St. Augustine grass and revenge of the bugs

Skipper answers your calls!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Garden Line does not necessarily endorse anyof the products or services advertised on this
program. Welcome to Katie r h. Garden Line with Skip Ricord's shoes,
crazy Gashrim just watch him as somany girl. Thanks to see Botasy gas

(00:35):
not a sound credits Gas Sun Beamonof tweet are welcome back. Welcome back
to garden Line. We're glad you'rewith us this morning. Congratulations by the
way on getting up right and early. Joe and I hope you got a

(00:57):
cup of coffee in your hand orwhatever whatever it. Get those eyes open
and get ready to go. Wegot another decent day today. I'm looking
forward to getting some things done afterthe show that I got to get done.
It's a little warmer by then.But the way it is on weekends
we do garden Line, we don'tdo gardening in the morning, at least
not early in the morning. I'myour host, Skip Richter, and hey,

(01:19):
our show is a call in show. In other words, it's for
you to ask the questions you mighthave. If you like some advice or
direction or ideas or identification of something, give us a call seven to one
three two to one two KTRH sevenone three two to one two k t
RH. A little tip too,by the way, that usually first thing

(01:41):
in the morning, especially on Sundaymorning, the boards are a little quieter,
so it's easy to get through.And we have a question, you
have to wait very long, Sojust a little tip there if you're interested.
I was driving by some neighborhoods andnoticed a common in the yards that
I'm starting to see and that's ayellowing in the turf. And some of

(02:05):
you probably have had question, wellyou have had called into garden line about
things related to this. But youlook at a green lawn and you just
see sort of some irregular yellowish areas, you know, where it's not round,
it doesn't have a shape or anything. And what that is is iron
deficiency. Now, if you wantto see it up close, you just

(02:27):
grab a blade that's yellow, pullit up, pull it off, and
hold it up kind of to thesky, and you'll see green and yellow
stripes going up and down through theblade that's iron. Because iron causes what
we call intervenochlorrosis. Okay, that'stoo that's too much, too many words
for this hour of the morning.But my point is that the parts of

(02:50):
the leaf that get the iron lasthave the least, and so that would
be between the veins and veins beingthe supply lines. When you see that
in your lawn, you can sayone thing that grass doesn't have iron in
it, like it needs iron init. But then the question is why
is it because there's no iron inthe soil? Most likely not. It

(03:10):
could be true, but usually it'snot a lack of iron in the soil.
Well then why, Well, itcould be because something is tying up
the iron and making it unavailable.Iron changes form in the soil. Some
forms of plant can get, someforms of plants can't get, so it
could be that the iron is tiedup. On the other hand, it
could also be that the plant lacksroots. Iron is taken up at the

(03:35):
tip of the roots. So whentake all root rot or drought die back
causes that grass plant to lose itstender, new, fresh, active roots
system, then you're going to seeiron deficiency on the plants. So it's
gonna be one of those things youkind of have to work your way through
it. A soil test will tellyou if there's iron in the soil.

(03:55):
A soil test will also tell youif you're like your pH and phosphorus are
both very high, then that meansyou're going to have an iron efficiency.
So that in and of itself wouldexplain it from a soil test. So
you can get your soil tested bygoing to soil Testing dot TAMU dot edu.

(04:15):
Soil Testing dot TAMU, dot edu. Choose the urban soil test.
I don't care if you're listening onyour computer and Marfa, Texas eighty miles
from the nearest whatever urban sooil test. All the urban means is it's for
your yard and garden. They shouldhave called it that, not urban,

(04:38):
but anyway, it means it's foryour yard and garden. In other words,
here comes the sample from roses orvegetables or a lawn or whatever,
and not from a pasture where I'mgrowing grass for cattle or something. That
urbanoil test. Okay, put itout, send it in, see what
they say, and then we takeit from there. If it is take

(04:58):
all root rot, then you haveto deal with that disease. And that
is on my schedule at gardening withskip dot com the pest disease and we'd
management schedule has that information on itand you can decide or look on there
and see what products are my optionsand what time do I make the applications.
But anyway, iron efficiency, that'ssomething that we often deal with.

(05:23):
It's pretty common, especially on SaintAugustine, a lot of other grasses that
don't have it. Well, let'sdo this. Let's go on out to
the phones and we're going to headout the fairfield and talk to Marty.
Hello, Marty, Martin Skip.I wondered if it's too hot to repot
some plans. I've got some reallypretty pots and I wanted to, you

(05:48):
know, I'm just concerned about theheat. I know we're having a little
bit of rain today tomorrow, andthought it might be a good time to
redo them. I'm sorry what itwas you were redoing. I'm repotting some
plants on my patio and I wonderedif it's too hot. Oh, okay,

(06:09):
no it's not. If there's goingto be significant root damage in the
process, then I would pot themup, immediately, water them in,
and move them to as bright ofa shade as you can so the direct
sun doesn't bake down on them,and just give them a week or so
to kind of recover and get theirroots back going Again, if it's just
a matter of pulling it out ofa pot, maybe teasing loose a little

(06:31):
of the roots on the outside thatare circling around, or minor damage,
then you can just do it asyou would at anytime. Is there a
better time to do that to dorepotting, Yes, sir. It depends
on the plants that you have.Some things, you know, if they're
more tropical, I'd probably do themin the spring or in the summer season.

(06:57):
You can really really redo it timeyou want. You know, if
it were something that we're going todie down to the ground in the cool
season, I'd try to get itdone then because it's easiest, or go
into some sort of a dormant statethat that's the easiest time, there's the
least stress on the plant then.But I just repotted several We just repotted
a little indoor ficus tree the otherday, and we've repotted several other plants

(07:23):
recently. About to do a rosemarythat needs to have a new home.
Okay, all right, Well,these are firecracker plants and they're out in
the sun sun, but I wantedto put them in this prettier pot.
They're a little bit bigger as well, and those usually go into the landscape.
Right. Yes, fracker plant isa very heat and humidity tolerant plant.

(07:48):
It does need water though it's notyou know, it's not a succulent
and some people assume because it thrivesin the heat that maybe it's a little
drought tolerant and you need to keepit adequately moist for best results with that
one. Okay, all right,well, thank you very much, have
a good day. All right,Marty, thanks for the call. Thank

(08:09):
you. How you get thanks you'relistening to garden Line. Our phone number
is seven one three two one twok t r H. If you'd like
to give us a call and talkabout some things that are of interest to
you. Just a reminder I wastalking about oron efficiency. Well agouh.
Nitroposs Superturf is a fertilizer designed foryear lawn in the summertime. And what

(08:31):
do I mean by that? Well, number one, it has a three
one two roughly three one two fourone two ratio is what we're looking for
in our fertilizers. This will bemore like a four one close to a
four to one two ratio. Sothat's got a lot of nitrogen, but
it's half of it at least isin a slow release form, So you're

(08:52):
going to get a gradual release ofthe nitrogen over the coming months. You
do the super turf, now youdon't need to fertilize again until we get
to the phone fertilization. The nicething about feeding gradually is it doesn't create
this sudden increase in your mowing frequencybecause your grass has grown so fast,
you get a nice, smooth,even growth. Another thing is you get

(09:13):
a good root system development. Didyou know that if you overdo nitrogen you
get a lot of green top growth, but at the expense of root growth.
Actually, an overfertilized lawn with nitrogenwill have less of a root system
than an adequately fertilized lawn. Sothat is one of the things I like
about these slower release products. Theygradually feed over time, because I'll tell

(09:37):
you that's how grass eats, ifI can use the word eats for talking
about grass. In other words,it takes up a little nutrient every day,
just like we eat every day.We don't need a month worth of
food and then not eat for thirtydays. And so gradual release products like
nitropos superturf or excellent for the summertime. You're going to find Natropass supertur if

(09:58):
it Bearings. We're both the oneon this and out the one on West
Timer. You're going to find itout at Enchanted Forests down in the Richmond
Rosenberg area, Kdace Hardware and AceHardware at Sinco Ranch. Lots of places
you can find this product. Rememberit's easy. It's the silver bag that's
the one you're looking for. You'relistening to Garden Line. If you like

(10:20):
to talk about gardening, maybe aska question seven to one three two one
two kt r H. Right nowwe are going to take Bumper music.
I have trouble staying in my chair. I just, you know, love
to get up and move around alittle bit. Hey, listen, we
were talking before we went to breakabout a couple of things. I was

(10:41):
talking about lawn fertilizing and dealing withlack of nitrogen or lack of iron in
the soil. The things that causegrass to stay green are nitrogen and iron,
and sulfur is a big part ofthat too. Magnesium has a huge
function in plants, and because it'spart of the chlorophyll, molecule fun fact
there. But anyway, our goalis to make sure plants have all the

(11:07):
things they need in order to stayhealthy, to perform well, to do
well. There are things that arevery tiny that are needed in very tiny
amounts, like iron, and that'sone reason why you hear me talk about
azimite. Asmide is a nutrient productthat is mined out of the ground in
Utah and it contains all kinds oftrace minerals. So here's the deal with

(11:31):
trace minerals. They are about twentyminerals that are essential. If the plant
does not have any one of those, then it's not going to be able
to function and grow and do someof the things that plants do in terms
of their physiology and fruiting and flowering, all that kind of thing that it's
essential. But some are needed inhuge amounts, and that would be things

(11:52):
like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium,the three on the fertilizer bag, the
three numbers. Then there are somethat are needed in medium amounts like sulfur
and like magnesium for example, calcium. Then there's some that are needed in
trace amounts. That's what azemite's allabout. Things that you never think about
like, who have you ever heardof someone say I'm going to go out
and put some molybdenum on my yard. I'm going to go out and put

(12:16):
some selenium on my Those tiny littleelements zinc and iron and all of that
essential and asamite is a product thatyou can put out and I recommend about
once a year do a soil testand see exactly what you need. That
would be the best way to go. But in absence of that, about
once a year an application of asmite. You don't use much. You don't

(12:37):
want to use much. It's atrace mineral. Don't overload the soil,
just use the amount recommended. Youcan find more information at azimite Texas dot
com and learn more about it.But I can tell you this, you
can find azemite pretty much anywhere youwould go and shop. It is widely
widely available. Let's head now out. We're going to go to the phones

(12:58):
and talk to Sun in Missouri City. Hello, Sonya, Hi, good
morning, good morning. I havesome aztec grass in my front bed and
it shares a bed with the boxtailferm and it's just not doing anything.
It's you know, I water themjust a little bit, because I know

(13:20):
they don't like a lot of water. Some of them have been there a
year from last year. Some ofthem are new plants, but they're just
not growing. Is there anything Ican do that I need to fertilize them?
Or Well, that's actually a prettydarn tough plant. You sure it
needs water, but I'm amazed athow well it does under less than ideal
water conditions. If you overwater it, you will get rots and decays.

(13:45):
But you just see the plant decliningand dying when that happens. If it's
just sitting there, I don't know. Do you think your soil could be
very compacted and tight in that area? It could be, yes, Okay,
well maybe if I could look ata photo of it and see if

(14:07):
I see anything else on it.But it just doesn't have major problems.
I've grown that plant for a while, and it's an excellent plant, and
it's a good combo with your ferns, A boy, the foxtail fern.
I think you said us an excellentplant for going along with those. The
only thing I would do, maybeis, assuming there's no other symptoms on

(14:28):
this plant other than just not thriving, I probably would take a little spading
for it and go straight down inthe ground, just kind of wiggle it
a little bit and do that ina different places kind of around the plant.
Sprinkle a little compost over the top, and watered in maybe a little
bit of fertilizer or two to justgive it a boost, and then try
to try to give it a goodsoaking about once a week. That ought

(14:48):
to be sufficient. How much sunis this in? It gets about five
hours morning sun. Okay, wellthat's eight to one. That's almost ideal
to have it can grow in lesssun than that, but to not have
that afternoon sun. Yeah, that'sthat's what I think there, Sonya from

(15:11):
based on what you're telling me it'sdoing. Okay, I'll give that a
try. And then I had oneother question thanking to the fall for gardening,
I would like to do container gardeningfor like some tomatoes, like cherry
tomatoes and some pepper plants. What'sthe best soil to get for container gardening

(15:33):
for that? I would get probablya vegetable and herb mix. How big
is your containers going to be?Let's see, they're like two feet across
about two feet high, and thenthey narrowed down at the bottom that okay,
all right, yeah, I wouldget like a vegetable and herb mix.

(15:54):
Heirlin Soils makes a vegetable and herbmix that is excellent. You are
in down a South Missouri City area, You're going to find it at your
ACE hardware stores down there. Theygenerally will carry it. Missouri City.
I'm trying to think of who elsewould be the next closest to you for
done in that area. You're nottoo terribly far away from Sienamult. They

(16:15):
have it as well there. Butanyway, that's the one that I would
use for that particular situation. Okay. And what was the name Heirloom Soils
vegetable and herb mix. I thinkthey say veggie and herb mix. You
might find also, you might findone from Nature's Way. They sell it

(16:40):
by the bag too. They're upin the toward Conroe area, so on
the other side of town from you. But they also have a vegetable and
herb type soil mix. Both ofthose will be excellent, excellent products.
Okay, all right, thank youvery much. All right, thank you
appreciate that call very much. Let'ssee here, Yeah, I uh,

(17:03):
this this past week I've been doingsome things just to kind of enhance our
birds in the backyard, our collectionof birds, and I'm telling you,
they just keep coming. We putin a little bit of a little kind
of a bird bath type of fountain, and the birds they hear that sound
of water and it brings them inbecause look, it's hot outside. Can

(17:26):
you imagine hanging out all day,flying around the neighborhood looking for water somewhere
to get a drink. So youput it in your yard, especially when
there's some sound with it. Itdoesn't have to be birds figured out,
they'll be there and they're going tohang out there. And the other thing
is to have a quality feed forthem. It is season one still we've
got birds that are nesting, birdsthat are molting, two different things that

(17:48):
both require a good special quality blend, like nesting super blend. That's the
one that while birds makes. Iuse that one myself sometimes I'll mix it
in with some of their other mixesjust to get a little bit of sunflower
some other things in there. Butit is packed with sunflower, chips,
peanuts, dried meal worms, bark, butter bits, tree nuts, sapphlower,

(18:11):
calcium carbonate, just all the thingsthat a bird needs, and warbirds
feeds are high quality. They arethe kinds of seeds the birds want to
eat. And you buy these cheapbird seeds full of the red bebes,
and yeah they are cheap, buttake all the bebes out because they aren't
gonna eat those hardly at all.Maybe some doves will. And what do
you got now? How much didyou pay for that food? And that's

(18:33):
why I love warbird feed I lovetheir seed cylinders. If you're going to
take a vacation and be out oftown for a while, you can just
put one of those up. Ittakes them a while to get the little
seeds pecked out of those little solid, hard cylinders, but they do it,
and it gives you a chance towatch them a little longer too.
At the feeder. They don't justgrab a byte and fly away. Hey,
go to WBU dot com forward slashHouston and that's where you'll find WTU

(18:59):
dot com forward. It's sleash Houston. That's where you'll find all the wallbirds,
six of them here in the GreaterHouston area to choose from. It'd
be a great day to get outand just check out some of our wallbirds.
We're going to take a break nowit's time for the news. I'll
be right back. The number ifyou'd like to call in seven one three
two to one. Maybe you'd liketo give us a call and talk about

(19:19):
things related to your garden, yourlandscape. The number is seven one three
two one two kh RH seven onethree two one two k t R H.
Well, we've got a hurricane sittingout there in the Gulf, and
for all apparent assessments, it's goingto be bringing us a little bit of

(19:41):
rain. That's something we certainly doexpect. Hopefully it'll be a moderate amount
and not too much. We've beenthere before. I remember I was in
Houston during the Tax Day flood wayback when, and certainly during Harvey.
Uh, and wow, that's rain. What we're looking for, though,
is some relief for our summer landscapes. We've been water and trying to keep

(20:03):
them going, and a good soakingwould be really good for setting us up
for at least a week or soof not having to just turn the water
on every day trying to keep thingsalive. Remember that if you get a
gradual rain over a period of timeand get that water in the soil,
it does last a good while.And most people when they water, they
water too little, too often.The sprinter comes on, it squirts for

(20:30):
a while. What's the grass?What's the that starts to wet the soil
and then goes off, And soeverything that's in the thatch and everything that's
in the grass can evaporate off andcontribute to Houston's humidity. Thank you very
much for that, by the way. But what goes in the soil is
what's in the bank account to bedrawn from. So what if instead of
turning it off at some point ofirrigation, you let it go longer,

(20:55):
and now all that grass and thatchare wet, and now the water's run
down into the soil more. Andso it's in a sense it's the end
of the irrigation cycle that's doing youthe most good, right if you think
of it that way, because oncethe water goes off again, whatever sitting
there with that's going to dry offanyway. Just something to think about.
If you can get a half inchto an inch in the soil, then

(21:21):
it'll soak in like an inch ofwater will wet a clay soil probably six
eight inches deep, a sand soileven deeper than that. But once you
have that in the soil, nowyou cannot worry about water in for a
while, and it will gradually dissipateas plants take it up, but it'll
provide you a nice long feed andthen oxygen comes back in the soil as

(21:41):
the soil begins to dry out.Just makes sense to water that way.
It's a water efficient way of goingabout things. Let's see. You know,
I was I was talking about soilthe other day with somebody and we
were just we were discussed organic matterand particle sizes and things. They had

(22:02):
a lot of questions about, well, what's the best kind of compost And
there's a lot of answers to that, you know there. In other words,
that leaf mo compost is awesome.It's it's absolutely high quality stuff.
If you get a quality made compostthat is blended properly into something like a
veggie nerve mix or a rose soiluh, then those are also excellent blends.

(22:27):
The idea is to get organic matterback down into the soil, and
that's what nature does over a longperiod of time, and that's also what
you can do when you contact Nature'sway to get some of their products.
I was talking to Ian Ferguson outthere a while back about some of the
products they have and things, andI believe in their products. They work,

(22:48):
They absolutely work, and Nature's mighthave been a leader in this for
a long time. You know,when I when we use terms like rose
soil and leaf mol composts, thoseare things that were invented Nature's Way.
Not that no one ever had aleave more compos that they made before,
but I'm talking about the concept ofmaking that and using that and the benefits

(23:10):
of that and everything. They perfectedit. And you know, Nature's Ways
you can go They're closed on Sunday, but they're open Monday through Friday from
eight to five and Saturday from eightto two. You can find their products
and stores. You can go toNature's Way and you can buy bag by
by bulk or you can have themdeliver it to you. I mean,
there's a lot of ways to reachout and to get information at Nature's Way.

(23:33):
So all you got to do isjust give them a call. Go
by there. They're on Interstate fortyfive or just off Interstate forty five as
you head up north toward the Conroaddirection. The actual address is one of
one's Sherwood Circle, but they're basicallywhere fourteen eighty eight comes in to forty
five there. If you'd like togive them a call, the number is
nine three six three two one sixtynine ninety. Let's go back now,

(23:56):
we're going to head to the phonesand talk to Debbie and Northwest Houston.
Hello, Debbie, Hi, Yes, I just sent you an email.
I have a tree. It's notvery old and when it was planted it
was during the drought that I wateredit and the bark it's just falling off.
I just sent you an email.Okay, I can get over here

(24:18):
too. Three pictures. What kindof tree it looks like. It looks
some kind of oak, Okay.I don't know if it's the water of
the leaves or some small So ifyou can get your compass in your head
out and go stand by that tree. Is those for those gaping splits and

(24:41):
openings where the wood is exposed,Are they on those southwest side of the
tree or on the east side.On the east side, Okay, that
may be a freeze crack from along time ago. Uh, it looks
like that because it's a vertical.But The goodness is it's a young tree,

(25:03):
it's got good vigor. And ifyou look at that really thick rolls
of kellus coming back, it's goingto close back. It's on the process
of healing. There's nothing to applyto it. We certainly didn't want that
to happen. It's not good tohave the innerwood exposed to decomposing microbes.
But I think it's going to beokay. Just continue to give it good

(25:26):
care and that the bigger of amultary you can give it, the happier
that tree will be okay. Great, Thank you so much, appreciate it.
All right, you take care.Thanks for the call, you two.
Thank you boe by bye. Allright. Well, hey, do
you need supplies for your garden,for your landscape like I'm talking about,

(25:47):
let's say some fertilizer, or let'ssay you need something to kill insects or
to kill diseases or pass Maybe youare fine with synthetic products and that's what
you want to use. Maybe youare an organic gardener and you're only going
to use organic products. The oneplace you all can go and accomplish all
of that is Southwest Fertilizer. They'reon the corner of Abyssinett and Renwick and

(26:08):
Southwest Houston, and they stay stockedup. If a new product comes on
the market, you're going to findit as Southwest Fertilizer. They just they
stay on top of things and talkwith Bob all the time about Hey,
what do you think about this product? You know what? We just we
just talk shop when it comes tothe different things out there, what's working,

(26:30):
what's not working, what's new?Uh, And it's it's really a
one stop shop. You walk inthere with a sample, with a photo,
just with a question and Bob orhis team are going to be able
to help you and point you tothe product you need to do the job.
If one's needed. They won't sayyou something you don't need, but
if there is a product that'll doit best, they'll not only say here's
the one you need, but they'lltell you how to use it and any

(26:53):
specific things you need to know.And that is important so you go home
home, you use it properly andyou have the results you need. Southwest
Fertilizer, corner of bus Nutt andRenwick UH seven to one three six six
six seventeen forty four, or justgo to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com.

(27:14):
See, we are gonna I'll tellyou what. I am really close
to a break here, Bunny.I'm gonna come to you right after the
break because I want to be ableto have adequate time to handle the question
you might have. Uh just remindyou that my my website, Gardening with
Skip dot com holds both of myschedules, the lawncare schedule and the lawn

(27:37):
pest Disease and we'd management schedule,as well as a few other timely things
I've posted up there over time.Working on several new things to go back.
I'll tell you more about those laterwhen we get them ready to load
up. But the website Gardening withSkip dot com. All right, here's
a break. I'll be right backyour summer get away from the huge dat
We're going to head straight out andfind out from Bonnie in Spring. Hey,

(28:00):
Bonnie, good morning, get back. I've sent you some pictures and
I wonder if you can diagnose acrape myrtle that has some white spots to
howdery mildew Oh, Bonnie, I'vegot uh, Saint Augustine, is that

(28:22):
yes, that's one of them.I have three different pictures there. Let's
see if I can find the restof them here. They're they're kind of
embedded in. It's hard for meto it's hard to see. But we
could start with the grass. Let'sdo that. So uh on your turf?

(28:44):
What what I see there? Then? You know doing describing pictures over
the radio? Is I know?Uh? Yeah, You've got little spots
on your grass blades. And thespots have a border with a tan center,
and that's called gray leaf spot.Gray leaf Spot's a fungus are taxing
augustine, and it lovest humid andmoist, very moist conditions, and it

(29:11):
likes shady area. It seems worsethan shady areas. So I've told people
before, if you don't know whatgray leaf spot looks like, go throw
a piece of plywood over your lawn, leave it there for a week,
pick it up, and you'll seegray leaf spot because it's everywhere. It's
as you created the perfect environment forit. So from our standpoint, from
your standpoint taking care of the thing, you need to not overwater. While

(29:34):
ago I just kind of went ona spiel about give it a good soaking,
let it dry out, don't squirtit every other day. Yeah,
and the more often you wet it, the more problems with this you have.
If you overdo nitrogen, it makesit worse. Also if you overdo
the nitrogen. And that's it.Now. One other observation earlier, and

(29:56):
for those of you listening this morning, I talked about how iron decency shows
up because if you pick up aleaf blade and hold it up to the
sky, you see vertical stripes ofgreen and yellow. What it means on
your grass is speckles of green andyellow all over. They're not stripes,
they're just speckley spots. And thatis Saint Augustine decline, which is a

(30:18):
virus and it attacks older types ofSaint Augustine. So the new improved types,
the varieties and things are all bredto be resistant to it. And
so what do you do, Well, you can do nothing. A lot
of people have had long This lon'sbeen here for a long time. I
guess, yeah, And so youcould do nothing. It's just it weakens

(30:47):
the lawn a little bit, butit doesn't kill the lawn. Secondly,
you could plug in a resistant variety, so if this one gets weaker,
the other one has a chance tokind of fill in. I'm about that
option, but that is an optionthat you can do. But there's no
cure for the Saint Augustine. Now, as far as the take all undertake
all gray leaf spot, that one, it's very fungy sides and that will

(31:12):
help bring that into control that youcan stove that from happening. But again,
don't overfertilize, don't water too frequently, and most lawns don't have to
be treated for gray leaf spot.Most don't. Okay, So there's a
time when it's wanted to spray,but not just because the disease exists,

(31:34):
because it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere.I also sent a picture as a weed
that is driving me crazy. It'sgrowing up on my neighbor's side at the
fans and over the fans, andnow it's coming in the yard and my
flower beds as well. It's justbustop. I don't see a weed.

(32:00):
I just have to turf and acrepe myrtle. The weed is inside the
turf meat well, not to getin the yard. It's a little bitty
It has a reddish stem and littlebe pointy leaves. Oh I see it,
okay, all right, so thatis that is called peppervine. Pepper

(32:22):
vine. A lot of people seeit and they go, oh, I've
got poison ivy. Now you don't, uh, the poison ivy looks quite
different. Pepper vine has uh thesethat pattern to the leaves, but it
has it has more of the leavesthan poison ivy does than they're they're smaller.
Pepper vine is very difficult to controlbecause things that kill it may hurt

(32:43):
your Saint Augustine as well. Ifyou can get a product that contains trichlope
here tri I c l O py R, and just wipe it onto
the pepper vine and let it translocatedown and kill the vine itself. And
wherever it's coming up, it'll becoming up in your lawn or your flower
beds wherever. Yeah, it's everywhere, but everywhere it's coming up. You

(33:07):
just stay with it every time theshoot comes up, and then you wipe
some triclope here right on it,and it will it will kill it.
Okay, just now that it's onthe lawn, it's gonna be a little
more tedious. Is there any wayto handle it? Because it's coming up
over the fence in the backyard.It will. Yeah, it hangs over

(33:30):
the fence. So I've cut backthose parts so it's not hanging over my
side. But it's a neighbor livesover there. It's a neighbor. Yeah,
okay, Well, if they won'tcontrol it, you're kind of just
get left with cutting it back andthen the shoots come up underground unless they

(33:52):
will entertain a conversation with you aboutHey, this is a problem for both
of us. Yeah, okay,well we'll have to deal with that.
And the white spots on the crepemyrtles, yeah, that is powdery mildew,
and powdery mildew is a common diseaseof crape myrtles. It shows up

(34:13):
as a little like a white duston top of the leaf. Listening,
they can't see this picture and itcauses deformation of the leaf and stuff.
You can do a couple of things. You can ignore it, you can
spray with a product containing belaton belatonto control it. Or and you don't
want to hear this one, butI have to say that you can get

(34:35):
rid of that crape myrtle and putin a variety that's resistant and then forever
more going forward, you don't haveto worry about it anymore. So those
are your well, it's a fairlynew quite myrtle. I got it from
the Arbor Foundation. They just well, you send the money and they send
you trees, and so that wasone of theirs. So I really don't

(34:59):
know what trying. It's a prettyBoston Well. Those are your options,
bunny, and you can decide howyou want to go with it. If
you go to a good garden centerand say I need a great myrtle that
doesn't get powder, and they'ldew,they can put one in your hands.
All right, thank you so much, I think spine you bet you take

(35:22):
care in Channa Gardens out in Richmondis one of those garden centers that I
like to call destination garden centers.In Channa Gardens is the kind of place
you want to go and take yourfriends and family when they come visit in
town, and a lot of peopledo that. In fact, people drive
for a very long way Austin andother places that far away to come over

(35:44):
to Richmond to see this place,because it really is outstanding. Their selection
of all kinds of plants is wonderful. For example, if you like the
tulip gingers the kirrkkuma. They havean awesome selection of those right now,
and that is an amazing plant thatis very beautiful. The blooms can be
cut as cut flowers and last along time. It is you just have

(36:07):
to go see one. It's calleda tulip ginger or a curcuma ginger.
They do well. And Chantic Gardensjust got in their stock of tomatoes and
peppers the Herst shipment for fall.Do you know now, I know hot
outside, but now's when we're plantingour tomatoes for the fall crop. This
would be midsummer tomato planting season.Scott of water and they'll be fined.

(36:29):
They're not gonna fruit until things cooloff. But if you don't plant them
now, you won't have a goodsized plant. Then it does cool off
enough to start setting fruit. Soanyway, just something to think about.
Lots of selections of really nice milkweeds there and one of my favorite underutilized
plants. I was just has thisspicy any Welcome back to the yard line.

(37:17):
Good to have you with us today. We've got more talk about.
If you like to give us acall and talk about something of interest to
you. I have a question orsomething, give us a call it seven
one three two one two k tr H. Seven one three two one
two k t r H. Assimple as that. We're going to go
out to Tumball now and talk toMel. Hello, Mel, Hey,

(37:42):
good morning. I have two aboutfifty foot tall magnolia trees growing side by
side in the county yard right upto the house. One of them is
looking kind of sick, got somedead limbs on the things. And I
guess that what a treat ord hecalled what an arborist. I was wondering
who you might recommend. I wouldrecommend you go ahead and call Martin Spoon

(38:07):
Moore. He's at Affordable Tree Careof Affordable Tree Service. Uh and do
you have a pin or paper penand paper handy. I just give you
a couple of things to reach outto him. I'm writing it right now.
Well I can hardly hear you.Hang on old all right, okay,
go ahead, all right? Setseven one three six twenty six sixty

(38:29):
three seven one three six nine ninetwenty six sixty three. Martin knows trees
here, and without a doubt,he would be the one you want to
have come out there. A FF tree service dot com is his website.
Okay, Magnet, Okay, I'msorry, go ahead aff tree service
dot com. Start. I'm stillwriting, hang on it, o' get.

(38:52):
Yeah, that's fine, that's fine. Okay, go ahead, Tree
Service dot Com. So Magnolies tooka big hit last summer. We flat
lost entire trees during the heat anddrop in the summer, which is not
something that happens a lot around here. Now, there are other issues.
There's genetic differences from one treating another. There are usually there is always the

(39:16):
possibility that perhaps there's something strangling theroots of the tree or the trunk of
the tree at the base, maybea root going around it, or something
that can cause it to be setback. The leaves are smaller, the
old leaves fall off and whatnot.But I think in general, probably it's

(39:37):
just some late results of that colddamage or the heat damage rather that they
suffered. Right now, what haveAs far as expensive goes, When he
did what he did, he chargedfor coming out, and then yeah,
I think he'll charge you like onehundred and fifty to come out. And

(39:58):
that's just from running all over townbecause people are curious about a bug in
a tree. Or something. Andthen if you if he is able to
do something, whether it's a deeproot treatment or whether he's doing some printing
or whatever is needed, then thatone fifty would just go into your cost,
so you're not out the one fiftyif you have work done. All

(40:21):
right, well, I feel likeI'm going to be spending somebody because I
hate to lose it. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. The
one right next to work to itis pretty doing pretty good. All right,
I appreciate it. Thank you,skip all right, good luck with
that, Mel, Thanks for thecall. You take care of them,
all right, bye bye, allright, tree for sure, bye bye.
All right, there we go.Yeah, trees are they're the most

(40:45):
valuable plant in your landscape. Theyreally are in terms of what they can
do. Number one, takes along time to grow a big tree,
so to start over, that's goingto take a while. On the other
hand, or in a to that, whenever a tree, whenever someone's going
to buy a home and you've gotbeautiful trees, it adds value to the

(41:07):
house. But it also helps thehouse to sell. In other words,
you know, the people come andthey look at it, and they I
want this house because you've got thatbeautiful set of trees, and so it
is worth taking time to do severalthings. One thing is, if you're
going to plant a tree, plantone that is a long term investment,

(41:30):
not grow fast, die young.You know, the grow fast, die
young. The old Arizona ash,the Arizona ash we used to have in
neighborhoods everywhere that just pretty much everbuild or seem to stick one in the
yard when he built a subdivision.Then we get three decades in and they're
falling apart. We're having to takethem out, and now those homes are

(41:52):
starting over when they should have themost beautiful trees in the world if they'd
had all those thirty years to grow. So pick a tree number two planet
right. Make sure it's planted properly. That is important. And then the
third thing is take care of them. And basically taking care of a tree.
Ninety percent of treecare is early pruningin a train in a way to

(42:15):
train the tree so that later pruningdoesn't require a chainsaw all the time.
The second aspect of it is itcreates the form that you're looking for in
the tree, and then provide thattree with adequate water during extended summer droughts,
that's important. Now we can fertilizeour trees, that's fine, that

(42:38):
will help with growth, But nothingis as important as during an extended drought.
Alleviating the stress with an occasional gooddeep soaking. That that's important.
And that's the secrets to success.You plant the right kind of tree there,
and don't be like I want thefastest growing tree you have. Remember

(43:00):
so fast, die young. That'sthat's the thing with trees. Now we
do have some pretty fast growing goodtrees and moderate growing good trees that we
can speed up with proper care.But a tree is so valuable. Take
care of the ones you have,and if you're going to plant one,
now's the time to make the rightdecision. They say that society grows rich

(43:22):
when old men plant trees under theshade under which they will never set.
I think that's interesting. I probablybutchered that that. That's the gist of
the of the sentiment. You're listeningto garden line, and I am here
to answer your gardening questions. Howdo we make you have a more bountiful

(43:42):
garden and a more beautiful landscape?More bountiful garden or beautiful landscap. That's
our goal. You know, gardeningshould be fun. We really it shouldn't.
It's not rocket science, and weneed to not stress over it.
And don't worry if you plant aplant and it doesn't survive. Listen,
you gotta you gotta kill a lotof plants to be a good gardener.

(44:04):
That's just the way it is.I say it that way to kind of
give you permission to try things andif they don't work, well, now
you learn something. Don't do thatagain. But there's a lot that we
can learn to avoid loss of plants. But at the same time, just
have fun. You know, it'sa plug and play deal. I know
we think of landscapes as you know, you put in this landscape and now
you're done well for a while,maybe, but landscapes evolve and there is

(44:30):
no shame in the world in changingthings up. I mean, have you
ever like got to maybe you movedinto a house that was built in I
don't know, nineteen sixty or somethingand the hold decor and everything just wasn't
right. And you know, youpull out paneling and you put up this,
or you put up you know,you do all the things. You
paint inside because you want it tolook different. You can do that in

(44:52):
your beds and your landscapes and things. You know. You pull up trees,
of course, but you landscapes area forever changing palette. And don't
be afraid to change some things out. If your landscape is twenty years old
or older, I guarantee you thereare some better plants to fit some of

(45:12):
the spots currently in your landscape,because we're constantly coming up with new wonderful
plants to use to use for that. We're gonna take a little break right
now. That was my little soapbox. I guess uh seven one three
two one two k t r H. Give me a call. We'll talk
when we come back back to gardenline. Good to have you with us.
I'm your host, Skip Richter,and we are here to help you

(45:34):
have a more bountiful garden and amore beautiful landscape. If you got any
questions you'd like to visit with meabout, just dial seven to one three
dial See that, I just Ijust aged myself right there. Call just
call seven one three two one twokt r H. How many of you
out there listening know what a dialtelephone is? Remember those I mean some

(45:59):
of you probably know, but you'venever stuck your finger in one before.
Well that's yeah, it's still inmy head. Sorry. I was at
an ACE Hardware store the other daylooking at some of the products that they
had for things currently going on inthe lawn and garden, and they there
was a supply of things that areeffective against take all root rot, and

(46:22):
that is a big deal we're dealingwith right now. There was kelated arm
products for your soil. They hadfire ant baits and individual mound treatments both
there. They had mosquito dunks,the ones you hear me talk about on
Garden Line. They had the mosquitorepellents. They had fogging machines for you

(46:43):
know, knocking them out of anarea of the backyard. Just everything you
could think about. Maybe we werejust yesterday out on our patio and we
got this little string of I callthem beer garden lights, but it's a
little you know, black cord oflights with the little bulbs hanging down,
very dim bulbs, and it's justso nice and you can get out at
Ace Hardware too. It creates sucha beautiful outdoor on beyond setting. Because

(47:05):
you know it's not safe to gooutside until it's almost sundown or because it's
so hot these days here, butoh my gosh, in the evenings.
What a nice, enjoyable place tocreate. And ACE hardware will help you
do it. And if you needto fertilize your lawn, maybe you're an
organic gardener and you're looking for microlife. ACE hardware stores are going to carry
microlife as well. As you knowmicrolife is. It's a widely available product

(47:30):
and it's a wide range of products. It's not just the green bag that
we put on our lawns for fertilizing. It's the humans plus the purple bag
that is concentrated compost in a bag. They have a Microlife acidifier six two
four. I've recommended that I recommendedsomebody for a lawn this weekend because one
of the things takeof Patch does notlike is acid conditions, and so anything

(47:53):
we do to push this surface ofthe soil, the runner zone into more
acidic conditions is helpful for that.Of course, it's good for azelias,
camellias, blueberries, acid loving plants. There are many many microlife products that
are out there on the market.I like some of the liquids, the
super seaweed the ocean harvest. Youknow, organic gardeners for a long time

(48:16):
have had the words fish emotion andseaweed come out of their mouth. That
is the if you want a liquidfeed product for your plants and your gardens,
whether you're raising seedlings or whatever,that is the version for organic gardening
is fish emotion and seaweed. Microlifealso has one called Biomatrix that is excellent.
It's a seven to one to threeliquid. I use it a lot

(48:37):
for my houseplants. It's not becauseit's just a houseplant fertilizer, but I
like to use it because you know, if you use a fish based product
indoors, you often can smell that, and so I for indoors, I
would use the Biomatrix for example,But it's excellent. You can use it
outdoors. I use it in transplanting. You get the idea. Microlife products.

(49:00):
Go to microlife for laser dot com. You can find out more about
microlife products where to get them nearyou, which is pretty much everywhere they
are. They are very widely available. Let's do this. Let's go back
out to the phones now again.The number seven one three two one two
k t R h we go allthe way to Beaumont and talk to Gordon.
Hello, Gordon, Hello, sir. Uh, my question is about

(49:23):
Nema toads, especially on the okrahroots system that causes knots and uh then
the plant depleinishes from Then what isthe best source that you have for the
destruction of these nema toads. Yeah, well, Gordon, I got I

(49:47):
got bad news for you and forme because I just pulled up a bunch
of plants in a bed that Ihad Okra in and uh, there is
nematods all over the roots. Thereis not a magic bullet for nematodes.
There are things we can do tosuppress them, and I'll say, manage
them if you will, so thedamage isn't so excessive. And there are

(50:10):
a couple of products out there thatI've not seen the research on to know
that they work. But Monterey hasone for Nema tod control, and then
I'm trying to think of the nameof the other one. Anyway, they're
supposedly suppressive. They're based on saponinsor soap like substances from yucca and other

(50:30):
things. I'm trying them this summerto see if they work. But I
don't know that they would. We'regoing to find out. What I do
for nematodes is number one. WhenI know I have them in area,
get the roots out as much asI can, and I do not plan
anything that gets nematodes back in thatspot. There are a few plants that
are resistant to them, and that'swhat has to go in that spot.

(50:53):
If you allow the soil to dryout, like you roto tillot in the
summer and the sun bakes down onit, and then you rote a tillo
it again the sun bakes down.That's not great for the soil, but
it does cause a lot of thenematos to desiccate and die. There's also
the ability to put in a trapcrop the little tiny French marigolds, not

(51:17):
the big pump pum types, butthe small flower types. Yeah, i've
got drop crop. I've got them, yep. Yeah, But you got
to plant them wall to wall,not like a marigold beside your chucker plant,
tomato plant. Yeah, just asolid path. You want every cubic
centimeter of soil to have a marigoldroot in it. That's the way you

(51:38):
need to think about that. Thenin the cool season, switched to cereal
rye grass, the rye, thegrain type of rye, not the lawn
overseeding rye, the grain type ofrye. And that is a trap crop
in the cool season. And thenso the crop rotation, if you can
give it at least three years beforeyou come back to that spot with a

(52:00):
susceptible species of plant like okra.Yeah, that's what I went. I
went years without planning anything there.And yeah, a thing like their producing
I you know, thirty plants.So they produced me about four hundred pounds
of okra per year, and Iwas just was looking for something to get

(52:21):
rid of the nematode. Okay,that's a lot of okra after my own
heart. Uh yep. Well,yeah, so that the crop rotation,
the trap crops, you could trysome. They just know there are products
there that are you can give thema try. I am not recommending them
because I don't know yet for them. No, thank you very much.

(52:43):
I appreciate your time. All right, thank you for the call, Gordon.
I appreciate that. Those nematodes,I tell you we we've got them.
I've got them. I posted somethingto our Guardline Facebook page a while
back. I dug up some boxwoodthat were in a spot I did not
want them. Remember I talked aboutredoing gardens. Is okay, Well,

(53:05):
I redid a bit that someone elsehad planted. But anyway, when I
pulled them up, Nema toad's allover the roots. There's a lot of
plants to get fig trees. Ohmy gosh, Nemo toad'sil walk a mile
to get to a fig tree.They love those things. So you got
to just watch the plants that youput in, and once you got them,
it's a matter of managing, noteradicating. The one thing that I
did not mention and I should haveto Gordon if you're still listening, Gordon

(53:29):
is solarizing in the summer season,Putting clear plastic over the soil and solarizing
it for about four to six weekswill also reduce the nematode numbers. Not
eradicate, not control nematod six inchesdeep, but in the top three or
four inches. You ought to beable to get pretty good control with solarizing
too. Let's see, I'm gonnago now to who's next up here garden

(53:55):
oaks, and we're gonna talk toPat Hello, Pat Inning I've got a
question on my asparagus. They've beenin for about four years, and each
year I seem to get more ofthem, but then they start putting up
a little small, not the asparagussized plant, and then they bush out.

(54:22):
Do I cut those things down ordo I just leave them alone?
And yeah, so asparagus, we'rea little far south for the best results
with asparagus. I'm not saying youcan't grow asparagus here. You absolutely can
grow it here, but a furthernorth it grows those fronds all summer captures

(54:46):
lots of sunlight, puts a lotof carbohydrates down in the root system,
and then it goes dormant because itgets so cold there. And then in
the spring when the new growth begins, you have these nice thick spears coming
up, and they lost a whilebefore they start to dwindle in size.
Here we don't have the weather tokill it back to the ground and to

(55:09):
have that garmant period, and soit's like it's still burning carbohydrates and stuff
on into the winter time, andso we have a shorter harvest and sometimes
not as many nice, good sizedspears. But that's just part of living
in this area, you can growit, but it's a more limited production.

(55:30):
Okay, well, I didn't knowif there was something I could.
Should I just let those continue togrow. Yeah, as much as you
can let them grow. You gotto be able to keep the weeds out,
So keep it really well malted andstuff, because asparagus can become really
weedy. And yeah, that's it. If there are some varieties that are

(55:52):
better than others, but other thanpicking the best varieties you can get,
and that's that would be my advice. Okay, thank you so much.
Yeah, Pat appreciate that. Thanksto the call. Well, here we
are, it's time for taking alittle break, Lisa and Seabrook. You're
gonna be our first up when wecome right back from break. Our phone

(56:13):
number is seven one three two onetwo k t r H. Seven one
three two one two k t rH. Give us a call. Chris
will get you on the board andwe will talk to you when we come
back. You have you with us. You've got plenty of things we can

(56:35):
talk about right now. Hey,you the the one thing I want to
mention is if you are looking atyour landscape and you see the sea of
green, I refer to it asa sea of green because it's green grass,
green ground cover, green shrubs,green trees, green green, green
green. That's fine. I likegreen. Green's a pretty color. It's
not the only color. And justbecause it's summer doesn't mean that we have

(56:58):
to give up on color in ourlandscapes. If you give the folks at
Pierscapes a call, for example,they can set you up for quarterly bed
maintenance and that means they come out. They do things like trimming and weeding
and fertilizing and irrigation inspection, makesure your irrigation system is working right.
And they just because they once workedright doesn't mean they still are. The

(57:20):
aeration seasonal color changes. You switchout those flowers that aren't thriving in the
heat and put some things that willthrive in the heat, mulching in the
beds. This is all part ofwhat Peerscapes does, but it's not at
all all of what Pierscapes does.They do irrigation, drainage. They do
drainage systems so that when we haveareas that are too wet, maybe a
natural stone river bed to just letit naturally drain out of an area.

(57:45):
Plus it's kind of esthetically attractive.I think, how about a subsurface drainage
system. They can do that.Do you need borders around beds or do
you want to go all out?Just have them redesign a landscape. You
will not believe the work they do. You got to go to pierce Scapes
dot com Piercescapes dot com and checkout. Just just flip through there,

(58:06):
look at the pictures. See thekind of work they can do. Give
them a call seven or excuse metwo eight one three seven oh fifty sixty
two eight one three seven oh fivezero six zero, and let Piercecapes make
your place a showplace that is colorfulin addition to green all through the hot
blazing summer season. You know,we got a long time until we start

(58:30):
planting cool weather things, So now'sthe time to make sure these things are
it's established effectively and taken care ofand just I don't know, makes your
place a lot more beautiful. Let'sgo out to Sebrook. Here we're going
to talk to Lisa. Hey,Lisa, welcome to Gardline, Good morning,
Thank you. We have been usingcompost top dressing instead of mulch.

(58:54):
It was recommended because we had ourhome tweet for termites, but it seems
that the weeds they just go rightthrough the compost. So I'm just saying,
do you have any recommendations or doyou have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, you can use composts asa mult Usually we don't pile compost that
thick, you know, an inchof compost. There's a lot of composts

(59:17):
to be adding, and so whatyou would have to do is get a
little rake and kind of stir itup. When you see little seedlings just
starting to go, just kind ofstir it up a little bit, and
that sort of takes care of thempretty well. Otherwise you're going to need
to go with maybe a maultch thatthe termites aren't as interested in, like
a cedar mulch for example. I'mnot a termite expert. I'm not a

(59:44):
pest control operator either, but Iwould not worry as much about the multch
as I would be about covering upthe wheepholes. If you have a brick
siding in your house, those littleholes where things can go in, making
sure you can see access to those. So if termites tried to build a
mud nest or a mud trail,up there. You could absolutely know it

(01:00:07):
and move quickly. There's a lotof wood in nature the termites are eating,
and so every time a limb fallsin the forest, that's a potential
place for a termite to get itsnext meal. And so I don't know.
I would still malt myself. Butif you want to switch to one
that's less inviting, like cedar,than you could do that. Thank you,

(01:00:31):
you bet. I hope that helps. Thanks Lisa, thanks for the
call. All righty, well,yeah, I need to one of these
days. They need to get likea termite PCO or something like on the
show. We can kind of pickthe brain and learn a few more things
about it. I think I'll makea note try to do that. I

(01:00:51):
like that idea. So out inthe garden and out in the landscape right
now, the temperatures, of courseare hot and there's a lot of stress
on things. Just remember that properwatering is so very important. You need
a moist soil so that you canhave good root development and root health down

(01:01:13):
underground. You also need to makesure that the soil is not too soggy
wet, because when you are underhigh heat stress conditions to have the roots
excluded or oxygen excluded from the rootsystem. Is it's just a recipe for
quick death and so overwatering in thehot, blazing summer season and continuing to

(01:01:37):
keep that soil too soggy is nota good thing. Let it dry a
little bit and think of it agood soaking. Good soaking followed by drying
up very important to do for allof our plants. Remember this too.
When you plant a container, maybeit's a shrub or tree, and you
put that in the ground, Iwant you to play a little mental game

(01:02:00):
for me here. Imagine that youput the whole thing in the ground in
the pot. That black, roundpot goes straight down in the ground,
and then you bring up soil aroundit, mulch over the top, and
water it in. The reason Ilike that image is because for a long
time, that's where all the rootsare going to be. If you knew
there was a pot in the ground, would you water two feet away from

(01:02:22):
that plant now there's no roots outthere, You'd water where the pot is
because that's where all the roots are. So just because you take it out
of the pot and put it inthe ground doesn't change the fact that all
the roots are still in the cylinder, and they're gradually going to move out
into the soil around and with eachmonth, with each week, with each
month, with each year, thatplant becomes better and better rooted in with

(01:02:45):
the resilient root system that you don'tneed to pamper along because it's resilient.
So if you just do that,I'm going to picture this as my roots
are all right there, and waterthat area where the pot is, or
was the area just beyond that alittle bit. If you focus your water
on there, you can help thatplant not only sustain and stay healthy,

(01:03:08):
but even grow faster and do well. And so when you water, just
in your mind with new plants,just picture that that plant is still under
sitting in a pot, but thepot's underground. And if you water like
that, that of course is alittle bit of an overstatement, but if
you water like that, it willhelp you avoid losing that plant. Because

(01:03:29):
listen, in moist soil, thattiny cylinder root ball will pump dry in
a day, depending on how bigthe plant is and how big the root
ball is, and you've got tobe able, you've got to be able
to have some resilience there. Sotake care of the roots that are there.
As it develops roots beyond there,it's time for me to take a
little bit of break here. Weare going to head to that. I

(01:03:51):
want to leave you with the phonenumber if you want to give Chris a
call, get on the board sevento one three two one two KTRH.
Seven to one three two one twokt r H and welcome to garden Line.
Welcome back to guard Line. I'myour host, Skip Rictor, and
we're here to help you have amore bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape.

(01:04:13):
So how can we do that?Well, it starts with a phone
call seven to one three two onetwo k t r H. And we'll
be happy to jump in there andhelp in any way we can. Folks
at plants for all seasons. Stopabout the Flowery Family. They've been around
since so nineteen seventy three, andit's the Garden Center on Tomball Parkway.
That's Highway two forty nine. Asyou're heading from Houston toward Tombol direction,

(01:04:38):
you exit Luetta and it's right onthe other side of Luetta, just about
a block or so, not evena block up the street. There on
the right, you're going to findevery kind of plant you can imagine there
they're going to have right now.Some of the baskets that they have are
just stunning, just really beautiful.But remember, just because it's hot outside

(01:04:58):
doesn't mean we can't be playing things. Go ahead and get them established.
If you got them here in themiddle of a landscape renovation project and summers,
find time to go ahead and makesome big changes that you need to
make. Well, go ahead anddo that. Just pick some plants that
are going to survive the heat anddo well. Remember, we got months
of summer ahead of us here,and there's no reason for us, not

(01:05:21):
for you not to have color inyour landscape. Plants for all seasons can
help with that. When you haveissues and problems, you can take samples
into them. They know what they'retalking about and they've got a selection of
products for pretty much anything that you'regoing to encounter in your Houston area garden.
Now. For example, they alsohave fertilizers. They got sweet Greens.

(01:05:42):
Sweet Greens that product from nitroposs Itis an organic type product, eleven
percent nitrogen made from a molasses base. That's where sweet comes in from the
name sweet green. Any organic gardenerknows when you put molasses on the soil
emulates beneficial microbes, some of thebacteria the good guy at bacteria that help

(01:06:04):
plant roots to thrive. Sweet grainwill dissolve away release into the soil for
a summer application. Here's how Isuggest you do it. Get the sweet
grain, look at the labels howmuch you apply. I would cut that
in half and apply it now,and then about six to eight weeks from
now, do it again. Makeanother application of the other half of it,

(01:06:27):
and that's going to gradually provide thosenutrients over a longer period of time
here in the summer. Swee Green'sa wonderful product, smells wonderful, and
it's from nitroposs So it's going tobe widely available places like plants for all
seasons. We're going to have it. We're going to head out now to
Magnolia, Texas and talk to Ronnie. Hello, Ronnie, how are you.

(01:06:53):
I'm doing good. I'm doing good. What's up? I guess I
need to turn it radio all.Hey, Google, turn off? That's
the pictures. Yeah, and you'dcalled me back or sent me a message
that there's cabbage worms and give youa shout. We could discuss them.
Okay, I'm having trouble hearing Ronnieand run he are you at a distance

(01:07:15):
from your phone or is this somethingon our end? Yeh? Better?
A little bit better? Yeah,okay. So the question was cabbage worms.
Yeah, I remember your picture ofthat. Uh, the cross striped
cabbage worm is what that is.And it's got the little horizontal black and
white stripes across its back. Thoseare really common for all the cucurbits or

(01:07:40):
cruciferous or cabbage family plants. Sothat would be broccoli and cabbage and cauliflower
and cole robbie and oh collars andkale. You know they like those kind
of plants. And the best pardonabsolutely yeah. So the best way that
I'd recommend managing as with a spraycontaining bt B as in boy teas in

(01:08:04):
tom. It's a natural caterpillar killer. Now, it's only gonna last about
a day or so out there inthe environment before it breaks down. So
if you were to spray it today, I would check back mid week and
look and see or did you missany Are they still alive? And it's
not gonna kill them instantly? Theyeat it and they get very very sick.
And die, but don't be afraidto spray it again, and you

(01:08:27):
know, anywhere from maybe three orfour days later or a week later,
and then you can do it athird time even if you need to.
But you can get ahead of themthat way. But the sooner you get
it on them, the better,because young caterpillars are much easier to kill
than older caterpillars. Got you gotanother question for you for a run off?
My corn plants, man, theydidn't grow and last for two years

(01:08:49):
straight, about maybe three four footin the kernels about one inch of cross
and four inches long or not kernels, but the cobs any ideas on that?
So how long would you plant them? Right? Well, I planted
them the early part of this spring, and then last year it happened the

(01:09:15):
same way. Some boy small cobs. That's a that's kind of unusual.
What happens with corn is well,First of all, the varieties differ a
lot. There are types of cornthat when they're three feet higher putting ears
on, which is not normal,and then there are types that gets seven

(01:09:39):
feet high the field corn and whatnot. So the size of the ears is
going to also be part of thatgenetic difference but when there's narrow and spinley
as what you're describing, that's unusual. The pollination that occurs as the pollen
falls on the silks of the earsticking out of the end of the ear,

(01:09:59):
that helps all those little corn kernelsdevelop on the cob. So the
kernels were fine. Pardon, thekernels were developed. They just wouldn't.
The ear wasn't very big at all. Yeah, that's very I don't know.
On the ear, some of thesecondary ears down the stalk will often

(01:10:19):
not develop as far along as theprimary ones we get up top. But
I would I would try. Doyou remember do you remember what variety you
put motok or mon tap and aand a honey bun and then a hybrid.

(01:10:41):
Yeah, go ahead, that thosethat's the only three names I remember.
I went and ordered support and I'vejust reached this. I don't know
those I don't know those varieties.I don't know. My suggestion and based
on the fact that there's not somecommon thing that I'm aware of that would
cause the ears themselves just to bespend late but still have good kernels on

(01:11:02):
them. Uh So my suggestion wouldbe to switch varieties. There is one
called gen ninety that does very well. If you can find that one,
get g ninety. There's one calledHoney and Pearl that does well. So
you are up in the Magnolia area, I would you can do. You

(01:11:26):
can go buy garden centers and findpacks of seed on these. If you're
going to need a larger quantity,if you're planting a pretty big patch,
probably mail order is going to bewhat you're into up having to do for
that quantity up in your area.Well, okay, my friend appreciate it.
Well, good luck with those.Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna look
into that because that's a that's anew one. Well, you know,

(01:11:47):
and I'm out soul and now thisis arbigate soul. It's a rose and
uh mulch and uh uh huh.So you know, I ever finding else
is just fluent. I mean,I've got tomatoes and beans and peas,
it all just flourishing. But thisseries got me stymy. Yeah, it

(01:12:11):
is unusual. I just want toblame it on the variety. But yeah,
arbigate soil is excellent soil, andobviously everything else is doing well in
it, so it's definitely not asoil caused problem in this case. Okay,
sound like you need to go onbreak. Yeah, they're playing the
magic sounds out there, so Igotta do that. All right, take

(01:12:31):
care. Well, here we aretop of the hour. We will be
right back. I'm gonna do alittle research on that one they for the
top of the hour and see ifI can come up with some solutions.
That's a that's an You know,it's funny be in this thirty five years
I still run into situations, buthadn't come across that one. You have

(01:12:53):
to hunte that down. Thanks forlistening. By the way to garden,
we're gonna take our low break fromthe news. Seven one three two one
two k t r H is thenumber if you like to call and get
on the board. In Charlie fromWestern USI are first time. Well,

(01:13:17):
probably not the problem. I mean, if it is compacted. I think
that's what you mean by when you'resaying the DNS. It's going to limit
root development, and so aeration wouldbe helpful, helpful. The problem with
aeration is you have so many treeroots in that area that you're almost gonna
have to do it by hand.You can't run a machine through there with

(01:13:40):
all those tree roots. Up atthe surface. You could use a spading
fork and kind of wiggle it straightdown in the ground and kind of pull
back on it a little bit andthen pull it straight back up again.
You know, you're kind of creatingholes that way. It's not the best
way to do it, but itis a way to do it. I
think probably what you're looking at though, when I when I see your scamp
your photos is it could be acombination of things. Number one, a

(01:14:03):
lot of shade and Saint Augustine justcan't get the energy that it needs to
make good density when there's a lotof shade. Uh. That's a factor.
That's why you're seeing some weeds cominginto it. The compaction of the
soil certainly is not helping, soaerrating would be helpful there. You may
also have take all root rot goingon. That's really common disease in our

(01:14:26):
area. And I as looking atthe the photos, I can't diagnose the
disease from from just the photo,but the way the grass looks the effects
of it remind me of what takeall root rot would do. And so
that would be one where you wouldactually use a fungicide containing something called a
secesstrobo to be able to do that. But let me you don't have to

(01:14:48):
worry about writing that down. Goto my website gardening with Skip dot com,
Gardening with Skip dot com and on. There is the lawn pest,
disease and weed management schedule and thedisease row Across the page you'll see when
to apply things. For take allroot lot, I would go ahead,

(01:15:10):
even though this isn't the best season. I would go ahead and do it
now, but definitely come back anddo it when we get it to October
again. Those are the things thatare in your power in the meantime.
Because the plant is lacking a goodroot system, you're going to have to
water in more frequently in smaller doses. It's the opposite of what I've been

(01:15:31):
talking about today, where we tryto develop this resilient plant by not watering
often, but watering well. Whenwe do. This little shallow root system
is not going to go far betweenwatering. So be ready to water a
little more often until you get yourgrasp back to good health account. Okay,
and the I guess as you say, it's a fung de side to

(01:15:56):
take care of the take all right, do I put that order or is
that on your website. It's schedule, my schedule on the week. It
tells you exactly when the plant.But I'm saying you won't see it it
listed for July. But go aheadand do it now in your lawn in
this situation, and then just getback on the proper schedule for it.

(01:16:19):
If you take, if you takecompressed peat moss, spagming pete moss,
it comes and compressed they call thembales. It's a plastic wrapped but it's
been squeezed down so tight that it'sshaped like a giant brick, I mean,
a very giant brick three point andbreak it up, loosen it up,

(01:16:39):
and put little piles of it everywhereand spread it out as thin as
you can, and then water itin. That will also help. We're
doing a number of things in thisrecommendation trying to help move the plant toward
health and away from the disease havingthe advantage. Okay, I'm saying,
what is the name that pete mossagainst staying him bagging and pete moss compressed

(01:17:01):
bals. You're out there west,you you know what I would just run
out to. I would give thema call itself US fertilizer best and that
yes, too far from you.And they they're going to have. If
they don't have it, they canget it. I bet they already have
it on hand, but just talkedabout or someone out there. A three
point eight cubic foot bag covers abouta thousand square feet at the very shallow

(01:17:28):
depth. Ok okay, all right, good luck with it, and in
the meantime, try to keep thefoot traffic off as much as you can.
Okay, A right doesn't get aluck, Thank you very much,
skipping. Yes, you take carewell, I tell you, take all
the right. We need a miraclecure to come along for that. It

(01:17:50):
is. It is a difficult diseaseto deal with. And I've seen it
this summer, uh, just inmany places and in many situations. And
the thing we need to remember,I'll use take all as an example,
but this is true of plant diseaseand to some degree human disease too in

(01:18:11):
general, and that is that whenthe patient gets stressed, diseases are more
likely to have the ability to goin and to cause illness and in some
cases of your low death. Andso with our bodies, what do we
do we exercise, we eat right, we get plenty of sleep. All
those things right, that helps yoube more healthy, so you're more resilient.

(01:18:35):
When it comes to a turf plant, when you stress it with compacted
soil, with shade, with damagefrom some sorts of weed killers, you're
gonna find take all root rot showsup. All right, We're gonna take
a little quick break here. I'llbe right back in just a moment.
Maryl is in the Gulf of Mexicoapproach the Texas coast. Ue. Welcome

(01:18:59):
to have you with us today.We've got a lot of things to talk
about. I wanted to mention sometimesI get there's a common question I get
sometimes people wonder, why aren't myflowers blooming. I've had flowers, but
they're not doing well. Why aren'tthey blooming? And one of the reasons
is a lack of nutrient. Oneof the reasons could be stresses from lack

(01:19:20):
of water or whatnot. So anotherreason could be the flower doesn't like that
time of year. In other words, if you have a petunia outlet,
let's go all the way. Ifyou have a pansy and you have it
out in July in Texas, it'snot gonna be blooming. In fact,
it's gonna be dying in the heatthat we have. But within our power
is making sure they are adequately wateredand that they're fertilized well. I like

(01:19:44):
the products that Nelson Plant Food isput together that are in the Nutristar line.
For example, there's a nutri Starfor hibiscus and really any flowering tropicals.
You know, there's lots of differentkinds of plants icera and others that
just do really well with the hibiscusand flowering tropical version of nutristar. There

(01:20:04):
is an indoor plant Nutristar specifically designedfor indoor plants. And whether you have
a Chinese evergreen agli anema, whetheryou have a Kalitha Diffenbakia drasina, all
those common houseplants, fiddly fig andon and on and on if it's a
houseplant. In other words, thisis a quality plant food to help produce

(01:20:26):
healthy growth for it to succeed anddo really really well. And then there's
a color Star line for our flowerbeds outdoors. Color Star itself is just
an outstanding fertilizer. All from NelsonPlant Food, All from Nelson Plant Food
and then remember too with your lawns. Turf Star slow and easy, that's
the season we're in. Carries youall the way to fall with a gradual

(01:20:46):
release and even a little bit ofan acidifying effect, which is very,
very helpful for the things our lawnsare struggling against. Right now, we're
going to go now out to BrazoriaCounty and talk to Bob. But Bob
there all right, Bob, Ithink I have you. How can we
help the day? Are you theyes? Ree u? Two things?

(01:21:11):
Want to comment about your statement aboutthe wheepholes, plugging them for because the
termite possibility, right. You don'twant to plug them with anything that's not
poorous. You want to put somethingin there like fiberglass or a stainless stil
wool. Because those wheapholes are thereto breathe. Oh yes they are.

(01:21:32):
Listen. If I said plugging them, I misspoke. No, you you
want to leave them open. WhatI was trying to say was don't pull
the mulch up over them, becausethen termites get in and you don't even
know it. I have a littleexposed foundation below the wheephole. If I
use the word plug, if Isaid that, I'm glad you brought it

(01:21:53):
up, because I do not knowdo not plug the wheepholes? That was
question I have giving off that topic. Have a lot of volunteer oak trees.
They're like three inches tall and they'rein clusters around the yard, and
I haven't been mowing over them.What is the best way and the best
time to try to plant transplant them? Should I do it now or wait

(01:22:15):
till they get a foot tall?Or you know what? Should we do?
What I what I would do isstarting. You could start now,
definitely want to do this as weget into September October. But take a
shovel and go down straight into theground. Let's say, what would you
say as a trunk diameter on thesetrees right now? Are we talking about

(01:22:39):
your thumb or we talking a pencilor what? What was that again?
You said, Diam, Yeah,the trunk diameter on the trees. Is
it more like a pencil or yourthumb? Or how big? Is it
small? Half the size of apencil? That they're just starters right now?
Oh? Tiny? Okay, Well, I'm going to take back the

(01:23:00):
shovel thing just so you know whatI was saying. For in case you
have bigger plants to transplant. Iwill often cut the roots. Oh you
know, maybe, depending on thesize of the plant, could be eight
inches away or foot away from thetrunk in several places, not all the
way around, because that causes themto branch. So when you do dig
it, you have a more activeroot system right around the base of the

(01:23:25):
plant. But I would wait untilNovember and would I would pull them,
dig them up and move them inNovember. Put them at the same level
they were growing before, water themand really well, put them in the
soil they're gonna grow in. Don'tput potting soil in the hole or anything
like that. Just whatever they're goingto have to live in, that's the
soil you put back in the hole. Very good. I appreciate it.

(01:23:48):
All right, sir, you takecare, Thanks for the call. Thank
you, Yeah, alrighty, yeah, you're listening to guard Line. I'm
your host, Skip Ricker and ourphone number seven one three one two fifty
eight seventy four seven to one threetwo one two five eight seven four.
As easy as that. I havetalked about in the past, enchanted for

(01:24:15):
us that in Richmond a number oftimes, and I always mentioned several things
about it number one in the springtime. They got all kinds of programs all
the time. I ever seemed likeevery weekend there's something going on out there.
If you're looking for a quality,uh selection of things that attract butterflies
or birds or humming birds for example, things that attract pollinators, and Chanted

(01:24:36):
Forest has got you covered. Infact, I was joking with any a
good while back. It's it's funny. They they have these larval food source
plants like milkweed for monarch caterpillars,or passion vine for gulf fritillary, or
pipeline swallowtail like caterpillars like pipeline plants. And if you buy a plant,

(01:25:00):
they'll give you a caterpillar to sayhome. So you got your own little
kind of like a sour dough starter. You go home with it. You
got your own starter there to getyou going in the butterfly business. Well,
they have a lot of other things. Do you're not enchanted forest?
They have got an excellent selection ofevery kind of plant that you would need.
I don't care if it's a vegetables, brand new vegetable thing they built

(01:25:20):
this year a vegetable structure herbs outstandingselection of herbs, really very impressive,
tree, shrubs, roses, nomatter what it is, they've got it.
There. A nice little gift shopalso very very nice. Now they're
on FM twenty seven to fifty nine, So if you're in Richmond heading toward
Houston up fifty nine, it's offto the right FM twenty seven fifty nine

(01:25:43):
in Richmond again. Enchanted Forest,Enchanted Forest. The the nice thing that
I am One of the nice thingsthat I enjoy about Enchanted Forest is being
able to visit with the folks thatare there, that are there to help
you to have success. Very friendly, just very helpful in every possible way

(01:26:04):
that you can imagine, and thatis important. You can go shop a
lot of places that plants are notwhat they're all about, but they got
some plants, and you are notgoing to find knowledgeable people like you'll find
at Enchanted Forest. Enchanted Forest.Excuse me, let me let me give
me one second. Here, just'strack of something I'm looking for. All

(01:26:26):
right, there we go, Yeah, ententted Forest. The website. If
you like to look at the website, I suggest you do because you're gonna
find a really good selection of allthe things they have there and you kind
of get some photos and a picture. When I talk about it being such
a cool place to go visit,you kind of get a glimpse of that.
If you go to the website andthat is enchanted Forest Richmond, TX

(01:26:47):
dot com. Enchanted Forest Richmond,TX dot com. Go buy there,
check it out and you'll see whatI'm talking about. Our phone number if
you would like to us a callwith some sort of a question you might
have about a plant or having successwith a plant on garden line seven one
three two one two k t rH seven one three two one two k

(01:27:13):
t r H. Ciena Mulch isour go to place here on garden line
for any kind of soil based productsdown in Siena, Texas. So if
you go down to Sienna, it'snorth of Road Sharon. It's on FM
five twenty one. That's the easiestway FM five twenty one, near where
Highway six and two eighty eight cometogether. Cienamultch is open Monday through Friday

(01:27:38):
from seven thirty in the morning tillfive Saturday seven thirty two. Closed on
Sunday. They'll be back open againfirst thing in the morning. And I
think when you go there, youwill agree with me that it is one
of the well stocked, neatest placesthat you're going to ever see. They're
going to have things like, forexample, they carry heirloom soils, Veggian

(01:27:58):
nermex They have Vegi nerm mix there. They have high quality mulches, high
quality bed mixes. What do youwant to grow, They've got a bed
mix to put it in. Doyou want to do some stone? Maybe
you want to create a dry creekbed for drainage away from the property.
Maybe you want to get some flagstonesto create a little patio area. They've
got that every kind of stone.You can imagine things we never even dreamed

(01:28:21):
existed. And when you say Ineed some patio flagstone, they're going to
say which one because they got aboutseven of them different kinds of flagstone.
Maybe more than that. I justknow there's a lot when I go visit.
Everything you need to make your plantsthrive. Remember on garden Line I
talk about brown stuff before green stuff, right, brown stuff the soil.

(01:28:41):
They've got all the soil blends youneed. Plus they have every fertilizer I
talk about on garden Line. Soeverything you need to set the stage,
the foundation, the soil. Thesuccess of plants is there at Ciena Mulch.
Check them out, go buy therecienamultch dot com website. I'll help
you find them, phone numbers andeverything else you need. Ceenimulch dot com

(01:29:04):
super quality products and super friendly peopletoo. By the way, we're going
to now go out to Sugar Line, Texas and talk to Bill. Hello,
Bill, good morning. I calledyou before about my sago palms with
with yellow spots on the leaves,and the apps and salts has solved the
problem looks great. Now I haveclouds of white flies in my viburnum,

(01:29:30):
which is about eight feet tall andreal bushy, and I'm calling to see
what should I spray with to killthe white fly. Well, there are
a number of insecticides that will killwhite flies. If you wanted to go
with a little more organic type approach, using a horticultural oil, spray upward

(01:29:54):
from underneath the plant so as tocoat the bottom sides of the leaves.
I will kill any larva and pupalarva or pupa that are on the leaf
and not killed the adults flying around. So you can do that and stay
with that you can also use anumber of insecticides. Products like acifate,
which is our theene, for example, will kill white flies. A lot

(01:30:16):
of things will kill white flies.The problem is that when you do,
you kill their enemies, and youend up with a rebound of white flies.
I'm gonna have to take a breakhere for the news. Bill,
will you hang on and I wantto finish this discussion because there's a few
more things that'd like to share withyou about. There'll be fine, yeah,
And when we come back, we'llbe back with Bill and Flint out

(01:30:38):
in Santa Fe. You'll be rightafterwards, Baard line with us. We're
gonna jump right back into the phoneshere. I believe we were in the
middle of a conversation with Bill andsugar Land about white flies. So Bill,
the thing I just want to pointout is that I've watched a lot
of people try to spray and controlwhite flies, and then it's like you
get on a treadmill. When youkill all the things that eat the white

(01:31:00):
flies, now they're all your jobto manage, and so you end up
spraying more to keep controlling them.I'm not saying don't spray. I'm just
saying to be aware that when whenyou take out the natural enemies, that
is a problem. Oftentimes white fliesmay have a flare up, but then
there's things will settle down as theirnatural enemies kind of bring things a little

(01:31:23):
more into balance. So that isalso a possibility. You may you know,
maybe you wait and wait and you'renot seeing that happen. But if
it were mine, I would doeverything I could to avoid spray in and
if I had to, then anygood insecticide of synthetic periphthoids for example,
are going to be effective against thewhite flies. Okay, you mentioned spraying

(01:31:47):
with the oil underneath the leaves,how how is that done? And what
kind of oil? Horticultural oil,not Dorman oil. So you get you
get a horticultural oil, and you'regoing to be able to find you know,
you're done in sugar Land, whetheryou go down to one of the
enchanted nurseries down southwest from you,you've got some really good ace hardware source

(01:32:12):
and the Sugarland you're right next toSouthwest fertilizer business Renwick. I would turn
over there and just say I needa horticultural law and they'll understand. They
know that they've ever sween their oilsand stuff. Here's the way that works,
though, is the white flies layeggs that hatch out into larvae that
then become pupa, and the peoplelook like little tiny fish scales under the
leaf. So if you looked andyou see these little flecks that are the

(01:32:35):
size of a lowercase typed o,that's a white fly pupa in a plant
that's invested with wildflies. That's whatthe pupa look like. And the oil
coats them and smothers them just likeit would do scale. Now you want
to it early in the morning.You don't want to put oil out when

(01:32:55):
it's sun blazing down ninety five degreesand whatnot. You burn plants like that.
But and also coverage is critical becausewell it's not a poison. So
to the degree you coat every underleafsurface is the degree you're going to shut
down that those two stages of thewhitefly. Yeah, it seems like it
would be difficult to spray on theunderside of the leaves because if this is

(01:33:19):
a real bushy plant and I canhardly get to the imperior, well in
that case, then it's just notgoing to be practical. Tell me remind
me, did what type of plantdid you say it was? I burn
them, burn them. You know, another option it would be to put
a systemic in there, like somethingthat can contains a meddo cloprid or dinotepheron,

(01:33:46):
And I'll spell those out if youwant me to. You, Yeah,
I am, I am, Id O c l O p are
id. So I'm gonna it's spelledlike it sounds, and I'll sound it
out. In mid dough clow prid, in mid dough glow prid, and

(01:34:10):
drench it on the soil. It'staken up by the roots and it goes
through the plumbing and things that suckthe juice is out of the plant,
like white flies and soft scales,for example. They're at that poison and
it kills them. It makes theplant of bait station in a sense.
Okay, So you just want toremove any blooms that might form. There's
several different types of I burn them. Some of them we see the balloons

(01:34:33):
on them, and you don't wantbees and butterflies coming until next summer,
because yeah, I've never seen anymany blooms. I've never seen any blooms.
So then I'm gonna take back someof the other things I said,
and just suggest that I think thatwould be your best approach to these Okay,

(01:34:54):
okay, And how about well,if it's a systemic we're going to
have these big rains coming, shouldI wait until Wednesday or so? You
know, I would. Uh.You're just wanting to wet the surface of
the soil, not the surface,but a few inches down so the roots
pick up the product and you don'thave to spoil far and wide. You

(01:35:15):
follow the label. The label willtell you exactly how to do it.
There are is another product. Ifyou end up going into Southwest Fertilizer,
Bob or just tell them, tellthem what we talked about, and that
there is another product, the onethat's dino teferon. Just think of dinosaur.
That's how it starts off. Uh, And it also works for this.

(01:35:38):
But they may, they may,they probably have both of them.
Okay, excellent, Okay, allright, sir. I really appreciate your
health. Thank you very much.You bet, you bet, Bill,
thank you. I appreciate your callvery much. Let's see here. Why
don't we run out now to SantaFe, Texas and talk to flint Hey
Flint Hey, Hey, My questionfor you is, I've got a garden.

(01:36:02):
It's about forty by fifty is insize, and we've been planting there
for many, many years, andit's got to be a bowl. Well,
I elected to bring in some sandto raise the level up, and
now I'm having real trouble getting anythingto grow there. What would you recommend
as to add to it to maybehelp the nutrients for the garden, or

(01:36:24):
what should I do? So abouthow many inches of sand do you think
you brought in? Ooh? Iwould say at least six to eight inches?
Oh wow, okay, a lot. And it truly was sand,
not sandy loam or top soil.Least I bought half and half. It

(01:36:45):
was half and half. It hadquite a bit of clay in it.
Okay. The first thing I'd dois the plants that aren't doing good,
I would go pull one up hereand there and look at the root system,
get a shovel underneath it, kindof shake it so you don't break
all the roots off when you pullit up, and look for nematod symptoms
on those roots. Nematods love sandyconditions and they that since it was doing

(01:37:11):
okay, and then you did thisand now things aren't growing. I would
check that first, just to makesure, because if you have that,
you need to deal with those.But assuming that's not the problem, I
would get a high quality compost material. It could be a bed mix like
a veggie and herb mix, orit could just be a finely screened quality
compost and you can just run.Basically, all you have to do is

(01:37:33):
run across the street to see ina mold, so they're not far from
you and they have it. They'lldeliver within twenty miles. If you want
a bulk a delivery of it,or you can go get it with a
trailer, or you can pick upbags of stuff. But I would get
a quality compost, put it about. I'd put it two inches deep,
maybe a little deeper and mix itin as deeply as you can to try

(01:37:57):
to add a lot of organic materialsinto that well. I think that will
be enough to help things do better. There are a lot of reasons plants
would might not be growing, fromdroughty conditions to poor drainage, which I
don't think you have that uh,to certain kinds of root diseases, the
particular species of plant, and theseason that it's in like, for example,

(01:38:19):
broccoli in this heat is not goingto be very happy. So there's
a lot of reasons plants wouldn't dowell, but for a whole bunch of
different species to not be doing well, it come sounds like, you know,
you planted this whole garden and alot of it is just not doing
good. That's probably okay. Yeah, it's everything comes up like I'll get
everything coming up and everything looks likeit takes off really good, and it

(01:38:42):
just like it fizzles out. Theyjust like run out of gas. And
there we were just concerned. Yeah, yeah, I was gonna says around
the guess, let's dig one up. Let's look at the roots. If
you see it and you're not surewhat you're seeing, get your camera,
takes pictures of it, and callback in here to guarden line and you

(01:39:02):
can send me pictures of the plants, the samples showing look at this sick
plant, what's what's going on.Here's a picture of the roots or whatever.
And I'll be happy to take alook and maybe i'll see something that's
not occurring to me as we're talkingabout it. Okay, And what was
the name of the place, yousaid for the for the soil Sienna Mulch

(01:39:25):
Bienna mulch okay, and where theyat of well there they're in Siena,
Texas, heying. I'm gonna giveyour dress. I don't have the actual
location. They are A ninety sixfifteen FM five twenty one, so they're
they're nearbur Highway six and two eightyeight come together north of Rose, Sharon.

(01:39:46):
If you go to here's the websitecienamultch dot com. Go there and
there you can learn all about everythingyou need to know from where they are,
that the phone number and everything else. All Right, I'm all right,
sounds good. I appreciate it.Yeah, thanks, appreciate the call.
Flin all right, we're going totake a quick commercial break seven one
three two one two kt RH.I'll be right back. Yes today,

(01:40:09):
you know, the hurricane's coming lookslike it's kind of bending over, making
a little bit of a b linefor our direction. So the good news
in that as you get some rain, we hope we do. The bad
news is we don't need the wind. That is for sure. If you
are wanting to do any kind ofa treatment to your lawn. The thing

(01:40:30):
about rainfall is you don't know howmuch is going to occur. So if
you're going to put down a fertilizerthat's not a slow release, then it
could easily dissolve and wash away ifwe get excessive amounts of rain. If
it's just an inch, well thenthat's perfect, but you know who can
predict exactly how much you're going toget. If it's a slow release,

(01:40:50):
it tends to stay in place unlessyou just literally get so much water sheeting
across the lawn that it picks upthe particles and carries them away. That's
the nice thing I like about slowreleases. It gradually releases, that it
doesn't just dissolve away in water.The other thing to keep in mind about
all of that is if you puton a pesticide, the same kinds of

(01:41:11):
things can happen. And so Iwould recommend letting this rainfall get by,
just so we know where we are, because otherwise, you know, I
get the calls that like, hey, I put it on such and such
and I got three inches of rainor three and a half inches of rain,
and do I need to reapply it? And that's always a tough call
because whether it's a weed killer orinsect side or fungicide. Usually you would

(01:41:38):
have to reapply it, but notalways, and so it's I would rather
just wait once we get past thishurricane. Let's put that down now.
And that'll include things like Nitrofoss bugOut Max. That is Nitroposs's product for
insect control in the lawn. It'sa granule. You put it out and
then you want a little water onit to hit those granules and wash that
insecticide off the granule and into thesurface area of the soil that that and

(01:42:01):
the runners in that zone right there. It's very effective. It works on
a lot of things. If you'vegot ants and fleas, do you know
fleas have a larval stage that livesin your lawn. So when that larva
becomes a pupa and then an adult, the adult jumps on your dog when
it's heading back inside, and therewe go. Well, nitro Foss bug
Out Max will help control that.It also works well on chinchbugs too,

(01:42:25):
by the way, which we're gettinginto chinchbug season, we're just waiting to
see when we're actually going to havethe outbreak. If we do have an
outbreak this year, which many yearswe do, and You can get all
these products from nitrofaus at ACE Hardwarestores. For example. You know,
there's what forty Ace Hardware stores inthe Greater Houston area, so it's not

(01:42:45):
hard to find them. Nitropous bugout Max is widely available at ACE Hardware.
And while you're at Ace Hardware,you're going to find all the other
things that you need. You know, when you've got to. When you
got forty stores in an area andit's easy to get to, it's just
a no brainer sense that whatever youneed to for inside the house but also
outside you know, your patios,your lawns, your gardens, fertilizers,

(01:43:09):
pesticides, herbicides, do you needto quote control fire ants? Do you
need to manage other pests in thegarden? Ace Hardner's got it. They've
got the equipment you need. Asprayer, for example. They can get
you fixed up with that and theyknow how to do it, and they're
so easy to find that it justmakes it a no brainer. They also
have mosquito products, like a repellentor like maybe a fogging machine. And

(01:43:32):
they also have and this is onethat I think everybody, just if you
live in the Greater Houston area.Let's just say all the south east Texas
you need to have on hand somemosquito dunks. Mosquita dunks you may have
heard. I had Bill from SummitSolutions on the other day on the show
Some Responsible Solutions. It's a littledoughnut about side of one of those little

(01:43:53):
white dusted powder sugar little debbies kindof deals, you know, about that
size. You throw it on toa body of water, It floats,
It lasts about a month, andit covers about one hundred square feet of
water, releasing a disease that onlyaffects the mosquitoes in your pond. It
also works, by the way,on fungus gnats, and so you can

(01:44:15):
buy it also by granule, buylittle bits of mosquito bits, and you
just toss a few of those aroundthe surface of a plant where you're having
problems with fungus gnats and watered inand then now the disease is in the
surface of the soil, and fungusgnats eat that moldy stuff at the surface
of the soil that's kept too wet, and it'll get them. It works
well. Mosquito dunks are widely availabletoo. You're gonna find them at all

(01:44:40):
the ace hardware stores. As Isaid, you can find them also at
independent nurseries and feed stores. Nothard to find. Go ahead and grab
some. Have them on hand.If you don't have the granule and you
need some little pieces, just takea dunk and a hammer and break it
up into little pieces and use itthat way. Toss it up in that
gutter that's sagging you haven't gotten aroundto fixing yet, but it holds water
and breeze mosquitos. Toss them intoa bird bath wherever they're standing water.

(01:45:03):
Mosquito dunks, you're not going toget a better way to control them.
And listen the birds, the beneficialinsects, the butter, you know,
the the gosh I just went blanket, Oh your pets, your cat and
your dog, and know everything likethat wildlife. They won't hurt any of
that. They're not a disease ofanything but mosquito. Larva and fungus not

(01:45:27):
larva. That's what mosquito dunks do. So that makes it real easy.
Yep. You gotta keep those onhand. Got to keep them on you
because you never know when you're gonnaAfter this hurricane goes through, you're gonna
need them. We're gonna have somerain, they're gonna be some puddles and
things like that. We're listening togarden Line and I'm your host, Skip
Richter, and we're here to answeryour gardening questions. Give us a call

(01:45:48):
if you'd like to visit. Sevenone three two one two fifty eight seventy
four. Seven one three two onetwo fifty eight seventy four. We're coming
close to our break and so youmay need to get on the board and
when we come back, we'll answeryour questions as well. If you haven't
been to RCW Nursery, you needto run out there. RCW Nursery has

(01:46:11):
an outstanding selections and an unbelievable self. It ends today. Listen. RCW
opens at ten o'clock when garden Lineis over. RCW opens twenty five percent
off Cajun hibiscus, I love myCajun hibiscus, fifty percent off select roses,
fifteen percent off all citrus trees,ten percent off all the trees in
general, and boy did they havean excellent selection of trees that grow ore.

(01:46:34):
Go to Rcwnursries dot com. They'rethe garden center that's there at Tamba
Parkway to forty nine where it connectswith Beltweight eight. Easy to get to
and lots of good stuff. Today'sthe last day of that sale, so
from ten o'clock today you got toget over there and get to the best
on all those things. Jar itjust watching many things to set again,

(01:47:29):
not a sign. All right,let's get going again here. We're entering
our last hour of garden line thisweekend. Be done by ten o'clock.
Remember a garden line. For thoseof you who aren't familiar, haven't been
listening for a while. I knowa lot of you been listening for a
very long time. But if you'renot, we start at six am and
go to ten am on Saturday andon Sunday mornings, and you can call

(01:47:50):
in and ask whatever kind of gardeningquestion you would like. We're here to
help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful, a beautiful landscape.
And that's what's all about. Sogive us a call of seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventyfour seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. Well let's seehere. We're going to go straight out

(01:48:13):
to the phones and talk to Mikeand Brenham. Hello, Mike, Hey
skip now you don't I appreciate thecallback? Sure's u Uh? You sent
me an email to I can giveyou a call back on the ground on
the email I sent you yesterday onthe what I thought was Johnson grass and
my my courtyard. Okay, yes, I'm uh. Did you have a

(01:48:36):
pick? Was there a picture?Yeah, there was a picture with this.
So let me let me get thatopened up here in front of me
so I can comment on it.Okay, you had you had a couple
of different kinds of weeds. There'snot johnsngrass in the picture. Uh.
Okay, hold im just saying yousent me more than one picture, didn't
you? I sent you to Allright, let me get get here where

(01:48:59):
I can them the little weed withthe tiny leaves, the mouseier looking leaves
on it. It's a warm season. It's a warm season annual, and
it's just one we have to dealwith in the gardens. Leaf flower is
one of the names for it.But you can do one or two things
if you just have a little ofit here and there, just hand pulling
them getting them out of there asthe simplest. If you have to spray

(01:49:24):
it you're gonna have to use abroad leaf we control product. And the
danger with those is when the temperaturesare above the mid eighties, which the
mid eighties already today, so thethe products can stress your Saint Augustine and
really really weaken it. And soI would you know, there's a product

(01:49:45):
called Celsius that is not as bad. You still you want to use it
earlier this morning, coolest time ofthe day. Yeah, but that'd be
the one you'd use for it.The other I see these nuts edges in
the lawn, and then I seesome other grasses. There's more than one
type. Looks like orchard grass,but it came in with the sod.

(01:50:08):
It just really disappointed me when itcame out. But yeah, no kidding,
no kidd. So you've got atthis point this is a serious infestation.
And I would you could just mowand ignore them and just do the
watering and fertilizing and mowing regularly tohelp your sod. If you mow,

(01:50:30):
the sod's going to get light.If you don't mow often enough, these
weeds come up above the sod grassand shade out your Saint Augustine. So
you gotta regularly, so the getlight the well St. Augustine crowded out
or in time. But what's happenedis there was a lot of gaps in

(01:50:53):
there and where sunlight hits the soil, the seeds come up, and so
that's what's happening. So too.Two ways just to cut to the chase
on this MIC. You can mowregularly because it's an annual keep working on
getting denser and denser Saint Augustine.Then next spring, follow my schedule at
gardening with skip dot com. Okay, skip dot com the lawn weed disease

(01:51:17):
management schedule. That particular schedule tellsyou when to put the pre emerging out.
And there's a producoal barricade that nitropossmakes you right, you know,
follow the label very carefully, don'toverapply it, don't underply it, make
sure you water it in after youapply it. But anyway, the barricade
will help prevent these from coming upnext year, but it's not going to

(01:51:39):
kill the existing plants. The secondoption is to put a wiper applicator over
the top of the lawn because thesegrassy weeds are coming up above the lawn
right and so any kind of asponge like applicator that has either a grass
killer only or a glycys aid roundthe equivalent round up in it. It

(01:51:59):
wiped over the top. It's goingto get on those weeds and go down
in and kill them and give youyour mass a little bit better head start
than just mowing. Okay, Imeant to tell you something yesterday that you
might get a kick out of.I had. I got a beautiful white
fresh peach tree that I had.The squirrels have written me off about two

(01:52:21):
five years in a row when they'reabout half grown. This year, I
took a paintbrush and painted a bonarosauce in the trunk and at the base
of large branches. I had agreat crop this year. Really, the
squirrels cannot handle the albanaro sauce.Well, I know they don't like the

(01:52:44):
heat on stuff they eat. Ididn't know they wouldn't even crawl through it.
That's they're not. They did notcrawl through it. I was giving
peaches away, all right, thereyou go. I'm not sure if Peter
liked it, but well on,but then I think they get it on
it. They get it up,Yeah, yeah, they get it on

(01:53:05):
the on their paules, I think, and and if they lick it or
you'll try to clean it off,it's but it kept them off the peach
trees for about months. That's good. Good to know. Hey, Mike,
appreciate it. Hey, thanks alot, take care you bet good
luck with that. Yes, folks, remember wherever sunlight hits the soil,

(01:53:28):
nature plants of weed. That's howit works. If you can just get
that etched into the brain, thena lot of things make sense. I
put in a flower bed and it'sjust full of weeds. Did you moultch
the flower bed after you put itin? If you moltched it, those
weeds coming from seed shouldn't have beenable to come up. They can't.
They gotta have sunlight. When whena weed seed germinates, it's a tiny

(01:53:50):
little baby plant that barely has aroot and hardly has a leaf on it.
And if that's in a shaded environment, it's gonna die before it ever
gets established. And that's why mulchingis so important. And we got all
these quality mulches available here in theHouston area, we ought to take advantage
of them. They're excellent. Theywork, They absolutely work out. If

(01:54:13):
you've got a weed that's like aperennial like nut sedge or bermuda grass.
Well, there's probably three options forwhen you have a major nuts edge or
bermuda grass infestation. First option wouldbe to call your realtorn move. That's
the easiest way to get rid ofall of it, and that's option one.

(01:54:35):
Tongue in cheek. Option two,hand dig it. Oh, you
don't hear that. But if youget all the nuts, all the rhizomes
from bermuda grass, all the nutsfrom nutsedge out and you may have to
rehand dig because you're not gonna getit all, they're gonna break off,
but you can get it out thatway. That would be an organic,
no spray way. And the thirdis spray spray. It was something that
will kill that weed. There's thingsthat kill nutsedge and other sedges and kaylinga.

(01:55:00):
There's things that kilber metographs that work. But those are the three options
really. First one being kind ofa joke, but seriously, getting ahead
of things is so important. Ifyou wait until the weeds are well established,
it takes all the fun out ofgardening because you're out there in hot
weather, the fire ance are crawlingup your arms, while you're pulling weeds.

(01:55:24):
It's just no fun at all.Right, get ahead of it.
Avoid it. What if they saya stitch in time will save nine boy,
I need to come up with ahorticultural version of that, because that
is absolutely true. The earlier youstart, the better off you are.
I say this about insects all thetime. If you want to use the

(01:55:45):
least toxic ways to control insects,you need to be doing that when the
insects are very young. Bet Onyoung caterpillars is deadly by the time they're
old enough to just about go intoa PUPA not very effective, if not
nearly as effective at that stage.And with stink bugs, the things we
can do when they're in the nymphstage are much better than the things when

(01:56:10):
they're in the adult stage flying around. That's just basically what I'm trying to
tell you. Hey, we're goingto take a little break here. I'll
be back with some more of that. Our phone number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Or if you liked a da by
letter KTRH what once was forbidden?What did you say we now encourage?

(01:56:31):
Don't you talk back to me?You now have permission to don't talk back.
Tap the talk back mike while listeningto news Radio seven KTR on the
iHeartRadio app about today before we wrapthings up. If you're up in the
Montgomery area or Lake Conroe, thatwhole region, Ana Plants and Produce is
your hometown garden center. They're justright there on the east side of Montgomery.

(01:56:55):
When you go to Ana Plants andProduce, you're going to find all
the kinds of plants you would needfor your garden, for your life landscape,
and you're going to find an excellentselection of soils and fertilizers. Every
fertilizer and soil I talk about hereon Guardline is at A and A Plants
and Produce. So it's a onestop shop organic synthetic. You can get
it all right there. They haveit right now. They've got a Hot

(01:57:16):
July sale that's a good name forit. Takes thirty percent off of all
the plants that you purchased there nowHot July cell. That would include all
kinds of plant material, like maybeyou want to put in a little gem
magnolia, maybe a Sunshine lagustrum.That's the lagustrium with the yellow leaves.
On. It really sets itself apartin that sea of green that is our
summer landscape. Loriopy agapanthus, manyother shrives and shrubs and perennials, A

(01:57:43):
and A plants and produce again.On Highway one oh five on the east
side of Montgomery, easy to getto. And don't just drive by,
I know, going up and downone to five all the time. Just
pull in check it out. Today'dbe a good day to do that.
We are going to now head tothe phones and go to a task Asida
to talk to Thomas. Hello,Thomas, good morning. Two quick questions.

(01:58:05):
One overnight, there's tons of gnatson my figs of purple figs,
and I've never had this problem before. I don't know what to do with
it. I don't want to puta poison on them. Gnats on figs,
I don't. I don't. Theylook like ant I don't know what

(01:58:26):
they are, but they're really small. Yeah, I don't know a fig
pest that that's that description. Somaybe they're there. Well, are they
on other plant parts or just onthe fruit? No, just on the
on the on the fruit itself.A couple of years ago, I lost
the green fig tree. Overnight therewere these small, small boring insects just

(01:58:50):
bordering into the trunken and in twodays the thing died. That's unusual.
Well this is not that for sure, right, I would wait and watch.
I don't see a need to doanything. I mean, if I
guess, if you wanted to,you know, to apply like a soap
spray early in the morning, beforethe sun comes out and starts baking down.

(01:59:14):
You could probably knock most of themout with that. But in general,
I think i'd wait and watch.There's not a fig pest I know
of that. That's that description.Okay, great second question. I have
three climbing plants in my ad mybackyard. Most of them they're in the
chasmin family. They've got the whitejasmin that look like little stars. I've

(01:59:39):
got orange trumpets and I've got ared one and none of them are blooming
right now. And I've got qualitysoil. They get said the right way.
I'm using a great liquid. What'sthe sunshine level of where they're growing.

(02:00:00):
It's abtinute, well, late morningand early it gets pretty sunny out
there, but they can't take thatmuch sun. No, they can.
They need they need somen. Ithink the trumpet orange trumpets is probably called
trumpet vine. That is a commonorange trumpet type vine we have here.
Very vigorous too. By the way, the jasmine could be one of several

(02:00:26):
different types, so some types maynot be blooming right now, others might.
I think just avoid overdoing the nitrogen. I would do that because that
pushes a lot of vegetative growth.You'd rather them settle in a little bit.
They're vigorous or not, both ofthose as it is. I can't
remember what the third vine you mentionedwas. Was it? Did you say

(02:00:47):
purple? No, it's red,bleeding hot red. Oh, bleeding heart,
Yeah, bleeding Heart's a little persnicketyhere. I've had some problems with
getting that thing to bloom. I'musing the Medina uh liquid, and I
use it about every four weeks.I use about I'm doing roots feeding at

(02:01:09):
two ounces of gallon. Okay,okay, whatever the label is on whatever
product you pick. There's a numberof Medina liquids. There's a has to
grow, there's has to grow lawn. There's super grow. Uh, there's
super It's it's a Supergirl. I'musing Supergirl. Okay, that is that

(02:01:30):
a hookup to a garden house.No, no, it's it's a quart
or or a gallon. Okay,continue to do that, But just anything
with a nitrogen content, I wouldhold off. So if it truly is
the only super Girl I know hasa hosing connector, I need to check
on that see if there's another one. It might I might be I might.

(02:01:54):
Okay, But but Thomas, ifyou look at it and it has
three numbers on it, then it'sa fertilizer And if I got the first
number is a little higher, let'shold off on that one. If it's
just a matter like it has togrow, typically is not going to have
a big fertilizer charge in it.It's got a lot of ncrogen is about

(02:02:17):
six I think it is. Ithink that's that's not too much. But
you might just hold off a littlebit, and let's let's watch and wait.
Plenty of sunlight is essential for bloomson those plants. Good plant health.
It sounds like you've got good planthealth, right. The plant is
healthy the healthiest can be. Yeah, So that's that's why I was thinking,

(02:02:39):
maybe they're too healthy, Maybe they'rejust been pushed into vegetative state.
Other than that time. Uh,and it should be some of those should
be blooming by now for sure,so that that would be my suggestion for
those. All right, I appreciateit. You have a great show.
Keep it up. Thank you,Thomas. Appreciate your call very much.

(02:03:00):
Let's see where are we here?We're going to go now to James in
Is it carry Wood James H.Kingwood, keenwood Wood. Yes, well,
good morning, and uh, wellI've noticed that beside my driveway and
a couple of places, I hadthis little uh on my Saint Augustine grass.

(02:03:24):
I just noticed this little brown deadspot and it almost seems to be
spreading a little bit. And thenI know it's another one, and so
I've got about three of them.I'm not sure if there's some kind of
fungus or what. It's just uh, you know, it's just suddenly it
just appears dead, you know,and then uh, it might be spreading
a little bit. It's not goingreal real fast. But you know,

(02:03:45):
I'm is there something I need todo with that? Or do you know
what that could be? Is thesun or shade? And uh, how
long ago did it start? It'sit's you know, it's in the full
sun and uh, and it startedprobably about two weeks, three weeks maybe
three weeks ago when it started goingback south. Did it start by turning

(02:04:10):
yellow and then eventually dying out ordid you suddenly just have a very soon,
almost sudden browning of that area almostjust kind of all of a sudden,
it's just brown. Yeah, itjust kind of came up all of
a sudden. It was a smallplace and one of them looks like it's
getting a little bit bigger. Okay, I could take a look at it.

(02:04:30):
If you don't send a picture inthat may be the best thing.
If it's if it's sudden and it'sbrown, that makes me think about things
that are maybe toxic to the foliage. So for example, of course this
is not what your situation is,but some people have leaky lawnmowers, and
so wherever it drops a little gaswhen you stop for a while. Now
you got this dead spot. Well, that that's that very quick dead spot,

(02:04:56):
right. I don't think we havea couple of we have a couple
of golden retrieve that have become verygood at creating brown spots in our yard
where they go to the bathroom becauseone has to go and then the other
one has to come comment on whatthe first one did with its own.
And so we just have all theselittle brown spots as a result of that,
but that those are the kinds ofthings that would cause the fast browning

(02:05:17):
it. Let's do this. I'mgoing to put you on hold and have
Chris pick up the phone and giveyou my email. And what we'll do
if you'll send me some photos ofthe overall picture of the lawn, and
then some up close in sharp focus. And when you send them, don't
embed them in the text, butattach them using the little paper clip to

(02:05:39):
the email attachment. Attach them tosure, and I'll be able to see
them better and take a look.And if you're if I see any if
you get them soon, you knowwe're running out of time here, but
we'll definitely be able to talk aboutthem maybe next weekend, or if I
have a thought, I may sendthat to you. Sure. I appreciate
that, Thank you so much.All right, well, good luck.

(02:06:00):
I appreciate the call of thank you. I really appreciate it. All right,
take care, okay, bye bye. Yep. See, seems like
it's always something when it comes toour lawns and gardens and landscapes. There's
a lot of things that can getin the way of success. And part
of what I do is play SherlockHolmes right. But what does that mean?

(02:06:26):
That means basically, I get allthe clues I can and I try
to figure out who done it right, who done it? And so that's
what we're about to do here.Photos are good for that. By the
way, for those of you whoare For those of you who listen to
Garden Line and want to know,well, how do I get you a
photo? How do I send thingsto you? You can call the show

(02:06:47):
and get an email to send thatto I generally don't just give it out
because there's six million people that livearound Houston in our listening area, probably
more than that, and I can'teven begin to answer emails. So what
I do is I try to askthat you send me a picture with a
description and then call the show andlet's talk about it. And there's time

(02:07:11):
to be able to do that.You can tell it pretty sure, Hey,
I just sent a photo to himand we need to do that.
I need to talk to him aboutit and we'll take care of it that
way. But that's that's how I'dlike to handle it to help as many
people as I possibly can. It'stime for us to take a little break
for the news. The phone numberif you'd like to call for as we
move into the next segment seven onethree two one two kt r H seven

(02:07:32):
to one three two one two kt r H. And we'll be right
back here in just a second withmore of your gardening questions and Mike and
Hockley, you will be the nextone up Old Houston's News. Why they're

(02:07:54):
traffic plus Breaking News twenty four toseven. This is use Radio seven forty
kt r H Everywhere avoids IRF.More of what's happening now from the John
Morris Services Studios barrel on its way. I'm sure, Lewis. It's nine
thirty on News Radio SEVENH. Welcomeback to guard Line. Good to have

(02:08:16):
you with us today, that isfor sure. Listen, we were talking
a while ago about has to growand supergrow and different things like that.
The Supergrow Plus that's a new productby Medina. It's part of the has
to grow line. There's a regularhas to grow, there's has to grow
for lawns. There's now supergrow Plus. This is a green bottle green label.

(02:08:37):
It hooks up to a garden hoseand it's a sixteen zero two fertilizer,
so a part of that sixteen percentnitrogen is slow release. But then
the thing that I think is reallyhelps make this effective. In addition to
the fact that it's got good nutrientsand a low phosphorus number, which is
very helpful, it is that ithas also contains molasses which stimulates beneficial microbe

(02:09:01):
activity in the soil, humic acid, which we know is good. That's
humic acid from leonardide is in thisproduct. And then it also has a
iron that's in a keylated form sothat the soil doesn't just tie it up
like it has your other iron.You probably have enough iron in the soil.

(02:09:22):
The plants just can't get it.So when you put this to your
garden hose and what are your plantswith it, you're going to get it
into those plants. You're going toget into the root system there where it
can take it up. Seaweed extractalso present in Supergrow Plus. It's one
of the many products from Medina andthat work. And although it is sold
primarily as something you'd put on yourlawn, you can look it up to

(02:09:43):
a garden hose and spray your flowerbedch, your shrubs, your herb gardens.
I mean, whatever you want tospray with. It's going to work.
I've seen pictures of someone that didit on their tomatoes and oh my
gosh, really good results from Medinahas to grow supergrol plus. Just remember
souper grow plus from Medina and thegreen label. That's what we're looking for.

(02:10:05):
I mean, head out now toHockley, Texas and talk to Mike.
Hello, Mike, how you doing. I'm well, Thank you good,
great question. I had some hydrangeason mutual them. Am I supposed
to dead head the spent blooms orjust let them fall off? You can

(02:10:30):
do it either way. They're gonnadry and be kind of tan colored there,
and so you know, if youdon't like the look of it,
just deadhead them, take them outof there. Uh it. It really
can can go either way. Itdoesn't have to be done, but you
can. So if I dead headthem, will that make them bloom again
quicker? Or on a hydrangea they'reprobably not setting many viable seat in there,

(02:10:58):
so I don't see a lot ofenergy going in to that point,
I would just say, you're forgood bloom production. You just want good
nutrition in the soil and consistent soof moisture. Don't let them dry out
for a period of time. Hodringesare not built for that. Okay,

(02:11:18):
good enough, there's my answer.I appreciate it, all right, thank
you. I appreciate that too.Good luck with those. Let's run,
let's see, let's run out toPearland and talk to Pat. Now,
Hello, Pat, Hi, Ihave what was gorgeous high viscus tall plant

(02:11:39):
and it was producing really pretty coralof flowers, and then all of a
sudden it's not and there's like awhite dust on it, and I cut
several of the branches. I didn'tknow what it was, but it just
keeps coming and now it's flowering verywell at all. Is this I didn't

(02:12:01):
know if is this tropical discus oris this the perennial hibiscus. You know,
honestly, I really don't know.Okay, Well, let me that's
okay. Let me. Let's doit this way. When you look at
the blooms are the size of adinner plate, and they're either pink or

(02:12:22):
red or white, or are theysmaller, furlier, with a lot of
other colors. Uh. Yeah,I've got two high discus plants. You
know. One of them is likethe size of the dinner plate, but
this one is just thrilly and smaller. That's the tropical. It's leaves are
going to be a little darker greenusually uh, and sometimes a little bit

(02:12:46):
not shiny, but a little slicker. The other ones are very dull,
not colored leaves that are much largeron the perennial. So uh, if
it stops, if it stops blooming, well it's going to be due to
some stress. I have some ina half whiskey barrel sized container, and
if I forget to water them fora while, bloom production goes down.

(02:13:07):
If I start watering again, bloomproduction comes back up. Good nutrition is
important. The white on the leadenssounds like powdery mildew. That's about the
only thing I know that creates awhite kind of almost a dusty looking white
surface on the leaves. Would thatbe how you would describe it? Yeah,

(02:13:28):
you know it's on the branches too. Yes, mostly it's on the
branches, and it is on someof the leaves, but mostly it's on
the branches. I thought it waslike a worm at first, but it's
not. When I think you doit, I think you're seeing mealy bugs.
Let's do this. Let's not weguess and waste your time and money.

(02:13:52):
I'm going to put you on hold. Chris will send you an email.
I need some good close up,sharply focused pictures that show it as
close as you can get, andalso one of the overall bush, and
then attach them using the paper clipattachment for the email, as opposed to
embedding them like cutting and pasting theminto the text. So attach them and

(02:14:15):
I'll take a look at it andwe'll find a way to get you some
help on this one. All right, thank you, all right, Pat
appreciate that very much. You know, I've been been doing garden advising from
being a Agrolife Extension horticulture agent forthirty five years with Texas A and m
Agrolife Extension, and now then Idid radio and college station for a long

(02:14:41):
time, and then now radio inHouston area. And in all of that,
one thing I've learned is as someonedescribes something and I picture it,
it's not always the same thing.And I'm not you know, it may
be the fault of the describer orthe fault of the listener me not picturing
or to conclusions, which I trynot to do. Uh. And oftentimes

(02:15:03):
I'll get a question and then Itake a look at things. It's like,
oh, yeah, well that's suchand such. But my brain was
going in a different direction when Iwas talking to the caller. And so
that's why I do like to seephotos. It just makes it better.
And gosh, you don't need togo out and buy stuff you don't need
and waste your time and money applyingit. We need to get you the
right stuff. So that's what weaim for. Hey, we've got one

(02:15:24):
more break here and then one lastsegment before we wind things up at ten
o'clock. If you'd like to giveus a call two to one three,
two to one two excuse me,seven to one three two one two KTRHL
be right back. Thanks, welcomeback to Ouardline. Good to have you
with us, Great to have youwith us. As a matter of fact,

(02:15:45):
listen, we've been hearing the hurricane, the hurricane, the hurricane.
Okay, we know we're gonna getwins, we know we're gonna be dealing
with that, but listen, hurricaneseason starts in June goes through November.
We're gonna have other storms, andthere'll be storms that aren't hurricane related,
like the one that knocked out powera few weeks ago, devastating to our
trees. You need to give acall to Martin spoon Moore at Affordable Tree

(02:16:09):
and just have him come out andtake a look at your trees. See
what might be needed. Do theyneed pruning? Is there are there some
dead limbs up there that need tocome out, some narrow angle branches that
have no good future. As faras being storm worthy, do everything you
can. I cannot express enough theimportance of proper treecare coming into this storm

(02:16:30):
season. It doesn't even have tobe a hurricane, of course. Call
Martin spoon Moore seven one three sixnine nine twenty six sixty three, or
go to the website Afftree Service dotcom. Tell him you're a guardenline listener.
Martin stays busy because he does agood job and he has been for
a very long time, and peopleknow that his customers come back and so

(02:16:52):
tell him your guardline listener, getup toward the front of the line so
he can schedule a time to comeout and do that for your trees again
the phone number seven one three six' nine nine twenty six sixty three.
Whatever kind of tree work you need, from pruning to deep roof feeding to
planting, proper training of shrubs oras trees as they're getting started. Martin

(02:17:16):
does all of that, including advisingyou. You know you got to put
a trench in near a tree.Oh my gosh, do not do that
until you call Martin, have himlook at it and advise you on what
to do. And he knows howto handle that kind of thing. Makes
it easy. We're going to nowrun out to clear Lake City, I
believe, and talk to Mark.Hello, Mark, good morning, sir.
This may be one of the questionsthat's not a stupid question, but

(02:17:39):
it's a stupid person asking it againwith respect to I can no longer use
my alias of Steve. You blewit for me a while back with Saint
Augustine runners if they are if leftunattended, just merciless it across the sidewalk
or and anything get into flower bedsand stuff like that. Can you pull

(02:18:03):
those and scratch a shallow trench andlay them lay it in the trench fill
it up with dirt water and expectit to actually produce grants. Yes,
yes, you want to do that. I would do it in the morning
where the grass isn't already stressed,and maybe a little at a moisture deficit.

(02:18:24):
Uh, and then get them inthe new location, water them in
really well and that'll be fine.You just have the water pretty often for
a little while, just to makesure they have plenty to keep them adequately
moist But yeah, you okay,Well, wasn't expecting a good answer like
that, but thank you very much. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we
call catch and release. Augustine.Thanks take care or something you take care.

(02:18:48):
Appreciate the call mark. Yeah,thanks a lot. Uh. If
you can't as native plants in theHeights, they're on Eleventh Street and the
Heights and you've probably been there beforeyou can. Is just an outstanding place
to visit. They specialize in nativeplants, but they don't just have nati
plants. They have everything. Oneof the best houseplants selections I've seen anywhere.

(02:19:09):
For example, plants for shady areas, plant of flowers for sun,
vegetables and herbs and fruit trees andall kinds of things. Buchanans Native Plants
in the Heights something I thought about. They had to post the other day
their social media which you ought tofollow them. You also ought to get
their newsletter. You can sign upfor that on the website. The website

(02:19:31):
is Buchanansplants dot com. They havea thing on rain gardens, and here
we come with more rain. Imean there're like nine inches in some areas
and on down to little or nothing. But when you get too much water
and that area stays soggy and it'skind of slow to get dry, well,
you can install subservice drainage, havesomeone come out and do all that.

(02:19:52):
Or you can turn lemons in alemonade by picking some plants out at
Buchanans that love what condition and suchas a Louisiana iris for example. That's
a good example. A button bushcan take that kind of thing, and
there's many many others. Cannons canhelp you pick out the plants to do
well. So take that area thatoccasionally is a little too wet for too

(02:20:13):
long and plant something that can takeit, or maybe even that loves it.
There Cannons, for example, doyou know cannis can grow in standing
water? They can. So ifyou've got an area it takes a while
to drain, that's kena heaven,you can put it right in there.
Pappers plant or various sedges and things, lots of good options. If Buchanans
has those Buchanansplants dot com on aleast East eleventh Street in the Heights.

(02:20:39):
Well let's see here, we aregetting a little short of time here for
a call. If we got aquick one, real quick, we can
probably get to it. But otherwiseI'm going to just discuss a few things
that I've been wanting to get toand talk about today as well. Remember
when you're putting a new plant in, give it adequate water in small doses

(02:21:00):
to the area where the container was, and don't stop planting just because it's
summer. The morning times are cool. First of all, the sun's not
up very far and you get alot of work done without shining on you.
It's still cool. You can watera plant in and if you just
give it regular water, take alittle extra care of it, you can
keep it going. Remember we havethree months of summer left. We got

(02:21:20):
July, we got August, andwe got September. For those of you
who've moved here from further north.September is a summer month in Texas,
especially in this part, and sowhat are you going to have for color
until it gets late enough in theseason where we start to put in cool
season color. Why not plant somethingnow? Many plants. Your garden centers

(02:21:41):
that we talk about here on gardenLine are just outstanding. Welcome to the
Houston area for those of you whomoved here from out of state, by
the way, and you are ina place with more great gardening options than
any place I've seen, North,South, East, West, and central
whell great garden centers here in theHouston area that have plants that right now

(02:22:03):
could go to your landscape and giveyou easily three months of color to carry
you on through that season. Let'sdo that. Let's not have a sea
of green. Let's break it up. Let's keep things flowing and rolling out
in the garden so we can enjoythat. And you know, for those
of us who are gardeners, weneed our facts, right. I mean,

(02:22:24):
you just got to get out,you got to enjoy, you got
to get your hands in the dirt. There is a therapy to that.
And I say that and I knowsometimes when I go, you know,
gardening is good for your health andstuff, people are like, Okay,
come on, man, but itis. There's the physical activity, and
we have so many ways that wecan help as people get older. Maybe

(02:22:48):
a kneeling bench would be a goodgift to help with that. It's helped
meet a garden with les pain.I'll tell you that for sure. You
can sit on the seat, oryou can flip it over and kneel down
on it. That's just an example. Ergonomic gardening tools, raised gardening beds
so you don't have the stupid asfar to get down to the plants.

(02:23:09):
Many many ways to keep gardening going. But gardening is good for your health.
It's physical activity. But I thinkthe best part of all is just
the way it feeds your mind andyour soul. The peace that you get
as you get out in the garden. You're working in the soil, you're
dealing with nature, You're enjoying seeingthings grow. You're getting healthy produce and

(02:23:31):
wonderfully smelling flowers to bring into avase indoors. That is good for the
soul. It really really does work. And I'm serious about that, and
I've talked to people that do researchin this many times over. Doctor Charlie
Hall at Texa A and M Universityis a leader in that field. And
the number of trials, the numberof studies that have been done is amazing.

(02:23:56):
Kids in school with ADHD issues seeingplants out the window makes a difference
in their test scores. Seriously,people that are in a hospital recovering from
surgery. The difference between looking outa window at a parking lot and another
building versus looking out a window ata forested area and nature area. Things

(02:24:18):
like that absolutely just wonderful, absolutelywonderful, huge differences, and those are
the differences you'll enjoy too. Andwhen you give the gift of garden,
when you take a child out andteach them the garden and grow things,
and you're setting them off to alife of healthier eating and certainly a peace

(02:24:39):
of mind. I'm telling you Naturehas a way of doing that. And
there's so many ways that that ishappening that some parts of the area they
talk about forest Baby and just walkthrough nature and enjoy that. However you
go about it, enjoy it.There's garden centers right now that are your
therapy centers. Therapy centers that arewaiting for you to come out and walk

(02:25:01):
among the planets. Hey, havea good rest of your weekend and a
great week. We'll see you againnext weekend. You're on guard.