Cleaning Up and Restoring Your Garden

Katie 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 skip rictor its rim. Just watch him as so many things to see again. Sure, hey, welcome to Garden Line. We're glad you're with us today. Looking forward to talking about all kinds of things. Plans. Boy, have we had some weather. Yeah, we got to talk about that too, and I'm sure we will probably quite a few calls about that if you would

like to give us a call. Hey, by the way, we're here to answer gardening questions and help you I have a more bountiful garden, more beautiful landscape. You can just give us a college seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Yep. The elephant in the room is the weather. Wow. Our hearts go out to a lot of folks who just got hammered by this crazy

weather that blasted through here and just destroyed a lot of trees. And we talk a lot about pruning trees to help them become more sturdy in the storm, to help do what we can to help control that takeout trees that are dangerous and stuff. Well, then the weather comes along and just kind of kind of proves itself on that. Of course, sometimes when you got winds and tornadoes and stuff, don't matter how you put in a tree. If it's gonna it's gonna go, it's gonna go. But there's a lot we

can do for that. Maybe I'll talk about that a little bit more later, but there's a number of homes and buildings and people equipment property that was damaged in this, So we're going to talk about it from a landscape standpoint. There's a lot of things to discuss right now. It's been a wet, very wet spring so far. Spring to early summer. I used to call used to call maya summer month, And I tell you this, we're

just about hitting it. With the temperatures getting up in the nineties. When you start to see the transition from spring into summer, we're transitioning our landscapes as well. For those of you who have had you've been hanging on to some of your flowers that are a little bit on the wimpy side, They're going to hang on and not go all the way into summer. It's time

definitely to switch those out for some very heat tolerant flowers. Remember that when summer comes, we do have a number of things that will bloom and look good in the heat. But we also need to remember foliage. Foliage is very important when it comes to summertime here in Texas. The number of bloom options, blooming options that we have in the spring is huge. In the summer, we got a lot of them, but not like spring, But

in summer, foliage can really shine. You can take foliage that's light colored like Aztec grass, which is just think of it as a white and green striped loiope. It sort of looks like that, and you can put it in shady areas to draw the eye around a bed, to line a bed, or along a pathway to light that up. Other things in shade and include one called beef steak plants, a deep, deep red colored foliage. It's real attractive. There are certainly the variegated types of plants. We have

a number of those for sun and some for shade as well. Cannas, the yellow and green stripe cannas, the Bengal tiger pretoria. There's a number of different types of cannas that have that really attractive bold foliage. One of my favorite plants for a very bright, semi shady area is persian shield. It has a purplish colored foliage and you can nip back, you can prune the tips out. It's in the it grows like like Salvia's do that, and in that you can tip and prune and shear and it just produces more

branches and more foliage. But it looks really good. It's a it's a very attractive plant. Another canon for sun that still probably my favorite one when it comes to foliage is one called phasion are. The common trade name now is Tropicana. Tropicana. I can't even describe the colors. There's a coral in there. They're just it just you need to go online to look at

it, or go to a garden center. Just check it out. Tropicana is a gorgeous foliage plane, even if they're not blooms on top, and these cannon's bloom, but even if they're not blooms on top, when you have foliage like that, it's awesome in the sunny areas. Uh copper plant is a beautiful one. Joseph's Coat is a beautiful one. And I could just go on and on go to a local garden center and talk to and say, what do you got that's foliage? It looks good because our summer

foliage plants they are out standing. When it's blazing hot, they're very happy to be out there and they just really light up the landscape. So you don't have to have blooms to have color. I'm going to go out now. We're going to start in Katie this morning talking to Glenn. Hello, Glenn, Hi, good morning, Thank you for taking my call. So I have a oak for you at about thirteen years old, and the roots have started to come up out of the ground and are buckling a little bit

of the sidewalk. Okay, you know, cut that out or what's the best way to handle that? Yeah, well, you know the general super general guideline. Every situation is unique. But as you take out a one route a year on a tree and you can kind of work your way through it like that. There is probably as many exceptions to that rule is not, but that is a possibility. I would definitely in this last storm really

reminded us of this. I would definitely talk to us a very very knowledgeable tree person and have them come look, because depending on the setting and the kind of tree, the kind of the size of the roots, and how far away from the sidewalk it is and all of that, they're gonna have an opinion on that. And so I would not do radio advice only on that one. Somebody needs to see who knows what they're talking about. We talk about Martin spoon Moore an affordable tree service. You know that Martin,

He's he just has decades of experience here in the Greater Houston area. He knows what he's doing. I would highly recommend him. Okay, yeah, well, thank you very much for the advice, and I will take that to heart. You have a fantastic Yeah, before you go, let me let me give you a phone number and a website just if you decide to make that call. It's a seven one three six sixty three seven six nine twenty six sixty three in the webs easy. It's aff Tree Service dot com.

All right, got it? All right, sir? Thank you a lot. Take care you bet. Yeah, I tell you that we're gonna talk about trees a lot. I guess today based on what just happened. But Martin is out now. He's when I say now, I mean these months getting trees ready into the storm season. And this one came kind of quick on us. You know, we have hurricane season starts in June and goes through November. There's a lot of reasons to have somebody look at your

trees. And it's not just somebody coming out there cutting limbs off, saying well that helps the wind blow three. It's somebody that knows what they're doing. They know what limbs to remove and how if you got any dead trees from last summer, that's especially get those things down. Sometimes branch angles are not not very strong and they need to be removed. There is a dan of course, the property. Gosh, I just keep saying these things and

you turn on the news and you're seeing what I'm saying. But Martin stays busy. He does a good job. He charges one hundred and fifty bucks to come out and give you a consultation. He'll take a look at what he sees is going on and he'll advise you on the next steps. And if you choose to have him do some work that one fifty it just goes right into the price of the work so you don't lose that one fifty at all. I would definitely have somebody knowledgeable come out because I'm tell you right

now, there's gonna be a lot of people running around. I call them the two jerks on a chainsaw tree service. They have a chainsaw and they have a pickup, and therefore they're an expert knocking on doors, putting business cards out. You can do a lot of damage to a tree, a lot when you don't know what you're doing. In fact, it's permanent. I've seen pruning jobs where it's like that tree will never be the same,

it will never recover and be a good, strong tree. So I know I'm on a soapbox right now, but that is important, and so please these are extremely valuable things in your lands if they had a lot of value to your home, plus the summer shade, don't mess around with those. Get a job as something knows what they're doing. We're all gotting out to Katie and talk to Ralph. Hello, Ralph, Hey, skip, good

morning. We have a hey. I put down early part of this week the second fertilization the super turf, and since we had all this successive rain, did I just waste that or do you think it's okay? Just unclear you said, do you use super turf? Yes, I went through. Yeah, you should go again. You should be fine unless you just had water that literally was sheeting over the surface of the lawn picking up granules and taking them off in the flood. If it was that, well, then

you're gonna put some more fertilizer down. But as far as the fertilizer dissolving and releasing the nutrient and them being washed away, don't worry about that. That's why we do superterverse very slow release. You're gonna lose some, but there's still gonna be some there to carry you on. And as far as now coming in to do the second pre emergent and post emergent, yeah, should we hold off a few more days? Yeah, let it let it

dry out just a little bit. Let's make sure we at least have a week before we're going to rain again, it looks like, and then you can put that down, because you're gonna want to put a half inch of water on it to water it in, and in order to do that, we don't want to put a half inch of water on the ground right now. It's just already too wet. All right, can you put the Hey, Rob, I'm gonna get you to hold if you got some follow up

here, I have got to run. I'm way past the break. All right, We'll be right back seven one three two fifty eight seventy four. That is your wake up call this morning. Media. Come on, let's go. Let's talk about gardening our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And we're going to go back to Ralph here. Okay, Ralph, let's uh, let's go back to where we were on the on the discussion of the fertilizer or I think that's what you're right.

No, the you address the fertilizer, and I'm good with that. I had sent your pictures last week, and you have suggested putting down the post in the preum post herbicide, and what I wanted to ask you, when would you recommend, with all this ring to come in and do that on the dollar weed and whatnot? The post on the dollar weed as soon as long as we know it's not going to rain in the next six hours or

so, I would you could go ahead and do it? It would be better to have it a couple of days where we had clearing because you wanted to be able to soak into the tissues and do the work it's going to do. That's a post emergent herviside as far as the pre emergency again, you just got it waterman with about half inch a third of an inch half inch of water just to get them into the surface like the barricade by nitrophus and so I just our ground is already soggy, so you can just hold

off a little bit. And since it's the second application anyway of the year. Got it. Thank you, Skip a good one. Thank you. Appreciate appreciate that call. Yeah, the nitrophile superturf that Ralph was asking about, that is a slow release. Half of the nitrogen is available in a very slow release form. It's the silver bag. So it makes it easy. You just walk in look for the silver bag nineteen four ten or the numbers on the bag. By gradually releasing, it's going to give the lawn

a long term green and it's also going to moderate the growth rate. Rather than dumping all the nutrient in at once to get that nitrogen and push fast, fast growth. It's going to moderate it out, which is what you want. So walk in go to a place like Plants for All Seasons. For example, they've got super Turf, the Silver Bag nineteen four ten. Plants for All Seasons. For those of you who haven't been there, by the way, it's on two forty nine, which is tom Ball Parkway.

A lot of you know it already, but if you haven't, you need to go check it out. It's a cool place. And my favorite thing, Oh gosh, I can I say one thing I would say in the top five favorite things of plant about Plants for All Seasons is the knowledge of the staff. You know, the Flowery family is there. It's been a family operation since nineteen seventy three, and boy do they know the plants. But they know this area and they garden in this area, they have landscapes

in this area. They're extremely knowledgeable. I've gone in and talked to them a number of times about technical things and they are always at top speed. And so you're gonna get great plants, but you're also going to get great advice, which is very important, and a lot of places cannot give you great advice, but that's important. Two eight, one, three, seven, six sixteen forty six or Plants for All Seasons dot com. Let's go now to Katie and talk to Malcolm. Hey, Malcolm, good morning,

Good morning. How are you appreciate your show? Yeah, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. What can we do today? Yeah? You were just talking about the uh you know, two guys in a pickup truck and trim and oak tree. Yeah, and two jerks on a chainsaw tree service. Yeah yeah, yeah, uh no, I was just you know, in the neighborhood, if you will, everybody you know has these guys come out and turns the oak trees. Yeh. And to me, they all look like a a bouquet of roses. Okay where they start. They start

out narrow and you know, it just kind of goes up. Yes, and you don't and you don't see anybody let their trees, uh and grow to where you know, I think, you know, I look at an oak tree and I want to see something that looks gnarly and nothing is symmetric. Yeah, and it looks natural. Yeah. And I just want to get your opinion on you know, out of those two is trimming your trees to where they only go straight up? That is that better for the tree

or should you let them do more natural? Now, each tree has a different growth habits. All use pine as an example. Obviously that's a straight up tree, but most trees are. When they're printed like you're describing, it's not a good idea. We do things here in towns. One thing is to strip out all the interior of the of the growth, and that tree should have growth all through the tree, not just long branches with a poof of leaves at the end. They call that lion tailing. For obvious

reasons. It's not a good idea. It's not good for the people. Do it in part for landscape lighting, so you can hang lights up in there and have them shine down without hitting leaves. But well that's not a good idea. No good, good tree tremor would would do that kind of thing except for that one purpose, which you're having to trade off between what's what's best for the tree and what's best for the assetic of the landscape. I guess I don't know, Okay, okay, But the short answer is

the the more you can leave the tree looking natural is probably better. The short answer is friends don't let friends l in tail trees. Remember remember that commercial. All right, one other question for you. I'm trying to grow some burroke. You know, I've germinated the acorns and there's they're sickly looking, okay, And I did some checking in it. I think it may be burroke blight. Have you ever heard of that? Is it? Never heard of that? Now? What what are you seeing? Tell me what

you're saying? Oh, it's you know, the leaves are look rusty and you know it just you know, kind of yellow oranges and brown around the edges. That that sounds like there is a rust type disease that will attack some some oaks. There's there's also some other fungal disease. Sounds like one of one of those kind of things. But again you'd have to send me a picture of the top of the leaf and the bottom of the leaf for

me to assess it. But I can tell you this, even if it's on there, you're not going to try to spray a giant post oak or any oak really for that kind of thing. It just it's just not practical, okay, Okay, okay, all right, all right, thanks sir. Appreciate it, you bet, I appreciate, appreciate your call a lot, Thanks a lot for that. Uh. You know, the folks at Wilbirds Unlimited are experts when it comes to birds. And when I say experts,

I mean they're they are extremely knowledgeable. But they also have the type of products that work best. For example, I've talked last week about the high perch hummingbird feeder that is a unique feeder, and I have probably four hummingbird feeders at home. This is the best one. It just is. I can just tell you that it has a number of features that just make it better for bringing in the hummingbirds and making your work a little bit easier.

Also, they have things like quality feeds. They have the no waste types of feeds, meaning your birds aren't going to kick those little red bebes out on the ground because birds don't like them. Most of our birds we're trying to bring in don't like those, and then they end up sprouting on the ground and it's a mass. They even have a hold of sunflower and other types of hulled seed in the mix if you want, so that means that you absolutely have no debris on the ground whatsoever, and that's kind of

cool. They have high quality feed for each kind of bird you would want. They have high quality bird houses and bird feeders and on and on. When you go into a wild Birds, check it out, go check one of them. We have six of them here, six Wildbirds unlimited here in the Houston area. So all you have to do is go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston and Wildbirds is always a good place for gifts. I mean, if you're looking for a gift for somebody, maybe a housewarming,

you know, we were doing that for Mother's Day. That's a great time to give a gift, even just for no reason at all, check in at a Wildbird's and let them show you the kinds of things they have. Maybe someone is a bird lover, They've got some really cool stuff for that. Maybe someone isn't, and they would just like a beautiful feeder or house or something on the property. Wildbirds can get you fixed up. Let's see here I was talking, Let's see when when was it? Earlier this week?

I was visiting with someone about a problem they were having on their on their property. It was a it was some plants that were just kind of looking yellow. They just weren't growing well. They were struggling and they were down in a clay heavy clay soil, which you have a lot of around here, and a clay soil without additional organic matter, it absolutely tightens up and it would make a very good fish pond, which is what you know. They even put clay in farm ponds in the bottom to seal the bottom

so it holds water better. A bent and night clay. Well, what do you do when you're trying to grow a garden in that, Well, what you do is you put a quality soil mix in it. You go to a place like Heirloom Soils, And I say, go to their heirloom soil places all over the Houston area. If you're hearing my voice, there's an Airloom Soil provider somewhere near you. They have things like the fruit berry and citrus mix. They have the veggie and herb mix, which, by

the way, I was just using this past week. My wife and I were putting together a Vego garden bed and filling it up and stuff, and we were using that veggie and her mix, cactus and succulent mix. They have works potting soil, but they also have something called expanded shale. Expanded shale think of it as like the old gray kitty litter. That's as close as I can get on a visual for you, But imagine it fired to a super high temperature so that it swells up and gets poorous, like a

lava rock under a microscope that's expanded shale. You put that in a clay, It holds the clay open and internal drainage is improved. And when you get oxygen down into the root system, you have more of the soil volume for the plant to take advantage of and you have better growth airloom Soilsoftexas dot Com, We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Guardline. Good to have you with us today. What do you want to talk about? I bet the weather has something to do with it, and we certainly would be

doing that. You know, the with the rain we've had, mosquitos are going crazy. I was outside this week trying to work building those beds and things, and I'm telling you, they're eating us up, absolutely eating us up. They like all this rain. All it takes is like a thumbleful of water sitting there for a couple of weeks, and you've got new mosquitos that have hatched out and are going I mean, their life cycle is fast and it doesn't take much so a saggy gutter. The water in your bird

bath needs to be blasted out about once a week. The water under the catch basins, under your pots and on the patio that dump that out because if it sits there for a while, mosquitos are going to breed in it, reproduce, and oh boy, they sure can spoil a really good summertime. Well, I think my suggestion right now, if anyone is in charge of this, maybe we need to load crop dusters with mosquito dunks and fly over Houston drop their granules of the dunks all over town and landing in gutters

and everything else. That might be a little bit of an interesting operation. I think people may have an opinion about it, but I'll tell you what. What we have right now is a mess. Mosquito dunks are great. I mean, it's almost like the perfect product. Because people that are concerned about chemicals, yes, and don't worry about that. You don't have to worry about it's a disease of mosquitos. Birds can drink out of the water, the family cat and dog can drink out of the water. It will

not hurt them. It won't hurt anything but a larva of the mosquito. That's what it's designed for. It's actually you hear me talk about BT that's a caterpillar control. It's a type of bacillusthern Gensis that's for mosquitoes. Isn't that cool? Yeah, a microbe, same genus and species. A microbe that's a different strain, but this one goes after mosquito larva. Mosquito dunks

are easy, small bage doughnut. Toss them in the pond. One hundred square one hundred square feet of water for each dunk lasts a whole month. And you just can't get a better, more effective, less toxic way of dealing with mosquitos than that. So number one, empty those water standing areas out. Number two, get you some mosquito to just have them on hand because you're gonna need them. We always have issues where we're having to deal

with things like that. If you want to use small amounts of it, you can crack up a dunk, you know, just hit it with a hammer, break it up, throw a little bit up into a small water area where you don't need a whole dunk. It's Okay, you can do it that way as well. Available at all our garden centers, our independent nurseries that is, our feed stores, ace hardware stores you know, Southwest meet and fertilizer. Everybody carries these things. Mosquito dunks easy to find.

Please, if all the neighbors in a whole neighborhood would consciously deal with things like this, it would affect, it would affect significantly the quality of life outdoors in that neighborhood. You don't want mosquitos flying from your house over to your neighbors. Certainly you don't want them going vice versa. Having this kind of a weather event reminds us of the importance of having a generator. There are a bazillion people without power. It's this kind of event has been devastating.

And now is that reminder as if we needed one, that you need to standby home generator. And the folks at Quality Home Products of Texas have that they carry the generator Generaic generator. Generak is a very effective, very popular brand. But I want to tell you something. If you're going to buy a Generaic generator, you need to get it from Quality Home. And

here's why. Number One, any generators purchased before May thirty first, the end of this month get five hundred off, zero down, zero interest for eighteen months with approoved credit. And of course the terms and conditions apply to this. But when you talk about the kind of loss of power that we've had, wouldn't it be nice to have a general automatically come on and take

care of it. The reason I say Quality Home is they take care of their customers from the very beginning and the planning and helping you get the generator you need, not over selling you some generator that you don't need to work in with your HOA or any regulations on doing this, Pour in the pad, getting the pad there for your generator to sit on, and then after you get it, twenty four to seven three sixty five customer support. That's

why they have over fourteen thousand five star reviews. That's why the Better Business Bureau has given their most prestigious customer Service award, the Pinnacle Award, to them eight times. I'm talking about service before and service after the sale Quality Home products. Here's the website Quality tx dot com, qualitytx dot com or the phone number seven to one three Quality makes it Easy seven to one three, quality, quality products, quality service for quality life. And boy is

that ever a timely thing. We still have a lot of storm season to go. We're going to head out to Cold Springs now and talk to Charles. Hello, Charles, Hello, Skip, good morning morning. The reason for my call is I sent a soul samp off to Texas A and M. Wanted to get your recommendation of fertilizer or maybe one, two or three? All right? Both the result results were go ahead, go go ahead and tell me what the results in the big three were. Nitrogen, phosphorus,

nitrate was one, phosphorus was eighteen, potassium seventy six. But how did they rate those? They rate them based on your soul type and things. Did they say high, medium, low? Or yeah they were? Most of them were in the medium range. The only one that was off the chart was a sodium so extremely high. Okay, okay, you must have high sodium water, do you there? Uh? Maybe is it hard to get the soap off your hands when you wash your hands? No? No, not really. I tell you what you know, Charles, I

can't wait. I was gonna say I can shoot from the hip on an answer, but I could give you the best answer. If you would send me a copy of that to my email, I will answer you today with a better answer that I can just give you. Trying to imagine what you're reading off the sheet, and I'll be happy to do that. Well I can. But the one one point four on the nitrate was recommended, a one point nine on the phosphorus, and potassium was a two point two.

Well you need a little bit that was recommended. That's how many pounds, right? Yeah? Okay? And what are you growing a Zelia's Okay. I would not do the potassium that high. I would take it down probably about a half of that or less. But everything else sounds good. Go with an acidic fertilizer. And Microlife, for example, is an organic brand. They make a pink bag for acid loving plants and it's going to have

a six two four ratio and I like that. Based on your soil test and based on the crop that you're growing, meaning azalias, I think that would be a better mix for you for that plant. All right, all right, Well that's really what I was looking That's really what I was looking for. I didn't want to over do something. Phosphorus builds up. It also ties up nitrogen and acid. Living nitrogen iron and acid living plants are already prone toward iron chlorosis as a pH goes up and phosphorus goes up.

So I would that's what what is ironsis. It's when the newest growth on your azaleas looks yellow and the old leaves look decently green. And that all right, there you go, So we're clairvoyan here. You can also get a kelated iron product and put that down if you've got it right now. Don't wait on the fertilizer to you know, turn all that around over time. Go ahead and do a kelated iron, but then do the fertilizer.

I just mentioned Charles, what cand iron? Just wherever you buy your gardening supplies up there in your area cold Spring, I'm trying to think where Hold on just a second half. What's what's the next close Livingstone and new Whereverly? Yeah, New Avery has a feed store. I know there's Bobo's Nursery. Uh, probably at further north than you. Uh, you're just going to have to go where you go and ask for kelated iron. I'm shooting

by it online, but it there is iron that's immediately available. And then there's iron that is kelated that doesn't tie up as fast. You probably have enough iron in your soil, but it's not available, and that's why we recommendklated iron. Okay, all right, Well just to let you know, I've just over the past sixteen days dumped out thirty seven inches run. Oh my gosh, holy mackerel. That's amazing. Hey, Charles, thank you

for the call. Appreciate very much having you on. The Folks at Landscaper's Pride they have a mix of different ingredient products, like twenty seven different products that they have. For example, they have the Gardener's Magic Soil. It's a pine based blend. It's got humus, it's got screened composted pine bark, it's got composted rice holes, and even a chicken pellet fertilizer that extends the nutrient release up to three months. They've got pine bark malts. The

most popular one, very beautiful, decomposes very slowly. It's just an attractive multch hardwood mults, and I mean really hard wood shredded hardwood maults, not ground up palettes. They've got the quality hardwood molts. They've got black velvet, not dyed naturally black molds just beautiful and enriches the soil as it ages. It helps insulate the roots when we get into these really high summer temperatures,

and it's just attractive all from Landscapers Pride. Go to Landscaperspride dot com find out where the local suppliers are for it in your area, and there's going to be some because it is very widely available. The other day I was out at RCW nurses a couple a couple of weeks ago, I guess, and just looking at the stock they have of all kinds of plants,

and they are they always say, stocked up. And in fact, I call them get It, Got It Nursery because if they don't have something, they'll try their best to get it for you, and they almost always can. If it's available, if there's a way to get it, they'll they'll get it for you. They carry the Nitrofizz, Microlife, turf Star, Landscapers Pride, all these products you hear me talking about, they've got them there at rca W Nursery. Uh, they still have a good stock of

roses. I mean that is kind of almost a specialty for them. If you go by there. It's a good time still to plant roses. You can you can container grown roses will go in the ground and do just fine. Give them a little TLC for a little bit get them going. But r CW Nurseries is at the corner of Tambo Parkway to forty nine and belt Way eight. It's truly easy to get down to h R Cwnurseries dot com. And when you go by there, take a look at their hibiscus.

They have an outstanding selection. And when summer comes and it's blazing hot, if you give it a little bit of water, a hibiscus just laughs at the summer and gives you blazing beauty, beautiful color on into the summer season. We're going to take a little break here seven one, three, two, two, fifty eight, seventy four. You wants to give me a well, come back to the guarden line. Good to have you with us

today. I was looking at a bag of sweet green. I got a bag of sweet green at the house I'm about to put out here on my lawn, and it just had to laugh. The stuff smells good, it just does. And you know, normally we don't think of perfume and fertilizer in the same sentence. Although I like the natural, earthy smells of a lot of these products. But sweet Green is just a it's sweet. It's because it's made from molasses. It's a it's a product that microbes working with

molasses creates this wonderful organic It's an eleven percent nitrogen fertilizer. By the way, that's about as hi as you're going to get with an organic nitrogen source, and it dissolves away and the bacteria and the soil just go nuts. That's why organic gardeners a lot of times we use molasses in their gardening, because that sugar is a stimulate, it's an energy, it's carbon, and the microbes need that, and so the sweet Green works just that way,

and it is very effective. And you're going to find sweet Green at a lot of places. You know. Nitroposs products are carried by Hiding and Feed up on Stubner Airline. They're carried by plantation ace hardware out there in the Richmond Rosenberg area, as well as Bearings hardware. Both the Bissonette and the Westheimer locations all carry that nitrofoss sweet green. A lot of ACE hardware is

do too. By the way, I was telling you last week that I was going to be at the Langham Creek ACE Hardware today, Well that event has been canceled. I just want to let you know that we're going to try to reschedule it for another time. But for now, they have their hands full. I mean, the weather has all the devastation of the weather has them scampered to try to help folks out and get the things they need.

They've got shipments of generators, They've got batteries, they've got tarps, they've got mosquito repellents, all the kinds of things that you would be thinking about right now where there might have been water damage where a tree went through

a roof. You know, you need a dehumidifier, you need fans, you need all bleach and they've got that all and they are just they're stocked up, and they're basically they're scampering to try to get enough product in and help folks, and they're doing a heck of a good job at that. By the way, they are adding additional stock all the time to help you with your needs. And so you know, when you go to an ACE Hardware and we got a bunch of them forty plus over the Greater Houston area.

Here you're going to find whatever you need. That's why they say ACE is the place, and you just fill in the blank. After that Acehardware dot Com. Go to the store locator, find the stores plural near you, because there will be. They're all over the Greater Houston area. And for those of you who are dealing with this mess, number one, our hearts go out to you. Number two. You know, when you go there, you're going to find the supplies you need to try to recover and

come back. And that is quite a challenge. I know we've been there. I remember when the floods came through a good while back, when we had the big floods, the major floods that we had. That was who that was a mess. Well, hopefully this bad weather is done for now and we can move on with things. If you are looking to plant a tree, and based on the number of trees down over the area, suspect some people will be soon. The folks at Verdant Tree Farm have excellent trees.

They've got the cultivars, the varieties, the species in other words, that do well here. And if you go to the website Verdant Treefarm dot com. Verdant Treefarm dot com. You will find they have a list of the trees with a lot of information on each tree. By the way, the same is true with the palm trees. They've got a list of those with a description. Do you need one that's very hearty, they have them. They have very hearty palm trees the right pump really for any budget.

Just go to Verdant Treefarm dot com. The locations in West Houston on Barker, Cyprus, there's one in Central North Central where Yale and I ten come together, and down in AirLand on Broadway Street there's also a Burdant tree Farm down there. Makes it easy to get one and quality trees. They know how to plan them and they can get you back in business. I mean, if you want to get a quick bounce back of a tree, you

want something broomstick's I sitting out there. They go all the way up to seven hundred gallons, I believe, and that is a They almost ought to give you a hammock with that tree, because it's about ready for a hammock at that size. You're listening to the guardline, I'm your host skip Richter and our phone number if you would like to give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five

eight seven four. I was talking to Ian at Nature's Way Resources. Just yes, let's see, Yes, it was yesterday. We're talking trying to arrange a time for me to go out there. I always like to visit our sponsors, check out what's going on, find out what products they have, and all that kind of thing. And that he made a point that I want to remind you. They changed their summer hours Now. Summer hours

are from from eight am to five pm Monday through Friday. They're closed on Sunday, but on Saturday they're open from eight am to two pm, eight to two, eight to five during the week, eight to two on Saturday. And you know when you go to Nature's Way Resources, you're going to get quality products, absolute quality products. They were the creator of rose soil, they were the creator of the leaf mold compost that we keep saying you need to top dress your lawns with. It works very well for that.

Every Friday is Fungal Friday at Nature's Way Resources. What does that mean? Ten percent off the bagged fungal based products and twenty percent off the bulk fungal based products. They're stocked up. They're ready for you to come by and pick it up. They'll deliver bulk. You can go there and get it bulk. You can buy bags at garden centers. You can buy bags right there on site up at Nature's Way which is on I forty five north on

the way to Conro right where fourteen eighty eight comes in. Turn right, go across the tracks and there you are at Nature's Way Resources. I find that you know when you've got somebody that knows what they're doing. And John Ferguson was doing this for years, one of the leaders in getting out there and doing this kind of thing. You get quality products and they take their time and they do it right, and that is important. You want a

quality compost mix that's done right. I see stuff that gets rushed out the door and their issues with those kind of products, but not when you deal with Nature's Way Resources. Simple as that. Yeah, just a reminder again, I will not be at Langham Creek Ace today. Unfortunately. They right now the focus is on the recovery and they are hop skipping and jumping to try to keep up with that. We'll try to do that some other time. For those of you who have not been online and seeing my schedules,

I would encourage you to check them out. I've got a website. We'd slowly get stuff up there. It includes timely things, little publications you might be interested in, or I hope you will. Uh. It includes my lawn care schedule, which is basically the things you do to grow on low water and fertilized. It includes my lawn pests, disease and we'd management schedule, which is basically the things that can go wrong with the lawn and what

to do about them. It takes you January through December. It gives you the organic options. It gives you synthetic options as well. Very informative, very hopeful. You need to print them out and keep them on the hands on them. We'll be right back seven one three, two, one two, fifty eight seventy four. If you've got to get on the board. Welcome to KTRH guarden Line with scamp Richter's so crazy, just watch him as the world many things to see, not a sign. Welcome back to garden

Line. Great to have you with us today, got all kinds of topics to talk about. You have a question you would like some assistance with, feel free to give me a call. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. This past week, I just re well took out a planter that was basically for herbs. We were we were replacing it with a different kind of planter and

turning it into more of a flower planting and things. Uh, And I'm pulling some of the different herbs out of there, the chives we had in there, and it just reminds me that herbs are probably one of the more underutilized plants in our life. Escape you know, if you get if you want something that is a drought hardy shrub, then rosemary is a good option

for that. There's trailing types and upright types, trand types of bloom actually pretty well, things like chives that make a nice little clumping border plant. There's another excellent use of herbs. I like the Mexican met marigold. That is the one that blooms in late summer and fall, so you have the blooms and beauty. By the way, another one is pineapple sage. It's a salvia with red tubular blooms that hummingbirds like, and it blooms late in

the season too. I mean, we can just go on and on and on on herbs. And the folks that enchanted forest have a beautiful new stock. I mean everything from one gallon and three gallons at herbs. They it's just it's just pretty. They're beautiful plants. A lot of them bloom, a lot of them attract beneficials. Some of them attract the food source for the butterfly larva, certain kinds of butterfly larva, for example. Attractive herbs

not an enchantede. You're gonna find everything. You're going to find flowers. I mean, do you want something that can take the heat. How about Indian blanket Firewell, they even have a yellow type out there that's kind of cool, beautiful bling glass type mushrooms and some little curved glass. It reminds me of some of the Chiluli art exhibit. I saw it one time out of the Atlanta Botanical Garden. They have another herb that I don't talk about

much. It's called snake herb, and it is it's not an edible herb, but it's one that grows along the ground and it has beautiful little kind of violet colored flowers. They're real attractive. It gets about probably four inches to a foot and a half tall, somewhere in that range. It gets about three feet wide, and it's extremely drought tolerant. It can take it. Just give it good drainage, give it, you know, at least parts son, even better, full sun, and it'll do real well.

All that's in a channet for us. More and more and more and more. Of course, they have plenty of things in stock. And if you're looking to do bougainvillias, oh my gosh, their display is outstanding. If you're looking to do a butterfly garden, they can get you fixed up with the things that attract the adults, that is, the flowers that attract the adults, as well as the plants that feed the larva, because each of those beautiful butterflies has a larva that feeds on some plant that you can grow

in your garden, and therefore you just attract them in. Now where is enchanted forest, Well, it's in Richmond, Texas. It's actually on FM twenty seven fifty nine. If you're heading up towards sugar Land direction. It's off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine. Always something going on there on Saturdays in the springtime, and always beautiful things that you absolutely will fall in love with. I love it every time I go out there. It's

just a fun place to visit. Well, let's see here talking about all kinds of herbs and plants and things. I'm going to give you our phone number if you'd like to give us a call seven one one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and i'd be a good time to call. If you're one of the first few to get right on, I'll get a little opening in the boards here. I talked about nitrophos Superturf earlier. Superturf is the silver bag,

the nineteen four ten fertilizer. Someone's asking is like, did my did my superturf wash away? Well? The one of the things I like about slow release fertilizers is they don't just dissolve away immediately and release all their nutrients. Now, they do give you some feeding, you know, as you go through early on, but over time half of the nitrogen, and Superturf is slow release. It's just going to gradually feed your lawn over time. That

slows the growth. That makes a more balanced grass plant. Did you know that if you push a turf grass with too much nitrogen at one point in time, you just nuke it with nitrogen, Well, it's going to get a lot of top growth. You're going to get to mo a lot too, by the way, but at the expense of root growth. The root system is actually less when you do too much nitrogen at one time. That's

why a slow release source is important. Or if you use a fast release you should at least split that application up into a couple of applications to kind of gradually spread it out a little bit over a longer period of time. Nitropus Superturf excellent product. It's easy to find. I mean pretty much everybody carries it. You're going to find it a lot of different ACE hardware stores. You're going to find it at the ACE down in Single Ranch, for

example. You're going to find it at the ACE Hardware store out in a Tasca Sita, or the Lake Hardware down in Lake Jackson include Lake Hardware, Clute, They all carry the Nitropus super turf. We're going to go to the phones now and talk to John and Katie. Hello John, Hey, good morning, Skip, Good morning. I'm just curious. I'm looking to plant some peach trees that are good in this area. Found one called the red barren that's like a mid season peach. I'm looking for. Where can

I find peaches or peach trees, not the bear root ones. They're actually good for this area that don't require too many chill hours. A number of our garden centers that you hear me talk about here on garden Line will carry those. They so depending on where you live. I know Arburgate carries fruit trees year round. For them, it's a it's a year round thing, and so I would What I would do, though, is if you're going to drive a distance, and you know Houston's a big place, just call

them first and make sure they have what you're looking for. Red barren is a nice one. It's a medium chill and it has those beautiful red flowers as opposed to the typical pink peach flower, and so it's both ornamental and edible. Sounds good, all RIGHTY appreciate it. Thank you all right, you bet, thank you. We're going to go now to Stephen in Houston. Stephen, how are you this morning? I'm good, Harry, I'm

well, thank you. How can I help? So? I've got two trees that were given to us to plant at our property in the country, but I think it's too late to plant them out there because we're not going to be there. It's the water like they need. So I'm going to try to sustain them over the summer here at our house in sugar Land in pots. Okay. So right now they're very small, probably half inch cowiper

size tree, and they're in small pots. I'm going to transplant them over the summer to the next sized pot, to the next sized pot, and try to should the pot go be wider or deeper from the next size up. What kind of tree is it? One of them's a shademaster thornless honeylocust, oh wow, okay, and the other one's an autumn blaze red oh boy. So what I would do is, when you take them out of

the little pot they're in, any roots that are circling cut them. I use a box cutter knife and slice vertically down through that root cylinder in about three or four places, and they within a couple of weeks are going to be branching out new growth out into the next pot size. And if you do that maybe a couple of times during the summer, you're going to have a much more robust root system unless wound up in the pot, and the

tree will establish better. You also want to do that when you finally take it out to plant it for sure. Okay, okay, all right, all right, appreciate it. I appreciate your call. Thank you very much. Let's see here. We're going to run to a break and we will be right back. Welcome back to the Guardline. Good to have you with us today. We are discussing a lot of things, certainly to the weather, which is the elephant in the room after the bizarre hammering that so many

areas took these last days. I hope things are going okay at your house, those of you who are crawling out of the debris. Our hearts go out to you, certainly do wish you, wish you very well with that. There's just no there's no description or no nothing like it, and when until you experience it, it's it's it's just hard to imagine how shocking and devastating that can be for for folks. So would you care about those of you who are out there dealing with that? The folks at Southwest Fertilizer,

Bob I've been. I talk about him a lot because Bob is he just makes sure he keeps things in stock that you might need when they're new products, and he and I talk periodically, you know, about what's going on.

I always go by there to see, you know, what is new, because Bob's going to have it. The way I would like to put it is, if Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have it, you don't need it, because they have every single thing you can imagine for the you know, for example, all the fertilizers I talk about on garden Line, everything on my schedule, they're going to have it at Southwest. That includes the fertilizers, that includes pest control, that includes disease control, that includes weed control.

They're going to have all of that and a lot lot more. They for example, Southwest Fertilizer has got an eighty foot wall of tools. They've got a shop where you can get things sharpened up and ready to go, and your your small equipment and things like that. I brag about that kneeling bench. You gotta have one. Listen. I was doing a bed on concrete on top of concrete, putting in a bed. Uh. And if I

hadn't had my kneeling bench, I would not have knees today. I can just tell you that my knees long ago lost the padding I used to have in the day. And so the kneeling bench is wonderful. Bob's got them. Just go by there and say I want to see the kneeling bench they talk about on guardenline. He'll show you which one it is. He also has Nitrofus bug Out Max. Bug Out max by Nitrofos is an insecticide. It's an insecticide that is designed to manage the things that are messing with your

lawn. It is a product it's going to last a while in the lawn, so whether you're dealing with ants or fleas, or ticks, or grubs or chinchbugs or side web worms. I mean it controls up to one hundred and thirty different insects actually, and it lasts for a couple of days out there. So if you got fire ants, for example, and you do right Now, Nitrofos fire ant killer is an excellent product. I'll tell you this. The bugout Max also works to control the fire ants as they're crawling

through and they encounter that particular product. But Nitrofus is just they're geared up to manage the pests that you might have out there in your lawn and in your garden. So if you're looking to really do a good job on shutting these things down, well, Nitrofus, bug out Max and yep, Bob's

got it Southwest Fertilizer. It's also widely available. Many different places carry the Nitrofoss products, and so it makes it easy for you to find a quality product and then be able to find a place close by you to be able to pick it up. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Feel free to give us a call to be happy to help you with the

kind of gardening questions that you might be dealing with. I was talking to Jim Moss done at Moss Nursery just recently, and we were just discussing all kinds of things. When I visit with Jim the conversation tends to wander over everything under the sun. I mean, the guys like a renaissance man. He's been there, done that, and got the stories to prove it. And when you walk in the nursery you can kind of see that. I mean, it's eight acres. This is a this is a garden center that

is seventy years old, the family operated garden center. You wander through eight acres and you turn a corner and you see this, you know, this ethnic wooden mask carved out that you hang in your garden, or a canoe hanging, or some kind of metal artwork or pottery. Oh gosh, Gem brings all kinds of pottery and all the time. And the stock they have is always good. I mean they were loaded with hanging baskets when I was there. We're just admiring some of those, some of the the cacti and

succulents, always a good supply of that. And of course the house plan house, that alone is worth the price of admission. You got to go in and see Moss Nursery's house plan house. If you like succulents, or if you like any kind of an indoor plant, they are going to get you fixed up with that. They even had some of those tree hadrangas and what does that mean. Well, it's you trim a hadrangja to create a single trunk that has all the foliage and flowers up on top, and they

call that a tree hydraanja. There's some beautiful ones that were heading out the door with happy customers when I was by there. By the way, they're in Seabrook, Seabrook, Texas. If you've not been there before, you really to go. I don't care where you're driving from. That is a fun outing to get out with the family and to go see and allow time because you're gonna need time to wander through there. It's on Toddville Road in Seabrook. Here's the website m a A S Nursery dot com m aa S

Nursery dot com. Check them out. We're going to go now to Paarland and talk to Mark. Hello Marky Tiger morning. I'm just curious where the best place for me to get the two year old at leave most of todd draping that is close to me in Parland. I want to air you get that down? Uh you you probably by the bag you can get it at your Ace Hardware stores down there. I know Paarland Ace Hardware has probably got it there on North Main Street. As far as bulk in that area,

I don't know for sure. I may have to let me check into that kind of look around a little bit, but I know they do have it there at the Paarland Ace Hardware. Yeah, I definitely will need to have a delivery. I've got quite a bunch of square foot as you drop it. Oh, you're gonna do a lot of it. Okay, let's let's do this. Go to Heirloom Soils off Texas dot com and find a find the contact info there and reach out to them and say, look, I need bulk. I'm in Paarland. What can you do? Uh? And

the Heirloom Soils Texas dot JOm airlom Soils of Texas. Now, I know that down at Ciena Mulch they do carry some of the leaf mold composts there. I'm ninety nine percent sure, And you could give them a call. They do about a twenty mile delivery radius. But I don't you're you're kind of on the line there. But give them, give them a call and see if they are able to do that, that would be and that in that website one more time, please Heirlooms Soils off Texas dot com. Got

it? Okay, Hi, very good, Thank you you bet appreciate appreciate that call very much. Okay. With this rain, needless to say, our clay soils have swelled a lot. That is what clay does when you have a lot of rain, especially the kinds of clay we have here. When it gets dry, and it's going to get dry summer's coming, they're gonna shrink. And that movement, believe it or not, it is a

very powerful movement. Powerful enough to crack a slab, a concrete slab in your home, definitely enough to heave your sidewalks and your driveways and break those apart. Fix my lab Foundation Repair has been doing concrete repair for twenty three years. Tystrickland is an expert at it. He absolutely knows what to do. And here's what I would like you to do. Go look around the house. Do you have crack sheet rock? Go walk around the outside of

the house. Do you have cracked bricks? Do you have any doors that are sticking? Those are all signs that something is going wrong down in the foundation. I know we like to put our heads in the sand and go Manyana. I'll deal with this to Manya. But you don't do that, it doesn't get better. You need to go ahead and have somebody that knows what they're doing look at it. Ty gives free estimates for gardenline listeners,

so definitely tell him you're guardline listener. He absolutely does the job right. He shows up on time, and he fixes it right, and he has a fair price. And those three on time, fair price and fixed That's all I asked for in a in a good service job. Now, if you give them a call two eight one, two five five forty nine forty nine, they'll get by check out what's going on. Or you can go to the website fix myslab dot com, fixmslab dot com and take a look.

But believe me on this one, Ty knows what he's doing, he's got the experience, and he does it right for a fair price. That is why I, without hesitation, would recommend you call fix my Slab Foundation Repair. We're going to go out now to Anna Base City. Hello, Anna, Hi, good morning, good morning. I am I have an acre, maybe a little over an acre, and I'm wondering, just lavender

grow down here. I wanted to plant the whole acre with it. It doesn't I mean that now people are listening, going, well, I've got some in a pod. It's you know, but lavender wants to live in a very well drained soil in an area that isn't prone to be in a swamp. And so if you gave it, if you created a bed that was high, as we say, high and dry, meaning the water all drains away. It's got a very good internal drainage in the soil, you

could probably get some types of lavender to grow for a while. But to do an acre of it, it would be a waste of money. Okay, okay, well, thank you so much. All right, Sorry, sorry to disappoint, but I'd rather me disappoint you than lavender break your art. So yeah, thank you, all right, bye bye, thank you for that call. Sweet Grain by nitrophos it is a natural fertilizer or organic fertilizer. It's eleven percent nitrogen and it is a packed fertilizer with benefits for

the soil. And here's why. Number one eleven percent nitrogen that's going to release into the soil. It's going to feed your lawn. You're going to have a beautiful lawn as a result of it. But it's a it's a molassic spaceed fertilizer that really stimulates the biological activity in the soil. You know, organic gardeners put molasses on the soil because they know that, especially the beneficial bacteria just love that and they go crazy for that. That's like feeding

them. They need a carbon They need a carbon source. Only plants can make organic carbon, right, They take carbon dioxide from the air and they make a carbon product with it. Bacteria can't, and they need that, and so what do they need. They need plant based materials, and they need things that are high in carbon, and that is exactly what sweet green is. You're gonna find sweet Green a lot of different places. A Gym's

Hardware up in Montgomery they carry it there. A task to Seat of Ace Hardware is going to have it. You're going to go out to as at Sinco Ranch. You're gonna find it out there as well. Sweet grain, like many nitropost products, is widely available and it's also very effective, and it moves into the soil and it'll give you a pretty quick response with the sweet green. Let's go now out to forest in the Galleria area. Hey

forest, Hey, good morning Skip. During the storm, I had a branch, an oak tree branch fall on my peppermint peach tree, and it created a kind of a scab, kind of ran down the trunk of my peppermint peach and took off a pretty good swath of outer bark on the trunk of the peppermint peach. Oh boy, Yeah, I know it doesn't look good, but I'm not I don't have high expectations, but wondering if you had a recommendation on trying to repair it. Yeah, just cleaning out the

dead bark and keeping that tree as healthy and vigorous as you can. Peaches, what's a trunk diameter on that tree right now? It's probably about it's probably about five six inches. But it's not a it's not a fruit tree. It's a flowering tree. Yeah. Well, it's the same with either one, though it will close over depending on how wide the area is and how vigorous the tree is, and so like, if you've lost half the

tree, that's going to be a little bit of a challenge. It's going to take some time and you'll probably get some internal decay in the meantime. But hey, I got to run to a break if we want to continue this. I'm just looking at the clock and going, hey, I'm talking into the news. Hang on for us. We'll be right back. Well, well, welcome back to the garden line. Good to have you with

us. We're going to go right back to forest in the galley. Of course, we're talking about that stripped off bark on your tree, And I was just saying that if if it's not too wide of an area, the tree will close it over in the next season or two. If it's wider, it's going to take a little longer, and then the interior wood is

subject to decomposition, to rotting essentially. But if your tree is in good health in general, and you're giving it a little bit of nutrient, little fertilizer to keep it growing, I think that you're probably gonna be okay. So no external spray, paint or a kind of wrap or anything. Just let it right repair it. Yeah, let that be exposed. You do not want to cover the wood because it decays faster underneath, because it says moist. You'd rather have it dry out quickly after a rain and that that's

important to do that. Yeah, don't wrap it, don't paint it. It'll it'll be all right on that. Just maybe, uh, you know, for every inch of trunk diameter, give it one or two cups of a quality lawn fertilizer that the scratch into the soil surface around it if you can. If it's got grass around it, you probably can't do that. But then watered in really well, So one to two cups per inch of trunk diameter, spread it as far as the branches go out and watered in

to that area. That'll give you a boost. Okay, I will do that. I appreciate your help. Thank you all right, First, thanks for having through the break. Appreciate that. Yep, yep, yep. Talking about trees and planting trees and things, which I know a lot of you will be planting trees after losing trees in your yard or maybe having them essentially be damaged to the point where it's you just want to pull them out

because they're they're slightly run safe. The three sixty tree stabilizer is very important for stabilizing your tree during the the or after the transplant process. During the rooting end, process. You know, we get these trees in cylinder containers and we put them in the ground and the whole root system is in that small cylinder. That's what they were growing it in at the grower. Well, when you put it in the ground, that cylinder pumps dry real quick,

and you got to keep it moist to help it get established. But you don't want it moving around a lot. You know, you get a win like we had. Oh my gosh, I mean that game over. With the tree stabilizer. It grabs onto the tree and grabs onto the post, and you can use it with any kind of post. I would suggest the iron t posts. They they're easy to drive in. They work well. You put that tea post about a foot and a half from the tree

and the tree stabilizer. It's adjustable in distance, but it grabs both and it holds that tree very well. The strap a lot. You can hook the strap a little loose so the tree moves just a little bit. That's also important in strengthening. It's a process of nature that when we stress and stretch plant tissues, they get stronger. I'll talk about that in just a minute, but anyway, tree stabilizers available at RCW Nursery, Buchanan's Nursery,

if you go down to Alvin Jorges Hidden Gardens has it. Over I was talking about Bob, a Southwest fertilizer business at and Renwick. They have it. Arborgate has it. Din I say, Buchanans Plants for all seasons has it. It's easy to find, it's easy to find, and it's a quality product that will last, last and last. So you plant a tree and then you know later you're going to plan another one a few years from now. Just grab your tree stabilizer out of the garage and go out there

and do it. You can buy a couple of them from different angles. Hold a tree so whether the wind blows north, southeast or west, you got good support there that way. And just remember that even with multi trunk trees like a crape myrtle, a couple of tree stabilizers will provide this for that overall plant that you need. Yes, talking about strengthening plants. Okay, nerd alert, I don't do this very often. Somebody the other day when I was out at Arbor Gates that I ought to do it more often.

But nerd alert Horticulture, nerd Alert there is principle implants that when you bend and stretch, that plant gets stronger. So if you're growing little seedlings, maybe you've grown tomato seedlings in the window at home before, and they're stretching toward the light, and you keep turning them around trying to get them to grow straight up, and they're kind of spindling, and then you put

them outside and they snap off in the first wind. Well, if you will brush your hands over those seedlings about twice a day, just gently brush them, just move them as if the wind were blowing. I know people that have a little fan that comes on and off and goes on them just to move them around a little bit. That actually causes a stem to get

stronger. And that's true with tree trunks. You got a tree that's been long, skinny, tall trunks attached to a posts, that a little steak that they had in the pot, and you put it out there, and it does not have the tree strength, the trunk strength, But as it bends in the wind, the tissues get stronger. As that tree trunk develops and it gets very resilient where it can take the wind. And here is the fancy name I always listen to garden Line with a pen and paper handy.

If you want to be the Cliff Claven of your neighborhood garden club, you need to know this word. You can impress your friends. Thigmo morphogenesis is that nerdy or what fig mo morphogenesis? Basically that means you move it, it gets stronger. That basically is what happened. But it's true. But you know, aside from the nerd evert, it's important to know those things. You're growing seedlings, now you know something to make them stronger.

You're putting the little tree out there. You don't want it to bend and snap and stretch. It's got to have a little movement in order to strengthen that. We're the same way, right, You want your muscle stronger, You go to the gym, you work them out, give them time to rest. You go to the gem, you work them out, and it gets stronger and stronger. Plants are that way too. It's a principle of nature. All right, Enough of that nerdy. Yeah, I was out

at the arbor Gate and I had a great time out there. They always have a good time at the arbor Gate. We had a lot of folks come by. Thank you for everybody that's stopped in and asked the questions. You know, the Arborgate is one of those destination garden centers that people come from all over to go to because number one, they've got unbelievable plant selection.

Yes that's important. Number Two, they have very trained staff that can help you not only find the plant you need, make suggestions, but also how do you care for it? Or if you have an issue with a plant, get a hold of them. They will help you with that. They want you to have success. Now. They're out on twenty nine to twenty just west of Tomball and they have a brand new parking lot in the back and if you got to use that one, it is easy, convenient,

it's close, it's safe. Go down Trischel Road, which starts basically is a loop behind Arborgate and whether you you know, if you miss Trischel the first time you pass by Arburgate, just start looking because it's going to be real quick. You're going to see at the other end of it. Just go around behind back in park. When you're at Arburgate, you can get their one two three easy system. What is a one two three easy

system? It's an organic food complete four four three plus calcium feeds anything with roots. It's an organic soil complete, high quality soil that has expanded shale included in it. Expanded shale holes clay soils open and helps the internal drainage in an organic compost complete, which again is a high quality compost with the expanded shail in it as well. You get those three bags when you get a plant, and you're on your way to success because, as I always

say on guard Line, brown stuff before green stuff. You make the plant a foundation where it's going to have success, good drainage, good nutrients, et cetera. And then you put a good plan in it, and you're on your way. And everyone thinks you have a green thumb just because you did things the way you're supposed to do and cooperation with the play with the

way plants want to want to grow. You're listening to garden Line and uh if you would like to give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four By the way out at the Bee Supply in Dayton, Texas. They have a thing and I've talked about it for a little while where it's fairly new though it's called the b Rental Program. So if you've got five to twenty acres of land and you're within fifty miles of Dayton, Texas fifty mile radius any direction Dayton, Texas, they will come out and

do all the bee work. In other words, they bring the bees out, they take care of the bees for you, and harvest the honey and do all of that. You can find out more information on the website, which is thebsupply dot com. If you've thought about beekeeping, you know, maybe you're not committed yet, but you're kind of looking into it, take one of their beginning beekeeping classes. It's a strong foundation for the first year of beekeeping. They start at nine thirty in the morning. They go till

three thirty. You'll spend the entire time in the classroom going over beekeeping, and then you will go out in the b yard weather permitting to let to let the whole group really get a hands on experience doing hive inspections. Uh. Even if you choose to not go into beekeeping, you will love that class. It will be incredibly informative and I gotta tell you you'll get hooked. You just are I used to have bees myself when I lived up in the Willis, Texas area many years ago. Uh and it's just a lot

of fun. Dbsupply dot com. We're gonna take a little break here. We'll be right back. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four and Kenneth and Tumble you'll be our first up a crackling We got a radiate. No more taking it slow. It's been a while, Neil Diamond. What a voice, What a voice? Hey, welcome back to the Garden Line. Good to have you with us today. We're here to answer your gardening questions. We want you to have success. It's

as simple as that. One way that you have success is to use quality products. A fertilizer like Microlife, for example, Microlife has a wide variety of products. I was telling someone earlier to get their acidic fertilizer the pink bag, the one that is for acid loving plants. Well, the green bag is the standard that's kind of like the basic Microlife fertilizer, wide variety of options. When you use Microlife's green bag, it's for lawns, but

it's I use it for I use in the vegetable garden. I using the flower I use in a lot of different places. Just a good fertilizer, absolute good fertilizer. What people don't really think about is the need for a supplementation with humates plus. That's the purple bag of microlife. Humates plus is concentrated compost in a bag. So what does that mean? Okay, well, let's do it this way. If you take grass, clippings and leaves, that's organic matter, you pile it up and you decompose it. You

have compost. If you take that compost and let it decompose all the way down to its final stage, that's called humus. And humates are actually a product that's mined out of the ground ancient you know what do you call them? The little ribbons of material underground like coal and stuff. They It is a concentrated compost. And what happens is when you put it down, the fulvic acids in it, the humic acids in it, they all enhance the

soil microbiology, the release of nutrients in the soil. They improve soil structure. Over time. As you use a product like humus humates plus the purple bag in the soil, you're going to continue to make the soil better and better, and organic gardening is all about making the soil better. That's the foundation. Organic gardening didn't start with organic pesticides. It started with soil and that still is the foundation of success in it. And microlife helps you have

success in that way. That is really really important. Now you're gonna find microlife a lot of places. You can go to microlife furlizure dot com find out all the different kinds of places that you can get it. I tell you this, you can get at ACE Hardware stores. Widely available at ACE Hardware's and there's a whole bunch of those forty plus here in the Greater Houston

area. By the way, while I'm talking about ACE, I just want to remind you that after these storms, ACE Hardware is their trucks moving in and out so fast, stocking up. I'm talking about generators, I'm talking about batteries, I'm talking about tarps. You know why we need those, covering up exposure, US, mosquito repellence, all the things you deal with and water damage, you know, like bleach and like dehumidiflyers and fans and whatnot. ACE is the place, and they are stocked up to help you

have success. Just a quick reminder, since I'm talking about ACE, I'm not going to be at Langham Creek ACE today as we had planned. All hands on deck. This is to help people in the area get the products they need. We don't have time for me to go by there and just you know, stop and visit with gardeners. We'll do that another time. We're putting that one off. Hopefully we'll be able to come back and reschedule that one. But get out to your local ACE Hardware. Go to Acehardware

dot com, find the store locator, find the one near you. We're now going to go to let's see Kenneth and Tomball. Hello Kenneth, Hello, how are you doing. I'm well, sir. How can I help? I have crapgrass in my yard and I just wonder how to get rid of that. Well, once you have grass and grass, it's hard to get rid of because the things that kill crabgrass kill long grass. You can use a pre emergent herbicide in the spring. We would start doing that in

February. That's on my schedule at Gardening with Skip dot Com gives you the timing of it. Those can if you go to the schedule. They can also be repeated, and we do the second pre emergent applications. Kind of right now, we're kind of at the big time where the first application is starting to wind down a little bit, and just to extend that we control

to the second. But the existing crabgrass that's not going to kill it pre emergent prevents it doesn't kill, so handpling, mowing regularly to get the before it gets the seed heads up there to make the situation worse. That all helps. Other than that, just know that the more you build long density, the more you grow yourself out of the crabgrass problem. And I don't mean to be, you know, to make light of a weed problem, but a friend of mine says, you make all your weeds go away by

taking off your glasses. Meaning what crabgrass is green, Saint Augustine is green. You mow it and you you know you you be patient and in time you get ahead of it. That way with the pre emergence and with building a dense lawn. Uh So when we don't have a spray to kill it in the lawn once it's up, we do have that strategy, okay, okay, And I have your schedule, so I'll go in there and look

at it and fumble that. Damn. All right, Kenneth, good luck with that, take care okay, thank you, you bet good to have you. Good heavy with us today. Let's go now to Nancy in I don't know where. Hello, Nancy, where are you as I'm in Richmond? All right? I've got a quick question for you. My husband and I have grown tomatoes for forty years. This year when I picked the beautiful tomatoes, bring him in, put them on the counter. They start within

two or three days they start getting little brown Colca dots all over. And we've never had that before. So I haven't seen any bugs out there. Can you tell me what's doing? That's a good question. Brown polka dots? Now, I'm probably not little tiny, little tiny like pinhole five brown dot. Okay. And if I peel the skin off, it does go below the skin, okay. What it may be there are piercing sucking insects called stink bugs and leaf footed bugs, and they put their mouth into your

tomato and spit and dissolve the cells in there. And it could be that you're just getting a little decay that's following that feeding based on them being tiny spots and going down deeper. That may be what you're seeing. It's not a common thing to have that with stink bugs. But I don't know if tomato disease that will cause what you just described. Okay, well, we've

never had it. We've had we've had the bugs. I've seen their damage before, but we've just never had this domenon and I'm having I love homegrown tomatoes. I like to share them, but I feel like I can't share them because don't decay before people ever eat them. All right, maybe I could avoid it by putting them in the refrigerator, but I don't like the

taste once they're refrigerated. Well, I tell you one thing. If you will refrigerate them and bring them out to room temperature, give them a little time to warm up. Good, You're not going to find the taste is affected, like when you eat a cold tomato. Oh okay. I did a trial one year with the Harris County Master Gardeners and we took a bunch of tomatoes and we cut vertically from the stem to the blossom end, so the two halves are identical, and we put celifi in or surround wrap over

each one. I left one overnight on the counter. I put the other in refrigerator overnight. Then in the morning we took them out and we let them warm up to room temperature, and we did a taste, a blind taste test, and people couldn't tell the difference. All right, that's the secret. I will do that now. A lot of tomato growers are out there screaming haresy. Heretic off with his head. But I'm telling you that was a trial we did. All right, Thank you, Nan, Would

one of them thank you your pet? Thank you very much. Yeah, that's kind of cool. By the way, I should have I should have mentioned this to Nancy. You need to stick around for the first bumper song if you like tomatoes of the next hour, first bumper song coming up. Nelson water Garden. Nelson Water Garden out in Katie is a destination you need to go to. It's actually nursery and water garden. And boy did they ever stock up on plants. Now. They became famous with their water gardens,

which are outstanding. I mean, do you want do you want fountains at your house? Do you want disappearing fountains? Waterfalls? They had all that. They can do it, or they can help you do it. If you don't do a little, do it yourself or yours. They can do that. But they have rangoon creepers in stock out there, and if you've never seen a rangoon creeper, uh, the it comes out and has

these clusters of pink and ballooms. They change color. In fact, I think the scientific name of it is quiz qualis, which in Latin means which what it's like? You look at that bloom and you go which what it's got? Different color? You're changing each day from pink and white. Oh, beautiful, beautiful. Lots of different kinds of plants, the vitex and so on, beautiful hedranges and watergarden plants, things you've never seen before,

like the mosaic plant. All right, Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Nelson Watergardens dot Com. Out there, and Katie, you gotta go check them out. It is a destination. Take your friends too, by the way. You'll wander through it, and I promise you'll be inspired. I was so impressed first time I went there. Well, we're putting another hour in the books. Here we go. I hope that you've enjoyed listening so far. If you'd like to give us a call, be part of the part of the

show. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'll be right tacked. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor show Crazy just watching as many thanks to stray. Hey, welcome back to guarden Line. Good to have you with us today. I'm your host, Skip Rictor, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. What kind of questions do you have? What are

you interested in? We will talk about that our phone umber seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let's head out to spring and talk to Rich. Hello, Rich, good morning, Skip, thanks for taking my call. Uh. There's there's a product that I've used to help neighbors that have been infested with

basket grass as well as existing crabgrass. And it's the agril On crab grass Killer, Yes, with the active ingredients cinnamon that knocks out basket grass and crabgrass without hurting any Saint Augustine. The issue is, yeah, the issue is it's very expensive. You don't get a lot of coverage. So if you're doing spot treatments at works, if you need a whole yard, yeah, probably cost prohibitive. Yeah, and I should I should have thought of that one when fell a call while ago. It is it is, it's

it's some when you sprinkled on, I'm going to ask stuff turned? It just turns black, doesn't it? Pretty quick? Yes? Very quick? Works works very well and basket grass is not an easy one to kill with conventional herbicides. So that's good, an amazing thing. All right, Hey, thanks for bringing that up. I should have thought of that one, but it is a good you're right, you're right. It is pricey.

They're talking about putting out, in fact, they have, I think put out a bigger container of it. That little round cylinder doesn't hold a whole lot, and I think they're talking about putting out a bigger one if they haven't already. So it's a little more economical for a larger area. Alrighty, hopefully they do, because the two pounds is about twenty five bucks and it doesn't go very far. Okay, well that would be a quick fix

though. While we do the things we're talking about and trying to build a dense lawn to choke it out. So that's good. Thanks, Thanks Rich, I appreciate that call. Always good to be reminded of some of those things. When it comes to dealing with the weeds in the lawn, you just have to remember that mow water, fertilized. Those are the three best herbicides in town. Now, what I mean by that, I mean when

you create a dense lawn weed seeds. Now, not talking about perennial weeds, not talking about dollar weed or a Virginia button weed or some of these that can survive in the grass even when it's dense. We're talking about the weeds coming from seed. They can't get light and they can't germinate. That's why you melt your garden beds so that it keeps the light off the soil and the weed seeds don't germinate. Well, we can mulch our lawns with

lawn. Do you see what I'm saying. We create density in the lawn. We return our clippings to fall down on the surface and every little bit helps. And when you create that kind of environment, you choke out ninety percent of your weed problems. So that should be if you're organic, if you're synthetic, whatever you are, that should be step one in weed control. And if you go to my schedule online, my lawn management schedule, I talk about that. In fact, I think I put it in.

Yeah, it's definitely in there. But it's very very important to do that. So the weed management schedule says the I'm going to read it to you say this here it is horse's mouth. The first and most important step in weed control is to build a dense, healthy turf over time through proper fertilizing, mowing, and watering. Remember, wherever sunlight hits a soil, nature plants a weed. Nature does not like bear soil, and if you won't take care of it, it's going to throw weeds on it. To cover

that soil. Protect the soil, build the soil. Even weeds, yes, when they decompose away, they build the soil. Nature does that. So anyway, something to think about. Hey, folks at A and A plants and produce up in Montgomery, they have an outstanding selection of plants and I just absolutely outstanding beautiful lantanna. And if you've only had the yellow lantana, the new gold, which is pretty If you only had that kind, you got to go buy Ana and check out some of the colors in Lantana

that they have many kinds of plants. Of course beyond Lantana. Today out at Ana Plants and Produce May eighteenth, the less things have changed since I last talked to them. Andy Chidester. Andy Chadester with Medina Products is going to be out there at Ana from twelve noon to two pm today free gardening workshop. Andy is extremely knowledgeable. You will thoroughly enjoy her out there. You just go out there and check it out. She gonna be talking about

soul remediation, getting our water log plants growing again and again. I've known Andy since years ago and we both were in Austin, Texas was extension age over there. You will not be disappointed. Head out to Ana, and when you're there, you're going to find lots of plants and broadus beautiful beautiful yard I just say yard art, but things like you know, an arbor, a row of metal structure I'm without words today, a metal structure that

goes over the top. You walk through those kind of things, an archway there you go, uh, and you're also gonna find every fertilizer I talk about on Guardenline. They keep them all they're there, including the soil products I talk about on guarden Line. All right, let's head out to Chapel Hill now and we're going to talk to Rachel. Hell old, Rachel, beautiful, beautiful, Hey, Rachel, can you hear me? Need to turn that radio down? All right, I'm gonna put Rachel on hold and

we'll come back and check on her hair in just a second. Dandy Feed and Tomball is your hometown feed store. Dandy Feed carries the fertilizers you hear me talk about here on guardline, absolutely all of them. I mean they do. And they also have soil blends like you've heard me talk about age leaf, mole, compost, heirlooms, rose soil, or their fruit berry and citrus mix, or they're Veggie and herbmex. All of that is at

D and D Feed. D and D Feed just a few miles west of two forty nine in Tumble, a few miles west on twenty nine to twenty. You also at D Anddfeed are going to find selection of plants. They keep plants out there in the front, always some new things coming in changing if you'd like to give them a call two eight one three five one seventy

one forty four. When you get inside, you're going to find products for everything you need to take care of your lawn, your landscape, and your garden, from insects to diseases to weeds to just good fertilizers, D and D feed out there in Tumble. I'm going to head back now, I'll tell you what we are hitting up against, a hard break. I'm going to come back and Rachel and Jim, you'll be my first two up. We'll be right back in just a moment, if you'd like to give us

a call and get on the boards. Seven one three five eight seven four seven one three two one two kt r H. Welcome back to the guard Line. Thanks for being with us today. We are here to talk about the things that interest you, so you can whatever your question is, if related to gardening, we'll give it our best shot and try to help with that. Nitrophis Superturf is the silver bag. It's the nineteen four ten.

It's the slow release product that we've been talking about from Nitrophos. Now half the nitrogen is slow release, so you put it down, you put on NITROPHSS superturf watered in, you're going to get a release of nitrogen. Then over time you're going to get a release of more and more and more nitrogen. That's how it works, and that's how it should work. That is a very effective way to fertilizer lawns here in the summertime. That nineteen four

ten is a good ratio for nutrients. It's very similar to the ratio that you would expect if you were to send a grass clipping to the lab and say what's in this? It's going to be a ratio like nitrofoss superturf. Now where do you buy it? Well, widely available and chanted forest down in the Richmond Rosenberg area. Growers outlet up in the Willis area RCW Nursery. Yep, that's the one where Tombo Parkway comes into belt Way eight.

They're going to have NITROFOS superturf there as well. We're going to now head out to Rachel and Chapel Hill. Hello Rachel, Hi, how are you doing. I'm good, I'm good. What's up? I wanted to put down some molts around my trees. I have lots and lots of trees. I wanted to put molts around them so we don't have to mow so close to the base of the tree. And I was wondering, can I kill the grass under the tree first and then put the mulch down? You can

what kind of what would you recommend? What kind of grass is it? Oh? Just a variety, anything from bermuda. Yeah, yeah, you're definitely gonna want to kill it first. And as far as grass killers, there you got two options. One is something that just kills grass and there's a couple of ingredients, but when you go to the store to buy it, it'll say it's for grass only, just for killing grass. Uh,

there's there's two ingredients in that. If you're having to shop. One is the that begins with the boys name SETH s c t H, and the other one I instead of spelling all these out on the air, I just give you the first few letters because no other product has these first few letters s C t H for killing grass and then F l U A Z flu ads for killing grass. Then the other alternative would be glypha say, which is a product in Roundup and many other brands now of it, and that

won't hurt the tree. It will not hurt the tree if you don't over apply it and drench it down into the soil, which would be a waste of product and money. Or make sure the tree doesn't have any little sprouts coming out of the bottom because glefas kills green, green things. So if you have some sucker sprouts out of the base and got that on it, well yeah, I mean, it wouldn't kill the tree, but it would it would make it would weaken it, it would hurt it. So be

careful with that. Okay, great, thank you very much, you met Rachel. Good luck with that. Wish you well on that. I was talking with Jason at Pearscapes a good while back and we were just we were just talking about the business and the industry and and how landscapers that are good, that are reputable, they stay busy and they I mean they book weeks ahead of time, if not months in some cases for big jobs, and it's so important to call and get set up, get on the schedule.

So in this case, so Pierscapes can come out and help you because they are professional, they do excellent work. If you want proof of that, go to pierscapes dot com. Pierscapes dot com. That's our website. You will see some of the most beautiful landscape jobs you've ever seen. Their phone number, by the way, is two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. Two eight one three seven fifty sixty. Do you need hardscapes? Do you need your irrigation system worked on? Do you need drainage? How many

people need drainage right now? You know you need drainage. When we get rain like this, they can move that water to another location. They know how to get that done. They also do quarterly maintenance, and this is something most people don't think about. They will come out every quarter and they'll trim, they'll weed, they'll fertilize, they'll check the irrigation, they'll do a multch, refresh new mulch on top of the old mault. They will

do seasonal color changes. So whether you do two changes a year or four changes, they can come out and they can do that. You just have to go and check out the website, give them a call and get set up again. Pierscapes dot com is a website. Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. That's the phone number. You need. Let's go now to Jim and New Vienna, Ohio. Hello Jim, good morning, Skip. How are you, sir? I'm well, thank you. I'm thinking

of bringing some tomato plants in the five gallon buckets. What's the best type of potting soil or guarding soil or what's we used for that type of book? Well, a real good one is Airline Soils Veggie and herb Mex. It's made for that and it would do really well. There are a number of other good quality soil mixes out there for that. But when you're talking about vegetables and things and in a bucket that would that would be a good choice. I copy. If a plant is severely root bound with a ton

of roots at the very bottom, is it okay to cut off? It's like the bottom quarter inch of those little six Yeah, it is. When you cut roots, the roots branch and sprout and grow back out, and so whenever you just have a wad of roots like that, it's always good

to cut them. If the sides of your container, you know, is just white with a mass of roots, take a box cutter knife and just slice downward through that cylinder of soil that came out of the pot in about three or four places, and it will it will make a difference along the side, like from top to bottom down, Yeah, top to bottom,

slice down that way all the circling roots you cut. Now, you know if the if the container is like a one gallon container, well you don't want to slice in Well, I mean you could, but those box cutter knives are about a one inch blade. But you're just trying to get through that outer wrapping of roots. That's what the goal is, right, Okay, thank you so much. All right, Jim, thanks appreciate that call very much. Buchanans and the Heights is one of the garden centers here that

we call a destination. It's one of the ones that people love to go and shop. It's on eleven Street. Most of you probably been there. I hope you have eleven Street in the Heights. The website is Buchanansplants dot com. You need to go to the website and you need to sign up to get their newsletter. It is outstanding. You also need when you're on the website to look at the educational materials they have on there. There is a lot of good stuff from written to video do you name it? Excellent?

Excellent stuff. Now Buchanans, they took a pretty good hit during these storms and they've already gotten out there. They've getting things cleaned out, and they are back open for business. I was shocked to see what they've been able to accomplish. You need to get by there check them out. It's one of the destinations that we love to send people to, and we love to go to because the quality of products they have, the rain products are

having. Especially when you're looking for things for pollinators or you're looking for native plants, well that's the place to go. They just really shine in many categories, but those certainly are two of the ones. Buchanans Plants dot Com on Eleventh Street in the Heights. Go by, say hi, I give them some encouragement from you know, like a lot of you taking a good storm hit the other day. But I'm telling you they are back up and running and going, so it'd be a good day to get out to Buchanan's

Plants. We are going to now go to Santa Fe and talk to Terry. Hello, Terry, Hi, Skip, how's it going, good, sir, good sir? Hey, I have a peach tree. It's sloaded with peaches and they look like grapes. There's so many of them. But there's black specks coming out from the stem and all the way around the white side of the peach. You know. The other side is pink looking, but the white size full of little black spots. Okay, it coming out

meaning it's sticking out above the skin of the peach. Yeah, from the stem, huh. On the skin of the peach, it's a little black looking specks on every one of them. Are they round? Yeah, they're kind of, well, there's the other round. I'll tell you what they run together. Yeah, it could be several things. There's a disease called scab that makes round spots on the peach skin. It's only skin deep. If you get it bad enough, the skin can crack a little bit,

but it's only skin deep, and I wouldn't worry about it. I don't know some of what you're describing isn't I'm not picturing it. And so if you'd like to send me a photo, I can put you on hold and Produci will give you an email to do that. Make sure it's up close, good shop focus. Just to be sure that we're talking about the same thing, all right, Okay, I mean I don't seeing war or anything on it's curious, but the pink side is nothing on the pink side,

just the white area. Okay, huh yeah, kind of need to see it. So I'm gonna put you on hold and if you want to hang up, you can. If you want to hang around and get an email, they'll they'll pick up and give you that. Okay, Terry, all right, thank you, bet bye bye. Yeah. When it comes to peaches, the common most common insect pests, we have two things big deals. One is scale on the stems. That is a game changer, it's

serious. Another one is the plumb curculio. Plumb curculios they're named after plums, but all stone fruit, peaches, plumb and apricot, all of those. They can go into the fruit and create the worm at the base of the fruit. That's a base meaning I'm sorry, at the seed at the pit inside the peach. Those two are very significant. We have some other

things that can affect them. Stink bugs, leaf footed bugs can affect them, and some other pists, but that's the big When it comes to the folier diseases, we've got scab which is a low, round bb shaped spots on the peach. There are some other foliage type diseases. Brown rot is the number one that causes the whole fruit to rot, and you just have to preventatively spray with that. By the way, that's a reminder sanitation is important in our gardening. And what do I mean by sanitation, I mean

don't bring a problem in and if it's in, get it out. So for example, you bring a plant home as there's nematodes on the roots in the pot, but you didn't lift it up and look at that. But you're bringing it home. Now you've introduced that problem and there is not an ematode eradicator out there. We just have to end up living with it and coming up with some strategies. So don't bring the problem in. Number two,

if you've got a problem, get it out. When you have a fruit that dries and turns into a mummy on the tree, When you have a fruit that falls off the tree, oftentimes it may have like a plumb curculio in it that's going to pupate. Go into the ground and guess what's gonna happen next spring. It's going to come out as an adult, and you're going to have a whole lot more fruit that are lost to that pest.

So you pick those up, you pick those off. If you have a pear tree with far blight, that's the chocolate brown leaves that just die on the tree and just stay there, chocolate brown. The ends of the shoots that are tender tend to bend over into a shepherd's crook look. And so what do you do with that? Will you print it out? You

go below the infected part and cut those out. Every time you make a cut, you spray your prunters with lysol to kill the bacteria that might be on the prunter, so that when you make your next cut, you're not introducing the problem to that. And it's Lysol's it's a brand, I know. But there's a good product. Is something like that that's going to kill all the the germs and things on it. That's sanitation, and that's just

a good practice that applies in many different ways. We're gonna take a break here for the news seven one, three, two, two, fifty eight seventy four. I'll be right back. I forget all about the sweating and digging every time I go out and pick me up the homegrown to maidos, homegrown tomatoes. Would life be without homegrown tomatoes? Only two things? Money came bye and that's true love grown. Oh yeah, homegrown tomatoes. You

cannot eat it. That's why the tomatoes or the queen of the vegetable garden used to work in for agger life extensions say the three things that make our phone ring or the three t's, and it's true on garden Line too. Trees, turf, and tomatoes. Probably should say turf, trees, and tomatoes, because I think turf is probably the number one phone ringer here on garden Line. Trees definitely also. And when it comes to the vegables,

no one calls me about their Cole Robbie. It's it's tomatoes. We obsess over the perfect tomata and hopefully we can have you help you have some success with that. It's it's not that difficult to do. Welcome back to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help you have success with your gardening. So just give us a call seven one three two one two KTRH if you have a question and we could help you with that.

It's summer fertilizing time, and if you have not fertilized your lawn this summer, or if maybe you used a fast release product and then here come the gully washers, well you ought to consider something that's going to stretch it out a little bit. And Nelson Plant Food has two products that both have a slow release in them. The first is Bruce's Brew. Now, Bruces Brew has an immediate release, but it also has two different kinds of a

slow release nitrogen in it that's going to gradually feed over time. So if you want a quick yes, it can absolutely give you that and then continue to feed as well. The other is slow and Easy, and this is really a state of the art slow release fertilizer. It will release nutrients for two, three, four, even more months down the line. It really

stretches it out. In fact, if you do that now, if you use nitrovass slow and Easy right now, you won't have to fertilize again until we get to fall because it'll still be releasing your nutrients on through all the summer months. It's really amazing and good for that. It's also a little bit ofcidifying for the soil, which is a good thing. A good thing when it comes to diseases such as take all root rot, for example,

which prefers higher pH soil. It's going to give you that gradual growth, so you're not going to have the same You know, you fertilize with too much nitrogen, you get to mow a lot more. It doesn't do that, gives you a nice gradual growth. Nelson plant food both the bruce is Brute and the slow and Easy Holiday plant foods widely available throughout the Houston area. Went a head over to single Ranch and talk to Charlie. Hey, Charlie, good morning. How are you? I'm well, thank you?

How can we help you today? Can even get my words? Well, I'm actually actually live in Fort Worth and I'm a baby boomer and I'm responsible for a lot of environmental damage. So I'm doing everything i can to try to clean that up. And one of them is replacing our high water use Saint Augustine with something we've just been hearing about a mixture of red and white clover. And you don't have to dig anything up. What we've been told

is you just toss it out there and it kind of grows. It looks very similar to a lawn and although you do have pretty flowers, sometimes it's just a really nice alternative if you can go and shade sun any of those kind of things. Is that. What would you think about that? I'm very I question the success of that. I don't have hard research. I've not dealt with it personally, so I'm not going to be too absolute in

what I say. But i can tell you this that clovers, when you look at clovers here in Texas, when you get into the heat of summer, they're not a lot of the clover's looking good around and about. And I know that when it comes to foot traffic clover it's going to have a problem with that as well. I'm not saying don't try it, check it out. I need to look into it more. I've heard this from someone

else, but I'm a little hesitant about that. There are some grasses that are a little bit more resilient out there and that help in terms of not needing water so much, and so that would be an option. But without just saying no, don't do it, it won't work, I'm just saying I'm skeptical. Okay, okay, Well, I appreciate that you're We've heard kind of both sides, but the extra are telling us try it someplace where it doesn't matter and let me know how it goes. That's exactly. That's

exactly. Yeah, and I'll let you know. I'm really enjoying this. I'm actually driving down the corpus and I'm just loving all of this. This is great. Thank you so much. Well, good, good, And yeah there's some there's some a lot of cool new options out there if you want like a groundcover that would give you the heat tolerance and some drop tolerance too. There's something called frog fruit that is it's actually a weed, but

it makes a groundcover. People that sell garden centers that sell native plants often will have it, and it spreads. It has little tiny flowers that are very popular with certain pollinators, and it makes a nice little, nice little dense area. It can put up with a little shade, but especially in the sun it does very very well. So that's just another thing to consider. That's a little more Texas Native. Thank you so much. I really

appreciate that. We will definitely, all right, Charlie, thank you appreciate that. Yeah, that is the case. Interestingly, Texas A and M released a Saint Augustine just recently h and it is reported to be it's reported

to approach Bermuda grass when it comes to drought tolerance. That is, that is saying something The turf grass breeder Texas A and M has really focused on grasses being more resource efficient, more in this case with Saint Augustine, water efficient, and when when you create, when you do your breeding, and when you point toward a particular goal in time, you're going to achieve that.

And I'm pretty I was pretty excited to see this come out. I think that I think we're going to end up being really really impressed with it. I put some in my yard this year, and of course right now everything looks good. It's raining and the temperatures aren't that bad and stuff. When it heats up, I'm going to pull back the water really hard on it and see how it does. I know right now, it's happy,

it's doing very very well. And yeah, so we'll just see. I'll let you know as we get a little further into it, make some more comments on it as well. If you live done in the League City area, your hometown feed store is League City Feed So if you need that fertilizer you know I've been talking about fertilizers this morning. Well they've got it. They carry a wide variety. If you need soils, quality soil blends like the heirloom soils we were talking about, they've got those down there as well.

League City Feed stocks up all the things you need to control pests, weeds and diseases. But they're feed store and you get good service, the old time service. We carry the sacks out for you. It's just a good place to go. And you know, they're open from nine am to six pm Monday through Saturday. Closed on Sunday, but nine am to six pm. So if you have to run by after work, they're still there and they can help you out. Two eight one three three two sixteen twelve.

Anyone down around League City, we're talking about Santa Fe, Dickinson, Lamark Baycliff, Webster, Clear Lake City, El Camino Real, San Leone, all of you. This is your hometown feed store. League City Feed just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six on Highway three in League City. Premium pet Foods two by the way. Uh you're listening to garden Line and our phone number if you would like to get on the call by the

way. We're gonna take a little break here and we'll be back. You can get on the board and you will be first up when we come back. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'm just handle back now your panzel say, welcome back to guard Line. Good to have you with us today. We're going to head straight out to copper Field and talk to Donna this morning. Hello, Donna, good morning. I was going to come see you

this morning at ACE Hardware, but I don't have power since Thursday. All right, really, thank you, but we had to cancel that. Aces well, I understand, and I understand. Yeah. I have a almost a half acre here in Copperfield, and the last two years I have had a weed that is very skinny leafed, like a grass type thing. It gets about twelve inches tall when it's mature. It makes clumps everywhere. I've got hundreds of it, seems like in the backyard, and I used to

always dig them up or pull them up. They're easy to pull up when the ground is wet, but that doesn't do my hands very well. But I have a problem of finding out what it is and how to treat it. At the end of the tiny little grass blade, it has like a little seed pod on the end. It almost looks like a bird, but it's the seed pod type looking. Okay, like it's it's tiny, like size of an English pe or something real small. Right, it's even Yeah,

the seed pod is even tinier than that. It's very small. Yeah, Okay, that is a sedge, and there there's a product. There's a weed. There are a number of sedges, nutsedge or yellow and purple nutsedge or sedges. It's not that, but there sedges. There's also something called kai linga. Ki linga is another weed like that. And you're gonna have to go with a product for sedges. So you have things like manage is one product. Image is another product. Sedge hammer. That makes sense,

sedge hammer to hammer those sedges. Those will all work. If you go to a ACE hardware store in your neighborhood, you're going to be able to find the products that are going to work quite well actually against sedges, and they're gonna they're gonna carry those. So the closest to you is probably going to be the one on Highway six North Hamilton, hardware on Highway six North is up there. We were talking about, you know, you coming

over to see me at Langham Creek. ACE hardware that is very close to you. It just kind of depends on exactly right where you are, but Langham Creek would be a great one. On five twenty nine f five twenty nine. Yeah. Is there are these spray said you sprayed? Well, they are spray's uh there, some are powder, some are liquid. Uh. Sedge Hammer is gonna come as a little packet of powder that you mix

into water. But there are other brands on there. And that's why when you go to ACE, just just ask them saying, hey, I need sedge control. Absolutely. My land backs up to the bayou and along that back part of the fence. It's just almost solid with these things, Okay. I mean I've just got so many of them, so all start attacking them. Well, if you want to be true, if you want to

be triple Share, I'm going to put you on hold. You can either hang up or if you want to give get my email address from the producer and send me a close up picture so I can be triple Share. But I'm I'm ninety percent sure you're talking about Kai Linga are a very closely related sedge. Okay, well, and we all enjoy your show in our neighborhood. All right, Donna, thank you very much, appreciate those those kind

words. Kingwood Garden Center and Warren's Southern Gardens out in Kingwood, they're outstanding places to go. And the reason is when you go there, you're going to find all the different plants, and you know that you're looking for all the unusual varieties and cultivars and colors. Right now is a summer season coming on. We need to get our color out there, and we need to get it established now so when the hot weather arrives, it just bounces right

in there and takes off growing and does very well. And you can do that. You can do that at Kingwood Gardens. There they are experts. Do you want something kind of unique like plumbago, the Hawaiian lay flower, our beautiful, beautiful perennial hibiscus, Yes, they have those as well.

I find that anytime you go to worn Southern Gardens, you're going to find everything you need, including the fertilizers, including the heirloom soil blends and things like that, and including every kind of plant, cacti, vegetables, herbs, flowers, shrubs, trees. The new Supergrow Plus from Medina they have that out there too. That's a sixteen zero four sixteen zero four from Medina

Supergrow Plus, an excellent product and they have it. You expect that when you go to Warrens Garden Center for them to have the supplies you need and the plants that you want to have. We're going to now go to Bill in Conro Hello, Bill high Skip. Hey. I have dug out a bunch of my grass because it was from last year. It was just not doing well. And then also I had a lot of unwanted weeds and other grass permunity in it. Anyway, my point is so and I killed it,

and I'm now pulling it up and kind of digging it in. But I'm realizing that the soil is really kind of obviously the rains made it kind of it's just really i'll call it tight, but it's not very light. I'm just trying to think of what amendment can I use to lighten it up. I know there's expanded sail, there's sand, there's deconstructed granite, there's yeah, looking through the Nature's wave resources for different kinds of soils. It

seems like they use mortar, saying a lot. Uh you can uh, but you have a heavy clay, right, it's not heavy clay because I know heavy clay where it's just really it's just like god a cement when it dries. This is not that Okay, Well, in general, I don't recommend mixing sand in. It takes a lot of sand to make a significant

textural difference to use, you know, clay as an example. I realize you're not talking about heavy but when you if you had modeling clay and you put a bunch of sand in it and then mashed it around, you would have modeling clay with sand in it. You know what I'm saying. It would take a lot of sand to actually loosen that up. And so I think you would do I think you would do better. What are you going to grow? Are you going to go back with lawn in that area or

what? Yes, okay, yeah you could use a expanded shale product. But I'm telling you of all the plants out there, turf our Saint Augustine turfs and stuff, they can take a clay. I mean they're grown along the Gulf Coast of Texas in former rice patties where it's a heavy clay and that's easy to slice right under it. And that's when you buy the side you get that real sticky, heavy clay. Grass grows in that, so I'm not you know, if you were growing some other kind of plant,

I'd be more a litter really, am ind the soil a lot. I don't know that you need to worry about it so much in the clay because it's tolerant. Now, if you got a drainage problem, I would fix that for sure with a French drain or whatever you need before you put the lawn in. I am working on that. I had done some of that already, and I'm expanded a little bit, and that doesn't really get it off. Okay, all right, well, good luck with that. Wish you all right? Well, thanks a love for that, Yeah, wish

you will. Speaking of soils and improvement and stuff, green Pro green Pro when it comes to aeration and compo stop dressing. Green Pro is an expert at that. They are up in the Magnoia area and they serve kind of the northwest quadrant of Houston. You know, they have wonderful equipment that does an excellent job. You can go to their website greenpro dot net, greenpro dot net and find exactly, you know, the kinds of products you need, kinds of services, where they reach and so on. For example,

they cover spring and Cyprus and woodlands and Conro and Willis. Those are all north. They go over to Magnoia, Montgomery. They come down to Kadie, West Houston, Central Houston in North Houston area. That kind of Northwest Cot quadrant is what they serve. They bring a top quality compost to spread over the top. They do that aeration that is so important. Even though it's a clay soil and the grass can grow in a clay, They do

that aeration that gets the hole down in the ground. Compost falls into the hole and it just creates increased oxygen levels and increased root enhancement in those areas. That's why Greenpro is such an important service to having a beautiful, beautiful lawn. Also, earlier I was talking about bugout Max and someone had been asking me about, well, what can you what does it kill? Well? It kills insects period, I mean like one hundred and thirty different insects

within forty eight hours, it has done its job. I mean it's not like it takes it ten days to kill something. It does its job and it lasts. When you do a Nitrofoss bug Out Max application, you're going to kill insects for the entire summer season. The product works well in that way. Now what you're going to find is ants and fleas and ticks, and you know we're coming up on chinchbug and possibly soid webworm season. It's

going to be effective against all of those different kinds of pests. It's available many places, like Nitrofoss products are. You're going to find it at Fisher's Hardware both in South Houston on Southmore and in Laporte on Broadway Street. They carry it. You're going to find it at Kingwood Ace Hardware they carry it out there as well. I want to go now to the phones and uh, talk to David. David, I've got a little bit of time, but let's get a start on it and then I'm going to hold you over

to finish up. We might be able to finish it quickly. I've got a Sago palm out front and it's been there for years and it has these little sprouts, these little baby sprouts that come up from the base of it. Yes, and for many years I've cut them off because if I remember correct, if somebody told me that that hurts the mother plant. But number one, is it okay to cut them off? And number two, they are sprouting out of us cylindrical can shaped patch of stem. I guess that's

about the size of a soup can. And is it okay to cut those and remove those as well? Yes? Now, quick answer. You can leave them. You can cut them. If you leave them, you have a little clump of sago palms that doesn't hurt the plant. That's their natural state. If you want to cut them off and have a single trunk, you can do that too. The smaller they are you remove them, the more likely you can root them. You can just set them on the ground.

It's gonna take them a while. They don't root fast, but in a number of weeks they will develop roots and those baby pumps can be additional sago palm plants. Thank you very much, you show Oh well, thank you. I appreciate the call. All right, by bye YouTube. All right, here's the music that means we are heading to another top of the hour break, but that also means we're going to be coming back. I got another hour in me today. I hope you do too. Our phone

number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, or for those of you who like to dial by letters kt r H, I should just choose that. That'd be a lot easier for me. Seven one three two one two k t r H. Don't forget my schedules are online at gardening with skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com schedules are free, they're multicolored. They'll tell you ex exactly what to do every month of the year to grow a beautiful

lawn and to manage the things that want to chump on your lawn. We'll be right back. Welcome to k t r H garden Line with scamp Rictor. It's crazy just watching as many good things. Welcome back to guard Line. Good to have you with us today. What are we going to talk about? You tell me what's your questions? Be happy to answer those at seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H. Microlife fertilizers are perhaps one of the best known

or Dane fertilizer brands in the whole state of Texas. They widespread, many different products and a lot of people just love to use the products because they work. That's the bottom line. Now, the green bag, the six two four, that's the standard for our lawns and can be used for other things as well. But you apply that, it goes into the ground surface and that's where microbes get a hold of it and they break those nutrients out

of it down, they bring they turn them loose. If you will release them into the soil where the plant roots can get them, and it's a gradual feed over a period of time. You don't have to wait for it. It's going to give you some pretty quick results, but it's going to gradually over time release more and more of those nutrients and that helps your lawn to grow at a nice, steady, even pace. It helps the soil

to remain in a healthy state or even to get better. Whenever you put organic matter in the soil and organic products by microlife they are or they are organic man, it's going to enhance the soil microbial activity. Plus they even come chalk with a lot of those additional microbial organisms that are helpful for plant roots. You know, plant roots and microbes they live together. It's a coexisting not just getting along, but helping each other, enhancing each other.

And we don't think about that a lot, but that is a big part of plant life is having those microbial friends in the soil that help the plant roots, and microlife helps enhance that. The purple bag is the humans plus concentrated compost in a bag. It does help with your soil structure as it works its way down into the soil. It does help with microbial activity. Humus is what nature does with organic matter in its ultimate final form. That

is how the world is run since the beginning. Humus gets into the soil and it enhances the soil that carbon that is real high levels in humans. That's very important for microbes and for soil health in general. Microlife products are widely available. You can find out where you can find out more about them because there's a lot of miamuven talked about yet Microlife Fertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer

dot com. That'd be a good place to start if you are dealing with a challenge in your landscape and you're thinking, you know, I just need color. It's it's kind of blah. I've tried some things but I haven't had success. Why don't you just run out to Injene Gardens Nursery en Richmond. That is a It is a showplace and if you've never been, when you go, you're going to see why I like it so much. Angenet Gardens has an extremely extremely wide pallid of plants. There's not gonna be things

you want that they're not going to have there. They just they just do knowledgeable staff to help you find the right plants that you want. But if you walk in and you say, hey, look i've got flower beds and I need them to look good all summer. I need a combination of plants that's going to do that? What do you got? They're gonna be able to tell you. If you say, I'd like to put a beautiful container on my patio and I want to have a bunch of different kinds of flowering

and color plants in it, what should I do? They can show you. I mean, they have ones they put together there, but they can help you create whatever it is you want. The color pattern or palette that you would put together. They're experts at this stuff. They have the fertilizers and the soils that I talk about here on Garden Line and Enchanted Gardens en

Richmond. It's Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. They are on the Katie fullsher Side of Richmond on FM three fifty nine Monday through Saturday eight to five, Sunday ten to four. Go check them out. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight four seven one three two one two KTRH. If you'd like to give us a call, now would be a good time. You can get on the line without much weight at least if you're If you'd do all quick, that would be That would be what I would

recommend if you would like to ask a question. Nitrofuss's bug Out Max is an insecticide that you put down and with thein forty eight hours it has gone to work and it is already getting the job done, total control and forty eight hours of whatever kinds of pastu're dealing with. Is it ants? Is it flees? Is it ticks? Fleas is a big one. You know, the dog goes out and the fleas get in the in the yard and then when the dog goes back out, please are jumping on the dog to

come back. In Part of flea control is controlling them out in the thatch in your yard as well, ticks, chinchbugs and sod web worms. Sod web worms and chinchbugs are going to be kicking in here pretty soon. Hopefully we'll not have a bad sod web worm year, but you never know. But this product, Nitropuss bug Out Max, is going to give you control through the whole summer season. It lasts out there. It's easy to find. You're going to find night to Foss bug Out Max for insect control at

the Encented Gardens down in Richmond Rosenberg. You're going to find it at Shades of Texas up in the Woodlands area. You're going to find this also in Kingwood Ace Hardware. You're going to find it at the Arbor Gate. You're going to find it at Shades of Texas and South Houston Fisher's Hardware both in South Houston and Laporte locations. Easy to find. Night Foster products very widely available and in this case, very very effective. I was working on some

things at the house. I was talking about putting that bed in a little bit earlier. There are a number of things, you know, as a gardener you never finish. I don't know if you know that, but you don't. And there's always an what's my next task, what's my next endeavor, what's my planting. I'm about to put in a little orchard on the side of the house, and I got to get that area ready. I've got a lot of different things I want to do to it to get ready

to go. I've got some beds coming in, and I've got some of the little eleven inch veggo beds coming in to get me drainage. Fruit trees need drainage, and peach trees and plum trees. In fact, they actually the roots produce hydrogen cyanide in a water logged location, and that just they can't tolerate that. So this is a heavy clay soil. I used to have a fig tree there, and when it had some issues, I didn't care for the kind of fig. I pulled it up. But when I

did, the root system was five inches deep. I'm not kidding. It was like you put five inches of soil on top of a concrete driveway and grew a fig tree in it. It just hit the ground and it went sideways five inches deep and wide, and it was doing really good because it was a clay soil old water. Figs are happy with that, but not with the kind of fruit I'm in a plant. So I'm putting in a little eleven inch raised bed just to get some soil there with some good drainage.

I'll be doing a constant mulch all around those beds so that I have an all weather pathway. But also that mulch is decomposing and creating a really nice root environment for those trees. So even an area that doesn't drain well can be improved on in this way. And so if you'd like to grow fruit trees but you feel like you don't have the area for it, can you call let's talk about it. I think we can walk you through that and help you have success. We're going to go now, Actually we're going

to go right now to a break. Teresa and Lauren, I've tucked my way all the way up to break. You'll be the first two when I come back. One that farmer Brown is taking the air locked up the barnum with the greatest of care do the hand hold something? Stir wo's there? This is somebody there? Nobody here about? Ain't nobody here at all? Oh yeah, I got to have that Western swind but my fix stupid. Welcome back to Guarden Line our phone number seven one three two one two KTRH

if you'd like to give us a call. If you are looking for quality soil, blends and mulches and you're down Southeuston, Ciena malt is a place you need to go. They're down just north of Ruth Sharon near where Highway six and two eighty eight are, you know down there for FM five twenty one. That's the actual road they're on FM five twenty one. The website is cienamultch dot com. That's easy, easy to remember for all of you

in that area. You know, they deliver within about twenty miles. There's a delivery fee for big bulky things, of course, but they deliver about twenty miles. So Siena Plantation, Iowa Colony, are Coola Sandy Point like Olympia, Pomona First Colony, Meridian, Russia and Manul Riverstone twelve Valley, Fresno. Let's just go through all of them here. Sweetwater, Pearland sun Creek estates aren't anywhere out near the Brazer Spen State Park. This is your

place to go. And you know, brown stuff comes before green stuff. Get the soil right when you drive out of Cienamals. You've got a compost or a soil blend or a finely screened leaf compost quality for top dressing too. That stuff, by the way, You've got mulches to go on top of the soil. You have the fertilizers. If I talk about a fertilizer on Guardline, it's at Ciena Malts. You've got that, and you are set up to set that stage, that foundation in the brown stuff the soil

so that the plants just have success. So Cienamals don't forget it. Every fertilizer I talk about on Guardline is going to be down there, and a wide variety of many products, including some gorgeous, very cool landscape rocks as well. We're going to go out to bel Air now and talk to Teresa. Hello, Teresa, I have a Branford pair in the backyard. It is a gorgeous tree and the I think there's year too that there's clusters of leaves that look dead. Okay, what can I do to help this tree

that is fire blight? Are they kind of a chocolate dark brown? And the leaves you're hanging on the branches? Yeah, A bacteria attacks that branch in the spring when we're having rainy weather, and it moves pretty quickly through the branch. It cuts off all the flow of water and nutrients, and the whole leaf turns chocolate brown and dies. Typically the tip, which is sort of succulent, bends over and we call it a shepherd's crook effect.

But what you got to do? How big is this tree? It's a gosh, it's taller than our house and we are we have a two story home. You have a good reeltor could you move? Because you're not going to want to You're not going to want hit. I'm kidding. I was going to say, you want to go out and print all those fire blight strikes out, but that is totally impractical. You just it work and I couldn't even put it down in it. That's why I was going to go

straight to, hey, you need to move. So just Lida that anything you do that encourages vigor in that tree is going to make it worse. So don't do extra fertilizing around that tree. If it's a little dry, that's okay. You don't have to push it into a lot of you know, with extra water for the tree's sake. You gotta do what you gotta do for your lawn. But in general, just hold back. It's part of the game with pairs, and Bradford is no exception to that. For

smaller trees, you can print it out. There are some sprays you can put on, but on a tree that size, it is completely not practical and probably not going to be very effective. Okay, will it ever stop or will it always? This is the way it's going to be for the rest of the duration. Kind of the way it's going to be each year is different. Some years are really bad depending on the temperatures and the rainfall in the spring. But now that you have those strikes in there, the

bacteria is present. So here comes from rain when the tree is blooming, and it splashes those bacteria all over the place, and then here comes the fire blight as a result right behind that. Okay, all right, in the spring next year, should I try to cut back a little bit or in the winter. I mean in the winter, maybe try to cut a little bit if I can. Or is it just fruitless? I mean that's not I mean it's such a big tree. It's it's impossible to get it

all. Yeah. I just don't think you're going to see a benefit that warrants the effort that's going to be. Yeah, okay, thank you, Yeah you bet all right, take care, Thank you for the call. Appreciate that very much. Medina has a new product that I'm really excited about, and this is called Supergrow Plus. It's one of their has to grow products, you know, they have they have a hash to grow, they

have a has to grow for lawns and so on. The super Grow Plus is the latest and it is a sixteen zero two fertilizer, which is a good blend, especially for lawns that have been fertilized over the years that you're returning the clippings to that middle number is not very important for lawns success. Now. Of course, you can have levels that are so low that you

need it. But I did a study one time where I looked at two hundred lawns in a black clay soil, and not one lawn had a phosphorus efficiency because they'd been fertilized for the years and phosphorus doesn't wash away easily. It sticks around, and so supergril plus is an ideal thing. Now, it's got great stuff in it. You know, it's got half about a fifth of the nitrogen is going to be in a slow release form. It's going to have seaweed extract in it. It's going to have a keylated form

of iron which helps it helps it to stay green. The yellowing of your Saint Augustine typically is due to an iron deficiency. It's got humic acid, it's got molasses in it. It's just a quality product. You hook it's a quart bottle, hook up to your hose, takes about ten minutes to do your whole lawn if you it'll cover about four thousand square feet too,

So I would encourage you to give it a try. The combo of products in this ought to be ideal for graining up a lawn, providing a little bit of an extended feed as well, and it's all for Medina has to grow. Super grow Plus sixteen zero two again widely available like Medina products are. We're going to go now to spring and talk to Lauren. Hello, Lauren, Hi, Yeah, good morning. How are you doing. I'm will sir great. We have an issue on the front lawn by our curb.

We have a sinkhole that's been there for over two years, ideas, and we've done all kinds of things. We've put dirt, packed it up, We've put rocks, small rocks, bigger rocks, and they've all gone away and it just keeps getting bigger. Right now, it's about maybe a little a little over two feet by two feet by two feet deep. And so we've you know, I've looked online for solutions, and everybody has a

different opinion. Do this, No, don't do this, do this, And I've tried to call different places, you know, around town, and no, we don't do that or this and that. So I thought i'd call it. Yeah, my favorite dirt guy. I see what you have to say. That's good. Well, I'm going to not add to the do this is. I am not a sinkhole expert, but i do know this. It's going somewhere, and I'm curious as to where it's going. Hopefully it's not one of those big old giants sinkhole kinds of things. You

hear about eventually happening, but somewhere that is washing and going. And I tell you, I don't know where to begin. Yeah, well, I just really don't know where to begin to tell you, and who would be able. I first discovered it. The I first discovered it, I was walking out to my curb and at the time I didn't know it was there because it's kind of behind some bushes or whatever, you know, but close to the and it's covered with it was covered with glass grass, so I

didn't see it. I stepped into it and fell over like a dead tree and broke my hand. So yeah, so I but do you have any idea like who I could? I wonder if it's close enough to the curb for you know, the city maintenance or something to at least come out and check it out. I don't know, is it it's not affecting the integrity of the sidewalk or the street right now, it's not the sidewalk, but

there's close to it is a lightful and so uh. I've reached out to our homeowners and they said, well, we'll to contact our grounds keep a guy, which I've were several times. Nobody's ever come out yeah. Yeah, boy, I tell you, I'm like I said, I'm not going to add to the do this. I don't know what to tell you on that because landscapers that typically isn't their forte right. You know that you've already put stuff down in the hold, You've tried rocks, you've tried other things.

Yeah, that water's going somewhere, so I'm kind of concerned about where is all that's going and why what's going on there? Who knows? Right, My best thing that I found on the internet was to pour, like dig it out a little bit and then pour about a third of the way with the cement and then put dirt and grass on top of that. Yeah,

which sounds good. But if underneath the cement it's being sucked out too, yeah yeah, and as water washes over that cement around the edges, it's going to be taking soil and just eating away around the sides of the cement. I mean that does make sense, but right, Yeah, I don't know, And I don't mind saying I don't know, And this is a big I don't know. Sorry, I don't know what else to suggest to you, you know this, Yeah, maybe because I haven't really called

the city. I just call it the homemoks people. So because it's next to a light pole, maybe they'll be right more concerned. Well, get somebody out possibly, So it's going to be a while though. I can tell you this. The city has their hands full for a long time after these last few nights, and so nobody's gonna come out, nor should they right now. But you can try later on, uh you know, talking to them. Maybe get somebody in the engineering department. Uh, yeah,

don't I don't even know. You know, the county deals with stuff like roads and bridges and creeks and stabilizing soil for those kinds of things. There may be somebody who could at least point you in the right direction. They're not going to come out extra problem, but they have expertise in things similar to that. So you might try calling Harris County Commissioner's office and saying, hey, any place you can direct me to here for some help and see

what they can exactly. That I guess is the closest to an answer I got for you, Lauren. Lauren, Okay, sorry, very good. I appreciate it. You bet take care. RCW Nurseries, which is the Garden Center up there where a belt Way eight two forty nine come together. Highway two forty nine goes to tom ballon belt Way eight RCWS to get a got it nursery. If they don't have it, they're going to do their best to find it. At RCW, you're going to find the fertilizers that

I talk about on garden Line. They've got them there. They're in stock. They have In fact, they have an excellent stock of a lot of different kinds of things. RCW has been around since nineteen seventy nine when them Williamson family opened it. They still have the Williamson Tree Farm, which is where they get their trees from. At RCW quality trees, they can come out, they can do the planting for you. That's what I would recommend, especially if it's a good sized tree. But it's going to be the

species that do well here. If you tell them, hey, I got a little bit of a wet spot, what kind of oak would do best? They know they know the answer to that, and that way that investment is going to be there fifty years from now looking better than ever for you or or you know, your kids if they end up in the house someday that is the way to go. You don't want to mess around with cheap

trees with species that don't grow here. If someone says this is a fast growing tree, what do they say, don't don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Well you better look that one in the mouth. You want a quality tree grows at a moderate rate. Narcyw can get you fixed up with that. Hey, it's time for a break in the news. Seven one three two one two katrh my sentiments exactly. I appreciate rainfall, but

okay, uncle, enough bottle it up. I'll call you back in June and July and August and probably ask for a little bit of it at that time. Welcome back to Guardenline. Good to have you with us today. Our phone number if you'd like to call in and ask a question seven one three two on two KTRH seven one three two and two KTRH. We're going to head out to Mott Bellevue now and talk to Dwine. Hello, Duane, Hey, Skip, thanks for taking my call. I guess you know

with the recent weather we had, the bad weather. I have an oak tree in the front yard. I'm fifteen years old. It's probably fifty sixty feet tall. When the tree was younger, it started splitting at the bottom. So I took a boat or a tie rod and put through the trunk about three or four feet from the ground to bring it back together so it would grow back together. Okay, And it looks like one of the branches on top split, but I noticed it had had some black in the middle

of it. And they had another brand that was about ten inches wide. They had another one about six inches wide that split, but they didn't have any black in it. And my question was, is there's something wrong with that tree it needs to be cut down? Or is that normal in live oak trees? And you're talking about black being inside sort of right inside the

v yeah, so in the very middle of it. Yeah. This is this is an example of why when we're planting young trees, we want to train them right a good branch angle of let's say forty five degrees sixty degrees somewhere in there, those branches develop without pushing bark together. When you have a narrow v angle, if you can hold up two fingers like you're saying number two in between your two fingers, as each of those fingers gets bigger,

it presses the bark together and it can't form a strong union. It's dead bark in there, and so then when that branch splits, you see all that dead interior, black rotting outer bark, which also then leads to black rotting interior inside the tree. And that's why it's like that. It's the narrow branch angle. Once you've got a big tree and it's already happening, it's kind of hard to do a whole lot for it. It's something

that happens in the training. But you need to watch those angles. And that's why having a good quality tree person like Martin Spoon Moore with affordable tree as important because they can see those and recognize those and make the recommendations on what might need to be done in preparation for stormy weather like we just had. Okay, so would you say the tree is okay or should it be

replaced? Well, I'd have to look at it. You know, when you when at a certain degree of damage, it's like it's so esthetically unacceptable that it's never going to become a beautiful tree. Right lopsided, or maybe if there's interior decay. Now you've got this big area of interior wood exposed where it'll never close over, it will never heal over that with callous and in that case, it's like, well it may be okay today, but

not for long. I tell you. I did take a picture of it, a close up with the whole tree, and you can see where one of the branches is, you know, regular wood color, that snapping. The other one has the black. Okay, Duane, you want to send me those pictures? Sure, Okay, I'm gonna put you on hole right now. Send me the pictures as much as you can show me in the photos, and I'll make a comment on it and we'll go from there. All right, Just hang on. My producer is going to give you my

email address, so we will get that done. Let's see here. We are now going to go to Katie and talk to Diane. Hello, Diane, how are you? I'm well, how are you fine? Listen? I was listening to the gentleman talking about filling the sink coat for two years with every kind of imaginal thing. Yeah, And I walked my dog a lot, and there was a neighbor who was doing this, and everyone was

watching the sink cooat grow and fill it in. It turns out there was a manhole cover underneath, and the city had to come out and dig down and do some work too. Obviously there was a leak or something. It was going somewhere, but you didn't know there was a manhole cover under it because it had been playing it over. Wow. Wow, who to think? Who to thunk it? Well, that's good. Good to hear that.

And I guess so going back to the old advice of hey, call the city or call the county and see if you can get somebody who can help you with that. Yeah, and I think he had the idea of digging it out, and that's what really happened. I guess this sprinkler guy said, well, maybe there's a leak with a sprinkler, and as he was digging out, they said, oh, surprise, the manhill over there. So then the city came in took caure of the issue. There you

go. Hey, thanks for letting us know that, Diane. I appreciate what you call you take care. If you're looking for a product that will provide a release of nitrogen into your plants from a natural base, that would be sweet green. Sweet green eleven percent really high nitrogen content for an organic type product. Sweet Green is molasses base does have high carbon content, which really makes microbes happy. That's why organic gardeners like to put molasses out on

the soil, because it does enhance in that way. Sweet Green by nitrofoss is widely available here in the area. For example, if you go to all spas ace up in the woodlands, or if perhaps you would go down to Plants for all seasons on Highway two forty nine are plants and things at in Brennam all places you can get nitrophos products like the sweet Green Sweet green and smells good too. I can tell you that, so both you and

your microbes will be happy with that. We are going to go now to West Houston and talk to Dave. Hello, Dave, Yeah, good morning morning. It's nice to see the sun. Yeah, here it is finally. I've been out reading, uh some of my flowers in the front yard and on the ground there is a a little white thing that looks like cotton. I mean it's some of them are small, some of the are a little larger, but it's covered it up like you know, we had a

a snowshower or something. Have you any idea of what that is and how to get rid of it. It's on the ground in the weeds, saying it's on the ground in between the flowers. What you said. Some are small, some are larger. What is small and what is larger? Size small as a size or a pencil large, maybe a size the dime or maybe it's kind of hard to see you sometimes there are boy, Well, I always uh, don't trust myself when I'm hearing descriptions and picturing in my

mind that I'm picturing what you're trying to describe. Uh. There are some flowers that will follow with a cottony type of material. Well, I take a dandelion for example. You know you have this white, cottony looking thing on top, but that it came from a flower. There are some other plants that will do something similar to that. Those tend to not be white though, they're kind of a tan tannish white color of beige color. I think I'm just or cotton white and it's is it dry or is it wet?

Well, of course it's hard to tell because thee uh, Okay, I'll tell you what. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do this, Dave, get your camera done in there, your cell phone and get as close as you can, make sure it's in sharp focus before you send it to me, and let me just see some pictures of this. And I know when I see the picture, I'm probably gonna go, oh, it's such and such, but I need I need to see it. I'm gonna put you on hold right now. They will give you my producer, will

give you my email address. Okay, all right, well, good luck, good luck, and we'll see if we can get to the bottom of this for you. Appreciate, appreciate your call very much. It is time to take a little break. Here for another break. We got one more segment before the end of this morning. If you'd like to call in seven to one three. Let's see here seven one three two one two k t

R H is the number. When we come back, Mark and Gid you'll be the first ones up Page Blood, Welcome back to the guard Line. Good heavy with us today. We got a little bit of time left today. Then get a few more questions in before he closed things down. I'll be back in the morning six am. I hope you get up early with me and we'll talk gardening. First thing. We're right now, I'm gonna head out to Cyprus, Texas and talk to Judy. Hello, Judy, Hi, how are you doing. I'm well, thank you. I ordered

a red bud online and it arrived perfectly. It's healthy. I asked the yard man to plan it, thinking he would know, make the whole big and deeper than the base. Well, he just basically stuck it in the ground and so it's level the them or the base of it is level with the ground. Since it's only been in for about two weeks. Should I dig it up and put it in an appropriate size hole and a raised bed?

So I didn't quite follow how it was planted. Is it you're sending too deep or too shallow or it's just planted even with the You know, the base of the trunk is even with the ground, and I believe it should have a be in a raised bed. Is that so that it can drain? Oh? I see, if the area is poorly drained and tends to say soggy wet, even have water standing, you definitely need a raised bed to make it happy. If the area is well drained, it can

be at regular level. That's how red buds in the woods are at regular level, so a level cool, but they don't naturally come up and succeed if the area is swampy, so the only ones you see are at soil level, So you could go out, you know what if you I don't

know, if you probably do not have a postal digger. If you get if you can dig down a little holes straight down, kind of a cylinder hole and fill it up with water and then see how long it takes to drain out after all this rain, the soil is going to be wet. But is if it drains out in let's say, oh, probably twelve to eighteen hours, that's going to be very good drainage. Considering if it takes more than two days to drain out, then that raised bed would be very

important. That just be a real quick test for me to be able to answer your question a little bit better. But in general, yeah, they like to be in a forest floor in decent drainage. So pulling it out right now, getting the bed built and then getting it right back in would be would be worth doing if it's poor drainage. All right, well, I appreciate your help. Thank you so much. All right, Judy,

thank you very much, Bye bye bye bye. Azemite is a product that is mined in Utah, and it's full of trace minerals, and that's why you put it down. It's not a fertilizer like regular lawn fertilizers primarily nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. Now, this is the tracement, the ones, the elements that are needed in tiny amounts, but that are essential. That's what asumite is about. Now you can when you've got a landscape installer, or when you have a maintenance company coming in, you can ask them to

do an apple an annual application of azamite to your landscape. You can do it in your in your color beds too, your flower beds. Primarily we're putting it out in the lawn and you don't need much though, remember that very very low rate is what we put out. Ten pounds of azamite will cover about a thousand square feet of vegetable garden, so that goes a long long way. The forty four pounds bag in your lawn is going to go six thy twelve thousand square feet a lawn. But it's something that you do

apply. You can do it when you fertilizer, you can do it in between fertilizations. It doesn't matter just don't put it in the same hopper at the same time as your fertilizer. Particle size of those products is different, and you want get a good even application. We are now going to head to Mark and clearly, Hey Mark, good morning, sir, and I can promise you I won't be up as early tomorrow as you are. Oh my gosh, you're breaking my heart. All right, Well, well one

of us is going to do it. I guess i'll show up. Well, let me suggest that if I were to do it, nobody would call in. Well, that's funny, all right. I can I help you, I know, squat about what you know. In fact, I can't believe that your heads not three or four times bigger than mine. It's because I'm making everything up. I actually, it's just making it up as I go. Okay, let me turn off the recorder now, thanks, that's okay, nobody's listening. Just Jemmy. I've decided I can't do my Steven

anymore because you believe my cover. So people are going to know it's me asking the dumb questions. Did you see the picture of the Kaiwa blackberries? Let's see, I'll have to go. Look, I do not see a picture here, now, let me see if I can find it. Anyway, go ahead and start talking to me about it while I go looking for it. I've had Kayawa, I can't tell you how many years, eight nine or something like that. Very good producer. This year, it's producing

more blemished fruit than it has in the past. Yeah, yeah, I see that. Different things can cause that. Feeding from piercing, sucking mouth part insects like a stink bug kind of thing that can happen where you see and for those people listening, going, what are they talking about? Instead of all these big, plump, round little sections of the BlackBerry, there's some that are just kind of pink and never really got full size and develop

color. And then there's some that are not even pink. There is tiny If it didn't pollinate, then that's where you have a missing little section that's from a lack of pollination, or actually it's incomplete pollination. The other can happen from insect feeding. But some berries, and I don't know the full cause of it, it's more physical logical. With certain cultivars, you can have that kind of thing happen as well, but there's nothing that you can

do about that. The insect control is something you could do. But is this extensive or you're just finding the berries here and there more of them this year. I wouldn't call it extensive, but it's much more of the fruit is bummish like this though has been in the past. It doesn't seem to change the taste of the root except for that one little one where you see the green parts that never to develop. Yeah, but it's just ugly fruit. Yeah, yeah, I get it. It is, and I think

it's something that you're probably just gonna need to live with. Other than maybe if you get out there and you're seeing a lot of stink bugs on than a treatment would certainly be warranted. In general, we just don't have to spray blackberries hardly at all. They're just not a not a problem crop. It's a good one for organic gardeners because you're not having to control all these different cults. Well, that's what we're trying to do, is we don't

put anything it's not organic on it. What what would you recommend a neme or do you have something else in your stink bugs? Pyretheran types of sprays or organic they work pretty good on that. I don't think you're going to have success with name on stink bugs. I don't think it's going to be the level of success you're looking for. So a Pirethern type spray that's label for fruit, okay, well, can damage the beneficial so I should do it super early morning or late at night. Yeah, yeah, you can.

You're you're targeting your spray really to the berries. There's no need to treat the whole plant, you know, but you can. You can treat the whole plant because it's a little tedious to try to spray just the berries. Yeah. They because they love to hide under leaves and stuff. Yeah, they do. Getting out early in the morning is better for stink bugs if you first. I just want to stress if you find out you have them, and that's the problem, because it may not be well out there

tending to them. I never see a stink bug on Okay. Yeah, Well, I think this is physiological mark. The more we talk about it, I just think that's probably what's going on, and it should be. It should be, okay. I just I think you're going to just suffer some losses here and there, but overall it should be all right. Okay, Well, thanks very much for your advice. You bet, thank you. I appreciate the call very much. Have you been to the Anti Rosing

Porium? Anti Grosing Porium out there in Independence, Texas just north of where north of Brunham, So you just swing by and get you some bluebellt ice cream out to the antiqu Rosing Porium. They have a wide variety of roses. Of course they're the Anti g Rosing Porium. They're nationally known for the roses that they have, but they also have events going on that you don't want to mess For example, it's what have we got another week or so

of the seven dollars off select roses? It goes from May seventh or Mace sixth to May twenty seventh. There we go May six to May twenty seven, seven dollars off select roses such as Red Cascade, Oh Boys at Ever, a beautiful climbing rose, Quietness, always Hope, and a few others. Don't forget next weekend tax free weekends May twenty fifth and twenty sixth,

or even more savings every Friday and Saturday. Every Friday and Saturday, starting at one pm is the Tinker Garden Workshop, which is an outdoor play based education curriculum for children age two to eight. Now, for all these things and other events, you just want to go to the website. That is what is the website Antique Roseemporium dot com. I was looking at the at the email which you can also contact events at Wereroses dot com, events at

Rio Roses dot com. That's what you would use if you wanted to bring your master garden Group, Garden Club, Native Plant Society, herb Society out there. You know, Antique Rose important for that. And finally, if you haven't used your Nelson Plant Food slow and easy, you need to get that done. It is time. Get it down and it will fertilize your lawn all the way up until the first fall fertilization. That's a long time. It lasts that long. It's a quality product, many different kinds of

nitrogen in it to provide that gradual release over time. Beat your lawn like it wants to be fed. Well, we're gonna put this one in the books today. Greg. I see you out there on If you will hold, I will come and take your call. We're gonna have to go to a little break here, but I just hang on. I'll go ahead and come back and enter your call after we're on the air tomorrow morning six am to ten am. Come back see us again here on garden Line. Thanks for listening.