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May 11, 2024 • 163 mins
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Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
Kat r H Garden Line does notnecessarily endorse any of the products or services
advertised on this program. Welcome tokat r H Garden Line with Skip Richter's
sho Crazy trim. Just watch himas many sets not a sun glass gas.

(00:42):
Good morning, Good morning on agreat day for gardening. You are
listening to garden Line and I'm yourhost, Skip Rictor. We're here today
help you have a more bountiful gardenand a more beautiful landscape. That's kind
of the goal. You know,we say the cereal I say this here
a lot on Guardline that there's nosuch thing as a brown thumb. My

(01:03):
point is that it's not the thumbthat's the problem. There's just an If
we're gonna blame it on our thumbs, let's just say there's uninformed thumbs.
Okay, Because anybody can grow thingsif you just learn about what that particular
plant needs and you provide it.It's as simple as that. That's why
we talk a lot about places whereyou can get good quality plants that want

(01:26):
to live here. You know,I know you have tried things before that
didn't want to live here. SitThere are stores around the region that sell
things that should not be planted here. I mean, if you go to
Colorado for a vacation, don't bringback a blue spruce tree, a little
baby blue spruce, and maybe ablue Colorado columbine. The Society for the

(01:49):
Prevention of Cruelty to Plants is settingup way stations at the border between Texas
and New Mexico, just so thatwhen you come across, they can confiscate
those things and send those poor plantsback to where they came from, where
they can be happy. Good plants. That's number one. Good products to
help enhance growth, from fertilizers tosoils, and you know how important soil

(02:13):
is. We walk you through that, We help you with the specifics.
There are things that go wrong.You know. Sometimes you may hear talk
or read articles that make it soundlike, well, you just do this
and everything's going to be fine.Well, there are things we do that
are important, but sometimes nature getsin the way. You know, we
can do all the kinds of thingswe want to create the perfect environment,

(02:37):
but then all of a sudden,here comes soid web worms when summer to
attack our lawns, and that justyou can't plan for it. You just
respond to it. But we helpyou with that. That's why I have
schedules on my website Gardening with Skipdot com schedules where you go by the
way. They're free. You candownload them, print them out, and

(02:58):
I recommend you do. It tellsyou when to fertilize, what to use,
how to deal with pasts, howto deal with insects specifically, how
to deal with diseases in your lawn, how to control weeds in your lawn.
We do all those kind of thingsto help you out in those ways.
Let's head up to begin with upto Tom Ball and talk to Mel.
Hello, Mel, good morning.Hey, been runing against Kip listen,

(03:21):
Yeah, on your schedule along theline. I guess maybe I should
go there to see this. SoI've had I got so sick and tired
of these stupid weeds, you know. Yeah, And so Tuesday, Tuesday
and Wednesday I put down some weedstop and uh not wearing any underneath trees

(03:42):
or anything like that. And Iknow that stuff didn't seem to help me
a whole lot. My problem is, and my question is, I know
this is about the time to putdown some pre emergent too, but now
is it wasteful or you said,all right, to still put down my
pre emergent on top of all thatother stuff. Well, now would be

(04:04):
the time. We're getting close tothe time here where we do are our
pre emergent if you did one alittle bit later. Yeah, we've been
doing the second application since really towardthe end of April. But oh,
I thought that goes into May.Well it doesn't know. We've been doing

(04:26):
it since toward the end of April. It goes through May and goes through
June as well. There's not aspecific time you have to put it on.
It's just that if you apply itin early to mid February, which
is prime time for getting those down, then after about sixty days ninety days
somewhere in that region, it's wearingout enough to where you probably could do

(04:49):
a second application. Things like graspersand crabgrass and whatnot can still sprout later
on. They don't only sprout inthe early spring, and so I have
it on there for that. Ijust always encourage people to be careful because
you know, you got weeds,and so I'm going to double dose on
this stuff and really kill the weeds. And that's where we get into problems

(05:11):
with your grass. All right,So but you know I could still it's
all right if I still go aheadand put down my pre emergent, even
though I put that stuff other stuffdown. Yes, if you have not
put down a pre emergent since backin February, you can do it again
now, okay, so it's stillsafe to do that. Yeah, all
right, I've got some weeds thatit just doesn't want to kill. So

(05:32):
well, now, if you know, again, the pre mergent only stops
weeds that you don't see yet,and if you've got existing weeds, that's
called post emergent, which I'm sureyou know. The post emergent information is
on my schedule too, if youchoose to go that direction. All right,
appreciate it, all right, milthanks, appreciate the call. Let's

(05:55):
see if we can move along here. We've got kind of people hopping on
by the way. We're talking aboutthings to do on the lawn. Azamite
is a micronutrients source that we putdown. You'll find it almost schedule,
and there's not a specific time whenyou would apply azamite. You can do
it at anytime. Think of itas a bank account, like when when
is a good time to put adeposit in your bank account. Well,

(06:15):
anytime you got some money, putit in there. Uh. And that's
kind of how azemite is. It'snot like nitrogen where you put it down
at certain times to promote more rapidgreen growth. It is a bank account
of the trace minerals that every plantneeds in order to survive. They are
not needed in large amounts, butthey are absolutely essential. That's what makes

(06:36):
them essential nutrients. It's about twentydifferent nutrients by the way, that that
plants do need for one or anotherprocess. You can go to azmite Texas
dot com and find out more information, or just wherever you go shopping.
Pretty much, if I'm talking abouta place here on garden Line, I
don't care if it's a garden centeror a feed store, Southwest fertilizer,

(06:58):
ace hardware store. They've oh theycarry. It's easy, easy to find
in the region. We go outnow to Beaumont and talk to Dan.
Hello. Dan, Hey, goodmorning, good morning. I'm running into
a little issue. I've got tomatoplants. Yeah, I called you up
last week and I was concerning therotting from the inside. Will. I

(07:23):
was at my garden this last weekand I noticed these little red bugs running
around. Now they look like abig, huge army ants, but they're
they're red and they have black legs, six legs, and I'm trying to
figure out what they are and howto get rid of them. And I'm
thinking, those are what's eating mytomato from the inside. Okay, they're

(07:46):
on the they're they're on your tomatoes. I yes, there are two things
that can fit that description. Oneis a past the leaf footed bug.
In its nymph stage when they're veryyoung, they are kind of an orange
red color and they have black,long black legs. There's also a beneficial
called the assassin bug, and certainspecies of assassin bugs have the same coloring.

(08:13):
The difference between the two, justfrom a standback and look at them
without really studying them closely, isbad bugs tend to hang out in herds
when they're young. You'll just seea whole cluster of them, kind of
on a tomato. Good bugs tendto disperse, and you tend to see
those individually because they're predators and theyknow they're out hunting. Some types of

(08:39):
good bugs even eat each other,so that's if you're seeing more than one
of them on a tomato. That'sprobably the leaf footed bug, a bad
bug, and you can go online, you can send me a picture.
I can identify it for you too. But those you need to deal with
now when they're young like that,they don't have wings, they can't fly
away, and it's really you tomanage them. You can take sometimes I'll

(09:03):
just take it like a little paleof soapy water and swat them into it.
Sometimes I'll just vacuum them off witha little handback. You don't have
to spray them, but at thisstage they're most susceptible to sprays. Once
they get they turn dark colored andthen they're flying around there. It's it's
a much much harder to control them. What if I put down like this

(09:28):
chemical that we put on our animalslike horses and stuff, it's oh good
night, I forget the name ofit. Now. Well, you as
long as it's labeled for tomatoes,you can do that. Just remember that
there are good bugs out there too, so make sure we are dealing with
a pass before you do that.Right. Well, I'm thinking these guys

(09:54):
are a pass because they were inthey were in kind of a herded flour.
Okay, yeah, well so yeah, you can do that, just
just be cautious in what you useand follow the label carefully. Dan,
I'm gonna have to run. I'vegone, I've bumped past a break here.
But good luck with those bugs,and I wish I do, wish
you well. We'll be right back. What two three Nicistic, Welcome back

(10:24):
to Gardenline. Good to have youwith us today. We are talking about
all kinds of things today. Lookingat the board, we got a lot
of topics up there. If you'replanning on putting out a container of flowers
or vegetables, number one, congratulations. More people need to do that.
We do not grow enough things andcontainers on our patio. We have beautiful

(10:45):
containers. We can grow anything ina container. You can grow in the
ground pretty much. I mean,you know, within reason, you're not
going to grow a big shade tree, of course, but if you get
a big enough container, you growanything. So what do you do in
a container though? You put aquality mix. And what makes a soil
mix quality? Well, a numberof things, but two key things are

(11:05):
it needs to hold water, sothe water doesn't just run straight through and
out and you got drought immediately.It needs to drain well though, you
don't want a mucky swamp in thatcontainer. And so jungle Land it was
created to provide just that. It'sgot several different types of decomposed organic matter,
it's got the microhizo fungi in there, and it will enhance your plants.

(11:26):
And just look for something called jungleLand flour and vegetable planting soil to
do just that for your plants.Now where do you get it? Well,
lots of different places. Jungle Land'swidely available. Plants for all seasons.
Has it on two forty nine,All spas ace up in the woodlands
has it. You can find junglelanded plants and things in brennam A.
Jungle Land is a quality mix thatdoes what you need to do so your

(11:48):
plants look good, so you havesuccess. We're going to go to Paul
now on the southeast side. HeyPaul, Hey, yep, how are
you? I'm good, sir,Welcome to Guardline. How can we help?
Yes, sir, I've got aburgundy poem that I've passed numerous people

(12:11):
bathroom, They all draw a blank. This is plant I don't know,
ten fifteen years old. Used towhen I first planet it of course a
year or two it produced at thewazoom and did real well, and I
had other golf variety clumbs next toit. I lost the two gulfs to

(12:33):
the boars, but the burgher didis done well. And then about four
or five years ago it just quitproducing. Still looks good, still going
healthy. But I've got one limbat about chest Hide. This plant now
it's fifteen foot call at least,I've cut it back to the three times.

(12:54):
But I've got one planet about chestHide that produces like crazy, one
limb. That's it. Have youever seen anything like that? No?
There, I mean what I wouldlike to tell you is that's impossible.
But obviously it's happening at your house, so I don't pictures of it just

(13:16):
for this reason. Yeah, wellhere here's the thing. And then this
year I've got two plums on theother side on the north side, tree
way apat two a tree Okay,but it's still just this one limb on
the south side. Yeah, itis the trend. Is it the full
sun? Oh yeah, lots ofsun. Okay, Well, bergun to

(13:39):
yourself fruitful so that it's not apoll it's not a lack of pollinator uh,
the blues do have to be pollinated. Something has to move the pollen
from the miss Let me tell youthis, for I forget, I'm old
man, that one limb is alwaysflowers first the one lamb, and I

(14:00):
mean it's got a ton of bloonson them. And then about two weeks
later, of course, the pedalsdrop and stuff like that, and then
the rest of the tree explodes withthe same flower. Okay, do the
plums look identical to the plums onthe rest of the tree and the ones

(14:22):
that are on the other side nowthis time are up high and they're still
green. Because it's like I saidthis, the rest of the trees too,
a couple of weeks behind then throughthe whole process. Okay, but
I think I think in the samething it might becoming maybe the rootstock mating

(14:43):
or something something. If it's agood edible plum, it's not the rootstock.
In fact, most plums are draftedonto peach rootstock. But I would
let me, let's do this.I'm going to put you on hold,
and I have h callum uh getgive you an email address, and would
you send me photos of what you'reseeing. One of one or two things

(15:05):
has happened. Either they double graftedthe tree, which is very unlikely,
or there's been a genetic sport,which means that sometimes implants and we have
a lot of varieties that are becauseof this, and various kinds of plants,
flowers and fruit. But it changesgenetically and suddenly that branch starts producing

(15:26):
something a little different, and thatthat happens a lot, and that probably
is what's happened on that branch.Why the rest of the tree isn't producing
good son self fruitful? I don'tI can't tell you why that is unless
I mean, I guess you knowif you spray it with insecticide every spring.
But that let me put you onhold. Would you give him you

(15:46):
would you get my email and sendme some photos? All right? I
think that's that's the next step.I don't think we're get any further with
it here, but I think Ithink what I said is what's going on.
But let's see if we can figureout how to solve this and get
plumbs again. Thank you, Paul. I appreciate that call very much.

(16:07):
Talking about fruit trees and stuff.Anytime you're planning a tree, especially your
landscape, trees that young tree hasa small cylinder of a root ball.
It's what came out of the pot, and that's not well stabilized. Once
the tree roots are out there andestablished well, it takes two or three
seasons to get good, strong rootsystems going. By the time you hit

(16:32):
that point, it's very stable.The wind's not going to blow it over
very easily, and it's not goingto wobble around up until that point.
That's why we steak trees often earlyon, and tree stabilizer three sixty.
Tree stabilizer is a plastic arm thatholds that tree very strong. Instead of
having to go buy wire, cutup garden hose and make those guy wires

(16:52):
to trip over in your lawn,you just hammer steak in near the tree,
I mean you know, foot anda half or so from the tree.
You attach the stabilizer to the steakin the tree, and it's made
to attach to a t post too. You can get them like that and
it holds it just fine. Ifyou've got a lot of wind blowing different
directions, you can use two ofthem, one kind of let's just say

(17:15):
north south, one east west,so no matter which way it goes,
you got a strong arm holding ontothat tree, but it holds loosely,
so there's a little bit of movementwhich is important for strengthening the development and
the stability of that tree. Threesixty tree stabilizers. You're going to find
them at Southwest Fertilizer, Jorges HiddenGardens and Alvin Plans for All Seasons,

(17:37):
Buchanan's Nursery, RCW Nursery, andat the Arbor Gate, which is where
I'll be today at eleven thirty.After the show, I'm going to head
up there to the Arbor Gate andI will be answering gardening questions. I'll
tell you a little bit more aboutthat a little later. Let's go up
now to Conroe and we're going totalk to Lee. Hello, Lee,
Good morning, yep, good morning. I've got a couple of spots in

(18:03):
my Saint Augustine grass that have gotsome small areas of bluish gray. I
don't know if it's some kind ofmold or fungus or what it is.
And then in some similar bushes,and I don't know what kind of bushes
they are, there's several petals thatseem to have a similar coating on them.

(18:26):
I've done some I've taken a coupleof close up pictures that a picture
is worth a thousand words that I'dlike to maybe send in if I could.
Then you take a look at themand too that that's the best thing.
Yeah, that's the best thing.Especially when we see a problem and
it's on different species of plants,that's not a common occurrence for it to

(18:48):
be the same cause. But itmay not be the same thing on the
bushes the grass, but they're inthe same where it is in the grass
as bushes right now? The sameokay, well, similar nearby area.
And did you describe it like Ihear bluish colored coats, well, kind
of on the grass, kind ofa bluish bluish gray on several and two

(19:18):
or three different areas, taking picturesof okay, two areas in the grass
and a couple of a couple ofthe on on the petals. So so
they sorry to interrupt you. Inthe grass. Lead is this is this
like a coating on the on thegrass blades itself? Yes, it is.

(19:41):
Okay, that's probably a little moldthat can form on grass. It
is not a disease of grass.The only way it hurts grass is it
shades the light from getting to thatblade. But you can just take a
water hose and blast it off ifyou want. It comes and goes uh
and it's a natural thing out there, and they just think of it as
a slimy mold climbing up on it. And then it goes through this stage

(20:03):
where it produces spores and that's whenyou see that gray look to it on
there. But let me I'm gonnaput you on hold. Callum will pick
up and give you my email addressso you can send me some good pictures.
Make sure they're in sharp focus ofwhatever plants you're talking about, and
I'll be happy to take a lookat them. Okay, I will do.

(20:26):
And I appreciate your tending guidance onceto see what I'm all right trying
to words. The picture is wortha thousand worse. There you go.
That's true. Thanks a lot ly. I appreciate that call very much.
When's the last time you were doneit? In Shanna Gardens in Richmond?
You know that place is a showplace, and I'm telling you it is.
I mean, people come from allover to see in Jenny Gardens because number

(20:49):
one, it's it's large. Imean you wander through all the every kind
of plant you can imagine, beautifulpottery. Of course, they carry all
the fertilizers, soils and things youhear me talk about here in garden line,
annuals, perennials, vegetables, herbs, beautiful, beautiful flowers. Right

(21:10):
now they have got If you're lookingfor something for mom, they have boogainvillias,
just gorgeous boogom villias, I mean, and you can get them as
a hanging basket. You can getthem as a one gallon bush, or
two gallon or seven gallons. Youcan even get them on a little mini
trellis. They're already trellised for youin two, five and ten gallons.
And you know how beautiful boogom villasare. I mean, they just light

(21:33):
things up in summer. They've gotthat. Pretty much. Anything you can
imagine you would need as for aplant or as a plant, then Chanty
Garden's gonna have it. They reallydo a good job of having good stock.
They have knowledgeable staff Enchanted Gardens Richmonddot com in Chenna Gardens Richmond dot
com. They are on the KatieFullsher side of Richmond, so you just

(21:56):
head out FM three fifty nine.That's where you'll find them. Enchanted Gardens
in Richmond, Quality quality Place.Hey, welcome back to the Guardline.

(22:18):
Good to have you with us todayon a great day for gardening. Really
looking forward to getting out and gettingsome good gardening kinds of things done.
The be Supply in Dayton, you'veheard me talk about it before. It's
kind of like, you know,there's places where only people that are interested
in a particular kind of thing wouldgo to buy this particular product or whatever.

(22:41):
I see the be Supply as almosta combination of several things. First
of all, the be Supply isfor people that want to get into bee
keeping. They will walk you through. I was talking somebody just the other
day, and they're from away fromhere. I mean, I believe they're
up in Brian or someplace like that, Brian, Texas, And I was
just in look, just call thebee Supply. They had a question.

(23:02):
I said, they'll help you,even though you're not out there buying something
at the time. They will helpyou because they that's what they do.
They want people to have success.But the be Supply is also a place
where you can call. Maybe youdon't want to have to keep bees,
but you want to have bees maybefor an agricultural exemption, Yes, bees
count for that. They can doa be rental program. If you have

(23:25):
five to twenty acres and you're withinfifty miles of Dayton, Texas. They
come out, they set up thebees, they manage the bees for you.
Just go to the website and allthe details of what's involved in that
is there. They have be classes, but they also for folks that I'm
not going to keep bees, well, okay, go there and just learn
about bees. Take your garden club, your master gardener group, your friends,

(23:48):
and definitely take your kids. They'llget to see the observation hive going.
You'll learn the fascinating world of beestand you get to taste several different
types of honey and it's just awonderful event. It's an outing, it's
an experience. So no matter whoyou are, the b Supply is a
place you need to go. It'sthebesupply dot com, thebsupply dot com.

(24:14):
It's where you'll find out everything youneed to know. We are now going
to head to Jersey Village and talkto Dale. Dale. Thanks for being
a patient on whole person there,I appreciate that, no problem, good
morning, and thank you for youtoo. My question is I have some
patches of what I believe is Dallasgrass in my lawnlan being Saint Augustine and

(24:37):
just and there's another one which Ican't I don't know what it is.
I hope I can probably send yousome pictures of those. We can,
just because those probably secondly right.But for the first one, which is
to Dallas grass, just your thoughtson the best way of treating it such
that if it's a herveside or whatever, something that yes, I can eventually

(24:59):
pull laid back some sat on atthe spots where it comes out, so
you take it from here, okay. So Saint Augustine is your lawn,
yes, okay. So there's nota way to kill grass in grass by
and large, yeah, without killingyour grass. So your options on something
like Dallas. It's a perennial,so we can't wait it out and use

(25:21):
pre emergence to get ahead of it. So you can use a wiper type
of an applicator to apply something thatkills grass to it without getting it on
your desirable lawn grass. So insteadof spraying, you're essentially letting Dallas grass
leaves come up above the lawn,which they'll do, and you're wiping it

(25:42):
on those leaves or dabbing it ontothe center of the Dallas grass clump.
You can also just targeted spray justthat spot. And I've seen people take
you know, little pump up sprayersand a like pop soft drink bottle,
the two liter bottles or a milkjug and attach them so that it's like

(26:04):
a shield over the end of yoursprayer and you just set it down on
that weed and give it one squirtand it doesn't let the spray go out
everywhere on your lawn. It justtargets it right there. And that way
you're gonna have some dead spots,but at least you're able to, let's
say, surgically remove those Dallas grassclumps and then let the Saint Augustine crawl

(26:26):
back in. Those would be yourtwo options on that. Like you said,
wipe. What's an example of those. You can find online wiper type
of applicators. They look in differentways. I've got to get this put
online. You can build a wiperapplicator yourself using a grabber tool, like

(26:47):
one of those little things you's gotlike a pistol grip and you reach out
and get a jar off a shelfway up high, and it like grabs
a jar and you pull it down. Or you can use it to pick
up trash those kind of things.But you could spin. Yeah, you
put spongers, go ahead. Yeah, when you say this, this is
something to put it on, notthe actual chemical. What chemical do you
recommend? You could use a grassonly killer. There's a couple of substances

(27:12):
that are grass only killers. Oryou could use a general killer like a
glacyssate, which is the roundup asa brand everybody knows, but there's a
lot of brands of it. Buteither way is fine. But either way
you're using something that will cure yourlawn if you get it on the lawn.
And as far as once that isdone and I'm successful, is there

(27:36):
a timeline I need to wait forme to if I want to put down
some sod, because there's a sectionit's pretty big, so I wouldn't leave
the I wouldn't leave it for likethe existence and august seed to then spread
back in. I would probably putsome sod. Okay, well, so
if you're going to do that,I would just dig it out. I
you know, I would. However, you don't go about it hoe or
dig or whatever. Just get itout of there and then put the sod

(27:56):
down, because you're going to haveto in order to put the sad down,
you're gonna have to get all thatdead grass out anyway, any weeds
and stuff. So you might bebest off just you don't have to dig
deep, but just get that,get those plants out of there, and
then put your sad down. Soit's a little more labor, but you're
gonna have You can't lay sod ona bunch of dead multi organic material,

(28:21):
you know. Okay, yep,And like I mentioned, email if I
can probably send you pictures of allright, I'm putting you on hold right
now and and Calum we'll get onlineand he'll take care of that. I
appreciate your call. Soil is themost important thing we do for our garden
plants. It is the most importantthing. It's a foundation. Would you

(28:44):
build your house on sand and havea flood come wash your foundation out?
Of course you wouldn't. Foundations arecritical. They set the stage for everything.
Soil is a foundation for success withyour plants and Nature's way resources.
They special and so and a halffor a long time. John ferguson way
back when I mean when we useterms like leaf mo compost and rosesoil,

(29:07):
those kinds of things. Those thingsbegan at Nature's Way Resources, and John
and Ian have a wonderful selection ofall kinds of quality products, all kinds
of quality products. They're available bythe bag, they're available by the bulk.
I would suggest you consider their eitherfine leaf mo compost as a top

(29:27):
dressing. I would suggest that youalso consider their fungal based composts. It's
that get a version of it that'sscreened down in very small particle size.
You can use that for a composttop dressing too. Fridays or Fungal Fridays.
That means ten percent off bags andtwenty percent off bulk purchases for the
fungal based compost. You need tocheck them out Nature's Way Resources, the

(29:52):
website, nature's Way Resources dot com. They're up almost to Conro, Texas
on it off Interstate forty five.If you'd like to give them a call.
The numbers nine three six three twoone sixty nine ninety nine three six
three two one sixty nine ninety talkingabout the importance of soil and that foundation.

(30:17):
Microlife fertilizers are nature's way of feedingthe soil. We're taking organic materials,
we're putting them into the soil.They're chocolal of nutrients. The microbes
go nuts because I mean that's likefeeding them their favorite foods. They break
those down. They take the nutrientsin microlife and release it to your plants.
That's how nature works and microlife fertilizer. That the one that most people

(30:42):
are familiar with is a green bag. The green bag is we typically use
it for lawns. It's a sixtwo four. They also have up fertilizers
just living some yesterday for acidic plants, acid loving plants. Now that particular
one is in a ink bag.There are purple bag that is the microlife

(31:03):
humates plus concentrated compost in a bag. Something you can do on a regular
basis to your lawn to continue toimprove the soil, to improve in time.
As you do this, the soilstructure improves. The microbial activity stays
high in the soil because microbes lovethese products. That's how that works.
Go to Microlife fertilizer dot com tofind out more information about them. We're

(31:27):
gonna have to take a break here. I will be right back our number
seven one three, two, onetwo, five eight seven four. When
I come back, Steve and Sandyand Ralph, you will be the first
ones up. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today.

(31:48):
I am going to make a Bline for Sandy and Cyprus. Sandy,
I think you get the award forthe most patient person on hold on
Garden Line, at least in thehistory of my time on this show.
Here. Thank you for being suppatient. Thank you, good morning. I
have a couple of questions. Oneis there's mushrooms, small itty bitty mushrooms

(32:12):
in my soil? Am I overwateringin? Is that good for the soil
or is that bad? And theother question I have is how do I
get rid of I found a greenpowder pillar crawling out of the soil in
my blueberries, so I'm wondering ifthey're in my other and that they're all
entertainers and they're crawling out, SoI'm wondering if they're in my other plant,

(32:38):
because when he crawled out, youknow they can just move across to
the next pot, right right.Well, first of all, the mushrooms
it is. It is a rarething for a mushroom to be the sign
of a disease. There are afew oak root rot for example, will
pop up, but in general,when you see mushrooms, it's just decomposer

(32:59):
fungi turning organic matter back into soil. So I would consider them a good
thing and nothing to worry about.So that that is the case. Caterpillars.
There are a lot of caterpillars outright now. I pulled out a
few plants the other day and someflower things I was replacing, and when
I went back to the soil,there were inch worms just you know,

(33:21):
going all over the place, andthey had been in those plants and I
hadn't even noticed it. So Idon't get really alarmed just a few caterpillars.
If you're seeing a lack of foliageon your plants, like there's the
blueberries, the leaves are being eatenoff or something, well then yeah,
throw some BT or spinosa out thereand spray them. Otherwise, don't don't

(33:42):
sweat it. It's not a nota big concern. Okay. One more
thing, how do I know whento harvest my Brussels sprouts? Well,
you know, you would like themto reach what would be the normal size,
Like when you buy Brussels sprouts inthe store, the you know the
size they would be. Sometimes theydon't quite make it that far, and

(34:02):
it depends on growing conditions and whenthey were planted and whatnot. But if
you can get them up to thatsize, that's fine. They don't ripen
if you will, so you couldyou could eat a Brussels sprout from the
time it's the size of an Englishpee up to the time it's its normal
size. So I would just kindof give them a little time to get

(34:22):
the most size you can out ofthem. Sometimes it helps to cut the
tops out of the plant. We'reabout to get out of Brussels sprout season,
and you know how when you tipa plant, the buds along the
stem brake and you get new shootsthat come up from from pruning. When
you cut the top out of yourBrussels sprout, it it stimulates some of

(34:44):
the side bud development and you cango ahead and maybe get a little bit
of a bump on it that way, because we're summer's right around the corner
here, and it's good to getthem to go ahead and produce for you.
Okay, thank you very much.A great day. All right,
Andy, if you get a chance, come on up to Arburgate in Tomball.
You're not too far away. We'regonna be out there this afternoon.

(35:05):
They're having one heck of a shindigwith peach, Bellini's and all the above
stuff you would expect from Arburgate.Thanks for the call. Thank you so
much. I have a great day, all right. Bye bye. Yeah,
we're gonna have a really good timeout there. Let's see, we're
gonna go now to Steve and SouthwestHouston. Hello Steve, Oh, good

(35:27):
morning, thanks for taking me call. First question I am is what time
are you going to be at Arborgate. I am gonna hit Arbor Gate at
eleven thirty and I'll be there tillone thirty today, a couple of hours.
Yeah. I mean, I'm givingaway a lot of stuff. I'm
giving away four super Grow Ready toSpray. That's a new product I'm so

(35:47):
excited about from Medina. Three hastGrow Courts, Hastro Grow lawn seaweed samples.
We're gonna give Arbor Gay Is givenaway one bag every thirty minutes of
their that that one two three easysystem. The organic soil, they're gonna
be given that away. We're gonnabe giving away forest tree stabilizers. There's

(36:07):
free peach billinis frozen there. Imean, just come hang out. Okay,
Well, my primary question has todo with a grassy yard in Conro
area. Obviously, we've been abit of rain in Conro lately, and

(36:28):
this lawn is sloped in two differentdirections, but one south and west,
and it's beginning to show signs thatit's eroding. It's not big ditches or
anything like that, but small amounts. And I'm wondering about, Well,
first of all, we'll deal withsome upstream type of situation like gutters on

(36:52):
the house, that type of thing. And yeah, what would you recommend
for for this mild type of erosionas far as going back into the grassy
lawn right type of a sand ortop soil or just what's your idea?
Yeah, if you can find adecent quality top soil, sometimes that's hard

(37:14):
to come by, but if youcan find that a sandy loam type of
top soil, that would be thebest to top dress it with in small
amounts. You know, if youput three inches down. You buried your
Saint Augustine and that's not coming through. But just me you know a little
bit on let make sure the grassblades are sticking through. Do it a
little at a time and you canbring that level up. Some people will

(37:35):
mix a little bit of compost withthat. Just remember compost decomposes away.
And so if you if you havethree inches of compost two years from now,
you're going to have a half inchof composts. You see what I'm
saying it it disappears. So ifyou're trying to raise the level, it's
better to have the bulk of itbe a sandy loam type top soil top.

(37:59):
So okay, yeah, because ithad been my intention to before it
started to get too too hot,to use some pumppost on the law,
and I did that last fall andcaught it just before rains and it settled
out really nice. But okay,maybe I need something a little bulkier and
bigger for all right, Well,good luck with that. I hope that

(38:21):
works for you. Well. Iappreciate Steve very much that call. For
those of you who haven't been toplants for all seasons, you need to
get by there and check it out. They're on two forty nine high Way
two forty nine, but it's calledTomball Parkway. They're just north of Lueta
Now. They've been around since nineteenseventy three. And if you're looking for
a place that knows what they're talkingabout, that carries plants that grow here

(38:43):
and will advise you on them,that you can go in and ask questions
and have knowledgeable staff. All ofthat and more is Plants for All Seasons
Plants for All Seasons dot com.That's their website two eight, one,
three, seven six, sixteen fortysix. When you go and to Plants
all Seasons, you know you're settingyourself up for success because you get the

(39:04):
right plants, you got the rightproducts, and you got people that know
how to help you. Gardeners,expert gardeners, people that have been doing
this a very long time. Well, we're putting the first hour in the
books here. That went fast.It seems like that they say time flies
when you're having fun. From thefrog says times fun when you're having it
flies. We'll be right back.Don't forget today. I'm going to be

(39:29):
a harbor gate up in Tomball.Now, what are we gonna do there.
We're gonna answer your gardening questions,bring in samples, bring in pictures,
just come in to talk. I'llbe kind of giving some general Q
and A with a group of folksout there at Arborgate, they always put
on a good show. Bring yourmom, Bring your mom. There's a
Mother's Day special at Arburgate on thebrick house rows. This is a disease

(39:51):
resistant rose and it has a typeof bloom that's open in the center so
these pollinators can get in there.And it's just a it's an awesome,
awesome road frozen peach. Bellini's givingaway all kinds of stuff today today,
left and right, come on seeme Arbaga eleven thirty to one thing.

(40:13):
Welcome to kat r H Garden Linewith Skimp Richard. It's just watch him
as Welcome back to garden Line.I'm your host, Skip Richter is good

(40:42):
to have you with us. Weare here for the ride today. We're
gonna be talking about a lot ofthings. This is a season to get
that lawn in top shape. Thatis one thing a lot of people love
is a beautiful, beautiful carpet ofgreen grass out there. You know,
grass has a lot of good functions. Actually, it helps prevent a rose.
It also cools the air. Didyou know that you can Actually there's

(41:04):
a BTU number. You know highAC units have BTUs. There's a BTU
number for the amount of cooling thatturf does per thousand square feet because compare
it to you know, the reasonwe have this thing called the heat island
effect in cities is because asphalt andconcrete and things like that hardescapes. They're

(41:24):
absorbing heat and it's literally warmer inHouston than it is outside in the countryside
for that reason. Now, turfbenefits our homes that way. So there's
a lot of good things that turfcan do in addition to just being beautiful
and a nice recreational area around yourhouse if you don't have a dense lawn.

(41:45):
Nitroposs has put together a product.They had it for a while now.
It's a silver bag. It's nineteenfour to ten. Half the nineteen
percent nitrogen is slow release, Soabout ten percent or about ten percent of
that night of the product is aslow release nitrogen. About nine or ten
percent is a release. It's alittle faster than that. So what you're

(42:08):
gonna get is you're gonna get aneven feed over time, and that is
very important going through summer. Youwant your grass to be fed gradually over
time. That's how you end upwith the best grass plant, the most
resilient grass plant. Superterf will dothat. It also has four percent iron
to help with that nice, beautifuluniform color that we're trying to achieve with

(42:28):
our lawns. Where do you getNitrofoss super Turf, Well, pretty much
everywhere. Bearing's Hardware on Bissinet andon West Teimer has it. Plantation Ace
Hardware out there in the Richmond Rosenbergarea has it as well as does Hidenen
Feed, which is on Stubner Airline. Easy to find Nitrofoss nineteen four ten,

(42:49):
the silver Bag. I'm going tohead out now to talk to Ralph's
see here if I can there,we go, Good morning, Ralph,
how can we help today? Skip? Good morning? Good morning? I
sent you an email with a couplepictures. Yes, sir, I don't
know if you have that. Ido and I looked at it and this

(43:09):
is in your lawn grass. Itlooks like is that correct? That's correct?
Sir? Well, yeah, veryyou have two very common perennial weeds,
and they're not super super easy toget rid of. The first one
with the little tiny yellow flowers iscalled horse herb now horse herb. I

(43:29):
have seen people spray it with roundupand it didn't kill it. That's impressive
for a weed. Native enthusiasts lovehorse herb as a groundcover in bright shade
areas. It's a native plant herein the area, but when it's in
your lawn, people aren't excited aboutit. But you're gonna have to use

(43:50):
a post emergent broad leaf weed controlproduct on it. There are a number
of different ones out there that canbe used and sprayed. You're just gonna
have to stay with it in orderto get to get some success in control
of it. Some of the bestour hardest on your Saint Augustine, though
unfortunately I got you. I diddo I'm up to date on the schedule.

(44:15):
I'm not going to list everything,but okay, if it's on there,
I've done it. Okay, good, I'm I do need to do
the second of the pre emergent okay, but that won't do anything to the
items that I sent you the pictureof. No, they won't. And

(44:37):
at your lawn. Well, I'mjust seeing the areas with the weeds,
but things look pretty dense, andso if you if you don't have an
ongoing annual weed problem, the secondpre emergent is definitely an optional one for
you. So just just think aboutthat. But yes, we're at the

(44:57):
time where if you want to extendthe pre emergen coverage, this would be
the time people do that. Thehorser would have to be sprayed with a
post emergent. The second one iscalled dollar weed, and it's called that
because they look like all silver dollars. They remight be of umbrellas. You
know, they've got the little stemin the back like an umbrella and what's
around. Yeah, yeah, anddollar weed. There are a number of
different things that will control dollar weed. It's it's pretty easy easy to get

(45:22):
a hold of if you're out inKatie. If you'll go to the Katie
Hardware on Pinoak, they have anumber of excellent products that will work really
well. Okay, will it?Since I am about to do the pre
emergent, can I follow up aweek or so later with the post emerging

(45:45):
again, you can do them bothat the same time. The pre emergent
is going to be a granule thatyou put on and then water in,
and then after you've watered it in, you can just turn right around or
before you can spray with the postemergent onto the weed leaves themselves. And
I mentioned the katie on Pinoke.There's also one on Mason Road. If

(46:06):
you're out single ranch direction out therein DA, that's where I go.
Yeah, they're gonna they're going tocarry those for you. And I've got
some things. You say you havethe schedule, so I assume you also
have the pest control schedule pest diseaseand weed, and that has the things
that I would suggest you try forthe post emergent. Broad leave, got
it, yep, That's what Iused before. But for the post you

(46:30):
recommend liquid as opposed to granule,I'd prefer that, and it's it's easier
for me. It's easier to getit on the leaves, you know,
because you can direct it right towhere the leaves weeds are. People that
have spotty weed problems. It's mucheasier to do with the spray. You
know, with the granule, you'reessentially covering the whole lawn. You got

(46:51):
to get the weeds wet so thegranules stick to the leaves for best results.
And uh so granules are fine.It's just I prefer to have the
spray so I can target it whereI want beautiful. I'll get those today
after I cut the grass. Followthe label carefully. Ralph, and you
you ought to be in good shape. Appreciate your help, sir, you

(47:13):
bet, Thank you. Appreciate yourcall. Thank you. Take care.
Have you been down to Hoges HiddenGardens? Those of you who live down
south? When I when I saydown south, they're in Alvin, Texas.
They're on Elizabeth in Alvin, Texas, just south of Highway six.
But communities like Alvin and Santa Feand Dickinson. I'll goa Arcadia, Alta

(47:36):
Loma or or what's the other hillcrest? That's enough. Hojores Hidden Gardens is
just a hop, skipping or jumpaway. They have got the three sixty
tree stabilizer for example, that Italk about. But they have a wide
variety of different conseplants right now.They have a they recently got a new
shipment of citrus trees and that includessatsumas, which is about this cold hearty

(47:59):
of an orange you're going to get. It's a satsuma type orange. They
have oranges, they have limes,they have lemons, and they have the
very popular Peggy Martin roses and threegallon sizes and a Mother's Day special on
roses still going on. So here'syou know, kind of last call here,
folks. Guess what tomorrow is Mother'sDay? So if you're down in

(48:20):
the Alvin area, stop in talkto the folks at rahe Siding Gardens.
Horay and his wife have really donea great job, just continuing to build
that place and add more and itjust looks great. But anyway, go
buy there, Say hi Tori andgrab you one of those three gallon Peggy
Martin roses or one of the otherthings many other things that Hoy carries down

(48:42):
there. Let's see here. I'mgonna now head to uh No, actually
I wanted to. I want totake a break. It's time. I
don't have enough time for another call. We'll be right back our phone number
seven one three two one two fiftyeight seventy four. Welcome back to the

(49:06):
Guarden Line. Good to have youwith us today. We are doing our
best to guide you to success.You know, gardening is I think the
best hobby there is, and Ican give you a lot of reasons why.
From argument number one, it's funnumber two, you get exercise number
three. There are very few thingsthat give you the mental benefits of getting

(49:27):
out with plants in the garden.And I've got a stack, a foot
high stack on my desk of researchprojects to prove it. We just keep
learning more and more about it.So how do we have success? Because
you know, we don't want tostress ourselves looking at plants at struggle.
We don't want to use words likeI got a brown thumb. You don't
have a brown thumb. You havean uninformed thumb, and we're here to

(49:49):
inform your thumb. Now, wejust had some storms come through here recently,
and in those storms we lost somebig tree lambs. I'm talking with
folks out at Affordable Tree. Theyknow all about storms and the effect on
trees and what you do to yourtrees to help protect them against storms.

(50:10):
Last summer was brutal. Maybe youlost a tree, maybe you lost branches,
a limbs of a tree. CallMartin Spoon Moore, have him come
out take a look at them.Because when those things come down. There's
a reason they call them widow makers. They can do significant damage to people
and to property. You're in yourneighbor's fence, for example, being a

(50:30):
good example of that. Martin willcome out and you do some selective pruning.
This isn't the big time to doall your print. We do that
primarily in the winter, but youcan prune all year round, and selective
pruning right now is important, takingout dead areas, making those trees safer
in heavy winds, setting them upfor the best they can do when it
comes to storm readiness. Martin spoonMore has been doing this for a very

(50:53):
long time here. I trust himto do the job right. That's why
he is our recare sponsor here onguarden Line. Give him a call seven
one three six nine nine twenty sixsixty three seven one three six ninety nine
twenty six sixty three, or goto the website afftree Service dot com.

(51:15):
Aff tree Service dot com. Martincharges about I think it's one hundred and
fifty bucks to come out to theproperty and do the consultation. If you
have him do the work, thatone fifty just goes right into your price.
So but it's just a way toyou know, not have to run
all over town people saying, wellI want you to look at this.
Yeah, never mind, you know, they just wanted free advice. Hate

(51:36):
that. But anyway, Martin doesa good job. And when he does
it, you know that your treesare in good hands. That's very,
very important. We're going to nowgo out to Laporte and talk to Elmer.
Hey, Elmer, Hey, Hi, how you doing it that.
I'm a limber radio. Real quick. I've got a big problem. I've
got three big oldfruit trees, andthose buggers. They yield a lot of

(51:59):
fruit. Lemon tree and orange treeand a grapefruit tree. The problem I'm
having is every time they mature onthe exterior. I can't explain it.
On the exterior of the fruit,it gets like a very rough dride.
It looks a cancerous type thing onit. Now, the fruit is very
sweet, I mean they're very juicy, but I mean they just don't look

(52:20):
like the way they do at thestore, you know what I mean.
Yeah, And I don't know whatthe heck that is. It's just an
ugly looking thing on the exterior,and it looks very dry and ugly.
Yeah, I know, it's talkingabout omer. You don't need to worry
about it. Bottom line is itis a cosmetic damage on the outside.
You don't eat the outside, turnoff the lights, close your eyes,

(52:40):
and enjoy your orangees. I guessthere's one way to look at it.
I'm joking, but seriously, youkidding me? Yeah, no, seriously.
There are some different things that canaffect the skin of ceterus. There
there is actually little mites that chewon the skin and cause that's what it
looks damaging to it. Sometimes youget a bird. There are birds that

(53:04):
do little tiny pecks all over itand it gets all just crusty and bad
looking. There's a lot of differentthings that can do that. But the
bottom line is, as you said, the inside tastes just the same.
So I I nothing is worth worryingabout in spraying for if you're still let
me ask you, let me askyou something crazy. Does it make sense
at auto for me to throw somethingover it like a very very How can

(53:29):
I explain bean screen or something likethat screen? I mean no, you
know, I mean you've put aburden that over and keep the birds off.
But that's not needed. You canYou're not going to have anything like
that. If it were mites doingit, a type of mite that does
that it, the screen wouldn't helpon that. Uh No, I wouldn't.

(53:50):
I wouldn't. I wouldn't worry aboutit. Right now, they're the
size of about a wall or peanut. They look beautiful, but I already
know when they get to the sizeabout a baseball, they don't look terrible.
Yeah. Well, you know,if you get to that stage and
you want to send me a closeup photo of the fruit, and then
I can get more specific with whatis causing the cosmetic damage and we could
discuss things I don't know. Youknow, you could put like a horticultural

(54:14):
oil spray over it and that wouldhelp deal with like the mites, for
example. But we need to knowexactly what's causing it. But again,
it's cosmetic, you know, sodon't don't don't see Yeah, it don't
look like the ones at the store. Man. All right now, we
are we doing bragging rights in theneighborhood here? Is that? What's going

(54:35):
on on this? No? No, you know what. I'm proud of
my fruit. I'm gonna tell youwhy. Because the cost of food has
gone skyrockets. You know, mylimitree yields so much lemons, I don't
know what to do with themselves.I just throw them white and my grapeful
tree. Forget that that thing's aboutthirty feet tall. I didn't do they
would grow that tall and they fallon the ground small. To be honest
with you, but if the priceof fruit today, I'm fine with the
way they are. You know whatI mean. I got you. I

(54:58):
got you. Sounds like you're doingeverything right. Uh, Like I said,
you hit that stage of season.Send me a picture. We'll look
at it. But I would iwould say ninety eight percent of the time.
I'm gonna tell somebody, don't worryabout it. Don't worry, turn
off the close your eyes, andenjoy your situess. And one last thing.
During the summertime, is it appropriatewater those trees three times? Excuse

(55:21):
me, once twice or three timesa week? I really don't know what
the schedule is on water. Youshould not have to water a citrus more
than once a week. In fact, you probably don't need to water it
every week. These things have agood root system, and you know if
it if it's one hundred and fivedegrees, you know, for two weeks
and no rain. Yeah, youknow they're gonna need some water. But

(55:44):
in general, we weigh over waterour plants. Just I guess that's what
that's what I guess. That's whyevery time I come out and I see
that great for crear, another branchis coming out right, yeah that yeah,
you're all right, man, Hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate
it. All right, take care. If you live up in the Magnolia

(56:04):
area, just kind of northeast oftom Ball a little bit that direction,
Spring Creek Feed Center is your hometownfeed center Magnolia on Highway FM twenty nine
eight, twenty nine seventy eight.They're right there on the side of the
road. I love going by theirbeautiful place. For example, you walk
in. I had a posted somethingto Facebook the other day just what it

(56:24):
looks like when you walk in.I mean it it is just makes you
want to run around and start shopping. And of course it's a feedstore.
They got all the feed for youranimals, your pets and whatnot, high
quality feed. But they have alot of bling in there too. And
then when it comes to your garden, if I talk about a fertilizer,
it's at Spring Creek Feed Center.If you need to control insects, diseases,

(56:46):
or weeds, it's at Spring CreekFeed Center. They cover that friendly,
courteous staff. One of the bestthings about shopping there too. I
should mention that they even do specialorders and delivery, so check them out.
Spring Creek Feed is conveniently located inMagnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight.

(57:07):
Our phone number if you would liketo give us a call seven one
three two one two five eight sevenfour seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four. I was inSpray Creek Feed a couple of weeks ago,
I believe it was. I havetrouble going back in time going how
long ago was that? But anyway, it was really recently how about that?
And they had a good stock ofMicrolife fertilizer in as well as there

(57:29):
are other fertilizers, you know.I was looking at the Microlife and they
had the humates plus the purple bag. That is the numbers are zero zero
four. You're not putting it downto just put all these nutrients on your
lawn, although when you add ityou are getting nutrients, but you're getting
concentrated compost in a bag. Thinkof it this way. You got a

(57:50):
bunch of grass, clippings and leaves. That's called organic matter. It decomposes,
that's called compost. The compost continuesto decompose as far as it will
decomposed. That's called humus. AndHumates plus is a concentrated compost product.
Concentrated compost in a bag. Itis got microwhizl fungi that have been added,

(58:12):
as well as a lot of essentialmicrobes. It will help improve your
turf by helping improve your soil byhelping enhance the microbial activity in the soil.
It can help with these claysoils we'redealing with here. It's something that
I would suggest just on a regularbasis. You know, each year,
do some concentrated compost in a bag, the purple bag Microlife Humates plus.

(58:36):
When you're out doing your fertilize,that's a good time to do it.
Same time as well, and yeah, you can get that sprint Creek Feet
and a whole lot of other placesaround the Greater Houston area. Makes it
easy to find, very easy tofind. Have you ever noticed that sometimes
those landscape beds around the house don'tlook so good and you're like driving up

(58:57):
and looking at them like, ohman, that's not good. I got
to get out there. I gottapull weeds. I need to put some
mulch down, I need to needto need to well. Pierscapes can do
that for you. Pierscapes Number one, they do beautiful designs. I mean,
if you want stone rockways, ifyou need any kind of a special
feature like landscape lighting, if youneed to improve drainage, even if you

(59:19):
just need irrigation repairs and work done, they can do all that. But
quarterly maintenance is a service that Ineed to talk about more about Peerscapes because
what they'll do. You go in, you know, you sign up for
it, and every quarter they comeout. They trim, they weed,
they fertilize, they check out yourirrigation system, make sure it's looking right.
They do mulch on the surface.Of course you need to maintain the

(59:43):
mulch. And then they do seasonalcolor changes. You decide how many a
year you want, but they'll transitionfrom one season to another with color all
at Pierscapes. And it's easy toget a hold of them. You know,
pierscapes, they're just professionals. Theygot their certifications, they got their
life. Since they know what they'redoing, they do quality work. Piercescapes

(01:00:04):
dot com Pierceescapes dot com two eightone three seven oh five zero six zero.
We're gonna go now out to Matagordaand talk to Jesse. Hey,
Jesse, good morning. How areyou? I'm well, sir. How
can we help today? Well?A couple of years ago we bought a
Texas mountain Laurel, at a nurserythere in Houston. It is beautiful blue

(01:00:30):
blooms or blue flowers on it,and we planned it and she's doing wonderful,
nice green leaves growing taller. ButI don't know if it's too windy
or because we haven't got those beautifulblue flowers. I don't know if it's
just too windy out here and they'reblowing the blooms off early we water it.

(01:00:51):
Maybe we water it too much.Can you give me some advice?
Okay? Does the tree itself,as far as the greenery and stuff,
does it look good? It does? Sometimes it looks like something's maybe chewing
on it, because a branch ortwo will start to bear, and then
these pods come out but then moreleaves, so okay, it's yeah.

(01:01:15):
Well, Mount Laurel sets its bloomsin the late summer and fall for the
spring bloom show, and so stressesduring that time could affect effective bloom set.
Mount Laurel is tough, it is. I mean it grows out of
a crack and the rock west ofAustin in the hill country. I mean
you'll find it native in places likethat. The biggest issue we would run

(01:01:38):
into with Mount Laurel here is goingto be when we don't give it good
drainage, when the roots get alittle on the soggy side. They don't
like that at all at all.And so you just need to make sure
that it drains well. That's thenumber one thing in your control. Okay.
And what would you suggest as faras a watering schedule for her?

(01:02:00):
You've had it more than one yearin the ground. You should never have
to water Mountain Laurel here, Okay, I'm serious, you really, it's
that well established because it grows inthe wild west of Austin where it rains
twenty three inches a year. Hey, I got to run. We're hard
up against a break, Jesse,But good luck with that. All right,
we'll be right back. Hey,welcome back to the Garden Line.

(01:02:31):
Good to have you with us today. We are talking about lots of different
things related to gardening. Where's turfis always the elephant in the room.
That is the number one thing thatmakes phone ring at your county agro Life
Extension office and at Garden Line aswell. After thirty six years of doing
Agrolife Extension horticulture work, I tellyou turf is the king and trees are

(01:02:55):
right behind it. And then ifit comes to vegetables, tomatoes are the
number one question that we get.And we used to say the three things
that make our phone ring or thethree t's trees, turf, tomatoes,
And boy, that holds true.It definitely does hold true. If you
are looking for a quality blend ofsoil less mix, a quality blend of

(01:03:17):
media. We say soil less mixbecause it's not soil. It's a special
blend that's called composted potting soils.You know we talk about potting soils.
Well, what about for your indoorplants? What would be a good blend
for indoor Well, jungle land withwater saving crystals would be a good blend
for indoor. It's got little crystalstructures in it that absorb water, and

(01:03:39):
it's almost like think of a likea gelatin like imagine little tiny chunks of
jello, very small chunks of jello, and they absorb many times their weight
in water. So when you forgetto water your plants and that potting mix
gets a little dry, those crystalshold onto the water and are able to

(01:03:59):
say, okay, plant, justyou know, here's a little bit of
water to get you by. Theywill eventually remember to water you. For
crying out loud, it's happened atmy house too. I bet it has
it yours. Jungle Land with watersaving crystals, that's the stuff you need.
You can find jungle land with watersaving crystals at a lot of different
places, for example in Chanted Forestdown there in the Richmond Rosenberg area.
Growers outlet up in willis Or RCWNursery where Tomball Parkway FM two forty nine

(01:04:27):
comes into bout Way eight all carrynitrofoss products. Nit fross widely widely available
here in the Greater Houston area.Speaking of RCW, RCW is the kind
of garden center where you walk inand if there's something you don't see that
you want that you don't see there, They can get it for you.

(01:04:49):
They really do their best to dothat and they're very successful at it.
But I'll tell you this, whenyou walk in, you're going to see
what you're looking for. You know, tomatoes in vegetable plants, and when
it comes to herb plants, I'mnot saying right now necessary tomatoes, but
you know what I'm saying. Throughthe season, when it comes to perennials,

(01:05:10):
when it comes to annual flowers,when it comes to beautiful hanging baskets,
definitely, when it comes to roses, like pages and pages of the
roses, they can get their RCWNursery and then they grow their own trees.
They grow their own trees up toPlantersville, and they grow trees that
belong here, species that will thrivehere in our area. That's what they
do. I call them to getit, got it nursery because if they

(01:05:33):
don't have it, they will getit. They absolutely can do that.
Now you're going to find the fertilizersI talk about on guarden Line at r
CW Nurseries, and you're going tofind a lot of cool landscape plank,
metal art, little metal arches andthings things to enhance and beautify that landscape.
Go to RCW Nursery. They're atTomball Parkway where it comes into a

(01:05:56):
eight. It's easy to get to. The website are CW Nurseries dot com.
RCW Nurseries dot com. I alwayslike to go in and visit.
Uh, there I was. Lasttime I was over there. My jaw
was just hitting the ground at thebougainvilleas that they had. They had the
standards by a standard. We mean, and we do this with roses and

(01:06:20):
bougainvillias and other things. Uh,but where you train the trunk up a
little steak and then you have thisthis head or this it billows out at
the top. So think of arosebush. We'll think of a rose standard,
just like a little rose tree,a mini rose tree. They have
Booga Villa standards out there that wereshowstoppers, just unbelievable, beautiful, beautiful,

(01:06:44):
beautiful stuff. Hey. Our phonenumber is seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven onethree two one two five eight seven four.
Got an open board all of asudden here. That's interesting. Not
a common occurrence. Uh, ifyou'd like to give us a call.
It be an easy way to geton. Some folks had to really hold
the day. We had a rushfor the phones early on. And so

(01:07:05):
now if you don't want to haveto wait a little while, it'ud be
a good time. Medina has anew product that I am really excited about,
and that is super Grow Plush.You've heard me talk about it a
lot. Sixteen zero two. Thoseare the three numbers, sixteen zero two.
It is a very unique product inthat you hook it up to a

(01:07:28):
garden hose and it takes about Idon't know ten minutes to spray your whole
lawn covers about four thousand square feetone of their low court bottles. It's
got nitrogen in of course the immediatelyreleased form. It's a quick acting green
up, but it also has ironin a slower release form. There's a
percentage of that iron that is goingto release a little bit more slowly.

(01:07:48):
And it has things that are veryimportant for giving your lawn green, like
iron that's keylated in it. Ithas that, it's got seaweed extract.
It's just a good product all around. It makes sense. It got molasses
and humic acid in it as well, so you can use it any time
of the season. You're not goingto burn your lawn with it. And

(01:08:08):
by the way, this you know, we talk about it for lawns,
but I've seen some awesome pictures ofa tomato patch where they were using it
as just a foldier feed and Iput it on the ground in the patch.
A good fertilizer, high quality stuffand guess what you want a shot
at it? Well, I'm goingto be giving away four quarts of it
today out at Arburgate. I'll bethere from eleven thirty to one thirty,

(01:08:30):
and Medina is providing four quarts ofthat, three quarts of a hash to
Grow, three quarts of hashtra Growlawn, three of their seaweed. I
got a lot of different kinds ofsamples out there. Appreciate the folks at
Medina providing those. This is yourchance to come put your hands on some
of it and get you a freesample or in this case, a free
giveaway Medina super Grow Plus. It'spart of the hastro Gro line of Medina

(01:08:57):
Hastrogro number of good quality products.Supergirl Plus that's the one, that's the
new one, that's the one I'mreally excited about right now, we're going
to go out to spring Bronze.Hey, hurt, Oh, hey you're
here, you're live? Yes?Oh h yes, ma'am, I catch

(01:09:21):
you off guard. Boy, thatwas quick. I just said we had
an open line, So there yougo. Oh sure, uh I we
celebrated money today early because they're goingout of town. Well, anyway,
I got a call lily. Ohit's beautiful. They're about ten stems in

(01:09:46):
this part. I imagine that's toomany for one thing. Uh, and
I need to know about that.But where are the LEAs? Were two
of them actually all leo yo goldyellow? Are they supposed to do that?

(01:10:06):
It's probably an older leaf. Kalililies want even the moist soil.
They don't want to dry out,but and they'll turn yellow if they get
too dry. But they also wantgood drainage, and so make sure the
pot has holes in it that drainaway because if it gets soggy wet,
you can get some root rot typeissues in there that can cause that as

(01:10:28):
well. All right, now,I feel like ten stems is too much
for this five inch pot. Howsoon should I separate them? Well,
I mean you could do it wheneveryou want, but you could bump into

(01:10:49):
a little bigger pot. That wouldbe another option if you want to do
that. People put them in theground, if you've got a real good
spot, that gives them what theywant. Bright light, but not just
blazing hot sun, but bright lightand then good drainage and lots of organic
all right, all right, well, thank you very much. All right,
heard it, Thank you. Iappreciate your call very much. Well,

(01:11:12):
we're hitting a break here. Whenwe come back, we will get
to you out there that are holdingLee and Avida and Patrick and Laura Loretta.
Boy, the phone's lit up again. We'll be right back. Come
on, hey, welcome back tothe Guardline. Good to have you with
us today. Absolutely good to talkwith you about what kinds of things we

(01:11:35):
can do to help. I wantto go now to Lee and Conroe.
Lee, I got your photos andthat is a slime mold. That is
the stuff we were talking about onyour grass, and it looks like it's
gotten on those plants as well.The one on the plants looks a little
bit like powdery mildew, but itlooks a lot more like slime molds.

(01:11:56):
So bottom line, get your hosewith strong last of water and just blasted
away. Nothing to worry about onthe lawn and on the plants. Yeah,
I don't, I don't. There'sno disease that looks like that other
than powdery mildew. And it doesn'tquite look like powdery mil do to me.
Well, I appreciate you looking atboth those, both the bush and

(01:12:19):
the grass blades, and I willget some pressure, puts the pressure nozzle
on my hose on the on bothof them, and yeah, see if
we can. And I guess thegood news is it doesn't doesn't sound like
it needs any application of no notat all. Okay, Well that's good

(01:12:42):
news, and I thank you verymuch again for your you're reviewing them and
feedback. Okay, so lee onthe plants, not the grass plant,
but on the other plants you sentpicture of. If the blasting away doesn't
make it go away, then Iwould shift over to treating for powdery mildew.
And there are a number of differentfungicide type options for controlling that.

(01:13:06):
I think it's going to be okaywithout it. Okay, okay, if
I if I, if I findthat it doesn't on the plant, and
I went I went to your websiteand powder and mildew whether there be uh
yeah, there there are a coupleof options. There's standard synthetic fungicides.

(01:13:28):
Name oil, any kind of ahorticultural oil will control powdery mildew as well.
You just want to follow, okay, And you just said name oil
and I've got a trigger court triggerof name oil on him, all right,
kyn off, and it doesn't doit from the yeah names normally we

(01:13:49):
use it for insects, but theany oil product is going to work on
powdery mildew as a as a temporarycontrol. All right, thank you,
sir. I appreciate that call verymuch. People often will ask where can
I who can help me with aerationand compost top dressing because that's a heck
of a job to do it yourself. I mean you can, but it's

(01:14:09):
a heck of a job. Wellif you if you live down in the
south and especially toward the south andwest direction. B and B Turf Pros
is the company that you want tocontact. B and B Customer satisfaction is
their number one priority, it reallyis, and they do high quality work.
They use quality products. They onlyuse products in companies that I trust.

(01:14:31):
Here on guardline you're going to findif you're in sugar Land or Missouri
City, come out west direction.They can service that area. If you're
down in Ciena and or Cola andIowa Colony and Manville, Fresno down south,
they're going to service that area aboutas far east as pear Land because
they've got heavy duty equipment, beautiful, beautiful equipment that does an excellent job

(01:14:53):
in the air rating and in thecompost top dressing. Give them a call
seven to one three two three fourfifty five ninety eight seven one three two
three four five five nine eight,or here's the website b B Turfpros dot
com. B B Turfpros dot com. They go above and beyond to make

(01:15:16):
a personal connection and make sure you'rehappy with the work they do. And
I can just tell you will bebecause of the kind of work that I
have seen that they do. We'regoing to go now to Patrick and Katie.
Hello, Patrick, Hey, howare you doing? I'm good sir.
How can we help fantastic? I'vegot a gardener we get is a

(01:15:36):
kinny planet in a couple of cucumberplants, and they've been doing great so
far, but now it looks likesome of the next batch of cucumbers coming
up. They're starting to look alittle they're not shaped properly. They're string
to bend over. Yes, andit looks like also on the main stalk,

(01:16:00):
it looks like, I don't know, we're kind of guessing at Scot's
vine bore or something because it seemslike there's some damage and maybe some little
eggs or something that got laid inthere. Okay, so well, let's
start with the Let's start with thefruit there, Patrick, that is due
to incomplete pollination. Seeds release hormonesthat make the fruit grow normally. And

(01:16:21):
if you have pollination in some seedsbut not in others, you're going to
end up with a fruit of fruitthat bends or twists or you know what
I'm saying. It's not going tobe normal, and it could be due
to a lack of bees. Itcould be due to weather conditions as temperatures
heat up. Typically we often seea lot of the fruit where the tips

(01:16:43):
don't pollinate as well as the restof the cucumber, for example, But
that's not something you really can control. As far as the insect, I'd
almost need to see a picture tobe able to be sure what we're dealing
with. I suspect it's not abig problem on yours. It doesn't sound
like a common problem that you're describing. Okay, okay. And then the
zucchini has been doing great, butall of a sudden, it looks like

(01:17:05):
there's a lot more ants, uhthat they are just kind of running up
on it. And and the lastone we had, you know, before
it reached full size, it startedto get mushy. And yeah, rainy
weather is a problem on our squash. When the balloom falls off, we
often get infection through the belly buttonend of the squash. Uh, something

(01:17:28):
is going on. And those justtry to keep them picked as much as
you can. They produce so muchthat if you keep picking them and getting
the old stuff out of there,you cut down on some of the reinfection
that can occur. But I thinkthat's that's probably the thing that's most in
your in your control on those.But well, that's awesome, sounds easy
enough, Yes, sir, thankyou. I appreciate your call very much.

(01:17:50):
Good good to visit with you.We're gonna now head out to porter
and talk to Avida. Hello Avita, Hello, I have a house plant
if they call it a ZZ plant. Yes, I've had it for several
months. It's doing great. Ihave it next to a window. I
water it only when it's dry.But here recently in the last week,

(01:18:14):
my branches are falling now, andI'm wondering what could I do to take
care of the plant. You don'tmean falling off, you mean drooping down,
drooping down? Yeah, yeah,it does that and mine does that
too. And I don't know ifas new growth comes up that the older
growth kind of bends down because it'sstill looking for light, or if that's

(01:18:38):
just but it's not associated with anyproblem on the ZZ plant. They can
spread out like that. I wouldthink probably the lighting environment might have an
effect. It does on how plantsorient their growth, but in general,
it's not a problem that I wouldworry about. Okay, So just let

(01:19:00):
them fall and I'm trying to I'mtrying to kind of kind of lean them
up against the other plants to supportthem. But they're there now. I
have Now I have two branches thatare just you know, falling down,
right. And ZZ is a it'sa great plan. It's it's super easy
to grow, uh, and itmay be that maybe if it gets a
little on the dryer side, itwould tend to sag down and then it

(01:19:23):
doesn't bounce back up. I don'tknow why they end up like that,
but I'm just telling you. I'vegot zz's that are doing great. But
that's just part of the deal thatI've experienced with them as well. But
it doesn't lead to problem. Iwouldn't cut them off. I just just
leave them alone. No, no, you could. I mean, there's
no no problem at all. Ifyou want to cut one off it's too

(01:19:44):
low. I've done that before,where there's like one hanging out way off
to one side and just blunch theplant. I'll just cut it off back
at the base. You can dothat. There's not a problem with that.
Okay, all ready, thank you, all right, thank you very
much. I appreciate it. Appreciateyour call very much. Warrens and Kingwood
Garden Center out in Kingwood, theyare excellent nurseries for the folks that are

(01:20:06):
out there in that region. There'salways something going on out of Warren's Garden
Center. There are always new plantscoming in. I mean, it's going
to be a great place to getyour heirloom soils products. For example,
It's going to be a great placeto get annuals and perennials. If you
want beautiful, beautiful color, that'sa place to go. They absolutely get

(01:20:29):
you set up with the things thatyou need to have success. That's what
they do, that's what they specializein. And so when you go out
to Warren's Southern Gardens, just tellthem you heard about it on Guardenline and
that you're interested in seeing some ofthe color that they have. They have
an elephant ear that has a hotpink stripe through a purplish green leaf.

(01:20:51):
Now just imagine that you figure outwhat that might look like. Easy.
Easy to find them out there inKingwood, an awesome austome garden. Say
wow, another one in the books, folks, I said, we had
open lines, and if you're filledup, we're coming back and we will
get to you. I see Kand Steve out there. We will get

(01:21:12):
to you. You'll be the firstup a Loretta and Texas city. In
fact, you, I believe arethe very first stop when we come back
at eleven o'clock today, I willbe in Tomball, Texas at the arbor
Gate Nursery. Come see me drivearound the back. You want to drive
around the back on Treshal Road topark in that wonderful old weather parking lot
back there. Makes it easy.We're going to be giving away all kinds

(01:21:34):
of things. Arburgates providing some oftheir one two three system, the organic
soil, I'll be given a battleroad for thirty minutes, the true Stable
visors and me Dina products. Andthere's a special on the brick house Rows.
Welcome to kt r H garden Linewith Scape Richard. It's just watch

(01:22:01):
him as the world. Welcome backto the garden Line, folks. Good
to have you with us. Wehave got plenty, plenty more to talk
about today. It is time todo your summer fertilizing of the lawn.

(01:22:28):
If you haven't done it already,now some of you've done a pre I
mean a slow release fertilizer. Well, if you done that, you're you're
good for several months out that that'sthat's good. But if you have not,
you need to grab some Slow andEasy from Nelson. Nelson's Slow and
Easy is a nice slow release fertilizer. It puts that release out three or

(01:22:50):
four months. In fact, Iwould say if you do a Nelson,
slow and easy right now, Youdon't need to fertilize again until we hit
the fall. That it truly givesa long, gradual release. And why
is that important? Well, Numberone, you just fertilize once you're done.
But for the plant, when youpush a plant with too much nitrogen
at one time, it's not thatthe number is big on the bag,

(01:23:14):
it should be big on the back. It's how much of that do you
put out? And when you pushit with too much at one time,
you end up with top growth atthe expensive root growth, literally less roots
when you overdo the nitrogen on alawn. But with a gradual release over
time, you get a good,deep, extensive root system. So when
we hit a drought, hot dryconditions, you're going to be better off.

(01:23:38):
Your plant's going to be more resilient. When a grub comes along and
chumps a root or two, it'snot the end of the world. The
plant's got a big, extensive,robust root system. Slow and easy bills
that. It also has an acidifyingeffect on soil, and it just is
a product that's really designed to createthe perfect soil environment. The mechanism of

(01:24:00):
its release helps feed the microbes inthe soil, which then feed the plants
and enrich the soil itself. Slowand Easy by Nelson Fertilizer. Very very
good product, works very very welland you will be impressed with the gradual
release. Always remember, too,when you're doing this, return those grass
clippings. That's part of a completelawn care system is to chop those clippings

(01:24:26):
up with a multi moor and putthem back in the soil. Let's go
out to Texas City now we're goingto talk to Loretta. Hello, Loretta,
Hello, Hi, thanks for waiting. Thank you well, thank you
for taking my call. I too, to make a long story as short
as I can. Two years ago, my son planted a lily garden for

(01:24:50):
me, and there's lots of liliesin there, and I'm not real diversified
on him. There's a candi lilyand a calally. Okay. The candle
lilies, I think are the tallones that have the flowers on top,
and the cal lilies are the onesthat had like the cup yes flower.

(01:25:15):
Okay, I've got uh one ofthe catal lilies with the cup flower that
has like a seed pod coming outof the flower. This is the first
time I've ever seen that is Isthat what it is? And can those
seeds be harvested and planted? It'sprobably a bloom stalk coming up out of

(01:25:43):
the center of that. Uh,it's it's uh marbled. I I mean
it looks like the inside of ahokay pomegran It's got the little seed pods
like the inside of a pomegranate.But it's all green, all right,

(01:26:06):
hmm, that's very well and it'snot well. I guess you are seeing
a pod then if it's following backbehind a bloom, Uh, that's interesting.
You don't get to see those awhole lot, at least when I've
tried to do those before. Youdon't see it. But I know what
you're talking about on the pomegranite typething. So hopefully the seeds inside are

(01:26:29):
viable. Who knows whether they areor not. But if they are,
you can harvest them and you cansprout them yourself. You just have to
go online to read how to dothat. There's got a lot of good
information online about that. But asCala's growing in mostly shade, mostly sun,
or kind of a mix of thetwo. It's a mix of the
two. We've had this tropical rainforestkind of yes weather pattern this year,

(01:26:56):
and uh, you know, everything'sdoing beautifully. Ah, but this is
the first time I've ever seen thisin this kind of flower. Well,
it happens, it does happen.Yeah, so you are correct, and
and what what you were seeing there? And yeah, I would try,

(01:27:17):
just for fun, sprinkle sum ona little potting soil, and but go
online first and read read what todo to successfully grow those. It sounds
like you're doing a lot good.If you've got a happy cali lilies canna's,
you can. It's hard to makea canna unhappy. They are tough.

(01:27:39):
Yeah. I've got the glady Ella'sand the star lilies and the wow.
Yeah, it's a beautiful lily garden. My goodness, what a kind
thing your son did that. Yoursof enjoyment, yours of enjoyment. Well,
Lauretta, thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Thank you
you, Pat take care. Yeah, that is just as an example of

(01:28:01):
another reason why we always want toconsider plants as gifts. Such a good
idea. Let's go to Pairland talkto Kay. Hey k, good morning,
Skiff, Thank you for taking mycall. I have a question.
It's again for a friend about fungusor mold naps. Okay, she has

(01:28:21):
her plants. They're infesting them,and she has a seven or eight foot
bed of amarillis and she said theyhave killed completely killed the leaves. They're
mushy and the bulbs are mushy,and they've invaded other plants and she's treated
them some with she found well,she's researched or tried to research that hydrogen

(01:28:47):
peroxide killed them, but she's afraidthat the hydrogen peroxide may also kill natural
beneficial insects or things in the soil. You yeah, I wouldn't. I
mean, I've heard of people doingthat. Fungus gnats are not that difficult
to get control of. This Isthis in containers? You said, no,

(01:29:11):
it's no, they're in the ground. The ground usually when we have
if it is fungus nats, wehave those because we're keeping the soil surface
too wet, and that's one stepis just let it dry a little bit.
I don't know that it's fungus gnats. It could be something else,
but there's a lot of little tinygnat like insects that this could be.

(01:29:34):
And it may be that the rotis not due to the things flying around,
the gnats flying around. It couldbe due to something else. So
we kind of got a lot ofpossibilities in that question. I would there
is a type of BT that willkill fungus gnats. And what it does

(01:29:56):
is it kills the larvae and thesoil, so you drench the soil surface
and it larva just like it kills. There's a type that kills mosquito larva,
and there's another type that kills caterpillarlarva oil caterpillars are larva. But
there's one that will kill fungus gnats. And so when you go you can
go to your you're down in thePearland area. You know, you've got
your ACE hardware down there on MainStreet, and I would just go in

(01:30:18):
and say I need a BT,not the caterpillar kind, but one that'll
kill fungus gnats, and they probablyhave that on the shelf. Okay,
we'll do, Thank you so verymuch. Have great day, you bet
you take care, appreciate your call. We're going to take a little break
here. We'll be right back ourphone number seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four. Welcome backto the Guardline. Good to have you

(01:30:46):
with us today. As always,you are looking for a quality tree,
a species that wants to grow herea proper planting of that tree, you
need to call the folks at BurdenTree Farm Verden has three locations around Houston.
There's one up in the Heights whereIten or Yale come together, it's
one out barker Cypress on the westside, and down in Pearland. There

(01:31:09):
is also a Verdant Tree Farm downthere the website Verdant Tree Farm. If
you're looking for trees that are coldhardy, that are drought resistance, especially
palms for example, a palm treethat can take the cold, they've got
palms like that down there. Theyhave a wide variety of things. Go
to the website too, Verdant Treefarmdot com and look at there's a list
of all the trees with descriptions ofeach one's really excellent information, as well

(01:31:32):
as all the palms. Also therethey have trees all the way up to
seven hundred gallons. So yeah,they ought to give you a free hammock
with that, because it's time tohang a hamck in a tree that size
just about one your warranty included withtheir installation of the tree. They know
how to establish it, and there'snever a better time to get the tree

(01:31:53):
done than now. Because the besttime to plant a tree is forty years
ago. Second best time is today. Don't delay. Those trees can be
adding beauty and significant value to yourlandscape, and verdant tree farm trees will
do just that because they're going tobe well adapted, well planted, and
they're going to last. I wantto go out now to Deer Park and

(01:32:15):
we're going to talk to Steve.Hello, Steve Hello, can you hear
me? Yes, sir, Ican I have a just one small question.
I have a pretty good pile offinished composts and I was wondering can

(01:32:35):
I mix that with potting mix tokind of stretch the potting mix? Yeah?
Absolutely, If it's a good qualitycompost, you can mix it and
stretch your mix out, mix itwith mix, mix it with soil,
whatever you want to mix it with. What kind of ratio would I use
or I don't want to use?Straight? Yeah, well, it just

(01:32:56):
depends. I mean, let's saygo conservative, not more than twenty five
percent of compost initially, because youknow, I don't know the condition of
your compost, the quality level ofit and stuff. So yeah, I
would say let's start with twenty fivepercent. Okay, well that's the only
question I had this morning. Okay, good well, good luck with that,
and congratulations on making composts. Thatthat is a good, thank you,

(01:33:18):
good thing to be doing. Forsure, absolutely, for sure.
Let's see, we're going to gonow to James in Paarland. Hey,
James, Hey, Jiffy. Icalled you a couple of weeks ago and
you gave me some information. I'mplanning a garden and I get these little
bugs that I can't see that areyou know they're enjoying a good salad bar.

(01:33:42):
Okay, but you mentioned a productand I went down to the local
aid and I didn't write it down, but it started with an F and
they were like, well, wegot lots of things to start with.
You do you remember what that was? I mean, I know you don't
remember. The phone call is infrank is what I thought. I probably

(01:34:04):
recommended spinosaid it's sp spin no sad. Yeah, that's an organic product that
kills things that eat leaves, caterpillarsand beetles, for example. Spinosaid work.
It works on other things too,but primarily leaf fet is that applied
in the soil or is that aspray it? You gotta spray it on

(01:34:27):
the leaves so that it'll soak intothe leaf and then when something comes along
and choose on it, it killsit. Will it wash away when it's
being water or well to some degree, but as it soaks in, what's
what moves into the tissue doesn't washaway. But I wouldn't do any spray
right for a rain Okay, Sono rain, spray it on and then

(01:34:50):
what give it twenty four hours beforewatering or yeah? Probably so there's not
a black and white line on thatone, but yeah, that'd be a
good practice. Okay. And Ihave one other question for you for my
wife. He has an orchid thatshe's been trying to get to bloom forever.

(01:35:10):
It's green and healthy, but itdoesn't flower. Is there something that
she could see that or something thatshe should be giving it? She looked
online and done all the different tricks, but you know, is this healthy?
But it is? Yeah? Isthis one of those supermarket orchids that
you see the called the moth orchidor calalea orchid. That's well, those

(01:35:33):
are pretty easy. They need goodsunlight and then they need to be occasionally
repotted. And I can't go intodetail on the air how to do it,
but you're going to cut away theold stuff down at the bottom of
the old roots. You're going torepot it, and then you're going to
do some fertilizing in very light doses. So think of it as mixing an
extremely diluted fertilizer and water extremely diluted, right, and watering with it a

(01:35:57):
few times to just support some growth. And if you have good sunlight for
that orchand I don't mean direct sunI mean bright indirect light, then you're
gonna be able to get that planestablished so it produces the bud to be
able to do a bloom cycle.Again. That that's in a nutshell what
you need to do. All right, Okay, we'll go and research it.
And yeah, it says green,it looks healthy. It's just it's

(01:36:20):
in a vibrant area in the housewhere we talk. All that that happens.
It does happen a lot. Iknow what you're talking about. I've
had that myself. Changed. Hey, thank you for the call. Sorry,
I'm gonna I appreciate that call AnaPlants and Produces up there in Montgomery.
In fact, they're on the eastside of Montgomery on Highway one oh
five. Now, if you've beento Ana Plants and Produce, you know

(01:36:43):
that you've got a wide variety ofall kinds of plants. I mean,
if you're looking for turning your placeinto a beautiful place, Ana Plants is
going to have it. What theyalso have is every fertilizer I talk about.
I'm talking about all the different brandsand products I talk about. They're
there. I'm talking out all thesoils there there as well. Uh you
get they they pretty much they makeit where you get to have your pick

(01:37:06):
of what you're looking for, Aand a you just know you're gonna get
what you need. You know.Ana Plants and Produce. They're open seven
days a week for crying out loud, I mean seven days a week,
nine to five. All the fertilizers, take your pick, all the soils,
take your pick, Lots of beautifulplants. Always things going on there

(01:37:26):
at Ana Plants and Produce on theeast side of Montgomery. You can go
to We'll go to the phone justgive me a call nine three six,
five nine seven fifty seventy nine threesix, five ninety seven five zero seven
zero. We're gonna go to Rufusin Cove, Texas. Hey, Rufus,

(01:37:47):
got a Rufous there? All right, I'm gonna put you back on
hold. We're gonna go to Susanin League City. Hello, Susan,
good line, skiff. How areyou? I'm well, how can we
help? Thanks for helping with myquestion. Okay, I have a butternut
squash that has a mystery that Ihope you can help me with. I've

(01:38:10):
been watching it growing and flowers comingout, and male and female flowers,
and what I can figure out isI never see the male and the playing
female flowers open at the same time, so I have no idea how they
poppinate, and the flowers keep fallingoff the Finally I got frustrated and I

(01:38:30):
went out there and took matters intomy own hand, and I open up
a clothes male flower, took thestepmen, and I use that to geminate
the open female flower, and sofar that's the only one that the food
will start growing. Okay, Ican't figure that out. Well, normally

(01:38:51):
the way those things sprawl around thebutternuts, and they they're going to have
open male and female. I don'tknow if some are hidden on or leaves,
maybe you're not seeing them. ButI've never had a situation where you
would have a male flower one dayand then and no females, and then
the next day females and no males. That that's very unusual. But what

(01:39:13):
you've done is the thing you gotto do, and that is take matters
into your own hands to do thatcross pollination. It might be a reason
to have more than one plant justso you have more blooms, so the
percent chance of having some of bothopen on a given day is higher.
But other than that, I thinkyou've done all you can do. There's
no way to make the plant behavedifferently. All right, well i'll have

(01:39:39):
to that. I'll see if Ican get another one. Well, hopefully
they'll still set fruit. I meanwe're still you know, those squash.
You've got quite a bit of seasonleft, so hopefully that will turn around.
Hey, thank you very much,Susan. I appreciate your call.
If you're down south of town andyou are looking for quality products to help

(01:40:00):
set the foundation for success in yourgarden. See in a mulch is the
place you need to go. Now, what do we always say on Guardline,
brown stuff before green stuff? Right? Ciena Malts specializes in everything you
need for the brown stuff, forthe foundation, for the soil, so
that when you put the green stuffin vegetables, plants, treat shrubs,

(01:40:23):
they're going to do success successfully.So for example, do you need composts,
do you need rose soil? Doyou need any kind of a blend
to grow plants in? Do youneed maltch to go on the surface.
Do you need fertilizers? Cienamultch carriesall the fertilizers I talk about on Guardline
and then some. I mean,they really have a good selection. When

(01:40:44):
you drive off from Cienamulch or ifyou're within twenty miles, they'll deliver your
bulk supply. Then when you leaveyou have what's needed for plant success.
Now just take it home, makegood soil and get good plants and you're
off to the races. For example, they carry that super By nitrofoss the
silver bag nineteen four ten fertilizer.Half of the nineteen is slow release.

(01:41:08):
That is a good thing. That'show you want to feed plants gradually over
time. It's got four percent ironfor excellent color and green up. If
you've not done a slow release thissummer, go ahead and do it.
Just head out to SI Animals getsyou some of that nineteen four to ten
and put it down on your lawnat the recommended rate. You can find
it on my chart that I doonline. It tells you when to fertilize

(01:41:31):
and whatnot. And Nitrofos super Turfnineteen four ten silver bag. That's one
that will give you beautiful results.We're going to go now to Cyprus and
talk to Clay. Hello, Clay, good morning. I've got a question.
I've got some tomatoes that are doingreally well, fruits coming out.

(01:41:55):
But I noticed cavity in one ofthe one of the tomatoes. Something's been
eat eating at it. And Idid notice some beetle looking things, ugly
ugly things kind of orange and blackstripes. Okay, and it was is
that what beating the tomatoes? Itcould have been, but I suspect the
whole the cavity was done by acaterpillar and maybe the beetle is just in

(01:42:16):
there. Now, that is mymy best guess on that. Typically that's
a good guess because I did seea caterpillar. All right, well,
I'm up against a hard break,but caterpillars, BT and spinosa are your
two best options on tomatoes to shutdown those caterpillars. And again the beetle,
I wouldn't I wouldn't sweat it.But Clay sry to be in a

(01:42:39):
hurry day. We gotta we gottatake a break. All right, We'll
be right back seven one, three, two, fifty eight, seventy four
and come back to guarden line.Good to have you with us today.

(01:43:02):
If you have not been out toRCW Nurseries recently, you need to get
out there. RCW has got awonderful deal going on for mom this weekend,
in fact, Saturday to day andSunday from ten to two. So
when guard line's over, they're goingto kick off out there from ten to
two, they're going to be doinga thing where for ten bucks you get

(01:43:25):
a pot, a paint and asucculent plant and you get to sit down
with them a little project, putit together. You paint up. The
pot is a beautiful little I'm justlooking at some of the designs that they
have really cool and then you plantyour cucculent and it makes a nice little
gift for mom. This would bea good one for maybe kids to go
out and do to give to momor to give to grandmam. That would

(01:43:46):
be another good idea RCW. Justsomething they got going on this weekend,
both today and tomorrow. Out there. RCW is going to have an excellent
selection of anything that you're looking for, and they're going to have the product
to go with it too. Youknow, if I talk about a fertilizer
on there, they're going to haveit. If you're going to be planting
a tree, for example, likeone of their trees that they have,

(01:44:08):
they've got a little schedule for you, you know with they use like a
microlife every three to four months.They tell you with each size of container
how much that you put out andwin. They've got the root activator that
you can use once a month duringthat first year, because you know,
the goal of the first year isto get that tree root system established.
That is the number one goal forsuccess, not just survival, but for

(01:44:30):
fast growth and success. Rcw's gotit. R CW Nursery. They are
the garden center right there where TomboParkway. Highway two forty nine comes into
beltwegh eight makes it easy. We'regoing to go now to Rufus, and
Oh, Rufus, I've already talkedto you today. I just saw you
hanging out there on the board,So excuse me. We're going to go

(01:44:53):
to Joshua here in Houston. Therewe go, Hey josh Higo morning.
Thank you for taking my call.Yes, sir, last year, we
uh we got three apple trees.There's a couple of other ones, but
I got two anna apples and agolden apple. And the frieze last year
took kind of took most of thegrowth up top, and I believe they're

(01:45:15):
grafted trees and the I had tocut two of them down. Most a
lot of it died, but theylasted. They're they're green. I got
no buds or anything on them.But the one apple tree, which I
thought was dead this year, it'sgot quite a bit of fruit. But
uh, as far as I know, they were one year olds when I
got them. I know they grafted, and I don't know much about the

(01:45:38):
age on grafting trees. But producingthe fruit this early at one year is
that? Is that? Okay?And and also my cutting down those trees.
I did a little looking online andit looks like there's a certain point
where I guess that used some kindof a dormit tree or something, and
they graft good tree onto it.If I cut all the what was grafted,

(01:46:01):
that is that tree pretty much goingto be non fruit bearing now.
Yeah, so apples are grafted underrootstocks that do not produce good apples.
The rootstocks don't. The reason theygraft them some there's certain soil conditions that
they do. It a graph forthat, but also primarily it's to control
the size of the tree, becausean apple tree just gets way too big

(01:46:25):
otherwise. And so everything above thegraft is that is, the anna or
the Dorset golden or whatever variety theyhave, is above the graph. If
you cut that all away, andyou cut it down where all that's left
is a rootstock, then you're notgoing to have trees. You would have
to regraft yourself or just dig itout better yet and buy a new tree.

(01:46:47):
But so don't don't cut the abovethe graft union completely off right.
I don't think I did. Butit's just got big leaves now, and
there's no I don't see any kindof goods. Yeah, made me question
if I had gone I could stillsee the joint. But I mean,
I guess I could take and grafton from the good and apple free to

(01:47:09):
the either one of those two.I know you need a golden and you
need you to tie, you couldyou could do that if you do.
If you go online, you canlearn how to do what's called a tea
bud and that's done during the growingseason and just have to study it and
read it and figure it out.It's not easy, but it's doable.

(01:47:29):
Or during the dormance season you canuse what's called a whip graft. Those
are the two easiest grafts probably foryou. I would in general, though,
seriously consider just getting a new treethat's ready to go. And unless
you just want to play around,you know, with the hands on stuff,
but you're going to be way aheadof things to just get a new
tree and put it in in termsof getting it. And now, how

(01:47:53):
long does it take for edible fruitfrom a fairly young tree that three to
so many years, even if it'sanother third year, you should be getting
a decent amount of apples. Butthen it becomes how big is the tree,
you know, think of it likea Christmas tree. The bigger the
tree, the more ornaments you canhang on it. Well, the bigger
apple tree, the more apples youcan hang on it. So that is

(01:48:15):
that's the real determiner of yield.Then at that point I appreciate it.
Thanks very much. All right,Josh, thanks a lot. I appreciate
it. Appreciate your call very much. We're going to go now to Katie
and talk to Ray. Hello,Ray, good morning, Skip, good
morning, and happy Mother's Day toall those moms in a listening area.
I just had a quick question.I mowed a lawn. I put the

(01:48:36):
imperial down the silver bag. Howlong should I wait to mow it.
I'm afraid it's gonna suck up thosepellets and spread them all over the place.
Oh, I see more than that, more than I did. Hello,
it's growing. The grass is growing. I'm just afraid to cut it.
Well, are you using a baggeror something? Or no? No?

(01:48:59):
No, turning everything. I don'tworry about. You mow right after
you fertilize if you want. Don'tworry about Oh, okay, okay,
yeah, another question I have.I have a cabbage and it's growing.
I have three of them. Twoof them are close to the ground on
on on on containers and the otherone, the third one, is growing
like it's trying to reach for thesky. So whenever the cabbage grows in

(01:49:26):
it, will it be too heavywhere it breaks the stem of the of
the plant? Or no, ifit's on a stalk, it's not a
cabbage. Can you take a pictureand send it to me by email.
I don't know what we're talking abouthere, but cabbage just sets right down
on the above the ground. Okay, yeah, so let me let me
put you on hold and kay yeah, Callum will give you my email address.

(01:49:49):
Thanks a lot, I appreciate that. Hey, if you need a
good Mother's Day gift, idea whybirds has got you covered. I'm telling
you your mom may not be agardener, but she will appreciate a beautiful
bird feeder like their eco turff.It's made out of recycled milk jugs.
But you don't know that. Whenyou look at it, it looks like
it's made out of wood or something. Real beautiful, But what a cool

(01:50:11):
deal. A really nice feeder,one of the best or the best.
Actually hummingbird feeder I know of isthe high perch feeder, and they have
those at mothers for Mother's Day giftingat Wildbird's or you know, you can
also buy you one for yourself too. I love mine. They also have
the Eliminator scroll proof feeder. They'vegot The Joy of Bird Feeding, a
book by the founder of Wildbirds Unlimitedthat is just really fun and it answers

(01:50:36):
all kinds of common questions things youmight run into feeding birds. Wildbird's Unlimited
has got you covered. There's sixof them all around the Greater Houston area.
Go to WBU dot com forward SlashHouston WBU dot com forward Slash Houston.
I'm telling you it is a can'tmiss place for your Mother's Day gifting.

(01:50:59):
You are trying to create some newcolor on your landscape, patio,
or maybe you want some vegetables togrow. Jungle land flour and vegetable jungle
land flower and vegetable soil. Youput it in the container. It holds
water enough to help the things surviveand do well, but it drains the

(01:51:20):
excess away, and that combination isvery important. Jungle Land sold in a
lot of different places. You're goingto find it in Lake Hardware done in
Angleton, Fisher's Hardware over in Baytown, or d and de Feed up in
Tombole all carry nitrofoss products. Weare running up right up against a break
here, Rufus. You will bemy first up when I come right back.

(01:51:42):
Our phone number is seven one threetwo one two fifty eight seventy four
and we'll be right back in justa moment. Hey, welcome back to
the Guardline. I'm your host,skip Rictor're good to have you with us
today. Any plan you to talkabout. Listen to Buchanans Buchanan's Nursery.

(01:52:03):
They're in the Heights. They're onEleventh Street. You've probably been there.
If you haven't, well you gotyou gotta go. I mean, it's
one of those places everybody needs tocheck out because it's so cool. Buchanans
native plants. They specialize in nativeplants. But don't let that fool you.
I mean, first of all,if I know no place that carries
the selection of natives that the Buchanansdoes, they just it's unbelievable what they

(01:52:28):
have there. If you're trying toput in a let's say, a garden
for pollinators, that's a big dealright now. Well, they're going to
have things like Texas rock rose,Salvia, greggy ie, Brasis penstem.
And by the way, I wasup in North Carolina at the Let's see
Ralston Arboretum in Raleigh, and Isaw brass penstem growing up there. I

(01:52:48):
want to go, Hey, that'sour plants from down here. Frog fruit,
Greg golden rod, purple cone flower. That's a good one for butterflies
too, by the way, turkscap blanket flower, gregsmithsflower on and Buchanan's
got all of that. That iswhat they specialize in. But they have
much much more houseplants vegetables. Ifyou're looking for herbs, they have an

(01:53:09):
excellent selection for mom. By theway, houseplant wouldn't be a bad idea.
You know, they have stuff thatis just amazingly beautiful. Mom will
not have seen the plant before becausethe selection is you know, it's not
just apotheos ivy, which hay,nothing wrong with that, but it's way
beyond that. Some really beautiful andexotic options on plants all available there at

(01:53:32):
Buchanans, So you need to gocheck them out. They are definitely worth
the stop eleven Street in the HeightsBuchannansplants dot Com. We are going to
go now to Rufus in Cove,Texas. Hey, Rufus, can you
hear me now? Yes, sir, I can. All right, I'm
growing purple peace. And an oldman tell me what it's all the little

(01:53:55):
shooters that's running off. They mightrunners that connect one road to another row
saying dead had them. And I'mout here doing that, and I'll see
a little holes of about tea plant. Turn out, I got little holes
of a tomato plants. So what'sa little bug that's like a little hole?
Are you saying? Pea plant likesouthern peas? Yes, purple?

(01:54:17):
Okay, Well, if there areholes, individual little holes like babie holes
in a pea leaf, that southernpea leaf, that's probably a beetle that
did that. But caterpillars and beetlesboth chew leaves, as do grasshoppers,
for example. But a spinosid spraywould be the one that I would use.

(01:54:39):
It's the least toxic. It alsoworks very well on chewing insects.
However, that said, a fewholes, in fact, quite a few
holes is not a problem. Theytook bean plants and a research trial one
time rufus and they had to pullforty percent of the leaves off before they
saw a significant reduction and yield.So a few holes is nothing. We

(01:55:00):
don't we don't provacating tomatoes. Well, it could be the same insect,
it could be a different one.There's a lot of beetles and there's a
lot of caterpillars out there, butthe same is true with tomatoes. It's
not. You know, you couldlose probably a fourth of the leaf area
on a plant and still be okayproducing a good crop of tomatoes. Well,

(01:55:23):
I used seven dust. It's beenraining so much. I hadn't put
any in and had been out guardabout five days. Okay, Well that
I was putting seven dust down first. Okay, Well that's what I follow
the holes. Yeah, seven dustshould control what eats the holes, beetles
and cattle, right all right?Now, the other part about the little
shooters on the purplele piece, isthat true? Just go ahead and cut

(01:55:44):
them off because they're not going toprovocate enough fruit. Yeah, I'm not
fully understanding what it is you're describingthere, but uh, all right,
when your plant grows, it growsup, makes a nice bush and it
puts on the flies. All ofa sudden, you'll see this little runner
shooter come out. Okay, yeah, he'll run across the road and he'll
climb up on my plant. No, then they'll put peas all over here,

(01:56:08):
but it'll be two months down theroad. Yeah, yeah, that's
that's true. But some people justthey'll even trell us certain kinds of peas
and let them just keep growing andproducing. It's up to you. There's
not a right or wrong on thatone. You can pick what you way
about it. Just chopping them offwhat dead Heading them off did not gonna
hurt me. No, it won'thurt them, but it'll just mean you

(01:56:30):
get one crop and you're done.That's what I'm hoping for. All right,
Rufe, good luck with that.I appreciate your call, Thank you
very much. ACE Hardware stores areall over the greater Houston area. There's
forty stores here in the Houston areathat are ACE Hardware's. ACE is the
place for a lot of things.But you know, when it comes to

(01:56:51):
stuff for maybe mom. For example, for mom, they have beautiful gifts.
I mean the jewelry like a kinders, you know, types of jewelry,
purses, all kinds of indoor decorationsand beautiful things. ACE is a
place for gifts as well. Iknow you already know. It's a place
for your lawn and garden and thefertilizers and pesticides and everything else you might

(01:57:13):
need we control, but it's alsoa place for some wonderful gifts. You
need to go check out. EachAce Hardware store is independently owned, so
they don't all have exactly the samethings in them, but so many of
them have really added just this beautifulindoor living and gifting and things like that
that you got to go check themout. Go to ACE Hardware dot com,

(01:57:33):
Acehardware dot Com, do the storelocator, find which of the forty
stores are nearest you. I'm goingto head out now to let's see,
We're gonna go to Missouri City andtalk to Steve. Hello, Steve,
Hello, sir, how you doingtoday. I'm good, I'm good.
What's up? Well? So I'vegot what I think too. I think

(01:57:53):
it's like an American ELM, butI've got the gross the little stems,
the little shooters are shooting out andclusters on this thing, and I can't
keep up with them. Is thereanything I can do to stop those from
growing out? Are you talking aboutcoming out of the ground. No,
they're actually coming out of the trunkof the tree in spot. Oh oh

(01:58:16):
okay, No, I mean,well, there's a there's a product called
Florrel. It's a growth regulator.But I don't know anybody who sprays tree
sprouts on a trunk of a likean elm like that with it. Typically
we just will go in and cutthose off, but try not to leave
stubs when you cut them off.I mean, when they're really young,

(01:58:36):
you can just break them off,but just get them as close as you
can. But if you want todo something to shut that down a little
bit, you can use something calledFlorrell. It's a growth regulator. There's
another one called sucker stopper, suckersucker stop like that. Yeah, that
makes sense, doesn't it. Butjust go go go do that. I've

(01:58:58):
never sprayed for that kind of thing, but I know what you're talking about.
It's annoying. Okay, all right, the second question, is that
possible or yeah, very very veryquickly, very quick. I have a
sago that's got a whole bunch ofother sagos popping up underneath. It.
Okay, it looks really pretty thatway as opposed to just having the big

(01:59:20):
stock and the pop at the top. Yeah. Is that safe for it
to be that way? Or shouldI be cleaning it? No? Perfectly,
perfectly okay. Most people like thelook of a single trunk. But
in nature, segos grow clumps,and that's what you got going there.
Those are called pups at the bottom. That are they're coming in around mom
to fill in and make a clump. Okay, okay, thank you very

(01:59:43):
much. I appreciate it. Yes, sir, thank you. I appreciate
that. You know, Heirloom Soilsis a place where you know you're going
to get a quality blend. AndI Airloom Soils has the rose soil,
they have the veggie and herb mix, they have a fruit and citrus mix.
They've got things like leaf mold composts. I mean, I could go
on and on a dozen over acouple dozen products that Airloom Soils produces,

(02:00:09):
and they're all high quality, andyou can buy them by the bag all
over the place. I mean,they are widely distributed by the bag.
You can buy it by bulk.You can drive up to porter and pick
it up yourself. You can callthem and say, hey, deliver it.
Do you want them to dump somestuff in your driveway for you to
use to finish that flower bed?They'll do that. Do you not want
that much mess? Well, theycan bring us supersack. It's like one

(02:00:30):
of those big old grocery sacks thatyou take to the store, so you
don't have to get a plastic bag. But imagine one so big it holds
a cubic yard. They can dothat, drop it right off in your
driveway. Heirloom soils quality products thatgrow successful plants. And when I say
successful, I mean beauty, Imean bounty. Everything you're looking for it

(02:00:54):
all starts in the soil and AirloomSoils are specialists doing just that. Go
to Heirloom Soils of Texas dot com, Airloom Seals of Texas dot com.
Yep. Oh. When you're there, there is a calculator and you can
figure out exactly how much mult youneed. I don't care if you buy
soil from or not. You needto go check out that calcula. Really,

(02:01:16):
I mean it, it is reallyreally cool. But while you're there,
you're gonna you're gonna have to havesome of their stuff because it is
high colalal putting an hour in thebooks. At eleven thirty, I will
be at Arburgate in Tomball, andI hope you will too. Arbrogate's gonna
be serving frozen peach billinis oho.I love these things. They are really
good. They're going to have aspecial on the brick house. Rows are

(02:01:39):
beautiful red rose, highly acclaimed,very disease resistant. I'll be given away
four tree stabilizers from the three sixtytree Stabilizer, both lots of products from
me Dina, including that new supergrow. Arborgate's going to be given away
about every thirty minutes of their onetwo three system dot organic soil completely don't

(02:01:59):
miss it. Welcome to kt rH Garden Line with Scip Richter's trim.
Just watch him as a world.Here we are. This is the last

(02:02:24):
hour coming up on the Saturday editionof garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here toanswer your gardening questions. Feel free to
give us a call and if youwould like seven one three two one two
five eight seven four listen today.After the show, I'll be at Arburgate
Garden Center, Arburgate nursery at eleventhirty and I'll be there till one thirty

(02:02:46):
two hours there answering your gardening questions. So if you have a sample that
you want to identify it or diagnosed, or a bug you want to identify
it, put it in a plasticbag. We don't need those things going
flying around everywhere. Bring it toguard the arborgate and I'll take a look
at it. We will figure outwhat it is and what you need to
do about it. If you havephotos on your phone, we could take

(02:03:06):
a look at those as well.Perhaps you'd like some advice on an area.
Maybe you need me to point youto a plant that is going to
fit that spot just perfectly. Well, we're at the right place, the
arbor gate. They have so manywonderful options of plants that grow here.
That's what they specialize in. Imean, they specialize in your success.

(02:03:30):
That's why they carry the stock theydo. That's why they carry the products
that they do. They're one twothree completely easy system. A soil for
anything, an organic soil, Afertilizer for anything with roots, an organic
fertilizer, the compost complete, whichis a compost and by the way,
the soil and the compost both haveexpanded shale mixed in as well. So
when you do the one, two, three, those three products together,

(02:03:54):
it's the brown stuff. It's everythingyou need to have success. Quality soil,
quality post in it, and alsoa quality fertilizer as well. While
I'm there on to be given awayfour super grow ready to sprays, the
new product from Medina, I'm gonnagive the three of the hast Grow quarts,
three of the hast grove lawn,I'm gonna be given away seaweed,

(02:04:15):
and I'm be giving away samples allfrom Medina donated by Medina. We're gonna
be given away four of the threesixty tree stabilizers you get if if you
don't do anything else, just comeup and say I want to see that
thing, and let me show itto you because it's cool. They're gonna
be doing a special, a Mother'sDay special on the brick House Rows.
Listen, when you give your moma rose bush as a gift, year

(02:04:39):
after year after year, when thoseblooms appear, it's just like a dividend
on your gift. A remembrance too, By the way, I have plants
that I still remember who gave methat plant, and I just think plants
are a great gift. They're gonnahave frozen peach bellinis. Yep, you
got to try those out there.Are awesome, awesome. Uh do you
see what I'm I'm saying. We'regonna have a good time out. Please

(02:05:00):
don't miss this park in the backtheir new parking lot off Trishall Road in
the back. It's easy to getto. So here's all you need to
know. Arburgate is out twenty nineto twenty. It's west of Highway two
forty nine out of Tomball to thewest on twenty nine to twenty. When
you get out there, be lookingto the left. Trishall Road leaves the

(02:05:24):
twenty nine to twenty before Arburgate,swings around behind it and the parking lot
comes back in after Arburgate. Ifyou miss it when you see Arburgate,
just keep going. It's gonna bethe next place to turn and you can
come around behind good good parking.So please do that. Please come join
me today. I would love tovisit with you. I always like to
talk to folks that listen to GardenLine. Where you're gonna go Now to

(02:05:46):
Greg in League City. Hello,Greg. Good morning, Skip, and
thank you for taking my call thismorning. Yes, sir, I have
a couple of black diamond craig myrtlesin my backyard, very pretty plants,
but they have some type of whitepowdery substance on some of the leaves and
those wondering if you could point mein the right direction about it. Yeah,

(02:06:11):
yeah, that is powdery mildew andit is a problem on the crape
myrtle. In general. There's somevarieties that are resistant, but in this
case you got one snot. Sowhat you can do. There's a couple
approaches to powdery mildew. First ofall, it likes humidity. Most diseases
like it when the leaves get wet, but powdery mildew likes a dry leaf

(02:06:33):
but high high humidity and welcome toHouston. So it's a problem here.
Now, you can use on anorganic end oil type sprays. Horticultural oils
including neem oil will suppress the powderymildew that you spray it on. It'll
kill it because it's a surface fungalstrand you can use their synthetics like Belaton

(02:06:59):
Frigs semple that would would also moveinto the leaf and control it. There's
a number of ways to deal withit, but it's just one of the
things that tends to come and gowith the weather. Especially it likes milder
temperatures. When it gets really hot, I don't see as much of it
unless there's just a lot of lowerspraying that's increasing the humidity. Got it,

(02:07:21):
got it? Well, thank youvery much. I really appreciate it,
all right, good luck, Yes, you bet. I appreciate that
call very much. Nitrophos the silverbag what is it called. It's called
superturf. Why because it makes superturf. It is a nineteen four ten
fertilizer. Half the nitrogen and aslow release form iron added on to make

(02:07:44):
that deep, beautiful green that we'relooking for. You know, iron deficiency
is very common. My neighbor Iwas looking at my neighbor shoard the other
day and there's a lot of littleiron deficient areas. A little supplement like
that would be very helpful to use. And super turf silver bag nineteen four
ten. It's easy to find.They have it all over the place.
You can find in a lot ofplaces. You go to a Southwest fertilizer,

(02:08:05):
for example, Bob's got Itchurse.Southwest Fertilizer. Bob's got everything he
does. I mean every fertilizer Italk about, and then some every pest
control, every disease control, everyweed control. Bob and Aaron and his
team, Josh, the team there. They are experts. They know how
to identify, they know how todiagnose, they know how to point you

(02:08:28):
to a product that's gonna work.So if you're looking for a one stop
shop, I mean, you cantake your lawn more bleeds are lawnmower equipment,
your power equipment in there for repairs. I mean they sell quality power
equipment too. By the way,they eighty foot wallle of tools. There's
another one. I mean, youjust walk in there and you're gonna find

(02:08:48):
plenty of things. Fertilizer spreader foryour fertilizer. They're gonna have products for
fireant control for example, and whatnot. Southwest Fertilizers on the corner Abysinet and
Run in Southwest Houston. So it'seasy to get to Southwest Fertilizer in Southwest
Houston. You can go to thewebsite Southwest Fertilizer dot com and while you're

(02:09:11):
in there, you're gonna find prettymuch anything you could possibly need. I
like to say that if if aSouthwest fertilizer doesn't have it, you probably
don't need it. Let's go nowto Spring talk to Matt. Hello,
Matt, oh hi, good morning. Thanks for your time and I enjoy
the show. Thank you very briefly. I hope to visit your time at

(02:09:37):
Arbor Gate. You too here bynight. Yeah, and I apologize.
I was kind of in the middleof when you were speaking of something called
Nelson slow and something slow and easy. That's right and easy? Yeah,
yes, sir, I'm right nowfinishing off complete Saint Augustine thought on our

(02:10:01):
front lawn. Okay, it's onlyin the been laid down a week now.
Okay, I was causing not tofertilize it for a couple week and
then cut it. And your teamcomment about once you use this product or
recommended not to worry to fall,right, if I heard correctly, Yeah,

(02:10:24):
and I don't hope you don't mindthe listeners. The keep Maltz company
up there at nineteen sixty is justgoing wild with a good All right,
well let's say let me let mejump in there, Matt. Nelson slow
and easy is a good gradual release. The company that grow grass, they

(02:10:46):
put a fertilizer on it before theysell it to you, and so you
should be good for a month ormore just in what is already in the
grass. But after about a monthafter you've put it down, put down
the slow and Easy and the nexttime you fertilize will be in the fall.
And if you go online to mywebsite, gardeningwith Skip dot com,

(02:11:09):
find my fertilizer schedule, it'll tellyou when to fall fertilized and it'll give
you all your options, including Nelson'sSlow and Easy. I'm up against a
hard break and I got a run, but good luck with that. Congratulations
on your new lawn. I hopeyou will you have it with you?
What's that? Do you have abook out? I do, but I'm

(02:11:30):
not. I'm not gonna have itwith me today, but I'll talk about
that more later. All right,We're going to take a break here seven
one three, two, one twofive eight seven four. Welcome back to
Guardline. Good have you with ustoday. We are gonna head straight out

(02:11:52):
to the phones and talk to Joelfrom Conro. Hey, Joel, Hey,
good morning, thanks for kaking mycall. How are you doing it.
I'm well, sir, I'm wellsir. How can we help calling
about leaf cutter ants up here andtrying to see what the best way to
control that is. Well, thereis a concoction that you're going to put
together, and John, what I'mgonna need to do is give get you

(02:12:15):
to send me your email and Iwill send you the instructions for doing that.
You're going to buy two different productsmixing together and a bucket, let
them sit for a couple of weeks, and then put it out. And
it seems to be as good aswe can do to control those leaf cutters.
But rather than going through the wholenine yards on the on the air,
I'm just gonna put you on holdand Callum will get give you my

(02:12:39):
email. Okay, perfect, Thankyou so much. Every great day.
You bet, you bet have agood day, yeah, leaf utter.
Leaf cutters are tough because they don'ttypically want to eat the baits and the
poisons we would put out, unlikefant for example, would would do.
Uh. And so it's a biggerchallenge to get them because what they eat
is a fungus. They cut theleaves off your plants. Shame on them.

(02:13:03):
For doing that, and they takeit to a big cavern underground that
they made and they stick them inthere and grow fungus on them and eat
the fungus. Is that cool?So you can think of leaf cutters as
farmers because that's kind of what theyare. And Yeah, I had a
peach orchard a while back up inWillis many years ago, and one night
I came out and two trees weredefoliated overnight by leaf cutter ants. They

(02:13:26):
found them, they told the family. Everybody showed up and I mean literally
stripped them bare overnight. Wow,they're a mess, that is for sure.
Have you been to enchanted Forests downin Richmond Enchanted Forest is it's an
enchanting place. I always love togo to Enchanted Forest because they always have

(02:13:46):
things going on down there. Theyalways have an excellent selection of plants.
They're doing a little thing where youknow, you can make and take a
succulent arrangement for mom there. Ofcourse, there's tons of game for mom
down in that area of whether momlikes flowers or maybe she wants a new
Vitex tree in the yard, somethingbeautiful like that. Chenny Forest has quality

(02:14:09):
plants. They've got quality staff thatcan help you, that greets you,
that points you to what you need. And if you're thinking about a butterfly
garden, that'd be a good onefor mom. By the way, they
have all the plants for the adultsto attract the adult butterflies and all the
plants for the larvae to feed andcreate adult butterflies. You need to do
both when you're planning a butterfly garden. And Enchanted Forest and Richmond they're going

(02:14:33):
to have that for you. Theyare on FM twenty seven fifty nine in
Richmond, Texas. The website EnchantedForest Richmond TX dot com and Chanted Forest
Richmond, TX dot com. We'regoing to go now to Chris in Conroe.
Hello, Chris, Hello, howare you today? I planted some

(02:14:54):
sant augustine grass about six weeks agoand immediately fertilized it. Now I'm not
supposed to now and it's kind ofdormant. What can I do to make
it grow better? Seeing augustine dormantnow that's unusual. I don't know why
it's done into growth. I guessdid it have a weed control product in

(02:15:16):
it? Yes? It did?Okay, well, it may have been
that You're just gonna have to waitthat one out. It will start growing
again, but for right now,let's not mess with it. It's not
a lack of nutrients right now thatthat's causing that. So let's just wait
it out. Uh, and itshould start to grow again. Uh,

(02:15:37):
I don't know, you know,to the degree that it was set back
will vary the time that when youstart to get back to normal again.
But uh, at this point,there's no product to fix the situation.
Just just make sure it has waterwhen it head and rained for a while
and it's warm. Don't need awatered a lot. But it'll bounce back

(02:16:00):
here in a wall. All right. Well, I appreciate it very much.
Thank you very much, you bet, Chris, thanks for the call.
Sorry to hear about that. Iknow that is no fun, right,
no fun at all. Have youbeen Have you been to Nelson Water
Garden out in Katie, Texas.They're out there in Katie, Texas.
You just turn north off iten onKatie Fort Ben Road and it's just a

(02:16:22):
stone throw up the road there.Nelson Water Garden has an outstanding selection,
outstanding selection of plants. It's reallyNelson Nursery and water Garden. I always
say Nelson Water Garden because I meanthey are nationally literally, they are nationally
famous for their water garden work.They created that disappearing fountain that comes out

(02:16:45):
of a beautiful tall container. Ifyou've never seen the you just gotta go.
You run out there to Nelson WaterGardening, Katie, and consider this
an outing, consider this a destination, because that is exactly what it is.
They got a Mother's Day sale goingon, that's right, mother Day
sale, twenty five percent off azaleasand roses and magnolias and krepe myrtles in

(02:17:05):
the garden center. Oh the hibiscus. They have got beautiful hibiscus, beautiful
herbs as well, and even anherb bold gift. You know, it's
like all ready planted for mom rightthere. Uh, it's it's what you
would expect out of an outstanding nurseryand garden center. But when you see

(02:17:26):
the water features, the kinds offountains and kinds of waterfalls they can create,
you're gonna want to have them comeout and do that for you.
And if you're doing yourself or they'llthey'll advise you on how to do it
yourself. But I'm telling you thework they do is it's amazing. It
absolutely is. Nelson Water Garden andNursery, Nelsonwatergardens dot com, Nelson Watergardens

(02:17:48):
dot com. That is what youneed to know. And I'm telling you
any any time that you have achance to just get out of the house,
grab a friend or two, takethe kids, take the family,
take the friends, maybe get yourgarden club together to go. You need
to do some horticultural tourism around thegreater Houston area. There are outstanding places.

(02:18:11):
I've noticed that people around Houston theykind of live in their little part
of Houston, whether it's downtown orway out west or north or whatever,
and they don't tend to venture around. It is worth a drive to go
see our garden centers that are north, south, east, west, central,
wherever you are, there is somethingthat other big cities would die to

(02:18:33):
have. And I mean that I'vebeen San Antonio, in Dallas and Fort
Worth and Austin. Yes they havegood garden centers, but not like here.
Not the quantity, not the qualitylevel that you will find here in
the Greater Houston area. Something tonote, something you definitely want to for
example, for example, over inSeabrook. The excuse me in Seabrook.

(02:18:56):
Moss Nurserymaas. By the way,I always times forget to give websites and
things like that, and I thinkit's worth going to check out websites.
It's Moss Nursery dot com. MaasNursery dot com. I was there yesterday,
as a matter of fact. Ialways try to swing by there as
much as I can, and theypeople were coming out with hadranga trees.

(02:19:18):
What is a hydranga tree, Well, it is a stand we call a
standard. I explained that yesterday.Think of a trunk and then up at
about three four inch three or fourfeet high, you just have this top
which has all the foliage and allthe beautiful blooms. Very unique, very
cool. They have elephantears, gorgeouselephantears, not just green but deep burgundies,

(02:19:41):
pink stripe, and the leaf justall kinds of stuff for sun and
for shade. They have that.They were so loaded with hanging baskets still
that they're stunning beautiful cactus succulents they'vegot them. I wandered through the houseplant
greenhouse. I have to do thatevery time I go there. Because they
have an ex intensive selection of beautifulhouse plants. They have a butterfly and

(02:20:03):
hummingbird attracting plants. Do you wanta garden that attracts butterflies and hummingbirds?
Just go to Moss Nursery and SeabrookMoss Nursery. They are They've been around
seventy years. Did you know thatseventy year old family operated eight acres of
wonderfulness on Toddville Road down in Seabrook. I want to head now to Let's

(02:20:26):
go to NEF in clear Lake.Hello, Nef, Hey, good morning,
Good morning. How are you doing, Skiff? I'm good? What's
up with NEF today? Hey?So, I'm just listening to the last
few callers about the Saint Augustine side. I had some contractors come out early
in the year and they had toreup the lawn and then I had to

(02:20:48):
reside it. But I've always followedthe Randy Lemons schedule for years. Have
one of the best lawns in theneighborhood. But aside from that, the
callers that you just got to bepatient and just water it. Water it
water, don't overwater it, butjust water it in good and it will.

(02:21:11):
It took about four weeks, andthere was times that I thought like,
oh my gosh, it's not grabbing, you know, and there's pieces
of it, you know, thatwere just yellow and yellow. But now
after the last few rainfalls, it'sall green and and looks like like brand
new grass. There. You gotto be got to be patient, follow

(02:21:35):
and exactly exactly. Well, hey, it's a loyal listener and uh,
and I just want to give thatadvice to the callers. Thanks, you
have a great weekend. Thanks forbeing a longtime listener to guarden Line.
I appreciate that you take care ofand I wish you well uh this weekend.
Uh. Landscaper's Pride produces a numberof quality products to help your plants

(02:22:00):
have success. Remember brown stuff beforegreen stuff. Well, they have twenty
seven different kinds of brown stuff.In other words, they've got black velvet
moltch goes up on top of thesurface. It is not dyed malt It
is naturally beautiful, velvety black anddense, keeps those weeds out, keeps
the temperature moderated. It's just aquality product. Hardwood mults. This is

(02:22:22):
a shredded true hardwood maltz not choppedup paletts or repurpose wood. You can
use it in your flower beds,of course, it's a mault. You
can put it in walkways if youwant an all weather walkway, a good
thick layer of this hardwood multch inthere. I be raining and raining and
you're just able to head right outthere to the garden without getting your feet
money. Pine bark malts is mostpopular in they have locally sourced pine bark.

(02:22:46):
It degrades very slowly. In otherwords, it decomposes very slowly out
there in the soil. It's agood one. Gardener's Magic Soil. This
is an organic pine based blend thathas humus. It's got screened compass pin
in it, and it's got compostedrice holes as well. And then they
throw in a chicken pellet fertilizer togive you about three months of additional feeding

(02:23:07):
in that garden. Magic soil,Gardener's Magic. Excuse me, now,
it's been a heck of a goodspring. We're in a whirlwind still going
on for that. But Landscaperspride dotcom is the website you need to go
to to find out where to getthe products because they're widely available. Well
here I am talking myself right intothe news break. Sorry about that,

(02:23:28):
Jeff, it's all yours. Yeah, I need to set this guitar down.
I'll just have a little fun thereduring break. All right, it
was the Eagles. Welcome back toGardline. Good to have you with us

(02:23:48):
today. We are entering our lasthalf hour of the day and after that
I won't be at Arburgate. Ihope you will come see me today at
Arburgate eleven thirty to one thirty,and they are throwing one heck of a
Mom's Day weekend party, and youneed to come out there. You need
to be out there. In fact, when the show's over, I'm on
jumping a car. I'll head thatway. I hope you will join me.

(02:24:11):
Last one, there's rotten Egg Drivesafely. We are going to go
straight to the phones this segment andwe are going to go to Richmond.
Talk to Alan. Hello, Alan, how can we help today? Hey,
I got a butterfly plant question foryou. I got the I guess
it's called the butterfly weed. Okay, yeah, with a nice tiny little
yellow flowers. Well, I plantedthat a couple of weeks ago to hyday.

(02:24:33):
I got the ugly green box inmy backyard and that thing has grown
over. It's probably like six feettall. Now, what's the best way
to trim that? I don't wantto trim it too much, but you
know what can be done with that? How tall is it? It's like
six foot tall? Now it's reallygrown. Well, I've got a couple

(02:24:54):
of milk weeds next to it andthey don't grow at all. And I
also had a question about how tothe best food for those. Well,
I'm trying to figure out what plantyou have that you're describing that six foot
Uh. Well, I was atthe Enchanted Gardens and I probably should have
asked them out there, but itsaid it was called a butterfly weed,

(02:25:15):
is what it was called. It'sgot the it was in their butterfly section,
and it's these tiny yellow flowers.Yeah. Yeah, I'm familiar with
the butterfly weed. We call ittropical milk weed or Mexican milkweed. But
six feet tall, that's a that'sbigger than I've ever seen it. So
I'm kind of wondering if we're talkingabout the same plant. But anyway,

(02:25:35):
I've got I've got the name,the actual name of it is as salopius.
You're of course, Uh, well, it's a Sclepias currasavaca, and
that is the mexicmom tropical milk weed. I guess, uh, you just
must be grown things better at yourhouse than I do at mine. But

(02:25:56):
that's a that's an impressive result ofit. I know they can get tall,
But so are you wanting to knowyou threw me there initially? Are
you wanting to know about cutting itback or what? Yeah? Okay,
so you can cut them back.They will send up shoots from the base.
They also reseed profusely when they dofinally form their seeds that float around.

(02:26:22):
If there's some people will do supportsfor tall upright plants like that.
You know, it comes up withjust one single shoot coming straight up to
the sky, and they will putkind of some sort of a support thing
in. It could be a postwith some things wrapped around it. When
I say post, I mean,you know, not a fence post,
but something to kind of hold itup. I don't you know. As

(02:26:46):
far as getting them to branch,I don't think you're gonna. I've never
tried that, tried cutting them andgetting them to branch. But I knew
they will put out new stuff atthe bottom. I should know that,
but I've just never had to cutmine back. I don't do as good
a job of growing them as youdo. Hell, mine's up next to
one of those transformer electrical boxes.So maybe it's it's tied into that thing

(02:27:07):
and is just taking off. That'sright to get the great power from.
Well yeah, as far as asfar as the milkweed next to it,
what's a good plant food for that? Well? Uh, what kind of
milk weed? Is it? Oneof the real low growing ones? Is
it the orange one or a pink? What colors it's got? It's the

(02:27:28):
one with no color. It's justgreen with the green leaves, the green
leaves, the green Uh. Probablyit'll probably eventually have some some light kind
of a creamy white looking bloom onit in time. Okay, you don't
really need to fertilize those things.I mean, if if your soil just
happened to be incredibly poor, whichapparently it's not based on your other butterfly

(02:27:52):
plant, uh, then maybe addinga little bit, but don't don't push
it, you there. Things growin nature in the wild, depending on
which specific type of asclepias or butterflyweed. You have, it should not
need much in the way a fertilizerof any Okay, well, I appreciate

(02:28:13):
it, Thank you. Well.I hope butterflies are listening because you need
to have the rechimond to Allen's house. Sounds like a good place to have
a good come on over guy.Thanks Alan. I appreciate that you know
had those storms recently which just dumpedtons of rain through our listening area or
most of our listening area here,and those of you who had to endure

(02:28:37):
the worst of that and the flooding, our hearts go out to you,
and I hope things are I hopeyou're able to get things cleaned out and
turned around back on the other direction. During those storms, we had over
one hundred thousand people that lost powerduring the last time we had a really
serious, significant storm. And whenthat happens, you need a standby generator
that's going to come on automatically andjust take over and run the power.

(02:29:01):
Maybe you have refrigerators and freezers,and you can lose a lot of food
when you don't have power. Whenit's summertime and this happens, and you
know, we have storm season takesus all the way into the fall.
Air conditioners. Who it doesn't takelong in Houston without an air conditioner to
know that's tough. Certainly lights doyou have a work from home business?
For example, electronic devices stand bygenerator just bounces right on when the power

(02:29:28):
goes out and it takes care ofyou. And quality home products of Texas,
in my opinion, is the absolutebest place to get those. And
why do I say that? Well, Number one, they carry Generac.
Generak is an outstanding generator brand.We depend on it. We know it.
I mean, people know Generac isquality generators. But why quality home?

(02:29:50):
Well, quality home is a placethat when I say they do customer
service, I really mean it andI can prove it. Eighteen thousand and
five star reviews, seventy seven thousandestablished satisfied customers. Eight times. They've
won the Pinnacle Award for the BetterBusiness Bureau Most Prestigious Customer Service Award.

(02:30:13):
I mean eight times they've won thatthing. Nineteen twenty three Houston Chronicle Best
of the Best for the Home servicescategory. They're customer Support twenty four seven
three sixty five. That's right,doesn't matter when what hour, what day
you call, they're there. Theywalk you through the whole process. You
know these companies that come in andthey go we do one week installation.

(02:30:35):
That is a myth. That's maloney. Don't even don't do that. Quality
Home works with you from the pointof getting any kind of a neighborhood association
or whatever, you know, permissionsand things, getting that pad poured and
out there, and to put thegenerator on, hooking it up. That
I mean. They it's a processthat they work with you on. You

(02:30:58):
can call them now. Don't delay. By the way, don't wait until
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Our phone number if you'd like togive us a call seven to one
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(02:31:48):
eight seventy four. I'd be happyto visit with you. I'm back to
take a little break here. We'regoing to come back for our last little
segment on Garden Line. I alwayshate to say this, but we do
have an open field. I can'tpromise you when everybody else calls it,
you'll be the first up. Butit is blank right now. So give
column a call. Welcome back toguard Line. Good to have you with

(02:32:18):
us today. Hey, we're runningout of time today. We gotta get
some talking done here. We've gota lot more to talk about. Let's
just jump right in there and we'regoing to head out to Conroe and talk
to Bob. Hey, Bob,Hey, good morning morning. I have
a newly planted peach tree was plantedback in early April, and it looks

(02:32:41):
like it's dying lost all its leaves. Oh, some of the branches are
green at the tip, but inthe middle they look kind of brownish.
Okay, and there is a littleplay in some of the leagues. Okay,
can I get it back. We'llsee Bob. There's a lot of

(02:33:03):
things that can kill a tree,So we're, you know, we're looking
at a lot of possibilities. Usuallywith a peach, a new peach,
you got to get them in.You got to keep the roots moist,
but you got to keep the oxygenin the soil too. Peaches, when
they are in anaerobic conditions, meaningthe soil is water logged, the roots
can't get oxygen. The roots actuallyproduce hydrogen cyanide. Of all things,

(02:33:28):
they are one of the least tolerantof soggy conditions of all the things we
can grow, So that is apossibility. Getting too dry, even for
a minute earlier on could have beena possibility. But with the spring we've
had, dry is unlikely because we'vehad plenty of rain to kind of keep
it going here so far. SoI'm more worried about the drainage being a

(02:33:50):
possibility there. As long as youcan keep oxygen in the soil, get
that excess drained away, but atthe same time, don't let it go
dry. The tree should bounce back, but it's going to be kind of
a wait and see in the meantime. Okay, I went out this morning
and grabbed a handful of the mulch, and it feels kind of it's still

(02:34:11):
damp. Okay, you know,it's not really really overly wet, but
you know if all the rain we'vehad, yeah, you know recently,
I can see that. Well,you know, it could be you need
to dig down in the soil aboutfour to six inches with a little hand
trout and then feel the soil thereand if it is not you know,

(02:34:33):
if it is not damp, therewater. But it's going to be damp
there for a good while, soprobably too much water is my best shoot
from the hip of all the possibleoptions for why is the tree dying?
Okay, sir, all right,you have a good weekend. I appreciate
your information absolutely absolutely, Thank youvery much. We're going to go now
to Joe in Houston. Hey Joe, good morning, Good morning. Listen.

(02:35:00):
I want to get some bonze eyes, not pot size, plant size,
you know, like six h fettolls. Where can I get that?
But they're in a container you're talkingabout, Well, I'm going to
plant them in the ground. Doyou said? Bones eye? Though?
Right? Cut like bonsai? Oh? Okay, a pine tree that's cut

(02:35:24):
like a bonzai or some other tree. That's cut to look like a Japanese
I see. Uh, but Idon't want these little things I see on
people's porches. Yeah yeah, Nowthis is just something that's six eight eight
ten tres. Okay, you knowthat's a tree. That is a good

(02:35:45):
question depending on where you are,If it's not too far to drive down
to Seabrook to Moss Nursery. They'vegot some things similar to that that might
do. You know, I've neverI've never with you know, being around
the garden center has kind of lookedfor that. Really, what you're talking
about, the Japanese style garden.I mean you would you could buy regular

(02:36:05):
junipers and train them to that kindof style. So there it's not just
that it has to be a certainkind of plant only. But uh yeah,
so I want all cut in thestyle already, and I would continue
style. Uh, call Moss beforeyou drive down. They just call them
and ask them if they have somesome of those kind of plants that have

(02:36:28):
been trained already into somewhat of astyle. Now, there's a lot of
places that will sell you junipers thatare spiral junipers and the kind with like
the limbs go out and there's alittle pomp poms of foliage on the end,
and those kind of I call themDoctor Seuss plants because they remind me
of Doctor Seuss books. But that'swhat my quick answer would be to start

(02:36:52):
with. I just got back fromVietnam and China. Oh yeah, they
a couple of hundred. Pause,they had them all over the place.
They just wanted to get rid ofthem. Beautiful. Well they can get
them out of the country. Anyof our good full service garden centers we
talk about here, they're going tohave plants that suit that. Whether they

(02:37:15):
have am already pre prune like that. You're just gonna have to call and
ask. But hey, I needto run. I got a few more
calls. I'm trying to get forthe day goes away here. But good
luck, good luck, you bet, you bet. Thanks a lot.
Ace Hardware Stores or the place yougo for everything you need and noy you
hear me talk all the time.If you want a beautiful lawn, a

(02:37:35):
beautiful garden, beautiful landscape, Acehas all the supplies for that. Everything
you need, fertilizers, pest,weed disease control, the tools you need,
garden hoses. Do you want toenhance your outdoor setting with some of
the little strings of lights, orall the things, barbecue pits for the
back patio. They've got that it'sMother's Day tomorrow. ACE is a place

(02:37:56):
for that as well. They havean extensive election of things, I mean
all the way from like purses andjewelry to beautiful indoor decorations. Now,
each ACE is independently owned and notour exactly alike, So depending on where
you go, you're going to havea range of options. I mean,
I've seen ACE hard restores that doa little laser etching and cutting boards for

(02:38:18):
you. I mean, who thoughtabout that, right? But that's the
kind of place ACE is. Goto your local Ace, talk to them,
find out what kinds of things theyhave. But you're going to find
that a lot of them have somewonderful things, wonderful gifts for mom as
well. Let's go to Kingwood andwe're going to talk to Bill. Hello,
Bill, good morning. I havea question about granted for symmetry native

(02:38:43):
broodstock Japanese top And after several yearsin my backyard and good crops, all
of a sudden, the trees anda serious state of decline, and wherever
the limbs meet the trunk. Thereseems to be a uh, some kind
of disease that is creating a bigproblem. Yeah, there is fact and

(02:39:05):
the proad group is called Crottrot.Yeah, so I don't know what it
really It's a it's a type ofcanker there. There there was a precimine
arch probably still around kind of northwestof Houston that it got into. And
I mean it was extensive the damagethat it had done in there. Uh,
there's not a spray for it thatyou can't just it's think of it

(02:39:28):
as like an infection down in thetissues, you know. So it'd be
like having an infected cut on yourarm and just putting some little surface alcohol
on it to kill the surface.It wouldn't get down in there and kill
the disease. And and that Idon't have an answer for you on that
one. I is there a isthere a tape of fungicide that will be

(02:39:48):
absorbed by the planet and spread throughoutthe leaves, Not that I know of
that that fights that disease. Thatwould require a little more investigating. The
last time I look, it waskind of a it is what it is.
There are certain kinds of disease situationswhere we just can't get the product
in there and in a way that'sgoing to be effective. You might want

(02:40:09):
to do a little more searching onlinefor that one, but it would take
a systemic and I don't know onethat moves in the way through that plant
that is labeled for per Simmons tocontrol a disease like that. So I'm
not hopeful, but I'm not sayingyou might not be able to find something.

(02:40:31):
But I do know that, Iknow, I know, I'm not
you sound like people I know.Yeah, Bill, thanks a lot,
Thanks a lot. Hey, thatwas worth every penny you paid for it.
Have a good weekend. Good luckgetting ahead of that though, because
I love per Simmons and I canimagine how that feels. All Right,
We're gonna go to Neederland and talkto Lisa. Hey, Lisa, we

(02:40:54):
got just a short time, butlet's see what we can do for you.
Oh. Yes, our little neighborhoodand Needlane. During the storm last
week last Thursday, we had I'min an old neighborhood, lots of trees
down. One was my oak treein the front yard, completely uprooted.
That's my afternoon sun area. AndI'm just wondering what I can replace or

(02:41:15):
what we can replace that with.It's not going to grow as huge as
an oak tree, but still providesthat afternoon shade you know that we need.
Are you trying to shade a windowor a wall or are you trying
to go over the whole house andshade the roof? Well, no,
just really one side of the housein the front, Okay, Well,
there's a lot of good trees wherethe bedrooms are, kind of where the
bedrooms are on this side. Thereare a lot of good trees. There's

(02:41:37):
a number of different oaks that growpretty fast. The nut tall oak gets
quite large in time, but itgrows pretty fast. It would be a
good one. You know. Thereare crape myrtles that get big niches crape
myrtle, yes, I thought about. The natches will get thirty feet tall
and the beautiful white blooms, beautifulcinnamon colored exfoliating bark, so that that

(02:42:00):
would be another option. The Chineseelm drake is one variety, but Chinese
elm grows pretty fast casts a lightshade can be really beautiful. So there
are a number of good options outthere. It just kind of guns on
what you're looking for, but theones I mentioned are all fast grow Okay,
I appreciate your health. Thank you, all right, Lisa, Sorry,

(02:42:22):
ran out of time on that.Hey, guess what happens now?
You and I both jump in ourcars. Last one, there's a rat
and egg. We're heading to arborGate. We're gonna be giving away Medina
products. We're giving away tree stabilizers. We're giving away arbor Gates, Organic
Soul Complete. There are one,two, three easy system. Every thirty
minutes, we'll give the bag ofthat a way. We're gonna be given

(02:42:45):
away enjoying frozen Bellini's. So come, bring your questions, bring your samples,
let's talk. Always love to meetgardeners. Can't wait to see at
Arborgate and be ready to buy moma gift. In fact, bring her
with you to get one of thosewrick House roses.
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