Spring Is Here, Lets Plant!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to Katy r h Garden Line with Skip Ricarda.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Can you watch the trim? You just watch him as.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Word got.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Many by things to see, bats in the way gas
you did as close back?

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Sid alrighty, all right, let's let's do a garden show today.
How about that Welcome to garden Line. We are here
to answer your gardening questions and basically the way I
like to put it here, to help you have a
bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape and more fun in the process.

(01:12):
Gardening should be fun. And I know sometimes you know,
you try something doesn't work out like you intended it to,
and it's like I wasn't much fun. Well, let's fix that.
Give me a call. We can talk about it. Seven
one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, or
if you like to die, buy letters seven one three
two one two kt R. H Uh. There is a

(01:37):
lot that you can do to have more success, and
it's just a matter of starting to think like a plant.
Maybe that'd be a good name for the show, thinking
like a plant. Anyway, We're glad you're here. Hey, the
folks at Nitrovis have got you covered for your early
spring green up. You go to my schedule, you'll see
the early spring green up. That's an optional application, you know.

(01:57):
It's if you want to see a greener early a earlier,
do this and you will absolutely Well, they've got the
nitro foss Imperial that's a fifteen to five to ten.
This is a standard fertilizer ratio. It's a three one
to two ratio. Lots of nitrogen, not much phosphorus, medium
amount of potassium. If you take grass clippings and send
them to the lab and say what's in this, that's

(02:18):
what you're going to see. A three one two or
four one two or something like that ratio of nutrients. Now,
nitrofax in perial also comes. It is not the only
form that it takes. They also have a nitrofoss fifteen
to five to ten that has the ingredient TRIMEC in it.
That is a post emergent broad leaf wheed control. So
if you're looking at your yard right now and you're

(02:40):
wanting to do a green app and it's just like
there's all these brown weeds, there are green weeds that
are in my lawn, well, that would be an option.
You wet the lawn, you put it on it goes
into the tissues, it kills the weeds, and then a
couple of days after you apply it, go ahead and
water it in. Get that fertilizer done in the soil.
But that's kind of a two fur on that. And
this is one of the times of the year and

(03:00):
there's not a lot of them, or I'll say, put
that combo on. Usually the time we put a herbicide
and then we put a fertilizer on may not line
up real good, especially with pre emergence in the spring.
But I'm telling you that this stuff will work to
do what it's supposed to do. The imperil, by the way,
is a red bag. It's the red bag and the

(03:24):
one with a trimec is kind of a bluish blue
at lighter bluish colored bag, So be careful with that
because there's a purple bag also that's a different ingredient.
So whatever you're going after, just make sure that you've
chosen the right product for your lawn. And when it
comes to pretty much any kind of lawn, the either
of these the Imperial, the red bag or the light

(03:45):
blue bag would would be fine. We're going to head
out and out a tumble and talk to Mel. Hello Mel,
welcome to garden line.

Speaker 5 (03:54):
You know this, Hi, this is really weird. You answered
the question I think to give you.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
All right, Well, all right, let's talk about it some
more real. All right, let's talk about it.

Speaker 6 (04:06):
Yeah, I put down my pre emergent about a week
and a half something I got two weeks ago, and
I did put fifteen five ten.

Speaker 5 (04:13):
But now what was this?

Speaker 6 (04:15):
My problem is I got so many leftover weeds that
I'd like to get rid of it. I didn't want
it to interfere with.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
And well, well yeah, but you've already put on your
green up the fifteen five tens, so don't do it
again with the weed control and that that's too much fertilizer.
So in your situation, you're going to want to get
something that you mix up in a sprayer and spot
treat your weeds. And when you go, you know, you're

(04:43):
up there in tom Ball area. You got You've got
places like the arbigate is real close to you. D
and D's out there in that area. They're going to
have a product. You mix it, both of them, mixing water.
You spray it on the broad leaf weeds. But take
a good look make sure your weeds are broad leaf
is supposed to grassy.

Speaker 7 (05:02):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
And if they're primarily broad leaf weeds, which I suspect
they are, then you just spot treat with that and
the next your next time with fertilizers coming up here
in April, when we mowed the lawn a couple of times,
we're going to start putting on our summer application.

Speaker 6 (05:16):
Well do I put I put something down, I'll get today.

Speaker 5 (05:19):
Okay, then I don't forget the next question. But uh,
what is it I got out here?

Speaker 3 (05:25):
What?

Speaker 5 (05:25):
What? What's the product that they have that it mixed
with water?

Speaker 4 (05:30):
I'm sorry you said you have what out there?

Speaker 5 (05:33):
Oh we've got I've got D N D and arborgate
close by.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
Like you say, yeah, what is the product? Yeah, there's
a bunch of them. Yeah, there's a bunch of them. Uh,
let's see Bonye mix one that's a weed beater. Fertilleugh
makes one that's I think a weed free zone what
they call there. Just go into the wherever you're going
in those folks independent businesses, they're going to have the

(05:57):
skill staff to point you at the right product that
they carry, and they're gonna have probably more two or
three options that you can use. So it's not like
you have to go get this one spray for those weeds.
There's a number of them out there. But the keys
to the what you're asking them is broad leaf post emergent.
I want to kill an existing broad leaf weed that

(06:18):
and then they can point you at the right product
that they care.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
Okay, post emergent.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Yeah, Hey, it's not that hard. You're lucky man. When
you got place like arbigate and D and D they'll
take care of Grab a few of your weeds and
walk in there and show them and they know exactly
what to do. That's another way if you don't want
to remember all the fancy words, just just grab a
few weeds, throw them in a bag, and walk in
and they'll point you at the right product. All right,

(06:46):
oh cool, all you take care. I appreciate that a lot.
You know, the I talk about the three sixty tree stabilizer,
it is an amazing I'm gonna say no, because it's
you know, in the last five ten years something like
well probably five years. The three sixty tree stabilizer. You

(07:06):
attach it to a post, you attach it to your tree,
and it holds it in place and in fact, I'm
gonna try later today. I want to post a video
and show you of a tree in a strong wind
with a stabilizer on it. It's amazing, you know. Now
you can do one stabilizer or if you've got a
bigger tree, you know, big jack canopy like a sail
in the wind, you can do two. Do one east west,

(07:27):
one north south. But they attached with a soft strap,
so they allow the tree to move. That's important. If
you honker a tree down where it cannot budget all
the trunk will not develop strength, nor the top brace
roots at the top near the base of the trunk,
they're not going to develop that strength that they will
if they're allowed to bend and push and twist a
little bit. So you want a little bit of movement,

(07:49):
and it's designed to do exactly that. You're gonna find
three sixty tree stabilizers at you know, just talking about
going out to Arburgate, Well they've got them there. You
can go and if your shop at Buchanans or Jorgeshiden
Gardens down South RCW Nursery, Ciena Molt, these are all
places where you're going to find the three sixty tree
stabilizer so whatever you're doing, if you planted a tree,

(08:13):
even in the last year, I would go ahead and
get something like that on it and make sure that
it is held in the place and it can have
the best chance possible of establishing. Very well, I'm gonna
have to take quick break here and when we come back,
Paul in the Woodlands, you're going to be our first up.
All right, we're back, folks. Hey, welcome back to garden Line.

(08:33):
Good to have you with us. Enjoy getting to visit
with you about the things that are most of interest
to you in Jenny Gardens out there in Richmond Rosenberg area.
In fact, it's specifically it's on FM three point fifty
nine north of Richmond between Katie you know, Katie Fullshire
side of Richmond. Let's just do it that way, between

(08:55):
Richmond and Katie Richmond and Katie in fullsher in there.
All right, Well, anyway, bottom line is they've been arounted
in nineteen ninety five. That is an unbelievable place. Unforgettable.
I mean they I was there the other day for
giving a talk and it just it's just always amazing.
I never go out there that it is just not

(09:16):
chock full of everything that is seasonal that you need
and the help you get there. They know what they're
talking about. This is an independent gardens and it's a
family owned garden center. And listen, these folks know and
do you go in and you may not even know
the right question, and they can help you. They'll walk
you around, talk to you, help you. You're gonna find
herbs and vegetables, you know, roses, a great selection of seed.

(09:39):
When I start talking about fertilizers and soils like Microlife,
nitrofoss Nelson, Medina, Nature's Way, heirloom soil, they've got all
of that there at Enchanted Gardens. You need to go
to the website. It's Enchanted Gardens, Richmond. Enchanted Gardens, Richmond.
And listen, we have got some great weather for most
of this week. Oh man, today, it would be a

(10:03):
good day to run out there check them out. It's
just it's the kind of place where you're going to
take a friend with you because it's just fun. It's
just flat fun to go and check out the incredible
combo planters that they have. Maria there is always creating
something new. In fact, you follow them on social media,
you can actually watch her build things and get some

(10:24):
real good inspiration again Enchanted Gardens, Richmond dot com. Let's
go out to the woodlands. Now we're going to talk
to Paul. Hey, Paul, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (10:35):
Good morning, Skiff. I got a question about most volcanos.
I know that they are for trees, but is it
also a problem for shrubs?

Speaker 5 (10:44):
It is?

Speaker 4 (10:45):
It is the above ground portions of plant trunks and
stems aren't made to be underground. And when you pile
it up and it tends to stay wet, it doesn't
work well. And especially with newly planted plants, that volcano
ends up on the like shedding water away from where
that little root ball is you put in the ground,
and so you right where you most need water to

(11:07):
soak in. You got this big thick mulch that it's
gonna absorb it and shut it off to the side.
So not a good idea. Not a good idea.

Speaker 8 (11:14):
Okay, So when my gardener comes in mulch, is I
gotta go out there and take it away not only
from the trees, but from the shrubs.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yeah, And you know, if we're talking about an inch
or or two or two inches of mulch or something
that's fine. But just even if it's like three or
four inches, pull it away from the base and the
gardener if he's gonna if you're gonna pay him to
do this, he needs to do it right. He needs
to do what you tell him to do. And that
is a it's one of those old things that happens

(11:44):
around town, and so you see it, and so everybody
does it, and that makes people do it more, and
it's it's the wrong horticultural practice. Good enough, Thank you,
all right, thanks for the call man. Take care all right. Hey,
guess what I'm gonna be today up there at the
Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show at the Lone

(12:04):
Star Convention Center up on Airport Road and Conrad. I'll
be there from twelve to two, given a little talk
and giving away a lot of products from the folks
at Nelson, the folks at Medina. So you know, come
check me out if you got some time. Take care,
Thank you, all right, bye bye. Yeah, I'm really looking

(12:24):
looking forward to that. We've got some great products, you know,
folks at Nelson, they they've kind of got you covered
on everything that you might need for any plant. You
got a plant, you want it green or more productive, well,
check out some of their products. You know, they've got
the Nelson wheedon eater that is a product. There's not
your typical whedon feed. This has a growth regulator in

(12:45):
it that slows the grass down a little bit, which
means you mow less. That's important because when spring fully hits,
that grass is taken off. If you have to sleep
on your lawn more because they wake up every few
minutes to mote again. Anyway, it all also has the
post emergered products gonna knock out a wide range of
weeds like chickweed and clover and dandulion, dollar weed, person

(13:08):
lane spurges those little vining weeds that get out in
your grass. It takes care of it. That's a weedininator.
And it will also feed a long time. So we're
talking about you get some immediate release, but there's a
number of kinds of nitrogen in it, so you're gonna
end up getting feeding for you know, three or four months.
You'll care. Let's just put this. It's gonna carry all
the way up to the summer if you put out

(13:29):
a full application of it. Also, you need to wet
the weeds first. Anytime you're using a granular weed control,
you gotta wet the weeds. You want the granules to
stick to the weeds. And then immediately while the weeds
were wet, put that product out. Let us sit a
couple of days and a couple days later, watered down
and there you go, You're covered. Got it done. Another

(13:49):
product from the folks that Nelson boy. You can find
those things all over town. So uh yeah, that that
is the case. I was trying out some of their
other product. I'll talk about those little later. Strang out
some of the other products recently, and we're very impressed
with the stuff they have now on guardline, I'm always
saying brown stuff before green stuff, right, brown stuff before

(14:12):
green stuff. That is basically a way of saying, get
the soil right before you put the plants in. That's important.
You got to do it that way. And it's so
many people get inspired on a wim you know, warm
sunny day. Let's go buy some plants. Great idea, by
the way, go do that, but buy some soil too.

(14:34):
Come home, get the foundation right, and it's like deciding,
you know, I want a house and starting to hammer
tubat for us together before you pour concrete on the foundation.
You don't do it that way, and if you do,
you're setting yourself up for success. Unless you just already
happen to have wonderful soil, which almost no one does.
So get the soil right, and heirloom soils. They are

(14:57):
set up to sell you exactly what you need for
exactly the planter you're ground. Are you going to plant
fruit trees? Or how about vegetables and herbs by the way,
there's a mix for that. How about roses, there's a
mix for that. Really, any kind of shrubs and blooming plants.
That rose product works excellent for now. You're going to

(15:17):
find it in the bags all over the place. They
are widely available. You can also drive out to porter
and pick up bulk, take your trailer or you pick
up go out there and get you some, or call
them up and have them deliver it. There's so many
options with airloom. You can have them bring a load
of it, put it on the driveway and I've done
that many times myself, and they know you will bear

(15:40):
it around where you need it. Or you can have
them bring a supersack that's a giant sack that holds
a cubic yard, a cubic yard and a sack. It
is neat and clean. I still have part of a
sack on my driveway that I've been emptying, and I
just keep getting sidetracked on other projects. But it's a neat,
clean way to do it. It's all at Heirloom Soils Now.

(16:00):
If you want to go out to the Porter area,
it's on a US fifty nine access road out there
in Porter. Here's a phone number if you'd like to
call to talk about maybe a delivery or you know
more detail you want about coming by to pick it up.
Two eight one three five four nineteen fifty two eight
one three five four one nine five zero. Let's go

(16:21):
out to Galveston now, and we're going to talk to Bill. Hello, Bill,
Welcome to guard Line. Thank you.

Speaker 9 (16:28):
I've always written this down. You've told me that I've
lost a piece of paper that tells me where it
is and what you're going to put that in a
barricade this morning. But I forgot what the Speader settings
were because I have one of these off brand Speader settings.
And also, by the way, why I had it the
same thing for Frue Leader.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
All right, so here here it is. I need to
put this on my website. Make it just an easy
reference for folks. If you've got to walk behind spruder,
is that what you're talking about or are you talking
about a handheld right? No, walk behy it, walk behind it. Okay,
So you want to put it a notch or two
above half way for fertilizer, So if you had a

(17:09):
twenty notch spreader, that would be eleven or set it
on eleven or twelve, a notch or two above the middle. Okay,
that's for fertilizer. Now the barricade, we're talking about a
notch above one quarter. So using that twenty notch example,
that would be setting it on five or six, about
a fourth of the way up. But I want to

(17:29):
tell you something, that barricade is a very very fine
textured product compared to fertilizer. And I would recommend under
applying going let's say east west and then see where
you are and then go north south to fill back
in with the other half, because you know you can
always go back over it again, and every time you

(17:50):
split it up and go over it, you're getting a
more even spread, right that you don't have the stripes
or whatever in other words, so with the barricade, go
light and and then come back and fill in, because
a lot of folks I talk to, you know, they
set it and they think they're good, and all of
a sudden it's like I'm two thirds of the way
through the yard and I just ran out of barricade. Well,
that means you over applied it, and so that go

(18:13):
light on that one notch above one quarter. Okay, I
appreciate it, all right, Sure you bet good luck with that,
and don't forget to water it in the barricade especially,
gotta water that in with just about a half inch
of water to get it down in the soil because
weeds can germinate, but not after you've watered the barricade in.

(18:37):
Thanks Bill, I I do appreciate your call and take
care of it. Jorges Hiding Gardens is down in the
Alven area, and Horay always has some really cool stuff
coming in. He's got a lot of good free trees.

Speaker 5 (18:52):
Right now.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
We're talking about, you know, your decidrous fruit, you know,
like the peaches and plums and so on. We're talking
about the citrus, got goods, Citrius got blackberries. He's got
some blueberries down there. I was seeing that Jorge has
also got an excellent supply of herbs and vegetables when
you're out there. And when it comes to trees, I
mean that he always has a good supply. You want

(19:15):
instant tree, you know, a bigger tree, he can provide
that for you. You just go down to Jorges Hidden Gardens.
They are on Elizabeth Street, so kind of to the
south and east. I had to get the map in
my brain here south and east of Alvin on south
the Highway six, just south of the Highway six. So

(19:36):
those of you listening in Arcadia, Arcadia, you know places
like Dickinson and Hillcrest, Algoa, Santa Fe, all that area.
This is your backyard garden center. And they do have
that three sixty tree stabilizer too, so you need to
check that out. If you're looking for flowers, Jorges got
those as well. And roses. He has a really nice

(19:57):
little artie trellist Peggy Martin. Roses I think are just
a great way to get a good fast head start
on those. And that's Hoores Hidden Gardens. I'm going to
be there coming up in the future. I'm going to
go down there In fact, let's see you next weekend.
I'll be heading down to Horaes Hidden Gardens. All right,
let's go up the tumbball and talk to David. Hey, David,

(20:19):
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 10 (20:21):
Hey, good morning, Skip. Hey, I got a couple of
questions for you.

Speaker 11 (20:25):
I plan at some tomatoes from seed oh several weeks ago,
and these these little sprouts are about two inches inch
and a half two inches tall, and it just seems
like they've kind of stopped. They still look green and everything.
What can I spray on them to kind of kickstart them?
Because I want to I want to get him in

(20:46):
the ground. And then the next thing once I get
him in the ground. Last year with my tomatoes, I
had to spray them about oh once every week to
keep the bugs off my tomatoes. What can I buy
in bulk form to just be the least expensive that
will work as far as a spray that I can

(21:08):
mix up in a spray bottle like a gallon and
just keep it and spray it on a weekly basis.
And then the last question you just raise when you
toe that guy the water a half an inch if
you have a sprinkler system, how do you measure a
half an inch from on your sprinkler system.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
All right, I've got about thirty or almost a minute here,
but let me answer one question and I'm gonna hold
you over. We're going to finish this after the break.
The way you find out how to apply half an
inch is to get something that is straight sided and
put them all over the yard. Turn on your water
for now, do it for twenty minutes or fifteen minutes,

(21:47):
see how much you catch, and then multiply it out
to figure out how long it's going to take time
wise to get half an inch. So that could be
straight sided tuna, fish cans, cat food cans, a bean
can or rain gauge if you got those, and just
put them out there, and then you'll know once you
do that, once you'll know, okay, my system puts water
out at x inches per x minutes, you know kind

(22:09):
of thing, and then you know exactly how long you
water to do at half inch or an inch or
whatever you're trying to do. Hey, David, hang on, I'm
going to go and we'll be right back to continue
your questions. Thanks for the call. All right, welcome back
the guard Line. We are glad to have you with us.
You know, one of the most important things you can

(22:30):
do for your lawn when it is struggling, and I'm
talking about soil compaction with these heavy clay soils, is
to get it errated and put a compost top dressing down.
That is important and here's why. What it does is
it takes a heavy clay soil that doesn't allow oxygen in,
that doesn't absorb water very fast. And by creating these

(22:51):
holes and putting that compost on top, also, you end
up getting oxygen down in the soil. You get that
organic matter down in the soil, and it helps root
system to thrive. And remember just rounds up over green stuff.
You're taking care of your grass is soil, your your
lawns soil. And by doing that, your lawn's gonna thrive
now year round. Houston. These guys are specialist when it

(23:14):
comes to core air rating. That's easy for me to
say core aer rating and compost top dressing. You can
do it yourself, but oh my gosh, it's cumbersome. You
got pilesive compost on the driveway. You gotta clean up.
Rent a machine, go get it, clean it up, take
it back and those machines aren't as good as the
ones the year round does. They do a better job
doing a core aeration, popping those cores out of the ground.

(23:35):
They only use top quality quality compost. No smell. Okay.
Now they serve the area around Richmond Rosenberg and then
inside the Beltway. You know as you go inside the
whole Beltway that this is your company for that. It's
year round Houston dot Com. Here's a phone number eight
three to two eight eight four fifty three thirty five

(23:58):
eight three two eight eight five for fifty three thirty
five year round Houston dot com. I'm going to go
back now and talk to David. And David, you were
asking about the tomatoes, and let me let me hit
that one. If your tomatoes have stopped growing, one something
in this list has happened. They don't. They're not getting

(24:18):
enough light to provide the energy to fuel growth. The
soil is getting too dry or staying too wet, soggy, wet,
the temperatures where they're growing or cooler than a tomato wants.
Those are all things that slow growth on a little
tender seedling. Usually it's the way we're watering that I

(24:39):
find does that or maybe the cell that they're in
is just doesn't have enough soil and the root system
has filled it, and therefore the tomatoes kind of limited
by that. If you can figure out which of those
it might be with yours, that would be important. If
you're not getting response from that anyway, I would probably

(24:59):
get you use some Microlife orange label. It's called Biomatrix
Microlife bio Matrix. It's a six two four liquid and
when you when you use that, uh, it's got the
seven percent nitrogen, one percent phosphorus, three percent potassium. So
it's a good nitrogen boost for the plants. And I

(25:19):
can burn them, which is why I like it in
your situation for those seedlings. You don't want to use
a salt based fertilizer where you could burn the little
seedlings with that. But the biomatrix that'll give it the
nutrient boost and they should take off from that.

Speaker 10 (25:36):
Okay.

Speaker 12 (25:36):
Now, when I.

Speaker 11 (25:39):
Once I get them in the ground and I got
tomatoes actually growing, how do I. I used to spray
them last year with a spray that I bought off
the internet. But it was a little spray.

Speaker 5 (25:50):
Bottle and I went through quite a bit of it.

Speaker 11 (25:53):
Is there something that you can buy in bulk that uh,
you can put in a gallon pump up sprayer and
kind of make it.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
Not So, what are expansive right? What are we trying
to control? Insects or diseases?

Speaker 11 (26:09):
Oh, insects eating the tomatoes.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
Insects, you know, I hate to spray the stuff. I'm
gonna eat a lot, but primarily on tomatoes. Your pests
are going to be the leaf footed bugs and stink
bugs which which pierce the skin. They don't eat anything,
they just poke a hole in it and leave a
little little speck and a hard spot on the tomato.

(26:34):
Those are hard to control, and it's going to take
something that is more like a synthetic perrethoid. You might
get it done with pyrethrin. But to kill those also
just watching for them as they hatch out there. They
don't have wings, and you can just knock them into
a pail of water. They're real easy to control. Then
the other thing is the caterpillars they get, you know,

(26:55):
they can eat the leaves, they can get in the fruit.
And for those I would use I would buy bt
Bacillus thurin gensis. It's a it's an insecticide you can
put it. I don't know it. You know, it comes
in different volumes, but you shouldn't be having to spray
your tomatoes that much. Do you have like a whole
lot of plants.

Speaker 10 (27:17):
Not like four plants.

Speaker 11 (27:19):
They were kind of close together, and it would I
could google search of Amazon tomato spray and it was
just yeah, something specifically for tomatoes, and I don't even
know what was in it, but yeah, I know I
went through well several models of it last year.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
Okay, it kind of depends on the pest and so
you know, aphids have one control, caterpillars have a control,
stink bugs have a control that you're going after. I mean,
if it was a synthetic peritharist's gonna kill most of
those on there. The BT is organic that I mentioned.
Uh So it's kind of up to you as to

(27:56):
which way you go. You're up there in Tombol, I
would run out to D and D Feed, which is
on twenty nine to twenty just west of Taylor.

Speaker 8 (28:04):
D and D.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
Yeah, D and D has a wide variety when it
comes to the different kinds of products for controlling pests
and diseases, and go in there and talk to Jeff
or one of the folks and just explain to him
you're looking for something that you can use in your
tomatoes that's going to knock out, you know, aphids and caterpillars,

(28:26):
instinct bugs. And they're going to have products like that
from the various folks, whether it's Boneye or Monterey or
Fertile Loam or High Yield, all those companies have products
for that, and that that's the route I would go.
But depending on what you use, you're probably not gonna
need to spray it more than once a week. That

(28:46):
should be more more than enough.

Speaker 10 (28:49):
Well, they have that bio bio too.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
Yes, I think he does. They do carry micro life products.
I'm pretty sure he has biomatrix. Uh. But anyway, if
he doesn't, he's gonna If he doesn't, he'll he'll have
something that's a liquid, you know, for like one of
the Medina products for example, or something that might be
a replacement for it. But just talk to them. They

(29:15):
know what they're doing. That's the advantage of going to
a mom and pop place is you know you're going
to get people that know what they're doing. Hey, David,
thanks for the call. I gotta run, but good luck
with getting that all under control. Yeah, we're talking about
microlife Biomatrix. They also have something called Ocean Harvest, which
is a blue label that's a four to two three
and the four to two three is a fish based

(29:36):
product and it is another one that will provide you
an extra little extra boost of nitrogen there as well
as not burning your plants, and that that is important
when you're dealing with especially with the tender new plants.

Speaker 7 (29:50):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
You hear me talk about ACE on on this show
all the time because ACE Hardware is the place. That's
that's what they say, that's the motto. ACE is the place.
And when you you go into ACE, you're gonna find
everything I talk about regarding guarding gardening, but you're also
going to find things like, Hey, it's spring, do you
need to reseal your deck? Do you need to paint something?

(30:11):
They've got all of They got you covered on all
of that stuff. How about storage and organization in the garage.
Oh my gosh, if you could see my garage right now,
I'm about to call a realtor out and I have
to clean it up. But ACE has got that. Do
you need shelving? Do you need boxes? Shoving units. I'm
talking about. Do you need cleaning supplies? Those storage tots,
I say boxes, storage totes are a great way. That's

(30:33):
how I'm organizing all my stuff. And then with lawn
and garden season. Here you're gonna find expert advice and
you're gonna find a lot a lot of products from
fertilizers to we control, to pest control, disease control and tools.
They've got you covered there at your ACE Hardware stores.
Go to ACE Hardware dot Com and find go to

(30:54):
the store locator, find the one nearest you, Find the
one nearest you, and they'll get you all fixed up.
Let's head out now to Walker County and we're going
to talk to Bob. Hey, Bob, welcome to Guardline.

Speaker 13 (31:08):
Hey, thanks for taking my call again. Today's longtime listener. Hey,
primary questions about hibiscus. I have two or three hibiscus
in big pots, like four gallon pots, and I bring
them into the garage every year. But the issue is
trimming them and fertilizing them. They grow, they're healthy, they plant,

(31:32):
produce flowers, but by the end of the year they're
always six feet or more taller. Yes, I need to
trim them so the question first question is when's the
best time and how much can I trim them?

Speaker 4 (31:47):
Okay, I wouldn't trim until we get warm weather and
we're not going to get any more frosts, and you
feel pretty confident in that, and then you trim them
back as you want. Every time you cut a branch back,
it's going to sprout one or two or three branches
back where you cut it. And so it's just a
periodic bringing that stature of the plant down with some pruning.

(32:09):
And as you're doing that, you get to shape it.
Do you want a bush? Do you want it more upright,
you know, with growth or and you just do it
repeatedly through the season, and hibiscus can handle that. I
will typically prune mine. Some people like to print it
all at once, and that's fine. Sometimes I'm going in
and I just take a tall shoot and I take
it back, and that way, I've got other shoots that
are still blooming. I haven't. You know, when you prune back,

(32:31):
they have to regrow and then set buds to bloom.
So I kind of like to do it a little
at a time, so I always have blooms on the plant.
But that'd be the approach i'd take, all right, Bob,
during the year. Hey, Bob, I'm sorry, Bob, I'm sorry
to interrupt you. They're telling me I'm way past break.
Hang on, we'll finish when we come right back. All righty,

(32:52):
welcome back, glad you're with us. Hey, RCW Nurseries. RCW Nurseries.
That's the garden center there Tumball Parkway, which is two
forty nine and belt Way eight. It's really easy to
get to there if you don't go to the website.
It's RCW Nurseries dot com. But I'm telling you they
have stocked up on all kinds of things for the

(33:13):
spring you're gonna find. I was checking out their herbs selection.
It is extensive, vegetables, nice selection of vegetables, really good.
And then when it comes to cool color, they've got
all of that. Of course, they really are always going
to have a great stock of shrubs and trees. And
you know, whether you're looking for a plant in azalea
or to plant a rose, yes, you can still plant

(33:33):
a rose even though it's March first, a plane of
rose any month of the year. They have a great
selection of those. And you know, with RCW you know. Oh,
here's another idea. How about camellias. You know, in the
winter time it's hard to find things that bloom. But
there's two kinds of comedias, says Sankwa in Japonica. One
on blooms more in December. One I'm more in the
February January time. They're really great. They're awesome, and they've

(33:57):
got a really nice selection with fifteen percent on up
there Azalea's and they're camellias right now at RCW. You
need to get out there and check it out. They are.
It's a fun place. I love walking through there, and
they treat you right when you go into RCW Nurseries.
They're experts at.

Speaker 14 (34:13):
What they do.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
They know what they do. They know how to have
the right kinds of plants, how to grow the plants.
They grow a lot of things themselves, especially those trees
RCW Nurseries. See, we're going to go back out here
to Bob and Walker County. All right, Bob, we had
to kind of stop short there. Let's pick up the
call from there.

Speaker 13 (34:32):
So, so you said warm weather in the spring, is
that like mid March or late March or what are
you thinking?

Speaker 4 (34:41):
Yeah, you know, when we as we say, we get
into mid march, you know that we're kind of done,
you know, unless it's just a weird year, we're pretty
done with the freezes in your Actually you're up in Walker, Yeah,
mid to late mid to late March for you. So
you just don't want to run a hibiscus and have

(35:01):
it start to grow and then have a coal snap
come in and the chances goes down every day of
a freeze. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 13 (35:10):
From a prune stock, how long does it take to
actually produce flowers?

Speaker 4 (35:15):
About a month and a half or so. It is
totally dependent on the temperature, Bob. In warm conditions, that
thing's going to grow fast. And based on what you
described as the height of it. You must be taking
good care of it in terms of water, fertilizer, or things,
because it obviously is happy, so good vigorous growth. And
the most important thing is good sunlight, sunlight, sunlight, sunlight

(35:40):
when they're in containers, keeping them watered so they don't
dry out. All of those things affect how fast it's
going to come back into bloom. So there's going to
be a pretty big range there.

Speaker 5 (35:50):
You know.

Speaker 4 (35:50):
If it's in a little bit of shade, it's slower.
If it's getting dry at times, it's lower. If you
see what I'm saying, Hey, quick, quick, similar question. I
have a number of plumerias.

Speaker 13 (36:02):
Some are in pots, but I have several larger ones
that aren't in pots, and I have historically.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
Because of the coldness.

Speaker 13 (36:09):
I take them out of the ground actually and dry
them and to store them in a non freeze area,
and I put them back in the spring. Same kind
of question, what's the best you know, how early should
I put them in? Obviously not before any it freezes,
but and then is there any particular fertilizer I should

(36:31):
use to help restart them?

Speaker 4 (36:34):
Just let it warm up even more For the plume areas,
they don't like cold. They're going to just sit there.
And I mean you can plan them, you know, the
mid March late March, but it's cool and they're not
going to want to get out and do much until
it really warms up. They like hot weather. And as
far as fertilizer, I like Nelson's Plumeria food. It's one
of their nutri star products. Comes in little jars, so

(36:56):
it's you know, it just takes little tablespoon sprinkle Summer
around each plant watered in and it'll get you about
three months of feed on those of Plumerius. So I
would I would go with the Nelson Nutri Star Plumeria food. Yeah,
that would be the one. And sounds like you got
some good things there, Thank you very much. Yeah, hey, Bob,

(37:18):
I'm going to be up at the Montgomery County Home
and Outdoor Living Show in Conroe up on Airport Road today,
be giving away some products, like I'll have some plumeria
on hand. You show up and and uh, you might
get a simple of some of that stuff to try yourself.
I'd love to see you. If you got any other questions,
put them in a zip lock bag, bring me a
weed and we'll figure that out too. Thanks for your call, man,

(37:40):
I really appreciate it. Thanks, take care all righty Hey,
uh talking about medina a while ago. Medina has to
grow six twelve six plant food. Is it is a
great I'm going to use the word concoction because it
has got it's got the six twelve six that's that's
the levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in a plant food.

(38:03):
It's got Medina soil activator to stimulate the biological activity.
It's got humate humic acid. We know that humis umic
acids and things help improve soil structure. And as the
soil gets better, your nutrient update gets better. And then
it's got seaweed extracts in it, and you can use
it for a folio application. In fact, this is a
this mix could be used drenching in a new plant

(38:26):
to help it get that root system going. That high
phosphorus in it, the six twelve six, it would work
great for that. You could use it as a folier
feed it. Just use it however you want. You're not
going to burn your plants with it. It's one of
many Medina products that you're going to find out at
your local garden centers, your feed stores, You're going to
find it at ACE hardware stores. Those kinds of products

(38:48):
are they work, they do, and products by Medina. And
if you come up those of you listening anywhere up
toward Montgomery County, I'm going to be giving away some
Medina product is some really cool hosen spray product and
some other things for your lawn and your other plants.
Just show up today. That's on Airport Road at the
Lone Star Convention Center and I'll be there from twelve

(39:10):
to two. I'm gonna give a talk on spring gardening
tips first and then just answer gardening questions. You get
some baggies, bring me some weeds. Whatever you have a
question about, we'll identify them and we will help you
with either a diagnosis, identification, and certainly with what do
you do about it? How do you control it?

Speaker 5 (39:29):
Now?

Speaker 4 (39:30):
That is important to know, all right. Wildbird's Unlimited is
an incredible place. That's what got me hooked on birds.
It really is. I walked into a Wildbird store and
it was like, holy cownot, I cannot believe the kinds
of products. And it's just when you walk into Wildbirds.

(39:53):
First of all, it's a business that's run with the
right kind of principles. They bring people and nature together
and they do it with act Their goal is to
bring joy into your life with that passion by sharing
their passionate. Boy, they are passionate about birds. How do
you walk into wabirds? Ask any question you want, any
question you want, and they're going to be able to

(40:14):
answer it, like what is the best food for this,
or what's the difference between this and this? And how
do you attract that or how do you use this
kind of product? They know what they're talking about. There's
six stores. There's one in clear like when in Cyprus.
When in Houston down on bel Air Boulevard, one on
Memorial Drive on the west side of Houston, and go
out to Kingwood on Kingwood Drive. There's one down in

(40:34):
Paarland on Broadway. All while birds stores. Right now, you
need to be putting out the Nesting super Blend. Nesting
super Blend. It gives the birds the protein and calcium
they need because they are going to be raising young
and it's very important. Put away the winter blend. You
can still use it that I've been talking about, but

(40:55):
it's time to switch over now. Nesting super Blend works
in all types of feed and it is the kind
of thing that let's just put it this way. It
will help your birds succeed. And we need to do
that because you've heard before about songbirds being endangered in
some areas for many reasons, especially as we sprawl around

(41:16):
taking over the neighborhoods. Nesting super Blend to bring the
birds to your house. I heard one yesterday morning singing,
oh my gosh, that was a pop variety of all
birds that's for sure. So if you're looking for an
organic fertilizer for your lawn, Sweet Green by Nitrofoss that
is one that'll do it. I'm going to take a

(41:36):
little break here, but i want to come back. I
want to tell you more about Sweet Green. When I do,
it really does work and it is an eleven percent organic.
So I hang around. Time for me to take a
quick break for the top of the hour. Boy, this
it's spring. Spring is sprung on guard line. That is
for sure. It has happened. I will be at the
Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show. Come on out

(41:58):
today twelve to one. That is a great show. I
always like going to it because there's so much going
on there. But I'm going to be giving a talk
on spring tips for success and then just basically answering
your questions. So on the air, I just have a
short time. I can, you know, answer people who get
to the next person and think what planning at two hours,
I'll be there plenty of times, sit around, talk answer

(42:21):
your questions, and I promise you we'll have fun and
I'm gonna be giving away Nelson products and Medina products.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Welcome to kt R H garden Line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
It's just watch him as well, so many give a
piece to Supt.

Speaker 15 (42:50):
Basic.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
All right, welcome back to garden Line. We got a
lot to talk about, so I'm just gonna jump right
in here in the middle of the music, I'm I'm
cracking up. I had a I was talking about going
up to the Montgomery County Home and Garden Show, and
I think I said, I heard myself say. I think
I said, put some weed in a in a plastic
bag and bringing it weeds in a plastic bag and

(43:13):
bringing in somebody. Want to know what kind of weed
that I'm asking people? Let me be clear. I'm talking
about the things that you have in your lawn that
you want to get rid of. We're not going to
go to that other place right now, so I can
I can't identify the other That's not what I'm asking
you to do. So let's keep it clean here, folks

(43:36):
on guarden Line. All right, thanks for listening. I'm your host,
Skip Richtor. We're having a good time. If you want
to give me a call. Seven one three two one
two k t r H. Seven one three two one
two k t r H. I was telling you about
sweet green from nitrofoss before a break. Sweet green from nitrophise.
It's a really cool product. It is. You take a
molasses base, you dot, the microbes do some work on

(43:57):
it and basically turns it into an ale seven percent
nitrogen levens zero type fertilizer. That it works. I put
it on your lawn, you water it in really good.
By the way, it smells great. You know, you know
what molasses smells. That has that fresh sweet smell to it.
That's why they call it sweet green. And the reason
they call it green is eleven percent nitrogen will green

(44:19):
up your lawn. You want to early green up, you
want to use it. You can use it any time
of the year. And by the way, I know it's
for lawns, but if you want to give a boost
of nitrogen to anything, it'll work for that. Sweet green
is one of those products that it's just versatile. It
really is versatile. It reacts with water, It has organic

(44:40):
compounds and things in it. It just really stimulates the
microbial activity of the swell. Also, organic gardeners have known
for a long time that you know, molasses stimulates microbial activity.
That is important. Now, sweet green, where do you get
sweet green? Will you get it at places like Ace
Hardware City down on Memorial Drive, Plants for all seasons

(45:00):
two forty nine. How about Bearing's Hardware, Bisinet, Bearings Hardware, Westheimer.
Those are all places that carry nitrofoss products, so go
check them out. I had been out in my yard
doing some early cleanup, getting things ready to go. I
say early clean up, early cleanup for my summer plantings

(45:21):
and things, and boy, the weeds are already starting. I
looking out the other day and seeing them there, and
you know, you gotta shut things down if you're gonna
if you're gonna take a product like barricade, for example,
and do it as a pre emergent, get it done
soon because the warm season weeds this week is going

(45:41):
to be I think we're going to see a lot
of sprouting going on this week. And the sooner you
get that down and watered in, the more you shut
things down, and that that is important to remember. Well,
I wanted to I want to talk a little bit
about planting trees and shrubs. The sooner you get that done,

(46:02):
the better. And I just want to emphasize that, you know,
you spend some money when you buy a tree or
a shrub. They're not cheap, but it's a light you know,
it's a long term I say, lifetime plant that's in
your landscape. Very valuable, so do it right. You want
to cut the circling roots that come out of the pot.
There's always going to be some roots circling around the pot.

(46:24):
Just cut those, it's okay. Get them planted as soon
as possible, to give them time to establish and to
do well. That is important, okay. And then put a
quality product into the soil to help them get established.
You know, I was talking earlier about the Medina product
the has to grow six twelve six. That is an

(46:45):
example of that. Get them off to a good start,
keep them well watered. Remember that root system. It came
out of the pot as a cylinder of soil and roots.
It went into the ground as a cylinder of soil
and roots, and it takes time for those roots to
start each way out where it becomes a resilient plant.
In the meantime, you got a water where the roots are.

(47:06):
That's really important to do and one of the best
ways to do that is to use the watering device
that goes around your tree or shrub hooks up to
a hose and you just water it, wet it in
really good. And I think that's an amazing device. The
last time, let's see when was I, oh, for a

(47:30):
rose bush. A rose bush is just a good example
of something that you would want to do like that.
It helps establish that plant. You can turn it on
just a little bit if you want to turn it
on just a little bit. And once you have the
little trickling going on, it's wetting the base of that plant.
It's wetting the roots right where the root zone is.

(47:52):
That is important. You want to be able to get
that root zone wet and when you do, it's going
to keep it live and stretching the roots out. And
you just turn the water up a little bit, turn
it a little bit more, a little bit more, and
you wet a larger and larger area and it just
makes it easy. It's called a tree hugger because it

(48:13):
hugs the base of the plant, and it's a tree
hugger sprinkler. They're green. They come in seven inch and
all the way up to eleven in its three different sizes,
and so if you have a tree, maybe you have
a tree that's I don't know, been in the ground
ten years, but it's you know, a certain size, and
we go into this summer and you need to give
it good. Soakings tree hugger is the best way to

(48:33):
do it because you can water that rescue water around
the base of the tree and have success. That is
why I think a lot about that tree hugger sprinkler.
I was talking to somebody the other day about Antique
rosen Porium and there's any never been out there before. Well,
I told them, you got to go. It's a must
visit destination.

Speaker 16 (48:54):
Now.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
The name is Antique rosen Porium because they sell old
time roses antique roses. But there's display gardens that you
have to visit that are gorgeous out there, and they
have events. March seventh, like we're almost there at six
pm is the Spring Garden Party. You buy tickets for
it because this is a big deal. I mean, we're
talking about shrimp boil dinner, Cajun chicken pasta, We're talking

(49:18):
about the Wildfire METERI is gonna be there. They're gonna
have someone there with craft beers and all kinds of
cool stuff. But you got to go to Antique Roseemporium
dot com Antique Rosenporium dot com to find out more
about it, get your tickets. You got to do it
because on tomorrow, that's March second, Tomorrow Sunday, tickets closed,

(49:39):
so go ahead and grab them, but go check it out.
The annual Spring Celebration follows out in the next two
day two days after it, March eighth and ninth. Lots
of speakers, workshops, vendors, food traits. It's fun. I've been
to it for it is fun. And also you've got
to get those tickets now. The Spring Break Kids Workshops
are March tenth through thirteen. It's part of their Children

(50:01):
in the Garden program. Hands on workshops start at ten
am every day. Again, tickets on the website. Visit the
Rose Imporium in person out there north of Brenham. Give
them a call ninety seven nine eight three six fifty
five forty eight or go to Antique Roseemporium dot com
and remember their roses. But they are so much more

(50:21):
native plants, flowers, trees. It's it's cool, all righty Well,
I gotta take a little break here. When I come back,
I'm going to be talking to Ron in Cleveland. Looking
forward to talking to you Ron glad you're with us today.
You'd like to give me a call seven one three
two one two KTR eight seven one three two one
two k t r H. Ciena Molts south of Houston

(50:45):
is your one stop shop for all the things that
are the foundation for success in your garden. Round stuff
before green stuff, Ciena Molts. It's got you covered. And
why do I say that, Well, it's because you can
get your compost to put in the soil to improve
the soil. You can get your bed mixes to just
put on the ground or in a raised bed and

(51:06):
fill it up and grow in it like the veggie
and Herbix for example. They've got that like a rose soil.
They got that you can buy bulk. You can buy
some things by the bag too, and they have really
nice mulches, a wide variety of quality mulches. Now part
of the brown stuff is the nutrients in the soil
products from microlife products from Turf's Nelson's turf Star line.

(51:27):
They also have the little Nelson food jars plant food jars,
you know the ones where you just screw top lids.
They got products from medina and nitrophiles and azamite and
heirloom soils, Sienna multch They are on FM five point
twenty one near Highway six and two eighty eight south
of Houston. Sienna Maltz dot com. Write that down, Sienna

(51:48):
Maltz dot com toy, how to get there, get phone numbers,
get lots more good information, And I promise you when
you go in there, you're going to be greeted by happy,
enthusiastic people that are there to help you. It is fun.
I mean, it is the pleasure to go in and
just visit with the folks at c NMOS. We're gonna
go now out to Cleveland and talk to Ron. Hello, Ron,

(52:09):
Welcome to guard Line.

Speaker 9 (52:11):
Good more on skip.

Speaker 17 (52:12):
Hey, I've got like nine different kinds of plants. I'm
looking for the fertilizers that can be be used on
all of them instead of having to buy three or
four different kinds of fertilizer.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
You know I've got all right, give me the quick list,
Go ahead.

Speaker 17 (52:30):
Sweet, I'm in Burbina by Texts Texas Mountain Laurel, double Knockout, Rose, Silverado,
Sage Laurel, Pedlums, sun Leaf Sunshine, the Gustum Crpe, Myrtles
and Bulgan via.

Speaker 4 (52:46):
You know what I would do. It's a lot of plants.
Are they growing in your lawn or where? Okay, your lawn? Yeah,
I use a turf type fertilizer for a lot of things.
I mean, it sounds, you know, kind of funny to
say that, but I do.

Speaker 7 (53:07):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
There's a product that the folks at Nelson's Fertilizer have
they called Bruce's Brew and it is a three one
two ratio type fertilizer. It gives you some immediate feeding,
but it feeds gradually over time too. Now it's used
for lawns. That's that Primarily they're selling it as a
lawn fertilizer. But I'm telling you that what it does.

(53:29):
I use that kind of fertilizer in a lot of
different places, and all of those with the roses, you
want to have nitrogen to really encourage growth because growth
is where the blooms form, the terminal ends of new growth.
You named a lot of different plants, and I think
if I were to just say one fertilizer, I would
I would probably do that. Okay, that's like a.

Speaker 17 (53:53):
More cut garden, says, I haven't seen Bruce's Beloo before.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
Yeah, yeah, you can get uh so, well, I think
they have. I think they probably have it up in
there in your area. We'd have to call the folks
at Nelson's to see you're You're a little far out
there on the periphery for me to just off the
top of my head, no it is, I might ask, Yeah,

(54:18):
it's a Nelson's product. Uh Huh. You might ask out
there one of your ace hardware stores, you know a
place like that.

Speaker 18 (54:25):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
And but I'm telling you if you if you go
with a lawn type fertilizer, just don't get one that
has any weed control in it for what you're wanting
to do. Uh that that's not needed.

Speaker 5 (54:37):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
But but just get a turf type fertilizer. When you
hear me talking about this is a good fertilizer for
your lawn. Or go to my schedule online at gardening
with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot com and
you'll see my lawn schedule. And if it's on the
lawn schedule, I would use it for all those plants. Yes,
there are fertilizer for roses and fluoper Yeah.

Speaker 19 (54:58):
Yeah, I've gotta I got your I just print it
out of my garage.

Speaker 17 (55:02):
One more question, if you don't find a barricade, is
it okay to get that up in these.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
Shrub beds and stuff like that. It's not labeled for
application in shrub beds, but it is not going to
hurt if you don't overdo it. Okay, So some lands
in there, it's not it's not the end of the world. No,
it's it's gonna stop. Yeah. It kills by It kills

(55:29):
weeds by not letting the seeds get roots down and
sprout and successfully establish. So if in those shrubbeds you
were gonna plant some flowers like zinnias or something, the
barricade would stop them. But it's not there. It's not
going to kill your shrubs. But again, that's outside the label,
and I never recommend things that are outside the label.

(55:49):
So officially, that is not a place that.

Speaker 19 (55:52):
Yeah, I'm all right, so worried about it, if you know,
because I've used a bra on that. I just want
to make sure about that. Yeah, thanks CHIV. Well there
you bet, Thanks for the call. I appreciate that a lot.
I started talking about Pest.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Brothers the other day and just going on and on
about this really cool system they have. It's mosquito control
bait buckets, and this is so cool. In the bait
bucket is this product. They have to land on this
little mesh and little tiny dusty microparticles stick to the
mosquito and then they drop off in the water. So

(56:25):
when the mosquito lays eggs, the eggs never become mosquitoes.
It kills the larva. They don't even make it to
the pupa stage. That's cool. Then it has this mosquito
fungal disease and the mosquito carries it around and it
slowly kills. And by the way, that mosquito goes to
other watering spots, like that leaky gutter you got that

(56:46):
holds water and stuff. When they lay an egg up
in there, they're going to infect that water with this product.
And it doesn't hurt anything. It's not gonna hurt ladybugs,
not gonna hurt a family pattern. That is what makes
it so cool. Pest Brothers covers our whole Houston area
all the way from the Woodlands down to Texas City,
from Katie across the Baytown. You have issues with termites,

(57:06):
other household pass fire ants in the yard. I mentioned mosquitoes,
wild varmits, they know how to treat them effectively in
the safest manner. You can give them a call for
a quote. Two eight one two o six forty six seventy.
Go to the website the pest brosbros dot Com two
eight one two o six forty six seventy. We're going

(57:30):
to go now to sugar Land and talk to Elizabeth. Hello, Elizabeth,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (57:35):
Oh and it's nice to talk to you. I've never
spoken to you before. My question is, I don't seem
to be very successful growing irises, and I'm not sure
what I think that irises don't like too much water,
am I right?

Speaker 4 (57:56):
Yes? They they don't want to be in a swamp.
They don't want the soggy so that they you know,
like any plant, they need some watering.

Speaker 7 (58:03):
Okay, So what is the best place to put them?

Speaker 5 (58:07):
Do they like?

Speaker 7 (58:08):
I don't think they like full sun, and the sun
here is so fierce anyway, So would you think it
would be like morning sun and afternoon shade or.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
What if you can give them that. If you can
give them that, that's great. If you could put them
under a deciduous tree, you know, this time of the year,
the sun isn't brutal. And so when our trees don't
have leaves on them, the iris can still get some
light during you know, during the season when it has
its leaves up. I like a deciduous shade for a

(58:39):
lot of different kinds of bulbs that are going to
get their follows a little early.

Speaker 7 (58:44):
Okay, And what about fertilizer? What should I use? Even
there's something that's got go ahead, I was saying, because
it's not really a bulb. It's more like a rhizome,
isn't it? And so I was one. I mean, an
organic fertilizer would work with them.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
You could do that. You could use a product like Microlife.
I would use their six two four. That would be
just fine. If you are you're already using that, that's
especially a good idea use occasionally. Okay, Well, then there
you go. You're set up. Occasionally you may want to
add a little bit of bone meal a mixed into
the soil, especially when you're gonna plant iris. It's the

(59:27):
bone meal doesn't move down, the phosphorus doesn't move down
in the soil. But getting a little bit in a
new bed where you're going to plant them, mix some
bone meal in and then just continue with your micro
life six.

Speaker 7 (59:37):
Four okay, and so moderation and yes, thanks, moderation in
water then just just normal water.

Speaker 4 (59:46):
Yes, moderate, just normal watering. Keep a moist malt around them.
Keep the weeds away because weeds steal water and make
it get dryer faster, and they compete for nutrients. So
the malts. With some moderate watering, you should be good.
All right, all right, thank you, thanks for the call, Elizabeth.
You bet bye bye. Arburgate Garden Center is it's all.

(01:00:11):
It's always fun to go there because they have so
many different kinds of plants and stuff. They've got the
standard meat and potatoes, you know that people don't want
to go get and buy. But they've got stuff you
haven't seen before. They've got stuff you haven't tried before,
and they're always getting new things in. And go and
talk to Beverly or Kennonan or any of the folks

(01:00:32):
that are there on site. The nice thing about Arbigate
they walk you around, they'll talk to you, they'll help
you with things like you're going, well, I want some
flowers to do a container, I want something for this area. Well,
come over here and they'll talk to you and they'll
help you. They are very knowledgeable, and I'm telling you
that is so important to have that when you're shopping
for plants. Remember they got the parking lot in the

(01:00:53):
back that is off Trichel Road. It's a little loop
that goes around behind Arburgate. Go back there and park.
It's safe. It's easy access, all weather access too, by
the way, and while you're there, pick up the organic
food complete that is an organic food, a fertilizer if
you will, the organic soil complete, and the organic compost complete.

(01:01:14):
Those three bags are the whole deal. Both the soil
and the compost have expanded shale in them, so that
holds our heavy clays open even longer than the organic
matter sticks around. They really did an ingenious job coming
up with these three bags to put together because again membership,

(01:01:34):
says Browns who I'm talking about myself and the third person,
that's weird brown stuff before green stuff. Right, three bags
organic food, organic soil, organic compost complete, that is the
brown stuff. And then go get those plants and they
you know, good healthy plants, and go home and have
some fun. By the way, can you imagine a better
week than this week to get out there. Oh, I

(01:01:56):
love this weather that we're having. Let's head out to
spring and we're going to talk to Trey. Oh, Trey.

Speaker 20 (01:02:05):
Heayscape, good morning.

Speaker 10 (01:02:07):
You might have mentioned this already, but it's just looking
for what triggers we're looking for to put out the
quick release fertilizer.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
Basically, you know, we want a little bit of warm
in temperature, but the early green up. You're talking about
a nitrofoss product. I believe correct, Yes, sir, Yeah, that's
the Imperial, the Imperial lawn fertilizer. It's the red orange,
kind of reddish orange bag fifteen five ten. Now, now's

(01:02:37):
the time to do that. You can go ahead and
do that. We do that in March to green things
up a little bit. That's an optional application, but a
lot of people like to get that early green. And
then once we get into April, we're switching over to
more gradual release fertilizers to carry us on through summer.
And it is on the schedule at Gardening with Skip
dot com.

Speaker 20 (01:02:59):
All right, perfect, thank you, share, all.

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
Right, good luck, enjoy that lawn. Appreciate your call. Quality
Home Products of Texas. That is your source for Generaic
Automatic Standby generators. Generac generators are they're basically a leader
in the market, and Quality Home Products of Texas has

(01:03:23):
those in hand on hand. They're to give you the
power and so you can secure your home power supply.
I don't care rain, snowshunshine, whatever it is, storms, life
keeps going if you have a Generac automatic stand by
generator even when the power stops. Now Quality Home though, yes,
they've got that product and that's important. But what sets

(01:03:44):
them apart is their customer service. They're a standout organization
when it comes to reliability, integrity, honesty, transparency. They've won
so many awards I can't even list them all because
they take care of their customers. That's why fourteen thousand
folks that go to a five star review. You can
go to QUALITYTX dot com, qualitytx dot com or dial

(01:04:07):
them up seven one three, Quality, seven to one three, Quality,
quality products, quality service for equality life. Welcome back to
garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here to
help you. Help you have a downafa garden and a
beautiful landscape and more fun in the process. And how

(01:04:28):
do you have fun? You have fun by having success.
How do you have success? Well, you start with the soil.
You get the soil right and years ago, years ago,
John Ferguson and Nature's Way Resources set out to create
a product that would work the way nature works. That's
that's called Nature's Way. And now that place has grown

(01:04:49):
into a two acre a nursery for example. It's they've
got every soil product you can imagine. I mean, I
really mean that, and a lot of soil products were
born there, like ros and leaf mo compost. That's where
that's where it began at Nature's Way. But it doesn't
matter what do you need leaf mo composts? Do you
need fungal compost? Do you know they have a fungal
compost sale every Friday, ten dollars off bags, twenty dollars

(01:05:14):
off bulk fungo based compost, which, by the way, you
can also use as a compost top dressing. High quality
organic product at Nature's Way. You can go to the
website Nature's Way Resources dot com Nature's Way Resources dot
com find out more about them and whether you go
find their products by the bag. You know some garden

(01:05:35):
center they widely available like that, or maybe for example,
you want to order bulk or go pick up bulk
they can handle all of those different things. They got
you covered. Now I want to tell you about something
coming up on March ninth. It's a week away. March ninth,
from nine to two is the Spring Garden Festival at

(01:05:57):
Nature's Way. I've been to this more than once. It's
an awe some thing. There's children's activities, there's gardening education
talks there that they always have some sort of cool
drink to try as you walk around. There's vendors to see.
It is just a fun, great day at Nature's Way Resource.
Go to Nature's Way Resources dot com. Nature's Way Resources.

(01:06:20):
You haven't been there before. It's on Sherbrooke Circle up
toward conro So, just off forty five on the east side,
across the railroad tracks, right there where fourteen eighty eight
comes in. Check out the Spring Garden Festival coming up
March ninth, ninety two at Nature'sway Resources dot Com. We're
gonna head out to Copperfield now and talk to Pamela. Hey, Pamela,

(01:06:42):
welcome to Garden Line. Already. I'm gonna put Pamela on hold.
Maybe we can get her back and we'll come back
to her in just a little bit. If you want inspiration.
If you want to dream what your place could look like,

(01:07:03):
you need to go to this website pierce Scapes dot
com p E A r C E S C A
p E S piercescapes dot com. There are a preferred
garden line landscaper and when you go there you'll see
why I don't care what you need. It's your one
stop shop for all things landscaping. Do you need spring

(01:07:25):
freshening up? Do you want to completely revamp? Do you
want to see hardscape put in your beautiful patio area?
Do you want to do landscape lighting? Do you have
areas that need drainage improvement? Is your irrigation system not
performing well? And most irrigation systems are not very efficient,
broken heads, misaligned heads, all kinds of issues. Piercecapes can
fix all of that. And they also, by the way,

(01:07:47):
do a quarterly maintenance program. You can have them come
out once a quarter. They'll, you know, clean up the beds,
get the weeds out if they're weeds in there, put molts,
fresh mults down, check the irrigation system, do any trading
and shrubbing you know, and if plant we need to
replace our annual color plants through the course of the year.
They do that too as part of that quarterly maintenance

(01:08:09):
system piercescapes dot com. Here's a phone number if you'd
like to give them a call. Two eight one three
seven oh five zero six zero two eight one three
seven oh fifty sixty.

Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
You were listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richtor.
We're here to help you have success in what you're growing,
everything you want to try. You know, earlier on, as
we were starting the new year, I kept saying, Hey,
what are you going to do new this year? What
are you gonna try new this year? What are you
going to grow that you've never grown before? What are
you gonna do plant care, landscape care, garden care wise

(01:08:47):
that you've never done before. Maybe, Uh, here's an idea. U.
There is a thing called garden mesh fabric. Garden mesh fabric,
so think of something as soft as a bedsheet, but
like a window screen for your house. That's a general
idea of what we're talking about. You put it over
your plants and bugs can't get in. So, whether you're

(01:09:09):
an organic gardener or not, I mean, why spray if
you don't have to You can put it over plants
and keep the pass out. So if you're growing let's
say tomatoes, and you want to keep out the stink bugs,
you can do that. Tomatoes don't need bees to pollinate
them just when moving it. Or should you shake the
cage every morning or something, Well, however it goes about it,
you can just put this over them and avoid that

(01:09:29):
need to spray and boy, it's hard to control stink
bugs anyway, and leave footed bugs. You can use it
over your squash, just have to pick it up and
do the pollination yourself, or leave it on long enough
for the squash to get ready for that first female
bloom to open, and then take it off. And yeah,
the vine bores will find it, but you'll get a
good little yield before they find it. Lay eggs, eggs,

(01:09:51):
hatch out and hit a point where they're taking out
the squash mines. Mesh fabric is a good tip that
I think will work for you. Let's go back to
Copperfield talk to Pamela. Hey, Pamela, welcome Reguard line.

Speaker 21 (01:10:03):
Oh, thank you.

Speaker 22 (01:10:06):
My question this morning is I need a weed killer
for small red leaved clover that is creeping all over
my backyard.

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
Okay, there is a product that the folks at Nitrofoss have.
It's a fifteen five to ten with trimeac and that
will work. It's it's pretty widely available. So up there,
you know, in the Copperfield area, you've got some Ace
hardware stores that are very very close to you, and
they will have that product. It is a blue bag

(01:10:39):
and it's a fifteen five to ten. It's a trimec
in it. You have to wet the lawn, just wet
it a little bit, and when you when you wet
the lawn, immediately spread that fertilizer so that it sticks
to the wet leaves of the weeds. That's how it works,
and you're going to find that it does work. It's

(01:11:01):
real easy to do. There's a Cypress a hardware there
on Jones Road. I don't know just exactly the area
you're in, but M and D on Luetta is another
one close by to you, right up in that area.
Oh oh, you said Copperfield, didn't you. I'm sorry? What
am I thinking? Langham Creek is on five twenty nine,
just right there, Barker Cypress five twenty nine, Langham Creek's

(01:11:21):
a great one. They just redid that store too, by
the way.

Speaker 22 (01:11:25):
Yes, it's a very nice store and a great location.

Speaker 4 (01:11:29):
Excuse me to you now, When you said Copperfield, my
brain hurts.

Speaker 22 (01:11:33):
Pardon, yes, can you repeat the product again they use.

Speaker 4 (01:11:39):
It's by nitro Foss. It is a light lightish blue bag,
not dark, not purple, not dark blue blue, not purple.
And you want it's called fifteen five to ten with Trimac.
It's a product. It's one of the ones I call
yeah with trimec. It's a weed and feed fifteen five
ten with Trimac by Ninetro five and they they'll have

(01:12:00):
it there. Talk to record Lacy or someone from the
store and they'll be able to take you right to it.

Speaker 23 (01:12:06):
Great.

Speaker 6 (01:12:07):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 22 (01:12:08):
Enjoy your program, you bet.

Speaker 4 (01:12:11):
Thank you appreciate your call. Get under control. You know
the reason we're dealing with weeds right now. But the
reason we're controlling them is they're going to seed. No,
I've been talking. People get confused. But there's two things.
There is the idea that I've got a weed that
I want to kill that's existing, that's a post emergent,

(01:12:33):
or the weed I want to prevent that's a pre emergent.
That would be like the barricade type product, So make
sure you get the right one for what you're dealing with.
Moss Nursery down in on Toddville Road in Seabrook is
not just another garden center. It is a seventy year
old family operated eight acre wonderland to wander through as

(01:12:55):
lounging as someone the other day. I matter our experiences
walking through there, and they, first of all, what do
you need? I mean, do you want little boneseye starter plants?
I got hundreds of those. Do you need some junipers?
They have three or four varieties, Azelia's redbuds, Magnolia's hawthorns, hollies,
Brazilian rain trees. You don't see those available everywhere. Use

(01:13:15):
Laura pedlam, which is called Chinese witch hazel ball cypress
loves to be here. And Portula Carria portulka, not porta laca.
Portula caria. It's like it looks sort of like perce lane,
but as a little woody, shrubby small plant. That was
a nice eloquent description. Portula Caria, go into massy. I

(01:13:39):
want to see this Porcula caria. Lots of hanging basket.
Hundreds and hundreds of hanging baskets. Tadville Road, Seabrook, Texas
mos Nursery dot Com two eight one four seven four
twenty four eighty eight. I'll be right back, good already born.
We're back brand, Welcome back to garden line.

Speaker 5 (01:14:04):
Boy.

Speaker 4 (01:14:04):
Is this ever a busy time of the year? It is,
isn't it? I mean, gosh, they say spring has sprung? Boy,
it has it ever? I you know, sitting here doing
the radio, I want to say, could Joe hold on
for just a minute and I go outside and work
for about an hour in my yard, then come back
and keep going. Because everything as I'm talking to you

(01:14:25):
guys about your lawns and your flowers and trees and
shrubs and everything else, I'm thinking about mine. I've got
some containers that are waiting on me to plant my
spring flowers in my warm season flowers, and I can't
wait to get out and do that. In fact, I've
got several things I want to pot up out there.
And by the way, if you're looking for a quality

(01:14:45):
potting MiGs, a jungle Land by Nitroposs is a good one.
They have two different products. One is for indoor plants.
It's called jungle Land water saving potting soil. I'm talking
right now in my yard. I want to put some
outdoor containers and the jungle land flour and vegetable potting soil.
Jungle Land flour and vegetable potting soil from nitrophis it works.

(01:15:08):
You're going to find that. The reason I say it
works is because a potting soil you want to hoole
moisture so you don't have the water it every day,
but you want it to drain well so it doesn't
get soggy and you lead to root rot. And jungle
Land is designed to do just at all size mic
arizel fungi in it that really help. They work with
the plant roots. That's what micarizel do, mic hizal fungi do.

(01:15:32):
And it's got four different sources of aged organic matter
age bark. Basically, where do you find it, Well, you're
gonna find it night frost products in Chenni Forest down
to Richmond Rosenberg is going to have it. And if
you go to let's say Katie Ace Hardware, Katie Hardware Ace,
They're going to have it, as does the Ace and

(01:15:53):
Sinkle Ranch all spas ace in the woodlands another place
you're going to find these night frost prods ducks. The
phone number if you'd like to give me call seven
one three two one two KTRH seven one three two
one two KTRH. I was looking at some pictures the
other day in communication with Houston Powder Coats and some

(01:16:14):
outdoor furniture they did was just unbelievable. It's one of
these metal outdoor round tables, you know, with the little
little slots or kind of a diamond pattern on the
top and all the metal chairs that go around it,
and they had recoated it. It was a beautiful green color.
They can coat anything metal out there in your yard,
you know, cast iron, wrought iron, aluminum, patio furniture, and

(01:16:36):
they do the whole thing. They don't just coat it.
I mean, if it needs new bolts, they put stainless
steel to replace those old rusty bolts. If the little
plastic caps on the legs, you know, they keep it
from scratching on the on the patio, they'll replace those.
If it needs little wells here and there, that's also
part of the services that they can do. All you
have to do is this take a picture of your

(01:16:57):
furniture and send an email with your picture and say
I need a quote, a quick quote, and they'll give
you one. Sales at Houstoncoders dot com. Sales at Houston
coders dot com. And if you don't go to the
website see examples Houston Powdercoders dot com. Hundreds of colors

(01:17:19):
in stock. If it is metal and you want it
to look better, you need to go check out what
they do, and you'll go. You'll start walking run the
yard like I have going ooh, I need to get
that done. I hadn't even thought about it, but I
need to get that done. Much better than trying to
paint that stuff. Let's go out to Spring and we're
going to talk to Jerry. Hey, Jerry, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 20 (01:17:39):
Hi Skip, thank you for taking my call. I really
enjoy your show. You may have addressed this before, but
I have not heard you talk about it. My neighbor
started using I used Microlife products. My neighbors started using
a product call Bruce's Brew or something like that. He

(01:18:02):
gets it from. Yes, yeah, it's just plan for all seasons.
And I don't find it at my Ace hardware store
where I get my micro Life I wondered if you
could address this. What he said his understanding was it
was kind of a blend of chemical and organic, But
I don't know, I wonder if you could address this.

Speaker 4 (01:18:25):
Yeah, the Bruce Well Ace Hardware stores are independently owned,
so each store is not a cookie cutter of the
next one. That they do have all you know, the
Ace brand products, and they do tend to carry you know,
the lines and things that we may talk about in
those stores and the same kinds of things like that.
But yeah, there could be a product in one that

(01:18:47):
may not be in another one. Bruce's Brew is a
product from Nelson Plant Food and it is a product
that is it leans more toward an immediate release, but
it also has slow release, so it'll it'll give you
something right now, but then it gradually releases as the

(01:19:07):
forms of nitrogen in it start to kick in. There
are different ways you can make nitrogen product. Some of
them are ready right now, some of them it may
take months and they're still releasing, still becoming available to
the plants. And Brusus Brew is a blend like that,
so it's an immediate release but also a gradual feed
at the same time, and it's it's a lawn fertilizer

(01:19:29):
for for your lawn.

Speaker 20 (01:19:31):
Okay, yeah, well there's lawn and really looks good. It's
it's use okay, And so I thought maybe i'd give
it a try. I just wondered if that would be
something you'd recommend.

Speaker 4 (01:19:46):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's a it's a good product. I've
got it myself, so okay, all right, I'll look for you. Okay, yeah,
and you know you can't if you if you see
a yard and it looks good. H that's a good side.
There's your answer right there. Thank you, Jerry, appreciate it.
You all right? You bet you take care? Oh gosh.

Speaker 14 (01:20:10):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:20:11):
If you are wanting to prevent weeds, you need to
listen to this. Nitropus barricade comes in ten pound bags
that cover five thousand square feet because you just put
out a little bit of barricade. Listen when you're using barricade,
when you're using any product to control anything, follow the label.
Do not double it up. Don't use half as much.

(01:20:32):
It won't work. Don't use two or three times as much.
You get stuff in trouble. Use the right amount the product.
On any kind of product, the label is designed to
give you success without problems. Okay, put it down according
to the label, watered in with a half inch of water.
It goes into the soil surface, where it sticks, it holds,

(01:20:53):
it doesn't wash through it. It's designed a hold of
the soil. Holds better than a lot of other pre mergers.
There are other premergents on the market. The barricade that ingredient,
and it does a better job of sticking up there
in the top soil and not washing away. And when
a weed tries to sprout, it shuts it down. But listen,
this week, there are weeds going to be sprouting in
your lawn. There are where the temperatures are perfect for that.

(01:21:18):
Get out there, get it down. You could wait, put
it on next week or the week after, but every
day you wait, there may be some weeds that are
already up and growing, and this is to prevent them
from sprouting. So get your barricade down soon. It's gonna
last sixty days. Depending on the conditions, it could be
longer or shorter, but it's going to last a while.

(01:21:38):
But get it down now as soon as you can.
Barricade And where do you get it, Well, you get
barricaded in chanted gardens down there in the Richmond Rosenberg area,
hiding and feed on Stubner Airline, Fisher's Hardware, the thrim Pasadena,
laport My, Bellevue, so the one on Southmore in Pasadena
Broadway Street, Laporte, the one what is oh, it's FM
thirty one eighty in Bellevue. And then finally Town there's

(01:22:00):
a Fisher's Hardware down there on Alexander. Go get your products,
get them down. It's time to do that. You are
listening to Guardenline. The phone number here is seven one
three two one two fifty four fifty eight seventy four.
I can't even remember my number. Seven one three two
one two ktr eight. Let's see, we're going to go

(01:22:22):
out to sugar Land and Jill, I'm up against the
top of the arbor. Let's see if we can help
you here.

Speaker 24 (01:22:28):
Okay, I have five different citrus trees. They're getting brand
new leaves, and I've heard that's when the leaf miners come.
Can I spray that with a nim oil and the
spinosa or will that harm the bees? Would it be
better to just wick and touch?

Speaker 4 (01:22:43):
Yeah, you don't need to use both. I prefer the
spinosa on that, but either way it's okay. Get it sprayed,
try to avoid spray in the blooms. But in general
that new growth is what you need to protect. You
are correct about that. They don't attack those old art
green leathery leaves. They attack the tender succulent stuff. Okay,

(01:23:04):
that's what I needed. Thank you, all right, you bet
good luck with that ohen. You know, on garden Line,
our advice is free, but I do ask for half
of the produce you get from my advice, so all
they need is half your set are dropped off at
the station.

Speaker 15 (01:23:20):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:23:23):
There you go, man, that's a good deal. Thanks all right, folks,
there you have it. There you have it. You know
NIGHTE Fiss has that product call Sweet Green. It is awesome.
It works. You put it down, you water it in,
it dissolves. The microbes get happy because it's a it's
a molasses based product, smells great. Eleven percent nitrogen. Eleven

(01:23:45):
percent nitrogen. You're gonna find it at in Brunham at
plants and things. You go to M and D on
clear Lake, the M and D at Beamer in Sagemont,
Dandy feed and Tamal. I know they have it up there.
M and D Cypress up in the cypress area on Louisa.
They carry nitrofoss products there too. And sweet Green is
the kind of product that gives you that nice release

(01:24:07):
for a nice green up and stimulation of the microbes
in the soil. What marking you ask for it works well.
I believe I'm about out of time here, have you
hearing music about now? Probably? Anyway, if you want to
go to my website, you're going to find my schedules
on there and a lot of other great information. It's

(01:24:28):
gardening with skip dot com. Gardening with skip dot com.
You'll find the lawnface schedule. You'll find the pest disease
and weed management schedule. They are all there. You will
also find information on how to pasteurize growing media. Okay,
question sometimes I got old media's okay to use it

(01:24:50):
and leave plant. No, if you want to be sure,
do it yourself. Information on controlling woody needs in the landscape.
You know those vines poison ivy hack, where are you
coming up in the fencil? Information on dealing with nematodes
It's all on the website, all right. So I have
to show. Today, I'm jumping in the car and heading
to the Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show. I'll

(01:25:12):
beat it from twelve to two. It is at the
Lone Stark Convention Center on Airport Road and hundred. I'm
going to be giving away Nelson and the Dina products.
Come on and see me.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skip Ricter.
Just watch you.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
As many bays not a sign.

Speaker 4 (01:25:59):
All right, folks, we're back. Welcome back to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to have you,
help you have success. That's what I was trying to say.
Gardening should be fun and it can be fun. All
you got to do is learn to think like a
plant or know what a plant wants. How about that
Plants like sunlight, plants like good drainage, plants like moist soil.

(01:26:22):
Plants have certain nutrients and a certain salt pH that
they prefer. And we can provide plants everything that they
need by just taking care of them. Start off, there's one,
two three. I need to come up with a I'm
going to come up with something like this, But anyway,
you need to pick the right plant you need to
put it in the right place. You need to make

(01:26:44):
sure that it is taking care of properly, and you
can have success. And it's simple. It really isn't that difficult.
It isn't and you don't learn it all in one day.
But maybe you're trying a new Maybe you've never grown
a pulumara before. You want to grow a plumaria, all right,
you learn about it. There's a Easton has a great
Plumeria Society where you can learn more about that since

(01:27:05):
I picked that plant, for example. But once you know
what a plumeria wants, you might as well, just you know,
start making Hawaiian lays. Those strings of flowers. You know
that they go around the neck. Those are plumeria flowers.
Make your own at home because you know how to
grow them. You give a plumeria what it wants, You
give a rose what it wants, You give a peach
tree what it wants, you give a tomato what it wants,

(01:27:26):
You give your lawn what it wants, and you're going
to have success. It really it's not rocket science. In fact,
if you know if you are a rocket scientist, then
you know exactly that it isn't rocket sciente either, in
other words, if you know, if you know what you're doing,
it's not hard. It is not hard to do. That
certainly is true gardening, because gardening is not rocket science.

(01:27:49):
All right, Hey, people are hearing me sell all these
product names, you know, like there's this fertilizer, or there's
that disease control or insect control or weed control or whatever.
I start talking about a tool or something like that,
and it's like, where can I get that? Where can
I get that in my area? Well, I'll tell you

(01:28:09):
this Southwist Fertilizer is a place that is going to
have everything that I talk about. And I know people
that drive it. Just I drive over there. It's a
distance from me, but I drive over there because I
know when I go in, Bob and his team are
going to have what we need and I'm gonna be
able to point me in the right direction. I like
to go over and visit because there's always new things

(01:28:31):
coming out, and we go over there and visit about it,
and here's this new product from this company. And you know,
those companies don't notify me when they have a new
product coming out. I have to go out and I
have to look at it. I have to try it out.
I have to see how it works. I have to
look at the research on it and things. Bob's got him,
He's got all that there. Now, this is a seventieth
anniversary year of Southist Fertlish. Can you believe that been

(01:28:53):
a run since nineteen fifty five? And they carry everything
that I endure here on Guardline. So go by, stop
ins out those fertilizers. Say hey, happy seventy birthday. Say
that to Bob, but tell him you understand that's not
his birthday, that's the store's birthday. And so congratulations, man.

(01:29:15):
We appreciate the work that they do there, because I'll
tell you this, when you drive, if you go across
town to get there, you're going to go in and
you're going to find what you need. Every fertilizer I
talk about, every product I talk about, and the advice
you know you walk in. Let's say you walk in
today and you got this little weed and you're showing
it to them and they say, well, that is a

(01:29:37):
here's what you need to do to prevent it, or
here's what you need to do to kill the existing weed.
And if you if you bring it in, it's an
existing weed of course, and they got you covered. And listen,
if you're organic going, I don't use all those chemicals.
They have the biggest organic selection in the city. And
let me expand that in the Houston area, the whole

(01:29:57):
Houston area, Greater Houston area. They have tools, They have
everything that you need. They even have a little lawn equipment,
sales and service shop in the back. They can sharpen
your blades and to all kinds of things back there. Listen,
it's quality products and expert advice and old fashioned service.
All three of those are Southwest Fertilizer, Southwest Fertilizer, dot Com,

(01:30:20):
corner of Bissinet and Runwick seven one three six sixty
six one seven four four. Simple as that they have
things like, oh, Nitrofoss nitropos products. Yeah, nit fass Imperial,
the fifteen to five to ten, the reddish orange bag.
Do you know that Nitrofoss Imperial UH is the verse

(01:30:40):
century ago? Oh, not a century, half century, fifty years ago.
That UH research Texas A and M research throughut the
Langa Universities of the of the Gulf Coast. You know
a lot of places are doing turf research. LSU, Mississippi
State Florida. Uh, you know, all the way up all
through the They long ago realized that a three one

(01:31:03):
two four one two kind of ratio is an excellent
ratio for turf. It just is, and that is why
Nitropuss Imperial was created fifty years ago fifteen five ten,
the Red Orange bag, Red Orange Bag fifteen five to ten,
still the same formula because it works. Why change it.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And it does work.

(01:31:26):
It's it's the spring green up product that we talk
about here on garden Line. If you go to my
schedule gardening with Skip dot com, look at my schedule
for the lawns and the spring green Up night Foss
Imperial Lawn Furtizure fifteen five to ten, it's right there.
It does really work. It's nutrient rich. It'll help get
that lawn greening up earlier. And then as we get

(01:31:48):
into summer, we'll start putting on slower release things, where
right now we own something that goes fast. And where
are you going to get things like that? Well, for example,
Court Hardware and Stafford they carry night Foss products. Katie
Ace Hardware on Pinoak they carry Nitroposs products. Plants for
all seasons. On Luetta carries nitroposs products. If you're done
in Alvin, how about Stanton Shopping Center over on North Taylor.

(01:32:10):
They've got the products there as well. Makes it easy,
makes it easy. Let's see. Well we're already coming up
almost on our first break. That's amazing. I was checking
out Buchannan's Plants recently and I just love going in there.
Buchanan's Native Plants has They always have the coolest stuff

(01:32:36):
when it comes to natives. Nobody can touch them in
the whole region. Like right now, they're talking about the
Maximilian sunflower. That it is a tall stem that it
blooms in August through November, just up and down the
stem covered with yellow flowers. It's a perennial. But once
you got it, they have a good selection of beautiful

(01:32:58):
flowering house plants. You're not going to find a better selection.
Their greenhouse for houseplants is amazing. Anything you want to know,
you're gonna find out there because they are experts. Their
people are trained, they know what they're doing. And you
walk in and you say, I want a native tree,
not too big, what can I plant? And they're just

(01:33:18):
gonna start rattling it off Eastern Red Butt, Texas Mountain Laurel,
Mexican plumb Mexican Buckeye, and on and on down the line,
and they'll take you right over to the table and
show you. They even have a table for just Houston
area native plants. That's pretty cool. Well, Buchanan's Plants on
Eleventh Street in the Heights. Here's the website, Buchanan's Plants

(01:33:39):
dot Com. Start there, Buchanan's Plants dot Com. I have
to take a little break. When I come back, we're
going to talk to Greg and somebody else who's calling
you in right now. See it a bit. Hey, welcome
back to the garden line. Good to have you with us. Listen,
if you had signed up for Warren Southern Garden Information

(01:34:01):
newsletter email blasts and things, you would know this. You
would know there was one sent out just yesterday. I
believe ten percent off barcode applications on purchase of one
hundred dollars or more. And they have their March Matteness
Special five bags, get the six bag free, all kinds
of tips like That's what I'm talking about. That's why

(01:34:21):
I was telling you sign up for these newsletters. Man,
sign up. It's cool stuff. When you go there, you're
going to see just trailerfuls of all kinds of beautiful flowers.
The spring flowers in that place are stunning. Really. When
it comes to fruit trees, do you need blueberries, Do

(01:34:42):
you need citrus? Do you need deciduous fruit, They've got
a great selection of those as well. I just love
going out there because every time you go, you're going
to see everything you went for. You know, you go
in thinking, oh, I need some fertilizer, I need some
of this, I need some of that, I need a
citrus tree. Whatever you're in there for. I need a
house plan well, and then you get there and you
see something like indigo blueberries tomatoes. Yeah, it's a tomato.

(01:35:07):
It's red inside. On the outside it's a dark, dark,
dark color. Indigo blueberries tomato. That's just one of the
things that you didn't expect till you walk in, and
when you do, there you go. They got plenty of
onion sets and leakus eat potatoes. They've got lots and
lots of seed. Warren's Southern Garden that's the one on

(01:35:28):
North Park Drive, and not too far away nearby is
the Kingwood Garden Center that's on Stone Hollow. Now, I
can't talk about all of them, got calls waiting up here,
but anyway, both of them seven days a week. They
are outstanding garden centers that have beautiful plants in excellent
health and the staff that can help you when you

(01:35:49):
go there. We're going to head out now and talk
to Greg. Hello, Greg, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:35:55):
Morning. Skip.

Speaker 12 (01:35:57):
I was calling I see some pictures a couple of
weeks ago, had a question about pruting a fig tree
and a magnolia tree.

Speaker 4 (01:36:10):
Okay, Uh, go ahead with your with your question, I'm
pulling it up.

Speaker 12 (01:36:15):
Well, I mean the fig tree the picture, it appears
that it's got three trunks or two main trunks, and
one of the time looked like it was a disease,
like it had a crack in it and the bark
was peeling. And my question was should I just remove
that whole trunk or just see if it comes back

(01:36:35):
the spree?

Speaker 4 (01:36:40):
You know what I saw in your pictures there was
I saw the dark and cracking and the tissues underneath
that are dead, and so there's no problem. We're just
cutting it all out at the at the base that
fig is going to send up suckers from the base. Now,
if you you kind of have it in a tree
form right now, where it has like a little mini
trunk and then the branches, that's fine. Usually I grow

(01:37:03):
my trees, my figs in a multi trunk system. You know,
we have several, maybe five different trunks coming up, and
that way, when one gets older, cracked or whatever, you
can just cut it off at the ground and new
ones come in and replace it. There's not a one
way you have to do it, but the trunk you
describe needs to come out as low as you can
cut it off. And you already got some new shoots

(01:37:24):
coming up there that are willing to step in and
replace it.

Speaker 12 (01:37:28):
Yeah, okay, And I was wanting the top to it
a little bit because I mean it gets so tall
that I he breaks the figs and so.

Speaker 4 (01:37:37):
Yeah, yeah, that that's also a reason with a multi
trunk like right now, the first little producing branches are
about chest or head high. It looks like uh and
the old old trunk. Would you know, Figs produce on
on growth that grew last year and growth that grows

(01:37:57):
this year, and depending on the kind of fig. So yeah,
bringing all that production down. It ought to start producing
the knee high, you know, and and go on up.
And when you cut a whole shoot out at the base,
you you come back to that pickable level.

Speaker 12 (01:38:13):
Yeah, and that and and the other picture I said
you was a picture of it. I don't know what
kind of magnoliatory, but it blooms this time of year
and it's a beautiful multi gloom, purple yes bloom, and
then it puts on leaves and it's just you know,
it's just there.

Speaker 4 (01:38:31):
It's awesome.

Speaker 12 (01:38:32):
That's kind of gotten a little out of control and hot,
and it wouldn't hurt once it once it blooms, just
to cut it kind of like a great myrtle. But
that's what it kind of looked like right now, you know,
without great myrtle.

Speaker 4 (01:38:46):
Yeah you could, you could, you know. I'm not a
big fan of that kind of marring of the beauty
of the plants branches, but right now it's a conglomeration
of branches that is a deciduous magnolia. I can't since
it doesn't have a bloom, I can't tell you which
it's either the tulip magnolia or possibly a saucer magnolia,
but they both are deciduous and gorgeous. And then yeah,

(01:39:08):
a tulip. Okay, good, yeah, all right, well yeah, if
you do, but do that before midsummer. For sure. I
would do it in the spring, after the blooms if possible.
That gives it plenty of time to regrow. Okay, yeah,
I'm gonna tell you.

Speaker 12 (01:39:26):
A few weeks ago also, I called you about transplanting
a mountain laurel, and I plant transplanted five of them,
and three of them look like survived. The other two
all right, off, but I think that the three of
them are gonna make it. So as soon as it
puts on the leaves, all right, I'll stick.

Speaker 4 (01:39:45):
Down on the ground. Okay, Well, there you go. Well,
try to keep keep it a little moist, but be
real careful you don't overwater it, but don't let it
dry out either. It's it's lost almost all its root systems,
so it's touch and go. But good luck with that, Greg.
I appreciate, appreciate your call, Yes, sir very much. If
you are wanting to do a compost top dressing and

(01:40:09):
or a core aeration and you live down in the
area that let's say we start on at the northwest
end at Sugarland, Missouri City, and then we swing down
Highway six, you know, through Fresno's Ciena Arcola, Manville, Iowa
colony and then over as far as Paarland. That region,
the south southwest region there is where B and B

(01:40:33):
turf Pros does their magic. And they really do this.
A family owned business. They are all about customer satisfaction
and as a result, they know they got to use
quality products. They only use products I recommend here on Guardline.
For example, their Leith Moore compost comes from Ciena Maltz,
So that tells you something right there. They do high
quality work. They absolutely make sure they want to make

(01:40:56):
a personal connection with you. They want you to be satisfied.
This isn't just a blow and go a make sure
we get this right and go to Bbturfpros dot com
No end in their BB Turfpros dot com and look
at the work they do. Look at the equipment that
they have. You can't rent equipment like that. They do
it right and when you do that, you will see

(01:41:20):
a benefit to your lawn because you're bringing oxygen in
the soil. You're basically taking care of the soil, the
brown stuff that makes the green stuff in this case
your lawn thrive by core air raiding and then getting
that compost top dressing down and it's it works magic.
It really does work. We're going to go now out

(01:41:41):
to Jersey Village and talk to George. Hello, George, Welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:41:45):
Good morning, Skip. It's good to see hearing you again.
Excuse me.

Speaker 25 (01:41:50):
I've planned some Korean squash in my garden and I'm
trying to prevent what happened last year, and that's the
buying borders come along and they eat the whole thing up.
So I've heard the way to do that is as
the plants start to come out of the ground, to
wrap the stalk in luminum foil or something like that.

Speaker 8 (01:42:08):
Do you have any better ideas.

Speaker 4 (01:42:10):
I actually did a trial where I tried wrapping the
stems in aluminum foil. We wrapped stems and pantyhose, you know, figuring, well,
they can't get through that and they'll just attack it
further out than where you wrapped. So it doesn't really
do a whole lot to do that. The bottom line,
there's not a great thing because you don't want to

(01:42:32):
kill your bees. And so if you're nuking it with insecticides,
you're going to kill the bees that are coming to
your blooms. So basically, a garden mesh fabric, it's like
a soft as a bed sheet, a little tiny squares
like a window screen, and you just lay it over
the plant and the vine bore Mama, she comes and
lands on that. She can't get to the squash to

(01:42:52):
lay the egg. Can you leave it on, George until
the first female blooms start to open, you know, because
the first be male blooms and bees don't have to
get to that. When the female bloom opens. You have
two options. One is you can lift it up each
day and go in there with a little artist brush
and just quick, quickly takes two seconds pollen nature open

(01:43:13):
female blooms. Or you can take the whole cover off
and then the vine borer will find it. But by
the time they actually cause the vine to collapse, at
least you'll get somewhat of a yield out of those plants.
So those are the two options I recommend.

Speaker 5 (01:43:28):
All right, okay, all right, you bet.

Speaker 4 (01:43:32):
Take care and you know on guard Line we just
asked for half the produce and payment for our bus. Thanks.
Thanks George, you take care Nelson Plant for Someone's asking
me about Bruce's Brew earlier, and Bruce's Brew is a
product that provides a nice quick green up, but it's
not just an immediate release. It also has a slow

(01:43:54):
release that spreads that release out over time to kind
of regulate the growth. Do you get good root development
when you you know, when you give a gradual feed
to a grass like that, you're going to get a
balanced growth, good root development, and as a result, your
grass is going to be able to handle a thing
like drought or maybe a little bit of a chomp
here and there from a grub or something else. You

(01:44:17):
get a good robust root system. It's a carbon based
nitrogen source. It feeds the soil of microbes and that
is very important. And you know, when you have healthy soil,
you got healthy grass that's less vulnerable to best and diseases.
That's Bruce's Brew from the folks at Nelson's Nelson Fertilizer
Quality Products. Let's go out to Katie and we're going

(01:44:39):
to talk to Ken. Hello, Ken, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:44:44):
How are you doing there?

Speaker 26 (01:44:46):
Good morning, Good sir, and you may have just answered
part of my question there with your last talking about
the bruce soil there I'm putting in. I have totally
new grass area, just soil with top toil has been
put in, and I'm going to be planning for maybe
a seed on that there slut on there, and I'd

(01:45:07):
like to know if what kind of fertilizer would be
good to help get it started.

Speaker 4 (01:45:14):
All right, So you want to hold off on fertilizing,
you can do if you're preparing soil and mixing soil
and stuff. You can put a fertilizer in it, but
that's not as important as let's get the bermuda seed down.
Let's get it sprouted and well on its way, and
then begin to lightly fertilize, and you can use a product.

(01:45:35):
I would use a product that is a little faster
release initially, and the bruces Brew. You were just mentioning
that that would be a good one for that. Just
with the Bruces Brew, I'd probably put it out at
about I don't know, five to seven pounds per thousand
square feet, and those little seedlings, but let the seedlings sprout,
get up and not just be a seedling, but start

(01:45:56):
to make a little plant and then put the fertilizer
down and it'll into high gear. But remember, the most
important thing is light frequent waterings to help those seedlings
not dry out while they're trying to establish.

Speaker 5 (01:46:09):
And that part's easy.

Speaker 26 (01:46:12):
One thing I mentioned there is that it is on.

Speaker 4 (01:46:14):
Okay, so of course before Hey Ken, Ken, I'm going
to a hardbreak. Hang on just a second. If you
want to continue, I'll stick with you.

Speaker 16 (01:46:25):
Just hang on.

Speaker 4 (01:46:26):
We'll be right back, folks. Let's run. Let's turn out here.
First thing. We're gonna wind up this uh last bit
here with Ken and Katie. Hey, Ken, so you got
your seeds going in on a slope?

Speaker 5 (01:46:39):
Is that it?

Speaker 14 (01:46:41):
Yes?

Speaker 26 (01:46:41):
Yeah, And I'm wondering what kind of product I can
use to help. I mean, we might get some good
rains here in march, and I don't want it all
growing at the bottom of the hill.

Speaker 4 (01:46:51):
Yeah, that's what happens with seed that's the drawback.

Speaker 8 (01:46:54):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:46:55):
Professionally, they do what's called hydromulching. They spray kind of
a paper machetish kind of product, or they put some
hay straw out there, just enough to kind of hold
the soil, but not enough to shade out the plants.
And that's that's kind of tricky to do from a
home standpoint. I just don't know a good approach to that.

(01:47:16):
I've seen people try a lot of different things. Say what.

Speaker 26 (01:47:22):
I have, I have a lot of.

Speaker 4 (01:47:28):
Okay, if there was a way to chop it up
a little bit, uh and then you know, run over
the mower. I don't know. Whatever. You can figure out
and do it very lightly though, because it will shade
out You're it's a mulch, so you don't want to
put it at a mulch level. Just a little bit
out there. That helps a lot. And if you have
a gully washer, it's going to move that hay out anyway,
so you know you're I guess look at the weather

(01:47:51):
about ten days ahead before you plant.

Speaker 20 (01:47:55):
Okay, very okay, thank you very much.

Speaker 5 (01:47:59):
That helps a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:48:01):
Yeah, thanks appreciate that call very much. Nelson Water Garden
and Nursery is out there, and Katie, now, I don't
know if you've ever been before, but you need to go.
It is an amazing place. Nelson Water Garden and Nursery
is a complete deal. I mean, you walk in the store,
there's some of the most beautiful house plants you've ever
seen there, gorgeous you walk out the back door of

(01:48:22):
the store. Color color, color everywhere then, and also vegetables
and also herbs, any kind of bedding, nursery plants that
you're looking for, they've got it. By the way, you
might want to write this on your calendar. But coming up,
there's an Easter egg hunt on Saturday, April nineteenth from
nine to ten, and on the twenty six, a week

(01:48:43):
later Saturday, there's a sip and stroll. This is the
adult deal, right, You get a little sip and you
get the stroll. There'll be some music. It's just a
fun time and listen, it's therapy. You gotta go do
this because here's why there is so much water splashing
all around you that it's like you can't pay for
that kind of therapy. And you can do that in

(01:49:04):
your own backyard. The folks that Nelson's can help you
create a water garden, a water feature, a waterfall, or
a disappearing fountain coming out of a big urn, or
they can just come out and do it for you.
Nelsonwatergardens dot Com. Head out to Katie on ten turn
north on Katie Fort ben Road. It's just a little
piece up there on the right. I'm gonna head out

(01:49:26):
now to sugar Land. We're gonna talk to Michael. Hey, Michael,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (01:49:30):
Good morning guy.

Speaker 14 (01:49:31):
Always good to hear your voice. I have a question
for you. I've been on the schedule now for about
fifteen years, but I was looking at some stuff this
you know, this morning, and I want you to give
me your honest opinion. I've been using the fifteen five
ten and the orange bag along with barricade, but I
saw something I hadn't seen before. Appears nine Boss has

(01:49:51):
a blue bag which contains trimac. Now my question is
which would be better to use that one blue bag?
All right, so or the other combination with the barricade.

Speaker 4 (01:50:04):
Okay, so you're doing two different things, and they can
both be done together if you need to. The barricade
is for the summer re weeds that you're not seeing yet.
They're not big plants. It's to prevent them. The blue
bag with the barrick with the fifteen to five to

(01:50:25):
ten weed and feed blue bag that has trimeac that
kills existing weeds. So right now, if you're looking in
your lawn. You're seeing dandelion and clover and hand bent
and chickweed and all the winter weeds that are broadly
the blue bag is for that. So you're you're going
after two sets of weeds with those two products, one

(01:50:45):
that's already there and one that's about to be there.

Speaker 14 (01:50:49):
Okay, So if I use I use the orange bag.
You can't use an orange bag in combination with the
blue bag with the.

Speaker 4 (01:50:58):
Trimec because then you're double fertilizing and you don't need
to do that. If you do the blue bag, you
have done the orange bag plus the trimac.

Speaker 14 (01:51:09):
Great super answers my question. Thank you as always, to
have a good weekend.

Speaker 4 (01:51:13):
All right, good luck, take care. Appreciate that. Yeah, that
is important to understand and to you know, get that,
get that all straight.

Speaker 5 (01:51:23):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:51:23):
Nature's Way Resources is having a really cool little shindig.
I was telling you about a little bit earlier. But
it is their spring fling, the spring Fling at Nature's
Way Resources, and you really need to go out and
check this out. I've been before. It is a fun time.
I mean they're going to have when you go there.
First of all, they're gonna be speakers, I've spoken at

(01:51:44):
it in the past myself. It's great gardening education. They
got some really cool, really nice talks scheduled.

Speaker 7 (01:51:51):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:51:51):
And then you're gonna be able to walk around, you know,
though you enjoy. They'll have some sangria there for you.
It's called sip and vendor and say, right, so you
get your drink, you walk around, you visit the vendors.
They got some really good vendors. They always do when
I go by there, and then enjoy yourself without there,
go listen to some of the talks and then pick
up some plants or pick up some soil products. You know,

(01:52:14):
they've got the best of the best out there. There'll
be children's activities that children are certainly welcome to come out.
They even have a player you kind of a sandbox,
giant a giant sandbox. They have coloring and scavenger hut
and stuff for the kids. This is all next week December,
excuse me, December Wow. March ninth. March ninth, from nine

(01:52:37):
to two in the morning. And where is Nature's Way?
Go up forty five north right where fourteen eighty eight
comes in from Magnolia. You instead of going left to
Magnolia you turn right across the tracks in that Sherbrooke
circle and you're there. It really is cool. And while
you're there, pick up rus soil, pick up their leaf
more composts, make an order to have them deliver it

(01:52:59):
if you would like to, uh, just visit with them
and you will find that they're very knowledgeable and you
tell them what you want to grow and they'll put
the right products in your hand. You're gonna have more
than one option. Probably they'll put the right products in
your hand. It all starts with the soil, broad stuff
before green stuff. Remember that in Nature's way, it's built

(01:53:20):
around making the soil right. Because John Ferguson when he
created the place long ago that when you get things right,
when you follow nature's way of doing things, you're gonna
have plant success. And now I and his son running
the place, same tradition, same quality products, same quality service.
It's just not skipping a beat at Nature's way. Let's see,

(01:53:42):
we're going to go now to talk to Tom somewhere
in East Texas. Hey, Hey, Tom, how are you welcome
to guard Line?

Speaker 5 (01:53:50):
Good morning? How you do it?

Speaker 4 (01:53:53):
I'm well, sir, How can we hope today?

Speaker 5 (01:53:56):
Well?

Speaker 14 (01:53:56):
I'd sent in some pictures of my lawn after I
had a couple of months from after I had fertilized it,
and okay, it didn't look so great.

Speaker 4 (01:54:06):
So I'm not sure what's going on. Alrighty Uh, you
sent me several pictures here, so let me just take
a look at some of these. Uh, tell me a
little bit about the history of this lawn. What has
been done to it in the last six months or so.
So this is fairly brand new lawn and it's probably
just over a year old.

Speaker 7 (01:54:26):
It was a.

Speaker 5 (01:54:28):
New turf.

Speaker 4 (01:54:29):
Okay there at Courst got you? Okay, Hey, Tom, I'm
gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna cut in. I'm gonna cut
in on you here. I I asked that, and I
remember I looked at all your pictures. That is something
called rizoctonia. It is also called brown patch. It's also
called take all patch. I mean a large patch, not

(01:54:52):
take off. It is a cool season condition when when
the weather is cool and we get some moist it
really takes off. We're about to leave that season. So
I don't see a need at this point in treating
what I see in the pictures. Now, that could be
that you got something else going on. There could be
grubs there, There could be you know, maybe last year

(01:55:14):
you had some chinch bugs or something. But right now, uh,
right now, we're we're I wouldn't treat that at this point.
I would go ahead and give the lawn care according
to my schedule, and I would say, let's just move on.
If you want to use a fungicide for it, you
can do that. That's fine. Uh, But if it were mine,

(01:55:37):
I think I would just I would just move on.
That's old damage and spraining. It won't make those spots
of green. Warm weather, we'll make those spots green.

Speaker 5 (01:55:46):
Okay. Should I go ahead and use the you know,
like the nightro Falls fifteen, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:55:53):
You could do that. You could do that. You just
follow follow follow it on the schedule, and then then
when we get to summer, we're going to go to
the longer term fertilizers. But yes, it should be good,
right okay, well all right now, yes, now, since that's
been a problem, look at my schedule. Because we talk
about brown patch in the fall, you do want to

(01:56:14):
take action at that point, but for now we're moving
into the warm season. Hey, thanks, man, I appreciate your call.
I've got to run Folks Rooster and Brunham. Will you'll
be first up when we come back. We're just gonna
jump right back in andams. You're hopping on garden line today. Hey, listen.
Micro Life has a product. It's a purple bag. It's
called Humates Plus. It's a zero zero four fertilizer, but

(01:56:36):
it's not a fertilizer. I mean, it's got the potassium
in it, but I don't want you to think of
it as a fertilizer. There are other products you used
to fertilizer on, like they're six two four, But this
is concentrated compost in a bag. When you take leaves
and break them down, it makes composts. Did you know
compost keeps breaking down until it becomes humous. Humus bills,

(01:56:58):
soil quality, It really substances like humic and fulvic acids
and things. It just improves yourself and Microlife hu makes plus.
The purple bag can be used whenever you want to
use it. I would say, if you're going to fertilize,
go ahead and do your fertilizer six six two four,
and then do the purple bag. You makes plus. You're

(01:57:18):
not over fertilizing. By doing that, you put that down,
you water it in, and you're going to do that once.
You can do it many times as you want a year,
but at least a couple times a year if you're
trying to bring a lawn back from just a really
difficult clay soil that it's struggling with. He makes plus
works very well and it's one of the quality products
mini quality products you find from Microlife Microlife Fertilizer dot com.

(01:57:41):
That's the website if you want to learn more about it.
We're going to head out to Brunham now and talk
to Rooster. Hey, Rooster, what's up?

Speaker 15 (01:57:48):
Good morning Listen. I've been bathing to mate the plants,
about fifteen of them in farage for a little more
in three weeks, some of them and then some of
them just just a week ago.

Speaker 5 (01:58:01):
And I had two different questions for you, can I
go ahead and put them in my raised beds?

Speaker 3 (01:58:07):
Now?

Speaker 5 (01:58:08):
Not worry about threason?

Speaker 14 (01:58:10):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:58:11):
I wish I had the crystal Yeah, I wish I
had the crystal ball on that I don't if you
look at the if you look at the average frost
dates it were on the line. Uh, if you can
cover them, if we have another little frost freeze, then
I would put them out. If you can't, I might
hold off a little bit. But I wish I had
that crystal ball, and I don't.

Speaker 15 (01:58:31):
Well was the other question, Well, it might be just
a helpful to somebody else, but I was curious myself.
I purchased some Medina. I bought them a little little
six tack deals just a little more than a week
ago here in Brenham. I mentioned the name, but I

(01:58:54):
don't know if that was the a good thing to do.
But anyway, the six packs are really wonderful. And I
don't know if it's because I put the Medina on it,
mix it with water and the sort of water man.

Speaker 5 (01:59:09):
They almost caught up with the ones I've had in
there for three weeks. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:59:13):
Well, products, well, it could be because Medina products they're designed,
they work in so many ways. Some of them have
the nutrient in them, you know, the the has to
grow six twelve six or for example, But the the
other ingredients that they have from seaweed and some to

(01:59:34):
the microbial activity, to the other kinds of hormones or
vitamins and other things there. It's a concoction of things,
and plants benefit from it, and especially your little seedlings.
This is a great way to do it. And with
medina you're not going to burn them like you would
with the salt based fertilizer that could be mixed too strong. Yeah,
I would. I would attest that Medina probably had a

(01:59:55):
huge part in that and the success on them.

Speaker 5 (01:59:57):
What about it?

Speaker 15 (01:59:59):
I have them all two gallons deals that I cut
the bottoms out of and I'll press them over my
new plants so that they get, yes, a little bit
more wind resistant.

Speaker 4 (02:00:11):
That's a good idea, it would. You know what another
thing you could do. Don't cut the bottoms out, just
let the plants be there, and then if you have
a frosty knite, turn the pot upside down over the
plant if it's windy, put a little soil around it
to hold it in place, and then you have even

(02:00:31):
a better little protection against the frost that would hit.
So either way you want to go, but hey, risk track,
I got a run. But good luck, thank you.

Speaker 8 (02:00:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 27 (02:00:41):
I know why you do.

Speaker 4 (02:00:42):
Yeah, I know why you cut them back, and that's
a good way to go. I'm just trying to think
of how to get past the frost too. Thank you, sir.
Take care out there and run them. Someone asked earlier
about where's this place you get those buckets that are
bait for mosquitoes. Pest Brothers, pest Brothers. The pest Bros
Is the website d pest b Ros. Dpest Bros, or

(02:01:05):
you can call them two eight one two oh six
forty six seventy. I wish I had time to fully
explain that system to you, but it is cool. If
you are looking for something that is safe. The safest
you can do. If you're looking for something that really works,
you don't have to go around the yard blasting his
sex side ever, trying to kill mosquitoes more. Just gonna
fly in. This stuff works dpestbros dot com. All right,

(02:01:29):
I'm gonna go to Spring now and talk to Trey.

Speaker 10 (02:01:31):
Hey, Trey, thank you calling you back again. I had
another quick question. Figure. I jump in line and I'm
trying to put some I want to put some pine
straw mulch in my bids. It is that advisable, and
it's so, what are some cautions that where can I find.

Speaker 4 (02:01:50):
Some locally up here some pine straw?

Speaker 10 (02:01:54):
You said, yes, sir, you know I would ask.

Speaker 4 (02:01:58):
At your local garden centers up there. I don't know
offhand who's carrying it. I know anybody that's got property
that pine trees, let's go and break it up because
there's so many pine needles, or a yard with pine needles.
In fact, I had neighbors that would bag all their
pine straw and put it at the curb for me.
They didn't know they were putting it there for me,
but just brought it home with me. But you do occasionally,

(02:02:22):
not so much around here as in other parts of
the country. They think pine straw is pretty, and it's
baled and sold in garden centers and other places. But
I would just ask around your area and see if
you know any of the garden centers are going to
have it. Off the top of my head, I can't
say if or where I've seen it around town.

Speaker 10 (02:02:41):
Is there any negatives to putting it in our bids
for insects or anything?

Speaker 4 (02:02:45):
There No, not really, no insect negatives or anything. I
think it holds in place better, and you just don't
want to over use it as with anything, but you
have to use enough because those little skinny pine needles
don't block much sunlights. So you need enough to really
block the sun. But it works pretty good. I've had
good success, but I think it's pretty that bronze color.

Speaker 5 (02:03:09):
Yeah, thanks you.

Speaker 4 (02:03:10):
All right, sir, Thank you appreciate your call very much.
If you're looking for a soil for your indoor plants,
jungle Land by Nitrofoss jungle Land is the one. Now
there's two jungle Lands. One is their flour and vegetable
for outdoors a pause therve because let this kind of
separate out in the head. The other one is jungle

(02:03:34):
Land water Saving, putting soil for indoors. Okay, Now, the
water saving has crystals in it that absorb water. So
when you forget, I know you don't forget, when your
neighbor forgets the water, that soil crystals will have a
little extra reserve to get those plants through until they
remember to water again. Both of them are quality products.

(02:03:55):
Both of them are available in a wide variety of places.
You're going to find them in place like Ace Hardware,
Cityo Memorial Drive plants for all seasons. You're gonna find
them at enchanted forests. You're gonna find them at a plantation.
Ace Hardware, m and d Out there in Rosenberg has
them as well. And you know, in fact, I could

(02:04:16):
just go on, could I keep saying these Ace Hardware names.
Ace Hardware is a company that has everything you need
to have success outdoors. They just do fertilizers products to
control pest, weeds and diseases. Right now, there's some good
things going on we at Ace Hardware stores. They're still
having the twenty percent off their Mowen faucets. Oh actually,

(02:04:39):
I think I went a little long on that and
that was actually last month. Excuse me, sorry about that.
They do have their stains and their seals. If you
want to redo your deck, they've got you covered there.
You know, they've got a really good paint selection at
Ace Hardware. Go to acehardware dot com, find the store locator,
find the stores near you. There are so many great

(02:05:00):
our Ace Hardware stores. Let me give you a few.
Let me give you a few as an example, deer
Park just east of Pasadena, Deer Park Lumber, Chalmers, Ace
Hardware down in Galveston. For those of you over in
Port Levaca, first of all, thanks for listening Port Levaca.
Ace Hardware, Victoria Ace Hardware. Since we're hanging out in
the Southwest right now, all of those are just examples

(02:05:22):
of quality. Is hardware stores where you're gonna find everything
indoors outdoors, that beautiful outdoor sitting area. Oh gosh, and
check out those barbecue pits. Oh my, I was drooling
over a tray groove of it.

Speaker 8 (02:05:36):
That's true.

Speaker 4 (02:05:38):
All right, Thanks for listening to Garlide. We're gonna take
a break for the top of the hour.

Speaker 8 (02:05:41):
We'll be back.

Speaker 2 (02:05:43):
We will be back.

Speaker 4 (02:05:44):
Don't another hour.

Speaker 1 (02:05:49):
Welcome to kt r H Guarden Line with skimp Rickards.

Speaker 18 (02:05:59):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:06:02):
Just watch him as.

Speaker 4 (02:06:08):
So many things.

Speaker 27 (02:06:15):
Welcome back to Garden Line, folks. We are glad to
have you back with us. How can we help you today?
Got a question on gardening? Give me a call seven
one three two one two k t r H seven
one three two one two k t r H. In fact,
if you got a question, why not come out to

(02:06:37):
the Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show today. It's
out on Airport Road on the north side of Conroe
and I'm going to be there from twelve to two.
You're given a little talk about tips for springs success.
We'll talk about lawns and gardens and everything. Just kind
of give you an overall, some ideas, some things you
might not be aware of that you can do. And

(02:06:58):
I'll be answering your question and so bring whatever questions
you have. We'll have time then to really sit down
and talk about it a little bit. Maybe you want
to bring a sample in a bag of something that
you would like me to identify, a bug or something
growing in the lawn, whatever you got. Maybe you want
to bring a picture on your phone, show me an
area of the lawn and or the landscape, and we

(02:07:21):
can look at it, we can talk about it, what
to do. It's all going to be there again. That's
the Lone Star Convention Center on Airport Road on the
north side of Conroe, Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show.
I'm going to be giving away products from Nelson's and
products from the Just a moment in fact, right before
we went to break right there, we were talking about Medina.

(02:07:42):
I'm going to be giving away Medina products as well.
Up there, show up, maybe you win one. I've got
quite a few to give away. Happy to do that.

Speaker 4 (02:07:51):
D and Defeed in Tomball is one of those feed
stores that you go in and you know you're going
to walk out with what you need. They have an
excellence selection. You know you hear me talk about nitrophos
or microlife, or Nelson turf star or Medina or heirloom
soils or Nelson plant food jars or you know, just
whatever it is. They even have plants out front seasonally

(02:08:14):
as we go through the air. High quality dog food
of course, all the livestock food and everything that you
need as well. But do you need something to kill
a weed, an insect, a disease. They not only have
the products, they have the knowledge to point you at
the right one. Dandy Feed is three miles west of
ivy two forty nine on twenty nine twenty in Tomball.

(02:08:35):
I'm gonna give you a phone number two eight one
three five one seventy one forty four. Two eight one
three five one seventy one forty four. Alrighty, we're gonna
head out to Missouri City now and talk to Janey. Hello, Janey,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 21 (02:08:52):
Thank scampow are you this morning?

Speaker 4 (02:08:55):
I'm good, I'm good. What's up?

Speaker 8 (02:08:58):
Well?

Speaker 21 (02:08:58):
I ad I's a champ Until email you a question
because I had pictures to send you, but I'm curious
what you think about red creeping time as a groundcover
in a small columbarium area at our.

Speaker 4 (02:09:14):
Church about creeping time. Creeping time is okay. You need
to plant quite a bit of it because it doesn't
like vine fast. It's a slope. The name creeping is appropriate,
so you could do that. I find that with time,
you know, if you don't share it back quite a bit,

(02:09:35):
it gets to look in a little lot of dead
twiggy growth in there, and it's not as attractive. So
just count on sharing it back a little bit periodically
and fertilizing it. You may find better success, you know,
with like an oregano. But that's one that'll get awfully
tall if you don't keep it shared back. But it's
another one that will spread horizontally if you're looking for.

Speaker 21 (02:09:58):
This is kind of a corner are. It's under a
magnolia tree, but it gets partial sun. The grass has
just become weeds.

Speaker 7 (02:10:08):
It's not a.

Speaker 21 (02:10:09):
Huge area, and it's in a columbarium at our church.
And I thought of time. It looks pretty in this picture,
but I also have quite a nice groundcover under my
live oak tree in my backyard that stays. I mean,
it went through the freeze it's never had any problem,
and I'm wondering if that isn't a better answer than
trying to grow grass in there, and maybe the time

(02:10:31):
is not my answer.

Speaker 4 (02:10:34):
Yeah, So unless you're just growing it for the fact
that it's an herb, I would consider a couple of others.
There's one called polygonum, and it has little tiny pink
balls that are flower stalks coming up very low, very
low growing polygonum. And another one is, oh gosh, what

(02:10:54):
plumbago leadwart plumbago, not the regular plumbago that ever he
thinks of. This is a flat groundcover with deep blue flowers.
And now these are these are not things that are
going to be there in the winter time, you know
they they're not They're not an evergreen. But those are
two groundcovers that are pretty easy to grow too. But

(02:11:17):
if you're looking for something that's evergreen, uh, then you know,
then you would have to to switch. A monkey grass
is not a bad one either. The dwarf monkey grass,
it stays very small and low and it looks pretty good.
Is a groundcover also, and it can take a ton
of shade.

Speaker 21 (02:11:34):
So so monkey grass might be the answer. I want
something we have company the dwarf.

Speaker 4 (02:11:43):
Okay, yeah, not the regular one. Yeah, the dwarf. No,
you're gonna you said, yeah, you said that it was
a small area. You're gonna have to buy a lot
of monkey grass because you know, you can't put them
six inches apart. I mean you got to plant them
close together because they don't spread fast at all. So
you would be buying a number of flats. So you

(02:12:05):
just have to make that assessment yourself. Hey, uh, I
hope that helps out there. Good luck with it. Sounds
like you've got a good project on your hands.

Speaker 21 (02:12:14):
Yes, we do one other question for you on the myrtles.
Do they they're kind of our myrtles around the property
have kind of a black stuff on them right now.

Speaker 4 (02:12:26):
Mum, that's that's city mold and it's from crape crepe
myrtle bark scale and so you need to treat for
the scale. You can use a systemic insecticide. Follow the label,
look for something with Do you have a pen handy?

Speaker 21 (02:12:41):
I am driving, so unfortunately I don't.

Speaker 4 (02:12:44):
Okay, all right, well, uh no I don't have that
posted online. Uh think of remember the dinosaur. The beginning
of the chemical is d I N O dino dino
and that's ingredient. Just say it's a systemic insecticide dino.
And you go to your local Ace hardware store down

(02:13:05):
there Missouri City. You know you're not You're not too
far away from you know, Southwest Fertilizers. There's a lot
of places you can get it. But just you just
need to say, Okay, I'm gonna have to run. I'm
up against a hard break. But I appreciate your call
very much. You bet good luck with that dandy feed
and supply I was telling you about it before. It

(02:13:27):
is it just is a great place and you need
to go by and see it.

Speaker 7 (02:13:30):
I just.

Speaker 4 (02:13:33):
We've talked about it several times today because I keep
sending people there because it's a good place to find
whatever it is you're looking for. Well, I'm gonna take
a little break. I'll be right back, and when we
come back, Richard and sugar Land and James and Cyprus,
you'll be our first two up. All right, all right,
welcome back. Good to have you with us. Hey, have
you been doing Shannon for us lately? You need to go.

(02:13:55):
If you went three days ago, you need to go
back because you wouldn't believe what they've got in the
house splant selection is incredible. They have all the kalladiums
in now, I mean a ton of kaladiums now. You
don't want to delay whenever someplace has bulbs or corms
or rhizomes or you know whatever in because it's gonna
get picked over. And if you want the best selection,

(02:14:16):
get there today. Enchanted Forest. It's easy to get to.
It's out on FM twenty seven to fifty nine. If
you're in Richmond going towards sugar Land, it's off to
the right FM twenty seven to fifty nine Enchanted Forest.
And I love, I always love going there. Knowledgeable people,
very knowledgeable people. They can help you, they can direct you,

(02:14:37):
they can provide you with exactly what you need to
have success. That is very very important. You need that
when you go to a garden center. Now, if you're
looking for the website, I would recommend you go there
for sure. Enchanted Forest, Richmond TX dot com. On the website,
you can sign up for all kinds of things. You
can find about their upcoming events, find out things like

(02:15:01):
I just told you. You follow them on social media,
for example, like on Facebook. They've got plenty of cool
stuff there Oh, they also got in some Jack Daniels
half whiskey barrels. What do you do? You're planning on them?
Half whiskey bro They're really cool, real rustic planners. See
what would you plant one of those? I guess you
could plant some old fashioned flowers? Did you get that

(02:15:23):
bourbon old fat? Anyway? Whatever, plant whatever you want at
the plants will be happy. I've grown whiskey barrels myself.
They're really cool. At Encented Forest in Richmond. We're gonna
run out Sugarland now and talk to Richard. Hey, Richard,
welcome to garden line.

Speaker 23 (02:15:38):
Oh, thank you.

Speaker 16 (02:15:39):
Hey.

Speaker 23 (02:15:39):
I've got a small satsuma tangerine tree that I've got
growing in a pot. And this is his third year
that I've had the first two years I've pulled the
blooms off of it.

Speaker 5 (02:15:50):
Should I pull them off.

Speaker 23 (02:15:51):
Again this year?

Speaker 4 (02:15:54):
Third year? How big is it?

Speaker 5 (02:15:57):
It's only about.

Speaker 23 (02:15:58):
Six foot talks growing in a growing in a pot.
It's a miniature.

Speaker 4 (02:16:03):
Well, ideally we say, uh, do it for three years,
because you want to get the biggest tree you can
get to hang future production seasons, you know, frud on.
But if you want to let up a two or
three grow just for fun, just have a taste, that's okay,
But just in general, let's get it as big and

(02:16:25):
strong as we can. Six foot is a good size.
In fact, I'm getting kind of a mix. I'm getting
I'm hearing tangerine, I'm hearing satsuma, and I'm hearing miniature,
and those three don't quite go together. Being in a
container is going to keep any cetr smaller, and satsuma
compared to other ceptrus is less size of a tree,
usually a little slower growing. But anyway, the same principle

(02:16:48):
holds true.

Speaker 23 (02:16:50):
Yeah, let me ask us, it's got a whole lot
of bloes on it this year? Should I pull half
of them off? Would it hurt to pull half of
them off?

Speaker 4 (02:16:58):
Or just you know, well, yeah you could do half
or so I would look at the tree and if
it's like, yeah, this still is kind of a scrawny thing,
I would I would take more off. But uh, the
tree is going to abort a lot of those blooms.
When it has that many, you're gonna see a lot
on the ground. You're gonna see a little tiny baby
fruit on the ground that have been aboarded off too.

(02:17:21):
So uh, but yeah, leave you some just a few
to play with and and uh and then keep keep
fertilizing and growing that tree.

Speaker 18 (02:17:29):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:17:30):
But that you're kind of on the line, I would
get a furtilizer, yeah, fruit and ceteras. Uh do you
do you do organic or synthetic? What do you prefer?

Speaker 23 (02:17:41):
Okay, either one? Okay, that'll be fine.

Speaker 5 (02:17:44):
Okay, I'll do that.

Speaker 4 (02:17:45):
Yeah, all right, thank you, sir. I appreciate your call.
Appreciate that very much.

Speaker 5 (02:17:50):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:17:51):
You are you are listening to Guardline and we are
here to help you have success.

Speaker 14 (02:17:56):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:17:56):
Now, if you are walking around your house and see
cracks in the brick, if you're inside and you see
cracks in the sheet rock, other signs a foundation movement
would be something like a door that is sticking or
that was sticking in and now is not sticking. Something's
moving in there, and you need to get somebody to
look at it soon. Don't be an ostrich and put
your head in the sand. Fix my slab foundation repair.

(02:18:19):
Here's the website. Fixmslab dot com. You want to write
that down, Fix myslab dot com. Ty Strickland's been doing
this for twenty three years. He's a native Houstonian, fifth
generation Texan, and he's got the ethic that you're looking for.
And anybody that comes out to do any kind of
service to your property, that is, he shows up on time,

(02:18:39):
he fixes it right, and he charges a fair price,
and he's honest. And if you don't need work, he'll
tell you that. He'll tell you that. He said, well,
that's a little movement, but you know, not just yet.
You're okay for now, you know, tell him me your
guardline listener. Get a free estimate fixmislab dot com two
eight one two five five forty nine four. I'm going

(02:19:01):
to go now up to Cypress and we're going to
talk to James. Hey, James, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (02:19:06):
Good morning. How are you, sir? I'm doing well, Thank you, okay,
thank you.

Speaker 16 (02:19:11):
Hey.

Speaker 5 (02:19:13):
I have a strip of weed grass next to my
driveway about fifteen feet by fifty feet, all weeds because
I had a driveway put in and I want to
replace that with side. My question is can I do
I have to remove this layer of weeds before I

(02:19:34):
level it and put in grass. I was thinking could
I just till it up with a garden tiller and
add the layer of pop soil and then put in
said Okay.

Speaker 4 (02:19:45):
So, James, the answer to your question depends on one
big thing. Are they perennial or are they annual weeds?
So if they're annuals, you till it up, you don't
worry about it. You put in your side, cover it
all up, and you move on. If it was something
like nuts edge or bermuda grass or some other perennial weed,
then it's just gonna come up through your side, it's

(02:20:07):
going to pop back through from underground.

Speaker 8 (02:20:10):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:20:10):
In general, tilling does a good job of destroying them.
If you can rake or pick out a lot of
the weeds, that's good. But that is you know, I
can't tell you yes or no because I don't know
exactly what weeds you have. Chances are you would be
okay doing that, but you may be fighting weeds later
in the lawn, which is also okay.

Speaker 5 (02:20:30):
You can do that sure. And then I was complaining
about putting in bermuda grass. Kind of I don't have
a sprinkler system. I like bermuda grass. Oh, okay, if
there are a certain behind that you would recommend.

Speaker 4 (02:20:42):
There are a number of great kinds up there, and
you know, I would do sod not seed. It's much better.
Uh there, gosh, there's so many name Let me let
me do this. If you go to Aggie turf website,
it's Aggie turf dot TAMU dot ed you at the
bottom left there's Texas turf Grass. You click on it

(02:21:04):
and it goes through every turf grass and it gives
you varieties and everything like that to look for. If
you go locally here someplace you know, like, oh gosh,
what's the King Ranch turf grass? For example, they're going
to have certain cultivars of bermuda that they grow. You
want a semi dwarf bermuda one that's kind of a
golf course green height plant, not a golf course I'm sorry,

(02:21:29):
golf course fairway. I said it backwards. The thing you
see on golf course fairways and football fields. That's a
semi dwarf, not a golf course green, and not a
big old coastal bermuda that gets tall. But there are
a lot of good varieties of it, and a good
turf provider will be able to put you in touch
with a good variety.

Speaker 5 (02:21:48):
Do you have to have one? More? Fast questions?

Speaker 4 (02:21:51):
Real quick? Okay?

Speaker 5 (02:21:54):
I need to fill in soil in the backyard where
I have a leech field? Is there all right? I
need a very light soil, very light so it does
a compact leech field. Do you have a recommendation or
can I have one mixed?

Speaker 4 (02:22:09):
All right? Real quick? I would go to Heirloom Soils
and ask for their lawn mix. Lawn mix, okay, and
you can call out to the porter place where they're
probably shipping it out of. It's two eight one three
five four nineteen fifty two eight one three five four

(02:22:30):
nineteen fifty. Hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate that very much.
Good luck with that fix. My slab is as I
was telling you, A good place to go. Another example
of a good place to go is League City Feed.
The Thunderberg family has been doing this for forty years.
It's an old time feed store. You're going to find
the products that you need there. We're talking about nitrofoss azamite, microlife,

(02:22:55):
heirloom soils, you know, Nelson Plant Food. They've got it
all right there. Anything you need for your law and
your garden. They also have good quality feed feed for
maybe you got back your chickens. You need some feed
for those feed for your pets, feed for other things.
League City Feed is easy to get to because it's

(02:23:15):
on Highway three, just a few blocks south of Highway
ninety six in League City. Now. They're open every day
except Sunday, nine am to six pm nine am to
six pm. Here's the phone number two eight one three
three two sixteen twelve. League City Feed two eight one
three three two sixteen twelve. It's a place where they

(02:23:36):
still carry your bags out for you. That a kind
of old fashioned service. All right, you're listening to garden Line.
I'm your host, Skip Ricker seven one three two one
two KTRH. If you need to give us call, we'll
be happy to help you with that. If you are
doing any kind of potting up of plants jungle Land.

(02:23:56):
Jungle Land from Nitrofoss has two products that work well.
One is jungle Land Flour and Vegetable planting soil. It's
a potting soil for outdoors in your containers. There's also
a jungle Land water Saber potting soil for indoors that
gives you a little extra water retention in case you

(02:24:17):
can get to water. Now you're going to find Nitrofoss
products at a lot of places Bearings Hardware. Both the
one on Bissonet and Westeimer have it, M and D
out in Rosenberg they carry it a City Hardware memorial
or Northwest Plants for all seasons. They carry night frost
products there as well. Someone was asking me about was

(02:24:40):
that place that you say had all the roses and
RCW Nursries. I've been talking about them all spring. They
have a huge selection of roaches, pages and pages and pages.
Find them on Facebook RCW Nursery. On Facebook you can
go to the website it's RCW Nursries dot com. But
on Facebook right top front center they've got they're twenty

(02:25:00):
twenty five rows list there. And the Houston roadse Society.
Those rosarians they know, they know RCW is a place
where you can get those kind of roses. They are
stocked on vegetables, they're stocked on color, they're stocked camellias.
Oh my gosh, I was telling you earlier. You need
to plant a camellia if you want flowers in December
and January. There's two kinds of commiteas. It'll do just

(02:25:22):
that for you. It's really easy to do. They have
advice that is accurate. They have people that know what
they're talking about. That's what I mean when I recommend
you check out RCW nurseres right now. Fifteen percent off azaleas.
Fifteen percent off azaleas at RCW Nurseries. There's also fifteen

(02:25:44):
percent off their camellias. Don't delay. Now's the time to
get it planted. RCW nurseries dot com. They're the garden
center where Tombo Parkway, which is IA two forty nine
comes into belt Way eight. Tombo Parkway a belt Way eight.
In my own yard, was looking and I have some weeds, Yes,

(02:26:04):
I know the garden line guy has weeds.

Speaker 5 (02:26:06):
I do.

Speaker 4 (02:26:08):
I just have a few, though, so I'm going to
be hand pulling those. They're not enough. I you know,
I could mix up a spray and square them with
it and stuff, but I'd rather just not do that.
And I was out doing some hand pulling on them,
and I noticed that the hand bet flowers were just
about to come out. And when the flowers come out,
the seeds follow. And when the seeds follow, you're in
trouble because next fall they'll sprout and you'll be up

(02:26:31):
a creek as a result of that, And You don't
want to mess around with that for sure, So time
to get out and if you're hand pulling, now's the
time definitely to get that done. Growers Outlet up in
Willis is a great place to go. It's on It's
on Highway seventy five, just minutes away from forty five.
Here's the website. You need to write it down. Growers

(02:26:51):
Outlet in Willis. Don't forget the word in Growers Outlet
in Willis dot com. They carry fertilizers like Microlife and
and Medina so on. They serve that whole region from
Lake Conroe down to Conro, up to Willis up to
New Waverley. You get everything you want there and they
put their stuff online. You can check availability at Growers

(02:27:12):
Outlets in Willis dot com. Go check them out. I
was there the other day. Amazing. If you've got one
drop of gardening blood in you, this is a week
or as the song was playing, Walking on Sunshine, I'm
telling you, if you could stay inside this week and

(02:27:33):
I go outside and play in the dirt, there's something
seriously wrong. We need to talk because this is a
perfect week for gardening, A perfect week for gardening. Don't forget.
You know, I've been talking about fertilizers all day. Asamite
is a micro nutrient supplement that you put down. We
also say trace mineral, trace mineral, micronutrients, basically the same thing,

(02:27:54):
and you put it down because those tiny amounts of
libdenum and manganese and iron and zinc and boron and all,
you know, all the micro nutrients, they all need to
be supplemented. And this is a product that's mined out
of the ground in Utah. It's a natural product, comes
out of the ground, made from volcanic ash and freshwater

(02:28:17):
minerals basically, and it makes sure that the bank account
in your soul has those things in it. And that's
important because the grass every day that it's growing is
taking up nutrients and it's taking up all of them.
You can't make a grass blade without some obscure nutrient
like boron, for example, and that's never on the fertilizer
bag you see. You know, it's the big three numbers.

(02:28:39):
You see. Well, asmite provides that you can go to
Azmite Texas dot com if you just want to find it.
Ace hardware stores, the feed stores that we talk about,
the garden centers. We talk about lots of places you're
going to find it. Southwest Fertilizer or course ees that
they have everything, but you just need to get it
and you get it out. And now it would be
a good time to go ahead and get that done.

(02:29:02):
Plants for all seasons is the Garden Center there on
two forty nine on the way to Tomball Tomball Parkway.
If you were going no, let me direct you this way.
If you're going north toward Tomball from Houston direction, you
exit Luetta Crossover Luetta and it's right there on to
forty nine, right there past Lovetta and you need to

(02:29:24):
go in. You need to check out their tool selection.
They have a wonderful selection. I was in there the
other day checking them over. Every single one. A quality brand.
We're talking about a tool that you buy and it
lasts forever. It lasts forever they have it. Do you
go in there and ask them any question and they
can help you. For example, I've got pets. I want

(02:29:45):
house plants that won't poison my pets. What do you
got and they can tell you that. See what I mean.
They know the answers to all kinds of things. They're
loaded up now with plants. It's spring, So what kind
of herbs do you want? We were talking earlier about
someone using our regano as a groundcover. Oh my god,
they got a reguo. Do they have time?

Speaker 5 (02:30:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:30:02):
How many kinds of time do you want? Go by
there and check out plants for all seasons. Expert advice,
expert plants. It is time, folks. We gotta get busy
this week. It is the week I'm officially kicking off spring. Now,
please call the weather man and ask him to cancel
any late for us. I don't think we're gonna have
any so I'm kicking off spring at my house. At least.

(02:30:23):
Let's go out to friends with We're gonna talk to Charlie. Hey, Charlie,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (02:30:29):
Good morning to you, skip, good to talk to you.
I got a question.

Speaker 18 (02:30:32):
Thinking about trying to put in blueberries for breakfast, and
give me some.

Speaker 4 (02:30:43):
All right, Well, the first tip, I'm going to send
you to a website because there after you and I
quit talking and you're wondering what did he say about this?
Or that, you can just go right there and you
can see it. And that's the Aggie Horticulture website. Just search,
do a search for Aggie horticulture. There is a fruit section,
and there's a whole free publication multicolor on blueberries that

(02:31:05):
goes into every aspect, Charlie, from the soils you put
them in, to the way you fertilize them, to the
way you prune them, to the varieties that do best.
And here in our area, Charlie, you've got two options
for blueberry varieties. One type is called the rabbit eye.
It's called that because the immature berries are pink like
a like an albino rabbit eye. They turn blue. The

(02:31:27):
other type is called Southern high bush. That's a bigger berry,
and it's a little picky about water quality, so you're
gonna want probably depending on your water quality in your area,
you may need to consider some rain water for it.
But if you've got decent quality, that's okay too. Southern
high bush I like those a lot, but I like
the rabbit eyes too. So the Southern high bush is

(02:31:48):
a little more, a little dwarfer, a little compared to
rabbit eye. Doesn't get quite as large as rabbitie blueberries.
So whether it's growing in a container or in the
ground around your house, both of them will do well.
And there's a lot of good a lot of good
advice out there at Aggie horticulture dot com. That that's
why I kind of recommending that.

Speaker 18 (02:32:11):
That also you tolerate that our blackberries are looking puny
so far this year. Anyone perk them up? You recommend
that's blackberries?

Speaker 4 (02:32:22):
What are they looking What are they looking like? Can
you describe them to me?

Speaker 5 (02:32:26):
Just basically smaller moller than experience in the past.

Speaker 4 (02:32:33):
Okay, Uh, yeah, you know, who knows. It could be
the weather, It could be a lot of things. Blackberries
like a soil a little bit on the acidic side.
Sometimes they get chlorotic. When they don't get that. Uh,
they like good soil moisture. But then you're gonna need
to fertilize them a little to keep them happy. It

(02:32:53):
just gets you a good quality fruit type fertilizer. They'll
do just fine with that. Any either way you go
and you're down there, you know, with where you're located,
I mean, you have so many Ace Hardware stores. It's
not difficult at all to find one right there in
the big middle of Friends, which You've got Ace Hardware
on West Edgewood Drive right there. So that's probably the

(02:33:14):
closest one to you. And they're going to have a
quality fertilizer for fruit from the many different brands we
talk about here, whether it's Microlife or Nitrofoss or Nelson,
they're going to carry those kind of things.

Speaker 5 (02:33:27):
Ship.

Speaker 4 (02:33:30):
Thanks sir, Yeah, I appreciate that. Hey, speaking of Nitrofoss
has their Imperial fifteen five to ten, and I want
to tell you, I know it doesn't it's a lawn fertilizer,
but if you buy some for your lawn, just get
an extra bag, use it on your blackberries, using your
fruit trees. It works really well, it really does. On
that You can also buy the specific types made for

(02:33:53):
fruit and stuff. That's fine, but nitro Foss Imperial is
just great now for the lawn. It's my on the
schedule as my early green up fertilizer, and if you
get my schedule at gardening with Skip dot com you'll
see it right there. A lot of people print it out.
They print both of the schedules. I like to do
them front back, safe piece of paper and you just
put them out in the garage and you always got
them there ready to go when you're ready to fertilize.

(02:34:15):
Night foss Imperial is the orange red bag, the orange
red bag. And you're gonna find it at all kinds
of places because many places carry nitrofoss products. I mean,
have you ever I don't. It's hard to go into
a place that doesn't have nitrofoss. It just really is.
For example, you're gonna find it at Lake hardwren Clute,

(02:34:37):
Lake Hardwarn Angleton RCW Nursery carries these nitro frossprin Langham
Creek Ace Hardware. We're talking about them earlier today on
FM five point twenty nine right there in the big
middle of Copperfield. And then Plantation Ace out there in
the Richmond Rosenberg area, just another place you can get
night foss products. I'm gonna head now out to Andy

(02:34:59):
and you are sure. Hey, Andy, welcome to guarden Line.

Speaker 3 (02:35:02):
Good good morning, and thank you for taking my call.
I'm a first time caller, but I do listen to
your show. And what I have today, I have a project.
I have a it's this is a rose bush that's
over thirty years old and today I'm going to do
the pruning of it. I need to cut some branches

(02:35:23):
because it's really really has extended pretty well. But the
question that I have is do I need to put
like a ceilant after I cut? Or is it okay
to leave it open as is after cutting? Would you
recommend it open?

Speaker 4 (02:35:39):
No, it's fine, just leave it open. Yeah, that's okay, great, Great,
do the prune in that you need to do. It's
good that you're doing it now. Roses are amazingly resilient.
You can cut them back pretty hard and they bounce
right back. So bring it down to size like you want. Yeah? Yeah,
do you know what kind it is? By the way,

(02:36:00):
happen to know what variety it is? Is it one
that makes the long cutflower stems or is it more
just a shrubby rose?

Speaker 22 (02:36:07):
They had?

Speaker 3 (02:36:08):
They had the okay, the stems are short and sometimes
they're either yellow or they're pink. But they bloom like
twice a year. And uh, my wife's grandfather planted that
for us when we first moved in here. It's thirty
five years old or more. The uh okay, the rose bush?

Speaker 4 (02:36:26):
Hey, and would you want to make would you take.

Speaker 23 (02:36:28):
Care of it?

Speaker 18 (02:36:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:36:31):
Yeah, well I gotta I gotta run, But would I'm
going to put you on hold if you're willing, would
you get my email from the producer and when it blooms,
so you send me a picture of it. I'd like
to see, uh, the variety and just remind me of
remind me you called and we talked about a thirty
five year old rose. Thanks Andy, I appreciate that. Folks.
It's time for me to take a little break here, uh,
and I'll be right back for our last segment of

(02:36:54):
the show today. All right, folks, stem you're back. Welcome
back to Gardenline. Good to have you with us, Good
to have you with us. So listen, if you are
looking for inspiration when it comes to birding, you're not
going to do better than wild Birds Unlimited. When you
go to a wild Bird's Unlimited, you get quality advice

(02:37:18):
that it may be the most important thing of all
because they will listen. These people are enthusiastic and they
know their stuff. You will get quality food for the birds.
Now you're thinking, well, birds eat seed. Come on, man, now,
a lot of seed is like over half fillers that
birds are going to kick out to get to the
stuff they want and it ends up on the ground.

(02:37:40):
So is that is that inexpensive? If you're throwing away
half of what you just bought. No, it's not wildbirds stuff.
They even have one called then no mess, it's not one,
it's several. No mess blends, no mess blends. There's not
even shells on the sunflower. There's nothing, no mess, just
what birds want. Right now, you need to focus on
nesting super blend from wild Birds unlimited nesting supervn It

(02:38:05):
provides the protein they need, the calcium because we got
birds that are nesting, they're laying eggs. They need they
need that calcium obviously during an egg laying season, but
they need it more than just now. When you buy
a nesting super blend, you are going to get stuff
that at Those birds are excited about every granule in
that packet, sunflower chips, peanuts, meal worms, bark, butter bits,

(02:38:29):
safflower tree nuts, and as I said, calcium. Now, we're
coming up on hummingbird season. If however, you I'd hurry
up and go ahead and get the high perched feeder.
It's not too far away. We're about a month out
before we see some humming birds coming through here. Well,
and I just was reading some of my text other day.
Some people had them stay all a few birds stay
all winter, so there's that. The squirrel proof feeder is

(02:38:51):
called the squirrel eliminator. Okay, the squirrel, the feeder, the eliminade.
Just remember the word eliminator. It works, It really really works.
I've got one. I love it, The birds love it,
the squirrels hate it, which warms my heart. And then
finally I just got one the other day. The hopper feeder.

(02:39:13):
This is the called the Eco Tough and it was
designed by the owner of Wildbirds. It's got excellent drainage,
keeps your seeds dry. Gosh, it's so frustrating when it
rains on your seeds and they got throw them away
because they're all soggy, wet and molded. The Eco Tough
hopper feeder is another one. It's it's just one of
the basic If someone's coming and going, hey, Skip, I

(02:39:33):
want to do birds, where should I start? I would
Eco Tough hopper feeders just a great way to start.
And don't forget that nesting super blend. All right, we
are going to go out to Jim in Meadows Place.
Hey Jim, Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 5 (02:39:48):
Hello Skip.

Speaker 16 (02:39:50):
About a week ago I got two tomato plants to
jalapena peppers. I put them in five gallon containers with
Landscaper's Pride Magic, so we'll put a little bit of
root stimulator in when I'm planning them. Question is what's
the best fertilizer now to use on these for plants feed?

Speaker 4 (02:40:10):
Yeah, there's there are a number of things. I mean,
you can use something that's a book bag, but I
would I would probably well they've already been planted, So
I was going to say, Neutristar Genesis is a great
one to use. I would just switch over to the
the Nelson product that is for vegetables. Okay, uh it

(02:40:30):
it works well, it's going to give you a release
over time, and I really I really like that because
instead of all the fertilizer just washing right out and
then you're done, you're going to get a feeding that
lasts over time. And so it's one of the many
products that's part of Nelson's Neutral Star line. So that
that's the one I would suggest you use.

Speaker 16 (02:40:51):
Jack the granules that come in the plastic containers says
for vegetables.

Speaker 4 (02:40:55):
Yeah, yes, Now they Nelson's makes one called organic Tomato
and that's an eight five five that you could also
use that's another option that you have there, uh, the
one that I have used mostly in the past. It's
called vegetable garden and vegetable garden. It is great. You

(02:41:16):
just take your little teaspoon and put it in there.
You don't have to put much and it's gonna last
so and I like the jars. And also a lot
of places will refill some of those products too.

Speaker 5 (02:41:27):
Okay, well that's what I needed to know. Appreciate the help, all.

Speaker 4 (02:41:31):
Right, sir, Thank you, appreciate your call very very much.
Plants for all seasons. We were talking about those earlier,
and I just love going to places like that. The
last time I was in there, I was visiting with
some of the Flowerdy family and we were just all
excited because spring is here. Boy, is spring over here.

(02:41:52):
I hope this You know what, Call into work and
just tell them you need your vacation now and just
take the Let's take the week off, get this done.
If you are a gardener, you got to be on
the edge of your chair ready to go. So many things,
vegetables and herb. What have you not grown before? Let's
grow some this year. Let's just do it that way. Hey,

(02:42:14):
I told you about Pest Brothers earlier. In fact, we
talked about them two or three times today. They're a
regional pest company. They serve the whole Houston area. When
I say the whole Houston area, I'm talking about from
Texas City all the way up to the Woodlands, from
Baytown all the way across the Kadie. And when I
say pest control, I'm talking about the indoor things, you know,
the termites and the other household pests. You know, if

(02:42:38):
people are standing on the furniture screaming because the cockroach
went across the floor, Well, called Pest Brothers. They'll put
an end of that. And they do things effectively. They
know how to do it effectively, and they know how
to do it in the safest possible manner, so you
get long term results without worries. Now, out in the yard,
we got fire ants, and we got wall environments roming

(02:42:59):
around like mice and rats. They take care of all
that stuff. And then they have that thing that people
have been asking me about. That is their mosquito system.
That is a bucket, that is a bait and it
is so cool and let me see if I want
to go into it, just a little bit right now.
This is state of the art and Pest Brothers has it.
So these bait stations are like the Green standard if

(02:43:21):
you want effective and safe mosquito control. So they attract
the adult mosquitos. They have a smell that attracts them in.
Once inside them, mosquitos pick up this fine powder because
they have to land on a little screen. Then they
pick up the powder. Okay, two different products cling to
their bodies. They lay eggs, and one product is in
the is going to drop into the water. It's going

(02:43:43):
to kill the larvae and the pupa before they even
develop into adult mosquitos. So as I come over here,
reproduce here, lay eggs right in here, and those eggs
will never show up. That's good. Secondly, the adults carry
those two products with them as they fly. When they
land a little body of water, maybe it is a
bird bath, maybe it is a saggy uh you know,
gutter on your house and it's holding water and they're

(02:44:05):
breeding in there. It gets in that product and it
works there in those areas too. This is safe. It
will not hurt birds or pets or lady beetles or
it's it's designed for mosquitoes. The other product is a
fungus that infects the mosquito adults, resulting in their death. Now,
I'm not a mosquito fan, and the thought of a

(02:44:27):
mosquito dying from a fungal infection of its body is
a I think that's a wonderful thing. I'm sorry, I
think that's a wonderful thing. And again, it's safe. It's
just amazing. It's fascinating and the genius way to control
mosquitoes because it's safe to people, pets, and the environment.
And you get it at pest Brothers pest is. Here's

(02:44:47):
the website, the pest Bros. Don't write out brothers in
the website dpestbros dot com. That's the name of the place,
Dpestpros dot com. You can call them two eight one,
two oh six forty six seventy. All right, I'm about
to jump in a car. Here, I'm going to head
to the Montgomery County Home and Living Show, an outdoor
living show. It is at the Lone Start Convention Center

(02:45:11):
on Airport Road on the north side of Conro I'll
be there from twelve to two. I'm gonna give a
talk on spring gardening tips. Come on out and see
me giving away products from Medina and products from Nelson Fertilized.
We were just talking about those a while ago, you know.
Come on out there, and who knows, maybe you'll win

(02:45:33):
one of those products. I'll answer your gardening questions. You
can bring me samples if you like. You can bring
me photos if you like. Today's been a busy day
and I've just had a short time with each caller
to be able to help out there at the Home
and Garden Show. I got time to sit down and
visit with you, So come on out. Hope to see
you then. Oh, by the way, it's free to get

(02:45:55):
in and free parking.