9 Pruning Mistakes

you might have. That's the way it works here on garden Line. I'm going to start off with a few thoughts that I've been pondering here these last couple of days regarding common questions that I get when people give me a call on garden Line. Anytime someone.

to the people. That's kind of how they put it. Well, it's horticultures to My job was to bring research based information to folks, and so through emails or questions, through programs, all kinds of ways people would ask gardening questions, kind of like here on guarden Line. And so over the years, I think I've heard just about all the questions that

are out there. We have a lot of different things to wonder about when it comes to, you know, success with gardening, and so having heard all those questions over the years, I'm kind of familiar with the kind of things that people tend to wonder about and ask about. And I basically there's more question possibilities and you can imagine when you think about horticulture and gardening, covering everything from your lawn to the house plants in your house,

to what's a good kind of orchid? To why does my plum tree not bear fruit? See how do you properly prune a crape myrtle? To what's a good tree to provide shade on the west side of the house. It just goes on and on. What's the best to mate at a plant? You know? Why do my radishes not produce bulbs just tops and all our roots? It's that kind of thing. Lots of different kinds of questions.

So what I would like to start off with this morning is pruning mistakes that I see people make, questions that I get about pruning and things along those lines, And I'm going to talk about nine pruning mistakes that I see people make that you certainly can avoid. It is pruning season. Mid to late winter is probably the prime time to do pruning, but we can do pruning. You know, right now is a great time to get it done. And when you make pruning cuts on a tree,

pruning is a invigorous process. And so one of the things we want to keep in mind is whenever we're doing printing, the tree is going to respond with growth in that area and depending on the kind of cuts we make, the growth will either be desirable types of growth or it may be undesirable types of growth. Pruning is something that starts when you put the plant in the ground, the tree in the ground, and we call

it training. During that time, you know, the first I don't know, five to ten years, you're doing training on the tree, especially the first five years, and then after that there is more of a maintenance printing that we do to keep things in order. But just like a lot of things in life, the sooner you get on something and get it going in the right direction, the better off things are. If you ignore training during the first two or three or four years, you're going to

have a problem tree or plant. You're going to have to do more serious pruning to get back in bounds. I like to tell people that to pull out a saw is an admission of guilt. Here's what I mean

by that. If you were to take a tree and you have your ham pruners and your loppers, and from the time you plant it print it correctly day by day by day, the need for a saw goes down to very very little, very very little, because you're making these decisions and cuts early in that tree's life, and it's small wounds that you make with ham pruners and loppers. But when you don't do the things you should do.

Now you're looking at a branch that you know, maybe you know the size of I don't know, your arm or a leg or something else, and you're basically pulling out the saw to make those cuts. Nay, you got a big wound that has to heal over there's the exposed inner wood where the cake can get in and on and on down the line. So if you think about it that way, it is not one hundred percent true to say I saw pulling out a saw's admission

to guilt. But it's a true, true concept that I think it's worth thinking about before you go out to prune. Get some education on the best way to prune the kind of plant that you're pruning. Don't look at what other people do. And primary point number one is crepe myrtles. The way crape myrtles get pruned is ninety five percent wrong. Around the Greater Houston area, a lot of it happens with landscape crews, and you know, you got guys that mowlawns and do all the summer cares of carrying of

landscapes and stuff, and here comes winter time. Is not much of that to do.

landscape volcanoes. Those mounds of malts, you know what I'm talking about, giant mounds of malts that are piled up against the base of a tree. There is horticulturally botanically in nature. There is no reason for that. That is not done. We shouldn't do that, but that's how things are. We did it because somebody else did it. So mature ornamentals, when they're established, need very little printing if they were

prinned well through their life. You remove broken limbs, if you've got a disease limb, If you've got some rubbing limbs and things, you can do that. But in general, our goal is to get the printing done earlier in the tree's life and create the strongest, most beautiful structure that you can. All Right, that kind of sets us up for these nine printing mistakes we're going to avoid.

I'm going to be going through them through the course of the show this day, and in the meantime you can give us a call at seven one three two one two k t r H and we'll talk about your questions. I'm gonna take a little break here and i'll be right back with the pruning mistake number one. Well, good morning, welcome back, Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. We are going through nine

pruning mistakes to avoid. Now I suspect there's probably more than nine, but well, we're just going to pick on nine today, things that I see often made and that we can definitely definitely avoid. So here we go. Pruning mistake numero number one, not necessarily the biggest one, just

the one we're starting with dull, poorly adjusted tools. If you want to make a really clean cut and you want to make a cut that, let's say, causes less wear and tear on your joints, your hands, your elbows, your shoulders, spinning on whether using hand punters or loppers or whatever. A nice sharp pair of prunters is important. That is very important. That kind of cut will heal the fastest. Poorly adjusted pruners that are the blade doesn't like scissor slide right past the other side of the

pruners nice and smooth and tight. It ends up stripping away wood. And when you strip away wood, when you make a cut, that causes the area that heals the best to be sort of torn through and it ends up being a much lower healing wound where you run into all kinds of problems. You want to sharpen your prunters, keep them sharp. It's easier to make that cut. And you know, if you're done quite a bit of pruning, it does take a wear and tear on your hands.

It does take aware and tearing also in your elbows. I used to have a peach orchard and we were through that orchard all the time pruning and lopping, and I'm telling you you'd be surprised your elbows and shoulders get pretty tired on that. I'm a sort of biased toward by pass type pruners as opposed to the anvil types. So the bypass types again, that's the scissor types where the two blades pass by right up against each other.

The anvil types is where a blade comes down on a flat surface on the other side of the prunter. It's almost like you're taking a hatchet and chopping down on a wood block. That kind of pruning. Those kind I find often are more difficult to do a good job on pruning with. So keep them sharp, keep them adjusted, and certainly you're going to do a better job. Number Two, pruning plants that only bloom in the spring in the wintertime.

So here's what I'm saying. If you have a plant that only blooms in the spring, you know, for those of you who used to live further north, that would be like Forsythia. Down here, we got the azaleas, a spyrieas, a flowering quints what we call once blooming roses like lady By that blooms in the spring, but it doesn't bloom again all year until next spring. You don't want to prune those in the winter. Because you're cutting away the bloom buds that they have, and they've already set

their bloom buds. They do that in late summer and fall for next year, and so pruning them now means you're cutting away your bloom buds. So wait until after they bloom and then prune them. Wait until after they bloom and then prune them.

large and tasty. Whereas with the ornamental plant, our goal is just to have as many blooms as we can over it. So if it only blooms in the spring aside from fruit, if it only blooms in the spring and not through the year, don't proNT it in the winter. Wait until after it blooms. Let's see another one, shearing or hedging plants that don't necessarily need to be shared or hedged. I have seen a number of different kinds of plants that are beautiful in a natural shape but

look ridiculous when they're hedged. One would be the sage Soniso Texas sage silver leaf, usually a silver leafed kind of plant that blooms the colored a barometer bush because it blooms in conjunction with rainstorms that come through. That one looks better in a natural form. If you hedge it, it just doesn't look right. It just doesn't look right at all. A glossy abelia another one that blooms in a natural form and looks so much better that way than when you hedge it. Now there are plants that

we hedge. We want to create a hedge a wall of shrub. I understand that, But think about the plant and how it looks the best, Especially things that have arching branches that kind of arch over and weep down to the sides, like a spurrea, for example, That would look ridiculous hedge. So make that decision. There is a there is a difference between a head a heading cut and a thinning cut. And here's what I mean by that. If you go out and you cut a branch off

and just lop it off, that's a heading cut. When you're through prining, it looks like the top of a broom handle. You just chopped it right off there. What the plant does in response is it grows a bunch of shoots up just below that cut. And you've seen this before. This is what happens to craigles all the time. Heading cuts. They just lop them off, and so here comes this crows foot of growth. Like if you were to hold your arm upward and take your fingers and

then just kind of spread them outward. That kind of crows foot of growth going up and out in all directions. That's what a heading cut does. If you're making a hedge, you want that because where there was one shoot, now you got several shoots, and then you hedge those. And where you had several shoots, now you have a whole bunch of shoots and you create a nice wall of foliage. That's for hedges, But when you want to make a

natural form, you use something called a thinning cut. A thinning cut, I'm going to keep using the hand as The analogy here is if you hold your hand up and your fingers are together, but your thumb is going out to the side, and you wanted to remove your hand with the part of the fingers, you cut it right above where your thumb attaches, and what would be left is your arm coming up and then your thumb going out. Think of it like a highway with an

exit ramp. If you put a block, a blockade, a barrier on the highway just past the exit ramp, all the traffic coming down the highway would have to exit that exit ramp. That's a thinning cut. And that's how a thinning cut works. You don't get as much stimulation of all this brushy new crowsfoot growth there unless the sizes of the two are dramatically different. But you direct the traffic outward. Now, when you use thinning cuts, let's go back to that Texas stage that I was talking about.

When you use thinning cuts, you may have a couple of wild hairs. This is what happened on Azelia too. By the way, you get this gangly shoot, this wild hair coming out, it's like I want to get rid of that. Follow it down to where it joined where it has a side shoot and cut it off right there.

And when you do thinning cuts and you finish pruning, you step back and you look at the plant, and had you not known that it was just prune, someone walking up to it wouldn't hardly notice that had been pruned. It would still have that natural form to it. By thinning cuts, And that is important. That's what we should be doing. If we have to prune a great myrtle, that's what we should be doing for that. All right, that's certainly true with fruit trees and bushes. Heading cuts

are almost never a good idea. We do thinning cuts on our peaches and apples and pears and fruit in general. All right. Number four, where are we on time? I got to watch my time here. Number four is letting hedges get top heavy. This happens all the time. Hedges

tend to grow outward at the top. So instead of that you know, straight walled hedge that you're making, what it ends up doing is becoming a capital V. The top gets wider and wider, and when that happens, the light can't reach down into the lower sections of the hedge, so that hedge that you put up to block a view to create a landscape. Wall suddenly becomes see through and your neighbor who likes to uh somebaye than his speedo's. Now unfortunately we have that unsightly view well because we've

lost the foliage in the hedge. So what you want to do is keep the tops of hedges, at least the walls vertical. But it's better to go a little narrower at the top. So I'll use I use the letter capital V as what happens as it goes wrong. Now i'll just say capital A. But of course you're not going to make it, you know, like a Christmas tree shape. But you want the top being a little more narrow. That's what we're aiming for, and that way

light shines on the top. The top's always going to be fine, and the top's always going to be where moot growth occurs. But all the lower parts of the hedge now get light and they maintain foliage, and you have the nice wall that you were looking for. And when I use the term capital A, I don't mean that slanted narrow at the top, but just a little more narrow at the top. That is one of the most common mistakes I make. I see it everywhere, and

plants are going to fight you on this. They you know, you cut narrower at the top, and you come back when it's time to prune again, and the bottom hadn't grown out much at all, and the top is just pushing out, and so people keep letting it do that, and it just gets worse and worse and worse. This happens to boxwoods, this happens to yo pine hedges, happens to a lot of different things. You got to keep

those hedges more narrow at the top. And remember, pruning is a stimulating process, so when you cut, it stimulates new growth to occur, and you're guiding and controlling how that growth occurs, so that whatever kind of plants you're pruning, all we've talked about a bunch of different kinds of plants, whatever kind of plant your punting, you achieve the goal that you're trying to achieve by doing that kind of pruning to it. We are about here, time for another

quick break. I will be back in just a moment. We're going to give you continue on with our nine common pruning mistakes. As we get to pruning mistake number five, I want to remind you that my website, Gardening with Skip dot com contains a new publication on growing transplants, the lighting that you need to grow transplants. I'll be adding to it one about how to grow transplants. This one is just about the lighting. We'll be right back

all right, folks, welcome back to Guardline. We're going to jump right back into our list of nine common pruning mistakes the people make, and we are hopping back in here at number five. Number five is leaving stubs. What is a stub? A stub is when you cut a branch off, and when you don't cut it off at the proper spot, pretty close to where it joins the trunk or another branch, and so you leave this little stub maybe an inch long, two inches long, sometimes longer.

But those stubs tend to die back. They don't heal over, and now you've got this dead little piece of wood that prevents the branch from being able to close that wound over. I use the term I used the term heal. Trees don't heal, They close over the wound, that's what happens. But the stub is in the way and it will not close over right, and now decayb comes gets in that branch and it then enters the interior of the tree. And so now eventually you end up with a hollow

trunk tree if it goes that far. But don't leave stubs. You don't want it'll just die and be a place for problems. There are proper ways to prune where you don't leave shrubs are stubs. There's inproper ways to prune, and so let's just talk about that. In fact, this is sort of a it's number five is leaving stubs. We're going to make it a little longer than just leaving stubs and stretch into a little bit the proper way to make that cut when a branch comes into

a tree. And by the way, I posted something to the garden line facebook page, a little video clip where I marked on a plant and then showed you exactly with the marks on the planet where to print. And we're not to print. You don't want to leave a stub, But on the other hand, you don't want to flush cut right up against the trunk. So if you were to look at a cross section of a branch, it's

a certain size. Whatever size the branch is going toward the trunk, and all of a sudden, when it gets to the trunk, it flares out where it attaches to the trunk. So once it starts to flare, the further the closer to the trunk you prune, the bigger that wound is getting. So what might let's say it's a small branch what might have been like an inch size wound, Then as you go closer, may end up becoming a

two and a half inch size wound. And that's a lot larger wound, And of course on bigger plants it's even more exaggerated. That larger wound is going to have to go further closing over, and we wanted to close fast, So that's not good. Also, where a branch attaches to the trunk on many types of trees, there is called a branch collar, and the tissues in that branch collar are the best for healing or for closing over the

wound callousen closing over that wound quickly. So when you cut too close to the trunk, you remove the branch collar. So not only do you have a bigger wound, but it's going to now heal slower or close over slower. In the meantime, So the goal is to follow that. In general, every species grows differently. You know, pines are different than maples, and maples are different than oaks and the way they attach things. But follow the branch toward the trunk and right where it begins to fly out.

That's about where you make the cut. Now, I know that's you know, go online look it up. You can kind of see there's some good information online on where to make that cut. But in general, just a quick way is just follow it down and where it's where the branch diameter starts to get bigger as it attaches. Right about there is where you make that cut that leaves the branch collar on. It still is a very small wound and it's going to close over much much faster.

So don't leave stubs, don't flush cut, leave the leave the branch collar. Make that cut at the right place. That is important. Number six is waiting too long to decide which of two vigorous upright shoots to leave is

the main trunk. Have you ever had a little tree and it sort of has two trunks or two branches coming up, and it's like either of those could be the main trunk and they are in competition, and it is a competition on the plant between those And if you think that it's hard to decide which one to take off, that's why people leave them. It's like I don't know which one to leave. I'll come back think about it later. Well, it'll be harder later when you

make that decision. And if you keep leaving it and you go a couple of years into the process, now you've got When you make that cut, you're gonna have a lopsided tree because all the branches from one trunk are going one direction and all the branches from the other trunk are going the other direction. So when you take one of those trunks out, now you have this tree looks like it was split cut in half. What you need to do is do it sooner. Always, always do it sooner.

to heal. Make that decision, and if you have to use a saw to make the decision, you've waited too long. But go ahead and saw it now, don't wait. I hope I pressed that hard enough, because that is a common mistake people may. Here's what happens if you don't remove them. These two branches are growing close to each other and in a narrow angle, a narrow V shaped branch angle. As each branch gets bigger, it grows in diameter, and at some point they start pressing together. And they're

continuing to grow in diameter. So it's like you know two kids in the back seat that are sitting too close together and they can keep their hands on it. They pushing on each other and fighting. They're just pressing apart, and that is pressing, causing a split pressure to form there in the branch. Now, when you get a storm, it's gonna split. And when it splits, you'll see all this black rotting bark on the one that's left upright.

The other one split off and fell off to the side that's that included bark that it can't heal across there, it cannot join across there. And so that's what happens when you have competing narrow branch angles and you let it go and go and go, and if you don't make the decision, a storm will make it for you later. Think of it that way. I think that probably makes some sense there, right, storm will make that decision for you later. So that was number six. Waiting too long

to do that. We're going to come back in a while here with some other tips for these nine printing mistakes, starting with let's see number seven. But for right now, I just want to say, you're talking about printing.

sort of butcher job. I drive down the streets all the time and see people that a bad printing service if you will, has has done damage to the tree that is not it's not going to recover from. You know, they look like hat racks sometimes when they get through with them. Martin didn't do that kind of work. He does proper work. That's why he is very busy because he does a good job and people have him come back. You can get Martin to call at seven one three

six ninety nine twenty six sixty three. That's seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three and have him come out and take a look at your plants when you do that call, or your trees. When you do that call, you're going to talk to Martin or Joe. And uh. If you don't hear Martin or Joe, hang up, you call the wrong place. Dallas seven to one three six ninety nine two six six three. We are in the Christmas season and it is time to find that gift for that hard to buy for person on your list,

and I would suggest Warbirds Unlimited. Warbirds Unlimited has all kinds of beautiful bird feeders and bird houses. They have birds seed, they have you know, maybe you just get one of the little suit cakes with the little cage they go in and you put that out there on the tree. Maybe you need a hummingbird feeder. There are a lot of cool, beautiful gifts that Wallbird's Unlimited. For people that are really into birds. There is a book by the founder that is outstanding, all about bird. Just

going to Walbirds. I want the book about birds by the founder of Warbirds and it is an awesome, awesome book. Now, while you're in there for yourself, grab some of the Wallbirds Unlimited Winter super blows and it is the feed that is best to be feeding. Right now, I'm gonna take a little break and we'll be back with more of the nine priunting mistakes. Welcome back to garden Line. Thanks for joining us today. By the way, this is a call in show. Don't you don't have to just

listen to me dron on here. You can give me a call if you got a question. Seven to one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two kt r H. We are going through nine common pruning mistakes that I see people make, taking them one at a time here as we go through.

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in our flower beds and our gardens and things. Black velvet molts does it. Cedar malts very. I love the fragrance of fresh cedar mults going out and the color of it too. Landscaper's Pride has that They also have a topsoil material. And I've talked to a lot of people this year that have had problems with their lawn areas dying out. They're talking about re sotting some things. This is a good time go in there with their top soil. It's a sandy loam mixed with some compost

fill in those low spots. Level it out. If you've got a garden bed your building up. You know, organic matters that decomposes kind of shrinks back down again, and that's why the pots on your patio that you put you filled two years ago now are about half full of soil because it's oxidized away. But this topsoil material, with the sandy loam and compost, you've got a good

solid sandy loam in there. So it'd be good for building up into a bed, for refreshing that bed, for mixing into the soil, and also, like I said, for repairing those areas. Landscapers Pride products are widely available in our area. You can go to Landscaperspride dot com and find out exactly where to buy them in your area.

But they are very widely available and they work. I was looking at some of the products and things that they have at Plants for all seasons, and you know they always have whatever is well, look at the name Plants for all seasons. They always have whatever you need for the season you're in. You know, right now you want winter color, they've got it. Blanch for all seasons. Maybe you want some bulbs for forcing or for planting

outdoors for spring, they've got it. Maybe you are looking for some decorations for the holiday, well, of course they got that, plenty of it. They're seed drag a whole wall full of seeds, and it is time to be starting seeds. Remember my publication on lighting for growing plants plant transplants is on the website. It's free. You can go download it and take a look at it and grab you some seed plant for all seasons and go after it. They also have other supplies that you need

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When you go in there, you're gonna get good advice, You're gonna get good plants, You're gonna get things that want to grow here and help solving some of the plant problems that may arise down the line with your lawns and your gardens and trees and shrubs, plants for

all seasons. They're experts at that, true lawn and garden experts. Well, let's go back into our nine pruning mistakes that people tend to make, and we are going to go to number seven, and that is not using what we call the three cut method when we remove a large limb. So I don't know if this has ever happened to you,

but it happens a lot to people. People are going to cut a large branch off and they try to do it with one cut, and they go right to where you should cut, or wherever they make the cut. They start cutting down, and then the weight of that branch causes it to fall, and as it falls, it strips the bark off the trunk or the branch that

it's attached to. And now you've got this long strip where the bark's been removed that is going to heal extremely slow because you've torn through the branch collar and torn down the side of the trunk, and it's a bad wound that takes a very long time to close back over. Instead of doing that, you can use what's called the three cut method. Okay, And here's what you do.

And there are lots of diagrams out there online if you just do three cut method pruning to just type something like that into your search three cut method printing. But basically here it is. Now you know from listening to what I said earlier, that you want to prune the branch off right outside the branch collar, almost to the trunk, but not quite. Okay, Now that's going to be the last cut that you make. The first cut. You go out from there, and it depends on the branch.

And the branch may be as big as your wrist, it may be as big as your leg, I mean, you know, So just go out maybe I would say, probably about about a foot somewhere between six inches and a foot out, probably more closer to a foot, and prune upward from underneath the branch only a third of the way through. If you go too far, it's going to sag down and pinch your saw and you're not gonna be able to get your saw out of there. So about a third of the way cut upward, then

go further out and from the top prune downward. When I say further out, I mean like, oh, it could be you know, four inches or six inches further out. Prune down and what's going to happen? At some point that branch is going to fall and break. But by making that first cut you prevent it from stripping down. It just snaps off there, and now you're left with this big stub which you can hold to one hand and cut down in the final cut, which is right

at the outside the branch collar. So one, two three. If that didn't make sense, go online. There's plenty of pictures. But if this brand is too heavy for you to hold with one hand, don't overestimate your ability there. Uh, then it needs to be removed with a three cut method or you will be sorry. All right, Well, that was seven of our nine printing mistakes people make. We're gonna come back with number eight and nine here in

just a moment. I appreciate you listening to the Garden Line our phone number if you'd like to get on the line with with Jonathan seven one three two one two k t R SO and we'll talk to you when we come back.

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them about it. They will come out and they will. First of all, they'll help you find the generator that works best for what you need. They'll ask you questions and you know, figure out what kind of generator, what size and all of that, how do you want to what do you want it to be able to do? And then they'll walk through every stage of the process from getting the proper permits and regulations to getting it set up. And then of course, as I have already said,

uh service after the sale. That is the most important thing when you were making a purchase, and Quality Home Products excels at that you were listening to Guardline, We're gonna go out to the phones here. First thing right now, and talk to Earl up in or out in Bay Cliff, Texas. Hey, Earl, welcome to garden Line. Early there. Yes, I am all right, Welcome to garden Line. How can we help today.

doing a wiper type application to the jungle rice. It comes up vertically above your lawn, right, and so you can you can use a wiper to get the herbicide on jungle rice that translocates down and kills it without getting it on your lawn grass, So that that would be a wiper. A wiper is just a sponge or a sponge or some some thing that soaks up the herbicide and and then when you brush it against the planet,

wipes it on there. If you go, if you go to my website Gardening with Skip dot com, there is a thing on there called Skips Herbicide weed wiper or Skip's weed wiper, and it tells you how to build one.

They're very simple and expensive to build. Yeah, it's just it works, and you know, it's a little tedious to use on something that's all over the lawn, but the bottom line is it will work, and so I use it on for a lot of different kinds of things that we have to deal with, So that that would be Yeah, So that that is what I would try.

states the ingredient and round up. There's even been now glyphasate resistant types of jungle rice popping up where people are just using glaphasate on it over and over again, and you have one that sprouts and it's resistant, and the next thing you know, you've got a a lot of these weeds that a product that used to work does not work anymore. That's true with insecticides, that's true with fungicides, that's true with the weeds as well. Another

reason not to misuse products for sure. All right, Well, where were we we were in the process. I'm talking about nine pruning mistakes. Nine pruning mistakes that I see made a lot and we are now on number eight and that is leaving too many branches on fruit trees. Now, I know you can overdo pruning, but many people just hate to remove branches even that need to be removed,

Unlike ornamental plants. The goal with your fruit trees is to produce a really nice yield, and so in order to do that, you gotta do quite a bit of pruning. You know, on grapes you may remove ninety percent of the growth that occurred that year and go back to just some little stubs with buds on them. If you look at how vineyards get pruned, even peach trees need

quite a bit of pruning. Now, your trees are going to produce many times more blooms than they need to set a full load of fruit, and you got to get light into the tree. As light moves down in that fruit tree, it will cause bloom buds to set all the way down. If you don't let light. It's kind of like that shrub I was talking about before. If you don't let light in. Now you've got all your fruit up on the top of the branch and a bunch of dead sticks down in the bottom. You

open those up. We prune peaches and plums in a bowl type or chalice type shape to let light get into the bottom. And you're picking peaches from your knees all the way up as high as you can reach, rather than getting on a ladder to get to the verse. Peaches that are on the tree, you got to remove those. You got to take out the water sprouts, the tall shoots that come from the interior of the tree, the suckers that come from the base of the tree, you

clean those out. You clean those out, and just follow the instructions. If you look at a publication on Aggie Horticulture, Let's say you want to prune a peach. On Aggie Horticulture website, there's a fruit section and a particular publication just on all about grown peaches, including pruningum and that and guide you on that. But just know this, with fruit trees, we do quite a bit of pruning, more than most people think that they would want to do.

All right, it was time for me to take another break. I'll be back with our final of the nine pruning mistakes. All right, welcome back to garden line. Well, shoot tops, Hey, I'm going to continue talking about some pruning things. But if you would like to get us call, maybe you get a question. All you gotta do is doll seven one three two one two k t R eight seven to one three two one two k t R eight. Simple as that be Canni's Plants and the Heights. Boy there,

it's so festive there at the holiday season. The decorations and things that they have, it's just fun. It's always a fun place. They always have great events and stuff. Speaking of decorations and things, right now, you can get thirty percent off all the wreaths and stems and garland and outdoor holiday decor that they have. You know, the are the faux wreaths that just they look so real. They're gorgeous and if you haven't done all your holiday decorating yet, you got to get over there. I mean,

they have a ton of really nice cool stuff. Really, I'm serious. It's the gift shop is unbelievable in there. I think those little nutcracker figurines or statues whatever you call them, are so cool and they have some of the most unique attractive ones that I've seen. They just I have a spot on my fireplace mantle I need to put something like that, I think, right next to the Christmas gnomes that are sitting up there hanging their feet off the side of the mantle. Buchanans can get

you fixed up on then. Of course, Buchanans is all about Native plants and all kinds of plants as a matter of fact. But there's some great natives for winter.

It does super well there. And even things like inland sea oats that have sort of like a their seedhead looks sort of like oats, and that's where it gets its name, but a lot bigger than oats seedheads. But it's a great groundcover, does good in shade. The plant seed heads are excellent for indoor decorating anyway. Just some examples. Buchanans plants. That's where you go. You ask the question, they give you the answer, and you go home and have a more beautiful garden landscape and indoors as a

result of that. By the way, they're located on Eleventh Street in the heights here in the Greater Houston area or in Central Houston area. Let's see, I was on number was I number nine. The final pruning mistake that I'm going to talk about right now is over pruning a plant. Now, some people get busy cutting and they don't know when to stop, and the end result is some pretty bizarre landscape plants. It would seem more at

home in a doctor Seuss book about that. I've seen some printing jobs where it's like, Okay, I don't know what to say about that. Only prune as much as is needed to accomplish a gol of training. Really, maybe you need to do some shaping, maybe you need to correct some things. Then put down the printers and step away so no one gets hurt, including the plant that you're pruning. That that is really true. Common examples of over pruning and miss pruning are prime example are lovely

southern crepe myrtles their hack backed every year. I'll advise practice that. That is a good example. People don't know when to stop. Do you know that you cannot prune a great myrtle? Now? During its development and growth. I would recommend training. It don't go untrained, because then that makes a mess. It grows into a mess. But a little training, but then after that you kind of don't

really prune them. I mean just a little bit here and there when something's not quite right, but they don't have to be pruned every year like you see people doing. Another example is pollarding trees. If you're not familiar with the pollarding, pollarding is where you take a nice tree and you cut it back to look like a hat rack. You got these big giant branches that are just cut off on the end, and then you get that crows foot of growth that comes out, and then they hack

them back like that again. And this is done in Europe. You can go online to a search for pollarding p O L L A r D. It's done as an ornamental practice actually, but it is horrible in terms of branch structure, the the structural integrity of a tree, and I just think it looks ridiculous. So that's my opinion. But seriously, you can do some serious self education on puning before you head outside with the tools in hand.

Your landscape plants, your orchard plants will be much more beautiful, much more productive for years to come with just doing a little bit of education. There's good books out there on printing. There's good websites out there on printing, and learn about the plant you're going to grow and how to take care of that plant. And I you know, I could take a whole show just talking about how to prine this, how to print that. There are some

things like, okay, here's an example Nandina. Nandina sometimes called heavenly bamboo. The old type got really tall, over six feet high, and had berries on it, and it had underground little suckers that came out, and it's sort of the clump got bigger and bigger. The modern types are more compact. They don't tend to spread as fast as the other. I see people prune Inndina like a shrub. They share it. It looks ridiculous. It does look ridiculous if you cut it back then it just looks like

you chop the top off of it. The way to print an indena is to remove the entire shoot at the ground. Now in Indina, think of it. It's kind of like bamboo and that you've got all these shoots coming out of the ground and growing straight up. You cut an old shoot that's not attractive, not productive, or maybe too tall for where you want it, cut it off at the ground, and new shoots will come up. So you could prone one fifth of the shoots out

each year. You could go a couple of years and do no printing and then come in and do something. But the way to print inn Adena is just to cut the whole trunk, whole trunk shoot down off at the ground and pull it out of there. And that's real simple. But that's very unique to prune. I bet we prune bamboo that way too, by the way, But anyway, learn not each plant needs to be pruned, and then go out and do the pruning. Once you have done

the work of pruning, you can't put things back. And this happens a lot on trees, but bad pruning practices or forever that when you truly ruin the structural integrity of a tree like that pollarding kind of thing, you're never going to get back to a nice, beautiful, well shaped, strong, good branch attachment tree. It's just not going to happen again. Well, I'm talking about pruning some things. We can also be

pruning some of our groundcovers. And now what I mean by that, well, at the end of winter, before the new growth occurs, I recommend with loriope and with cast iron plant, for example, that you cut those back to near the ground. Over the course of a summer season. With some leaf diseases, maybe spider mites in the case of the loriiopy, and just the rag and tag of summer droughts and heat, they get to looking kind of

shaggy and not so good. And if you cut it all back to the ground in early spring, it's gonna start popping up new growth out of that clump. And either you're gonna have a mix of old growth and new growth, or if you cut off all the old growth, now you have a fresh new lariope plant or plants or solid groundcover. Some people do and it looks good. Cast iron plants the same way. That is a tough plant. It can take shade, it can take sun, it can

take drought. It is just a tough plant. But it starts looking ragged and each leaf is a big petiole coming out of the ground with a big fat leaf on the top. And you can just get on your hands and knees down there and cut all those off. I know some people that will cut the whole thing off and just rake it all out of there, so it's like they mot it off at the ground like your lawn, and then the fresh growth comes out. I know some people that just go in and cut the

ugliest ones out and keep it fresh looking. It will come back and it will look good, and that is pruning. For those kind of groundcovers. Some people will mow things like an English ivy back or some other types of groundcovers. Mow it back to get fresh new growth coming out. And the other item that I want to mention in along the same lines, or ornamental grasses. Ornamental grasses are pruned back to just a kind of a stump. So perhaps you have what's called maiden grass or one of

the mules. You can cut it back to just I don't know, maybe four inches six inches depending on the size of the plant high above the ground. Take all that growth out and fresh new growth comes out. Otherwise you got the mix and it doesn't look good. If you're going to do that, there's some techniques that work a little bit better. I like to take some twine and tie the ornamental grass that's spreading all out in

all directions, tie it up. So you make a column out of that grass by tying it in a couple of places with twine, and then you just cut the grass off at the bottom and you pick the whole thing up and it's clean, nice, easy, all tidy. You carry it off, do what you're gonna do with it, and it looks good. If you go pruning, then now you're having to, you know, try to cut through it, and you got grass ling and everywhere. It's just a

messier process. But if you bind it up first, you can use a bungee cord or twine or whatever you want to do, it really makes it a lot easier to do that. And that's just a tip for pruning the ornamental grasses. But whether you're pruning a loriapi or cast iron or ornamental grasses, get it done before the new growth comes. Like with the loriope, if you wait until new growth starts, I'll say you do it in

mid February, you probably already got new growth. Then you're gonna have all these stubbed off new growth leaves that don't look right. So make that kind of pruning decision and get that done sooner rather than later. We could go on go on talking about how to prune this, how to prune that. There is if you want one resource that I can give you as a tip for pruning, the University of Georgia Extension Service. University of Georgia Extension Service.

Do a search on there. I'm not going to read the whole urlt you, but do a search on there for pruning landscape plants or I think the title of it now is Basic Principles of Pruning woody plants or Pruning ornamental plants in the landscape those kinds of things. Is a really good publication. It explains heading cuts and pruning cuts. It explains the proper way to prune to you know, successfully cut these things off and end up

with good results. And it helps you understand how plants respond to pruning, so you can make you can prune in a more educated way. Well, I'm going to take a break now and we'll come back with other types of topics as well as a conversation with Leon. You'll be our first up Leon when we come back. Welcome back to the garden line. I'm going to head straight to the phones and talk to Leon. Hello, Leon, welcome to garden Line.

I said that probably would use some copper fung aside and what you know, water the bush real good and then put mix up a gallon of it and pour around the base. Well I did that and it really didn't help. And it said you might have to do it every seven to ten days till it's time to get the fruit off. Now, well that's back in February.

pee out a bunch of sugar water. They don't use the sugar part of it, and so that falls on the leaves is a mist, and the city mold grows on that. That's where the black is. The black is just a fungus growing on sugary substances on the leaf. So the black secondary it does shade out the leaves a little and so you have less of little synthesis and stuff. So you do want to get rid of it, right, So what insect is it? There's a bunch of insects

that can do that. Aphids can do that, white flies, mealy bugs, and scale most likely your on your tree. You're looking at white flies or scale insects and they could be on the stems or they could be underneath the leaves. If you turn some leaves over you should see some really flat little things on there. White flies look like little fish scales. Now I know I use the word scale with white scale. Insects and white flies

are two separate things. But the white fly pupa look like little flat fish scales, very small, like a lowercase typed o letter O on the bottom of a leaf. And so what you do with those is probably I would get a horticultural oil spray, and I would spray it upward from beneath the plant and make sure you coat all the undersides of all the leaves, and that smothers the scale and kills them. It smothers the white fly pupa also that are under the leaf, if they're

part of what's causing it. I don't think you have aphids on your citrus, so I will eliminate aphids, which also produce or create city mole. But so it's going to be one of those two, most likely white flies and scale. I don't think it's mealy bugs. Those would look as like little puffy, cottony things typically like where a leaf comes off the stem some product.

I don't know if I'm going to eat the fruit. I just prefer not to use a systemic insecticide. There's some that are labeled for that, but I have to mention that they're there. But I think you're going to do okay with horticultural oil. You're gonna have to do it repeatedly, and remember it's only going to work as good as your spray coverage was. So if one leaf birks your spray from hitting another leaf, then you're not going to get control in those areas where you didn't get oil.

All right, welcome, welcome back to the Garden Line. I'm your host, skip Ricktor and we're here to help you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape and more fun in the process. That's what it's all about, you know, gardening has so many benefits. I know, you know that if you eat healthy food, you're going to have a healthy life, right, that's important. We can grow fresh food. We also know that beautiful esthetics have mental benefits for us.

Beautiful flowers, beautiful gardens, those kinds of things. We know the physical benefits of gardening. You get out, you do some exercise, you walk around, you get up, you get down, you do things. Gardening is great for that. And you know exercise doesn't mean going to the gym only and pumping a bunch of weights until you barely can lift.

When we look at health benefits, have you ever heard that, you know you're sitting at a desk all day, just getting up, walking around every a little bit is beneficial for your health. Well, gardening is walking around a little bit and then some very very good And then of course the cognitive benefits, everything from fighting depression, dealing with dementia's,

children with ADHD struggles. There are many benefits that the research has shown gardening does provide us when it comes to cognitive benefits too, and we could go on and on. Plus the social benefits, you know, getting together with gardeners, visiting with people sharing things, cuttings and seeds and stories. It's just a fun thing. Ask anybody in a garden club or master gardener group. They can tell you all about the benefits like that. So I think we've got

one of the best hobbies in the whole world. And I would even say best professions too, for those of us that have had horticulture as profession our whole life. That's what it's about. So let's have some fun here on garden line. Give me a call. Seven one three two one two kt r H seven one three two one two k t r H. Ace Hardware stores are always stocked with whatever you need to have success in

your garden and in your landscape. You know, from fertilizers to pest control, to insects, disease and weed management, to pruning tools, watering tools. Whatever you need, it's there at the ACE Hardware store. But this is the season, the holiday season when ACE loads up on really cool holiday lights, like there lights by the Foot, where you can purchase a string of lights by the foot exactly as long

as you want it to be. Holiday lights, indoor and outdoor, holiday decorations, indoor and outdoor holiday gifts from toys, for kids, to tools for the do it yourselfers on your list, to gadgets for the kitchen and the home, decorating the home. It's all there at ACE Hardware makes it really easy. You know, you can find ACE Hardware's all over the place. Go to Acehardware dot com and there you will see a list in the store locator of the Ace Hardware

stores near you. Now. For example, you're going to have an ACE Hardware Chalmers Ace out there on Galveston Island if your way up in Porter JY and R's in Porter Jnr's. ACE Importer is another one. Been to that store. It's a pretty cool one. Out in the Crosby area. There's Cross in the Bay City area. There's a Base City ACE. There's ACE all over the place. Wherever you live. ACE is the place I was visiting conversation via text

and email. We need Nelson the other day, and you know, Nelson's plant Food just has so many good products, so many different lines. They've got a plant food called Nutristar indoor plants now the Nutri Star line of fertilizers. There's a lot of different specific types of plant food in the Nutri Star line. Nutristar indoor plants is everything that

you need for your houseplants, your indoor plants. You know, you think about this, that house plant out in nature would have roots going everywhere, drawing from water and nutrients and things like that. In a house everything comes out of the small amount of soil in that container. That putting soil in the container, so supplementing it with nutristar indoor plants provides both slow and fast release nutrient sources to help maintain vitality, some healthy growth, some good beautiful

leaf growth. Most of our houseplants we grow for the foliage itself. You can apply it once or twice during the winter season and then more often during the growing season. You know that even though the temperature inside is pretty consistent through the year, not fully, but the day length changes. In our indoor plants, they grow less in the wintertime it's a little cooler, and it also the day length

is different. So once or twice during the winter and more often during the growing season for Nelson's plant food nutri Star for the indoor plants. I also wanted to mention that Dane Nelson set up a scholarship in memory of Randy Lemon. Randy was a legendary Greater Houston area gardening guru for many many years here over twenty five

years here on garden Line. He had that those of you who've heard Randy, I'm not telling anything you don't know here, but was so entertaining and he provided helpful advice that really benefited a lot of people over the years, and you may be one of those people. This scholarship was set up in Randy's name to honor his life and his contribution to the gardening world here in the Houston area. And each year a scholarship will be given to a horticulture student at Texas A and M. I

know Randy. He and I both love our alma mater, and he would be so proud to know that his legacy lives on at his alma mater in the horticulture department there at Texas A and M. Would you consider making a donation to that scholarship fund. Small amounts, large amounts, everything is helpful. We are trying to increase that fund because it is an ongoing scholarship that each year is going to be given. So the more that we put in there, the more it can be provided for students

to help raise up the next generation of horticulturists. I'm a product of that program off and so I'm always thinking about, well, who is coming along that is learning and being trained and ready to help people have more success in their gardening. So I see it as a good cause on many different fronts. Now you can go online and give, you can send in a check to give. And I'm not gonna give you all the details right now online because it's confusing to hear all that on

the radio. Just go to my website, Gardening with Skip dot com, and the newest updated publication right there on that list, right on the front page of the website, is the Randy Lemon Scholarship. Click on that and it'll tell you how to give online and how to give if you want to write a check and mail it in.

But please consider that this holiday season, those of you who have enjoyed Randy's advice over the years, I think it is a wonderful way to continue to or his memory and also to do a lot of good for some folks that are going through school to get their degree in horticulture so they can help other people. Alrighty, there you have it. Boy, this morning is flying you know time flies. Well, they say time flies when you're having fun. I'm having fun now, kurnit the frog says

time is fun when you're having flies. But that's just another way to look at it. Well, I have talked about a number of different things this morning. I did want to before we go here, mention that Star of Hope is a ministry here in the Houston area that makes a difference in people's lives. It's the holiday season, you know, we're trying to figure out what what is the next gift we're getting for somebody or the next you know, gathering we're preparing for. Many homeless people are

just looking forward to their next meal. And you can provide a meal for two dollars and eighty five cents and Star Hope gives over six thousand meals a week. That's a lot of meals. How many will you provide? Billy? You can join me in my wife in giving the Star of Hope. Just go to s o H Mission dot Org, s o H Mission dot Art and put your compassion to work for a very good cob. I'll be back after the top of the hour and the weeks and we'll continue discussions about.

Quality Lighting for growing Transplants. We are about to start the transplant growing season. I begin uh in after the Christmas before New Year's. Typically try to get my transplants started at that time. Uh wait a little bit later if you want to, but I like to get get them going earlier so I have a bigger transplant when it's time to put them out in the garden. Now,

that requires some space. You know, if you're just growing one of those little six pack four pack trays of transplants, you can get seventy two of them in about a nine by I don't know what are those things nine by twenty I believe something like that anyway, tray. But when you bump them to four inch pots now it takes a lot more time, and then I end up bumping some tomatoes up to gallum pots by the time I'm done, So I have tomatoes with blims and freight on them, and I put them out after the last

frost danger on average is passed. So that can take some space to do that. If you don't have the space, then you might want to wait a little bit later to start. It takes about six weeks to grow a tomato transplant or pepper transplant. Eight weeks is a little bit better, but you can do it in about six weeks. Many other things are in the six week range if you're talking about warm seasoned vegetables like that are in

the cucurbits like squash, for example. In cucumbers, normally we direct seed those right out into the garden, but if you want a little bit of a headstart, you can do that. But you're only going to give them about two or three weeks at the most to grow inside, because if they get pop bound, they don't transplant out very well. So whatever you're going to grow, count back in time and start them at the proper time for that.

This publication on lighting, I put it up first because it is the number one thing I see people do wrong when they try to grow their own transplants is not give them enough quality light. And when we start thinking about lighting, the quantity of light is important. If light is too dim, the plants are going to get stretchy and lanky and not perform well at all. The

Quantity of light, the quality of light is important. The lighting you buy for your home is a wavelength, or there are various wavelengths that are more for our eyes and that create I guess mood is a way to put it. You know, we have cool white that's kind of a bluish light, a very bright bluish light. And then we have warm white, like you know, you go into a restaurant and you're there in the boot at a restaurant and you got that kind of yellowy light

that's shining. That's a warm white, and it is an ambience kind of light too. There's times and places for that, but those are visuals for us and lighting for plants is different. Now you can use human lighting for plants, but you're going to have less performance, and in some cases the very poor performance when it comes to the spectrum. The quality of the light, and certainly the quantity as well. And then finally the duration. That's a third thing, quality duration.

Those three things, how long do you leave the lights on when I'm growing transplants, I, once the seedlings are up, I go to about fourteen hours a day, about twelve to fourteen hours a day, and that gives them enough light to do well. In my publication that I put online, Quality Lighting for Growing Houseplants, by the way, you need to look at it's really cool. You even have a little gift in there that shows how light comes out of a light fixture and spreads out as it gets

to the plant. So the further you get from the fixture, the dimmer the light is. And it is dramatic the difference it makes as you move from like let's say one foot away to two feet away or something. But anyway, that publication is there to help you have success with lighting, because lighting is so important, and if you've never tried grown your own transplants, you gotta try it. I do

a lot of things with lights gardening wise. For example, my house plants that have been outside, I've got too many now, they're too big, too many to put in my house. It would be a jungle, and I just don't want quite that ambiance in the house. So I have something that I put in the garage in the wintertime underneath a nice light that provides a moderate amount of light to keep them going. And so that's one way I'm used lighting. I'm using it to grow transplants.

I'm also using it to start cuttings. When I'm trying to root some cuttings and I want to get them going good. It doesn't take much light to do that. By the way, that's the lowest light level thing that we do gardening wises, is just starting the cuttings. They they need light, but they don't need bright light shining on them like a ceiling does. And I also use it This year, I'm going to try to produce some

things indoors under light. Still, like tomatoes. I grow tomato transplants, but what about keeping that tomato and going all the way to growing tomatoes indoors? That takes a lot more light, a lot higher quality light and I'm going to be doing some of that as well this year. But it's a lot of fun to do that. It also makes good Christmas gifts, good quality lighting heating mat to go underneath the tray of seedlings, the potting soil and the tray.

Some of the trays have little domes over them that help hold in the moisture and allow the light to go through. Those are helpful. I use those. So however you want to go about it, there's a way to do it.

clear top. I've started a lot of things and a lot of things like that, and you can do it and do it and dig cops if you want to. But however you go about it, just have fun doing it. And I'm going to also be putting up an article on how to grow transplants, not just lighting, but everything about growing successful transplants. That's the next one to go up on the website at Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot com. Well, it is time for

us to go to our first break this hour. When we come back, I'll be entering your calls if you would like to give us a call seven one three two one two kt RH. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm glad you're with us. Hey, anything you need for your garden. I'm talking about products to fertilize, products to control pests and diseases and weeds. I'm talking about tools.

I'm talking about fertilizer spreaders. I'm talking about everything, including even getting your lawnmower blade sharpened, which, by the way, now would be a good time to get that done. Is it Southwest Fertilizer Southwest Fertilizers on the corner of Bisinett and Renwick in southwest Houston around since nineteen fifty five, and boy, I'm telling you they have it. If they don't have it, you don't need it. That I just like to put it that way because that is the truth.

If you're looking for a Christmas gift, even go by there, talk to them, ask Bob, say, hey, I want to see that kneeling bench Skip keeps talking about on garden line, the one where you it folds up and then unfolds. You flip it one way and it's a seat to sit on. You flip it the other way and you kneel down on it. And the cool part about it is, and anyone over forty needs to hear this. You grab what was the legs of it and it's a handle to get back up off your knees. Now do you

go to your knees and back up again? Gardening about eight thousand times on a Saturday, and you wake up the next day in the prenatal position because you used muscles that don't get used enough. Well, kneeling bench fix is at It works really well for that. Also, cool tools like a soil knife on one of my favorite tools, is it soil Myebob's got those there at Southwest fern Lager, corner of Bestinett and Redwick phone number seven one three

six six six one seven four four. We're going to go back to the phones now and head out to Conroe and talk to Richard. Hello, Richard, Welcome to garden mine.

to have. By fertilizing too much with nitrogen going late into the season, and we can aggravate it that way too, So all.

several soil forms. There is one that says it's just the standard soil form that's more for pastures and cattle in farms and places like that. There's one called urban soil. Now, urban soil just means it's a garden, and it tells you where to take the samples, how to collect the samples. But the urban soil sample form is the one that you want. But basically to make to really simplify it, you're going to probably take oh about in maybe eight

different places around the yard or around a garden. You're going to take a vertical core of soil out of the ground. So you have the same amount of soil from one inch deep as you do from about six inches deep, okay, And so you you mix that all up and you send that in. About a pint of soil out of that send that in for your sample, and that gives them a nice blend of soil to sample.

If you just take a sample in one place, maybe it was a place where the neighborhood dog stopped and went to the bathroom last fall, and you know so that that would be a sample that's not accurate and representative of your lawn. So that soil testing dot TAMU did et You do the urban Soil Sampling form and

send it into the lab. The results will come back and if you have questions about the results, you can either go to your county extension office and talk to your county agg or horticulture agent about it, or if you want, you can give me a call here on Guarden Line. What I'll what I'll end up doing is having you send me the form and then then we can we can talk about it on the air about you know, because I like to answer things where other people can hear the answers too. I think they'll right.

That will be very helpful. Okay, I appreciate it all right, sir, Thank you very much. Appreciate your call. You take you take care. Uh. Microlife fertilizers are high quality products that are designed with nature and mind. You know what how does nature? How did the redwood forests become giant trees? Who was running through there?

those nutrients in the ratios that plants need. Microlife has products like the green bag, the lawn fertilizer. It can be used for anything but lawn fertilizer. That's the green bag. That's sixty four. They've got one for acidic plants. If you got blueberries or camellias or azaleas or you know, Virginia sweet spire, those kinds of things, the acidic product

works well for. They got ones for fruit trees. They got a lot of different products out there on the market, but they're all designed with the same thing in mind, and that is providing natural substances for microbe activity. And by the way, they also these products by Microlife are chock full of microbes. You can find more from Microlife Fertilizer dot com website. They're widely available. They'll tell you where you can get them on there too, But I

can just tell you this. Garden centers, Ace hardware stores, feed stores, and Southwest Fertilized. All these places carry Microlife products. That is important. I'm gonna have to go to a break here and when we come back, let's see David and John will be our first two up. Welcome back to garden Line. We are glad you are with us today. We've got lots of things to talk about regarding garden as we always do. What I'm gonna do right now

is head out to the phone. Suddenly, I think a bunch of people woke up and started calling garden Lines, So let's do this. David in Crosby, Welcome to garden Line. How can we help today?

And so whether you're hand digging it, whether you're spraying it with a herd aside, whether you're shading it out with there's a lot of things you can do to nuts edge, but you have to stay with it one year just to kind of learn about this. I had one nutsedge plant, and I let it come up in the spring and didn't do anything about it. And about May I carefully dug it up and it had eight daughter plants tubers. You didn't see the plant chet. They

were underground. The nuts were underground. The tubers eight of them that were viable. So by waiting until May, I had eight hundred percent increase in nutsedge in that bed. One plant becomes eight plants, right, and so that's lesson number one, start early. Less than number two is once the nutsedge comes up and gets three to five leaves, it is already or it is about to start producing the daughter plants to the sides, and so you need to do whatever you're going to do to it then,

or you've already gone backwards in time. There's like you're killing one, but you're you've already got more coming. So there are products that are very effective. There's one called sedge hammer that's labeled for lawn use that is very effective. One called sedge ender that's very effective. And these are all in that publication so you can you can go look at them. I also have a thing called a weed wiper. How to build one on there? And if you look at how to build a weed wiper. That's

what I use for nutsedge in all my beds. So if nutsedge is coming up underneath your rose bushes or in your land hannah or whatever, you with the weed wiper. You reach it on, you grab the nuts edge, and you wipe product right on the nuts edge. So if it were a product that we're going to hurt another planet, it won't because you're not getting it on the other planet. You're not spraying it. But the combination of nutsedge and in depth look and the weed wiper will walk you

through it. Bottom line is start early. When a plant has three to five leaves, you need to be doing something to it because it's about to increase your woes if you don't.

the other direction. You know, it's saying, hey, put out some fresh new growth and that's not going to survive a freeze. So we wane down on those at the end of summer or early fall at the latest.

gifts that are just gorgeous. You need to go see those things, of course, they're all about watergardens, but they all they also are a nursery and they have all kinds of wonderful plants all through the year. Go to Nelson Watergardens dot com or drive out there. Just head out to Katie. When you get to Katie Fort Benrod, turn right, it's just a little bit, uh, just a little bit north of iten on the right hand side, and you that are there at a very very special place.

I'm gonna take a break, folks, and we will be right back with your calls. Uh when we get back, we'll be talking to Daniel and Paula and Bill. Welcome back, folks, Glad to have you with us. Have you ever noticed that all these Christmas songs are about snow and sleigh rides? And I don't know, I've seen pictures of snow before. Okay, here we go. Let's see. We are going to head out to Cypress, Texas and talk to Daniel. Hey, Daniel, how can we help Hey?

in your area. If you're not successful there, I know that Buchanans Native Plants on Eleventh Street and the Heights has a lot of really good quality Christmas trees as well, not too terribly far from you, but a little further.

I do about it too? I had to have a new floor put in my second bathroom, and when the handyman took the toilet off, roots are growing up in the toilet pipe. But he said he needed to go on and put the toilet back and finish the floor, which I understand. And I got a product called root killer from one of the big box stores and put it in, but I'm not sure if it's working or

how you know, how often I need to use it. Also, I can't find the drain clean out anywhere in the front yard where it would be I know where the kitchen one.

burns the root tips. It doesn't kill the whole root. It just basically kills the tips and ends of the roots, and you got to do them periodically. But a plumber could also tell you on that what were your other I'm running short on time, so let's go to the questions that you had real quick.

it underneath the surface and watered in really good. You if it's trees and shrubs and things, you can give it one or two cups per inch of trunk diameter, one to two cups per inch of trunk diameter, spread evenly all through the bed and watered in really good, and that will get your I would wait to do that until spring because the plants aren't going to be growing much until then. Uh, and then watered in real good. I'm hearing the music, so I am going to.

to collect those and test them out. And my thought is if I could cross good Okrah with these old things from all over the world that are resistant, maybe we come up with a nematode resistant. Okra, I'll probably be long gone before that happens, but at least it's fun trying.

You know, how about their kids? You know, maybe there's a mom it for no fault of her own, has lost everything and she's living in a car with her children. How about where's she going to get a meal? Where's she going to get job training? Where is she going to get childcare to be able to have a job. Starve Hope handles all of that. They change the family's future, the future of the children, and benefit our community as

a whole in that very way. Do you know? Over six thousand meals a week are served by Star of Hope Starve Hope Mission here in the Houston area. For two dollars and eighty five cents. You can provide a meal two dollars and eighty five cents. My wife and I are supporters and have been of Star of Hope as we've gone through the years, a volunteer and supporting. I believe in it. I see it as money that is well managed, well spent, and it makes a difference.

Would you join me, join me and my wife in providing help for people in our community through Star of Hope. You can go to shmission dot org, Mission dot org and give there two dollars and eighty five cents buys a meal. And there are many other ways to provide help for the folks that Star of Hope is helping here in our community. I was talking to someone about some Medina products. Someone was called earlier and talking about how wonderful the products were, and they're really right. There

are a lot of great Medina products out there. One of the ones that I like to use that I find to be very very effective is Medina Plus. Medina Plus is Medina soil activators. That's a long time famous, well loved product by Medina. It's Medina soil activator fortified with the central micronutrients and growth hormones. Get them from seaweed extract. So those are all kinds of substances that

are apart. You know, plants need more than just nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, for example, they need trace minerals, and Medina Plus has got the trace minerals in it. It's got things like iron and zinc. It's got things like vitamin rival, flavent, diamond, biotin, nicotinic acid, and others. It's got sight of kind and a natural growth hormone that I was talking about from sebeed extract. It helps with bloom set, it helps with growth, it helps with establishment. I would soak seed in it.

Soak seed in Medina plus, dilute it down. Follow the instructions, dilute it down, soak your seed in it. When the seeds swell up, then take them out and plant them,

and you will see fast germination and good results. I would use it when I'm transplanting to soak the root ball of materials that are going to be transplanted, like a tree or shrub in the Medina Plus, or to just plant and then drench over it very well and repeat that drench about twice more about a week apart, and you will see a very good early response on those plants that you're putting in the ground. One of the many good products from the folks at Medina. Let's

see here, where are we on our top. I believe that I'm about out of time, so we're going to take a quick break here, and when I come back, Mike and Spring and Rachel out in Chapel Hill, you're gonna be our first two up. All right, welcome back to the garden line. We're gonna go straight out to the phones, and let's see where were starting. We're going to head to spring and talk to Mike. Hello, Mike, welcome to garden Line.

get really thick and they store all the carbohydrates. So when you come out of winter, you want to cut that asparagus back to the ground and then the new spears that come up will have some size to them like you're looking for. And then as you harvest them, the crown gets weaker and weaker because it's spending energy to grow spears, and then you're cutting them off and it's never getting them up in the sunlight because you're

cutting them off to eat. At some point when they're about pencil size, you stop harvesting it and then let it replenish and go through the season. And that's kind of a cycle for asparagus. But the key is to get a good strong plant established that can send up some better spears than what you're seeing right now.

you would. You know, if you went up to Kansas or Missouri or someplace, okay from the asparagus. So I've talked to people who've tried cutting it back at different times, you know, to get some fresh growth out. Maybe a little bit earlier in the winter, but in general that what I told you before is that's kind of the process that we do for asparagus.

that in storage, so they treat them with that. I would just go to a local garden center, local feed store, you know the places where you get that locally and buy your new potatoes from them. There's red kennebec. Red kennebec is a common red pontiac is another one that you can get locally. Those will be at your local places and if you plant those, you should have good results. Now,

if it keeps happening. We need to get a good look at exactly what that potato looks like when it's as you describe, and maybe figure out is it a disease in the soil or is it something else going on? But I think trying fresh next spring. You know, February is when you're going to be planting seed potatoes, and so just go ahead and get some fresh ones locally, and that's what I would do.

in the yard as a hedge row. I just wondering what the proper spacing on that would.

as they grow. That would make a wall of foliage. That hedged term you used, it would be more like a hedge like growth to it. Okay, Yeah, that's the thing. They just need to support. Some people just have a single rail like a rail fence, and they tie them to that and then they send out their new shoots sprawling in all directions from that, and you just keep them trimmed back.

you can have three terminals with blooms on them. And so as you develop a more bushy rose instead of a long lanky shoot, you have a fuller amount of shoots, you're going to have more and more blooms produced as a result, and they'll be down lower as well. You know, as you described this one went way up and out of bloom at the top, So you can bring that down a little bit. But that's the pruning process. You prune it as it regrows, it blooms, and then you

print it back again. If it's a shrub type rose, you just prune it back again. And the more shoots that break out and grow from that pruning, the more blooming you're going to have on it.

back up a little bit from where you cut them. Right, very well. Thank you all right, sir, Thank you appreciate the call. Good luck with that. Send me a picture whenever you get the whene of you get some blooms on that, I'd love to see how they look. That would be fun. Well, it is time for me to take a break. I will be right back with more of your calls. Seven one three two one two kat r H. Welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line. Hey, if you'd like to give us a call, we have

got thirty minutes in the show today. I'd be happy to help you before. If not, we can wait till next week and do it on Saturday or Sunday next week. We're here every Saturday and Sunday from six am to ten am. Thanks for being a guarden Line listener. And tell your family and friends and neighbors, especially the neighbor that won't you take care of his landscape, tell them about garden Line so they can listen in too. You

can hear us live on KTRH seven forty am. You can listen to us on your computer if you'd aluck to do that, or you can download the iHeart Media app and listen live on the iHeartMedia app. Oh my gosh, I got music going here. I'm trying to shut it down and I do not know how to do that. Let me there we go, coming in off the side.

The iHeartMedia app will allow you to listen live. So you can take your phone, go out in the garden, turn the phone upside down, turn the speaker on loud, and listen to Guarden Line while your garden, and who knows, maybe you'll take a picture and email it to me and call in and we can talk about it. There. Other other you know, podcasting types of apps carry Guardline as well, of course, but for the live listen, the iHeart Media apps the way to go. So just some

different ways to do that. I've talked about the folks that fix my slab foundation repair, specifically Ty Strickland, the owner, many many times. You know, I don't know anyone who has got the experience and the business perspective that I find so helpful. And what I mean by that is TI's been doing this for twenty three years. You know he's a native Heystonian, fifth generation Texan. Tye knows what

he's doing. He understands our soils, the way they shrink and swell and move and cause problems in your sidewalk, problems in your driveway, and worst of all, problems in your home foundation. The thing I like about Tye's approach to business is he looks at it this way. When he shows up for a job, Number one, he's going to show up on time. That is important. Had a plumber come out to the house when was this just a few days a week ago? And he said, I'll

be there Saturday morning. Well, Saturday morning canan mo went Finally late in the day. I call him, Hey, what's going on? And he shows up at the end of the day. I was lucky even came the same day. Ty shows up on time. Tye prices his work fairly. That is important fair pricing. And also very important is when ty fixes it, he fixes it right. It's not like halfway. It's not like he fixed it but it broke again kind of thing. He knows what he's doing.

You can give him a call at two eight one two five, five forty nine forty nine two eight one two five forty nine forty nine. Tell him you reguard one listener free estimates for garden line listeners. So when you see cracks in the brick on the outside, when you see cracks in the sheet rock on the inside, when you got doors that are sticking, that is just something's moving. You need to give him a call. Go

to the website fix myslab dot com. Fix myslab dot com to eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. Nobody wants foundation problems. I mean, it's like, oh my gosh, kind of like me with my plumbing. It's like, oh man, I don't want to deal with this. But don't be an ostrich and put your head in the sand. Go ahead and get it taken care of. What you'll find a lot of times too is you may be surprised

at Tie's assessment. I talked to him a long while back about a situation one of my daughters had at their house and what we were looking at and all the information and stuff, and you know, he said, you know what, that is not worth fixing right now. It's it's within the range of what is acceptable you know, and I wouldn't. I wouldn't go into the time, money and expensive fixing it. I was surprised. I thought if there was any kind of an issue, you had to

do something right away on it. Well, not necessarily. Each situation is different, and Tyle shoot straight with you on that. You were listening to garden Line. We've been talking about a lot of folks to a lot of folks today. It's kind of quiet right now on the phones if you'd like to get through on a call, and that would be a good time. This is our second to last segment that we're winding up here. It is important when you are going to have success in the garden

to just understand some basic things. Plants need. Plants need good drainage, plants need good light, plants need good soil. That's first, first of all, soil quality, and need to plant things that are adapted to here. Sometimes that means it's a species that grows here. That are species that doesn't grow here that you don't want to plant. Sometimes it's a cult of our variety that grows here. And

sometimes it just understanding which ones will do best. Sometimes it means going, hey, you know what I need to have a second variety to pollinate the first briety. Like, how about this, If you're going to plant a peach tree, do you need two trees so they can pollinate each other? There's no a self pollinating If you're going to plant a plum tree, do you need two to pollinate each other? In most cases, but there are some that are self

pollinating with beaches. They are all self pollinating with plums some, but it never hurts the plant a second variety. Take blueberries, for example, a blueberry can produce berries itself without a partner plant, but you will get more and bigger berries if you put a second variety with your first variety. Now why is that? Well, have you ever been into a blueberry and seen the little, tiny soft seeds inside? You know, there can be dozens of seeds in a blueberry,

and everyone that gets pollinated makes that berry bigger. Seeds give off hormones that make fruit bigger, and so a well pollinated blueberry will be larger than a poorly pollinated blueberry. That's why we do two varieties for that. Apples generally are going to require pollination pairs kind of a mixed bag there, but they it's generally good to have a second variety, but they can self pollinate. It's not a problem. So what do you do when you've got a fruit

tree that is a lonely Hearts club fruit tree. Let's say it is an apple and it needed a variety, but you only have one. It needs another one. Well, you could go find a neighbor with a different variety, cut a little branch off, put it in a little pail of water, stick it underneath the tree, or hang it.

Put in a coke can hang it from the branches and let the bees visit that trimmed off branch from your neighbors and yours and pollinate itself while you plant and get another one up to speed so you can have the cross pollination. Right there, Just an idea, a way to deal with things when you need a pollinator and you ain't got one. Well, it'll get you through. But in the meantime, find some that's going to be a good pollinator and add it to your planting so

you can have success. All right, we're going to take a little break. We'll be back for our last segment. The phone number if you'd like to call seven one three two one two kt RH. Hey, we're gonna jump right in here on Guardline. We've got a couple of calls we're gonna finish up with today. I did want to remind you again that if you're looking for some holiday shopping, ACE Hardware has got you covered, from kids

toys to adult toy. You know, the tools for the do it yourself, the tools for the in the kitchen, for the cooker, the cooking, the chef, the whatever you got in there. They just have a lot of things. You walk in there and you look at the decorations that they have, it is amazing. You're going to find so many cool things when you go into an ACE Hardware store. Each is independently, open owned, so each has

its own flavor. They're all Ace. They have the standard A stuff, but each has its own flavor, and you be really surprised. You know, you can find ACE Hardware stores all over the place. For example, there is Wharton Feed and Ace down in Wharton, Texas. I was there given a talk earlier this year. Plantation out there in Richmond and Rosenberg. There's the Sinko ranch Ase in Katie. I was at that one as well this year. You can go all the way up to Lake Conroe. ACE

for all seasons. Ace and willis forty of them around the area. Just go to Acehardware dot com and look for the store locator and find the ones near you. While you're there, pick up your holiday lights for indoors and outdoors. Pick up your holiday decorations for indoors and outdoors. Because, as they like to say, ACE is the place. We're going to go. Now to the phones, and I'm gonna go to Southwest Houston. We're gonna talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, Welcome to garden line.

end up more on the level. Get as much of the woodchips out as you can. Once it is sunken down, then you can go ahead and plant in it. It's just you don't want to plant a pecan and then suddenly now it's too deep because it's it's sunken down a little bit. Okay, So the best time of year to plant up a country, all right, is well you now fall is good winter is good. Spring is Okay. You can plant them in the summer, but it's a

lot more stressful time. It's more touch and go and difficult to have success compared to planting in the fall or winter.

it's mostly clay down there. But anyhow, when I got to the bottom, it was just it was just soaking wet, and and then so I'll pulled up all this mud and got and so I said, well to make it, I went all the way around it with that and I actually pulled it out of the ground. And so is that savablele Can I clean it up? And it's still has leaves and it's still green.

they have stiff leaves. And let's say you had a sprink order that was in the bed and it was spraying water one way, and anything that blocks that spray prevents a section of soil from getting the water it was supposed to get on it. And with hollyes, you want to wet all the way around them with a good soaking on a frequent basis to keep them moist. And that's why I like canned watering because there you're

in charge. You know everything's getting watered properly at a good depth, and your ideal with the auger is a good one. By the way, you can you know how we do aeration in our lawns and compost top dressing. When you auger out, you could throw a compost down in those holes too and let that decompose hollies or love a forest floor environment. So adding composts down in there just creates more of a rich soil over time as you do auguring and compost top dressing and stuff.

And that's not something everybody the plants a holly needs to do, but since you got the auger, I would take advantage of that, but mainly keep them moist and just remember the first three years until it gets a good strong root system established, it's more touching go because the roots are confined. The demands are high, especially in summer heat this time of year. It's shouldn't need nearly as much water. In fact, probably no supplemental water. But just kind of watch it and see.

and things. It'll loosen the soil plenty for that, Holly, you do not need to do a rototail. And I think the way I'm describing it as better even than trying to roll.