How to clamp for the cold

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r h Garden Line with Skimp Richard.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's crazy trip. Just watch him as well.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Us so many botis to supatasy not a sorry class gas.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
Well, good morning. Yeah, it's me live. I uh. Isn't
been a low break here during the holiday season. I
hope you have had a wonderful time with family. Hopefully
got some rest. Here we go first guard Line show
of twenty twenty five. We will be here for your
calls as we always are. If you would like to

(00:58):
give me a call at seven one three two one
to ktr H seven one three two one two k
t RH. We'll talk about whatever is of interest to you,
what is pressing in the gardening world of your backyard
or your front yard. Right now, we will be having
a great season. I have determined, just decided by myself

(01:18):
that this is gonna be one of the best gardening
years ever. I mean it. I really am looking forward
to this gardening season. You know, every year throws us
its own curve. Some years it's awfully hot and dry.
Some years it just doesn't seem to want to quit
rain in some years it tends to give us a
pretty good coal snap. We got one of those coming

(01:39):
by the way, but not too terribly bad. We'll talk
about that a little bit as we go on through
the show today. But no matter what happens, there's a
lot that we are in control of when it comes
to gardening in the weather that once we understand how
to properly take care of plants, meaning get plants what
they want, that's kind of what it amounts to. We'll

(02:00):
talk about having a green thumb. A green thumb isn't
there's no such thing as a green thumb. I like
to put it that way because it makes a point,
and that point is that it's not like some people
just have a green thumb. And if you feel like
your thumb's been brown and every time you try to
grow something it doesn't work, you have these problems or
issues or things, don't worry about that. We will fix it.

(02:22):
Because a green thumb is i'll just say, a myth
And if you want to think of it as a
green thumb, well, let's do it this way. Then there's
no such thing as a brown thumb. There's just an
uninformed thumb. So we will inform your thumb and amazingly
it will start to turn green. That's how it works
garden line seven one three two one two kt r H.

(02:44):
I'm your host, skip Rictor and really looking forward to
twenty twenty five. Out in the garden. We are entering
that season where everybody gets gardening fever. You know, people
that aren't really even into gardening when spring comes here
and it's just on the doorstep. When it hits, people
get gardening fever. And gardening fever causes us to want

(03:06):
to go out and buy and plant and do all
kinds of things. And I think that's great. I think
that's great. But if you're going to do it, let's
do it in a smart way. How about that? What
does that mean? That means don't just grab a plant
that doesn't belong in the greater Houston area. Plant something
that wants to be here. Maybe you just move from Colorado.

(03:28):
I love blue spruce, they don't grow here. Maybe you
love that blue Colorado columbine. Yeah, I know, you went
ski in, you saw a seedbacket, whatever. Just put it
on the shelf and enjoy looking at it, because that's
as close to a Columbine flowers you're going to get
here in Texas. From the blue Colorado are the ones
that are. You know, all those multicolors that they'll sell
up there. We have two native columbines down here, the Hinkleys,

(03:51):
which is a yellow, beautiful columbine yellow. And then our
native that's in central Texas is a small red columbine
that's a native here. Plant those they'll grow. See what
I'm talking about. Maybe you move from the Midwest. Oh
my goodness, for cythia anywhere really, anywhere further north in
the country. Forsythia is gorgeous, the first harbinger of spring,

(04:13):
just about in the springtime. Don't plant it here, it's
not for here. Do you like lilax? You know that
fragrance of lilacs. Just let your memory tell you how
wonderful they smell. Because they don't belong here, but lots
of things do. And by planting plants that want to
grow here, you can have success. That is step one.

(04:35):
Plant something that wants to grow. Step two is prepare
the soil. Actually, that is step one. We always talk
about brown stuff or green stuff on garden line. Make
that your number one New Year's resolution this year. If
you want to be a gardener, number one resolution is
to choose things that want to grow, but plant them
in soil they want to be in. So for example,

(04:58):
we have native plants like Central Texas native, the Texas
Mountain Laurel, beautiful clusters grape like clusters of blooms that
have a gaudy grape, bubblegum, grape, kool aid, whatever fragrance
to them, a wonderful, wonderful plant. We also have plants,
excuse me, their native to the eastern parts of the state,

(05:20):
more acidic soils. Those two plants, even though they are
both Texas plants, don't want to be in the same soil,
and so you got to give them what they want.
And that makes it even easier to have success is
you're not trying to swim up stream. You're actually planting
things in the soil they want to be in. So
that's number one New Year's resolution. Get out there and

(05:41):
fix your soil. Now's the time to do it. Anytime
in the cool season, soil is dry enough to work,
it's a good time to do that. Raised beds are
always a good idea because you can always add water,
but you can't take it away when you have excess
soggy wet, which I've gotten some of my right now,
I've got an area I'm trying to redo and I'm

(06:03):
just having to wait on the soil to dry out
enough to be able to work it. But you can
always create raised beds, you can always amend the soil,
you can provide more organic matter for your soil. All
of that kind of stuff will help you have success.
And that's what we want you to have. I want
you to have success in your garden, and so we

(06:23):
will harp. I'll be a broken record on preparing the soil,
preparing the soil, taking care of the soil, getting it right,
making the plants feel at home, all of the above.
And when we do that, we will have success. It
just sets us up for success. Now, there's a lot
of different things that can happen that you know will
throw you curves and challenges. I don't mean just you know,

(06:45):
you prepare the soil and nothing goes wrong. Well, there's
a lot more to it, but seriously, that is step one,
and that's where most people go wrong. Most people go
wrong by not preparing the soil ahead of time. So
courage you to do that and I'll perhaps I'll spend
a little time on that today. I know I will
week by week. Here as we go through here on

(07:07):
Garden Line. Well, thanks for listening, thanks for rejoining us
here in twenty twenty five. We're coming up on a
little bit of a break here. If you'd like to
give me a call, get on the board. We can
visit with you about the kinds of questions you might
have seven to one three two one two five eight
seven four. That is seven one three, two one two
fifty eight seventy four. If you have a question that

(07:30):
might involve a photo, give my producer Jonathan a call
and get an email so you can send me a
photo and then call and we'll talk about it on
the air. Sometimes, you know, you're describing a weed and
what I'm picturing and what you're describing isn't the same thing.
Or maybe it's a flower or a fruit or something.
Go ahead and just let you know, send me a photo,

(07:51):
Let's let me look at it, then let's talk about it.
Because I guarantee you this other people will have the
same questions that you have. Well, I'll be right back
in just a moment with your questions and with more
a garden Line. Come back to Guarden Line, folks. Get
good to have you with us this morning. Welcome back
to We're welcome back. Welcome to twenty twenty five, the

(08:12):
best gardening year you will ever have experienced. This is
it being positive. Gardeners are optimists. We absolutely have to be,
because you know, we take these little dried pieces of
detritus that just look like, I don't know, just wood chip,
tiny wood chips, and we put them in the soil,
knowing that a tomato or a petunia is going to

(08:35):
come out of that thing. It's actually going to come
to life, grow and produce stuff that we really want
to see or eat or whatever. That's an optimist. We
believe in the future, and twenty twenty five is going
to be a great gardening year. I can just tell
you that we're going to start off by going straight
to the phones and this hour or segment, and we're
going to go to talk to Michael in Montgomery. Hello, Michael,

(08:56):
Welcome to garden Line. Hello. Hello, I'm here, all righty,
Well there he is.

Speaker 5 (09:07):
Hey Mike, how are we doing this morning?

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Are you well? I'm good. I'm a little rusty. I
forgot to push the right button to get you on,
so I'm just talking to myself instead of you.

Speaker 6 (09:19):
Good.

Speaker 5 (09:19):
Have you got a problem.

Speaker 7 (09:22):
I planted a six foot red maple last year in
place of my oak that died and its plant and
it's bloomed leaves and everything. But now with Paul, it
dropped its leaves and everything. And with this freeze coming around,
do I have to wrap it as a security?

Speaker 4 (09:41):
You know, red maple is a hearty tree for our
area and we don't have to worry about it for cold,
but in your situation there I would. And here's why
we've We've been pretty warm these last few weeks, and
plants that can become very cold hearty when they hear
and off as the weather gets colder and colder gradually,

(10:04):
they can be very uncold, hardy when suddenly a freeze
comes and they're not ready for it. Now, nine chances
out of ten, youre tree's gonna be fine, but just
to be safe with it, I would wrap up the
trunk around the base of the trunk. There are some
some wraps that you can put around them to protect
the sun from warming up those trunk tissues. And what

(10:27):
happens is the sun will warm it during the day
and a brand new This is true with red oaks,
it's true with grape myrtles and several other kinds of
trees up. The sun shines on that trunk and it
warms up warmer than the air around it, Just like
if you stood outside on a cold, cold winter day
that you could feel the warmth of the sun on
your face. Well, that's what happens. Those tissues start to

(10:49):
flow sap a little bit, and then that night it
freezes and you get freeze damaged, typically on the southwest
side of the trunk. So normally I don't recommend trump
rock trunk wraps, but for that I would. You could.
You could use different things to do it, but there
are some papers you can wrap around to kind of crinkly.
There's some plastic wraps and things, but I like the

(11:10):
paper wraps. Just until that tree gets a year or
so on it, a year or two on it more,
and that trunk starts to get a little heartier. Then
the bark gets a little thicker and it's not so
likely to suffer that southwest injury on a freezing night.

Speaker 6 (11:30):
Awesome, Thank you very much for your advice.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
I'll get to work today. You bet all right. You
take care and fortunately this freeze is going to be
fairly mild. And so I'm I think if people that
are listening going, oh my gosh, I got to wrap
all my trees. No, you probably don't, but on a
brand new, thin trunk tree. Yeah, well thanks for the call, man,
I appreciate it. Thank you, all right. Yeah, for those

(11:55):
of you listening, just keep that in mind. You know,
it's like, you know, if you were to say, you know, skipped,
are we gonna get damage to all our tree trunks
this freeze? Well no, probably not not at all, but
there's a possibility. And when a tree is young, it's
it's a paper thin bark. I mean it's very very thin,

(12:18):
you know, it doesn't have those deep ridges. It's very smooth,
and a maple tree bark is not smooth normally, but
when a hung it is. I was in Atlanta, Georgia walking.
They have a I don't know what they call it.
It's like a beltway that goes around the city, but
it's a walkway. It's a big, giant wide sidewalk, you know,
maybe fifteen feet wide or something. It goes around the city.

(12:40):
You can walk the whole thing, and walking through I
just noticed every little tree had a wound. On the
southwest side at the base, I say, little tree. Now,
those things the first time I went there were probably
the size of a of a golf ball, and I
saw the wounds in. Now these things, I've been going
for several years, but probably a lot of them are

(13:01):
four to six inches thick, and when you look at them,
you can see that old wound where the southwest injury
occurred when they were a little thin trunk, thin barked
young trees. And that's exactly how it happens. People call.
When I used to work with the Agrove Extension Office,
people would call and go, so, I've got this split

(13:25):
near the bottom of my tree trunk, and I would say,
is it on the southwest side? And there would be
this pause where, you know, nobody knows off the hand
what size side of the trunk. They have to stop
and think, okay, this is north and suddenly they'd go, yeah,
like how did you know that? And who cares what
side it is. That's exactly what happens. A nice mild

(13:48):
winter day and the sun at the latest part of
you know, what's the hottest time of the day. Look
at the temperatures through the day. The hottest time of
the day is going to be around four o'clock, okay,
somewhere around there, depends on the day, in the coal
front coming through or something. But anyway, that's the warmest
part and it warms up and with the sun shining
on it, it warms up even more more than the

(14:10):
rest of the tree trunk around all the other sides
of the tree, and so that's where the sap starts
to flow. And so then a coal snap that night.
Typically that's going to happen when it gets down, you know,
mid twenties, lower twenties or even colder. That's where we
start to get that, even the teens, and you get

(14:33):
that damage and you don't see it right away, but boy,
you do see it when it starts to grow in
the spring. And will the tree survive, Yeah, the tree
will make it fine. But now you've got this big
wound that's got to heal over. Perhaps you get some
decay into the inner bark there is that splits open
and exposes the inner bark. So why not just avoid it.
It's easy to avoid. And the way we do it

(14:53):
is put a little wrap around the tree. I've known
people to paint the bases of their trees white. The trunks.
Parts of the trunk white to reflect some of that heat.
That helps a little bit. Looks kind of strange, although
you go to some places like in Mexico, it's very
popular even in large tree trunks and parks and stuff,
you know, painted white on the lower part. But there

(15:16):
is a place for that. I have known people to
put some aluminum foil around the trunk, just wrap it around,
just kind of crump it and so it stays there,
just to reflect that sunlight out to keep that trunk
cool rather than encouraging it to grow. Oh, let's see,
it was it two decembers, three decembers ago. Now, we
had a period where, especially for those of you up

(15:39):
in the northern part of the listening area. When I
say that, I mean you know, like Tomball up to
College Station in Huntsville and everything up as you go north,
A lot of crape myrtles got killed to the ground
for the same reason. It went down to the upper
teens in December, and they were not ready for it.
They were not hardened off, and some flat to the

(16:01):
ground and they came right back out. Of course, the
base survives that you lost the above gund growth and
it was the same principle going on there. They weren't
ready for it. Crepe myrtles grow much further north than here.
You know, the one of the major crate myrtle breeding
programs in the country for decades past has been up
in Beltsville, Maryland. That's a little further north than here. Well,

(16:24):
that's the USDA breeding program. And so if they can
grow up there, why are we having them killed to
the ground here for the reason I just described. So,
better safe than sorry is what I say. If I
flipped a coin and had to say is it going
to be needed or not? I would say no. But
I wouldn't risk my own trees if I wasn't sure.

(16:45):
So there you go. That's my advice. I'd rather spend
a little time going out there and protecting the trunk,
and then even if I didn't have to, Right, all right, Well,
we got some cold weather coming last time I we
were looking at temperatures down in the upper twenties for

(17:06):
those of you who are up north of the Houston area,
and for those of you that are down kind of
even horizontally even across you know, with Houston, sugar Land
and across there, we're looking probably down around thirty degrees
twenty nine degrees, and that'll vary. I can't predict the weather.
The people that predict the weather sometimes miss. But anyway,

(17:30):
so we've got to do a little protection for that
possibility of getting some pipe damage. You know, they say
the three peas or plants, pipes and pets, and you
got to take care of all three of those, of course.
And when it comes to plants, if you've got plants
that are very sensitive to cold, we have plants that
are perennials here and in a mild winter they'll just

(17:51):
come right through without being killed to the ground. And
in a hard winter than they could be killed all
the way to the ground or killed out right, depending
on the plant. You know, Perennial is a geographical designation.
Let me give you an example. You know, yellow bills esperanza,
beautiful yellow blooms. Had those around for a good long time. Now,

(18:12):
those are a good tough plant. But you go up
the Dallas and they're not you go to Dallas, they're
gonna be killed the ground and could be killed outright.
Same with Pride of Barbados. Barbados Pride, some people call
it red bird of paradise gorgeous summer bloomer. But you
get cold enough and it's not a perennial kill it
out right. So you got to take care of your

(18:33):
plants depending on where you live and how cold it gets.
And Ace Hardware has got you covered. They have the
plant frost blankets to protect your plant. It's a thick
woven material spun bound actually material. They come in different forms,
but you put them over your plant and secure them
to the ground and that holds the warmth of the

(18:54):
soil rising up to protect that plant. It's very helpful,
especially for frost because frost can't form on the leaves
when you got that cover over it. They have fawcet
covers to go over your faucets. They have something called
the freeze miser fatt protection. It's a little short thing
you screw onto your faucet. You turn on the faucet

(19:15):
just wide open and no water comes out. But as
it gets cold, it starts to let water trickle through.
And when you have water trickling through, the water doesn't
just sit there to freeze. No, it's not going to
take you through tim below zero, but it'll take you
through the kinds of freezes typically that we have here.
They've got pipe wrap as a type of insulation to

(19:37):
go around your pipe. You plug it in, Well, there's
the insulation for your pipe, but there's also an insulating tape,
and there's wires that you can plug in that provide
just a little bit of heat to protect pipes and things.
In fact, there's a couple dozen different things that Ace
Hardware carries to help you prepare for the cold. So

(20:00):
I'm going to be talking about some of those other
things as we go through the morning, because we got
that coming up today, are coming up soon, the freeze.
Once you get through this weekend, I got a little
rainy weather ahead of it, and then sky's clear, and
when the sky's clear, the temperature can drop a lot further.
And that's what we're going to be experiencing all right.
Time for me to take a little break. I'll be
right back. If you'd like to give me a call

(20:21):
and get on the line seven to one three two
one two kt r H. Hey, welcome back to Garden Line.
You got a question we can help you with today, Well,
here's a number seven one three two one two kt
r H. Be happy to visit with you. About the
things you need to know to have success in your garden.

(20:43):
Gardening is fun. It's supposed to be fun, and I
want you to have success. I don't want you to
be discouraged. I don't want you to feel like you
have a brown thumb. You don't trust me. You do
not have a brown thumb. I promise you you don't.
All you need to do is get that thumb educated
with some good info, and you can absolutely have success.

(21:03):
Gardening is not rocket science. I don't even know what
that means, even the rocket science anyway. Nothing's rocket science
if you know what you're doing. Not even not even
rocket science. So just give us a call seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you
want to send me a photo, I headed ahead of
the call. That's fine. Just call my number here seven

(21:25):
one three two one two fifty eight to seventy four
till Jonathan. You want to send a photo, He'll give
you an email. Send it to me, we can talk
about it. I'm not able to answer all the emails
by typing out the answers to them, but I do
appreciate when you can send a photo. Being able to
talk about the question that you have and having something
visual to look at so I can help you diagnose

(21:45):
or help you identify or whatever it is that you're
trying to do. Well, let's see here. I was discussing
the importance of coal protection in you know, someone's saying, well,
ACE Hardware, where do you? Where is my ACE Hardware? Well,
they're all over the place. Just go Acehardware dot Com,
find the store locator and if there's all there all

(22:06):
over the greater Houston area, you can find one near you.
For example, you go up to Porter, Texas, j and
R ACE Hardware right there in Porter up in Willis
all seasons, ACE up in Willis, down in Clearly Kilgore
Lumber and Clear Lakes an ACE hardware store. And then
Cyprus says right there in Cyprus, Texas. Those are all
examples of ACE hardware stores that are near to you.

(22:30):
I was outside the other day looking at my bird
feeder and I hadn't seen a lot of birds come
into it, and I was going, you know, what's wrong
with that? And what happened is it's one of those
feeders that when something sits on it, if it's too heavy,
the bird feeder closes. It's it's the squirrel excluding feeder
from Wabbird's Unlimited. Squirrels can't get in because when they

(22:50):
sit down on it, it you know, closes the door.
They can't get to the food. But anyway, the food
had kind of gotten stuck up in there. I don't
know if some moisture or whatever had kind of gotten
it stuck. And I kind of bumped on it a
little bit and it dropped right down, and it just
reminded me check those feeders out. I'm using Wildbird's Unlimited
Winter superb Blend in my feeders. I sometimes mix a

(23:11):
few other things in there. You know, depending on what
birds you want to attract, there's different kinds of seed
that are most attractive to them. But wibirds Unlimited Winter
Super Blend is important because it has the fat and
the protein that birds need for fueling. You know, the
days are shorter, the temperature a little colder. Sometimes the
weather's inclement, and they're not out able to do the feeding.

(23:31):
They're looking for a lot of those things that went
to seed in the fall have now been picked over.
The birds are getting hungry, So go buy Wildbirds unletit
me get you some of the Winter super Blend or
one of their other you know, just talk to the
folks there. They are so knowledgeable. I love going into wildbirds.
It's like you're going to visit a friend because you

(23:54):
talk to him and say, hey, I'm interested in this,
and they're enthusiastic. Listen, they've got the they've got the
wild bird bug themselves, and they feed at their houses.
They know what they're talking about and you can just
strike up a conversation and they can talk to you
about it. You know, it's not all about just buying
a product, it's about learning how to do it. They
want you to have success because birding in the backyard

(24:15):
is a lot of fun. You know, you may not
be the guy with the you know, the stereotypical birder
that's got the little safari hat on and shorts and
these binoculars and walking around looking at birds in the
wild and songs that's fun, by the way, too. But
in the backyard you just feed them and you enjoy
the music. It's as simple as that, and warbirds can
help you do just that. Let's go out to the

(24:37):
phones now. We're going to head to pair Land and
talk to Belinda. Hey, Belinda, welcome, to garden line.

Speaker 8 (24:43):
Oh, thank you, skip.

Speaker 9 (24:44):
I have a big problem. I have two six trees,
two palm trees, two palmer ranit trees, and two citrus trees.
I have mult around them, okay, and I was going
to get the hay. But do I need to get
those big heavy covers that go all the way over
the turry?

Speaker 10 (25:02):
No.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
The most sensitive of those that you mentioned is your citrus, okay,
and those I would I would do. The primary protection
for that is one where if you can put a
cover over the whole tree, that's good. But a cover
needs to drape all the way to the ground and
be secured to the ground with soil or rocks or

(25:24):
bricks or boards or whatever holds it down securely, because
you want to create dead air space underneath it for
the warmth of the soil to rise up and make
a difference on the kind of cold we're going to
Our cold is going to be pretty minor considering you know,
when we're just talking about you in the upper twenties,
that's minor freeze compared to when you get mid twenties,

(25:45):
low twenties and teens, and so that'll be enough. I
don't think your fig is going to need anything unless
it's a brand excuse me, your plum and palm granite.
Unless they're brand new trees, very very thin bark and stuff. Yeah,
you may want to protect them a little bit. Uh,
but they're probably going to be just fine. And then
the fig if it's in a growing state, can get

(26:06):
some cold damage. If not, it's going to come through
just fine. I'm not worried about figs right now myself
on the kind of cold that we're about to have.

Speaker 6 (26:18):
Okay, so just a sitress, I have one big enough
to cover it.

Speaker 8 (26:23):
Okay, I'll do that.

Speaker 6 (26:25):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
Yeah, well, thank you, you know, even thank you very much.
I appreciate you call.

Speaker 6 (26:34):
Hey, thank you.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
So you know, this freeze is a I'm going to
call it a minor one. You know, last time I checked,
even heading all the way up to Huntsville, you're maybe
twenty eight something like that is what last was said
to be. That's a freeze. But remember there's there's freezes
that they come and they stay frozen for a long time.

(27:02):
Each day. We're warming back up into the maybe forties
in most places, and so there's not a long period
of time where those plants are frozen, and that makes
a difference. And so this is a kind of phrase
where it's not maybe we're preparing and warming up for
a significant one later, but for right now this is

(27:22):
a moderate one. So still protect and just remember what
I'm saying about one plant doesn't apply to another. You know,
you're talking about like figs or or more cold tender
than Belinda's plum, for example, or palm grantite. Those those
are not as cold tender as fig But just depending
on where you live, do what you need to do,

(27:44):
take care of it. Let's we're going to go, actually
I have to take a break here. We're going to
come to Marty in Fairfield right when we get back
in the meantime, if you'd like to give me a call.
Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Welcome back to the Garden Line. Glad to have you
with us today. Thanks for listening in. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions.

(28:06):
Do you got a phone, You got a phone, you
got a question? Well seven one three two one two
kt RH. It's as easy as that, and let's just
start by going straight out to Marty in Fairfield. Hello Marty,
Welcome to garden Rainski.

Speaker 8 (28:19):
Happy New Year.

Speaker 11 (28:21):
I have two spider lilies that are overgrown. They're about
four to five feet tall, and they're hanging against each
other in the middle of a walkway and I wanted
to see it. I called you a couple of weeks ago,
and then you were on vacation. But is it okay

(28:44):
if I dig them up and before the freeze and
put them in some soil and some big pots, And
just because they always tend to freeze back and I
really want to separate them before they freeze back, and
wondered if it would be okay.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
You can do that or let them freeze back and
separate them at that time. Either way is fine, They'll
do fine. Let me just make sure we're talking about
the same plant. Is this a white blooming flower, shaggy
white blooms, yes, strappy petals, Okay. Sometimes people refer to
like a type of like chorus as spider lily too. Yeah,

(29:24):
that one.

Speaker 8 (29:26):
Looks like a big star.

Speaker 11 (29:29):
It's it's it's a spider little not yeah, not like
a spider plant. A spider lily and big bulbs, Yeah,
big bulbs. Dig leaves long, dark green. It's beautiful when
it blooms.

Speaker 7 (29:44):
But they have gotten.

Speaker 11 (29:47):
Yeah, they've gotten really crowded, and I just I don't know,
I've been lazy about sending them out, so I wondered
if it would be okay if I went ahead and
did it.

Speaker 12 (29:59):
Before the freeze.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
You can do that now, just you know, bring them
inside and don't leave the bulbs just sitting out and
cold for now. But they're just a little bit underground
when they grow. They're not super deep bulbs, but they
are protected by the soil. But yeah, you sure can.
You can do that and guide them and then.

Speaker 8 (30:21):
Plant some land.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
You can put them right back in the ground if
you want. You know, in our warm climate, we don't
have to worry. If some further north they may plant
them in the spring more. But you can plan them
now if you like, and reset them, or you can
keep them inside. Just remember if they dry out then
it's kind of like you let them get frosted back.
Then they'll just have to come back out again.

Speaker 8 (30:47):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
Amarillis is the same way Amarillis. They are in their
cold weather state. I've got some that are still showing
good strappy foliage. Or do you or your amarellas still
have green foliage?

Speaker 11 (31:02):
Yes, all of them do.

Speaker 6 (31:04):
They're beautiful.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
Yeah, yeah they are. And uh you know they're they're
gonna balloom a little a little bit later when it
warms up. But if you, if you, if you can
keep them from getting killed back, I think they'll you'll
have a little bit stronger plant. They'll do a little
bit better for you. Either way. Those are both tough,
very tough plants.

Speaker 11 (31:26):
Nope, all right, okay, thank you, all.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Right, thank you. You know, the rule on guarden line
is our advice is free. But when you divide all
these bulbs, you just need to bring half of the
ones you dig up and leave them at the station
and we'll call it even.

Speaker 11 (31:41):
Okay, you don't have any room in your garden, just
like me.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
That's that true. That's the truth. Garden We don't ask
that question. We just buy the plant, come home and
figure it out. That's right, all right, folks. That is
so true of gardeners.

Speaker 13 (32:04):
Oh bye.

Speaker 4 (32:05):
That's why I say gardeners are plant collectors. A lot
of times. You know, there's some people that they do it.
Let's just say, right, you know, they go out and
they they come up with a plan, They have a
designer design the landscape and do all that and it's
beautiful as gorgeous. It's a showplace. And they've only put
the plants in. They're going to plant that need to
be there. They don't overcrowd them and things. And then

(32:26):
there's the rest of us, the plant collectors. Our places
look like a bomb went off in a garden center
and everything rooted where it landed. It's just we see
a plant we got to have there. You know where
am I going to put it? That's silly to worry
about that. Buy the plant, take it home, then figure
out where to put it. But you know what, it's
your yard. It's toeing you and the hoa. So I

(32:48):
guess in the backyard, you do what you want to do.
The hoa has an opinion about the front yard. Believe me,
they do well. As we're getting out there and taking
care of our plants. You know that the most important
thing is to build the soil. And one of the
ways that we improve our soil is with products from
microlife like microlife micro grow bioinoculant that is one that

(33:12):
is loaded with all kinds of good microbes, that are
part of keeping plants healthy. I actually a week doesn't
go by that I don't read some research article about
what some microbe has now been discovered to be able
to do. There are microbes that cause roots to grow

(33:32):
in certain directions. Can you believe that there are microbes
that get into the root system and cause the top
of the plant to be better at resisting disease? Can
you believe that there are microbes in this case the
fungi that link one plant to another, that communicate from

(33:52):
one plant to another about hey there's a bug eating us,
watch out, get ready for it, and all kinds of
other things. It's an amazing world. Microlife's built around those
kinds of things. It's taking advantage of what nature is
already doing and helping you do a better job of
that in your yard. Micro grow bioinoculant is a maroon bag,

(34:13):
a burgundy bag, very beautiful bag. Of course I'm biased,
but anyway, it is loaded with sixty three different beneficial
micro organism strains. Now, all the microlife products are going
to have MicroB xenum. I mean they just do. They
keep them stocked with all kinds of good things. The

(34:33):
micro grow biinoculant. Don't think of it as a fertilizer,
think of it as what it says, a bio inoculant,
those kinds of things that are helpful to your soils
or your plant's root system. Now there's also micro grow
liquid AF. These are two different products. They both have
a dark kind of a burgundy colored label, a little
different in shade. But micro Grow liquid AF is loaded

(34:56):
also with eight extremely dominating beneficial mica grobes that live
in the soil and help your plans. Hey, where do
you get microlife? Everywhere? It's pretty much everywhere, feed stores,
garden centers, hardware stores, Southwest fertilizer down Southwest Houston. Okay, well,

(35:16):
there's the first hour of twenty twenty five in the books. Boy,
we got a lot more to talk about. And I'm
telling you this is going to be your best garden
you ever. Trust me on this one. Believe me on
this one. Just keep listening in. Don't forget my website too.
By the way, gardening with skip dot com. I remember,
I'm going to talk about some new things that are
up there on the website when we come back give around.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Scared Director.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
It's just watch as.

Speaker 9 (36:19):
Well.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Good Saturday morning, Good Saturday morning, and welcome to twenty
twenty five. Welcome the Garden Line. I'm your host, skip director,
and we're here to answer gardening questions. That's what we do. Uh.
I guess we'll even allow some uh gardening bragging, you know,
if you want to, if you want to talk about uh,
I don't know. You just got through planning a whole

(36:39):
bunch of wonderful fruit trees for your backyard, or just
got a whole bunch of new bulbs in that you're
fixing the put out there. Yeah, we'll do that. By
the way, for those of you who are not from Texas,
fixing is a word. Fixing is a word. It means
I'm about to I'm about to do it. If I
sometimes I forget. You know, you grew up someplace and
use certain kinds of terms and lifeguage, and you recognize

(37:01):
other people don't always do that. I had a friend
from New Jersey when I went to college. It lived
the same arm as Randy and I as a matter
of fact, back in the day, and I remember the
first time he goes fixing, what do you mean fixing
and it's like, I mean, I'm about to do something
didn't realize. Not everybody talks like that anyway, just an observation.

(37:23):
But we are here to help you have a good success.
And what I like to say is I'm here to
help you have a more beautiful garden and a more
bountiful garden and the same uh. At the same time,
gardening is fun, and gardening gives us a connection in
nature that we are made. We're designed for nature, we
really are. It is our happy place. It's where we

(37:45):
find relaxation. It's where we find a lot of reward too.
You know, there is something when you grow your own
tomato and you picked that thing right off the vine
and you enjoy that fresh, homegrown flavor that is so rewarding.
When you smell the fragrance of a wonderful flower, that

(38:06):
just I mean, it's just like nature's perfume that is rewarding.
When you esthetically look out there and you see a
well trimmed lawn and a beautiful landscape, there's something esthetically
rewarding about all that. And gardening gives you all that
kind of stuff. Now, how do you end up having
all that? Well? Number one. You start with the soil.

(38:27):
And I'm a broken record on this, but brown stuff
before green stuff, meaning you fix the soil and then
you plant the plant. That's how it works. Brown stuff
before green stuff. And if you go into a garden
center today, which I think would be a great thing
to do it just come home with some soil bags

(38:48):
some Maybe you're starting seeds and you need a seed
starting mix. Maybe you are putting in a bed and
you need a quality bed mix. Maybe you need some
multch to go on top of the soil to pert
tech the base of the plants. We're talking earlier about
some coal damage and some plants are very cold sensitive.
But when you throw a good thick layer of mulch
over the top of them, it's like putting a blanket

(39:09):
over you. I mean it holds in the warmth of
the soil and it protects the crowns of those plants.
Where do you do that, well, Cianamal should be a
good place to do it. It's kind of the one
stop shop for everything that's let's just say everything brown.
When it comes to brown stuff, the composts for the soil,

(39:29):
the soil blends like the vegionorbics from heirloom soils. They've
got that there. They carry products from landscapers Pride to
they carry products from heirloom soils. Of course. They also
are a place where you're going to find fertilizers from
nitrofoss from Nelson, plant food from for example, azamide and microlife.

(39:52):
They carry all of that, and then products from Medina
as well. They deliver within twenty miles now. They're located
down south of town on FM five point one, near
where Highway six and two eighty eight are south of Houston.
Go to the website Sienna multch dot com Sienna mulch
dot com. There you can find it where they're located.
You can find it when they're open. By the way,

(40:13):
they're open today Saturday from seven thirty to two, So
good day to get out and do that. Get that
stuff at your house on the ground, in the soil,
on top of the soil, whatever you need to do
with it, and get ready because planting season is upon us.
It is still a good time to plant woody ornamentals
and perennials to give them a head start on the spring.

(40:34):
Those spring gardens, whether it's flowers or vegetables or herbs.
Get the soil right, because whenever that's dry enough to
work the soil, there's a good time to work the soil.
It is, it's always good. You always amend and improve
your soil. I don't care how good the soil is,
you're always in time going to be needing to do

(40:55):
some amendments and improvements on the soil, unless you're just
growing native plant in a soil that it's very adapted to.
In that case, yeah, I get it. You get it
set up, and you forget it. But for a lot
of things, including containers, you've got to keep improving the
soil in order to keep that at its top functioning ability.

(41:17):
Because plants live in their roots they do. Quality soil
means it's got organic matter. It means it's got nutrients,
and remember all of this is available cinemals. And it
also quality soil means that it drains well, that excess
water runs right through it, but that it holds some water.
It's not just like a sand that water runs right through.
It holds water, but it also drains the excess water.

(41:40):
Cinamals cannot You do all of that, and if you're smart,
you will get that done because I'm telling you the
the the wise gardener, I'll put it that way. The
wise gardener knows that you get the soil right and
it makes you look good. It makes your thumb look green,
if you know what I'm talking about. All right, that's that.

(42:04):
Speaking of the animals and products and things, you know
that cienumalch also carries Nelson plant food products. Now, Nelson
is a it's just a long term, outstanding purveyor of
some quality blends of nutrients for your plants. You know,
there's a Nelson plant food for just about every kind

(42:24):
of plant you want to grow, from lawns to things
like let's say hibescas or things like plumeria or things
like roses. Nelson has their color Star line, probably one
of the most popular lines now for almost forty years.
Color Star is an all purpose plant food. So you
put it down on anything. Just think about this way.
If it gives you color, put color Star on it.

(42:46):
That's easy to remember. So all the flowering plants, annuals
of perennials, even shrubs and trees that can you can
use it on that it acts quickly, but it also
has organic nutrients sources to slowly release into the soil
over time, so about every three or four months, put
your color Star down on your color beds. You can
also get it with a funge side involved in a

(43:08):
mixed in call Colorstar Plus to help with the root
issues that you might have. A color Star has been
popular for landscapers for a very long time, and even
out of state. You know, they ship that stuff all
over the country to people that have discovered it and
now they use it and again landscapers. Professional landscapers no

(43:28):
to use color Star all from Nelson Plant Food. Nelson
Plant Food is a Houston area homegrown basically homegrown company
that produces whatever kind of nutrients you need for the
plants that you want to grow and have success with.
It's time for me to take a little quick break.
I'll be right back.

Speaker 10 (43:48):
You know.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
They welcome back to guard Line. Glad to have you
with us this morning on the first show of twenty
twenty five. You're welcome to the best gardening year you're
going to have that you've ever had. How about that?
That's saying a lot, isn't it. I just think it is.
That's how I look at it. I tell you what,
when I buy a seed. It's going to be the

(44:09):
most bountiful harvest I've ever had. When I buy a
fruit tree, I can just already taste the fruit. I mean, listen,
you got to be an optimist as a gardener, and
we do everything we can to have success. The bottom
line is that's a fun part of gardening because you know,
even when things don't work out like you want, you
just adjust. You just adjust and you figure it out,

(44:32):
and it's okay. If this year ends up being a
little hot and dry, that's all right. We know how
to water plant if it gets a little cold. We
know how to protect plants. I'm going to come back
and talk about plant protection here in a little bit.
Right now, I'm going to run out to the galleria
and we're going to talk to Forest. Hey, Forrest, Welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (44:49):
Hey, thank you, Skip.

Speaker 10 (44:51):
I'm sure you'll cover a lot of these freeze questions.
But I've been growing a couple of citrus trees, a
lime and a lemon that I picked up at a
Buchanan's Container grown, and my plan was to bring them
in for this freeze we're about to have. But I
just wanted to get your thoughts on the rule of

(45:11):
thumb on growing citrus and chill hours and that sort
of thing, how cold they can get.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
Yeah, that's a that's a good question for us.

Speaker 6 (45:21):
You know.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
The bottom line is limes and lemons, especially limes, are
are not very cold hearty at all, and so it
went in doubt. I would bring them in just because
you know, you don't want to take a chance on it.

Speaker 7 (45:32):
Now.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
There there are variations on protecting a plant, from leaving
it out there figuring it's going to be okay, to
bringing it up close to the house. I've got some
houseplants that are sitting outside my house underneath the eaves,
right up against the house, and they're still looking good.
And they haven't you know, we we haven't had a
hard freeze, but we had a minor freeze, and so

(45:57):
just that protected spot helped a lot. And then the
next step would be to bring them into protect a garage,
or to cover them up and put some heat underneath them.
I think any of those things would be fine. If
it were mine, I wouldn't take chances on leaving them out.
Once we drop below freezing, you're gonna get some damage
to a lime and then probably to a lemon. Too.

Speaker 10 (46:20):
Okay, great, I appreciate that, thank you, sir.

Speaker 4 (46:24):
Yeah, do you have a dolly you can strap them
too and wheel them in real easily without hurting your back.

Speaker 10 (46:31):
Oh, I got a whole system set up because I
also grow up plumeria in containers. I've been bringing plumeria
inside for years, so I got I got the drill
for sure.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Good, that's good. Yeah. But when I first discovered that
you didn't have to pick plants up and carry them
around and you could put them on a dolly, that
was good information. Right there. My dolly has a strap
attached to it so that I just go up to
the plant and the strap's already there to wrap it
around the pot so it sticks, stays on the little
dolly lip, you know, and you can move it around

(47:05):
with you. Well, good luck with them, thank you, sir.
All right, yes, sir, you take care. Thanks for the call.
Appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (47:14):
All right.

Speaker 4 (47:15):
You're listening to Garden Line our phone number if you'd
like to give me a call seven one three two
one two ktr H seven one three two one two
kt r H. I was talking about plant protection, and
I do want to mention a couple things about protecting plants.
First of all, when when you're wanting to protect a plant,

(47:37):
a cover over the top of the plant to create
dead air space is very important. Now, creating dead air
space means dead air space connected to the soil. So
here's what I mean. Don't wrap the top of a
plant like a landscape lollipop. Allow the cover to drape
straight down to the ground, as if you put an
umbrella over it, and where the rain would drip down

(47:59):
off the umbrella, that is where the cover goes straight
to the ground. Secure it there so the warmth of
the soil can rise up underneath that cover. You create
dead airspace, and you make a difference in the cold
temperatures and the rate of cooling inside that cover. We're
gonna have freezes coming up here that are going to
be fairly brief. It may if you live far enough north,

(48:19):
you're going to have two or three days of freezing,
but it warms up during the day into the forties,
goes back down again. All you need is a little
bit of protection, slow the cooling and you're good. If
you want to add one more measure of protection, you
can put a clamp light underneath. Now, these are those
aluminum shielded light fixtures that have a clamp, so you

(48:41):
can attach them to the side of a container. You
can attach them to the trunk of the plant, but
don't shine the light on the trunk. Shine the light
down toward the soil and that it'll rise up underneath
that cover and make a huge difference and protect them. Now,
if it's going to be seventeen degrees, no, not one
little incandescent bulb is not going to do that. But

(49:03):
even just a bright one hundred and fifty watt bulb,
you don't have to have a heat lamp in. Those
will provide enough warmth to make a big difference underneath
the cover. If the cover is not secured to the ground,
wind is going to blow. It's going to displace that
air that you've warmed, or that the soil warmth that
has risen up to warm the air, and you're gonna

(49:24):
be right back down just as cold as it is
outside the cover. You gotta secure it to the ground.
However you want to do that, soil, bricks, boards, whatever
works for you. Make sure it's secure to the ground.
You gonna have some breeze. You really need to make
sure that that cover stays down there on the ground.
And then that little addition of one heat lamp for

(49:45):
minor freezes like we're having now, is enough. I put
one hundred and fifty watt flood light bulb in mine.
You can use a heat lap bulb. You're not going
to need that much heat. Now, if you're trying to
cover maybe a satsumetry that's a feet tall and you're
going to get heat under that, well okay, yeah, but
we're not going to have satsuma freeze damage kind of

(50:06):
weather in this particular type of freeze, other types of
a lot of other types of ceterric. Yes, we will.
So anyway, provide that protection and you can make a
huge difference, and you just have that on hand. I've
got mine in the they're in the garage. If the
clamp light is clamped to the wall and the bulbs
in it, it's ready to go. And whenever I need them,
they just come right out and go straight out there.

(50:27):
Make sure to protect those electric connections. If you were
to have rain, which we're not supposed to have rain
with the cold that we're having, it's supposed to to
get dry before we have the cold. But if you
do you got to cover that connection. It's electrical connection there.
Don't drop a connection into dry grass either. Should you
have some sort of a spark or something like that,

(50:52):
you can set grass on fire underneath there. So you
got to you got to use your head on that stuff.
But by the way, I've got a publication online at
Gardening with Skip dot com. It's protecting plants from frosts
and freezes. It's a publication I wrote with one of
our specialists at Texas A and M Horticulture Department a

(51:12):
number of years ago, and I think it really covers
well frosts and freezes, how they occur, the information about
them you may not have been aware of, and that
leads you to how to protect them correctly. And so
I just gave you one little example of what's in
the publication there. Just take it out, check it out.

(51:34):
It's like nine pages of color pictures and all kinds
of Information's very good. Gardening with Skip dot com. Will
you write that website down because I refer to it
just about every show, because I'm always putting something up
there to help you to have success, and in this case,
it's that publication. Go check it out. It's free. You

(51:54):
tak me down on that price. It's free. You can
download it, you can look at it online. You can
send it to your cousin and Tim Buck too, who
has a question about freezing just downloaded. Email it to him.
Let them know about her. Just send them the link
to it. If you want to go about that that way.
Gardening with Skip, that's me gardening with Skip dot com.

(52:16):
I'm gonna tomorrow, I'm gonna spend a little bit of time,
a little more in depth talking about my predecessor in
this chair, Randy Lemon. You know, garden Line has been
around a long time, even before it was called garden Line.
Do he Compton probably the first in about five of
us now that have had been hosts of garden Line
through the decades, goes back to the nineteen fifties. Randy

(52:40):
was prior to me, was in this seat for over
twenty five years, and Randy uh was well beloved and
well known throughout the greater Houston area. A scholarship was
set up a while back for Randy at Texas A
and M for a horticulture student. If you knew Randy,
you knew how proud he was of our university, that
he and I I went to. And also how proud

(53:03):
he would be to know that a scholarship was set
up in his name there for horticulture student. You probably
are one of the many, many, many people that benefited
over the years from Randy's advice here on garden Line.
I'm gonna tomorrow talk a little bit more about the
scholarship and about Randy, but I just wanted to mention
it today. Tomorrow, I believe, is the two year anniversary

(53:27):
of Randy's passing. That came as a shock to all
of us, everyone in the greater Houston area gardening world,
and it's it's been something that well, like I said,
it was just a shock. You know, you never you
never would expect something like that all although we all
know our time here on earth is is not infinite.

(53:51):
But Randy was bigger than life.

Speaker 12 (53:54):
He was.

Speaker 4 (53:55):
He was quite a character. And I can tell you this.
I didn't know him before college, but I knew him
in college and back in the day, and that'd be
about nineteen a eighty eighty, maybe nineteen eighty, I think
it is when I first met Randy. Randy was a
very special individual, a good friend and a good friend

(54:17):
of the horticulture world here in the Greater Houston area.
If you would like to consider, I asked you, would
you consider making a donation to the scholarship fund in
remembrance of Randy. It's really easy to do. First of all,
the easiest way is just go to my website and
it tells you how to do it there. I'll tell
you briefly right now, but the bottom line is, just
go the website and I'll tell you. If you want

(54:38):
to give online, you go to a website called Texas
A and M Foundation websites txamfoundation dot com. There is
a little more to the RL than that, but on
my website, I tell you how to find and send
the money to the right place. If you want to
do it by check, you can mail the check to

(54:58):
the Texas A and M Foundation. In the memo you
gotta write Lemon Scholarship. Lemon has two ms L E, M,
M O N Scholarship, but that's the Texas and M Foundation,
and the address for that is also on the website
Gardening with Skip dot com. It's the most recent thing
that I've put online on the Gardening with Skip dot
com website. Would you consider that? Would you join me

(55:21):
in considering supporting that scholarship. Time for me to take
a quick break here. When we come back, I'll be
back with your gardening questions. If you'd like to call
and get on on board with that, just kive Jonathan
call seven one three two one two k t r. H.
We'll get you online. We'll talk to you about the
things that are of interest to you, and I'm going

(55:41):
to continue to talk about cold protection for plants, how
to protect your plants from cold. We'll be right back.
All right, here we are. We're back with garden line.
We got your gardening questions is coming. You just got
to give me a call seven one three two one two,
Kate Age. I want to continue talking about cold protection,

(56:03):
cold protection for your plants, and just basically I'm giving
you some principles to think about. I talked a while
ago about covering a plant, how to cover them properly,
and the fast way to just say that is no
landscape lollipops. People that put a cover around a let's
say a little small tree or shrub, and they bring
it all the way and wrap it around the trunk.

(56:24):
That's like a lollipop, right, And that all that does
is keep the warmth of those branches in, but that
they're going to cool off too fast. It'll slow cooling
a little bit, but not much. Taking it all the
way to the ground and allowing the warmth of the
heat to rise up, or putting a heat lamp underneath it,
or a light underneath it. An incandescent bulb is a

(56:45):
heat lamp. They produce a lot of heat if you're
a touched one, you know what I'm talking about. Providing
that extra warmth underneath that helps a lot. Now, there's
several variables in how much protection you're going to need.
Number One, coals are going to get. The colder you get,
the more more heat you're going to have to produce
in order to protect that plant. Number Two, how cold

(57:08):
hardy is the plant. Some plasts don't need protection at all.
There are plenty cold hardy they don't have to worry
about that. Some you know, you take a lime tree,
for example, it's going to get down twenty eight degrees.
You got a problem for sure, So you got to
protect those a lot. So it's the how colds are
going to get, How cold hardy is the plant? Another

(57:28):
one is what kind of freeze is it? Now, there
are several types of freezes too, specifically radiant and convective
freezes that I talk about in the publication that's online
at Gardening with Skip dot com. But one of them
is just a cold, still night and heat is radiating
up from the soil. It's radiating up off of the plants.

(57:50):
That's why we end up getting frosts on the leaves
of the plants. And those are easy to protect because
you cover them up, you provide some warmth, and you're good.
The freeze where you get a cold blue northern wind
blowing through that just super chills things quickly, you know.
You know that when you walk outside and it's cold
and the wind is blowing, you cool off way faster.

(58:13):
And those we definitely have to create cold, dead air space,
and we definitely need extra warmth to provide the protection
for them. Some things that are important to consider when
you're protecting your plants. Now, dead air space is your friend,
use the warmth of the soil, and then finally provide

(58:34):
extra heat as needed. And I do that with clamp
on lamps. If I were if I had a Let's
they had a citrus tree, something a little bigger orange tree,
or even a setsuma. If it's gonna get cold enough,
I may put a couple of lamps under there, or
three lamps under there. I may use an actual heat
lamp bulb that generates a lot of radiant heat underneath there,

(58:58):
but don't shine it against the trunk. You can damage tissues.
Those things get really hot. Turn all those on and
hold your hand about three feet away and just you know,
to the side, not above it, to the side, and
you can feel that radiant heat coming out. We're going
to send it down and warm the soil, and that
will rise up underneath the cover and provide a lot
of protection. Most of my freezes a little flood light

(59:21):
one hundred and fifty white bulb. I know people that
use little mechanic lights, you know, those little things that
are in a cage and you hang them up underneath
the hood. When you open the hood of your car,
you hang them up underneath there so you can see
down those mechanic dumber of lights. Something like that with
a hunter white bulb is good. If you just have
a little let's say, a small lime tree or something

(59:41):
in a container or in the ground that you want
to provide a little bit of protection when we're going
to get down to what twenty nine, twenty eight, someplaces
only thirty degrees depending on where you are in the
listening area. And that's enough. But it's a matter, it's
a relative thing, and so keep that in mind when
you're protecting plants. And do look at that publication online.

(01:00:03):
I took a lot of time to write that with
one of our anim specialists, very knowledgeable fellow, and we
put together a really helpful publication that you should just
have it printed out or at least save it to
your computer so you can look at it. And it
reminds you of the different things. You know, what people
ask questions like what about water? I see people spray

(01:00:24):
plants with water, and the ice breezes and the ice
insulates the plant. And the answer bottom line is that no,
that's not true. That's not true. If you want to
get nerdy, I'll be very brief with this, but very briefly,
ice and water changes from liquid to solid. Each milli

(01:00:45):
liter of water cubic centimeter of water gives off one
calorie of heat. That's nerdy stuff. That's for your next
garden party. So you can impress people and bore them
to death. Okay, so one centimary. So as long as
there's liquid water freezing on the surface of the ice
around the plant, the interior temperature doesn't go below, not

(01:01:08):
much below thirty two degrees. But the minute you have
liquid water freeze, stop having liquid water freezing, and it's
just ice. That temperature plummets, just like the ice was
in there. Because ice does not insulate in the sense
of protecting the interior buds from going colder. The ice

(01:01:30):
gets colder, the buds get colder. So for ninety nine
percent of the home garden situations, putting ice putting water
on plants in a freeze is not a good idea.
Even up breaking limbs, you end up with all other
kinds of issues, sometimes even worse, because all right here
we go, I said one nerd thing. We're gonna give
you one more. Because when it switches and now you

(01:01:53):
have the ice thawing and changing from ice to liquid water,
it pulls a cat of heat out. When water goes
through that state, change from liquid to ice, solid to liquid,
you're either gaining or losing a calorie there. And so
if you got to the morning, and let's say it

(01:02:13):
was thirty degrees thirty two degrees. It's starting to thaw there,
and you quit sprinkling, and that ice began to melt,
the interior would actually get colder. Now you're thinking that,
how can ice be melting on the surface and the
interior getting colder. Well it does, And I'll give you
one quick example that suddenly making ice cream makes sense.

(01:02:37):
Remember when you had the old hand crank ice cream makers,
what did you do? You filled them with ice, and
then what did you put on the ice? Salt? Remember
that you had to sit on those things, so that
whole still while somebody cranked it, or you cranked it
while someone sat on it. Why do we put salt on?
Salt melts the ice? Why do we want to melt

(01:02:59):
the ice make an ice cream? Because when the ice melts,
it draws heat out of the ice cream on the
inside of that han crank ice cream maker. That's why
you put salt on, because it makes the ice cream colder.
See what I'm saying. You get ice on your plants,
the sun comes up and you start to thaw, you're

(01:03:19):
not out of the woods. In fact, it can get
worse on the inside where those buds are all right,
I try not to do too much nerd stuff for you.
But chew on that one for a while. I think
it's pretty cool. Stop, pretty interesting. We're gonna take a
little break here. I'll be right back with your gardening
question seven one three two one two ktr H. All right,
welcome back to garden line. Hey, if you want to

(01:03:43):
get me a call, talk about whatever's of interest to you.
What are the kind of questions? Maybe you got a
gardening there's a good one, maybe a gardening resolution. What
do you want to do different in twenty twenty five
than you've done before? Now I'm not a big New
Year's resolution person. I know it's all that we think
if we decide we're resolving something that therefore we're going

(01:04:03):
to do it, and it happens. And I mean, you know,
everybody knows what happens to New Year's resolutions by about
the second or third week in January. But seriously, what
would you like to do different in gardening? What would
you like to grow that you'd never grown? Let me
encourage you to do something different, try something new. Have
you never grown vegetables? Okay, get you a five gallon bucket.

(01:04:26):
Drill holes in the bottom get you a tomato plant,
put it, fill it full of a quality of veggie
and herb mix from heirlooms, soils or something like that,
maybe a quality mix from nature's way, and grow you
a small tomato plant in that bucket. You could do that.
You can do it with a klopenion pepper if you

(01:04:46):
like calopenias. Maybe since we're in the cool season, how
about a broccoli plant. My wife just picked the first
broccoli from some plants she planted back in late fall
and brought it in yesterday. The fatted broccoli and enjoyed it,
roasted broccoli and the oh my gosh, that was good
last night.

Speaker 6 (01:05:06):
You can do that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:07):
Why not do it? You don't have to have a
whole garden to do it. You just need to, like
I said, just to make a point, a five gallon
bugget with holes drilled in the bottom of it. You
can do that. Or you can get you a really
nice container, or you can go all the way and
make a nice garden. Raise bed. I hope you go
all the way on it. But seriously, what is your resolution.
Maybe it's to mulch and not be dealing with weeds

(01:05:31):
all the time, or here's a good one. This isn't
a fun one, but it's a good one. I'm gonna
not let nuts sedge show its face this year when
it comes up as three to five leaves. I'm gonna
follow Skip's guide online Gardening Skip dot com the nutsedge
guide and end depth the look, and they'll tell you

(01:05:51):
exactly how to shut nutsedge down before it proliferates and
gives you all kinds of headaches. Maybe that's a resolution
for you this year. Maybe I'm going to redo the
lawn and I'm gonna make it a nice, dense lawn
so I'm not constantly having to fight weeds all the time.
Maybe that's a resolution. Maybe it's to grow a new
kind of houseplant, something different, something beautiful. Perhaps it's to

(01:06:16):
put in herbs in your flower beds or your vegetable gardens,
or to make an herb garden. Watch your resolution for
this year. How about a fruit tree? Oh my gosh,
those are so good. We have fruit trees that are
challenged to grow, and we have fruit trees that are
easy to grow. I love citrus because citrus number one,
you get to eat the centrus. But number two, the
fragrance of the blooms is outstanding, and I'm planning a

(01:06:39):
satsuma this year right off of our patio. I've got
the spot already ready to go. I just need to
get out there and get it done. But I'm gonna
put a satsum in because I enjoy the fragrance of
citrus blooms in general. Some are more fragrant than others,
but they're all good and it's just fun to do.
What's your New year's resolution? If you will give me

(01:07:01):
a call seven one three two one two k t RH,
let's talk about it. Or if you just have questions
and things, we can visit about that too. You are
listening to guard Line and we're here to help you
have a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape and more
fun in the process. Bountiful garden, beautiful landscape, more fun
and the process. The cold is coming. We're gonna have

(01:07:22):
a little, our first significant, little coal snap of the year.
For those of you who are used to living up north,
it's like, wait, it's not even going to get to
the mid twenties. What are you talking about? Well, okay,
it's cold for here, Okay, so what are we going
to do? We can grow things you can't grow up north,
you know. I mean, how many avocado trees and citrus

(01:07:42):
trees do you see even in northern Texas? None? Right,
So we can do those, but we've got to protect them.
So go by Ace Hardware Store. They've got everything you're
going to need for it. You know, I was talking
about those clamp lights and the bulbs that you put
in them. Whether it's a flood light one fifty WI,
whether it's an actual heat lamp, you can get those.

(01:08:03):
You can also get the plastic covers, the tarps that
go over plants to make sure you create that dead
air space underneath. Now we've got to deal with water
protection too. Those of you are going to get into
a little harder freeze. You're going to want to have
something to cover your faucet, like a faucet cover or
maybe the freeze miser. That's right, freeze miser. It's a

(01:08:25):
whole the thing you screw into the faucet, then you
turn the faucet on. It doesn't allow any water through
until it gets cold, and then it starts to trickle
water through, and moving water is it's much more reluctant
to freeze. Gotta get much colder to freeze moving water
than stagnant water, and so as a result, you get
your pipes through on a very very cold night. They've

(01:08:48):
got tape for wrapping pipes that they have, the foam
covers over pipes. They've also got the little wires that
you put around your pipes, like an electrical type of
a tape that just barely warms it enough to protect it.
They have everything else you need. You need some duct tape.
Do you need something for maybe, you know, de icing

(01:09:11):
the windshield to your car if you've got the frost
freeze or whatever is on it, and it's not just
this freeze, it's the ones coming up as well. Do
you need to keep your hands warm. They've got some
really good gloves as well as handwarmers. Also in there,
fireplace logs, the firewood. Do you need a propane heater.
There's always a good kerosene for a backup or for

(01:09:33):
those kinds of heaters. Whatever you need is that ACE Hardware.
Remember it's the three p's that we worry about. Plants, pipes,
and pets. You got to take care of those, and
ACE Hardware's got you coverage. Just go to Acehardware dot
com you can find the ACE Hardware store near you
that is going to be your source for everything when
it comes to cold protection, and that would include let's
say you're in Alvin, Patco East Hardware down there, up

(01:09:56):
in Brennam, Brenham Ace Hardware, Katie Ace Hardware west of town,
Hamilton Hardware off Highway six, your Bear Creek down south
off Highway six, Hamilton Hardware is an ACE store. And
then out in Orange for those of you, first of all,
thanks for listening out in Orange. Child's building supply ACE
Hardware out there in Orange, Texas. We're going to heading

(01:10:18):
out of the phones and talk to Loretta out in
Texas City. Hello, Loretta, good morning.

Speaker 5 (01:10:25):
Yes, I have always wanted a bird of paradise, so
I was wondering how easy or how difficult.

Speaker 12 (01:10:33):
They are to grow?

Speaker 4 (01:10:37):
All righty, you know what, Loretta, I am looking at
my clock and I just saw I'm running out of
time here, so I'm going to start to answer you,
but we're going to get some music here and then
I will finish your answer after the top of the break.
So I'll let you know that upfront. Are we talking
about a bird of paradise? Is like the tropical type
that have the little kind of flower that comes up

(01:10:59):
and goes horizont or are we talking about the kind
that has big orange and yellow flowers in long, tall clusters.

Speaker 6 (01:11:10):
A small one where it kind of goes all horizonal horizontal.

Speaker 4 (01:11:14):
Okay, good, Yeah. Those are very cold tender. If they
if you get them in a protected place near a house,
they can do fine with very little protection except in
a very very cold freeze. You you can grow them
in containers, or you can grow them in the ground.
They just need decent drainage. They're not that difficult to grow.

(01:11:36):
They like a lot of sunlight that they don't have
to be in the full sun. They just hang on
and when we come back we'll finish answering your questions.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Welcome to kt r H Guarden Line with scan Arcters.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
Just watch it as so many SI.

Speaker 4 (01:12:21):
Alrighty, already here we go. We are back with garden
Line and your phone calls, and we're gonna no delay
and head straight out to the phones. We were having
a conversation, uh with Loretta, and we were talking about
the bird of Paradise. Loretta, we're back. So I mentioned
you know that it is somewhat cold tender, but in

(01:12:43):
a protected spot you down in Texas City there, you
should be okay with it. If you want to do
a little covering up when we're going to have a
really hard cold freeze, that's good. I would use a
plumeria fertilizer on it. We have a number of good
quality primary fertilizer. I know that both Nelson and Nitroposs
make a plumeria blend. It's got a lot of the

(01:13:05):
middle number phosphorus and a good amount of the potassium
in it, which is a good blend for that particular
kind of plant.

Speaker 5 (01:13:12):
Okay, do they like a lot of water or just a.

Speaker 4 (01:13:15):
Little consistent You know they don't. They're not a drought plant,
but they're not an azalea either, or a hydrangea that
you've got to just keep from drying out at all.
They're pretty tough. I've seen some that you people planted
them under the eaves of their house and they kind
of got the water that rainfall provided and did pretty

(01:13:36):
good with that. But that was a kind of unique
situation where the demands were a little bit lower. But
I would just say moderate, a good soaking every now
and then ought to be enough.

Speaker 8 (01:13:46):
Okay, you said they like a lot of sun, so
the west side of the house would be a good place.

Speaker 4 (01:13:53):
The west would be fine. You may get a little
bit of a you know, the leaves may get a
little bit ratty on it, but they be okay there.
I've seen them growing in kind of a half day
sun doing pretty good, and I've seen them growing in
more sun than that and doing pretty good too.

Speaker 8 (01:14:11):
Okay, all right, that gives me something to think about.

Speaker 5 (01:14:15):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:14:17):
Yeah, you bet well. Good luck with those. Those are
gorgeous plants. I wish you well and.

Speaker 6 (01:14:24):
I've always loved them.

Speaker 4 (01:14:26):
You bet Thanks for the call. We're going to go
now to Mike and Bay City. Hello Mike, Welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 14 (01:14:33):
Good morning.

Speaker 15 (01:14:33):
Yeah, I got a couple of little issues I'd like
to ask you about. One of them is wood ashes.
What I do with them, Like I've read things that
he probably is not supposed to put it places because
it just builds up like an alkalinity or something, either
in the garden or yard or anything.

Speaker 4 (01:14:52):
So is that correct anything, Well, it is partly correct.
Wood ashes are like any nutrient, you can have not
enough and you can have too much. They are high pH.
So if you were going to grow azaleas or blueberries
or camellias, I wouldn't put a wood ash anywhere near them,
for sure. If you've got plants you're growing that are

(01:15:15):
already in the pH range, they want to be in
a lot of vegetables and things want to be around
neutral to slightly acidic. I wouldn't use too much wood
ash is there. So if you have a soil test
and you know where you are on pH, that guides you. Now.
They do contain phosphorus, and they contain potassium and other
nutrients that can be helpful to plants. So a moderate

(01:15:38):
amount of wood ash is fine. You just have to
you know, it really starts with what's already in your soil,
and then you weigh them out and spread them accordingly.
There is information I don't have anything on my website,
but there is information out there as to how much
wood ash, like how many pounds per hundred or a
thousand square feet can you put?

Speaker 16 (01:16:00):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:16:01):
So so, but yes, and moderation, Yeah, what about in
a compost?

Speaker 6 (01:16:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:16:07):
What about putting it in compost? The same thing you're
gonna you don't know how to mix it?

Speaker 4 (01:16:12):
Yeah, same thing. You just you know, you're sprinkling a
little bit on there, but a little bit goes awful
long way because compost is a pretty small thing, and
so uh, just be careful that because you go too
far and you got real high pH and that creates
its own problems.

Speaker 15 (01:16:27):
I got you, Okay, Well I got another question. Okay, okay,
go ahead if you got something else on that, but.

Speaker 4 (01:16:38):
Go ahead, go ahead, all right.

Speaker 15 (01:16:42):
Uh we can't get together here. But I got an
orange little orange tree. I'm trying to. It's still in
a pot and decided when to plant or whether I
want to. And it's got some problems on the leaves,
like they kind of are curling on the edge, which
makes me think it's a bug or something, but I

(01:17:03):
can't find any but it gets you know, like rusty,
well it dies in that curl in his rusty looking
you know color wife, And they're curling like that, and
so I can't tell if it's I don't know if
it's a fungus or a bug. Are you able to
that's in that in.

Speaker 4 (01:17:20):
Section I can. That's a common insect here for Centrius.
It's called a citrus leaf miner miner like coal miner,
and that's what it does. A little fly lays an
egg in the leaf and then the larva hatches out
and choose between the upper and lower surfaces, just like
a coal miner digging through a sema coal in the ground.

(01:17:42):
They chew through there and that causes the leaf. Sometimes
they get a little silvery. You usually see a little
bit of a squiggly trail, and it does cause them
to curl like that, and the if you've got a
small plant, it's worth treating them for Generally, as a
citrus gets older and tougher, you you don't have to
worry about them as much. They'll do a little damage,
but they're not going to affect production much. But if

(01:18:04):
you use a product called spin No said, it's an
organic that soaks into the leaves and kills the larvae inside.
It's s p I n O S A D. Spin
No said, yeah, And you spray the new flushes of
growth with those mic The old, tough, leathery leaves don't

(01:18:25):
get affected by citrus leaf minor. It's the tender new
flushes of growth. So when you get a little flush
of growth, just spray. I'm squirt them with SPO spinosaid,
and it'll it'll minimize any kind of damage that those
would cause.

Speaker 15 (01:18:37):
You know, you know one thing about this, I didn't
see any leaf minor, any kind of leaf minor thing.
It's just the only o case. You know, you would
think you'd see some of that on some of the
other leaves, but ever about lack on maybe one leaf
on every third branch here. Okay, it's but it's just

(01:18:58):
rolled up and it looks like it's been eating underneath.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
You know, in that role.

Speaker 15 (01:19:04):
But no mind, let's do this, Mike, the same thing.

Speaker 4 (01:19:07):
Yeah, well it may be something else. Take some pictures
of it, Uh, take it a picture of the rolled
up leaf, Take a picture to unroll them, kind of
show me underneath where you say it looks like it
may have been eating. Take some good, close up, well
focused pictures. I'm going to put you on hold and
Jonathan will give you an email and send me those
pictures and we'll take it from there. Thank you. I

(01:19:27):
got to run for a break here. Yeah, unfortunately, I'm
right on a break, so I just wanna let's see
Laura and Nan and Louis. We are coming to you
right when we get back from break, all right, welcome
back to the Garden Line. Good to have you with us.
We're gonna get right to our callers here who are

(01:19:48):
patiently waiting online. We go to Laura. Hello, Laura, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:19:54):
Thank you, sir.

Speaker 13 (01:19:55):
I heard you speaking earlier about the Santa Suma bee,
a very.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Whole, whole hardy orange tree.

Speaker 13 (01:20:04):
But what do you recommend for the limit and the grapefruit.

Speaker 6 (01:20:10):
You know, there is to protect when there's fall.

Speaker 13 (01:20:12):
They're going to figure out something that's got to have
the best resistance to the cold.

Speaker 4 (01:20:19):
Okay, Well, grapefruit trees and lemon trees are not super
hardy citrus, and so those as species themselves are not
as hardy. We got to give protection for them whenever
we're going to get good cold weather, when it's going
to get down, Oh, I don't know. You know, let's

(01:20:40):
say below the upper twenties for sure. You know, maybe
when you get around twenty nine, if it's just for
a short period of time, you're probably okay on those.
But it just depends on how long it is and
what condition the plants are in, you know, because plant
hardiness itself, even as a plant gets older, Laura, it's

(01:21:00):
a little better able to take the cold. You know,
you take a satsuma, which is cold hardy, pretty cold
hardy once it's established, but in the first three years
it's not as cold hearty as it is as it
gets older. So it's a function of all those things,
plant health, plant age, and then where it's located, and
how fast the temperature drops, for example, would be another thing,

(01:21:22):
and how long it stays cold. So when it comes
to ponderosa lemon, that's a pretty hardy lemon as far
as lemons go. But it's a big, old, giant lemon.
It makes a huge tree and for most people it's
just not practical. It's more of a novelty. But in general,
the grapefruit that you mentioned and lemon trees are going

(01:21:46):
to need some protection.

Speaker 13 (01:21:48):
All right, sir, I appreciate your time.

Speaker 4 (01:21:52):
Yeah, hey, Laura, before I'll let you go, where are
you located? It doesn't stay here on the board, Oh okay, helping, Yeah, okay, yeah,
all right, Well that you you can have some cold
weather there. Yeah, all right, we appreciate it, Thank you
very much, Thank you man. I appreciate that. Now we're

(01:22:14):
going to go to Galveston. Talk to Luise Hey Luise,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 17 (01:22:18):
Good morning Skip. Just a quick question, is there any
is there any benefits to adding coffee grounds to your lawn,
of which I'd been doing the past uh two week intervals.
I've been collecting spent coffee grounds, spreading him, adding a

(01:22:40):
little water after. But I'm not sure I'm seeing any benefit,
any difference in the grass itself.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Nothing fast. So coffee grounds are often used maybe in
a container or in a in a garden bed, you know,
where it's a smaller area. In a lawn, we like
to do things to the whole lawn other than just spots,
So if the coffee grounds made it green, you would
end up with green spots wherever you're put in the
coffee ground, right, They do have quite a bit of

(01:23:07):
nitrogen that can be released over time as they decompose,
and they are slightly acidifying, so there's nothing wrong with
them as long as they're used in moderation. But I
don't think in a lawn you're going to see a
significant difference. Just to do the fact, you know, if
you had a couple of wheelbarrows of coffee grounds, well
maybe maybe so, but I would use them in smaller

(01:23:31):
planting bed areas where maybe they can make where you
can use a little higher quantity per square foot. Okay,
thanks very much, appreciating you. Bet good luck with that.
Good luck with that. All right, Now, we're going to
go to Jersey Village and talk to Dan. Hey, Dan,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 6 (01:23:52):
Good morning. I have questions about candy dullus. I'm saying
that right. But they're lilies in a general man and
sold them. Do I cut them back now? Or I've
done it in the past and the spring after the
cold weather cut them back and the colis come back.

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
What's the best way you can do that? You can
cut them back if you get a little ragged stuff
before the fresh spring growth comes out. They're really kind
of cool. They're kind of like BlackBerry lily is they
look candy lily and BlackBerry lily look a lot of
like little beautiful little flowers kind of in a oh,
I don't know, a coral orange yellow, sometimes a little

(01:24:31):
bit lavender direction, but with the spots on the petals
and things are very beautiful and they're not hard to grow.
So I've had them before where I didn't do anything
to them. I just I just put them out there
and let them do what they're going to do, and
they'll do just fine. They're they're real, They're real, easy,
easy plants.

Speaker 18 (01:24:51):
Yeah they are.

Speaker 6 (01:24:52):
I've got over one hundred foot of them, So I
just I love them. That create good privacy and everything.
But either cut them back, can mult over them, or
or just leave them alone? Or what kind of fertilizer
would you throw them to and enhance.

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
Just you know, just a moderate amount of a complete fertilizer.
You don't want to push them with too much nitrogen,
just a moderate amount. How taller? How tall are yours?

Speaker 12 (01:25:18):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (01:25:19):
Anywhere from four to six foot?

Speaker 12 (01:25:23):
Now?

Speaker 4 (01:25:23):
Are we talking about candy lily? Or are you talking
about a tiger lily?

Speaker 16 (01:25:27):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:25:28):
Well they have the orange flower. You're talking about candy
lily or cannae lily. I don't know how the what
they're actually called.

Speaker 4 (01:25:36):
Okay, well let me ask let me ask you this.
Are the individual flowers about the size maybe a tennis
ball or less, or are the individual flowers more like
a baseball softball?

Speaker 19 (01:25:51):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:25:51):
They grow on to shoot, you know, they kind of
a whole bunch of flowers on it. They're not individual
fly it kind of on one.

Speaker 4 (01:26:01):
Shoot, yeah, I get that. I'm just saying, like, if
you were to pick one of the flowers out of
the ones along the huote, one of the flowers, is
it more like, Okay, I think you're talking about a
tiger lily. I think you're talking about a tiger and
that's that's a little that's okay, that's that's all right.

(01:26:22):
That's that's just a little bit different of a creature.
And I'm assuming you're said they're orange, yes, is that right? Yeah? Okay, well,
those are very popular on tiger lilies. The petals tend
to curve backwards, with the little filaments and anthers sticking

(01:26:42):
out in the middle beyond them. But the petals sort
of curved back. Sometimes they almost look like a falling
star or something. It's very very unusual. But those those
are really uh, they're they're also not that difficult to grow.
You probably need some sort of port for the stems
on them. Have you noticed you're just producing little look

(01:27:04):
like black berries where the leaves and stems and flowers
come together.

Speaker 6 (01:27:10):
They don't. They they're okay on a rod scents basically,
and they just kind of lean against that. When I
have twelve. I'd just tie them up a little bit
if a need to. Okay, they start leaning too much, well,
because they are pretty top heavy at times.

Speaker 4 (01:27:27):
Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure you're talking about tiger tiger lily.
If you're going to fertilize them, you something with more
potas or phosphorus the middle number, but not a lot
of nitrogen. They're already kind of a lanky growing plant,
and you don't want to you don't want to push
them with a lot of nitrogen. So a food that's

(01:27:47):
made for plume areas would be a good choice for
your tiger lilies, or just a yeah, just not too
much nitrogen the first.

Speaker 6 (01:27:58):
Number, gotcha, all right, thank you very much.

Speaker 4 (01:28:04):
Yeah, and when they bloom, when you get blooms this
next year, take a picture or two and email it
to me. I'd love to see those.

Speaker 6 (01:28:11):
Okay, I'll get them all going at once. It'd be
It's quite a sight.

Speaker 4 (01:28:16):
It is quite a sight, that is true. Well, hy Dan,
thank you, thank you very much for the for the
phone call. Appreciate that you know Jersey Village. I lived
in Cypress for a number of years. When I was
in Houston area. In the Cypress area, rather, and one

(01:28:36):
day it dawned on me what Jersey Village was named for,
and it dawned on me what Darry Ashford Street was
named for, and so on. It finally is like what
the big dairy production area up do there. In fact,
if you got onto RCW Nurses, which is where two
forty nine comes into belt Way eight, the beautiful giant

(01:28:59):
sycamore on the property down there. David Williamson was telling
me that that used to be a dairy right in
that area. And I still have those giant, beautiful sycamores
there from back in the day. But I think Houston's
grown a little bit since then. So it's, you know,
as it's gotten bigger year by year, just a new

(01:29:19):
spreading ring around the city each year gets bigger. It
sort of ate the dairy industry as it grew out
from there. But that was kind of interesting to me.
Sometimes you think, well, I should I should have wondered
about that a long time ago. Jersey Village and Darry
Ashford all that kind of thing. All right, we're listening

(01:29:40):
to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richtor our phone number
if you'd like to give me a Cafinally got those
calls cleared out. I don't like people to have to
sit and wait very long if I can control it.
But we now have wide open seven one three two
one two k t R H. If you've got a
gardening question that we could help you with, we would
be happy to do that. You know, Southwest Fortal has

(01:30:00):
been around since oh gosh, I think nineteen fifty five.
In fact, I was just I was just the other
day looking into you know, garden line. We trace our
lineage back to the Dewey Compton days, which is in
the nineteen fifties, and it went on from there. But
Southwest Fertilizer began in nineteen fifty five and it's been

(01:30:21):
a guardline sponsor since those Dewey Compton days. It's in
Southwest Houston, as you would expect, it's a corner of
bus Net and Runwick. When you go into Southwest Fertilizer,
you're going to find every kind of supply you need
for anything you want to grow. And so we're talking
about controlling pests, controlling diseases, fertilizing plants, quality tools to

(01:30:42):
get the job done. They got a ninety foot long
wall of tools there at Southwest fertilizer for you to
choose from corner of Businet and runwick again. If you
want to just go to the website at Southwest Fertilizer
dot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Do you need weed protection?
Do you want to kill existing weeds? Do you want
to prevent weeds? Do you want to get seeds? Great

(01:31:05):
supply of seeds, including a bulk seed bin where you
know that's one of the most economical ways to buy seed.
You're gonna plant beans or corner or something like that.
You just get your little scoop out of the bulk
seed bin, put in a little envelope and you're good
to go. And I mean, Bob carries a lot of
quality things like that, quality pruning tools. We are in
pruning season. Time to get going on the pruning. Stop

(01:31:28):
by there. Grab some of this fill coal with Barnel
and Corona, other quality selections. If you're an organic gardener,
you're not gonna find a bigger selection of products that
are organic in this Greater Houston area, then you'll find
a Southwest Fertilizer. If I endorse something on guarden Line,
it's gonna be at Southwest Fertilizer. They have great service,

(01:31:49):
they've got excellent advice, real friendly. And when you got
friendly service, quality products, and great selection, you're not gonna
do better. And that's exactly how I would describe the folks.
Southwest Fertilizer, corner of Bussinett and Redwick, Southwest Houston. Time
for me to take a little break here. When we
come back, we're going to go to spring Branch and

(01:32:09):
talk to HRDA. Look forward to doing that. You hang
on Hurda and we'll be right back with you. Hey,
welcome back to guarden Line. It's glad to have you
with us today. Well, let's say back out to the phones.
We're gonna go talk to hurt now in spring break.
Hello Hurta, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:32:28):
Thank you, good morning. My questions about foxtail fern.

Speaker 19 (01:32:35):
How cold tolerant are they?

Speaker 4 (01:32:39):
Well, you get a good hard freeze and you can
burn them back to the ground, but they'll come right
back out of the ground, so they should be just
fine in our area.

Speaker 16 (01:32:47):
Oh good, good, Well, I'm going to cover them when
I cover my cheffelera.

Speaker 6 (01:32:52):
I know I have to cover that one.

Speaker 15 (01:32:55):
By the way, A happy New Year.

Speaker 12 (01:32:58):
And blessed to you, you and your family.

Speaker 4 (01:33:02):
Well, thank you very much. We're gonna have a good
twenty twenty five, aren't we hurt.

Speaker 6 (01:33:06):
To Yes, sir, we're looking for alrighty.

Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
Well, thank you for colling, Thanks for being a listener.
You take care of alrighty, alrighty, bye bye, all right,
let's head out to Cypress. Now we're gonna talk to Susan. Hey, Susan,
welcome to garden Line. Alrighty. We're gonna see if we
can get Susan there back on the phone and put

(01:33:31):
her on hold here and we'll come back to Susan
here we get her back on the phone. There's a
number of different things that I promote when we're talking
about garden Line, and I want to I want to
just say something. I get to choose who is a
sponsor and is not a sponsor on garden Line. I
do so when you hear me talking about a company,

(01:33:53):
it's a company that I believe in. Either I've seen
the research on their product, or I've used and or
I've used their and I know that it works. And
a good example of that is Nature's Way Resources. You know,
John Ferguson years ago founded Nature's Way Resources as a
student of the soil. He knew how nature works, putting

(01:34:14):
the soil in place in a form, in a situation
with microbes and nutrients and drainage and all of that
that makes success. And he built his company around that.
Now his son in his CEO of Nature's Way Resources,
and nothing has changed in terms of doing things the
right way, creating soils that turn what would we would

(01:34:37):
be calling natural waste in some of the best composts
in Multius that you possibly can have. That team out
there has been doing this for years. They know how
to do it. They know how to make quality products
that help you have success. And if you want your
thumb to look green, go out to Nature's Way and
get some of the stuff they make. That's brown, and
that is compost and that is multius for on top

(01:34:59):
of the soil, and that is special bed mixes for
everything from acid living plants to vegetables and herb plants
to flowering plants. They've got a blend for everything you
possibly could need. Ian continuing his father's mission on creating
a healthy environment for generations to come, because all things

(01:35:20):
begin in the soil. I saw a quote one time,
That says mankind. Despite all our artistic pretensions and successes,
Mankind owes that success to a six inch lratopsoil in
the fact that it rains and in Nature's way. That
is the kind of quality mix that they make because
it does all begin in the ground. It is brown

(01:35:41):
stuff before green stuff. Sabi Nature's Way resources. They're up
on I forty five on the way to Conrod, just
where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia. You just
turn right if you're going north on forty five, cross
over the railroad tracks Sherwood circles right there. That's where
you will find Nature's Way resources. And that is where

(01:36:02):
you will go home with. Whether it's a trailer or
a bunch of bags in the back of your car,
you will go home with some of the best stuff
that you can have to set you up for success.
We're going to now head to Cyprus, Texas and talk
to Susan. Do we have Susan?

Speaker 13 (01:36:19):
I hope, So how are you?

Speaker 4 (01:36:22):
I'm good, Susan, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 13 (01:36:25):
No thanks. I was lazy and never put down my
pre emergent in November. What should I do at this
point in December. In January, what should I do now?

Speaker 4 (01:36:37):
Well, you should wait and watch if you see a bunch,
is this a lawn or what are we talking about?

Speaker 13 (01:36:42):
It's a lawn and I'm already seeing weeds come up
that I didn't have last year.

Speaker 4 (01:36:46):
So what should I do at this point? Okay, give
it just a little bit longer. Once we get a
little further into January and the weeds get a little larger,
you can use a post emergent urgent weed control product
on them. Those post emergent products kill existing weeds. Now
once the weather gets warm and we're up, let's even

(01:37:09):
the upper eighties, some of those products can be stressful
to your Saint Augustine, so we want to do it
before it gets too far along. You also want to
do it before those weeds begin to bloom and set seed,
because then they're they're more difficult to control, or in
some cases they've already made seed, which sentences you to another.

Speaker 12 (01:37:26):
Year of this.

Speaker 4 (01:37:28):
So you know, make sure they're up and growing and
while they're still young. A post emergent weed control product.
There's a lot of different blends in the market from
various companies that you spray on your lawn and it
controls them. There are also some fertilizers that have a
post emergent in them that you can use. You just

(01:37:48):
need the If you're going to use one of those,
you need the weeds to be wet. So if it
hadn't rain, just rained, you need to sprinkle your lawn
to get just enough to get the weed surface wet
so those granules stick to the weed and you can
go about it that way. Also, you said to.

Speaker 13 (01:38:03):
Be careful with post emergion in Saint Augustine. What about
post emergent in Bermuda?

Speaker 4 (01:38:09):
Not as much, but I said, I was saying, be
careful if if the temperature, you know, is in the
upper eighties or above. So that's why we you know,
when you're in the heat of summer, it's it's a
difficult time for most post emergents to use, most post mergents.

Speaker 13 (01:38:27):
So okay, okay, So I should wait for the weeds
to get a little I should wait for the weeds
to get a little more developed in January and then
put down post emergent as long as it's cool.

Speaker 4 (01:38:37):
Yeah, yeah, because here's why, the more of a weed
you get, the more leaf area there is to get
the spray on, and you know you would if you
spray them all let's say spray them in late November
or December, Well you would have new seeds that come
up and then you do spraying again. So I'm kind

(01:38:58):
of waiting a little bit, but not too because those
weeds sit there as very tiny weeds, and all of
a sudden they take off growing and they're already starting
to grow a little bit. So just don't delay too
long on them.

Speaker 13 (01:39:11):
Thank you very much, have a great day, all.

Speaker 4 (01:39:15):
Right, Thank you, Susan, appreciate the call. Well, it looks
like I'm coming up here on another break that just
keeps sneaking up on me. But I guess they say
time flies when you're having fun. Kromit the frogcess times
fun when you're having flies. But that's a whole nother discussion.
We're going to take a break. When we come back,
Christine and Paarland, you will be our very first up.

(01:39:36):
All right, welcome back here. We are continuing on in
the garden line. Glad you're listening. Thanks for joining us.
Welcome to twenty twenty five. This is the best gardening
year you are ever going to have. Just stay tuned.
And let's do this together. Gardening is not rocket science.
I don't think rocket science is rocket science. If I mean,

(01:39:57):
if you know what you're talking about, well they say
it's not rocket science. Well, if you're a rocket scientist,
I don't think it's difficult at all because you already
know what you're doing about. That's the same thing with gardening.
We're going to help you out here. We're gonna help
you have success, and you're gonna have a good time
doing it, because that's what it's all about, is having
a bountiful garden, having a beautiful landscape, and having fun

(01:40:18):
in the process. So stick around here we go. We're
gonna go to Parland now and talk to Christine. Hello, Christine,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (01:40:28):
Good morning.

Speaker 4 (01:40:28):
How are you today, I'm well, thank you. How can
we help?

Speaker 20 (01:40:40):
Well, what you can do is we we had since
Bugsy leaved last year and my husband she breaked everything.

Speaker 13 (01:40:49):
Out and down fertilizer.

Speaker 20 (01:40:52):
We plugging on containment to see over the summer and
screening summer. Really Christmas decorations up and we're cleaning up
any founts, bugs all over Christmas decorations and.

Speaker 13 (01:41:06):
We're like, oh my gosh, you can't bugs again.

Speaker 20 (01:41:09):
If you put down the triathline treatments right be for
you know, so the winch started and fertilized, and we're
just trying to figure out what you can put down
on the line to stop this bugs from coming up
or at least get distinch bugs because it is slightly brown.

Speaker 12 (01:41:26):
But not circular.

Speaker 4 (01:41:28):
Okay, okay, well, so good news. Those are not chinchbugs
you're seeing around the Christmas decorations. Chinchbugs can't take the
weather we're having. They're not out in any numbers. But
there are a lot of bugs that look like chinchbugs.
So you're seeing some other kind of insect. But it's
not a lawn concern. Uh. If you will go online

(01:41:49):
to Gardening with Skip that's my website, Gardening with Skip
dot com. There is a lawn pest, disease and weed
management schedule and you can look at it online or
you can print it out. I'd suggest you print it
out as well as the lawn care schedule. If you
look on there and you it's a January through December schedule.

(01:42:11):
So you just go from you know, left to right,
it'll tell you exactly when chinchbugs typically appear, and that
is June through September. Okay, Now, by the time we
get in, you know, to September, they're already heading downhill.
But the summer months, especially as we go from July
to August, that's kind of the worst chinchbug season. But

(01:42:34):
that's when we do our treatments for them, and the
schedule tells you exactly when to treat and what do
you use, so if it comes back next year, you'll
be ready to go.

Speaker 13 (01:42:45):
Okay, all right, thank you very much for your help.

Speaker 17 (01:42:48):
We really appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:42:50):
Well, thanks for listening to garden Line. And you just
keep your eyes out for those little boogers now that
you know what they look like, catch them early before
they do that much damage again, and you'll be in
good shape. Thanks Christine. We're going to go now to
Austin County and talk to Doris. Hello, Doris, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 15 (01:43:09):
Thank you. How are you today?

Speaker 4 (01:43:12):
Well, I'm good, I'm good. It's the best gardening year
I'm ever going to have, so I can't not be good.

Speaker 8 (01:43:19):
Okay, what can I put on my crpe myrtles?

Speaker 15 (01:43:23):
Because of the blacks stuck that's on the trunks.

Speaker 4 (01:43:29):
Okay, this time of the year, there's about the only
thing that you can do would be to spray a
dormant oil on those trunks and branches. That's crape myrtle
bark scale that's causing that. The little white things that
are in and among the black stuff, that's the scale

(01:43:49):
insects or oil smothers scale. Now, having said that, crpe
myrtle scale is one of the scale that we have
more difficulty controlling with the oil sprays. Once the plants
begin to push, sap and grow, there are drenches that
you can put around the base of the plant. You

(01:44:09):
drench the soil and not just a spray, but literally
in like a watering can or a bucket, and the
plant takes it up and it gets in the plumbing
of the plant. And that way, when that scale tries
to suck the juices out of the plant stems, it
gets the poison and it kills the scale. But that

(01:44:29):
we're a little early for that because the plants aren't
actively taking up a lot of stuff right now.

Speaker 6 (01:44:36):
Okay, what's the name of it.

Speaker 4 (01:44:40):
Well, on the dormant oil would be the one that
I would use now, and you've got to get good
coverage all around the plant. In other words, every surface
of the branches, trunks and branches needs to be sprayed
with oil that would be dormant oil. When we get
into the drench, you're going to use a product. I'm

(01:45:03):
gonna do you have a pin or pencil handy there?

Speaker 2 (01:45:06):
Yes, I do, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:45:10):
The first there's two ingredients, and either one works. The
first one that I would suggest is called dino tepheron
and it's spelled d I n O like dinosaur d
I n O t e f u r a n
dino tef fern. The second option is in mid oh cloprid.

(01:45:37):
It's I M I d O c l O p
r I d em mid oh clo prid. Either one
of those, not both, either one. You're going to find them.
You go to a you know, a good quality garden center,
ace hardware stores out those fertilizer any of those kinds
of places, and just tell them I need something with

(01:46:01):
one of these two products in it, and that will
be what you use and follow the label.

Speaker 14 (01:46:06):
Instructions and you do this what in the springtime.

Speaker 4 (01:46:10):
Then in the springtime, when your crepe myrtles start to grow,
you know, maybe got six ten inches of new shoot
growth on them. That would be a good time to
go ahead and get those down.

Speaker 6 (01:46:20):
Okay, And if I do it now, I use the
dormant oil and spray Dorman oil.

Speaker 4 (01:46:26):
Now, yeah, that's what we do for scale in general.
We do the Dorman oil because it smothers the scale.
But Dorman oil you have to cover every surface because
any spot you miss with a living scale, it won't
hurt that that scale won't be controlled.

Speaker 15 (01:46:41):
Okay, okay, all right, good luck, door, Thank you very much.
Have a great garden year.

Speaker 4 (01:46:49):
All right you as well, thank you very much for that.
All Right, let's see here we are. We are now
going to go. I think I have time. We're going
to try to take a call here from Marie in Baytown.
We're running short on time, but let's see if we
can help you out.

Speaker 19 (01:47:03):
Okay. I just have a quick question. I still have
about fifteen to twenty great fruits on my tree, and
I was just wondering do I need to pick those
now before it gets cold or can they stay on
the tree a little bit longer.

Speaker 4 (01:47:18):
See you are in Baytown. I think you're going to
be okay, you know you're I think your temperature. What
are you looking at getting into about thirty or do
you know what your prediction is.

Speaker 19 (01:47:30):
Down there they're saying about thirty.

Speaker 4 (01:47:33):
Yeah, yeah, I think you'll be okay. I don't think
that it's going to be both thirty for very long.
And I think you're going to be okay on it.
If you want to pick a few, you could, but yeah,
that's my that's my best guess on it. I'm not
a weather man, Okay, all right, thank you, all right,
thank you very much. Appreciate you, Bet, I appreciate your call.

(01:47:56):
Cameraon up in Conrad. We're going to hold you till
we come back from break, so I'll have time to
uh properly answer your question. Just hang on with us
and we'll be right back, folks. Our number is seven
one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Now
I mentioned my lawn care schedule and my lawn pest disease,

(01:48:19):
and we'd management schedule, folks. Timing is important on everything,
and so if you print these schedules out, they are
on my website. If you print them out, the schedule
is from January through December. It tells you, you know,
when does brown patch occur? When did chinchburgs occur? When

(01:48:40):
does sid webloms occur? When do I apply a pre
emerging harbs? It's all on the schedule. Gardening with Skip
dot Com.

Speaker 1 (01:48:48):
Welcome to k t r H. Guarden Line with Skip Ricord.

Speaker 2 (01:48:52):
It's so crazy than just watch him as.

Speaker 4 (01:49:22):
All right, welcome back, welcome back to your guardline. Good
to have you with us. I don't know what happened,
but somewhere halfway through the show today somebody left the
gates open. So we're going to run back out here
to the phones and let's see. We're going to start
with Cameron up in Conroe. Hey Cameron, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (01:49:41):
Hey morn Skiffer, you sir, I'm well, thank you good.
Just a real quick question I've got they didn't ignore.
You're growing out back of the house, probably the foot tall,
growing wild and I really don't have that green of
the thumb, but I'm I like to replant in another

(01:50:01):
location in my yard so that way you could grow up,
grow big. I'm on a heavy black gumbo soil. What
do you recommend for taking care of this thing this year?
In movement.

Speaker 4 (01:50:16):
Yeah, you know, magnolia's are happiest in our acidic forest
soils of the southeast, and so when you put them
on a black gumbo, they may or may not do
pretty well. They need good drainage first of all, So
if it is a heavy clay like that, somewhat of
a mound to help the soil drain away from the

(01:50:38):
surface would be helpful. Anything that makes the soil, you know,
a little better drained is going to be beneficial to them.
They like it a little bit on the acidic side.
Although they can take higher pH they prefer it a
little on the acidic side. So adding a lot of
composted materials to the soil, loosening up that clay a

(01:50:59):
little bit, getting it on a good mound. You might
even see a benefit from putting some expanded shale in
a very large area around them. And it takes quite
a bit of shale to do that, but that helps
open up that clay soil provide a little bit better
internal drainage. But those are all be things in your power.
Keeping a mulch on the soil all the time. You know,

(01:51:19):
in the forest, the leaves fall on the ground, pile
up and just rot year after year after year, making
the soil better and better. So do that around your
magnolia tree and as wide of an area as you
can to try to make it as at home by
creating that forest floor environment as you can.

Speaker 12 (01:51:37):
Okay, alright, perfect, and probably looking at an early spring
to do this, or.

Speaker 4 (01:51:44):
Well, the sooner you move it, the better. Now, the
sooner you move at the better. Get as much of
the roots as you can. They don't like it and move.
But if it's still pretty small, you may successfully move it.
But you need to do it soon because summer's coming,
and the more months it has to get a root
system established, re established, the better off it'll be when

(01:52:05):
when the heat arrives.

Speaker 12 (01:52:07):
Okay, perfect, Well, i'll all right after after this freezing
weather this week, I'll get to.

Speaker 4 (01:52:12):
It, all right, sir. You take care, Thanks for the call.
We're gonna go now to Alvin and talk to Frank. Hey, Frank,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:52:21):
Morning, Skip. I was calling about grafting trees the time
of year. I just got a little kit from Amazon,
and uh, I'm waiting to get some wound dressing healing,
you know, wound dressing and also uh It says something
about having to like put some spray or clean up,
like anti microbes or whatever. I don't know if they

(01:52:43):
equipment or where you do the cut at, but I
was looking at the you know, the procedure, and is
it the good time of the right time? Should I
wait a few weeks a few months to grab the
con trees and uh some fig trees?

Speaker 4 (01:52:56):
Okay? Well figs we yeah, figs, we are real. They
don't graft. You can take a fig branch, one of
those dormant little branches the size of one of your fingers,
cut off about an eight intersection of it, and stick
it in the ground a little root and grow. I mean,
they're very easy to do, figs. So you don't need
to graft the fig. I guess you could. I've never

(01:53:20):
I've never even heard of grafting a fig. I don't
know why you would, but most people just just stick
them in the ground and root them as far as
the pecan.

Speaker 5 (01:53:31):
Very good.

Speaker 1 (01:53:32):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 4 (01:53:33):
No, yeah, say on the pecans. I would think about
this just a minute. The do you have an existing
pecan tree you're grafting them onto that? That's a large trail.

Speaker 5 (01:53:49):
Describe to me what, yeah, what what you'd call the
root stock and I have one of those, and then
I have some other trees that are the paper shell
you know there that are a hybrid that's going to
grasp some of those limbs onto my rootstock tree, which
is it's just a native picon. It makes a little
small one sometimes and and.

Speaker 1 (01:54:11):
It does real paper.

Speaker 4 (01:54:15):
Okay, so if you have a little seedling coming up
it's still small. Let's say the tree itself is the
size of your little finger, then you can you can
use a different kind of graft on that. Uh that
like a whip graft even on those as pecans get
a little bigger or as you're what we call top

(01:54:35):
working a tree, meaning you got a tree and you
got all these branches, you want to find a branch
it's about the size of a coke can, a soft
drink can, and cut it off there and do what's
called an inlay bark graft on those that that's the
best way to go about that particular graft. And have
you seen how to do those somewhere?

Speaker 5 (01:54:55):
Yes, I've seen some YouTube videos about Okay, you've got
to make a little split and then you slip it
in between there and then wrap it.

Speaker 4 (01:55:04):
Yes, yes, very very important to follow that carefully. If
you go to the Aggie Horticulture website, just do a
search for Aggi Horticulture. Go to the fruit and nut
resources page. There is specifically something for Texas inlay graft
and Texas four flap graft. Those are two different graphs
I said the whip graft. Actually the four flap would

(01:55:26):
probably be your better way to do if you have
very small stock, like the size of one of your fingers.
But anyway, those are the two that we primarily do
in Texas for pecans wrap. You want your graft would
to be You want your graft would to be dormant
with the inlay bark graft. But you want to wait

(01:55:46):
until the tree you're grafting it onto, the sap has
started to flow. Like right now, if you went out
and tried to peel back the bark on that existing tree,
the bark is firmly attached to the wood, but once
a app blows, the bark peels like you're like you're
peeling a banana. It just comes right off. That's the
stage where you do the inn lay bark graph. But

(01:56:07):
but the wood you're using needs to be dormant, stored
in the in the refrigerator to to stay.

Speaker 5 (01:56:13):
Dormant, very good and regarding like wound dressing. And then
I don't know what it's like. An antiseptic that they
were talking about is just for the tools, yeah or yeah,
I would not.

Speaker 4 (01:56:26):
I would not. I would not use worry about anterceptic
on the wound. Uh, I mean, you know it. I've
never for for printed pecans, I've never I mean, grafting pecans,
I've never uh, you know, dealt with antiseptic on the tools.
I mean, you could spray them with some life soil
if you want to do that, that'd be fine, but uh,

(01:56:46):
the main thing is making the graft properly. Uh you don't,
you don't. You can use things like grafting wax and
whatnot to it, but bottom line is just uh you know,
just get you, uh, a plastic bag to wrap around them, uh,
and you tie it to the branch and you tie

(01:57:06):
it up on the grafted piece so you create a
complete air tight section underneath there to hold the moisture
in and then wrap the whole thing with foil. This
is all in the publication that's on Aggie horticulture. Wrap
it in foil to reflect any sunlight outside of that
clear bag.

Speaker 5 (01:57:24):
Okay, so we're not really in the season for doing that. Yeah,
we need to get other side of winter time.

Speaker 8 (01:57:32):
Yeah probably what worried?

Speaker 4 (01:57:35):
Yeah, get your get your graft wood now, but but
store it in the fridge and then do the graft
in spring when the when the sap starts to flow
and growth starts to appear. Hey, I got to run.
We're on against a hard break. But good luck with that.
And if you have any other questions on it, follow up,
just give me a call back sometime. All right, folks,
I've got to run to a break. When we come
back from break. We are going to talk to Dennis

(01:57:57):
and Gary after the break. Who can tell me the
name of the band? So send them that The Wonders
aka Theaters. You have to look that one. Ups. They
spelled Wonder O n E one was one, so when

(01:58:19):
people looked at Wonder it looked like okay, you heard
it here first on Garden Life. Let's go to Gary.
We're going to talk to Gary now on Guarden Line.
Welcome to the show. Gary, Good to have you with us.

Speaker 18 (01:58:33):
Hey, good morning, Stip.

Speaker 4 (01:58:34):
How are you doing. I'm well, I'm well, how can
we help?

Speaker 3 (01:58:39):
Hey?

Speaker 18 (01:58:40):
Yeah, So I've got some fruit trees I'm wanting to plant.
I picked them up at a box store there. Uh,
there's a couple of peach trees, a couple of plum trees,
and a big and pretty elementary question I guess is
when's the best time of the year to plant those?
Is it now or wait till we get closer to springtime?

Speaker 7 (01:59:00):
Now?

Speaker 4 (01:59:01):
Absolutely, now, get them in the ground. Yeah, sooner you
get them in the ground, the sooner they're able to
start put it producing the root system they'll need to
go through this first summer. So when you pull them
out of the container, if you see roots circling, if
you can kind of tease them out of there and
dig a hold of to accommodate them. Don't wrap the
roots up in the hole. They don't unwind underground, of course.

(01:59:23):
And if you need to cut a root, go ahead
and cut the root. It's okay to cut it. Within
two weeks it'll be sprouting new side roots from behind
the cut, and it'll be a much better established tree
as a result. So don't if you've got circling roots,
unwrap them or cut them more likely going to have
to cut them.

Speaker 18 (01:59:41):
So what about the frequency of water in them at
this time of the year, is it is it important
that you water them on a pretty frequent basis.

Speaker 4 (01:59:52):
This time of year. A good watering in when you
plan them should be sufficient. They're going to be dormant
if they have mari lost their leaves, they will this week.
But you shouldn't have to water them until they begin
new growth, and then you can begin to provide some water.
Just always remember the first months, even the first summer

(02:00:12):
after planting, the roots are still quite confined. They haven't
fully stretched out into all the soil around them, and
so regular watering is a little more important for a
newly planted tree during its first two or even three years,
especially the first year.

Speaker 18 (02:00:32):
Okay, And so I've got a mixture of soils out
there in my property. Some of it's clay and then
there's some of it's more loamy. I guess would be
better to plant and the loamy obviously, but that's something
I was wondering too.

Speaker 4 (02:00:47):
Yeah, they like a sandy loam soil that is their
absolute favorite. Not everybody has that. And we can make
peaches grow and a lot of other things. But if
you were to if you were to say, what what's
the best soil for peaches, it's sandy loam. And that's
why the biggest peach producing regions of our country are
of our state. Excuse me, are up in the Mahaya

(02:01:10):
area where there's a band of sandy loam soil that
comes through there, and over in Fredericksburg and areas that
have sandy loam soils. That's their favorite.

Speaker 21 (02:01:22):
Okay, well, appreciate your help and then answer my questions.
Thank you all right, Gary, thanks for the call. Appreciate
that you take care. Let's see we're going to go
now to Cove, Texas and talk to Dennis. Hey, Dennis,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 14 (02:01:37):
Thank you skip my question. I have two red tip
shrubs that I prume once a year whenever the weather
gets cold and it's going to stay cold, so now's
that time. And I always tram the tops back to
the eve of the house. So that's that's at eight
feet and typically I'm taking off own average about a foot.

(02:02:00):
Usually get up, you know, about nine feet, and I
take that off and the width I don't really have
a set marker, but because i'm trimming from a step ladder.
I usually wind up trimming the width so that I
can reach the center on top, you know, and stay
safely balanced on the step ladder. And what I've noticed
this year is that the shrubs seem to have spread

(02:02:23):
width wise much more than they've ever grown before. And
while I still would I would estimate be taken off
about a quarter of the total wood of the tree.
Because the foliage is typically only on the outside of
the tree. On the interior branches aren't really any leaves,

(02:02:45):
I'll be taken off a lot more of the leaves
I think, percentage wise I normally do. Is that a problem, Dennis.

Speaker 4 (02:02:56):
I missed the species of plant we're talking about.

Speaker 14 (02:03:00):
Okay, so I don't know this is the real name.
We call them red red tips. It's the shrub. The
leaves are mostly green, but the ones on the end
of the branches are red.

Speaker 4 (02:03:14):
Yes. Yeah, that's red tip fatinia. So you can print
that as much as you want and it'll come back
from it. What happens on all plants pretty much, especially
the shrubs than things. They tend to grow more outward
at the top and end up shading their base as

(02:03:35):
a result, you know, as the top gets whiter, think
of a capital V. It grows like a capital V,
and so the top shades the base and you lose
your foliage, which you want to have foliage all the
way down to the ground. So you kind of have
to work to keep the top at least vertical the
side's vertical, if not a little bit narrower at the top,

(02:03:57):
like I mentioned a capital V, think more toward to
capital A, not not like a Christmas tree shape, but
just get the top narrower and that allows good light
up and down all through that shrub, and as a result,
you have good foliage all through the shrub. So don't
be afraid to hack back as much as you need
to do that, because that shrub is constantly going to

(02:04:19):
be fighting you trying to be top heavy, and we
need it to not be top heavy for the aesthetics
of a nice full shrub.

Speaker 14 (02:04:28):
Okay, that answers my question.

Speaker 4 (02:04:29):
Thank you very much, Yes, sir, thank you for the call.
Appreciate that very much. Good good question, very good question,
good point. Earlier I was, you know, talking about the
importance of taking care of your plants, making sure that
you've got adequate soil, adequate nutrition, you know, adequate organic

(02:04:54):
matter content. It is important to when you take care
of a plant, to provide the roots what they need
because in a sense, plants grow in the root, They
live in their roots. I like to put it that
way because we sort of forget about the below ground part,
but keeping the roots happy is important. The Medina, the
folks at Medina makes something called humate humic acid. And

(02:05:14):
what is humic acid, Well, that's basically the final stage
of decomposing organic matter. So we have organic matter like
leaves and grass clippings and things. It decomposes into what
we would call compost, and then that decomposes into what's
called humus. It's the final stage, and the humic acid
is one of the natural ingredients that are in humus. Humus.

(02:05:38):
Uh does a number of good things for the soil,
and the humic acid helps with soil structure, It helps
with the way that the plant has access to nutrients
in addition to the fact that they're they're nutrients in
it in and of itself. But you make humatee I'm
having trouble saying. Humate humic acid from Medina is the
kind of thing you just mix a little in a

(02:05:59):
gallon of water, and when you plant a plant, you
just pour it on the root ball. As you replace
the soil, apply it again, give it another good drench.
It is very helpful. I will soak seeds in humus
or humic acid rather, and all you have to do
is put about a tablespoon per gallon of water of
the humane humic acid and then soak the seed until

(02:06:21):
that penetrates the skin and the seeds swell up, and
then plant them right away. Don't let them set like that.
Plant them. So I'll typically do that the night before
I'm going to go out and plant. And that's one
of the quality products there from the folks at Medina.
Medina also produces something called has to Grow six twelve
six now has to Grow six twelve six is a

(02:06:41):
high quality products. Got the six percent nitrogen, twelve percent sassium,
six percent excuse me, twelve percent phosphorus six percent potassium.
That is very useful to a plant trying to develop
a root system, to a plant trying to produce blooms
and foliage. Phosphorus very important for that. And it also
contains Medina soil activator, which we know been around a

(02:07:03):
long time. One of the most famous products from Medina
there is also present in the Hastigro six twelve six. Again,
I will use it when I'm transplanting. I will use
it anytime that you're wanting to apply a drench into
the soils, even a folier spray. You're not going to
burn with that. Just two examples of quality products there
from the folks at Medina that are widely available here

(02:07:25):
in the Greater Houston area and have been for ages.
Do you know I was just reading about Dewey Compton
or earlier and he talked about Medina products that goes
back to the nineteen fifties. Medina's been around a while,
It's been proven for a very long time, and gardeners
already know that. Now it's time for me to take
a little quick break. For gosh, we're coming up. I've

(02:07:47):
got another minute or so, so I'll just go a
little bit longer. We'll come back to your call though. Hey,
by the way, if you'd like to give me a call,
the phone number is seven to one three two one
two KTR eight seven one three two one two KRH.
Earlier I mentioned that tomorrow we were going to talk
about more about Randy Lemon. The host of Garden Line,

(02:08:09):
Dean Nelson, is going to come on the show in
the morning and we're going to talk a little bit
about a scholarship for Randy and just some memories of Randy. Actually,
today is the anniversary of both Randy's birthday and his
passing two years ago. They came as a shock to
everyone in the gardening world here in Southeast Texas, and

(02:08:30):
we'll be talking more about that then. I just want
to remind you, though, one more time, that Randy's scholarship
is still around at A and M. They've got it
funded to a level now where there is some funding
going to New A and M horticulture students. New A
and M horticulture students can receive the Randy Lemon Scholarship.

(02:08:52):
We want to get it funded better. I just think
we can do better than this. You can go online
and you can donate on line toward it. You can
do it by mail if you'd like to. There's a
lot of details to that. I make it real simple
on my website. Just go to gardening with Skip dot
com Gardening with Skip dot Com. The top item on

(02:09:12):
there is the Randy Lemon scholarship. It tells you how
you can give. And if you're one of the folks
that listen to Randy for years that appreciated the help
that he provided you, why not consider making even a
small donation toward that scholarship. I know Randy would be
so proud to know that we were doing this now.
And thanks to Dean for getting that all set up.

(02:09:34):
By the way, all right, I'm gonna take a little break.
When I come back. We're going to go out to
Humble and talk to Gary. Hey, welcome back to the
garden Line. Welcome back. Good to have you with us.
You are listening to the first show of the year
twenty twenty five, and twenty twenty five is gonna be
the best year you've ever had in gardening. I'm just
predicting that right now. It's gonna be my best year

(02:09:55):
of gardening. You know, the fun thing about gardening is
gardening is like the old etch sketches. I've used that
analogy before, but how many of you remember an etch
of sketch? You know, you had two knobs, one went
up and down, one sideways, and you tried to draw something,
and inevitably you went left when you should have gone
right or whatever, and it messes up the drawing. What
do you do? You turn it upside down and shake

(02:10:17):
it and you get a blank slate. Again. That's gardening.
Every year is a blank slate. In fact, halfway through spring,
if you don't like the way that garden looks, you
can just get you your rototiller, the equivalent of a
shake in the edge of sketch. You get to start
over again. It's okay. You can't fail at gardening. You
only give up. We're not going to give up. We're

(02:10:37):
going to have the best year ever. And I really
believe that. I think it's gonna be a good year.
Right now, we're going to go out and talk to
Gary in Humble. Hello Gary, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (02:10:48):
Thank you sir. Good morning. Say. I planned a myer
limit about three years ago, and about a year and
a half ago or so, whatever it was, it froze back.

Speaker 15 (02:11:03):
Completely.

Speaker 8 (02:11:04):
And then I started seeing some new sprouts above the graft.

Speaker 6 (02:11:10):
And now it's five and a half.

Speaker 8 (02:11:12):
Feet tall and but no blossoms at all. And I'm wondering,
do I need to protect this or do I let
it freeze.

Speaker 4 (02:11:24):
Well, let's see, you were an humble. It's gonna be
a little on the cold tide. I think I would
cover it up. I just protected a little bit at
the very least. If it's from above the graft, yes,
if it's above the graft, it will produce. It absolutely will.

(02:11:44):
From below, then you've got a rootstock.

Speaker 8 (02:11:48):
Yeah, But it's like I say, it's five and a
half foot tall now and not a blossom anywhere all year,
and it's been that, and you're.

Speaker 4 (02:11:57):
You're sure, okay, well it's all right? Are you sure
it's coming above the graph though?

Speaker 8 (02:12:03):
Right, I'm pretty sure there.

Speaker 6 (02:12:06):
I could see the line there.

Speaker 8 (02:12:08):
It's about an inch above. But yeah, yeah, because it
did grow full and but there's no blossoms in the
all year. So I'm wondering is it worth.

Speaker 6 (02:12:20):
All the time?

Speaker 4 (02:12:21):
Even a rootstock is capable of blooming, but it just
doesn't produce quality fruit. Is the growth on it more
thorny than your mar lemon was?

Speaker 8 (02:12:37):
It's about the same, But like I say, no blossoms,
there's a lot of leaves.

Speaker 4 (02:12:49):
Yeah, I you know, if it's not a lot more thorny,
I still think it's worth waiting and seeing, unless you
just want to hurry out I didn't.

Speaker 8 (02:12:58):
I don't think there's any thorn, so I don't recall
seeing thorn.

Speaker 4 (02:13:02):
Okay, I think you've got a lemon tree that's going
to settle in and start blooming for you here before long,
I do, so I just stick with it system, Okay, okay,
I need to produce exactly that's it. You got it.

(02:13:23):
Good luck with that, And if it ever produces lemons
for you, you just bring me half the produce to
the to the radio station and we'll call it even
Thank you, thank you, sir, Bye bye. Someday that joke's
going to get old, but not to me. You asked
my kids. I think jokes are hilarious that have ceased
to be hilarious. You know when I when my kids

(02:13:46):
were like age six and under, I ruled the room
even maybe seven and under. Somewhere along the line, I
became less funny. Isn't that amazing how that works? Well,
the way I like to put it is, I'm gonna
tell jokes that make me laugh, even if they don't
make you laugh. One of us has got to have
fun here. Thanks for being a listener to garden Line. Hey,

(02:14:11):
you probably have noticed that here in the Houston area,
we have a heavy clay soil. We call it gumbo
soil because it's a thick black clay. Not everybody does.
You may have sandy soil or sandy loam where you live,
but by and large, our Houston black clay is predominant
in this area. And when you have a clay that
has a high shrink swell potential, what that means is

(02:14:32):
when it's wet, it swells. When it's dry, it shrinks.
When you have that, you'll notice in the summertime, when
it's dry, you get these big cracks in the yard.
You know, big old cracks open up in the soil
because it's dry and it's shrinking, and then it gets
wet and it closes back up again. Well, that wrecks
havoc on your sidewalk and on your driveway and on

(02:14:52):
your home foundations. And you may notice that your doors
are sticking. They didn't stick before and I was under
sticking again, or maybe there's a crack in the sheet
rock or there's a crack in the brick on the outside.
Typically goes see those at the base of a window,
kind of going from the back one corner of the
window down to the ground, but they can to curl
all over the place. Well, that's a sign that you

(02:15:15):
got a foundation issue, and Fix my Slab Foundation Repair
is the go to place for that. Ty Strickland is
a native Houstonian. He's a fifth generation Texan and he
knows our soils. He understands this issue, and he knows
how to assess it and what to do about it.
The things I like most about Ty's work number one

(02:15:36):
is an honest fellow. Number two, he shows up on
time when he tells he's going to show up. That's
part of being honest by the way. He fixes it right.
And he charges a fair price. And what more can
you ask for any kind of a service industry coming
to your house, especially when they're dealing with the foundation
of your home. And he's been doing this for twenty
three years. He knows what he's doing. You give him

(02:15:58):
a call, tell him your guard line listener. Free estimates
for garden line listeners. You can go to the website
fixmyslab dot com, or you can call him two eight
one two fi five forty nine forty nine two eight
one two fi five four nine four nine Fix my
Slab Foundation Repair listen. If you think you may have
a problem, don't be at ostrich. Put your head in

(02:16:20):
the end. Call him if it's not a serious issue,
if if it's okay, there is such a level of
concern that's not worth worrying about. He'll tell you that.
But it's not going to get better, so don't put
it off. Go ahead and give Ty a call. Two
eight one two FI five forty nine forty nine. All right, folks,

(02:16:41):
We've got one more segment in the first show of
the year coming up, and I'll be right back with
your calls at five. Excuse me seven one three two
one two k.

Speaker 6 (02:16:51):
T r H.

Speaker 2 (02:16:53):
I love the.

Speaker 4 (02:16:56):
Welcome back to guarden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rick here,
and we're here for our last segment of today, the
first garden Line show of twenty five, which is going
to be the best gardening year we've ever had. I
really really believe that. You know, nature throws us curves,
but that's okay, we just continue on. We were resilient.

(02:17:17):
Gardeners are resilient. You know, gardeners have to have faith.
First of all, I mentioned this earlier. But to take
take a handful of seeds, I mean they look like detritus.
They look like debris on the ground, little chips of
wood or whatever they are, and they look dead, and
you put them in the ground, you give water to them,
and a miracle starts to happen. Water soaks into the

(02:17:39):
seed and starts a chain of biochemical reactions that ends
up with you getting a tomato or a petunia flower
or whatever kind of seed it is. Is that amazing?
I mean, you know, someone once said that anybody can
count the number of seeds in an apple, but only
God knows the number of apples and a seed, and

(02:18:00):
that you know it's really true. I mean, think about that,
that one little seed in the case of an apple,
just countless, countless production from it. All right, I'm gonna
get a little This isn't nerdy, this is philosophical. But
somewhere years ago, you know, the guy Johnny apple seed
that went through the countryside just scattering seeds everywhere, and

(02:18:22):
all these apples came up here and there and yonder,
well people would find one. That's a haphazard, just genetic occurrence.
That's what seeds are. Just like people are all different genetically, well,
apples are all different genetically. Any kind of seed is
going to do that. So they would find one and
they would go, you know what, this is a really

(02:18:44):
special apple. Let's take cuttings and let's graft them, and
let's name it, and that way we can produce more
of it. That's how the first red Delicious apple occurred.
And many of the oldest apple varieties were just hap hazard,
same with pecans pecans years ago. Some day I'll tell
you the story of pecans, but that's a whole nother story.

(02:19:06):
But anyway, so red Delicious just and other varieties. Now
we breed varieties like that intentionally by crossing apple parentage lines,
but they just occurred and someone said, oh I like
that one. I'm gonna save that one. So think about this.
I don't know how many Red Delicious apple trees have
been created over the years. I mean, you know, we

(02:19:27):
don't grow those down here in Texas, but apple producing country.
That's kind of like an old standard variety that for
years ruled the roost because it was longer, and it
was darker red, and it just it just had features
that were desirable. A seed sprouted, even if it was
an intentional collapse. Of course, one seed and one apple

(02:19:48):
produced the first red Delicious tree, and after that it
was a matter of grafting and grafting and grafting to
where there's thousands and thousands and thousands of acres of
genetically the same red delicious apples because in nature, one
seed sprouted and it had the superior qualities that someone
chose to select. So I just find that to be amazing.

(02:20:11):
I find plant genetics and just the you know, you
cross this, you cross that, and there are people that
do that as gardeners.

Speaker 12 (02:20:18):
I do.

Speaker 4 (02:20:18):
I do that with Okra myself, creating new varieties and things.
So it's kind of a fun fact something to think about.
Maybe get you excited about doing some plant crossing yourself.
We're gonna go out of Bay Cliff and talk to Sue. Hello, Sue,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 16 (02:20:34):
Hello, Skip, How are you?

Speaker 4 (02:20:37):
I'm good? I'm good. How can we help? Well?

Speaker 16 (02:20:40):
I have the long skinny egg plants and the black
beauty egg plants and they're just loaded with fruit. Are
they gonna be okay? Or do I need to try
to cover them?

Speaker 4 (02:20:57):
Well, if it gets below freezing, they're gonna or if
it gets close to freezing, they can even have frost damage.
And so you're going to need to cover them. Anything
you put over them that drapes down to the ground,
secure it to the ground to kind of hold some
airspace underneath there. You ought to be able to get
them through this freeze. Okay. If your area drops below

(02:21:17):
let's say thirty degrees for sure, then you're probably going
to need some source of heat underneath there. But what's
going to happen in these coming freezes this week is
it's going to drop down below freezing and then it's
going to come right back up when the sun comes
out in the day. We'll be up in the forties
and so we don't have to survive for twenty four

(02:21:38):
hours below thirty two degrees. So we're just protecting them
a little bit, and that ought to get them through. Okay.

Speaker 16 (02:21:46):
My second question the button. I have a calamandon that
is the chopped fruit all over it and they're starting
to turn orange. Should I go ahead and pick them?
I know nothing about this fruit.

Speaker 21 (02:22:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:22:04):
Klamandan is a little it's an orange like thing with
very small orange choice on it. It's used. It's ornamental.
First of all, people people love, uh the just the
ornamental factor, but they're also edible. They're just not the
you know, the best tasting orange type thing that you

(02:22:25):
could have. But I think they're attractive and I would
cover them in the kind of cold weather that we're
we're looking at having. So I think that's I think
that's worthwhile. Is it in a container?

Speaker 8 (02:22:40):
Yes?

Speaker 10 (02:22:40):
It is?

Speaker 4 (02:22:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (02:22:44):
Do you know.

Speaker 4 (02:22:46):
Me get you a dolly or something like that. Kalamandan's
are actually pretty cold hearty, you know. The more I
think about it, I think in your area, I think
I don't think you're have to bring it in or
cover it now that I'm thinking about it. Because they're
they're one of their parentage is come quiet and come

(02:23:07):
Quiet are hardy down into the teens. I think Klimanda
is going to take it down pretty well down into
the twenties and be okay. So I think you're gonna
be all right with it. I'm gonna adjust my statement
a little bit as I think about that.

Speaker 16 (02:23:21):
Klamanda, Well, I think it's confused because it's got flower
buds on it.

Speaker 4 (02:23:27):
To you, oh, flower buds too, I don't know how
will be.

Speaker 16 (02:23:33):
By And it's on the new growth. You had a
collar call while ago that had some new growth had
some curly leaves and stuff. You know, I never found
a leaf minor either, but I did find it like
a little web in there that I scraped out. But
that's where the new flower buds are at. I was

(02:23:55):
going to cut the tips off.

Speaker 4 (02:23:57):
You know, those are nice plants. They stay kind of small,
especially in the container. You know, they stayed rosed and small,
and so people liked to grow the because they you know,
it's easy to it's easy to do. But calm kalamandin
is is pretty cold hearty. So I think you're gonna
be okay. As far as the blooms themselves, I've never
I've never looked into that, Like sometimes a plant will

(02:24:18):
be hardy, but the blooms are not. But I think
you're going to be all right. If you want to
be careful, just put them on dolly running in the
garage and bring it back out. But I don't think
that's needed for a Kalamandin in the freeze. We're about
to have.

Speaker 16 (02:24:32):
Okay, because I just got it this past spring. You know,
it's fifty percent off. So I brought it home and
stuffed it in a container, and it immediately started blooming
and bearing these little fruits. And I was like Okay,
I thought, how do you like again.

Speaker 4 (02:24:52):
How do you like the bloom fragrance?

Speaker 8 (02:24:56):
Oh?

Speaker 16 (02:24:56):
It smells good.

Speaker 4 (02:24:58):
M yeah, a nice thing. The nice thing about a
container centrus like that is you can put it right
beside where you sit outside in the patio and just
it's like you have perfume just wafting over.

Speaker 16 (02:25:10):
All my guarden is and jasmines, and and my citrus,
because I've got lemon, lisbon lemon and Orlando TAngelo also
in a in.

Speaker 4 (02:25:23):
A my goodness to it. Well, you just got all
kinds of not so common fruit centrus fruit growing around there.
Send me a picture though sometimes when they're especially when
they're in blooming and things. I'd love to earn fruit.
I'd love to see that. Well, thank you for the call.

Speaker 16 (02:25:39):
Make sure of the kalamando, but I'll get it to
tomorrow maybe.

Speaker 4 (02:25:44):
Okay, Well, I'm gonna put you on hold and maybe
our produci will pick up and give you an email
where you can get that to me if you need that.
Thanks for the call. All right, folks. Music means I
gotta quit talking today. I'll be back in the morning though,
first thing, six o'clock. Hey, I'm gonna get up early.
So I can be on the air. You get up
with me, we'll talk by the way. Tip for the wise,

(02:26:04):
it's easiest to get through on phones earlier in the
morning when there was later on. All right, take care