The Plant Transportation Situation

Skip Richter Answers your questions all morning long!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's the basis, the basis and gas.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
They can use a shrimp.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
You just watch him as wol got.

Speaker 4 (00:16):
Grasses and gas?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Can you ver as many takes the soup up basic
in the bay the grasses like gas by can you date?
Sascobs back chicking?

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Not a sound the glassy, said gas and.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
The sun themon of a tweets in the grasses like gas?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Baby?

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Can you jam.

Speaker 5 (00:43):
First?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Starting and treating the basses like gas?

Speaker 6 (00:48):
Can you?

Speaker 7 (00:49):
Dad?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Everything is so clean and see and every thing here Sundays.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Well, good morning morning gardners. Hey guess what I'm live?
If not, I'm alive too. But hey, you've been listening
to a couple of what we call best of shows
from the past, and thanks for hanging with us. See that.
I hope you enjoyed those. If you have a question today,
well as usual, we're back live so you can give

(01:34):
me a call. I've gotten some emails from people going, hey,
when can I call or email? Or now now's the time?
Seven one three, two, one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four
What do you want to talk about. We can visit
about the things that are of most interest to you.
That's kind of what we try to do here. I
want this show to be one where you are the

(01:58):
let's say, driver of the topic. I know a lot
of times I'll and I'll do that this morning. I'll
bring up some topics that are of interest to me
that I happen to know are of interest to a
lot of listeners. Because I've been doing this a long time,
and I can pretty much tell you the kind of
questions we get each month of the year just from
answering those questions over first of all, a thirty five
year career with Texas A and m Arolife Extension Service

(02:20):
as a horticulturist, and now time on a couple of
different radio shows. As I've gone through my career, and
same kinds of things come in. Looks like we kind
of dodged a bullet on some cold weather. A little
while back. I looked, and it's like upper parts of
the listening area we're going to get down in the
mid to upper thirties, and now it seems to be

(02:43):
getting a little bit on the warmer side. So I'm
not super concerned about a frost or certainly not a
freeze as a result of that. But it's going to
be a little chilly. And of course we've got our
tropical plants that do not like even chili, that is
the way they are. They kind of putarticular about that.
We are fortunate here in the Greater Houston area to

(03:05):
live in a climate that is warm enough. We're far
enough south to where we can grow a lot of
things that you cannot grow in other areas. Even well,
even as you move through the listening area, those of
you up in Huntsville compared to those of you down
in Galveston, there's a little bit difference there, and so

(03:26):
we need to take advantage of the things we get
to enjoy being able to grow here. Tropicals is one
of those things, you know, if you're willing to protect
your plants, you can grow a lot of things down
in our climate here. I've got people to grow avocados.
That's a that's a pretty cold tender plant. And so
what you have to do is just make sure you're

(03:49):
ready to give them protection or take a good hit
every now and then. Now that's avocados are not again
for Conroe and College Station and Brenham and all those places.
But if you get down further south, I know some
folks that have them a corner of the house protected spot,
and they just do pretty darn well. Avocado wants to
be a giant tree, and it's not going to be

(04:10):
a giant tree here, at least not for long. There'll
be a winter that comes along takes it back, but
you can't enjoy it. Well, we got an early bird today,
so I'm gonna go out to the phones here and
we're going to talk to Clint from Galveston. Wello Clint,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (04:26):
Hey, good, thank you for taking what I'm doing. Yes, sir, yeah,
I had a question. I'm not tying to fertilize down
here before, like in March, but I was thinking about
to spread out some Barry Kaye herb beside in late January,
so or you had a good time to do that.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
Actually you can. You know, it is hard for us
to predict exactly what the weather's going to do in
different parts of our area. And those of you done
in Galveston, I mean you can you can have weeds,
seeds sprouting in the winter just because you know, you
get a little warm spell and weeds don't care about

(05:09):
what the calendar says. They care about what the temperature is.
And so if you wanted to get a head start
and make sure you're ahead of those things, yes, a
January application would be just fine. In fact, if you
look at my schedule, I start in mid January with
the pre emergent green light, you know, go for it.

Speaker 8 (05:30):
And so yes, yeah, that's why I told because it's
been it's been extra pretty warm.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, it sure has.

Speaker 9 (05:40):
You know, it's not the usual cold January.

Speaker 10 (05:43):
But right that, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yes, sir, I appreciate your call. Thanks. You're the first
caller of twenty twenty six, so I don't know if
there's an award for that, but congratulations.

Speaker 9 (05:58):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 8 (05:59):
I listen to every well.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
I appreciate that. Thank you very much. You take care. Yes,
let's talk about that schedule a little bit. If you
go online to my website that is gardening with Skip
dot com, Gardening with Skip dot com, that's me, we
garden together here on the air, and you look for

(06:23):
the publications there or is a publication on my lawn
care guide. That particular publication for those of you are
fairly new to garden line. That is my lawn care schedule,
and it basically talks about fertilizing, mowing, watering, air raiding,
micronutrient applications, etc. And so those things are on one schedule.

(06:45):
It goes from January to December, tells you exactly what
to do and the products that I would recommend at
that time, and they do evolve through the year in
many cases. The other schedule, the one we were just
referring to with Clint, that is the lawn pest, disease
and weed management schedule. The way I like to say
it is it's the first one is how to grow along.

(07:06):
The second one is what goes wrong with the lawn.
And so it has a line again January through December.
The various insects that we may encounter in our lawns,
the various diseases we may encounter, the weeds, that things
we do to prevent weeds and that the weeds, and
things we do to kill existing weeds are all on

(07:27):
there on that schedule. And again at the bottom are
the various products that I would suggest as being excellent
choices for managing some of these problems. Now there is
an organic section, and there is a synthetic section. So
whichever way you want to go, there is a section
there that provides you some guidance for that. I'd like

(07:48):
to let's see here. I'm gonna wait until a little
bit later in the show to talk about some post
emergent weed control concepts and thoughts that I want you
to keep in mind. Just stay tuned for that. We're
going to be coming back to it. But if you
will go to the website Gardening with Skip dot com.
You can print these out, or you can look at
them on your computer. You can look at them on

(08:09):
your phone if you want to. They're ready to go
right there on the website. Uh, excuse me. In my lawn,
I'm noticing that. First of all, it's been the doggum
warm that I'm seeing. I'm seeing, even in the case
of the lawns, a little bit of growth. And let

(08:29):
me take a little break here. When I come back,
I want to talk a little bit about what I've
been noticing in the area lawns and therefore some things
we may want to keep in mind. We'll be right back.

Speaker 11 (08:40):
Well, good morning, I guess what we got coming up
here in Houston? That's a little rodeo going on. It's
not yet, it's coming. That's for Riley Green.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
She's going to be Night one special guests. Those of
you here fans of Riley, go ahead and get those
tickets for time to do that. Say, let's go straight
out to the phones. Here, give me just one second
and we're going to talk to Marianne from Friends with Hey, Mariann,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (09:14):
Good morning.

Speaker 10 (09:15):
I think I'll send my speaker room.

Speaker 13 (09:16):
Did I get it off?

Speaker 3 (09:19):
It is? It sounds good? Now? Yes? Can you hear me?

Speaker 14 (09:22):
Okay, yes, I sent you pictures of tomatoes. Can you
tell me what bug may have eaten that?

Speaker 3 (09:31):
All right, let me take a look here. I'm having
to open them up out of the That is a
caterpillar did that, and it is probably called the tomato
fruit worm, which is a caterpillar that has more aliases
than a convict on the run. The tomato fruit worm

(09:54):
is also called the tobacco budworm, and it's also called
the corn air worm. So basically it's a low caterpillar.
It feeds on the leaves and then it goes down
to your fruit and drills a hole in the fruit.
And if you open them up, you should find a
caterpillar inside. Once they're in the fruit, there's nothing to do.
Plus the fruit already destroyed. But if you first start

(10:16):
to see signs of them or a little caterpillar in
the leaves, it won't be very noticeable, like the tomato
hornworm is so noticeable. But if you see the first sign,
you need to spray the fruit and the leaves with
the product to control caterpillars. Now, bt, this is the organic, safe,
safest choice you can use, but it only lasts an

(10:38):
or two out there, so you end up spraying a
lot in order to have that protection extended over a
few weeks. Spinose said. Is products that contain spin o said,
like spin the letter O and SAD. They last a
little bit longer and they'll control caterpillars. Stup. But again,

(10:58):
you want to spray the foliage and especially the fruit
because they'll ridge a little bit, and so that way
you shut them down wherever they're they're starting.

Speaker 13 (11:09):
Okay, I appreciate it, Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
All right, you bet, thank you appreciate the call.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
Okay, good bye, here we are, here we are with
caterpillars already appearing out there.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Boy, these are these are some holy tomatoes. That looks like, oh,
I should have asked Marianne. That looks like, oh gosh,
what is the name tiger? Tiger? Is it tiger? I'm
trying to name the variety anyway. It's got stripes, green
and green stripes on it. Uh, that's a good old
variety too. Well, let's see we were what was I

(11:44):
talking about the lawn before I went to break there
just a moment ago. Uh, I've noticed in my lawn
that weeds are that are here and there are actively growing,
and so is the bermuda grass and normally in the
winter goes fairly dormant. In fact, this is an interesting thing.

(12:06):
But if you have like a golf course, or if
you have a golf course on a golf course, if
you need to kill weeds, golf courses are essentially big
bermuda patches. If you need to kill weeds in the
winter time, they can spray something that would normally kill
bermuda grass, and it won't because the bermuda grass is

(12:29):
that dormant. I like, they'll use a product like life
usate here and there to kill some weeds, or they
can and the bermuda grass is not really affected. Boy,
you spray that during the growing season and will kill
bermuda grass and a heartbeat, and so that's kind of interesting.
But I noticed I have a xeon Zoisia lawn. One
of my lawn areas is xeon Zoisia and the bermuda.

(12:54):
This is kind of a large type bermuda, not a
golf course green type bermuda. It just sticks out different
color than bigger blade. Bigger blades to the leaves and
so on. And I just now I'm seeing these bermuda spots,
but I'm they're actually happy. I'm growing. They're not going
to be happy now the temperatures dropped down a little

(13:14):
bit more, but boy, they were happy a couple of
days ago. And it just reminded me that we've got
that activity going on out there in the lawn. And
when you get weeds mixed in a lawn sometimes it
leaves you with not a lot of great options for
spraying control and then for digging. You know, there's no
way I'm going to successfully dig a bermuda weed out

(13:35):
of a zois lawn. I mean, technically, could you dig
it and follow it down and get all the pieces
maybe after a try or two, and your lawn would
look like while hogs came in and rooted it up overnight.
So that's not a real great option. And this selective
herbicides that are available to homeowners, they're not a great

(13:55):
option there either. There are some commercial angles that they
can take, but anyway, so what I end up having
to do is take those. In this case, bermuda crawling
across the top of my Saint Augustine now and put
something underneath it and just brush on my weed wiper
works pretty good, but you'd got to be real careful

(14:17):
because bermuda doesn't stick up or the weed wiper can
grab it without getting the chemical onto the lawn itself,
which would also kill the lawn that you might use
until you get down on hands and knees. I emailed
with someone over the holidays and my weed wiper, which
again go online, go to the garden line my web

(14:39):
page skip rickter excuse me gardening with skip dot com
and you'll think see how to build a weed wiper
And that's one that's made out of something about three
feet long that you can stand up with a cup
of coffee in one hand, walk out on a Sunday
morning and Saturday morning whenever you're out and just reach
underneath that rosebush and get something that you can wipe

(15:01):
it on the weed but not on the rosebush. And
it's a good way to selectively control that fell I
was visiting with over holiday. We were talking about using
like a pair of tongs, Like there's real cheap tongs
that you use for the kitchen, you know, not real
fancy expensive ones with rubber tips and all that, Just

(15:22):
little metal tongs. Putting a sponge on each side of that.
Now you're in your hands and knees. But you could
lift a weed up, lay something under it and kind
of wipe it with that, and that works pretty good.
But you got to do it when the weed's actively growing.
And what all this rambling has amounted to is not
right now because the bermuda grass is with this cool

(15:43):
weather is kind of shutting down, and you need it
to not be You need it to be actively growing.
Anytime you're going to spray weed that is in your lawn,
in your flower beds and anywhere, if that weed is
not actively growing, you're not going to get the same results.
Be cold that has them suppressed and not growing. Now

(16:04):
that's the warm season weeds and the cool weather are
not actively growing. Cool season weeds are, or it could
be drought stress.

Speaker 15 (16:12):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
You know, there are a lot of things that can
stress a weed, but once it is just kind of
sitting there and maybe about looking like it's about half sick.
Not because it's so stressed, you're not going to get
good results with anything that you use. So, uh, this
may sound funny, but there are times in the summertime
when things are stressed and whatnot that I'll go out
and water and water the weeds. Get those weeds perked

(16:35):
up and growing, because then they will take whatever you
put on them in and it'll be more effective, more
effective results. So just something to think about. If you
have a question you'd like to ask this morning. Seven
to one three two one two five eight seven four
seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
It's a I can tell you this. This weekend's gonna

(16:57):
be a good time to call. We're starting to creep
out of the wintertime into the springtime in the coming month,
and so call levels a little lower. It's easy to
get through. Some of you have tried in the past
to call and you know, very busy and king have
trouble getting through. Well, now's a good time. If you
have a question, you'd like to do that, So out

(17:20):
and about in the yard. I've got these cypress trees.
I don't know if any of you have cypress trees,
but that is a tree, and the way I like
to put it, is a tree that I love and hate.
I love the look of the tree. It's beautiful. I
love the strength of the tree, good strong wood, not
prone to breaking like some trees can be. Good wide

(17:44):
branch angles. I love that. I love the feathery foliage,
a very different look in the landscape. I love the
shade that they cast. Let's see what else do I
love about them. I love that they if you have
a soggy, wet spot, they'll grow. And some trees are like, hey,
I got to have oxygen for my roots and cypress,
or hey, hold my beer and watch this. I mean,

(18:05):
they'll grow in a swamp, and they they're very they're
very good for all of those things. But when the
soil is very wet, especially, they will start setting, sending
their knees up. And what a knee is, it's a
projection that comes up off the roots above the soil
high enough for your lawn more blade to chop the

(18:26):
top off of it. And it's frustrating. You run across
it and you trip kids run across a barefoot, and
those little knee knobs sticking up or really hurt your foot.
You know, it's just like you stepped on a golf ball.
And so I'm not crazy about that. And I have
hauled when I put my lawns in the front. I
put a lawn in the front the side in the

(18:47):
back parts of my yard, and I hauled.

Speaker 6 (18:50):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
I think it was three wheelbarrows of cypress knees that
I grubbed out of my yard so that I could
put the lawn down. And here I'm they're already star
to come back up again. I don't like that about them.
I wish I could change that. But there are some
cypress that don't do that. A manta zuma cypress. Mantazuma
cypress is a great one if you want to see.

(19:13):
Manta zuma can get very large in time. It is
somewhat cold tender. So for those of you listening to
me that are in the northern parts of the listening area,
you might want to check on the cold heartiness for
your area of it, because it's not cold hardy up
in Waco, for example, but anyway down here it does

(19:35):
good and it's not a knee producing type of cypress.
For fun, go online and look for the tool tree.
Tool is spelled tul E stun in Mexico. I think
it's an osaka. Anyway, tool tul e tree, and take
a look at it and find a picture with a

(19:55):
person in the picture. This tree is the size of
a house. It is the width of the truck. Crazy big,
crazy big. Now it's not gonna get that bag here,
but it's a good one. So there are alternatives. I've
been talking with some folks that had brought some cypress
back from China that are not knee producing as well,
and hopefully we'll get those things in the market and

(20:16):
I can run barefoot through my yard once again. All right,
let's take a little break here and we will be
back with your calls at seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four?

Speaker 9 (20:26):
Who can tell me?

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Who can tell me who that is riding the rains?
Once more? Bee, if you grow up total during the
time of the Singing Cowboys, Roy Rogers, I the only
guys right back in the saddle again. Yeah, that is

(20:49):
another time, that's for sure. If you ever get a
chance to go back and watch one of those, you
have to. It's just part of part of TV history.
Pretty cool stuff. Back in that day. You can always
tell the good guys from the bad guys because they
wore different colored hats. You know, bad guys had big
old white cowboy hats and then good guys and bad

(21:09):
guys always are like snarling people that just you know,
they made really clear you knew who was about, and
they wore a black hat, so you knew who to
shoot at behind that rock in box canyon, right, Yeah,
different kind of TV. Hey, welcome back to Guardline. Good
to have you with us. I don't know why I'm
talking about old westerns, but that's what we're doing right now.

(21:31):
We talk about a lot of things here. If you
got a question about plants, give me a call. Seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight to seventy four.
This during the holidays, are actually a little after the holidays.
I was out in Yuma, Arizona. Do you may know
where Yuma, Arizona is it's wee south in Arizona. You

(21:54):
can throw a rock and hit California, and you can
throw another rock and hit Mexico from you. They are
right there anyway. That is where almost all the winter
romaine lettuce has grown. I mean some estimates are like
ninety percent. Like if you go to the store right
now and you buy lettuce romain, not just any lettuce,
but Romain lettuce, that is huge feelds of it. I

(22:17):
just got a lot of great pictures and a lot
of other things that grew there. But the temperature just
doesn't change. Now in summer you might can melt asphalt.
It is hot as a pistol there. But in the
cool season, you know, it gets up. I don't know.
We had days that hit seventy five, maybe eighty on
one day, almost eighty, but usually set load of mid seventies.

(22:40):
And then in the night times it was only you know,
in the low sixties and so maybe up fifties, upper fifties.
But lettuce was very happy for a long time. And
boy they have the zillions of acres of it. Trucks
going everywhere all the time. Also lemons there. Now, why
am I telling you all about you. Well, that's what
I did. It was interesting to me. I really enjoyed it.

(23:01):
It's kind of interesting to see how in our modern
food systems now we have we have food being grown
all over the place at different times of the year.
Of course, we're bringing in from other countries too, So
in the middle of summertime, you know, you got apples
in the store, and that's not when apple's ripen here,
but they storm and cold storage. But you got the

(23:22):
Southern hemisphere, so there's a lot of a lot of
variation like that. Well, enough of that kind of comment.
Let's do this. Let's go back out to the phones
and we're going to visit now with Mike from Willis. Hello, Mike,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (23:38):
Yeah, yeah, Skiff, I've been doing some major pruney now.
I've got about, you know, forty trees for trees, and I.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Think I got a blight problem.

Speaker 16 (23:49):
But anyway, it's should what kind of be sprayed? Should
I be spraying with copper right now? After I prune him?

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Well, it depends on the tree, and it depends on
what you're going after. Mike. When you say blight, can
you what what kinds of friod do we talking about?
And what are the symptoms? You're saying.

Speaker 16 (24:12):
There's apples, peaches, pears. What it is? It's kind of
a black. The bark comes real black and cut them
in it you can see it dead and parts of
it's still green.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
Okay. When you say dead, you're talking about the bark
dead or the tree looks sections look dead.

Speaker 16 (24:39):
Well, when you start pruning the tree, you can see
where you have some real black spots on that on
the bark, and when you cut them, it's dead. You
just keep going back until you find green.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
I got you, Okay. So that's a that is a
trunk tinker that's doing that. And there there's not a
spray for those. There's nothing you put on. You know,
you spray on the outside and it goes in and
kills the disease inside. You do definitely want to sterilize
your pruners between cuts.

Speaker 17 (25:11):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
And I know with forty you said forty fruit trees,
that's a lot. That's a that's a pain. But you
can do it two ways. What I used to do
is take just buy a little cheap pint of of
ninety percent alcohol and cut the top off and then
just you know, hold the hold that in one hand,
just dip the prunters in it while you go around cutting,

(25:33):
and then dip it between cuts. Some people use liesol
spray and they spray the prunters with that because those
those kinkers, when you make a cut, you get you
get the disease organism on the prunters, and then when
you make the next cut, you introduce it to that
new new spot. And so you want to be real
careful with pruning on that. You know, as far as

(25:55):
copper sprays, copper sprays will so go ahead.

Speaker 16 (26:01):
Do you ever after you cut some major you know,
like four inch six limbs that you cut, do you
ever paint? Those things?

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Are just not never no, not on a fruit tree.
It's not gonna it's not gonna amount to any benefit.
So I don't you just you just prune as you
need to on them. Uh you it helps to prune
at the toward the end of the cool season, which

(26:29):
you know we here we don't know when the end
of the cool season, as it could occur in January
or March, but uh, prior to spring of growth. Are
you kidding?

Speaker 16 (26:45):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Okay, Yeah, that's not a good sign for your fruit crop.

Speaker 16 (26:53):
Well, no, it is.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
We're probably gonna get a frost. You're probably gonna get
a frost. You know you're up there in Willis. I
suspect there'll be another frost. Just roll of the dice.
Though it's not good to be blooming right now. You
must have some trees that are a little bit lower
chill for the area because we have not had a
high chilling winter, and so you might if you do

(27:15):
additional plantings going forward, you may switch out some varieties
to a little bit higher chilling varieties. That would help
with that situation a little bit. But anyway, pruning the
copper sprays are helpful for certain bacteria diseases. If you
have a disease called bacterial spot on peaches, that's where
the peach gets black spots on the leaves that are

(27:38):
round and fall out like someone shot the leaf with
a baby gun, that copper sprays at the end of
the of the cool season prior to the pushing of
new growth. Copper sprays would help with that disease on
that species. But in general, we don't Copper spray are
food all the time.

Speaker 16 (27:57):
Yeah, I've got you know an in door set for apples,
and then on Florida peach. I think you know that
I did a lot of research for that zone.

Speaker 9 (28:10):
A bit.

Speaker 16 (28:12):
Hardly get in through last year because I have the
same problem they start blooming too early, frostcot.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah. Yeah, Well there's the Florida, the Florida's, the Florida Prince,
Florida King. Those are pretty low chill, and the anna
in Dorset are also lower chill. Uh So you could
take it up a notch on that. On the peaches,
you might try one called text Prince. It's bread here
in Texas. Text Prince. It's a little bit. It's it's

(28:41):
pretty good for the Willis area. It's the band that
you're in. Chilling wise, it would do pretty good there.
But hey, I got to run. I'm up against a heartbreak.
But good luck with those trees. Uh well, it sounds
like a lot of fun. I used to have a
little orchard and Willis a little peach orchard out west
of town on League Line Road, off Leeg Glen Road.
So I ish you well, Mite, thank thank you. Okay,

(29:04):
all right, we're gonna take a little break here, folks.
When we come back. Robert North Houston, You're gonna be
our first one up burn Welcome back the Ring of Fire.
Welcome back to the garden Line. Good to have you
with us this morning. You got a gardening question I
can help you with. You're happy to do that. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let's

(29:26):
do this. Let's head out to the phones now and
talk to Robert uh in North Houston. Hey, Robert, welcome
to the Gardenline.

Speaker 10 (29:35):
He so morning, Thank you, Skiff. I've got a question
about this poone Cyrus trifoliata that's also the common name
is hardy orange. I've called all over all your rigor
nurseries and ask them if they had it in stock here.
You know, almost the tree a lot, a live plant,
and I can't find a sore sport and I don't

(29:57):
know why, but I just can't finded. I called everybody, and.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
Well, yeah, people don't. People don't sell it retail here
because it's not a tree you grow to eat or anything.
It's a rooch stock. And uh uh it's a trifoliate
orange is the other name for it. And uh so
when you when you buy a citrus tree, there's a

(30:22):
decent chance that it's grafted on to Trifolia orange. Uh So,
as far as you know, trying to find it for sale,
that it's a couple of things. Are you wanting to
graft to it yourself? Or can I ask what you
want it for? Well, it grows wild.

Speaker 9 (30:42):
I got.

Speaker 10 (30:42):
I went out and got some seeds from some of
the wild trees, and I tried planting, but I think
it's too cool for the seeds. You're mating them, so
you know, I can't find that's.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, that's the way to get it is to go
out and get some seeds, because that is the seedious fruit,
full of seeds as a little Trifolia orange fruit. But
if you plan them, I would plan them inside, get
them by a window or something, just so they're warm
enough to get up and growing. And then once they
get going, you can either have it if you just

(31:14):
want to really thorny heads or something, or you can
graft to it, which is what it's primarily for. I
suspect if you go online you can find someone that
would sell you the trees. But if you've got access
to the seeds, you can have one pretty fast. You'll
have a a nice sized little start sometime next year
if you get those seeds planted.

Speaker 10 (31:36):
Can I ask you one more question?

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Sure?

Speaker 10 (31:39):
In September. In September October issue of Texas Going nineteen ninety,
they had that problem solution thing and against Customer Road
and said that I ask if its edible, and the
answer there was yes, it was edible, but it didn't
taste as good as the commercial you know, lemons or oranges.

Speaker 9 (32:03):
Do you think it is?

Speaker 3 (32:06):
It is a great opportunity to learn the difference between
edible and palatable. Edible means you can put it in
your mouth and swallow it. Palatable means you might want
to or not. So it is a bitter, bitter fruit.
I suspect somebody. In fact, I've heard of people trying

(32:26):
to make kind of a lemonade thing out of it.
Oh boy, I mean, it's not just a sour, it's
it's got a bitter to it as well. And I
wouldn't I wouldn't consider eating it. We may have some
listeners that I like that. I like the you know,
lemonade it makes you it is a plus. It's so seedy.
Uh and uh, you know you give blood trying to
pick the things. So the only the only purposes for

(32:50):
that are for rootstock. And if you, if you have
any daughters, it would be a great plan to put
underneath the bedroom window. Thank you, shop, you bet, thanks
a lot. I'm speaking for folks, I'm speaking from experience there.
I raised a daughter. One of these days have I

(33:12):
always threatened to do this. One of these days, I'm
gonna make a do a talk on plants to put
underneath your daughter's bedroom window. And I have a theory
on all this, by the way, but this is tongue
in cheap. By the way, the horrified daughters out there
just just take a powder. It's okay, chill up. But
there are things like a gave you know that they

(33:33):
don't capture the culprit but they sure ward them off.
And then there's things that are that will actually capture
the culprits, and such as the uh what is the
rose with the oh gosh, the multicolored rose. I can't
even say it now. Metabolists. There we go, metabolists, single
flowered multicop. Boy, those thorns are hooked, and I mean,

(33:55):
you get entangled in that, and you're gonna be there
for a while so anyway, but even gobbies are good
because you know there is DNA evidence left behind. And okay,
that's getting a little morbid. Well we'll shift back to plants.
How about that?

Speaker 10 (34:12):
All right?

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Well, we gotta have some fun here on guard line.
If you would like to ask me a question seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're
about to go to our top of the hour break
here and we'll be back with your calls. It's always
good to call during a break because then when the
music stops, your first up. As we come back, I

(34:33):
just want to remind you of my schedules that are
onlines at gardening with Skip dot com. There's also a
publication that's protecting plants against frosts and freezes. Now I
need to I'm going to re title that on the
on the publications because you have to click on one
that says, tiss the season to be freezing. That was
my attempt at humor years ago, tiss the season to

(34:56):
be freezing. Uh, And but that is the publication nine
pages full color tells you exactly with the difference between
frosts and freezes, how what you can and can't accomplish,
and how to go about it the right way. And
so here comes spring. We're gonna have some things that
are out a little early, like our tomato transplants. So
all you got to just read that publication, learn how

(35:18):
to do it, get the equipment that you need ready
to go, and who knows the way this winter's go
and we may not even need it. Good right, this
has been awfully mild as far as winners go. But anyway,
you never know. I always say it's better to bet
on the freeze come in than not, because they tend

(35:38):
to do that. You got to be ready for it, folks.
I will be back with your questions in just a moment,
And if you have a question about indoor gardening, I'd
be especially interested in hearing some of those starting seeds
from transplants, perhaps starting cuttings indoors, hitting plants up indoors,

(35:59):
even growing. I'm gonna do some indoor growing. I generally
don't do that. Like I've got some broccoli plants that
I'm gonna try to bring the harvest indoors. I'll tell
you about that when we get back.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
A welcome to Katie r h Garden Line with skin Rictor.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Gash.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Just watch him as woods.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Many people takes the soup.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Hootsy brings like gas You're not a sound credit glasses
and gas the sun beamons of a tweet.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Hey, good morning, gardeners, Welcome back to garden Line. Good
to have you with us. Yeah, we're back live. For
those of you who have tried to call in in
the last couple of weekends, you've noticed that the lines
are busy. We've been doing some best of shows and
I'm actually back live and so looking forward to visiting

(37:17):
with you. I always, uh just I look forward to
getting to talk to you guys on guard Line and
visit about gardening. You know, I eat and sleep and
and what do they say, eat, sleep, drink, plants just
everything you you would normally think of as a gardener mania.
It's it's it's an addictive habit. I'll tell you that

(37:40):
for sure. The more you get into plants, the more
you enjoy them. You know, you start off with like, oh,
I'm in a plant shop and I buy a little
plant to bring home, set on the counter, look at,
or maybe a tomato, a plant to put out and
try to start gardening. Next thing. You know, you're propagating
plants and you're doing all kinds of grafting fruit trees,
and you aim it creating new kinds of cool landscape things.

(38:04):
So that's what that's what it is. And whatever aspect
of gardening you would like to get interested in, let's
talk about it. One of the things that if I
had a magic wand one of the things that I
would wave it at about horticulture and gardening is for
people to call and ask before they do something, before
they try something, before they spend money on something. Was

(38:28):
that a peach orchard many decades ago that a fellow
had put in a whole orchard of fruit trees and
half of them were varieties that didn't belong where he
planted them in that region, that area, And it's just like,
oh my gosh, I mean, what do you do? I mean,
you tell them, but it's like they're going to dig

(38:49):
them all up and plan others or I mean it
just if he just called me before beforehand, that would
have would have been good night. See. People waste their money,
whether it's on products. Sometimes you buy the wrong product
and you do more damage than good or at the
very least, you don't do any benefit. Let's talk about
those things because there are a lot of strategies out there.
I don't know if you've noticed this on Garden or not,

(39:11):
but I tend to aim my device or my device
my advice toward the simplest and safest options there are
out there. Now I realize I have listeners that are
one hunderent organic, listeners that are won't do organic because
they think it doesn't work. By the way it does,
it can't. But whatever end of the spectrum you're on,

(39:35):
it's your choice at your yard. But give me a call.
Let's help you have success. That's what it's all about.
We're going to head out now to Clear Lake, Texas
and talk to Jim this morning. Hello Jim, welcome to
the Garden Line morning.

Speaker 13 (39:50):
Thank you.

Speaker 17 (39:51):
I have a little question here regarding fertilization and weed killing.
I'm pretty much we fre but is this weather pattern
changing the schedules?

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Well, every year, uh it can uh and and uh
we we uh you know, and I put that chart out.
I'm covering from Brunham, I mean Huntsville down to Galveston,
for example, And so there's a variation there, and there's
that variation, and then there's the year, and you never know.
I mean, we could go we could just not even

(40:29):
get cold again, and then all of a sudden in March.
Have a hard phrase and that makes it really tough
to know when to do stuff. But in general, what
I put on the schedule, in general, that's a pretty
good way to go to get ahead of weeds to
fertilize at the time.

Speaker 17 (40:47):
Yeah, okay, so an early fertilization would be indicated.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Then well, the fertilization I don't tend to move up.
There's a couple of ways to look at fertilizing. One
of them is I want the earliest green lawn I can,
and for that I have on the schedule an early
greenup application. The early greenup is done in late February,

(41:16):
and if you are down south and more like you know,
early March. Perhaps if you are further north, that is
an optional. It's marked with three asterisk is that if
you follow down it says optional. I don't use early
greenup in my lawn. I just don't because I don't
have a need to get that early early green. The

(41:37):
actual main fertilization starts when you've mowed the lawn a
couple of times, which occurs in April, and that's when
you put on that's when we start to put on
the slower release products and the grass is growing enough
to get the most benefit from it. But for some
people they want to do the early greenup, and so
I have a time on there for doing that.

Speaker 17 (41:57):
All right, well, thank you very much. I'll look at
that and make a choice here soon. And the early
greenup would be like sweet greens.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
I would probably for the early greenup sweet greens and nitrophs,
I would use nitrovis as red bag that's called Imperial.
It's a fifteen five ten. But on my schedule you'll
see a product from Nelson's, you'll see a product from
a Nightfass, product from a Southwest fertilizer. They have a
fifteen five ton themselves down there. So those are all

(42:29):
on there, and then on the organics you've got sweet green,
which is a possibility at that point in time. Generally,
I don't do early greenups with the organics because they
start they move a little slower getting started. Nature moves slower,
and so you know, to have that immediate like I
put it down today I watered in and the nutrients

(42:50):
are there for the roots tonight. You know, that's a
fast acting product, and so with the organics, I usually
wait until the ape application to do those.

Speaker 13 (43:02):
All right, well, thank you very much.

Speaker 9 (43:04):
I have a great new year, you bet.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yeah, you too. Good luck with that. Appreciate you. Colin.
Good question too, by the way. All right, well let's
see here. I got off track there a while ago,
and I had some things in my mind during the
break I was going to talk to you about. I
did mention getting out and noticing the lawn weeds are moving. Oh,

(43:27):
I know what it was. I discussed this kind of
as a teaser earlier on, and that is the broad
leaf weeds that are in our lawns. If you look
at my schedule, you will notice that in early early
part of the year January and February, if you were

(43:48):
looking for weed control at the very bottom of the
of the rods going across, it says weeds kill existing.
It says appli post emergent herbicide before cool season. Weeds
bloom right now in your yard. There may be chick
weed or hindbit or let's see, what are some carpet

(44:09):
weed or it's also called cleavers, and some other cool
season weeds, maybe some things like a wild lettuce or
a dandelion or things like that. If those weeds are
allowed to continue, they will start to bloom and set seeds.
At that stage, it's harder to kill them. So I
put this in here where if you wanted to get
a spot sprayer and just spot treat some weeds, now

(44:33):
you could do that, and that will be very effective
against those weeds because they are actively growing, because they're
cool season weeds, and it's much easier to control them
now than later. Plus later, you've already got seeds on them.
So even if you kill the weed that already has
seeds on it, here comes hundreds more of that weed
next round. So it's better to If you're gonna do something,

(44:56):
it's better to do it now then to do it later.
It's just easier. They haven't gotten so big that they're
covering a larger area. You know, a weed may be
the size of a tennis ball right now out there
in your yard, and in about a month that's gonna
be the size of the steering wheel on your car.
Spreading out and like it's a clover or one of those.

(45:17):
But if you're going to do it, and again some
people don't want to do it, that's fine your yard.
But if you're going to do a broad leaf post
emergent weed killer, it's better to do it now once
we get into summertime, and especially when the weather's up
in the upper eighties, which doesn't take long to reach
that here. When it hits that, now you got the
issue of stressing. You're especially Saint Augustine, but your lawn

(45:40):
with those products, they can be used them. There are
certain ones that can be used them, but it's better
to just deal with it now and avoid all the weeds.
What I do in my yard, I don't have that
many weeds because over the years building a denser and
denserre lawn, I just don't. But what I'll do is
get out there and himpul some I don't mind doing that.
A little bit here, little bit there. Just stay on

(46:01):
it and you can avoid spraying at all, save yourself
the money and the time and any concern you might
have about secondary effects and so on. But get out there.
I got a little, my little kneeling bench and a
five gallon bucket, usually a cup of coffee with a
lid on it and get out there and get those
things pulled. So just an idea. Walk out in your yard.

(46:23):
You see the weeds, Now, those are cool season weeds.
That's not warm season weeds. That's cool season weeds that
are in your lawn right now. So consider that first step.
Why not pull them? If it can't do that for
physical reasons or just don't want to, you can spray them,
but don't delay. Don't wait till next month. Go ahead
and do it now. Don't wait till March for sure.

(46:45):
All right, there you go. Let's see time for me.
Take a break. I just went right through one and
we'll be right back, all right. Welcome back, Welcome back,
Guardline folks. A little bit of Rascal Flats. You want

(47:06):
to hear Rascal Flats Live night three to the Houston
Livestock Show on Rodeo Rascal Flats, there's your opportunity. Oh
I love the rodeo season, and it's coming. We're not
there yet, it's coming though, it's coming soon, So go
ahead and check into that. There's a lot of great

(47:28):
artists that they got this year, as every year coming
in at the Rodeo. I was out in my yard
though the day taking care of my bird feeders. And
you know, the birds during this time of the year
are especially interested in coming into feeders. With a little
bit of the days are shorter, there are time to
be out hunting down insects or seeds or things, or

(47:49):
less the number of insects out and about or less,
and so they appreciate some quality feeds. And I use
the Winter super Blend from the folks with wild Birds Unlimited.
You hear me talk about wild Birds Unlimited all the
time because it is the go to place.

Speaker 13 (48:04):
It just is.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
And you may not have thought of this before, you know,
you know, I'm buy a bird seed anywhere. Well, yeah,
you can. But look at a bag of bird seed
and look at all those red bebes in there, the
red seeds. That is not a type of seed that
most birds are really fond of. And you'll see it.
I've seen it, fifty seventy percent of the seeds in

(48:27):
a bag. Is this red bebes? That is it inexpensive? Yes,
but I would say it's cheap because what happens when
you spend let's just say it was, you know, two
thirds of those bebes. Okay, well, you got a great
deal on it, but you get one third of the
weight that you paid for for your dollars. That's not cheap,

(48:48):
I mean, that's not inexpensive. That's that is basically spending
a lot of money on seed that's going to get wasted.
Drop on the ground, sprout, and now you got weeds
on the ground that you took your birds planting for.
You go to wild Birds Unlimited. Quality blends, quality blends
of what birds want to eat. You want to attract
a specific type of bird. Talk to the folks that

(49:09):
are very knowledgeable. I always enjoy going and visiting with
the staff at Wallbirds Unlimited stores. And there's six of
them here in the Greater Houston area, so it's not
hard to find one. When you get in there, make
sure you're ready to go, because they're going to have
bird houses, they're going to have bird feeders. They're going
to have a really cool pole system. It's a black

(49:29):
pole goes in the grounds called the Advanced pole system,
and you can just add on to it as you go.
Do you want one feeder hanging from it? Do you
want two? Do you want three? Do you want four?
Do you want various types of feeders? It really is
a good system. I have it myself. That's why I
say I can say that nesting Superblend or excuse me,
the winter Superblend is the one that we should be

(49:50):
providing our birds right now. So go to your local
Warbirds Unlimited store. Go to wbuu dot com forward slash
Houston wbu dot forward slush Houston and you can find
the wild Birds Unlimited in your you. There's one in
Kingwood on Memorial Kingwood on bel Air Boulevard, one in
Cypress on Barker Cypress. Over in Pearland, there is one

(50:12):
on East Broadway, and then there's the one on clear
Lake in Clearlake, Texas on El Dorado Boulevard. Fun Stores
and your birds will thank you. You're listening to garden
Line if you'd like to give me a call seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven

(50:32):
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four give
me a call to be happy to visit with you
about the kinds of questions that you have. So we've
been talking about weeds, and I made an appeal before
we went to break that if you have got broadleaf
weeds in your lawn, and of course you do. There's
some in there. It's just kind of how it works.
If you if you got those weeds in your lawn,

(50:54):
you're gonna need to stop them now because they're gonna
bloom and go to seeds zoon. Know, whether you hand
pull them or whether you spray them, do it now.
Now's the time to do it. Once weeds become reproductive,
meaning they're blooming, they're setting seed, they're harder to kill
with the sprays. You still hand pull them if it's

(51:15):
too far along. When you yank them out of the ground,
they're going to drop a bunch of seeds. But hey,
save yourself. Don't sentence yourself to a bazillion weeds in
the future. Get them out before they bloom and set seeds,
all right, is my appeal word to the wise something
like that. We'll go with that. In my vegetable garden,

(51:39):
I need to get out there and clean some stuff up.
I still have ochre plants that are sitting out in
some of the beds. I got a big vegetable garden,
as you might imagine. H and i's still got okra
plants that have my seeds on them that I need
to collect. I bred a bunch of different types of
ochre last year as I always do, and got those
seeds I need to bring in, get them ready for

(52:01):
planting this year, trying them out. See what, see what
the crosses look like. I mentioned earlier that you know,
gardening starts off with oh, I'm going to buy a houseplant,
and the next thing you know, you're doing all these
other things, and one of them is plant breeding. And
you can it is not hard there Some some vegetables
are so easy to cross. Squashes are that way. You
got a male bloom and you got a female bloom.

(52:23):
And when I say squashes, I should expand that and
just say in general, kukurbitch. You know, Uh, cucumbers, squash, cantalopes, watermelons,
all of those produce separate male and female blooms. So
you get your a little Q tip or a little
artist brush. You go to the mail bloom and you
get a little pollen on it, and you go over
to a female bloom and you dust the pollen on it.

Speaker 6 (52:45):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
You just got to keep the bees out of there
because they'll bring pollen from areas that you don't know.
Where did I get the where did that come from?
You want to control the crosses. So you got to
put some over the other blooms. And what I would
do is use a Organza bag. If I know what
orgains bags are. Yep, I see those ladies that said, yes,
I got one at a baby shower as a little gift. Okay, Well,

(53:07):
they're a little mesh bag, very very I mean just
not netting, but just like just solid. But they're made
a mesh so you can almost see through them, and
they have draw strings on the end. You can buy
them all kinds of sizes. They're cheap online to buy.
And you get a mesh bag like that, you put
it over the bloom the day before it opens up,

(53:29):
and then in the morning when it opens up, bees
can't get in, and then you can go in and
you do your crosses. Maybe you want to cross one
kind of squash with another. Now there's some rules in that.
You know, you can't cross a butternut with a yellow
crooked neck squash or straight next squash, but you can
cross within the same kinds of squashes and reasonably similar

(53:52):
types of squashes. You can go online and learn about
all that. I'm not going to spend airtime boring you
with that. But learning to cross plant's kind of cool.
There's a whole group of people across the country that
are crossing tomatoes. They're doing tomato specific crosses, and that's
harder to do, but it can be done. It's not
too hard to do. But maybe you're kind of getting

(54:14):
bored and saying, hey, I need something new with with crossing,
try that, try that and see, or new with gardening.
Try try doing some of your own crosses and easy
ones okras easy, uh pretty easy, the easiest or the
or the cu curvet squashes and melons and all of
those kinds of things very easy to do. So there

(54:34):
you go, all right, Uh see we've uh oh I
wanted to mention also in the flower beds, your cool
seasoned flowers will benefit from a boost a fertilizer about now.

Speaker 18 (54:48):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
It takes energy to produce a bloom and a seed
and a fruit, a lot of energy. And in order
to have that, you got to have green leaves in
the sunshine. Okay, So if you fertilize your pansies or
your violas or whatever you have grown right now, you're
a listen and you spur some new growth, you're gonna

(55:08):
have more solar panels for more energy, for more blooms.
So give them a boost. A fertilizer now is a
good time, organic or synthetic. Get it down now and
scratch it in the surface, watering in really good and
get a whole new vigor to those plants and more
blooms as a result. Now's the time to get that
done in your flower beds if you want to carry

(55:28):
them on a little bit further. All right, we're going
to take a break and when we come back, Betsy
and Katie you're gonna be our first collar up. So
you guys stay tuned and we will be right back
in just a moment. By the way, if you want
to call seven one three two one two five eight
seven four, all right, you do. One thing you should

(55:49):
expect on garden Line is strange MEAs I bet you
never heard it before. Now you have. Hey, welcome back
to Guardenline. Good have you with us. Let's go now
out to the phones. We're going to head to Katie
and talk to Betsy this morning. Hello Betsy, and welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 17 (56:09):
Good morning, good morning.

Speaker 7 (56:14):
My question involves oak trees that are planted in our
front yard. They've been there probably thirty years. We've lived
in this house, twenty years. The roots of the trees
are digging up the sidewalk across the front yard, and is.

Speaker 10 (56:37):
It what do you do?

Speaker 7 (56:38):
Is it you do something with the tree roots or
do you do something with the sidewalk?

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Yeah, well all of the above. There's different options, and
it depends on the specifics of the situation. You know,
where the sidewalk is in terms of distance from the
oak tree. When an oak tree's gotten very, very large,
the roots are not going to grow a lot more
in diameter than they already are, just kind of like
the branch, you know, the growth of the overall tree

(57:05):
slows down a little bit as it fills its space.
So one option is to dig out a sidewalk, move
it over, or find some other way to essentially get
it out of that spot. Another in some situations roots
can be cut, but usually based on what you're describing,

(57:27):
I'm going to think that that's probably a little too
hard on the tree and on the structural integrity of
the tree, not blowing over. Taking too many roots out
at one time. You need to have an arborus come
look at it and they can assess it look at
the situation and figure out what they can do. They
may recommend cutting the root. They may recommend putting a

(57:47):
trench in with a root barrier so it can't go
back across there. Or they may say it is what
it is, you know, and you can take the sidewalk
out and maybe make a little circular move around that tree.
But an arbust needs to take a look at that.
If you need a number, I can give you a
number for affordable tree care Martin Spoon Moore's Affordable tree Care.

(58:12):
That's just let me know if you'd like that.

Speaker 7 (58:16):
I think I have his number actually, but good. The
sidewalk is lined up with everybody else's sidewalk and it's
probably ten feet from the base of the tree. It's
you know, they planted those trees so close. Now we
have put those root barrier things across the front of

(58:38):
the house so that the tree roots don't interfere with
the foundation and the water and all those things. But
my husband is talking about raising the sidewalks so that
they're just level and people won't trip and fall. That

(58:59):
was my main concern was there they're getting catwonkee and
some We have a lot of people who walk in
the kids that ride and oh yeah, so I was
trying to avoid a disaster in that area.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Yes, but I understand.

Speaker 7 (59:19):
So you're recommending that.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Well, I would because someone professional that's on site with
their eyes on it, that knows what they're talking about,
can decide what your best options might be. Okay, you know,
I hate to cut cut tree roots because there's no
way about it. You cut a major route and you've
got a stress to that tree. And if it's bad enough,
like I said, you could even be like if you

(59:43):
cut all the roots on one side of a tree,
for example, that tree's lost half its root system and
now with the wind blows the right way, you don't
have the bracing benefits the anchor right for the tree.
But if you're cutting just one little root, especially on
a young tree or something that that's not a big
deal compared to But that's why someone thirty year.

Speaker 7 (01:00:05):
Old tree has got big roots under there.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
It's got some good sized roots. Yeah, and so you
just want to have someone advise you on that that
knows what they're talking about, So that that would be
my suggestion. It's one of those things where you know,
we do things and it's like Eh, it's not gonna
be a problem for a long time, and then when
a long time's here, it is a big problem. And
we wish we had not done it that way at

(01:00:29):
the beginning. And unfortunately all through town, every town you
got sidewalks going in too close to trees or trees
planted too close to sidewalks.

Speaker 7 (01:00:39):
Yeah, that was the issue. Of course we didn't plant
those trees. We bought the house later, but some of
our neighbors have actually taken taken their trees out to yes,
avoid all of this, but I'd rather.

Speaker 19 (01:00:55):
Have the tree.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
Okay, let me give you another number, and I want
you to write this one down. Okay, this is fix
Fix my slab foundation repair and the number is two
eight one. Do you have a pen handy? Yeah, huh,
two five five forty nine. Now, this is Ty Strickland's company.

(01:01:21):
You can go online to the website and stuff. But
they one thing they do is, you know how sidewalks
can I mean how driveways can get that way? And
they're all caddy workers with a big cracking them one
ends brick sinking down. They drill a hole through the
driveway and they pump a foam type material in there
and it literally lifts that whole driveway up and everywhere.

(01:01:45):
The driveway's coming off the soil underneath it. That phone
goes in there. Just support it and they can re
level and fix a driveway. Maybe there's something they can
do for that sidewalk. But I would get tie shot.
He's a straight shooter. He's not going to waste your
time money. Uh all right, just say yeah, maybe send

(01:02:05):
him a picture of it too, that would be that
would be helpful. But just tell him you're a guardline
listener and ask him what he recommends. And there may
not be anything he can do, but if anybody knows
how to do it, I knows how to do it.

Speaker 7 (01:02:19):
All right, Well, thank you so much and have a
great day.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
All right. That's a YouTube. Appreciate it by alrighty, that's
a that is an interesting situation. And why don't we
just talk about this whole big picture of that a
little bit, you know, you put it. I had a
friend of mine one time that planted trees in his
yard and uh, he planned him before I knew him.

(01:02:45):
And it's only been about two years ago or something
like that. When I went and looked at him and
he had the trees were like the size of broom handles,
mop handles. I mean they were a little you know,
and I don't know. Some may have been an inch
and a half. There are little trees everywhere, but there
were trees like fifteen feet from each other. And the

(01:03:07):
only reason to do that would be if you wanted
to create a forest. Look, you know where you've got
a bunch of forest trunks just kind of all closed together.
But they had no reason to do that in the
front yard. You're never gonna have grass grow in that yard,
and the trees are going to grow together and they're
not going to look right. And then when one dies,
the trees that are left are all lopsided because they
fought for light with each other. It doesn't make sense

(01:03:28):
to do that. Think about the mature size of that tree.
And again, here's in one where you can give me
a call on garden line if you wan't to talk
about this, but make sure and get it far enough
away where you're not going to have this sidewalk problem.
Even early on, it's a lot easier to go in
and do a root barrier if you choose to do that,
because there's nothing in the way, No roots to cut

(01:03:50):
or anything. You're just putting it in by the driveway
to force those roots downward underneath there as opposed to
letting them go right underneath. Because here's what's happened. Here's
what happens. This is the same when you have roots
sticking up in your grass and you're bumping over them
with the lawnmar That root was a little spaghetti sized
root at one point maybe go in an inch or
two inches or three inches underneath the surface. And then

(01:04:14):
as that root gets bigger and rainfalls and washes soil
the root, it's like you put a little one of
those little skinny balloons that they make the low balloon
animals with the entertain kids. Imagine putting one of those
two inches under the surface and then blow it up.
What's going to happen, Well, it's going to look like
it comes to the surce, but really it does. It
just grows in diameter, and in doing so, there's no

(01:04:35):
weight on top of it, so it pushes the soil
up easier above it. And now rain washes it off.
And now you got this root in the way, and
so we want to avoid that that goes underneath your
sidewalk that goes underneath your driveway too and causes these problems.
And so it can be avoided early on by number one,
some of the species that you plant of trees or

(01:04:56):
better than others. About this, and then how far away
you get it, that's the main thing. Get it far away.
Think about that tree when it's mature. Don't think about
it right now. It looks like a little broomstick in
the middle of the yard. Oh my gosh, I need
another tree in there. Probably not, Probably not, if you've
picked a good one. Let's take a little break and
we'll be right back. You never see the movie Second

(01:05:17):
Hand Lions if you have, but you've got to see it.
It's great about Robert Duvall and some other great actors
in it. And that's the soundtrack for the late one
of the best yodelers in Texas. Your life's now complete.
I know that you can thank me later. All right, folks,

(01:05:38):
welcome back to Guarden Line. Good to have you with us.
Happy to talk to you about the things that you
are interested in. And we're going to go straight out
to the phones to Spring Branch and talk to Herza
this morning. Hello, Hurta, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 20 (01:05:53):
Thank you belated Happy New Year to you and your family.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
My question, my question is.

Speaker 10 (01:06:06):
I have a huge.

Speaker 20 (01:06:07):
Magnolia in the yard, but I have two little baby
magnolia is coming up. I guess maybe they're maybe fourteen
inches tall something like that.

Speaker 14 (01:06:20):
Well, I have a neighbor, I have two people I know.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
That want one of them.

Speaker 9 (01:06:30):
Is it better to.

Speaker 20 (01:06:33):
Dig them up and replant them now or wait until spring.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
As soon as possible? Herday. Every day you wait is
a day closer to summer, and those trees, when you
move them are going to lose a lot of roots.
Even if you're careful, they're going to lose roots. They
need to be able to take on the summer heat,
so that today is better than tomorrow. Tomorrow is better
than so as soon as you can get.

Speaker 20 (01:07:03):
About moving I've never moved in magnolia.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
Uh, get as much of the roots as you can,
and when you when you dig it up, I would
put it into a bucket of water to keep those
roots moist for just a little while while you get
an If someone is going to take it over to
their house to move it, then go ahead and wrap it.

(01:07:29):
I would I would put something moist around I mean
it could be wet paper towels, you know that you
kind of wrap around a lot and then put in
a plastic plastic trash bag or something just to hold
keep the roots moist. And they need to plant it
a s a p uh not delay, don't lay it
out there, yeah, correct, yeah, all right, and if if

(01:07:51):
they if they need to pot it up, then you
need a pot with all the soil, and you need
to just put it out of the ground. Put it
in the pot, fill it in with soil, water down
real good. The soil is going to settle, so you
have to water, put a little more soil on, water
it again. Uh, And then they can take the pot
with them. If they can't plant it right away, it'll
hold it until they can plant it. All right, thank

(01:08:13):
you very much. They don't yeah I heard it. They
don't like to be moved. But one that's that small
can be moved, you know, if it was all right
kind of what I bought.

Speaker 10 (01:08:25):
Uh huh.

Speaker 20 (01:08:25):
I've had my current Oh yeah, my goodness. I've been
in this house fifty nine years. It was a grown
tree when we moved here, and I've.

Speaker 10 (01:08:35):
Had it two times.

Speaker 20 (01:08:38):
Yeah, it's it's uh.

Speaker 12 (01:08:40):
Oh it's at least twenty five feet tall.

Speaker 4 (01:08:42):
Now, okay, we're good, thank you very much, all right,
he do you thank you you you uh you take
care you too, all right, Well you've had well.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
Our phone number, folks is seven one three two one
two five eight seven four. We just had a collar drop.
If that collar wants to call back in, they're next
up when they call back in. So just carollbly. So
what are we talking about? We were discussing. We talked
about a number of things. Today. I want to talk

(01:09:18):
a little bit about fruit trees. This is a great
time to plant fruit trees now, if especially deciduous fruit trees, apples, pears, plums,
those kinds of things. And that would include shrubs like blueberries.
A great time to plant blueberries. That would include vines
like grapes, great time to plant grapes. Just get them

(01:09:39):
done as soon as you can set them at the
same level, like all these trees and trumps. Any kind
of a woody plant, whether it's an edible or ornamental,
you want to set it at the same level that
it was growing previously. Don't bury it too deep, and
the best way to do that is to scratch back
the swell around the base. If you can't see a
root at the surface, scratch the soil back, find out

(01:10:01):
where the topmost root is, and plant the plant so
that that root is at the soil line. Right at
the soil line, okay, because you don't want to plant
them too deep, especially in a clay soil, especially with
the rain that we can have around here in the sogginess.
Don't mess around with that. Get that done. But now
is the time to get it done. So go ahead,

(01:10:23):
don't delay and get that done.

Speaker 6 (01:10:26):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
Music means I got a quit talk? How could that
hour have been over with? I just got started. I
need I demand a second opinion. That cannot be the
end of the hour. All right, Well, that's two hours
of Garden Line today. We've got two more to go.
You got a question, here's a number seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three

(01:10:49):
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Help me remember
when I come back, I need to talk about some
more about fruit trees and some tips on having sas
with fruit from the plants you pick to the places
you plant them. All right, we'll be right back. Hey, welcome,

(01:11:24):
Welcome back to Garden Line. Good to have you with us.
We are looking forward to visiting with you about the
questions that you might have. If you do have a question,
here is a phone number and that is seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. So I
had to visit with you about those kinds of things.

(01:11:44):
If you are looking to have any kind of landscaping done,
you are not going to find a better a better
place to go for quality professional landscaping and landscape services
than Peerscapes. Peerscapes is our preferred landscape here on Guarden Line,
been around since nineteen eighty eight and they do it all.
I mean from the full design of a landscape to

(01:12:07):
renovating beds to working on irrigation situation issues and things
that you might have. Make sure you've got a good
irrigation system and that it's working right, landscape lighting, proper drainage.
You know, when it rains, it poors in Houston, and
plants don't like to sit with soggy roots for days
and days and days on end. Well they can fix
that with their draining systems that they do now. Their

(01:12:29):
landscape professionals hold a lot of distinguished certifications and licenses,
you know, whether it's best socide or backflow prevention or
drainage or irrigation. They have professionals that have worked for
them for years, and so this is not just a
fly by night situation of people that you know, bought

(01:12:50):
a pickup and call themselves a landscaper. These are true professionals,
and if you want to see the work that they do,
go to their website Piercescapes dot com, pierce scape apes
dot com, or give them a call. Two eight one
three seven oh fifty sixty. I really encourage people to
go to that website because there you go, oh, that's

(01:13:10):
what he's talking about. And then you see one of
those outdoor patio areas that they've designed, you know, with
hard scapes and beds at high certain levels, you know,
where it's not just a flat landscape, but it's got
some relief to the landscape ro it's just so attractive.
Piercescapes can do that. Peerscapes dot com two eight one
three seven oh fifty sixty to eight one three seven

(01:13:31):
oh five zero six zero. I was at Ace hardware
store the other day. I always go into Ace Hardware stores.
Pretty much anything you need is in there.

Speaker 6 (01:13:40):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
And when I was looking around, I just always go
one walk through and go, Okay, what's new here? What
do they have here that I wouldn't have expected them
to have? And there's always something stuff you don't expect
them to have that is ACE Hardware. But the things
you should expect them to have are quality products, quality tools,
quality tools for your gardening activities, and also all of

(01:14:06):
the things you need to make that lawn and garden
look great. We're talking about fertilizers, organic and synthetic, dry
and liquid. We're talking about pest management, whether it's insects
and diseases, or whether it's weeds that you're preventing that
you're killing existing. I was on you earlier. You got
the weeds you see in your lawn right now are
cool seasoned weeds, and those broadleaf weeds are easiest. Time

(01:14:30):
to control them with a minimum application of a herbicide
is right now. Now's the time to get it done
before they start growing huge, blooming and setting seed. Get
it done now. Ace Hardware's got the stuff you need
to do that now. There's ACE Hardware stores all over
the area. My ACE Hardware stores. You can find them
by going to ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Ace Hardware

(01:14:51):
Texas dot com and you'll find stores like All Star
Ace up in Magnolia. Over in Kingwood there's Kingwood or
Kne and I'm in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive. I've seen
Kingwin a lot there. Down the southeast, there's kill Gorse
Coullar Lake Lumber on East Main. Down in Port Lavaca
on Calhoun at Calhoun Plaza there's Port Lavaka Ace. And

(01:15:12):
in Katie on Penoak Road in Old Town Katie Katie Hardware.
All right, we're going to head out now to the
phones and we're going to talk to Sarah in Seabrook.
Hello Sarah, and welcome to Guarden Line.

Speaker 14 (01:15:25):
Hi Skimp, thank you.

Speaker 12 (01:15:27):
I took an air layer off of a friend Citrus
Tree Orange, and I was wondering if it's time should
I go ahead and put it in the ground.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
You know what I would do, And this is just
hedging about you. Probably nine cents out of ten. You
can put it in the ground now and you'll be
just fine. But I don't want you to have to
get out there and try to cover that thing up.
So keep it in a Is it in a container
right now? Where is it still attached? Okay, it's just
keep it contain water it yeah, put it outside, let

(01:16:02):
it get good sunshine. If you have a freeze then
you can just bring it right in. And once we
get past our average final freeze date of the year,
then I would go ahead and plant it out. Centrist
doesn't really want to grow much until it warms up
a little bit, so that's what I would do, just
to hedge my bet. But if you want to put
it in the ground, it's not going to be the
end of the world. You're probably gonna be just fined.

(01:16:24):
By the way, the last average frost date, let's see
year in Seabrook for a hobby airport is February the
eighth is the last average frost date, our freeze date
rather for hobby airport. So that just kind of gives
you a little bit of guide.

Speaker 12 (01:16:41):
Okay, And one other question. The root ball is probably
considered the route now, so I don't want to plant
it any deeper than the roots from.

Speaker 3 (01:16:54):
The air layer, right yeah, yeah, the top topmost route
pretty close to the soil line, and you know, no
more than an inch below the soil surface. Right, Okay, well,
hey did you do this air layer? Did you do
the air layer yourself?

Speaker 13 (01:17:12):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (01:17:12):
I did.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
Well, you're just you're just a talented gardener. Then that's
a fun way to go, isn't it.

Speaker 12 (01:17:19):
It is very successful and I'm hoping I'll have fruits soon.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
There you go. Well, you know, on guarden line, I
don't charge for advice, but I do demand half the
produce that comes from my advice, So u'll call it
even just send me. Sounds like I'm gonna have to
wait a while though, if you just air layered that thing.
Thank you, Sarah, appreciate your call.

Speaker 9 (01:17:43):
Bye bye.

Speaker 3 (01:17:45):
Bye bye. Yeah. Oh, so back to the dates in
the spring. The last time I checked the ten year
past ten years of data, Hobby Airport February eighth is
a last freeze date average, which means nothing because it'll
always be either before or after that. And Bush Intercontinental

(01:18:08):
March first. That's a big gap in there. That's kind
of surprising is that normally it wouldn't be that big
of a gap in the distance those two are apart,
but that is that March first for Bush and Conell,
so kind of give you a guideline on what you're
going after. Let's see, let's head out to the phones.
Now we're going to talk to John in southwest Houston. Well,

(01:18:29):
hello John, and welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (01:18:35):
Yes, Hi, skip hyme is John?

Speaker 21 (01:18:38):
Hi?

Speaker 10 (01:18:38):
And my question?

Speaker 14 (01:18:39):
Yeah, my question?

Speaker 12 (01:18:42):
This brownish I think it's called the call shell pungi.

Speaker 9 (01:18:47):
The giruls on trees.

Speaker 13 (01:18:50):
On how do we get to how do I get
you off?

Speaker 9 (01:18:53):
Girls?

Speaker 10 (01:18:54):
And then number two does this affect the tree?

Speaker 3 (01:18:59):
Okay? So John, what that is is that's a decomposer.
Most likely it's a decomposer fungi working on the inner wood.
There are some plant disease fungi that can create something
like that, But I'm going to say chances are what's
happened is the interior wood, instead of being covered by

(01:19:19):
living bark tissues outside of it to protect it, has
been exposed, and so a fungal organism gets in and
it sends its little strands all through the wood and
then it produces that shelf fungi on the outside. That's
just where spores would be produced, kind of like a
toadstool out there in your yard or in a flower bed.

Speaker 10 (01:19:42):
There is no.

Speaker 3 (01:19:43):
Killing it because you could knock that off. But that's
just like the fruiting part of it sticking out. The
fungi is living inside the wood and there's no control
for it. Now, it's probably not a disease. And the
way you ask if it would hurt it, it's only

(01:20:04):
when the inner wood starts decaying that the tree becomes
structurally less sound. So if you had a hollow trunk,
it wouldn't be as strong of a tree during a
storm as a tree that had a good strong wood
interior as opposed to being hollow. So that that is
the concern, but not the fungi itself hurting your tree.

Speaker 10 (01:20:26):
So what do you do?

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
You water and fertilize, Water and fertilize the tree, take
care of it, and hopefully the living tissues outside of
that will close back over and protect the inner wood
from further moisture and issues like that. That's all that's
within your control is taking care of the tree. Thank you,

(01:20:49):
all right, who bets appreciate your call. Thank you, sir.
I'll tell you what. Let's do this. I'm going to
bill and conro. You are going to be are next up.
We're going to take a real quick break here and
we will be right back. Welcome back to the garden line. Hey,
Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens is going full force out

(01:21:11):
there and you need to get out and check out
what's going on. This is our West Houston destination nursery.
It really is. And if you haven't been out there,
you need to go. You head out to Katie and
turn north on Katie Fort Ben Road and it's just
up the street a little bit on the right hand side.
Nelson Nursery and Water Garden. Now they have everything you
can imagine water garden. I mean they are national leaders,

(01:21:33):
well known, well respected all across the country. They invented
the disappearing fountain, the thing you know, you see these
big beautiful ceramic pottery We're very tall with water coming
out the top and it just goes down to the
bottom and then recirculates through. By the way, the birds
love those also. They admitted that out there. But they
all have plants, lots of plants, all kinds of plants,

(01:21:56):
fruit trees and vegetables and herbs and flowers. Right now
they got nice shipment in of some beautiful, beautiful, cool
seasoned flowers like pansies and violas like Dianthus. Diantha is
such a great little flower to plant, and snapdragons, just
being some examples of what you're going to find out
at Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens. Go to the website

(01:22:17):
Nelson Watergardens dot com. There you can find out more information. Again,
just head out to Katie North on Katie Fort Ben Road.
It's a little up the street there on the right
hand side. Let's go to the phones now and we
are gonna let's see who's next here, Bill and Conroe. Hey, Bill,
welcome to garden.

Speaker 13 (01:22:40):
Good morning, Skip.

Speaker 9 (01:22:42):
Morning.

Speaker 13 (01:22:42):
I have a dwarf creepe model for the last three
or four years. I guess it's about four years old,
and it's I've never trimmed it to our hedged back back,
and I it's now about six feet and I first
question is how long will keep growing? Well, it keep
getting slowly but constantly bigger.

Speaker 3 (01:23:06):
Well. Crpe myrtles by variety, Bill, come in all kinds
of sizes. The smallest ones I've seen crate myrtles that
don't get over three feet high. And then there's like matches,
the big white blooming with the cinnamon bark that gets
thirty five feet high, and so depending on which cultivar
you have, it may it sounds like how long has

(01:23:27):
it been in the ground and it's six feet now,
how long has it been?

Speaker 13 (01:23:30):
About four years?

Speaker 3 (01:23:32):
Four years? I suspect it's probably not going to get
over about twelve feet, and it may be that it's
kind of reached its size, but it's probably gonna get
a little bit bigger than that. But it's hard to predict.
You know, growing conditions affect how fast it grows. And
so do you happen to know the variety name?

Speaker 15 (01:23:58):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:24:14):
All right? Yeah, well while you're hunting for that. So
I put some stuff on the web a while back,
and I see now that the where it was put
up there, it's it's been taken down. I need to
put this back up. But I have a list of
a lot of great murder varieties and how big they get.
But okay, it's based on one variety.

Speaker 13 (01:24:33):
It's leggers through e me u ebony fire.

Speaker 3 (01:24:38):
That helps ebony fire. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna tell you
exactly how big that little bugger gets to dune. There
we go, ebony fire. There's a lot of new ones
out now, and uh, I just every time I turn around,

(01:24:59):
there's a whole bunch to new and it's hard to
keep up with them. It's going to be about a
ten or twelve foot apparently, a twelve foot beautiful, beautiful,
dark dark dark green leaves almost blood and very very pretty.
If you had any problems with powdery mildew on it,
the white and the young young leaves get white into it. Good.

Speaker 13 (01:25:20):
I've no problems for this thing. I'm just so happy
in that direction. All right, So there you go. How
about pruning it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
Well, myrtles they need very little of any pruning. People
tend to butcher them. If you want it to be
a bush, then you just let leaves and branches start
at the bottom and go on up. If you want
to have some trunks on it, let's say you wanted
a trunk that's two or three feet high, and then
the rest of it is up at the top. You

(01:25:51):
could trim off everything down low. The sooner you trim
them off, the better, because you don't want and you
don't want to leave a stub. You want to punt
it up against the branch where to taches, or the
trunk where it attaches.

Speaker 4 (01:26:03):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
And now's a good time to do that. But in general,
pruning these is just a matter of cutting out the
little seed heads that form after the blooms. If you
got little twiggy growth, smaller, let's say than a pencil,
you can prune that out on it. A little small
thing like ebony fire is not going to be hard
to hard to reach and prune. You can do that
if you want to do a little extra in the pruning,

(01:26:25):
but it's it's basically a shaping process. So maybe uh,
branches or rubbing a.

Speaker 13 (01:26:35):
You don't need to prune for new growth to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:26:40):
No, No, it'll grow, it'll grow.

Speaker 15 (01:26:42):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
If you do more, it tends to put out more
vigor uh in response to that. But the more you prune,
the more you sort of affect the beauty of the
of the natural smooth branching of the tree. So a
little guidance maybe to avoid lets that are rubbing each other,
to open it up a little bit more, spread it

(01:27:04):
out a little bit more if you like, but avoid
using a saw if you can.

Speaker 13 (01:27:10):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:27:12):
In other words, things small enough to print with the handprinters,
you bet, thanks a lot. I'll shake that call. If
you got some old metal furniture that you look out
there and it's just dull looking, it's rusty. Maybe it's
a barbecue pit that way, you know, you're nice used
to be a nice, shiny black barbecue pit and now
it's not starting to get a little rust on it.

(01:27:34):
Call Houston Powder Coats. They will come out, they will
pick it up, they will bring it back to their
shop and they will do something better than standard painting,
and that is powder coating. It is a type of painting.
You're getting a paint dust in the air that clings
to that and it melts into the metal surface, right

(01:27:54):
on the metal surface, and it just lasts. It's very hard,
very durable. And you get to pick the color you want.
And when I say you get to pick the color,
I'm talking about over one hundred different color options. I know,
it's dizzy. It's like smelling perfume, right, which one? Well,
you pick the favorite color you got and they'll do it.
They'll bring it back to you when they're done too.

(01:28:15):
Here's what you do. You take a picture of that
and you email it to sales at Houstoncoders dot com.
They're right up there in North Houston. Sales at houstoncoders
dot Com or give them a call two eight one
six seven six thirty eight eighty eight. Give you that
again two eight one six seven six three eight eight eight.

(01:28:37):
All right, they'll take any kind of outside metal you
got and turn it into something brand new and beautiful.
Let's go back to the phones now and we are
going to talk to Sharon for Memorial Area. Hello, Sharon,
welcome to garden Line. We're having trouble getting Sharon on there.

Speaker 12 (01:29:07):
Hello, Hell, let's get hi.

Speaker 3 (01:29:09):
Sharon, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (01:29:12):
Thank you again. And I have a big India that
is about seven years old, and it is and it's
in the ground and it's done good every year here
in Houston, and by just covering it up that every
year of course, guys back. But now the thing is

(01:29:35):
about at least ten feet tall and it has a
multiple at least twelve book branches you know, that goes
straight up. It's not one of those vining kind of
just goes straight up and has beautiful flowers.

Speaker 15 (01:29:52):
On the ends.

Speaker 12 (01:29:53):
So the question is I certainly cannot cover it up
this year, so and it's a bed time to cut
it and have more dam should I cut it anything?
You can do to help, I'll be clad.

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):
They like warm weather. And while pruning is an invigorating
process in other words, you prune and the plant wants
to grow back fast in that area where you prune.
While it is that way in the cool season, not
so much. So if you wanted to cover it, I
would cut those tall lankies off at whatever height you

(01:30:28):
want so you can cover it. They will reach sprout
in the spring and branch out from there and boom
and bee is bloom on the ends of the shoots.
So the more shoot ends that you have, the more
blooms you have. And so when you do that pruning
and they branch out, now instead of one shoot, you
got several shoots coming out, So you can go ahead

(01:30:48):
and do that. Normally we don't prune plants that are
tropical like that in the in the winter time, but
it won't hurt to do that. If you've got a
freeze coming up and you need to cover it up,
I would prune them back because that's a big, beautiful
plant that you've obviously made. Very happy spot.

Speaker 12 (01:31:06):
Okay, So I appreciate it all the information.

Speaker 3 (01:31:09):
Thank you, you Bet, thank you, Sharon. Appreciate that call.
Uh see, we're I'm coming up on a mid hour
break here, folks, uh ed and friends with you are
our very first next caller. But I'm not going to
take you just yet because I don't have time to
do justice to your question. So hang on just a minute.
When we come back, you're going to be our first one.

(01:31:31):
If anybody else would like to call in, here's the
number seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
And y'all forgot to remind me to talk about fruit trees.
I got some more to talk about, so don't let
me forget that. We come right back here in just
a little bit. Now is a great time to plant

(01:31:53):
fruit trees, and our garden centers have been getting fruit
trees in. They are stocked up ready to go. You
got to get out there and get them and get
them in the ground soon, because you got to wait
a year or two or three or four to get
some fruit depending on the kind of tree you plant,
and the sooner you start, the sooner you get to
enjoy the fruits from that tree. Hang on, we'll be

(01:32:15):
right back. I didn't hear anybody go plump, plumb, bumb.

Speaker 4 (01:32:19):
That's good.

Speaker 3 (01:32:24):
There we go. Welcome back to the guarden line. Good
have you with us, I said, straight out of the phones,
and we're going to go to ed in Friendswood. Hello, Ed,
Welcome to garden line.

Speaker 19 (01:32:39):
Hey, good morning Skip. My wife was talking to me
the other day. She had heard about a disease that
was affecting palm trees. It was a deadly disease that
was got in Gallas soon and I was wondering if
you had heard of.

Speaker 8 (01:32:53):
Anything like that.

Speaker 21 (01:32:54):
It's something we should be concerned about.

Speaker 19 (01:32:56):
We're up in Prince Wock.

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
It has been a while since I talked to the
folks up at the State Plant Clinic as to what
kind of samples are getting in and things. At one
point in time, there's a disease called lethal yellows that
is bad and you want to get it out of
there when you have a tree, because you don't want
to spread the palm trees because that's an important tree
for that done in that area. I don't know other

(01:33:21):
than maybe lethal yellows. It is just there's probably let
me look into it. Let me look in and see
if there's some new samples that have been coming in
on something else. But Letho yellows for a while was there,
and they're very concerned about that. Sounds like a lush

(01:33:44):
to there.

Speaker 19 (01:33:46):
Are.

Speaker 3 (01:33:48):
Okay, well, lust of golf, but that was kind of
the end of it. I'll look into it and see.
I'm just kind of curious about it. Don't alarm people
about things. Listen. We got new diseases and stuff appearing
all the time. And sometimes it's one that's been here
and then kind of gone, we don't have it anymore,
and then comes back because some tree came in with
it or something like that. But I'll check. I need

(01:34:11):
to check into that. Let's now, let's see here, Sharon.
Did I do Sharon in Memoria? Yes, I did. Okay,
how about Fred and Sugarland. Let's talk to Fred and
sugar Land next. Hey, Fred, welcome the garden line.

Speaker 10 (01:34:28):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:34:28):
Hey.

Speaker 15 (01:34:29):
I'm having to replace one of these double knockout roses,
and I'm wondering when would be the best time to
plant it. I've bought the rose, but should I plant
it now or should I wait until February?

Speaker 3 (01:34:43):
That it was fine? You know, we give you tips
sometimes just because they're easy to remember, like everybody knows
Valentine's days February and roses or Valentine flower, and so
plant your roses and prini your roses, and that's fine.
But you can plant a rose in November. You know,
you can plant a rose anything you want, really, but
now be great.

Speaker 15 (01:35:04):
And the reason that I'm replacing it is that it
had like four major chains and two of them just
up and died after I trimmed back and okay, which
made me think fungus. But I didn't find any fungus
when I dug it out. I did treat with cap ten.
It's been about a week. Would be okay, good planet.

Speaker 3 (01:35:23):
Now, yeah, that'd be fine. You you know, there are
some kinkers that will kill in tarcanes. They just turned
black or brown, and that's what happened. I would say,
since that's kind of been around there, just to be
extra careful. If you want to get you some light
sylt and when you go to print your rose, just

(01:35:44):
spray those printers between cuts if you have a little
at all about some yeah something to kill anything on
the surface of that metal. Don't use bleach water. That
rust printer is really bad. Ten percent bleach water will
kill stuff. But it'll also picture prunters with russ uh
real strong ice prople alcohol, you know, like a what

(01:36:07):
is it a ninety percent or I don't know.

Speaker 10 (01:36:08):
What the hot We.

Speaker 15 (01:36:10):
Clean it after every time, and I premed all the roses.
That's only one of them died back, so but there
was something on.

Speaker 3 (01:36:18):
It that's strange. Yeah, it's not only spread with your printers.
So it doesn't surprise me that you may have still
had some. But you definitely don't want to print into
disease and then make a new printing cut with those
same punters right away without without cleaning. If you're using alcohol,
then then you're you're good to go. Sometimes there's a
little sap on the prunters or something, and you make

(01:36:39):
sure you clean that off. But uh, just just sanitation.
That's the bottom line on it. And if in the
future you run into that, send me a picture, let
me look at it and see if we can maybe
diagnose something else going on. Very good, Thank you much,
all right, enjoy those roses if you take care of
Thank you for the call. You bet. All right, let's

(01:37:02):
head back to the phones again. We're going to go
to Jeff in Spring Branch now. Hey, Jeff, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 19 (01:37:10):
Hey Skip, good morning.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
Appreciate everything you do.

Speaker 3 (01:37:14):
Thank you.

Speaker 21 (01:37:16):
Follow up question to the bougainvilla that was the lady
from Memorial ask she's going to be covering hers because
it's in the ground.

Speaker 19 (01:37:23):
I have a big one I bought in the spring.
That's uh, you know, it's a few years old.

Speaker 13 (01:37:27):
I've planted it in a pot.

Speaker 19 (01:37:29):
I just wanted to make sure that if I got
it into a shed. If I got into a shed,
I can't control the temperature in it, but it'll keep
the frost off of it. Will that be satisfactory for
that book can be in?

Speaker 3 (01:37:42):
Yeah. Yeah, chances are in a shed it's not gonna
get as cold, not gonna get as cold as it
did as it would outside. And so I think a
shed alone would probably be enough. Now, if you're going
to get down to seven degrees, well then the shed's
probably not enough. But uh, just the kind of little
minor freezes we tend have, it doesn't take much to

(01:38:03):
get them through that. Just just protect them. Remember in
a container too, though, Jeff, the roots will get much
colder than in the ground. You know, in the ground
the top freezes off but in a container, that container
can get and if it's gonna get on the mid twenties,
let's say those roots are going to get too cold
in a container sitting above ground. So that's another factor

(01:38:26):
with container grown cold sensitive plants.

Speaker 21 (01:38:30):
Would you recommend wrapping that container? Would that help keep heat?
Or would I need to supply some type of heat
like incandescent light bulbs and there?

Speaker 3 (01:38:39):
What will be your diggestion? Yeah, well, yeah, wrapping slows
the cool. Wrapping doesn't cause heat. It just slows the
loss of heat around a container. But one of those
little clamp on lamps that has a warming bulb in
it in that shed, that would do it. Just don't
shine it right on the planet because it gets pretty hot,

(01:39:02):
but move it back a little bit and just kind
of shine it downward towards the floor, and that'll make
enough difference. Unless the shed is just so full of
holes the wind blows right through, that'll make some difference.

Speaker 21 (01:39:13):
From you, right, all awesome, great suggestion, Thank you, appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:18):
All right, you take care. Appreciate your call. I got
to go to a break here. When I come back
from break, folks, Marianne Clearlake, we are going to continue
with a call from you. Number of years ago, I
was I was in another city at a livestock show
special event that they have and they brought in an

(01:39:40):
entertainer for that event, and I'm telling you it was
Dwight Yoakam, who, by the way, was just singing that song.
I have never been to a concert where the artists
put more effort in to the singing and performing and
entertaining than Dhite Yoakam. I'm serious, And he's not my
favorite artist at all. I mean I him, but he's

(01:40:00):
not my favorite artist. But the guy sang and sang
and saying and saying and saying and saying and saying.
He took a break and he sang and saying, and
I mean it was incredible, really incredible. It was a smaller,
not a huge group, and just a just great performer.
By the way, he's going to be also at the
Houston Livestock Show on the sixth night, So remember we're

(01:40:22):
coming into livestock show season. Get your tickets, get out
there and enjoy it. Let's head now out to the
phones and talk to Marianne. Hello, Marianne, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (01:40:34):
Good morning.

Speaker 18 (01:40:36):
I listened to you all the time and tell them call.
But I do have a problem and it's a weed.
It's in my flower bed. I have tried to get
it pulled out. I've had my flower people pull it
out by root come back, used different chemicals, and it

(01:40:57):
keeps coming back. Right now, it is completely full in
my flower bed in the front. It's about two foot tall,
up to my almost up to my knee, and it
has a little blue flower, pretty little blue flower on top.
What can I do to get rid of it?

Speaker 3 (01:41:18):
Is the flower kind of a little miniature petunia looking flower. Well,
the shape of the flower like a petunia.

Speaker 18 (01:41:29):
Okay, I'm going to walk out the door and I'll
tell you.

Speaker 3 (01:41:32):
Okay, well, we're going to give it a shot and
based on that, and if not, you may have to
send me a picture Marianne, and I can tell you
for sure then, because I'm not gonna be able to
tell you what to use it until.

Speaker 10 (01:41:43):
I know what it is.

Speaker 18 (01:41:45):
It's not a petunia.

Speaker 6 (01:41:46):
It's got two little blue leaves on top, and then
it's got a little yellow I don't know what you
call pistols, and then on the bottom it's got three
white straight.

Speaker 3 (01:41:58):
Okay, okay, and leaves long, and are the leaves long
and strappy?

Speaker 18 (01:42:06):
Well, there's they're pointed.

Speaker 15 (01:42:10):
There.

Speaker 18 (01:42:10):
There are lots of leaves and they're pointing.

Speaker 6 (01:42:14):
How long?

Speaker 3 (01:42:15):
How long are the leaves? Would you say? How long are.

Speaker 10 (01:42:21):
Okay, I'm not very You may have.

Speaker 3 (01:42:24):
A day flower. You may have a day flower, and
they're very difficult to control because you're kind of in
between a grass and a broad leaf. So the things
that kill grasses don't get them. The things that kill
broad leaves don't get them as well. So it's kind
of a challenge. Uh, if you will send me a
picture of it. Can are you able to do that?
Send me a picture?

Speaker 18 (01:42:44):
That is a challenge, But I'll see if I can
do it, if if I don't have to do it
right away, if I can help someone, get someone to
help me do it, okay, and make sure right now
is interesting? Belief is three inches three one two three?

Speaker 3 (01:43:05):
I think I think it's a day flower based on
the fact that you said two pedals that are bluish
and yellow things. Okay, so that it's going to be
difficult control. Digging it is possible, but you got to
get all the pieces parts from underground and if anything
breaks off. It just comes back from that, so it's
very that's a challenge to deal with it. If you

(01:43:28):
can send me a picture, go ahead and do that.
I'm going to put you on hold and have my
producer pick up the phone and give you an email
that you can send it to. That would be best
if you if you're a If you're able to do that, okay,
and we'll see if we can help you from there.
If you can't send a picture, you can still email
me and say I couldn't send a picture. But in

(01:43:51):
the meantime, I want you to write down day flower,
one word, day flower, and go find somebody that can
show you a picture of that, or look it up
online in a search or something. And if that's what
it is, an email saying yes, that's my weed, then
I can still help you even without a picture. If
you if you can confirm that, okay.

Speaker 18 (01:44:11):
Appreciate that very much.

Speaker 3 (01:44:13):
Thank you call me you bet, Thank you, Marian. I
appreciate your call very much. Listen. Microlafe fertilizers folks have
been around since oh gosh, it's been over thirty five
years now, long time, and they are beloved by gardeners,
certainly organic gardeners, but even gardeners that aren't specifically organic
know the quality and the benefits of micro life fertilizers.

(01:44:33):
We're about to start telling you. Get that's six two
four out there. That's the one we'll be talking about
in the spring. The green bag, very good one, but
they have many other things. They've got the humates plus,
which is like the final decomposition stage of organic matter.
If you can be improving your soil getting a bed
ready for planting this spring, you need to get some

(01:44:54):
humates plus and put it down there in the soil.
And then they have their liquid products, many high quality
liquid products that enhance the soil in various ways, adding
microbes to the soil, providing some of the other hormone
type stimulant materials that are beneficial to the plants themselves.
Go to this website, Microlife fertilizer dot com. Check out

(01:45:19):
what they have, check out all the different things that
they have, and I think you will find that you
will fall in love with microlife products as well. All right,
let's see here we are done getting kind of close
to a break here, and so we got Chris in Sugarland. Chris,
I'm gonna I'm gonna hold you until after the top

(01:45:42):
of the hour news so that I can have some
time to discuss your question with you. So hang on
if you will. We're gonna go to a break here
in just a bit and we'll be back. If you
are looking for a garden center, that is just like
going to garden Center and Disneyland are Aburgate garden Center
is that way up in Tomball. And now a lot

(01:46:02):
of you have been to Arbrogate. I know that it's
well known. People come from way outside the area to
go to Arburgate, but if you haven't, you need to
get up there and check it out. It's in Tomball,
tom All, Texas. And when you go into Arburgate, you
want to go in the back and park in the
back because there is an all weather, nice parking lot
back there, very safe, easy access. Don't try to park

(01:46:23):
alongside the road there, that's not safe to do that.
Just go around the back. You turn down Trischel Road.
Trischel goes around behind Arbrogate and comes back in. So
just look for Trischel before you get to Arbrogate or
after you pass Arbrogate, it'll come back in. Look for
Trishel road pull back there. They always have fruit trees
all year round. They do, but this is the time

(01:46:45):
to get fruit trees planted in a prime time, and boy,
or they ever loaded up. If you're looking for pears,
if you're looking for any kind of a fruit tree,
peaches and apples and things. If you're looking for berries
of various types, including blueberries of course, and grapes, they
also have some quality the types of grapes there, but
they also still have good cool season color. They also

(01:47:05):
still have vegetables, of course, and herbs year round. You
just got to get out there. It is the time
to start our spring gardening. When you leave, don't go
away without their organic food complete and organic fertilizer for
anything that has roots. Their organic soil complete quality soil
blend that you can plant right into, of course, and
it has some expanded shale in it which helps hold

(01:47:27):
it open longer. And then the compost complete, which is
compost with the shale. Two those last two, by the way,
soil and composts are available about the bulk if you
don't talk to them. The Arborgate just outside of Tumbul
to the west on twenty nine twenty All right, well,
with some music rolling. That means it's time for me
to hush and for you to be entertained by the news,

(01:47:50):
and we'll do just that. If you would like to
give me a call and get in line on the
phones seven one three, two one two five eight seven four,
be happy a visit with you. Just give me all
on that. Also, remember that we don't know when spring
is coming. We have months that are called spring, but
that's for up north. They have real winter months, they

(01:48:12):
have real spring months and so on. It's just always
summer here except when it's not. It's not right now,
but anyway, time to get ready for all those spring activities.
We'll talk about that here on guard Line.

Speaker 1 (01:48:26):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Scamp Richard.

Speaker 3 (01:48:30):
It's just watch him as the zeps.

Speaker 1 (01:48:55):
Not a sign.

Speaker 16 (01:49:00):
Side.

Speaker 3 (01:49:10):
Hey, welcome back to guard Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to help you have a beautiful garden,
bountiful garden, certainly a beautiful landscape, but most importantly we're
fun in the process. Gardening should be fun, and it
can't be when you start to see things from a
plant's point of view, and that's what we try to
help you do here on guard Line. It is not

(01:49:36):
rocket science to grow plants and have success. It's just
a matter of giving a plant what it wants and
plants thrive. I mean, think about this. Every plant in
your garden is wild somewhere. You have a petunia. Let's
say you have a pansy right now. Pansy's in the
garden by old us somewhere in the world. That's a
weed that just grows wild. Okay, it's just native plant

(01:49:56):
somewhere in the world. And then we bring them in,
we cross them and eat them and develop all these
colors and sizes and all the different things that breeders do.
And now here it is, so what how do you
have success with plant A or B or C. You
give plant air, b or c what it wants. It's
typically sunlight. Almost all plants want a lot of sunlight.

(01:50:17):
Some can do unless, but they still need sunlight to survive.
They want moisture, so a moisture to take up from
the roots. Some need a lot, like ahdranga doesn't want
to dry out at all, but some like in agave,
don't have to be water a lot, but they still
have to have water to live. Some amount of water
to live. And then they want good drainage because most

(01:50:39):
plants don't like to be soggy wet, so you gotta
give them a moisture, but not totally submerge the root
system in a standing water table of water beneath the
surface of the soil. You gotta have them adequate drainage.
Those are just a few common things they want. Temperatures
affect plants, daylength effects plants. All success with gardening me

(01:51:02):
is is learning to see things from a plant's point
of view. I'll just make it that simple, because it is.
It really is. Give me a call. We'll help you
do that. Let's go now out to sugar Land and
we're going to visit with Chris this morning. Hello Chris,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:51:19):
Hello, good morning, Hello, good morning.

Speaker 22 (01:51:23):
Yes, sir, this year, thank you, thank you so much.
This year we on the po Mara plants, on our
Primera plants, we got a bad case of rust. That's
what my sister call it, our rust.

Speaker 9 (01:51:38):
It's like a brown bongus on the lid bottom of
the leaves. Yes, do we need to replace the soil
that those plants were in.

Speaker 3 (01:51:50):
No, rust is an airborne disease. The spores come through
the air from on the wind and they It can
also be present in your plants, like if you had
plumeria rust and the leaves were still around. Uh, you know,
those those sores where the rust pustules came out could
still be around. And water can splash so spores around

(01:52:14):
and other things. But in general, just think of them
as being out there in nature and there's no fixing
it by replacing the soil. There are sprays that can
fight rust. I would have to check specifically on plumeria
if there's a preferred one on Pulumeria. I know in
general people will use dakonyl d A c O n

(01:52:37):
I L. Do you have a pen handy, I'm gonna
spell it all out. If you okay, I'm going to
get you the ingredient that yeah, Dakanil is just a brand, Uh,
the ingredient. Tell me when you're ready. The ingredient. I'm
gonna say it first and then spell it chloro thalo nil.
It's about long word c h l O r o

(01:53:01):
chloro c h l o r O follow nil t
h a oh no t h a l O n
i l foulo nil that's the ingredient. It's in dacannila
and other things. You might you might try that, but
it's only a preventative. So if you've got spots on

(01:53:23):
your plants, the sprays aren't going to kill them. They're
not going to stop the spots at that point, they're
already there. So you got a spray so that when
a spore lands, it tries to infect and you can't
because the spray coating is on the on the surface
of the leaf. So after a good rain you may
have to do it again, but that that is one
approach to dealing with the rest bungus. Also, the more

(01:53:45):
you keep the leaves dry, the better off you are,
because when you have moisture on the leaves, that's when
spores can germinate and move in.

Speaker 9 (01:53:56):
So you say it's air morn, I mean, is it
like more likely north of Houston to get it, or
south of Houston or east of Houston or is it
just in general everywhere?

Speaker 3 (01:54:08):
Yeah, I don't know how far rust sports can go.
I just don't uh, and and that I need to
check on that. On the airborne part, I know South.

Speaker 9 (01:54:18):
Texas is it a South Texas?

Speaker 10 (01:54:20):
Uh?

Speaker 9 (01:54:22):
Bungus or wealthy.

Speaker 3 (01:54:23):
Texas or Yeah, you'll find it in a lot of places.
Typically it's gonna occur more where there's moisture. Uh And
because that, you know that that is just gonna it's
just gonna be more of a problem there because of
the moisture and the leaves. Some rusts like we have
wheat rust that comes from the Midwest, the high plains.

(01:54:44):
Uh And and it floats on the air down and up,
and I mean it goes, it goes great distances on
the plumaria. I don't know. That's a technicality. I'd have
to look up. But in general, keep the leaves dry
as you can. Can't control the rain, but you can
control spraying right all the time. When you when you
have a rain, follow that up with a spray of
the of the clarath Allan Ellen and I think that

(01:55:06):
will be a good start. And I'm going to look
into this a little further. Uh, Nicholas, I'm sorry, Nicholas,
I'm looking at my producer. I'm looking into this a
little further and I'll comment more on it if I
can find some more information for you.

Speaker 9 (01:55:18):
Okay, okay, thank you very much, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:55:24):
Thank you very much. Appreciate the call. Let's now go
to talk to Abraham and Sheldon. Hello, Abraham, welcome to
dark saying your name right? Yes for a dood good.

Speaker 9 (01:55:38):
The question I have is I want to get a
Michigan plumb tree, and it seems like that's kind of hard.

Speaker 16 (01:55:44):
I didn't know if you knew.

Speaker 9 (01:55:45):
Any place, any nursery here local that has Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:55:50):
Yeah, uh so. Mexican plumbs are a native plant to Texas,
and so you're gonna find them, especially in places that
carrying at is probably the simplest easiest for you is
to come on into town on Eleventh Street is Buchanans
and native plants. They're They're about as close as any
great nursery that I know of to you right there,
and so Buchanans, I'm sure will carry Mexican plums. It

(01:56:15):
may be that they don't have them all the time
in Stock. You call before you make the drive, but
Buchanan's Native Plants and the Heights on Eleventh Street definitely
carries that plant. All right.

Speaker 9 (01:56:28):
If I happen to get one or they have them
in stock, is it a good time to plant them
now or wait a little bit later.

Speaker 3 (01:56:36):
Absolutely, yes, Any woody plant, whether it's an ornamental tree
or a fruit tree or any woody. Now is a
good time. Yeah, the sooner you plan us to get
those roots of the roots established so it can tolerate
the summer that's coming. So sooner is better than later.
Sheldon Sheldon from Sheldon Abraham, talk to you, Abraham, good luck,

(01:57:02):
Thank you, Yes, sir, happy to happy to help. All right,
let's take a little break here and we'll be right
back with your calls. Seven one three two one two
five eight seven four all right. I got a us
question for you. What would add a prize to this one?
Because it's alt? What does that song have to do
with one of the ads you just heard at the
top rail at the break. It's Herb Albert from the

(01:57:26):
Tijuana Brass. Some of y'all remember him anyway. Is this
a gardening show or a music anyway? Uh, Herb Albert
from the Tijuana Brass. I grew up listening to those songs.
My dad loved, loved them.

Speaker 6 (01:57:37):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:57:38):
He wrote that Wonderful World by Sam Cook. Yeah, he's well,
he didn't write by himself, but he's one of the
writers of it. And if you know Tianna brass and
you know that song we just played. They're very different
kinds of music, so I was shocked, to say the least. Hey,
if you'd like to give me a call on garden Line,
we can talk about gardening instead of just music, although
I do enjoy fun facts about music. Seven one one three,

(01:58:00):
two one two five eight seven four. I need to
come up with all my bumper songs about plants. That
would be a challenge, but we'll try to add a
few more as we go into the spring. Seven one
three two one two five eight seven four. Now, I've
been asking you to remind me the whole time about
to talk about fruit trees. Success with fruit trees is

(01:58:21):
based on a few things that I am going to
go into here, and I hope you will take note.
First of all, picking trees that want to grow here,
species that want to grow here. You can't grow filberts
or hazel nuts here, or macadamia nuts here successfully. And
I know somebody got a greenhouse in the backyard, probably

(01:58:41):
grew one, but they don't grow. But there are things
that do grow here. And if you're going to plant blueberries,
you don't want to plant high bush blueberries. You want
to plant rabbit eye or southern high bush blueberries. Those
are all different kinds of blueberries. You got to plant
a species that wants to be here. You got to
plant varieties that want to be here. And that's typically
based on chilling hours. So here's what chilling hours are.

(01:59:05):
Chilling hours aren't. When it gets real, real, real cold,
you get more chilling hours. Chilling hours occur between about
about thirty five degrees and about forty five degrees somewhere
in there, maybe thirty two to forty five somewhere in
that range you get chilling hours. So when we go
through winter and we got those overcast days, they're kind
of misty and wet and cool, it's too chilly to

(01:59:27):
be out and comfortable outside. That's great chilling hours. When
we get down in the twenties, that's not chilling hours. Okay,
that makes sense. You don't have to know any more
than that about it. You don't even have to know
that much. Just know that where you live there is
a general chilling hour amount. And if you go online
to the Aggie Horticulture website Aggie Horticulture website, there is

(01:59:49):
a fruit section, fruit and nut section, and on there
you can click on a specific kind of fruit. Maybe
you want to grow peaches, maybe you want to grow avocados,
which the way, avocados don't have chilling hour situation, but
peaches or plums, or apples or pears do, and blueberries
even as well. So you find out how many chilling

(02:00:10):
hours you get for your area, and you plant the
varieties that that chilling are very important. Here's why. If
you plant a peach that has very very low chilling
hours up in Huntsville, let's say, or in College Station
for example, or Conro, and you don't get enough chilling hours,
or excuse me, you get your chilling hours so soon

(02:00:32):
in the winter that by now the chilling hour requirement
has been met. Well, what happens when next week we
get to seventy five degree The thing starts blooming. Some
of your trees are already blooming now for that reason.
On the other hand, if you plant one that's too
high of a chilling hours maybe it belongs in Waco
or Huntsville, and you plant it down in Sugarland or

(02:00:53):
Galveston or someplace, it never gets the chilling hours that
it needs, and in the spring, other trees are leafing
out and blooming and looking good, and yours isn't. It's
these naked branches with a little tough to leaves at
the end or here and there sporadic leaves or blimm
and you don't get good production. Chilling hour is very important.

(02:01:14):
So the right species and the right variety that gets
the right kind of chilling hours for the area you
live in. All right, That's that is the first thing
I'll talk about. The second thing I'll talk about is
the location you put them in. Almost all fruit needs
excellent drainage to do its best. There are a few

(02:01:36):
beha is an example of one. You'll find it up
in East Texas, growing on the edge of a swamp.
Practically they can put up with the I think they
like it like that. But most fruit needs good drainage.
Peaches and plums, the stone fruit especially true with them.
So what do you do if you got a yard
that's heavy clay and little soggi at times? You build

(02:01:57):
up a raised mound, put in a raised bed if
you want. That's what I've done for my trees. In
an area where I've planted them where it is not
good for planting trees, I put them in a raised bed.
Got it eleven inch. It's one of those eleven inch
side size height raised beds and filled it full of
good mix and they're growing up on top of that
and they're doing fine. They're doing good in that. Or

(02:02:18):
just build up a big bed on the ground like
a picture's mound, but high enough to get the roots
up out of the soggy wet conditions. But you need
good drainage for them to do well. Now, from that point,
there's a lot of things you do that help your
fruit trees. You fertilize them, You prune them right starting
at planting. You prune them correctly, don't just make it
up what seems right to you. Go to Aggie Horticulture.

(02:02:41):
You want to grow peaches, click on the peach and
plum publication and look at how they prone a tree
and prune your trees that way. That's that's what you
need to do. It's also important to deal with insects
and diseases as they occur. That's something you don't want
to get out of hand. And then finally, of course
for fertilizing, you want to get them growing. Now, if

(02:03:02):
you've got young trees in your yard, and this could
be a little oak tree you just planted, or a
peach tree you just planted. If you don't know how
much fertilizer to put on them, get you a good
lawn fertilizer. You hear me talk about them all the time,
Lots of good lawn fertilizers. Not one with weed control
in it, just fertilizer. And for every inch of trunk diameter,

(02:03:25):
give it a cup or two a fertilizer. So let
me give an example. Let's say you've got a tree
that's the size of a mop handle. We're going to
say that's an inch. It would get one or two
cups of lawn fertilizer. If your tree is the size
of a soft drink can, Coca Cola can, that's about
three inches. So if we get three to six cups

(02:03:47):
a fertilizer spread all the way around it, that's a
general good gauge. I'll call it a rule at thumb.
And here's why my thumb want I press it down
just a little bit is an inch wide, and yours
is probably close to that. So you can go up
to that hold your thumb up, you know, like gig
a maggie. Some of you are not capable of saying
those words. But anyway about about it, hold your thumb

(02:04:08):
up and for every width thumb with across not around
the trunk, but the diameter across the trunk, one or
two cups of fertilizer. There you go. It's attached to
your hand. You can't forget to bring it out when
you're fertilizer's with you. So that's about as easy as
I can make it. Now, are there are there fertilizers
for fruit trees? Yes, and they're great, they work good.

(02:04:30):
But when most people have lawn fertilizer around because almost
everybody has a lawn, uh, And so that would be
just an easy way to go either way you go
about it, one or two cups branch of trunk diameter. Now,
if you're doing an organic like a micro life product,
for example, then you would double that. You would want

(02:04:51):
to double that. You can even go more than double,
probably two and a half times higher on that because
the concentration of nutrients is low. So if the concentrations
are you put more on. And with organic you're not
going to burn the roots if you overdid it. Even
so there you go. All right, something to think about.

(02:05:12):
Let's see here the phone number if you would like
to give me a call seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. By the way, if you
haven't bought your fertilizers for spring, you need to go
by Southwest Fertilizer. Bob has got every fertilizer that you
could possibly want at Southwest Fertilizer. You know, products from

(02:05:33):
Nitrofoss and products from Nelson, and products from Microlife, and
products from Medina. He's got all of those there and more.
And he has his own line as well at the
Southwest Fertilizer now Southwest Fertilizers in the corner of Bisinet
and Renwick. And while you're in there, you're going to
see quality tools, a lot of them in ninety foot wall.
You're going to find things to control. You remember how

(02:05:55):
I said, if you're going to deal with broad leaf
weeds in your line, that's the weed you have right now.
You need to do that now. If you're going to
spray am spram, now, if you're going to hand pull them,
ham pull them. But Bob's got the products you need
for that as well. At Southwest Fertilizers seven to one
three six sixty six one seven four to four Southwest.
I've been around for seventy years in southwest Houston. That

(02:06:20):
works well. I mentioned uh Medina products and I was
I was looking. I carry a selection of fertilizers in
my garage, you know, for various things. I'm always testing
new fertilizers, especially Sponsor products. I need to know they
work before I'm going to talk about them. And Medina products.

(02:06:40):
So many great products out there that I don't you know,
I don't even know where to begin with them. All winter,
all fall. Actually, I've been talking about has to grow
six twelve six plant foods. That's high phosphorus, the middle
number phosphorus six twelve six. Great for planting and transplanting.
I don't care what you're planning. You put in a
fruit tree in, you're putting a shrub in, you're putting

(02:07:02):
flowers in, you're putting vegetables in. You put that down
in the planting hole. Water it water, are the plants
in with it. It's a liquid, and you can put
it on a hose in spray if you want. I
put mine in watering cans and just drench it in
to get those roots a good start because roots love phosphorus.
That's an important nutrient for good root development has to

(02:07:22):
grow six to twelve six for Medina is that kind
of product, and there are many other good Medina products
like Medina Plus. Medina Plus is based on the original
Medina Soil activator, been around for a long time and
people love it. But with Medina Plus, what they did
is they took that original product and they fortified it
with the extra micronutrients with seaweed extract and it just

(02:07:46):
is excellent for not only watering in, but also you
can use a folio spray on your plants and it'll
do real well. The Medina Plus which is the Medina
soil activator that's been boosted with some other good things. Well,
we're coming up here on a break for the half
of the hour. We got open lines if you would
like to be the first up when we come back.

(02:08:07):
We got one half hour of garden line left today.
By the way, thanks for joining us again. It's so
good to be back in the saddle again. So I
like I'm about to introduce gene autry, uh and good
to have you with us. We take a little break
here and we'll be back if you'd like to be
first up or first or second up? Seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three

(02:08:29):
two one two. Hey, you want to dial by letters
kt RH. Hey, welcome back to the garden line.

Speaker 16 (02:08:37):
Here you go.

Speaker 3 (02:08:40):
Kind of questions we have about gardener that we could
help with, We're more than happy to do that for sure.
Just give me a call seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four.

Speaker 6 (02:08:52):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:08:53):
I was talking about free trees prior to going to
break there. It free is something that everybody ought to
add to their landscape. A lot of fruit trees are
actually really attractive peach trees. They bloom in the spring
with the flowers. They have a spring flowering tree. Plus
you get fruit out of the deal. I like per simmons.

(02:09:13):
You know, for Simmons is not the most common fruit
that you run into around here, but I think it's great.
One of the esthetic advantages of per Simmons. The blooms
aren't anything to write home about it all, but you
have these orange fruit that are hanging on the tree
in the fall, and as you go into fall, per
semon leaves term beautiful colors, have nice fall color. And
then you have these orange fruit that hang on the

(02:09:34):
tree for a long time, and so it's like a
Thanksgiving ornament hanging on the tree with these orange fruit
or orange red fruit that are hanging out there. So
that's a nice additional advantage when it comes to grape vines.
They make a nice arbor. Now you can grow them
in a traditional production way where you grow them along

(02:09:58):
wires that are on posts going down the row, or
essentially the wires or horizontal down the row. You can
grow a lot that way if you're just going after
fruit itself. But if you have an outdoor sitting area
and you would like to have some shade over the
top of it, well, how about a grape barber. That
is another option that you can do. Lots of good

(02:10:18):
ways to use fruit out there in the landscape. The
blueberries are very picky about soil and water quality too,
by the way, so you want to make sure that
they get a good quality water. It could be a
little rain barrel with some rain water that would work
really well, or a kind of a distilled water that

(02:10:38):
would be very helpful for them in terms of not
getting sodium and things like in there. But they go
in a container. You can put a high quality acidic
soil in that container, and blueberries will be super super happy,
and then you get to enjoy those as well. Let's
see here, we are going to go back to the
phones now and we're going to go talk to Danny

(02:11:00):
in Houston. Hello, Danny, welcome to garden line. Hello, hey Danny.

Speaker 5 (02:11:07):
Yeah, yes, yeah, I'm calling from sugar Land. I have
figs three then for three years, always to give the
figs and it's a small and.

Speaker 3 (02:11:27):
Green and never gets ripe. Huh, well, that's unusually should
There's a lot of different kinds of figs out there, Danny,
and some of them are better at producing. There's two
different kinds of crops a fig can produce. One of
them occurs on last year's growth and wood, and it's

(02:11:51):
an earlier crop. And then some types produce a later
crop that occurs on currencies and growth very well after
you know the first one. So I would say maybe
the fig variety is a little off, or maybe something
is stressing the tree if you have nematodes in the
soil that are affecting the roots, or if it has drought,

(02:12:11):
or if it struggles with a folior disease called rust
where the leaves turn yellow, get spots on them, and
they fall off. Those are all possible reasons that a
fig just would not have the vigor to finish out
a crop. So how I should treat it well. If

(02:12:34):
it's a matter of vigor, you would just make sure
it's watered, that umultuo well around it so that the
grass doesn't compete with the tree for water and nutrients.
If it's nematodes, you can take a water hose and
wash some of the roots out of the surface. Just
get a blast of water, you know from a water
hose of water that squeeze gun on the end that sprays.

(02:12:56):
Just blast out some roots and look for little knots
on the roots, a little bump along the roots. That's nematodes.
There's no cure for that. That they attack fig trees,
and if they're in the soil, that's going to be
a hard spot to grow a fig in. But I
don't think necessarily go ahead.

Speaker 5 (02:13:17):
So I have to dig to get through the roots
and find if this is something what you're saying, it's
in there.

Speaker 3 (02:13:27):
Yeah, yeah, And you can you can go online and
see what nematodes on roots look like. Uh, and but
that's more just to say, is this the problem. It's not.
It doesn't. There's nothing to do about them. But if
you know you have that, then then you know you
know what the problem is. It also could be the variety.
Do you happen to know the variety of fig that

(02:13:47):
you planted?

Speaker 5 (02:13:51):
Since I grow on you plant it, it's a getting
very big and I never give no any you know,
ripe the same size for the whole time, you know,
and the stay green. Yeah you're talking about the freak. Yeah, yeah,
there's the fruits became the stay small but very smoke.

Speaker 3 (02:14:18):
Yeah. I understand.

Speaker 5 (02:14:22):
To put any any kind of manure or something, you know,
a little.

Speaker 3 (02:14:29):
A little fertilizer, Uh yeah, don't put too much fertilizer,
but a little bit watered in and help create some
vigor for the tree. Make sure it gets adequate water
during the summertime, keep the weeds away. Those are the
things that are in your power to do. Other than that,
I would say, find a different variety and plant it,

(02:14:49):
uh next nearby, and see if it does better, and
if then you would pull the old one out. It
could be that the variety is just a problem, but
I can't know that without knowing variety. It is okay.
I'm sorry about that disappointment. I know how that is
to plant a tree and not get what you want
out of it. So hopefully with what I've suggested, you

(02:15:11):
can do a little bit better with it. Thank you, Danny,
appreciate that call.

Speaker 5 (02:15:14):
Thank you, Thanks for telling you advice you bet thank.

Speaker 3 (02:15:17):
You you bet Hey. Cienamulch is the place, folks, where
you can go and get outstanding products for success in
the soil and plants depend on quality soil. It's the
single most important thing you can do for a plant
is give it a good quality soil to grow in.
That's why I say brown stuff before green stuff, meaning

(02:15:37):
do the soil right and then plant the plant. The
green stuff and cnmals as you cover. They have the nutrients,
the fertilizers from microlife from medina, from nitrophoss from the
folks at Nelson. They have soil blends like from heirloom
soils or veggie nerdbix. They carry azomite, another quality product
that's available at Cienimalch. They sell they sell soil blends,

(02:16:01):
They sell rocks, whether it is a riverstone, you know,
creating a drainway or whether it is a beautiful landscape
flat rock for creating walkways and creating patios and things.
It's all there, Sienna Multch dot com, cienamltch dot com.
Here's the well. Let me just say this. They're open

(02:16:22):
every day except for Sunday. So they're open today until
two pm today during the week seven thirty to five pm,
closed on Sunday. They're on FM five twenty one south
of Houston, near where Highway six and two eighty eight
are done in that direction. Cinmulch dot com. Let's take
a break. We'll be right back, and when we come back, Alexandra,
you will be our collar from Sugarland. Hey, welcome back

(02:16:45):
to the guard line. Glad to have you with us.
Glad to have you with us is born and listen
to aceh Hardware Store has got you covered on whatever
you need to have a beautiful lawn and landscape. I
mean everything for the fertilizers and the products to control pests,
weeds and diseases, to the tools, even to creating a

(02:17:07):
little special spot outside. You know, quality barbecue equipment and things.
Boys springs coming, Oh my gosh, I can't wait. That
is gonna be fun. Spending some time out there, get
you a string of lights that what I call them
beer garden lights. You know those little ambiance light strings
that are very not so bright bulbs, but they they
just set that outdoor setting so nice. Ace Hardware it's

(02:17:29):
got all that and more. Ace Hardware Texas dot Com.
Don't forget Texas. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. That's how
you get to my ACE Hardware stores, which are all
over the area in places like Spring Ace on Spring Cypress,
Crosby ACE up Northeast on FM twenty one hundred. Let's
say in West Houston up in Cypress direction, kind of
behind Copperfield, Langham Creek, ACE Hardware on five twenty nine.

(02:17:52):
Out in Richmond Rosenberg, you got Plantation ACE Great Store
on Mason Road. Down in the Victoria area, there's Victoria
Ice on Navarro Street. How about those of you Northwest
Champions Ice on Spring Cypress up there in Spring. Just
a few examples of the mini ACE Hardware stores you'll
find at Ice Hardware Texas dot Com. Let's go now

(02:18:15):
to the phones. We're going to talk to Alejandra in Sugarland. Hello, Alejandra,
Welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 14 (02:18:26):
From fruit, trees and peppers, everything, Everything seems to have
been damaged. We've had some crazy weather that has brought
in a lot of stuff. My peachtree looks like it
looks really All the leaves have turned yellow with spots

(02:18:51):
of my grapefruits and my lemons, all the leaves have
been eaten away and they're turning whitish. I have an eggplant,
a couple of eggplants that the leaves have turned They're
kind of white and black and full of black spots
and some yellow leaves. My peppers are the same thing.

(02:19:13):
They are there, they're turning similar to the lemons, where
the leaves are turning whitish and curling up and falling off.
Then they have a papiet tree where the leaves have
turned white.

Speaker 3 (02:19:31):
You got a lot going on, situation. Okay, let's we
can't handle all of those in one question, but let
me just give you some thoughts. The the citrus trees
have something called citrus leaf mine around I'm pretty sure,
and that when new growth starts out in the spring,

(02:19:54):
you need to spray the new growth with a product.
Do you have a pin or pencil handy?

Speaker 12 (02:19:59):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (02:20:01):
Okay, here, I'm gonna spell it s P I N
O S A D like spin, the letter O and
the word sad, spin no sad. That sprayed on new
growth right away when the new growth comes out, because
that's where the insects attack. They don't attack older leaves,

(02:20:22):
they attack the new growth. So anytime you have new growth,
you got a spray with spin, I said, and I
would do it about a week apart. Two sprays about
a week apart. Then the let's see what was the
eggplant and the peppers. It's just not their season really,
and so you get some cold weather and you can

(02:20:42):
start get some damage from the cold without seeing the
leaves exactly. It's hard to say, but at this time
of year, those are not really it's not their best season,
so that a lot of things could be affecting them
based on weather. There was something.

Speaker 14 (02:21:00):
Other colds, cold and warmth. They're very confused. I've got
like three egg plants coming out, and I've got a
bunch of peppers, but the rest of the plant.

Speaker 3 (02:21:09):
You know, that's true, Yeah, that's true. People people have
tomatoes on fruit on plants right now in some parts
of my listening area. But it just is, it just
is what it is. I would I would say, let's
take these one at a time. If you I'm going
to put you on hold as we close this call.
But if you will get my email from my producer,

(02:21:30):
he'll get he'll give you my email. And if you
will take a picture of some of these plants. I
can't do like ten ten plants at once. But uh,
if you've got a couple of different kinds of plants
you want to send me some pictures of, I'll take
a look and I'll make a suggestion for those for you.
But on your citrus, I know this spinosa is going
to be the thing you need to use, and already

(02:21:50):
told you kind of win to do it. That's very
important to protect that new growth. On the others, just
to we'll follow up.

Speaker 17 (02:22:02):
Go ahead, and the gentleman.

Speaker 14 (02:22:06):
I tried to show the pictures to the gentleman, but
he said he wasn't sure what it was. So he
told and he told me as far as the peach tree,
I should not fertilize now that I needed to wait
till February.

Speaker 3 (02:22:20):
You need to wait until spring when the new growth
starts and fertilized peaches. Then okay, And the peach tree
losing leaves and having spots on the leaves and stuff.
That's normal. It should lose all its leaves in the winter.
Some of them are slow this year. I've got peaches
with a few leaves still hanging on them. That's not unusual.

(02:22:41):
But don't worry about that now. That's what should be
happening in the wintertime. It'll come out with fresh new
growth in the spring. Okay, great, all right, so my producers,
my producer is going to pick up right now and
he'll give you an email that you can you can
use if you need to. All right, thank you your call.
Appreciate that very much. We are winding up the show, folks.

(02:23:05):
Music's about to start playing here in just a little bit.
I want to tell you about something you may be
interested in. If you are a vegetable gardener, you want
to be, or maybe you want to grow commercially a
small scale vegetables, you need to go to the forty
first annual now and you'll fort Bend Regional Vegetable Conference.
It is Tuesday, February seventeenth. Tuesday February seventeenth. Now, if

(02:23:28):
you register before January fifteenth, you got about five days.
It's forty five dollars, and if you wait and later,
you can still register for fifty five dollars. Okay, but
here's the deal. You are going to have hours and
hours of education. Starts at eight in the morning, goes
still four thirty. They'll be food. There's a barbecue lunch
included with that, and guess what yours Truly, I'm going

(02:23:50):
to be there talking about raised bed and container gardening.
My talks from one fifteen to two fifteen. I'll teach
you about gardening and containers, some simple tricks to have
access in containers and in raised beds as well. I mean,
it's gonna be a great time. I've been to these before.
They're always good. Food's always good too, by the way,
in the snacks, lots of good speakers. So if you're

(02:24:11):
a backyard gardener, maybe you're a small producer, a market gardener,
or maybe you just want to learn about food preservation
safety and recipes for preserving your food. That and a
much much more. Two eight one three four to two
thirty forty two The Fort ben County Extension Office