Talking Plants, Saving Plants, and Armadillos?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skip ricter H.
The crazy here in the bassis and gas. They can
use trim. You just watch him as will go the
gasses and gas. You did as.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Many takes the soup bats in quick bringing the bassis
like gas.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
And again you did the sas the gloves back chicking
not a sound crediting the bassis and gas and.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
The sun bemons of a tree presing in the bassis
like gas.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
Maybe can use.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
First starting and treating the basses like gas became you did.

Speaker 5 (00:50):
Everything is so clean.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
And see and everything is Sunday in the sands.

Speaker 6 (01:00):
So so.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Baby can.

Speaker 7 (01:21):
You so?

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Can you did well? Good morning? Gee, good morning gardeners.
Why is this s good? Morgan the languages, Good morning.
It's gonna be a good day for gardening. I love
this time of the year. I just everything is growing

(02:05):
like crazy. It's happy to be out there. The only
thing I don't like about it is I having used
my lawn Moore a little more than i'd like. The
grass is so happy. So we're going to see where
we go from here. How warm is it going to be?
How much rain we're going to get? It's been a
nice season so far, been easy to get out there
and get things growing. So we're kind of hitting the

(02:26):
point in the season where we are going to be
wanting to take some steps to avoid problems later and
take some steps to make our work easier later. So
let me give you one example of that. That would
mean like mulching for example. You know, mulching is not
that exciting of an activity. I mean, I guess, well,

(02:48):
I like it. It's just fun for me, but a
lot of folks is like, Okay, it's a bunch of
bronze stuff that fell off a tree and I'm supposed
to spread it around. I'd rather go buy a big
flour with a plant with a red bloom the size
of a dinner plate on top of it and plant it.
That's pretty. That's fun. Well, I think molts is pretty too.

(03:10):
The forest floor is molt That's the way nature's designed
to work is organic matter hits the ground, covers the ground,
protects the soil, does a lot of the good things
for the soil, and so that's a good thing. But anyway,
why am I mentioning it now? Well, it's going to
get hotter, and there's these things called fire ants out
there and for you to be out on your hands

(03:31):
and knees pulling weeds one hundred degrees. You're watering your
plants from the sweat dripping off of your face, and
fire ants are crawling up your arms. That's not fun.
But if you get out now, do about a three
or four inch layer of mulch in the morning, when
it's a little cooler, temperatures not too bad. Get that
moltz spread out. You're going to avoid a lot of

(03:55):
the weed seed problems that you have now. Molch doesn't
stop perennial weeds from coming up. Nutsedg come through mulch.
When the Montgomery County Extension Office first laid the front
parking lot, I remember because I was there. I went
outside and saw nuts edge pushing up the soft black

(04:15):
asphalt of the parking lot. It's like, yeah, okay, that's impressive.
Nutsed you come up through anything. Bermuda grass can hold
its breath for a long time, crawling through stuff, getting
up to some sunlight and boom, here we go again.
Most didn't stop those, but all the weed seeds, all
the weed seeds and things, Yes, you got to cover

(04:36):
it up. Sunlight hits the soil, nature, plants, weed. You
gotta find textured multch. You can put it a couple
inches deep and that's probably enough. You got a course
textured multch. We're looking three maybe four inches deep, depends
on how coarse texture it is. The point is just
get the soil surface covered and save yourself the headaches.
Plus it looks good, Plus it's good for the soil.

(04:56):
Plus it's good for the plants. So that would be
one of those words for the wise. Get that done,
Get that done now, and it'll be so much, so
much easier for you as time goes on. So there's
other things like that. Now here's one that I've been
meaning to get around to for a while, and I
just haven't because it's rained so much this year. But

(05:18):
I've got drip irrigation set up in many of my
landscape beds of the orchard where the trees are things
like that, and parts of my system are not on
the irrigation clock, you know, like the clock that runs
the lawn sprinklers and things part of them. It's I
hook it up to a garden hose, I turn on
the hose and I set the timer and then it

(05:41):
takes it from there, I've got a really nice timer
that I can do any day of the week. I
can go any times a day I want to do.
You could just do a simple timer, you know, an
egg timer where you basically are saying, hey, go for
X minutes and it clicks and counts down. But those
you got to go out and do. When I'm going
to be out of town. My drip irrigation is water

(06:02):
in for me, and I just need to get it
sat back up. I got to hook up the tubing
to the faucet with the timer and the and by
the way, for drip irrigation, you kind of have three
main components there. At the faucet, You've got your timer,
but before that you have a pressure reducer and also

(06:22):
a filter. And the filter is very important. It grabs
any granules or chips of you know, iron deposit that
may be in the pipes and breaks loose and comes through,
and it prevents clogs in your irrigation system, your drip
irrigation system, those are little tiny holes, and it also
prevents problems, you know with the low valves that work
the timer and things. You just want to get the

(06:44):
water debris free for sure before it gets into all
of that stuff. The pressure reducer is very important because
drip irrigation runs at about eight pounds per square inch
of pressure in my faucets run up, I've got sixty
or more pounds easy, maybe more, and so that would

(07:06):
just blow out an irrigation line. But anyway, get that
set up, and I'm talking about things we do now
to make life easier later. Well, then you go on vacation,
your plants are getting watered. You forget to get out there.
You know, your plants are getting watered, and it's just easier.
Takes one thing off the to do list, if you will.

(07:27):
So there's other stuff like that that we can do.
We just need to keep our eyes on it and
think about, you know, what do I not want to
be doing later. I'm going to talk about some other
stuff like that when we come back here from a
break in just a second. But I just would like
to kind of give you that word for the wis
a stitch in time saves nine all those kind of

(07:49):
adages advice that helps us to avoid problems down the line. Now,
one of those is also planting plants that want to
be here in the summertime. We got a lot of
plants can take the heat, that laugh at the heat,
that like the heat. And then we got a lot
of plants that looked great in spring, but boy when
when it's up in the upper nineties and the night

(08:10):
times are done in the lower eighties and stuff, that's
just too much, just too much for them. So we
want to avoid the headaches of that and trying to
get out and plant and establish things later. Just go
ahead and get you some good stuff and get it
in now. Your garden centers all over the greater Houston area,
our mom and pops, our independent garden centers north, south, East,
West and Central still have a great selection, and I

(08:32):
would highly recommend that'd be a good thing to do
this afternoon. Go ahead and get you some plants and
enjoy taking a stroll through some of our wonderful independent
garden centers. Let's take a little break and we will
be back when we're done there with your calls at
seven one three, two one two five eight seven four.
Good to have him back with us, as we played

(08:53):
Georgie in a while on garden Line. Well glad to
have you as well. You know, if if you got
a gardening question, that's what we're here for seven one three, two, one, two, five, eight,
seven four. Feel free to give me a call. I've
had some emails come through with some very helpful pictures,
and so hopefully we'll be answering some of those today.
One nice thing about when you send a picture and

(09:14):
then follow with a call a question you have, someone
else is going to have, and so we get a
lot of those kinds of things right now. Probably the
more common question I'm seeing is a can of leaf
roller or leaf tire tie r question. Uh, there are
some caterpillars that the moth lasy egg and the caterpillars

(09:38):
hatch out there. There's a couple of variations. The main
one is called the lesser canna leaf roller, but there
are other caterpillars that are good on those cannons, and
they go inside like where your cann of leaf is
kind of rolled up in a whirl, you know, like
like you take a piece of paper and roll it
up into a tube. They go inde there and they

(10:01):
will they have the ability to make a like a
spider web, a webbing, and they can they can stitch
that rolled kenne leaf together so it won't unfurl, and
then they feed on the inside, and you'll see holes
in the leave. It depends on where they are. They
may feed on an open kenn of leaf, but they
also like to feed on the ones rolled up because

(10:22):
it protects them from problems. And in fact, I first
noticed this because I always had some cannons. I was
looking at them and one section had some tattered leaves
from the feeding of this. But I noticed a red
wasp flying around that canna, and I thought, that's interesting.
I actually knew what that was. You know what the
number one thing that red wasps eat, or I say

(10:45):
red wasp. That's also true of the of the black
and yellow wasp. The paper wasp is really what I
should be saying, paper wasp. They build a little nests
under your eaves. Their number one food is caterpillars, and
I mean they may eat. If you have a really
large nest, it could eat a thousand caterpillars over there,
or several thousand caterpillars over the course of the season,

(11:07):
and that is what they're out there after. So they're
catching all kinds of tests that are eating your plants. Unfortunately,
also some caterpillars that are going to turn into butterflies.
And that's what they eat. And so this wasp was
flying around looking for this cannon leaf frallers and they
would find them and haul them away back to the nest.

(11:28):
And so that's natural control and action. But I inferral some.
I'm going to do a post on social and I
will I'll show you a little video of what they
look like and things like that. But that's the question.
We're getting a lot. If you cannas, if you see
holes in them. Another symptom is you'll have an unfurled
can of leaf, but they'll be like a machine gun

(11:49):
line of holes across the leaf, like in a row.
And the reason is it was all rolled up and
the canna ate through the roll. So now what it unfolds,
it'd eat through all these layers of leaf that were
rolled up. So when it unfolds, you got a little
horizontal row going across there and as the symptom of
that feeding. So anyway, we're getting those questions, what do

(12:11):
you do about them? Well, your options are to go
out and just hand pick them off when you see them.
That's one kind of tedious got to stay at it.
Number two would be to spray with something like BT
or spin No said those products will kill things that
eat leaves. BT kills caterpillars, spino said, kills caterpillars and beetles,

(12:35):
both that eat leaves. There's that, and then there's you know,
the synthetic sprays that will kill them, and then there
are the systemics that go up in the plant and
when they eat them, they're eating plants that have poisons
in the plumbing, if you will. So you know, there's
different options, and everybody's on somewhere on that spectrum of

(12:56):
I don't want to spray anything too. I don't care
I'm in a new it till it glows, because I
don't want a single critter on it. And most people
are in the middle of that spectrum or something right
be toward the beginning end of I'd rather not spray,
so anyway that those are the options for it. We're
getting quite a few calls on that and some emails
as well, so they must be here. I don't currently

(13:19):
have cannon's in my yard anymore, and so I'm not
able to notice when they first pop up and start
to become a problem. I want to mention something about
next weekend. Next weekend, I'm going to actually not be
live on garden Line, and it's going to be a

(13:40):
recorded show, and we got some really good show that
we're going to play. But I've gone in and it's
given me a chance to talk about things that I've
wanted to talk about for a while now, you know,
just to on Guardline, I don't have time for a
lot of monologue, although in the summertime there is a
little bit more time for this as we're doing right now.

(14:01):
But I go into a number of different topics and
I think you really enjoyed this show. I talk about mistakes,
I talk about myths in the garden. I talk about,
you know, what are great flowering vines for your landscape?
Just topics like that that I have the time to
talk about. It's gonna be a unique show and although
it won't be calling, it definitely will be worth listening to.

(14:24):
I'll be back live again the following following the weekend.
So next weekend is this show that I would like
to suggest you you give a listen to, and if
you miss it for any reason, then go back and
play play the audio using the ktr H website garden
Line page, or go to my website Gardening with skip
dot com. On the top right is listen to garden

(14:45):
Line on news radio seven forty ktr H, and you
can listen to past shows should you miss that. All right,
let's head out to northwest Houston. Now we're going to
talk to Scott this morning. Hello Scott, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (15:00):
You know, my apologies for the multiple calls in two days.
But yesterday about what I thought was a raspberry plant
and you said looks like a pepper. That I confronted
my daughter who was planting it, and she has Yeah,
I might have mislabeled them, but the good thing is

(15:25):
it's just started showing a flower. I've read offline that
people saying you should pluck off early flowers with early plants.
I'm just curious on your opinion on that, whether the
cayenne pepper, whether we're meant to pull the flower off

(15:45):
or just let it let it see as the beetles
would say.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Well, you can kind of do it either way you
want to go. A lot of people will not only
just pull off on early fruit, but they'll actually prune
the pepper so that the shoot coming up and maybe
starting to bloom, but they'll prune it the tip out
and force it to branch and you get more branches
and a bigger bush that'll have more peppers on it

(16:10):
later on. That is not a must do. It's up
to you. I have never been a pepper prunter, but
I know people that do it. I know why, and
yeah it does help. So I just let them grow
and you know, get what I get on them. But
they remember those pepper plants. Yeah, even though it's hot
and they may not set super well in the summertime,

(16:31):
when hold onto those plants because the bigger the plant
gets when fall comes, now you have a much bigger
pepper plant and it will load up with lots of
peppers up until the first frost. So just remember your
heaviest crop is going to come in the fall on
that plant. So don't they give up on it off.
It's not super productive in the summer, okay.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
And how often should be a fertilize. So I've put
some like fish fertilizer and a couple of will get
fertilizes SLU in the garden bid. But how often would
you recommend that you do that. It's in a rice
garden bid that I put so potting mixing that's.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
A yeah, that's a that's a question. The answer is
kind of the actual answers. It depends. If you're using
a slow release fertilizer, you can do it once at
the beginning and it's going to feed for several months,
which is kind of takes you through your pepper season,
and so you don't have to do it at once.
If you're doing something that's more fast release, like a granular,
I would do it about every four to six weeks

(17:35):
and a very light dose. You don't have to do
a lot, but just gradually feed it about every four
to six weeks. And then if you're using a liquid
those are even more temporary and so you might do that,
you know, every week or two. You could give it
a little boost with the liquid fertilizer that you're drenching
down in the root system. So yeah, that's kind of

(17:56):
a general.

Speaker 8 (17:57):
Schedule, right.

Speaker 6 (18:00):
Thank you so much for your boss.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
I really appreciate it all right now.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
I don't know if you realize this or not, Scott,
but on Guarden Line, my advice is free. But I
ask everyone to bring me half of the produce that
they grew because of my advice to the station and
we'll call it even. Isn't that reasonable?

Speaker 9 (18:17):
Goods right there?

Speaker 1 (18:21):
You're good, all right, sir, You take care, have fun
out there in the garden. That's good. Hey, Nancy. In spring,
you're going to be our first up when we come
back from break here in just a little bit, so
just hang on. I don't have enough time to even
hardly get your question out. Folks, you're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and if you would like

(18:41):
to give me a call the number seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seven four. I got a
special guest coming on in the eight o'clock hour, Joey
Linderman from Enchanted Gardens, and we are going to talk
plants and you will love it. You can get a
lot of great plan ideas that are summer top here
in Texas. Ready to go on some questions, So let's

(19:05):
start off. We're going to go to spring and visit
with Nancy this morning. Hey, Nancy, welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 7 (19:12):
Good morning. My question is about my sea crew. Do
they produce two crops in a year?

Speaker 1 (19:23):
What kind of fig do you have? Nancy? Do you
know the variety name.

Speaker 7 (19:27):
I don't know what the variety is. I got it
from a cutting from my neighbor. It's about five years
old and this is the first year that I've had.
Oh it's covered with figs. It must be a good figure.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Okay, good, But.

Speaker 7 (19:44):
I'm on harvesting now. But there are tons of little
tiny green ones. So are they going to produce him?

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, the little green ones will come on. Here's the
with figs. Some figs. First of all, figs grow on
new growth that comes off of last year's growth. That's
kind of confusing. But if we like, if you have
a freeze and it killed the fig tree to the ground,
some varieties would produce okay the following year, but a

(20:19):
lot of them would not from being having all the
last year's growth kill back, And so some of them produce.
There's something called a briba crop. It's just another crop
that they can do. So you could have an earlier
crop and then you could have a later crop on
the figs, and it goes by variety, and then again
it goes by like did you print it too heavy

(20:40):
or did the freeze prount it too heavy in the
past season. So you should if you've got little figs
on it. Then you got some harvest yet to come.

Speaker 7 (20:49):
Well, that sounds that sounds great. This is a nice fig.
I had a fig tree in Tucson and it had
an open belly, and we'll say, and this one is
all closed.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
That's good. Yeah. Yeah. We call that the eye of
the fig, the eye of the fag that belly button, huh.
And the thing about it's important here to have a
closed one. Either they'll have a closed eye or they'll
have an eye that has to drop a resin in it.

(21:25):
And either way, little bugs, fruit beetles can't get inside,
and water can't get inside. With all the rain we have.
If you get water inside of an open eye fig,
it's going to rot, and fruit beetles will get inside
too and cause problems. So we go for closed eye figs,
or at least once with a drop of resin. That's
that's closing them up. So you've got the right kind

(21:46):
of fig for our area, all right, man.

Speaker 7 (21:49):
And the organza bag chip is great work.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Oh okay, and you're for the birds.

Speaker 10 (21:58):
You mean.

Speaker 7 (22:00):
Correct? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Okay, we'll good, glad, glad that's working for you. All right, Well,
thank you for the call. I'm gonna run. I got
some folks here waiting up, so we'll be We'll be
looking forward to you bringing us half of the figs
that you produced to the station so we can call
this all even. All right, thank you, Nancy, Bye bye.
All right, let's go. We're gonna go out to Baytown

(22:24):
now and talk to Debbie. Hey, Debbie, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (22:27):
Huh hi, how are you?

Speaker 1 (22:30):
I'm doing well? Thank you kicking our help.

Speaker 11 (22:34):
I was wondering where can you find hard to find
plants or rbs. I've been wanting to find a comfory
plant and I'm having a little bit of difficulty. I mean,
I can go to Amazon, but the shipping charges are
just outrageous really to me. But I was wanting to
find a local place nursery.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Okay, from where you're located out there town, I'd recommend
two spots. One is Moss Nursery, which is due south
of you down and see just north of Seabrook, Texas,
right in that area. Actually Seabrook address Moss has eight
acres of wonderfulness to wander around. I would call them
first make sure if you're but it's worth a trip

(23:18):
to Moss, even if you don't find comfrey there. The
other one would be Buchanan's Natia Plants, which is on
Eleventh Street in the Heights. So you come straight in
I ten uh and go north up into the Heights
uh uh. And the Buchanans has a nice selection too
of herbs, and you could give them a call and
see if they have Those are the two closest to you.

Speaker 11 (23:41):
Okay, I appreciate that. Sounds like though Moss would be
a great place to just spend the day. I mean,
Kes would be nice too, but I'm talking about with
all the stuff they have, I think it would be
awesome to go out there too.

Speaker 9 (23:56):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
I'm sure fortunate in here, you bet. Thank you. I
appreciate your call very much. Yeah, that's for sure. Hey,
if you haven't done your summer fertilization super Turf the
silver bag from the folks at Nitrofoss nineteen four to ten.
Fertilizer releases at nitrogen gradually over time for nice even growth.
That's important. You don't want to get out there and

(24:18):
have to mow mo mo, and so you put it
down and the technology of the fertilizer gives you the
gradual feeding. It's as if you're out there giving a
little something to eat every day. The superterf from Nitrofoss.
You can find it at places like D and D
Feed up there in Tomboll, Texas, or Texas Feet stop
out on North Highway one forty six in mob Bellevue

(24:41):
or Stanton Shopping Center down at Alvin that's on North Taylor.
Let's see here. Let's go now to Spring, Texas, and
we're going to talk to Bernie this morning. Hey Bernie,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (24:52):
Good morning Skip.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
I've got a animal that digs in the garden in
the most around the house, and I think it's an armadillo.
And I was wondering if do you know there's this
like this animal control or a store that would rent
a cage so I could probably try to get this
thing and replace it someplace, or or do I.

Speaker 10 (25:16):
Have to buy a cage?

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Okay? Do you have a pen or pencil handy?

Speaker 12 (25:23):
I do?

Speaker 1 (25:25):
Okay, once you write down agra life learn that's a
g R I L I F E.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
L E A r N.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
That's all one word, dot T A m U, dot
E d U. So I'm gonna go over that again.
Agra life learn like agriculture and life and learn all
in one word. At our TAMU Texas and University dot edu.
That is a bookstore where you can get free publications.
And there's one on Armadilla's. You do a search for

(25:58):
it and you can get a free publication and you
can download. They'll they'll send you an email with a
link and you download it. And that's important because you
can trap an armadilla in a live trap. That you
got to do it right, and it tells you how
to do it. Basically, they're bumbling creatures. So what we
do is we put two boards at the entrance to
the cage. You find out where the armadilla is going.

(26:19):
They tend to kind of bumble along a fence line
or the side of the house or something, so you
can sort of funnel them in to the cage. But
one other thing that will help Bernie is to get
some elbow macaroni and boil it and beef boyond, So
you're basically making fake grubs. They love grubs, elbow macaroni,

(26:42):
boiled and beef boyond. And then don't put too many out.
You don't want to fill up, but you know, you
put one out there, a piece of one, and then
a little further alonger a piece of one. You kind
of lead them into the trap too. Those are some
tips on successfully getting one of those little bumbling creatures,
and then you just that's how you do it.

Speaker 10 (27:00):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
But but when I got to a defeat store like
Hayden's or someplace like that, when they have the cage
or the animal control, I don't.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Know anybody that loans out cages or rents out cages
or anything like that. Okay, you could call it, uh,
heat and feed and see if they have any suggestions
or not. Okay. You know there's a lot of places
that will sell an animal trap and things like that,
and I realize it's better to borrow one than to
buy it. But I don't know how you would get.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
One on loaner okay anything or on rental Okay, to
go over the Okay, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
No, No, do you need the website one more time?
I want to make sure you get that right.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
Yes, yes, I would would repeat them.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
I'm going to I'm going to spell it. Spell it out.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
A g R I l I F E l E
A R n at our dot nott at dot t
A m U dot E d u and okay, so
good luck with that.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
I wish you wel sir, and for all of you
listening anytime you need publications like that. Aggrife owned website,
text and and has lots of good publications on all
kinds of things, including wildlife management like this Armadilla publication
we were just talking about. I got to go to
a break right quick, Joe and Kingwood your first step
when we come back. I tell you all the time
about Houston powder coders. It's a great powder coder. And

(28:37):
if you don't know what powder coating is, by the way,
powder coating is a process where you take metal and
you put an electrostatic charge on it and you put
it into a room that basically think of it it's
full of paint dust in the air kind of thing.
I mean, that's kind of how it works. And it's
drawn to the metal. It clings to the metal, and
it melts onto the surface of the metal nooks and

(29:00):
crannies it gets in. It's way better than trying to
spray paint. If you've ever spray painted, you know, or
brush painted, you know how you get runs down the sides.
It's almost impossible to not do that.

Speaker 7 (29:10):
Well.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Euston Powder Coders does it professionally, and when they get
through it it it looks brand new. I mean brand new.
You like you go buy a brand new barbecue pit
and it's shiny and black all over the place and
just you know, no exposed metal. Well you got no
rusty barbecue pit, and they can make it like new.
Anything that's metal that's outside they can take care of.
And if you have things like maybe the old tubular

(29:31):
patio furniture, aluminum patio furniture, you know it's got the
little plastic caps on the bottom, it's got the hardware
and straps and all that. They can do the whole
nine yards. They take something that is in bad shape
and they make it beautiful again. Houston Powder Cooders dot
Com two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight.
Let's go now out to Kingwood, Texas. We're going to

(29:52):
visit with Joe this morning. Hey Joe, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (29:56):
Good morning, Skip. I sent you some photos. I hope
you've had a chance to look at them. On my
high business that got some leaves turning yellow and rest
colored and want to know what is it and what
do I do about it?

Speaker 1 (30:10):
How long has that hibiscus been in that pot, Joe.

Speaker 12 (30:15):
Probably two or three years?

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Okay, So over time organic matter decomposes away. So what
was nice, a nice fluffy what was once a nice
fluffy potting soil kind of becomes a gooey muck, you know,
as it just decomposes and it loses airspace and the
roots can't get oxygen, so it stays a little too
soggy for too long. I think I would take it

(30:41):
and lean it on its side and slide it out
of the pot and see if you see healthy roots
going around the side. I suspect you may not, but
go ahead and tease away some of that soil with
your fingers on the outside, get some good fresh potting
soil and put it in the bottom of the pot,
and bring that thing back up to the level where
it used to be. You know, it's sunken down over time,

(31:02):
and then I would start fertilizing it with a complete fertilizer.
I think what you're seeing is a combination of a
water issue, too wet, too dry, kind of mostly too
wet water issue, but possibly just a lack of some
micro nutrients that are needed. There are a few bugs
on it that are tiny that are not a problem
in and of themselves, but if they bring in some

(31:25):
sort of a disease, like a mosquito could carry malaria
to a person, that then you may be looking at
some sort of a viral response. And if that's the case,
nothing we do is going to work. Viruses are permanent
and there's no spray or eradicating them. Looking at the plant,
I'm not really sure specifically which it is, but I

(31:47):
am sure that your best shot is what I said,
pull it out, tease waste, some soil from the outside,
gets good fresh soil, repot it, set it up, and
then start. I would use some liquid fertilizers because that
way you get the nutrients right there to them. Microlife
has one called Biomatrix. It's an orange label that would
be very good to use. It's a good one, and

(32:11):
there's a number of good products out there like that,
and that's going to get it. It's the best shot
I have.

Speaker 12 (32:18):
Some medina has to grow for plants. Would that work perfect?

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Perfect? Yeah, that's a good one. That's another good one.
Medina also has a one that's a liquid seaweed that
is very good that you can use with it as well.
You could do some folio spring on that with the
liquid seaweed.

Speaker 6 (32:37):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
And then the fisher moulsion types of fertilizers are good.
But the has to grows are several different has to
grows and all of them would be good for this plant.

Speaker 9 (32:48):
And how much do I need?

Speaker 12 (32:50):
How much? And how often on that?

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Follow the label and do it every time you water
for a while the dome makes it too strong. Go
with a light lighter rate or at least one it's
a week. Once a week would be fine. And we're
going to see if it pulls out of it. Keep
me posted. I'm curious on this one. And if you
sent me a picture of it, I appreciate that. If you,
if you see if it gets better or not, send
me another picture and we'll keep talking about it. I'm

(33:16):
and I don't think it is okay. On more question, Yeah, real.

Speaker 12 (33:23):
Quick, I have a mallet higbiscus in the ground and
it's the leaves are getting eaten up, probably caterpillars. Can
I spray spinosaid on it early in the morning.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Yes, early in the morning and spray it. I would
try to spray some upward, get the bottoms and tops
of the leaves coated. It's not essential to do that,
but just to be extra sure, get some on there,
and anything that's chewing the leaves should be taken care of.
If not, send me a picture of that later and
we'll we'll revisit that one. All right, Thank you, you bet,

(33:58):
thanks a lot. Take care. Yeah, that's very interesting the
symptoms on this particular plant we're talking about. Medina. Medina
Hashter to grow is an excellent product, a hash to
grow plant. There's a hash to grow lawn for lawns.
It's a three one to two ratio for lawns. These
are great products. And you get Medina. You go to
Medina agg and look at all the products they have.

(34:20):
You can find those all over the place. So we're
talking to Joe about that. Medina. It's an excellent choice.
They've got the seaweed, they've got a number of other
outstanding products that just flight work. They got granuals, they
got liquids, and they're widely available there in the Greater
Houston area. All right, Well, I don't know how we
got through an hour there, but it just was a

(34:41):
second ago. I sat down looking at my coffee cup.
It's empty, and that's not a good thing if I'm
going to be coherent. And I think you and I
both want me to be coherent this morning. So let's
get us a cup of coffee and I'll meet you
right back here in just a little bit. Welcome back,

(35:12):
good heavy with us this morning on garden Line. Appreciate
you tuning in today. You know, your local ace hardware
store is always stocked up and ready for whatever the situation.
I remember last time we had storms coming through. Boy,
it was crazy. I mean there were Ace hardware owners
that were out there keeping the propane tanks filled up

(35:35):
as people drove up. There were power went out and
buildings and they were working with generators and I mean
it was just they are there for you, and it
is and you know when you go into as you're
gonna get what you want, good selection of all kinds
of things. Now, from a gardening standpoint, that's the same.
It's true. You got fertilizers and pest control. We control
all those sort of things. You got the things that

(35:56):
make the outdoors more pleasant place to live, including the
end too. By the way, you got to go to
ACE Hardware store and see what I'm talking about. Until
you walk into one, it's just hard for me to
describe it. ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Don't forget Texas.
That's my ACE Hardware group. ACE Hardware Texas dot Com.
And find the store near you, and hey, this afternoon,

(36:18):
be a great day to get out there and see
what they got. And you're gonna be impressed. I know
because I am every time I walk into one. For sure.
Let's go out to Tomball, Texas and talk to Mike
this morning. Hey, Mike, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Hey Skip, good morning. I just had a flower bed
installed in my backyard and they put in some salvia
and it gives the sun almost all day. And I
looked on the Aggie website and it looks like they
are saying that it needs some shade. Is is that correct?

(36:57):
Because every place I go to look for salvia to
buy it all says you know, y and ate or
more hours of sun each day?

Speaker 1 (37:10):
Right, Yeah, salvia wants son. Now there are some that
can tolerate some shade. Uh and do fine? I don't
do you know which salvia you had? By chance? I
don't I do not, okay, Okay, well, hm, let's see
here if you uh, I don't think it's a sun thing.

(37:32):
How long ago is it planted?

Speaker 4 (37:36):
Probably about a week and a half ago, And you
know I watered it for a couple of times and
it seemed to look okay, and and then you know,
by the end of the day it's drooping.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, okay. Well, you know and that little small root
ball that came out of the container, that's where all
the roots are. And in the garden center, it would
pump dry in a day and they'd water it every
day to keep it going. And so you're going to
have to do that in your yard for a while
as it gets established. When we're having temperatures up in
the nineties and things. You don't want to keep it soggy.

(38:13):
You don't want to drowned it, but you want to
keep it always moist and just know that it's going
to dry out each day if it's in that good sun.
And I think we can turn it around and get
it going. There is a product out there that I
would recommend you try, and it's called Mito Grow mi
I t O g r O W. Now, Mita grow

(38:36):
is not a fertilizer. It's got a root promoting hormones
that plants make in it. It's got some other things
like side of canans in them, and it's got a
type of bacteria that helps make the plant more resilient,
two types of fungi that make the plant more resilient,
and the root system. You mix it up water and

(38:56):
you drench it in and I would do that asap.
In fact, the bag of mitagro says it's not dead yet, uh,
And that's that's kind of where yours are. They're not
dead yet, but you need to turn them around. And
that will definitely do it. That might grow is a
very good product for that M I t o hard good, good,

(39:18):
very good. Well, definitely jump on it. Do that sooner
rather than later, because when a plan is struggling, you know,
as it starts downhill, that can be like a snowball
rolling downhill. It speeds up and goes faster as you know,
as it goes, and you want to turn it around
a s A P. So I would do that, and
then I would do the regular watering. And I think
you're going to be fine. Keep me posted, though, I'd
like to hear what they do for you. All right, skip,

(39:43):
thankst you bet you take care. That is the case.
UH Affordable Tree Service by Martin spoon Moore. It's his company.
He's been doing this for many decades.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
They know what they're doing. They cannot look at your trees,
they can assess them. You know, here comes the storm
and here goes down, here goes the limbs, and at
that point you got a ruined tree and a mess
on your hands. And nobody wants that nor the damage
it can be caused by that. Get out there, have
him check your trees. Now, Martin does more than just
prune trees. I mean he does root feeding. He does trenching,

(40:19):
you know, for putting in a barrier. If you're looking
at that, a stump, grinding, a planting, trees, training, and
trees as they grow along. The best way to take
care of a tree is from the time it's planted
onward and have somebody that knows what they're doing come
in and do the pruning on it and build a
good branch structure. The second best thing is have someone
that knows what they're doing come into that existing tree

(40:41):
down the line and do the pruning that's necessary. Okay,
Martin Spoon Moore, an Affordable tree does exactly that. Here's
the phone number seven one three six nine two six
sixty three, and we'll give you that again. Seven one three,
six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Let's go now
out to Katie and Tuck to Joseph. Hello Joseph, welcome

(41:01):
to garden Line. Morning, Skip. How are you doing doing well?
Thank you?

Speaker 13 (41:08):
So I have a lawn service. They come out and
they fertilize my yard, and my grass was doing great
and everything looked good, and then all of a sudden,
I started having areas of my lawn die and basically
go back to dirt. And I had to drop down

(41:32):
new sad, which I just did within the last two months,
and already the new sod is starting to die. And
you know, I fertilized, I've put down asmite. My company
has come and they fertilized. I water five minutes every day,

(41:55):
just after midnight, and the grass is still dying. And
I don't understand why. And I'm hoping that you can
give me some advice on how to reverse whatever's going on.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
Okay, So what I need you to do in a
second aar and we'll put you on hold, and my
producer is going to give you an email, and I
want you to send me pictures of your lawn from
a distance. Send me some up close where you know
you've got an area that's dying. If you can get
between the healthy and dead and take a picture up
really close, I can really zoom in and look at

(42:28):
the individual blades and just kind of get a good
picture of that. Those pictures will help me with the diagnosis.
But seeing where those pictures are in the lawn, you
know that big picture where you step back and I
see your whole lawn and it's like, oh, it's over
there or whatever. Is it in shade or son? Is
it by a sidewalk or not? And all that that's
all going to be part of the diagnostics that I
can do on it. Now. Watering should be done at

(42:52):
most twice a week and with at least a half
inch of water when you water so alo five inch
walk five inch. Watering is not getting enough in the soil.
It what's the thatch, it what's the grass? But it
just doesn't soak down enough and too often means you
get more disease. So you may be creating more disease
with that daily watering, So back off to twice a

(43:15):
week with a good soaking.

Speaker 13 (43:18):
How many minutes should I because I've got sprinklers that
are you know, in the ground, and so I have
to set them on a timer. So how many minutes
should I run the sprinklers for?

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Okay? In order to give you the most accurate answer,
here's how you find that answer. You get you some
straight sided containers could be an empty pinto bean can
or a cat food can, or tuna fish or a
rain gage, anything with straight sides, and you put them
out there around the lawn, especially on those areas that
are struggling, and you turn on your sprinklers, and you

(43:54):
could turn it on for fifteen or twenty minutes, and
then you see how much water in that can and
multiply it time to get an hour. Like if you
did it, if you run them for fifteen minutes, you
would multiply at times four, and that's how much it
puts out in an hour. If you did it for
twenty minutes, you'd multiple at times three. And I need
to know how many inches per hour your system is

(44:16):
putting out because you want to apply an inch when
you water at least a half inch, but really it's
better to apply a full inch when you water, and
that may require watering a while, having the sprink go
off a while while it soaks in, and then watering
again so you don't have runoff. But if if we
can work on all that, we'll continue this discussion then

(44:37):
and and we'll be off to the races I have
to run. I've gone past a break here. I'm going
to put you on hold, though my producer will pick
it up and give you that email thank you for
your call. We'll be right back, folks. There you go,
There you go. All right, folks, we're back. We are
here to take your calls on Guard line seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give me

(44:57):
a call. Let's talk gardening. I want to remind you
that next hour, the eight o'clock hour, Joey Lenderman from
Enchanted Gardens is going to come in here and we're
going to talk about some summer plants and some other tips,
you know, suggestions and things. I want to pick his
brain a little bit about the the containers that they

(45:19):
make out there at Enchanted Guards Any such a great job.
Maria is just she's a magician when it comes to
creating gorgeous containers out there. And so we're going to
talk about a lot of those kind of things. I
know you're going to get some good ideas. And if
you have gardening questions about some things out of enchanted guards,
to give me a call and we'll talk about those
during the eight o'clock hour. That's what we're going to

(45:40):
focus on during that hour. So looking forward to that, Well,
let's see sweet green from Nitrofoss. I was telling you
about that yesterday. You know, it's a really unique fertilizer.
Sweet green is from a carbon base, a sugar carbohydrate

(46:00):
type base, actually molasses, and through microbial activity, it has
a boost of nitrogen in it that is eleven percent,
and you put it down, you water it in, it dissolves,
it goes down. First of all, the microbes throw a party.
They send out invitations. I mean, every organic gardener knows
how much microbes like molasses, especially the bacteria, and everything

(46:24):
gets happy there in the soil and the next thing
you know, your plants grow and your plant being your
lawn growing very very well. Sweet Green for night Foss
is available a lots of different places you go out
to Enchanted Gardens down there on FM three fifty nine
in Richmond Roseberg you can find it there. I go
to Court Hardware on South Maine and Stafford another place

(46:45):
that you can get it. And Langham Creek Case Hardware
two up in Cyprus area on FM five twenty nine
another place where you can find nitofass products like this.
Sweet green was looking yesterday when the end of the day,
I had the dogs outside running around doing their thing,

(47:06):
and I looked up. My bird feeders are empty. I
don't know what happened, but the birds showed up, and
I mean they cleaned house, they went to town, and
I gotta get back out there and feed them up,
fill them up, excuse me. And so when I was
looking at them, it just reminded me. Wild Birds Unlimited
has come up with a new bird seed blend that

(47:28):
is perfect for this time of the year. Now, you know,
we did the nesting blend during that time, and as
nesting season now is winding down and molting season is beginning,
the birds are needing extra energy because they're casting off
old feathers and getting the new feathers in. So you
need the proteins and facts to support that feather growth

(47:50):
and development, plus all the other good things that are
in a wild Bird's Unlimited blend to begin with. And
it's called feather Pro. That's a good name for it,
feather Pro. Wild Birds Unlimited, feather Pro. You can buy
it by the bag, you can buy it by the
little compressed seed cylinder and I see seed. It's also
got a lot of mealworms in it too, which is
like birds love it. They love that. And then it

(48:12):
comes in a cylinder that's got the hot pepper oils
on it, so squirrels can't handle that. Birds do, They don't.
You don't bother a bird at all to eat hot pepper,
but squirrels can. So it keeps the squirrels from getting
out there and just chewing up all your bird seed.
Wild Birds Unlimited five or six stores in the greater
Houston area. There's a real simple website to go to

(48:35):
and find your store, and that is WBU dot com
Forward Slash Houston. WBU dot Com forward slash Houston. So
where are they, Well, there's one in Claire like on
El Dorado, one in Cypress on Barker Cypress, one in
Houston Southwest Houston on bell Air One in West Houston
on Memorial Drive. Out in Kingwood, Kingwood Drive, there's a

(48:57):
wild Birds Unlimited. And down in Paarland on East Broadway,
Sweet Sweet, there is a wild Bird's Unlimited store there.
You gotta go see these things, and that would be
another good thing to do this afternoon as you're out
and about. We're gonna head now to Galveston, Texas and
talk to Bill this morning. Hello, Bill, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Oh yip, I have a lime tree.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
I think we bought it.

Speaker 14 (49:24):
We thought it was a lime bush. I sent you
some protos last week on it. And my question is, Okay,
it's about five feet or so from it from the
foundation you know who have a tree, And my question
is is that a problem as far as what's going
in the foundation?

Speaker 6 (49:43):
Well?

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Probably not. A lime isn't going to get that big.
It's not like you put a giant oak shade tree there.
It's closer than you know I'd want it to be.
The advantage of it being that close is it's a
little bit of a block from the cold and stuff
like that. To have it up close to a foundation somewhat.
I probably wouldn't plant it that close on purpose, But

(50:07):
I don't think it's going to cause a foundation problem.
You might have a problem with the branches rubbing against
the eaves and things like that.

Speaker 9 (50:15):
Oh well, I can keep that trim back of a
half too, But that was concerned.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
I appreciate it, Thank you, sir.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Yeah, that's it. Just water as needed for that tree,
and that'll prevent the dry and wet shrinking and swelling
of the foundation that causes the problems. Okay, okay, gotcha,
Thank you much, Thank you, sir. Good luck. That is

(50:42):
the case, you know, it's it's the thing that the
reason tree roots just I gotta say this, the reason
tree roots cause problems of foundations is not because the
tree root lifts up the foundation and cracks it like
it would a sidewalk or a driveway. It's not that.
It is because the tree root pulls water away and
that especially clay soils are going to shrink and swell

(51:05):
as they get wet and dry. And so when you
got tree roots pumping in the water out there and
then you get a rainfall that swells up the soil again,
that's where we get the foundation problems. And just kind
of keep that in mind for sure. Let's see, let's
go now out to Conroa, to Lake Conrod specifically and
talk to guitar Dave this morning. Hey, Dave, welcome to
the garden line.

Speaker 10 (51:26):
How are you doing?

Speaker 15 (51:27):
He Yeah, it's nice and smooth that there looking good?
Hey on the armor deal with you that gentleman. It
wouldn't it wouldn't hurt to invest into a trap because
you never know if he needs it again, you know.
And they're they're not that big. And and I like
the the roots you took about the putting, the you know,

(51:51):
the what did you say about the macaroni and chee
the macaroni.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
And elbow, Yeah, elbow macaroni boiled and people you that cooked.

Speaker 15 (52:01):
A bid Yeah, when we just have to go. We'd
have to go and shoe them off, you know, because
we had that sixty two acres, but we had the
house fence then on about a half acre. My mom
would send us out there at night to shoot them off.
But hey, now on the garden part of it, Okay,

(52:21):
the sun comes up in the east on the back
side of my house and there's a fence there or
another house behind me, and uh, you know, so my
wife wants to plant some shrubs right there along that
fence line. It's a wooden fence. What do you think
because it's shaded and then all of a sudden he
gets sun and then he gets no son.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Okay, we got a lot of options, Dave. How big
do you want the shrub to get.

Speaker 15 (52:50):
I'd like to get it, you know, maybe four foot
high or not. You know, I can always trim it
off a little bit, but I don't want to go
above a six foot fence.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Okay, Well, there are some some very dwarf types of
hollies that are options for that. You could also do
a southern wax myrtle and keep it trimmed. You're gonna
have to get the dwarf type of southern wax myrdle.
Don't get a big one. Another good one, I might
put it the first of my list, but you're gonna
have to get the dwarf wax myrtle on that. One

(53:23):
I'd put on the first of my list is Chinese
witch hazel, which is called lauro pedalum lauro peddlum. Now,
it doesn't like high pH soils, so you want to
give it a good compostd forest floor soil and you
definitely need to look at how big that one's going
to get. Some Chinese witch hazel gets twenty feet tall.
Some of it gets only about four feet tall, and

(53:45):
so you want one of the short ones. But it's
beautiful gurbundy foliage and it has pretty hot pink strappy
blooms in the spring, so that that might be a
good choice for you.

Speaker 9 (53:55):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 15 (53:58):
Yeah. The thing is that you know, like in the
middle of the day, you know, that sun powers down,
then it goes over the house and it gets shaded.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
So I think that's yeah, that's okay, Yeah, that that's
that's a great spot for that particular plan. Then there's
there's a bunch of others, you know. But anyway, that
ought to get you, get you off to a good start.

Speaker 10 (54:18):
And thank you research fees. I wrote them down.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
So okay, okay, all right, I take care alrighty there. Yeah,
I was good to hear from Dave. Uh So we're
running up on a break right here. In just a second.
I did want to mention to you that Microlife we
talked about their products earlier. They have so many great products,
but one of the liquids that I just use all

(54:43):
the time is Biomatrix. It's an orange label. It's a liquid.
It's a seven one, two or three fertilizer. Got a
good boost of nitrogen. Great for houseplants because that extra
nitrogen there primarily foliage plants, but good to use anywhere.
Microlife liquids, Microlife solid They're all made with good microbial
content and they all work. And I know that because

(55:05):
I've used them over and over again. We'll be right back. Hey,
welcome to Guardenline again. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're
here to help you have more fun and more success
in your gardens. Give me a call seven one three,
two one two five eight seven fourth. There's something you
would like to discuss. The public service announcement out there
at Nelson Water Gardens and Nursery, which is your destination

(55:28):
gardens that are out in Katie, Texas. It definitely a destination,
a fun place to go. They are still they've extended
actually their Father's Day specials till June the thirtieth, so
we got a couple more days, two or three more
days here. Today would be a great day to get
out there. It's always fun to go. You need to
talk about a relaxing Sunday afternoon. Take the kids, take

(55:50):
some friends, if you family or somebody else to enjoy
the sound of water, to see the fish. The kids
can feed the fish too, by the way, and they
are having a special where you buy two fish and
you get one free. They've got you know, like the goldfish,
the koi, the shabunk, and just really beautiful multicolored fish.

(56:12):
Is really nice. But thirty percent off all trees. That
is a great thing. Now coming up on July third,
that is Friday, so I won't have a chance to
talk to you before now before then, so I'm just
telling you they're having their Ding Dang sale. That's a
sale where things have a little nicker scratch or something
on them, and it's a really good one. July third
starts at nine am on July third, so people can

(56:33):
go out there and be picking that over pretty quick.
So you want to be there at nine am on
July third. Now, on the first of July, they're going
to send out a special announcement about that this is
their the July first, celebrating America's two hundred and fifty years.
Nelson Watergardens and Nursery out there in Katie. If you

(56:56):
want to visit. Just head up to Katie Fort Ben Road,
turn north off it and it's just down the street.
You're gonna go check them out. How about Nelson Watergardens
dot com. Good website, good way to get in touch,
get the numbers, anything you need to know. All right,
let's head to Brenham, Texas. Now we're going to talk
to Mark this morning. Hell Mark, welcome to garden Line Skip.

Speaker 10 (57:19):
Good morning. I have a question.

Speaker 16 (57:21):
I need a recommendation. I am wanting to I'm taking
up some Saint Augustine from around septic tanks access lids.
I live rural and I'm wanting to create a free form,
a freeform bed with putting some low growing ground cover

(57:43):
that will kind of grow up high enough to hide
I'm going to say eight ten inches to hide these
septic tank assets, access lids.

Speaker 7 (57:53):
And full sun.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
All the time.

Speaker 16 (57:58):
West sun is extremely hot, but it's good water. Again,
it's native soil, so we're kind of in that Brasis
River valley soil. You're about ten miles away from the
Brasis River. So wondering if you might make a suggestion
something with a broader leaf, if you will.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
A broader leaf. I was going to suggest Asian jasmine.
That's a that's a really good groundcover period and it
can be you know, it'll get up a little higher
as it grows up on itself to cover I don't know.
You know, you're you're kind of at a height there
at eight to ten inches where there's some things are
going to be just a lot taller, and then of

(58:42):
course something's much shorter than that. You do you have
any other groundcovers around your house that you really like?

Speaker 8 (58:52):
We don't.

Speaker 16 (58:54):
And as I said, we're kind of revamping this whole landscape.
And uh, we saw some some you know, we thought
about some some juniper, some ground low growing type of juniper. Yes,
and but but she really wants something with a broader leaf,
if you will, it looks more lush. I mean, I

(59:15):
love the juniper as you know, evergreen, and but we
have a I was gonna I'm throwing a lot.

Speaker 10 (59:22):
At you here.

Speaker 16 (59:23):
But we have a big issue with copperheads because again,
we live very remote and I'm not wanting to create
something that's overly inviting to the to the copper heads
because it's not maybe fifty feet from the front porch.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Yeah, well, I don't know in the copperhead thing. I
mean that you know they're gonna they're gonna go where
they want to go pretty much. But yeah, right, one option,
one option. And here's the thing. Most of our groundcovers
are a little low for the covering. The ten inches
for example, Uh, asparagus fern is not a bad one.

(59:58):
The regular spradary asparagus fern is a low bushy thing.
Do you know what I'm talking about by asparagus fern?

Speaker 7 (01:00:07):
I do?

Speaker 6 (01:00:09):
I do?

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Okay, There's one called Myers. Okay, good. There's one called
Myers that has a foxtail like shoots that it's very different.
I think it's very attractive, and you would just mass
it around that area. My suggestion now, in the winter time, though,
it's going to die back, so you're gonna be cutting
it back and you have some exposure there. But you know,
I mean, we're there's always a trade off when it

(01:00:32):
comes to plants, but that that would be an option
that you could do in that area. There is a
groundcover called wadelia. It stays down low, but it it
fines very vigorously and you got to keep it contained.
It's always going to want to crawl out of its area,
but it would crawl over the tops of those little
dome lids, I know, the kind you're talking about on there.

(01:00:55):
I'm just a little concerned about the vigor and things
of it. Another one that might do okay is trailing lantana.
It's Lantana mont evidensis. It's it's not the typical antennas
or yellows and oranges and reds, and they're blooms. This
one is either white or purple, not both, but white
or it stays down.

Speaker 16 (01:01:19):
Yeah, that's interesting because that's the two colors that's predominant
in our landscaping that she wants to continue to add.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
So well, there you go. I have to share that
share that with the trail. It'll get up about it
can get up about twelve or eighteen inches high, and
so that that would be a pretty good one. It's
a very tough plant disease problems.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
And so I would probably make those my my best guesses,
considering all the specific shoe you gave me as to
what you want right.

Speaker 16 (01:01:52):
Other than the other that she me other than the
if I could ask one more and I'll go away.
But other than the jazzmine and potentially the h the
juniper or any of these other plants. I know you
said the fern is going to die back in the winter.
I have primrose jasmine in the back of my home.
I use it kind of as a privacy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Plant.

Speaker 9 (01:02:16):
If you will.

Speaker 16 (01:02:16):
They grow really really well and mound up very high,
but and they don't die off in the winter. Is
there other than the jasmine and the juniper? Would you
any of the other plants evergreen?

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
If you will?

Speaker 10 (01:02:30):
The lantana, by chance.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
It it is pretty evergreen. I'm trying to think in
my head here where I've how far I've seen it
north and south growing. Uh, it's gonna lose some leaves,
but it's not as bad as the as the regular
lantanas in terms of just kind of losing all their
leaves and going back. Okay, as as you on the research.

(01:02:59):
Three more plants, Well.

Speaker 16 (01:03:02):
I'm listening, so if you do, pop them out there,
but I'm I'm I'm gonna do some research on these
and and hopefully find the best thing that she.

Speaker 10 (01:03:11):
Approves, if you will, I dig the hole she takes plants,
but I appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
That's how it works, man. Yeah. And one other thing
just to throw out before we go is Uh, you
could also go with a very low growing rose, a
very groundcover type of rose h and and that would
stay down low and it would give you nice color.
Again we get in wintertime, it's gonna be a little straggling.
But all right, well, good luck with that. Thank you
for the call. I appreciate that. Thank you. Take care

(01:03:39):
all right. Uh so, yeah, tho's some good ideas. You know,
plants are as a challenge picking up plants for people
for a number of reasons.

Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
First of all, it's like all the you know, evergreen
not evergreen, How tall, how short, how fast hopeful? Far
does it spread? You know? And and trying to fit
all the parameters into some of our situations. Some times
the plant list gets a little narrow, but it's always
it's always worth it. And like I said, I now
I'm already thinking of other plants I should have mentioned

(01:04:09):
to him. Let's take a little break when we come back,
James and Sugarland, you're the first stop. Welcome back to guardenline.
Get heavy with us. Sweet Green from night foss is
a product with eleven percent nitrogen. You put it down,
you watered in, it dissolves away and It sets things
on fire in the soil. And I don't mean literally
on fire. I mean the microbes. It is like crack.

(01:04:29):
You know, It's like turning a bunch of five year
olds loose with cupcakes. They just start they go to town, right.
And so what I would recommend is that you put
it out at the label rate, which is going to
be about ten pounds per thousand square feet, and watered
in real good and then you watch watch what happens
to your lawn. I've seen the results. It is amazing.

(01:04:50):
Night five Sweetgreen available lots of places around the Greater
Houston area, such as Lake Hardware done in Angleton, the
Lake Hardware and Clute too. By the way, the Plants
and Things up in Brenham, Texas also is a source
of night Fast products. Plants and Things is on Highway
thirty six South up there in Brenham. The stuff works.

(01:05:11):
And I say that because I know because I've used it.
Let's head out to sugar Land and we are going
to visit now with James this morning. Hello James, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:05:22):
Hey, good morning, Good morning, Skip. I've sent you some
pictures a little while ago on some grass issue. Yeah, yeah, really,
I'm not ready to go zero escape I put out.
I mean we've done the first the first go round
of the slow release. It's it's probably about time to

(01:05:43):
do the second round the slow release the first of June.
I've put out the BioAdvance for drubs. But I mean
we've had seventeen inches of rain in May, thirteen inches
of rain in June. I mean it's not patches, it's
like very large areas that are just kind of yellow.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Wee, okay, all right, So you've got a couple of
things going on. First of all, there's a lot of
gray leaf spot, which is a fungal disease. And when
you get up and look at a grass blade closely,
you see these little tan spots with purple borders on them.
That's gray leaf spot. Now. It loves lusture and and

(01:06:29):
in shady areas where you know, things are a little
slower to dry off. Gray leaf spot's even worse in
shade than it is and sun. But it is a
fungle disease. Now, it's not going to kill the grass
in and of itself. It doesn't do it any good.
You get enough spots on a leaf and the leaf
shrivels up and turns brown, and so the whole lawn
starts looking bad. You can deal with that with a

(01:06:52):
funge aside, but that's more of a secondary issue in
this lawn. Your lawn grass also shows iron deficiency symptoms.
And I think you mentioned that you had put some
iron on and saw a little bit of benefit from
it the problem and maybe and maybe I didn't put
it enough. Well, No, here's here's what I think. I

(01:07:17):
think it's take all root rot that is killing roots.
And when you kill root tips especially, the plant can't
take up iron. So you see iron deficiency. But it's
not because there is an iron available in the soil.
It's because the grass can't take it up. And so
adding iron doesn't fix the lack of root that the
take all root rot has caused. I highly recommend that

(01:07:39):
you go to my website Gardening with Skip dot com
and if you look in the lawn section, you can
look in the lawn section, or you can also look
in the UH plant problem section. Either way it doesn't matter.
You scroll down and there's two publications on tape call.

(01:08:00):
One of them is called SKIPS Quick Tips for Managing
take All Root Rot and that's the one I would
like you to use. And if you go to that publication,
you're going to see a whole bunch of things that
you can do to help give the grass an advantage
to coming out of take all root rot. One of
them is avoiding stress, and I lay out the things

(01:08:22):
you need to do there to avoid the stress. Another
one is applying a fungicide containing a zoxystrobin, and it's
all written out there. It refers you to my pest,
weed and Disease Management schedule where it talks about product
with the exoxystrobin. Then there's a third. Third step is
to put an iron and manganese supplement on it. And

(01:08:44):
there are two products that I list. One is fertilum
keel it At iron and micronutrients. The others Monterey iron combo.
In fact, there's a third one bone eye liquid iron complex.
They all have those two ingredients in them. And so
what you're doing there is it's like an iv You know,
you're the hospital. You can't eat. They put an ivy
in you to get what you need to your body

(01:09:05):
because you can't eat. Grass can't eat without roots. And
with the folier spray of these you kind of help
get the patient in a little better shape so that
it can make the turnaround against this disease. So all
of these things are they're going at different aspects of
the problem trying to get your turf re covered. The

(01:09:25):
last step is peat moss, and it's on there. It
tells you how much to put how deep. If you'll
do all those four steps, I think you're going to
see this turnaround. Primarily, we're doing fungicide treatments for takeof
in the spring and in the fall, as per MYI
lawn ca Guide, which is also on the website. But
I think in this case, I might go ahead and
do the fungicide treatment now, and you may need to

(01:09:49):
come back again in the fall and do it. But anyway,
that's the best way to turn this around. That's why
you're seeing it in large, irregular swaths through your lawn.
That's why the lawn is looking yellow, and that's why
it's declining.

Speaker 8 (01:10:04):
The iron product that's a liquid spray on.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
It's a liquid. Yeah, there's three options on my website
for it. But but iron and manganese are two ingredients
that research has shown can be helpful with sustaining grass
as it's as you're trying to get rid of the
problem with take all.

Speaker 8 (01:10:26):
Yeah, okay, all right, so the nitro falls that the
nitro false Eagle will take care of the gray leaf
spot and the take all and then do the other product.

Speaker 4 (01:10:41):
Is good.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Well, the night fiss Eagle is good for for the
gray leaf spot for sure, but not as much for
the takeof root rot. So that's why we have the
other product for the take all. So yeah, I would
probably just in this situation, with your unique set of
problems here, I would focus more on the take all
than on the grave leaf spot. As it gets drier

(01:11:05):
and warmer and you don't water as much, it doesn't
rain so much, the graveleaf spot's going to kind of
go away on its own sum and maybe the product
will take all probably works on the grave leaf spot.
I just need checked out to be sure, but I
think I'd stick with the I'd deal with this whole
thing as a take all problem because that is the
elephant in the room and you're on. Okay, thank you, sir,

(01:11:27):
appreciate your call very much. All right, folks, we'll be
right back with Joey Londerman from Enchanted Gardens and just
a bit. Good morning on a lovely Sunday morning. Glad
to have you with us this morning. As always, I
am looking forward this afternoon to having some time to
put her around the yard and do a few things.
I hope you are too. This is still great planting

(01:11:51):
season and we're going to talk about that a little bit.
I'm about to invite our guests for the hour, Joey
Linderman here onto garden Line. Joey is the owner of
Enchanted Gardens, which is on the Katie fullsher side of
Richmond up on FM three point fifty nine. And let's
just go out there. Hey, Joey, are you there.

Speaker 10 (01:12:09):
Good morning ship, How you doing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Hey, thanks for taking
time to come on the show. I appreciate that this morning,
of course, thanks for having me. All right, well, I
wanted to get you on here to pick your brain
and talk about some things. And Folks, if you're listening
and you have a question that relates to maybe a
plant we're talking about, or if you wanted to, you know,

(01:12:32):
ask Joey something about plants or whatever, you're certainly welcome
to call in. Otherwise we're going to hold the rest
of the calls until we get back to nine o'clock
and then I'll go back to answering gardening questions in general.
So let's do it that way, Joey. I tell you,
every time I drive up to Jenny Gardens and get
out of the car and I look up and it's
just like from horizon to horizon, just it looks good.

(01:12:56):
It's full of plants, it's full of color. And my
first thought is always how on earth do y'all keep
this place stocked up and looking this good? And I
know that I myself that all the time. He's a challenge.
So it's a challenge to you know, because you you
call somebody that used to have plants and now yeah,
we run out, and you know, how on earth to

(01:13:17):
just to give us a little peak behind being a
garden center owner? Who's that life like?

Speaker 10 (01:13:24):
Uh, it's a lot of hard work, you know, not
only for me, but for all of our our great employees.
We've got lots of good folks here, and it's just
you know, everybody cares a whole lot. That's where Uh,
that's the main main thing that makes us a success.
We want to look great all the time, whether it's
the middle of the winter and you know, we just

(01:13:46):
had a hard freeze or the heat of the summer,
and you know, everybody's struggling to stay hydrated.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
We want to look the best of cans year round.
M Well, you guys do a great job, and you
do have a great team up there. You know, the
folks at great you and they're so friendly and helpful
and uh and it's just fun. It's just a fun place,
a fun place to go and it always looks good seasonally,
you know, every every time I get a chance to
go there and wander around.

Speaker 10 (01:14:11):
Right, it's fun for us too. You know, it's a
lot of work, but we do have fun up here. Yeah,
there's a lot of a lot of joking goes on
my term as there's always time for a joke, even
if there's not the still, so we have lots of
fun up here, and I think that's part of it all.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
So that's that is good. That is good. Well, you do,
you guys do a great job of it, you really do.

Speaker 4 (01:14:39):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
So I wanted to talk about some of you know,
we're hitting the summer season and this is where and
it's just a natural part of gardening. But people kind
of get a little less enthusiastic about plants because it's
hot outside and things. And I've been talking a lot
lately about that you can plant a plant any time
of the year, and even though it's getting hot, you

(01:15:01):
can still get a plant in the ground and do
it successfully. It's easier to do in the fall and spring,
of course. But you think about a plant that's sitting
in in chanted gardens right now, and if someone were
to buy it and bring it home and plant it,
versus leaving it and enchanted gardens and planting it in
the fall, which is a good planting season. What's the difference.

(01:15:21):
Why would a plant die in your yard, but it's
not dying at the garden center. And it's because at
the garden center, you guys are watering them every day.
You're keeping them perky and going. So plants can survive
just fine. So when you bring them home, just shift
the mindset and think about, you know what, that root system.
It's almost as if I planted the pot and the
roots are still all confined there water in there in

(01:15:42):
the ground. After you plant, it is like treating them
like they're sitting at the nursery still and gradually getting
a wetter area, you know, further out and getting them established.
So with just a little attentive TLC, you can just
keep going and planting. And a lot of times I
think people forget that. So anyway, I don't know if
you have any comments about that, but I know we

(01:16:04):
deal with that issue with customers in the summer.

Speaker 10 (01:16:06):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, I
would not recommend taking a plant home and wait until
the fall to the planet. You know, we are watering
plants every day, so we know how much each one takes,
and you know how often sometimes you know, in the
heat of the summer, these plants need to be watered
twice a day. But the way I look at it
is if they can survive in this hot, black plastic
pot during the summer, they can survive in your yard

(01:16:28):
in the ground and actually better, often easier, even better. Yeah,
that's right. Yeah, you don't have the you don't have
the hot sun beating down on that plastic pot. You
don't have the wind blowing through the root system drying
it out. So you know, they're they're able to get
toto that list this time, Y're.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
Yeah, and day by day those roots are moving further
and further out into the soil all around them, So
that's a good thing. Well, let's let's talk about some
plants that do really well in the summer. And I
kind of I kind of want to ask this in
two ways, uh, and we'll probably have to go to
a break during your answer here. But one way is

(01:17:07):
what are some of the most popular summer plants that
you guys see and have? And then I want to
come back and follow up with a question about your
favorites and talking about that. So why don't we start
about start with what are the things that are popular
for summertime that you would recommend as a summer plant
for color.

Speaker 10 (01:17:25):
Yeah, as far as annuals grow go, I would say
this time year, binco or also known as periwinkle, those
are tough as nails. They're super heat tolerant, bloom NonStop
even during the hottest days. Those are great. Pintos are great, Zenias.
As far as the perennials, always lantana and salvias, those

(01:17:49):
are great. There's lots of real pretty ornamental grasses this
time of year that if you get planted now, they'll
have the really pretty plumes that come out in the fall,
so that that takes a little bit of planning to
go ahead and get those in the ground and get
them established before they're real time to shine in the fall.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
That's a good point. And you know, ornamental grasses I
think are underutilized in our landscapes. We have a lot
of really good ones. And when you get a nice
ornamental grass, it's got the seed heads in the fall
even going into winter. If you just kind of wait
to cut it back until later in the winter, you
get the frost on those seed heads, you get the
sunlight coming through in that tawny color. Is something different

(01:18:26):
out there in the landscape too, and I just think
we ought to be planting more of those.

Speaker 10 (01:18:32):
Yeah, I totally agree. If you're looking at something for
something for some shade or part shade, we've got lots
of pretty curtuma gingers and lots of different colors. So
those are a kind of a unique one. BlimE light
high ranges. They're about to put on a show this
time of years. The pinacle kite hydrangea that gets you know,

(01:18:54):
up the five or six feet tall, what's kind of
a creamy white womb. Those are great and those can
actually take quite a bit of sun compared to most
side ranges, so that's a kind of an unique option.

Speaker 1 (01:19:06):
The Limelight. Okay, and I think you guys send out
the newsletter, which is very very helpful, by the way,
and people can subscribe to that. And you featured this
tat last time. I saw the curcumas in there and
a little ginger I love called Dancing Lady, and then
you also have the Limelight hydranges in it. And so

(01:19:27):
how can people get that newsletter? What's what would you
tell them to do because they need to subscribe.

Speaker 10 (01:19:32):
You can go to our website. It's Enchanted Gardens Richmond
dot com and there's a little tab on there somewhere
to sign up for our newsletter. And yeah, you're right,
there's lots of good information in there, you know, seasonally
seasonally appropriate to give you different tips or what's new.
Also on our Instagram and Facebook pages, always lots of

(01:19:56):
good information on there as well.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
Yeah, those are right. Well, I got to go to
a break here, Joey. We'll come right back here in
just a moment. Folks. If you do have a question
about some of these plans, it's like, wait, what's that
Limelight Hydrand or he was talking about what's the Kurkuma.
Give us a call, we'll talk about those things. Otherwise,
we're just going to keep going because I got a
lot of questions to pick his brain about. We'll be
right back, folks. We're visiting this hour with Joey Linderman

(01:20:22):
from Enchanted Gardens, which is in the Richmond Rosenberg are
If you're in Richmond Rosenberg you go north toward Katie
out on FM three point fifty nine, you're going to
find Enchanted Gardens. Those of you who haven't been there,
and I don't care where you live in the Greater
Houston area, it is worth the trip out there. Grab
the family and friends and things, put the kids in
the car, head out there, and you got to see

(01:20:44):
this place. It is a really cool showplace. I promise
you you're going to enjoy it. Joey, let me see
if we get it would help if I actually turn
on your mic. There there we go. Hey, Joey, are
you there?

Speaker 10 (01:20:56):
Yep, I'm here.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
Okay. So I'd like you to talk a little bit
about some of the educational programs that you have from
time to time. I know we mentioned you know, get
on the newsletter that's where you find out about stuff.
It's also on your website, but tell us a little
about that along with the food truck thing that's going on,
and even the kind of the farmers market type editions

(01:21:21):
that you put in there. I think people need to
know about that.

Speaker 10 (01:21:23):
Yeah, So as far as the educational programs, we have
those during our slower time of year, which is kind
of different from most garden centers because it's so busy
in the spring that you know, we just we would
be we don't have enough parking for shoppers and all
the people that come to these educational things. You know,

(01:21:45):
there's you know, one hundred and fifty to two hundred
people that come to each of these seminars, so that's
a that's a whole lot of cars in the parking lot.

Speaker 1 (01:21:53):
So we do those.

Speaker 10 (01:21:54):
So we just wrapped up our last one for the
summer yesterday. It's just getting so hot. But we do
them in June and then I think we start them
again in September and October, and then we do them
in January through around mid February, depending on the you know,
how the calendar works out. But we do vegetable gardening,
fruit trees arranging a custom succulent container, lots of different things,

(01:22:22):
its covers, you know, pretty much everybody's interests. But like
I said, those can be found on our website or
we'll announce those on all of our social media platforms
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
Yeah, I was out there at the end of winter
this year and that was a great It was a
rainy day, but it was a good day. Enthusiastic folks,
and that's always that's always fun. So you mentioned the containers,
and one of the things that it just I just
am so impressed with when I'm walking around out there

(01:22:54):
are the containers that you guys put together and the
options for containers that you have. I know, Maria, I
don't know where you found that lady, but she is
a magician when it comes to putting together gorgeous things.
And whether someone comes out to buy one you guys
already have, or would that they come out to a
class to put something. Image in succulent container being one example,

(01:23:15):
it's just a it's a great way to go. And
you you know, your folks can help people if they
don't know how to put plants together. You know, here's
a container, here's some plants that we go, well, it's
gonna be in sun or shade or whatever. But you
guys do such a great job of that, and yeah,
Maria things and I just go ahead, well, go ahead.

Speaker 10 (01:23:34):
Murray is like you said, she's an artist. Yeah, I
couldn't even do it. I've been doing this for however
long there over thirty years, and boy I can't put
anything together near like she does. So yeah she does.

Speaker 1 (01:23:47):
Agree, Yeah, Joey. I talk sometimes about landscape design, and
a lot of us, including my listeners, are plant people.
We're not designers. So when you turn a plant person
and loose with plants to design, it looks like a
bomb went off in a garden center and everything rooted
where it landed. Yescape design. I know I want that plant.

(01:24:11):
Where am I going to put it? I have no idea,
but I'll find a place. But Maria does such a
good job. I love the iron. Tell us a little
bit about the iron, both the hanging baskets and the
free standing iron containers and how that works. I think
that is just so cool. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:24:28):
So those iron baskets or iron plant stains, we get
those and we have a special type of burlap that's
treated to where it holds up to the weather better.
We found that to work better than you know, like
the cocoa moths or cocoa fiber liners. Because there's so
many different shapes and sizes of these iron baskets that

(01:24:51):
we get that they don't make one of the cocoa
liners for each of those, so that's something. If you've
got an odd ball shape or size, we do sell
them Burlack liner alone, but that's what we use for
those iron baskets and it works out great. And the
forest so the water drains through. We you know, it's

(01:25:12):
stick enough to where the wind doesn't blow through and
dry out the soil and the roots. So we've been
using that for a number of years and it's worked
out great.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
I think we need to have more containers, and I
know when it gets the summertime and you have to
water them, that's a challenge. I put some drip irrigation
at my place where it just comes on and it
waters all my containers, because otherwise I'd spend all my
day run around water and everything, and that's real nice.
But one of my favorites of the iron container basket
that hangs in the backyard and it's got a big

(01:25:42):
giant macho fern in it, and it just looks so good.
And I think about that and containers in general. You know,
you picture a patio that's kind of beare, maybe it
does a plant or two on it, and then you
picture a patio with really attractive containers and plants suited
for the container and suited for the spot. And I've
got a patio that at one end is very sunny,

(01:26:05):
uh and you know that there's plants for that, and
then one where you get kind of morning sun, and
then one where it's kind of shady all day of course,
the macho fren's and shady all day bright shade. But
the difference in walking outside and seeing that is just
it's it's amazing how much.

Speaker 10 (01:26:23):
Difference could Yeah, playing concrete patio can be just you know,
kind of stark, but uh, yeah, you had some color
fold blazed pots and some beautiful color spilling out of them. It,
you know, makes it a whole different area.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
You guys have an outstanding selection of pottery out there too.
The I don't know what you call it, the shed
or whatever, where you have most of the pottery kind
of stored back up in there. That this is gorgeous stuff.

Speaker 10 (01:26:52):
I mean, these things are Yeah, we fell an amazing
amount of pots. I don't know, I don't know where
everybody's putting all these pots, but boy there yeah, eating them.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
Up, I tell you. Yeah, Well that's good. That's good.

Speaker 4 (01:27:07):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
And it's so it's so pretty, and it just adds
I don't know, it just adds a lot to the landscape.

Speaker 4 (01:27:14):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
You we were talking about Maria and the containers and
building and all these things.

Speaker 11 (01:27:19):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
You guys also, Uh, the selection you have of good
Texas tough perennials is pretty amazing. Now, Salvia is my
favorite genus of plants. It just you know, it's kind
of like picking your favorite kid. Uh, it's hard to
do that, right, But but Salvia's are just so versatile,
so many options. Would you talk about a little bit
some of maybe the salvias you like, or some you know,

(01:27:44):
for different areas, or any anything about salvia or related
perennials that are good Texas tough that you guys carry.

Speaker 10 (01:27:51):
Yeah, we grow tons of uh salvis. Uh, that's probably
one of the items that we grow the most varieties of.
We grow I would say over ninety percent of our
own annuals and perennials. We have eleven acres right down
the road from our retail location with just a ton
of greenhouses on it, and so yeah, we're able to

(01:28:13):
grow what we want and have it ready, you know,
when our customers want it. So that's a that's one
of the reasons why we never run out of things
because we have our own We are the grower also,
so if we run out of something on Saturday morning,
we have it back and stop generally by Saturday evening,

(01:28:33):
so that that's been real helpful for us.

Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
Otherwise, your question to fire yourself if you're your own grower, yep, exactly.

Speaker 10 (01:28:43):
But yeah, there's so many different types of salvia is nowadays.
Amistad salvia is one of my favorites. That's kind of
a medium grower that will get four feet tall or so,
but really pretty purple blooms. Of course, all the autumn
stage or salvia greg guye a different colors red, pink, white, purple, raspberry,

(01:29:04):
those are great autumn sage. The Salvia Latanta that's a
beautiful one also kind of a light lavender purple. But
there's always, you know, new things coming out and also
older varieties that aren't really commonly grown nowadays, but uh,
you know, if we can get our hands on them
and get them into our production, we have those, you know,

(01:29:26):
things like the Augusta Dulberg salvia, kind of a white,
free flowing salvia. That's a really good one.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
Yeah, that is a good one. And Henry is a
good one too. Uh you mentioned Amistad. I think is
that salvio. I believe that's Salvia garnettica called a niche sage. Yeah,
I believe it is. One of the guys. Is it
across There's there's so many crosses now there there. The
breeders are crossing salvia so much that's kind of hard
to tell what all they are. But boy, do we

(01:29:56):
have good ones. I think one of my favorite salvia
is is miss stick Spires, and it's just because it's
just a workhorse and it doesn't flop around like its
predecessors did so much. It has beautiful blue spikes all
the time. You know, I've got mine. I've got one
and a moderate amount of shade and it's doing okay.

(01:30:16):
Of course they like sun but that that is one
of my favorite.

Speaker 10 (01:30:20):
Yes, but I love Yeah, that is really really versatile
doesn't get too big, not too small. It's really cold tall.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
Right.

Speaker 10 (01:30:28):
We've had one in one of the beds up here,
and it's come back after the last five you know,
hard winners, so it's pretty impressive.

Speaker 1 (01:30:38):
Yeah, that's a good one. Hummingbirds bees love them, especially
those Saba garniticas we were talking about. I've got some
of those. They put up with more with less sun
than I would have expected. You don't want to put
them in shade, but full shade. But they do pretty well,
and the hunting birds just go crazy. I've got one
around the side of my garage. Every time I walk around,

(01:31:00):
a hummingbird flies out of it because they've been they've
been there getting some honey or nectar.

Speaker 10 (01:31:07):
Yeah, you got to be. It's a careful walking around
the Salvia area up here. At certain times of the
year you'll get a kama coozie humming bird coming at you.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
There you go, there you go. U. Well, listen, I'm
up against a very hard break here for the half hour.
Can you stick with us? Come back on the yep?
All right, sir, thank you. We're gonna take a little break, folks.
And if you do have a question that you would
like to ask some of these plants we're talking about,
or any kind of thing like that you'd like to
ask while I got Joey here. Uh seven one three

(01:31:38):
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Stick around. We'll
be right back. We're visiting with Joey Linderman from Chendi
Gardens Garden Center, which is on the north of the
Rosenberg area up toward Katie direction. It's up on Highway
three fifty nine. And uh, we're just kind of paying

(01:32:00):
his brain a lot of things about plants and stuff.
So Joey want to bring you back in here and
kind of continue the discussion that we're having. I would
like to hear if you have any plants that over
the last few years or stuff, have kind of risen
to the forefront with you, if you kind of learned
a lot about them or found out that they perform

(01:32:20):
really well. It doesn't have to be brand new, but
new or new to you. How about that, any any
successions that you think people ought to take a look at.

Speaker 10 (01:32:30):
Something that's become really popular over the last several years,
which of course is not new because it's been around forever,
but all the different varieties of native milk weed for
the monarch butterflies, that's become real popular. You know a
lot of people are getting away from the tropical milk
weed and you know, getting back to what mother nature
minute to be and you know, just the monarch's feeding

(01:32:53):
off of the natives that actually grow in any given area.
So that's been really popular one.

Speaker 1 (01:33:02):
Yeah, that that is a good one. And that, boy,
is that ever popular. Are you guys growing your own
on those at your production facility?

Speaker 12 (01:33:09):
We do?

Speaker 10 (01:33:10):
Yeah, yeah, this time of year, you know, we're a
little bit of a low point on those that we
do have several varieties this time of year. You know,
we do the the milkweed movement where we any milk
weed that we sell, we donate all of the proceeds,
not just part of it, all of it to local nonprofits,

(01:33:31):
uh in our area, you know, specifically ones that support
people and family with special needs. Okay, so that's why
we we carry milk weed, the appropriate milk weed pretty
much year round just to you know, support that that program.

Speaker 1 (01:33:51):
That's a great that's a great cause. I appreciate you'all
doing that. Uh yeah, And milkweeds are are very popular.
You know, the used to be a movie, a baseball movie.
I can't remember what the name of it was now,
but the phrase in it was, if you build it,
they will come. In other words, if you build the ballpark,
people will show up out here in the countryside to
go to baseball. Truly true to grandscapes. Pardon field a

(01:34:13):
dreams that drank? Was that Kevin Costner? I think that
was Kevin Costner, wasn't it.

Speaker 10 (01:34:17):
Yeah, well that's only you can get out of me
out of that movie. I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (01:34:24):
Okay, good enough. It was just a reference anyway. So
my point is that the same is true in our landscapes.
You know, we like we want to bring birds in,
and certainly bird feeders and houses and all the things
we can do. That's all good. But you can plan
a landscape also that brings birds in. And you know,
if you're a hunting bird and you're you're flying from

(01:34:45):
north to somewhere south across the Gulf of Mexico, needing
to fuel up, would you rather stop at a place
with one plant that you could get a little nectar
out of, or would you like a yard you can
fly all over the place getting good stuff to fuel
you up. And and I think as we build landscape
like that, whether it's birds or butterflies or benefit other
beneficial insects and things, if you build it, they will come.

Speaker 10 (01:35:09):
That's a fact. Just another one that yep. Another one
that's relatively new that I really like is the Alnino
desert rookid. It's in the family of the or the
desert willows in general, but they have a larger leaf,

(01:35:30):
larger bloom, and don't get as big. They'll get maybe
ten or twelve feet tall, but that one will have
the kind of lavender pink blooms throughout most of the summer.
But that's a really good one. You can trim into
a small, multi trunk tree.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
There used to be a plant we call chatalpa that
was a cross between desert willow and katalpa. Is that
what we're talking about here?

Speaker 10 (01:35:56):
Yeah, that's well, this is an improved one that blooms
more and doesn't get good as big.

Speaker 1 (01:36:04):
Okay, and tell us the name the specific name of
that again, the.

Speaker 10 (01:36:07):
Variety el Nino desert orchid.

Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
Okay, desert okay, good? Yeah, those are beautiful. Uh there,
you know those are those plants are related. Everybody's familiar
with yellow bells, you know, the yellow bells everywhere. Uh,
gold Star, those kinds of things. Uh, they have that
same kind of bloom shape and everything. That's a great plant.
I'm glad you brought that one up. I like that one.

(01:36:33):
Any other any other favorites or plants that you would
suggest people give a shot?

Speaker 6 (01:36:39):
Uh?

Speaker 10 (01:36:40):
You know, lots of pretty things out here this time
of year. Uh, there's the Belle of India jasmine, which
is a fragrant bush type jasmine that will make a
sprawling bush. It's got a double bloom, not quite like
the green Duke jasmine, but this one is way more
vigorous than the green Duke jasmine. You know, blooms spring

(01:37:00):
through fall, grows a whole lot faster. So that's that's
certainly a good one.

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
I think very great to get me one of those.
I love fragrant plants. I've got an area to the
south of where we sit outside on the patio, and
typically in the summertime, you got a little bit of
a predominant southwest taybreeze blowing through, and so I try
to locate my fragrance over there. So I can sit
there and enjoy that stuff blowing through. That's a good idea.

(01:37:27):
I like that one you mentioned earlier. Vincas the Madagascar Piwinkles,
not a name for him, any particular favorites. I know
it used to be we had a lot of problems
with the aerial if I top throw a blight hitting them,
and then we had the Nirvana and the Kra series.
It seems like I don't see much Nirvana around, but

(01:37:49):
I see a lot of cores out there. We have
the trailing forms of it and any other There's some
other miniature types, and could you talk about that a
little bit.

Speaker 10 (01:37:58):
Yeah, the miniature X or the soire Vinca in particular
the Hawaii series. But tiny blooms, but tons of them. Uh,
you know, the blooms are maybe half the size of
a regular Vinka bloom, but lots and lots of blooms.

Speaker 6 (01:38:15):
Those.

Speaker 10 (01:38:15):
I don't know that those are as resistant to all
the diseases that the Vinka used to get. But we
hadn't had any problems with them, even with you know,
all the dead gum ring we got uh earlier in
the in the summer, so we hadn't had you know
much problems with those at all, But that's a great
one for containers especially they don't get as big. They

(01:38:37):
only will get maybe eight or ten inches tall, but
very pretty cute little blooms. Yeah, but going going back
to the core of incause, going back to the core
of incause, the core xdr When those first came out,
I can't remember how long ago, it was maybe eight
years ago. I didn't really believe it. So I took

(01:39:00):
a plat of the core of inca and put them
in a tub of water, you know, three quarters of
the way up the pot, and let them sit there
for a week and they were fine. So that that
really impressed me.

Speaker 1 (01:39:13):
Yeah, that is impressive. Well, you were talking about the
the little miniature of incas. I think it's one reason
we're probably not going to have a disease problem with
them is because you know, and when we used to
put vinca what we still do in the flower beds,
then you get the disease in that bed, and then
future vinca plantings are having to deal with it. Well
in a container you're talking about potting saw you in

(01:39:34):
puts a fresh ponting saw lands start over and not
have to worry about that build up. But gosh, those
things are so nice, and because they're small, it helps
you put a lot more things in a pot. And
whenever I can, I like to do mixed planters. You know,
we were talking about the things Maria creates and stuff there.
Those mixed planters are just so interesting and with a

(01:39:56):
kind of a smaller stature plant like that, you can
fill a lot more in and have a more beautiful
planner as a result of that. Joey out, I'm just
looking at my clock. I've got to take I gotta
take one more break here. We'll come back to you
and I just be thinking about any other things, the
plants we may have skipped over that you might want

(01:40:16):
to add, and folks will be right back with Joey
in just a moment. From Enchanted Gardens just north of
Richard Rosenberg, Katie Foolster side out on FM three fifty nine.
If you haven't been there, we'll crawl out from under
the rock you've been under, because I don't know how
you missed it, but you got to get out there
and check this place out. It's a great independent garden center.
Good advice. That's the advantage of our independent garden centers.

(01:40:39):
We got people that garden here, that live here, that
know what they're doing, that are trained versus Yeah, I'm
not so sure. I was selling hammers last week and
now I'm supposed to be selling plants, so I'll make
up some answer. Sorry, that was cruel, but it is true.
It is absolutely true, Joey. I'm gonna not have to
I'm not not associate you with asking questions about that

(01:41:01):
that kind of thing, but it does annoy me at least.
Welcome back to Guardenline. Good to have you with us.
So we're going to continue to kind of pick your
brain on some things. You know, we used to have plants, Joey,
that were really relegated to let's say the shade plants
like colis and impatience, but now it's and and and

(01:41:22):
oh gosh, what's the just kalladiums almost one blank?

Speaker 5 (01:41:27):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:41:27):
Now we have kalladiums that can take full sun. We
have we have uh colis that takeful son, we have impatience.
And you don't talk a little bit about the sun patients.
I think that may be one of your favorite plants
that we have.

Speaker 7 (01:41:41):
It is.

Speaker 10 (01:41:41):
Yeah, so sun patients are a type of New Guinean
patients that can handle a little bit more sun. I've
been planting them at my house for the last couple
of years, and I think that's what I'm going to
stick with. Big blooms, bloom all NonStop, all through the summer. Uh,
they're great. You know, mine are just in morning sun

(01:42:03):
till maybe one o'clock or so. Uh, but they can
take full sun as long as you keep up with
the watering. I'm looking at some that are in our
our custom pops out here right now, and uh, you know,
they're beautiful and full blooms. You know, they come in
all different colors. We've got red and white, lavender, and pink,
some even some variegated. Some patients with really pretty variegated

(01:42:26):
foliage and pink ballooms. But those are those are really good.

Speaker 9 (01:42:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:42:32):
Yeah. And then the colors are there, I don't know
the term for them. They're they're bright, they're they're they're
they're hot colors. I mean they're not just like a
dull yellow. It's a it's a bright yellow. It's not
just a dull red.

Speaker 10 (01:42:46):
Yeah, they're perfect, perfect summer colors. They reminded you of summer.

Speaker 1 (01:42:50):
Yeah, yeah, it's gorgeous. I love those plants. That's a
good one. Sun patients for sure. Uh So when we're
when we're looking at you know, success with having some
summer color. Can you talk a little And we've kind
of covered this in some ways, but any you know
a top few plants that if someone comes in and go, look,

(01:43:12):
I need my landscape to not be a sea of green,
you know, green grass, green ground covers, green shrubs, green trees.
I like green. It's a pretty color. But there are
other colors. What would you suggest as just some of
the top plants to have color could be shaded or
sun when it's blazing hot out there when we don't
want to be inside. Plants that are outside laughing, having

(01:43:33):
a good time. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:43:35):
A couple of evergreen shrubs that are almost full of
color all summer. Abelia. So Abelia's come in several varieties.
Depending on the variety, they'll either have a white bloom
or a pink bloom. But those things, as far as
an evergreen shrub, they bloom more than any other evergreen shrub.
They'll start blooming in June and go all the way

(01:43:55):
at least through the end of October. Some of them
have mirrigated folios, some of them of green foliage, so
that way, you know, when they're not blooming, they still
have some color. So that would be a great one
to add, you know, as far as kind of some
foundation shrubs, toot'll give you color pretty much year round.

Speaker 14 (01:44:12):
Uh.

Speaker 10 (01:44:12):
Texas age also they have that kind of silvery foliage
year round and then purple blooms kind of off and
on throughout the summer.

Speaker 1 (01:44:22):
Uh.

Speaker 10 (01:44:22):
They come in several varieties so uh, you know, some
of them are more compact varieties, some of them getting
great big and would work for a good stream.

Speaker 4 (01:44:32):
Uh.

Speaker 10 (01:44:32):
Crape myrtles, of course at this time of year, this
is their time to shine, you know, just like you
were talking about the innovations that came along with sun
and shade colias and sun and shade pladiums. Crape myrtles.
You know, there's so many varieties nowadays that you know,
you really don't have to whack them back in the
winter time to keep them the size you want. The breeders,
you know, there's people that devote their lives to breeding

(01:44:54):
a crape myrtle that will get you know, say six
feet tall and a specific color that they wanted with
a specific foliage color. Yes, so there's you know, all shape,
sizes and colors for Kate mertles that will fit anybody's needs.

Speaker 1 (01:45:09):
That is so true. That is really true. From three
feet to thirty five feet. I mean it's a great range.
We're about to run out of time and get some
music here, but I want to keep talking as we
go into the music and stuff. Something I tell people
for summer is remember you don't have to have blooms
to have color. There's some beautiful foliage.

Speaker 4 (01:45:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:45:28):
We've got the sunshine laugustrum. We have a number of
plants that do have really attractive foliage, so even without
blooms on them, they do well. I think about the
oh gosh, what is the tropicana also called fasion cannas?
And do you have any other foliage particular plants that

(01:45:49):
you might want to add to the list of things
for keeping that sea of green a little bit more colorful? Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:46:00):
I'm standing right in front of some of the copper
plants right now. That's kind of an old passion one
that you don't see much nowadays. But the pretty coppery colored,
you know, top cool looking forwards, it's great for around
the pool. Anything with you know, big colorful leaves is
great for around the pool. Huban Gold Dearanta, Yeah as well,
that's another good one. There's barigated high biscuit that even

(01:46:21):
when they're not blooming, they still have great foliage color.
Any of the nandinas. There's so many nandinas that have
good color year round nowadays. So those are some of
my favorites.

Speaker 1 (01:46:33):
So many plans, so many plants, so little airtime. Well, Joey,
we you've been a wealth of information pleasure to have.
You just remind folks, this is talking to Joey Lenderman
from Enchanted Gardens out just north of Richmond Rosenberg Katie
fullsher sign on Highway three point fifty nine. You need
to get out there and in the meantime go to

(01:46:56):
the website, check them out and sign up for the
news life. You definitely want to be able to get
that newsletter, get the information that you're looking for. So
that we've had access to all of that. Enchanted Gardens
Richmond dot Com. A great conversation with Joey Lennerman from
Enchanted Gardens down there in Richmond Rosenberg area. Uh and

(01:47:19):
UH we're back to wide open phone lines, so give
us a call if you got a question. Seven one three, two,
one two, five eight seven four. Remember nitrophasis. Sweet green
can be put on repeatedly through the summertime. I would
do it about every il six weeks or so. If
you would like to continue to feed gradually, you don't
have to put too much in any one time and

(01:47:41):
just gradually providing that food. Or if you want to
give a quick boost to your plants, it's it's one.
It's gonna last a little while in the ground. Uh,
but not like a very slow release like the nitrophosis
super turf would do. But sweet greens an excellent product,
smells wonderful, very natural type product that you're going to
enjoy it and you're going to see the results of it.

(01:48:02):
You can find it at places like all the Fissures hardwares.
You know there's one in Pasadena, Laporte, Mont Bellevue, and Baytown.
They all carry night FoST products like this sweet Green.
Let's go now out to Spring, Texas and we're going
to visit with Phil this morning. Hey, Phil, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:48:19):
Want to skip this first time caller, and I love
your show.

Speaker 1 (01:48:24):
Thank you, thank you. Well you sent me some pictures
of some stuff on your plants. Right, look at what
it is? Yeah, well, uh so let me ask you
this what what plant is that? It doesn't mean leaves
on it? Is that a what that is? What the

(01:48:46):
plant is?

Speaker 9 (01:48:48):
No, I was going to ask you, but lifetimes it's
a red brewery bower or a type of blue glory art.

Speaker 1 (01:48:57):
Okay, there you go. Okay, Well we without the leaves.
It was kind of like, uh so we're gonna see
if we can say this thing.

Speaker 9 (01:49:04):
Uh well I should they had all the leaves and
some flowers on it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:11):
Oh you okay, let me yeah, okay, well let me
let me look here and through Oh yes, oh I
do see that. Okay, I had not gotten to that
picture yet. All right, glory bear, that's gosh, that's gorgeous.
Uh So, here's what's going on. You've got scale insects
on their scale. Uh. These are little insects. What they

(01:49:32):
do is they put their mouth part in the plant
and they suck juices out. Uh, and they drink the
juices and they cause the plant.

Speaker 12 (01:49:42):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:49:43):
If it's new growth that doesn't form normally, it gets
a little wrinkled. If there's enough of them, they just
sucking the life out of the plant. If you look
at the picture you sent me more recently of the
single leaf sitting down on the concrete stepping stones, you'll
notice that they're lined up along the veins of the leaf.
The veins of leaf, that's where that's the main line

(01:50:04):
where all the juices are really flowing. And so they
set up there because that's where they can get the
best drink of all the sugary SAPs and things. But
they're also on the trunks and whatnot. Now, when you
have scale, there's a couple of options. Because it's easy
to get access to them. On these plants that don't
have the leaves, you can spray a horticultural oil on

(01:50:27):
them in the summertime and smother them. It's not a poison.
It literally coats the plant the past and keeps it
from breathing. So when you spray it phel you're going
to want to spray from all sides. You're going to
spray upward because some of them are like underneath the branch,
some of them are on top of the branch, and

(01:50:47):
so on. Coverage is key and you're never going to
get them all with one spray, but you spray them
and knock out most of them with horticultural oil. Mix
it according to the label, not too strong, fall of
a label, and spray early in the morning before the
sun comes out and starts baking down on the plants.
That would be a good option for those particular plants.

(01:51:10):
The alternative to that would be to use a systemic insecticide,
and that would not be sprayed on the plant. It
would be drenched into the soil and the plant takes
it up. And now going through the plumbing of the plant,
is this insecticide. It's not on the outside of the
planet's on the inside of the plant. So when they
suck their juices out of the plant, they're getting the

(01:51:32):
poisoned sap inside. And so that is probably a little
more effective than the oil, just because with oil you're
going to have to do it more than once and coverage.
You're never going to get all of them covered with
one or two. Maybe have to do three sprays over
a period of about four or five weeks. But those
are your two options.

Speaker 9 (01:51:52):
And it's a systemic what was this systemic something.

Speaker 1 (01:51:57):
Systemic insecticide? Well, it's a systemic insecticide. And so I'm
gonna give you a do you have a pin or
pencil handy?

Speaker 9 (01:52:08):
Yeah, I'm righting, all just done right now.

Speaker 1 (01:52:11):
Okay, I'm gonna spell an ingredient that is one of
the more common systemics out there on the market, and
it's I am I d O c l O p
r I D and I'll sound it out. It's spelled
just like it sounds in mid dough klow prid in

(01:52:32):
midow clo prid the various brand names. You go to
your Ace, you know, you go to your local Ace
hardware store. You're there in the Spring area, So you've
got Spring Ace, which is on Spring Cypress Road in Spring.

Speaker 9 (01:52:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:52:45):
Uh, and uh, just tell them you need something with
im mid dough clo prid in it.

Speaker 4 (01:52:50):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:52:51):
There are a number of other ones that work. Uh,
there's another one. The ingredient, excuse me, is Dyna tepheron.
And just rather than spelling the whole thing, it's d
I n O as in dinosaur. It's the only thing
out there at your garden center shelves that is going

(01:53:11):
to begin with the work with the letters dino d
I n O. So that is the other systemic that
you can get. You follow the label carefully, put them
on the ground. Now, if you've got pollinators that are
visiting the flowers and things on these you might want
to avoid the systemics because that can get in the
nectar and it can have some effect. It doesn't just
kill them out right usually, but it generally should be avoided.

(01:53:36):
If you got butterflies and bees and stuff coming to ballooms.
I'm not sure on that particular plant how attractive it
is to bees and butterflies. I have not grown that one.

Speaker 9 (01:53:51):
Yeah, I've never seen anything like this. It happened last
year and I didn't say much stitch you to it,
and this year come in full force.

Speaker 1 (01:53:59):
Yeah, we got to get on it because that one
branch picture you showed me, I mean they are lined
up wall the wall, and so that that plant stem
is not long for this world if you don't shut
those things down pretty quick. Oh you know what, as
I think about this, I would definitely do the horticulture
little spray first. And here's why. It knocks them out immediately.

(01:54:21):
You know, it's like suffocating them. You're you're immediately suffocating them.
The systemic is going to have to go into the roots,
go up in the plant, and it's going to take
a while. Now you can also do the systemic. You
don't have to do one or the other. You can
do both. But I would definitely do the oil first
as fast as possible. Knock out as many of those
little plant suckers as you can. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Speaker 9 (01:54:45):
They're beautiful. They spread like crazy, but they're beautiful though.

Speaker 1 (01:54:50):
Yeah, all right, yeah you bet. Well, Hey, thanks for
the call. Appreciate that, and good luck utting that under control.

Speaker 9 (01:54:58):
No idea what that was?

Speaker 1 (01:55:00):
All right? Very good. Well, I'm glad you call. That's
why we're here. If you got a question, we got
open lines seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. I mentioned the the Ace Hardware store that
right there on Spring, Cyprus. That's one of many Ace
Hardware stores that are all over this area. Uh so
I don't care where you live. I mean you you

(01:55:22):
know this. In fact, if you if you look at
my I say, my ACE Hardware stores, my Texas group,
that's Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Don't forget Texas. Uh
they go all away from Orange Texas, UH, all the
way up into Willis, across to Branham, down to Victoria,
down to Rockport, as far as that Port Lavaka. You know,

(01:55:44):
we out there in Bay City, out there in Wharton,
and then all over the greater Houston area. That is
where you find my ACE Hardware stores. And when you
go to one, you're going to find the garden UH
supplies and things. You're going to find the tools that
you need for it. Just so you know you can
have success. And a lot of these fertilizers I'm talking

(01:56:04):
about your ACE hard Restor's got them, so stop in
and check them out. And let's get off the right foot.
Remember when you see problems on your plants, it's better
to do something sooner rather than later. The earlier you
jump on it, the easier it is to control. The
less toxic options. No, the the more less toxic options

(01:56:26):
you are going to be able to use. In other words,
you say for stuff. As you let problems get too
far along, we often have to resort to things that
are a little more potent. Okay, let's take a little break.
We'll be right back. We're back in the saddle again.
I guess I should have said that during a gene
autry song instead of Sawyer Brown. Anyway, we're back and

(01:56:47):
we're ready to take your gardening questions at seven one three,
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two fifty eight seventy four.

Speaker 6 (01:56:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:56:55):
Pierscapes is our professional landscaper. We talk about them all
the time on garden Line and they do such a
good job. You'll see that when you go to the
website peerscapes dot com. You'll see also all the things
they do, and I mean it is full service, you know,
from lighting to hardscapes, to fixing drainage, toing here of
the irrigation, to putting in a brand new landscape specially

(01:57:18):
drawn by qualified expert skilled designers to make your place
just look like a showplace. But they also do a
service that's called a quarterly maintenance where they come in.
It's not like they're in the yard every week. It's
like they come in every quarter and they look at
your garden beds. You check them out, get any weeds

(01:57:40):
that are in there out, put some fresh mulch in,
keep a nice layer of mulch down on them. Check
the irrigation, is it working, is it oriented in the
right direction, so everything's getting watered properly. How about the color.
You know, maybe summer's coming and some of those spring
flowers are not looking so good, Well pull them out.
Let's put some fresh, heat tolerant color in there. See
what I'm talking about. That is Escapes ongoing service, and

(01:58:02):
you can talk to them about that. Haven't come out
to your place and just keep it looking good.

Speaker 10 (01:58:08):
That is it.

Speaker 1 (01:58:08):
You don't have to worry about it. Let them take
care of it. They know what they're doing. Been around
since nineteen eighty eight. Pierscapes your one stop shop for
all things landscaping. Pierce Escapes dot com, Peerscapes dot com
two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty give you
that phone number again two eight one three seven oh

(01:58:30):
five zero six zero. You will love what they do.
I guarantee you that uh so uh talking about some
different things. And I want to remind you that next weekend.
Next weekend, I'm going to be uh not back in
the saddle again. I'm actually going to be away. But

(01:58:52):
I have pre recorded a show that I want you
to hear. We may place some best ofs, you know,
things from the past done, but I recorded quite a
bit of what I call little mini monologues where I'm
talking about a variety of different things. And I'm going
to be talking about how do you extend your vegetable
garden season in the summer heat. I'll be talking about

(01:59:15):
the ten most common vegetable gardening mistakes I see people make.
I'll be talking about screening a view with plants. You know,
you got that neighbor, or maybe that house, or maybe
that highline or who knows what, you don't want to
see it? How do you scream with plants? Lots of
good tips for that. I'll be talking about common gardening myths. Boy,
there's some things out there that people swear by and
it makes me swear because they're not true. If you

(01:59:37):
know what I'm saying. Anyway, Tips for easy, more productive
vegetable gardening. I'll be doing twenty different flowering vines for
your landscape, and then one on ornamentables. You know what
an ornamentable is. It's a plant that looks pretty that
you can eat too, It's both. So those are just
some examples, But tune in next weekend. It won't be
a call in weekend, It'll be a listening weekend and

(02:00:00):
I'll be back live again the weekend after that, but
I should have missed next weekend. It gives me the
chance to do it. I normally can't do that much
here on the show, and that is just relaxed, sit
down and just talk about something for an extended period
of time, and I think that you will enjoy it
and find it to be very very helpful. Okay, So
there's that's what's coming up here on a garden line.

(02:00:23):
I do want to remind you to check out my website,
Gardening with skip dot com. We keep building it up.
I've got more stuff that's about to go up. I've
got a lot of videos that I put up there.
I've got several things that are happening in the landscape
right now that I need to put a little quick
tips up there for I try to keep it as
timely as we can, but it's also a good reference point.

(02:00:44):
When you go to the website, you're going to find
sections on soil and composting. You know, I drown on
about that, lawns, landscapes, your garden, and garden and orchard
in other words, stuff you grow to eat, plant problems
and miscellaneous stuff to deal with I've got a really
good resources list too, and I think you ought to

(02:01:06):
look at it and probably book market. So when you
have a question, when you have a question about terf
for landscapes, when you have a question, I've got a
lot of good native plant resources on there. I've got
poisonous plant resources on there. You know you're thinking about
planning as such and such plant. Is it poisonous to
the pet, it's poisoned it to children? Even the National

(02:01:29):
Poison Control Center link is right there on that. So
you do want a bookmark this plant problems of all kinds,
in stects, mites, diseases, weeds, oh my, invasive plants, insects
and animals. Three great resources for is this plant invasive?
What are some things you're going to want to avoid?
I'll probably do a little clip on that for next
weekend too. And then bees and butterflies and other pollinators

(02:01:52):
and birds, and it's a it's a great resources list
and it's right there. You just go the main page.
It's one of the five buttons below my regular menu.
My sponsors are located on there. So you know I'm
talking about an ACE hardware store. Yeah, you can go
to ACE hardware textas dot com and find it. You
can also go to this website and it's all pin flags,

(02:02:14):
multicolor pin flags.

Speaker 3 (02:02:15):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:02:15):
Feed stores are one color garden centers or one color
soil and malt sources, or another color burning supplies or
another color. And then the ACE hardware stores they all
have a regular red pin flag, which ACE is red, right,
that's their color. They're all on there, and so you
can point at it, a little thing will pop up
and tell you what it is. There you go, just

(02:02:37):
another resource. We're really building this website out to be
as useful as possible. I also have a section it's
an Amazon store, and so you know, it's they have
these influencers and stuff. They have these stores and things
where you can go to and so if you're looking
for a copy of my book, it's on there. If

(02:02:58):
you're looking for things I get questions like where can
I get that hat you wear? Well, go to there.
There's a link on there to where you can get
one if you like it and want one of those
gardening supplies of all types, some of my favorite gardening tools.
And then the books. That's probably the biggest section right now.
A lot of really good books that I would highly recommend.

(02:03:24):
Some of them are a little nerdy, you know, you
may be for everybody, but oh my gosh, they are fascinating.
Books on bringing in birds to the landscape, books on
understanding so on microbes, and books on using natural enemies
in the landscape and so on. Anyway, it's a great

(02:03:46):
it's a great list, and I'm gonna keep adding to
it every time I read something good and I think
I want my listeners to have access to this, I'm
gonna pop it up there and that way you can
just go check it out periodically. So there you go. Anyway,
just a few things to think about. I hope you enjoy.
I wanted to let's do this trying to think of

(02:04:08):
I'm running a little short on time here. I do
want to give a little bit of a tribute. And
I don't know if you guys knew doctor Bill Welch
or knew of him, but he was one of the
rare individuals who has had huge impact on Texas horticulture
and horticulture throughout the South. He passed away on June eighth,

(02:04:31):
and those of us who were fortunate enough to know him,
we lost a friend and we lost a mentor, and
many of you have enjoyed his books. Oh my gosh,
Perennial Garden Color, wonderful perennial book. That finally a book
written not for the Northeast or California or someplace, but
written for the South. Awesome, awesome book. Antique Roses for

(02:04:53):
the South, the bountiful flower garden, heirloom gardening in the South,
rose rustlers, and so on. He He was just an influence,
a gentleman, a Southern gentleman, extraordinary four decades you work
with aiger life extension, one of the most respected voices
in Southern agriculture. What a huge loss many of us,

(02:05:15):
many of us were influenced by him as an incredible mentor,
powerful teaching, incredible writing, patient kind man, so very knowledgeable.
You may have read about read his stuff in Texas Gardener,
Neil Sperry's Gardens Magazine or Southern Living magazine, and his
influence did go throughout the southeastern US. What a great loss.

(02:05:38):
Doctor William Welch, friend and mentor. If you haven't read
his books, start with Premier Garden Color. I think you
love it. We'll be right back there you go. Hey,
welcome back, to guard line. We got a half hour
left today actually less now if you got a question,
that'd be a good time to call seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Give you that

(02:05:59):
again in seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Let's talk about the things that are most
of interest to you this morning. We got a lot
of gardening topics that we can cover. I'm going to
be uh putting on some more preparing for that show
that I'm telling you about coming up next weekend. Shows

(02:06:21):
both days coming up over the weekend, and we want
to make sure and get everything ready to go for that.
So we'll be working on that just a little bit.
So in the meantime seven one three two one two
five eight seven four when we can talk gardening. Southwest
Fertilizer Corner Abyssinet and Runwick in Southwest Houston is just

(02:06:43):
a great place to get anything you need. It is
the source. It is the place that I say, if
they don't have it, you don't need it, which means
basically they have it, they have it, they have it,
and if they don't have it, I mean there's some
rare products out there that don't just sit there all
the time. They're very seldom needed, but they can order them,
and Bob is he makes it a point to make

(02:07:06):
sure that when you walk in there, you're greeted well,
you're taken care of, and the product is on the
shelf that you're going to need. Whether you're an organic
gardener or whether you know whatever kind of product, you
don't care. You just want a good product. Bob's got it. Absolutely.
It's got to goell little shop in the back where
they do sell some small equipment, but they also service
some equipment back there, and it's just you got to

(02:07:29):
go in to see what I'm talking about. Corner Business
and running Southwest Houston Southwest Fertilizer dot Com. You gotta
go and you're going to find things there like a
super turf for example, Super Turf nineteen four to ten,
the silver bag I keep telling you about. Bob has
the widest selection of fertilizer of anywhere. But he carries
the super turf and he carries the Sweet Green there,
and you're going to find those night Foss products there.

(02:07:51):
The superturf that gives you months of feeding. It carries
you all the way to fall when you do the
fall fertilization. That's on my schedule, so just get by
there and check it out. Super Turf is an excellent product,
been run for years, designed by turf scientists. In terms
of the ratio of nutrients that go into it, we

(02:08:12):
learned long time ago not to have to keep doing
triple thirteen on lawns and other stuff. We can do
a little bit better angle on it that's going to
last through time, and that is a four one two
three one two kind of ratio of nutrients and super
Turf it's the bill just perfectly. So I wanted to

(02:08:34):
visit before we get too far here. I know we'll
get some calls here in just a minute, but for
just second here, I just want to talk a little
bit about learning about gardening in a way that just
gets you to be a better and better gardener as
you go along. Gardening is a lifetime learning process. You

(02:08:55):
don't learn it all and then just sit there and
now you know everything. I every day learn something when
I'm out in the garden, or when I'm talking to gardeners,
or when i'm reading a good gardening book. And there's
some excellent gardening books out there, but you always want
to be learning. It's called sharpening the saw. Okay, if

(02:09:16):
all you do is cut wood all day, you're going
to end up with a dull saw and you're not
going to get much wood cut. And what I mean
by that, well, there's always new plans, there's always things
that change. Research shows us something new. And so what
I knew, I've been doing this forty years. What I knew,
let's say fifteen years ago, I don't agree with everything.

(02:09:39):
Now maybe we've learned better, Maybe new things are now
around that's a better option. And so it's a constant
learning process. But that's the thing that keeps us young
as gardeners. One of the things, the hope and the
beauty and everything else is a part of it too.
You got to be an optimist to be a gardener,
because if you ever looked at a sea packet, if
you ever looked at it a seed, some seed just

(02:10:02):
look like debris. Like whether they say detritus, I mean,
it's just like, what is this a little piece of
wood that broke off something and it and you put
that in the ground, knowing what it's going to be
and believing that it's going to come up, that it's
a miracle. That any seed comes up, but they do.
And so someone once said that any person can count

(02:10:26):
the number of seeds in an apple, but only God
can count the number of apples in a seed. I
like that when you plan a tomato seed in the ground,
you're not picturing a tomato plant. You're picturing lush, wine
ripe tomatoes that you're going to get to eat or
make sauce out of or dry. If you're not drying

(02:10:48):
some of your paste tomatoes and things, you're missing out.
That's a great thing to do, but it it's a
it's a look to the future. And the more we learn,
the more we try, and the more we fail, the
better we do. I've quoted J. C. Ralston before here
on Guardline, but he's a great horticulturist form passed away

(02:11:08):
now from North Carolina, and jac says, if you want to,
if you're going to be a great gardener, you've got
to kill a lot of plants. And I like that.
And I'm giving you permission right now to kill plants.
Not that you want to, not that you're going out
there you know, just doesn't matter. Just kill it. You
can buy a new one. Although that's true, but don't

(02:11:28):
be afraid to learn, even the hard way. A lot
of things I've learned, I've learned the hard way. And
so anytime that you try things, you get out there
and you do it and you learn. It's just fun
and you get better and you get better, and you
get better and you get better. And what you're doing

(02:11:49):
slowly over time is learning to see things from a
plant's point of view, learning to see things from plants
for you, like, just such and such plant. How much
sun can it take? Well, I mean, you can read
about it, but if it's an article written somewhere else,
it may take a lot of sun. And you bring
it down here to Texas where the sun is like
God has a giant magnifying glass that is focusing the

(02:12:12):
sun down to a tiny point where it sets the
landscape on fire. That's a different sun. I've had seed
companies before. Tell me, oh, this is a great you know,
heat tolerant petunia that we got and released it. All right, Well,
here's the deal I need you. Just send me some
of those. I'm gonna try them out. And here's how
I'm gonna try them out. I'm gonna next time I'm

(02:12:35):
barbecuing burgers. I'm gonna throw the plant on the pit
with the burgers. When the burgers are ready, I'll take
the plant off too, drop it in the ground, and
if it grows, I'm interested. That's pretty much. Welcome to
Texas summer. Right, All right, Well, we learn and we
have fun in the process and gardening you meet a
lot of great people. I just think gardeners in general

(02:12:58):
some of the best people I've ever met. I mean,
there's just they're just enthusiastic and kind and just interested
in all kinds of things. Let's take a little break.
We got one small segment left, so I can probably
take a couple of calls if someone would like to
get a question answered. I'm gonna be gone next weekend
and be back the weekend after that. But don't forget
next weekend show. It's gonna be one you don't want

(02:13:20):
to miss. We'll be right back having fun on a
Sunday morning. Welcome back to Guardenline. Good have you with us? Hey,
you got a question? I got time for two? What
do we say a last call and we say speak
now or forever, hold your peace or things like that.
If you got a question now would be a good

(02:13:41):
time to come in and we'll be happy to answer
it for you. Otherwise, I got plenty of things on
talk about, and we're just gonna continue along along those lines. Remember,
when you're watering things out in the landscape, I'm going
to assume that it's going to start to get a
little dryer, because it usually does. I hope nature proves
me wrong. But anyway, when you're watering, it is better

(02:14:01):
to water deeply and infrequently than to water frequently. Every
time you wet foliage, you increase disease problems because spores
are sitting there like little dry seeds, sitting up on
the surface of the leaf. And when they get wet,
and they stay wet for a period of time and
the temperature's right, they sprout. They put a root down
the equivalent of a root down in your leaf, and

(02:14:24):
they create a leaf spot, or bacteria get into the
leaf and they proliferate and create a brown spot. And
so we want to water as least often as possible.
It already rains so much around here that's wet all
the time anyway, not like El Paso, for example, But
we do have to do with diseases. Why make it
worse water as infrequently as you can now as far

(02:14:46):
as the root system. Plants do best when you get
a good soaking rain that wets to soil deeply, a
nice slow rain, and then it doesn't rain for a while,
and as the the soil begins to dry out from
water moving down in the soil, from water evaporating off
the surface of the soil, and from water going out

(02:15:07):
through the leaves of the plant, the water level goes
down and down and down, and oxygen comes into the soil,
and roots need oxygen. They do, they have to breathe.
And as that happens, then the you know, it gets
dry enough at a point where okay, let's water again,
and you give it a good soaking again, deep and infrequent,

(02:15:28):
deep and infrequent. A squirt on top does very little
other than increased disease problems and promote shallow rooting. Deep
and infrequent. That's the way to water, whether it's your
lawn or whatever. You're going to give it a good
soaking and that saves well. You know, you have to
pay for drinking water to put it on your landscape,
so it saves a little bit of money, but it

(02:15:50):
also saves a lot of headaches that come from improper watering.
So there you go another tip coming into summertime. Our lawns.
Lawn sprinkler systems are notoriously inefficient. Now a very well
designed system where one sprinkler head squirts water all the

(02:16:11):
way to where another sprinkler head comes out of the ground,
that's how they're supposed to be. That gives a more
even overall placement of water, so that when you put
an inch on, there's an inch or an inch and
a quarter or three quarters of an inch, a little variation,
but not one area gets an inch and a half
in one area gets a third of an inch, because

(02:16:33):
what happens when you have dry spots, you're going to
water enough to keep the grass growing there, and so
you're wasting water in all the other spots. So a
good efficient system is important. You can have someone come
in and do an audit on your system and evaluate it,
or you can do some of that yourself. The parts
you can do yourself is put straight sided containers all over.

(02:16:54):
I mean, just get a bunch of empty cans, you know,
food cans that are straight sided, because that way it's
an accurate measurement or rain gauges or whatever and put
them on, turn on the sprinkler, and then look at
the uniformity of what it's putting out. That is an
important thing to know. And that's something if it's bad enough,
you can go you go ahead and fix it. Another

(02:17:16):
thing about that is when you turn on the sprinkler,
you can find out how much water your irrigation puts out.
I get this. I get asked this all the time.
How long do I run my system when I water
my yard? And I cannot answer that because there's too
many variables. And here's what I mean. The pop up,
solid set sprink sprayers that you see them in garden

(02:17:40):
shrub beds and stuff all the time. You know, they
just they just come on and they just spray in
all directions. Usually it's a I said, pop up. Usually
it's a stick that's just you know, sitting there already
up above the ground. Well, those kind of sprinklers put
out a lot of water fast, and they put it
too fast. And you know, isn't it weird. I just

(02:18:01):
had Siri talk to me. That is the weirdest thing. Anyway,
somebody's listening at all times. I know, those kinds of
sprinklers put it out too fast to soak in, and
so they run a while and then they start to
run off, and so you have to run them for
a while, turn them off, wait about forty five minutes,
let that ground soak it in really good, and then

(02:18:22):
come on for a little while and then go off.
That's called cycle and soak, cycle and soak, cycle and soak.
So if you want to put an inch of water on,
which is our goal when we water the lawn, and
the absence of rainfall one inch a week that is
what we're aiming for, and the absence of rainfall in
full sun run inch a week. You have to do
the cycle and soak routine to get that inch on.

(02:18:45):
But when you do that, you're not going to water
again for at least a week. If you properly water
a good deep inch soaking, you're not gonna have to
water right away. So the other kinds of sprinklers are rotors.
One type of rotor sends a squirt of water in
a stream across the lawn and it gradually drifts across

(02:19:06):
to the one side, and then it stops and it
starts drifting back across to the other side. That's it's
like a movement of water from a pop up sprinkler head.
Those put out water at a lower rate, which is
better because you can more gradually give a deep, deep
soaking to those compared to pop the standard solid set.
Third type is a multi stream rotor. And I've explained

(02:19:28):
this before, but for those of you miss that, you
take your your forefingers and just stick them out and
drift the fingers from left to right. And as they
kind of come up and they disappear down and as
those those drifting little fingers of water squirting out there
disappear from one side to the other, new ones are

(02:19:50):
popping up and going drifting across as well, And so
it's a very low rate of application. That's the best
type of sprinkler in terms of uniformity and a slow,
good soaking that you can get. You can change out heads,
but you got to have somebody knows what they're doing.
You call pierscapes. They know how to do this kind
of thing, for example, And just make sure and get

(02:20:13):
your system as uniform as it can, give it as
good as soaking as you can, and leave it off
as much as you can for the best lawn and
I say much as you can. I don't mean you
know the grass is turning brown and drying, and you
barely say it. I'm talking about just let it dry out.
That is an important part of root health and an

(02:20:36):
important part of avoiding disease problems, and an important part
of saving money, because you know, you paid for that
drinking water and it goes on your lawn. And oh,
by the way, if this isn't adding insult to injury,
in most areas, when you use water on your lawn,
it is part of increasing your sewer belt too. The

(02:20:59):
sewer bill is often tied to the water bill. So
even though that didn't go down the sewer used it
on your lawn, You're not only does your water bill
goes up, your show bill goes up. What a rup off? Anyway,
can't do anything anyway. That's the way I did it. Hey,
it's been a good day here on garden Line. Thanks
so much for being a listener. Remember the website gardening

(02:21:19):
with skip dot com. I got some more stuff going
up there, very helpful for you. Got questions, you got
things you'd like to see up there. Let me know