KTRH GardenLine | 7-23-23

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 as so many packing a sign. Well, good morning, good Sunday morning. You are listening to garden Line. We're here to answer your gardening questions. That's what this is all about. I'll talk about a few things gardening, of course, but the most interesting radio is when when you call in with your

questions because somebody else has those same questions. And I just think you shouldn't be shy. I know a lot of folks listen, but they don't call in. Well, let's let's see if we can improve on that by one or two folks today. How about that our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And if you look outside it's dark, check your neighbor's house. If the lights aren't on, go bang on the door, tell them they're missing garden Line, and they will rise up and

call you blessed. Actually they may rise up and call you something else this morning, but eventually they will thank you for turning them on to garden Line. I mean, I think just listening someone I don't know. This is to me saying, I think someone told me once that just listening to garden line makes your grass greener. Do you believe that I do? Give us a call. We'll talk about what you're interested in. Right now, I'm

going to talk about a couple of things that I find interesting. You know, this past week, I've had more than one call back at the Agrilife Extension office during the week, and it was about my trees are bleeding. And here's here's how the call kind of goes. On the side of my tree. There's this you know, sap kind of leaking out, but it's real watery and it has white and frothy too, and there's like little butterflies and wasps stuff on that. What's going on, Well, what's going on

is something called slime flux. It can also be called bacterial wet wood. It kind of just depends on some specifics of how it's occurring. But what happens is our trees get stressed and sometimes they can even get a stress crack that could come from a freeze, that could come from you know, the movement in a strong wind. It can come from a lot of things.

It doesn't matter what it comes from. What matters is bacteria now have access to that interior behind the behind the outer dead bark, that interior tissue in there, which is where all the juices are flowing. That's where all the carbohydrates made in the leaves are heading down to the roots. And so it is a nutrient and carbohydrate sugar, if you will, rich water. And when back here you get in there, it starts to ferment. And when it starts to ferment, and it's under the sap, under the sap under

the bark, that fermenting pressure comes pushing out. In fact, it'll lift the bark up a little bit off the wood the truck behind it. And it's not great for the tree, but it's more of a physical wound than like a disease. It's going to go all through the tree and cause it damage. And a young tree can close that over and will, and most trees, well, if it's a very old tree and it's just kind of sitting there, not much bigger hanging on, you may have something like that

go on and last for more than a year, for several years. Actually. But the cool thing I think about it is because it's fermenting liquids. We've got something like an alcohol kind of product going on there, and the insects are gathering to drink that fermented sap. So I consider it just a big butterfly and wasp beer joint right there on the side of the tree. And that's that's why you see the frothy because it's the bubbles, it's the

fermentation, it's the pressure coming out. Sometimes you just see it as just a drainage and no, no frothiness, but it's still the same kind of thing going on. So what do you do, Well, you don't do anything. You don't want to go in and do surgery and cut that area out because it's not an infection to cut out. There's no spray to put on it on the outside that's going to change what's going on underneath the bark.

What you do is you keep your trees healthy. If a tree has vigor, anytime it's wounded, it is going to start to create a callous and close that wound back over again, and that just takes time. And so how does a tree have vigor, Well, it has adequate moisture, and boy, during this summer heat, a what a tough time for trees, and secondly it has a nutrition it needs. And then tho other things that are affecting vigor in a negative way. You know, we run cars

over trees root system and compact the swil. That's a big deal in terms of tree health. We run a trench by it because we're build a new house and cut a bunch of the roots off. And there's a lot of ways we stress trees. But anyway, if you've seen something like that, if you go up to it and smell it, it kind of has a sour smell, usually a sour kind of smell, and sometimes it has that alcohol smell to it, a little bit of an aromatics coming off of the

thing. Anyway, that's something that's made the phone ring a little bit this summer. Another issue that we've heard a lot about this summer is chinch bugs. Now, the lawn only had your most lawns, you know, because we have more than one type of turf grass. But let's say it's Saint Augustine. Most lawns only have a handful of insects at bother them. But chinch bugs are an insect of the summertime. And oh, here's what happens. The little bugs typically start next to a hardscape like a driveway or a

sidewalk or a curb. Not all, but usually there. If you have a dead spot starting off across the yard in the shade somewhere, that's probably not chinch bugs. It becomes very unlikely that it's chinch bugs. But in the sun and especially against some hardscape, we see them begin and your grass looks like it needs watering, so you water it, but it doesn't improve, and then that problem area moves out further into the grass and eventually the

old area is dead. It's just straw brown or you know, it's just dead. And then there's a zone where the grass is not looking so good, and then of course there's your healthy grass. So think of the chinch bugs is like a little army marching through the yard and they're sucking all the juices ei of the grass and injecting toxins in the grass, and that grass is going downhill and as it dies, well, there's nothing for them to feed on, so they have to move further out into the yard and that's

how it progresses. So how do we identify them for sure? Well, number one, you look for the signs just described number two. You can part the grass in the zone between healthy and dead. That's where the most chinch bugs are because that's where the primary decline is. That's where they're feeding, and look for them. You can go online and search for what does a chinch bug look like? Learn how the adults look and the young.

The adults are black and white, about eighth of an inch long, and the young are smaller than that, and they're typically kind of a brick red color with a white band across their back. But once you see that's what you have. You know what to do, and all you have to treat is that area right there. You don't have the nuke the whole yard because

you have chinch bugs in one spot. Now, if you feel like you may have some other spots getting started, you can move along the curb or the driveway and do some other treating, But we try to minimize the treating that we do. So anyway, that's a little quick thought on chinch bugs, and we are seeing quite a bit of them. Get quite a bit of information on them coming in and being a problem. Hey, we are going to take a break right now. Our phone number is seven one three

two one two fifty eight seventy four. GiB Ryan a call and he'll get you on the board and we'll talk to you when we come back. Well, good Sunday morning. We are glad you're listening to garden Line this morning. We're here to talk gardening. Of course, that's why we call garden Line. Hey, if you want to give us a call. Seven one

three two one two five eight seven four. That is the number. You know, if you're planting any kind of a woody ornamental really, a shrub, a woody vine, a tree, even perennials, really, you gotta water them well through the first days because the whole root system is in that cylinder you pulled out of the container, you know, the day after you plant. It's not like it's got roots everywhere, right, that makes sense. Well, a tree hugger sprinkler is such a nice efficient way to target

water right there. Tree huggers are a little round. It's like kind of a c shape like Pacman. If you think about pac Man going along eating things. You just put it up to the trunk and turn it in and now you've got a complete circle around the trunk. It's got a little valve on it. You can have it squirt just a little bit to wet that

root ball and just a little bit beyond that. That's, by the way, what you want to do when you first plant, and as those roots begin to get into the soil, then we turn it on a little more and water a larger and a larger area. TreeHugger is an ingenious design. You can go to TreeHugger sprinkler dot com to find a retailer near you, or I can just pretty much tell you this. Most of the folks we talk about here on garden Line they're going to have a tree hugger sprinkler.

And I wouldn't plant a woody ornamental without one, because you know, you're spending some money on a woody ornamental plant, tree shrub, or woody vine or even a rosebush. But they're great on roses. It just makes sense to take care of them and then you have it for the next time you plant. I know people that have larger trees, you know, maybe they're five years old and trunks getting a little bigger, they'll put the TreeHugger on

it for drought watering. And what a great idea because we want to water the area be and just beyond the branch spread tree huggers designed for just that kind of thing. I had some folks call someone call yesterday about bees in a bird bath. I don't know if you were listening if you remember that call, but they're just a lot of little bees going into the bird bath

to drink and get water. And they put some little stones in there, which is a good idea because bees literally can fall in water and drown. But if you have a little bit of a like they can kind of wade down or step down to write the water's edge and not you know, have to get in deep water when they're drinking. It just works really well and it helps them, and I encourage you. You know, we're putting water

out for birds right now. We need to be because I mean, gosh, can you imagine being outside without something to drink and this kind of weather. Well, the same thing is true for bees. And that reminds me. If you're interested at all mbes, you need to check out the b Supply dot com. It's out there in Dayton, Texas now. The b supply the two things if you interested in beekeeping. They have bee classes once a month for beginners and they walk you through everything. I mean they hold

your hand. And that's another thing I like about Paul. Those folks out there the Bee Supply. You buy your stuff from him, You go home, you have problems, you come back, you call them, you talk to them, and they're patient and they walk you through it because they understand that there's a learning curve. It is a fun learning curve, but there is if you just are interested in learning about bees, and you know, I don't know how to convince you of this, but you are interested in

learning about bees. When someone starts to talk about the wonderful world to bees and the amazing things that they do, that just makes you shake your head. I found it. I didn't know what I didn't know right, and I just was so interested as I began to learn about bees many years ago. Well, they have free honey tours out at the Bee Supply. It's about once a month and you can just bring your group out there. Maybe you got a scouting group, a homeschool kids, or civic organization at garden

club. You get the idea. The b Supply dot Com they're out in Dayton. Go to the b Supply dot Com website. And you can find out more information and maybe contact them and schedule a time to go out and learn about the wonderful world to bees. It is really cool and plus it's a fun shop to walk around look at too well. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I was talking earlier about chinch bugs, and

chinch bugs are a big summer pest of the lawn. We sometimes get them a little earlier in the summer, but they can really occur any time when the weather's warm. But I find that often they have a really big generation that's built up by the time we get to late summer, and that's when I see some of the worst damage that they can cause. But you want to start early because if you wait until you know you've got a five foot wide dead area, well, now, what are you gonna do? Plant

grass back in there? I guess to keep to get a lawn back right. You can catch this early if you're watching, and I hope you are watching your lawns and just checking for that. Don't assume ever brown spots a chinch bug, but just imagine that little drought symptom. The sod webworm is another one that comes and goes around here. Well, we have a bad year, then people panic and they want a nucleard all summer the next year. And that's not necessary. I mean, you can put down things as

a preventative for any insects if you want to go that route. But you can also just wait and watch and you'll see the little moths that are just flying around everywhere. You'll notice a little chunk chomping damage on them. And when you see that, you just go ahead and treat for it. And there's a lot of good products out there if you want a place where you can just find pretty much everything you might need for treating pests and diseases and

weeds in your landscape. Ace Hardware and I say that because there's ACE Hardware is near you. There's thirty nine of them in the Greater Houston area, So if you're listening to this, there's probably an ACE Hardware pretty close to you. You can go online to ACE hardware dot com and find one. They have an awesome selection. Plus they carry all the fertilizers I talk about

here. They carry the soil mixes and then pretty much anything else you need, you know, for inside your home, for repairing something or building something, or maybe outdoor patio living. They've got it at ACE Hardware dot Com. Love to go into those stores, check one out and you'll see what I'm talking about. If you haven't been into an ACE Hardware in the last decade or so, you haven't been into an ACE hardware, you need to

see the new ACE and just how cool it is. We're going to go to the phones now again the number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we are going to talk to Joe in Kingwood. Hello, Joe, good morning. Skip. Had a quick question for you regarding the tree hugger or a tree hugger sprinklers. If if I'm wanting to plant several plants making a hedge, how would I use a tree hugger sprinkler sprinkler for several plants there together? That's that's a little more of a challenge.

But what I think what you're going to have to do, aside from buying a whole bunch of tree huggers, is put it around a plant, leave it for a little while, and then move it to the next one. Then move it to the next one, because that each of those root balls then is getting cared for now. I mean, if you have a hundred plants, you probably need a different watering system, drip line or something else that you've set up to go all the way up and down. It won't

be as efficient as the tree hugger, but but it will work. But generally you're not gonna have to run that tree hugger for very long, you know, you want to put on probably I'll just think of the equivalent of maybe two gallons of water. Depending on the size of the root ball. It could be much larger, much more than that. But you're just gonna put it there for a little while. Move it to the next one, Move it the next one. I have a little timer on my watch.

I just set it because I get out working in the yard and forget, forget I've left the water run in somewhere. Roughly how many minutes would would get you two gallons? You know? That's that is a good question. It depends on how high you have the thing running. It depends on which one you have. They have a seven inch eleven inch, and what's the largest size. I'm trying to remember now, the largest size of them. I think it's anyway, it doesn't matter the the tree, Oh, fifteen

inch, that's the other side. Each one puts out, you know, more volume of water than the next as you go up. So I would just say, you know, I generally start real low, almost just like

a trickle, because you just wanted to water right there. And after a while you'll see the water soaking in a little bit, and you know, you'll know that you've done it. You can take a screwdriver and if you push a long, straight, a long handled screwdriver straight down in the soil, especially if us, if you have a Claye type soil, it'll go right through moist soil like through butter. And then when you hit heart soil, it's concrete. And so that's your little depth measuring device. It's really

easy with a screwdriver to know how deep you've wet. And you want to wet about eight eight inches deep when you water six months? And do you have to use the old fashioned regular type pose or can you use those collapsible hoses that have you know, a valve where you can turn it on and off. Oh, you can use any kind of hose you want. Yeah, Okay, yeah, it doesn't matter. The only problem with the collapsibles is sometimes they shrink up, and so it's gonna drag your tree hugger across

the yard. Maybe as a little valve there at the end where you can you turn it on and off, right there next to where the tree hugger would be. Okay, yeah, well that's good. Normally you hook it up to a hose and you turn the valve on on. The tree hugger has its own valve and you turn turn the water on. Then you can turn that on and determine. You know, you don't have to sit there and get a shower while you're trying to adjust things. You can go back

to the faucet and turn it on. So I hope that helps. Thank you Skip forciate the help you bet have fun out there in Kingwood. Appreciate the call. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seven. Before I was talking about the fact that birds need water and we really need to be taking care of our birds. It, I mean, it's a really big deal when water becomes scarce because not a lot of people are putting it out.

I mean, they may find a dog bowl outside or something here and there, but they need some help. We want them to hang out at our yard and we love the beautiful songbirds and things that we have, and you need water to do that. And if you're interested in more bird information and more bird product, you need to check out a wild Birds Unlimited. Now we've got seven of them around the Greater Houston area. You can go to wild Birds Unlimited. It's excuse me, WBU dot com. That's what WBU

stands for. WBU dot com Forward slash Houston and their seeds, the feeders, the houses, that just the knowledge walking in there and saying, hey, this is going on, can you help me? They know what they're talking about. And by the way, I'm going to have a Rich Eddie from wild Birds Unlimited on on the eight o'clock hour today. I almost forgot to tell you that he's going to be here answering bird questions. So if you have any kind of wall bird questions, bird feeding, bird care police,

call in the eight o'clock hour. We're going to kind of set that aside just to visit with Rich and learn a whole lot about birds. But in the meantime right down WBU dot com forward slash Houston and you can check out their wonderful website and learn a whole lot of cool stuff. I believe we're gonna have to go to a break here. It's about that time,

so Chuck, we will come to you first thing after the break. Right now, I just won't give you the number for you to give Ryan a call and get on the board seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Don't ask me why I'm going to Texas calls a reason, I just don't know. But I've got a little gown down in Houston, and I've got lots of friends in San Anton, Oh. I love a little sleep at the wheel some Western swing. Well, good Sunday morning. You

are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Wrector, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. Hey, if you have not fertilized your lawns, and I don't know how you would have gotten to this point not fertilizing them yet, because I talk about it all the time, but your summer fertilization is an important one. You just need something that's going to provide that boost to carry on into the summer. And a good option for that

is to do the one two punch of the Microlife Green plus Purple. You remember that. That's I love colored bags because it's easy. Rather than all these names and numbers. Green plus Purple Green is the sixty four It is the standard Microlife fertilizer. I mean, you know, I know, lawns is what we think of when we think of sixty four Microlife. But you can use it on all kinds of things. I use it all over the place, sixty four green bag. And then combine that with a follow it

with rather an application of the Humates plus the purple bag. Now, the purple bag is concentrated compost in a bag. That's what humates plus is. It's just think of concentrated composts that you're putting out. You're adding organic matter, you're adding nutrients, you're adding biologically stimulating. In fact, both of these contain micro microbiology that will stimulate your root system plus like over sixty three

essential nutrients. If you'll learn more, just go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com. That's a great website. You can find out more about these products, and you can find out where to get microlife, which is pretty much ever where you shop. If you're listening to the places we talk about on Guardenline, the vast majority of those are going to have microlife as well. Well, let's head out to Sugarland and we're gonna talk to Chuck. Good morning, Chuck, Good morning. How you doing. I'm well, thanks?

What's up? Hey? Recently install a swimming pool and I was thinking about installing one of those backyard mister systems for mosquito repellents. I just want to know if you had any experience with the effectiveness of those and keeping away mosquitos in a relatively small area. Yeah, they can be very effective for that.

Mosquitoes like to like sit in the shrubs around your house during the day and that you know, when we go out in the evening, when it's finally time for us to go out, that's also time when the mosquitoes love to go out there out all day. But you know, basically they're hiding there and those systems coming off the eaves or dealing with that the I think it can be effective. And you know, there's a lot of strategies.

Number one, don't leave standing water around your property. You're breeding your own mosquitoes there, and mosquitoes are going to fly in from outside as well. But you do have a bunch that hang out at your place, and those systems will work pretty well on that, thank you. Yeah. Sure. And by the way, if you probably heard me talk about McGrath pest control, but Scott, they do those systems there as well. I mean, they do all pest control inside and outside the house, but they also can

install some of those systems. I was visiting with him about that the other day, asking and they use a product that's very effective, but that it dries and it it kind of goes away, if you will, in terms of being toxic or anything like that. So it's not like you're just putting out something that's killing, killing, killing for a long time and you don't you don't want that with one of those systems. And Scott knows how to do all that. Well. Great, thanks a lot, all right,

thank you very much. Yeah. Hey, if you want somebody that knows about insects, Scott McGrath is that guy. I mean he is. He eats it, sleeps and drinks that whole world. And by the way, you can call him if you want two eight, one four six, nine eighty two forty, or just go to McGrath pest Control McGr at h McGrath pest control dot Com and they can get you set up if you want an

outdoor system like that. If you want to do something, maybe you got roaches, or you're worried about termites, or you name it, they can take care of all of it. Well, let's set out to Liberty and we're gonna talk to Tracy now. Good morning Tracy, Good morning Skip. I've got a question. I planted a brown turkey big tree about four years ago in a corner of the yard and it doesn't get them up light and it never has done well. And I plan on digging it up this fall

and transplant it somewhere else. I'm just trying to get an idea how big a root ball area that I should try to dig up. You know, you don't have to worry a lot about that. Figs are just easy. I mean you literally, I've taken dormant fig branches, cut them off, stuck them in the ground under the eaves of my house where the soil was moist, and they rooted. So they're pretty easy to do. I would get a little bit maybe if you can get a foot or two out from

the sides. What I do, Tracy, when I do that, is I'll like cut around the plant and then underneath that maybe with a shovel, a good sharp flat shovel, and then slide a tarp under there and then cut the other side. And you can just slide the tree right onto the tarp and drag it. I mean, it's almost effortless to drag it on a tarp. And if you go picking it up, the soil's falling off and your chiropractors getting excited because they found a way to pay for the kids

college. You be in there for a few times. So I like to use the tarp just to move them. If it's a good sized tree, would October be a good month to do the transplant. That would be fine if it can't wait longer. The thing about figs is that they're coal tender. They're not fully hardy. Here we can get we can get freezes on a very cold winter, and so you know, doing a transplant like that that late, that tree is not going to be as acclimated as one that

was just sitting there in the ground. And so I'm a little hesitant about that, but if you can provide it a cover. If we're going to get down in the mid teens or something, for sure, you're going to need to throw a cover over it. But if you can wait until spring, when the weather starts to warm up, that's a little better time. When I say spring, I mean late winter spring kind of through with the hard freeze. That would work too, because I'm in no hurry to move

it. I mean it's surviving. It just doesn't get enough light to get any hike to it. There you go, all right, well, that sounds like, hey, when you do that digging. When you do that digg and check the roots and see if they look normal or if they're naughty kind of bumps on them, like a snake that swallowed a rabbit. And you know that kind of bumping the root that may be a sign of that is a sign of nematodes, and that's another reason why a fig wouldn't be

thriving. So you just want to make sure and check that because that's a whole other issue. Okay, all right, thank you very much. A good day. Yes, sir Tracy, I appreciate your call. Thank you very much for that. Hey, if you've thought about getting you a little tractor to take care of your property. You know, we used to have a property up in Willis. I actually had a little orchard and things up there, and I had an old tractor that well, let's just put it

this way. Every time I went to start it, it was like I was doing a major repair. I escorting stuff in it and everything trying to get the darned thing to start. A nice new Caboda. Oh my gosh, I wish I had had access to one like the Caboda L twenty five oh one that is at Lansdown Moody. And by the way, they've set up a deal this summer. It's continuing now. I don't know how they're doing this, but it's zero down, zero percent interest for eighty four months.

That's a long time. I mean, if there's ever a time to get a good deal on a Caboda, this certainly is it. Now. You know, with Caboda, you've got versatility, you've got the performance you can hook up to put in a front endloader or you know, a shredder on the back, whatever you need to do. The kinds of work you need to do around the place they can do it, and that combination of

Caboda Tractor and Lansdowne Moody that is a winning deal. You can go to LM tractor dot com l M as in lansdown Moody LM tractor dot com, or go to the Caboda USA website to learn more about that Caboda L twenty five one and take advantage of that really good deal that's going on right now. Well, our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Marty, you're

gonna be first when we come back for right now. We're gonna take a little break and we look forward to visiting with you on the other side. Well, you're probably thinking where's Simon and Garfocal, So I'll tell you where they are. They have set aside and let the Lemonheads come on the stage, the Lemon Hits. Can you believe that? Is that an appropriate song for this show? Just remembering our friend Randy a little bit there with some music. I liked their version of it too. By the way, Hey,

you're listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one to fifty eight seventy four, seven, one, three, two, one, five, eight seven four. Are you interested in a new roof? Do you need a new roof? Are you interested in solar on top of your roof? Maybe produce some power yourself. Take advantage of this blazing all day sun for days and days and days. Make a little electricity out of the deal. Right well, Brinkman's is your company. Brinkman's has been

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to your satisfaction. Here. Now you can go to Brinkman Quality dot Com that Brinkman has two ends in at brink or three action b R I N K M A n N Quality dot com or two eight one four eight zero seven six six three ask them about their solar shingles, their timberline solar shingles. It's not something you set on your roof. It is your roof. And they are so cool. You got to check that out. We're gonna head out to Fairfield now and we're gonna talk to Marty Well, Good morning,

Marty morning skip. Nice to hear Ryan on the phone. Yeah, I want to put down after all this drought and watering the yard. I have a purple bagot at microlife or has to grow for long, and I'm wondering which one I should do. Well, if you've got the purple microlife and the high to grow, you can do them both. Because the purple purple microlife is humates, that's humates plus. So basically that's like putting concentrated compost on your lawn. Now, the has to grow is going to have

the nitrogen, phosphorotassium, the three numbers. It's more of a fertilizer in and of itself. Okay, and so that that would be something you could do them both, which are the what is the do you have numbers on that has to grow? No, it's just it's just the one for the yard, okay. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to get them, trying to get those numbers in my head right now. Yes, I would do the has to grow as a summer fertilizer. If you haven't fertilized the summer,

have you have you flised? No? I yes, I have. I fertilized in early April with the nineteen four ten and I did the fifteen five ten back in a late February, and then so I thought I'd do a slow release now after all this drought, Well you can, yeah, you do that. That would be because April that was what over ninety days April made June, well it was mid aprils something. Yeah, and then Hut has to go first, and then the purple Bag Microlife after. Yeah,

it doesn't matter the order on those. You can do one or the other, either one. But yeah, the Microlife's gonna be going after a different thing. With a Microlife purple Bag, You're you're looking for the microbes you're looking for. Giving that organic matter on the soil of the granules, and for all the different things that are in a humid type product, there's a lot. Okay, well, plans for all season. Yeah, they said that would be a good transition to go into organics if I was scoring

too, Yeah, that is, that's a good one. And I wanted to make a comment. You were talking to a lady with the bees in the fountain yesterday and then you mentioned it. It was funny because I thought they were I have a new little fountain that squirts water out of the top. I thought they were building a nest in there. Oh yeah, I mean there there are a ton of these bees, a little tiny bees yere they're and so they're drinking the water. They are they have got to have

water. And I mean you if you have a little drip irrigation system, you'll find them gathered around the hole in a drip irrigation line drinking the waters that comes out. Uh. They've got to have a lot of water to survive. And uh, you know here, think about this. If you're a bee, I mean there's a little little bitty thing you're probably flying a quarter mile from somewhere to go find a flower. And you can't just go run to a water fountain somewhere across town, right, I mean, you

know, it's quite an expenditure of energy to go find water. And so when we put it in our yards, they're going to come there. When when they have flowers and water in our yard, I mean, they're going to hang out. And that's what we want. That is what we want. Well, I keep it filled and clean. I just was really surprised because I've never seen it until I got this fountain. It's just a little tiny fountain that squirts a little bit of water out. That's right. And

anyways, it's good. Okay, Well, thank you and enjoy listening to you. Well, thanks very much. I appreciate that. Okay, I appreciate that. You know, if you are wanting to put a fertilizer down for the summer time to carry you on through and last through on end to the fall time, that's a true long term slow release. Nitrofis has got their wonderful silver bag, right, Remember the silver bag of Nitrofis. I mean we talk about it a lot. It's easy to remember. It's super

turf. It's nineteen four ten, and the nutrients in that gradually release over time. So if you if you use it now, you're going to still have a little bit available as we go through August and even into the early part of September. It's gonna it's gonna release out slowly. And that's important because a chinch bugs love alon that is lush and just grow overgrowing, you know. I mean, it's just like you're having to mow it every other day to try to keep it down. That kind of fertilizing is not what

you want to do. You want to gradual feed over time. The same is true a large patch which we used to call brown patch, that hits in the cool season. Over fertilizing just aggravates the problem. Plus those brown circles are a lot easier to see in a dark, dark green lawn. Nitrofoss nineteen four ten. Everywhere Nitrofoss is sold, places like our Ace hardware, places like the garden centers we talk about here, Nitrofoss is an excellent

choice for carrying through that long time summer feed well. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We are getting close here to a break, and if you want to give Ryan a call. He can get you online and we'll be ready to go whenever we come back from our break. If you are looking for something that transforms a flower bed, let's say, or a vegetable gardener, herb garden, whatever you're going after, you need to look at the one two three completely easy system.

Now, this is an arburgate combo of products. It's got a food that feeds anything that really that's got roots that you need. It's an organic food. It's a four four three plus ten percent calcium, so you've got a good blend of nutrients there for helping plants get a good root system if they're flowering plants to create flowers and so on. Plus it just is filled with microbes as well, like you would expect from an organic product. They've got

a soil complete, organic soil complete. It's got composts, it's got very large particle sand and expanded shale. So not only is it enhancing as a soil material, but it's gonna last a while because that shale holds the clay particles apart and it just helps keep them open even long after the organic material

has decomposed away. And then finally the organic compost complete and again two kinds of composts, tons of microbial diversity and something like the organic compost complete plus again expanded shale and in our clay soils, continued use of expanded shale just helps them get better and better with their internal drainage as we go over time.

That is a super one two three compost from Arbourgate. You can go online to Arbourgate dot com and learn more about it if you'd like, or if you've got some time this afternoon, just head right out there to Arbourgate and get some yourself and let them tell you more about it. And plus, when you get out there, you got you know, if it's warm and you've done with your plant shop and you got to go in and check the gift shops. They have, oh my gosh, unbelievable all kinds of

bling. And if you've got somebody you're needing to buy a gift for, that's a great idea. I mean, they have a lot of cool stuff, a lot of garden bling. If you will out there at the Arbourgate. Well, we are going to take a break here and let the news fly. I think I will be back in just a bit. Our phone number in the meantime is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two on two fifty seventy four. We appreciate you being a

listener today, appreciate more of you be a caller. I'd love to hear from you. Answer your gardening questions. Ryan will get you on the board and when we come back, you will be the first step. 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 morning, and oh it's a beautiful, beautiful Sunday morning out there. Beautiful

day for gardening, that's for sure. Well, I just you know, we get a lot of questions about things that are wrong with my lawn. That's like one of the top to the two teas, trees and turf, actually three if you want to throw in toomatos. That's what make the phone ring around here. But our lawn right now there. They are needing adequate moisture in order to survive in this drought, and that's something that it just doesn't come naturally to folks to know how to do that. And here's what

happens. You want to squirch your lawn every day with a little bit of water, and that does not wet the soil deeply. If it does wet it deeply, you really are creating a swamp by doing that every day. But it wastes water because think about this. The first part of your water cycle is wetting the leaves and the thatch. And then as the water keeps going, it's running down and getting into the soil and starting to soak in. And as it keeps going, you're getting a good deep soaking, which

is the goal, a good deep soaking. So if you take one inch of water that you're going to spend your money on and apply to your lawn and you put it out in four one quarter inch, you're gations. All you've done is contribute to the humidity of Houston and the diseases of your lawn. If you put all that one inch down on one day, you may have to water a little, let it soak, water, a little,

let it soak. Then that water is in the soil bank account and the money you spent is now helping your law and long time, and that's what we're raiming for so, how do you know when to water? Though? Well, there's an app. This app is so cool. It's called water my Yard. Now you can go online to water my yard dot org and find out more about it. Or if you have an Apple Phone, the App stores got it. If you have an Android, the Google play Stores

got it. It's a free app and it's a free service, and you just have to tell them some things like this kind of sprinklers I got. This is this is my roughly who am I addressed? Because what they're gonna do is they're gonna find the nearest weather station. Do you know there's a lot of little mini weather stations all over the area. It finds the one closest to you, and that weather station takes data and it turns it into it's time to water data like the solar radiation, the wind speed, the

temperature, the humidity and so on. And I got a text this past week you need to put point five eight inches of water in your lawn this week. That's how much it used. So it makes so much sense to water according to what the lawn has used, rather than just saying, well I'm going to put an inch on you know, or whatever. I mean you need to water. According to that Water my Yard just a great app so again, water my yard dot org. Check it out. I mean,

you'll try it out, play with it for a while. I think you'll find you really really like it. We're gonna head over to near Woodway and talk to David. Hello, David mornings Kip, Thank you. Bottom line three questions are type of mulsh to buy, when to plant, whether I'm doing before mulch, after mulsh and during the summer heat and then show up put a newspaper down before the mulsh. I got this small arden out in front of my front yard window, and it's growing these and there's kind

of another question in there too about application of a fungus side. But it's got the thick clay soil, a lot of sunlight in the morning and growing for twenty years. Has been about has been a foxsale fern and an agapanthus and some other unknown kind of big bushy leapy plant. And I had some dwarf farrogated Pittus form I planted there many years ago, but they died from a soil fungus. And I bought the anti fungus side, but just was not confident enough to put it on, and they all died. I removed

him and it's just been a weed bed. So I've finished weating, and after listening to Randy and you for a while, I've got confidence to start doing this stuff. And I've been recommended several different plants, and I'm at the weeds are gone and it's time, I think for the mulch. Okay, good well for annual weeds, especially except for nutsedge. That's a perennial, and that is one that the paper doesn't work on putting down four to

six sheets of newspaper. The wetting it. You gotta wet it right away so it sticks down, it doesn't fly away in the slightest breeze, and then overlap the next piece a couple inches. Wet it immediately after you lay it. Just have a little sprayer there. You squirt it with your garden hose and then put mulch on top. That works just fine. That blocks the light out very very well, and it will decompose over the course. You know, halfway through the season that paper is pretty much gone. If

it's underneath, underneath a covering of mulch, it decays pretty quick. But it is a good light blocking option. But you can also just put a good quality mulch down. I would consider like a shredded hardwood mulch for most situations. Now, when you start to use things that are chunky woody, you gotta watch because those it's easy to punch a hole that wet paper, and so it kind of you sort of lose the effect of the paper's light

blocking ability. But you can go with or without the paper. A shredded hardwood is a good one. There are lots of good mulchus out there. I mean, leaf mold compost makes a mulch even but I think for what you're describing for longer term, I would use as a shredded hardwood mulch. But again, there are many options. It's not it's kind of hard to go wrong with mulch unless you buy that dyed mulch or the recycled rubber tire malts or some of those things that shouldn't even be on the market. And

where should I plant before the multure, after the mulch. I would plant and then mulch. It's just easier to get in the hole, do what you need to do, and then put the mulch in around it. And if you're if you've got some little you're probably gonna have some little annual weeds that have sprouted in that time. If you put a like two or three inch layer a mulch that we're light cannot get to the surface of the soil,

it'll kill those weeds. Okay, um, And what about planting during the summer heat, Well, you know you can, but you just have to be extra careful to water each little plant each day right at the base because that's where all the roots are, and so it's kind of touching go. You don't want it to be soggy wet, but you don't want it to dry out. And that's the challenge of summer planting. But it can be done. It absolutely can be done. Okay, should I put that

fungicide down since it was there, since the fungus problem was there? No a those Now you're not gonna that's not gonna be an effective attempt to try to pre treat a fungicide like that. Okay, very good, Well, thank you so much. Yeah, there are some yeah, there are some root right issues. Sorry to interrupt your day, there's some root right issues that but that you deal with those by not keeping the salt too saturated. And if you have to, you can come in later with a drench a

fundicide, but it's probably not going to be needed. Good. Good, glad to hear that. Okay, well, thank you so much. You have a wonderful time, you too, Thank you. I appreciate that very much. Appreciate your call. Yeah, they're you know, mulching is just

so important and it's such an easy deal to do. I mean, it really is, it really is. You know, if you anytime that you get a chance to redo the soil, you need to add a little compost, You need to add a little perhaps some fertilizer in many cases, and there's there's a lot of good brands and stuff out there when you're taking care of your lawn that you know. Again, the summer fertilization is one to help carry you through until fall. But remember in the summer, don't use

a fast release. You want a slow release. And Nelson Plat Food, for example, they make a wonderful slow release called slow and Easy twenty two two ten. Those are the three numbers, twenty two two ten. Slow and Easy is just like the name in first it's going to gradually give up the nitrogen over time. So if you get a gully washer rain with a fast release, it's just going to wash your nutrients away. If you use a slow release, whatever nutrients have just been leaked out may wash away,

but there's a lot more still there waiting to gradually release over time. So it just makes sense. I love Nelson Slow and Easy twenty two two ten fertilizer. It provides that gradual feeding, so you're not having that flush of oh my gosh, I got a mow every day because I fertilize the heck out of my lawn. No, it's gradual. The root system is going to be deeper because you're not pushing the top to fast fast growth. And

a deeper root system means more resilience against scrubs. It means a plant that's just going to be resilient in general, and it'll carry you all the way into fall. That's the Nelson Plant Food. You can find it all over the place, and Nelson Plant Food is an excellent brand with lots of different fertilizers and for summer on your law and the Slow and Easy is all you need to know. All right, We're gonna head out to League City and

talk to Jim. Hello Jim, Hello Skip Skip. Really enjoy your program. I like all the details of the explanations as you give for why we do these things, and that adds a lot to it. And the Skip. I have a couple of stock tanks one foot sides on them and they're four foot long by two foot on the bottom, and I used the jungle land of soil in them last this spring season, and it seemed like it dried out so quickly, and I was I had holes in the bottom of

the tank and I had gravel in the bottom. Now I recall you saying not to use to gravel. So after the tomato plants were done, I took everything out and took the gravel out and actually filled the holes in the bottom with some washers and bolts. And it was thinking of drilling holes in the side up a couple of inches so I may have a little reservoir for water that would wake up. And I just wanted to get your opinion on

this. All right. Well you know what, Jim, I'm I'm against a heartbreak, So you hang on and right when I come back, we will dive right into those stock tank questions, and thank you for the call our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Well, good morning on a beautiful Sunday morning. I don't know if you've looked outside yet, but it is awesome, wonderful day. That's my favorite part of day, especially in summer. Right we can get outside and actually get

some things done. It's a beautiful, beautiful morning. Hey. I was mentioning fertilizing a while ago, and I realized I forgot to also mention the adding of additional micros and those nutrients that are essential but are needed in very small amounts. And azamite is a product that does just that. Now. Azamite is mined out of the ground as a crushed mineral material that is loaded with trace elements also called micronutrients, and we put it on our lawns.

Just do it occasionally. I mean I typically will do it about once a year. But if your soil tests would indicate, you know, we really need more, you can add more it. Don't think of it as a fertilizer in terms of I put it down, it makes a grass grow faster. In what it does is it provides the nutrients that are needed for growth. It's not nitrogen which makes a grass grow faster, but it's nutrients that are equally important. And that's kind of a hard thing to think about,

you know, we're talking about here. I don't need much of it, but it's important. Well, yeah, it's important because if you could take any one of the seventeen elements the plants need to live and take it completely out of the soil, the plant couldn't live, and it couldn't grow,

it couldn't thrive, couldn't go through the life processes that it has. So even something like manganese or molybdenum or nickel, for crying out loud, those are essential for plant growth and so we have to have them in our soil. Now, putting those down doesn't make the grass start growing faster, it just makes the grass able to grow, and so we want them all balanced and azamite does just that. You can go to asomite Texas dot com find out more about it. But if you haven't done it this year yet,

now it would be a good time to go ahead and do it. We're gonna head back out now and finish, Jim. We're gonna continue that conversation about the stock containers. I like your idea putting the holes on the side, and sometimes I forget to tell people that. But you know, those stock containers are flat on the bottom for sure, right And when you set them on a clay soil, even though you have holes, the water goes through those holes so slowly because the clay can't take it in fast enough.

And so when you put your excess holes around the container, then when it feels, you know, it's getting too much water. Rather than having an underground bathtub or you know, submerged roots system, it just leaks out the sides. And I think that's a good strategy that you have there. Well, these these tanks are elevated since I've got some mobility problems. They are up about three feet high, so I don't have to bend over. That's but it allows me to see how fast the water runs out of them.

As soon as I put the hose on them and the tops off, well, it's just pouring out. So when the holes were in the bottom like that, that's a great idea. But you know, it works, it works really good, and um and uh, it's just it's a little difficult to get around and to bend over anymore, and now skip. I do have another problem. I put some new trape myrtles out this year and I noticed I have a white scale on one of them, and I was wondering,

is this more susceptible to certain species of creat myrtle. You know, they've they've done studies on that, and I don't know that there have been any that we're discovered to be resistant to the scale yet. I would have to look into a little further. But let's just say, for all practical purposes, pretty much all the create morder you're going to buy around here, I would expect scale to be a potential problem for them if you just put it in. What I would do is use a product that contains one of

two ingredients as a drench. You mix it in water, and you drench it around the base of the plant. You just soak it in, you know, the bottom, let's say a foot or two out in all directions from the plant. Just soak it in. It takes it up in its system, and the scale is sucking juices out of the sap and it gets the poison. It kills the scale. So something like a ladybug crawling over the top of the plant is not going to be exposed to that chemical. And if you do, you have a pen or pencil handy, Yes,

I do. Okay, the first one is dino tepherin like a dinosaur d I N T E f U R A N. And the second way, the second one is another systemic. You don't need them both one or the other is in meadow cloprid I AM I D O c l O p R I D. Now, what you don't want is to have that craig myrtle blooming in the next six to eight months after you've put that down, So now would be a good time. It's a new plant. Any blooms that

appear, just cut them off. Let's get that plant growing and established and looking good and knock that scale out right away, and then next summer it can have its blooms on it, because that chemical can get in the bloom pollen and nectar and effect bs and we don't want to do that. Okay, Well, the bloom, yeah, I've put them out in February and they have taken all they really they really doubled in size and do have blooms

on them right now. So go ahead and clip those blooms. Would well, if you're going to use the systemic, i'd clip the blooms off. Now, okay, well we're talking about clipping blooms. I have a couple of others NAT show so white that had blooms on them. Now should I should I clip they? After the bloom has disappeared? Should should I clip

that off? And? And will it bloom again? It generally will do okay if you get it early enough that cutting off the end of the shoot with the blooms is kind of stimulating for a new shoot to grow, and you may get another bloom out of it. It's it's kind of it's not like night and day difference and improvement. But you could try that and work. And that's just beautiful white one. I love the cinnamon exfoliating bark on notches too. That's another plus. Oh oh, they're so pretty exactly.

I had some at the house where I have previously lived, and the booms were as big as my head. Well, I'm a photo of one of them where I was standing next to it. Yeah, that's a good one. Well, hey, Jim, I really appreciate that call. I hope that helps well. It does, and I'll take you advice and uh, and just keep keep up the good work and let us know the reason we're doing things. Okay, all right, we'll try to do that. We'll

try to do that. There's a there is a Southern gardening host. He does TV and other podcasting and other things that he has a phrase I like it says he's going to tell you, let's see the why do behind the how to? I like that, why do behind the I can tell you how to do it, but maybe if I tell you why to do it, it'll make you a little better at dealing with the problem because you'll understand

a little bit more than just here go spray that. You know. If you are looking for a hometown feed store and you're in the Magnolia area, Spring Creek Feed is your hometown feed store. They're just minutes away from Graham Parkway and Highway two forty nine. They're on FM twenty nine seventy eight in Magnolia FM twenty nine seventy eight. Now they're going to carry all the fertilizers I talk about there. They have a lot of good supplies for things.

Maybe you need a fund, decide to herbicide, a pesticide, they've got that. Their staff of One of the best things about a quality place like Spring Creek Feed is friendly, courteous staff, you know, the kind of things you expect from the hometown kind of service. They've got all the things a feed store has, of course, and they'll even special order products if

you need it. So if you're looking for gardening materials, if you're looking for anything that you would expect from a feed store, for lawn garden, for pond supplies, feeding your livestock, feeding your wildlife. Spring Creek Feed on Magnolia FM twenty nine seventy eight. Hair phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight

seventy four. It's funny how phone calls tend to come in waves, you know, I just like everybody out there is timing themselves to everybody call at the same time. So I would if I could arrange it, I would have them trickle in. It belong an easier to work our way through. Hey, listen, if you're thinking about retiring and you are a gardener, you need to know about the New Dell web community. It's down in Fullsher on FM three fifty nine, s to less than two miles from downtown Fullsher.

Dell Web bills communities for active adults age fifty five and better. You know, we're not talking about where's a retirement place where I can just sort of go out to pasture. We're talking about place where I continue a lot a very active, enjoyable lifestyle. They have lifestyle programs designed around you. And if you're a gardener, guess what this one has a community garden. I need to get back out. I've been out there in a while. I need to go back out and see this place again, see how things

are coming. I've been helping it with that community garden. And you know, the new Fosher community and the Dellweb difference is something you're just going to have to discover for yourself. Don't take my word for it. Go to dellweb dot com, slash Houston or give him a call to eight one four to five nine zero six zero nine, and you can learn a lot more

about Delweb. Really really cool, first class quality community. When you're wanting to have a successful garden, when you want to have a beautiful lawn, when you want to have healthy trees. When you want to have maybe vegetables, flowers and herbs, just remember that everything begins with soil that supports good growth. That is the essential. That is the key. You need to

have that. And that good soil means that it drains well, it means has good organic matter content, but it also means that it's got good nutrient content. And good nutrient content is important, especially when you're talking about perhaps a lawn. You know, the folks at Nitroposts they created this thing called sweet Green. It's eleven percent eleven zero four of the three numbers. And

sweet green is an awesome product. It's made out of a molasses that with a microbial activity in the molasses that has caused the nutrient content to become what it is. And the cool thing about it it smells good. You can put it out anytime. It's not going to burn. You can't burn your lawn with it, and this is a good time to do it. And the sweet green really you can use it pretty much anytime you want, but summer is an excellent time. When you give microbe sugar, it's like,

you know, it's like it's like giving your toddlers sugar. At eight o'clock at night. They're bouncing off the wall. They get real excited in the soil and they do what microbes do and that's what our plant roots need and Sweet Green is that kind of product. So it's just part of their nitro FoST Summer Essentials program. I think that you really need to give it a shot. Sweet Green's available all over the place now. They got a great

supply in. It was so popular before that. It is almost like getting limited and availability. Well not anymore. Nitrofile Sweet Green. Hey, our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Ryan a call, get you on the board and we'll talk to you first thing, right after the news break. He comes, Well, good morning here does come to the sun? Boy? It looks good out there. A good day to be out in the garden. Good day to be listening to

garden line. If you don't have anything to do this afternoon, it's a good day to get out and visit. Some of our garden centers are excellent garden centers. We got all over this this place. You are really fortunate here to have so many wonderful garden centers. Hey, don't I just want to remind you that's starting at eight o'clock, eight o'clock to nine o'clock hour,

we're gonna have Rich Eddie from wild Birds Unlimited. In so, if you have any questions about birds, about caring for your birds, about types of feeders and birdhouses, and what kind of birds do we have here, anything that you've got about birds, this is the guy. This is your chance to pick an expert's brain and get some good, good fun information. Because remember, birds are part of that multi century experience in the gardens.

You know, we visually we see flowers and plants, we visually see birds, We smell fragrances from our plants, and then we hear the beautiful songs of birds. And so it's a multi century experience to really have a beautiful garden and get out there and in joy it. If you are looking for a supply of anything you need for your lawn and garden, that's Southwest Fertilizer. It's been a Houston tradition since nineteen fifty five. They you know,

they've sponsored garden lines since back in the Dewey Compton days. I believe that I'm the fifth garden line host to speak for him and Randy was here for like what twenty seven years, So that's going way way back. Every kind of fertilizer I talk about, is there, every kind of slow It's all there. They have their own Southwest Premium Gold five ten slow release. There the biggest selection of herbicide and secticide and fungicide in town. And you may

say, well, I'm an organic gardener. Well, they've got a great selection of organic products as well, herbicide, sextide, fungicide like no other place in town. Garden tools, I mean, they have plants outside for example, if you need a mower sharpened. And best of all, their experts that know what they're talking about. Bob has put together a wonderful team

of folks. You bring a sample in, you bring a picture in, they'll take a look at it, they'll know what it is, and they'll be able if you need a product, they'll be able to take you to one that works and tell you how to use it. And that is invaluable. You know, to just go grab something off a shelf because it has the deadest bug look on it in some big box store, that doesn't mean that's the product you need. Really, that doesn't mean it's gonna work in

your situation. That's why you need a place like Southwest Fertilizer. So I hope you will check them out there there, you know, Southwest Houston, corner of Bissinette and Renwick. Just go on line Southwest Fertilizer dot com. You can find out where they are and lots more information. Let's head out to Cyprus and we're gonna talk to Ike. Good morning, Ike, thanks for holding Hi. Good morning. I had a question. I was able

to take out some grass from my yard using a sod cutter. I've had two inches on the I guess the control, but I took that grass and visit to my daughter's house because she was struggling from last year. Can you suggest water usage and how often should I water that grass into a daily thirty minutes a day or what do you suggesting? Well, at planting, you want to just put a little squirt on it every day and it shouldn't take thirty minutes. You know you're putting less than a quarter inch, right,

you need this. It's best if you water the sol before you put the grass down, so there's a bank account under the ether there. That water will wick up and as the tree roots are going down, they've already got something. So initially you need to get a good soaking in the ground. But basically you're trying to take that grass that doesn't have much roots because they were lost, most of them were lost in the digging process, and you're

trying to help it until it can get the roots down. So i'd say daily, just to be oversimplified, I'd say daily for a week, and then probably every other day for about a week, and small amounts don't create a swamp, and then you can probably start heading toward two times a week maybe and eventually or once or twice a week schedule that we need to be on. But it should take a couple of weeks to really get that thing, getting some roots down where you can start to feel a little more confident

about back and off. Sounds good, sounds good. I appreciate it.

All right, Well, thank you, I appreciate the call. Yeah, it's it's a good It's always good to think about, you know, the principle of plants when you're you know, you know grass needs water, but you know when like if let's say you buy side it comes in, well, what a little half inch of clay soil from the Gulf coast where it was dug up on a solid form soil excuse me, side form, and so it's got almost no roots, and so it doesn't need an inch of

water, right, It just needs a little bit. But it needs that little bit. I mean in one day with the sun baking down one hundred degrees. I mean those that root systems dry. And so that's why we give a little bit of water each day, and we wean it and once it's established, you can wean it back. I do not water my lawn much at all. I don't even water. Some weeks, I don't even water at all. Many weeks I don't water at all because I got a

deep rooted, resilient grass plant. For all the different practices you're gonna hear me talk about on garden Line, from fertilizing to the way we water and on and on, you build a grass plant that's resilient and you don't have to square drinking water on it every other day to keep it alive. In fact, when you do that, that's a little bit of a problem as well. So you're listening to Guardenline. Our phone number is seven one three two one, two, five, eight, seven four. If you call,

just be patient. Sometimes it may wring a walk or Ryan's got He's like a one armed paper hanger back there doing a lot of things at once. So but he will get to your call, and just be patient hang on with him. Also, when you call Ryan, just all he needs to know is your name, what part of time you're from, and then just in a sentence or a half sentence, what is your question about? You know, my questions about a tree dying. It's an oak tree.

Okay, That's all he needs to know because he's not going to answer your questions, I am, but it gives me some information to see kind of what your question is basically about, and then that's very helpful. So I appreciate that I brag on our ACE hardware stores all the time, and it's because just when you walk into an ACE it is eye opening everything that they have. I mean, when I grew up, a hardware store had a bunch of pipes, it had a bunch of wires, and had a few

lightbulbs and you know, and so on. It was your basic hardware store. But now Aces it's got all that, but it's gotten so much more and you get that service, that friendly, helpful associates that I just I can't stand going into a store where I have to hunt down someone to help me. And when I talk to them, I can tell the first five seconds of talking to them they are not going to be able to answer this question. They're going to make something up or give it their best shot.

You need people that know what they're talking about. ACE carries all the fertilizers we talk about. It carries you know, just everything you need for your garden. I'm their pesticide selection. If you need to do a herbicide or fungicide or insecticide, they've got it there days. Go to ACE Hardware dot Com. That's the easiest way I can think of to tell you. Go to ACE Hardware dot com and go to the store locator and find the one

near you. There's only thirty nine of them in the Greater Houston area, so ACE is easy to find and ACE has what you need with a kind of people that can help you, and that is a win win for sure. Let's head down to Southwest Houston and we're going to talk to Carolin A. Good morning, Carolyn, good morning, how can you help I have a container garden, and I don't know where that to water first? And did fertilize? Are fertilized first and then water? I'm sorry, Carolina missed

the last thing you said. Sorry, we got cut off there a little bit. Oh yeah, I have a container garden and I'm hanging basket and I don't know where to fertilize first and mid and water our water first and in fertilize. That's a good question. So if you're fertilizing with a dry granular fertilizer, you would want to fertilize first and then watered in well that if it's a if it's a salt based a synthetic fertilizer, it'll dissolve those

granules and get them down in the soil for the plant roots. If it's an organic fertilizer, it'll moisten it and now the microbial activity can begin to break it down and make it available for the plant roots. So that's the way that I would go about it. If you're using a liquid fertilizer, I would water first and then put the liquid on top of it, because otherwise, you know, you get the soil wet with your fertilizer. And then you add water to and it just sort of moves the nutrients which we're

in liquid form down further than you want in the root system. Oh wonderful. You are so knowledgeable but not at all pedantic. I'm going to make a T shirt with that. Thank you. Knowledgeable but not Carolyn. You made me laugh to day. Thank you so much. I appreciate the car Thank you. Bye bye. Oh my gosh, skip on guard line. He is tolerable, knowledgeable, but not pedantic, but occasionally annoying. That's where we are. Hey, listen, do you need a little tractor to

take care of your place? Maybe you need a big tractor to take care of your place. If you've found that little a few acres of heaven outside of town, then you're enjoying it. Well. You need to know about Caboda from Lansdowne Moody. That combination of Caboda and Lansdowne Moody. They're both originals. You know, Lansdowne has a great deal right now, by the way, on select Caboda tractors. You need to specifically look at the Caboda twenty five O one two five excuse me, L twenty five one L two

five zero one. They have a deal on it. And here's the deal. I don't know how they do this, but zero down, zero percent interest for eighty four months, So you get a tractor and for seven years, zero persent interest as you you know, pay that off and I mean maybe you just pay cash for it up front. But Caboda L twenty five o one, what a what an awesome tractor. You know, it's what you would expect from Landsdown, the combination Lansdown, Moody and Caboda. You

can go to Caboda USA for more information. You can go to l M tractor dot com for more information LM tractor dot com. Oh, I am alive it, don't you know nothing? Oh major look, I major look. I'll make you double taste soon as I call up your Kira Pactor doesn't get your next well, good Sunday morning. Tell you hey, I am I am excited about this next hour. I've been talking about it this morning. But from eight to nine, uh, we are gonna talk birds.

And that doesn't that sound fun? I mean we are gonna we're gonna talk about everything birds. I've been talking this more warning about the advantages and the ways that birds bring another another factor to our backyard gardening experience, the visual and the audio and everything like that. And uh, I'm we're fortunate to have Rich Eddie from wild Birds Unlimited this this morning. And Rich, I want to welcome you to the show. Thank you very much, good to

be here. It's good to have you. We're gonna pick your brain today. So if you guys, if you guys have a phone question or you want to call in with a question about birds. Uh, that's what we're here far for this hour. So if you've got a question about gardening otherwise, we're gonna ask you just to hold on to that. And we're gonna we're gonna stay on the topic of birds between now and nine o'clock. And so we got Rich and here we go. We can we can pick his

brain. Rich, I got one of the wild Birds Unlimited squirrel excluder feeders. Ah whill back right. And I'm telling you it gives me deep great joy to frustrate squirrels. They've tried everything and they cannot get into that. I watch a guy on YouTube that sets up obstacle courses for squirrels. I don't know if you've ever seen my yeah, I have. Oh, it is entertaining because the squirrels figured it all out. I mean they're awesome,

not this feeder. They're very smart. But those feeders are very effective. So I've got customers who really love the squirrels, and I have customers who really don't want them on their feeders. So I know. So, but the eliminator and the fundamentals, either one of those are great feeders to keep them off. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, I have to be careful because you know, I can't say things like tree rats. I can't say that some people like squirrels. Oh, I just said it. I just

said it. Yeah, but I enjoy the birds. I mean, the squirrels are okay, they're there, They're gonna be there anyway. But I've got a garden. I've got tomatoes over there, and they're just little marauding vandals when it comes to my garden there. I have a little bit of a caddyshack attitude towards the squar Well, this hot, dry weather too, is really pushing them places that they may not normally go well, and I and I, you know, I feel mercy for any creature out there that's

dying a thirsty, it's hot. Everybody needs water. Heard you're talking about the bees earlier. Yeah, yeah, I mean they're definitely collecting around the bird baths in the fountains. That's true, that's true. Well, let's talk a little about bird watering. Tell me about you know, of course everybody knows living things have to drink, but tell me a little bit about watering for the birds in the backyard. Yeah. So you know, we we have a saying in our store. Yet not all birds will come to

the feeder, but all birds need water. And so if you want to get a wide variety of really just any kind of wildlife, adding water to your backyard is really important. So it could be a bird bath, it could be a pond, there's always great fountains. Anything moving water will help attract them. But having water, particularly in the migration times in the spring, in the fall. Again, those birds that are coming through, they may not go to eaters, but if they see water, they're gonna make

a stop because they need water to make their journey. So yeah, it's very important, and right now, really really important because it is just dry. There's no standing water really anywhere, right and so having um, I've got five bird baths and fountains in my yard. Wow, just kind of all over the place, and they're all busy, So I'm very busy. That's awesome. Uh yeah, I you know, when I go down into wallbirds, it's like a toy store, a candy store or something for me.

But I was looking at you guys have beautiful bird baths. I mean they are they're you know, just like a focal point of the landscape. They're so pretty. And then and then a little gadgets like there's something you guys have that it like moves the water and causes ripples. So the mosquitoes don't lay egg they don't like they want stagnant water. They don't want that's ripple the water. So tell me about that. Yeah, so moving water.

So we've got a couple of different things. One of it is called our dripper mists, and so it's it's a device that hangs on the side of your bird bath and it will constantly drip and so that moving water will drown the mosquito arvy. And that's why moving water not only kills the mosquito arvy, but it also attracts the birds. So having moving water like that so the dripper mist is good. It has a misting tip that you can

put in it. So with the hummingbird season coming up, humming birds they've got to clean their feathers just like other birds do, but you know, heavy drips and things like that are a little harder on them. So they love to fly through the mists and get themselves wet and then go off and preen their feathers. That's cool. I've seen video of that. That's pretty neat. So this is a little device, like he said, it hangs on the bird bath, but it's actually a little tube that comes up and

bends over and either drips or as you say, miss or mists. Yeah, and you just attach it to an outdoor faucet. So yeah, so those work really well. And then we've also got little solar bubblers. So the solar bubblers work really well as long as their sun, which we've had no lack of over the last couple of months, and those those will recycle the water and keep it moving as well. Oh good, Well, we've got Marty in Fairfield. We're gonna go listen to a bird question. Okay,

So here we go. If you're if you have a bird question the number seven one three, two, one two five eight seven four. Well, good morning, Marty, good morning. I just wanted to ask while birds and limps. It's Richard. It is Richard, right, Yes, okay. I I love y'all's stores. They're so cool and I just can't get enough of all the products. But I do want to have a question about, um, how do I keep the trash birds from hanging around and

keeping the good birds away? Yeah? So yeah, are you talking like starlings and grackles? Probably, yeah, yeah, So a couple of things about well, starlings are a different problem than grackles. Grackles or they don't particularly like safflower. So people who want to keep blackbirds grackles off of their feeders, if you go to a straight safflower, they don't particularly like it,

so they'll move on. That's one thing that you can do. The other thing is is that we do have predator guards that you can put over your feeders. We've got one. It's like a cage. It's got a two inch opening, so it'll let birds cardinal sizing down in. Now that won't keep starlings out. We've also got a new device in that's actually more ornamental, and it's got chains that drape down over the feeders, so it's not quite as intrusive looking, and that also works very well to keep the

big birds from coming in and dominating feeder. Hey, Marty, we're gonna have to take a break here, but I just need to cut in. If you want to hang on after break. If if there's more to your question, that's fine. If not, thank you so much for calling in. I appreciate that. Hey. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one to fifty eight seventy four. We're here with rich Eddie from Wall Birds Unlimited, and we're talking

birds all day. When we come back, I think we're gonna talk about hunting birds. I've been wanting to get to that one. But hang around, we'll be right back. 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 as so many. Well, good morning. You are

listening to garden Line this morning. Hey, if you are interested in a new tree for your place and you're looking for a good deal and a good tree and people that know how to plant it. That would be Verdant Tree Form. You know, Verdant has three locations. They're out there on Barker Cypress. They've got a location down in Gosh, you can't even say, I just went blank for a second. Thank you, in the pair Land on Broadway Street, and then up in the Heights where Yoe comes into I

ten, there's a Verdant location there. Here's the deal right now for July. There's a Christmas in July cell ten to fifty percent off the trees when you purchase them with an install, and you need to buy them with an install because they know how to plant them and you get a big old tree in there. You got to have somebody who knows what they're doing. And plus you know, I keep making the comment about and you've got to disappoint

your chiropractor by not trying it yourself. Right, Well, they ten to fifty percent off. That's for the tree. Now the install separate. You pay for the install separate. But what a deal. I mean, if you're looking for a quality tree, that's what they grow. If you're looking for people that know how to effectively establish it, so it survives that would be verdant tree form. We're here today with Rich Eaty and we are talking all kinds of things birds, but I want to kind of shift gears a

little, Rich and talk about hummingbirds. I just think they are among the most amazing. You mentioned the little mister thing you guys have that the hummingbirds love to fly through preen their feathers and things. But let's kind of get an overview of some things that you think people need to be aware of regarding hummingbirds. Yeah, so we have two distinct migratory seasons for hummingbirds in the

Houston area. So they in the spring, March through May, those little birds, believe it or not, across the Gulf of Mexico and make their way through the Houston area. So they they're coming north out of Mexico, Costa Rica, Central America where they winner So they're coming north and they're moving up into their breeding ground. So some folks here in Houston are lucky enough

to have them all through the summer. Most of them move on. So even just as close as you know Columbus oft in that area of folks there have hummingbirds all summer long. Wow. Yeah, but they go all the way up into Canada, up into you know, the mountains of Colorado, all the way to the east coast. So I mean just the United States is covered in them. And now the fall migration we're about ready to get

started on it. As a matter of fact, as over at Edith Moore home of Houston, Audubon, and it saw a hummingbird over there the other day hitting the turk's cap. So so there's just signs of them starting to show back up. So the big months for us here August, September, October September is the biggest month. So not only are we getting the birds that came north in the spring, now we're going to get all the birds

plus the offspring coming back through to my great back to the south. So yeah, so we'll have a lot of birds starting in August, September, in October. And so when would you consider again the first like when would you put feeders out in this in the early season for yeah, yeah, so March, beginning of March, so March April may kind of tails off.

But now I always sell folks first of August. Put your feeder up if somebody is interested, if they've got a backyard that's got a lot of the nectar bearing plants like the salvia, turkscap, things like that, you might start to see them on your flowers. If you start seeing them on your flowers, go ahead and put your feeders out. Okay, you are talking about the turk's cap and the salvias and things like that, and you know, of course we're gonna talk about feeders and birds and birdhouses and all

kinds of things. But planting for the birds is an important thing. And one thing I like. You know, we talk about Buchanans here a lot. One thing I like about Buchanans is they really focus on native plants and so things like a turk's cap, things like the native salvia, some of the burying bushes, but even just good shrubs that provide birds cover around the

landscape. You know, you can do that. I was, I was at Buchanans other day looking at some of the turks cap they had and some other blooming things, you know, with the long salvia like flowers and other red tubular flowers that attract them. And boy, that that is something you need to do too. If you're gonna if you're gonna take care of your birds. Yeah, absolutely, So we encourage all of our customers that we

talked to to get your yards certified through National Wildlife Federation. People can get their yards certified very easily. Um. All it really takes is, you know, to have um a bird, a place for the birds to eat, to drink, to raise their young, like anass box or whatever. And then cover birds need cover to get away from harm. Right, So when the local, when the local Cooper's talk decides to make his presence known in the backyard, having a thick shrub like um place for them to dart

into is important to give them a place to be safe. That's good to know. Yeah, good to know. We'll tell us some more things about hummingbirds, uh, you know, having success with hummingbirds, taking care of them and just to bring them in. Yeah, i'd like to. I'd like you to get you a dress. As you answer that, the idea of dyeing the sugar water red and don't always been something people thought they needed to do, but but go ahead. Yeah, no, we don't want

you to do that. So when you make your hummingbird nectar, we encourage folks just to use regular white table sugar and it's four parts of water to one part of sugar. So it really just depends on how much you want to make. That sounds like what people do to their iced tea here in the South. Yeah, exactly right. So yeah, so I have a quart jar and I feel that. So it's four cups of water and I just put one cup of sugar in there. I just fill it with hot

water. You don't need to boil the water, just get it hot enough so the sugar will dissolve well, right, and so, and then I use what I need and I put the rest in a refrigerator. So in the summertime, particularly this year, if you're putting out sugar water, you need to replace it every three days or so because once if you put it in, it's gonna look really nice, clear and bright. Within a couple of days, you're going to start to see that turn and so that'd be

good. Turn sour. So that becomes not healthy for the birds. So you need to dump it, rinse it out, and refill it with clean nectar. Dyeing the nectar red. We do not want you to do that. It's proven that the red food coloring is actually harmful to the birds. Most of the feeders nowadays have lots of red on them anyway, So it's the color of the feeder more importantly than the color of the nectar. So yeah, I mean think about well, think about turk's cap. You got

a big green bush and there's a red flower on it. You don't have to paint the bush red to go hummingbirds, That's exactly right. Yeah. So and certainly if you have things in your yard like the salvia, turk's cap, lantana, milkweed, things like that that the hummingbirds love anyway, they're going to find your feeder almost automatically. So a lot of us don't realize too hummingbirds when they're coming through here, they're eating a lot of insects.

They've got to really fatten themselves up. So if you think about that little bird making a twenty hour trip across goal from Mexico, they've got to really bulk up and get ready for that trip. And so wow, yeah, so they're eating a lot of insects. Of the nectar that's in the feeders is giving them the energy that they need to continue to forage. Is

that is great information If you're just tuning in, we're listening. We're talking with rich Eatie from wa Bird's Unlimited about all kinds of things birds this hour, so he'll be with us all the way up the nine o'clock. Give us a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Ryan will get you on the boards and we will talk birds with you when we come back. Black but singing in the dead oven nine. Taint these broken wings and learn to fly all your line. You were only waiting for this

moment to a run. Hey, we're glad you're listening to Garden Line today. We're here talking birds today. I have fortune of having a Rich Eaty with me from wild Birds Unlimited, and we are going to be continued to talk all kinds of things birds. During break, we were just talking about

hummingbirds. You know, think about this. You're you're a tiny little hummingbird, I mean, just little bitty things and your wings beat sixty times a second, and you're gonna fly all the way across the Gulf of Mexico with nothing to land on. Just let you let your brain absorb that. How much I would have to take a truck load of energy bars with me for the trip just to survive it. It's just a miracle that they can do that. That's really cool stuff. Yeah, it is. I find it

amazing. There are guys that work in the offshore rig platforms and stuff they'll see hummingbirds as they're making migrations. It's not uncommon as well. Wow. But yeah, I mean it's a it's a tough trip for them. I mean, they're they're putting their lives at stake to make that journey every year. No kidding, that is cool stuff. Well, we got a couple of questions in here. By the way, our phone numbers seven one three, two one two, fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna go out to

Parland first. Hey, Kevin, I believe you've got a question about birds. Hey, good morning guys. I just really got into birds in the past couple of years and I've been buying my food at wild Birds Unlimited in Parland and it's just quite enjoyable just watching them, you know, come and feed and I don't know all the different species and everything, but I've noticed last year that we had a lot more hummingbirds and this year I'm not seeing

them. I mean, when is technically humming birds season? Yeah, so yeah, so you're seeing Jeff down there in the Parland store. Just also got a new store over in clear Lake as well. Right now, you're not gonna see very many humming birds. It's just starting for the fall migration. So have your feed are ready, watch your yard. But August, September, October September is going to be the busiest month for seeing them in your backyard. Even in the springtime, are not going to see as many.

Even though the birds are coming through, they've pretty much got one thing on their mind and that is making it to their breeding grounds to the north. So for us right now Houston, it's August, September, October September being the busiest month. That's when. That's what I encourage folks. If you've ever noticed, the hummingbirds will fight over a feeder. One bird will guard that feeder like crazy. So if you think about it, they're trying

to get ready to make that journey. So if they find an energy source like that, they're going to protect it. And so I always tell people put up one more feeder than you have birds. So so you know in my yard, I'll put up five or six feeders, and so that gives the birds an opportunity to guard their own feeder. But then I still get to enjoy a lot of activity in the yard. I get to watch them fight and bicker and carry on. So yeah, so you're really just starting

to go. So during the months of June and July, you're not really going to see many humming birds in our area. Some folks do, but but that's not the not the prevailing. Yeah, knowledge for everybody. Well, I appreciate it very much, man, Thank you all. Gratchel, you bet, thanks for Carl. Appreciate that. Kevin. We're going to head now over to clare Lake City and talk to Stephen. Well, good morning, Stephen, Good morning Stirs. You apparently you knew what I was

going to ask about. We my significant other and I live in two different places and we've put up as many as three feeders in each place, and there's that one garden dog bird just chases all the other birds away. Yet we were in a ranch down near Fredericksburg that has a ton of feeders. They've banned the birds even and I didn't see any of them fighting down there.

Is there anything else you can do other than yeah, unfortunately here, unfortunately for us in the Houston area as there get ready to make that migration. They're they're pretty hondry and pretty protective of a food source that they find when you're when you're in their breeding grounds and they're they're raising their young and things like that. It's very common to see multiple birds on one feeder. So um so, like I said, unfortunately in Houston, that's gonna be.

That's gonna be your experience. By and large. Every once in a while, you'll you'll be able to see a couple of birds decide to tolerate each other and land on the same feeder. But again, putting up more feeders is a way for you to see more birds. Any other thing too, is to is to put them at least ten feet apart if you can, so if you can scatter them around your yard, certainly put them where you can enjoy them. I mean, that's why we put feeders out right,

is to enjoy seeing the birds. Speaking of enjoying them, it's kind of entertaining to watch them fight with each other. They dive bomb and but it's kind of sad. In the other hand, is a good birds that want to drink? Oh yeah, for sure. Well they're doing okay, so I mean they're but yeah, they're they're just being very protective. But yeah, hummingbirds. You know, they can fly upside down, sideways, backwards, I mean, and they can go full speed and just no time.

So yeah, I mean they are. They are a fascinating bird. So good. I hope our military is learning from how they fly. Then, okay, thanks very much, yeah, Stephen, thank you for Hey, you're lucky Stephen to be out there and clear like, that's the newest wahbird store Jeff has out there, right, it is. So there's seven of us around town. So there's a landing page wbu dot com, slash Houston and find the find the store nearest to you. So and you're located

over on the Katie side, right. Yeah. So I've got two stores. I've got one up in Cyprus, which is at Barker Cypress in two ninety and the other one is in Memorial at the Memorial and Kirkwood intersection. Good, I think I've been in the Memorial one. Yeah. Yeah, I always tell folks that's right next to those tios. Everybody knows where those tios is over there. So well, I mean, what a good day. I mean you go, get you some good Mexican food and you pick

up your bird supplies and everybody gets to eat. That's right, that's good. Hey, our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call. We are visiting with Rich d from while Birds Unlimited today. So you got some bird questions, let's talk about that. We've got the expert here to kind of direct traffic and put us in the right direction on anything

related to birds. You know, there are a lot of there are misconceptions out there about birds, Like we're talking about the red dye and the hummingbird feeders and things. What would you say, Rich, would be some of the just the basic ABC's. Maybe somebody goes, you know, I love my landscape. I remember thought about bringing songbirds in, you know, because I like to talk about the fact that they visually are pretty bit there.

They add music to the air. I mean, going out in the morning with a cup of coffee is just wonderful to hear the songs of the birds. What would you say are kind of some of the abcs that someone should know if they would like to start moving in to birds. And then by the way, I have to warn listeners it's addictive. I mean, this is a hummingbird feeder. Is just it's the gateway drug. Okay, so

it's a great addictive though it's a wonderful, wonderful hobby. But anyway, yeah, I mean the most important thing if you think about what birds need, that birds need insects, right, so making sure that you focus on the native plants to Texas is super important. We always tell folks if you

want to attract chickadees, plant an oak tree. An oak tree is a host plant for hundreds of different types of moths where they'll lay their eggs, which turn into pupae and caterpillars, which the chickadees need to feed their young. I always tell folks chickadeese, if you have chickadees nesting in and around

your house, you've got a great habitat. Because chickadees will collect almost three hundred caterpillars a day to feed their young, and they've got to do that for twenty eight days, so they've got to collect about ten thousand or more caterpillars and they do all that within you know, a hundred yards or less of the nests, and those caterpillars are important because as important as like bird seed and stuff is when it's nesting time, having that those proteins, those

rich sources of food, that's really critical. I mean, you guys have like a dried meal, worms and products and other things we can supplement with. But these birds are working for you. Oh yeah, no, they absolutely are. You know, backyard bird feeders themselves are probably only about fifteen percent of their overall diet necks, right, So the feeders are really for our enjoyment. It's to pull the birds into your yard. Now. It's

also important during nesting time. While the birds are out collecting insects to feed their young, they're coming to the feeders to feed themselves. That's why our nesting super Blend is a great feed Even right now while the nesting season is starting to wrap up, the high fat, the high protein that's in there. If you've noticed, birds are going to start going through their molt pretty

quick. Yes, there's some pretty pretty shaggy looking cardinals blue jay's flying around right now, and what they're doing is they're getting rid of their old feathers. They're going to grow some new feathers to get themselves ready for winter, and your nesting blend is just the perfect for that. Yes, it's the perfect blend with the high fat, the high protein. It'll get them through that season. We've been talking about the different kinds of birds that even we're

still nesting going on into summer. That's for a good while and then hoo comes the molt season. So that's just a good cover your summer, I guess. Yeah. So having the having the insects in your yard, which means to have the insects, you've got to have the native plants. If you plan exotics, then then the insects aren't going to come naturally, and so super important, you know, Rich, I read a book I guess

a couple of years ago. I kind of lose track of time on that, but it was the most recent eye opening book related to the natural world of our landscapes that I've ever read, and it was by Doug Talomey called Bringing Nature Home. Absolutely what you're talking about. An oak tree has a ton of caterpillars up there in it, and they're not going to kill your oak. You may even not even notice a little bit of disfoliation that's happening,

but how important that is for birds? And you've alluded to it several times talking about the importance of native plants, right, you know, we bring things in. A lot of our landscapes are from Asia, you know, the lagustrum and the red tip Photini is, the pedisporums and just a lot of things. And if you look at those, we don't have caterpillars all over those, but our native plants do. And if you haven't read Bringing Nature Home, I would highly recommend it. It is an unbelievable book.

There's a thing going on called Hometown National Park USA or yeah, that's a Doug Polomy thing. Yeah, trying to turn every yard into a national park. Is that while we look at the mass of our natural parks,

which they're great, right, our national parks all over the US. Right, The idea is that, you know, the the Audubon or Cornell had estimated we'd lost three or four billion birds since the late seventies and a lot of that has to do with land sprawl, development things like that, losing habitat and the ideas to not you know, I just don't want people to freak out and think, oh my god, what have we done. Start in your own yard, Start with you and your neighbors. Start with your

neighborhood. And if everybody takes these things into account, and you think about planting for the nature in your area, because what we do here is going to be different than it is in Austin than it is in Dallas, right, but everybody's got their native plants, and so yeah, start start in your own yard instead. A good example. That is great. We're gonna take a break here in just a little bit. Our phone number though is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, I

know you as a listener a garden line. I just believe that we have a lot of compassion, of people that care about other people that listen to the show. And of all the causes that are out there, one that just really hits home to me as a Star of Hope mission here in the Houston area. Star of Hopes have been around a long time. I mean it was several decades ago my wife and I first volunteered at a Star of Hope mission. They make a difference. You know. It's one thing to

hand somebody on the corner who's panhandling a few bucks to get by. I won't go into the details of how much that helps or hurts, but I can tell you this With Star of Hope, the money goes into long term life change people giving them a chance. You know, if you are homeless for whatever reason, maybe no fault to your own, for you to be able to get a job, you can't do you have a transportation to the job. Do you know how to get a job? Were you ever taught

how to do an interview? How to hold a job? Are you struggling with substance abuse and that's affecting your ability to hold a job? Star of Hoop does all of that. They reach all of that. Two dollars and eighty cents provides a meal at Star Hope and by the way, they serve six thousand meals a week. They are making a difference. It's not just a handout. It is long term life change that is changing the face of homelessness. And I would encourage you to check out s o Hmission dot org.

S oh mission dot org. It is an incredibly good cause and when you learn about the difference they make, it just moves It moves me to compassion, and it moves me to want to do something where my dollars really make a lasting change. We're going to take a break now and go to news again. The number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, All of days long, man Up, and the song all the Little Birds on deep Birthspeet, Don't do it. The Robin Ball tweet tea good

Sunday morning. Appropriate music for today. We're visiting with Rich Dye from wild Birds Unlimited about all things birds. If you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four, And we are not going to waste time and go straight out to the NASA area and talk to Matt. Good morning, Matt, what's your question? Hi, Good morning

guys. Um. I was living down in Corpus for quite a while and there was some really bright green colored humming birds, almost a metallic or iridescent color, and I haven't seen them here in the Houston area. Just said it was a different species, or yeah, Houston it is. It's called the buff bellied hummingbird UM and they're they're very common in South Texas. They're in the yury freeze. A few years ago, I actually had a buff belly show up in my backyard. Oddly enough, he was knocked off course

a little bit, I think. But yeah, the buff bellies are pretty common down in that area, and they're they're a beautiful bird, very they're they're a bigger bird. And yeah, I've got that real dark green, metallic look to them. Okay, Yeah, I just was kind of curious. I tried to look it up on my own and I wasn't able to. Yeah. Yeah, well, we mostly get here are ruby throated humming birds. Those are going to be the birds that are migrating through um but

also in the winter. We always encourage folks to after the the ruby throated of left. And by the way, there's another myth out there that says you have to take your feeders down. Other words, otherwise the birds won't migrate. It's not true. The birds. The birds are on their own clock, so they're gonna leave when it's time to leave. But I encourage folks to leave one small feeder out all the way through the holidays because we

get rufous hummingbirds that will winter here. So those birds are up in the Pacific Northwest, up in the Oregon, Washington, up into Canada. That's their breeding ground, and then when they migrate, they'll go down the west coast. They won't cross the rockies, they'll follow the coast lying down, and then once they get down to the desert southwest, some will peel off and head up the Gulf coast and winter here in the winter. So yeah,

so keep one. I keep one small, like a four ounce feeder out and if you get one, you'll notice that the nectar will start dropping because they're they're they're a little bit more shy and they'll be on their own. So but not uncommon for folks to have rufus humming birds all winter. Nice. Hey, thank you for the question, Matt. I appreciate that that was good. Good to know, good to think about. Let's head out now to the gallery area and we are going to talk to Paula.

Hello, Paula, Hi, good morning. I have excuse me, an enclosed fence then patio, and I have a bird bath and a fountain, and I cannot attract birds or eating or butterflies or eating bees. Um. I'm growing really right now. The only thing I have blooming are mandavilla, but I don't but no birds? Is it because my fence is too high. I mean, can they not see or smell or however they detect water

and food? Well, you know it. Probably I could probably help you a little beout her if if you were you could send me a picture of your backyards into to my email at at Houston, TX WBU at aol dot com let me see it. I think a lot of it just comes down to is there something in your yard that's intrusting to the birds. They'll find it. Um. So, I think it's a matter of It's like anything,

right. So when folks put up a brand new feeder for the very first time, they some will call me in a couple of days and say it's not working. The birds aren't coming to my feeder. It's gonna take time, right, So when folks put up feeders for the first time, sometimes you gotta give it a month or so for the birds to really find it. Birds are like people there. They're creatures of habit and they've got a forage pattern that they go through. Uh. And so really it's a

matter of your yard getting on a bird's forage pattern. If you've got something interrusting back there. The water is a great start, and sometimes you can put things out like a little yellow or little yellow flags to that wave in the wind. Birds are kind of nosy, man, so if they see something like that, they may come see what that's all about. Um. But that's sometimes it's just difficult and you got to give a time. I don't know how long you've had your mandavilla and your water in your backyard,

but again, it really it just takes time. Do you have a lot of trees or no? Uh no, no. I live in a townhouse and so I'm basically I'm surrounded by other fence, you know, other fenced in patios right right, So I would I would submit, it's just you know, my my mother, she lived in an apartment for twenty years on the ground floor, and I would have never guessed in a million years that she would attract birds to her patio because she backed up to a parking lot.

But what she ended up doing is she put out a it's called a seed cylinder feeder, so it's just a block of seed and she puts we put saff flour out there for her because the grackles won't eat it. Um. But she attracted cardinals and chickadees and wrens and house finches right to her backyard, right on the parking lots of an apartment building that she did it for a while. Yeah, and the hummingbirds coming out as well with that

man the villa. I wouldn't be surprised if the hummingbirds find that. So you might think about putting a hummingbird feeder out as well in the next week or two. Okay, okay, perfect, all right, thank you so much. That is great information. Thank you very much. We're going to go to Sharon and West Chase. Hey, Sharon, we got about a minute Joe break. How can we help Hey, I wouldn't would you please go over again? Just the list of the flowers, flowers that attract the

hummingbirds. And there's a flower that I remember but I can't think of the name. And it has orange, right orange blossoms on it, and I used to have those, but they I don't have them anymore. Well, the orange could have been like trumpet creeper, that's one that they may go to. No, it was something like fire. It had another name like fire in it of oh fire bush firebush Amelia patterns is heat tolerant and it has these tubular red orange flowers kind of have a little yellow up that they

like. And you said Amelia. Is that what you said? Amelia patterns pat Amelia, that's the name I remember. Yeah, okaye, a lot of that. And it did attract the hummingbird. Yeah, it does, it does. And we got so many flowers that we should be growing here

that we can, yeah, at least review the flowers again. And also I just wanted to say that I attract the cardinals by going out in the afternoon later when it's not quite sublazing hot into water in my patio area with a I have a spray nozzle and it'll shoot far up in the air, so I'll put it. I'll shoot it up in the air and it'll fall back down through my trees like I've got ligustrium and holly and everything that have grown into trees. And the cardinals would just come flying in and I'll hear

them. They'll start tweeting, and they love to just get inside the foliage and flutter their wings and bathe in the in the water. They love. Sounded like a dog. And I go outside, they hear us come out, and they'll fly in and wait for me to turn on the host. That's good. Sounds like the word on the street with the birds is Sharon's place is a place to go hang out. That's how my neighbors have oaks too. We all have trees, so we have a little bit of a

sanctuary circle around. Well, Sharon, thank you for the call. I appreciate that we're gonna have to take a break here. We're talking with rich Edie from wild Birds Unlimited. We'll be right back after break. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And Joan, you'll be first up when we come back. And well, you are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are with rich Dy from wild Birds Unlimited. Wild Birds Unlimited. They're seven story across

the Houston area. Just go to WABU dot com forward slash Houston and you can find all the wildbirds right here. And we've been talking all kinds of things birds today and the last couple of collars, we were talking about some plants that they might like. And you know, there are long lists of plants that hummingbirds like, but one that I've noticed in my yard that they just love, or a lot of the salvias there's a salvia called Salvia gara

nitica. Sometimes it's called a nice scented sage. Sometimes it's called hummingbird sage. That's another colloquial name for it. But it reminds me of something rich. Then we were talking about during break that it doesn't have to be a red tubular flower for a hummingbird to be interested in it. A lot of these blue, purple and other salvias are really popular. Absolutely. Yeah, I know. I've got purple salvia in my backyard in front yard and they

love that stuff. And again, remember while it can be a nectar bearing plant that it's important. They're also harvesting spiders in mosquitos and gnats. They're eating a lot of insects. Okay, So anything that will host these little insects, they're gonna love it. So yep, that's nice. That is good to remember. They aren't just entertaining our eyes. They are actually helping us with the oil. Mosquitoes. Boy, we could use a few less

mosquitoes around the Great Area, that's for sure. Hey, there's some events coming up who are regarding hummingbirds. Will you tell me a little more about Yeah, for sure. So everybody loves hummingbirds. I mean, by far the most popular bird. When we get to the season, our customers certainly get really excited. But we wanted to make sure everybody were aware of three

pretty big events in our area and they're all in September. September ninth, there's a Hummingbird Festival at club Woods, which is a Harris County park. It's up at twenty nine twenty and Mushki. If you've never been to Clubwoods, highly encourage you to go. It's a beautiful old homestead home by the name of the guy was club Wood and it's beautiful year round. But they will have a hummingbird festival on Saturday, September ninth. They'll do the hummingbird

banding. An interesting note on that, people wonder if hummingbirds came back to the same place every year they captured the same female Rufus hummingbird, like seven years in a row after they banded it. So they banded it and then subsequently seven years in a row they captured the same bird and checked the band So that's a really good one. There's another one that will be down. Everybody probably knows about the Rockport Festival. That's down at Rockport, Texas.

That's from the fourteenth to the seventeenth. Okay, that's a huge festival and they've got all kinds of stuff going on. It's a nice easy drive down there. Strongly encourage you to go. They have personal homes that are on a walking tour. There's a lady. The word I got one time is that she'll go through forty pounds of sugar a week feeding hummingbirds because it's a big staging area for the birds getting ready to head back across the Gulf of

Mexico. So the Rockbord Festival is awesome. That's seventh, the fourteenth through the seventeenth of September. And then a little bit closer to home then is Lake Jackson, the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory right down there on the coast, just outside Lake Jackson. They're gonna have it on two Saturdays, September sixteenth and September twenty third, and that's going to be from eight in the morning till noon of those two saturdays. And again it's a place to go see

the birds and they'll be doing banding and things like that. And if you've never been to Gulf Coast Birding Observatory. You can go back and look at our Facebook page. Back in April, we saw some beautiful migratory birds come through there this last spring. Red tanagers, Baltimore orioles, walnut chested warblers are sited. So yeah, so if you've never been another, it's really easy drive down there. It's not a huge place, so you can walk

around, but it's beautiful. You can get some good pictures as well. You know, as you're getting into being interested in birds and bringing them to your backyard, it's good to have good resources to learn more bottom in which your your wall. Bird websites are just just awesome for providing information, but also when you walk in a store, you got people helping you that really

know what they're talking about and they kind of direct you. Absolutely. Yeah, no, all of our all of our team members go through what we called a Certified Bird Feeding Specialist program, so they'll ask you the questions. If you've got a particular problem you want to get solved, tell us what you're trying to figure out, or if you're just getting into the hobby, we can we can help you every step of the way. And if you're

trying to solve a problem. Like one of the earlier callers, pictures always help. If you've got a particular problem you want to solve, we can take a look at that and make some recommendations. That's good. That's good information. And plus, you know, I coming from not knowing about birds, I have had a long educational process. I got a long way to go still. But one of the thing is, you know, you see bird seed for sale everywhere, and it's full of those little red babies.

And when you look at it and you go, oh, that's too bird seed. I can afford that, And then you bring it back and you realize birds don't really like to eat those little red babies. They're hard and they're you know, they get kicked out on the ground till they finally maybe some doves drop down there because they're starving or right. But you guys have seed that's directed for different times of the year, different kinds of birds,

different goals. And you also have the mess free seeds. That's right. So instead of you know, breaking up the black ole sunflower or whatever and dropping the shells everywhere you can get just go to the straight seed. I have your safflower seed that's like that that I'm using my feeders right now. Yeah, so that's our no mess blend and so yeah. So you know, as much as we would love to sell everybody all their bird seed all

the time, we realize you're gonna buy elsewhere. I just encourage folks if they're buying a songbird blend of any kind, if you look at the ingredients and you see corn, milow, wheat, those are ingredients the birds absolutely positively will not eat. They're going to kick it to the ground and so

everything. And we have no cereal fillers in our feed, like we get seed in every week so it's fresh and so yeah, and we've got different blends and different types of seeds to target specific things that you that you want to feed well. And I think the point too that I'm making is you may look at something and think, well, that's that's a good price on bird seed, But when half of it is getting not eaten, that's right,

Is that a good price on bird seed or not? You're you're doubling what it costs you essentially, you know, and I know it's exactly. I think it's even like up to seventy percent. It can be up to seventy percent for sure, and so yeah, the birds are going to kick it to the ground, and then with that laying on the ground, you're going to attract probably some some things that you're not interested in seeing as well. So the no masses are great because it's there's no shell mass on the

ground. One hundred percent of the seed that's in the bag is edible and it's highly improbable that it will germinate as well, So you're not going to get some flower seeds popping up under your feeders in your yards. So it's a nice tidy way of feeding your birds. Yeah, and I'd noticed in the past when I first was going and using a cheap bird seed, you would just watch the bird seed level just drop real fast, that's right.

And then you look in the feeder and it's like, oh, I said, the red babies the milo you're talking about corn, and they're just basically going through it trying to find stuff they can eat, right, Whereas I put out the sapphire thing, and my gosh, the birds are there all the time, but the level is dropping very slowly that I'm not putting out as much feed. Yeah, I convinced the guy one time he came in and said he insisted on buying this, this cheap blend at a at a

box store. He said, ooh, they just love it. They ripped through it, and so you know, I told him, I said, I said, do me a favor, try at five pound bag of the snow mouse, and then you tell me what the difference is. And he converted to a full time bird seed customer because he realized all of it was going to the ground. There you go, there you go. That's that's a good point. Hey, we're going to head out to Waller now, Joan, thanks for waiting. What kind of question can we help you with

today? Yes, yes, good morning, gentlemen, and I'm a first time caller, so I appreciate being able to get in. Thank you. We have acreage and Waller, and on that acreage we do have an agg wildlife exemption because we do feed the birds. We take care of the birds every year. We have a private company either do a winter bird survey or a breeding bird survey in the springtime. And you're right the populations are declining,

both in terms of sure numbers of the birds and species. But my question today is related to a property that we've owned for the last eight years in Georgetown, Texas, because it's in a restricted fifty five plus community which shall remain nameless for noll And to make long story short, I've tried for eight years doing the organics with the corn gluten fertilizer, no pesticides, despite our neighbors on all sides, you know, having the landscape companies that pour

on the pesticides and herbicides as well. But during those eight years, I had violets that came up. I had dandelions, I had what my mom used to call digitalis, which I think is like a called a liar back something. And we had hummingbirds and also had blue bonnets to escape from the flower beds onto the lot itself. And one of the things was this particular h well it's called a cia. It's not an hoa yet. But they allowed the blue bonnets, which was great because we also had butterflies as well

as birds, blue blue birds. We even had a woodpecker that tried to make a home out of our porch post, so that was kind of discouraged by us. Say Joan, I wish, I wish we had another hour because this is sounding fun, but we actually have about fifteen seconds left. So to make a long story short, I've had to go now with chemicals and we're not seeing the birds because the h or the CIA was going to

start giving me violations. And I guess it's just a question. Is it a matter of time before the the politics of the world change and allow people to have native All righty, well, we're gonna we're gonna go to break here, we'll come back. Maybe I'll have a comment or so on that. Thank you so much, rich for being with us today. Rich Edie from Wilbirds Unlimited. Go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston for more information. Thank you, Bye bye. Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse

any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Ricord. Just watch well. You are listening to garden Line on a beautiful Sunday morning. It is just gorgeous outside. Good day to be out and about this afternoon. I hope you dropped by and visit some of our great local garden centers here in town. You know, we're talking to rich ADYE from Wabird's Unlimited about birds this whole last hour and it's a

really interesting topic. Thanks Rich for coming in for that really really enlightening. But we talk about plants a little bit, and you know, there are so many plants that are important for bringing in birds, and we talked about Salvia's, for example, being a really good choice. I mean, there's a list of dozens of plants we could mention, but if you're out in the Kingwood area, you're fortunate to have Warrens Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Center

there and they carry Salvia's and they carry many other plants. You go in and say, hey, look, I'm looking for things that hummingbirds like, and I'd like to spread it out through the season, which is a good idea, by the way, things that bloom in spring and summer and in fall. For example, Warrens Southern Gardens on North Park Drive, Kingwood Gardens Center on Stone Hollow, they've got all of that. It's a good time also to get out there if you haven't put some colladiums out. I'm telling

you, colladiums if you give them a little moisture. They laugh at this weather. They think this is wonderful weather because they're going to be under the shade of a tree and just setting that area of blaze. And Warrens has a nice selection of colladiums of course as well, so Warren's Garden Center Kingwood Garden Center, both open seven days a week and a great way to get some of those plants that will attract hummingbirds and other kinds of birds to your

landscape. Were listening to garden Line, I am your host, Skip Ricter our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We had a couple of people we asked to wait a little bit while we're talking birds to get to other kinds of questions. But we're wide open right now.

We'd love to have you give us a call. If you're interested in living in a place where you have a beautiful home and a community garden and everything else as far as amenities, then that's called a Dell Web community in Fullsher Texas. In full Shore, Texas, two miles from downtown Fullshire on Highway our FM three fifty nine is a new Dell Web community and I'm helping

them with a community garden that they've got going in there. Now, if you know Dell Weeb, you know you've got quality building, you got in communities that are gorgeous, and you have lifestyle programs built around you. So I can't think of a better place for gardening retirement than a Dellweb community with

a community garden. Go to dellweb dot com forward slash Houston. You can get more information that way, or just give him a call them at two eight one four five nine zero six zero nine and discover that Dellweb difference for yourself. I need to get back out there. It's been a wall. ST's been out that community, see how things are going, because I'm really excited just the idea of a community garden and a community like that. Wow,

that makes my gardening heart happy to hear about. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, I've had some calls this morning, and really we often do on is it okay to plant such and such right now? And you know we talk about fall being an excellent time to plant Winner's fine. Spring is fine, and then you know in summer it's a little more of a challenge, but it can

still be done. And so there's no need to delay. In fact, now it's a great time to get you know, some wonderful plants that will do well in your area. I mean you pick up, for example, habiscus. The perennial habiscus are just so gorgeous. So we talked about firebush a minute ago. Amelia pattents that's got the tubular flowers that hummingbirds is really love. I mean, now's a good time to plant things like that. Just keep them water, to keep that rootball watered, and they'll do just

fine. Now, if you know the plants you like, but you just don't know how to design them, then you need to hire somebody to come in. They can put a design together for you. I mean, you know, go ahead and turn your place into a show place. Maybe the front yard, you know, the drive up look, that first impression. That's what you're going for. And Peer Scapes knows how to do that. By the way, Jason and his team at peer Scapes, they are experts

and designing. Maybe it's not just plant beds, I mean it's it's rock walkways. Maybe it's rock borders, other kinds of hardscapes. Maybe your irrigation needs tweaking. Maybe you need drainage fixed, that's Peerscapes and they can put it all together. Go to pierscapes dot com. Peerscapes dot com find out more about them or give him a call two eight one three seven zero five

zero six zeros. Find out what quality folks well trained, knowledgeable, they know the area and they have the design gift if you will, that's Peerscapes. Find out the difference they can make. Maybe you got a backyard area where you want to gather and you know, with family and friends, and you would just like to turn it into a show place, little landscape lighting. There we are Peerscapes. They can do all of that well. Our

phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're gonna head out to Lake Jackson now and talk to Diana. Hello, Diana, Hey, how are you doing? List more? I'm well, thank you. I got a quick question. I think I've got a line that had a chinch book attack and I've addressed it with the triaz side more than one application. But I'm wondering what I can do to help the lawn come back. I know watering, but I have done the spring fertilization wouldn't be appropriate

to do another fertilization on it at this point in time. You did, you did it in spring, you said, right, yeah, yes, I would do it again. I would. I would absolutely, I would absolutely do that again. And you've got a lot of good options out there, you know. We we're fortunate here also to have some great options for selections. But since it's summertime and you want to get a fertilizer to last you a long, long, long time, I would consider going, you

know, with that nitrofoss silver bag, the super turf. It's a nineteen fourteen yea, it's got the chemistry design so it's not going to release all at once, So you want a gradual feeding, just keeping that lawn going and rowing and filling in from the chinch bug damage. That would be a pretty good choice in my opinion, for doing just that. Okay, perfect, That's what I wanted to know. Thank you so much, you bet, thank you for the call. Yeah, I appreciate that very much.

The thing I'm going with a quality feed that's going to our feed, lawn feed, if you will. Lawn fertilizers are going to gradually release it out. Is it just it provides nutrients over time at a rate where you know, grass needs a little nutrient each today, and so to have a fertilizer that's designed with that technology is super super cool, and you know nitrifies. You can find them everywhere. I mean our home garden centers, our ace

hardware. They're pretty much everywhere that we would go looking for a quality product like that. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We are in I'm sitting here looking out over some trees from the studio, some oak trees, which reminds me of that caterpillar conversation we had with Rich eaty from wild birds, those caterpillars or song bird food, and they need a lot

of caterpillars and they eat them up. So we don't lose the leaves on our oak trees and other trees that caterpillars might eat because we got birds that are helping take care of that. And that's a wonderful thing. But if you've got beautiful trees on your property, and you know we're entering the hurricane season, it might be time to take a good hard look and make sure

you don't have any limbs that are subject to breakage. They're hanging over maybe rubbing the roof, hanging over a power line, drop, coming in your neighbor's driveway, whatever. And Affordable Tree is the folks that we there are go to folks on garden line, you know, Martin Spoon Moore and his wife Joe. It's first rate, first class work. It's the owner being involved in the business. I mean you call and Martin or Joe's can answer

the phone. That's just the way it is. By the way, the phone number if you'd like to call them at seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three, or I would suggest just go to their website. It's Afftree Service dot com. And it's not just for storm damage, although that's what we got in mind right now it's a storm season. But if you need a consultation and maybe you're going to do construction around them for crying out loud column before you let people dig and damage tree roots, they can

help prepare for that. Do you need deep root feeding or pruning or something grinding or anything else like that, they can take care of it. Martin and his wife they've been doing this for a long time and they do first class work. Again. Aff Tree service dot com. You can find out more information from them when you go online or just get him a call, do somef that you look up from your glass room with him. Good morning, beautiful, beautiful Sunday morning, and a great day for anything related to

gardening. I hope this afternoon you'll make plans to head out to one of our wonderful local garden centers. And boy do we ever have a lot of great garden centers around this area. We are rich with those kind of things. You know, the Enchanted Gardens out there in Richmond. That's just a good example. If you're done in the Richmond area and you hit up kind

of toward Katie area, that's Enchanted Gardens. Let me give you their website right up front so you can write this down because you will want to check it out. They have a ton of wonderful information on the website. I mean it is you want to belong, you want to subscribe to any kind of newsletter, top materials they have because they have got really first quality information. You find about sales, find out about all kinds of things like that.

So Enchanted Gardens the Linderman family has been part of this community since nineteen ninety five when Enchanted Gardens first opened. This is truly an unforgettable experience to go out of place like that. I trust me. If you haven't been out there, you need to go check it out. It is really really cool and they have a lot of information you want to build a little fairy garden for example, you know those little one of the statues and figure it's

like a miniature landscape scene. They've got something you can just go out and see that are out there kind of give you inspiration. And then they got all the little I guess you'd call it fairy bling to go with it. It's pretty cool stuff. I love going out there. You never know what kinds of plants and things are going to have on hand, but you always know that whatever season it is, everything you need plant wise is going to

be at Enchanted Gardens. Again. They're open, by the way, on Saturday from eight to five thirty, Monday through Saturday eight to five thirty, and today from ten am to four pm, So it's a good data go out and get some things. Why are you there? You can pick up the fertilizers and the soils. We talk about here, now would be a good time to plant all of those heat loving plants. And when you get out there, just stop and look across the place and you see color everywhere.

And they've got the educated folks that when you need help and ask them for ideas, you ask them for direction, give me more information on a plant, they can do that. That's why we love a quality hometown garden center. And that's exactly what in Channing Gardens is. By the way, they're on three fifty nine. As you head from Richmond up toward the Katie

Fulls, your direction Lovell is always love going out and visiting. If you are concerned about a roof, maybe you got some roof problems that you need to take care of, you need to call Brinkman. And here's why I say that. When it comes to roofs and storm damage and things, we have people that basically they just fly through the country going from storm to storm

so they can fix roofs and that's how they make money. And they tell you they're going to help you get your insurance coverage and stuff, But that didn't mean they know what they're doing, and that didn't mean if something's wrong. They're there to fix it because they're gone. They're off to the next storm in Alabama or wherever it was. Brinkman's is not that way. They live here. They've been doing this for fifty years in this community. The

Better Business Bureau gave them the Pinnacle Award in twenty twenty two. They just you can trust, you can depend you can know the workmanship is going to be right. You can know they're going to stand behind it, like twenty five year guarantee on stand behind a roof for the workmanship that they do. And then they use quality products. You know, if you've never if you've thought about getting solar, but you don't want those giant panels up on top

of the roof, they have a thing called the Timberline Solar Shingle. They're not above the roof, they are the roof and it really looks nice and it works super super well. Go to online to Brinkman Quality dot Com. That's Brinkman with two ends at the end, Brinkman Quality dot Com. Or call them at two eight one four eight zero seven six six three. Yeah, love love it when we have folks that are part of the community that

are committed to quality, and they have proven themselves over the years. Boy that if you can find that in any company, that is a welcome and unfortunately often a rare thing to find. You're listening to garden Line my phone number. Give me a call seven one three two one two five eight seven four. It's wide open now. We can talk about anything you're interested in,

as long as it's regarding to plants. I had someone come into the Agrilife extension office this week, a man and a woman, and they were standing there and pretty much everything he said she disagreed with. Pretty much everything she said he disagreed with. And I was trying to help him with their plot problem. So basically I said, hold on, let's wait a minute. Horticultural advice is free. Marriage counseling is three hundred dollars an hour. How do we want to do this? So I found it funny. At

least actually they did too. They realized what was going on. But the horticulture advice from garden Line is free. You can just give us a call anytime you want. You know, when it's hot in the summer, we go inside and take care of our house plants a little bit more attentively. Attentively perhaps than we do it other times a year, because you know it's air conditioned in the inside. I've got a whole bunch of houseplants, more than I ought to have, I'm sure, but hey, you know that's

how it goes with plants and plant people. And I was fertilizing my plants this week. I do it about once a week. I like to use. Microlife has a couple of products. They've got an orange label and they've got a blue label. Orange label and blue label. And I will tell you a little bit about those two products specifically. Now. The orange label is called Biomatrix. It's a seven one three. I use that on my

houseplants. It's got beneficial microbes, which are important. Even in an indoor plant soil, there needs to be good microbial activity and the Microlife Biomatrix orange label will provide us out. Now they're blue label. That's the Ocean Harvest. That's a four two three fertilizer. It's a fish based fertilizer. You can put it out there on your planting, dilute it down and use it

as a foli or spray. It's not going to burn your plants. Works super super well, so inside plants, outside containers, you've got it. They've got you covered with those two. Just get you a little quart bottle of each one, like I do have it right underneath the kitchen sink, so I can go right to town with it. Hey, go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com. Microlife Fertilizer dot com. They're online. You can find out about these two products, and you can also find out about their other

products as well as where do you get microlife in your community. We're going to take a trip out to Richmond now and see if I can get my cursor in the right direction. We're gonna talk to Brian. Good morning, Brian, Good morning, Skip. Just checking if you was able to identify that we'd the picture I sent a little while ago. Okay, hang on just a minute, I'll pull it up. Tell me a little bit more

about it while we're heading in that direction. Well, so, the blade sort of look like Saint Augustine, but their watch here and generally a lighter color. Okay, there, it's not saying artist team. It does sort of look like it, though, Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. That is that weed is one of those in the family of plants that has grass like leaf veins, but it's not a grass wandering jew is in that family. Uh, let's see, Um, what's the other

one? Doveweed is the same kind of deal, and this is just one of those. It's probably kind to like day flowers another one, and they're difficult to kill. I mean, you can use it, you know, and it's in a spot like that where it's isolated. You can use a kind of an everything weed killer and spray it on it. It's going to kill whatever you get it on. But if in the picture I see there's not a lot of grass right in that spot, might you might be able

to sacrifice it and just try to get rid of that weed sartainly. Digging them up is helpful, but they always leave pieces in the soil, so one digging is never going to get it. But that those are some options that might do well. There are a few other weed killers out there that that work on broad leaves, and they do a little bit of good on this kind of weed Brian. But in general though, that's the approach that I would take. I also have a little wiper that I made using one

of those things. There's gadgets that you get a jar off a shelf with it's like a little pistol grip, and you squeeze it and the ends of the other end of the stick grabs the jar, you know what I'm talking

about. There. I put a little sponge on each side of those and put a little product of whatever kind on it, and then you can just reach down and squeeze those leaves and pull it up and it just wipes its way all up the leaf or all up in your case, a little vining like growth, and it gets the product right on it, and that keeps you from getting it maybe if it's coming up in the grass, it keeps you from getting it on your grass as well. So that I've got a

few patches come up in my bermuda grass. So yeah, it sounds like I'm gonna have to sacrifice some mup mmuna either that or the little wiper thing that I talked about. You know, yeah, you can, you can deal with it that way, but that probably the best approach. Okay, okay, alrighty, thanks very much, all right, thank you very much. I appreciate I appreciate that call. Hey, if you live up in the Grimes, County area, Grimes County, that's up toward Navasotaway, just

south of College Station. Your hometown feed stores, Grimes County Feed and Farm. They're out there on State Highway one thirty in Carlos, Texas. And if you live up in there, up in God's Country in that part of the world, Iola, Beat Eyes, Rones, Prairie, Shiro Anderson, Richards, any hopetown's out there. If you're living king Oaks Subdivision or Mere Woods, this is your hometown feed store. They carry the fertilizers I'll talk

about. You're going to find the tree hugger, sprinkler we talk about there. You're going to find the mosquito ducks we talk about there. And of course it's a feed store, quality dog food, cat food, livestock food, you need to control pests and rodents. They've got all the supplies for everything. If you had a little farm pond, they do fish stocking twice a quarter. You just come in get signed up, talk to Chris or some of the other folks there at Grimes County and they'll get you all set

up if you'd like to get your pond stocked. And while you stocked and while you're there also pick up some seed food or seafood. Oh my gosh, fish food. I guess that would be seafood. I don't know anyway, fish food and a quat a curbside and stuff for dealing with weeds. Great, great deal. I always love going by a feed store, and boy, that is a quality, quality kind of deal. I just want

to say something. You know, maybe you're on your way back from church today or on your way to church today, if you haven't ever thought about given a Star of Hope mission, I hope you will. Star of Hope makes long lasting, permanent change in people's lives. We're not talking about here's about go buy a sandwich, good luck. We're talking about come in live here for a year. We will provide food, we will provide clothing so you can go out and get a job, will provide training for getting a

job. We will provide if you have a substance abuse problem, we will help you break that, get that monkey off your back. We're talking about Star of Hope a life change place, not just a handout, but people that are willing to put the time in and to go for it. Star of Hope is there to walk alongside him. I cannot think of a better, better cause in this whole community. S o hmission dot org. S o H mission dot org. They'll give you more information. By the way,

we're going to take a break. It is the phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Give Rhyan a call and when you come back after Annie, you will be the first up. Good morning on a beautiful Sunday morning. Outside, we're listening to garden Line. I'm your host skip director. Our phone number if you'd like to call, is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know the folks up at Nature's Way,

they really know how to make composts. They know how to make all kinds of organic materials to enhance your plants growth. We're talking about the originators of rose soil. We're talking about the originators of leaf mold composts. By the way, on Fungal Fridays, at ever Friday, that's Fungal Friday, there is a ten percent off bag product and twenty percent off bulk on thousands of yards of fungal compost. I mean they are loaded and ready and you're not

going to find a better quality compost on the planet. Fungal compost is just absolutely outstanding. I love the leaf compost, the leaf mold compost. I love all of the products that they put out there. And by the way, when you're out there, they're one of the largest varieties of native plants in the Houston area. They got a two acre nursery, which, by

the way, they're expanding even further coming up here. I was visiting with Ian out there the other day and they really got some exciting plans for even making that nursery area better. But I'm telling you, whether you need bag or whether you need both, the folks that Nature's Way produce a super quality product. By the way, there's summer hours for those of you who are head in that direction Monday through Friday eight to five, Saturdays from eight to

two, and on Sundays they're closed out of Nature's Way. It's if you go up Highway Interstate forty five about where fourteen eighty eight comes in. You just had right turn right across the railroad tracks and they're right there, just south of Conro. Easy easy to find, easy to get to Nature's Way. Hey, let's go to Southwest Houston now and talk to Annie. Hello, is it Anne or Annie? Okay, Anne, we'll talk to you two. How's it going? Ye? Well, good morning, Skip,

I am. I'm wanting to make a shout out to Southwest Fertilizer. They're just great. I just recently had some of my sharans shutled and it made my cup my jobs hering job in half. Oh my god. And the people they are just wonderful. Aaron and kal is just stirling their cashier butts and what that sentiment is a common one that I hear about Southwest. I mean they they the customers are happy, that's for sure. Yes, yes, And then up, I have a question about salth Yes, I have

salvius. I have salvious, but it's like the bottom third their leaves and then the top to get leggy. So I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or they're in the wrong spot to get full sun. So, so, An, do you know which salvias you have? What kind of salvia? If not, that's okay. The name is blue motion. Say that

again, blue emotion. I think it's the name. Okay, that's one I'm not famire with salvia is in general, they're in the mint family, they got square stems like mint has, and so you know mint, I mean, you share it back and it just pops right back out of the ground going again. Salvia is there's nothing wrong with sharing them back occasionally. Now in the heat and stress of summer, I wouldn't do it right now, but as we get you know, toward maybe toward the end of August

a little bit, I would give them a sharing. I typically will share mine at the end of May or sometime in May, getting ready for summer, and I'll share them again at the end of summer going into fall, and I'll share them again at the end of winter, cutting them back. And every time you share a salvia, it produces more growth with leaves,

and every shoot that comes out will have blooms on it. And so maybe you had one salvia shoot that had a bloom on the end, and when you cut it back, now that one shoot, you may get two or three sprouts out, and each of those will have a bloom on the end. So you have a more compact plant, not so leggy, and you just increase the blooms. But following the shearing, you want to sprinkle fertilizer around it and you want to water it in really good so it has moisture

and nutrients to support that flush of new growth. Okay, Mystic spar I believe with your favorite, you have a second favorite well of the of the blue spire type salvia. As there was an indigo spires originally which was wonderful but floppy, and the mistic spires is good. There's also one called misty MYSTI. I believe it is how they spell it. That's really compact.

But I just like, I like, I like the the you know, just that whole group of salvia's because they're beautiful and you do need to share them back to get the old dead blooms off and to end up create more growth Salvia, Greggy I. The cherry sage or greg sage is another one. It's a little subshrub. It'll always have blooms on it, so you'll never want to share it, but go ahead and bite the bullet and share it back, fertilize, water it and it'll be even better going forward.

Thank you so much, Hey, thanks for the call in. I appreciate that very much. Let's see we are gonna hear what we got. We got a little time for break. Let's go to talk to care in Grimes County, Hey Carry in subdivision near Navasota, Okay. Uh, I had a landscape. Were put in stone rings around trees and they got six trees in our backyard h three feet across in the first year. It was great. And then the trees a diamer of the trees measuring between three three inches.

There are some brand new Uh yeah they are, they're are. They're just getting bigger over time. Yeah. And so the weeds, weeds have cropped up in these stone rings, and how I show why they didn't have we didn't have the first year. My question is is there a we didn't kill that. We'll kill weeds without killing the tree, you know, it kind of helps to know what the weeds are. And if you like, you can send me a picture of the weeds and I can be more specific.

But there's the general purpose stuff that just kills grasses, broad leaves and everything. Those kind of weed killers, and you could use those. Just check and make sure your trees don't have any basals sprouts coming out of the trunk or the roots. Because I've had a little tree shoot coming up in amidst the weeds they're out of the base, and you sprayed it with one of these general purpose killers, you can really set the tree back pretty good.

So as long as you don't have that, you can use these and they'll they'll do just fine. If the weeds just grassy, then you may want to just do a grass only killer. And there's a couple of ingredients that are sold in various products that will kill grass but not kill broad leaves. You can use them in a flower bed and spray over the flowers and

the grass and it just kills the grass. So that'd be an option if it's primarily annual weeds, Carrie would, I would just you know, mow them down and you know a little weed eater and then put a mulch over them, a real thick mulch. And they can't resprout if they they're not going to them up as seeds when they can't get light, So that'd be an option. I suspect what you got is probably some grassy perennial weeds coming

in like bermuda grass or something else. Yeah, I hit it with I had some very sparse weeds and in the backyard, and I hit him with the general weed killer and kill them. When I hit the stone rings with it, they just kind of laughed at me. Here, well, let's let's do this. Let me let me do this. I'm gonna when we're done here, i'm gonna put you on hold, and in fact, I need to go to break right now. I'm gonna put you on hold if you would like, Ryan will pick up, and he will give you an

email to send me some pictures. Get up close, take good pictures. Make sure they're in sharp focus, and that way I can prescribe what you need for that particular group of weeds you got. Okay, thank you, Thank you so much for the call. We're gonna take a break our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four around a neighborhood Sunday. Well, good Sunday morning. You are listening to Garden Line. We are in our last little segment here. We'll be gone for the week, then

back again next weekend. Every Saturday morning, every Sunday morning, from six am to ten am, tell your neighbors about the show. Tell family and friends. We have folks that listen out of state and certainly out of this area. They're welcome to listen to and if you ever miss a show, you can go to the podcast garden Line podcast with your iHeartMedia podcast app or whatever kind of way you get to your podcast. You're gonna find garden Line

on there and you can listen to past things we've said. Maybe miss the name of a product. Sometimes I spell out the name of a product just to make it a little easier for people to find it. And that way you can go back and hang, what was that thing he said? Or anyway you get the idea. We try to have fun here on garden Line, and we love answering your gardening questions because that's what you know. Gardening is like. In my opinion, I think it's probably the number one hobby

in the country. It's close to the top, if not the tiny is the top. But gardening does so many things. It affects our physical health in a positive way. Getting out. You know, we're learning now that just get out of your chair at the office and walk around a little bit actually makes a health difference. And well, here's gardening giving us a lot of opportunities to walk around and enjoy. It's a forever hope. You know, with a gardener, you look out and every season is new, every

season is different, and there's just a hope. You know. You go buy a seed of a tomato plant and in your mind's eye you can taste the tomato you're going to grow from that. I mean, there's always a hope with gardeners. Gardeners are great people. They're fun. I mean, I've believe me, I've a million gardeners in my life, from this the average residence that liked a garden, to the intense all in gardeners, master gardeners around the different programs here, and they're just good people. It's a

pleasure and pleasure to be part of. We're gonna head out now to Beach City and talk to Terry. Hello, Terry, good morning. How can we help today? Hey, I've got to block the view of my neighbors building and I need something to plant that gets about at least twenty five foot tall and coarseity evergreen. My wife is thinking about magnolias. What did you thought on that? Well, magnolia's would be a wonderful, beautiful plant. They grow really slow and so you need to buy a pretty big one.

But if you're gonna get it up, you know that high. It's gonna take a good while, So that would be the only drawback to the magnolia idea that I see. Yeah, finding something that gets up right. You know, twenty five feet tall is really high for a screen. Is this like a two story building right on your property line or what are you trying to do? It's on the proper line, but it's not two You could be two story, but it's where he keeps a big motor home. Okay,

I mean it's being tall. Yeah yeah, well, and also I have to plan like a seventy foot area to block this building. So something seventy foot long, Oh yeah, well that's a that is a that's a lot um. Something to think about is think about where you're viewing it from, and the closer the screen is to you, the higher it's going to block. You know, like if something was only six feet high and you're

sitting in a patio chair, h and it gets glistia. I mean, you can block thirty feet on the other side of the fence with a six foot high screen. You get the idea. So maybe you don't need twenty five but if you do, if that you know, just because you know the layout of your property and where it needs to be. Boy, that's gonna that's gonna take something with a little more growth on it. I like

the Brighton Tight Cherry Laurel Carolina Cherry Laurel. If you're soiled drains, well, Carolina Cherry Laurel will work, and Brighton Tight is a compact type of that. All right, one thing I've read about that. I thought about those, but we have dogs, and I understand that they're poising its fruit on there for dogs. Okay, all right, well let's see. Boy, you're you're handcuffing me fact by fact. That's why I called ye here

you go. Okay, gosh, I actually at the top of my head be able to Yeah, there are there are clumping types of bamboo, not running types, but clumping types that can get that doll. I'm gonna take them about three years to really start growing. Okay, and we'll throw you another wrench in the thing here. I did have bamboo, but it did not survive. The last two winners kindly got to the point you couldn't see the bamboo stalks. Is like little grassy bamboos that were growing out. Okay,

removed all that got you twenty five feet tall. Probably got some garden centers listening that text me your email me or something. Hey, you're gonna about this plant, let's say what else. I'll tell you what. Here's one. Now this would be a summer only block. But there is a type of sweet gum that is columnar. It grows straight up like an Italian ciper, straight up. And I can't think of the name of it right now, but if you just deserts columnar columnar shaped sweet gum. You see

those around town occasionally and they are really pretty. And if you if you could plant those, they're gonna grow fast, are gonna get up there quick. And they are very narrow and compact. So that might work, except for the fact that in the winter you're just gonna have some branches from it. You're not going to have the full foliage to hide the block. So that that is one thing that comes to mind to see Japanese you is just not quite going to get high enough for that. If you said time bedtime

plane of trees fifty years ago. Yeah, but I'll tell you these, you know this week comes will grow pretty quick and get up there straight. I'm sure there's some others. There's probably some hollies. But here's the thing. With a lot of plants. To get them twenty five feet tall, they're gonna be really wide and you lose half your yard to this one plant. Well, I have an acre land. Okay, Well, then that, by the way, where where is Beach City. I'm not familiar with

that. It's on the east side of Bay Town. East side okay, yeah, after by north of Trinity Bay. You know, I would, I would probably I may give someone like Moss Nursery. They're kind of down in your direction over Chema direction. Uh, call and see what they have down that way. That's about as close to you that that comes to mind initially as a garden center. I'm gonna think about this, Terry. If you wanted to send me an email, I where I have a little more

time. I'm not braindead from the end of a show. Maybe I can help you low further. Okay, I'm gonna have to run, but thank you very much. I'm gonna put you on hold, and if you want that email, just Ryan will help you. You know, if you're wanting to put in new transplants has to grow six twelve six is a great way to go. It's really three products in one. You got the NPK from the six twelve six. You got Medinas oil activator to stimulate biological activity and

humate, humic acid and seaweed as tracts all together in one. It's not going to burn plants, absolutely not. It is a very good product for increasing the microbial activity of soil for planting things. And when I put on an energy transplant, a high phosphorus material like that works really well. I just water them in A week later or five days later, I watered in again, and then one more time, three times to get the roots established, to get them going and to have success and has to grow. Can

provide you just that kind of success. It's a great opportunity, especially for water and in new transplants of any kind, woody shrubs, annuals, flowers, vegetables, any kind of thing like that. It does a super super job with You know, we talk about the different benefits of gardening. I was just mentioning some before. Something I didn't get to though, is the psychological benefit. There is so much peace of mind that comes with gardening.

We know that it helps kids with ADHD when they can see nature, when they can touch nature. We know that it helps folks with depression. Do you know that there's also research on the effect on people with dementia for gardening. I mean throughout our whole life, gardening provides refreshing health benefits from physical

to mental. It provides that social contact, It provides the engagement with nature, and I you know, I don't think there's it's just by chance that there was a thing called the Garden of Eden that was considered a good place to put mankind. Well, we need to be in a garden. You need to be in a garden. I mean, if you just get out and do a walk in the woods, you will have blood perishure benefits. It's it's amazing the different. We need to have someone come in here sometime

and talk about forest bathing. That would be a great topic. Yes, there's something called forest bathing. I guess was. Since we're out of time, you're gonna have to look that one up. Maybe I'll talk about it another time. But engage with plants. Take an opportunity. I mean, if you can put in a garden, great If you don't have room, containers on the back patio, that's a great way. If you don't have room for that, go visit a botanical garden, Go visit a garden center.

I mean it. Just get out there and engage with plants. I'm telling you. Of course, it's fun, but it's also just good therapy. I get some of my best therapy done just being out poking around in the garden. I can even work through a lot of life problems pulling weeds. Hey, you're listening to Garden Line. I am your host. Skippritra will be back next Saturday and Sunday,