The Heat is HERE, Let's Save Some Plants!

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Garden Line with Skimp Richter.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Shoes Mill, the crazy heres, the gases gas they can use?
What a shrimp just watch him as whom god gassi
gas begin You are so many takes, the super basic
in the breaking the gassies like gas and again you

(00:26):
date the sas the globos back again, not a sound,
the glassies and gas and the sun bemon of te
rasing the gases like gas?

Speaker 4 (00:41):
Can you yam.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Starting and treating the gases like gas became you date?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Everything is so clean.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
You can see and every thing is Sunday.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
You can.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Hey, good morning, gardeners.

Speaker 6 (01:17):
What is the.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Good and Morgan I'm want to run out of languages.
I can say good morning in here pretty quick. Hey,
it's good to have you with us. I'm your host,
Skip Richter. You're listening to garden Line and we are
looking forward, forward to a good day. And a good
day actually begins with your calls. If you'd like to
give me a call, this would be a good time.
Seven one three two one two five eight seven four

(01:40):
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
I hope you enjoyed the last weekends shows. They were
very unique. I did a lot of just talking about
stuff that I wanted to talk about, and HD some
guests in from from past that we UH put up
there for you. I thought there excellent interviews and just

(02:01):
a good chance for you to kind of get to
know some folks and get some really cool information. But anyway,
we're back live. This is actually me. You can actually
call today, so forward to that. That's the best part
of the show is here in your question. Someone asked
me one time. Isn't it a little intimidating to just
be sitting there on the air in front of God
and everybody, and all of a sudden somebody calls and

(02:23):
they can ask you any question they want the answers
it used to be. Actually, if I was smarter, it
probably still would be. But I've answered gardening questions for
a long time, and so it is one of the
things I enjoy most is visiting with gardeners and helping
and answering gardening questions. And you know, I'm not afraid
of playing stump the jump or being the jump, because

(02:46):
there is a lot that we all don't know. You know,
when it comes to gardening, there is just an unlimited
amount of things that could be asked. There's always something
new and then are not college changes. That's another thing.
You know, what used to be is not so anymore.

(03:06):
I think it was was it. Will Rogers, one of
those guys, made the statement, and he said, it's not
what I don't know that concerns me. It's what I
know that ain't so. And that's how I feel too.

Speaker 7 (03:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
It's like some things we think we know and it's like, yeah,
that ain't the way it is. So I'm always working
on that, trying to make sure and get myself up
to speed with good information so I can give you
good answers to the questions that you might call for.
Right now, we're in the heat of summer, and no
matter how hot it is, your LUN's going to grow
if you water it, if you provide it adequate nutrition.

(03:43):
Saint Augustine grass is very happy to grow in the heat,
so azoisious, so is Bermuda grass, and you just need
to keep them well nourished. And one way you can
do that is with super Turf from night Fuss. That's
their silver bag. Super Turf is an excellent blend of
nutrients and the ratio that grass takes up nutrients. So

(04:04):
if you were to go into a grass plant, let's
say you chopped off a bunch of grass blades and
you send them to the lab and say what's in
them and what's the ratio? Well, what's in them is
every nutrient under the sun that the grass needs, because
that's it couldn't grow without them. But also the ratio
of it is a ratio similar to what's in Superturf
nineteen four ten. It's going to give you several months

(04:24):
of gradual feeding. It'll take you all the way up
to our fall fertilization. You can find Superturf that all
the Fishers hardware is. You know that there's one in
Pasadena and Sophomore, and one in South Broadway on Laporte,
one in Mount Bellevue FM thirty one eighty, and down
in Bay ten there's one on Alexander. So easy to
find night Foss products all over the greater Houston area.

(04:47):
So I've just gotten back from a trip. You know,
I wasn't sitting here twiddling my thumbs last weekend. Actually
I was. I just wasn't sitting here twiddling my thumbs.
I was twiddling them somewhere else. But before I left,
I got my kiddie pools ready to go for plant watering.
And some of you may have seen the video I
did for that. It's on Facebook and Instagram. And by

(05:08):
the way, if you don't follow garden Line on Facebook
and Instagram, you really ought to do that. We have
got put a lot of posts out there ways to
try to help people to you know, have more success.
And I did a little video on a kiddy waiting pool.
I went down to the local five and dime grabbed
one of those little fore foot I guess kitty waiting pools.

(05:30):
Put all my plants in it. Actually had to get
two of them. I got two day mini container plants,
but anyway, put them in there, filled it up, well,
not filled it up, put a few inches of water
in it. And sometimes you have to look when you
set your plants in it. You may have a big,
thick plant and a gorgeous ceramic pot and it has

(05:50):
a thick bottom, so an inch of water doesn't get
up to the level of the soil inside the container really,
And then you may have someone other one that has
a big lip that's two inches high and the ketch
pan underneath it and either take it out of there
and set it down in the pot, or you got
to put enough water to get into that ketchpan to
keep it. But anyway, you can put a little something

(06:12):
underneath them to prop them up or whatnot, so they're
all at roughly the same level. Put in an incher.
I usually have an inch or two of water a
little bit above the bottom of where the soil is
and the container, and then it just wakes up. And
now you know, I was gone for a while, So
that's not going to last you two weeks. You need

(06:32):
somebody's got to put the water in that thing, because
it evaporates away and the plants are wicking it away.
Second thing, I move them all in a shady spot,
a bright, bright shady spot, maybe a little morning sun.
I got plants like citrus and want to be in
deep shade, but I put a citrus plan in there
and a huge container. And bottom line with all of

(06:54):
that is that it takes care of it for a
pretty good while. But there's one missing ingredient, and that's
mosquito dunks. I take a mosquita dunk. Each of those
dunks little doughnuts will cover one hundred square feet. So
think about how many square feet of water surface you
have in a little kittie pool, not a one hundred
square feet, And so I'll break them up into quarters
or something like that, and I'll put them all in there.

(07:16):
I even had a little fountain that I decided not
to keep running because sometimes it runs dry and I'm
not there to fill it up. So I just turned
it off and I tossed a little mosquito dunk, piece
of mosquita dunk in it, and so that when I
come back and i'm back, there's no mosquitos out there breeding.
Don't be a mosquito breeder. You can get you can
get mosquita dunks all over the place. Feed stores, garden centers,

(07:36):
everything have them. But that's the little last thing. And
then you got to have somebody come by and put
a little water in your kiddie pools. If you're gonna
be gone for an extended time, they need to check
them every oh probably four or five days would be
pretty often enough if you've done a good job of
setting them down in there at the right level. But anyway,
plants are okay. I had one little spot where I

(07:57):
took a really big dish and put a few small
plants in it, because you know, if you have a
four inch pot and you put two inches of water
in it, you're drowning that poor little thing. So we're
trying to avoid that. Uh, But anyway, it worked. Maybe
it's a tip that will help you. Just remember if
someone put a tech put a response to my posts
and saying, yeah, but I came home once and it
had rained and rained in the pants. Plants were all

(08:19):
floating and not alive because it had been so long
in there. So yeah, you do have to deal with that.
That's why it's good to have somebody come over. But
it's a lot easier for somebody to come to your
house and water a kidding pool for a few seconds
and then leave than it is to go all around
trying to see all your plants and not forget any.
And yeah, because they're gonna have to have water every
day in the heat. Let's take a little break. We'll

(08:40):
be right back with your calls. Seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. Good heavy with us, folks.
It is a nice little Saturday morning we're having, uh,
you know, the the h whenever we're looking at summer gardening.
We have a lot of challenges and things and we
can deal with those. There's a way to go about it. Uh,

(09:03):
but just remember that this is a year round gardening
season that we live in here, and it gets hot
in the summertime. We have to deal with stuff, but
there's always things we can do. And as you if
you're new here, Uh, it's a shocker, you know, to
come in. Just a tough, tough time to garden. But
with some tricks and tips and things, you can grow

(09:25):
a lot of different things. And there's no reason for
your garden to be boring. You know, it can be nice.
And part of the thing is going to a quality
garden center like a Chane of Gardens down there in
the Richmond Rosenberg area, and Channa Gardens is a kind
of place where what's going on, I can help you
pay Now I'm getting talked over here.

Speaker 8 (09:46):
Spot the red flags, n try all right there we
go Arch Network.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
All right. Let's so anyway, continuing back, it's a matter
of taking care of your off to you to be
careful when you're out there in the heat. You start
getting too hot and don't get enough water and things
like that, and it's dangerous.

Speaker 9 (10:07):
Now.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
I know I sound like I'm lecturing to you, and
I kind of am. But I've had a time. I
never had heat stroke, but I did have heat exhaustion
once and it scared the heck out of me. To
be honest, you got to make sure you drink plenty
of water and taking it easy. And I was just
talking to my wife about this week's schedule. I normally
I have the number of things I do in the
morning before I head out and do stuff outside, and

(10:28):
we're flipping it around this week. I'm gonna get out
and get my work done early outside and then come
inside and do the inside work. And if you do
a little bit of that, just a little bit each day,
you can keep up with things. Works works pretty good.
But anyway, I was telling you about in Channa Gardens,
and in Channa Gardens is the kind of garden center
where you go out and you find everything you're looking for.
I mean, they really carry everything you could possibly be

(10:51):
looking for. Right now, They've got some really nice desert
roses that are just gorgeous, and those are really popular
and they just laugh at the heat. No problem at
all there with them. When you head out there in
Channy Gardens. You're always going to find a nice selection
of pottery. You're gonna find an unbelievable selection of vegetables
and herbs and succulents and hanging baskets and on and

(11:13):
on and on.

Speaker 10 (11:14):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's just a great place to go. Now. It's on
the Katie Fullshire side of Richmond on FM three point
fifty nine. Enchented Forest excuse me and chanted Gardens in
this case Channa Gardens Richmond dot com. If you need
to reach out to them by phone two eight one
three four one one two oh six. I'm gonna be
heading out there this fall to give a little talk.
I'll tell you about more and more about that. They

(11:36):
also have those excellent educational programs going on out there.
But just remember, just because it's hot in summer, there's
a lot of great plants that you can grow. Let's
head out to Houston now we'll go visit with Nathan
this morning. Hey, Nathan, welcome to gardarning.

Speaker 9 (11:52):
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 11 (11:54):
I was just thing with this with a being so
hot as it is outside and the heat is like
oh five sometime on that part. If I do like
squash or zucchini or even corn. Is that gonna selp,
is that gonna suffer the heat enough to make them
where they're not really going to grow that much. And

(12:15):
I don't want to overly water them.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Okay, Uh, yeah, well watering, watering is important. But water
can't change the temperature, but it can keep the plant
from going into massive stress because the temperature is hot.
So in the heat, we got to keep the soil moist.
You don't want to overwater in the heat.

Speaker 7 (12:36):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
If you if a plant root gets soggy wet to it,
I need you to turn that radio off in the
background if you would, Nathan, Okay, got soggy wet. Soggy wet,
it can't get oxygen. And in the heat, it's a killer.
I mean it is a killer. So moist soil, but
air in the soil, in other words, don't don't make

(12:57):
it a swamp. That's very important. Now I wrote an article.
I don't know if you get Texas Gardener magazine, but
uh for the July August issue of Texas Gardener Magazine.
You can go to their website Texas Gardener dot com
and find out about getting it. But the whole article
is about extending the season and the summer heat. You know,
we talk about how high temperature affects plants and things

(13:18):
like that and what you can do. So number one
is planting things that can take the heat. So if
you're growing vegetables, there are a number of vegetables that
do better in the heat. You know, there's some tomatoes
that's a little better than other tomatoes, but there are
a lot of vegetables that is really really tough like that.
And same with same with flowers. Uh, watering before you

(13:38):
plant is critical because is that little seedling or transplant
starts to put roots out. It needs to put roots
down into the soil, and the soil is moist down there,
you know, And so a good soaking prior to planting
a day or two and then and then watering regularly.
Shading your plants as you put them out, you know,
they if they've been growing outside the direct sun and

(13:58):
you're putting a new plant out or some things, a
little shade over the row is helpful for seeds. It
keeps that soil temperature from being one hundred and forty
degrees and the little seeds sprout up there near the surface.

Speaker 5 (14:11):
How about the.

Speaker 11 (14:13):
Nitrogen count is is a nitrogen count going to be
high or low or is that going to be right
in the middle on that part, just.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Kind of moderate, just regular moderate amount of nitrogen. In
the summer, the decomposition of organic matter speeds up. The
microbes are getting a lot more work done because it's
hotter if it's moist, so you're getting a lot of
nutrient release from nature done in the soil there. So
that's not a big as big of a deal. If
you have the ability to pick a spot with a

(14:46):
little mid to late day shade, maybe it's a privacy
fence and the sun is setting on the other side,
or a tree or something like that, that's even better.
Because the demands when it is so hot, the plants
can't pump water fast enough, and that's why you see
like a tomato plant wilt during the day and then
perk back up at the end of the day when
the sun goes down. It just can't pump it fast enough.

(15:09):
So helping with that keeping the water well and mulch
is critical. You know, the soil temperature under mulch is cool,
the soil temperature without mulch is blazing hot, and so
you're losing water and the roots can't grow in that
up near the surface in that hot. And then finally,
if you know, if you have a vegetable garden, you

(15:29):
can do a little bit of shading, and if you
shade too much, well the plant's not getting enough light.
If you don't shade any it's it's really hot. But
they did a study, I can't remember where it was
on shading pepper plants, and they found that about a
thirty percent shade on peppers gave them the highest yield
compared to you know, if they shaded too much, you're
cutting the yield down. If you don't shade enough, the

(15:51):
plants are just those plant tissues or you know, I
mean it's like you walk on the sidewalk in the sun.
It's it's like a furnace hot and plant tissues get
too high like that. So about a thirty percent shade
or especially a late day shade over plant those are
all things you can do to keep that garden performing well.
But choosing choosing plants that want to be in the heat,

(16:13):
that that's important. Look yard, Thank you all right, sir,
you bet, thanks for the call. All right, you take care, good,
good to visit, Good to visit. With you this morning.
The folks at my Medina. You you heard Stuart Frankie
on the on the show with me the other day.

(16:34):
We're hearing about the history of that company, and they've
got so many great products, you know, but Medina has
to grow the whole line of them. One of them
that I would recommend you really take a hard look at,
is Medina has to grow for lawn. Medina has to
grow for lawn is a three one to two ratio fertilizer.
It's a twelve four to eight to be specific, hooks
up to a garden hose, so you can go out

(16:56):
there and you can just kind of spray the lawn
with it and then I would put a little extra
water on to water it in really good when you're done. Uh,
but that gives you a nice boost and your lawn
looks good. And I've used it before, I've seen the
results of it. Medina has to grow one of for lawns.
One of the several products they have that are available

(17:16):
with that hose in sprayer. And you can get Medina
products at garden centers, at feed stores, Southwest Fertilizer, ace
hardware stores all over town. It's widely available and it's
a quality product. And I say that because they've used it.
I say it's a quality product. They are quality products.
There's a number of different Medina products that are out
there on the market. My number if you'd like to

(17:39):
give me a call this morning seven one three, two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two five eight seven four be glad to visit
with you about the things that might be of interest
to you. You know, we we know that summertime is
you know, it's the start of the hurricane season when

(18:00):
the storms come through. And I was driving by place
the other day and looked at a tree that had
just been shattered. And we didn't have a hurricane, right,
But it doesn't take a hurricane to hit a storm
that really does its damage to a tree. And you know,
there's there's storm conditions you can't prepare for. No matter

(18:21):
what I mean, if a tornado hits a tree, there's
no you know, prune in the tree before the tornado.
Tornado is not going to stop that. But so many
of our tree problems are caused by poor pruning. Over time,
you get an open wound that doesn't close back over
Now the inner wood is exposed to moisture, you get
rot inside and now you've got a weak spot. That

(18:44):
is where the tree most likely is going to fail
when we have a storm. And so the more it's
not just a matter of go o go prune your
trees so they take the storm better. That is true,
you need to think about that, but it's also take
care of your trees with proper pruning all along, from
the time you plan them until whenever. And Martin Spoonmore

(19:05):
at Affordable Tree can do that. That's he's an expert
on this. He knows what he's doing. Uh, you give
Affordable a call, you talk to him. He said, come
out and want Martin to look at my trees, examine them,
make some assessments, see what needs to be done. But
I would encourage you don't just think of Martin and
Affordable as like, well, I've got an old tree that
I'm worried going to fall in the house. Go beyond that,

(19:28):
from planting to pruning, to caring for trees in the
early life to everything that you need. They're full service, folks.
Seven to one three six nine nine two six six
three seven one three six ninety nine two six six
three give Martin to call tell him you heard about
on Guardenline. Affordable Tree Service has been a Guardenline supporter

(19:50):
for many, many many years, back in Randy Lemon's day,
for sure, and certainly continuing on now seven one, three, six,
nine nine two six six. If you want to learn
more about the services that they have, go to aff
Tree Service. Aff is an affordable aff Tree service dot com.

(20:11):
Give them a call, check them out. Well, we're gonna
take a little break here in just a second. If
you've got a gardening question, I'd love to visit with
you about that. I am gonna I've got a couple
of things I'm going to talk about too that I
think are timely topics for this time of the year.
Just remember that just because it's hot in summer does

(20:31):
not mean our landscapes have to be a sea of green,
green grass, green trees, green shrubs, green ground covers. Greens
are pretty color, but it's not the only color. And
there are a lot of good, tough plants that can
take the summer heat. There's vegetable garden options that can
take the summer heat. It's just different than what we
would normally think of when we think of vegetables and

(20:53):
flowers and things. But let's talk about a few of those.
If you've got a question again seven one three, two
one two fifty eight seventy four, give me a call.
Let's go get some coffee and we'll meet back here
in just a minute. We're talking about just because it's
summer doesn't mean you, you know, you can't still have
a beautiful lawn and color and things like that. That's
true with your vegetable garden. It's true in your fruit

(21:15):
trees and everything. I was, I just was when I
got back from traveling, I would just take it all
my plants out and seeing how they're doing and everything,
and I'd given everything a good deep soaking. The plants
that are in the ground are the easiest, I mean,
because it's a large volume of soil. And you know,
my little I got little mini fruit orchards on the
side of the house, some trees, and it just looks

(21:37):
good because I gave it a good soaking. There's a
lot of water holding capacity in the soil, and so
you just got to keep it moist, but remember not
to overdo it. And most plants can't take soggy wet feet.
Now we know in summertime, the heat and the drought
is stressor in it in fact is a killer. But
did you know that your fruit trees are setting their

(22:00):
buds for next year's crop? And I say your fruit trees,
I'm talking about you're deciduous, the apples, pears, peaches, plums,
things like that, they're setting there in blueberries, setting their
buds for next year's crop in late summer and early fall.
And so if you have stresses in late summer and

(22:20):
early fall, you have problems. You don't get good fruit
set or in the case of peaches, and this is
a weird thing, but have you ever seen a double peach,
like a Siamese twim peach kind of thing, whereas like
you got a larger peach and then a little smaller
one attached together where they connect to the tree. That
can be made worse by stresses late season. So just

(22:42):
keep in mind that even though there's no fruit on
the tree, you still need adequate water. You don't need
a lot of water. You don't need to push tons
of new growth. And water is the number one thing
that pushes growth in the summer, more so than even fertilizer.
If you get a little on the dry side, that
plant is going to pull back and hold on and
not do much growing. You get a lot of lush
water and a lot of our plants just keep going,

(23:04):
but so avoid the stresses. It's bottom line. Just know
this that your plants are making next year's crop. And
that's true in ornamentals too. You know, think about the
spring bloomers, you know, something like sparea, bridles wreath, there
are a lot of the azalias you know that way,
dog woods and red buds and what all blooms in

(23:25):
the spring and once blooming roses like lady banks. They're
setting their buds now, and so I say, now it's
it's going to be over the next few months. So
you don't want to prune either now, not heavily. And
here's why. Well we're let's just say this, we're at
the end of the time when you can do some

(23:45):
pruning on you on your summer. But I would try
to have gotten it done by now. And here's why.
You let's say you wait till August and you cut
back one of those spring blooming plants or you know,
something along those lines. Well, then you're going to get
new growth. But that growth won't have time to mature
and set buds for next year's flowers or in the

(24:08):
case of fruit, flowers and fruit, and so you're cutting
away your bloom buds. If you have a fall blooming
plant like a chrysanthemum, or maybe it's some other plant
that blooms just in the fall, well again you got
to get growth so that you can have those blooms
on it. And if you were to cut it back

(24:28):
and you set the plant stature and everything back, well
it's getting a little late for that. And people that
grow chrysanthemums in the garden, and yes, you can grow
them here. There are certain types that do well. Country
Girl Mom is a good one for that. But they
stop pinching the chrysanthemums to get and make them bushier
so that it has time to set those bloom buds

(24:50):
and put on the fall show. So just remember that
is going on in the garden and landscape, so you
can have good success with that.

Speaker 5 (24:57):
Now.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
In the lawn, sweet green nitrofoss is a nitrogen fertilizer
that dissolves away and releases a carbohydrate sugary substance to
the microbes, makes them go crazy and the product itself's
eleven percent nitrogen networks bottom lines. It works. I've used it.
It works. It's a good product. You can find night

(25:19):
Foss products it places like RCW nurs around Tombo Parkway,
or if you want to go to East Hardborough City
out there on Memorial Drive on the west side of town,
they carry night Foss products there. Go up to the
woodlands to aspose as Kirkandal, they also carry night Fosh
products like this sweet green, one of the best. You know,

(25:40):
we talk about summertime and it's hot, and people's interest
in gardening can wane a little bit. I wish you
wouldn't that way, because there's so much we can do now,
but I understand that it does. I'll tell you one
place you can go where summer it's like your refuge
from the summer heat, and that is Nelson Water Gardens
and Katie.

Speaker 12 (26:00):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
First of all, they got big old trees in the back.
It's shady, it's it's just comfortable, but the sound of
water everywhere around. You just go relax and enjoy it.
This is a destination garden center and it's one place
you want to take your friends, bring the kids with you.
They'll let them feed the fish. They gotta give them
a little fish food where they can drop food and
the fishes not kids will love that. But take your friends.

(26:21):
This is this is the kind of place you go
and you relax and you enjoy and I'll tell you
one thing. When you're there, you're gonna be walking through
that wonderful environment going you know what. I need water
in my garden too. I'm telling you it happens. Happens
to me time I go there. It's like, yeah, I
need another fountain. But Nelson Water Gardens and Katie is
an excellent place just for that. You can go to

(26:43):
the website Nelson Watergardens dot com Nelsonwatergardens dot com. If
you don't get my call two eight one three nine
one forty seven sixty nine And a newsflash and Dean,
we're gonna have Rof Nelson on today. He'll be on
for the eight o'clock hour and we're going to be
talking water gardens. And if you have a question about

(27:03):
water gardens, here's your chance to actually ask the expert.
He'll be on here. We're going to all aspects of
water gardening, from container gardens to dpound in ground ponds
to plants and fish and tips and ideas. This isn't
just you know somebody that's local and sells water gardens up.

(27:23):
This is a nationally recognized company, Nelson water Garden and
Katie nationally recognized company. This is Hall of Fame material.
And you're not going to I don't care where you
are in the country, You're not going to find a
better opportunity to pick somebody's brain about water gardening. Ask
your questions, what are the challenges you might have had?
And I can tell you I've asked Ralph. I've asked

(27:44):
Ralf about eight hundred questions, I think, and it always
amazes me, not just knowing the answer, but the depth
of the answer that he knows. So eight o'clock today,
don't go away. You got to tune in. If you
have to go away and you miss it, then please
do listen to the show's podcast. We'll post it up
here and next few days you can come back and listen.

(28:06):
Lots of good water gardening information for you there, all right,
that is very very important. Hey, if you are interested
in taking care of your birds, number one thing you
need to do is give them water. Birds have got
to have water. It is getting hotter and hotter out there,
and just always have a supply of water that in

(28:26):
and of itself brings birds to your landscape right there.
If there's a sound of water like one of those
Nelson Water Garden fountains, they hear that and it brings
them in even more. Go to your local wild Birds
Unlimited store. Talk to them about the products that they have.
They've got outstanding products to keep your birds happy. Whether
it's bird houses, whether it's bird feeders, are just good information.

(28:50):
Those folks know what they're doing, and right now they're
featuring their feather Pro Special Blend. It's called feather Bro,
feather Bro, feather Pro Super Blend, feather Pro superbunds got
extra protein and fat. You know that nesting seasons winding down,

(29:10):
but molting season is here, and you know when you
grow a new feather. When you're growing new feathers, you
need you know, the energy, the products, the protein, the
fats and things to support that. You can buy it
by the bag, you can buy it in the cylinders,
or if you got birds that want to eat everything
you put out there, get the feather Pro Hot pepper
cylinder and that'll keep those squirrels out of them as well.

(29:32):
Let's take a little break here when we come back,
Javier and Katie and Craig and Pearland, you're a first
two up. If you haven't been out to Arbrogate in
the last few weeks, you you need to go out
there and check it out. They've got Pepfer has the
thing and it's called what is the name of that goose.
It's like the porch goose, Giddy Giddy, the porch goose,

(29:54):
and you just have to go see them. They are hilarious.
They're dressed up geese and it just they they're so popular.
They're basically almost sold out of the things. And they
got a new restock in so you got to go
check those out when you're at Arbigade. But anyway, this
is the time when we're planting for fall. Are some

(30:14):
of our garden crops. The tomatoes need to go in now.
This is the time if you want them to get
established and get a good sized plant so you can
grow some tomatoes for fall. You got to get it done.
Arburgate's got in some fall tomatoes. They've arrived, and I
want to ask you to do one more thing when
you go to Arbigate. Go inside and look at their books.
They've got a really nice book collection. They have the
Texas Tomato Lover's Handbook by Bill Adams. It's the Bible

(30:38):
of Tomato growing in Texas. It is really really good.
Texas Fruit and Vegetable Gardening. Another excellent book, The Southern
Kitchen Garden. You know, Greg Grant's a great author and
friend of mine, and he's got some great books out
and I'm telling you about some of them there. The
learning how to grow tomatoes and Texas is important and

(30:58):
they've got you covered. They're at Arbgat. Of course, they're
also stocked up on all those plants I keep telling
you exist that makes summer a gorgeous time in the landscape,
and you can plant any month of the year. Arborgate
in Tomball. It's on twenty nine to twenty west of Tombull.
For those you haven't been there, go to the website
arborgate dot com. You got a gardening question, I want

(31:21):
to know, Hey, do you have any of these in
stock or whatever? Two eight, one, three, five, one eighty
eight fifty one. Let's go now over to I think Katie,
Texas is it? Javier, are you there, Yes, sir, how.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Are you a good morning?

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Skip? Very good?

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yes, quick question for you. I did an application of
that silver bag about a month ago, right before those
I think we'll take two to three weeks of constant rain.
Do I need to reapply my fertilizer or should that be?

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Okay? You're good to go. The nice thing about super
Turf nineteen four ten is that it's a slow release.
So a lot of fast release fertilizers, it's like putting
sugar or salt out there. You know, it gets wet
and it just dissolves and washes away. Right, But when
I try Super the slow RaSE, you're not going to
get that. So you're good. You don't have to reapply it,

(32:18):
all right.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Thank you sir.

Speaker 11 (32:19):
The only reason I'm messing this is I don't really
see the pebbles on the surface, So maybe they they're
down in the in the grass somewhere.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Okay, Yeah, they'll they'll settle in and and yeah, you
don't have to worry about that. It's nothing to be
concerned about. You're good. Yeah, you're good to go. Thanks
for calling and checking on that. Thanks you.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
I appreciate this. You, thank you, thank you. The sponsors.
You all right, your sponsor, the sponsor you show, they're.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Great, Thank you, well, thank you very much. I appreciate
you saying that. How you and for everybody listening, by
the way, uh, you know we have we have a
lot of sponsors here on guarden Line. And but do
you know that sponsors or why you get to listen
to the radio. It's the reason you get to watch
TV too, by the way, somebody is paying for you

(33:08):
to be able to enjoy any kind of program, whether
it's music or be talking about gardening or TV show
or things. And so thank these sponsors when you go
see them, tell them you appreciate it, and you appreciate
hearing about them on Guardline. You appreciate the supporting Guardline
because that's why every show you enjoy period exists that

(33:29):
it's so you get to enjoy the benefits of it.
But yeah, we do appreciate our sponsors very much. Nature's
Way Resources up in Conrod, texas outstanding supplier of quality
organic materials. I don't know what you're wanting to grow,
but you know, whatever it is, it starts in the soil.

(33:49):
You got to get the soil right. And Nature's Way
Resources since its inception years ago by John Ferguson has
been creating outstanding soil blends. Outstanding soil blends for the
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(34:10):
are put down. They've got a lot of great deals
going on too. Uh they are. It's just a place
to go and what a great time to get soil
work done. Fall planting is coming. If you got a
bed you need to put in, now's the time to
get it done. If you've got soiled that's a clay
and it's not draining well, and you want to add
compost to it, you want to expended shale to it.
You want to build it up higher so the drainage

(34:32):
is excellent when fall rains hit, and they will. Nature's
Way Resources dot Com Nature's Way Resources, Go check out
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get quality when you go to Nature's Way Resources. And
it's all about the soil. They good trainer needs a song.

(34:54):
It's all about the soil, about the soil. Okay, maybe not,
let's go to Paarland and we're going to talk to
Craig this morning. Hey Craig, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (35:04):
Good morning Skip. Thanks for taking my call. Longtime listener,
always been given great advice, so and calling back one
more time. I'd like to see if you can recommend
this a perennial flowering plant in this particular part of
my yard. It's the front of the yard. It faces south,

(35:25):
so it's protected from the winds and the cold, mainly
of the north during the winter, so it's perennial anyway,
that's what I'm looking for. And this particular area of
the front yard gets about three to five hours four
hours of sun during the summer, half of spring, all
of summer, half a fall. The rest of the year,

(35:46):
it's in complete shade. It's just due to the shape
of the house and where this part of the yard is.
And I'm looking for something that flowers. When I drive
around like Rice Village and where all those large oak
trees are, I see a lot of things like hostas
growing underneath, and they seem to do well, but I'd

(36:08):
rather have something that has flowers. Would you think of
any recommendations that would kind of thrive here because you
can read articles and they talk about this plant and
that plant. I don't want to just go by that.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
So yeah, yeah, Well for the music star Charleman, I'm
trying to get you a good quick answer that having
giving up sunlight and wanting more flowers is a tough,
tough cell. We often look for colorful foliage in areas
like that because foliage, you know, doesn't take as much
sunlight to make foliage. And we have many options that

(36:45):
have beautiful foliage that I would recommend you consider those too.
In shady areas, with three hours of sun, you can
grow something like persian shield, which is a purplish silver
colored leaf that looks really good. With a little bit
of light, things like azelia's or are going to be
able to bloom, and that hydranges are going to be

(37:05):
able to bloom, and that a little bit of light
would be a good choice.

Speaker 9 (37:10):
Get full sun.

Speaker 5 (37:11):
I mean from like maybe like eleven am to three
pm it gets full sun. So yeah, I looking at
Texas gold Columbines and I know they're just they, but
I don't know if like it doesn't get the seventh
that's the five PM sign. Yeah, it doesn't get this
five PM sign. I don't know if that's too much
sun for that kind of flower.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
If you keep it, if you keep it moist Texas
gold or do good. They just have their bloom season
and you got to let them receive because they're they're perennial.
But it's not individual. Plants don't last three years. You know,
they grow and they may last a year or two,
possibly three, and then die. A ginger is excellent for
that white butterfly ginger, but that's a fall bloom or

(37:53):
late summer and fall bloomer. Mine are just about to
start blooming right now. But that would be a color
plant that you could you using an area like that.
Plumbago would do good in that amount of sun. I
think I have.

Speaker 5 (38:06):
Plumbagos in the front. They're beautiful, their full sun and
there they've been there for twenty years and they're they're bulletproof.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah. So Salvia garanittico, it's called a niche sage is
it has big typically they're blue or purple blooms. It
makes a bush and hummingbirds love it. And if you
get if you can give it that much sunlight, you're
probably gonna get some good ballooms on it. It's it
doesn't need full sun in order to bloom. I've got

(38:32):
a number of plants that are annuals that I use
in color, you know, from foliage plants like palladiums to
flowering plants like im patients that can take quite a
bit of shade and still still do. Okay, they can
they can take that, Uh collius, another one can take
sun and shade. Let's see the Oh gosh, I just

(38:55):
went blank on the yellow morning.

Speaker 5 (38:58):
If you have any other recommend.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
I if I think of it, all right, thank you
appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (39:06):
I appreciate it. Thank you man.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
You bet you take care.

Speaker 7 (39:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
I a little secret here. I'm on jet lag Iluvia
last night, and so if I don't make sense, that's
my excuse this morning. Actually I think I'm doing okay.
It's nothing to be too hard, but uh, you know,
you sit here and try to think of flowers that
you've looked at your whole life, and you can't say

(39:32):
their name. It's kind of like your kids, you know,
have you ever any of you have more one kid?
And like you start trying to call that child's name,
and you're naming every other kid in the family. Maybe
your parents did that to you and it's like, yeah,
it's okay, we're going to bake it. Well, hang on,
we'll be back after this little break with all about
the plants, about the plans. Good heavy with us on

(39:59):
guard Line. I'm I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're
here to talk gardening. What are you wanna talk about?
Is about all kinds of things. Hey, if you live
down south of Houston, you need to know about Hoorges
Hidden Gardens. I don't know if you've ever been out
there or not, but you need to go. Horace Hidden
Gardens is down in Alvin, Texas on Elizabeth Road. In fact,
it's geographically it's easier for me to think of it's

(40:22):
kind of in between Alvin and Santa Fe although it's
an Alvin or Dress, but sort of between those two
on Elizabeth Road. Horaes started off growing trees and he
still is growing some outstanding trees. What kind of trees
do you want? You know, you're on a beautiful magnolia.
Do you want some krpe myrtles. He's got gorgeous ones.
He has the spring blooming tree that I love so

(40:45):
much in the fringe tree, Chinese frinch tree. But he
also has some beautiful perennials right now that are looking
really good. Hibiscus, you know, perennial hibiscus. We have two
kinds of hibiscus. We grow here. A perennial hibiscus to
the ground and comes back each year, year after year,
and it's got the blooms on it that are always

(41:05):
some version of red, pink or white. Generally there's a
breeder that's gotten a hold of them and that changed
that a little bit, but that's a whole nother story.
But red pink or white dinner plate size blooms all
right now. The tropical hibiscus, of course, those are the
ones that, as the name implies, can't freeze or it'll
kill them. But the perennials are so good in the

(41:27):
landscape because when heat comes, they just bloom each day
and they're the gaudiest bloom in the world. Traffic stoppers
or he's got those at Horaes Hidden Gardens, Elizabeth Road
out down in alvin Texas seven to one three six
three two fifty two ninety seven one three six three
two five two nine zero. You need to go check

(41:48):
them out. I'm going to go now to Spring, Texas
and we're going to visit with Jim this morning. Hey, Jim,
welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 7 (41:55):
Hey, Skip power you today?

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Doing good? Thank you? Skip good good?

Speaker 7 (42:02):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (42:02):
Skip.

Speaker 13 (42:02):
I sent you an email here back when a couple
of weeks ago, when you were out and I was
telling the gentlemen that screened the call that I have
an issue going on with some grass that's yellowing up
on one section of my yard and the I was
told it's a fungus and my efforts to date have
not seemed to abate it. I've used both granules and

(42:25):
liquid fungicides, but still there.

Speaker 6 (42:30):
I sent.

Speaker 13 (42:31):
I did send an email with some colors.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Sorry, yeah, can you tell me? Tell me the date
that that was. I've got I've come back.

Speaker 7 (42:42):
Oh man, let me a couple.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
Of let's let's let's do this. Just describe to me
the discolored spots that you're seeing. How big are they,
kind of when did they appear? What do they look like?

Speaker 13 (42:59):
Okay, this section of my lawn was resorted this spring,
and this showed up probably two months ago. And uh,
I've been messing around with it since then. And the
grass the pictures I did send you that we can't
get the grass. I sent you some yellow grass. And

(43:20):
the interesting part of the part I don't understand is
it comes up out of the ground and then it
necks down to not much and then it starts to
it turns to you know, the grass above it, but
it about an inch off the ground is necking on
these on these.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yellow pieces of grass.

Speaker 13 (43:39):
If if you, if you understand, it squeezes in and
then it blooms back.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
I don't back out. Oh, okay, it's Have you used
any herbicides on this grass recently?

Speaker 9 (43:52):
Herbicide?

Speaker 2 (43:53):
I've used some.

Speaker 13 (43:54):
Yeah, I guess it is a fungus side of herbicide.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
No, no, but undersides. Okay, but no, no, we do
I should no. No, okay, hmm, well I'm not finding.

Speaker 12 (44:12):
It.

Speaker 7 (44:13):
Yeah, m hmm.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Okay, let's do this, Jim. Would you resend it to
me and I'll let me take a look at it
and I'll reply to you there, or if you rescind it,
if you're going to call back, we can do that.
It's a little unusual when you see malformations and growth.
Usually it's a hormone type of thing going on. Sometimes
it can be an insect. I don't know what would

(44:37):
do that to grass. So I'm kind of at a
point where I don't want to just just give my
best guess here. I'd like to get you an er
answer than that. So if you will resend that, I
may talk about it on the air. But but one
way or another, let's get the bottom of it. Yeah,
it just doesn't it's just something's not quite making sense.
But if you if you didn't when you sent the

(44:59):
first one, if you, I need a picture from a
distance and then get as close as you can and
let me see this what you're calling a necking on
the grass blades. Yeah, and I think that would be
that'll be helpful. Sorry, sorry, I don't have those access,
but I'm I got inundated being gone for a couple
of weeks. So all right, thank you sir.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
All right, I'll reasend it.

Speaker 13 (45:19):
Thank you, Bye.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
You bet bye bye. Yeah, that's very interesting. Usual symptom
sound in there. You're listening to Guardline our phone number
seven one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Remember sweet Green from Nitroposs eleven percent nitrogen product that
the name sweet in sweet Green refers to two things.

(45:44):
Number one, it smells good, smells sweet because it's a
molasses based product. Number two, uh, it is made with
the sugars, the molasses that ever organic gardener knows. You
put molasses in the soil and it fires up the
microbial especially the bacteria and stuff. They love that they
need those carbon chains. That's fuel for them. And in

(46:04):
this case it's fuel that has eleven percent nitrogen in it.
That will cause your lawn to look better. It'll prompt
new growth. You can use it in the lawn, but
you can use it anywhere you want, where you want
to give a boost of nitrogen to it. It's a
great product from the folks at nit Frous. You're going
to find it at places like heating and feed on
stupidor airline. If you go to plants for all seasons
on Highway to forty nine, you're going to find it.

(46:26):
There are up at D and D Feed and Tombal
and if I'm twenty nine to twenty, those are all
places that carry nitrophossis product called sweet Green. When I
drive around town, I always look at landscapes. I just
can't help it.

Speaker 5 (46:40):
I do.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
And you know, you're driving around and you're seeing things,
and sometimes it's something like, Ooh, what a great plant.
I need that plant. Sometimes it's something like, what a
beautiful design. I need that design. And I'm one of
the people, and I'm sure some of you are this too,
your plant people. You like plants. You like this plant,

(47:02):
you like that plant, you like tomato, you like a
peach tree, you like this particular flower, you like that
kind of shrub. And what we do is we collect plants,
but what we don't know how to range them. But
the folks at Peerscapes do. And when you get a
professional like Peerscapes, by the way, their website is piercescapes
dot com. When you get them in there, they can

(47:23):
do the design. If you want a redesign or a
new design on an area, they can do things like
hardscapes for those outdoor living areas. If you've got issues
with irrigation or drainage, they can do that. Landscape lighting
the whole construction process. Maybe you want to have some
soil brought in and create a little bit of a
relief to the landscape. Orsonolog just flat and it looks

(47:45):
nice and if you go to the website peerscapes dot
com or if you follow them on social Instagram or
on a Facebook, you're going to see what they can do.
And it's inspirational. It's really really inspirational. You need to
give them a call of go visit the website pierscapes
dot com and give them a call. Two eight one
three seven oh fifty sixty. Now's the time to contact

(48:08):
them because fall is the best season of the year
for planting and it's coming. So let's get that process going.
Let's talk to them. Whether it's just a small hey
redo a flower bed, or whether it's the whole nine
yards pierscapes dot com. They can do it all. Two
eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. Let's take a
break and we'll be right back. I need an inside call.

(48:31):
I would like to change the garden line bumper song
to all about that plant about them plants, about them plants,
and she would have to record that. So what do
you think the chances of that are? Yeah, that's right,
that is right. But anyway, that'd be fun. That would
be that, it would be fun for me anyway. Nelson

(48:53):
Plant food quality products, quality products made with the modern
technologies that are required to create, for example, of plant
food that is going to gradually release and feed over time,
something like for example, Slow and Easy. They're turf food
gradual release over time. You get a gully washer rain,

(49:14):
don't worry about it. I mean, unless you just literally
washed all the soil off the top of your surface,
you know, sheet erosion. It's going to hang on, It's
going to be there and it's going to continue to feed.
You need specialty products like their nutri starline, Nutristar hibiscus, plumeria, rose,
tree and shrub, a vegetable garden, citrus, fruit and avocado.

(49:34):
Is that you see what I mean, It's all there.
Great stuff. And don't forget the nutri Star Genesis transplant mix.
That is a product, a natural based product that you
put on in the soil. Normally I'll say, don't throw
fertilizer in a planting hole because you burn the roots.
Now with this one Nutristar genesis gradual feeding, microbial stimulation,

(49:55):
and it just flat works. I know that I've seen
several research trous on the results of nutri Star Genesis,
and more important to me than that, as I've used it,
I've done the with and without with the nutri star
genesis and seen the results that it gives nuture char
genesis transplant mix. You need to always have it on
hand because when you plant, you want to go out

(50:15):
there and mix some into that potting soil. As you
pot up a container into the soil in the ground.
Is your plant in a rose bush or whatever you're planting.
Nuture Star genesis from the folks at Nelson in the jars,
and they're available all over the place. Makes it real
easy to find it and enjoy the benefits from it.
Phone number seven one three two one two five eight

(50:35):
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. Can we call. We'll talk about the things
that are of interest to you. Uh, there is a
flower And when I when I went on on on
vacation here in the last two weeks, I came home
and when we drove into the driveway, my wife exclaimed,
the beauty of this plant. And it's it's probably I'd

(50:58):
have to think a minute. I would say it's my
top five summer plants, probably the top three, maybe top one.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about the gorgeous,
gorgeous Pride of Barbadoes. Pride to Barbados is sometimes it's
called Redbird of Paradise. That's a confusing name, but you'll
hear it called that brilliant, fiery orange and red blooms.

(51:23):
Just throw it out there in the sun, don't. You
don't even have to really. Once it's established, watering can
be minimal. And I'm not saying, you know, one hundred
degrees for one hundred days and no rain, you don't water.
Of course you do. It's a Texas superstar plant. Text
A and I Migrolife Horticulture Department talked about their superstar plant.
This is one of those, and it's incredible. And we left,

(51:45):
we were gone, nobody watered the landscape. And when we
came back there are about ten more blooms on this
and they are so gaudy that if you surrounded it
with pink flamingos, no one would notice the pink flamingos.
That's gaudy. RCW Nursery got a bunch of them.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
Men.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
I was seeing the other day, the hotter it gets,
how happier that plant is. In fact, that plant's kind
of like a teenager on a Saturday morning. You know
how they're not really interested in being awake before eleven o'clock. Well,
this plant isn't interested and growing until about May when
it starts to warm up a little bit. But boy,
is it ever dependable. Now the winner is going to
freeze it to the ground, mults the base real good

(52:22):
and it'll come back. But you talk about a show stopper,
Oh my gosh, tropical, gorgeous beauty. But it is a
perennial for us in our area. It comes back out
of the ground. So anyway, And if you like butterflies,
the tiger swallow the is it tiger swallowtail, the yellow
and black swallowtail with the little tails, they love this thing.

(52:45):
And there are the butterflies that love them too, and
you can get them at RCW Nursery. You know RCW.
It's at two forty nine Tombol Parkway and Beltway eight
right now. Their selection of crape myrtles is through the roof,
so many good plants, so beautiful, it doesn't matter what
you're looking at.

Speaker 5 (53:03):
You know what.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
They grow their own trees up there in Plantersville, most
of their own trees, and so when you go there,
you know you're getting a plant that wants to live
in the Houston area. You know Dave and Kathleen, they
have been basically nursermen here in this area for a
very long time. They know what works here goes back
into the seventies. RCW Nursery. When you go there and

(53:27):
get a plant, you canna get a good one that
wants to be here, and you're gonna get good advice too.
Arcitabu Nursery corner where Tumball Parkway and Belwa come together.
Two eight one four four zero fifty one sixty one.
Get to one of these pride of Barbados today. They
are outstanding plants. Gotta get one today, all right. So
summertimes here, and when summertime comes, we start to think

(53:51):
about outdoor activities, you know, barbecue in in the evenings,
out there enjoying the one time of day when it's
safe to be outside, which is late in the day.
And ACE hardware has you covered for that. Ace hardware
is just whatever you need. I was telling somebody the
other day, it's just like they were talking, we were

(54:11):
talking about ACE hardware and they go, I've been a
hardware store. Now, not until you've gone into an ice
hardware store. I don't care. If you are looking for
the qualities of the quality. You want the best barbecue
pits on Earth. You want the ones that people form
cults around, like Big Green Egg and Traeger and Rectec
and you know Webber and the grills, the pits, some

(54:34):
of them even have. Some of the Aces even carry
the outdoor pizza ovens. You just got to see what
one of those is. It's a little thing, but it
is cool. Maybe you're looking for quality tools. I happen
to like the Ego battery powered mowers. That's just one
that I landed on. I really enjoy uh and ACE
Hardware has them. They've got all the equipment, all the batteries,

(54:57):
all the weed eaters, and everything else goes with them.
No matter what the brand, if it's a quality brand,
you're gonna find ACE Hardware store. They sell quality. And
you can find your ACE Hardware store by going to
ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Don't forget Texas. Ace Hardware
Texas dot com. Find the store near you, and they're
all over the Greater Houston area, all the way from

(55:19):
Beaumont all the way down to Porto Ramsas. Your ACE
Hardware Texas ace hardware stores are stocked up ready to go.
Let's go to Galveston this morning, and we're gonna visit
with John here. Hey John, welcome to garden Line and.

Speaker 6 (55:34):
Hey, how are you skip? Can you check your email
and see if you have an email for me? It's
called Dying Lawn.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
I did. I did, because it just came in a
minute ago. Uh so, you know, tell me a little
bit about that story before we dive into it.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (55:53):
So, three hundred and fifty square foot front yard and
every year, right in the dead center of it, it
starts to die. And this year it's doing the same
thing and it just creeps up and I cannot. I
changed the soil out and it gets nitroposs you know,

(56:14):
green up, and I just it's a sprin sprinkle system. Now,
there's quite a lot of chamber bitter. Are you familiar
with that? We chamber bitter.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
It's called Yes, I see it in your photos.

Speaker 6 (56:29):
Yeah, so, I mean it's the first time I've ever
seen that. And any thoughts on what this might be.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Is it just Yeah, Well, you're seeing chamber bitter because
sunlight is hitting the soil and weeds are sprouting. This
looks if I were to, you know, just looking at
the picture, my first thought is drowdy, and I'm sure
you probably are watering it so but something is preventing

(56:57):
water to get getting getting into the plant. And that
now chinchbugs can also suck the juices out of these
plants and cause the browning. And no matter what how
you water, it's gonna go down. And so it could
be chinchbugs. I have a publication on my website, Gardening
with Skip dot com. Please check that out, Gardening with It.

(57:20):
It's called take All, Take All, Root Rot and in
depth Look. And there's also a take All that's a
that's a shorter publication. Get open both of those up there,
free to download. Look at them. One of them shows
you what chinchbugs look like, because sometimes chinchbugs and take
all can be mistaken for each other. Uh and uh.
If you'll get on your hands and knees and the

(57:41):
zone between healthy and dead, you know kind of where
the grass actually looks pretty darn good, but there's some
declining grass around it, and part get on your hands
and knees in part. Once you look at my publication,
you'll know what to look for and chinchbugs. I show
you what the adults and the and the nymphs, the
younger ones look like. So part the way. And if
you see chinchbugs, you need to treat for that. I

(58:03):
think this is take a root rot brought on by
some kind of stress. Could be got a little on
the dry side, could be stressed from a weed killer, herbicide,
could be a lot of things that cost stress. But
that's what opens the door to take all. If you'll
look at that publication I give you the shorter publication
kind of gives you. Here's like four steps or something.
You know, do this, do this, do this, do this.

(58:24):
First step is don't stress your lawn. And if you'll
follow that, I think you can turn this around. But
you got to do it quick because it kills roots.
And when roots die, even if you were to stop
the disease completely instantly today, which can't be done, it
would still decline because of the lack of roots until
it could grow some new roots and start to recuperate.

(58:47):
So I would act very quickly, and in the meantime,
forget my watering advice of watering once or twice a week.
Be willing to water in smaller amounts, but give it
a good soaking just to keep this grass a lot
because it doesn't have the risk be resilient. So I
have a question for you.

Speaker 6 (59:05):
So if I just go ahead and dig us so
that that little spot right there is about the size
of a four x eight piece of ply, would if
I just ran to the store and place the grass,
what would you do? Let's see, I do have.

Speaker 5 (59:23):
Bugs. What would you treat it with?

Speaker 6 (59:24):
And then I mean it's the chamber bidders that kind
of is there any wady to kill that stuff?

Speaker 2 (59:32):
I would the chamber better right now, I would ignore
the chamber better. The stuff that kills chamber better, it
can stress your lawn, and right now I would focus
on what's going to kill your lawn. Deal with the
chamber better. Next year. We can talk more about that
in another time. But don't don't worry about that now.
Just mow the lawn regularly and that let's get this
lawn healthy. But check those publications out. If you need

(59:55):
to call me back, I'll be you know, I'll be
here through the morning. I'll be here tomorrow. But I'd
like you to look those over because I think that's
what we're dealing with and I've got a hard break
in the next one second here, So thank you for
your casser I appreciate that very much. Folks, we've got
to go. We'll be right back. Have you got a
gardening question? Seven one three, two one two five eight
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight

(01:00:17):
seventy four. Give me a call. Let's talk about it.
Might Have Grow is a product that you've heard me
talk about for a little will now new on the market,
but it's a very unique product. And here here's why.
It's not a fertilizer, but it's a very important part
of your fertilizer doing what it's supposed to do. And

(01:00:37):
here's why. Might have Grow helps roots of plants. It
has the things in it, all kinds of natural substances
and things that including microbes by the way, that caused
the plant to develop a better, more robust, resilient root
system and going into summer drought, going into summer heat.

(01:00:58):
Anytime a plan is struggling on lot, I always looked
to the roots. What's going on in the roots, what's
wrong in the roots. Mighta Grow can prevent that by
setting the plant up for success. I would say use
it when you plant. I planted some angelonias not too
long ago, and I used some mitagrow. I had a
certain set that I didn't water. I know, I'm admitting it.
I had some little transplants that didn't water. They were struggling.

(01:01:20):
I watered them in with miighta grow, watered, you know,
or watered. Some of the men didn't water with mightagrow,
some of them not. And there's a difference. There's just
a difference because of the way it works in the
root system. Now, it's not just for annual flowers or
vegetables or anything. I mean, it's for plants. So you
got an old tree that's struggling and declining, don't wait
too long, go ahead and give it a shot. You

(01:01:43):
can find miightagrol over the place if you look at
the bag. It's easy because it says it ain't dead yet,
or it's not dead yet. I wish it said it
ain't that'd be even more Texa. But anyway, anyway, it's
not dead yet, which means that there's still a chance.
With MIGHTI Grow, it's not just for plants that are
about to die or looking like it. It's for plants
that you're putting in that you want to avoid the

(01:02:05):
stress for. And that's what some of the text A
and M research showed is with treatment on the roots,
some vinca that they had that they let go dry
to the point of almost dead. When they used the
micgro on it, it was like eighty percent of made it.
And that's that's a rough shot for me. Basically looking
at the flats and the ones they didn't use microgro

(01:02:25):
on them, eighty percent or more didn't make it because
they'd gotten that droughting. My toe grow MI t R
g row. It's easy to find. You need to use it.
I could sit here and talk all day about what's
in it and why it works, and what this microbe
does and why that's part of helping a plant survive.
Mighta grow it's not dead yet. Let's go out to

(01:02:47):
a task asita and talk to gym this morning. Hey, Jim,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:02:52):
Good morning Escape. I sent some pictures.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Did you see them about the VTech tree?

Speaker 12 (01:02:59):
I do?

Speaker 9 (01:03:00):
I do?

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
And Jim, that is a problem in the roots, possibly
along the pathway from the roots up endo the plant.
And here's what I mean. Either you started losing roots
due to drought or to physical injury or to a
root rot or in the pathway along something you know,

(01:03:22):
affecting the stem or affecting you know, other things. That's
part of that flow. But when a plant is struggling
from a limited amount of water, and with Vitex it's
more likely too much water than not enough. That also
hurts roots. The older foliage starts to be cast off.

(01:03:43):
And when you see tip and margin burn on the
leaves like in your photo, that's a sign of a
plumbing problem, which I started off by calling it roots,
but that it's a plumbing problem. Basically, moisture's not getting
up there, the leaves get weakened, diseases, don't know where
the tip so the leaves are. That's that is a
physiological lack of water due to probably soggy conditions, but

(01:04:08):
could be dropped to what would be the cue right now,
digging down in the soil about three inches and feeling
the soil and not watering until it's a little dry
to the touch. How long has that Vitex's been in Jim.

Speaker 6 (01:04:28):
That tech has benefit for going on two years?

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Okay, so it should be established by now, you know,
if it were a new plant. I would say, well,
maybe you're not water enough, you know, because it pumps
that root ball dry in the summer. But it's it
should be well established, so that's what I would do.
I don't I don't think it's going to benefit from fertilization.
Although a moderate amount of nutrition is always good for plants.

(01:04:56):
But it's not like, oh, that thing's lacking nutrients. I
think it's not. I think something's wrong in the roots.
So dig down and feel the soul. See what you
see down there, See what you feel down there. Try
to avoid excessive water, and that's kind of what's in
your control. Beyond that, we'd have to pull the plant
out and send it to a lab and have them
analyze it for diseases. And now that parts I think

(01:05:17):
it's I think it's a roots and water issue personally.

Speaker 5 (01:05:22):
Thank you very much, sir, and have a great day.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
You too. Take care alrighty, Let's see I got the
photos in from the other gym and Jim if you
gim in spring, if you'd like to call back, we
can visit about those and go a little bit further
forward with your question. There intended for ust down in

(01:05:46):
the Richmond Rosenberg area. Is the kind of place that
I like to say, it's a place you just want
to go and stroll and visit, you know, kind of
hang out. See what they got, look at the new plants,
going to see so much stuff that is absolutely stunningly beautiful,
just stunningly beautiful. They've been changing things up around there,

(01:06:10):
making it easier for you to find the you know,
the plants that you want. Gorgeous, gorgeous flats of flowers
that can take the heat. They can take the heat.
They do so well. Oh, by the way, speaking of
heat they're having on July twenty fifth, I know that's
a little bit ahead here, but not too much. Saturday,
July twenty fifth, please write this down, Please grab a

(01:06:32):
pen right now. Saturday is July twenty fifth, five pm
until eight pm. Cools off at the end of the
day a little bit. There's gonna be a talk on
hot nights and cool herbs. And they do this occasionally
in the summertime, their evening series. Their carry snowball trailer
will be out there or actually I don't know on

(01:06:55):
Carrie's with us or trailer or just the machine they
bring out, but anyway, a great thing for a warm summertime.
But you're gonna get a talk from Aaron Mills on
cooling herbs, Roselle, hibiscus, lemon, balm, peppermints, spearmint, holy basil, aloe, rosemary,
and more. Lots of cool stuff. You're gonna be able

(01:07:16):
to wander through, enjoy yourself, get some of that cool
snowball there in your hand to enjoy the ice. What
we call it liquidized, not liquidized anyway, I can't think
of what they call those things. But it's going to
be good. And they do this in China for us
every now and then in the summertime. You don't want
to miss that. You don't want to miss that again. Saturday,

(01:07:39):
July twenty fifth, from five to eight. Now, while you're
out there. Succulents, beautiful insectivorous plants, plants eat bugs, like
like pitcher plants, and you know, the venus fly trap
and others like that. They got a nice little selection
of those going on out there. Beautiful pottery. It's just

(01:08:00):
it's just always a good place to go. If you
want to create a butterfly garden or beneficial insect garden,
just go in and tell them that and watch them
show you all the credible plants that they have that
do exactly just that. Enchanted for us.

Speaker 5 (01:08:14):
Where is it?

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
Well, it's south a little bit to the east of
Richmond on twenty seven fifty nine, just a few miles
south of great Wood Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com.
Here is a phone number two eight one nine three
seven ninety four forty nine. Two eight one nine three
seven ninety four forty nine. You got to get out

(01:08:37):
there and check that place out. I was visiting with
pest Bros. Not too long ago. We're just talking about
some things we're doing some I've done. The spray that
they use, it's the herbal spray for mosquitos. They spray
in like your plants. They spray side a house or whatever,
you know, up under the eaves where mosquitos hide. And

(01:08:58):
I'm telling you this stuff. It it's not like a
synthetic mosquito poison kind of thing. It's it's an herbal
oil thing. But it lasts a longer time than I thought. Well,
you know, a week from now this is gonna be
working anymore, but it is.

Speaker 6 (01:09:13):
It is.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
I just continue I don't know how many weeks were
going on now, but it's good. Stuff. Now, they got
the buckets. Pest Bros Has the buckets that I talk
about all the time. But you also have this other option.
So if you've got family coming, you got an event
going on, you've got you know, a gathering outside, have
them come in a little bit ahead and do this
this treatment on it and you will be very surprised

(01:09:34):
at just how well it works. Now right now, termite
season is honest, they're getting lots of calls. They're still
dealing with termites and things. If you've got fire ants,
if you whatever you're dealing with. Someone asked me who
do I call for pest issues indoors, outdoors. You name it,
don't battery pest Bros dpestbros dot com, d pestbros dot com.

(01:09:59):
Good check them out. Their stuff works. I know it
because I've used several different kinds of their services and
everything has been very, very impressive. They know how to
do things in the safest possible manner, so you get
the results you're looking for without the worries. The pest Bros.
Let's go to a break and we'll be right back

(01:10:20):
for the last segment of this hour. Don't forget that
we've got Ralph Nelson coming in to talk water gardens
the whole eight o'clock hour. We're going to talk all
kinds of things water gardens. If you've got a water
gardening question, we're going to focus on those during the
eight o'clock hour. Please hang around. We are here to
talk gardening. Got plenty of things to visit with you
about today. Southwest fertilizer, you hear me talk about them

(01:10:43):
all the time. And what's the motto or my motto
for Southwest fertilizer. If they don't have it, you don't
need it. And the bottom line, that is the bottom line.
And what I mean by that, well, what I mean
is pretty much they have everything you would need and
anything that's going to be an effective, good solution to things,
they're going to carry it. If they don't have it,
maybe it's something obscure that nobody comes in and asks for.

(01:11:04):
They can probably get it. Just talk to Bob and
see see what availability of it is. But I'll tell
you this, whether it's tools, you need tools, how about
an eighty foot wall long ninety foot actually I used
to say eighty foot, it's actually a ninety foot long
wall of tools, Every kind of quality of you might need,
they got it. Do you need stuff for insects, for weeds,
for diseases, do you want fertilizers, they've got it. If

(01:11:28):
you want slow release, if you want fast release, if
you want liquid, if you want solid, if you want organic,
if you don't care, if you want synthetic, they've got it.
You walk in there, you take them a picture, you
take them a plant sample or a little plastic bag.
They'll take a look at the situation. They'll point you
to the right place and they'll tell you how to
do it and do it right. They're experts, and that's

(01:11:49):
why they've been there for over seventy years. Now Southwest Fertilizer,
corner of Bissinet and Renwick, and now would be a
good time to go in and stock up on all
kinds of things. By the way, I don't mention this
much about them, but they also have tools, you know,
garden hoses and sprinklers, and they will handguns and water
wands and things like that that go at the end

(01:12:09):
of the hose. They've got it. Bot's got it. If
you need small engine repair, I've got a little shop
in the back. If you need things sharpened, if you
just go in there and see what I'm talking about
and plan on stocking up because they've got good, good selection,
better than anybody I've seen across the region. Southwest Fertilizer.
Alrighty deal, all right deal. I have been making some

(01:12:37):
plans to redo some of my irrigation system. I've got
some areas. I had a guy come in and work
on irrogation for me that he was doing some other
tasks and did some irrigation work and it's not quite right,
and I'm gonna have to get in there and fix
it or I haven't come back. But here comes summertime
and make it easier on yourself. I would recommend if
you've never done drip irrigation, why not consider it this summer.

(01:13:00):
You could start with something as simple as a hose
end timer attached, you know, to the waterfo sit inside
the house, goes out there into the garden and you
set it, it times it, it waters it. You can
get these little kits on drip irrigation if you want
to make it real simple. I mean, it's just like
any all remember tinker toys, playing with tinker toys. Well, anyway,
that's what I'm talking about. You just pop it together

(01:13:20):
and it works. Or if you want to have somebody
professional come out and do a really good job, you know,
go go for that. I get pair scapes out there
to do it. Whatever you do, consider that it's the
most efficient way to water. You don't waste your water.
You put it where plants need water, which is the roots.
You avoid wetting the leaves like sprinklers do all the time,
which increases disease problems. So consider drip irrigation. We say

(01:13:45):
drip and micro irrigation, because not everything is just a
little drip coming out of a hose. There's things that
squirt large droplets in all directions download to the ground.
There's other ways that we can micro irrigate. That's essentially
the same as as the effect of drip irrigation, but
it's a larger area. So consider that it's highly recommended.

(01:14:07):
Let's go to Denver now and talk to Mike this morning. Hey, Mike, welcome.
Are you actually in Denver at this moment?

Speaker 7 (01:14:15):
Yeah, good morning, Skip, so good to be with you. Yeah,
I'm actually a first time caller and I'm calling from Denver, Colorado.
How are you?

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
I'm done well? How can we help today?

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
Good.

Speaker 7 (01:14:28):
Well, it's so great to talk to you, and thank
you for the really informative show. It's really really good
to listen to and learn a lot from it. But yeah,
I was going to ask you about this thing. I
don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's
called a Virginia creeper une and it's aggressively growing underneath

(01:14:49):
the foundation of the house that I'm currently in. What
would be the best way to get rid of something
like that? And can you recommend kind of any productive
kind of alternative, any any other kind of plant for fall,
like Boston ivy or something that would be less invasive

(01:15:10):
in that category kind of Yeah, So.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Virginia creeper can be controlled with products that contain something
called tricloape. Here and if you go to my website,
do you have a pin or pencil handy there, Mike, I.

Speaker 7 (01:15:25):
Can write it on my phone here. I have an iPhone,
so I can, okay, ye, write it down.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
So so put garden put gardening with skip. That's one word,
gardening with Skip. That's the name of the website. That's
where you go. And if you go on there, there's
a thing called controlling woody weeds and the landscape and
the procedure for poison ivy and Virginia craper and other

(01:15:52):
kinds of semi woody kinds of plants and vines is
all there and it makes it real simple.

Speaker 12 (01:15:57):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
And you have the options of spraying the but if
there's anything around the Virginia creeper that's desirable, you don't
want to spray it because you get it on the
other good things and kill them too. So there's an
information on using a an applicator to put put it
directly on the wooden parts of the vine coming up
out of the ground. So that that's what I'd recommend.
Boston ivy is a good one for your area. You know,

(01:16:19):
it has it has a nice fall color and a
better fall color than we will get down here in
the Houston area, But that that would be a possible vine.
You also have a Colorado Extension Service, and I don't know, uh,
you know, the Denver County office and things, but if
you look for Colorado Extension Service, they've got a lot

(01:16:40):
of information online that you can look at that's going
to be a little more adapted to your area than
like Houston. For example, the plant Palette's can be different, right,
and they're gonna be. There's gonna be some other options
that aren't coming to me off the top of my
head right now without doing little research. So there will
be some other good vine options for that as well.

Speaker 7 (01:17:00):
All right, area, Well, thank you so much for your help.
I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
Thank you, all right, thank you very much. I appreciate
that too. All right, folks, music means we're gonna have
to stop here. So Jake in Pearland, you were on
hold there as our next up, I'm going to try
to take you first thing. When we come back next hour,
we're gonna be visiting with Ralph Nelson and the hour

(01:17:24):
is gonna be dedicated to water gardening. So Jake, hang on.
We're gonna go ahead and make you the exception call
there on that.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
And if you guys have any questions about fish or
plants or water gardens or what are the options, I'm
telling you this guy, he knows it. He's the man.
And when I have water gardening questions, Ralph so I
go to So hang on, give us be ready to
call back. Here's the number seven one three, two one

(01:17:52):
two five eight seven to four. Hey, it's a water
gardening issue and I get algae in the pond. That's
a thing. Well, Ralph can handle that one. Welcome back
to Guardlane. This gonna be an hour. We're talking about
water gardening, all kinds of things related to water gardening,
and also specifically Nelson water gardens out there in Katie, Texas.

(01:18:12):
You hear me talk about them all the time. Well,
Raff's joining us this morning. Before we start that, I'm
gonna head out and take our last caller, Jake in Pearland. Hey, Jake,
welcome to guarden Line. Tell me how I can help.

Speaker 12 (01:18:26):
Hey, good morning, Ski, Thanks taking a call. I sent
you an email with some pictures of an apple tree.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
Did you get those? I? Probably did? I have to
dig down through them here? Uh to Was this one
staked out in a grassy area?

Speaker 7 (01:18:47):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
Would it have been? Would it have been? Gerald? The kindness? Gerald? Yeah,
that's it all right? Yes, I've got them. You got it?
So how can I help?

Speaker 14 (01:18:58):
I plan it?

Speaker 12 (01:18:59):
I plan for fruit trees, apple pair of peach and
plum back in January, and they're all doing fantastic. The
apple tree, I mean it threw fruit a couple months ago.
You know, obviously I tried to put some stuff on
and keep the birds and bugs away from it. Ended
up getting one of the apples and it was absolutely delicious.

(01:19:20):
But as soon as the apples stopped growing, it looked
as in the picture, it looks like the tree is
starting to die. And I don't know if that's the
normal thing for the tree, like it starts going dormant,
or it is legitimately dying.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
No, it's legitimately dying, and it may be legitimately dead.
For a tree to go completely brown like that in
the summer heat is a bad sign. A lot of
things can cause it. It just you know, the symptoms
are the trees dying are dead. Now why is a
question for the whole tree to go like that? My
first thought is to go underground and look at the

(01:20:00):
root system. It's clear from the grass around the tree
that there wasn't a drop problem there, But it could
be that it was a excessive amount of water that
the roots didn't get oxygen, and that may have led
to a root rot that moved in and took it out.
Will you will you remind me when how long has

(01:20:20):
it been in the ground January, So this tree has
a very limited root system. And is the soil out there,
is it a clay or a sand or what kind
of soil would you say?

Speaker 12 (01:20:37):
When you dig it the planet, the top layer is
clay mostly. But I had those trees professionally, professionally planet.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
Yeah, I can see that they did a very good job. Well,
I can't tell the very base of the tree because
there's some little weeds grown around the very base of it.
But if they planted it too deep, that could be
part of the problem. You should see, the topmost roots
should be at or right close to the to the

(01:21:09):
soil surface line. And when a tree goes in the
ground and it doesn't flare out, that that's a problem.
So it may be that. But that combined with a
little excess water, that root system is very confined. Now,
while I said that it you know obviously wasn't drought
because the grass looks okay. It actually could pump that
root ball dry because its roots are still largely in

(01:21:32):
that cylinder that went into the ground, that came out
of the nursery container, and so it doesn't have the
extensive root establishment that would allow it to be resilient
during dry periods because it can reach more moist soil particles,
they are still very confined. So it could have gotten
too dry because the demands are too high. It could
have been too wet in a clay soil that's like

(01:21:54):
an underground bathtub when you dig a planting hole, and
so it could stay too wet. But it's going to
be something like that, either those two or a disease,
and just looking at the top results, I can't tell
you which of those it is.

Speaker 5 (01:22:09):
Okay, that's what I was afraid of.

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
Yeah, so you may want to take a knife, pocket
knife and scrape the bark a few inches above the ground.
Just scrape the bark back, and it ought to be
a green color underneath. If the tree is still alive
and has a chance, it'll be a green color or
a creamy white color. If you start to see paper
sack brown, pecan brown coloring underneath the bark, that's dead.

(01:22:35):
And if that's the case, then I would go ahead
and pull it up and look at the roots and
see if they seem to be in more of a
decline than the topise In other words, they're starting to
have already started to cage away. That would be a
sign that it probably started in the root system. But
nothing attacked the top of the tree to do this.
It's underground. The problem is underground, too deep, planting, too wet,

(01:22:57):
too dry, or a disease of the roots. Thank you much.
I appreciate you. All right, sorry to be the bear
of bad news. Appreciate your call. All right, let's do this.
We're going to go to Ralph Nelson. Hey, rof are
you there?

Speaker 5 (01:23:13):
I am here.

Speaker 1 (01:23:14):
Good morning, Well, good are you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
It's good to talk to you this morning. I'm doing great,
and thank you so much for coming on a garden line.
We are well. I've been telling people we're going to
talk water gardening this hour, and so I just wanted to,
you know, first of all, start off, will you tell
me a little bit about yourself and Nelson Water Gardens,

(01:23:38):
just kind of get people a feel for, Okay, who
we're talking to.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
Yeah, well, I just completed my forty ninth year in
water gardening. First nineteen years or so, we're growing large,
large numbers of plants to mostly mail order around the country,
which was a primary yet folks interested in water gardening
and supply them with their plants and other materials for

(01:24:06):
a water garden. And then Nelson Water Gardens. We started
the project thirty years ago and it's actually been open
for twenty nine plus years right now here in Katie,
and water gardening is still near and dear to us
and what we're well known for in a probably across

(01:24:27):
the country and maybe even beyond a little bit since
I've been doing this for so long. And we also
do really cool fountains that we kind of developed the technique.
We call them disappearing fountains, so you get water music
in your landscape with a very very safe and easy

(01:24:49):
to care for a fountain, typically using pottery or natural
stone to create the feature. And now you know, with
the growth of Katie, we we were out here in
the country when we when we started Nelson Water Gardens,
and we're surrounded by development at this point, so we
are a full service at this point. Yes, yeah, And

(01:25:13):
I have a degree, as does my wife, Anita, from
the University of Maryland and horticulture, and we I worked
in garden centers while I was in school, so I
had that in my background. So you know, we we
pretty have a pretty broad wealth of knowledge and a

(01:25:33):
lot most of it now here, you know, in the
Houston area, So we feel we can help folks with
their water garden, fountains and the rest of their landscape
at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
Well, and I know you guys are recognized nationally. I
mean you were talking about how long you've been doing
water gardening. But you know, when it comes to like
the water Gardening Hall of Fame, I mean we're talking,
we're talking about folks that know what they're doing here.
And by the way, congratulations, Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:26:04):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, you know, water gardening for a lot
of people is kind of a mystery rough. It's like, yeah,
I don't know how to do that. I mean, you know,
how do I how do I build it?

Speaker 9 (01:26:16):
What I do?

Speaker 2 (01:26:17):
But you guys do both. You can come out and
do you know a giant waterfall across the yard or
a stream going through the whole nine yards, or you
could sell people pieces and parts for some simple things
that they may want to do themselves. So you kind
of offer both options.

Speaker 11 (01:26:35):
Right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):
Absolutely, Yes. We have a design build segment of the
business and my son Peter and his brother in law
Eddie run that and they work all throughout the Houston area,
even though they love going west of here because I

(01:26:56):
don't have as much traffic, you know, going out to
Belleville random or you know Campo things like that. That's
until hours.

Speaker 2 (01:27:06):
And uh.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
And then we have someone else who helps everybody, you know,
install the fountains, and he's got twenty five years of
experience doing that. And you know, we have some old
hands here, you know, folks that have been doing this
hands on for quite a long period of time. And

(01:27:28):
we also have everything. We're perfectly happy to tell folks
how to install their own water garden, you know, do
yourself project. We've come up with some very good techniques
for the Uston Gulf Coast.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
Good good, let's come back to that. I got to
go to a break right now, but let's let's come
back to some of the do it yourself kinds of
smaller scale things that do you guys offer out there.
Hang on, we'll be right back with Ralph. Folks, and
if you got any water garden question, and now's a
good time to ask. We're visiting with Ralph Nelson from
Nelson Water Gardens out there in Katie Nelson Nursery and

(01:28:06):
Water Gardens. The Ralph we're talking about some simple little
building yourself do it yourselfers and you guys are you
were telling me about a little thing that I didn't
know you guys were offering. You started this year. Maybe
you've done it before, but it's a little small scale
tubs where people can have a plant and a fish

(01:28:27):
and so on. We tell us a little bit about that.
Maybe one of the simplest ways to have water garden.

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
Yeah, sure, Keim Skip, thank you for menishing that as
simple as water bowls, which would be glazed pottery of
proper size, you know, holding maybe twenty five or so
gallons of water and being twenty to twenty four inches
across the top and fourteen to sixteen inches deep, and

(01:28:56):
we can have a water lily and some other plants
in there and it's self maintain. But we also discovered
some what we call them garden pond kits now their
oblong shape, very well built HDPE high density polyethylene tubs

(01:29:16):
that are forty gallon, eighty five gallon, ten gallon, and
we put together a kit that includes water lily, some
additional what we referred to as bog plants or plants
that typically grow upright in water, and fish the appropriate
number for that size, and then the the dechlorinator and

(01:29:39):
fertilizer and so forth that you need to maintain that
and it gives everybody an entry to the wonders of
water gardening. They're fantastic, you know if you have children,
because you'll probably set it above ground, you know, put
it on the edge of the patio or something like that,
and you don't need to pump. Okay, we are providing

(01:30:01):
everything to set up a good natural balance in there
so it maintains high water quality. And something we hear
pretty frequently once you start talking about water in the landscape. Mosquitoes, Well, no,
mosquitoes like stagnated water. Okay, they're going to look for
that old tire, that bucket that has a little bit

(01:30:24):
of water sitting in it, and that's what they breed in.
They don't like or breed in high quality water. So
if you set up something with a good natural balance,
that's not what they're attracted to. And our upright plants
that we have in these little setups, dragonflies love to

(01:30:46):
land on them and perch on them, and they hunt
and what's their favored prey a mosquito. So you're actually
reducing the number of mosquitoes in the area. You know,
if you have that type of setup and really encourage
the dragonflies to visit.

Speaker 15 (01:31:05):
Okay, so there, well there really good no ahead, go
ahead of really people would buy it. Yeah, I'm sorry,
go ahead, I've got a delay. That's messing us up here.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
Oh okay, yeah, I thought maybe that's what was going on. Yeah,
I mean they're their entry level. The small kit everything
included is about two hundred and fifty dollars. Okay, so
you have a little bit of an investment there, and
then you know, the middle ones three fifty and the

(01:31:43):
bigger one is three ninety five. But you have everything
that you need for that. We also will coach you
how to build something bigger using EPDM rubber liners, where
you can create most anything you.

Speaker 5 (01:31:58):
Can a man.

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
You know, we'll help you make good decisions as to
you know, what you need to do to take care
of that and set it up properly. We developed years
ago a technique for the bigger ponds called gravel bog filters,
where we don't even have other We call them a

(01:32:21):
big ugly black boxes, you know. To do siltration, we
use mother Nature by passing water through gravel beds and
having plants rooted in the gravel, basically building a septic
field for your pond. And they maintain themselves, you know,
very very naturally, just like Mother nature would do.

Speaker 2 (01:32:43):
Yeah, so so is water. Is there a pump that's
moving water through the gravel to yes, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:53):
The pump would be think of it as the heart
of the system. It's a it's a pressured system. The
water enters the gravel bed through slotted pipe. Just take
your circular song and cut some slots and TVC pipe
and cap the in and then force the water up
through the gravel bed. And we share all that information.

(01:33:17):
It's on our website, folks. I mean, we've helped people
all around the country who have seen that and have
questions and then contact us, you know, how do we
do that and just want to be sure you know
how they're approaching it, you know, and well it's.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Go ahead. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
Ralph, Ralph, the thing that that just strikes me when
I visit with you, and I'm saying this for you
guys listening to here. I asked Ralph questions all the time,
and his practicality, the depth of knowledge and the practical,
simple solutions to everything. You know, it just you know
when we talk about technologies and things, well, the technology

(01:34:03):
of gravel in the bottom of the plant where you
have microbes that are living in the water that are
part of that purifying of the water system and the
roots of plants and things, and there's just a simple
solution to so many things. And they've really done that there.
I tell you, Rolph, I encourage people all the time

(01:34:24):
to just come out and see the place. I can't
describe sound to you on the air, but when you
go out there and it's a hot summer day and
you know, May, June, July, August, these are all great
months to get out there to Nelson Water Gardens and
just said down in a while, it is free therapy.
But the sound of water is so soothing. And when

(01:34:47):
you see the things they've done. They've got it set
up there on the place where you can walk through
and you can see one of these ingroum ponds. Maybe
you want a nice neat patio that's concrete, that's stone,
and it's got a little pond in it, water lilies
coming up, and it's got some fish swim around underneath
the water. You can see where they've done it. They're
on side it no water gardens. That's why it's a
destination garden center. Maybe you want a disappearing fountain. Rav

(01:35:12):
I don't know how to describe that amount of pottery
you guys have, and the diversity the glazed pottery, the
little pottery of pebbles on the side of the pottle
of the pot so as the water rolls down the side,
it's like sparkling, you know, in the sunlight going down
the side. But will you talk a little bit about
the pottery end of this deal.

Speaker 3 (01:35:32):
Yes, yeah, we.

Speaker 1 (01:35:35):
Probably late nineties, early two thousands we came up with
ideas to plumb pottery to be our fountain, you know,
and the they're glaze pots. I will say that most
of the glazed pottery comes out of Vietnam at this
point in time. It's really high quality, long, long lasting,

(01:36:00):
and we buy that by the container and just bring
in a bigger ray h. My son Peter has been
over to the factories or production sites in Vietnam, I
think five times with a real good friend and contact
of ours who you know who has ownership or part ownership,
and a number of those factories. So we we've seen

(01:36:23):
a lot and some some really cool, you know, from small,
you know, to there's some pots almost as tall as
I am, I'm over six foot, you know, they're they're
just amazing. And then the pebble pots that you were mentioning,
which show really well the rippling of water. They also

(01:36:44):
do marble chips on some of those pots. Those come
out of Indonesia and uh and uh. They're just fantastic,
very different, and we always have a number of these
operating on the proper and the water comes up out
of the pot and falls into a reservoir where our

(01:37:06):
pumps sit and to recirculate the water through the pots,
and then there's a piece of grating over that and
then you put pebbles or evening gravel if it's in
a walkway. We do it all different ways, and you
don't see the reservoir. Therefore water disappears into the ground,
disappearing in fountain. You know, it's where the name came from.

Speaker 2 (01:37:29):
And.

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):
We offer an installation on that. But we also have
all the steps for if you're doing it with a
manageable sized piece of pottery or natural stone that you
can handle the weight, you know, you know, we can
prep everything for you and you can put it in yourself.
The bigger ones. You probably really want to have us

(01:37:55):
take care of that for you. We're used to moving
heavy things. The other set of items that are really cool.
We have friend out in New Mexico who is.

Speaker 2 (01:38:12):
I'm rough. I'm gonna have to have to cut out.
I'm up against a heartbreak. Just hold that thought. Let's
come right back there, folks. You're listening to Ralph Nelson
Nelson Waterguard Nursery and Water Gardens, and we're going to
be right back. We're visiting with Ralph Nelson this morning
from Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens out in Katie, Texas.

Speaker 7 (01:38:30):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
I wanted to mention you know, I'm a broken record
when it comes to plant success. What is the secret
of success? What's what do I say on the guarden
line all the time? Brown stuff before green stuff, soil
before plants. Get the soil right, put the plant in.
It'll make you look good. People say you have a
green thumb because you got soil right. Folks at Microlife
have so many products that are designed just for that.

(01:38:52):
But I want to take you about one right now.
Microlife bioinoculent. It's kind of a maroonish colored bag, burgundy
maroon colored bag. It is loaded with all kinds of
beneficial organisms. You put it down into the soil, you
work it in the soil with your plants, and you're
adding just bazillions and bazillions of the good guys that

(01:39:13):
are there to help plants have success. Lots of different
strains that have been research proven. We know what they do,
we know why they work. They're the good guys of
the soil, and microlife bioinoculant is exactly that kind of
Product's not a fertilizer. It's something we put out to make. Well,
let's put it this way. We put it out to

(01:39:33):
do what nature does, and that is protect plants and
feed plants through microbial activity in the roots. Microlife bioinoculant
have some on hand. I don't care whether it's a
container you're growing or whether it's in the soil. It's
a great product that works very well. Let's go back
out here to Roff this morning. We are rough. This

(01:39:54):
happens every time, but we get into a topic like
this and it's like I need three hours and we
don't have it. So I'm going to shifts here a
little bit to talk about all these kind of cool things.
But uh, if people will go folks, if listeners, If
you'll go to the Nelson Watergardens website, it's Nelsonwatergardens dot com.

(01:40:15):
When you get there, you will see a button right
up at the tops for pottery, and you go into pottery.
And when you get into pottery, you'll see pictures of
some of the pots. But look at the video with
Peter walking around. It gives you a glimpse of this
nursery and it gives you a glimpse of what we're
talking about when we say incredible variation in pottery that

(01:40:36):
is stunningly beautiful. Also, when you're there at the website,
click on fountains and you'll see what we're talking about,
disappearing fountains, and they even tell you how to install it.
There's pictures and instructions and a diagram and suddenly you'll
go like, oh, I see what that is. And you
can harm to come do it or you can just
go do it yourself. But either way you go, you've

(01:40:58):
got to add water to your landscap and telling you
it is the single best latest thing that I've done
in my landscape. I put a lot of new plants,
in a lot of bird feeders, all kinds of wonderful
things that I can't live without. But I'm telling you,
when you add the sound of water number one, the
birds are going to get excited about that, and you're
going to bring them in. You're going to be taking
care of beneficial insects which also need moisture in the

(01:41:20):
cool or in the heat of the summer. And then
the beauty of it. I don't care what your esthetic is,
there is a disappearing fountain approach that you will look
at and go, I got to have one in my yard. So, Roff,
we've talked about those. We've talked about the fact that
you guys can come out and also do just the
full fledged fountain you know, the waterfalls, the build of

(01:41:40):
rock fountain and all of that kind of thing. But
I'd like to talk a little bit about now the
plants that you guys have for water gardening, some of
the options and types of plants. You mentioned plants to
stick up above the water earlier, So let's talk a
little bit about the plants and also a little bit
about the fish. So can I turn you loose on
that one for a minute?

Speaker 12 (01:42:00):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:42:01):
You sure can. That's my passion.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (01:42:06):
Water lilies. You know, they're the you know, oftentimes referred
to as the queen of you know, plants and the
you know for ponds and everything. You know, an incredible
array of colors, and and it's new things are coming
in real rapidly. There's a group of hybridizers really into
hybridizing water lilies. We now have some inter subgeneric crosses

(01:42:30):
going on that are really quite new to the palette
of plants available with water lilies, and in broad strokes,
there's there's primarily two broad groups of water leaves, ones
we refer to as hardy lilies, and they they will
go dormant in the winter and come back, you know,

(01:42:52):
all the way up into Canada. For most of those varieties.
You know, they have a lot of the gene pool
from native plants or found in the northern hemisphere years ago,
and you know, so they're a great basic plant. True
reds come out of that group of plants. But you've

(01:43:13):
got pink and all shades of pink and red and
yellow and white and and then peachy colors and so forth,
and some that change color, some that have multiple colors
in the same flower, you know, so very very cool,
and they wrote, well here they have the best bloom

(01:43:37):
is early season, uh, late April through June. A lot
of them don't like our summer heat and they kind
of take the summer off, you know, the occasional flowers.
And then if you continue their waterloads or heavy feeders,
if you continue to give them the nutrients they need,

(01:43:59):
they typically have cool off in September October we get
another really good period of bloom out of those plants.
Fortunately in the Euston area the Gulf Coast, we can
also grow what we refer to as a tropical water
loss and they will survive most winters. Even when Yuri

(01:44:19):
came through, majority of plants survived. They go dormant form
a tuber and then if you know what you're doing,
you can bring them back the next season and grow them.
But they they're larger than the hardys. Their flowers are
held high above the surface of the water, giving you
a different look. Lots of blues and purples, you know,

(01:44:42):
including true blues, which aren't the most isn't the most
common colors throughout the plant world, and there's two groups
within the tropicals. You have a day blooming group that opens,
depending on the variety, from just to daybreak and stay
open till late afternoon to a few even into the evening.

(01:45:05):
And then there's a group called night bloomers, and they
open as we are dusky dark and the flowers open there.
They're very different looking flower than the day looming ones.
Color range is typically white, tank and red on those,
and they're open till typically nine or ten of the

(01:45:28):
following morning in the summer months, and when we get
into the fall, if you've continued fertilizing, they're oftentimes open
almost all day. Also, so close to a twenty four
hour flower. Need a little bit bigger pond to do
the night bloomers because they just tend to be bigger.

Speaker 2 (01:45:46):
Yeah, and then well, speaking of speaking of plants, I'm
sure go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:45:52):
I was going to say, you know, the crown plant
is going to be the Victoria water lily, which is
out of the Brazilian Amazon kind of tributaries and so forth,
and they can largest. I personally have grown with six
and a half foot diameter leaves. I had a friend

(01:46:14):
who actually pushed the plant to have an eight foot
diameter leaf out in San Angelo one year, but these
are the ones that maybe you've seen a national geographic
photos or whatever with people in Victorian times standing on them.
They cheated, they put a piece of wood underneath it
to stand on it. But all of my children and

(01:46:36):
all my grandchildren have sat on those leaves for pictures
when they were about one year old. And just a
super cool plant.

Speaker 2 (01:46:45):
That's yeah, those are amazing. And if folks just just
do a search Google search for Victoria water lily and
you'll see what we're talking about. Those are stunning. Well,
so we've talked about the two types. You meant you
guys also have like a little dwarf yellow. I believe
that that would be suitable for a small one of

(01:47:05):
those small container twenty gallon to whatever one hundred gallon
containers you were talking about earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:47:11):
Right, absolutely, And actually in the dwarf yellows, there's a
new one out of Thailand called Izia that actually blooms
consistently even in the summer, okay, And it's of a
scale that's great in the water bowl or the small

(01:47:33):
garden pond kits that we spoked about a little bit earlier.
It's very attractive multi pedal you saw it. I think
on your last visit, and it stays open for quite
a long number of hours, which is which is neat.
The old school yellow that was used for the small

(01:47:56):
ponds was developed by a man named Marleac out of
France in the eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundreds and
really neat little plant that it always closed up about
two thirty or three in the afternoon, so if you're
work in, you don't see it, you know, And this
one will will be hey, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:48:18):
Well, here we go with another break. We got one
little short segment now left, folks. Bottom line is I'll
just summarize everything we've talked about. There's a water garden
for everybody. I don't care. If you've got a little
patio that's five foot five foot square, you can have
a water garden. Or if you have a beautiful landscape
that you want to turn into a tropical paradise, you
can have water garden. We're going to come back with

(01:48:40):
Rolf Nelson for one more segment. Ralph, thanks for hanging
with us today. We really appreciate that and we will
be right back. Hey, welcome back. We are visiting with
Ralph Nelson of Nelson Nursery. And water gardens out there
in Katie, Texas. I want to remind you guys, you
had to Katie, Texas. You turn north on Katie Fort
Ben Road. Up the street on the right hand side,

(01:49:00):
it's right there. Grab friends and stuff because you do
want to experience this as a group. There are so
many cool things to see while we're out there. And Ralph,
thanks for hanging with us through this hour. Gosh, I
we really could talk ten hours on water garden, but
I would like to. Yeah, we haven't gotten to fish,

(01:49:22):
so can you give us kind of the reader's digest
version of fish. By the way, I didn't know what
a shabunk and shoe bunkin was until I went to
Nelson Water Gardens. But I'll let you talk about fish.

Speaker 1 (01:49:35):
Yes, well quickly on the shabunk and it's just a
type of goldfish. Goldfish mutate a lot, and all of
them came from basic river fish that were driving color
and they just simply started breathing when they saw different
colors showing up. So comets are probably the most common

(01:49:57):
in the pond. Little goldfish as you may think of
from a goldfish bowl, you know, And uh, they're great
in the pond and they can get to a fair
size and they're easy to care for. And then there's
Japanese fantails, Calico fan tail, shabunkins, Sarassa fan tail, Sarasta comets.
Those are the main ones that are that are easy

(01:50:18):
to care for as many other really really fancy types
of goldfish, but they're really for a protected environment like
an aquarium. These are great outside, you know, easily come
through cold weather, come through hot weather. You know, you're
it's it's simple. And then we also do koi, which
you know, the Japanese have really developed some incredible looking

(01:50:42):
lines of koi and were not for every pond because
they get they can get quite large. So if you're
doing one of the little garden ponds that we're talking about,
we're going to go with goldfish in there. If you
can build a larger pond, we can start talking about koi,
you know, because we have some fish on display that
are probably pushing thirty inches now. And for any of

(01:51:08):
you with kids, grandkids, whatever, you need to bring them
by and you stop inside the shop, we'll give every
child a cup of food to go out and feed
the big koi out back and they just have a blast,
you know. It's the fish are very responsive.

Speaker 2 (01:51:28):
Okay they are.

Speaker 1 (01:51:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):
And by the way, when you say child, you don't,
you don't cardis on age, right, I mean a child
will be nineteen sixty will give that food to anybody
good hard. I'm counting on that. Go to the Nelson
Water Gardens website, folks Nelson Nelson Watergardens dot com. Click

(01:51:53):
on the fish and there's a little video showing the
koi and these guys come up to the water, they
open their mouth and mean kids will go nuts dropping
fish food into these koi mouths. So that's another part
of the That's why we say destination. That's why we
I always say, grab your friends, grab your kids. If
you don't have kids, grab your neighbors kids, and get

(01:52:14):
out there and enjoy this. It's a lot of fun,
all right. Well, Ralph, tell me a little bit about
I know you guys have specials from time to time,
occasionally an event or something. Will you talk a little
bit about that real quick?

Speaker 1 (01:52:29):
Yeah? Well, thank you.

Speaker 9 (01:52:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:52:30):
Right now, we're in the midst of what we refer
to as our ding dang sale, and it's think of
it more as a scratching dent or last item of
a pottery line or something like that, and they're marked
down a lot. And we came up with this years ago.
I just happened to say we had some pottery with

(01:52:50):
little chips in them, and I said, there's another ding
Dang it there for the name ding Dang sale, and
so there's some wonderful bar there. But we also decided
for July fourth, and we extended it through all of July.
A red, white, and blue sale, So any regularly priced

(01:53:11):
pottery so not part of the ding Dang items that
are marked way way down. There's thirty percent off a red,
white or blue piece of pottery. So if you're thinking
of a disappearing fountain and those colors are attractive to
you for your feature piece to have the water spill over,
it's a great time to come out and choose one

(01:53:33):
of those and save.

Speaker 2 (01:53:34):
Some wonderful all right, So well that, yeah, that does
sound good. Well, well, I mean we haven't even gotten
to the nurseries, but I just want to I just
want to mention that this is also a full scale nursery.
You want herbs, you want perennials, you want fruit trees,

(01:53:55):
you want shrubs, you want trees, you want roses, you know,
the whole nine yards, annuals and and so on. It's
not just water out at Nelson Water Gardens. But you
need to get out there and and check it out
and see. I could we kind of close things down
a little bit here by talking about some of the

(01:54:15):
services that you guys do offer for coming out if
someone wants to maybe put in a patio or add
to a patio a water feature, and some of the
things that you guys can do out there.

Speaker 1 (01:54:28):
Okay, yes, thank you. We we of course can put
in the fountain and or water garden, but we also
have the ability to go ahead and finish out a
patio or a new patio. The walkways Perlas armors kind
of a full service landscape. Both Peter and Eddie have

(01:54:51):
degrees Peter from l OSU and Eddie from Texas A
and M in landscape architecture. The very creative and they
work I think very well with the client. You know,
they visit, get the information as to what their vision
might be, and then work up a plan to how

(01:55:13):
to create that vision, you know, for their client. So
and then on the smaller scale I mentioned briefly before
you know, we can come in with a different crew
with Tirso and he can put in your disappearing fountain
for you and that will take typically an from half

(01:55:34):
a day to a day to do, you know, depending
on location and things of that nature. And just briefly
bypassed earlier, we can actually create waterfalls for you in
the Disappearing Fountain venue by using rock that's comes out

(01:55:57):
of the Big Bend area and they're on display, so
you have lots of choices.

Speaker 5 (01:56:06):
Too.

Speaker 2 (01:56:08):
Yeah, I know, I know, it's never enough time. It
always goes by fast. Ralph, thank you so much. You
and Anita and Peter out there have created a wonderland
and I hope you folks listening will take advantage of that.
You know, we got folks listening over on the Louisiana
border and almost San Antonio and Huntsville and whatnot. If
you're hearing from out there, I've got a great idea

(01:56:32):
for an outing head down this way Katie Texas and
experiences what we've been talking about here. You guys, I know,
since time is sho short, I'll just say it. You
get you get a lot of requests for shipments out
of this region too. And then they can do various
kinds of things. You just need to talk to start off.

(01:56:52):
I've runner Nelson Watergardens dot com. Thanks Ralph so much. Hey,
welcome back. I'm your host, skip Rick. You're listening to
guard Line and we're here to answer gardening questions. Got
the phones wide open, you got a question, here's the
number seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.

(01:57:12):
Appreciate Rolf Nelson from Nelson Water Garden, Nursery and water
Gardens out there in Katie, Texas for joining us for
the last hour. I hope that was fascinating for you,
and I hope you go check out their website. Water
gardening is a whole new realm of gardening.

Speaker 12 (01:57:26):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:57:27):
Your gardening has so many facets, so many amazing ways,
something for everybody. And I'm telling you the sound of water, Uh,
the it's cool right fish flowers right there in a
refreshing little pond or maybe a disappearing fountain. What a
great way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:57:47):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:57:47):
If you look out in the League City area, and
when I say if you live in the League City,
I mean that whole region around there. League City feed
is your hometown feed store. And I'm talking to you
folks that are out there in Dickinson and San Leone,
Lamark and Bay Cliff and Webster. Maybe you're in Santa
Fe or Elkam Into Reale, Claar, Lake City. This is
your hometown feed store. And it's the old time feed

(01:58:10):
store that I grew up going to. I love those
kinds of feed stores, but I want to tell you
something about League City feed Number one. It's easy to
get to. All you do she head over the League City.
They're on Highway three, a few blocks south of Highway
ninety six in League City, so it's super easy to find.
When you go in there, you're going to find solutions

(01:58:30):
to whatever your plant issues are. Whether it's weed control,
disease control, mosquito control, whether it is a fertilizer that
you hear me talk about on garden Line. Maybe it's
a soil product. You know. They carry their heirloom soils
by the bag, a number of different products there, and
also they'll carry it out for you. It's that old
time service place, been around for well over forty years now.

(01:58:54):
They're in League City. They're open Monday through Saturday from
nine till six pm, so you can swing by after work.
Makes it very convenient. Closed on Sunday, and the Fergusons Fergusons,
the Thunderbergs, Wes and Madison. Wes and Madison are still
running the place there. Their grandpa built the store over
forty years ago. So League City Feed go buy, say

(01:59:19):
hi to them, pick up the things that you need
for the convenience and friendly service. And they also have
high quality pet food too, by the way, I was
checking those out the last time I was over there
looking at the brands, and you know, we're not just
talking about junk food here. We're talking about stuff that
is high quality for your pets. And you know you
want to feed them well too, So they'd be with
us around with this for a very long time. League

(01:59:41):
City Feed League City Feed in League City, Texas. If
you want to, if you want, you can follow them
on Facebook. They got good information there. Oh, by the way,
they always have honey too, local honey made down in
that area, nice unprocessed honey. That is really a favorite
of a lot of the shoppers there. People come back

(02:00:01):
and ask for it again and again. Let's go now
to Pearland, Texas and we're going to visit with Mac
this morning. Hello Mac, Welcome to garden Line. How can
I help.

Speaker 14 (02:00:13):
So where I live in Parland, it's gumbo soil. My
wife got gifted a fig tree, and I want to
know how to plant the fig tree and keep it
alive in the gumbo.

Speaker 2 (02:00:28):
All right, Well, fig trees like gumbo. Years ago, okay,
years ago, there were hundreds of acres of figs to
the south and west of the Houston area, and so
you know, if it makes a good rice patty, it
makes a good fig a fig places. Most fruit trees
can't take it, but figs can. I would still mound

(02:00:48):
up the soil a little bit with some improvements of
organic matter in a larger area. Don't put compost in
a planning hole for any plant. Amend the whole area.
Let's say you've got you know, you're going to give
it about a four or five foot wide amended area
and plant the plant in the middle of it. That
would be good. Uh, put some mulch on it after planting,

(02:01:09):
keep those weeds away from it, and figs will be
very happy they're growing. If it is truly a low area, though,
Mack where the wool water just stands after a rain.
Then you want to raise the mound up a little bit.
Figs aren't made for underwater, but they can take the
glay soil.

Speaker 14 (02:01:26):
Okay, what do you say when you when you when
you said it, I'm a four or five foot a
mended area.

Speaker 2 (02:01:34):
Yeah, so, uh, you know those roots are not going
to be just in the planning hole. They're going to
reach out far and wide. So if you yes, sir,
I always like when I plant any any kind of
a fruit tree or shrub for that matter, I don't
want the grass and weeds to grow right up to
the trunk. Then the mower and the weed eater hit
it and cause damage and their competition. So if that
new tree has about, let's say minimum of like a

(02:01:57):
four foot area that is grass and weed free, you'll
get a lot faster early growth. And that's what you want.
You're planting the plant so that you can eat the figs,
and so how fast can I get from the planting
to the eating? That's what your goal is. And so
a nice wide grass and weed free area four foot
is a good place to start. It's two feet out

(02:02:19):
in all directions.

Speaker 14 (02:02:21):
Okay, so I just dig up my gumbo, drop the pod,
I take the plant out of the pod, drop it
in and put just pack it back in.

Speaker 2 (02:02:33):
Yeah, all right, I can with one thing. You're you're
going to dig out the gumbo. You're going to put
about three or four inches of organic matter on it
and mix it in real good, and then dig the
hole and plant the plant and and enjoy yourself. There's
one last step back on My advice is free. But
I do expect half the figs you get from that
tree to be delivered to the K T H studio

(02:02:55):
and we'll call it even.

Speaker 7 (02:02:57):
Well.

Speaker 14 (02:02:57):
If I make some jam, bring them, bring a half tie.

Speaker 2 (02:03:01):
I oh man, you know I am kidding you there.
I'm kidding you there. But my mama used to make
a fig jam and she used strawberry jello to do it.
There's a recipe out there for that. But it was
strawberry jam, but it was remade from pigs. It was
good stuff. Thank you, Mac. I appreciate your call. You
take care of Let's go now to Karen and Katie. Hey, Karen,

(02:03:25):
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (02:03:27):
Hey, Skip, how are.

Speaker 2 (02:03:29):
You doing good? Thank you? How can I help?

Speaker 4 (02:03:35):
Okay, I've got the Kina lily that's the red ones
that has prolific rated and spread in my backyard west facing.
When they first started blooming, probably in May, they were gorgeous.
But they're dying and they've got these big lunks of

(02:03:59):
you know, the round nodules, and then they look, you know,
the flowers fade off, And my question is is that normal?
Will they just keep re blooming or am I missing
gutrian or something.

Speaker 2 (02:04:18):
I don't know what's going on there. It's not a
nutrient though. Cannas are tough as a boot. If they
have adequate moisture. They can take a little dryness, but
they can't take living in a desert. They will grow
in almost standing water though, so it's not too much
water that's the problem with them.

Speaker 9 (02:04:38):
Okay, okay, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:04:39):
There are different things that can eat the tops of
a canna and stuff. If it gets absolutely too dry,
you will start to see shriveling and die back and
lack of vigor and all of that. But they're pretty
easy to grow. If you want to send me a picture,
you can send a picture. I'll take another look at
it and make sure there's not something that's not appearing
in my mind's eye. As we're talking.

Speaker 4 (02:04:58):
Okay, okay, but I yeh fine, yeah, I mean they
I've probably planted five and I probably have forty. Now,
it's just that the flowering part, it's not it's not
not doing too good. I thought it might be a

(02:05:19):
repeat flower, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:05:22):
I guess that's my question.

Speaker 4 (02:05:24):
But I'll send you a picture.

Speaker 2 (02:05:27):
Yeah. And they bloom at the top of the stalks.

Speaker 6 (02:05:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:05:31):
Yeah, they bloom at the top of the stalks. So
when a stalk is blooming, you just cut it off
at the ground. New one will come out. But if
you planted five and half forty, you may need to
open Karen's Canna Corner Nursery right there on your street
and show Canadas because it sounds like you're doing something.
All right, Okay, take care, am all right, we got

(02:05:57):
to take a break, folks. When we come back, burning
and need you're the first s up. All right, folks,
we're back. Welcome back to guard Line. Glad to have
you with us this morning. If you got gardening questions,
well we'll be happy to help you with that. Uh
you know the Affordable Tree Mountain Martin Spoon Moore's company.
H they're geared for preparing your trees for storms. But

(02:06:21):
it's not just about storms us. It's about making sure
your trees are beautiful and they're healthy and they do
what you want to tree to do. And what do
you want to tree to do? Maybe you want flowers,
but definitely you probably want shade out of the tree.
Call Martin spoon Moore, have him come out, have him
take a look at it. What he'll do. He's a professional,
he'll assess it. You can call him at seven one

(02:06:41):
three six nine nine two six six three seven one
three six nine nine two six six three. Listen. They've
been caring for trees since nineteen ninety nine. They had
the full service tree Care, full service. So do you
need planting done? Do you need pruning done? Do you
need deep root feeding? Do you need a root barrier?
Do you need stump? Whatever you need, they've got it

(02:07:02):
right now. The topic of the hour is, Hey, it's summer.
We're in hurricane season, We're in summer storm season. You
want your trees to be strong. It takes a long
time to grow a beautiful tree. Don't let a storm
just ruin it. Have Martin come out, sess your tree,
do any printing that's necessary, and give your tree the
best chance it can of continuing to grow big and

(02:07:24):
beautiful and add to the value of your home. Martin
Spoon wore a footable tree seven to one three six
ninety nine two six six three, seven to one three
six nine two six six three. I was thinking about
the other day a while back. I went out, uh
years ago, as a matter of fact, to the property

(02:07:46):
out there in central Texas where a former President Bush
was developing their property that's now there, uh and looking
at the Maximilian sunflowers that they had out there on
the property. And the Maximilian is an awesome sunflower. It
blooms in late summer and fall, and it has tall spikes.
So don't think of the sunflower looking sunflower. They think

(02:08:08):
of something with a very tall stem. I'm six feet
plus tall, and it's got yellow flowers all up and
down it, and it's a perennial. It lives in the ground,
you know, comes back. It loves wet areas. You've got
a wet area, and you want a beautiful native plant
to be up and tall and put on a show
at a time of the year when a lot of
things aren't warming to bloom. Wanting to bloom that Maximium
sunflowers in and they got them at Buchanans' Native Plants.

(02:08:31):
By the way, you can go there they of course,
that's the place where you get all kinds of native plants.
The best selection in the whole region. Absolutely, the best
selection in the whole region is there right at Buchann's
Native Plants. Now, I want to mention something. They have
a program coming up that you don't want to miss.

(02:08:51):
It's next Saturday, July eleventh, from ten to eleven am
at Buchanans Native Plants on Eleventh Street in the Heights.
It's called Native Alternatives for Invasive Plants with Jenna I'll
call it Native Alternative for Evasive Plants. It's free. It's
next Saturday from ten am to eleven am. Swing by

(02:09:12):
there and look at this great plant class. So many
good native options. And if anybody knows natives, it's Bugana's
Native Plants. Best selection anywhere, not just in Houston, but
in our region. We're going to go now out to
Vernon in Nadville. Hey, Vernon, welcome to garden Line. How
can we help?

Speaker 1 (02:09:33):
Yes, sir, did you get my pictures of the fig trees?

Speaker 2 (02:09:38):
I did, yes, I did. So tell me about two turkey.

Speaker 16 (02:09:43):
I've got two brown turkey and two celest and brown
turkey is producing.

Speaker 10 (02:09:47):
I've already got.

Speaker 2 (02:09:48):
Three pounds off of them.

Speaker 16 (02:09:50):
The smallest one is only about two and a half
foot and it's it's just producing a crazy and the
pictures you can see all the.

Speaker 1 (02:09:56):
Little bag on them.

Speaker 16 (02:09:57):
I haven't lost any of the birds just here yet.
But my question it is about the big bush, and
that's a good last. Should I spend that thing out
because it's not producing any fruit at all. I mean,
it's got a few on there, but they're not they're
not growing.

Speaker 2 (02:10:10):
No, now, don't thin it out, just hold off, hold
off on any No, don't worry about that. Veg is fine.
You don't have to do that. All those leaves on
it are making carbohydrates. It's making a bigger, stronger fig
plant that'll be better and more productive even next year
as well. So just leave it. It's fine. It'll settle
down and start growing. Just it looks a little bit

(02:10:31):
over vigorous to me, so I would avoid any future
fertilizing for the rest of the season for sure.

Speaker 12 (02:10:37):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:10:38):
And you know, just moderate amount of water. It's very happy,
but I would just let it settle. In Celeste is
another good fig and it's it's an excellent one to have,
and looks like you're doing a great job growing those plants.

Speaker 16 (02:10:51):
Okay, in that brown turkey, it's it's it's putting off
golf ball sized pigs.

Speaker 2 (02:10:54):
It's it's just unbelievable. Yeah, but I can see that. Yeah,
good chance.

Speaker 16 (02:11:03):
I've got enough question. I got another quick question if
I can real fast about purple holes.

Speaker 2 (02:11:08):
All right, I was getting about.

Speaker 16 (02:11:10):
Talking about a pound and a pound and a half
of shelled purple holes a day off of them, and
now they quit blooming and they're just not producing. I mean,
I'm still getting a half a pound or so, but well,
they are they going to a cycle or should I
do something?

Speaker 2 (02:11:25):
They should start producing again a little bit for you.
There's different varieties and things in these southern peas, like
purple holes, and I have found that sometimes you know,
it could be they get a little droughty or something
like that. They may poddle a while and not not
said as well, but they should continue to produce pretty
good for you. They're not just like producing you know,

(02:11:47):
ten months of the year or anything. But I would
I would give them a little more time and see
if they can settle back in. Watch the extra nitrogen
on them too, because they're a lagoon and they make
their own on the soil.

Speaker 16 (02:11:58):
Okay, jeff a boweman them or just set them move.

Speaker 2 (02:12:03):
No say no bonemeal. Just just watch the nitrogen because
they get pushed and they start doing vining without producing,
and you don't want that. All right, sir, thanks for
your call.

Speaker 9 (02:12:13):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (02:12:16):
You take care. You take care. Superter from Nitroposs nineteen
four ten. The silver bag. How much easier could it get?
It's silver. You stand at the door of the store,
whether it's a feed store, a garden center. I mean
you can get Superter of all kinds of places and
ace hardware stores and you look across the store and
there's a silver bag. Take it home, You put it down,

(02:12:38):
You forget about it. You've done it. You got months
of feeding ready to go already down. You get a
gully washer rain. It's not an immediate release. It'll hang
on to that nitrogen. You want to redo it. It's
good stuff. It works. You can find it at Bearings
Hardware and Bissonette and the bearing's on West Timer as well.
You can find it down in a Chanted Forest too
on FM twenty seven to fifty nine in the Richmond

(02:12:59):
Rosenberg area. Like other night Fast products, it's a good
product and it works. Let's go out to Tumball now
we're going to visit with Mike this morning. Hey Mike,
welcome to garden Line Bick.

Speaker 8 (02:13:09):
Good morning Skip.

Speaker 5 (02:13:11):
I've got a question.

Speaker 8 (02:13:12):
I've had a bed of flowers, well actually uh, shrubs
and things planted in my backyard a couple several weeks ago.
I'm just wondering when I need to start start feeding them.
I know you say that, you know it comes from
the nursery with a lot of fertilizer, but I've been
watering it a lot because of the heat and being

(02:13:32):
that they're newly planted. So just one of the know.

Speaker 2 (02:13:38):
Them. Yeah, about six weeks after most plants have been
in the ground, they're settling in and they're starting You're
seeing the new growth and stuff up on top, and
you can begin fertilizing them.

Speaker 9 (02:13:49):
Then.

Speaker 2 (02:13:50):
Just remember plants, uh take in nutrients every day. Uh,
and so if you fertilize in small doses of a
fast release fertilizer every few weeks, a little dose, a
little dose, a little dose like that. You can do
it that way, or you can put a slow release
down and it'll give you months of gradual release over

(02:14:13):
you know the course of those several months. So there's
not a right or wrong way. You got organic, you
got synthetic options. The idea is just to have a
little extra boost for those plants to be available, because
we do. You have to remember the soil does have
nutrients already in it, and it you know, plants not
going to die if you don't fertilize them immediately. Our goal, though,

(02:14:33):
is to get them to grow fast, to look good,
to produce well, whether that's fruit or flowers or whatever
you want the plant for. And so a modern amount
of nutrients, especially the nitrogen, pushing it along gradually is
your key there.

Speaker 5 (02:14:47):
Mike, Okay, can I use my nineteen four to ten.

Speaker 6 (02:14:52):
To do that?

Speaker 2 (02:14:55):
You could? That would give you several months a silver
bag from nitrophoss. You could do that. Yeah, and remember
this too, and everybody listening, we you know, we talk
about plant food plant foods, and we say, well, this
is a lawn food or this is a tomato food
or whatever. And yeah, there are certain ratios that are
a little helpful like that, but plants appreciate nutrients, and

(02:15:16):
I've used a lawn fertilizer on so many different kinds
of plants. I mean, it's fine, you can do that.
Does that mean you only buy lawn fertilizer for everything? No,
it doesn't. But isn't it. There's no problem. You know,
if it's got a good ratio of nutrients, you're going
to have good success with whatever you want to you
want to put it on.

Speaker 8 (02:15:36):
Okay, Yeah, I've got plenty of that left over from
my last lawn feeding, so I'll use that.

Speaker 2 (02:15:44):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (02:15:44):
Well, thank you for your help.

Speaker 5 (02:15:45):
Appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (02:15:48):
You bet, thank you for the call, and good luck
up there and tumble with your success. You're fortunate be
up there and have some great garden centers just outside
the front door, basically up there in the tom Ball,
Texas area. Yeah, that's super Turf. The nineteen four to
ten from Night Foss is very very good product works.

(02:16:08):
You can get a lot of ACE Hardware stores too,
And remember with ACE Hardware, we've got my Texas Ace
Hardware Group, ACE Hardware Texas dot Com. You can find
the store that you want in your area. You know,
you don't have to drive to timbuck I to find
an ACE hardware store. You can basically go outside and
throw a rock and probably reach one from where you live.

(02:16:29):
Stores like jn R's up in Porter, Texas, or K
and M. There's one in a Tascasita and Timber Forest
one in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive. You've got your plantation
ace down there southwest of Houston in the Richmond Rosenberg
area on Mason Road. Go a lot further southwest down
to Wharton, Texas. You got a Wharton feed and Ace.
That's a great store. Went and visited a good while

(02:16:51):
back out there Cyprus Ace on Jones Road on northwest Houston.
I used to live just down the street from and
went to Cyper all the time. And Brenna Mace of
North Austin Parkway. Maybe down in fullsher Fullsher's Ace on
three fifty nine in Fullshire or Hardware City on Memorial
Drive West. Was there at Bombing's store a good while

(02:17:13):
back for a visit. It's an excellent store. League City
Ace on West League City Parkway down southeast. I know
I'm giving you a lot of stores. Just go to
Ace Hardware Texas. Don't forget Texas dot Com. Find your
local Ace Hardware store. It is summer and it is
time to turn that outside into beautiful evenings of entertaining.

(02:17:33):
When the sun's gone down and it's safe to go
outside again. Get your barbecue pits, get your tools, get
your string of lights to turn that paty onto something
just really special for great ambience at your local Ace
Hardware store. We're gonna take a little break here, turn
it over to Erica for the news. Don't go away,
We'll be right back. We've got thirty minutes left in
guard line. Uh, let's talk about gardening. Seven one three

(02:17:57):
two one two five eight seven four. There's the number
if you would like to visit. You know, my mantra
is brown stuff before green stuff. I know that probably
get tired of hearing me say that, but it is
the truth. It is the truth. Don't PLoP a poor
plant into an unprepared plot. Give it some good soil,
give it a foundation, and the plant will make you

(02:18:17):
look good. And that starts off by getting good quality
soil from a place like the ground up, the ground up. Oh,
by the way, oh, my gosh, the ground Up is
having an incredible two hundred and fifty anniversary of the
US anniversary sale at all the ground up locations, All
ground up locations, the ground up locations. So where do

(02:18:40):
you find the ground up Well, there's the Brentmore location
on Bretmore Road, There's a wind Fern location kind of
up toward the racetrack on wind Fern Road not too
far off Belt Wag eight, and the west Park location
which is on FM ten ninety three. All locations are
having this sale. But listen to me, please stop, stop
what you're doing. They are loaded up on hardwood mulch

(02:19:02):
quality blended hardwood. It's the stuff that you want to
put on top of the ground that looks good and
that is so easy. It's the best rising I've ever seen.
It's amazing. But it's a composted double screen hardwood multch
got that wonderful earthy sweet smell. It starts off at
two twenty five a bag. That's crazy. You buy twelve bags.

(02:19:25):
Last you buy thirteen plus bags. It's less all locations
and they have about zillion bags of the stuff. They're
ready to go. You know you need to melch, you
need to mulch all year, especially in this heat of summer.
Don't make yourself have to pull weeds, block sunlight wherever
sunlight hits the soil, nature plants of weed. Get out

(02:19:47):
there to the ground Up on the best deal I've
ever seen and get you these bags of double screened, composted,
shreaded hardwood mulch at all of their three locations. And
we're going to be We're gonna be going all the
way through through July on this sale. But don't delight.
You know, supplies last, so get stuff out there. Lots

(02:20:09):
of other good things. You know, you can get tools,
You can get fertilizers including days and I and things
at the ground Up at the Brent Moore and the
West Park location. Uh, you just need to get out
there and do it. Go to the website and learn
more about this the ground up dot com the ground
Up dot Com. We are now going to go to

(02:20:29):
East Houston and talk to Steve. Hello Steve, Welcome to Gardenline.

Speaker 17 (02:20:34):
Hi.

Speaker 5 (02:20:34):
Skip.

Speaker 10 (02:20:35):
Yeah, I had some newly planted Japanese you bushes back
here in I guess well probably February, and I wanted
kind of fertilizers should I put on them. I have
put on Microlife, and I just wanted to get another

(02:20:56):
thought from you.

Speaker 2 (02:20:59):
Yeah, Microlife. Microlife's an excellent fertilizer and they have a
number of different ones, and to be honest, on the
trees and shrubs. They have a fruit tree fertilizer that's
good for any kind of tree. It doesn't have to
just be fruit trees for it. But they also have
their standard lawn fertilizer, the green bag, and that would
be fine for Japanese you because the green you know,

(02:21:20):
just like lawns, we're trying to push green growth, so
the lawns dense and pretty. With a Japanese you, you're
trying to push green growth so that it's a nice
dense tree slash hedge for you. And so the Microlife
Green Bag all Purpose sixty four would be just fine.
Or you could use their citrus and fruit fertilizer the
sixty four that's an orange bag. Either one would do

(02:21:42):
just fine. What I would do is I would put
about three cups of Microlife per inch of trunk diameter,
and I would do that about every six weeks going
through this first season all the way up until the
end of August and then stop there to let things
slow down a little bit for fall and winter.

Speaker 10 (02:22:02):
Okay, yeah, and these are these were fifteen gallon rootball. Yeah,
the root balls were fifteen fifteen gallon, So that would
and so that would be how many.

Speaker 2 (02:22:17):
Now let me let me ask you this, Steve, how
long ago did you plan them? Say that again?

Speaker 10 (02:22:23):
This was back in January or February of this year.

Speaker 2 (02:22:27):
Okay. Yeah. So I generally with an organic microlife fertilizer,
if you've got a tree or shrub, if you can
give it about three cups for every inch of trunk diameter. Now,
with a nude plant like this, this doesn't have the
expanded root system that it will next year, in the
year after and the year after, So I might go

(02:22:49):
a little lighter and a little more less often in
an area about you know, two feet out from the
trunk in all directions for this year, and then as
you expand it out you can increase and so on.
But you're not going to burn them. With microlife, it'll
be just fine, and your plants will will do very
very well. Your number one thing on those Japanese us
if you want them to grow fast, is keep the

(02:23:10):
weeds away and water when we have drought without rain. Well,
of course that's yes, yes, yeah, I spells in the
heat of the stalk.

Speaker 10 (02:23:20):
Yeah yeah, I've lost some of the stalks on some
of them, but by and large their their foot they've
done very well. And okay, I also all right, I'm
gonna I also, I'm sorry, okay, thank you, skip.

Speaker 2 (02:23:37):
Yes, thank you. Sorry, I'm having to run here on that. Well,
good luck with that callback Steve too. On your other question,
be happy to visit with that. Plants for all seasons?
Which is the garden center been around since an early
nineteen seventies, right there were Tomball Parkway and Lueta come
together just north of Luetta on Tomball Parkway. Awesome garden center.

(02:23:58):
You're going to find expertise, You're going to find the
knowledge you need. Of course, you're going to find the
plants that want to grow here. These folks have been
doing this. They are gardeners in your area, and they
know what to do, they know how to do it.
And I just want to mention you know, there's vines
that go vertically, you know, like the word vine would infer.
But there's also vines that go horizontally. Then we call

(02:24:21):
those groundcovers, or we call them spillers coming out of
the top of a pot, creeping jenny as little round
leaves and kind of a shartruse color shartrush green green,
yellow color, very pretty, coming out of a container and
hanging down, are crawling along the top of the ground.
There's vines like the potato vines. Potato vines are literally
a sweet potato basically, but it's an ornamental type that's

(02:24:44):
very pretty. Again, it could come out of a pot,
on the side of a pot and look good. I've
seen them used for groundcovers in areas that get good sun.
They do want sun for that kind of vine. The
silvery color of dichondra, the waterfall look of just silver
spilling out of the top of a container. So beautiful.

(02:25:06):
They've got it. All their plants for all seasons and
much much much more. You need to get out there
check them out. Here's the phone number two eight one, three, seven, six,
sixteen forty six Plants for all Seasons dot com. We're
going to go now to fortneches and talk to Steve
this morning. Hello Steve, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (02:25:27):
Hello Skip, thank you.

Speaker 17 (02:25:29):
I got a question about an ash tree I planted
at about twenty years ago, and I was wondering if
it's typical that these things have a real low root.
You know, it seems like there's a lot of surface
roots on this tree. Is that typical for this kind
of tree?

Speaker 2 (02:25:47):
Yeah, they can do that. What happens is a root
steve goes along underneath the surface, let's say, as an
inch or two below the surface of the soil, and
it's the size of spaghetti, and then it grows the
size of a pencil and the size of a golf ball,
and then thing you know, it's of a softball. And
by then it's pushing out in all directions. But the
water's washing dirt off the top of it as it

(02:26:09):
rains and things. And now you got this piece of
wood sticking up for running over with lawnmars. You got
a couple of options. You can add a little bit
of soil gradually, about an inch at a time, season
by season over time, to bring that soil level up
around the roots so you don't have the trip hazard
and the mowing hazard. Or at some point you can
turn an area into a landscaped bed in the shade

(02:26:33):
underneath that tree where you would put some shrubs or vines,
vining ground covers or things in and you would just
mulch around it. And basically you're hiding the surface roots
by just planting over them and around them and things
like that. But as far as cutting them off, if
you take one root a year out, it could be done,

(02:26:54):
but it's not good for the tree. It does affect
its stability. Obviously, you're cutting an anchoring room on that tree,
so when a storm comes, it's not quite as resilient
as it was. I like to avoid it, but if
you have to do it, I wouldn't do more than
one root in a year.

Speaker 5 (02:27:09):
Okay.

Speaker 17 (02:27:10):
Now, when you say one inch at a time, you're
talking about depth of soil.

Speaker 2 (02:27:15):
Yeah, yeah, you know you could actually do two inches
at a time, but we're just talking about gradually. You
go in there and you drop three or four inches
on the ground, and that's going to change the oxygen
level in the root system because basically you're burying those
roots deeper instantly when you drop that soil down. So
you need to be able to avoid that by doing

(02:27:35):
it in small doses over time, so you live with
the service roots a little bit as you gradually bring
the soil level up.

Speaker 17 (02:27:44):
My brother told me there's some sort of device you can,
like a deep water root system that'll make those roots
go deeper.

Speaker 9 (02:27:51):
Is that is that a factor?

Speaker 7 (02:27:52):
Is that just.

Speaker 2 (02:27:55):
That's that's incorrect. The roots are where they are, and
that rooty hasn't moved since it grew. It just got
bigger in diameter. So something that was the size of
spaghetti that was two inches deep now is sticking up
above the ground. But the route didn't come to the surface.
It just expanded and grew bigger. So now it's showing
above the surface. Yeah, and nothing will make them go down.

(02:28:17):
Thank you, Thank you so much, Jim, Thank you, sir,
you bet, thanks for the call, sir. All right, folks,
we've got one more segment left. Here's the number seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. Will
be right back. Hey, folks, appreciate you being with us today.
We're going to be back tomorrow morning six to ten am,
so tune on in. Tell your friends and neighbors about
Garden Line, by the way, and they don't even have

(02:28:39):
to live here. We got people who had a caller
from Denver this morning, so we'll be happy to visit
with folks about gardening questions that they might have now.
D and D Feed up in Tomball is that hometown
feed service, that a feedstore that you just love to
go to. It's top quality seat feeds of all types,
top quality fertilizers too. From a landscape standpoint, a gardening standpoint,

(02:29:02):
Dandy Feeds a great stop. It's you know, like Nyphos
fertilizers or Nelson fertilizers, or Microlive or Aisamide or Medeena
are all those brands you hear me talk about here
on Guardline. Dandie Feed's got you covered. And then when
it comes to pest, weeds and diseases, they carry products
that are hard to find elsewhere. They have an excellent

(02:29:23):
selection of all kinds of things, and they know how
to advise you on what to use. Maybe you're looking
for a firet bait. They have several bait options that
are high tech. They work very very well, whether it's
organic or synthetic. Dand Feed They've got you covered. Dandy
Feed and Tumble They're on twenty nine to twenty just
west of town. Twenty nine to twenty just west of town,

(02:29:44):
right up there and outside of Tumbull, Texas, so go buy,
stop in see them, and remember when it comes to
seasons for buying baby chicks and things, they do get
those in seasonally, and their selection is better than any
I've ever seen anywhere, Absolutely better than any I've ever
seen everwear anywhere. Excuse me for that. Fix my side

(02:30:05):
foundation repair, Tye trick Aline. I talk about it all
the time, and I know people are probably thinking things like, well,
I don't have cracks in my foundation. Okay, well maybe
you don't, but they can certainly come in and check
things out. Because if you see cracks in the brick
or in the sheet rock inside, something's moving. And here
in Houston we got clay soil that when it gets
wettish wells, when it gets dry, shrinks, and here comes

(02:30:29):
problems that sidewalk that foundation. Do you know they can
float a sidewalk or a A said foundation, I meant
to say driveway. Your driveway's cracked and broken. They can
draw holes through it and float it up with some
substances that firm up and make your old, falling apart
driveway like you can use it again. It looks good,

(02:30:52):
it's ready to go. Do you need your foundation stabilization done?
Do you need to have inspections done. Call tied. Let
me tell you I like about ty Strickland and D
and D or excuse me, foundation repair with fix my
slab they show up on time. How many service people
actually show up when they tell you that Ty will Uh,

(02:31:12):
they fix it right. You're not gonna have somebody come
in and fix a mess somebody else created. Fix my
slabs professionals. They do it right. And that here's the
most one of the most important things about it is
they charge you a fair price.

Speaker 6 (02:31:28):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:31:28):
Nobody wants to have foundation problems. Don't be an ostrich
and stick your head in the sand. Call Tye. Bring
him out there. He's gonna treat your right. It's gonna
be reasonable, and he's gonna do things exactly like they
need to be done. Say the headaches, fix myslab dot com.
Fix myslab dot com. Let's go out now to Tomball

(02:31:50):
and talk to John this morning. Hey John, welcome to
Gardan morning.

Speaker 9 (02:31:54):
Thank you, Skiff. I got a quick, silly question, probably Uh.
I only had four tomato plants to determine it to indeterminate, well,
I pulled them out because is it too hot right
now for them to really do much of anything.

Speaker 2 (02:32:12):
Well, the slicer types of tomatoes they quit setting fruit
well when the days are in the nineties and the
nights are in the upper seventies. They have problems with that,
and so yes for them. The grape type tomatoes and
the cherry types of tomatoes tend to set fruit better

(02:32:33):
in the heat. Although in the heat the skin gets
pretty tough. And like I say, it's kind of like
you pop one in your mouth. It tastes wonderful, but
then you end up spitting out some red cellifhane that
was the skin tomato. So summer's hard on all tomatoes.
But now's the time to plant for fall. And I

(02:32:53):
just I'll tell you this. You're up in Tombol, Beverly
at Arburgates got a bunch of new tomato plants in.
They got their fall shipments in already, and so you
could pull these old ones out along with the spider
mites or leaf diseases or any other issues you have,
and get you a new set going. Maybe leave some
of the grape types because they do keep setting uh.
And then your fall crop needs to get in now

(02:33:16):
if it's going to have time to grow the tomato
and set fruit when the temperatures break enough for them
to be able to set fruit again.

Speaker 9 (02:33:25):
Awesome, that was my next question. Okay, you answered my questions.
Givetive this morning. Thank you sir.

Speaker 2 (02:33:33):
All right now now now John, you know the rules
on guarden Line. That was free advice. But I liked
fall tomatoes. So if you'll deliver me half of your produce,
we'll call it even. Here we go, Thank you, Skip,
Here we go, Bye bye. Someday that's going to get
old to me. It's probably already old to you. But anyway,

(02:33:55):
humor myself when my kids were When my kids were young,
it's like I could rule the room with the corniest
dad jokes in the world, Like here's a Houston joke.
What an astronauts eat for lunch? Launch meat sandwiches, of course.
And then they became about ten years old, and my

(02:34:17):
jokes caused the eyes to roll, the heads to shake,
and them to walk out of the red free dad jokes. Yeah,
not interested. Hey, you've been great to talk to you
today on garden Line. We'll going to be back tomorrow
morning six to ten am. Don't forget my website, Gardening
with Skip dot com. We are still adding more stuff

(02:34:38):
up there, lots of good free information. It's a new
design and you can see all my sponsors on the website.
Go to gardening with skip dot com and look at
my sponsor MOUP. You can click on them. You don't
see all the feed stores, all the garden centers, all
the wet edd They're right there, and it's really All
of these hardware stores are up there too,