is a third annual one. It's
an organic fair and workshop. It'llbe Saturday, August tenth from eight am
to three point thirty pm. It'llgo all day. They're going to have
all kinds of excellent speakers there.Brad Phillips and Arborist will be there.
Doctor Mila McManus very into understanding healthand our bodies and how what we eat

(02:32:01):
affects us Chaz Doughdary. Doctor JoeNovak. Doctor Novak, he was my
vegetable professor when I went through aand m Neither Joe or I'll talk about
how long ago that was. Butdoctor Novak will be there. You will
not find anyone that knows more aboutorganic Gardening and Vegetables and doctor Novak,
Glenn Ols and Diana Liga, JohnFerguson from Nature's Way Resources. The Man

(02:32:24):
himself will be there, Brianna Burnsand Diana Wilson, Mike Saram from micro
Life Fertilizer, Aaron Mills, ChrisChristy Doolan. I don't have time to
go into all these Justin Duncan DoctorMoore, borden Brugen. I can't say
borden Brugen. H he is theexpert on eating wild things. What can

(02:32:46):
you eat that is in nature?You know? How do you? He's
got a website. Oh gosh,it's outstanding. You got to go hear
the guy. He's very entertaining,extremely knowledgeable. The w W two headliners,
three different concurrent sessions. I meanthere's going to be education, education
and education on organics. Lots ofopportunities to network. Obapalooza at the Greater

(02:33:11):
Houston United Way on WAW Drive,Saturday, August tenth, from eight am
to three point thirty pm. Goto obaonline dot org for tickets