Herbicide Advice

I get excited about it. I mean I could lay in a polo composts and make compost angels and just be happy as a clam. But for a lot of people, it's like, yeah, it's dirt, that's brown, that it's something I have to do so I can have flowers. Okay, Well, if I can't talk you into enjoying compost as an end in and of itself, at least let me tell you. If you want those flowers to look good, you got to start with the foundation that the plants are going

to thrive in, because plants live in their roots. So there we go. That is my constant every show, public service. And then because that's where I see most people make their mistakes. When the soil isn't right. The plants won't be happy, and you won't be happy because you won't be enjoying the things that you get to enjoy. Last year was a hammering year when it came to storms. We had two that knocked the power out for extended

periods of time. Family members in the area were out of power for two about they've been two weeks, maybe longer. And it's just crazy. And basically the reason the power goes down is because the trees. That's one of the single most significant factors is the fact that trees break a limb, the tree falls over whatever, and it takes power out on a storm. And you know, we don't know when those storms are coming. They may come even in the winter time with a nice storm or something.

They're unpredictable. But what you do have control over is making sure your trees are as strong as they can be. And I encourage you when you planted tree, start training it from day one into a strong structural form. And there's information out there. You can learn how to do it, or you can hire somebody to come in and do it, but start from day one. Because trees develop bad structural problems.

They just do It's kind of like people picking up bad habits and they're harder to break later when you don't when you allow yourself to pick them up and establish them early on. And so if you let a tree, a young tree, develop a real narrow branch angle, that branch is going to get that situation's going to get worse year after year after year, until someday you come out and that branch is split off because it was poorly attached. There wasn't as much strength in the attachment

as there could have been. You got to take care of your trees. And unless you're a certified arbist, know what you're talking about, a specialist in trees, just a very experienced arbuss. Whatever you are out there, you're not going to know how to do it right. And marnspoon More knows how to do it right. Martin is with Affordable Tree. That's his company. He and his wife Joe run the company Affordable Tree Service. And if you've not

just listen to this. If you can't remember the last time you had your trees pruned and evaluated for health, now's the time. Get it done now. Uh You everything that an experienced person like Martin can do to a tree just helps build resiliency in it. Now, when we get a hurricane come through, that'll blow a house over. I mean you, you know there's things that are going to happen to trees. But there's so much you can do to increase the strength and to get you through

the storms. It should not be causing problems. Martin Spoon more Affordable Tree Service. Here's the number seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three. I'll say that again. Seven one three six nine nine two six six three. You can swing by the website at Afftree Service dot com. But Martin come out and he evalue at your trees. He can give you an estimate on what needs to be done, including pruning, including things like deep root feeding.

For example, maybe you need some advice on you know you're gonna put a trench in toward the house and that's gonna take out a bunch of tree roots. Martin can advise you on the best way to go about that, what needs to be done. He is able to do a lot of things from root barriers to you name it. Just call him, have him come out, have him take a look. He'll explain what's what's wrong. What's going on, and maybe nothing's wrong. Maybe maybe it's fine. It just

needs a little support during the summertimes. But this is pruning season, and don't delay on this. Just go ahead and get it done. Martin Spoon More Affordable Tree seven one three, six nine nine two six sixty three. All right, that was my best effort at making you making sure you have a long term success. You know, the most valuable plant in your landscape is a tree. It is a lot of other good, beautiful plants, but when it comes to trees, you can't fix broken bad pruning practices

is what I mean by broken. Now, you can go in, you can clean it up, you can try to make the best of it. But when you allow somebody that just happens to own a pick up a chainsaw and sticks a business card in your door to train your trees and they do a bad job, that is for life. Again, there's things that a good tree person can do to fix it a little bit, but the damage is for life, and the weakening of the structural integrity is for life. So don't let people touch your trees. Don't know what

they're doing, and don't delay. The longer you delay, the worse. The problem gets We like to be ostriches and put our head in the sand because we don't want to deal with this right now. Well, I'm telling you delaying makes it a lot worse, could make it more expensive, but definitely takes away from the value of your home. You know how much a tree add to the value

of your home. Now imagine that tree being split in a storm, and now you're going to sell out the same house and you got a tree that's half a tree. You see what I'm saying. It's worth investing to take care of things like that. All right, I'm gonna have to run here, take a little break. I'll be right back by the way. Our phone number ought to give you that since this is a call in show seven to one three two one two kt r H. Seven one three two one two kt r H. We'll be

right back. All right, Good morning, and welcome back to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Ricker, and we're here to help you have a more beautiful garden, a more bountiful landscape. And this is very important more fun in the process. Gardening is fun. Gardening should be fun. Let's figure out how to make it fun for you. If you've been struggling along with something, give me a call seven one three two one two kt RH. We're going

to run now out to Meadows Place and talk to Girardo. Hello, Girardo, welcome to garden line. Uh all right, hello Girardo. We'll get Oh there we go. I got you, all right, I'm well, I'm well. How can we help today?

That's the main thing the Dorman oil spray controls. So if you don't have scale, then you may not need to do it. Now, there's nothing wrong with doing it just in case, but watch your trees. Scale will show up in different ways. Usually on peaches it'll be a white kind of flaky material, almost like kind of like cigarette ashes, I guess, but white, very white. Or there are some little scales that look like little flattened volcanoes that are smaller than a typed o that lowercase o

that you would see along the branches. But look for those things. If you see either of those, you definitely need to do Dorman oil and get good coverage. Every square inch of a branch needs to have oil on it because it only once.

well you don't really need to do a Dorman oil spray. Now, if they start to show up, then you're gonna be on a Norman oil schedule going forward.

well I like what white butterfly ginger. I absolutely love that plant, and so I'm going to be planting some gingers in there, although they are perennial here with a little malt, but i need to get that soil right, and I've got a bunch more organic matter got to put in. They're going to build it up good, make sure it drains well right at the under the eaves of a house, so that ginger is kind of happy when it's not in the full brun of sun. So

I'm going to be getting that worked out. And anytime you're building the soil, you want to make sure and do the content of nutrients too. And there are a lot of nutrients plants need, you know, they need nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. That's the big three NPK, that's the three numbers on a fertilizer bag. But they also need secondary nutrients and micronutrients also called trace minerals, and Microlife products have the trace minerals in them because they are made from organic

materials from things that were once alive. If you will, you know, leaves that have been decomposed, whatever the organic material is when when the plant is gone, or you have the materials left the compost, the leaves, the whatever you have. Those materials contain everything a plant needs because they came from that. So they don't just have the three numbers. They've got all the other numbers as well. And here's why, because to grow a plant you have

to have all the nutrients. You have to have, not just the big sixteen we talk about, but even up to twenty different or more different nutrients depending on the plant and the stage of its life that are needed. And so with Microlife, you're applying the whole nine yards when you do that. And Microlife has They've been around for a long time, over thirty five years now, well over thirty five years. They're the number one organic fertilizer in sales in the whole Houston area. And they're not

going to burn because they're organic they have. Again, I said they have a lot. They have more minerals than standard fertilizers because over one hundred minerals are in microlife, because that's what's in the materials that Microlife's made of that I have poultrymner in them. They're safe for humans, safe animals. They are really designed to create success in

the soil. Each bag of Microlife has over seventy essential nutrients and each bag contains billions of billions of beneficial microbes that helping growing a stronger plant to help in improving your soil. When you use that on a regular basis, little by little, you are improving the soil, not just adding nutrients. Because you're continuing to improve the soil. You can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out where

to get them. They're widely available. Microlife products are all over the place, so get out there, get some on hand, and use them everywhere from your houseplants to your yard plants. The stuffworks, and I say that because I've used it. I've been using Microlife products for over ten years now and they work. You are listening to garden Line if you'd like to give us a call this morning, seven to one three two one two KTRH will be happy to help you have success. What's going on at your

guard gardener? What are you going to do at your garden? This has been my theme all through January. Now I'm just going to keep going in February here. What are you going to do nude this year? What are you going to do different this year? You're going to try a new kind of gardening like herb gardening or vegetable gardening, or flower gardening, or growing orchids indoors or making a terrarium. Do you see what I mean? I mean they are all kinds of ways to get involved with gardening. What

are you going to do new this year? What new plants are you going to grow that you haven't grown before? I just talked about white butterfly ginger or the butterfly gingers. I love gingers, especially the butterflies, because they make great cut flowers. Some of them have unbelievably heavenly fragrance. Just if you like something like a gardena, the smell of that will get you a white butterfly ginger and smell that it's good. We had when my their daughter was born.

We were my wife and baby. We're in the hospital and I brought a cut headachem from home, a white butterfly, gender stuck it in a vase in the hospital room. I'm not kidding you. Nurses were coming. They're walking down the hall smelling something and followed their nose into that hospital room. Wanted to know where that wonderful smell was coming from. That is how wonderful that ginger is. Have you grown that before? Why not try it this year?

That's just one of ten billion plants that you could grow. How about a different way of pest control I mentioned yesterday. Have you ever used garden mesh fabric? Think of something super lightweight, super soft and pliable. But it is a tiny little screen, a little smaller than screen on your house and definitely softer, and you just put it over your plants and bugs can't get in. So the question is not you know what insecticide kills beetles or caterpillars.

The question is where do I get garden mesh and just put it over the whole plant and they can't get it in. The mots can't get into lay eggs, and it's a screen porch over your plant. That's something new That's just an example. Well, I was checking out plants for all seasons the other day and stop by and say, hey, talk to them, see what's going on. I always like to see what's happening in the garden centers. And if place looks great, they are loaded up. They

got all the fertilizer and soil stocked up. You know, you can't get out of that place by what without walking through the fertilizer and soil. I like that. You know you got your plants. You're excited, all right. Don't go to the checkout until you get your fertilizer and your soil. That's very important, and they've got it. They understand that because they are gardeners. They've been around since

nineteen seventy three. They're right there on Tombol Parkway two forty nine, just north of Luata, and you can go in there. You can take pictures, you can take samples and ask them questions. You know, you're driving down the road and you see this plant in somebody's yard, zoom in, take a picture, go buy plants for all season? Say I need one of these? Do you have them? Can

you get them? And the chances are they do You can go to the website Plants for All Seasons dot com, or you can give them a call to eight one three seven six sixteen forty six two eight one three seven six one six four six. Is it like to say, there, get your green on it. Plants for all Seasons. I don't care if you are a experienced gardener or if you're a rookie gardener. They've got what you need and

they can help you to have success outside. Yesterday had some little tiny birds that were coming along and I've got my feeders out and they are really happy and doing great. You know, wild Birds Unlimited has got everything you need for your birds. They got the feeders right now. The new thing, the exciting thing is the cardinal confetti. That's a special blend of oh, just a lot of different kinds of really great seed that bring the red cardinals in just by the flocks. It is a really

cool seed. They also have a cardinal tube feeder and a good evening cardinal feeder. It's called works really really well. And while you're in there, check out their bark butter products. This product has been documented to bring over one hundred and fifty species of birds in go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston to find the wild birds near you. I'm taking a break. I'll be right back. Don't go away, We'll be back with your questions. Alrighty, alrighty, we're back.

We're back with garden Line, talking gardening everything gardening. What are you going to do new this year? What are you going to do different? What are you going to try out? There are parts of gardening you've never experienced that you need to experience. They are fun and you know what, if you don't like it, well, don't do it anymore. At least you tried it. But I guarantee you this your favorite tomato you have yet to eat. I mean that there are tomatoes that are out there

you haven't tried, and there are tomatoes to come. As readers keep improving on things in various ways, that you will never discover them if you don't try some things new. Every year, when I'm in my vegetable garden, I try to grow my standards, and then there's I have some personal standards, and then I try to grow some new things, some things that haven't grown before. For example, tomatoes celebrity that is one of the few nematode resistant tomatoes. By

the way, it is. It is a Texas Superstar TEXA and M Superstar Trial tomato. That is the standard. It's been around a long time, but it is an awesome tomato.

try Valentino. We're gonna throw it in there and see how it does, see what I think about it. Who knows, it may become my next new favorite. By the way, Oh well, I mentioned Chenne Gardens. I'm going to be audited in Chenne Gardens on Saturday, February fifteenth, So we've got a couple of saturdays away here. I'll be there from twelve noon to one thirty and I'm going to be talking about something I love to talk about, and that is how do you get more from your garden

with less sweat and less ibuprofen. The title is Tips from making Gardening Less Work and we're gonna have a good time. I'm gonna give you all kinds of ideas on ways to make your gardening easier, make it more productive, and make it more fun. But anyway, I'll be there two Saturdays from yesterday the fifteenth, twelve noon to one thirty.

Now add in Chenne Gardens if you haven't been out there, They've got a whole bunch of ship They got a whole shipment of the beneficial insects in you know, things like the prank mount is, the green lace swings and others that are out there. And you can beneficial nematodes, that's another one. You can pick them up. But don't delay because those are living creatures that need to find a good home and they will. They'll be gone if you delay going out to get them. If you're interested

in that, always good things out in Chanta Gardens. You know you're always going to find an excellent supply of all kinds of plants, from strawberries to right now. They got some great herbs in they look awesome. Of course, this is still the time to plant shrubs and trees, and their supply of shrubs and trees is outstanding. It is. It is roses also, roses also ceterus. Just keep naming things and they've got them. That is in Chanty gardens

out in the Richmond Rosenberg area. Let's see. I am gonna be doing some traveling in the coming weeks, and I love when I travel to go to botanical gardens because every you know, every and also garden centers. One of my stops will be Phoenix and Phoenix, Arizona. That's not quite Houston, Texas, is it. It's a little more humid here, but Phoenix has a beautiful desert botanical garden.

I was out in West Texas, a big bend area, at one of our botanical gardens out there at Saul Ross State University, and it's just fun go into those and then you go check out the garden centers in that town and you always get to see something new. And I call that horticultural tourism, and I think you should do it too, wherever you're going. You know, if you were going to go I don't know, Boston or Kansas City or wherever. Find out what's local there that you can go visit. And it's a lot of fun.

I'll tell you one thing you'll learn when you do that. We are lucky to have all the garden centers we have here in the Houston area. And when I say garden centers, I don't mean a placing by plants along with hammers. If you know what I'm talking about, I know, I'm talking about a garden center that is mom and Papa, I'm locally owned, that is filled with people that know what they're talking about. You walk in, you ask them a question, and you get an accurate answer, and you

get treated right. That is the kind of garden center we're talking about. Someplace you can grab a bug and put it in a bag and bring it in and say, Okay, this is eating on my fill in the blank, and how do I control it and what do I do about it? That is the kind of garden centers. And here in the Houston area, north, south, east, west, and

central there are great garden centers everywhere. And you need to you need to make a gardening tour, you know, like wouldn't wouldn't February be a great month for a garden tour around Houston. Just go visit some of our garden centers, go to the botanical gardens, go to any kind of place where you can get inspiration. Because you know, you're not a landscape designer, unless you're one of the few that are landscape designers. I'm not a landscape designer.

But when I drive around and I a plant or I see a plant used in a different way, it gives me an idea. It's like I can do that at home, take a picture of it and do that. I think that is a good idea, and plus it's a lot of fun. But I'm not kidding you know, I'm not just saying that because I'm here on the air in Houston. I've been to a lot of cities, and that includes San Antonio and Dallas and Austin. Here

in our great state of Texas too. We're fortunate we have more great garden centers than any place I've ever been to. But I'll keep shopping around the country as a travel different places and learning more and having more fun. Well, there you go. If you'd like to get a skull here on garden line. I'll be happy to visit with you about whatever you're interested in. Related to gardening seven one three two one two kt r H seven one three two one two kt RH. This is a time

to get fruit planted. It is fruit planting seas and the best time now a container grown fruit. You can plant twelve months out of the year, but make it easier on yourself. Get it done now so that tree can get its roots down, and this summer will be less touch and go. It'll be less difficult, less you know, touch and go constant maintenance. When you get your fruit trees and get them in the ground, grab you some nutri star from Nelson. That Nelson makes a nutri star

that is called citrus fruit and avocado. So if it is a tree, shrub, vine, or bush that you're growing to eat and eat stuff off of citrus fruit and avocado from Nelson is the one. It's got essential nutrients that enhance the growth and fruit production. And as you build a better leafy, healthy fruit tree, shrub or vine, you're gonna have better tasting fruit. The flavor comes from a lot of fat activities, but good healthy leaves in

sunlight is the big elephant in the room. When it comes to good, big tasty fruit, you're gonna use it about every three months. But every three months is enough for that. And uh, I don't know whatever kind of fruits you got. If you have fruit and a container too, Nelson's nutri star citrus fruit and avocado comes in a little jar is good for container fruit, your container citrus as well. All right, got to take a quick break. Don't go away. I'll be right back with your questions.

By the way, the phone number seven one three two one two K t R H. A little bit of the music. I love Toby Keith, late Toby Keith. Well, if you want to hear a nice uh word about Toby Keith, uh, there's Stephen Colbert did a little thing on his show one time where he talked about him. And you're not going to have two people that are kind of polar opposites in many ways than Stephen Colbert

and Toby Keith. But talking about hearing it, hearing about Toby Keith from Stephen Colbert, that was a very interesting thing. Quite quite quite a nice fellow. Good great music too, by the way. Well, this isn't a music show, although I do like to play music. On this show. This is Garden Line, and if you want to talk about gardening, we can do that. Just give me a call. Seven one three two one two kt R H seven one three two one two k t R h Okay, I got a quiz for you. I got a gardening quiz

for you. Where can you find a huge selections of seeds and seed starting supplies? Where can you get your lawnmower blades sharpened? Where can you get your small engine weed trimmer repaired? If you're an organic gardener, where can you go to have more organic choices than anyplace else in the Houston area? Where can you go to get every product that you hear me talk about on Garden Line. Southwest Fertilizer corner Bisnett and Renwick. Southwest Fertilizer's been a

Houston lawn and garden tradition since nineteen fifty five. I'm the fifth host to speak for Southwest Fertilizer, the fifth. They've been around a while now. By the way, they're celebrating their seventieth anniversary this year, So happy seventieth birthday the Southwest Fertilizer. You don't last seventy years if you're not taking care of your customers, and they walk in and they walk out with what they wanted. Not we ain't got any on the shelf. Now they have it.

They carry everything I talk about on garden Line on and on. I mean ninety foot wall of tools, quality brands like Falco and Corona. The garden neil seat that I keep talking about is there. Do you want to do a soil test? Well, go buy Bob's got a probe there. You can check out and take a really accurate vertical core soil test samples to send in so you can find out what's in your lawn. That's a loaner. That's not a you know, you got to pay for it. You can't walk off with it. He makes youre a

hold on a deposit. But bottom line is that's just typical for the quality products, expert advice, and old fashioned service that you get. A Southwest Fertilizer. You can go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com or you can give them a call seven to one three six nine nine one seven four four seven one three six nine nine one seven four four. I talking about different things to be doing this time of year. We are in the season

where if you are dealing with weeds. If you if you've got a weed problem that you're having to deal with in your gardens and your lawn and whatnot, now's the time when we get the things that prevent weed problems down on the ground to stop the weeds from sprouting from seed. Now, that's called a pre emergent. A pre emergent means before the plant emerges from seed. Now there are perennial plants that pre emergents aren't going to

control because they're not coming back from seed. Primarily, they're coming back from underground storage roots and organs. Now there are post emergents to kill weeds that exist. Now is the time to do post emergents on cool season weeds. So those weeds in your yard right now are cool season weeds. They are already growing. You see them. The warm season weeds, you're not seeing them yet. The cool

season weeds. You spray with something for weeds. Controlling weeds after I'm mostly hand pull mine because I don't have a lot of them. I tend to practice what I preach a little bit and do as what they say, do as I say, not as I do. Well, I try to do as I do. I mean, I try to do as I say, but if you need to spray weeds, now's the time. And here's why. Those cool season weeds, clover, handbit, chick weed, all of those things that are in your yard right now, they're about to

bloom and go to seed. In fact, I saw the start of some chickweed or handbit ballooms just the other day on some weeds in the yard. And so if you wait, the products that kill them effectively don't work as well. Once the weed becomes a reproductive it as blooms and seeds, it's not going to work as well. But if you get ahead of it now and do it now, you will get good control. And you can do a little spot treatments. You have to nuke the whole yard, just little spot treatments to take them out.

As far as pre emergence, that's things that prevent weeds from getting established. They prevent the weeds from even coming up. The seeds try to sprout and the pre emergent is there and it cannot sprout. It shuts it down before it even gets started. That's a pre emergent. And now's the time to get those down. For warm season weeds. Once we get later into February, and so if you're way down in the southern part of the listening area

or up in March. Typically for a lot of the listening area, that's when our warm season weeds like let's say crabgrass that's a prime example, and many other warm season weeds. That's when their seeds are sprouting. A pre emergent. You put down, You've watered into the soil surface. They're made to stick to the soil, so they don't wash down and they don't wash off, and when that seed tries to come through, it's like a little barrier, a little force field right there at the surface, and it

shuts it down. Now, if you wait too long, if you wait until late March to do it, you're going to already have a bunch of weeds. And that product is not going to stop something that's already growing. It's a pre emergent. So if you look at my schedule on my website Gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot Com, there is a lawn care schedule and then a lawn pest disease and weeds management schedule, and

that goes from January to December. It's like a little calendar chart, and one row is insects, one row's diseases, one row is preventing weeds pre emergent, one row is killing existing weeds post emergent. You go down too the bottom, and for each of those rows, you've got your organic and your synthetic options for control. It's real handy. And guess what, it's free. Can't talk me down on that price. It's free to download it and use it, print it out,

and take it with you when you go shopping. You can just point and go, hey, do you got one of those? You got one of those? That's what I need. And it makes it really, really easy. But we are at this unique crossroads in spring where we need to be doing both of those things. If you're going to

do them now. The long term way to control weeds in your lawn for the majority of your weed issues is to mow, water and fertilize properly all through the season so that you make a dense lawn that chokes out weeds and blocks out sunlight and prevents weed seeds from getting established. To the degree that your lawn is struggling and thin, that's the degree to which you will have a weed problem because wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed. All right, there you go download

those free publications on gardening with skip dot Com. I in my yet, you know, I shouldn't have admitted on the air that I allow weeds in my yard. But I don't allow them. They just they don't listen and they tell them not to and they do it anyway. But I actually enjoy getting out and doing a little weed hand pulling. I know I'm weird like that, but listen, there are a lot of things in life where you

can work and work and work to do something. Do you have a job where at the end of the day you kind of go I know, I worked all day, but I have no idea really what I accomplished. I pushed papers around and talk to people. And anyway, with weed pulling, you sit down. I mean, maybe you got a garden bed full of weeds and you just get your little garden kneeler bench from Southwest Fertilizer and you kneel down there and you just get to pull in. And after thirty minutes of that, you look back and

you see this clean, beautiful bed. And there are a few things in life where you just have the satisfaction of seeing wonderful results immediately. And so that's one reason I like I like to pull weeds. I also like to so I don't have to pull weeds. So there you go. All right, Well let's see here. I believe we're about to run out of time in this hour, so I'll be uh, I'll be turning it over to the news here in just a minute, and we'll be

back for our next hour of the show. You might want to We've got an open board, so if you want to call during the break seven one three two one two KTRH, Josh will get you or Josh Jonathan will get you up on the Sorry I got that, Jonathan. My brain is glitching. Get you on the board so we can talk to you one of the first calls

when we come right back. I want to remind you that in two weeks I will be at in Chennick Gardens down there in Richmond Rosenberg area, and Chenni Gardens, by the way, is north of Richmond, like you're heading toward Katie, or if you're Katie, coming down toward Richmond. So it serves that whole area really excellent place, easy to get to, so I hope you'll make plans to come out and see me. We'll look forward. We're gonna give a talk. I'm gonna be answering your gardening questions.

If you want to bring samples in, uh, you know your weed sample?

is important. So I was talking earlier about right now we are in this huge important time to deal with weeds in the yard. The long term weed solution is to grow a healthy, dense lawn that chokes out most of its weeds. The short term fix is either to prevent them or to kill ones that are growing. And there's different ways to go about that. But this is a crossroads this springtime that I would say probably the month of fabrusy. In general, we can do some weed

prevention back in January even But here's the thing. You got to get the with the pre mergent. You're wanting to make sure you get there before the weed sprouts, and they'll be sprouting over time that warm season. Weeds can be sprouting way into the summertime too, but you want to get ahead of the sprouting. And secondly, those products don't last forever. You know, you put down a pre emergent product watered in could be a great product.

You like barricade from night Fross for example, put that down and sixty days ninety days, you know, as you get off into the go forward from there into the season. At some point just breaking down. You got to get another application downe if you want to continue that prevention, that force field, if you will, that shell, that barrier over the surface of the soil. That's shutting everything down.

But that's why our timing is important. You know, if you put it on January first, well, it's going to play out sooner than if you had put it on in February, for example. So that's part of that's part of the timing. I would like to just mention that if you are planning on putting in some sort of an herb planting this year, go ahead and get you a quality mix, one that is gonna provide drainage provide water holding capacity. And that sounds like, isn't that two

different things? Well, no, it's not. Water holding capacity means the soil holds moisture. So compare broken glass to a sponge which holds moisture more well, of course, the sponge broken glasses sand, This sponge is organic matter. Okay, so a highly organic mantrol that holds. But good drainage means that the access water runs right out. It doesn't stay a soggy, mucky mess, and so drainage is important. Quality soil and raised beds are what helps us have or

create good drainage in the soil. Now, Airloom Soils has kind of got you covered on all that. They have something called the Veggie and Herb Mix, and I use it for a lot of things beyond veggies and herbs, by the way, but that is what it's designed for. And you can buy it by the bag. It's sold all over town. Lots of places carry heirloom soil bags. Or you can go out to the Orange Rock and maultch In porter and pick it up right there, take your truck, take your trailer whatever. They also have it

by the supersack. A supersack's a cubic yard. And let's say you're going to do some significant garden bed preparation, putting in some new beds. You may need a supersacker too to have enough to fill up what you're doing. Or you can have them just deliver it and dump it on the driveway if you to go that route. They can do it anyway you want. Now, it's not just veggie and herb like that. I mean all their products,

their leaf moll compost. They have a lawn mix, they have mulches and gravels and all kinds of things you can get from them. But the bottom line is just do it. Just go out there and do it. If you want to check into having them deliver, go to this website rock inmoltz dot com slash delivery. I'll say that again, Rock the letter in moltch rock in molts. That's one word, dot com, slash delivery. Just go there, check it out. You can find out all about it there.

Find out what they got, what the price is, you know what takes to get it here to your yard. But in the meantime, just do something because whether it's vegetables or herbs or flowers or whatever you're going to grow fruit trees, getting a good quality mix in is really important. And Heirloom Soil has got you covered on all those things. I was checking out some of their products in a local store the other day, one of our garden centers and just looking at the different things

they were carrying from them, and it's nice stuff. There's such a thing as compass and molts that are not quality, and there's ones that are quality. And there's a big difference. What are some of the differences. Well, cheap stuff typically you should be nice fine texture and it's got big old chunky wood chips in it. They don't screen it. Well, that's one. You rush it through real fast. You don't pay attention to the temperatures when you're composting, when you're

making it. You don't allow it to fully complete the process. So what you're getting is we would call it a raw material. It hasn't fully cooked and become what it can be to become a quality product. And if you hear me talk about a soil purveyor provider, it's going to be one that takes the time and does that.

And I think that's very important. Just a tip by the way, I have noticed in general that sometimes you put a new bed in and you put a good fresh load of some type of a growing mix, a bed mix in it, and the first time you plant, you don't see success with the plants. They kind of sit there and powder about things and stuff. And that is a that is a natural process. Now bed molts can do that, but even with our soil, but even

with quality soils, sometimes there's a balancing out. You know, there's nitrogen and carbon ratio that really affects plants and decomposition and everything. And I just be patient with it, give it a little time to mellow out. And maybe the first time you're using a new bed mix, you're putting in your brand new garden, you're all excited. Just give it a little extra boost to nitrogen, a little extra boost to nitrogen because it's coming in typically with

a pretty high carbon ratio. And I have found that that extra boost to nitrogen early on, until that soil has a season or so to mellow out, is helpful. So that's just a little tip that you might want to think about in order to have success with that.

All right, well, let's see, I am going to take a break here in just one second, but I did want to give you one more time our phone number seven to one three two one two kt r H seven to one three two one two kt r H. Also check out the website gardening with skip dot com. Maybe that's a good thing to do during break and see some of the material that's up there. We set it up to be helpful to you. I'll be right back. Sure you made my speaker's going boom dots it on the tail get in the phone.

You know, the best thing you can do is to ask the question first. Yesterday I I had a number of questions, and each time they're asking them, I was saying it, thank you so much for calling first, because I'm glad you didn't just do that because they were about to do something that they shouldn't do or they were wondering about it. And we can see or save you a lot of headaches and pain and suffering gardens,

horticultural suffering. That's probably a category there. Anyway, that's what we're here for.

January December schedules that I have on the website. The lawn care schedule talks about when do you use your synthetic fertilizers, when do you use your organic fertilizers, what are the ones that you use, What about applying trace mineral supplements, what about out doing aeration, correation, and so on. Well, it also goes into mowing, the proper way to mow

and the proper way to water. And what I did is I took weather data from the last ten years I think it's ten, maybe twenty years, and I looked at what is the historical average of rainfall per week that a lawn needs in the Houston area if it hadn't rained, if it hadn't rain. Okay, so we are in February. The average amount of needed rainfall per week in February. When you look at what grass uses, we're talking about the science of this now, We're not just

talking about winging it here. What grass uses versus what normally falls. It's zero that you do not need to be water in your lawn in February. Now these are averages. So yes, if we go through a weird year and it's eighty degrees in February and hadn't rained in six weeks, well, okay, you can sell me. I'm put a little water down, but in general you don't. When we get to March, it's only a half inch a week, roughly a half

inch a week, and then April is three quarters. Then we go to one inch a week from May through September or through August, and then we back down to three quarters and we wind down in one half and drop off. So it kind of gives you an idea

what generally we can expect. And I put that in there because a lot of people think you got to set that thing to come on every week, and some people way too many times a week when we get hot in summer, and we'll talk about watering and miswatering because most lawns are miss watered by applying too little too often. But anyway, it's on that schedule. It's right there, and all the fertilizers are listed down there in products it's easy to it's easy to find what you need

and just kind of guide you along. So download that again. It's another one that's free, help guide you as you're going. We are in a great time to be doing vegetable gardening. In fact, you know I mentioned that what we control, we're at this big intersection where we're killing existing weeds or we're preventing soon to come weeds, all in the same month. We got all of that happening right now. When you look at vegetable gardening, we have a spring what should we call it, a traffic jam in the

vegetable garden. And that is when all our cool season vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, carrots, things like spinach and lettuce and so on. The cool season vegetables they're going to be reaching harvest as we get here, whether they already are reaching harvest, but in February and March and even a little bit in April, some of those are still going and reaching harvest. But our warm season vegetables need to go in when the last frostate occurs.

And the last time I checked did the again research over a number of years of weather data. February eighth was the last average freeze date at Hobby. March first was the last average freeze date at Bush Intercontinental. Did you how far apart those are? So to say the last freeze date in Houston on average is such and such date. What's where in Houston?

be February eighth, hardly. I mean, it's gonna be the last freeze date. Maybe January first at Hobby. Some years it may you may have a freeze halfway into March at Hobby. Okay, So that the average just gives you an idea what to go for. Then you decide how conservative do you want to be. You know, if you like to run with scissors and live wild, well, then plant whenever you want and good luck, and you can

just replant if it freezes. If you are super conservative, the kind of guy who wears a belt and suspenders just in case, well then you're gonna want to look at those averages and even go a little later than them. And when you put things in, but don't wait too long, because when it comes to vegetables, we on narrow window and spring to make hay. Well the sunshines, as they put it, because when it gets too hot, a lot of our vegetables play out and don't want to produce.

Let's head out the phones. We're going to go to Deer Park now and we're going to talk to Kim. Hello, Kim, welcome to garden Mine.

They look sort of like that coming out from the wood. There's there's those little changes in color going out. That's a shelf fungi. It's a decomposer fungi. So its job in nature is to turn wood back into great dirt.

We're not talking about digging a hole. We're just talking about making a couple of chops not downward, but kind of down and mostly inward underneath them to pop them out of there and get that chunk of wood out of there. That's just part of nature.

roots live and die and slough off and rot. And in your yard, your grass root, each root on your grass in your lawn, every single route lives about a year and then it dies and all of the organic matter of that root decomposes into the soil. So with every year that goes by, your soil is getting looser and richer if you have a healthy grass stand So yeah, nature knows how to build soil.

decomposers that get on molts are really interesting too. Sometimes you have this nice woodchip mults bed or not woodchip, bark chip, whatever kind you got, it doesn't matter, and you look at it and it looks like scrambled eggs. Somebody dumped a plate of scrambled eggs on top. That is a decomposer fungi. Isn't that cool? And it goes away. It goes away. You got in your yard and you look at those rings of mushrooms. Have you ever seen that? They call them fairy rings. All of a sudden, here's

this circle of mushrooms that pops up. Why and why are they in a circle? What would cause that? Well, here's what causes it. A decomposer fungi starts to send it's my celia, that's the fancy word of the day. Decomposing through all the thatch of your yard. And it goes. It lives for a certain amount of time and then it could be a change in the weather or just the maturing of it. It sends up its fruiting bodies

and that's mushrooms. And so you get this circle. Just like if you put a match in your if you had dragrass and you put a match in it, you know how that fire would burn out. That's what that fungi is doing, composing that that and then here comes mushrooms. Then go up further and do another and do another circle of it too. That is some pretty cool stuff

right there. Anyway, you get the idea, if you live in Kingwood, you are a fortunate person because you've got both Warren Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Centers right out there. So that whole region Kingwood, humbold A Tesca Seed to Porter, New Caney Valley Ranch, that that whole area out there is served by these two awesome nurseries. Both of them are open seven days a week. Warrens is on North

Park Drive, Kingwood Garden Centers on Stone Hollow Drive. And when you go there, you're going to find the products I recommend on garden Line like microlife and nitrofoss and Nelson Turf Star, like heirloom soils, Nelson's plant food canisters out there, Mosquito dunks and other products you hear me talk about are going to be carried out there. At those garden centers. You're always going to find a good

stock of edgies and herbs. Citrus and fruit are in right now, Roses are in right now, beautiful native plants. They have nice little greenhouse too where you can see some plants. At Warn southern gardens. They can even design and make potted containers for you. You pick a container, you pick some plants, they put it together. They have full landscaping services for that area. Do you need to do something in your landscape, we'll talk to them.

Welcome back to the garden line, folks. We are here to help you have success and to enjoy your garden more. Gardening is the greatest hop there.

here to help you have success. How can we help you take it up a notch or how about take it up ten notches because gardening is just too much fun to let it slip by and not enjoy it. And I know, I know, we got these out there. I was talking to by the other day. They've got I call it plastic grass. It's we've moved past plastic to better material. They are plastic grass in their yard

and here we are talking about that and whatnot. And it makes me want to go out and get a bunch of plastic weeds at night and go in like a ninja and superglow them into their yard and deal with that. But anyway, aside from the horticultural to terrorism, it's a lot of fun. You know. Do you realize your what your lawn contributes in terms of environmental benefits? It number one, it protects the soil and prevents soil erosion. That's one thing it does. Now, if it's a healthy

lin it does. If it's all dirt, you know, then it's not doing as good a job at that. It moderates soil temperature. They can actually tell you and measure the term the number of bt us that a soil that a good healthy lawn provides in terms of cooling. If you look at a hard scape, even even plastic grass, even a sidewalk, or certainly an asphalt members a kid running barefoot across an asphalt in the summer not for long. Well, lawns cool. They are a plant, so they're releasing water.

They are transpiring water. That's a cooling thing, okay, and so that effect of that loss of water, it cools significantly. It makes a much more cooler. Trees do the same thing. Of course they shade you, but they're also doing a cooling effect in the atmosphere is they release water. And there's many benefits that are environmental that plants provide us as well. All right, well that's just a little soapbox,

but yes, that's going on out there. By the way, if you haven't joined ACEH Rewards, you really need to. ACEH Rewards is a great program. ACEH Rewards. You sign up for it. It's painless. You don't even have to carry the cart around if you don't want to, but you can go in. Just give me a phone number and they put it in when you check out, and that counts toward your rewards, and it builds up and it matters. It also matters in other ways. For example, let's see, you buy a barbecue grill at a lot

of ace hardware stores. If you're an ASH Rewards member, they're going to assemble it. They will offer to assemble it and deliver it right to your home. Now that is amazing. And boy does Acever have barbecue grills. They've got Traeger and Rectec and Big Green Egg and Weber and those are some Cadillac stuff as well as all the supplies you need. Right now, in my garage, I'm doing another revamp I've been. I'm always having to clean it up. Have you ever noticed how you know, flat

spaces in your house tend to collect clutter. My garage and yours two tends to get full. You get it all cleaned out and beautiful and pristine, you want to take a picture of it, and next thing you know, you're having to turn sideways to get from the car to the front door to the garage door to walk out, walk in the house because it's so full of stuff. Well, you need some bends, you need some shelving. Ace has got you covered. Is your outdoor garbage can on wheels.

Is it looking bade, you know, wearing out? How about a new rubber made thirty two gallon garbage can on wheels for twenty six ninety nine. That's Ace Hardware. They got a still tremor sale going on right now, thirty dollars off starting this weekend. They also have garden pruners power puners. You know, you buy one and you get a free battery for it. And if you you haven't seen those, go to as show me show me your power garden printers. I want to see that. Let them

show you that it is really really cool. Now there's Ace Hardware All Seasons up in Willis. And by the way, I'm going to be at All Seasons Hardware and Willis on February the twenty second. What is that three one two, three weekends or three saturdays from yesterday, So put that on your calendar. I hope you come see me. Cyprus Hardware, Ace Hardware and up in Porter j and r Ace Hardware. I'll be there in March and then Kilgore Lumber down in clear Lake. Lots of great Ace Hardware stores in

our area. If you haven't been in one, you need to go because this isn't your father's hardware store or your grandfather's hardware store like the old o'smobile commercial used to say. It has all of that stuff. It still has the old time service, and it still has the great selection, but it has a whole lot more Ace.

ACE is a hardware store on steroids. I mean it is amazing the kinds of things that they have there now, just you know, like power tools, Like I say, you have still nuts, I said, still a well ago, what's the one I'm trying to think of? Uh, any kind of the big categories of power tools. They may have a whole section, uh for that particular thing. I have d Walt tools. Well, Ace stores that you've got a whole section, you know, all the du Wault power tools and things.

their coats and things like that. Maybe you've got one of those old time remember the old time chairs they were they had a metal back and a metal seat and then a curved leg that kind of went forward down and came underneath you. Those you could sort of rock in them because they had a springiness to them. How about having one of those that is like brand new. Maybe we have a stool in our house that was metal, old time metal stool. Uh, and they start to russ,

they start to have issues. Houston powder Coders one of our new sponsor newest sponsors is the biggest powder coder in the reason and they, I mean, this is a big operation and they can do a real quick turnaround on quotes for you. All you got to do is give me a call two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight. They can do some minor finishing and repair. Maybe need a little weld to, you know,

stick something back together that's come loose. But they'll do premium coatings on cast iron on wrought iron on aluminum patio furniture. I've got an old bake shelf outdoors that is starting to look pretty bad, and we stuck it out there to stick plants on. They could do a coating on that kind of thing as well. One hundred plus colors, I'm telling you, any color. I saw something in their shop and I thought, ooh, that's an old iron rustic. I like that, has that been coated? You're

going to coat that? And they go, no, it has been coated. I walked up to it and it was a coating that looked like the old iron. But do you want red or blue or one hundred different colors to choose from. They'll do fixing the slings and the straps and things. You just need to go go check them out at Houston Powder Coats Houston Powdercoats dot com two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight.

And if you live as far as this radio signal goes almost to San Antonio and Austin employees wherever you live and hear this, they service your area too. They just talk to them and they'll tell you about how this works, and it is pretty cool. It was time for me to take a little break and I'll be right back with your phone calls at seven one three two one two KTRH. Boy, I haven't heard that in a while. All right, folks, we're back on guardline. Good

have you with us. I was talking about earlier. We're going to be fertilizing our lawns soon. That's coming up. It's on the schedule. But I want to remind you that you can do azmite at any time. Really, I mean it. It is not a it's a nutrients. You could call it a fertilizer, but it's not the standard nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium that we put on it certain amounts of time according to plant growth. We're putting azamite down to build

the soil bank account with trace minerals. There's seventy seven known trace elementary micronutrients in azamite. It's a volcanic ash and freshwater mineral mind substance down to the ground. Now there there's a concept called Lee bigs Baryl Lee bigs barrel. It's a law of Minimus. Here's what it means. Imagine a barrel with those staves coming up, and you cut off different staves at different heights. Right, one is a full of top. One's halfway once a quarter of the way.

How much water can you put in the barrel. You can only fill it to the lowest stave and then it runs out. That's the concept of Liebig's barrel. That's the concept of the law of the minimums. If you've got some trace mineral that's limited, even just one little tiny trace mineral, it's limited. That limits the production the optimum growth of that particular plant, whether it's a lawn

or whatever. Asmite is a trace mineral supplement. A forty forty four pound bag covers six to twelve thousand square feet. If you've got a vegetable garden, about ten pounds per thousand square feet. You can do it anytime of the year you want to do it. If you want more information, just go to azimite Texas dot com. I'm going to head out now on the phones and we're going to talk to Jerry and West Houston. Hey Jerry, welcome to guard Line.

do I cut it back? Do I leave a four foot trunk or do I leave it cut it at the base because it's about a ten foot diameter trunk at the base and all right, puffs.

little pups. Like you're describing. If you can save some of that trunk, what's going to happen is the new growth is going to come unfurling out of the center of that stumped off trunk at whatever height you cut it off if it's alive. So I wouldn't automatically cut

it to the ground. We need to see how far back gets killed, because you don't want to cut it further back then you have to because you may still get some foliage on it, and by the end of the season it takes them a long time, many months to be able to set bananas. But I would probably just kind of feel it if it's mushy and dark, or maybe cut it off a little bit and then look at it a little bit more. As much as you can leave of that trunk. Leave it.

I mean, they have educational programs that are outstanding. They are like the coming up here well actually today from noon to one is something called the Gallantines Flower Workshop. Just go to their website and you learn more about it. Buchanansplants dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. They have stone fruit in lots of cool nectarines and apricots. Well, they have

everything in you know. The house plant greenhouse is gorgeous, beautiful, certainly a well prepared section of native plants, a well prepared section of shade tree plants, beautiful vines like the clemitists. We don't we don't plant clemitis enough in a nice area of the morning sun and afternoon shade ultra roots. It does well here. Buganis can tell you all about that. They're experts on this. Sign up for the newsletter if Buchanan's Plants dot com. We're now going to go to

Marty in Fairfield. Hey Marty, Welcome to garden Line.

quality soils. Always use an acidic plant food, something for acid living plants. And again most of our fertilizer people can provide you with that. I know Microlife has one in kind of a pink bag that's for acid loving plant. Just always keep it on the acidic side. As much as you can use rain water. If you've got a barrel,

use it. It's better than tapwater, especially for blueberries. They don't like high pH water and they don't like buy carbonates in the water, which some of our water supplies have, So that would be the secret, along with a lot of sunshine. Blueberries will take some shade. But the more shade you get, the less blueberries you're going to get to eat.

whole bush schedule. And that also avoids getting really big. So, you know, a cane after it's about five years, it's not very productive. It's woody, it's a trunk, it's got growth way up high. Cut it off at the ground to get fresh new canes coming out, and I think you'll keep the height a lot lower that way as well.

landscapes or rock borders or whatever you need. Piercescapes dot com. All right, it is time for me take a little break here top of the hour news. Let's see here we've got Doug and Seabrook and Jim in spring. You are our first two up when we come back. If you can hang around, thank you for your call and we'll be right back in just a bit with your calls in the meantime, got a top of er break

unless you will listen to the news. Go check out gardening with skip dot com and all the stuff up there that I tell you I keep putting up very helpful things for you. Also a good time to go.

Berryshow dot com. Michael Berryshow dot com.

guarantee the sale of your home. When you sit down with them, you agree to a price and deadline by which to sell. If your home doesn't sell, Empower Home Team will buy it.

a height somewhere and around two foot. It could be a little higher than that though it will get up, but that would be a good one. It's a native plan. It does well here, you know, not hard to grow, easy to do. Then the other things, there are some very dwarf types of hollies. Yes, why a you.

else they carry. You know, all our garden centers carry a variety of different things, and I can't keep up with every plant and every one of them. But they may have another suggestion that is in their group of plants. But that would be the one that I would say would be dependable. Simple. If you want to share it and make a box out of it, you can. If you want to let it grow into a natural mound, you can do that too.

to kill. It likes warm weather. Typically it doesn't want to start growing a lot until we get into May. But it seems to be hanging around now. If it is doveweed, a product called Celsius would be one of your best bets. Celsius like the temperature. It's not cheap. You buy little packets of it. Makes a gallon and that'll go a long way and spray in the doveweed. So that's one another option for doveweed if you don't have a lot of it is a cinnamon based product

called Agralon, and it literally it's ground up cinnamon. When the doveweed is wet, you sprinkle that powder on there and it will just turn it black. Now, we comes from seed, it can bounce back out of the base of the plant, so the sentiment approach may not be as long lasting as you want, and if it's a large area, can get a little pricey to do it

that way. But the other option would be there. Nelson has a Nelson Plant Food has a fertilizer called we Donator, and we Donator has an ingredient in it that is a post emergent herbicide that is effective to some degree, pretty decent against doveweed. Okay, uh, not not as good as celsius, but but but it's pretty good. And it's if you got any other broad leaf weeds in your grass, it'll control those two. You just want to follow a

volabel very carefully. You want to make sure your weeds are wet so when you put it out the granules you're putting out stick to those weeds. It won't this stuff won't hurt your grass, but you want it to stick to the weed leaves and start there. It's gonna some's going to fall onto the ground. That's fine. But a turf star we donator and it'll last. It'll feed for about six months. It's a little early now to

be fertilizing. So if you don't do that a little bit later, or maybe you try something now and you still got some dove weed, then just try that weedonator is an option. See how that works for you. It from what I've seen in research, that ingredient in there should do.

Doug and Seabrook, you are first. When we come back, Mike in the Heights you will be next. Alrighty, let's get this going again here on garden Line. We're going to run straight out here and talk to Doug in sky. Doug, welcome to guarden Line, and thanks for hanging on.

So if you go to the pest disease and we'd management, you will see on there that in October you were and first three weeks in November you're treating for brown patch because that's when it typically would arrive. So had you treated in October, the circles that you saw would not have been able to develop. We also start treating again in late January, and we can go all the

way through mid March if we want to. But that is that this whole time is when we would see the reappearance of the of the brown patch circles now because our weather is so irregular. I mean we can have warm days in January and whenever you have mild temperatures and moisture, brown patch is going to pop up the circles or potential going to pop up. So the other things you want to do, Doug, is avoid overfertilizing,

especially late in the season. The fall fertilizing does not need to be as much nitrogen compared to like some of the other numbers as we do during the growing season, So hold off on the nitrogen. Avoid wetting the grass more than you have to, and you shouldn't have to water much in the cool season here, but wet conditions continually wet high nitrogen that all predisposes your lawn to

that infection. So the combination of those cultural advice along with the schedule that I have it's right there on gardening with skip dot comics pre to download, print out and everything.

list of what they get in. Now, every day you wait, there's roses going and varieties disappearing because they got bought out. And so that you know that not one hundred and three to pick from in March, I can guarantee you that because they sell people go nuts on these roses. But RCW is the garden center where about Way eight comes together with Tomball Parkway, which is Highway two forty nine northwest Houston, easy to get to. When you get

in there, you're have everything else. You know, they grow their own trees and shrubs up in Plantersville, so they've got one of the best selection of the trees and shrubs that want to be here in our area. They know what grows here. That's what they grow and that's what they sell. You can buy smaller ones and planting yourself. You can have RCW come out and plant them. So they got some big ones. Unless you want to put your chiropractice kids through college, you need you need to

let them do that. But they've got it all. R cwnurseries dot com. Right now rows amazing. Can you imagine a place that orders in I need three different varieties of roses? That's RCW. Let's go out. Uh here, what are we looking at on tower? We're good on time. We're gonna go to Tomball and talk to John. Hey, John, welcome to guard Line.

very fast. So if we can, if we can start doing that in March, that would be okay. Starting doing it in March April's even better. But if you you know, like she's got to be out of there at the end of February, we'll put something down on the ground, get it watered in as best you can. You're not gonna have to water as much or as often at this time of year because the demands are so low. But if you want the best looking lawn, wait a little bit longer.

that area. They carry the full line of the turf Star, the Microlife, the nitroposs products for fertilizing your lawn. They also have the products you need for controlling weeds or dealing with diseases, or dealing with pests. They've got all that excellent lawn, garden and even pond supplies for that matter. Of course, they're a feed store, so livestock feed, pet food like Victor by Victor and Purinea purina purina. Growing up, I used to raise my livestock animals for the show

on Purina food. They got that there, and they also perhaps most importantly of all, it is a wonderful You walk in and you go, wait a minute, is this a feed store, because there's all kinds of cool stuff for the home and whatnot. But yes, it is absolutely a feed store, and it's absolutely a garden supply store. The friendly, courteous staff that greet you, that is it just makes it a pleasure to go in there and top if you're FFA or four h or military or

a senior citizen, there's discounts for you there. They will special order products for you there, and they have a delivery service at Spring Creek Feed in Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight twenty nine seventy eight. I love going in there. I always I am amazed at the various kinds of things that Boy, if you're into backyard chickens, too. They've got you know, you can get everything from the little feeders and the lights and waters and all the

supplies you need to have those backyard chickens. Backyard chickens are cool. My daughter, I've got one of my daughters. It has backyard chickens. And you go to our house and look out the living it's actually kitchen slash dining room door, and there's a bunch of chicken faces looking inside. There are the nosiest little things you've ever seen in your life, but they're cool. People that are into chickens are into chickens, that's for sure. Well, you're listening to

garden Line. If you want to give us a call, I'm abou to take a little quick break, But if you'd like to be first up or one of the first ones up, depending on how fast you don't, you can give me a call at seven one three two one two kt r H and we'll be back and enter your calls as well as I've got things I want to talk about, things that you might want to be considering right now that are very timely in the garden and the landscape. We're about to enter spring and

that is our crazy busy season. So let's get ahead of it. Let's be ready to go so that you can have success with what you're about to grow. All right, welcome by, I got I got a lot of garden talk left in me. I give me a all we'll talk about it. Seven one three two one two ktr h. Good to have you with us. By the way, I love products that Medina carries. They have so many good products. You know, Medina has been around since I don't know,

nineteen fifties, and their products are beloved by gardeners. Many different options. You know, I've talked about over and over the has to grow six twelve six. The fact that it's got so many things in it. It's got the course of the nutrients, the nitrogen phosphores, it's got Medina soil activator, it's got hemic acid, it's got seaweed extracts. I mean, you use it for drenching new transplants. You can use it for folier feeding if you want. There's another product

that I like a lot too. It's called Medina Plus. It's got a lot of micronutrients in it, fortified with micro nutrients. It's got seaweed extract in it as well, and it's a good all through the year folier feed for plants, you know, trees, shrubs, lawns, vegetable gardens, flower gardens. Over four different trace elements. Got some natural growth hormones in it. That's Medina Plus. And the Medina Plus gives you lots of benefits that Medina Soil Activator has plus.

They increased bloom and leaf growth support, increased fruits, set again. Transplanting seed treatments. You got some seeds you want to transplant, gets you Medina plus water. Mix it up, three seeds in it, let them soak overnight and in the morning when they're swollen up, or the next day, go out there and plant them and look at the difference you're going to see from that. That's from the folks at Medina. They're widely available products, easy to find everywhere, and they work.

Let's go back to the phones now. We're going to head to Houston and talk to Cheryl. Hey, Cheryl, welcome to garden Line.

you know. The only way you can keep pecans squirrel free is to have on the pecan trunk one of those pieces of metal flashing that's up off the ground so that the pecans cannot jump above it and they can't climb through it because that flashing, they can't get a little claws in that. So you just kind of have to get at the right height, and then you have have to trim all the lower limbs so they

can't jump from the ground. And then you got to make sure there's not like a power line going through or some other tree that they just jump into the top of. And if you can have all of that, you can keep squirrels out of a pecan. Otherwise we're up a creek. The squirrels just love those things. Now, as far as the what we call pops, that's the pecan kernels that are pecan shells that are just empty, called those pops, that's caused by one of two things.

If you have significant disease damage by the end of the season when pecans are filling and finishing their kernels, you will get hollow shells. Pecans up until about August first grow the shell size and harden the shell and inside their liquid. After August, first that liquid begins to turn into dowe, and then even the hard then finally the hard kernel. So that late season problems. Maybe webworms defoliate the tree, maybe diseases decimate the leaves that affects spilling.

The other thing that affects spilling or diseases of the shuck. And this isn't a disease, it's the thing on the outside of the pecan, believe it or not. The nutrients from the tree go through the shuck and then enter the nut and fill the kernel. So if you kill the shuck with diseases that turn it black before it's time, then you're not going to get filling of the pecans, so it's going to be Those are the two main things that we run into, is the foliage disease and

the shuck diseases. As far as causing those pops, those hollow.

their feeding on the kernel. So it's gonna be one of those. Hey, I tell you what this year, next time you see that happen, take some pictures. Crack them open, break a kernel open, show me the inside, let me see the outside, and some photos. Let me take a look at them. And maybe I'm seeing something that I'm not picturing right now with your description. Okay, I think I've given I've told you what. Go ahead.

other places. All right, Cheryl, here you go. I'm putting on hold, folks. I'll be right back. All right, Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. We're here to answer your gardening questions. Looking forward to doing that. Hey, when was the last time you're out at Enchanted Forest? Enchanted Forest? They have got all kinds of stuff going on this spring. They got a good lineup of different talks coming in different events. You just got to go to their website and check that out.

It's an easy one. Just remember this, write this down. Enchanted Forest, Enchanted Forests. I'm trying to. I just went blank on the website. It was okay, here we go. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. They got good stuff going on all the time. You need to go check it out. By the way, they've got their potatoes. And we've been talking about potatoes today. When do you plant potatoes? Now? Now, now, now, now,

now's the time. They got red milesoda. They got Yukon gold. That one's cool. It looks like it's already been buttered. It's golden inside. I red Pontiac and you know, they just have a wide variety of Kennebec. They carry the Kennebec variety two all great potatoes. Now's the time to plant them. You haven't done it. You need to do it. They've gotten so many plans on I don't even know where to begin, but gorgeous foliage plants for sun and

for shade, beautiful flowering plants. You know it's the season. Have you ever planted dahlias? Before you know. They have their their little Personnicoty about going year round for us, although that can be done, but they have got dalias that you look at them and you're just going, I didn't know that color existed in nature. It is so beautiful, absolutely beautiful, and do real well for you too. By

the way, but in Chenny Forest Garden Center. It's the garden center that is out there on FM twenty seven to fifty nine. So if you're in Richmond Rosenberg, you're heading towards sugar Land. It's off to the right down south of fifty nine on twenty seven fifty nine. You need to check it out. Let them help you create a beautiful paradise at your place. By the way, they have low chill varieties of apples and peaches and plums. They even have some tree fruit trees that are three

and one. There are three grafted varieties on one tree. So if you don't have room for like three trees, and you want one tree, but you want three kinds of three varieties on that tree, go by. I say, I want to see your three in one tree. Skip was talking about on garden Line. They have citrus that is an outstanding selection especially those satsumas that and I like to promote those in our area because they were We are a great place for satsumas. We're fully winter

hardy plants for our area. Now, if we have seven degrees, how often does that occur? Almost never. Yeah, you got to cover them up, but heat under them and all that. But satsumas are good, tough, hardy trees. Once they're established, they're gonna go down in the middle teens. Once they've had a couple of two three years in the ground, they're established and ready to go. But they're a great plant, and they got all the tools and fertilizers and soils

you need for your little fruit orchard. Let them help you create your own fruitful paradise right there to the chanted forest. We're going to go to Sugarland now and talk to Pat. Hey, Pat, welcome to garden Line.

It's kind of hard to tell now with all the frozen grass from the freeze and the snow, but it's still there. We don't know if we should treat it now or wait till springtime.

with your grass going out of the winter time. If you want to be extra careful, just you know, kind of a just in case thing. I normally don't like to send people out to spray if we don't know what we're dealing with. But there is a product that works pretty good on the brown patch also called large patch and take all root rot, which is what you may have been seeing when that lawn was not looking good. And so if you're dealing with the take all, there

is a product in green called a zoxy stroban. Do you have a pin or pencil handy?

product and what that will do. It works well against a number of different diseases, but they take all especially and I'm leaning toward my best guess being that probably you were seeing take all based on what you said. But if it's if it's, if you do that now, it's kind of a preventative. And then let's watch your lawn as you get in the season to start to

see issues. Take good pictures of it up close and from a distance and email them to me, and we will then give me a call on guardline and we will have a more intelligent answer because we'll be able to see what's going on.

Skip Gardening with Skip dot com. That's my website. On there you'll find both my launch schedules and everything I'm telling you in a calendar form from January to December. You can see exactly the diseases the insects when they attack, what you use for them both and organically.

it's tropical. For her, it might be a different type of setting. But I guess trying to identify the culture that you want, I guess would be a start. I don't know, you know, I think the thing to do. What I would start this is kind of the big picture. I would As you drive around town and see things you like, take a picture of them. Just pull over the curtain, snap a shot. Say I like the way that bed looks, or I like I like that planner, I like the way they did that there. Take some

pictures and get some inspiration from that. You can certainly send me photos like that and say, hey, I like this about it, any any thoughts, and maybe I could say, yeah, that plant doesn't normally do well here, or yeah that's a great one. Or one common thing is making beds in a curve so that as you mow, it's easier to mow. When you got a bunch of right angles, it's it's a.

We call them bed mixes because they may have some soil in them, or they may be just primarily organic materials. Getting that build up so when it rains too much, their plant roots aren't soggy, saturated, submerged kind of thing. That's important. And then when you put plants in, they're gonna they're gonna do better for you. Now you're containers. If they were tropical, they're probably gone if they were not protected, but give them a little bit, just wait

and watch and see how they're gonna do. In general, larger containers rather than smaller and the reason that it is so blazing hot here day and night in the summertime that it's hard to keep them watered. And the more soil volume you have, the easier it is to keep them. And every time the plant gets drought stressed, you know, let's say every day, it just it just kind of shuts down for a little bit because it

gets too dry. That's going to affect their growth and they're blooming or if they fruit, they're fruiting, and so a larger container is always a good idea. And those are a few of the things. Bookmark my website gardening with skip dot com. There's helpful stuff on there, from getting your soil tested to protecting plants against a freeze. And then just keep listening to the guard line and

you can chime in anytime. If you got a something in your yard, you know, you say there's a spot in my yard, Well take a picture of it, show me what that looks like, email it to me and then call it and we'll discuss it. Photos are really helpful because you know, right now I can't picture your landscape or the issues that a kind of roamed how far in the ground.

because surface drainage is important. So if you had a spot, let's say it was saturated, like you go to the beach and you dig into the sand and there's a water table a few inches below the surface. If that that happens in our yards, and let's say you're going planet a plant that that would kill. Well, you can make a bed a foot high and it'll settle down in time. But now your roots are primarily up in well drained soil. So I would say going up more

than going down. Because if you picture a massive clay soil and you dig a hole in that clay, and I'm gonna exaggerate fill it full of potting soil. Well, now you just have an underground bathtub, and when it rains that potting soil, the water level is gonna come up and it's not going to drain out of there because there's clay all around it. You know, you've created a clay bathtub underground. So that's why coming up helps a lot on plants that are like that.

the top four to six inches of soil. Three or four inches of expandede that's a lot, But that is like LoVa rock. It's tiny, kitty letter sized particles that are porous and they open the swell. They hold it open. Compost breaks down over time, you have to add more. Expanded shale tends to hold it open really well. So when you're dealing with a yard full of clays, expanded shale as your friend, and just use it profusely as

you're getting those beds right. Especially George, when you have something, let's say like a rose bush that you can't just dig up and redo the soil every year, you want to get that right to begin with, because you're going to have to live with what you've done for the life of that plant.

Martin knows what he's doing. He does good work. Tell him you've heard about him on garden Line, and but do it now because you wait a week or two. Our prime time for pruning is now and you need to get that done. You can print any time of the year, but have him come out of value your trees, and if something needs to be done, give you an estimate that would include printing, that would include things like deeproot beating and other stuff. He does it all. If

it's a tree, he takes care of it. Martin spoon More Affordable Tree seven one three, six nine nine two six sixty three seven one three six nine nine two six six three. If you want to go to the website, it's Afftree Service dot com. Aff Tree Service dot Com. We're going to head out here now and talk to Carolyn in southwest Houston. Hey, Carolyn, welcome to Guardline.

them in water. Sometimes I'll put them in like a quart jar with some water in it, screw the top down and just shake it really hard and try to get all the try to separate the seeds from the pulpy debris that's inside. It takes a little bit, but you can do that and then spread those seeds out to dry on a counter. And once they dry, you can pick those little seeds up, let them fully dry,

separate them. There'll still be debris and them separate them out and once they fully dry, store them in the refrigerator in a sealed, air tight container like a jar, one of those little plastic or glass containers with pop down sealed lids, and you ready to go. Then you can plan them. Now the difference between open pollinated and hybrid. It'll tell you on the name of the variety the seed packet, or if you go online to look at it,

whether it's hybrid or not. If it's hybrid, that means it use two different parents to create this unique variety. And if you take the seeds out of that variety, they're gonna have children that are Duke's miss mixtures of all kinds of variety characteristics. So hybrids don't come back true to seed. They won't be like the mama plant she took them off of. They may be very similar,

but they won't be identical. Seeds that are not hybrids, you can save the seed and they'll be pretty much just like the mama plant.

in it, don't think of it as a fertilizer. Think of it as a soil condition or a soil amendment because you put it down and that humus, the humate's in it. That is part of what helps take a clay soil and break it up so where it has a better structure, it's looser. Think of a bul of popcorn where air can get in and water can move through between the particles. That's what we're trying to do

with those massive clays out there. And as you do that year after year, adding that to you can do it two times a year if you like, or more. I guess it won't hurt anything. Microlifehu makes plus in the purple bag is a product that is going to improve your show. And you can do that and launch. You can do that in flour bed, you can do that any vegetable garden. Anywhere you got soil, you can

add Microlife hum mats plus and have success. It is it comes in a jar, one of those plastic jars of the screw top lids, and it also for larger quantities comes in the bag, like if you wanted to do your lawn for example. All right, now we're going to go out to spring and talk to Mike. Hey, Mike, welcome to garden Line.

you're in the you're in the spring area. Excuse me, you're in the spring area, right, Okay, uh so yeah, there's spring branch and their spring and so I always kind of have to figure out which one you're in. All right, So if you're up in spring, like you're close to ninety nine.

So don't forget to water it in, or if you have a little bit of rain, that'll do it for you too. You take care and thank you for your call to garden Line. I appreciate that very much. Nature's Way resources is up in the Conro area. In fact, if you're heading up forty five, right where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia, you turn right, the railroad tracks are right there. Cross over the railroad tracks, turn right on Sherbrooke Circle and you're there at Nature's Way.

Now you can call them and have them bring you stuff. They'll dump it in the driveway if you want. You can go around. Some places carry their bags around all through the Greater Houston area. You can buy their stuff by the bag. But the main thing is know this. When you get something from Nature's Way, you're getting a product that has been made right, whether it's one of the products that was born at Nature's Way that's now sold all over the place. Like did you know ross

soil was born there that leifmore compost was born there. Well, it's one of those, or any of the other products they have, they know how to make them right. John Ferguson long ago became a student of the soil and spent his life learning and learning and learning with experience and with watching research and stuff. He knows how to make soil. So now his son Ian is carrying the

same tradition on. They know what they're doing there. And you go out to Nature's Way, you can take your truck or pick up and they'll put some in the back. They'll sell you some bags if you want to go that route. While you're out there, check out their plant nursery. They've got a lot of native plants and other types of plants as well. But Nature's Sources is where you get good stuff that you can depend on. I would highly recommend that you go visit them just to see

what's out there and take part in that. Bring some plants home, but also just call around. If you go to the website, they will tell you you know where their products are sold. Nature's Way is a one of those companies that sells by the bag all through the Greater Houston area, and that kind of makes it nice. For example, if you if you go to the website, they have a lot of information on all kinds of stuff like that, including the where to buy from their

products all through the Houston area. All right, well, I'm going to take a little quick break. No, I got time. Oh my gosh, I thought I was out of time. That's like saying I thought I was wrong. Once, but I was mistaken. Debbie and Northwest Houston, welcome to garden line.

But it's better, it's it just works better. Just make sure you get a good errator and up in your area. Greenpro is the one you need to call. They service your area.

And I also did two really featured trees out in my front yard, put a big bed around and brick them in. Hang and it's, like I said, two to three inches thick. And I got to worry about this nipage under They say that Mike deplete the soil hub.

them home, cut them open. They've got the wettable sulfur. And what's that for. Well, when you cut a potato, if you stick it right in the ground, it's gonna rot. I mean, you're putting a fresh cut piece of vegetable in the ground. If you will dust those fresh cut surfaces with sulfur dust to stick to them, and sulfur itself helps bend against some types of diseases. It's very acidic, of course, and so that that is helping. Let those cut pieces dry and then put them in the ground,

you're gonna do well. And Arbigate's got both of those. They also have a little bag called a potato plant or bag. So if you live and let's say you live in a high rise in Houston, you got a little patio outside hanging out over the over things, you can get one of those bags, put it up there full of soil and grow potatoes on the twenty ninth floor of someplace downtown in Houston. Yes, those bags are cool. So if you just have a patio in the yard around you, you have to try one of those. They've

got some types of lavender. They do pretty good here. As long as you get them in a good, well drained bed, they will do well for you. Arbrogates got that. And you know they always have a wide variety of everything. I'm talking about fruit trees. You won't believe how long their list of the fruit species and varieties they have is it is outstanding. They also have shrubs and trees. You know, someone wanted to door Field pH go to Arburgate. They got door fieldpont. All you have to do is

swing by there. They are on twenty nine to twenty west of Tomball, just outside of town on the left hand side. Park in the back. There's a little road called Trishel Road that takes you around to the back of Arbigate. That's the best place to park when you go visit there and allow some time. That place is a wandering wonderland and you're going to want to spend some time. Take someone with you so you both can enjoy the trip. Let's go to Branham. Now we're going

to continue on with Rooster Rooster. Let's let's I don't know where we stopped, but let's just pick it up from there.

on said that might do that. So what can I put maybe the like a spray on that would filter down through the month the mulch and feed the trees and the shrubs that I just planted.

that works really well. Now there are ten million things out there when people say, you know, give you gardening advice that are wrong, that are based on truth. And the idea that multch ties up nitrogen is based on truth, but it's absolutely wrong from a practical standpoint. Here's why. If you put a high carbon material into the soil for the microbes to break it down, they need to take nitrogen out of the soil to help break down

that carbon. That's how that works. But that would be true if you rototilled sawdust or wood chips done in your soil. But when you put a mulch on top, there's this little line of interface where the soil and malts come together and they'll be a little tie up right there. But as those microbes do their work and die, they release their nitrogen back in the soil, and so you have a little circulating nitrogen pool up there at the top and it's not affecting the phr your soil

down below where the roots are at all. So don't worry about the malt and nitrogen. Yes, wood can do that, but not sitting up on top of your soil. So as far as fertilizers, you have some options. You know, some people just use a turf type fertilizer around their trees because turf types have more nitrogen in them, and

that works just fine. You certainly do that. The folks at Nelson Plant Food if you go to the Nelson Plant Food a story that carries the Nelson Plant Food types of things, they've got a lot of really great products that can be used for that, and specifically some that work really well for your trees and shrubs. So that's what I would suggest. The line is called Nutristar. It comes in jars, so you're just doing a few trees and shrubs. You can do Nutristar tree and shrub

and just sprinkle it around according to the label. That would be a good one to use. There are other brands that have tree and shrub fertilizers and they work well, but typically they're going to look like a lawn fertilizer rester. So the Nutristar, for example, is a twenty one six eight that sounds like a lawn ratio to me, you know, and so that would be a good one for use on that tree or shrub.

lawns that would be fine for trees and shrubs. They have a couple of versions of the growing green, two different ratios that would both be okay, any of those would be fined as well.

before green stuff. Get the soil, right. That means compost, that means fertilizers, that means any kind of amendment that improves the soil structure and drainage and nutrients and microbial activity the animals.

that soil. First, you go to see animalts. They're down near Highway six and two eighty eight on FM two or five point twenty one down south of Houston, and they're open Monday through Friday seven thirty to five, Saturday seven thirty to two clothes on Sunday. Close today. But go by there, get a good bed mix, get if you need compost, if you need you know, they carry bulk of like landscapers, pride back, velvet, maltz. They carry rose soil from airloom soils. They carry the the veggiean

herb mix from airloom soils they've got. They also, by the way, have stone and sand and gravel and if you know, I made a beautiful patio and those flat stones are just gorgeous. They deliver about twenty miles for a fee in their area. But also part of the brown stuff. They've got microlife. They have azamite, they have Nelson turf Star, they have airlooms soils products by the bag. They've got nitrofoss products. They have Landscapers Pride, they have

the jars of Nelson plant food. They've got products from Medina. I'm telling you you want to get the foundation set for plant success. Ciena Moltch. Here's the website, Ciena Maltz dot com. Simple as that.

There's potential in that I had talking about Ace Hardware earlier, in the fact that they got the great barbecue pits of all kinds of brands, you know, all the top ones. I had a friend that a while back, he was into Big Green Egg, and oh my gosh, it's like you couldn't cook, you couldn't eat food if it didn't come off a Big Green Egg, and it Big Green Egg is the best thing since sliced bread. And they are. They're wonderful. I mean, they have a fuck cult following.

They got those days you can get a trigger at a same thing quality Weber. I've got a Weber growing myself. They got w rec tech and then all the debris you need to cut with barbecue, and you know whether you're gonna start charcoal and a little canister and get it fired up for you put it in there, the spatulas, the grow cleaners, the grow covers, the you know, little baskets to put veggies in the end for if you're gonna grill some veggies, which you ought to do too.

That that is a great way to go. They got all that stuff. They also have really quality garden tools. You know, you go in there and you're gonna find skilled trimmers, for example, right now thirty percent off. They even have a power garden pruner, where you buy one, you get the battery for free. They've got fiberglass handled yard and garden tools, and I've got some of that. That is really good stuff. I love those fiberglass handles. They're on sale for twenty one ninety nine at Ace Hardware,

and that's a good deal. Now, Where's Ace everywhere? Go to Acehardware dot com, find the store locator, find the ones plural near you. You can go to Paco Ace up in Alvin. You can go to Brennam Ace Hardware. You can go to Katie Ace Hardware. You can go to League City Ace Hardware. You can go to Child's Building Supply in Orange, Texas. All examples of the many Ace Hardware stores that are around our area that have everything you need to have a beautiful outdoor space and

a gorgeous lawn, a gorgeous landscape. Yeah. Ace is the place, easy, easy to do, all right. I got time for one call. If you can dialve fast, I got time for a call. Otherwise, call it a day here on the garden line and get ready for next year. I hope you have a great week too. By the way, I always forget to talk about that, but I hope you have a great week out there in the garden. This is a time

to be doing a lot of things. But I would say the front burner of the front burners right now is if you've got a weed issue in your lawn or you have had every year and you want to prevent it. Now is the prime time to do that. A post emergent killing an existing weed. That's the one that you see if you look outside and you see a weed that's a cool season weed. Now's the time to do it. Once they start blooming and setting seed.

Even the good products at work don't work as well on them, so you got to get it done now. If you don't mind hand pulling, hand pull them now. But now's the time now. As far as preventing weeds, the best thing to do is to mow, water, fertilize, and grow a dense, healthy lawn. When you don't have a dense healthy lawn, you can put a pre emergent herbicide down and that will when you watered in with

a half inch of water. When you watered in, it goes to the soal surface and it's its own weights for at least sixty days until a weeds he tries to sprout and it says no, and it shuts them down. You never see the weed in the first place because it shut it down. But that has to happen before the weed sprouts, which is why we're doing it now as things warm up. In fact, you know you go down south far enough right now, and we're going to

have a warm week. There're gonna be weeds sprouting this week due to the temperatures we're going to be having, So don't delay. Like crackgrass sprouts at about fifty five degrees the soil temperature fifty five degrees, it starts to sprout. So we're getting ahead of them by doing an early primarily early to mid February application. You can do it later, but again, the longer you wait, the more weeds are already going to be up, and you're going to have missed.

The analogy I like to use that is baseball. If you're standing of the plate with a bat in your hand, you need to get ready to start that swing. After that pitch first comes out of the pitcher's mound and the ball's on its way, you better start swinging. Or if you wait until it's in the catcher's mound, you can swing all you want. You're not going to hit the ball right. Well that's a silly analogy, but it

makes a point. If you wait until the weeds are sprouting, the baseball's and the catcher's mint too late for a pre emergent herbicide for most of them. And so get ahead of time. Get it done. Go online to gardening with skip dot com. Download those schedules. I say that so many times ever showed that I think people have got to. I don't need to tell you anymore, but constantly talk to people who listen to garden Line that

haven't downloaded the schedules. Well, you know, I can't come to your house and click on the computer for you, But would you do that lawn care schedule and lawn weed disease and pest management schedule, they're there. I spend a lot of time researching those, putting those together. They're very extensive, full color. They're even pretty, I think because of colors. Download them, pin them to the refrigerator door. You can take your kid's artwork down. That's not as

important as this schedule. Oh my gosh, I can't believe that came out of my mouth. Put them on the frigerator, or put them in the garage, stick them on top of your fertilizerspread or in the garage. Where have you got to put them? Have them ready to go because timing is everything very important, and as you go through these schedules, you're going to see the right time to do it. Also, on the website Gardening withtheskip dot com, you're going to find a lot of other helpful information.

So take a look at it. I see how it does. See what you find up there that's helpful for you. I've got plans for several of the things that I'm working on, hoping to get on there really soon, so check it out. It will definitely be helpful for you. So as we get the music in here, I just want to remind you that gardening is supposed to be fun and it's supposed to be healthy exercise, Get out, walk around and enjoy yourself. If you're not having fun,

you're not doing it right. I mean that you don't panic over whether you can make a plant grow or not, or if you're going to kill it or whatever. J. C. Ralston, one of the best horticulturists in the recent history of our country out in North Carolina, says, to be a good horticulturist, you got to kill a lot of plants. And he is right, absolutely right. So in other words, you have permission to not do things perfectly. To lose

a plant, do is get another one. It's kind of like etches, sketches or the use that example before turn it upside down and shake it and you get to start all over. That's what a road tells. Have fun out there, good healthy fun. Go visit that garden center this afternoon and all week