Interview with Enchanted Forest

Skip takes your calls

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richter's.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Trim.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Just watch him as many good things to spot.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Almost again not a sign credit.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
Good Sunday morning, Good Sunday morning. Everybody. You are listening
to Garden Line and we are here to answer gardening questions.
Whatever you would like to talk about, well write this
down seven one three two one two k t r
H seven one three two one two k t r H.
Give me a call. Weeen talk about the things that

(00:59):
most are of interest to you. I am preparing some
of my landscape for me to be away a little while.
I just gave a good soaking to most areas of
the lawn yesterday, and that will carry me through a
long way. And one of the reasons is I have
developed a good, deep rooted turf grass. And what I

(01:22):
mean by that is number one. I put the lawn
in it did some soil prop but I have continued
to do things to make the soil better and better.
And as I watered my lawn, I do so is
deeply and infrequently as I can. So instead of watering
three times a week, like a lot of watering systems
are scheduled to do, I give it one good soaking

(01:45):
really hardly once a week. Even there's some areas I've
just watered a couple times this summer so far, but
we've had some rain, but still that's not very often.
And when you give it a good soaking and really
what that soil volume, and then let it sit and
not water again for a lot while the water moves
out of the spaces between the soil particles and air.

(02:08):
Of course, it's not going to be a vacuum in there.
Air moves in behind it, and oxygen is important to
the roots and that helps that grass develop a deep,
resilient root system. So think of it this way. The
roots are fingers going out into the soil around the plant,
and the farther and more extensive that finger development, that

(02:29):
root development is, the more volume of soil that plant
can draw from. In this case, the plant is your
turf grass, So by training it with deep and frequent waterings,
you can have a grass that's really quite resilient, and
it's amazing how well that does now. In sun lots,
more water is needed than in shade, so supplementally sometimes

(02:53):
I'll have to hit a couple of spots in the
sun just to water those areas because they're star to
need it, and I don't even want the shade area.
But that you know, that's just a technique. It's some
thoughts for you to think about. The more often you water,
the more disease issues you have because you keep the
leaves and runners wet. That is an issue. The more

(03:15):
the lighter you water, the more your irrigation ends up
basically being on the grass blades and on the in
the thatch with very little getting down in the soil,
very deep at all. So one way to save water
and to have healthier lawn is deep and frequent, mowing
deep and infrequently. That's the way you need to be

(03:38):
thinking about it. I think about the fact that I'm
paying for drinking water to put it on my lawn,
and then my sewer bill goes up. Because when you
use water, they connect it in most communities connect it
to your sewer rates as well.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
So h.

Speaker 4 (03:56):
Word for the wise you are listening to. Guarden line
are number is seven one three, two, one two fifty
eight seventy four seven one three two one two five
eight seven four. Just wanted to remind you I mentioned
this yesterday, but Langham Creek Ace Hardware which is on
five twenty nine, FM five twenty nine and Cypress. That
is the corner the intersection of Barker, Cypress and FM

(04:19):
five twenty nine. So those of you in Copperfield, this
is your backyard. They're having their grand opening and it
will be Friday, August thirtieth, Saturday the thirty first, and
Sunday September first. Three days they are given away incredible things.
There's gonna be vendors they're demonstrating, like on on Friday,
Weber Grill, On Saturday, Big Green Egg and something. The

(04:41):
Goysney pizza oven. You got to see this, one of
the top pizza ovens on the market and it's a
little thing stands, you can put it outside whatever and
it cook a pizza in it. It's just like one
of those little wood fired pizza ovens, you know where
they slide things into the brick oven that has not
made a brick anyway. There they'll be demonstrating those. They'll

(05:02):
be demonstrating Trager grills on Sunday the first of September.
Now giveaways. Check this out. Ego Power Plus Battery string
trimmer two hundred and fifty dollars machine given away in
a drawing on Friday. On Saturday, Weber Spirit to Gas
Grille four hundred and fifty dollars machine giveaway. Also on Saturday,

(05:22):
by the way, they're having a still open house fifteen
percent off all still equipment fifteen percent off all still
equipment Monday only just Saturday, and then Sunday they'll be
given away a paint room makeover two hundred dollars value.
They're at Langham Creek Ace Hardware. They were open before
they kind of closed doors a bit to redo the

(05:43):
whole store, and boy, here comes the new grand opening
Langham Creek Ace Hardware at the intersection of arker Cypress
and FM five twenty seven. So we get the end
of this month, the weekend that is the end of
this month. That's when you need to head over there,
because that, like the forty other Ace Hardware stores, is
a great place to find anything that you need.

Speaker 5 (06:06):
Well.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
For example, when you're Ace Hardware, they're gonna have the
fertilizers I talk about inside, but they're also gonna have
mosquito dunks. Now, if you have been under a rock
for a while and not heard of mosquito dunks, let
me tell you about them. Mosquito dunk is the coolest
thing in the world. It is a disease of mosquito larvae.
You've heard of BT that you spray caterpillars on your plants.

(06:29):
You spray BET and it kills the caterpillar, which is
a butterflower moth larvae. Well, there is another type of BT.
Doesn't kill caterpillars. It kills mosquito larvae and fungus gnats.
And that's what's in a mosquito dunk. So you can
take these doughnuts. One of them covers ten by ten
one hundred cubic one hundred cubic feet of water surface area.

(06:51):
So if you have a little pond or something like
that lasts about a month, slowly dissolves and it releases
this disease into the water. And when a mosquito eggs
in the water, their larva never are gonna make it.
That is a good thing. It does not hurt birds,
It does not hurt ladybugs and other beneficial insects. It

(07:11):
does not hurt pets like your family dog or cat.
It is just a disease of mosquitoes. It won't kill
other peests that you have don't try putting it on
something else other than fungus knots, but it really really works.
Mosquito dunks are widely available. They also have a granular form,
which is real handy when you don't need a whole dunk.

(07:32):
You can also just take a hammer and kind of
break up a dunk and use it make a granule
out of it. Either way, you want to go, those
bird baths, those rain barrels that hole up in a
tree where water gathers and the mosquitos are breeding up
in there. All of those areas are places where you
can use your mosquito dunks. I think everybody ought to
have some on hand all the time because we always

(07:55):
have mosquitos around here. And if you got some on hand,
you're ready to go. Well, it's time for me take
a little break. I will be back again the phone
number seven one three two one two kat R H
will talk to you in just a minute.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Back.

Speaker 4 (08:08):
Good to have you with us. We are really looking
forward to visiting with you about the things that you
are wondering about. We're going to go right now to
north West Houston and talk to Ralph. Good morning, Ralph,
Welcome to guard Line. Lou Ralph. Have you there?

Speaker 6 (08:28):
Yees here?

Speaker 5 (08:30):
Can you hear?

Speaker 4 (08:32):
I can down? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (08:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (08:34):
Well okay, no I missed out on you. I must
saint o see grass in front is the gretty bad
bad spots in it, but it's on the back.

Speaker 7 (08:43):
But I missed up.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
My whole water in the back.

Speaker 7 (08:46):
Of the yard is really good.

Speaker 6 (08:48):
But what I miss what if you were talking about?

Speaker 4 (08:52):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't quite catch your question.
What are you asking?

Speaker 6 (08:58):
Bob sat agine grass and you had a good feel
on it this morning?

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (09:05):
On watering, I was talking about water. Yeah, it's just
wrapped the best way to water along as to what
the soil about six inches deep and then don't water
for a while.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
And it helps to make deep resilient root system on
the grass and that that's what we need. Okay, But
water too little, too often.

Speaker 6 (09:27):
That's my trouble, I do believe.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
Okay, all right, Well we won't tell anybody. It's just
you and me right now anyway, so uh, I won't
tell anybody that. But no, seriously, it's uh, it's it's
not that difficult, and it actually saves you a little
bit of money. Okay, This new ordon center.

Speaker 6 (09:48):
It's talking about close to me.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Where is that at?

Speaker 7 (09:51):
I didn't hit that, oh.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
I was talking about the Ace Hardware store Langham Creek
Ace Hardware at the corner of FM five twenty nine
and Barker Cypress Road. That's right. Well, yes, on the southwest.

Speaker 6 (10:08):
Go ahead, Okay, I got you, Okay, okay. I appreciate
great program.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
Tie, thanks sir, thank hey, thanks for listening. Appreciate that. Ralph,
you take care alrighty uh. You know, the the lawn
soil environment is one where we want to do everything
we can to improve the soil and to make sure
we have a nutrient content there that supports grass grow.

(10:35):
And also we want to stimulate the biological activity that's
in the soil. That is why the folks at nitrofoss
put together something called sweet Green. It is a molasses
based product. And when you put molasses, which is basically sugar,
which is basically carbon in the soil, beneficial microbes are

(10:55):
benefited because that what they eat. If you look at
the good guy bacteria that are helping your plant roots,
they eat carbon. That's what they eat, and molasses carbon
put down in the form of this sweet Green. It's
not like a molasses, you know, like syrupy. Now, this
is granules, and you spread them with a fertilizer spreader.
They're very good. Nice spreading. It works really well. It

(11:20):
dissolves away and releases it's eleven percent nitrogen to the
root system. It smells good too. You can put a
bag of sweet green in the back of your car
and you start smelling it, and you may decide to
make another loop around six to ten on the way
home just to enjoy the fragrance of the of the
sweet green. Seriously joking aside, I would recommend putting it down.

(11:41):
You would normally put about ten pounds per thousands of
core feet. I would split that in half. I'd put
it down now, watered in real good, and about six
eight weeks from now, do it again and watered in
real good. And that spreads it out a little bit better,
and it gets you right up to the time where
you're gonna then your next fertilization will be the fall fertilization,
which will find on my schedule on my website Gardening

(12:03):
with Skip dot com. I encourage you to print those
schedules out. I think that'll be helpful for you. Now
you're going to find sweet green at places like Plants
for all Seasons on two forty nine. You're going to
find it at d and Defeed out there in Tomball.
You're going to find it also at Fisher's Hardware over
in Baytown. Night Foss products widely available all over the place. Well,

(12:25):
I was talking earlier this morning about water in the
lawns properly. I think the next thing I want to
remind you is mowing is one of the most important
things you do to create a beautiful lawn. A sharp
mower blade, that's number one. Mowing as frequently as your
life schedule allows you to do. For most people, that's

(12:46):
once every seven days. Because we're in a weekly life schedule.
That if you want a shorter lawn that's denser, you're
going to have to mow it more often. Golf Course
greens get mowed every day. Is that crazy? Can you
imagine mowing your lawn every day? But seriously, that's how
they get that density down low. They're barely cutting in
the off. When you let your long grow really big

(13:07):
and then cut it way back, that is very stressful
to the grass and it does not create density. In fact,
it opens the turf cannot be up so that sunlight
hits the soil all over the place. And wherever sunlight
hits a soil, nature plants a weed. That's how that works.
So what do you want to do, Well, what you
want to do is you want to be able to

(13:29):
provide a regular mowing schedule that creates the most dense
turf you can now, Watering, fertilizing, sunlight, all that's important.
It's not like the only thing is mowing, but people
discount the importance of mowing for turf density. It's like
shearing a hedge. The more often you shear it, the

(13:50):
more little where you cut off one little shoot on
the hedge with your shearers and it becomes two shoots,
and then you cut off those two and they become
four shoots and so on. That's what's happening in your lawn.
You're you're building a good density down down low in
the turf grass, and it just makes for benefits in many,

(14:10):
many different ways. If you're looking at your landscape and
you're kind of thinking, man, I need I need a makeover,
you know, maybe you just don't like the way it
looks when you drive up to the house maybe you
go out in the backyard and it's like, yeah, this
is this is okay, but I'd really like to turn
this into a place where i can really entertain friends
and family in the back Pierce Caapes is a company

(14:32):
that you ought to call and let me just let
them show you what I'm talking about. Go to Piercescapes
dot com, piercescapes dot com, book around the website, look
at some of the work that they have been able
to do. That they do. It's their normal way. I mean,
it's it's out hardscape patios with rock, it's rock retaining walls,

(14:52):
it's setting up landscape lighting, it's improving drainage, it's fixing
your irrigation system. They do all this and much much more.
They'll design a whole landscape for you, or they'll help
you with a small section where you're trying to revent.
Maybe you just want to put the front of the
house on display and create a nicer beds and plantings there.
They can do that. They also offer quarterly maintenance, trimming, weeding, fertilizing,

(15:16):
irrigation inspection, seasonal color changes. You know, those old summer
color plants are starting to go downhill because fall is
coming and it's time for the next section or next
season of plants, a cool season. They'll do that, the mulching,
making sure your malt stays nice and thick on the
bed so you don't deal with weeds. All of that.
Pierce Scapes again. The website is Piercescapes dot com if

(15:40):
you would like to give them a call two eight
one three seven h five zero six zero. You are
listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and
we're here to talk to you about the things that
interest you, about the questions that you might have, and
you can call us at seven one three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one

(16:03):
two fifty eight seventy four and we can visit with
you about any kind of thing that you might want
to ask about. There's plenty of things to talk about
when it comes to gardening. I was talking to Sherry
and Kelly from Plant Roll Seasons this past week at
the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association Show and just just
visiting with them. Their enthusiasm, their knowledge, it's really, it's really,

(16:28):
it's amazing and impressive. The family has been in business
right there just north of Luetta on two forty nine.
They've been in business since I think nineteen seventy three
something like that. It's a long time and they know
the area, they know the plants to bring in, so
you don't buy something that has no chance of growth
here right. They have the advice. So if you need

(16:49):
suggestions for plants, if you need diagnosis, if you need
something identified, either a photo on your phone or bring
it in in a bag, they can help you with that.
And if it requires a control can point you to
the many outstanding products. They have a very good section
of disease, weed and pest management control products, both organic
and synthetic. You can go to Plants for All Seasons

(17:11):
dot com, or you can call them two eight one,
three seven six, sixteen forty six. I'm going to go
out to Spring now and talk to Rich. Hello, Rich,
Welcome to guardliney.

Speaker 5 (17:24):
Good morning.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Skip.

Speaker 7 (17:26):
A lot of different I guess confusion regarding application temperatures
for different herbicides. I know Celsius is supposedly rated the
highest and Blindsides a little behind it. When you say
those temperature numbers, is that at the time that you're
applying it to the lawn or what the ambient temperature

(17:47):
will reach during the day pretty.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
Much the time you're applying it to the lawn. That's
not just a black and white, but it's like if
you're going to get up the ninety five today, but
you go out in the morning when it's eighty two
degrees and you spray it, then that will be much
better than trying to apply it when it's hot. We
minimize overall applications of herbicides in the summer, but there's

(18:12):
some weeds like Virginia button weed that it doesn't allow
us to do that. We've got to do some control
during warmer temperatures to get a hold of that weed. Yeah,
so that's it.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Good.

Speaker 7 (18:23):
Yep, yep, great because I have two neighbors I'm trying
to help and they Virginia button weed and doveweed.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
So yeah, Well another thing, Rich and I don't talk
about this on the air. I try to not get
too nerdy and in all the details so people's eyes
don't roll back in their head. But one thing about
even celsius, if you apply it when it's over ninety degrees,
it has a growth suppressing effect, which is okay, the

(18:49):
grass goes through it. But we'd rather not have that
if we didn't have to. So every herbicide we use it.
I'll say we use it reluctantly for sure, but just
know that every one has its drawbacks. Celsius during the
warm season, the hot season here is the best shot
we got. I'm about to have to run its break
time here, but thank you for the call. I appreciate that.

(19:11):
Thanks Jving, Yes, sir, thank you. Talk to you later.
Our phone number seven one three two one two k
t RH will be right back. Good Sunday morning to you.
I hope you are enjoying the day. It's a good day.
Every day is a good day. We are gonna talk
all kinds of things gardening this morning. If you want
to join in the fun, you can dial seven one

(19:32):
three two one two five eight seven four seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four on my
website gardening with a skip dot com. There is there
are some new publications two on nuts Edge. One that's
a quick one pager. The other one is three pages,
but it has a lot of information you need to know.

(19:55):
Did you know there are two different kinds of nuts edge.
People call it nutgrass. H there's a purple and a yellow,
and do you know that they are not equally susceptible
to all control products that are out there. Do you
know the way they set their tubers underground is different
and it affects the way we go about controlling them
as well. So there's a lot of information in there

(20:17):
to really help you get off your good start. There's
also on the website I put a noop publication that's
it Skips Weed Wiper, and I continually get calls from
people that they have a weed problem where you just
can't spray it. Maybe it's a grass that's growing in

(20:37):
your lawn and it's sticking up above your lawn grass
and you can't kill that weed with a spray and
not kill your grass because they know it's the same
same type of plant. But you can use a wiper
to wipe the herbicide on the weed. Only it's two
it's sponges that wipe it on the weed, and I'm
sure I show you online how to make that. It's

(20:59):
not very expensive and it works good. There's also a
publication that goes with it that is the different herbicides
for different kinds of weeds. So it's categorized like do
you have brushy weeds what would that be? Or woody
wheats that would be like the hackberry's coming up in
your fence line, a poison ivy coming up the pepper
vine that a lot of people have to struggle with.

(21:20):
Or do you have a grassy weed that's a whole
nother category. Or do you have a sedge like purple
and yellow nut sets that's another category? Or is it
a bulb like plant underground, which would be wild garlic
and wild onions. There's a different herbicide that we would
recommend for that. Those are both online for you either
look at online or print or do whatever you want with.

(21:40):
But I would encourage you to take a look at them.
That weed wipers made from a little grabber tool. It's
a type with suction cups on the end. And I
was just just the other day talking to somebody who
is at a Southwest Fertilizer in Southwest Houston and they
had those hanging on the wall there. Bob, of course,
does that surprise you that Bob, there'd be something he

(22:01):
doesn't have right that he has everything. That's what they
specialize in. I don't care if you're synthetic gardener and
organic gardener. If you want to deal with weeds, if
you want to deal with pass like insects, or do
you want to do with diseases? Do you want to
just fertilize your lawn. Every product that you will ever
hear coming out of my mouth is a Southwest Fertilizer

(22:23):
because they carry it all. They have really nice fertilizer
spreader options, from the little things that you push behind
to the little whirligigs you hold in your hand to
put out fire ant bait. They've got all of that.
The kneeling bench, I keep talking about the folding kneeling bench.
It's so cool. Southwest Fertilizer in Southwest Houston, corner Bissonett
and Renwick. That's it. That's what you need to know,

(22:46):
uh it. If you want to give them a call,
it's seven one three six six six one seven four
four seven one three six six six one seven four
four just go to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com.
One thing that you will know that you need to
know also is you can take in pictures on your phone,

(23:07):
like get up close, take a picture of a weed
and go in there and say hey, guys, here's a weed,
I got what kills it? And when do I apply it?
And how do I do it? And then tell you
all of that. You can bring them a sample as well,
but it's just a great place to shop. You are
listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richtor, and
we're here to help you hopefully have a more bountiful

(23:29):
garden and a more beautiful landscape by giving you some
good advice on things you need to do. A lot
of times people approach gardening problems with starting with a spray.
In other words, I got this, how do I kill it?

(23:49):
And I always my approach is to start with the
cultural things we do. If you got plants that are
in soggy soil and they're getting root rot, I don't
think the solution is a fungicide drench to control the
root rot. I think the solution is to fix the
soggy soil and then you don't even need to treat.

(24:10):
Otherwise you're treating and treating and treating. If you have
there are things that predispose plants to problems. For example,
we got the weeds in the lawn right they're coming
up in the lawn weed seeds. Well, our number one
goal is to mow, water and fertilize and get the
densest lawn we can. Now, there's going to be weeds
that get in a dense lawn. I understand that, and

(24:31):
we can recommend a product to kill those if you
want to do that, But always start, always think about
the cultural like why is this problem here? Why is
this disease occurring? Why am my roses just getting black
spot and all the leaves are falling off? Well, I'll
bet it's one of three reasons. Primarily number one, it's

(24:52):
a variety that's susceptible, So we could choose resistant varieties,
or we can choose to plant susceptible varieties, maybe because
they're planning too close and there's not good air movement
through them. So when the foliage gets wet, it stays
wet for longer, and the longer you have wet leaves
and more diseases you're going to have on your roses
and many other plants. You know, it could be a

(25:14):
number of different things that are causing. Maybe you've got
a sprinkler system that is wetting the foliage instead of
drip irrigation. Underneath those roses. Do you see what I'm saying.
So we can recommend a fungicide for black spot or
powder and mildew, but first let's figure out what can
we do to avoid the problem as much as possible.

(25:35):
I love to be out in the garden, but I
don't want to spend my Saturday afternoons out in the
garden at the end of a spray nozzle. For everything
that happens, I want to sprend it walk, spend it
walking around planting plants, harvesting things, enjoying the beauty of
it all. And that's kind of the approach that I

(25:55):
would highly recommend that you consider that exact approach, because
that that just makes more sense, you know, it just
makes more sense. We're going to head out now to Troy,
Alabama and talk to Paul. Hey, Paul, let's we've got
a few few just about a half a minute here,

(26:16):
and let's get us started and we'll finish after break.
How about that?

Speaker 3 (26:19):
No problem? I was going to ask you would round
up work on the sage christ.

Speaker 4 (26:25):
No, not not Well, it'll burn the top back, but
you don't get good tuber control with roundup. If you
go online gardening with skip dot com there are products
that are listed for there's a nutsedge publication that lists
a lot of products in a in a very quick answer,

(26:46):
sedge hammer is a good product that will do a
good job of controlling nuts edge. But you need to
read the publication because there's situations where it doesn't work
as well and you avoid that.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Okay, MSM will work on all you Southern grice, as
I've tried it on all you sloth and grace.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
It works real good on your hel grice.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, I have a great today.

Speaker 7 (27:13):
Appreciate you.

Speaker 4 (27:14):
Thanks Paul. All Right, folks, heading to a break, We'll
be right backline. Give us a call when you are
ready to ask a gardening question, any kind of question.
Seven one three two one two K t R H.
I am so impressed with the products that Dean Nelson

(27:35):
has created out there at Nelson Plant Food. They have
a whole line of turf products. A turf Star is
the name of the line.

Speaker 8 (27:42):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
There's the Slow and Easy, which just lasts three or
four months. I mean it just goes on and on
releasing it's nutrients. There's the Bruce's Brew, which also releases
over time, but it puts more of the nutrient release
up front, so it's not it's not not a slow release.
It has some slowerly feature, but it is primarily we
would put it for you know, let's get a good

(28:05):
boost right here and now, and then it'll continue to
feed over time. Then there are the jars, the canisters,
the plastic clear plastic canisters with the screw top lids
of all kinds of things. Color Star one of the
most popular things on the market for making your flower
beds bloom. Let me get fancy and say more floriferous.

(28:29):
That is what color Star will do. Also, there's things
like the nutri Star line. There's tree and shrub fertilizer,
for example, that helps if you've got a tree that
you planted in the last i don't know, three or
four months, boy, that you definitely need to be starting
to fertilize that thing, and I would get some on
now before we head into the cool winter season. You

(28:50):
just sprinkle it around and keep that tree growing with
little boosts here and there with that product Nutristar Tree
and Shrub. There's also a product for tropicals that they have.
There's a product for blooming trees and things like the
Crepe myrtle, for example. It's easy to find the quality
products like the Nutra Star and the Color Star and

(29:12):
the turf Star in garden centers all around all over
the area. For example, up in Montgomery area, A and
A Plants carries In fact, A and A carries ever fertilizer.
You can imagine. A and A carries every product that
you need. They have beautiful plants, they've got there's always
some good deal going on around there, especially through this

(29:34):
summer season. A and A is just a good place
to Visit's on the Highway one oh five on the
east side of Montgomery. So all of you that live
out in Lake Conroe area, all the neighborhoods around Lake Conroe,
which it just seems like there's always more and more
growing going on out there. This is your backyard garden center.
And you're going to go in there and you're going
to find what you want. And if you're looking for

(29:55):
things to kind of add some bling to your landscape,
you know, like a metal archway or or chiminea for
the patio, all those kinds of the other kinds of decorations.
Any plants and produce has got you covered. Again, they're
on the east side of Montgomery. They're east side of
Montgomery on Highway one oh five, so just as you're
coming in or out of Montgomery, you just pass right

(30:17):
by them. I think that one of the best things
is seven days a week from nine to five, that
you know it's always a good time to swing by there.
They're going to be open and they're going to have
what you need. Well, you are listening to Garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're trying to talk
about the kinds of things that I think would help

(30:38):
you have a more more success in your in your
garden and in your landscaping. There are things that people
do that are just, let's just say, bad habits. Then
we do them because we saw someone else do them,
or we heard about somebody else doing them. And the
worst place to hear about anything is in social media,

(31:00):
where everybody's an expert, and you just need to take
all of that with a grain of salt. You really do,
because a that person may live in Timbuctoo and it's
a different soil, it's a different climate than here, so
advice that may be true there isn't true here. They
also may just think they know when they don't know.

(31:23):
I think it was Mark Twain or Will Rogers, one
of those guys said, have it. Being smart is knowing
what you're dumb at. I like that because, you know,
the older I get, the more I find that I'm
dumb at. I used to think I knew it, I
knew everything. Now no better. And that how it works
as we get a little bit older. But seriously, when

(31:44):
you're looking, you know, for quality advice and good direction,
that's what we're trying to do to steer you in
the direction that you need to go. And so we
try to provide a little bit of the why behind
the what. In other words, I could tell you just
go do such and such. That's the what, and I
can also tell you the why. And when you understand

(32:05):
the why a little bit, it helps you to do
a better job of the what is that confusing or what?
What I'm trying to say is this, maybe you are
going to control nutsedge or that's what your goal is,
And I say, well, go do this, but here's what
you need to know, here's why, and this is why

(32:25):
we do it. Now that keeps you from using that
same advice in a way or in a time where
it won't work and everything has some yeah butt to it,
and so that's what I try to kind of weed
through as we're doing this. All right, Well, enough of that.
If that made sense to anybody, raise your hand. We're
going to go out to League City now and talk

(32:45):
to Suzanne. Hello, Suzanne, Hi.

Speaker 9 (32:49):
I sent you a picture of those weeds, that weed,
and you told me to call this morning.

Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yes, yes, that is that is doveweed is in weed.
Dove weed is like it looks to some people, looks
a lot like Saint Augustine, but it's it's a shiny, waxy,
almost kind of rubbery rubbery leaves and things. It will
start producing seed here before long if it hadn't already,

(33:18):
and getting it out of there is very helpful. Now
with doveweed, probably the best thing to do would be
to use a pre emergent herbicide in the spring, but
in late spring. With our others. If you look at
me laun schedule, it's got mostly we're doing the pre
emergence in February. You could probably come in in March

(33:42):
or even April maybe and do the pre emergence for
the dove weed. That is, it's going to sprout when
the weather warms up really good. I would say probably
March would be a good time.

Speaker 9 (33:52):
What happens if I don't do anything because it looks
good and it's I don't know, it's the same color
as St. Augustine and it's growing in some places where
I have had trouble.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
Growing.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Nothing. Yeah, nothing happens except that it can crowd out
the Saint Augustine little bit. It's a competitor with it.
But you can leave it. You can leave it, and
just that's your business. That that is certainly fine. They're
controlling it with the pre emergent, is preventing the seeds
in the spring from coming up, controlling the emergen.

Speaker 9 (34:30):
I just leave it alone. Does it does it die
and turn brown or anything like that?

Speaker 4 (34:36):
It doesn't look good during the winter because it dies
uh and and comes back from seed. Uh. So I
would yeah, you know, it's up to you if you
are going to kill it. I can tell you post
emergency spray and you can kill it. But then you're
gonna need to go in there and put sod in
to get a good canopy of grass where you don't

(34:59):
have uh. Wherever sunlight hits the soil, weeds like dove
weed are going to be able to pop up. The
seeds can germinate and establish a plant when they get good.
So I guess if you're not willing to jump on
the sodding and going into the dense lawn thing, uh,
then maybe living with it like you're talking about certainly

(35:20):
an option. These people will not want to hear that
that kind of statement, but that's that's the case, you bet, Suzanne.
Thank you for calling me as a fella I know
in uh uh, we're in Mississippi's name is Elder Russian.
He comes over to speak every now and the scenario,

(35:41):
and he says, the best way to get rid of
every weed and your lawn is take off your glasses. Hey,
you know, I've got to admit. I've got a neighbor
down the street who is lawn has more weeds than
Saint Augustine's and he has if you want to, if
you want to have a weed, I d class you
could go to his because every weed in the world

(36:02):
is in his law. Now he just mos mos most
And you know, when you drive by, unless you really
turn your head and look, it looks pretty good because
weeds are green too. I don't think I'm going to
sell many people on that as an approach, but there
is an option. I'll be right back. Take care of

(36:23):
King Ranch has inspired the values to continue to guide
King Ranch Troupe. Really looking forward to visiting with you
to help with whatever the questions are you have so
that you can have a more bountiful, beautiful garden and landscape.
That's what we're looking for here. If you'd like to
give us a call, the number is seven one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four.

Speaker 10 (36:46):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
Microlife has a number of different products, and I talk
about certain ones, but if I were to talk about
all of them, just about take the whole show to
do that. Uh, the standard Microlife long fertilizer, the green bag,
the six two four, that's the one that is probably
the you know, the lead one when it comes to
your lawns and things. But there's also the hum Mats Plus,

(37:09):
which is a purple bag that's concentrated compost in a bag.
Someone asked me the other day, can I do both
that and the the sixty four And the answers yes,
because they're for different purposes. The sixty four is providing
microbes but also the nutrients six percent nitrogen, two percent phosphorus,
four percent potassium into the soil to stimulate growth on

(37:32):
your grass plant. The microlife humates plus the purple bag.
That one is concentrated composted in the bag. It's a
humus type material that does have some potassium in it,
but you're putting it down because humus is the final
decomposition product of organic matter, and it helps build soil structure,

(37:52):
it helps with microbial activity, and like all microlife products,
it's got the microbes in it as well. Then they
have their liquid products, the Biomatrix, the orange labeled Liquid
sixty four. They've got the product that is basically a
seaweed top product. They got the product that's basically a
fish and Molson product. That one's called Ocean Harvest, by
the way, And there's lots and lots of others, and

(38:14):
I'm gonna be talking about some new microlife products here
as we go a little further along. But I'm just
telling you it's easy to find great products for everything
from houseplants to your outdoor plants, lawns to trees to
shrubs to vegetable gardens. From Microlife. Microlif Fertilizer dot Com
is their website. Easy, easy to get to. Microlife products

(38:36):
are widely, widely available. You're going to find them all
over the place, not difficult at all. That makes it
kind of handy, kind of easy. I was talking earlier
about managing the nuts edge and other other kinds of
weeds and whatnot. I just want to mention we've had
some calls and a number of emails about people that

(38:58):
are trying to fix areas of their lawn that had
weed problems. The typical question is I have nut I
have maybe nuts edge or bermuda grass and my Saint Augustine,
and I'm I want to the Saint Augustine is dying back.
I want to redo that area, but I don't want
the bermuda grass in there, for example. And so the
way we do that is to apply something. If it's

(39:21):
just a grassy weed, you can apply just a herbicide
for grassy weeds. That's on. If you need to know
what is a herbicide for grassy weeds, I'm not gonna
you know, name out the chemical names right now to
you to make your eyes roll back. But if you
go online to gardening with skip dot com. There is
a sheet on herbicides that goes with the weed wiper,
but it's true for not weed, it's true for spraying too.

(39:45):
What are the weeds that you have and what herbicides
control them? And the grassyat products are listed on there
a number of different brand names too that you'll find
on the market, so you could go at it that way.
If your lawn has broad leaf weeds that are perennials
also in addition to the grassy, then you would have
to use a general weed killer one that kills everything.

(40:05):
But when you do that, you want to get the
spray down.

Speaker 11 (40:09):
Do that.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
But then if you do need to do any adjusting
of the soil an he maybe filling in some low
areas or rototilling over it, and then water the dirt,
water the dirt and make whatever is there come up.
And if what you're going to see is maybe you
try to get rid of bermuda grass but you left
a little bit, didn't get it all, well, you'll see

(40:31):
it then and that second application will help you get
that done. And that's very important because to just put
your new Saint Augustine down and now you got that
old bermuda popping up through it because bermuda can come
from down deep under the ground and come to the surface.
You want to get rid of it before you do that.
If that is the goal that you have. Our phone

(40:54):
number is seven one three two one two five eight
seven four seven to one three two one to fifty
eight seventy four. Uh, have you been out? Have you
been out to the Enchanted Gardens out in Richmond? That
is the garden center that is on FM three point
fifty nine. It's on the Katie Fulscher side of Rechmond.

(41:15):
Let me give you their website because you want to
write this down. They have an outstanding website with a
lot of good, good information on it. That's Enchanted Gardens
Richmond dot com. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Again Katie
Follscher side of Rechimond. If you'd like to give them
a call to eight one three four one twelve o
six twelve oh six. The Peach Truck it's called the

(41:40):
Peach Creek Country Market. It'll be back out at Enchanted
today from ten am to two pm. Today's August eighteenth. Yeah,
that's it today. And boy that peaches and they got
sweet corn and watermelons and whatever is in season, they're
gonna have it there. At enchanted gardens, you're gonna find
a lot of plants that are outstanding, but they're just

(42:03):
not that widespread. You just don't see them enough. For example,
creeping wire vine. Creeping wire vine is a cool little plant.
It is a vining plant with a little small leaves,
but the vines are well. It has a name wire vine.
There's a reason they're very They're very tough, and it

(42:23):
makes an excellent, excellent groundcover even even take a little
bit of food, foot traffic, although I would be a
little careful, you know, to let it grow so tall
that it wouldn't be a tripping hazard, but it can
take a little bit of that. It's that tough, deer resistant,
drought tolerant, all the things that you want. Creeping wire
vine milim Bechia is the proper name for it, but

(42:45):
they got that there. That's just an example. Though. They
have so many types of plants that you just don't
see elsewhere, and there's things that we need to use
more that we don't. And if you go to in
Channa Gardens in Richmond, you're going to find it beautiful jacobinias.
It's a it's a type of Justicia that has this

(43:05):
beautiful multi flower bloom on top that is absolutely gorgeous. Uh.
It just it performs really well here in our climate.
And there's others. I sit here, I want to tell
you about every plant they have, because there's so many,
but they sure do have those. Uh and again in
Channa Gardens Richmond dot com. That's the website. Go check

(43:25):
it out. If you haven't been there, you need to
see it. Our phone number is seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. I'm gonna take a
little break, uh dow that number. Give cross the call
and you can be the van listening to guarden line
if you like to call in seven one three two
one two k t R. How can we help you

(43:48):
have better success in your beautiful lawn, your beautiful garden,
maybe some more color around the house. I tell you
that my uh son lives in the Houston area and
these past two big storms we had there was the
first one and then Barrel the hurricane came through and

(44:08):
they're without power for a long time. And a lot
of you have experienced that, and I don't care if
it's a hurricane. And by the way, this is predicted
to be a very busy season or just other storms.
When the power goes out, it creates major issues. Whether
it's our losing food in the fridge, or not being
able to have air conditioning in the house when it's

(44:29):
blazing hot outside. Lots of other kinds of things that
happen when we don't have power. Quality Home Products of Texas.
They are a local company. They've been around, family owned
here in Houston since nineteen eighty nine, and they know
how to take care of their customers. And right now,
by the way, they've got a trade in special going on.

(44:51):
So if you got an no portable generator, you need
to call them and get the details on the trade
in special because this may be a good time to
get rid of that old jelappe really move into something
that it works even better. When I think about quality
home I think about quality generators like Generak. They carry Generac,
which is excellent generator. They also take care of their customers.

(45:14):
They from the time you call them up, they are
helping you to decide if in what kind of generator
you need that works best for you, and they do
the whole steps, all the the little permissions you got
to get to do something like that, or to build
something around the house and do other things. Generators require
that and you need to let them take care of

(45:36):
it for you. They handle all those regulations. They put
a slab down, they put a quality generator that fits
what you need, and then after they walk away. That's
just where Quality Home begins. Customer service a times winner
of the Pinnacle Award by the Better Business Bureau for
Customer Service fourteen thousand plus. It's way over that now,

(45:56):
five star reviews online. It's because they take care of
their customers. They do have financing. Financing options available. Just
give them a call at seven one three Quality seven
one three Quality, or go to the website qualitytx dot com.
Let's head now out to Magnolia and talk to Ron.

Speaker 12 (46:17):
Hello Ron, Yes, sir, good morning, good morning. I heard
you mentioned creeping wirevine and I have a question. We
put some in this morning as a ground I'm sorry,
this spring as a groundcover, and we went to Arburgate
and bought some.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Of their fertilizer.

Speaker 12 (46:39):
It's mostly blood meal and slate, and I think.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Some of the products.

Speaker 12 (46:46):
Okay, it's been doing real well, and I fertilized it
with that fertilizer. It's been in the ground about five months,
and it's partly shaded and partly full sun, and the
soil is pure, pure sugar sand, so the water runs.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Through very quick.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
Uh.

Speaker 12 (47:11):
The part that's in full sun has almost has the
appearance of being overfertilized. I don't know if it's the
full sun that's doing it or I put too much
fertilizer on it.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
What does overfertilized look like? What? What are you seeing?

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Well?

Speaker 4 (47:32):
Uh?

Speaker 12 (47:32):
I used a broadcast you know, hand broadcast spreader, and
I put it on to where you could actually see
it on the ground. Uh, freddy readily. It's a fine, fine,
fine material. And if you don't, I don't know if
I put too much on it.

Speaker 4 (47:54):
Yeah, are you seeing something like? What does the r
vine look like? That thing makes you think maybe I'll
put too much on well?

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Is it back to the park.

Speaker 12 (48:06):
No, it's gotten real leggy in front and not a
whole not a whole lot of leaves in the back
where it's partially shaded. It looks great. It's still green
and spreading and uh, it's just I just don't know
if I overfurt lasted, or if it's just the partisan
full sun is getting too much sun.

Speaker 4 (48:28):
Well, wyvine will put up with a pretty shady area.
You know, like any plant, if you get in too
much shade, you start to lose the well, the density
or the density of the foliage and everything because there's
not enough sunlight. But warvine's pretty tough and it gets

(48:49):
a lot of sun. It ought to do pretty good
for you.

Speaker 5 (48:52):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (48:52):
I think full sun is fine, partial shade is fine.
I wouldn't go less than partial shade. Uh. You probably
look looking at a new plant that is just really
establishing roots and sending out a lot of fine growth.
You can trim it back. You can do that. And
you know when you take a long vine and you
cut it back, you're going to get sprouts from the side,

(49:13):
shoots that come out, and you get a little bit
more density. It takes it a while to build really
thick density. Early on, it can look a little bit leggy.

Speaker 12 (49:24):
Well that that's kind of what I thought, And I
guess my question, my real question is I had thought
about trimming it back some, but since they're so new
five months see, maybe not even four months. I'm thinking
maybe I'll just leave it alone till next spring and
then maybe trim it back.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
That's fine. There's not a black and white answer on
that one. You could do it anyway. But if you
want to wait until spring, let it get a better
established plant and then share it back a little bit,
you can do that. It doesn't need sharing all the time.
In fact, it's best if without too many frequent sharings,
so that it can grow those shoots and sprawl around

(50:05):
like it does. It's a good plant.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Though.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
You made a good choice.

Speaker 12 (50:09):
Oh yeah, we're really in love it well for sure.

Speaker 4 (50:11):
Thank you for the hail, all right, sir, you take care,
Thanks to the God. I appreciate that, all right, our
phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. I've talked about as might for a long
time here on guarden Line, and as might provides trace minerals.
What is a trace mineral? That means something that is

(50:31):
essential but you don't need much of it. Nitrogen is
on the other end of the spectrum. It's also essential,
but you need a lot of it for plants to do.
In fact, the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium you need a
lot of That's why that's the three numbers on every
fertilizer bag, those three ingredients. But when you get on
in the trace minerals, they're equally essential for plants. And

(50:53):
as mite is a mind product, a mind product that
is put on your lawn to provide that addition to it,
to add to that bank account in the soil. You
can go to azimite Texas dot com find out more.
You can do it on the same day you fertilize
if you want to. You can do it out of
the blue, any day of the year. You can put
down the asimite. It's not going to make your lawn

(51:14):
take off growing. It's providing the bank account of what
the lawn needs and plants in general need. You can
use vegetable gardens and other places in order to thrive.
Aszmite Texas dot com. That's the website. You're going to
find azamite in a lot of different places, very widely,
widely available product. Let's go now to Southwest Houston and

(51:35):
we're going to talk to Laurel. Hello Laurel, good morning, sir.
Not can we help today?

Speaker 13 (51:44):
I'd like to know where can I buy a decent
weed eater and a chainsaw. Due to this barrel mess,
my backyard is a total disaster and.

Speaker 4 (51:54):
I need a little help. I would go to Southwest Fertilizer.
It's in your backyard and they have in the back
of the store. I always talk about the fertilizers and
things they sell, but in the back of the store
they got a little selections of power equipment and they
have a little shop where they can work on things.
Go back there, take a look and see what they have.
But they will have everything you mentioned and a lot

(52:17):
lot more back there, and they're really close to you.

Speaker 10 (52:20):
Wow.

Speaker 13 (52:21):
I never even thought about them for that, because I
know about the wonderful products that they sell, but I
never thought about power equipment. Thank you so much for
your kindness. You have a wonderful day.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
Sir, you too as well. Thank you for the call.
I appreciate that. If you go up to where two
forty nine Tamil Parkway comes into belt Way eight, that's
where you'll find RCW Nurseries. Now. RCW has been in
business for a very long time, family owned operation that
by the way, the website is Rcwnurseries dot com. Right

(52:58):
now is the time to get over there. They have
fifty percent off of select roses, and RCW carries a
wider variety of roses or a larger number of roses
than anybody I've ever seen. But fifty percent off of
select roses. If they have fifteen percent off all of
the trees, and that includes citrus. So if you're looking

(53:18):
at getting satsuma orange or a Myer lemon or something
one of the citrus, this is a time. Fifteen percent off,
good time to do that. Get it in the ground now,
let it get established before the winter arrives. Now it's
an excellent time. Fifty percent off Cajun hibiscus. Did I
say fifteen or fifty on the trees, and it's fifteen

(53:39):
fifteen on trees and citrus, fifty percent off Cajun hibiscus.
I have a Cajun hibiscus. I love it. Those The
breeder that created those had an imagination, and boy did
they ever show it. They're beautiful. Ten percent off all
of their shrubs. So maybe you need to replace some shrubs,
or you want to get rid of something that's not
doing well. Here's a good chance at rc W Nurseries

(54:01):
RCW nurseries dot com. That's your nork. This is your
nursery where Tambo Parkway hits belt Way eight. See, we're
gonna now go to Houston area and talk to Dell. Hello, Dell, Hi, Kiff.

Speaker 8 (54:18):
I just wanted to ask you. I had a large
stump gland just the other day, and I have a
big surface of land with no glass. I don't have
much saw dust at all. I'm just wondering how long
should I wait before I put down news sad?

Speaker 4 (54:37):
Right now? You can, you can do it. The only
thing to remember is even though you don't have sawdust,
that soil was fluffed up. It was loosened up in
the digging. That happens every time we use a shovel
or a spade or rotortiller or anything in the in
the yard, and what looks level will actually become sunken
over time. So having a little extra soil to a

(54:59):
mound up a little bit watered in really good and
then put the sad on it, and that area is
going to settle where the stump was ground out. But
you can just get a little bit ahead of it.
But I'm not talking about a giant, huge mound. I'm
just a little higher over that area and water the
soil really well and then lay the sid Get it
done now so it has the most so it has
the most time possible. Before we hit h the cross,

(55:24):
I'm gonna have to run Dell to a cancer You
bet all right, folks, we'll be right back if you
with us. We're going to run straight to the phones
this morning, head up to Huntsville. Talk to Charles. Hey, Charles,
welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 14 (55:40):
Well, I've got an apple, a pear, and a peach
tree that are just not producing the quality of food.
I wondered if I should fertilize those now with the
microlife or should I wait till later on the fall
or winter to do that.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
When you sound like you're talking about the fruit they
produce doesn't taste good? Or are they not producing enough?

Speaker 14 (56:02):
What is quality? It's quality. They're not They're small and
they're not producing what they should. Okay, and I did
couple was a little. Now. I hate to make you
feel bad, but it's going to be fifty five here
Wednesday morning.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
Shame on you. Why would you do that?

Speaker 14 (56:21):
Would get you?

Speaker 4 (56:22):
What have I ever done to you? Charles? I hope
you enjoy that fifty five All right. I hope you
enjoy the fifty five. Just turn your oven onto three
hundred and fifty degrees and every now and they're going
to stick your head in it so you can commiserate
with us over here. Okay, so fruit, here's the deal.
You need fruit for it to be a good size fruit.

(56:44):
You need to have a good strong plant, a tree
in this case, you need to have adequate water. If
it's a little drowdy, it's not going to develop fruit size.
It just won't. And you also need to have to
have fenned the fruit so that it's spaced out enough
for the tree to be able to make each fruit larger.

(57:04):
If they're crowded too close, you're not going to get
fruit size. Those three things that can cause a lack
of fruit size. You could put the microlife on now
and that would be fine to do. I would get
it done right away, though, because we don't want to
push things with fertilizer as we get on into the fall,
because winter is coming and you don't want succulent growth

(57:25):
coming into the first freeze.

Speaker 14 (57:28):
Well, we'll have warm weather again. It's just a little
a freak of nature that it's getting down to fifty
five or one morning at five o'clock. But that's it.

Speaker 4 (57:37):
Yeah, yeah, all right, well good, okay, yeah, that's what
I would do. And then if you go there's a
website called Aggie Horticulture and it is excellent. When you
go to the Aggi Horticulture website, there's a section you'll
see fruits and nuts or whatever, and you click on
that and there's a publication on every type of fruit,

(57:58):
from avocados to I don't know what fruit begins with
the Z, but there there are. There's all the publications
and each one it tells you about caring for it
and pruning it and everything. And I think that would
be helpful for you as you try to build that.

Speaker 14 (58:13):
Into Would you repeat the name of it?

Speaker 4 (58:16):
Repeat the name of that A G, G, I, E
and then a hyphen and then horticulture.

Speaker 14 (58:24):
I got it, agg eat D horticulture. Got it.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
Okay, that's it.

Speaker 14 (58:28):
I'll thank you. When I'm not getting up at five
point thirty in the morning let the dogs out and
it's fifty five, I'll think of you guys down there.

Speaker 4 (58:35):
Oh man, Charles, you're a peach. Thanks a lot for
the call. I appreciate that, all right, let's see here.
Diana in Cyprus, Texas. Hello, donand welcome to Guarden Line.

Speaker 15 (58:47):
Yeah, it's good morning. I'm the one that called in
yesterday just before you were going off the air about
our knockout rose bushes. And I have six to an email,
you know, just with some pictures, but I didn't confirm
that they worked through. But anyway, I'll try to describe
it this I can. But they the le what happens

(59:07):
is the leaves start turning yellow and then uh, the
branches even start kind of turning dark, and then the
leaves start turning dark and they start to scribble up,
and like I describe it, they look like they've been roasted,
like roasted boccolini or Brussels shouts.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
And I know, I did I do get your Yeah,
I do, I do get your I did get your pictures.
I did get your pictures. Fact, I replied pride to
your email a little bit earlier this morning. The pictures
are kind of small, so I can't zoom in really
well on them. They become pixelated. But from what I
can see on the roads, it's one of two things.

(59:46):
You might have a root rot in the soil. You
might uh and when the roots you see symptoms like
what you're showing above ground, you also okay, they just
have some stem cankers, some disease is that are killing
entire stems of the roses. When I see the few
leaves I can see, I see like brown tips and

(01:00:09):
sometimes edges or entire brown leaves, and that's a sign
that water is not getting to the leaf. And again
both rot and stem cankers could be causing that. So
that's as far as I can diagnose that one based
on based on the photos.

Speaker 15 (01:00:23):
Okay, well what do you do, Like if it's root rot,
what is something to do to help prevent that? And
if it's the tankers, like you're talking about some type
of organic. I know that meanwhile, as it can be used,
but not in hot temperatures, like something organic to protect
your little you know, losers and frogs and things.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Right, Well, there's not gonna be an organic for the
stem stem cankers that's going to be consistently effective for you.
You're out there in Kingwood, I would go to Kingwood
Garden Center or King.

Speaker 15 (01:00:53):
Warrens, Cypress. We're in Cypress.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
Oh okay, I have the wrong. Okay, Well you can
head over to plants for all seasons or go up
to arborgate and they're both going to be excellent. Take
take a picture, maybe take a picture with more pixels,
a bigger photo, and put it on your phone and
take it to them and let them they can with
their fingers zoom in and look at it. And I
think they could probably help you with that. I hate

(01:01:19):
for you to go purchase a product for either of
those problems without knowing for sure which one you have. Okay,
let's shift over to your lawn questions. What I see
in your yawn looks to me like there may be
some past droughty conditions that it went through, But it
looks a lot like take all root rot, and that

(01:01:42):
one has to be diagnosed with almost a hand lens
getting up early close to it. But if you go
to an area where the grass is dying, not dead,
but dying, and you look at a runner, kind of
pull it up, and new grassroots are nice and white
and plump and fleshy. Dead grassroots are just a pecan

(01:02:03):
brown shriveled look. And if you see a lot of
dead roots and there's almost no living roots out toward
the end of the runner, that's probably take all root rot,
and on my schedule, which is on my website Gardening
with Skip dot com, you can find the products and
the timing of what you need to apply for the
take all root rot. The main thing you can do

(01:02:24):
for now is don't let the long get stressed, don't
let it get dropped stressed, don't water it too often,
but keep the lawn adequately moist. And if you haven't fertilized,
a moderate amount of fertilizer would be helpful for that
as well.

Speaker 15 (01:02:39):
Okay, you know, we follow the fertilizing schedule pretty close
to a t, and so they were just, you know,
concerned about why this is happening, and maybe it's just
a lack of water. I don't know, but we try
not to get it too bad because we had ended
up a few years back, you know, it had we
had just the opposite We had a fungus, and so

(01:03:02):
it seems it seems to be a little bit different
this time. But we just don't want it to spread
and you know, ruin our own yard. I mean, it
was beautiful back in the spring in the early summer,
but my husband and I both got really really sick.
So we weren't able to really tend to our yard
and take care of things like we normally would. And
I appreciate your information and I'll certainly check on that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:25):
All right, One last thing, Dan, I want you to
purchase a product called Fertile Loam kelated liquid iron and
other micronutrients. That's a long title. The brand is Fertile
and it's a gray bottle and kelated liquid iron and
other micro nutrients. Follow the label. Put it in a
hose in sprayer and spray the foliage of your grass

(01:03:48):
with it. According to it'll take some of those green areas,
those yellow areas and green them up again and give
the grass a better chance of getting back on its feet.

Speaker 15 (01:03:56):
Okay, okay, all that checked that word after fertile on What.

Speaker 5 (01:04:02):
Was that again?

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
C h E l A t E D. C h
E l A t E D. Thanks again for the call, Dina.
We will we'll be right back, folks. I'm gonna take
a little break here seven one three two one two
K t r H. If you'd like to call in
on garden line for this segment.

Speaker 16 (01:04:21):
UH.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
Nitrofos superturf is a fertilizer. You hear me talk about
all the time. It is the Silver Bag by Nitropos.
Widely available. You will find it in all kinds of places.
It's designed for our summer lawns, in other words, our climate,
our soils.

Speaker 11 (01:04:38):
UH.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
The way that it releases its nutrients is gradually over time,
primarily the nitrogens. Gradual release of nutrients over time, which
gives you a nice smooth growth rate that reduces mowing
significantly because you know, if you put on an all
at once fertilizer, you get this flush of growth and
you've got a momar. Well. Superturf is designed for this

(01:04:59):
area and as a result, you just see super density
to your turf when you use it. It works well,
and it's widely available. You're going to find super turf
in places like Plantation, Ace Hardware out in the Richmond
Rosenberg area. Growers Outlet up in Willis has it. For
those of you that are listening inside the City of
Memorial Drive, Ace Hardware City is going to be another

(01:05:21):
place you can find that super turf. We're going to
go now out to let's see here. We're going to
head to Kingwood and talk to Joe.

Speaker 16 (01:05:28):
Hello Joe, good morning, Skip. I had a question this
morning about a box wood. I planted them last fall
and I sent you a photo. I don't know you've
had a chance to pull it up yet. Yes, but
a few of the branches have started, some of them
have started turning yellow. Some of them are turning white,

(01:05:48):
so that you know they're dying. Besides pruning the dead
branches off, is there anything I can treat the plant
with to prevent further damage?

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
Now, pruning the dead off, But when you do that,
look at the stem and see if there is a
split in the stem, like the bark is peeling back.
And I don't mean just like that thin outer gray
or tan bark. I mean like split back to whatever
the interior wood is. And that could be a canker.
And if that's the case, you want to prune below that.

(01:06:20):
And then I would spray my pruners with lysol in
between cuts, just to avoid spraying it. It's just an
extra measure to be careful with that. It could be
that something's going on in the roots. But when I
look at the plant as a whole, it seems like
it's doing pretty good. It's just one area. So it
may be that all those dead areas in the photo

(01:06:41):
connect to one stem coming out of the ground. So
kind of get on your hands and knees and figure
that one out, get it pruned out, and then just
keep a watch on it. There are things underground that
can cause the die back of the top like that,
and we maybe be just seeing it at an early stage,
but keep watching it and if if that pruning it

(01:07:01):
out doesn't work, then maybe we take other steps to
try to figure out what's going on.

Speaker 16 (01:07:08):
And would that involve the treating the roots, well.

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
It could like if it were nematoad that this isn't
Nema toad's in my opinion, but if it were, you
can't treat for them. If it is a disease Verticillium
fusarium or fungal wilts of the soil that can attack
plants and boxwood susceptible to one of those, then I
don't know that we would have a good funge aside

(01:07:35):
to shut that down, but we could. We could look
into it and see down specifically.

Speaker 16 (01:07:40):
Okay, Skip, thanks for your help.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:44):
I appreciate your call very very much. For those of
you that are dealing with a canopy of trees in
your property and you're concerned about limbs coming down, or
maybe you just haven't looked up and really taken a
good look at them. Plese that are not trained and
pruned periodically and properly can develop really bad problems, like

(01:08:06):
narrow branch angles that will split easily in a storm.
When it comes to taking care of your trees, I
can't express enough the importance of proper tree care during
these storm seasons. Now, it's always good to do proper
tree career. There's our midwinter pruning and then selected pruning
through the year that needs to get done depending on

(01:08:27):
the species and the condition that it's in. But Martin
spoon More from Affordable Tree is an expert at this.
He's been doing it for a very long time. Call
him seven to one three six nine nine two six
sixty three. Let me give you that again seven one
three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. You can

(01:08:48):
also go to his website Afftree Service dot com. He
stays busy because he does a good job and people
hire him to come back and do it again. Have
him come look at your tree, and if you're planning
on doing anything around those trees, like putting in a
trench or some other issue that driveway over the part
of the root system. You need to get Martin out

(01:09:09):
there first to advise you on how to go about
that and what to do to help that tree through
the process. These trees are valuable, very important, not just
to the value of your property, but to you being
able to get out in the shade and enjoy the garden.
For you, being able to have that shade maybe on
a roof, that helps cut down on your utility bills.

(01:09:31):
A lot of reasons that we love our trees. Don't
mess around and don't turn them loose to some guy
that owns a pick up a chainsaw and sticks out
business cards on your door. That does not mean they
are an expert. We're going to now go to Texas
City and talk to Brandon. Hello, Brandon.

Speaker 17 (01:09:50):
Martin Skip, good morning.

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Are that yes, sir? How can we have it?

Speaker 17 (01:09:57):
I've got a tree that's growing between moth house in
my neighbor's house. It's right on the fence line, about
two foot on their side of the fence.

Speaker 15 (01:10:04):
Sign off.

Speaker 17 (01:10:04):
Soon it appears to be like I called a chinaberry tree. Okay,
she's got a couple of she's got a couple of
mom there and one of the far back has grown
the biggest grown in underneath my sidewalk slab has broken
my sidewalk oato concrete patio in and that she's got
another one growing. She does not want to cut it.

(01:10:26):
I'm trying to figure out some kind of root barrier
system I can put it in between. There must have
been my patio to protect me.

Speaker 4 (01:10:34):
What would be recommendation, Well, okay, my first answer would
have been, those trees grow fast, tend to be very
brittle branched, and and uh break a lot. They're probably
more more broken. Collar bones on middle school boys can

(01:10:56):
be attested attributed to chinaberry trees than any the tree
because the branch is break and you fall out. If
you can't do anything like that to it, you might
want to call Martin spoon more because he can also
advise you on a root barrier that you might want
to be putting in. He can direct you to that.

(01:11:17):
I haven't talked to him about all the services that
they do on that, but I would. I would definitely
start with him and see he probably can want to
come out, do a consultation, look at the situation and
tell you what they would need to do. And what
it would cost to do a barrier like that. Perfect right,
let me give you I'm going to give you his

(01:11:38):
number at seven to one, three, six, nine, nine, twenty
six sixty three. When you're doing that kind of barrier
you need, it needs to be a decent distance from
the tree because trees have to have anchorage. It needs
to go adequately far enough down in the soil and
be a strong enough material to last and not Some
people say, well, they're going to put a piece of

(01:11:59):
ten in the soil, will ten rusts and so over
time that that's not going to hold up. Okay, thank you, sir,
you bet, thank you, thank you very much for the call.
Oh let's see here. Ace Hardware Stores are the place
where you go for everything you need. And Langham Creek

(01:12:21):
Ace Hardware that is at the intersection of Barker Cypress
and FM five twenty nine over in the Copperfield area
of Houston. They're having a shindig Friday, August thirtieth, Saturday,
the thirty first Sunday, the first They're giving away drawings
like an Eco Ego powered string tremor, ten or fifty
bucks trimmer, a Weber gas grill, four hundred and fifty

(01:12:43):
dollars gas grill, a pain of room makeover two hundred
dollars value. You need to get over there and see
that just right. Write that weekend down, last weekend this month.
Get over there. They're going to have activities that They're
going to have demonstrations of various kinds of barbecue grills
and then a pizza oven. That's cool stuff and they've
redone the whole store. That's why it's a gree grand

(01:13:06):
reopening Langham Creek. Ace hardwe You know you can find
Ace Hardware stores by going to Ace Hardware dot com
and the store locator will show you all the stores
and little red dots all over the word to use today.
Thanks for listening to Garden and I. We're gonna take
a little break here for the top of hour for
the news. I will be back and when I come back,

(01:13:29):
we'll be back with your calls and Joyce. If you
want to hang around till then you will be our
very first caller up for the rest of your seven
one three two one two K two.

Speaker 1 (01:13:39):
Age r H Guarden Line with skin Rickards.

Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
Just watch him as.

Speaker 12 (01:13:58):
The world gone.

Speaker 7 (01:14:14):
Sad.

Speaker 4 (01:14:16):
Welcome, Welcome back to garden Line. Glad you're listening in
on this Sunday morning. We're having a good time talking
about all kinds of things related to having a successful lawn,
a successful garden.

Speaker 9 (01:14:31):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:14:31):
No matter what the plants are, if you follow simple principles,
make those plants happy, you're going to have success. And
that's kind of what we try to help you with here.
You know a lot of people said, my grandma had
a green thumb, she could grow anything, and I can't
grow anything. I got a brown thumb. Well, you don't
have a brown thumb, you have an uninformed thumb. Grandma
grew stuff not by magic, but because what she did

(01:14:55):
were things that the plants liked. She used plants that
wanted to be there, She took care of of them
in the way they needed to be taken care of.
And you can have the same success. So let's talk
about things like that. I tell you what. Right now,
I have a special guest that I've asked to come
on today, Danny. Let's see here. I'm just gonna bring
Danny right on here. Hello, Danny, how are you? Danny

(01:15:16):
Lenderman from an Enchanted Forest Garden Center.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
Donna Richmond, Good morning, skip how are you.

Speaker 4 (01:15:23):
I'm doing good. I'm doing good. It's good to talk
to you. Thanks for greening to come.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
On you bet, you bet not a problem. Enjoy it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:31):
Well. I want to pick your brain because you know,
I've been to in Channa Forest a lot of times
and I'm always enthralled by your section of butterfly larval
plants and all the different flowers you guys carry that
support the adult butterflies for nectar. You have a great
you have a great selection of things out there, and

(01:15:52):
so I wanted to pick your brain a little bit
about what are some of the plants that you think
are that you like best for attracting the adult and
then some of the plants that might go along with
that that would be good for feeding the caterpillars, because
you got to take care of the babies if you
want them to grow up and be butterflies.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
Right exactly exactly. You know, every day to walk by
the lantana tables is always covered up with butterflies. So
that's probably my goat to if you come in here
and say you want to attract some butterflies. Lantana is
a very tough plant, resilient and it blooms all summer

(01:16:30):
long and attracts all the butterflies. It is very very
hard to beat.

Speaker 4 (01:16:36):
That's a great one. In Lantana. It used to be
we just had the big, old, giant waist high lantanas
and then only the yellow new gold that's everywhere. But boy,
now you got a lot of them that are compact
and they fit into a lot of additional landscape situations
really well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
You bet. Yeah, there's tons of colors now. It's almost
almost hard to keep track.

Speaker 4 (01:17:00):
Yeah, I understand that, trust me. I do any other
particular plants for feeding adult butterflies that you think would help.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
You know, pents will really do really well. Pent is
one of a great annual They doing some.

Speaker 4 (01:17:17):
I see a lot of swallowtails on pentuswa for sure,
for sure, And I was just cutting in there, keep going.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
No, you're fine, You're fine. Yeah. Pentas are very resilient
annual right, so it it can handle some light shade
and tolerate full sun. So and it does well. It's
a very versatile.

Speaker 4 (01:17:38):
Another another one too that you can get in a
big plant form or a pretty compact.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Plant, right exactly exactly, all all multiple different colors. So
that's a really good option. Gregg's missed is another really
good one. I like Greg's missed a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:17:55):
Oh yeah, that is a kind of almost a ground covery,
sprawling really light blue, pretty shaggy white blue flowers and
brings in the I guess the Queens. I don't know
mon our tresso on that with the Queens.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
I know for sure, for sure the Queens. But you know,
sal salvia is really good. There's so many different types
of salvias, different colors, different heights. So I mean, there's
so many good plants that that attract butterflies, you know.
But like I said, the lantana table, when I walk
by that constantly, there's butterflies on that table.

Speaker 4 (01:18:28):
You have to have a tennis racket to clear the
way butterflies in there.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
Well, always tell people if you walk, if you walk
around the nursery, you can see what, you know, what
what each butterfly likes. You'll see him sitting out on
the table, you know, just munching away. So it's pretty
neat to watch. And you know, just be quiet and watch that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:51):
That's a that is good advice for for a gardeners.
Be quiet and watch on a lot of different things. Uh,
some of my favorite. Of course, people love the monarch,
you know, that's kind of like the poster butterfly for butterflies. Uh,
And there's so many things we can do take care
of them here. There's also the Gulf fritill area. It's

(01:19:13):
kind of an orange a little smaller than monarch, but
an orange butterfly. It's really easy around here. And then
the swallowtails. You know, there's a there is a it's
called Mexican sunflower tithonia that the swallowtails really love that
one too, but they like a lot, right, Yeah, so
those are cool.

Speaker 18 (01:19:34):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
Then we also have the larval food sources. So i'd
like to talk about what are some of the things
that you would suggest people, you know, put in their
landscape to feed the larvae that they'll then turn into butterflies.

Speaker 2 (01:19:51):
Well, you know, so it really depends on which butterfly
you're wanting to attract, right. That's it's funny how it works.
It's not a it's not one plant's gonna attract every
every butterfly. So most people are familiar with the milkweed.
And when you go to milkweed butterfly weed, there's so
many varieties of that by itself, right, there's tropical and

(01:20:12):
native swamp and two barosa and giant and there's just
so many different ones. So me, milkwheed is the main
thing you got to have for the for the monarchs.

Speaker 4 (01:20:26):
Yeah, that's a that is a pretty interesting thing how
that works too. It's you know, it's a plant that's
poisonous to most things, and yet the butterflies are able
to take that poison and break it down and it
doesn't hurt the caterpillars of the butterflies fur. Yeah, there's
pretty monarch butterfly.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
Pretty pretty amazing, pretty amazing to think about how all
that stuff works.

Speaker 4 (01:20:51):
Yeah, it is. It is, Uh, one of my favorite
I mentioned I like the go fridlary. The passion vine
is one that brings the friddlllary is.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
In right, Yeah, and and they're reliably on that, reliably
on the passion vines. It's amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:21:08):
Yeah. What are some other larval food sources that you
guys have on hand?

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
Well, for like the the pipe vine swallowtail, that's going
to be the Dutchman's pipe vine. Embriota is what we carry.

Speaker 4 (01:21:24):
That's the groundcover.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
That's the groundcover one. You know, the flowers are pretty hidden.
You don't really ever get to see the flowers unless
you search for them. But that's a that's a really
easy and small compact plant, right You don't you don't
need a lot of room to grow that one. It
grows in the small area, so it's not a real
invasive plant to keep and and have room for because

(01:21:51):
it just doesn't take much up. But it really really
pretty butterflies. Those are the dark almost black kind of
purple butterflies, really pretty.

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
They are gorgeous. Well, Danny, Unfortunately I have these commercial
breaks I have to take every day, and then we're
going to take one and we're going to come back.
We're kind of holding back on calls for right now
because we want to spend some time getting this information
out there. But we will be right back with Danny
Linderman from Enchanted Forest Garden Center talking all things butterflies,
and if we can squeeze it in, I'd like to

(01:22:23):
talk about some hummingbirds too. We'll be right back. Are
talking with Danny Linderman from Enchanted Forest Garden Center down
in the Richmond, Texas area about butterfly gardens. And we've
been talking about the plants that attract the adults in
and plants now we're talking about that attract the larval,
the butterfly larvae in. Danny, welcome back, and again thanks

(01:22:45):
for agreeing to come on. I have one thing I've
always kind of gotten a kick of over at your
place is that when people go there to see these plants,
there's butterflies all over the place. So, as you said,
they can just walk around and see what butterflies like.
I'll tell you. Uh, but also you got a little
larvae that are on these plants, and it's almost like

(01:23:05):
a sour dough starter situation where if you want a
butterfly garden starter, they buy one of your larval food
sources and they you stick a larva on it to
take home if they want, if you got one at
that point in time, they're right, Hey, Danny, I'm sorry

(01:23:28):
I had your mic off. You are back on now.
Uh did you hear what I said?

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
Yes, sir, Yes, sir. Yeah, it's all right, plug and play. Deal.
You just planted, plant the plant and wait, wait a
little while, and the butterfly will hatch and you'll have
a butterfly. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:23:46):
And I tell you for kids. That is so so
cool to get to see what the crystalis looks like. Uh,
and you know, watch the stages, watch the butterfly, you know,
as they come out and they got all these wrinkly
wings that suddenly they pump all their juices through them
and straighten them out and everything. That's pretty cool stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:24:05):
No, it's it's amazing to watch. It's amazing to watch,
and the kids really enjoyed.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
I have I enjoyed showing that the kids, you know,
what's going on and explaining even even adults. Well I really, yeah,
exactly exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:24:23):
If you're gardening, right, you're got to be a kid
at heart, so that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
You're learning every day, learning every day.

Speaker 4 (01:24:29):
Isn't that the truth? Well, those are some butterfly types
of plants, and I know, you guys, we're not even
hardly touching the surface of all the different species you carry.

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
Out there for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:24:42):
But what about hummingbirds? You know, we hummingbirds are back now.
I had one show up in my yard the other day,
and so we can get feeders and stuff out, But
what about plants for hummingbirds? What are some things you
might recommend to someone interested in creating a habitat where
they want to come.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
Yeah, there's a lot of good ones. I was, you know,
I had the luxury of being out here early in
the morning and late in the evening. So last night
I was out here and it was amazing to see
how many humming birds were flying around. Unbelievable. So so
a lot of a lot of the flowers that that
the butterflies like, the humming birds enjoy too. So you
almost get a two for when you when you plant

(01:25:23):
plant these things. Salva is one of my favorites. You'll
you'll see you'll see the humming birds on the salvia
religiously really really good and a really good plant on
top of that, right, so you're you're you can't go wrong. Yeah,
for sure. Turk's cap is one of my favorites as well.

(01:25:45):
It's a it's a Texas native, you know, it's a
it's a really really tough plant, and it can grow
in the sun or the shade. So if you you know,
have a shady yard, that that's probably one of your
better bets to track the humming birds in really really hard.

Speaker 4 (01:26:02):
We always say that plants with red tubular flowers attract
them in and they do, and things like the coral honeysuckle.
It's not invasive like the wild Japanese honeysuckle, but it's
a very tame little vine. But it produces beautiful little
flowers that are attractive to them. But like you said that,
there's plants that aren't red tubular flowers. They like I

(01:26:24):
was when I saw salvia garnetic how popular that was
with hummingbirds. You know, the thing gets it can get
about four feet or some more tall, right, and it
has those deep, deep blue to purple kinds of flowers.
There's a type that's kind of sky blue, but the
hummingbirds really go for that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):
I think the main thing is from what I witness
out here, is a tubular shaped and preferably a brighter
colored flower, right, So you don't want a real pale,
washed out color, and most flowers are fairly bright, but
a tubular shaped flower is the key. But but I've
seen them on lantana and you know pintos that they're on.

(01:27:07):
They get on everything, but there's a couple of things
that they really prefer for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:27:13):
That is good, and they are real popular. It's kind
of like monarch butterflies being so popular. Because people are
concerned about, you know, the the loss of some of
their habitat in Mexico and and other issues that they're
having to fight. But well, I tell you that hummingbirds

(01:27:33):
are another popular when people really get into that they care.

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):
Yeah, you bet, you bet, Yeah, the watch.

Speaker 4 (01:27:42):
Yeah, no kidding. I'm trying to think of some others
that around my house. I see the hummingbirds on a lot.
A trumpet creeper. Now that's a little over enthusiastic line,
but it'll it'll bring them in a lot too. They
love that. And butterfly bush uh uh, butterfly bush. In fact,
speaking of there's a two for plant, the butterfly bus looms.

Speaker 12 (01:28:07):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:28:07):
They attract the butterflies, that's why it has its name.

Speaker 5 (01:28:10):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
But they attract hummingbirds too, and uh, I don't know.
If you cut them early in the morning, they make
a half decent cupflower. Some of them have fragrance B bombarda.
That's another one that I've noticed that they really really
seem to like.

Speaker 7 (01:28:26):
I mean, humming bird, humming bird bush. The Hamelia patton
is a you know, obviously a good one too.

Speaker 4 (01:28:33):
The back to those red tubular flowers.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
Yeah, firecracker plant. Fire spike is another one I see
them on and that's a shade a shade plant. So
if you have a shady area, fire spike will be good.

Speaker 4 (01:28:48):
Okay, firecracker plant, fire spike. Those are some other good ones. Well,
I think that you know, it's it's great to feed hummingbirds,
and I do. I've got some feeders that I love
for the hummingbirds. I think it's great just to have
them around the landscape, attract them with the landscape as well.
There remember the old movie Field of Dreams. They said,

(01:29:08):
if you build it, they will come. And that is
sure you go. Butterflies and hummingbirds. Uh, and you you
guys are really set up to do that kind of thing.
There any other plants we haven't talked about with the
hummingbirds or the butterflies that you think people ought to
be aware of or ought to ought to consider.

Speaker 7 (01:29:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
So I was thinking about a while ago. One of
the neatest uh caterpillars for the for the butterfly is
the giant swallowtail. I don't know if you witnessed that.
And they they get on the citrus trees and.

Speaker 7 (01:29:43):
They uh, they look like bark they look like maybe
bird poo. It's it's a really really unique, unique, uh caterpillar.
It's it's one that really stands out in my mind.

Speaker 4 (01:29:58):
Yeah, and uh that camouflage that nature has provided of
looking like literally like bird poop and folks. If you
haven't seen them, you just go online and google it.
Swallowtail caterpillars. But we're talking about larval plants, so there
is the citrus plants themselves are a good larval food
source for swallowtails.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
Yep, and roue also for those oh rue okay, yeah,
ruined fennyl for the black swallowtail. We mentioned passion bindes
earlier for the golfer delivery. Okay, but there's you know,
so many, so many neat things to do out there,
and you know you don't have to do a giant

(01:30:41):
patch of this stuff to make things happen. So the
more the merrier. But it doesn't require a giant patch
of anything to make to make butterflies come to your yard.

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
There you go. So if you have one container on
your porch, you can bring in butterflies and then hopefully
from there it'll become addictive and you'll fill the whole
yard with it. But uh, that's a that's a very
good point. I think another thing, Danny that people need
to think about is, and this is true of landscaping
in general, but also butterfly attracting is the different seasons.

Speaker 7 (01:31:13):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:31:13):
You know that when we go from spring where everything
wants to bloom, to summer when we have much fewer blooms,
still have many good plants. You need to have plants
that are going to look good in summer, and you
mentioned lantana as an example of that, but that carries
you through and then fall bloomers. We have some really
nice fall blooming plants that can kind of extend the
season for certain certain things. You know, our hummingbirds are

(01:31:36):
here feeding and they're about to do their migration in
many most of the time, and so that'd be good
to think about all the seasons and make sure you
got something blooming or at least the foliage for the
caterpillars at all those times.

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
You bet I was. I was thinking about it. Well
ago diant this I remember last winter wasn't many things blooming,
but we had Diantas were a really really tough plant,
and there were butterflies all over the dianthus. So I
don't I don't remember that in the year's past, but
last year it was really intense interesting, so that that

(01:32:15):
was really neat And that's a good winter time plant.
That will you know, if you do have the butterflies
or even moss. You know, we we we we think
about butterflies, but the poor little moss, which are basically
the same same family, they get left out, but they're
probably one of the better, better pollinators. Not as pretty,
but they're a very very good pollinator.

Speaker 4 (01:32:36):
Well, while we're talking about that, we've got those evening
blooming plants that the things that scent send out their
scent in the evening, like moonflower vine, which is basically
like a morning glory, and Duranta the yeah, Duranta, what's it?
What I'm trying to Brugmancia That angel trumpet.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
Romancia romant is a really really unique flower.

Speaker 4 (01:33:01):
And those are those are bloomed, Those bloom late in
the day and sometimes in the evening, some of them,
and that attracts those nocturnal moths that come out and
feed on those.

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
And yeah, I'll mention it too because it's one of
my favorite is the hummingbird moth. I'm sure you're familiar
with that, and those are very very unique. Always basically
tell tell people that they look like a humming bird,
but they're wooly like a wooly mammoth. It just they're hairy.
It is a it is amazing to watch those things

(01:33:37):
because they're the same shape, same size. You know, if
you if you just glant at it, you think it's
a humming bird, but you get close to it because
it'll let you. They're not even afraid of you, like
a hummingbird would. You'll fly away. But these hummingbird moths
you can almost put them in your hand while they're flying.
It's a it's amazing the watch.

Speaker 4 (01:33:55):
That is awesome. Well, Danny, as always, I run out
of time before I run out of thing to talk about,
but thank you so much for coming on today give us,
giving us some inspiration on some of the plants that
we can be planting, because I know people want to
have more butterflies, more hummingbirds, and it's great that you
guys have it set up for both the blooms and

(01:34:16):
the things for the larval to eat. So thanks again.

Speaker 2 (01:34:19):
Coming on, Thanks for having me on skip Take.

Speaker 4 (01:34:22):
Care, yes, sir, yes, sir all right, folks, I'm going
to have you back with us looking forward to Well,
that was fun talking about hummingbirds and talking about butterflies,
by the way, fun fact. I like to nerd out
every now and then. But I want to give you
some facts about hummingbirds. You probably didn't know by the way.
They are arriving here now. They are here now, some
of the already showed up in my yard. Hummingbirds. Three

(01:34:45):
hundred and twenty five different species of hummingbirds exist. That
is the second largest bird family in the world. Is
that amazing? A hummingbird weighs about a tenth of announce,
about the weight of a penny. A hummingbird braid is
about the side of a bebee. They're the only bird
that can fly backwards and even hover upside down due

(01:35:05):
to the ability of their wing their shoulder shoulders to move,
the freedom of motion in their shoulder. Is that amazing
stuff right there? I just think it's a sack. Here's
one more a hummingbird. You've seen the little bills on them.
They have long, skinny bills. Their tongue will go that
much further out from the bill, about that far, and
they can move their tongue in and out lapping up

(01:35:28):
nectar from a big, deep flower twelve times a second.
So just imagine a sewing machine running at full throttle.
That's what a hummingbird tongue can do going out and
they're just pulling all that nectar up out of the flower.
Cool stuff. I won't bore you anymore. Oh one more.
They can fly up to sixty miles an hour. Typically
they're around half of that little or half of that.

(01:35:49):
But the amazing little birds. And by the way, if
you're into hummingbirds, you need to be into Wallbirds Unlimited.
Wallbirds Unlimited has six stores in the Houston area. You
can go to wu bu dot com forward slash Houston.
There you're going to find hummingbird feeders. Look for the
high perch feeder. It's my favorite one, the high perch.

(01:36:09):
But they have others that are also great, also awesome.
They have the hummingbird food that has something that helps
it not go bad so fast in it it lasts.
It doesn't you know, turn bad. When you put sugar
water out in hot weather, I mean it's going to
ferment and do all kinds of things not good for
the health of the hummingbird, so you need to change
yours out every few days just to keep good fresh

(01:36:30):
material there. While you're at Wilbirds, you'll find every other
thing you might want for birds. They stock it all
and they have the top quality, top quality of food,
top quality of houses, feeders, whatever it is at Wildbird's Unlimited.
We're going to now go out to Bissooria and talk
to Steve. Steve, thank you for waiting, and welcome to

(01:36:51):
garden Line. I think Steve is either making lunch or
chopping wood. I don't know what's going on out there.
We're going to come back. Let's see Stevere there. Hello, Hello,
all right, go ahead, I put that on hold, Chris,
if you can see if we can get Steebeck on there,

(01:37:12):
we'll move go on into that. Uh Landscaper's Pride. You've
heard me talk about them before. They have quality, locally
made organic materials, from compost to bed mixes. They've got
something called gardener's magic. It is a garden a gardening
saw mix. It's got organic pine based, it's got humids,

(01:37:34):
it's got screen pine and composted rice holes too, and
even a little bit of a chicken pellet fertilizer. That'll
give you about three months of feeding. So if you've
got a raise bed or a container garden, great for
that mushroom compost. All the gardeners over in this part
of Texas have probably tried mushroom compost and boy is
out of a rocket fuel for plants. They have a

(01:37:55):
healthy soil compost made with composted plant materials, a new
neutral pH and as compost releases it's nutrients, as that
further decomposes, it adds them to the soil over time.
That's why we're always wanting to mix in composts like
Landscapers Pride healthy soil composts. They have a black humus
that is a very dark and rich organic mix of

(01:38:17):
compost at, bine, bark, and loamy topsoil. So it would
be good for established beds, It would be good for
most growing conditions that you would have because it's got
some soil in it. You could even use it out
in the lawn in little lower areas to provide a
little bit of an additional depth. That all of these
are at Landscaperspride dot com you can find out more

(01:38:38):
about them. They're widely available in the area, and while
you're there, pick up landscapers pride mulchs because if there
is ever a season where we need to have molt soil,
thickly molt SOI to moderate soil temperature and prevent weeds.
Now is it. I'm going to head out now to
the Galleria area and we're going to talk to Suzanne. Hello, Suzanne,

(01:38:59):
welcome to gode morning.

Speaker 12 (01:39:02):
I have some Peggy Martin roses that were planted this spring.

Speaker 4 (01:39:07):
They were doing great.

Speaker 9 (01:39:08):
Now it looks like they've got some kind of a
something that's eating the leaves.

Speaker 12 (01:39:14):
Help.

Speaker 4 (01:39:16):
Uh when you say eating the leaves, can you describe
it to me?

Speaker 2 (01:39:21):
Well?

Speaker 9 (01:39:21):
There, they're not there.

Speaker 8 (01:39:23):
The it looks like it's just.

Speaker 2 (01:39:30):
There's nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:39:31):
Who is The whole leaf is gone. It's not like
the circular cut is taken out of the room.

Speaker 9 (01:39:36):
No no, no, no no, it's like the veins. Not the veins,
but the main part of the stem is still there,
but the.

Speaker 16 (01:39:43):
Leaf is gone.

Speaker 9 (01:39:45):
Okay, And it could be a certain areas.

Speaker 4 (01:39:51):
All right, Well, it could be a caterpillar. It could
be a beatle. If it's a caterpillar, it's probably around
there somewhere, and you may find it hiding under a
leaf for along the stee. Roses are a big enough
plant that some caterpillars will go down on the celt
surface during the day and then come out and feed
at night. I don't think that's what you're dealing with
on a rose, but you might try checking them in

(01:40:11):
the evening just to be sure. It could be a beetle.
There are beetles that will attack if you wanted to
just go with something a little on the safer side,
more natural side. Spinosid it's spi n sad. It kills
things that eat leaves. It kills things that eats leaves,

(01:40:33):
so caterpillars and beetles are both target pests for spinosid.
And it soaks into the tissues of the leaf, so
it sticks around a little bit longer than some of
the other products that might be out there. But I
would watch and maybe even look at an area and
kind of okay, what leaves are there and not there?
Come back the next day and see if this is

(01:40:53):
an active problem, or if it happened but now it's
not continuing to happen, because you'd hate to spray the
pest has already gone.

Speaker 10 (01:41:02):
Okay, okay, and where can I find that?

Speaker 4 (01:41:07):
Oh? Gosh, you can. You can find it anywhere. I mean,
it is very, very widely available. You're in the gallery,
are there? You're not far from Buchanans Native Plants, which
is up in the Hearts. You're not far from Southwest
Feed and Fertilizer Cornerick this Yeah, down in Southwest Houston.
Those places are both going to have some form of spinosid.

(01:41:30):
And any ace hardware store that you find should have
a spinosid type in secticide. All right, okay, okay, thank
you so much, Thanks a lot, you bad. I appreciate
appreciate your call. See here, where are we? Yeah, time
for a little break here Ron in Cleveland. You're gonna
be first when we come back. The phone number if

(01:41:50):
you'd like to give us a call seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Gardenline.
We're I do with us today. I'm your host, Skip Richtor,
and we're here to talk about the things that you
are interested in and having garden success. So let's head
out to Cleveland, Texas, and we're going to talk to Ron.

Speaker 7 (01:42:11):
Hello.

Speaker 4 (01:42:11):
Ron, good Morrow.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
Skip.

Speaker 11 (01:42:15):
Last Sunday, after your show was off the air, I
noticed one of headlims. It's about three years in the ground,
it really starts shape up about three foot tall. That
part of it, about half of it was starting to
die off and lose his leaves. So I started hitting
it with medina, hastergroll, plant food, you know, mixture, mix

(01:42:36):
it up and been keeping it wet. And then I
heard yesterday on your show about you were talking to
got it to about a guy about how the truck
is split vertically, and I noticed the sections on my
plant that are dying have those splits in the truck.
Do I just to rip the whole plant out, cut

(01:42:58):
those sections off, or just keep hitting it with medina
or what are your thoughts?

Speaker 4 (01:43:04):
Well, if the if the section is going to if
it's going to be able to heal the split and
stay alive, then just leave it as it is. If
it's dead, then just print it out below that split
and the plant will branch out, it'll it'll put on
new growth. But that's probably due to cold. And we
have had a couple of winters where the temperature either

(01:43:25):
got cold or drop too fast a couple of Decembers ago,
I believe, and we suffered some damage that often. Then
later shows up when the real demands are on the plant,
and it shows up by the plant branch is just
dying out because it can't move the water fast enough
due to that loss of some of the tissues that

(01:43:47):
move the water up and down the stem.

Speaker 11 (01:43:50):
Well, it's right at the base of the plant where
it's coming out of the ground. It branches out three
or four little okay, not about inch, so it's you know,
it's like get big sections of it that i'd have
to trim right off at the ground. So maybe I'll
just go ahead and set it ride and keep it
wet go from there.

Speaker 4 (01:44:07):
Yeah, you could do that. You could do that that.
You know, I'm not seeing it exactly, so I can't
tell you which way to go, but that would be
an option. Cutting it back would be an option. When
you look at the stem, how if you were to
look let's say you were to cut across the stem
and look at it as a pie. How big of
a slice of pie is the split? In other words,

(01:44:28):
is it one fourth of the way around? Is it
tenth of the way around?

Speaker 11 (01:44:34):
The truck is probably about where there's two of them
that are splitting, but two of the seconds are three
quarter to one inch diameter and they're opened up. There's
two splits and they're opened up like three sixteenths of
an inch. You know, they're not really massive. Yeah, okay,
but it seems definitely stopping the water flow going up.

Speaker 4 (01:44:55):
You know, well, it's just causing it to be diverted
a little bit. You know. It's kind of like a
highway when you got six lanes and they they block
two of the lanes off, and now all the traffic's
got to get through those two lanes. It causes a backup.
And so I think in time it's just gonna get better.
So I, based on what we're saying and here and here,

(01:45:17):
I think I think I would just let it go
and let's see what it does. Anything dead, go ahead
and print it out once there's no green underneath the
outer bark layer.

Speaker 11 (01:45:27):
Yeah, so is it. We're just hitting it every day
every other day with the medina, or just keep it
water like normal.

Speaker 4 (01:45:34):
You think, well you could do that. I'd water it
like normal because you don't want it to go without water.
But you know, once a week a good soaking is
enough for that plant. You don't need to water now
once a week. But when you water wet the soil
deeply and that'll be fine. And as far as yeah,

(01:45:54):
and as far as the medina, okay, yeah, you can
do that. There's a bunch of medinas. There's one that
is the soil activators. It's basically different microbial compounds and
other substances that are stimulant for plant growth and microbial activity.
Then there's a medina that has to grow for lawns,

(01:46:16):
which you can use on this plant, by the way,
that has a three one two four one two ratio
of nutrients in it that you could use.

Speaker 18 (01:46:25):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:46:25):
And so there's a lot of different ways you can go.
Bottom line is just keep it adequately fed and give
it some time.

Speaker 11 (01:46:33):
Yeah, all right, I apologize for interrupting when you're trying
to talk. Yeah, I've been doing it once a week,
water and real deep and doing the screwdriver trick and
that really has really made it.

Speaker 4 (01:46:44):
A big difference in my side yard.

Speaker 11 (01:46:46):
I'm working on my front yard still, so all right, well,
I appreciate it, all.

Speaker 4 (01:46:52):
Right, thanks, Ron, appreciate the call.

Speaker 2 (01:46:54):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:46:55):
Yeah. For those of you who are wondering what is
the screwdriver trick, what it is is a way that
you can find out how wet your soil is or
how deeply your soil is wet. So what you do
is you take a long handled screwdriver flatthead, long handled screwdriver,

(01:47:17):
and you push it down into the soil. And if
you had wet your soil, let's say the water soaked
four inches deep, that screwdriver would go down through salt,
like through soft butter, right through that and all of
a sudden it feels like you hit concrete underground. That's
the dry soil, And so you can go around and
when we say give it a good soaking wet it's

(01:47:38):
six inches deep. That's a good goal for your lawn.
By the way, and people want to know how long
do I water and everything well with all the different
sprinkler heads and not all fish efficient symptom systems. Not
all systems are efficient. It's kind of hard for me
to answer that. But a screwdriver trick. Don't lie. When
you push a screwdriver in the ground, you know how
deep that is wet. Now, just be aware that you

(01:48:00):
may hit a root, so you may try it in
two or three places. Make sure you're not hitting a
root underground. But that works pretty well for it's another way.
It's a little quick, easy way to find out if
you're wetting your soil adequately deep when you water. Now,
if you're trying to water for trees, you would even
want to go a little deeper than that. You'd like
a little deeper soaking than just six inches. All right, well,

(01:48:23):
here we go. We are nearing the end of this segment.
If you'd like to give us a call seven one
three two one two kt r H seven one three
two one two k t r H. Well, go ahead.
Danny Linnerman on talking. He's from in Jenni Forest, Donna, Richmond.
He was talking about butterfly plants, both the ones that

(01:48:44):
attract adults, the ones that attract larva, and hummingbird plants,
the ones that attract hummingbirds in and I fail to
tell you where the where in Jenny Forest is And
Jenni Forest again is down in Richmond. It's on FM
twenty seven fifty nine. So if you're heading from Richmond
towards sugar Land, it's off to the right FM twenty
seven fifty nine. The website, write this down. They have

(01:49:07):
an awesome website and they always have things going on there.
I think starting on the twenty eighth of September, Danny's
going to be giving a talk about fall gardening, and
like for six weeks, every Saturday there's another talk out
there and they usually have a food truck and stuff.
But anyway, the website enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com.

(01:49:30):
Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. That's how you find
out more. For those of you who are interested, I
recommend you go check it out. It's a real cool nursery.
I love walking around out there. And you got to
see the butterflies. I mean, every butterfly in town already
knows about the place, right, so if you don't know
about it, well, you're behind the curve. Ask a butterfly.

(01:49:53):
Sometimes I humor myself ridiculous things to say. All right,
well you are listening to Gardenlane. I want to remind
that you can go online to gardening with skip dot com.
You know, I say this all the time, and I'm
still surprised how many times I talk to people and say, no,
I didn't know you had a website gardening with skip
dot com. There you'll find the lawn care schedule. There

(01:50:15):
you'll find the pest disease and weed management schedule. There
you will find the information on nutcrasts controlling nut grass.
You will find how to build your own weed wiper,
a little thing I invented that works really well. It's
not expensive to build, really cool, and the products that
you would put on the weed wiper to control various

(01:50:37):
kinds of weed. Hey, I want to remind you the
second annual Strawberry Jamboree is going to be down in
Lake Jackson, Texas at the Lake Jackson Civic Center the
Brazoria County Extension Office Horticultures and Folks. They're putting this
on and this is on September on the twenty first,
all morning from eight to noon. They're going to have

(01:50:57):
a strawberry shortcake contest. Awesome exhibitors, awesome speakers. October is
when you plant, and you'll be able to order strawberry plugs.
They're at the event for more information. Nine seventy nine,
eight six, four, fifteen fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:51:14):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skimp Rickards
please crazy Lisp just watch him, as well.

Speaker 4 (01:51:33):
As many things to see.

Speaker 1 (01:51:35):
Black bass back again.

Speaker 4 (01:51:42):
You're not a sorry.

Speaker 9 (01:51:47):
Thank you?

Speaker 4 (01:51:48):
All right, all right, welcome back to garden line. We
are glad that you are listening, and we're here to
help you in any way we can to have success.
We want you to have a beautiful garden. I want
you out of a boutonful garden. We want your landscape
to be something of beauty to behold as well. And
there is a way to do that. No matter what
the plant, no matter what the situation, there's a way

(01:52:09):
to turn it into something nice, to make gardening more fun,
to make it more rewarding, to make it more what successful.
I think that's probably the best way to do it well.
If you'd like to give us a call. By the way,
our phone number is seven one three two one two
fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two

(01:52:32):
five eight seven four. I got a call or someone
had asked me about the what was the number for
that Strawberry Jamboree? So here we go. The second annual
Strawberry Jamboree is in Lake Jackson, Texas on September twenty first,
from eight am until noon. You can call get all

(01:52:52):
registered up for it. If you want to give them
a call, it's ninety seven nine eight six four fifteen
fifty eight. When you go there. There's going to be
some outstanding speakers. I've been to this. I went to
this the first one and it was excellent. They are
going to be having a number of different things that

(01:53:13):
I think will be interested in, such as exhibitors. There's
a strawberry shortcake contest. For those of you who feel
like you are the king or queen of strawberry shortcake making. Well,
here's your chance to defend your throne. You can just
call them nine seven, nine, eight, six, four fifteen fifty eight.
At the event, there will be an opportunity to pre

(01:53:33):
order some plugs for strawberries for October planting. That is
the best time to plant strawberries in our area is October.
Learn how to do it, make your order, have fun
all in one second annual Strawberry Jeenboree Lake Jackson, Texas
put on by the Brazoria County Extension Office the Horticulture Section.

(01:53:55):
So good job Kimberly that the first one was awesome,
and iss use your horticulturist there in Risoria. Kenny. By
the way, if you all need anything, Kimberly in the
Master gardener programmer or excellent down there. I'm going to
now go to let's see Hockley, Texas, and we're going
to talk to Ron. Hello. Ron, Okay, this is Rob.

(01:54:17):
Oh Rob Okay, Rob. We'll go with Rob.

Speaker 19 (01:54:20):
Then brother's name is well, actually my brother's name is Ron.

Speaker 4 (01:54:24):
But I get that a lot. I've seen some pictures
over of a oak tree I've had.

Speaker 19 (01:54:32):
It's been here for about eight ten years, fifteen twenty
feet tall and a few years and it's been kind
of puny, just had you know, treze and the heat
and everything else. I look up and it just seems
like it's not doing very well. It looks fine, but
it's kind of sparse. Yeah, And something hit in my
head yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:54:53):
Something.

Speaker 19 (01:54:54):
Yeah, something hit my head yesterday about my primming practices
which I did about a year ago, and I believe
I might have been cutting the limb the branches off
are the ones that I was cutting off a little
too short and it and so the black on there is.
I stopped by Arborgate this was like last year, and

(01:55:14):
I showed them some of the pictures and they recommended
some of the that spray when you cut a limb off,
your spray around there. I guess, So that's that's what
the black was on it.

Speaker 4 (01:55:25):
So okay, I was just going to say the photos
I see first of all, the overall tree, you know,
it's it's in decent shape. One observation before I forget
is when it goes in the ground, it doesn't flare
out at the base, and that means that it was
either planted too deep or mulched too deep. So if

(01:55:49):
you could kind of clear that out a little bit,
it's better. When a tree goes in the ground, it
should flare as opposed to like a telephone pole goes
in the ground and just it's the same diameter all
the way down to the ground on right, the tree
should flare out a little bit, So check that, check
that depth. But that's not the issues that we're talking about,
although it could be contributing to them. Some of your

(01:56:10):
branch is that were prone appear to have gotten some
sort of a canker in them, And a canker will
take that fresh wounded tissue and it's a disease of
it and it causes it to die back even more,
to get a little gnarly and everything. If you clean
the dead bark out of the areas that are like that.
By the way, there's a lot of good photos you
sent to clear the dead bark out of it and

(01:56:33):
it'll close back over. There's one photo where you actually
show a single wound that see the callus coming in
from both sides. That shows me that your tree has
some vigor and it's trying to heal. But the healthier
you get the tree, the more it's able to overcome
that canker to close back in with healthier tissues. There's
not a spray to put on it for the canker,

(01:56:54):
but that's what I would do. Just when you do
any kind of pruning, make sure you're making the cut
in the right place and the right way. Generally we
don't recommend that you prune and then paint the wounds.
That's usually not necessary. So I would just say in
this case, there is something going on in the tree,

(01:57:15):
and the best thing you can do is get the
tree healthy so it's able to fight the problem off. Otherwise,
those cankers can just be a nagging, ongoing thing.

Speaker 19 (01:57:27):
Yeah, and it's it certainly is. It's just kind of
sad because you look at a poor little trees like
your kids out there is not doing very well.

Speaker 4 (01:57:34):
So you're just trying to do. Yeah, which you can. Well,
I wouldn't be Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if planting
depth is contributing to the stress of the tree. It's
not the cause of all this.

Speaker 19 (01:57:46):
You're talking about the malts that I clear some of
the molts out of there?

Speaker 2 (01:57:49):
Is that?

Speaker 4 (01:57:50):
Yeah? Uh, you know, looking at the way it's set
in the yard and everything, I would do that. You
may not want to do this, but if you can
make that multi bit bigger, that would make the tree
head wider out. Yeah, wider out. Yeah. Trees don't grow
in meadows. They grow in forests, and they like to
have all around them all the grass dead because they

(01:58:11):
covered it up with their own leaves and mulched over it.
And in our landscapes we try to make them get
along the grass and the trees and so, but clear
that out and then provide some nutrients. There is a
product Nelson makes a product tree and shrub fertilizer. It's
a little canister. Nit Fross makes a similar type product

(01:58:33):
for trees and shrubs, and you could just sprinkle that
around the tree and water it in really good, just
to give it a little boost, continue to give it
a little boost. I do it now. I wouldn't do
it again late in the fall, but you could do
it now to carry you into fall and then again
in the spring. Give it a little fertilizer and try
to invigorate this tree and get it going okay. And

(01:58:56):
you were talking about the dark spots. Should I go
in there with a knife and kind of clean out
some of the bad stuff. What you would be doing
is where there's loose bark that's in the way of
the callous, closing in from both sides and closing over
that wound. Take all the dead out because it's of
course not going to come back to life, and it's

(01:59:18):
just in the way. And it also helps that inner
wood to dry out faster after it gets wet, and
that that is helpful in general. Hey, I'm gonna have
to run round. I hope that helps. Good luck with it.
I hope you have good results from that tree. It's
time for me to take a break. I'll be right back.

(01:59:38):
All ride, all right, welcome back, Welcome back to gardenline.
Good heavy with us today. Hey, if you are dealing
with chinchbugs or if you're dealing with sidewebworms in your lawn,
Nitropous bug Out Max is a granular product by Nitropiss.
You put it out in the lawn, You water it
then and it washes the product that kill see insects

(02:00:00):
off the granule and into the thatch area. And that's
where chinchbugs hide all day and night, and then the
sadweb worms come out at night to eat, but they're
hiding in the thatch during the day. It's very effective
and within forty eight hours it has knocked them out.
It's really easy to find. It's all over the place.
Like nitrofoss products, You're going to find it at places

(02:00:22):
like Bearings Hardware on Abusinet and the one on Westtheimer,
both of those carry it. RCW Nursery on I forty
five North, Shades of Texas up there in the Woodlands
on fourteen eighty eight are all examples of where do
you get bug out Max. Once you put it on,
it's going to give you many weeks of coverage, so
you're not gonna have to do it again and again.

(02:00:44):
You do it now and shut those things down when
you see that they're there. That's all on my schedule too,
by the way, online my insect pest disease or pest
disease and weed management schedule for the lawn. You'll be
able to find that kind of information there, as well
as the timing of all of this. We're gonna head
out now to Missouri City and talk to Lauren.

Speaker 2 (02:01:05):
Hello, Lauren, Good morning, Skip. Yes, I wanted to ask you.

Speaker 16 (02:01:11):
I heard earlier and I get confused about the two
enchanted garden and forrest.

Speaker 2 (02:01:15):
But which one is having the peaches and sweetcorn today
the farmers market?

Speaker 4 (02:01:22):
Oh? Let me see, hang on, just want to say
I should Yeah, I should have that right here in
front of me. I believe that is the one.

Speaker 18 (02:01:33):
Let me check.

Speaker 4 (02:01:34):
I believe that's you know what. I'm gonna have to
hunt that down. I've talked about both of them today
and my brain just went blank. Yeah, it happens to us,
doesn't it. Janet Gardens are enchanted forest. I'm gonna tell
you this second here, I've got it. It just may
take me a minute to find it. No, it is

(02:01:57):
that was in Chanet Gardens that I was talking about. Yeah,
it's Peach Creek. Yeah, Peach Creek Country Market, and it's
peaches and tomatoes and you know, sweet corn and whatever
is seasonal watermelons, whatever is seasonal at the time. That's
in chender Guards. That's today though. Uh it's August eighteenth,
today from ten am to two pm. So they're going

(02:02:19):
to kick off here in about thirty minutes plus. Right
when garden Line is over, you can head that way
and you'll be right in the big middle of it.

Speaker 14 (02:02:27):
Okay, thank you so much.

Speaker 7 (02:02:28):
I have a great day.

Speaker 4 (02:02:31):
You too. Thanks for the call. Appreciate that. All right, Well,
you are listening to garden Line. If you would like
to give us a call, our number is seven to
one three two one two k t r H. Now,
what usually happens, I don't usually chied my listeners, but
what usually happens is right at the end, everybody calls

(02:02:53):
and I can't get to all the calls. And uh so,
if you're planning on calling today, don't wait until the
end of the show, because that's when things sometimes get
a little too busy, and I'd like to be able
to get to everybody's questions. I think that's very important,
don't you. We're going to go back. I want to talk.
I haven't talked about Buchanan's native plants yet today, and

(02:03:16):
I want to because to be Canons. It's one of
those garden centers that is just so unique. Number One,
they specialize in natives, and they have the best selection
of natives anywhere that I've seen when it comes to
just the breadth and the way they're divided up. For example,
you can say I want a native just from the
Harris County area, and they can tell you about those.

(02:03:37):
They have those. But don't let the word native plants
fool you. Yes, they have more than enough native plants,
but they've got vegetable plants. Like right now, tomato plants
are in that garden center waiting for you to come home,
take them home and give them get home house plants.
They've one of the best selection of house plants anywhere
in the Houston area. Is it Buchanan's Native Plants, By

(02:03:58):
the way, It is on a Eleventh Street and the Heights.
If you want to go to their website, I encourage
you to do that, by the way, Buchanansplants dot com.
And the reason is because there's a lot of good
educational material on their website. Plus you'll find out about
different kinds of events going on at the garden center.

(02:04:21):
On August twenty fourth, For example, they are going to
have a program called Midsummer Flower Grown Workshop. It's with
ponderosa blooms coming in and it's from twelve to one,
so it's over the noon hour on Saturday, August twenty fourth,
And this one costs and you just need to call
Buchanan's Native Plants find out the details and how you

(02:04:45):
participate in it. Their phone number is seven to one,
three eight six, one fifty seven to twelve seven one
three eight six, one fifty seven to twelve are Go
to Bucanansplants dot com. You need to sign up for
the newsletter because you get a lot of great information there,
and boy do they ever know what they're talking about.
Very knowledgeable people, outstanding selection at Buchanan's Native Plans. I'm

(02:05:10):
going to head now out to Spring, Texas and talk
to Steve. Hello, Steve, Hello.

Speaker 5 (02:05:16):
Skip Hey, I got a question. I got a question
about bug out Max. All right, is it safe to
use around pets TETs?

Speaker 4 (02:05:30):
Well, any product used in the wrong way can be
issues for pets. People. Whatever you're talking about with this one,
you want to sprinkle it out when the pets aren't
out on the lawn, and then you want to water
it in really well and let that dry off, and
then I think you can put them out there without
the big concerns. Okay.

Speaker 5 (02:05:53):
I looked on the website and they don't have any
information about it on their website.

Speaker 2 (02:06:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:06:00):
Well, the ingredients and stuff that are in there are
going to be persistent, but they'll be dissolved down into
the thatch. We want them in this case. We want
them persistent because you don't want it to day after
you apply it to not be working anymore and it
sticks around a little bit. So put it out with
the granule watered in really well, let it fully dry out,

(02:06:23):
and then I would not be as concerned about any
kinds of side effects.

Speaker 5 (02:06:28):
I'm going to take your word on it. I have
a second question that is totally disrelated. My wife says
you can use banana peels and eggshells in the garden,
and I told her I thought she was full of it,
and I said, you know what I'm going to ask skip,
he'll melt.

Speaker 4 (02:06:50):
Okay, thanks for putting me right in the big middle
of this. Okay, so you can put those in your garden.
But eggshells have calcium in them, and that calcium is
extremely slowly released into the soil. You can bury an
eggshell and come back three years from now and dig

(02:07:11):
it up. It'll be all brown stained and it won't
look like an eggshell, but it will still be pretty
much intact in the soil because it just doesn't dissolve
away like that. So is there a problem with putting
them in?

Speaker 9 (02:07:23):
No?

Speaker 4 (02:07:24):
Or is it going to give you a quick boost? Now?
If you want that, get some lime or some product
that has calcium in it, bananas or organic matter. Any
organic matter decomposes away and releases its nutrients in the soil.
So bananas, apple peels, vegetable trimmings, any of those things
can be put into the soil and they'll decompose and

(02:07:44):
they benefit the soil.

Speaker 5 (02:07:46):
And I'm going to give my wife. I'm going to
give my wife a half a point on this one.

Speaker 4 (02:07:52):
You're you're you. You like to live dangerously, don't you.

Speaker 5 (02:07:58):
I'm a bear?

Speaker 7 (02:07:59):
All right?

Speaker 4 (02:08:00):
Hey, thanks for the call. And if you need a
couch to sleep on tonight, give me a call back.
Take care of the Oh my gosh. Uh, let's see,
we are going to head out to Baytown and talk
to BJ. Hey, BJ, what's up in bytown.

Speaker 10 (02:08:17):
I have a boogom be that is not blooming, skipped
help me.

Speaker 4 (02:08:22):
Okay, all right, Boomville is bloom well when they're a
little bit pop bound. If they're in an issures and
a container, yes it is.

Speaker 15 (02:08:31):
It is big and beautiful, but it's not bloomy.

Speaker 2 (02:08:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:08:35):
Uh So back off a little bit on the for sure,
on the fertilizing, a little bit on the watering. Uh
and just let's let it settle down a little bit.
When they get in a real succulent we call it
a vegetative growth. They need to settle in and use
those carbohydrates the leaves are making instead of fueling new growth,
setting some bloom buds for you. And so that that's

(02:08:56):
one of the main reasons we see boom beee is
not bloom and get a little pot bound. If the
pot is really large and it just has a lot
of extra space, it tends to want to grow vines
rather than produce flowers.

Speaker 15 (02:09:10):
Okay, thank you so much, skimp, all right, you bet.

Speaker 4 (02:09:14):
Thanks for the call. I appreciate that you are listening
to Guarden Line our phone number seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. Now I am a
broken record on garden line in saying, the way I

(02:09:35):
like to summarize it is brown stuff before green stuff.
That's as simple as I can put it. What I'm
really saying is, before you put in plants, get the
soil and as optimum of shape as you can. That way,
when you put the plants in, you're going to have success,
assuming those are plants that want to grow here, right,

(02:09:55):
and assuming they have the am on of sunlight they
want for that particular plant species, and so on. But
before you put the plants in the ground, you have
determined whether you're going to have success or not. By
and large, I would say seventy five percent of your
success is determined, maybe eighty percent is determined by the
time you walk away from planting the plant, because the

(02:10:18):
soil is what it is. You've either improved the drainage
or you haven't. You've either built up a raised bed
for drainage or you haven't. You've either added all the
nutrients down in the mix well or you haven't. It
either has good organic matter content or it doesn't. You
see what I'm saying. You've chosen a variety whether it's
a seed or a transplant that you're putting in. You've

(02:10:40):
chosen a species in variety that is going to do
well here. You've chosen a spot with full sun, parts
on or no sun, and all of those affect it.
So the soil comes first. Take time to get the
soil right and you will have success with your gardens.
That is as simple as that, and I'm going to
tell you a little bit more about how to do
that when we come back, as well as we'll head

(02:11:02):
off the League City and talk to Terry, as well
as whoever else calls during this break. Seven one three
two one two KTRH will be right back. Welcome back
to Garden Line. Glad you're listening with us on a
great Sunday. Good sunday to be out and about this afternoon,
maybe visiting a garden center pick up some of the

(02:11:22):
good deal. There are great deals going on around town
at our independent garden centers during this late summer season.
It's a good time to take advantage of those. We're
going to head out now to League City and talk
to Terry. Hello, Terry, Hi, how are you. I'm well?

Speaker 2 (02:11:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 10 (02:11:40):
I have some tomato plants in about eighteen inch pots
that I planted in the spring and they haven't been
doing anything, you know, for the last couple of months.
Should I go ahead and fertilize them at this point
or not?

Speaker 4 (02:11:58):
Okay? Are they very calm packed plants or are they
vining and sprawling everywhere?

Speaker 10 (02:12:03):
They're kind of sprawling.

Speaker 4 (02:12:05):
Okay. If you look at the plants, does the foliage
look good or are the leaves kind of losing their
color and have disease spots on them? What's the condition
of those plants.

Speaker 10 (02:12:20):
I don't see any disease on them, but they don't
look super vibrant.

Speaker 4 (02:12:25):
Okay. I would start fertilizing them and make sure you
water often enough to keep that soil moist.

Speaker 2 (02:12:33):
Would you have them on a time.

Speaker 10 (02:12:34):
Or it goes off every day so they get watered regularly.

Speaker 4 (02:12:40):
They're getting watered regularly, okay, good. Then just get you
a quality, you know, a fertilizer that'll do well with
your vegetables. There's a lot of great options out there.
There's some liquid forms, there's some granular forms that you
can mix in and water in, and I would suggest
that you do that. Give them follow the label, give
them a dose don't overdo it and mix it into

(02:13:02):
the soil and let's get those things growing because once
the weather breaks, once we get out of this you know,
mid ninety all day kind of stuff, they're going to
start setting fruit again and you can get a little
crop in before our first frost.

Speaker 10 (02:13:19):
Should I cut back some of the sprawling or not.

Speaker 4 (02:13:23):
You can sometimes if they're in a really weak state,
cutting back, they don't tend to resprout well. I've noticed
another thing that can be done is to cut the
ends off shoots and take them inside and just slash
them around in a little bowl of water, a sink
of water. And what you're doing is you're just washing

(02:13:44):
off like spider mites that are hanging on and things
like that. Just get all that off and then put
those ends in a glass of water and they will
form roots really quick. Give them some directs on, but
just give them a good bright area with a little
inderecs on. Once they get roots formed, you can take
them out and plant them in a container and they

(02:14:04):
will just keep growing and be your fall plants. That's
another option. So that's why I was asking all the
questions about how healthy are your plants, because if they're
in bad shape. Cut the ends of the branches, cut
them about eight inches long, take the bottom leaf or
two off and do what I said and start over.
If the plant looks okay, which is sound like yours did, uh,

(02:14:26):
then you probably don't need to do that.

Speaker 10 (02:14:29):
Okay, all right, thank you for your help.

Speaker 4 (02:14:32):
Thank you for your call. Good Luckily, remember here on
guard line the advice is free. But I do expect
half those tomatoes sometimes this fall when you start get production. Okay, Terry,
very good, alrighty well, garden line phone number seven one
three two one two k t rh Folks. We've got

(02:14:54):
about twenty minutes a garden line left minus the break
we're going to have coming up pretty quick. I was
talking earlier about the most important thing is the brown stuff.
The brown stuff, the green that is the soil, that
is the compost that is the nutrients, the fertilizer, good
drainage that is critical, and then the green stuff. The

(02:15:14):
great plants will hit the ground running. You have created
a nirvana for your plants to do well when you
build the soil first. Nature's Way Resources has been doing
this for a very long time. John Ferguson, you know
out at Nature's Way Resources. They have created quality mixes
for many many years now. They when it comes to

(02:15:35):
things that we talk about all the time like roast,
soil on leaf, more compos and vegetable mixes, they invented
those things out there at Nature's Way Resources, those blends.
This is a place with a two acre nursery and
garden center too, with fruits and native perennials and houseplants,
seasonal vegetables. But what do you need to know right
now is this is the time to build your soil

(02:15:56):
for fall. Fall planting is coming really soon. You need
to get these supplies, whether it's compost or whether it's
a bad mix like a veggian herb mix or whatever
the mix, and you need to get it done now.
And now is also a good time because if you
tell them you heard about them on garden Line, there
will be a significant, significant discount on all soil and

(02:16:21):
multch based products. So if you're looking at veggie and
herb mixes, if you're looking at just a quality compost,
you're going to find all of that on a really
good special deal right now just by telling them you
heard about it on garden Line. Here's their phone number,
nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety nine

(02:16:44):
three six three two one sixty nine ninety Nature's Way
is located off I forty five as you head up
toward conro Uh. It is a Sherbrook Circle. That's the
street if you want to put it into your maps
app Sherbrooks Circle. Conro Tepe says, here's the website, Nature's
Way Resources dot com. Nature's Way Resources dot com. You

(02:17:08):
need to give them a call, you need to stop
by there. They have bulk, they have bags, but make
sure you tell them that you heard about on Guardenline.
You can get that great discount on all the products,
and don't delay. Get that done. Get the soil building
done now because when fall comes, who knows, maybe you
go into a rainy period right at the time you're
wanting the plant and you can't because you haven't fixed
up the soil yet. Get it done now. What they say,

(02:17:31):
make hay while the sunshines. Okay, let's say make soil
quality mixes while the sunshines. Build your soil while the sunshines.
That's what you need to do.

Speaker 9 (02:17:44):
I uh.

Speaker 4 (02:17:45):
I always enjoy visiting with John and Ian out there
at nare Nature's Way resources and all that. They've got
some just quality staff on site out there as well.
It's just a fun place to go out to pick
their brains because they know their stuff. They really do,
they really really do. The website also can be helpful

(02:18:07):
for that. One other thing that product that I've talked
about before is Medina has to Grow Super Grow. Plus
there's a lot of words Medina Products. You've known about
them for years. They've been sponsors of garden Line. Probably
the oldest sponsored, longest sponsor of garden Line is Medina Products.
In my opinion, I'd have to check that to be sure,

(02:18:29):
but I'm about ninety five percent sure of that right.
They've long time supported this. You know, back in the
Dewey Compton days, Medina was sponsoring this show. And by
the way, do you know you get to listen to
garden Line because we have sponsors that are making it
possible for you to listen to garden Line. So you
always want to thank our sponsors for sponsoring the show
because that's what makes it possible. And thanks Medina for

(02:18:51):
such a long support. They have their has to Grow line.
There's regular has to Grow you can put on your
plants a foliar feet, put them in the soil, however
you want to go about it. There is the Medina
has to Grow for Lawns, which is a bottle court
bottle hooks up to your gardening hose and you spread
out over your lawn and it's got a good three
one two. I believe it's a four one two ratio

(02:19:12):
of nutrients that is just right for the lawns and
really helps. But the newest one is super Grow Plus
has to Grow super Grow Plus. It's a sixteen zero
two fertilizer. Now in it, you're gonna find some really
special extras like a keylated form of iron that means
the soul can't just tie it up. It's gonna last,

(02:19:35):
a seaweed extract, molasses, humic acid, all these things that
are just extra boosts in the concoction to make it successful.
One couark covers four thousand square feet. It's available all
over the place. Medina supergrol Plus. I'm gonna take a
little break. We'll be right back for our last segment.
The phone number is seven to one three two one

(02:19:57):
two KTRD line. Glad you're listening and believe it or not.
I have openings here on the screen if you would
like to call in. We've got about ten minutes listen,
ten minutes left on Guardenline, so I can take another
call somebody who's quick to call in. I wanted to

(02:20:17):
talk about a couple of things before we shut down
the show for today. First of all, if you know
people that might be interested in Garden Line, tell them
about it. Tell them about it, Tell them that it
is six am to ten am on Saturdays and Sundays
that they can listen in. Tell them that they get
the iHeartMedia app or whatever kind of app they used
to listen to the radio and listen and queue into

(02:20:39):
garden Line so that they can listen live, or they
can listen to past show podcasts. You know that you
can listen to past show podcasts, like if you heard
me say something today and it's like what did you say,
Well it'll be posted and you can go listen to
what I said. And that is a nice extra, I
think as well. But we have a lot of folks

(02:20:59):
that listen not just in the Houston area but far
out from here, so I think family and friends would
be interested in knowing about the show. And we of
course welcome them to have them as a listener. I
have online and will continue to put online educational materials
to help you have success in your garden. I've talked
to you today about the Nutsets publication. That's new publications.

(02:21:22):
There's two of them, the weed wiper publication, the products
to use on a weed wiper publication. There are my
garden schedules on there, and seasonally I bring stuff up
and put it online to help you with it. I'm
working on a couple of other things right now. I'm
working on some things to help people with particular garden questions.
You know, as I hear a question over and over

(02:21:43):
and over and over again, if I can put something online,
that sure saves a lot of time and trouble trying
to re explain the same thing every time. It'll be
right there where you can see what it is. If
you are a new listener to Garden Line, just know
that you're free to call in at any time. I'm
seven one three two one two K t R H.
And We'll be happy to answer whatever kind of gardening

(02:22:05):
questions that you have. I did want to close today
by talking just a little bit about some herb gardening.
Most people are not wanting to put in a formal
herb garden. Now, formal herb gardens are gorgeous, they're beautiful,
and you know, typically they're geometrically balanced, where it's like

(02:22:26):
one side is the same as the other side, a
mirror image of the other side. Those are all fine,
But I find that herbs can be used in a
lot of ways in the landscape. Chives make a good
thing to line a walk like let's say you're going
to plant a riope down a walkway, or to border
a bed in the sun. In the sun, the chives

(02:22:48):
make a good border for that. There's the garlic chives
and the onion chives. They have their pros and cons
each one, but I think that would be something to consider. Plus,
they bring in a lot of pollinators when they do bloom.
The blooms off when they occur when before they go
to seed and throw those seeds everywhere because they do
receed profusely. Groundcover herbs like a regano like time are

(02:23:11):
excellent to use in any beds where there is good
sunlight put I have typically will put those kinds of
things at the end of the rose in my vegetable
garden because they do so well. There's herbs that bloom
like pineapple sage is a late summer and fall blooming
sage with pineapple scented leaves. It's a salviet attracts hummingbirds,
and it's just another multi use herb. Rosemary shrubs are

(02:23:34):
about the most drought tolerant of plants that we have,
and just as long as you give them good drainage.
You can have a trailing type to spill over a wall,
you can have an upright type to just be an
evergreen shrub. And I could go on and on and on.
You ought to consider some herbs that you haven't grown before.
They're not hard to grow, and they just add a

(02:23:55):
real zest to your cooking. And it's so nice to
be able to walk out, take a snif and come
inside and go to town cooking up a dish because
it's so handy right there. You can grow them in
containers as well. If you don't have room for a garden,
try them out. All right, I'm going to run out here.
We got a couple of calls, and you see if
I can take care of here. Rode up Santa Fe
and talk to Mike first, Hey, Mike, Hi, Hi, how

(02:24:19):
can we help.

Speaker 12 (02:24:21):
Well, I've got a couple of pineapple pear trees that
are probably twenty five feet tall, a plumb and two peach,
and they're just looking really terrible. I don't know if
they're getting too much water not enough, or I should
fertilize them, okay.

Speaker 4 (02:24:37):
Them, well, too much or not enough would both cause
them to look terrible. The plums and peaches especially cannot
tolerate wet conditions, soggy wet conditions, and pairs don't like
it either. But drought also can. And you know, when
we've had a nice mild summer early on with quite

(02:24:59):
a bit of rain actually, and then we turn around
and now it's turned hot and blazing hot and the
demands are really high, that could be part of the
issue that's going on. You know, when you say not
look good, there's a lot of versions and not look good.
So I don't know the specifics of the look, but
in general, I would just make sure that if you

(02:25:19):
can reduce competition around them by creating a mulched bed,
a mulched area as wide as you can to keep
the grass away, to keep the lawnmower and weed eater
away from the base all of that. That would be
very helpful for them. You could do a light fertilization
now and watered in really well, but I wouldn't fertilize
past definitely, not early September. I think I'd stop the

(02:25:42):
fertilization of them at that time because you don't want
to push a lot of really late season succulent growth
right before the first presents.

Speaker 12 (02:25:49):
Okay, you know, I've had those pineapple there for well
several years and they produce maybe.

Speaker 14 (02:25:57):
One or two small pineapple.

Speaker 4 (02:26:01):
Okay, and one of my doing there, well, it would
probably be helpful to have a different variety that you
could have for a cross pollination. They pair set better
when they have a second variety for cross pollination. Some
require it, some not so much, but in general that
generally helps a little bit. That if you know somebody
with a pear tree that's not pineapple, you can ask

(02:26:24):
them when they bloom to snip a limb off, put
it in a like a coke can and with water
in it, and hang it in your tree and the
bees will go back and forth. That'll only hold up
for a few days before the blooms are not good yeah,
that is one way you could test. If you do
that and you get really good set, then that means
that's what's most needed, and that'd be the little trial.

(02:26:47):
And it also helps hold you over until a new
tree you buy finally starts blooming.

Speaker 5 (02:26:51):
Well, okay, okay, one other question, if.

Speaker 4 (02:26:56):
All right real quick, because I got one more caller.

Speaker 2 (02:26:58):
I'm trying to get to a plum tree.

Speaker 12 (02:27:00):
I'll get I'll get the flowers everywhere and look like
little big plums, and then they'll the wind will come,
they'll fall off, and I won't get any plums at all.

Speaker 4 (02:27:08):
What variety do you have?

Speaker 8 (02:27:11):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:27:11):
Boy, that's a good question. I have no idea.

Speaker 4 (02:27:14):
Meth Lee is pretty self fruitful. Many of the other
varieties need a second variety to pollinate. So hunt that
down and then go to wherever you purchase your trees
and say, hey, I've got one of these. I need
something else to go with it. All right, Mike, thanks
a lot. Good luck with that. I'm gonna run real
quick to John and Tombauld. Hey, John, we just got
a short time here, but how can.

Speaker 18 (02:27:33):
We help Yes, yes, yes, sir, good morning. A quick
question about the eaglestons as far as growing on between
now and the end of the year. Whe's the best
time now or is it too hot away till October?
What's your suggestion?

Speaker 4 (02:27:47):
The best time to plant is in the fall because
they're going to go through a long season where there's
very little stress on them. You can go ahead and
plant them now, and there's some good deals out there,
like RCW Nursery has good deals on egiston. And if
you plan them now, you just need to water them
like they're still in the pot for the first few

(02:28:09):
weeks and then back off slowly and slowly because there's
still the same demand on them and that's a little
confined root system. By next spring it'll be spread out
into the soil better or right now. If you want
to go now to get a good deal on a plant,
that's how you take care of it. Thank you, Chip,
Thank you John. I appreciate glad we could work that

(02:28:30):
in before we ran out of time today. All right, folks,
you've been listening to garden Line. We'll be back again
next Saturday. In the meantime, check out the website gardening
with Skip dot com find the things that are available there.
I'm working on several new things that are now going
to go up, hopefully to help you have a more
bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape. In the meantime,

(02:28:51):
have fun out there in the garden.