The Blue Bonnet Epiphany

Skip Richter answers your questions all morning long!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skimp Richter's.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Shoes, the crazy ring in the bassis and gas.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Baby can use water shrimp. You just watching as the
world good the grasses and gas can you dare so many.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Go things to sup box us in the ways the
brassies like gas.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
And again you Dad Samos becomes back again. I'm not
a sound in the bassis and gas and the son
themon of psing the glasses like gas. Maybe can't use
body starting in the basses like gas became you did.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Everything is so clean.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
You can see and everything is Sundays.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
Mr Well, good morning, Good morning, gardeners. Welcome to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richtor. We're here to help you
have success in your garden. The way I like to
put it is, we want you to have a bountiful,

(01:19):
beautiful garden and landscape and more fun in the process.
That is what our goal is. At least that's my
goal here. I want it to be something that you're
proud of. You know, when we had the opportunity to
go out and grow things for a lot of people,
and I didn't understand this at first, but I kind
of get it now. It's kind of dawned on me

(01:40):
what kind of what folks are feeling. It's almost like
there's a pressure, you know. I don't like, you're going
to plan a flower bed with flowers, so I don't
know what to do. I feel pressure. I don't know
which ones to put in. I had someone one time
asked me it was Salvia GREGYI one of our Salvia's
mini salvias that we can put in the landscape, and
they go, I don't know how to take care of it.

(02:00):
And I was just thinking, what do you mean you
don't have to take care of it. It's just like
not much to taken care of it. And then as
I got to thinking about it's the unknown that is
one of the problems. It's like, you don't know what
you don't know, right, and so I give you this plant,
it's like, well, I don't know what to do with it. Well, okay,
I get that now. It finally kind of clicked with
me what people were feeling and thinking on it, And

(02:23):
it's not that difficult. It's not that difficult. Success with
gardening is learning to see things from a plant's point
of view. That's the bottom line. It's the bottom line.
Does that plant want sun or shade? Does it want
continually moist soil or does it like to dry out
a little bit? What are the temperatures it likes? When
does it want to go in the ground? You know,
if it's a tomato, tomato says, Look, if you move

(02:46):
me further north to the Midwest, I'll produce for you
through the summer pretty much. You take me down here
in Texas and I got two seasons. I got a
spring season before it gets too hot for me to
set fruit, and then I got a fall season, and
it's pretty short, both of them. But understanding things from
a plant's point of view, that's that's kind of the
bottom line. We're going to talk about things like that
today and every day here on Garden Line. If you

(03:07):
would like to give me a call, if you have
a question seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. Well, we're gonna have to talk about the
weather today. That is pretty clear. Just checking out, you know,
some different things about the weather yesterday. And one thing,

(03:28):
I didn't realize how dry some of the areas have gotten.
I know, you know, you head up north and west.
You get up in the the area of Burlson County,
Calwell in that direction, and some other areas too in
our listening area here, and it is a significant drought
going on in those areas. We're not supposed to have
drought this time of the year. That's it's cool. The

(03:49):
demands are low, which is kind of why we're getting
by with it for now. But those are stresses. And
you will almost never hear me say water along in
the winter, but listen if it add and rain forever,
give it a little bit of water. That's okay to do.
It's not something I do. I haven't watered mine this year,
probably won't do it. We've had a little bit of

(04:12):
rain where I live, and so it's not a concern,
but you just kind of be watching that when things
get too dry. Your grass is, especially Saint Augustine, it
does not have the ability to recoup from grout from
drought that other grasses do that have underground rhizomes. Saint
Augustine lives on top of the ground with stolons. That's

(04:34):
what you call those little snake grow viny growth crawling
around the surface of the soil. Stolons underground rhizomesermuagrass has
both of them. Zoza grass has both of them. And
so when you're underground, you got a raiseome. The top
could literally be scraped off the ground or completely dried out.
And as long as there's moisture down in those rhizomes,

(04:55):
it's okay. Anyway, you got to make sure they have
adequate moisture. Never hardly ever ever have to water in
the winter, but you can. So for those of you
listening in areas that don't get enough moisture, a little
bit of water maybe need it, but just go out there.
Take you a screwdriver. I like to use a little
flat hit screwdriver. It doesn't have to be flat, in

(05:17):
a long handled one, not a little short one, and
push it down in the soil and moist soil that
screwdriver will go right through it. It's pretty easy to
push down in the soil. When you push down and
you hit a hard spot, then you've gotten down to
where it's dry. The surface may have a little moisture,
but not down below, and that's kind of a way

(05:37):
to gauge how moisture soil is. Then if you might
need to provide a little extra moisture for it. If
you just planted something, for sure, you need moisture because
it doesn't have a root system to absorb. Excuse me,
it doesn't have moisture. It doesn't have roots where the
moisture is. So here's what I'm talking about. Let's say
you put a pansy in the ground cool season. Pensy

(06:01):
flowers love the cool weather. You put them in the ground,
and that whole root system is in that little cylinder
you pulled out of a container and stuck in the ground. Now,
the slow may be moist around it, but it's like
you just put it in the ground in a container itself,
and the roots can't get out right there in the container. Well,
that's where the roots are when you plant, and it

(06:21):
takes time for the roots to move out in the soil,
so it's very drought sensitive at that stage. I don't
care if it's a flower, a vegetable, of fruit tree,
a shade tree, whatever it is. The roots are where
they are initially, and it takes time to establish and
during that time you need to take care of it
with some moisture. And we've had some pretty warm days

(06:41):
going through here. Now we're cooled off a little bit.
We're going to have loom in the upper fifties and
low sixties, depending on what part of the listening area
you're in for the next few days. But we're dropping
down a little bit tonight, so pardon me. If you
live in an area that is on the wet side,
then you're good. The moisture in the soil helps out

(07:02):
a little bit. If you're an area on the dry side,
you may need to give it a little bit of water.
Just water provides a heat holding ability in the soil.
It water absorbs heat slowly and releases heat slowly compared
to just the soil itself, and so you want to
make sure your soil is adequately mice not sopping, soggy, wet,

(07:25):
but adequately moist. Now, those of you down in the
general Houston area, you're probably looking around thirty eight tonight,
depending on which weather report you listen to and then
where you live. So it's a little warmer in the
city than it just is just outside the city. But
you just need to kind of check on that. I
know they're going to have a freeze up as you
get up toward Conroe College Station area. There's going to

(07:47):
be some freezing, a little bit of freezing, not as
bad as it originally look like up there. So you
got something super sensitive like a tropical hibiscus or one
of the more cold sensitive centrius, you want to be
able to protect those a little bit. Fortunately, not enough
to where we have to re worry about it. That

(08:09):
is the bottom line on those things. So watch the
weather in your area always. I always checked. I have
like four weather apps on my phone, and it's like
sometimes it's frustrating because I'll pull out one weather app
and then I'll pull out another one and the temperature
will be four degrees difference. Well four degrees makes a
lot of difference, Like what the heck is going on

(08:30):
in that, But anyway, you get the idea. Just check
check the weather, make sure everything's okay. We are supposed
to on some of the weather apps. In fact, I said,
in some of the weather apps, you go up north
the Huntsville College Station Conroy area, you're down in the
definitely in the upper twenties, well in the almost to

(08:51):
the mid twenties, and some of that that's significant that
is going to need some protection. So I'm not the
weather man. I do not know any thing about that
other than what they tell me. So you check your
weather and be sure. If you've got pipes you're going
to get on in the mid twenties, I definitely want
to get a little protection on those pipes. Make sure

(09:12):
that they are protected. All you need to do. I
have a lime tree that's in a large container, kind
of like a havel whiskey barrow, but not quite that large,
and I'm going to roll it into the garage tonight.
That'll be enough for it. It'll get it by I
don't have to worry about that, but just make sure
and do what you gotta do to protect those plants.

(09:33):
If you have any questions about that, go to my
website and look at the free publication on protecting Plants
from cold. It is gardening with skip dot com makes
it easy gardening with Skip. That's me gardeningwiskip dot com.
Find the publication. It's called tiss the Season to be Freezing. Yeah,
I know seem plenty at the time when I wrote it,

(09:56):
but the actual publication is called protecting Plants from Frost
and Freezes and check that out. All right, let's take
a little break here. We'll be right back with your
calls perhaps seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. It is time to wake up. In fact,
look at your winda and check out your neighbor's house
with the lights off. They are go bang on the door.

(10:16):
Tell them they're missing garden line. They will so appreciate that. God,
I needs to be listening to the garden line this
time of the hour, this time of the hour of
good morning. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here to
help you have success with the garden. All joking aside.
If you've got a question you'd like to ask, you
can give me a call. Seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one

(10:39):
two fifty eight seventy four. You hear me talk about
Nature's Way resources from time to time. Excellent, excellent producer
of quality soil blends, quality soil, compost blends. Whatever you're
looking for, quality mulches, Uh, they have it all. If
it helps the roots of the plant to thrive, Nature's

(11:00):
Way Resources has got you covered. You know, Mulches to
keep the weeds down. Mulch is to keep the soil moderated.
Mulches to keep the soil from crusting and washing away
quality soil blends to create that forest floor environment that
is so rich with all kinds of things from nutrients
to microbe happiness. You got it in the soil. In

(11:20):
Nature's Way, they have bag products. I don't talk about
their bags a lot, and I should. So for example,
you can go up to Nature's Way which is off
Interstate forty five and Conra and get the bags there.
You can get bulk there. You can call them and
have them deliver it there. But you can also find
bags all around town places like you know, if you're
up north, they've got it plants for all seasons on

(11:40):
Highway two forty nine. They carry Nature's Way at all seasons.
Ace Hardware up there in Willis and Ice Hardware in
the Woodlands as well by the way Ospas Ace up
there in the woodlands northeast, Jnr's Ace and porter A, Tascacida,
Ace and K and m Ace and Kingwood all have
Nature's Way products. You go down, let's say, go off
to the west side. We got Ace Hardware City on

(12:02):
Memorial Drive. I was there a good while back for
an appearance. Ace Hardborer City a Memorial Drive. Nelson Water
Gardens out there in Katie carries Nature's Way soil products
as well as does Southwest Fertilizer in Channey gardens and
enchanted forests both. Then in the Richmond area you're going
to find it. If you go to Nature's Way Resources
dot Com you can find the full list of places

(12:24):
that carry Nature's Way products right up there. Just know this,
when you get a Nature's Way product, you're getting something
that's been done taking time to do it in the
right way. Whether it's a rose soil, whether it's a
fungo based compost, whether it's leaf mole compost, whether it's
a vegetable and herb mix or a soil for fruit growing.
Nature's Way Resources has got you covered. You know, plants

(12:47):
live in their soil by the way, right, That is
the way I like to put it, because that is
the way. If you think about it that way, you
will have success growing plants because you will take care
of that. Plant sneed sunlight on top of the ground,
of course they do absolutely. That drives the whole thing.
But the soil that's where it makes or breaks you.

(13:09):
If the soil is not great, you're not going to
have a good root system. The plant is going to
struggle and you're not going to get the blooms or
the bounty or whatever it is that you want to
get out of that plant. So take care of the soil.
Brown stuff before green stuff. I'll talk about that all
the time. If you're going to make a resolution for
gardening this year, I cannot think of a better one

(13:30):
that I am going to make the soil all over
my property better. Step by step, you have to do
it all at once. You're going to replant a flower
bed pretty soon here for spring, because the cool season
flowers are going to go out and the warm season
flowers are going to go in. When you do that,
there's your shot. Make the soil better. Spend a dollar

(13:51):
on your soil before you spend a dollar on your plant,
and you will have success in the long run. That
is very important, and it is something that people don't
naturally do because you know, you go to the garden
center and there are these flowers, or maybe it's a vegetable,
maybe tomatoes is going to be going in for too long. Here.
You see those plants and you bring them home and

(14:12):
you're just imagining the beautiful flower bed or the beautiful,
luscious garden, tasty garden and you want to get those plants,
you want to get them in. It's not so exciting
to see that bag of soil or order bulk of
soil and you know, play in the dirt, so to speak.
But that is the key to success. That's so important

(14:33):
to get that right. You get that right and a
lot of things fix themselves. You can, you can, you
can break a lot of rules when you get the
soil right. For example, you may live somewhere where the
pH is very high and azaleas and blueberries don't grow
like that. But if you create a raised mound with

(14:53):
azalia soil or blueberry soil and you plant them in, it,
pretty good chance you can get by with them and
you can grow that. You may live in an area
where the soil is very soggy. I've got a spot
on the side of my house where it is just wet.
It's wet. The two house yards drained at that same spot.
It stays moist there all the time. One of these

(15:14):
days and we'll get into putting an underground drain in
to help it out a little bit. But anyway, it
just stays moist there and stuff doesn't want to grow.
I haven't orchard there. And it's because it's in raised boxes,
very large, wide, raised boxes of quality soil mix. The
soil is up, the water drains down, and the roots
do just fine. Even though the location is a good

(15:36):
see what I mean. Getting the soil right allows you
to do a lot of things that you might not
be able to do otherwise. All right, there you go.
But they say beating that horse to death. But it's important.
Let's do this. Let's go out to the phones. We're
going to head out to Hockley this morning and visit
with Steve. Hey, Steve, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (15:56):
Hey, how you do it there?

Speaker 4 (15:59):
Good? Thank you? How can we help?

Speaker 5 (16:04):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (16:04):
Well, I had a pool put in about two he's
a little less than two years ago, and one day
put the newt dirt on the side of the house
for the drink for over all the new plumbing.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
They resided.

Speaker 6 (16:18):
It looked beautiful for a whole year, and then all
of a sudden it started to sink where the uh,
the pipes were and the grass, which is normal to
be expected, but the grass kind of started to die
right in the middle and then all the way down
and then basically it died it looks like webb almost

(16:39):
and then the dirt started cracking. I can water it
and s fine for a couple of days, but we
don't get a lot of rain in Texas. So that's
my issue, and I'm trying to figure I should I
just resided or build the soil up and then resided,
or I don't know what to do. It looks really
good on the other side of the grass.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, well, you know, I don't have a crystal ball
to know exactly what's going on there, but what you're
describing sounds like soil is part of the issue. Sometimes
when things like that get done, the soil sort of
gets inverted, you know, soil from down low ends up
on top or vice versa.

Speaker 7 (17:18):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
And it could be that the soil itself is a
little bit heavier in the clay content. I don't know that,
but I would I would get that soil right, I
would get you a good quality blend.

Speaker 5 (17:33):
You know.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
Being being at this stage of the game, you really
can go out there and you can kind of do
what you want to it before you put that new
sod back down or you know, reset sod. And that's
important because you got to get that you got to
get that soil right where it's going to be level.
Anytime you dig a hole and then you fill the

(17:53):
whole back up. Have you ever noticed how that always happens,
that it sinks down like you're describing. Yeah, and that's
just the way it is. And so making sure you
got you got plenty of that in there out in
the direction you're in. You said you said hockey right,
Am I correct? Hopy text?

Speaker 8 (18:15):
Yes, sir, right right a cybertext.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
Yeah, you can get you you can get you a
nice blend.

Speaker 9 (18:22):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
You know, I know nature's way resources is up toward
conrad direction from you. But have them, you know, have
a bulk delivery come down from there for example, and
and get you a good mix for the lawn that's
not just a bunch of organic matter. Organic matter decomposes away,
So you need something that's actually soil itself with organic
matter in it, but actually soil.

Speaker 5 (18:44):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
And just tell them what you're doing. You're trying to
level lot an area and uh and get a grass
reset in it. It's not going to take a lot
just a few inches over that area. Kind of mix
it in a little bit if you can, uh, and
then relay your sod on it, making sure to fill
those ditches at least level, if not a little higher,
because as you know, they will sink.

Speaker 10 (19:04):
A little more.

Speaker 6 (19:06):
Right, So that's what I figure I figured out, I'd
arch it a little bit and make it higher and
then it'll sink and kind of even out with these
saw its perfect.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, that's AIA all right man, Good luck you as well.
Take care our phone number. Hey, folks, you want to
give me a call seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four, give us a call. Let's talk

(19:34):
about the things that are of interest to you. I'm
more than happy to do that. Have you been out
to Ingended Forest in a while? That one of my
favorite garden centers to go to. I really, I really
like it. They always have a good supply of all
kinds of things that it doesn't matter what it is.

(19:55):
There right now is a great time to get out
and start planning herbs and our vegetable go gardens. Always
a good time to be planting something out there in
the vegetable garden. In Chended Forest. They've got you covered,
they do. They've got one of the best selection of
herbs i've seen anywhere. Awesome, awesome website, an awesome selection.

(20:16):
If you're looking for vegetables, you know we're going to
be We're gonna be doing a number of different kinds
of vegetables here coming up as we get ready for
the warm season. So you know, don't hesitate on getting
your soil ready, get it ready to go. Swing by there,
see what they got. It is a great time to
plant all kinds of shrubs and trees and woody vines
and whatnot. If you're going to be putting roses in, boy,

(20:41):
don't you have to wait till Valentine's data plant roses.
You can plant them right now. Go buy there, pick
up whatever you are looking for at Enchanted Forest. If
you're wanting to do a pollinator garden, talk to them.
They'll take time with you, they'll walk you around, they'll
show you the plants. They have excellent plants, from native
milk weed's to things that attract the adults like achineesha

(21:03):
or coneflower and lantana and other things. They can get
you set up. And if you're going to be putting
a tree or shrub in the sooner you get it
in the better, So today would be better, Tomorrow right
behind it, the next day right behind that, sooner the better.
And they have an excellent selection at Enchanted Forest, and
it's fun to go there too. They're on FM twenty
seven fifty nine, or just go to this website Enchented Forest,

(21:25):
Richmond TX dot com Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com.
I promise you you'll love it when you go out there.
We're going to take a little break here for the
bottom of the hour news and we'll be right back
with your calls at seven one three, two, one two, five,
eight seven four. Well, welcome back, Welcome back to the

(21:49):
guard Line, folks. Good to have you kinds of gardening
questions you got today. Hey, it's listen spring us here.
We are on the or staff of spring. So they
talk me the other day. They're fruit trees full of blooms.
That's a little early, by the way, but it's what's happening.
It is now. I know there's a lot more spring

(22:11):
to sprung, but we're getting there. It is time to
be ready to go, and it all starts in the soil.
You need to have your soil ready to go because
it's time to get out and enjoy getting these things
planted in the garden. If you could see my vegetable
garden right now, you would turn off the radio and
walk off and find something else to do, telling you

(22:33):
it is a mess. It is a mess. I just
haven't I've been traveling and have been time to take
care of it and things. But that's okay. I'm getting
back out there. I just got all my seeds out
for spring planting ready to go on that. We're starting
some transplants too, by the way, and that is not
hard to do. You should try growing a few things

(22:53):
as transplants by yourself. You can do it. It's not
that difficult to do. You can go to a number
of places and find out exactly you know, how you
go about it. If you are sitting there and you
kind of like, I don't I don't know how to
how to grow these things, well, the information is out there,
a lot of good information out there. I put a

(23:14):
publication on the web on my website gardening with skip
dot com, and the publication is quality Lighting for Growing Transplants,
and I, if I do say so myself, I think
it is a very informative and helpful publication. I talk
about the spectrums of light, the difference in how plants

(23:35):
see light from how we see light. You know, the
amount of light, the duration of light, how long do
you run your lights, the types of lighting that we
can put out there, concepts about how far away from
the light do you put the plant. That will be
a surprise for you, I promise you it is. The
closer you get a light to the plant, the more
light you get. And you go, well, I know that, no,

(23:56):
but I bet you don't. Did you know that if
a light is let's say a light is six inches
away from a plant, and you double that to twelve inches,
you would think, well that essentially there's not much difference there. Right,
There is a huge difference there. The closer you get
to the light, the more light you have. Now, we
got some lights that are powerful and you can't get

(24:18):
them that close to plants. It's too much light, that's
for sure. But then we have other lights that are
kind of marginal. And most people's lighting is not great.
It's marginal at best. That's just the cheap stuff that's
out there in the market, or I'll say the affordable
stuff that's out there in the market. You're gonna see that.
But when you use those, you can get by often

(24:43):
by doing two things. Number one, putting the light closer
to your plants, significantly closer, and number two running them longer.
I run mine fourteen to sixteen hours a day. That's
if it's at all questionable, you can run them for
a little bit longer fourteen six sixteen hours a day
and get by because it's kind of like, here's a

(25:03):
good analogy, like a rainstorm. If it rains at a
rate of one inch an hour for an hour, how
much rain did you get an inch? Right? Okay, if
it rains a tenth of an inch an hour for
ten hours, how much rain did you get an inch?
So lighting, you can't take this too far, you know.

(25:25):
You can't like just blast them like the sun two
inches from the sun for five minutes and you got
enough light for the day. But there is a range
there where you can do You can just let it
go for a little bit longer, and the quantity of
light that they get ends up being adequate by just
going a little bit longer. So something to think about.
Talk about A good book. A lady named Leslie Halleck.

(25:46):
She's up in the Dallas Fort Worth area. She's an
excellent horticulturist, and she wrote a book called Gardening under Lights,
The Complete Guide for Indoor Growers. It's a really good book,
y'all to check it out. It's good. But first just
read this article. You can download it as a PDF.
But look at the one on the web verse because
I got a little graphic there that explains why getting
closer to the light is significantly important. It's a little

(26:10):
graphics like it. By the way, is gif? I have
my producer this is gif? Gif? Or Jeff, how do
you say that? Is it giff? I think it's giff. Anyway,
there's a little GIF there. It's like an animation.

Speaker 11 (26:24):
What is it?

Speaker 4 (26:28):
Jeff? Okay, I don't either. Somebody correct find and correct
me on that. I need to know. Anyway, there's one
of those GIFs and it plays and it shows photons
falling out of a light onto a plant. And when
you see it, suddenly it makes sense. Why I say,
when you double the distance, you more than double the

(26:49):
well as you get closer, well whatever, you know what
I'm saying. It's not a one to one relationship. It's
significantly different than that. Anyway, that's physics. Who care? All
you care about is having good plants. So go look
at that article quality lighting for greenhouse plants on my website,
guarding with Skip dot com and get out there and
do it. It is so fun to get out of there,

(27:10):
do it. I just bought another light bulb the other day.
Something I'm going to be adding to the website is
an Amazon store listing where if you are going, yeah,
Skip talked about that light bulb, where do I get it? Well,
I can't sit here and describe that on the air,
So I'm just putting that stuff on the website. Here's
one I would recommend, go there and get It's not

(27:32):
there yet, hang on, not quite there yet. We're trying
to get that done, and that will help me point
you to some significant help, I think in finding the
right one when it comes to lighting plants. It is
the wild West out there. And you see I'll use that.
I'll pick on Amazon. You see a lot of stuff
for sale, and I look at the descriptions and the

(27:56):
write up and what they say about wavelength and stuff,
and I'm just telling you not quality can you get by?
Maybe I don't know, depends on what you can try
to grow, but not quality get you got to get
one that is better than that. So anyway, help you
do that? All right, Well, enough of that I mentioned

(28:17):
earlier about our clay soils here. We were talking with
Steve this morning about redoing some area of the lawn
where the soil is sunken down and you dug it
and the grass is just not doing well. And clay
soils are a problem and their problem for a number
of things. Someone the other day asked me they had
a sidewalk out in front of their yard and it
was like heaving due to plant roots and stuff. And

(28:38):
they asked me what to do, and I said, well,
I don't know. I'm not an expert in that, but
I would call fix my slab, which is ty Strickland.
He's the guy you hear me talk about all the time.
Asked what they can do. I know they float driveways.
And what I mean by that way, you ever seen
a driveway where like it cracks and they're like suddenly
instead of being flat, it's kind of like the roof

(28:58):
of your house. You know, it's pitched and there's this
like a big crack in the middle. It's raised up.
They can go in there and they can drill some
holes in it and literally floated up to level by
pumping stuff underneath it. It's the coolest process in the world.
They can do that. They can did that be sidewalks
and driveways and things. It just depends on the situation
as to whether it's fixable or not. So you got

(29:19):
a call to tie and find out. By the way,
his number is two eight one, two five five, forty nine,
forty nine. But they also work with foundations. That's their
primary job. It's called fix my slab, foundation repair. And
if your doors are sticking, if you have cracks in
the sheet rock inside, if you have cracks in the
brick on the outside, you need to have him come
out and take a look at it and make you

(29:40):
just do an assessment, find out what's needed. For minor things.
He may say, well, let's just wait and see. If
it gets to a different point, it's going to be like, no,
you before you get more damage done, Now be the
time to step in and get that fixed. He understands
the difference. Been doing this for over twenty three years
now here in the area. Tell him your guard line. Listen.
There's no charge for an estimate. Fix myslab dot com

(30:05):
is the website. One more time, I'm gonna give you
the number two eight one two FI five forty nine
forty nine. Ty Strickland shoots straight, he's honest, he's direct,
he shows up on time, he charges a fair price.
Everything you would want from anybody coming out to do
service at your house. Fix my slab foundation repair. Let
me take a little break here and we'll be back

(30:26):
with the last segment of this hour. Hey, welcome back
to the guard Line.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Boatline, it's good to be back.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
How can we help you up there? Son? What can
we do to help you have success? That's what we
want to happen here. You know, gardening is such a
good hobby, such a fun hobby, to be able to
get out there and just enjoy nature, get some fresh air,
and have beauty and bounty at your place. I'm gonna
try to tuck you into having an herb garden here

(30:57):
in just a little bit when we come back after
after the top of our news in a while here
and I have got some really good resources, so hang around.
I want you to hear about that. But that's a
teaser for it, I guess as they say, Uh, listen,
if you have not checked out RCW lately, you need
to get over there now. And here's why. They've got

(31:17):
a sale on a sale, on a sale. What do
I mean by that, Well, ten percent off all trees.
Ten percent off all trees. And the sooner you plant
a tree, the better it's gonna get hot. You can
plant something twelve months out of the year here in
our area. When you get into the heat of summer,
it is a challenge. You got to kind of, you know,
get them a little drink of water ever a little
bit here, trying to keep them going as they try

(31:39):
to get established because the demands are so high. The
demands are not high right now, now is the time
to plant. Rcw's got ten percent off all trees. Azaleas
and camellias. You want blooms in the spring, you want
blooms in the winter. There you go, azaleas and camellias
fifteen percent off. And then they're citrus trees forty percent off.
Forty percent off citrus trees. Here's your chance. They've got

(32:01):
a nice selection of citrus too. By the way, at RCW.
Rcw's the Garden center right there where Tomball Parkway, which
is Highway two forty nine FM two forty nine where
it comes into belt Way eight. They're open Monday through
Saturday eight to five, Sunday ten to five. Just get
over there and check them out. You know, the place
to get roses, and they're getting starting to get their

(32:22):
roses in. I'll be telling you more about that later.
But last year I said, hey, would you send me
a list of your roses? I think it was six
pages long, single space, like every rose under the Sun
RCW Nurseries. That is the place you need to go.
Let's run out to pair Land this morning. We're going
to talk to Archie. Hey, Archie, welcome to garden Line morning. Skip.

Speaker 10 (32:46):
Hey, it's kind of a weird question, but we are
having a rose meet the other night and we're all
kind of talking about this with cat litter. Is there
anything you can do to kind of recycle cat litter?
And then this is the cheap you know, play tie
and not the expensive love.

Speaker 4 (33:03):
Yeah, yeah, you can. You can just mix it into
the soil. There's not a problem with that. Uh, you
know it. It is a clay, I'll say it's a
soft clay. It is hard and dried, but it's not
like expanded shale which has been super fired. So it's
like a little rock. But I wouldn't put too much
of it in one spot. I would mix it in

(33:23):
the cat manure if you, I guess, do you call
it catmanuir? I don't know. On the air, we're gonna
call it catman You can mix it into the yeah,
cat you're you just don't want to do too much
right in one spot, but you can mix in the salt.
The only thing is there's this disease I think it's
called taxico plasmosis that like if if a pregnant woman

(33:45):
is handling it, there's the potential for a microbe to
be around that would be very not good. And so
just there that's a drawback. If you're going to put
it around stuff you were going to eat, I would
not use pet manure and a vegetable gardener or garden
for example. But yeah, I think you were mentioning roses.
But yeah, for other things you can't. I mean, just

(34:07):
what happens in nature cats from lions and tigers and
bears to our house cats.

Speaker 10 (34:13):
Yeah, you just don't put it in the garden, right, Yeah,
don't don't don't.

Speaker 4 (34:17):
Use don't use any kind of freshman r you know,
organic gardening certification, you cannot use freshman even calminary. You
can't use the fresh uncomposted significantly compassed to calmaners and stuff,
and even in an organic system because of the dangers
of human health things. But once it's decomposed, it's not
a problem.

Speaker 10 (34:38):
Yeah, far mirror. When the circus came into town, some
of the best stuff to get for your roses was
out there. If you could, you know, you could get
out there and get some of that from them where
they elephants and stuff were.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
It is it is, but you gotta you gotta check
and see which animal you're getting the manure front with.
With elephants, if you put around tomatoes, you have the
largest tomatoes you've ever seen. Now, if you don't want
to in the summer, you need to get camel manure
and put it around and you you can go all
summer without having to water. I'm kidding you.

Speaker 10 (35:10):
Should we be putting out barricade now, let's see it
too late.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
Yeah, you're in Paarland. No, it's not too late at all.
You can it's a tad bit on the early side.
But in Pairland you know you're on the south side,
so you could. Yeah, if you look at my schedule,
I start barricade in mid January. So here we are.

(35:38):
If someone for those of you listening to Archie and
I have this conversation, you know you're up in Huntsville
or something. It's a little bit later for you guys,
but you can start it now. Just remember it's going
to last them about sixty days or so, so you're
going to want to do a second application if you
do the first one so early.

Speaker 10 (35:57):
What about that Agency Minerals too, You can put that
out too.

Speaker 4 (36:01):
Yes, yes, anytime, anytime on MIC.

Speaker 10 (36:06):
This part of Parentland, Man, we have had no rain.
It is a dry, dry, dry so wow. Okay, so
I think I'm about to get out there and ploo
grass like you said this morning.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that sneaks up on you. Yeah
it does. I I just don't pay attention to that
in the cool season like I should. But glad to
hear that. We're glad to have that report at least
about Parentland. Yeah all right, thanks, well, thank you, take care,
all right, bye bye, uh let's see here. I'm gonna

(36:39):
go now to Jersey and talk to George. Hey, George,
we got just a little time. We may have to
carry over after break. Let's see if we can help here.
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (36:46):
That's okay, No, yeah, good morning, Skipping, Happy New Year
to you. So was that baloney about the elephant? And
Cammellman knew that was then something.

Speaker 4 (36:55):
That was absolutely that was assed part of one of
my stand up routines. I also usually say that if
you if you put snake manure on your green beans,
they'll be yard long beans. And so you just need
to be aware of those kinds of distinctions.

Speaker 12 (37:15):
Yeah, there you go, I got so I wait, I
heard their.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Yeah, that's okay. Well, well yeah, let's hang let's hang on.
I want to be able to give give service to
your your question here, give adequate time, so they just
hang on. Well, I'm gonna put you on hold. We'll
be right back with you. All right, thank you. Yeah,
So you guys have to be aware of the fact
that I do joke around some I try to tell

(37:43):
you when I am. But anyway, that's true. I wonder
what other kinds of manure qualifications we should talk about
out there. Oh boy, all right, well, welcome to garden line.
We're gonna take a little break the top of our
news and we'll be back with your question. Seven month
three two one two five eight seven.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Ricordes Crazy.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Grip. You can just watch him as well.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
That was so many birds to superpasics.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
You mus not a sound gas gas the sun Beamon.

Speaker 4 (38:50):
Hey, welcome back, guys. Good to have you with us
here on guard Line today. We're here to help you
have success in your garden. So if you've got a
quest question, well give me a call seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two fifty eight seventy four. Be happy to visit with
you about the things that you want to know to

(39:11):
have better success with what you're doing. We're going to
start off by going back out to Jersey Village where
we were visiting before break with George. Hey, George, welcome
back and how can we help today.

Speaker 12 (39:23):
Yeah, a couple of questions. Gift, uh, I saw an
advertisement for a seed form of a melon as a
miniature melon, say yellow or yellow on the inside, that
grew up the vine by the side of the house.
Of that kind of thing you said on the ground,
So how much was that reasonable to try those in
here in Houston? And then the next question was when

(39:44):
I had my live oat ticking out because I was
pushing up the driveway and the ground. The shop quite good.
They spread the sawdusts from that around the flower beds
as malts, and then the neck that came along and says,
don't do that because it attracts termites. Do I have
to worry about termites? Okay, that's it?

Speaker 4 (40:02):
Okay, Now the melon? Was this like a watermelon or what?

Speaker 12 (40:06):
Yes, it's a watermelon, Yes, a miniature watermelon.

Speaker 4 (40:09):
Okay, yeah, So you can grow watermelons vertically. Because of
the size of the fruit, even small watermelons, that's a
pretty heavy fruit. You'll want to support the fruit with
some sort of a sling, like a hammock kind of thing.
I've used a lot of different things for that. You
can take an old T shirt and tie it on

(40:30):
both sides and kind of create a sling for it.
Back when everybody wore pantyhose, which is not as common
of a thing now, we would use old penny hoose.
When they get a run in them, they gotta throw
them away, just save them. Because you could tie a
knot in them and slide them up over a cantelope
or something like that and tie it to the fence
and it would make a perfect sling a lout air

(40:51):
and moisture to move in and out and everything, so
you can't keep it too wet. But whatever. Some people
have used the little onion socks, you know, the sacks
for that. But the only thing is just with the
watermelons because of the weight of them. You know, the
vines aren't just aren't made to hold a heavy watermelon,
so you support them. But yes, you can do that.

(41:13):
And as far as the sawdust, if it's sawdust, if
it's little pieces, I wouldn't worry as much about the termites.
If it's wood chips, you can get some termites in that,
but termites are out and about everywhere. I wouldn't pile
wood chips up against the house. I wouldn't do anything
any kind of mulch that goes up above the little

(41:33):
wheepholes and the brick at the bottom of your brick wall,
because that makes easy access for termites and you don't
even see that they're getting in there, you know. So,
but wood chips are used in mulching all the time,
and so I wouldn't in and of itself, I wouldn't
worry about the woodchips. Just don't poll them deep, don't
pole them up against the side of the house.

Speaker 12 (41:53):
Okay, regarding the watermelon against a particular breed, I know
you spout out these Latin name sometimes and I try
to catch that is there particularly free that recommends No.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
Just watermelons are all pretty much the same genus and species,
and you could use any of them. Just watch the
variety information when you go to pick them. Yellow watermelons
aren't very popular, and it's not because they don't make
a good melon. It's because people don't purchase yellow meaded
watermelons like they'll purchase red meatd watermelons, and so you

(42:32):
don't see them as much. They're kind of a novelty,
but there's nothing wrong with them. They're just fine to grow.
But just get a variety. Look how many days it's
going to take to reach harvest and plant it accordingly
at the right time, and you can do that. You
can grow cantalopes, you can grow musk melons, any kind

(42:52):
of melon like that. You can grow on a vine
or put the vine let it grow on a fence
and it'll be just fine, whether it's a cattle panel
or just something strong enough to hold the vine.

Speaker 12 (43:03):
These are seedless too, so it's any of the implications
for that.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
With seedless watermelons, usually they drop a few seeds in
that are a pollinator. Uh, and so you need a
you need not just the seedless watermelon that you're purchasing,
but you need something to help with pollination. And so
they'll they'll put another variety in there for pollinating usually
unless they've come up with something new I'm not aware of,

(43:32):
but that just make sure you do get a type
that that can pollinate them. That's up to the seed company.
If it's needed, the seed company should put that in there,
and there should be instructions on the packet.

Speaker 12 (43:47):
All right, thanks very much.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
Okay, you bet that I appreciate.

Speaker 12 (43:54):
Pardon I understand that you're going to get some of
my watermelons through.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Oh absolutely, no, that's required. Yeah, just at least send
me a picture. At least send me a picture of
those yellow meaded watermelons. That would be we'll call it
even on that. Thanks a lot, George, appreciate your call.
Let's go now to Bellevilleville, Yeah, Belleville, Texas. We're going
to talk to Kathy this morning. Hey, Kathy, welcome to

(44:21):
garden Line.

Speaker 13 (44:23):
Hi, thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 4 (44:27):
You bet, how can we help?

Speaker 14 (44:29):
I have I have?

Speaker 13 (44:31):
I have a a tree that was cut down and
it was dead and the stump grinded out and I
was and the soil is very sandy. What kind of
grass are covering can I use?

Speaker 4 (44:47):
Is this out in your lawn?

Speaker 15 (44:50):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (44:51):
Uh huh, yeah, well I would use the grass that
you have. The more of the wood chips you can
get out of there the better, especially big chunky ones,
because what's gonna happen is they're going to decompose away
and where they ground out the stump, they really fluffed
up the soil and now filled it with little pieces

(45:13):
of wood too, and so it's gonna be a very
sunken area over time. So you want to make sure
and mound it up, get all the wood chips you
can out press down on it, you know, kind of
stomp it down real good because it is going to
settle no matter what you do, and maybe add a
little more soil over it to create a little bit
of a raised mound. Because it will sink down over time,

(45:35):
and then plant your grass on top of that.

Speaker 13 (45:40):
Okay, is it too late to plant some r it's
a bare spot now there's no grass around that tree.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
I see. Well you can plant rye grass. It's gonna
do okay until it starts to get hot, and then
it's going to die out. So if you want something
longer term, then you would be looking at more of
a turf grass that you would sod over that area.
But if you want just something short term, I would

(46:08):
say there's two options. One is just to mulch the
area in preparation for putting turf in later, or to
just use the rye grass temporarily.

Speaker 13 (46:21):
Okay, well that sounds like a good idea. So rod
grass will grow in sandy soil.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
Yes, it just needs water and nutrients to do its best. Okay, okay, well,
thank you so much, you bet Kathy, You take care all.
Let's see here, bye bye. Let's let's go to a
quick break here, and when we come back, Charlie and
Beaumont and Gordon and Beaumont, we've got to run on

(46:48):
Beaumont today. You'll be our first two up. Oh, welcome
back to the Guardenline. Good to have you with us.
Listen Nelson Nursery and water Guard Gardens. I just want
to let you know those of you live out that way.
They are in Katy, Texas area. You go out to
Katie turned North on Katie Fort Ben Road. It is
the destination West Houston Garden Center that we talk about

(47:12):
here all the time on garden Line. They got a
shipment of strawberries in. Got some nice varieties. I got
some Channelers, which is my favorite of the strawberry varieties, well,
one of my favorites, I shouldn't say the only one.
There are some others that are really really good as well,
but they've got those in. So if you want to
have a little strawberry patch this spring, now's time to
get that. In a last call for strawberries. They also

(47:35):
have a nice selection of roses that they've gotten in.
They've got the Belinda's Dream, which is one of my
favorite roses, and some other ones if you if you want,
for example, if you were looking for the Peggy Martin
that's so popular, the pink spring blooming rose or the
yellow spring broom blooming rose that's essentially thornless that's called

(47:57):
Lady banks, the yellow Lady banks, they've got those in
as well. Out there at Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens.
Of course, they got the water gardens, They've got the
disappearing fountains. They have everything that you would need when
it comes to water gardens, from fish to plants for
the water garden, you name it. And then their nursery
just really really nice, just what you would expect the

(48:18):
nursery to be. Fruit, trees, vegetables, herbs, flowers, all kinds
of things, shrubs. Nelson Nursery and Water Garden out there
in Katie, Texas. Nelson Watergardens dot Com is the website.
Let's head out and ow to Beaumont and this morning
we're going to visit with Charlie. Hey, Charlie, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 9 (48:38):
Hey yep, good morning.

Speaker 16 (48:41):
Hey.

Speaker 17 (48:41):
Yeah, I'm going to plant.

Speaker 18 (48:43):
I'm trying to start tomato plants from seed. And I'm
only I'm planning on using potting soil in those little
plants that little potting plants come in. Is that a
good idea on the potting soil?

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Oh? You can you know, if I were doing it,
I might choose a little seed starting mix it's a
finer textured mix. It's easier to get things planted at
just the right depth. Tomato seeds aren't tiny, though, so
they're pretty forgiving. You can do potting soil or whatever
you want to do with those. For something the real
tiny seeds, I'd probably go with a seed starting mix

(49:25):
for sure.

Speaker 12 (49:26):
Oh okay, there's a seed starting all right. That's interesting,
all right, and just think of that.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
As potting soil. Yeah, just think of the seed starting mix, Charlie,
is potting soil that's been ground up to a finer texture.
That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but that's basically
what you're looking at. Okay, very good, very much, Thank you, sir.
Appreciate appreciate your call. Let's go now to Beaumont again

(49:53):
and we're going to talk to Gordon. Hey, garden, Welcome
to garden line.

Speaker 11 (49:58):
Yes, I have some spurgus, but still about six or
eight feet high. And uh okay, at what point time
it's supposed to die back? And where I can you know,
cut it to the ground and compost it and fertilize
it and all at what point in time in the
season do you just continue literally cut it down if

(50:20):
it doesn't die back, I mean, is a.

Speaker 4 (50:26):
Good point, good question, sir. I would I would do
it now. We we live far enough south to where
you know it just uh, it just doesn't. It just
doesn't freeze back here like it would further north. And
that's also one of the reasons why our asparagus production
isn't as as high as it could be. But yeah,

(50:49):
I would just I would just say the winter, it's
time to cut it back and let it come on
out anytime late winter, Okay.

Speaker 11 (50:56):
Uh, it's hard to go ahead and put your lime
and uh all all your fertilizers on it. Will you
compost it or do you just wait until March or February.

Speaker 4 (51:15):
I would wait just a I would wagh, just a
tiny bit. It's it's as it begins to grow, you
can fertilize it moderately.

Speaker 9 (51:22):
You know.

Speaker 4 (51:22):
Here's the deal. Asparagus uh stores up energy going into winter,
and then in the spring we cut it back, and
so it's sending up all these new shoots and then
we're harvesting those shoots and eating them. So it's using
stored energy to produce shoots. And at some point the
shoots start to get spindley, because you're wearing out that
crown underground, it's using all its energy, and that's when

(51:44):
we stop harvesting. We just let them grow, and that's
when it would be good for them to have fertilizer.
You know, of course the water they need to strengthen
and rebuild a good, strong asparagus plant for repeating the
harvest next winter.

Speaker 11 (52:00):
Okay, So just letting it grow right now is really
making the root system replenished good, right, or.

Speaker 4 (52:08):
Well, letting it grow after harvest, yeah, after harvest.

Speaker 11 (52:13):
After harvest, okay. And on the weed in feed, I'm
still cutting my lawn. And at what point in time
do you put weed and feed out in march or
for your launch?

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Right?

Speaker 4 (52:29):
Well, I don't recommend weed and feed. I recommend fertilizing
and I recommend weed control as two separate applications in
the spring. And so the reason is we need to
be putting a pre emergent to prevent weeds out starting
now and into February, and we're not going to be

(52:50):
really fertilizing until we get further into the season, so
that the timing when you combine the products is not
ideal in the spring, so I would I would put
down like if you were going to prevent weeds, that's
we would do the barricade application in late anywhere from

(53:10):
mid January on into February, depending on whether you live
north or south. And then the fertilizing of your lawn.
We can do an early application of fertilizer in March
or just the main starting of the regular season applications
comes about in April.

Speaker 11 (53:29):
Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate you.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
But yes, sir, it's all on my schedule at my
website gardening with skip dot com site their full color
on the page. Okay, don't well okay, well that no,
that's fine, yeah, SEMEI in. Yeah, well, if you ever

(53:52):
over this way when I'm doing an appearance, I always
carry those to my appearances, so I'd be happy to
provide you a free copy. Okay, thank you very which,
yeah sir, you take care, appreciate that. Bye bye, all right,
phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Talking with the folks at pest Bros. The

(54:15):
other day. We cash they you know, they do if
if it's if it bugs your house they they can
manage it for you. And I say, if it bugs
your house, if it has more than two legs and
bugs your house, they can manage it for you. They Uh,
they've been dealing with all kinds of rodent things.

Speaker 5 (54:35):
You know.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
The rats will get up in the attic. They it's
a nice warm place for them to spend the winter.
And I saw a picture they had posted of a
dryer event that had a little hole around the sides
of it, the vent on the outside, you know where
the hot air, hot moist air blows out of your house. Uh,
And the rats are getting in there, and they they
know how to seal that up. They know how to
find those places and they do a good job of
it when it comes to dealing with termite. So when

(54:58):
it comes to various types too. By the way, when
it comes to any kind of a pest management around
the house, fire ants, that's another good one. Boy, We've
had such a warm winner we still have firing activity
going on out there. They're the folks, they being pest
bros Is the folks that know how knows how to
take care of that. You can give them a call

(55:19):
to eight one two o six forty six seventy two
eight one two o six forty six seventy or you
can just go to their website dpestbros dot com dpestbros
dot com and they listen. If you're hearing my voice,
they probably cover your area. They go from Texas City
all the way up Interstate forty five with the Woodlands

(55:40):
over on the west side, from the Kadi area all
the way across to the east side Baytown area. That
is the area that they service. Professionals that do things
right and they know what they're doing. Dpestbros dot com.
Let's see here, we've got a little bit of time
before we have to go to a break. That's a
good thing. I told you I was gonna give you

(56:03):
some information on vegetables and herb growing. The Aggie Horticulture website,
it's Aggie Dash Horticulture dot TAMU dot edu. Forget writing
all that down, Just you know what, Aggie, You know
what horticulture. Those two words Aggie horticulture. Just do a
search for it. Find it up there. They have a
section when you go to the Aggi Horticulture homepage. You

(56:25):
just look down and says vegetable resources. And when you
click on that you get a lot of things like
the Easy Gardening series, the artichokes and asparagus and beats
and carrots, all the way down to Tomatio's tomatoes and
turnips and mustard and sweet potatoes and onion. There's a

(56:45):
publication on everything and it's free. Just download it or
look at it on your computer. If you don't want
to print it out, you can do that. It's really
easy to do and it's very very helpful resources. I'm
going to talk about a specific one here if we
ever run into any time. Today we're not talking to callers,
so stay tuned. I want to tell you about a
new publication they put up there. Let's head out now

(57:06):
to Full Sure and talk to Ken this morning. Hey Ken,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (57:11):
Good morning, thank you.

Speaker 7 (57:13):
So we're in our third season of Bermuda grass in
our builder home. Last spring we aerated and.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Fact and.

Speaker 10 (57:25):
Top dressed.

Speaker 7 (57:26):
This year we're thinking we want to aerate and.

Speaker 19 (57:29):
Level and if if we do actually level it out,
what material besides compost top dressing would work?

Speaker 10 (57:36):
And should we roll it after we level it?

Speaker 4 (57:43):
So you don't need to roll it, just level it
and water that soil in so it settles down into
the soil that the top dressing that you put over it.
You want to you want something that's not just organic matter.
You know, you don't want just to compost the material
because that will end up decomposing away and so you're

(58:06):
leveling kind of undoes itself, if you will. So you
want something that's more of a mineral, which would be
the soil it in and of itself. I would I
would talk to the folks over at Ciena Malts. They're
not too far from you over there. Uh they do, see,
they do a twenty mile radius delivery. I think I'm
trying to think where you are. Is that is that

(58:29):
gonna be too far away? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, cinamlts probably
delivers to your area. But you just have to give
them a call at cnmls dot com. Okay, all right,
and if you have a trainer, yeah more, just tell

(58:49):
them you want more of a soil base because you
don't want it to to just you know, decompose away
over time. They do carry malts, they carry soil, they
carry the composts, they carry all of those kinds of things.

Speaker 20 (59:01):
Okay, should we defatch again before.

Speaker 21 (59:04):
We do that?

Speaker 5 (59:06):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (59:07):
No, you don't need to. When you put soil over
the top of it, it will cause all that totch
to decompose the way I got about five seconds before.
I have an absolute heartbreak here, ken, but good luck
without Ciena Moltz dot com. I'd give him a call,
all right, yes, sir, thank you? All right? You bet
all right, folks got to run. We'll be right back,
all right, So don't lose the country. There from Chris Stapleton,

(59:32):
who will be performing on day eleven of the Rodeo.
I just heard earlier on the news that they are
selling out of some of these concerts. Do not delay
if you want to go see some of these great
stars that they always have every year at the Houston
Livestock Showing Rodeo. Bet or jump on it. He who
hesitates is lost, isn't that what they say, who hesitates

(59:54):
is lost? Well, there you go. I was talking about vegetables.
By the way. The phone number if you'd like to
give me a call seven one three two one two
five eight seven four. I was talking about vegetables before
we went to break and the Aggie Horticulture website where
there is a free publication on every kind of vegetable
you can imagine, and I really mean every kind you

(01:00:16):
can imagine. For example, you go, well, I bet there's
I bet there's not one on sugar snat peas, Yes
there is. I bet there's not one on cilantro, Yes
there is. See what I mean, there's one on all
kinds of things, even one on growing ginger. Did you
grow your own ginger? And we left far enough south
to do this here? That is cool. When I I

(01:00:37):
for years I back, oh gosh, many years ago, I
used to live in Conro and we I grew ginger
in the flower bed. There really really does well here
in our area anyway. There's a publication on everything, and
then of course all the common things tomatoes and peppers
and eggplant, nocrea and whatnot, green beans, bush beans, they
have it all. Plus there's publications on fertilizing, on disease control,

(01:01:01):
on composting, on planning your garden, on mulching, on controlling insects,
on planting your garden, on soil preparation, on soil solarization,
on watering, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And for
those of you who are interested in this, a lot

(01:01:22):
of them are available in Spanish too, and Espanol. So
if you would like, if you know, some folks that
do not speak English, prefer a Spanish version. At the
Aghorticulture website, all those vegetable publications are available, and many, many,
many of them are available in Spanish as well. So
I told you there was a special one that was

(01:01:43):
new that I wanted you to read about. It's called
harvest Gains from inter Cropping. What does that mean. Intercropping
is when you grow two plants together. You may have,
for example, watermelons growing along with okra or various things.
They did a study Texas A and m Agro Life

(01:02:05):
Extension and the Extension Research at the university did a
study where they took five different vegetable species okra, peanuts, peppers, peas,
and watermelon and they intercropped them and then they also
grew them by themselves and they looked at the yield
and they found that with intercropping they actually had a

(01:02:28):
better yield per area. So you probably don't want to
plow up the backyard and create a little mini farm
back there. You've got a garden bed or two or
three or whatever you have, and you want to get
more out of it how do you get the most
out of your space. That's what inter cropping does. One
of the things that intercropping does is give you more production.
And this is a really it's four pages, a very

(01:02:50):
helpful publication that you can see the results that they
got when they did it, and then they basically give
you a kind of a little diagram owing you know
how they intercrop the peanuts and the watermelon and the okra,
for example. But this is just showing one aspect of
one study on it. There's a lot of other things
that you can gain from it. You should go check

(01:03:12):
this out. It's really cool publication. This actually the work
was done a number of years ago, but you know
it's still applicable today along with the many other publications
that they have there in that area. The Let me
tell you about one another publication that they do. I
think this is this is cool. It's called Herbs for

(01:03:33):
Texas Landscapes. Herbs for Texas Landscapes. Now, this is done
by doctor Masobne. Massobney was one of our or is
one of our vegetable specialists with Texas A and m
Agrolfe Extension. Ann Wheeler Ands from Lockhouse Herbs up in Magnolia, Texas.
She pitched in on this as well. Very good expert

(01:03:55):
lady on herbs. And then doctor Gou who is now
at Colorado State Head used to be a Texan in
Amecrolife in college station. Anyway, herbs. Lots of good information
on herbs, and in this publication it lists herbs, you know, individually.
You can see pictures of each of the herbs and whatnot.
It talks about some specifics of the herbs briefly, but

(01:04:19):
then it also helps you choose herbs according to where
you're growing them and what you want. For example, what
are herbs that are very low growing that would make
a good hedge or a border. You know, you can
use herbs and landscaping right. You don't just have to
have an herb garden. I used to put herbs in
my vegetable gardens at the ends of the rows. I

(01:04:41):
had a tomato row, and I don't know, it just
made sense to me, but I would plant basil because
you know, tomatoes and basil go together when we're cooking, right.
I would plant oregano because tomatoes and oregano go together
when we're cooking, right, Making sauces and things. So I'd
have an oregano groundcover down on the tomatoes, and I'd
have some rosemary. Excuse me, well, you could also do that,

(01:05:06):
but I would have a basil at the ends of
the rose themselves, and you can do that. There are
other low growing herbs, like time. There's the prostrate type
of rosemary grows horizontally more than upright. By the way,
that one blooms better than the upright one. So if
you're also wanting to support beneficial insects, that's the prostrate types,

(01:05:29):
especially good chives and other good one makes a little clumps.
Salad burnet is one that has kind of a cucumbery
taste to the foliage, and it makes a little mound,
a little mound of herbs like you would expect partially
maybe to make or some of the types of like

(01:05:50):
a Chinese celery would make that kind of mound. And
then there's herbs that are very tall. There are herbs
that are just regular tall and very very there's herbs
that stay low and wide in their growth habit. There's
herbs at flower and there's a list of these. By
the way, I'm kind of going through the publication as
I look at it, telling you what's in it here.
Herbs at flower. So if you want herbs that have

(01:06:12):
beautiful blooms on them, why not, why not do that?
There's some great ones. Maybe you got a shady area.
Most herbs like sun. They either want very bright sun
or they want partial sun. But there's some that grow
in quite deep shade or partial sun or partial shade.
As they say, there's also some that do the whole

(01:06:34):
range from bright sun to deep shade. They can grow
in those areas. What kinds of swell do they need?
What kinds of watering and fertilizing and so on. It's
all free. This publication has eight pages, including lots of
color pictures. It's free. You can look at it on
your computer. You can look at it on your phone.
If you wan't do that, maybe you're out in the
garden you need a quick check. Or you can print

(01:06:56):
it out yourself. Aggie Horticulture website a good information on
growing herbs. Herbs are not just for herb gardens. Although
I do like the beautiful design of an herb garden
with the balance, the symmetry and stuff in it. That's cool,
But I'm more like, hey, let's let it grow wild

(01:07:17):
and see what happens.

Speaker 5 (01:07:18):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:07:18):
And you can do that with herbs as well. All right,
let's take a little break there. We'll be all right
back with your calls. Seven one three, two one two
five eight seven four. Well we've had this discusting on
garden Line already. But when as a kid, there's a
cereal called Super Sugar Crisps, because that's still around, super
super Sugar crust. And they would press records into the back,

(01:07:39):
the little thirty three and the third records. You'll know
what I'm talking about. Some people are going, Huh, let's
let's what's a record, not us thirty three and a
third anyway? Uh, they press them out and Sugar Sugar
by the Archies, that's the band. Uh was a record
that I got on the back of a box of
Super Sugar Crisp. Isn't that cool? Who are the Archies?

(01:08:02):
The Archies? Okay, fun fact you get, you get gardening advice,
you get weird music, and you get trivia on garden Line.
I don't know what else we can offer. Anyway. The
Archies were a band that did not exist. They put
them together to make that song and then that was it.
Like they did a couple of songs, I think, and
then that was it. They weren't they weren't really a band,

(01:08:23):
but you just heard them.

Speaker 10 (01:08:24):
All.

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
Right, there we go. Hey, Ace Hardware stores have got
you covered on whatever you need. I was in an
Ace Hardridgis the other day visiting and in fact, the
one of the newest Ace Hardware stores we have U
and that is the one to spring branch up there
off Work Road. But anyway, Ace Hardware has got all

(01:08:45):
kinds of things to help you have success in your garden.
Do you need fertilizers, Do you need weed control? Do
you need pest control? Do you need tools? They've got
it all. Do you want to do some outdoor work,
maybe you're going to redo the deck and put a
new coating on it. Take care of that deck, painting
or staining, or or ceiling, whatever you're doing. ACE has
got you covered and then the tools you need to
do that. Acehardware Texas dot Com is where you go

(01:09:07):
to find my ACE Hardware stores here in the Greater
Houston area. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Ace Hardware Texas
dot com. Make sure when you're in there pick up
the air filters. You know, you're supposed to be changing
those every month on your indoor central are make sure
and pick up that you need propane. They got they
got you covered on that, and of course you got

(01:09:28):
to stop buying and see the cool power tools, the
barbecue pits and whatnot. At Acehardware Texas dot Com. There's
an ACE called Auspas up on kirkandall in the Woodlands.
There's East or in Willis, there's All Seasons Ace. It's
up on I forty five North. Nice store. Been there.
You Havevaldi Ace on Uvaldi Road in Houston on the
east side. Down south and west is bay City Ace

(01:09:50):
on Seventh Street in Bay City, and then Chalmers Ace
on broad Broadway Street there in Galveston. Let's go out
now and talk to Charlie out at hey, Charlie, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (01:10:02):
Good to have you on, Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 9 (01:10:07):
Skip.

Speaker 7 (01:10:08):
I have Asian jazz and ground cover. And there's a
lot of clover going grown low in the in the
Asian jasmine.

Speaker 11 (01:10:21):
Oh what especually die off as the.

Speaker 7 (01:10:26):
As a groundcover gets sicker or well, do I need
to and pull all that out?

Speaker 4 (01:10:32):
If it really is clover, Charlie, it's an annual and
it sprouts in the fall and grows through end of
the winter in the spring and then dies out, so
it will go away. If you have it in an
ongoing way. You can use a pre emergent herbicide in
that groundcover. You would need to put that out in
uh let's see, where are you west, you'd want to

(01:10:54):
put that out in early October. Oh, as a pre
lergent watered in so next year you don't have a
clover problem while your groundcover continues to thicken and choke
out its own problems.

Speaker 7 (01:11:08):
Okay, and that and that won't hurt the Asian jasmine.

Speaker 4 (01:11:13):
The pre emergent if you choose the right one labeled
for that, No, it will not. Okay, but for this year,
but for this year. Yeah, but for this year. You
just have to live with it and it will be
going away on its own soon. Or if you have
time to get out and do some hand pulling. Every
time you pull one, you're pulling up the seeds that

(01:11:34):
would have been there for next year. So you're doing
yourself a favor even to hand pull it now.

Speaker 11 (01:11:40):
Okay, Okay, okay, go you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:43):
Know, yeah, good luck, have fun.

Speaker 7 (01:11:46):
Okay. Emerging in October. Okay, thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:51):
In October, yes, sir, you bet bye bye. Blinds for
all seasons. Wonderful nursery. Uh there where Timball Parkway and
come together. It's right there on Tombol Parkway, just north
of Luetta. Full Service Gardens Center been around since nineteen
seventy three. In this place, everybody in the area knows it.
Plants for all seasons, quality products, quality advice.

Speaker 5 (01:12:14):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:12:14):
You go in there, you take them a sample, you
take them a picture, and they're gonna be able to
help you. They're gonna be able to look at it
and tell you what you need to do, whatever you
want to do right now. They got onion transplants in.
They can guide you on growing some onions yourself. They
have occasional educational programs and there is one today from
nine to ten, so that is an hour from now.

(01:12:37):
It starts at Plants for All Seasons, and it's living
decre with houseplants, and they'll help you select the right
plant for the place in your home. You know different places,
different plants perform better.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
There.

Speaker 4 (01:12:51):
They'll give you some design strategies for decorating with house
plants and then punting tips to end planting tips to
keep that living beautiful to core of your house plants
looking as absolute best. And that is a free program
at Plants for All Seasons dot com. Plants for All
Seasons dot com. You need to go check them out.

(01:13:12):
They're always something going on there at Plants for All
Seasons again, they are let me give you a phone number.
They're on the corner of Luetta, well almost the corner
of Luetta and two forty nine, just north of Luetta
on two forty nine, two eight one three seven six
sixteen forty six to eight one three seven six one

(01:13:33):
six four six. By the way, it is time to
get out in our flower beds and also in our
vegetable gardens and do a little bit of fertilizing. Giving
our plants a boost as they grow is very important.
So let's say you have pansies that are in the
garden right now, or dianthus or a lissum or something
like that. When you give them a little fertilizer, nitrogen

(01:13:56):
based especially, you give them a boost of growth. And
when you give them a boost of growth, they have
more foliage, they catch more sunlight, they produce more blooms.
So even nitrogen helps create blooms in that specific way.
Important to know now, Medina. The folks at Medina have
a number of quality products like they have Medina has

(01:14:16):
to grow, Medina has to grow six to twelve six.
I often use that as something for transplanting because it
has that high phosphorus number. I really really do like
that and it works super super well. But there are
many other quality Medina products as well. Wherever you go shopping,
you look around, you're going to find cool Medina products.

(01:14:37):
There's one called Growing Green three two three. Growing Green
three two three. It's a Medina fertilizer and natural fertilizer.
You put it down, you get it in the soil,
you water it in and you will give those plants
the boosts that they need, whether it's vegetables, whether it's
house plants. You nan it from the folks at Medina
Medina Growing Green two three two thread. You know, when

(01:15:02):
the music plays, I'm always not through talking. I got
more I want to say, but I got to quit
beat this time for the top of the hour. Break,
we're going to come back with your calls if you
like to call Durham break. That's a little smart because
you get to be one of the first ones up.
When we come back and other people start to call
uh seven one three two one two five eight seven four,
I want to remind you that today let's see here,

(01:15:26):
not to day. Excuse me. Next month, on February seventeenth,
which is a Tuesday, by the way, Tuesday, not two
day Tuesday. Uh, the Fort ben Regional Vegetable Conference will
be going on. If you want more information on that,
give the Fort Bend Extension Office a call to eight
one three four two thirty thirty four. I'm going to

(01:15:49):
tell you more about it and when we come back,
but I'm gonna be there giving a talk.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skim director.

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
It's crazy heres the basis like gas baby, can you
shrim Just watch him? As the world got gass and
gas can you many?

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
Pope takes the sap box rasing in gay basis like
gas b again you dat grumbles back kicking not a
sound the glasses.

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
And gas son bemon down between the gassies like gas baby,
can you jam.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
By starting and treating the gases like gas became you jat?

Speaker 4 (01:16:43):
Everything here is so clean see and well, well, welcome back.
Good to have you with us, looking forward to visiting
with you about the things that are of interest to you.
What do you want to know about? How how can
we help you have success with your garden. That's kind
of what we're looking at here. Okay, give me a call.

(01:17:05):
Seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey,
have you been out to the arbor Gate Arborgate Garden Center?
You know the Arbigate is up there in tom Ball, Texas.
And if you haven't been before you got to go.
I mean I didn't, I've many my I hadn't been
at the arbor Gade. I don't believe kids has been
around a long time and it is a very very

(01:17:27):
popular place. They've got their potatoes in, by the way,
you have vegetable gardening a while ago. If you're looking
for some quality potatoes at kennebec as a white potato,
red le SODA's red potato. And then the Yukon goal
so popular. It already looks like it's been buttered. It's
got that beautiful golden interior. It's a really really good quality. Uh,

(01:17:48):
you got a coal front coming up here. We're gonna
get a little bit on the chili side tonight. If
you want to get a frost cloth, they've got them
in stock, ready to wrap your plants up and get
them nice. And also, by the way, when you're at
the arbor gate, no, they'll say carry fruit trees year
round and it is fruit tree season, so they definitely

(01:18:08):
have got them. Now get up there and get your
fruit trees. Get them in the ground. It is time.
It is time to get those things planted. Don't delay.
The sooner you plant, the better off that you're going
to be. All Righty, there you go the arbor gate, Tomball,
Texas on twenty nine to twenty. You just got up

(01:18:29):
west of Tomball about a mile and a half and
it's on the left hand side of the road. Let's
head up now to Brookshire and we're gonna talk with
Sammy this morning. Hey Sammy, welcome to guarden Line.

Speaker 22 (01:18:40):
Hey, good morning, Skip, Thank you for taking my call.
I wanted to ask you about above ground garden to
get your advice.

Speaker 9 (01:18:47):
Please.

Speaker 22 (01:18:47):
Last year I had a very good success with the
happy frog, several bags of that and I grew my
tomatoes and cucumbers. What about a month ago I pulled
up all the dead stuff and raked it. It's now
a good time to cover it with three mill black
plastic or would you just turn the soil over? And
what do I do before it's time to plant my tomatoes?
And when would I plant the tomatoes?

Speaker 11 (01:19:07):
Thank you?

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
Yeah, So in Brookshire our tomato planting season or anything
any planting seasons based on the weather and things. The
last average frost date, the last average frost date, and intercontinental,
which is some wide on the line there. Brookshire is bush.
Intercontinental is March the first I believe. I believe it's

(01:19:37):
March first, so you're going to be pretty close to
that line. Some people will gamble and plant a little earlier.
You just need to keep the plants warm on those
chilly nights. It's not just as a freezer or not.
I mean, if it's going to get down in the
upper forties at night, those tomatoes gonna be really unhappy.
And so I usually plant mine a little bit later,
hold on to them, keep them growing, move them up

(01:19:58):
into a bigger pot if I need to, you know,
just the heads a bat. But sometime in early to
mid March would be a good per Tonado planning season
for you. As far as whether you put black plastic.
You can use black plastic as a ground cover to
hold the moisture in as a mulch like material, but
you can also just use regular mulches. Generally, in the spring,

(01:20:21):
when you're planning, I recommend not having a mulch down
right away so the soil can warm up faster and
stay warm a little bit better. Mulch keeps the soil cooler.
But you're gonna get low weeds at sprout. But then
when they start to sprout before they get very big,
then just cover them with a mulch and it'll kill them,
those little tender seedlings trying to come up. Okay, thank

(01:20:41):
you for I appreciate it all right, Sammy, thanks lot,
appreciate your call. Let's go now to clear Lake this morning.
We're going to visit with Judy. Hello, Judy, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 21 (01:20:52):
Thank you. I'm going to try something new this year.
I'd like to try to drip irrigation. I waste a
lot of water, so can you help me with information
and the material for stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (01:21:05):
You bet there's a lot of some of our garden
centers will sell drip irrigation equipment. If you go to
a place that does that would be that would be
an option for you to get the equipment. There's a
place in Houston called Irrigation Warehouse. It's on the North side.
They're not one of my sponsors, but they do sell
drip irrigation. You can even have them ship it to

(01:21:27):
you directly mail order if you want or go get it.
It's it's kind of up north and west side of town.

Speaker 5 (01:21:35):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:21:35):
And then there are a lot of places that will
sell you, you know, drip irrigation tubing. Most places will
give you a little bit of a diagram showing you
how to put it together. If you remember Tinker toys,
it's kind of like playing with tinker toys. You just
plug them together and form whatever you're creating. It is
your irrigation for vegetables or flowers or shrubs or what all.

(01:21:59):
Or you wanting to drip irrogate.

Speaker 21 (01:22:01):
I'd like to try everything. I've got trees and I
have a garden this year and blackberries. I just wanted
to need more of the drip.

Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
Uh huh Okay, So are you gonna do are you
gonna harre somebody to do it? Or do you want
to build it yourself.

Speaker 16 (01:22:21):
I'd like to try it myself, okay.

Speaker 5 (01:22:26):
So on.

Speaker 4 (01:22:29):
You can use true drip, which is a hose that
has little emitters that drip the water out. That's true
drip irrigation. And then there's something called micro sprinkler, micro jet,
or sometimes it's called bubbler or shrubler irrigation, and what
that is it's a little steak that has an emitter

(01:22:51):
that spurts water out down low to the ground in
a bigger circle. I have some on my fruit trees
because I need I want to wet the whole area
underneath that tree, you know, and so it would take
a lot of dripline to wet the whole area. So
I have these little sprinklers come out and they're only
about minor about four inches off the ground, that could

(01:23:11):
be a little higher than that, and they spurred out
and probably cover oh anywhere from an eight inch area.
Some of them will even go to two or three
feet apart. And you can put those and it's still
dripped because you're getting it down low. You're not spraying
the foliage with it. But for bigger areas you might
want to go to that direction.

Speaker 21 (01:23:30):
And that's called a micro sprinkler or the what do
you say.

Speaker 4 (01:23:33):
Bubbler, Well, a shrubbler is what they call them, or bubbler.
The kind I have. It doesn't really spread a large area.
It's almost like a little umbrella of water coming out
and falling down. It goes out sideways like an umbrella,
and then it turns down, drops downward the pattern. But

(01:23:53):
drip irrigation itself is not that hard to do. And
place that sells it to you ought to give you
the diagram on how to do it. So if you've
never done it before, spend a little bit of Yeah,
spend a little bit of time making sure you know
what you're doing, uh before before you do that. If
you end up finding it at a garden center, they'll

(01:24:16):
be able to tell you exactly you know, how to
build it and how to do it and what you
need what you need to do from it. Okay, if
you if you if you want some tip, let me
just give you one more thing. If you want some tips.
That place I talked about shrink sprinter warehouse here in Houston.
They they have videos and other information that's online that

(01:24:39):
you can watch that tells you how to install stuff
and how to build stuff, so you just have to
poke around on the website a little bit.

Speaker 21 (01:24:47):
Okay, got it, all right, appreciate that.

Speaker 12 (01:24:49):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:24:50):
All right, Gudi, thanks a lot. Appreciate your call very much.
Uh all righty, let's see here, we need to take
a little break here in a second. Oh, Southwest Fertilizer
also has drip irrigation equipment too. By the way, they're
at the corner of Businet and Renwick. While I'm talking
about Southwest Fertilizer, they've got everything, you know. You know
how I always say if they don't have it, you
don't need it. Well, they whether it's tools, whether it's products,

(01:25:14):
whether it's fertilizers. Oh my gosh, we're about to hit
the yard with all kinds of things from weed management
to fertilizers to you name it. They've got it all there, liquids, granules,
however you want to go about it, applicators, sprayers, hose
in sprayers, fertilizer spreaders that you walk behind, fire ant

(01:25:34):
spreaders that you carry on with you as you'll crank
the handle. You know, they've they've got it all. Southwest
Fertilizer dot Com. That's the website there in the corner
of bus Nut and Renwick and Southwest Houston. Corner of
bus Ut and Renwick, Southwest Houston seven to one three
six six six one seven four four. Let's take a
little break. When we come back, we're going to go
out to Jasina City and talk to David. It's been

(01:25:59):
a while on the.

Speaker 5 (01:26:01):
See.

Speaker 4 (01:26:01):
Welcome back to the guard line, folks. Good have you
with us. Let's run out to Decino City and we're
gonna visit with David this morning. Hey David, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 11 (01:26:13):
Good morning.

Speaker 16 (01:26:13):
How are you doing.

Speaker 4 (01:26:15):
Doing well? Doing well? How can I help?

Speaker 17 (01:26:18):
Okay, So, my wife Planet she put out blue bonnets
last year in the flower beds and we got volunteers
coming up. They're probably four inches in diameter right now.
And with this cold weather.

Speaker 11 (01:26:39):
Do we need to cover them?

Speaker 4 (01:26:41):
Nope, not at all. They're gonna be fine. They can handle.

Speaker 8 (01:26:47):
I mean, they were beautiful last year.

Speaker 17 (01:26:49):
She put seeds out and they came up beautiful, and
they're doing good now.

Speaker 12 (01:26:55):
I just didn't want to lose them.

Speaker 4 (01:26:58):
Yeah, well, they're they're tough, you know, being a native
flower to Texas. Ever winter, since the beginning of time,
those suckers have been out there all winter, they sprout
in the fall, they sit there all winter, surviving the
cold that we have, and then in the spring they
take off growing and blooming and so on. So you're there.
They're Texas tough built that way.

Speaker 17 (01:27:18):
Okay, So just leave them alone.

Speaker 4 (01:27:21):
Yes, sir, at this stage that says plant, don't worry
about it at all. You bet, you bet when they
when they bloom, if you think about it, Thank you, David.
You take care. Uh yeah, blue bonnets, oh so beautiful.
By the way, how many state flowers does Texas have?
I have a question how many state flowers? The text

(01:27:42):
I'm not going to answer it right now. I'm gonna
let you think about it unless somebody call me about
it and tell me how many state flowers we have?
And if I forget, somebody better remind me to give
the answer later, because I can get going talking about
stuff and forget to come back. How many. I know
you're thinking, well, that's silly. It should be one, right, uh,
the blue and it's our state flowers. So this must
be a trick question. How many state flowers does Texas have?

(01:28:04):
Maybe the entry is one, maybe it's not. We shall see.
I will let the suspense, sit and wait. Euston Powder
Coaters is a company that can take metal and turn
it into something beautiful. They can take rusty falling the
bar furniture because it's rest well, maybe not falling the bar,

(01:28:27):
you know what I'm talking about, it's rusty, maybe the
bolts are kind of about rusted out and stuff like that.
They'll bring it in, they will clean it up, they'll
shut that rust down, they'll put brand they'll paint it
with a powder coating. It's a special kind of a
painting process where you don't use wet paint on it.
You put a powder coat on it that attaches because

(01:28:47):
of an electrical charge and the system they use. Oh
my gosh. You know, if you ever tried spray painting,
I have, and you got this little nook and cranny
you're trying to get paint back up in there, and
as you tried doing it, you end up overspran and
now you got runs coming down the metal. You know
what I'm talking about, If you've ever tried spray painting, well,
powder coating it literally is magnetically attracted to stick into

(01:29:11):
the metal, to melt into the surface, and it makes
a very very durable hard surface. I don't care if
it's a beautiful barbecue pit that you want to make
brand new again, or whether it's beautiful patio furniture or
yard art, or an iron railing or one of those
metal gas lampposts, if you've got one of those out
in the If it's metal, they can do it, cast iron,

(01:29:33):
rod iron, even aluminum patio furniture. They can put a
beautiful powder coat on it. Here's what you gotta do.
You gotta give them a call set two eight one
six seven six thirty eight eighty eight two eight one
six seven six thirty eight eighty eight Houston Powder Coaders.
Or take a picture of what you want to get
a quote on and email it to sales at Houstoncoders

(01:29:57):
dot com. Now in the email there's the word powder
does not appear Sales at Houstoncoders dot Com. They will
get right back to you with here's what's gonna cost.
So come pick it up. They'll do the work, they'll
bring it back simple as that. Houston Powder Coders make
that furniture new again. Let's sit out now to Dayton,
Texas and we're going to visit with Richard this morning. Hey, Richard,

(01:30:20):
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:30:22):
Hey, good morning, thank you.

Speaker 9 (01:30:23):
Hey.

Speaker 8 (01:30:25):
I have fleas in my backyard and every time I
let my little dog as course you get covered, I'll
I'll prayer and kill them. But is that's something I
can frame my yard with to get rid of those things?

Speaker 4 (01:30:37):
Got a couple of options. You could put an insect
a side out to kill everything in the yard. Okay,
but you got a little dog right around on the grass.
Maybe you don't want to do that. That's that's your call.
I mean, but they make products to kill fleas in
the yard. But if you want to avoid that because
the dog content contact with the things, you can use

(01:30:59):
things that are or insect growth regulators. The eggs hatch,
but they don't grow up. The larva flea start as
an egg, they go to a larva, then the pupa
and then an adult and it's adult that can hop
up on your dog. Up until that stage they can't.
So you can shut them down in those earlier stages
with just a growth regulator that prevents the fleas from
growing up. That is an option. There are insecticides that

(01:31:23):
are put out. There's also a type of a nematode
that is spied out that will kill eggs in the
larva and pupil stages out there in the grass. A
little more expensive, you know, kind of a little more
touching go being a natural product, but that is a possibility.
And then of course putting the products that the vet
can give you that go on your dog that when

(01:31:44):
a flea bites them, that it kills the flea. So
that's another option.

Speaker 8 (01:31:49):
Yeah, those are the things you hook to the water
hose in the water with.

Speaker 4 (01:31:56):
The sprays that are insecticide can be hooked up to
water hoses or they can just be sprayed out, and
the growth regulators can be used. There's ones for indoors
and ones for outdoors. Both they can be hooked up
to a water hose as well.

Speaker 8 (01:32:14):
Okay, I affected.

Speaker 4 (01:32:18):
They are effective each one. The thing you got to
remember is you've got a cycle going on here, and
so you kind of you can't just do one thing.
You need to deal with them indoors, and you need
to deal with them outdoors, and you need to deal
with them on the dog. And if you do all
three of those, you will shut it all down. If
you just treat indoors, for example, they just go outside
and bring some more in. But most people, you know,

(01:32:42):
in our yard, we just use the things that that
provides for the dog itself because we don't have a
big flea problem already out there. The squirrels coming through
the yard can drop fleas, and there's a lot of
ways they get out in the yard. But just remember
you want to.

Speaker 17 (01:32:59):
Come your dog.

Speaker 8 (01:33:03):
I have a big dog figure and she probably you
probably got flea fleas all over so that they're in
the yard. Of course you're like, I play every time.
I'll play my dog and wash and kill them, you know.
Of course the part time she runs out of the
arts get in so.

Speaker 4 (01:33:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The stuff you put on your dog, yeah,
they can be if they can be effective. There are
products that contained by fen thren and and other things
that are used to kill all the insects in an area.
You put that in the grass and whether it's a
chinchbug or a flea or whatever it is, it's gonna

(01:33:39):
kill it. It's just I know, people have a range
of tolerance to Hey, I don't want to spray something.
My little dog's gonna be laying laying in you know,
so I respect that. But however you want to go
about it. There's options.

Speaker 8 (01:33:53):
Okay, all right, yes, sure, I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:34:00):
Yep, you bet, you bet. You take care. Let's see here.
We're going to go now out to uh Huckley, Texas
and talk to Ruthie this morning. Hey, Ruthie, welcome back
to garden.

Speaker 15 (01:34:11):
Line by Skip. Thank you. I have an answer on
your blue bonnet question. Okay, there is one state flower
with six varieties.

Speaker 4 (01:34:25):
There you go, tell us more or did you search
out some more?

Speaker 15 (01:34:31):
No? You you did this a few weeks ago, so
I just remembered it was interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:34:38):
I'm not I'm not used to people actually listening and
paying attention to what I see them.

Speaker 11 (01:34:44):
Skip.

Speaker 15 (01:34:45):
I always listened to you. I love it when you
nerd out. So anyway, there are six.

Speaker 5 (01:34:51):
There you go.

Speaker 4 (01:34:51):
Good. I wish I had a prize for you, but
I don't. But anyway, thanks for.

Speaker 15 (01:34:58):
Coming just answering my questions. So thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:35:03):
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that you take care. Yes,
Ruthie's correct, the six. So there the blue bonnet. Most
people see, I'm a nerd out here a little bit,
but come on, this is fun, it's Texas, it's blue,
it is a Texas law that I have to talk
about blue bonnets every year, right, So the one you
see all the time is loopinas subcarnosis, and it is

(01:35:27):
it is. If you look at the blue bonnet up close,
it looks like a little rabbit's tail up it's blue
blue bonnet flower, but at the top it's white. It
kind of comes up to a point like a little
rabbit's tail does, and it's white at the tip. That
is the standard blue bonnet that you see almost everywhere
when when they plant it on the road sides, typically
they're using that blue bonnet. Then there's in East Texas

(01:35:49):
the sandy Land blue bonnet. That one does not have
a white tip. It's blue all the way to the top.
And when you look at a field of sandy Lamb
blue bonnets, they are deeper blue because they don't have
all those little white pixels that you're seeing out there
in the field. Same way, there's one in I'm not
going to name all six. There's one in Big Bend area,
the Big ben blue bonnet that is really long, tall spikes,

(01:36:12):
and in fact, they worked on making it a cut flower.
But that'll have to wait because it's time for me
to take a break, all right. I know that apparently
your interest in Texas blue bonnets is expansive beyond what
I thought based on people's comments and things. Hey, the

(01:36:35):
Texas blueboneit we were talking about four break there being
six state flowers. And here's how that happened. It's kind
of fun. This will be brief. I won't go in
too long here. The original blue bonnet. The original blue
bonnet started off in nineteen oh one. It was actually designated,
but it wasn't just like everybody like right now, if

(01:36:56):
you walk around and go, oh, what's the state flower
of Texas, everybody knows what. It's gotta be a bit
blue on it, right, that's the most famous flower in Texas. Well.
After a quite a significant discussion, it was made the
blue bonnet by by in nineteen oh one. What happened
was a guy named Cactus Jack, who a legislator. He

(01:37:19):
nominated the prickly pair of cactus. Prior to that, the
first flower that they suggested was Cotton's flower, because cotton
is symbolic, you know here in Texas, cotton of course
cactus flowers. Really is that our state flower? Well, the
prickly pair of cactus as beautiful as those boons are. No,
because what happened is a group called the Colonial Dames

(01:37:41):
of America. They decided this was not acceptable. And you
know what, you know, don't mess with Texas women rights.
That is a common knowledge around her. If you haven't
learned that yet, you will. But anyway, they went out
and they like put paintings, you know, blue bonnets and decoration,

(01:38:02):
you know, blue bonnet like things like that, out on
the legislative floor. They made floral arrangements with blue bonnets,
put them on ever politician's desk there on the day
of the voting. So, needless to say, these guys weren't fools.
Blue bonets became the blue bonnet, original blue Bonit became
the Texas state flower. Now then later they realized, oh wait,
there's more than one type of lupine here in Texas.

(01:38:27):
So what they decided I think this is in the
early seventies. I may be wrong in that last date,
but I believe his early seventies. The legislator basically said, okay,
so these blue bonnets we know about, and I think
the terminology. I like this terminology. Let's put an end
of this, they said, And any other like flower that

(01:38:47):
ends up being discovered, any other lupine that ends up
being discovered would also be part of the stay. So
if we find a seventh one out there somewhere that
we haven't found in all these years, it will also
be the state flower of Texas. All right, there you go.
So now you know, hey, how many of you watched Cheers?
You remember the uh postman Cliff Clavin on Cheers, the
guy who knows everything, whether he does or not, at

(01:39:10):
least it's entertaining to listen to him. Well, you'll be
the horticultural Cliff Claven of your neighborhood with that fun
facts about blue bonnets next time you go to a party. Also,
you won't have to go to any other parties after that,
because I'll stop inviting you once you durn on about
about that. All right, enough of that, Hey, you want
to give me a call seven to one three two

(01:39:31):
one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four League City feed. Guess
where that is? Leake City, Texas?

Speaker 6 (01:39:39):
You got it?

Speaker 4 (01:39:40):
You just go to League City. It's on Highway three,
just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. So
that whole region. This is your hometown feed store. And
when I say that, I mean like clear Lake City
and Lamark and Dickinson, Santa Fe, Webster bayke Cliff, all
those communities down there. League City Feed is where you
need to go. You hear me talk about fertilizers like
nitroposs and talk about azemite and micro life. You hear

(01:40:02):
me talk about products from Nelson Plant Food. They're all
there at League City Feed, including heirloom soils, sol products
by the bag, or they're at League City Feed. You
got pest weeds and disease problems. Last time I was
out there, I was check in my sponsors and see
what you got on the shelves, what's available. It's like
I was surprised. They got tons of things, new things

(01:40:24):
all the time too when they come on the market.
League City Feed. They're open Monday through Saturday, nine to six,
closed on Sunday, so you can swing by after work
on any day of the week. League City Feed two
eight one three three two one six one two. Say
hey to the Thunderbergs third generation now Thunderbergs running the

(01:40:45):
shop there at League City Feed. You were listening to
Garden Line. If you have a gardening question. That's why
we're here. Seven one three, two one two five eight
seven four. I was telling you about the four been
Regional Vegetable Conference that's coming up next month on this
same day. That's the seventeenth of February, which is a Tuesday. Now,

(01:41:10):
when you go there, they've got a lot of speakers.
I'll be speaking. I'm going to be giving a talk
on raised bed and container gardening and it will be
from one o'clock to two fifteen o'clock out there in
February at their Vegetable Conference. Now, it costs forty five
bucks to register early caught and that goes well. In fact,

(01:41:31):
that just passed by two days ago. I'm looking at
the flyer now it's fifty five dollars now to register
up until February sixth and at twelve noon fifty five bucks.
But for your fifty five bucks, you get a whole
day's worth of lectures. They have several tracks. There's a
track for backyard gardeners that's what most of you listeners are.
If you happen to be a small scale producer or

(01:41:54):
I'm also called a market gardener, there's a track for you.
If you want to learn about food reservation, safe food
preservation safety and recipes. Maybe you want to know how
to can or dry or pickole or all those kinds
of things we do to our produce. There's a track
for that as well, all there at the conference. So
it's at the Fort Benn County Epicenter on Southwest Freeway

(01:42:18):
in Rosenberg, Fort Ben County Epicenter February seventeenth. It starts
at eight am, goes to four thirty pm. They'll start
registering check in at seven fifteen. These are good conferences.
I've been to them many years. Used to help put
them on with the agent that was there in Fort
Being County. But if you want more information go to
the Fort Ben County Extension Office website. You can it's

(01:42:42):
Fort Benn dot Agrolife dot org, Fort Bend dot Agrolife
dot org. Or give them a call. Always listen to
guardline with a piece of paper and a pencil so
you can write down things like this phone number two
eight one three four to two three zero three four
and again. I'll be there from one fifteen to two fifteen.
Tig about raised bed and container gardening at the Fort

(01:43:03):
Pin County Regional Vegetable Conference. All right, let's head out
to Galveston now this morning and we are going to
visit with Bill. Hello, Bill, welcome to garden Line. Thank you.
Here is my question.

Speaker 20 (01:43:16):
I just bought a house here and the grass is
so thick that when I walk over it, and when
I try to moor it, I'm just kind of like
bouncing it is in some way? Should I leave it
like that? The previous owners that he fertilized it, it
was very green, But I'm concerned.

Speaker 4 (01:43:33):
About the underlayer of it. Yep. That's called batch. And
the grass clippings you cut off, they rot real fast
and easy. They're not a thatch problem. But when you
fertilize a lot, fertilizing water a lot, you end up
getting a lot of those runners, you know, crawling over
the surface back and forth and over each other and stuff,
and it becomes ray spongy, and so that runner up

(01:43:55):
on top. It's not sitting on the soil where it
can put a root down in the soil. In thatch,
that's where chinchbugs like to hide. And it's just better
to get rid of it. And the way you get
rid of it a couple of things. You can do
compost top dressings, and you can do core aeration. Core
aeration is a process that pulls a plug of soil
out of the ground and drops it up on the surface.

(01:44:18):
And by getting that soil over that thatch, as you
pop them up to the surface, those plugs of soil
they melt away and it speeds the decomposition of thatch.
In the meantime, you want to fertilize only moderately, so
don't overdo the fertilizer and let that work yourself out
of that thatch. There are more drastic measures you can
take when thatch is a serious problem, but they are

(01:44:41):
they're drastic. There's something called verta cutting. So you imagine
your lawn mower that has a horizontally spinning blade. Turn
a blade vertical and now you're cutting. You're slicing through
the runners, cutting them. And there's a little machine called
a verta cutter. It's not a de thatcher specifically, it's

(01:45:02):
a verdict cutter, and it has blades ever so many
inches and as you run over it, it just chops
those blades and pulls thatch up out of there. If
you use a regular de thatcher like is used on
northern turf grasses. You will tear up your Saint Augustine lawn.
You don't want to do that, But a vertic cutter
can be used. Again. It's a drastic measure. It wounds
the grass, of course, but you can rake up all

(01:45:24):
that debris and then kind of start over with a
fresh new growth and get rid of thatch faster that way. Okay,
thank you, yes, sir. If it were mine, I think
I would try the core aeration and compost top dressing
and backing off the nitrogen a little bit and see

(01:45:45):
if I could do it that way, all right, bill, Okay,
thank you, yes sir, Thank you for the call. Appreciate that.
Good luck with it. Let's take a little break. We'll
be right back, all right, Welcome back the guard line.
Both you got a question, give me call seven one

(01:46:05):
three two one two fifty eight to seventy four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. I
was telling you about Cena Mulch a little bit earlier,
talking to somebody about getting one of their soil blends
out there to level out a lawn and do some things.
Seeing a mult is down south of Houston in the
Sienna area. If you will.

Speaker 3 (01:46:25):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:46:25):
They are just oh, you could say near Highway six
and two eighty eight. Specifically, they're on FM five twenty
one for those of you who live down in that area.
And uh, that would be communities like Meridia, excuse me, Meridiana,
Lake Olympia, Quell Valley, Riverstone, Manvel, Alvin, Pomona, Lake Olympia. Yeah,
that's a that's a cool place, Iowa Colony, a bunch

(01:46:47):
of others all in that area. They deliver within twenty
miles of the area for a delivery fee of course. Uh.
They also have supersacks, which is a large sack that
holds a cubic yard of whatever you're buying. Now, you
got to buy three supersacks for delivery because you can't
just delivery is the most expensive part of buying soil

(01:47:08):
or mult or compost or anything like that. And so
you can't just have one supersac go and haul it
out there and do it. You need three, or you
can have it bulk, or you can go buy there
and pick it up at cienamalts. And these folks are friendly.
They they're just a pleasure to work with. When you
go buy there, check out the stuff on the outside,
the things like the yard arts and decorations, really cool

(01:47:32):
things that they've got. Check out the vego beds that
they sell there. They're set up, they're growing in them.
You can see exactly what that looks like. Go inside.
Check out all the things that are now new in
the shop indoors that would be pottery in the shroomies,
the little ceramic mushroom decorations, leather goods, smartpots, local honey, soaps, candles, lotions,

(01:47:53):
all kinds of things. Now when you go into Cenamult,
you're also going to find all of the stuff that
you need to make your soil the best can be
because soil is a secret to success. So maybe you
buy a been mix like the Vegian or mix from
the folks at Airloom Soils. Maybe you get a fertilizer
from Microlife or from Medina or from Nitrofoss or from

(01:48:14):
Neilson or Asomite. They have all of that there at
Ciena malt It's a one stop shop. Just go buy there. Again,
they are on FM five twenty one. But here's what
you really need to write down, and that's the website
Sienna Mulch dot com. There you'll find the hours, the
phone numbers, the location. It's it's just what you need

(01:48:37):
to do, bottom line. But I promise you this, when
you go by, you will feel like you are treated
well and you will know that you're getting a good
quality product. Because soil is the most important thing we
do for success. Whether it's a lawn, a vegetable garden,
a flower garden, shrubs or trees, soil, it's all about

(01:48:58):
the soil. And Ciena malt is all about soil. We're
going to go now to Pearland and talk to Randy
this morning. Hey, Randy, welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 11 (01:49:08):
How are you?

Speaker 16 (01:49:09):
Thank you. I want to find out what time of
the year is a good time to start playing a
vegetable garden.

Speaker 4 (01:49:17):
Now we've been planting vegetables since January first for this year.
Actually been planning themselves aful. But now it's a great
time for all your cool season vegetables. So if you're
going to do broccoli or Brussels sprouts, or cabbage or
kale or cooled robbie, or if you want to do
root crops like beets, like carrots, like radishes, like all

(01:49:41):
of the turnips, all of the root crops is a
good time for that when it warms up a little bit.
When we get past that last average frost date, we
can begin planning our warm season things like tomatoes and
peppers and beans and squash. But you're down there in Pearland.

Speaker 16 (01:49:57):
What temperature are you talking about? But temper sure you.

Speaker 4 (01:50:01):
The well, let's do it. Yeah, let's do it this way, Randy.
The last average frost date for Hobby Airport, which you're
pretty close to, is, yes, the eighth, eighth of February.
Eighth the February. So once you get into mid mid
to late February, you're dropping in the warm season stuff too.

(01:50:22):
But you can still plant cool season things now. But
just don't delay. Hurry up and get those in.

Speaker 16 (01:50:28):
Okay, I'm going to start them off in the house
to give them a chance to sure, I'm growing, and
I'm I'm going to take Yes, I save egg cartons,
and I'm going to nest initially and from there. Once
you do that, the warms up.

Speaker 4 (01:50:49):
Okay, just bumping them up the bigger and bigger. February
eighth is the average frost. But you know how it is,
Every year is different. I mean, yeah, you could have
a later or you could have We could already be
done with freezes in your area, or you could have one.
You know that's still a few weeks away. You just
never know.

Speaker 16 (01:51:09):
Well, that's so I ask you guys upos. You get
down to night here, you had thirties and tomorrow thirties.

Speaker 4 (01:51:17):
Yeah, that's too early to plant. Well, it wouldn't be
too early if you're planting cool seasoned vegetables like broccoli
or lettuce or spinach or things. It's it's okay for those.
But if you're okay, you're gonna wait. You're gonna wait
a little bit on the warm season stuff. But you
said you're gonna go transplants, So start them now, and

(01:51:38):
in about six weeks, it'll be time to put them
out after you start them, about six weeks.

Speaker 16 (01:51:44):
Okay, I thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:51:48):
Yes, sir, you take it down. You know, garden line advice.
Garden line advice is free. But Randy, expect half the
produce you grow as a result of our conversation, all right,
and we'll call it even.

Speaker 16 (01:51:58):
Oh yeah, take care, you're true.

Speaker 4 (01:52:04):
Not too much to request. All right, Hey, Alan in
Texas City, I don't have time to give you to
do service to your call, So hang on, you will
be the first up when we come back. Music means
we're about done for the day. Hey, have you gotten
your Texas Gardener Planting Guide or planning guide? Excuse me
if you're new to gardening in this area in Texas

(01:52:26):
even or even if you know you've been gardening a while,
but you would just like a guide to kind of
walk you through. It's a really helpful resource. It tells
you what to do all through the year, month by
month by month. It gives you advice. It's got some
other very helpful things in it. In fact, I'm gonna
talk about that a little bit later as we go
through the show this morning. But Texas Gardener Planting Guide

(01:52:49):
go to Texas Gardener dot com. That's the website Texas
Gardener dot com. Listen, this is a magazine written by
Texas Gardener, including yours truly for Texas Garden. And I'm
telling you I know the authors of this magazine. They
put out great stuff and this guy as well as
a subscription something that you should get stuff or someone

(01:53:10):
you know who loves gardening.

Speaker 1 (01:53:13):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skip Rictores.

Speaker 3 (01:53:19):
Crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:53:24):
Trim, just watch him as well. Thanks to see Botaser
in Great gassa not a sun credits gas.

Speaker 3 (01:53:47):
The sun Beamon down between.

Speaker 4 (01:53:52):
Well, welcome back to the garden Line. I'm your host,
skip Rictor. We're here to help you have success in
what you're doing and to enjoy yourself in gardening. Make
gardening more fun, make gardening more successful, make it more rewarding.
That's what we're here about. Seven one three, two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one

(01:54:16):
two fifty eight seventy four. Folks at Microlife have been
producing quality fertilizer products for over thirty five years now.
Microlife products are natural. They're chalk full of beneficial microbes
that help your soil. You know, microbes rule the world,
especially when it comes to plants and success in the soil.

(01:54:36):
And Microlife is designed around that very same principle. Whether
you're using their grand or products, or whether you're using
one of their liquid products, you're going to find that
they work. And I can say that because I use
them and they work. I know I've tried it myself,
like the Biomatrix, the orange label seven one three high
nitrogen fertilizer and you just put it I use it

(01:54:58):
on houseplants. I use it on outdoor plant anywhere that
I want to give a boost of growth. You can
put it on your your put a hose in spray
and put on your pansy buds right now and give
them a boost. Because you know the people are going, yeah,
but it's high phosphorus that makes things bloom. Well, yes,
phosphorus is important in blooms. But if you're bloom, if
your flowers are blooming themselves to death and running out

(01:55:19):
of energy producing those energy expensive blooms. To a flower plant,
that is, you need to give them a boost to
nitrogen and get some growth, get some leaves, get some
solar panels up in the sky to catch the sunlight
and make carbohydrates so they can bloom more. Microlife biometrics
great for that ocean harvest. Blue label another good fertilizer
for using outdoors. It's a four to two three fish

(01:55:41):
based fertilizer. Give your plant to boost and you can
find Microlife products all over the place. If you have
any questions about that, just go to Microlifefertilizer dot Com
tells you exactly where you can find the retailers the
carry Microlife around the Greater Houston area and far far beyond.
We're going to go out to Texas City. Now visit

(01:56:01):
with Alan this morning. Hey, Alan, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 19 (01:56:06):
Thank you Skiving, Good morning.

Speaker 4 (01:56:08):
I just caught the telling of a hello.

Speaker 19 (01:56:13):
Yes, sir, Okay, I'm at a place where I got
a bad signal where I'm at, so I'm trying not
to move.

Speaker 4 (01:56:19):
Okay.

Speaker 19 (01:56:20):
I caught the tail end of a topic while ago,
and Hey, I apologize. You got to repeat yourself. I
have always followed the fertilization schedule, and I'm eighteen months
into a brand new home and I cannot, for the
life of me, get my grass to cooperate. I mean,
I got lust grass in one area, and then right
next door to it, it'd be like a big old

(01:56:41):
bottole and nothing but dirt. I'm gonna assume I haven't
had my soil tests. I'm gonna assume that. So I'm
just curious if that layer of getting a top dressing
would help me out or not. I don't have any pictures.

Speaker 5 (01:56:58):
At the moment.

Speaker 4 (01:57:00):
Yeah, it depends on what's causing it as to whether
the top dressing would help it. Top dressing in general
is good for plants or lawns. Aer rating in general
is good for lawns. You know it typically in your
lawn unless you just had a fertilizer spell that occurred
at some point in the past, You're not going to
see a dramatic difference where like five feet away there's

(01:57:20):
no nitrogen and five feet away from that there isn't
a lot of nitrogen. You're not going to see that
kind of variation in a lawn typically, So I would
look at other things. Could be chinchbugs, it could be
lack a sunlight, it could be droughty conditions. It could
be the irrigation system doesn't reach a certain spot adequately
so in the summer that goes into stress, which can
lead to disease problems as well in those areas. So

(01:57:43):
it's going to be probably a mix of things as
my best shot with limited information that I have there on.
So I would, you know, I would make sure your
irrigation system has good coverage when it's running. Realized that
we are having some dry spells, and unless it happened
to have rained at your spot, there's several parts of
the listening area that are very very dry. It might

(01:58:03):
help it to have a little, just one one irrigation,
just to kind of make sure it doesn't go into
major stress.

Speaker 5 (01:58:09):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:58:09):
And then when the spring starts, follow my schedule, and
as things begin to not look right, send me a picture,
give me a call, and let's talk about it again
when I can see a little more specifically what is
going on.

Speaker 10 (01:58:25):
Okay, I did earlier in the year.

Speaker 19 (01:58:27):
I did have a chinch bug issue because I went
down to the ground and the grass and spread it out,
and well, I could see them.

Speaker 4 (01:58:33):
I eliminated that.

Speaker 19 (01:58:34):
Yeah, like I said, it's some areas nice and blush
and then then it looks like the Sahara desert, and yeah,
so I followed. I'll followed that fertilization schedule forever. So
I've never had an issue till this one. Say, it's
really got me angry because it's winning and I'm losing.
So that we can fox it. We can fill in

(01:58:56):
some areas. I have to fill in some areas. I
mean I can almost walk out there right now, like
after eighteen months that grasps me in there. I can
almost reach out both hands and pull up the original
square a side that they put down.

Speaker 12 (01:59:10):
It's just horrible.

Speaker 4 (01:59:11):
And that's why.

Speaker 7 (01:59:12):
I was thinking maybe some kind of layer. It's more soil.

Speaker 4 (01:59:16):
Yeah, who knows on that. I mean, you want to
be careful not to overuse pre emergent herbicides. That affects
root development of the grass, and so do the watch
for that. When you say you can pick up a
piece of side, that's that starts to sound a little
bit like grubs in the soil. Cut the roots loose,
and you pick them up like throw carpets because the

(01:59:38):
roots are all cut off. So there's a lot of
possibilities and there's no way we can solve that now,
but as it happens, so let's send me pictures. Let's
work on this. We'll get you long back in shape
over the course of this coming season. All right, sir,
thank you, Thank you for your call.

Speaker 14 (01:59:53):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:59:54):
Take care by beginners and Naty Plants in the Heights
one of my favorite places to go. I love Buchanans
number one. They specialize in native plants. They don't just
have natives. In fact, natives are a small part of
all the plants that they carry. But you're not going
to find a better selection of natives anywhere in Houston.
Then you'll find at Buchanans and I'm telling you their

(02:00:17):
houseplant Greenhouse is crazy. We stopped in there a couple
times this winter. My wife loves her houseplant greenhouse, and
we were there picking up some really unusual exotics that
we didn't have before. And they have all the standards,
but they also have some really cool stuff. By the way,
Today today I hope you're listening. From ten am to
eleven am, they're going to have a talk on twenty

(02:00:38):
Texas Tough Plants for Sephanie Hagen's going to be given
the talk. She's a fixture there at Buchanans Nata Plants,
extremely knowledgeable. Twenty Texas Tough Plants at Buchanans a free class.
You need to get out there and check that out.
You really enjoy it. Buchanans Naated Plants on eleven Street

(02:00:58):
in the Heights. Buchananslant dot Com. Let's do this in
order to have time. I'm going to go to a
break now. When I come back, Jim and Montgomery and
Brett and Tumball, you're the first two from pepe Agona.
Pepe Agular is going to be at the Rodeo on
the fourteenth today, which is to Hono Day. That is
one of the biggest days at the Rodeo each year,

(02:01:20):
a very very popular day, and so stop by check
out the music. But remember this, I'm telling you the tickets.
There are a couple of at least two. I think
there's three shows that are sold out. I may be
wrong about it, maybe more of them. If you're interested
in going the rodeo, don't delay get your tickets. Get
your tickets because they're always a great lineup of music
at the Houston Lifetruction on Rodeo every year. Piercecapes is

(02:01:44):
our go to landscape for here on Guardenline. Been run
since nineteen eighty eight, and boy did they ever do
really high quality work. You should just go to their
website and see the kinds of stuff they do. Pierce
Escapes dot com piercecapes dot com. Whenever spring springs on
our landscape, it's time to have them come out, get

(02:02:06):
them involved in your maintenance. They do. They can do
like a quarterly maintenance program where they come out every
quarter spruce things up or plenish the mult make sure
the weeds are out of there if they're any. In
check the irrigation, make sure it's working, you know, change
out color occasionally. We're gonna be getting rid of the
pansies soon and putting in the petunias or something along

(02:02:26):
those lines. Pierce Caapes does all that, whether you want
a complete design from top to bottom. I just need
a litter, irrigation work, you need a little drainage work.
They can do it all beautiful hardscapes, walkways, landscape lighting, pierscapes.
Make your place a showplace with the folks at Peer Scapes,
Pierce Scapes dot com two eight one three seven oh

(02:02:50):
fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh five zero
six zero. Let's go out now to Montgomery and we're
gonna visit with Jim this morning. Hey, Jim, welcome to
guard Mine.

Speaker 9 (02:03:01):
Well, good morning. I was wondering. My device tells me
tonight it's going to get to twenty five degrees. Now,
is that true?

Speaker 4 (02:03:10):
I have not spared the temperature. No, I don't. I
don't think that's true. It possibly could be. Conro's not
getting that cold, and College Station's not getting that cold
according to my weather apps. But that's okay because you
might prepare for it.

Speaker 9 (02:03:27):
Conroe was going to get to be twenty seven but
I know they're down in a hole where they take
their weather report at the airport up there on the
north side. And okay, anyway, I got kum quats and
they're in containers, but they're huge and they're arduous to
have to move. And they got a couple of fruits

(02:03:50):
still left on them. They haven't become ripe yet. They
seem to put on fruit all year, you know, all
summer off and on, you know what I mean. They're
never like like a determinant tomato. Just all of them
pop out at one time. They seem to be a
you know, at random here and there. I got two

(02:04:13):
of them. I got the mi whah, which is a
small one, and then I got the wang shoe chained
shoe or whatever it is. And those are large. Some
of those this year almost got as big as golf balls.
It was really unique. I used that microwave a microlife

(02:04:33):
orange bag of the citrus that works like like crazy.
It really it just they just bloom so much. I
also have a Southern high bush blueberry. It's in a
container and I left it out during that heavy ditty
freeze we had a few years ago, and it affected

(02:04:57):
whatsoever it bloomed and put on a million in blueberries.

Speaker 4 (02:05:02):
It leads.

Speaker 3 (02:05:05):
To move Let's do the com Yeah, let me do that.

Speaker 4 (02:05:09):
Come quat, Yeah, come quiet. Is about the as hearty
as centrist as you're going to find. So it will
not batterie at twenty five degrees, It'll be fine. The
thing about plants in a cold, cold, well, whether they're
in containers, is the roots get cold. And that would
be more of my concern on any plant when if
you I don't think you're going to get to twenty five,

(02:05:30):
but if you did, uh, then that it would be
a matter of making sure the roots don't freeze because
roots are used to be underground, used to being underground
where it doesn't get that cold. It may be it
may be twenty degrees above ground, but down you know,
five inches below the soil, it's it's not going to
be anywhere near that.

Speaker 5 (02:05:46):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:05:46):
And so when you put it in a container, okay.

Speaker 9 (02:05:52):
Are going to be Yeah, they're in large containers. But
the roots, some of the roots have gone into the ground,
got it.

Speaker 4 (02:06:03):
Yeah, well, Jim, I get that. I understand. I think
they're gonna be okay today. I would I wouldn't sweat it.
On this particular one. If you want to be extra careful,
you're going to have to cut the roots. All right,
Good luck with it. Thank you. We're going to run
now out to Brett and Tomball. Hey, Brett, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 14 (02:06:24):
Hey, thanks for taking a call. I've got a big
fig tree. I don't probably a twelve or twelve area
that it's in. It's it's been really, really healthy. I
need to know when I should prune it, how much
I should prune off of it, the sites of the
crazy branches.

Speaker 11 (02:06:40):
Should I mulch it with pine needles?

Speaker 14 (02:06:43):
And then should I when should I fertilize it?

Speaker 4 (02:06:47):
All right? So big pruning is not a complex process
at all. Basically, we are keeping the plant open. We
are you know, if you've got a broken branch, if
you got a dead branch, if you got branch that
are crossing and rubbing or things, you can print those out.
But in general, there's not this big printing system for
figs like we use for for apples or peaches or

(02:07:10):
something like that. Most people grow their trees as multi
trunk trees. I mean maybe have five different trunks on
them coming up, just because we occasionally will get some
coal damage on them. But in general I wouldn't sweat
a lot on prunting, but I wouldn't do any until
we get past the dangers of frost. Pruning is a
stimulating process, and you wouldn't want, like printing today to

(02:07:32):
cause that fig in the next week or two to
try to push some new growth and then here comes
another coal spell. So I'd hold off a little bit later.

Speaker 3 (02:07:40):
To do it.

Speaker 4 (02:07:41):
There's no no rush on getting figs pruned at all.
That you said something else about it, and I can't.

Speaker 14 (02:07:49):
Question underneath the fig tree. Underneath the fig tree is
just turned. Should I maulch it and carry these pine
needles to it?

Speaker 4 (02:07:57):
Yeah? Yes, you can use pine lead you spent, hey,
you can use leaves, shredded up leaves from the neighborhood.
Just mulch it thickly. What that does a couple things.
Keeps the sole temperature moderate, keeps the soil from eroding
or crusting, and keeps the soil temperature moderate. And the
fig will do very very well with a good thick

(02:08:18):
mulch over it. And the main thing it does is
keep the dead gum weeds away. They are a major
competitor with any plant. So to have a big area
around the fig as big as aesthetically as acceptable to you,
then that that's going to help benefit your fig tree
or any any fruit tree that you have. Okay, thank you, yes, sir,

(02:08:40):
Thank you, appreciate appreciate your phone call very much. Thanks
a lot. Always good to hear from folks. Hey, Wildbird's Unlimited. Wow,
what a place. I was in a wild Birds the
other day. Wildbird's Unlimited store, and oh my gosh, it
just makes me every time I go in. It's like
I don't have one of those kind of bird feeders.
I don't have one of those kind of bird houses,

(02:09:01):
and I don't have a Martin house. And Martin's are
already out, you know, they're they're starting to scout and stuff.
From what I'm hearing. Uh, and I want to get
one one of these days. Is just one thing I
haven't gotten around to yet. They've got cool ones. They
have ones that are easy to bring down for cleaning
the design of the house as such, and it's easy

(02:09:22):
to clean it out or if you just want to go.
You know, people hang gourds up with holes in them.
For Martins, they have these giant plastic gords that are
also easy to clean, that are white. They're actually really pretty.
You can hang them up in the air for that.
If you want whatever you need, wild Birds Unlimited has
got you covered right now. We're still feeding Winter super Blend.
We got a lot of birds that are getting hungry.

(02:09:44):
They don't have as many hours in a day to
do their they're hunting for food as they would and
other parts of the year. Uh and Winter super Blend's
got that extra protein, extra fat as well to kind
of help the birds out. So if you got feeders
and you haven't cleaned them out in a while, get
those things cleaned out. Moldybird seed doesn't do anybody any good.

(02:10:05):
Get them cleaned out and get them restocked with a
quality bird seed from Wildbirds Unlimited. Not the little redbbes
that make up over half of most cheap bird seeds,
but the quality stuff the birds want to eat. Wild
Birds Unlimited six stores near you. Go to WBU dot
com stands for Wildbirds Unlimited, WBU dot Com Forward Slash Houston.

(02:10:30):
That's how you find your local Wildbirds Unlimited store. We're
going to go now to Lakewood Estates or Lake Cider
States rather and talk to Mareen. Hey Mareen, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 23 (02:10:41):
Yes, thank you so much for being on the air. Okay,
So I have some unrelated, unrelated questions, but I think
they'll be short. So I'm already planning what I want
to do with my lawn on early I'm not going
to do anything right now. But when should I call

(02:11:02):
for aeration?

Speaker 4 (02:11:03):
I would like to do that.

Speaker 23 (02:11:05):
Last time I did it was very successful and that
was approximately four years ago.

Speaker 4 (02:11:11):
So what is I prefer You can airate anytime of
the year. Technically, I prefer to wait until after the
spring green up period. I like the lawns to get
out there, to get going, to get some the new
set They put new roots out in the spring as
we as we enter the spring, and I so I
like to airate, you know, once once you mowed the

(02:11:34):
lawn a couple of times. Maybe aerrating at that time
would be my ideal time. That and on end of summer.

Speaker 23 (02:11:42):
Good Okay, Well, like I said, it's sort of a plan,
and you can't have everybody at the yard the same point,
so I thought I would call in and ask. All right, So,
so I have a high biscus plant which is in
a container easy for me to move in and out
of the house.

Speaker 20 (02:12:00):
And so I have been doing it.

Speaker 23 (02:12:03):
And for my particular health reasons breathing, I've actually turned
my heat off and I'm breathing better for me. And
so I've brought in my plans and everybody seems to
like it a little bit chilly. So I want to
bring the high biscuits in again.

Speaker 5 (02:12:22):
It has buds on it.

Speaker 15 (02:12:24):
I stopped seeing it.

Speaker 23 (02:12:25):
You said, don't feed it after September. I haven't, but
it's a happy camper and I've got lots of buds.

Speaker 4 (02:12:33):
So all right, hey, Marine, Marine, I'm gonna have to
I got to cut you off. I'm a beginst a heartbreak.
Hang on, we'll come right back with your question. Sorry
to have to interrupt. Hey, welcome back to the Garden Line.
Good to have you with us. Good to have you
with us today on the Garden Line. Looking forward to
helping you with your questions at seven one, three, two, two, five,

(02:12:54):
eight seven four. Let's see here where we are. We're
going to go to uh, We're gonna go up to
Pennington now and talk to Lloyd this morning. Hey, Lloyd,
welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 11 (02:13:07):
How are you doing this morning.

Speaker 4 (02:13:10):
Doing good.

Speaker 24 (02:13:12):
I've got a question, is a I've planned two varieties
of green beans, I plant strike and contender. Are they
considered a lagoon?

Speaker 4 (02:13:25):
Absolutely?

Speaker 8 (02:13:28):
Okay, I was wrong with on that one.

Speaker 5 (02:13:30):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (02:13:31):
Another thing.

Speaker 8 (02:13:31):
I've got a big tree.

Speaker 24 (02:13:34):
Back in the hard freeze we had and what twenty
twenty one something like that, that deep tree roe. I
went out there in the it was about all the
branches on it were probably eight or nine foot long.
They completely frozen. I broke them back to the ground
and it came out really good. That deep tree has

(02:13:57):
never produced. It'll get they'll get about side of a
quarter and then they'll fall off. Do you think it
damaged that tree or.

Speaker 14 (02:14:08):
No?

Speaker 4 (02:14:09):
No, that that should have nothing to do with production.
Freezing back on a fig tree, they're not grafted. It's
not like a rootstock came up now and that's what
you got it. It shouldn't have any effect on that.

Speaker 9 (02:14:20):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:14:20):
Tell me, do you know what variety of fig it was?

Speaker 11 (02:14:24):
I think it was a celeste.

Speaker 4 (02:14:27):
Okay, Well, I don't know why it's not doing better
for you. Did it produce better before the freeze before
that happened in the year's car.

Speaker 24 (02:14:37):
Yeah, yeah, and I've got another one about twenty foot
from it, and it predictions.

Speaker 4 (02:14:44):
Yeah, that's very strange. I don't I don't know why
that would be. I can't think of a scientific reason
that a fig tree that froze to the ground and
came back years later is still not producing, right, or
it's producing that they're not ripening. Is that correct?

Speaker 24 (02:15:00):
Yes, I fertilized around it with a balanced fertilizer, right
around the drip land, and I fertilowed it a couple
of times a year, keep the water very good. But
it it up about a little bigger than a quarter,
and they just never wrap it.

Speaker 4 (02:15:21):
Okay, let me look into that a little more. I
don't know what else, but I don't think it's freeze related.
Just as for the heck of it, you might try
getting a spade and fork and kind of lifting up
some soil and take a water hose with a gun
on it and wash the roots off that you expose,
and see if there's little knots all over the roots

(02:15:43):
like nematods would cause. I would just be curious to
know if that has If you know, it could have
been a minor nematod problem has just gotten worse and worse,
and now the tree is under that stress. Is the
bigger of the tree look good? Does the bigger?

Speaker 10 (02:16:00):
Oh yeah, lived wonderful.

Speaker 4 (02:16:04):
Okay, let's back off around. They're pretty forgiving. They they
can take, uh, you know, anywhere from slightly acid to
fairly alkaline and do Okay, figs are not that picky,
but I would I would just say, hold off a
little bit on the fertilizer. Let's let's not push it

(02:16:25):
quite so hard this year and see if it settles down.
I assume it's getting good sunlight. Is that correct?

Speaker 12 (02:16:32):
Sidelight?

Speaker 4 (02:16:34):
Okay? Yeah, that's all I know to tell you on
that one. If I figure out anything else, I'll mention
it on the air. But I don't. I don't know
what else would be causing that. But green bean is
I look at it, Yes, yes it is.

Speaker 8 (02:16:51):
It is all.

Speaker 24 (02:16:54):
Because I wait, I al wait, fertilized for the low
naggen on there, and.

Speaker 4 (02:17:01):
Yeah, that's what you should do for lagoons. Yeah, that's
what you should do for lagoms low nitron. Yes, sir,
you take care, thank you. We're going to go back
to marine in Lakeside of States. Marine. Did you have
a follow up question on what we were talking about before.

Speaker 23 (02:17:16):
Yeah, I wanted to know what to do with the
high business that has a lot of blooms on it.
I brought it inside the house. But I understand that
it can be a delicate plant.

Speaker 4 (02:17:30):
Well yeah, I mean they're actually they're pretty tough, you know,
as long as the weather's not cold and you get
lightered amount of moisture.

Speaker 20 (02:17:39):
I saw mosher right now.

Speaker 10 (02:17:42):
I am watering it.

Speaker 23 (02:17:43):
Last time I bet it was in September or late September.

Speaker 7 (02:17:48):
It's doing very well.

Speaker 23 (02:17:49):
But that's why I'm calling you to make sure that
it continues to do very well.

Speaker 19 (02:17:54):
So what is a mine.

Speaker 23 (02:17:58):
For temperature where I need to bring it inside my house?
Which I can do, it doesn't have to go into
the garage.

Speaker 4 (02:18:04):
Well, pretty much freezing. I've got one that stayed outside
and just when it was about to freeze, I brought
it in the garage and put it kind of close
to a light. They really would want more light than
I gave it. But it's sitting inside in a cold
garage and doing just fine, non heated garage.

Speaker 23 (02:18:24):
Okay, So a second question is plume aria. I have
a friend who will be giving me a plant, and
she said they propagate easily.

Speaker 20 (02:18:36):
So I was going to try that.

Speaker 16 (02:18:37):
When when is that?

Speaker 7 (02:18:39):
When should I try to take care of plumeria?

Speaker 4 (02:18:44):
Well, plumeria does not even want to be in the
low fifties. It wants to be warm. So let's get
out of the cool nights before you stick that thing
back outside, and it should just take off growing as
the weather heats up. It does just find outside. But
it is not tolerant of cold weather. Even if you're

(02:19:04):
not comfortable out there in long sleeve shirt, it's not
gonna be comfortable.

Speaker 23 (02:19:09):
Okay, okay, I think that'll do it for now. Just
hang up and listen to whatever people have question.

Speaker 4 (02:19:17):
All right, thank you Marien with them, thank you.

Speaker 5 (02:19:19):
Bye bye.

Speaker 4 (02:19:20):
All right, you take bye bye, you take care. Well,
it's time for me to take a little hard break
here Josh in Houston. We will come to you first
when we come back. Welcome out, open up the guard line. Brothers. Well,
guess what I need you to write this down? Make

(02:19:41):
a note if you live out, especially if you live
out south and west of Houston. I'm going to be
it in Chenna Gardens on January thirty first, That is
a Saturday, two Saturdays from today. Okay, January thirty first,
two saturdays from today, I'll be it in Chenna Gardens
and I'm going to be given a talk out there.
I'm going to talk on gardening and raised beds and

(02:20:01):
gardening and containers and tips for doing those and I
hope you can come out to see me. Now in
Chenni Gardens is on FM three fifty nine, three fifty nine.
That is on the Katie Fulscher side of Richmond. The
website Enchentedgardens Richmond dot com in Chennigardens Richmond dot com.
You need to go check this place out. If you've
never been out there, I don't know how you've managed

(02:20:22):
to avoid it up the now, but you need to
get out to Enchended Gardens in Richmond. It is an
outstanding nursery. They have a wide selection of all kinds
of plants. I mean, whatever you're looking for. I've been
talking about vegetable gardening today and if you want to
have a successful vegetable garden, you believe the selection that
they have out there. It's outstanding, all kinds of things,

(02:20:45):
vegetable plants, herb plants, beautiful beautiful containers. Really nice selection
fruit trees. It's fruit tree planning season. Come out out
and see me on January thirty first, that's two Saturdays
from today, two Saturday from today. They always have fun
stuff going on there. They typically have food trucks going
on on the weekends out there. They've got lots of

(02:21:07):
talks going on different times, and so I hope you'll
come on out and see me at Enchanted Gardens that
is on the Katie fullsher side of Richmond and Chended
Gardens Richmond dot com. In fact, today it's starting at
ten a m. What's that ten minutes from now. John
Penzerula is gonna be out there talking about growing fruit trees.

(02:21:29):
If John knows a lot about grunfruits, You've been talking
about grown fruit trees for decades. Run the Greater Houston
area citrus and other kinds of fruit, and that will
help you success.

Speaker 9 (02:21:38):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:21:39):
Also, there'll be a talk next Saturday on landscaping bringing
value to your home. Okay, you can find out about
ways to increase and enhance the value of your home.
And then again two weeknds frinted out easy productive vegetable
gardening and raised beds and containers. So if you don't
have space for gardening, if you hate crawling around on
your hands and knees, or if you hate the work

(02:22:00):
of breaking up soil for planting and all that kind
of backbreaking stuff, you're gonna grow more vegetables for square
foot raised beds and containers are a way to do it,
to get going right, and I will give you tips
about that off some helpful photos that I'll be showing
and some good handouts as well for you out there,
and just be on hand to answer your gardening questions. Saturday,

(02:22:23):
January thirty first, twelve thirty so just after lunch at
Intented Gardens, Richmond, we're going to be doing giveaways from
the folks at Medina. Medina's providing some really cool giveaways
of products, and the folks at Intended Gardens are going
to have goodways as well while we're there, So come
on out and see me. I'd look forward to visiting

(02:22:44):
with you. Let's head out now into Houston and talk
to Josh this morning. Hey Josh, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (02:22:51):
Hey Skip, Hey, I'm up here in Houston, Missouri. I've
called in before. My question this year is I'm buying
I'm buying about one hundred dob cypress from conservation, and
I'm putting them in along the Jackspork River down to
my bottom the bottom of my property, and just some
tips on what I need to do to give them
the best start possible.

Speaker 4 (02:23:13):
Okay, Uh, what kind of trees?

Speaker 5 (02:23:16):
They're bald knob cypress. They're they're a semi swamp dweller.
But uh, yeah, they love water areas well. Kind of
all is.

Speaker 4 (02:23:29):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:23:30):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:23:32):
The conservation trees are small and bare root when they
come in typically, yes, and uh you you never want
those roots to dry out. That's these single most important things.
So when you get them in, unpack it, take them
out of there.

Speaker 12 (02:23:45):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:23:45):
I don't know what size you bought, but usually they're
they're a size where you could take a five gallon
bucket and fill a full of water and just stick
them down in it and let the roots soak for
a while as you go out to plant and things.

Speaker 5 (02:23:58):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:23:58):
Don't leave them in there for three days in the water,
of course, but just get them good and so wet
and then keep them moist, whether you wrap them up
in something, you know, straw burrel apse on dust, whatever,
just to kind of keep it nice and moisten around
the roots. Then when you put them in the ground,
plan them at the Look for the soil line on
those seedlings that you bought the conservation seedlings. Plant them

(02:24:18):
at exactly that level. Firm the soil in around them.
As you fill the hole. Put water in the hole
so that it settles the soil. You don't have all
those air pockets in there. You don't want to stalk
the soil down in the hole, but you just want
to use water to settle it as you fill that hole,
and that'll make good soil to root contact and give
them the best chance of taking off and doing well.

(02:24:41):
If it's possible to give a mulched area around them
to keep the weeds down, that's helpful as you get started.
The number the number one thing that slows plants down
is weed competition when you put a new plant in
the ground like that, and so anything you can do
to give them as wide of an area as you
can mulch on the surface is better. But at least

(02:25:03):
keep the weeds away one way or another.

Speaker 5 (02:25:05):
Keep any nutrition I should give them when I first
put in any nutrients, No.

Speaker 4 (02:25:16):
None, don't put anything in the planning hole. Just plant them,
get them going, and then once they start to bud
break and push out new growth, about six weeks or
so after that, begin to fertilize them lightly and just
use a regular lawn fertilizer. Make sure it does not
contain a herbicide, just fertilizer. Sprinkle it around them. Usually

(02:25:39):
on fertilizing, I say a cup princh of trunk diameter.
These are gonna be a little scrawny things, not even
an inch in trunk diameter, And so you're just gonna
maybe a quarter cup just sprinkled around in a big circle,
watered in real good. If you got time scratched into
the soil surface, you know, with a rake or a hoe,
just real lightly, just to get it into the soil,
watered in real good, and that'll be all you need.

(02:26:00):
The number one thing on fast growth, though, is keep
the weeds as far away as you can. Second thing
is watering and fertilizing in that order. Important, all right.

Speaker 25 (02:26:10):
And the last time I called you, you gave me
a tip on the oh damn it greenbrier and it
worked great. I've cleared out about a whole acre around
the house of.

Speaker 4 (02:26:21):
It, so remind me, remind me of what I told. Yeah, well, I've.

Speaker 5 (02:26:28):
Used it all up, but uh, the chemical I think
maybe triclip here or something you gave it, you told
me to use, and I haven't had a problem with
him in over a year since then. It's great.

Speaker 4 (02:26:41):
Good, Well, I'm glad my tip worked. You know, they
say that even a blind hog finds an acre and
ever know, and then so you just got lucky all
right out of trouble. Thanks a lot. Yeah, Houston, Houston, Missouri.
I used to live in, I said, three years in
Mountain Grove, Missouri, and Houston is just north that. If

(02:27:04):
you're sitting here going where's Houston, Missouri? Well it's north
that there actually is north of Kabul. But unless you're
listening for Missouri, none of that makes any sense. But
Mountain Grove is where the state Fruit Experiment station is
in Missouri. All right, Ace Hardware Stores have got you
covered on whatever you need. You're gonna find ACE all
over the Greater Houston listening area here from Beaumont all

(02:27:26):
the way and Orange all the way acrossover to Victoria.
You got Ace Hardware stores places like you know, you
go out to the go out way way way to
the east, and you're in a place like Child's Building
Supply on North sixteenth Street and Orange. You go southwest,
you're let's go all the way down to Wharton. Well,
there's Wharton feed and ACE on North Richmond, Brenham, Ace
up north end to the west on North Austin Parkway.

(02:27:50):
Was there for an appearance not too long ago, Hamilton
on Highway six in the Bear Creek area, Bay Cliff,
south of Keemon, Grand Avenue, Fullshire, ACE on FM three
fifty nine. Then for sure, Hey, Acehardware Texas dot com,
just please write that down Ace Hardware Texas. Go look
at it right now. You're not even to there right now,
Just take two seconds. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Find

(02:28:11):
your local ACE Hardware stores and go visit them. They
are loading up for spring. They're ready for you so
you can have a beautiful lawn and landscape. You gotta
go by and do that. Well, you've been listening to
garden Line. Guess what We're gonna get up and do
this again tomorrow morning. I'll see you bright and early
at six o'clock. You'll be there right right and early.
Cup of coffee, well, at least rise even if you

(02:28:32):
refuse to shine, look forward to visiting with you and
helping you with your gardening success. Check out my website,
gardening with skip dot com. A number of things we
talked about today are right there for you. They're free.
Help you out, talk to you in the morning.