Weeds Be Gone

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning on a good Saturday morning. We are glad
you're with us. By the way, this is Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to talk
about gardening. You got any questions, let's do that seven
to one to three two one two kt rh. I'll
talk about some things that I think are important for
the season, but the most important thing are your questions.

(00:20):
Do you have issues with your lawn, your garden, your landscape.
Maybe you're thinking about planning some vegetables and like some
tips for advice, or got some strange bug crawling across
the produce that we need to talk about. We can
do all that kind of stuff and happy to do it.
It's seven one three two one two kt rh. This
week I finished putting a stone patio in the backyard.

(00:45):
I've been laying some stone down and you know it's
what we call, I guess, a dry patio, something no concrete.
I've got a cypress tree that has a bad habit
of sending knees up and it'll crack a lot of
things that I try to to do out there. So
I decided to do a drystack and that way, if
the if a knee comes up, I can move a stone,

(01:07):
get rid of the knee and put it back down again.
Don't look forward to doing that, but at least at
least as possible. Anyway, I finished that, and I am glad.
I was just about out of ibuprofen at the time,
so we survived it. But it's nice to do little
things out in the yard and garden to kind of
fix things up a little bit so you can enjoy

(01:27):
the place even more. Now that we finally are getting
this wonderful weather that we've been having, makes it so
nice to be outside and get things done. I guess
now's the time for all of us to be getting
a list of the activities we want to finish up
prior to it cooling off a little bit more. And
all the holidays that come through at the end of

(01:49):
the year tend to take our attention away to other things.
Just remember it is still fall, and it will be
for a while. We don't know what the winter will
arrive or many days it'll be, probably somewhere between three
and four days. This year we have such a mild climate,
but anyway, we don't know when it'll arrive. But now
his fall, now is the time to plant Oh my goodness.

(02:11):
If you're going to put a tree of shrub or
a woody vine in, put it in now. Give it
the most time possible before hot weather arrives next year.
That's important. The first year is the toughest year for
a new plant. And by giving it a head start
you have you've done a number of things. You've saved
yourself money because if you have to replace a plant,

(02:33):
that costs money. One other way that you save money
by fall planning, or you can save money by fall planning,
is if you were to take a smaller plant and
put it in in the fall. Let's say it's a
perennial like a salvi or something, and you put it
in in the fall, and then you wait until spring
and you buy the next size up. It's always significantly
more to buy the next size up than the size down.

(02:57):
You could put the next size up in in the
spring and by summer you won't be able to tell
the differenstween those two plants. Now, if you on instant, wow, yeah,
buy the bigger plant and just get there a lot faster.
But I'm just telling you that fall planning has a
lot of advantages. And in addition to being good for
the plant's survivability. It's just a head start. Plus it's

(03:20):
a nice time to be out there taking care of planting.
Speaking of, we're coming up on what for home owners
is a pruning season, the dormant season when homeowners do
most of their pruning. It's also when tree services do
a lot of their pruning, and Martin spun more with
affordable trees. No different. Martin does the just a huge

(03:42):
amount of pruning work in the cool season because that's
an ideal time to prune. You can prune twelve months
oft of the year if you need to. But I'm
just saying the time that we are entering, or have
been and now for a while and definitely will carry
us on through winter, is a very important time. And
I would reckon you get on Martin's schedule, have him
come out and look at what you got. You know,

(04:04):
take a look at the trees. What do they need?
What's his advice? Do you know we do we need
to remove some narrow branch angles because those are the
ones that often tend to crack. Do you have some
dead branches in a tree or other issues. He can
look at the trees and tell all that all that
kind of thing. While he's there, take a look. If
you're going to do any tree planting, if you've got

(04:24):
a young tree and you need to do training on it,
get some advice on that. Get somebody that knows what
they're doing. Listen, there's a lot of people that own
a chainsaw and drive around putting business cards in people's door.
That does not mean they know what they're doing. In fact,
chances are they don't from my experiences. But Martin does.

(04:44):
And if you want to give him a call at
seven one three six ' nine nine two six six
' three, he can come out and check it out
for you, give you the advice you need. Maybe you're
going to be putting in a trench for some utility,
or maybe you're putting in a new driveway or some
other thing. Anytime you do anything within the branch spread
of the tree, even beyond that affects them a little bit. Uh,

(05:07):
you need to have somebody knows what they're talking about
Guidejoe on that. Martin spoon Moore is the one Martin,
and is Joe. This is Joe. Yeah, Here is Joe
his wife Joe. They he are the ones that answer
the phone. If you call Affordable Tree Service and you
don't hear Martin or Joe answer the phone. There are
people out there that just you know, they call their
company whatever they want and do whatever. They just call

(05:29):
back a different Just call back again because you've gotten
the wrong place. Somebody has misled you. Seven to one
three six nine nine two six six three Martin and
Joe Spoon Moore. If you want to go to the
website aff Tree Service dot com a f F the
first three letters in affordable aff Tree Service dot com.

(05:52):
Main thing is get on the schedule. Tell them your
guardline listener. He stays busy. I'm telling you he does
stay busy, and as a result, don't delay. You want
to get on his schedule for winter gets over with
a portable Tree's times. Somebody just the other day that
use them as very pleased with the work that they got,
which is what we would expect from Affordable Tree. I

(06:16):
mentioned being outside working on the patio. I've got an
orchard area that's a that makes it sound bigger than
it is on the along the side of my house,
a little strip of area that's very, very bright and sunny,
but it is not well, let's just say it's it's
it's it's pretty narrow. So I've gotten a single row

(06:36):
of fruit trees along there. I've got enough room to
do that. And I'm getting soil ready, getting some irrigation
things set up and get you know, just getting anything
ready to go. I'll be doing that planting pretty soon
here too. Just remember on anything before we plant, what
do we do. We affects the soil, brown stuff before
green stuff, and that is an important thing to make

(06:57):
sure that that gets done if you want to have success.
Which time for me to take a break. I'm going
to do that and I'll be right back at seven
one three two one two ktr H. I'm glad you're
with us today. We got a lot to talk about,
as we always do in garden Line. There's so many plants,
so little time. That's the way it is, you know.

(07:17):
The more I guess we should have a disclaimer on
garden Line, and that is that gardening may be addictive,
maybe habit forming. That's a warning because it is you
get into one kind of plant and get into something else.
And there's always something new to learn, something cool and
fun to learn too, And there's there's levels of gardening
and I don't mean like some gardeners or better than others,

(07:41):
although that happens, right, I mean we get better as
we practice and learn and get I'm talking about levels
in the sense of some people just like I just
want a pretty lawn. I just want to mow it,
have a good lawn looking good. Other people are like
I want to get into putting in new flowers or
vegetables or herbs or whatever they want to do. And
then you take it up another step where you're doing

(08:03):
things from container gardening to hanging baskets to really beautifully
design containers, or maybe you start learning to propagate plants,
to start plants from seed to start plants, from cuttings
to root cuttings, to do divisions, and it just goes
on and on. I mean there's no limit. I mean
grafting would be a whole other thing. People that get

(08:24):
rootstocks and they graft them themselves. Or maybe you have
a citrus tree and you want to have three or
four kinds of citrus on the same tree. Do you
know you can butt a tree to do that? Butt
or graft either one. That's another level of card. There's
a lot, there's never an ending. There's never an end
to all the things that you can learn and all

(08:44):
the kind of cool things that you can have fun doing.
That's one thing I like about gardening. Another thing I
like is going out and seeing garden centers. I don't
know if you're like me on this one, but every
time I go to a new town, I try to
find a garden center's the top garden center there, and
go buy and visit them. Sometimes it's just a little
hole in the wall place off in a corner of
town that you wouldn't even think, you know, well, I'm

(09:07):
going to go over there. There's not any other reason
to head over into that nook or cranny of town,
and you just get out and enjoy it. And some
of the coolest garden centers are like that. They're the
ones you discover going around the corner. It's called I
call it horticultural tourism. But here in Houston we are
blessed to have many, many good garden centers and RCW

(09:28):
Nursery that's on the north west side of Houston. It's
right where Tomball Parkway comes into belt wag eight. R
CW is an example of just that kind of garden center.
Right now, there's a good deal I keep telling you
about and I hope you'll take advantage of, and that
is that they have got their trees off fifteen percent

(09:48):
and their shrubs are off twenty percent, So that means
a good savings now for the best time to plant
those two items is right now. They'll also when you're there,
don't leave without some root stimulator. They've got root activator.
Rather when you plant your plant, they'll tell you how

(10:08):
to use it. Just put that in the soil with
the tree root system when you do, and you know,
when you go home with a plant from RCW, you're
getting a species and even a variety in many cases
that is going to thrive here, that is going to
do well here. So again, the great sales are still
going on for the rest of this month, which is
getting close to drawing to a close here, so don't

(10:30):
put it off too soon or too late. Fifteen percent
off trees, twenty percent off shrubs at RCW Nursery. And
when you're out there, you're going to have a really
good time with some of the other bling and stuff
that they also have on hand. Let's see, I wanted
to say a word about Landscaper's Pride Landscaper's Pride is

(10:52):
a kind of a local company here that has a
wide variety of products, lots of cool stuff. Know, probably
two dozen plus different products for your soil and for
on top of your soil. For example, they got the
black velvet mult. It's a hardwood mulch that really is
just beautiful. It's not dyed, it's naturally dark, full of life,

(11:16):
and it's screens so that it's bulky enough to protect
the surface of the soil. As most quality mult products will.
You need a good mulch now winter weeds are germinating.
Don't let sunlight hit the soil wherever it does. Nature
plants a weed and black velvet mulch is a great
way to do that. Cedar mult is really attractive for
the holidays, got that nice cedar aroma to it as

(11:38):
you put it down, and really beautiful too. I love
the color of it as well. In time, you know
it ages and stuff. It's just a it's a beautiful mult.
And then finally they're top soil for filling in. If
you got some low spots in the yard, you're going
to be re sodding probably next spring. A sandy loam
and compost mix is excellent for repairing those patchy yards,

(12:00):
smoothing out those areas. Those three are just three examples
of quality products from Landscapers Pride. You can go to
Landscaperspride dot com and find out more information about those
exact things. Makes it easy to get not just the
product information, but the locations as to where you can
find them. We're going to head out and out of

(12:22):
Tomball and talk to David. Hello, David, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Good morning, sir. I'm driving back from North Carolina. I'm
a truck driver and I stopped at the Georgia Welcome Center,
one of their travel centers, and they gave me some
seeds and kind of how we do blue bonnets and Texas.
They do what they call cosmos in Georgia, And.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Of course I took the seeds.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
I'm taking it as a challenge, you know, and plus fay, hey,
I got.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Them free, you know, and so I want to try.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
To plant these things.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
My question is, you.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Know, they grow in Georgia, are they going to grow
in Texas?

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Probably there's a couple of different kinds of cosmos, probably
more than two. But uh, there's there's a couple of
types we we do grow here. Uh did did they
have pictures of this of the flowers on the packet?

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Or oh heck they got the name of them here.
I'll tell you the types.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
It's called uh so furious.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Nip I can't do what? What do you say? So
furious is one of them, and then the other one
is by E b I b I p I n
n A t u s.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
The sulfurious will probably be a little leisure to grow.
But there are some really good uh bipinatus that will
will do well here as well. They're going to get
pretty tall. I would give them a shot. You could
start them as transplants and then transplant them out once
the danger of frost has passed, or you could just

(13:59):
see them out at that time and let them come
on up. Seat them out a little bit before the
danger of frost has passed and let them come on
up in the garden. However you want to go about it,
If you want to do you know, just a little
neat area, some certain amount of plants. You could start
them yourself indoors. They'll work either way.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Okay, I just I'm just going to kill up a
little I'm just gonna kill up a little spot and
throw it out there and see what they do.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
All right, we'll have fun. That's that's a fun part
of gardening. That's the surprise. Yeah, I appreciate that very much.
H Yeah, that's a that is cool stuff. Uh, you know,
there there is a There are different styles of gardening
and one one type of gardening is called cottage gardening.

(14:46):
And cottage gardening. Now, don't be offended if you're a
cottage gardener, but I like to joke that cottage gardening
is just an excuse for a mess. It is, and
some people like an organized mess instead of everything being
in rows and all that kind of stuff. Well, you
just sort of have a It looks a little bit random,

(15:09):
but you're really managing the random with a cottage garden.
And basically you're throwing some seeds over in a corner
and letting them come up when and where they want to.
And then you've got certain plants that are kind of
foundational to it. But kidding aside, it is just a
whole another way to garden. And if you go back
in time, you know, to when this area was being pioneered,

(15:32):
if you will, with people coming in and a lot
of the gardens were that way. They were very, very random.
I had a great aunt that had a garden that
was a cottage garden, and it just you know what,
if they say bloom where you're planted, well, that's kind
of what happened. Things popped up, and that way you
find out what wants to grow there too. That is
another advantage of that approach. You know, you try a

(15:55):
lot of different things and you find out what's going
to do well here and what's not. Just remember that
plants receed, and some plants can crawl around underground and
on top of the ground, and so you don't want
to invite an invasion when you're doing that. I have
a few plants that I deadhead because if I let
them go to seed. It's not just a cottage garden.

(16:17):
It's a cottage garden. It's trying to conquer the world.
Kind of a pinky in the brain cottage garden. For
those of you who know what that is. Microlife fertilizers
or are organic natural types of fertilizer that are loaded
with microbes. That's what they're all about, because that's what
nature's all about. Microbes rule the world, especially in the

(16:39):
soil around the plant roots. And when you add a
quality product like Microgrow bioinoculant that's a granular bioinoculant with
sixty three different strains of beneficial microbes. And I can
just go into all the things they do and whatnot.
Let's just say this. They do everything from disease to

(17:01):
stimulating plants to grow in ways that are better for them,
more resistant to disease, and more productive. Micro grow biinoculants
and organic biological inoculant from Microlife. You can buy it
by the bag and put it on your lawn. It
doesn't take much because all we're doing is it's kind
of like a sour dough starter when you're baking bread.

(17:21):
You know, you just get a little start that gets
you the bugs, if you want to call them bugs.
They get in there and cause the dough to rise
and whatnot. Well, this is like doing that to your lawn.
Five to ten pounds per thousand square feet. That's not
much five to ten pounds per thousand square feet, and
if you've got a pretty significant issue with the soil,
you can double that and go up to about twenty

(17:42):
pounds per thousand But this is something you use along
with fertilizer or anytime of the year you want to
use it. It's not nitrogen, phosphorus potassium. You're putting out
your inoculating your soil with additional beneficial microbes that are
out there micro grow bianoculants from Microlife. You can go

(18:03):
to microlife fertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer dot Com that
tells you what all their products are, tells you more
about the products, and tells you where you can find
their products. Important to be able to find them in
the places where they are nearest to you. And Microlife's
widely widely available, so you won't have any trouble at

(18:26):
all locating microlife in your area. Well out of enchanted gardens.
They are gearing up for the holidays as you would
expect when you go into the gift shops. Oh my gosh,
they are loaded with things, and so are the gardens
outside in the blingk. They've got the Santa Claus themselfs

(18:49):
showing up on December seventh at ten am. December seventh,
ten am not too far away. So I'm telling you
now you can get that on your calendar. By the way,
Jennet Gardens is located on FM three fifty nine, just
north of Richmond, Texas FM three fifty nine. If you
haven't been there, you need to go. If you've got
family coming in for the holidays, set some time aside

(19:11):
one of the days to go over and take them
to Enchanted Gardens to see that place. It is awesome.
It is awesome. A week later, on the fourteenth, they're
having the grinch Fest. You know what, just go to
their website because all these events and all the things
you need to know are right there at the website.
It's Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.

(19:35):
That's where you get plants that want to grow. Here
an incredible variety and very friendly, knowledgeable staff that'll that'll
not steer you wrong and help you have success. Time
for me to take another little break. I will be
right back if you'd like to give us a call
seven one three two one two kt RH. The Stalkers

(19:56):
song now says she said that I can, and here
it'll be. Hey, welcome back to guarden Line. Good heavy
with us today. We're here to talk about gardening. Do
you have a question, Let's visit about it seven to
one three two one two k t r h seven
to one three two one two k t r h.

(20:21):
The orchard that I'm putting in on the side of
the house is in a very heavy clay soil. I
mean a clay that is just massively dense and poorly drained.
And you can't grow fruit in that, most fruit at least.
And so I'm bringing in some soil to mix it
up and you know, bring up the level a little bit,

(20:43):
try to improve on it. Well, I not just try,
I will improve on it so that the fruit trees
will do well there. And that's a nice thing about
residential horticulture around our houses is we can do all
kinds of things. You know, if you're a farmer with
a thousand acres, you can't put three inches accountpost over
the whole and acres, or at least not if you
don't stand business. But we can in a home backyard

(21:04):
for a little fruit tree or for a garden or whatever.
And it's really important because that clay soil, I'm telling you,
it doesn't drain well and it has a shrink swell potential.
And what that is, what that means is that when
it gets wet, it swells up and when it gets dry,
it shrinks up. That's why you see cracks in the
yard in the summer when it's hot, and those cracks

(21:27):
are from the soil having shrunk. Well, the same issue
really wrecks havoc on our sidewalks and our driveways and
on our home foundations and fix my slab foundation repair
is all about that. TI's been doing this in the
Houston area for twenty three years, actually over twenty three
years now, Ty Strickland, and he knows how to do it.

(21:47):
He's dealt with it. He understands the science behind it
of what's going on and what amount of movement is
of a concern and what you need to do to
fix it right. In fact, he had three goals, and
I like this. It's a slogan on time, fair priced fixed.
He shows up on time when he says he would,

(22:08):
he gives you a fair price, and when he fixes it,
he fixes it right. And he'll tell you if if
the movement is not enough to need fixing at this point,
he'll tell you that. I mean, he's a straight shooter,
native Estonian, fifth generation Texan. You can go to the
website fixmislab dot com and find out more. Make sure
if you call him, by the way, the number is

(22:29):
two eight one two five five forty ninety nine. Two
eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. Tell
him your guardline listener that get a free estimate for
garden line listeners.

Speaker 5 (22:40):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
But if you don't know what I'm talking about, well,
walk around your house. Look at the brick. Do you
see cracks in the brick, especially underneath windows, but anywhere really?
Do you have sheet rock that's cracking inside or a ceiling.
Do you see maybe a door that's sticking that used
to not or maybe seasonally it sticks and then it
quits sticking, and so on. That's the movement we're talking about.

(23:02):
Fix my slab foundation repair two eight one two five
five forty nine. Don't be an ostrich, don't put your
head in the sand. This situation does not fix itself.
And the earlier you get on it, the better informed
you'll be as to what to do and what you
can do about it. I was visiting with someone the

(23:26):
other day that's asking me some questions regarding asmite, and
you know as mite, So is that like if I
if I fertilize I don't need to do as mite,
and the answer is no, you do need micronutrient trace minerals,
and most fertilizers don't have trace minerals in them, at
least maybe not in the content and the amount of

(23:49):
the specific kinds that you need. When you put it
on asmite, what you're doing is you're putting down that
the minerals that are essential for plant growth, that are
not needed in large enough quantities to be part of
our annual fertilization, fertilization, fertilization, fertilization, you know, things that
we do out in our in our garden, in our yard,

(24:10):
but they're still essential. And as MIGHT provides that. You
can go to the website ASMIT Texas dot com find
out more about it. In fact, I encourage you to do.
That is a mind product ground up. Essentially, it's crusted
minerals and it doesn't take a lot of it. It
goes a long way because these are micronutrients. But don't
be fooled. The fact that they're only needed in trace

(24:32):
amounts does not mean they're not essential. They are essential.
So about twenty different nutrient or minerals that we need
in our soils for our plants. And when a nutrient
is essential, it's essential and without it, applant can't grow.
And that's why it is important to make sure your
soil is stocked pull now I call that the soil

(24:55):
bank account. All you need to do is get a
soil test. If you ever want to check on any
nutrient level, even a macro nutrient like phosphorus and potassium
or something like magnesium or whatever. Get us all test,
find out what you need, and then you can fertilize
and supplement accordingly. Every my soul is a little bit different,
but I can tell you this asmide is a regular practice.
Is a good idea whether it is a vegetable garden

(25:18):
or your lawn or a flower bed. Just follow instructions
on the label. There are a lot of misconceptions when
it comes to gardening and it. You know, things happen
oh for different reasons. Sometimes it's it used to be
needed and it's no longer needed in terms of a practice.

(25:42):
Let me give you an example. This one cracks me up.

Speaker 6 (25:46):
There.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
I had a professor in horticulture and he was telling
me that his wife would always cut the end of
the ham off before she put it in the oven
to bake, like the shanky in, just cut a little
bit off the shank end and put it in the
oven to bay And he asked her why do you
do that? And she said, I don't know, my mom
always did it. Okay. Well, finally, one day, Thanksgiving dinner

(26:10):
or whatever, they were at Grandma's house and she said, hey, Grandma,
why are you Why do you always cut off the
end of your hand And she goes, well, I used
to have a small oven and I couldn't get the
whole thing in and so I'd have to cut the
end off. So something that had a purpose at one
time doesn't always have a purpose. And we need to
make sure we stay on top of things and you know,

(26:32):
learn how to do things. I'm gonna talk about a
couple of misconceptions. I'll maybe we'll call them horticultural malpractices
when we come back here in just a minute. But
that is important. But one thing that hasn't changed is
the fact that if you want success with gardening, you
got to build good soil. It's as simple as that,
and Nature's way resources. They've been doing that for a

(26:53):
long time. They have long John Ferguson has been a
student of this world well for decades, and you know
he stays up the date when we're talking about the
professional journals of soul science and on and on and on.
He knows that stuff. And they have built a reputation
in the industry for creating quality products and ian running

(27:16):
the place. Now, same kind of thing we're talking about.
If you want a quality soil amendment or soil blend,
they've got it. If you want a quality multch they've
got it. Every Friday twenty percent off their fungal compost
so Fungal Friday, they call it twenty percent off fungal compost.
You're not going to get a better deal than that,

(27:37):
they will. You go out there and get it there
on Interstate forty five almost to Conro where fourteen eighty
eight from Magnolia comes in from the side. Just turn
right across the tracks if you're going north and they're there.
If you want to buy it by the bag, they're
available in many local feed source garden centers places like that,
or you can have them deliver it for a delivery

(27:59):
fee to where you live. However you go about it,
get the soil right and you will have success with
your plans. Time for me to take a quick break.
I'll be right back. Chris in the Woodlands. You'll be
our first up.

Speaker 7 (28:12):
You can't drive your Chevy to the levee, and your
piece of the pie is smaller.

Speaker 8 (28:16):
The growth rate of the economy is the key.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Feast on a big slice of Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.

Speaker 8 (28:22):
That is real money in your pocket.

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Speaker 1 (31:40):
All right, how many of you know where China Grove is?
Old Doodie Brothers quiz China Growth. You know where China
Grove is? When you call? Tell me I don't know.
We don't have a prize today, but we will honor
you on the air if you know where China Grow is.
Let's speaking of talk to be. Let's go straight out.

(32:01):
We're going to talk to Chris in the Woodlands. Hey, Chris,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (32:05):
Well, thank you, and I sure do like your calls.

Speaker 11 (32:09):
Screener.

Speaker 12 (32:10):
He does a good cat.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
We're good.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
Tell him thank you.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
He didn't yell at you, he didn't scream at you.

Speaker 12 (32:16):
He calls me my name. I just love it.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Okay, we're good, all right, Jonathan, you're naming life. All right?
What's up? Chris?

Speaker 12 (32:28):
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow has not been blooming ever since
the snow. What do I need to do to get
them blooming?

Speaker 13 (32:36):
Again.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
They're growing fine. They look good.

Speaker 12 (32:40):
Yeah, yeah, they're green and up to my hips. And
but no flowers this year and since since twenty one
February twenty one.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Well, I don't know any mechanism where cold weather would
cause a plant to stop blooming, you know, in other words,
it keeps growing. It didn't kill the plant, but it
stops growing, yes, yesterday, the day and tomorrow. Yeah yeah.
Brun Felsias is a fancy name for the plant. And
they they like a bright light in our warm, warm climate.

(33:13):
They do a little bit better with kind of a
dappled shade, just to give them a little break from
the heat. It takes sunlight to make blooms on any plant,
because blooms take a lot of carbohydrates, and you've got
to have sun to make carbohydrates. So it gosh, I
don't I don't know why it wouldn't be blooming. I
just haven't haven't seen that before. It likes moist soil,

(33:37):
but it doesn't like soggy wet soil. That is another
thing about the plant. Good lighting, adequate nutrition, not extra fertilizing,
but moderate fertilizing. It does like it a little bit
on the acidic side, So using acid fertilized the yeah, yeah,

(34:00):
they don't really affect the acidity much. That's that's a
it's a not well, it's it's based on truth, but
they're not going to make any significant difference. I would
use an acid loving plant food, something for azaleas, camellias, blueberries,
those kinds of things. It would probably be the next

(34:20):
step to it. How tall is your plant right now?

Speaker 12 (34:25):
Some of them are up to my hip probably three
feet maybe.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, okay, oh a little on the smaller side there
are There is a dwarf cultivar, but even it gets
up to five feet tall, so I think it needs
a little more vigor. I would try, And of course
this year is done as far as Britain. Felsia is
concern because it's not a cold weather plant. So next

(34:50):
spring when it comes out, gets you a good acid
loving plant food. Microlife makes one for azaleas and acid
loving plants. It's in kind of a a reddish pink bag.
I'm color challenge. So there's another name for the color.
I can't I can't remember what it is, but anyway,
that reddish pink kind of color would be the micro

(35:13):
Life product. For it, and I would start using that
just following it. So anyway, I think that the pH
and maybe a little boost of nutrients if it's getting
adequate light. That's the only other thing I can think of,
the grist to get that thing to kick in the gear.

Speaker 12 (35:31):
Yeah, we're in the woodlands, so there is lots of shade,
but maybe it's been part of it because it keeps
growing all the shade trees around it.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, and that is a factor, and so you might
it may need a little more light intensity. You know,
it's hard to say. Our eyes adjust to all kinds
of light, but we think an area may be bright
that truly not or adequately bright. So a combination of
light and the things I mentioned. It's a beautiful plant. Yeah.

Speaker 12 (36:05):
I love to see it every spring, but used to
happened a long time. All right, well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
We can fix that. Let me know if it works
next year, whatever you need to do to.

Speaker 12 (36:17):
It, Okay, sure will all right, all right, thank you.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
I appreciate that. Take care, Bye bye. All right, you're
listening to the garden line seven one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one
two k t r H. The Cannon's Native Plants is
in the Heights, and anyone who's been to Bu Cannons

(36:42):
knows what I'm about. What I'm talking about when I
say this is a very special place. It is a beautiful,
beautiful retreat from the world into a wonderland of native plants.
Right now, the place is loaded up with beautiful Christmas trees.
Oh my gosh, you should see these things. There's gorgeous

(37:04):
which they do that every year Buchanans. It's just amazing.
But I don't want you to lose sight. I know
the holidays are here, but don't lose sight of the
fact that now's the time to get things planted. Now
while you're out there, grab your trees, grab your wreaths,
grab the swag and all the holiday decorations, because they've
got all of that out there. By the way, put

(37:25):
it on your calendar. Saturday December seventh. Saturday December seventh,
from ten am to three pm is their holiday open house.
They're gonna have live music, they're gonna have kids crafts,
and will be out there drinks more. Really it's the
Buchanans is located on eleven Street in the Heights. Really

(37:46):
easy to get to. If you haven't been there, you
gotta go. In fact, take your family and friends out there,
especially if they're around on Saturday, December seventh. That's gonna
be fun. They're gonna have live jazz band and coffee
and hot cocoa and all kinds of things. But when
out there, remember it is still planting season. So if
you want to put in some native plants, they're not

(38:07):
a better time to plant than right now. If you
want to put in herbs, which they are stocked up on,
if you can, it's not a better time to plant
than now. If you want to decorate your home for
the holidays with greenery, their house Plant Greenhouse is loaded
with beautiful plants, and you can do that. You know,
when you put plants in a room, it just makes

(38:28):
a room come to life, it really does. And go
in the gift shops. Their gift shops amazing. I like
the little nutcrackers statues, you know, the kind that you
pull the thing up, lever up and mouth opens up.
They have some of the most decorative, gorgeous statues nutcrackers

(38:50):
I've ever seen. It's really beautiful. But for whatever reason
you go, just remember the holiday open house again December seventh,
ten am to three pm. It's a free event, by
the way, enjoy. Let's head over and talk to Derek. Now, hey, Derek,
welcome to garden Line. Thank you Skip. I'm a complete beginner.

(39:13):
I had a my long.

Speaker 14 (39:15):
Guy come over and fix a sprinkler head. He turned
off the sprinklers and then, uh uh, the the schedule
of the sprinklers is now removed or whatever, so I
need to reset it.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
So it's a Saint Augustine lawn.

Speaker 14 (39:34):
What what schedule should I reset it to?

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Does that make sense? Yeah? Good, good, that's a good question.
So first of all, your sprinkler guys should come do
that for you. I would I would ask that they
since they stopped it, they come fix it. But that
that's neither here nor there. If you go online to
gardening with skip dot com, I've got my lawn care ski.

(40:00):
It's free to download, and there's a big blue bar
that goes all the way across January to December, and
it tells you each month, on average, how much water
do you need a week if it hasn't rained in
the last couple of weeks. Okay, and right now we're
in November and this is a half inch a week month,
and then December and January and February or zero inches

(40:24):
a week month. So aside from a very unusual drought
or something like that, you shouldn't have to water in
the winter time. So we're right on the edge. Really,
if you feel like your soil is dry, go out there,
kind of dig down a few inches and just feel it.
Then go ahead and do another watering. But we're pretty
much winding up on that. And if you've had any

(40:45):
rain in the last week, you probably don't need any okay, So.

Speaker 14 (40:51):
Just in ram terms, November half an inch, December no water.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
That's the general guide and what that's based on. Of
course every year is different. But what I did is
I took the historic weather data for ten years, twenty years.
I can't remember how far we went back of how
much it rains in Houston versus how much launch use
based on temperature and many other factors and on the average,

(41:19):
So like November the whole month would be about two
inches of irrigation for the whole month, about about a
half inch a week. So what was your website again?

Speaker 5 (41:30):
Please?

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Gardening with Skip that's me Gardening with Skip dot com.
There's a lot of good info on there. Thank you
all right, man, I hear the music. It looks like
they're about to cut us off here. Thanks a lot
for your call back. Welcome back to guarden Line. Good
to have you with us today. If you would like
to give me a call, maybe ask a question about

(41:54):
something you are wanting to grow or trying to grow,
anything horticultural that you're interested in related to your garden
seven one three two one two KTRH seven to one
three two one two kt r H. Simple is that
plants for all seasons. That is the garden Center on

(42:15):
two forty nine just north of Luetta. So if you
are let's say you are heading up to forty nine
Tomball Parkway toward Tomball, you exit Luetta and then across
over Lutta and it's right there on the right hand side,
really easy to get to. And you know, it's been
around for a long time since the nineteen seventies or
early nineteen seventies when the Flowery family put that in.

(42:37):
And it's the kind of place where you go and
you know a couple of things. You know, one that
you're going to have staff that knows what they're talking
about that can guide you and they can direct you.
They specialize in that they've been doing it. They're gardeners.
They've been gardeners here for a long time and they
understand gardening and that is important. And secondly, you know
you're going to be getting plants that will grow here.

(42:59):
They're not going to sell you stuff. They're not you
know one of these national chains that just puts plants
in all their stores everywhere, whether they grow in that
region or not. That's not plants for all seasons. They
sell you stuff that grows here, and whether it's bulbs,
whether it is a perennial, whether maybe it is an
herb garden or annual flowers or whatever you're looking for,

(43:21):
they're going to have them. And they're loaded up on
everything related to gardening. If you're thinking about planting some vegetables,
they've got vegetables. They've got there. Certainly they got all
the onions in head those in it for a while
now that do really well here, and they can guide
you on exactly how to go about it. If you
want color, things like pansies and cyclement just so beautiful,

(43:42):
go to plants for all seasons. Just stop in visit
with them, say hi, ask them, ask them any kinds
of questions you have, take them samples in there. They
can help you with that. That is what they really
really do best. That and quality service plants for all seasons.
Dot com website and the phone number two eight one

(44:02):
three seven six sixteen forty six. We're going to go
now to Cyprus and talk to Blake. Hello, Blake, Welcome
to Guardenline. Good morning Skip.

Speaker 4 (44:13):
Hey, I just wanted to thank you. A couple of
weeks ago, someone called in with a Tiff four nineteen
bermuda lawn with the weed, and they sent you pictures
and you said it was a very rare weed and
you identified it as adder's tongue and I looked it
up and lo and behold. I have that same weed
and my Tiff four nineteen in about a five ten

(44:36):
foot square area that I follow the schedule. I mow
with a real mower. I used post and pre emergent herbicide,
and nothing else touched this. And it's not solid, but
it like the other caller described it. Herbicides dent it
but don't kill it. So I I've started with brush

(44:57):
killer and a you tip trying to kill it now,
so we'll see if that's okay.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
I don't know if you have any other ideas, but yeah,
you know, I don't other than we'll try this or
we'll try that, you know kind of thing it is.
There are some weed killers that are just top burn
products and things like well, an example people have heard

(45:26):
of is vinegar, you know, herbicidal vinegar. They spray on
a plant and it just fries whatever you get it on.
If you get on your lawn's gonna fry the lawn,
it's gonna fry. It doesn't go to underground and kill
underground storage structures and roots and bulbs and things, which
is why we don't. We don't generally go to it first,
just because that's a limitation of it. But if you

(45:47):
wanted to do some little spot careful spot treatments, just
minimizing contact, it's gonna have some little brown spots in
the turf, but your terf will come back because it
just fries the foliage that you get it on. Uh
that I did a I did some online research and
I could not find anywhere where someone says, oh, that's

(46:08):
a weed that you kill with this product in any
of the university websites, research based information or anything.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
So yeah, no, likewise, after like I said, two weeks ago,
you identified it, and I've spent online looking but you
know you got you got it identified. So that's a
big plus. But uh yeah, it's also looks like a
dollar weed, but it's it's very sparse and it has
a little stem coming up out of the leaf and.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Right that little structure for four years. All right, well
now we know what it is. Too bad you can't
eat it. You know, if we could eat it, we would.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
Just some of the searches. Hey, thanks, some sort of
medicinal deal, but uh I'm eat Oh really thanks all right,
I'm not going to go there.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks a lot, like
appreciate your call. Let me know if you figure out
something that seems to work on it, I'd like to
know that I don't have any here, I'd start experimenting
with it. All right, we'll take take care and again,
thank you, thank you for that call. You know, when
it comes to what are you going to use to
get rid of something? You need to be able to

(47:25):
go to a place it's going to carry all the
different products so you can do your experimenting, or maybe
we know what the weed is, we know what to
do about it. Go get this product. Where do you go? Well,
Ace Hardware. There's forty Ace Hardware stores in the Greater
Houston area over forty actually. And when you go in
there and you go, hey, Skip talked about this fertilizer,

(47:46):
they're going to have it. When you go in and
you say, yeah, I need this weed control or disease
control or pest control. I need synthetic, I need organic,
I need tools, I need anything for outdoor living, Ace
is a place. They've just got it. They've got you covered.
And when it comes to holidays, Ace is a place too.
Now how many of you, when you're thinking about a

(48:07):
holiday gift think, oh, I'm going to go to a
hardware store, right, Well, we're not going to just a
hardware store. We're talking about going to Ace Hardware. And
when you walk in there, you will see unique, one
of a kind gifts for everybody on the list. Whether
it's somebody that is a do it yourself or and
needs tools, whether it is some beautiful indoor decorations, or

(48:29):
just just go in and see what I'm talking about.
Each a store is unique because it's owned, privately owned
and operated, and so each has its own personality, if
you will. But they all are really really cool places
for some really nice gifts as well. So whether you're
dealing with creating the most beautiful lawn, the most bountiful garden,

(48:50):
or whether you're looking for some holiday shopping, Ace is
the place. Go to Acehardware dot com, find the store
locator to find the store near you, and you will
be pleased with what you find. I promise you that
I'm always amazed when I go into ACE Hardwork. Well,
let's take a little break. We'll be right back with
your calls at seven one three two one two KTRH.

(49:20):
Welcome back to Guarden Line, folks. Good have you with us.
We are glad you are with us today. We've got
a lot of things that we can talk about regarding gardening. Uh,
you want to give me a call seven one three
two one two k t r H. Seven one three
two one two k t RH. I have talked for
a while now about Puercecapes and told you you need

(49:41):
to go to the website and see the kind of
work they do. Uh, And I'm gonna say it again,
you need to go to the website and see the
kind of work they do. If you need to fix
your landscape, improve your landscape, beautify your landscape, make it
a more pleasant place to hang out and year around.
Peer Scapes is a company you need to know about.

(50:02):
The website is Pierscapes dot com p E A RCEE
s c A p e S. Pierceescapes one word dot com. Now,
when you go there, what you're going to find is
that they can do repair on irrigation system, make sure
things are working functioning properly. They can take that soggy
wet area that doesn't drain and make it an area

(50:23):
that drains. They can create hard scapes, pathways, landscape lighting.
They can do quarterly maintenance. Maybe maybe you want to
redo your whole landscape and have the designers come in
and just give you a show place. Maybe you just
want to do a section of the art or maybe
take it in sections. Maybe you want to create that

(50:44):
outdoor patio you know where you can do the barbecuing
and that has beautiful lighting and it just it just
is an enchanting place. Peerscapes does that. They specialize in that.
All you got to do is give them a call
two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. That'd be
a good time to do that. Even if you're gonna,
you know, schedule them to come out and do some

(51:04):
work in late winter and spring or whatever, go ahead
and give them a call to eight one three seven
oh fifty sixty, or just go to the website and
there's the number there. There's examples. You can see what
I'm talking about. Piercescapes dot com. This places. These folks,
they know what they're doing and you'll see that when

(51:26):
you go there, you'll see the kind of work that
they can do. If you live down south of the
Houston area, Horaz Hidden Gardens is your hometown garden center.
Just do south of Houston, right down there in Alvin Texas.
Alvin Texas, you know, Horaes Hidden Gardens has been continuing

(51:49):
to just develop and grow and bring in more stuff.
They've got. They just fruit trees, ever, just lots of options.
I mean when I say fruit trees, I mean including
blueberry bushes. You know, they have several different types of
really cool blueberries. They've got shrubs and trees, magnolias.

Speaker 9 (52:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
A couple of years ago took a major hit on
Magnolia's just a killer summer. But they've got new ones
to replace them that just look great. They are in beautiful,
beautiful shape, more in income out and he can get
those planning for you if you'd like to do that.
If you want a plant of pecon tree, they also
have a good supply of those. And it's not just

(52:29):
fruits and nuts and things like that. It's all kinds
of plants. When you go to Jorges Hidden Gardens, you're
going to find well, I didn't mention citrus. I should
have mentioned that because they also carry that as well,
but things like azalea's for example. Maybe you want some
pansies for color in the landscape. Depending on the season,
they're going to have a wide variety of all kinds

(52:49):
of things.

Speaker 15 (52:50):
You know.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
My favorite spring flowering tree is Chinese fringe and they
have those eagles and Holly's red buds Maples. Jorges Hidden Gardens,
they are on going to write this down. They are
on Elizabeth Street in Alvin, Texas. All right. They're hours
by the way, Monday they're closed, but today and Tomorrow

(53:12):
eight am to four pm and two c through Friday
nine am to three pm. Jorg sitting guards. By the way,
when you're out there, if you buy a tree especially,
they have the three sixty tree stabilizers, and you ought
to grab you one of those to go with your
brand new tree. It does a perfect job of anchoring it.
And Joryes got that. Our phone number is seven one

(53:34):
three two one two five eight seven four. Earlier I
was talking about UH misconceptions or things that just ain't so,
or things that have changed in gardening, you know. I
use the analogy of UH by one of my Hoart professors.
His wife cut off the hand to put it in
the in the oven, and he asked her why. She

(53:55):
didn't know. It's because her mom did it. And asked
mom why, and mom said, What's because I used to
have a little love that was too small to put
the pull back ham bony, so I had to cut
the end off to fit it in the pan. And
we do that in gardening and horticulture. One of the
number one things that falls into that category is the
way we prune crape myrtles. Now, pruning season is coming

(54:16):
up here, and if you have a crepe myrtle, don't
butcher it. They call that creape murder. That's a good
name for it. Crepe myrtles had beautiful structure, smooth bark
that even in the winter when there's not a leaf
or bloom on the tree, they're beautiful.

Speaker 16 (54:32):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
And when you go in and you just hack them off,
like the landscape crews all over town are doing, don't
do that. There is no horticulture reason for doing that.
You know, the reason for doing that because you just
it's easy to tell someone just cut everything off this
high and it's winter time, we don't any lawns to mow,
so let's send everybody out there and let's just prune

(54:53):
everything within an inch of its life. Don't do that.
That is bad. That is horticultural malpractice. Crape myrtle should
have a natural branching, properly trained structure that is just
beautiful and there's not one way to do it. But
what you don't do is stub off a branch when

(55:14):
you're doing pruning. There are two kinds of cuts. Okay,
here's the nerd alert, but it's important if you're going
to learn one thing, this is important to know about pruning.
There's heading cuts, where you cut the end of a
branch off and when you're done. It looks like the
end of a broomstick. It just stubs off. The response
from the plant is going to be to send a

(55:36):
bunch of buds out at the end, and we have
what we call a crow's foot. So hold your hand up,
point your fingers and thumb upward and outward. That's called
a crow's foot. You cut it off, and now all
these little shoots come out there. That's what happens when
they pun craig myrtles this way. That's a heading cut.
Very few places for heading cuts. There are a few,
but not many in horticulture. Printing a thinning cut. I

(56:00):
want you to hold your hand up, put your fingers together,
and stick your thumb out to the side. Now, if
you were to cut off all the fingers and leave
the thumb sticking out, that's a thinning cut. I think
of it as redirecting growth. You got a highway with
an off ramp. You put a barricade on the highway
and all the traffic has to go out the off ramp.

(56:22):
That's a thinning cut that you get less re sprouting.
And when you're through pruning. With thinning cuts, it is
a more natural look. It's not just a bunch of
stubbed ends. Thinning cuts. That's very important. You can learn
more about those online, but just keep that in mind.
That's like pruning one oh one, and especially when it
comes to crape myrtles, quit stubbing off the branches with

(56:45):
heading cuts. Use thinning cuts to redirect the traffic, traffic
being the growth of the plant into a different direction. Alrighty,
well that's you know what I think I'm going to
take that. We're going to post that. I put that
on social media because we need we need more people

(57:06):
to hear that. Maybe I can get a good picture
to go with it. I think that would be good. Anyway. Well,
our phone number if you'd like to give us call
seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy
four seven one three two one two five eight seven
four or KTRH makes it really easy, all right?

Speaker 15 (57:30):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
I was talking about myths and misunderstandings and things like that.
Another thing that people don't comprehend when it comes to
plants is that the proper way to fertilize a plant.
People think of fertilizer as making the plant grow, and

(57:51):
there is a sense in which, especially with nitrogen that's
the case. But what fertilizers do is they provide the plant.
That's the ingredients that they need to grow. It is
the sunlight, and it is the temperature, and it is
the soil moisture that spurs plant growth. So think about

(58:13):
plants is a little factory, because that's what they are.
The leaves capture sunlight, that's energy. They make plant food,
which fuels growth. If you had a little factory that
was making something, I don't know, maybe a brick factory,
let's say, and you put in clay or sand or something,
you know, whatever it takes to hold everything together to
produce this product. If you're limited in getting the supplies

(58:37):
you need to build what you're building, you're not going
to have much production coming out the end of the factory, okay.
And fertilizer is like part of those supplies for production
for the plant. So when you put it down the plant,
when the sunlight and the moisture and the temperature are right,
they can take off growing. If the nitrogen and phosphorus

(58:58):
and potassium and magnesium and sulfur and all the micronutrients
like zinc and molebdenum and iron and on and on
all of those ingredients. If they're not there, the plant's
not going to be able to grow. When you put
them there, the plant can take off and grow, and
it's nitrogen primarily. That is the main thing that fuels
that growth. So you don't take a plant that is

(59:19):
not growing and think fertilizer is going to make it
grow if it's not growing because of temperature, or because
of lack of sunlight, or because of soggy wet soil
or dry soil or some other factor. So just think
of fertilizer is supplying growth when the conditions are what
the plant needs. Why is that important? Well, A lot
of times people end up over fertilizing plants trying to

(59:42):
make them grow when the problem is really something else.
Something to think about. I talk all the time about
brown stuff before green stuff. Right, what does that mean?
That means you prepare the soil and then you can
have good plant growth. That's how that works works whenever
you get the soil right. And by the way, right

(01:00:04):
means there's plenty of organic matter in the soil. We
call that compost. When we're adding it organic matter, there
is good oxygen in the soil. Compost helps create that
there's air space. It's not like this massive, massive modeling
clay that water and air can't get into. It's we
call friable. It breaks apart. It's got little small clumps

(01:00:27):
and particles grouped together that brings air in the soil,
so good oxygen, good air down in the soil, good
water holding capacity, but also good drainage and organic matter
does all these things for the soil. And when you
create that and then chocolate full of the nutrients the
plants need, you've made the brown stuff that is going

(01:00:50):
to support incredible growth of the green stuff and cnumals
is a place where you can get all of that.
It is a prime place. You can go to the
website Maultch dot com. They're down on FM five twenty one,
your highway six and two eighty eight. Go to the website.
You can find out where and get the phone numbers
and everything else. Sienna Mulch dot com. They've got native

(01:01:12):
hardwood mar mulches. They've got double ground mulches, two inch
screen mulches. They have beautiful, beautiful variations in all kinds
of surface products for the soil by companies like Landscaper's Pride.
You heard me talk about black velvet before. Well, they
have that there. They have quality products from airloom soils

(01:01:35):
for example, and then the nutrients they go in the
soil part of the brown stuff, microlife fertilizers, Azamite, Nelson's
turf star lines, products from nitrofoss there, Landscaper's Pride as
a soil amendment, and airloom soils and then of course

(01:01:56):
Medina products also all at Cienamulch. When you go to
AMLCH and you come out, you've got everything you need
for success. Again, go to the website, find out more,
find out how to get there. But the main thing
is get there, get ready. It is time to be
planting and preparing thesoil. Seanamlch dot com. I'll be right back.

(01:02:16):
Glad to have you with us today. What do you
want to talk about? Give me a call seven one
three two one two KTRH and we'll talk about that.
Right now, we're going to go to the phones and
see what Scott out in Fort ben County wants to
talk about. Hey Scott, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (01:02:34):
Good morning ship.

Speaker 5 (01:02:37):
Hey, I had a question.

Speaker 17 (01:02:39):
We got a maintenance guy at work.

Speaker 18 (01:02:41):
To put a couple red pineapples, uh in the front door,
by the front door outside of Potts, And I.

Speaker 17 (01:02:49):
Saw that and I said, man, there's little pineapples popping up.

Speaker 5 (01:02:52):
I gotta have some of these.

Speaker 17 (01:02:53):
Is that something that can go in the ground in
this type of climate?

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
I figure he got it local.

Speaker 17 (01:02:58):
He bought it local, So yeah, it must do okay
in this type of climate.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
But is that something that can go in the ground.
Does it need to be potted? Well, if it's truly
the red pineapple, it's like other pineapples. It is not
going to take the hardest cold that we have, so
you're gonna to cover them up when it's going to
get really cold. They're a tropical type of rebelliad, but
they do need some protection from, you know, like a

(01:03:26):
real hard freeze.

Speaker 17 (01:03:29):
So yes, So I guess my question too, is it
like is it just for looks? Are they selling it
just for looks? Or is it something that will come
to fruition.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
It will produce a fruit that is reddish in color
as well. The leaves kind of have almost a purplish
green look to them that are on top of the fruit.
You know how pineapple has the leaves coming out the
top of it. They're kind of a purplish green look.
I guess if that describes it, well, blue green maybe
another way to put it. But yeah, you can eat them. Technically,

(01:04:04):
I don't know anything about their culinary quality. I know
they're not known for for the colony equality, but the
fact that, you know, are they edible? Yeah, technically they
are grow a different kind. Okay, okay, I saw it.
I thought, I don't know what that is, and.

Speaker 5 (01:04:25):
I need three of them.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Oh okay, all right, well give them a shot, you know.
I mean you can dig them up to pineapples or
they're bromeliads, and uh, you know, we we buy bromeliads
as houseplant or as patio plants and things. The root
system is very limited in terms of Bromeliads generally are
capturing the water that falls from the sky and chunk

(01:04:51):
channeling it down to the base of the plant. So
I guess I'm saying all that just to say if
you dig one up and move it and plant it,
it's going to just keep going. They're they're not as
picky of some plants about about being.

Speaker 19 (01:05:02):
Dug, and they've got to be watered quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Huh, moderate amount of water I mean they you know,
it's they're not gonna they're not going to die just
from a little bit of dry conditions, but you want
to keep them adequately moist if you want them to
look good and perform. Well understood, Skip.

Speaker 19 (01:05:24):
Have a good weekend.

Speaker 5 (01:05:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
All right, Well, keep keep track of things on it
and send me a picture when you when you get
some fruit on the Thingks absolutely, sir, appreciate appreciate that.
We're going to go out to surf side now and
talk to Mike. Hey, Mike, welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 5 (01:05:44):
Hey, Skip, appreciate it. I hat a quick question for you.
I'm going to start collecting seeds from some vegetable crops
to use in the next year. Does it make any
difference the size of the fruit or the size of
the seed, or all the seeds genetically the same if
they come from one plant.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Technically, for most plants, all the seeds or genetically the same,
except if it's a hybrid, then those seeds are going
to be a mix of the parents, and hybrids come
from different types of the mom, kind of like kids.

(01:06:22):
You know, a child will not directly resemble mom or dad.
There may be similarities, there may be oh they got
mom's eyes or dad's you know, nose or whatever. But
they're they're a mix, and so that's kind of a
hybrid type thing. Open pollinated plants, there's a little variation,
but in general they are all the same gene pool

(01:06:42):
kind of.

Speaker 5 (01:06:43):
And so it's okay, that didn't matter. I didn't know
if it made a difference the size of the seed
or once again the size of the plant. You know,
just okay, So I can just use a little small
squash versus a large squadk and it would basically be
about the same.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Oh yeah, yeah, that is That is not gonna be
a difference there. The only difference would be since you
brought up squashes, there are summer squashes and their winter squashes.
Summer squashes we eat immature, like zucchini and yellow squash,
and winter squashes we allowed to mature. And that would
include like kobocha squash and pumpkins and acorn squash and

(01:07:20):
butternut squash. Well, depending on there's a lot of crossing
that can go on with the many, many different types
of each of those. And so I'm just gonna go
theoretical here, Like if a bee went Let's say you
had a yellow squash and a bee went over and
got some zucchini pollen and pollinated one bloom, and a
different bee got pollen from another scare squash and pollinated

(01:07:43):
a different bloom. Those two fruit would have seeds from
different parents, say mom, different dads, Okay, and so there
would be a difference, but not because of the size
of the fruit or anything.

Speaker 5 (01:07:55):
Sure I didn't. I'll see these guys that grow these
giant pumpkins, like you know, pop pump pumpkins. Then they
turn around. I think they sell the seed and they
I guess, well, maybe it does have something to do
with the size of the plant, but maybe not so.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Well, that that's just seeds, that that gene line, that
that breeding line has been developed over the years by
saving the seeds of crosses and things that produce the
biggest pumpkins and then planting those. And you know, so
you're going to get a variation. Okay, let me use
my people analogy one last time on it. If you

(01:08:32):
if you knew a family that one child was very
very tall and the other children are all short, obviously
there's something genetically different or that's a primary reason in
that one, and and and so you whenever you select
for a particular characteristic and cross things, then you get
more of that. You develop that further. And those giant

(01:08:53):
pumpkins have been developed that way. But the main reason
they get so darn big is the growing conditions, the soil,
the way they grow them. I mean, it's a crazy
competition where they go to great links.

Speaker 5 (01:09:06):
To go on television. All right, man, I appreciate you
answer my question.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Thanks sir, appreciate the call. Thanks a lot. I appreciate
that you've heard me talk about quality home products before.
Quality home products is a company that you can trust.
That's the bottom line. That is their company that does
things right. You know, they've been here. This is our
thirty fifth anniversary. By the way, they built their company

(01:09:33):
on trust and transparency and just really exceptional service. This
is a family owned company that supports local causes, funding schools,
you know, COVID relief, donating to local food banks, just
on and on. They are a citizen. They are a
company here in our community, and they treat their employees

(01:09:55):
and their customers well. If you were interested in maybe
you're a license election tritionan or plumber and looking for
a good career. I can't think of a better place
than Quality Home Products of Texas. I've talked to a
number of their employees and is amazing. Uh. It just
even when we weren't, you know, like talking about how
do you like working here? I just hear it. I

(01:10:16):
hear the excitement. I hear the enthusiasm that they have.

Speaker 5 (01:10:19):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
And this is a company. If you're an electrician or
a plumber with a license, you want to you want
to check them out. Go to qualitytx dot com. There's
an application online there. Uh, competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental, vision,
retirement plans, holiday time off, career advancement, and mainly it's
just a stable, reliable, reputable organization. If you like to

(01:10:40):
provide good service to people, you would you would very
likely be a good match for Quality Home because that
is what they do. And if you go online look
at their reviews, you can see how happy people are
with that company. It is time for me to take
a little break here, all right, folks, only you sent
fans out there enchanted forest. Today today Santa is gonna

(01:11:07):
be an ingended forest. He will be there from ten
am to two pm. So the minute I quit talking
on the radio, Santa starts talking in the Chending Forest.
Think about it that way. Santa will be there from
ten to two. They're gonna have hot chocolate. They've got
holiday crafts and some wonderful holiday cookies from Flowerful. But
you got to get out there today to do that.
While you're out there, they just got in all their

(01:11:28):
their beautiful Christmas trees, and I'm telling you they got Nobles,
they got silver Tip, they got Nordman, lots of different
kind The grands or have arrived already in the frasiers
as well. Lots of options on Christmas trees as well.
So plan on getting your Christmas tree while you're out there.
The main thing is go and see Santa. But when
I want you to go up to Santa real close

(01:11:50):
and look at him and make sure that it's not
Danny Lenderman, because I've often thought Danny would make a
good Santa cloth. I'm pretty sure it's the real man himself,
the real Santa. So oh gosh. When you're there, go
to the gift shop. Beautiful little gifts and things, I mean,
things like little Colancho's in small little pots, you know,

(01:12:12):
with polar bears and Santa Elves and all kinds of
things in them. It's just a fun place to shop.

Speaker 20 (01:12:18):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Anytime you go out there to Enchanted Forest in Richmond, Texas,
you're gonna have a good time. They are located by
the way on twenty seven fifty nine, twenty seven fifty nine,
that's FM twenty seven fifty nine out there. What I
would do if I were you, Their website is just outstanding.
Just go there and you can find out everything you

(01:12:39):
need to know. Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. That's
a lot so Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. Go out.
Their main thing is till Santa. I said hello, and
tell them I've been good. By the way, I checked
on our Amazon orders the other day, my wife was
ordering a sack of coal for I think for somebody stocking.

(01:13:02):
I'm kind of worried about who that might be. So
tells I've been good when you're out there and ingented
for us. All right, enough of that fooling around. Michael
in Sugarland, thanks for waiting. How can we help today?

Speaker 20 (01:13:15):
Good morning, Skip. It must be my day because your
producers leading on that last song, Reeling in the Years
by Stevie Dan is one of my favorites, but not
the leader.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
I'm telling you, I got a questions for you, guys.

Speaker 20 (01:13:28):
I have been in dated this year. I'm in Port
Ben County. I would say northwest Fort Ben County. There's
a grass that popped up from out of nowhere. It's
it's got two long blades. When it starts out, it
runs a very strong root system, and it grows so
fast that I'm having to cut my back, which is

(01:13:48):
saying Augustine almost every other day. Have you had anyone
else call about this grass?

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Well, I need a little more of a description on
it than that. Does it grow almost straight up, way
above higher than the Saint Augustine.

Speaker 20 (01:14:05):
Yes, yes, it's got. It starts off with two long
leaves and those quickly just I mean they grow at
a very fast face, but I get, you know, to
start pulling them up, and there's an extensive root system
that runs from one to the other. But yeah, it
starts off as just two blades, and that grows, yeah,
at least four to five inches higher than my Saint Augustine.

Speaker 5 (01:14:27):
And I've never seen any you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Know what you know what nut sets or nutgrass is right, Yes,
it's not that right, it's not that.

Speaker 5 (01:14:37):
It's not that it's.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Okay you you Michael. You may have something called torpedo grass.

Speaker 4 (01:14:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
Torpedograss is like a bermuda grass on steroids. But I
mean it gets it comes up really high and grows
really fast, and like bermuda grass is connected underground and
on top of the ground. It also has an underground
connection like that. So what you're describing leans I'm leaning
toward torpedo grass being if you wanted to take some

(01:15:09):
pictures of it, pull some up, get a little bit
of the roots and lay it on a table, take
a real good picture where I could re see the grass.
I'd be happy to take a second shot at it.
But I think you're talking about torpedo grass.

Speaker 20 (01:15:21):
Yeah, everything you just said, you know, really describe it
to a t. I mean it's I've looked I walk
my sub division. None of my other neighbors, except for
maybe the people on my street, seem to have this.
I mean, is it something that can be spread by
air or what did it actually come from?

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):
Well, it could come from a sprig that came in
with some turf. It could crawl in from some neighbors
or other area. Adjacent. It does have seed, but we
don't normally think about it as starting from seed, but that,
of course it could. I guess it is to where

(01:16:01):
I kind of I don't have the crystal ball to
really answer that one, but if you won't send me
a picture, I'll take a look. If you want to
just deal with it, go on onto my website, which
is gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot com,
and on there you're going to see how to build

(01:16:24):
my weed wiper. It's a little device, a weed wiper
that you build and all you got to do is
run over to a Southwest Fertilizer on Bissinet and runwick
and they have the little grabber tool that you build
a weed wiper with. It's inexpensive, it's easy to do.
And what you'll do is you'll put either a product
that kills everything, which would be like a glycosate type product,

(01:16:48):
or you'll put a grass only killer, which there's a
couple of those. I'll tell you about that in a minute.
You just put them on the sponges and then you
just as you're walking through the yard, you just reach
down and grab it and squeeze it on that and
then pull up on those those shoots coming up, and
it kills that without killing your grass because you're wiping
it only on the taller weed. Also on my website

(01:17:10):
is herbicides to use on the weed wiper. And so
if you go down the grass problems, it tells you
the three products, three ingredients. One of those three would
work on killing torpedo grass in your lawn.

Speaker 20 (01:17:25):
Well, it's so strong right now, it's that it literally
in my back My said Augustine. I follow your schedule
and the grass looks great, but this stuff literally I
cut the grass almost a couple of days ago, and
now I'm sitting looking at my backyard. It's a good
four inches hot, but it's all over it. It's like
totally infested in the Saint Augustine. So it looked, you know,

(01:17:48):
it looks all right, it looks green, but it's just taking.

Speaker 5 (01:17:51):
All I.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
Did other than just kind of lapping back on what
I've said. Number one, I make sure it's the right
thing we think, send me a picture. Number two is
get the weed wiper that created you use it for
a lot of different things, and then download that list
of products and just run over to Southwest and Bob
can get you all fixed up on that on that stuff. Yeah,

(01:18:20):
if you want to hang on hold for a minute,
protu sier, we'll pick up the call and so you
can send a picture. Give you an email to send
a picture too. If not that, that's fine. Thank you
for the call, Michael. Do appreciate that. Very interesting. All right,
we're going to run out to Greg in Missouri City
here before we run out of time. Hey, Greg, welcome
to guarden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:18:40):
Thank you, Skip appreciate you're taking my call.

Speaker 21 (01:18:44):
I have I have a healthy saying August being along.

Speaker 5 (01:18:48):
At least it was healthy until recently.

Speaker 21 (01:18:50):
I've been following your schedule and I mistakenly I'm going
to hurry the other day and mistakenly applied Imperial fifteen
five instead of the night.

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
Okay, that's fine, that's fine, it's no big deal. No,
it's okay. I mean, we you know, we'd rather not
push with most nitrogen. But it's not the end of
the world at all. Your grass will be fine, it'll
come out. You just pick up pick up your fertilizing
in the spring with my scape.

Speaker 21 (01:19:27):
Now, I also have loud, large.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Round packs a right, all right, Greg, hang on, hang on,
I'm gonna have to take you the rest of the
call after we come back.

Speaker 5 (01:19:36):
R H. Garden Line with Skimp Rickards.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
Yes, Trim, just.

Speaker 19 (01:19:48):
Watch him as.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
Many.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
Hey, welcome to garden Line. Welcome back to garden Line.
We're glad to have you with us. We're here to
answer your gardening questions, and the way I like to
put it is to help you have a more bountiful garden,
a more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process.
Gardening should be fun. If you're not having fun, you're
not doing it right. And doing it right means doesn't

(01:20:23):
mean getting everything perfect. It doesn't mean you make no mistakes.
It means you're doing it in an adventurous way to enjoy,
to grow what you want to grow, and do what
you want to do. You know, everybody kills plants. In fact,
to be a good gardener, you got to kill a
lot of plants. That's just part of the process. Doing
it right means doing the things you enjoy doing. You know,

(01:20:44):
some people all they care about is a beautiful lawn
and trees and shrubs. They just want that outdoor setting
to be neat and clean and sharp looking perfect. Well,
that's good. Other people go the cottage garden route. They
wanted to look wild and barely managed with pathways through it,
and that's okay, go for that. If you're into edibles,

(01:21:04):
grow herbs, grow vegetables, grow fruit trees, you.

Speaker 5 (01:21:07):
Can do that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:08):
If you don't want to do all that, and maybe
you just want to have a beautiful, bountiful cut flower
garden or something to attract hummingbirds and butterflies and pollinators,
you to do it anyway you want. It's your place
between you and the hoa. Let me just put it
that way. You can do with it as you wish.
Where gardening has all these I don't want to call

(01:21:29):
them rules. They're presented like rules, but this is how
you ought to do stuff. There are no rules. I mean,
if you want to get colors that are esthetically pleasing
in the opinion of color designers, you know where you
get the color wheel out and you pick colors on
opposite side of the wheel or tertiary colors like a

(01:21:50):
triangle three corners or three sides of the wheel, and
the weird wheels don't have sides. You get the idea
what I'm talking about. Anyway, you can do that, but
you don't have to do that. If you like the
look of it, do what you like. It's your yard.
There are no rules. Have fun. You want suggestions how
to have better success or how to make something look

(01:22:11):
a little better in general according to popular opinion. We
can help you with that here on guard Line. But
the main thing is get out there and have fun.
And one place you can go to have a lot
of fun is Moss Nursery down in Seabrook, Texas. I
love it every time I go down there. It's eight
acres that you wander through. You heard that right, an
eight acre gardener's paradise. Been around for ages. It's a

(01:22:34):
destination for sure. And every time you turn a corner,
you don't know what you're going to see. It's probably
going to be some carved concrete statuary or something that
they Jim brought back from timbuck to on some trip.
It's going to be lots and lots and lots and
kinds of pottery, taxidermy mounts, mineral specimens, African masks, you

(01:22:58):
see what I'm talking about. I mean, it's very eclectic,
but it's plants and plants and plants everywhere, flowers and
fruit and vegetables and herbs and shrubs and trees and
everything you can imagine. I am a specially fond of
their houseplant greenhouse. They have such an awesome collection of
all kinds. And I say houseplants, I mean it could

(01:23:20):
be a patio plant too. Maybe it's a cacti or
something that sits outside in the sun, but you bring
it down on skin freezing cold. They've got tons of
that stuff. They also have a really nice supply of
already growing forced Emmerillis bulbs. So you need a quick
you need something to take for that Thanksgiving meal where
you're going to have Thanksgiving at somebody's house, about grabbing

(01:23:42):
one of their forced Emmerillis bulbs and taking that home
with you. Moss Nursery, it is truly a destination will
worth going to on Toddville Road in Sebrook, Texas. Here's
the websiteas Nursery Moss m aas nursery dot com. Our

(01:24:03):
phone number is seven one three two one two k
t r H seven one three two one two k
t r h H. A lot of you listening to
Guardenline would like to garden as organically as you can.
That is a goal that is your that is your desire,
your interest, that's what you enjoy too. By the way, well,

(01:24:25):
Microlife Fertilizer has got a very wide selection of many, many,
many kinds of organic products. Uh I, like the micro
Grow bioinoculant that I was talking about earlier. They also
have a product called micro Grow liquid AF. Micro Grow
liquid AF, it's got eight beneficial microbes in it. It's

(01:24:49):
chock full, and these are things that fight disease, like
Bascilla's subtlests. There's actually a fungicide product that is that
is just Bascilla subtlests out there on the market because
Basila subtlest fights disease. Well, it's in this product. Trachoderma,
two different types of trachiderma, two types of strepped to

(01:25:10):
mice seats. These are all things that fight disease and
help your plants to have success. Micro Grow liquid AF.
You can mix it up water, you can spray it
on plants. It's not going to burn. It is not
a funge a side, but it does provide beneficial microbes
that will help fight disease on your plants. You can

(01:25:32):
find micro Grow liquid AF all the places you get Microlife.
Just go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and you can
see the whole list. But I'll tell you this year,
you're going to be hard pressed to go into a
feed store that you hear me talk about on Gardenline,
to go into a garden center, to go into ACE
hardware store, go into a Southwest fertilizer and not run
into Microlife products like micro Grow Liquid AF. We're going

(01:25:56):
to head out now to the far kingdom of child
Hill and talk to Rachel. Hey, Rachel, welcome to garden Line.
All right, do you have Rachel.

Speaker 16 (01:26:13):
If I'm here?

Speaker 1 (01:26:15):
Alrighty, yeah, I can Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (01:26:18):
Okay, thank you, good morning. I have young trees that
we transplanted and the deer are eating the bar literally
stripping the trees, and I wanted to see if you
had any ideas as to how to protect the trees
now since the bark is missing.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
Yeah, if they've stripped too much of it off, the
tree probably will never recover, you know, Like if it's
three fourths of the wire around stripped off, that's too much.
A little damage the tree, a young tree, you want
to give it good water and fertilizer. When we get
back in the growing season, fertilizer to get it ground
as fast as you can and it'll recover from it.
In the meantime, you want to get a ring of

(01:26:59):
wire and if if you can get it up to
about six feet high, that would be good. If you
don't have to buy a six foot tall piece of wire,
you could put like three iron t posts in around
this tree a little distance out from it, not not far,
and then wrap the wire on it. But tie it

(01:27:19):
up where it's the bottom of the wires up off
the ground, you know, a couple of feet, and that
gets your wire taller without you having to buy a
giant eight foot piece of wire and just put it
around it and it keeps them physically away from it
because they're wanting to rub their horns on stuff.

Speaker 15 (01:27:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:27:37):
Should I wrap any cat felt around the trunk?

Speaker 5 (01:27:41):
So that is just to make it through the winter.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
No, not really, I mean some when trees are young,
sometime we put tree wrap on them because the tree
wrap keeps the sunlight off the trunk and in on
winter days where we have warm temperatures, the hot afternoon
sun warms up that bark and then when the temperature

(01:28:08):
drops below freezing, it can kill the bark, and so
the wraps keep the sunlight off the trunk. On a
young tree that has thin bark, you know, as trees
get older, the bark gets thick and we don't have
to worry about that. But a very young, thin bark
tree like red oaks. Red oaks are very notorious without
it helps with that. But as far as the fact
that the deer have damaged it, now you need to

(01:28:29):
protect it? Not really?

Speaker 16 (01:28:32):
Okay, great, well, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
All right, thank you for the call. Good luck with
that tree. Hey, you know you can eat deer.

Speaker 16 (01:28:41):
Sorry, yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:45):
This is not a problem. This is not a problem, Rachel.
This is an opportunity. Oh my gosh. Oh well, there's
have you ever heard of a hunting leace. You can
pay for all the Christmas presence this year. We just
never Okay, I'm going south and people are getting appalled

(01:29:06):
out there, so I'm gonna husher bye bye, Oh gosh boy.
Our phone number is seven one three if anyone still
wants to call after that, seven one three two one
two k t r H. Seven one three two one

(01:29:29):
two k.

Speaker 5 (01:29:30):
T r H.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
If your lawn has taken a hit, this summer or
last summer. We've had a couple of rough years on lawns. Uh,
you need to do some stuff to get it back
in shape. And then we talk about watering and fertilizing
and mowing, and those are all very very important. But
one of the things that is the most helpful. The
thing you can do to your lawn is to do

(01:29:52):
a core aeration followed by accompost top dressing. Now what
is the core aerration. Well, some aer rator machines is es.
Actually the little cheap things you rent to use. Most
of those just push a hole in the soil. So imagine,
you know, taking a sharpened stick and shoving it in
the soil and it just squeezes a hole open. Now,

(01:30:12):
the sides of the hole are extra compacted, which is
not a good idea. But a core erator has a
hollow time that goes down in the soil and pops
a plug out of the soil and drops it on
the surface. So when you've done coreration, it looks like
you had a little miniature dog convention on the yard.
You know, all the load droppings everywhere. That's good. Those

(01:30:34):
will melt away with rain. They'll cover up thatch they'll
help break down that thatch faster and those open holes
now allow oxygen, water and nutrients to go down deeper
into the soil easier, and BnB turf Pros does just that.
BnB turf Pros is a company that is dedicated to
customer service. What they are all about is making sure

(01:30:55):
you are happy, because they don't view you as just
you know, a service, give me your money and they
go on to the next They want a relationship with
the customers where you come back and you're happy with
what they do, and they make sure that happens. And
you go look at their reviews and you can see
they do that. They cover the area from Sugarland across
to Paarland and down to Manville and Siena kind of

(01:31:16):
basically down Highway six, but Sugarland in Missouri City on
the west side, and then a Pairland Manvl on the
east side and all through that area. Now right now
they got the fall special going on. You get a
free aeration when you schedule the compost top dressing. And
that's step two. Compost top dressing. Finely screened, compost, evenly

(01:31:37):
spread out. It's so easy to hire this done as
opposed to trying to do it yourself. It's a mess
and hard to get. You won't get the coverage that
they get if you try to do it yourself. Now,
they only use products I recommend on guarden Line, so
top quality lead mol compost from Ciena Maltch that's what
they use. They do aeration, They also will do fertilization

(01:31:58):
and of course the company top dressing service, and now'd
be a good time to do that.

Speaker 13 (01:32:02):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
Throwing a little compost on the soul surface blocks a
little bit of light out too. It helps in minimizing
some of the weed problems that you might have. It's
not going to get rid of all weeds by any means,
but I'm just saying that it also helps with that.
This is a family owned service bb Turfpros dot com
b B turf Pros dot com. Here's a phone number.

(01:32:23):
I've given you time to grab a pen write it down.
Always listen to garden Line with a pen in hand,
so you can write these down. Seven one three two
three four fifty five ninety eight seven one three two
three four five five nine eight. You are listening to
garden Line. Our phone number seven one three two one
two k t r H. Earlier, I was talking about

(01:32:47):
things that we can do might do for a overdue
for a break here, I think I better quit talking
for a little while and we'll be right back. Welcome
back to garden Line. Good to have you with us, folks.
Good to talk to you. Appreciate your questions and part

(01:33:09):
of the fun of gardening, you know, we try to
have fun here on garden Line. You know, the idea
of gardening. I just think it's the best hobby that
there is. It really is like the most popular hobby
in the world, especially in this country. We enjoy getting out,
we enjoy learning, we enjoy just touching nature and just

(01:33:31):
relaxing and seeing accomplishments.

Speaker 9 (01:33:32):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
The when I was working with Ager Life Extension, you know,
each day eight to five, five days a week, actually
not eight to five is a lot longer hours than
that for a Kenny agent. But sometimes at the end
of the day, I'd look back, I'd go, what on
earth did I accomplish today? I know, I talked to
people on the phone, answered questions, answered email, planned programs

(01:33:53):
and all kinds of things. But it's like it kind
of feels like, you know, what do you have to
show for it. What do you see and when you
go out in the garden, and I'll use one of
the least popular gardening tasks, pulling weeds. You know, nobody
likes the pool well, most people don't like pool weeds.
I actually enjoy it a little bit. And here's why.

(01:34:13):
You sit down. You get on a row of garden
bed or whatever, you got some weeds in it, and
you just go through and do your however you're doing it,
hoeing or pulling or whatever. And when you're done with it,
even if you just do it for fifteen minutes, you
look back and you see the accomplishment. It looks better
and you see the results, and there is there is

(01:34:34):
a therapeutic thing in that. It's kind of like I
guess you know, you got a garage. It's a mess,
and you clean it up and get it all organized.
It just feels good. Right. That is one of the
one of the things I enjoy in gardening. Let's head out.
We're going to go now to North Houston and talk
to Mark. Hello, Mark, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 20 (01:34:55):
I skip quick question and it's is it too late
to apply the nitro FoST fall special at this time?

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
I miss it is not a window a couple of
weeks ago. Yeah, no, it's not. You know, on my schedule,
there's this range. And one of the challenges of doing
the schedule is nature's not black and white. It's not
like on October thirty first, it's too early, and on
number first it's okay, you know, and nature's not that way.
But we have that bar on there for a reason.

(01:35:26):
And the earlier you get your fall fertilizing done, the
more benefits you can get out of it because the
grass is actively growing in things. But now it's just
fine still forgetting that done. But I wouldn't delay any longer.
And it's not going to hurt anything to do. It's
just going to the grass is going to get it
pretty sleepy headed as things cool off here, and it's

(01:35:47):
not going to be taking up the nutrients as well.

Speaker 5 (01:35:50):
Okay, great, And the same for the barricade.

Speaker 20 (01:35:52):
It's still within the time frame to apply that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
It's within the time frame. Yeah yeah, But barricade prevents
weed that are trying to erminate from getting established. So
don't delay any more on that because you want to
you want to get it down ahead of as much
weed germination as possible.

Speaker 20 (01:36:08):
Okay, all right, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:36:11):
All right, thanks Mark, appreciate that calling care alrighty here,
let's see we are going to go now out to
humbold Texas and talk to Tina.

Speaker 5 (01:36:24):
Hello, Tina, good morning, how are you?

Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
I am good.

Speaker 6 (01:36:31):
I've been using the microlife system following the schedule, and
I put some Microlife brown patch on in September, and
it looks like I'm getting some brown patch where it's
round circles of lighter grass mixed in with the green. Yes,
so I didn't know if I put it on too
soon or what can I do.

Speaker 1 (01:36:51):
Now about it?

Speaker 6 (01:36:52):
And one other question, the corn meal to prevent the
weeds from coming. Am I too late for that?

Speaker 1 (01:37:00):
All right? I think the brown patch Microlife brown patches
is not a fungicide. It's chocked with microbes that do
help populate the plant surfaces to make it a more
hospitable inhospitable place for diseases. But it doesn't mean you
can't get any brown patch at all. It's a long
term system. We As you use the micro life products

(01:37:23):
and grow a denser, healthier lawn over time, you work
yourself out of issues like weeds and certain disease and
other issues. Now the circles are there. I mean, you've
got a couple of options. Once the grass is infected.
Nothing will fix it like curate and make what's brown

(01:37:45):
turned green again. It's going to be it's going to
turn green when it warms up enough or if we
have warm spells in the winter enough to get some
leaf growth to come back on those runners. Because that's
all brown patch does is it rocks the leaves off.
It doesn't kill the grass. It just rots the leaves off,
and the leaves regrow, new leaves regrow. Now, as far

(01:38:06):
as the corn meal, what you're I think referring to
is corn gluten meal. There's a difference. Corn meal would
be no, it's okay, no, it's a common no, no problem.
People probably haven't thought about the difference. The corn gluten
meal is a pre emergent, therefore a weed seed preventer. Now,

(01:38:32):
having said that, it doesn't work on all weed seeds,
and it only works to prevent them, not to kill
them if they're growing, and you have to get it
down ahead of time. But it how do I do
this without it being long drawn out? Out? In nature?
We can't control the rainfall, and the ideal way to

(01:38:53):
use corn gluten meal would be to put it out,
apply about a third of an inch maybe a quarter
inch of just enough to get the weed seeds to sprout,
and then have it be dry for a week or two.
That weed seed that sprouts the corn gluten meal prevents
it from getting a root down and it dries out
and it dies. But if we get rainfall or if

(01:39:15):
your irrigation comes on, the corn gluten meal stops the root,
but then it keeps it moist so that when it
breaks down, the root just grows anyway. So it didn't
kill the weeds. It catches them at a vulnerable stage
and doesn't let the root grow. Why do I sail
that well, because we can't control the weather. Because a
lot of people do turn on their sprinklers and then

(01:39:36):
corn gluten meal doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
It's on my schedule as an option, but you have
to understand the caveats are that it may or may
not work depending on conditions.

Speaker 6 (01:39:51):
Okay, so I just pretty much just don't do anything
to the brown patch. You just wait for the warmer weather.
What about amorite is it amorite? Could that be put
on the grass now.

Speaker 1 (01:40:05):
As a mite? Yeah, as a mite can be put
on now, that's it's no problem with that. You can
put that down now, just follow the label ast to
rates and stuff. Uh and and it'll I think it's
forty four. Let's see, I'm trying to remember the rate. Well,
I'm not going to guess that it gee, I wish
I could hang on just sir. Oh yeah, forty A

(01:40:28):
forty four pound bag covers six to twelve thousand square feet,
so that's a lot of lot area. So just a
little bit out there now, I'm I'm taking it by
the names of the things you're talking about, like microlife
and corn gluten meal, that you prefer to do it organically.

Speaker 15 (01:40:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:40:46):
And that's why I didn't say use any kind of
of a funge a side. You could use the funge
aside now for the brown patch to prevent additional infection,
but there's there's not a good organic kind of control.
Especially there's not a good synthetic control. Once brown patch
has already infected the grass and done its damage, Well,

(01:41:08):
can I use.

Speaker 6 (01:41:09):
It though, even though I'm using microlife, or should I just.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):
Not could you use the synthetic fungicide with the Well
you could, but I mean it's it's just going after
it in a different system.

Speaker 13 (01:41:21):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
If we were talking about if you were to call
me and say, you know, every year my yard just
is full of all these big brown circles, well I
might say, well, before they show up, then go ahead
and treat to prevent them. But when you're trying to
grow in a more organic direction, then you know, that's
your call as to whether you would want to try it.

(01:41:43):
I mean, if you had just a little bit of
brown patch starting and you want to prevent additional you
could do it that way. You could, you could put
on a product to prevent that. But most people that
are gardening organically are not going to go after it
that way. They're going to just focus on the building
the soil, adding, adding microbial content and and whatnot to
create a better lawn over time.

Speaker 6 (01:42:03):
Okay, well, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
All right, thank you very much, Tina. I appreciate your call.
Good luck with getting everything under control. All right, Well
it's time for me take a little break. I'll be
right back. You are listening your gardline. I'm your host.
Skip Richter, and we're here to have a good time.
That's it. We want to help you have a beautiful
garden of downfall landscape and a good time in the process.

(01:42:28):
Give me a call seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four or seven one three two one
two ktra to make it real easy like that. Hey,
have you been out to Nelson Water Gardens, Nelson Nursery
and water Gardens out there in Katie, Texas. You just
head out Katie Fort Ben Road out I ten, turn

(01:42:49):
right or north on Katie Fort Ben Road and it's
just a stone's thrown down on the right hand side.
Nelson Water Gardens and Nursery. Of course, they're a place
for water gardens, have been known for that, for ages
nationally for that. As a matter of fact, their nursery
is just an awesome collection of every kind of color
plant you would want, fruit, plants, shrubs, trees. I mean

(01:43:10):
they carry it all there, absolutely beautiful stock of a
lot of nice things. They just readid the front flowerbeds
they look really good. And when you walk in and
look at those flower beds, pretty much everything in the flowerbed,
well everything in the flower bed is available inside the
store things for cool season, like snap dragons and ornamental
cabbage and stock if you're going stock before. It's a

(01:43:32):
really nice little plant. English daisies, colendulas, colengular blooms are
edible as our pansy blooms. Did you know that in
Dianthus they got the amazon and the spooky Dianthus? And
why to lessome looks really good and your landscape can
look the same now. Public service announcement. Christmas trees have arrived.
They have got their Christmas trees, freshly cut frasier for

(01:43:55):
Christmas trees right there. You can come by and pick
them up or they'll deliver either way you want to
go about it. Here's the phone number. You need to
write this down so you can give them a call.
Two eight one three nine to one forty seven sixty nine.
Inside it is decorated. They got their beautiful tree, They
got the points aetus. Oh, by the way, you can
get your points setus there too. Looks really nice inside

(01:44:18):
there and out. You know, we're kind of in the
Christmas and Thanksgiving season. So mister Turkey, which is a
decorated giant heybale, is ready for family photos. They've been
doing that as a little tradition. It's just behind the
fish facility back there. Uh so you can bring the
kiddos out and they can get the picture taken there
with mister Turkey as well. Don't forget December seventh as

(01:44:40):
Cookies with Santa. Yes, that's it, the man himself, Sanna
will be there and you don't want to miss Cookies
with Santa on December seventh. So if you want to
get out there, make sure put December seventh on your calendar.
Cookies with Santa out at Nelson, Wa Nursery. Mister Turkey.

(01:45:05):
Mister Turkey. Southwest Fertilizer is as the name implies, in
Southwest Houston. It's on the corner of Bisonet and Renwick.
Bisonet and Renwick in Southwest Houston. Listen, this is an institution.
This place has been around since nineteen fifty five and
they have been providing the greater Houston area with whatever

(01:45:28):
products they need to have success. That includes insecticide, fungicides, herbicides,
and fertilizers and other kinds of biostimulants, all kinds of
different products. If you're going to put it on the plant,
they've got it. In fact, if you're going to use
it to have a more beautiful yard. They have it,
and if they don't have something, you don't need it

(01:45:48):
because they have everything. They really do. Ninety foot wall
of tools, really quality tools. I keep telling you about
the folding kneeling bench. I used mine. I bought, wore
that thing out, wore me out in the process putting
in that rock patio. Without the kneeling bench getting up
and down up, I don't know how I would have
done it. It's a great tool. They've got them there.

(01:46:09):
The grabber tool that I tell you about. If you
want to be able to reach in and wipe a
herbicide on a plant with a weed plant without hurting
your desirable plants, a homemade grabber tool is how you
do it. Instructions are on my website Gardening with skip
dot com. The tool that you start with is there.
It's a grabber tool at Southwest Fertilizer. Bob's got him there.

(01:46:31):
It's really easy to make and he's got all the
products you put on him there at Southwest Fertilizer. Real easy,
easy to do. If you are looking for any kind
of a tool for success, maybe a soil knife. By
the way, soil knife is a really good gift item too.
It's one of my top five gardening tools is a
soil knife, and Bob's got those there. If you're an

(01:46:51):
organic gardener, you're not going to find a better selection
of organic fertilizer, insecticide, fungicides, disease control, weed preventions. All
that is there also at Southwest Fertilizer Southwest Fertilizer dot com.
That's the website. Here's the phone number seven one three
six six six seventeen forty four. All right, well, you

(01:47:17):
are listening to garden Line and I'm your host, Skip Richter.
If you have got some gardening questions you would like
to talk about, give me a call. Seven one three
two one two KTRH seven one three two one two
k t RH. I was talking about some myths and
talking about pruning crape myrtles earlier and someone had asked
for a little more detail on that. Uh So let's

(01:47:38):
just do it this way. A crpe myrtle can be
a multi trunked tree or it can be a single
trunk tree. You don't see a lot of single trunk
crape myrtles out there, but you can do that, and
you can purchase them that way too. That way you
have a single trunk and then it opens up into
a beautiful little small tree. Uh, the multi stemmed is

(01:47:59):
more common. And then typically you start off with three trunks.
No magic to any number, but three trunks are just
an example. You start off with those three trunks, and
then as they come up, allow each one to fork
into two. So what started off as three trunks may
becomes five or six trunks as the different trunks are

(01:48:21):
beginning to branch, and then those branches will fork, and
so you just kind of picture you're building this candelabra
of a structure with this crape myrtle by pruning it
from the time it's young. Now, if you've got one
that you didn't prune early, you can get the saw
out and fix it now that way, But it's always
better to start earlier. I like to say. I'll put

(01:48:44):
it this way. You need to do all your crpe
myrtle pruning with hand pruners, and if you can't with
hand pruners, then maybe loppers, but not with a saw.
If you get to a saw stage, you've let things
go way too far. But the idea is to do
what we call thinning cuts instead of just stubbing things
off so they look like the end of a broom handle.

(01:49:06):
If you've got a branch, I say that it's going
in the wrong direction, or it's going too tall, and
you want to cut it back. Drop down that branch
to where there's a side branch, and cut the tall
branch off right above the side branch. So think of
it as a highway. It just directs the traffic out
that side branch and you can build a beautiful structure
that way. You don't have to prune crape myrtles. A

(01:49:28):
little training as it's growing is what you need to do.

Speaker 5 (01:49:30):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:49:30):
If you want to get up there later and pune
a bunch of twiggy stuff out, go for it. Good luck.
But it is just not really necessary. When you buy
a crape myrtle, buy one that gets the size you
want it to be. That's what you need to do,
all right. I'm gonna take a little break here. When
we come back, I will go to Bruce and Lagrange
and Lynn and West Houston, and good to have you

(01:49:53):
with us. Thanks for listening in today. You know Nelson
plant Food has a proce that called Turfstar carbal Load
turf Star is a line of fertilizers for your long
turf Star by Nelson. Carbo Load is a product that
contains a fall fertilizer blend ideal blend for fall. Actually

(01:50:14):
got good load of potassium in it, which is important
for cold heartiness, and it has a pre emergent herbicide
in it. So what you do is you put it
out and you water it in. Watered in with about
a half inch of water. But do it right away
because neither the fertilizer does any good nor the pre
emergent does any good until you get it in the soil.
So you got to water it in. That's true of
all fertilizers and all pre emergents. So anyway, carbo Load

(01:50:38):
a forty pound bag covers five thousand square feet. It's
an excellent product, but don't delay get that done now.
This is kind of a I guess I'll say it
this way. It's a last call for getting that fall
fertilization down. We need to get that wrapped up before
we get the end this month, that's for sure. Carbo
Load from Nelson Plant Food one of many quality products
from the folks at Nelson. A head now out to Lagrange,

(01:51:02):
Texas and talk to Bruce. Hey Bruce, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 3 (01:51:06):
Hey Skip, thanks for taking a call. I just wander
and mind everybody that now is the time to put
out seeds so you get a good flower crop. Uh,
you know, across the winter and in the spring. My favorite,
because I'm a beekeeper, is Turner Sea Company. It's a
family company in Texas, and the beauty of it is

(01:51:26):
you can get on the website and pick any type
of mix of seeds that you're interested in, and they
will give you any amount. They'll package up small orders,
big order.

Speaker 1 (01:51:36):
All right, all right, Bruce. I appreciate you letting the
word out there. I don't want to turn it into
a commercial, but it is a good time to plant
for the wallflowers and things like that, and uh, yeah,
don't delay. That's a good point. Did you have a
question down?

Speaker 3 (01:51:53):
Yes, sir? Uh did I do this right? I'm gonna
put down fall clover, Paul intermix and something called a
store which is supposed to be a lot of cuts
hours and now it's the time to put it out, correct.

Speaker 1 (01:52:09):
Yeah. It follows a good time to plant for the
earlier in the fall. The better, but you could still
plant most of that.

Speaker 3 (01:52:17):
Okay, And I guess the other one is just bare ground.
Find the bare ground, sprinkle the seeds, and scratch it
in with a rate.

Speaker 1 (01:52:25):
All right, sir, Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate
that I might have to run. I got a line
up here. But let's see here. We're going to go
now to West Houston. Talk to Lynn.

Speaker 22 (01:52:34):
Hey, Lynn, Hi, this is Lynn in West u And
I'm actually laughing because I called in to ask when
to plant zennias seeds, and I was just listening to
Bruce go on and on about put him in now,
put him in now?

Speaker 1 (01:52:49):
So when do I not as zenas? Yeah? Not as
zenny as though, No zenny As. You're gonna plant in
the spring, when we get past the danger of frost.
So let's get at least in early.

Speaker 22 (01:53:00):
March or late February.

Speaker 1 (01:53:02):
Oh yeah, well I wouldn't do it in February. I'd
do it in March, you know, March or Aprilly. The
one would be good for planting zenies. I mean, you
can continue to plant them, but it's my walkway.

Speaker 22 (01:53:13):
I have a lot of perennials that have a lot
of green, beautiful green foliage. And I saw this big
article inside of Living about how easy it is to
grow zenias, so I thought, well, maybe I can just
you know, seed some of those in in between the
green foliage and it'll look nice for summer.

Speaker 1 (01:53:29):
Is this like a stone walkway, No, it's.

Speaker 22 (01:53:32):
It's a planet walkway.

Speaker 5 (01:53:34):
You know.

Speaker 22 (01:53:34):
I have about two feet wide of like where my
amaryllis are, and two barrows and you know, things that
have a lot of foliage after the flowers are gone.

Speaker 1 (01:53:44):
I see, okay, yeah, you could scatter some zenias and there.
Zennias come in mini types. There's a short, compact types
that are more of a bedding plant, and then there's
a tall cut flower types. So they're easy. Yeah they are.
And then you get cut flowers. That's a cool thing.

Speaker 15 (01:54:02):
Yeah, and thank you so much.

Speaker 22 (01:54:03):
I love your show.

Speaker 1 (01:54:06):
Thanks Lynn. I appreciate your call. Appreciate that very much.
The arbor Gate has turned into a Christmas wonderland. I'm
telling you you've got to see it. Take your family
out there and see it. In fact, Arbitgate's a great
place for your holiday tradition of choosing the perfect, freshest
Christmas tree available. They just got in their freshly cut

(01:54:28):
Frasier for Christmas trees from the Blue Ridge Mountains, and
I'm telling you the fragrance is incredible. They bring in
just I'll just the freshest Christmas trees you're gonna be
able to get at the Arborgate freshly cut. Now, I'm
going to give you some a date that's very important.
Fact two dates. Santa and Missus Claus are coming to

(01:54:49):
the arbor Gate on Sunday, December first from one to
five pm. Sunday December first, one to five pm. If
you can't make that, they'll be back on Thursday December fifth,
ten am to two pm. Sunday December first, Thursday December
fifth to two pm. So here's what you need to.

(01:55:10):
Go to the website. Go to the Arburgate website and
just check out the dates and things on there. You
need to bring the kids of course, you need to
remember your camera or these days that means bring your phone.
And yes, pets are welcome too. We just don't need them,
you know. They just need to behave so that they
don't mess with Senna and Missus Claus. Right, otherwise you're
going to get a stocking full of coal for Christmas.

(01:55:34):
When you go to the Arborgate. Now you're going to
step into a winter wonderland. Oh my gosh. The gift
shops are decked with holiday trimmings and gifts and decor.
It's unbelievable. And here's a really special treat. Listen to this.
You get your garland, your swags, your wreaths, your bows,
get all that at the arbor Gate. They're experts will
design and assemble them formed for you, complimentary, no charge.

(01:55:58):
So you go there and if you want to really
deck out your house in a in a wild way,
you know, people walk and go wow. Go get your garland, swags,
wreathed bows at the Arborgate. Let them design them, let
them assemble them before you, and you're ready to go.
Everything you need to have a magical, unforgettable Christmas season.

(01:56:18):
You just got to go see the magic that they've
created there at the arbor Gate. Remember, go down Trishel
Road before or after Arburgate to swing around the back.
There's a sign there takes you right into the parking
lot for the easiest, safest access you can have at
the arbor Gate. I'm going to head now and talk
to Kent Hey Kent. I think I squeezed in here

(01:56:38):
for we run out of time. How can we help today?

Speaker 19 (01:56:42):
Good morning, sir. I'm calling from Kingwood and my yard
does not have Yes, sir, you were out here about
two weeks ago. We got to visit with you out
at the out at the Wildbird's Unlimited. Thank you for
visiting a.

Speaker 1 (01:56:55):
Great wilbird store. Yeah, yeah, good.

Speaker 19 (01:57:00):
Our yard does not have much sunlight. There's a lot
of trees around, and I have been trying to go
with an organic make it an organic fertilizing schedule, but
I'm a poor schedule follower, so I'm behind in it,
and I know that I'm about a month past where

(01:57:22):
according to your schedule, a month passed where I need
to put on the organic. But I'm only a couple
of weeks past where I should put on synthetic. So okay,
should I put on synthetic and then back when it
gets spring rolls around, get back into the organic part,
or say the heck with it and put on an organic.

Speaker 1 (01:57:43):
Now you can do either one. That I moved the
organic a little earlier, and the reason I did that
is because an organic product gets microbily broken down into
the nutrients that the grass plant takes up, and so
I was giving it a little bit of a head
start there. It's not what you would call a true

(01:58:04):
slow release, you know, where it's going to extend for months,
but it has to go through that process. But there's
not a problem if you haven't done it, go ahead
and do it, get it down. It will benefit the soil,
and I would just get that done, but just in
the future, you know, put it on the calendar to
get done a little bit earlier. You get more benefit

(01:58:25):
if you do it earlier. Got it, But there's not
a problem with going either way.

Speaker 19 (01:58:30):
Yeah, should ill also be putting down the barricade or
something like that now also, well.

Speaker 1 (01:58:37):
You can, but again you know, we're putting it out
to prevent weed seeds from germinating. So if you already
are full of weed seed, it's not going to kill
the weeds that are growing. It would prevent them from germanying.
So if you put it down now any weeds that
would and they'll continue to germinate through the cool season.
But if you have other weeds that are coming up,

(01:58:57):
it will prevent those missed any system. But if you
go on ahead and get it down watered in it
can do that.

Speaker 19 (01:59:05):
Okay, okay, thanks a lot, skiff.

Speaker 1 (01:59:07):
I appreciate sir, all right, thank you, appreciate the college.
Good to see out there in Kingwck. All right, folks,
I hear music. That means we're going to take a
little top of the hour break. Guess what we're entering
our last hour. So if you want to call a
garden line today, this next hour is your chance to

(01:59:27):
do just that. Our phone number seven one three two
one two kt r H seven to one three two
one two k t r A. Try and squeeze it
in here. As we come back, I'm gonna talk a
little bit about some more myths of gardening, some of
the things that you know. We've kind of all words
he's always heard or seen me that may not be true.

(01:59:49):
Who was it said? It's not that I don't know that, potters.
Now it's what I know that ain't so well, Welcome

(02:00:10):
back to garden Line. Oh my gosh, I just took
a look at the boards. All right, we've got some
work to do. We will get on that here. I
want to tell you, though, if you are looking for
anything for your yard, garden, for that outdoor special space
for the indoor decorations of the holidays, for lighting, for gifts.
ACE Hardware is the place, and I've been telling you

(02:00:33):
all year. ACE is a place for your fertilizers, and
your weak control, and your pest control, your disease control.
It's the place for the tools as you need to
get the job done. But ACE Hardware is the place
for anything that you need to create a more livable,
beautiful space outside the patio, the barbecue pits, the strings
of lights, all of that kind of thing, and indoors

(02:00:56):
as well. And it's an awesome place for gift giving
if you've got to do it yourself. For in your list,
who could use a power tool or a really high
quality tool of any type, ACE is a place for that.
If you're looking for gifts for the kitchen, for the
home decorations, ACE is the place with that. All you
got to do is go to ACE Hardware dot Com.
Store locator is there on the site. It'll help you

(02:01:18):
find the forty plus stores that are here in the
Greater Houston area. ACE is truly the place for that.
Alrighty here, I'm gonna just I guess I'm gonna start
off at the top of the list. Here, We're gonna
go to Pearland and talk to Roy. Hey, Roy, welcome
to garden Line. O, good morning, Skip, thank you.

Speaker 18 (02:01:34):
Yes, sir, I have two pine trees that are infested
with the pine board beetles.

Speaker 1 (02:01:38):
Is any any way to save them? Or is it
just pretty much they need.

Speaker 5 (02:01:42):
To be cut down?

Speaker 1 (02:01:44):
U tell me when you look at the trunks, where
do you see the gloves of sap? Are they like
from eight foot down or are they all all the
way up far up the tree?

Speaker 4 (02:01:52):
As far as I can see, they're pretty high up
as far as I can see up.

Speaker 1 (02:01:55):
Okay, yeah, when once there's the five different kinds to
my knowledge, five different kinds of mark beetles on pines
here in our area. And most of the time when
they occur, the damage is so extensive that the tree
will never recover and usually dies pretty quickly, especially when
the weather's warm and the demands are high. You might

(02:02:18):
want to have Martin spoon Moore from Affordable Tree come
out and take a look at them and see if
they can be saved, if what we assume it is
is what it truly is, and advise you on anything
like that. But that would be That would be my
two cents on it. I don't think you're going to
save them, but it something that valuable is worth. The
second opinion from someone who's standing there looking at them,

(02:02:41):
is there any way to protect the other ones that
I had? Yeah, that would be one that Martin could
tell you you can use. There are sprays you can use,
but you got to hit about eighty percent of the
height of the tree, the trunk from all sides, getting
it in the in the nooks and crannies, and you
can't just spray the bottom of the tree or put

(02:03:02):
something on the ground that goes up in and kills everything. Okay,
all right, well, thank you for your help. All right, sir,
Sorry to be the bearer bad news on that one.
We're gonna now go to Jesse. Hey, Jesse, welcome to
garden Line. Thank you, skip Hey. I got a question
on my yard.

Speaker 18 (02:03:20):
On October the twenty first, I did the Texas Street
three step and a bag for different kind of worms
and bugs and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (02:03:32):
We went out of town.

Speaker 18 (02:03:33):
We just got back and I'm looking at my yard.
Probably about one third it's different patches. It's nothing's completely round,
it's just all different shapes. It looks like straw, and
it was nice until when I left down with Sten
and I can go out there and I can pull
it up. It pulls up real easy, and the bottom

(02:03:54):
of it looks like a dark brownish black mole type.

Speaker 1 (02:03:58):
Yeah, what about means? Okay, that's well, it's it is
what we call brown patch. The new name is actually
large patch that the scientists use for it. But it
rots the leaves off the runner and it happens fast,
like you described. The good news is the runners are
still alive and when the weather warms up, they'll they'll

(02:04:19):
push out fresh new leaves. So it's not killing anything.
Just makes it look bad, and you can't change that
because the weather's cooling off and the grass didn't want
to grow to put new leaves out until it warms
up a little bit. So it's a matter of at
this point, you know, just kind of living with it
and knowing that it is not killing your grass. It's
just it's just done its damage and the grass will

(02:04:41):
recover in time. Okay, So I don't need to do anything,
not really. I mean, you can put out a fungicide
to fight it, but you know, what's what's rotted, is rotted,
and it and again warm weather and time is what's
going to make it look good again. Now, if you had, uh,
if you had a few spots and you had a

(02:05:02):
whole yard that wasn't damaged, well you could spray it
to prevent additional spots from happening with the fung side.
But from what I'm hearing from you, it sounds pretty extensive, okay.

Speaker 18 (02:05:16):
Yeah, and the grass seems pretty witch so I may
have been over over water in it too.

Speaker 1 (02:05:22):
That is the one of the main overwatering and overfertilizing
with nitrogen. When we get into cooler temperatures, that really
sets things up for the brown patch. Yeah, so kind
of back off that you shouldn't need to. You're pretty
much the point of not needing to water again this winter.
Maybe once more, but probably probably not. Okay, thanks a lot, Jesse,

(02:05:43):
appreciate appreciate that call very much. Hey, Warrens Southern Garden
and Kingwood Garden Centers out there in Kingwood, Texas, and
you're fortunate to have them both. Warrens is on North
Park Driving, Kingwood, Kingwood Garden Centers on Stone Hollow by
the way. For the rest of this month the Kingwood
Garden Center Gift Shop forty percent off of all kinds

(02:06:05):
of things, nice gifts, nice nice things for your own home.
They're at Kingwood Garden Center now Warren Southern Gardens. They
as always are stocked up with everything you would expect
for the holidays. You know, the kind of decorative plants
we want for the holidays. We're talking about the kinds
of Christmas cacti and point sets and all those kinds

(02:06:27):
of things that you want to have for your beautiful
indoor decorations. Certainly the outdoor decorations like the pansies and
violas and things like that, they're all available there. It
makes it easy easy. I love going out there to visit.
It's a great place, by the way, very very nice

(02:06:49):
place to get out to find all your color and
to have success with the plants that you're going to grow.

Speaker 5 (02:06:56):
They.

Speaker 1 (02:06:56):
Oh, by the way, they also have Christmas trees in
and they got bulbs into out at Warren's Southern Gardens.
You need to go check those out. The point setus
are stunning. You'll see point set of colors and you're going,
I didn't know they came in that shade. They're pretty cool. Well,
I'm gonna have to take a little break here. It
is time for me to do so when we come back.

(02:07:19):
Let's see, we've got Claudia, Matt and Alicia. You will
be our first ones up when we get back. In
the meantime, if you'd like to give us a call
seven to one three two one two K t r
H seven one three two one two K t our Age.
I will be right back. Folks. Let's see, I want

(02:07:39):
to talk to about D and D Feed. You know,
D and D Feed is on the west side of Tomball.
It's your hometown feed store up there. It's about twenty
nine twenty about three miles west to two forty nine.
The Dover family opened up D and D back and
I believe it was nineteen eighty nine, and the store
just keeps getting better. They expanded it a while back.

(02:08:00):
It's a good stock of all kinds of things. When
you walk in there, you're gonna see it's gonna be
like you walked into where you get garden line stuff
and nitropos and microlife and Nelson turf Star and Medina
and heirloom soils and Nelson a lot of different Nelson
products as well. Landscaper's Pride is in there as well,

(02:08:20):
and anytime that you're looking for some seasonal plants, they're
going to have those out front in front of the store.
Of course, it's a place for livestock feed, but also
for really high quality dog food, high end lines like
Origin and Diamond and Victor and Star Pro, no matter
what you're going after the other day, I opened up
our barbecue pit and underneath the cover some rats had

(02:08:44):
gotten in there and chewed up some seeds and left
some other things that rats lead behind a pretty grossburry
barbecue pit. Well, D and D Feed. Just head over
there and get your pest and road and control products.
They've got those as well. And as we get colder,
we're going to see rats moving in on different things
and not where you want them to be. Mosquito dunks,

(02:09:04):
you know it. Pretty Much everything you need is there
at D and D Feed and Supply. Again, they're three
miles west of two forty nine on twenty nine twenty.
Everything you would expect in a feed store, and a
lot lot more, especially for your lawn, your garden, and
your landscape. I'm going to head out to Texas City
now and talk to Matt.

Speaker 11 (02:09:24):
Hello, Matt, hey, skip, how you doing this morning?

Speaker 1 (02:09:29):
I'm good, sir. What's up?

Speaker 11 (02:09:32):
So we have a lemon tree at in our backyard
and it is covered on the backs of the leaves
with very small white.

Speaker 5 (02:09:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 11 (02:09:41):
They look like little moths almost, I mean, and I'm saying,
it's every single leaf on the whole tree.

Speaker 1 (02:09:46):
It just got.

Speaker 11 (02:09:47):
Okays and hundreds of these bugs.

Speaker 5 (02:09:50):
What can I do for that?

Speaker 1 (02:09:52):
Yeah? And I assume you're when you mess around, they
fly off, flutter around way, Yes, they do. Yeah, that's
called white flies, and white flies are They lay eggs
that hatch out into a little larva that you don't
even re see, and then they go into pupa. And
you'll notice when you look at those leaves you'll see

(02:10:13):
some little if you were to take a fish scale
and shrink it down to a lowercase typed o or smaller,
that's a pupa from a white fly. They're kind of
a tannish light green tannish color and they're all on there.
And so the adults are kind of hard to kill
because they fly away and the pupa, though, you get

(02:10:37):
a good oil application underneath the leaves spray upward from
under the leaves with an oil, and you'll smother the
pupa and the larvae and the eggs with that, And
I think that would be the approach I would take.
Using stronger insecticides often has secondary effects like killing bugs
that are controlling the bugs. For us, we call them

(02:10:57):
the beneficial insects. So I would probably avoid that on
the citrus at this point. But I would do the
oil sprays from upward from underneath the leaves. Just don't
do that before, let's say, within thirty six hours of
a freeze. But the white flies should be kind of
shutting down a little bit, a little bit for winter,
although our winters are mild enough to where that that

(02:11:19):
can be a little bit of an erratic shutdown if
it happens.

Speaker 11 (02:11:25):
All right, well, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (02:11:28):
Well, all right, good luck with him. You know, on
guard Line we don't charge for advice. We just asked
you to bring half of the citrus and drop it
off at the at the station.

Speaker 5 (02:11:36):
And we'll call it.

Speaker 1 (02:11:37):
Thank you, sir.

Speaker 5 (02:11:39):
Ye bye.

Speaker 1 (02:11:41):
Bye bye. All right, We're going to go now to
let's see Alicia in Missouri City. Hey, Alicia, welcome to
Garden Line.

Speaker 23 (02:11:50):
Good morning, I'll be live next to a big park
with lots of trees. There's two eyes of their fans,
and I'm afraid of termite. Do you think I should
you sid termite and carpeting and killer to prevent.

Speaker 1 (02:12:15):
H I don't. I don't think that's probably going to
do you a lot. First of all, do you know
that there's termites in the trees or is there.

Speaker 23 (02:12:25):
You're afraid of them?

Speaker 1 (02:12:28):
Yeah, well, termites are everywhere. They are in in our
Houston area. You know, anywhere you got wood that's decomposing
and things, they can live in that. And then the
it's but think of all the houses that don't have termites,
So it's not like because they're in nature, they're going
to be in your house. The things that are in

(02:12:49):
your control to do, Alicia is number one. Make sure
there's not soil or mulch piled up around the house,
covering the little If you have bricks, there's this little
weak call them wheepholes where there's no mortar between the
big couple of bricks at the very bottom of the wall.
Don't cover that with mulch because that's an easy way
for termites to sneak in. Make it where you can

(02:13:11):
see them because they have to build a little mud
tunnel up in there. I would hire a pest control
operator to come out to inspect your house and to
do a treatment. And if they do that periodically, that
is a good protection. Just the fact that there are
trees around that doesn't worry me, because termites are already everywhere.
It's just we don't want them to get in our house.
And to get in our house, they need some moisture

(02:13:33):
and they need a way to get in, and usually
it's through those wheepholes in the brick. So get you
a good pest control operator to come out and do
a termite treatment.

Speaker 6 (02:13:41):
Okay, I will thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (02:13:45):
All right, you take care. Thank you. I appreciate your
call very much, that is for sure. You know, the
folks at Medina have been making quality products for the
home and garden for many, many years. I think that
Bedina maybe our oldest sponsor on Guardline, goes way back
to Do E. Compson, days before we even call the

(02:14:05):
show garden Line. Medina was a sponsor and they have
a number of products. They've got one to call Medina Plus,
and Medina Plus is fortified with all kinds of essential
micro nutrients that plants need.

Speaker 9 (02:14:20):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:14:20):
It has Medina soil activator, which has been around for
a very long time, but it's got over twenty different
trace elements. It's got some natural growth hormones from seaweed
extract in it, so it's going to do things like
help a plant get established. In transplanting. You can use
it as seed treatments as you're starting seedlings, give them
a watering in with Medina Plus. You can use it

(02:14:43):
to help increase blooming, to increase the growth and the
fruit set and things like that. It just benefits plants
in general and all those functions. Medina Plus available in
many garden centers, many feed stores Southwest Fertilizer for example,
and certainly hardware stores as well. To find Medina products
like Medina Plus. If you're gonna do any transplanting this fall,

(02:15:07):
and I hope you are, if you're gonna do any
in the winter or spring, make sure and have Medina
Plus on hand so you can put in a watering
can and water in your new transplants to soak that
root system with the Medina Plus. I'm going to head
now out to let's see where are we at Katie
and we're gonna talk to Alan. Hey, Allen, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 24 (02:15:27):
Well, good morning.

Speaker 13 (02:15:30):
I have a question and I'm afraid to hear what
the answer may be to it. So I have a
golf Beauty plum in the backyard and it is loaded
with blossoms.

Speaker 16 (02:15:43):
It's covered snow white.

Speaker 13 (02:15:45):
My concern is are you going to get a regeneration
of buds for the spring or am I just lost
for this next year?

Speaker 1 (02:15:56):
Pretty much lost. There may be a few buds that
don't open that open in this bring. So golf Beauty
is a super low chill plum. So what that means
is once we've gotten about two hundred and fifty hours
of chilling, that the buds are set free to bloom
whenever the weather's warm enough. And we haven't had any

(02:16:19):
chilling yet. But what probably happened to your tree is
other stresses can cause that a lot of times after
we've had let's say a real hard drought at the
end of the year. And maybe yet this happens on
pears probably more than anything. But the leaves kind of
fall off, it's droughty, and then you water and it
comes back. It's like that stress is this. It functions

(02:16:43):
the same as chilling, and all of a sudden we
get a fall bloom on our pear trees from that,
and that has to be what happened to your golf beauty,
because we haven't had any chilling yet, but it is
a super low chill. I would let's say you were
in Katie. You're pretty far north for golf beauty, it
probably be better to go with something that's going to

(02:17:03):
be in the four hundred hour chilling range in order
to have dependable fruit.

Speaker 25 (02:17:09):
Or Yeah, it's been in the ground for about three
years and I've been having some great harvests, but you know,
every once in a while, every fall, I'll get a
few blossoms here and there.

Speaker 13 (02:17:20):
Then it would explode in the spring. And now I'm
just friend, I'm not going to get you fruit. But
you know, I think it's still young enough to maybe
dig up and put another tree in with the higher
sail requirement.

Speaker 1 (02:17:30):
Well, well, you know that's your call, and there's different
things you can do. I mean, it depends on how
much trouble you want to go to. The simplest thing
is dig it up, put a different one in, or
a boy the simplest is just leave with it, leave
it and live with it. When it blooms too early,
try to protect the blooms from frost. The other thing
would be to go in and graft some other varieties

(02:17:53):
onto that same tree, you know. Okay, but those beauty
branches with other Now that's that's a task that requires
some skill and stuff. But I'm just giving you your
mini options. Most people would just replace that, I think
living in the Kadi area. Great, well, I do appreciate
your time.

Speaker 3 (02:18:13):
Thanks for the information, you bet, you bet, and thanks.

Speaker 1 (02:18:18):
Very appreciate you too. Take care alrighty, let's see we
are gonna what do we do here? We're going to
go to tangle Wild, I believe and talk.

Speaker 15 (02:18:29):
To be Hello, b Hi, listen. I a couple of
weeks ago I went and bought the Eagle funge aside,
but I hadn't put it out, and I now have
called Is it okay to put it out?

Speaker 1 (02:18:45):
Yeah? You could?

Speaker 5 (02:18:45):
Do.

Speaker 1 (02:18:46):
You see a bunch of brown circles in your lawn already?

Speaker 15 (02:18:49):
Uh oh, I've had them already a long time ago
because of I have to tell you the hurricane barrel.
She she looked so much junk in my yard they
had bear spots where I had, you know, hot piles
of stuff. So I'm not really I don't think so,
I don't think I have anything, you know, like brown

(02:19:11):
spot or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (02:19:12):
Okay, well, yeah, you could put it out now. You know,
some lawns are plagued by it every year. Some lawns
almost never get any uh, and so it's not like
every lawn has to be treated every year.

Speaker 15 (02:19:25):
Okay, cut down on water.

Speaker 1 (02:19:29):
You could put it out now where water because it's
take you have to water it in because be it's
taken up by the roots and it goes systemically through
the plant to prevent the disease. Yeah, the eagle does
the ingredient systemic.

Speaker 26 (02:19:46):
You make sure.

Speaker 1 (02:19:47):
But today, well that's a it's going to be a
good day. Then that's not much work to have to do.
I've got stuff I need to get done in my yard,
but I can't because I'm on the radio. So maybe
you you could, since you have so much time on
your hands, just come up here and help me with
some of my stuff.

Speaker 15 (02:20:04):
Well, I wish I had that much time. But after
I do this, I have a few of the things
to do.

Speaker 1 (02:20:10):
But okay, well, I keep I keep trying to Tom Sawyer,
I keep trying to Tom Sawyer people into doing my
work for me. So I guess that's going on. Thanks
for the call, b I appreciate it. Okay, you take
care all right. Time for me to take a little break, Carolyn.
You'll be first up when we come back back to
the garden line. We got about a half hour left

(02:20:32):
today of the show and your questions as well. If
you had not been to RCW Garden Center, RCW Nurses
right there where tomaw Parklay comes to the Beltway eight,
you just wing by there. They have got some really
cool stuff going on, and primarily it is their sale
on shrubs and trees fifteen percent off trees, twenty percent

(02:20:55):
off shrubs through the rest of November. Fifteen percent off trees,
twenty percent off shrub That is a significant and savings azaleas.
They have beautiful azaleas plenty. If you have a little
shady area and you would like to create with that
filtered shade some beautiful seasonal color. Azalia is a great
way to go. If you are looking for a camellia.
You know camellias used to be a lot of communeas

(02:21:16):
planted around the area, and I just don't see them
as much anymore. They're still around, but there's Sanquas and
Japonica types of camellia, so you can have December blooms,
you can have January ballooms, and they're just like little
beautiful roses, gorgeous, gorgeous plants. Rcw's got that and many, many,
many more different species of shrubs. They've got the root

(02:21:38):
stimulator you want to put down when you plant the
plant to soak into the root system to have success.
If you want to buy a plant that's a little bigger,
too big for you to carry in print a plant,
then let them come out. They'll do that. They do
that service as well. The main thing is just get
it done, do it sooner rather than later. That would
be my advice to you. RCW nurseries dot com. That's

(02:22:02):
the website again, corner of Tomball Parkway and Beltwegh eight.
Real easy access to get to it, So go for it.
And while you're there you're going to find a lot
of other really cool stuff at RCW. I'm going to
head over to talk to Caroline. Now, Hey, Caroline, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 23 (02:22:21):
Good line ships.

Speaker 24 (02:22:22):
We really enjoy your show.

Speaker 1 (02:22:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (02:22:26):
Thanks.

Speaker 24 (02:22:29):
When I was a little kid, my grandpa groups is
in Wisconsin. So I planted some together summer and I
thought they'd be about foot high maybe, and they got
to be about four feet high, and I was really surprised.

Speaker 1 (02:22:43):
Akay.

Speaker 24 (02:22:45):
Anyway, I collected seeds from them, and I have a
whole pot of seeds, and I'm wondering how and when
I should plant them, and how to our part if I,
you know, want to plant some more.

Speaker 1 (02:22:58):
Yeah, well you do a couple of things since you
just have Yeah, since you have a lot of seeds,
what I would do is I would go ahead and
just kind of scatter them out in a bed area.
You know, ultimately you're gonna want your plants. Your zenny
is to be about somewhere between six inches and ten

(02:23:19):
inches apart in the bed. I tend to plant them
a little thicker because they're not all going to come up.
So if you plant the seeds, you're gonna after they
come up, you're gonna want to find them to that,
So don't put so many that you've got a lot
of thinning work to do. But just kind of loosely
scatter them, see what's going to come up. Water them
in really good, just barely cover them with soil. I
take a rake and just kind of scratch the soil

(02:23:41):
up and then drop the seeds in. And then as
you water them, they just kind of fall into the soil.
You kind of rake over them real lightly to move them,
just in the surface, not too deep. But don't do
that until we get to March. March is when we're
getting past our last freeze date, and as it warms up,
any gets more interested in growing. But don't plant them now, okay,

(02:24:04):
And I have.

Speaker 24 (02:24:06):
Them right now in my rose garden because I thought
they could kind of fill in between. But is it
best to just keep plant them like by themselves and
not in between rose bushes or.

Speaker 1 (02:24:18):
Well, you know, there's there's different approaches, you know that
I've been talking about cottage gardens off and on this morning,
and a cottage garden you would throw them in among
the roses and let them just kind of come up
here and there, you know, and that randomness is part
of the appeal. But a lot of people would rather
have the roses in the rose garden and then the
cut flower zenias in their own spot there because you

(02:24:42):
know they're going to look good part of the year
and then they're gonna not look good and you have
to replant something.

Speaker 19 (02:24:46):
Yeah in the area.

Speaker 24 (02:24:47):
Okay, So they really do last a long time once
you cut.

Speaker 16 (02:24:52):
Them through it.

Speaker 1 (02:24:53):
I love them, they do. They do. That's they're probably
the simplest, easiest cut flower to have success with. Zenias
are and when you go into a seed company and look, yeah,
they are. And when you go to a seed company,
you'll see types that are single blooms I'll just say,
kind of a sunflowerlike you know, bloom but doesn't look

(02:25:14):
like sunflowers, but single blooms. And then you have the
double kind, and then you have kinds that look like mums.
And there's even one called cactus flowered. I don't know
why they call it that, but it's it's little strappy,
roundish petals that are all frilly through an area. So
as you get online looking at them, you're gonna find
some pretty amazing zenias too, are just going down set.

Speaker 3 (02:25:35):
Okay, Well, thank you for advice.

Speaker 1 (02:25:39):
All right, thanks for being a Guardline listener, Carolyn. Good
to have you with us. Nelson plant Food has a
product that you need to purchase and just have on
hand anytime you're gonna grow flowers like zenias like we
were just talking about with Carolyn, and that is color Star.
It's a nineteen thirteen six plant food for all flowering plants,

(02:26:01):
so annuals and perennials. You can use for anything like that. Now.
It's one of the most universal blends that Nelson's has
created and also one of the most popular. Nelson's Color
Star is sold in many states across the country and
it is very popular with professional landscapers because they've discovered it,
they've used it, they see the success. If it ain't

(02:26:23):
bro don't fix it, they keep ordering Nelson Color Star.
It's a favorite professional landscapers and homeowners here in Texas
and beyond. Got five different sources of nitrogen. It has
organic bone meal which provides phosphorus. It's got organic blood
meal which provides nitrogen and other nutrients as well. In
all of these products. Bottom line is with color Star,

(02:26:45):
you will have color. And here here's the thing to
remember about when you want your blooming beds to bloom
and do well. It's not you know, it's not just
the phosphorus or potassium or something in the soil. You
need the nitrogen to provide and stimulate growth because when
you grow new foliage, now you have solar panels that
are capturing sunlight to make carbohydrates which help the plant

(02:27:09):
to bloom. If you've got a weak plant that no
carbs in it, it's not going to produce blooms, it's
not going to produce food or whatever you're trying to grow.
With the Nelson Color Star, you've got a good load
of nitrogen for some vigor so that it can bloom
and bloom up a storm. And that's what it does.
Nelson Plant Food will help your plants to absolutely bloom

(02:27:30):
up a storm. One of many good quality products from
the folks at Nelson's Plant Food. Well, I got to
take a little break here. When we come back, Hurta,
you will be the first up. Talk to you in
just a bit. Folks. Our phone number if you'd like
to give me a call seven one three two one
two KTRH. There we go. Welcome back to guarden Line.

(02:27:55):
We are in our final segment of the day. Final segment,
got plenty to talk about. We'll be back tomorrow. Remember
Garden Line is six am to ten am on Saturday
and Sunday every week. You got friends and family in
the area, the Greater Listening area. Those covers pretty much
southeast Texas and on u Huntsville and down Corpus and

(02:28:16):
have people listening over in New Bronfuls, Texas. Louis in
a border so any of that area, tell them about
Garden Line. They little out of state thing listen too.
We got people that listen out of state, so I
guess they're waiting to see what that crazy host is
going to say next or something. Anyway, we're going to
go to talk to Herda now in Spring Branch. Hello, Herda,
Welcome to Garden Morning.

Speaker 27 (02:28:36):
How are you? I'm doing that purchase two three gallon
of foxtail firm plants, and it's still in the pot,
both of them. But one is a darker green and
one's kind of a light green, which is okay. I'm

(02:28:59):
gonna alternate them when I plant them. But okay, two
of the frons in the light green pot are turning yellow.

Speaker 5 (02:29:10):
What's wrong with them?

Speaker 1 (02:29:14):
I don't know. That happens some with foxtail fern. It's
not always a bad sign. Maybe a droughty period they
went through, you know, certainly they're fairly forgiving of soil moisture.
But no plant wants to be submerged nor put out
in the desert, and so sometimes those pots can be
out pretty quick. It could be that I generally it

(02:29:38):
doesn't lead to anything. Just kind of watch them. One
thing I'll do sometimes is take a pot and turn
it upside down, kind of bump it and lift it
off the root system, just to look at the roots
and see if they look kind of a healthy, creamy
white color or if they're kind of brown water soaked
or gray, which indicates a root rot. And if it's
a root rot, you definitely need it need to dry

(02:30:00):
it out a little bit.

Speaker 27 (02:30:02):
All right, all right, well I guess, well when would
I plant them? I don't know. You can plan them
before spring?

Speaker 1 (02:30:18):
Okay, Well you could plan them now if you wanted to.
Orn't just wait until spring. The negative of waiting is
you got to keep watching them, doing a little bit
of watering in the container over the wintertime. It's not ok.
But you could also avoid them getting kind of killed back,
you know, from some severe cold in a pot, because

(02:30:39):
you can just put them inside when that happens.

Speaker 27 (02:30:41):
Put Yeah, yeah, that's true. Well, okay, thanks a lot,
you take care.

Speaker 1 (02:30:52):
Well, thank you, and you have a wonderful thanksgiving her to.

Speaker 7 (02:30:57):
Bye bye bye.

Speaker 1 (02:31:01):
You know Wilbird's Unlimited. It is one of my favorite
stores period because every time I go into there, I
see such cool stuff. And you know, I've got a
number of products that I've gotten over the years from Wahbirds.
Certainly the squirrel excluding feeder, by the way, if you're
looking for the Cadillac of bird feeders, and just in

(02:31:21):
terms of it really works, that is the squirrel excluding
feeder from Wallbirds. Squirrels can't get in. They just can't
get in. It's got a little weight and a trapdoor
thing that doesn't let them in. In fact, I can
set it so sensitive that even like a dove trying
to land there and get feed out of that feeder,

(02:31:42):
it closes down. They can't get in too, So there's
an adjustment on it, replacement parts. It's just a quality feeder.
And if there's someone on your list and you want
to get them a really nice gift, that that would
be the squirrel excluding feeder. Now, there's a lot of
good gifts at Wallbirds, and people love birds and people
love being able to watch birds, hummingbird feeders to you
name it to bird houses, wabirds has it all beautiful

(02:32:04):
little bird baths. Right now, I just want to remind
you that it's getting close to the time when the
birds are going to be coming knocking on the door, going, hey,
we're getting hungry out here. We've eaten up all the
berries and the seeds and stuff from summer and fall.
It's wintertime and it's time for food. You need to
get the wabirds unlimited Winter super Blend Winter super Blend.

(02:32:27):
It's what I feed in my feeders, Winter super Blend.
The birds love it and it has fat and protein
so that the birds. You know that our day links
shorter now they don't have as many hours to go
out there and find food. Can you imagine being a
bird having to find food all day every day, trying
to survive and water too. By the way, if you
want to bring birds in, you get a quality blend

(02:32:50):
like Winter Super Blend and it'll do it. Now. Every
kind of bird has on the feed that seeds that
it likes. You know, there's some that like the little
thistle seeds and they're special feeders for thistle seeds. You
want to have an array out there, and you also
want to have water. Birds have to have water every day,
every day of the year. They got to drink like

(02:33:10):
we have to drink. The gotta have fresh water. So
that's one great way too to bring them into your place.
Get a quality seed from Walbird. I would recommend getting
the No Mess blends, so that would be something. Let's
say you had a bird seed with sunflowers in it.
The birds love those, but then they drop the shells,

(02:33:31):
so you have a little bit of a mess. A
no Mess blend. The sunflower seeds are already shelled and
ultimately price pound per pound. It's a pretty good way
to go too, actually, because you get more seed in
the bag. All right, Well, Wildbirds Unlimited there's six stores
in the Greater Houston area. All you have to do
is go to WBU dot com, forward slash Houston, WBU

(02:33:55):
dot Com forward slash Houston find the wild Bird store
nearest to you. We're going to go now to talk
to Emil.

Speaker 26 (02:34:04):
Heml Yeah, this Hi, how are you doing. I'm in
the Sharpstown area and I'm sure you're familiar with this
harsh herb. How hard it is to control?

Speaker 15 (02:34:19):
You?

Speaker 26 (02:34:19):
Can you know, spray it maybe a couple of times,
and but the biggest problem is it comes right back,
and even if you throw small patches pull it out
by the roots, it comes back on you. I guess
the there have some good products out there that take

(02:34:39):
care of it. What is your thoughts about having it
professionally done? The problem is after the drought here, a
lot of the neighbors just quit water and so most
of the neighbors it just takes over the whole yard.

Speaker 1 (02:34:53):
Yeah, yeah, well you know, is it grun in your lawn?

Speaker 26 (02:34:59):
Oh? Yeah, okay, I don't know what they.

Speaker 1 (02:35:02):
Say, Well, it's it's a native plant. It's a native plant.
They have you ever heard the term one man's trash
is another man's treasures That that was said, probably originally
about horse herb. I'm joking, but horse herb for someone

(02:35:25):
who doesn't want any weeds in their lawn is a
pain in the neck. And I'm very hard to kill.
I have sprayed orse heerb with roundup before and it
didn't kill it. I'm just telling you that is a
tough or. I was trying to I said, I wonder
if this will kill you? And I didn't kill it.
But people that are into native plants, people that want
to attract certain kinds of little butterflies, people that want

(02:35:48):
something that is a green groundcover that grows in the
shade and even if it's drowdy, it survives. They love
horse herb. So you got to decide where you want
to fall on this. Sounds like you want to get
rid of it. I tell you there's some areas where
or serb is the best thing you can have on
the ground because of all the things I just said. Now,
if you want to get rid of it, you're gonna
have to use something stronger. And the problem is those

(02:36:11):
products will probably kill your Saint Augustine too. Products containing
triclop here, for example, would probably do a pretty good
job on the orse herb, but the tricle peers aren't
labeled for Saint Augustine because they are they are too
hard on it. So all you all I could say

(02:36:33):
is if you had so much orse herb that you
could just say, look, I'm just going to kill it
and if the Saint Augustine dies, that's fine, and then replant.
That's option A. Option B would be to get a
wiper type applicator where you could wipe down some sort
of a herb side like tricle peer on the orserb
without getting it on your grass. But there's not a
good solution. You're right, Digging it doesn't work. It strength

(02:36:58):
pretty much doesn't work. But those would be those would
be the two options to go about.

Speaker 26 (02:37:03):
Okay, Well, thank you so much for your info.

Speaker 1 (02:37:07):
All right, I appreciate the call. Thanks a lot for
being a gardener and listener. You're welcome, all right, folks,
you hear music, you know what music means. Music means
I have to shut up, and you're going to head
out of here and go see some of those Santas
we're talking about earlier. Are lots of lots of good
things to get out there and do today, if you're

(02:37:29):
if you are interested, he hanging around until tomorrow. We'll
be back at Lein tomorrow. I'd say I'm to answer
your gardening question.