KTRH GardenLine | 5-13-23

KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with skip rictor just watching well, good Sunday morning, on a good day for garden. You're listening on Sunday morning. Oh my gosh, I'm getting a day ahead of myself Saturday morning. Let's let's not rush things. The weekend goes fast enough as it is.

Oh, you know, we're supposed to have some rain later today, but I think we got some time to get a few things done in the meantime. It's not supposed to hit until later. So let's see. Let's see how much gardening we can get done. We'd hate to lose, you know, good opportunity on a nice temperatures and just a good day to be outside and we have to go inside. There's a number of things I want to talk about today, but first of all, I want to start off

give you our phone numbers so you can give us a call. Seven one three, two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I was thinking about kind of the to do list that I've got going out there in the garden. And one of the things that I've not gotten to and I need to is to put some color into my landscape, you know, spraying. There is just a riot of color available the warm season, annual and perennial flowers and things, you know,

things along those lines. As I visit the garden centers, I'm just amazed at how much color and how much beautiful not just plants, but containers and plantings and things like that are are being offered right now. It's it's just it's a good thing on the day before Mother's Day to have so many opportunities to buy mom some cool gifts. And we'll suggest a few as we go

through the program today. There's a lot, you know, there's plants, and I guess a rose would be a real common one because most people like roses, right, almost all people like roses. There's some really good opportunities to get a rose and give it to mom, get it maybe as an extra part of the gift, to go out and plant it also, or have some my planet for just to be able to enjoy for years. The nice thing about gifting plants that are perennial, shrubs, trees, perennial flowers,

those kinds of things. Is that each year it's just a remembrance of the fact that someone gave them that gift. It's a fond memory. A fellow who was at the time I knew him years ago in Conro, Texas at a community garden, mister Alden Colston. I remember he had a few sayings that have stuck with me over the years. But one of them was, and this is not his quote, it's quoting somebody else, but he used to always say, flowers leave part of their fragrance in the hand that

bestows them. And I think that is a nice a nice thought. And so you think about a rose. You buy a quality rose, one that's going to be disease resistant, one that's going to provide beautiful flowers and dependability over time. And every year when mom sees that rose, or whoever you give something like that too, they remember where that came from. And it's just a connection, a relational connection that goes long past a vase full of cut flowers. As nice as a vase full of cut flowers is. Well,

we're going to go to the phones this morning. The number is seven to one, three, two one, two fifty eight seventy four. I think I'm going to hold my comments and just kind of scatter them out here through the morning. Let's start off this morning going to League City and talking to Skip. How are you well, I'm doing well today, wonderful. Well, my question is about the rose bush. It's got to leaves or the yellow and black spots on them, and I'm not quite sure what to

do about that. Yeah, yeah, Well, you know, you have to spray preventively. If you've got a variety of rose or cultivar rose then is prone to either pottery milder or a black spot. It's just a matter

of protectively spraying that foliage. And so what I would recommend is, especially for the black spot, anytime we have a little rain following it, go out and spray the foliage because the rain starts the process of the disease spores infecting the leaf, and so you when you come right behind that with a spray, you kind of shut the process down before it even gets started. So I would I would recommend that there's a number of good of hung side

sprays. I don't know if you've ever been out to make city feed, but they're they're in your neck of the woods, and they carry quite a few products and I think they can direct you to something that would work well for the black spot and powdery mildew on your roses. That was wonderful. We'll have a beautiful day and happy Mother's Day. Yeah, thank you for the call. Hoping you have a wonderful weekend as well. Let's see, we're gonna head now out. Let me just make a comment on roses before

I grab the next call. That roses when it comes to diseases, you know there we have a wide variety of options. It used to be that almost all roses were just prima donnas, and we're spraying them all the time, it seemed like. And then rosebreeders. Two things happen. Number One, the antique roses, the old cemetery types of roses began to more and

more move into the market. UH Texas Agrilife Extension began their earth Kind Rose program, which is selecting roses, testing them across the state for ease, not just of disease resistance, but also you plan them, you get them started, and then you forget it and they take care of themselves, the earthkind roses. But now, breeders are more and more developing disease resistance.

There's a breeder in Germany, Cordells, for example. They when they do their plant breeding, and you know, plant breeders are putting thousands of new crosses out into a field to watch them, and only a rare percentage is going to ever make it as a name rose. But in their fields they don't spray, and so any roses disease prone automatically doesn't get selected. And

that's kind of an interesting new twist. And so as a result, we're getting a lot more types of roses than we used to have that are just dependable. Maybe they have a little bit of this or that disease, but not much, and I think that's a good thing. Well, let's head out to Mission Valley and we're going to talk to Jobby. Hello, Jobby, Hello, Skip, I'm enjoying your program. I have fire iNTS. You know, they mound up the dirt. I was wondering if I can

use that dirt put it in pots and grows stuff in it. Absolutely you can, as long as you're not bringing the fire inants with it. But no, I float them out. Yeah, I've already got a couple of pots, and I'd run them out with just water. Yeah, you know, you put water in there, right. So so when you say the dirt you're are you talking about the dirt in the pot that they were in, or are you talking about soil from your yard that's come up above the

ground with the fire amount soil in the yard. You know. So the only caveat on using it is, you know, if you have a very heavy clay soil or something like that, we don't want to put too much of that in a container usually. And you know the reason we have the nice mixes for containers is that they drain well. They hole they whole moisture, but they drain well. And the high organic matter content and all that. So a little bit mixed in, especially in a little bit larger container

would be fine. But it's just just moderation. Great. Thank you, Thanks Skip all right, thank you for the call. Appreciate that. Let's see our phone number seven one three two seven two five eight seven four. We'll be back with you right after break. It's Western Sway and watches like Queret your boots. It's horse hair Vords at Louis Lord. After they hold the shoes well, good morning on a good Sunday morning. We're glad you're

listening to garden Line. I am your host, Skip Rector, and we are here to talk to you about whatever you're interested in, your gardening questions, if you need time identified or diagnosed, or just some suggestions for planting in a particular place. That's why we're here. You know, before we went to break, we were talking. I was visiting with Jobby about putting soil from the yard that firens have mounted up adding that to containers, and

I mentioned to do it very much so in moderation. And the reason is our container mixes need to be perfect. And you think, well, plants grow in the soil, why can't well, because we're trying to get more out of a plant and a container. And think of it this way. In the soil, that plant would have roots way out everywhere beyond the plant, I mean reaching way out, and the roots are primarily up near the

surface where there's good oxygen out in the soil. But in a container, we can create a mix that has excellent oxygenation, good drainage, but yet holds moisture and holds nutrients. And that's exactly what the folks at Nitrofiles have done with jungle land. If you have a potted plant on the container, maybe you're gonna put out a special hibiscus or something like that to really beautify

your patio. Jungle Land provides that good drainage. It also has micro rhizal fungi in it, which is which is really good a good idea because they help the roots do what they do indoors. Jungle Land there's a version that has root crystals, so if you don't if you do forget to water for a little while, it's a little more forgiving. It just is holding a

little extra moisture in those crystals themselves. So jungle Land by nitro Fist you're going to find it everywhere that their products are sold, which is pretty much everywhere. Lake Hardware and Engleton has it under Gym's Hardware, Montgomery and a task as Seed Hardware. Three examples where you can get the jungle land. Having success with plants does always begin with the soil, whether it's a container plant or whether it's a plant out in the yard. When you build the

soil, you sort of think of it this way. You set the parameters for what that plant can or cannot become it's going to be well aerated, or it's going to be poorly drained and soggy and water logged at times, and that has a huge effect on how plants perform the nutrient levels they build. Leave this sole to whole nutrients. Uh, there's just a lot that we do. And when we put the plant in, we want to put it somewhere it's gonna thrive. I mean, really think about it that way.

It'd be like bringing a penguin to Texas and turning it loose in the backyard and going, hey, have fun, I got a yard pet. Well not for long, not for long, because that's not its environment. That's you know, what it needs and everything is not there. But sometimes we do that to our plants, and so that's what we're part of what we're here for. We're trying to kind of correct that. Let's let's now head out to let's see Leo. Back Leo. If you called back in,

I'm here, all right. Did you have some follow up on your question or no, you were gonna ask me a different kind of question. I am a happy mother. Say to all the mothers out there, skip, thank you for all you do. Quick question. I noticed that my mother was a big fan crape myrtles, and so they've now introduced a die in series. Are you familiar with that type of plant now or three? I'm sorry, yesologize, yes, I am is developed by a guy named

doctor Whitcomb up in Oklahoma. So how can I plant that? So that way, it's um deals with our our, our clay. I live in a clay soil area environment, so I just wanted to make sure I can plant it well. So I'm considering buying that, And so in honor of mother's steak good. That's a good idea. Well, cray myrtles are actually they do pretty well in a clay soil, but the mechanical physical conditions of

the soil will determine how well they thrive. So if your clay is very compacted so there's not good airspace, good water infiltration, they're not going to do as well, for example. And so what you want to do is mix the best quality bed mix you can up on top of the surface. What I'll usually do is put a little bit down and mix it in with the surface, just to break that sudden transition from wonderful bed mix to heavy dense clay, if indeed clay is what you have, and mix it a

little bit and then add more bed mix to create a bed. And so things like the rose soil would be an excellent choice for a crape myrtle. Pretty much everything that's fun. Yea, thank you, you're always great. Thank you for the advice. I really appreciate it. And happy by the stakes everybody out there, thank you. I appreciate that. Go uh yeah, the soil is really important and you know it's so easy to make a

good soil. I mean, if you've lived in Houston for very long, you know that when it rains, it pours, and there's times and we go through a lot of rain and our plant roots have to have oxygen. They do. They are very few plants that can survive with submerged roots for extended periods of time. And the sail mix that's an easy fix. And you know a lot of times you will think, well, you know, I don't want to spend money on that. I'm in love with this giant

crape hubiscus flower, this beautiful crape flower. Will just know that when you don't prepare the soil, what you're going to get out of that plant is less than you dreamed you When you buy a plant, whether it's a tomato or a rose or whatever, in your mind's eye, you picture the beauty and the bounty. Right when you buy a tomato, you imagine that slice of summer tomato or whatever. Well, you're never gonna get that if you don't take care of your soil first. And it's just an easy, simple

thing, but it's hard to get excited about the brown stuff. It's easy to get excited about all the color or all the bounty, but you gotta take care of the brown stuff before the green stuff will thrive. Let's go to the phones. We're gonna head to Westberry now and talk to Diane. Oh hello Diane, good morning, Skip power you well, thank you. I have a question about barriers. I've had an engineer suggests that a way to deal with some of our foundation issues is to put root barriers on our

existing older oak trees. So I want to know what your guidelines might be for doing something like that. I'm sorry, what? What? Who? Who recommended this? A home engineer? Okay, he came out and took all the measurements, looked at drainage, all of that, yeah, and instead of suggesting some foundation work which has already been done in the past,

that maybe putting some root barriers in would would be of assistance. Well, if you have if you have a quality root bearer installed by someone who knows what they're doing, then a root barrier can pretty much prevent the roots from going across the barrier to where you don't want them. Just know that when it comes to foundation issues, it's not so much the physical growth of the route that is the problem, but it's the water uptake of the plant there

that's the problem. Because you know, our clay soils and the Gulf coast have a lot of shrink swell potential, meaning when they get dry, they shrink and when they get wet they swell. That's why you get those big cracks in the summertime. But so what happens is the roots take all the water away from that part of your foundation and so you get a lot of movement and that therefore we get the foundation foundation damage. So a barrier would

need to be far enough away to to deal with that that problem. And so I guess my only concern is, you know how much of the plant roots system is going to be destroyed in this move, and if it's a lot, then at the very least I would wait and do it later in the season when the demands are going to go way down in the fall, because if you take too much of a plant's roots, a tree's roots out at one time and then it hits summer and all the demands, you may

see some die back or other issues on the tree. Okay, Yeah, that's my main concern obviously, is the health of these great I've got a beautiful red oak, for example, that would be a shame to lose that for twenty five years. So you're not thinking exactly, you know, how far away from the trunk of the tree the barrier needs to be. Yeah, which is I'm sorry, go ahead, no, I cut in.

Which is they give a general guideline of at least eight feet away from the tree, and we're doing further away from that, but it's probably still within the canopy of the tree necessarily, because you know it's getting that close to the foundation of the house. Well, imagine you're looking at bird's eye view down on the tree, and you see where the trunk is, and you see where the canopy is. The closer you bring a line in from the

edge, the more percentage of roots you lose. If you want all the way the trunk you live half the half the roots loose the roots on the tree. So it's just a percentage game. But if you get out not too far from the edge of the canopy, that'll be okay, that's not going to be a significant amount of damage. All right, okay, all right, I have good luck with that, Diana. I appreciate, appreciate

that call, you know, talking about trees. Affordable Tree Service. Martin and his wife Joe have long time been a supporter here of garden Line. I mean the family's been in the business fifty two years. You can find more out by going to aff Tree Service dot com or call seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven one three six nine nine twenty six

sixty three. Tell them that you are a garden Line listener. You go to the front of the line and they will do everything you can imagine you might need to do to your tree, from deep root feeding, stump grinding, pruning. You get the idea Affordable tree Service. If you call and Martin er Joe doesn't answer, hang up. You've called the wrong company with affordable in the name Affordable Tree Service seven one three six nine nine two six

six three Good morning, Good Sunday morning for gardening Sunday. What is the deal with me? It Saturday and sunny. I think I'm thinking so much about Mother's Day. I've got some big, big plans for tomorrow, but I just can't get Sunday out of my head. It is Saturday. Let's slow the weekend down. Everybody calm down. I knows I'm of your reaching for the phone to remind me that this is the planet Earth that I'm on and today is Saturday. You know. In the garden, there's a lot

of things that we can be doing right now. But I want to talk about a few things to keep in mind. If you've got a spring blooming shrub now, that would be something like an azalea, roo camelia, or a rosebush that only blooms in the spring, like lady banks, for example. A lot of the climbers they bloom in the spring, and then they don't bloom much. Not all climbers, but a lot of them. They

don't bloom after that until next spring. All of those spring only blooming roses and another example is flowering quints and Speria, two more spring blooming plants. They set their buds for next year's bloom in the late summer and fall. And so if we're going to have to prune them, we need to do

it now or we're cutting away next springs bloom. And I said, if we have to prunt them, not all plants need to be pruned, but if you have azalea with maybe a wild hair branch going out to one direction and you kind of want to balance it out or something like that, any kind of pruning, and these are the spring only bloomers that I'm talking about, go ahead and do that that pruning right now. And if you need to snip a branch or two here and there going into summer, that's okay.

But just remember once we hit about midsummer, let it take it from there, and that way you have a much much better bloom. The speaking of roses, I've got a old garden rose at the house and it is it's blooming well, but it, like many of our roses, is going to go through flushes of bloom now. April is a huge, huge rose bloom time. Roses still blooming in May of course each month of the year. But after a good flush of blooms on a plant, I would shear

them back just a little bit. You can hand prune it back to the first compound leaf with five leaflets. I don't know if you've ever looked at your roses, but follow the branch down from a bloom and you'll see a leaf with three leaflets. And as you go further down you'll see the first beginning of five leaflet leaves. And if you're going to hand prune and just do a real hands on job like that, cutting back to about the first five leaflet, or if it's a rose bush, a sheer back is just

fine. Just a little bit sheared back, give them a fertilizer, get water that fertilizer in real well, and here comes new flush of growth. So why is that? Why is it important that we do something like that? Well, roses bloom on the terminal the end of a shoot. A lot of plants are that way. If you have a bodleia, a butterfly bush, if you have a salvia, most salvia's they're blooming at the end of shoots. So what do we want to do? Make a lot of

end of shoots. Right, So when you shear a plant back, which what was one shoot now becomes two or three as it regrows. That's how a hedge works. That's why a hedge gets a denser the more we shear it. So we're not creating a hedge with these plants. But when we cut them back, we get a more compact, tidy plant, and we

get more terminals, and therefore we can have more blooms. And I think blooms is what we're doing at all for right now that it's warming up good, we also need to be taking care of our turf us with a good fertilization to carry us through summer. You know, I was talking about that a moment ago, mentioning that you know the Nelson's slow and easy gradually releases

over time. Well, those are the kinds of fertilizers that we want to use in the summertime because we don't need a flush of growth over Fertilizing creates shallow roots, and summer is a time for deep roots and resiliency, if any other of all the year the most important time. And so we want

to fertilize gradually over time. But but make sure and do that. Now, if you've if your lawn suffered from a really significant die back this past year during the heat and summer drought that we experienced last summer, it could be you know, some diseases that are in there thinning it out. The most important thing you can do is mo water and fertilize correctly through this season.

And if you've got at least living sprouts, you know, within a foot of each other, and you get that lawn healthy and grow and it'll cover over by the end of the year. If it's bigger than that, i'd suggest patching in some grasp some sections aside to kind of fill it in again. But again important time, adequate moisture, adequate nutrients, and mowing regularly to provide a good a good dense law. And that's that's what you're

aiming for. And now that summertime is coming long us, we're going to be looking at planting some of our heat tolerant vegetables and our heat tolerant flowers if you haven't already. And I'll talk about that more in just a moment when we come back from break, but I just want to mention that don't delay if you're wanting to put out some beautiful heat tolerant flowers. If you want to get your your vegetable garden going so that it carries on through summer,

now is the time to do that. And there is no reason that our vegetable gardens have to become, you know, a food desert during the summertime. We have all a lot of really good plants that we can grow that keeps it productive and keeps providing us good, healthy, fresh produce as we go in well, show well good Sunday morning, Saturday morning. You know what, Josh, I think you need to make a sign and the word Saturday is in letters one foot high, and just cover up everything I

got in here with us so I can remember. I'm still on my way to Mother's Day. And by the way, today a great day to get out there and do something. Buy something for mom. Our garden centers are loaded with things. Maybe she's not a plant person, but go to the gift shops, unbelievable gift shops. You know. Later today I'm going to be out at Arburgate. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty out

at Arburgate making an appearance. And Beverley is going to have peach Billini's available as if you already didn't have enough reason to go to Arburgate and I'll be there to answer your questions, and I hope you'll come out to see me. But while you're out there, you need to check out the gift shops. It's unbelievable the amount of material, everything from yard art to really beautiful, fine things for inside the home. You're gonna find that. And the

day before Mother's Day an important day to get that. I'm gonna talk to Jim now up in Cyprus, Texas. How are you doing, Jim? I'm fine, say thank you. How can we help? Yeah, I've got some some week that's taken over my backyard and it's real spiky, it's with you can't walk like my animals can't walk on it at all. And it's just just spreading. And I stopped in a my Ace hard Word yesterday and they identified as something called maybe cockle burr or sandburg okay, and I

bought some image spree. I just check and see if you think that will take care of it. And when's a good time to apply that. Well, we need to know the correct identity of the weed because A cockle burr is a broad leaf weed, and I can pretty much guarantee you that's not the weed you have in your lawn. Sandburr is what we grew up calling grass burrs, and it's a grass plant, so that would be a different control product. If I'm gonna you know, as we get done on a

conversation, I want you to hold on. I'm gonna have Josh come on and get you some information where you can send me a pretty close up, well focused picture of the weed and I'll respond to you with a with a better answer. I'd rather not just guess as to what the weed is right now, Well, the image I bought is for sandburg, or says on the back. Okay, when was talked to me, he mentioned cockbur but he saw me something for sandburg. Okay, did he see the weed or

did he just yes, okay, saw the weed. Okay, Well, well we're going to believe him then, whoever he is. And you just want to follow the label on the image and spray it on those on those weeds. I do not have an image label in front of me, so whether what it's labeled for and control and whatnot. And by the way, there's more than one type of image out there with very different ingredients. I

wish companies wouldn't do that. But if it's a grass weed, then you need a plant that's going to be able to take it out an image or do a pretty good job on some of some of the grasses. But I do that today even though it's going to rain later. I would not. Uh. Yeah, I think the label will tell you like and give it three hours before a rain at least, or it'll tell you something else.

All the compounds are different in that regard, but I think I would hold off and apply it when you don't have a rain coming right up, or it has more time to sit there. Well, if I can't, let me go ahead. Let me talk to your your your assistant there, and I'll send the picture. All right, hang on, I'll put you on

hold and Josh, I'll pick you up. Yeah, you know, I I always want to see the weed or be sure of identity of a weed, because we could be you know, I could be wasting Gem's money sending him out and saying yeah, to do this or do that, or it may not be effective the product for the weed that we're dealing with, and so I need check the image label on that. Normally we put image down

for sedges. It's not the only thing it works on, but it's really good on sedges in the in the landscape, and that would include a nut what we call nutgrass is not a grass. Nutsedge is probably a better name for it, but that's typically what we would use the old standard type of image on. I was talking about Mom's Day and the good things come in tomorrow. Just take advantage of this time and get something for your mom. We have a we have so many awesome nurseries and also garden centers. You

know, the the the Ace Hardware group. They're all over town. I'll talk about them a little bit more later, but you know, like if you're not in the Porter area, you need to check out your Ace hardware out there in the Porter area. You're gonna find and I'll mention them in a moment. But there's a lot of Mother's Day gifts in our Ace hardware stores. Because Ace doesn't just stop with a you know, a few what we'd think of as hardware things paint and whatnot, plumbing. They have garden

centers and they have gifts centers too, that it just excellent. It's kind of like a one stop shop. You get to everything that you need out there. Anyway, you're listening to Garden Line, We're gonna take a little break here. I will be coming back in a moment. But in the meantime, if you will call Josh at seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, he'll get you on the board and we can talk to you about whatever you are

interested in. Coming out of the break, I've got a lot more things I want to talk about too, So just hang on. We'll see you in just a moment. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor just watch you were good morning day, on a good day, get outside and get a little gardening done. I know, get a little rain coming. That's okay, we're asking it to hold offs along, but it's

it's a good time to get outside. It's a good time to get outside and shopping for mom too. And I was talking earlier our garden centers, our ace hardware stores, the wild Birds, unlimited, all kinds of good places to get some really cool things for mom, like a bird feeder I was talking about earlier. The hummingbird feeders are. There's so many beautiful ones now, and just to be able to look out and enjoy that. I

just think that's that's a cool and relaxing thing. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter and our phone number if you will write this down seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two k t r H. What was I talking about while ago? I was in the middle of something that I know it's very very interested in and in sharing with you. I Oh, I was time about the vegetables for heat and the flowers for heat out in your vegetable garden. A

lot of our spring, well our winter vegetables are pretty much gone. Our spring vegetables that things like tomatoes, they tend to get kind of unhappy when it gets really hot. They don't set as well. Cherries do better than slicers, but they don't set as well when it gets hot. The same thing is true with cucumbers and squash. Summer squash like yellow and crooked neat and other things. We just don't have as much success with them at that

time. But we can switch over Oprah, the king of the summer garden. Awesome, awesome option to plant it now. Sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes love the heat. And by the way, do you know you can eat sweet potato greens as well as the underground storage roots that we normally eat sweet black eyed peas, that would be crowder peas. Also purple hole zipper cream those are Southern peas and they love the heat. Malabar is a vine that is a very summer tolerant vegetable. Amaranth is a good one for summer.

Moloquia. Molocquia is another good summer green. As long as you give these plants adequate moisture, they will do well in the summer. And they're not going to go into summer with no soil moisture and survive, right, but you water them adequately. It's kind of like our lawns when when we water it adequately, not too much, but adequately, it's able to take the heat and they just do amazingly, amazingly well. I'm going to continue on

with some heat tolerant flowers here in a moment. But right now we're going to go to the phones by the way, the number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Let's head out to the cypress and let's talk to Sandy. Good morning, Sandy, going um, I wanted to ask you about my okram. I planted four seedlings, I mean eight seedlings, four sprouted at in four different little small containers. I've had them in the house for a little bit when I first canted him, and then I

said, well, I'm sure I should put them outside. So for the past two days I've had them outside and it hasn't rained, so I've just been watering them myself outside. But since it's placed a thunderstorm and stuff, should I bring the tray back in or should I just leave it out there? Well? You can, you can leave it out there as long as there's not a wind that's gonna blow your little seedlings over or something that like that. It would be fine. Sandy. What's the long term home of

these okra? Are you gonna put them in the garden soil or are you gonna container in a container in a larger container. Okay, Well, if you're gonna do that give them a container that has at least five gallons of soil. You know probably pardon this one is probably about twenty gallons. Oh

that's perfect. Okrah will be very happy and that container. Yeah, And I would do that as soon as you can, because as long as they stay in those cups, the roots just get you know, more wrapped up, and the plant is going to get a little stunted if it stays in there too long. And you know, you can see how big the plants are. I can't, but just just know that don't leave them too long because once they're up and growing, you can put them right out into their

final home. Well, these are just planted four days ago. Oh okay, I'm I may miss that. Well, yeah, they can stay like that, but I'm just I'm just telling you. Also, you could also just could and put them into the end of the container and get a little

faster growth rate. But it's up to you either way. Oh okay, So with this rain, I can still um pot them in my container and that'd be okay, you could, Yeah, I would know since it was four days ago, I'd give them a little more time, give them a week maybe maybe okay, maybe two even but then get them out of there. I've grow okra as transplants all the time, but I don't. I

prefer to direct seat at into where it's going to grow. So in the future, for example, in your situation, you could take that big twenty gallon container and you could plant your eight okra plants in there and just plan

on weeding out the ones you don't want. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did that the first time that I gave some to my girlfriend and some to my sister, and then I noticed mine weren't thriving, and I the name wasn't keeping the bugs off as fast as it was coming because it gets so hot, and so I ended up pointing those and I did about twelve ten to twelve seats in that big container already out there.

But I just did that yesterday. Okay, So these I wanted, these four that I have in my house, I want to protect guard it. All right, fair enough, I've got both them, all right, Thank you so much, Skip, All right, thank you for the call, and good luck with your Your Okra is one of my favorite plants in the summer garden. I just I really enjoy okra. And if you are from the South. Okra is a staple part of the Southern diet. It's a

summertime vegetable originated somewhere. There's a debate exactly where, but either of Africa or over in Um let's see kind of toward India direction like that. Anyway, Okra is so tough and easy and easy to grow. And if you if you've tried okra and you found it to be slimy, you didn't care for the texture of it. There are ways to avoid that. Okra gets slimy when when you get water on the interior part, it releases that mucilage.

So what I do is I brush pods with olive oil, sprinkle a little sea salt on them, and when I'm out grilling burgers or grilling a steak or chicken or whatever, I just throw it on there two minutes on one side, flip it two minutes on the other side, and you're done, and you've got an oak or that's not gonna be slimmy. You can. You can grow it a lot of other or cook it a lot of other ways too. Hey, we're gonna take a break right now. The number to get on the air is seven, one, three, two,

and two fifty eight seventy four. Man, if your head isn't bobbing or your feet tappy, I would grab my wrists and check my pulse. Just make sure I'm so long that are you love that thing you do? Gosh, you know. I'm going to be out at arbour Gate today from eleven thirty to one thirty, and I hope you'll come out there and see me. Bring a sample of a disease, a sample an insect problem, a sample of a weed, or just some photos on your phone we can take

a good look at. Just make sure they're in sharp focus, and we will be glad to help direct you again. Arburgate what a place for a Mother's Day gift. You're going to find unbelievable plants for Mother's Day gifts, from house plants to outdoor plants. You're going to find indoor accessories that just beautify the home. You're going to find outdoor blay that beautify the yard and garden. Come out today to Arburgate eleven thirty to one thirty. Let's visit.

Always love to meet people that are listeners to the show. I think first thing we're going to do now on the phones is go out and talk to Bill in Conro. Hello, Bill, how are you please? Skipt? Good morning? Good morning. Another question about fungicide. This one is I put fungicide down on my grass, and I know fungicide doesn't work well with compost top dressing because it kills all the good stuff in the compost. At least that's what I understand. I could be wrong, but I put

the pungicide down. How long do I have to wait before I put down some compost top dressing. Well, you know, I'd give it probably a week, a week or two. The fund at all fungicide you're going to soak into the plant. They're gonna some of them sit on the surface. But if you were recommended a fungicide for that lawn problem, it probably is a systemic that's going to move into the plant, and so then you're not

so worried about any competition on the leaf surface or other things. In fact, you may find that the top dressing additionally helps with the problem you're talking about. Okay, I always thought it was it was a long period of time. So that's that's a real big helpful clarification for me. Yeah, the fung side, the compost top dressing is not gonna destroy the fungicide on the plant, especially with the systemic that's moved in. Do you remember offhand

what product of what you were dealing with on the fungicide. Um, yeah, I've got it right here. It begins with a peep thro Yeah, okay, yeah, that just that that is not as systemic. I think it will move into the tissues though, But I would I would do that and then i'd give it a week or two and then then put your top dressing on, watered in really well and just watch. You may have to do another treatment later on. Some of these diseases are pretty persistent and difficult

to deal with. You're You're fortunate Bill to be in the you're in the Contra area. I don't know. Have you ever been out to Nature's Way Resources? Oh? Yes, I use them, Yeah, just south of town. They've got that leaf mold compost that is the best for top dressing. And that's why I said you're fortunate to be out there, because they're the originators of the leaf mold compost. All right, very good, very good. Thanks. I know we're talking about I'm talking about yesterday now,

but I'm talking about next Friday too. On they have a Fungal Friday sale every Friday, ten percent off their bad products and twenty percent off their bolt And so if you're doing a top dressing, Friday would be a great day to visit Nature's Way and get that done because you save some money on it. Okay, that's great, But what about the fung side begins with an a as a large axy st Yeah, is that very similar. It's actually more of a systemic moving into the plant and it works well it, you

know, for takeall root rot. It is probably the best single fun decide that you can use. Good to know, good to know. So yeah, I could put it down and then wait a few weeks and then I could do a top dressing. Yeah, that'd be just fine, no problem at all. Right, Great, thanks a lot, Yeah, thank you, Bill, appreciate the call. Yeah, it is the compost. Top dressing is best done with a quality leaf mold compost. And that was you know what we're talking about at Nature's Way. But you know what, I'm

sitting here talking about products like that at Nature's Way. Nature's Way has a lot of native plants. They have one of the largest varieties of native plant selection in the Houston area. They have a two acre garden center and nursery, fruit trees, native perennials. They carry house plants, seasonal vegetables, and the Mother's Day sale out at Nature's Way was wonderful. We passed that buy now, but oh my gosh. They had all kinds of decorative pots

and things. But if you need bags of rose soil, bags of leaf mold compost, you know they're going to be able to provide it for you. But I would suggest you go out there just to see the plants, if nothing else at all, because you will be surprised. In fact, the first time I went and they had started their plants, and the second time I went and I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe

how many native plants you guys have. That was really cool. Well, you're listening to Gardenline and I'm your host, Skip Richter, and this is a call in show. So hey, here is a number so you can call in. It is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Okay, I was talking about heat tolerant vegetables a moment ago and now I would like to talk a little bit about heat tolerant flowers. In the spring, everything is

willing to bloom in the spring. We have a wide variety of colors and hues and available to us. And then summer comes and it changes the plat palette a little bit. Now, there's some things that bloom in the spring all through summer, certainly, but there are a lot of things that summer's kind of hard on them. You know, petunias. If you take good care of them, you can carry petunias on into summer. You need to shear them a little bit and fertilize them to get fresh new growth for more

blooms. But it's a little bit of a challenge. But look at the roadsides, all the pretty pinks and blues and things. When summer comes, they give way to the yellows and oranges, you know, of the composite types of flowers. But just some thoughts. Angelonia is my newest favorite summer flower. We all know lantanas do well. Periwinkles, madagascar perie winkles.

We call it vinca, but it's not vinca Madagascar perie winkles, portelaca and purslain, and those hanging baskets or as a ground cover look really good. Fan flowers also called scavola. It's a blue flower, which is unusual. In the summer, our blue blooming options are greatly reduced, but scavola will provide that firebush does well through the summer. Certainly, Hibiscus, the perennial hibiscus the tropical hibiscus cannas love the hot summer weather as long as it gets

a little bit of water. But I like the phasian. It's also called tropicana because the colors of the foliage are just amazing. There's also some cool yellow and green striped cannas like Bengal tiger, but Tropicana is my favorite. Blackfoot daisy, if you've got a nice, well drained area, is another little tiny daisy flowers white. If you have enough of them, you can actually smell it. It's a honey fragrance. And then Zenia's would be another

good one. But now's the time to start transitioning over so that your summer garden is just as beautiful and flooriferous as your spring garden was. Let's head over to Alvin now and we're going to talk to Craig. Good morning Craig, Good morning Skip. I've got a question about a chilly pikeine. I've had it for about five years, have not had much luck with it. It's in a container probably five to seven gallons. I still haven't had much of fruit off of it. The only thing is I was wondering, do

we have male and female pepper plants? No? Okay, that's not well, good sunlight providing it good full sun yes, well, I don't. I don't know what to tell you next. How about the look of the plant? The green color is? How healthy? Does it look anything there? Well, it's struggling to come back from the winter right now. I was thinking about pruning it, bruning it back, and then maybe repotting it, basically just changing all the soil out on. My other question is maybe

is that not a large enough container? Well, I guess that's possible. Your description of the container though five to seven gallons you ought to build, but grow a pikein in that. You could put it in a larger container, certainly, but you should be able to get it to grow and something that size. I don't know, I would, you know, consider the nutrients, try to get good vigor and growth, but don't overdo the nitrogen because you don't want to just push it into total vegetative growth. But that

chili pikin is a pretty generally, pretty easy you know. The birds eat them and poop the seeds out, and they come up in the wild and do just fine there. So we bring them in take care of them nicely like you are, and they're not cooperating. I don't I don't know what to make of that. Okay, all right, all right, thank you so much. All right, Greig, thank you. I appreciate that call. Yeah, chili pekins are they are a very hot pepper. I remember

the first time I got a mouthful of one. Ouch. The heat doesn't last as long, but oh my goodness, it is hot. Have you ever had a chili pekin? No, I've had hatch green chili. That's a good pepperless tasting. It begins in a little bitty things. They'll typically put them in like a little jar with vinegar on him, and then use the vinegar as a seasoning in the food. But I'm just not a big pekin fan. I love pepper though, well. I love your phraseology vigoring

growth. That's what we're going for. That's right, that's what we're all about. Oh gosh, well, Nikki, I guess it's time for the news. So here here's the baton whist and now I was deep water somewhere about the boost guy breeze and adults in the world is a time. Don't reach my chair, sunrise, the fire never been so good. Sunny morning. You are listening to Garden Line and you're here to answer your gardening question.

Help you have a more bountiful garden and a more beautiful landscape? Number write this down seven one three, two one two five eight seven four give me a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Just reminding you again that I'm going to be out at Arbourgate Nursery today eleven thirty to one thirty. If you've got plant samples for identification, for diagnosis or bugs, just put them in a zip block bags, zip them up and bring them to me. Let me take a look at them. I always

love meeting people that listen to the show. If you've got photos on your phone, by the way, that's a great way for identity, getting things identified, and also a great way for a diagnosis. Of some problem you might have, or just hey, here's a picture of an area in my yard. I need some color in there. What do you think would work well in that area? We can do all that. It's the day before Mother's Day, and when you're at Arbourgate you are gonna not have a problem

finding all kinds of things that your mom would love. And as I mentioned earlier, I was talking about you know that when you plant a plant, when you gift a plant that's a perennial, it's going to live year after year. The memory of that gift lives on. I still can tell you exactly who gave me plant. Even someone gave me a cutting of a plant that I rooted myself, I can tell you who did that. And I always remember that. And I think that's why plants are a great gift,

a great gift. And when you go to a quality garden center that knows what they're talking about, they can direct you to things that are not going to be a Prima Donna in the garden that's got to be scorted with spray every other day to keep it alive. They're going to be Texas tough plants, and they're going to be beautiful plants, dependable plants. And that's why

I love to send people to our independent garden centers. You know, there's a lot of places in town where you can buy plants, but you're not going to find the educated staff. You are not. I've been into them. I've asked questions of people in those stores, and I can tell by the look in their eyes when I asked the question, I'm fixing to just get a bunch of smoke blown at me because they don't know what they're talking

about. One time I was I was in a big box store and I was looking at the pesticide aisle and as lady walked up and said, may I help you? Yeah, I just had a question. I asked him a question and their answer was just wrong. And this is these are chemicals that people are putting out, and they're being sent out without information on how to use them and what to use them for. And I said, well, how long you've been working here? And they said, well, just

this my first week. What did you used to do? I used to cut hair and a beauty shop that qualifies you to sell chemicals, right? You know it? It is worth going to a place that can direct you right, because number one, maybe you don't need a spray and they can tell you that, or if you need a spray, which one works, because you know, just because something says weed killer doesn't mean it kills all weeds at all stages of growth. In fact, it probably doesn't. But

you need to be directed right. And I know that I'm a broken record on this, but our independent garden centers not only are they the most inspiring places to go to, but they're the places where you get set up for success. And when you're going out and you buy this beautiful little plant, maybe it's a rosebush, and you imagine just how beautiful and floriferous it's going to be, and then you get at home and it doesn't do well because

they sold you a one that doesn't do well here. They didn't provide you with the encouragement to get some soil to make that rose happy from day one. You see what I'm saying. Your money is hard earned and it needs to be well spent, and independent garden centers are the ones they can do that kind of thing for you. I just I love, I love just going to them to visit. I was checking out one the other day and had a I was needing a container to plant my to transplant one of my

house plants. It's gotten a little big for the container, so I was going to bump it up to the next size. And the biggest problem that I had was trying to figure out which one, which one that gets uh you know, traveling by the arbrigade looking at their container selection and it's like, oh my gosh, that is it's just all kinds of containers and that

you know, our independent garden centers are so good about that. They really are good about putting quality products out there so you can have that kind of success. Well, you're listening to garden Line, and I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're going to take a break here in a second, write down our number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. By the way, give that number to your neighbor who doesn't take care of

the yard. Maybe we can help make the neighborhood live more beautiful and drum well, good Sunday morning on a good day for gardening. And apparently Linda Ronstad as well. You are listening to the garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Rictor. Our number is seven one three two, one two, five eight seven four And let's see we are going to head out to spring and talk to mo. Good morning, MO, good morning. I want to know what to kill sumac and poison name it's mixed on my fence.

Uh so I if the plants are small, like the poison navy is coming up from seeds because the birds poop the seeds. There, you can you can do a foliar spray with a product containing trichlope here, do you have a pen or pencil handy? All right? T R I C l O P y R. Now if if they're bigger plants, you know maybe you know those you mentioned? Okay, well you can cut them off at the ground, just above the ground, and then immediately dab the Tricola peer product

right onto the cut wound. Just dab it right onto that cut surface and it'll soak in. You don't cut them one day and then go dab the next. Just do it right away, and that's great. You know. I know a lot of folks listening have like hackberries coming up in the fence or tallows, trees and other things, and that cut cut I call it a cut stump treatment. But that works really well. And I can get that arbigate today. Yes, they do have a triclopier out there. Absolutely,

and I hope you come out. I'm glad to hear you might be coming out. Good. Yeah, I got tick as she sat there. Yeah, they have a good selection. Thank you. Well, good luck with that, and we can talk more about it when you come out. If you have any questions, well you too. Thank you. Now let's go out to Bellevue and talk to Jerry. A good morning, Jerry, thank you, good morning. Skip. Got a question. I'm getting started slow or behind schedule on my yard right now. It's covered pretty much with

weeds and we're trying to pick them out and everything. So I'll put some of that pre emergence barricade on it, okay, And I was wondering, since I'm so far back in the schedule, how long do I Is there any way I can speed it up, you know and be kind of caught up by fall. Oh yeah, just you know, just continue to follow it, like for example, maybe you haven't fertilized as much as as you should or whatever. You can still do it. You know, we'd rather

you do it a little sooner. But no, they nature it's nature. It's flexible and we just we just pick it up and continue on for where you are. If you've got exists, if you've got existing weeds, though, you're going to have to have something that kills existing weeds. The barricade is a good pre emergent to prevent them from establishing, but once they're established, switch over to something that kills existing weeds. Well, would you recommend,

right? I mean we're trying to pull them up and spot the spot, kill them with a herbicide, you know, and pull them up that kind of stuff, and it's pretty slow going. Yeah, I got you. Well, there are a number of products out there. I know there's a there's a weed beater product, a weed beater ultra I like, but on these broadleaf products now, and they only work on broadleaf weeds. You just want to get it done before temperatures are in the mid to upper eighties,

which we are. We are on the verge of that now. You kind of day by day. Some days are warmer, some days aren't. But don't delay anymore because in a few weeks from now, it's going to be too hot to use the without damaging your line. Okay, And it's a weed beater. Yeah, there's one called weed Beater Ultra. Uh that weed Beater series. Just when you when you purchase it, go to one of the quality nurseries, the garden centers ace hardwarees that we recommend because they

can direct you. Because there's some that aren't for Saint Augustine. Some products they say it'll kill Saint Augustine. Just make sure they direct you to a good quality product so you don't do damage. Now, this is that just to kill weeds or is that a weed and feed kind of thing? No, it's it's just to kill weeds. I generally do a lot of weed and feed. Talk on here. Well, I didn't think so, I just want to be sure. Okay, So it's a it's a spot kind

of yes products. Okay, all right, and how long after go ahead, I'll put this emergence down here? Do I have to wait any time before I come back with the nitro file spartal other No, non fertilize right away. I'll just just know that that pre emergent needs to be watered in a little bit to move into the soul surface where it does its work. But yeah, you can, you can fertilize whenever you want to fertilize. Okay, that's what I needed enough, all right, I appreciate it.

Enjoy the program. Thank you, Thank you, Jerry, I appreciate that. Let's head out now before we have to take another break, we're going to talk to Mike and Lake Jackson. Mike, I think you have an interesting question. Yes, I have a squirrel sitter stripping the bark off of young the country and I didn't know if that's harmful if the tree recovery. Is this anything be concerned about. I have a question about the balls. Yeah, we've got just a short time here, but if we need to,

we'll hang over through break. Squirrels do that, especially in the spring when they're you know, they're teething, the young squirrels, and they go up to where there's a little v and the pecan branch and they the bark off and typically that branch will die and you'll get a little we call them a flag. But these you see, these little brown shoot branches out at the around the canopy of the tree. We'd rather the squirrels didn't do that,

but we have no way of stopping them from doing that. So you just this was this was going to work on most all of the branches because it is a young tree and they're just I mean there's several feet of that they pull out at a time, and yeah, yeah, that's that is unfortunate. Hey, what was your other question about neim? Well, I've

been using nemol on a citrus and I've noticed there's two types. There's a hydrophobic and then there's like a first press kind of like alleyball, and one groups more expensive than the other, and the first press they're supposed to have one of the chemical in it that the bugs that will kill the bugs that try to eat it. That is, I've never heard you talk about nemol, so I was kind of curious your house them. I haven't seen the

difference in the two presses on kneem oil. That's kind of interesting. But knemoil it works like an oil and does well. You know, if you'd like to continue the discussion, we're about to go to break here, I'll be happy to come back with you on it. But just a good quality knemoil will coat insects and do what a summer oil would do. That would be spider mites and apids and some scale insects, especially when they're crawler stage.

And it also is pretty good on powdery milde to prevent power. Ohianna, if you mind, I'll pull out a bottle so reach you. What's on the label? Yeah, thanks a lot, I appreciate that. Okay, Well you're listening to garden Line. We are putting another hour in the books this morning. I'm going to be Doshelner mind you, I'm going to be out at Arbogad today from eleven thirty to one thirty. I hope you

come out to see me. I always like to meet the listeners. And while you're out there, if you cannot find ten awesome Mothers Day gift, you're not trying. It's a great place to go for that. So we'll kill two birds with one stone. Are You can just bring your mom and have her as part of the process too. It doesn't have to be a surprise gift. The outit Arbergate eleven thirty, one thirty. Come out and see me in the meantime if you'd like to get on the boards 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 KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictor just watch him as we're good Saturday morning. I got it right. That time's good Saturday morning on the day before Mother's Day, and a good day to get out and get some gardening done. I know there's clouds and we got some rainstorms coming through, but hey, that

just means it's even more pleasant to work out there. We're not made of sugar. I mean, some of you may think you are, but we are not going to melt in the rain. Right. Well, it's a good day. Hey, let's go back to talk to Mike and Lake Jackson. Mike, let's continue this nemoil discussion. I do not know about a first pressed nemo. Now there's a cold pressed cold press. That's direct term.

Oh coal press, okay, yeah, cold press nemoil. It just means cold press processes just mean that when they're squeezing the oil out of seeds, they make sure that keep the temperature down, don't let it get hot and heat up, you know with some of Yeah, the other they referred to as a hydrophobic process, and apparently it takes some of the beneficial stuff out of the knee boil. I don't understand. I was reading it out a lot and uh, okay, but apparently you know, I don't know

that you can be a little bit more research. Is it okay to use that in the summertime to kind of supplement the insect sets for you know, the white clothes and sort of thing. Yeah, So kneem oil is it's an oil, and we have other oils called summer ol. We call them summer oils or sometimes well dorm Yeah, there's Dorman oil, which tends to be a heavier, more viscous. You used to have a lot more impurities in it, but they're getting better about that now. But the summer oils

are more lightweight. So think of the difference. And this is a great exaggeration, but just to understand the difference between like a motor oil and an oil that is just almost watery when you when you when you use it, and the summer oils tend to be towards this second uh type of oil, and so nem oil is that kind of oil. But when you use oils and the temperatures above ninety, you risk the chance of burning the plants. Some more sensitive than others, and so you just want to be careful.

Don't don't spray them out on a ninety five degree day with the sun bacon down on the leaves. That would be a recipe for problems. And if you heard the sectical insecticidal soap, yes, yes, particular thoughts on the ants. Yeah, okay, so insecticidal soap. So I'm going to nerd out just a little bit here, but I'll be brief. Soaps are basically chains of fatty acids, and there can be different links of chains. They're all different chemicals, but it's a chain of a fatty acid. There's some

soaps that are herbicidal. They burn plant tissues, and that you can buy a weed control soap that's herbicidal. Insecticidal soaps are designed to be the most effective against insects, but the least damaging to your plants, the least phyto toxic to your plants, and insecticidal soaps are a really good good thing to do. Again, ninety five degrees sun bacon down, I wouldn't use soaps on them. But if you can get in real late in the day, if you come out real early in the day and spray a soap spray.

That's just fine. In any insect that's small, soft bodied, like a spider mite or an aphid, insecticidal soap is going to work well. But you have to spray upward from under the plant to coat the under surfaces of the leaves, because that's where a lot of the aphids and almost all the spider mites are hiding. And it seems like a good luck I'm a citrus that it suffered into freeze and all the new leaves are coming out. I don't seem to see all the spider mite or the miners in that strat thing.

Well they'll they'll be back, yeah right. They love new growth. They don't like the old growth. But so the tender growth is where you're going to find the leaf miner attacking. Okay, well, great, every right, Well I appreciate your answerships. All right, Mike, I appreciate your call. And good luck with those squirrels. By the way, you know you can eat squirrel meat, right didn't Some people are having a heart attack right now. All right, thank you very much. Yeah. I

did not grow up eating squirrel but my dad did. They would go out and hunt to feed the family. In anyway. I think ballistic control measures for squirrels are frowned upon in the city in general. Oh gosh, let's talk a little bit. I was being going through some you know, some different topics and things that I just found of interest today. Leaf spots. When it's rains, you're gonna get leaf spots that follow the rain. But

whether they're bacterial or fungal, rain makes those diseases happy. And so when you have diseases like that, you need to deal with them. No, powdery meal is a little different. Powdery mildew likes high humidity. If you kept your leaf surface constantly wet, powdery mildew would not be a problem.

But it's the humidity which welcome to Southeast X is right. And so with the powdery mildew, we're definitely wanting to use preventative sprays, and in general for diseases, preventative is the way to go, because you can't bring a dead spot on a leaf back to life with a spray, So why not spray before we get the dead spot? And that's preventative types of spraying. And you know, powdery mildew, A lot of roses get it. Crape myrtles. Get it rock rose, which is not a rose. It's an

hibiscus family called Povonia. You put it in shade and you get a lot of powdery, mildew, squash and melons if you're growing like let's say a pumpkin, or the long term squashes, spaghett the winter squash, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, butternut squash. What usually happens is the mildew and some other diseases get the foliage, and when they do that, they take away the carbohydrate production. And that's what those fruit are all about, is stored

carbohydrates in there, and so we need to protect that foliage. So I would preventatively spray. Now there's a lot of synthetic sprays. They're very effective against powder and mildew. There are also a couple of organics Potassium bicarbonate I guess somewhat similar to baking soda, which is sodium bicarbonate, but we don't need to be adding the sodium out there. Potassium bicarbonate, and kneem oil

neem oil sprays. I remember when doctor Larry Barnes at TEXA and m at the Plant Clinic did a study on gerber daisies, and he found that knem oil was about as effective as some of the systemic synthetic fungicides were. But with all of those you have to reapply. So you get a rain and it washes the potassium bicarbonate off the server, you gotta respray it again. But anyway, those are ways to avoid it, and by avoiding it,

you're keeping your foliage there. When the foliage is what makes all the things we want happen. I mean, if it was a let's say it's a a rose bush and you want flowers, or if it's a vegetable and you want production, we got to have the foliage to do that. And that is also true for any other plant. Even the lawn is essentially the new healthy growth is sustained by a healthy foliage. Hey, you're listening to Garden Line. If you would like to be on the board, give us a

call. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four. God all are you probably thinking, Hey, that's not Simon Garfuncle. Well tell you who it is. It's a band called the Lemonheads. Now isn't that appropriate to play on Garden Line? You know? Randy Lemon twenty five years a host of this show. He really established the show as it is today. And if you are, if you are a fan of Randy, sfew enjoyed listening to him. There's a scholarship that Dean Nelson set up up at Texas

A and M. And you can contribute to that. It goes to a horticulture student. And I can guarantee you Randy Lemon would be proud to know that his legacy lives on in this scholarship for horticulture students. So if you appreciate the things that Randy did for the Houston gardening community over the years, go to give dot am slash Randy Lemon. Give dot am slash Randy Lemon and it will direct you to just what to do from there. You're listening

to garden Line and I'm your host, Skip Richter. We are here to answer your gardening questions. The number seven one three, two one two five eight seven four, and we're going to go to Joan in bel Air. Well, good morning, Joan, good morning. I have I think they're called either wild garlic or wild onions that have kind of taken over a portion

of my flower bed. And I was digging them up to just throwing them away, of course, but some of the bulbs have the little tiny bulbs and those things just fall apart, and I try and scoop them up and get rid of those also. But if they were another way I can kill and then control those kinds of weeds. You know, Joan, you're you're calling from Belair, and if you will go in to Southwest Fertilizer is not

very far from you. They are going to have every kind of product and they can direct you to the products they sell that are effective against that. It may be a two four D type product that you're putting out, but you're going to be very careful with your application of it because you've got desirable plants nearby. That's the caveat that I would say about that. But yes, there are the products that will control wild onions and wild garlic, which

are two different kinds of plants. You're doing the right thing digging the bulbs out, I mean that is a first step. But if you do need to do the spraying, then I think one of those kinds of products is going to be the one that helps you. And I can tell you for sure. The folks at Southwest Fertilizer are going to direct you too, and their selection is the best in town. Okay, thank you, okay,

thank you very much. Well, let's see we are now going to head out to League City and talk to John V. Hello John V. Good morning skids. I don't know the species. It's three three purple dark purple with in the center and then light flowers. I've got one with my amorillas, two amerllas in a pot and one in the beds. They're doing really well. But do you know what I should do about maintaining their abundancy? Well, I need to. I'm not following you on what plant that is.

Can you give me a little description again on it? Yes, sir, it's three leaves that are dark purple and centered with like a violet, and then the flowers are like a light pinkish. I think you're talking about an ax salus. There are do the leaves sort of look like if you had a four leaf clover, but there's not four of them, right, and they're in like a triangle shape. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's that's Oxalis. There are some ornamental types Vocsalus. There is xalas weeds and

they throw their seeds all over the place, the little pods. If you have oxalis and it's a weed and you want to get rid of it, you need to get it out of there before it has low seeds. If you have the good type, you know, the kinds that like you're describing, that are beautiful, they can be divided. You can divide those clumps and replant them and spread them out, or you can just go buy some others. And there's several types. One is all purple, deep purple,

and this is gorgeous, wonderful. Thank y'all. Y'all have a wonderful day, and happy Mother's Day. Thank you, John, you appreciate that call. Yeah, Axalis is a very interesting plant. It's persistent. You know, if people that have gardens and or nurseries where they're growing the plants, it'll be on the floor of the greenhouse, and when it pops those pods, it'll throw seeds up into the pots on top the benches. I mean, it's a it's a persistent little booker and kind of a kind of a

pain, you know, to deal with anyway. But I love I love the ornamental types. The only thing about the ornamentals, I just want to warn you thous oxalis and purple heart, which is another wonderful plant. Plant them where you want them, because they're kind of hard to get rid of after you plant them. They they don't always respond to products. But they also it's kind of hard to not leave some in the ground when you try

to dig them up. No reason not to use them. I mean, they're still good, but it's just a little bit of a challenge with those talking about some of the weed killer products you are mentioning earlier, different kinds and stuff. If it's a broad leaf weed killer that kills an existing weed, it is best to get those applied before temperatures rise above the mid eighties. Certainly, if they're up to ninety, a lot of those are going

to really stress your lawn and it predisposes the lawn to other problems. Maybe the lawn kind of is unhappy for a while and eventually comes back, but then you find a disease like take all root rot moves in because you've weakened the host, and now take all the opportunists can move in and do that. So I'm mentioning this because we're kind of at the end of that window

to have good effect without damage to the lawn. There are other pride There's one called Celsius that actually will let you go up to about ninety ninety two without getting the damage. But why wait, go ahead and get things taken care of, because once those broad leafs enter their reproductive stage and they start blooming and setting seeds, products are not going to be very effective on them anyway. Well, let's so let's head out to golf golf Gate and talk

to Kennedy. Good morning, Kenney morning, How are we doing well? Thank you? Good good. I've got some questions. I've been trying to grow for a couple of years. A few things. Last year it was too hot, and the year before it rained too much. But I have questions on route stop or rod stop for the for calcium. Yeah, yes, the foliar sprays. If you start them, you know, as the plant is just blooming, setting setting the little fruit and periodically put those on.

They can help circumvent that lack of calcium problems that causes blossom undrot. But you have to get on and do those. The other thing to keep in mind is widely fluctuating soil conditions really predisposed of the plant towards blossom undrot, so try to keep your soul moisture even okay um, I guess I have another question too, Would you use EPs and salts with potasimine magnesium? So EPs and salts is magnesium sulfate and uh it is good to use if

you don't have enough magnesium in the soil. A lot of times you'll read things and it says when you plant tomatoes, put in epps and salt, when you plant roses, put in ups and salt. Well, that's true if you need magnesium, but if your soil already has plenty of magnesium, then the apps and salt is not helping and use too much and it can actually hurt. So I don't have any problem with using it, but I would use it if it's needed, and a soil test would tell you that.

Or if you look at the leaves of your plants that you would have put the ups and salts on, and there's like a green Christmas tree in the middle of the leaf and it's light green to yellow outside of that, that's a magnesium deficiency symptom. The little green Christmas tree inside the leaf centered on the mainium thing. So I wouldn't just say use ups and salt because you're planting a tomato. I would use it if it's needed. Okay,

I've got microlime Ocean Harbors four three. It does apply every two to four weekles on the soil. Leaves would get better, so it's better to apply to the soil. Plants can take up some nutrients through their leaves, but the efficiency of leaf uptake is not as good. Plants were designed to take up nutrients through their roots, and so while fully your feeding can be helpful, especially to deal with certain nutrient deficiencies, you need to do it early

in the day. You need to spray upward from underneath the plant while the little openings in the leaves called stone mates are open to get the most in the plant that you can. But in general I would soil apply. Okay. I've also got some microlife eight four six, and apply that in every three to four months. So that's only like once during the growing season for vegetables. Yeah, for a vegetable crop, that would be once. But you want to build your soil up and that does it. Hey, Kennedyan,

I have to go to break. We're about to go to news here, but I appreciate your call. You're listening to garden line seven one three two one two five eight seven four, Lord, how it rang nude hair talk fude here and saying, all right, good morning, I'm a good day for gardening, good day for talking about gardening too. Give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna go now out to a Tasca cita and talk to Thomas. Well, good morning,

Thomas, Good morning. How are you? I'm well, thank you? Okay. Three questions. One the nitrogen. I'm using the microL life maximum boom three eighth three. I'm getting great results from it, but I'm also getting a tremendous amount of foliage. I mean, more than I would expect. Well, what did the numbers you just said? Three eight three Okay, yeah, that's the micro life maxie by. So I worry about that. I mean, you know, I guess if you overapply something,

you're going to get more vigorous vegetative growth than you want. But used at the proper rate, you should get some vigor. And remember, when you have a blooming plant, some vigor is necessary because you've got to keep growing good new foliage to help provide the carbs needed to set the buds for those blooms. So foliage growth and blooms can go together. In fact, they do go together. So I don't know, okay, whether you know, I don't know how much you're putting out, but just don't overdo it.

But it's good I'm doing. I started. I started in spring with one ounce of gallon, just from the beginning en April on, starting like every two two and a half weeks, four ounces to a gallon. Okay, well, only you can judge your growth. I can't. I can't see the play. No, no, I understand it. Yeah, okay, next question. I just refinished, rebuilding my walk. God, and I want some things to the hang around for a while, some perennials, and I've got some plants here. I know they grow bigger. I want to

know if the handle pruning. I'm bobina, the butterfly ginger and night blooming jasmine. I know those grow pretty tall. Yeah, what was the middle butterfly? What the butterfly ginger? Oh, butterfly ginger. Well, the butterfly ginger can take that more sun than most gingers, but it still does best with some late day shade to mid day shade. What can be in a bright all day shade and do just fine, But just be careful that in a rock garden in that location it's not getting too much. Maybe put

it on full sun. Yeah, I don't know, you can give it a try. I think you're gonna see some ragged looking leaves and maybe if you got another spot it's a little bright shade, I think i'd move it

over there. The others will do just fine. The I'm of verbina, as you said, does get large, and so you're gonna need to do some prunting on it to keep it in a smaller size if that, If that's what you want, it ed handle being pruned and kept a two feet no, no, no, I mean I've never tried it, but this is a plant that wants to be twelve feet, you know, and so okay, I would not expect that you're gonna like what you get now. It does bloom on new growth, so you know, as you shear and

get shoots, you should get blooms. I don't know, that's a good question. That's Thomas, that's a stumper. But I don't think it's going to do well with that. I'd love to try it though, now that you mentioned it, Just see what would happen if you just really pruned that thing back a lot. I wish they say say that again, they're gonna try one and see, and it's in my front yard. But it'll let you said, if you don't kill plants, you're not learning. That's it.

Absolutely, there's a spirit. Well, I would you give it a shot if you want. I guess I should never say never, but you just you want to be careful that you don't um take all the foliage off each time you're trying to prune it to keep it down that low. I think two feet If that works for you, will you call me back? I would like to know that. I will see I've lined over them.

They're doing my punting more like a Bonsi type of things. So I'm really careful and just do small and you know, trying to shape it all the time as it's growing. Yeah, good idea. Well, it sounds like you're an adventurous gardener, so I do wish you well. Right, Okay, so Lantana um Mexican Heather, Hey, Tom, I'm gonna have to take a break if you want to hang on through the break. I'll pick you back up after break. You're listening to garden Line seven one three two

one two five eight seven four. Well, good Sunday morning. I'm sorry. I was dancing around the studio there. I had to get back to my chair. Oh gosh. You know, garden Line is an institution throughout this greater Houston area, in fact, way way beyond the Houston area. And for all these years, since back in the days of Dewy Compton, this show has been around and it is provided education, it's provided assistance, provided device for gardeners in this area. And I hope you'll tell other people

about garden Line. I think everybody that has a yard or a house plant ought to give us a call on garden Line. Let them help, let us help you with the questions that you might have speaking of give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And I'm going to head out out to a task caseda Hello Thomas, I think in the middle of a big conversation. Right, um my rock garden it gets full sun east west. I want to put some bushes in there. Well,

I'm gonna I'm gonna try the Alma bovina and see what happens here. But I need something with some other colors, some rids or whatever, something bright. Is this an area that you can irrigate or is that kind of on nature? Oh? No, it's irrigated. It's actually a TERRISTI three three steps in the rock garden, okay, And I've got my sprinkle system there, so I control and it's excellent soil that I put in. I've got six inches of quality soil. Well, when I think about red blooms and

the full sun, I think about roses. First of all, there's there's a lot of great roses that you could put in, but they take work. Uh you know what, if you get you a shrub rose, it's not gonna take much work. You can leave a shrub or is on print. I share mine back periodically just to get more blooms on them. But anyway, that that would be one one option that comes to mind. I'm

trying to think. The red color has kind of throwing me. My brain isn't clicking on all cylinders here to just spit out the name of a plant. Perhaps one of our listeners has therefore that they would want to share with us. But you know, in a rock garden, are you looking for a more of a western garden kind of look, arid garden kind of look or because then you would have things like oh gosh, the I'll think of it in just a moment. My brain just went't blank on that one.

But anyway, what kind of look are you trying to get? Well, it's it's rustic I've had for years. I've had land tana on one level and Mexican heather on another level. Okay, and all they look really nice whenever, really full bloom and trim nicely, and I want to keep that look. But I'm just getting tired of the land. Will they die anyway from this frost? Okay? Would I would consider some salvia's. There are some red blooming salvias and others. Salvia is always a good, dependable plant.

I would probably look at salvia Greggy. I where they it's called cherry sage because the originals were all red. They have other commas now, but I think I would try that. Hey, Thomas, I've enjoyed the visit. Thank you. Gonna have to move on. We're running out of time. I appreciate it. Thank you, at a time. Thank you, sir. Let's head to the heights and talk to Brenda. Hello, Brenda, Hi there, how are you. I'm good? How are you doing good? Thank you? Listen. I bought some rosemary and some basil.

And how do I prepare the soil to plant both of those herbs in a pot, maybe an eight or ten inch pot. And what do I put at the bottom of the container so that it can drain? You know, I don't don't put anything at the bottom of the container. I can go into it. I don't have time to day to go into it. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow's show. But that doesn't that stuff doesn't help drainage.

To just use a quality potting saw mix. And you go into a place like you're you're close to b Cannons, for example, they're going to have blends that are just designed for container growing. If it's a big enough container, I just often would use rose soil. But we have a lot of other blends that will do well. And then when wherever you go shop at a good independent garden center, they're going to show you the things that they

carry that fit that very well. But you pick two great plants, rosemary, got some drought tolerance that is really really nice, and then the basil is an easy one when you have good sunlight. Okay, Well, one other question, though, Do I not need some sand mixed into that. I've gone online and kind of looked around a little bit, and no, if you get a good quality mix, you don't need Dad's sand to it. No. Okay, h well, thank you very much. I appreciate

it. Thank you very much for the call. I am going to now vernon. We're gonna give a quick we have just a matter of seconds left. But you're trying to get rid of some po poison ivy. Yes, okay, growing, and it's growing in my hedge. Okay, what you need to do. If you spray something on the poison ivy leaves, you're gonna hurt your heads. So go down where it's coming from, cut it off and treat that that little stem at the bottom of the fresh cut.

Treat it with a product containing triclopier t r I c l O p y r. I'm sorry, I'm sort Can you repeat that from me slowly again? Yes, t r I c l O p y r tric pier that's the ingredient. You're gonna find it in a lot of products. You know, you're up in the Northwest house scenario. So if you go to plant

for all seasons, I go to Arborgade. If you go to one of one of the ace hardwares, like, for example, the cypress area that you're going to find products with triclopier, they'll steer your steer you right, Okay, we are. We are out of time today, Susan in Baydown, I've support unfortunately could not get to your call today. Will you call back tomorrow? I would be happy. Oh, I'm sorry, you got the next hour. We can hang on. I'm gonna hold you on through

break and we'll come to you right when we come back. Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two. Ktr H give us a call. KATRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictord. Just watching a good Saturday morning on a good day for guarding. Yes, I know it's cloudy. I know I can get some rain showers here and there, but it's still a good day to

get out and get some stuff done in the garden. We are going to now head out to Baytown and talk to Susan. Susan, thanks for hanging around. Colin Skip, thank you for taking my call. How can we help um? I'm helping my friend with her along. She's eighty six years old. Her son sold rye grass in the winter and she had Saint Augustine. Then he put Scott's turf builder on it about three weeks ago. Okay, the rye grass is certainly healthy, but it did not kill the weeds.

So now what can we do to kill the weeds without hurting them on? Do you know offhand if the weeds are grassy type weeds or broad leaf type weeds broad leafs when I'm seeing, Yeah, you need to use a post emergent weed killer product, and there are a number of them out there by you know, all the different manufacturers of those kinds of products I mentioned

earlier, the weed beater, ultra concentrate. That's just one example. That's a bond product that is out there that they will do a good job, but they need to do it soon because once the temperature is up in the mid to upper eighties, then we can start to get some damage to the Saint Augustine, and you definitely don't need that when you're trying to bring the lawn back and it's already not that great, right, So get that,

get that done. If you look at the weather, you're gonna see the days where it's a little bit cooler, go ahead and put it out on one of those days. Uh. And it's a spray, I would put it out as a spray. You can direct spray individual weeds or if it's solid weeds all over the lawn, you can spray the whole area. Okay, all right, Well, thank you very much. Hey, and thank you for helping that person out with their lawn. Sounds like that's a good colleart. I'm proud to do it. Well, thank you. Have a

good week you two. Thank you, Susan. Speaking of the weeds and things, when when we're dealing with the weeds in our lawn, you need to just keep in mind that they are different kinds of weeds, grassing broadly same product, don't go both. Yeah, the option of doing a pre emergent pre emergent like a barricade product I was talking about earlier by nitrifiles that will prevent the seeds from coming in. And then there's the post emergence that

kill the existing weeds. And with our Saint Augustine, which is most of the lawns are on here. When you use some of these post emergents and it's getting hot, you really weaken the plant and set it back. So don't delay. It's always better to kill a weed when it's younger than to wait until it gets older, because at some point when it becomes reproductive, meaning blooming and setting seeds, you're gonna you're not gonna have any effect to

speak of. Or maybe it's too late, there's already seeds on the plant. But you can keep your lawn in good shape by just taking care of it like that. If if you are listening and is the first time to hear Garden Line, welcome, We're glad you're here. We'll hope you'll tell your friends and family about Garden Line. If you've been listening for years,

then you know this is a strange new host that's on the show. But we are carrying on the tradition that began back with the Dewey Compton all the way up through Randy lemon and just a really I guess I get to stand on the shoulders of giants in terms of people that were there were forerunners that created a really, really excellent show for this community. I want to go

out to sugar Land now. And by the way, our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, we're gonna talk to Don. Good morning, Don. Hey, Skip, appreciate letting me talk to you, and I appreciate all the calls you're able to get in during your show. I've got a little raised garden with tomato plants in it, and I got these little green caterpillars. I finally found a couple of them, but they're kind of devastating all the leaves and even now and into the small

church tomatoes. What can I put on there that wouldn't be toxic for me? You could use a BT product, a product containing BT that's the ingredient, and the BT products will kill the caterpillars best. When the caterpillars are young, they only last about a day or two in the environment, so you may have to reapply because you wouldn't get them all or maybe one hatches out of an egg the next day after you spray, so BT would be

probably the simplest solution for that. This serves one brand that in case somebody didn't know what it is, Oh gosh, if you go to a good supplier, they're gonna know what it is. And there's there are so many brands. BT stands for it's the name of a bacteria, Bacillus thuringiens. But everybody, don't don't go to a big box store spect then to know. But you know you're out. You're out in the sugar Land area.

So you've got enchanted forest down out in that area. You got Plantation Hardware and Richmond M and D Supply in Richmond, those are ACE hardware stores. I think you're you're just gonna it's gonna be real easy. They're gonna direct you right to it because I promise all of those folks CARRYBT. And this stuff in't toxic at all. No, No, it's it's organic. But

it's a disease that just affects caterpillars. So if you had a beetle or a grasshopper or a snail or slug eating those leaves, it wouldn't affect them. If there's a ladybug on the leaf. It's not going to affect it's not gonna hurt the dog and cat. It's a caterpillar disease, specific disease that you're spraying on those foliage. Yeah, got it. Thank you so much. All right, don thank you. I appreciate that call. Our phone numbers seven one three, two one two five eight seven four seven one

three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I've been visiting about a lot of different things going on at this time of the year and in the summer. And one of the challenges, and I've had a number of different emails about this one, but one of the challenges in to have color is shady areas. You know, in the sun, we get the carbs on the made by the leaves that produce blooms easy. When you get into shade, it's a little more difficult. But we have plants that will do well in

a shady area, and examples would be wishbone flower also called Taurinia. Taurinia would do well in a shady area. We've got let's see a persian shield that's a foliage color purple, foliage color purple, silvery. If it's a bright shade, you get good purple coloration in there and it would do well. It's another good choice that you can try. Uh, there is let's

see what's some other examples. A chicken gizzard plant, there's impatience, there's colladiums, lots of good things for that area, Johnny, I see out there in Pasadena. We're going to catch you right after break. For those of you that you'll like to call seven one, three, two and two fifty eight seventy four school Soldiers musicality, Josh is continuing our tradition of who knows what we're going to play next? Right all over the board, from

country to pop, you name it. We like to stretch the musical world a bit. Let's head out to Pasadena now and we're gonna talk to Johnny. Hello, Johnny, Hey, how are you doing today? I'm well, thanks. So I've got a flower bed in the backyard. That's it's pretty pretty heavy with mulch, and it's got plants and trees and sorts of different sorts of items. But the nutgrass I cannot get rid of. It keeps coming through the mulch and I pick it out all the time. But

as quick as I pick it out, there's new sprouts coming out. Yea, And I wanted something I could get rid of that nut grass that's coming to the moltraduct killing nut plants or my trees. Okay, well, they're a product call Image is one that you can use. Image is very effective. There are there's another one that is better. Are really designed for the flower beds And I'm trying, I think though the name is escaping me right now of it. The thing you want to remember about nuts edge is you

want to spray it once it gets three to five leaves. Don't let it sit there because if you, for example, in the spring, when it comes up, if you have one nuts edge plant, by the time we get to today to May, it has already made eight daughter plants, and so you have eight times the problem you did in the spring. So with nuts edge, you never let it grow because it's getting a lot worse.

When you do. It's better to even just break it off and pull it up and get that sunlight off the you know, don't let it have sunlight and have to regrow. That doesn't get rid of it, but at least there you're slowing down its reproduction. Uh, You're you're out in the down in the Pasadena area. I think of you. You probably from a moss

nursery down there are one of the ACE Hardware stores. We've got a number number of ACE Hardware stores down in that area that are gonna be able to, uh, you know, supply you with those kinds of products that you need for nuts edge. But the product does need to be specifically for nuts edge, and image is an example of that. Okay, I appreciate that, Thank you very much. All right, appreciate that call. Thank you. I haven't managed that was the other one. I was trying to think

of image and manage. Let's head out to Sugarland. Now, we're going to cross town down to southwest sugar into Sugarland area and talk to Denise. Hello, Denise, Yes, good morning, skit, good morning. My problem. My problem is I have probably three dozen Agapanthus plants, most of we're put in right after well two years ago, after our big freeze. I cannot get them to bloom again. I cannot. There's like one or two that bloom otherwise. Any suggestions on that. It could be a number

of things. Agapanthus likes to be in a semi shady area, but in too much shade, it's not going to have the energy to bloom well. So maybe the plant came in it had the energy initially, but now it's not struggling in any way. You know, droughts and things like dry soil, things like that, we'll mess up with the blooming cycle. Over fertilizing

with nitrogen, that's another one you probably want to avoid. That tends to push plants and more vegetative and less settling down and fertilizing a little nitrogen very important essential. Too much is not a good thing. And so one of those things is going on there with your agapanthus. And I can't tell you for sure which one, but you're familiar with the setting. You may have an idea what maybe more are likely? Are you there? Yes, I'm

here. They're on a store to the west side, so they're getting afternoon sun now. Otherwise it's semi shade. They've what can I tell you? Is there anything? I don't fertilize them. I'm not pouring nitrogen on them. Is there any kind of supplement? Do you think the plants are very healthy? I mean, it's not like they're struggling. They look great. I just can't get them to bloom. Is there any what about a bulb food? Would I do that? Or no? No? I think what

I would do along the lines of what you're asking. I would probably get one of the products that's made just for annual flower plants, you know, like the color Star for example. That would just be one example, but it's something that's got a little more of the phosphorus. It certainly need a little nitrogen potassium, but a little more of the phosphorus in there. You might try that, start using that on them and see if that kind of kicks them into gear to do a little bit better. But I think that

would be the next thing. Well, one of those kinds of Well, it's frustrating we drive around our neighborhood and people who don't take care of their lawns don't have agapanthus and they're blooming mine art. So is there any hope to get them to bloom them? Yeah? Well I think there is. I think what we're saying would would help on that. You need to dig up your agapanthus, take them for a ride around the neighborhood and say,

now I'm gonna take you back and plant you. But if you don't look like this in a week, I'm coming back with some spray and you're out it. Maybe that'll scare an. If I do have color Star, I use it. If I start using that. Is there any hope for the year? Are we done? There an option? Do you think they might bloom if we Yeah, I wouldn't give up hope. I think there's a chance. I believe there's a chance. So we just need to see what's

going on with them. You know, for a plant to bloom, it has to have enough light to make carbohydrates to set the blooms, and it has to have the growing condition that it needs, and it needs the nutrient package that is required to set the bloom. So we've talked about the nutrient package. You can't change the sunlight unless you go up and tremble limb on a tree or something or move the plantation. Yeah, I think here's just need a good talking to. That's that's oh well, I need to I'll

go do that. Today's skip, Thank you very much, and I'll get some pillar star out here. If that works, called back, I'd like I'd like to hear that. All right, let's go to Baytown and we're going to talk to Misty now Hello a misty. Hey y'all. Hope everybody's having a good morning. I'm having a great more. Hope you are. That's good I am. I'm calling today's because essentially email two weeks ago about this possible sport on my flower boos. Okay, I'm a yeah, I

missed that. Yes, you sent it to my show my heart address, right, I will, sir, I will go back and I will find it after the show here and I will get you an answer to that. I somehow missed it. I haven't seen that one, so okay, go ahead. Sorry, I think you're going yesterday, Yes, about the real roses that come out. And then I have a couple more that I think or sports as well. So I'm really excited about this. Uh you know

what I've gone in and I've found it. Um so this the ones in your picture are pretty rad or is that like one is normal and one is a sport picture of the red. Yes, the one of them has teens at the very center and the rest of its read. Oh, I see that could be a sport. The only other thing that I could think I've missed he is that um as a rose bloom ages it color off usually changes in some way, and the only thing would be if they were not the

same age. You know, number of days since the blooms opened. Uh, that's about it. But I'm having trouble picking out the difference in those in those photos, I think I see what you're talking about, the pinkish pedals. I'm sorry. Go ahead. The email that I sent like two weeks ago have the more defined white in them because they start out white. Mum. I have a little trouble finding that and on the air, probably

not cana able to do that. I will take a look at it, and if you want to hang on, when we get past this break, we can continue talking about it, or I can just talk about what I see when I find your email and get back to that. Okay, you can do that, That's fine, Okay, Yeah, I don't want to everybody in the world to wait on me trying to find an email. And one day and one day he killed the show. But Missy hang on, Oh gosh, and Nikki Nicky is laughing at me in the studio that I

can so relate to that. I'll be right with you. Let me just check my Emi dog just scrolling real quick. Just hang with me gripping radio. I need to go fill my coffee cup. Y'all hang out. I'll be right back, I promise. Oh gosh. Yeah. Well, this is garden Line, and we try to keep it exciting and interesting. Seven one three, two, one two five eight seven four. Give me a call seven three, two and two fifty eight seventy four. This is our

last hour for today. By the way, we're here on Saturdays and Sundays six am to ten am. So tell your neighbors, tell your friends to give us a call or at least listening on the show. Hopefully there'll be some good information that helps them have a beautiful lawn and bountiful garden. Man, I've been everywheremen across the deserts, I breathe them, Mountain a man, I've been everywhere. I've been Arena, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota,

Buffalo. All right, good Sunday or Saturday morning. I'm trying to make it Sunday, oh day today, because Sunday's Mother's Day and that's a special day. But it is Saturday. We are welcoming you here to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number. Write this down seven one three two, one, two, five, eight seven four. We are going to start off by going to West Houston and talking to Paul. Hello, Paul, Hi are you doing. I'm well, thank

you. Hey. So y'all had just talked about qualities, feed and garden. Yeah, I'm actually on my way to them right now. Also Ken that owns that place. Um Ken is also a member of the Bonds Eye Society and every other month he hosts a um A deal out at his place on Saturday morning. So I'm in the Bondsaye Society team UM and you can go out there and he helps people. Different people come out there that are you know, they're Bonds Eye great people and and help us beginner guys,

you know, learn how to do it. So there's something else that they do out there. I mean they're they're just great people, can good guys, it is. And they'll sell you bons Eye too if you want to buy one. So well, how exactly how can we help today? Paul? So, I have an oak tree that is it's probably at least seventy five years old. I know that, Um I cannot put my arms around

it. And it has started putting up, started about two years ago, started putting up shoots from the roofs now I have and and quite a few um that kind of makes my grass look ugly. And I have done some research on it. I've read that it says that that's the DNA of the tree. But everything that I've read said that if it's going to do that, it's going to do that early in its life cycle. And like I say, this has never happened. It just started happening about two years ago.

And I don't know if there's something I'm doing wrong with watering it or feeding it or okay, yeah, something to deal well. What you fraud is basically true. The oaks have different gene pools that they come out of. If it's a like along the southern Gulf Coast, those tend to be single tree type of oaks. As you get into the hill country of Texas, you see oaka moths where there's many trunks coming out of the ground in

the same place. The thing I think that's happened with yours, and this is my best shot at it, is I believe something has has affected the roots there. When you put in a flower bed around a tree, you often see a lot of new shoots coming off the roots that you wouldn't have had before. When you rote hoteil or do something. You know that that injures a route, you tend to get a lot more of those as well.

So, but the only solution to that would be to either put a ground cover around it that you could just you know, as um over the top of the groundcover, m over the little ceilings coming up, or a really heavy duty landscape fabric weighted down and that that could cut down on that. But then you're not gonna be able to grow anything in that spot unless it's a vinding groundcover coming in from the sides, right, Okay, Well, you know, I just I'll just deal with it, Okay, I

have to do Yeah. I mean, there is a big azalia area all around it, but it's been there since we moved in right thirty years ago, So it's nothing that I put in. It's just it's always and I

haven't touched the roots since we've been there. But well, if you if you eliminate that, I'm not sure why they're suddenly just starting to pop up then right now, that is a little bit unusual, but anyway, it's it is what it is, and so your options are just to do some of the things I mentioned, or to if you do cut them out, try to go down and cut them more where they attached to the route, because when you just mow them off, it just rebranches from the base and

you get two shirts. Yeah yeah, and become spikes that you can't walk over. Baret oh Man, No kidding, Hey, Paul, thank you. I appreciate that call very much, and good luck with that situation. We're gonna go now to Texas City. Danny, we got about a minute. How can we help? Hey morn to skip and Nikki got white power recepts. Its all of them crooked neck, straight neck squash. Okay, it rubs off with your finger, yeah, but it's spreading from one plant

to the next. One time to stop it. Okay, powdery mill do, that's what it is, and it can be controlled with a foliar spray of kneeme oil. There are also some fungicides that will work on powdery mill do. So if if that's if that's what you're dealing with, uh, then I would consider either a synthetic fungicide or something like kneem oil as being probably two of your best bets. Okay, one last question, what's the general fertilizer for all the vegetable plants? Oh, gosh, a lot of

things will work. I often just use lawn fertilizer on most of my vegetables. But I've been running. Yeah, n uh yeah, yeah, you can uh, you know pretty much. The lawn fertilizers we talk about, I often use them a vegetable garden. Now, you can buy a mix just for vegetables, but you know, we we package these mix is based on what a plant generally mostly wants, but it doesn't account for what's already

in the soil. So, you know, it could be that a vegetable food isn't the best food for your vegetables because of what's already in your soil. But in general, you can depend on those and go with it. Hey, if you got some follow up, hang on, I'll talk to you after break. But I'm gonna have to take break right now. Danny our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. All right, quick quiz question. Can you name three monkeys? I'm talking about

human monkeys singing with monkeys. I'm not talking about like monkeys in the in the wild. Yeah, if you can i'd like to know. Hey, we're gonna head out to spring and we're gonna talk to Andrew. Hello Andrew, Hey, how are you doing? I'm well, thank you. I got a question. So my front yard, I had a mostly Saint Augustine yard. I used to credit at five inches as real, thick, full, beautiful, and then this last winter we just had bermuda started taking over,

so I started cutting it short. And now Saint Augustine is trying to make a comeback, and I actually like the bermuda better. Okay, what kind I do to get rid of that? Saint Augustine? Andrew? Do you think this is a turf type bermuda? Like, is it coming from another bermuda lawn or what? I have no idea. I just know that whenever they it's kind of a new Bill twenty nineteen, and so whenever they

did the saw it it was a mixed palette. Ah. Okay, well that then the chances are it's a turf type bermuda because the turf farm grows one and then the other one. But I just had to ask that because just standard old bermudas are not necessarily the best for a lawn, Like if you want to bermuda lawn. I'd probably tell you to purchase a good semi dwarf type of bermuda that that would do best for you. But assuming that this bermuda is a decent type, what you want to do is you want

to mow low, and you want to mow often. If you let the grass get real tall, Saint Augustine has enough advantage to survive in the bermuda. If your areas are too shady, it's going to be hard to get rid of the Saint Augustine because the bermuda can't take that shade as much. But if you mow low and mow often, that's the way we have a beautiful bermuda lawn. And you know, you can also just grab Saint Augustine runners and kind of rip them up, so it's not too easy to have.

Yeah, yeah, you can do some of that, but mo low more often. I think that's going to be your best bet, assuming that it's a good full sun location. All right, I appreciate it in the crib grass. What's the best way to get rid of that? The best way is to not have it, and that's by using arricade as a pre emergent you put it down, you watered in. The crabgrass is never able

to sprout and establish a weed. Once you have crabgrass, if it's in a lawn, there's not something that kills a grass in a grass in that sense, you can't kill cry grass without killing your lawn. And so there I would just mow again more regularly, mow low, and the crab grass is gonna get choked out eventually by a healthy lawn. Now, if your lawn is struggling and you've got spots where sunlight hits the soil, you're gonna

have weeds like crab grass that pop up. So work on mow, water, fertilized those three key elements, do them right and increase that density and crab grass is not going to be as much of a problem. But a pre emerge is always a good way. It's going to give you know, sixty days or so of protection against grass crabgrass germination. Perfect. All right, thank you, all right, Andrew, thank you for the call.

I appreciate that call. Let's see a little bit of time here, if we can get a quick call in seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one, two, five, eight seventy four. I want to remind you that after the show today, which is really soon, I'm going to be heading out to Arbigate. I'll get out there about eleven thirty and I'll be there to help. I'll be there and we'll pass one thirty, but officially to one thirty. This is the day before

Mother's Day. Come out and they will direct you to a plethora of wonderful Mother's Day gifts, from plants to bling to indoor decorations. They've got it. Come see me. Let's see some samples of plants or bugs or diseases. Put them in a ziplock bag. If you've got your phone camera going and you can take a picture of some things up close and sharp focus and sharp focus. I'd be happy to look at those and see if we can identify, if we can diagnose, or if we can make some suggestions for

plants free area. But I'd love to meet you. I love to get to visit with and talk to the listeners of the show. So come out Arburgate today. We'll be out there and it is a wonderland of cool things. And you know I say this all the time about Independent Garden centers. But they've got people that know what they're doing. You know. It's they're not making guesses. They understand growing in Houston. They understand which plants do well and don't do well. So I hope to see out at Arburgate.

We're gonna go the phones now, we've got time for one more. We're gonna talk to George. How are you doing? George doing pretty good. Hey. Look, I'm working on the yard over here in Baytown and it's covered up with bermuda grass and it has a little bit of Saint Augustine mixed in, and I was thinking about trying that liquid actrazine to mark that formu to down. I don't know. I wouldn't do that. I'm not a

big fan of that. Just wouldn't do it. You know, there's there's not a great way to get bermuda out of Saint Augustine other than turn it into a very shady area, which gives Saint Augustine the edge. I think if you, yeah, I think you're gonna have to get rid of all of it. And what I would do is spray a general weed killer to kill everything, and then I would wait and give it a couple of weeks because you're going to see some ree sprouting because you never get it all the

first time. Hit it again, hit it again, with that, with that spray. Just be patient and then bring your Saint Augustine in. Try to get all the dead material off the surface, by the way, so that your your new side sit. I said, bring your Saint Augustine. You want Bermuda, No, you want Saint Augustine. Bring the us In Augustine in and put it where it gets good side to soil contact. You need good contact between those two so the roots can move from one to the

other readily. I understand. Yeah, then I'll do it that way. Then all right, Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we just don't have the miracle product that will be that selected yet. I guess some way someday they will. We'll figure that out. Well, you've been listening to the garden Line. We are here to answer your gardening questions here every Saturday from six am to ten, every Sunday from six am to ten. Give us call tomorrow. We'd love to visit with you about what's going

on in your lawn and in your landscape. In the meantime, come out to our arbigate today. I'll be there eleven thirty to one thirty and I can't wait to meet you and to see how we can help you with some of your gardening questions. Thank you for being the listener. Tell your friends and neighbors about it. By the way, if you miss a show, you can listen to the podcast to catch up on something that you might have missed. Also, if you haven't followed us on Facebook, please do that

our Facebook page garden Line Facebook page. We keep it busy with a lot of good information. And so I think that we are going to put this show in the cans. We'll see you tomorrow