The Dicey Icy Day

Skip Richter answers your questions all morning long!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Katie r. H.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Garden Line with Skip Rictor's shoes.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
The crazy here the gas gas can't.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Use a trip.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Just watch him as we're going the gassa gasca you
a man. It takes the soup back basic in the bay,
the bassis and gas and again you dud Samos gubbles
back kicking.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
They're not a sound.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
The glasses and gas.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Sun them and down.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
The gas like gas.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
You jam.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
First starting and out of treating the gas gas time
you did everything is so see.

Speaker 6 (00:53):
Well, good morning, folks. I just got a phone call
from your plants and they're saying, hey, could you throw
another light bulb under that cover? We are chilling out
out here. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to garden Line on a
great day to be listening to the radio. Inside. I'm
your host, Skip Richter, and we're going to talk about

(01:16):
gardening today. I'm sure we'll talk about some freezing related things.
Maybe you have some questions on protecting plants or so on.
But the worst is yet to come. Tomorrow morning we
get our coldest. Although I've been watching the weather forecast
in some different areas around the Greater Hou scenario, and
it seems like it's a degree or two or three

(01:37):
warmer in some cases than I saw predicted a few
days ago. So we'll call that good news. But it's
a good day to be inside. If you make chili
or gumbo, this would be a good day to make some.
If you've got a fireplace, it's be a good day
to fire it up. I know it doesn't heat our
homes that much, but the ambiance is a nice thing.

(01:58):
But anyway, we're glad to have you. If you got
a question this morning seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four, give me a call. We'll talk
about the things that are most of interest to you. So, uh,
let's see here. I've got a uh. I had a

(02:19):
riddle for you this morning. Look, it's early. I know
you're half asleep. I shouldn't do this. What plant is
always cold? What plant is always cold? The answer is
a chili plant. But Nicholas, I think I need some
sound effect kind of things for the show, just to
kind of help people know that's supposed to be when

(02:39):
you grin, definitely not laugh on that one. I specialize
in dad jokes, by the way, I used to could
rule the room at my house, and after about age
ten it began to be rolling the eyes, oh Dad,
And a little bit later than that it just shaking
heads and walking off to something else. Anyway, I love

(03:00):
dad jokes. I could do a whole show of dad jokes,
not that you would want me to. I just saying
I got the material in there.

Speaker 7 (03:08):
Right.

Speaker 6 (03:10):
Since this is Houston, how about a NASA one? What
an astronauts seed for lunch? Lunch meat sandwiches? That's it,
all right, I'll quit right there. I'll stop, I promise.
I want to talk a little bit about some things
going on at the house regarding gardening, maybe at your
house as well. One of them for me is I
almost look forward today's where I can't get outside, and

(03:32):
the reason is because there's this inside stuff that I
never get around to when I can be outside. But
we're going to be starting some seeds today. I have
a number of seeds that have bagged up. I've got
a bunch of okra. I don't know if you know this,
but I do okra breeding at the house, and I've
done it at some bagfarms too, but basically crossing varieties

(03:57):
and things coming up with new ones. I think that's fine.
It's kind of cool, you know, because whatever you come
up with, you made it, and that's kind of fun,
kind of like growing a peach.

Speaker 7 (04:05):
I made that.

Speaker 6 (04:06):
I grew that at least, And so I'll be doing
that planting some of those. Not now, but as we
get a little further along, and we're it's not quite
time yet, but I have to go through the seeds
and look at all the records and stuff on them
and get that ready package. What I am going to
be planning now is some farkleberries. Have you ever heard
of farkleberry. Farkleberry is a blueberry relative and it's actually

(04:34):
graft compatible with blueberries. So years ago over in gosh
was that in near Porter, Texas, Albert Morehead had a
blueberry patch. It's one of the first blueberry patches in
our area, if not the first, And he actually had
some plants that had been grafted onto farkleberry. And you

(04:56):
know it, Like I said, it's graft compatible. Why would
you do that? Well, farkleberry actually pretty tolerant of higher
pH soils. You see them growing wild, I know out
in the countryside. Depends on what part of the area
you're in, but on the countryside you in the fall,
we'll see this deep burgundy, dark kind of darker burgundy,

(05:17):
not a bright pretty color, but a darker color in
the foliage of shrubs along the wood along the roadsides.
And that probably is a farkerberry. That's what they do.
They make nice fall color. So I think, A it's
a native plant. B it has a little bit of
fall color. And see it has these little birds or
little berries that the birds eat. As far as us

(05:38):
eating them, they are edible, but it's a tiny berry
and it has big seeds in it, and so eh,
not that productive to eat them. But you can't make
jelly out of them or something. But anyway, I collect
that a bunch of seed, driving the roadways, finding seeds
that are finding bushes that have a specially good fall color,

(05:58):
look good and healthy fall color, and just collecting berries
off those, and I'll plan them all, put a bunch
of them out and see how they do on fall color,
get rid of all the ones that don't have good
fall color, or graft them to blueberry. That that's something
I might do. So anyway, that's we're gonna start some
seeds from that. I like playing like that. I know

(06:20):
most people you know for gardening, it's just like, hey,
I want my yard to look good and my landscape decent,
and that's that's far I want, as far as I
want to go. But I tell you, garden has so
many more aspects to it. Some of you guys are
into orchids of all types. Some of you, excuse me,
you're into house plants. I have a daughter that is,

(06:41):
I would say, into house plants. It's when you walk
into her house, you stop a minute and look, and
you expect Tarzan to come yodling and swinging by at
any minute. At place is a jungle, I mean, from
top to bottom. It's a lot to take in. People
have gone in there before from the street or seen

(07:02):
through the windows from the street. Knocked in door says
this a plant shop because it's giant windows out front. Anyway,
So everybody gets into different things. Whatever's of interest to you.
If you like veggies or want to try veggies now,
it'd be a good time go ahead and start you
some tomatoes, starch, you some peppers or eggplant. Those would

(07:23):
all be good to be doing right about now outdoors.
Once this cold passes, we can head outside and plant
our potatoes for the spring. Plant onions still still a
good time to plant onions and a lot of other things.
Your county Agrolife Extension office probably has a what to
plant now list that they'd be happy to give to you,

(07:44):
and there's others available. I know Urban Harvest has a
really good list. Angela Chandler at the Garden Academy has
a good list of planting times and schedules and whatnot.
And so though I would recommend all of that to you.
And the interesting thing is when you look at our schedules,
I have my own, they don't line up. There's a
little difference in opinion about when things can be planted.

(08:07):
And part of the reason is different areas. Inside Houston
tends to be a little warmer than because of the
heat effect of the city and outside a little bit cooler.
And then just people's own individual experiences. But the main
thing is, get a hold of one and get going.
It is time. Let's take a little break. We'll be

(08:29):
right back. Good job, all right, folks, there you go
head outside. If you still raining in your area, you
could get rich. Apparently, good heavy back with us. We
are tending to be talking gardening today, as we do
every day on garden Line. If you are new to
garden Line, welcome first of all, and we invite you

(08:53):
to invite your friends as well. Now I know it's
a cold day out, but if you look over and
your neighbors lights are off, go on something warm, scuttle
across the lawn there, bang on the door and tell
them they're missing garden Line, and they will be very
appreciative once they tune in. And in the meantime you
might want to watch out for them a little bit.
They may be very appreciative you're waking them up at

(09:15):
that hour of the morning. But we do want you
to tell other people about garden Line. If you've got
garden clubs you're part of, if you friends and family
and things. We've got listeners really far out from the
Houston area occasionally get calls from many other states around
as people, especially people that have moved from Houston. They
just want to keep listening, so they keep tuning in

(09:38):
in those other areas. But here in the Houston area,
let people know about us to tune in. Will be
very appreciative of that. I am talking about this morning.
Some things that I'm going to be doing today inside
the other day, I told you we were doing plant repotting,
and I put a little video up about how do
you know? I think I've put it up already. Go

(10:00):
check on social media. How do you know when it's
time to repot a plant? And there's not a real
one quick answer to that, but a general answer one
that I kind of go by is when the plant's
about three times or more the size of the pot,
it's probably time to replant it. Now. I say probably

(10:20):
because there are no absolute black and white rules hardly
at all when it comes to plants and horticulture and things.
But if it's a standard let's say you had a
little ficus tree, or maybe you had an Aggloomnema chin
he's evergreen or something like that, it's kind of a
bushy like plant that applies pretty well to them. You

(10:41):
can leave them longer in a pot. I've seen some
incredibly top heavy plants compared to the pot, but those
folks are watering and probably pretty frequently a very dilute fertilizer,
maybe even watering with a dilute fertilizer to keep those
things going. Because the root zone is tiny compared to
the size of the plant. So generally when it's about

(11:01):
three side three times the size, I'll take a look
at it and make that decision. Plants aren't all the
same shape, plants are not all the same root compaction tolerant.
For example, one of the easiest plants on Earth to
grow for indoors is the zz plant. It's typically a
dark green. There are some types that are almost a

(11:24):
black color to the leaves, very very dark. But you
can leave those in a pot. They completely fill the
roots on. In fact, in time, if the pot's not
a good strong one, they'll break a pot as they
push outward. As they grow the roots grow that plant,
you know, you can ignore it for a while and
not worry about it, so it's not so much of

(11:46):
a deal. In fact, if you want to keep it
from being too big, keeping it a little confined like
that can help. Sense of aaria also called mother in
laws tongue, also called snake plant. Those are very skinny
and upright. So do you decide when it's two or
three times or three or four times a with the pot? Well,
if you don't, it's not a whip thing with that plant.

(12:06):
But you can kind of assess and make those decisions.
And every time you move a plant up, you want
to if there's outside roots that are all, you know,
wadded and bundled and circling and stuff up, you can
kind of tease them apart a little bit. You can
cut roots. It's not gonna be the end of the
plant for you to cut roots, but I tease them
apart a little bit and pot them up. And the

(12:29):
generally I go one size container up. So if a
plant was growing in a six inch pot, I wouldn't
put it in a twelve inch pot. For most plants,
I would. I would go up just a little less
than that on it. And that for houseplants. Some people
are trying to get the biggest house plant they can.
That's fine. The problem with moving a plant up too far.

(12:51):
For example, I had a morana, which is called a
prayer plant, and it was in literally a two inch pot,
that's what I got it in from a garden center.
And it was like the pot is the size of
a golf ball truly, I mean a tiny pot. And
this plant was wanting to grow well MORENTA is not
going to be putting up with me not keeping the

(13:12):
soil adequately moist and so I moved it up. But
I had a pot that was like six inches across. Now,
if I had to put it in there, it would
be real easy as I watered it to get all
that soil around that little tiny golf ball sized root
ball very wet, and then it's going to stay wet
because there's no roots out there that are going to
pull moisture out of it. It'll just slowly have to

(13:34):
evaporate away from the surface. So there, I did move
it up just into probably I think it was about
a four inch pot that we moved it up into
something roughly that size, and then we'll move it again
and again. But just avoid creating a lot of extra
water space, especially around house plants, especially low light areas

(13:54):
where they're just not going to use the water that fast,
and be careful when you water them. That'd be another
thing to keep an mind when you're doing that. In
terms of repotting, always use a chunkier mix than most
people think about when they think of potting soil. Their
standard fine textured potting soil has been used for years.

(14:16):
They're fine, they work, but as you go to a
chunkier mix, the drainage is just naturally much better. You
may have to water a little more often, but you're
not going to have that water logged situation in the roots.
So just a little bitter on the chunky side, especially
with things like orchids that are not their roots are
not made to be underground. Their roots are made well,

(14:39):
almost all orchids, their roots are made to be attached
to the bark of a tree where when it rains,
you know, down the tree trunk washes a little rain
water with a tiny bit of parrot poop in it,
and that's how they stay alive and feed and drink
their water and everything else. So you stick those in
the soil and they're not going to do well. They
grow in bark or live very loose materials proline. So anyway,

(15:02):
a few things to think about as you're repotting. One
more tip on repotting. And I learned this the hard way.
I saw a pot that I just thought was beautiful.
It was kind of a bowted out on the sides,
you know, kind of rounded on the sides, and we
put a plant in it, and it was a zzy plant.
And those roots, like I said, they the roots the

(15:25):
rhizomes underground, they just get huge, and when it came
time to take it out of the pot, you're not
going to get it out of there. You're either going
to break the pot because the top of the pot
is narrower than the middle section. What I ended up
having to do is basically take like a butcher knife
and cut straight down from the sides through the roots

(15:45):
to create more of a slightly narrower at the bottom
cylinder around there, so I could pull that up out
of the pot and then replant it. And that thing
will never go in a pot like that again, just
because can't get it out of there. So think about
that too. It doesn't mean don't use those pots. It
just means when you got one that's narrower at the top,

(16:06):
it's going to be very hard to slide that plant
out of it someday when it's all root bound. Just
a few tips there to consider, by the way, if
you've got a gardening question this morning. Seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Kind of quiet
out there on the phones now. I doubt anybody's out

(16:27):
trying to cover plants at this hour, so I guess,
I guess folks are still enjoying some sleep because it's
going to be a slow, quiet indoor day pretty much
in most of our area.

Speaker 8 (16:42):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (16:42):
I want to talk about ice on plants and the
idea that you would spray plants to keep them from freezing.
That doesn't that sound How does ice ice is frozen?
How does it keep a plant from freezing. Let's talk
about that a little bit. And this is a little
bit nerdy, but I think it's kind of interesting personally,

(17:05):
and I hope you will too. You may have seen
pictures in like citrus areas Florida and whatnot where a
plant was being sprayed with water and ice is forming
during the winter to protect that plant. Here's the basic concept,
and I'm giving you the royal short version here. But
whenever you have a plant tissue and you put water

(17:29):
on it and it freezes on there, and then you
add more water and it's freezing. As long as there
is liquid water on the surface that is then turning
into ice, the inside of that is not really going
to go much below thirty two. And the reason is
as ice changes from liquid to solid, it gives off

(17:50):
a tiny bit of heat from permela lid or of
water one calorie of heat actually, so theoretically, as long
as there's water being applied, the inside doesn't drop down
as much. Now, if your air temperature outside is seventeen degrees,
you're not gonna pull it off on this one. But
on a lesser freezes. That is why they use that.

(18:11):
They often put the water down low on the citrus tree,
not the whole tree, because you go through a whole
night of freezing and freezing and freezing and freezing, and
now your tree is split in all over the place,
all the limbs are broken because of the way to
the ice. The most home sprinklers put way too much
water out for this, and you end up with a swamp,

(18:33):
which is also not good. So it takes a special
kind of little sprinkler. It takes a real careful use.
And then here's the thing. When the freeze is over,
you keep doing water for a little while because as
ice changes from a solid to a liquid water, it
draws in a calorie of heat per millilter, so that

(18:55):
it actually you can super cool inside that ice when
it starts melting on the outside. And if that doesn't
make sense, you stay tuned, because I'm going to tell
you something that we probably all grew up doing that
takes advantage of that fact. We'll be right back. It
is cold outside. I know that's usually a song they

(19:16):
play a Christmas. We don't get too mean opportunities to
have a fireplace roar down south here. I always thought
it's funny growing up, you know, we sing about dashing
through the snow and a one horse open sleigh, and
then we have to stop and explain to the children
seven years old who have never yet seen snow, I

(19:39):
don't know what a sleigh is, and that's much less
an open one. All right, you get the idea. So
much of our Christmas traditions are based on somewhere up north.
Oh well, I guess we can listen to Jimmy Buffett
songs where they put a what Christmas lights around a
palm tree. That'll work too, By the way, I saw

(20:00):
a picture of those. You gotta be careful though. Anyway, Well,
welcome back. I was talking before the break about the
idea that people put ice or put water on plants
to freeze on the plant when it's going to freeze
to avoid damage to the plant. And I want to
continue on with a little more information on that. So

(20:23):
when people are putting water out there on a plant,
the idea, again, as we said, is to keep that
plant from going way below freezing by having liquid water
freezing on it and thereby releasing a tiny bit of heat. Again,
it only works in marginally cold weather, and it only

(20:45):
works when you have continual supply of water that's now
freezing on the plant. If you turn the water off,
the temperature is going to drop on down. It also
is best when they're there's a tiny spray of water,
not your typical sprinkler that is just drenching the plants.

(21:06):
It's better with the tiny spray water. But when the
freeze ends, if you turn the water off right away,
then that ice begins to melt, and as ice melts,
it draws in a calorie of heat. As I said before,
and I mentioned that, there's a reason, there's something we

(21:26):
probably you probably grew up doing that uses this principle
of physics, and that is making homemade ice cream. Now,
some of you grew up with a hand crank, you know,
we had like newspapers on top, and you're cranking it
and making ice cream. Some of you had little motorized ones.
But why would ice freeze liquid ice cream milk in

(21:50):
the container so cold as quick as it does? The
reason is, what did you put on the ice in
the ice cream maker? Salt? What does salt do? Why
do they put salt on the roads because it melts ice,
salt and melts ice. So you have this ice cream
freezer full of ice, and it's cold, but not cold

(22:11):
enough necessarily to freeze ice cream, at least not fast enough,
And so they put salt on it. And as that
ice melts, it's super cools. And so now you have
colder than ice. If you will, moisture and water around
that cylinder. And that's why you make ice. That's how
you make ice cream. And so freezing gives off heat,

(22:35):
strangely enough, and thawing absorbs heat. So if you were
ever try doing the ice thing on plants, and I
recommend you don't for the reasons I've already said. You
got to keep the water going until the temperature's up,
you know, thirty four thirty five degrees somewhere in there,
and before you turn it off. All right, Well, there

(22:59):
you go. Let's go out to the phones and we're
going to head the woodlands and talk to Joe Anne
this morning. Hey John, welcome to Gardline.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
Good morning, Hi, thank you.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
I have a question I have.

Speaker 4 (23:11):
I was told I had a man stopped buying a
trim my trees and he told me I had pine
bark beetles. So I asked a man arboretus to come
out and see if that was true, and he said, yes,
I do. And I have about ten pine trees that
need to come down, and I don't want to have
to do that. I wonder is there anything I can
do to save them that cost so much to cut

(23:34):
them down?

Speaker 6 (23:38):
Johanne, What did they see that made him say that?

Speaker 4 (23:42):
A little holes in the trees?

Speaker 6 (23:46):
Okay?

Speaker 7 (23:48):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (23:51):
Was okay? Was there sap coming out of the holes?

Speaker 7 (23:56):
No?

Speaker 4 (23:56):
I didn't see sap on one tree. I did, but
that's the only one. The other ones had a little
tiny round holes, but that's all.

Speaker 6 (24:06):
And do the trees have green needles on them?

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (24:11):
They still have them.

Speaker 6 (24:15):
Well, it's hard over the radio to diagnose some things,
and I can't be one hundred percent sure. I don't
think you have pine bart beetles. Pine bart beetles when
they attack a living they attack a living tree, and
when they tunnel in, the tree starts to bleed out sap,
and I guess it's the tree's way of trying to
push the little beat louder. It's just a wound. And

(24:35):
whenever you wound a pine, you get that real sticky sap.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
And also you.

Speaker 6 (24:39):
Should see little cream creamy white colored globs of sap
around the trunk. There's five different beetles that can I
think it's five that can attack pines in our area.
You could call them pine bart beetles. There's one called
the turpentine beetle. And the globs of sap are basically
close to head high down. They don't go all the

(25:00):
way up the tree. Uh there, let's say the bottom
of feet, I guess something like that. And so that
one isn't as immediately deadly as the ones that go
up way up the tree, and those tend to hit
and they when they hit that tree, the needles are
going to turn brown pretty quick, especially in the warmer weather.

(25:21):
So if you see the needles on a tree turning brown,
you need to get the tree down if the needles
have all turned brown, But no way too long, because
pine bark sluffs off really badly when a tree is dying,
and that makes it really hard to climb and take
down a tree.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
And you can't just kill them.

Speaker 8 (25:42):
You can't kill them at anyway because somebody said, well,
let me see, you don't have to talk to a
good sort fat oar burst on that.

Speaker 6 (25:54):
I don't know of an injection. There may be one.
I can be wrong, but the only thing in the
people would spray the trunks. But you had to have
something that sprayed about eighty percent of the height of
the tree to really accomplish something, and it had to
get in the nooks and crannies of the bark, and
it prevented the ones from trying to go in you had.
They had to eat through that spray soak bark. A

(26:17):
lot of the products used for that are not on
the market for danger reasons, and I don't think they're
recommending that now. They they may still be doing some
of that, But as far as there's a hole in
my tree, there's no sap. Just because there's a hole,
that doesn't necessarily mean anything. How big are the holes
in diameter? Are they like a BB or a pencil eraser.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Or how yeah?

Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, a small one like a pencil eraser and they
want to charge me, they said they they said they
could treat the yard for quite about three thousand. I said, no,
I don't. I'll think about it. I'll let you know.
But this was supposed to be an arbor read this person. Well,

(27:02):
so okay, I appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Tek Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
Well, there's really nothing you can do if it is
that bad, Okay, if they're.

Speaker 6 (27:13):
In it, there's nothing you can do, all right, Okay,
Well just just be a little careful there. Maybe get
a second opinion, because that's yeah. You might want to
call Martin Martin Spoon Moore from Affordable Tree, have him
come out and take a look at it and see
what he thinks, what he can see.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Okay, so hang on to second.

Speaker 6 (27:40):
I need to grab a phone number, just make it
easier for you to find him. Seven to one three
six nine nine two six six three.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
Okay, thy minutes. I got to grab something here, write it,
write it down.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
Again, wondering seven six two six six three. All right, Joanne,
you got that?

Speaker 4 (28:13):
Okay, seven one three what was it?

Speaker 6 (28:16):
Six six two six?

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (28:24):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (28:26):
You bet you bet one? Don't panic, all right? You
take care there you go. Yeah, pinmarked beetles, they're deadly,
and they're pretty quick and most of them a little
turpentine beetle I was talking about down low. That's uh,
not as drastic as having the other pinmarke beetles that

(28:49):
go up and down the tree and just really quickly
shut it down, you know, once you cut the think
of them as little tubes or straws going from the
base to the top. That's fairly accurate. But and when
you have something that cuts those tubes, there's no way
for water.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
To go up.

Speaker 6 (29:08):
And so when especially when we're in warm weather, pretty
quickly that tree will turn brown. And so that's that is.
Once that's happened, there's no fix in it. That tree
can't re you know, connect those tubes that have been
severed by the beetle feeding activity. All right, you know,
I have not had a pineberg beetle question in a

(29:29):
long time. That's unusual, but good to talk, all right.
So we were talking about ice and trees and cold
and things like that. I am still trying to figure
out a good way to cover some of my larger
trees that they're just they just don't make covers that
are the right dimensions for me. So I'm trying to
figure something out. One of these days i am get

(29:52):
some real wide covers and I don't know, maybe you
could sew them together.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
That might be.

Speaker 6 (29:56):
That'd be a chore, that would be a chore, but
but something to kind of hold them together, roll them over,
put a climb on them, something like that. But freezes
like this remind us that we kind of get lulled
into a sense of getting outside our zone a lot.

(30:18):
And I know that people want to bring plants that
are for more northern climates down here, and they don't
perform well, you know, for city, if you grew up
in the Midwest or you know, northeast or really some
parts of the Upper Southeast, it blooms well, it's beautiful,
harbinger or spring, well, the first things to bloom in

(30:39):
the spring, yellow flowers, really pretty real cool down here.
They just don't perform like that, and so it's not
a recommended plant. What is the old lilac? Lilac is
another example. I lived for three years in Missouri and
had a lilac bush in my yard, and what a
wonderful fragrance perfume. Not down here they just don't perform

(31:04):
down here. Our weather, it's it's typically when you move
planets too far south, it's typically that it's too hot
for too long. Not only in months of how long
how hot it is, but in hours per day. You know,
we down here, we get up close to one hundred
degrees in the day and then that night it just
doesn't make it to eighty coming down. So it's just

(31:27):
constant heat and they can't take that. So anyway, let's
take a little break. We'll come back in just a
moment if you got a call seven one three two
one two five eight seven four, all right, so welcome back.
Welcome back to your guarden line. So, continuing on the

(31:49):
thought that I paused for the break, we also want
to grow things that are not from here. I can
remember as a kid, we may go on like a
vacation to Dodo or something, and there's always a desire
to bring home those blue columbines that grow wild up there,
and you can buy them in garden centers up there,
and blue spruce trees so pretty, and they just don't

(32:13):
grow here. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Plants has a checkpoint at the border of Texas, and
when you try to bring a blue spruce in, they
will take it away from you, handcuff you, and send
you to prison for six months. I'm making that up,
but maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea. Seriously, though,

(32:33):
they're not going to grow here. You go disappoint disappoint yourself,
so don't bother with that. But when we have normal winters,
we start to try, well, maybe I could grow an
avocado up in Conroe and get by with it. Now,
somebody in Conro probably has an avocado that they take
great links to take care of. But then we have

(32:55):
one of these winter spells that comes down and kind
of sobers us up and gets us back on track
and thinking correctly. Now here's the thing about plants. We're
not farmers trying to make a living with plants. We're
gardeners having fun with plants. And if you want to
try a plant, try a plant. Sometimes people get too

(33:16):
I don't know uptight about who. I don't want to
try growing because everything I plant dies and I'll fail,
and oh man, come on. The way we learn is
through mistakes. It's nice to learn from the mistakes of others.
But if we have to learn from our own mistakes,
and we do admit it or not every year, not
just plants, but other things. That's okay, and it's fun.

(33:39):
It's your yard. You can do with it what you want. Look,
there are people that go out there and buy a
golf cart, a golf clubs, pay the money to golf
on of course, they buy a rifle and a hunting
lease and pay the money to hunt, and a giant
bass boat to go out and fish. Listen, gardening is

(34:01):
not that expensive of a hobby. It can be more expensive,
but it doesn't need to be and you're having fun,
So go out and have fun. I officially am giving
you permission to have fun and to not sweat the
fact that if you fail, you know, it's into the world.
It's not. That's how we learn, That's how we learn.

Speaker 7 (34:25):
I think it was J. C.

Speaker 6 (34:26):
Ralston, who from North Carolina, one of the most famous
horticulturists in the country in our lifetime. He made this.
I think it was him that made this statement that
if you are not killing maybe it was Michael Dirty. Anyway,
if you're not killing plants, you're not really stretching yourself
as a gardener. That's true.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
That is true.

Speaker 6 (34:48):
It is okay to try things, to do something different,
to do something weird. You know what I'm gonna do
this year. I did this a while back once before.
I'm going to grow tomatoes and some other things upside down.
I did it with five gallon buckets a number of
years ago, just playing around with it. In fact, on
top of the buck top of the bucket, I planted
basil coming up, and then at the bottom of the

(35:10):
bucket was tomato mines hanging down.

Speaker 7 (35:12):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (35:12):
And so you know, basil tomatoes can go together when
we're doing our culinary things. Try something fun, Try something weird.
Give the neighbors another reason to talk about you, because
they already do. You know that, have fun this year.
Let's come up with ideas. You tell me crazy ideas
you've tried in the past. I'd like to hear that.
Let's take a break. You probably could use another cup

(35:35):
of coffee as I could do right.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Welcome to kat r h Garden Line with scamp Rictor.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
It's just watch as.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
They need to give things.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
All right.

Speaker 6 (36:24):
Good morning, good morning, on a great day to be
inside listening to the radio. If you got something you'd
like to talk about. Feel free to give me a call.
Before I went to break, I think, uh. Before I
went to break, I said, uh uh, if you have
tried some weird things in gardening, I would like to
hear from you and hear what those were, and I'll

(36:45):
tell you for your mine. I don't mind. I am
unabashedly willing to try things. That's how we learn. H
Sometimes it's just for just for the personal pleasure of it,
to try it, and sometimes and find out, you know, hey,
is this really going to work? Like upside down tomatoes
the entrance. Yes, they work, and it's kind of cool.

(37:06):
You can buy bags to do that upside down tomato
hanging bags, But five gallon buckets all you need for
those of you. Somebody's wondering, how do you do that? Well,
how I did it was I got a little hole saw,
you know the kind it's like a circle of a
circular saw. Not as well, there's something else called circular saw.
It's the thing you used to cut a hole in

(37:27):
a door to put a handle a door handle, door
knob in and just maybe two inches across or so,
and then you get your tomato plant. What I would
do is kind of squeeze the root ball of it,
depending on how big the plant is, and squeeze it
through that hole. And then I'll use like newspaper. I've

(37:48):
used a T shirt too before, by the way, to
wrap around the stem of it, just where the soil.
The thing's upside down. I'm not doing a very good
job of this. Can you see my hands waving in
the air, because it would be help easier to understand
if you could see my hands. The tomatoes upside down.
The roots go up first, and then the stem into
the bottom of the pot. A wrapp a little bit

(38:09):
of T shirt or any kind of cloth or washrag
or whatever you got, could be a newspaper around the
stem and then that keeps it from falling back out.
And then fill it up with soil. And then the top.
What do you want to grow in the top? What
goes with tomatoes? Oregano?

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Does?

Speaker 6 (38:23):
That'll be a cool thing cascading over one side. Maybe
some basil in the middle for the pesto and the
other things. What do you want to grow? It could
be flowers coming out of the top of it. And
now you just water and it grows as long as
you keep it watered. Remember A five gallon bucket is
not a lot of soil for a tomato, so you
got to keep it watered. It's probably better to consider

(38:46):
how big of a plant variety you're going to plant.
But anyway, fun things to do. What have you tried
that is weird? A number of things. Just give me
a call, let me hear it, Let me hear from that.
I'm wn'll switch gears a little bit, and I'm going
to talk about things that we're gonna be doing when
this cold is over. And it's gonna be over pretty soon.

(39:08):
Now we don't have too much left in it, but
the rest of the week is going to be freezing,
night after night after night in the northern parts of
the kJ RCH listing area and maybe not down south,
so we still have a little bit of time. I've
got some citrus trees that are undercover with a heat

(39:28):
lamp under them to keep them extra protected against that
cold that we're having, and I'm gonna have to switch
and start turning the heat lamp on at night. Today
it's running all day because it's gonna be freezing all day,
but then I'll switch and have it go on and
off at night. I have a little timer that I
can use, or maybe I'll just send an alarm on

(39:49):
the phone to remind me go turn that thing back
on at night. But pretty soon we're going to be
out of that. Before you know it, it's gonna feel
like spring is here and everybody's gonna to be rare
and to go ready to you know, let's get going
on the lawns and things. And that includes everything from
managing weed isssues to fertilizing the lawns. And what do

(40:15):
you do about all the leaves and stuff laying on
the lawn. Well, let's start with that last one. When
you have leaves that are laying on your lawn for
an extended period of time, they are blocking sunlight from
reaching the grass, and especially Saint Augustine, our southern turf grasses.
Even in cold weather, they have green leaves that are
capturing some sunlight and they're not going to take off growing,

(40:37):
but they are making some carbohydrates and they are you know,
it's benefiting the plant, and leaving them shaded for long
periods of time is not good. That'll kill your Saint Augustine.
And so what I do is get out there and
rake the leaves Actually, I'm owed mine into a bagger.
It's easier than raking for me, and I have chopped
up leaves that go into my garden, and a leaf

(40:58):
never leaves my lane. A pine needle, a leaf, whatever
it is, is not going to leave the landscape because
it's nature's own free organic mulch and potential compost. So
that's what I do. When it comes to fertilizing, you're
going to want to get out there and get that done.
As we move into the spring period. There's the if

(41:19):
you look at my schedule, I still have on there
the early greenup and that is optional. That's not like
I'm telling you you need to do this, it's I'm
telling you you can do this that if you wanted
to get a little greener a little earlier, you could
put some down. Don't overdo it. Just put a normal
amount according to what it says on the bag. Put
it down in there and get a little bit of

(41:40):
an early greenup on it. Then, by the time you've
mowed your lawn twice, which generally is going to fall
in April in this listening area, by the time you've
mowed and mowing weeds doesn't count. When you mowed the
lawn twice, it's time to fertilize. The lawn is growing
active leaf, had to mow it twice, and it's got

(42:00):
plenty of nutrients in the soil. Initially get going, but
if you really want to kick it into gear, then
so it fills in, it looks good and it's healthy.
That's when we fertilize, and that's when we start using
our various fertilizers out there in the landscape. So keep
that in mind when it comes to dealing with weeds.

(42:21):
We have products that prevent weeds, and we have products
that kill existing weeds. If you have existing broad leaf
weeds in the landscape, one it warms up a little bit,
they're still green and happy. Go ahead. If you're going
to use a product a post emergent, go ahead and
do it then, because what that will do is it'll

(42:43):
catch the weed before it gets too far along. You know,
as they start blooming and setting seed, they're less responsive
to those herbicides. But also as they're blooming and setting
seed that products just don't work that well. Now in
my yard, I don't have that many weeds and I
just basically handpull, you know, get a little kneeling bench
I've got and go out there and do a little

(43:03):
pulling here there, grab one when I'm walking by, and
I don't see a need to mix up stuff in
spray and people vary in there. I do not want
to use any of those chemicals in my art. That's fine,
your yard, no problem. I get it to people who
are willing to and want to do that. As far
as pre emergence, though, the sooner we get them on

(43:24):
the better. Now, down pretty far south, we can have
wheat sprouting in January, and as we move up to
the northern parts, those of you who are on the
northern end of our listening area, you can probably put
your pre emergent down in early March and be just fine.
But for most people we try to get it done
in February. I generally recommend going to early to mid

(43:46):
February with that application, just because you don't want to
wait until it's too late, and those products last for
a while, So if you're going to do that, that's fine.

Speaker 7 (43:55):
Now.

Speaker 6 (43:56):
When you do that, though, I want you to make
yourself a promise, and that is that this thin lawn
that's getting weeds in it, I'm tired of having to
do this all the time, and a better way is
to have a thicker lawn. So I promised myself that
during twenty twenty six, during the growing season, I am
going to mow, water and fertilize properly, and I'm going
to have the densest lawn possible so I don't have

(44:17):
to come back out here and do this again. The
primergent weed control. Now, sometimes that works. Then there's things
like chinchbugs or things like drought and other things we
have to deal with. I get it, but it's not
something that if you're having to do it constantly, killing
existing weeds, preventing future weeds constantly, you're not doing something

(44:38):
right and taking care of your lawn. And we need
to fix that because that is the goal, is to
have a dense, healthy lawn that chokes out most, not all,
of its weeds problems. Let's take a quick break. We'll
come back and I will continue on this what we
do the springtime in the garden. Alight, a bunch of
that club on the lawn. I'm here, si little country music.

(45:02):
I think about Houston Lives that show and Rodeo, you
know that's coming up, and they have been selling out
of some of the concerts, So don't wait. If you
got some, go online, check check out who's going to
be there and when, and see if you can get
you some tickets. That is a popular event in the
Greater Houston area, to say the very least, and so

(45:22):
don't delay. There's lots of lots of good entertainment there.
I'm gonna be there, I do. I'm horticulturist of the
Horticulturist Superintendent horticulture competitions that they have for the youth,
and we'll be there having some contests over weekends. In fact,
when I'm doing the show on those weekends, I jump
away from the microphone and race over to nrg UH

(45:46):
to start those contests and things. It's a lot of
fun kids. There's contests on you know things they create,
planting plants, there's floral design contests. There's even photography contests.
I'm not involved with that one, but they're amazing. And
if you've never been there to check the stuff the
kids do out, you got to get by there in
that main court, you know hallway that goes through on

(46:10):
both the first floor and the second floor especially is
where you see a lot of some really cool stuff,
the paintings that those kids have done. I still every
year I walk up to the like the winning couple
of paintings and look at them and go, that's gonna
be a photograph. I can't believe how good these kids are.
It's really amazing. All right, there you go. Earlier I

(46:32):
was talking to somebody about affordable tree service, Martin spoon
Moore an affordable tree. Martin's been doing this for a
very long time. In the scenario, He's got the knowledge,
he's got the experience, he knows how to do it right.
And it's very important if you're going to turn your
trees loose to somebody, if you're gonna turn them over
to somebody, if you will to do pruning on them,

(46:52):
that person needs to know what they're doing. And here's
why you see a lot of botch jobs. I drive
up and down the road all the time and I
see trees that were pruned by somebody who they don't
get it.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
You know.

Speaker 6 (47:05):
It's like maybe they used to be a barber back
in the nineteen sixties and all they knew how to
do was a flat top haircut. That's what these trees
are getting. And it butchers them, and it ruins the
structure of a tree. When you prune a tree very badly,
you can try to begin to bring it back, but
you had forever marred in one way or another of
that tree, and it can affect the strength of the

(47:27):
tree during storms, Limbs, breakage and stuff affect a lot
of things. Give Martin a call. Now's the time to
get tree spruned. It is the best time of the
year to get tree spruned because spring is the fastest
healing or closing technically of the wound is in the spring.
That's when it occurs the fastest. So that's why winter,

(47:48):
late and late winter, a very early spring or important
times to get this pruning done the majority of it.
And if no one's looked at your trees for the
last few years, it's time to have something one look.
From the time you plant a tree, by the way
until that tree's gone you are, there are things. There's
part of a process of maintaining strength and health in

(48:10):
that tree. And the better a job you do early on,
the less work you have to do later on. You know,
when I get into I go to somebody's place and
they've got a tree that's twenty years old and never
was really pruned. It's a it's typically a mess, and
it's going to be difficult to fix it, very difficult.
But if from the time you put it in the

(48:31):
ground and year by year you are properly training that tree,
you're creating a strong branch structure that that fits what
that species genetics tend to create in the tree. You're
going to have a wonderful tree later on and there's
not going to be a constant swinging chainsauce through that tree.

(48:53):
It just helps to do that. So give Martin to
call seven one three, six, nine nine two six three
seven one three six nine nine six six three. Let
him get up there. While those trees are still deciduous
and you can see the branches very well, you can
see the structure very well, you can make those decisions
and before the prime time for healing over closing over

(49:17):
of those wounds occurs. Seven to one three, six, nine
nine two six sixty three. Affordable tree. All right, Uh so,
what we we're talking about the lawns and things that
we're doing out in the lawns in our garden beds.
It's time to put a new fresh layer of mulch
on This would be shrub beeds, flower beds. It could

(49:39):
even be you know, in the vegetable garden. I use
shredded leaves in the vegetable garden myself. You can use
compost as a mulch over the surface. And leaf mold
mulch is an excellent one. That leaf mole mulch is
a is a very fine textured it's made of leaves primarily,
and so it's very good for a vegetable garden. The

(50:02):
big chunky pieces of wood that you might use in
your shrub beds and around trees and things, you put
them in a vegetable garden. I mean they're mulch. But
now you want to go back and plant carrots or
some kind of little seeds, and you got these chunky pieces,
hard to plant stuff at the right depth in the
soil and whatnot. And so I generally don't use those
kind of mulches in the vegetable garden. But leaf mold,

(50:23):
oh my gosh, it's a perfect mulch for your vegetable garden.
As are shredded leaves. You run over with your lawnmower
and capture them. And so it's time to do that again.
And the reason is our warm seasoned weed seeds are
going to be germinating soon. And if you've got weeds
that have germinated, and let's say they're under two inches high,

(50:47):
better under an inch, hi, you can just throw mulch
over them and it'll kill them. They're not going to
come through that a germinated weed seed. But it's better
just to keep that down now and get those things
mulched and protect them. Very important now tonight is the
coldest of cold right that we're having during this spell,
so you especially want to make sure things are mulched

(51:10):
properly tonight. If you follow us on Facebook and Instagram,
if you follow me on Facebook and Instagram, I posted
something that talks about getting out there and protecting perennials
with maltz, and so basically what it amounts to is
we have perennial. A perennial by definition, dies to the

(51:32):
ground in the winter and comes back out in the spring.
That's a perennial. But we have perennials that are tender perennials.
Mexican heather. I've got some at the house. I love
that plant. And by the way, I was out a
couple of days ago, and the honey bees were still
working the ballooms on that plant. They love Mexican heather blooms.
So it's a way to support honeybees and bumble bees

(51:53):
two out there. But anyway, I was out looking at them,
and we had a frost a freezer a while back
that round them back. And my lentana and my Mexican
heather look like hack right now, do you have two options?
You can leave the dead ugly top growth to partially
protect the base, because it will it does partially protect

(52:16):
the base to have a bunch of dead top growth
over it. Or you can trim it out and get
you some mulch and put it over the base of
that plant and just remulch the bed, but make sure
you get a little mound over the base of your plants.
And what that's going to do is protect that crown.
We call it the crown of the plant, the base
of the plant. And when we get past the cold weather,

(52:38):
you just gently take your fingers scrape, scrape that all
back off there, and the fresh new growth comes out
and looks good. And Mexican heather is very cold tender,
and so I in the past have avoided mulching it
and lost some and now I tend to go more
toward let's just cut it back. It looks ugly anyway,
and throw some mulch over the top. But don't cut

(53:00):
it back and not put mulch over the top, because
then you're removing a little bit of protection and not
adding the best protection, which is mulch over the surface
of it. Does that makes sense? Another good example of
something to do that with, or the super col tender
perennials that we have now the one that comes to
mind one I did another video that's on Facebook and

(53:22):
on Instagram, by the way. For Facebook, just find garden line,
garden line. For Instagram, it's a different address. It's a
garden line with skip, garden line with skip. But anyway,
go to that. Look at this Pride of Barbados video
and basically it's just a big Pride Barbadoes plant, well,

(53:42):
a small Pride of Barbados plant at the house. Those
things they can be killed outright when we get down
as cold as it's going to get. And so I
would recommend you go ahead and cut it back because
it will be dead to the ground period. So cutting
it back is not a and then mount protected mulch over.
It really good to protect the crown of that plant,

(54:05):
and you will get that thing through the winter just fine.
But as I say in the video, it is a
very slow to wake up plant in the spring, So
don't give up and go it's dead when you're at
the end of April and you still don't see any
growth on it. Mine often sprouts in May. That's when
I start to see signs of life as it begins

(54:25):
to get warm enough for that plant to want to
be out there. It doesn't like even cool weather. It
likes it. It likes it warm. So be patient with
your pride of Barbados. Now another plant that falls on.
There are two plants that fall along kind of a
marginal line. One of them is Esperanza, the yellow blooms,
the yellow flower also called esperanza yellow bells. And then

(54:50):
there's another one that the name is escaping me at
this moment, golden dew drop, golden dew drop duranta. Some
years aren't killed all the way back, other years are
killed all the way back, depending on the cold those ill,
especially the Esperanza. I still cut mine to the ground

(55:11):
because even if it survives above ground, it's scraggly, it's taller,
and if you'll cut it off at the ground, it'll
come all nice and fresh and beautiful. And do just
find golden do drop make your decision on that based
on what part of the listening area you're in. It
can be cut back or you can try to protect it.
But it is semi cold, tender. And then finally, thry alice.

(55:34):
Thry alice. It's a wonderful plant, resistant to deer damage.
Yellow blooms for more months of the year than bout
any plan I know. But it will die to the
ground from the cold. That would be another one. I
would leave it the above ground parts there, and I
would multch the base, dropping malts down in and among
it really well to try to protect it from the

(55:57):
cold that's coming tonight. All right, just remember all that
mult whether you use compost or mult you can just
pull it away when the freeze is over. Let's take
a break and we'll be right back. All right, good morning,
I'll get your weight. Welcome back to the garden line.

(56:18):
Let's talk gardening today. You got a question. Here is
a number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If you have I talk all the time
about disappearing fountains. Folks out at Nilsen uh Nursery and
Water Gardens have UH. If you have a disappearing fountain,

(56:42):
some advice from the folks at Nelson Nursing and Water
Gardens is you need to unplug that pump first of all.

Speaker 8 (56:49):
UH.

Speaker 6 (56:49):
There is a little PVC standpipe and you twist it
to the right and pull it straight up. So you're
removing that standpipe by twisting it all right, pulling it
straight up. Water all drain out of the pot and
down into the reservoir. The reservoir didn't have to be drained,
but after the freeze, just put the PBC back in

(57:10):
like the opposite way that you took it out, and
fill the pot with water and plug the pump back
in and you're good to go. But you don't want
to let the ice build up. And there's gonna get
cold enough tonight that that is for most of the area.
Some of you far far south the prom maybe not,
but you just want to be careful. It's better be
safe than sorry. Those beautiful pottery that we use or

(57:31):
they use and at Nelson Nursery and Water Garden for
disappearing fountains. You don't crack one of those, that would
not be a good thing or destroy the pomp or
anything else. So there you go. Don't let that thing
run all night. By the way out at Nelson Nursery
and Watergarden, they are going to be closed today and

(57:51):
probably tomorrow according to their information, and so they'll be
back open after that. So when they do, you need
to definitely head out there. That is such a great
place from plants to to supplies especially you know, in
the world of water gardening, every kind of water gardening
type of plant, fish, structure, container, whatever you need, and

(58:17):
all the supplies of pumps and whatnot. They've got it
all there and they can advise you and they're happy
to do that. They're very happy to talk water gardening
with you. Listen, these people have been leading, they're nationally
they are a well known leader when it comes to
water gardens. At Nelson Water Gardens and Hershey, if you
haven't been there before, maybe be a fun time to

(58:37):
go out. Get past this freeze and the roads, the
hut a little bit and we don't have to worry
about that. Head out there and check them out. They
are in Katie. You head out. If you're in Houston,
you head out to Katie. Turn north on Katie Fort
Ben Road and they're just up the street a little
bit on the right, and you will enjoy it. I
promise you take your kids with you. They when you

(58:59):
get there, tell them, hey, could my kids feed some
of the fish in the back and what they do
during the during the warm season, they will give your
kids a little handful of little pellets that they can
go out and feed the giant koi in the back pond.
And these coil come right up to the edge and
open their mouth right at the water level, just above
the water level. Kids can drop a little feed in there.

(59:22):
It's kind of fun for the kid. They will love that.
So make sure and take your kids with you when
you go. I take my neighbors too, because it's a
fun experience and that reminds me, you know, as gardeners,
a big part of gardening is the social part of gardening.
Gardeners talking to gardeners. Some of the nicest people you're

(59:43):
going to meet, or gardeners they just they just are
they're friendly, they're willing to share there It's just a
fun hobby to do together with people. And it's also
part of the benefits of gardening, that is the social
interaction that you get because if you're a gardener, you're

(01:00:04):
going to talk to people.

Speaker 7 (01:00:05):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:00:06):
You go in the grocery store and you don't find
the grocery store person and go, hey, let's talk about
hot chocolate. What kind of hot chocolate do you like?

Speaker 7 (01:00:14):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (01:00:14):
I love this kind. One time I was making hot
chocolate and I did this way and stuff. Grocery store
person's gonna look at you like, have you lost your mind?
You go into a garden shop and do that. You
go into a garden shop, start talking to a customer.
Gardeners love it. Master Gardening programs they're there to create
volunteers to help a your life extension, reach more people

(01:00:35):
with research based information. But I'm telling you one of
the perks of it is interacting with gardeners. And gardening
is a crazy hobby.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
It is.

Speaker 6 (01:00:45):
I mean, it is addictive. I can tell you that
it's very addictive, and it's fun, absolutely fun. But every
time I'm around gardeners, I'm having a good time. That's
how gardening is all right. There you go. You heard
it here first, if you like 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.

(01:01:08):
So I'm still wanting to hear somebody tell me about
what is the crazy thing that you've tried kind of
outside the box and gardening?

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:01:16):
Did it work? Did it not work? You know, don't
be afraid to tell me something that didn't work. I've
tried a lot of things that didn't work before. One
time I decided, you know, I had squash plants and
they got the vine borer in them, and they say,
you can get BT liquid, the spray liquid, and you
can inject it with a hypodermic needle into the vines

(01:01:38):
and it goes in there. And because the vine borer
is a moth, it's larvae or caterpillars, and BT kills caterpillars,
and that that will kill them. And I'm sure it does.
But I got to thinking, Uh, you know, somebody that
wanted to grow organically a large area, we had a
whole bunch of squash plants. I'm gonna crawl up and
down on your hands and he's trying to inject every

(01:02:00):
fine with a hypodermic needle. So I figured out I
rigged up this thing and it was on a long
stick and had a hypodermic needle and then had a tube.
And the tube came up to a little a gun
type thing. It's a ranchers. You can use them. They
inject like wormer into a cattle's mouth. They you squeeze
the gun. It puts one one dose of wormer into

(01:02:21):
a cow's mouth. Anyway, that's that's neither here nor there.
But I rigged it up where I could do about
betea water in there. And what I discovered is that squash,
a lot of types of squash don't have a big
hollow interior area. And I was continually trying to get
that needle into a hollow spot and it was just
too tedious and it wasn't worth it. But man, it

(01:02:43):
was a good idea, I thought, until I didn't. So
I was just I thought, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna
change the world here with this idea. Not really, not
so much, but what are what are some ideas you have?
Second question is what are you going to grow this
year that you didn't grow before? What do you want
to try. I want you to try something. Every gardening

(01:03:06):
year you should be doing something new. You may have
your favorite tomato variety that you want to grow every year,
grow two more. In addition to that, you never know
that your more favorite is out there waiting for you
to discover. Try something new. Have you ever grown There's
a vegetable called chi jimysi chi jim asi. Baker Creek

(01:03:26):
Seed has it chie jimysi, and it is a green
that is very mild. It is dark green. It's in
the same family as broccoli and cabbage and cauliflower and
kale and coolabie and collars. It's in that family and
a deep dark green, very tasty, and it doesn't have
the pungency that some of the family does like mustard

(01:03:48):
is in that family. It's pretty pungent. It's just a
good green. If you've never grown chee jim assi, well
hunt down Baker Creek feed or Baker Creek seed. It's
up in Missouri and get some cheesem asign try it out,
try some seeds. Who knows, Maybe you'll like it, maybe
it'll be your favorite new green, or maybe not. We'll see,
but try it. Be an experimenter have fun in the garden.

(01:04:10):
They'll be afraid to fail. Let's take a break. We'll
be right back. You know, I hear the Beats boys,
and I just want to throw on Bermuda sharks a
flowery shirt and run outside. Maybe not a good day,
but I'm just saying, all right, folks, welcome back to
guarden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We are here
to help you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape,

(01:04:32):
and more fun in the process. And I'll tell you this.
You hear me talk about Southwest Fertilisier all the time,
and it's because I'm impressed with Southwest. For listen, over
a decade before I started doing garden Line, I was
in Southwest Fertolan. I'm talking to talking to the whole
team there, you know, Aaron and then the whole team
of folks that are helping helping you with everything. A

(01:04:54):
Bob of course, the owner, and Bob's wife. They're all
there and they're there to help you have success. And
I enjoy the fact that anything I'm looking for I'm
and to find in there. And sometimes I'll go in
just to see, Okay, what's new? On the market because,
believe it or not, you better believe it. Companies that

(01:05:16):
make products and come up with new plants and stuff,
they don't notify me of those things. I wish they would.
I talk to a lot of people in the air,
but they don't. I have to go find this stuff.
So I'll go and say, hey, but you know what's new.
Let me look at this product. Or I'll look at
the ingredients, you know, and compare different products and the
ingredient levels in them and stuff, just to stay up
to date because it's always changing unfortunately, kind of like

(01:05:39):
scientific plant names. But that's a gripe for another day.
But I'll go in and check it out and I'll
find stuff like that, and sometimes I'll find things that
I want to try out. You know, that's a new product,
let's see if it works. And with this selection that
they have, you can do that to the Casco moments
they say, I mean, there's plenty of options in there,

(01:06:00):
from fertilizers to the products that we put on plants
that aren't nutrients, but they are products that help inoculate
with microbes. That would include the individual microbes that help
prevent disease on plants. There's a number of those. There's
microbes that help stimulate plant growth. Bob's got them. He's

(01:06:22):
got those there. And then there's also the products that
provide plants with everything from the vitamin's, hormones, all the
other kinds of things that plants do benefit from. And
one example is there's a product from Microlife. Well, there's

(01:06:42):
a bunch of products from Microlife, and there's the fertilizers.
That's what we are generally talking about with Microlife. That
would be things like the acidifier for acid living plants.
The green bag multipurpose that we typically is the one
we use for our lawns, the ultimate which is also
can be used for the lawns of blue bag. There's
the Microlife citrus and fruit for example. So those are

(01:07:05):
all dry granules and they're great products. And then there's
the liquid line of all kinds of things in there.
And Bob's got this whole He's got the whole nine yards.
Whether you're an organic gardener, synthetic gardener, he's got them.
He's got it all for you right there. But there
are liquid products that are very unique, like the granular
liquid heumates. Plus there's a granular humates plus, there's a

(01:07:27):
liquid he mates plus and humates benefit the soil. From
a structural standpoint, it's what nature does with organic matter
in order to benefit the soil and build the soil
and make it better for plants. They turn organic matter
into humates and you can buy it in a bag.
Compost concentrated compost in a bag. Essentially, that's what it

(01:07:47):
amounts to. They also microlife folks also have a product
that's called liquid AF liquid AF outstanding product. It is
one where you put that down and it's like an
all organic liquid bioinoculant and it has a number of

(01:08:07):
different microbes that are all beneficial to plants. Plant microbes.
When I look at the list here, I'm just looking
at it. Let's see, there's a streptomcees. There's one to
two different strepto ices, two different trachiderma. Those are for
organic production. Those are very very important in the Basilla
subtless and bacillis like and aformist. I know those are

(01:08:30):
fancy names. Who cares about that? Well, Basilla subtless is
an amazing disease fighter you can buy. There are some
products you can find if you hunt them down. Somewhere
that contain just that, and they're used as a funderside.
But this is all together in Microlife liquid af bio inoculant,
which is a really good thing. Now Microlife microhizoplus has

(01:08:54):
a lot of things in it, but the Microlife fertilizers
themselves contained these things. So for example, they are by
a logical package I called microgros CM. It's sold in
big O five gallon can, but you're going to find
it in some of the fertilizer products. There's another one

(01:09:14):
that's called Microlife Supreme micro Gross Supreme excuse me, that's
in other products. So when you go buy a bag
of that green fertilizer, the six y two four for Microlife,
that's going to have a combination of nutrients and microbes
in it, and that would be like the Endo and

(01:09:35):
Ecto microhizal package that's in there and the green stuff.
So when you put it down, you've got fungi that
go on the outside of the root and protect it
against disease, and fungi different ones to go inside the
root and send a strand way out in the soil
to bring back nutrients and water and other things. Very
efficient plant, very healthy plant because of that. When you

(01:09:57):
use microlife fertilizers, you are building this, but you're also
inoculating the plant. You're also fertilizing the plant with the
fertilizer type products. But just know that when you buy
a bag of sixty four of the green bag, you're
not just getting fertilizer. It's not just six percent nitrogen,
two percent phosphorus, four percent potassium. It's all the package

(01:10:18):
that goes with it. Let's see here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
We are.

Speaker 6 (01:10:25):
How how far are we to play out?

Speaker 7 (01:10:28):
Telly?

Speaker 6 (01:10:28):
What I see guitar Dave out there from Lake Conrad, Dave,
I wouldn't even have ten seconds to visit with you.
I'm gonna hold you if you don't mind until we
come back from the break here. If you can wait,
or if you want to hang out and call back,
that's fine too, but we'd like to get to your call,
and I can't do it justice in a short time.
I want to remind you guys that the annual Fort
Ben Regional Vegetable Conference is Tuesday, February seventeenth in Fort

(01:10:52):
Ben County. It's at the Epicenter right there on Southwest Freeway.
February seventeenth. That's a Tuesday. It goes all day. You
got a register, you got to pay for it, but
you will get lectures all through the day for backyard gardeners,
for small skill production, production operations like a market gardener. Uh,

(01:11:12):
for on talks on food preservation. There's a whole track
for that. So if you want to learn more about
food safety and preservation so that all that wonderful produce
you grow you can do something with other than just
eat it, right, then you need to go call the
Fort ben County Extension Office two eight one three four
to two thirty thirty four. Two eight one three four
two thirty thirty four. I will be there giving a

(01:11:35):
talk as well. Hope to see you there.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
Welcome to kt RH garden Line with Scared Rictor's.

Speaker 6 (01:11:45):
Crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
Just watch him as.

Speaker 6 (01:11:58):
So many things.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
Set down.

Speaker 6 (01:12:19):
Already, Time to jump back in the saddle again. Welcome
back to Guardline. Glad you're with us this morning. We're
gonna head straight out here too late Conroe and visit
we getar Dave.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
Hello, Dave, morning, Hey, Hey, Skip, good morning.

Speaker 7 (01:12:37):
Hey.

Speaker 5 (01:12:37):
I heard you talking yesterday about the charco in the
bottom of the book, you know, and uh, you know,
keep like you got your plant down in there. Let's
say my wife, she has her office in her in
her uh in her in office in the office over
there in one of our rooms, and so uh explain
to me again, So put the charcoal down there, put

(01:12:58):
the uh dart in there, and then put the plan in.

Speaker 7 (01:13:04):
Well.

Speaker 6 (01:13:04):
Yeah, And for those who are hearing us talk right
now and didn't hear it yesterday, I'll just give a
quick recap. We want pots with good drainage, and so
generally a good plant pot will have holes in it,
or a hole at least so the water can drain out.
But sometimes we plant in things that the water can't
drain out, and you have to be really careful not

(01:13:25):
to keep them soggy wet, because if you have dead
stag I mean, if you have stagnant water done in
the bottom and rotting organic matter without oxygen, it gets
funky and it really will kill a plant. And so
in situations where it could be temporarily a little on
the wet side, I'll throw some charcoal. And when I
say charcoal, folks that are listening, I don't mean brick

(01:13:47):
ats like barbecue charcoal. I mean just plain old wood charcoal,
and you can buy it garden centers. So you little
bag of charcoal. It's used in a lot of horticultural applications.
But in the bottom of a pot, putting a little
charcoal that way, if at the bottom it gets a
little soggy wet, that charcoal helps. It helps kind of

(01:14:08):
keep it fresh. I don't know how to explain it
beyond that, but let's just say that makes it a
little bit more forgiving. If you tended to overwater and
now you got this water sitting in there, you can't
turn the pot upside down pull the plant out in
that situation. So that's that's why I would do it,
and that that's the main reason.

Speaker 5 (01:14:25):
And I heard you mentioned, you know, and I've had
I've got a quarium, and then I know a lot
you know, filters out stuff, and then and then when
you put now so it's you just can't use birkhads
in there. You need to go to a garden center
and get some a specialized stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
Okay, now, yeah, aquarium aquarium.

Speaker 6 (01:14:47):
Dave Aquarium supply stores probably will sell char Aquarium supply
stores will may also have charcoal available for you. But
our garden centers are where I would go, and that's
where I get mine.

Speaker 5 (01:15:01):
Yeah, okay, on the roses. Now, I got a couple
of roses I bought. Now, I got them in the
garage and everything, and they're and they're in the h
you know, they're in the pots and everything. So I
know my mom always told us to they don't need
to be cut back or nothing. Now normally on Valentine's Days.

(01:15:22):
But when should I take them back down and plant
them in the ground outside?

Speaker 6 (01:15:28):
If you can do that at any time, you can
plant roses in the fall. It's a good time to
plant all kinds of shrubs and trees.

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:15:36):
You can plant them now once we get past this
super cold uh, or you could wait and do it,
you know in February. That's when a lot of people
do it. We're about to go into spring and and uh,
you know, while roses are fairly hearty, and you know,
it is possible to have a coat spell that that
threatens them, and so you're gonna be careful with that.

(01:15:56):
But there's not a black and white line day. It's
just a matter of getting them in the ground before
it gets really hot. When it gets hot, then you're
having du oh yeah, baby them along.

Speaker 5 (01:16:09):
Yeah, I got on there, yeah, right, right right. And
should when I playing them, should I plan them in
half shade.

Speaker 7 (01:16:17):
Or full shade, half shade or on.

Speaker 5 (01:16:20):
The roads, come as much front much sun as they
can have. Okay, playing them out in the middle.

Speaker 6 (01:16:30):
If you're not getting six hours of sign, you're not
going to get rose blooms like you want. Uh, and
so you want them growing them for the blooms. So yeah,
lots of sun.

Speaker 5 (01:16:39):
Okay, all right, Hey, I appreciate you and how very educational.
And you're reminding me of everything I grew up learning.
I mean, and that's I'm not telling you that I'm serious. Okay, thanks, Okay,
I appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (01:16:55):
Yeah, well you've had Dave, Thank thank you. That's the
kind of words.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:17:00):
Everything we grew up learning what you guys grew up learning.
I grew up learning a lot of things. There's a
is it Johnny Cash that's saying Mama tried. Mama tried
to teach me stuff. Anyway, that's a whole nother thing.
Maybe we ought to do that as a bumper song.
Mama tried raised me better, all right, you know, I

(01:17:24):
learned other things that weren't true though, Like if you
cross your eyes, they'll stick like that. If you sit
close to the TV, it'll mess your eyes up where
you can't see. I don't know a bunch of other
things like that. Don't swallow a watermelon. Don't don't swallow
a watermelon, or it'll grow in your belly a watermelon seed.
I'm sorry, that'll grow in your belly. Oh boy, that

(01:17:47):
reminds me of a joke, but I'm not gonna tell.

Speaker 7 (01:17:49):
So there you go.

Speaker 6 (01:17:52):
Anyway, A lot of things we we learn. You know,
there's a I think I've said this that maybe in
yesterday I said it. I think it was. It seems
to me like something that either Mark Twain or Will
Rogers will say. I think it's probably Will Rogers. It
says not what I know. It's not what I don't
know that worries me. It's what I know that ain't so.
And I still got some things that I think I

(01:18:14):
know but they ain't so. And slowly, as we get
older we can learn those things and realize we're wrong
about that.

Speaker 7 (01:18:23):
So there you go.

Speaker 6 (01:18:24):
Always a good day when you're learning stuff. Ace hardware
stores are stocked up. Now I know you know, getting
out on the roadways and stuff today, that's kind of
something they're advising us against. But just know this that
whenever you need things like for a coal spell, when
you need things for when the power goes out, you know,

(01:18:46):
flashlights and batteries and whatnot. When you need things that
are to protect everything from plants to pipes, you name it,
just go to ACE. You go to ACE Hardware, your
Texas acehart Hardware stores here in our area. You can
go to the website ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Ace Hardware,

(01:19:06):
don't forget Texas dot com and find the local ACE
Hardware stores that are part of my garden line ACE
Hardware Group and they go all the way from Orange
over there all the way down into Portoransas in that
area and is certainly north southeast and central here in
the Houston area. Stores like all Seasons, Ace and willis
up on I forty five North Euvaldie Ace and Uvalde

(01:19:28):
Road on the east side of Houston. Southeast. There is
Chalmers Ace on Broadway Street down there in Galveston, and
then Base City ACE kind of towards the southwest there
on Seventh Street, as well as Wharton Feed and Ace
on North Richmond Road down there in Wharton, Wharton. That's
a store that got renovated not too long ago, and
it really it is something to see. They do a

(01:19:52):
great job down there, as they do in all of
our ACE Hardware stores. ACE Hardware Texas dot com.

Speaker 7 (01:19:59):
What are you do?

Speaker 6 (01:20:01):
Tell what I need? I need to run by and
grab some AC filters that go in your central unit.
I think I may let it go a couple of
months without getting up there and changing my filter. I
need to make sure and keep that done or I
will pay for it in the long run. ACE Hardware's
catch covered on that too. Let's take a little break.
We'll be back with your questions at seven one three, two,

(01:20:24):
one two, five eight seven four. My apologies tomorrow. Haggard
attributing that song to Johnny Cash. Although a whole bunch
of people have done it. There you go, there you go.
A bunch of mamas are going m I tried tell them,
I tried tell them. They won't listen.

Speaker 7 (01:20:43):
That's it.

Speaker 6 (01:20:44):
Welcome back to the garden line. Hey, I got a
notice from folks at ACE just a second ago that
the Cyprus Ace, the Katy as the Lake Conroe Ace
and the new store there in Spring Branch, which is
just off Work Road, are open or will be by ten,
and I'm sure some other Aces the same thing may
be true. So here's what you need to do. Go

(01:21:07):
to your local ACE Hardware store at Acehardware Texas dot
com and just check if you need anything to get
it ready for tonight. You need to check. And I'm
telling you ACE is loaded with stuff, the kinds of
things that I always follow ACE of course on the
social media and whatnot, checking out the websites too frequently.

(01:21:32):
And I was just looking at truck loads of things
that they're getting. And you you need a generator, you
need to I mean, I don't know what you need,
but if it's related to protecting plants, pipes, people, pets
and all that from the cod they have you covered.
You need a heat lamp, you need something like that,
They've got you covered. So just don't assume your ACE
Hardware store is closed today. They probably will be opening up.

(01:21:54):
Many of them will be. Not all. Every ACE is
independently on so each store manager can do what they
think is best. And so just keep that in mind.
All right, that sound good? You're listening to Garden Line
I'm your host skip director. We're here to help you
have success in the garden. That is what you need
to know, success in the garden. So make sure that

(01:22:20):
as you tune into Garden Line each each week, you
have a pencil on a paper with you. And I'm
not I'm not trying to be your parent or something
on this. I'm just saying that, you know, I throw
out a lot of a website or a phone number
or some other thing that you need to know. While
ago I talked about a particular kind of green that
you buy at a particular seed company. H And I'm

(01:22:41):
sure that went by for someone could run and grab
a pen. If you might care about something saying and
want to write it down, that's that's up to you
for sure. Just a new notice. Looks like it's gonna
be Ace Hardware Day. The Katie Hardware is opening Katie
and Cyprus Hardware, Sir, Sorry Katie at nine Cyrus ten.

Speaker 7 (01:23:02):
So there you go.

Speaker 6 (01:23:03):
A couple more notifications again, here's the easy way as
Hardware Texas dot Com. Find your store and give them
a call. They'll tell you if they're open. Tonight is
the freeze of freezes that we've been going through and
that we're having and what we haven't had to do
in the recent past we won't need to do for
tonight to protect things so great links I've talked about that.

(01:23:26):
Have you got questions about that? Or a phraeze don't hesit?
Date to give me a call seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. We can get down
to the details of what is the best way for
you to protect the particular kind of plants that you
have in your garden and landscape. Uh, you are listening
to garden Line and UH. One of the things that

(01:23:47):
I try to do here when we have a little
break in the calls, UH and is is talk about
some general concepts and principles that are important to know
so that you can have success with gardening. Because and
I say this all the time, but I hope you
will hear this and take it take it to heart.

(01:24:08):
Gardening success amounts to one thing. Learning to see things
from a plant's point of view. So if you were
to talk to a plant and they could tell you
how they see things, what they need, what they want,
hearing and knowing that would help you have success with

(01:24:29):
that plant. How much sunlight does it want? What are
its temperature restrictions. Does it want to be continually moist
or does it want to dry out pretty good between waterings?
Is it good to go on drought for a while
that's better than keeping it too wet? How much fertilizers
does it want? What are the ratios of fertilizers that
it does best with.

Speaker 7 (01:24:50):
What are the.

Speaker 6 (01:24:51):
Pests that tend to attack it so that you can
plan on heading that off? Do you see what I mean?
Learning to see things from a plant point of view?
That's what I do all day on guarden Line here
is talk about things that are basically things that a
plant would consider if they were if they could be.

(01:25:12):
What's the thing when you add like a human like
character to something that's not anthropo Anthropomorphizing, I think is
the fancy word. See there. If you got nothing else
from garden Line today, you've got a new vocabulary word.
Or maybe it's not, maybe you already knew that, but
being able to think like a plant, that's another good

(01:25:32):
way to put it. And that's that's what we focus on.
Quick quick thing right now. With this kind of weather,
it is very very tough on birds. A lot of
birds in cold weather like this, they lose their life.
It's very difficult for them. It's nice that we have
shrubbery where some can kind of go in and hide

(01:25:54):
and have some protection from the wind and things. It
is very important that birds have food and water. Even
in cold they have to drink each day, so having
a source of water the rain is kind of helping
take care of that for this cold spell. But food,
how about stopping by your local wild Birds Unlimited once

(01:26:16):
it's safe to get back on the roads and getting
some quality food that has the fat and protein to
help them during these days when their daylight hours are shorter,
they're foraging hours, if you will, or shorter, and maybe
the supplies of seeds and bugs and things are less
out there in the environment. Wild Birds Unlimited has a

(01:26:36):
winter super Blend. Super Blend is an outstanding feed because
it has extra protein and fat content in it, and
for the next few months even you can continue to
feed the winter super Blend. We'll be talking in spring
about some other bird seeds, but know this, when you
go to wild Birds Unlimited, your bird seed is going

(01:26:57):
to have every seed in it is something a bird
wants to eat, not filler junk. The red bebes no filler.
It is the stuff the birds most want to eat.
So right now, there's a really cool thing going on,
by the way, and that is what they call the
gold rush, the American goldfinch is. It tends to bring

(01:27:18):
down the cold weather we have comes as the goldfinches
come down from north. Other songbirds too to our feeders
over these days, and they need help to survive. And
so these high fat foods that I mentioned are good
things that have sunflower chips or peanuts or suet or
bark butter for example. But also there are feeders at

(01:27:40):
wild Birds Unlimited that are yellow. And the goldfinch is
a yellow bird. I mean it's like stand back and
no question, this is a yellow bird. The yellow feeders
actually are attractive to them. That kind of like catches
our eye, I guess, and they come to them and
they have a special blend. It's got niger in it.
I can't remember the other thing that's in the blend

(01:28:02):
for goldfinches that they have, but it doesn't matter. I
don't need to know. You don't need to know. Go
into wild Birds Unlimited and they'll tell you which one
it is. But that would be kind of fun to
bring some of those in as well as all the
other kinds of birds that we want to be feeding.
You should have several feeders in your yard for different
kinds of things. My favorite feeder is their feeder that

(01:28:22):
excludes squirrels from getting in it. It has a little
spring weight on the opening, so if a squirrel grabs
a hold of it, it closes the outlet to get
to food, and the squirrels can't get in there to
get to food. And I love it. In fact, I've
got I need to remember this. I've got a video
of mine in the backyard. I'm going to post that

(01:28:43):
to our social media. I'll try to get that done today.
But I love watching frustrated squirrels. I have the sound
turned down in the video so you cannot hear the
language the squirrel is using because it's yeah, it's their
moms would not approve. But they try to get into
my feeder and they can't. So that is my favorite feeder.

(01:29:04):
I've got some. I've got a little platform type feeder.
I also have this stenderd little hopper feeders from Wildbirds Unlimited,
made of a recycled plastic with an extra large lid
so rain like we're having doesn't tend to get in
as bad into the feed to make it go bad.
Every feeder I've ever gotten from my Wildbirds Unlimited stores,
as well as the feeding systems, the hangers, the poles

(01:29:27):
that go up and have places to hang feeders. I mean,
you can create like you've ever been to an intersection
and a highway and you look and there's like ten
restaurants all around you and you don't know where to go.
That's how one of these systems is from Wallbirds Unlimited.
There's like this feeder that's got that kind of thing,
and this feeder that's got that, and this is out
and then there's a suet bar hanging to the side

(01:29:48):
of the thing. You need to make all of those
for your house. Your birds called me and they asked,
would you please have him go to Walbirds Unlimited and
get one of those. Yeah, I'm playing with you, but
I'm it really is an amazing thing. All right, Enough
about that, Well, let me give you kind of an

(01:30:09):
update here. We've got a couple of updates on some
of our stores.

Speaker 7 (01:30:14):
Here.

Speaker 6 (01:30:14):
Our Ace hard Restores opening at ten am. We've got
Lake Conroe Ace and Plantation Ace, which is down in
the Richmond Rosenberg area on three point fifty nine. H
J and R Ace Importer is opening and Bay City, Victoria, Port,
Lavaka and Rockport are all open right now. So and

(01:30:35):
I'm I'm naming specific ones, but you know, I hear
from my Ace hardware store folks, and like i'p in Cyprus,
they've got lots of propeine on hand if you need that.
They got the heaters, they got the heat lamps and
everything else as and I would expect most of our
Ace hardware stores are going to have a really good
stock of this winter weather stuff. But remember tomorrow morning
is too late in order to protect them against the

(01:30:57):
coldest weather of the year hopefully for a few years.
That is happening tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
There you go.

Speaker 6 (01:31:07):
Houston powder Coders. I love the kind of work that
they do, and if you don't follow them like on
social media, you ought to just go check it out.
Houston powdered cards. Like if you go right now, there
is a picture of a gorgeous black metal patio set
that they coded, and I mean if you walked up

(01:31:30):
to it and looked at it, you would think, well,
that's brand new, because that's what it looks like brand new.
A gorgeous outdoor kind of a cage where you would
put a light in, or where you could have something
else hanging in it that's been coded by them. Beautiful
pool furniture that has a not cloth but some sort

(01:31:52):
of a weather resistant fabric over it. Gorgeous, just coded
by them. They do so much good way you know
what they even do. They can even do a goalpost.
They can. They absolutely, if it's metal, they can do it.
And if you're thinking, well, how do they get it
into the deal, their deal is so their rooms are

(01:32:12):
ranged in size, but there's one big enough you put
a whole goose neck trailer in it. You and you
can powder coat that thing, and you talk about protecting
it against the rust. And then there's the racks of
metal that you put your firewood on. There's the the
fire pits, the barbecue pits. When they get through it
is new. That rhymes. I need to remember that. When

(01:32:32):
they get through it is new. And lots of other things.
Iron fencing around your house, around your property. I could
go on and on. Houston Powdercoders dot com. Here's a
phone number. Hopefully you've got your pin or pencil handy
Houston powder cooaters dot com and the number for Houston

(01:32:53):
powder Coders is two eight one six seven six thirty
eight eighty eight. We'll be right back, Nicholas. We got
to play this round Valentine's. That'd be a good Sam Cook.
I love that guy all a long long time. He
was performed nighttime. That's the way back. All right, folks,

(01:33:17):
welcome back to Guardline. Good have you with us. You've
got a question you'd like to ask? Well, seven one
three two one two five eight seven four that's the
number you're gonna need. Nelson plant Food. Earlier you heard
Destined No Texas Garden guy uh talking about their Genesis product,

(01:33:38):
and oh my gosh, that is a good one. That
is a good one. I'm going to tell you here
here coming up pretty soon. I want to share with
you some research on that product that was just amazing.
Text A and M did some research on it that
had very very positive results. And that doesn't surprise me
at all because I've used it and I've seen the
results literally. But I wanted to just talk about just

(01:33:59):
the company a little bit. You know, Dan Nelson founded
this company a long time ago for forty two years
they've been in the horticulture industry. It's a family owned
and operated business. All three generations now of Nelson's are
involved in this business at this time. I've been to
trade shows before and the little kids are out there

(01:34:20):
handing out samples to people coming by. I mean, it
is truly a family business. They make professional grade products too.
They make them for those of us who you know
home residential gardeners, but also growers and landscapers in the
commercial industry. A lot of them are fans of Nelson products.
They specialize in horticulture fertilizers in general. They use high

(01:34:41):
quality ingredients and they've got the chemistries to create fertilizers
for whatever you need. If you need something that's slow release,
you know where you're not fertilizing five times through the season,
you fertilize in it gradually over time releases. They know
exactly how to do that. There's some ways you do
it for you get a couple of months of relief,
are some that go even longer than that, and they

(01:35:02):
know how to blend those things. And that's just how
Nelson is. They've been out there for Belleville, Texas for
a long time. You go on to Katie. There's schools
named after the Nelson family in that area. This is
a company that's been around a long time. This is
a local fertilizer produced here in Houston, and the number

(01:35:22):
of options that they have are very broad. I mean many, many,
many options. They even have an organic line that they do.
They do the Color Star, which is probably the most
famous fertilizer for blooming plants that we know. They do
the Nature Start, which is the organic line. They do
the Turf Start, which is for lawns, and so on.
A dozen plant food easy to find all through the area.

(01:35:45):
Many places have the little self serve but is it
feeders or whatever? You know how you go in the
grocery store and you buy peanuts. By pulling the handle down,
it fills up the sack. You can buy fertilizer from
Nelson that way. But probably a dozen more now places
in the Houston area had that where you just take
your old jar back in. Don't bold the plastic away.

(01:36:06):
We had enough in the environment. Just take your jar
back in, fill it up. It's an economical way to
buy fertilizer too, compared to buying a new jar every time,
and you're avoiding that plastic waste. Let's see, let's head
out to fullsher now and we're going to visit with
Scott this morning. Hello Scott, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 1 (01:36:25):
Good Morrow morning. Skip. How are you doing today?

Speaker 6 (01:36:30):
I'm doing okay, I'm warming inside.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):
Yeah, me too.

Speaker 9 (01:36:34):
I just wanted to report three months ago I had
an issue. I sent some pictures in and some dove
weed that I had growing, and I just want to
let you know that the Celsius did work.

Speaker 1 (01:36:47):
It killed it.

Speaker 9 (01:36:48):
It took a little while, maybe a week, but then
I was able to go pull that stuff out and
put it in a bag and throw it away. So
I think that solved the problem. Didn't have to go
with any worse methods. But anyway, today's issue is I've
got a Chinese fringe tree. It's about four or five
years old, and I was out looking at it at

(01:37:09):
the other day and I sent you some photos. It's
got this black growth substance.

Speaker 7 (01:37:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 9 (01:37:16):
It almost looks like somebody painted it black along one
of the limbs and inside. If you could take a
look at that, Is there anything you can tell me
about it about what's.

Speaker 1 (01:37:27):
Going on there?

Speaker 6 (01:37:29):
Okay? There's a wound, and the sap from the tree
is leaking out and going down, and a suddy kind
of mold type material is growing on it. There is
a branch. It looks like it could have been chewed
by squirrels, but the bark is now peeling back. I
think you may have a canker disease in there. And

(01:37:50):
the problem with that is there's nothing to spray on
the outside to get rid of the canker disease inside.
It's just that is what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:37:56):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (01:37:57):
Your remedies are to get the tree as healthy as
you can so that it can close the wound over.
One of your pruning cuts left a stub, and I
would reprune that back to where near right where it
joins the branch. Don't cut it back, flush, but.

Speaker 7 (01:38:18):
Go back.

Speaker 6 (01:38:19):
I don't I can't tell the distance. It looks to
me like you need to go about two inches more
back toward the tree to make that cut. But make
a nice clean cut in there. Don't treat it with anything,
don't spray it over with anything, and then just get
the tree with the vigor. And a tree with vigor
is able to wall off that infection and begin to
close it back over pretty well. But yeah, just a

(01:38:47):
good fertilizer. Yeah, in small amounts. If you go down,
you know, blow all those branches the turrnk diameter of
the tree. You know, just take your thumb and go
across there, and it's you know, I don't know, I'm
gonna guess. What is it about five inch tree trunk
down the Yeah, something like that. Now, yeah, we it
was like a fifty gallon when we planted it, right,

(01:39:09):
So every inch of trunk diameter, give it a cup
or two of a standard synthetic fertilizer. If it's organic,
double that two to four cups per inch of trunk diameter.
So let's just say it's five inches, so that is
five to ten cups of fertilizer, not dumped at the base,
but spread evenly out through the branch, spread and watered
in that. That's what I ratio would filize, a three

(01:39:36):
to one to two ratio, which is primarily pushes the
new growth on it. What I would suggest you do
is get some nutri star genesis. Now that has nutrients
in it, but it also has a lot of things
other than nutrients in it. But I would sprinkle it
at the organic rate that I gave you around that

(01:39:57):
tree and kind of watered in. If you can work
it in a little bit into the soil, that's even better.
But I would do that now, and I would do
it well, not now, hold on, Yeah, do it sometime
maybe in late late February early March, and then I
would do it again about two or three months later.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:40:16):
And I think you're going to see a response.

Speaker 1 (01:40:21):
Okay, sounds great. Appreciate it, all.

Speaker 6 (01:40:25):
Right, you bet, thanks for those pictures. That's very helpful.
By the way, it needs it needs a little more pruning.
There's a few too many. There's a few too many limbs.
Those little smaller ones should come out of there and
leave the bigger ones.

Speaker 7 (01:40:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:40:37):
What I'm waiting for, I'm waiting for the waiting for
the leaves to drop off and get Martin out here
to go through it. He looked at it last year,
or not him, but his main man, and uh, he said,
let's just wait a year on it.

Speaker 6 (01:40:53):
So that's okay, sounds good. All right, all right, thank
you with that, thank you, mm you take care. Let's
see you gotta take a quick break here when we
come back. Vicki and Conroe. You'll be first up to
find a barbershop quartet song about gardening. Not easy. Welcome

(01:41:16):
back to garden Line, Good to have you with us. Alrighty,
we are gonna head straight out to Vicky if I
can get these barbershop guys moved out of the way
a little bit. Hey Vicky, Welcome to garden Line. Good
to have you with us.

Speaker 7 (01:41:30):
Thank you.

Speaker 10 (01:41:32):
I was wondering if I can improve the dirt in
my backyard with worms fishing worms.

Speaker 6 (01:41:45):
You yes, and no. Here's the thing. Worms improve soil, period,
but if the conditions aren't such for the worms to thrive,
they're not gonna do what they can do. So like crawlers,
for example, when we get into the summertimes, it's just
so hot here and the soil is very warm, and

(01:42:06):
you just don't tend to see them as much in
that time of the year. The little tiny red wiggler
type worms, they don't typically survive out in the lawn
very well, and so that would not be a good one.
They would be good for verma composting, which is compost
scraps in a bin where worms are in the bin

(01:42:26):
feeding on it, but they're not good for out in nature,
so it's nice to have worms, but they need a
lot of organic matter on the soil, and the temperatures
have an effect on them being able to thrive. So
I wouldn't add worms to your lawn to improve it.
What I would do Beckim, We are talking about your turf, right,
or are you talking about everywhere?

Speaker 10 (01:42:47):
No? I have some shade loving plants under my live oaks,
and I have it mulch okay, But the ground underneath
the molch is just like cement.

Speaker 7 (01:42:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:43:00):
I thought worms might.

Speaker 6 (01:43:01):
Loosen well, very slowly over time. They will help build
the soil, but I just don't think that's going to
be a I don't think the results are going to
be what you're hoping for. What I would suggest is
to air rate that area, and there's a couple of
ways of doing it. One simple way is to get

(01:43:22):
a spading fork. And when the soil is moist, not dry,
not concrete hard dry soil, but when it's moist, not soggy,
wet and gooey soil, but just moist, you can put
a spading fork down, stand on it and wiggle it
straight down into the soil, just using your weight and
just wiggling the handle. You're not bending over, you're not

(01:43:42):
picking up soil or anything. When you get it down
in there, you just sort of pull back and crack
the soil open a little bit. You know, you're just
moving the handle back towards you a little bit, cracking
it open. You may have to start about four inches
deep and then go a little deeper and crack again.
But as you do that and move around, it's not
a lot of work to do that. You crack open

(01:44:03):
the soil and organic matter from the surface, your mold, compost,
top dressing, and things fall down in the soil, and
it begins to improve it. And as you do a
little here, little there, Chris, You're not going to do
the whole thing at once unless you just want to
harre somebody to do that. It will improve the soil,
and you may do it again number of months later,

(01:44:23):
you come back in and do it again, but you
can you can do a lot to errate and to
improve by moving that organic matter down deeper into the
soil that way. And again, I'm not talking about turning
it over and tearing up the roots and everything. I'm
just talking about just a crack, just a fissure down
in the soil.

Speaker 10 (01:44:41):
Okay, I'll try it.

Speaker 6 (01:44:44):
All right, you take care, Thank you, Vicky, appreciate your call.
All right, bye bye, All right, there you are. Yeah,
that is that is important to have good open soil
and organic matter burns up in our area. We say
burns up it oxidizes, or we could say it decomposes away,

(01:45:06):
however you want to put it. You go way up
north and you can have giant peat bogs that you're
making organic matter faster than it's decomposing away. You get
down here in a typical organic matter level and just
plain old bear unamended soil is going to be about
one half of one percent, and that's too low. But

(01:45:28):
you can add organic matter. But just know that what
you add, I would say, two years after is pretty
much gone. It's pretty much decomposed away into lower decomposition
levels like humus for example. That's the final decomposition state.
So we have to add organic matter regularly. The things

(01:45:50):
we grow can help do that can help open the
soil in a vegetable garden. Unless there's a special disease
situation you're looking at. You're not needing to pull the
roots up out of the ground. I have a little
soil knife and I cut plants off just below the
ground level. Just cut them off, leave the roots in
the ground. Those will decompose. They have reached into the soil.
They are organic matter that will decompose when they rot.

(01:46:13):
That passageway they pushed through the soil will now be
open to air moving down, so water soaks in a
little bit faster, and a soil like that it's always better.
You know, A lawn absorbs rainfall much better than bere
soil just runs off the surface of bare soil. So
a lawn is helpful in harvesting rain water. Air rating

(01:46:35):
makes it even more helpful.

Speaker 7 (01:46:37):
In doing that.

Speaker 6 (01:46:37):
So those are some ideas just to keep in mind
as you're out there gardening. We improve our soil over time.

Speaker 1 (01:46:44):
We do.

Speaker 6 (01:46:45):
We improve it over time. I was in I remember,
I guess it's a good Sunday story. I was in
Missouri for three years and I went out to visit
a vineyardist and a blueberry grower, and I'm telling you
that place was like a scene from A Walk in
the Clouds. If you haven't seen that movie, it's a
good one. It was just beautiful. And I said you

(01:47:06):
have the most gorgeous farm the orchard that I've ever seen.
And he said, yeah, the Lord and I have built
quite a place here. But you should have seen it
when he had it by himself. I looked up, is
there a cloud in the sky? Kind of lightning both
on the way. He was joking with me. But the

(01:47:27):
bottom line is we all move into a place and
the soil isn't ideal unless you just really get lucky.
We all start with something that's far from what we
want it to be, and we build it over time
with organic matter. We have these great sponsors you know
that provide organic matter. You know, Siena Mulge down south
of town, Nature's way up towards Conroe, heirloom soils out

(01:47:51):
in the Porter direction, and they're selling stuff all over
town and it's there, it's available. You can get in
in bold. Try to make enough composts to do all
that by yourself as a challenge. It's still a good
idea to make composts, but you want to make some
large scale improvements. You get your quality mixed from on
these folks, and you mix it in the soil and

(01:48:11):
you take care of your soil and it just gets
better and more productive. And one reason why real quick
we're about a round of time is that the more
you bring oxygen down in the soil, the deeper and
more extensive and more effective the root system will be.
When that happens, you have better results on top faster
growing plants or blooms or fruit. Build a soil, brown

(01:48:34):
stuff before green stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
I'll say it again, Welcome to k r H Garden
Line with Scale Ricker.

Speaker 3 (01:48:43):
It's just watch him as the season sign sam season starting.

Speaker 6 (01:49:28):
Hey folks, good morning, welcome back. Here we are here,
we are on guardline. You got a gardening question, you
can give me a call. Seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. A little update on the
East hardbur stores opening. Both these guys are they're really

(01:49:50):
going at it uh at nine o'clock, which is just now,
all seasons Ace and Willis Champions Ace, Spring Ace at
ten o'clock like we got Siena Ace and League City
Ace and at noon a Teskasita and k and m
Ace and Kingwood are all opening at noon. You know,
some of the some of the Ace managers literally stayed

(01:50:12):
overnight in the store. I know out in Plantation, Ace
and kd S they and maybe some others, but they
literally just spent the night there in the store. So
in the morning, whatever kind of conditions we have, customers
are ready to go. They want to be there and
be ready to open up because this is a time
when people need supplies, and that is true.

Speaker 7 (01:50:30):
So there you go.

Speaker 6 (01:50:31):
Okay, and finally just heard Hardware City a memorial. I
was there for an appearance a while back. Ten am.
They're opening up. So there you go. Check your ACE
Hardware store. Go to ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Find
your store and call them find out. I'm not gonna
name every store that's in the greater group here, but
you sure you sure can find out that way. Let's

(01:50:52):
head out to the phones. We're going to go to
Bay City and talk to Mike this morning. Hey Mike,
welcome to garden Line again.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:51:01):
Hey.

Speaker 11 (01:51:02):
Earlier I was listening to you talking about want to
know what people have tried in their garden, so I
thought i'd give you one.

Speaker 1 (01:51:09):
I tried.

Speaker 11 (01:51:10):
Yeah, uh, I you know, planting seeds like carrot seeds
and so forth. Oh that's a pain, you know, because
you either got to waste a bunch of them or whatever,
and then it's the pain to thin them out, you know,
the little seeds like that. So I said, I'm gonna
cut a bunch of paper strips the newspaper and linked,
you know, and put some flower paste on there, and

(01:51:34):
then I'm gonna go put all the seeds where I
want them, you know, the spacing I wanted, and then
run that out and lay the strips down cover a
little soil.

Speaker 1 (01:51:42):
Well, that didn't work too good.

Speaker 11 (01:51:45):
I thought that'd be a great idea, that wouldn't have
to do any thin in or anything.

Speaker 1 (01:51:49):
Well, it didn't work for a lot.

Speaker 6 (01:51:52):
What about it? What about it didn't? Do you think
made it not work?

Speaker 1 (01:51:55):
Was it the.

Speaker 6 (01:51:58):
To get through?

Speaker 11 (01:52:00):
Well, if there was the seeds were on top of that, oh,
for the roots to get through, Yeah, that could have been.
I was wondering if the paste that, But I thought
the flower paste wouldn't hurt anything, and so I guess
it could have been that if something got in there
and hit that paper, of course it pulled all the
seeds outstead of just one.

Speaker 1 (01:52:18):
Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 11 (01:52:20):
And so, and when putting it out, it was if
it was Windy had trouble putting it. It just became
it was almost more work than you know, than it
was to just go plant them by hand and it
So I thought it was a great idea though, because
you could have them space just like you wanted and everything.
It just didn't turn out so great. So, and I
don't know what the reason, the whole reason was, but

(01:52:43):
I didn't think the flyer would hurt it, wouldn't you
think the flower pace and you.

Speaker 6 (01:52:48):
Know, unless I wouldn't think so. But I tell you
that there is a thing called seed seed tape. You
can buy it, but there's a homemade one. And I've seen,
especially when they do gardening with kids and little kids
fingers and stuff, trying to plant seed just right as hard.
But they'll say toilet paper and they'll put some seed
in it, folded over a couple of times and then

(01:53:10):
put that down and that that does work.

Speaker 1 (01:53:12):
They but you may.

Speaker 6 (01:53:14):
Probably just want to make sure it stays. Yeah, it
needs to say moist, because if that seed comes out
and it hits a dry newspaper and it dries out,
then it's going to die. But maybe maybe that would
be an adjustment to it that would help I guess,
so you.

Speaker 1 (01:53:27):
Could cut strips of right the seeds.

Speaker 6 (01:53:31):
That yeah kind I mean not not like a real yeah,
not a thick water toilete, just a thin one like
that on our seeds.

Speaker 1 (01:53:40):
We but when we used to do, I was holding
them in place.

Speaker 11 (01:53:43):
Is the water right, you're saying, keep it moist and
that would hold the seeds in Yeah, keep it.

Speaker 6 (01:53:48):
Moist or sprinkle, sprinkle a little just a tiny amount
of soil over it, depending on the seed. Some seeds
like let us need to sit up where they get light,
and if you if you block the light, they're not
going to germinate, right, So I just have to go
by the seed. One other final thing. When I was
with Agerlife Extension, we had the Junior Master garding party.
We'd teach kids how to garden, and we would take

(01:54:09):
a coffee filter and you know, get it to lay
out flat. Yet you can't use a cone time cone
type yet, the kind the kind that'll lay flat, and
just like take a little bit of Elmer's glue and
just stick a tiny spot on the seed and stick
those on the coffee filter and you put exactly where
you want, like if it was a certain sized circle,

(01:54:29):
you could put four seeds, you could put six seeds.
You could put one seed in it and lay the
coffee filter on top of a pot soil and then
sprinkle it. And that was the way kids, and that
was kind of fun for them. And it just decomposes.
Yeah too, Yeah, yeah, I think it would. I think
it would. And I do appreciate your call. Thanks for

(01:54:51):
reporting me. It's always fun to try new things and
that's how we learn.

Speaker 1 (01:54:55):
Right right.

Speaker 11 (01:54:57):
They sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

Speaker 6 (01:55:01):
That's the truth. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate that a lot. Medina
products have been around since I don't know when, nineteen fifties.
I guess they If you go back to when Dewey
Compton was basically sitting in this chair doing gardening advice
on ktr HS and so on, Medina was a sponsor

(01:55:21):
of the show. They've been around that long, and people
that have purchased and used Medina products know they work,
and they very proud of that. They support it and
because it does work. Medina has a humic acid, a
Humande humic acid that is a very effective product in
helping to improve your soil's physical structure. I was talking
to somebody this morning talking about using a spade and

(01:55:43):
fork to break up the soil, get down in there,
get some organic matter in the soil. I would also
in that I should have said this and include a
humic acid product because the liquid humus is one quick
way to get it down there, and Medina has that.
Medina also has a product called Medina Plus, this one.
You know, the original Medina cel Activator was an awesome product.

(01:56:04):
But with Medina Plus, what they did is they fortified
Medina sool activator with micronutrients and seaweed extracts, so you
get all the benefits of the Medina sole activator plus
these benefits of micronutrients and so building benefits. So when
you use it you will see success. You can use
it for transplanting, you can use it as a folier spray.

(01:56:25):
It's not going to burn your plants, and you always
ought to have some on hand. Medina has a number
of products. They also have a couple that are in
a hoose in bottle. And in fact, while I'm talking
about that at Enchanted Gardens on next Saturday, I'm going
to be there talking about raised bed and container gardening,

(01:56:48):
and when you come, we're going to be giving away
some Medina hose in spray bottles as drawings that you
may win one come and draw. They're also going to
give away twenty five dollars gift certificates too. Enchanted gardens. Wow,
that is like turning a kid loose in a candy
store with with some money. So you want to be

(01:57:10):
part of that. But those hose En spray products work
really well. I love them. I love to use the
Medina hastrogro for lawns and a hose end. You may
have an area where you just want to boost it
with a little bit of fertilizer, or you may want
to do the whole lawn and it works. I've tried it.
I know it works. There's a number of products that
are available with by hose En spray or two and
just let me tell you something just because one of

(01:57:30):
those is for the lawn. If you want to use
it in your vegetable gardens to get growth more better
growth on your leafy greens, you just walk over there
and do that. It'll work just fine for that as well.
I'm'll take a quick break when I come back. Patricia
in Houston and Bob and Kingwood in that order. You'll
be the first up. All right, we are. We're in

(01:57:52):
the midst of a culinary bomber right now. Can you
not wait to get those tomatoes out in the ground.
It's coming. You be starting the seeds now, In fact,
some be already starting the seeds. Go for it, enjoy that,
look forward to that. By the way, I was talking
about ACE Hardware stores. I'm here and we got some
phones ringing off the wall of Ace Hardware stores. So
if you have in trouble getting through to a store,

(01:58:14):
just go to that Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Find
your store and go to the website of the store.
It's right there. You'll get it. And when you get
the website of the store, usually they'll list their social
media there or search for them on Facebook for example,
or Instagram, especially Facebook. If you'll just do that, they
will have posted to their Facebook things like when they're

(01:58:35):
opening and whatnot. So there you go, there you go.
Let's head out now to Houston area and we're going
to talk to Patricia this morning. Hey, Patricia, thanks for waiting.
Welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 4 (01:58:47):
Thank you, sir.

Speaker 12 (01:58:49):
My question is about my Ammarellas, one of them I've
had for over thirty two years in the same container,
and the one I probably had fifteen years, and both
of them are multiplying, and I just know that it's
not fair to keep them in a container like that,
but I've been so afraid to transplant them, and I'm

(01:59:13):
just I don't want to. I don't want them to
die after all these years, and I just didn't.

Speaker 7 (01:59:17):
Know how and what to do.

Speaker 6 (01:59:21):
Now, you can put them in a soil, they'll be
just fine. So I assume yours. Well, at least four
of the freeze had some good green leaves on them,
is that right?

Speaker 12 (01:59:30):
Yes, Yeah, they're big and healthy.

Speaker 6 (01:59:32):
Yeah, okay, So you can pull them up and get
them on table there where you can do some surgery,
take away the bulbs that you wanted to you know,
you say you have like a clump of them, right,
several bulbs together.

Speaker 12 (01:59:51):
Well I can't see that part, but I can tell
there's more coming out beside them.

Speaker 8 (01:59:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:59:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:59:58):
So so at the bottom those bulbs are joined, where
the bulb stops and the roots start, there's a little
basal plate right there, and if you cut through that plate,
you can separate the bulbs. And once you separate them,
then you can plan them individually wherever you want to
plan them. Now, yeah, you could go ahead and do

(02:00:20):
that if you wan't do it carefully. Once you get
past his freeze, get them out in the ground where
you want to plant them. Make sure they have decent drainage.
You know, they're not sitting down in a swamp. But
they will do. They will do fine. I like to
put them under like a deciduous tree because they get
a little sunlight and the wintertime to help keep that
bulb strong and growing. And then after they bloom, they'll

(02:00:43):
probably as we get into summer droughts and stuff, they'll
dry up. But it's important for amarillas to go through
a drought dormant period toward the end of summer. So
I know people that have their containers, they'll lay the
containers on the side so rainfall can't fall in the container.
They'll lay it on the side and just leave it
there and let things dry up. And after it's right
up good for a while, when it starts to cool

(02:01:03):
off and fall, they'll set it back up and start
watering it and it'll be back in business. That in
their native range, that is kind of how the weather is,
and so you don't have to do that, but that
is a way to have better success with them.

Speaker 12 (02:01:16):
Okay, So whenever I do this bulbing sorting the leaves,
say on there is it right?

Speaker 6 (02:01:28):
You leave the leaves on there. You can do that absolutely.
Now oftentimes people will do the dividing in the fall time.
The dividing could be done after that dormant period before
you put them out, and they can also be left undivided.
I've seen some big clumps amarillas and they're fine. But anyway,

(02:01:48):
if you want to get more out of it, I
would divide them. Have got to run, Patricia, but I
do appreciate the call. Thank you, thank you so much
for calling in. We need to run now out to
Kingwood and talk to Bob. Hey, Bob, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 1 (02:02:04):
Hi. Skip.

Speaker 13 (02:02:05):
My question is in regards to a little Asian color
month seat.

Speaker 1 (02:02:09):
You're familiar with those, right, the klamand and orange.

Speaker 9 (02:02:16):
The little.

Speaker 7 (02:02:18):
The little round ones.

Speaker 6 (02:02:20):
Hey, Bob. Okay, Bob, do you have a Do you
have a radio? Bob? Do you have a radio going
in the room?

Speaker 7 (02:02:27):
No?

Speaker 1 (02:02:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (02:02:29):
Okay, I'm just thinking that was causing our delay. Let's
go ahead and see what we can do here.

Speaker 1 (02:02:37):
Yes there, hello, Yes, okay?

Speaker 7 (02:02:45):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:02:45):
Should I continue?

Speaker 7 (02:02:48):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (02:02:50):
Okay?

Speaker 7 (02:02:51):
I bought you.

Speaker 6 (02:02:56):
Just keep just keep talking, Bob.

Speaker 13 (02:02:58):
I bought a klamand then about two years ago in
a little like a six inch high pot about six
inches wide, it was about three foot tall. It started
putting some little round fruits on there. I left it
in that pot for about a year, and so I
transplanted it last year into a two foot high, like
eighteen inch wide pot. You know, put it in good soil,

(02:03:22):
did everything good fruit, fruit soil, and that thing just
stays the same the last year. Nothing no growth, no nothing.
So it looks healthy, you know. I mean the branches
are vendable and green leaves. But it hasn't changed from
the day I put it in there.

Speaker 1 (02:03:40):
So is it stunted?

Speaker 7 (02:03:42):
Should I give up on it? Or no?

Speaker 6 (02:03:45):
No, don't give up on it. It's fine. Klamanda is
a smaller statued citrus anyway. But I would just dis
continue to water, keep it moist, do some fertilizing. Once
we get into the warm weather and it's able to grow,
and that it needs to get good sunlight. The more
sun the better, uh, And I think you'll see some

(02:04:06):
growth resume on it. It should, so let's let's do
that if it. If it gives you any more trouble,
we'll came back. We'll talk about it again. But I
think with water transplant could have been transplant. It could
have been transplant shock, but it could have been other things.

(02:04:26):
It could be post transplanting, uh, you know, lack of moisture,
or lack of sun or or a variety of things.
I can't tell you which it was right now, but
I do it without a suggestion. Here, good sunlight, good moisture,
and good fertilizer, and keep it growing and I think
you'll I think you'll have better results. Sorry about this
delay we're dealing with. We're trying to work on it.

(02:04:49):
But I thank you. I appreciate your call very much.
Bob ah. Yeah, we gotta get that fixed, all right.
So if you would like to give me a call,
we have had trouble with it until that call this morning.
If you'd like to give me a call, well let's
do that. Seven one three two fifty eight seventy four.
We're gonna go to a break in just a bit.

(02:05:10):
We got about a half hour left to guarden line
today and then you'll have to what do they say,
forever hold your piece? No, actually hold your piece until
next Saturday. If you haven't listened to garden Line long,
we here Saturday and Sundays from six am to ten
am every Saturday Sunday. To answer your gardening questions in
the meantime, please do follow us on Facebook at the

(02:05:30):
garden Line. Do a search for garden Line on Facebook.
You'll see a bunch of videos right now on what
to do protecting various kinds of plants against the cold. Uh,
we're going to do that. I've got a video I'm
going to post showing you how well the wild Bird's
unlimited squirrel excluding feeder works. I caught a culprit in
the act and filmed them in the backyard. A ha,

(02:05:51):
It's so fun to thwart those little, farious little bookers.

Speaker 1 (02:05:56):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (02:05:56):
Anyway, Uh, but follow us on on Facebook. So on Instagram,
it's garden Line with Skip Garden Line with Skip on Instagram,
same kinds of videos and things. Some of you prefer Instagram,
some prefer Facebook, but you can go either way there.
All right, folks that plants for all seasons know how

(02:06:19):
to take care of gardens and plants to have success.
And they will gladly share that with you. You go
into Plants for All Seasons and you take your questions
and they'll be happy to answer them. They don't go, well,
did you buy that plant here? No, they'll help you
with it because they know helping customers brings customers back.
Anytime I find a store of any kind that knows

(02:06:42):
what they're talking about, and they're willing to help me,
they got my business and they Plants for all Seasons
will have yours. If you're a brown thumb, you want
to turn it green. You know there's no such thing
as a brown thumb, But if you want to turn
it green, you need to visit Plants for all season.
They will be glad to inform your thumb. I always say,
bring your thumb with you to the radio for garden line,

(02:07:03):
and will inform your thumb and your plants will do better.

Speaker 1 (02:07:05):
Same thing.

Speaker 6 (02:07:06):
Plants for all Seasons. They've been around since nineteen seventy three.
Right there on two forty nine Tombol Parkway, just north
of Luetta. An excellent selection of plants, a wide variety
of fertilizers, wide variety of soil types and mulches for
your plants and expert advice as well as products to

(02:07:28):
deal with. Right now, you should see the wall of
seeds that they have. They also have the seeds starting containers.
So go in there, grab you some seed. What a
better thing to do in the wintertime than to start
seeds for spring. Bad weather just sends us indoors where
we garden some more. My housebands don't get and take
care of like they should. But I get some bad weather,

(02:07:51):
suddenly I'm inside fidgeting to be a gardener, and here
come the houseplant benefits as a result of that. So anyway,
plants are all seasons dot com two eight, one three, seven,
six one six for six.

Speaker 7 (02:08:05):
There you go.

Speaker 6 (02:08:06):
I want to remind you I'm going to be at
the annual Fort Ben Regional Vegetable Conference on Tuesday, February seventeenth.
It's an all day training with several tracks.

Speaker 8 (02:08:17):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (02:08:17):
If you are an agriculture educator, teacher or something, there's
a track for you. If you're a backyard gardener, there's
a track for you. If you are a small scale
commercial farmer like a market gardener we call those small producers,
there's a track for you. And if you're interested in
food preservation, safety and recipes. There's a track for you

(02:08:38):
as well. Two eight one three four to two thirty
thirty four. It's the Fort Ben County Extension Office that
you're calling. Two eight one three four to two thirty
thirty two. This is going to be at the Epicenter
on Southwest Freeway there in Rosenberg on February seventeenth. That's
a Tuesday. It'll go all day long. For your price

(02:09:00):
of admission. You're gonna get snacks, you're gonna get a
really nice meal, and you're gonna get lots of exhibitors
to go see some really cool stuff. We'll be right back.

Speaker 9 (02:09:09):
I know you were.

Speaker 6 (02:09:11):
Dying to hear some of the other land music because
any one of the many services we offer here on
Guarden Line. You can thank me later, Hey, if you'd
like to give me a call. Seven one three two
one two five eight seven four five eight seven four.
We are all whole up inside with this weather, and
that is a good thing because it turns us loose
to get some inside gardening done, getting those houseplants repotted

(02:09:35):
that need repotting. Uh, maybe doing some trimming on some
houseplants and need that, checking the water, making sure every
things don't going well on them, starting seeds for the
vegetable and flower gardens. Now is a good time to
be doing that. And what a great day to be
inside gardening. Remember the one of the good things about
gardening as a hobby is there is never a bad

(02:09:57):
day for gardening. I mean, if the snow was up
so high you couldn't even see out the windows, it'd
be a good day for gardening inside, you know what
I mean. That's what I'm talking about. Listen, tonight's gonna
get cold cold. That's no news for you. You've heard
it and heard it and heard it. If you're going
to do anything to protect your plants, you need to

(02:10:18):
get it done when you can. Check the roads, check
the weather. Be safe. Absolutely, but now is the time
to get it done. You know, most of our Ace
Hardware stores are opening up at some time or another today.
Remember you can go to Acehardware Texas dot com. You
can find your store, you can find its website, and
usually on there they'll give social media. Just go to

(02:10:39):
social media and see what they posted as to their
opening time. They are people are calling left and right,
swamping them down, and it's kind of hard to get
through So anyway, just check the social media or go
on to Facebook and do a search for your store there.
But they are ready to go, and they're loaded up,
ready to go for us to be able to head

(02:10:59):
in and get the things that we need while we're
in there. Alrighty, So if you go to my Facebook
or my Instagram page, what you'll find is some videos
on what to do about the cold weather coming for
your plants. I talk about covering them with things like
frostcoth I talk about protecting the base of your citrus trees.

(02:11:21):
Anything grafted the rootstock is there for certain reasons for
the success of the plant. The graft is the part
you want that you bought. It says it's a lemon,
it says it's a satsuma orange. Do you know both
of those are grafted under the same rootstock, as well
as grapefruit as well as regular oranges, as well as limes.

(02:11:43):
There's only a couple of citrus rootstock that are commonly
used and anyway they're grafted to it. If it freezes
down to the rootstock, your plant will reach sprout, but
it'll be a rootstock plant full of thorns and worthless fruit.
If it ever has fruit. So what you want to
do is protect that graph. Go to the bottom. There's
a video where I'm actually laying on the ground. You

(02:12:03):
got to go out and see it. It's kind of
looks ridiculous, but I like that fun. You need to
take whatever you got soil, mulch, compost and make a
giant mound over around the base of that plant. All
the time, And it's been going on since Randy was
here talking about this and me as well. Don't do

(02:12:25):
landscape volcanoes mulch volcanoes. That's bad for trees. To mulch
that way. That's talking about a long term thing. And
I say it again, don't do that. But when you're
talking about saving a citrus tree for a night or
two or three or four or a week, you can
pile up a big cone of whatever material you got.

(02:12:45):
The denser the material, the better it is. So a
soil or a dense compost would be better than big
old chunky mulch. But pile up a big cone and
protect that graft. Union lose if you can't cover the
tree of citrus trees, they're just too big to effectively cover.

Speaker 7 (02:13:03):
That.

Speaker 6 (02:13:03):
Insurance policy is protecting the graft union. So go out
and do that. Watch my video on Facebook or Instagram
just kind of talks about it will makes sense to you.
I've got a bag of a product from Nature's Way
resources right there with me. That's what I'm using, uh
to malt those in really good. And so if tonight

(02:13:25):
I were to lose a plant, Actually I'm not, because
I happen to get a cover. My plants are small.
But if you were to lose a plant, and it'll
die down to that soil level roughly, and then you
can pull the mulch back, which you need to do
because multi volcanoes aren't long term good. Pull it back
scattered out. The plant will be glad to have that
compost or mult all around it, and then it'll re sprout,

(02:13:49):
take off every shoot that comes from below the graft union.
Someone asked me yesterday, how do you know where the
graft union is? Well, when a citrus tree comes up
by the ground, there's a little zigzag. Now you won't
be able to see the zigzag much as it gets bigger,
but when it's young, it's like they grafted a bud
onto the side of the trunk of the rootstock. So

(02:14:09):
it comes up, it kind of zigs out to the
right or left and goes straight up. That's the graft union.
It looks a little different above it and below it.
And even as citrus gets older, you used to be
able to see that zone right there pretty good. That's
what you got to protect. And as many inches above
the graft union as you can protect, the better the better.

Speaker 7 (02:14:29):
So there you go.

Speaker 6 (02:14:30):
There's your insurance policy. What you'll find. You may go, well,
if I'm gonna lose all the top, what I even
want the tree? Okay, buy you a new and that's fine.
I can see an argument for that. But that huge
root system that that thing is made. Now, all of
that energy is going to go into those shoots that
come out, and you're gonna get a bunch of them.
It's going to try to be a little shrub. And

(02:14:51):
what you got to do is take everything away but
one that's going to be your new trunk, and you'll
be surprised at how fast that grows, really grows fast,
and so it doesn't take that long to get back
in business with your citrus. All right. Hopefully that helps
remember when you're covering plants, cover them all the way
to the ground, not wrapping the trunk. And the simple

(02:15:14):
way I like to say it that makes a visual
that helps you understand what I'm saying is don't make
landscape lollipops for you to cover the top and tie
it to the trunk. And there's this section of trunk exposed. Well,
that section is going to get just as cold as
the air around it. Okay, you want that cover to
go all the way to the ground and be sealed
to the ground so air doesn't blow through there and

(02:15:37):
blow cold up underneath there. That's dead air space. It's stagnant,
and as the heat from the soil rises, it will
give your plan a little protection. With a heat lamp
you get even more. Be very careful with heat lamps.
Shorts can cause problems. Don't let the connections, electrical connections
be out in the rain. And if there's dead grass

(02:16:00):
whatever might cause a short, you can start a fire
underneath them. Remember my publication on protecting plants from frosts
and freezes. It is online.

Speaker 1 (02:16:09):
If you go to.

Speaker 6 (02:16:10):
Facebook or Instagram, just scroll down a little bit. You're
going to see it. Especially on facebooks. I've been posted
several times lately as we've been reminding people about it.
All right, time for a break. I have one more segment.
I got time for a couple of calls. Seven one three,
two one two five eight, seven to four are little
Danny k there. Bet you haven't heard that one before.

(02:16:30):
Everybody's heard that raise your hands. So I thought, oh well,
if you're not a gardener, you can still listen for
the music. Welcome back to guarden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter. I got room for a call or two
if you hurry. Seven one three, two one two five
eight seven four. This time of the year, our trees

(02:16:51):
are dormant. You can see up in the tree and
you can see problems if they're there. I mean, how
are the branches, how are the branch angles? What's going on?
Is there a broken branch, a rubbing branch? Affordable tree
service Martin spoon More been doing it fifty four years.
They know what they're doing, third generation in the tree business.

Speaker 1 (02:17:10):
There.

Speaker 6 (02:17:11):
If you live in the ktr H listening area, you
need to get Martin a call because he doesn't just
serve right in Houston. He serves a wide area. Seven
to one, three, six, nine nine two six sixty three.
That's how you reach him. Winter and early spring prop
a prime time. Excuse me for pruning. Uh, give him

(02:17:31):
a call. If you haven't had someone looking at your
trees in two or three years, bring bring Martin in,
have him take a look at it. Don't wait until
you grow yourself into a problem that is harder to
deal with than ficts. The sooner that you help a tree,
the better off you are. And that starts with planting
really proper pruning for year one, two, three, four, five, ten, fifteen.

(02:17:55):
All of that time you're building a strong structure, and
a knowledge arbist like Martin knows what they're doing. Call
Affordable Tree Service seven one three, six nine nine two
six six three. If you want to learn about the
other services they offer, go to Afftree service dot com.
You can find out about feeding trees. By the way,

(02:18:17):
every tree he prunes for you now right now, every
tree he prunes for you, that tree will get a
free deep root feeding because that's another service they offer.
They have a lot of different things they can do
from pruning, deep root feeding, pest and disease controls, stump grinding.
If you're about to build a house anywhere near a tree,
maybe you got to be a property and you want

(02:18:37):
to put a house over by this gorgeous tree, you
have to call him before you do that. Houses kill trees,
trenches and slabs and other things. You need someone who
can advise you and do the preconstruction care to keep
that tree alive. Call Martin seven to one three six
nine nine two six sixty three. We're gonna head out

(02:18:58):
now to Tomball now and talk to John. Hey, John,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (02:19:03):
Good morning, Skiff. I got a quick question for you. Eagleston.
Hally's planted them this year, and the small magnolia trees.
I guess the only thing I can do is just
make sure there's mult around it right to protect the roots.

Speaker 6 (02:19:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's it. I mean, if you had a
way to cover over the whole thing, you know, that's fine.
Magnolia's should be okay going through this freeze. Eagleston's should
be okay going through these freezes. But anytime you have
a very young tree, it's not going to have the
heartiness level that a well established version of that tree
would have, So mulching around the base is fine. The

(02:19:46):
main thing is it's probably gonna be okay if you
can cover something, then all the better. But for things
like eaglestons and magnolia's there, they're very seldom small enough
to cover.

Speaker 7 (02:19:58):
Okay, thanks, yeah, I appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (02:20:02):
All right, sir, thank you appreciate your call very much.
There you have it. Yeah, you know, a lot, a
lot of these plants are more resilient than we think.
And this is I'm gonna leave you with this thought here.
As these plants become better established, they become heartier. But
there are a lot of factors. It's not just like

(02:20:24):
such and such plant can take it down to twenty
two degrees, but not twenty one. There's a range there,
is it? A young versus established, new versus established? Did
it go into this freezing event with lots of warm
weather so it didn't harden off and get ready for cold,
or did it go in hardened off where it's going

(02:20:45):
to be much more hearty than otherwise. Same plant I
told you yesterday about a bunch of crape myrtles a
few years ago got killed to the ground in the
northern parts of my listening area because they were ready.
Crepe myrtles can take anything winner does here, but not
when they have warm weather going right, up to that
hard freeze. It occurred in December that year and they

(02:21:05):
can't take it. So that's very important making sure the
soil is adequately moist. Don't have to worry about that
today with all the rain and drizzling and stuff. For fine,
but moist soil, not soggy. Moist soil holds warmth and
that helps, especially the low lying plants. You know, something
like some groundcovers, some small perennials and small shrubs and

(02:21:27):
things that provides a benefit for them as well. That
is important. So in next year, in every future year,
as we get past late summer, I generally say back
off on the fertilizing and the watering. You can push
plants into more succulent late season growth if the weather
cooperates and set them up for more freeze damage. With

(02:21:51):
an early frieze. Things like oleanders would be susceptible to that,
and there's many others. So kind of watch that. Let
that tree harden off going into winter, that shrub hardened
off going into winter. Those things are within your control.
That's just part of the big picture on all of that. Hey,
I want to remind you next Saturday. Next Saturday, January

(02:22:11):
thirty first, I'm gonna be an Enchanted Gardens from twelve
thirty to two thirty two hours at Chanty Gardens, I'm
gonna be given away some Medina products that hook up
to a garden hose. They have a number of different
products that hook up to a garden hose. You come along,
you may be drawn the winning number there and get
those prizes. We'll probably have some Medina samples to give

(02:22:34):
away too. I know that Antended Gardens is giving away
some twenty five dollars gift certificates, which woo kidding the
candy shop. Let's do it. We're gonna have fun with that.
I'm you're gonna have fun with me because I don't
talk about race bed and container gardening, and I can't
give a talk without cracking a few jokes and having
fun with the audience. So come on, let's have a

(02:22:56):
good time. Hey, I'm officially declaring January thirty first, the
first day of spring. Look forward to seeing you there.
I hope you can make it. That is one more
time next Saturday, first appearance of the season Next Saturday two,
twelve thirty to two thirty at Enchanted Gardens. You've never
been to Enchened Gardens. Just come, even if you don't

(02:23:18):
come over and hear me, come see that place. It
is amazing. But you do have to come see me.
I think that's important. But there's a wonderful garden center
and they are going to be ready to go. After
I get off the air, I'm going to get on
the phone and call the weather and say no more
phrases this year. We're done. Let's shut that down. We've
got some this week. I think it will be great
next weekend. So come on, let's have some fun. Look

(02:23:41):
forward to seeing you and also look forward to talking
to you again next Saturday morning, six am. I'll be
there with bells on