How to clamp for the cold

or your front yard. Right now, we will be having a great season. I have determined, just decided by myself that this is gonna be one of the best gardening years ever. I mean it. I really am looking forward to this gardening season. You know, every year throws us its own curve. Some years it's awfully hot and dry. Some years it just doesn't seem to want to quit rain in some years it tends to give us a pretty good coal snap. We got one of those coming

by the way, but not too terribly bad. We'll talk about that a little bit as we go on through the show today. But no matter what happens, there's a lot that we are in control of when it comes to gardening in the weather that once we understand how to properly take care of plants, meaning get plants what they want, that's kind of what it amounts to. We'll talk about having a green thumb. A green thumb isn't

there's no such thing as a green thumb. I like to put it that way because it makes a point, and that point is that it's not like some people just have a green thumb. And if you feel like your thumb's been brown and every time you try to grow something it doesn't work, you have these problems or issues or things, don't worry about that. We will fix it. Because a green thumb is i'll just say, a myth And if you want to think of it as a green thumb, well, let's do it this way. Then there's

no such thing as a brown thumb. There's just an uninformed thumb. So we will inform your thumb and amazingly it will start to turn green. That's how it works garden line seven one three two one two kt r H. I'm your host, skip Rictor and really looking forward to twenty twenty five. Out in the garden. We are entering that season where everybody gets gardening fever. You know, people that aren't really even into gardening when spring comes here and it's just on the doorstep. When it hits, people

get gardening fever. And gardening fever causes us to want to go out and buy and plant and do all kinds of things. And I think that's great. I think that's great. But if you're going to do it, let's do it in a smart way. How about that? What does that mean? That means don't just grab a plant that doesn't belong in the greater Houston area. Plant something that wants to be here. Maybe you just move from Colorado. I love blue spruce, they don't grow here. Maybe you

love that blue Colorado columbine. Yeah, I know, you went ski in, you saw a seedbacket, whatever. Just put it on the shelf and enjoy looking at it, because that's as close to a Columbine flowers you're going to get here in Texas. From the blue Colorado are the ones that are. You know, all those multicolors that they'll sell up there. We have two native columbines down here, the Hinkleys,

which is a yellow, beautiful columbine yellow. And then our native that's in central Texas is a small red columbine that's a native here. Plant those they'll grow. See what I'm talking about. Maybe you move from the Midwest. Oh my goodness, for cythia anywhere really, anywhere further north in the country. Forsythia is gorgeous, the first harbinger of spring, just about in the springtime. Don't plant it here, it's not for here. Do you like lilax? You know that

fragrance of lilacs. Just let your memory tell you how wonderful they smell. Because they don't belong here, but lots of things do. And by planting plants that want to grow here, you can have success. That is step one. Plant something that wants to grow. Step two is prepare the soil. Actually, that is step one. We always talk about brown stuff or green stuff on garden line. Make

that your number one New Year's resolution this year. If you want to be a gardener, number one resolution is to choose things that want to grow, but plant them in soil they want to be in. So for example, we have native plants like Central Texas native, the Texas Mountain Laurel, beautiful clusters grape like clusters of blooms that have a gaudy grape, bubblegum, grape, kool aid, whatever fragrance

to them, a wonderful, wonderful plant. We also have plants, excuse me, their native to the eastern parts of the state, more acidic soils. Those two plants, even though they are both Texas plants, don't want to be in the same soil, and so you got to give them what they want. And that makes it even easier to have success is you're not trying to swim up stream. You're actually planting things in the soil they want to be in. So that's number one New Year's resolution. Get out there and

fix your soil. Now's the time to do it. Anytime in the cool season, soil is dry enough to work, it's a good time to do that. Raised beds are always a good idea because you can always add water, but you can't take it away when you have excess soggy wet, which I've gotten some of my right now, I've got an area I'm trying to redo and I'm just having to wait on the soil to dry out enough to be able to work it. But you can always create raised beds, you can always amend the soil,

you can provide more organic matter for your soil. All of that kind of stuff will help you have success. And that's what we want you to have. I want you to have success in your garden, and so we will harp. I'll be a broken record on preparing the soil, preparing the soil, taking care of the soil, getting it right, making the plants feel at home, all of the above. And when we do that, we will have success. It

just sets us up for success. Now, there's a lot of different things that can happen that you know will throw you curves and challenges. I don't mean just you know, you prepare the soil and nothing goes wrong. Well, there's a lot more to it, but seriously, that is step one, and that's where most people go wrong. Most people go wrong by not preparing the soil ahead of time. So courage you to do that and I'll perhaps I'll spend a little time on that today. I know I will

week by week. Here as we go through here on Garden Line. Well, thanks for listening, thanks for rejoining us here in twenty twenty five. We're coming up on a little bit of a break here. If you'd like to give me a call, get on the board. We can visit with you about the kinds of questions you might have seven to one three two one two five eight seven four. That is seven one three, two one two

fifty eight seventy four. If you have a question that might involve a photo, give my producer Jonathan a call and get an email so you can send me a photo and then call and we'll talk about it on the air. Sometimes, you know, you're describing a weed and what I'm picturing and what you're describing isn't the same thing. Or maybe it's a flower or a fruit or something. Go ahead and just let you know, send me a photo, Let's let me look at it, then let's talk about it.

Because I guarantee you this other people will have the same questions that you have. Well, I'll be right back in just a moment with your questions and with more a garden Line. Come back to Guarden Line, folks. Get good to have you with us this morning. Welcome back to We're welcome back. Welcome to twenty twenty five, the best gardening year you will ever have experienced. This is

it being positive. Gardeners are optimists. We absolutely have to be, because you know, we take these little dried pieces of detritus that just look like, I don't know, just wood chip, tiny wood chips, and we put them in the soil, knowing that a tomato or a petunia is going to come out of that thing. It's actually going to come to life, grow and produce stuff that we really want to see or eat or whatever. That's an optimist. We believe in the future, and twenty twenty five is going

to be a great gardening year. I can just tell you that we're going to start off by going straight to the phones and this hour or segment, and we're going to go to talk to Michael in Montgomery. Hello, Michael, Welcome to garden Line. Hello. Hello, I'm here, all righty, Well there he is.

comes and they're not ready for it. Now, nine chances out of ten, youre tree's gonna be fine, but just to be safe with it, I would wrap up the trunk around the base of the trunk. There are some some wraps that you can put around them to protect the sun from warming up those trunk tissues. And what happens is the sun will warm it during the day and a brand new This is true with red oaks, it's true with grape myrtles and several other kinds of

trees up. The sun shines on that trunk and it warms up warmer than the air around it, Just like if you stood outside on a cold, cold winter day that you could feel the warmth of the sun on your face. Well, that's what happens. Those tissues start to flow sap a little bit, and then that night it freezes and you get freeze damaged, typically on the southwest side of the trunk. So normally I don't recommend trump rock trunk wraps, but for that I would. You could.

You could use different things to do it, but there are some papers you can wrap around to kind of crinkly. There's some plastic wraps and things, but I like the paper wraps. Just until that tree gets a year or so on it, a year or two on it more, and that trunk starts to get a little heartier. Then the bark gets a little thicker and it's not so likely to suffer that southwest injury on a freezing night.

of you listening, just keep that in mind. You know, it's like, you know, if you were to say, you know, skipped, are we gonna get damage to all our tree trunks this freeze? Well no, probably not not at all, but there's a possibility. And when a tree is young, it's it's a paper thin bark. I mean it's very very thin, you know, it doesn't have those deep ridges. It's very smooth, and a maple tree bark is not smooth normally, but when a hung it is. I was in Atlanta, Georgia walking.

They have a I don't know what they call it. It's like a beltway that goes around the city, but it's a walkway. It's a big, giant wide sidewalk, you know, maybe fifteen feet wide or something. It goes around the city. You can walk the whole thing, and walking through I just noticed every little tree had a wound. On the southwest side at the base, I say, little tree. Now, those things the first time I went there were probably the size of a of a golf ball, and I

saw the wounds in. Now these things, I've been going for several years, but probably a lot of them are four to six inches thick, and when you look at them, you can see that old wound where the southwest injury occurred when they were a little thin trunk, thin barked young trees. And that's exactly how it happens. People call. When I used to work with the Agrove Extension Office, people would call and go, so, I've got this split near the bottom of my tree trunk, and I would say,

is it on the southwest side? And there would be this pause where, you know, nobody knows off the hand what size side of the trunk. They have to stop and think, okay, this is north and suddenly they'd go, yeah, like how did you know that? And who cares what side it is. That's exactly what happens. A nice mild winter day and the sun at the latest part of you know, what's the hottest time of the day. Look

at the temperatures through the day. The hottest time of the day is going to be around four o'clock, okay, somewhere around there, depends on the day, in the coal front coming through or something. But anyway, that's the warmest part and it warms up and with the sun shining on it, it warms up even more more than the rest of the tree trunk around all the other sides of the tree, and so that's where the sap starts to flow. And so then a coal snap that night.

Typically that's going to happen when it gets down, you know, mid twenties, lower twenties or even colder. That's where we start to get that, even the teens, and you get that damage and you don't see it right away, but boy, you do see it when it starts to grow in the spring. And will the tree survive, Yeah, the tree will make it fine. But now you've got this big wound that's got to heal over. Perhaps you get some decay into the inner bark there is that splits open

and exposes the inner bark. So why not just avoid it. It's easy to avoid. And the way we do it is put a little wrap around the tree. I've known people to paint the bases of their trees white. The trunks. Parts of the trunk white to reflect some of that heat. That helps a little bit. Looks kind of strange, although you go to some places like in Mexico, it's very popular even in large tree trunks and parks and stuff, you know, painted white on the lower part. But there

is a place for that. I have known people to put some aluminum foil around the trunk, just wrap it around, just kind of crump it and so it stays there, just to reflect that sunlight out to keep that trunk cool rather than encouraging it to grow. Oh, let's see, it was it two decembers, three decembers ago. Now, we had a period where, especially for those of you up

in the northern part of the listening area. When I say that, I mean you know, like Tomball up to College Station in Huntsville and everything up as you go north, A lot of crape myrtles got killed to the ground for the same reason. It went down to the upper teens in December, and they were not ready for it. They were not hardened off, and some flat to the ground and they came right back out. Of course, the base survives that you lost the above gund growth and

it was the same principle going on there. They weren't ready for it. Crepe myrtles grow much further north than here. You know, the one of the major crate myrtle breeding programs in the country for decades past has been up in Beltsville, Maryland. That's a little further north than here. Well, that's the USDA breeding program. And so if they can grow up there, why are we having them killed to the ground here for the reason I just described. So,

better safe than sorry is what I say. If I flipped a coin and had to say is it going to be needed or not? I would say no. But I wouldn't risk my own trees if I wasn't sure.

So there you go. That's my advice. I'd rather spend a little time going out there and protecting the trunk, and then even if I didn't have to, Right, all right, Well, we got some cold weather coming last time I we were looking at temperatures down in the upper twenties for those of you who are up north of the Houston area, and for those of you that are down kind of even horizontally even across you know, with Houston, sugar Land and across there, we're looking probably down around thirty degrees

twenty nine degrees, and that'll vary. I can't predict the weather. The people that predict the weather sometimes miss. But anyway, so we've got to do a little protection for that possibility of getting some pipe damage. You know, they say the three peas or plants, pipes and pets, and you got to take care of all three of those, of course. And when it comes to plants, if you've got plants that are very sensitive to cold, we have plants that are perennials here and in a mild winter they'll just

come right through without being killed to the ground. And in a hard winter than they could be killed all the way to the ground or killed out right, depending on the plant. You know, Perennial is a geographical designation. Let me give you an example. You know, yellow bills esperanza, beautiful yellow blooms. Had those around for a good long time. Now,

those are a good tough plant. But you go up the Dallas and they're not you go to Dallas, they're gonna be killed the ground and could be killed outright. Same with Pride of Barbados. Barbados Pride, some people call it red bird of paradise gorgeous summer bloomer. But you get cold enough and it's not a perennial kill it out right. So you got to take care of your plants depending on where you live and how cold it gets. And Ace Hardware has got you covered. They have the

plant frost blankets to protect your plant. It's a thick woven material spun bound actually material. They come in different forms, but you put them over your plant and secure them to the ground and that holds the warmth of the soil rising up to protect that plant. It's very helpful, especially for frost because frost can't form on the leaves when you got that cover over it. They have fawcet covers to go over your faucets. They have something called

the freeze miser fatt protection. It's a little short thing you screw onto your faucet. You turn on the faucet just wide open and no water comes out. But as it gets cold, it starts to let water trickle through. And when you have water trickling through, the water doesn't just sit there to freeze. No, it's not going to take you through tim below zero, but it'll take you through the kinds of freezes typically that we have here. They've got pipe wrap as a type of insulation to

go around your pipe. You plug it in, Well, there's the insulation for your pipe, but there's also an insulating tape, and there's wires that you can plug in that provide just a little bit of heat to protect pipes and things. In fact, there's a couple dozen different things that Ace Hardware carries to help you prepare for the cold. So I'm going to be talking about some of those other things as we go through the morning, because we got that coming up today, are coming up soon, the freeze.

Once you get through this weekend, I got a little rainy weather ahead of it, and then sky's clear, and when the sky's clear, the temperature can drop a lot further. And that's what we're going to be experiencing all right. Time for me to take a little break. I'll be right back. If you'd like to give me a call and get on the line seven to one three two one two kt r H. Hey, welcome back to Garden Line.

You got a question we can help you with today, Well, here's a number seven one three two one two kt r H. Be happy to visit with you. About the things you need to know to have success in your garden. Gardening is fun. It's supposed to be fun, and I want you to have success. I don't want you to be discouraged. I don't want you to feel like you have a brown thumb. You don't trust me. You do not have a brown thumb. I promise you you don't.

All you need to do is get that thumb educated with some good info, and you can absolutely have success. Gardening is not rocket science. I don't even know what that means, even the rocket science anyway. Nothing's rocket science if you know what you're doing. Not even not even rocket science. So just give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you want to send me a photo, I headed ahead of

the call. That's fine. Just call my number here seven one three two one two fifty eight to seventy four till Jonathan. You want to send a photo, He'll give you an email. Send it to me, we can talk about it. I'm not able to answer all the emails by typing out the answers to them, but I do appreciate when you can send a photo. Being able to talk about the question that you have and having something visual to look at so I can help you diagnose or help you identify or whatever it is that you're

trying to do. Well, let's see here. I was discussing the importance of coal protection in you know, someone's saying, well, ACE Hardware, where do you? Where is my ACE Hardware? Well, they're all over the place. Just go Acehardware dot Com, find the store locator and if there's all there all over the greater Houston area, you can find one near you.

For example, you go up to Porter, Texas, j and R ACE Hardware right there in Porter up in Willis all seasons, ACE up in Willis, down in Clearly Kilgore Lumber and Clear Lakes an ACE hardware store. And then Cyprus says right there in Cyprus, Texas. Those are all examples of ACE hardware stores that are near to you. I was outside the other day looking at my bird feeder and I hadn't seen a lot of birds come into it, and I was going, you know, what's wrong

with that? And what happened is it's one of those feeders that when something sits on it, if it's too heavy, the bird feeder closes. It's it's the squirrel excluding feeder from Wabbird's Unlimited. Squirrels can't get in because when they sit down on it, it you know, closes the door. They can't get to the food. But anyway, the food had kind of gotten stuck up in there. I don't know if some moisture or whatever had kind of gotten

it stuck. And I kind of bumped on it a little bit and it dropped right down, and it just reminded me check those feeders out. I'm using Wildbird's Unlimited Winter superb Blend in my feeders. I sometimes mix a few other things in there. You know, depending on what birds you want to attract, there's different kinds of seed that are most attractive to them. But wibirds Unlimited Winter Super Blend is important because it has the fat and the protein that birds need for fueling. You know, the

days are shorter, the temperature a little colder. Sometimes the weather's inclement, and they're not out able to do the feeding. They're looking for a lot of those things that went to seed in the fall have now been picked over. The birds are getting hungry, So go buy Wildbirds unletit me get you some of the Winter super Blend or one of their other you know, just talk to the folks there. They are so knowledgeable. I love going into wildbirds.

It's like you're going to visit a friend because you talk to him and say, hey, I'm interested in this, and they're enthusiastic. Listen, they've got the they've got the wild bird bug themselves, and they feed at their houses. They know what they're talking about and you can just strike up a conversation and they can talk to you about it. You know, it's not all about just buying a product, it's about learning how to do it. They want you to have success because birding in the backyard

is a lot of fun. You know, you may not be the guy with the you know, the stereotypical birder that's got the little safari hat on and shorts and these binoculars and walking around looking at birds in the wild and songs that's fun, by the way, too. But in the backyard you just feed them and you enjoy the music. It's as simple as that, and warbirds can help you do just that. Let's go out to the phones now. We're going to head to pair Land and

talk to Belinda. Hey, Belinda, welcome, to garden line.

cover over the whole tree, that's good. But a cover needs to drape all the way to the ground and be secured to the ground with soil or rocks or bricks or boards or whatever holds it down securely, because you want to create dead air space underneath it for the warmth of the soil to rise up and make a difference on the kind of cold we're going to Our cold is going to be pretty minor considering you know, when we're just talking about you in the upper twenties,

that's minor freeze compared to when you get mid twenties, low twenties and teens, and so that'll be enough. I don't think your fig is going to need anything unless it's a brand excuse me, your plum and palm granite. Unless they're brand new trees, very very thin bark and stuff. Yeah, you may want to protect them a little bit. Uh, but they're probably going to be just fine. And then the fig if it's in a growing state, can get some cold damage. If not, it's going to come through

just fine. I'm not worried about figs right now myself on the kind of cold that we're about to have.

a difference. And so this is a kind of phrase where it's not maybe we're preparing and warming up for a significant one later, but for right now this is a moderate one. So still protect and just remember what I'm saying about one plant doesn't apply to another. You know, you're talking about like figs or or more cold tender than Belinda's plum, for example, or palm grantite. Those those are not as cold tender as fig But just depending on where you live, do what you need to do,

take care of it. Let's we're going to go, actually I have to take a break here. We're going to come to Marty in Fairfield right when we get back in the meantime, if you'd like to give me a call. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to the Garden Line. Glad to have you with us today. Thanks for listening in. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. Do you got a phone, You got a phone, you

got a question? Well seven one three two one two kt RH. It's as easy as that, and let's just start by going straight out to Marty in Fairfield. Hello Marty, Welcome to garden Rainski.

there's the rest of us, the plant collectors. Our places look like a bomb went off in a garden center and everything rooted where it landed. It's just we see a plant we got to have there. You know where am I going to put it? That's silly to worry about that. Buy the plant, take it home, then figure out where to put it. But you know what, it's your yard. It's toeing you and the hoa. So I guess in the backyard, you do what you want to do. The hoa has an opinion about the front yard. Believe me,

they do well. As we're getting out there and taking care of our plants. You know that the most important thing is to build the soil. And one of the ways that we improve our soil is with products from microlife like microlife micro grow bioinoculant that is one that is loaded with all kinds of good microbes, that are part of keeping plants healthy. I actually a week doesn't go by that I don't read some research article about what some microbe has now been discovered to be able

to do. There are microbes that cause roots to grow in certain directions. Can you believe that there are microbes that get into the root system and cause the top of the plant to be better at resisting disease? Can you believe that there are microbes in this case the fungi that link one plant to another, that communicate from one plant to another about hey there's a bug eating us, watch out, get ready for it, and all kinds of other things. It's an amazing world. Microlife's built around those

kinds of things. It's taking advantage of what nature is already doing and helping you do a better job of that in your yard. Micro grow bioinoculant is a maroon bag, a burgundy bag, very beautiful bag. Of course I'm biased, but anyway, it is loaded with sixty three different beneficial micro organism strains. Now, all the microlife products are going to have MicroB xenum. I mean they just do. They keep them stocked with all kinds of good things. The

micro grow biinoculant. Don't think of it as a fertilizer, think of it as what it says, a bio inoculant, those kinds of things that are helpful to your soils or your plant's root system. Now there's also micro grow liquid AF. These are two different products. They both have a dark kind of a burgundy colored label, a little different in shade. But micro Grow liquid AF is loaded also with eight extremely dominating beneficial mica grobes that live in the soil and help your plans. Hey, where do

you get microlife? Everywhere? It's pretty much everywhere, feed stores, garden centers, hardware stores, Southwest fertilizer down Southwest Houston. Okay, well, there's the first hour of twenty twenty five in the books. Boy, we got a lot more to talk about. And I'm telling you this is going to be your best garden you ever. Trust me on this one. Believe me on this one. Just keep listening in. Don't forget my website too.

By the way, gardening with skip dot com. I remember, I'm going to talk about some new things that are up there on the website when we come back give around.

fixing the put out there. Yeah, we'll do that. By the way, for those of you who are not from Texas, fixing is a word. Fixing is a word. It means I'm about to I'm about to do it. If I sometimes I forget. You know, you grew up someplace and use certain kinds of terms and lifeguage, and you recognize other people don't always do that. I had a friend

from New Jersey when I went to college. It lived the same arm as Randy and I as a matter of fact, back in the day, and I remember the first time he goes fixing, what do you mean fixing and it's like, I mean, I'm about to do something didn't realize. Not everybody talks like that anyway, just an observation. But we are here to help you have a good success. And what I like to say is I'm here to help you have a more beautiful garden and a more

bountiful garden and the same uh. At the same time, gardening is fun, and gardening gives us a connection in nature that we are made. We're designed for nature, we really are. It is our happy place. It's where we find relaxation. It's where we find a lot of reward too. You know, there is something when you grow your own tomato and you picked that thing right off the vine and you enjoy that fresh, homegrown flavor that is so rewarding.

When you smell the fragrance of a wonderful flower, that just I mean, it's just like nature's perfume that is rewarding. When you esthetically look out there and you see a well trimmed lawn and a beautiful landscape, there's something esthetically rewarding about all that. And gardening gives you all that kind of stuff. Now, how do you end up having all that? Well? Number one. You start with the soil.

And I'm a broken record on this, but brown stuff before green stuff, meaning you fix the soil and then you plant the plant. That's how it works. Brown stuff before green stuff. And if you go into a garden center today, which I think would be a great thing to do it just come home with some soil bags some Maybe you're starting seeds and you need a seed starting mix. Maybe you are putting in a bed and you need a quality bed mix. Maybe you need some multch to go on top of the soil to pert

tech the base of the plants. We're talking earlier about some coal damage and some plants are very cold sensitive. But when you throw a good thick layer of mulch over the top of them, it's like putting a blanket over you. I mean it holds in the warmth of the soil and it protects the crowns of those plants. Where do you do that, well, Cianamal should be a good place to do it. It's kind of the one stop shop for everything that's let's just say everything brown.

When it comes to brown stuff, the composts for the soil, the soil blends like the vegionorbics from heirloom soils. They've got that there. They carry products from landscapers Pride to they carry products from heirloom soils. Of course. They also are a place where you're going to find fertilizers from nitrofoss from Nelson, plant food from for example, azamide and microlife. They carry all of that, and then products from Medina

as well. They deliver within twenty miles now. They're located down south of town on FM five point one, near where Highway six and two eighty eight are south of Houston. Go to the website Sienna multch dot com Sienna mulch dot com. There you can find it where they're located. You can find it when they're open. By the way, they're open today Saturday from seven thirty to two, So

good day to get out and do that. Get that stuff at your house on the ground, in the soil, on top of the soil, whatever you need to do with it, and get ready because planting season is upon us. It is still a good time to plant woody ornamentals and perennials to give them a head start on the spring. Those spring gardens, whether it's flowers or vegetables or herbs. Get the soil right, because whenever that's dry enough to work the soil, there's a good time to work the soil.

It is, it's always good. You always amend and improve your soil. I don't care how good the soil is, you're always in time going to be needing to do some amendments and improvements on the soil, unless you're just growing native plant in a soil that it's very adapted to. In that case, yeah, I get it. You get it set up, and you forget it. But for a lot of things, including containers, you've got to keep improving the soil in order to keep that at its top functioning ability.

Because plants live in their roots they do. Quality soil means it's got organic matter. It means it's got nutrients, and remember all of this is available cinemals. And it also quality soil means that it drains well, that excess water runs right through it, but that it holds some water. It's not just like a sand that water runs right through. It holds water, but it also drains the excess water.

Cinamals cannot You do all of that, and if you're smart, you will get that done because I'm telling you the the the wise gardener, I'll put it that way. The wise gardener knows that you get the soil right and it makes you look good. It makes your thumb look green, if you know what I'm talking about. All right, that's that. Speaking of the animals and products and things, you know

that cienumalch also carries Nelson plant food products. Now, Nelson is a it's just a long term, outstanding purveyor of some quality blends of nutrients for your plants. You know, there's a Nelson plant food for just about every kind of plant you want to grow, from lawns to things like let's say hibescas or things like plumeria or things like roses. Nelson has their color Star line, probably one of the most popular lines now for almost forty years.

Color Star is an all purpose plant food. So you put it down on anything. Just think about this way. If it gives you color, put color Star on it. That's easy to remember. So all the flowering plants, annuals of perennials, even shrubs and trees that can you can use it on that it acts quickly, but it also has organic nutrients sources to slowly release into the soil over time, so about every three or four months, put

your color Star down on your color beds. You can also get it with a funge side involved in a mixed in call Colorstar Plus to help with the root issues that you might have. A color Star has been popular for landscapers for a very long time, and even out of state. You know, they ship that stuff all over the country to people that have discovered it and now they use it and again landscapers. Professional landscapers no

to use color Star all from Nelson Plant Food. Nelson Plant Food is a Houston area homegrown basically homegrown company that produces whatever kind of nutrients you need for the plants that you want to grow and have success with. It's time for me to take a little quick break. I'll be right back.

fruit tree, I can just already taste the fruit. I mean, listen, you got to be an optimist as a gardener, and we do everything we can to have success. The bottom line is that's a fun part of gardening because you know, even when things don't work out like you want, you just adjust. You just adjust and you figure it out, and it's okay. If this year ends up being a little hot and dry, that's all right. We know how to water plant if it gets a little cold. We

know how to protect plants. I'm going to come back and talk about plant protection here in a little bit. Right now, I'm going to run out to the galleria and we're going to talk to Forest. Hey, Forrest, Welcome to garden Line.

just that protected spot helped a lot. And then the next step would be to bring them into protect a garage, or to cover them up and put some heat underneath them. I think any of those things would be fine. If it were mine, I wouldn't take chances on leaving them out. Once we drop below freezing, you're gonna get some damage to a lime and then probably to a lemon. Too.

All right, yes, sir, you take care. Thanks for the call. Appreciate that.

here's what I mean. Don't wrap the top of a plant like a landscape lollipop. Allow the cover to drape straight down to the ground, as if you put an umbrella over it, and where the rain would drip down off the umbrella, that is where the cover goes straight to the ground. Secure it there so the warmth of the soil can rise up underneath that cover. You create dead airspace, and you make a difference in the cold

temperatures and the rate of cooling inside that cover. We're gonna have freezes coming up here that are going to be fairly brief. It may if you live far enough north, you're going to have two or three days of freezing, but it warms up during the day into the forties, goes back down again. All you need is a little bit of protection, slow the cooling and you're good. If you want to add one more measure of protection, you

can put a clamp light underneath. Now, these are those aluminum shielded light fixtures that have a clamp, so you can attach them to the side of a container. You can attach them to the trunk of the plant, but don't shine the light on the trunk. Shine the light down toward the soil and that it'll rise up underneath that cover and make a huge difference and protect them. Now, if it's going to be seventeen degrees, no, not one

little incandescent bulb is not going to do that. But even just a bright one hundred and fifty watt bulb, you don't have to have a heat lamp in. Those will provide enough warmth to make a big difference underneath the cover. If the cover is not secured to the ground, wind is going to blow. It's going to displace that air that you've warmed, or that the soil warmth that has risen up to warm the air, and you're gonna be right back down just as cold as it is

outside the cover. You gotta secure it to the ground. However you want to do that, soil, bricks, boards, whatever works for you. Make sure it's secure to the ground. You gonna have some breeze. You really need to make sure that that cover stays down there on the ground. And then that little addition of one heat lamp for minor freezes like we're having now, is enough. I put one hundred and fifty watt flood light bulb in mine. You can use a heat lap bulb. You're not going

to need that much heat. Now, if you're trying to cover maybe a satsumetry that's a feet tall and you're going to get heat under that, well okay, yeah, but we're not going to have satsuma freeze damage kind of weather in this particular type of freeze, other types of a lot of other types of ceterric. Yes, we will. So anyway, provide that protection and you can make a huge difference, and you just have that on hand. I've

got mine in the they're in the garage. If the clamp light is clamped to the wall and the bulbs in it, it's ready to go. And whenever I need them, they just come right out and go straight out there. Make sure to protect those electric connections. If you were to have rain, which we're not supposed to have rain with the cold that we're having, it's supposed to to get dry before we have the cold. But if you do you got to cover that connection. It's electrical connection there.

Don't drop a connection into dry grass either. Should you have some sort of a spark or something like that, you can set grass on fire underneath there. So you got to you got to use your head on that stuff. But by the way, I've got a publication online at Gardening with Skip dot com. It's protecting plants from frosts

and freezes. It's a publication I wrote with one of our specialists at Texas A and M Horticulture Department a number of years ago, and I think it really covers well frosts and freezes, how they occur, the information about them you may not have been aware of, and that leads you to how to protect them correctly. And so I just gave you one little example of what's in the publication there. Just take it out, check it out. It's like nine pages of color pictures and all kinds

of Information's very good. Gardening with Skip dot com. Will you write that website down because I refer to it just about every show, because I'm always putting something up there to help you to have success, and in this case, it's that publication. Go check it out. It's free. You tak me down on that price. It's free. You can download it, you can look at it online. You can send it to your cousin and Tim Buck too, who has a question about freezing just downloaded. Email it to him.

Let them know about her. Just send them the link to it. If you want to go about that that way. Gardening with Skip, that's me gardening with Skip dot com. I'm gonna tomorrow, I'm gonna spend a little bit of time, a little more in depth talking about my predecessor in this chair, Randy Lemon. You know, garden Line has been around a long time, even before it was called garden Line. Do he Compton probably the first in about five of us now that have had been hosts of garden Line

through the decades, goes back to the nineteen fifties. Randy was prior to me, was in this seat for over twenty five years, and Randy uh was well beloved and well known throughout the greater Houston area. A scholarship was set up a while back for Randy at Texas A and M for a horticulture student. If you knew Randy, you knew how proud he was of our university, that he and I I went to. And also how proud he would be to know that a scholarship was set

up in his name there for horticulture student. You probably are one of the many, many, many people that benefited over the years from Randy's advice here on garden Line. I'm gonna tomorrow talk a little bit more about the scholarship and about Randy, but I just wanted to mention it today. Tomorrow, I believe, is the two year anniversary of Randy's passing. That came as a shock to all of us, everyone in the greater Houston area gardening world, and it's it's been something that well, like I said,

it was just a shock. You know, you never you never would expect something like that all although we all know our time here on earth is is not infinite. But Randy was bigger than life.

remembrance of Randy. It's really easy to do. First of all, the easiest way is just go to my website and it tells you how to do it there. I'll tell you briefly right now, but the bottom line is, just go the website and I'll tell you. If you want to give online, you go to a website called Texas A and M Foundation websites txamfoundation dot com. There is a little more to the RL than that, but on my website, I tell you how to find and send

the money to the right place. If you want to do it by check, you can mail the check to the Texas A and M Foundation. In the memo you gotta write Lemon Scholarship. Lemon has two ms L E, M, M O N Scholarship, but that's the Texas and M Foundation, and the address for that is also on the website Gardening with Skip dot com. It's the most recent thing that I've put online on the Gardening with Skip dot com website. Would you consider that? Would you join me

in considering supporting that scholarship. Time for me to take a quick break here. When we come back, I'll be back with your gardening questions. If you'd like to call and get on on board with that, just kive Jonathan call seven one three two one two k t r. H. We'll get you online. We'll talk to you about the things that are of interest to you, and I'm going to continue to talk about cold protection for plants, how to protect your plants from cold. We'll be right back.

All right, here we are. We're back with garden line. We got your gardening questions is coming. You just got to give me a call seven one three two one two, Kate Age. I want to continue talking about cold protection, cold protection for your plants, and just basically I'm giving you some principles to think about. I talked a while ago about covering a plant, how to cover them properly, and the fast way to just say that is no

landscape lollipops. People that put a cover around a let's say a little small tree or shrub, and they bring it all the way and wrap it around the trunk. That's like a lollipop, right, And that all that does is keep the warmth of those branches in, but that they're going to cool off too fast. It'll slow cooling a little bit, but not much. Taking it all the way to the ground and allowing the warmth of the heat to rise up, or putting a heat lamp underneath it,

or a light underneath it. An incandescent bulb is a heat lamp. They produce a lot of heat if you're a touched one, you know what I'm talking about. Providing that extra warmth underneath that helps a lot. Now, there's several variables in how much protection you're going to need. Number One, coals are going to get. The colder you get, the more more heat you're going to have to produce in order to protect that plant. Number Two, how cold

hardy is the plant. Some plasts don't need protection at all. There are plenty cold hardy they don't have to worry about that. Some you know, you take a lime tree, for example, it's going to get down twenty eight degrees. You got a problem for sure, So you got to protect those a lot. So it's the how colds are going to get, How cold hardy is the plant? Another

one is what kind of freeze is it? Now, there are several types of freezes too, specifically radiant and convective freezes that I talk about in the publication that's online at Gardening with Skip dot com. But one of them is just a cold, still night and heat is radiating up from the soil. It's radiating up off of the plants. That's why we end up getting frosts on the leaves of the plants. And those are easy to protect because you cover them up, you provide some warmth, and you're good.

The freeze where you get a cold blue northern wind blowing through that just super chills things quickly, you know. You know that when you walk outside and it's cold and the wind is blowing, you cool off way faster. And those we definitely have to create cold, dead air space, and we definitely need extra warmth to provide the protection for them. Some things that are important to consider when

you're protecting your plants. Now, dead air space is your friend, use the warmth of the soil, and then finally provide extra heat as needed. And I do that with clamp on lamps. If I were if I had a Let's they had a citrus tree, something a little bigger orange tree, or even a setsuma. If it's gonna get cold enough, I may put a couple of lamps under there, or three lamps under there. I may use an actual heat lamp bulb that generates a lot of radiant heat underneath there,

but don't shine it against the trunk. You can damage tissues. Those things get really hot. Turn all those on and hold your hand about three feet away and just you know, to the side, not above it, to the side, and you can feel that radiant heat coming out. We're going to send it down and warm the soil, and that will rise up underneath the cover and provide a lot of protection. Most of my freezes a little flood light

one hundred and fifty white bulb. I know people that use little mechanic lights, you know, those little things that are in a cage and you hang them up underneath the hood. When you open the hood of your car, you hang them up underneath there so you can see down those mechanic dumber of lights. Something like that with

a hunter white bulb is good. If you just have a little let's say, a small lime tree or something in a container or in the ground that you want to provide a little bit of protection when we're going to get down to what twenty nine, twenty eight, someplaces only thirty degrees depending on where you are in the listening area. And that's enough. But it's a matter, it's a relative thing, and so keep that in mind when you're protecting plants. And do look at that publication online.

I took a lot of time to write that with one of our anim specialists, very knowledgeable fellow, and we put together a really helpful publication that you should just have it printed out or at least save it to your computer so you can look at it. And it reminds you of the different things. You know, what people ask questions like what about water? I see people spray plants with water, and the ice breezes and the ice insulates the plant. And the answer bottom line is that no,

that's not true. That's not true. If you want to get nerdy, I'll be very brief with this, but very briefly, ice and water changes from liquid to solid. Each milli liter of water cubic centimeter of water gives off one calorie of heat. That's nerdy stuff. That's for your next garden party. So you can impress people and bore them to death. Okay, so one centimary. So as long as there's liquid water freezing on the surface of the ice around the plant, the interior temperature doesn't go below, not

much below thirty two degrees. But the minute you have liquid water freeze, stop having liquid water freezing, and it's just ice. That temperature plummets, just like the ice was in there. Because ice does not insulate in the sense of protecting the interior buds from going colder. The ice gets colder, the buds get colder. So for ninety nine percent of the home garden situations, putting ice putting water on plants in a freeze is not a good idea.

Even up breaking limbs, you end up with all other kinds of issues, sometimes even worse, because all right here we go, I said one nerd thing. We're gonna give you one more. Because when it switches and now you have the ice thawing and changing from ice to liquid water, it pulls a cat of heat out. When water goes through that state, change from liquid to ice, solid to liquid, you're either gaining or losing a calorie there. And so if you got to the morning, and let's say it

was thirty degrees thirty two degrees. It's starting to thaw there, and you quit sprinkling, and that ice began to melt, the interior would actually get colder. Now you're thinking that, how can ice be melting on the surface and the interior getting colder. Well it does, And I'll give you one quick example that suddenly making ice cream makes sense. Remember when you had the old hand crank ice cream makers, what did you do? You filled them with ice, and

then what did you put on the ice? Salt? Remember that you had to sit on those things, so that whole still while somebody cranked it, or you cranked it while someone sat on it. Why do we put salt on? Salt melts the ice? Why do we want to melt the ice make an ice cream? Because when the ice melts, it draws heat out of the ice cream on the inside of that han crank ice cream maker. That's why you put salt on, because it makes the ice cream colder.

See what I'm saying. You get ice on your plants, the sun comes up and you start to thaw, you're not out of the woods. In fact, it can get worse on the inside where those buds are all right, I try not to do too much nerd stuff for you. But chew on that one for a while. I think it's pretty cool. Stop, pretty interesting. We're gonna take a little break here. I'll be right back with your gardening question seven one three two one two ktr H. All right,

welcome back to garden line. Hey, if you want to get me a call, talk about whatever's of interest to you. What are the kind of questions? Maybe you got a gardening there's a good one, maybe a gardening resolution. What do you want to do different in twenty twenty five than you've done before? Now I'm not a big New Year's resolution person. I know it's all that we think if we decide we're resolving something that therefore we're going

to do it, and it happens. And I mean, you know, everybody knows what happens to New Year's resolutions by about the second or third week in January. But seriously, what would you like to do different in gardening? What would you like to grow that you'd never grown? Let me encourage you to do something different, try something new. Have you never grown vegetables? Okay, get you a five gallon bucket.

Drill holes in the bottom get you a tomato plant, put it, fill it full of a quality of veggie and herb mix from heirlooms, soils or something like that, maybe a quality mix from nature's way, and grow you a small tomato plant in that bucket. You could do that. You can do it with a klopenion pepper if you like calopenias. Maybe since we're in the cool season, how about a broccoli plant. My wife just picked the first broccoli from some plants she planted back in late fall

and brought it in yesterday. The fatted broccoli and enjoyed it, roasted broccoli and the oh my gosh, that was good last night.

a fun one, but it's a good one. I'm gonna not let nuts sedge show its face this year when it comes up as three to five leaves. I'm gonna follow Skip's guide online Gardening Skip dot com the nutsedge guide and end depth the look, and they'll tell you exactly how to shut nutsedge down before it proliferates and gives you all kinds of headaches. Maybe that's a resolution

for you this year. Maybe I'm going to redo the lawn and I'm gonna make it a nice, dense lawn so I'm not constantly having to fight weeds all the time. Maybe that's a resolution. Maybe it's to grow a new kind of houseplant, something different, something beautiful. Perhaps it's to put in herbs in your flower beds or your vegetable gardens, or to make an herb garden. Watch your resolution for this year. How about a fruit tree? Oh my gosh,

those are so good. We have fruit trees that are challenged to grow, and we have fruit trees that are easy to grow. I love citrus because citrus number one, you get to eat the centrus. But number two, the fragrance of the blooms is outstanding, and I'm planning a satsuma this year right off of our patio. I've got the spot already ready to go. I just need to get out there and get it done. But I'm gonna put a satsum in because I enjoy the fragrance of

citrus blooms in general. Some are more fragrant than others, but they're all good and it's just fun to do. What's your New year's resolution? If you will give me a call seven one three two one two k t RH, let's talk about it. Or if you just have questions and things, we can visit about that too. You are listening to guard Line and we're here to help you have a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape and more fun in the process. Bountiful garden, beautiful landscape, more fun

and the process. The cold is coming. We're gonna have a little, our first significant, little coal snap of the year. For those of you who are used to living up north, it's like, wait, it's not even going to get to the mid twenties. What are you talking about? Well, okay, it's cold for here, Okay, so what are we going to do? We can grow things you can't grow up north, you know. I mean, how many avocado trees and citrus

trees do you see even in northern Texas? None? Right, So we can do those, but we've got to protect them. So go by Ace Hardware Store. They've got everything you're going to need for it. You know, I was talking about those clamp lights and the bulbs that you put in them. Whether it's a flood light one fifty WI, whether it's an actual heat lamp, you can get those. You can also get the plastic covers, the tarps that go over plants to make sure you create that dead

air space underneath. Now we've got to deal with water protection too. Those of you are going to get into a little harder freeze. You're going to want to have something to cover your faucet, like a faucet cover or maybe the freeze miser. That's right, freeze miser. It's a whole the thing you screw into the faucet, then you turn the faucet on. It doesn't allow any water through until it gets cold, and then it starts to trickle water through, and moving water is it's much more reluctant

to freeze. Gotta get much colder to freeze moving water than stagnant water, and so as a result, you get your pipes through on a very very cold night. They've got tape for wrapping pipes that they have, the foam covers over pipes. They've also got the little wires that you put around your pipes, like an electrical type of a tape that just barely warms it enough to protect it. They have everything else you need. You need some duct tape.

Do you need something for maybe, you know, de icing the windshield to your car if you've got the frost freeze or whatever is on it, and it's not just this freeze, it's the ones coming up as well. Do you need to keep your hands warm. They've got some really good gloves as well as handwarmers. Also in there, fireplace logs, the firewood. Do you need a propane heater. There's always a good kerosene for a backup or for those kinds of heaters. Whatever you need is that ACE Hardware.

Remember it's the three p's that we worry about. Plants, pipes, and pets. You got to take care of those, and

ACE Hardware's got you coverage. Just go to Acehardware dot com you can find the ACE Hardware store near you that is going to be your source for everything when it comes to cold protection, and that would include let's say you're in Alvin, Patco East Hardware down there, up in Brennam, Brenham Ace Hardware, Katie Ace Hardware west of town, Hamilton Hardware off Highway six, your Bear Creek down south

off Highway six, Hamilton Hardware is an ACE store. And then out in Orange for those of you, first of all, thanks for listening out in Orange. Child's building supply ACE Hardware out there in Orange, Texas. We're going to heading out of the phones and talk to Loretta out in Texas City. Hello, Loretta, good morning.

about a bird of paradise? Is like the tropical type that have the little kind of flower that comes up and goes horizont or are we talking about the kind that has big orange and yellow flowers in long, tall clusters.

really hard cold freeze, that's good. I would use a plumeria fertilizer on it. We have a number of good quality primary fertilizer. I know that both Nelson and Nitroposs make a plumeria blend. It's got a lot of the middle number phosphorus and a good amount of the potassium in it, which is a good blend for that particular kind of plant.

situation where the demands were a little bit lower. But I would just say moderate, a good soaking every now and then ought to be enough.

ash is there. So if you have a soil test and you know where you are on pH, that guides you. Now. They do contain phosphorus, and they contain potassium and other nutrients that can be helpful to plants. So a moderate amount of wood ash is fine. You just have to you know, it really starts with what's already in your soil, and then you weigh them out and spread them accordingly.

There is information I don't have anything on my website, but there is information out there as to how much wood ash, like how many pounds per hundred or a thousand square feet can you put?

it's a fungus or a bug. Are you able to that's in that in.

they get a little silvery. You usually see a little bit of a squiggly trail, and it does cause them to curl like that, and the if you've got a small plant, it's worth treating them for Generally, as a citrus gets older and tougher, you you don't have to worry about them as much. They'll do a little damage, but they're not going to affect production much. But if you use a product called spin No said, it's an organic that soaks into the leaves and kills the larvae inside.

It's s p I n O S A D. Spin No said, yeah, And you spray the new flushes of growth with those mic The old, tough, leathery leaves don't get affected by citrus leaf minor. It's the tender new flushes of growth. So when you get a little flush of growth, just spray. I'm squirt them with SPO spinosaid, and it'll it'll minimize any kind of damage that those would cause.

Laura and Nan and Louis. We are coming to you right when we get back from break, all right, welcome back to the Garden Line. Good to have you with us. We're gonna get right to our callers here who are patiently waiting online. We go to Laura. Hello, Laura, welcome to garden Line.

But it just depends on how long it is and what condition the plants are in, you know, because plant hardiness itself, even as a plant gets older, Laura, it's a little better able to take the cold. You know, you take a satsuma, which is cold hardy, pretty cold hardy once it's established, but in the first three years it's not as cold hearty as it is as it

gets older. So it's a function of all those things, plant health, plant age, and then where it's located, and how fast the temperature drops, for example, would be another thing, and how long it stays cold. So when it comes to ponderosa lemon, that's a pretty hardy lemon as far as lemons go. But it's a big, old, giant lemon. It makes a huge tree and for most people it's

just not practical. It's more of a novelty. But in general, the grapefruit that you mentioned and lemon trees are going to need some protection.

them as long as they're used in moderation. But I don't think in a lawn you're going to see a significant difference. Just to do the fact, you know, if you had a couple of wheelbarrows of coffee grounds, well maybe maybe so, but I would use them in smaller planting bed areas where maybe they can make where you can use a little higher quantity per square foot. Okay, thanks very much, appreciating you. Bet good luck with that. Good luck with that. All right, Now, we're going to

go to Jersey Village and talk to Dan. Hey, Dan, Welcome to garden Line.

So I've had them before where I didn't do anything to them. I just I just put them out there and let them do what they're going to do, and they'll do just fine. They're they're real, They're real, easy, easy plants.

those are very popular on tiger lilies. The petals tend to curve backwards, with the little filaments and anthers sticking out in the middle beyond them. But the petals sort of curved back. Sometimes they almost look like a falling star or something. It's very very unusual. But those those are really uh, they're they're also not that difficult to grow. You probably need some sort of port for the stems

on them. Have you noticed you're just producing little look like black berries where the leaves and stems and flowers come together.

the big dairy production area up do there. In fact, if you got onto RCW Nurses, which is where two forty nine comes into belt Way eight, the beautiful giant sycamore on the property down there. David Williamson was telling me that that used to be a dairy right in that area. And I still have those giant, beautiful sycamores there from back in the day. But I think Houston's grown a little bit since then. So it's, you know, as it's gotten bigger year by year, just a new

spreading ring around the city each year gets bigger. It sort of ate the dairy industry as it grew out from there. But that was kind of interesting to me. Sometimes you think, well, I should I should have wondered about that a long time ago. Jersey Village and Darry Ashford all that kind of thing. All right, we're listening to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richtor our phone number if you'd like to give me a Cafinally got those

calls cleared out. I don't like people to have to sit and wait very long if I can control it. But we now have wide open seven one three two one two k t R H. If you've got a gardening question that we could help you with, we would be happy to do that. You know, Southwest Fortal has been around since oh gosh, I think nineteen fifty five. In fact, I was just I was just the other day looking into you know, garden line. We trace our lineage back to the Dewey Compton days, which is in

the nineteen fifties, and it went on from there. But Southwest Fertilizer began in nineteen fifty five and it's been a guardline sponsor since those Dewey Compton days. It's in Southwest Houston, as you would expect, it's a corner of bus Net and Runwick. When you go into Southwest Fertilizer, you're going to find every kind of supply you need for anything you want to grow. And so we're talking about controlling pests, controlling diseases, fertilizing plants, quality tools to

get the job done. They got a ninety foot long wall of tools there at Southwest fertilizer for you to choose from corner of Businet and runwick again. If you want to just go to the website at Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Do you need weed protection? Do you want to kill existing weeds? Do you want to prevent weeds? Do you want to get seeds? Great supply of seeds, including a bulk seed bin where you know that's one of the most economical ways to buy seed.

You're gonna plant beans or corner or something like that. You just get your little scoop out of the bulk seed bin, put in a little envelope and you're good to go. And I mean, Bob carries a lot of quality things like that, quality pruning tools. We are in pruning season. Time to get going on the pruning. Stop by there. Grab some of this fill coal with Barnel

and Corona, other quality selections. If you're an organic gardener, you're not gonna find a bigger selection of products that are organic in this Greater Houston area, then you'll find a Southwest Fertilizer. If I endorse something on guarden Line, it's gonna be at Southwest Fertilizer. They have great service, they've got excellent advice, real friendly. And when you got friendly service, quality products, and great selection, you're not gonna

do better. And that's exactly how I would describe the folks. Southwest Fertilizer, corner of Bussinett and Redwick, Southwest Houston. Time for me to take a little break here. When we come back, we're going to go to spring Branch and talk to HRDA. Look forward to doing that. You hang on Hurda and we'll be right back with you. Hey, welcome back to guarden Line. It's glad to have you with us today. Well, let's say back out to the phones. We're gonna go talk to hurt now in spring break.

Hello Hurta, Welcome to garden Line.

just say something. I get to choose who is a sponsor and is not a sponsor on garden Line. I do so when you hear me talking about a company, it's a company that I believe in. Either I've seen the research on their product, or I've used and or I've used their and I know that it works. And a good example of that is Nature's Way Resources. You know, John Ferguson years ago founded Nature's Way Resources as a

student of the soil. He knew how nature works, putting the soil in place in a form, in a situation with microbes and nutrients and drainage and all of that that makes success. And he built his company around that. Now his son in his CEO of Nature's Way Resources, and nothing has changed in terms of doing things the right way, creating soils that turn what would we would be calling natural waste in some of the best composts in Multius that you possibly can have. That team out

there has been doing this for years. They know how to do it. They know how to make quality products that help you have success. And if you want your thumb to look green, go out to Nature's Way and get some of the stuff they make. That's brown, and that is compost and that is multius for on top of the soil, and that is special bed mixes for everything from acid living plants to vegetables and herb plants to flowering plants. They've got a blend for everything you

possibly could need. Ian continuing his father's mission on creating a healthy environment for generations to come, because all things begin in the soil. I saw a quote one time, That says mankind. Despite all our artistic pretensions and successes, Mankind owes that success to a six inch lratopsoil in the fact that it rains and in Nature's way. That is the kind of quality mix that they make because it does all begin in the ground. It is brown

stuff before green stuff. Sabi Nature's Way resources. They're up on I forty five on the way to Conrod, just where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia. You just turn right if you're going north on forty five, cross over the railroad tracks Sherwood circles right there. That's where you will find Nature's Way resources. And that is where

you will go home with. Whether it's a trailer or a bunch of bags in the back of your car, you will go home with some of the best stuff that you can have to set you up for success. We're going to now head to Cyprus, Texas and talk to Susan. Do we have Susan?

before it gets too far along. You also want to do it before those weeds begin to bloom and set seed, because then they're they're more difficult to control, or in some cases they've already made seed, which sentences you to another.

you need the weeds to be wet. So if it hadn't rain, just rained, you need to sprinkle your lawn to get just enough to get the weed surface wet so those granules stick to the weed and you can go about it that way. Also, you said to.

to grow a little bit. So just don't delay too long on them.

the garden line. Glad you're listening. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to twenty twenty five. This is the best gardening year you are ever going to have. Just stay tuned. And let's do this together. Gardening is not rocket science. I don't think rocket science is rocket science. If I mean, if you know what you're talking about, well they say it's not rocket science. Well, if you're a rocket scientist, I don't think it's difficult at all because you already

know what you're doing about. That's the same thing with gardening. We're going to help you out here. We're gonna help you have success, and you're gonna have a good time doing it, because that's what it's all about, is having a bountiful garden, having a beautiful landscape, and having fun in the process. So stick around here we go. We're gonna go to Parland now and talk to Christine. Hello, Christine, welcome to garden Line.

dot com. There is a lawn pest, disease and weed management schedule and you can look at it online or you can print it out. I'd suggest you print it out as well as the lawn care schedule. If you look on there and you it's a January through December schedule. So you just go from you know, left to right, it'll tell you exactly when chinchbugs typically appear, and that is June through September. Okay, Now, by the time we get in, you know, to September, they're already heading downhill.

But the summer months, especially as we go from July to August, that's kind of the worst chinchbug season. But that's when we do our treatments for them, and the schedule tells you exactly when to treat and what do you use, so if it comes back next year, you'll be ready to go.

you can put around the base of the plant. You drench the soil and not just a spray, but literally in like a watering can or a bucket, and the plant takes it up and it gets in the plumbing of the plant. And that way, when that scale tries to suck the juices out of the plant stems, it gets the poison and it kills the scale. But that we're a little early for that because the plants aren't actively taking up a lot of stuff right now.

You go to a you know, a good quality garden center, ace hardware stores out those fertilizer any of those kinds of places, and just tell them I need something with one of these two products in it, and that will be what you use and follow the label.

uh properly answer your question. Just hang on with us and we'll be right back, folks. Our number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Now I mentioned my lawn care schedule and my lawn pest disease, and we'd management schedule, folks. Timing is important on everything, and so if you print these schedules out, they are on my website. If you print them out, the schedule is from January through December. It tells you, you know,

when does brown patch occur? When did chinchburgs occur? When does sid webloms occur? When do I apply a pre emerging harbs? It's all on the schedule. Gardening with Skip dot Com.

Although they can take higher pH they prefer it a little on the acidic side. So adding a lot of composted materials to the soil, loosening up that clay a little bit, getting it on a good mound. You might even see a benefit from putting some expanded shale in a very large area around them. And it takes quite a bit of shale to do that, but that helps open up that clay soil provide a little bit better internal drainage. But those are all be things in your power.

Keeping a mulch on the soil all the time. You know, in the forest, the leaves fall on the ground, pile up and just rot year after year after year, making the soil better and better. So do that around your magnolia tree and as wide of an area as you can to try to make it as at home by creating that forest floor environment as you can.

it the good time of the right time? Should I wait a few weeks a few months to grab the con trees and uh some fig trees?

to graft the fig. I guess you could. I've never I've never even heard of grafting a fig. I don't know why you would, but most people just just stick them in the ground and root them as far as the pecan.

use a different kind of graft on that. Uh that like a whip graft even on those as pecans get a little bigger or as you're what we call top working a tree, meaning you got a tree and you got all these branches, you want to find a branch it's about the size of a coke can, a soft drink can, and cut it off there and do what's called an inlay bark graft on those that that's the best way to go about that particular graft. And have you seen how to do those somewhere?

in Texas for pecans wrap. You want your graft would to be You want your graft would to be dormant with the inlay bark graft. But you want to wait until the tree you're grafting it onto, the sap has started to flow. Like right now, if you went out and tried to peel back the bark on that existing tree, the bark is firmly attached to the wood, but once a app blows, the bark peels like you're like you're peeling a banana. It just comes right off. That's the

stage where you do the inn lay bark graph. But but the wood you're using needs to be dormant, stored in the in the refrigerator to to stay.

you don't. You can use things like grafting wax and whatnot to it, but bottom line is just uh you know, just get you, uh, a plastic bag to wrap around them, uh, and you tie it to the branch and you tie it up on the grafted piece so you create a complete air tight section underneath there to hold the moisture in and then wrap the whole thing with foil. This is all in the publication that's on Aggie horticulture. Wrap it in foil to reflect any sunlight outside of that clear bag.

name of the band? So send them that The Wonders aka Theaters. You have to look that one. Ups. They spelled Wonder O n E one was one, so when people looked at Wonder it looked like okay, you heard it here first on Garden Life. Let's go to Gary. We're going to talk to Gary now on Guarden Line. Welcome to the show. Gary, Good to have you with us.

and cut the root. It's okay to cut it. Within two weeks it'll be sprouting new side roots from behind the cut, and it'll be a much better established tree as a result. So don't if you've got circling roots, unwrap them or cut them more likely going to have to cut them.

after planting, the roots are still quite confined. They haven't fully stretched out into all the soil around them, and so regular watering is a little more important for a newly planted tree during its first two or even three years, especially the first year.

have sandy loam soils. That's their favorite.

I usually wind up trimming the width so that I can reach the center on top, you know, and stay safely balanced on the step ladder. And what I've noticed this year is that the shrubs seem to have spread width wise much more than they've ever grown before. And while I still would I would estimate be taken off about a quarter of the total wood of the tree. Because the foliage is typically only on the outside of

the tree. On the interior branches aren't really any leaves, I'll be taken off a lot more of the leaves I think, percentage wise I normally do. Is that a problem, Dennis.

way down to the ground. So you kind of have to work to keep the top at least vertical the side's vertical, if not a little bit narrower at the top, like I mentioned a capital V, think more toward to capital A, not not like a Christmas tree shape, but just get the top narrower and that allows good light up and down all through that shrub, and as a result,

you have good foliage all through the shrub. So don't be afraid to hack back as much as you need to do that, because that shrub is constantly going to be fighting you trying to be top heavy, and we need it to not be top heavy for the aesthetics of a nice full shrub.

live in their roots. I like to put it that way because we sort of forget about the below ground part, but keeping the roots happy is important. The Medina, the folks at Medina makes something called humate humic acid. And what is humic acid, Well, that's basically the final stage of decomposing organic matter. So we have organic matter like leaves and grass clippings and things. It decomposes into what we would call compost, and then that decomposes into what's

called humus. It's the final stage, and the humic acid is one of the natural ingredients that are in humus. Humus. Uh does a number of good things for the soil, and the humic acid helps with soil structure, It helps with the way that the plant has access to nutrients in addition to the fact that they're they're nutrients in it in and of itself. But you make humatee I'm

having trouble saying. Humate humic acid from Medina is the kind of thing you just mix a little in a gallon of water, and when you plant a plant, you just pour it on the root ball. As you replace the soil, apply it again, give it another good drench. It is very helpful. I will soak seeds in humus or humic acid rather, and all you have to do is put about a tablespoon per gallon of water of the humane humic acid and then soak the seed until that penetrates the skin and the seeds swell up, and

then plant them right away. Don't let them set like that. Plant them. So I'll typically do that the night before I'm going to go out and plant. And that's one of the quality products there from the folks at Medina. Medina also produces something called has to Grow six twelve six now has to Grow six twelve six is a high quality products. Got the six percent nitrogen, twelve percent sassium, six percent excuse me, twelve percent phosphorus six percent potassium.

That is very useful to a plant trying to develop a root system, to a plant trying to produce blooms and foliage. Phosphorus very important for that. And it also contains Medina soil activator, which we know been around a long time. One of the most famous products from Medina there is also present in the Hastigro six twelve six. Again, I will use it when I'm transplanting. I will use it anytime that you're wanting to apply a drench into the soils, even a folier spray. You're not going to

burn with that. Just two examples of quality products there from the folks at Medina that are widely available here in the Greater Houston area and have been for ages. Do you know I was just reading about Dewey Compton or earlier and he talked about Medina products that goes back to the nineteen fifties. Medina's been around a while, It's been proven for a very long time, and gardeners already know that. Now it's time for me to take

a little quick break. For gosh, we're coming up. I've got another minute or so, so I'll just go a little bit longer. We'll come back to your call though. Hey, by the way, if you'd like to give me a call, the phone number is seven to one three two one two KTR eight seven one three two one two KRH. Earlier I mentioned that tomorrow we were going to talk

about more about Randy Lemon. The host of Garden Line, Dean Nelson, is going to come on the show in the morning and we're going to talk a little bit about a scholarship for Randy and just some memories of Randy. Actually, today is the anniversary of both Randy's birthday and his passing two years ago. They came as a shock to everyone in the gardening world here in Southeast Texas, and

we'll be talking more about that then. I just want to remind you, though, one more time, that Randy's scholarship is still around at A and M. They've got it funded to a level now where there is some funding going to New A and M horticulture students. New A and M horticulture students can receive the Randy Lemon Scholarship. We want to get it funded better. I just think we can do better than this. You can go online and you can donate on line toward it. You can

do it by mail if you'd like to. There's a lot of details to that. I make it real simple on my website. Just go to gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip dot Com. The top item on there is the Randy Lemon scholarship. It tells you how you can give. And if you're one of the folks that listen to Randy for years that appreciated the help that he provided you, why not consider making even a

small donation toward that scholarship. I know Randy would be so proud to know that we were doing this now. And thanks to Dean for getting that all set up. By the way, all right, I'm gonna take a little break. When I come back. We're going to go out to Humble and talk to Gary. Hey, welcome back to the garden Line. Welcome back. Good to have you with us. You are listening to the first show of the year twenty twenty five, and twenty twenty five is gonna be

the best year you've ever had in gardening. I'm just predicting that right now. It's gonna be my best year of gardening. You know, the fun thing about gardening is gardening is like the old etch sketches. I've used that analogy before, but how many of you remember an etch of sketch? You know, you had two knobs, one went up and down, one sideways, and you tried to draw something, and inevitably you went left when you should have gone right or whatever, and it messes up the drawing. What

do you do? You turn it upside down and shake it and you get a blank slate. Again. That's gardening. Every year is a blank slate. In fact, halfway through spring, if you don't like the way that garden looks, you can just get you your rototiller, the equivalent of a shake in the edge of sketch. You get to start over again. It's okay. You can't fail at gardening. You only give up. We're not going to give up. We're going to have the best year ever. And I really

believe that. I think it's gonna be a good year. Right now, we're going to go out and talk to Gary in Humble. Hello Gary, Welcome to garden Line.

my kids. I think jokes are hilarious that have ceased to be hilarious. You know when I when my kids were like age six and under, I ruled the room even maybe seven and under. Somewhere along the line, I became less funny. Isn't that amazing how that works? Well, the way I like to put it is, I'm gonna tell jokes that make me laugh, even if they don't make you laugh. One of us has got to have

fun here. Thanks for being a listener to garden Line. Hey, you probably have noticed that here in the Houston area, we have a heavy clay soil. We call it gumbo soil because it's a thick black clay. Not everybody does. You may have sandy soil or sandy loam where you live, but by and large, our Houston black clay is predominant in this area. And when you have a clay that has a high shrink swell potential, what that means is when it's wet, it swells. When it's dry, it shrinks.

When you have that, you'll notice in the summertime, when it's dry, you get these big cracks in the yard. You know, big old cracks open up in the soil because it's dry and it's shrinking, and then it gets wet and it closes back up again. Well, that wrecks havoc on your sidewalk and on your driveway and on your home foundations. And you may notice that your doors

are sticking. They didn't stick before and I was under sticking again, or maybe there's a crack in the sheet rock or there's a crack in the brick on the outside. Typically goes see those at the base of a window, kind of going from the back one corner of the window down to the ground, but they can to curl all over the place. Well, that's a sign that you got a foundation issue, and Fix my Slab Foundation Repair is the go to place for that. Ty Strickland is

a native Houstonian. He's a fifth generation Texan and he knows our soils. He understands this issue, and he knows how to assess it and what to do about it. The things I like most about Ty's work number one is an honest fellow. Number two, he shows up on time when he tells he's going to show up. That's part of being honest by the way. He fixes it right.

And he charges a fair price. And what more can you ask for any kind of a service industry coming to your house, especially when they're dealing with the foundation of your home. And he's been doing this for twenty three years. He knows what he's doing. You give him a call, tell him your guard line listener. Free estimates

for garden line listeners. You can go to the website fixmyslab dot com, or you can call him two eight one two fi five forty nine forty nine two eight one two fi five four nine four nine Fix my Slab Foundation Repair listen. If you think you may have a problem, don't be at ostrich. Put your head in the end. Call him if it's not a serious issue, if if it's okay, there is such a level of concern that's not worth worrying about. He'll tell you that. But it's not going to get better, so don't put

it off. Go ahead and give Ty a call. Two eight one two FI five forty nine forty nine. All right, folks, We've got one more segment in the first show of the year coming up, and I'll be right back with your calls at five. Excuse me seven one three two one two k.

First of all, I mentioned this earlier. But to take take a handful of seeds, I mean they look like detritus. They look like debris on the ground, little chips of wood or whatever they are, and they look dead, and you put them in the ground, you give water to them, and a miracle starts to happen. Water soaks into the seed and starts a chain of biochemical reactions that ends up with you getting a tomato or a petunia flower or whatever kind of seed it is. Is that amazing?

I mean, you know, someone once said that anybody can count the number of seeds in an apple, but only God knows the number of apples and a seed, and that you know it's really true. I mean, think about that, that one little seed in the case of an apple, just countless, countless production from it. All right, I'm gonna

get a little This isn't nerdy, this is philosophical. But somewhere years ago, you know, the guy Johnny apple seed that went through the countryside just scattering seeds everywhere, and all these apples came up here and there and yonder, well people would find one. That's a haphazard, just genetic occurrence. That's what seeds are. Just like people are all different genetically, well, apples are all different genetically. Any kind of seed is

going to do that. So they would find one and they would go, you know what, this is a really special apple. Let's take cuttings and let's graft them, and let's name it, and that way we can produce more of it. That's how the first red Delicious apple occurred. And many of the oldest apple varieties were just hap hazard, same with pecans pecans years ago. Some day I'll tell you the story of pecans, but that's a whole nother story.

But anyway, so red Delicious just and other varieties. Now we breed varieties like that intentionally by crossing apple parentage lines, but they just occurred and someone said, oh I like that one. I'm gonna save that one. So think about this. I don't know how many Red Delicious apple trees have been created over the years. I mean, you know, we don't grow those down here in Texas, but apple producing country.

That's kind of like an old standard variety that for years ruled the roost because it was longer, and it was darker red, and it just it just had features that were desirable. A seed sprouted, even if it was

an intentional collapse. Of course, one seed and one apple produced the first red Delicious tree, and after that it was a matter of grafting and grafting and grafting to where there's thousands and thousands and thousands of acres of genetically the same red delicious apples because in nature, one seed sprouted and it had the superior qualities that someone chose to select. So I just find that to be amazing.

I find plant genetics and just the you know, you cross this, you cross that, and there are people that do that as gardeners.

to need some source of heat underneath there. But what's going to happen in these coming freezes this week is it's going to drop down below freezing and then it's going to come right back up when the sun comes out in the day. We'll be up in the forties and so we don't have to survive for twenty four hours below thirty two degrees. So we're just protecting them a little bit, and that ought to get them through. Okay.

be all right with it. I'm gonna adjust my statement a little bit as I think about that.

you're going to be all right. If you want to be careful, just put them on dolly running in the garage and bring it back out. But I don't think that's needed for a Kalamandin in the freeze. We're about to have.

morning when there was later on. All right, take care