Dealing with the cutter ants!

Welcome to Katie r. H Garden Line with Scared Rickard's crazy trip. Just watch him as many good things to septy not a sound sun beam done. Good morning, Good morning, welcome to garden Line. Boy. We are ready to go today. We got plenty to talk about. You know, it's summertime and it's a little hot and uncomfortable to be outside during the heat of the day. But there's a lot of things we can get done with

a little early morning, a little bit late afternoon hours as well. I even take advantage of the mid parts of the day to get some other things done. Perhaps inside we've been potting up some string ofves. Do you know what I'm talking about? String ofves? My wife has a bunch of different kinds of string, string of purple, string of tears, string of bananas, string of turtles, all that kind of thing, string of pearls. Anyway, getting some of those repotted up, doing some propagating on them.

By the way, succulents are one of the most popular plants and have been for a number of years now. Just really grew in popularity because they're so easy to care for, you know, with succulents. But the worst thing you can do is water them too much. But if you ignore them, if you neglect them, if you forget them, they just have the ability to hang on and wait for you to show up again and take off growing

again. And boy, they're fun, they're easy, and they're so many kinds of succulents, Lots and lots of options out there, and this would be a great time when you're out and about visiting garden centers. Pick you up some of those, bring them home. Some of our garden centers are doing a great job of putting together combination planters of all kinds. You can do a combination planter for succulents. And whereas with most things we put in

a container, I'm telling you one container size bigger than you think. You know, go bigger, go bigger, more soil, more moisture holding ability. Well, with succulents, you can put them in things that don't have as much. In fact, you're less likely to overwater a succulent if you don't put it in too much soil. If you take a you know, you can have a succulent that's in I don't know what two cups of soil and it's got strings hanging three feet down all sides, and it's perfectly happy.

It dries out quickly, which is what it wants. It doesn't want to sit there and soggy wet soil. And it's just an easy plant to grow. And you know when you buy from a nursery that knows what they're talking about, and that would include every one of our sponsors here on Guarden Line. You can talk to the folks. They understand the plants, they understand how to take care of them. If you have issues, they help you with that, and that is so valuable. Plus it's more fun to

shop at those places. They just have more selection than knowledgeable staff. Though I think that you can't you can't overestimate the value of that. And I see so many people go home with plants from places. Well, let me just say, you will not be even be shopping at because the plants are not in good condition in many cases, and they may not even be plants that need to grow. Here, I just cringe when I'm trying to stay

out of the naming game here. But you probably can figure out the kind of places I'm talking about when you go into those places and you see things for sale that don't grow here. They will not grow here. They are destined for death in our climate. And it's because some national company is ordering them for all the stores. I guess. I don't know how that works, but it doesn't make sense. Go to a good garden center and right now succulents are a cool thing to pick up. I hope you'll consider doing

that. You're listening to garden Line. It kind of would help for me to give you a phone number since this is a call in show. Uh seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four, give us a call listen if you have been Maybe you're okay on your lawn fertilizer. You've got that covered for summer.

When was the last time you put down the azamite application. Asamite is the micronutrient, the trace mineral supplement that helps make sure the bank account has the small things that are essential for plant growth. They're not needed in quantity, but they are absolutely needed. That's azamite. Asimite Texas dot com is the website azimite Texas dot com. You can find azamite everywhere. It's easy,

easy to find. When we talk about feet stores and garden centers and ace hardware stores and Southwest fertiliz All these places you hear me talk about, they're going to have as might And that's something you don't do it every time you

fertilize. You just once a year. Even best thing of all is just have a soil test done periodically and see where you are on nutrients, because nutrients are essential and a nutrient balance is very important, and so I encourage sol testing whenever you get a chance, and especially though, make sure if

your soil is lacking some micros is a mite important thing to know. I was up in the Tumbul area the other day and D and D Feed Store is your local feed store on the west side there of Tombul on twenty nine to twenty. I always like to stop in at D and D because they have a good selection of all the kinds of things that you would need in order to have success. So like if I talk about fertilizers, you're going

to find them at D and D feed. When we talk about things like a soil blends, a D and D is going to have things like the aged leaf mold compost. It's so important for a top dressing. And I don't talk. I don't mention this enough and I should more. But it's you can do the complete yard deep tinme aerration, you know core aeration. You can do the top dressing of compost over the whole yard. That's a great idea. It's especially helpful when you have a heavy clay or a compacted

type soil. But if you're just patching up spots, grab you a few bags of age leaf more compost, like a D and D feat and put it out, sprinkle it out. You only have to put it about third to a half inch deep over the area, so even a bag goes pretty far and that will help patch it up. I've got a spot that is struggling with some take all root rot that has come in due to some stress from excessive shade. And so the first thing I did was, you know,

puur in the trees to get a little more light in there. This happened to be a big old matches, crape myrtle, and then secondly, do some air rating, just hand aer rating in that because it's a small area, and then leaf more compost over the top. That's what we've done. We've got it we're bringing it back along with regular watering to keep it

happy. But anyway, place like D and D Feed, you're going to find heirloom rose soil, You're going to find the fruit berry and citrus, the veggie and herb soils, and every kind of product you need to control pest, weeds and diseases in your landscape. D and D Feed again, they're on the west side of Tombull twenty nine to twenty. If you want to give them a call to eight one three five one seventy one forty four.

Say hey to them when you go in. I think you'll enjoy also seeing when you walk in if you haven't been there in a good while, you're gonna be surprised at the new material that they have that. Of course, they expanded the store last summer and it just is a great place to shop. If you'd like to ask a question or discuss something that you're dealing with, give us a call at seven one three two one two kt r

H. I'll be right good to have you with us today. Again, if you'd like to give Uskull seven to one three two one two k t rh ktr makes it easy to die that way. I hate you just a kind of public service announcement if you're down anywhere near the Richmond area today after the show starting in other words, at ten am this morning, going to noon, Enchanted Gardens is having a Container Herb Gardening class now Maria, who

is their magician of all kinds of combination planters. If you've been to Enchanted Gardens, you have seen the work. It is beautiful. And I'm telling you a combination planter is so beautiful. Whether it's flowers or herbs or even vegetables, there are a lot of ways to combine things to make it really really interesting. Today there'll be that class, and that is going to be from ten am to twelve noon Container Herb Gardening. She's going to share how

to combine things, how to put them together. The cost is based on kind of what you select. You know, you pick out the plants you want to put together, you purchase those plants, and they're going to help you learn how to create that kind of beautiful, beautiful planting. By the way, if you haven't been to Enchanted Gardens, first of all, you need to crawl out from under a rock, because pretty much everybody has. I think by now it's on FM three point fifty nine north of Richmond.

So if you're heading up toward Katie Way from Richmond at trut there, and while you're out there, you need to check out some other stuff. They've got some really cool plants. For example, have you seen the Texas sage blooming all over town? The Texas Age is kind of the color varies from kind of a pinkish, there's some white versions, kind of lavender colors, beautiful shrub. It grows wild out west to San Antonio. You see it out in the hillsides out there. So that tells you how much water it

needs, which is none. Tells you how much care it needs, which is essentially none. You can do some pruning and things on it. But they've got some beautiful and so they got one called silver Star that has silvery foliage. And so following periods of rain, the Texas Age just bursts out and blooms. We see those cycles all through the year. And I'm telling you there are very few plants that'll track the honey he's in Like that plant. When it blooms, it's like a notice goes out to all the bees

and they show up. But while you're riding in Jenny Gardens. Why don't you grab you one of those Texas sages. The one called Silver Star is just one of many beautiful ones that are out there. Excuse me. This past week have been working on my yard. I let mowing get away from me. And I'm the guy who tells you the most single most important thing you do to your lawn to make density is mow it. Sunlight's important, fertilizers important, water is important, of course, of course, but mowing

regularly creates density, and I let it get away from you. I've had some things going on here and there where I can't get around to mowing my lawn. Finally did cut it way back, and now it's time to start over again on regular mowing to create that density. That's an important aspect of long care. Another important aspect is, of course, fertilizing your lawn. If you haven't fertilized your lawn this summer, now's a good time to do it. I create a schedule that two schedules that are on my website,

gardening with Skip dot com. They're free, you can download them. They got the products, they got the times you apply them. It's all really easy, really easy to do. But if you haven't fertilized yet, or you look at the schedule and go, well, the schedule said do it back here, and I didn't get it done, then then go ahead and do it now. You can still do it now. The product that will release those nutrients rather quickly for you in an organic type form is sweet Green.

Sweet green is made by nitrofoss and sweet green is naturally occurring. It's made from a molasses space and it will absolutely energize the beneficial bacteria in the soil. That's why organic gardeners put molasses in the soil. It helps with all the microbes that are there helping you in your plants. Sweet Green's eleven percent nitrogen, very high percent for an organic type product. I would recommend using it this way rather than creating a flush excessive flush of growth. Why

not split that sweet green in half. And you're going to want to put ten pounds per thousand square feet of sweet green, So do five pounds now and six to eight weeks from now it do the other five pounds. Just small doses. You know. We can use a slow release product and get gradual release, or we can take a not slow release product and immediate release and put it on in small amounts and in a period that could be two or three applications. And that's what I would do this summer at this point

in time. Starting off with that sweet green, Let's take the ten pounds and cut it in half and do it in two about six to eight weeks apart. I think you'll be very pleased. It dissolves quickly, it moves down in the soil and the plants will respond. You will see a really nice response. You can buy sweet Green many places. If you're up in the Willis area, Grows Outlet has it up in the Woodlands, you're going to find it at all Spa Ace Hardware Shades of Texas as well, and

then in the Memorial area Memorial Drive. Ace City Hardware is another place you can find that sweet Green. You're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape. That is what it's all about. Gardening is the best hobby in the world. It just is. And for those of you who haven't gotten around to it yet, that's okay. Just one of

these days, I'm gonna talk you into it. I think we need to find gateways into gardening, you know, like gateway drugs into gardening, such as taking care of house plants, or learning to propagate plants, or just a few plants in a small area for cut flowers to bring in. There's

so many ways. If you have a five gallon bucket, you can drill some holes in it, fill it full of a quality product, like a veggie and herb mix for example, that would be a good one, and then plant some herbs in it, plant a pepper in it for plant a small tomato. Five gowns a little small for a tomato. But you can do it. There's lots of things you can and grow and kind of start getting your feet wet and trying out guarding. I'd encourage you to do that.

It is a lot of fun, it's not hard to do, and the best thing of all is I'm here officially giving you permission to fail. That's right. Didn't that sound strange? Where that come from? I'll tell you why I have failed at growing things many times in my life. Listen, to be a good gardener, you got to kill a lot of plans. That's one good way to look at it. That's what I call the permission to fail. No, we're not killing them on purpose, but you

never know. You know, nature has throws its curves, and sometimes we try something that doesn't want to grow here. Sometimes we try it in a way that doesn't work. Really well, that's okay. You just learned something and became a better gardener. And gardening is not like you're painting your house. You know, you paint the whole house and you look at it and you go, oh, I hate it. Now I got to hire somebody to paint the house again. Gardening is a constant rearranging. It's like inside

your house, you rearrange the furniture. You may add some new chair, couch, your love seat here, you may put in new curtains, or you may move this from here to over there. And you see what I'm saying. Gardening is that way you can do from A to Z the whole yard from scratch. Good luck with that and bring your checkbook. Or you can just do it a little at a time. You know that front flower bed that needs redoing, you can redo that bed and just make it look

nice. Maybe it's just reshaping the bed so it's a nice flowing bed that has a more esthetic shape and more balance to it. Didn't matter what you want to do. It may just be putting in one plant like that silver star sage I was talking about dan in Chinne Gardens. It may just be putting that one plant out in a sunny spot so in the brutal heat of summer we get a little rainstorm and boom, you've got beautiful color. Whatever you do, have fun doing it, and keep listening to garden Line and

call us when you have problems. Let's help you get it right. Because this is a really fun, relaxing and healthy both physically and mentally healthy hobby and you can have success. You will. Don't give up, just keep keep trying and get good advice. One of the things I often say on garden Line is the brown stuff comes before the green stuff. Take care of the soil first, and then get good plants, put them in, and

that's the steps to success. Another thing I say is there aren't any brown thumbs that are only uninformed thumbs, and we're going to inform your thumb. When you see somebody that can grow things and you can't grow things, it's not because they have some special kind of thumb. It's because they've learned some things. Maybe they got lucky and learned them that way. Maybe they paid

attention and learned them that way. Whatever it is is you get the right information on how to create success, you get better and better at it, and your thumb gets greener and greener. So in the meantime, let's keep listening to guard Line. If you've got a question, you'd like to give us a call about seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven

one three, two one two five eight seven four. One of the important things for summer is making sure that you do not leave bear soil anywhere on your property. Where the soil is bare, nature plants of weed. Wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed. That's how it works. Mulch is your friend. Mulch does a number of things. It blocks the

sunlight out so weed seeds cannot germinate and establish successfully. That's important. It prevents erosion when we get the gully washers, and we've already had them this year, already more than one. It also help prevents crusting when when rain hits the soil and then it dries out. You get this little shell, this little crust over the surface, and many types of soils and mulch helps prevent that. One of the most important things it does in summer is moderate

soil temperature. It is bla hot here and you can measure the temperature an inch deep or even three inches deep, and it's hotter than roots are gonna thrive in. It just is, and that's taking away some of your root zone of your plant. And the roots tend to be up near the surface where there's good oxygen. And if you make that area too hot by not

mulching in the heat of summer, then you're just dressing your plants. Mulch is wonderful and the folks at Landscaper's Pride have a number of excellent mulch products. They've got their black Velvet and that is a beautiful velvety, dark, naturally dark, not dyed mulch that is excellent for use in your plants. You can find it in bags all over town. The hardwood mulch is another good one. Ground up hardwood. This is ground up the trees. The

hardwood is a clear lands. They take down trees and things. They grind that up and make a mulch out of it. That's excellent. This isn't ground up palets like Jo products will be. You do not want that. It's pine bark Moltz. There's another one, probably their most popular one, very slow to decompose. And then things like cedar and Cypress. Cedar and

Cypress both are very nice natural multus. I like cedar because initially you know it comes out with this wonderful air aroma, beautiful natural red streaking through the mulch. Cypress is very durable and very very i'll say heavy, and that when it gets wet, it stays in place and doesn't just float around and go places. Very light colored. All from Landscaper's Pride. You can go

to Landscaperspride dot com find the stores that carry it. But I can just tell you this, it is very widely available in the human Houston area. Whichever molts you choose, get it done and keep it done, meaning add to the mulch as needed. Mult decomposes away where it touches the soil. That's how the forest floor works, and so you have to top it off each time. Don't take the ulmulch away that's just getting really good for the soil. Just add some new to the top. But just remember this.

Wherever the sunlight hits a soil, nature plants a weed, so don't let it get the surface of the soil. It's time for me to take a break for some news here. Our phone number is seven one three two one two k t RH if you'd like to give us a call broadline. Glad you're with us today. Good to have you with us today. Listen, we've gotten that rain recently, and oh boy, do we ever get some rain. Most of you did it at least, and some of in excess.

When that happens, your clay soil swells up. It literally gets bigger, It literally swells up. And then when it gets dry. A lot of our clay soils have that same characteristic. They shrink down. And that movement, that soil movement. That's why when you down drive through streets downtown and you see it's like you're driving down a mountain range. You know the street is buckling and pushing up and sinking down, and that's from the movement.

It breaks water lines, it's not powerful, and it breaks foundations, and it breaks sidewalks and it breaks driveways. Fix my slab Foundation repair is a place that you want to call when you're dealing with anything like that. Ty Strickland's been doing this for twenty three years. It's a local small business. But I'm telling you he knows what he's talking about. He's got the

experience. I've sat on him with him and picked his brain and just learned a lot about the whole world of soil movement and the effect that has on foundations and other things. Do you have sicky doors in the house, that's a possible sign of movement. Do you see cracks in the brick or cracks in your sheet rock indoors. Don't waste time. It's not going to get better, it only gets worse. So give him a call. You can

reach time. Let me give you a phone number two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine two eight one two f five forty nine forty nine. Or go to the website fixmyslab dot com. Let me tell you something about tie in his business. He shows up on time, he fixes it right, and he does it at a fair price. What more can you ask from any kind of a service company? On time, fixed right and

fair price. That's fixed. My lab foundation repair Tietrickland two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine our phone number if you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two K t R H. And we're going to head straight out to the phones now and talk to Troy and Plantersville. Hello Troy, and welcome to garden Line. How's it going? Hey? I got me thinking about fifty area that I'm working with and it's I've tore it down because I'm doing some landscaping in it and it's uh clay,

and I want to bring it back. And I got a tractor with a killer on the back that I was going to kill it up. Can I put regular tree uh chippings that's coming from the trees, that from the chippers. Can I put that in that mix mix that into soil to bring it back? Well, I wouldn't mix. Yeah, I wouldn't mix those chunky wood things in the soil. Well, that is fine for use as a surface mult you know, shredded whatever is fine to use as a surface mult.

I would The thing is when we put a lot of undecomposed wood type material in the soil, it ties up nitrogen quite a bit and that eventually that balances back out. But we would rather use something that's already decomposed in the soil. That's why you always hear people talk about putting compost and bed mix things like that in the soil. Now, if you're not going to deal with that soil for a long time, if you're not going to plant in it, and you know it's gonna be six months or something, you

could mix some things in the soil. But the bigger and chunkier it is, the more the soil is going to settle down as it decomposes away. And it just for some kinds of gardening things like planting seeds, it's very hard to plant them when you don't have a nice fine seed bed mix. You know, when you got big chunks, do what I want to do in that area? Well, you know one thing I might do is pile

it up and let it decompose. And if you got the equipment sounds like you do, uh, you know, every month or two, just turn that pile over and mix it a little bit and let it keep decomposing, and then you're going to have something ready to go right into the soil. If you want to go that route. So that's another option there. But yeah, if you mix it again, I got it, it'll settle in

time. But yeah, okay, because I got something's about four years old is sitting there too, just multi multing away, you know, decomposing too. So yeah, okay, yeah, And so I'd scrape the outside of that pile off because it's not going to be decomposed on the outside, just like leaves on the forest floor on top or not decomposed. Uh, And get to the stuff down in the pile that is breaking down well and use

that material. That's why I said mix the piles occasionally because and you may even have to water them occasionally, you know, get them wet again, and that helps the decomposition. All right, that'll work, all right, appreciate it sounds like a plant drug. Hey, thanks for the call you Yes, sorry, take care. Yeah, that is that is important. I'm going to go now to bel Air and talk to Beth. Hello, Beth, good morning, Good morning. I have a question about poison ivy.

I have been fighting poison ivy in a bed with an oak tree and some you know plants that I want to keep, and now I have discovered in another part of my yard. I've been trying to pull it out, but it's gotten beyond beyond that stage, and I was wondering, Okay, what can I do to try and get rid of it but not damage you

know, trees and other plants that I want to keep good. Question, So is the poison ivy a little tiny spinley stemmed plants still very small or is it something that has a trunk on it, like the size of one of your fingers are bigger? Most of it is small. There's one area in a bed that I haven't gotten to because it's it's gotten so overgrown. But it's in some lagustrum which are surrounding my air conditioner condensers outside and we had to have one replaced, and I just want to get it out of

there. I was waiting for the reins to try and pull it out, but I thought, if there is something I can spray on it, you know, protect everything else around and systemically it gets drawn in, I would I try and do organic, but I'm really allergic, and so it's most other people in my family, so I'm just I don't know. I don't

know an organic there's an ivy control that's it's very effective. But there is a product ingredient called triclo pier try as in tricycle clowe pier tr i c l o p y r, and you'll find it in things like brush and stump killer poison ivy killer. But triclop pier is what you're looking for, and that's going to help you get to the You know you're down in bel Air. You're not far away from Southwest Fertilizer. Oh, they know me. I go there all the time. Well, just go in there and

say I need some triclo peer for poison ivy. And then what you're gonna do now. Triclo peer kills things that are broad leaf, especially effective against woody things that many other broad leaf killers won't kill. So if you've got it on a little augustrum and you spray it, you kill the lugustrium and the poison ivy. So what you're going to need to do is go down to where the stems are and I would take the straight tricle peer, And if you want to be extra effective in that, you could mix a little

bit of like an oil product. People typically will use diesel, which is an oil, but you could use even a cooking oil. Put a little bit in the straight tricle paer and that helps it stick to the surface of the thing. Get you a little tiny foam brush, you know those little things you get for painting, those little brushes with a wooden handle. Just get one of those and dip it in that and then just paint it right

on the stem of the plant. You don't have to do the whole stem, just even a section, you know, four to six inches long. Get it all around that and it'll soak into those tissues. Now, if you ever have to cut a poison ivy off, dab the fresh cut immediately with the same thing. In fact, you don't have to have the oil for that, but just dab the cut with that. If you've got areas where there's poison ivy and not a desirable plant, you can spray the tricle

paer on the foliage of the poison ivy, but it moves down. It does a good job. Sometimes you have to do another application, depending on how strong the plant is and how much you get on it. But that is the best way to do with poison ivy and any other kind of witty weed that shows up in your landscape. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right, good luck, Thank you for your call. I appreciate that very much. We're gonna have to take a little break here.

I'll be right back when we come back. Let's see Terry and Steven. You'll be our first two up your summer get away from the shoot. Good to have you with us, looking forward to talking about the things that most interest you. That's what we try to do here. If you're done in the League City area, your local hometown feed store, and we do love feed stores. Here on Garden Line is League City Feed. League City

Feed has been around for forty years now. In other words, they know what they're doing and you get the same kind of old fashioned service that they've always provided there at League City Feed. They, by the way, are a few blocks south of Highway ninety six on Highway three in League City. So you're heading across ninety six, just turn south on Highway three just a few blocks and it'll be if you turn south, that'll be there on the

left hand side. They serve Santa Fe. They serve Webster, Clear Lake City, Lamark Baycliff, San Leone, El Camino Real. That whole region down there. They're open from nine am to six pm Monday through Saturday, clothes on Sunday, so anytime, even if you're at work through the week, you can just head right after work swing by there on the way home, grab the things you're looking for, such as I was talking about azamide

earlier. They carry nitrofoss products, microlife products, Nature's creation, Nelson plant food, airloom soils, all the different kinds of brands that you may hear me talk about here on guardenline, pesticide, herbicide, fungicides to control the things that are messing up your garden. They can help you with that as well. Phone number if you want to give them a call two eight one three three two sixteen twelve two eight one three three two one six one two.

Of course, it's a feed store, so you're going to find everything for your backyard, chickens, for pet foods and whatnot. They're at League City Feed City Feed just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six on Highway three in League City. Let's head now out to the phone. We are going to go to Rosenberg, Texas and talk to Stephen. Hello Stephen, Hello, my name step Yes sir, Yeah, how can we help welcome?

Regard line first? Foremost, Sir, I want to say, hey, I've been listening to this show for probably about fifteen twenty years, and I had a lot of time in with Randy Lemon, and you have been an excellent replacement for him, or thank you, I should say, yeah, nobody replaces Randy, but I've enjoyed here on the show for it. That's good. How can we help you? So, I just got rid of a water road thanks to this storm, and I'm looking to replace it

with a jack Aranda. I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly. It's a big purple tree. Internet of all of us wisdom tells me they grow down here pretty well. I've never seen one down here. Do you have any tips or advice on how to get started with at Randy used to always say, do rose soil for starting trees. But what do you got for me, sir? So? Jack aroanda is beautiful blooms, but most of the trees that grow fast are not strong wooded and long

lived and whatnot. So if you're looking for a nice, big shade tree, I'd go a different direction. The blooms. I won't question the fact that they are beautiful. I just wouldn't look at it, especially when you look at future storms and other things like that is probably the best choice for that. There's a lot of good trees if you want small blooming trees, if you want a big old shade tree, there's a lot of options out there. But my advice would be to look elsewhere. Okay, how do

you feel about red maples? Red maples are okay. They do have some issues. One of the issues with red maples. You know, every plant has pros and cons. Stephen kind of like people, right, and so red maples tend to have narrow branch angles, so you have to really work with training them to keep them from having limbs that are more likely to split. They do okay here, and you're even further south than a lot of the listening area, being down below eye ten. There they're not going to

have the color that you expect out of a red maple. Like if you went up to the northeast during the fall and saw a beautiful maple color. We don't quite get that color down here. So one of the biggest pluses of red maple we kind of don't get much of so that's one reason why I tend to not put them high on the list. But there's nothing wrong with planting one other than the branch angle thing. You just have to watch for understood. If you have any suggestions as far as what you think I

should put in. I'm looking for something with pretty blooms and it doesn't go down here pretty blims. How big does it need to be real big? Or do you want a medium or small size tree? Or what are you looking for on size? If a medium or it can be it can be huge though. The one that is it's replacing effectively was the giant water oak. Run it out from the inside and luckily fell in my yard at out of my house. Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm glad to hear that.

So. Chinese fringe is a small to medium sized tree. It grows a little bit slower, but it has beautiful shaggy white blooms that have a honey like fragrance in the spring. That's a nice one. There are crape myrtles that'll get thirty feet tall. Natchez is one that has beautiful cinnamon colored bark and white blooms and if you train it and prone it. You can make a single trunk tree out of them, or you can have multi trunk trees and they will cast nice shade, and of course they bloom for like

ninety days during the summer, three months of bloom. That's what a crape myrtle can do for you. So that would be a good choice for that. I'm trying to think. You know, as you get in a bigger and bigger tree, Stephen, you don't really get to see the blooms because they're way up high, as opposed to a smaller tree where you have a line of sight on the blooms. So the bigger the tree gets, I

would say, the less significant the fact that it blooms is. You may just start looking instead for something that has good structure and long term health and a good growth rate. Red oaks are that way. If your area is a little on the web side red oak, I would plant the nut tall and newt l I may be misspelling that by a letter. Nut tall red oak is good if you have soggy soils. It's very tolerant of that. It'll grow on not soggy soils too, but it's tolerant of soggy Shumart oak.

If you've got a really nice, deep quality soil, Shumart would be a good red oak to plant. And then there is let's see, Mexican white oak grows at a very good rate and it is a white oak that it makes a beautiful shade tree too. And then we have things like Chinese elm, Drake elm or other Chinese elms that have beautiful exfoliating bark that's gray and rusty patched, and I think it would be another good choice. So there's dozens of good trees out there. Okay, took a lot. I

appreciate it, all right, You take care. I appreciate the call. Thank you very very much. Speaking of trees, folks, Affordable tree Service. Martin spoon Moore, boy, is he ever busy right now? He always is busy because he does a good job. But when we get storms in he's, you know, out dealing with the things that have happened since

the storm. What I'm trying to get you to consider is having Martin come out before the storms, not right before a storm, but like go ahead and get on the schedule now with him to come out and prepare your trees for the storm and Just because you made it through a hurricane barrel or made it through the storms before, doesn't mean that the next summer storm, hurricane or not, isn't going to cause problems to your tree. That's just how

this thing works in nature. Have Martin come out do some selective printing in order to make your get the dead areas out of your tree, make it safer during the heavy winds, to set your trees up to do the best they're going to do. As far as being ready for a storm, I can't express enough the importance of proper tree care. As we move more and more into this storm season, it's predicted to be a bad one with their early arrival of barrel. So just get Martin a call seven one three six

nine twenty six sixty thirty. Let me say that again, seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three. Or go to a f F Tree Service dot Com, a f F Tree Service dot in holland tell him your guardenline listener that gets you to the front of the line because he does good

work, he stays busy. Or call him back again and again because they know the kind of word Martin. Though well, I hear the music that means we're about to put this hour into books and then Katie, you will be our first caller if you can hang on until we come back out of this break. Thank you for being patient on that you're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter our phone number if you would like to call Chris and get on the boards. Uh seven one three two one two

kat t r H. I'll be right Brown. Just watch you as many good things to welcome back to the Garden Line. Welcome back. Good to have you back. We've got plenty to go talk about here. We've got some calls on the line. I just want to remind you that if you are looking to renovate your landscape, or if you're looking to put in a brand new landscape, or if you're looking to just do some small work here

and there. Maybe you need some irrigation work done, Maybe you need just a bed redone, some new plants, put in a little bit of a redesign on something. Maybe you want to go all out and do landscape lighting, you want to do hard scapes, you get the idea. Pierscapes is a company that can do all of the above. Also, by the way,

they do quarterly maintenance. So if you just already have your landscape, you're happy with it, you want somebody to come in and do trimming and weeding and fertilizing, to inspect the irrigation in the beds, to do seasonal color changes. As you know, you pull out the old flowers and put out the new ones, add molts to the surface, top it off. Pierscapes can do that. Pierscapes is an outstanding company that does outstanding work.

And if you don't believe me, just check out their website. In fact, whether you believe me or not, please go to Pierscapes dot com pierscapes dot com. You can see their work there and you see what I'm talking about. You can give them a call at two eight one three seven oh fifty two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. No matter what you need done, even if it's just quarterly maintenance or if it's new installations, Peerscapes can do it. And listen. Summer is a great time to contact him

and get that work done. They have excellent crews out there. They stay busy and you want to get on the schedule get the plan done. Maybe you need to sit down with them, do a little bit of a you know, kind of a design out and plan and figure out what it is you want done, and then have them come out and get that work done. Now's a great time to give them a call. Perscapes. We're going to go back to the phones. Now, we're going to go to Sharon

and Katie. Hello Sharon, thanks for waiting. Good morning, morning, Thank you, Good morning. I have a question about my oak tree. I have a question about my oak tree. Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am, go for it. Okay. The oak tree is probably thirty five years old. I keep it trim every other year. It's beautiful. I discovered the other day. So let's say the main trunk is about eight feet tall, and then I have three big branches that come out from that.

Well in the middle there is a little like cavern, and I noticed the other day it fills with water. Yeah, what do I do? Yeh? Well, so what's happened. A branch was cut or broke off or something, and water got access to that interior wood, which has no

ability to resist rot. And so because it was moist exposed to air and microbes and water, it's going to start decomposing away, and a lot of older trees have dark and partially hollow interior areas just where branches over the years have given that open the opportunity for microbes to get in and start working on

the wood. You know, there's no really covering that anymore. If it's an older tree, it's probably never going to heal back over, even if you provided it with some sort of a little shelf for the callus to grow over. So I would say the best thing you can do is occasionally throw some mosquito bit's up in that area, because mosquitoes will be very happy to

breed in that wet standing water inside of a tree hollow like that. That would be one thing to do. And other than that, you may want to have an arborist come out and look and see if there's anything they could suggest. But most of the time, by the time you have a hollowed out area that's reached that stage of decay, there's no fixing it. It's not like you squirt something in there and it stops the decay. I did have a neighbor that said I did have a neighbor that said, try expandable

foam. Yeah, things have been tried over the years, from concrete, which is a very big mistake, to expendable foam and creating a Yeah, don't do the concrete one. Creating a kind of a shelf with the expendable phone and it sort of occupies that space. It's not going to stop the decay. The decay is already active and going on down in there, and

it'll continue. If the hole was a smaller one and you could create a shelf with the expendable foam, then maybe as the callous forms from the sides of the hole, it would it would go across that equivalent of a shelf and close over. That's the concept, but in reality that generally is not going to work, And especially if it's a larger opening like you're describing, I don't think you're ever going to see closure on it go ahead. Probably

about the size of a large dinner plate. Yeah, I think that's yeah, I think that's that's too large. You probably heard me talk about affordable Tree earlier. But I would give Martin a call if you want to make sure that there's nothing they can do. Just if there's anything they can do, I would I would have him come out and look at it. But anyway, I've kind of the bottom line, right, Okay, I have one more question. Sure, if I have a tree removed and the stump

grind, how soon can I install a new tree? And do I have to get out all those chips or fine sand that they turned it into? Got to get all that out. It's the more you get out the better because all that woody, any kind of an organic material, as it decomposes away, it shrinks down to nothing. And so what was a level area of soil is going to become a hole again as that sinks down, and as the soil settles, So two things are going on. The soil is

settling itself and the organic materials the chips are decomposing. So I usually try to get as much of that as you can. If you can't, then leave it as a mound as opposed to flat, because it will sink down. And if you start with like a pitcher's mound, then as it sinks down, you end up more level. Okay, they ground it so much that it looks like sand or soil. Does that make sense? In other words, there's a bunch of chips there, right, And what about getting

out the whole stump. I'm sure they only went down a foot. That's all we need to do. Now, there are tree roots all over your yard from that, and you're going to see areas other areas where there was a big root. Maybe of the root was you know, big as you're part of your leg and it's but it's underground somewhere and it's going to decompose a way too. But you can put a new tree in that spot. I might move over just enough to not be right in that hole itself.

That I think that would be you. I think you would longer term be better served by that, unless there's for some reason you can't move at all. The tree has to go right there, which I can't think of. A one area where it would go is a small area and that would be the center point where they took the old tree out that in other words, something else would look awkward if you anyway, okay, okay, thank you for your all right, And like the previous caller, like the previous caller,

been the longtime listener. Love Randy Lemon, you're doing a great job and I love listening to you too, and best of best swishes for your future. Thank you, Thanks for the kind words. Sure, I appreciate that we're going to take a break right now. When we come back, Michael and Kingwood Shane, you'll be our first two callers up the back of the garden line. Good to have you around today. Hope you are enjoying the show. We certainly want you to. We want you to have success

with your garden, with your landscape. And if you like, you can us a called it's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I do not know if you have been to Ana Plants and Produce. They are up in the Montgomery area. In fact, if you are on Highway one to five goes from Conroy to Montgomery, they're on the east side of Montgomery. So all of you up there in Lake Conro area, well they're in your backyard. They've got some good deals going on right now. All

their hanging baskets are on sale. That you need beautiful ferm baskets or other things. It's a great way to decorate a patio or a porch. Now's a good time to do it. At A and A Plants and Produce on Highway one to five and Montgomery. They also have a forty percent sale off all of plants that they have going on right now. That is that's a

lot that's an incredible on a sale. You know when you go to Ana, you're going to find every fertilizer I talk about on garden line, and I mean that on nitrophoss and Nelson's in microlife in Nature's Way and the heirloom soils, the soil mix and blends from heirloom soils and from Nature's way are there. They have a landscape crew that can come out and do some cleanup and work. If you're out there in the Lake Conroe area, you need to give them a call A and A plants and produce swing by there.

Now is the time to get a really good deal on a lot of different kinds of plant opportunities that you might want to put in. And remember just because it's summer doesn't mean you can't plant. Now's the time to get in color that will carry you all the way up until it's time for fall planting. We had several months before we're talking about putting in fall flowers, so take advantage of it. Let's have some beautiful color so your landscape isn't just

a sea of green during the summertime. We're going to go out to Kingwood now and talk to Michael. Hello Michael, and welcome to garden Line. Thank you. I appreciate your callback. Here. I have a gallon jug that a purchase from Ace Hardware and Kingwood. It's by Microlife and it's humous. Plus I read the instructions to apply it. However, I'm not quite sure the per application. I have about one thousand square foot of grass and

says to put like four to six ounces in the water. Do I put that in a sprayer that I put on my hose, Do I fill it completely up? Or do I put it in a pump up sprayer with a gallon the water? Well, you could do the pump up. I think the easiest thing is to hook up one of those sprayers to the end of your end of your garden hose and put it in and you want to apply

it somewhere between three and six ounces per thousand square feet. Okay, okay, So however that little hose end sprayer works, you can do it that way. Get let me give you something. I was just talking about A and A plants and produce. They've got some information on their I think it's their Facebook page. I believe it's their Facebook page where it tells about differ

diferent ways of applying these microlife products like seaweed and whatnot. And you ought to just go check it out A and A Plants and produce, go on there and just have to scroll down. But it's from Microlife's Facebook page too, but it talks about how to apply the different products. You can put them in a watering can, you can put them in a pitcher, you can put it into your hose in spray er. You know, however you want to go about it, okay, And what about the frequency on application

is that once every six months, once every three months? You know, if you're using one of the products that we would consider more of a fertilizer, then you would do that according to like our fertilizing schedule. Depending on the plant you're going after, like with your lawn, you could do that several times during the summer season. If it's a liquid application, I've spread

them out about six weeks apart probably now. If you're looking at something like the humates plus there we're going after that concentrated compost and the benefits to the microbe activity so you can apply that however you wish, as often as you want. You know, you can use it in different ways. I wouldn't just wait until you see a problem to use it. I would use it on an ongoing basis to avoid problems. Okay, so something in the neighborhood

of every two or three months, apply it to the lawn. That would be fun. And it's okay, Yeah, you could do that flower beds around the lawn. You can do it in anything. Humates. We're putting hum mates down. Think of him as putting down concentrated composts. It's a it's a carbon source that really helps microbes which need carbon sources. And so there's the granular form from microlife and there's also the liquid form that you're talking about in the gallon, Joe, and you get same kind of idea,

same kind of ingredient. We're just applying it in different ways. With the granule, you're getting more of it in a granule that's going to go out there. With the liquid, you're applying it in smaller amounts each time you apply it. Same thing, okay, And do you water it in after you apply it? Or is the Gordon hose enough when garden hoses enough.

I mean, you know, it wouldn't hurt to water it in a little bit because with the humans, plus, we're not it's not a folier feed that we're putting on the foliage like seaweed or their ocean harvest would be Uh. It's more something we're wanting to get down in the soil, and so if you followed it with a watering end, that would be fine. Uh. It's gonna get watered in either way, you know, and when next

time it rains, next time irrigation comes on. Okay, Well, appreciate your show, and we'll get with you again when we need some help here. All right, Michael, thank you, thank you very much. I appreciate your call. Yes, the rebob, that is the case. We want to make sure that we get those ingredients into the soil. Very important. And by the way, if you're interested, you're hearing him Michael and I talk about Microlife. You can go to their website Microlifefertilizer dot com and

learn about hummates. Plus you can learn about all their products and also where to find them, which is I can just give you the shortcut to that. It's everywhere. If you hear me talk about a good garden center. Ace hardware stores OUTUS fertilizer speed stores. They're going to carry quality products from Microlife like that. Let's see, We're going to go now out to Shane. Hello Shane, and welcome to garden Line. Good morning, Good morning.

I wanted to say too, I'm a huge fan of the show and even got my sixteen year old son and seventeen year old daughters while I'm watching it now are listening to it. Now They've they've become big fans. Whenever they're they're always in the truck with me and they're like, man, dam why are you listening to the all the time? And then now they're loving it, you know, they're like, oh, yeah, this is great.

You know how I have callers. Go ahead, I was gonna say, Shane, I have callers from time to time that they used to listen to Dewey Compton in the same way with their parents, wondering why is dad listening to this or why is mom listening to this? And they're still Guarden Line listeners. So good to hear that. Exactly the generational thing. Now,

I just had a quick question about my primeria. We've my my wife and I we you know, we keep quite a few of them in different pots and such, and uh we we brought the plan in during the hurricane and saved it and everything that was no issue, and we kind of had it underneath our patio for maybe about a week or so, and then I noticed that the leaves started to kind of droop a little bit. So I was like, okay, well it needs to go in ahead and go back

out where you know, it was normally put in the yard. It gets a good amount of morning sun and then in the afternoon it's it's kind of shaded, and then it gets just a little bit of evening sun. And of course, we you know, we water you know, pretty religiously, like every either every night or every other night, because we don't usually let it go too far without having water. However, we've noticed that I guess it was probably Wednesday, there was a couple of leaves that were turning yellow

then, you know, like krispy brown. And it was like, oh, okay, so you know, I thought, well, maybe there was just a couple of leaves that maybe got damaged or something. So I went ahead and I plucked them off. Well, then I go out there this morning, and I got about another four or five on there, and I'm like, oh no, this is not good. And even the wandering Jew that we have planted in the in the bottom of the pot, you know

that kind of surrounds the perimeter of the of the pot. I'm starting to notice a couple of leaves on that they're starting to go bad, and I'm like, oh gosh, if it's hitting that too, I don't, you know, I'm wondering if maybe a fungus or something. Probably not. Diseases tend to be pretty specific to one kind of plant, and so I don't think you have the same disease on wandering Jew as you would have on plumeria.

I think it's a water issue and plants, you know, they leaves don't live forever, and so older leaves can be cast off, and when you go through fluctuations like a little drowdy, a little too soggy, wet, or fluctuations, we often see that. You'll even notice that on your pothus ivy house plant. You know, you let it get a little dry and then you water it and it perks up, but then the old leaves try yellow and fall off. And that's just part of that's just kind of

how nature is. Make sure it's getting adequate moisture, makes sure not soggy, but adequate, and make sure you're fertilizing it periodically to help, you know, provide the nutrition that it needs to support vigor and growth. And even as older leaves might be lost, new leaves are going to be coming on to replace them, and so just a little bit of that leaf yellowing and loss is not a big concern in my book. Okay, would just be like a you know, just like your regular uh you know, miracle

grow plant food. Would that be adequate enough? But like you were, that's not a fund That's not a one that I'm fond of. I think Electropas makes a plumeria type food that works very very well. Uh know. Some plant food makes a very good plumera food too, And wherever you are, you're going to find one or both of those that do an excellent job designed just for tropical blooming plants like plumereas. Oh wonderful. I didn't.

I wasn't aware of that because yeah, I don't come the miracle grow stuff for wherever, you know, yeah, just follow wonderful all right, wonderful. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. And we are hitting up against a break here, So Jody from West Columbia. When we come back, you will be the first caller up. In the meantime, if you would like to give Crystal call, get on the boards seven one three two one two fifty eight

seventy four. I'll be right back. Yesterday with one of my kids and we were looking at birds that are outside in our landscape. I've got bird feeders set so where I sit typically in the house in the especially in the mornings, I can look out two different windows and see two different bird feeders. I like that. It's kind of entertaining to see what's going on. You know, Wildbird's Unlimited is the source of everything bird and that includes good

information about birds. You can go to the website. In fact, I write this down WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot Com forward slash Houston that gives you the wabird stores in Houston. There's six of them. Wherever you live, there's going to be a wallbird store fairly close to you that you can run over to to pick up things like bird seeds, bird feeders, bird houses, any kind of information you need. They got quality feeds like nesting super blend. It's always a good time to be using that.

I use it myself in my land Escape. They have wonderful feeders, lots of different types, from tray feeders to the squirrel excluding feeder. That's my favorite. One squirrel excluding feeder to you just name it. If you can imagine a bird feeder, they're going to have it there at Wallbird's unlimited and a quality version of that. Now, if you're going to take a trip

out of town, you need to consider a seed cylinder. That is seed that is compressed into a cylinder, kind of like one of those candles that you put on your table, you know it stands up a cylinder. Well, it's like that, but it's packed a bird seed and so it takes them a while to pick that seed out of it, and so they don't just grab a bite and run away. You get to watch them for a

little longer. And if you're going on a vacation a trip out of town for a little while, seed cylinder is the easiest, longest lasting, most convenient way to feed your birds and Wabbirds Unlimited has those. They even have them that have the hot pepper oil in them. So if squirrels come along, ouch, they will not they will not mess with that. They'll leave it alone. So you can feed your birds Birds Unlimited, wbu dot Com Forward Slash Houston. You just need to go by Hey a little quick tip.

The stores are air conditioned. It would be wonderful, a wonderful way to spend part of your Saturday afternoon stopping in at a wild Bird's Unlimited store to see what this is that I keep talking about as being such a cool place. We're going to head now out to West Columbia and talk to Jody. Hello Jody, and welcome to garden Line. Good morning ship. How you doing? I really enjoy your show. Thank you, sir. How

can I help? I think I've overdosed my yard. I've got about a forty by sixty area of Saint Augustine, and early in the spring had a lot of dollar week come up, and I took the chief chief way out and I put a weeding feet on it. Waited a period of time, nothing happened. I did it again, nothing happened. I sprayed it with image. Nothing happened. I sprayed it with two spots raid with two four d nothing happened. Uh. My neighbor gave me the product Euge called We'd

be gone on Gordon Sprayer. I sprayed it and all my Saint Augustine grass died dollars dollar wheed is still growing. Oh my gosh, jerdy. So at nighttime when the at night time, when it's dark and you look at the lawn, is it glowing? You've neew. I believe this isn't a this isn't a laughing matter. But I that that was quite a I believe

you. There are very few things you left out of that list. But seriously, if the grass is died back, you know you're going to have to replace it, whether if it's severely damaged, I would just do a wall to wall replacement of it as being the fastest easiest way to get back in town there on it. Uh, if you wanted to do some plugging or patching here and there, you could do that and have that grow in.

It's going to be a more ongoing tea thing. And anywhere the grass gets thin, you're going to start to seaweeds come through because sunlight's reaching the soil surface, so it's you know the fast ways you just reside. That costs more money, but it's done and you're done with it. The less expensive what would be the patch patch your way back to it. I think I will resaw what can I do in the future to prevent dollar weed or kill dollar weed? If it comes back it's up under a microtree kind of

in a shaded area. Yeah, yeah, well dollar weed. First of all, know this dollar weed likes wet soil. So the weather it is, the happier dollar weed is. So the first step is on you water, give it a good soaking, but don't water so often. Don't water so much. I mean, you can't control hurricanes and rainstorms and other things, but you can't control the irrigation. So that would be the first step

on a lot of weeds like dollar weed and Virginia button weed. The like wet conditions is cut back on the water because the grass will be happier and you the weed will be less happy. Secondly, you're going to have to treat it, but I would use a product called Celsius when you're having to treat it. Now, if the grass has dyed and you're going to replace it. A lot of it has died and you're going to replace it. Now would be a good time to treat that dollar weed when you don't have

any grass you're worried about hurting. So yeah, there are a number of products that control the dollar weed really well, and with where you're located. I would go over to Southwest Fertilizer and talk to them there on the corner business Notton Runwick. Go to Southwest Fertilizer. They have got every product you

can imagine. Explain to them what you told me and say, you know, we talked about it, and you're wanting to come in, and this is your chance to get something to really hit that dollar weed because you don't have any lawn at risk. Once you get the lawn in I would use a product called Celsius on the dollar weed, but it's much better to get rid of it, and now's your chance to go after it. And I think that would and stay away from the future, stay away from the weed

and feed. Let's instead pick a quality fertilizer and use it, and then let's pick a herbicide to match the weed you're going after and do that. Because weed and feeds can have anything from broadly if we control to pre emergent weed control in them, and those are very different products. So I like the idea of being able to do them separately, where I can pick the best fertilizer and the best weed control for the particular weed as opposed to the

combo. I understand why people do the combos. That's fine. You can use them, and if the particular thing in the combo is and the timing is right, you can do that. Just overall, I think we should aim for the dollar weed and not try to combo it with the weed and feed. Thank you very much, and I will do that. I appreciate it. Stup and enjoy your show, all right, you take care.

Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. Yes, yeah, the whole thing of the weed and feed, it's complicated, and uh, you know, I can go into it more, but uh, just know that depending on the time of year, the time to put out a pre emergent weeden feed may not be the time to fertilize and vice versa, and so to combine them sometimes the timing is off. It doesn't mean there's never a place for them. There is. There's a place where you can use them and

they and it works and it does what you want to do. Uh, it's just I don't know. I like the idea of prescribing going after one and the other. You know, if you need a barricade application for pre emergent, put it down when you need to put it down. Don't don't try to make it match up with your your fertilization. But in the fall time, it's actually a time when they tend to overlap a little bit better. And that's that's coming out. But you'll find all that stuff on my

on my lun care schedules at Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com. Well, we're coming up on a break here. When we come back, Carol and a tascasita, you'll be our first up. I'm gonna go ahead and take a break. If you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Have you with us today? We are talking about all kinds of things gardening. We've got some folks on the line we're going to head to in just one second.

When was the last time you were at enchanted Forest out in Richmond? And if you haven't been well, Today's the next time you need to go. And Channa Forest has the best selection of all kinds of plants, everything from you know, gifts in the gift shop to house plants to annual color to

shrubs and trees and bulbs and containers. And they really specialize in plants that attract beneficial insects like pollinators and uh, perhaps plants that attract butterflies that you're interested in creating that right now, they got an excellent, excellent selection of all kinds of things that take the heat, like Vinka periwinkle at agascar periwinkle, or people call it menca. It's an annual plant. It is absolutely fireproof. It comes in colors of you know, like white and pink and

kind of a lavendery. The magenta may be the proper name for it. I'm color challenge so anyway, but they've got that. They also have an unbelievable selection of herbs. You need to go check out their herbs right now. The happiest herb in your garden is probably basil. It just loves warm weather. And our basil is growing like crazy. And listen when basil blooms, here comes the pollinators. The bees are all over it and they have

a number of different selections of basil. They're at Enchanted Forest Richmond. Whether you put it in a container, whether you put it in a bed, a garden bed, you know, you can plant basil and flower garden. You can plant it in your vegetable garden. It doesn't have to just be in an herb garden. It's an excellent plant and basil along with many other herbs at Enchanted Forest and Richmond. It is an fm twe fifty nine in outside of Richmond. If you're heading up towards sugar Land Way, it's off

to the right. Here's the website Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Go check out their website. You will see why I think it is such an impressive place to go, and with all the shade and stuff they have around there, it would be a wonderful place to go this afternoon to just enjoy being out and about. You are listening to Garden Line our phone number seven one three two fifty eight seventy four. We're going to go now to Carol and a Taskasita.

Hello Carol, good morning, I'm looking for a recommendation for a tree service that will upright a tree that I have. It's a great myrtle about fifteen feet call. Can you recommend someone? I would recommend Martin's. I would recommend Martin Spoon Moore at Affordable Tree for about Do you need a phone number or a website? Yes? I need phone number? Please okay seven to

one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. We'll give it to you again seven one three six nine nine two six six three, And that's Affordable Tree. Affordable Tree. Martin Spoon Moore is the guy you won't talk to. Okay, thank you so much, thank you, thanks for waiting, and I appreciate your call. Absolutely no hesitation on that one. Uh Ace

Hardware Stores or the place where you find whatever you're looking for. To have a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape that includes fertilizers like nitrophoss, for example, they have they have an outstanding selection of all though nitropos fertilizers. I would recommend stopping in and getting some of the silver bag that that is the one that we carry through our warm season with the silver bag. It's called

super Turf Nitrofoss superturf. Just think silver. It's only silver bag I've ever seen in a garden center. All right, So Nitrofoss Superturf is going to carry your lawn all the way up until the fall fertilization. Now, if you just fertilized already with the slow release this summer, don't do it again. But if you haven't, now's the time to do the super turf. It's always good to have it on hand. You can use it any month

of the year. But the bottom line is we primarily are doing our summer fertilization to keep the grass going through its busiest growing season of the year. And super turf does that with a chemistry that is designed for our soils and designed for our climate. That is important. And again, you do it now, you're not going to do it again until the fall season. You know, ace hardware not just fertilizer. It's also a place where you get

fireant control. And it's time. I've got fire antce. I just discovered them in my ear. All this rain made them come to the surface, and that's why baits are so important. Fire ant. Baits control fireance. You don't see the mountains even yet because the foragers are out there, they're picking up food to bring it back, but they just haven't increased the mound and brought it up to the surface to where you see it on the surface.

Fire bait works and ACE Hardware has it. Do you have mosquito problems? Listen, it's been long enough now since that rain. The mosquitoes are popping up everywhere. Anywhere there's a tablespoon of water. A mosquito can lay an egg and go through its larval stage and come out as an adult.

So we got to be diligent, and we've got to find things like the mosquita dunks, the mosquito granules, mosquito bits that is, and put them in these areas where there's any kind of standing water and it'll take care of them. It's a natural mosquita control. By the way, it didn't hurt birds then her cat dinners of the dog very very safe. It's just an issue with the mosquito larvae. Now, do you need mosquito repellents? Do you need maybe a fogging machine? What do you need to make your outdoor

landscape a place you can't wait to go be in? That's ACE hardware, That is ACE is the place for a beautiful outdoor landscape, garden and sitting area to enjoy during the cooler evening. I always we've we've been taking care of our backyard area, trying to get some the patios, some enhancements done

and things. And we just put up actually, my daughter just put up a string of lights at her place and it's one of those out We call them beer garden lights because it's kind of that, you know, that outdoor setting where you have the strings of bulbs that aren't really bright each one, but overall it just creates a great ambience. By the way, as hardware has those strings too, But we were just getting some set up and man, it transforms that outdoor area into place you want to be, that is

for sure. Have you been to Arburgate Nursery lately? Arburgate is an outstanding destination garden center. I mean there are people all over the state and even out of state that know about Arburgate Nursery because it's been that kind of place for a very long time. They got a wonderful new parking lot. It's in the back of the store. You just turn down Trischel Road by the way Arburgate on twenty nine to twenty just west of Tumball, Texas. And

as you're going out that direction, you'll see Trishel Road. You just you can turn down it before Arburgate or after Arburgate and either way it's a loop. It swims around behind Arburgate, great parking lot. While you're there at Arburgate, you're gonna have people that know what they're Their staff is so educated, they're so on top of things. They can tell you about every single plant you walk in and you say, here's a situation, what do you

recommend? And they're gonna have three or four recommendations. And when it comes to summer, color that color that's going to carry you all the way into fall. Arburgate has options upon options upon options. You can have a beautiful plate. Don't let your lawn and landscape be a sea of green. Put some color in it and Arburgate will help you do that. While you're there, grab their one two three completely easy system that is a fertilizer for anything

that has roots. That is a soil mix that has expanded shale in it. Also and a compost that has ex banditshell and it also all of those build up the soil and set you up for success. You know, on garden line, I say brown stuff comes before green stuff. The one two three completely easy system is brown stuff, soil, compost, and a fertilizer that sets the stage for their wonderful plants to do absolutely stunningly in your landscape and garden. We're going to go back out to the phones now to clear

Lake and talk to Mark. Hello, Mark, good morning. Sure, hope you're doing well. Thank you? How can I help? Did you see the picture I sent? Let me go look, I'll check that quick cure morning early this morning. Nope, oh yes I did. Hang on just a second. Are you talking about vines? Yes, okay, that is Virginia creeper. Virginia creeper for those of you listening on radio going, hey, I can't picture this well, and some people think it looks like

poison ivy. It doesn't because this has sets of five leaves all coming out of the exact same point on the stem, and it's not poisonous, but it is vigorous. Virginia creeper is fine. I've seen people use it as a vine to cover a wall. The question, your question Mark, is is it a danger to the tree, and the bottom line is only if it gets up in the tree and shades the canopy. The one that it is in for you is a cedar tree. And cedars when they lose their

foliage. Let's say you get some Virginia creeper or something over the limbs and the leaves can't get light, they'll die, and that branch will never reach sprout, so it's really weird. Compared to other trees that you could cut them off like a hat rack and they'd sprout back out again. Cedar can't do that. So I would just say, mark, it's fine until if you see it getting on the branches and becoming a shading like an umbrella over the tree, and just go to the base where it's going up the stem

and cut those stems and everything above where you cut or die. Okay, sounds to me like it's better to get rid of it now before it becomes impossible to get rid of So yeah, yeah, And but it's never impossible because you always have one little trunk at the bottom and if you cut every vine going up that trunk, everything above it dies, so it can you can shut it down real quick if you need to. But if you don't do it now, that's fine too, Thank you very much. Sure,

take care. Yeah, let me give you a real quick tip. When I come back, i'm gonna talk about what to do about it. Hold on if you want, Yes, we'll be right back. Folks, credit for deciding whilst just watch. Hey, welcome back to Guardline. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape. And let me tell you, all it takes is some good information and guidance and advice, because as we say here,

there are no brown thumbs. There are only uninformed thumbs. And we're here to inform your thumb to help you out to have more success. Another place that can help you turn a brown thumb green is Plants for all seasons. They're on Highway two forty nine. That's Tomball Parkway. As you're heading up toward Tomball from Houston, you exit Luetta and crossover Luetta and they're right there on the right hand side, right on Tomball Parkway. I mean, it's just easy, easy to get to get in and out of. And

they've always got something good going on there. Number one, they've got the advice that turns a brown thumb green, whether you struggle with success with plants or whether you're a professional at it plants for all seasons. It's the kind of place you want to go. And a lot of people already know that they have a loyal following of customers and for a good reason such as good

information, knowledgeable people, quality plants. By the way, did you know right now they've got a sale in their knockout roses Instead of well less than half price for a three gallon rose, I mean it's like fifteen bucks for three gallon rows. You know, knockout is probably the most bulletproof ros we've got in our arsenal for options. If you want maybe you're not a rosarian, you're not looking for big, beautiful cut flowers and everything. You just

want to shrub. That's pretty well. Knockout rows a great choice for that. You see them all around town, real popular. The original cherry red one is still going strong everywhere. I saw knockout roses in a McDonald's parking lot in Chicago, Illinois. I see Chicago. I see knockout roses doing just as good in Houston, Texas. That is one heck of a rose almost no. In fact, I would say no disease problems at all on a knockout rose. It's the one you can share and have success with.

There's other kinds of knockouts. There's a pink knockout now. They just keep coming out with new versions of knockout that do well. But here's your chance to get one if you're looking for one. Plants for All Seasons has got them as well as beautiful hanging baskets, wonderful summer heat color, and again the products you need to have success with your garden and your landscape. Plants for All Seasons dot Com. That's the website, Plants for All Seasons dot

Com. We're going to go now to clear Like Texas and talk to Mark. Welcome to Garden Line, Mark. Well, this is a continuation of the first call. Oh, that's right, for the break I forgot you. We were talking about your Virginia creeper and the cedar trees. So Mark, what you need is a product that contains the ingredient Trichlo Peer t ri i clo P where I are now, Tricla Peer you'll find it. Sometimes the product will be called Stump and Brush Control sometimes it'll be called poison,

ivy killer or something. It's the ingredient triclo peer that you're looking for. You can spray it on the foliage. If you get it on the trunk of the tree and it's just dead bark on the outside trunk, it's not going to hurt the tree. If there's a living shoot or any broad leaf plant that you like and you get tricle paer on it, it'll damage it or kill it. So from your photo, I see you ought to have

pretty good access to spray in the trunk. You can also get a little spongebrush like you would use for painting at a hardware store, the little wooden handle spongebrushes and dip it straight in the triclo peer and paint it on the stem of that Virginia creeper. I would do it down low, kind of near the base and just paint it on the stem. I would even put a little bit of vegetable or if you have diesel oil in the tricle pair and it helps it stick and soak in better to that outer stem. But

in the photo I see those stems are very small still. The Virginia button weeds of Virginia button. Virginia creeper stems are very small, so you just painted on there and it'll soak into that tissue and go down in the plant and kill it. And that's the fastest, easiest, least damage to the environment, way and safest that I can think of. Well, on those two trees that I took a picture of, it'll be easy just to snip each each run. I'm pretty sure I can get it that way, and

then I can dab the end of the cut. A little bit of a story about thirty years ago, we bought a small Leland cypress, a little baby for a Christmas tree, and I planted it out there in the front. And I should have made this call twenty years ago to you, because some of that creeper got all over the tree and eventually went to the top and start hanging down. It was real green, and I liked it. The tree was dead underneath all that. The storm just knocked it down.

Saved me about twelve hundred dollars. So fortunately it went the right way. I guess it went to the mailbox rather than the houses. So if I had known what you were telling me about it shading the tree to the point where it could be damaged. I wouldn't have let it die like that apparently, Yeah, but I mean it was so thick you couldn't tell the underneath there were much of dead leaves. I mean, yeah, it's you know, we had lines like that in the southeast. They have kudzoo that is

like on steroids. It covers up everything. But I see you also had I mentioned in cedary you also having it in a pine tree too. But yeah, just cut it off at the bottom. Even though you dab it on the ends, that's a little small cut surface, So I would still paint it on the sides of the stem of that Virginia. Cut it off to ab the end, but then just maybe four or five inches just kind of painted on that stem, and I think that'll do the job for it.

Okay, Well, at this point it's easy enough to get to and ahead and start killing the tree. So thank you very much for the advice that we should have given it to me twenty years ago. Well, I'll try to do better next time. Thanks Mark, I appreciate the call. You take care if you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you want success with plants, it starts with the soil.

You know, it's the foundation. Soil is the foundation. So what is a good soil? Well? A good soil holds some moisture, but it also drains well. It drains internally by letting water percolate down through the soil so that oxygen comes in and the plant roots are not sitting submerged. That is a good well. A good soil has organic matter in it which stimulates biological activity, microbial activity that just enhances the root system in ways that

I could spend a whole garden line show talking about. A good soil has nutrients at the right balance in the soil. That is important so that when the plant needs any of twenty plus nutrients, it just its root has access to them. They're in the bank account. That is a good soil. So what makes a good soil? Adding organic matter to the soil quality? Organic matter? Ciena Malts. They're down south of Houston in the Siena area.

They're just north of Road sharing near where Higway six and two eighty eight come together. The actual road that they're on is FM five twenty one, five twenty one. They're open Monday through Friday seven to five and Saturday seven thirty excuse me seven thirty to five and Saturday seven thirty to two. Closed on Sunday. Here's the website, Sienna bolts dot com. When you go there, you're going to find every fertilizer I talk about on garden line,

which is part of the brown stuff of the soil. You're gonna find composts and rose soil, and you're going to find a veggiane herb mix that's part of the brown stuff. You're going to find Landscaper's Pride, black velvet malts and other quality mulches. That's part of the brown stuff. When you drive off from cienamultch or if you're within twenty miles, have them deliver it to you. You're going to have this foundation for success with your plants. Don't

just buy a beautiful plant and stick it into an unprepared plot. Go to Cianamalts get you the stuff you need. When you bring that plan in, it's going to hit the ground running. Cenamlts cinimlts dot com. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. Look forward to your calls two eight one excuse me, seven to one three two one two ktr h. Every year we talk about today. What are your questions? Well, let's help you with that. Give us a call at seven one three two

one two fifty eight seventy four. If your lawn is struggling, you're looking at your lawn and you're saying, I hear skipsay all the time. Wherever sunlight it's a soil, nature plants, a weed will. Sunlight is hitting the soil all over my yard. Well, here come the weeds, weed seeds. Warm season, weed seeds will sprout. That gives them the opportunity.

What do you do. You got to get that lawn denser. And one of the best things you can do for a lawn that is struggling is to do an aerration, a core aeration, and a compost top dressing. What's core aeration? That means we pull a plug out of the soil and drop it on the surface. When they have gone through your yard and done core aeration, you will think that there was a little tiny fufu dog convention all over the yard. In other words, this looks like dog droppings everywhere.

It's the best thing you can do for a heavy compacted clay soil, and whether it's compacted from foot traffic or whatever, it helps with that. When your soil is struggling, Getting oxygen into the roots system is important. Getting organic matter onto the surface and down in those holes is important. That's why we do the compost top dressing. And you're not going to find anyone that does a better job than B and B turf Pros. They are excellent.

They're outstanding. There are service provider for this service in South and West Houston area BnB turf Pros. They do things professionally. Listen, They're all about customer satisfaction and quality work. I love recommending this company because I've seen the work they do. I've talked to them about their mindset. It's just really clear. Go to their website BB no end in the website BB Turfpros dot com, BB turf Pros dot com, or give them a call seven

one three two three four fifty five ninety eight. Look at the work they do. They only use products and companies that I trust. Here on garden Line, so Ciena Maltch, you just heard me bragging on them that is a composted product. They have a composted product at Sienna. The BnB turf pros uses because they use quality. They go above and beyond to make a personal connection with you and to ensure you are satisfied with what they do.

They serve Sugarland and Missouri City on the west end. They serve Pearland on the east end, and as you go down south Fresno, Siena, Arcola, Iowa Colony, Manvil. Those are all communities and everything in between those that are named is the B and B Turf Pros area. You will be very pleased with the results. And don't wait until your yard is full of weeds and these even declined more. Go ahead and get the core aeration.

Not just punching squeezing a hole by shoving something into the soil. We're talking about popping a plug out, leaving it on the surface and then compost top dressing. That's how you do it right, and that's how B and B does it because they do things right. We're going to go now to the phones and head out to let's see Fort ben County and talk to Lee Helle. Hey, good morning, how you doing. I'm good I'm good. How are you good? I'm well, Thank you for asking. Hey,

here's what happened during that storm. I've got a mature Texas Mountain Laurel, and it blew it over. Now, it's not dead. The roots didn't come up. It slipped the anchor roots through the mud. It's laying there better than a forty five degree angle, like the side of the crown is almost at the ground, and it's very much alive. There's nothing dead about it. And I'm trying to I wondered, how do I stand this thing

back up? And unless you have any questions for me, Yeah, unless you have any questions for me, I'm gonna hang up and listen because it's kind of hard to hear on this old one. I got got you, all right, We'll take it from there, all right. Thanks. We have had yes, sir, We've had a number of folks that have asked questions about trees leaning over. And I discussed that pretty much in depth last week. But let me go into it again because I know a lot of

you had that same question. Lee does if a plant has been in the ground for like, let's say, three to five years or more, it's probably going to be difficult for it to recover, especially if it's a larger tree. The bigger the tree, it's just you're just not going to have success. I can go into great detail on it, but bottom line is a big old tree, don't try standing it up, get rid of it, get a new one in there. And I can explain why if you

want to call in, we talk about that. But if it's a younger tree, the first three years, for example, it's very practical to have them stood back up and staked into place. But you're gonna have to leave mom a while. Now. In Lee's tree, he's not talking about broken roots. He's just talking about kind of they just pulled and sunk in and

everything, and the tree still looks good. Well, if the roots are broken, which happens some and I suspect there's some breaking on this Texas Mountain rarel, you're going to have to leave it staked for a while because what's going to have to happen is new roots are gonna have to come out. They're a little tiny things, they can't hold on anything. And after a year, two years, three years, four years, it just gets stronger

and stronger. So for at least three years, you're gonna need that steak in place, depending on the size of the tree and everything else before it is really well anchored again, because remember it was a well anchored tree to begin with and the storm blew it over, So now you're starting with a much weaker anchored tree, and so you're going to have to be patient. If it's not a big trunk, I would get a three sixty tree stabilizer

and a steak and attach it to that. If it's a bigger you may need to use some guy wires to pull it in, But at three sixty for most of the things that are worth standing up, three sixty tree stabilizer is going to be perfect for that. If as you stand it up, if you're feeling some resistance, it may be that water has washed in underneath

roots and now you're pulling against that washed soil in. Now you're pulling against that soil, so you may have to kind of get under there a little bit, and you know, open it up a little bit so the tree can stand up a little better, and then put soil around the roots. Water it in real goods, settle them in, get it staked, and be patient. It's going to take time to do that, but you can do that. You want to pull gradually. You can kind of tell when

if I pull any further, I think I'm going to break something. And it may be that later you can move it a little bit more, but probably not. You probably need to get that move done all at once. But a Texas Mount Laurel is a slow growing plant. It's a very resilient plant. As long as it has good drainage. It does okay here in the Houston area and Lee, that's what I would recommend that you do on

that particular one. I do want to mention a garden center for the folks in West Houston, really for the folks all over the place, because it's a destination. That is Nelson Water Garden and Nursery that's out in Katie. As you head out, I ten to Katie. When you get to Katie Fort Ben Road, you turn right and it's just a little north across the tracks right there in Katy. Easy to get to. I mean just a hop skipping. It won't take long at all to get out there. It's

our West Houston destination garden center. One of a kind plants, one of kind pots. They got fish and fountains. You know, water gardening. They are nationally known for their water gardens. They designed that. You've seen the large beautiful glazed pottery urns that come upward then have water coming over the side and go into some gravel at the bottom and it recirculates and comes back out through the middle of the pot. They designed that idea, and they

have all the equipment to do it. They'll come out and do it, or they'll tell you how to do it. You can buy the components and do it yourself if you want to go that route and do it. But what you need to do now is just go get some friends and go out there and walk around. I mean, they ought to charge admission for the therapy of walking through all of their water garden features and just hearing that soothing water. To walk in the shady area, you know, today be a

great day. We're always watching the weather to see when it's safe to go out in terms of rain and things. But you know, anytime you can get out to Nelson Watergarden and walk through and enjoy and hear that beautiful music of water, you're gonna want to do this at your house and while you're out there, check out the nursery. I'm telling you they have an outstanding selection of all kinds of landscape plants, including citrus trees and annual color and

groundcovers and herbs and whatnot. Nelson Watergarden and Nursery. Here's the website Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Go check it out. But when you do, take your friends. I'm telling you it is a fun place to go and visit. We're gonna head now out to the phones and go to Fairfield and talk to Marty. Hello, Martyn kip I earlier here your four hanging back? Did and what you play cross? And he's got tobina because she said, oh, don't handle all that well, I'm Marty, Martie.

Let me cut in. I'm sorry, let me interrupt you. I'm having trouble hearing you. It's it's a little muffled. I don't know if you can go ahead. I think you did you say guardena nobina verbina. Okay, let me call you that. I just got through a walk. I've got my Okay, all right, we'll put you back. Chris Crys will put you up the front of the line. When you go back. Thanks a lot, appreciate that very much. Let's go to Conroe and talk

to Bill. Hello Bill, Hey, good morning Skip. I bought a book and Vilia about it six weeks ago and it was a small little guy, about eight inches round at most. And now it's really growing well. It's two and a half feet round and it's even when I pinched it back, it's really well. But it's got the flowers. That's not good. But yeah, the growth is really great. It looks really healthy and happy and all that stuff. Anyway, that what's the what's the secret or the

secret? Uh? Yeah, any ideas for pushing the flowers out? I've heard I'm sorry say that last thing? Salt? No you heard putting salt around it? No, don't do that. Nelson plant food makes a Boogainvillia food. It's good for all kinds of tropical vines and vines like that. Comes a little canister. You just sprinkle it in. You want to do that. Boom Villa does best when it's a little root bound, and so your new plant probably hadn't quite hit that stage yet. It's still growing actively.

You don't want to overfertilize it, but you do want to fertilize it periodically. That's important. Make sure it gets full sunlight and it'll settle down and you will get some bloom. It's just right now in kind of a growth spurt. Face, So maybe be a little sparring with the water, don't you know. Subject it to severe drought, but let it dry out a little bit between waterings, and that'll also cut back a little bit on that vigor and help it settle in a little bit. Okay, Oh,

hey, sounds good, very good. Thank you, thank you. Good luck with that. I appreciate that. Hey, we got to take a break. Scott and Cypress you'll be our next up when we come back from break. Let's see our phone number seven to one, and greener and greener as we go along. You know, it's all about informing our thumbs and that's what makes them green. That's what we do here on Garden Line. We're gonna head out now to Cypress, Texas and talk to Scott. Hello,

Scott, Hello, got a cuzon for you. I think one of my pine trees has pine beetle in it, and I'm just curious what to look forward to see if it has it, and then if it does what I need to do? Tell me what you're seeing that's making you think maybe pop it? Never like the other pine trees are really green, really got a lot of needles on them. This one's real thin, almost looking,

it's kind of dying off, like it's barely making it. And then I did look around the tree and I see a bunch of little holes all over it that the other ones don't have. Some of them have a little sap kind of coming out. I'm just stopped, really sure, Okay, it's a plus. Okay, how big? How big are the holes that you're seeing that little bitty circle? You know small? You are they in horizontal

are they in horizontal rows going across or are they just random everywhere? They're Okay, they're random and some of them have yeah, okay, well, I mean it could be. It could be. There's I think five different species of pine bark beetles from turpentine beetle that attacks down low and has large gloves of sap typically associated with it, to ips and graver beetles, and

the southern pine bark beetle, and so there's a lot of them. Some of them will attack, you know, all the way up the trunk and signs or typically globs a sap when the tree has enough energy to push them out. Sometimes you'll see sawdust catching in the bark as it falls down the trunk that the beetle is pushing out. So I think you probably need to get a professional arbist in there, Scott to take a look at it, because me on the radio, not seeing your tree and stuff, I'm not

going to be able to diagnose it accurately. I've given you kind of some facts to look for, but having an arborist come out some of you can trust to come out and look at it and assess it. Oftentimes, by the time you're seeing globs the sap and holes all up and down the trunk, it's a little too late to save that tree. That's usually the case. But if you have other trees around it, you can put products on

them to protect them from the beetles moving in. But that's where a professional arborist coming in and kind of boots on the ground to take a look at it. That's where that would be real hopeful, all right. And what about if it does happen to have it. I've heard different varying things with it do so you need to remove that tree out and have it hauled off. Don't heard somewhere with redsmore like you don't burn it as firewood? Is

that true? No, there's no problem with burning Well, you wouldn't burn a pine anyway as farwood. But if there's no problem with burning it. The pinmarked beetles are really poor flyers, and just in the forest where they can't go through all the spraying and stuff, they can't afford to do that. In a natural forest, they just take a chainsa. I'll cut them off at the ground and drop them horizontal on the ground and the beetles they come out of it, or they have a very difficult time like flying up

to the tree to attack another tree. So they get them down as soon as possible. That's the first thing, because the beetles are going through their life cycle in a tree. But before we jump to conclusions, I really think you need to have an arm look at it and let me let me give you a phone number if if you don't have it for Martin spoon More it's a seven to one to three six nine nine twenty six sixty three six

six Cale Martin. Have them come out and look at it. Because you know, it may be that you got a problem, maybe that there's nothing you can do for that tree, but something you can do for other trees, or maybe your neighbors need to be aware of it if they have pine trees. Right, exactly cool, All right, all right, sir, thank you, bet, thanks a lot, appreciate appreciate your call very much.

Uh. One of my favorite new products that has come on the market this year, or let me do a bit this way, that has become widely available this year is Medina's Supergrow Plus. It's one of the Hastro Grow line of products from Medina. Medina has to Grow. You're familiar with that that's been used for decades and decades around. Uh. There is the hast Grow Lawn, which is a fertilizer, hashed form of has to Grow that's used in the lawns. And then the super Girl Plus is another fertilizer.

It's a sixteen zero two. It's got a low metal number of phosphors. Most of our lawns already have enough phosphorus, so that design that sixteen zero two is a good one. Really, it contains more than just the nutrients though, by the way, about a fifth of those nutrients, a fifth of the nitrogen, its slow release form and supergro plus, but it also has molasses, it's got humic acid in it, it's got seaweed extract in it, and it's got a kelated form of iron that gets into your plant.

And if you've got a lawn that's struggling with take a root rod and you're seeing the yellowing from the loss of roots. When you can get a folia or iron into that plant, that is helpful for greening it up. It's like you're bypassing the roots that in essence don't exist because of being lost to the disease, and it helps sustain that plant while it tries to get back on its feet again. The grass plant. I'm speaking of supergrou Plus

from Medena sixteen zero two. You're gonna find it widely available all over town, easy to find and an excellent product. Hooks up to a hose en sprayer, takes ten minutes to cover about four thousand squeak square feet. That's what air will cover of the Medina Supergirl Plus. We're going to go back out now to Fairfield and talk to Mary Mary Marty on a brand new phone. Hey, Marty, is this better? Can you hear me now? Okay? Like that? Yeah? Sorry, so we're talking right. Yeah,

Well that's what I had. That's what the galles Over Plants for all season told me to put in there. At the time, that was all they had. It was still cold. But I was wondering if you had some suggestions. I've I've thought about the Angelonia and the the purse lane and the vinka, but you know, I want something. I like things that are different, and it's it is hanging baskets. There's four of them, and I just wondered if you had some other types of suggestions that would work.

It gets full sun almost all day, full son. Okay, Well, Boogovillia is always an option, you know when you've got lots of sun and a hanging basket and that's kind of unusual. Uh, kind of nice one to do. Uh let's see, did you mention scavola. That is uh fan flower. Uh it comes in a purple, a blue, kind of a pinkish white and white colors. That will be an option. It uh fan flower s c A E s c A E v O l A. The flowers are not big and showy, but they're pretty and I'm telling

you that thing just about can grow in a barbecue pit. When it comes to heat. It's a it is a very very tough plant. Uh. That would be a good one. Uh, you know, plant for all season. Have a lot of those, since I believe that sounds like that's where you like to shop, and they're going to have some good selections of those. I'm trying to think of person laying baskets. Did you mention that as being one that is too common? Okay, yeah, trying to think

of either. There are I like the hangings, there are several other possible options on it. I'm just trying to think. I like colorful foliage too, and so something doesn't just have a flower to add color. And so there are some some colises that will trail over, but they're not They are heat tolerant. But when you do the combo is sticking them in full sun and the heat. You just got to keep them watered for them to do well. Uh. Oh that's more than enough for anything. Yeah. That

so those would be some options, okay, all right? And then the ones in the front are shape full shade, no sun, and should I am in the soil that they're in. Everything put in there, it seems to die. I've done in patience core Line Colius, everything's dying. All right? Hey Marty, can you hang through break? I'm gonna have to run, but I'd like to continue the discussion. Yeah, all right, no problem, hang on, I'll be right back our phone number seven.

Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. Hey, we just had a storm, didn't we. We had a big storm that knocked out tons of power for a long long time for folks. One of my kids lives in the Houston area and they were one of the last ones to get power from that big storm. And then here comes Beryl to just give us a repeat. So we need to be learning our lesson, and

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I'll just make it short and sweet. I do. I do the fillerspiller, thriller, and my pot's up front and they're I just I'm wondering if the soil needs to be amended because everything I've been putting in there is dying. And it's full shade, no sun at all, full shade, no sun, and you got plants that want to be in shade. I assume, right, yes, co is in patience, cordaline, yeah, all those things. So I assume you're watering enough to keep it moist.

I know you know how to garden, so you're you're not letting it dry out and you're not keeping it submerged in water undergrown, right correct? Uh. The only thing I can think of is just check the drain holes on the pot and make sure they're not plugged. If a pot is sitting on the ground, the soil seals the drain hole that they're not with the pot. Okay, then I would say, perhaps dump that soil out and get

some fresh new soil and put it in there. Maybe if it's been in a while, all soil continues to decompose away and it gets thicker and muckier as it sits there. So what started off as a really good loose weldering potting mix or growing mix becomes you know, muckier if you will, as it decomposes away. So maybe that's it. It's not a lack of nutrients. It's just like killing them, you know. That would be lack of

growth or not good color in the leaves and things like that. So I did one time, I put that the indoor microlife stuff on them, the orange one, the orange bottle. Yeah. Would that have done it? Would that have? No? No? That's good, No, I have. I have used it over and over and over again in house plants, and it no that doesn't do it. And if you had a salt based fertilizer and you over applied it and watered it, and you can burn plant

roots and plants with the salt based fertilizer. But this the uh is it seven to one two? I'm trying to remember the third number on it the orange label. But anyway that that won't burn them. Okay, well I'll just keep I'll put some more soul and then just change it out, all right. Yeah, I had a feeling. I knew the brown before the green, and you know how it goes. Yeah, yeah, well that's

that's what it is. Now. One other thing that will help is you know people tell you to talk to your plants, right, have you heard of that talking to you? Well, I'm talking to my dogs while I'm outside at the front port, so maybe they think I'm talking to them. There is a last dish effort at talking to your plants, and that's called threatening your plants. I'm not people to walk out with a chainsaw fired up, stand in front of a tree and say if you don't start growing,

I'm coming back and I'm going to finish the job. You know, walk out there with some round up and show the plant and go, I know how to use this if you don't start drowing, And of course you wouldn't do that, but the plant doesn't know that, so you know, scared straight. I just bought some the other day. I will go out and see if that works. Don't be afraid to throat. Thank you, Barty, appreciate your call. Oh gosh, the things that come out of this

mouth on garden lines. All right, at least we're having fun. At least I hope you are too. Speaking of having fun, have you've been to Buchanan's Native Plants in the Heights lately? They're on eleven Street in the Heights, and boy, with weathered the storms and cleaned up and the place is in good shape and it's a great, great fun place to visit. You just head down eleven Street and it's this little place off to the side. You know, it's kind of like a secluded and the way I like

to think of it. And boy, when you park and go in there, it's just a fun place to walk through. There's every kind of plant you can imagine. Any Buchanan's Native Plants they specialize in natives, but they don't at all limit themselves to natives. You can buy anything, buy house plants or herbs, or vegetables or flower things that aren't native there. Buchanansplants dot Com, Eleventh Street in the Heights. Go buy there. Let them

show you their Houston area natives. We talk about a plant that is going to survive here. I've at a plant that was here before we came and started trying to quote garden with it. Buchan's Native Plants in the Heights. They can get you set up on that. They have all the fertilizers that talk about on guardline, quality, soils. Everything you need to have success, including knowledgeable people and good advice. Eleven Street in the Heights. Buchanan's

Native Plants. Put that on your two do list. It would be a fun outing any day to go buy and enjoy well. I hear music. That means time to put this hour in the books. But we will be back. Our phone number if you'd like to get on the board. By the way, board just opened up. That last call seven one three two one two k t RH give Cris to call and if you're the first call and going to be the first one up when we come back. Thank you. Welcome back to guarden Line. Welcome back. Good to have you with

us. Looking forward to talking to you about the things that are of most interest to you. What are the kind of questions that you might have. Well give us a call seven one three two one two K t R H. If you'd like to talk gardening. We love to do that and we'd be happy to visit with you. We're going to start off by going out to League City and talking to Dina. Welcome to garden Line, Dina,

thank you, thank you for taking my call. Sure, I just recently purchased some as am I put the super turf down in spring, and my lawn looks great that I've got a few little jealous spots. But my question is my lawn is so wet right now and I have stand in water in certain places. When's the best time? And how do you put the eighth and mic down? I know you don't use a lot, but I'm just

concerned is it too wet to put it down right now? It's it's the issue with wet is it's more than just you know, trying to get out in the lawn if it if it's soggy and sop and wet and stuff. It's not easy, but it didn't matter when you put it down. You can wait until it drives out a little bit, get your spreader and set it so you know you put out the right amount. Asamite bags will tell you what to put out, and then you just apply it. I would.

I usually like to use half of an application. This is true a fertilizer too, going one direction across the lawn. Just for example, let's say north and south, and then turn around and go east and west and put down the other half. And that way, you know, if you misestimated, you know, maybe you're putting it out too fast or not fast enough. You can kind of adjust that accordingly and get a good, nice,

even application if it dries out. If the lawn dries out and it appears to be pretty dry, do I need to spray water and wet it down before put the a's and mite down or spray water it down. It's better for the lawn not to be wet because you want the granules to fall to the ground and not stick to the leaves, so you don't have the water spread it well, you could and I water it to work to wash it in into the soil a little bit that eventually it's going to have to

have moisture to move that particle on down. But it's really wet now. Yeah, so there's no hurry. Listen. This is not like nitrogen. This is trace minerals and there's no rush at all. So just take your time. When you get around to it and it's dry, go ahead and put it down. A forty four pound bag is going to cover six to twelve thousand square feet. I have a huge backyard, a very very big backyard. Well, you can make it go a little further, you know,

that would be fine? You bet this? Yeah, yeah, you bet. Hey, thanks for the call, Dean. I appreciate you calling to get that clarified. All right, welcome back to Guarden Line, folks. We're ready to continue with this last hour of the day. We got one more hour in us today and then I'll be back tomorrow morning. By the way, while i'm talking about that, uh, if you are enjoying garden Line, I want to tell your friends and family and neighbors about it.

We would appreciate that they can listen to us. Certainly listen on the radio. If you're in the kt R H listening area, which is pretty broad. It goes all the way up I knowed at least Huntsville and a little beyond that. I've had calls and calls from almost all the way over to New Bronfels and then over to the Louisiana border. So we got a big area that can listen by radio. I like to listen on my phone to the station. You can uh get the iHeart Media Apple red emblem iHeartMedia

app. You can go to find garden Line and subscribe to it, and you can listen live to KTR at any time. So during the garden Line hours you can listen to us live. You can also listen as if it were a podcast, because we do post these shows where you can listen to them afterwards. So if you heard me say, I just said six to ten thousand square pounds our square feet per bag of ASMI, and you go, what was he saying? You go back and listen. You can catch

up on that and hear it. Anybody anywhere can listen. We have folks that listen, you know, long road truckers halfway across the country. We got folks that listen way outside the area that just listen by phone. A lot of our people will just absolutely put it on their phone and that's the

only way they listen. They put the phone in the pocket and they go outside and do yard Right right now, you could be out there doing something to the yard during these nice cool hours, listening to Garden Line right there in your pocket. So there's a lot of easy ways to do it, but we just encourage you to do it. Also, the nice thing about carrying it around in the yard while you're working is you may run across something you want to give us a call and we can help you find success,

solve a problem, identify an issue, diagnose a problem. That's easy to do when you just got your phone right there with you. Speaking of easy to do, Ace Hardware is a place where when you walk in, you know you're going to have what you need to have a beautiful lawn, a beautiful landscape, a bountiful garden because they have it all. Ace Hardware has the fertilizers that I talk about on guarden Line. They have sold products to

improve your soil. They have all the tools that you're going to need, you know, the garden hose and the hoe and rake and prunters and whatnot. Every fertilizer I talk about on guard like, we're just talking about asmite. They got asimite at Ace Hardware Store. You have insecticide, do you have herbicides? Do you have fungicides? Organic or synthetic? Ace carries a

mix of both. They have a great supply of products to control fireance or to manage mosquitoes, which unfortunately we're too familiar with those here, aren't we in the Southeast Texas area. They've got all of that. They have things to make your outdoor setting wonderful, including one of the best barbecue sections you're going to see anywhere. I mean, they've got Trigger, they've got Big Green Egg, they've got Weber, They've got all kinds of quality equipment there

so that you can have success with that. Ace is the place. Ace Hardware definitely is a place, and with forty stores in the Greater Houston area, it's easy to find one. Just go to Acehardware dot com and find the store locator and it's easy to find the stores stores plural, that are nearest to you. We're going to go now back to the phones and head out to Arlington, Virginia. Speaking of far away and talk to Joe, Hello Joe Hoddy in Arlington, Oh, the amazing and the English ivy are

growing profusely. Okay, But back Jersey Village, I cannot. I've given up on grass under my oak trees, and so I'm going for ground cover. English ivy Arlington is amazingly lush and plentiful. And I'm thinking, would English ivy work under the oak trees there in Jersey Village for the summer in the winter, well the summer heat anyway, and or would jazmine be better

choice? Uh? English ivy I think will do a little bit better and more shade than jasmine, but both would be okay if the shade is dright enough. The positive of jasmine over ivy is that jasmine doesn't climb up your trees and take over the world. It does grow, and you've got to edge the sides of the bed to keep it from crawling out of the bed. But English ivy grabs onto stuff, and it'll grab a tree trunk and go to the top and completely envelop that tree if you ignore it for a

long period of time. So if you're willing to keep it trimmed and keep it from doing that, English ivy is a very good tough groundcover. It can also be used as something growing on a wall because it has the ability to grab a wall or a tree chunk. But they both have their advantages. Just remember with the English ivy that it it does not understand what you consider the border of the bed, and it looks on the street and wants to go seven blocks down the road to keep growing. All okay, I

think that answer that question. So I'll go with jazzmine or some other than you. You bet, if you got enough light, Jazz, I'm gonna be okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate appreciate your phone call. We're we're going to go to WESU visiting with Charlie. Hey, Charlie, Hi, good morning. Yip. I called you because they've got some maybe mars flying around in lariaty. Okay, maybe a hap happened long light pan. I could send you a picture if that would help, Okay, I'd

be happy to look at a picture. There is not a lorioty pest that's a moth that I'm aware of, at least not one that's of any significance. Uh So, there's a bazillion different kinds of moths out there in nature. We encounter them all the time. There could be a hatch out and so I mean they hatch out the larva eat something and then they go into pupas. And now you got the moths flying around. So if you had seen a bunch of damage on something, then we might look at that as

a possible culprit the moths that you're now seeing. But my gut on this one is it's probably not a problem of what you're say. If you want to send me a picture of one, I'll take a look. I'm not a moth expert, but if it's any of the common pests, I'll know what it is, okay, all right, yeah, well, thanks for the call, and I'm going to put you on hold. Chris will pick

up and get you an email to send me. Make sure the photos are as close as you can get them in as sharp a focus as you can get, and if you kind of get some different angles on it, that would be helpful. While you're out taking pictures, look see if something has been decimated by a caterpillar. That would be another helpful thing to know. All right, all right, you take care. I'm going to run back out now and we're going to head to Matthew and Livingston, Texas. Hey

Matthew, Hey, how's it going. I'm good, I'm good. Help. So my godfather out there in Luston, Texas. He's lived on the same property for about forty years and he's had a constant battle with cutter ants over the years. He's been able to kind of push him back, but they always come back and usually come back worse. As one ANSWER's anything we can do to completely eliminate those well, you know, in nature, we usually don't use the term eliminade. It's kind of like saying eliminate mosquitoes.

You know, there's gonna be more that fly in kind of thing. But I do have a little a mix that I would like to send you, And so what I'm gonna need to do, I'm not going to try to read it all out over there. If I'm gonna put you on hold here and have Chris pick up the phone, get your email, and I will send you a combination of a couple of things that can be mixed together. But the instructions are key. So but that's why I would like to put

it in print and send it to you that way. It's a couple of ingredients you mix together, you let it's sit in a bucket a while, and then you put it out and it seems to be as good as we've been able to do in terms of a bait to control leaf cutter ants because they are a problem. Excellent, Thank you, all right, So here we go on hold and Chris will pick up and give you that recipe. Okay, let's oh. I did want to mention something for those of you

down south. Have you been to Hoges Hidden Gardens. I've been meaning to talk about this. Horace Hidden Gardens is in Alvin, Texas. It is on Elizabeth Street, Elizabeth Street and Alvin, Texas, and it's a really unique little place. Hoorge has been building this place for a while now and it just keeps getting better and better. They carry a lot of good products. They have quality fertilizer options. They've got lots of different kinds of plants.

Always Horace Hidden Gardens is a place where you're going to be able to find the three sixty tree stabilizer, for example. That would be definitely worth the price of admission right now. They got a really good selection of avocados and yes, if you're down south like that. Avocados is an option. Occasionally we got one of those doozy freezes it comes through, but a lot

of people have fun growing some avocados out in the art. You're going to find Mexicola, Lula, the Arizona, the Joey, just a lot of different varieties that are the ones you need to be planting here at Hojragez Hidden Gardens. Now, they're open Fridays from nine to three and Saturday and Sunday from eight to four, So today and tomorrow eight am to four pm. And again, the avocados are still in stock there, so I suspect other

people are heading that way to get one, so don't delay. But for those of you down south though, in Alvin area, Horayes Hidden Gardens is a nearby nursery that is going to provide quality plants and I think you will enjoy give them. Check them out. We'll see what you think. I'm going to head out now to Tumball, Texas. We're going to talk to John. Hello, John, good morning to Skip. How you doing.

I'm good sir. How can I help? Well, I've met you in the past at Arbor Gate and I'm kind of wrapping my brain around this. I'm looking for some hedges to go in front of my fence to kind of kind of like a privacy to kind of bounce off the noise behind me. And I don't have a lot of room to work with with my cable box. Fact, I've got two three feet. So what do you think about the linebacker the stelium? Is that a good would that be a good fit

for what you think? Or what about the Eagles? Now that's a good question. I do not know linebacker. I mean I would have to look into that one. Yeah, the challenge the hedge, Yeah, well, I don't doubt that Arburgate's got about everything you could possibly want. Uh. They I would talk to them because they're gonna know obviously, they're gonna know

that plant better than I do. Uh. And in terms of how will it perform, you know, if they're selling it, it's a good plant, Okay, So I don't I don't have any question about it doing well here, but the specifics of the performance of it. My concern on the distillium is you're gonna have a pretty wide plant, and so you're talking about only having a couple of feet, Is that right? A couple of feet. A couple of feet, you know, you don't have to have these

table boxes, these concast boxes. Is probably a couple of feet from the fence. So my concern was the roots and if I could keep it trained to where it would be a little more thinner. The roots don't worry me as much as you know. It wants to be about probably six to eight feet wide, and so keeping it at two feet is going to be quite a chore to do. There are not a lot of plants that will stay that narrow. Arbigate is going to have some. They may have a juniper

that's that way. They may have a upright yo pond that stays kind of narrow. The other thing to be just be aware of so your expectations are at the right level. John is plants as a sound bear or helpful, but they're not huge. Okay, you're gonna you're gonna hear the sound coming through. It's gonna there's gonna be some reflections and muffling and benefits. But just know that it's not gonna you know, it's not loyal, it's not

noise canceling headphones. Uh. Level of help there. So something you might want to try go ahead. All right, So what do you think about the Eagleston Do you think that's sounded big enough area either it's also narrow for Eagleston holly, But Egleston's fine. Anytime you're gonna do a holly, you want to make sure the first two or three years to hand water it, because it's very important that it not get dry, that you water all of

the root system all around it. Uh. And I just I see a lot of times people have an automatic system and something foliage or something is blocking one of the emitters, and the eagle you're holly of any kind starts to have issues because it's not getting getting that. But Wilson will get quite large, in fact get very large, which is also helpful in terms of a sound barrier. But it's going to get big. It wants to be. You know, it'll get twelve feet or so wide in time, So you're

going to have to stay with the pruning of it. I'm just when you got that limited of it with, it's hard to find something that's going to do well and be thick enough. Some people will put in like maybe some sort of a trellis panel, like a livestock panel or something, and they'll put vines on it to block of you, but you don't have the depth of foliage. It's giving you the best sound barrier that way. But that is one way you can when we don't have room for a shrub, that

we can get a good flat panel of foliage out there. Okay, thank you, Yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry skip the teddy bear may know you can I keep that in a different But could I keep that tour it doesn't continue to grow high? Real real high? Can I keep them somewhat six to eight ten feet tall? Boy? I think that would be a challenge. Teddy bear wants to be bigger than that. It's a fairly slow grower, as man southern magnolias are. But I think that would be a

little bit of a little bit of a challenge. So theoretically, yes, you could. I mean people take elm trees that are sixty feet tall, put them in little pots to make bones eye plants out of them by burning them all the time and going through great links. So you can keep any plants small. But it's going to be a lot of work over a long term, and I don't know if you'd get tired of having to do that, but you certainly could try. All right, thank you Skip, All

right, well, good luck, thank you for the call. Appreciate that. Tom. Let's see here, where are we a little short on time? Here? I tell you what, I'm going to have to take a little break here for the news. When when I do come back from a break, d in Montgomery, You're gonna be our first up, and Randy you'll be right after that as we come back. I just want to remind you that my website, Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot

Com is where you find my garden schedules. The law and Care schedule tells you mowing, watering, and fertilizing advice, what do apply, when to apply it, organic and synthetic options. The other one, Pest, Disease and Weed Management schedule, talks about controlling insects like chinchbugs and side web worms, for example. It talks about diseases like take all root rot and brown patch, are large patch and so on. It talks about the various weeds.

What do you use pre emergence, When do you use them? Which ones do you use? How about post emergence? And again for all these things. There's organic and sonthetic options on those schedules are multicolor January through December. One page free to download, print up, carry with you when you go shopping, or stick up in the garage. So next time. So, welcome back to the guard Line. Thanks for joining us again today.

We are so glad to talk to you and I hope that this is a helpful show that gives you the opportunity and the what the information you need to have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, or the way I like to put it, the information you need to turn brewn Thumb's green. That's what it's about. We're going to go out to Montgomery, Texas and talk to d Hello, d Hi, how are you today? I'm good,

I'm good. How can we help? Well? Unfortunately I lost my absolutely gorgeous giants eighty but oak tree in the storm and it was my porch shade tree. Do you have any suggestions for a fast growing tree I can put replace it with something that's a good long lived tree. Could be a red oak, that's one option. Red oak, a red oak, red oak? Okay, it is your soil. Does a spot tend to stay a little wet after rains. Is it a little bit soggy a time?

Sure, it's a little in my it's in my sprinkler system, so it does get water, it doesn't retain it. It's a little It was a little on an angle this tree. I'll plant it a little farther down this time. Okay, Well, if the soil drains well, then a shoemard red oak would be the one. I would choose. Nut or nuttall in u t T a L not tall t a l okay, read out book either of those. Another good one would be a Chinese elm. It is very open. It's a drake elm. You see them all over town.

They are tough. They use them in landscaping and parking lots and stuff like that, and shopping center parking lots. Because they're tough. You just want to make sure that it's it's grown right and it is very well anchored. Sometimes they can lean a little bit when they're young. Uh, And so just picture it's planted properly and it does really well. But there's some big beautiful specimens of Chinese elm around too. They cast a nice light shade.

So okay, and where in my area. What you think Arborgate or I'm not by AA nurseries? Do they carry something like that? A Montgomery? Uh, give them a call, give Kathy or whoever they're a call and see if they have If they don't have anything, probably get them in for you. We certainly have tree companies that carry all of these things as well. But if you're I think Arburgate, if they don't have it, they can get it in for you. Or again A and A F and Montgomery

that I think they could. Yeah, I haven't been there. There's so many nurseries I don't keep up with, you know, every plant that everyone carries, I can't. But the ones I recommend it are pretty common and should be pretty widely available. And then when you go there they may have some other options. I mean I pulled two out of the air here there I can give you probably a dozen good options that would work well. So it doesn't have to be either you know, the red oak or the drake

or the Chinese elm. Okay, well, thank you so much. By all right, You take care good to talk to you. Appreciate that Nelson Plant Food is a purveyor of all kinds of quality plant foods. And here's what I'm talking about, the turf Star line. We have lots of products that are used for the lawn and the turf Star line by Nelson. Probably the one that I most would focus on right now is slow and Easy. That's the one that will feed gradually for three or four months. You put

down slow and Easy. Now, if you've not fertilized for summer yet, you don't have a slow release already in your lawn, then do the slow and Easy and it'll carry all the way until it's time for fall fertilization. Turf Star Slow and Easy, excellent product. Then they have the Color Star. Color Star works on all kinds of flowering plants. It's one of the most popular products they have and widely widely available. Then they have their specialty

plant foods. For example, earlier someone was talking to me. We were talking about the Nelson Plumeria plant food and it's not just plumerias, it's all the flowering tropical plants. It will do very well for those. Bougain villa plant food any kind of a vining plant, a flowering vine is what they recommend the bougainvilla plant food for. It works very well. The rose food another example, the tree and shrub food, the crape myrtle food, the

vegetable garden azalea, citrus fruit, and avocado hibiscus. They have all of these by Nelson Plant Food. They're available in jars, and we also have local retail garden centers that will have a refail station, so you take your jar back in you can refill it, save the plastic and save a little bit of money on the cost of refilling those jars. Just makes them even more convenient. And all of this is from Nelson Plant Food. We're going to go now back to the phones and let's see here. We're going to

go to Randy. And where are you located, Randy. I can't quite make it out there. We're down in Bay City, Texas. Skip Ah, Okay, good well, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having us on and answering our questions. Hey, my wife and I were recently in the Pacific Northwest on the Oregon coast, and we were kind of mesmerized by the road of dendrons that they had up there, and so we started doing some research online about whether or not you could grow them down in

our grow zone and there's a lot of conflicting information out there. Ohther or not you can be successful with rhododendrons on the Gulf, I don't know if you have an opinion on it. And if if you can grow them, what type you some type you would recommend? Okay, Well, I think it's a challenge, and by and large, as you move further and further south, the rhododendrons just don't perform as well as, for example, the

azalias might perform. I've seen some rhododendrons further up in East Texas, you know, you get up the Tyler and areas like that, you'll see some. But even there, it's asking a lot for them. And I'm not a rhododendron expert, I'll just admit that. But the times that I've talked to people that grow them and have tried growing them and things, it's just it's quite a challenge. So if I told you no, you can't do it, I'll get ten calls from people saying they do. Because that's how

it is with all plants. But bottom line is, I think if you're looking for something, I think azilias are probably the ones that you would be interested in. There are even some name of azaleas that are deciduous, uh, and they drop their leaves and then they come out with the blooms and things. And then there's our standard types of azaleas. And there's a lot of options out there. But I don't blame you for falling in love with

the rhododendrons when you get up there. Uh, they have some gorgeous ones. They do absolutely okay, and you answer my next question, so we'll look into the zailies. Thank you so much. Skip all right, Randy, thanks for the call. Appreciate that a lot. All Right, well, folks, Uh time taking another little break here, Lloyd. When we get back, I'll I'll put you first up and we'll come right to you in the meantime, take a little break our phone number seven one three two

one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to the garden Line. Good to have you with us. If you are looking for a one stop shop where you're gonna find every product you need to have a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape, Southwest Fertilizer down at Southwest Houston is a place you need to go buy and if you haven't been there. You definitely need to go buy there. By the way, the place is air conditioned. It's safe to

go during the summer. Southwest Fertilizer has every kind of pest control, every kind of weed control, every kind of insect control, every kind of fertilizer, an eighty foot long wall of tools, so quality tools, everything you need to do the job right. And you know, there's nothing like having the right tool for the job, and Southwest has got that. They've got knowledgeable staff. You bring in a sample, you bring in a picture,

you just walk in and describe something going on. They can point you to what you need to have success and then tell you how to use it properly. That's important. They're at the corner of Bissonet and Renwick and there's not a fertilizer I talk about here, nor will you hear me talk about some pest control that Bob doesn't have it Southwest Fertilizer, because that is what they specialize in having everything. I like to put it this way, if Southwest

doesn't have it, you don't need it. And that is not an exaggeration. That is absolutely true. Excellent, excellent place, good supplies. Even things like I always brag on those kneeling benches, the kind you can flip one way and sit on, flip the other way and kneel on. You can fold them up and store them easily. Listen, if you're anywhere north at forty years old, you gotta get you one of these. Those are

really cool tools among the many nice things that they have. If you're an organic gardener, you're not going to find a better selection of organic supplies than they have at Southwest Fertilizer corner of Bissinet and Runwick. Here's the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot com. For example, why you're there. Nitroposs bugout Max. That is the insecticide granular form from nitrofoss that we put in the lawn to prevent lawn pest issues. Do you have ants like

fire ants, yep, it works well. Do you have fleas fleas have an egg and a larval form that's out there in the thatch of your grass. If your dog has fleas and walks out there, fleas are going to hop off lay eggs. You're going to find them out there night fuss bug out max will control that. You can get night Fuss at Southwest Fertilizer as well as many many places and night Fuss products are widely spread out and all over the area. Chinchbugs. That season is upon us and it's only going

to get more and more as we move into later summer chinchbug season. You put out bug out Max, it's going to give you protection through the rest of this summer growing season to control those kinds of things. Over one hundred and thirty different kinds of insects from night Fuss Bugout Max. Let's head back to the phones. Now, we're going to go talk to Lloyd and Growton. Hey Lloyd, how are you doing today? I'm good, sir. How can we help? Okay, A couple of weeks ago, my daughter

in law brought me a peach of for her grandfather's tree. I beat into it that peach blue. It was a dark, dark blue. The flesh of it was. Can you tell me what kind of peach that is? Well? If today was April first, I would have an explanation for your question. I have never heard of a blue fleshed peach, and I would almost say that doesn't exist. I don't oh boy uh. Anyway you could send me a picture of one, or get more information on it. I'll

see if I got any more. She had to tag where she boughted, and he said, okay, but I know, yeah, no is a good peach for this this area. But it's a yellow flesh peach. It's not not blue. I don't know. Uh, go ahead, This peach was blue. I mean it was a dark blue cad and but it was a good it was an absolutely good peach. It was good. Well, I'm gonna rewind this. You have won. You have won the game called

Stump the chump today because you got me on that one. I think I'm just gonna put you on on hold here in a second half, producer Chris, give you my email and if you can find it more information on it. Mainly send me a picture because what I'm picturing in my head does not does not exist. I've called about five nurse reagions and nobody had ever heard of Well, my master's my master's degree in horticulture was in pomology, which is a study of fruit. That is what I specialized in. I've had

peach orchards myself. I've advised speech orchard just I've never heard of this and I'm old enough to know never say never, right, So I'm not going to tell you nothing exists. But I'll tell you this. I'd bet a lot of money that there's no such thing, and you're telling me you saw it. So I'm willing to open my mind and say, send me a picture. Let's take a look. I'll be happy to see what I can figure out on it. But let me well, okay, but that would

be something completely different. And still you using the word blue for the interior doesn't sound right now? Maybe exterior it's got a it's it doesn't have a fuzzy skin, right, that's right, it doesn't. Listening to her, I appreciate, all right, will hang on. I want to because I really want to see more on this. If you can provide it, I'll put you on whole right here, Uh, Chris, if you'll pick that up and get in my email, because we're gonna have to look into it.

There's the first time for everything. We're going to go to Bess in Conroe. Now, Hey, Bess, Hello, thus are you there? Yeah? Hey, welcome to Droudline. Can you hear me? Yes? I can can you hear me? Yes? Okay, we have a new build in Huntsville, Texas, forty pallets of grass. My husband was a little overachieved, and how do I take care of it. It's been down about a month. Do I need to fertilize or just keep water and it's really struggling of course in this heat. Yeah, the most important thing on

grass that's been down a month. As you were planting it in June, that grass needed water from day one more than once a day to help it get established. But now that we're a month out, if it's still alive, you're in pretty good shape. I would water it with a good soak, but just once, maybe twice a week. If you do it once

a week, try to get an inch on it. It may take more than one application over the course of a morning with about a forty five minute soak in between them to get an inch down, But to give it a good soaking and frequently helps develop a deep root system and a resilient grass. If you need to go twice a week, do about a half inch with each irrigation. As far as fertilizing, if it's been in a month, you can go ahead and fertilize it if you feel like you know it needs

it. Just use a slow release product. A slow release product, and if you go to my schedule. Have you seen my lawn schedule that's on the website Gardening with skip dot com. I have not, but we are definitely going to follow that with this new grass. Yeah good, We'll just go there and do the lawn care schedule and it'll tell you the slow releases. We have several options. Here are great companies here in the Houston area

that provide you with summer fertilization options. I would go with a slow release and it's going to carry you gradually feeding the grass all the way in into fall, and that's what you want. You don't want to overdo just this giant flush of nitrogen all at once. That's not good. But you do want a little bit of nitrogen over a long period of time, and that they do that perfectly. These these for products do that perfectly. Well. He's been they told him, when he put it down to water three times

a day. And because we still live in Conroe and he's traveling back to Huspital, he's only done it once a day, but he's done a deep soak every time. But it is struggling with his heat so he needs to back off on the watering. Well this next week is oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Twice a week is often enough. Twice a week is often enough. If it's been in a month, you don't need to be watering it that often. But when you water it, give it a good soaking. But just twice a week, and if you can move toward

once, that's fine. You know, in shade, it's not I can't need near that much water. In sun it's gonna need that much water. In a sandy soil, you're gonna have to water more often than you are in a clay soil. So it's hard to have a one size fits all. But what the advice I gave you on an inch a week is about as close to one size fits all as I can give you. Okay, thank you very much, Good luck with that. Did you say forty pallettes

forty palletts? It's an overachieaver, yes. And how many riding lawnmowers do y'all own? Probably a new one? Yeah? All right, well, I have fun. So I was like, you need to like start a golf course or something. Hey, best, thanks to the call. I appreciate it. Good bet, well the music means we're done with garden Line. Thank you for listening. I'll be back in the morning six am all the way to ten am tomorrow morning, four hours of gard Line. John

back with us again. In the meantime, go check out my website gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot Com. There you'll find the schedules and you know, we're slowly building stuff. To keep building that website out make it more and more valuable. I don't quit making promises as to what I'm going to put up and just tell you when they're up. How about that? I think that works? About that? Thanks for listening to the guard Line. You guys have a great rest of to day. Hey go

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