Your Garden is More Than Just Pretty!

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Garden Line with skip rictor.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Crazy Gas can use a trim. You just watch him
as wolds gas.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
The US.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
So many good things to see bat basic in bases
like gas days back, not a salad bases gas.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Sound beaming down.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Between well, well, well, good morning, Wenda Guten Morgan. However
you want to say it good to see you this morning. Yeah,
I said, See, I have to picture someone's out there

(01:00):
when I'm talking. It just makes it easier. Otherwise it's
like you're talking to the wall. So anyway, a little
inside shot there on how we do things here on
the Garden Line. Hey, if you would like to give
us call this morning, Well it's always you know, Sunday mornings,
first thing is always the best time to get right through.
So there's your little tip for the day. But anyway,

(01:22):
you can give me a call seven one three two
one two ktr H seven one three two one two
k t r H. I am looking forward to a
good day to day. Yesterday was great thanks to Southwest
Fertilizer Bob having us out there. It was it was
really fun. Got to talk to a lot of good
folks and we had a lot of fun too. Actually
did some walking around the store and whatnot, and Bolly,

(01:44):
I tell you, every time I go into that place,
I'm just surprised at all of the product and at
the tools. A ninety foot wall of tools. That's just amazing.
I don't know how they I don't know how they
do that. It's it's a lot. But he also carries
those specialty things, you know, the Skips weed wiper. If

(02:05):
you go on my website Gardening with Skip dot com,
I have a thing called Skip's Homemade weed Wiper, and
it's a grabber tool that you put sponges on and
make a tool to apply herbicides directly to a weed,
so it doesn't put a lot of chemical and environment
and it doesn't hurt the plants around it anyway. You

(02:25):
just got to go see it. Anyway, Bob's got those
grabber tools in there so people can do that. We
had some folks picking them up yesterday. And then he's
got that kneeling bench that I talk about a lot
in there. I love kneeling benches. I fell in love
with them sometime after forty when I woke up the
first morning and realized that I was sore, but I
had no earthly idea why some of you are not

(02:45):
and going, yeah, I know which do well. Anyway, He's
got those, but he's got all kinds of other good
stuff in there as well. So it was good see
see them, and thanks again for those of you who
came out. I want to remind you or tell you
for the first time. Next Saturday, from twelve to two,
I'm going to be at Memorial City Ace Hardware, and

(03:07):
so I hope you'll come out to see me. I'll
talk a little bit more about that as we go
through the day, but anyway, just kind of make a
note for those of you in that area come on out.
Look forward to seeing you. In my own yard and
garden today i'd see I think probably later afternoon today.

(03:27):
I'm going to get outside and put her around just
a little bit. No big projects, just a couple of things.
I have a lime tree that is sitting in the pot.
It goes in and the soil is right beside it,
and so I just need to put all that together
and get that thing potted up. I've been holding on
to it for a while, you know. It's one of
those things that ends up. You bring it home and
it sits there for a little while because you're running

(03:50):
around doing other things. Time to get that in the
ground or in the pot. That is one thing I
like about pots is the convenience and the versatility. Number one.
The containers are beautiful, or they can be, and you
can move them around. And you're thinking, yeah, have you

(04:10):
ever tried to pick up a pot full of soil?

Speaker 5 (04:13):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (04:13):
I have, and I'll never do that again. What I
do is I have a little dolly. You tilt the pot,
slide the dolly lip underneath the edge, and then put
a strap around the pot like I attach it to
the dolly on one side, go around the pot and
attach it on the other side. And then once it's
snugly pulled up against the dolly, you can tilt that

(04:36):
thing and basically one hand take a pretty darn heavy
thing anywhere you want to go. And you can move
pots to sunnier or less sunny spots. If you decide,
you know what, this is a little too much sun,
I'm gonna give it a little afternoon shade. You just
roll it over to that spot. It's easy to do.
And anyway, the thing I like about pots or containers

(05:00):
with this plant is Cetrus has fragrant blooms, and I
love to smell the blooms of citrus. It's to me,
it's almost as it's almost equal to the benefit of
getting the citrus fruit themselves. But anyway, so this pot
will go by my patio where when I sit out there,
I can enjoy the fragrance. And yesterday I was talking

(05:21):
about some nice fragrant plants that we can put out,
or that I am putting out. I've put out some ginger,
some hedicium white butterfly ginger. Oh my gosh, it's heavenly
the fragrance. I have some confederate jasmine, also called star
jasmine that's about to go in on a back fence.

(05:41):
That is heavenly fragrance as well. I have something called
lemon verbina no excuse me, almond verbina. Lemon verbenas an
herb almon verbina, and it makes a shrub a bush.
You can share it back, and the more you share it,
the more terminals you get. And that's where the flowers are.
And these white, long, almost like a bottle brush type flower,

(06:02):
but smaller, are very fragrant too. I love that one.
I've got a sweet osmanthus that I also put in
the bed. These are mostly on the southwest side of
the patio because that's where the prevailing wind comes in
the summertime across there. So when you sit on the patio,
you know, you tend to get more of the wind
blowing from that direction, not always, but some, And so

(06:24):
we'll enjoy those fragrance. And now this citrus tree and
a container is going to go as be part of
the mix too. I like to compare visual and audio
using the adjectives for the other. Like I mean, for example,
it's going to be a cacophony of fragrances. Yeah, I know,
cacophony means a sound thing, but it's going to be

(06:44):
a cacophony of fragrances on that patio, and so I'm
looking forward to that anyway, Just some thoughts for you there.
You may want to create some of the same things.
There's a lot of other great plants that could go
into the same mix as well. If you've not doneation
on your lawn in a while, you need to get
out there and do it. And a great product for
that is sweet Green from nitrofoss. Sweet green has eleven

(07:07):
percent nitrogen which is one of the higher nitrogen organic
type products you're gonna ever find. You put it down,
it dissolves into the soil very easily. Those carbon chains
and sweet green are loved by beneficial bacteria and you're
going to get a nice green up of your lawn.
You goun to find sweet green at plants and things
up in Brenham. You can find it at Fisher's Hardware

(07:28):
down in Baytown or our Lake Hardware clue on Dixie Drive.
I'm gonna take a little break here real quick and
I'll be right back. Stick around when we come back.
Chris and nasa Abe you'll be our first up. Well,
good morning, welcome back to the guard Line. Glad to
have you with us this morning. You can go straight
out of the phones here and talk to Chris in

(07:51):
nasa abey. Hey, Chris, welcome to Guardline. Cool you know, yes, sir, yes, sir.

Speaker 6 (08:02):
I've got a couple of bald spots in the yard,
uh you know, all the way down to dirt and
some a couple are in the in total shade, and
then some of them are in the you know, full sun.
I was wondering, I was thinking about getting some of
that Scot's easy seed that they sell at.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
ACE and try that out unless you try suggest something different.
What kind of yard do you have? What's the grass Augustine? Okay, yeah,
it'll look real weird to put those seeds in uh
uh to be in there, and there's not a Saint
Augustine seed, So I would what I would do is

(08:43):
even if you go you can go places, just buy
like a a piece for two or three of sod
uh you know the lower size of your dormat at
the door. Uh, And you can take those and you
cut them up and cut one of them up and
maybe three different pieces if you want, and that way
spread them out in those different patches and holes that

(09:03):
you have watered in real good. Remember the water at
twice a day each one twice a day the first week,
once a day the second week, and then after that
you can start backing off. But that will fill in
really fast with a nice mature plant and make a
natural blend into what you already have.

Speaker 7 (09:24):
That's okay, great. Do I need to prepare the soil
before I do that? That's you know, yeah, yeah, if
you broke it up a little bit. If you broke
it up a little bit with a rake. You could
put a little bit of very fine compost in there.
Don't put anything chunky at all, but just a little bit.
You don't need a whole lot. And then when you lay.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Your sid, first of all, wet the soil first, and
then lay the sod on top. And then make sure
you press it down so you get good sod to soil.
Contact that black clay that comes in with the sod underneath,
make sure it's touching the soil. There's nothing this air
air gap underneath it, is what I'm trying to say.
And then and then water it. That the most important

(10:05):
thing on that stuff surviving is don't you know, lay
a bunch of sod and an hour and a half later,
come back and start water. And just go ahead and
water it as you're getting it laid down, and then
again twice a day for the first week, once a
day the second week. Okay, Well, good Jill, thank you
for your help, sir you bet, Chris, thanks for the call.

(10:26):
Appreciate that heirloom soils is really a source of all
kinds of good products. I was talking to somebody the
other day and they I can't remember what was it. Oh,
I know what it was. They were wanting to plant
some rose bushes, and I said, well, there's some thing
called rose and Bloomers blend from heirloom soil. It's excellent

(10:47):
for that. And it says and bloomers because you know,
you may have even remembered Randy talking about way back,
you know, rose soil for don't just use it for roses,
usually for all kinds of things. Well that I think
that's this title Rose and Blue is just say, hey,
this is not just for roses. It's good for all
kinds of bloomin plants, and it works well. The veggie
and herb mix, yes, great for veggie and herb, but

(11:09):
if you want to put it in a flower bit,
if we find for that too. It really is sometimes
we put names on things just so people, you know,
feel they can identify. Okay, that's the one I need
for this, and it is. Those are all for the
things they say, but they can expand out to other things.
Airloom sauce has got fruit bery and citrus mix. They've
got a nice landscape ped mix too, by the way.

(11:32):
And then if you're looking for special things to maybe
improve your soil in general, kind of a you're going
to kind of be a do it yourself or in
putting certain things in. You can buy expanded shell from
you can buy expanded shell blend to a compost, or
you can buy aged leaf mole compost by the bag
from them. Airloom Soils can be delivered to your house too,

(11:52):
or you can go get it if you want to
go get it. The thing you need to check out
this if you would write this down Heirloom Soils heirloomsoils
dot com and check out the products they have, look
at where they are, look at the calculator that's on there.
That was another question I get. Sometimes people say, well
I don't know how much to get You know, well,
here's what you do. You figure out, go to the calculator,

(12:15):
put in how much, how wide, how deep, how long
the bed is, and it will help you know exactly
how much you need, whether you need to buy it
by the cubic yard, which if it's any sized job
at all, you do, or whether you know you just
go get some one cubic footbags and fill it in
that way. Anyway, Heirloomsoils dot com. That's what you need

(12:37):
to know. And just know this that every time I've
gotten one of their products and used it, and I've
done it a bunch. I see really good results, and
I wouldn't be recommending. I don't recommend things that I
have not had personal experience with or seen direct research on.
And to know that when I'm telling you something, you're

(12:58):
going to have good results with it too. Used as
directed as they always say, I never kind of had
commercial whatever flyer that you see anyway, heirloom, so you're
not going to go wrong with it. And if you've
listened to Guardenline one time, you've heard me say more
than one time that you got to start with the soil.
Get the soil right, and then the plants you put

(13:18):
in are going to have better success. That's how that works.
Along with doing good soils, doing quality nutrient additions. You know,
the nutrients are part of what I call the brown stuff,
the soil, the compost, the nutrients, all of that, the fertilizer,
that's all the foundation. And Neilson Plant Food has some
really cool products that They've got a line called Nutristar

(13:42):
that comes in screwtop lid jars, and the nutri Star
is named by the plant that's it's really designed for
and again there's some variability there. You don't have to
just use it on that one kind of plant. But
there's a nutri Star for hibiscus, there's a nutri Star
for vegetables, there's nutri Star for plumerias. I mean, on

(14:04):
and on and on. The one I want to tell
you about right now is the hibiscus and flowering tropicals food.
If you don't have hibiscus in your landscape, you need to.
Whether it's the perennial hibiscus it dies to the ground,
comes back and has flowers as big as dinner plates
that are either pink or red or white or swirled
or some version of those three colors, or a tropical

(14:25):
hibiscus which are absolutely sleunningly gorgeous. Nutristar Hibiscus and flowering
tropical food is great for all of that. And you know,
if it's got flowers on it, Hibiscus and flying tropicals
can do a good job for it. It gives you
multiple acidifying sources to make sure that the nutrient release
is in it is given out over time, but that

(14:48):
the pH of your soil is adequate for those plants
that you're growing. Get a good high potassium content make
sure it's resistance. Potassium helps build a better how do
I say, drought resilience within a plant. It's one of
the functions of potassium, cold heartiness and other function of potassium.
But however you want to go about it. Nutra Star

(15:10):
Hibiscus and flowering tropicals, one of the many nutri Star
products by Nelson's is something you need to check into.
And by the way, there's about a dozen places around
town where you can take your empty jars in. Instead
having to buy more jars and throw away plastic, you
just refill them and it's it's more economical, but it's
also helps keep that plastic out of the environment, which

(15:30):
I think is a great way to go. You're listening
to Gardenline my phone number seven one three two one
two KTRH seven one three two one two KTRH. Give
us a call. We'll help you with the kinds of
plants you're wanting to grow. I was mentioning fragrant flowers
and some of the ones we're doing around the landscape.

(15:51):
There are many other good examples of flowers that have
a nice fragrance. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's overwhelming. You
know what a gardena is or example of one that's
just it's perfume, but it's a good, strong fragrance. Then
there are things that are a little more subtle. Some
of the old time petunias, old fashioned petunias, kind of

(16:15):
the cottage garden type. They're wild and lanky and probably
not gonna make it in a lot of flower beds
because they don't have the neat, clean appearance that our
modern petunias do. Some of those old ones have a
lovely little fragrance. Earlier this spring, when the Chinese fringe
was blooming, it was just my favorite spring blooming tree.
Chinese fringe has a nice little honey to me. It's

(16:38):
a kind of a honey like fragrance, and it has
so many blooms, just shaggy all over the plant that
when you get one of those and the breeze is
blow in the right direction, it's another nice fragrant plant
that you can enjoy. Remember, in gardening, we have not
just the visual. You know, people think about, well, I
want to have a landscape, and what you think as well?

(17:00):
You picture this front of your house or backyard and
you see all the beautiful plants and there's all these colors.
Maybe you've got evergreens and deciduous But that's all visual, right,
And also part of the visual is big bold leaves
like an elephant ear or a kalladium, or narrow leaves
that are a fine leaf grass clump of grass for example.

(17:23):
Those are all parts of the visual. But gardening also
includes the sense that you smell and choosing to put
some nice fragrant plants that you love in. That's a
wonderful thing. A lot of us grew up with fragrant memories,
you know, maybe it was the smell of cookies in
grandma's kitchen, you know, when you're a kid growing up,

(17:45):
or something along those lines. Smells are one of the
things we remember best throughout our lives, to the very end.
I mean we smells are a memory that sticks in
our brains. And you may have some fragrances of the
past of flowers that maybe grandy grew or something like that.
You can bring those in and you can re experience that.

(18:07):
So anyway, that's a freak. Another aspect of gardening is
movement and sound. Do you know that plants make sounds, Well,
sometimes they do. Movement would be like the swaying grass
in the breeze. There's a beauty to that and the
grass sea head's coming up above it. And I'm not
talking about long grass. I'm talking about big clumps of
grass like maiden grass, Miscanthus or mules or others. And

(18:32):
the sounds if you've ever sat underneath the clump of bamboo.
And by the way, I would plant clumping bamboo, not
running bamboo, because running bamboo can out run you. It's
like putting bermuda grass in your flower bed. It takes off.
It's a great plant. But if you don't have room,
or if you don't it contained underground, it don't do that.

(18:53):
But anyway, sit underneath bamboo and the breeze. Summer breeze
is blowing and the bamboo leaves are kind of stiff
and paper, if you will, and it almost sounds like
it's raining as you're sitting under there, as those leaves
rub against each other. That's a really interesting sound of
the garden. And then there's the butterflies what I call
flying flowers coming by that you can attract in. There's

(19:17):
watching the pollinators work on the flowers. There's hummingbirds that
come in. So there's that visual that can be added
to it and the songs of the birds that come in.
So I'm kind of droning on here, but I want
you to think of your garden as broader than just oh,
here's a prettiful, pretty flower. Beautiful flower. I'm gonna put
it in this front bed. That's fine, But garden goes way,

(19:39):
way way beyond that. Speaking of in Channy Gardens out
in Richmond, Rosenberg is an awesome garden center and be
a good place to visit this afternoon too. By the way,
the website if you'll write this down Enchanted Gardens Richmond
dot com in Chennigardens Richmond dot com. When you get there,
you're gonna be greeted by an enthusiastic team that's as

(20:02):
helpful as they come. They know how to help you
have success, and you're going to have every part and
piece that you need to put together to make beauty,
whether it's a flower bed, a combination container you're creating,
or maybe rose bushes and shrubs along the periphery of
your landscape as backdrops. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Go there,

(20:26):
have a good time and take some friends with you,
because it's really a great outing for everybody. I'm going
to take a break and I'll be right back after
the news. All right, Welcome back, folks, Welcome back to
guarden Line. One of my favorite garden centers to visit
is down there in Seabrook. It's way southwest in Houston.

(20:50):
Those of you in that whole region, you know it.
It's Moss Nursery. And Moss Nursery is not just another
garden center.

Speaker 8 (20:57):
It is.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
First of all, it's a seventy year old, fan only
operated garden center. It is eight acres to find everything
you want, I mean, and when you wander through it,
it is every time you turn a corner, more plants,
seasonal color, every kind of flower you can imagine, gorgeous
hanging baskets to give you that instant you got. Somebody
come with over tonight and you want to degorate that

(21:18):
back patio hanging baskets are boom. You're there in one purchase.
It looks great no matter what you're looking for. Beautiful
shrubs like you have twenty different kinds of azalias that
they have their beautiful blooming shrubs, you know, talking of
that white Chinese fringe tree and ping Magnolia's the Japanese
Magnoia is the ones that were blooming. They're the first

(21:40):
things to bloom just about in the spring. It's beautiful
and the house plant selection is outstanding. You're not going
to find anything if you're looking for something different, you know,
like I don't have one of those already. It's a
great place for that. Jim has some really quirky T
shirts designs that he's come up with. He has a
thing called the eyeball plant and you got to go
see it. It's cool. But anyway, you can get a

(22:02):
T shirt with that on it. Like I said, you
never know around the next corner what you're going to find.
At Moss Nursery, Toddville Road, Seabrook, Texas, Mosnursery dot com
and here's the phone number two eight one four seven
four twenty four eighty eight. We're going to head up
to Willis now and talk to Sherry. Hey, Sherry, welcome

(22:23):
to garden.

Speaker 9 (22:23):
Line, Thank you, good morning. Last year we had a
problem with our tomato plants. Our tomatoes, the second batch
of them, they started getting yellow and they had these
big I think they were stink boats, some green, some brown.
They were awful.

Speaker 8 (22:41):
And yeah, so this year, my.

Speaker 9 (22:44):
Husband started making these structures put nettie over, which I
don't know how they get pollinated if you put in
net sober, but that's one question. And then yesterday he
headed off distractor supply and got this stuff called bio.
It's danced and sits right on them, and it's got
thy flood drends in them.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Okay, and.

Speaker 9 (23:10):
I really don't want to ingest that stuff. And you know,
we we're trying to go organic, but you know, also
we can't have these bugs.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, I get it. Well, I don't have a bioadvanced
label in front of me, so I don't know if
it's labeled for vegetables or not.

Speaker 9 (23:33):
Yes, it is exactly a vegetable, it.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Is, okay, good, good, Well, I mean, yeah, that's an option.
The problem with stink bugs is once you're adults flying around,
if you try to kill them, it takes a good potent.
Not just any insecticide will will work on that. What
I would do, the garden mesh, if that's what we're
talking about, has it's almost like a the window screens

(23:58):
on your house, but it's a very off fabric and
very light weight. So if you put that over them
the bugs can't get inside, and then you just lift
it up to do your harvesting tomatoes. Now, bees that
go and buzz the flower, especially bumblebees, they can help
with pollination by shaking the flower, but they're primarily pollinated

(24:21):
by wind moving the plants. This isn't a pollen that
the bee takes from one flower to another, but inside
the flower, when wind moves them or a bumblebee buzzes them,
it shakes pollen loose and it falls inside that flower
to the pistol where it's received and pollinates. So you
can just you can do that. If your tomatoes are

(24:42):
in a very protected spot. Sometimes you need to go
out and shake the cage every now and then to
help them with that process. But out in the garden
with wind blowing, and wind will blow to some degree
through that mesh fabric. Okay, so that's an option. The
other thing I recommend on stink bugs and leaf footed
bugs is learn go online and do a search and

(25:04):
find out what their eggs and their nymphs look like.
The eggs are going to be little barrel for stink bugs.
They're gonna look like little barrels that are all stacked together.
And I say little, I mean tiny, you know, way
smaller than a beebe way smaller. But you can see
them in clusters and you go, that's a that's a

(25:24):
true bug egg, like a stink bug. And then when
they hatch out, the nymphs herd together. They hang out
together in little groups on the leaf and at that
stage they don't have wings, they can't fly away, and
you can pull up. You just have a little pale
or whatever, a bowl of soapy water under them and

(25:45):
swat the branch and they all fall in the soapy
water and you just took a dozen of them out
that way. Once they're adults and they're flying around, now
we're having to grab some more potent products to spray,
and it's hard to it's hard to have as effective
of a control without just nuke in the whole place.

Speaker 9 (26:06):
Okay, so you think just putting this, what is the
screening that you recommended calls to be bought some netting
from Famii poll.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Well, it may have been what he bought. Usually we
save the word netting for things that have holes maybe
a half inch to an inch that you're keeping birds
out with. The mesh holds the size of your window screens.
But it's a very soft fabric that just lays over
the plants and you can do that.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Now.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
Some people will also take Organza bags. I don't know,
I had to learn what Organza was. You may be familiar,
but it's little, very very fine white mesh bags that
often have a draw string on them and they're used
for like, oh, I don't know, bridal party gifts, you know,

(26:56):
by the bride gives them out or something. But if
you go online and do a search for Organza bags,
you just need to buy them the size that you
need to go around your tomatoes or your tomato clusters,
and you just slip them over and pull the draw string.
You don't even have to tie it, just pull it
and it stays there and it helps keep birds away

(27:16):
from them, and it also keeps bugs away from the fruit.
And they're very cheap. You can buy them online by
the hundred and they're not much money at all. So
I would try that also. But you got to bag
every tomato with.

Speaker 9 (27:28):
Those, yeah, well, and they're so dense in there. There's
a fun of tomato.

Speaker 10 (27:34):
That's fun.

Speaker 9 (27:36):
Yeah, Okay, that'd be a job. So yeah, with this side,
Luorin is that poison for humans?

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Ciflutheran is well, Okay, I'm gonna let me just address
because we've got a lot of people listening. The word
poison is misused a lot. Salt is a poison, aspirin
is a poison. There's a certain amount of either of
those that if you eat it, it will kill you.
And so poison is a term that really is based

(28:08):
on the dose that you get. Okay, so anything, pretty
much anything can be poisonous if you take the right amount.
I know what you mean when you ask that, so
I'll answer it according to what you're really asking. But
I just needed to address that word poison. The Ciflutheran
is a synthetic pyrethroid. It's one of the synthetic pirethroids

(28:30):
that's labeled for a lot of applications in the garden
and landscape and whatnot. And so if you follow the label.
The research that was done is to like how long
do you need to wait after you spray whatever the
product is, before you re enter that garden area and
also before you would be able to harvest it. It's

(28:51):
called days to harvest, and that's the time that's deemed
to be acceptable to use. People have strong opinions about
what they spray on their plants, and a lot of
people don't want to mess with something that is a
synthetic ex ecticide. And I understand that it's fine, but

(29:12):
you got to follow the label if you're going to
use something like that. That's where we get into trouble
is when we mix things too strong, when we spray
them one day and then we harvest the food the
next day, and you're supposed to wait seven days maybe
or you see what I'm saying. You just got to
follow the label and then and wash your produce. I
think in my gardens, I just don't try to spray

(29:33):
stink bugs. I just don't. I use Arganza bags. I
use the mesh covering over tomatoes and just block them
out and make it simple that way. It's for some
people that's too much trouble. I understand that, but it's
up to you. But if someone's labeled for use on
a product, you got to follow the label.

Speaker 9 (29:53):
Okay, Well that's very helpful. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, all right, thanks a lot. Appreciate your call very much. Well,
that was a lot of discussion, a lot of information,
but I stuff I wanted to say and make sure
people here and understand that that is important.

Speaker 8 (30:12):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Peerscapes is an awesome, awesome company for bringing beauty to
your whole landscape from a landscape design to working on
irrigation to creating a gorgeous landscape, lighting to drainage to
a service they offer that's called quarterly maintenance. And with
that you just haven't come out once every quarter. Once

(30:33):
every three months. They fix, They fix up the mults,
They replace any plants that needed. If you want to
do a transition to a different season's color plants for
the flower bed, they can do that. Uh, and pruning,
you know what, whatever's needed. It's it's quarterly maintenance and
you can get it from Pierscapes And the website is
Pierscapes dot com. Piercescapes dot com. Go there see when

(30:57):
you see the pictures of what they do, you'll get
the idea of why we love them here on guarden
line two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two
eight one three seven oh five zero six zero, i'na
take a break and I'll be back. Walk off the earth.
You never listen to them there. You're kind of cute,

(31:18):
kind of different Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have
you with us. It is time to put on the
summer fertilizations on your lawn. If you have not fertilized
last let's say six weeks or so, go ahead and
get this summer fertilizations on now NIGHTE five Super Turf,
the silver bag. It's on my schedule at gardening with
Skip dot com. Just check out the schedule nine to five.

(31:40):
Super Turf is an outstanding product because it feeds for
a very long time. You're gonna get like four months
out of the thing, and so when you return your clippings.
In addition to the fact that it's gradually releasing nutrients,
the clippings are decomposing and gradually releasing nutrients that'll carry
all the way into the fall. Really, it's it's an excellent,

(32:01):
excellent product. Design firstils, design for a climate. It's a
silver bag. Easy to identify in the garden centers where
you go, in the feed stores, in the Ace hardware stores,
they've got it. You can find it in places like
Lake Hardware and Angleton out Sand and shopping Center there
in alvin em d Clear Lake on Bay Area Boulevard.

(32:21):
Another place where you'll find nite foss products like the
super turf really does works. Talking to someone the other
day that was asking me about that quote that sprinkler
you talk about. At first it was like, I don't
talk about long spring, what are you talking about. Well,
come to find out they're talking about tree hugger sprinklers.

(32:44):
Tree hugger is a sprinkler that's like a hinge. It
sort of looks like pac Man. You know how pac
Man goes across the screen and it's like opening and
closing his mouth. Well, imagine, you know, take put your
two thumbs together, curve your hands and then bring your
your fingers together to make a circle, and then use
your thumbs is the hens to open it up. That's
what a TreeHugger sprinkler looks like. And you hook it

(33:04):
up to a hose. You can get a little one
seven inches. They have eleven inch and fifteen inch sizes.
If you just planted a plant, you can barely turn
them on and it'll wet that root ball, which is
right where all the water needs to go when a
new plant goes in the ground because it doesn't have
roots further out. And then as you turn it up more,
you water a larger and larger area. So maybe you're saying, well,

(33:24):
I didn't plant a plant, Well do you have a
young tree, maybe a tree that's I don't know, been
in the ground five years, and we're going to get
into summer, it's going to get hot, it's gonna quit raining.
At times, you crank that sprinkler up and you rescue
the tree. Or if you're trying to get it to
grow fast, you can hang a hammock in the tree.
That's my goal. When I plant a tree, you can

(33:46):
make it continue to grow fast by continuing to ply
water and avoid that stress. Tree here or sprinklers aren't
just for trees. They're great for planting a rose bush
or a shrub. And you can find them in a
lot of places. For example, you can find them in
D and D f Eden Supply. You're going to find
them at Southwest Fertilizer. I saw some just yesterday there,
kt Ace Hardware, K and M Hardware, A Task Cassida, Uh,

(34:10):
You're going to find them at Inchinna Gardens and Forest,
and you're gonna find them at Warren Southern Gardens out
in Kingwood, RCW Nurseries Arborgate, Nelson Water Garden and nursery
out in the KT area. Lots of places carry the
tree hugger sprinkler. I would suggest you get one because
you're going to have a use for it again anytime

(34:32):
you plan something, and then for the years that follow
you can it'll water. You get that large one and
crank it up, and I mean it'll water a very
large area underneath the tree. They work cool invention in
my opinion. You're listening to garden Line our phone number
seven one three two one two k t r H

(34:53):
seven one three two one two k t r H.
Buchanan's plants. Have you heard they? You know they last
year twice during storms their whole checkout area was crushed
by falling limbs and things. And they have rebuilt. Now
they've got there what they call the barn the barn,

(35:13):
and it is a very solid structure. But one of
the cool things about it is, first of all, congratulations
to Buchanans for continuing to essentially dig out of the
rubble and come back and just keep that place in
awesome shape.

Speaker 8 (35:29):
Well.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Now customers can stand underneath the cover if it were
drizzling or something, if the sun is baking down. You
got a roof over your head out there, some shade.
It makes it really nice checking out. And of course
those of you who've been to Buchanans you know when
you go there there's going to be everything on earth
that you could possibly want, and a whole lot of
what's that never seen one of those before. They specialize

(35:51):
in native plants, but they have every kind of plant.
Their houseplant selection is outstanding. For example, you know those
aren't native plants typically. Cannons is an awesome place. It's fun,
and it's in the Heights. It's on Eleventh Street in
the Heights. You can go to Buchanansplants dot com. Bookmark
that website, sign up for their newsletter and you will

(36:12):
find it to be extremely informative as well. I always
love to go. They're talking to to them the other day,
Zach and Heather, and they're excited. You know it's again,
I don't. Those are some resilient folks because they have
been through it in the last twelve months and now
it's a hopeful new thing and the place is just better.

(36:36):
It's just better. That's what it amounts to. Let's see
here we are, we are talking to next to James
in Spring, Texas. James, if I can find the right button,
there we go. Hey James, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 11 (36:54):
Good morning, Good morning. Question, is it seems like there's
been a few butterful this year. What should I plant
to attract butterflies?

Speaker 8 (37:05):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (37:06):
My goodness, you have so many good plants that will
do that. I don't even know where to begin. You
need to keep in mind that the butterflies are attracted
to certain flowers, So choosing flowers that attract the kind
of butterfly you want. If you want golf friddllary, it's
an orange butterfly. You need passion vine for the larva
to feed on. And then the larval food sources. Milkweed

(37:28):
attracts monarchs for larval food. And you know there's a
you're not too far away from Buchanans and they have
a lot of great butterfly plants over there. I would
suggest swinging by there and just say what would you
recommend as a group in general for butterflies. And they're
going to have a lot of options, And again, you
and I could talk for an hour about that because

(37:49):
there's so many, but most people want some milkweed for monarchs.
Maybe a passion vine for gulf fritillary caterpillars to bring
those in if you've got a zenias. And oh, what's
the other one that is escaping my brain right now?
I'll think of it a little bit later. Oh the

(38:11):
summer bloomer with orange and yellow flowers called Pride of
Barbados that attracts the swallowtails one type of the swallowtail
that's a yellow and black and really well, So talk
to a good nursery like that and I think they'll
get you off to a good start.

Speaker 11 (38:29):
Thank you so much, God bless you.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Bet. Remember just feed the adults and feed the babies
with the planets you choose. Thanks James, appreciate your call
very much. Microlife fertilizers even there's a grain in our types.
We talk about the green bag for the lawns and
the six two four, But they have an unbelievable selection
of liquid organics. For example, Biomatrix the orange label it's

(38:53):
a seven one three product. Okay Ocean Harvest the blue
label it's a four three product based on fish emulsion
type ingredients. And then they have things like micro grow
Liquid af micro Grow Liquid AF is packed with eight
extremely dominating beneficial microbes that you need and want to

(39:16):
be there present in large numbers in your soil. Now,
it's not a fungicide, but those bacteria actually act as
fungus defense for your plants. There's one called Basillis subtlest,
and you can buy products that the whole product is
Basilla subtlest, just like we buy Bacillis thuringiensis for caterpillars. Well,

(39:37):
Basilli subtless fights diseases. There's some streptomyces and their trichoderma
and other basillis that all work to defend your plants.
That's micro grow liquid AF. Go to Microlifefertilizer dot com
and you will find a long list of all the
great products they have and they're widely available. All right, folks,

(40:03):
music is here, which means skip gets to quick talking.
But not until I tell you that next Saturday, albe
at Memorial City Ace. Memorial City ACE is on Memorial Drive.
Memorial City Ace A Memorial Drive, Saturday, May third, twelve
to two, twelve to two, noon to two. I'll be there.

(40:25):
Come on out and see me. Memorial City ACE Hardware.
You get to see a really nice ace hardware store.
I'll be doing the things we usually do, answering questions,
looking at samples, identifying plants, and just visiting with you
to solve problems. By yesterday people brought me a lot
of plant problems and we had a good time in
the process. I'm gonna take a little break here. We'll

(40:49):
be right back after the news. Hey, welcome back. Good
to have you with us. You're listening to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help
you have a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape. That

(41:10):
is what we're all about. And if we can give
you some advice along those lines, if you've got some
questions about things like that, seven one three two one
two KTRH, give me a call. We'll visit and hopefully
get to the bottom of this thing. I have to
I've been answering gardening questions for over thirty seven years now.

(41:33):
I worked for thirty five years as a county agrolife
extension horticulturist. Every county in Texas has an extension office
that serves that county. Two hundred and fifty four counties
in the state. I think two hundred and fifty or
fifty two actually have offices in the county. And if
you get out in West Texas where they're more jack
rabbits and people, you may have two counties served by

(41:55):
a single office. But bottom line is you have a
county agent and your office. In urban areas, there are
in addition to agriculture agents and family and community health
agents or for age agents, you also have horticulture agents.
Sometimes there's a few of us around the state. Here
in the Houston listening area, if you've got an orange,

(42:16):
you've got a horticulturist. If you're up in Conroe, you've
got a horticulture. Rises County has a horticulturist. Houston has
a horticulturist, a couple of horticultures. I believe they are
now for bengk County, Brazoria County, Galveston County. I'll leaving out.
I think I covered it all. My apologies, I forgot

(42:36):
someone in that group. But anyway, you got county horticulture
so you can call on. That's where you go to
find out information about getting your soil tested. That's where
you go to get general gardening advice. And I encourage
you to take advantage of that. They have a connection
to the specialists at the university. So you may walk
in and go, I heard this thing is called mole
crickets in the yard, And what do I do about that?

(42:59):
And do I need to worry about it? That's a
good question. I don't think I've had a molk. I've
had one or two molkirk. But anyway, they can put
you in touch with church specialists, with entomologists, resources that
will help you with that. So call your county extension agent,
take advantage of them. Look, Abraham Lincoln created the Extension

(43:19):
Service in the United States. He signed into law the
Extension Services. So every state in the country has through
a number of laws over the time. I know I'm
doing a history lesson here, but it is worth noting
every state has a Langret college at A and M.
It's for Texas, LSUS for Louisiana, Oklahoma State, Mississippi State,

(43:43):
Auburn University, un City of Florida, University of Georgia. Those
are all lang Grant universities that was created by a
federal act. Where the common folks back in that day
maybe couldn't go to Harvard or some of the place
to a private school. And these were schools that were
available to the people that other purposes in doing them.

(44:06):
And then there was the research out wing created by
a different act. That means we have horticultural, agricultural, whatever
kinds of research going on at these universities so that
we get good answers that have been tested, improven, not
just somebody's opinion. That's important. And then they said, well, okay,

(44:27):
we've got the university where we can teach kids and
train people for the next generation. We've got the research
where we can learn more and have locally proven good
answers to things, improve the life of people through development
of research. Now we got to get the word out
to people, and that was the Extension Service. We say

(44:49):
it was taking the university to the people. That is
kind of an old motto, if you will, of the
Extension Service, taking the university to the people. And so
back in the old days you would have a wagon.
There's a guy named semen Nap here in Texas. Actually
Texas is where the Extension Service was created, and now

(45:10):
it serves all the states. But seman Nap, I say
where it was created. It's where the idea and the
functioning of that really began from the extension being created.
Seeman Nap would take a wagon, he'd go out to
the countryside, go to a farmer, have a big farm day.
All the farmers in the area come. See. They would
plant let's say they were growing cotton there, and they

(45:33):
would plant some new varieties of cotton that were more
productive that had been developed by research, and so you'd
have the regular cotton, then you'd have these new varieties,
and then later on you have a big farm day
and all the farmers come and see. You know, it's
kind of like Missouri, the show me state, when they're
looking at Joe, their fellow farmer, and he's got it
on his place, and it's clear this works or this

(45:55):
doesn't work. It spreads the innovation and as a result,
through the decades and America's ability to feed his population,
to feed the world in many ways really changed. You know,
farmer doesn't just feed twelve people anymore like in the
horse drawn plow days. Maybe that amount we're talking about

(46:17):
forty plus people and more depending on the crops. And
all that innovation happened because of that system that our
leaders back in the day, including Abraham Lincoln, signing that
Extension Act into law that they had the vision to
do that, and the benefits are there. So now I

(46:37):
doubt you have a cotton patch that you're taking care of.
There very few farmers in our world today compared to
the population, but everybody's got a garden or a lawn
or has questions about other aspects of life. And those
resources are there at your Agricultural Extension Office your Texas

(46:58):
A and M. They call it the AGRA Life AGRA
as a combination of Agriculture and Life Agrolife Extension Office,
and you should take advantage of that. And they have
a lot. I'm a horticulture so I'm talking about gardening,
but they have information. The four each program is done
out of there for youth development, the Family and Community
Health program. It does things related to everything from diabetes

(47:22):
and heart disease prevention, you know, exercise and all kinds
of things. And back in the day it was about
how to can vegetables and soak clothes and they still
do that kind of stuff. But it's a good resource
and it's there for you, so you should take advantage
of it. Well, that was a I guess you could say,

(47:43):
a long commercial for the extension service. But I spent
thirty five years doing it. I believe in it, and
it's something that what do they call things, the best
kept secret? We like to not have it be in
any way, shape or form a secret. Well tell you what.
I've been talking so long. I'm going to take a
little break here. We'll be back with your question. Seven

(48:04):
one three two one two kt r H. I guess
that means I need to start talking. We're back. Thanks
for thanks for enduring my long extension description. I just uh,
I'm always amazing how many people I find that don't
have access to some good information. I guess I should

(48:25):
throw out there one more thing about that. There's a
website called that aggrolife has and it's there. It's essentially
just to be called the bookstore. I'll tell you a
little bit more about it in just a minute. But
a lot of the publications you can download from up there.
So maybe you have I don't know, some kind of
indoor pest, silverfish or whatever is in indoors you want

(48:46):
to deal with, you can go find a publication on
it and read about it. And it's all part of
that same service. Speaking of service, BnB, turf pros bnbturf
pros dot com. That's the website, or excuse me, the
website doesn't have the end in it. It's bb bbturfpros
dot com. If you want to get m a call
seven one three two three, four, five, five nine eight

(49:07):
seven one three two three four, five, five nine eight.
It's a family owned business.

Speaker 11 (49:12):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
They provide quality work and they provide a good honest
relationship personal connection with their customers their clients. Uh, that's
what they're all about. And if you look at the
way that people rate them, it is very, very high,
and which means they're doing a heck of a good
job with that right now through May, just through May.

(49:35):
So we're about to start May. Here, we've got about
a month of this and left they are doing a
free erration of your lawn with purchasing a compost top
dressing of your lawn. So you you have them do
a compost top dressing and they're going to throw in
a narration with that, but only through May, and they
stay busy, so don't delay. Call them, get on the

(49:57):
schedule and get them out there to do that. They
serve the area kind of south of the Houston area
a little bit primarily south of the Beltway. But if
you go from sugar Land and Missouri City all the
way across to forty five League City and Dickinson and
everything in between, Pearland, Alvin Manville or Cola, Siana. Friends,
would you know that that whole region down there, that's

(50:19):
that's their home turf and that's where they do their
work primarily bb turfpros dot com seven one three, two, three,
four fifty five ninety eight. Give them a call. And
if you go to the website too, by the way,
you can see the kind of work they do and
it's it is gorgeous stuff, really really nice. First you
look at it and you go, Okay, I want that

(50:40):
at my house. I want it to look like that.
We'll call them they can do that. I was stopping
by yesterday. I went by Plans for All Seasons up
on Highway to forty nine visiting. Was Sherry there and uh,
just talking about what's going on, how this spring has been,
the different plants and things that they have, and you know,
there's so much knowledge in that Flowerty family that started

(51:04):
Plants for All Seasons back in what nineteen seventy three,
I believe, So they have been in that spot since
Tomball Parkway was hardly a goat path. I mean, they've
been there for a very long time. They know the area,
they know the soils, and people there know them. They
go because they depend on them. They know I'm going
to get a good answer. I'm going to get a
good plant. I'm going to get good service at Plants

(51:26):
for All Seasons. That's what it's about. And they'll do that. Now.
If you need a specific location where they are is
they are where Luetta comes into two forty nine. They're
on Highway two forty nine Tomball Parkway, just north of Luetta,
right there on the right hand side going north two
eight one three seven six sixteen forty six two eight

(51:49):
one three seven six sixteen forty six. You can follow
them on social media and go to the website Plants
for All Seasons dot com. But go check it out.
The place is gorgeous or it is spring. I mean,
if there is a time when garden centers are just
opulent with plants, is that a private way to use

(52:10):
to wear it opulate? If there's a time when they're
opulent with plant, now is it? And oh my gosh,
that place is gorgeous, loaded ready to go. That is true.
My some of my family members were purchasing some plants
that they're going to take home and turn their landscape

(52:30):
into something beautiful and you know the color. We were
talking about different kinds of plants that they might want
to put in. We're hitting a season now where the
things that looked good in spring in the next let's
say two months, maybe about about two months from now
are going to be struggling with summer. A lot of them,

(52:52):
but not all. We have summer hardy plants, plants that
can survive in the heat and in the intense heat
actually that we have here. And as you're out there
landscaping your yard and you go buy a quality garden center,
and I hope you will go to an independent garden center.
There are a lot of places you can buy plants
in town, but a good independent garden center is going

(53:16):
to give you the most knowledge about plants and the
most service after the sale that you're going to get,
because that's what they're about. That's what they do. And
we have them north, south, east, and west here in
the greater Houston area, oh in central and you go
in you can find the things you need and the
advice you need, and that is worth a lot. I

(53:37):
see people taking up plants home from certain places, not
independent garden centers, and I just, you know, am thinking,
okay that you're going to get about a month out
of that, and it's gone, so let's go back and
let's get something different.

Speaker 7 (53:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Of course I don't walk up to them and nose
in like that, but i'd like to. I hate to
see people. They're gonna feel like they have a brown thumb,
and they don't. They just went to a brown thumb
source of plants, if you will, instead of going to
a good independent garden center.

Speaker 7 (54:11):
Pest Bros.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Is our pest control company here on Garden Line, and
they service the greater Houston area. Really. I mean, if
you're down all the way in down Texas City, all
the way up to the Woodlands, or from Katie across
the Baytown, you're in their area that they serve. They
have an outstanding termite service with high tech, the newest

(54:34):
cutting edge technology and products for controlling termites preventing them
from getting into your house. And believe me, you get
termites in your house and it'll spoil your day. There's
no need for that. You can have them come out
and treat for that. They'll deal with fire ants in
the yard while varmint's in the yard. Cockroaches running through
the house. You know your maybe your mother in law

(54:55):
came over and now she's screaming running through the house
because there's cockroaches chasing her through. Well, you can fix that,
or they can. Pest Bros. Thepestbros dot com. That's their website,
thepestbros dot com. Here's a number you want to write
this one down two eight one two oh six forty
six seventy two eight one six forty six seventy And

(55:17):
they also are the place I keep talking about the
mosquito control buckets that they provide. You just got to
go ask them about I have them tell you about
the mosquito control buckets. It is a wonderful service. They
put them at your house. They do it through during
the mosquito season. They come out each month and service them.
And those buckets don't just control the mosquitoes that go
in the bucket, uh, they spread that control to other

(55:40):
places where mosquitoes will be laying eggs. So you can
always kill an adult mosquito. But what about where they're
laying eggs that you don't know about. You know, some
place that holds water for a little bit. Mosquitos are
very adept at that. With the buckets, you got mosquitoes
that are working for you to prevent mosquito breeding around
your landscape and actually some to your neighbors on each side.

(56:05):
I was visiting with the folks at Affordable Tree Service
a while back, and you've you've heard me talk about
Affordable Tree Service. Randy talked about Affordable Tree Service. In fact,
this family business, Martin Spoon Moore's company, Affordable Tree UH,
is still going strong. You can give them a call
at seven one three six nine nine two six six

(56:28):
three and make an appointment. The team is out, they're busy,
they're active. Tell them you're UH from Garden Line. Garden
Line customers are their priority. When you call, you probably
talk to Martin's mom Toji is a family known business. Martin,
his wife, Joe and now Martin's mom all part of
the team there.

Speaker 5 (56:44):
UH.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
If you want to learn more about some of the
specific services they offer, you can go to the website
aff Tree Service dot com aff Tree Service dot com,
but call them. That's the way you connect and get them,
get on the schedule for them to come out. Seven
to one, three, two, six six three. Look, hurricane season,
we're on the doorstep of it. But we know last year.

(57:07):
We learned last year you don't need a hurricane for
trees to fall down all over the place and put
power out for two weeks around this area. Uh, get
ahead of time. They'll do trimming, they'll do feeding, they'll
do everything you need to make your trees survive and
don't fall on your house or your neighbor's house too.
By the way, Affordable Tree Service seven to one three

(57:27):
six nine nine two six six three. I get to
talking and I lose track of the clock, so I
have to stop every now and then. Look, you get
me talking about plants or talking too gardeners, and I
tell you, I, uh, yeah, I can. I can drone
on ask my family. I was out at Nelson Watergarden

(57:52):
and Nursery the other day, Uh, visiting with Ralph out there,
and uh, you know that family has been in the business,
if you will, for a long time. And he has
a water garden. He's just saying, Nelson Water Gardens. They're
nationally recognized experts. People know them and they their contribution

(58:12):
to the industry is incredible. If you want to have
a beautiful water garden, if you want to have a
little waterfall designed and installed in your landscape, if you
would just like a pond, or if you would like
something they invented, which is the disappearing fountain. It's like
a large you have a large, beautiful piece of pottery,
and you know the water comes out of the top,

(58:33):
goes to the bottom and then recirculates. They can make
that for you and they can turn any pot into
one of those. They've designed the system to do it,
and it is so nice. The birds will be glad
that you did it. The sound of rushing water is
absolutely therapeutic, and they can do that. But remember it's
Nelson Nursery and water gardens. So what do you want

(58:56):
in the way of plants? House plants inside. When you
walk through the building, on your way to the back,
you pass by some of the most beautiful splints you're
gonna find, really pretty, and then you hit the section
where there's the herbs and vegetables and where there's flowers
and all kinds of ornamental plants all the way up
to shrubs and trees and fruit and you name it.

(59:18):
It's a great place to go. I think my favorite thing,
and I'm a plant person, but my favorite thing is
just here in the sound of water, when you're walking
around so beautiful. They've got a koi pone in the back.
And if you take your little kids with you, and
I hope you will tell them that you would like
to get some koifood, they'll give you a little packet
of koyfood that the kids can take. And these koi

(59:38):
come up out of the water a few inches and
open their little round mouths and the kids can drop
the koyfood in them. Trust me, the kids will like that.
They will love it. It's just another reason to go
out there to Nelson Water Gardens. That's the website too,
by the way, Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Nelson Watergardens dot com.

(01:00:00):
It's a little quiet on the phones right now. If
you'd like to gave me call seven one three two
one two k t r H. Seven one three two
one two k t r H. We'll be glad to
help you with the kinds of questions you might add.
I am adding things to the website now. If you
haven't been to my website. Uh, I would encourage you
to go.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
The website is gardening with Skip dot Com. Gardening with
skip dot com. All right, so when you go there
to gardening with skip dot I know I keep saying that,
but people need repetition, right Anyway, when you go to
Gardening with Skip dot com, uh, you will find a

(01:00:41):
lot of publications that we have put up there, and
specifically we've got you can see my upcoming appearances on there.
I just put up a publication called lawn Care one
oh one, Long Care one oh one. And if you
want what are the basics, what are the key things

(01:01:01):
to have a gorgeous lawn, it's going to tell you
on there. It talks about mowing and watering and fertilizing
and weeds and aeration. You can download it and print
it out if you want. But if you're just looking
for how do I do this well? Gardening with skip
dot com, that's where you want to go. And long
Care one on one is the latest of things we

(01:01:21):
put out there. I've got a publication on nuts edge.
We've talked about nuts edge a lot. Yesterday at Southwest Fertilizer.
People they that weed is ubiquitous and It is one
of the most difficult weeds that we have to control
in our landscapes, and so in order to control it,
we got to be able to understand how it grows

(01:01:44):
and use the right products with the right timing. And
that's on that publication as well. Again, it's free, getting
cheaper than free. Hey, Naevias Superturf silver bag by Natropos,
It's time. It's time to put it down. It's going
to take care of your lawn from now all the
way to the fall. Fertilization nightfis. Superturf is a silver bag.

(01:02:04):
It's a nineteen four to ten fertilizer that really works.
You're going to find it at D and D Feed
and Tomball Fishers Hardware out in Pasadena as well as
the Fishers in Laporte and Mont Bellevue. It works. Look
for the silver bag. All right, I'm gonna have to
take a little break here. When we come back from break,
Dwayne in Mont Bellevue, you will be our first caller

(01:02:26):
up seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey,
we're back. Welcome back to the garden line, folks. Good
to have you with us. We are here to help
you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape and more
fun in the process. And boy, that last part is important.
You should be enjoying things out in the garden and

(01:02:47):
there are a lot of things we can do to
make it more enjoyable, and we'll talk about those. We
do talk about those each day. We have garden Line
Saturdays in Sunday six am to ten am. And as
you call with your questions, we can also go into
some specifics on how do you have success that helps
things be enjoyable. How do you make less work for

(01:03:11):
what you get out of it that makes it more enjoyable.
How do you avoid pest problems that makes it more enjoyable?
And how do you create something that when you step
back and look at it, you have a sense of accomplishment,
just a job well done right that makes it more enjoyable. Well,
we're going to head out now to Mont Bellevue and
talk to Dwayne. Hello, Dwayne, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:03:33):
Good morning, thanks for taking my call. Hey, I have
a quick question about mulberry trees. Do they do well
in the Beach City area?

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
They will? You know, I wouldn't stick them out, you know,
and where they're subjected to any kind of salt spray
or any issue like that. But in general, mulberry is
very widely available. And I say salt spray, you know,
Beach City is not going to have too much of
that because it's in the Trinity Bay, but it'll do

(01:04:05):
just fine.

Speaker 8 (01:04:08):
Okay. What would be the best thing to when I'm
going to transplant the best fertilized or ashually put in
the ground to give it a good start?

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Okay, So you want to make sure and don't put
any fertilizer in the ground when you plant. Just get
the plant. Are you are you buying one in a pot?
Or you said transplant, are you digging one up?

Speaker 8 (01:04:28):
Well? No, they was giving some away yesterday in.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Mount bellvuew okay, And I got a two levelm okay.
So you just put it in the ground. Dig a
hole that's only as deep as the container that you have,
So like if it's one gallon pot, don't dig a
hole that's a foot and a half deep because it
ends up settling. And you want to plant it at

(01:04:52):
exactly the level that the soil in the container is
not deeper and little highers okay, but not much and
then watered in really good. Loosen the soil up around it.
As before you make the planting, use the soil from
the that you dug out of a hole to go
back in to plant the mulberry. Don't put a bunch

(01:05:12):
of composts, and don't put fertilizer in the hole. And
then as it begins to grow, once you see new
growth happening on it about six weeks later, give it
just a little bit of fertilizer and you can just
use a lawn fertilizer on that to help it get going.
That you already you know, if you're going to fertilize
the lawn, you already got a big bag of it.
And it's very economical compared to smaller doses or smaller

(01:05:34):
containers of fertilizer per pound of nutrients. So I would
just use that. I mean, you can go out and
buy something that's for trees and shrubs, but I find
loan fertilizer works just great on that new tree. It's
primary of the nitrogen you're looking for.

Speaker 8 (01:05:49):
Okay, thanks for your helping.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Yes, give me. Let me give you one more tip
doing if you when you're planting it can build a
little doughnut berm of soil around it. Maybe, oh I
don't know, a foot out in both directions, so two
feet across the circle.

Speaker 11 (01:06:07):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Then you when you water, you can fill that berm
and it'll soak straight down into the root zone and
you can give it good soakings because early on as
the temperature heats up, that's the touching go time that
that plan is trying to get a good root system
out so it's resilient and it doesn't have one yet.
And so watering that inside that doughnut, filling it up

(01:06:28):
and letting it soak in will increase your survival and
early or early growth.

Speaker 8 (01:06:33):
All right, okay, great, Thanks all right.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
D Wayne, thanks for the call. Appreciate that very much.
Phone number seven one three two one two k t
R H. Seven one three two one two k t
R h.

Speaker 7 (01:06:48):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
It is mosquito season. If you look around after these
rains we've had, here they come. I'm just telling you,
here they come. I would get out today and get
some miske dunks. Mosquito dunks are available all over the place.
Ace hardware stores, feed stores, all our independent garden centers,
you know, Southwest Fertilizer. I saw a bunch on the

(01:07:09):
wall yesterday down there. Mosquito dunks are a disease of mosquitoes.
Isn't that interesting? Just a disease mosquitoes, actually mosquitoes and
fungus gnats, which happens when you overwater your houseplants and
other plants. But anyway, mosquitoes, they won't hurt lady beetles.
They won't hurt birds or cats, or dogs or any

(01:07:31):
other insects, good or bad insects. They don't hurt any
of them except mosquitoes. That's what they go after, and
fungus gnats. So you put a mosquito dunk in each
of those little round doughnuts, dissolves in about gives you
about thirty days, and it covers about one hundred square
feet of water surface. So if you've just got some
little areas, like you know you got to catch basin

(01:07:52):
under your pots, mosquitoes breed there. So you can break
one of those dunks up and just put a few
granules in that area. You put it in bird bass,
you put it in a lot of things, and it works.
And let me tell you this, the mosquitoes are already
land eggs. They're already regulars out there. So the sooner
you get that in water, the better, because we're about

(01:08:14):
to have mosquitoes everywhere with the rains. We just had
mosquito dunk. Grab some, keep them on hand. I'd keep them,
you know, in a cool, protected spot, not in a
super super hot outdoor area, because it is a disease
of mosquitoes, and they work. I don't know what else
to say about it other than that they work.

Speaker 12 (01:08:35):
I was.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
Yesterday looking at We've got some tomatoes and several places
out in the gardens, and I've got one that is
actually in my wife's garden. It's a vego bed up
on top of a patio in the back. It's doing great.
I mean, it is just thriving and doing so well.
And then I had a couple that are actually in
the vegetable garden area in the backyard and the trees,

(01:09:02):
you know. And I should have paid attention to this
when I planted, I know better. Anyway, I put them
in the ground where I want. I wanted to move
into a different spot, and I put them in the ground.
And I was just watching the sun pattern yesterday, and
I don't have that many hours of sun. There's probably
four five hours or so of sun that these are getting.
That's not quite enough for tomatoes. And you can look

(01:09:24):
at how they're growing and how they're producing, and yeah,
it's not quite enough for tomatoes. If something is going
to bloom and fruit in your garden, think of it
as fruiting vegetables. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, squash. Those are
all fruiting vegetables. You need to give them at least

(01:09:46):
six hours of sun and more is even better. Okay,
if it is a rooting vegetable, it's not carrot season,
but things that grow roots like a turnip or a carrot,
or a radish or a beat it needs to get
lots of sun too, because and why is that. It's
because in order to grow a tomato or a squash

(01:10:08):
or a carrot root or whatever, you need a lot
of carbohydrates. And you get carbohydrates when sun shines on
leaves and in shade, the plant can't do. It's like
putting a solar panel in the shade doesn't work very good.
If you've got an area that's a little too shady
for those, But you still want to grow vegetables, put
your leafy greens there they can grow and do okay

(01:10:29):
with less sun than is required by the fruiting and
rooting vegetables. So there's just a little tip for you
to keep in mind.

Speaker 8 (01:10:37):
I was.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
I lost period thought. Oh, I was talking to some
of the folks at Quality Home Products of Texas, and
you know I've talked about them for a long time.
Their source of the generatic automatic standby generator. Now what
that means automatic standby is when it's set up, if
the power goes out, the generator comes on. I mean
you don't even have time to get out of the
chair and the powers already on again, it automatically comes on.

(01:11:06):
You will not be left in the dark. And with
this generator, you're protecting your power supply. And you know
we say there's things like once in a lifetime storms,
Well we had two of them last year, took out
power for two weeks each. Don't depend on a power
grid that can be unreliable. You want to make sure
you have power. Rain, snow, we don't have snow much

(01:11:27):
or sunshine. No matter what it is, you got your
power so life keeps going even when the power stops.
When you get a generator from Quality Home, the main
reason to go to Quality Home. A lot of people
sell generators. The main reason in addition to that Quality
Generator is that they take care of their customers honesty, integrity.
They from the time you call them and they're helping

(01:11:50):
you determine which generator you need based on what you
need it to do. I know, keep the power on,
but do you just need to keep the freezer going
so the food doesn't go bad? Or or do you know,
do you have a job, Well, you have to work.
You have to have the internet going. You got to
have AC going, you know what I mean. They'll get
you in the right one. They'll go through all the
requirements to get it set up, the regulations to set

(01:12:12):
it up. They'll set it up and that's just when
Quality Home Service begins. Three hundred and sixty five days
out of the year, twenty four hours a day. They're
there to serve the customers and to help you have
success and that the reviews they have show it over
fourteen thousand and five star reviews from this family owned
local company been around since nineteen eighty nine. Go to

(01:12:34):
QUALITYTX dot com, QUALITYTX dot com or dial seven one
three Quality seven to one three, Quality I'm gonna take
a break. I'll be right back with our last segment
of the hour. All right, having some fun here on
garden Line, making sure you're with us, dozing off. I mean,
do you remember Alvin and the Chipmunks. Yeah. I don't

(01:12:57):
know what to say about that other than it was unique,
that's for sure. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have
you with us. And I wanted to talk about Growers
Outlet up in Willis. Grows Outlet is a garden center
that's on seventy five, just south of Willis Highway seventy five,
just minutes away from forty five. And that whole region
up there, whether it's New Waverley or Willis or Conroe

(01:13:19):
or you know, like Conroy area, they serve that while area.
People even drive up from the Woodlands to go up
to it. You can go to that website and you
should a garden. Excuse me, growers with drive one more time.
Growers Outlet in Willis. Growers Outlet in Willis dot com.
You'll find what they have for sale. They put their

(01:13:39):
availability online. They put the prices of things online. If
you want to go there. When you get there, you
can find fertilizers from Microlife and Nitrofoss and Medina to
make sure you have success with plants. But you are
going to be very impressive with this place. Have a
nice little gift shop inside. They at their products that
they sell to go with your plants. When it comes
to plants, from betty plants to herbs, to vegetables, to

(01:14:02):
fruit trees, to shrubs and trees. Beautiful hanging baskets. They
have some mato fern hanging baskets that are just breathtaking,
gorgeous and beautiful flowering hanging baskets. It's all there, but
you got to go to see it. See what I'm
talking about. Growers outlet Willis dot com. That's it. That's
as simple as that. Today when I get to this afternoon,

(01:14:27):
I'm gonna head out in pot up a couple of
things that are waiting on me and jungle land outdoor potting.
So it's called jungle l and Flower and Vegetable Planting
soil Okay, Flower and Vegetable Planting sail comes in the
bags distributed by Nitrofoss. It's a blend of Canadian blonde
peete with four different sources of aged organic matter. And

(01:14:51):
basically with the microwrise of fungi that revitalized potting plants,
I'm gonna get really good lasting color. That's how that
stuff works. It rains well, but it holds water also,
and that combination is a sweet spot that jungle nd hits.
You put it in a good sized pot, You put
the right kind of plan in there that wants to

(01:15:12):
be in the spot where you're gonna put it, and
you're gonna have success. You're gonna find jungle Land and
other nitrofoss products at places like Bearing Hardware on Bissonet
or the Bearing Chardware in West Teimer. Go out to
Enchanted Forest on FM twenty seven to fifty nine out
in the Richmond Rosenberg area. They carry nitrofoss products out
there as well. So anyway, gonna get out and gonna

(01:15:34):
get that done. I love putting my hands in the dirt,
and I don't want to get into a lot of
work and stuff today, but I will get into doing
those things. If you've got metal furniture, like let's say
the aluminium or rot iron or cast iron types, maybe
even decorative things outside and they're not looking great, you

(01:15:57):
need to call Houston Powder coders. And here's what I
want you to do. Don't you take a picture of it?
Email that picture to sales at Houstoncoders dot com. Sales
at Houston cooders dot com. They'll give you a quick quote.
This is what it costs. If you're in the Houston area,
they'll come pick it up and when they're done, they'll
bring it back to you one hundred plus colors that
they can powder coat that to look it is gorgeous.

(01:16:20):
It ren news it and they do all the other
things that are needed to get it fixed up, whether
it's rusting, or need a little bit of welding here
or there, or new hardware on it, they can do
all of that. Here's the number two eight one, six seven,
six thirty eight eighty eight. If you want to learn
more about them, you can go to Houston Powdercoders dot
com Houston Powdercoders dot com and you will see the

(01:16:44):
work that they do, and it is very very good work,
very good work. The other day, not too long ago,
I was down visiting with Jorge a while back here
and just looking at all the operation that they got
set up down there, and you know, they just keep
it just keeps getting better. Down there. Harny grows a

(01:17:05):
lot of trees. He grows larger shrubs and things. So
if you if you want to get a quality plant
planted for you like that, he'll come out and do it.
That's all part of the system. Now. If you're looking
for things like maybe Peggy Martin roses, he's always got
some of those on it. It seems like he's got
a lot of beautiful ones. And when it comes to
fruit trees, oh my gosh, last time I got there,

(01:17:27):
he had like nine different kinds of peach trees, a
lot of the low chill ones that are that are
better for growing down there. By the way, he's in Alvin, Texas,
way south of Houston on Highway six. You just from
from Alvin, you head down six like you're going to
Santa Fe and he's off down to the right. So
that's kind of the specific region where you'll find him.
Jes Hidden Gardens. He carries the three sixty tree stabilizers

(01:17:50):
that are there. He asks some of his own fertilizer
from Nelson Plant feed folks that they make up there,
and whatever you're looking for, I mean lots of good citrus.
I saw blueberries, I saw bedding, plants, vegetables, herbs, everything,
Jorgce Hidden Gardens. So I just need to go out
and see him again Elizabeth Street and Alvin Oryce Hidden

(01:18:11):
Gardens or he's a character too. He's a lot of fun.
He's got a good sense of humor and it is
a real upbeat attitude about things like enjoy hanging out
with Horay, you're listening to the guard line. We're gonna
take a little break here in just a bit. But
I did want to remind you first of all that

(01:18:32):
I'm going to be at Memorial City Ace Hardware. Memorial
City Ace Hardware that is on Memorial Drive in Houston, Texas,
of course on the west side. So if you let's
see her so I can get I'm trying to pull
something up here on my computer. Yeah, get a little
map here right off Memorial Drive. When you go there,

(01:18:55):
you're gonna find what you would expect from an Ace
Hardware store, and that is a lot of products to
help you have a more beautiful indoor your house indoors,
but also that outdoor area. You know you want a
beautiful landscape. Ace Hardware is the one to give you
that because they carry the fertilizers I talk about on
guard line. They carry products to control pests, weeds, and diseases.

(01:19:16):
You go into an ACE Hardware store, you're going to
find the tools and other supplies for gardening, such as
garden hoses and a watering devices, tools for pruning, tools
for digging, tools for dealing with weeds, or whatever. Ace
Hardware has got you covered. You want to enjoy your patio,
why not go to ACE Hardware and get a string
of lights to create that ambiance outdoors. They've got that

(01:19:39):
there and a lot lot more and perhaps my face
favorite addition to the patio or quality barbecue pits. You know,
I'm talking about things like Big green Egg. By the way,
there's probably I think Big Green Egg may well be
a cult. And then there's Trager, Oh my gosh, the
pellet fed grills and Weber grills and every kind of

(01:20:02):
supply you would need to go with your barbecue. And
I mean, you're gonna want to just live outside when
you've been to ACE Hardware and you get your patios
set up like that. And ACE Hardware's are all over
the place, it's easy to find them. Here's the website.
ACE Hardware Texas dot com, Ace Hardware Texas dot com.
Check it out. Come see me next Saturday. What is

(01:20:26):
that may third be there from twelve to two answering
your gardening questions. We'll have some giveaways there as well,
doing that we usually do that. Come on out, all right, folks.
I'm gonna take a little break here, fill up my
coffee cup, and we'll be back for our third hour
of the morning at eight o'clock hour with your gardening questions.

(01:20:48):
If you would like to be one of the first
up at that time, seven one three two one two
k t RH talk to Alejandro, get you on the board,
and we will visit with you out the things that
you want to know about regarding success and fun in
the garden. Be right back, all right, folks, we're back.

(01:21:30):
What are we going to talk about today? I got
some things in mind, but why don't you set the
agenda here with your questions? Seven one three two one
two k t r H seven one three two one
two k t r H. Simple as that sweet green
by Nitropuss is a it's an outstanding fertilizer. It's eleven

(01:21:53):
percent nitrogen, which in an organic product is a lot.
You put it down, you watered in, it goes into
the ground and sugar basic product type things are basically
carbon chains, right, and that carbon is very important to
beneficial microbes. That's part of what they do in the
soil is feed on decaying organic matter, that carbon that's
in it, because it's a fuel source for them. So

(01:22:17):
sweet green provides that kind of boost for beneficial microbes
in the swam. Now you're gonna find sweet green. Oh gosh,
it's at a lot of places. For example, if you
went to Plants for All Seasons on two forty nine,
I saw some in there just yesterday. RCW Nurse Trees
carries night foss products, hiding and feed on. Stubner Airline

(01:22:38):
carries night foss products, and as do many many many
places all over there, all over town. But let's do this.
Let's head to Roast Sharon this morning, and we're going
to talk to Kim. Hello, Kim, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (01:22:55):
Oh, thank you, Skip.

Speaker 14 (01:22:56):
Hey.

Speaker 15 (01:22:57):
I just had a acre of and cleared off, and
you know how they bring in the machinery that like
brings it down to saw dust. My question is I
have an attachment for my tractor. Should I go ahead
and grade that some more, or like these places it

(01:23:17):
has this heavy sawdust because I remember you tell me
where there's bare lights, sunlight gets a weed. So I'm
trying to be proactive on that. So do you think
I should go ahead and grade that some more?

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
So tell me about the land? What are you going
to do there on that property? And a plant of
pasture or what.

Speaker 15 (01:23:40):
I haven't really considered it. I find out a garden
in a couple of areas, but it was, you know,
heavily wooded and all, and I mean it's beautiful now.
So I'm just wondering, like in some of them areas
there's heavy mulch, So should I like kind of distribute
that grade it with my uh crater?

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
Yeah, if you can spread it around a little bit.
I mean that certainly helps when they when they grind
that stuff up and leave it lay in the spot,
it does act as a molt. So it's going to
give you some benefit like that.

Speaker 5 (01:24:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
Just remember that there's gonna be a lot of bear soil.
Even as you great with your tractor, you're gonna be
left with you know, quite a bit of bear soil there, right,
And uh, when when that are you in Brazoria County
or Harris Brazoria. Okay, yes, sir, uh I would. I
would talk to the folks at the Brazoria County Extension

(01:24:35):
office down there. I believe it's in Angleton.

Speaker 11 (01:24:38):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
Anyway, the the ag agent should be able to advise
you on maybe some type of a pasture type grass
that you could spread seed of out there in it
and get you something going that's that's gonna hold the
spot me later on if you want to get rid
of it. I mean, if you know right away you're
gonna put an orchard or something in, well, I wouldn't
put the grass in. But uh, because even with spreading

(01:25:01):
those those ground up woodships and things, you're gonna have
a lot of weeds come through and you're gonna be
out there brush hoogging it or doing something for it.
So I would say, think about what you wanted to
look like, or if you're not sure, I think a
grass pasture would be at least a good way because
you can mow that and it's a lot more attractive
than you're gonna have shrubs and brush coming up in there. Anyway,

(01:25:26):
even after the grinding, you're gonna have a lot of
dormant weed seeds that have been laying there waiting for this,
and now they're gonna come up. So uh, just think
ahead on that and save yourself a little bit of trouble.
But as far as can you do the spreading with
with your box blade and whatnot, yes, you could do
you could do some of that, Okay.

Speaker 13 (01:25:44):
I was just yeah, because.

Speaker 15 (01:25:46):
There is some beautiful moult, I think I'm gonna gather
at seven ads and spread along in my little garden
here there.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
But okay, okay, I was just wanting to make sure.

Speaker 15 (01:25:58):
I've got huge, some huge oaks that has some a
lot of shade, so I will have to drows Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
So okay, well okay, grass is yeah, grass nook can
grow into those, that's for sure, right right, I do
you know that?

Speaker 8 (01:26:16):
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Well, I'll touch face with my egg and see what
they shouldest. That's a good idea. All right, you take care,
all right, great, thanks for you, have a great day.
Bye bye you too, bye bye. I uh this was yesterday,
actually yesterday in the afternoon. We're sitting there watching some
birds out off our patio. It's become one of my

(01:26:39):
favorite things to do late in the day. Go out
there relax a little bit, UH, And there were a
pair of cardinals that were going to the feeder. The
feeder is UH in that case was the UH. It's
a hopper type feeder that has made a recycled plastic
and very durable. And it's from Birds Unlimited, which is

(01:27:01):
where you get anything that you want if you want
it to be quality and if it's for birds' that's
what it amounts to. You know, you buy birds seed
a lot of places and typically those seeds, those bags
of seed are filled with I call it the little
red bebies. Birds don't like that stuff. I few birds
will eat it a little bit, but I mean basically
it gets kicked out on the ground. When you go

(01:27:22):
to wild Birds Unlimited you can buy seed. It's going
to go into birds tummy, not second rate. We're not
gonna eat this stuff. They fill those bags with stuff
that birds eat. You can even buy no mess blends.
So maybe something had sunflower seed in it, which is
a great seed for birds, but you don't want the
shells because they crack them open to get the seed

(01:27:44):
in out of the inside. Well that's called a no
mess blend. Now, the folks at Waldbirds Unlimited have a
perfect blend for this time of the year. It's called
Nesting Super Blends, only available at Wallbirds Unlimited. It's got
everything that birds need during the nesting season. You know,
when they're laying eggs, when they're hatching young, when they're
developing that skeletal development inside the bird that needs calcium.

(01:28:07):
It's got that. They need protein, They've got that in there.
You can find Nesting Super Blended any of the six
Wilbirds and Limited stores here in the Greater Houston area.
Go to WBU dot com, forward slash Houston WBU for
Wilbirdsunlimited dot com forward Slash Houston, Kingwood, Clare Lake, Pearland, Cyprus,

(01:28:32):
Houston on bel Air, Houston on Memorial Drive. Those are
all wild Birds Unlimited stores. You need to check them out.
Time for me to take a little break here. I
will be back with your calls, and Melanie and Helen
you'll be our first two up. And alrighty, when this
is the last time you hear at barbershop, do you
know how hard it is to find a barbershop song

(01:28:54):
that talks about gardening. We're a full service here at
Garden Line, Arbrogate Garden center up in Townball is a
destination and if you haven't been there, you've got to go.
I mean, this is a place. It's like going to
botanical garden, except a botanical garden filled with knowledgeable people

(01:29:14):
that want to help you have success and are willing
to take time and walk around with you to find
the right plants or the right plant combination that you're
looking for. Arburgate's outstanding. It just is what do you
want to grow? Maybe you want to put fruit trees.
They carry fruit trees twelve months out of the year
at Arburgate. They have shrubs, they have roses, they have perennials.

(01:29:35):
Do you have shady spots? Go into the little shade
area and they've got all kinds of wonderful plants there
in the shade. That's where I got one of my endiction.
What butterfly gingers was maybe two of them came from
Arburgate and the great great plants and again service, that
is what it's about. Knowledgeable people that are friendly, that

(01:29:56):
are helpful. And now they've last year, they are recent,
not too long ago. Last year they added the back
parking lot which is off Trichel Road, so instead of
parking in the front or parking along the road two
forty nine, don't do that, go around Trasher Road in
the back. It is an awesome parking lot with the
best entrance accessibility into Arbigate. You're going to get try

(01:30:18):
it out and before you go home. What's the rule
on guarden line, brown stuff before green stuff? Right, That
means nutrients and that means organic matter for your soil.
Get their one two three completely easy system, organic food complete,
anything with roots, it'll feed it Organic soil complete, which
has expanded jail in it an organic compost complete, which

(01:30:40):
also has expanded jail. Now, if you want the soil
and the compost, but you want it in volume, you
don't want to buy eight hundred bags, call Arbrogate, tell
them I need a bulk delivery and they will do that.
They can deliver those bulk to you as well. Arburgate,
for those of you who didn't know, is a mile
and a half west of two forty nine on twenty
nine to twenty and Tom Ball and I don't care

(01:31:01):
where you live. If you live way out of Houston
and you're hearing my voice right now, you got to
come to Houston and see the arbor Gate people drive.
I know people in Briancott Station drive down all the
time for Arburgate because it is just awesome, great place
to go. All right, let's head out here. Let's go
to Cyprus this morning, and we're going to talk to Melanie. Hello, Melanie,

(01:31:22):
welcome to garden.

Speaker 15 (01:31:23):
Good morning.

Speaker 5 (01:31:24):
Oh ready to get out in my yard today? And
I had a question, And I know you've covered this
before and I can't remember, but I had my yard
man put some last summer. He put mulch in, and
I wanted him to use that black yell malt from
Landscape's Pride.

Speaker 13 (01:31:41):
He didn't use that.

Speaker 8 (01:31:43):
I don't know what to use.

Speaker 5 (01:31:44):
But it's real grey looking now, you know. And do
I need to take that out first before I put
the other mulch down?

Speaker 8 (01:31:52):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
Do you put mulch? Add mulch on top of all?
Think about the forest? Yeah, the forest, The trees droply,
they look like leaves for the whole year. Next year
they drop leaves on those leaves, and the old leaves
start to rot and make what is the best forest
floor soil around? Okay? You do you do that in
your beds by adding mult on top of the malts

(01:32:13):
rather than taking the old away.

Speaker 5 (01:32:15):
Okay, so put it on top and then that other
will kind of.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
You don't have to use it. You don't have to
use this. Yeah. Well you don't have to use as
much malt that way either, you know, because you've already
got molts there. It just you just want to freshen
it up on top. It doesn't take as much to
do that another reason.

Speaker 13 (01:32:31):
Okay, that's what I wanted to hear.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
So that's good news, all right.

Speaker 8 (01:32:36):
I thought i'd heard say that before.

Speaker 13 (01:32:37):
It's just so ugly.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
Yeah, yeah, well okay, I think I think dead stuff
on the ground is pretty so anyway, I know what
you're talking about. Though, it's your yard.

Speaker 13 (01:32:53):
Okay, I'll do it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
You take care, bye bye. That is true green Pro.
You've heard me talk about green Pro. The folks at
Greenpro are experts of providing top quality compost top dressing,
fertilizing and cororation too, the perfect companion to compost top dressing.
What does that mean For those of you who hear
me say that, I don't know what I'm talking about.

(01:33:18):
Corrooration pops a plug of soil out of the ground
and drops it on the surface as it sort of
melts away in the rain and irrigation. It helps thatch
decompose faster. But the most important thing is that hole
brings oxygen down deeper into the soil. The compost top
dressing will fall partially of it will fall down in
that hole and will decompose away, and microbial activity just

(01:33:42):
goes crazy. I mean, it really really thrives in that situation.
One of the best things you can do not only
to feed the soil biology in your soil, but to
alleviate compaction, to help the soil take in moisture, rainfall,
irrigation better. And if you're trying to rejuvenate a lawn
that's been struggling, what did it diseases like brown patch
or tinchbugs or take all root rod or drought or whatever.

(01:34:06):
A good corporation in Kappa stop dressing. We'll do it now.
Greenpro serves about a forty five mile area in northwest Houston.
I think of it as the northwest quadrant of Houston.
That's a rough guide like Interstate forty five and Interstate ten.
The northwest quadrant that's primarily the area they service. Give
them a call eight three to two three five one

(01:34:29):
zero zero three two, or just go to the website
greenpro Texas dot com. Alrighty, We're gonna go now to
Humble and talk to Helen. Well, Hello, Helen, Welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:34:43):
Well, good morning, Skip.

Speaker 10 (01:34:45):
Earlier I had you tele Acller not to put fertilizer
in when you're planning a new plant that you've purchased,
not to put it in the hold. And that's what
I've been doing.

Speaker 13 (01:34:58):
So maybe help me on that.

Speaker 10 (01:35:01):
That's the only thing I need to know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:05):
So did you ever watch I Love Lucy on TV
with Lucy and DESI? All right, remember how he would say, Lucy,
you got some splaining to do. So you're basically telling me, Skip,
you got some splaining to do about this fertilizer in
the planning hole. And I'll explain it right now. Basically,

(01:35:26):
you can put a slow release fertilizer in a planning
hole if you want. You can do that. Salt based fertilizer.
Synthetic salt based in the planning hole can be concentrated
and burn roots as they try to grow. The plant
you're putting in has already got fertilizer in the root
zone that it's in in that pot. They've they've been doing.

(01:35:46):
That's how they grew the plant. They put you see
the little round bbies up on top sometimes from that.
But when you put it in the ground, we don't
need to put fertilizer right then, I mean to me,
I guess an analogy is like giving a baby a
t bone steak. What are they going to do with that?

Speaker 5 (01:36:01):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
And let's let that plant get established once it's grown
about six weeks or so, then begin to fertilize on
the top, scratch it into the soil and water it
in gradually. But people think the fertilizer in the planning
hole is just gonna make it go crazy, unless you
were using like medina has to grow six twelve six.
That's a super deluded liquid that you're putting in a

(01:36:25):
water and can to drench down into the root zone.
That's okay, that's okay, But don't just don't dry salt
based fertilizer in the planning hole. I usually say don't
put it in the planning hole because it's hard for
people to hear all that I just said and remember
all that, and you know, keep tracking. So I just said,
can't put fertilizer in the planning hole.

Speaker 5 (01:36:45):
All right, all right.

Speaker 8 (01:36:45):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 10 (01:36:47):
All right, Heaven blessing.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
All right, Helen, you too, thank you for the call.
I appreciate that a lot. Spring Creek Feed is up there,
just north and east of Tombol. It's kind of well
at Graham Parkway Highway two forty nine area up that direction.
They're on FM twenty nine seventy eight, FM twenty nine
seventy eight. Now when you drive down FM twenty nine

(01:37:09):
seventy eight, you're going to look over the side and
see this beautiful big feed store, Spring Creek Feed. They
carry fertilizers from Nelson, Turf, star Line, Microlife, nitrofoss. They
have herbicides for weed control, fungicides, pesticides, and a very friendly,
courteous staff that will greet you and point you at
the things that you need. Of course, when you're in there,

(01:37:30):
if you need some pet food and products, they've got
good quality pet food and products in there. If senior citizens,
military and youth from FFA and four H programs get
a discount, so let them know about that. If you
need special order, they can do that and they also
offer a delivery service. Another good reason to go to
Spring Creek Feed FM twenty nine seventy eight. Let's head

(01:37:54):
to Austin County now and we're going to talk to Doris. Hello, Doris,
are you I'm doing well? Thank you.

Speaker 16 (01:38:04):
I'm just calling to see if you got my pictures
I sent yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
I did not. Did they come in from a phone
number that ends in eighty one twenty two?

Speaker 8 (01:38:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:38:21):
Okay, well that's you. I'm saying this not just for you, Doris,
but for everybody listening. There's different services like my Pick's
Messages and others where you can send something to an email,
but it comes in and I can't see who it's from.
I can't see that there's not a title of it.

(01:38:41):
And as a security measure, I just am not able
to open those up. And so I'm glad you followed
that up with a phone call. Now, knowing it's you,
I will go ahead and open this up. There's a
lot of bad stuff going online and I'm extra super
careful as a result of that. Okay, you send me
a picture of your tree ivy. I see the tree

(01:39:02):
ivy right, all right. Tree ivy is a unique plant.
It is a cross between Japanese aurelio, which is called
a fatsia. You see those growing outside in the Houston
area as a little shrub like plant, and English ivy,
which crawls all over creation. Tree ivy is used a

(01:39:23):
lot of times as a houseplant or very very very
shady outdoor areas. I think you were wanting to know
how big it gets? Is that correct? Yes, it'll get
about six feet high roughly, if you wanted. It tends
to start as a as a single trunk coming up

(01:39:44):
and if you tip that, if you take a little
snippers and cut the kind of two or three inches
out of it, it will start branching out, which is
what happens when you pretty much cut the end off
any branch and a plant, and it'll make a little
bit bushier and you can maintain pain that size lower.
So let's say you wanted I'm just gonna make up

(01:40:04):
numbers here, but you want to be about four feet
high only, okay, So then you would when it gets
about two feet high, you would tip it and it
would branch, and then as those branches get up close
to three feet or so, you would tip it again,
and you can kind of make it to be a
little bush here that way.

Speaker 16 (01:40:21):
Okay, so I'm gonna have to transplant this thing pretty
same that, uh.

Speaker 1 (01:40:30):
Yes, uh huh, or having in a big container. You
can grow them in a container if you want.

Speaker 16 (01:40:36):
Well, I have one in that it's in that four
inch container and it's grown at least four inch.

Speaker 1 (01:40:43):
Yeah, not in a four inch container. Oh okay, all right,
that was going to say that thing's on steroids. If
it's done spot, Yeah, you can transplant it into a
bigger pot. Yeah, you can do. It's not cold hardy. Really.
Oh no, wait a minute, I think I don't know
what the cold heartiness on that is. It may well

(01:41:04):
be cold hearty. It needs to be in a very
a very very bright shade. Now that plant's been around,
oh gosh, it's about nineteen early nineteen hundreds when it
was developed I think in France or something. Somebody crossed

(01:41:24):
those things to come.

Speaker 8 (01:41:25):
Up with it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:27):
All right, well, good luck with it, have fun. I
just have ten seconds left. I'm sorry, I'm going to
have to go, but use a houseplant food. Nelson Plant
Food has houseplant foods by the jars that can help
you with that. Thanks, thanks for your call. Gotta go, folks.
All right, we're back. Good to have you back with

(01:41:50):
us here on garden Line. My goal bountiful gardens, beautiful
landscapes and people having more fun out there guard and
doing it. That's what we try to do. We take
out the idea that you have a brown thumb, because
you don't. In fact, I'd like you to pause with
me right here. I'm only going to do this once.
Say to yourself, I do not have a brown thumb.

(01:42:13):
Now you didn't do it. I do not have a
brown thumb. There you go, all right, you don't. And
here's why. A brown thumb is simply an uninformed thumb.
Now you may go, well, grandma could drop a pencil
in the ground and it would rint and grow into
a pine tree. Okay, all right, Number one, I don't
believe that. But number two, Grandma was just doing things

(01:42:35):
that plants want. You knew how to make plants happy,
and that's why it looked like Grandma had a green thumb.
There's no natural It's not like some people. I just
kill ever plant I touch. Well, maybe in the past,
but not in the future. Let's talk. I've got a
website gardening with skip dot com to help you have success.
We do a garden show four hours each day Saturday

(01:42:55):
and Sunday over the weekends six am to ten am.
You can listen to past shows. By the way, uh,
if you go to the ktr CH website. In fact,
if you go to my website gardening with Skip dot com,
there is a listen to garden line button. It's brand
news right up at the top or near the top,
and if you click on it, you can go listen

(01:43:16):
to pass shows or you can listen live. Both of
them are available through that button right there. So let's
do this. Let's get you some good resources and get
you some good advice, and then if you've got questions,
we're not covering them. There's not a publication for everything
up there, that's for sure. Give me a call. Seven
one three two one two ktr H seven one three

(01:43:36):
two and two k t r H. All right, that
was a soapbox. Thanks for bearing with me. One of
the most important things we do, in fact, the single
most important thing we do to have success with plants
is to put them in soil that they can thrive in.
Plants live in their roots. Okay, so that's a term
that yes set Plants eat sunlight and you got to

(01:43:57):
pick the right ones, and got to fertilize the water.
I get all that, but the biggest mistake I see
people making is they PLoP a poor plant into an
unprepared plot. And that's too many peas for one sentence,
and you shouldn't do that. You go out, you get
your good quality compost or bed mix. You mix it
in the soil or pile it up on top of
the soil. You get fertilizer that is the nutrients those

(01:44:21):
plants want, and you mix it into the ground and
as the plant grows, you continue to do the fertilizer
to it. And when you do that, your plant's going
to hit the ground running and thrive. Ciena Maltch is
the one stop shop for all things brown stuff. Cenamulch
is located near Highway six and two eighty eight on
FM two or excuse me five twenty one FM five

(01:44:42):
twenty one south of Houston in the Sienna area. Go
to the website cnmultch dot com cnamltch dot com find
out about them. When you get there, what are you
gonna find. You're gonna find great composts. You're gonna find
blends like airloom, soils of veggy nerve mix, for example.
You can find rose soil there, for example, you can
find mulches and all kinds of things. They deliver within

(01:45:02):
about twenty miles of their location. But you're also when
you're there going to find microlife products and Nilsen's Star
Line and Nilsen's plant food jars, products from Medina, products
from nitrofoss products like asomite. Remember I said it was
all things brown stuff. You go to see aemalt, you
get the stuff you need or have them delivered if

(01:45:24):
you're within twenty miles and you have gotten yourself prepared
to set the foundation for success, and you will see
that your thumb is greener this year simply because you
took that first right step. I'm going to head out
now to Spring, Texas and we're going to talk to
Mark this morning on garden Line. Hey, Mark, welcome to the.

Speaker 14 (01:45:45):
Garden Line morning, Skip. Thanks for taking my call. I
guess some issues with some bermuda growing in my Saint Augustine.
Saint Augustine's are doing real well, but want to get
ahead and knock out the bermuda before it takes over
my lawn. Looking for some suggestions. What are your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (01:46:02):
Well, the the your your options with the one that
you have with that situation is if the bermuda's in
certain areas, you can kill everything and then replant Saint
Augustine in those areas. That's when my daughter's redoing the
lawn like that, and they add bermuda and Saint Augustine

(01:46:24):
and they're starting over. They're getting rid of everything and
making sure that.

Speaker 14 (01:46:28):
Did that last year just playing. I just did the
whole whole lawn, and I think unfortunately high yard folks
bring in seeds and so forth.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
Yeah. Well, and what also happens is, like my daughter's place,
they've sprayed it twice already, because the first time you
miss some spots and then you spray it again. And
now I was out there just yesterday and they've got
a few little spots where Bermuda's coming back. So you
got to stick with it and make sure it's all

(01:46:58):
out of there, or you just didn't accomplish you know,
a whole lot. And so it's just a tip. The
other thing that you can there are there is a
way that commercial landscapers can do a combo of two
different products. Uh, and they're very expensive to purchase, so
like a person with one yard, it's probably too much.

(01:47:21):
But if you wanted to email me, I can put
you on hold a give you my email and if
you'll send me that and say need info on the
Bermuda and Saint Augustine, I can tell you a little
bit about it. But like I said, it's it's not
cheap and typically it's going to be something that you
have somebody to come in and do. But I can
give you more info if you'd like me too, Just

(01:47:42):
hang on and let me.

Speaker 14 (01:47:45):
Is there anything like an over the counter type stuff
that's sold as you look for hardware store knock it out?

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):
No, no, nothing over the counter for that stuff requires
special purchase and stuff. So anyway, like I said, I'm
willing to send some information to you, but but those
are the options. Kill everything and start over, but make
sure you've got it all before you start over, and
then doing this other thing that commercial folks can do

(01:48:13):
in the lawn.

Speaker 14 (01:48:15):
All right, Well, I appreciate it, thank you ver much.

Speaker 1 (01:48:18):
Yeah, so sorry we don't have better news, but that's
that's a combo. That's not a lot of solutions to
but thank you. I appreciate, appreciate your call very much.
As amite I mentioned, you know, seeing them all scares amite. Well,
Azemite is carried by a lot of different places around town.
I mean wherever you are. If it's a good independent
garden center, if it's an acehard restore, feed stores, places

(01:48:39):
like that, you can find azamite. Now what is it.
It's trace minerals. So do you need a lot? No,
you don't need a lot. You need a little. It's
not like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium that you need a
lot of. You need a little bit. It's called trace,
that's why. But they're essential. A grass plant can't grow
without boron. Did you know that without without molybdenum. Did

(01:49:02):
you know you can't grow? You say, nexting long without boron,
zinc or molobdinum. You can't because they're essential. Asmite carries
trace minerals and you can find more information at asmite
Texas dot com. And you can find azamite all over
town so many places. Pretty much every time I go
into a place, I see asmite there. All right, let's

(01:49:25):
see here, we're hitting up against a break. So I
tell you what I'm gonna do in order to have
a little more time for the calls coming in here.
I'm gonna go ahead and go to break. At this point,
I just want to remind you that next Saturday, May third,
from twelve to two, I'll be at Memorial Ace Hardware.

(01:49:47):
Memorial Ace Hardware a Memorial Drive in West Houston. Now,
if you want to find any Ace Hardware store like that,
that's part of our group here on garden Line. You
go to Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Ace Hardware Texas
dot com and you'll find places like the Memorial Ace Hardware.
I think it's called Hardware City on there, Hardware City

(01:50:08):
on Memorial Drive. All right, hope to see you next week.
Take a break, Skip from Webster. You'll be first up
when we come back. All right, little Western swing from
asleep at the wheel this morning. Let's head straight out
to the phones this segment and we're going to head
to Webster and talk to Skip. Hey, Skip, welcome to
garden Line. Good to have you with us.

Speaker 2 (01:50:28):
Hey, yep, I hope you're having a good day this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
Anyway, I am.

Speaker 2 (01:50:33):
I have two questions.

Speaker 8 (01:50:35):
One is we had a plant.

Speaker 2 (01:50:37):
My wife had planted some tulips and anyway, there were
these little white looking worms that came out of me yesterday.

Speaker 8 (01:50:44):
It turned out.

Speaker 2 (01:50:44):
So they're supposed to be rat maggots. Are they bad
for the soil? I mean, I know their cause primarily
because the soil was too wet. But are they bad
for the soil? Is just something you deal with. Do
they go away or do you need to replace the soil?
And second question, trying to grow we're failing miserably. Give
us some advice on how to grow cilantro properly.

Speaker 1 (01:51:06):
So lantra. Okay, let's go back to the rat maggot
who said it was a rat maggot? How did you
come up with that?

Speaker 2 (01:51:13):
My wife okay, oh, okay, sure of it and said
it was a rat maggot.

Speaker 1 (01:51:21):
Okay, so it must have had a long tail on it.
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (01:51:25):
No, it didn't have a tail, honey, so worse? Oh okay,
Oh I'm sorry, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:51:30):
Okay, all right, Well then that that's a rat maggot.
That's actually a type of hoverfly. Uh, first time I've
ever had a rat maggot call. But hoverflies in general
a kind of beneficial insects. Some some species of them
do a good job of pest control and stuff. But
they typically are literally in the water like mosquito wriglars,
mosquito larvae. Uh, and so they shouldn't be hurting the plant. Now,

(01:51:56):
the there is there are roots maggots that come out
of the soil that do feed on roots, and so
that would be you know, if you if you feel
like these things are causing the plant a problem, any
kind of an insecticide in the soil of that plant
would would take care of it. But I'm a little unsure,

(01:52:19):
you know about the id for sure. And yeah, I
just don't think that it's going to be a problem.
If it truly is a rat maggot, I don't think
I would worry about it a lot. So anyway, now,
the cilantro cilantro is a plant that does best here

(01:52:41):
if you plant it in the fall and it takes
some cool weather. Does pretty good in the spring. As
our day length gets longer, it bolts. And when it bolts,
that means it sends up a little umbrella like white
flower head on it. They're kind of attractive flowerheads. But
at that point the cilandro quick it's producing that you

(01:53:02):
don't get the leaves, and the reason you grew it,
you know, to season your freeholism chara freholis or whatever.
Then you don't usually have the foliage to do that.
So that is a problem that is caused by day length,
and we can't change that. If the cilantro itself is
not doing well, let me ask you this, is it

(01:53:23):
looking a little on the sharp truce light green side,
or that is showing its concern or what are you
seeing when you say you're having trouble with it?

Speaker 2 (01:53:33):
It turns light green and then dies quickly after that.

Speaker 1 (01:53:37):
Okay, Usually that is a problem. It's going to be
something in the soil. It could be overwatering so staying
too wet. It could also be some sort of a
root rot occurring on it. I think that second is
unlikely but possible. So getting it in a nice, well
drained mix, getting it in some good sunlight where the

(01:53:58):
soil you can give it a good watering but the
soil will dry out well, and then maybe an addition
of some nitrogen into the mix. It could also be
missing Typically that doesn't call it to cause it to
just dye, but it will cause it to lose color,
heading toward yellow from green. But that I would just

(01:54:19):
get me a good solution. Of a liquid that you
could put that down. There's a product called Biomatrix from Microlife.
It's an orange label and a quart bottle or a gallon,
and I would try that and you put it in water.
Put it in water and can drench it over your
cilantro and see if it perks up. And if that's
the case, then it was the nitrogen that was lacking.

Speaker 2 (01:54:43):
Okay, all right, well that's it anyway, love your show,
appreciate your time, and thank you very much.

Speaker 8 (01:54:49):
Have a great day, all.

Speaker 1 (01:54:51):
Right now, now good luck with that. I don't if
you've been listening to Guardenline, you know, I don't charge
for my advice, but I do ask for half the
produce you grow as a result of it. So if
you want to go ahead and put the cilantro in
some free holies, you know, charo free holies, I'll take
that as well. Just drop it off at the station
and we'll call it even. All right.

Speaker 2 (01:55:11):
I could actually take that happen, have done it before
for Michael Berry.

Speaker 1 (01:55:14):
So oh my gosh, oh no, oh my god, are
you kidding me? Okay, I wish I wouldn't on the air.
I'd like to pursue that one man, I'm stay out
of trouble. Stay just kidding you my end of it.
Oh gosh, thanks a lot a skip, I appreciate that.

Speaker 8 (01:55:36):
Hey.

Speaker 1 (01:55:37):
RCW Garden Center awesome garden center located where two forty
nine and belt Wait eight come together. It's easy to
get to get down there. And when you get there,
you're gonna find whatever the season is, you're gonna find
the plants. I mean, they've been having roses and back
in February they still got roses out there, a good selection.
You're gonna find the tropical hibiscus, like the Cajun types

(01:55:58):
of hibiscus that I like so much. They're there. They're there, annuals, perennials, groundcovers, herbs, vegetables,
they always have it.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
All.

Speaker 1 (01:56:06):
RCW is known as they get it got at nursery,
and that's because they don't have it. They'll do their
best to find it. They grow their own trees up
there in Plannersville at Williamson Tree Farm, and so you're
getting a good species that wants to grow in this area,
that has been produced in a way that sets it
up for success. And they'll come out and plant them
for you too. By the way, uh so, r CW

(01:56:27):
nurseries dot com. That is what you need to look for.
R CW nurseries dot com. Let's head out to Cyprus
and talk to Matt. Hey, Matt, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:56:39):
Good morning, skip.

Speaker 13 (01:56:41):
Question.

Speaker 6 (01:56:42):
Please, what's chewing on my Juliet?

Speaker 10 (01:56:47):
Have made a plant?

Speaker 8 (01:56:49):
Believes?

Speaker 1 (01:56:50):
What do you see? What does it look like?

Speaker 12 (01:56:53):
Well, I don't see anything but the leaves.

Speaker 1 (01:56:59):
Or their holes? Are there are holes in the leaves? Yes, sir, yeah,
all right. It's a beetle or a caterpillar, doesn't matter
which of the two it is. Find a product containing
spin no sid it's an organic product. S p I
n O s A D spin nose sad and spray
the foliage. It'll soak into the tissues. It's organic. And

(01:57:22):
whichever beetle our caterpillar comes along doing that, it'll shut.

Speaker 16 (01:57:25):
Them down, all right, laying little black babies.

Speaker 12 (01:57:31):
And I've been rubbing him with latex gloves on and
it's a green mush like to get them off the leak.

Speaker 1 (01:57:40):
Okay, but let's do this, Matt. Yeah, I tell you what.
I'm not picturing it, but if you will take a
close up picture and send it to me. I'll be
happy to do it, but you got to make sure
it's in good sharp focus. As close as you can
get with a camera and still get good focus. I'm
going to put you on hole because I need to run.
But send me those photos. My producer will give you

(01:58:02):
the email to send them to and I do, I
really do appreciate your call. Yesterday I was at Southwest
Fertilizer and Southwest Fertilize has been around since nineteen fifty five,
seventieth year. Happy anniversary to them. That is quite an accomplishment.
They got everything you need in the way of controlling pasts,
dealing with you know, whatever, you're dealing with weeds? Do
you want to prevent weeds? Do you want to control weeds?

(01:58:25):
I was in there looking at their tools yesterday. They
got that grabber tool that I used to make my
homemade weed wiper. They have got some really nice pole
saws and just every kind of tool you can imagine.
The wall is ninety feet long that they have their
tools on. So what do you need? I'll tell you this,
If Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have something for gardening that you need,

(01:58:47):
you don't need it because they have everything to control things,
to manage weeds, to fertilize your lawn, the tools you need,
the spreaders for fire ants and are a uh, fertilizers
in the lawn, and on and on and on down
the way southwest. Fertilizers on the corner of the Byssinet
and Runwick. Corner of Abyssinet and Runwick. They got a

(01:59:09):
little shop in the back to the fixed small engines.

Speaker 5 (01:59:12):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
And I would just recommend you go by there and
check it out. Seven one three six sixty six one
seven four four. All right, time for me to take
a break and guess what we got one more hour
guardline today. The day is flying by. Hang around. We'll
be right back with your calls if you like to
get on the board ahead of time. Seven one three

(01:59:34):
two one two k t r H seven one three
two one two k t RH Remember next Saturday, May third,
I'm gonna be at Memorial City. ACE Hardware Memoris City,
ACE Hardware Memorial Drive. I think they also call it
Hardware City. I believe that's correct.

Speaker 11 (01:59:51):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:59:52):
And if you go to ACE Hardware Texas dot com,
Ace Hardware Texas dot com, you're gonna find all the
garden line ACE Hardware stores throughout the greater Houston area.
I think thirty three different locations, Sarah, So check it
out and come see me those weeds have been wondering about.
Pull them up, stick him in a bag. That bug

(02:00:13):
you found, put it, pull it, put it in a bag,
stick it in the fraser, shut it down, and then
bring it with you next Saturday. All right, folks, we're back.
You're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter,

(02:00:35):
and we're here to help you have a bountiful garden,
a beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. Let's
just make it simple. That's that's basically what we're about here.
You can give me a call and let's say we're
in our last segment of the day of the weekend.
In fact, we're here Saturday and Sunday's from six am
to ten am, and we are entering the last hour

(02:00:57):
of Sunday here the Sunday Show. I hope you're having
a good Sunday. By the way, uh, if you would
like to give me a call, now would be a
good time to do it. Seven to one three two
one two k t r H seven to one three
two one two kt r H. I I was making
sure that we're getting some plants planted properly in a

(02:01:20):
bed that I was working on the other day. And
part of that process is to make sure that when
you plant, that plant is set up for success. And
I've talked about brown stuff for green stew, you know,
getting the right uh soil amendments in making sure it
drains well. I've got one spot where it was a
little bit low for the plant that I was going
to plant, uh, so I brought in some organic matter

(02:01:43):
built up that bed to give it a little bit
better drainage in there. Uh and then getting those nutrients tried.
And we have so many good products that we can
you know that you take microlife for example, Microlife has
got a lot of granular products. We've got the sixty
four for typically for long. They've got the humans plus,
which I encourage you to do with your fertilization. That

(02:02:06):
is a purple bag zero zero four. You're basically putting
it down to improve soil quality and microbial activity.

Speaker 8 (02:02:13):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:02:13):
And then they get the acidifier as a six two
four now that one for azilias, for blueberries, for camellias,
for Guardena's, even roses it's a good fertilizer for that.
Those all work, and then they have more and more
and more down the line. I have time to read
about all of the different ones they have, but the liquids.
Don't forget the liquids. UH. There I talk about biomatrix,

(02:02:36):
the seven to one three that is a higher nitrogen concentration.
You mix it in water. You will not burn plants
with it, uh, And you can drench plants in. You
can spray the foliage if you want, or you could
do for outdoors especially UH, I would do the Ocean
Harvest which is a four to two three blue label,
and super seweed, which is a green label. It is

(02:02:58):
a little bit of potassium in it, but you're primarily
putting it on there for some of the growth regulators
and other things that are present. And that combination organic
gardeners for a long time. You know, they don't want
to use the salt based fertilizers of blue water. If
you will that, you know, you mix up and drench
your houseplants with. So they would use a combination of
fish and motion and seaweed well, that or Ocean Harvest

(02:03:20):
blue plus the super Seaweed green. Those two together. That's
what organic gardeners have been aware of, its good product
combination for a very very long time. It's all from Microlife. Gosh,
Microlife so widely available. I mean, you know, go to
a hardware store, go to our ace hardware stores, go
to a feed store. You hear about me talk about

(02:03:42):
on Gardenline. Go to our independent garden centers. You hear
me talk about certainly. I was in Southwest Fertilizer yesterday.
My gosh, that had a whole wall of that stuff there.
It's easy to find the Microlife products, both granular and
by liquid. But the main thing is don't just hear
about it. Actually go get some and start trying it
out and see the results that you get. I've been

(02:04:03):
pleased when I've used them. Let's head now out to
Lake Jackson and we're going to talk to Ron this morning.
Hey Ron, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (02:04:13):
Good morning, Skip.

Speaker 12 (02:04:14):
I had a question about dollar weed. We had a
lot of weeds in the yard this year, but most
of them we've gotten rid of with healthy Saint Augustine
and doing some sprying, but the dollar weeds seem to
keep coming back in the yard and also in the
flower bed we had had them cleaned out and multipoot down,
but dollar weed are popping back out.

Speaker 1 (02:04:34):
Can you help us there? Yeah? Yeah, let's start with
some cultural things. The wetter it stays, the more dollar
weed is just going to become solid in a lawn.
It loves wet, So your lawn doesn't need nearly as
much water as dollar weed wants. Okay, So if you'll
give your lawn of good soaking and then let it

(02:04:55):
dry out considerably before you water again, you know, once
a week. If you can get on that schedule about
an inch down, it's not gonna make dollar weed go away,
but at least now you're not encouraging it at the
same time you're trying to fight it. So I would
let things dry out like that. If you get a
product that is a combination product, you know, the trimech

(02:05:16):
kinds of products, they work, They work well on the
dollar weed. You just want to watch once our temperatures
are in the upper eighties and especially in the nineties,
some of those products can be a little bit hard
on your turf, your Saint Augustine turf, And so what
I would suggest is spray that early in the morning
while it's still cool the coolest time of the day,

(02:05:38):
and do it sooner rather than later, because these things
heat up it's harder to control. You can also use
a product called Celsius on it. It comes in little
pockets that make one gallon of spray. And you want
to use a spreader sticker or a surf factant that
those are basically the same thing. Spreader sticker, insurfactant. Dollar weed.

(02:06:00):
It's got a shiny leaf and you want your spray
to spread out and not just roll off the leaf. Okay,
so that's what the spreader sticker that you put with it.

Speaker 8 (02:06:09):
It is very good. Thank you you show.

Speaker 1 (02:06:13):
Okay, you back, Thanks for the call. Appreciate that. All right,
fun fact. We try to give you fun facts here
on guarden Line. Did you know that there are products
made from dollar weed that you can consume. I don't
know much about it. I'm not saying go graze your
dollar weed. But I was in a Vietnamese grocery store

(02:06:37):
southeast of Houston a good while back, and in the
cooler I saw this drink can and it had a
picture a dollar weed on it, and I thought, okay,
I got to see what this is about. And it
was a very sweet serpy drink. Yes I bought it. Yes,
I put it in my mouth and my tummy because
I have to experience things right growing up. If you
tell me don't touch that, what's going to happen? I

(02:06:58):
touch it and then I learned and why you told
me not to touch it. But anyway, it was too
sweet for me, but I just thought, yeah, there you go.
You know, with weeds, one thing I like is if
you can't beat them, eat them. Well, in this case,
drink it. Yeah. You know, you can eat chick weed,
you can eat dandelion greens. There are other weeds that

(02:07:20):
you can eat as well. I won't go into all
the edible weeds, but just fun facts, I think. So
I'm amused by them. At least Warren Southern Gardens and
Kingwood Garden Center out there in Kingwood. I don't know
how you got two in the same town, but you're fortunate.
Great garden centers. You know, they're not cookie cutters at
all of each other. Each one has its own unique

(02:07:42):
features and you know, and so you need to see
them both. Warren's is on North park Stone Hollow Drive
is where you'll find Kingwood Garden Center. Both of them
are open seven days a week. They have Microlife and
Nelson plant Food filling stations. Remember I said, like you
go to the grocery store and you get peanuts and
put them in a bag by pulling the handle down.
Microlife fertilizer and Nelson plant food jars both can be

(02:08:07):
filled at those places. And I think that's really cool.
That's a really added bonus or reason to go. You're
gonna find all the fertilizers from Nitrofossion, Microlife, and Nel,
some turf star bags, and heirloom soils and nail some
of course, and now some plant food. Uh, mosquita dunks too.
Time to grab some of those. You should always have
those on hand. You're gonna find them at both. But
what you're mainly going to find is a lot of beauty,

(02:08:29):
a lot of beauty. If you want your landscape to
be transformed, and you need color, and you need hanging baskets,
and you do flowering shrubs and all of that, go
to warn Southern Gardens are Kingwood Garden Center, both open
seven days a week out there in Kingwood. I'm gonna
take a break and I'll be back with your calls
at seven one three two one two KTRH. All right, folks,

(02:08:54):
let's go seven one three two one two KTRH. Youd
like to give me a call. I hope you are
planning on putting some containers on your patio if you
don't have room for vegetable garden, and especially if you've
got kids, little kids, get a big container and grow
some vegetables in it. There are a lot of vegetables.

(02:09:15):
Pretty much any vegetable can be grown a container. Some
of them you need a larger container, but you can
do that. If you want to grow flowers with kids,
that's fun. Let them plant some zinnia seed or sunflower
seeds and watch the whole thing grow. It's a wonder
that they just need to experience as and that is
the wonder of growing things yourself. You know, groceries, vegetables

(02:09:36):
don't come from grocery stores. They come from the dirt,
and they come from farms, and they come from our backyards.
And if you're going to do a container jungle and
flour and vegetable planting, soil is a good choice because
it drains well and it also holds water. You don't
want it all the water is run out but at
the same token, you don't have to become a soggy,
boggy mess, mucky mess. So Jungle ms designed for the

(02:10:00):
It's got four different sources of aged composts. It's got
Canadian bloon pede, it's got microiel fungi in it. And
whether you're grown vegetables, foliage or color plants, it's a
good choice for that. You're going to find it at
a lot of places carry night foss products. You know,
you can get night frost at Ace Hardware, Citium Memorial
Drive up in the Woodlands, you go to Aspa Ace

(02:10:22):
Kirgandohl Road and find it out in Katie a Sinkle
Ranch and Katie Hardware Ace on Pinoak. Both of those
are going to carry nitro FoST products like Jungle, and
just being an example, let's head out to Cyprus and
we're going to talk to Fred. Hey, Fred, Welcome to
garden Line. Hello, good morning, good morning.

Speaker 13 (02:10:46):
Yes, my question is I have four oak trees in
the front yard and the one to the left of
me is always having roots shoes. So I was just
thinking this morning about just taking all this cutting the
grass out and saw it that's good grass, and then
taking Yeah much soil? How far deep are I go

(02:11:07):
down to really clear all that out? We said, We've
been playing this for years and we always have it
in control. But yeah, I'm getting a little bit older
and I'm gonna have to get people to do it now.

Speaker 1 (02:11:19):
Mm hmm. Okay, So are these live oaks?

Speaker 8 (02:11:23):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (02:11:25):
Okay. So what happens is when you get a shoot
and you cut it off around the base of the shoote,
there's already a bunch of buds ready to go. The
plant is expecting you to cut it off, and they've
already prepared to come back. So if you go down
where it attaches to the root and just cut it
away at the base, don't leave any bit of a mound.
Don't leave what looks like a little hersy's kiss there

(02:11:47):
at the bottom, you know where it swelled up and
then the shot came out. Cut all that out, and
then apply something called sucker stopper. Sucker stopper is a
hormone that tells a plant don't do that. Okay. Now,
it's not to be one hundred percent, it's not gonna
last forever, but that's step one. When you feel things
back in, then get a really thick ground cloth like

(02:12:09):
you see at a garden center, that black stuff on
those ground that they set plant pots on. That kind
of stuff, A real good, thick, dense one, not something cheap,
but a quality one. You you know, you can just
ask go to your retailers there and make sure you're
getting the thickest one that they have. So put that

(02:12:30):
down and then put any kind of a somewhat heavy
cover over it. Some people will use kind of a
like a riverstone or some other decorative kind of a
rock material on it. But that oak will send up
more shoots in the future. It's genetically in that tree
to do that.

Speaker 8 (02:12:48):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:12:48):
There's different kinds of live oaks, believe it or not,
and some types are prone toward roots suckering more than others.
But you're gonna have to.

Speaker 8 (02:12:59):
This was oak.

Speaker 16 (02:13:03):
Well or not.

Speaker 1 (02:13:05):
I Yeah, it's a live oak. It's just a live
oak basically. But Southern live oaks, you know, the the
across the Gulf coast south, those are typically not so
bad at suckering. Oaks that are you'd find over west
of here do tend to sucker a lot and so

(02:13:26):
it But the point is you bought it at a
garden center. Who knows where it came from. But I'm
just telling you. You said one is doing it, the
others not. And that's why anytime you rototill around or
disturb the roots or make wounds, you're gonna get suckering
popping up. So trying to minimize that. Putting in a
flower bed and watering it a lot and all that
kind of stuff tends to promote suckering as well, So

(02:13:48):
try to avoid those things. But there's no way to
make that tree change its ways other than excavating all
your and then yeah, to the route to wherever it's coming.
It's going to be coming out somewhere near the surface,
somewhere near the soil surface, so you sho didn't have
to go very deep. Yeah, all right, yeah, yes, sir,

(02:14:09):
thank you, all right, Frett, you bet, thanks for the question. Yeah,
that is a problem that we have to deal with
ACE Hardware stores throughout the area. You hear me talk
about ACE all the time in our garden Line group
of ACE Hardware stores. There's thirty plus here in the group.
And ACE Hardware Texas dot Com is the website. And

(02:14:30):
I say that right up front because that's pretty much
what you need to know. The second thing you need
to know, other than go to ACE Hardware Texas dot
com to find your local ACE store, is that you
unless you've been in ACE recently, you are not aware
of all the good stuff that they have. I walk
into Aces, and you know, each one's independently owned, so

(02:14:51):
the local owner. It's all. It's going to be an
ACE Hardware store with all the typical stuff you'd expect
from ACE Hardware, which is everything you need for beauty
and bound and everything in the lawn and the garden,
and some really cool indoor decorations too. But each one
can set it up their own way, and you're gonna
walk in. You're gonna go, well, I didn't know you
could do that. You know, maybe you are wanting to

(02:15:14):
beautify your kitchen and dining area and you love the farmhouse. Look,
let's just say you're gonna go into ACE and go, oh,
I didn't know they had that kind of stuff here. No, No,
we didn't. And every time I walk into an ACE,
I see more stuff that I didn't know they had. Ace.
The motto ACE is a place is true. It really

(02:15:34):
is the place, and just go check some out. Go
to Acehardware Texas dot com. That's the website. Find your
ACE Hardware store. Go check them out. I think you'll
be surprised, and especially if you're trying to do your
lawn fertilization and flower beds and just all the stuff
you need to have a beautiful, bountiful place. Ace is
a place you're listening to Guarden Line. Our phone number

(02:15:58):
is seven one three one two kt r H seven
one three two one two k t r H. Nelson
Plant Food has a fertilizer part of the Turf Star line.
That's all Nelson's bags of turf promoting fertilizers called Bruce's Brew.
And Bruce's Brew is a unique creature and here's why.

(02:16:22):
We have fertilizers that are sol based fertilizers. You put
them down, they dissolve away the nutrients. I mean like
within a couple of days, the plant roots are taking
that nutrient up because they're immediately available. They're not long lasting,
but they are immediately available. We use those in our
spring green up often. Then they're the slow release that
lasts for months and months and months they go through summer.

(02:16:43):
Bruce's Brew lives in the border between those It is got.
It does have the immediate release feature, but it also
has nutrients that will release evenly over time for a
good while, and so you're kind of getting both with
Bruce Brew. It helps with root development, which is so
important in the summer heat for our lawn turf grasses.

(02:17:07):
The carbon based sources of nitrogen in Bruce's brew help
feed soil microbes, and so microbes rule the world and
they basically are why your plants are happy. If they're happy,
because microbes are in there making that root zone what
a plant wants. So anyway you get healthy soil, you
get healthy plants, you have less problems with pests and diseases,

(02:17:27):
and that includes your lawn. And you'll check out the
Bruces Brew from Nelson plant Food, part of the turf
Star line. Good stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:17:36):
In my.

Speaker 1 (02:17:38):
Orchard, I've got a couple of citrus trees right now,
and I'm about to put a peach tree in. I
was meant to get it done in the wintertime, but
you know, there's this thing called a round to it
that I usually don't have on hand a lot of times,
and I didn't have my round to it so I
could get around to it anyway. I'm planting a fig
tree as well, and your figs do so. Did you

(02:18:00):
know that figs used to be an industry on the
Gulf Coast, hundreds of acres of figs. Imagine that if
you have one fig tree, you know how productive they
can be. One hundred acres of figs, Oh my gosh.
And all the soils west to Houston, you know, the
clay soils that became rice patties. In time, there was
an industry there where we grew figs. And you know,

(02:18:21):
you get some really bad freezes ever now and then
they can take a fig past the ground and kill them.
I don't know if that happened or if it was
just the fact that other parts of the country began
to grow, like California figs in large quantities or whatever. Anyway,
we don't see that industry, but that didn't change the
fact that figs put up with our soils. I had

(02:18:43):
a fig tree.

Speaker 8 (02:18:45):
That was.

Speaker 1 (02:18:47):
Huge when we moved into this house. And when you
get a fig you want to get one that has
a closed eye or a drop of resin in the
little eye that's a belly button on the fig fruit,
because bugs get in there. The sour them and then
wasps are attracted to them. And you can't eat a
sour fig, so get one with a closed eye. This
one had an open eye, so I got rid of
the tree. It is a horribly poor drained area clay soil,

(02:19:12):
and that fig tree's roots went down five inches. This
a huge fig tree five inches deep, and they went sideways.
If you'd flipped it upside down, it looked like a tabletop.
I'd never seen that before, but it told me something.
Even in bad soil, you can grow figs here, and
you ought to try that. They do really, really well.

(02:19:33):
Maybe you're heading out to in Jenniforest, for example, they
carry figs. They carry other fruit trees as well, but
in Chenni forest can get you set up on that.
I want to tell you that they're really good. That
one of their fortes in addition to having everything is
native plants like Salvia's and lantanas, and plants that attract

(02:19:53):
pollinators specifically and are locally sourced and do well in
our soils here, beautiful, drought resilient, huge range of varieties, bees, butterflies.
What do you want to bring in? Hummingbirds? They got it.
Their plants thrive in this climate. They carry premium locally
made composts too. That really makes our local soils come

(02:20:15):
alive for the plants. Enchended Forest FM twenty seven to
fifty nine, FM twenty seven to fifty nine. If you
were in Richmond, you're heading towards sugar Land up fifty
nine or Ice sixty nine. Now it is, it's off
to the right twenty seven to fifty nine. Go there,
but check out this website. It's awesome. Enchanted Forest, Houston, TX.

(02:20:37):
And I'm saying that right, enchanted forest. I just went
blank right at the time I was starting to say
it enchanted forest Houston. No, that's not right, intended Forest Richmond.
I'm sorry, TX dot com. There I finally got it.
Enchended Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. I don't know why
I kept trying to add Houston to it. Go to
that website. It's awesome. I take a little break here.

(02:20:59):
We'll be back with your calls in just a moment.
There you go. Welcome back to garden Line. Good to
have you with us. If you would like to give
me a call seven to one to three, uh seven
to three two one two k t R H seven
one three two one two K t r H. Feel
free to do so. In fact, now it would be
a pretty good time to call Medina products. Gosh, there's

(02:21:22):
so many of them, uh, and I'd like to tell
you about all of them, but I can't tell it ever.
One that's out there. You hear me talk about has
to grow six T six plant food a lot because
it's an awesome product, it really is. I use it.
My primary use for it is i'd mix it in
water and drench in my new transplants, uh, and do
it when you plant, do it a week later, do

(02:21:42):
it a week later, three times, three drenches. Got good
phosphorcinate to help that root development and help the plant
get off to a good start. It's got humide, humic acid,
it's got a Medina soil activator, stimulate biological activities, got
seaweed extracts, and it's just good. You can also use
as a foldo if you want. But there are many
other good Medina products out there on the market, and

(02:22:03):
I think you ought to explore some of these. There
is some really outstanding, in my opinion, effective products for
having success with whatever you're trying to grow. So, for example,
maybe you are interested in creating beautiful flowers. There are
Medina products that will fit every kind of flower that

(02:22:27):
you possibly could want to grow. Right, So for example,
let's just see, I'm going to try to open with
these up. I've got to issue going there, we go
grab the wrong, wrong one. I was giving away some
samples yesterday of Medina products and they were it was
the fish emulsion type product, it was the seaweed type product,

(02:22:51):
and it was that hast grow type product when I
was a Southwest fertilizer and I love those. They all
work super super well. And the hastro grow is the
one that I was just telling you about. Whatever you're
whatever you're wanting to try to grow, whatever kind of
every kind of plant, Medina is designed to number one,
build the soil. That's what they do. They create all

(02:23:14):
kinds of from compost nutrient liquids that they put out
there to beneficial microbes that can be sprinkled out and
used to really pretty much all the products that they have.
If you are wanting to get your lawn boosted, there's
two excellent things. And by the way, I say for lawns,
but you can use these on a lot of different
kinds of plants. One of them is Medina has to

(02:23:34):
Grow Lawn. It's a twelve four eight liquid hooks up
to a garden hose and you just go to town.
It's got Medina soil activator also in it in addition
to the twelve four eight, and it's got humakuemic acid
in it. So it's like getting a lawn cair kit
in a bottle really and it works. I've used it.
It works. Medina has to Grow Lawn twelve four eight.

(02:23:57):
That's one of them. The other one and this product
is Medina has to Grow super Grow. There's a lot
of grows going on here. Medina has to grow Supergrow Plus.
That one has a little like a green band across
the product that says super Grow Plus. It's a sixteen
zero two no phosphorus. And I won't tell you this.

(02:24:18):
They've done a lot of studies on lawns. I did
a study in Austin, Texas and a neighborhood of two
hundred homes. And it don't think Austin's different than Houston
in this regard. It'd be similar here. Two hundred homes.
We did a soil sampling of all those homes. Not
one home needed phosphorus in that neighborhood. When you you know,
back in the days of Dewey Compton, they were saying

(02:24:40):
triple thirteen all the time for everything, and that middle
number thirteen builds up. Nitrogen washes away and it volatileizes away.
Potassium will move down through the soil with a good
drenching rain, but phosphorus sticks to the soil and as
you use it, it builds up, and when you overuse
you end up with a lot. So that Supergirl plus

(02:25:02):
the sixteen zero two, it's fine. Don't worry about the
phosphorus not being there. I would say it is extremely
rare that not putting phosphorus on is going to cause
your lawn of problem. Okay, it's extremely rare. We recommend
three one two four one two type ratios because that's
what the turf scientists tell us the grass would like
to have. But I would say, get a sol sample.

(02:25:25):
You may not need that metal number early at all. Anyway,
supergro Plus, hook it up to a garden host, spray
it on your lawn. You get results. People spray it
in their vegetable gardens. That boost of nitrogen you can
do that. You can spray it however you want to
use it, just use it. It's an excellent product from Medina.
I know I'm droning on about Medina now, but I

(02:25:45):
just want to tell you there's a lot of great
products and they're widely available here in the greater Houston area.
All right, well, let's head out to spring right now.
We're going to talk to Chris. Hey, Chris, Welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 17 (02:25:56):
Hey, Skip, good morning.

Speaker 8 (02:25:58):
I had a question.

Speaker 17 (02:26:00):
Should I be worried if my lantanas if not emerged back.
My bluop plumbagos are here, They've been here a month ago,
but my lantanas are just there's still nothing dormant.

Speaker 1 (02:26:13):
Yeah, they should be doing something. They're not. They haven't
been actively growing. But I have some at my house
and down a row, I have some that are coming out.
I have three or four inches of growth, and some
of them aren't emerging at all. And I haven't gone
in there to look closely at them. But I suspect
we had a cold snap that might have gotten those.
And not all lantanas are equal in cold heartiness, and

(02:26:37):
so that could be part of the factor. The way
cold comes, you know, and it can also be go
ahead and cut them back to a couple of inches high,
and then take your thumbnail and scrape the bark at
the very base and dig back the molts or whatever's
around them, and scrape the bark with your thumbnail again.
And if you're not getting something that looks creamy or

(02:26:58):
green green is in there, you probably lost that one.
If you see some, give them a little more time,
they'll probably send out a bud. Okay, that's what I
was wondering.

Speaker 17 (02:27:08):
Should just replant or give it a few more weeks?

Speaker 1 (02:27:11):
Okay, Yeah, Okay, that's your call. That's your call. Yeah.
The fact that you reminded me I need to get
out and crawl around and do that to mine. Thanks.

Speaker 17 (02:27:20):
I keep hoping every day I go out here that
they'll be sprouting, but nothing.

Speaker 1 (02:27:24):
All right, Well let's see, all right, we'll see how
it turns out. All right, take care, Thanks, Thanks, thanks,
thank you, sir. Bye bye. Nature's Way resources. Uh did
you know Nature's Way as a two acre actually bigger
than that now two acre nursery fruit trees, natives got
house plants, I got vegetables. One of the largest varieties
of native plants you're gonna find in this area. Lots

(02:27:47):
of really cool plants, But why do you go to
Nature's Way? Well, native plants, but also their their products.
You know, way before compost was cool, uh, and there
were so many places producing compost here. Nature's Way was
leading the way and creating things like roastsoil and like
leaf mold composts. Those are two examples of things born

(02:28:09):
at Nature's Way. They still have those, and they have
much much more. Every Friday they have something called fungal
based compost. Now, when you decompose wood and woody products
and things like that, grind them up and decompose them
and stuff you get, it's fungi that do most of
the work for you. And fungal based compost is on
sale every Friday at Nature's Way. You can buy bags

(02:28:31):
for ten percent off or you can buy bulk for
twenty percent off. So that's a good deal. You can
go out there and get it with your truck. You
can have them deliver it to your house. You can
go find it in garden centers. Go around to garden
centers and you're going to find Nature's Way products in
mini garden centers. I was at Plants Fall Seasons yesterday
and solved Nature's Way Products there Nature's Way Resources dot com.

(02:28:55):
That's the website, Nature'sway Resources dot com. You need to
go check it out. It's a cool They redid the
website and it's very good, very helpful. By the way,
if you want to give them a call. Nine three
six two seven three twelve hundred nine three six two
seven three twelve hundred. I'm gonna take a little break

(02:29:16):
here and when we come back, we'll come back for
your calls. If you would like to give us call
seven one three two one two kt RH and uh
your questions hang around. We'll be right back. Welcome back
to the Garden Line. Guess what we're in our last segment.
This thing hole, this whole thing shouts down low before

(02:29:36):
ten o'clock and I'll be back next week on Saturday morning,
bright and early, bright eyed and bushy tailed. You can
rise and join me. Then, even if you refuse to shine,
you don't have to rise and shine. Just rise. Turn
on the radio, by the way, a good way to
listen to the garden Line. And I keep telling people

(02:29:57):
to do this.

Speaker 5 (02:29:58):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:29:58):
Now, if you listen on the radio, that's fine. K
t R eight seven Am. You can listen to it
on a radio, or you can listen to on your computer,
or however you want to do it. That's fine. That's
how a lot of people listen. There's an iHeartMedia app.
It is a red and white heart on it that
makes it easy to find on wherever your app store
is for the kind of phone you use, download the

(02:30:19):
iHeartMedia app and then search for garden Line. There's two
of them in the country, some lady somewhere else and
me down here. Just put it down and you know,
I don't know. You subscribe or whatever you do to
it to follow that show, and you can take your
phone out and listen to Guardline on your phone. Maybe
you got earbuds in and you turn your phone and

(02:30:40):
you set in your pocket as you go out and
work in the garden and you can listen to garden
Line live. And the cool thing about that. And this
hadn't happened yet, but one of these days somebody's going.

Speaker 8 (02:30:48):
To do this.

Speaker 1 (02:30:49):
You could be out walking around your yard and you
see a weed and you go, what is that weed?
And how to get rid of it? Take a picture
of it, call my producer Aleandro, get the email, email
it to me, and then you got to fall up
with a call and we'll talk about your garden question
live from your garden and now a live from Shruckstown

(02:31:09):
or wherever you live. We can do that, so just
keep that in mind. That's a possibility. I listen to
a lot of stuff on my phone now, and especially
when I can listen live. I love that and past
shows too. By the way, all right, tip of the day,
Anti Grows and Porium. Since nineteen eighty three, Antigros and
Porium has been a must visit destination for gardeners and

(02:31:30):
families in general alike. It's beautiful. They are roses because
it's the Rose and Porium, but they are so much more.
They've got navy plants and herbs and flowers. They carry
free trees and houseplants, and then there's their nursery and
display gardens. It it's fun to walk through there. It
just is, and I would recommend you do that. A

(02:31:50):
plan outing and if you're going to drive out, there's
not far I depend on where you live. It's not
that far up in the Independence, Texas area. It's just
a little north of Brenham. It's a good out. I
always love it during wildflower seasons which goes long around here,
especially Blue Bunnet, and it's a great place to visit.
Now when you're there, a couple things. You need to

(02:32:11):
walk through the gardens and see all of the plants
that they carry. They are awesome, absolutely awesome. I want
to remind you about a couple of things going on
out there. They're going to have their twenty twenty five
Spring Photo Contest and if you want to find all
the details the prize details. First of all, how about this.
One of the prizes is a one hundred dollars Anti

(02:32:32):
CROs im Porium gift certificate. If you want to find
out how to enter, go to their social look for
Anti CROs impoum and Instagram or Facebook and find out
how to enter and take part in this. That's fun
right there now. On May tenth, Saturday that's coming up
not too far from now, from eleven am to one
pm is a Mother's Day tea and luncheon. They're going

(02:32:53):
to have a special Mother's Day tam luncheon right out
there in the gardens themselves. They're going to have finger
sandwiches and salads and fruits vegetables and hummus dips and
it's just a nice setting with some really cool, dainty desserts,
as they put it, for a sweet finish. One other
reminder is May twenty fourth through twenty six is water

(02:33:14):
conserving products weekend. Santa Texas sales tax is held off
on water conserving products that weekend, so that's Memorial weekend.
Don't forget about that, so follow them on social media,
follow their newsletter. Go to Antique Roseemporium dot com, Antique
Rosenporium dot com. Lots of good information there at your

(02:33:36):
stock have a bib on because when you see their roses,
you're gonna start drooling and you mess up your shirt.
But I love going to antiqu rosing Porium. Really cool stuff.
By the way, they still have those two new roses
they just released called Glass Slipper and Cupid's Sweetheart, So
you got to check those out. I've been mentioning it.
Today I'm gonna remind you once more. It's time to

(02:33:58):
get the summer slow release products out on your lawn.
And Nitropos's silver bag makes it easy. Stand across the store.
Maybe you're in ace hardware store and you look way
over there and there's gardens, and you see that silver
bag from across the store. It's easy to spot. Nineteen
four to ten slow release, four months of feeding. You
do it, now you're done. You take care of summer

(02:34:20):
fertilizing all the way up until it's time to start
talking about fall fertilizing. Nitrofos super turf. So why would
you put that out?

Speaker 8 (02:34:29):
Well?

Speaker 1 (02:34:29):
Number one, it's it saves time. You do it, now
you're done. Number two, it's designed so that our southern
grasses like Bermuda grass in Augustine' zoysia, that it feeds
them well with a ratio that they want. Number Three,
it releases that slowly so that over time you don't
get a flush of top growth where you're mow mow, mowing,

(02:34:52):
trying to keep up with it, and then the root
system is smaller. Did you know that when you overdo
nitrogen on a turf grass plant, you get top growth,
it's greener and greener and wonderful. You got to mow it,
but the root growth actually is less than on a
plant that is fertilized properly. Night five super Turf is
designed to put a gradual release out through that whole

(02:35:14):
summer season, so you don't have to do the mo
moo moo. And now you've got a few grubs chomping
on the roots, and your root system is already smaller
than it should be. And you see the problem with
drought and other things. All right, you have been I
have explained it as best I can. Night five superturf,
silver bag. Find it all kinds of places. If you were,

(02:35:36):
let's say, at RCW Nursery, Tombo Parkway, you can find
that kind of thing. Plants fell seasons on the wet
I know they carried it there. D and de feed
and Tomball is another place you're going to find night
fish products like this silver bag is super turf. Well,
let's see. I wanted to mention. There's one other thing
I'd like to talk about before we're all done with today,

(02:36:00):
and that is including herbs in your landscape. A lot
of people think when they think of herbs, they think
of an herb garden, and those are beautiful. They're typically
geometric designs and they're all cool. That's fine, you can
do that, but herbs can be grown anywhere. My wife
has herbs in a flower bed that's raised and the

(02:36:24):
oregano is spilling over the sides. It looks really good.
By the way the time is spilling over the sides,
it looks good, and then they're the flowers in the bed.
You can put herbs in a hanging basket or a
container if you want. They work really well for that.
Some herbs even give you flowers. For example, Salvia pineapple sage.

(02:36:44):
It's a type of salvia and it has red tubular
flowers mostly in late summer and fall. But when the
hummingbirds find those, they go crazy. They love those things,
and the leaves smell like pineapples. Another herb that has
blooms that attracts palms especially would be trailing rosemary. Trailing
rosemary blooms more than upright rosemary, and yes she has

(02:37:07):
trailing rosemary and her flower beds is what raised flower
beds as well. In my vegetable gardens, I have chives
because chives bloom and they bring in beneficial pollinators and
other insects. I like to put a regano at the
end of a row, you know. I think a cool
combination is if you've got a road tomatoes and you

(02:37:29):
put some oregano in one end and some basil inter
mixed in the other, you just got your pesto garden
ready to go right there. I mean, throw some tony
tea's in at the other end if you want. But
it's all right there. There's no rule that you can't
plant herbs in a vegetable garden. I do it at
the end of the rose because I don't want to
have to go through let's say I was gonna spade
or till the bed. I don't want to have to
work around all the herbs, so I do them on

(02:37:50):
the end of the rose. But you can do that
however you want to grow them. You ought to grow
some herbs. There's herbs that are wonderful for culinary, herbs
that are wonderful for attracting and supporting beneficial insects, and
then of course herbs that bring in the pollinators. And
we need to do a good job of supporting those
because those guys are working for you. You know, they

(02:38:10):
are actually out there. You don't even know it. But
right now, out in your garden, there's some aphid that
is getting a wasp, landing beside it and laying an
egg in it, and it'll be like the movie Alien
that eggle hatch. The larvae will grow and eat out
the inside of the aphid. If you want the gory details.
It's used through the aphids chest and it sticks the

(02:38:32):
aphid to the leaf because dead aphids don't hold onto
leaves very well. And then it grows up inside the
aphid comes out as a wasp to go and lay
eggs in a whole bunch of other aphids. What does
that wasp do for nourishment? Nectar and pollen, that's what
it does for nourishment. Now, if you've got I'll just

(02:38:52):
use tomatoes as an example. We got a lot of
plants to get aphis, and if you've got some tomatoes
with aphids, wouldn't you like to have nourishment for Mama
was right there? And when I say was, I'm talking
about something size of a nat almost it's very small.
That's just an example of why we need to mix
our gardens up. Listen, a farm needs to be monoculture
so you can go across all the acreage and get
all the cotton out of there, or the sorghum or

(02:39:14):
whatever you're growing out of the farm. Our gardens should
not be monocultures. They should be mixed. We can do
that with containers. We can do that by mixing up
the plantings. No one said flowers can't be in a
vegetable garden. And by the way, herbs are very attractive,
and some herbs are really cool to use in flower
beds or lining a pathway like solid burnat cucumber flavored leaves,

(02:39:39):
little mounds rupertty lining a pathway chives another one that
does that. All right, I got quit talking, but there's
an idea for you. Have fun out in the garden
this week and go visit some garden centers this afternoon.