Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome
to kt r H Garden Line with skip Rickard's.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Trip just watch him as so many things to see.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Black Bay not a sign. Well, good morning, welcome to
garden Line, and first of all, congratulations, even if you
(00:48):
only have one eye opening, a cup of coffee in
your hand trying to get the other one hoping you're here,
We're glad to have you with us this morning, and
we are going to be talking about gardening like we
always do. If you would like to be part of
the show and maybe ask a question, well here's how
you do it. Seven to one to three, two to
one two kt r H. Seven to one three two
(01:11):
one two kt r H. I want to visit about
a number of different things today, some things that are
kind of different than what I generally talk about on Guardline,
but still gardening related topics, and certainly we'll have your
calls to talk about the things that you are interested in.
We're kind of hitting that time where we're officially transitioning
(01:35):
our seasons according to the temperature outside. You know, I've
been telling you that don't pay attention to the calendar
or to the temperature. Pay attention to the calendar, because
summer drags on here and then we seem to be
getting fall, and then we have another week of summer
again temperature wise, but we have to do things according
to the calendar, because there's such a thing as average
(01:56):
frost dates average freeze dates, and those are based on
basically about ten twenty years more like twenty years of
data by the Weather Service, saying, okay, on average, this
is when the first frost of fall occurs, and then
on average, this is when the first frosts of freeze
freeze of fall occurs. My mouth still hadn't woken up
(02:19):
fully yet, so bear with me. And when we're planting things,
if it's a warm season plant, well it's not built
to take frosts and freezes. And if it's a cool
season plant, it's not built to take blazing heat either
most cases. But we have to plant according to that
and when those dates are coming, we need to start
watching for them. Now, average can be a misleading word,
(02:42):
you know. I had a years ago a caller came
in and said they wanted to know, what when is
the first frost going to be this year, and worded
that way, it's like, who knows, I don't have a
gardening crystal ball. Because average just means average. We could
(03:03):
have a frost a month earlier, we could have a
frost not until a month later. And that's an exaggeration
a little bit. But in general, average just means, you know,
kind of what's in the middle of all the things
that could happen. And I realize I'm not going to
get For those of you who are mathematicians, I understand mean, median, mode, average,
all those different ways to say in the same thing.
(03:24):
But you know what I'm talking about. So what does
average mean? Well, I like to say average is just
a guide and it basically means nothing. Why do I
say that, Well, if you put one foot in boiling
water and one foot in ice water on average, you're comfortable.
You see what I'm saying. In other words, average is
just somewhere in the middle that we look at. So
(03:44):
if you are looking at your garden and you're looking
at the dates for your area as to when the
average frost dates would occur, you want to always air
a little bit on the side of being conservative with it,
because it could come a little bit earlier than normal. Now,
I've put together some stuff that is online on my
website at Gardening with Skip dot Com. Fact I'll mention
(04:07):
this later in the show if I remember it, and
it is the frost and Freeze publication that I put out.
It's one that I did with one of the inn
M horticulture specialists several years ago. But it's protecting landscape
plants and gardens from frosts and freezes, and it goes
into the whole nine yards. If you want to nerd
(04:28):
out on the science of frosts and freezes, there's information
in there about that. But if you just want the basics,
like Okay, what do I do with my citrus tree
it's going to be twenty two degrees tonight? It helps
you with what to do about those kind of things too,
But that's on the website Gardening with Skip dot com.
Gardening with Skip dot Com. One time, when I was
(04:54):
in Conroe, this is many years ago, as a horticulture agent.
There a newspaper call and they were asking me about
frost and freezes. And I can't remember the conversation, but
I think I said something about, well, the average free
state for our area is such and such and and
we were talking in the newspaper when this story hit.
(05:14):
It said county horticultureist says the first freeze this year
will be on and it gave a date, and I
was like, I like, no, I didn't say that, And
I spent two weeks trying to tell everyone I knew
that I didn't say that. That was misprinted. On that day,
(05:35):
there was a freeze and it was the It was
the first one for the year, of the last one,
I can't remember which which it was. And if I
just kept my mouth shut, I would have sounded like
some savant, some what you know, predictor of the profit
of the future whatever. But that was so funny, because yeah,
I didn't say that, but boy, if I had kept
(05:56):
my mouth shut, it's sure what it looked good anyway.
Number seven one three two one two k t r
H seven one three two one two k t r H.
The folks at Nelson have created this fertilizer and we'd
control called carbo load. Carbo load, What an interesting name.
Why does it? Why is it called carbo load? Well,
(06:17):
because in the fall, your turf grass takes up nutrients
and especially needs potassium that's the third number on the bag.
It doesn't need a lot of nitrogen. You don't want
to push it into growth when we're entering the cold season.
But it needs a little bit because nitrogen and potassium
are taken up together. Okay, that's the end of the
nerd alert section here. But carbo load goes. The nutrients
(06:40):
go into the grass plant. The sun shines on the leaves,
which it's doing now, and the grass produces carbohydrates and
carbohydrates or sugars that help prevent the grass from freezing.
They protect the tissue. It's like anti freeze in the
grass plant. I remember when our kids were little, we
made popsicles, you know, mix up kool aid water or
(07:02):
something like that. We made popsicles, and when you froze
them and the freezer some of you remember this, the
clear water part would freeze fast and then right up
at the very top would be this gooey sugary stuff
that never quite froze all the way. Sometimes that's the
principle we're talking about. Sugars in liquid in a plant
(07:25):
are going to not freeze. The plant's not going to
freeze them. But that's what carbo load's about. It also
has a pre emergent herbicide in it. The pre emergent
herbicide prevents cool season weeds which you are germinating now,
from being able to germinate and get established. So when
you put carbo load out, and by the way, a
forty pound bag covers five thousand square feet, then you
(07:46):
water it in. And you have to water it in
if it sits on top of the soil, neither fertilizer
nor pre emergent is doing anything as a granule on
the soil. You water it in. The nutrients go into
the soil so the roots can get them, and the
weed prevention goes into the soil surface so that when
a weed seed sprouts, it can't it cannot establish a plant.
(08:10):
Car beload by now, so don't delay anymore. It's time
to get that out. We need to get that out soon.
And always follow the label, always apply everything at the
label rate. Very important. All right, time for me to
take a quick break. I will be right back with
your call. Seven one three two one two KTRH. It's
always a good day for gardening. I was taking care
(08:32):
of some house plants the other day. I make that
statement sometimes it every day is a good day for gardening,
and then someone will go, yeah, what if it's two
degrees outside and hailing, you know, or something. Well, you
have house plans, don't you. You have seeds to order,
you have seeds to start, you have cuttings to root inside.
There's a lot of indoor gardening activities and I enjoy
(08:53):
doing those. I do them a lot in the summertime
when it's blazing hot and I don't want to be
outside in the middle of the day, and also in
the one time, I just, let's see, about three days ago,
set up my seed starting racks. I got two racks
that I'm using for seeds starting on a light to
put on them. I'll talk about that more a little
bit later in the season when we're getting ready to
(09:14):
grow some different kinds of transplants. But anyway, I got
them set up, getting done ahead of time. I would
encourage you, if you have not tried seeds starting before,
to try that because it's really fun. You can grow
your own seeds, you can start cuttings yourself, and you know,
there's levels of gardening. There's the Okay, I'm going to
(09:34):
go to the store, buy a plant, pay somebody to
put it in the ground and then enjoy it. That's cool.
That's gardening. That's fun. You can do that, or you
can go all the way down to where you are
collecting your own seeds, you're germinating and growing your own plants.
You're taking cuttings and rooting them yourself. I mean, there's
a wide range there, and wherever you want to be
in that range is good. You decide gardening is fun.
(09:56):
It's supposed to be fun, and we try to make
it so here on Garden. Speaking of fun and gardening,
Plants Fell Seasons has got some cool season color in
now and cool season vegetables too, by the way, but
they are just stunning. You need to go and check
them out. You can check them out online on their
Facebook page or just go by there. Plant Frell Seasons
(10:19):
is on Tomball Parkway two forty nine, just north of Luetta.
It's right there on the side of Tomball Parkway, just
north of Luetta. You should see some of the gorgeous
blooms that they have right now. They've got pansies and
violas that are just busting out with all kinds of
cool color and a lot of other cool things too.
(10:43):
If you put some of that out. Your winter landscape
can be so beautiful. There is no reason that our
landscapes need to just be blah in the winter. There
we have a lot of good color options and plant
frall seasons can get you set up on that as well. Now,
if you have any questions or any samples you want identified,
(11:05):
or you just need advice on Hey, this is a
shady bed and I can't get anything to grow well
in it. What would you suggest? They can do all that.
They are lawn and garden experts, So take some pictures,
bring in some samples, go visit with them. Get your
green on. As they say at Plants for All Seasons
Plants for All Seasons dot Com two eight, one, three, seven, six,
(11:27):
sixteen forty six, you need to swing by there. Oh,
by the way, they have bulbs. They have onion sets
for your vegetable garden as well. Yep, they're ready for
the season and you can be too. I was setting
up my seed rack. I was just telling you about that.
And one of the things that is important when you're
(11:48):
gonna be starting seeds or rooting cuttings for that matter,
is to have good lighting. In fact, that would probably
be the single most important thing, although there are things
that are essential. You gotta have good temperatures, you gotta
have good lighting, you gotta have a growing media, and
all that. Those are all important, but where most people
go south is on lighting. If your plants don't get
(12:09):
adequate light, your seedlings are going to be spend ley
and they're not going to do well. They are just
knocking their lean and stretch and snap over because they
don't have any strength to the stem. And good lighting
is important. And if you are really into gardening, or
you know someone who is really into gardening and really
would like to grow their own seedlings or start transplants,
(12:33):
a great Christmas gift and it's not inexpensive. They as
you get into really good lighting, you can spend a
little money on it. That doesn't mean you have to
spend a lot of money. There's a range. We can
help you with those kinds of questions as well, But
that information will just change your whole efforts and seeds
(12:56):
starting and trying things out like that. So get good light.
If you need to visit with me about it, I
can kind of help direct you and guide you to
some things. Get send me an email on that I
can send you some links to some good lighting information
and resources. But that changed the world when it came
to seed starting. I used to do this and this
(13:20):
was like the bottom line lighting that got me by
on starting to mate a transplant or broccoli transplants or whatever.
And that was the old shoplights with the T twelve fixtures.
Those are the bulbs that are bigger than a quarter
in diameter, you know, the larger bulb. And I would
put a cool white bulb in a warm white bulb
because the warm white bulb is more of the red wavelengths.
(13:43):
The cool white bulb has more of the blue wavelengths.
And when you put one of each in a shoplight
or four foot shoplight, you had a decent blend of lighting.
And so I'd put two shoplights, hang them over my
planets and do that. Well, now we're kind of getting
away from those effluorescent tubes. Now everything's becoming led. But
it gets really confusing. I need to put something. I
(14:06):
tell you what, I'm going to try to put something
on my website about basics of plant lighting. I will
make a note right now and try to do that
because going through the whole thing on the air is
just not going to work. But if you want to
spend just a little bit on a gift for somebody,
a good led plant light that's in the white range,
(14:27):
right range of wavelength would be a good gift because
I'm telling you it opens up the world. You know,
any plant is yours when you have a good light indoors,
meaning you can buy seeds of all kinds of things
you'll never find in a local garden center. And just
because a garden center can't carry a nine million different things,
(14:47):
and you can start on yourself. All right, Well, there's
a tip now, quick garden line quiz. If you've listened
more than one show, you should know what is the
mantra we say here on have success with gardening. Brown
stuff before green stuff. Brown stuff before green stuff means
you get the soil right and your plants, then the
(15:10):
green stuff will thrive. Landscaper's Pride has been helping gardeners
get the soil right for a long long time, over
two dozen different products that they have. One that I
think is an outstanding product. It's their Healthy Soil Compost.
It's made locally sourced green materials, composted down, screened down
(15:31):
into a quality mix to amend your soils. Many of
our soils here are heavy clays. Compost loosens up a clay,
helps it drain internally better, get oxygen down in the
root system. Compost helps the sand to whole moisture better.
Sands drained too well, and compost helps hold a little
bit of moisture in there. The other compost they have
(15:52):
is a mushroom compost and that is made from local
mushroom substrate. You know those little white mushrooms that you
get in the store. Well, when they grow those, they
grow them on a substrate of organic materials and then
when they're done with a crop, it goes out and
it's sold. It's available for compost and for making composts,
and for making a quality product, very rich in nutrients.
(16:16):
That's the Landscapers Pride mushroom compost. For more of their products,
go to Landscaperspride dot com. Landscaperspride dot com. You can
follow them on social media just to keep up the
date with things. Also on there is a list of
where you can buy their products, which is they're widely
available here in the stores in this area. You are
(16:37):
listening to Guardenline and my number is seven one three
two one two ktr H seven one three two one
two kt r A Sunday's always kind of uh, somewhat
of a humor on guardline for me, and that is
that first thing in the morning, it's awfully quiet. Now,
why would anyone want to sleep in? Early, early, early,
early on a Sunday morning. And then at the end
(16:59):
of the show, it's like, oh, everybody now wants to
call and it's harder to get in. So if you
ever want to get into garden line without a weight,
Sunday morning is a good time. Early Sunday morning is
a good time to do that. Someone asked me the
other day about azamite, you know, they said, is azimite
a fertilizer? And the answer is yes, But it's not
the same kind of fertilizer as the ones with the
(17:22):
big three numbers on the bag that you put on
your lawns and gardens and things. Those big three numbers
are macro nutrients, meaning your plants need a lot of them,
and they're always nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in that order
the three numbers, but they're secondary nutrients like things like
calcium or sulfur or magnesium and then there's trace minerals
(17:43):
that you just need a little of. Do you know
did you know that a plant cannot grow without manganese?
Did you know that a plant cannot grow without copper?
Did you know that a plant can't grow without zinc
or iron? Okay, those are trace minerals. Those are all
trace minerals. They are essential for plant growth. Azamite is
a trace mineral supplement that you put on your soil.
(18:04):
You can put in your vegetable gardens so your vegetables
are more packed with all of the different nutrients and
grow really well as a result. You can put on
your lawns, and I do recommend that you do that.
But whatever you do, you need to get your azmite
down on the soil to provide those minerals. So when
(18:24):
do you do it, Well, you don't have to wait
until it's time to fertilize the lawn to put on asmite.
We wouldn't put out a high nitrogen right now in
the lawn because we're going into winter. But now's a
fine time to do asimite. So is the time in
the spring when you're fertilizing your lawn. You could also
add to asumite at that time. It is a soil
(18:45):
bank account builder. Think of it that way. When you
need to buy something, you got to get money from
the bank to buy it. Well, when plants want to grow,
when they want vigor, when they want blooms, when they
want fruit, whatever they're producing, they have to get it
from the soil bank account to do that. And as
might does just that. ASMI Texas dot com. That's the website.
(19:09):
If you want to learn more about it ASMIT Texas
dot com. Whether you learn more about it or not,
just do it. All right, time for a break. I'll
be right back. All right, we're back. We are back
on guardline. Welcome, Welcome back. If you are interested in
asking a question, or have a plant you need identified,
(19:29):
or any kind of thing like that, you can just
give me a call. Seven one three two one two
k t r H seven one three two one two
k t r H in Chenny Gardens down in the
Richmond Rosenberg area is a destination nursery. And I'm not
just saying that like it's a description I'm giving it.
(19:51):
I'm talking about being out there talking to people and
finding out they've driven. Like I said the other day,
it's ran and somebody who came from Austin, Texas. No,
you're visiting family over here. No, we came over to
shop at gardens. We love this place. So okay, well
that is what of culture tourism. But that's the kind
of garden center there. It is. It's on the Katie
Fullsher side of Richmond, that's north. So you just go
(20:14):
up seven twenty three FM seven twenty three and three
fifty nine, right at that corner FM three fifty nine,
and when you get there, you're going to see a
very gorgeous, sprawling place that has every kind of plant
that you can imagine, certainly everything for the season. Like
right now, for example, they've got strawberries in now's the
(20:36):
time to plant strawberries. Everybody thinks they want to plant
strawberries in the spring. Don't do that. Plant them now
because they have all winter. We have really mild winters here,
and they'll grow all winter and you will get a
bigger plant with more bloom buds already in the plant
when spring comes. Do you know that strawberries as they
grow over the winter time, the fall and winter season,
(20:56):
they develop stronger plants that have more bloom buds that
and it is time to bloom. You get more production.
So go to in chanted gardens. Grab some strawberries. You
can put them in strawberry jars if you want those
little terracotta containers that have the holes in the side
for planning in. I just put mine in the ground.
I put them in raised beds and all kinds of things.
(21:16):
It is easy to grow strawberries here. You just get
them in, water them in continue to provide small amounts
of nitrogen over the winter, and they can do that.
So grab your plants there. Also, if you need some
onion sets though, while you're in there, grab those. I
challenge you yesterday to grow onions as year. Most of
you have not grown onions yourself, and you should. If
(21:38):
you don't have a garden, just get a big container.
You can grow onions in a big container. They'll grow
in that just fine. You just want to give them space.
You'll probably I don't know, in a container. I'd probably
put them about maybe four inches apart, something like that.
And then with onions, you keep pushing them with nitrogen
and continually adequate water, not soggy, but always watering them,
(22:00):
always fertilizing them. Here's why if you want success with onions,
you need to get as big a plant as you
can before spring, as big a plant as you can
before spring, because every leaf on an onion plant is
a ring in the onion bulb. I think about that
just a minute. So if you've got a scrawny onion
(22:21):
plant with three leaves, when spring comes, you're going to
have a scrawny onion bulb with three rings. The base
of the leaf is the ring of the onion. So
if you fertilize and fertilize and makes they never get
dry and you just keep them going all wintertime. When
the day link shortens or LinkedIn's and it starts to bulb,
(22:42):
you're going to have something huge.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
My goal is always to have those softball sized onions
you see in the store, and it's kind of hard
to achieve in our climate, but you can get real
close and I've seen some gardeners do impressive with them.
But that's a secret to success, and just go out
to in Chenny Gardens again FM three point fifty nine
and seven twenty three on the Katie fullsher Side of Richmond.
Go to the website and you can find out more there.
(23:07):
Enchanted gardens Richmond dot com, Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.
You're gonna find the fertilizers I talk about, and you're
going to find incredibly knowledgeable and helpful people to help
you have success. That is what they do there. I
I was talking to one of my one of my kids.
(23:29):
I call them kids there, they're long grown, but you know,
I'm a parent talking to one of my kids the
other day and they had purchased a home where they
had some cracks in the outside of the home, and
they were concerned about what do we need to do?
Is this a big foundation problem? What should we do?
And I call Ty Strickland. Tay Strickland's the owner of
(23:52):
Fix my Slab Foundation Repair, and I said, hey, Ty,
here's the situation. What do you think you know, do
we need to get somebody on This was in a
town halfway across Texas, uh and outside his area for sure,
but you know, he was so helpful. He was He
talked to me about, you know, well, okay, how how
how far is how BIG's a crack? What's this happening here?
(24:13):
And he's asked me a bunch of questions about it,
And the bottom line was you know what that's movement,
but that's within the range of something to not really
worry about, and it's like, okay, well that's good to know.
But that's the kind of guy Tye is. Tye is
that service type industry person who does the job right.
(24:33):
He fixes it right, He shows up on time when
he says he will, and he gives you a fair price,
and if something's not needed, he'll tell you, and if
it is, he'll tell you and tell you what your
options are. You can go to fix myslab dot com.
That's his website, or you can just give him a
call two eight one two fifty five forty nine forty nine.
So if you're walking around the house and you look
(24:54):
at the brick on the outside and you see cracks,
especially underneath windows, that seems to be a place where
cracks off and originate. Or if you're inside and you
see cracks in the sheet rock or doors are sticking,
those are all reasons to call Tie and have him
come out and take a look at it. Tell him
your guardenline listener free estimates if you are a garden
line listener. He's been doing this for twenty three years.
(25:15):
He knows what he's doing ti strick one fix my
slab foundation repair. Nobody wants to have foundation problems, I
mean right, I mean that is like, oh my gosh,
because this is like, this is my home. I don't
have that problem. Well, you know the analogy of the ostrich,
(25:36):
it sticks his head in the sand. Don't be the ostrich.
I think that's That's basically what I'm trying to say
is if you see a problem, have somebody look into
it early. It's not going to get better, it may
not be a horrible thing. Just don't don't put it
off because you're worried about it. Just just look at it.
Our clay soils shrink and swell a lot, and they move.
(25:58):
They definitely move, that's for sure. One of my back
patios is actually the patio pad is heaving up and
moving away from the foundation of the house just a
little bit, just a tiny bit. But I was looking
at the other and thinking, Wow, the power of soil
is amazing. Is it shrinks and swells and moves and
(26:18):
all kinds of stuff like that. Well, if you are
gonna take my advice and take care of the brown
stuff before the green stuff, then you need to contact
the folks at Heirloom Soils. And here's why they've got
a really special deal going on, and that is their
one cubic yard supersacks. They got their new branded one
(26:39):
cubic yard supersacks out there. What is that, Well, you
know the grocery sacks you buy so you don't have
to use paper plastic bags. You know, those those sacks
of the handles. Imagine something so big and so strong
that it can hold a cubic yard of soil material
in it. And they just lifted up, put it on
the truck, take it to your house, lifted up, put
it on your driveway. And I've used to. I've had
(27:00):
two different supersacks at my house, and oh my gosh,
they are so easy. You know, for years I would
just say, okay, dump it in the driveway, Just dump
the whatever it is, mult compost whatever in the driveway
and then I'm I'm shoveling it into super sacks are
so much easier, neat, clean, easy to do. And listen
to this right now, They've got a deal where you
(27:22):
can get their awesome leaf mold compost. If you're going
to top dress on, if you're going to even just
mix composts in the so leaf mold compost is the Cadillac.
They're awesome veggie and herb mix. That's I've used it.
That stuff will grow just about anything, but especially things
like veggies and herbs. I would use it for flowers too. Actually,
(27:42):
uh for one hundred and twenty nine dollars for either
one or the other or both h one twenty nine
per qubic yard supersack and you get to keep the sack.
You don't have to, you know, pay for the sack.
Turn it back in one twenty nine. Now that you
go to the porter, which is Porter Texas Out. I'm
fifty nine on the access road on the right going
(28:04):
out and that's where you pick it up. Or you
can call them and have them deliver it, but they're
going to need a three sacked minimum for delivery, and
there are delivery fees. If you want delivery, go to
rockinmultch dot com slash delivery rock in maultch Warrens rockin
malts So just Rockmultch dot com slash delivery, or if
you want to go pick it up yourself, just head
(28:25):
out to Porter and do it. Here's the phone number.
Call them up and they're not They're not open today
on Sunday, but they are open Monday through Saturday two
eight one three five four nineteen fifty two eight one
three five four one nine five zero. By the way,
they also have their new premium lawn mix for when
you're gonna redo your lawn you want to fill in
(28:46):
some holes and kind of get some organic matter in
the surface. There seventy four dollars a sack for that
and many many other products. Why are you there? All right?
Time for me to take another little break and we
will be right back. Well, coming back. Allow music crawl
our Louisiana lesteners across the George straight. Welcome back to
(29:13):
the Garden Line. We're glad to have you with us.
We're gonna go straight to the phones now and head
out to Richmond to talk to Connie this morning. Hello Connie,
welcome to Garden Line. All right, Uh, do we have Connie?
See what? I'm gonna put Connie back on hold here
and if y'all check on that, we'll come back to her.
Excuse me, all right, let's see, we're gonna try this again. There,
(29:39):
do we have you Connie? Hello, Hey, welcome to Garden.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Him.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
Sorry about all.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
That The reason I calling is we have cutter ants
in our yard that bridge over into our neighbor's yard
and we can't seem to get rid of them.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Uh huh what can we do? Uh? Well, what's what
you need to do? Uh? And I'm not going to
like read out my home concoction recipe thing on the
air here and every but what I have one that
some pest control operators have said. It just works well,
so it's worth giving it a try. Basically, it's a
(30:23):
mix of some different products. The problem with leaf cutter
ants is they they they're not attracted to the exact
same baits as like fire ants or sugar ants or
each ant has kind of certain things that attract it.
And you can't just use a contact killer pesticide with
them because they live in a giant underground cavern where
(30:46):
they cut your You may know this, but they cut
the leaves off your plants, They haul them back, they
stick them to the ceiling of the cavern and grow
fungus on them and eat the fungus. Is that is
that interesting? And basically grows weed fungus too, it's called mushrooms.
But anyway, that's what they do, and so you kind
of have to get abait product in there in a
(31:08):
way that's going to be able to kill them. And
I can I can send you some some kind of
home concoction thing that that I think if you try it,
you'll have success with it.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
And also, just in case we need it, is there
a company that can help with that if we decide
that we've tried yet and it's just not getting it.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
That is a good question. I don't I don't know.
I would have to look into that. We don't currently
have a sponsor who I communicate with on pest control
type things. Okay, there probably is somebody who could do
something like that, but I just off the top of
my head couldn't couldn't tell you who. Okay, but it's
(31:50):
pretty but I'm almost send you is really easy to
do it yourself. It's really easy to do.
Speaker 5 (31:56):
So what about the fact that people have them to
and they don't seem to be, you know, worried about
trying to get rid of them. We're just gonna have
to keep doing well because they have them and they're
not getting rid of theirs.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Yeah, and nothing is nothing is permanent. And you might
if your neighbor is willing, you might talk to him
and say, would you mind if we put some of
this bait, you know, across the fence over there too,
or because that that way you could get ahead of them.
And it's not permanent. You know, it's going to give
you several months of control. But generally these mounds have
(32:30):
a way of recovering, and you know, you don't get everything,
and so they come back. But it sure saves you
from losing stuff. I one night, in one night, I
had a peach orchard, and in one night I walked
out the next morning and three peach trees didn't have
a leaf on them, and they all had leaves the
day before. So I know what leaf cutter ants can do.
(32:52):
They work fast, all right, they work fast, that's right.
But they are fascinating, very fascinating. All right, Connie, thank you.
I'm gonna put you on hold. Don't go away. Jonathan'll
pick up and he'll give you my email address. All right.
That's it. One of the interesting creatures of nature. You know,
(33:12):
we sit here and a lot of pests. You know,
they just make you mad, like fire ants, they bite
you make you mad. But when you look at just
the world, they live in how they just just all
the signs of what's going on in there. It is
a fascinating world. It's like honey bees, you know, honey
We're very familiar with the fact that honey bees have
(33:33):
ways of doing dances that tell other bees where to
go get pollen and nectar, and they just the whole
world of honey bees is fascinating. Well, we just happen
to like honeybees because they give us honey. But a
lot of creatures out there in nature are pretty interesting,
pretty cool. But not when I've got three peach trees
that don't have a leaf on them the next day
(33:54):
that I'm not into that, that is for sure. Okay,
you're listening to Gardenline and I'm wandering around on all
kinds of other topics. I wanted to mention that Quality
Home Products is hiring professional licensed electricians and plumbing pros. Now,
(34:15):
if you are a licensed electrician and plumbing pro, you
should give them a call. This is a great company
and people love to work for them for a number
of reasons. The pay is very competitive. They have comprehensive
medical dental vision coverage of four to one K, matching
retirement plans, holiday pay and time off, career advancement, very stable,
reliable organization. You can go to Quality TX dot com,
(34:38):
Quality tx dot com and apply online if you're interested.
Quality TX dot com. And now you know, I want
to congratulate Quality Home. You know they're a Houston company,
a local, family owned Houston area company. This is their
thirty fifth anniversary and they built their company on trust
(35:00):
and transparency and excellent sales. If you look at their
ratings online, it's through the roof because they do it right.
They absolutely do. They dedicated to make a positive bent
pack here in the Houston area. I mean, you know
there we're talking about donating to local food banks, funding schools,
providing COVID relief. There's so many ways that they are
(35:22):
let's just say, good citizens, good business citizens of our
community here and certainly in the sense of when power
goes out, providing what's needed to keep our homes and
businesses running. Quality Home. I yesterday was out working on
(35:44):
my patio again. This is like going to be a
longstime story because it's taken me a while because there's
a bunch of issues I'm having to deal with and
getting it in, but getting those stones light down getting
everything in place. And I have two Golden Retrievers, and
these golden retrieves, we love our dogs, but I have
(36:04):
found that you cannot shame a golden retriever. You know,
I've walked out and said, you guys are bums. What
are you doing? I get up? Come on, man, you
know I need some help over here. They don't. It
doesn't phase them. But what they will do is when
I'm not watching, they will go find a stick and
take it to the back door and shred it into
something I've got to vacuum up. And yesterday doing the patio,
(36:27):
there were these little slabs that it's almost like thin tiles,
tight slabs of rock, and they were taking them out
in the yard and somehow with their teeth cracking them
and leaving rocks all over my yard. And I probably
spent fifteen twenty minutes just picking up the rocks that
they saw a need to crack in the grass. So
(36:49):
Ellie and Tex are not let's just say they're in
the doghouse today, but as they know, I don't really
get mad at them. Love those dogs. Well, we're hitting
the top of the hour. This this one went kind
of fast. That was that was kind of interesting. If
you'd like to give us a call, you could get
(37:09):
online or get on the board that is during this
break and then you'll be first up. When you come.
It's seven one three two one two kp r H.
Seven one three two one two k t r H.
I want to remind you that my website, Gardening with
Skip dot com gardening is skip dot com has my
(37:31):
schedules on it. The lawn care schedule which is mow water, fertilized,
apply the azmite type products, do aeration. It's all on
that schedule. In other words, try to care for your launch.
The second schedule is the best disease and we'd management schedule.
And that's everything that goes wrong with the lawn. When
do chinchbugs occur? And how do you control them? When
does take af thatch or large petture or ralei spot?
(37:54):
How do you prevent the ks? How do you kill
echo gat? Those schedules are free on the online with
the ever good info. Should check it out Gardening with
Skip dot com.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Welcome to Katie r h. Garden Line with Skip Ricter.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
It's just watch him as many good.
Speaker 8 (38:25):
Things to see.
Speaker 9 (38:34):
A sun.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Well, good morning Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have
you with us this morning. We are looking forward to
visiting with you about the things that are of interest
to you. What are your questions? Is about the lawn trees, vegetables.
Keep trying to convince everybody to grow a vegetable garden
for the first time. If you've never grown one before,
(38:59):
if you have already, try something different, a new vegetable,
maybe maybe a new way of growing, a container growing
or something like that. I think that's kind of fun.
One time, I want one time, many years ago. I
did it the first time, and I still do garden
in wheelbarrows? Have you ever thought about that? You get
an old wheelbarrow and can get a new one if
(39:20):
you want. Just make sure it has some drainage holes
down in the bottom, and you feel it full of
quality potting mix and you can grow anything and it's
great for the winter. Here's why you want to plant
some things out there and in the wheelbarrow that might
freeze if it got really really cold. What do you
have to do? Roll up the garage door, send the
(39:40):
wheelbarrow inside for the night, bring it back out the
next day. You want to put you say you don't
have room for a garden that has a good sign.
If you got a wheelbarrow, you do you just roll
it over to the sunny spot and it gives the
neighbors something to talk about. As if they needed it.
They talk about you already, you know that right anyway,
That is a whimsickle way of going about gardening, but
(40:02):
it is fun for flowers and for vegetables. Speaking of whimsy,
have you been to Arburgate a garden center recently? You know,
when you go into Arburgate, First of all, you just
stop in your tracks because you look around and there
is so much going on. There is color everywhere, and
then there is all the different kinds of garden art
and things just I can't describe it. You's got to
(40:24):
go see it, maybe those of you who have been
there to know what I'm talking about. Just all kinds
of things that make your garden just look cool. Their
pottery is gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. No matter what you're interested in,
they've got it. By the way, the gift shops there
are just loaded to the brim with all kinds of
holiday arrangements, great gifts for your home or for somebody else.
(40:48):
That's on your list and they have the expert advice
to help you have success. For example, let's say you decided,
you know what, I want to grow blueberries and I
want to grow them in a big container? Do I
do that? And what do I need? Do I need
two varieties or will one variety do it? How do
I do that? What kind of potting soil do I use?
What kind of fertilizer do I use? Walk into Arburgate
(41:08):
and ask them wouldn't it be cool to have your
own blueberries in the spring to enjoy in the summer.
They can help you do that. That's what I'm talking about.
No matter what you're going after, Arburgate has got exactly
what you need. They are on Tomball Parkway, which is
I'm sorry not Tomball Parkway. They're off of Tomball Parkway
about a mile and a half on twenty nine to twenty.
(41:30):
So if you go up to Tomball up tom Ball Parkway,
turn left on twenty nine twenty about a mile and
a half out on the left, there they are tresh.
A road goes around behind them. It's a little loop
and that's the back parking lot you want to go
parking because it's very easy and safe access, easy to do,
but allow some time because when you go to arbigate,
you're going to need some time because there's so much
(41:52):
to see and there's so many things that you will
suddenly discover you cannot live without. I'm going to head No,
back to the phones to go talk to Liam. Hello, Liam,
Welcome to garden line. Hello sir, Hello, how can we help?
Speaker 10 (42:09):
Yes, yes, sir, I got flight flies on my citrus trees.
Their baby citrus hadn't been in the ground a year,
and I can't seem to get ahead of them.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Flies.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Yes, I believe it's a white flies.
Speaker 10 (42:24):
It's got the curly leaf, got the little lines inside
of the leaves.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Oh, I'm glad, I add No, that's a citrus leaf miner.
H And so okay, here's what happens that that's it
is a fly that lays an egg, and that egg
is a tunnel. The larva tunnels between the upper and
lower leaf surface. And if you look real close at
one of those silvery curled leaves, you'll see a little
black trail zigzagging through the leaf, serpentining through the leaf.
(42:53):
That's the larva as it's chewed through the leaf. What
it leaves behind, So how do I kill him? You bet?
They only attack new tender growth. They don't attack old, tough,
leathery leaves. So anytime you get a flush of growth,
you can spray it. And the probably the most organic
safest product that works is on that is going to
(43:16):
be spin no sid spin spin spin. Oh. And then
sad is the those pests make you sad. Spin o
sad and uh, that's organic. It soaks into the leaf
and so when the larva tries to choose through it,
that's spinosid is inside where it will kill them. They
(43:37):
don't kill citrus trees. If you have a young tree
you're trying to get to grow fast, they can set
it back if you have an old, established tree. Some
people just ignore them and don't worry about it. But
that is how you control them. You just have to
get ahead of them when the new flushes of growth occur.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it, you bet.
Speaker 11 (43:57):
Liam.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Now you know on Guardenline we do not charge for advice,
but I do expect half the produce. If this helps
you have good centrius destruction. It's going to be a
couple of years, but I'll owe you. Hey, I figure
in time, I'm going to eat well in my old
age when all these things start to bring their dividends. Hey,
have a good weekend. Appreciate that. Thanks, appreciate that very much. Yeah,
(44:20):
and where do you get things, like Spino said, Well,
Ace hardware stores. That is one place. There's forty Ace
Hardware stores in the Houston area. And so when you
hear me say some product, go into ACE and say, hey,
you got some of this, and the answer is probably yes,
Spino said, definitely is going to be a yes. It
is so easy. And with forty stores, no matter where
(44:40):
you live, you're going to find it. You already know
that ACE is a place you get all the fertilizers
I talk about on guarden Line. You already know that
ACE is a place when you're trying to control weeds,
trying to control disease and pests, insects, all that. That's
the place for that. But ACE is also the place
for your holiday decorating, for making the areas that you
(45:01):
want to enjoy nicer indoors and outdoors. By the way,
ACE is, Yes, a hardware store. You everything at a
hardware store should be ACE is. But ACE is a
place for top quality barbecue pits. For example. ACE is
a place for some really unique and cool holiday gifts.
I'm gonna I'm gonna be talking about that here in
a couple of weeks once we get to the Thanksgiving weekend.
(45:26):
So if you are looking for anything that you need
like that, Ace Hardware is the place. It makes it
so easy. Go to ACE Hardware dot com, find the
store locator. Ace Hardware dot Com find the store locator
and you can find the ACE store that is nearest
to you. I'm gonna need to take a little break
here and when I come back, Kathy in Belleville, you
(45:46):
will be our first up. We're back on the Garden Line.
And what are we gonna do. We're gonna run first
things right out for Belville, Texas and back to Kathy. Cathy,
Welcome to Garden Line. Hi, Hi, how are you doing well?
I'm doing great. What's up?
Speaker 8 (46:05):
I have a huge problem with cut ants and I've
tried going to my agrolife agent and I've tried some
of her stuff that she suggested and nothing, you know,
it kind of kills the you know, the area, and
they just pick up and move someplace else. Do you
have your secrets.
Speaker 3 (46:24):
They're tough. Yeah, yes, I'm gonna have to put you
on hold and and you'll get an email. You send
me that request, I'll send you some information on it.
I'd be happy to do that. Yeah, I, as I
was saying before, I've dealt with them. And uh, did
you ever see the show Caddyshack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well
(46:47):
there was that gopher or whatever it was, and you
know he just went through everything from dynamite to un
trying to catch up with that gopher. That was me
And I tried one time putting a hose into the
area and just turned it on and ran it and ran.
Think I'm gonna float those guys right out of there.
That didn't work. I won't. I won't say on the
(47:08):
air ballistic things that I a while that was about it.
I tried setting them on fire and everything else. Yeah,
they're a problem, but I do have a recipe that's
some pcos Pescantal operators tell me works pretty good. So anyway,
I ought to give you at least relief for a
while before you have to come back and do it again.
Speaker 8 (47:29):
Yeah, because there they're a vicious little launsters. Say, I
have thirteen cranpe myrtles that they decimated three times. Now
I'm surprised there's still a love.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Oh yeah, it's a mess. We gotta put to stop that.
All right, we'll put you on hold, Jonathan will pick
it up and you can go from there. All right,
Thank you, Keavi. I appreciate that. That is funny. I
guess this could be the leaf cutter Ant Show. By
the way, when we need a title for this show,
The leaf cutter Ant Show had two calls. Peerscapes is
(48:02):
the professional landscape whatever you need company. And I mean
that When I say whatever you need, I mean you
walk in, talk to them, talk to their designers, and
get your whole landscape designed and created right there like that,
or you walk in and go, you know what. My
irrigation system is a mess. Can y'all come in check
it out, fix it, do whatever I need? Or I
(48:25):
got this poorly drained area and Skip keeps saying that
plants need good drainage and I can't grow anything there.
Can you guys put some subsurface drainage in the interest
just to all these I want landscape lighting. You remember
how I said, make those outdoor areas just really special
to be out in and you know we're so warm
here in the winter. We enjoy our outdoors all through
(48:45):
the winter time. The hard time to enjoy is on
the summer day. But Peerskaps can do that. Do you
want hard scapes like I'm working on in my backyard
right now? Peerscapes can do it professionally, not like I
do it professionally. Do you want somebody just to come
in and do maintenance on your bed? That's it. I
just want you to come four times a year quarterly,
put new flowers in, refresh the mulch, check for problems
(49:08):
in the irrigation, fertilize. You see what I'm saying. They
can do that too. Go to this website and you'll
see pictures of what they can do and all the
contact info is there Pierce Scapes dot com, p E
A R C E S C A p E S
Piercescapes dot com. You really need to check it out.
(49:30):
I'm going to go now to Tom in Dickenson. Welcome
to garden Line.
Speaker 12 (49:34):
Tom Hey, good morning, thank you. I planted a half
a dozen lemon trees just from seeds from lemons we
brought home from the grocery store. Just as a project.
I'd never done anything like that before. The reason I'm
calling is, I remember a couple weeks ago you were
discussing the trus with one of the callers and talked
(49:54):
about grafting and whether or not it was going to
be edible fruit, and something about thorns on the branches.
And I'm starting to see some thorns on mine. So
am I barking up the wrong tree with these seedlings?
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Tell me where the seeds came from?
Speaker 12 (50:13):
Just blumins. I bought from the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Okay, So what you're looking at is those are a
variety that's not a rootstock. So what you heard me
say before was where the graph dies and the rootstock sprouts,
and you get thornin us, but a lot of citrus.
When it's in a juvenile state, meaning it came from
a seed and it's early in its life, is very thorny.
(50:38):
And then as it gets older and becomes mature, the
branch growth up higher on it. It isn't as thorny
because it goes from being a juvenile to being something
that can bloom and set fruit. That's a maturing process.
So it is not unusual for seedlings to be thorny.
You just have to be patient with it, and eventually
(51:00):
you will get non thorny. Although the caveat to that
is some types of citrus do have thorns. That's just
part of the type of Ceterrius. You know, like setsuma
oranges aren't very thorny, but you know, certain kinds of
other things can be thorny. But anyway, that's okay.
Speaker 12 (51:18):
So I'm okay with these growing up. They're probably gonna.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
What's that They're going to grow and they will set
brute eventually. I don't know how long it'll take. Different
fruit plant, you know, like a pecan tree can take
twelve years before you finally start getting pecans off of it.
With something like ceterric, it should happen much much sooner
than that. But when it happens depends on the growth
(51:43):
and health of the plant, how much sun it's getting,
and then the very specific genetics of that of that
seed species.
Speaker 12 (51:51):
Well there, I guess they're young there. I just transfer
them from like a dixie cup to a gallon planter
and they just really took off. So they're about a
foot tall now, So I'm thinking they just need a
little more room to roam.
Speaker 3 (52:05):
Yeah, they're gonna be juvenile for several years. For several years,
you're got a pretty good sized plant growing and it'll
still be in a juvenile stage. But I'm just having
fun with it now.
Speaker 12 (52:16):
It's just it's just a project and experiment. I've never
done something. I'm taking your advice and trying new stuff.
So I'm not you know, I'm not a gardener by
any stretch, but we're trying to learn.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Oh yeah, you are a gardener. You gardeners are always
trying and learning. So welcome to the world. Yeah, that
is fun, and congratulations on that. I think I think
people should do stuff like that one take care, Tom,
thank you for the call. And if it ever starts
producing lemons, if it ever produces lemons, you can just
drop some off and we'll call it either. Yeah, ok,
(52:50):
thank you, bye bye. Yeah. It's not a rule, it's
just a suggestion. Or maybe it's a plea. I don't
a desperate plea. I don't know what it is. If
you're out in the Kingwood area, you've got two really
cool garden centers. You got Kingwood Garden Center and warrens
Now First Kingwood Garden Center. That's the one on Stone Hollow,
Kingwood Garden Center at their gift shop right now. This
(53:13):
is the third week of an ever increasing it's been
going up every week. How much percent off is the
items in the gift shop. They're cleaning house, so you
get a whole bunch of new inventory in forty percent
off this week. Yes, it started yesterday. It goes all
the way to the thirtieth of November. Forty percent off.
(53:36):
So get over there. Whatever you can find. I mean,
you're not going to better deal than that. Their gift
shop is loaded with the widest range of things you've
ever seen. It is really cool. And while are you there,
you get to enjoy seeing Kingwood Garden Center too. It's
a nice place to visit real cool plants. And then
over at Warren's Southern Gardens on North Park Drive, they
(53:56):
are loaded up on their cool season color. They have
bulbs in stock. They have got a really good deal
on some of the mulch and are salt based mulch
and soil based products and things that it's the kind
of place to where you go and you just get
excellent advice. You know, Michael and the whole team over there,
(54:17):
they know what they're talking about, and they can guide
you to success. Maybe you've seen a beautiful, cool seasoned
plant or with all these plants and flowers and colorful
foliage coming out of it, but you don't know how
to do that. Go talk to them. They'll walk you through.
They'll say, here, grab some of this dusty miller over here,
grab some of this blue violas over here. And I mean,
(54:38):
they'll put the thing together for you and show you
how to do it. I mean, if you want to
harm them to do it, they'll do that. But they
can make you look good. That's what they do at
Warren Southern Guards and Kingwood Garden Center out there in
the Kingwood area. I'm going to head now out to
Oak Forest and we're going to talk to a little
(55:00):
Oh Elizabeth.
Speaker 13 (55:02):
Hi, good morning. How are you doing.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
I'm well, thank you? What's up?
Speaker 14 (55:07):
Good?
Speaker 7 (55:09):
Okay?
Speaker 13 (55:09):
Tomato hornworms there. My grandparents were able to grow anything
in their backyard, and forest comes to tomatoes. I have
grown tomatoes and oak forests in the past, but now
I just constantly they're just eaten up by tomato hornworms.
And if I can be there every day and go
out at night with the flashlights I can kill them.
(55:31):
But if I'm taking care of a sick grandchild for
a few days, or working really intensely for a few days,
it's all over. And so I just let my tomatoes
go for the summer.
Speaker 15 (55:41):
I gave us.
Speaker 13 (55:42):
Well, so I have my fall tomatoes and they were
just sudding out looking great. Hear their back. What I
just I'm giving up? What do you do?
Speaker 3 (55:55):
Well, here's the problem, Elizabeth, out there on the dark
gardening Web. You've heard of the dark web, the dark
gardening Web. Your address is, your address is posted in
the Tomato hornworm chat room, and they all know where
you are, and they're all coming there. I'm sorry to
tell you that you've been outed. What I would do
(56:16):
if you've got neighborhood kids, you need to enlist what
we call importation of natural enemies. This is something that's
been done in gardening for a long time, where you
bring in a natural enemy that takes care of the past.
So you get a neighborhood kid back there. You pick
one horn worm, you don't have to say a word,
and you put it on the sidewalk and step on
it and it squirts like a ketchup packet in McDonald's
(56:38):
as you stepped on and then you go back in
the house and fifteen minutes later look at your kitchen
window and there's going to be six kids that they've gathered.
They could bring all their friends and show them this
and after that, you don't have hornworm problems. Okay, I'm
going to go with you.
Speaker 13 (56:55):
I used to feed into my son's bearded drag. We
don't have the spirit drag all right? What to do?
Speaker 3 (57:04):
Okay? Well, what you do? Get them either bet or
spin no said. BT lasts about two days. Spinosaid lasts
longer in the environment. And spray your tomatoes periodically with it.
Those are both organic. They're both organic, and the the
leaves of the tomato. Spinosad will kill anything that's a caterpillar.
(57:28):
BT will kill and that way you spray them. I
would do the spinosaid if you're not able to check
them periodically. But typically it's not going to be like
in two days suddenly you've got giant horn rooms. They
have to the moth has to lay the egg, they
have to hatch out their tiny caterpillars. It takes a
while for them to grow before you even see leaves
in missing because there's a little small, right, and so
(57:49):
if you just periodically you would just spray your tomatoes,
like you know, I am going to go on vacation
for a week. Just just spray them and you'll be
You'll be okay that way.
Speaker 13 (57:59):
Well, we've had a lot of in the past doing
kind of a black light search at night. It's kind
of a neat scientific cure for kids. But at this
point I don't care anymore. Kill them, all right, okay, Well,
thank you, you bet all right, you take care all right,
thank you, bye bye.
Speaker 3 (58:18):
Yeah, thanks thanks for letting me have some fun with
that one. Uh yeah, Tomato horn worms, I'll tell you
one day. I should have said this right up front.
Tomato horn worms are about to go away. In fact,
they're you know, as we get cooler and cooler, they
don't they don't like that of course, need to do
the tomatoes for that matter. Well, it's time for me
(58:39):
to take another quick break. Here's the phone number if
you'd like to call in seven one three two one
two k t R H. I'll be right back. I
need to go again on guarden line. With your calls
seven one three two one two five eight seven or
the most important thing you do. I'm just gonna say
this over and over again. The most important thing you
do if you want to have success with plans is
(59:00):
prepare the soil first. Now very important. Also picking plants
that want to grow there, in fact, that's essential. Picking
a spot that has the amount of sunlight that plant needs,
that's essential. But soil is it's so easy, it's in
your control and you can do it. And Cienamlts is
a place where you can make that happen because the
brown stuff that comes before the green stuff includes compost
(59:22):
and includes sol prep. It might include expanded shale. It
would include nutrients, fertilizers and things like that. When you
make roots happy, that plant can thrive. Very very important.
Don't PLoP a poor plant into an unprepared plot or
pick a peck of pickle puppers with peter piper. Plants
(59:43):
need to have soil where they can create an extensive
root volume full of rich, well aerated, oxygenated soil to
thrive in, and they will reward you if you do that.
Ciena Maltz is a place you go to get that done.
Go to Sea Maltz dot com. They're down there on
FM five twenty one near Highway six and two eighty
(01:00:05):
eight south of Houston, siennamultch dot com. All the communities
around there. You can get hardwood Multch. You can get
double ground malts, two inch screened mult There is brands
like Landscaper's Pride, like heirloom soils. They also have rocks too,
by the way, sand gravel stones on pallets. They deliver
(01:00:27):
within twenty miles for a fee. And if you need
the fertilizers, which you do, they carry all the ones
I talk about on Guardenline. Fertilizers from nitrofoss fertilizers from Nelson,
plant food, fertilizers from Medina, from Microlife, from Azamite, Ciena Maltch.
That's what you need to know, cienamultch dot com. We're
(01:00:48):
going to go now to a Tascasita and we're going
to talk to Veronica. Veronica, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 8 (01:00:54):
Yes, good morning.
Speaker 6 (01:00:56):
I have a question about greet myrtles.
Speaker 5 (01:00:58):
I had a couple crate myrtles removed from my front
yard a couple of years ago.
Speaker 8 (01:01:03):
And the problem is that I keep getting tons of baby.
Speaker 16 (01:01:08):
Crate myrtles popping up.
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Yeah, the stumps were ground from the tree. But I'm
still having these.
Speaker 6 (01:01:15):
Like thirty at a time coming up.
Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
I don't know if there's anything I can do to
stop that.
Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Yeah, there is other than digging, which you're already aware
of that. What I would do is if there and
I do this by the way, I have crate myrtles
that pop up here and there where maybe a root
was cut or something and they sprout up. And I
have a weed wiper that I made. It's so easy
(01:01:43):
to make homemade. I mean, anybody could do it. If
you go to my website Gardening with Skip, look for
Skip's weed wiper. What it is is one of those
grabber tools, you know, the things that you reach up
to get a jar office shelf, and they got like
suction cups on the end to grab something. You get
one of the You get one of those and you
attach sponges to it. But my little diagram on there
(01:02:05):
shows you exactly how to do it, and then there
is an ingredient called triclop peer that you put on
the sponge. Now, the reason I like the weed wiper
is you don't have to stoop down, you don't have
to dig. Those things are long enough to We're standing
upright with your arm down by your side. You can
reach all the way to the ground with them and
you just squeeze the handle and the sponges wipe that
(01:02:28):
product right on the leaves of the crepe myrtle in
this case that's coming up only. So on my website
gardening with skip dot com, there is how to build
a weed wiper, and then there's herbicides for it, and
that triclo peer t R I c l O p
y R is listed on there for things like I
(01:02:49):
don't I don't put crate myrtles. Most people aren't trying
to kill kraigmer but poison ivy pepper wine, you know
those seedlings from hackberries coming up in the fence line.
That it's really easy to do. And even if you
don't build the weed wiper, the tricle apear ingredient is
what you want to use. But you just have to
be careful because if you spray it, there are a
lot of things tricl appear will kill, so you don't
(01:03:11):
want to get it on something that's not the problem weed.
Speaker 17 (01:03:15):
Okay, okay, well I'll check your website out and see
if that works for me.
Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Thank you very much all right, Well, that is the
way to get rid of them. And it may take
a few applications. You know, if you got a whole
big old root under there with lots of storage capacity,
one little wipe may not get it all in one time,
but it will get it. It will get it. Thank you, Veronica.
I appreciate you waiting, and you appreciate the call. That
(01:03:42):
is the case I'm telling you. That makes it so easy.
And don't worry about how hard is this to build.
I mean, if you if you can take a pint
jar canning lid and a nail and a hammer and
make a hold in the lid, you can build this thing. Seriously,
that's about the total amount of work too. It's very
easy to do. Star Hope Ministries has been around Houston
(01:04:05):
for a very long time. In fact, Star of Hope,
I don't even I can't imagine the number of lives
that they change, and they do change lives. You know,
you're a compassionate person, and your dollars are hard earned,
and you want to give them to some place that
is going to make the most difference with those dollars.
And I cannot think of a place that does a
(01:04:26):
better job of that than Star of Hope. Star Hope
feeds people six thousand meals a week for people that
need that. Two dollars and eighty five cents from you
can buy a meal. Star of Hope gives training for jobs.
It gives daycare for people that are there learning how
to train getting back on their feet. Listen, when you
lose everything and you're living in a car with your
(01:04:46):
kids for maybe no fault of your own, whatever the reason,
it takes a lot to get you back on your
feet as a contributing member of society who can actually
have a job. You know, to have a job, you
got to a car or a transportation. To have a job,
you've got to be able to do the interview. You've
got to deal with things like sometimes substance abuse. Starhope
(01:05:09):
has programs for that. They change lives. I cannot think
of a better way to put your compassion to work
then to go to shmission dot org. S oh for
Star Hope Shmission dot org. Well, you join my wife
and I being supporters of Star of Hope. We're going
(01:05:29):
to go now to Nope, We're not going to go.
It is time for me to take a break here
pretty quick, Leanne and Cyprus. You will be the very
first up when we come back from break, because I
want to have time to be able to give you
adequate time on your call. I just want to remind Joe.
I was talking about the website before. There's a lot
of information on there, and I put it up there
(01:05:51):
because some things are hard to just explain, you know,
one hundred times over the course of a couple of months,
Like how do you kill a nutgrass? Well, it's a process,
there's a there's information to it. But on my website
is all the free stuff of how to do it.
So just go there and look at it and save
yourself the hassle. That way, you don't have to worry
about writing all these chemicals or writing all these names
(01:06:11):
of plants down or whatever. We're doing. The publication on
protecting plants from frosts and freezes is there on the website,
and we're not there yet, but we will soon be
there where you'll need that publication, So go ahead and
print it up or download it. It's free, and be
ready when the time comes. All right, we're going to
take a break. I'll be right back. Thanks for listening,
(01:06:34):
and we do appreciate it. We really do appreciate that.
I love visiting with gardeners, and so whenever we get
to go on the air and talk with you that
that's kind of my happy place right there. Absolutely, you know,
if you can as plants in the Heights, it's such
a cool place. If you haven't been, you really ought
to go. But I want to tell you what you
(01:06:55):
what you need to do, and just if you'll trust
me on this one, go to Buchanan's plants website. Okay,
it's buchanansplants dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. Sign up for
their newsletter and it is full of good information stuff
you want to know, stuff that will really help you.
(01:07:17):
For example, if you were signed up to their newsletter,
you would know that the Holiday open House is Saturday,
December seventh from ten am to three pm. It's a
free event with live music, kids, crafts, sano be there, drinks.
I don't have santagates around so much drinks and more
all there at the Holiday open House. You would know
that December seventh, you would know when they got their
(01:07:37):
point set is in. You would know that you can
get some really gorgeous faux wreaths and garlands for beautiful
holiday decorations. Just year after year after year, you see
some picture of those gorgeous things, and you would know
about the native plant of the week, Like have you
ever heard of Virginia sweet spire? You know, Buchanans Navy
Plants specializes in native plants. Virginia sweets is so cool.
(01:08:01):
It's native in East Texas area and beyond. But it
has beautiful white blooms, fragrant little blooms that are like
a bottle brush kind of but a small, thin bottle brush.
And you can make if you've got a shady area
and you want a shrub that grows in there, and
it's like, okay, I know about azelias. What else Virginia
(01:08:21):
sweetspar will do well. It'll put up with some sun too.
By the way, it's not just total shade. But you
would learn about things like that. You would learn about
when they're having a discount, like right now all the
fall decor is fifty percent off. You need to go
to the website buchanusplasts dot com. You need to sign
up for the newsletter. You will learn a lot and
also on the website there's a lot of good helpful
(01:08:43):
how to information. Let's set out to cypress now and
we're going to talk to Leanne. Hello, Leanne, welcome to Guardenline. Alrighty,
We're going to put Lee in on old here and
let's see if we can there we go. You know what, Leanne,
(01:09:05):
if I push the right button, I actually have you
on the air.
Speaker 6 (01:09:09):
Sorry about that, I'll get good morning Skip. So I
took your advice a couple of months ago, and we
in prep for putting in the generator, we had had
to have the crape myrtle totally removed and then moved
over slightly to where it would stay. I put in
(01:09:29):
a Chitalpa from proven Winners, and I know it's going
to give me fragrant blooms about the same color pink
and maybe not quite be as big an invasive, but
just and I've been watching for sprouts and I did
this last week find some.
Speaker 14 (01:09:50):
I had to.
Speaker 6 (01:09:51):
I had to actually move some more roots that were
going to go under that generator pad. But we could
only go so far because there's other infrastructure there. There's
our WiFi and phone, and of course electrical is lower.
But we could only go so far. And so I
(01:10:13):
was poisoning with the tricle peer. And one of these
roots is as big as my forearm and I could
only take it out so far.
Speaker 14 (01:10:23):
And since then, and I've known.
Speaker 6 (01:10:24):
Him brown tips on the upper growth of that chitalpa
and it had been in the ground for over a
month with no problem. Can the moisture in the ground
wick that poison over there?
Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
It's not gonna it's not going to hit it that way.
I don't think that's the tricle peer that's doing that, tokay.
But when you apply tricle per, you either apply it
just to the foliage as a wipe on. I like
to use my weed wiper for that, or you dab
it on fresh cut surface. Is only you know, you're
(01:11:01):
not drenching it into the soil of course, just dad
with the fresh cut because that wound can take in
the trichopere. So a little spongebrush and you know we're
talking about a tea spoon or tablespoon of the product.
So yeah, that that's not the problem. Then when you
plant a new plant, the root systems can find and
in the garden center is getting watered every day and
(01:11:24):
so that it pumps that soil that root ball dry.
Even if the soil is kind of moist, it can
still go into a little bit of a drought, and
that burning tips can be anything from a little bit
of a drought type symptom to if you put fertilizer
that's salt based in the planting hole and those roots
get burned, that that nutrient goes up into the plant
(01:11:46):
and goes all the way out to the to the
tips of the leaves and edges of the leaves where
the water is all evaporating away, transpiring away, and it
leaves that salt behind and you get a burn tip too.
So there's different things that can cause it. But I
think your chittapa is fine. I wouldn't worry about that
right now.
Speaker 6 (01:12:04):
So if anything could, it be overwatering, well probably not.
Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
The when you overwater. The reason overwatering is bad for
plants is because the roots can't get oxygen, and so
then the roots start to die and then you see
overall symptoms where like an entire leaf is just turning
yellow and falling off, and the plant's wilting even though
(01:12:36):
it's standing in water. Because the roots can't kick into gear,
they can't have to breathe, and they can't do that,
So I don't think that is going to be an
overwatering symptom.
Speaker 6 (01:12:48):
Yeah, it's not yellowing. So when I plan, I know
chatapas I read the instructions that said they don't like
to be extra fertile. But when I did plant it
two weeks in a row, I did put the medina
has to grow on it to water it. And it
(01:13:08):
is a sprinkler system there. Yeah, I knew that would.
Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
Be okay, yeah, and.
Speaker 6 (01:13:17):
Yeah, and then but there is a sprinkler system there.
It does run quite a bit because it's also connected
to some hanging baskets. That's my biggest.
Speaker 3 (01:13:26):
Concern that well, back back it down a little bit.
One of one of Chatopa's parents is desert willow, which
grows in very dry areas. Very well, that's one of
its two parents. And so you don't want to you
don't want to keep it in a swamp. It doesn't
want to be in a swamp. So I would I would, uh,
I would back off a little bit. If you can
(01:13:47):
do hand watering, uh, just from now on it up
until spring. That way you could water right at the base,
which is where the only place where all the roots
are is still that little cylinder you put in the
ground and just hand water there, I think that would
probably be better. And a clay soil. If you overwater the
hole becomes an underground bathtub, and now the roots are
sitting submerged. So I would just watch out for the
(01:14:10):
sprinkler on this one. Let's get it. You know it's
gonna go dormant here, the leaves are gonna fall off,
and then it essentially almost needs no water. You know,
the nature will provide enough for it.
Speaker 6 (01:14:21):
All right, Okay, sounds good, Thank.
Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
You, well, good luck with it. Good luck with it.
Sounds like you're making progress there. Thanks for the thanks
for the call. I appreciate that very much. I'm gonna
have to go to a break here. I will be
back pretty soon. I'm gonna hear some music in about
two seconds. You mentioned medina. You know, hash to grow
six to twelve six is excellent for watering in plants, like
(01:14:46):
we were talking about. Just get something, have it on
the shelf, has to grow six twelve six plant. For
what you do is I put mine into like a
watering can and then just water in every time my
plants an do that, you do it again a week
later and again a week. Makes it real easy. You
can get Medina all kinds of places widely available. It's
one of the many products it's got. It also has
(01:15:06):
that Medina Soul activator in it too, which I think
is excellent, excellent. Alrighty, well, there's the music that means
we are going to take a little break. We will
come back. If you would like to give us a
call and get on the board so you can be
first up when we come back. Seven one three two
one two three ten seven.
Speaker 12 (01:15:29):
Don't have to.
Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Welcome to kzy r h garden Line with skimp Rickards.
Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Just watch him as.
Speaker 3 (01:15:48):
A welcome back. Welcome to garden Line. Let's do this again.
We got an hour to go here at eight o'clock
and another one at nine o'clock. Two more hours today
for your gardening questions and for advice to help you
(01:16:11):
have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, and
more fun in the process. That's what I want to happen.
That's what I would like to happen for you. Gardening
should be fun, it should be and we all kill plants.
We all kill plants. Yes, I'm admitting I kill plants.
Don't tell anybody. It's just hearing me listening right now.
Don't spread that around. But that's okay. To be a
(01:16:33):
good gardener, you got to kill plants because things happen.
You learn that way. Sometimes it's no fun, you know,
lose an expensive plant. But just by following some principles
you can have success. You can minimize your plant killing.
You know, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Plants will take your name off the list as you
(01:16:53):
learn a little bit more and you're less likely to
get hauled off to horticulture prison for murdering some poor
little plan Who can help you with that, you know.
Microlife Fertilizer has a wide variety of products. They've got
their granular products. That's things like the green bag, the
sixty four, the summer fertilizer, the fall fertilizer, which it's
still okay to put on now. If you didn't get
(01:17:15):
it done until now, you can still go ahead and
do it. That is called brown patch. It's called Microlife
brown patch and a brown bag brownish purple, herb, maroon,
and the brown patch will give you the nutrient blend
you need for going into fall, and it does really
well for that. But then they also have their liquids.
(01:17:36):
I like to use the liquid products. They've got a seaweed,
They've got a fisher moulsion type product. They've got one
that I use a lot on house plants. It is
an orange label, okay, micro see micro, I just want
blank on the micro anyway, it's an orange label on it.
I'll tell you in just a minute. It just stepped
(01:17:57):
out of my mind and I find that it's excellent.
It has no odor really, and so you can use
it indoors. By the way, don't use don't use fish
and motion indoors unless you have cats and want to
see all the potting soil in your plant. Help because
cats will walk them off for a fish. But fish
emulsion is such an excellent fertilizer, just not inside. But
(01:18:20):
other products that they have, they have liquids. For example,
the micro grow liquid is an excellent product for adding
tons of microbes to the soil. Adding a lot of
micro I mean I'm talking about the bazillions that add
to the soil, and even for house plants, that is helpful.
It is helpful to be able to add additional microbial
(01:18:42):
content because microbes help the plants to thrive by the
way the product I couldn't say the name of the
orange le biomatrix to seven one three fertilizer you can
use I use it on houseplins, but I mean you
can use it in any plant in your garden. It
just does really well. All of that's for Microlife. All
you have to do is go to Microlife Fertilizer Com
and learn about all of the many, many products, many
(01:19:03):
of which I never even talked about here on guard Line.
Just don't have time to do all of them.
Speaker 14 (01:19:08):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
And you'll also learn where you can get micro Life,
which I'll save you the trouble. It's just everywhere everywhere,
feed stores, hardware, ace hardware stores, garden centers, Southwest Fertilizers.
You can get Microlife everywhere. All right, We're gonna go
up to talk to Caroline next. Hello Caroline, Welcome to
garden Line.
Speaker 12 (01:19:29):
Hello.
Speaker 18 (01:19:30):
Uh, I have a comment about something I heard yesterday morning,
but I didn't take time to stop and call. You
had a caller that was having problems with squirrels in
the backyard messing up for trees of Yeah, well we
have a problem. So man, when we have it again.
(01:19:52):
But a few years ago we had a tree man
come out and tream all our trees and everything looks pretty.
And then we just kept seeing these twigs falling every
all of our driveway in yard. And when the yard
man would come and pick him up, and they were
(01:20:14):
back again, and uh, and it got worse, and we
called the tree man back. And we had something called
twig girdlers, and it didn't have anything to do with
the squirrels that they sprayed. Right in the meantime, I
had to pick up the drop the whatever leaves and
(01:20:34):
twigs had dropped, put them in a bag and tie
it tight.
Speaker 3 (01:20:38):
He said, there, that is right in that twiggerler though
this this collar was saying they were dropping leaves everywhere,
and the twigg gurler though, I'm gonna tell you what
i'm gonna do, Caroline, in a little bit. I'm gonna
talk about a couple of things that that chomp on
twigs like that. But thank you for that caller. Reminder,
lots of critters out there, aren't.
Speaker 7 (01:20:59):
There, Yes, there are.
Speaker 18 (01:21:01):
You can't see these, I mean, but he said, if
you don't pick them up, they'll crawl back up the
tree and lay more eggs, and evidently a few of
them did, because it's been two or three years and
they're back.
Speaker 19 (01:21:14):
They do.
Speaker 3 (01:21:15):
They do a nice little neat cut on those limbs. Hey,
thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much.
I talk about RCW Nursery a lot because I love
RCW Nursery. It's the garden center that's right there where
two forty nine comes into belt Way eight. And when
you go into RCW, first of all, you're going to
find all the kinds of plants you're looking for and
(01:21:36):
products to go with those plants. But if you're looking
for shrubs right now, they got a sale on shrubs.
It's excellent talking to somebody the other day. Send them
over there that's looking for some special certain kinds of shrubs,
and rcw's got those, and so it's a good time
to get them. Falls the best time to plant shrubs
and trees anyway, and so you should do that. They
(01:21:56):
grow their own trees up there in Plannersville at the
Tree Farm, and I'm telling you RCW only sells plants
that are going to do really really well. Here. Those
trees are growing. They've chosen those species because they know
they do well here and you can plant them yourself.
It's small. If you want them to come plant it,
they'll do a professional job on it. They have the
(01:22:17):
products like root stimulator and whatnot that you would want
for that. But just go to RCW again the corner
of Tomball Parkway at Beltway eight r cwnurseries dot com.
We're going to go now to Huntsville and talk to Charles. Hey, Charles,
Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 11 (01:22:33):
Good morning. I planted a burroke in the very corner
of my dog pin and my wife got overzealous with
the roundup in order to kill all the weeds there
so she could mow and lo and behold it killed
the burroke. So I cut it off at ground level.
It was dead, all the limbs where you can just
break them off with your hand, and there was no green.
(01:22:55):
I cut it off at ground lever didn't pay any
attention to it. About a week ago I went out
and lo and behold, there's a stem coming straight up
with three beautiful big leaves that the burrough has. And
I wondered about should I mulch it around it with
pine needles. I've got a lot of pine trees and
I put a lot of pine needles around it. It
(01:23:18):
had three adult leaves and it had one little one
just starting. And we're getting cold weather. It's already been
down in the thirty thirty five thirty six degree level
those leaves should have if it was normal, those leaves
would have died and blown away by now. But what
about up here in this You know I'm north of Huntsville, Alabama.
Speaker 7 (01:23:39):
Am I going to have to?
Speaker 6 (01:23:40):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:23:40):
Alabama? Okay?
Speaker 11 (01:23:42):
Yeah, yeah, Huntsville, Alabama.
Speaker 14 (01:23:44):
So I've called you.
Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
I think it's before Yeah, I think it's going to
be fine, Charles. The burokes are tough native species, and
you still have a root system that's in decent health.
That's why you got that sprout. So even if freeze
killed that sprout back, which I don't think it will, uh,
then it's going to be just fine. Your mulching is fine,
(01:24:05):
kind of protects the base. Generally not at all needed
on a burrow, but there's no problem. Just couldn't leave
it since you got it on there. I think next
spring you'll see it come back and all you The
only other thing you need for success is to take
the roundup away from your wife.
Speaker 11 (01:24:21):
That's well they make beautiful a.
Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
Uh oh, I hear her in the background. I'm probably
in big trouble.
Speaker 11 (01:24:30):
Now, Yeah, I said, the acorns make beautiful decorations. You
can spray them gold or silver, and people use them
in their decorative reefs and so forth.
Speaker 14 (01:24:42):
But beautiful than.
Speaker 3 (01:24:46):
I just have to wear a hard hat when you're
mowing underneath the burrow. Hey, I've got I've got to run.
I've talked past my break time. But thank you very much.
I appreciate that call a lot, Charles. All right, folks,
I'll be right back. All right, welcome back to the
Guardline to have you with us. Glad to be here.
We're going to head back to the phones here and
just a bit by the way, the phone number is
seven one three two one two k t r H
(01:25:10):
seven one three two and two k t r H.
Listen to. Birds are about to be flocking back to
the feeders there. They're there at the feeders already, but
as we get into colder weather, they're going to be
depending on our feeders a lot more. And that is
a great thing because it's an opportunity to bring them
up where you can sit and enjoy them, especially through
the winter. Time, and I would recommend right now that
(01:25:33):
you get some Winter super Blend. Winter super Blend is
the wild birds unlimited bird seed for the cold weather season.
It's packed with protein, it's packed with fat. As the
daylight hours or shorter and shorter now we are looking
at less time for birds to be outfeeding. So being
(01:25:54):
able to get a high quality feed and a short
amount of time is very important. Remember to that it's
always good to have water out. Number one. Birds need
water every day and so having a dependable supply is
important to them. And when they know there's a dependable supply,
they're going to come back there time after time. You know,
if you have the water out for one day a
week here and there, they don't know they get water
(01:26:15):
to the house. I mean they may find it, but
keep it out all the time. They need it every
day and it brings them to your house, just like
feed brings them to your house. Bird seed, so does water.
So keep that out for them as well. Stop by wallbirds.
I tell you there are so many gift opportunities in there.
Put something on your list for the holidays for gift giving.
(01:26:38):
Purchase something for somebody else you know. You may know
someone who is just not you know, they're not the
typical bird watcher with binoculars wandering around through the woods,
but they would enjoy something that really brings the beauty,
the sounds of the birds and everything into the backyard.
So a quality bird feed er, a quality bird house.
Just go to Wallbirds talk to them about it. If
(01:27:00):
you know someone that already likes birds, They've got some
awesome books that would make great gifts. Wildbirds Ilimited go
to WBU dot com forward slash Houston w b U
dot com forward slash Houston. We're going to go to
Southwest Houston now and talk to Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn, good morning.
Speaker 4 (01:27:21):
I'm wondering if it's too late to fertilize my eggplants
bloomed all summer, but didn't They didn't make but until
the end of the summer. And now I've got four
good sized eggplants and two little marble size ones coming out.
So should I give them some fertilizer now or is
(01:27:42):
it too late?
Speaker 3 (01:27:44):
I wouldn't give them any. They're just find their growth
rate is slowing down as the days get shorter or
are shorter in the good night, temperatures cool off a
little bit. And so there's plenty of nutrients in the soil.
You don't want to stimulate tender new growth. There's not
time for that to develop and bloom and set eggplants.
(01:28:05):
So I'm just concerned with whatever you've got on the plant,
trying to get those to harvest. So yeah, hold off
on the fertilizer.
Speaker 4 (01:28:12):
On the eggplant, Okay. I the same with it with
the okra.
Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
Oh yes, yeah, I'm impressed that you still have okrah going.
My mine has been dwindling down for a while now,
but it is even pickier about these cold nights that
we're having right now. It's not happy at all about that.
So any on vegetables, squash, green beans, okra. You know
that none of those need need fertilizer.
Speaker 4 (01:28:39):
Now, okay, good, thank you, you.
Speaker 3 (01:28:44):
Bet you bet. Now remember the rule on guard lines.
All I need to do is when you get those
last few eggplants, just divide them in half and bring
them to the station. We'll call it even. Thank you
appreciate that.
Speaker 14 (01:28:56):
Okay, take care.
Speaker 3 (01:28:58):
Okay, someday that Joe, it's going to get old. Maybe not,
I don't know. We'll see. We'll find out. When you're
looking for a place to get all kinds of things
that you need for making a beautiful, bountiful garden and landscape.
Southwest Fertilizer has got you covered. Southist Fertilizer's been around
(01:29:19):
since nineteen fifty five. They're at the corner Abyssinet and
Runwick in south West Houston. Southwest Fertilizer has got every
fertilizer I talk about on garden line, I mean, and
then some. Just if you haven't been in there, you
need to drive over there and just go look at
it and see what what is this? This kip keeps
talking about the place where if they don't have it,
you don't need it, Well go look, go see it.
(01:29:43):
I've been talking to people today about my weed wiper,
my homemade weed wiper. How easy it is to make.
Bob's got the little grabber tools with the suction cups
that you need to make one. They're there on the wall.
He's got stock of them. Get one, even if you
don't need it today, just get it and get it made.
It's it's so easy. Go on my website. You can
do that. Grab His kneeling bench makes a good gift,
(01:30:04):
and it's also buy one for yourself. I bought one
for my sister, who is much older than me, the
fact that I very much enjoy pointing out to her.
And after a while I thought, you know what, I
think I'm going to get me one. And I did.
And I'm telling you, change your life, change your gardening life.
Me going up and down laying a patio stones and
getting up and down and up and down. If I
(01:30:25):
didn't have that kneeling bench, I don't know how you
get buy I mean, because well, I know what happened.
You wake up in the prenatal position the next morning
and you can't straighten your legs out because you're so sore.
It's a cool tool. Hey, he's also got an eighty
or actually now ninety foot wall of tools. Do you
need substacle to prevent weeds or kill weeds? Do you
need stuff to kill insects? Do you need stuff to
(01:30:46):
fight diseases? Are you an organic gardener and you only
want organic products? You're not going to find a bigger
selection than Southwest Fertilizer. Yes, they have those two Southwest
Fertilizer dot com corner of this and Runwick. You should
check those out. For example, he's got there you hear
(01:31:07):
me talk about the color Star and other Nelson products
and things. You know, the color Star is Nelson's fertilizer famous,
I'll say, famous fertilizer for flowering plants. And why do
I say famous, Well, because it has become so popular.
Professional landscapers have been using it for a long time.
Do you know that Nelson's ships the product out of
(01:31:30):
state to commercial landscapers and others because it's so popular.
It's not just textans. I mean people all over they
find it, they try it, it works, and they buy it.
That is color Star. Color Star has got five different
sources of nitrogen in it. It's got organic bone meal
that provides phosphors, it's got organic blood meal that provides nitrogen,
(01:31:51):
and I mean it's got five different sources of nitrogen.
It feeds the soil and the soil feature plants. That's
how that works. I would say put it out about
every three to four months the growing season and in
the cool season too. You know, in the cool season,
micro activity slows down a little bit and the release
of nutrients are far slows down a little bit. If
you've got a bed full of pansies and you want
them to bloom, bloom, bloom. Have you ever you ever
(01:32:13):
planted those things? And you know they bloom pretty good
and then they just sort of kind of not do much.
You got to stimulate new growth on them because new
growth makes new leaves that catch sunlight, that makes sugars
that make blooms. That's how that works. If a cool
season or worm season blooming plant is not healthy growing
with green foliage growth, you're not going to have good
(01:32:36):
bloom production. Color Star does just that. It's a nineteen
thirteen six for all flowering plants from Nelson Plant. It
comes in little jars two pound jars and larger a
larger screw top lid type jar as well. Four pounds
I believe is the weight on it. But anyway, bottom
line is color Star. You need some of that and
it works and I would highly recommend it. You were
(01:33:00):
listening to Gardenline. Our phone number is seven to one
three two one two k t r H. Seven to
one three two one two k t r H. Give
us a call. We can answer the questions that you
might have. I earlier on I was talking about let's
see what was I talking about. Oh, we had a
(01:33:21):
call yesterday about some leaves that were dropping off of
a tree. And I wanted to talk a little about
another question that I haven't had, didn't have yesterday, but
it's very closely related, and that is what causes small
twigs to fall out of your tree a lot, or
small branches to fall out of your trees a lot.
(01:33:43):
And there's there's a couple of different things. Number One,
squirrels can actually nip the ends of branches and so
on the ground you find this little section of a
twig with leaves on it, and when you look at
where it broke off, you can see that it was
like cut with little squirrel teeth cut off and do
that occasionally they'll just nip those little things off, and
you'll see that. There are also little borers that can
(01:34:06):
get into a branch, little pinhole size hole in them,
and that becomes a weak spot. The branch often dies
because the flow can't get to the leaves toward the
end of it, and it snaps there and falls off.
And then there are twig girdlers. And we had a
collar a little bit earlier that was talking about the
twig girdlers, and those are really interesting insects. They are
(01:34:27):
a long insect with very long antenna. It's kind of
a brown black, little chewing beetle insect that gets on
the twig. And typically it's going to happen on twigs
that are maybe the size of your small into your
small finger, or even a little bit smaller pencil size
even is a common size. And they stand there on
(01:34:49):
the twig and they chew all the way around the
twig as if you took a little tiny saw and
you saw it not through it, but all the way
almost to the center, all the way around it. And
then that twig, of course snaps and falls out. And
you pick up this twig and it looks like it
would just sawed off, perfectly sawed off, and that's the
twig girdler. What that insect does is it lays an
(01:35:09):
egg outside of where it cut the limb off. Okay,
so that egg is now in the fallen branch, and
you need to pick those branches up and get rid
of them. Get rid of them, bury them down deep
in the soil if you want to dig that kind
of hole. Put them in the trash and have somebody
haul them away somewhere else, because they will hatch out
(01:35:31):
of that and that's part of the life cycle of
coming back into your trees. I've seen them do this
to many kinds of trees, pecond trees. It happens a lot.
I've even seen it on rose branches before. But that's
a twig girdler. You can spray, but there's really no
need to just pick up all the fallen branches like that,
and you've removed that whole generation of you know, of
(01:35:52):
new offspring that are about to come out from your property.
That's a twig girdler. Just a little minor pruning is
the damage they do. I've seen some pretty significant cases,
but nothing that was very alarming to worry about. All right,
it's time for me to take a break for the news.
I will be right back with your calls. If you'd
like to be first up seven to one three two
(01:36:14):
one two KTRH. Welcome back to the garden line, folks.
If you would like to call in with your questions,
just dial seven to one three two to one two KTRH.
You know I still say dial That's interesting. I catch
myself every time I say it. Now at least I'm
aware of it. If you remember the rotary phones, a
lot of listeners do.
Speaker 4 (01:36:35):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:36:36):
It's kind of weird now to think that we actually
stuck our finger and a dial and made a big circle.
I had to wait for a text come back again.
But times change, right, Well, welcome back to the garden line.
What do you want to talk about? What kind of
questions do you have? We want you to have a
bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape, and I like fun in
(01:36:56):
the process. That would be a goal that I have
least for you. In my gardens out there, we are
starting to harvest a lot of the coal crops cruciferous crops.
Those are the blue leaf vegetables. That's things like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, coal,
(01:37:17):
robbie kale, collards. What else is in that group Brussels
Brussels sprouts. Anyway, those are all coal crops and they
are packed with really good things for our health. Coal
crops are they have a number of cancer fighting agents
in them. They're just good for you. They really are
good for you. Now people have different opinions about them.
(01:37:38):
Some of them can be quite strong, such as mustard
that even though it's not blue leaf, that's actually a
cruciferous vegetable itself, and I'm not quite up to mustard.
It's a little too strong for me. But some people
love it. And then there's others that are just not
strong at all. They're just sweet. There is a vegetable
called chi jim asi, and that's a name, at least
(01:37:59):
once company gives on it. It's a it's a different
species of one of the coal crops. It's very mild.
It doesn't have that mustard family pungency at all to it.
But everybody's taste varries. I love kale, especially when we
get some cold weather and the kale just seems to
get really sweet. I think it's great. Isn't smoothies and
(01:38:21):
my smoothies for example, And a lot of people don't
like kale. One one time, I was watching a sports
show and they were, I don't know, they were just
chit chatting and they got off topic on TV, and uh,
this guy said he had a good kale recipe. And
what you do is you take a cookie sheet a
cookie sheet pan, and you spray it with a non
(01:38:44):
stick spray and you put the kale out on it,
and then you spray that with a little olivail and
sprinkle se saal on it and you put it in
the in the oven and you roast it until it's crispy,
and then you take it out and you walk over
to the trash and you tilt the pan and it
slides right off into the trash because you oiled. Okay,
(01:39:04):
that's not a fan of kale right there. Some of
you are going, yes, yes, I like that recipe. Others
are horrified that kale chips just got thrown away. That's
a good thing about vegetables. We can find lots of
things we want to grow. But I want to challenge
you to do something this year. Grow something you've never
grown before. Eat something you've never tried before. I never
(01:39:29):
was a kale fan. I grew up in the South,
and I don't know. There is something about the Mason
Dixon line, where years ago kale was north of the line,
college was south of the line. That's just kind of
how the line drew through the country. Now we grow
a lot of kale in the South way more than
we used to. I don't know if they're growing College
further up north or not. But anyway, try something you
(01:39:50):
ever grown before. There's some good ones. That Cheams I
was talking about is an excellent, really mild one. Somebody
that is not in the mustard at all would love
that plant really well. There's a lot of different kinds
of radishes. My dad ate the little cherry bell radishes
that were so hot they'd burned the end of your
tongue off. And I hate the hot radishes. I just
(01:40:10):
don't like them at all. But now there's very mild radishes,
like the watermelon radish, which is the size of a turnip,
and it has a beautiful red color on the inside
with a white maybe a little green on the very outside,
and then white and then red inside. It's beautiful. Have
you ever tried growing those? Get your kids out there too.
(01:40:31):
You know, when kids grow something and they're more likely
to eat it, and when they eat fresh vegetables, they're
more likely to have a healthy life in the long term. Yep,
that tried. Happy meals are not good for us. I'm
not picking on one store. I'm just saying, or one restaurant.
I'm just saying processed food, no fresh garden vegetables. Yes,
what are you gonna grow this year? How about a
(01:40:53):
Swiss chart? It is not extremely cold, hardy like spinaches,
but you can grow Swiss chart. They're a low cover
over it. We're gonna have some cold weather and it
does really well. Lots of things you can grow. Try something,
grow carrot Do this, okay, one thing I haven't convinced
you may think one thing. Get some carrot seed. Get
a five gallon bucket, drill some holes in the bottom,
put a quality soil mix in there, a potting soil,
(01:41:16):
you know, the very high quality potting soil. Sprinkle some
carrot seed on top of the surface. Barely cover them
like an eighth of an inch as I mean, just
a little bit of soil and press it down and
keep it moist. And it takes them a while to sprout,
but when they sprout, you got to keep it moist.
They will grow in that five gallon bucket and your
(01:41:39):
kids will get to pull carrots they grew out of
a five gallon big They will enjoy that. That is fun.
If you also got kids and you want something kind
of fun for them to do. They're not gonna lie cradishes,
probably most kids don't. But you can get a chicken wire,
hardware cloth or something like that. You plant the seeds
into a little container, a little flat container maybe for
six inches deep and then put that hardware cloth or
(01:42:01):
that chicken wire on the surface. They'll grow through it,
and once they've developed their full sized round roots, you
can then just pull that strip of wire off, wash
the soil off, and what you've got is a piece
of wire hanging in the air with the bulbs on
one side and the leaves on the other. That's pretty
(01:42:22):
cool stuff, fun for kids, but I'm not thinking they're
going to like the hot radishes. Let's go out now
to Lake Jackson and we're going to talk to Ronnie. Well, Hello, Ronnie,
Welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 15 (01:42:36):
Glad to be here. Appreciate you taking the call. Two
quick questions. Is it too late to start growing cabbage
and stuff like that? The winter fruits vegetables you're talking
about from seeds? Should I get or can I go
ahead and plant the seeds now? Or should I get
a already started plant.
Speaker 3 (01:42:57):
Well, it's better at this point you get already started
plants because you get a head start and it just
happens faster, and a lot of things can happen in
between it being a seed you're dropped on the ground
and hitting that stage of a transplant size. But that said,
if you want to start seeds, that's fine. If we're
going to get down, oh let's just say below freezing
(01:43:17):
and it's a little tender seedling, I'd cover them up,
you know, put something out there so the cover doesn't
smash them, and to hold up the cover. But yes,
you can still plant from seed if you want. It's
just going to be a very long cabbage takes a
long time anyway, and it'll it'll extend even longer. Okay, right,
just what I need. All right, man, thanks a lot,
(01:43:39):
appreciate appreciate that call. All right, here we go. Time
flies and you're having fun or when you're droning on
about kids and vegetables, we'll be right back. Hey, welcome
back to the Guarden Line. Good to have you with
us today. I'm gonna run right out the first thing
the segment and we're going to go to Fairfield and
talk to Marty. Hey, Marty, welcome to Garden Line.
Speaker 7 (01:44:01):
Good morning.
Speaker 20 (01:44:02):
Hey, Skip, Hey, don't ever put yourself down for talking
about in fact, kids and plants. I'm working on all
of my great grand uh nephews and nieces their Christmas gifts,
and we're putting together kits for them to start gardening.
So don't ever, don't ever feel like you might be
(01:44:25):
talking to the wind or the air or whatever, because
we're I understand you.
Speaker 3 (01:44:35):
Yes, I wonder who was out there. I'm glad to
meet you. All right, what do you want to talk
about today, Marty?
Speaker 20 (01:44:41):
Well, I cut all my Okrah back and I left
about oh three feet of them, and they're growing only
very very rapidly, and so they become six inches long
within a day or two, like faster than they did
in the summer. I've been picking them. They're probably too
(01:45:04):
tough to eat or pickle, but I've been picking seeds
out of them and just drying them and all that.
Is there anything else I can do with those?
Speaker 3 (01:45:13):
Because I have a lot, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh,
this is like you were setting me up to drone
on and bore the audience and unlink. Yes, there's a
lot you can do with Okra if you dry, if
you let Okra pods dry, you can paint them up.
And as a friend of mine painted ochre like little
(01:45:34):
Santa clauses. So just kind of imagine the little cap
on Okra is a Santa hat right at the end,
and they dipped them in red paint or something. They
put white beards on them. Yeah, you could do that.
Christmas tree ornaments. Okra dried arrangements can be sprayed too.
You get the stem and the whole thing, and they
use them like that. The seed can be ground and
made into coffee substitute. Now, I don't think Folgers is
(01:45:58):
in danger of getting put out of business coffee, but
I'm told that, like during Civil war or something, when
things were hard, they would grind up okresy to make
the coffee substitute out of it. Kind of weird stuff.
The pods are great fire starters when they're dry too.
I mean it's like you just put them underneath like
the lugs in the fireplace to get it started or
(01:46:19):
something like that. Or Yeah, there's a lot of different
things people. George Washington Carver, I told you I was
gonna drone on George Washington Carver, who is one of
my horticulture heroes. Absolutely amazing man. He found so many
different uses. He took ochra stalks and he soaked them
(01:46:40):
in water and kind of like hammered on him and
made rugs out of okra stalk fibers. He also made
paper out of the pith that then inside pith in
the okre yeah you made he pounded it out into
a paper like but that was him. He was the
guy's mind was incredible. But anyway, I'll stop there, but yes,
(01:47:01):
you're getting started.
Speaker 20 (01:47:03):
Well no, I just like, I've been picking the seeds
until I'm tired of picking, but I just have so
many left, and I was like, what can I do
with this, especially because I'm making these kids little Christmas
kits today to start gardens. So anyway, okay, we'll all
go on. Is there a website with George Washington Carver
(01:47:27):
and all.
Speaker 3 (01:47:28):
Of his Tuskegee Institute. He was a Tuskegee Institute. He
was like the Extension Service before there was even an
extension service. He was a very very early person. He
would have a wagon called the Jessup Wagon that he
would take out in the countryside to teach farmers about
how to be more productive, how to make more money
off their farms. And it's very very interesting. You can
(01:47:50):
look up Jessup Wagon or look up George Washington Carver.
The guys think he had over one hundred Jessup j. E. S.
S Up. I believe he found over one hundred uses
for sweet potatoes.
Speaker 4 (01:48:06):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (01:48:07):
But you know you think back in that day and time,
and that was he was an incredible scientist. This is
a long strung but all right, all right, have fun,
Bye bye bye. Yeah, don't get me started talking about Okra,
Star Hope Ministries, Christ centered counseling, Christ centered help for
(01:48:27):
people that are homeless, for people that are struggling with
substance abuse, for people that for whatever reason just need
some help. And you know, we all have times in
our life where we need help from somebody. And when
you put your compassion to work with Star Hope, that's
two dollars and eighty five cents to buy one meal.
(01:48:49):
So we're talking chicken feed here. Time to pocket change here,
You change a life, you really do. You're part of
the overall I have. I've been down there. I've met
folks at Star Hope. Oh gosh, many years ago we
used to volunteer and the place has changed so much
it is unbelievable. And if you could hear the stories,
(01:49:10):
it would just inspire you to see the lives that
they change. This isn't a handout, This isn't you know,
Street Corner roll down the window. Here's five bucks. Good luck.
This is getting involved in people's lives and changing their
lives and changing the lives of their kids, and therefore
changing our community for the better in the long run.
Shmission dot org, sohmission dot org. We're going to go
(01:49:35):
to willisonow and talk to Mark. Hey, Mark, welcome to
garden Line.
Speaker 7 (01:49:39):
Hey, good morning. I have a question. I was in
to come to Washington last week and fell in love
with the Japanese maples. Can I grow Japanese maple up
at Lake Conrod?
Speaker 3 (01:49:52):
You can, but you have to give them what they want.
They like somewhat acidic soil. They like to be in
a very bright shade, not in the full brunt of
the sun. Now, there are Japanese maples that have adjusted
and do it better in more sun than I thought
they would. But in general, the kind that have wider
leaves shaped like not the size of but shape like
(01:50:15):
a sycamore leaf, as opposed to the kind that have little,
narrow thread like leaves, the wider leaves tend to do
a little bit better. That's a generalization, but those are
some tips. If you go to a you know, you
go to a good garden center that can advise you
and direct you in the particular cultivars they grow. But
just remember acidic soil, lots of organic matter, constant moisture,
(01:50:38):
consistent moisture, don't let them dry out, and a very
very bright maybe a little morning sun, but very bright shade.
And that's the secret to getting them to do well.
Speaker 7 (01:50:48):
For you here, So four or five hours of direct
sunlight that it's a no go.
Speaker 3 (01:50:56):
You probably would be It would probably be okay with
four to five. It just depends a lot on the
cultivar and stuff that you grow. And if they if
they started with that, that's good. Where they run into
a problem is when it's real shady and then they
you know, the tree gets cut down and now they're
in full brunner sun. That changes to too sudden, too
(01:51:18):
hard on them.
Speaker 7 (01:51:19):
Okay, Now, where can I locate one it's kind of
been tempered for our area, or oh that one of these.
Speaker 3 (01:51:29):
Yeah, well, you can get Japanese maples in a lot
of different places. You know, you're not you're a little
distanced to come down I thirty five to the arbor gate.
I don't know if they carry them out there at
A and A plants and produce on one oh five
west of co Conroe or not. There's a grower's outlet
(01:51:50):
up there in Willis. It's close to you that might
have them. I didn't look for that one. I'm iffy
on whether they would carry that. I know if you come,
if you're willing to do a little. I've come down
to Arburgate. You can find Japanese maples there, and they're
going to know the varieties to carry and what to
have there. So those are a few places.
Speaker 7 (01:52:08):
Okay, Now tell me get in the name of that.
Speaker 3 (01:52:12):
Arbor gate, the arbor Gate. Yes, in Tomball there there
west just west of Tomball, about a mile arbur Gate Tree.
Give them a call first, see what they got. All right,
thank you, appreciate, all right, you take care. Well, let's
(01:52:34):
see here. I'm trying to catch the calls up this
hour and looks like I tell you what, let's do this.
I'm going to head out to Beaumont, Sabian. I may
not be able to finish your call this hour, but
let's give it a shot.
Speaker 18 (01:52:48):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (01:52:49):
I live in Beaumont and I have some foreign grass
in baiting my Saint Augustine. It looks like ryde grass.
Speaker 11 (01:52:55):
But it's not and it's spreading, and I don't know
what it is or how to get rid of it.
Speaker 3 (01:53:02):
Does it come up above the Saint Augustine? Is it
taller than the Saint Augustine?
Speaker 11 (01:53:06):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:53:07):
Yes, okay, So killing a grass and a grass is
hard to do because something that kills a grassy weed
kills your grassy lawn. If you use a wiper type applicator,
you can wipe it on the grass that's the weed,
without getting the product on the lawn itself. So that
would be one option. I think what would be best
(01:53:29):
is if you could take some really good close up
pictures and let me see those. I would be happy
to do a quick id on them and give you
any other comments that might come to mind. Most of
the time you see a rye grass like plant.
Speaker 7 (01:53:45):
Go ahead, I have good pictures.
Speaker 11 (01:53:48):
I made them. I don't know.
Speaker 14 (01:53:50):
Okay, what do I gotta send them?
Speaker 3 (01:53:52):
I'm going to put you on hold and my producer
Jonathan will give you an email to send them to.
The long term solution to this is to use a
pre emergent earlier in the fall. All right, hi, folks,
I'll be right back after the top of the news.
Speaker 1 (01:54:09):
Welcome to k t r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor.
Speaker 2 (01:54:13):
It's just watch him as well. That many good peace
to suppot basic.
Speaker 15 (01:54:38):
Sign.
Speaker 3 (01:54:40):
Hey, welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line. If you
would like to give me a call to ask a question,
I'd be happy to help you our phone number seven
one three two one two k t r H seven
one three two one two k t r H. My
goal is for you to have fun gardening. I want.
(01:55:02):
I know you would like to have a bountiful garden,
and I know you would like to have a beautiful landscape,
and I know you would like to have fun in
the process, and that's what we're all about here on
the garden Line. I hope you're having fun this morning.
I am. Someone made a mistake and asked me about
Okra earlier. Thank you Marty for that. And I've been
thinking about Okra all during the break, so this is
(01:55:23):
a problem. There's probably a wing of the Betty Ford
Clinic for Okra enthusiasts. I need to go there, I think.
By the way, for those of you who want to
become addicted to Okra, there is a book called The
Whole Okra. The whole Okra by Chris Smith, friend of
mine from out in North Carolina area, and it is
(01:55:45):
a book. It will fascinate you. It will tell you
all about the history all kinds of He is like
he went over the top with okra and it's really
really fun and cool stuff. There's even a even made okra.
What do you call fruit roll ups? You know that
that gooey kind of gummy stuff. Well, they they found
a way to make a kind of a fruit roll
(01:56:07):
up thing out a hook er. So I know all
of you are are not watering at the mouth right now,
but that's that seven seventy four Nilson Water Garden out
there in Katie, Texas is an outstanding garden center because
it's Nilsen Water Gardens and nursery. You know, the nursery
(01:56:27):
itself is always full of really quality plants. Things that
you are looking for to grow you're going to find
out there, you know, and things you wouldn't maybe expect,
you know, for example, the the butterfly vine. Have you
ever heard of butterfly vine? It isn't it's not a
vine that it's not named that way because it attracts butterflies.
It's named that way, because the yellow flower clusters are
(01:56:48):
replaced by seed pods that look like butterflies. They do.
Just google it, look, check it out. It's really cool.
It makes a really good vine too. By the way,
very vigorous will will cover a structure well. And yeah,
arrangers will take those little pods, dry them and the
butterfly pods and dry them and use them in arrangements.
(01:57:11):
They uh, let's see. I believe that next week midweek
they're getting their Christmas trees in out at Nelson Water
Garden and Nursery. They got all kinds of sizes, lots
of good options on that, so you want to be
aware of that. When you're out there, you're gonna find
lots of color and you're also going to find water gardens. Now,
this would be a good time to schedule an installation
(01:57:33):
of a water garden, because you know, it takes a
while to get everything planned out and out there to
your place. And if you'd like a beautiful waterfall, a
beautiful waterfall, nobody can do it as well as Nelson
Water Garden and Nursery. They're outstanding at that. They created
the disappearing fountain, the big like a tall vase type
(01:57:54):
pottery that sits on a bed of gravel and water
comes out of the pottery, goes down the sides and
goes back the gravel and recirculates. They came up with
that system and they have all the parts for it.
So if you wanted to do it, do it yourself.
For on it. They could tell you how to do
it if you want to, if you want to go
that route. But you should see the pottery that they
have for the water gardens out there. It is outstanding.
(01:58:16):
They have the fish, they have the plants, they have
everything else. And so we're kind of entering into this
cool winter season where it's kind of an off season
in some ways and many things. Why not go ahead
and get set up to get an installation to add
water to your landscape. The sound of water is so therapeutic.
It is wonderfully therapeutic. Just and go out to Nelson
(01:58:37):
Water Garden. Do this, Take your friends, because this is
a destination worth going to. You head out it. Ten
you get to Katie Fort Ben Road and Katie turn right,
go north. It's just a little bit up on the
right hand side, and go back out there and just
sit for a while and just listen to the sound
of water coming from all over around you. It's inspiring
(01:58:58):
and you will want that to be the next thing
you add to your landscape when you experience it. Let's see,
I'm gonna Oh, I wanted to give you the website
Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Nelson Watergardens dot com. Go to the
website and check it out. You find a lot there.
We're gonna go now to Angleton and talk to Barbara. Hey, Barbara,
(01:59:20):
is it Barbara?
Speaker 10 (01:59:20):
Hello?
Speaker 3 (01:59:21):
Yes, Hey, Okay.
Speaker 17 (01:59:25):
My question is I would like to enhance my flower
beds and I was thinking of getting some mushroom composts,
and I wanted to know if it's too late to
do that now or if I should wait until the spring.
Speaker 3 (01:59:44):
No, you can do that now. You absolutely can do
that now in Louisiana, Pacific and Louisiana. I don't know
why I always say that, because it's a East Texas
lumber company thing. It reminds me of Landscaper's pride. Landscape
is pride as a mushroom compost by the bag, and
it's so widely available. I bet you can get it
in your area, especially if you've got some ace hardware
(02:00:06):
stores or something around, but get the mushroom compost from
them and spread it out. I would only add it
about an inch or too thick. You could go thicker
if your soil is really a very poor clay and
needs more amending. But it doesn't take as much mushroom
compost as regular compost to provide the same nutrient benefits. Okay, okay.
(02:00:31):
Now the one place I would not the one just
to be sure. The one place I would not use
the mushroom is on something that's a very acidic soil
bed like for azaleas or blueberries or things like that,
because it is a higher pH. But it's still good.
I've used it a lot for many decades. It's an excellent,
excellent product. Just know that it will raise the pH
(02:00:54):
just a little bit.
Speaker 17 (02:00:55):
Okay, thank you very much, good.
Speaker 3 (02:00:59):
Barbara. Thanks enjoy that flower bit you take that. Yeah. Yeah,
that mushroom compost is like magic stuff. I'm telling you,
it's really cool. Well let's take a little time here.
We're going to go to a break in just a second.
I did want to mention to you. I was telling
you about ACE before, and ACE hardware is the place
where you're going to find all kinds of things for
(02:01:20):
whatever season you're in. You know, right now we're looking
at gift giving. ACE is a place with all kinds
of cool gifts. Listen, if there's a do it yourself
for in your life. Oh my gosh, top brands of
all kinds of things that ACE has. I'm mister gardener,
right so I'm always talking about they've got fertilizers. When
I talk about a fertilizer on guardline, go to ACE
(02:01:42):
and get it. It works well. Do you need to
control or prevent weeds? Do you need to deal with
insects and diseases? Ace has got all of that stuff.
But ACE is so much more. And right now we're
in the holiday season, holiday decorations, holiday lighting, lots and
lots of good stuff that you're going to find it
neighborhood Ace. And when I say your neighborhood Ace, I
(02:02:02):
do mean that forty plus stores in the Greater Houston area.
Go to ACE Hardware dot com. Ace Hardware dot Com
find the store. If you've not been in an ACE recently,
please go check one out. You will be very pleasantly
surprised at all the things that are so cool and
so helpful, that are available in your local Ace hardware store.
(02:02:24):
Time for a break. I will be right back with
more garden line, all those things some of us will
take the branded for.
Speaker 19 (02:02:33):
Us to use photochrome to take pictures.
Speaker 3 (02:02:37):
Now, what do we use digital storage devices? Remember when
you had to take a picture and wait for it
to get uh you know, developed, the photographs printed, And
it wasn't like you just stood there and wait. Like now,
if you did a picture, you can stand there and
wait for uh No, it was it was. It took
(02:02:58):
a while, and then half your pictures were bad and
you had to throw them all out. That's it, yep, yep,
those are the days. Oh my, well, that's a development.
I love our fact that we got a camera incorporated
into our phone. That is unbelievably good, unbelievable what those
things can do. As a gardening photographer, which I am,
(02:03:24):
I do photography for my magazine articles and other things,
I can tell you this that the modern camera app
development has just been a life changer. So here's a
public service announcement. If you have a tree, you need
to listen to this. Trees are the most valuable individual
(02:03:45):
plants in our landscape. They do all kinds of things,
they provide shade in the heat of summer, and I,
by no, summer is ten and a half months a
year here just kidding. Trees can be dangerous. They can
fall on your house, in your neighbor's house, or on
your car, on people things like that. Trees are such
(02:04:05):
potential for adding lots of value to your landscape, to
your house if you ever tried to sell it. You
don't want to mess around with trees. You want to
plant trees that will survive for years and years and
get better and better. So forty years from now, you're
not taking the thing down because it was a fast
it was a trash tree. I say, grow fast, die young,
trash tree. But you have the best tree on the neighborhood.
(02:04:28):
Forty years from now. The best time to plant a
tree is now, absolutely now, get it done. But if
you have trees, you need to know about Martin Spoon
Moore an affordable tree service. Do not turn your trees
over to some guy who happens to own to pick
up a chainsawn and can put a business card in
your door. Find somebody that knows what they're talking about.
Because when I drive through neighborhoods all the time, I
(02:04:50):
see trees and I see devastating pruning jobs. It's like
they don't The people that did that did not know
anything about what they're doing. And when you turn it
tree into a hat rack like that, it will never
be the same. The branches that grow from it will
be weak, they'll be poorly attached, they'll come down in
a storm, and it's ugly. And don't do that yet,
(02:05:12):
Martin from Affordable Tree. Here's what you need to do.
Write this phone number down seven one three six nine
nine two six sixty three, seven one three, six nine
nine twenty six sixty three. If you want to go
to the website, it's aff Tree Service dot com. AFF
short for Affordable aff Tree Service dot com. When you
(02:05:33):
call Martin or Joe will answer. The owner's answer the
phone there. If you don't get Martin or Joe, hang
up and I'll seven one three sex nine nine two
six six three have him come out. He stays busy
because he does good work. And Martin can come out
eating look at your trees, tell you what you need
or don't need. If you got any kind of questions,
like hey, I'm putting a sidewalk in across this tree's
(02:05:55):
root system, or I'm putting a driveway about halfway underneath
the branch bread and he can invite you on do that,
don't do that, how to do it right? You know
everything you need to know. Trees are valuable, and if
you want to get Martin out there doing it, you
need to call him soon and get on the schedule
because winter is wheneverbody wants tree pruning done for a
(02:06:15):
good reason, and he stays busy. Give him a call
seven one three six nine nine two six six three.
You are listening to garden Line, and uh, I'm your host,
Skip Richter. We're here to help you have a bountiful
garden and a beautiful landscape. I try to direct you
to places that I think are just some of the
(02:06:36):
best places in town. Or when I say in town,
I mean the listening area around Houston. Uh all this
area to go to products that are going to work
because I've tried them, or because I've seen the research
and they do work, and places that you just will enjoy.
And one of those places is in Shenned for us.
I was down there earlier this fall, and I just
(02:06:58):
love going to Chenned. You know, you go out there
and it Enchanted is a good name for it, because
it is just cool. From the time you drive up,
it's like you're entering this really cool gardening world and
you just want to head in there and get busy.
They've got a great gift shop, they've got nice houseplants
when you first walk through, and then it opens up
(02:07:18):
into all kinds of things. Off to the right are
the plants that attract butterflies. Right outside the back door,
right there to the right, and I'm telling you, they've
got things that the ballooms attract butterflies. They've got things
that are butterfly larval food sources. And if you want
to have monarchs or golf fritillaries or swallowtails, there's plants
(02:07:39):
that those larva feed on, and you can put those
in your landscape and you will have butterflies. It's like
field of dreams. You build it, they will come, and
they've got them there. In fact, during the growing season
when the butterflies are jumping on the leaves of their plants,
and they'll even give you a free larva to take
home with you. When I say butterflies, I mean they're
larva they'll get they'll let you take home one kind
of like sow starter, no charge, and you get a
(02:08:02):
good start at your own place. Right now. They got
shrubs and trees. This is the prime season to plant
them all kinds of things. My favorite spring blooming tree
is Chinese fringe tree, and they've got those there, beautiful shaggy,
fragrant ballooms. Medium sized tree fits our modern lots really
really well, and it is just absolutely gorgeous. And they've
got red buds and all the other stuff that you
(02:08:24):
would want. You go to the left and you got vegetables,
you've got herbs, you've got the fairy garden things. You've
got flowers of perennials and annuals and all kinds of things.
You just need to go out there and see it all.
Allow yourself a little time to wander around. Say hello
to Clay and say hello to Danny. Out there. They
will advise you and point you in the right direction
(02:08:45):
whatever your gardening questions are. That's the Enchanted Forest. And
by the way, if you're in Richmond heading toward sugar Land,
it's off to the right. It's on FM twenty seven
fifty nine Enchanted Forest. If you want to go to
the website, go two enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com.
(02:09:06):
I will say that one more time, and you need
to go to the website. Their website is outstanding. It
is enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. You are listening
to Garden Line. We've got to open lines right now
and this is our last last bit of the show
here last half hour plus a little bit if you'd
(02:09:26):
like to give us a call. Seven one three two
one two k t r H. Seven one three two
one two k t r H. I uh. This past week,
one of the things that I've been working on is
getting some containers ready for planting. I've got some beautiful containers,
and you know, you spend money on a quality container,
(02:09:47):
a beautiful one, and you just have it for years
and years and years and years of enjoyment. And right
now I'm going to be putting some vegetables in a container.
I'll also want to get some flowers in one, but
first come some vegetables in a container. It's a gorgeous container.
We've got a rosemary that we're going to put out
in a container out in front of the house, and
the container's ready, it's just waiting on me to get
(02:10:09):
through at that patio so that I can get out
there and get busy doing that. Nature's Way Resources is
north of Conro, and you've heard me talk about him before.
Nature's Way is the birthplace of a lot of quality
soil products. John Ferguson years ago created Nature's Way and
(02:10:32):
that guy is a soil science student through the roof.
I mean the guy. The number of books and magazines
and journals, professional journals he's read over the years, I
couldn't even keep count. He knows what he's talking about.
And that's why it is the place where rose oil
was born, where leafmore compost was born, where you can
(02:10:54):
still get super high quality materials of all types. Mulches, compost.
You can buy it by the bag, you can buy
it by bulk. You can go get it, you can
have them deliver it, you can go to US stores.
They have different store outlets in Houston that carry their products.
And it's just quality stuff. You're not going to go wrong.
I've got two different kinds of mulches that they produce
(02:11:16):
that I've been testing out in flower beds and very
pleased with. And of course the soil blends are just
absolutely through the roof. If you want leaf mold compost
to do some top dressing of your lawn if you
kind of do a little do it yourself in there.
They've got that Nature's way resources. Here's the phone number
nine three six two seven three twelve hundred. They're up
(02:11:37):
Interstate forty five almost Conroe on the right, on the
right hand side where fourteen eighty eight comes in from
the left. Turn right across the tracks. Sherwood Circle is
what you run into. Turn right again and you're there,
simple as that Nature's Way resources. Let's head out to
Jersey Village now and I'm going to talk to George. Hey, George,
(02:11:57):
welcome to garden line.
Speaker 14 (02:11:58):
Hey, Yeah, good morning, Skip. This is going to be
a regular occurrence. I have problems every day, but I'm
taking your advice about brown stuff. First, Okay, I've got
to raise bed that's about four football and I need
to fill it up so I can do another planning.
It was full at one time and the rain wash
some of it away, so I need about ten bags
(02:12:18):
of brown stuff to fill it up again. So what
do you recommend?
Speaker 3 (02:12:23):
And tell me again what all you're going to grow
in there vegetables?
Speaker 14 (02:12:27):
For now, I'm thinking about the watermelon radages you talk
about those sound like an interesting thing to try to grow,
so and spinach and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (02:12:39):
Okay, well I would I like the aerlom cells, veggie
and irmes for that kind of thing. It is available
by bag all over the place, easy to find it,
and airlom cels. I think veggie irmes would be the
way I would go for that particular kind of bad
that you're doing there.
Speaker 14 (02:12:55):
Okay, good, thank you very much. We'll get some.
Speaker 3 (02:13:00):
Yeah you bet all right? Okay, now you know, you
know the role on guard Line that was free advice.
But I do expect to see half of the produce
you create at the gar at the kid your Age studio,
so I don't.
Speaker 14 (02:13:13):
I've never seen those watermelon bradishes, never seen watermelon ratis before.
That's an interesting looking thing.
Speaker 3 (02:13:19):
So that one is? That one is? Oh okay yeah, yeah,
well I'm I'm I kid people about having to drop
off stuff. But yeah, watermelon radish is so pretty and
it's mild enough to where you can slice it and
then cut it into quarters, you know, like pizza pie
and put it on a dip tray and it makes
a really good chip if you will for dip and
(02:13:42):
it's mild enough for that, so we go. I'm getting hungry, okay,
you can. It is a radish, you know, so, I
mean in some radishes are just too hot for me,
but watermelons not. But it it's a nice addition to
a multi vegetable dip tray.
Speaker 14 (02:13:59):
Yeah, nobody will know what it is, all right, man,
all right, thank you?
Speaker 3 (02:14:04):
All right, there I go, Thank you, sir. Appreciate appreciate
your call. Yeah, try growing something new. That is my
challenge to you. What are you going to grow new
that you've never grown before? Try it? I mean, what
are you out? You know, packet of seed on watermelon radishes.
By the way, when you're planting things that are root crops,
(02:14:24):
it is better to plant them by seed than transplant.
You can plant radishes and turnips from transplants. You can
do that, or beats also from transplit if you want
to do that, but it is so easy to do
it from seed. Now, carrots you definitely need to do seed.
And here's why. That carrot sends a little skinny roots
straight down in the ground long before it becomes a carrot.
(02:14:46):
It's just a skinny root. And if that root breaks,
it will form two roots that go out or three,
and if you were to try to transplant, when that
root goes down in the transplant tree, it hits the
hole and the oxygen burns the rootoff, the air burns
the rooto off, and you will not have a long
normal carrot route if you grow it from a transplant.
So don't do that. You'll have weird carrot roots. You'll
(02:15:08):
have provocative carrot roots, but you won't have you won't
have normal carrot roots. So always direct seed your carrots.
And as far as I'm concerned, direct seed all your
root crops, I think they do better that way. Time
for me to take a break. We'll come back with
your calls in just a moment. Nine or eight or
seeing me seven to one three two one two ktright
(02:15:32):
seven one three two and two ktr eight. You heard
me talk about Microlife. I love to talk about Microlife
because they make a lot of really good quality products.
You know. One example of that would be their humic
acid complex. It's got some humic acid and some full
vic acid in it. Now you're going, Okay, why should
I care about these two acids? I don't even know
what you just said well, when you take compost and
(02:15:54):
you compost it to its final stage that's called humus,
and in that humans are acidic compounds that do a
number of things for the soil. They improve the soil's
physical properties, They help fungal promote in good fungi fungal growth.
They provide there are minerals in those products for the soil,
(02:16:15):
and the humic fulvic acid has also a little bit
of kelp in it. It's really a cornerstone product for them.
And anytime that you are putting something down into the soil,
you can add that. You can drench it onto over
your plants. It is beneficial for microbes, it's beneficial for
the soil structure, and it goes with a several products
that Microlife makes. They make one call liquid humates. Plus
(02:16:38):
it's a soil conditioner again, a stimulator of biological activity,
and it just works. You could put it in a
hose in spray or spread on your turf crash. You
can put it in a flower bed, you can put
it in a watering can to water things in. All
products from Microlife. All you have to do is go
online Microlife Fertilizer dot com and you can learn more
about these and other microlife products. I want to hit
(02:17:00):
out and out of Jersey Village and we're going to
talk to Chris. Hey, Chris, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 16 (02:17:05):
Hey, Skip, good morning. I wanted to talk a little
bit about my Saint Augustine. Wanted to talk about my
Saint Augustine grass, some lessons, some hard lessons that I've learned,
and maybe some things that I wanted to just run
by you and see what you thought. You know, this
time of year brown patch that we all know is
uh huh.
Speaker 3 (02:17:24):
I was just gonna say, we're I've got some more
callers I'm gonna try to work in, So let's hit
one or two of them and who and then we'll
move on.
Speaker 16 (02:17:32):
Okay, We've always been told to cut our Saint Augustine
as high as possible, and we have always, you know,
been told to different remedies for the brown patch. But
I think that we should also talk about this time
of year, especially right now after this rain. If you
have good grass, cut it short so it drives out faster.
Speaker 3 (02:17:52):
And you won't have the moisture.
Speaker 16 (02:17:54):
Problem staying around so long, and that will help with
the brown patch as well. That's that's just my opinion.
We've always been told to cut our grass high and
and do different things. But I think varying the speeds,
I mean the height on the lower as well as
whether or not you moult.
Speaker 4 (02:18:11):
Or I like.
Speaker 16 (02:18:12):
Right now, I don't know if you recommend multing. I
don't think multiing.
Speaker 3 (02:18:15):
Might know it would be good, especially after.
Speaker 16 (02:18:16):
The train trapping that much. One other things, I think
there are people on here that need to hear from
time to time that this time of year the sun
is further south and so what in summer you might
have light in one area, but now there's not, so
there's you know, people need to consider that that this
time of year the sun moves further south and you
(02:18:37):
have to move your plants around at their sun loving
out there in the shade. Thanks Skiff, appreciate the program.
Speaker 3 (02:18:43):
Appreciate you. Wain In Chris, thanks for the call. We're
gonna We're gonna run now to uh tangle Wood, tangle
Wild and talk to be Hey b, welcome to guard Line.
Speaker 7 (02:18:52):
Good morning.
Speaker 9 (02:18:55):
I heard the fellow talking about trees, you know, the
Japanese maples, and I really like them too, but I've
always heard that they're really difficult to grow down here.
Of course, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:19:09):
I'm not an expert.
Speaker 3 (02:19:12):
Well, they're a little bit of a challenge. It can
be done, though, you know, plants can't read, and so
if they could read, they would know. They can't grow
in places where then somebody grows. And the minute I
go online and say you can't grow such and such plant,
I'll get five calls to people that are growing that plant.
You know. So there's always exceptions to the rule. But
I don't want to disk Japanese maple. They are beautiful,
(02:19:33):
beautiful plants. You just love the additions they want. Yeah,
and they add a very nice addition to the landscape.
Speaker 9 (02:19:42):
Well, they have such a pretty color, you know, and
it's so it gets boring just look at green stuff,
you know. And I saw something on PBS about two
brothers who inherited a nursery from their dad who loves
of Japanese maples, and he started a nursery called Mister Maple.
(02:20:04):
And they're in Flat Rock, North Carolina. And these guys
went around the world looking All they do is look
at maples, apparently, and there's one hundred and eight types
of Japanese maples and I'm sure there's one that would
grow here.
Speaker 3 (02:20:20):
Cool. Yeah, there are more than one, and our good
garden centers they will carry the ones that do best here.
Speaker 9 (02:20:27):
So do you think they would know what cornelia is?
Speaker 3 (02:20:31):
I don't know. I have not been into a cornelius lately,
so I just couldn't answer that.
Speaker 6 (02:20:35):
For you.
Speaker 3 (02:20:37):
Around for a long time. Yeah, yeah, they've been around
a long long time. Hey, thanks for the call, B
I appreciate that.
Speaker 9 (02:20:44):
Okay, Well, I'm glad I yeah, because you know, on
my front yard they took a tree down that was
it should have acidified the soil because it was a pine.
It was a pine tree. So I'm hoping I can.
Speaker 3 (02:20:59):
Grow one, all righty, good luck with that. Send me
a picture if you grow one. I'd love to see that.
We're gonna go to North Houston now and talk to Robert. Hey, Robert, welcome,
Reguard line. Hey, good morning, Skip.
Speaker 19 (02:21:12):
I got a question about Aurelia cordatas. I've got two
different sources to say that in Japan they eat they
parbol the young shoots and are edible. So I was
wondering if the shoots are edible, and another sources that
the roots could be edible too. Do you think that
(02:21:33):
the leaves so that plant would be edible?
Speaker 3 (02:21:35):
Awesome? Well, it's on a list. I've seen it on
lists of edible plants. When it gets to things like that,
I would want to research out a little bit before
I commented too much on it. Other than the fact
that it is on a list of things that you
can eat, I've seen that before. But as far as
(02:21:58):
you know it's growth and things like that, I don't
know if it'll grow this far south. I've never seen
aurelio kardada this far south. But I would do some research,
be real careful with that. But there's a website called
plants Let's see Plants for a Future, Plants for a Future.
(02:22:20):
It's p FAF dot org and it's a really good
website about all kinds of plants and uses and things.
P FAF dot org. I'm pretty sure they would have
a radio kardata on there, and in there you can
go read about it and learn a lot more.
Speaker 19 (02:22:35):
Okay, one more question, bitter melon do you think you
would grow okay?
Speaker 15 (02:22:39):
Here?
Speaker 3 (02:22:41):
Do you say bitter melon yes, yes? Or bitter melon yeah? Better? Better?
Melon will grow here? And absolutely? What's a warm season plant,
so whenever you would be growing I don't know, canalops
and watermelons and squash and things. You can grow bitter
melon during the seasons, very popular. That's got the right name.
It is a bitter thing. But yeah, you can grow that. Hey,
(02:23:02):
I'm up against a hard break, Robert, thank you for
the cooker and thank you, yeah, thank you, appreciate that.
You take care. All right, folks, I'll be right back
if you'd like to get on the line with me.
Seven one three two one two kt r H. It's
a nerd day at the gardening. Call it outside of
the rain with the inside starting some seeds. I just
(02:23:25):
put on a raincoat. We can garden in the rain right.
Speaker 15 (02:23:30):
Er.
Speaker 3 (02:23:30):
The song remember the Doctor Doolittle movie Doctor Doolittle. How
many of you remember that movie. One of the songs
the words were, if you remain out in the rain,
you'll think you're drinking pink champagne and you will spend
your life praying for thunderstorms. I don't know where that
came from, back in the crevices of the brain, back
(02:23:50):
there somewhere. More useless information for the day. You're listening
to garden line for useful information call seven one three
two one two AH seven one three two one two
Ktr'd be happy to help you with the kinds of
questions that you might have. Earlier, I was talking about
Medina products and the product called has to Grow six
(02:24:13):
twelve six. That's a Medina plant foods product that I
especially recommend for when you're transplanting plants to put in
a water can drench it over the plants down in
the root system because it's got that twelve percent phosphorus
in it, a little bit of nitrogen, a little bit
of potassium, and twelve percent phosphorus. Phosphorus is important for roots.
It helps stimulate the blooming and whatnot on a plant.
(02:24:34):
But in that six twelve six is Medina soil activator
stimulates biological activity. It also has humande humic acid, which
we know humic acid is important for sol structure, improving
and proving nutrient uptake because when the structure is better,
the root system is better, the root is able to
take up nutrients to thrive and take up nutrients even better.
(02:24:56):
And of course it got seaweed extract in it too.
Lots of good products from me, this is just one
Medina products have been around for a very long time.
They're time tested, and in fact, you know when I
first began working my way through all the Medina line,
trying this out and trying that out and trying the
other out, I was just thinking, my goodness, They've got
(02:25:16):
a lot of really cool products and has to grow
six twelve six by Medina has to grow six twelve six.
Plant food is just one of those if you're going
to do any transplanting, you should have some on hand.
And listen, you should be doing transplanting. There is not
a better time of the year to plant woody ornamentals,
tree shrubs and woody vines, to plant fruit trees, to
(02:25:37):
plant strawberry plants, to plant perennials, and including ornamental grasses,
to plant cool seasoned flour. I mean, there's a lot
of planning to be done. And when maybe you have
bought some vegetables to set out as transplants, water them
in with Medina has to grow six twelve six. When
(02:25:57):
you grow these tomato transplants, I keep trying to get
you to grow some of your own transplants well water men,
Medina has to grow six twelve six seven ktr h.
We are in our last segment, we got time for
about another call. If somebody'd like to call in, we
be happy to visit with you and help you as
(02:26:17):
we always do, to have a beautiful, beautiful garden and
a bountiful, bountiful garden, and certainly a beautiful landscape as well,
and as I like to say, and more fun in
the process, and more fun in the process. I am
going to be doing my law and fertilization finally this week.
(02:26:37):
I know I've been busy, but I have an excuse.
It says the cobblers kids go barefoot. The Cobblers kids
go barefoot. So sometimes my yard has to wait because
I'm around doing other things. But anyway, I'm going to
be getting my fall fertilizer out and getting it watered
in really good to make sure that my ground, my
grass goes into winter stronger. Remember this, we talk about
(02:27:00):
cold heartiness, and we don't live in an area where
typical winners kill our grass. You know, it's not like
it's touch and go, and if we don't do that,
it's going to all die. But we can have winters
where there is cold damage to lawns. But I think
the most important reason that we do a fall fertilization
(02:27:21):
in our lawns is for spring growth, for spring growth.
And why am I saying that now, won't that fertilizer
be gone? No, because what happens is when you do
a fall fertilization, the grass takes it up, It makes
carbohydrates and creates, let's just say, an energy reserve in
(02:27:43):
the grass plant in spring. It's not the roots that
are taking up the nutrients that start that early growth.
The soil is cool, the roots are old, they're going
to be dying and new roots replacing them as we
move into spring. But it's that stored energy that supports
early green up and growth and strength. So your fall
(02:28:03):
fertilization is important for a number of reasons, not just
for winter survival and health, but for spring growth early on.
That is very, very important. And so if you haven't
done one, it's still time to do it. We've got
some great products out there that can help your lawn
be stronger going into the winter season. So if you
(02:28:23):
haven't done it yet, go ahead and do it now.
I'd rather we do it earlier. I'd rather i'd done
mine earlier. But still you can go ahead and do it.
Get it done now, because when you fertilize, now, maybe
I should say it this way. Fall fertilizing is fertilizing
your early spring lawn. It's supporting that early early growth
before the grass is you know, the soil's warm enough
(02:28:46):
and the rich systems or new roots are developing in things.
As that grass comes out of the winter and begins
to grow, it starts to you know, as it warms up.
The runners begin to grow in our sleepy headed, warm
season turf, and they begin to grow, and then they're
pegging down roots. And now you got new roots, and
now there's a whole other world. And we're doing our
spring fertilizations and other things summer fertilizations to keep it
(02:29:08):
growing through the year. Fall fertilizer very very important. All right,
there was your tip for the day. I don't know,
maybe I've getten another tip or two for the day,
but it would be a good time to do that.
So I've been challenging you all morning. What are you
going to grow different this year? What are you going
to try that's new this year? I want to give
you one more challenge. What are you going to learn
(02:29:30):
that's new this year? You know, we had a caller
about a plant that is assailable or not. You know,
maybe you are interested in learning about herbs. Why don't
you spend some time learning about herbs. You know, when
you listen to garden Line, you learn. I hope you do.
We provide that information to help you become a better gardener.
(02:29:50):
But it's also important when you are wanting to try
anything new or get better at what you do, to
spend some time learning. You know, they say that the
most important part of cutting down trees is sharpening the saw,
and that is really true. And you are the gardener.
We need to sharpen us as gardeners when we do that.
(02:30:13):
Printing season is coming. I see so much printing malpractice
out there where people have trimmed their shrubs in a
way that is not good. It's not going to help
the shrub. You can learn about that, and now'd be
a good time to do that. Spend some time learning.
One good website that I'll give you that you can
go to for a lot of good information is a
(02:30:34):
Aggie horticulture website. Aggie Horticulture from the Horticulture Department TAXA,
A and M. It's it's Aggie hyphen Horticulture dot TAMU
dot edu, but you can just google it Aggie Horticulture.
When you get there, you're going to find a section
on vegetables that has the Easy Gardening series of publications
for every single vegetable you possibly want to grow, and
(02:30:55):
things like fertilizing the garden, building raised beds, building the
soil disease controlled things like that. There's a fruit section
that has a publication on every fruit from avocados to
whatever fruit begins with a Z. It's got all those
publications in it. They're free and it's science based information.
Very good. And keep checking out gardening with Skip dot com.
(02:31:16):
I keep adding stuff. I'm working with my designer right now.
We're revamping the website and about to add a bunch
of whole new cool information to help you have success
with your garden. So go for the day tip for
the wires, however you want to put it. Learn something,
get out and learn something. I just read about it
(02:31:36):
and I just study it online. Then get out and
try it, because there's nothing like experience. I've got a
Master three in horticulture for textm that was helpful, And
I'm telling you by day by day by day one
most important of all