Winter Prep For Your Lawn & Garden

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skimp Richard's.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Crazy trip. Just watch him as well.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Us.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
So many good things to Septsy.

Speaker 5 (00:30):
Not a sor.

Speaker 6 (00:36):
Well good morning, Yeah, it's me live. I uh. It's
been a low break here during the holiday season. I
hope you have had a wonderful time with family, hopefully
got some rest. Here we go first guard Line show
of twenty twenty five. We will be here for your
calls as we always are. If you would like to

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

(01:19):
this is going to be one of the best gardening
years ever. I mean it, I really am looking forward
to this gardening season. You know, every year throws us
its own curve. Some years it's awfully hot and dry.
Some years it just doesn't seem to want to quit
rain in some years it tends to give us a
pretty good coal snap. We got one of those coming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(05:42):
Now's the time to do it. Anytime in the cool season,
soil is dry enough to work, it's a good time
to do that. Raised beds are always a good idea
because you can always add water, but you can't take
it away when you have excess soggy wet, which I've
gotten some of my right now, I've got an area
I'm trying to redo and I'm just having to wait

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

(06:24):
I'll be a broken record on preparing the soil, preparing
the soil, taking care of the soil, getting it right,
making the plants feel at home, all of the above.
And when we do that, we will have success. It
just sets us up for success. Now, there's a lot
of different things that can happen that you know will
throw you curves and challenges. I don't mean just you know,

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

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

(07:27):
seventy four. If you have a question that might involve
a photo, give my producer Jonathan a call and get
an email so you can send me a photo and
then call and we'll talk about it on the air. Sometimes,
you know, you're describing a weed and what I'm picturing
and what you're describing isn't the same thing. Or maybe
it's a flower or a fruit or something. Go ahead

(07:48):
and just let you know, send me a photo, Let's
let me look at it, then let's talk about it.
Because I guarantee you this, other people will have the
same questions that you have. Well, I'll be right back
in just a moment with your questions and with more
a garden Line.

Speaker 7 (08:02):
Come back to Guarden Line, folks.

Speaker 6 (08:05):
Good to have you with us this morning. Welcome back
to We're welcome back, Welcome to twenty twenty five, the
best gardening year you will ever have experienced. This is it.
I'm being positive. Gardeners are optimists. We absolutely have to be,
because you know, we take these little dried pieces of
detritus that just look like, I don't know, just woodchip,

(08:27):
tiny wood chips, and we put them in the soil,
knowing that a tomato or a petunia is going to
come out of that thing. It's actually going to come
to life, grow and produce stuff that we really want
to see or eat or whatever. That's an optimist. We
believe in the future, and twenty twenty five is going
to be a great gardening year. I can just tell

(08:48):
you that we're going to start off by going straight
to the phones and this hour or segment, and we're
going to go to talk to Michael and Montgomery. Hello, Michael,
welcome to garden Line. Hello, Hello, I'm here, all righty,
Well there he is. Hey Mike, how are we.

Speaker 8 (09:10):
Doing this morning?

Speaker 6 (09:12):
Well, I'm good. I'm a little rusty. I forgot to
push the right button to get you on, so I'm
just talking to myself instead of you. Good.

Speaker 9 (09:19):
Have you got a problem.

Speaker 10 (09:22):
I planted a six foot red maple last year in
place of my oak that died, and it plant and
it's bloomed leaves and everything. But now with Paul, it
dropped its leaves and everything. And with this freeze coming around,
do I have to wrap it as a security?

Speaker 6 (09:41):
You know, red maple is a hearty tree for our
area and we don't have to worry about it for cold,
but in your situation there I would. And here's why
we've We've been pretty warm these last few weeks, and
plants that can become very cold hearty when they harden
off as the weather gets colder and colder gradually, they

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

(10:28):
is the sun will warm it during the day and
a brand new This is true with red oaks, it's
true with grape myrtles, and several other kinds of trees up.
The sun shines on that trunk and it warms up
warmer than the air around it, Just like if you
stood outside on a cold, cold winter day that you
could feel the warmth of the sun on your face. Well,
that's what happens. Those tissues start to flow sap a

(10:50):
little bit, and then that night it freezes and you
get freeze damaged, typically on the southwest side of the trunk.
So normally I don't recommend trump rock trunk wraps, but
for that I would. You could. You could use different
things to do it, but there are some papers you
can wrap around to kind of crinkly. There's some plastic
wraps and things, but I like the paper wraps. Just

(11:12):
until that tree gets a year or so on it,
a year or two on it more, and that trunk
starts to get a little heartier. Then the bark gets
a little thicker and it's not so likely to suffer
that southwest injury on a freezing night.

Speaker 10 (11:30):
Awesome, Thank you very much for your advice. I'll get
to work today.

Speaker 6 (11:35):
You bet all right. You take care and fortunately this
freeze is going to be fairly mild and so I'm
I think if people that are listening going, oh my gosh,
I got to wrap all my trees. No, you probably don't,
but on a brand new, thin trunk tree. Yeah, well,
thanks for the call, man, I appreciate it. Thank you,
all right. Yeah, for those of you listening, just keep

(11:57):
that in mind. You know, it's like like, you know,
if you were to say, you know, skipped, are we
gonna get damage to all our tree trunks this freeze?
Well no, probably not not at all, but there's a possibility.
And when a tree is young, it's it's a paper
thin bark. I mean it's very very thin, you know,

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

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

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

(13:23):
got this split near the bottom of my tree trunk,
and I would say, is it on the southwest side?
And there would be this pause where, you know, nobody
knows off the hand what size side of the trunk.
They have to stop and think, okay, this is north
and suddenly they'd go, yeah, like how did you know that?
And who cares what side it is. That's exactly what happens.

(13:46):
A nice mild winter day and the sun at the
latest part of you know, what's the hottest time of
the day. Look at the temperatures through the day. The
hottest time of the day is going to be around
four o'clock, okay, somewhere around there, depends on the day.
In the coal front coming through or something. But anyway,
that's the warmest part and it warms up and with
the sun shining on it, it warms up even more

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

(14:32):
and you get that damage and you don't see it
right away, but boy, you do see it when it
starts to grow in the spring. And will the tree survive, Yeah,
the tree will make it fine. But now you've got
this big wound that's got to heal over. Perhaps you
get some decay into the inner bark there is that
splits open and exposes the inner bark. So why not
just avoid it. It's easy to avoid. And the way

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

(15:13):
lower part. But there is a place for that. I
have known people to put some aluminum foil around the trunk,
just wrap it around, just kind of crump it and
so it stays there, just to reflect that sunlight out
to keep that trunk cool rather than encouraging it to grow. Oh,
let's see, it was it two decembers, three decembers ago. Now,

(15:35):
we had a period where, especially for those of you
up in the northern part of the listening area. When
I say that, I mean you know, like Tomball up
to College Station in Huntsville and everything up as you
go north, A lot of crape myrtles got killed to
the ground for the same reason. It went down to
the upper teens in December, and they were not ready

(15:57):
for it. They were not hardened off, and some flat
to the ground and they came right back out. Of course,
the base survives that you lost the above gun growth
and it was the same principle going on there. They
weren't ready for it. Crepe myrtles grow much further north
than here. You know, the one of the major crate
myrtle breeding programs in the country for decades past has

(16:20):
been up in Beltsville, Maryland. That's a little further north
than here. Well, that's the USDA breeding program. And so
if they can grow up there, why are we having
them killed to the ground here for the reason I
just described. So, better safe than sorry is what I say.
If I flipped a coin and had to say is
it going to be needed or not? I would say no.

(16:41):
But I wouldn't risk my own trees if I wasn't sure.
So there you go. That's my advice. I'd rather spend
a little time going out there and protecting the trunk,
and then even if I didn't have to. Right, all right, Well,
we got some cold weather coming. Last time I ed,
we were looking at temperatures down in the upper twenties.

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

(17:29):
But anyway, so we've got to do a little protection
for that possibility of getting some pipe damage. You know,
they say the three peas or plants, pipes and pets,
and you got to take care of all three of those,
of course. And when it comes to plants, if you've
got plants that are very sensitive to cold, we have
plants that are perennials here and in a mild winter

(17:50):
they'll just come right through without being killed on the ground.
And in a hard winter than they can be killed
all the way to the ground or killed out right,
depending on the plant. You know, perennial is a geographical designation.
Let me give you an example. You know, yellow bills esperanza,
beautiful yellow blooms. Had those around for a good long time. Now.

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

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

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

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

(19:38):
around your pipe. You plug it in, Well, there's the
insulation for your pipe, but there's also an insulating tape,
and there's wires that you can plug in that provide
just a little bit of heat to protect pipes and things.
In fact, there's a couple dozen different things that ACE
Hardware carries to help you prepare for the cold. So

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

(20:21):
and get on the line. Seven to one three two
one two kt r H.

Speaker 7 (20:28):
Hey, welcome back to Guarden Line.

Speaker 6 (20:31):
You got a question you can help you with today, Well,
here's a number seven one three two one two kt
r H. Be happy to visit with you about the
things you need to know to have success in your garden.
Gardening is fun. It's supposed to be fun, and I
want you to have success. I don't want you to
be discouraged. I don't want you to feel like you
have a brown thumb. You don't trust me. You do

(20:53):
not have a brown thumb. I promise you don't. All
you need to do is get that thumb educated with
some good and and you can absolutely have success. Gardening
is not rocket science. I don't even know what that means,
even the rocket science anyway. Nothing's rocket science if you
know what you're doing, not even not even rocket science.

(21:14):
So just give us a call seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. If you want to
send me a photo, I headed ahead of the call.
That's fine. Just call my UH number here seven one
three two one two fifty eight to seventy four till Jonathan.
You want to send a photo, He'll give you an email.
Send it to me, we can talk about it. I'm
not able to answer all the emails by typing out

(21:35):
the answers to them, but I do appreciate when you
can send a photo. Being able to talk about the
question that you have and having something visual to look
at so I can help you diagnose or help you
identify or whatever it is that you're trying to do. Well,
let's see here I was discussing the importance of coal
protection in you know, someone's saying, well, ACE Hardware, where

(21:57):
do you Where is my ACE Hardware? Well, they're all
over the place. Go to Acehardware dot Com, find the
store locator and there's all there, all over the Greater
Houston area. You can find one near you. For example,
you go up to Porter Texas j N R. ACE
Hardware right there in Porter up in Willis all seasons,
ACE up in Willis, down in Clearly Kilgore Lumber and

(22:19):
Clear Lakes an ACE hardware store. And then Cyprus says
right there in Cyprus, Texas. Those are all examples of
ACE hardware stores that are near to you. I was
outside the other day looking at my bird feeder and
I hadn't seen a lot of birds come into it,
and I was going, you know what's wrong with that?
And what happened is it's one of those feeders that

(22:40):
when something sits on it, if it's too heavy, the
bird feeder closes. It's it's the squirrel excluding feeder from
Wabbird's Unlimited. Squirrels can't get in because when they sit
down on it, it you know, closes the door. They
can't get to the food. But anyway, the food had
kind of gotten stuck up in there. I don't know
if some moisture or whatever had kind of gotten it stuck.
And I kind of bumped on it a little bit

(23:02):
and it dropped right down, and it just reminded me
check those feeders out. I'm using Wildbirds Unlimited Winter super
Blend in my feeders. I sometimes mix a few other
things in there. You know, depending on what birds you
want to attract, there's different kinds of seed that are
most attractive to them. But Wibirds Unlimited Winter super Blend
is important because it has the fat and the protein

(23:22):
that birds need for fueling. You know, the days are shorter,
the temperature a little colder, sometimes the weather's inclement, and
they're not out able to do the feeding they're looking
for a lot of those things that went to seed
in the fall have now been picked over. The birds
are getting hungry, So go buy Wilbirds un Let me
get you some of the Winter super Blend or one

(23:45):
of their other you know, just talk to the folks there.
They are so knowledgeable. I love going into wild birds.
It's like you're going to visit a friend because you
talk to him and say, hey, I'm interested in this,
and they're enthusiastic. Listen, they've got the they've got the
wild bird bud themselves, and they feed at their houses.
They know what they're talking about and you can just

(24:05):
strike up a conversation and they can talk to you
about it. You know, it's not all about just buying
a product, it's about learning how to do it. They
want you to have success because birding in the backyard
is a lot of fun. You know, you may not
be the guy with the you know, the stereotypical birder
that's got the little safari hat on and shorts and
these binoculars and walking around looking at birds in the

(24:26):
wild and songs that's fun, by the way, too. But
in the backyard you just feed them and you enjoy
the music. It's as simple as that, and warbirds can
help you do just that. Let's go out to the
phones now. We're going to head to pair Land and
talk to Belinda. Hey, Belinda, Welcome to garden line.

Speaker 11 (24:43):
Oh thank you, Skip. I have a big problem.

Speaker 12 (24:46):
I have two six trees, two palm trees, two palmegranate trees,
and two citrus trees.

Speaker 11 (24:53):
I have mult around them, okay, and I was going
to get the hay.

Speaker 12 (24:56):
But do I need to get those big, heavy covers that.

Speaker 9 (24:59):
Go all the way over the curry?

Speaker 5 (25:02):
No.

Speaker 6 (25:03):
The most sensitive of those that you mentioned is your citrus, okay,
and those would I would do. The primary protection for
that is one where if you can put a cover
over the whole tree, that's good. But a cover needs
to drape all the way to the ground and be
secured to the ground with soil or rocks or bricks

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

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

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

Speaker 11 (26:18):
Okay, so just a citrus, I have one big enough
to cover it.

Speaker 12 (26:23):
Okay, I'll do that.

Speaker 13 (26:25):
Yeah, thank you, Yeah, well, thank you, you know, even thank
you very much.

Speaker 6 (26:32):
I appreciate you call.

Speaker 11 (26:34):
Hey, thank you.

Speaker 6 (26:37):
So you know, this freeze is a I'm going to
call it a minor one. You know, last time I checked,
even heading all the way up to Huntsville, you're maybe
twenty eight something like that is what the last was
said to be. That's a freeze. But remember there's there's
freezes that they come and they stay frozen for a

(27:01):
long time. Each day. We're warming back up into the
maybe forties in most places, and so there's not a
long period of time where those plants are frozen, and
that makes a difference. And so this is a kind
of phrase where it's not maybe we're preparing and warming
up for a significant one later, but for right now

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

(27:44):
take care of it. Let's we're gonna go, actually I
have to take a break here. We're gonna come to
Marty in Fairfield right when we get back in the meantime,
if you like to give me a call. Seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four.

Speaker 7 (27:58):
Welcome back to the Garden Line. Glad to have you
with us today. Thanks for listening in. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions.
Do you got a phone, You got a phone, you
got a question? Well seven one three two one two
kt RH. It's as easy as that. And let's just
start by going straight out to Marty in Fairfield. Hello Marty,
Welcome to Garden Rains Kid.

Speaker 12 (28:19):
Happy New Year.

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

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

Speaker 6 (29:04):
Or let them freeze back and separate them at that time.
Either way is fine, They'll do fine. Let me just
make sure we're talking about the same plant. Is this
a white blooming flower, shaggy white blooms, yes, strappy petals, Okay.
Sometimes people refer to like a type of like chorus
as spider lily too. Yeah, that one.

Speaker 11 (29:27):
Looks like a big star. It's it's it's a spider
little not yeah, not like a spider plant. A spider
lily and big bulbs, Yeah, big bulbs. Dig leaves, long,
dark green. It's beautiful when it blooms. But they have
gotten Yeah, they've gotten really crowded, and I just I

(29:51):
don't know, I've been lazy about sending them out, so
I wondered if it would be okay if I went
ahead and did it before the freeze.

Speaker 6 (30:01):
You can do that now, just you know, bring them inside.
Don't leave the bulbs just sitting out and cold for now.
But they're just a little bit underground when they grow.
They're not super deep bulbs, but they are protected by
the soil. But yeah, you sure can you do that
and guide them and then.

Speaker 12 (30:22):
Plant the land.

Speaker 6 (30:25):
You can put them right back in the ground if
you want. You know, in our warm climate, we don't
have to worry. If some further north they may plant
them in the spring more. But you can plant them
now if you like and reset them, or you can
keep them inside. Just remember if they dry out then
it's kind of like you let them get frosted back.
Then they'll just have to come back out again. Amarillis

(30:51):
is the same way Amarillis. They are in their cold
weather stage. I've got some that are still showing good
strappy foliage. Or do you or your amarellas still have
green foliage.

Speaker 11 (31:03):
Yes, all of them do. They're beautiful.

Speaker 6 (31:05):
Yeah, yeah they are. And uh you know they're they're
gonna bloom a little a little bit later when warms up.
But if you, if you, if you can keep them
from getting killed back, I think they'll you'll have a
little bit stronger plant. They'll do a little bit better
for you. Either way. Those are both tough, very tough plants.

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

Speaker 6 (31:31):
Thank you. You know, the rule on guarden line is
our advice is free. But when you divide all these bulbs,
you just need to bring half of the ones you
dig up and leave them at the station and we'll
call it even. Okay, you don't.

Speaker 11 (31:43):
Have any room in your garden, just like me.

Speaker 6 (31:45):
That's that true. That's the truth. Garden We don't ask
that question. We just buy the plant, come home and
figure it out. That's right, all right, folks. That is
that is so true of gardeners. Oh bye. That's why

(32:06):
I say gardeners are plant collectors. A lot of times.
You know, there's some people that they do it. Let's
just say, right, you know, they go out and they
they come up with a plan. They have a designer
design the landscape and do all that and it's beautiful
as gorgeous. It's a showplace. And they've only put the
plants in. They're going to plant that need to be there.
They don't overcrowd them and things. And then there's the

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

(32:49):
the backyard, you do what you want to do. The
hoa has an opinion about the front yard. Believe me,
they do.

Speaker 4 (32:57):
Well.

Speaker 6 (32:57):
As we're getting out there and taking care of our plants.
You know that the most important thing is to build
the soil. And one of the ways that we improve
our soil is with products from microlife like microlife micro
grow bioinoculant that is one that is loaded with all
kinds of good microbes that are part of keeping plants healthy.

(33:18):
I actually a week doesn't go by that I don't
read some research article about what some microbe has now
been discovered to be able to do. There are microbes
that cause roots to grow in certain directions. Can you
believe that there are microbes that get into the root
system and cause the top of the plant to be

(33:41):
better at resisting disease? Can you believe that there are
microbes in this case the fungi that link one plant
to another, that communicate from one plant to another about
hey there's a bug eating us, watch out, get ready
for it, and all kinds of other things. It's an
amazing world. Micro Life's built around those kinds of things.

(34:03):
It's taking advantage of what nature is already doing and
helping you do a better job of that in your yard.
Micro grow bioinoculant is a maroon bag, a burgundy bag,
very beautiful bag. Of course I'm biased, but anyway, it
is loaded with sixty three different beneficial micro organism strains. Now,

(34:26):
all the microlife products are going to have MicroB xenom.
I mean they just do. They keep them stocked with
all kinds of good things. The micro grow biinoculant. Don't
think of it as a fertilizer, think of it as
what it says, a bioinoculant, those kinds of things that
are helpful to your soils or your plant's root system.
Now there's also micro grow liquid AF. These are two

(34:48):
different products. They both have a dark kind of a
burgundy colored label, a little different in shade. But micro
Grow liquid AF is loaded also with eight extremely dominating
beneficial mind grobes that live in the soil and help
your plans. Hey, where do you get microlife? Everywhere? It's
pretty much everywhere, feed stores, garden centers, the hardware stores,

(35:11):
Southwest fertilizers down Southwest Houston. Okay, well, there's the first
hour of twenty twenty five in the books. Boy, we
got a lot more to talk about, and I'm telling
you this is going to be your best garden year ever.
Trust me on this one. Believe me on this one.
Just keep listening in. Don't forget my website too. By

(35:32):
the way, gardening with skip dot Com. I remember, I'm
going to talk about some new things that are up
there on the dep side when we come back.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Take for un Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 14 (35:44):
It's just watch you as seats well.

Speaker 6 (36:15):
Good Saturday morning, Good Saturday morning, and welcome to twenty
twenty five. Welcome the Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rector,
and we're here to answer gardening questions. That's what we do.

Speaker 15 (36:26):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (36:27):
I guess we'll even allow some uh gardening bragging, you know,
if you want to, if you want to talk about uh,
I don't know. You just got through planning a whole
bunch of wonderful fruit trees for your backyard, or just
got a whole bunch of new bulbs in that you're
fixing the put out there. Yeah, we'll do that. By
the way, for those of you who are not from Texas,
fixing is a word. Fixing is a word. It means

(36:49):
I'm about to I'm about to do it. If I
sometimes I forget. You know, you grew up someplace and
use certain kinds of terms and language, and you recognize
other people don't always do that. Head from New Jersey
when I went to college, it lived seam arm as
Randy and I as a matter of fact, back in
the day, and I remember the first time he goes fixing,
what do you mean fixing and it's like, I mean,

(37:11):
I'm about to do something didn't realize. Not everybody talks
like that anyway, just an observation. But we are here
to help you have a good success. And what I
like to say is I'm here to help you have
a more beautiful garden and a more bountiful garden and
the same At the same time, gardening is fun, and

(37:33):
gardening gives us a connection in nature that we are made.
We're designed for nature, we really are. It is our
happy place. It's where we find relaxation. It's where we
find a lot of reward too. You know, there is
something when you grow your own tomato and you pick
that thing right off the vine and you enjoy that fresh,

(37:54):
homegrown flavor that is so rewarding. When you smell the
fragrance of a wonderful flower, that just I mean, it's
just like nature's perfume that is rewarding. When you esthetically
look out there and you see a well trimmed lawn
and a beautiful landscape, there's something esthetically rewarding about all that.

(38:16):
And gardening gives you all that kind of stuff. Now,
how do you end up having all that? Well? Number one.
You start with the soil. And I'm a broken record
on this, but brown stuff before green stuff, meaning you
fix the soil and then you plant the plant. That's
how it works. Brown stuff before green stuff. And if

(38:38):
you go into a garden center today, which I think
would be a great thing to do it just come
home with some soil bags some Maybe you're starting seeds
and you need a seed starting mix. Maybe you are
putting in a bed and you need a quality bed mix.
Maybe you need some multch to go on top of
the soil to protect the base of the plants. We're
talking earlier about some coal damage and some plants are

(39:00):
very cold sensitive. But when you throw a good thick
layer of mulch over the top of them, it's like
putting a blanket over you. I mean it holds in
the warmth of the soil and it protects the crowns
of those plants. Where do you do that, well, Cienamal
should be a good place to do it. It's kind of
the one stop shop for everything that's let's just say

(39:21):
everything brown. When it comes to brown stuff, the composts
for the soil. The soil blends like the vegion or
bix from heirloom soils. They've got that there. They carry
products from landscapers Pride to They carry products from heirloom soils.
Of course. They also are a place where you're going

(39:41):
to find fertilizers from nitrofoss from Nelson, plant food from
for example, azamide and microlife. They carry all of that,
and then products from Medina as well. They deliver within
twenty miles now. They're located down south of town on
FM five point twenty one, near where Highway six and
two eighty eight are south of Houston. Go to the
website Sienna multch dot com Sienna multch dot com. There

(40:07):
you can find it where they're located. You can find
it when they're open. By the way, they're open today
Saturday from seven thirty to two, So good day to
get out and do that. Get that stuff at your
house on the ground, in the soil, on top of
the soil, whatever you need to do with it, and
get ready because planting season is upon us. It is
still a good time to plant woody ornamentals and perennials

(40:28):
to give them a head start on the spring. Those
spring gardens, whether it's flowers or vegetables, or herbs. Get
the soil right, because whenever that's dry enough to work
the soil, there's a good time to work the soil.
It is, it's always good. You always amend and improve
your soil. I don't care how good the soil is,

(40:49):
you're always in time going to be needing to do
some amendments and improvements on the soil, unless you're just
growing a native plant in a soil that it's very
adapted to. In that case, yeah, I get it. You
get it set up, and you forget it. But for
a lot of things, including containers, you've got to keep
improving the soil in order to keep that at its

(41:12):
top functioning ability. Because plants live in their roots they do.
Quality soil means it's got organic matter. It means it's
got nutrients, and remember all of this is available cinemals.
And it also quality soil means that it drains well,
that excess water runs right through it, but that it
holds some water. It's not just like a sand that

(41:32):
water runs right through. It holds water, but it also
drains the excess water. Cinamals cannot you do all of that,
and if you're smart, you will get that done. Because
I'm telling you the the the wise gardener, I'll put
it that way. The wise gardener knows that you get
the soil right and it makes you look good. It

(41:54):
makes your thumb look green, if you know what I'm
talking about. All right, that's that speaking of the animals
and products and things, you know that cienumalch also carries
Nelson plant food products. Now, Nelson is a it's just
a long term, outstanding purveyor of some quality blends of

(42:16):
nutrients for your plants. You know, there's a Nelson plant
food for just about every kind of plant you want
to grow, from lawns to things like let's say hibeskas
or things like plumeria or things like roses. Nelson has
their color Star line, probably one of the most popular
lines now for almost forty years. Color Star is an

(42:37):
all purpose plant food, So you put it down on anything.
Just think about this way. If it gives you color,
put color Star on it. That's easy to remember. So
all the flowering plants, annuals of perennials, even shrubs and
trees that can you can use it on that It
acts quickly, but it also has organic nutrients sources to
slowly release into the soil over time, so about every
three or four months put your color Star down on

(42:59):
your beds. You can also get it with a funge
side involved in a mixed in call Colorstar Plus to
help with the root issues that you might have. A
Color Star has been popular for landscapers for a very
long time, and even out of state. You know, they
ship that stuff all over the country to people that
have discovered it and now they use it and again landscapers.

(43:22):
Professional landscapers no to use color Star all from Nelson
Plant Food. Nelson Plant Food is a Houston area homegrown
basically homegrown company that produces whatever kind of nutrients you
need for the plants that you want to grow and
have success with. It's time for me to take a
little quick break. I'll be right back.

Speaker 16 (43:45):
You know.

Speaker 6 (43:46):
They welcome back to the guard Line. Glad to have
you with us this morning on the first show of
twenty twenty five. You're welcome to the best gardening year
you're going to have that you've ever had. How about
that saying a lot, isn't it? I just think it is.
That's how I look at it. I tell you what,
when I buy a seed, it's going to be the

(44:06):
most bountiful harvest I've ever had. When I buy a
fruit tree, I can just already taste the fruit. I mean, listen,
you got to be an optimist as a gardener, and
we do everything we can to have success. The bottom
line is that's a fun part of gardening because you know,
even when things don't work out like you want, you
just adjust. You just adjust and you figure it out

(44:28):
and it's okay. If this year ends up being a
little hot and dry, that's all right. We know how
to water plant if it gets a little cold. We
know how to protect plants. I'm going to come back
and talk about plant protection here in a little bit.
Right now, I'm going to run out to the galleria
and we're going to talk to Forest. Hey, Forrest, welcome
to garden Line.

Speaker 4 (44:46):
Hey, thank you, Skip.

Speaker 17 (44:47):
I'm sure you'll cover a lot of these freeze questions.
But I've been growing a couple of citrus trees, a
lime and a lemon that I picked up at a
Buchanan's container, and my plan was to bring them in
for this freeze we're about to have. But I just
wanted to get your thoughts on the rule of thumb

(45:08):
on growing citrus and chill hours and that sort of thing.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
How cold they can get.

Speaker 6 (45:15):
Yeah, that's a good question for us.

Speaker 18 (45:17):
You know.

Speaker 6 (45:18):
The bottom line is limes and lemons, especially limes, are
not very cold hearty at all, and so it went
in doubt. I would bring them in just because you know,
you don't want to take a chance on it.

Speaker 4 (45:29):
Now.

Speaker 6 (45:30):
There there are variations on protecting a plant, from leaving
it out there figuring it's going to be okay, to
bringing it up close to the house. I've got some
house plants that are sitting outside my house, underneath the eaves,
right up against the house, and they're still looking good.
And they haven't you know, we haven't had a hard freeze,

(45:50):
but we had a minor freeze, and so just that
protected spot helped a lot. And then the next step
would be to bring them into protect a garage, or
to cover them up and put some heat underneath them.
I think any of those things would be fine if
it were mine. I wouldn't take chances on leaving them out.
Once we drop below freezing, you're gonna get some damage

(46:12):
to a lime and then probably to a lemon too.

Speaker 17 (46:16):
Okay, great, I appreciate that.

Speaker 15 (46:18):
Thank you. Sir.

Speaker 6 (46:20):
Yeah, do you have a dolly you can strap them
too and wheel them in real easily without hurting your back.

Speaker 17 (46:27):
Oh, I got a whole system set up because I
also grow up plumeria in containers. I've been bringing plumeria
inside for years, so I got I got the drill
for sure.

Speaker 6 (46:40):
Good. That's good. Yeah. But when I first discovered that
you didn't have to pick plants up and carry them
around and you could put them on a dolly, that
was that was good information right there. My dolly has
a strap attached to it so that I just go
up to the plant and the strap's already there to
wrap it around the pot so it sticks, stays on
the dolly lip, you know, and you can move it

(47:01):
around with you.

Speaker 17 (47:03):
Well, good luck with them, thank you, sir.

Speaker 6 (47:06):
All right, yes, sir, you take care. Thanks for the call.
Appreciate that. All right, you're listening to garden Line or our
phone number if you'd like to give me a call.
Seven to one three two one two ktr H seven
to one three two one two kt r H. I
was talking about plant protection, and I do want to
mention a couple things about protecting plants. First of all,

(47:30):
when when you're wanting to protect a plant, a cover
over the top of the plant to create dead air
space is very important. Now, creating dead air space means
dead air space connected to the soil. So here's what
I mean. Don't wrap the top of a plant like
a landscape lollipop. Allow the cover to drape straight down

(47:51):
to the ground as if you put an umbrella over it,
and where the rain would drip down off the umbrella.
That is where the cover goes straight to the ground.
Secure if you're it there so the warmth of the
soil can rise up underneath that cover. You create dead airspace,
and you make a difference in the cold temperatures and
the rate of cooling inside that cover. We're gonna have
freezes coming up here that are going to be fairly brief.

(48:14):
It may if you live far enough north, you're gonna
have two or three days of freezing, but it warms
up during the day into the forties, goes back down again.
All you need is a little bit of protection slow
the cooling and your good. If you want to add
one more measure of protection, you can put a clamp
light underneath. Now these are those aluminum shielded light fixtures

(48:36):
that have a clamp, so you can attach them to
the side of a container. You can attach them to
the trunk of the plant, but don't shine the light
on the trunk. Shine the light down toward the soil
and that it'll rise up underneath that cover and make
a huge difference and protect them. Now, if it's going
to be seventeen degrees, no, not one little incandescent bulb

(48:58):
is not going to do that. But even just a
bright one hundred and fifty wat bulb, you don't have
to have a heat lamp in. Those will provide enough
warmth to make a big difference underneath the cover. If
the cover is not secured to the ground, wind is
going to blow. It's going to displace that air that
you've warmed, or that the soil warmth that has risen
up to warm the air, and you're gonna be right

(49:21):
back down just as cold as it is outside the cover.
You gotta secure it to the ground. However you want
to do that, soil, bricks, boards, whatever works for you.
Make sure it's secure to the ground. You're gonna have
some breeze. You really need to make sure that that
cover stays down there on the ground. And then that
little addition of one heat lamp for minor freezes like

(49:43):
we're having now, is enough. I put one hundred and
fifty watt flood light bulb in mine. You can use
a heat lamp bulb. You're not going to need that
much heat. Now, if you're trying to cover maybe a
satsumetry that's eight feet tall and you're going to get
heat under that, well okay, yeah, but we're not going
to have satsuma freeze damage kind of weather in this

(50:03):
particular type of freeze, other types of a lot of
other types of ceterric. Yes, we will. So anyway, provide
that protection and you can make a huge difference, and
you just have that on hand. I've got mine in
the they're in the garage. The clamp light is clamped
to the wall and the bulbs in it. It's ready
to go and whenever I need them, they just come
right out and go straight out there. Make sure to

(50:24):
protect those electric connections. If you were to have rain,
which we're not supposed to have rain with the cold
that we're having, it's supposed to to get dry before
we have the cold. But if you do, you got
to cover that connection. It's electrical connection there. Don't drop
a connection into dry grass either. Should you have some
sort of a spark or something like that, you can

(50:49):
set grass on fire underneath there. So you got to
you got to use your head on that stuff. But
by the way, I've got a publication online at Gardening
with Skip dot com. It's protecting plants from frosts and freezes.
It's a publication I wrote with one of our specialists
at Texas A and M Horticulture Department a number of

(51:09):
years ago, and I think it really covers well frosts
and freezes, how they occur, the information about them you
may not have been aware of, and that leads you
to how to protect them correctly. And so I just
gave you one little example of what's in the publication there.
Just take it out, check it out. It's like nine

(51:31):
pages of color pictures and all kinds of Information's very
good Gardening with Skip dot com. Will you write that
website down because I refer to it just about every
show because I'm always putting something up there to help
you to have to success, and in this case, it's
that publication. Go check it out. It's free. You tak
me down on that price. It's free. You can download it,

(51:53):
you can look at it online. You can send it
to your cousin and Tim bucktoo, who has a question
about freezing just downloaded. Email it to him. Let them
know about her. Just send them the link to it.
If you go about that that way. Gardening with Skip,
that's me gardening with Skip dot com. I'm gonna tomorrow,

(52:14):
I'm gonna spend a little bit of time, a little
more in depth talking about my predecessor in this chair,
Randy Lemon. You know, garden Line has been around a
long time, even before it was called garden Line. Doy
Compton probably the first in about five of us now
that have had been hosts of garden Line through the decades,
goes back to the nineteen fifties. Randy was prior to me,

(52:37):
was in this seat for over twenty five years, and
Randy was well beloved and well known throughout the greater
Houston area. A scholarship was set up a while back
for Randy at Texas A and M for a horticulture student.
If you knew Randy, you knew how proud he was
of our university that he and I went to, and

(52:58):
also how proud he would be to know that a
scholarship was set up in his name there for horticulture student.
You probably are one of the many, many, many people
that benefited over the years from Randy's advice here on
garden Line. I'm gonna tomorrow talk a little bit more
about the scholarship and about Randy, but I just wanted

(53:19):
to mention it today. Tomorrow, I believe, is the two
year anniversary of Randy's passing. That came as a shock
to all of us, everyone in the Greater Houston area
gardening world. Uh and it it's it's been something that well,
like I said, it was just a shock. You know,

(53:39):
you never you never would expect something like that all,
although we all know our time here on earth is
is not infinite. But Randy was bigger than life.

Speaker 19 (53:50):
He was.

Speaker 6 (53:52):
He was quite a character. And I can tell you this.
I didn't know him before college, but I knew him
starting in college and back in the day that nineteen
a eighty eighty, maybe nineteen eighty, I think it is
when I first met Randy. Randy was a very special individual,
a good friend and a good friend of the horticulture

(54:14):
world here in the Greater Houston area. If you would
like to consider, I asked you, would you consider making
a donation to the scholarship fund in remembrance of Randy.
It's really easy to do. First of all, the easiest
way is just go to my website and it tells
you how to do it there. I'll tell you briefly
right now, but the bottom line is, just go the
website and I'll tell you. If you want to give online,

(54:35):
you go to a website called Texas A and M
Foundation websites txamfoundation dot com. There is a little more
to the url than that, but on my website, I
tell you how to find and send the money to
the right place. If you want to do it by check,
you can mail the check to the Texas A and
M Foundation. But in the memo you got to write

(54:57):
Lemon Scholarship. Lemon has two ms L E, M, M
O N Scholarship, but that's the Texas and M Foundation,
and the address for that is also on the website
Gardening with Skip dot com. It's the most recent thing
that I've put online on the Gardening with Skip dot
com website. Would you consider that? Would you join me

(55:18):
in considering supporting that scholarship. Time for me to take
a quick break here. When we come back, I'll be
back with your gardening questions. If you'd like to call
and get on on board with that, just kive Jonathan
call seven month three two one two k t r H.
We'll get you online. We'll talk to you about the
things that are of interest to you, and I'm going

(55:38):
to continue to talk about cold protection for plants, how
to protect your plants from cold. We'll be right back.

Speaker 19 (55:48):
Here.

Speaker 6 (55:48):
We are, We're back with garden line. We got your
gardening questions is coming. You just got to give me
a call seven one three two one two k t
r H. I want to continue talking about cold protection,
cold protection for your plants, and just basically I'm giving
you some principles to think about. I talked a while
ago about covering a plant, how to cover them properly,

(56:10):
and the fast way to just say that is no
landscape lollipops. People that put a cover around a let's
say a little small tree or shrub, and they bring
it all the way and wrap it around the trunk.
That's like a lollipop, right, and that all that does
is keep the warmth of those branches in, but that
they're going to cool off too fast. It'll slow cooling

(56:31):
a little bit, but not much. Taking it all the
way to the ground and allowing the warmth of the
heat to rise up, or putting a heat lamp underneath it,
or a light underneath it. An incandescent bulb is a
heat lamp. They produce a lot of heat if you
are a touched one, you know what I'm talking about.
Providing that extra warmth underneath that helps a lot. Now,
there's several variables in how much protection you're going to need.

(56:55):
Number one, how cold is it going to get. The
colder you get, the more more heat you're going to
have to produce in order to protect that plant. Number two,
how cold hardy is the plant? Some plansts don't need
protection at all. There are plenty cold hardy they don't
have to worry about that. Some you know, you take
a lime tree for example, it's going to get down
twenty eight degrees. You got a problem for sure. So

(57:18):
you got to protect those a lot. So it's the
how cold is it going to get? How cold hardy
is the plant? Another one is what kind of freeze
is it? Now? There are several types of freezes too,
specifically radiant and convective freezes that I talk about in
the publication that's online at Gardening with Skip dot com.

(57:38):
But one of them is just a cold, still night
and heat is radiating up from the soil. It's radiating
up off of the plants. That's why we end up
getting frosts on the leaves of the plants. And those
are easy to protect because you cover them up, you
provide some warmth in you're good. The freeze where you
get a cold blue northern wind blow and throw that

(58:01):
just super chills things quickly, you know. You know that
when you walk outside and it's cold and the wind
is blowing, you cool off way faster. And those we
definitely have to create dead air space, and we definitely
need extra warmth to provide the protection for them. Some
things that are important to consider when you're protecting your plants. Now,

(58:24):
dead air space is your friend. I use the warmth
of the soil and then finally provide extra heat as needed,
and I do that with clamp on lamps. If I
were if I had a let's they had a citrus tree,
something a little bigger orange tree, or even a setzuma.
If it's going to get cold enough. I may put

(58:46):
a couple of lamps under there, earth three lamps under there.
I may use an actual heat lamp bulb that generates
a lot of radiant heat underneath there, but don't shine
it against the trunk. You can damage tissues. Those things
get really hot. Turn all those on and hold your
hand about three feet away and just to the side,
not above it, to the side, and you can feel

(59:07):
that radiant heat coming out. We're going to send it
down and warm the soil, and that will rise up
underneath the cover and provide a lot of protection. Most
of my freezes. A little flood light one hundred and
fifty white bulb. I know people that use little mechanic lights,
you know, those little things that are in a cage
and you hang them up underneath the hood. When you
open the hood of your car, you hang them up

(59:27):
underneath there so you can see down those mechanic dumb
of lights. Something like that with a hunter white bulb
is good. If you just had a little, let's say,
a small lime tree or something in a container or
in the ground that you want to provide a little
bit of protection when we're going to get down to
what twenty nine, twenty eight someplace is only thirty degrees
depending on where you are in the listening area. And

(59:51):
that's enough. But it's a matter, it's a relative thing,
and so keep that in mind when you're protecting plants.
And do look at that publication online. I took a lot,
a lot of time to write that with one of
our anim specialists, very knowledgeable fellow, and we put together
a really helpful publication that you should just have it
printed out or at least save it to your computer

(01:00:13):
so you can look at it and it reminds you
of the different things. You know, what people ask questions
like what about water? I see people's spray plants with
water and the ice breezes and the ice insulates the plant.
And the answer bottom line is that no, that's not true.
That's not true. If you want to get nerdy, I'll

(01:00:34):
be very brief with this, but very briefly. Ice as
water changes from liquid to solid, each milli liter of
water cubic centimeter of water gives off one calorie of heat.
That's nerdy stuff. That's for your next garden party. So
you can impress people and bore them to death. Okay,
so one centimary. So as long as there's liquid water

(01:00:56):
freezing on the surface of the ice around on the plant,
the interior temperature doesn't go below, not much below thirty
two degrees. But the minute you have liquid water freeze,
stop having liquid water freezing, and it's just ice. That
temperature plummets, just like the ice wed in there. Because

(01:01:19):
ice does not insulate in the sense of protecting the
interior buds from going colder. The ice gets colder, the
buds get colder. So for ninety nine percent of the
home garden situations, putting ice putting water on plants in
a freeze is not a good idea, even a breaking limbs,
you end up with all other kinds of issues, sometimes

(01:01:41):
even worse because all right here we go, I said
one nerd thing. We're gonna give you one more. Because
when it switches and now you have the ice thawing
and changing from ice to liquid water, it pulls a
calorie of heat out. When water goes through that state
chain from liquid to ice solid liquid, you're either gaining

(01:02:05):
or losing a calorie there. And so if you got
to the morning and let's say it was thirty degrees
thirty two degrees. It's starting to thaw there, and you
quit sprinkling, and that ice began to melt, the interior
would actually get colder. Now you're thinking that, how can
ice be melting on the surface and the interior getting colder.

(01:02:28):
Well it does. And I'll give you one quick example
that suddenly making ice cream makes sense. Remember when you
had the old hand crank ice cream makers, what did
you do? You filled them with ice, and then what
did you put on the ice? Salt? Remember that you
had to sit on those things, so that whole steel
while somebody cranked it, or you cranked it while someone

(01:02:49):
sat on it. Why do we put salt on? Salt
melts the ice. Why do we want to melt the
ice if we're making ice cream, Because when the ice melts,
it draws heat out of the ice cream on the
inside of that han crank ice cream maker. That's why
you put salt on, because it makes the ice cream colder.

(01:03:09):
See what I'm saying. You get ice on your plants,
the sun comes up and you start to thaw, you're
not out of the woods. In fact, it can get
worse on the inside where those buds are. All right,
I try not to do too much nerd stuff for you.
But chew on that one for a while. I think
it's pretty cool. Stop pretty interesting. We're gonna take a
little break here. I'll be right back with your gardening question.

(01:03:30):
Seven one three two one two ktr H. All right,
welcome back to garden line. Hey, if you want to
get me a call, talk about whatever's of interest to you.
What are the kind of questions? Maybe you got a
gardening there's a good one. Maybe a gardening resolution. What
do you want to do different in twenty twenty five

(01:03:51):
than you've done before? Now I'm not a big New
Year's resolution person. I know it's all that we think
if we decide we're resolving something that therefore we're going
to do it, and it happens. And I mean, you know,
everybody knows what happens to New Year's resolutions by about
the second or third week at January. But seriously, what
would you like to do different in gardening? What would

(01:04:12):
you like to grow that you'd never grown? Let me
encourage you to do something different, try something new. Have
you never grown vegetables? Okay, get you a five gallon bucket,
drill holes in the bottom, get you a tomato plant.
Put it, fill it full of a quality of veggie
and herb mix from heirlooms, soils or something like that,

(01:04:32):
maybe a quality mix from nature's way, and grow you
a small tomato plant in that bucket. You could do that.
You can do it with a klopenion pepper if you
like calopenias. Maybe since we're in the cool season, how
about a broccoli plant. My wife just picked the first
broccoli from some plants she planted back in late fall

(01:04:53):
and brought it in yesterday. We killed the fatted broccoli
and enjoyed it a roasted Oh my gosh, that was
good last night. You can do that. Why not do it?
You don't have to have a whole garden to do it.
You just need to, like I said, just to make
a point, a five gallon buggy with holes drilled in
the bottom of it. You can do that. Or you

(01:05:13):
can get you a really nice container, or you can
go all the way and make a nice garden. Raise bed.
I hope you go all the way on it. But seriously,
what is what is your resolution? Maybe it's to mulch
and not be dealing with weeds all the time, Or
here's a good one. This isn't a fun one, but
it's a good one. I'm gonna not let nuts sedge

(01:05:35):
show its face this year when it comes up and
as three to five leaves. I'm gonna follow skips Guide
online Gardening with skip dot Com the nutsedge Guide and
end depth the look, and they'll tell you exactly how
to shut nutsedge down before it proliferates and gives you
all kinds of headaches. Maybe that's a resolution for you

(01:05:55):
this year. Maybe I'm gonna redo the lawn and I'm
gonna make it a nice dense lawns so I'm not
constantly having to fight weeds all the time. Maybe that's
a resolution. Maybe it's to grow a new kind of houseplant,
something different, something beautiful. Perhaps it's to put in herbs
in your flower beds or your vegetable gardens, or to

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

(01:06:38):
right off of our patio. I've got the spot already
ready to go. I just need to get out there
and get it done. But I'm gonna put a satsum
in because I enjoy the fragrance of citrus blooms in general.
Some are more fragrant than others, but they're all good
and it's just fun to do. What's your New Year's resolution?
If you will give me a call seven to one

(01:06:59):
three on to KTRH, let's talk about it. Or if
you just have questions and things, we can visit about
that too. You are listening to Guarden Line and we're
here to help you have a bountiful garden and a
beautiful landscape and more fun in the process. Bountiful garden,
beautiful landscape, more fun and the process. The cold is coming.
We're gonna have a little, our first significant, little coal

(01:07:21):
snap of the year. For those of you who are
used to living up north, it's like, wait, it's not
even gonna get to the mid twenties. What are you
talking about? Well, okay, it's cold for here, Okay, so
what are we gonna do? We can grow things you
can't grow up north, you know. I mean, how many
avocado trees and citrus trees do you see even in

(01:07:41):
northern Texas? None? Right, So we can do those, but
we got to protect them. So go by Ace Hardware Store.
They've got everything you're gonna need for it. You know,
I was talking about those clamp lights and the bulbs
that you put in them. Whether it's a flood light
one fifty water, whether it's an actual heat lamp, you
can get those. You can also get the plastic covers,

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

(01:08:24):
you turn the faucet on. It doesn't allow any water
through until it gets cold, and then it starts to
trickle water through, and moving water is it's much more
reluctant to freeze. Gotta get much colder to freeze moving
water than stagnant water, and so as a result, you
get your pipes through on a very very cold night.

(01:08:44):
They've got tape for wrapping pipes that they have, the
foam covers over pipes. They've also got the little wires
that you put around your pipes, like an electrical type
of a tape that just barely warms it enough to
protect it everything else you need. You need some duct tape.
Do you need something for maybe, you know, de icing

(01:09:07):
the windshield to your car if you've got the frost
freeze or whatever is on it, and it's not just
this freeze, it's the ones coming up as well. Do
you need to keep your hands warm. They've got some
really good gloves as well as handwarmers. Also in there,
fireplace logs, the firewood. Do you need a propane heater?
There's always a good kerosene for a backup or for

(01:09:30):
those kinds of heaters. Whatever you need is that ACE Hardware.
Remember it's the three p's that we worry about. Plants, pipes,
and pets. You got to take care of those, and
ACE Hardware's got you covered. Just go to acehardware dot com.
You can find the ACE hardware store near you that
is going to be your source for everything when it
comes to cold protection, and that would include let's say

(01:09:50):
you're in Alvin, Patco East Hardware down there, up in Brenham,
Brenham Ace Hardware, Katie Ace Hardware out west of town,
Hamilton Hardware off Highway six, your Bear Creek down south
off Highway six. Hamilton Hardware is an ACE store. And
then out in Orange for those of you, first of all,
thanks for listening out in Orange. Child's building supply Ace

(01:10:10):
Hardware out there in Orange, Texas. We're going to heading
out of the phones and talk to Loretta out in
Texas City. Hello, Loretta, good morning.

Speaker 12 (01:10:22):
Yes, I have always wanted a bird of paradise, so
I was wondering how easy or how difficult they are
to grow.

Speaker 6 (01:10:34):
Alrighty, you know what, Loretta, I am looking at my
clock and I just saw I'm running out of time here,
so I'm going to start to answer you, but we're
going to get some music here and then I will
finish your answer after the top of the break. So
I'll let you know that upfront. Are we talking about
a bird of paradise? Is like the tropical type that
have the little kind of flower that comes up and

(01:10:55):
goes horizontal, or are we talking about the kind that
has big orange and yellow flowers in long, tall clusters.

Speaker 17 (01:11:06):
Just a small one where it kind of goes all
horizonal zonal horizontal.

Speaker 6 (01:11:11):
Okay, good, Yeah. Those are very cold tender. If they
if you get them in a protected place near a house,
they can do fine with very little protection except in
a very very cold freeze. You you can grow them
in containers, or you can grow them in the ground.
They just need decent drainage. They're not that difficult to grow.

(01:11:32):
They like a lot of sunlight that they don't have
to be in the full sun. They just hang on
and when we come back we'll finish not answering your questions.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Scared Rickard.

Speaker 4 (01:11:47):
It's so we.

Speaker 20 (01:11:56):
Just watch as Okay, folks, welcome back.

Speaker 6 (01:12:10):
Let's get this hour going. We got a lot of
things to talk about here today. Got special guests coming
up in just a second. I want to run first
thing out to wes U and talk to Charlie. Charlie,
I wanted to see how we could help with the
question that you had.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
I've got four different kinds of plants in my landscape,
and I wondered what the cold tolerance is. Do I
need to cover any of all of them? I've got
loriat okay Asian jasmine, Japanese you and azilias, and the
avilias are new two or three months old.

Speaker 6 (01:12:46):
None of those need covering. In the freezer you're going
to have done in West u Yeah, this time they're good. Yeah.
What will happen with the lariope? Yeah, with the loriope
is sometimes when we get a little cold, they'd get
a little ragged looking and stuff that happens in the
summer heat with spider mites. Do and you can just

(01:13:07):
cut that lariope off. In fact, i'd recommend you do
it when we get here into January before the new
growth starts on it. Just mow it back to the
ground and get fresh new growth out. If it's looking
a little on the ragged side. But none of those
need covering.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
Oh, you can mow it. I didn't realize that.

Speaker 6 (01:13:25):
Because you know, yeah, the old leaves, after you know,
a season or two, they start to kind of shrivel
turn brown. There's issues, So just make it fresh, cut
it back, you know, come right back out of the ground.
But don't wait until the new growth starts, because then
you'll have a bunch of leaves that the top has
been chopped off of.

Speaker 3 (01:13:43):
Okay, so what you see just just when it starts
to warm up, when it starts to grow over that
be run Mark.

Speaker 6 (01:13:50):
I would just say you could. You could do it now,
but I would do it probably mid January something like that.
When you start to see the fresh snow leaves coming out.
Get that done pretty quick if you haven't already done.

Speaker 15 (01:14:04):
It, Okay, I have not.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):
Okay, all right, Charson, thanks and everything else I mentioned
is I guess if it was going to get done
in the color, then thirty I might need to cover it.

Speaker 6 (01:14:17):
But if we get down in the yeah, there's not
a practical way to cover Japanese you anyway, but those
are cold hearty. You're just typically not going to experience
temperatures where you are that's going to damage those plans.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
Okay, all right, all right, sir, one.

Speaker 6 (01:14:39):
Last thing for you to worry about today. Good luck
for Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. Hey, I
have a special guest that I like to bring on,
and that is mister Dean Nelson from Nelson Plant Food. Hey, Dean,
are you there, Yes, sir, can you hear me? I can?
I can. Well, good Sunday morning, do you?

Speaker 4 (01:15:01):
Thank you?

Speaker 6 (01:15:01):
Good morning Sunday morning.

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):
Year.

Speaker 6 (01:15:04):
Well, happy New Year to you too. You know, I
have been last weekend and yesterday and I was talking
about Randy Lemon's scholarship and I wanted to have you
come on and let's talk about that a little bit.
I know you helped, well, you basically got that set
up at Texas A and m I'd like you to tell
folks about the scholarship and uh, you know, just let's

(01:15:26):
just start off with what what is this scholarship and
how can people participate in it?

Speaker 18 (01:15:32):
Well, the what first made me start thinking about it
is as I go to these trade shows, and you
and I both have been going for I know, four
years for me, probably less that the same for you.
But anyway, as you go to these shows, there's less
and less young people in the horticulture industry. In horticulture industry,
you know, it's it's not an easy job. You have

(01:15:54):
to love to be with plans, you have to love
to be outdoors. And you start off on the end
of the shovel when you get out, even when you graduate,
you know, you're out out there with the folks, working
with the land, helping improve flowers and plants for your customers.
And and it's a service. It's basically a service.

Speaker 4 (01:16:12):
And so.

Speaker 18 (01:16:14):
Yeah, I'm thinking we need to start bringing more new
people into this industry. And so the idea I thought, well,
you know, let's do the scholarship to help help some
of these kids when they come into A and M.

Speaker 4 (01:16:26):
Of course, you and I both graduate from A and M.
And uh so I got with horticulture department and talk
to doctor Drina.

Speaker 18 (01:16:34):
He's ahead of the department there and and he's he
was very.

Speaker 4 (01:16:37):
Excited about it, he said.

Speaker 18 (01:16:39):
And I asked him, I said, what would you use
this for an existing student or you would you use it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):
To recruit somebody? He said, oh, definitely recruit, He said,
we can.

Speaker 18 (01:16:47):
We can use the money to find a kid that
is really dedicated coming out of high school to the
to horticulture and loves loves plans and people. And uh,
we can use this to recruit some good, good kids.

Speaker 4 (01:17:00):
And you know, the past, I don't know. I guess
ten years I brought in five kids. They graduates my
and M into the horticulture industry.

Speaker 18 (01:17:11):
Now, I hired them and trained them for a couple
of years, and five of three of them are still
in the industry. One of them actually owns about it.
I don't know about a twenty million dollar company. She
worked for me for a couple of years and then
she went to another job and ended up buying a
guy out. And so it makes a big difference. One
person can make a huge difference in this industry.

Speaker 6 (01:17:34):
That's true. That is absolutely true. And having gone through
the wart program up there, I can tell you that
that is that is something that is always needed. You know,
there's a lot of folks working out in the industry
that maybe they've picked up information from here and there,
but not necessarily accurate training and just the basics and things.

(01:17:57):
And as an employer, being able to hire somebody that's
coming out, you know, with the already a head start
on the industry, sure is a good thing, isn't it.

Speaker 4 (01:18:08):
Well and and A and M. And of course I
know Stephen F. Auston has a big program, and I
think Sam Houston does.

Speaker 18 (01:18:13):
But horticulture is not an easy degree. How many different
plants types you have to know and how to take
care of them, and insects and soil chemistry and biology
and plants physiology, and it's it's, it's it's fascinating when
you start looking at what God did that putting all

(01:18:35):
this stuff together, it is unbelievable. And that's that's your
whole job. Your job is, yeah, to help help us
understand what to do, what not to do.

Speaker 6 (01:18:47):
You know, And I've told people this before, but the
way I would put it is, horticulture is not a discipline.
It is a combination of disciplines. And it's said, be
a horticulturist, you've got to be an entomologist, a plant pathologist,
a soul scientist, plant nutrition expert. And I mean, you know,
I could just keep going and you kind of have
to put it all together because someone calls up and says, hey,

(01:19:08):
my lawn is yellowing, and my brain's going, okay, is
that an iron deficiency? Why is it an iron? Is
there a lack of iron? Is the pH two highs
or too much posphors? I mean you see what I'm saying.
That the thinking process. But it's fun. I love it, Yeah,
I think, yeah, a lot of fun.

Speaker 18 (01:19:25):
Like somebody calls the doctor say, hey doctor, I feel bad.

Speaker 4 (01:19:27):
Will I need medicine? Bool? How do you feel? I
just feel bad? Send me something.

Speaker 6 (01:19:33):
There you go. Hey Dean, I'm up against a quick
commercial break. Can you hang on and we'll keep this
going we come back. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
I'll be right back. Folks. All right, welcome back. Glad
to have you back with us here. We're visiting with
Dean Nelson of Nelson Plant Food and we're talking today
about Randy Lemon. You know, I talked yesterday about this

(01:19:55):
anniversary of being the anniversary of Randy's passing when we
lost him here in the Southeast Texas area. Such an influence,
and I do want to say this before I forget,
and we'll come back to it at the end. But
if you would like to participate in supporting this scholarship

(01:20:15):
for the sake of horticulture students, supporting horticulture students coming
out in the industry, you can go to my website
Gardening with Skip dot com and right there top thing
I've got posted is the Randy Lemon Scholarship. You can
give online or you can give by check, and it
tells you how to do all that right now, Dean,
I'd like to, first of all, welcome back. I'd like

(01:20:35):
to just talk about Randy a little bit. He was
bigger than life and quite the character. I can attest
to that. He and I used to joke that we
were never going to tell our kids what happened in
Moses Hall at Texas and University. That Randy was just
he ruled the room, right.

Speaker 4 (01:20:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:20:54):
And you know, if I'm a put a little guilt
trip on your audience here, maybe a little bit. But
you know, if you ever if called and talked to
Randy he helped you with your plants, or if if
you met him at a book book signing and and
talked with him or sponsored the show, you know, we
need to put me up some money and remember Randy

(01:21:16):
and just get you know.

Speaker 4 (01:21:17):
Anything to the foundation.

Speaker 18 (01:21:19):
You know, like you say, he bigger than life, and
he'd come out to the plant and we'd walk around.

Speaker 4 (01:21:24):
He's all very interested in how we made fertilizer and
why we made it.

Speaker 18 (01:21:28):
And I have some wonderful pictures of us together that
I just absolutely cherish.

Speaker 4 (01:21:32):
I get kind of teary when.

Speaker 18 (01:21:34):
I when I look at him, and uh, but.

Speaker 4 (01:21:42):
Gosh, I lost my.

Speaker 18 (01:21:43):
Train of thought here. But he would, like you say,
he was just bigger than life. And whenever I would
bring out a new fertilizer product, you know, just to
tell people how influential he was, I would go around
all these these retail stores and they would say, well,
is Randy gonna talk about it?

Speaker 4 (01:21:56):
Well, what's Randy said about this? Does Randy use it?

Speaker 18 (01:22:00):
And he liked it, you know, and that he was
huge And this the Gulf Coast gardening community, there's nothing
like it anywhere in the country. I've been all over
the country, you know, selling my products, and there's no
big garden shows out there.

Speaker 4 (01:22:15):
There's no big gardening.

Speaker 18 (01:22:17):
Community like what what what Randy built? And Bill Bill
Zact and John Burrow before them. You know, this is
this is something, This is something and you and I
are all you know, take you especially.

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
Are taking into and growing it even more.

Speaker 18 (01:22:31):
But we're all benefiting from from from what Randy did
all those years.

Speaker 6 (01:22:37):
Right, Well, he was, he was larger than life. His
presence here meant a lot to the green industry. And
I tell people all the time that you're so fortunate
to be in gardening here in the Houston area with
a number of outstanding garden centers, quality products and things,
and then advice that makes it so easy to have success.

(01:22:58):
And for over twenty five years, Randy sat in this
seat and he educated the greater Houston AARIA and he
was certainly loved and followed and appreciated. And you know,
you and I each have a personal connection to Randy.
And I can tell you this. I'm a product of
that program that he came out of. And this scholarship
that you guys have set up up there is really

(01:23:20):
important because they'll come a time and I'm not sitting
in this chair, and there needs to be somebody else
to come and to take that chair. And just the
memory of Randy is is I don't know, there's not another.
As they say, they broke the mold.

Speaker 4 (01:23:37):
And this is the scholarship is permanent.

Speaker 18 (01:23:39):
It's a permanent endowment and once we get it, it's
worth twenty five thousand dollars now and the goal is
one hundred and that'll that'll generate four thousand dollars a
year to a student forever. And they'll give it to
one student until that person graduates, and then they'll find
somebody else and give it to them.

Speaker 4 (01:23:56):
But you can also add to it, you.

Speaker 18 (01:23:59):
Know, if somebody wants to call up and say, I
just want to add you know whatever to the current scholarship,
and they'll give it out this year. So we're going
to fund it's going to be funded at a thousand
dollars in the fall, and uh, we're just going to
keep adding to it over the years and get it
up to where we didn't need it to be.

Speaker 6 (01:24:17):
Well, I really appreciate the fact that you took the
initiative to get that set up, and I hope that
people listening, both the listeners who benefited from Randy, the
businesses that benefited from Randy's presence and here in the
Houston area would, as you say, step up with the
plate and be part of this because we got a

(01:24:38):
good way to go. You know, a thousand dollars a
lot of money. But when you're looking at a college education,
someone some could you know, not going to become a
rocket scientist or a physician or whatever, and the future
of moving into the degree of horticulture help goes a
long way and maybe makes the difference between a very
good person making it into the industry and not. And

(01:24:59):
so I really encourage everybody listening to my voice to
consider being part of this, because we need to get
that thing up, like you said, two one hundred thousand
in the endowment so that we can be given four
thousand every year to a student.

Speaker 18 (01:25:14):
And these kids coming and we go every year to
the job fair, and these kids coming out at the
horticulture department are amazing. They are motivated, they love what
they're doing, and it's just so fun to be around them.
And so if we can you know, like one person
like you know, like you or me, you know, makes

(01:25:35):
it can make a huge difference in all of Texans.
You know, in our horticultural experience is just one person.

Speaker 4 (01:25:45):
You never know, you just never.

Speaker 6 (01:25:46):
Know, you never know, and it matters. It does matter.
And I guess you and I both said this in
different ways, but everybody listening to guarden Line is benefiting
in one shape or form of from the things that
Randy set up and built here. I say built here,
you know, because it does go. He goes back all

(01:26:07):
the way, you know. That's Zike and Burrows, you know,
back to the day when Dewey Compton was doing the
show in the fifties, and it is unheard of that,
we have a show that's that's continued this long and
also eight hours a weekend. That's something you go run
the great the whole country. You're not going to find
that guarding show eight hours a weekend, but that's a

(01:26:29):
fortunate thing for folks that are listening here. So when
you know, thinking about Randy, I don't put you on
the spot or anything, but do you have a favorite
story of Randy or any any would you? Would you
tell us one?

Speaker 18 (01:26:42):
Yeah, we he just wanted we'd come out to lunch
and we'd out in Belleville and there was a gas station.

Speaker 4 (01:26:49):
It was a Texi coast.

Speaker 18 (01:26:50):
It was a shell station back then, and they had
these big, old, huge, greasy hamburgers. I mean that they
must have added about four thousand calories.

Speaker 4 (01:26:58):
And it was during COVID.

Speaker 18 (01:27:01):
We walked in there and I said, you know, I
want to, you know, get some hamburgers. Well, okay, but
it has to be to go. I said, why, well,
it's we're closed.

Speaker 4 (01:27:07):
It's COVID.

Speaker 18 (01:27:07):
I looked in their dining rooms, like about a ten
by ten space with some one hundred year old chairs
that are falling apart.

Speaker 4 (01:27:13):
In the desk, I mean the table. I said, look,
there's nobody in here. We can just sit down here. Okay.
It took him about twenty minutes.

Speaker 18 (01:27:22):
They're all handmade, and uh, he was so thrilled about
that hamburger and they are good hamburgers. And then today
people it's nott a shell station. But everybody says, where
you want to go lunch, just go shelf station. What's
not a shelf shell station?

Speaker 8 (01:27:36):
What is?

Speaker 4 (01:27:37):
I don't know, let's go.

Speaker 6 (01:27:40):
But he that sounds Georgie.

Speaker 18 (01:27:43):
And also the last time I saw him, he said,
I need a part.

Speaker 9 (01:27:47):
Line from the yard.

Speaker 4 (01:27:48):
I wanted you to look at it. So and he
called me all the time about asking me about stuff.
You know, what about this? What about that? You know
problems or how to fix this?

Speaker 18 (01:27:56):
So I walked into this house in Katie and I
went up there about ten o'clock.

Speaker 4 (01:27:59):
He in his pajamas. I was laughing at him. I said,
why are you wearing your pajamasy?

Speaker 9 (01:28:05):
I'm working on my book.

Speaker 4 (01:28:06):
I'm about finished with it. He was almost finished with
his last book.

Speaker 18 (01:28:10):
So we looked at his his yard and his weeds,
and he wanted some fertilizer for him and his neighbors.
But you know, he all he you know, his whole
life was hordericulture, the books and the people and the customers.
You know, his whole life was the kids of course,
and Von you know course.

Speaker 6 (01:28:27):
Right, absolutely well and Randy. He just loved communicate with people.

Speaker 18 (01:28:32):
And also you and I think, weren't you at that
Brookwood tree planning they did for him?

Speaker 4 (01:28:38):
Yeah, so you know I was.

Speaker 18 (01:28:40):
I was not shocked, but I was very you know,
they went on and on about what all he has
done for them over the years. He just has the hardest,
biggest text helping all those kids.

Speaker 6 (01:28:50):
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, there's there's a tree out of Brookwood.
If anybody ever goes out there, which I would recommend
you go, check it out as a wonderful place, wonderful
program that they have that. I believe our David Williamson
RCW donated a tree that they planted out there. I
believe it's a nut tall oak and I look forward
to going and visiting periodically and just seeing that thing
grow because that will be a very long term remembrance

(01:29:14):
right there. I love that. Yeah. Well, uh, the scholarship again,
you've made it where it's easy to donate to people
can go online. You know, I tend to not read
out the whole u ur L because nobody's gonna be
able to write it down or remember it. But it

(01:29:34):
is the A and M Foundation, Texas and M Foundation.
The scholarship is called the Lemon Scholarship of two ms
L E M, M O n uh. And you can
send a check by mail to them, or you can
go online and give online. Either way you want to
go about it, And again I've made it easy by
just on my website, the very top thing that's there,
Randy Lemon Scholarship. You click on it and it has

(01:29:58):
a direct link in there to go straight to the
scholarship of people want to want to go about doing
it that way, and I again I would encourage people
to do this. Number one, just out of appreciation for
what Randy meant to this area and to gardeners into
this area and to horticulture businesses in this area. And
number two because it's just a good cause. Like you said,

(01:30:21):
horticulture as a degree, it's a challenging thing. It's not
the kind of thing that typically you know, it's gonna
people gonna get rich, quake off, to say the least,
but it is something that by supporting it, you're making
a difference. And what you have enjoyed for twenty five
plus years of Randy and a couple of years of
me here doing this, that is all because of the

(01:30:45):
horticulture knowledge and training that's been provided to students as
we speak up there, and like you said, there are
a lot of good horticulture programs around around the state,
but this one is dear to both your mind, heart
and I know certain certainly to Randy's heart as well.
I got about a minute, Dean, any final thoughts here

(01:31:08):
before we have to take a break.

Speaker 4 (01:31:11):
No, just looking forward to a great year in this weather.

Speaker 18 (01:31:13):
You know, he's freezing one day and it's hot to next,
so you never know about that.

Speaker 4 (01:31:17):
But you know, Raindy was just you know, he's always
be in our hearts.

Speaker 18 (01:31:22):
And hopefully every year we can around this time we
can kind of keep talking about his a little bit.
And uh, I don't know, just god bleave in the
United States of America.

Speaker 6 (01:31:32):
All right, there you go. We're very fortunate. And again
I want to thank you. I appreciate you coming on,
uh taking some time out. This has been good. I
think it's a great thing to remember back you know,
and also to have the opportunity to do something that
looks toward the future. And this is a really important thing,

(01:31:53):
a wonderful thing. And thanks thanks a lot for getting
it set up.

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):
Dean.

Speaker 18 (01:31:56):
Yeah, and asked everybody get your check book out, so
don't forget there you go.

Speaker 4 (01:32:03):
Thank you good?

Speaker 6 (01:32:03):
All right, yes, sir, you too, Thank you, sir. Well,
here we are, time for a break. I'll be back
right after Jared gets and educates you about the news.
I wonder if Jared's got all his pipes and plants covered.

Speaker 4 (01:32:18):
Up right now?

Speaker 6 (01:32:19):
All right, all right, we are back. Nice little visit
there with Dean about Randy's scholarship up at Texas A
and M. I hope you guys will consider taking advantage.
I think that's a great cause. Our phone number if
you'd like to give me a call seven one three
two one two k t RH. We'll get back to

(01:32:41):
your calls here, so feel free to give us a call.
Let's talk about the things that are of interest to you.
I know I'm going to be spending a little more
time talking about some of the topics we have discussed today,
different angles on them, like uh, coll protection of plants,
it's time for proning and and things along those line.
Seeds start. We spent a little time talking about that

(01:33:01):
as well. Just want to remind you if you go
to our Garden Line Facebook page, and I hope you
follow us on Facebook, I have posted something there that's
a publication on freeze protection for plants. It's actually the
long title. This is an official Texas A and M
Horticulture Department publication called Protecting Landscape and Horticulture Crop horticultural

(01:33:24):
Crops from frosts and freezes. And it's nine pages, full
color pictures. It's beautiful. Got to just click the link
on Facebook and you go right to my website where
you'll find that publication available. Talks about every aspect of
protecting plants from the cold. What do we do, why
do we do it, what works, what doesn't work? Should

(01:33:44):
you spray prints with water? What are the different kinds
of freezes that we have? And then the approaches that
we have to take. If you're going to cover plants,
how do you do it? What about adding heat? All
kinds of good stuff. I just think you ought to
have a copy. If you've got a plant that's outdoor,
you need to have a copy of this publication on hand.
So when we have these seasons where we're going into cold,

(01:34:05):
you're ready to go. Now, the cold we're about to
get into is not that bad. I'm not saying it's
not freezing. A lot of areas are freezing, but it's
just not that bitter cold. We're not talking about the
mid to low twenties or even teens here. We're talking
about a pretty minor cold, and it's going to warm
up pretty quickly. Have you ever noticed that, you know,
maybe it gets down to twenty nine degrees at the

(01:34:29):
bottom of the night, at the end of the night,
and then by the time we get up, before the
sun even comes up, it's already warming back up again,
and first thing you know, we're right up above freezing again.
Not that long. So this is going to be an
easy one in terms of protecting plants, not as big
of a challenge as we sometimes space. I'm going to
head out now to Kingwood and we're going to visit

(01:34:50):
with Pamela. Hey, Pamela, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 3 (01:34:54):
Thank you.

Speaker 16 (01:34:57):
I am an idea you should tell people out Last
year when we had the freeze coming, I stopped at
stores like Ace.

Speaker 11 (01:35:05):
A couple of aces and stuff.

Speaker 16 (01:35:06):
There was no freeze claw, so I bought some from
Amazon and it was fifty feet long and ten feet
wide in a vacuum sealed bag. Well, I opened that
bag up. Big mistake, big uh. It was like five
feet high. It filled my fifteen by twenty foot room.

(01:35:28):
Try to cut that footed around plants, Yeah, and I did.
I got it around one of the hydranges yeah, not
hydrange high biscus.

Speaker 12 (01:35:38):
And I put the sea.

Speaker 16 (01:35:40):
Nine lights you know, in there, and I had the
clips and it's windy, it's it's ter rain.

Speaker 19 (01:35:46):
This was not fun.

Speaker 11 (01:35:48):
So now I've come up with the idea.

Speaker 19 (01:35:51):
That you sew them.

Speaker 16 (01:35:53):
You sew the sides like, you know, take five feet
by five feet, so ten feet of the whip and
of the fifty foot so you knew about five of these,
and you sew in the sides down.

Speaker 19 (01:36:07):
And I do.

Speaker 16 (01:36:08):
My plants are in pots if it's because I can't
get to the ground anymore and get.

Speaker 8 (01:36:14):
Up and it's perfect.

Speaker 16 (01:36:17):
It just goes over everything. Also a cute tanks.

Speaker 8 (01:36:23):
M H.

Speaker 6 (01:36:25):
I was gonna say, now are you offering for everybody listening.
You're gonna give your home address and people bring their
cloth and you're gonna do all the sewing for them.

Speaker 16 (01:36:34):
Well, I'm gonna put it in the garage, you know,
and I've got sudents coming over to help me do this.
But you can also buy bags of my mulch and
put up against your sprinkler system.

Speaker 8 (01:36:47):
Yes, and that will work.

Speaker 6 (01:36:50):
I appreciate. I appreciate that if there's actually a thing
called the planket out there, and there's things that come
in as bags that are that are prease covers that
are already so together that you can slip over plants,
so that that's another option for the non seamstresses out
there that are trying to say this. But thanks a
lot for the tip ideas there, Penela, appreciate. I appreciate

(01:37:12):
you calling in and being a garden line listener. Yeah,
thanks a lot. You take care. There are a lot
of ways to go about covering and protecting plants, and
I'm telling you I have used everything from bed sheets
to bed blankets, to tarps to plastic to you name it.
She mentioned bags of least. I know people that take

(01:37:33):
a big old ring of wire mesh wire, fence wire
and put it around something like a fig tree, when
we're gonna get really cold, and they just fill that
thing up with leaves to create as much of a
protected space inside there. It's not the best way to
do it, but it is a way to do it.
And remember this, and we're not going to have this
kind of cold, but I'm just going to tell you

(01:37:54):
to remember this. Anytime you've got something like let's say
a citrus that's grafted, and you've got to protect the
top of that graft. Even if you lose the whole tree,
if you protect a few inches above the graft, that
tree will re sprout and come back faster. You want
to buy a new one that way, but you got

(01:38:14):
to protect it. And so pile soil up, pile and
I always tell you don't make multi volcanoes, don't do that. Well, no,
you don't do that for a long term, but for
a frosty night, you pile soil up against the trunk
of the tree, make this big ConA soil, or you
can use very fine textured compost and pile it up there.
You protect that and even if you lose the top,

(01:38:35):
that tree will come back, and it'll come back fast
because you got this big root system. Now pushing new
growth to re re establish that top. Time for me
take a quick break. I will be right back with
your phone calls at seven one three two one two
k t RH. Alrighty, alrighty, we're back back on garden line.
Got lots of plant things to discuss today. We're going

(01:38:57):
to go back to phones here in just a second
if you would like to call seven three two one
two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one
two kt r H. So, when you think about needing
something to do your gardening, whether it's taking care of
your lawn or your vegetable garden or flowers or seed

(01:39:17):
starting or any of that. Maybe you need a tool
for pruning, what do you think of? First? Well, how
about Southwest Fertilizer. You know, every time I go into
Bob's store there, Southwest Fertilizer, it's on the corner of
Bisinet and Runwick in Southwest Houston. Every time I go in,
I see something like, Oh, I didn't know you had that,
And then my second thought is, oh, why didn't I

(01:39:38):
You have everything in here. If Southwest doesn't carry it,
you don't need it. And whether it's you know, we've
been talking about freeze protection and things. It's pruning season.
Do you need a quality saw, a quality handprint, or
a quality looppers. Don't buy junk from some national chain store.
Just go to Southwest Fertilizer and grab you some quality

(01:39:59):
tool because it's time for that. They carry that kneeling bench.
It's a sitting bench. You flip it over, it's a
kneeling bench. It helps you get up. If you're north
of forty you know what I'm talking about. You gotta
you can't do that up and down all day without
paying the price. With the kneeling bench, you can. Bob's
got that. He's got that there. Do you need a
fertilizer spreader? Do you need a spreader for putting out
fire ant bait? Do you need the fire ant bait? Insecticide,

(01:40:22):
funge aside, herbicide, fertilizers, they're all there. If you're an
organic gardener, you're not going to find a bigger selection
of organic products than Southwest Fertilizer carries in the whole region.
That that's just a fact. They've been around since nineteen
fifty five, and there's a reason for that.

Speaker 4 (01:40:38):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:40:38):
You can give them a call at seven one three
six six six one seven four four, or just go
to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Tell you where
to find them, tell you how to call them, and
mean things. Just get over there and get your supplies.
Be ready to go. Bob's got you covered. We're going
to go out to League City now and we're going
to talk to Steven. Hello, Steven, Welcome to Gardline.

Speaker 8 (01:41:00):
Hey, Hey, how you doing. Happy to be on the
show with you today, Thank you, sir. So.

Speaker 4 (01:41:05):
I have a.

Speaker 8 (01:41:07):
Question about an oak tree right behind my house. There
was a big oak tree. It was maybe twenty twenty
five feet tall and it had grown over the corner
of my garage. So back over the summer I had
that cut down and it was cheaper to cut it

(01:41:28):
down to about eight feet eight nine feet rather than
grind it all the way down to the stump. And I
thought for sure that would have killed it. But since
that time there have been sprouts that have come off
the top of it, and there's a decent amount of
foliage on there. Now. My question is, with the weather turning,

(01:41:49):
is that going to finally kill that off?

Speaker 19 (01:41:53):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:41:54):
It was it a live oak or red oak, or
do you happen to know what kind live oak I believe. Okay, no,
it's going to sprout back. So you're wanting to kill
the tree, right, that's your no.

Speaker 8 (01:42:08):
No, Well, I just didn't want it to fall on
my garage, and that's why I had it cut back.
I thought for sure cutting off as much as they
did would have killed it, but it didn't, and I
don't necessarily want to kill it. I mean, if it
grows back, it's going to take years and years to
be a problem again as it was, so I just
I wonder will this freeze kill it, and then will

(01:42:31):
I have a big, you know, eight foot problem back
there that's going to fall over on one of my kids.

Speaker 6 (01:42:37):
Okay, no, it's not going to kill it. If it
is so close to the garage as you had to
print it like that, I don't know that there's a
long term future for that tree. Once it's been cut
back that hard, it's regrowth, it's going to be just wild.
Hair is going everywhere, and it won't have a really
great structure. So I would seriously consider removing it. If

(01:42:59):
you want a tree there, plant one at a distance
where you're not going to have to do that kind
of pruning. To it. That would be my advice. Now,
if you want, you can have someone who knows how
to prune come out there and take a look at it,
but their jaw is going to hit the ground and
they see it. But they could kind of help bring
it back to a shape that may stay away from

(01:43:22):
the garage. But that sounds like it's close enough to
be kind of an issue with foundations and who knows
what else. Maybe well, that way going up into the.

Speaker 8 (01:43:29):
Garage, the driveway ends and then there's a slope that
goes down and this oak tree is at the bottom
of that slope, so it's decently far away enough. Now
if it'd sell over, it wouldn't hit the garage, but
with it being as tall as it was, it would
have taken out the far corner of it.

Speaker 6 (01:43:48):
Sure, yeah, I got you. Well, live ooks are huge,
and so it's going to get huge again and it'll
have even weaker branch attachments because of that pruning. So
I again, I don't know there's a long term If
you want to hire an arbist to come out and
take a look at it, I would call Martin spoon
Moore from Affordable Tree have him to come out and
take a look. You know, I can't see it, but

(01:44:11):
he will, and he'll be able to tell you whether
it can be saved or not. If you want to
get rid of it, you can do that. I can
tell you how to do that too. If you maybe
plant a tree that doesn't get so big right there,
that might be another option. But it's up again.

Speaker 15 (01:44:25):
I'll take that down.

Speaker 8 (01:44:27):
What was the name of the company.

Speaker 15 (01:44:28):
Against affordable tree?

Speaker 6 (01:44:31):
Okay? And they serve this league city Mark. I think
he goes down that far. Give him a call. He
can tell you. Here's the phone number, seven to one
three six and six twenty six sixty three.

Speaker 8 (01:44:46):
Twenty six sixty three okay, and then just one one
other question real quick before I get off the phone
with you. We have three dogs in the house, and
this time of year, with him running around the backyard,
there's a patch of grass that they just they just
tear up and it doesn't matter how much it grows
in in the summertime and it does grow back. But

(01:45:09):
until it does grow back, they track a bunch of
mud in the house. And we've tried everything to keep
them from killing it. Is there anything any fertilizer we
can put or turf builder down there or something.

Speaker 6 (01:45:22):
There is nothing that will make any grass you can
plant tolerant of that kind of foot traffic from dogs.
They just wear it out.

Speaker 5 (01:45:32):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:45:33):
Bermuda is the most wear and tear resistant, but it
has its own issues other than going out and putting,
you know, kind of maybe some patio stones out there
to kind of extend that out a little further. I
just don't know a good suggestion on that one.

Speaker 8 (01:45:50):
All Right, we can try, and I'll give your guy
a call. I have some trees in the front I
may have in Prune anyway, all.

Speaker 6 (01:45:57):
Right, sounds good. Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate
et that. Oh let's see here, boy, I don't have
time to take another call. Carrie and Buffalo rego down
in Houston. We will have to hold you until we
come back from the top of the hour news and
you'll be our first two up if you're able to
stick around for that. Thank you and everyone listening for

(01:46:19):
being a Garden Line listener. We appreciate you being around.
We do not take that for granted. I know You've
got a lot of other things you can be doing
with your time. I hope this is entertaining for you.
I hope it's educational for you, and I don't know,
maybe we're helping you have a little bit of success
at least. That's what i'd like to think, you know.
Way I like to put it is, we're here to

(01:46:40):
help you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape, and
more fun in the process. That's what I like to have.
That's what i'd like to accomplish. So let's see if
we can do all those three. Just want to remind
you one more time. We have our garden Line Facebook
page where I have posted a link to the Frost
Freeze publication protecting your landscape Plans, and you click right

(01:47:01):
on it on the Facebook page and get to it,
or you go to my website gardening with Skip dot com.
Gardening with Skip dot com, lots of other good information
information on lighting for seed starting, information on randylant on scholarship,
and a lot of other things that are up there
as well. All right, don't take a break, you stick
around and we'll be right back with your calls.

Speaker 1 (01:47:23):
Welcome to k t r H garden Line with Skip.

Speaker 2 (01:47:27):
Rickard's Crazy just watch him as well. Thanks to stay.

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
There.

Speaker 6 (01:47:52):
Not a sign, All right, Welcome back, welcome back your
guard line. Good to have you with us. I don't
know what happened, but somewhere halfway through the show today
somebody left the gates open. So we're going to run
back out here to the phones and let's see. We're
going to start with Cameron up in Conroe. Hey Cameron,

(01:48:13):
welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 15 (01:48:16):
Hey Moren Skiff, are you sir?

Speaker 6 (01:48:19):
I'm well, thank you good.

Speaker 15 (01:48:22):
Just real quick question.

Speaker 21 (01:48:23):
I've got a they do magnolia growing out back of
the house, probably about a foot tall, growing wild, and
I really don't have that green of the thumb, but
I'd like to replant in another location in my yard
so that way you could grow up, grow big. I'm
on a heavy black gumbo soil. What do you recommend

(01:48:46):
for taking care of this thing this year?

Speaker 6 (01:48:49):
And yeah, you know, magnolia's are happiest in our acidic
forest soils of the southeast, and so when you put
them on a black gumbo they may or may not
do pretty well. They need good drainage first of all,
So if it is a heavy clay like that, somewhat

(01:49:10):
of a mound to help the soil drain away from
the surface would be helpful. Anything that makes the soil
you know, a little better drained is going to be
beneficial to them. They like it a little bit on
the acidic side. Although they can take higher pH they
prefer it a little on the acidic side. So adding
a lot of composted materials to the soil, loosening up

(01:49:34):
that clay a little bit, getting it on a good mound.
You might even see a benefit from putting some expanded
shale in a very large area around them. And it
takes quite a bit of shale to do that, but
that helps open up that clay soil, provide a little
bit better internal drainage. But those are all be things
in your power. Keeping a mulch on the soil all
the time. You know, in the forest the leaves fall

(01:49:56):
on the ground, pile up and just rot year after
year after year. Make and the soil better and better.
So do that around your magnolia tree, and as wide
of an area as you can, to try to make
it as at home by creating that forest floor environment
as you can.

Speaker 15 (01:50:12):
Okay, all right, perfect, and probably looking at an early
spring to do this, or.

Speaker 6 (01:50:20):
Well, if the sooner you move it, the better. Now,
the sooner you move at the better get as much
of the roots as you can. They don't like it
and move. But if it's still pretty small, you may
successfully move it. But you need to do it soon
because summer is coming, and the more months it has
to get a root system established, re established, the better
off it'll be when when the heat arrives.

Speaker 15 (01:50:42):
Okay, perfect, well, I'll all right after this freezing weather
this week, I'll get to.

Speaker 6 (01:50:47):
It, all right, sir. You take care, Thanks for the call.
We're going to go now to Alvin and talk to Frank. Hey, Frank,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (01:50:56):
Morning, Skip. I was calling about grafting trees the time
of year. I just got a little kit from Amazon,
and I'm waiting to get some wound dressing healing, you know,
wound dressing. And also it says something about having to
like put some spray or clean up like anti microbes

(01:51:17):
or whatever. I don't know if they should equipment or
where you do the cut at, but I was looking
at the you know, the procedure and is it the
good time of the right time? Should have wait a
few weeks, a few months to grab the con trees
and some fig trees.

Speaker 6 (01:51:32):
Okay, Well, figs. We yeah, figs, we normally don't graft.
You can take a fig branch, one of those dormant
little branches the size of one of your fingers, cut
off about an eight insection of it, and stick it
in the ground a little root and grow. I mean,
they're very easy to do figs. So you don't need
to graft the fig. I guess you could. I've never

(01:51:55):
I've never even heard of grafting a fig. I don't
know why you would, but most people just just stick
them in the ground and root them as far as
the pecan could.

Speaker 9 (01:52:06):
Very good.

Speaker 4 (01:52:07):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 16 (01:52:08):
No.

Speaker 6 (01:52:09):
Yeah, say on the pecans, I would think about this
just a minute. The do you have an existing pecan
tree you're grafting them onto that? That's a lot of
the trap Describe to me.

Speaker 9 (01:52:24):
What, yeah, what's what you'd call the root stock? And
I have one of those, and then I have some
other trees that are the paper shell all right, you
know there that are a hybrid that's going to grasb
some of those limbs onto my rootstock tree, which is
it's just a native pecan. It makes a little small
ones sometimes and and it.

Speaker 4 (01:52:46):
Does real.

Speaker 6 (01:52:50):
Okay, So if you have a little seedling coming up
and still small, let's say the tree itself is the
size of your little finger, then you can you can
use a different kind of graft on that that like
a whip graft, even on those as pecans get a
little bigger or as you're what we call top work

(01:53:11):
in a tree, meaning you got a tree and you
got all these branches, you want to find a branch
it's about the size of a coke can soft drink can,
and cut it off there and do what's called an
inlay bark graft on those that that's the best way
to go about that particular graft. And have you seen
how to do those somewhere?

Speaker 9 (01:53:31):
Yes, I've seen some YouTube videos about it. Okay, well,
you got to make it a little split and then
you slip it in between there and then wrap it.

Speaker 6 (01:53:39):
Yes, yes, very very important to follow that carefully. If
you go to the Aggie Horticulture website, just do a
search for Aggi Horticulture. Go to the fruit and nut
resources page. There is specifically something for Texas inlay graft
and Texas four flap graft. Those are two different graphs.
I said. The whip graft actually the four flap would

(01:54:01):
probably be your better way to do if you have
very small stock, like the size of one of your fingers.
But anyway, those are the two that we primarily do
in Texas for pecans. You want your graft would to
be you want your graft would to be dormant with
the inlay bark graft. But you want to wait until

(01:54:22):
the tree you're grafting it onto the sap has started
to flow. Like right now, if you went out and
tried to peel back the bark on that existing tree,
the bark is firmly attached to the wood. But once
a sap flows, the bark peels like you're like you're
peeling a banana. It just comes right off. That's the
stage where you do the inlay bark graph. But but

(01:54:43):
the wood you're using needs to be dormant, stored in
the in the refrigerator to stay dormant.

Speaker 9 (01:54:50):
Very good and regarding like wound dressing. And then I
don't know what it's like. An antiseptic that they were
talking about is just for the tools.

Speaker 6 (01:54:58):
Yeah or yeah? I would not. I would not. I
would not use worry about anyseptic on the wound. I mean,
you know, I've never for for printed pecans, I've never
I mean, grafting pecans, I've never uh, you know, dealt
with antiseptic on the tools. I mean, you could spray
them with some life soil if you want to do that,

(01:55:19):
that'd be fine. But the main thing is making the
graft properly. You don't you don't. You can use things
like grafting wax and whatnot to it, but bottom line
is just uh, you know, just get you uh, some
plastic bag to wrap around them, uh, and you tie

(01:55:39):
it to the branch and you tie it up on
the grafted piece, so you create a complete air tight
section underneath there to hold the moisture in and then
wrap the whole thing with foil. This is all in
the publication that's on Aggie Horticulture. Wrap it in foil
to reflect any sunlight outside of that clear bag.

Speaker 9 (01:56:00):
Okay, so we're not really in the season for doing that. Yeah,
we need to get other side of winter time.

Speaker 4 (01:56:07):
Yeah, probably what you worried more.

Speaker 6 (01:56:10):
Yeah, get your get your graft would now, but but
store it in the fridge and then do the graft
in spring, when the when the sap starts to flow
and growth starts to appear. Hey, I got to run.
We're on against a hard break. But good luck with that.
And if you have any other questions on it, follow up,
just give me a call back sometime. All right, folks,
I've got to run to a break. When we come
back from break, we are going to talk to Dennis

(01:56:33):
and Gary after the break. Who can tell me the
name of the band? Send them that the Wonders a
k a. Theaters. You have to look that one up. Eaters.
They spelled Wonder O n E. One was O ne

(01:56:54):
so when people looked at Wonder, it looked like, okay,
you heard it here first on Garden Life. Let's go
to Gary. We're going to talk to Gary now on Guardline.
Welcome to the show. Gary, good to have you with us.

Speaker 5 (01:57:08):
Hey, good morning, Skip.

Speaker 4 (01:57:09):
How are you doing.

Speaker 6 (01:57:11):
I'm well, I'm well. How can we help?

Speaker 4 (01:57:14):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (01:57:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:57:16):
So, I've got some fruit trees I'm wanting to plant.
I picked them up at a box store. There's a
couple of peach trees, a couple of plum trees, and
a big and pretty elementary question I guess is when's
the best time the year to plant those?

Speaker 4 (01:57:31):
Is it now or wait? Till we get closer to springtime.

Speaker 6 (01:57:35):
Now absolutely, now get them in the ground. Yeah, sooner
you get them in the ground, the sooner they're able
to start put it producing the root system. They'll need
to go through this first summer. So when you pull
them out of the container, if you see roots circling,
if you can kind of tease them out of there
and dig a hold of to accommodate them. Don't wrap
the roots up in the hole. They don't unwind underground,

(01:57:57):
of course. And if you need to cut a root,
go ahead and cut the root. It's okay to cut it.
Within two weeks it'll be sprouting new side roots from
behind the cut, and it'll be a much better established
tree as a result. So don't if you've got circling
roots unwrap them or cut them. More likely it can
have to cut them. So what about the frequency of

(01:58:18):
water in them at this time of the year. Is
is it important that you water them on a pretty
frequent basis this time of year? A good watering in
when you plant them should be sufficient. They're going to
be dormant if they have mari lost their leaves, they
will this week, but you shouldn't have to water them

(01:58:40):
until they begin new growth, and then you can begin
to provide some water. Just always remember the first months,
even the first summer after planting, the roots are still
quite confined. They haven't fully stretched out into all the
soil around them, and so regular watering is a little
more important for a newly planted tree during its first

(01:59:02):
two or even three years, especially the first year.

Speaker 5 (01:59:07):
Okay, and so I've got a mixture of soils out
there in my property. Some of it's clay and then
there's some of it's more loamy. I guess it be
better to plant and the loamy obviously, but that's something
I was wondering too.

Speaker 6 (01:59:22):
Yeah, they like a sandy loam soil. That is their
absolute favorite. Not everybody has that. And we can make
peaches grow and a lot of other things. But if
you were to, if you were to say, what's the
best soil for peaches, it's sandy loam. And that's why
the biggest peach producing regions of our country, of our state,
excuse me, are up in the Maheya area where there's

(01:59:46):
a band of sandy loam soil that comes through there,
and over in Fredericksburg and areas that have sandy loam soils.
That's that's their favorite.

Speaker 13 (01:59:57):
Okay, well, I appreciate your help and then answer my questions.
Thank you all right, Gary, thanks for the call. Appreciate
that you take care. Let's see we're going to go
now to Cove, Texas and talk to Dennis. Hey, Dennis,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 22 (02:00:12):
Thank you skip my question. I have two red tip
shrubs and I prum once a year whenever the weather
gets cold and it's going to stay cold, so now's
that time. And I always trim the tops back to
the eve of the house. So that's that's at eight
feet and typically I'm taking off on average about a foot.

(02:00:34):
They'll they'll usually get up, you know, about nine feet,
and I take that off. And the width I don't
really have a set marker, but because i'm trimming from
a step ladder, I usually wind up trimming the width
so that I can reach the center on top, you know,
and stay safely balanced on the step ladder. And what
I've noticed this year is that the shrubs seem to

(02:00:57):
have spread width wise much more than they've ever grown before.
And while I still would I would estimately be taken
off about a quarter of the total wood of the tree.
Because the foliage is typically only on the outside of
the tree. On the interior branches aren't really any leaves.

(02:01:20):
I'll be taken off a lot more of the leaves
I think, percentage wise, I normally do.

Speaker 6 (02:01:26):
Is that a problem, Dennis, I missed the species of
plant we're talking about.

Speaker 22 (02:01:35):
Okay, so I don't know if this is the real name.
We call them red red tips. It's the shrug.

Speaker 5 (02:01:44):
You know.

Speaker 22 (02:01:44):
The leaves are mostly green, but the ones on the
end of the branches are red.

Speaker 6 (02:01:49):
Yes, yeah, that's red to fatinia as a coat. So
you can print that as much as you want and
it'll come back from it. What happens on all plants
pretty much, especially the shrubs than things. They tend to
grow more outward at the top and end up shading
their base as a result. You know, as the top

(02:02:12):
gets wider, think of a capital V. It grows like
a capital V, and so the top shades the base
and you lose your foliage, which you want to have
foliage all the way down to the ground. So you
kind of have to work to keep the top at
least vertical. The side's vertical, if not a little bit
narrower at the top, like I had mentioned a capital V,

(02:02:34):
think more toward to capital A, not like a Christmas
tree shape. But just get the top narrower and that
allows good light up and down all through that shrub,
and as a result, you have good foliage all through
the shrub. So don't be afraid to hack back as
much as you need to do that, because that shrub
is constantly going to be fighting you trying to be

(02:02:55):
top heavy, and we need it to not be top
heavy for the aesthetics of an ice full shrub.

Speaker 22 (02:03:03):
Okay, that answers my question. Thank you very much.

Speaker 6 (02:03:07):
Yes, sir, thank you for the call. Appreciate that very much.
Good good question, very good question, good point. Earlier I was,
you know, talking about the importance of taking care of
your plants, making sure that you've got adequate soil, adequate nutrition,

(02:03:27):
you know, adequate organic matter content. It is important to
when you take care of a plant, to provide the
roots what they need because in a sense, plants grow
in the root, they live in their roots. I like
to put it that way because we sort of forget
about the below ground part, but keeping the roots happy
is important. The medina, the folks at Medina makes something

(02:03:47):
called humate humic acid. What is humic acid, Well, that's
basically the final stage of decomposing organic matter. So we
have organic matter like leaves and grass clippings and things.
It decomposes into what we would call compost, and then
that decomposes into what's called humus. It's the final stage,

(02:04:08):
and the humic acid is one of the natural ingredients
that are in humus. Humus does a number of good
things for the soil, and the humic acid helps with
soil structure. It helps with the way that the plant
has access to nutrients in addition to the fact that
they're nutrients in and of itself. But you make humte

(02:04:28):
I'm in trouble saying. Humane humic acid from Medina is
the kind of thing you just mix a little in
a gallon of water, and when you plant a plant,
you just pour it on the root ball as you
replace the soil, apply it again, give it another good drench.
It is very helpful. I will soak seeds in humus
or humic acid rather, and all you have to do

(02:04:49):
is put about a tablespoon per gallon of water of
the humane humic acid and then soak the seed until
that penetrates the skin and the seeds swell up and
then anthem right away. Don't let them set like that,
plant them. So I'll typically do that the night before
I'm going to go out and plant. And that's one
of the quality products there from the folks at Medina.

(02:05:09):
Medina also produces something called has to Grow six twelve six.
Now has to Grow six twelve six is a high
quality products. Got the six percent nitrogen, twelve percent sassium,
six percent excuse me, twelve percent phosphorus six percent potassium.
That is very useful to a plant trying to develop

(02:05:29):
a root system, to a plant trying to produce blooms
and foliage. Phosphorus very important for that. And it also
contains Medina Soil Activator, which we know been around a
long time, one of the most famous products from Medina.
There is also present in the has to Grow six
twelve six. Again, I will use it when I'm transplanting.
I will use it anytime that you're wanting to apply

(02:05:50):
a drench into the soils, even a folier spray. You're
not going to burn with that. Just two examples of
quality products there from the folks at medina that are
white available here in the Greater Houston area and have
been for ages.

Speaker 3 (02:06:03):
Do you know.

Speaker 6 (02:06:04):
I was just reading about Dewey Compton or earlier, and
he talked about medina products that goes back to the
nineteen fifties. Diana's been around a while, It's been proven
for a very long time, and gardeners already know that.
Now it's time for me to take a little quick break.
For gosh, we're coming up. I've got a another minute
or so, so I'll just go a little bit longer.

(02:06:27):
We'll come back to your calls though. Hey, by the way,
if you'd like to give me a call, the phone
number is seven to one three two one two ktr
eight seven one three two one two KTRH. Earlier, I
mentioned that tomorrow we were going to talk about more
about Randy Lemon. The host of garden Line, Dean Nelson
is going to come on the show in the morning

(02:06:47):
and we're going to talk a little bit about a
scholarship for Randy and just some memories of Randy. Actually,
today is the anniversary of both Randy's birthday and his
passing to years ago. The came as a shock to
everyone in the gardening World here in Southeast Texas, and
we'll be talking more about that then. I just want

(02:07:08):
to remind you, though, one more time, that Randy's scholarship
is still around at A and M. They've got it
funded to a level now where there is some funding
going to New A and M horticulture students. New A
and M horticulture students can receive the Randy Lemon Scholarship.
We want to get it funded better. I just think

(02:07:30):
we can do better than this. You can go online
and you can donate online toward it. You can do
it by mail if you'd like to. There's a lot
of details to that. I make it real simple on
my website. Just go to gardening with Skip dot com
Gardening with Skip dot com. The top item on there
is the Randy Lemon Scholarship. It tells you how you

(02:07:51):
can give and if you're one of the folks that
listened to Randy for years that appreciated the help that
he provided you, why not consider making even a small
donation toward that scholarship. I know Randy would be so
proud to know that we were doing this now. And
thanks to Dean for getting that all set up.

Speaker 4 (02:08:09):
By the way.

Speaker 6 (02:08:10):
All right, I'm gonna take a little break. When I
come back, We're gonna go out to Humble and talk
to Gary and Hey, welcome back to the garden Line.
Welcome back. Good to have you with us. You are
listening to the first show of the year twenty twenty five,
and twenty twenty five is gonna be the best year
you've ever had in gardening. I'm just predicting that right now.
It's gonna be my best year of gardening. You know,

(02:08:31):
the fun thing about gardening is gardening is like the
old etches sketches. I've used that analogy before, but how
many of you remember an etch a sketch? You know,
you had two knobs, one went up and down, one sideways,
and you tried to draw something. Inevitably, you went left
when you should have gone right or whatever, and it
messes up the drawing. What do you do? You turn
it upside down and shake it and you get a

(02:08:53):
blank slate. Again, that's gardening. Every year is a blank slate.
In fact, halfway through spring, if you don't like the
way that garden looks, you can just get you your
roto teller, the equivalent of a shake in the edges
sketch and you get to start over again. It's okay.
You can't fail at garden you only give up. We're
not going to give up. We're going to have the
best year ever. And I really believe that. I think

(02:09:15):
it's gonna be a good year. Right now, we're going
to go out and talk to Gary and Humble. Hello, Gary,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 12 (02:09:23):
Thank you, sir. Good morning.

Speaker 19 (02:09:25):
Say.

Speaker 12 (02:09:26):
I planned a myer lemon about three years ago, and
about a year and a half ago or so, whatever
it was, it froze back.

Speaker 3 (02:09:38):
Completely.

Speaker 12 (02:09:39):
And then I started seeing some new sprouts above the graft.
And now it's five and a half feet tall, but
no blossoms at all. And I'm wondering, do I need
to protect this or do I let it freeze.

Speaker 6 (02:09:59):
Well, let's see you were an Humble. It's gonna be
a little on the cold side. I think I would
cover it up. I just protected a little bit at
the very least. If it's from above the graph, yes,
if it's above the graft, it will produce. It absolutely
will From below the grap then you've got a rootstock.

Speaker 12 (02:10:23):
Yeah, but it's it's like I say, it's five and
a half foot tool now and not a blossom anywhere
all year, and it's been that, and you're.

Speaker 6 (02:10:32):
You're sure, okay, well it's it's all right. Are you
sure it's coming above the graph though?

Speaker 4 (02:10:38):
Right?

Speaker 12 (02:10:39):
I'm pretty sure there.

Speaker 15 (02:10:41):
I can see the line there.

Speaker 12 (02:10:43):
It's about an inch above. But yeah, yeah, because it
did grow full and uh, but there's no blossoms in
the all year. So I'm wondering is it worth all
the time?

Speaker 6 (02:10:57):
Even a rootstock is capable of blooming, but it just
doesn't produce quality fruit. Is the growth on it more
thorny than your mere lemon was?

Speaker 12 (02:11:12):
It's about the same. But like I say, no blossoms,
there's a lot of leaves.

Speaker 6 (02:11:24):
Yeah, I you know, if it's not a lot more thorny,
I still think it's worth waiting and seeing, unless you
just want to hurry out.

Speaker 12 (02:11:33):
I didn't. I don't think there's any thorns. I don't
recall seeing thorns.

Speaker 6 (02:11:37):
Okay. I think you've got a lemon tree that's going
to settle in and start blooming for you here before long.

Speaker 12 (02:11:44):
I do, so I just stay with it system, okay, okay,
all right, then I need to produce.

Speaker 6 (02:11:54):
Exactly m that's it.

Speaker 4 (02:11:57):
You got it.

Speaker 6 (02:11:59):
Good luck with that. If it ever produces Lendon's for you,
you just bring me half the produce to the to
the radio station and we'll call it even. Thank you,
Thank you, sir, Bye bye. Someday that joke's gonna get old,
but not to me. You asked my kids. I think
jokes are hilarious that have ceased to be hilarious. You

(02:12:19):
know when I when my kids were like age six
and under, I ruled the room, even maybe seven and under.
Somewhere along the line, I became less funny. Isn't that
amazing how that works? Well, the way I like to
put it is, I'm gonna tell jokes that make me laugh,
even if they don't make you laugh. One of us

(02:12:40):
has gotta have fun here. Thanks for being a listener
to Garden Line. Hey, you probably have noticed that here
in the Houston area we have a heavy clay soil.
We call it gumbo soil because it's a thick black clay.
Not everybody does. You may have sandy soil or sandy
loan where you live, but by and large are Houston.
Black clay is predominant in this area. And when you

(02:13:02):
have a clay that has a high shrink swell potential.
What that means is when it's wet, it swells. When
it's dry, it shrinks. When you have that, you'll notice
in the summertime, when it's dry, you get these big
cracks in the yard. You know, big old cracks open
up in the soil because it's dry and it's shrinking,
and then it gets wet and it closes back up again. Well,

(02:13:25):
that wrecks havoc on your sidewalk and on your driveway
and on your home foundations. And you may notice that
your doors are sticking. They didn't stick before and I
was under sticking again.

Speaker 17 (02:13:35):
You know.

Speaker 6 (02:13:35):
Or maybe there's a crack in the sheet rock or
there's a crack in the brick on the outside. Typically
go see those at the base of a window, kind
of going from the back one corner of the window
down to the ground. But they can to curl all
over the place. Well, that's a sign that you got
a foundation issue, and fix my slab. Foundation repair is
the go to place for that. Ty Strickland is a

(02:13:57):
native Houstonian. He's a fifth generation and he knows our soils.
He understands this issue, and he knows how to assess
it and what to do about it. The things I
like most about Ty's work. Number one is an honest fellow.
Number two he shows up on time when he tells
he's going to show up. That's part of being honest

(02:14:17):
by the way. He fixes it right, and he charges
a fair price. And what more can you ask for
any kind of a service industry come in to your house,
especially when they're dealing with the foundation of your home.
And he's been doing this for twenty three years. He
knows what he's doing. You give him a call, tell
him your guarden line listener. Free estimates for garden line listeners.

(02:14:38):
You can go to the website fixmislab dot com, or
you can call him too. Eight one two fi five
forty nine forty nine two eight one two fi five
four nine four nine fix my slab foundation repair listen.
If you think you may have a problem, don't be
an ostrich. Put your head in this end. Call him
if it's not a serious issue. If it's okay, there

(02:15:00):
is such a level of concern that's not worth worrying about.
He'll tell you that. But it's not gonna get better,
so don't put it off. Go ahead and give Tay
a call two eight one two FI five forty nine
forty nine. All right, folks, we've got one more segment
in the first show of the year coming up, and

(02:15:21):
I'll be right back with your calls at five excuse me,
seven to one three two one two kt RH loved.
Welcome back to guarden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richer,
and we're here for our last segment of today, the
first garden Line show of twenty twenty five, which is
going to be the best gardening year we've ever had.

(02:15:43):
I really really believe that. You know, nature throws us curves,
but that's okay, we just continue on. We were resilient.
Gardeners are resilient. You know, gardeners have to have faith.
First of all. I mentioned this earlier. But to take
take a hand full of seeds, I mean, they look
like detritus. They look like debris on the ground, little

(02:16:04):
chips of wood or whatever they are, and they look dead.
And you put them in the ground, you give water
to them, and a miracle starts to happen. Water soaks
into the seed and starts a chain of biochemical reactions
that ends up with you getting a tomato or a
petunia flower or whatever kind of seed it is. Is
that amazing? I mean, you know, someone once said that

(02:16:29):
anybody can count the number of seeds in an apple,
but only God knows the number of apples in a seed,
and that you know, it's really true. I mean, think
about that, that one little seed in the case of
an apple, just countless, countless production from it. All right,
I'm gonna get a little This isn't nerdy, this is philosophical.

(02:16:50):
But somewhere years ago, you know, the guy Johnny apple
seed that went through the countryside, just scattering seeds everywhere,
and all these apples came up here and there and yonder. Well,
people would find one. That's a hap hazard, just genetic occurrence.
That's what seeds are, just like people are all different genetically. Well,
apples are all different genetically. Any kind of seed is

(02:17:13):
going to do that. So they would find one and
they would go, you know what, this is a really
special apple. Let's take cuttings and let's graft them, and
let's name it, and that way we can produce more
of it. That's how the first red delicious apple occurred.
And many of the oldest apple varieties were just haphazards.

(02:17:35):
Same with pecans pecans years ago. Some day I'll tell
you the story of pecans, but that's a whole nother story.
But anyway, so red Delicious just and other varieties. Now,
we breed varieties like that intentionally by crossing apple parentage lines,
but they just occurred and someone said, oh, I like that,

(02:17:55):
I'm gonna save that one. So think about this. I
don't know how many Red Delicious apple trees have been
created over the years. I mean, you know, we don't
grow those down here in Texas, but apple producing country.
That's kind of like an old standard variety that for
years rule the roost because it was longer, and it
was darker red, and it just it just had features
that were desirable. A seed sprouted, even if it was

(02:18:18):
an intentional collapse. Of course, one seed and one apple
produced the first Red Delicious tree, and after that it
was a matter of grafting and grafting and grafting to
where there's thousands and thousands and thousands of acres of
genetically the same red Delicious apples. Because in nature, one
seed sprouted and it had the superior qualities that someone

(02:18:42):
chose to select. So I just find that to be amazing.
I find plant genetics and just the you know, you
cross this, you cross that, And there are people that
do that as gardeners do I do that with okra myself,
creating new varieties and things. So it's kind of a
fun fact something that they about maybe get you excited
about doing some plant crossing yourself. We're gonna go out

(02:19:04):
of Bayliff and talk to Sue. Hello, Sue, Welcome to
garden line.

Speaker 19 (02:19:10):
Hello, Skip, How are you?

Speaker 6 (02:19:12):
I'm good? I'm good. How can we help?

Speaker 3 (02:19:15):
Well?

Speaker 12 (02:19:16):
I have.

Speaker 19 (02:19:18):
The long skinny eggplants and the black beauty egg plants
and they're just loaded with fruit. Are they gonna be okay?
Or do I need to try to cover them?

Speaker 6 (02:19:32):
Well, if it gets below freezing, they're gonna or if
it gets close to freezing, they can even have frost damage.
And so you're gonna need to cover them. Anything you
put over them that drapes down to the ground, secure
it to the ground to kind of hold some airspace
underneath there. You ought to be able to get them
through this freeze. Okay. If your area drops below let's

(02:19:53):
say thirty degrees for sure, then you're probably gonna need
some source of heat underneath there. But what's going to
happen in these coming freezes this week is it's going
to drop down below freezing and then it's going to
come right back up when the sun comes out in
the day. We'll be up in the forties and so
we don't have to survive for twenty four hours below

(02:20:14):
thirty two degrees. So we're just protecting them a little bit,
and that ought to get them through.

Speaker 19 (02:20:20):
Okay, my second question the butt. I have calamandan that
is the chopped fruit all over it, and they're starting
to turn orange. I go ahead and pick them. I
know nothing about this fruit.

Speaker 6 (02:20:39):
Yeah, Calamandan is a little it's an orange like thing
with very small orange traice on it. It's used. It's ornamental.
First of all. People love the just the ornamental factor,
but they're also edible. They're just not the you know,
the best tasting orange type thing that that you could have.

(02:21:02):
But I think they're attractive and I would cover them
in the kind of cold weather that we're we're looking
at having, So I think that's I think that's worthwhile.
Is it in a container?

Speaker 3 (02:21:15):
Yes it is.

Speaker 6 (02:21:17):
Yeah, do you know excuse me, get you a Dolly
or something like that. Kalamandan's are actually pretty cold hearty.

Speaker 16 (02:21:28):
You know.

Speaker 6 (02:21:28):
The more I think about it, I think in your area,
I think, I don't think you're going to have to
bring it in or cover it now that I'm thinking
about it, because they're they're one of their parentage is
come quat and come quatre hardy down into the teens.
I think Klimandan is going to take it down pretty
well down into the twenties and be okay. So I

(02:21:51):
think you're going to be all right with it. I'm
gonna adjust my statement a little bit as I think
about that. Klamanda, well, I.

Speaker 19 (02:21:58):
Think it's confused because it's got flower buds on it.

Speaker 6 (02:22:02):
To you, oh, flower buds too, I don't know how
cool will be by And.

Speaker 19 (02:22:09):
It's on the new growth. You had a collar call
while ago that had some new growth, had some curly
leaves and stuff.

Speaker 18 (02:22:18):
You know.

Speaker 19 (02:22:19):
I never found a leaf minor either, but I did
find it like a little web in there that I
scraped out. But that's where the new flower buds are at.
I was going to cut the tips off.

Speaker 13 (02:22:32):
You know.

Speaker 6 (02:22:33):
Those are nice plants, they say, kind of small, especially
in the container. You know, they stayed a rash and small,
and so people liked to grown because they you know,
it's easy to it's easy to do. But calm kalamandan
is is pretty cold hearty. So I think you're gonna
be okay. As far as the blooms themselves, I've never
I've never looked into that, like sometimes a plant will

(02:22:53):
be hardy, but the blooms are not. But I think
you're going to be all right. If you want to
be careful, just put her on dolly running in the
ode and bring it back out. But I don't think
that's needed for a kalamand And in the freeze, we're
about to have.

Speaker 19 (02:23:07):
Okay, because it I just got it this past spring.
You know, it's fifty percent off. So I brought it
home and stuffed it in a container, and it immediately
started blooming and bearing these little fruits. And I was like, okay,
I thought, how do you like again?

Speaker 6 (02:23:28):
How do you like the bloom fragrance?

Speaker 16 (02:23:31):
Oh?

Speaker 19 (02:23:31):
It smells good.

Speaker 6 (02:23:33):
H Yeah, that's a nice thing. The nice thing about
a container cetress like that is you can put it
right beside where you sit outside in the patio and
just it's like you have perfume, just wafting over.

Speaker 19 (02:23:45):
Right with all my guardenas and jasmines and and my citrus,
because I've got lemon lisbon lemon and uh Orlando TAngelo
also in a in a.

Speaker 6 (02:23:59):
My goodness to it. Well, you just got all kinds
of not so common fruit, centrus, fruit growing around there.
Send me a picture though sometimes when they're especially when
they're blooming and things. I'd love to earn fruit. I'd
love to see that. Well, thank you for the call.

Speaker 19 (02:24:14):
Make sure the calimandon, but I'll get it to tomorrow maybe.

Speaker 6 (02:24:19):
Okay, Well, I'm gonna put you on hold and maybe
our producer will pick up and give you an email
where you can get that to me if you need that.
Thanks for the call. All right, folks. Music means I
gotta quit talking today. I'll be back in the morning though,
first thing, six o'clock. Hey, I'm gonna get up early
so I can be on the air at six. You
get up with me, we'll talk. By the way. Tip
for the wise, it's easiest to get through on phones

(02:24:41):
earlier in the morning when it was later on. All right,
take care