"It is Time to Plant."

Katie r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with Skip rictor It's crazy trip. You just watch him as you got dasyas the club back not a sound gas. Well, good morning, good Sunday morning. Matter of fact, you're looking outside the door and your neighbors lights are off, Go bang on the door, tell them they're missing garden Line and they will

sew. So appreciate the kindness of that reminder from coming from you. You know, if you uh, if you are looking for an opportunity to garden, well, it's here. It is absolutely here. This time of the year, it is just pleasant to be outside. You know, occasionally we get some rain storms or maybe a little on the cool side, but in general, any of us that lived through last summer are very grateful to have kind of whether we're having now to get outside and do things. Time plant

vegetables, timeplant herbs, time to plant flowers. It's time to plant shrubs and trees and ornamental grasses and perennial flowers, on and on. It's just it's time. It is time to plant. And if you want to have a beautiful landscape over the wintertime, Now's the time to jump in with both

feet and get that done. If you are looking for an opportunity to get some beautiful plants and some soil and some fertilizers to go with it, so you can get the whole package to go home and turn your landscape into a showplace. And Chenan Gardens they've got you covered. They're out there in Richmond. They're on FM three fifteen on the Katie Fulsher side of Richmond. The website's easy Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com in chenned Gardens Richmond dot com. When

you go there, you're going to find everything that you need. I was just looking at some of the stuff they had on the lot the other day. It's it is really inspiring. Any kind of color plant, you're going to be able to find it there. I mean, they it's just what they do. They just have everything that you would need in stock. But I want to when I want to suggest them if you're out in that area.

Another reason worth going is they're gift shops and all of the things they offer as gifts for gardeners and we're about to enter that season so be thinking about people on your list that might be, you know, interested in something beautiful for the home or for outside. They got a lot of gardening bling.

It's just it's easy to find something good at enchanted gardens. The color plants are just really eye popping right now that they've got out there, and you know, one of the best things when you go there you get good advice. I mean you do. The Lennerman family, they've been doing this a long time. It's no news, no news to them. You know

how to garden or what plants do well. They know that they've lived here, they've done it, and all their staff well well trained, and it just it's nice to be greeted by bright faced folks who know what they're talking about and take you to write what they're looking for to I noticed a while back there a good selection of bulbs, how you call them. See how that's holding up because they carry the best bulbs in the world, the kind

that you can really depend on out there in chant Gardens in Richmond. I am in the process of doing a vegetable garden renovation at the house. I've got my summer Okra trials of breeding lines and stuff that I was doing, and we're transferring over our plant strawberries earlier. I've got a bunch of cool season plants that I have not put in yet, and I'm going to try starting some from sea out in the garden. That would be things like lettuce

and carrots. Those we just directly plant those right out there. Remember when you're planting greens, think to yourself, how much greens do I eat in a week? And I think about that. I'll let us if I doubt that you need a three foot wide by ten foot long bed of lettuce unless you're feeding the neighborhood. But just plant small amounts and do it over time. Remember, the bigger you make a garden, the more you have to take care of. And I like big gardens because I just love gardening.

But you know, if you're just kind of getting started and want to put some food on the table and enjoy the process, make it easier on yourself. Ever square foot you plant is a square foot you're dealing with weeds and other things. So start small and then grow into it, and you'll find yourself Your garden gets bigger and bigger as you enjoy it more, come up with new things and discover new plants you can't live without. That's kind of

how that works. Someone had asked me something about the condition of our roof, and I was I was thinking about, you know, the last time that we had that roof redone was a long time ago, and it's about time that I need I get somebody to come out and take a good look at it. And Brickman is the kind of company that they can do that. They've been here for a long time. And when you've been around, you know, for fifty years, I think they're fifty years this year.

You don't stay that long without taking care of your customers. You don't stay that long by jumping up on a roof and saying, oh, you need such and such when maybe you don't. You need somebody that's honest and somebody that knows what they're doing, somebody that uses a top quality materials and top quality workmanship. And that's also how you get yourself to the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award winning and that's what Brinkman does. Now. They've got all kinds

of roofs. You can do composite, if you want to do a metal roof, or if you want to use their Brinkman's Timberline solar shingle is that cool? Your roof is your solar energy generator, not a panel on top, but your roof is. Call them up two eight one four eight oh seventy six sixty three, or go to the website Brinkman Quality dot com. That's Brinkman with two ends at the end, quality dot com, and they'll

help you understand your options and just what they can do for you. Don't wait, you know, until somebody knocks on your door wants to get up there and fix your roof. Go with someone who's been around for a long time. That's why we like Brinkman. Thinking about color out in the gardens, I was mentioning that this is the time to plan everything. When you get into the cool season. Our plant palette it gets a little smaller, but it's still a really broad and good one. And that includes things like

Johnny jump ups and violas and pansies. They're all closely related and they all like cold weather. They do just fine in cold weather. It includes things that are the ornamental cabbages and ornamental kales. Those are really attractive, they have the color in the foliage. And also those I've noticed the ornamental kale. Especially if you leave it into the spring season, it'll send up big beautiful bloomstalks that are also kind of cool to look at. We've got snap

dragons. We've got to listen. We've got cycle cycloman or a very beautiful plant to put in. Maybe you got some shady areas in the landscape, you could put some cyclemen out there and they'll do just great. In those kind of locations, you can find all kinds of good quality plants to make your place beautiful. We love to brag about our feed stores here on garden Line. The Spring Creek Feed is the feed store if you live anywhere near

the Magnolia area. It's really it's on FM twenty nine seventy eight, and it's really one of those stores where, first of all, you drive up and it's impressive there, and then you walk in the door and the impression continues. Every kind of product you could need for your lawn and garden, and certainly for hats and livestock and so on. It's a feed store for crying out loud. But do you need insecticides, fungicides herbicized, do you

need fertilizers? What do you need for your lawn and landscape. They're going to have it there at Spring Creek Feed Center. If you're connected with Faight FFA four H. If you're a senior citizen or maybe a military, they have a discount for you and they also will special deliver. So check out Spring Creek Feed there again. They're on Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight.

Let's take a little break and we will be right back if you would like to get on the boards and visit seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning on a still early Sunday morning. By the way, thanks for getting up and listening to garden Line. We enjoy talking to you about gardening and we enjoy hearing from you as well. And to do that you would need our phone number, and that's called seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four one three two on two

KTRH. As simple as that. Hey, if you haven't fertilized your lawn yet, it's time to go ahead and get that done. Don't delay another day, because every day you give that grass where we have mild temperatures and has good nutrients in the soil, the grass gets stronger and stronger, and

that's important. And so putting a good fall fertilizer like Nitropoces fall special, that would be an excellent choice right now because it helps that plant, the grass plant develop the carbohydrates to get to become heartier and to come out stronger in the spring. Now, Nitrophos has their Texas three step as a fall application trio. Another step of it is an eagle turf fungicide. Eagle turf

is a systemic It soaks into the tissues. So when things like large patch or brown patch take all root rot come in, you've got a fungicide there that's helping fight against them. Now, if you've been plagued by that every winter, you get the big circle in there, you need to get ahead of it because once the circles appear, spraying is not a whole lot of good. I mean, you can prevent some additional ones, but those circles are going to be brown all winter, so you kind of miss the boat

there. So go ahead and get that out if you've got a problem where you're always fighting the brown patch. And then finally the barricade is the third step and barricade is a preventative herbicide. You put it down, you watered in. By the way, the fertilizer and the barricade can be put down on the same day, separate applications and then watered in with a half inch of water, and that's where they go to work. Now you're gonna find

nitrofoss at Katie Hardware. You can find it to RCW Nursery. You can find it at the Arborgate up in Tombole. You can find it in a lot of places. It's widespread, and that trio is designed specifically for the fall season. I was taking care of We've got this herb planter on the back patio and I was taking a look at it. The other I was taking care of some other the things and plants and whatnot. I've got my wheelbarrows there. They're waiting on me to put in my fall color and vegetables

in those. But the herb planner, we've had some chives that, let's just say they've receded, and it's like the whole herb planner looks like sort of a wheat grass planting or something. We've got in the other day, my wife and I were cleaning all the junk out of there and getting it, getting it ready to go. And it's time to stick some more herbs in because remember perennial herbs. They can be planted any time of the year, but this is a great time to get them in. Get ahead,

start with them. And hey, if you I keep talking about giftings and stuff, because that's the time of year we're in now. But if you have a friend who would like a little herb in a pot, maybe a window sill herb or something like that, what a great gift. You plant it up, do all the stuff for them, get it all pretty and ready to go, and every time they look at that, they'll remember who gave that to them, with fond memories. I think giving plants is a

great idea. We're going to head now out to the phones. By the way, the number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we're going to talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, Hey, good mornings. Get Yesterday I had email g regarding my weeds. Yes, my pool pump head BBC pipe he had busted, Yes, and it had and I got your response back. Okay, And but you see how many weeds I have, right, Yes, So if I pull all of them, do I when I get them out of the ground, aren't they gonna

aren't some of the wheat seed's gonna fall? Well, they're all going to fall if you don't get them on the ground. And so the one I suggested you pull is the fall or slender aster, and it's it's a lawn weed that has little for those other folks listening, a little dime size white to pinkish purple flower. People have seen those in the yard. But each of those flowers has like fifty seeds in it, and there's a lot of

flowers. So if you can find it's easy to find where it comes out of the ground and just kind of wiggle it out, or use a printing for RS weeding for it to get under it, and just kind of get it out of there with as much of the blooms and whatnot as you can. And it's best if you catch it early and the seeds haven't even developed yet. But that one, you're pulling it just because you're saving yourself a

bazillion weed seeds. Some of the others you had are warm season, they're going to die anyway, and then you had a couple of the gosh dollar weed that was in there, and that's one you can treat now and you can treat it again in the spring if you need to. So the dollar weed, I saw that. You said that I could put some kind of stuff on it right now? Can I get that at A Oh? Yeah, you can get anything. You can get anything at ACE. Yeah. They So if you've got a couple of yeah, more than one great Ace

Hardware stores up there in the Supers area. How about celsius? Can I put celsius down? You could use You could use that on the dollar weed, but it's it's more of a post emergent product, so I didn't put that on the list. Generally it's a little harder to find and certain weeds it's the one we need to. We need to use celsius on other weeds. We can control them with other options that are easier to find. But yes, that would also work. So the do you recommend that I put

down the post emergent? I got the weed beater at uh. Yeah, spray spray those weeds that I talked about in the email with it, uh And and that's it. Then don't worry about anything else, go ahead and get into fall and in the spring when things come back up and you're looking at stuff that that would be the time to make some retreating decisions if you need to do that. Hey, Sandy, go ahead, Okay, all right. I was gonna say, I appreciate the call. I'm gonna I'm

gonna need to run, but thank you for that calling. Good luck with that that weed situation. Yes, mab bye bye. I was taking care of the the rose I have on the back patio. It's it's going up a pillar and it is just beautiful. It's the Peggy Martin. That's a rose they found after Katrina flooded, and it was under salt water for I don't know how long. It's a vining type growth habit, but it just loads up with little pink flower clusters and I was getting them up in the

air. I have these dogs that think anything I plant is dog food to chew on, dig up, pull out, tear apart, fold, spindle, mutilate, and I was taking care of those and it just reminded me of the antique rosing for him. If you maybe you don't have roses, or maybe you have a rose bush or two But if you thought about like some of the other forms, like a nearly thornless type of rose like Marie Pavier, that you put it right by the door, you can walk by.

It's not going to rip your legs open. Maybe a small shrub rose or a large shrub rose. How about a climber we climb. They have climbers that bloom once in the spring, and then they have climbers that repeat bloom. They have all kinds of roses out there. In fact, they've developed some of their own, what they call the pioneer roses. They bred the showiest and toughest of the antiques shrubs and species roses. And you should see the collection of those. I guess those are the new antiques, is

another way to think about them. But they are very, very cool and antiqu roseen Borium is really easy to find. I mean it's up there in the Independence area. I'd suggest this, write these down. I'm gona give you a phone number and a website phone number nine seven nine eight three six fifty five forty eight website Antique rose Emporium dot com, Antiqurosimporium dot com. When you go, you will love it. It is a really really cool

place to go. I always enjoy heading out to the antiqu Rosenpoium. Sandy was talking about Ace Hardware's and there are there are some. I used to live in Cypers and so I went to the Ace Hardware's up there in that area, and it's just there's so many that no matter where you live around the area, there's gonna be an Ace pretty close to you have not right across the street. And Ace Hardware now has forty stores, and we think about them. When I think of ACE, I think about gardening first,

because they have everything you need for your lawn and garden. But I also think about all the things they have for home, beautiful indoor decorations and features, just everything you can imagine and then some. That's kind of how Ace Hardware is. But if you thought about Aces a place for your Christmas lighting and decorations, well they are. They got every kind of light you can imagine. Everything you would think or need, They've got it. You need

a wreath, do you need a garland? Do you want to decorate? Yes? Ace is a place for all of that and it's easy to find the Ace. Just go to Acehardware dot com and find their store. Locator, and that's how you get to the ones closest to you. And when you go in, ask them to see their lights by the foot. I'll just leave that mystery kind of hanging in the air. Ask them to see what the lights by the foot system is. I think you will find it

also to be pretty cool. So I was talking about taking care of my rose bush and keeping it out of the way of the dogs. I had to put a cage around it by the post to keep them from they literally, by the way, I'm very impressed with Peggy Martin, because this rose grew, the dogs chewed it off at the ground, it grew again, they chewed it off at the ground again, and then this thick headed gardener

finally said, you know what, I gotta put some hardware class. I had to put this little collar or cylinder of hardware cloth around the rose up high enough to keep their little chewy mouths off of it. And now it's doing just great, and I'm hoping out of appreciation this spring it loads up with blooms, and I can tell you it will, because that's that's that Peggy. Peggy Martin rose a pretty cool deal. Uh, If you haven't been to Ana plants and produce that is up there in the Montgomery area.

Ana is just on the east side of Montgomery, and when I think of Ana, the first thing that comes to my mind is all the landscape, bling and decorations and everything they have. But every time I drive up to Ana, the first thing I see is color, color, color, And boy do they ever have a lot seven days a week, nine to five three acres filled with every kind of plant you would want to grow and everything

you need for your patio. Ooh that rhymes Ana plants and produce. If you live up in that area, you definitely need to check it out. Well, we're going to go to the NIKY News Network and it is seven one three two fifty eight seventy four. If you would like to give Josh a call. Well, good morning, good Sunday morning, Welcome back garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions if you'd like to give us a call seven one three two point

two k t rh simple as that. I was talking to a person the other day who was replacing some trees and they were, you know, we were discussing what are some species that might do good in that area, and so on. And I remember going into the planting process and the success and you know, there are a number of things that are part of making a successful tree planting and a thriving tree in your yard. But some that come to mind, and this is more in the area of mistakes I see people

make. But the first is the planting hole. If you dig a little straight sided cylinder planting hole that's about the size of the root ball, the root cylinder that you have not loosened the soil at all on the sides. Your shovel made that clay slick sided, and it just becomes an underground bathtub. It literally does. So think of the aquarium at your house. Here, you've got this, you know, this thing holding water. It's got

gravel in the bottom. And people always ask me, well, what if I put some gravel in the bottom for drainage, Well, would that work in a bathtub or an aquarium? Of course not, that doesn't make it drain So making a hole that's larger maybe two two and a half three times at least the size of that roots cylinder, that's helpful because it loosens that soil. The second thing that is when people pull the container out, they won't cut the roots going around the container. And if you have a round

container, you probably have some roots going around the container. Cut them three or four places I need, you know, around the cylinder. Just make a vertical cut. I use a little box blade about a one inch blade on those. You can also use pointers if it's a little bit bigger root,

but cut it it will sprout. And I one time I was up at Arburgate and Beverly allowed me to take some root balls out of a pot of a tree, lift them up and do a cutting on a couple of them, and then put them right back in the ground and came back two weeks later, and those cut INDs all had fresh roots about two inches long or inch to two inches long growing out of those cut ends. It helps the plant establish, especially if you've got that circling root problem, which is

only going to be a worst problem over time. Third thing is people put junk in the planning hole that doesn't need to be there. That tree has to grow in the site you planted it. It's going to have roots two and a half times or more the branch spread in all directions. So what you do to a little one two three foot hole. It's not going to matter. In fact, it'll work against you. Putting a bunch of compost in the hole. Again we go back to the bathtub of soggy, wet

conditions, and that compost just decomposes anaerobically. I went to a site in Houston one time that had a whole row of shrubs that was dying and they were just going downhill. Grab one and pulled on it, and it came right out of the ground and that root system had that black goo, swamp gas smell of decomposing organic matter. Again, the hole was the bathtub. The organic matter now rotted anaerobically, and that those shrubs were just dying left

and right. And so you can avoid all that. Dig a big area, put the hole you dug out from the planting hole back in when you plant it, watered a little bit after you've filled it about halfway, and then fill it up. Put some sort of a berm around it if you want. But I think that two tools that you need to have when you're planning. This is true a tree, is true of every kind of plant,

really, But well, the first one is just trees. That's the tree Hugger sprinklers, and I talk about them all the time because you hook them to a hose, you put them around the trunk, and when you want to water, you can water where you want to water. With those. You don't have to turn on the whole yard to have your trees watered. And the first year, now's the time to plant. But the first

year is going to be the cool one. And really the first five years you don't want that tree to ever lack for water or the shrub, and tree Hugger takes care of that. If you want to know more about them, they're sold all over town. You go to Treehgger Sprinkler, treehuggersprinkler dot com find out more. But that is your insurance going in through the next

summer season anytime you're going to plant any tree or shrub. Now, the other tool that I would say you need is not really a tool probably in your thinking, but in mine is it has to grow six twelve six. That's the one I keep telling you that I use every time I plant something, whether it's a perennial or a shrub or a tree, ornamental grass,

is all of that. Mix it up in water, water, it in, do it again a week later, again a week later, so three times those roots are being drenched with seaweed extracts, with the six twelve six nutrients, with the medino soil activator, and you can use it as a folier spray too. But if you would just do that with it, that gets them off on their chance to a good success. And those are just

some base sick tips on things where I see people go wrong. Uh, you know, the whole the cutting the roots and then what you put back in the hole, and those those are common mistakes people make. There's some others and we can talk about those sometime. But I was just thinking through this after that conversation this past week, and and I just think that will really will really help get your plants off to a much much better start.

Well, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we're going to go out here to Marene in Lakeside of States. Hello marine, good morning. I hope I have a simple question and I have my own remedy, but of course you have more experience. So here I go. We had the drought and we were told to limit our water and then all of a sudden, I saw there were bad spots,

so I figured, well, it's my day a better water. So what has happened is as my lawn person comes when he gets here, so it's hard for me to well, it's just tell him the truth. He arrives or he doesn't. So any way, I've got I've got what I think is uh the wheel tracks from his lawn mower. Okay, And so I do have worm castings just to sort of maybe eating it out a little bit, and I wanted to check, a is that okay? Or is it a real bad Are you trying to use the worm castings to fill in the

tracking? Right, it's not really terrible. It's just that that's not the way my lawn looks. So they're not trenches. It's just yeah, I wouldn't do that, just to cut to the check, and I wouldn't. What's going to happen is you're going to have prettier grass in those little straight lines of the tracks, and that that kind of gets interesting looking. So

I would avoid that. Uh there, But wormcastings are you know, a prize possession, and I would save them and use them, you know, for your container plants and any special plants you're wanting to put around fertilize a little bit when they're young. But as far as those tracks, I would just fill in with a good quality topsoil mix. The number of places can get you set up on that, and uh, that's probably the best thing you need to do there. And he needs to quit. He needs to

quit tracking up your yard like that. That's discussing well, you know, yes, I tried to figure out what it was. It's just everybody's lawn around me looks just perfect. They don't have any of this. And so I do walk the dog, and I started noticing there was another lawn that sort of looked like mine. And so we'll go from there. I do a question. I'm going to have me. I have to go to a break. If you want to hang on, I'll take you when I come

back. Our phone number or can you talk about me one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two k t R H. Well, good Sunday morning. You are listening to garden Line and we're here to talk gardening. If you'd like to give us a call, our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven, one three, two one two, fifty eight, seventy four. I have talked about this before, about fall season, the best time to plant, blah

blah blah, all that kind of stuff. You know. In spring, everybody's a gardener. It just seems like, you know, it's something about coming out of the winter, even though we really don't have a winner here, something about coming out of that winter season. It just inspires people to grow. That's a good thing. But what about fall. We need to get some of the gardening fever, and we need to catch that in the

fall, because this is a great time to plant. It's been since even back in September it was hot, but it was time to get in a lot of the warm season fall garden things. And it just each month keeps going like that. And with our winter that we have here, we can grow things all through the winter and occasionally, depending on how tender the plant is, you're going to probably have to go out there and cover it or something like that. But it's not like, you know, we have a

week of just horrible hard freezes and things like that. It's easier, it's easier to take care of and we need to be doing that because the fall season is when so much good can happen. You know, the cool season garden really is one of the easiest and most nutritious gardens of the year. And the reason I say that is we have all the blue leaf vegetables, the cruciferous crops also called coal crops, and it's the blue leafed vegetables.

If you want to use that way of looking at it. It could be broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, collars, kabbie, I don't know, I left some out, the Brussels sprouts. All of those vegetables packed full of things that are nutritious, and I don't mean just like vitamins and whatnot. I mean things that like fight cancer, things that have other effects

on our bodies that are just absolutely health enhancing. And then we have the greens, the leafy greens I mentioned kale and collars in that first group. We have lettuce, We have spinach, and we have a regula all of those. And you know, a lot of people a salad, and I grew up this way. A salad was like this gnarly hard thing, watery called iceberg, lettuce and a couple of tomato chunks. Well, now, oh, slathered in tons of salad dressing. Well, Now we can grow

a lot of greens to flavor our salads. For example, I mentioned arugula I picked young. It's kind of a nutty type flavor. We have sorrel which has a lemony flavor. You can drop, chop up some chives and put it in there. There's a lot of things you can do to enhance your salads without just slathering them with some things. Probably that great for you anyway, But cool season is a great great time to garden. Now, if you're thinking about putting a garden in, you need to have good soil.

That is first first the bronze stuff, then the green stuff. And one place that you can find that kind of soil is Ciena Moltz that's down in Roach Sharon. I was there for an appearance this year. Some of you came down for that. Thank you for that, by the way, I enjoyed visiting with you and meeting you. But they're on FM five twenty one. Their website is cienamlts dot com and they have everything they've got. If you need soil, if you need compost, if you need mulches,

do you want them in a bag? Do you want them bulk. They deliver within twenty miles of their location for a small delivery fee, and then they have all the fertilizers that I talk about on garden Line, so it's a one stop shop. It's easy to do. Monday through Friday seven to

thirty to five and Saturday seven thirty to two. They're closed today, but they'll be back open tomorrow morning, and it's time to get things settled in as the soil preparation work is done so that you can get those beautiful plants in and growing so that they do really, really well. I want to remind you guys that if you have not checked out my website, Gardening with Skip dot com, it's a new site in its early stages, but we've

got a lot of good information up there. The lawn care schedule is up there, tells you what to do when it comes to fertilizing, mowing, and watering through the year, and it tells you all the different products if you're an organic gardener, if you grow use synthetic products either way, there's

a list of the fertilizers that you can use on there. Then there's the lawn pest Disease and weed management schedule, so it guides you on insects from January to December, diseases January to December, weed activity January to December, and again it lists your product options, both synthetic and organic. And that's

all on gardening with skip dot com. Right now. There's also up there an article on protecting plants from frosts and freezes, and I would just say get it, download it, print it out if you want, save it on your computer so that you have it as a reference, because there's coming a day when here comes that weather and now we're trying to figure out what's

the best way to protect this. And don't always look at what your neighbors do, because I see a lot of people protecting plants the wrong way, such as wrapping the top and tying it to the trunk, and it looks like a landscape lollipop that is not helping. The drapes over the plant need to go all the way to the ground and be sealed around the edges so wind doesn't blow up underneath them. It's as simple as that. You know. I was talking yesterday about the RCW fall Fling that's next Saturday, and

I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. They're gonna have a barbecue sandwich lunch. They're going to have a sail on all their shrubs and select trees as well. And the folks at RCW they grow their own trees and they have a wide selection of species that do very very well here. They're going to be given away seedlings of lace bark elm Mexican white oak which is also called Monterey oak, and live oaks. Seedlings. All three of those

will be available. They're going to give away fertilizers. They're going to give away frost cloth, which that will definitely come in handy, right, we need we're going to need frostcloth before this is done. And then they're going to have some sales like the San Philippe red maple fifteen gallons. Normally it's one hundred and fifty bucks for fifteen gallon San Philippi ninety nine ninety nine for a San Philippe fifteen gallons, so you know that's a huge sale. Live

oaks normally one hundred and fifty on sale for ninety nine ninety nine. So while you're out there, just plan on picking up some of the plants that you're going to want to put in. Now. At RCW you're going to find oh, not just trees, I mean vegetables, flowers, herbs. Just if you plant it in your yard, they probably got some of their and they can get them in and boy, they have a great selection, an excellent selection of roses too. So you just have to call them and

see what they have in stock because their normal selection is huge. You can go to RCW nurseres dot com if you want to find out more like where it's located. By the way, it's on two forty nine Tombo Parkway where it comes into belt Way eight. But I will be there next Saturday from eleven thirty to one thirty, so I hope you'll come out and see me. Bring me some plant samples in a bag, we'll take a look at them. If you've got a bug, throw it in the bag, we'll

take a look at that. If you want to bring pictures on your phone, maybe you're thinking about doing some landscape work and you have some questions. You know, what will grow back in this area or what could I use to I don't know, it's your questions. You bring them and we will talk. It's a chance to sit down eye to eye and visit about, you know, whatever kinds of gardening questions you have, and I enjoy that.

You know, here on the on the air, I have a short time with people to kind of go back and forth and answer some things. But when we go to these appearances, I mean, it's eye to eye time. You can come up and we can talk. We can figure out what it is that you need to do. Who wants you to have success. That's the bottom line. When someone says I tried to grow plants, I tried to garden, I got a brown thumb. That just breaks my heart. You don't have a brown thumb. You have an uninformed thumb.

And that's what we're here for. And when you start getting information, the thumb starts getting greener, if you will, and we do that every Saturday from six to ten, every Sunday from six to ten. You can listen to past shows on podcasts too. If you miss a show, go back listen to it on podcasts. Follow us on Facebook, Follow us garden Line on Facebook page. We have a very active Facebook page, a lot of information going on there. You can follow me on Instagram. All that's on

my website gardening with skip dot com. There's a link to Facebook and the links to Instagram on there, but hey, come join us. Let's continue the conversation, and let's make sure that you have a more beautiful garden and a more bountiful landscape and, by the way, in the process, more fun. You know, sometimes when I hear about landscaping, and you know, you're listening to a lecture, reading a book, it's like, there's

all these rules. You have to do this, you have to do that, you have to do this, and people just get overwhelmed and they think I don't know how to do that. I remember the first time someone called me they bought a salvia GREGGYI and they were like, I don't know how to take care of it. And I was just thinking, what do you mean you? I wan't have to take care of it. Just there. It's not that difficult. There are rules, are things that are aesthetically prettier

than other things, but have fun. It's your yard, it's your palette. What makes you happy, Grow that, what do you like to eat? Grow that? Gardening should be fun and hopefully we help make it that way. Well, I'm going to run away for a minute. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Rict. It's crazy Trim. Just watch him

as sept Day. Well, good morning, and welcome to garden Line. Good Sunday morning. It be specific. We are glad you're listening. Our phone number if you would like to give us a call is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I have some Christmas cactus. In fact, I have a lent Easter cactus and a Christmas cactus and a Thanksgiving cactus. That they're just fun to grow. And they're easy to grow. I mean, believe me,

I'm I can neglect plants like the best of them. These things. If they get a little on the dry side, they're okay, but they want to be moist, not soggy wet. But I put them in a bright spot. Sometimes they go outside during the summertime in a real shady spot and they love that. But I just enjoy them, and mine are one

of them. Starting set buds, the other one isn't setting buds yet because I think it's a It probably is more of the Christmas cactus end of how long it takes to get buds set on a plant when the day link starts to get shorter and shorter. But they're beautiful and if you don't have one, you need you need to get one. They make great plant gifts too, by the way. But out at Enchanted Forest at in Richmond, boy they have a stock of those in and it is unbelievable, and they'll tell

you how to take care of it too. That's important knowing how to take care of them, because you let them get too dry and other sorts of environmental changes around them, and those buds will just drop right off, And so you can avoid that. And if you got to Enchanted Forest there, it's just easy to find plants that do well there. By the way, they are stocked up on vegetables and herbs as well as every other plant. But I was talking earlier about, you know, vegetable gardens and healthy herbs

and all of that. Well, just go out to Enchanted this afternoon be a good time to head out there. They're on FM twenty seven fifty nine outside of Richmond. So if you're in Richmond going towards sugar Land direction, it'll be way off to the right. FM twenty seven fifty nine is the intended Forest. That's the road you're looking for now. Clay and Danny, they are part of the team that runs that place that absolutely knows what they're

talking about. And again, when you go to a garden center and they know their stuff, it helps you have success. Another thing they have I forgot to mention this the holiday Amarillis. Oh my gosh, forced Amarillis bulbs are just so beautiful, and this would be a great gift. Maybe you go visit somebody and you want to kind of have a hostess gift for visiting. Be better in a holiday amillas or a Christmas cactus. Two good options

out there in the chanet for us. We're going to head now over to Bear Creek and talk to Bill. Hello, Bill, Good, Good morning. Rick Say. I did some tree pruning about two weeks ago and we installed saw it. I know it was a little bit late, but needed to be done. My live oaks are dropping eggcorns like I've never seen before. In fact, I don't recall they ever did it. Before in an old house that I had used to get hundreds. But this is the first

year that live oaks are dropping egcorns. We prune them just a little over two weeks ago, and of course they went to the stress is the Is that a sign of stress on the tree? Your plants can do things like that when they are stressed. It's almost like keep the species alive, thing, like let's make lots of babies here. But I don't think that's the

whole reason. On your live oaks, they have a cycle and they some years the acorn production is just a lot higher than others, and so I think I wouldn't worry about it. It's not a sign the plant's dying or any Okay, this is the first time I've seen any at all, and it's there a lot compared to my neighbors trees. The other thing is with the sod with all those acorns dropping, I can see what goes on the sidewalk, but I'm wondering how many of being embedded in the lawn. Yeah,

can I expect some sprouting in the spring. You know, you generally don't see that, and you really don't notice it because you're mowing your lawn and there's this little green ceiling trying to come up and as you're chopping okay, okay, pregnant from getting going. Yeah, I's a little concerned. It's never concerned with the old trees at the old house. But well, you know, I guess you can check that off the worry list and get

home with the other things you want to get done out. Okay. Yeah, there's plenty, plenty of other things besides the goud and need to worry about about the power. Yes, that's right, Bill, Thank you. I appreciate that call very much. Yeah, taking care of the lawn is important. And by the way, if you haven't fertilized your lawn for fall, you still can. I know. On my schedule it says October because

that's when we want you to fertilize. But if you miss it, it's not like, you know, there's this alarm goes off and oh you can't fertilize anymore. Go ahead and get it done. If you miss this thing, go ahead and get it done. Nelson Plant Food makes a carbo load that is an excellent example of what we call a fall fertilization. Fall fertilizer, a winter fertilizer, whatever word you want to put on it. All we're saying is the nitrogen's lower and we got good potassium. The third number

and carbo load is that. Plus it has a pre emergent herbicide in it. So when you put it down you want to ride away, go ahead and water it in. Unless you know it's going to rain that day. Just go ahead and water it in just a half inch of water, and that way the fertilizer dissolves and gets into the root system and the pre emergent moves to the soil surface where it stops weeds. So you need it. We call that incorporating it. But go ahead and water it in with a

half inch. Now, ever bag you buy this fall of Nelson's plant food carbo load two dollars. Dean is donating two dollars to the Randy Lemon Memorial Scholarship up at A and M for horticulture students. What a great cause, y'all know, if you listen to Randy, you know how much he loved A and M. And how proud he would be to know that there is a scholarship in his name carrying on his legacy. And each bag now's the time to get him two dollars a bag on carbo load by Nelson's. Let's

see, we are gonna go here. You know, I want to talk about something for just a minute. Star a Hope is one of those places that you just can't adequately explain in a short time. And I've asked Scott Arthur from Star of Hope to come by the show. He's going to be here in the eight o'clock hour and we're going to talk all kinds of things that I think you will be really surprised you did not know about Star of Hope and how important it is. And I've bragged on them before. I've

talked about how what they do makes a difference. It's not a meal. Now you're back on the street, good luck, It's okay, Come on in. We're going to do the things necessary to turn your life around, whether you're dealing with drugs, whether you need the education on how to get a job, whether you need just a place to get on your feet so you can save up some money to be able to get a car to get

to work. You see what I'm talking about. That's Star of Hope and Scott's going to be in here from eight to nine o'clock to day, and we're going to talk about it. And I would ask that you take some time to really listen to that segment because you know, as a compassionate person, this is a way to put your compassion into action in a way. You know, money well spent, and that money that makes a difference not only in the lives of individuals, but in our community as a whole.

That's shmission dot org. But just stay tuned for that. I'm going to take a break here. The number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. When I come back, Marty, you'll be the first up. Well, good morning on a beautiful Sunday to come. It is going to get a little rainy later in the day, but we got some time to get outside and get a little bit of work done. And boys, at ever an important time to do that. When we put down our

fall fertilization, we strengthen our grass plants. We get the roots ready to go by by putting the nutrients they need. The plant takes it up, it makes carbohydrates and there we go into fall and we know that we're going to have a good, strong grass plant that is important. There's a lot of activities to be doing out there, around and about on the landscape. One thing though, I would suggest, if you don't make the call right away, that you write this down so that you can, and that is

the Affordable Tree Service. Have them come out, have them look at your property, do an assessment of your trees, or just get in line to go ahead and get those trees pruned. Now, tell them you're a garden line listener, because that puts you at the front of the line. But a tree pruning season is on us. And Martin stays busy because he does things right, takes care of his customers, he does good work. He absolutely has that reputation. It has for a long time here in town.

His phone number is seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Maybe some pruning is needed, maybe it's not. He'll tell you if it is or not. What kinds of activities are you planning as far as changes in your landscape. You're going to put in a new water line or maybe a driveway or anything like that that affects your trees, and have Martin come out and take a look at it so you don't make a mistake and do Damn. That

is really difficult to completely recover from. That is so important. Go to you can call them again seven one, three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three, or go to the website afftree Service dot com. We're going to go now out to Marty and Fairfield. Hello Marty, good morning. Get a question. I was out working in the yar yesterday and found that my avocado tree, for the first time in two years, is blooming. It has little blooms on it, and I don't know what to do with

it. Nothing. You can do, nothing you need to do. Just wait and watch and we'll see how that turns out. How when you say little, how tall is it? It's about a few and a half three feet tall. Oh my, it really is a little Yeah. If it were mine, I would just take those off and let the tree put its energy into making a bigger tree. Now. I know that's hard to hear because you planted it so you could eat avocados, But sometimes implant for that

small carrying for fruit. Carrying a load of fruit is tough because a lot of energy goes into making that wonderful avocado, and that energy could go into growing branches to developing cold heartiness by making carbohydrates. And so I think I would would take that cluster off a tree that size. Well, it's not just one or two, it's a buns Okay, Well, all the more reasons, Yeah, all the more reason because I mean, if it tried to set all those fruit number one, I'm not sure it would, but

that that's just too much. That's asking too much of that tree at this time. So you know, you don't have to be neurotic about oh I got to get everyone, but just as you see them, just snip them out of there. This year. Let's get that tree during the coming season twenty twenty four. Let's get it up growing and healthy and big, and then have some branches to hang avocados on and maybe feed it in Fevary or March a little bit later coming out. Yeah, March is probably fine for

that. It's gonna benefit from the adequate supply of nutrients in the soil. So small applications. If you use an organic product, they gradually release. They're not salt based. You can put a little more down at one time. But with most fertilizers. It just think about the tree. It takes up nutrients every day over time. So to use an extreme example, if you were to go out to a plant and give it its whole twelve month supply of nutrient at one time, well, what's going to happen eleven months

from now? Those nutrients Some of them are not going to be there. They're gonna be gone, and so it's better to gradually feed over time. So there's different ways we do that, slow release fertilizers or just small applications. Yeah, well, there you go. And they have several products that would work great on an avocado for sure. They have the like the citrus product that would be fine for avocado. Even the green bag the six two

four would be great for your avoca. Green bag. Yeah, because at this point in time, we're wanting to stimulate and support good growth and that all their products can do that. But there's not a specific one you have to use on an avocado. I have the red bag out, Yeah, is that the one for acid plants or I'm trying to okay, yeah, that one to be fine. It's not going to suddenly drop the pH to two points down. I mean it's a very gradual thing. You could use

that. If your pH is a little high, you could use that. But again, I just just get some down next spring and then do it several times over the course of the season and small amounts and stop about sometime in August early to mid August, Stephen. And here's why those fertilizers are releasing over time, and we don't want to push a lot of tender fall growth going into winter with an avocado tree. Okay, that was good,

Thank you so much. Thanks you take care. Yeah, Microlife has a number of great products for that, you know right now for the lawns. By the way, Microlife brown Patch it's a five to one three which, by the way, you could fertilize an avocado tree with that. You just could. I mean, it's a good product and it'll work very well. But you get your five to one three down as soon as possible, that's

the one that's going to help it go into the winter time. Be a stronger grass plant if you have regarding it a new area, especially, I encourage you to do the purple bag, which is the micro grow by an inoculant that you don't put much of it down all you're doing is inoculating the soil. It's kind of like you're going to bake bread and you need a

sour dough starter. Remember though some of you know what that is. Well, you're just inoculating with that and that really enhances and microbes rule the world. They make your plants healthy. So it's a good time to do humates plus. And I should have mentioned this to Marty, but you could do the the blue bag hum Mats plus. It's a zero zero four and it would be another one that could be done now really on your avocado tree as well as on your lawn. Go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com. I'll quit

trying to explain everything they got. Just go there and read about these things and also find out where you can get Microlife products. They're very widely available, easy to come by here in the Greater Houston area. Well, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Uh. The the importance of soil is something I always am harping on because I see so many plants plopped

in an unprepared plot. That's my Peter Piper horticulture version. I guess. But when you PLoP a plant in an unprepared plot, it it made up, have the drainage it needs, It may not have the nutrients that it needs. The soil may be, for whatever reason, pour in microbial content or some other thing that's part of enhancing the root system. And so you

start with good, good bed preparation. I don't care. That's true if you're planning, you know, like a vego bed up on top of the ground for whatever you would grow in a vego bed or any kind of raised bed. It's true for certainly the soils out in your garden. It's true for container plants. Soil is everything, and that's why we we brag on a Nature's Way. For example, Nature's Way produces a number of different soil

blends. They have just a wide variety of options, from compost type materials to actual bed mixes, to the different kinds of things you would use to enhance your soil. You know, maybe you're adding some micronutrients, or maybe you're looking for a malts to go on top. They've got it all their numbers nine three, six, three, two, one sixty nine ninety. Now you can have them deliver, or you can drive out there and pick

it up yourself. You can pick up bags, or if you got a little trailer, go out and get some and while you're there, leave a little room because they also have a nice little plant nursery with a lot of very interesting thing many native plants too, out there at Nature's Way. Hey, by the way, every Friday is Fungal Friday. Ten percent off.

They're bagged fungal based products twenty percent off their bulk products. So you definitely want to take advantage of that because that's a really really good deal for a really really good product. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four.

I was texting with Jay from Texas Gardener the other day. We're trying to get together to have a couple of conversations we need to have and it seems like one of us or the others always going in a different direction at the time. But Texas Jay's putting out Texas Gardener and Jay are putting on the Texas Tomato Leverage Conference that's in in January on the thirteenth, that's a Saturday, January the thirteenth of twenty twenty four. So the Texas Tomato Lovers Conference

has a bunch of great speakers. I know these guys that I know they'll do a good job. They're gonna have topics on growing tomatoes with and you know for a young family, mastering container grown tomatoes, and then the best varieties for twenty twenty four plus eight steps to grafting success. Do you know you could graft the tomato plant. I'm going to be there. There's also one on tomato diseases by doctor Oong, the pathologist from Texas A and M.

I'm going to be there talking about the ten Commandments of tomatoes. Aren't you wondering what that's going to be, Well come see. If you want more information, just call them at two five four eight four eight ninety three ninety three. It's gonna be up at the Anti Grosenporian, by the way, And this is a limited space thing. You know, the building only hosts so many people, and last time I did this it was packed.

It was very popular event. So if you're interested, don't delay two five four eight four eight ninety three ninety three for the Texas Tomato lover conference. If you are have been dealing with brown patch every year and you get the big circles in your lawn. If you're always fighting weeds in the cool season or in spring your garden, your lawn is just overrun with weeds. Ninety

fives has a three step system. The first step is the fall fertilizer, and we've talked about that before and the importance of why that blend of nutrients is the best for promoting winter hardiness and ensuring strong growth in the spring. The barricade is their pre emergent. Now, whether it's a grassy weed or a broad leaf weed, if you put it down for the weed sprouts, it doesn't let them sprout, doesn't let them establish. They try to and

they just die. They can't make it. And that is much easier than waiting until spring when the weeds areney high, trying to figure out how to kill them. By the way, it's too late at that time, but barricade will prevent it. And then the eagle tour fungicide is the thing we put down to get ahead of the brown patch. It's all at nitrofoss. And where do you get nitrofoss? Oh, my gosh everywhere, bearings hardware on Bissinet, allspawls, hardware in the woodlands, plants of things in Brunham,

they all carry nitrofoss. Well, let's take a break our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Good morning. You are listening to Guardenline on a Sunday morning and we are here to talk about gardening with you. What's your question? What are you interested in? What are you trying to do? What would like to do? What's going wrong in the in the landscape. I know a lot of times things don't go

as we planted, and that is called the vicissitudes of nature. That's one of the things that does it. You know, sometimes nature throws us a curve, and it threw us a horrible curve this summer with that drought and heat, and our plants, you know, certainly struggled with that, and

some of them are still struggling with that kind of stress. I was thinking the other day about some container plantings and I've got a bunch of can in the backyard and thanks to the dynamic duo of Ellie and Text, the plant destroying golden retrievers at my house. They pretty well unplanted my containers for me, at least a couple of them that they could get to. I need to put some things back in there, and I'm planning on putting some cool

season color in. I just love putting a lissom spilling over the sides. Of course, I love violas. That's that's one of my favorite cool season flowers. Very very cold, hardy. Some cycleman's up in there in the top two. In fact, you know you can do that. Three stages of plant growth, a thriller, filler, spiller, something tall in the middle, that's a thriller, something that fills in around the sides, and

then something that spills over the side. So for a cool season planner, that would be something like snap dragons in the middle, some violas or pansies around the side, and then a lissom just draping over the edge of the pot. Works really good. By the way. Great fertilizer for that is nature's creation, all natural bedding plant food. It has micro hizal fungiant. It's made from things like alfalfa meal, cottonseed meal, humates, molasses,

composted poultry and calmaner and on and on. A lot of other things, including the micro hizal fungi. So if you need your cool seasoned plants to really pop with color, this would be a good one to put in when you're getting those things established, mix it into the soil or put it on afterwards. You can find it at Quality Feed. That's the feed store we like to brag on up on Luzon Street, MOUs Nursery down in Seabrook RCW up on two forty nine, which is where I'll be next Saturday. And

all Houston Garden centers carry Nature's Creation, all natural bedding plant food. I was in the backyard the other day refilling a bird feeder. I've got one of Wildbird's unlimited. They're squirrel excluding feeders, and I got to talk more about that some of the time, but that is a really really cool feeder. I don't dislike squirrels, but I don't want to buy them food. That's just how I feel. I mean that some people feed the squirrels,

you know, but that's not where I am. So the scroll excluding feeder is a good choice for me. But filling it up, and then when I went back in watching the birds that were coming to it, and feeding on it, and I noticed that when they when they're there, they're also going to the water. I have water for them outside, and I know we're about to get some rain, But in general, I don't think we remember that the birds we want to attract need water, and that that is

really important. So I always keep some water out there that birds can get to, and that will really help in drawing them into your landscape because we love to we love to have birds and take care of our birds. Let's go out to Magnolia. We're going to talk to LP. Hello, LP, how are you doing well? Thank you? Oh great, great? My question. I have a lot of clay in the soil, and I

was wondering what's the best method of trying to fix that soil. And then second second that I have some Virginia button weed okay, and how to how to fight that? Yeah, well, let's do both of those. First, of soil, what are you growing and going to grow in this area? That of soil, well, I have just a just a kind of quick big picture. Yeah, yeah, a little flower bed okay, it's

one okay, so it's along the house, all right. And then just that the regular oak trees Okay, there it's newly planted, all right, olpie. So what I would do is I would get some expanded shale and mix it in, and you can put up to like three inches of it in to get a good volume into the clay soil that you have. I would also put down some compost or a bedmex like a rose soil for example,

would be a good choice. Now you can buy that. A lot of our folks will produce a product that has composts mixed with the potting mix or with the composted material. But whether you do them separately or together, the expanded shale lasts a long long time and keeps the soil open, but you got to use a quantity of it to get the full effect. And then the bed mixes mixing them in. That's the best thing. Now that

when to do it is the key. When our soil is wet, which it is going to be very wet here in the next few days, let it dry out a little bit, because when you try to work stuff into wet soil, it just destroys the clay structure that it might already have. And it's better to work it when it's moist, not too wet. As far as the Virginia button weed, you know, I would just tell you

what let me. I'm gonna get real closer. I'm gonna have to take a break here in a second, but I'll most start an answer to it, and we may come back to it. Virginia button weed is controlled by some of the broad leaf post emergent weed control products, and Celsia is one I usually recommend for that. There are others that will knock it back, but any of them you're going to probably have to do twice. And you got to do it while it's growing. Now it's about to go into winter,

the growth on it is shut down to almost nothing. So at this point, the more of it you can pull out, just to get those little pods out of there and out of your lawn, that will help. It's not going to kill the weed, but it prevents the additional seeds in the ground that is really important. And then in the spring when it starts to grow, when you start to see it, that is when you would

begin to treat for that. I'm going to have to run LP four A the break here coming up, but I thank you very much for your question. You know, if you're looking for products like where do you get celsius? That's not a super common one. Well, Southwest Fertilizer is an excellent place to get anything you need, whether it's a fertilizer. They have more fertilizers than I can even name. They have every kind of product for insects, diseases, and weeds, and just a wide variety, both synthetic and

organic. I mean that no matter how you garden, Southwest Fertilizer can put the right products in your hand. They just know how to do things. There at the corner of Bysinette and Renwick in Southwest Houston. Or go to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. That's Southwest Fertilizer dot com. And when you go in there you will see why it's the place I go when I'm wanting to look at, Hey, what's new on the market, because they're gonna be the first to have it. We're going to take a break now.

Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning, and welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here to answer your gardening questions. Seven one three two one two KTRH if you would like to give us a call. Uh. The folks out at Buchanan's Nursery that's on eleven Street and the Heights. They've gotten a new shipment of citrus in and they have a wide variety.

I mean they have like Clementine mandarins, They've got carracarra, oranges, Buddha hand citron that is a it imagine if a lemon had fingers and it was really big. That's a boot ant citron. They have Frost's Eureka lemon, Mexican key lime, and others. And they have a lot of good information online too. By the way, you need to go to their website. The website's Buchananplants dot com Buchanansplants dot com and there's information on how to

plant citrus in a pot. Do you know you can grow in containers. The nice thing about that is you can roll it into the garage when it's going to get too cold. They have information on organic citrus care as well. They always have information online Buchanans Plants dot com. They're in the Heights in East eleventh Street and by the way, when you're by there, stick

your head in the gift shop. It is unbelievable the amount of things and the really cool gifts and last but not least, right down on your calendar, Saturday, December second, ten am to three pm is their holiday open house. Now, this is a big deal. It's a free event. But I'm talking about live music, beer and wine, food senna kids, crafts, local vendors. I mean, it's, as I like to say, quite the shindig holiday open house if Buchanan's on Saturday December second, from

ten am to three pm. We're going to go now to the phones and talk to Jenny in Cyprus. Hello Jenny, Hi, how are you? I'm doing well? Thank you? Right, So, I have a big problem with asters, little astra flowers that are just invading my launch. Yes, okay, it is too late to spray them and do any good at all, And you probably don't want to hear this, but that you can

hand pull them and it's not that difficult each astra. I mean you may have one that's spreading out three feet across and you don't know it, but it's all one plant. You know it when you start pulling, it has a tap root comes out of one spot and if you can grab that and the soil is moist, you can wiggle it and pull it right up, or use a weeding fork to do it. And when you do that,

you're taking hundred flowers with fifty seeds each out of your lawn. That'll be next year's fall asters and you don't want to have to deal with it. So right now, every plant you can pull out is just helping you. I go out on a Saturday mornings. I used to go on Saturday mornings before I starting this radio show. But I'll go out in the morning and just get a five gallon bucket and just kind of kneel down, do a

little bit of work. Get it done. You have to do it all in a day, but just know that everyone you get out, that's the best thing you can do. And then we could talk next spring and summer about stuff to do then to help them ahead of time. Yeah, like a pre emergent or something. Yeah, like a pre emergence things like that would be something we would talk about at that time. But you don't see them in your yard. They kind of blend in and they stay low.

You're more make them go sideways rather than up, and then all of a sudden in fall when they bloom, boy, you see them then. But that's right, that's the quick answer on the aster. Jenny, thank you very much for the call. Appreciate that. That's the Lensdown Moody is the tractor company I keep telling you you need to know about. And it's because Lansdown Moody and Caboda have put together an incredible deal. And here's the deal. First of all, you pick the Cabota that you want. I would

highly recommend the L twenty five oh two. That's the workhorse for the Komota group. Then you pick out your tractor package at tractorpackage dot com. And by package I mean what do you need to go with your tractor, Like do you need a rotary cutter or a front end loader whatever. They've got a bunch of things to choose from. Then finally you go orange with their

great finance plan. Lansdown Caboda have extended this deal that is really I don't know how they do this, but no money down and no interest for up to eighty four months. So we're talking about what is that seven years? According to my Agi math I believe that is that no interest on it? You know, Lansdown. They're a hometown company. They've been here since nineteen

thirty six nine locations around the Texas Gulf Coast. Just go to lmtractor dot com or drive by and go in and say I want to sit up there on one of those L twenty five O two's and you'll see what I'm talking about about it being a very sweet ride. Well, you're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richtor, and we're here to answer your gardening question. So I'm going to go now to Liz in Paarland. Hello, Liz, Yes, Hi, good morning, Skip, Good morning.

I just tuned in. But I do have a question regarding the fall fertilizer, which I'm we're planning to put down today, but due to the rain. There's moderate rain today in our well I suppose in our area we're going to get moderate rain, but tomorrow it's like the ninety percent rain over Houston areas and so forth. So I didn't know if it's better to put it down after the ninety percent rain tomorrow. Yeah, how does that? Okay? Well that work? You know, you don't know how much it's in

a rain, And if I had that predictor. I could tell you exactly, but uh, you don't want a gully washer. What kind of fertilizer are you planning on putting out? Do you have a brand fertilizer? Well, you could put it out now if you feel like in your area you're going to get you know, over an inch of rain, then I think I would I would hold off until after, but it needs to be watered in, so it's be kind of weird going out after a rain and then

watering again to get the fertilizer down in there. So, however you want to juggle that. The goal is to get about a half inch of water if you at least at least to move it down in the soil. Uh, and that's where I can go to work. Okay, yes, yeah, I wanted to make sure if I do put it, it's not a super wash out putting that fertilizer out. Yeah, that's the roll of the dice. If you want all things to be in your control, just wait, put it down and then and then water a little bit. Okay,

okay, all right, thank you so much. Hey, thanks Liz, I appreciate that call. Have you thought about getting a new roof? Do you need an roof. Have you thought about putting solar panels on your roof? Well, I have a better idea. Brinckman Roofing has something called the timberline solar shingle. So you don't have a panel on your roof. It is your roof. Your roof is making energy. Boy, I think I could have made a mint this summer with a whole lot sunny days that we

had. But Brinckman's been doing this for fifty years, the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award winner. I mean, that's the kind of company you want. Someone was telling me the other day they were waiting wondering when the landscape care guy was going to come out. That's the way it is with service often, unfortunately not with Brinkman. They show up when they tell you they're going to show up, and they do the job right. They warranty for twenty

five years. So go to Brinkman Quality dot com. That's b ri I n K M A n N quality dot com. Or you can give them a call two eight one four eight oho seventy six sixty three and when you do that you'll find out why there is a significant Brinkman difference don't trust them. Company that knocks on your door tries to get you to fall acclaim for some storm damage or whatever, have a professional look at it so they can tell you like it is. That's the kind of customer service that is so

important. And any time you're hiring somebody to come out and do anything, wouldn't it be nice if they told you when they were going to show up and actually showed up at that time instead of asking you to, you know, hold your whole day in case they might come out. Not with Brickman two eight one four eight zero seventy six sixty three. Well, I mentioned this earlier, but I am about to have a whole hour with Scott author from the Gosh. I just went blank, Star of Hope. My brain

just went sideways there. Scott's already here in the studio. But you've heard me talk about and brag about Star Hope a lot of times. My wife and I personally support Star of Hope because we know that every time we give a dollar, it's actually going to go to making a difference in people's lives. And I know you're compacted it too, and you know money doesn't come

easy, and when you part with it to help somebody. You want it to help somebody, and you know, I know, you know, you drive up to an intersection and there's people there all the time asking for money. I'm not going to go into all of that, but I can just tell you this. If you want to make a live, a difference in

someone like that's life, Star Hope's the reason and the way. And let me just ask you hang around for the next hour because you're going to really want to hear what Scott has to say as we visit about Star of Hope and the difference that they make in people's lives. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two k t r H. If you'd like to go that route next hour. We're not going to be taking plant calls. We're just going to visit with

Scott and Star Hope. If you happen to have a question about Star of Hope, uh, please do call in Josh. We'll get you on the boards. But in the meantime, hang on because it's gonna be really good. Don't forget that. I have an new website, Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com. You can find my lawn care schedule and my lawn pest disease and weed management schedule both on that website. I will be next Saturday out at RCW Nurseries from eleven thirty to one thirty.

That's the eleventh of November, so make plans to come out and see me. They are having their super duper Shindig out at RCW. They call it the Fall Flag. You can grab a barbecue sandwich while you're out there. They're gonna be giving away lace bark elm Mexican white oak and live oaks seedlings fifteen percent off all their shrubs and a lot of the trees too, by

the way, and then giveaways like fertilizers and frostcloth and everything else. Bring your samples in a bag, let's look at them to identify and to diagnose, and I'll be looking forward to that. We'll be right back. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H garden Line with Skip Richt. It's so crazy, Trim, just watching as many battasy. Welcome back to garden Line.

We're glad you're listening today. Hey, you got some gardening questions, Give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four and we will be glad to see how we can help. We are in the big, beautiful, wonderful fall season, the greatest time in the whole year to get things planted, and here we are, so let's take advantage of that and get some good things done. If you haven't fertilized your lawn, it's time to get that done. And Nitroposs has got you set up.

They've got that fall special that's their fall fertilization product that is designed for our soils and for this time of the year. Normally, during the year we have high nitrogen fertilizers, we drop the nitrogen for fall. Make sure the potassium is still in there because that is what gives hardiness in the winter and strong spring growth in the spring. Second step of the Nitrofoss three step is

barricade. Barricade's a pre emergent weed prevent So what that does is you put it down, you water it in, and it soaks into the top surface of the soil, ties up right there and it prevents the weeds from getting through and getting established. That's just how it works. That's why it's called barricade. So I'd put down the fertilizer, the nitropuss fall special, and then the barricade and then put a half inch of water on it to get them done in the soil. That last part is important. You got to

incorporate them done into the soil. Then finally, nitrofoss eagle urf fungicide is a systemic. You put it down, it soaks in, and when the disease shows up, it helps prevent it. And so like with large patches or the brown patch, those big circles don't into the circles of there. They're gonna be brown all winter no matter what you do once they appear. But if you do it ahead of timing, prevent that. And if your lawn has been plagued by that year after year after year, we need to

talk about some cultural practices to help get yourself out of that situation. But in the meantime, in knowing that that's probably coming this fall, then you've got to get those things down to protect against them. And you can find nitrofossis three step in a lot of different places. They're really available everywhere. Warren Southern Gardens has it out in Sinco Ranch. They have it at the Ash Hardware store there you go up to Willis and Grower's outlet. It supplies

the nitrofoss Texas three step. Really easy to find and it works really well. It's as simple as that. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I get a lot of calls on weeds in the lawn. I've been getting them both at the Agrolife Extension Office is a horticultures there and also here on Guardline, you know, answering your gardening questions. And when people

see weeds at the end of their life, they become most alarmed. And here's an example. Fall aster has been growing in lawns all year and you don't notice it. You're mowing and re seeing that it's there, and then all of a sudden in the fall it's making its reproductive stage. It's blooming

and setting seeds. Then we all notice it. Do the same with the winter weed, for example, handbit chickweed cleavers a lot of the cool season weeds they sprout this time of the year, they kind of sit there through winter, they don't do much growing, and then in the spring they take off and grow and bloom and they're suddenly they're big plants. Our blue bonnet is the prime example of one of those kinds of plants. It does that

exact same cycle. You just don't notice the blue bonnets so much during the wintertime, but boy you do in the spring. Well what do we do about those things? Well, if a weed is really putting on as show right now, that's a warm season weed. And all you can do about those is either pull them up to get the seeds off. That's the main reason we pull them up, to get the seeds off right now. Or in some cases you can treat with a post emergent broadly weed killer, But

in general it's something that you want to put on your calendar. Hey, next year, I'd like to prevent those. And best way to prevent a weed is mow water and fertilized regularly. The denser your lawn gets, the fewer weeds you have. It's just as simple as that. Cool season and warm season. The dense lawn is the best weed control you can have. Now. In a dense lawn you're still going to have Virginia button weed, You're still going to have a dollar weed, You're still going to have probably

dichondra in there as well. There are weeds that can grow, but they're the exceptions. So start by culturally growing a lawn that helps fight its own weeds. And then secondly, for those weeds we have to escape, We take those one at a time and talk about the seasons and when to do what in order to get them under control. And that is really really important. The folks at Microlife, for example, they've put together some quality products

for taking care of all your plants. And you know, I think about these products like, for example, right now we're talking about put on the Microlife brown patch the five to one three That is an organic fertilizer that you put out in the fall and it helps the grass become stronger, which is part of the way that it helps fight the brown patches is by becoming a stronger plan and having lots of microbial activity there on the plant. But you

could use that in any time of the year. It's okay to use anytime of the year. It's just that's the one we focus on here in the fall. I would also consider if you're planting anything, go ahead and grab you some Microlife Ultimate. That's an eight to four cents, that's a blue bag and you just you know, normally I say don't put stuff in the planting hole of trees and shrubs. Well, that's true of a synthetic salt

based fertilizer unless it's a coated slow release product. But Microlife organic fertilizer isn't going to burn the roots, and so you can mix it into the black backfill, but you're also going to apply it to the top. That is just the way you want to go about it. Everybody should have on hand Microlife's Ocean harvests. That's the blue jug liquid. It is a fish based fertilizer that you can use drenching into plants when you plant them. You can

use it as a folier spray. It just has a lot of compounds in it that help plants remain strong, in addition to the fact that it's got good nutrient content and good microbial content also, those are very important. We are going to be taking a break here and just a little bit, but I did want to I want to mention something again before before we go. I know, people listen and for different periods of time, you know, and I'm always surprised when someone hadn't heard my website because I say it all

the time. But here we're going to say it again. Gardening with Skip dot Com is the website. I would encourage you to bookmark it because I'm constantly updating things that are up there, like the lawn care schedule, the weed management schedule, the disease weed and pest management schedule. I should say, uh, those are up there, They're free. You can look at them. They tell you what you need to know and when you need to

do it. But also up there is my frost and freeze protection publication that I co authored with one of our A and M horticulture specialists, and it is nine pages of color pictures and it's everything you need to know about preventing them. So bookmark that. I'm going to be building it once I get into next spring. The website, We've got a lot of plans for expanding it a lot, but I appreciate those of you who are going to it

now and taking advantage of the educational stuff we put up there. Time for a break seven one three two one two KTRH. When we come back, Rajer, you'll be the first stuff. Welcome back to Gardenline. We are glad you're listening. Our phone number is seven one three two one two kt r H. Now I got a quiz for you. If you've been listening to garden Line any length of time, what's the most important thing you do before you plant the plant? It's fix the soil. What comes first?

Green or brown? Brown? Right? Brown stuff before the green stuff. Airloom Soil is going to make that easy for you. This fall. They have got a big fall special. They're Veggie and Herb mix, wonderful blend for not just veggies and herbs, but flowers and a lot of other things too. One hundred nineteen dollars bulk or one hundred and forty eight for the supersac. That's a qbicard that they deliver to your place. Rose soil that

is like the universal soil for planning all kinds of things. Seventy dollars bulk, ninety nine dollars for a supersack. Hey, it's not going to get any better than that. You need to take advantage of it. Just go to Heirloomsoilsoftexas dot com and that's where you can find out more information and give them a call. Make your works really really well. Hey, we're going to go to Cyprus now and talk to Raj Hello, Raj Hi, good morning. I question. We had a lot of satin gros grass growing in

our bermuda lawn this summer, so what should we do going forward? So that's when the summer comes, will have more only bermuda, only Bermuda. Saint Augustine just lives on the ground, on top of the ground. So you can grab a runner and literally pull it up and you've gotten rid of that area. It's not like bermuda that's coming up from underground, even if you scrape the whole top off. So that that is one thing that you

can do. There are products that are very damaging to Saint Augustine but don't damage bermuda, like they're labeled for weed control, but only in Bermuda lawns, not Saint Augustine lawns. You could also do something like that that would work. Can you name some of them? Uh? You know what, I would have to go hard to find them. Yeah, I would have to go look let me do this. Okay, I'm going to make a

note here. I'm going to put you on hold in a matter and Josh, we'll give you an email if you will email me that question, then I can I can send you those rather than me trap and read them off on the air. I think that would be best. Another well, let's just leave it at that. Let me send you some information on that. Okay, rush, all right, I'm putting on all right now, just hang on, you know. Yeah, that is a challenge and I probably

need to make a list of things like that. We don't get that question a lot. Usually it's how do I get bermute out of my Saint Augustine. If you're out in Kingwood, you know your local garden centers Kingwood Garden Center and Warren Southern Garden. Boy, they've got some good stuff going on. First of all, the plan of the month Texas Beauty Berry wonderful native with purple berries, makes good arrangement material for indoor arrangements as well. Super

super tough grows in shade still does well even in a shady soil. They're heirloom soil's age leaf compost three bags for thirty bucks now that's good this whole month of November, but only this month the November. They've got some extra bulbs left over. Buy two, get one free. That's included. That's the packaged bulbs except for the amberillas bulb. And so it's still time to plant bulbs. We talked to Chris Weisinger just the other day about that.

And then fall decre and accessories are on sale. The Christmas cactus is in, the Christmas trees are coming. I want tell you about a couple of events. First of all, at Warren Southern Gardens on November, let's see November eighteenth, Saturday, at a ten am they're going to do a festive container planting class. D Malley will be there giving that class and you'll learn how to create the beautiful winter color container. And what a good deal.

It's free to go out and learn how to do that at ten am, but give them a call at Warren Southern Gardens and so you can sign up for it. That's on Saturday the eighteenth. On Thursday the sixteenth, this Ladies Weekend at Kingwood Garden Center. Yep, that's right. They call it sip Shop and Sparkle. So there's going to be door prizes given and other kind of giveaways. It's Ladies Weekend. They have a special sale up to

forty percent off things at Kingwood's Garden Center. And believe me, their garden shop there is just loaded with beautiful things. Something you definitely do not want to miss. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. If you'd like to give us a call, now's a good time to get on. We actually have an open board, so no waiting. That's your little tip to the day. If if you're in shouldn't call

in garden line, Now's a good time to do that. Someone was talking to me the other day about what am I going to do about my law and half of it's dead. In fact, I had a call like that yesterday and other people. I drive by and I see these shrubs that are completely dead in the lawn, just the whole thing turned round, And what do you do? Well, what I would do, I'd suggest you call Peerscapes, wose Purescapes. They have everything you need for your outdoor enhancement.

And by that what I'm talking about is they can redo your irrigation, they can improve the drain. You got a poorly drained area. They can fix that. They know how to do that. They can create rockways and hard escapes and rock borders. They can put in a new garden for you, you know, landscape lighting. Oh my gosh, that makes the outside so much more enhancing for going out and enjoying the outdoors. They can do that.

They've got their certifications and licenses and expecial and experienced folks that just professionals. That's basically what you think of when you think of pier Scapes. You can call them at two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty, or just go to the website Piercescapes dot com. At piercecapes dot com. Look around and check out some of the jobs that they've done and it'll be inspirational. If I was looking at one of the garden fountains that they had and oh

my gosh, it was like a waterfall thing, Oh gosh. They do such good work. And whether you need just a little bit of work done or whether you want to revamp everything, Pierce Scapes can handle that. So don't delay them a call. If you would like to visit with me about a gardening question, you can call seven one three two on two fifty six

seventy four seven win three two on two five six seven four. Uh. We We've talked about a lot of different things, and one thing I haven't mentioned is Christmas gift plants, and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about that. Christmas gift plants are you know, the the ones we think of most and I say Christmas gift the holiday gift plants in general for the whole group. I guess probably Thanksgiving cactus Christmas cactus would probably be two

of the more common ones. But the one that rules the roost this point settus and point SETI is do you know that point setus I should have I should have done this the other way? And not giving you the hint, do you know point settas are the number one plants sold in the whole country? You know, you say, what what plant? What? What plant? Has bought more than any other plant in all of America. People are gonna be thinking, well, maybe it's a rosebush or maybe no point sets

that's it. And they're also at one time of the year, Wow, it's getting a lot done quick. How do you take care of them? Well, you make sure they don't dry out, if they dry out, the leaves are going to curl up and fall off, and that just is what happens. So keep the sol moist but not soggy wet. I take mine out of the sleeve, put them in the container and the sink. Run some water on them, or pour water on whatever you're using and let it drain out fully, and then put it back in the sleeve and put

it back in its spot. If you can, keep them out of a heat vent area where you know it's blowing hot air on them when we get cold weather outside, keep them away from a real chilly window. Maybe that's not a big deal, but it helps a little bit. You can help them last longer for your Thanksgiving and Christmas cactus. Those two need to not

dry out. They will drop their buds if they do that. Sudden changes in light intensity or especially in temperature, so sudden changes like that can also cause the buds to abort and to fall off fun those so you just want to keep them, you know, in their happy place. They need a lot of light if you can give that to them. But it's okay to bring them in and set them for decorations, maybe during an evening gathering but then get them back to a spot where they have a lot of light,

not direct sunlight, but plenty of light for them to do good. Some of you purchase the little topiary rosemary trees. They look like a like a Christmas tree kind of shape. Those are good too, but they really need light. They'll survive inside, but you're starting to get you'll start to get spindley growth, and they just get weaker sitting inside. So get them outside during the day. They can take a freeze if they need to. They're

okay outside. But that's a beautiful plant. Our family likes to decorate them with little ornaments and things like that. I think that's pretty cool. You know, I've talked about generators before here, and you can find generators in a lot of places, but generic generators that is a high quality generator. And the folks at Quality Home, of course they sell generators. But it goes beyond just a good generator. It goes to customer service. And here's

what I'm talking about. How much of your How much of a generator do you need to take care of the parts of your home that are essential for you? Is it just freezer refrigerator? Do you need to make sure that the electricity stays on so you can be on the internet. Maybe you have to part of your job as being online. Well, they can sit down and get you in the right size. They won't oversell you a generator,

but they'll find one that'll do what you need to do. They'll work with your HOA, with your electric company, with the gas company, whatever is needed to get the permits and everything. Okay, to set up the generator. They pour the slab, they set the generator. This is a turn key deal and I don't know anybody else in the business it's doing it this way. Their customers are thrilled seventy seven thousand established satisfied customers over fourteen thousand

and now five star reviews. When it comes to a war eight times, no nine Now they've won the Better Business Award winner for the distinction of customer service. A word, no, it's a time. Excuse me a time. They have so many dang awards I can keep up with them. Seven times. They've won the Pinnacle Award from Better Business Bureau. They've been family owned and operated since nineteen eighty nine. Their customer service when can you call

them? Twenty four seven three sixty five. Simple as that. Right now, there's a deal ten percent off of what you purchase up to twenty five hundred dollars off in savings, So ten percent off. It's a great time to do it. And it's it's true. That deal is true for only for new Generat customers and it cannot be combined with any other promotional activities. Go to Quality Texas, QUALITYTX dot com, QUALITYTX dot com, or just

call them seven one three quality. That's it. And I'm telling you you can buy generations, and a lot of places you cannot get the service and the help which goes after the sale. Yes, after the sale, they're coming out a couple of times a year to take care of that generator. You can't get that whole package anywhere else except Quality Home Products of Texas.

We take a little break here for the news coming up. I do want to remind you that if you have not purchased your cool season plants, your beautiful pansies and violas and all of that, you got to give Arburgate a visit. Arburgate is out there in Tomball, just about a mile and a

half west of two forty nine on Highway twenty nine. They've got a wonderful selection of all the cool season color plants, and so they can even help you and suggesting which ones would go in which locations, or maybe you want to combine them for a plant or something like that. But when you're there, make sure and pick up their one two three completely easy system that it's a food, a fertilizer, organic four four three plus calcium feeds, anything

that's got roots. It's a soil for any application. It's got some expanded shale. I was talking about that earlier. It's got expanded shale in it. And then they have a compost Complete, which is a blend of quality composts together and it also has the expanded shale. So when you do those three the plants you're coming home with, you got the brown stuff to go

with your green stuff, and you can have success. And the helpful folks, the knowledgeable folks at arbor Gate are just icing on that cake because they will make sure you are not pointed to a plant that is not going to do well here in this area or in the location that you need help with. Go to Arborgate dot com and check out while you're there, the new parking lot out back. You turn in before or after the nursery a down Trishel Road and it'll take you right back to that all weather parking lot.

That is pretty cool stuff. Well, Nikki, I guess it's time for news again, and I'm running out of breath here. I think I'm gonna have to pass the baton to Well. I'll go ahead and I will grab that baton. But we're kind of waiting with baited brass okay for an announcement this morning. Uh oh, the news all right, here comes the news. Hey, if you want to call us seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, we'll get you on the boards. Welcome back to

Guarden Line. Thanks for being a listener, and if you have any questions, give us a call. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh. You know, this is kind of the last call for law and fertilizing. We need to get that done because grass growth is going to be slowing down a

lot as we move into the cool season. And if you get the fertilizer down sooner rather than later, you get more of it into the plants and I've talked about carbo Load from nelson before, but that's just a prime example of a fertilizer designed for fall. And in addition to that, they put a pre emergent herbicide in it, So when you apply the fertilizer, you're

also applying something to stop weed seeds from establishing. So therefore, when you put it down, you need to incorporate the fertilizer and the weed control that's in it, So that means about a half inch of water that'll get them both into the ground where they can do the good that they're going to do. By the way, this fall, Nelson's is giving a two dollars donation per bag that they sell. Each bag a two dollars donation to Randy Lemon's

Memorial Scholarship for horticulture students. Randy would be so proud to know that his legacy is remembered in that way. But in the meantime, just know that if you're going to get this done, you gotta get it done now. Every day is important, Certainly every week is important. Sooner is better than later. So go ahead and grab you some Nelson's carbo Load and get it applied, and get it watered in as soon as you can. We're going to head out now to Cyprus and talk to Tom. Hello Tom board Skip.

I just you mentioned a few minutes ago that you didn't have many people on the line, so I thought i'd give you a buzz and ask you about something kind of fun. I referred to as an extremist gardeners extreme, which is, yeah, people that grow those twenty seven hundred pound pumpkins. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Is there a place in the Houston area where where people put those on display and have a contest. It seemed like that would be a fun thing to go. Look at me. You know,

I don't know, I've not heard of that. Somebody listening knows. Let me know, I'd be curious. Yeah, people go crazy they get the pumpkins. And number one, the pumpkins have genetics that gives them the ability to get bigger than most pumpkins. But then yeah, I just ordered some ordered some seeds that were some I forget the name, some kind of giant pumpkins. I didn't do anything special, and I had one that was like

forty five pounds, Oh my gosh. Yeah. And it's crazy that as people go through I mean, they're just about have ivs and the plants, you know, to make them grow. It's crazy. Yeah, well, let's sound. Was curious if you'd had any contact with those kind of people. I've heard that. The one I heard a short news story about it. The guy said he was ordered watering it six times a day and that they put on like fifty pounds of weight each day. Oh my gosh,

it would be amazing. Yeah, you want them to hit the ground running and never look back, because even a few days of yeah there's not much water, I'm going to hold off growing. Well, you just but anyway, that's just a fun thing I've heard about a few times, and I would guess that they do that at county fairs, which I think are done for this year. Well, you know, I guess we need to start

a unusual plant event where people can bring the uglist tomato you've got. I had a contest one time where we had the largest and the smallest tomatoes that you could grow, and people competed for all the categories. So anyway, thanks for that reminder, John, and I appreciate your call very much. You take care, all right, I'm gonna got to John and sugar land now, and how's it going, John? How can we help? Hey? Yeah, I just planted about a month ago a fan tex ash tree.

Yes, I'm worried about doing the fertilization with barricade or anything like that. It's been in the ground about a month. Can I go ahead and you know, fertilize and do the barricade without arming the tree? Yeah, you can. When did you plant that? You said you just planted it about a month ago, about a month ago. I would keep them. It's not going to hurt. I mean, you put barricade on your lawn and tree roots are under that lawn, so it's not not going to be

an issue. But don't over don't double up on it. The barricade and your your long grass. You shouldn't double up on it for that either. It has a label for a reason. And don't overdo products. When you put them out, it'll be okay. I mean, if you wanted to kind of keep it away right or right right where that cylinder is above the limited root system, since they're all confined right there. I guess if you dumped a bunch and had it go down in the ground, it might have

some effect. But basically, I wouldn't worry about it. Okay, Well, I appreciate it. More is not better always, it is not. And I'm telling you, if you want to mess up a lawn, you start misusing weed control products and you know, ignoring the label and stuff, and you can do that. I mean, there's a label for a reason. So anyway, thank you, John, appreciate that. Yes, sir, bye bye. We're going to go now to a leaf and talk to

Ralph. Hello, Ralph Hill. One time you talked about leaves covering the grass and that was okay, yes, And I didn't quite understand that because we got a lot of leaves from the neighbor's yard covering the grass. Yes, and we don't want to rake them up all the time because we're getting

too old to do that. Yes, okay, So it's not okay to leave the leaves on top of the lawn shading the lawn for long periods of time, you know, for a little while a week or so, that's fine, But that lawn, especially after what we've been through this summer, you want to get the leaves off of the lawn. Now. There's different

ways to do it. I mow in a circle, going towards the center like a spiral pattern, and just blow the leaves with my mower all to the middle, and then you can just easily rake them up on a tarp where you're not trying to shove them in plastic bags and things, and just drag that tarp over to melt your shrubs and other things with. That's one option for a light the layer of leaves. If you've got a good multing more, you can just grind them right back out and go into the soil

with that. Those are two options. But yeah, sitting on top where they block light, don't leave them there for too long. Do you sit on your mower and do the round circles? No, I push. I have a push mower, and you actually go in circles and go that way I mean I go. You know, you got a discharge shoot on your mower. I say circles. It's truly a square because my long square. But I just go as I'm mowing around, I start on the outside and

mowing my way toward the center. But the shoot is always pointing toward the center. And you know, right at the very end, you you've got a lot of chopped up leaves right there. That are easy to just rake onto a tarp and with one hand you can drag that tarp anywhere you want to go. Okay, great sounds, good bye bye. All right, hopefully we saved you a little bit of trouble there, Rolf. All right, we're going to take a break right now, our phone number seven one

three two one two five eight seven four. When we come back, John, Bill Dell, you'll be the first ones up. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're about to close things down here for the day. We'll be back next weekend. Every day on Saturday and Sunday from six to ten six to ten Saturdays and Sundays, you can listen to garden Line. Let's head out to West Houston and we're gonna

talk to Dell. Hello Dell. Oh hi there. I didn't know I was first up on the call, but I want you to know that I had a really hard time finding the car beload. Ok. I finally ended up driving to Katie to get it. Am I too late putting it down in the next day or no, just go ahead and get it down and just remember that neither the fertilizer nor that we prevented product in it will do any good until it gets a little water on it and moves down into the soil. So, okay, one way or another, go ahead. How

soon can I put some asami down? Oh? You can do that anytime you want. You could do it at the same day. Just don't put them in the same fertilizer hopper because they are different particle sizes. So do one and then change your setting to do the other one and you'll be good. Oh okay, okay, thank you so much. All right, Dell, that was fast and easy. Yeah. Bye bye bye bye. Yeah. Let's see where are we going to go? Now? We're going to go to Bill in Livingston? Hello? Bill? Hey, Hell, how

are you doing today? I'm good, I'm good. I got two questions. I got based on a pot and tomato plants, and I got other plants for flowering plants in pots. But I keep getting a lot of those little red ants in them and chewing up my plants here anyway, No, I got chicken, so I don't want to put down grain. You're not talking about fire ants, right, I don't know if the fire answer would they answer? Do they bite you? Yeah? Okay, well, kind

of depends on which what we're dealing with it. I'm trying to figure out which way we're going. You can drench an insecticide down in the pot and kill any any insects that are in that pot, and that would be a liquid application. There are a number of insecticides. You're mixing water. Pretty much anything that's an insecticide is going to kill ants for the most part. You know, if we knew, if we knew whether there were fire ants

for sure or not, then I might recommend some different options. But I think that's probably what I would do. Just keep it simple like that. But I tell you, fire ants bite us and they can do a little damage on some kinds of plants, like okra, But in general, ants are not a pest of the plant. They just help the plant. They farm aphids and they call them up on the plant, and you have more

aphids when you have ants around. That's the only negative of them. Okay, Well, they're kind of kill them on pulley basel that I got, you know, they're draining them and they're getting all brown and at least they're real light brown and stuff. Yeah, I don't know that that's probably something else that's actually causing that. But anyway, do the insecticide drench on the pot, and I think that's probably the best, the best way to go

about it. Okay. Also, I have I also have some lemon trees, yes, and they're in pots, and I want to plan them on the ground. Can I plan them this time in the year. You can, but you know what, we're so close to winter and we never know what kind of winter we're going to have, and lemons are not fully hearty. I'd hold on to them and I'd get them through this winter. Move

them in the garage when you have to. Let's get into spring, past the danger of freeze, and then put them in I think that hedges your bet just a little bit. All right, Fine, Can I prune them at all or not if needed? But they probably don't need a whole lot. There's no special technique for printing them, just removing low hanging and crossing and broken branches and stuff like that. But yeah, you go ahead. These are kind of getting long and leggy and I just wanted to pun the

tops of them. Yeah, you could do that. You could do some of that pruning. I again, unless it's a space thing. I would hold off on pruning until the spring because pruning stimulates new growth, and new growth is more coal tender. All right, okay, well I can move them in a house. Want to get your that will do it? Hey, thanks for the call, Bill, Have fun with that centrus up there in Livingston. I've talked about ACE Hardware before, but you know we're talking

about all these products. You need this, you need that. Here's a fertilizer, pest control, all that. ACE Hardware has everything you need for your lawn. It has everything you need for your outdoor living, the patio you enjoy sitting on, all that kind of stuff. But did you know that ACE is a place for Christmas lighting? It is? It? Sure is. Christmas lights of all types, all sizes, all colors, all

shapes. They have it. They have everything you need there. They have everything you need for the decorations, like a wreath for the front door or garland to hang around. ACE is the place for that. So whenever you're at ACE, you know you're going to find plenty of things that you need for your garden, for your home, and in this case, for holiday decorating. ACE is the place you can go to Ace Hardware dot Com slash store dash Locator, or just go to Acehardware dot com and find the store

locator. It'll tell you all the Ace Hardware's in your area. Makes it really easy to find one. Let's see, I'm going to go now out to Marine and Marine is it's as Port of Texas. There you go. Oh, hello, Skip. I enjoyed the show first time. And my quick question for you, I know you're closing up for the for the morning, is is it too soon to move roses? Roses? I have some rose bushes. No, it's ideal to move rose bushes. Do you have

a plan for how you're going to do that. Well, I'm gonna dig around, take as much root system, not to disturb any of the anything too close to the bush. But these are these are Fortunately gave me the wrong rose bushes. I thought I had shrubs, but they gave me climbers. And I put them in the front of the house and they're like too long. Yeah, like the little shop of horrors out front. That's right, And then when you try to read, it's the real problems. So

I wanted to move them to a wall. All let me take it back, let me give you a couple of tips and take them or leave them of it. This is how I've moved rose bushes before, and this is what I do. You go out and I don't know how big they are bushes are, but you may go a foot or two out from the plant, all around the plant and dig down and then have your shovel go underneath and cut the roots on one side so you can lean the bush a little bit away, slide a tarp under it, and then go to the other

side and do the same thing. Cut the roots and you can slide it right onto the tarp and nobody has to lift lift anything. Your cai practuor's going to have to find another way to put a skids through college. You just put the bush on the tarp and drag it to where you want to plant it and slide it right off. It doesn't get easier than that. One final tip is if you'll pull all those gangly branches together above the bush or have somebody help you with that, and then wrap it jute, twine,

whatever you want to do, just sort of to bundle it. You know, have a yeah, you know how when you buy a Christmas tree, they shove it through that netting to bring it all together. You're basically doing that to your rose bush, which just a couple of pieces of twine. It's easy to work around it and all the digging that I was talking about, and it just it saves a lot of trouble. That's a very good idea. I didn't think about put the vope around them, but that

would really save a lot. All right, well, I'll hope that he'll thank you for your thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks. And hey, this is the first time to call. Don't be so long next time, Okay, all right, by bye. Yeah, Well we're having fun on Guardline today. I hope you are. This is a call in show for answering your gardening questions. And if you missed a show, all you have to do is go to your favorite podcast app and you're going to find

guard Line there. You can listen to past shows that way, if you want to listen online, and if you know somebody that lives out of town. We had a caller from Florida yesterday and I had one another day from Indiana. Actually listens to garden Line live Indiana or Illinois, one of those two. Anyway you can do that on the computer. So if you got friends and family that live outside the listening area, tell them about garden lightning,

listen in on the computer if they like to. That's why we're here. I just want to remind you as we wind the day up that next Saturday, November eleventh, I'm going to be at RCW for their fall sling. It was going to be this Saturday, and when they had to make the decision, the weather was still looking like I better not have it, so they bumped it to next Saturday, and that'll be November eighteenth, from eleven thirty in the morning till one thirty. Now you can go there other

times. That's when I'm going to be there. They're going to have a barbecue sandwich lunch or giving away really nice robust seedlings of live oak and Monterey oak and lace bark elm. They're going to be given away fertilizer, flowers and frost cloth and all kinds of stuff like that. They're going to have a sail on all their shrubs and select trees fifteen percent off. So it's

time to plan them. Get ready. Come out next Saturday, Grab what you need because they have a good supply out there of all kinds of things. They have a special cell on two tree deals by the way, first is a Send Philippi red maple. Instead of one hundred and fifty bucks, it's one hundred bucks. And that is that's a lot off the live oak, same thing, one hundred fifty bucks. One hundred bucks for a fifteen

gallon plant. That's the size you can plant yourself. By the way, RCW will come out and plant for you if you purchase a plant for them, So that's that's another option for those of you who don't want to do it yourself. Hey, thanks for listening to Guardenline. We'll be back next Saturday.