Classic Gardens from February 1st, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's the Classic Gardens and Landscape shovel on the head,
ready and with your wan show up Plants and Grass
to Grow two and docent Chris, Chris and Chris.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
No, Chris knows it, Chris knows it. Chris knows it.
Chris knows it. Chris knows it. Chris knows it. Sure,
Chris knows it. Chris knows it.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
And now you're a host. Chris Joyner and Chris Keith.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Good morning, Welcome the Classic Gardens and Landscape Show on
w e r C. I'm Chris Keith, I'm Chris Joyner.

Speaker 5 (00:39):
I hope everybody's doing fine and dandy on this fantastic day.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
Let me tell you what we can see. The sun show.

Speaker 5 (00:46):
My gosh, this weather is gorgeous. So normally we do
the radio show and a bomb shelter in a bomb
shelter in a tornado room at my house basically, and uh,
I've got some we you know. Last week work wise
was horrible. I mean, it didn't get above freezing for
three days. It seemed okay, it was thirty six, right, yeah,
so we weren't out like treating yards those couple of days.

(01:07):
And so we worked last Saturday and then yesterday it
rained and so a couple of guys and I got
knocked out. So I was like, hey, let's let's go
ahead and work. Pull in and work at least half
the day this Saturday. Right, So we brought the radio
transmitter in uh to uh the garden center, and we're
sitting down here in our office and we got window,

(01:28):
we we got daylights. I want to say, hate all
my guys. Well, the two work in Britain, and in
case they're out, uh, they're out putting pre murder.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
It was Little Caesar Pizza about seven thirty.

Speaker 5 (01:40):
They're all grinding away and I want to tell them
how much I appreciate it. And if you if you
see my guys out working today, go out and give
them a pad on the back and shake their hand
and say thanks for making my yard beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
Give them a ten, because that's what they do.

Speaker 5 (01:52):
They're out there making yards beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
That's it.

Speaker 6 (01:54):
Even you know what people don't understand, Chris.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
I'm gonna go ahead and apologize for my voice. That's
where we got.

Speaker 6 (02:04):
I've honestly not had a voice for a month. So anyways,
we people don't realize it, but when your grass looks
like straw. That is the time of year where it
is most important to be doing something to it, because
if you don't, I'm telling you if I promise, if

(02:25):
you get on pre emergency program right now, So if
you call us eight five four four thousand and five,
I swear you will not have any crab grass this year.
If you start right now, I can bank, you can
bank on it. But if you wait until March, you know,
that little window is all it takes, depending on you know,

(02:47):
the weather.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
I mean, heck, look at it. A week and a
half ago, we were below freezing for what sixty hours straight?
You know what I mean? And now we're you know,
sixty five seventy degrees.

Speaker 5 (02:59):
Have their eyes this week is gonna be that seventies
next week?

Speaker 6 (03:02):
It was just the same, ye So you know it
can change, just like you flip the switch and it's
the same thing. And those those weeds are triggered by
those changing temperatures. So it's so, so so important. If
if you want a nice lawn, you've got to call.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
Us eight five four four thousand and five.

Speaker 6 (03:24):
You get on our long care program, and I swear
we will just you're gonna have some weeds. If you
haven't done anything in your yard and the last six months,
you're gonna have hen bit and all that stuff. It's
already popping up right now. You can see it in
these yards that hadn't been treated.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (03:40):
But we'll come in, we'll start spreading that stuff out
and within just a four or five month pro uh
you know timeframe, we're gonna make your yard just I mean,
come alive. It will blue fantastic.

Speaker 5 (03:52):
Yeah, big turn big turnaround. But you just got to
get started now. And you can give her off a
call Monday through Friday, eight five four, eight thousand and one.
You can talk with Jenny and talk with Dan. Get
get set up for me to come out and take
a look at the lawn, give you a price to
treat it. Heck, you don't even have to call in
you you can go to our website right now as

(04:12):
I'm speaking, and you can click on a free estimate,
enter your information, you know, enter as many details about
your yard as you want to, and then I can
come out give you a quote to do that.

Speaker 6 (04:21):
Well, a lot of people don't know anything about a lawn,
you know. All they know is they've got they've got grass.
You know, so we make it easy for you. Whatever
you know, put whatever information you know in. They're if
you don't, if you're not sure what kind of grass
you got or anything like that, you know, we'll come
out and we do the estimate. We're gonna tell you
all right, you got bermuda grass, We're gonna measure it.

(04:45):
You know, we give you a price based on the
square footage. And uh, it's it's that easy.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
And to call like we've talked about it, you know,
countless times over.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
The year, hard leaving push coming in here and getting
your stuff.

Speaker 5 (04:55):
The cost for us to treat it. On the last
radio shows, talking about a couple of our do it
yourself customers that just got tired of doing it themselves
and had me come out and give them a price,
and they're like, man, do it sold one hundred percent.
Have us take care of it and when it gets
the biggest thing is so knowing what to put out
and when to put it out is kind of one

(05:18):
of the tricky things. Because I know, Mike called me
the other day and he was at he was at
CrossFit and he's like, man, one of my CrossFit guys
cheated on me. He went he went somewhere else and
bought some pre mergent. And you know, Mike, Mike's good
about helping anybody out. The guy's already got the stuff
from somebody else, you know whatever. And uh so Mike
called me. He was like, hey, when does he need
to put this stuff out? Because he's already bought it.

(05:40):
So let's go ahead and help him out and let's
you know, get him on the right path. And and
uh the pre mergent that he had bought I wouldn't
have put out now. I said, hey, you need to
wait probably till the end of February or March before
you before you put that one out, because that's when
you're going to get the most bang for your buck.
But that's why you need to come. Either you know,
shop with us because we have knowledgeable staff that knows

(06:02):
what to put out and when to put it out,
or you just have us come out and do it,
because you know, we that's what we do day in
and day out. So the science behind it, we put
a lot of thought and energy and research into into
the products that we use and when we put them out,
and every single year is different, Chris Keith, You know,
particularly as we get into the you know, late spring

(06:23):
and summer months. If we getting hot and dry spells,
you know, you might have to adjust the actual you know,
type of fertilizer that you put out, or whether it's
you know, you know, you know, high nitrogen fertilizer if
you or maybe even back up, back off and you
start doing the human aids, which will help with drought
tolerance and it will help utilize you know, one of
you know, a lot of the products that we put out.

(06:45):
So it's it's ever changing. I mean, that's every single
year we it seems like we tweak our program a
little bit based on the weather and what's going on,
and that that's that's another challenging part for a homeowner
doing it themselves. And then just the simple diagnosis, especially
as we go into spring, because as the grass greens up,
it's not like it's not like every single grass of

(07:07):
blade turns green all, you know, at the same time,
you know, at the same rate. And so whether it's
whether it's just slow coming out of dormancy, you know,
whether it's you know, insect issues or disease issues or heck,
I mean, look at last one thing that I know
that I'm gonna have to communicate with our law cair customers.
Is man. Last August, September, October, we were extremely dry

(07:32):
and there were yard there were a lot of yards
that just got smacked because the homeowner wasn't watering well.
The damage that was done to yards last fall, last
summer and fall will be evident in yards, you know
this March, April and May, and so you know that
that record keeping that we do on homeowners of yard
homeowners yards is kind of like a doctor. We can say, okay, yeah,

(07:54):
you know, we told you that there were areas damaged
in the yard, you know, in these spots, and that's
why it's not slow coming up. So there's a lot
of communication that we do with homeowners about what goes
on with yards, and that makes that makes him breaks it.
You know.

Speaker 6 (08:07):
We know we offer the three step insecticide program, you know,
so our customers can get on that, you know, this
time of year and we'll start doing you know, our
applications we do, you know, three steps of insecticides. In
the summer. Last year, you know, the or the year
before that, we didn't see an army worm at all.

(08:29):
You know, the last year I had ten rounds of
army worms at the house, you know, so it it
changes at the flip of the switch. We have to
go from Okay, this this round of insecticide that we
put out the year before last, you know we did
this round. Well, this year is totally different because we

(08:50):
have to tweak it depending on what is hitting and
what we see, and uh, you know, it's constantly changing
a little bit because you know, it's you have a
you have a lane you want to stay in, but
then the weeds in the and the and the insects
and things like that, and the fungus, any of that

(09:11):
stuff takes us in a little different direction. You know,
we have to we have to curb and twist switch
lanes every yeah, every now we got change lanes a
little bit. And uh, you know that's that's where our
long care varies, I think a lot from different companies
because we leave ourself the ability.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
To flip and change a.

Speaker 6 (09:30):
Little bit, just because if we've got to change with now,
we've got to change with what's going on. You know,
if we have a hotter than average year or drier
than average year or whatever, we we have to change things.
You can't just keep putting the same stuff on your month.
That's a month, that's a month, or you'll smoke your yard,
that's right. So we have to change it were we

(09:51):
used to have.

Speaker 5 (09:52):
We're sitting here looking at our bulletin board and we
used to have one of the papers up there that said,
it's definition of insanity is doing the same thing over
and over again and expecting different results.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Right.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
Yeah, I tell you I've done this my entire life,
and and uh there's always something new and there's always
something that changes. And then you know, as the as
the chemical companies, you know, they they try to you know,
innovate and they come out with new products. So we're
constantly testing new products to see if we can get
stuff that you know, that that works better.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Look at five years ago, we didn't have the bag
of gold.

Speaker 5 (10:27):
Right, yeah, that's right. Uh, you know, weed killers for
tough tough weeds like you know, nuts and nutgrass is
one that we've been dealing with forever. And uh, they all,
you know, there's always something new that comes out. For
my yard usually becomes the guinea pig for a lot
of these products, cause I got to see whether they
work or not and whether they burn the grass or not.
But you know it's just constant you know, constant education

(10:50):
goes into what we do.

Speaker 6 (10:52):
Yeah, well there's constantly new products coming out and you know,
and that's that is the awesome thing. We were talking
about the bag of gold just then, and uh, you know,
in a month or so, it's gonna be time to
put out the bag going. If you hadn't any pre emergent,
like right now, you're like this time of year, a
lot of people wake up and realize, Man, I have

(11:14):
got something. I fell and I've fallen off the bandwagon.
You know, they hadn't done any lime. You know, they
hadn't done any pre emerging. They haven't done all the stuff.
And it's like this time of year is a perfect
time of year to come in the garden center.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
Get your stuff and catch up. Or you call us
eight five four four thousand and five and you just
schedule an appointment, Chris, come out there and measure yard.
Uh you don't even have to do that.

Speaker 6 (11:37):
And go on our website and and you know, put
your information in there right now. I mean you can
get on the computer right now and do it or
do it on your phone, and uh, we'll come out
there and give you a long care estimate, and uh man,
you will not believe what your lawn will look like
in four or five months.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
Yeah, yeah, I won't. You won't believe what your yard
looks like if you don't do anything.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
Oh, it'll look horrid.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
Vr because I know that I've been.

Speaker 6 (12:01):
That's that time of year, man, I mean, you get
you give it one more month and there'll be people
walking in the garden center with literally grocer bags full
of like every kind of weed on.

Speaker 5 (12:11):
The planet, and they hadn't cut their grass.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
And they hadn't cut the grass.

Speaker 6 (12:16):
It's ankle deep in you know everything, and you turn
the green patch and they're like, man, what can I do?
And it's like you you should have started six months.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
Yeah, but you gotta start somewhere.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
You gotta start somewhere.

Speaker 6 (12:30):
Weeds germinate three hundred and sixty five days a year
in Birmingham, Alabama. It's a blessing for us and it's
a curse for you. So you gotta get on our bandwagon.
You got to call us eight five four, four thousand
and five and we'll give you an estimate.

Speaker 4 (12:44):
Chris, it's time for a break. Let's go ahead and
take that break.

Speaker 6 (12:46):
When we come back, we're gonna talk about the parasite
pandemic that is out there right now. We'll be right
back in the Classic Garden's Landscape Show. These guys know
they're dirt.

Speaker 7 (13:00):
It's the Classic gardens in Landscape Show with Chris Joiner
and Chris Keith.

Speaker 8 (13:05):
Russell green Houge has been insuring my business, my home
and my farm for over twenty years. You see Russell
as an independent agent. He gets to shop the insurance
industry to bring me the best possible insurance and price.
Green Houge Insurance is a family run business with his
wife Marcia and son Adam involved. As Russ eases up,

(13:27):
a little, Adam is stepping in. I remember when my
home on my farm burned down to the ground. I
called Russ that afternoon, and the next morning I had
an adjuster standing next to me on my farm. My
memory is a little foggy, but the way I tell
the story is he wrote me a check on the
spot for the full amount of the policy. If it

(13:48):
didn't happen that way. It was so easy to work
with them that it seemed it happened that way. I
also remember when my house in Birmingham had tornado damage.
I called green Houge, laid on his satdery prepared to
leave a message on the phone. Russ answered. I said, Russ,
why are you work so late on a Saturday. He said, Mike,
there is a storm and I'm expecting some phone calls

(14:10):
from my customers. It might be hard to believe, but
that's the kind of service you get from Green Houge Insurance.
Give Russ or Adam a call today nine six seven
eighty eight hundred and tell them that Mike sent.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
You News Radio one oh five five w ERC.

Speaker 8 (14:27):
You have been hearing me talk about Caboda on this
program for thirty three years now. When I first went
into business, I had to have a tractor. I didn't
know much about Koboda but that it was a pretty
tractor and affordable. Only later did I find out how
dependable they are. Another key component is where you buy
your Koboda. Blunt County Tractor established nineteen forty seven and

(14:50):
Josh Fallen in Auniana is where I go six two
five five three eight one. A family run business. Josh
and his wife Audie Newture a growing business. Whether you're
looking for a small tractor, a mid size or a
large tractor. Caboda and Blunt County Tractor have them all,
and so do I. I own the smallest tractor and

(15:10):
the largest tractor Caboda makes. I don't think any of
my tractors are newer than twenty years old. But every
time I use them, they crank, they run, they get
the job done, and they are dependable and comfortable. Blunt
County Tractor also has a complete line of Z turn mowers.
Man these are the best. I have a small one
from my home in town and the largest one they

(15:32):
make from my farm, the Z seven two six X.
It's a beast and you cannot stop it. Blunt County
Tractor also has a complete line of any attachment you
might need for your tractor. Call Josh Fallon at Blunt
County Tractor in Aniana today six two five, five, three
eight one and tell them that Mike sent you.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
Don't no no no, don't no no.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
No no, dunn no no no, don't o don't no
no no, don't no, don't don't know your.

Speaker 6 (15:59):
Plan, Yes, sir, you got to know your plants. Let
me tell you I know my plants. And right now, Chris,
when we went to break we were talking about the
black parasite.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
Pandemic and what's going on now.

Speaker 6 (16:11):
And I don't want to make light of a pandemic
because man, we were just there like five years ago.
But there's a thing going on right now out there
in your trees, and there's a parasite out there, and
this parasite is attacking primarily crape myrtles. I mean, if
you go down the road and you take a look
at your crape myrtles, you know. I mean there's a

(16:31):
lot of people that's wagging the tops that of crpe
marbles right now, and so that's putting their crape myrtles
under stress. And then they've got this parasite all over
them that's making them have this black sooty mold, and
that black sooity mole gets all over everything under the tree.
It really makes a tree suffer and get super weak.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
And the only way you.

Speaker 6 (16:51):
Control it is you use fertilong systemic insect dridge. Well,
there's a couple of things you can do. So right
now it's cool outside, so you can go on there.
We sell product and garden centers called horticulture or dormant
or and basically what that does is it coats the
parasite with this oil based product, and the oil makes it.

(17:15):
It suffocates them so they can't they can't they can't breathe,
so it kills them. So you use that. But that's
just the topical spray. The problem is crpe martles are big,
you know. So you know, a good sized crape myrtle
if you didn't whack the top out of it, might
be twenty five feet tall and you can't spray that high,
so you still got that parasite up on the top

(17:36):
of it. So you go in there with the fertile
on systemic insect drench. Write this down because it's very important.
You use it on your Japanese maples. You can use
it on like price trees in the yard, big white oak.
You know there's some trees in your yard. If you
lose that tree, it's kinda just totally make your yard

(17:57):
look weird, you know what I mean, Like if you
got to majestic white oak out in your yard, or
if you got a big dog wood or something like that,
if you lose that tree, it's gonna completely change your landscape.
So you go in with the furlong systemic insect drench.
Write that down, come in and get it. Furtlong systemic

(18:17):
insect drench. You take it, mix it in a five
down bucket, you pour it around the bottom of your tree.
The cool thing is is you're done. You do that
one time of year. Then it doesn't matter when you
do it. You just gotta do it. So one time
of year, you mix this stuff up, you pour it
around the bottom of your tree, and it protects your
tree from any kind of insects for a full year.
If you've got a problem plant like a guardena that

(18:39):
has white flies, or if you have you know, issues
with any kind of insects on a certain plant in
your yard that you know you you favor that plant,
you can mix this up, poured around it, and one
time of year, that's all you gotta do and it
will take care of it. So, uh, Furt long systemic
insect drench is super important.

Speaker 5 (18:58):
There's there's some zelias that are just horrible about getting
laced bugs. Oh yeah, and that's one that you can
use on there. That parasite that you're talking about is
a type of is a type of scale that gets
on crape myrtles and and something if you look at
if you look up there, you'll see just like a
bunch of white boogery looking things basically on the trunk
of the tree. And that scale, like you talk about

(19:19):
as a parasite, it basically leeches latches onto the tree
and it sucks all the sap out of it, and
it feeds off of the sap and the sugars and
the tree. And so then that that that scale that
insects secretes a honeydew resin. And then that honey that
honeydew resin is like is like like syrup. It's like

(19:39):
syrup gets real shiny over everything, but it's clear. And
then when the temperatures are right, that hunt, that black
soody mold develops and grows on that on that honeydew resin.
And and ninety nine percent of the time people come
in and they say, I need I've got all this
black stuff on my crpe myrtle. I need to get
some fungicide and spray on my crape myrtle. That's really

(20:01):
not that's not at all what you need to do.
The black city mold doesn't do any harm, it doesn't
do any damage to the tree. It's the insect that
is doing the damage. So you take care of the
scale with the fertile and systemic insect drench, and then
the black city mold basically just kind of come. It
just washes off over time, and like you said, you

(20:22):
do it once a year. Boom bamboom. You don't have
you don't have to worry about it. I know that
here at the garden Center, we've got we've got you know,
a few crape myrtles in our in our front, you know,
parking area, and we've got one limb on that one
on the on the street corner that's starting to get
that scale on it. And and I were looking at
it yesterday it was raining, and so when it rains

(20:44):
sometimes that that intensifies like the black, the black you
can see it from them out away. And there's one
limb on that crape myrtle that's starting to get that
scale on it. So we're gonna come in beginning the
next week and and drench that one so it doesn't spread.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
I'll go to they can pour some around it.

Speaker 5 (21:02):
Will it'll it'll spread because we you know, we have
customers where we come in and provide that drench for them,
and uh, you know they'll have five crate myrtles in
a row, but they'll only have maybe one or two
of those crate myrtles that are affected by it. And
they say, well, should we just do those two or
do all five? And i'might want to listen. You know,
here's a price to do two, here's a price to
do five. But I can pretty much guarantee you if

(21:24):
you've got it on these two, it's gonna eventually spread.
If it hasn't already gotten on the other ones, you
just can't tell it yet. So if you've got any
crate myrtles with that, you need to do any of
the surrounding one, well, surrounding ones.

Speaker 6 (21:36):
We're talking, we're talking about crpe myrtles. But really you
go in some of these, uh, some of these newer subdivision,
it's like everybody on the whole block. They went in
there and you know, twenty five or thirty trees, they
put in a maple in the yard, and you'll see
those maples starting to die out. And the reason why
they're dying out is because they've got a parasite on

(21:57):
them too.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
They've got you know.

Speaker 6 (21:59):
A scale that is a bark skill that is just
killing those trees so you got to drench your maple trees.
If you live in these uh these tight subdivisions where
they put a maple tree in every yard. Yeah, you
can go through there and look at it, and about
every third one or whatever, you might have two that
are dead in a row. And then you might have

(22:20):
skip six houses and then this guy is a suffering
or whatever.

Speaker 4 (22:23):
But it's a bark skill. Uh that's on those trees
that's killing it. Yep. And uh they'll get on those
maples hot and heavy.

Speaker 5 (22:30):
Bores is another huge one. That's the silent killer.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
You don't know.

Speaker 5 (22:34):
I had a I had a forest pansy red bud
in my first yard and uh.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
That's their candy.

Speaker 5 (22:41):
That was that thing. That thing was gorgeous. I mean
I had I planted. It was a few years later.
It was growing, it was beautiful, and uh I went
out there one day and it was like all the
leaves were just drooping like it like it hadn't gotten watered.
And it was in the middle of my yard where
that I watered. So I know without a doubt that
it that it, uh, you know, that was getting play
of water. And then the next day, I mean it

(23:02):
was two or three days, every leaf off of that
thing had dropped. And so I went out there and
I saw the little holes bared, and I saw the
ash coming out of the tree trunk where bars had
gotten in there and killed that tree. So if you
and again's red buds, dogwoods, Japanese maples, oaks, man, you
get bores in those things, and you don't know it

(23:24):
till it's too late. You know, a lot of times
the trees are already pretty much dead before you even
know that.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Then well, some of the time those boars hit, y'all.

Speaker 6 (23:33):
Also, you know, right now is the time to do
this drench because those that type of boar hits right
as the tree is leafing out.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
So that that.

Speaker 6 (23:42):
Little twig boar, it's a little beetle, I mean, he's
the size of a pencil lid. And that joker bores
in there. And when he bores in there, he's pushing
sawdust down. And as he bores in and you get,
you know, twenty five of these things in the trunk
of that tree, and it bores into that cameyum tissue
and that plant can't take moisture up to the top.
So a lot of times you'll see that maple you know,

(24:04):
or whatever. You know, it starts putting those leaves out
and then all of a sudden, it looks like it
just wilts, you know, just and it hits right as
a tree is leafing out. So we're talking a month
from now, So now is the time to put the
drench out.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
It's it's super important. You got to get it out
right now.

Speaker 5 (24:21):
So it seems like Chris Keith, the common theme for
today's show is preventative maintenance. Right there we go, you know,
first first part of the radio we're talking about pre merging.
That's prevention, you know, preventing weed seeds from from German
eating or preventing the weeds from growing in the yard.
And now here we are with a drench, and the
drench is a preventative thing. Obviously, it is a curative

(24:43):
if you already have the scale, if you already have
you know, if you know that you have aphids on
a crape myrtle, that's another one. Aphids are real bad
about getting on crape myrtle. You put this down to
help prevent that for the upcoming growing season. So we're
all about preventative maintenance.

Speaker 6 (24:56):
Yes, well, if you can put one thing out this
time of year, and it cure the problem till this
time next year. It's a whole lot better doing that
than it is to go out there, say you get
army worms, or say you get you know, something like,
and you have to go in there and do multiple
sprayings during the season to try to cure that. It's

(25:18):
so much easier to just jump on it. Right now,
put one application out, I mean, kick back and relax.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
You're good to go.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
I like kicking back in the relaxing back in the relax.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Chris's about time for a break. Let's go ahead and
do that. Our number.

Speaker 6 (25:31):
If y'all want to call us here on the Garden
Center or here at the Garden Center and ask us
a gardening question, you can do as two O five
four three nine nine three seven two. If you need landscaping,
if you need irrigation, if you need night lighting, long care,
if you need a patio or a taina wall built,
or force multi land clearing, all that stuff. We're wide
open right now. You call us eight five four four

(25:53):
thousand and five. We would love to do work for you.
Call us eight five four four thousand and five.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
It's the classic Gardens of landscape, shovel all the hand
ready come when you'll want show up land some grass
to grub two and docent because Chrissy, Chris.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
No, and now you're a host, Chris Joiner and Chris Keith.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
That we're back for the second half the classic Gardens
and Landscape showing our number if you want to cost,
it's two o five four three nine nine three seven two.
You know, and everything is dormant.

Speaker 6 (26:34):
People think, you know what, I can just take a
break for law and stuff and and and shrub stuff
and all that. But that's the last thing you need
to be doing. Right now is a great time of year.
If you want to prune now. When I say prune now,
don't look at your window at your crape myrtle and say,
Chris said prune.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
You hear me, don't do that.

Speaker 6 (26:56):
If you want to climb up in your crank myrtle
and send it out, go ahead, but leap freaking up
over it alone year me and I.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
But if you want to.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
Seriously, if you want to get up in your trees
right now and thin them out or do any prune,
and that was a great time to do that. If
you want to transplant something. So if you got a
plant that's in the wrong spot and you want to
move it somewhere else, right now is the time to
do it. So there's a lot of stuff that needs
to be done pre emergent it's top priority right now.

(27:25):
You've got to get some pre emerging on your yard.
If you start right now the pre emergent, I swear
my hand on the Bible, you will not get in
crab grass.

Speaker 5 (27:32):
I like it. Pre emergent time. Time's got started on that.
I know. In the garden center, we'll do it where Hey,
it's February first, man, we're starting our February around. So
we've got to jyp some in the hummates that you
can put down either one. A lot of times we'll
kind of flip flop back and forth on those, but
it's a they're both soil amending applications. So humates looks

(27:53):
like ground up charcoal and it's basically like you know,
I know Mike has in the year say, it's like
little pac man that go through the soil and there
they kind of go through and gobble things up and
they increase what's called the microbial activity in the in
the in the ground and that basically helps things spreads
down the CEC.

Speaker 6 (28:13):
That's the cat in exchange capability. You put this out
on your yard and basically you're adding those pack.

Speaker 4 (28:19):
Men to your yard. Yep.

Speaker 6 (28:21):
And if you don't have the microbes and the soil,
see different things like fertilizer and things, they break down
the microbes gradually in the soil. So every now and
then you go back in there and you put on
the humates and the hum mats.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
Just put the pack men back.

Speaker 5 (28:35):
That's right. And I've always explained it to homeowners, Like
you know, we take or eat things that are high
and like probiotics, and that helps our stomach in size,
like you know, break down the food that we eat
and everything so that our body can absorb it more readily.
And that's basically what that does. It sounds like snake oil, right,
but it's not. I mean, that's legit stuff. I know that.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
Well.

Speaker 6 (28:54):
Every now and then you put red ats in your
toylet you know, it's just to keep to keep the
good bad bacteria in your sept tink.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
You can use that on lawns, you can use it
on shrubs. I actually come in if we have a
yard's that's that's kind of on the struggle bus for
whatever reason, maybe it's had some insect dissues or some
disease issues, or this coming spring will have yards that
may got tinged up by that drought. I'll come in
with that hum mate and I'll put extra on it
that and it basically just helps the helps their fertilizers

(29:24):
work well.

Speaker 6 (29:24):
You can go in there in the summertime on a
centipede or Saint Augustine. Oh yeah, so you can't fertilize
centipede in Saint Augustine in the summer. It's always got
some fungus in it, So if you feed it in
the summertime, it's like you feed the fungus and it
spreads and goes all over the place. But you can
put the humates on there, and if you put the
humic on there, it'll literally make the grass green without

(29:46):
making it grow.

Speaker 5 (29:47):
That's right. Gypsum is another one that i AM keeps
in stock for February too. It's basically a calcium based
product and it kind of somewhat acts the same as aeration,
but it does it differently. You know. Ariation basically punches
the holes in the ground and helps to alleviate soil compaction,
and it helps with water drainage and helps the fertilizers

(30:11):
become more available to the grass through the mechanically. But
this is kind of the chemically side of it. You know,
you put the gypsum down and it does the same thing.
It helps the nutrients absorb into the grass, and it
helps water penetrate and helps water absorb into it. You
could do both of them, and we do them on
lawns and shrubs, so there's not something in my yard

(30:31):
that doesn't get a vegetable garden. It's the same way. Man. Yes,
you can put the humate humic acid, and you can
put gypsum in your vegetable gardens, and man, you want
to talk about some fine vegetables, it will make those
things skyrocker.

Speaker 6 (30:45):
Well count that the gypsum is going to help you
tremendously with blossom men. Right, So if you're a big
tomato grower, you know you can take and it's not
like fertilizer. It won't burn anything. So you can take
like a dull handful and you can throw it at
the base of each one of your tomatoes and it's
gonna keep you from getting blossomed in rot on there,
which is just a calcium deficiency most of the time.

(31:07):
That's from you know, heavy fluctuation. So if you're letting
your plants get dry and then wet and dry and
then wet.

Speaker 4 (31:14):
You'll cause them to crack. But you also cause them
to get blossom in. Right. But if you put gypsum
around them, it's gonna help you a ton with that.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
Yeah, fantastic products can go on anything, lawns, shrubs, vegetable garden.

Speaker 6 (31:25):
Oh, I'm putting it all over my good stuff, mane
you know idea. I put about ten yards of chicken
litter on my last time, and I burn everything up.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
Yeah, right off the bat.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
I'm gonna put about five bags of humig on there.

Speaker 5 (31:38):
Yeah. Once that one. But once once you got everything right.
Once that's killing it. Once that chicken litter kind of
dissolved a little bit and was toned down.

Speaker 6 (31:47):
Man, I picked you like one hundred and fifty heads
of broccoli, and I've got a man, I've still got
some pretty collars.

Speaker 5 (31:55):
You had. You had cabbage, heads of cabbage like a
bowling ball manufacturer. He looked through there and all you
sees cabbage tro Yeah.

Speaker 6 (32:03):
Mom and Dad put up some sour crat with that,
and man I boiled. I had two or three cabbage bulls,
you know, corn and potatoes and sausage and all it
shoes something good.

Speaker 5 (32:14):
Well, Chris, y'all been, Uh, y'all been doing some wallwork land.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
Man, Yes, so we've been.

Speaker 6 (32:21):
Becky Robertson, she lives out in trust Well out in Tuckweiler,
and we did some work for Becky about a year ago.
She had a hodgepodge back then. We're talking about work
we did back then. She had a hodgepodge of different
types of pavers laid around her pool. I ain't no
rhyme or reason. And we had to go in there
and fix some spots that were bad in those things.

(32:43):
And so we fixed that for back in those days,
and we told Becky, you know, the prime issue that
she had. She just bought that house about six months
before we did the work for the first time. And uh,
we told her then, we were like, your main issue
is not the stuff we're fixing right now, it's this

(33:05):
retaining wall that's behind your pool. She got a really
nice pool, pool deck and everything, but behind it was
you know, here we go again, talking about a cross
tie retaining wall. But it seems like every time we're
building a wall, we're tearing down across tie retaining wall.
We're putting in a new segment of retaining wall. My
wall ain't never gonna fill. But if you put in

(33:28):
a cross tie retaining wall, you got fifteen twenty years tops,
and that thing is gonna trash if.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
It's built right. You know, fifteen twenty years max.

Speaker 6 (33:39):
If you put in a segment of retaining wall, we
if we install one for you, it's gonna be there
as long as you're life, like.

Speaker 5 (33:46):
The Pyramids, and once you're done.

Speaker 6 (33:49):
Like once you tap out the people that on your
house after you, it's gonna be there for them too.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
I mean, it's that good.

Speaker 6 (33:55):
So if you want a real wall, and you want
it built right, you save five four four thousand and five,
well we'll rip you out your criss retaining wall and
we'll put you in one that's bulletproof.

Speaker 5 (34:08):
Man, how many miles of railroad ties do you think
y'all ripped out?

Speaker 8 (34:12):
There?

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Ain't no telling. It's terrible.

Speaker 5 (34:15):
And then you get and then you get people that
try to do it. You're sitting to do it themselves.
And that's probably the worst di why disasters are horrible,
because there's a lot of engineering and thought that goes
behind you know, retaining walls because it's a it's an
amazing amount of pressure that is behind that, you know,
not just with the dirt, but with the water, you know.
So I know that on all of our retaining walls,

(34:35):
you'll come back and do drainage behind it to divert
all the water so that so that alleviates all the
pressure so that wall doesn't come tumbling down.

Speaker 6 (34:43):
Well, you know when you think about it, Chris, all right,
So you get five prices from five different contractors, and
this guy say, I give you a prize and it's
twenty thousand dollars to build this little wall, you know,
to build your wall. And then you get Joe Blowed
coming there and he said, you know, I can do
it for you know, twelve thousand bucks. There's gotta be
a big difference between what Joe Blow's doing and what

(35:05):
I'm doing, because I mean that difference in price, there's
there's a catch. You know, there's always a catch. So
if we give you a price for what you can
bet it's gonna have it's gonna have drainers going through
the wall. It's gonna have the ample amount of gravel
behind the thing to make sure it's gonna drain and

(35:25):
the water's got. The biggest thing you've got to do
with a wall is get the water away from it.
I mean the water people don't realize the main thing
that kills a retaining wall is the water pressure that
can build up behind it.

Speaker 4 (35:39):
I mean, you don't.

Speaker 6 (35:40):
Realize just a gallon of water weighs eight or nine
pounds one gallon. You imagine if if one hundred and
fifty or just say, just say, you know, a thousand
gallons of water runs off the hill and runs behind
that thing all at once, you know, it's gonna tear
that thing all to pieces. It'll make it buckle. I've
seen them. I've literally seen, especially Chris over retaining walls.

(36:02):
I've seen them fall over. You get one of these
six seven inch rains, you know, just spontaneous thing, you know,
just out of nowhere. You get one of these crazy rains,
and it takes a crossed eye retaining wall and flips
that thing over on your house.

Speaker 5 (36:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
Likely, I've seen it like that.

Speaker 5 (36:19):
I had to tear it down before two side by side, yes, yeah,
two side by side over parkway right there on everyone's parkway.

Speaker 6 (36:28):
And literally seven inches of the rain, the six and
a half inches of rain they got in a in
a a twelve hour period, and it ran down the wall,
ran down the hill, came down, got behind the wall,
flipped the wall and the walls one hundred and fifty
feet long and you know, five feet six feet tall.
It flipped like it ate nothing to it right on

(36:50):
to their that big old porch on the back of
their house. Flipped it right over on it squashed it.
I mean, I've seen it happen so many times. And
you've got to make sure that the water gets.

Speaker 4 (37:03):
Away from the wall. And man, that's what we do,
totally important. That's what we do.

Speaker 6 (37:07):
If you want it done right, you call us eight
five four four thousand and five, Chris, this time for
the last breaking the show.

Speaker 4 (37:12):
Let's go ahead and do that again.

Speaker 6 (37:14):
If you want landscaping, irrigation, night lighting, if you need
a patio or attain a wall, you call us eight
five four four thousand and five and we'll be glad
to help you. You're listening classic garden's Landscape showing wrc.

Speaker 7 (37:28):
It's the Classic Gardens and Landscape Show. Get advice from
two of the South's premier plani guys, Chris Joiner and
Chris Keith on the Classic Gardens and Landscape Show.

Speaker 8 (37:40):
Russell green Houge has been insuring my business, my home
and my farm for over twenty years. You see, Russell
is an independent agent. He gets to shop the insurance
industry to bring me the best possible insurance and price.
Greenouge Insurance is a family run business, with his wife
Marcia and son Adam involved. As Russ eases up a little,

(38:02):
Adam is stepping in. I remember when my home on
my farm burned down to the ground. I called Russ
that afternoon, and the next morning I had an adjuster
standing next to me on my farm. My memory is
a little foggy, but the way I tell the story
is he wrote me a check on the spot for
the full amount of the policy. If it didn't happen

(38:23):
that way. It was so easy to work with them
that it seemed it happened that way. I also remember
when my house in Birmingham had tornado damage. I called
green Houge, laid on a Satdery prepared to leave a
message on the phone. Russ answered. I said, Russ, why
are you work so late on a Saturday? He said, Mike,
there was a storm and I'm expecting some phone calls

(38:44):
from my customers. It might be hard to believe, but
that's the kind of service you get from Green Houge Insurance.
Give Russ or Adam a call today nine to sixty
seven eighty eight hundred and tell them that Mike sent you.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
Where it ball?

Speaker 3 (39:07):
My flywers gone? No cloudspies, see where it ball?

Speaker 4 (39:15):
My flywers gone? No fur?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Too long?

Speaker 6 (39:21):
How we're back on the Classic Gardens and Landscape Show,
and where's the water gone? You know, it is still
surprisingly dry. I mean this time of year usually we
have had one of those four or five inch rains.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
Like it seems like we get it.

Speaker 6 (39:37):
It seems like every January or like every you know,
late December into January we get one of those rains
where it's like four inches in like in twenty four
hours and it boom, everything's full, you know, And we
just hadn't got that one yet this year. So you know,
we're we're praying for rain, and you know it's gonna
we're gonna get it. You know, it's not a big deal,

(39:59):
but uh, it's been surprisingly dry this winter so far.

Speaker 5 (40:03):
Yeah, I mean I was looking at the US Drought
Monitor for Alabama. I know James Ban usually posted, but
Jefferson County most of it is still abnormally dry.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
Good thing this time of here. We just don't need it.

Speaker 7 (40:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:16):
And then, uh, you know some parts of the state
are moderate. A lot of it's you know, not dry,
but it won't take much to get us caught back.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (40:26):
Well, the thing about it is too, I mean, it's
like our song just said right there and I cut
it off. Where did all the water go? It all
flowed down to the Gulf of Mexico. When we do
get those four or five inches rains, What does it happen?
Everything gets full? Then what happens when everything gets full?
Then it just flows down the creek? You know what
I'm saying. So you not only hold so much. So yeah,

(40:47):
we'll get this, no problem. Let's get tea look, good morning, Tela.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
How you doing.

Speaker 6 (40:51):
Hey, while I'm talking, while we're talking, while we're talking,
tea little wi I'm bringing you in right here. Tell
us a little bit about the Paris pandemic because you
faced it, haven't you.

Speaker 9 (41:07):
Oh well, yeah, he's talking about the systemic and sexicide
drenches you told me about.

Speaker 10 (41:13):
Oh yes, ma'am, yeah, that really are shattering.

Speaker 9 (41:18):
I put that on everything once y'all told me about it.
Besides just the one plant or one wish.

Speaker 10 (41:22):
It was a dwarf river tree little friend of mine had.
It was just eating up with stuff, and then.

Speaker 9 (41:29):
That you guys told me to use that, and I
just had so much left over. I thought, well, let
me just try to put it on the crape myrtles
and everything else that's looking really challenged and pitiful.

Speaker 10 (41:38):
You cleared up every single.

Speaker 9 (41:39):
Thing, and everything flourished like you can't imagine every single.

Speaker 4 (41:42):
Thing awesome, So you're checks.

Speaker 10 (41:50):
Okay, all right now I'm gonna ask the question. Another
obvious answer is going.

Speaker 9 (41:53):
To be well, because that's the way God did it.
But I want to get the technical answer.

Speaker 10 (41:56):
As I drive around Chee and I'm at different.

Speaker 9 (41:59):
People's town is at different times, I see, you know,
trees and things and grass of course, things that are
just dead as a door, naill.

Speaker 10 (42:06):
And then I see beautiful, beautiful green, lush bushes and
what have you one in the world is a difference.
What why are those able to be so gorgeous in
the dead of winter? What's the guy gets the technical
happening in their makeup.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
I guess it.

Speaker 5 (42:21):
Depends that are we're talking about the same the same
shrub or the same tree from yard to yard, or
he talking about some you know.

Speaker 6 (42:27):
Just just in general or not. I mean, not trying
to come off like smart or anything. But so you've
got different plants. Obviously, you've got deciduous plants that go
dorm it in the wintertime, so everything looks like a stick,
you know. And then you've gotten nice, pretty evergreen so
like your holly's or your box woods or any of

(42:47):
that stuff. This stays nice and green in the wintertime. Uh,
you know conifers like your ceedary. When we say conifer,
a conifer is anything with needles on it. So like, uh,
we got a shipment in the their day of some
potocarpas that are just beautiful. And nobody knows what potocarpas is,
and you you know, some of your average homeown or

(43:07):
I don't know what that is. But it's just a big,
nice evergreen plant. And man, they're pretty, you know, So well,
the different plants just tolerate the the winter better than others.
You got some plants that are are semi evergreen or so,
they'll lose about half their leaves in the wintertime.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
So it just depends. Some things really look crummy in
the wintertime. There's nothing uglier than the limelight hydrangea in
the winter. It's it's just sticks, you know, But it
makes up for it in the summertime because it's just
so beautiful.

Speaker 10 (43:43):
Yeah, yeah, well, and then one quick question. That helps
a lot, so thank you for that.

Speaker 5 (43:47):
You know.

Speaker 9 (43:47):
Seedum is my go to plant for if you can,
you know, if you need to plant something where you
just know it's never going to die and it'll grow
in almost concrete. But the first time ever I've had
my had my feedom dite.

Speaker 10 (43:58):
And I have it up the military and it's always
it always makes it and for some reason this year
it just hasn't. And that happened in all the years.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
Seed them excuse me.

Speaker 6 (44:11):
See them is a succular plant, which means a succulent
is like a cactus. The makeup of the plant is
full of moisture, it's full of water. So when we
get a cold spell, like we got, you know, a
week ago, where it was where it was below freezing
for three days straight.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
Stuff like that can't take it.

Speaker 6 (44:32):
And what it does is and it it'll do it
a lot on your trees. It'll it'll literally freeze the sap.
So if the SAP's rising, say you get into like
a March time frame or whatever, and then we have
a really hard freeze that that sap is already rising
in the tree. It's bad on maples. It's bad on maples.
But that sap will be rising in the tree and

(44:55):
it's starting to butt out and doing its thing, and
then all of a sudden you get to this really hard,
hard freeze and it freezes the sap inside the under
the bark, so in the in the cameum of the tree,
and it causes that bark to split. And that's a
lot of times that will kill those or you know,
really damage those trees pretty bad because it'll it'll freeze
it like that. But like seedum has got so much

(45:17):
moisture inside the leaves and are the foliage on the plant.
When you get one of those hard freezes like we got,
you know, for like last week, then itver just smoke
that stuff and a lot of times with seedum, it'll
do that.

Speaker 4 (45:32):
Usually that stuff is pretty bulletproof. But when you get
in one of those.

Speaker 6 (45:35):
Four or five uh you know day cold snaps where
it gets below freezing stays that way, it can't handle it.

Speaker 9 (45:44):
Yeah. Well yeah, okay, that's nothing like the best of
a plant at a cemetery, you know what I'm playing.

Speaker 5 (45:49):
Yeah, right, I'd be one. I'd like to see if
that stuff comes back the spring, because it's like, I mean,
you like, we've always said that stuff is bulletproof, it
can come back.

Speaker 11 (45:59):
Yeah, it's just like, let you know, And I'm I'm
on the I'm on the bandwagon though, just real quick
before I'll let y'all go, because I know you need
to take another call, but uh, I'm on the bandwagon
for trying to get my friends not to.

Speaker 9 (46:10):
Be the crape murderers this February that they they always,
you know, have everything just cut back to the yin yang.
So I'm trying to tell them to.

Speaker 4 (46:17):
Let it go. Goodness. Yeah, I mean, they're they're there.
You can tell them too, Taylor. They will recover if
they've been murdering them for years and years and years
they'll recover. They just kind of leave them alone.

Speaker 9 (46:30):
That's what I tell them, because y'all told me that,
So I'm gonna see this year kills.

Speaker 10 (46:33):
They'll listen, but it's up to them and stay on
the house.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
Yeah, have a good weekend, Taylor, Thank you too.

Speaker 10 (46:42):
Okay, by Boddy.

Speaker 5 (46:44):
It's their trees. They can make them muggly if they
want to.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
I mean, that's it. You don't cut the tops out
of your oak tree.

Speaker 5 (46:48):
My mother in laws, my mother in lost neighbors, sold
their two doors down, sold their house years ago and
they had crape myrtles from Chris Keith and their trunks
are as big as our waste and gorgeous, four feet tall,
and they sold the house and the new people that
came in in that first year they cut those things
down to about six feet tall. And they're out in
the middle of the yard where there's no power lines,

(47:10):
they're not against the foundation, there's no other trees around them,
And it just made me sick when they cut those
things down. Even my wife, she's like, why in the
world did they ruin those trees? You know? And my
brother in law he was asking me the same thing.
A couple couple of weeks ago, He's like, when do
I need to When do I need to take my
crank myrtles and cut and cut them down? The ones

(47:31):
along my mother in last driveway, man, And I was
like you. I was like, dude, you cut those things.
You cut those things down. I'm gonna be ticked because
they make a canopy over their driveway. Right if he
cuts those things down, I'm gonna go over there with
our skidsteer and I'm gonna rip every one of them up.

Speaker 6 (47:46):
Yeah, We'll take the Mini X over there and just
dip them right out of the.

Speaker 5 (47:51):
Grim, all right, I mean, I said, no, man, it's like,
you don't do that. You go through there and you
selectively cut out branches that may be overhanging the driveway
or just to kind of make it airy and thind
it out, you know, you take selectively take out entire branches.

Speaker 6 (48:05):
You remember, back several years ago, we had a seminar
at the Garden Center here and I climbed up in
these Muskogee Crak myrtles out here at the Garden Center
at thirty feet tall, and I started trimming on those
things and just showed everybody how to do it. I
think we need to do that again. May we open
one Saturday and show them how to do it.

Speaker 5 (48:22):
I'll let you climb up in those trees.

Speaker 6 (48:24):
My climb and days are just about over well, Chris,
that music means we're.

Speaker 5 (48:28):
Out of time.

Speaker 6 (48:28):
Y'all calls you need landscaping, irrigation not lighting, if you
need a patio or attainaball built, if you need forest
multi land clearing, we do all that stuff. You call
us eight five four four thousand and five and look
forward to hearing from you. And we'll see you next
weekend on the Class of Gardens of Landscape Ship.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Yes,