We Made It Through The Freeze, What's Next?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skip Rickards.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yes, Mill Basy, he's bad in the bassis, gas baby,
can't you shrimp? You just watch him as well? Go
the store basis gas can you did something? It protas
to seep backs in the bad the bases like gas
and again you did SMOs back not a side the

(00:39):
bassis gas sun beam and down the dreaming bras in
the basis like gas baby.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Can't you jam.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
First starting and dreaming in the gasses?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I guess became you did everything is something?

Speaker 5 (01:05):
All right?

Speaker 4 (01:06):
Good morning, folks, Good morning, and welcome to garden Line.
Looking forward to visiting today about the things that are
of interest to you. That's what this is a calling
radio show. So if you have some questions you'd like
to ask, well, all you gotta do is give me
a call seven one three two one two five eight

(01:27):
seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four Here on garden Line, we uh. I guess
my motto or whatever for the show is I want
you to have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape and
fun in the process. That's that's the part we don't
want to forget. You know, gardening is supposed to be fun,
and it is fun. Gardening is. It's good for the soul,

(01:53):
it's good for the mind, it's good for the body.
It just there's a reason that there was a thing
called a garden of Eden. You know, we we are,
we are made to be in a garden, we really are.
I just think that in every way, shape and form,
being outdoors and nature is such a rejuvenating experience. And
I know, you know, we go through the ups and

(02:13):
downs of gardening. We have weather extremes, finally now getting
through some of this rainfall that we had, or mostly
just kind of a misty, overcast, nasty day yesterday this morning.
But guess what happens today? We get some sunshine back
and we have a good week, a really good week
to be outside getting some things done. And so I

(02:35):
hope you will take advantage of that. Gardening is good
exercise too, by the way, getting up, getting down, walking around,
moving sometimes you can. Let wellis let me put it
this way. If you are a good gardener, gardening is
good exercise. If you are a bad gardener, gardening is great.

Speaker 6 (02:55):
Exercise because you get to dig up stuff you killed,
You get to pool weeds you didn't take care of
ahead of time, I said, a little tongue in cheek there,
but you get what I'm talking about.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
Gardening is just it's really a fun process and we
want you to have success. Absolutely. One example of the
types of plants that people just love and you don't
think about it this way. If I say what's your
favorite plant, nobody says my lawn. But it seems like
everybody has a lawn, you know, just about I mean,

(03:28):
if you have space to have a lawn and you
usually people have a lawn, and it's this big green expanse.
It's the outdoor carpet of our landscapes. It sets the
scene for the home, for other gardens. It's a way
to get from the house to some back garden bed
or garden or orchard or whatever you have. And the
lawn is just a standard part of our American landscapes now.

(03:51):
And while you may not go, well, that's my favorite plant, well,
it still is the area that makes a phone ring
on garden line more than anything. Trees are right behind
the lawns in terms of frequency of questions and things
that we get because lawns are important. They're important to
people and taking care of them is important. There are
a lot of good products out there that will help

(04:13):
you have success with your lawn, whether you're dealing with
insects pests, whether you're dealing with diseases, or we're dealing
with weeds, or just wanting that garden or that lawn
area to grow better. And Sweet Green is an example
of that. Sweet Greens from Nitropos. It is an eleven
percent nitrogen fertilizer, which is very high for an organic fertilizer,

(04:33):
but Sweet Green, through biological activity on molasses, ends up
being something that releases quickly to the soil where microbes
number one. They love it because they like any kind
of a sugar molasses based product that really fires up,
especially a lot of the beneficial bacteria, and it releases

(04:53):
it to your plants and your plants do well. Sweet
Green from Nitrofos is available widely in our area. You
can find it all across the region. Really plants and
things over in Brenham carry nitro Foss products. The M
and DS on Beamer and are the one of Beemer,
the one Clear Lake as well on Bay Area Boulevard
carry it D and D feed and Tomball's. Another place

(05:14):
where nitrofost products are sold as is M and D
s in Cypress on Lubetta Road. M and D ACE
in Cypress area. Carry is that. So however you go
about it, where you find it, you need to give
it a shot. You're going to find that the fragrance
of it is pleasant. You don't usually say, you know, oh,
this fertilizer smells great, but this one really smells great.

(05:38):
It's easy to go on and at bottom line as
it works. We're going to go now to the phones
and head down to Wharton to talk to Ann. Hello, Ann,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (05:49):
Yes for good morning. My question is about my me
host satsuma that's fairly large, six foot by seven or
eight foot, and it's I've sprayed for the white fly
that it's been plagued with this past year and years,
but I cannot get the black sut off the leaves.

Speaker 5 (06:11):
What do I do for that?

Speaker 4 (06:12):
I know it's not good for it's yeah, well, the
set is growing on a sugary substance that insects release,
and so you is it dries, it tends to flake off,
you can spray it with a very mild soapy type
of spray and then blast off the soapy substance to

(06:34):
kind of help loosen get some of that off there.
It does kind of wear away, if you will, over
time anyway, and as new growth appears, then that's new
area that doesn't yet have the sit on it. What
you need to figure out is why it's there. Maybe
you've got some scale underneath the leaves of that satsuma,
and you flip a leaf over and you see these
little tiny things like fish scales, but maybe a small

(06:58):
or smaller than a tight lower case letter O. That's
a scale. And you can control those different ways. The
least toxic way to control them is to use a
horticultural oil spray spray upward from underneath the plant to
coat as many of the lower sides of the leaves
as you can, and the better you coat those scale

(07:20):
not nime well, nim oil is okay. There are other
horticultural oils too. There's many types of oil that's labeled
for spraying on plants. You just want to get one
that's labeled for spraying on growing tissue, not a dormant oil,
but we call them a summer oil or horticultural oil
NIM is an example of an oil but there are

(07:41):
many others. And again with oil, and you just need
to remember coverage is everything. You got to have really
good coverage in order for it to work. And I
think that'll shut it down. Over time, You're going to
have less and less of that sooty mold. Okay, well,
it's just a problem. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna

(08:01):
have to run here. If you need to continue the questions,
I'm gonna have to put you on hold. But if not,
I hope that hope that took care of it. Hey,
welcome to Garden Line, folks. Good to have you back.
If you haven't been out to Nelson Water Garden and Nursery,
I'm katie, you need to. You need to go check
that out. This place is it is your West Houston

(08:26):
garden center choice. I'll just put it that way. It's
a destination too. By the way, Nelson Nursery and Water
Gardens is a place where not only do you find
plants and the products to go with them. You know,
you're ter fertilizers, We control things like that, but the
water garden displays there are outstanding you can you will
get inspiration I promise you that because they have everything

(08:48):
they do, they will come and install water gardens for you,
or they will sell you the parts and you can
do it do it yourself for depending on you know
how deeople you want to get into it. I mean
there's things like a disappearing fountain. It's a big beautiful vase.
Water goes out the top, down the sides, comes back through,
circulates again and it's just gorgeous. The birds will love it.

(09:10):
Beneficial insects actually love love water too. They need a
source of moisture as well. But for your esthetic, for
your audio enjoyment, I love the sound of water, and
Nelson Water Gardens is just absolutely like that. And then
Nelson's Nursery, the nursery part of it is going to
carry all the plants you need, and right now they're

(09:30):
stocked up. And the houseplant section where you have to
walk through that going through the store, it is just gorgeous,
some of those beautiful, well tended, just perfect little houseplants.
I love that place really nice. And then you get
outside and you see the herbs and you see the
vegetables and flowers and shrubs and trees and fruit and
everything else. It's cool. It is absolutely cool. Allow you

(09:51):
still some time to walk around. Take your friends with
you when you go, because it's really a destination place
worth going to. The website is Nelsonwatergardens dot com. It's
on the Kadie Fort Ben Road, just just north of Ien.
As you're going out that direction, and when you get there,
you'll see why I'm excited about it. Well, I love

(10:13):
to go there. Talk to the folks there. They're very knowledgeable.
They've been in the nursery business for a long time
and they know what they're talking about. Nelson Water Gardens
and nursery. We're going to go back to Anne out
in Wharton. Now, Hey, Anne, how can we continue this
conversation and help?

Speaker 7 (10:29):
Yes, sir, My final question is how do I get
rid of the wild violets in the Saint Augustine. What
do I need to spray with or put down?

Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yeah, that takes. That takes a broad leaf post emergent
weed control product, and so you will find a number
of ones out there. If you have not fertilized your lawn,
you could use something like Nelson's weedon Nator Nelson Weed
and Nator. It is a fertilizer that has a broad

(10:59):
leaf wel in it. You just wet turn on the
sprinkler and barely wet the foliage. All you need is
damp leaves. You don't need wet soil uh and put
it on and it sticks to those leaves. That dry
fertilizer sticks to the wet leaves. And then give it
a couple of days maybe and then watered in uh
and it will do a good job on broadleaf weeds
in your lawn. And then it continues on as a

(11:21):
fertilizer for several months actually feeding your your turf.

Speaker 7 (11:25):
What is the chemical in there?

Speaker 4 (11:27):
What is the that that there are Well, there's a
number of different things. There's go ahead.

Speaker 8 (11:36):
I don't know if I can have availability to that
product in my area.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
Nelson, Yeah, Nelson products are widely available through the area.
I would, you know, I would talk to them down there.
A Wharton Ace hardware store probably has that if they don't.
If they don't have that, another product that works just
as well is nitroposs and it is a fifteen to
five y ten with trimech in it tri I nec.

(12:06):
Now the trimeac, the trimac is going to do the
same thing you got to have wet weeds. You put
this fertilizer down, it sticks to the leaves. It does
the same same type of procedure as far as getting
getting rid of those. Both of those will take care
of broadly fweds.

Speaker 7 (12:22):
Okay, very good, Thanks a bunch.

Speaker 4 (12:25):
All right, all right, say hey to the folks down
at Ace down there. There's been a while since I've
been down, but boy, I love that store. It's a
good one. You're lucky to have them. Wonderful store. Thank you,
bye bye, all right, Thanks, Ann, appreciate your call. Thanks
a lot. Appreciate that. Yeah. A touch Star weedinator is
one of those that is a unique product because what

(12:47):
it does is it does have the weed control in it,
but it also has something that is acting as a
growth regulator for the grass. So the grass you don't
get that rapid vertical growth or the rapid development like that,
so you're not mowing so much, you know, you sometimes
you fertilize. It's like, my gosh, I'm in mowed twice

(13:07):
a week. Keep up with this thing. Well, with the
weed eater, it does have that growth regulator slows it
down a little bit. And so in addition to that,
getting a month's of the fertilizer d kind of a
good thing. It's one of the many products they have.
Nelson also has Bruce's Brew that's their immediate release. Bruce's
Brew lasts for a good while. I say it's immediate
release has an initial fast release of nutrients, but then

(13:31):
it kind of evens out and releases over a little
period of time too, so it's not just like a
one and done, real quick thing. Bruce's Brew is going
to give you a little bit of an extended feed
as well as that initial release. Very popular products from
Nelson and you should be able to find them in
a lot of different places around the Greater Houston area.

(13:52):
You're listening to Gardenline and let's see seven one three
two one two kt r H is our phone number.
I want to remind you or let you know. First
of all, thanks to the folks up at all seasons,
Ason Willis. I enjoyed going out there yesterday. I enjoyed
getting to meet folks that listen to garden Line is
a that is always a lot of fun to get

(14:14):
to go and do that and help folks find the
products they need to have success with their lawn and
their garden. The next time I'm going to be out
and about is going to be next Saturday. I'll be
at the annual Spring Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show.
This is a great show. It's at the Lone Star
Convention Center right there on Airport Road in Conroe, right

(14:36):
across from the Extension office, Yager Life Extension Office. And
I'll be there again on Saturday. And the show is
open on Saturday from ten am to six and on
Sunday from eleven am to five. There's no charge for
admission to get in. There is no charge for parking,
so that that is a really good deal. Now I'll
be there from twelve noon to two pm, So grab

(14:59):
you some lunch, come on out. That's a visit. Montgomery
County Master Gardeners are going to be there. They're going
to just have the typical kind of home show they
put on, which is an awesome one. Lots of different
kinds of exhibitors and then a lot of good information too,
coming from folks that are educating you. Now I'm going
to be talking a little bit about how to have

(15:20):
a successful spring garden. Talk a little vegetables, a little flowers,
definitely some lawns and trees, and then I'll just answer
your gardening questions. So, if you got weeds that you're
looking at in the yard, put them in a bag,
bring them, let's take a look. We'll make them, put
them under a hot lamp and interrogate them and make
them confess their names, and then I'll tell you what

(15:42):
to use to manage them. But we'll just give you
general tips. If you've got some photos of your property
and you would like to ask questions, a photo is
very helpful, you know, as we wave our hands in
the air and go, well, there's this thing and it
looks sort of it's kind of hard to help that,
But bring me a photo. We'll take a look at it,
and we'll have some time to visit again. I'm going
to do a little talk there first before we go

(16:04):
to the We go to the just pure Q and
a time two hours, twelve noon to two pm next Saturday,
Lone Star Convention Center, Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show.
I hope you'll come out and see me there. I
would love that. Hope we'll have a good time. I
always try to have fun. Ive you've been to the appearances, No,

(16:27):
we try to joke around and have some thun as.
We do that as well. Down in the Richmond Rosenburg
area is enchanted forests. Now in Channa Forest is south
of Interstate or Highway fifty nine. And if you if
you are going from Richmond towards sugar Land, it's off
to the right. It's down on FM twenty seven fifty nine.

(16:49):
FM twenty seven fifty nine now in Channed Forest is
just a haven for all kinds of plants. They you know,
they took everything in and filled up the greenhouses and
the bill buildings and even their offices with plants when
we had this freeze come through. So everything looks good.
It's back out on the tables and it looks awesome.
You're you are going to find a selection of vegetables.

(17:12):
You can find a selection of herbs. You're going to
find a selection of flowers that is just beautiful, with
very healthy, very beautiful plants. They still have their fruit trees.
You know, there's a there is all kinds of fruit
there at enchanted forests. They've got low choll varieties. You know,
there's apples and peaches and plums. What are kind of
fruits you're looking for? They've got them there, and they

(17:34):
even have some if you haven't cleaned them out yet.
There are three in one trees which are really unique.
So you don't have room for three fruit trees. How
about a true tree that has three different varieties of
that type of fruit on the tree, so you kind
of get three in one. That's exactly what it is.
Good selection of satsumas, including brown select and arctic frost,

(17:55):
which is about as hearty as you're going to get
with a satsuma. It's going to go down into the
mid teens, if not lower, once it's well established, so
that is hardy for et CEUs. Anyway, you got to
get by there. Let them help you turn your place
into a garden of eaton. Yeah, that's my corny dad joke.
Garden of eating with fruit, with vegetables, with herbs, and

(18:18):
then a beautiful place with all the blooms that they have.
Grab you one of the Chinese fringe trees when you're
down there. That is my favorite spring blooming tree because
it's beautiful. It has a light fragrance to the shaggy
white blooms, and it doesn't get too big. It's not
a giant tree. That's going to take over our typically

(18:39):
smaller urban lots we have these days. It's a medium,
small to medium sized tree and it works really really
well in the landscape. And they have those chended for us.
They carry them. I've been there many times and I
always walk over and say, yep, they're still around there.
Great tree. Great tree to have. All right, let's go
out to the Laporte. We're going to talk to Nolan. Hey, Nolan,
welcome to garden Line. Good morning, skips.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
I like you to know whether too late the trim
u pantrey pant trees the bottom leves of rhythlow and
they just hang real bad.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
And it's it too late to plant seat potatoes. It
is not too late to turn pear trees that it
is just fine. Any kind of fruit pruning you need
to do, or even ornamental pruning, go ahead and get
it done. Sooner you do it the better, because the
SAP's starting to flow. You're going to get be getting
leaves and blooms pretty quick here and and so we'd
rather get it sooner than later. As far as potatoes,

(19:34):
you can still plant potatoes, Yes you can. It's it's
all right to do that. Just hurry up and get
it done because you want to give them the longest
time you can before it gets really hot, so they
have time to grow and then create those tubers, which
is why you're growing the potatoes in the first place. Okay,
thank you, all right, all right, sir, right, thank you.
I appreciate appreciate that very very much. You take care.

(19:57):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
I uh.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
I've told you about year Round Houston before Year Round
Houston is a company that will come out and they
will do core aeration and cop host top dressing. That
core aeration and compost top dressing one of the best
things that you can do for your yard. Now. It's
much easier than messing with all to do it yourself.
Just to call them. They work inside the Beltway around Houston,

(20:22):
and if you're out in the Richmond Rosenberg area, they
work out in that area too. Year round Houston dot Com.
Year Round Houston dot Com. Here's a phone number if
you want to give them a call. Eight three to
two eight eight five five three three five. One of
the best things you can do for your lawn for
success is to have it aerrated and compost top dressed

(20:44):
and year round Houston can do that. I'm going to
take a break. I'll be right back, folks. Thank you.
All right, folks, welcome back. I'm your host, Skip Richter.
We are here on garden Line answering your gardening questions,
helping you have a more bountiful garden, more beautiful landscape,
and more fun in the process. That is definitely the case.

(21:06):
If you want to give me a call the number
seven one three two one two kt r H seven
one three two one two kt RH. I was visiting
with one of the folks from Microlife yesterday. We're kind
of drilling down and talking about some of the products
that they had and things. And you know, Microlife has
been around for over thirty five years now and it

(21:26):
is the leading organic fertilizer in the Houston area. They
have built their company around products that are loaded with
microbes and loaded with the nutrients in the ratios that
your plants want, and it works. That's as simple as that.
That's one reason why it's still around and growing and

(21:47):
coming even more popular. You're not going to burn your
lawn with Microlife products. They are natural based products. Put
them on the soil, they start to get moist or wet,
and the microbes jump on and they take them apart
and release exactly the kinds of nutrients and the forms
that the plants need to take up. One of my
favorite Microlife products is their standard green bag lawn fertilizer.

(22:11):
It's a six two four and you'll find it on
my schedule when you go look on there. But I
want to tell you something. This is a little secret here.
It's actually not a secret, but I use it for
all kinds of things.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
I know.

Speaker 4 (22:23):
You know, we think, well, it's the lawn fertilizer, but
I'm telling you I know people that put it on
all kinds of other things.

Speaker 7 (22:29):
You know.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
Microlife has a product for fruit trees, etcetera. Some other
fruit that's fine. They have a product for acid loving
plants like azaleas and camellias and what. It's kind of
a pink bag that they have. What I'm telling you
that sixty four is a universal kind of fertilizer. If
you have someone hand and you you know you've done
what you need on your lawn, you got some leftover,

(22:50):
feel free to use it however you want, because it's
gonna work. It is a very good overall fertilizer period
for your plants, and again loaded with microbes. Microbes make
the world go around. Microbes make roots happy. Microbes make
organic matter become soil. And microbes are the reason why
when you go into a forest or you go into
a meadow, plants are growing and they're happy because there

(23:12):
is a constant cycling of organic matter going on that
is helping everything to do well. I mean, think about this.
Think about a place like the redwood trees on the
coasts in California, giant, giant trees. Who took care of
those trees over the eons. Microbes, Microbs did microbes rainfall

(23:34):
in good soil. That's kind of the three things that
made it work. Think about the Great Plains when settlers
came across in Conestoga wagons and the grass was as
deep as a horse's belly. There was nobody doing a
crop dust or a fertilizer in that grass. It was
microbes run in the world. Now, you come home and
you build a garden, and you want more tomatoes, and

(23:55):
you want better fruit, and you want a nice dense,
thick lawn that you can pounds your feet across and
it still holds up and does well. Well, yeah, we fertilize,
we boost it, we air a, we do all kinds
of things to help that happen. But never forget microbes
are ruling the world. And that's why microlife is based
around microbial activity. And they have many products, dry products, granulars.

(24:17):
They have liquid products like the Biomatrix that's an orange
label seven one three. The Ocean Harvest is a blue label.
It's a fish based fertilizer four two three. You're going
to find microlife all over town. If you want to
go to the website microlife Fertilizer dot com, you can
find all the specific places where you can find it.
And for those of you who aren't around Houston you're

(24:38):
living listening to me over in I don't know, New
Bramfels or someplace, microlife is available in your areas too,
all right, you are listening to Guardline again the phone
number seven one three two one two kt RH seven
one three two one two KTRH. I introduced you to
a new sponsor yesterday, Pest brother Pest Brothers is a

(25:01):
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(25:22):
and do the things that prevent termites than waiting until
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They can take care of that. That kind of exterminating
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(25:44):
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(26:05):
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(26:26):
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(26:47):
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eight one two o six forty six seventy. We're going
to head out now to Vider and talk to Ethel. Hey, Ethel,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Good morning, good morning. I have two questions. One is
regarding a it's called a lilac bush. Are you familiar
with those?

Speaker 4 (27:20):
Yeah, the cane they grow up further north.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Well, I had seen one here. It was planted, of
course small, and now it's large and beautiful. The person
on the property did not know. Evidently it had been
there while when they purchased the home, and it's smell. Oh,
the fragrance was wonderful. But I didn't know it. Yes

(27:49):
I didn't, but it said it's a bush and there's
this pretty large I didn't know overall to start those.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
If they do well here, in general, we don't recommend
them now. At the minute I say you can't grow
a plant here, the plant's going to try to prove
me wrong as well as the gardener. And you may
see some lilacs around here, but they really like a
cooler climate like you would have up in the Midwest
or someplace. So if you were looking to plant something,

(28:19):
I would go with something different that has fragrance, if
that's what you're looking for. I kid around with some
gardeners and I always say, well, if you want a lilac,
just gets you a lavender colored grape myrtle and spray
it with perfume and you've got the same thing. But
that's not quite the same thing for people who grew
up in lilac country and love that fragrance.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
I understand you have some recommendations that not grow into
a large tree, but maybe just a larger shred that
would be suitable for here.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
Well, one of my absolute favorite fragrant plants is probably
going to get too large for what you want. But
it is called almond verbina and it makes a good
sized shrub which if you share it back considerably, you
can keep it to a moderate to large size. But
in time it gets pretty long. Oh my gosh, the
fragrance is intoxicating. Very Texas Mountain Laurel, Texas Mountain Laurel.

(29:18):
If the drainage and the soil is okay, get it
on a raised mound. It produces in the spring purple
clusters that look like grapes of flowers that smell like
grape kool aid or the remember grape super bubble bubblegum.
If you remember that, they smell very strongly fragrant, very
strongly fragrant. Then there's guardinas that have a nice fragrance.

(29:41):
You know, there are a lot of plants that can
have some fragrance, depending on sunshade, how big you want
it to get, and what's fragrance you like.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Okay, next question is on compost. I had seen an
article the other day. It was on goarden line, but
I'm not sure if Nature's Way provided the article or not,
but it has said that there was really no need
to change out your current soul if you just get

(30:12):
a good premium organic compost and either mix that in
or put some yes on the top. Okay, if you
have any recommendations.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
On those, I do ethel I do I have to.
I'm up. I'm up against a heart break. If you
want to hole, we can keep talking. If not, I'll
talk about that when I come back from break. Hang
on just a minute, all right, folks, I'll be right back.
All right, folks, we're back. Welcome to garden line. Hey,
if you deal with summer weeds in your lawn, don't

(30:47):
wait until you see the weeds and then try to
spray something that will kill the weeds but not hurt
your Saint Augustine. When the temperatures in the upper eighties
or nineties, barricade. Now, we'll do the trick. You put
it down, you water it in. Half inch of water
goes into the soil. And when all of the summer
eats crabgrass and grassperrs and you know all those things

(31:07):
we deal with in the summer, when they try to
sprout the barricades there say no, I'm a barricade. You
can't come through. I Am not going to let you
become a weed. We're going to shut you down right
here at the seedling stage. Barricade does that. It comes
in ten pound bag. Ten pound bag covers five thousand
square feet. It's one of the great products from Nitrofoss
that they have all over the place. So if you

(31:28):
go to Barings Hardware on Bissinet, Bearing's on West Timer,
if you go to M and D in Rosenberg, that
is a place you can get Nitrofoss products, Ace Hardware,
City and Memorial Plants for all seasons on two forty nine.
These are all places that carry Nitrofoss products like barricade.
But know this, follow my schedule. Don't wait. Do it

(31:49):
now because it prevents weed seeds from establishing. If you
wait until you got three inch grasspur plants or something,
it's too late to use the barricade. It's a preventative,
but it works. But do it now and water it
in and you will have a good success with that.
We're going to go back to Vider and talk to
Ethyl and Ethyl. The bottom line on if you're wanting

(32:09):
to improve your soil for lawns and things. You can
just put a compost down, you can mix it in.
It only takes a couple of inches. You know, you're
not trying to turn it into a nice fluffy garden bed.
You're just trying to put some organic matter in there
and smooth over the soil and make sure everything is
is kind of level so you're not stepping in holes
when you're walking around on it, and then put your

(32:29):
soil down on or your side down on top of
that as it warms up a little bit, so it
is going to be very willing to immediately start to
root in.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Okay, this is primarily going to be for like a
vegetable garden, you know, tomatoes, squash, and then say, you know,
just a few flowering plants.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Okay, well, so for that you have a couple of options.
If you want to try to work with the soil
you have, I'll go back to the same advice, but
little more compost mixed in. One of the easiest things
is to buy a bed mix and just have them
dump it on the driveway or you go get it
in the trailer truck or whatever and put that down

(33:12):
and grow right in that. So you're creating a bed
on top of the ground. It could be just a
mound of soil, or it could have sides on it.
You know, you have a lot of different kinds of
metal and wood and rock sided beds, whatever aesthetics you're wanting.
Just get a good quality bed mix and put that
down to grow.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Okay, all right, Well, we just hadn't been able to
find a well, I guess you'd say a good organic
top soil or compost here, and so I was just one.
We wanted one obviously that was light and didn't have
a horrible smell to it or anything. So okay, all right,

(33:55):
Well that help you. Thank you so much for those
for the information you bet and I.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Understand that you know the problem. You're kind of you're
kind of out there outside of town, and so it's
hard to some of the things that are available in
town are a little harder to get out there. You
might want to talk to the people at Heirloom Soils.
I don't know if you've ever called them before, but uh,
there's a there's a place in Porter called Warren's Rock

(34:22):
and mult and they will do bulk deliveries. So if
I were you, I would I would consider that and
just you know, unless you just need a tiny bit,
then you probably need to go get it because the
cost of shipping. If you're just going to get like
a yard of soil, it's not worth that. But if
you're going to get a larger quantity, it may be.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Okay, Okay, we would love to see you do an
appearance over in the Golden Triangle area if you ever
have the opportunity.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
All right, well, I would love that. We just have
to see maybe someone out of that direction. We'll have
me come on out there. Haven't been out haven't done
an appearance out there yet, so that would be fun.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah, okay, Randy, thank you several So, yes, we know
that you have not been here yet, and I think
you would get a hairy, warm welcome if you come
to the Golden Triangle.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
Well let's do that. Then that sound that sounds good? Hey,
By the way, let me real quick if you're interested
in it, in contacting Heirloom, I'm going to give you
a phone number and if you choose to get him
a call, it's two eight one three five four nineteen
fifty two eight one three five four nineteen fifty and
see what they say you know what would it cost

(35:40):
to get it out there? Do they have any other
suggestions for you? But they sure make some good mixes.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate the information.

Speaker 9 (35:48):
You have a good day.

Speaker 4 (35:50):
Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. Yeahoom Heirloom Soils
has several ways you can get stuff. You can buy
it by the bag. It's sold all over town. They
have a lot of different products. I mean they have
products for vegetables and herbs. They've got products for acid
living plants. They've got products for cactus and succulents. They've
got products for the houseplant soils. I mean, anything you're

(36:11):
gonna grow, they're gonna have a soil for it. By
the bag. And then they also have bulk. You can
go out to Porter and get it on US fifty
nine out there in Porter, or you can have them
deliver it and they can deliver it by dumbing it
on the driveway, or they can bring it in one
qbicyard supersacks. You got to buy at least three supersacks
for delivery because of the amount, and there are always

(36:34):
delivery fees on bulk materials here on gardening types of products.
Here in the Eastern area, but they have a number.
They have a premium lawn mix, which is it's made
with Mason sand in compost and some bed mix and
it's really good for prepping the soil for putting down. Said.
It's a very economical product too, by the way, But
however you go about it, you can go to Rockmoltch

(36:56):
dot com r O c K the letter n Mulch
dot com slash delivery, or you can get them call
to eight one three five four nineteen fifty for all
those bulk types of items and then just go to
your local garden centers, your ace hardware stores, your feed stores,
south those fertilizer places like that, or where you're going
to find their products by the bag. I've used them

(37:20):
a number of times in my landscapes and gardens and
find that they work very very well. If you haven't
met up the plants for all seasons, you need to go,
especially if you have a vegetable garden. Right now, they
got a shipment of onions in, just lots of bunches
of all kinds of onions. You know, we're talking about
red onions, yellow onions, white onions. And they also still

(37:44):
have some potatoes. I believe last time I checked these
potatoes there, it's time to get all those in the ground,
and now's the time to do that. And by the way,
when you're in there, you'll be inside in their area.
Go check out their seeds. They have an excellent selection
of all kinds of seats, flowers, and vegetables, you name it.
It's beautiful and I just like walking around in there.

(38:05):
I mean they have the little glass toadstools that you
put all through the guard you know, that kind of
yard art and things. It's just real whimsicle and fun.
Lots of quality tools. I mean, it's just a good place.
And then of course you got to go outside. They
have the fertilizers I talk about on guard Line, They've
got the soil products I talk about on guard Line.
And then their plant selection is just awesome, and the

(38:27):
knowledge of the folks that work there outstanding. You go in,
you ask a question, you get an accurate answer. They
know it, they've seen it before. They're gardeners. They've been
doing this since nineteen seventy three. They pretty much have
seen everything you could haul in in a sample or
with a picture, and they're gonna be able to tell
you what to do about it. That's it. Plants for
all seasons. They're on Tomball Parkway two forty nine if

(38:51):
you are going north and you exit Luetta crossover Luetta
and they're right there on the right hand side. Plants
for all seasons. I love visiting garden centers. You know,
my happy place is just going from one garden center
to another all over town. That would be a good
day as far as I'm concerned. And it works, works

(39:12):
really really well. I was checking out the Peerscap's website
yesterday and looking at just the landscape lighting and what
they can do to the outside of your house, both
for security but also for just a beauty standpoint. Is amazing.
If you've got an area that doesn't drain, they can
fix that. If you've got irrigation issues, they can fix that.

(39:35):
If you need landscape, hardescapes, they can fix that. They
can create those. Yeh see it. I'll just say here,
here's a website. Go to Pierscapes dot com, Peerscapes dot com,
and I'm just ask you just do this. It's a
fun thing to do. Even if you're not in the
market for a landscape right now, go look go look
at what they can do and it's amazing. Pierscapes dot com.

(40:00):
Well just another reminder, uh, talking about what's up next.
I'm gonna be at the Home and Garden Show up
in Conrod, Texas. The Montgomery County Home An Outdoor Living
Show March first and second is coming weekend. I'll be
there Saturday from twelve to noon, So come out and
see me. I'm gonna give a talk, my answer questions

(40:20):
I'm diagnose. I'm going to identify, shake hands, and kiss babies.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Welcome to Katy r. H. Garden Line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
It's just watch him as may they give things to
spain a sun.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
Hey, welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richner. We're here to have fun. How about that.
We're certainly here to help you have a bountiful garden
and a beautiful landscape, but we're here to have some fun.
So what do you want to talk about today? How
can we help you make gardening more fun and more successful?

(41:18):
I love talking to gardeners. I've been doing this for
thirty six years now, I believe, and it just every
time a phone call comes in, you never know what
people are going to ask, but it's always it's always good.
You know, gardeners some of the finest people you'll meet.
I tell you, I've been to so many garden clubs
and master gardener groups and garden centers visiting with gardeners,

(41:41):
and just I just enjoy gardeners. They are fun people,
they're hopeful people. They're people that want to make that
little patch of earth they call eden around the house
a better place, and they really have that inspiration and
a positive outlook too. You know, when you stick a
seed in the ground, it looks like a little little
chip of wood or a little piece of tritius, and

(42:03):
you put it in the ground and you're thinking you're
going to get a flower on of that, You're going
to get a tomato out of that, and you do,
and you do. It's just it's just trusts that when
you do things right, you're going to have success. Well,
I'll tell you what. Let's go straight out to the
phones and we're going to head to Conroe and talk
to Diane. Hey, Diane, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (42:23):
Hey, I was so glad to meet you yesterday. I'm
the lady that came in I showed you the pictures
of my gardening area and I was concerned about all
the weeds. The other market was there yesterday. That was
talk with the nitrophiles guy. He I was telling you
I was trying wanted to get rid of the weeds,
and you made some kind of suggestion to me, and
you was telling me to start putting side in there

(42:45):
if I didn't want to garden the area again. He
made this to me that I could use thirty percent
vinegar for the weeds, because I told him I don't
want to garden that area this year. But he was
telling me, you know, to avoid chemicals, to use thirty
percent vinegar, it would kill weeds. Can what is your
opinion on that.

Speaker 4 (43:07):
It works? You don't have to go up to thirty
percent though even an eight to twelve percent we'll do
a decent job. But a lot of times you'll see
twenty percent vinegar. Just remember vinegar at that strength is
way stronger than a twenty percent vinegars four times is
acidic as household vinegar. And so you don't want to
splash that in your eyes. You don't want the mist

(43:28):
to drift, you know, be be careful with even though
it's natural it's not safe.

Speaker 10 (43:33):
Okay, question about that. What proportion do I use to
makes it with water? Do you use it straight?

Speaker 11 (43:39):
No?

Speaker 4 (43:40):
Use you straight, and you spray it. Wait till there's
no wind because you don't want it drifting onto things.
You don't want to kill. What it does, though, Diane,
is it burns the top of the plant off. And
so if your plant's an annual, you've killed the plant.
If your plant is a print. Let's say you did
it to dandelions. They're perennials. They've got an underground storage structure,

(44:02):
and if you did it to dandelions, they would turn
brown very Vinegar kills very fast, like putting gasoline on something.
Just fries.

Speaker 5 (44:09):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
But then after a week or two you look and
here comes growth back up out of the ground. Because
it doesn't translocate down into the soil like some weed
killers do. It just fries the top. So that doesn't
mean don't use it. It just means recognize that with
some perennial weeds, you may have to do it again
and again, but at least it gets you a head start.

(44:32):
But when you do that, you got to follow up
with some next step of what you're going to do
gardening wise, because when you create a beare space, Nature's
going to plant more weeds in it. Nature doesn't like
bear soil showing, so use that to kill weeds. You
put mulch over it. Yeah, you put about three inches

(44:53):
of mulch and you're in good shape with the exception
of certain weeds.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
What kind of mull.

Speaker 9 (45:01):
I know.

Speaker 10 (45:02):
He was real against all the dyed mult What kind
of multch.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Do you recommend. I don't care for dyed multch either.
It's artificial looking and I don't know. I just you
don't need to add a chemical tumults. I use everything.
I use dried grass clippings, I use leaves that have
been run over by lawn moore. I buy multches like
the shredded mults. The multcha you're in conro so up
there at Nature's Way. I've used their double ground hardwood

(45:29):
multch and it works very very well.

Speaker 7 (45:31):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
They have several types of multz there at Nature's Way,
they're just down the road from you, that they could
provide you. A mulch is dead organic matter on the surface.
That's basically what it is. And so that beyond that,
it's what do you want to look at Do you
like the aesthetics of it? Am I getting it thick enough?
Does it block all the light out? Those are the

(45:53):
things that matter with mult. So, oh, okay, you're freeing
that one.

Speaker 10 (45:57):
I showed you that one picture of my flower bed
in front of my house. I wanted I definitely want
to put mulch in there because I just like I said,
I just want to put mulch around the plants that
are there. Don't want need more.

Speaker 5 (46:08):
You just to be putting some flowers in, I don't.

Speaker 10 (46:10):
I just don't want to have the maintenance of it.

Speaker 5 (46:13):
It's my face, all right.

Speaker 4 (46:14):
There you go, there you go. Well. Uh, then again,
if you wanted to send me some close up pictures
of the weeds that you're seeing there, uh, maybe I'll
recognize some as perennials, but you can. If you mulch
over it, you will kill the weed the weeds by
blocking the light. First start off by mowing it really
low or having somebody weed eat it really down low,

(46:35):
and then throw the mulch on top so you don't
have some little weed leaves sticking up through the mult
gathering sunlight.

Speaker 11 (46:41):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
And you're going to need about three inches of multz
to give it a good smothering on there. And if
the chunkier the mulch, the thicker it has to be
to block all that light.

Speaker 10 (46:52):
Oh okay, okay, Well, and the other thing i'd ask
you about, I'd ask you about me putting down black
cloth and play anything through the black cloth? Yes, should
I put Should I put some other kind of fertilizer
or anything on that gardening area before I put that
black cloth down?

Speaker 4 (47:11):
Yeah? You could mix in. You could mix in. You know,
you're going to be growing a lot of different things.
I think you even had some vegetables in mind.

Speaker 10 (47:17):
Right if I want to, I have right now, I
have colored greens and mustard green plants out there, four
or five, but that I'm leaving those. But I'm going
to add tomatoes to the area.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
All right, So I would get you a lawn fertilizer.
Get a lawn fertilizer, put it out according to the rate,
and if you can mix it in a little bit, good.
If you can't find, then put your mulches and things on,
and when you're ready to plant, you just you just
pull the multch back. I'm out of time here, Dane,
But good luck with that it was great to meet you,
and I wish you well get in that place in

(47:50):
the shape you're looking for. Thank you by uh D
and D Feed and Supply is up there in Tomball, Texas.
It is one of our favorite feed stores here on
garden Line. And for those of you out west twenty
nine to twenty you will be very impressed going by
DND Feed and Supply right now. They are in the
big middle of chick arrival season and they get all

(48:14):
kinds of species of chickens, our species, varieties of chickens
in there. They also have nitrofoss, boneye, microlife, turf, star Medina, airloom, soils,
Nelson plant and they have the whole thing, I mean,
anything you need to put on to make your plants grow,
to get rid of weeds, diseases, insects. They've got you
all covered. Three miles west of two forty nine on

(48:35):
twenty nine to twenty. Here's a phone number two eight
one three five one seventy one forty four two eight
one three five one seventy one forty four go check
them out.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Today.

Speaker 4 (48:49):
I got all right, we're back. Welcome back to the
garden Line. What do you wanna talk about let's help
you have a more successful and enjoyable time outside in
the garden. By the way, this afternoon, we're getting rid
of all this stuff, this stuff that's been keeping us indoors,
and we're going to start a week that's going to
be a good one, a good one for getting out

(49:11):
and getting things done. You'd like to give me a call.
Seven one three two one two k t r H.
Seven one three two one two k t r H.
If you look at my schedule, you will notice that
there is an optional spring green up fertilization that is
going on right now, right now out in the garden.
And what does that do? That is a first of all,

(49:31):
you're using a product that releases quickly and goes into
the soil and the plant grass, the grass, plant roots
take it up, and you get a greening us an
earlier greening on your turf. Now it's still kind of cool,
the soil is still kind of cool, so the grass
isn't gonna take off and just grow all over the place.
Right now. It's an early one. It's a green up. Okay,
we'll be doing regular fertilization here on a couple of months, probably, uh,

(49:56):
really getting into that uh in Earnest ninety five, Imperial
fifteen five to ten is an excellent product for spring
green up. Now you're going to find it at places
like in Chenny Forest. You're going to find it. There's
ace hard of a single ranch, Aspa's ace in the woodlands.
The Arbigade Nursery carries some nitroposs products. When you find

(50:17):
a quality product that works, you stick with it. And
it was over fifty years ago that Texas A and
M and other Southern universities we're discovering what grass needs
is a three one to two ratio fertilizer, something in
that range three one two four one two, and that
is when Imperial was born. It's still the same formula sold,
same red orange bag. So you walk in the store,

(50:40):
you look at all the fertilizers. You see the red
orange bag that's nitrofoss Imperial fifteen five ten. Put it
down right now, watered in, and then you just walk away.
It's taken care of. Follow the label carefully. It takes
about seven pounds of that per thousand square feet, about
seven pounds per thousand squiffee for it to do its trick.

(51:00):
Now it comes in other formulations. You know, they have
a fifteen to five to ten that has a post
emergent weak control product in it as well. We talked
about that a little bit earlier today. But night Fist Imperial,
the red bag that is the one that you would
use for your spring early green.

Speaker 11 (51:14):
Up.

Speaker 4 (51:15):
Right now, we're going to head back to the phones
and head out to Mont Bellevue and talk to Brandon. Hey, Brendan,
Welcome to Gardenline.

Speaker 5 (51:25):
Hey, Skipel's are going well, sir, So I have a
question real quick.

Speaker 12 (51:33):
I have a nut all oak in my backyard that
I planted probably, I don't know, it was probably about
five six years ago. The tre's grown well, I mean
it has grown probably about a foot a year. But
I've noticed the last couple of years when the new
growth would come out of the leave, it'd be like
a more of a lime green. And it looks like
with the heat in or summer, the leaves by I

(51:55):
don't know July, look like they're starting to get burned
on the edges. And I look some stuff up and
a look like there's something called chlorosis. So looking up,
looking up and trying to do my own research, it
looks like if there is chlorosis. I guess it's pretty
common in oak trees, but there's not I'm hoping there's
a cure, but there's not really a cure. I don't

(52:16):
know there's anything that you might be able to help
me with. The tree is probably about i'd say fourteen
feet tall, maybe has about a ten to eleven inch
diameter at the base of the trunk.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
Okay, okay, Well, chlorosis usually is referring to iron deficiency
and that causes a yellowing. But one distinction about iron
chlorosis on that oak is as the leaves start to
lose their dark emerald green color, as the new growth
starts to come out a little bit chartruse to yellowish,

(52:47):
the veins will be greener than the rest of the leaf,
and that's a sign that you're probably dealing with an
iron deficiency. You can put iron supplements out around the tree.
Generally we don't supplement oak tree for iron. That's just
it's too big of an area of soil to have
to deal with, and often supplementation is temporary. So the

(53:08):
thing that you can do that helps is, you know,
as you get oxygen in the soil, as you get
organic matter into the soil the broader of an area.
You can you know, mulch around it, doing cororation in
your lawn and things, and compost top dressing. All of
that over time is going to help move away from
that particular direction. You can add iron supplements to it,

(53:28):
but not all. Is a very good oak for our area,
and it puts up with a lot. It puts up
with soggy, wet soil better than a lot of oaks do.
And it's just a good one. So I wouldn't be
too concerned about it right now.

Speaker 12 (53:41):
Okay, that makes me feel a lot better. I know
i'd seen I was going to ask you to. I
don't know if this is kind of like a I
don't know if it really works or we'll do more
harm doing it. I'm sure you probably know what I'm
talking about. I don't remember the name, but there you
almost drill holes into the base of the trunk and
you insert like, yes, the slower lease.

Speaker 5 (54:00):
Okay, can you recommend those?

Speaker 4 (54:02):
Or no? No, I don't if you had a tree,
you know that was on the state capital lawns out
front that was had to be completely pampered along to
look its best. Okay, there are injections that can be
done for very specific things. But as far as trying
to create nutrient deficient or alleviate nutrient deficiencies and stuff, no,

(54:23):
because each one of those is a wound which has
a potential for causing other problems. And so don't get
to your home trees. You just don't need to do that, Okay.

Speaker 12 (54:32):
So it sounds like trying to airrate the soul, like
you said, maybe put some organic matter down around, and
that probably the best bait to go.

Speaker 4 (54:39):
Those kinds of things. Over time, you know, what you're
basically doing is what the forest does naturally to itself.
Over one hundred years. You're going to be trying to
speed up a little bit, you know. But those rotting
leaves on the forest floor, you're basically creating holes. You're
putting some composts down that falls in the holes, and
over time things get better on it. But if you want,

(55:01):
let's end it this way, Brandan, if you want to
send me some close up photos in the spring as
the new growth begins and you see what you're seeing,
I'll be happy to take a look at them and
just make a comment on that. And I don't think
I'm going to change my mind. I don't change I
don't think I'm gonna change my mind, but I'm one
to take another look. I'm going to put you on
hold and my producer Jonathan will give you a email

(55:24):
address if you choose to do that. Thanks a lot
for your calling. I appreciate it, all right, folks, Yeah,
that oak trees, you know, this is just another reminder
of why we plant plants that want to be here
and not till oak wants to be here. It's a
great oak for this area, and there's other great oaks

(55:45):
for this area. But when you start planning things that
don't want to be here, we often have problems that
it's just really hard to alleviate. And so adapted plants
so so important. Whether it's a shrub, a tree, or
a flower in your flower bed, adaptive plants are very
very important if you're looking for a place to get
the things you need. Like I was just talking about

(56:06):
iron and y, Well, you can do an iron keylate.
That's a form of iron that doesn't tie up so fast.
Where do you get stuff like that? Well, look around
your neighborhood and there's an ace hardware store somewhere close
to you. You can go to ACE hardware dot com
and you can look at the store locator and find
your closest aced hardware store, and they're probably going to
have it because they carry all those kinds of things.

(56:28):
They carry things like fertilizers and things to control weeds,
both preventing weeds like the barricade was talking about things
to kill existing weeds, things to control diseases and insects.
The tools you need, you know, water hoses and gardening
tools and just the whole thing to make the outside
look really really good. And then of course they they

(56:48):
are a hardware store, they have good stuff for the
inside too. You're doing spring cleaning, you need some bins
you're doing you need some of the materials you use
to stain or seal your deck, you know, before the
weather takes advantage of it. Ace Hardware's got all of that.
They got their President's Day sale and all kinds of
painting supplies. Mowen faucets twenty percent off this month. So

(57:11):
if you're thinking about replacing a faucet, now it's time
to get done because you get a fifth off, twenty
percent off of Moen faucets right now, Grab some air filters.
They have buy three get get one free every month.
You're throwing a new air filter up there. You should
be to take care of your air conditioning unit, keep
the dust out, make it run more efficiently. ACE Hardware's
got you covered. Sign up for the ACE Rewards program.

(57:33):
When you're in ACE. You you can sign up online
a sword dot comes sign up online, but you're going
to get discounts. You're going to be special offers only
available for ACE Rewards customers. They email them directly to you.
So I mean it's a win win, you know, just
sign up. Didn't cost anything to join up with it.
And we got ACE Hardware stores all over the place

(57:54):
that just they just do really really well for the
neighborhood when it comes to supplying your whole supplies that
you need to have success. So ospose ACE up in
the Woodlands, Lake Conroe, ACE and Montgomery Single Ranch, ACE
at the K and M ACE in Kingwood. There's also
a K and M and a tuscas Sita up in
Base or DNA based city. There's an ACE Hardware store

(58:16):
out in Wharton. We had a call from Wharton this morning.
For man there's ACE Feed or Wharton Feed and Ace
out there, and then Hamilton Hardware, which is just off
Highway six near Bear Creek Arey and West Houston. There's
an ACE Hardware there that's just up for you. Of
the many, many Ace Hardware stores that we have in
our area, they do a good job of what they do.

(58:36):
And again I just want to thank one more time
the folks at All Seasons, Ace and Willis. We were
up there yesterday. And folks, if you live in that
whole area Willis Lake, Conroe, Conroe, you have got an
awesome ACE Hardware store right there off seventy five, I
mean off of forty five. It's it's easy to get to.

(58:58):
It's on the feeder right there and Ellis, and they're
well stocked. I was wandering around the store looking at
all the things ahead, and yes, what you expect of Ace,
they're going to have a little of everything and some
good stuff indeed, so you need to go check them out.
You were listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to help you have success. You can
dial me in oral to me at seven one three

(59:21):
two one two KTRH. I always using word dial. It's
a leftover from back in the days where you had
that little round thing on the phone and you had
to stick your finger in it and turn it in
a circle. Some of you are going, what are you
talking about? Well, look it up. Yep, you can give
me a call. Punch the numbers in on your cell phone.
You call me at seven one three two one two KTRH.

(59:44):
By the way, did you know your cell phone's a
great way to listen to garden Line? It is it is,
I mean listen on the radio. We are you know
kt ARCH is a radio station. But if you download
the iHeartMedia app and you find guard Line, just do
a search for garden Line. There's only two in the country.
One of them is a lady somewhere up in tim
Buck I on the other coast. But anyway, garden Line
and just make sure you connected, and you know, save

(01:00:07):
that station. You can listen to pass shows and you
could be also listening right now. In fact, you know,
as the sun comes out and get a little bit light,
if you wanted to go outside and do some things
in the garden, maybe you're purning a rose bush. You
get a question, take a picture of it with your phone.
Email it the garden Line and I mean live from
your garden. We can answer that question right there. I

(01:00:28):
think that's pretty cool. I like listening to stuff with
my phone. I just I just think that's a great
way to do it. So anyway, take it as you wish.
Someone was talking earlier about Nature's Way. You know, Nature's
Way is up there in Conra. In fact, I was
mentioning it for a lady that called from Conroe, Diane.
Nature's Way Resources is just south of Conroe. If you're

(01:00:50):
going up forty five toward Conro, it's on the right
when fourteen eighty eight comes in. That's the road to
Magnolia that goes off to the left. You just turn right,
cross over the tracks. You're there on Sherbrock Circle. Nature's Way.
Nature's Way has been around a long time. They're kind
of the grandfather when it comes to the good soil
products for our area. You know, John Ferguson years ago

(01:01:11):
began increasing his line of quality products with the determination
to help people make their soil better because that's the
way nature does it. Hence Nature's Way, you're going to
find leaf mole compost, fungal based compost, both of those.
By the way, leaf mold and fungle based are both
good for top dressing your lawn. They have a fifty

(01:01:34):
to fifty compost mix. It has leaf mold and fungle
based compost. They've got I talked earlier about using their
aged double ground molts. It works well. They have a
composted native mult and a Zealiu malts. They've got soil blends,
a landscaper's mix, a blueberry mix, a rose soil. Ross
oil was born by the way at Nature's Way, as
was leaf mole, compost and many other things. All you

(01:01:57):
got to do is go buy there or call them
have them to it. You'll find their products for sale
in some local garden centers and other places. Here's the
website Nature's Way Resources dot com. Nature'sway Resources dot Com.
Call talk to Ian who now runs the place, Ian
Ferguson and his whole team there and they can get

(01:02:19):
you set up with the right kind of products. Here's
a phone number nine three six two seven three twelve
hundred nine three six two seven three twelve hundred or
Naturesway Resources dot Com. You'll get a quality product and
we'll make a difference because we say brown stuff comes
before you put the green stuff in all right, folks,

(01:02:43):
we're back. Welcome to Gardenline phone number seven one three
two one two k t R seven one three two
one two kt R H up in Willis. In fact,
I was just step there yesterday visiting with folks at
Growers Outlet. And if you haven't been there, you need
to go. Grows out in Willis Is on Highway seventy

(01:03:03):
five in Willis just a few minutes away from Interstate
forty five. So if you're up there in one of
the lake neighborhoods like bent Water, April Sound, if you're
in Willis, if you're in New Waverley or down Conro area,
this is a place you need to know about and go.
They carry First of all, they carry the fertilizers and
I keep talking about like microlife and nitrofoss products from
Medina for example or there. And they have a lot

(01:03:26):
of different products. A really cool gift shop too, by
the way, and a lot of different kinds of local
like Honeys, special pickle foods, jellies, jams. It's really cool.
Bath and beauty products are in there. I saw some
of those, but right now they just get in a
bunch of fruit trees. They have got a really good
selection of fruit trees. They have a good selection of veggies,

(01:03:49):
very healthy plants too. I was walking around looking at them,
taking some pictures of them. They specialize in perennials and
ferns in gallon containers that are excellent, excellent for this area.
We were visiting about some of the different kinds of
salvia's and some other plants that really do well here,
and they know all about that stuff. If you need shrubs, trees,

(01:04:10):
they've got you covered. Now here's a cool thing. You
can go to their website grow and write this down.
Growers Outlet in Willis dot com. Just all one word
Growers Outlet in Willis dot com. Go there, check it out.
You can go online and you can look at their availability.
That's unusual. Not many nurseries do this. But for example,

(01:04:31):
every I think it's Wednesday, they update the veggies and
bedding plants. You know what they have. So if you're thinking, well,
let's see do they have this in stock, we just
go look. You can see on there. You can see
and other plants as well, and so you can purchase
for picking up later on. You can purchase them online
to pick up go by and pick up later. It's

(01:04:52):
just a good place. And they have a few firm
baskets right now, but they're about to get a whole
bunch of them in. But they have these macho ferns
that are huge. I'm serious. If I stand with my
arms stretch out to the side, that's how big these
ferns are. Literally, no, no exaggeration. Of course, they have
smaller ones as well, but a twenty inch fern basket
with a macho fern, it's like it's like a VW bug.

(01:05:15):
It's a monster of a plant. And they're really really good.
So you're going to create that beautiful you know. Let's
get past the freeze where he starts taking ferns outside.
Wait a little bit longer on that, but they got
them there ready, and they're getting a whole bunch more
in so Growers Outlet in Willis dot com Growers Outlet
Willis on interstate or an interstate on Highway forty five north.

(01:05:37):
Just a few are Highway forty five north. Highway forty five.
It's actually south of Willis, but easy to get to
and you'll be impressed when you go by there. Let's
head out to Kingwood and we're going to talk to Joe,
and so Joe, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:05:56):
Good morning, Skip. Wanted your advice on when to do this,
bring clean up and mulching. I'm going to be going
on a trip for most of March, so it is
your advice to go ahead and do it within the
next week or two, or should I wait until late
March early April?

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
You know, in your situation, I think I'd go ahead
and do it because what's going to happen is when
you come back, there's already going to be new growth
coming up through the old dead growth, and you can
clean out the old dead, but you know, you're kind
of having to be a little more careful so you
don't hurt the new tender shoots coming up through it.
So I would just go ahead and clean things down now,
just clean out all the debris. You know, we could
have another hard freeze, but I don't. The chances of

(01:06:40):
a good significant one are unlikely. And if you waited,
let's say a week or two and then you did
this trimming up, when the plant begins to grow is
when the weather temperature says grow, so that's the big factor.
And as things warm up, and we already got some perennials.
By the way, they're pushing new growth out of the base.
I would go ahead and get that done.

Speaker 11 (01:07:01):
Great.

Speaker 9 (01:07:02):
I appreciate the advice. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:03):
Skip all right, sir, take care and have a good trip.
All right, We're going to go now to Neadville and
talk to Analisa. Hello Analisa, Welcome to Gardenline.

Speaker 13 (01:07:15):
Hi, good morning. I had great success with my tulips
this winter, and I'm new to flowers, so I was
wondering if you could recommend another easy bulb that grows
well in the spring with all this weird freeze and
not freeze. What should I plant?

Speaker 4 (01:07:30):
Yeah, okay, So I like to plant bulbs that we
call repeat performers, meaning they you plan them once and
year after year after year you get to enjoy those
bulbs coming back. So it's a good investment or your
gardening dollars. Tulips tend to be one shot wonders. You know,
you plan them and you get a beautiful show, but

(01:07:51):
typically you're not going to have that same tulip bulb
blooming for you next year. They just aren't geared toward
our climate. So for the cool season for the spring.
Daffodils and Narcissus narcissus have the little white flowers, well,
paper whites, excuse me, have the little white clusters of flowers.
Daffodil narcissus is. There are many types of narcissus. Those

(01:08:14):
do good, but you want to find ones that are
more likely to naturalize here in our area. Not all
daffodils are equal when it comes to how well they naturalize.
There are your local garden centers typically should do a
good job of carrying the ones that do better here.
And you can also go online and you can you
can hunt that down. You know, there's actually an online

(01:08:38):
company that sells to some of our local garden centers
where you can go online and you can just read
about varieties, and if you can find those locally, that's
great too. Our mail order. But daffodil is a good one.
Another good one is in the summertime are rain lilies
and copper lilies. Now those are little tiny plants. They fry, dry,

(01:09:00):
disappear when it's blazing hot, and then we get a
little rainfall and out of the ground comes new growth
and blooms, little white blooms. Some of them have little
pinkish blooms. The copper lilies have kind of an orange
yellow colored bloom, and so they're just there every year
for you. And there's a good list of different options
that can carry you through the season. It's not a bulb,

(01:09:23):
but the cemetery irises do really well. It's surviving year
after year, and there is primarily a spring bloomer.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Great, thank you.

Speaker 13 (01:09:33):
And with the daffodils and the narcissist, do I need
to wait until we're sure we're past all the freezing
weather or can I plant.

Speaker 5 (01:09:39):
Them this weekend?

Speaker 4 (01:09:40):
No, it's actually you can plant them this weekend. It's
actually a little late because typically people plant spring blooming
bulbs in the fall and they kind of get rooted
in over winter and then they come out in spring
and bloom. So you'll be planting bulbs now that have
to get rooted in. You may get a little bit
of a bloom out of them, but then next year

(01:10:00):
they ought to be back on cycle. If you want
to go ahead and plant those various types of narcissist
like daffodil and paper whites and.

Speaker 13 (01:10:09):
Great, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
All right, I'll give you one more that's kind of fun.

Speaker 11 (01:10:15):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:10:15):
And it's called a school house lily, also called an
ox blood lily, and it's little red trumpets and they
pop out in this in the late summer when kids
go back to school. That's where they have that name.
Out of the ground, out a brown, dead, drought and
heat killed growth of everything else in the area, here

(01:10:36):
comes this fresh, new green growth. It blooms for a
short time, but it's a nice surprise at that time
of the year we get our first little fall rain.
They pop up and bloom and then there are a
couple of weeks and they go away. So mix your
mix them all up in your yard so there's always
a surprise coming on.

Speaker 13 (01:10:51):
And I can plant all of those lilies right now.
You'd recommend for August. Is that right?

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
Yeah? Yeah, you could. You could plant those all now
the right especially when we're looking at the rain lilies,
the copper lilies, and the schoolhouse lilies. Uh. There's even
another one. It's got a weird name. It's called naked
ladies because they shoot a shoot up out of the
ground with no leaves, so it's this naked shoot coming up.
And then there's this cluster of blooms that looks like

(01:11:17):
a starburst up on top, and they're beautiful. And they're
another one that appears in the fall after we get
our first little cooling rain spell coming on. So that's
another one. Go to a good garden center and they're
gonna be able to show you all the different things
that they carry like that.

Speaker 10 (01:11:33):
Great.

Speaker 8 (01:11:33):
I appreciate it, Thank you, thank you ver very much.

Speaker 4 (01:11:37):
Appreciate that. All right, folks, we're gonna take a little
break here. I'll be right back. So welcome back to
the garden. Line seven one three two one two K
t R H. How can we help you have a
beautiful garden, a bountiful garden, beautiful landscape, and how can
we help you have more fun? Listen, gardening is fun,

(01:11:58):
trust me repeat, gardening is fun. I promise you this.
If you've not been having fun gardening, let's fix that.
Let's find some ways to help you have success. Nobody
has fun when things you're trying to do don't work. Right, No,
that's not fun. We can make it fun. Let's do
it is fun. It absolutely is fun. We will talk

(01:12:19):
about all kinds of ways to have fun out there
in the garden. The more we get out. The more
we try our hand at working with nature and creating beauty,
The more we create bounty, the more we put food
on our tables. That is fifteen hundred miles closer than
the food we're getting from the grocery store. That is fun.

(01:12:40):
That is cool stuff. When you grow your own herbs
and you bring them in to season things. We were
barbecueing last summer, and there's a rosemary called barbecue. It's
basically it just has long, straight stems and you need
to pull all the little rosemary leaves off and you
use it as a skewer to put your little kebabs
on the That's just fun. I mean, that's cool. I

(01:13:02):
mean it doesn't change the world in terms of flavor.
It helps, but it's just fun because you grew at yourself.
How about a base of flowers that you grew yourself.
There are a lot of flowers almost every season of
the year that you can grow here that you could
bring in and use as a decoration the landscape plants
to make a good good floral decoration in general. How
do you want to have fun? Do you want it

(01:13:23):
to be food? Do you want it to be beauty?
Do you want it to be fragrance. Oh my gosh,
we're talking earlier about some fragrant plants. You go outside,
I tell you what, here is a garden of eden.
You outside, you have a patio, You put up some
bird feeders and whatever bird you know, bird baths and
everything else to bring the birds in. And you get

(01:13:46):
you your early morning cup of coffee, and you have
some plant that is sitting there, maybe on the southwest side.
We tend to get more southwest winds than other directions here.
But wherever you just got some plants around. Maybe it's
a citrus tree and a container on the patio, and
you are smelling the fragrance, you are hearing the songs
of birds. You're seeing the beauty of the garden. Oh

(01:14:06):
my gosh. It just doesn't get much better than that.
That is a special moment. And you can create that
at your house. You can create it now. The best
time to plant a tree is in the dormous season
because that tree needs time to establish its roots. So
get your trees and your shrubs we call those woody ornamentals.
Get those things planted now. And when you plant them,

(01:14:30):
it helps if you will get you one of the
three sixty tree stabilizers. That's a bar that attaches to
a post. They have an attachment that fits t posts
real simply just driving straight down on the ground, or
if you want to put in a post, you know,
like a regular round fence post, they'll attach to those two.
The other end attaches to your tree, and it's a
soft rubber strap that has holes in it. So just

(01:14:53):
like on your belt, you know, you can tighten or
loosen your belt by going too a different hole. That's
how that strap is. But the good thing about this
is trees need to move a little bit if you
honker them down where they don't bend at all. There's
a principle of nature that when we stretch things, they
get stronger. And here's an example. If you took one

(01:15:13):
arm and you just tied it beside your body where
you never used it, and the other arm, you went
to the gym and you lifted weights until it was
worn out, and then a couple days later, you lift
weights until it worn out. Do that for a few weeks,
and what's gonna be the difference in your arms? Right? Okay?
Same thing as true with tree trunks. You bend that wood,
you bend the upper roots that are helping anchor the

(01:15:34):
tree just a little bit, not a lot. I'm not
talking about going horizontal here. I just mean moving it,
moving that and it strengthens it. You got tomato plant.
If you're growing tomato plant transplants right now in your
house and you run your hands over the top every
day just to make it thinks the wind blow and
just bend those little stems, they will be stronger than
a plant growing in perfectly still air. All right. So

(01:15:55):
I said all that to say, a tree support needs
to give a little bit, needs to let the plant
move a little bit, not a lot, but a little bit.
That's what three sixty Tree stabilizer does. You're gonna find
them all over the place. They've got them at Plants
for All Seasons. You can find them at Buchanans downtown,
at Arborgate up and Tombole Sanamal's down south of town.
Also south of town in Alvin Jorges Hidden Gardens carries

(01:16:18):
the three sixty tree stabilizer. You're gonna find them at
RCW Nurseries too. Those are just some of the places
where you can find this product. Get you one if
you have a larger tree that you're planting. You may
want to one kind of north south, one kind of
east west, holding on so whichever way the wind blows,

(01:16:38):
it stabilizes the tree. Now you can go out, you
can buy wire, you can stick posts in the ground.
You can stretch that wire over and put a piece
of garden hose in it so it doesn't cut into
your tree trunk, and do that three different direction staking
It's just something to trip over and in the way,
and it's unnecessary. Tree stabilizer works better. You should try one.

(01:17:01):
You are listening to guard line the phone number seven
one three two one two. What kt r H can
you answer that? Can you finish the sentence for me?
Say it all the time, k t r H seven
one three two one two KTRH. Give me a call.
We can talk about whatever the things are that you
are most interested in. Well, I want to talk about

(01:17:21):
Arburgate Garden Center for a little bit. Arburgate is one
of those destination places where you kind of get to
have it all. And I really mean that a good
garden center has selection. I can find a better selection
than Arburgate. A good garden center has staff that know
what they're talking about. We're talking about people that know garden.

(01:17:43):
We're talking peype the garden. When you go to Arburgate,
you get help. And I've talked to them before. You know,
they have a customer come in and ask a certain
kind of question. We'll visit about it a little bit.

Speaker 5 (01:17:53):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
They they make sure they get you the best answer
you possibly can have have so you can have success.
And I'm telling you they know ninety nine point nine
percent of the answers themselves right there, because there's pretty
much everything that has been asked before. They've been asked.
They've grown things themselves. They're experts, they know what they're doing.

(01:18:15):
You want to get plants at a good garden center
that grow things that and sell things that belong here,
not something that never should have been brought across the
Texas state line and sold. Arburgate is that kind of
garden center. You want a place that can help you
create the foundation for success. I always say brown stuff
before green stuff, brown stuff before green What does that mean?

(01:18:38):
All it means is fix the soil first and then
put your wonderful plants in and they will succeed. Don't
PLoP a poor plant into an unprepared plot. First comes
to brown, then comes to green when it comes to Arburgate.
The brown is a soil for anything you want to grow.
It has some expanded shale in it which helps our

(01:19:00):
They have a compost that also has expanded shale. Awesome product.
And by the way, the soil and compost are available
by bulk. Just ask them at Arburgate. They can they
can deliver that and bulk to you. And then finally
the fertilizer for anything with the roots. It's an organic
fertilizer and it works. So there you go. You get
the brown stuff, but in the back of the car

(01:19:22):
you buy the green stuff that will grow here, that
will thrive here, and you're good to go. Whether it's
cool season, color, vegetables, herbs, fruit tree that fruit trees
year around, fruit trees, berries, grapes, seeds inside all kinds
of their gift shops are unbelievable. They the more than
one yes, and you got to go in and see them.
Whatever kind of planet is, they're going to have it

(01:19:43):
at Arbigate. And then finally a garden center that is
fun to walk around. And Arburgate is just it's just
a little botanical garden of all kinds of things. From
yard art to plants to interesting iron art structures. To
just go by there and see it. Park in the
back parking lot by the way, that's off Treschel Road.
Just a little loop goes round behind Arburgate and you

(01:20:05):
will be very impressed. I guarantee you. And don't ever
go by yourself. Take some friends with you because it
is just too much fun. This is like, this isn't
just like going to the Stormline grocery and coming home.
This is an outing. It's an experience. All right. Well
I kind of droned on there, but I love that place.
I absolutely love it. You're listening to Guardline and the

(01:20:26):
phone number is seven one three two one two KTRH.
Give me a call. We'll be visiting about the things
that are of interest to you coming up here. Oh
my gosh're about to start playing music. How can we
be done with another hour? That's impossible. Hey, I want
to tell you about something before I forget coming up

(01:20:47):
in March. I'll try to announce this a little bit later,
but the Pioneer Unit of the Herb Society of America
is having their annual Herb Forum. It's going to be
up and round Top at the Festival Hill Institute. Now
let me just give you the website. I'm gonna tell
you some other things, but you want to go find
out all this information. Festival Hill dotorg. Festival Hill dot oorg.

(01:21:11):
Go there, find out all about it. It's an eighty
dollars registration, but you're getting some incredible speakers. The theme
is Unlocking the Mysteries of Herbs Superpowers, how to restore
the biodiversity to your soil, the science of aromatherapy, healing
chemicals of herbs, growing herbs here in Texas. There'll be demonstrations,

(01:21:33):
you get to interact with the speakers. It's Saturday, March fifteenth,
from nine am to four pm. I'm an old ideal
and if you've never been out there, it's a beautiful place.
Festival Who's a beautiful place? Festival Hill dot org. The
Annual Herb Forum Unlocking the Mysteries of Herb Superpowers. There
you go. That sounds like a fun outic. All right, Well,

(01:21:55):
I'm gonna take a little break here. I'm a little
low on coffee and in order for me to stay coherent,
I'm aout go get I'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Welcome to Katie R. H Garden Line with scared Rickard's.

Speaker 4 (01:22:16):
Crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
Just watch him as so many pies to sup Brasy away.

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
Not sorry, all right, welcome back, here we go. We
have got plenty of things to talk about today. Spring
is about to spring itself. He would, you know the
I'm done with winter. Okay, let's call it h Somebody
get hold of the weather man, tell him this thing down.

(01:23:00):
We're done. We're done. We got some better weather coming
this week. And I'm excited about getting outside. If I
showed you a picture of my yard and garden right now,
you'd quit listening to Garden Line. It's not quite that bad.
But I've been traveling and I have been working on
some other projects and doing some consulting and different kinds
of things, and it is time for me to get

(01:23:21):
home and take care of things at the house. And
I can't wait. I love getting outside.

Speaker 11 (01:23:26):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:27):
I think it was Calvin and Hobbes commercial, you know
that cartoon with the tiger and says at the end
of the day in the spring, if you don't have
grass stains all over your knees, you're not doing things
right or no, you need to seriously reconsider your life.
And I need to go out there and get some
grass stains on my knees along with some dirt stains too,

(01:23:48):
some soil seven to one three two one two KTRH
seven one three two one two KTRH. Give us a call,
let's let's help you have success.

Speaker 7 (01:23:57):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:23:57):
South of Houston, you have got a one stop shop
for all things related to setting the perfect foundation for
gardening success. And I'm talking about Cienamlts and I'm talking
about soil improvement. Brown stuff before green stuff. How do
you do? What is brown stuff? What does that even mean?
You maybe think of that? What like what is involved

(01:24:20):
in that? What do you mean when you say that, Well,
there are two things that are in gardening. There's the
bronze stuff, which is a soil, and there's a green stuff,
which is the plants. Now, you want plants that want
to grow here. You want plants that are healthy and
plants that are strong and all that. But first, first, first, first,
you got to get the soil right before you put
the plants in. At cienamlts, you get the soil right.

(01:24:40):
Do you need a soil blend maybe something like a
airloom soils veggie nerd mix. They've got that do you
need a quality multch for example, do you need a
just compost, a quality compost. They have everything you need
to turn that soil into something special. They have bulk

(01:25:01):
or they have some things in bags. But I'm telling you,
whether you go by there and pick it up or
whether you have them deliver it, they do about a
twenty mile radius delivery. And by the way, they're they're
in on FM five point twenty one near Highway six
and two eighty eight. So those of you listening that
are in Siana Plantation, Quel Valley, Manvil, Roach Share, and
Sandy Point Arcola. I have a colony Pomona Meridian. First

(01:25:23):
you see what I'm saying, Paarland, sun Creek Estate, Sweetwater Reshnent.
This is your hometown one stop shop for everything that
creates the perfect foundation for your plants. They also part
of the brown stuff is nutrients. So where do you
get microlife Nelson's turf Star, Medina products, Nitrefoss products, ASA mite,

(01:25:46):
which is that micro nutrient trace mineral supplement. Where do
you get products from heirloom sauce. You get them at
Santa malk They have all that. When you drive off
from Sanamulta. When you hang up the phone, they're going
to bring it twenty miles for small delivery fee. When
you're done there, the foundation is ready to be built.

(01:26:06):
And then when the plants go in, everyone says you
got a green thumb. Well, you have a green thumb
because Ciena must help make your thumb for green by
providing you the good stuff. They're open money through Friday
seven thirty to five and Saturday seven thirty to two,
closed on Sunday. Go to the website Cienamultz dot com.

(01:26:27):
Check them out and see why I'm so big on
that particular company. Also another reason is they're friendly, and
they're fun, and they're they're enjoyable, a pleasure to work with.
And I haven't even gotten into talking about their beautiful
flagstones and other kinds of river rocks and gravel saying, oh, what.

Speaker 7 (01:26:46):
Do you need?

Speaker 4 (01:26:47):
Just go buy there. They're gonna have it. Guarantee you
that they're gonna have it. I was talking about micro
life products earlier and the fact that they're based on
the truth that microbes rule the world and microbes make
your plants happy by making the soil better. One of
the products they have is Microlife's hum mats plus. That's
a purple bag. It's a zero zero four fertilizer. It's

(01:27:09):
got a little bit of fertilizer in it. But that's
not why we're putting it down. Primarily, we're putting it
down because it's concentrated compost in a bag. It is humus.
And every time you add a little humus to the soil,
little humus to the soil, over time, it is just
getting richer and richer and richer. That's how nature builds
soil by taking organic matter and taking it past compost
all the way to humus over time, and microlife hum

(01:27:33):
mates plus. The purple bag just gives you a way
to do that in a short cut. You've already got
the humus product in your hands. Spread it out there,
follow the label. You can do it anytime of a year.
You can do it when you fertilize. I mean you
could go out, you know, first put your fertilizer out,
or first put the hum mats plus out then put
the other one out. Either way you go about it,
you're going to have the same results. But in addition

(01:27:55):
to your spring fertilizations, consider adding the Microlife humantes plus
to your lawn does real well, also does good. You
know you got a clay soil and you wanted to
improve it and put in a garden and things. Oh
my gosh, you got to put the image plus into that.
You are listening to Garden Line. Our number here if
you'd like to give me call seven one three two

(01:28:16):
one two kt r H. Seven one three two one
two kt r H. How can we help you have success?
All right? I want I've been wanting to talk a
little bit about success with tropical types of plants. And
I know it's still kind of cool outside, but we're

(01:28:38):
getting really close to a time when we can start
putting tropicals outside. I had a number of calls from people,
you know, saying things like, well, i've got some hibiscus,
or I've got some gingers, I've got something like that
that is in the garage. I've had emails on this too.
When can I bring them out? How do you know
when it's safe to bring them out? Well, you don't.

(01:28:59):
You You can listen to the weather man. You can
consider how far out that forecast is, because the further
out it is, yeah, don't morey ify it is. But
when things warm up those plants are ready to grow.
I tend to be on the conservative side what I'll do.
I may even buy a plant before it's time to
put it out and just take care of it. Bring

(01:29:19):
it in as needed, bring it in, make sure you
are taking good care of it, protecting it from the cold.
And when it gets warm, then those plants are really
ready to grow and you can pin them a little earlier.
I've got some ginger, for example, that's in pots right now,
and I could stick it in the ground and mulch
over it and it'd be fine. But I generally wait
until it's ready to grow and put it out at
that time. That gives you a little time, a little

(01:29:41):
extra time to prepare the soil. And it is so
important to prepare the soil ahead of time. So get
those soil right and then move those things out. In
the meantime, put them outside every time we have a
little bit of sunshine. This week's going to be a
good time even for tropicals to be out there capturing
a little bit of sunlight in preparation for when we
put them in the ground. Let me take a quick
break and I'm going to come back with your calls

(01:30:02):
and more gardening information. All right, we're back back with
garden Line. Hey, thanks for being a listener. I appreciate that.
I hope you're having fun. I hope you're having tips
that help you have success for sure. You know, folks

(01:30:24):
at Nitrovis have an organic fertilizer. It is a product
called Sweet Green. It's based on molasses that microbes have
done a little work with and created an eleven zero
zero fertilizer. So when you put you know, organic gardeners
will put molasses in the soil because they know that
carbon really stimulates a lot of microbial activity, especially with

(01:30:48):
beneficial bacteria. Well, Sweet Green has the same effect in
your soil and be an eleven percent one of the
highest analyzes for an organic plant food that you would have,
and it being a lassis based product just smells good,
smells great. I joke around and say when you when
you buy it and go home, you want to take
an extra loop around six ten just to enjoy the

(01:31:10):
fragrance of it. Maybe not, but you know what I'm saying. Anyway,
you're going to find it at a lot of different retailers,
like other MICU, like other products that are from Nitrofoss
and this microbially active product is going to be available
at places like Plantation Ace Hardware, A Langham Creek Ace Hardware,

(01:31:30):
r CW Nurseries. Uh and there's a Lake Hardware now
in Angleton. There's hardware done include too. They carry nitrofoss
products like the Sweet Green. It's a pretty quickly available
microbes get a hold of it and they release the
the nitrogen that's in it, and you're in business in
your lawn will show the show the difference as a result, too,

(01:31:52):
Sweet and green. That's a good combination. That's a good name.
What you thought of that? I like that name.

Speaker 11 (01:31:58):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:31:58):
Out in Kingwood, we've a couple of garden centers that
are just outstanding. You know, the Kingwood Garden Center. They
did a revamp on their gift shop over the cool season,
the early holiday season and it is really looking gut
in there. It just it looks awesome really inside. And
Warren's Garden Center is as Warren's Southern Gardens is on

(01:32:19):
North Park Drive, Kingwood is on Stone Hollow Drive. Both
both locations open seven days a week. They served that
whole region up there, you know, not just Kingwood, but
Humbolo Task assieda new Caney Valley ranch and porter all
that area. You're gonna find the products you hear me
talk about, like Microlife products, nitrofost products, Nelson turf Star products,
airloom soils, the Nelson plant food and the jars or there.

(01:32:43):
They carry a lot of things. And they even have
the refilling jars there for Microlife and Nelson plant food products.
So when you buy a jug of either Microlife or
Nelson plant Food and you don't have to throw the
plastic away and go buy another jug, you can save
some money and avoid throwing plants in the environment by
going to the filling station. You pull down a little

(01:33:03):
handle and refill your jar. And it's economical, it works.
It just makes sense all around. And they've got that.
We're in Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Center. You're gonna
find great selections right now. The herbs and the veggies
are there, they're ready to go. They got citrus and
other fruit trees. They got roses, certainly, flowers like annuals
and perennials, and many kinds of native plants as well.

(01:33:26):
I just think one of the features that I always
am impressed with with them, I was out at Warren
Southern Gardens a while back and they were working on
designing and making custom potted containers of plants. You have
multiple plants in a container, so and you can go
out there and they can even help you with the shopping.

(01:33:46):
But like, here's the container, I like, I want that one. Okay, Well,
here's some soy you put in it. What kind of flowers?

Speaker 11 (01:33:53):
I like?

Speaker 4 (01:33:53):
This kind of flower? What will go well with that? Well,
here's some others. And then they tell you how to
put it together and you can do it or they
can do it for you. I mean they can do
that for you as well. But whatever you need tools,
other gardening needs, you're going to find them there at
Warren Southern Gardens Kingwood Garden Center, both open seven days
a week. So guess what would be a good idea
for this afternoon is to get out, enjoy some a

(01:34:15):
little bit better weather here, and do some shopping. I
was talking about some different things this morning. One of
the things that I wanted to mention is outdoor seed starting.
We're getting really close to the time when we're going
to start putting those warm season seeds in the ground,
things like cucumbers and squash and corn and whatnot. And

(01:34:36):
sometimes people get confused about how deep do you plant
a seed. So I'm going to give you a quick
quick tip here. For most seeds, if you will plant them,
about three times as deep as the seed is wide,
that's about the right depth. Therefore times as deep as
the seed is wide, that's about the right depth. The

(01:34:56):
finer textured your soil where the seed is the better
seed to soil contact that you get. So if you
get this little seed and some real chunky soil, there's
a lot of air around the seed, you know, it's
not just soil kind of packed up against the seed.
If you can get a finer textured soil, you need
to put a little compost of very fine texture composts

(01:35:18):
down in there too. But that helps the moisture go
into the seed and stay in the seed. And planting
with the right depth is important. Now, there's a few
seeds that need sunlight to germinate. Do you know that
the red rays of the sun specifically, that's the wavelength
that primarily is active there. They help germination and so

(01:35:40):
let us for example, we plant on top of the ground.
And now still time to plant lettuce seeds and have
a nice little harvest of lettuce. But we put them
on the ground and we keep it moist, wet the soil. First,
sprinkle the lettuce out, wet it again with a fine mist,
and keep it moist with periodic misting, and that let
us he will germinate. Carrot's is helpful if you're not

(01:36:02):
too deep on those too. When you plant a seed
too deep, it never sees the light a day, literally,
it just can't. It is not able then an energy.
You know, put a you put a broccoli seed, you know,
four inches in the soil. I mean, there's no way
that thing's ever going to make it to the top.
But think about that three or four times a width
of the seed. That's how deep. Cover it with soil,

(01:36:22):
fine textured mix and you will have success with your seat.
Keep a moist when a seed. Here's a here's a
biochemical tip for your seed starting, or biochemical information for
your seed starting. When a dry seed sets there dry,
it never sprouts, whether it's a weed seed or seed.

(01:36:43):
You plant it. When it gets moist, it takes in water,
and when water goes inside it starts a series of
biochemical reactions that are absolutely miraculous. I mean this is
it is an amazing design the way that seeds are
are designed to work, and that is the water comes in,
it starts these biochemical reactions and all kinds of things

(01:37:06):
are happening. I won't bore you with all the details
on it, but the bottom line is, here comes a
root out and then here comes a shoot up. And
in the stage of that germination, if it dries out,
it dies. There's no recovery. Once it gets a root
down with some measurable depth, then it is able to
withstand a little bit of drought because it has a

(01:37:26):
root that's reaching out into other parts of the soil.
But right around that seed, you got to keep it
moist up through the germination process. Not soggy, but not dry.
Keep it moist and you'll have success when the biochemical
reactions start because the seed is taken in water. Here
we go. Some of my seed I will actually pre
soak before I put them out, And that's a good option.

(01:37:49):
You can do that. You like okra, for example, and spinach,
I will put in very hot water. Just get good
hot water and put the seeds right in it and
let it sit on the counter overnight. The water cool off.
That's okay. The hot water makes the moisture go in
the seed faster, and then it goes off real quick anyway,

(01:38:09):
and then in the morning when you plant it, you
already have a well soaked seed. It's it's imbibed the
water it needs and it's ready to start that process.
And it gives you a little bit of a head start,
and it gives you a little bit of a higher
percentage of germination. To pre soak. Now, I don't pre
soak every seed. I don't pre soak lettuce seeds, and

(01:38:31):
I don't pre soak you know, a little broccoli seeds
and things like that, or pinto beans necessarily, but it
is a tip for some seeds it may be a
little slower to sprout for getting a good start on them.
If you have any kind of outdoor furniture that is
metal that ain't looking so good, you need to call

(01:38:51):
Houston powder Coders or even you can call them at
two eighty one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight,
or you can just go to the website Houston powder
Cooders dot com. All the information is there Houston powder
Cooders dot com. Another option would be to send them
an email. Take a picture of your outdoor furniture. It
maybe it's painted metal furniture. It could be wrought iron,

(01:39:13):
it could be a cast iron, it could be a
luminum patio for whatever it is. Take a picture of
it and email that picture to sales at Houstoncoders dot com.
Sales at Houston Cooders dot com, say hey, I just
need a price aned estimate on this. What's it going
to take? They will, They do free pickup and delivery
in the Greater Houston area, and they can do any

(01:39:35):
kind of metal. I mean it could be you know,
some kind of wall art hanging outside that's cast iron
or something, and they can they can powder coat that.
And they don't have to paint it. I mean they
can paint it. They got a hundred say paint it.
It doesn't have to be colors, is what I meant
to say. They have over one hundred colors in stock,
and more colors even that are available, but that in

(01:39:55):
those colors or colors that look like even rusty iron,
you know, they have that colors. If you like that
natural rustic look, they can powder coat it to that
color too. Or maybe you want, you know, bright canary
orange or canary yellow, or a beautiful blue or red
or something. They can do it all. They can do

(01:40:15):
it all. You just got to get a hold of them.
Send a picture to sales at Houstoncoders dot com or
go to their website Houston Powdercoders dot com. Find out
all you need there. They're right up in north central
Houston near the intersection of Beltway eight and Hardy Toll Road,
so it's easy to get to. But remember they'll come up,
they'll come out and they'll pick it up and they'll
deliver it for you. And all the things that your

(01:40:37):
furniture needs, whether maybe you've got to replace the rusty
bolts in hardware, they'll replace them with stainless steel. Those
little plastic caps that you know sit on the feet
so the metal doesn't scratch along your patio, they can
replace that too. They take good care of it needs
a little bit of welding. That's also a service they
can offer is putting a little well to strengthen that.

(01:40:58):
And take that old furniture that maybe about to hit
the road and be thrown away, turn it around, make
it something special. Houston Powder Coders. They do good work.
I've seen it. It's amazed at the work that they do.
Anti Grosenporium is one of the favorite places that I
like to go visit, and if you haven't been out there,
you got to go. It's north of Brownham, it's in Independence, Texas,

(01:41:21):
and it's like you've gone into a different time. They've
got some gorgeous buildings on site that are historic that
it's so cool to walk through them. I love walking.
I took a picture of In fact, the banner on
my website currently is me on the porch and one
of those buildings at antiq Rozenborium. So you go to

(01:41:43):
gardening with skip dot com, there's a picture of one
of the buildings along with me standing there getting in
the way of that good looking building. Anyway, if you
go to Anti Rosenborim, you're going to have a wonderful
time and you need to take your friends, a lot
of people. I mean, it's almost like, you know, going
on a special trip to go visit a botanical garden
or something. They have a deal right now, well, I say,

(01:42:04):
right now, do you know they offer free self guided
tours where they give you a little brochure and you
can walk through on your own pace. Learn all about
the plants and the place and everything. It's really cool.
Or they have a paid guided tour that the owner,
Jim Keater himself will take you out. He'll walk you through,
diving deeper into the history and the horticulture behind their

(01:42:27):
beautiful landscapes that they have out there. Either way you
want to go self guided, se a free self guided
tour with the pamphlet, or go out pay for the
tour with Jim Keeter get really good insights and not
only the plants they have, but the history of the
place and the care of those plants. Now you got
to write down the website Antique Roseimporium dot com Antique

(01:42:48):
Roseemporium dot com and go to that website check out
upcoming events. They've got some really cool events that are
coming out. In fact, one of them, I believes in
it's coming out right around the corner, So don't delay,
get out there find out about them. They have a
variety of events from free events and some very special celebrations,

(01:43:11):
which is what their Spring Garden Party is. Drinks, dinner, desserts, music,
and more. It's a paid event, but boy is it
ever special. So check them out. You want to know
about that all right. Well, I was talking about ACE
Hardware before and mentioning that, you know, you got your
Mowen faucet sale going on, You got your air filters

(01:43:33):
and things like that, spring cleaning aces ready for that.
If you need to exchange your propane canisters or proprane refills,
so your local ACE store can probably take care of
that for you as well. You know, Ace Hardware, the
stores are all over the place. There's a Rockport Ace,
there is a Plantation ACE down in the Richmond Rosenberg area.
We got Jay and ours ACE Hardware up in Porter

(01:43:55):
Bay City, Ace Hardware and bas City, there's a lot
of them. Go to ACE Hardware dot com and find
the store locator and find your local ACE and go
in and you will be surprised at what they have
for outdoors and for indoors. Already we're back, Hey, welcome
back to Guardline. Good to have you, Good to have

(01:44:16):
you listening in with us. Listen. If you want to
do one thing to turn your outdoor porch or patio,
any kind of outdoor sitting area into something special, even
to decorate the front of the house, a container full
of color is the way to do it. I mean
it's fast, like today this afternoon. You grab a container,

(01:44:37):
you grab some soil, you plant the plants. You're in business.
That's fast. That is fast and easy. But you need
a good quality mix to go in the container. What
is a good quality mix. Well, it has a lot
of organic matter, is very microbial active, microbially active, and
it has an adequate volume, meaning a good size of
the container. It holds moisture so it doesn't all run out,

(01:45:00):
but it also drains well so it doesn't stay soggy wet.
You don't want to create a swamp. You don't want
to create a mucky goo. And that container well, jungle
Land from Nitrofis does all of that. It is a
very special mix. It's got specifically blended Canadian blonde peat,
different four different actually sources of aged bark, and a

(01:45:22):
microiz of fungi in the mix itself. It really revitalizes
potting plants. If you want good lasting color and good performance.
Remember it all starts in the soil, brown stuff before
green stuff. When it comes to containers, jungle Land is
a good brown stuff. They also have an indoor jungle
Land which has water saving crystals in it. These are
little crystals that swell up with water. So and I

(01:45:45):
know you don't forget, but when your neighbor forgets to
water their houseplants, these crystals still have some water to
help it go on until it finally dawns on your
neighbor to water their houseplants. Where do you get it? Well,
Nitrofris products are widely available. You're going to find things
like that at plants for all seasons. In l Wadda.
You're going to go to Katie's Hardware, which is in
Katie of course Court Hardware, which is in the Stafford area.

(01:46:09):
If you go down to Alvin the Stanton shopping Center,
you're going to find night Fresh products there as well.
We're going to head straight out to the phones now
and talk to Diane in Cyprus. Hey Diane, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 14 (01:46:23):
Hey, good morning Skip. I had called you a lot,
uh several times this last spring because we were trying
to help restore our yard. And then I have concerns
in our beds and our back of our house, back
up against this wall where we had some little door
for your times, and then there's a bird bath, my
rose bushes that were knocked out roses had been very

(01:46:44):
pretty when we first moved into our home six years ago,
and they did really well. But something happened to them. Okay,
excuse me, I have to excuse my voice. But it
started changing and they started turning black on the on
all stems and the trucks. And I tried everything that
I could. I was listening to a lot of your

(01:47:05):
advice and but I ended up losing all four of them.
But what I wanted to do is get advice from
you how to prepare the bed properly with the right
kind of soil and the nutrients that are needed before
I plant some more. I'm not going to plan as
many this time. I'm just going to do too to
make sure that they'll surprise.

Speaker 4 (01:47:24):
And so I was.

Speaker 14 (01:47:25):
I've been taking notes all this morning, but I would
really like to get your advice on what the best
needs do to prepare that bed and get it, you know,
healthy and ready for some knock out really quick.

Speaker 4 (01:47:36):
I got it all right, So here here's here's what
you need to do. First of all, the black death
that occurred that you described, it could have been a canker.
It also could have been something going wrong in the
root system. And causing the plant to die. Soggy wet
soil which is poor drainage can cause that, but it
didn't matter at this point what it was that caused it.

(01:47:59):
You want to get a good rose soil, and you
can buy rose soil. There's a couple of places that
service your area. The Nature's Way Resources is on I
forty five up toward Conro and they service that area.
You can also get from heirloom soils. They sell both
bulk and in bag. Around your cypress area. You may

(01:48:22):
check with some of your ace hardware stores. You know
other centers I know over at plant Roll Seasons they
carry some of the soil types of products that are
going to be successful for that. When you want a
good rose mix, build up a raised bed high enough
to ensure good drainage. And know that the bed is
going to settle after you build it, So if you

(01:48:42):
built it a foot high, by the end of the season,
it's going to be about eight inches high because it
literally just settles in a lot. So make it a
little extra high to begin with. But a good roast
soil mix and then follow that up with good fertilization
and small amounts through the season and your roses perform. Well,
don't forget to maltz the surface too to keep the

(01:49:03):
weeds down.

Speaker 14 (01:49:05):
Okay, I'll certainly do that, and thank you so much.
I appreciate it. So hopefully this time it'll work, all right.

Speaker 4 (01:49:12):
Send me a picture of your beautiful rose is when
it does work. Thanks a lot, Diane, appreciate that, all right.
You're talking about different products. Nelson Plant Food. They sell
a rose fertilizer. It's part of the nutri Star line.
It's a canister jar and you know, you just get
your little tablespoon in there, scoop it up and sprinkle

(01:49:33):
it around according to the right rate. It's part of
Nutristar products. There's a lot of them.

Speaker 2 (01:49:36):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:49:36):
There's a tree and shrub product. It's for trees and shrubs.
Gives a nice gradual release over time, including micro nutrients.
There's a nutristar citrus fruit and avocado. Basically, if you're
going to grow something to eat off the tree or
the shrub the bush, nutrastar citrus fruit and avocado that's
a good one for that. But they also have that
rose soil, so you know, Cindy was a rather it

(01:50:00):
was just discussing roses, so I'd have some jars of
that Nelson plant food nutri star rose. It's a rose,
four roses. We're gonna go to Spring Branch now and
talk to Josh. Hey, Josh, welcome to garden line. Hey,
good morning to get some morning.

Speaker 11 (01:50:19):
In the backyard.

Speaker 5 (01:50:21):
And I'm curious to get any good sponsors.

Speaker 13 (01:50:24):
They carry that that we did.

Speaker 4 (01:50:27):
You know, I don't. I don't have a turf sponsor
at all, but I know there are a number of
places around town that will sell it. You might try
one of your oh gosh, King Ranch turf places. Those
are pretty widespread here in the area. But there's some others.
There's other good places that will sell you you turf.
I don't know who carries exactly what variety. Emerald is

(01:50:50):
an older variety of Saint Augustine. It's still a good
variety to plant.

Speaker 7 (01:50:55):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:50:55):
There are several good zoysias in fact, that you can plant.
And uh, you just want to let the weather warm
up enough for the grass to be willing to do
a little growing. That way, when you put the side down,
I mean the roots are hitting the ground and stretching
out of those side pieces right into the soil. Very quickly. Yep, okay,

(01:51:17):
all righty good luck with it, yes sir, take care,
oh man, that is the case. RCW Nursery is the
garden center that's right there at two forty nine and
belt Way eight. They're really easy to get to us
right down below. So you just just set it, put it,
you know, put it in your in your maps, and
you'll you'll take it right there to it. RCW Nurseries

(01:51:38):
dot Com that's their website. Now. RCW is a nursery
that is going to have what you're looking for. But
if they don't, they probably can get it right now. Roses, roses, roses.
This is a rose season and they get in. If
you look at their print at the rose list, and
it's like pages long, single space, and rosarians across town
they know about RCW Nursery and the roses that they care.

(01:52:00):
It's a very favorite of rosarians and every other homeowner
people like me and you that enjoy beautiful roses. Roses
are the queen of the garden, you know, and there's
nothing like it. Whether it's a climbing rose, whether it's
a miniature rose, a groundcover type rose, a shrub rose,
a hybrid te for those long, beautiful cut blooms. You

(01:52:21):
take your pick and RCW is gonna have some options
for you. They also grow their own trees up there
in Plantersville, and so when you buy a tree from RCW,
it's a tree that's been grown right, it's a tree
species that does well here, and you can take it
home and plant it. If it has any size to
it at all, just have them do it. You know,
you can hire them to come out and do the
planning for you for something that's going to be way

(01:52:43):
more weight than you want to be handling around. But
the main thing is just go there. RCW nurseries dot
Com Again, Tombo Parkway which is ibly two forty nine
and belt Way eight. Time for me to take a break.
When I come back, Randy in Liberty, you're going to
be our first s up steal folks. Welcome back to

(01:53:03):
the guard line, Welcome back to Guarden. I listen. I
get a lot of calls, get a lot of pictures
from the emails too, about lawns that are struggling, loans
that have maybe it was chinchbugs last summer, or drought
conditions or extra compaction. Boy, that's a biggie. You know
our clay soil as you stomp on them and they compact,

(01:53:24):
and without good aeration, roots don't do well. Your grass
doesn't thrive. And BnB Turfros that's our company. Down south
and south and a little to the west of Houston,
so places like Missouri City and Sugarland, all the way
down interstate Interstate six. Boy, I just upgraded that street
Highway six, Fresno, Siena, Arcola, Iowa Colony, Manul all those

(01:53:48):
communities along there. BnB Turfrose covers that all the way
over even to Pearland. They serve that area. Now, this
is the family on service and these folks are going
to give you honest quality work. Go look at their ratings,
Go look at the customer satisfaction that they have. Go
look at pictures they on other website, social media. Look

(01:54:09):
at the pictures of what they do. High quality work,
quality products. They only use products that I recommend here
on garden Line cnmls for example, that's where they get
their top quality leap mole compost from the folks at Cnamalts.
That's what I'm talking about. VMB Turfros. They don't cut corners,
they do it right. They make a personal connection with you.
They ensure that you are satisfied. That's very important to them,

(01:54:30):
and it shows up in the ratings that they have.
They will come out. They will do a core aeration
with quality equipment that makes that pulls a plug out
of the soil and drops it on the surface. They
will follow that with the compost top dressing and spread
that compost out. And I'm telling you cor aeration compost
top dressing, especially for heavy clay soils, but really any

(01:54:51):
kind of a lawn that's struggling, it is going to
get oxygen in the roots. It's going to invigorate the lawn.
You're going to have success. Golf courses or people are
trapesing up and down them and running the carts across them.
They are ate those things because they want the grass
to be perfect. They want it to be at its best.
Let BnB turf Pros do that. The phone number seven
one three two three four fifty five ninety eight. But

(01:55:14):
I would just go to the website BB no end.
In the website Bbturfpros dot com. Bbturfpros dot com, you
could see the work that they do and it's good,
I'm telling you. Without hesitation. Awesome, Awesome. We're gonna go
out to Liberty now and talk to Randy. Hey, Randy,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:55:36):
Good morning. What all makes some information on is a bamboo?
I wanna put up a privacy wall using bamboo or
something like that. Uh. The suggest.

Speaker 4 (01:55:51):
Bamboo comes in two types. One is clumping and one
is running. It's kind of like, you know, you have
ornamental grasses that just make a clump, and then you
got bermuda grass that runs everywhere. Well, bamboo that runs
if you don't have an underground wall, if you have
not created a barrier or underground you will regret you

(01:56:11):
planted it if you have any bit of a confined
space for it to grow in. So you want a
clumping type of bamboo. Now, wherever you go and do
your shopping, your quality garden centers and things, you're going
to be able to find bamboos. And if it's a
good mom and pop, they're going to be able to
tell you which kinds would be best what they carry

(01:56:33):
for your situation. There are some clumpers that get twenty
feet tall or more. I mean they really grow tall.
There are some clumpers that stay a little shorter, and
some of you need top them off if you want that,
don't get so big. They vary in heartiness. In general,
the clumpers tend to be a little less hardy than
the running bamboos. But there are some clumping bamboos that

(01:56:55):
are very dependably hardy for Houston area. So go to
where you would find a good quality service from an
independent garden center. Say what kind of clumping bamboos do
you have? And find out more about the ones they carry,
and you're gonna do good. You're gonna want to plant them.
Look at what the width of the plant should be,

(01:57:15):
and I would plant them probably about fifty to eighty
percent of that width if you want a solid cover. Okay,
So if you put them too far apart, they'll never
touch one to the next. So if you want that
solid cover, you gotta squeeze them a little bit. Remember too,
with bamboo, probably the most important thing I'm tey Randy,
is you got to be patient because the bamboo specialists

(01:57:39):
tell us that here's what they say about bamboo. The
first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps, and
the third year it leaps. And that's true. You plant
it and it's just sitting there. You're going skip. You
told me to play this bamboo is not doing anything.
Be patient. Second year a little bit of growth and
the third year year in business. So be patient with bamboo.

(01:58:00):
But good bamboo makes a wonderful screen. Wonderful screen.

Speaker 5 (01:58:06):
Yeah, all right, Umble, Humble toward Liberty area. You know
any uh, garden centers at Hell.

Speaker 4 (01:58:15):
You know, I would let me see you were in
the Humble area. Liberty would Yeah. Well, you know, you
go up to king Warn't Southern Gardens up in Kingwood.
I'll give them a call.

Speaker 9 (01:58:30):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:58:30):
And this is pretty far south for you. But you
go down to Seabrook to Moss Nursery, and they're going
to have it too down there. And I know it's
a little bit dry, but you know, you're kind of
out in that part of town where we don't have
a lot of big nurseries as you know. Uh, And
I would try. I would try one of those places
and give them a call first and see, uh that

(01:58:51):
that's that's probably where I would start.

Speaker 5 (01:58:54):
And they should be pert pretty uh, they should be
pretty good about plantinum and all everything I made no correct, Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:59:03):
They can advise you, but bamboo is easy to plant.
I mean, it's grass. You just put it in the
ground at the same level it was in the container.
Remember that when you plant it, the root system is
all in that little cylinder that you pulled out of
the pot. So you need to water right there, and
you need to water regularly. It doesn't need a swamp,
but it shouldn't dry out. Just like your lawn. If

(01:59:24):
your lawn dries out, you start to lose grass. Well,
don't let the bamboo dry because your goal these first
especially three years, is to get that thing growing as
best you can, get the most robust root system you can,
and so don't don't ever let its summer heat and
drought stress. Just keep it, keep it watered.

Speaker 5 (01:59:41):
Okay, all right, so much. I appreciate your health, thanks sir,
great day.

Speaker 4 (01:59:45):
Yes, sir, very happy to do that. You bet. I
was telling you about Pest Brothers early, and I was
talking about their mosquito system. By the way, Pest Brothers
is a regional pest control company. So I mean, if
you are you know, over in I don't know, maybe
Katie and all the way over to Baytown or from
Texas City up to the woodlands, that whole Houston area.

(02:00:07):
They cover that area. They do the indoor pest like
termites and roaches and all the other credits, a crawl
around the inside and then on the outside, fireance, mosquitoes,
wild varmits, like rats running around the property. Yes, they
are out there doing that. They know how to treat,
they know how to do it in a safe way,
and they make sure that you get successful long term

(02:00:28):
results without the worry about, oh my pets or my
kids are out there running around. Call them for a quote.
Two eight one two oh six forty six seventy two
eight one two o six four six seven zero. Here's
the website, the pest Bros Bros dpestbros dot com. Ask

(02:00:49):
them about their mosquito bait stations. It's the new industry
green standard for effective safe mosquito control. And when they
tell you about it, it's gonna blow your mind. It is.
It is the coolest, most effective, most safe system you
can come up with, and you can get it from
the pestbros dot com. I'm gonna head out to Missouri

(02:01:12):
City now we're gonna talk to Josh. Josh, you are
the caboos of the show today. Last collar of the day.
Welcome to garden line.

Speaker 5 (02:01:21):
Hey, I've got I'm up here in Houston, Missouri, not
Missouri City. I'm your buddy that lives just outside.

Speaker 4 (02:01:26):
Oh, Houston, Missouri. I've been to Houston, Missouri.

Speaker 5 (02:01:32):
Yep, yep, you said you went. We're near Mountain Grove,
aren't you.

Speaker 4 (02:01:37):
I spent three years in Mountain Grove. That's right. I
know where Kabool is and Rala and all your other
neighbors up. Oh yeah, hey, I hear music. We better
talk fast.

Speaker 5 (02:01:48):
I've got a question. Not leave bold compost. I've got
a bunch of race heads with it. What do I
need to amend it with?

Speaker 13 (02:01:53):
They planned?

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (02:01:56):
Lebo compost is fine for mixing in the soil. It's
fine for top dressing your lawn. But any kind of
a good quality compost mixed in the beds, if you'd
never put compost in those beds before, and you just
have your native soil, I'd put about three inches and
mix it in as deeply as you can. If you
have some compost in the soil, an inch or two
probably is going to be enough. But it opens up

(02:02:18):
the soil, It loosens up that clay, and it just
helps you have success. So you want top drainage, meaning
the beds raised up so excess water flows off. You
get a little bit of rain up there in Houston, Missouri.

Speaker 3 (02:02:29):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:02:29):
And you also want internal drainage so the water drains
down through it.

Speaker 1 (02:02:34):
We're building with purely full compost about four feet deep.

Speaker 5 (02:02:38):
I'm just curious what I need to add to get
them ready for plants.

Speaker 4 (02:02:42):
Oh all right, hang on, I'm gonna put you on hold.
My produci will pick up and we'll get you an
email for continuing this discussion.

Speaker 1 (02:02:51):
Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scip Richard.

Speaker 4 (02:02:54):
It's so pleas just watch him as world.

Speaker 2 (02:03:10):
Many seats.

Speaker 7 (02:03:19):
Not a sign.

Speaker 2 (02:03:25):
Sun beam.

Speaker 4 (02:03:32):
All right, welcome back to guard Line. Good to have
you with us today. Hey, I want to remind you
that next Saturday, that is March the first, I'm going
to be at the Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show.
Now that will be I'll be there from twelve noon
until two pm. I'm going to give a talk on

(02:03:53):
spring gardening tips and for the lawn and the garden,
the vegetables, flowers, all the trees, all kinds of things
like that, and then I'll just be taking your hardening questions.
If you want to bring me some samples of things
to identify, like what's this weed, what's this flower? If
you want to have things diagnosed, what's wrong with this plant?
Bring me some samples in I'll do that. And if

(02:04:13):
you would like to bring photos on your phone, we
can take a look. We can see what's going on
and help you have success. That's the goal there. So
I'll be there for two hours, given a talk. For
a while, I'll be giving away some products from the
folks at Nilsen Plant Food and as folks from Medina
Medina plant products as well, so really good quality products.

(02:04:34):
I have plenty of those on hand. I'll bring some
Texas Gardener magazines with me to provide for those of
you who don't receive Texas Gardener you need to, I'll
give you a sample to take a look at. It's
a great magazine, awesome magazine written by Texas gardeners, including myself,
for Texas gardeners. So come on out to the Montgomery County,

(02:04:55):
Montgomery County. This is seventh Daniel by the Way, seventh
annual Spring Montgomery County Home Outdoor Living Show at the
Lone Star Convention Center on Airport Road, right across from
the Extension Office and Montgomery County Agrolife Extension Office right
there in Conroe, Texas, twelve noon to one pm. Hey,
guess what Parking's free admission is free. Okay, you're out

(02:05:17):
of excuses. See you next Saturday. That's one way to
put it. I'd like to joke around a little bit
here on guarden line. I was talking about my yard.

Speaker 11 (02:05:29):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:05:29):
You know what when people come over, if I haven't
had a chance to get the place like I like
it to look, I just tell them, you know, the
cobblers kids go barefoot, right, that's what they say. Well,
the horticulturist's driving around all all the place, talking to
people and doing other things, comes home and yeah, maybe
I ought to make my yard look a little better.
It's time for that, and I've got the fertilizers ready

(02:05:50):
to go. I'm going to be doing a kind of
a mode down of the of the of the grass,
you know, get all the dead top growth out cut
down just a little bit. Now. That mowing is going
to come a little bit later, because I want to
make sure and leave that sunlight blocking cover. Even though
the dead grass is blocking sunlight. The red dead grass

(02:06:12):
blades are blocking sunlight from reaching the soil. So it
cuts down on your weed problems. So I'll leave that
just a little bit longer, but it's not long before
that mowing is going to get done. Also to it remember,
now's the time if you're going to do a pre
emergent herbicide, you need to do it now now. Now
go to my website gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening

(02:06:34):
with Skip dot Com. There is a free lawn care
schedule and a lawn pest disease and weed management schedule.
They're both multicolor beautiful, easy to follow, and they're available
for you to download or just look on your computer
and it tells you when to do what. So if
you're wondering what did chinchbugs typically occur here? When do

(02:06:58):
I treat for brownpaths? One? Need you need to get
a pre emergent herbicide down by? And what products are
available out there to use? Those schedules answer all those questions.
When's the best time of fertilize at this time of year?
Which fertilizer should I be using? You know, we don't
use the same fertilizer all year, different times of the year.
We have different products that we're putting out. It's all

(02:07:20):
there on the schedules. It's all free. Can't can't beat
that price, that's for sure. If you'd like to give
me a call seven to one three, two to one
two k t RH. Seven to one three two to
one two kt RH. It is time now to do
your pruning to spruce up things. You want to do
it right. It is very important that when you take

(02:07:44):
care of your plants, when you're going to do pruning,
you want to do that pruning properly, because just to
cut a plant because you own a sharp saw or pruners, however,
seems right to you, that is not the way to
go about it. You need to learn what that plant
needs needs to succeed. And that's why we see crape
murder everywhere around town. People look around, they see these

(02:08:06):
landscape companies that are just whacking them off above a
little above head high. That is not how you pun
a create myrtle. That is not how you pune a
creat mardle. They call that crepe murder, just to make
the point that that's not how you prune a creat myrtle.
But people do it so people do it right. Remember
when you were a kid and you said, can I
go to I don't know, the mall or something? And

(02:08:30):
your parents said no. And they said, well, Mary or
Johnny's getting to go to the mall. His parents will
let him go. He said, well, if Mary or Johnny
jumped off a cliff, would you two? Remember that annoying
conversation you had with your parents. Well, just because landscapers
are printing crapes like that does not mean that's how
you purne them. It does not. Landscapers create multi volcanoes

(02:08:53):
at the base of plants. It looks like you have
giant fire ant mounts that are piled up against the
trunk of the base of the plant. That is not
good for trees. Don't do that. Do it the right way.
Learn how to do it, Learn how to prune the
plant you have, Take good care of it that way,
and you're going to have success. The folks at Medina
have created a lot of different products that work and

(02:09:17):
that will give you success with your plants. And there's
so many of them. You know which one do I
talk about next, because there's always another good one. One
of them I like is Medina plus. Medina Plus is
fortified with extra micro nutrients, and it's got seaweed extract
in it, which is very important, very helpful for plants
or getting gardeners who have known that for years. You

(02:09:37):
can use it as a folier feed for whether it's
a tree, a shrub, a perennial, a flour, a vegetable,
a lawn. I mean, it's not going to burn anything.
Medina plus it's got over forty trace elements and it's
got sided kinin, which is a natural growth hormone that
comes out of the seaweed extract, some magnesium, iron, zinc,
and vitamins. A lot of different things are in the

(02:09:59):
Medine Plus. It has all the benefits of Medina soil
activator plus all these other things. Now, if you were
going to soak seed, remember earlier I was talking about
I soak my seed the night before I plant them.
Most types of seed you can soak them in Medina plus.
It'll work and it helps them as well get off
to a good start. You can also use it a

(02:10:20):
drench in new transplants. You can put on a hose
in sprayer and newfolier with it, folder feed with it.
It's all from the folks at Medina Medina plus a
liquid product that is widely available here in our Greater
Houston area. I am coming up on the first break.
When we come back, Carolyn Spring will be our first

(02:10:40):
caller coming up and you can be sucond seven one
three two one two KTRH. Well, hey, welcome back, Welcome
back to the garden line. If you can get yourself
to the the Seabrook area and go by Moss Nursery,
you need to do that.

Speaker 7 (02:11:01):
It is.

Speaker 4 (02:11:03):
I always laugh at the place. It's like, I don't
know how you get a car in the parking lot
with all the shipments they've got coming on. But they
constantly are getting shipments. They just loaded up on some
beautiful house plants. And if you've ever been to mass
you know what their houseplant greenhouse looks like. It is incredible.
The foliage is gorgeous. Do you like succulents and cacti? Unbelievable,

(02:11:25):
Absolutely unbelievable. They have so many kinds and you just
wander through there. And by the way, it's an old
weather greenhouse, right, it's a greenhouse. Got to cover over.
It's nice and warm and toasty inside. It's time to
get by there, because I'm telling you this, when the
sun comes out, people are gonna be covering it up,
and you got to get out there and get yours first.
But they have a great, great selection. They also got

(02:11:46):
in some bonsye nice little buns eye already in containers already.
The training has already be gone on them. And that
is a cool thing. If you ever tried it, you
ought to try one of those. Those are fun if
you like yard art, and if you like decorations like
pots that have the colorful pots. I don't know anybody's
guy as many as they do down there at Moss Nursery.
And then the little things like you know, the multicolored

(02:12:08):
salamanders and frogs that you put out there in the
ground and decorate, just so you know. That's what Moss
is like. It's so whimsicle. You walk around the eight
acres of this family owned nursery, seventy year old nursery.
You walk around the eight acres, and every corner you
turn there's something else interesting. It's of course the plants.
Plants are everywhere, every kind you can imagine, but all

(02:12:30):
the whimsy, you know, the decorations, the statues, the water fountains,
the just go see it. When it comes to hanging baskets,
oh my angel wing Bagonia baskets have come in recently
and you should see those things. They are gorgeous. Anyway,
I could just go on and on Moss Nursery in

(02:12:51):
Seabrook on Toddville Road. I don't care where you live.
Drive over there, take a look at it. It is
a great place to visit. Out to spring now and
we're going to talk to Carol. Hello Carol, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 7 (02:13:06):
Hi Skiff, how are you.

Speaker 4 (02:13:09):
I'm well, thank you.

Speaker 7 (02:13:11):
I have a question what's the best compost for containers
and raised beds.

Speaker 4 (02:13:21):
Well, if you're going to do a container, you want
a nice mix that has enough poor space to drain well,
so it's not just real dense, thicky money, but it
has some good drainage in it. And so some quality
potting mixes. I know there is a product Nitropruss mix
called jungle Land that works good. There's an indoor and
an outdoor version of jungle Land. So for your indoor plants,

(02:13:45):
use the one with water saving crystals. For the outdoor version,
the standard jungle Land for vegetables and flowers works well.
As your container gets bigger, you can start to use
something a little more chunky. I know people that even
put like a rose soil in a very very large
container because you know, you just have the volume in
the space to be able to do that. What are

(02:14:05):
you wanting to grow in the container?

Speaker 8 (02:14:09):
Mainly vegetables and herbs?

Speaker 4 (02:14:15):
Okay, then I would get there is a veggie an
herb mix, a veggian herb mix airloin soil sells it
sold by the bag all around town, so you know,
with a container by the bag, and that is a
very good mix. Now, if your container is small, let's
say five gallons or less, I probably wouldn't use the

(02:14:37):
veggie and herb mix. Got a little bit more volume
to it, that would be a good one. Actually five gallons,
it would be five for that fine for that, But
veggie nerd mix would be the one I would go with,
even in a large container.

Speaker 8 (02:14:50):
Okay, So if I want to revitalize my soil from
last year, I just how would I do that?

Speaker 4 (02:15:00):
Get you some more? I would just get a fine quality,
well screened compost and I would mix that in or
get more of the same product, and just you know,
mix it into your pot to kind of raise that
level back up because it always settles down, and then
replant in it. You can go either way, okay, And

(02:15:22):
what would be the best fertilizer for blueberries? For blueberries?
There are some acidic fertilizers, you know. Nelson has one
in the jar that is for it's for acid loving
plants like Camellia azalea. The if you see if you
see blueberry, Commillia azalia or anything on a label that's
an acid loving plant fertilizer, you could you could use that,

(02:15:45):
you know. Another one I would do, especially if you're
going to be transplanting into these containers soon, is get
you some of Nelson has one called Genesis. It's an
organic type product that you mix into the potting soil
before you plant, and then you plant in it and
it helps it get off to a better fast start
after it begins growing. Then you can continue to fertilize

(02:16:08):
with regular fertilizers in small amounts, but start off with
that Genesis in the soil and you're going to see
a better result in your plants. I've tried it myself.
I rel like it. Hi, all right, Well, thank you
very much, all right, Carol, good luck. Send me the
pictures when all these things start blooming and fruiting and
everything else. And you know, if it's vegetables, you gotta

(02:16:28):
share half the produce with me because I've tried to
help you out today. Okay, well, I'll do my best.
I'm joking you don't want to share? Bye? Oh boy?
Why do I say that? I don't know? All right.
Whild Bird's Unlimited is the place that you go for
anything anything related to birds. Do you need feeders? Do

(02:16:51):
you need houses? Do you need a bird bath? Do
you want advice? Oh? My gosh. The folks at wild
Birds Unlimited, no birds. I picked their brain all the time.
I get questions from callers or I have questions myself
or my own backyard, and I just ask and they
always have a good, thoughtful answer because they know what

(02:17:13):
they're talking about. Cardinal confetti, the new blend. That's one
you need to get. Now. Everybody loves cardinals at a
bird feeder. They're so beautiful. They even have the folklore
that goes with them. But cardinals love that Cardinal confetti.
It's got a mix of all kinds of cool stuff,
including dried meal worms and sunflowered chips and something called

(02:17:34):
bark butter bits and peanut halves in it. They love it.
You can get the cardinal tube feeder to feed it.
You can get the good evening cardinal feeder to put
it in, or you can just put it in your feeder.
It's okay to do that. Bark butter is a spreadable suet.
You smear it like on a tree trunk. You can
smear it on anything. If your husband's taking a nap
out there on a lazy boy, smear some on him.

(02:17:55):
The birds will show up. They've documented over one hundred
and fifty species of birds. That I mean Jim's berdaceous
Bark butter is like bird crack. They love that stuff.
It works really really well. But bottom line is go
to wild Birds Unlimited. No matter what kind of bird
seeds you're going to get, you're going to get quality

(02:18:16):
seed that birds like. There are no mess blends, have
no mess. You buy a pound of no mess blend
from Wildbirds Unlimited. A pound goes into a bird's tummy.
That's how that works, not kicked off on the ground,
not shells land all over. It works. How do you
want to go about it. Just go there. That's the
main thing. Let's go out to Sugarland. Now we're going

(02:18:38):
to talk to Denise. Hey Denise, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (02:18:41):
Hey Skip, good morning. A question about a VI text three.
We have had this B text tree. I think it's
either two or three years old. It was probably five
feet tall when we put it in, and it's totally
out of control. It's crazy. So we're getting ready to
poun it down. How much and how do we do it?

(02:19:03):
Can you how much can you take off the top?
I guess is my question?

Speaker 4 (02:19:09):
Well, let me put it this way, Denise. If you
took a chainsaw and cut it off at the ground,
it would come back. I mean, there's not a limit
to how much you prove of IEX. Those things are
tough as nails. They also are kind of difficult to shape.
I've got one, and you know it wants to kind
of zigzag and go this way and that way. So

(02:19:30):
this idea of you've got a tree trunk and then
there are these branches going out and V text is
kind of hard. So you sort of esthetically create what
you want and be willing to cut it back and
be willing after you cut it back and it starts growing.
To cut it back some more to keep it into
the shape and size you want. And there's not a rule.
There's not a picture book on how to prune of vitex.

Speaker 8 (02:19:53):
Okay, what about around the bottom? Will it ever branch
out or leaf out lower down for the soil?

Speaker 4 (02:20:01):
If you cut one back, then the new growth that
comes out, you can begin to trim it. You know,
when it shoots a foot long and you cut the
tip out where you're going to get side shoots that
come out from there, and so you can kind of
guide it along once you've got this big, tall branch.
My text is pretty good at sending buds out even
along the older parts of the wood. But the older

(02:20:24):
the branch gets the trunk gets, the less likely you're
going to get a sprout from it. So if you're
not getting enough growth down low, you may need to
do a little heavier pruning to kind of force it
to push some other growth out.

Speaker 8 (02:20:38):
Okay, and then what about there's branches every which way
and real tiny branches like twigs in there? Do you
trim those out?

Speaker 4 (02:20:48):
Yeah? You know you can. I mean there are people
that never touch their vtext it just grows and does
what it wants to do, and you get some little
twigs that finally die and fall out and stuff one
end of the spectrum the other end as people go in,
you know, in the wintertime, and you've got all those
dead seaedheads that came out from last year still sitting
up there, and they prune out all the little twiggy stuff.

(02:21:10):
It's somewhat tedious, but you can certainly do that too.
It'll overall it'll look better. But the main thing is
to do this. Go ahead.

Speaker 8 (02:21:20):
It sounds like my husband needs this chainsaw becauny.

Speaker 4 (02:21:26):
Okay, okay, Well, if you want to go, if you
want to go that right top the top.

Speaker 8 (02:21:33):
But I'm I'm all for getting it down because it's
it's big.

Speaker 4 (02:21:39):
Yeah. And but but if you're going to go drastic,
you know, chainsaw root, then just be ready as it
starts to grow to form the type of plant you want.
You know, do you want multi stems going in all directions?
Do you want uh, you know, more of a single
ton of trunk? When do you want the branches to start?
So you're pruning and guiding after the chainsaw ends, it

(02:22:00):
is going to be what forms the shape and the
kind of plant that you want. But you have to
stay with it because vitex it just kind of it
just kind of haphazard in the way that it grows,
shoots very very different kind of plant.

Speaker 8 (02:22:14):
All right, well, thanks a lot, have a good day,
all right.

Speaker 4 (02:22:18):
Good luck, you take care. I like that chain saw
that booker. We can you can, they can take it,
they can take it. It is time to put out barricade, folks,
if you're gonna stop the weeds that are called warm
season weeds. That's not the weeds that are in your
yard now. What you see now is a cool season weed.
Barricade now does not control cool season weeds that are

(02:22:41):
currently in your lawn. Barricade in the fall will prevent
what you're seeing now, But for now, it's the grass
burrs and the crab grass and other warm season weeds
that will be starting to germinate if they haven't already,
because we've had had that week of eighty degrees and
we're about to have a decent wa this week. Get
it down now, water it in half inch of water,

(02:23:03):
get it into the soil surface. Then you're done. Then
you're done. Then it goes to work and it's up
the barricade to take it from there. Now you're gonna
find barricade at D and de Feed up in Tomol,
you're gonna find all the really night fast products. The
place is like the M and d Ace Hardware, which
there's one down in on Beamer. There's one on Bayer Boulevard, Sagemont,

(02:23:25):
Clairlake Beamer, M and D and Claarlake B and D.
M and D is the place plants and things in Brunham.
Another place M and D up in Cypress on Louetta Road.
That's another place you can get night frost barricade. Let's
see here. Where are we on time? Yeah? I got
a lot of time here. I tell you what. I'm
gonna hold off a Nick and Cypress, Adolf and Menville.

(02:23:46):
You'll be our first two up when we come back.
I'd like to be able to give you plenty of
time to answer your questions before we run along. So
we're gonna hold off just a second here. Bu can
just native plants in the Heights is one of those
garden centers where you better leave yourself some time because
it is. It's outstanding. When you wander through there, you

(02:24:09):
see all kinds of things. They specialize in natives, but
they have everything. Greenhouses, full of houseplants. They got lots
of good fruit right now in stock They've got shade
loving plants. They've got annuals, perennials and herb flowers. Everything
you need, and they have train staff that know what
they're talking about. Plus brown stuff before green stuff. They've

(02:24:30):
got heirloom soils, they've got Nature's Way Resources soils. They've
got Nelson Plant for nitrofoss microlife. The whole nine yards
is there to help you have success. Go to Buchanansplants
dot com. That's the website, Buchanansplants dot com to have
your success. They're sitting there visiting my producer trying to
figure out, well, how does somebody decide to name a

(02:24:53):
band Papa Roads or a cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I think a couple of people were sitting on drinking
and they made a bad I got an idea for
a cartoon, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's like that
had to have been induced by some substance. Anyway, you're
listening to garden Line. We're not here to critique music.

(02:25:13):
Or cartoons. We're here to help you have success with
your garden. So let's get on with that. We're gonna
head out to Cyprus, Texas and talk to Nick. Hey, Nick,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (02:25:24):
Hey.

Speaker 15 (02:25:24):
Is this rud Bon Jovie tickets?

Speaker 5 (02:25:26):
I'm just kidding.

Speaker 4 (02:25:28):
Yes, they're absolutely free. Just show up and tell them.
Skip said to let you in.

Speaker 5 (02:25:34):
I was gonna say that.

Speaker 15 (02:25:36):
I was gonna say that a perfect segue into your
conversation about barricade. I literally just put it down. After
your show yesterday, I went into. Okay, I went in
and I put down the barricade, and then I put
down the wheaton feet.

Speaker 4 (02:25:51):
On top of that. Is that gonna wipe out my
rye grass? I'm just kind of curious. I just put
that down. Can you tell me which weed and feed
you put down? The which we feed the blue bag?
Was it the blue bag or the purple? Okay? Yes?
That those the nitrophos, which with trimac kills broad leaf weeds,

(02:26:16):
and the barricade you put down prevents the warm season
weeds that I'm gonna come up. Yet, the nitropos with
trimec will not kill grasses, winter grasses. It's a broadly
weed control. So they'll stay there, but they're gonna they're
gonna kind of get hot and burn up here for
too long, So you can just keep mowing them and
ignoring them for right now.

Speaker 11 (02:26:36):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:26:37):
Depending on the kind of grass it is, you may
need to put a premurgeon in the fall to prevent
it from germinating, you know, the little uh we call
it poa annual it's annual bluegrass. H that's always a
problem in lawns, and that germinates in the fall, and
barricade would stop it from germinating. But once it's there,
now you're just kind of stuck with it, Okay, okay, yeah,

(02:27:00):
I just yeah. And the guy at I was at the.

Speaker 15 (02:27:05):
A said at Langham Creek and George is very helpful,
talked about a lot about you. So just yeah, give
them a little bit of credit, and I'll probably end
up going back in space, oh, spending some more cast there.

Speaker 4 (02:27:15):
So great store, good, good folks. Yeah, it's a great say.
They they revamped that store so over there by you
know five nine. Uh yeah, I can't say that is
the Barkersipers nor south on there. Yeah, yeah, store, isn't it. Yeah? Yeah,
it's a it's a great They've really done an amazing
job turning that store around. Really good work in there.

Speaker 15 (02:27:39):
Okay, yeah, really appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (02:27:40):
But thanks for the information. I appreciate it, all right, sir,
Thanks for the call. And uh, if you find free
Bunjovie tickets, call back and tell me where I need
to go pick them up. Thank you? Oh you'll leave
up ye? All right? All right, enough of that fooling
around League City feed. We love our feed stores here

(02:28:01):
on Garden Line. You go down to League City and
you're gonna find one of the best. League City feed
is a few blocks south of Highway ninety six on
Highway three and it serves the whole region. I keep
telling you all this. I mean, don't you don't have
to leave live in League City for this to be
your feed store. If you're in San Leone or Lamark
or Baycliffe or Webster or Santa Fe Clare, Lake City,

(02:28:21):
I'll come into Reale. Dickinson is not enough. This is
your hometown feed store. It is. They carry nitrofoss, they
carry azomite for your tradition mentals, they carry in microlife,
they carry Nelson plant food. You're going to find a
lot of different kinds of products from them. They also
have some airlom soils on hand to by the way,
if you need pesticides and secticides, if you need fungicides,

(02:28:44):
if you need these weed control products we're talking about,
they're at League City Feed. You're going to find them
there now. This place is open Monday through Saturday until
six pm, nine to six pm, so after work you
can swing by there. They're closed today, but all week long,
all the way through Saturday, nine to six pm. Here's
a phone number two eight one three three two sixteen twelve.

(02:29:06):
Whether it's things for your yard and garden or maybe
your backyard chicken supplies, they've got it. They got everything
but the chickens. I believe that's the way they put
it when they talk to me. And also some nice
local honey from that area down there too. Go buy,
say hi to the Thunderbergs and grab you some quality products.
Old Time Feed Store still carry the sacks out for

(02:29:27):
you if you want them to do that. League City
Feed on Highway three, a few blocks south of Highway
ninety six in League City. We're heading to Manville, Texas
next to talk to Adolf. Hello. Adoff, Welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 5 (02:29:43):
Good morning, good question.

Speaker 14 (02:29:47):
Plan chatty.

Speaker 5 (02:29:50):
Thanks Feens, And I added what I think.

Speaker 4 (02:29:55):
Is that's too Hey, Adolph, you are really eight if
you're really muffled. And I heard cabbage and ozma cot,
but I'm barely able to hear what you're saying. I
don't know if you can change something there, but we'd
love to hear what you're saying a little bit. Go ahead, okay, anyway,

(02:30:22):
there you go. There you go.

Speaker 8 (02:30:25):
Is asthma coat Okay?

Speaker 5 (02:30:26):
For the cabbage, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:30:29):
It's fine. I mean it's a slow release fertilizer. It's
going to give you about three or four months of
release most of the time. You can do that. You
can also do that with some of our standard lawn
types of fertilizer that would work on cabbage or some
of our other vegetables specifically vegetable types of fertilizer that

(02:30:50):
you could buy. And so I generally would recommend a
different one than that, but that product will work, that
will release nutrients over time. It's the same for cammas.

Speaker 5 (02:31:02):
What can I do to prevent.

Speaker 10 (02:31:09):
What do you?

Speaker 4 (02:31:13):
Yes? Yes, uh I tell you what I've lost you again? Uh,
I'm gonna have my producer pick up and see if
we can resolve that. If not, just tell him what
you're wanting to prevent and I'll answer that on the
air adolf. For some reason, we got a little garble there.

Speaker 1 (02:31:30):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:31:31):
If you're looking for a quality soil, someone's asking me
before about what do you put in a what do
you put in a container? Jungle in junglelen is what
you put in a container. It's they've got an outdoor
one called the jungle and flour and vegetable planting soils
for containers, made for containers. It drains well, but it
holds some moisture. It's got four different kinds of age

(02:31:52):
bark in. It's got microizel fungi, some Canadian blonde pete.

Speaker 7 (02:31:56):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:31:56):
It's just a good concoction for good drainage and act
good water holding capacity and good success. Indoors go with
the water saving potting soil jungle land water saving potting
soil because it's got those crystals in it that swell
up with water and help extend the time when your
roots can get water. If you forget the water, those
crystals are holding on to some water that that plant

(02:32:18):
can get access to. Now you're going to find jungle
land at all kinds of places. You know, night Foss
products are widely available. You go onto Fisher's Hardware, both
the one and both the one in Pasadena, the one
in La Port, the one in Bellevue, and Fishers Hardware
down in Baytown. They also carry it as well down there.
Hiding and Feed on steubenor Airline North they had it.

(02:32:42):
And in Chenna Gardens at Chenna Gardens out in Richmond
Rosenberg on FM three point fifty nine carries night to
Foss products and so stop by there and you can
find your night Foss products in those places as well.
You are listening to guarden Line, and it is time
for me to take a break, So I'm going to
stop talking right now and turn it over to a

(02:33:02):
quick break and I'll be right back with your calls
at seven one three two one two k t RH. So,
welcome back to Guardenline, Popes. Good to have you with us.
You know, when you're trying to have success, you know
you've heard me say that ten thousand times. It begins

(02:33:24):
with the soil round st up over green stuff, all
of that. The folks at Heirloom Soils have really perfected
the soil slash compost slash moltz slash bed mix.

Speaker 2 (02:33:38):
World.

Speaker 4 (02:33:39):
You know, in every way they do things right. For example, uh,
they all their blends are just rich in beneficial microbes
to enrich your soils because it's that living component of
this oil, the microbes that are the secrets of success.
They don't use cheap filler ingredients. You know. They don't
put a bunch of wood pulp or raw maltz in

(02:34:02):
there and then sell it to you. That is not
a good way to go. It takes time to make
a good product, and they take time to do it.
They do not use bank sand a lot of times.
The bank sand you're going to get nut's edge and
other kinds of weed problems. They use only a washed
sand product to try to avoid any kind of weed
problems or any kind of a clay Sometimes there's a

(02:34:22):
clay content in that too, and the wash sand helps
avoid that. Now, they don't use raw top soil because
you know you skiop tops, are you gonna get wheat seeds?
Weat seeds are everywhere. They only use composted soil fines.
It's a little kind of a small particles that fall
out of the in this process that are soil themselves,
but they're very very fine textures, and they they use that.

(02:34:45):
They only process their ingredients in house. You know, they
want to maintain the quality. They want to avoid issues
with contamination. They don't let their piles go sour where
they end up. You know, if you let an organic
matter pop sit and go anaerobic, no oxygen, you get
some nasty smells and you get some nasty chemical compounds

(02:35:06):
that nature forms in those conditions that you don't want.
The folks at Airloom Soils they avoid that. They know
how to avoid that. They compost, they cure, they blend
all the products in house. Now whether you're buying, and
I could spend spend a whole hour talking about all
the different products they have. The compost at hardwood moults,
the landscape bed mix, the rose blend rose it says

(02:35:30):
rose and bloomers really because anything with flowers like that's
going to do well. The works potting soil, the cactus
and succulent mix, the veggie and herb mix, the fruit
did I say fruit berry and citrus mix. And they
also sell just expanded shale and they excel. They sell
an expanded shell plus compost and our clay soils. Compost

(02:35:50):
is great compos a miracle worker for our soils. The
compost breaks down over time, and so the expanded shale.
Think of it as a little tiny miniature law a rock.
They'd beal tiny with all the pores in them. And
you put enough of that in soil about three inches
over a clay soil bed and mix it in thoroughly,
and you've got a very long term, loose arable soil

(02:36:12):
that clay doesn't just mash down and reform like that
around it. Expanded shill has its place, and then say
you expanded hill too, and different products. Heirloom Soils is
the name of the company, and they are out there
in Porter, Texas. They do delivery's book. You can go
out there and you can get it yourself with your vehicle,
or you can just drive around town. Go to some

(02:36:33):
good garden centers, go to good feed stores, ace hardware stores,
Southwest fertilize. There's a lot of places you can get
heirloom soils. You need to try them. They work all right.
That's that. Hey, I don't want you to forget, but
I am going to be at the spring Montgomery count
excuse me, the Montgomery County Spring Home and Outdoor Living

(02:36:54):
Show next Saturday, March first, from ten excuse me, from
twelve twelve noon until two pm. I'll give a talk.
I'll answer your gardening question. Fill your plastic bags full
of weeds and plants to identify. We'll do that. If
you want to do that, we won't do that. Or bugs.
Take a bug, put it under a hot lamp, make

(02:37:15):
it confess its name. We'll do that. And we'll also
just answer any gardening question. To bring me photos on
your phone. We can do all that as well. I
wanted to make a comment about pruning right quick, before
we get too far along here. When you are pruning,
if you think there may be a disease, maybe a
canker disease like or something like fireblight on a plant,
and you don't want to spread that from one plant

(02:37:37):
to another, or from a healthy portion of a plant,
or from a sick portion to a healthy portion, you
can sterilize your pruners between cuts. But here's what you
need to know. There are three ways to do it,
and the first one is ten percent alcohol in water.
Excuse me, ten percent bleach in water. Ten percent bleach

(02:37:58):
in water. That works to kill the disease, but it
if you don't really clean those and oil those prunters,
you're going to get rusting and pitting really bad from
that bleach water, So you got to be extra careful
with that one. The next one is rubbing alcohol. Just
a good strong alcohol solution. You can buy those little

(02:38:20):
paint jars of it, cut the top off and dip
your prunters in those. They're cheap, it's easy to do,
and that works well. The way I like best is
just something like lyf salt that you spray on them
that kills germs. We know that that's what they sell
it for. And you just spray both sides your printers,
kind of move them around a little bit to get
them all in there, and then go on when possible,
prune the healthy part are healthy plants first, and then

(02:38:44):
last do the printing and the disease rather than vice versa,
which means you're carrying that disease along. But that printer
sterilization trick is very important if you want to avoid
spreading things. Some of the rosecankers, some of the fire
blight that attacks pairs and Pyracantha and other plants out there.
It's a tip I hope that helps. I do want

(02:39:06):
to mention one more time. I talked about azimid earlier.
But azemite is a trace mineral product. It is mined
out of Utah, has seventy seven known trace animals or
micronutrients in it, and it provides those things that are
essential for plant growth but only needed in small amounts.
A forty four pound bag covers six to twelve thousand
square feet of your lawn. I use it in a

(02:39:28):
vegetable garden ten pounds per thousand square feet in your
vegetable garden. That works good too. You can go to
asmit textas and learn more about it, and you can
do it anytime of the year. Now, if it's easier
for you to remember to do it when you fertilize
with your regular lawn fertilizers, then do that. Just put
them in separate applications. Don't mix them because particle size
is different. But put out your fertilizer and then your azemite,

(02:39:51):
or your azemite and then your fertilizer. If that makes
it easier for you to do it, then but don't
think that you can only do asamite when I have
fertilizer schedule on my schedule, fertilizer times on my schedule,
has Mike can be done anytime that you want to
do it. All right, let's uh, let's take a little
break from me talking and go out here, and we
want to talk to Tony and Cyprus. Hey, Tony, got

(02:40:13):
a couple of minutes here, Let's see what we can
do a sally.

Speaker 11 (02:40:18):
If it's actually Troy, but I'm looking for recommendations flower home.
I have a two story home with the front door
faces west, and I have two good sized oak trees
in the front yard, so the section north of the
front door does not get a lot of sun. The
section south of the front door a little bit more,
but not most of the area it's covered by trees.

Speaker 4 (02:40:41):
And yeah goes by. Yeah, Troy, you sent me pictures
of that, didn't you correct? Okay, good, Yeah, I saw
that that. That's those are good, very helpful. What what
kind of what are you looking for? You're looking for
a little flowers? Do you do you just want shrubs
or do you want some perennials.

Speaker 11 (02:40:59):
Or definitely some color and definitely something that I don't
have to do a lot of work for I don't
want to keep having to go out there every every
two weeks and cuts or tram.

Speaker 4 (02:41:11):
Okay, So shrubs are shrubs are going to be kind
of important. I would I would consider a very dwarf
type of Chinese witch hazel. They have beautiful burgundy growth
in the spring, they have hot pink, little shaggy flowers.

Speaker 11 (02:41:26):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:41:26):
And you want a very dwarf type because undwarfed type
non dwarf types can get quite large and you don't
have to be constantly pruning them. But a very dwarf
type of Chinese witchl hazel, purple burgundy foliage, that would
be a good choice in there. Anything that gives you
foliage color too. You know, there's some various types of
clumping grass like plants.

Speaker 11 (02:41:47):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:41:47):
We you know what loriopy is. There's other plant one
called dianella that is a lot of white in it
and that really brightens the shady area. So you might
want to put that along the edge by the lawn
and then have something green or colorful behind it. Depending
on the actual foot candles, which is hard for me
to judge there. You may have decent success with something

(02:42:10):
like plumbago, which has there's a blue and a white
flowered form of that, a light blue flower. Those are
a few good ideas that you might want to consider. Say,
appreciate it all right, sir, you bet, thanks for the
call man. Appreciate that