Beware: Cooler Temps are Ideal for Germination

Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skimp Richter's Crazy trim. Just watch him as so many teats. Good morning, Good Sunday morning. It is a beautiful day in store for us. Today is going to get warm today like it has been nothing eighties, which, hey, if you went through this summer, you know the eighties is like somebody

left the refrigerator door open or something. But boy, is it going to cool off after that. We got some cool weather and I'm going to talk about that because there are some things you need to know about what's going to be going on in your yard and your landscape because of the cool weather that's coming. We will leave that as a little teaser for right now, and we'll get to it here in just a little bit. Welcome to Garden Line. We're glad you're listening this morning. If you'd like to give us a

call, maybe you got a question something you'd like to visit about. You can give us a call at seven one three, two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four I was out at Southwest Fertilizer yesterday and thanks for everybody that came out. Boy, we had a group, and those of you who took time to wait and get a chance to visit with me at the table, I really appreciate that.

I appreciate that patience, and I do not take that for granted. We had a whole lot of bags of plants coming out up there, you know, the weeds, and I saw a lot of weeds yesterday as well as a lot of other things too, And we just had a really good time. And thanks to Southwest Fertilizer for hosting us and giving away some really nice prizes and things. That was that was especially nice as well. We had

a really good time. But while I was talking to people, somebody asked me some questions about minor nutrients, you know, trace elements, the you know, how do you do you do you put on the asmite now kinds of questions, and I was explaining to them and I guess this, you know, I talk about it from time to time, but I think it doesn't really make sense to a lot of folks, and that is that a fertilizer is something that adds nutrients, so in a sense, you could call

azemite a fertilizer, but I prefer to not think of it that way because it will help you understand how and when to apply it, and and what and how much to apply when you're when you think of your standard fertilizers, and right now we're doing fall fertilization. Those there are the big three numbers, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Sometimes they have micronutrients also include certain micronutrients also included. Sometimes they occasionally have secondary nutrients to the big three.

Things like magnesium or sulfur might be in. There are calcium, but a trace mineral is something needed in very small amounts, but it is absolutely essential. So if you take some obscure nutrients, it's one of the twenty or so that plants have to have to survive. Let's say molebdanum as an example. How many times have you gone to the garden center and gone, do you have any molybdenum fertilizer? Of course never, but your plants have to

have that. Now, it's probably already in your soil, but it may not be its sufficient quantities. And when we add trace minerals, we make sure that when the plant needs to do whatever it's doing, growing roots, growing leaves, making fruit, whatever it needs, the molybdenum is there and that's why we add the asmite for example, and so those trace elements we

don't have to quote fertilize with them every time we fertilize. Your soil test will tell you what your levels of those are, and so you know. But in the absence of a soil test, I would recommend that once a year. You could do it twice if you felt like the plants needed it. You apply a trace supplement like that. And azemite is just an example of what we're talking about, and it's an excellent example. You can go to azamite Texas dot com and learn a lot more about that product. But

that's what we're talking about. So, yes, we fertilize at certain times of the year with certain products. You can do azimite at any time you want to do that, and it's easy to remember when you're fertilizing. So I usually say, when you fertilize, consider doing the asimite, but just know that it doesn't have to be at a certain time of the year. It's not going to make your grass grow faster like the nitrogen, for example, it's going to stock the soil with the nutrients that plants need. Well,

let's go on out now to Katie. We're going to talk to Ralph this morning. Good morning, Ralph, Good morning. Skip. Have a quick question. I've already put the Texas trio down a couple weeks ago, and I went ahead and air rated my yard yesterday. I guess I should have done it the opposite there, but got a wild here did it today? I was going to put a's in mind. Is there something else that you can put in addition to that to I guess help the soil as you

have it open right now? Yeah, No, not really. The compost top dressing we often do after a narration because with those holes open, you can get a little bit of organic matter down into the soil, and it also helps kind of hold you the hole open. A little bit of that having that organic matter in there, because it helps drainage so air and water can move in better. But other than that, I think you've kind of covered it. The only negative of the aerrating after the Texas three stop is

that the barricade forms a barricade over the soil surface. And so when you punch holes in that barricade, if you will, now you have little areas where you potentially could get a weed germination. Maybe the soil that comes out of that plug now is land on top of the soil. But that is not a huge deal. I mean it just if you have the choice, go ahead and put the pre emergent after you air rate, but don't reapply the pre emergent now you definitely don't want to do that. You put the

right amount, don't double up on it. Okay. One last question, what about putting down like rye on some of the areas that might be a little bare because of the heat this summer. Well, the problem the problem with that is now that you've put the barricade down, it stops broad leaf and grassy seeds from germinating, and so you're going to have trouble getting a stand of rye. Follow the application of barricade fair enough. I'll just put the age of mind and let it go. Yep. Sounds like you,

you know, good shape there. You're doing a lot of good things to the lawn. So I hope it has I hope you have a good success with it. Hey, appreciate your show. Thank you, Thank you very Muchrov appreciate the call very much. Yeah, it is important, and we were just talking about, you know, the nitrofoss Texas three step and basically what that is is the fall special for winter riser. That is the right ratio of nutrients to help your lawn get strong for winter and come out stronger

in the spring. Second step is that barricade. That's a pre emergent. It you watered in with half inch of water. It goes into the soil surface and stays there. It doesn't wash it down through the soil. It's made to tie up right up near the surface where the weed seeds are going to germinate, and when they try to come through the barricade, it is a barricade that prevents that. Now, the third step would be the Eagle turf fungicide and we enter the cool season and we start to see things like

brown patch up here or take our root rot reinfect at that time. Uh, this is a protectant. It's systemic. It goes into the grass and it prevents those diseases from attacking. So if you've been having a problem with brown patch year after year after year, number one. We need to get you into a stronger turf situation, a healthier turf situation where you're not predisposed to that, but that fungicide can help break that cycle for this coming season.

Now you can find nitropost three step at Cyprus Ace Hardware, Fishers Hardware down in La Port and Plantation Ace Hardware out in Richmond has it as well. Well, it's time for us to take a little bit of break when we come back. If you would like to give us a call at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, Josh will get you on the board. Who are you going to call? Well, I suggests calling

garden line not about ghosts, but plant related questions. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two fifty eight seventy four. So I was talking earlier, kind of got a little teaser about, Hey, this weather means we need to be aware of some stuff in our landscape. So let's let's talk about that a little bit. When weed seeds germinate, the things that make them germinate are number one, moisture and the seeds.

As the water soaks in the seed, it initiates a germination process, but temperature also. Each weed seed has a range of temperatures that it's likely to germinate. And I say weed seed, it could be a radish seed or you know, a sunflower seed, whatever you're planting. As it germinates, it it's when it's moist, but when the temperatures are right. As

temperatures drop in the fall. And when I say temperatures drop, of course we're thinking about the air temperature, but it's actually the soil temperature which is connected to the air temperature. But as it drops, those weed seeds then

begin to germinate more rapidly. They're able to germinate. And with this cold weather that's coming in, and maybe cold isn't the right word, but cold for here, as the temperatures drop down, the soil temperature is going to be decreasing, and the weeds that are the seeds that are there in the top inch or so of soil, they're going to be able to start germinating.

And so those things we do with in the spring, like chickweed and hen bed and clover and let's see annual bluegrass, the one that's called cleavers. It's kind of like the velcrow weed that sticks to all of those cool season weeds. They will begin germinating now and they'll form little plants that sit there through the winter. If you looked at them, you'd say, oh, yeah, there's a little seedling there, but you don't renoice them.

But then when we go through the holiday season and we come into spring and the day link starts to get longer and the temperatures start to get milder, they take off and grow. And our blue bonnet is the prime example of that, our state flower. It does exactly that. It germinates in the fall, kind of sits, there's a little rosett of leaf in the winter time. And boy, then in spring, I mean, it's almost knee high, and there's blooms everywhere and seeds flying everywhere. And by the way,

blue bonnets do throw their seed. I don't know if you knew that or not, but they fling their seed all around. I was sitting in a blue bonnet patch one time at about that time of the year, and you could hear these little clicks. I had a little hat on, and actually I could hear the seeds landing on my hat as if someone was flicking

them up in the air. And they were dropping on my hat. And it's because the plants are throwing their seed everywhere, which is a pretty cool thing if you're a plant, because you spread a wider and wider range of you know, your offspring. So anyway, that's what blue bonnets do, and that's what our other seeds that we would consider weeds and our lawns are doing, lawns and landscapes and garden beds and whatnot. So now is the time to do two things. Number One, if you have bare soil areas,

cover them with mulch. When you block out the light, the little seeds cannot push. They don't have the energy to push through a thick mulch trying to get to light. In fact, some it's actually the light itself that helps in that germination. So mulching helps prevent weed problems. And if you miss it a little bit, and now you see these little tiny weeds coming up in your garden beds, throw multch on top of them, because if they're real small, it'll still kill them. It'll smother them not from

air, but from light. The other thing is there's areas you can't maultz, like your lawn and when our lawns get thin, and boyd did this summer ever make our launs? Then well, what do we do there? That would be where a pre emergent herbicide would come in. Now, certainly things like compost top dressing work, but at the very thin layer that's put out for a compost top dressing is generally not enough to fully block out all

weed seeds, but it does help with that. But the pre emmer and herbicide goes to the soil surface and then when the weeds try to come through, it prevents them. And so that's why we talk about those kinds of things, especially now in October. But cool season weeds can germinate in November, they can germinate in December. Even our winters are so mild here that

when the temperatures are right, you can get germination. It's just that it begins when the weather cools off and the weather is about to cool off. So because of the way they work, some of them will kill very small seedlings. Some pre emergent herbicides they have a little bit of a kickback, you know, like, well you miss germination, but the seedling is still so young it'll kill it. But most of them don't do a great job about that, and so we want to get it down ahead of time.

It's as simple as that, so that this weather reminds us of that. The weather also reminds me that diseases like, for example, brown patch, the big circles, the brown patch in your lawn that is brought about by several factors. Temperature is a huge one. That's why you don't see big brown circles in the summer. It's too hot for that particular strain of that disease riseoc tonia. And the moisture is another huge factor. Disease is like

moisture. Almost all diseases like it to be a little on the wet side. And in our lawns. We can't control rainfall. But a lot of people are still running the irrigation as if it was July, and that's way way too much water. Did Your lawn does not need that. We're getting rain. The soil is moist a little supplementing here and there is fine. But the more often you wet the soil, the more disease problems with brown patch you're going to have. So if you continue to keep it wet by

squirting your lawn, three times a week. For example, you are asking for brown patch problems. If you mow your lawn real short and try to make Saint Augustine and inch and a half high rather than two and a half inches high, you're going to have more problems. If you put a spring or summer fertilizer which has higher nitrogen levels on your lawn now and push it

with extra nitrogen, you're going to have more brown patch problems. And when the cool weather arrives, which here it is we're on the doorstep, you're going to have more brown patch problems. So everything you can do culturally, you want to do. If you've got a lawn that's been plagued by year after year, a pre preventative type product that can soak into the plant, and that's where the eagle fungicide Nitroprusses ego would be an example of that.

That will help prevent the problem when it rives. But don't wait until the circles are there. When you see a circle, it means the leaves have been rotted off that runner. And when the leaves have been rotted off the runner, you're not going to get new grass blades and green up that circle until the weather warms up enough for the grass to start growing actively again. So you got money of looking at ugly or you prevent it that. That's how that works. So with this cool front that's coming, uh, and

just be aware that you're lawn watering. Your lawn is not going to need the water that it's been needing, so don't add to that. Don't increase the incidence of disease. So you have several things. You got cultural options, You've got a spray option or a granular depending on you know, what kind of products you're putting down. But when you put those down, that is the thing that helps prevent it. Also. All right, I hope that makes sense. But it's kind of big news that the weather's cooling off.

It's big news because we don't want to walk around in hot weather. We're ready for some cold. I got some sweaters I've been staring at going I wonder if I'm ever going to get to put those things on. And so it's good weather, good good news for gardeners. Hey, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three

two one two fifty eight seventy four. Those products I'm talking about, you know, the fertilize, the pre emergent products, the disease control products. You can get all about it. Ace Hardware. And you know I've been telling you that Ace Hardware has thirty nine stores in the Houston area. Do you know that I was lying? It's actually forty. I just found out they've added some more stores. In fact, they had a couple more stores Orange. If those of you out in Orange, you got an Ace Hardware

that's part of the Houston group. Now in Bay City also has a new group. By the way, I bet you didn't know this, but ACE is a place for everything you need. But it's also the place for all your Christmas lighting and decoration needs, both inside the house and outside the house. So maybe you want to do some lighting for the tree, or lighting for indoors a house, or lighting for on the outside. They've got custom lights by the foot. They got box sets and various configurations with multitude of

colors and sizes. Do you need a wreath, do you need some garland? It's at Ace. Tell you Ace has everything. Ace is the place, that's what they say, right. Most stores have their full displays out ready to go. Now, So go check them out when it comes to decorating inside your house. Hey, you got to swing by there to grab the products you need for your lawn and garden. Why not also go ahead and grab that holiday lighting that you're looking for. Ace Hardware dot Com look

for the store locator. You can find one near you. And now that's even easier to do with two additional stores in our local group. That is that is cool stuff. My days of climbing up on a ladder are limited now. I don't do that as much as I used to. But I've got folks, kidson, and there's significant others that are willing to help out with that. So I'm very, very very grateful for that for sure.

Hey, I mentioned that yesterday I was out of Southwest Fertiliser. Next Saturday, November fourth, eleven thirty to one thirty, I'll be at Ciena Maltz. Ciena Maltz, that's right. Ciena Maltz is down there near It's just north of Roach Sharon. It's on FM. You can go to cienamultch dot com find out more about them. But I've got an idea. Why don't you come out next Saturday? Let me let me show you the wide variety of products, all these fertilizers, all these mulches, all these soil products.

This is primetime season for doing that, and I hope that you will come out next Saturday and visit with me. They're actually having quite the shindig out there at Ciena Moltz. There's a there's a lot of different things that they've planned. We got a lot of different folks that are going to be out there. They're calling it fall Back in Love with your Yard. I think that's a good idea. They're going to be giving away prizes. The

first ten customers are going to get a gift card coming out there. I'm going to be giving away some products as well. Out there. A lot of our sponsors that you've heard about here are going to be out at Ciena molt It's going to be quite a deal. They have a little Mary had a little party trailer with some treats as well. Just fun to be out there again. Write this number down ninety six fifteen FM five twenty one and

row Sharon ninety six fifteen FM five twenty one or cienamultch dot com. I hope you'll come out next Saturday after the garden Line Show and let's visit and as always, bring your samples, bring pictures, we'll talk about whatever you're interested in. To get your long and good, great, wonderful, beautiful shape going into the cool season. Well, we're gonna turn it over to the Nicki News Network our phone number seven one three two one two KTRH if

you'd like to get on the board. Good morning, welcome to garden Line on a beautiful Sunday morning, still dark outside, but it is going to be a great, great day. Hey, if you are interested in perhaps a gift for friends, maybe you're gonna go visit for Thanksgiving, or you're just getting ready for the holiday season. In general, think about Wilberd's unlimited. I mean, they have an outstanding array of things that pretty much anybody

would find beautiful and interesting additions to their landscape, their home. They do all of that kind of stuff. You know, our birds right now, or because the days are getting shorter and get a little cooler as we move forward, short days and longer nights means there's less daytime hours for birds to fuel up, and Wi Birds has created a special product. It's called the Winter Super Blend. It's packed with fat and protein that these birds need as

we go in to this winter season. Also, by the way, if still if you have your hummingbird feeders, leave one up. The roofous humming birds are still around a few of them. They stick around here and you may get lucky enough to see one through the holiday season. Guddenly leave those up. And finally, just remember that even though you know we're getting some moisture, we got some moisture in the soil, birds still need a pool of water to get a drink out of, and so keep the water out

for them. I just filled up two containers the other day for our left town. Make sure that we have plenty of water for our birds in the backyard. Also stocked up the feeder a little bit before before we're gone. I've got that squirrel excluding feeder, which is the coolest thing I've ever seen. The Wilbirds also has that as well. Go to w BU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot com forward slash Houston and you can find out the

wildbird stores in our area. We're gonna head out to Nadville now and talk to Jan. Hello Jan, good morning, Skip morning. I would say how are you, but I'm not gonna waste your time, you know. I always say, nobody really cares. Yeah, that's right. There. Used to be a radio host in Austin, and people are you know, because it's an American thing. We just go how you doing? You know? And he would always go, do you care? I think you trying

to break people asking him that question. Michael, Yeah, Michael Berry says, just get to the point. There you go, there you go. So anyway, what's Jen's point? I had some really large old crepe myrtles and they're just scraggly. What can I fertilize them with to bring them back to make it really pretty blooms? Yeah, the drought has affected them. You know, they're not watered right. Well, I wouldn't. You could fertilize them now, that's fine, but especially as we come out of winter

and they're ready to grow. Uh, that would be a time I use. I use lawn fertilizer on my crepe myrtles. Now, there are great mertertilizer, lawn terf fertilizer for your lawn. Just I use that. Now. There are there are fertilizers for shrubs and trees, and those are great for crepe myrtles. But if you if you don't happen to have some on hand and you need to fertilize, just use your lawn fertilizer on that'll be

okay. Uh. And when you do it in the spring when they're about to grow, that nitrogen really supports vigor and new growth, you know, but they're not going to grow. The nitrogen is important, but they also need sole moisture and they need the temperature where they can grow. So that's why I really focus on the nitrogen boost in the spring. But any kind of a good fertilizer to stock up your soil for now would be fine. Okay, what a triple thirteen work? Yeah, but I don't like that

fertilizer. Our plants don't take up nutrients in a one to one one ratio like triple thirteen. And so if you happen to have a soil that needed phosphorus and was low and phosphorus, which is not the norm. But and if you also happen to need about the same amount of potassium, well then triple thirteen would be a good fertilizer, but it generally is not, and so we aim for other ratios. All right. Well, I'll get those fertilized in the spring. And I know there's a lot of things that have

gone into dormancy because of the drought. Do you think any of it will come back, I e. Especially my big o' magnolia tree. Well, if it if they're drought dormant, yes, they'll come back. If they're dead, of course they won't. And so that's just the thing you kind

of got to figure out. Yeah, just wait time. We'll tell We usually say go up and scratch the twigs or bend the twigs at the end and see if they're supple and bend or if they're dry and they snap, And that'd be one way, but scraping the bark back a little is also a way. I think at this point. Just wait and see what comes out in the spring, and that'll tell you where to prune too. By the way, you know, you may have some die back on the outsides

and then you get some sprouting further back. Then you know to cut back to that spot. All right, Well, thank you so much and have a good day. Appreciate your show. Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Thanks for being a listener to the show. If those of you in the Heights know about Buchanans Plants, and boy, I always love visiting Buchanans. It's just it's a beautiful place. And the selection of stuff they have it's really unbelievable. I mean they specialize in natives, that's their thing.

I mean, if you're looking for a native that is hard to find, maybe nobody else has it, well, they're going to have it there. That is what they do. But they if you need herbs, that's the place. If you need house plants, Buchanans house plants selections unbelievable. And right now, cool season color is the deal. So they got some cycloman in by the way, they got a big shipment of holiday cactus in.

It looks awesome. They've got unbelievable selection when it comes to the cool season garden like Dianthus, like cyclomen like you need pansies, Iola's alyssum stock, all the cool season color, they've got it there at Buchanans. They're in the Heights on our eleven Street. The website Buchanansplants dot com. You need to go to that website too, because not only does it tell you about what's going on at the nursery. But there's a lot of really good

educational content that they put together for you on that website. Let's head out to Cove now and talk to Dennis. Hello, Dennis, Hi, good morning. Real quick question. I still have green tomatoes on the vine, and with the cold weather coming, are they likely to ripen any more on the vine or is it time to bring them in and them in a bag with an apple. I would bring them in. I wouldn't necessarily put them

in a bag with an apple. I would just bring them in and set them on the counter where there's indoor temperatures and the process of ripening continues after you harvest the tomato. A lot of fruit aren't that way. A peach won't do that, for example, but a tomato will. But here's the thing. Tomatoes, when they're green, they go from being immature and incapable of ripening to mature. They're still green, but they will ripen just as well as they would outside. I mean, they just you pick them,

you set them down, they just keep going. The difference is, and of course, when you test it this way, you've just destroyed the tomato. But if you take a sharp knife and cut through your tomato. If that inside is not like a jelly material and the seeds just move to the side as a knife goes by, that is an immature tomato. And if when you cut through it the seeds pushed the side because you got that jelly in the little sections, that is a mature tomato that would have ripened.

Now you can kind of get an eye for looking at them. Sometimes size is a way to tell. Sometimes, you know, tomatoes can sometimes not get full size, and so, uh it you just kind of learn to train your eye. I usually pick a few more than I think will actually ripen. I go a little past that, and some of them may not turn out, but the rest of them will inside. Okay, thank you very much. Yes, that's it, Dennis, thank you. I appreciate

that. Yeah, we uh, you know, we always talk about a vine ripen tomato, and yeah, that's good to have a vine ripen tomato. But I'm telling you, when it's you know, we're looking at cole Weather coming, get that tomato, it'll be good. It'll be just fine inside. And another reason is when you got mockingbirds pecking into your tomatoes, that's a good reason to maybe pick one a little early. And bring it in. Hey, we're going to take a break. Our phone number seven

one three two one two fifty eight seventy four will be right back. Well, good Saturday or Sunday morning. I lost the day there. It's still dark outside. So as I like to say, if your neighbor's lights aren't on, go bang on the door, tell them they're missing garden line. Aye. Will so appreciate that. So appreciate someday, not this morning, but someday. So think of it as doing a horticultural favor in your neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah, yesterday I was out at Southwest Fertilizer. I was

mentioning that earlier. And every time I go in Southwest Fertilizer, I'm just amazed at the what they have. People were coming in, they were asking all these questions, and you know, it didn't matter what their question was. I could say, yep, you need this, and it's right over there. I mean, it's just that Southwest Fertilizer they don't have it. You don't need it. Because they have it. They have everything that you possibly need. Now's a good time to get that fertilizer you need if you

need weed control or disease control or insect control or anything like that. It's going to be there at Southwest. You can go to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com, or you can just go out to the their store at the

corner of Bisonet and Renwick. Corner of Bisonette and Renwick. While we're out there yesterday, Bob had those kneeling benches that I love to brag about out there, and people were picking those things up like hotcakes, because that is I like to sort of tongue in cheek just say, that thing will change your life. You sit on it like a bench. It folds up by the way you open it up. Sit it not like a bench, Flip it over, kneel down on it, and use your hand the handles to

help get up and down. That's the best part of it at all. And I'm telling you it's convenient. I can't tell you how many people while I was out there were telling me, yes, I love that thing. That is that is a life changer, and especially not just for people that are older, but especially as you get older and it's harder to get up and down. Maybe little arthritis here or there, or just you know how

it is. That tool helps you keep gardening. And Bob's got plenty of those out there, so you ought to check those out while you're out at Southwest Fertilizer. Need to I've got some stuff to do at my house that I need to get done. I've got some plants that I need to staff. I got some strawberry plants. As a matter of fact, And because you know, I'm running around doing the radio, I don't always have time

at the house to get things planted. So hopefully this next week we're going to get those things in the ground, because it is it is time to get that done. But anytime you're going to put those plants in, just make sure you've got a well built soil first. And I talk and talk and talk about that. It's so important to start with good soil because it makes you look like a pro. It really does. When you drop. When you PLoP a plant to an unprepared plot, I love to say that

your chances of success plummet. Because, yeah, there's great fertilizers. Yeah, there's all kinds of other things we do for helping our plants, but you've just you know, you've just added to the degree of difficulty and the problems that it's probably going to have. You know, when I was out of Southwest, one of the one of the products that people were asking a lot about and picking up was Nelson's carbo Load. Carbo Load is the fall

fertilizer that Nelson make. They make a lot of great fertilizers. They've been doing it now for over forty years and they just celebrated that forty year anniversary. And by the way, congratulations to Dean and all the team out there at Nelson's on quite an accomplishment. And boy have they ever built up a

wonderful group of product selections that you can choose from out there. You know, this fall, they're donating two dollars for every bag of carbo Load sold to Randy Lemon's Memorial Scholarship up at A and M. What a good cost and what a great product too. So it's like a win win when you get a really good product, it includes also something to help prevent weeds, and you contribute two bucks toward a really good cost something that will live on

forever. Randy would have been extremely proud to know that there was a scholarship in horticulture in his name up at Texas A and M. The carbo load has that ingredient that also helps prevent weed seeds from coming up. So uh, it is important to fertilize sooner rather than later, but it's especially important

to get that pre emergent down sooner rather than later. So grab your carbo load, get it down a sap because here comes the cold weather with a little bit of rain, and there's a lot of things that I talked about earlier. They're going to start happening in your lawn and you want to be ahead of all of that. It's it's not difficult to pull that one off.

Driving across town. The other day, I ran past a Lensdown Moody, and I always like it's kind of like going past a car dealership and pulling in and jumping in and sitting in a hot ride and you know it,

picture yourself in this car or whatever. Well, I'm that way about tractors and Lansdown Moody has their Click Pick Go Orange deal going on right now, and what that basically means is you want to pick the Caboda you want, and the L twenty five two that is the workhorse from Cabota hydrostatic transmission. I mean it is, as I like to say, a sweet ride. It is a hard working ride too. Secondly, you click on your tractor deal that's tractor package dot Com. So do you want a box cutter,

do you need a box blade? Do you need a front end loader, post hole digger? You know that sort of thing. You put your package together and then you get to go with the really amazing finance plan, no money down, no interest for eighty four months now Lansdown Moody. This isn't some big national corporation. This is our local tractor company. They're a Houston company. They've been here since nineteen thirty six, nine locations around the

Gulf coast. Here. I mean, it's not hard to find a lens down where you can hop in and do like I do with tractors, and a lot of people do with cars. And let's go in and sit on one. Check it out, get the field, see what it's like. Let them tell you about it. Lmtractor dot com. Lmtractor dot com landsdown in Caboda. What a combination. Well, you're listening to garden Line and we're nearing the end here of our first hour of the show. This morning.

I want to I'm going to talk about a number of different things today. One thing I want to mention is the folks at Texas Gardener are doing the Texas Tomato Lovers Conference. Now, this is in January. It's coming in January, January thirteenth, to be specific. That's a Saturday. They're going to have it out at the Anti Gurowsman for him, and they've got

a lineup of speakers. Razanne Green is going to be there. She's gonna be talking about growing tomatoes with and for the young family destin our Texas garden guys. It's gonna be talking about mastering container grown tomatoes. Patti Leander is one of my former master gardeners when I was a County Horticulture in Austin, Texas, and she is a vegetable growing guru. Best Varieties for twenty twenty four plus eight Steps to Grafting Success? Did you know you could graft tomatoes?

Patty's going to teach you how to do it, tell you all about it, and I'm going to be there talking about the ten Commandments of Tomatoes Success. How's that for a title. This is all at the Texas Tomato lover's conference. Just go just do a search for Texas Gardener Magazine and it'll all be It'll be there on their on their website. You can find out there if you follow me on social media. I just posted something about it. I'm gonna have something on my website coming up here about it. That's

gardening with Skip dot com. But I just want to give you the head start because these spots are not going to last forever. These spots for you know, it's a limited amount of space that they have available. So you can also give them a call two fy four eight four eight ninety three ninety three. I did want to mention to you that if you're up in the Montgomery area and you haven't been by A and A Plants, you need to

go check out the color that they have right now. Now. I know it's holiday season and Ana's got all the blame, you know, chimine as for the back patio and all kinds of stuff like that, but the color is absolutely amazing. An A Plants is on the east side of Montgomery on the way to Conroe on Highway one oh five, seven days a week. Today's a great day to go out to a NA well we're gonna take a little break top of the hour, get Nikky in here for the news.

Uh, if you would like to give us a call. What kind of gardening questions do you have today? Well, let's let's find out seven one three two one two k t RH. As simple as that, seven to one three two one two k t r H. Don't forget that. Next Sunday or Saturday. Next Saturday, November fourth, albeit siena mulch down near Roch Sharon, and this is your opera. You hear me talk about Sienna.

Here's your opportunity to go see a brag on the place. I mean, let me show you all the products that they have in there, all the fertilizers I've been telling you you need to put down. They've got them mulches and oh my gosh, composts and bags and bulk and everything else. They're gonna have really a nice little shindig out there at Sienna. Lots of folks out there, food truck, you name it. I hope you will join us. Kat r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the

products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katy r H Garden line with skip rictor. It's crazy gas. Just watch him as many spotsy not a sound well, good morning, good morning. I hope you are having a good morning so far. I got your eyes both open. Maybe it took a cup of coffee to help with that, but welcome to garden Line. Give us a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four

if you would like to visit about something related to gardening. Maybe you have been looking out the window at your landscape, or maybe having to close one eye as you drive up the driveway and see your landscape because summer has just been that brutal to it. I understand that, believe me. Up driving around seeing some of the loss of plants, the loss of lawns and things, it's kind of hard to look at now. There are a lot of do it your suffers out there, and I'm I'm a Dutch sofer everything I

can. I think that's part of the benefit of gardening is getting out and doing things. But you know, sometimes you need somebody to come in and do a turnkey job in a professional way. You know, I'm a plant person. I love plants, but if you were to take me and create a plant design, not so much. I mean, it's kind of like giving me Rembrandts paints and canvas and saying paint something. I could put paint

on canvas, but it wouldn't look like rem Brandt. Well, I want to tell you who would, and that's the folks at Pierscapes, Jason Garretty and his team Bob and Canvas, and those folks know how to design stuff.

They know how to create beauty and esthetically pleasing designs. And if you would like to have someone come in and redo the lawn, maybe your irrigation system, it wasn't well designed and it's just the coverage is not good and as a result, you have dead spots because you can't water enough to keep them them adequately hydrated. Call Pierscapes. They can do it. They can put in lighting, they can fix drainage. You have areas that are too

soggy wet, almost all plants want good drainage. They can fix that. Now, you can give them a call at two eight one three, seven fifty sixty, or just go online to Piercescapes dot com check out some of the jobs that they've done. Click around there. There's some nice photos of it. You can transform your landscape and get it into looking something that's just

beautiful. Again, make sure when you do talk to them about, you know, what are some drought tolerant plant options that I could put in because should this ever happen again, which you know inevitably it's gonna Uh, Pierce Capes is the one that can give you that resilience in your landscape. As they redesigned something absolutely gorgeous again. Just go to Piercescapes dot com. We are now going to head to Columbus and talk to JW. Hello JW, Good morning, sir. Hey, this is not going to be simple.

I live out in the country. I don't Saint Augustine grass was killed by bugs, you know, tinch bugs and everything else, and I fight them with some effect. And this year was a year all the way around, and I got a patch off the patio. There's probably twelve by twenty that has I don't know how many plants there are, but I have tens of thousands of sandbirds. I took a torch to them earlier in the summer and burned them down to the ground. All that did was to seem to help

them. Yeah, but didn't. Yeah, I did, but I think I just burned off the stems and the seed sell the ground. That's my guess. Okay, I need some sort of solution. I refuse to mow them because that's going to scatter the seed all the more and pre emergence not going to be all that easy, though I would certainly consider it. You

have any suggestions, and I'm not about killing the ground. But below this area, I have a real nice Lsu purple hybrid fig that I love and I don't want to harm it. Okay, all right, well, yeah, pre emergent' is a great option. Now. Just want to make sure we're talking about it's a grass type weed that has the burrs on it, right, it's the sandburs O carry stick them, yel the thorns break off

in your skin, and then you're in paint. By the way, if you will keep our jail in your refrigerator and you go to stick out a thorn, put some more gel on it about five minutes before you start digging on it with that sterilized needle. That will help the paint. All right, folks, you heard it here first on garden Line. There's a tip of the day right there. J W. I would there are some pre emergence that work very well on sandburg Uh. The pendomethylen is one ingredient.

Wait a minute, you've got to do that in Englis. Please oh p e n d I M E t h A l I N Okay one more time. P E n d Let me do this rather than just giving you the one nitrofus barricade if that's a brand, and okay, Scott, there there are two or three different pre emergent ingredients that will prevent grasspers sandburds. The barricade has got one of them, and it works just fine. What

you want to do is follow the label. Now, sandburgs germinate in as the temperature warms up in spring, but they germinate a little later than a lot of our other weeds. They need a tad bit warmer soil before they kick into gear. Normally I would say pre emergent in early February, but I would say with sandburs, you could probably go to mid to late February

and you would be just fine. You may have to own sixty maybe ninety days after that application do it again, because stuff doesn't last forever and you want it to continue to do what it does. Okay, now pas here the ones that will come up. What do I do with the ones that are already there that they can't get rid of? I tried digging them up, and that was that was way too tedious. Well, if it's surely a samber plant, the winner ought to take it out. It's an annual.

It's not a perennial. Really, Yes, I did not know that. Yeah, they seem to live here all year long. Okay, you know, I guess I don't know. I've never thought about, you know, some protected spot. But out there in Columbus, you shouldn't. They shouldn't be a perennial. Some people will take like a piece of carpeting and drag it over the area to pick up all the little birds the birds get

caught in the carpet, and just throw the carpet away. You know, I'm not talking about like that's a great idea that yeah, just a piece or I guess you could probably do that with burlap pretty well too. But well, old carpet seeds to come by these days in burlaugh, there you go and then just throw it away. But that that would get all a lot of the seeds out of the way when you're going to walk across it, but pre emergent at that right time. I'll talk about that when we

get back into spring on the show. But that's yes, sir. And one other thing to remember is when you fertilize, they actually don't do as well. Uh. They like a sandy droughty uh low nitrogen level area where grass doesn't want to grow. They proliferate so good turf care practices or actually work against sandburs's success. Sam, we were going to plant something in place of that, you know, some sort of side. What would you recommend instead of Saint Augustine, Yes, suir, I not like San Augustine,

But would we consider it or something else. I'm gonna have to take a break. Bermuda or Zoysia is the fast answer, and I'm gonna put you on hold and go to break. If you all stick around, we can talk about that a little further. But Bermuda or Zoysia would be the other two. We are taking a break now at seven one, three, two, one, two, fifty eight seventy four. Well, welcome back to garden Line. Welcome back on a what is gonna be a beautiful Sunday.

Uh, here we are and join I don't know, maybe one hopefully one of the last days where we're up in the upper eighties like this or mid eighties, it's going to drop down, be a little on the chain side

for a few days, get a little bit of rain in that. And as we were talking about earlier, that means that the winter weeds are definitely going to be kicking into gear and trying to sprout, and that means that diseases like brown patch, the big circles in the lawn are going to start showing up, especially in lawns that have been pushed with too much nitrogen late in the season. That's why for our fall application we recommend the lower levels

of nitrogen. You know, folks at Nitross they've created that system, the one two three system that starts with that a fall fertilizer that is a we call them fall special or winter winter Riser fertilizer. Basically means we're going to drop that nitrogen level down, make sure we got plenty of potassium to get the grass as strong going into winter as possible, so it comes out strong, so it's hardier in the winter. It's just a win win on that,

and then they add the step two barricade pre emergent weed control. It controls broadly weeds, it controls grassy weeds. You put it down, you water it in. If worms a barricade, the weeds can't get through, and it's much easier to prevent a weed than it is to try to kill one that's existing. Next spring, those weeds that are germinating in these next few weeks here, next spring, they'll be huge and they'll have flowers and starting to set seed, and all the products we try to use aren't as

effective as just preventing them in the first place. Third step is nitrofoss. Eagle turf fungicide soaks into the tissue and when brown patch tries to kick in and infect, when take all root rot tries to kick in and infect, it helps suppress those and prevent them successfully getting into your grass and taking your grass down. And where do you get these well, all nitrofoss products, including the Texas three step Trio are available at Gim's Hardware, Montgomery Ace Hardware's

in City, and Memorial and Lake Hardware down in Clute. Simple as that we've talked about a number of things today regarding the cool weather and the arrival of cool and stuff as it cools off. Now, some of the some of the cool season plants that we put for put in for flowers will just naturally do better. Pansy's and viola's, for example, they like cooler weather and when we plant them, you know, earlier in October, you try

to plant them and maybe the temperatures are up in the nineties. Still they're just not happy with that. They'll survive, you can keep them going, but now is getting to be the prime time, prime time for getting those in the ground and having success. So if you're looking for color that is

very hardy. One of the two of the hardiest cool season flower plants that we have is viola and pansy and they would they would be excellent to be purchasing and planting right now, and you can find you can find products like that. You got to go out to Enchanted Gardens and Jenny Gardens out in

Richmond now and Jennigar Gardens has everything you can imagine planting. But if you're looking for some great cool season color, maybe you do want violas and pansies, Maybe you want dianthus or a lissum or snap dragons or stock for example, that's a not so common cool season plant. They're going to have it. Maybe you want some cool season foliage too, you know Dusty Miller. The silver color of Dusty Miller makes a beautiful combination with light blue and blue

colored pansies and violas. Just a real good combo tip there. But in Chanti Gardens has more than that. They've got the fertilizers that I talk about here on the show. They've got the soil products that we recommend here on the show. Grab some bags that remember brown stuff before green stuff. So when you go out there to get plants, make sure you go home with some composts, some soil amendments, and the fertilizers that you need as well.

They are on FM three fifty nine. So as you're in Richmond heading up toward Katie direction, they're going to be on FM three fifty nine right there. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com open Monday through Saturday eight to five Today Sundays from ten am to four pm. It's a good day to go visit out at Enchanted Gardens. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three, two, one two, five eight

seven four. I was out at Quality Home Products this past week visiting with them, learning more about some of the products that they have and uh, you know, some of the different uh services that they offer. And you know, the thing that is most impressive to me about Quality Home Products is, well, it is impressive that they have generatic generators, which are an outstanding product. I'm absolutely outstanding generator product. They've got them in all different

sizes. The thing that is most impressive about Quality Home is that when you buy that generator, you've got a team that goes to work with you and stays with you. And here's what I mean by that. You've got to get a hold of the HOA or maybe the city power department or something where you're you know, you're going to be hooking this new thing up. You got to get the permit whatever. They do that for you. They handle that for you. You're going to need a slab to put the thing on,

They do that for you. After you have it hooked up, it's going to have to be serviced. They do that for you twenty four seven, three hundred and sixty five days a year customer service team. That's why now for the eighth time, by the way, news flash, they've won the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award, the most prestigious customer service award the BBB

offers. I mean, they are mopping the floors with that kind of thing because they take care of their customers, because people love the experience they have, they love the service after the sale. I was talking to them and there was somebody who sold their house and they actually contacted the new homeowner to go in there and work with them on the generator that they inherited when they

got the house. Who does that? Who does that? That's the kind of service they offer, And that's why I say, yes, generat generators are great, but when you get it from quality home, oh, it's way past the product you purchased. It's all the things that come with that. And by the way, when we go through late fall and winter, generator world slows down. People are thinking about other things. It now's the time to get one. And it's kind of like driving in Houston traffic.

Yes, at five o'clock you can get on the roads and you will eventually get somewhere. There are a lot of the people that are on the roads right then you go at another time and you got a free trip right through town. So same thing with generators. Why not contact them in these next few months and go ahead and get that process started so that you will be ready to go whenever you might need it. And you know, with generators, it's not just a storm, it's our grid that is not always very

reliable. And can you imagine having something just comes on and keeps the power going in the whole house even if you're not there. Oh well, I know I'm droning on about that, but I am very impressed with quality home products and the service that they provide. That is really important if you happen

to live up in the Magnolia area. On FM twenty nine to seventy eight is Spring Creek Feed Spring Creek Feed Center is your hometown feed center up in Magnolia on twenty nine to seventy eight, just minutes away from Graham Parkway and Highway to forty nine. Now, they carry the fertilizers that I brag about here on garden Line. They carry all the herbicide, fungicide, pesticide things that you need to deal with those issues in your lawn. They have plenty

of lawn and garden and pond supplies too. By the way, great pet food products, high quality pet food products. Again, friendly, courteous staff. I tell you, and you've if you've listened to me along on garden Line. The number one thing to me is the service that you get with a company. And I want to be greeted. I want friendly people who know what they're talking about. They help me, they're not deadheaded, and they could care less that you walked in the door. They actually make sure

you get what you need. And that's how they treat you at Sprin Creekfeed Center. Now again they're up in Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight, just minutes away from Graham Parkway and Highway to forty nine. Our phone number here on garden Line is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you would like to give Josh a call and you can get on the board and we can visit with you about the things that are of interest

to you. I was talking about having the strawberries I needed to get planted. I've got a few other things. We got some herbs, we purchased the other day that I need to get into my herb planting. I've got a little box that I grow herbs in. I also grow them in containers. I also grow them in the ground. I just like growing herbs and I need to get those planted. And when I do, here's how I do it. Number One, top quality soil mix. That's important. Number

two watermen with astro grow six twelve six. That's a fertilizer six twelve six fertilizer. You mix it in water, you drench your plants, goes down in the root system and it helps them get started. But it's not just those three nutrients NPK. It's medinosol activator, it's humic acid, and it's seaweed extracts. All present in as to grow six twelve six A water amen at planting, a watermen about a week later. Again same product, a

watermen about a week after that. Three times water those in because you want the roots to hit the ground running. You want them to have success and be invigorated to be able to create that strong plant. Fall is a great time to plant and getting your plants off to the head start with astro grow is a great way to do it. You're not going to burn your plants, never going to burn your plan. You can mix it up and do it as a full of your spray if you'd like to do that. It

is not gonna burn your plants. It's really good. You can buy it in a court bottle with a measuring cup. There's even a hose en spray or quart that you can hook it up to and you know, spray over plants. You're law and all kinds of thing. It's a good product. It'll it'll work very well, but especially in my yard. It is what I look to when I'm putting in a new perennial or annual type of plant. Let's go out to Southwest Houston now and we're going to talk to Carolyn.

Hello, Carolyn, good morning. You had covered this before, but I didn't write it down. I have aphids on my okra uh at this all I get rid of it well. At this stage of the game, Okra is slowing down, especially when we get this cool front coming in here, and I don't worry about it. A lot I've had. I've had some aphids on my ochre this summer. Occasionally I'll just get a strong blast of water and just just blast as many as I can right off of them.

Uh, and they just they're just not going to come back, and the okra is going slowing down enough to where I just don't know if it's worth treating them. If you did want to use an insecticide on them, I would use insecticidal soap that is very safe, very safe. Mix it according to the label, and you just need to get the aphids wet because it's not a poison. It kills them by dissolving the waxy coating on their

body. So insecticidal soap would be another option. But for me, you know, having to walk to the garage and mix up something and spray it. I just get a blast of water myself. Wonderful, all right, thank you? All right. By the way, you know those are Cajun aphids. That's the kind of aphid that gets on okra. Just I'm sorry that was That was a real sad attempted humor, right there. You take care of there you go there, You probably brought them with you. They

got on your car when you drove back over. Carolyn, thank you for the call. It's time for us to go to the Nicky News Network. Our phone number is seven one three two one, two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call, get Josh, you'll get you on the board. And now here's Nicky Well. Good Sunday morning. Hey, it's a beautiful eastern sky with the sun coming up out there today. I hope you

take a look at it. And by the way, when you're out and about today, it's a good time to pick up the products you need for your lawn going into this coming week because it is going to get cool. We're going to get some rain and the weed seeds are going to be very happy about that. The cool season weeds as are cool season turf diseases, so you want to make sure and take care of those kinds of things.

You know. Microlife Fertilizers has a combination that I like to use in the fall season, and that is the Microlife bron Patch five to one three and Microlife Bioinoculant by inoculant. It's not just for fall, it's just that what it does, you use it in a small amount goes a long way. It's the violet colored bag, by the way, but the bioinoculant is putting a lot of extra microbial content out there. Into the soil and helping to

build the soil. That way to the structure of the soil, of microbial content of the soil as well as as it splashes up on the grass plants, you're getting some extra microbial content there, which is important because when diseases land, they're looking for a place where the spor can land and infect the plant. And when you've got that area populated with a lot of different microbial activity, let's just say it's a crowded environment, it doesn't do as well.

And then we have microbes that actually help fight disease as well. Now, the first part of that though, is the brown patch. That's a five to one three that is a fertilizer and it's a good one for going into the fall season, and it also is chock full of microbes. And that's why they call it the brown patch, because they recommend that as something you would put it down. And as you use the microlife products over time,

here's what's going to happen. Not only are you adding the nutrients, but you're adding organic batter, different types of You're adding a ton of microbes to the soil, and you're building and building that environment. And when you have good soil, you're going to have healthy plants. That's important. Good soil has good nutrients, it has good structure, it has good organic matter

content, it's got good microbial activity, and that whole combination. You're enhancing that when you put on something like a Microlife brown patch five to one three. Now, there's a lot of other good micro products from Microlife. You can go to microlifefertilizer dot com find out more about these and about others that are out there. But for the fall season, I would recommend first and foremost that Microlife brown Patch five to one three. It works very very well.

We're going to go now out to Magnolia and we're going to talk to Ron. Hello, Ron, morning morning. I've got some grapefruit trees and they're getting leechins starting to grow on them. Is there something to worry about or is there something I can do about that? Uh? Well, not probably something to worry about, but it may be a sign of something.

The lichens themselves are not a disease of the plant. They're a combination of an algae and let's see an algae and fungus I believe growing together, and you get those weird little papery, frilly, just all kinds of different lichens that'll grow on it. They're a sign that the plant canopy is thinning out

a little bit. So anything that weakens the plant, drought, soil compaction, lack of water, lack of nutrients, anything like that, the canopy thins and you start to see the lichens because the plant's just not growing as fast. So when we see plants that are just kind of sitting there and not really vigorous, lichens are going to show up. So you can treat them. There's a product, I believe it's called mossmas. There are also

some copper based products that can be used to suppress likened growth. But I find that in general it's more backup, let's figure out why this plant isn't doing better, and let's get it invigorated, and then the lichens are not something you really need to treat. Okay, all right, thank you, you bet run, thank you, and enjoy those grape fruit trees. Yeah,

lichen is an interesting thing. We got a couple of several things out there that are associated with plant problems, but there really aren't the cause of the plant problem. Ball moss is a good example. Ball moss grows in trees. You see trees that are declining, it's like they're two thirds dead and the ball moss is everwhere. And people think the ball mass killed them. Well, no, the ball moss had its opportunities because as that plant

got weak and as the canopy thins, the ball moss just proliferates. But remember this. I I can tell you that ball moss will grow on a power line. I've seen it over the over the highway in Austin, Texas. Took a picture one one time because if it needed plant, sap or something to grow, how could it grow on a power line. You see lichens on fence posts and rocks. They're not a parasite of the plant. They're just along for the ride. And there are more a sign that something

else isn't isn't doing really well. If you're in the in the market for a new roof and maybe your old roof has damage, maybe it's just age. Maybe you want a different kind of roof. Maybe you got shingles and you'd like a nice single seam metal roof. You know that that's an idea right there. Maybe you would like to switch out from a standard shingle roof to a Brinkman's timberline solar shingle roof. Well, Brinkman's a company that can do that. Can you imagine that your roof itself, not a panel on

the roof, but your roof itself is making electricity? Sure? Could I use that this summer? Right now? All of a sudden blazed down. Well, Brinkman's got you covered now. They they've been doing this for fifty years. They give twenty five years warranty on their workmanship, and they use only quality products. That's why they won the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle of Ward

twenty twenty two. You can go to the website Brinkman Quality dot com, or you can just give them a call two eight one four eight zero seventy six sixty three. Listen, you don't stay in business in the Greater Houston area for fifty years unless you are using quality products, doing quality work,

and taking care of your customers. And that's Brinkman Quality. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two k t r H. If you'd like to give us a call seven to one three two one two k t r H. That this cool weather has really gotten kind of gotten me excited. I like cool weather now. I don't want to be cold all the time. But after you've been through months and months and months of blazing hot summer weather, it's time for a break, and we're about to get one.

So I hope you enjoy that. Take advantage of being outside. Couple of tips. If you've got let's say, holiday cactus, Thanksgiving cactus, Christmas cactus that is outside, I put mine outside because as the day links get shorter, and as you get that cooler weather, they'll set the bloom

buds and then you can have the beautiful bloom season. If you have them outside, just watch, don't let them don't let that temperature drop below definitely not below fifty degrees, maybe you know, somewhere in the fifty to fifty five range. If it's going a little colder than that, I'd go ahead and bring them in, But mind stay out in the mid fifties and that helps with that blooming cycle. But just be aware of that if you've got other house plants out there, that's a little bit of a shock to get

a cold when it drops down a little too far. So we're not hitting the forties. I don't believe this week, but just always be aware of that, because yeah, you won't take care of them and have beautiful, beautiful blooms. By the way, if you've if you've got Christmas cactus or Thanksgiving cactus from past years and you would like to, you know, rejuvenate it. When we come back, I'm going to talk about how you get

those things to bloom again. Right now, we're going to take a break our phone number seven one three two one two k t RH will be right back and Jack, you'll be the first up. Well, good Sunday morning on what is going to be a great day to get out this afternoon, get a little bit of gardening done, maybe a little bit of gardening shopping. You know, we do have some things we need to be picking up

right now. There's a lot lot happening and our garden centers are just chock full, I know, Kingwood Garden Center, Warren's Garden Center out in the Kingwood area. I mean, if you live and we always talk about it as a Kingwood deal, but you know, if you live in a Task casita, if you live in Hoffmann or Umble anywhere in that whole region out there, Porter there's a local Garden Center for you both of them. Kingwood Garden Center has got a real a good deal on the snapdragons. You buy

them by the flat right now. And snap dragons are just beautiful. They're a cheery plant. I mean they I don't know, they just kind of make you happy looking at them. The interesting flower forms, the spikes, there's types that are very compact that make a bedding plant. There are types of get tall and you actually use for a cut flour. And boy, I tell you Kingwood Garden Center, that gift shop is loaded up for fall and it is absolutely beautiful as it always is inside there. The Warrens Garden

Center as well. I mean, you know, you know when you go there, you're gonna have people that know what they're talking about. They're gonna help you. They're gonna direct you to a wide variety of things, because that's what they have at Warrens is a wide variety. They they've got you covered on all those fertilizers that I talk about. They've got you covered on soils. Do you need a rose soil? Do you need you know, any kind of a bed mix in a bag. They've they've got it out

there at Warren's in Kingwood Garden Centers. Really simple as that. Hey, let's go up to Conro and we're gonna talk to Jack. Hello, Jack, Hello, how can we help? Yeah? Yeah, I put some pre emerging down and some Paul fertilizer from Ace and but I think I was a little late. Come up. My yard is covered with some flowering weed and I'm mowing it spreading the seas and I'm wondering if I can do anything about that, or I just have to wait this out to the winter.

Now, will you say sunflowery weed? Could you describe it a little more for me? No, they're like weeds, but they have little bitty pink white flowers on it. Ah, Okay, it's just tiny. Yeah. That is called slender astor, and slender ast is a problem. If I were you now, you probably don't want to hear this, But get out and pull them up. They come out of one spot where there's a tap root, and you can grab that and pull it out of the ground and

it'll be all interwoven into your grass. But every one of the those plants, every flower's got like fifty seeds, and every plant has a bunch of flowers and so this is a stage of the season where spraying them is not going to be effective. They've reached what we call a reproductive stage and the post emergent weed killer is not going to work. But you can get as much of the seed out as possible. So if you're able to do that, I would highly recommend it, just because you know it's going to set

you up for a lot more next year. The way to deal with those is as we get into next spring season, putting down a pre emergent product and then repeating it about sixty to ninety days later to extend that coverage and prevent the plants forever getting established. That's a sneaky weed jack. It'll it comes up, you don't really know it's there, and the people first notice it because it's woven into the turf. They first notice it. When the

little daisy like pink flowers start to show up. Well then it's a little late to right. So just a thought there on those, alrighty, all right, well good luck with good luck with that, I know, just the Also in the meantime, just make sure you do the fall fertilization on your lawn if you haven't already, and continue to just build that lawn with mowing, watering, and fertilizing through the season, and it'll choke out most of your weed problems. The slender asters one of the few that survives in

a dense, healthy lawn. But the rest of them, you does it help to mow it, you know, lower or higher or just regular bat That plant adjusts to whatever you do if you have that weed. If you can go to a vacant lot and see those weeds and they are literally almost waist high, but they get in a lawn, we mow them and they go sideways, and you mow lower and they just go sideways lower. I mean, they are a weed that mowing. It's not like a big grassbur

sticking up in the air. It's a tougher one to deal with. Yeah, if you haven't gone online to my lawn care schedule, it's gardening with skip dot com that schedules online. You can see from January to December, the fertilizers you make, both synthetic and organic, the times to air rate to mineral supplement, and how to mow or wind to mow, and just some tips on watering and mowing. So I think you'll find that helpful you how to check that out? Okay, thank you very much. All right,

Jack, you take care up there. I used to live in Conra a long time ago. That's a great community up there, love it. Let's see. I want to talk about the fact that now is the time to plant woody ornamentals, and that includes trees and shrubs and woody vines. It's also the time plant perennials and all kinds of other things too. But if you've been thinking about planting a tree now, let's just say next summer is going to get as miserable as this summer, god, or even half

that bad. You should get the tree planted now, because it has months and the roots will grow in our mild climate here, It'll grow all winter long and they'll get established. And when next summer comes, the tree planted now will be way ahead of the tree planted let's say in May, for example. Now, who can help you with that, well, tree farm can Verden Tree Farms got several locations. They're in West Houston on Barker Cyprus.

They're up in the heights where Yale Street and I ten come together, and then there's one down in Paarland on Broadway Street, just a few blocks away from Killing Steakhouse by the way. Now, Verdant Tree Farm will help you pick out the tree you need, take them a picture, talk to them. They'll do a free consultation. You know, hey, this is one I think would work. Walk out in the yard, pick the tree you want in their tree yard and pick the tree you want. They'll tag

it, they'll bring it, they'll plant it right. The sooner you get it done, the better. And if you're thinking about planting a tree, now's the time. Absolutely the time of the year. And as we like to say, the best time to plant a tree was fifty years ago. The next best time is today. Verdant Treefarm dot com. They can get you set up. We're going to now head out to Missouri City and talk to Dana. Hello Dana, good morning, and it's SANAA sorry, no

problem. So my grass over the summer just took a beating. I mean, there are areas that are just my Saint Augustine used to be really thick and lush, and it's it's area that just died out. I'm trying to figure out what I need to do, you know, to kind of get that turned around. You know, I just put some fall fertilizer down. I was I was thinking about doing, you know, a truckload of composts and spreading that out and trying to help because the dirt is clay when you

get down about three three inches or so. I'm just trying to you know, I really really missed my grass the way it used to be. Yes, So I'm just trying to figure out, you know, what's what's the best way to get started. What are some of the steps that I need to take to try to You're don't either dig all it, dig that part out and put new sawd down or will it come back? Yeah? You know, I just I'm I'm about to pull what little hair I have left, all right, Dana, Dana, I've got about a minute here left

to answer, so I'm gonna I'm gonna go quick on it. But bottom line is residing if the area is large, if it's you know, you've got grass sprigs that are alive a foot apart, well that will cover back over without resotting. But if you've got larger areas, you're gonna have to put sod in those areas. I would probably wait to put that side down until we get into the spring when the grass is growing about April to put

the new sawd down and water it in. In the meantime, you can leave the old stuff there, old stuff there that's dead, or you can rake it out. But whenever you expose the soil to sunlight, here comes weeds. So I would not do a lot of weed control anytime within a few months of when you're going to put the sod down, because those products are meant to inhibit root growth. And if you're going to lay sod right down on a soil that's had pre emergent put on it recently, that's not

a good thing. So you can decide which way you want to go on that, but that residing is probably going to be necessary, and that would give you a good time now to do any filling up holes. You know Randy's talk about the kill, till and fill, where you kill the thing, kill the weeds and everything you fill, you know, or I said that backwards, but you know what I mean, level it out in any kind of scratching up the soil to loosen it before you lay your sod.

But that would be things that leveling out the soil and then getting it loosened up would be prior to whenever you're going to lay that sod. All right, thank you very much. All right. And in the meantime, if you've got living grass out there, go ahead and do that fall fertilizer because we want it. It's already weak. We want to strengthen it before we go into winter. Comes out stronger in the spring. Got you all right, sir, Thank you, thank you you take care. Wow, that

error went by fast seven one three two one two. K t r H. Get on the boards. We'll be right back. K t r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to k t r H Garden Line with Skip Ricter. It's crazy shrip. Just watch him as many septasy not a sign. Well, good morning, good morning. You're listening in the Garden Line. I'm glad

you're listening. We're to answer gardening questions, talk about gardening things that are interest to you and if you'd like to give us calf seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. It's as simple as that. I was talking about soils earlier in

the importance of quality soils. And if you are thinking about putting in a garden bed, or if you need to build up a garden bed you already have, or maybe fill a box that you're growing in, such as a vego garden. Here's the deal that you don't want to miss out on. And this is from Heirloom Soils, by the way. Uh, they have a big fall special on the bulk soils that they have, So for example,

the veggie and herb mix that is outstanding for vegetables, herbs. Heck, it's good for flowers too, by the way, and a lot of other things. But veggie and herb mix fall special. It's a one hundred and nineteen dollars bulk pard. Or if you want a supersack, it's one hundred and forty eight dollars per cubic yard. Now, a supersack's a big giant sack that holds a cubic yard of mix and they just set it right there in your driveway. It's very neat and clean, easy to do.

If you'd rather go out and go pick it up yourself out in porter, you can do that. If you want to have it delivered the bulk, for example, delivered to your house, dumped on the driveway. You can do that too. But these are really good, significant discount deals. Now the rose soil that they have, that again is outstanding for many things beyond roses, but definitely roses and shrubs and perennial plants. Seventy dollars bulk,

ninety nine dollars for the supersack. And that's all at Heirloom Soils. Now you can go to Airloomsoilsoftexas dot com and find out more. But here's your chance to get those bulk deliveries. To create the new bed, to fill a box, to anything that you need to do where you need more than a few bags of soil to do it. That's your deal. So don't don't delay taking advantage of that, because you're not gonna find prices like that again, very very often anywhere around town. Now I'm going to head out

to northwest Houston and we're going to talk to Ed. Hello, Ed morning, Sure morning. I have three crape myrtles, probably twenty five years old, and now one of them especially is dropping leaves ninety miles now. The other two are looking kind of poolly like they're about to start okay, but they just they look like they need some food. I don't know what to give them. Well, you know, we're in the fall season, and

leaf drop is not unusual. It's a little early, but I think for a lot of our plants, and I've seen this on crape myrtles quite a bit, there's just so much stress from this summer that they started dropping a little bit earlier, and so you don't want to invigorate them to try to put new growth on because you know a freeze is coming and tender sucond on growth. That's not a good combo. So I would I would just let

them go ahead and do what they're doing. Make sure the soil is adequately moist, which it should be with the rains we've had in the temperature, and once the leaves drop off, they're not going to need They're not gonna be using much water anyway. But do that when if you want to do some fertilization in the winter time, you can just to get the nutrients down in the soil. If it were mine, I think i'd wait until spring when they're starting some new growth and get a fertilizer on them at that time

to support the new growth. Okay, yeah, I just got a little work because next little neighbor has too, and here's a still green green, much greener than mine. Mine just looked like that. He hit this this brown and stage a little early to me. So that's why I wanted to ask you a questions they have and we've seen that quite a bit around town. So it's just, you know, it's just not a problem what we're dealing with a way, that's true. All right, Well, you take

care, enjoy those those great myrtles. Myrtles are a unique plant. They bloom for about three months during the about ninety days of blooming, and that varies with varieties, but really outstanding. Get them in all sizes, Get them in all colors. You know, there's the typical red and pink and white, and there's even lavender colors out there that are just beautiful, some

very deep red colors. The crammurtles are really versatile plant. They call it the lilac of the South, and that's basically because we can't grow lilacs in the South. But I jokingly say, if you miss your lilacs, buy some perfume and a crape myrtle and squirt the bush with it and there you go. That's about as closest we can get to it down here. But it is a very nice, versatile plant. Lots of lots of advantages to

it. I was, I'm always checking in on our local mom and pop garden centers and what do they have, and what's going on there, what's happening And in tended Forest, it's just a it's a wonderful place. If

you haven't been there. It's on FM twenty seven fifty nine in Richmond, So if you're en Richmond heading up towards sugar Land direction on fifty nine, it's off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine And when you drive out there, you just drive up and it's like you've entered another little world. I mean, I love the buildings. It's weird to talk about nursing until you like the buildings, but I really do. They just put in a new herb area, They put in a new vegetable area. By the way,

their succulent house is restocked. That's that hut that they grow in. Oh my gosh. They have a wide variety of succulents, and succulents are really popular now. You know, you go through a summer like we just did, and suddenly succulents start looking even better because they're so darn tough when it comes to heat and drought. But they've got those and they've got all kinds of cool season color. I know, the cyclomene are in out there.

A lot of other good things are in out there. I just wanted to also mention they have orchids, a lot of beautiful orchids in the restock. And you know orchids. People think of orchids as something that's hard to grow, but what the kind you typically find now in a garden center is going to be the moth orchid, and those are easy to grow. They're

very easy to grow. And if you will give them some humidity and some bright light but not direct sun, and don't over water them, and they're potted up in a way to make overwatering hard to do, they will just do well. I've got some that bloom year after year, and I got to admit it, I neglect those things more than I should. But you got to go check out the orchids that they have out and enchanted for us.

And of course when you're out there, lots of cool color, lots of ornamentals, lots of woody shrubs and trees and vines and all kinds of other things. Of course, if you need mums and decorations, they've got that. It's pretty much everything you need enchanted for us, as simple as that. Hey, the phone number is two eight one three excuse me, nine to three seven ninety nine to eight one three seven ninety four forty nine.

Our phone number here if you'd like to give us a call. A garden Line is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one

three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh. Microlife Fertilizers, Well, the folks at Microlife have put together a really nice combination of products, and I want to come back and talk to you when we get back from break here about a blue plus blue product combination that I think is really really cool from the folks at Microlife. Right now, we're going to take that break and we'll be right back. Halloween music there. Hey, you're listening

to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to answer your gardening questions at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Before I went to break, I talked about the Microlife Blue plus Blue. I don't know if that's what they call it. That's what I call it. It is the microL Life Ultimate, the eight four six organic fertilizer. That's a blue bag and it is a It's just a quality mix.

It's got a good concentration of nutrients. So when you're when you're planting a plant, you want to put some of this in the soil around the plant. You can do that because Microlife fertilizers are not going to burn your plants. They're not a salt based fertilizer. Normally I say, don't throw fertilizer in the planting hole, but this will be an exception to that, and I wouldn't throw it in the planting hole. I would mix it in

the backfield as you put it back in. They also have the Microlife Ocean Harvest. That's a second blue that is a liquid sea food fish based product that you can use to water plants in. You can use it as a foliar feed if you would like to do that, or you can mix it up and use it to water your plants in. So if you're trying to put in a new tree, shrub or other plant, this is be a

good combination for that. Again from the folks at Microlife. Now you can go to Microlifefertilizers dot com and learn about these products and learn about other products that they have, and most importantly, where can you get them? And I can just tell you this, I'll give you a shortcut everywhere. They're pretty much pretty much everywhere that we have out there. Well, let's go back to the phones now. We're going to go to Bake Cliff and talk

to Joan. Hello, Joan, good morning, Good morning. I have recently purchased an avocata three, my first I have no experience with him, and I didn't know if I should put it in the ground this fall or if I should put it in a big pot and wait for spring. I would put it in a pot and wait for spring. And here's why avocados are marginal lee hardy. Here. You may go through years without any freeze significant freeze damage, or we may have a year that kills them way back

and they kind of base the resprout back out again. So we don't know what kind of winter we're going to have for sure. So since you're asking, if you were asking this question back in this summer, i'd say put it in the ground. But if now that you're asking it at this point, I would hold on to it and just make sure it's okay, get it, leave it outside as much as you can to get to get good

sunlight. But just move it in when we're going to drop down below freezing, just to be extra careful with it, and then get it back out when we passed the last frostrate and spring, get it out in the ground, get it going. Okay, That's what I needed to hear. Thank you you, bet Jo, good day you too. Thank you very much for that call. Let's see. We are now going to go to talk to Don in Cyprus. Hello Don, Hello Skip. I've got a couple of fruit trees that are in ten gallon pots that I put put in just

in the fall this year, okay. And then I have a number of they were new sprouted live oak trees that I have in like two or three gallon pots okay, And I'm curious how hardy they are. And when I maybe think to bring them in, I know it's getting down into the mid thirties this week. Yeah, the the potted you said, live oak, right, was one of them. Yes, the live oaks are going to

be plenty hardy. Anytime you have a plant in the container, that container soil can get much much colder than the soil in the ground because it's exposed to air on three sides or for size, and so I would maybe put it up against the house or something like that, just a little bit of a protected spot. But they'll be okay. Now the fruit tree. What kind of fruit trees you got in pots? One is blood orange I think it is okay, and the other is a grapefruit. Oh okay, Well,

ten gallons is a good starting sized pot. But you're gonna need to bump those up here in time so they keep growing, especially that grapefruit that is a very large type of citrus tree, and so keeping it in a really small pots a little bit of a challenge till I go from a ten to a twenty in the fall. You could, Yeah, I want to keep them in pots. Yeah, well that would be it if you can do that. You know, the equivalent of a half whiskey barrel kind of

size is pretty good. I've never tried growing a grapefruit and that size of pot. I know we have smaller cetrus like satsuma, oranges, kumquats, or smaller the mere lemon and the limes we grow in smaller pots. But just kind of watch them and see how they're doing. Here's the big big thing. When we get to hot summer weather. If that tree is trying to be a big tree in a little pot, it's going to dry it really fast, and so you're going to have to watch to make sure it

doesn't go into drought stress. And I can't tay how off into water because it depends on what I was watering them almost every day, every day or every other day during the heat of our drought. Well that it came both of them came through real Well, yeah, that's probably going to be necessary. But yeah, I would bring the I would bring the citrus if you could put it in a place where you could roll it into the garage. Anytime it's going to drop down below freezing, I would just do that.

Uh, they're going to be a little heartier than that, but not much, and so uh don't what degree below freezing. I'd bring the citrus into the garage just to be And then one other quick question. I have a pecan tree that that fruited for the first time this year and just a little just a few pecans really, but what should there should I add zinc? Is it zinc to that? In high pH soils, Zinc is helpful. But you'll know you need zinc because the leaves instead of getting full sized and

they look like a pecan leaf. You know, pecan leaf looks like a spear. They'll be they call a mouse eared. They're like stunted and a little more round it at the tip. That's a sign of a zinc deficiency. You may not have a zinc problem in your soil, and you may not. It looks beautiful. I would leave it alone. Zinc is a whole the thing to deal with, and if you don't have to, I wouldn't just add it just because it's a pecan tree. I've just been putting.

You know what's on my grass? I pretty much follow pretty close to your plan. Look for the grass and of course the tree is in it. So yeah, I use I used her fertilizer on my fruit trees, pecan trees especially. I've done that too. It's fine. To do. I mean, we have specially fertilizers and they're fine. I mean, if you got them, use them. If you see them. It's right now a good time to add a couple of more fruit trees, it is. I like to buy them in like a three gallon pot and then transplant them.

Yeah, that'd be a good time to do that all the way through them. In fact, you know, fruit trees you can plan any time of the year if they're a container grown, but now's the best time. And with bear root trees, if you buy bear root trees, we typically get those in the dead of winter and try to get them in the ground in January before you know who has a lot of the like smaller three allen free. I also might have some trimming questions for for whoever I go to

Webre. You're up in Cyprus, so plants for all seasons, and arbor Gate and RCW all three are pretty close to you, and they all carry fruit trees and they can all guide you on the proper way to handle whatever you're purchasing. Awesome, thank you, sir. Yeah, you're lucky up there. By the way, you are loaded with really outstanding garden center. So that you're fortunate. Oh yeah, yeah, the plants for all seasons I've gone to for thirty years or so. All right, there you go.

Well, hey, thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much, and good luck with your fruit trees. Talking about about trees and planting. Anytime that you're going to put in a woody ornamental when you buy it, just go ahead and get a tree hug or sprinkler. Because here's the deal. Now, I say woody ornamentally, I include fruit trees in that as well. Any woody plant. As that tree gets established, you need to water it right at the base because that's where the roots are early

on. But then you want to expand that watering area as the plant grows and as we get into really hot summer weather. And a tree hugger goes around the tree, hooks to a hose. You turn it on depending on how high you have it turned on. The little valve there at the base of it. You can water a large area if you want, and it will water that area under the tree canopy and just beyond that, and that's

the area where you need to focus. Once your tree has become established, Now you can go to tree Hugger Sprinkler dot com find out more information about them. They're available in most of our garden centers, ace hardware stores, feed stores. You're going to find treehre in a lot of places. Just go to tree Hugger Sprinkler dot com and you can find what you're looking for. Let's head to Alvin and talk to Larry. Now, Hello, Larry, how you doing well? I'm doing well? What's up? Well?

I've got a problem with aay is I put on the front of a house to make it like a hedgerow? Yes, sir, but even with the water in a sprinker system, they didn't make it very good to the heat. Okay, Well, I'm wondering what I'm wondering. What a good plant to make a hedge out of along the front of the house would be. For Texas weather, what's the amount of sunlight that you get there morning sun and no after doing sun? Okay, A good one would be Laura pedlum

Chinese witch hazel. It's got burgundy colored foliage. When the new growth comes out, get some cool weather on it. It has a burgundy color. In the spring, it's got beautiful shaggy, little strappy pink hot pink petals that are really pretty. Just when you buy one, read the label. How big does it get? The old type could get fifteen feet high or more, and they grew eventually into almost a little well, into a little

tree. Some of the new ones are more dwarf. So pick one that's going to get about the size you want it to be, and as you keep it hedged, it will be beautiful. You don't even have to keep it hedged if you don't want to. That that sounded like what you were looking for. I want to make the hedges about twenty foot wide across the house. Would that work there? Oh? Yeah, yeah, you ft them about whatever? Diches Oh no, no, no, no, no, not near that wide. So here's here's a general tip for hedges.

If you look at a plant, and I'm going to make up a number, let's just say you buy a Chinese witch angel that's going to be four feet or five feet wide, then you want to plant it about two thirds that far apart. So if it was four feet, you know, you may look at a little over a little under three feet or something, and that way it forms a hedge. The closer you get, the more plants you're purchasing, and at some point you don't need to buy that many plants.

But if you put them too far apart, you have to wait forever for them to reach each other and break ahead. But two thirds is a pretty good rule of thumb if you're putting in a hedgerow of anything. Okay, my second question is I down the microlife the purple back stuff about two months ago when I followed up with that brown bag for brown Patch, big bag and my yard. I've always been by the I always go by the radio limit schedule. But I'm starting to get some pale yellow in it.

Okay, hard to put in a street green down now? Or is it too much time? No? No, no, don't do nitrogen now. Don't do the extra nitrogen now. That could be a number of things. It could be a little bit of a root problem going on. It could be a droughty issue. Lots of different stresses can cause that. But it's not a fertilizer thing that you need to deal with. If you're seeing a little bit of yellowing on the grass right now, just it's probably a lack

of roots. It could be from take all root rot. You could try a little bit of an iron application if you wanted. If it's an iron efficiency causing the yellowing, that would help that. Okay, well how about some asia bite You could do that, but that's not going to have that particular nutrient at a high enough level to treat for the yellowing itself. Hey,

I've got I've got to go to our mid hour break. But if you quick quick question, well hang on and when we come back from a break, I'll be glad to take it on and see how we can help. We are heading to break. Here's Nikki our number seven one three two one two k t RH. Teach your kids how to chant that when they're walking down the street for Halloween. Hey, you're listening to gardenline seven one

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of the company, Brinkman Quality dot Com. The website two eight one four eight oh seventy six sixty three is a phone number. That's all you need to know. Don't mess around. Don't mess around with fly by night people sticking a card in your door. Go with someone who's from here, who lives here and for a very long time, has proven that they take care of their customers. That's Brinkman. We're going to go back out to Larry now, Larry, I think you had some other question to go with your

shrub question, Yes, sir, I did. I would like to know where I could go with one of those sponsored nurseries on garden Line to pick up these Laura pedlums where there's a year down in Alvin. You're a little bit of a distance out there, I think probably, And i'd have to get the map out here and kind of look at at distances from you. I think some of the enchanted folks out toward Richmond Way might be one that is not super super close, but it's not too too darn far either,

and it's well worth the trip. You might want to try one of those. Now, you know here in Houston we got good nurseries all different directions, so uh, you're going to not have trouble finding Laura pedlums in different sizes. Okay, So the iron, I'll get the iron at the A's hard Worth to treat the lawn. Yes, and then I'll either go to mass or I'll go to Cannon, I guess to see what they got for shrubs. So is it the right time of year to plant those war pedals?

Absolutely? Best time of the year to plan any What do you and in the past always usual roads soil, What do you suggest to put around them? Roussel is fine. I would mix it into the ground that you have and then dig the hole in plant. I would go about and do it that way, But it's an excellent mix for a lot of things. Especially the lower pedlums would be especially well adapted to that. Okay, and then you would you say Pansy's is a good flowering plant to put in for

the cool season. Pansy is an excellent one. It's one of the most cold hardy. I like Viola's a little better than Pansy's. The flower is smaller, but you have more flowers. And after a rainstorm sometimes pansies can get a little beat up. But the violas just seem to hold up a little bit better. But both of them are outstanding. I'm not dissing January in February. Oh yeah, yeah, they if it's cold, they're happy.

Okay, Well you've answered my questions, all right, Larry, good luck, get out there and enjoy that, have a very very good time doing it. Where are we going from here? Let's see, we're going to go to Rebecca in Sharpstown. Hello, Rebecca, Hey, Skip. I had three trees lost, all three to the ganoderma. Yes, okay, the arbor has told me we can replant another tree because we need shade. Yes, but how far from the trunk or the hole of where the

three trees were how far away? Because he said, don't put it back in the same hole. Well, that's yeah, And that's not so much because of ganoderma. That's because just when you you've had a tree that's growing and you got all this essentially wood in the soil, it's kind of hard to get good soil mixed to go right up around the new tree. So just move over enough to where you don't have wood in the way, basically is what that amounts to. So you are you talking like maybe two or

three feet from the base. Yeah, if you know, if it was a giant, if it was a giant, giant becomes yeah, yeah, because if it was a large one, you're gonna have big roots out several feet, so that becomes a problem digging a hole. Yeah, okay, okay, okay, that's what I needed to know. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. I appreciate appreciate that call very much. Let's see remote a Rob. But Rob has disappeared, so let's go to Greg in Kingwood. Hey, Greg, how can we help? I skipped

part my front lawn up this summer. Water's too expensive to water it's so it's crunchy and brown now, and I think I got clay in that soil. Get any ideas for bringing that back? I think it's Sant Augustine. Okay, well, and its Yeah. If you get out on your hands and knees and the runners themselves are brown, then it's dead. Saint Augustine doesn't live below ground. It's all above ground. There's no rhizomes underneath the ground, like with Bermuda and Zoezia. So if it's dead then you just

have to pull the debris out of there and reside that area. It's a little late in the season to reside, you can, but root growth is going to slow down a lot here on Saint Augustine's, so we're at my yard. I'd probably wait and let the spring growth start up and then do the sodding. Then okay, great, yeah, all right. If the roots are brown, it's dead. It's no good. You're gonna have to

pull up and reside in the spring. If the runners, well, yeah, the runners are crawl along the top of the ground on Saint Augustine. Yes, if that's brown, it's a goner. All right. Sorry, you ahead, your sorry you did that? Had that happen to your lawn. I know a lot of people can feel your pain on that one for sure. Uh. You know when we talk about quality and good soils and things that will help enhance the soil, uh, Nature's Way has that all

of that. I mean they were a leader for a long long time historically a leader in the quality soil components. They know how to make composts. They have a wide range of compost options. Every Friday is Fungal Friday. Fungal based compost products ten percent off bags, twenty percent off bulk, and they have plenty of it there. They have rose soil, they have leaf

mole composts, they know how to make those. And they also while you're out there, they've got a nice little native plant nursery and not just natives, but includes natives out in their property. Now that's if you go north on thirty or forty five, when you get to where fourteen eighty eighty eight comes in, just turn right, go across the railroad tracks, you'll be at Nature's Way. Here's a phone number nine three six three two one sixty

nine ninety. Let them set you up with a quality product, because remember brown stuff before green stuff. All right, Now we are going to head out to Marty in Fairfield. Hello, Marty, morning Skitnie. Hey, I heard you say something earlier about pulling some tomatoes in with the cold weather coming. But I also have squash and eggplants and green tomatoes and miscellaneous peppers and stuff. But do I have to bring all of that in? Well,

if it's going to freeze, it'll it'll damage all of those. But if we're just talking about you know it's getting cool, they're not moving fast enough. They none of those will ripen indoors. They are what they are when you harvest them. So you can eat squash from the time the bloom falls off all the way up until it gets big, so there's no ripening

of the squash to worry about. And pepper's the same way. You can eat green peppers or you can let them turn red at this point in the season, unless it's going to get cold enough to do damage to them at your location, I would just leave them out there. Yeah. No, it's supposed to be the lowest as I saw was like thirty eight. Okay, they should be, Okay. I wouldn't planning on bringing anything in, not even my tomatoes. All right, Well, at thirty eight. You

can leave them. They'll probably be okay. But if we get some fraud they're getting close to frostable temperatures there, then you might have some problems. But hey Martin, I got to run, got to run. Do an app Thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. Our number is seven one three two one two fifty eight. Give Josh a call. We'll get you on the board stand. You'll be first when we come back.

Well, good morning. You're listening to garden Line and we are having a good time talking about all kinds of things that are going on out in the lawn and of course out in the garden. We're gonna head out now to Eagle Lake and talk to Stan. Hello Stan, Hey, good morning, Skip, Good morning all. I have a question regarding potatoes that were planted in obviously August in time in the window. Red potatoes. I think they're redlest soda. Okay, They're over twelve inches tall and they just started

to curl. The leaves just started to make a fist. You know what I'm saying. Okay, don't know. We came up with three things. I'm not going to buy us your professional answer. I want to know what you think. Okay, well, there there are some different things that could cause. First of all, go unfold some leaves, unfurl some leaves and see if you see a bunch of aphids in there feeding on them, or any other kind of pest. Certain kinds of pests will cause that plant leaf

to deform and twist and curl around them. And so that'd be the first thing I'd look for. That's an easy one, yes or no. The next thing would be, has any kind of a herbicide for broad leaf weeds, that is, especially a two to four D based herbicide been used around the plants? Or have you used a sprayer on the potatoes that might have contained a herbicide like that in the past. That would be the second question.

Any thoughts on those aphids? I looked at them yesterday and they usually hang out on the underside of a good leaf, right, yeah, okay, so I found no sign of that. Okay, As far as herbicide, it wouldn't be anything that the property owner had applied. If anything, it would have been drift and well probably not. Then you know, if we were in hot summer weather. There are certain kinds of things that can

volatilize and drift more so than they would right now. The only other thing would be something viral, and that would be a little bit longer shot, but that I guess is a possibility. Okay, nobody's dug anything up yet. I'm curious. Yeah, I mean, even those little red potatoes are just excellent. So yeah, Well, one other thing you could do, Stan, I can put you on hold here as we're done, and you could send me some close up photos. Show me the whole potato row and

then get up close on a leaf. Make sure it's in sharp focus. Let me take a look at them, and if I have a thought on it, I'll come in. You know, if it's pretty much what I already said, then I've already said it. I won't I won't just repeat it, but let me take a look. I'll be happy to do that. That's great. May I have your email address? Yes, I'll put you on hold and Josh I'll pick up the phone and he will give that to you. Thank you for that, for that call. The folks at

Arburgate have created a really cool one two three system. The one two three is pretty much what you need when you're going to put a plant in the ground and take care of it. And so what is that. Well, first of all, it's an organic food complete. That's a four to four to three plus ten percent calcium organic fertilizer. You can use this on your launch a good ratio for this fall season, by the way, because you know you've got a little the nitrogen and the potassium are getting close to the

same same range there. And it's not just for launch. You can use it on flowers and shrubs and your vegetable gardens and so on. Eleven different types of microhizol fungi in there, and it gradually releases. Being an organic mature forty five percent organic matter, lots of trace minerals in it as well. That's organic food complete from arborgate. Then the other two are for your soil. There's organic soil complete and then there is or of course the fertilizer

is two, but organic soil complete and organic compost complete. If the organic soil complete is a special blend, it's got compost in, large particle sand and expanded shale all in it. So think of it as a growing mix a soil that will do very very well. Now the organic compost complete again, we get some of that expanded shale, which is a long term benefit to clay soils. You can never you always keep adding the expanded shale if

you've got a clay with poor drainage. But this particular compost complete has two different kinds of compost blended together, really good beneficial diversity of microbes in it. And again when you put those three together, organic food complete, organic soil complete, organic compost complete, you have a winning combination on having success. You know, you go the Garbagate, you buy these beautiful healthy plants. You're going to take home and plant them. You want them to have

success. So brown stuff before green stuff. Remember, take care of these plants by can carry the soil first with these three products. By the way, when you're at Arbagate, check out that new wonderful parking lot behind the building Trishall Road. Whether whichever direction you're coming before or after Arburgate, you can turn in Trisher Road parking lots behind it. Oh my gosh, it's

convenient, wonderful, wonderful. Let's head out now we're going to go to sugar Land and talk to Steve. Hello, Steve, Hey, you have

it going well. Thank you. Good I'm calling my soil after the heat of this past summer is just severely compacted with line, you know, with cracks going all through down my yard where you know it's separated maybe a half inch full inch apart, and trying to figure out how to decompact the soil so my graants will grow because much like the man and Siana plantation earlier.

Yes, I've got all sorts of brown patches and it's all around, you know, wherever the cracks and the soil are, and this is your lawn soil talking about this is my lawn. Correct. So you can't rototilla lawn and mix in composts and things. What you can do, First of all, you need to get it moistened so that it's not like concrete with the giant cracks. And as we get some rain that helps to swell it back up again. When it is moist but not supersaturated, you don't want it

to be like gouey gumbo. You want it to be moist. You can do a core aeration and a compost top dressing. A cororation pulls the plugs out of the soil, and you can rent machines to do it, but they tend to not do as good a job as a really high quality machine that reaches down into the soil and pulls that core out and drops it on the surface. That's a better way to go. And then the compost top

dressing. And if you do that, I would do that once or twice a year for a little while here, and that will just get it just gets better and better as you do that. But if you're starting from the worst of soils, clay, hard, big cracks, all that stuff, that is one thing that will be very helpful. Continuing to get the grass to grow with fertilizer, watering, and proper mowing is also important because grassroots

live about a year. So you know, you've seen these videos of the time lapse photography, you know where you watch something that takes months happen in a two seconds. Well, when your grassroots grow and die and grow and die, each root lives about a year, you're adding organic matter. You're opening up the soil. Those roots are creating chambers, and so healthy grass builds its own soil too. Returning your clippings and recycling that organic matter into

your grass also helps. So all of that combination is the pathway that gets you where you want to go from where you are, okay. And is the nitrofoss brown which is what I've been using, you know for this time of year, that's still the preferred thing to use. Yes, this time of year, the nitro Froust brown bag is the one to use. It's got lower nitrogen but still a good component of potassium in it. Very important. And is it better for me to use a spreader or a dropper when

I'm putting down my bro You know, everybody has their preferences. I like the spreader, but you got to watch and just your overlap and how much you're putting out that you don't create streaks. The droppers can create streaks too because when they overlap that you get that. But either one will do the job. It kind of comes up to your preference. Okay, all right, say well, I appreciate the help you bet, thank you very much. I appreciate the call. Donnie. We are going to have to catch

you right at first thing in the next hour. Our phone number is seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H. Hey, don't forget next Saturday. I will be at c Namulch down near Rose Sharon, and we're gonna be there. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. They're gonna have quite a shindig out there. They're gonna have a food truck and a lot of other folks out there. Some of our sponsor reps will be out there with their products.

You need to go. You need to see Ciena Molts, you need to see the fertilizers. While you're out there, by the way, you can pick up your fall fertilization products. You can pick up bags of molts and order bulks of molts. If you're within twenty miles of Ciena Moltz, He'll deliver it down in that area. But I hope you come out next Saturday, eleven thirty to one thirty. KATRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden

Line with Scip Richard. It's so crazy trip. Just watch him as world. Well. Good morning on a beautiful Sunday. The sun is shining and I can just tell you it's gonna be a great day to get out take advantages. Afternoon, get some stuff done out in the yard, or maybe go visit a garden center to pick up the products that you need. I'm going to head now to north Shore and talk to Donnie. Hello Donnie, Hello, Skip, Good morning, sir. Morning. I've got about three

questions. At first, I'm trying to make them real quick. I've got about three pecan trees in my yard backyard inside, and they're about twelve plus feet tall, probably with a canopy out at leeds eight feet white. For the last five plus years, I have not gotten any pecans. And I noticed earlier this morning you was talking about feeding them with zinc. I've never fed them with zinc. So and I don't know exactly what kind of pecan trees they are. Okay, what should I start, Donnie? Are these

volunteer pecans or did you buy and purchase it and planet a tree? One was already there when I bought this property, okay, and the other two were replant it replanted from a store bought tree or from one you dug up and moved one I dug up moved. Okay. They're probably seedlings, and seedlings take a long time before they reach a mature productive age. A young pecans, they call it juvenile wood. It is incapable of being reproductive.

It ages to a certain point where it is now able to make pollen and nuts and become a productive tree. That with pecans, depending on just the genetics of that particular seedling and other conditions in the site, that could take a number of years. I mean, it wouldn't be unusual to see a pecan twelve years old from a seedling not producing, so that is probably what's going on with them. There's not a thing that makes pecans not produce other

than a lack of sunlight. But other than that, I think you just need your trees or just having they're still growing up. You know. It's like any kind of animal that they have to hit a certain age before they're capable of reproduction. Okay, Suddond. Question is I got some like spider like weeds in my flower bed okay, and they're just going everywhere? Yeah? Are they very very flat to the ground, yes, yes, okay, that is spurge. And just to check and make sure that I'm talking

about the right weed. When you go outside, pulls on, break them off, and you should see little white gloves of sap come out immediately from that broken stem that's spurge, and spurge proliferates because it produces a bazillion seeds and anytime you got a little bit of a bear, they're gonna come up. And they loved. They grow in soil too dry and too poor to support growth of a lot of other plants. They're very resilient, very resourceful

plants. The thing I would do, and I was talking with someone at Southwest Fertilizer yesterday about this. I have a little hoe that is it's called a diamond hoe, but it's very flat. You hold it at an angle, almost like if you were gonna be sweeping the floor, you know, with a broom, and you just slide it right under the surface. You don't chop with it like people picture a standard type hoe where you're chopping and digging the weeds out. This you're just sliding it right under the surface.

And that those spurge plants, they come out in a single spot. They have a tap root. They come one little spot in that big old spread out plant is where it comes out of the ground and you can grab them and pull them hand pull them that way, or if you got a larger area, just sliding a hoe right under the surface, because here's the deal. You don't want to turn the soil over and just bring new soil and new weed seeds to the surface. So we're just skimming right under the surface.

And whether you hand pull them or whether you skim under like that, then gather them up carefully and put them in a bucket and get them out of there. You know, if you hit them and shake them and everything, you're just going to be knocking a bunch of more weed seeds off. But then the ultimate thing is to keep that soil moltzed with two to three inches of molts so some light can't get to the soil and you prevent them coming up. They're not a perennial, they're a warm season annual weed.

Okay, should you on your boy, I forget the course. Okay, yeah, it's all right, as you'd trim them all year around. You can do some trimming anytime you have a wild hair in the bush there. You want to trim it back to you know, kind of make the plant shaped like you want just a while here to going out, you can trim those. But once we get past, oh maybe early to midsummer, you want to stop pruning the azaleas of any amount significant amount of pruning because they're

setting their buds for the spring bloom the coming year. So like right now you're azala bushes. Whatever blooms are going to have in spring, they're already in the buds right now, so if you prune them, you'd be removing that. So wait until after spring bloom to do any pruning you need to do to those azaleas. Got you, okay? All right, thank you much, Yes, Sarah, thank you for the call. I appreciate that.

Glad to be able to help the folks at RCW Nurseries. They are still having that fall Shindi going on where they have fun and games and activities for all ages. I mean, you can walk through their beautiful garden areas and you can take family photos, have a hilarious that's up with that. They got refreshments and snacks for the families. You do not want to miss out, ladies and gentlemen on this autumn extravaganza. This is all through October,

so this is the end of it. This weekend at RCW Nurseries and RCW if you've not been there, they're on Tomball Parkway right where it comes into Beltway eight, so it's easy to find. The website is Rcwnnurseries dot com. Simple as that. While you're out there, they got a fifteen percent discount on trees going on. So if you're thinking about planting a tree, now's the time to do it. So go out there. You can

walk around and see the trees that they have. They grow them themselves up in Plannersville and they only grow things that do well here, and so check them out at RCW Nurseries. Grab a tree to add to your landscape because fifteen percent off now is a really good time. While you're there, you

can grab the fertilizers you need for your lawn and for your trees. In fact, they have a little package of products that they will sell you to go with a tree you purchase, and it's the things that enhance the early root growth and get that tree well established. So it's kind of a one stop shop for everything like that. RCW Nurseries. We're going to go now, well, I'm running out of time here. We're gonna have to take a little break. Terry and Jake, you are the first two up when

we come back. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Guardenline. We are glad you're listening today and looking forward to talking to you about whatever gardening questions you might have. We're going to go out to Bay City first and talk to Terry. Hello, Terry, Good morning, Skip. Okay. I have two questions. One, it's about the freeze. It's gonna come not freeze, but the co wedded it's going to come up during the night. I have Moto burning

pots. Do I need to bring them in? It's going to get down, you know, close to freezing for sure. If it's even in the upper thirties, I would go ahead and bring them in, just because they don't like that temperature and not gonna be very happy with it. U depends on how cold it gets where you are, but it's not a big deal, you know, to bring them in take them back out, so that

that would be my suggestion. Will they survive out there above freezing? Yeah, they probably would, but they start not looking so good when they get colder than they want to be, right, okay. And then second question is I have a yard that has no grass, It's completely bare ground because of huge oak trees and I've had them trimmed all I'm ever going to trim in the spring. I want to put in some kind of grass that will take heavy shade. I don't know what kind, but right now it's just

ugly having bare ground. So is there any kind of a seed that I can throw down without any work and maybe it'll just come up and be green instead of dirt. Well, we have ryegrass we can plant in the winter. But if it's is this a live oak? Yeah, okay, so live oaks keep their canopy into the cool season, and the rye grass needs light and it's just not going to it's going to be spindley and lecor to try to grow it underneath their So I don't think under that situation it's going

to be as there is a solution for you to seed out. You may want Saint Augustine's the most shade tolerant of our grasses. And if it's not doing well there and you've done the trimming and it's kind of is what it is, I think you're going to need to switch to a shade loving groundcover, or you can create a moulst area, put some shade loving shrubs in it. You know what I'm saying, you're going to have to do something other than grass. It's for but see the whole yard, even where you

walk. I mean, I can do some kind of a bond that that wouldn't be practical for the whole yard. Well, you know, if it's shady, it's shady, and the grass isn't going to grow. And I've seen some beautiful landscapes where they had two giant live oaks in front of the house. And I mean, so there wasn't a hope or prayer for grass. But they planted loriopee in certain areas. They used Aztec grass, which is like a white green striped version like a like a a rioty bit different.

Uh, And and they just made a big beautiful green, dark green groundcover with using some different colors. A juga as a groundcover will grow and shade and it can have some types have kind of a bronzy colored foliage. Uh. There, you know, ferns can grow in areas like I mean, there's a lot of things you can do. But yeah, if you want to grass, it's just not gonna work in that much shade. Okay, Okay, well I guess it is what it is then, yeah it

is. I mean, you know they say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, And there are a lot of types of lemonade you can make out of a shady area. Yeah, and it's for my own home. This is a rent home, so in renters can not want to do a lot of yard work. So I guess I'll just put them in some stepping stones and that's the best they're gonna get. Yeah, that'd be another option.

You could do that and just look around shade loving things, see what you like the looks of you know, if it is a rental type home, it's not even water and things. I think the riopy is probably a good way to go. Certainly. Monkey grass is another way. It's even darker green and puts up with more shade. Monkey grass, but it doesn't spread very fast, so you're having to buy a lot of it to cover a large area like you've got. I've got lope in my own home.

I have a lot of loraape that I could dig up and put over there. But I don't want to do a hope andnch of like digging in the yard. So how much do I have to prepare the soil to put something like monkey grass or loiope, Yeah, not much. I'd spread about an inch of compost over the surface, and then as you're digging in the plants, it's going to get mixed in a little bit. And just set the plants out and get them watered in. I like the Aztec grass because it

has it's a bright color. It's not just another dark green in there, and so you can line a bed with it, or line a walkway or whatever. I think the stepping stones are a really good idea. Great. Okay, well, thank you so much. All right, Darry, thank you for the colt. Appreciate that very much, very much. Well, it's fall fertilizing time. You need to not delay. It's also the time if you're going to put down a pre emergent weak control, you need to

get that done. And night Fross has made it easy with their Texas three step Step one Nitropos Fall Special night Fuss Fall Special. It's a brown bag. It's design for fall applications to make your turf stronger so that it goes through winter better and comes out stronger in the spring. And this is important people think about fertilizing in the spring and summer, and yeah, those are important times, but falls the most important one you have because your lawn is

strengthened to go through winter. And the early growth is not due to fertilizer in the spring. The first growth on your lawn is due to stored energy in the grass. That's what it draws on as it begins to grow. Then the grassroots begin taking up nutrients and the spring fertilizing is good at that time. Early on. It's the fertilizer you're putting down now, nitrophosphall special

nit frous barricades, a pre emmergen weed control. Put it down, water it in with a half inch of water, and it stops weeds from sprouting from seeds and coming through and becoming a problem. And weeds are going to be sprouting now, especially with a little rain and cool weather that's coming up. Third, nitrofas eagle turf fungicide systemic product gets in the soil and it prevents weeds from being able or excuse me, prevents the diseases from being able

to attack your plant. So I said. It gets in the soil, it gets in the plant itself as you spray it on the plant and What it does is when that brown patch spore lands and it tries to infect your grass, You've got a systemic fungicide already in the grass. That's what the

eagles were one two three. Where do you get nitrofoss products like the three step, Well everywhere, but you can get them at Bearings hardware on Biscinet all spas hardware out in the woodlands or plants and things up and Brunham all carry the nitrofos three step. Let's now go and we're going to talk to Jake and friends. Would hello, Jake, Hey Skip, good morning, Good morning. Hey, So I have a question about a live oak tree.

Okay, have my front yard. It's kind about fifteen feet along on all sides of it, uh huh doing the house on the sidewalk, kind of planted up on a raised area soil, and it's got sticks azelias that the previous homeowner. They're pretty small that they put in. Okay, and it's not dropping acorns this year, so this would be the third year of the first two years it did. And just a little concerned about that. It's got a bunch of suckers on the branches too, like water sprouts.

Yes, Okay, that the water sprouts is usually a sign of going through a drought, stress or anything that stresses a tree, Like if you cut tree roots, if you have soil compaction and the tree begins to die back from the periphery, it will typically trunk sprout and major branch sprout a lot. Just some of that could also just be due to pruning or some other thing. I wouldn't worry about the lack of acorn. That's that's not a

cause for concern. That is not a sign that something's gone wrong. But the trunk sprouting a little bit of it is okay, but just kind of watch that and it may have been a stress response. Yeah, it's got a lot and it's done that for the past couple of years. Okay, So I know I have some soil compaction, and I don't know if there's any like DIY type stuff that I could do, like maybe get a one of the deep root watering things I like to do stuff myself. Yeah,

you could do some of that. I mean, when you get a lot of tree roots in, it's hard to do much to loosen the soil. You can't run a you can't run a deep deep time neration through there. It'll hit all the roots and tear up the machinery. You know. I have put a little spading fork down straight into the soil, wriggled it in when the soil is moist, and just pull back to crack the soil a little bit and done that in a bunch of areas to kind of loosen it.

You're not turning it over anything. You're just you're just leaning back on the handle a little bit to crack open the soil a bit. You could do that. It's a little bit tedious to do, but that could help. But just keeping a good a good compost on the surface of the soil, it's gonna work its way in and that'll also help too, especially along with any other kind of disturbance we're talking about, from a deeper watering to a spading time just wiggled into the soil. Okay, alrighty, all,

yep, appreciate it, all righty, thank you for the call. Good luck with that those trees and everything you got going up there and friends with uh. You know, the bee supply out in Dayton is a place that is really for everybody. And here's why I say that. Now, if you are a beekeeper. They've got ever supply you need, and they have training for you as well out there, and they take time to train you. They want you to have success. I mean, you can call them

back and you're not gonna bother them. They're there to help you have success because they can put the right product in your hand and with good advice. If you have success as a beekeeper, you're gonna come back, of course you would. If you are interested in beekeeping, they're the place. They have classes for that. In fact, their classes for twenty twenty four are

already signing up now on the websit. You go to the website and you can sign up and the classes begin, I believe in January of twenty twenty four. So you don't want to delay on that, you know. I mean the if you want to order bees, by the way, get those done too, because they'll start picking up you'll start picking up your bees out there April eleventh. It'll go through the end of May. The sooner you sign up, the better. They have two different strains of bees. They

can tell you which is which and what you need to do. By the way, the phone number nine three six seven seven six seven three nine. Finally, if you're just interested in learning about bees, they have free b tours out there. You get a little bit of honey, sample and everything. It is a lot of fun. Take some of your friends garden club or Scout troop or you name it, go out to the Bee Supply and

Dayton. But again, the thing I would recommend is just start off for giving them a call nine three six seven seven six seven three nine, or go to the website, which is thebsupply dot com. We're now gonna go out to Spring and talk to Josh. Hello, Josh, Hey, Stip, how you doing. I'm well, what's up? Hey? You can't complaint. I'm probably gonna come on out there to the RCW Love event. You coming that you're doing? That sounds real good? Oh no, they're

doing it out there. Yeah, out at RCW. I'm gonna be at our. I'm gonna be at RCW on November eleventh, though, if you want to come out that time, but that'll be after this event's over. Yes, I'll be out there. I'll meet you man. Yeah, I love your show man. Yeah. Really, I've been listening to Going Line since I was eighteen. I'm thirty nine now. Well, good, good, you are you are I have memorized everything and then by now, yes, now I have a question about these trees. I have a client and

the tree roots are coming to the top. Now I know I need to errate the area and feed the trees to get the roots to go back down. But part of it is they used a lot of sand as well, so as the sand washed away, it left the dirt that's there. Yes, but you still have the tree roots that's up. Should I cut the roots? What should I do? What should I do? All right? First of all, the roots will not go back down. There's no going

down. What happens is you've got a little spaghetti sized root that goes right under the surface when it's a young root, and as it gets bigger and bigger, it's pushing down and up and out in all directions. As it grows in diameter and pushing down that's hard soil, so pushing up it just lifts the soil up and it appears to be coming to the surface. But that's why. Also you mentioned water washing it off. That is another reason why that that happens. And so all you can do is fill in with

some soil around it. To get the soil up to the root level. That would be about all that is in your control. Okay, all right, okay, well all right, that sounds like a plant. Yeah. The only other thing would be to plan a groundcover like Asian jasmine, just to cover it all up. I'm heading to a break, but hey, thanks thanks for that call, Josh, and I look forward to seeing you out at RCW. Thank you very much. We're going to take a break.

It's time for the Nicky News Network. We need that little news sound, you know. Dunda dun d dunda dun dun. Our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call, who get you on the board, and here's NICKI. Well, good morning. You are listening to garden Line on a wonderful Sunday, and we're glad you are our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Yesterday I was visiting with Felder Rushing from Mississippi on the air here today on

guarden Line. And he's going to be speaking at the Fall Festival of Roses out at the Antique Roseenporium. Now that is November third through fifth, So read that as just around the corner right November third through fifth. You can get your tickets at we Areroses dot com. It's a website for antiqu Rosenberg. We are Roses dot com. Now the Fall Festival Roses is free and they're going to have the third through fifth, three days of talks going on.

You're going to get to a Fielder several times, and a lot of really other excellent talks they got going on out there. Now, if you are interested in the farm to table dinner, that is going to be a special deal. That is one you do need to purchase a ticket for. And the ticket sales will end tonight, so I believe they may have some tomorrow, but definitely about tomorrow night it's over with. But I wouldn't delay because you know this is a space available type deal, so don't delay.

That'll be on Friday night. It'll be at six fifteen pm. Felder will give a talk as a keynote there. They're going to have a wonderful dinner, beautiful chef serve dinner and it's just going to be a good time. That's how they do things at antiqu Rosing forium. But if you want more information, you can call them at ninety seven nine eight, three, six

fifty five forty eight. And by the way, get out there early enough to do some shopping, because they've got a wonderful selection, not just of roses, but perennials, Texas star Hibiscus, Salvia, Greggy I, butterfly of Viron, all kinds of good stuff out at the Antique Rosing Porium. They are roses and so much more. Don't miss the farm and table dinner on Friday and the all over fall vessel of roses that is going on November third through fifth. This is your chance. It's a big deal. Don't

want to miss that. We are now going to head out. Let's see, we're gonna go to Ronnie and Lake Jackson. Hello, Ronnie, Hey, Skip, how are you doing this morning? I'm good, sir. What's up? Listen? I've got to cut bunch of I live on a little over an acre. I've got a whole bunch of little trees coming up anywhere from they've sprouted straight up seven foot down to three foot. Okay, is there some way I can cut them and put something all the trunk or

the leftover base that will go to the root and kill it. There is. The product is called the ingredient is called trichlo pierre trii clo p y r. Now it's sold in a variety of products. One of them may be called brush killer, poison, ivy killer or whatever, but that's what it does. So you cut it off and immediately get your little one of those little sponge paint brushes like you get at the paint store, you know, and just dab that product right on the fresh cut right away. Don't

do it the next day while it's fresh cut. It dab it on there. Sure. If the tree is really thin barked, real young, which it sounds like some of those may be, you can literally just kind of paint it on the outside of the bottom foot of trunk or so and do that. Sometimes people will mix it in a little bit of diesel. Diesel is an oil, and mixing the tracle pier into diesel makes it stick better to the outer bark. But if you're gonna cut him off, just cut

him off and treat that stump. It should get it in one treatment. Sometimes you get a little bit of rich sprouting. It recovers, but you hit it a second time and you'll be done. I appreciate it. Skip, take care all right, Ronnie, thank you. I appreciate appreciate your call very much. The uh, let's see, we're gonna now go to Norman in Spring. Hello Norman, Hey, Skip, thanks for taking our call. Yes, sir, how can we help? Many years ago we

learned about esperanza being a beautiful yellow blooming plant. Yes, sir, I found out esperanza means hope, h jope okay in Spanish. So we're hoping that our esperanza will bloom someday. We planted a speranza store bought in a coy pond that we had covered up, okay, and that thing is as big as a tree now and we haven't had one bloom. Can you help us out something's wrong? Is it supposed to have yellow blooms or orange blooms? Yellow? Okay? So there are native types of esperanza. They tend

to have strappier leaves with more jagged edges. And then the gold star, the kind that really set the world on for a number of years ago. It has a little flatter, a little broader rather leaf and I can't describe the difference on the air. You just have to see them. But as you go into a garden center and see a true gold star. Gold Stars will start blooming when they're three feet high, and they keep going. If you've got one that big that's not blooming, I think you must have gotten

kind of more of a I'll call it a wild type of esperanza. Uh. And you might you don't want to hear this, but you might need to go find you a gold star, dig it and dig that one up and put a gold star in and eventually, yeah, eventually even the wild type should bloom. But it shouldn't be that big and not blooming. Yeah. Yeah, the truncks own it, are you know, probably inch and a half tick? Okay, it's sticking up over there all right, backs

as high as you can think. Yeah, no blooms at all. Well, you could wait, give it one more year, or you could replace it. Those are kound of the two options. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but appreciate you. Appreciate you calling asking about it. Norman. That os Brown's is a beautiful plant. Thank you, thank you for that call. If you need any tree work done, you need to call Affordable right now. Martin spoon More he knows trees. I've been

doing this over thirty years, taking care of Houston trees. The website is Afftree Service dot com. The phone number is seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. And when you call the owner and his owners, Martin and his wife, they're gonna be the ones that answer seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. They don't answer. You call the wrong place with Affordable in the name. Hang out in Redal. But if you need any kind of work done in your trees, pruning, get on

the schedule. He stays busy. I mean he does good work, so he stays busy. But garden line customers go to the front of the line. So just don't delay. Get scheduled. I mean you may want him to do pruning in February or something. Go ahead and call him and get

on the schedule and let's get that done. If you're planning on doing anything around those trees, to disturb the soil, a trench, a sidewalk, driving vehicles through there, anything, you got to call him and let him come out first with a consultation to tell you how to do it right. Because once you damage your tree, it's very difficult to recover from that kind of damage. So call Martin first. He knows what he's talking about. We're about to have to take a break here. Valerie, you will be

the very first st up. Thanks for waiting. I'm going to have to hold you till after break so I can devote an adequate amount of time to your call. And Troy you will be next. The phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two kt r H. Give Josh a call. Let's get you on the boards and we'll be right back. Josh, you're getting creative on me today.

I like that. Listen. If you're listening to Guarden Line. By the way, I'm your host, Skip Richter and if you're inched, given us to call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. UH. Nature's Creation has an all natural betting plant food with micarizal fungi. Now this is specifically blended for betting plants. It contains alfalfa meal, cottonseed meal, humates, molasses, I got some composted poultry and calman are in there,

sulfate of potash, green sand, and then the micarizal fungi. So it's excellent for any kind of fall blooming plants, your pansies, your cycloman snap dragons, a listen stock, petunias, anything like that. Now you're going to be able to buy Nature's Creation, all natural betting plant food with Micorizat fungi at Quality Feed on Luzon Street. We talk about them all the time. Moss Nursery out in Seabrook or I was just mentioning RCWP on two forty

nine and all Houston garden centers will carry that product. I'm going to head out now. We've got a little busy board going on here. Let's go to Valerie and Valerie, how are you doing this morning? Oh? I'm fine, I said a question. Thanks for taking my call. I have a question. It's the cold weather coming this week. Is still is it too late to plant? Fad? Too late to plant? What? Please put saw down? You know, if you need to get it down,

go ahead and get it down as soon as possible. Generally we're kind of hitting that line where it's it's a tough call because as we get cooler and cooler, the sod roots are going to slow down and you're not going to get that new sod established as quickly as we'd like to. If you can wait until about April and it's really growing and get it down, then it'll have to ground running. But if you need to get it down again,

do so soon. We're about to get into some really cool weather and that Saint Augustine is not going to be interested in growing when we get into the next few days of this week, but it'll warm up again a little bit after that. So that's the judgment call you need to make on that valerie. It's not a black and white issue. And how do you prepare the soil before you do it. First of all, you want to level the area. If you got any holes or anything like that, you want to

get some soil in there to level it. And then just if you loosen up the surface a little bit, that's okay, but it doesn't have to happen. What's most important is when you lay the new side, you press it down so there's no air gap between the soil that came in with the sod and the soil in your yard. And then you want to water it with light frequent irrigations to keep it supplied with moisture until it gets some roots

down and then you back off. Okay, okay, And so you say I need to wait till the coat like next weekend when it's warm again. Well, you know, there's no problem going ahead and laying it down now. I mean, it's going to do something. But I wouldn't delay laying it down. I would just do it pretty quick. But I'm just telling you that as it warms up a little bit, then you get the grass moves a little faster and gets established a little faster. Okay, But April

is really the ideal time to put it down. Grass is very happy here in April, and it's ready to get growing, and it just may be a simpler time. You may get by with it. And I don't want to it's a gray area and I don't want to be confusing about this, but you may get by with it now. But if you put it down and then we had a really bad hard freeze came unusually early here, well that'd be a problem for the grass because it's not well rooted in yet.

And so that's why I'm saying, you know, it's do it, but do it quick or wait and do it later and kind of head your bed that way. Okay, yeah, I think I may sauce. I hate to take the chance and buy all this pod and then have it. Yeah. Well yeah, and you know, I know people are still out planting side and they get by with it. But it just that's the facts on it. But I hope that helps Valerie, and I do appreciate your call. Oh well, thanks. Can I ask you one quick question, a

real quick one. I got some folks with you, and the man said he had tree roots coming through. And you said, planning a ground cover like as O jazz man. Is that what you called it? I said, Asian Jazmine as an example, it's the groundcover you see around all over town around live oaks. Underneath it's just a groundcover that grows on the soil. Yeah, And that was just an example of one. But basically I was saying, plant plants to cover up those roots. That was about all

that amounted to. Okay, oh okay, Asian Jazz. Thank you. I appreciate your call very much. I'm going to run now to Southwest Houston talk to Donna. Hello, Donna, Hi there, Hi, thank you for taking thank you for taking my call. A quick question. I bought for your recommendation the carbo load okay, but I'm I'm not sure whether my uh my lawn is covered by oak trees about a half of it, and I didn't see where it said because it has the pre emergent, is it

still okay to put beneath the drip line of the oak tree? It is okay. You want to put it out at the right rate. Anytime you're applying, whether it's a fertilizer with a pre emergent or a pre emergent by itself, it's it's like taking a medicine yourself. You don't triple dose something. You follow the instructions on the bottle, right and and that's that's true

of any kind of a pre emergent herbicide. But there's no problem with putting that under your trees, watering it in well, no carbo load is it's got an excellent blend of nutrients for fall. It's designed based on dific research tot A and M by soiling crops and whatnot. It's designed to give your lawn what it needs now. And they throw that pre emergon in because just

like now, we're fertilizing for our grass to get stronger. Going into winter, we also have to have the pre emergent there to prevent the winter weeds. And as we go into this next week, we got cool weather and we've got some rain coming, and winter weeds are going to be an issue, but they are every year. But that's just the queue for them to get going. So if you're going to do that carbo load, and I recommend you do, don't delay, go ahead and get it down, okay.

And if some of it kind of goes over into my evergreen bushes, that's okay for them as well, perfectly. Okay. The only place that wouldn't be okay is if you had some soil where you're going to plant some lettuce seeds, or you were going to plant, you know, some flower seeds or something right away. You wouldn't want to put it down and then have those because it would do to them like it does to the weed seeds. But it's made for lawns, so if you get a little bit around

the shrubs, it's okay. Thank you, and we love your show, and thanks for keeping the song grating in the grass for your song. Okay, all right, thank you, b I appreciate that. I appreciate that done. And by the way, that on that uh carbo load every bag that's sold this fall. Dan Nelson's donating two dollars to Randy's memorial scholarship. What a wonderful cause Randy would be so proud. I can tell you that I knew Randy A and M meant a lot to him, and this would

really make him happy. I can tell you that for sure. Let's go out to Montgomery now we're going to talk to Troy. Hello, Troy, Hey, good morning. A quick question for you the end of the year. Basil just wondering with this cold weather. Should I just bring it into the garage for the next few days. Do a partial haircut or a complete haircut? It's growing in a container. Yeah, okay, uh yeah. Basil does not like cool temperatures. It doesn't have to freeze for Basil to

be unhappy. When you get in the lower forties, it's not very happy. And when you get in the thirties anywhere, it's very unhappy. So I would I would probably bring it in. You can take it back out again when the temperatures are better. But just realize it's not going to be a winter herb for you. Oh yeah, it only will lasts only for a short time. Yeah, I just didn't know if I should go ahead

and do a complete harvesting. Yeah, that's something you can do. I mean, some people will cut the stems and they'll put them in a glass of water indoors and they'll they'll form roots and you can keep it in a window sill maybe for the winter. Or pick the leaves and dry them. That's another option too. Okay, well, listen, really appreciate your help. All right, Troy, you take care up there in Montgomery, and we definitely appreciate your call. Wow, this this morning has gone fast.

That that just really really went quick. Guard lines around every Saturday and every Sunday from six am to ten am. If you got neighbors that aren't listening, I hope you'll tell them. Tell you tell your relatives too, you know. So our signal reaches all the way over to the Louisiana border, and I know I've listened to it and really passed new bron fuls over that direction. So a wide variety of areas, you know, people tell them

about garden Line. We focus here on helping people have success. The way I like to put it is to help you have a more beautiful lawn and a more bountiful landscape. That's what it's all about here, including your vegetable gardens and your fruit trees and whatnot. Don't forget that. Next Saturday, I will be at Ciena Mulch from eleven thirty to one thirty. Cna Maultch is down there in the road sharing area. You hear about me talk about

Sienna all the time. I'll be there for two hours at a table doing an appearance. The folks at Senna are having quite a little gathering. That little food truck coming out. They've got a number of different people. Some of our sponsors will be out there and others. It's just a good chance to really get out and have a good time and learn a lot and meet a lot of people. And while you're out there, that would be a good time to go ahead and pick up those fertilizers about the Nelson Carblode a

minute ago. They've got that. They've got all the fertilizer we talk about here on guarden Line. They have a good supply of all of it on hand. They've got the bag molts, they've got they got a bulk maltz delivery within twenty miles of the area of that around there for a small charge, So it'd be a good time. Just empty the back of your pickup truck so you can bring a bunch of stuff home, because you know what

we say, brown stuff comes before green stuff. Take care of the soil and then put the plants in and you will be well on your way to success. So so very important. You know, it's easy to get excited about a big, old, giant, red dinner plate sized hibiscus flower. Kind of hard sometimes to get people excited about some brown composts. If you're a gardener, you do get excited about that. I like to lay in a big poly compost and make compost angels, you know, even the hands

back and before. But that's just me. Hey, if you haven't gone to my website gardening with skip dot com, need to do that. On there you will find my lawn care schedule and my lawn pest disease and weed management schedules. Both they're both available there at gardeningwi skip dot com. Also there I posted a link to an article on planting fruit trees by doctor Larry Stein from the an M. Horde Department. It is an excellent article.

I recommend you read it. If you are thinking about anytime soon planning a fruit tree, that would be a good one to see. We're going to keep chucking that website full of stuff, got a lot of plans for adding more content to it. But go ahead and bookmarket so you're ready to go, And in the meantime you can listen to us on podcasts if you missed anything, I will just see you next Saturday.