KTRH GardenLine | 8-19-23

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. It's crazy. Just watch him as woo us so many feast to set the clubs back kicking, but they're not a sign. Good morning, on a great Saturday. We are going to have a good gardening day today, as every day is well. You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, And what are we here for to answer your gardening questions? To answer

your gardening calls. We might even tolerate just some gardening bragging on what did you grow the biggest tomato this year in the whole neighborhood? Whatever you want to talk about. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I think what I'm gonna do off. I usually start off with a little bit of a kind of

monologue. I'm just gonna go straight to the phones this morning. We may have talked about some other things I got in mind in a little bit. Let's start by going out to Lake Jackson and talking to Walton. Hello, Walton, Good mornings. Yere morning, I have a problem, and I have lost all of my Saint Augustine in my front yard, and I would like to know how best to start over again and to kill kill in sad do yard. Okay, well, I'm sorry to hear that, first of

all, that you're not the only one. As you know, it's been been a kind of a rough year for a number of reasons, because of past years as well. I would you know, you want to start off by getting everything out of there so you can like or you want you're wanting to put new sod right and is it new Saint Augustine, New Saint Augustine?

Okay, So you want to get everything out of there, and that's your chance to see if you got any low spots where you know a little bit of a dip or a hole you want to put a little soil in. It's okay to do that. Don't want to add a lot of soil over the whole yard at one time. If you got trees around, but kind of get it like you want it and try to use soil that's as

close to what you have as possible. If you just put like composts in low spots it's just going to decompose and it become a low spot again. So anyway that would be number one. Get rid of what you have. If it's just Saint Augustine, you know, I can just be kind of scraped up. But you can also spray it and get rid of it that way if you wish, and then level it out and kind of rake out

all the debris on top. So when you put the new sod down, the soil that comes in with the sod, which is just a little thin layer, contacts the soil in your yard. That's very important. When you hit that point when you're ready water your yard pretty well. I would give it, you know, maybe three quarters of an inch or so of water and get it to soak into the soil and then put your sod down a couple of days later. And when you put it down, you want to

roll it or press it so that it contacts the soil below it. You don't want a gap of air between the sod and the soil, and then you begin watering very often. Normally we say a good soaking on an infrequent basis if you have a lawn, but when you're putting in a new lawn, you can definitely in this weather you could water it twice a day. Water in the morning, you water a little in the afternoon. Now,

this isn't an inch or anything. This is just a little bit of water, just third of an inch, half an inch, just to keep that going. You've pre watered the soil. Means when the roots come out, they're going to move into soil that already has moisture in it, which is important. I'd water it. I'd probably water twice a day during this heat for about a week. But just watch things. If it starts to get

a little bit like a swamp. Your water in too much of volume, okay, And so after you get through a week, there's gonna be some roots moving down. Then move it to once a day watering or every other day at some point until you're back to you know, watering once or twice a week, and over a period of about three weeks. Okay. I have had small spots in my yard to die in a pass and I have

done that. I have replaced the grass and I've done you know what you said, But it this fungus, so whatever it is keep coming back every year. Is it's some type of a treatment I can do before I put these sod down. There's there's no pre treatment for fungal problems on the law.

And like if you're you're talking about soil, you know, or dirt, you you could put down a fungicide after you've laid your side and it's had two weeks to root in. If it's had two weeks to root in, it's going to be established and you'll know that you kind of grab a piece and pull on it a little bit and it doesn't just come right all right. But after two weeks that's when we think of, okay, if you want to fertilize, and that would be the next step that I hadn't

talked about. But a good moderate application of fertilizer would be fine to give it a little boost. And uh yeah, as far as fungicides you can. I just want to be a little careful because some of the fungicides have a growth regulating effect the grass growth rate and stuff. It's just not what it could be, and so early on I kind of hate to do that. If you if you can get in about three weeks, then I would just you're good to go. This fall. It's possible you could have like

the large patch, the brown patch big circles appear. That is a pre treatment that you would want to do in late September, more like early October to get ahead of that. But I hate to just spray without knowing that you're going to have that problem. You see what I'm saying, right,

Okay? I get my composts from Sienna March and they have lots of different Yes, they have lots of different types like the organic are the most room, the leaf mode, the rich top stared landscape of mix, right, and so what particular types should I I would just tell them you were wanting to put down some sode. I now you're talking about to put down before the grass or are you talking about something as a top dressing or what are

you're thinking there to put down before the sod? Okay? Yeah, I would ask them for something that's got a lot of soil content, not just all composts, and I would use that because all you're doing is you're leveling. You're not putting it everywhere that you have a spot. Okay, So the and rich top sol would probably be the best one that would be good, that would probably do good, yes, And then after the grass to get started come back in with the organic or the leaf mode composts of one

of those. I would do that probably in late September because it's going to give you a little bit of an organic material on the top your new grass has some bare spots and to keep the cool season weeds from germinating as well. Hey, Mel, I'm gonna have to take a break. If you want to continue the discussion, you can stick around. Give you a couple more tips or if you if that's enough, thank you, and I'm gonna go ahead and had to break. All right, you're listening to garden Line

seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give us a call. Josh will get you on the boards and we'll be right back. Just one bank and well, good Saturday morning. Thank you for being a garden

Line listener. Let's talk about things that you're interested in and gardening. You know that last last call we just had with Walt with Walton, he was talking about getting some some soul mixes down at Sienna Maulch and boy, I tell you fortunate to live down in that area because there is they are an

outstanding supplier. I mean, they have all the mixes you would talk about, you know, if you just want compost, if you want some enriched soil materials to put down, if you're looking for certain bed mixes, they've got it all. And they can sell tea in bulk. They'll deliver within about twenty miles of their location and with a small charge, of course, and then they also have it by bags. And they have all the fertilizers we talk about here amazing. First time I walked in there, I couldn't

believe the selection of fertilizer just in the shop. And then we get outside and oh my gosh, and rock, their supplies of rock or they are just flat gorgeous. I had no idea there were that many kinds of beautiful stone out there. But that's at Siena Multch. You can find them on FM five twenty one near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together. They're north of Rochheron, or just go to the website Cienamultch dot com Sienamultch

dot com and you can find them there now. They're open Monday through Friday seven thirty to five, today seven thirty to two pm and close tomorrow. So today's a day to get out there, take a look. Go out and take a look at the material you're about to buy, and you'll see that quality that I'm talking about at the end of malch. I just I love going out there to visit. In fact, I'm gonna be out there

this fall. I'll mention that a little bit later as we get closer to it, but I'm going to be making appearance out there a little bit later on. Well, let's head out to tom Ball and we're going to talk to you Mel. Good morning, Mel, Hey, good morning Skip. Well, I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or not. We'll find

out. I guess I'm losing my azalias to the heat, and I've been watering them like every morning now, but there's some that are pretty far going, and I don't know I should just take my losses and replant, or

is there something I can do to revive them. Well, I can advise you on what I would do for the azaleas if it is a root disease that's going on, the only way to know that would be to dig up a plant before it's dead, when you know, you know this one's barely anything left different and dig it up and send it to the state Plant Clinic at A and MT It's Plant Clinic dot TAMU dot edu uh, and they can tell you what the disease is. Then we'll know which product might be

needed to combat it. In the meantime, watch the watering, maybe dig down and feel the soil because if it stays soggy wet, a lot of those fungal diseases of the roots just proliferate. In fact, there's there's a couple of types of disease and the soil that is kind of interesting that have little spores that swim like a tadpole And I mean they literally when they have water, they just swim through it and get to roots and infect them and

do that. So you definitely need moist soil, but you definitely don't want soggy soil. So okay, yeah, all right, I'll give that a ship. Yeah, what's going on? Hey, hey, mell, are you noticing the problem occurs more in the areas that get more sun or more late day sun or yes, late day sun, late day Yeah, yeah, there there, there, there's a lot more. There's a lot more of it going on where I've got three plants, especially that get a lot of sun, like in the really hot part of the day. Yeah.

Well, another thing is the demands are so high that even with you adequately watering, uh, those plants, the demands just it's more than they can keep up with. And that's probably part of what's going on. If it wouldn't be you know, so darn hot for so darn long, Uh, it might be different. But uh, just just stick down and feel the soil. You may need to water a little more, but you won't know until you feel what it's like in the root zone because a lot of factors.

You know, if you say I'm watering once a day or every other day or for X minutes, it still comes down to what's what's the soil, you know, because a lot of things can cause the can can make your your best watering schedule vary, you know, in order to keep up and maintain moist soil. So I hope that helps. Uh. Yeah, if you want to pursue that disease thing, that would be another option. Based on the location of the plants and what you just said about the late

day sun. I'm leaning away from disease and I'm leaning toward moist soil and just demands that are too high for that those azaleas. If I if I would one of those in particularly like in the before the sun hits him, Is that a good thing? Or can I do it with all of mine water early in the morning. I I'm fixing to go out there here in a few minutes. Yeah, But is it would it help to delay wading

those like later on before the sun gets to him? Or only maybe if your soil was just so well drained that the water just runs right through. But I doubt that's the case, so I don't think it's going to matter. Early morning is the most efficient time to get water out, so I'd go with that. All right. I appreciate your skip. You have had good date. I appreciate the call. Thank you very much. You know, I have often bragged on Microlife liquid fertilizers, some of those products that

I just find to be very effective and very very efficient. My excuse me. Biomatrix, the orange label, Well, I love that they do colors because that makes it easy. Microlife Biomatrix, that's an orange label. That's the one I use on my house plants. That's a seven one three ratio liquid fertilizer. It's organic. It has lots of beneficial microbes, very useful outdoors. The Microlife Ocean Blue Harvest label four two three ratio. Now it's

called Ocean because basically it's made with a lot of fish materials. A lot of you are familiar with fish based fertilizers. This one you can use as a fold of your spray, or you can just drench it in. Put it right down on the soil, drenching into the root system. Do a dilute solution. Follow the label every time you water. Go to Microlife Fertilizer

dot com. Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You can find out about those two products and more Microlife products and you can find out where to get them in your area. We're gonna head out to Crosby now talking to Joe. Good morning Joe or miss Skip. You're doing a fine job on garden line. Well, thank you. I've got a red oak that I've planted old Timer's calling water rope because they grows the fasten the water and its red open. I planned it out of a pot twenty years ago and on sucker fixed and

foot tunnel. That the coolest tree to sit in there and the best thing I ever did, and then in the black stat I'm not that smart. However, I'm worried about it. It's dropping green leaves like a lot? Is that? And I wanted it last night or on slow ordered all not long, but I need to do or just leave it alone light it's because it's baby pretty hardy. Are the leaves coming off as individual leaves? Are you getting kind of the end of the twig with several leaves on it?

Now it's an individual league? Okay? That is a lot? Yeah, yeah, No, can any changes in the in the landscape, like did you trench? Did you bring in soil take away? Nothing like that? Well, I'm going to say it's just a water stress and the tree, you know, if it has to, it'll drop leaves. The fact that they're not browning on the tips or the edges is kind of peculiar because if it were water stress, I would expect some of that, not just a

pin. Let me check that because I didn't look at them all that hard. They may be brown on the tip. If you're seeing that, I'm going to lean toward water stress. Trees have extensive root systems, but when we go through high high heat for a long time. They just use up the bank account of water. And sometimes it's hard to water deep enough to be able to get that water in. And so I'm not going to hurt it. I started water day. Oh no. But when you water,

don't water like you're watering a lawn. Put down at least an inch of water, an inch and a half, maybe even better. As a rescue treatment, you're going to soak the soil deeply, the entire area beneath the whole branch, spread and even beyond that if you can one good cooking and that's not even a weekly that you do that, and that'll carry you at least seven days, could be ten days before you need to water again. And hopefully we're gonna get some rain in the meantime. I hope, so

we'll. I appreciate you, all right, sir, thank you. I appreciate that call very much. You know, I brag on Vego garden beds all the time, and I just got a new bed. Vego bed. It's one of the ones that's on rollers. Yeah, that's right. Vego makes a bed that has a self watering pan underneath it, and so you fill that with water and it's on rollers. So it's up high where you don't have to stoop over to work in it. It's really cool because you

know that way you don't have to water every day. You can give it a good soaking and then just kind of watch your soul moisture. Really cool. You know, Vego beds are made here and here's they're a Houston company that they're actually the first metal bed that I know of in the United States like this. But these are beds that are treated so the metal doesn't ruster corrode. Then they're painted with the USDA certified paints, also tested at Texan

m University, and these beds are the original you'll see. You'll see others out there, other kinds of metal beds. There's a million of them out there. Don't be fooled by that. This is a super high quality bed that will way out last treated wood in a bed in your garden. And if you're an organic gardener, you'd probably would rather not use the treated wood anyway. You can go to vegogarden dot com v Ego garden dot com and find out more, find out where you can get them. Several of our

local nurseries here an hour carrying the vego bed. But go online and check them out. You will. You will see that and you'll say that is the most beautiful garden I've ever seen. That is how I want to put in my vegetable beds. By the way, you can grow flowers in them too. We're gonna head out now to Willis Mike. I've got about one minute, and if we need to hold over past break, we'll do that. But I wanted to try to get to you as fast as I could.

They answer, good mornings, gift, I appreciate it. Good question. I try to go buy some microfloss last week, and the place I was buying it from told me not to fertilize because it was going to burn the grass it's so hot. I worry to get your take on that. You will not burn grass with any fertilizer that I talk about on garden Line, if you use it at the right rate and water it in. That's

that's the bottom line. Some fertilizers are salt based and yes, concentrated during a drought time, they can they can burn plants, But when you use them right at the right rate and then watered in, absolutely not gonna not gonna burn your plants. Do you recommend doing it now? Then you could do it now. You know, it's always if your law needs nutrients, it's always a good time to do that. Or you could hold on.

We're getting close to the fall application, which will come. I get well, actually we're still a little ways away, but yeah, you could you could go ahead and do it right now. Hey, I'm gonna have to go to break. If you want to hang on, just hang on. We'll come back to this. But thank you for the call. Well, Nikki, it's time for the Nikki News Network to kick into gear and let

us know what's happening outside. Eighty five degrees outside just getting folk me so good Saturday morning, on a great day for gardening, absolute great day for gardening. If you live out in the Kingwood area, again, you are wealthy with garden centers because you have Kingwood Garden Center and you have Warren's Garden Center in the same area. I mean that is that is like I don't know, I don't know anywhere else in town where you got two right close

together like that. Warren's Garden Southern Gardens that's on North Park Drive, Kingwood Garden Centers on Stone Hollow drive for those of you out there this week, they are you know, what we're really featuring and talking about is the soaker hoses. I mean, it's a good time for soaker hoses right Well, they've got some really quality hoses. You can put down water and precision,

and water needs to get on the soil. When you spray it with you know, with a sprayer a sprinkler, you're gonna get on the plants and things and you lose a lot of your water. But when you put it down on the soil, that is the most efficient way in a in a soaker hose will do just that. I think one of the cool things that they've got going on out there now is the house plants. You know, we're not wanting to be outside when it's one hundred degrees outside, right,

well, why not bring that fresh green nor indoors. You can transform your home into a cool oasis, a beautiful tranquil area. Like look around your warrant, your room, your living room, wherever you are in the house. What would be good in that corner. Maybe it's certain kinds of houseplants, tall and upright, Maybe you need something trailing. There's many beautiful,

beautiful types of houseplants. They even have some hard to find exotic houseplants, or maybe you want a plant for a container outside, like a vibrant succulent that fits the weather we're having. For sure, it's all available Warren's Garden Center Kingwood Garden Center out in the Kingwood area. If you would like more information, just look them up. You can find them online. You can find their Facebook pages. Both of them have really excellent Facebook pages to keep

you up to date on what's going on. But I don't think you're going to do any better. And again I'm jealous of those folks that live out in the Kingwood and West say Kingwood area. I mean the overall area out there. You know, everything from Porter to you name it, Humble all through that area. I need to get back out there that it's been a little while since I've been out to check out what's going on on those excellent

centers. I always love to really swing by both of them and get to get to check out because they're both quality, but it's each is a little different in its own way. Well, we're going to head to the phones now and we're going to talk to Archie out in Paarland. Hello Archie, Morning Skip. I talked to you a couple of weeks ago, and I sent you some pictures, but I don't know if you ever got those pictures or not. Where I had the browning in my yard, weren't sure whether

it was take all patch or whether it was something else. I'm looking right now. How long ago was this? That? Two weeks ago? Oh? Gosh? Uh? Well, I have two pictures, one up close and one from a distance. And since then it's spreading even more. Where it's turning out even more. All right, I found I found it open comes up here. Yeah, that's it. I think what's going on there is. I'm sure drought is related to it, but it probably is a root disease called take all root rot. Just the pattern of it, the

way the grass kind of yellows and then goes dead. It's because the roots are dying and iron is taken up at the tip of the root. Interestingly enough, not all along the root, but out at the tip. So when you start getting root tips dying, you start getting iron deficiency just because the plant can't get it, And in this case that disease is pretty bad. I would I would probably start with a good quality fungicide to try to shut things down. We're really in the time of the year where we don't

spray for take all root rot as much. That's something that most important would be done. Let's say late September early October, that is entering the period where new infection occurs. Right now, you're looking at plants that have had it for a good while and they're just going downhill because they can't keep up with summer. So I would I would use a funger side. The ingredient that is best for takeall root rot is azoxystrobin, and I'll spell that out.

I hope you got a pen or pencil handy there. Yeah, I'll spell it out for you. And then I would follow that up after you sprayed with a compost top dressing of high quality leaf mold composts to just uh, you know, create that environment on the surface where there's lots of microbial activity to compete with that take on. So azoxystrobin has a z o x y azoxy st a z o x y huh st r o b i n a zoxy strobein. If you just even get close to that and go to

a place that you know out in parallyn. You've got Ace hardwarees and great Ace hardwarees out there in Parna. They're going to have a product like that. Just tell them that's the ingredients you're looking for. Who knows what it'll be in John, Yeah, okay, you bet while you're out there. Okay, all right. And one other thing I've got in the front bed. I've got a whole oh hundred score foot bed of the angelonia. Okay, and they're they're green, but they're not blooming. Okay, they're just

green plants. And they haven't blooms in spring. Oh, they haven't bloomed at all. Well, then spring they bloomed a little bit. Wow. Then since then they haven't boomed at all. And I've been feeding them with color Star and everything else. Holy cow, I know, boy, you got me there. I don't. They're getting plenty of sunlight. I guess, yes, they brought up in full sunm but well, I don't know. You know, it's it's a stumper because you're not telling me the plants

are wilted or stunted or anything like that. Would maybe, Hey, they need water, they got plenty of son you're putting a super quality fertilizer on with that color star. I just guess keep wordering them for right. Now, go ahead and send me another picture and I will take a look at them. If you can get up close, maybe I'll see something in the photo, Okay, because I'm and they're going to read a bit. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's why I said it's a stumper.

Everything that I would look to and go to, you're already doing right, So I'll give it my best shot. All right, thank you for that call. Archie. By the way, for those of you who have been emailing, I am inundated with some emails, and I try to keep those related to show calls. So if you're gonna call on Saturday or Sunday, send me an email. If there's a picture I need to see to help you answer the question, or if you call the show and I have Josh

send you an email. Do that. But as far as just general entering all the emails that people would have, I can't keep up with that, So make sure they're related to the show. If you would. You know, out at the Arbourgate you're going to find everything that you would need. And that's one of the garden centers that I call our destination garden centers here. There's really none like it. They have everything for your plants. Right

now. They are stocked up on vegetables and it's time. They got tomatoes and peppers. They even have ochre plants, and if you hurry up and get them in, you can probably get a little bit of ocra out of those things too before it gets too cold, because we live in a far South and that's a good thing. They have eggplant and squash, cucumbers. They just have everything that you would need for your garden, and that's just the vegetables. While you're there, check out their one two three easy system.

That's a food it's a four four three plus cow organic fertilizer, and then they have a soil that has expanded shale in it, but also a quality a type of sand that helps also provide good drainage. And then an organic compost that again has the expanded shale and two kinds of composts in it. So those those three products one two three food, soil, composts. Check it out when you're out there at the Arbor Grate Nursery and they are on FM twenty and twenty in Tomball, Texas. We're gonna take a little

break our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call, get you on the board, and we'll talk to you when we come back. Wants the way you need want? Well, good morning. You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to answer gardening questions. Our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, now's the time to be getting ready for your

fall fertilization. And one of the things that I like for folks to do is to have their soil tested about every three years. And I know most people don't do that, but it's the best way to fertilize according to what your soil needs because you and your neighbors may have slightly different nutrient levels due to a history of different kinds of fertilizing, and so soil testing is always

easy. You can go to Soil Testing dot TAMU dot edu. There you'll find the form, choose the urban soil test and if you need it's best to take a vertical core six inches deep, same amount of soil one inch deep, two inches, three inches, four inches, five inches, six inches all the same. One way to do that if you'll go by Southwest Fertilizer, Bob's got a soil probe that he actually will loan out. You got to leave a deposit because these things tend to developed legs and walk away,

if you know what I mean. But it didn't cost you anything to use it. And Southwest Fertilizer has everything, I mean, every fertilizer I talk about, and then some every possible fungicide, herbicide, insecticide, synthetic, organic, you name it. It's all at Southwest Fertilizer. You can go to south West Fertilizer dot com. By the way, they're located in Southwest Houston on the corner of Bissonette and Renwick. Corner of Bisinett and Renwick.

Southwest Fertilizer dot Com. While you're there, ask them to see the kneeling benches. They have a great stock of really nice kneeling benches and you're gonna look at them and think, no, I'm not old and decrepit. I don't need that. You need that. If you've ever woken up in the morning in the prenatal position, wondering why you're so sore. That's what you need is a kneeling bench. I love mine. They are excellent, and Bob's got some in stock there. I just noticed them a little walk

back anyway southwest for Alizer dot com. You're gonna find everything you need there, that's for sure. In a special good way to get ready for this fall fertilization that's coming up. You are listening to garden Line and our host, our host, our phone number, I don't know who our host is. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I mentioned fertilizing

your lawn. It's also important to water your lawn. But it's important to water your lawn right. What most people do is they put little squirts of water on and every day or every other day. And that is not how you water it. That wets the thatch at Whatt's, the grass blades a lot, and all that evaporates and contributes to the humidity of Houston, thank you very much. And when you water longer and put more down, you actually soak the soil better and a good deep soaking once a week or at

the most twice week. And the absence of rainfall is about what you need to do, and so you need to water properly. Now. The easiest way to do this is to go to this website write this down water myyard dot org. Water my yard dot org. It's free. You can find the app for it on the Apple Store and on Google Play. But you put in your location and it automatically finds the closest mini weather station and they're all over the listening area here, and it feeds that data into a computer

that sends you a weekly email. And I just got one this week and my lawn. It said, you've used point nine inches of water in your lawn this week. That's how much you need to put on. And so you know some days you're cloudy and you don't use as much. The temperature varies, all that kind of stuff. Water my Yard gives science based free watering recommendations, and that way you don't have to guess. You do it according to what we know. Your grass is used based on temperature, windspeed,

etc. Etc. Etc. I was out in the backyard the other day enjoying the birds. And I always enjoy the birds in the backyard, and you know it, thinking about all this heat, I just want to remind you birds need water. They really have got to have supplemental water, and there are you know, without rainfall, they're not only a little puddles around or drink out of. And it's hot and dry. So provide your birds with plenty of water and that will bring them to your place. And

we talk about bird feeders and birdhouses. Those are all good, but water alone is going to bring those birds in. And mine come in early in the morning. I see them also, especially late in the day, but they'll come in at different times. You need to check out wall Birds Unlimited though. They have got some really cool bird baths and other watering devices. They've got the food that you need to be feeding, which right now is

still the nesting super lend for the birds. Go to Wahbird's unlimited website. Here's how you find the Houston stores. We got a bunch of Houston stores WBU dot com, forward slash Houston. WBU dot Com forward slash Houston. By the way, it's a great place too to buy gifts. You know you've got somebody. I don't know what to get them. They would so enjoy a hummingbird feeder. And Wahbirds has those little high perch feeders that are

so attractive to hummingbirds. Anyway, just to tip there, I've got one myself. In fact, I've got to get mine cleaned up and put back out there again. I got a couple of hummingbird feeders. Just love bringing those little bookers in. Well, you're listening to Gardenline our phone numbers seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three, two one two five eight seven four. Hey, if you're looking to do some fertilizing

on your lawn nitrofoss Super Turf nineteen four ten. Great blend gradually over time. You're not going to promote the brown patch that is such a problem that we would call it large patch. Now in the fall season of the year, you're going to smooth out that mowing instead of the feast or famine, you know, where you put a bunch of fertilizer, get a bunch of growth, and have to mow a lot. It's going to gradually feed out over time. Nineteen four ten. Here's the way to remember it silver bag.

Now night Fuss is everywhere our great garden centers, our feed stores, our ace hardware store. Just look for the silver bag. Tell them I want the silver bag for my lawn, and go ahead and get that down and it'll give you a number of months of quality feeding. As a result, you are listening to garden Line and our goal here is to help you be a better gardener. We want your gardening to be a pleasure. Not I tried it and everything died, and I have a brown thumb and all

that kind of stuff. There are no brown thumbs. They are uninformed thumbs. And we're here to inform your thumb. And once you know to do and you know how to do it, and you know the kinds of products that help you do that, you're on your way to having the greenest place on the block, or the way I like to put it, the most bountiful garden and the most beautiful landscape. That combination is what we're looking for, and you can have that here. We have all kinds of challenges right

now. We're dealing with no rain and lots of heat. We've got pests, we've got diseases that we deal with. Those are all challenges, but there are ways to minimize the pest and to minimize the disease, and there are ways to go in and use the right product and the right rate at the right time to fix it and be done with it. If you need to resort to spraying for things, we can advise on that. But I want you to just if you will, just believe me that we can help

you have a beautiful garden, and it is possible. If you're listening to the show and you've never gardened. I understand that we have a lot of people that just our gardeners, they just I don't know, enjoy listening to the show, and we have other people who listen a lot. Don't call in, but feel free to call in. We'll be glad to help you with your questions because I'll tell you this, if you've got a question, somebody else has that question. If your lawns dying, a lot of somebody

else's that same question. So give us a call. We're going to take a break here in a little bit, and when we come back, Josh will have you on the boards and you can be first up as we begin to move forward with the show. I appreciate the fact that people care about their lawns and they listen in to the show, and that they really want to have more success. For those of you who moved in from outside the area, our schedules and years are very different here, and so we plant

tomatoes at different times. For example, we have different types of plants that we often use. Listen in, tell your neighbors, your friends about it, and we'll try to guide in every way we can for you to have a good success. Again, if you feel like you have a brown thumb, trust me you don't. We'll fix that. Hey, We'll be right back and continue with fixing that. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden

Line with Skip Ricord so crazy. Just watch him as us so many fables for good morning. I hope you're having a good morning. It's gonna be a good day for gardening. I can tell you that for sure. One of my favorite things to do on a Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon is get out and visit garden centers. I'm telling you I've been doing this for over

thirty four years. Advising people on gardening and whatnot. And I still when I go to our quality garden centers here, I still see plants it's like I've never seen that plant before, or that's a new variety I hadn't seen. It's always interesting and it's always so beautiful. I mean, that is just it's amazing how gorgeous some of the plants that are being developed and bred and release now are. I tell you a place where you can see that

kind of thing. By the way, that would be RCW Nurseries. That's the nursery that's where two forty nine Tomball Parkway where it comes into Beltway eight right there. They've got a selection of all kinds of things, I mean a wide variety. So here, for example, you want a native flowering tree that's small for your landscape, go to r CW and say, hey, show me the Mexican plums that you grow. Because they are experts at

trees. I mean they have you know, they have the tree farm up in the oh gosh, can even say the area anyway, Their tree farm supplies a wide variety of species that do super well here, including this like Mexican plum. That would be an example of that. If you want a jujube, have you ever heard of a jujube? It's a fruit tree, very unique and they just have an excellent supply two of those as well.

They got a new variety there. What's it called sugarcane. Sugarcane is the name of it, and it is a just think of it as like a little apple like fruit. We don't see them grown here much, but they are their quality that when if you want something you don't have to spray a lot, well that would be a jujuby. That's that is absolutely for sure. But up at RCW by the way, here's here's their website. Right let me give you this. Go take a look. You'll see what I'm

talking about. RCW Nurseries plural dot com. RCW Nurseries dot com. They're gonna have roses. That's another example of me saying that they have everything. They're gonna have. Oh, by the way, right now, lots of cool fall yard art. Like you wants some metal pumpkins or jack O lanerns that are metal and just really really cool stuff. Go by there and check out their fall yard materials. The decorating materials that we put out there on

our portas patios and out in the yard. They've got it all at OURCW Nursery. Can't brag on them enough. We're gonna head out now to Ralph in northwest Houston. Hello Ralph, good morning, you're the best day we ever head. Oh my god. He do appreciate your program. And it is really in fall said to me, and I just sit here and listen to it. But I got my pecan trees and my fig and all these other trees and in my mom May halls and my gardener. What did I

do with my garden right now? Called? It's just what should I put in my big garden? Yeah, you know you're talking about with the what's kind of you said? Ok? I know I can get grow? Ok, right now, that's right. That's right. So when you say garden, you mean your vegetable garden. That's what you're asking. Yes, course, Now it's a great time to plant some of the warm season crops that we grow into fall. So squashes. They haven't been setting well this summer

because it's too hot. But if you plan them now, by the time they reach a stage where they can bloom and set fruit, the temperature is gonna be cooling off and you're gonna get a really nice little yield. Que Comb is the same way, Ralph. You can do cucumber, you know, if you if you get a good sized plant and get going, you can get tomato. Get a little tomato crop. Just look for tomatoes that are the fastest to harvest. There's a thing called days to harvest that's usually

own the label, and you don't want one that takes eighty days. You want one that takes about seventy seventy five maybe, or even sixty five days would be good to plant right now. Of course, you still plant peppers and get them going. But pretty soon here it's gonna cool off enough. When we get into September, we're gonna whether it's cool or not, we're gonna have to start planning our blue leaf vegetables, a cool season stuff.

But we're still in warm season planning. By the way, Ralph, if you grew potatoes before and still have some leftover small potatoes, plant the whole potato. Now's a good time to do that for a good fall harvest. So potatoes. Also, it's been set a bad year this year, and I'm finky with my water okay, but all my trees I've been trying to keep save them. I got all kind of fig trees, right, And what well hell should I do where all of this? Well, you know,

just a good soaking on an infrequent basis. But make sure there's no weed competition and the soil is not bare. So here's what I mean, A big mulst area. Think that make that tree think it's living in a forest with leafletter all over the floor, forest floor. So that means no weeds to steal water. You know, you have to pay for your drinking water putting it on the plants. I understand being sparse with that, but

you remove the water stealing weeds. You put a mulch on the soil to whole moisture in and cool the soil off, and then you just water occasionally with a good soaking, not every day, not every other day, once a week, once ever two weeks even if you if you need to stretch it out, and that would be the best device I can give you. Pecan tree is gonna be all right. Oh my may hall did good and everything, But my pocon trees, they all does. An pocon I had

a great crop and this is a shame. Well that's the that is the uh, just the stress of a water you know, a water deficit in the in this kind of weather. Uh I. All you can do is try to give them a good deep soaking. Sometimes squirrels get in there and do mischief, but we're too early for that. So if you're seeing pecan's fallen and stuff, that that's just the matter of them trying to live with the stress. H huh. All right, Ken, I do appreciate you.

You're the best. Thank you, well, you're kind. Thank you very much. I appreciate that call very much. Uh. You know, talking about trees, the folks at Affordable Tree Care, And when I say the folks at Affordable Tree Care, I mean you know what I'm talking about talking about Martin. I'm talking about Joe. They have been running this for a very long time. Martin is uh you know, he's hands on day

to day with the company. It's that it's that old fashioned kind of service you expect you when you hire somebody to fix your car, when you hire somebody to take care of your tree, you want to know that they know what they're doing so they do it right. That's Martin Spoon Moore an affordable tree. You want to know that they're gonna show up when they say they're gonna show up, which is Martin Spoon Moore an affordable tree. You know,

you want to know that they're gonna give you a reasonable price. You know they're not just telling you, oh, you need this and that done, and you know your alternator's falling off over here when it's not and that kind of you know how that is with sometimes with mechanics, you don't get that. With Affordable Tree, you get it the right way. Give McCall seven one three, six nine nine twenty six six seven one three six nine

nine twenty six sixty three are call aff Tree Service dot com. By the way, they are excellent at deep root watering and right now, just like we were talking while ago with Ralph, that's what you need is a good deep soaking. Call them, find out about having them come out and give

a good deep root watering. And while they're out there, look through your trees and see what might be needed here we are in hurricane season, a little bit of pruning maybe in order we're gonna take a break seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four we'll be right back. Well, good Saturday morning on a great day for gardening. Yes, you're listening to Garden Line and we're here to answer your gardening questions. Help you have a more

beautiful garden and a more bountiful landscape. Now, if you live up in the Tomball area and you are looking for your hometown feed store, that is D and D Feed. D D is about three miles west of Highway two forty nine. On twenty nine twenty the Dover family opened that store. Gosh, back in the late eighties and the summer they expanded. I was just looking at some new stock that they had in it is they just have everything there. I mean they're going to carry the fertilizers we talk about. Of

course, they have plants. If you want a high end dog food like Origin, Diamond, Victor Starpro, those kinds of foods that they've got them, Foods Forever pet of course for livestock, it's a feed store. Products like horse care, products to care for your livestock. They've got that. You got a problem with rodents, they can take care of that. Maybe even pool cleaners. You're gonna find that kind of stuff at D and D

Feed check out to their little Doggie DELI. I don't know what they I can't remember exactly what they call it, but basically, it's all kinds of cool treats and your dog will be so glad that you brought them home. My dogs demand that they get Doggie Delhi every time I come home with from a trip to D and D feed D and D feed again. Three miles west of Highway two forty nine on twenty nine twenty in Tumble. Let's see, let's go out now to sugar Land and we're going to visit with Alan.

Hello Ellen, good morning, Scale. How are you doing today? I'm good? What's up? I've got a RM and do the problem? Okay, I'll put out in my flower badge. Yes, I'll put pepper dick, I'll put the smold repellent out. Huh. And I think it's become addicted to both of those. Well, you know with Armadilla's there's there's really two options. One is fencing them out with a low fence they can't come through. That's probably not practical in your situation, but that is an

option. Uh. There's also trapping them and you can do a live trap. Uh. If if Basically what you do is you have a live trap. You have boards shape like a V going out because these little bumbling idiots, I mean you kind of have to direct them into the trap. They're just bouncing along like pinballs there right into the heaven. I have a have a hard trap of large ones there. That's it. That is ex me

what kind of bait would I put in there? Or just you just have I generally recommend uh, taking like a little macaroni, you know, like mac and cheese, those kind of little pastas and boiling them, boiling them in like beef bull yond, uh what cooking them in beef bull yond that way they have that flavor. And then just drop them, you know, go out and drop one. Go a couple of feet and drop one. Just you don't want to get them full before they get in the trap.

But lead them in that way. That is, if you can kind of watch and figure out their pathway. Usually they'll hit like a privacy fence and go along that or something. There's okay, there's a publication. You got a pen or pencil handy. This is a This is a free publication online through Texas A and m Agrilife Extension which is a great source for pretty much

everything you have questions about, including in this case, Armadilla's. The website is called agralife learn a g r I l I f E l e r m agrilife, learn dot TAMU dot e d u agrilife learn dot tmmu dot du. Type armadilla in the search bar and you'll see there's some publications you buy that are prep publications. Then there's one managing armadilla damage. It's free. You click on it. I think you have to give me your address or whatever, and so they can send it to you. And what they

do is they don't they don't like mail it. They give you the PDF, so it'll come in your email as an attachment and you can see the whole free publication. You can print it out or whatever you want, and

it is everything we know about dealing with armadillas and their damage. Okay, all right, so just playing macaroni, macaroni, cheese, macaroni in Yeah, just just the macaroni, and we want to give it kind of a you know, armadilla's like grubs almost kind of like a meaty you know, pro high protein, high oil, those kind of things, and it gives it that smell and they seem to like that. And I don't know,

there are probably other things you could use. That's just the one over the years that in talking with people, I think seems to be pretty effective. Okay, all right now, if if all this fails, now I've you know, I've been all over the South and I can tell you for a fact that there are recipes for armadilla out there. If you've got a barbecue pit, that would be your last resort. Well, I don't move out of the country, that would be the best way to get rid of Okay,

I'm just having some fun with you. Hey, thank you so much for the call. Ellen. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time. I enjoy your show. Will say, thank you very much. I appreciate that very much. You know Nelson Plat Foods. I was visiting with Dean the other day just talking about some of his products and things. They've got the color Star line. You've probably heard color Star. I mean, unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard of Color Star. They've got

the Nutral Star line. They've got turf Star, which for your lawn of course, and even Nature Star, which is organic for Eliza line. Now in the turf, we're still recommending that's slow and easy. That's a twenty two two ten, twenty two two ten slow and easy. It gives you that gradual feed that I keep talking about all summer. We don't want to just over fertilize and get a lot of nitrogen down, and you want to go easy on it and you want it to gradually release. And that's What's

and easy does. The twenty two two ten. You need five pounds per thousand square feet. That's all you need for now, five pounds per thousand square feet. Put that down, watered in, and it'll feed your lawn for a good time. And all the Nelson products are quality fertilizer. Dean you know from the beginning he designed his fertilizers to fit Texas conditions, to fit Texas A and M turf specialist recommendations. And that's exactly what slow and

Easy will do. Let's head out to Southwest Houston. Now we're going to talk to Ellen. Hello, Ellen, good morning, How are you well? I'm well this morning. What's up great? I have a couple of questions about my vegetable garden. My egg plants are not doing well. The bush is huge, lots of flowers. But then I'll get just a little egg plant that won't grow and it's a funky color, isn't the heat?

Yeah, that's the heat and the stress. So just make sure the fact that you have a big egg plant tells me you've been watering the thing. Just continue to do that. We're going to get a break in the temperature and you're going to get some more egg plants setting on that plant, all right. And the same with my oakra that I planted from seeds are about four feet tall, great stems, am I. But I haven't gotten any

flowers or any oak or yet. But I maybe jumping the gun a little maybe do you This is probably hard to you know, recall back, But do you know how long ago you planted seed of okra? It was probably a couple of months. Oh wow, okay, well in sixty days you should definitely have fruit on okra. Some some cultivars are slower than others. I don't know. Just it's beautiful. Oh okay, if they look good, then just let's let it ride. Don't add more fertilizer right now.

If they look good, they're okay, Just keep them moist and they'll they'll start setting. Okra is not affected by the heat. It will set pods even in the heat. So I would just give them a little more time. And my fruit trees, my lemon and I have an orange leaves are starting to get a little yellow set. Me need to fertilize them. A light fertilization would be okay, but I wouldn't I wouldn't do too much. That the yellowing could be due to, you know, the extreme heat and

having to pump so much water. The sail gets a little on the dry side and it just can't get access to enough water to keep flowing. It could be that. It could be a number of things. But you just want to be careful when we have plants that are not fully cold hearty, you know, not always cold hearty. That would be citrus, for example,

when you push him with a lot of fertilization. Let's say in September, you gave him a good fertilization, and you would promote a lot of late season flush of growth that would be very susceptible to the cold, compared to a plant that went into winter and had time to slow down and prepare and be it's hardy, heartiest that it can be for the winter. So go easier on the fertilizing. Uh, you know, just that's my best

advice. Yeah, I may just hold off. You know, it's not bad, but I just you know, they look they look pretty healthy, so maybe I'll get a little bit more time. Yeah, I think I would eat. Well. Thank you all right, wonderful, Well good. I'm glad you plant. Sounds like you're having fun out there. I am, and the heat as best I can alright, thank you. I appreciate that call. Ellen, Thank you very much. You know, I'm always

bragging on ACE Hardware because they have everything you need. They literally do for the lawn and garden or fertilizers or soils, the products you need to control and deal with pests and weeds and insects and diseases and things. They've got all that good selection to some gardening supplies too, you know, all the things you need to the tools and whatnot that you need. It's going to

be at Ace Hardware. You can go to Ace Hardware dot com. That's Ace Hardware dot com and do their store locator and when you tell them where you live, they'll tell you where all the stores around you are. ACE Hardware has thirty nine stores here in the Houston area, so there's going to be two or three worth a drive to get to, if not across the street from you. With that many, and you can find what we're talking about here. I really, if you have not been into ACE, please

just go check it out. Maybe you need some fertilizer or something. They're going to have it. But while you're in there, allow yourself some time because there is an unlimited supply of really cool prod. It is not your typical hardware store in terms of all we sell is electrical and plumbing and things like that. No, they've got that, but they've got everything else. Educated, helpful people that greet you and take you to the product you need.

What more can you ask for it? Well, that's as hardware for you. Well it's time for NICKI News Network. We need music like Good Morning on a Saturday morning that is made for gardening. I hope you're out there with the radio, of course, getting a little bit of work done out in the garden while it's cool. You know, you don't take care of yourself. We we've got some incredibly high temperatures and things like heat stress, seat stroke, heat exhaustion. Those all sneak up on you. And

I've been the invincible guy who yeah, I can take this. I'm doing fine. And one time, many years ago, I learned my lesson. I didn't have a heat stroke, but I did definitely have a heat exhaustion. And it just made me realize. When they say drink water, drink water, whether they're thirsty or not, keep drinking water. They're right. Trying to stay out of the sun during the hottest times of the day. Of course that's nice. Just take care of yourself. Also protect your skin.

I sound like your mom, I know that, but hey, just bear with me on this one. Skin damage is cumulative and it's really true. And I know you get away with it. You know, when we're young, we're invincible. I used to run around with our shirt on and shorts and without shoes too, remember those days when your kids, Well, you get away with it then, but in time it catches up to you. And so why not texture skin. There's some high quality sunscreens. I

like to wear big, broad brimmed hats. You've probably seen that if you've ever seen me. And long sleeve shirt's a good long sleeve cotton shirt in the summer is actually cooler than a short sleeve shirt. In my opinion, I wear those all the time when I'm out and about. So anyway, that's your public service announcement, not from mom, but from someone who you

know wants to keep you around. Well, you're listening to Gardenline, and our goal here is to provide you with good quality information on how to do things right. And you've heard me a thousand times say it all begins with a soil. You've got to take care of your soil. That is very important, and it's true. It's like when you plan a plant, you've already chosen a spot that as sun or not. You've it drains well or

done. You've improved the soil or you haven't. And if you don't do those those things right, if you don't take care of those things according to the plant you want to grow, you're not going to have success. And we want you to have success. So let's talk about the soil. Soil is critical and a good quality mix for whatever you're doing is important. It may just be you want to get some quality compost to mix into the soil. That helps a lot an enter or two of composts mixed into the soil

will do wonders to really help your soil. I brag all the time about the age leaf mold compost. We're talking not about just chunky pieces of wood, like some cheap compost brands will try to send you that are just worthless, really just don't even bother with them. But an age leaf more compost

that. Let's take heirloom soils for example. They know how to make a good quality age leaf more compost, and so you're talking about a compost that has had the time to truly age, not something that's rushed out, but something that is made from leaves. By the way, when we see mold

leaf mold, we're not talking about like bread mold. We're talking about a leaf that is decomposed to the point where it is still recognizable as a little chocolate brown leaf maybe or bits and pieces of it, but it isn't fully composted yet. It's it's almost completed as cycle. But and then they screen it down. That's what we use to top dress our lawns. It works really well. And airloom soils has plenty of that. I mean, they have lots on hand. Now you can get them to bring maybe a supersack

out to your place. They drop it in the driveway. It's a cubic yard of whatever the material is that they will deliver in a supersack to you right on the driveway, real clean, real easy. You don't have to rent a pickup or own a pickup to go get it. I think that's a great way. You can buy airloom soils by the bag, and they they're everywhere. I mean, they wide distribution. Not hard to find airloom

soils anywhere. Now that they're open for bulk sales Monday through Saturday from seven am to five pm out at the porter location, you're going to find the bags everywhere else. And then you can order the super sax. I mean, there's a lot of ways to go about this. But whether you need a leafmo composts, it's quality aged. Whether you need a compost itself. You want to soil for vegetable gardens, you know there they have many,

many mixes that are specifically designed to promote the most plant growth. That's airlimb soils. That's why we trust them. That's why they're so successful because you know, when you produce a quality product at a reasonable price. People are gonna They're gonna catch on and it is going to become a thing. And that is that is true of Airlimb soils. I've used their soils, always

have good success with products that they produce. Our phone number is seven one three, two one two five eight seven four seven one three two and two fifty eight seventy four. Well, what are we gonna do? Talk about one hundred and three temperatures, no rain and plants that are just hanging on by a thread. I guess we can keep doing that. That's a little

bit depressing. I'd rather talk about something positive, and that is that we've got really tough plants here that do well if we just hydrate them a good watering as needed, not frequent and light waterings, but good deep soakings infrequently that will get them through. And fall is coming. I'm just talking a minute ago, you know, with Ellen about all the vegetables and things that they're growing out there. I have another discussion with someone about fall planting,

the things you can plant here. This is the time it's beginning. When we get into set late September, there's gonna be a lot of new things that we're putting in and then October and then November. So prepare your soul now, begin planting now if you want to get a warm season crop in and when fall comes, you already have plants. They're growing well. And here comes that cool front when everybody suddenly discovers that there are a gardner again.

But you'll be ready because your garden has been well prepared. It is on its way to success. You did things at the right time, and I just can't I don't know what else to recommend beyond beyond that, Let's go out to Friendswood. Now we're going to talk to Jack. How's how's it going, Jack? It's going good. Appreciate you being there. Well, thank you. How can we help? By the way, Jack, I've got about a minute, and if we need to hang over pass break,

I'll do that. But I just want to let you know, thank you. I've gotting mealy bugs on the hybiscus that I'm having a hard time getting rid of. Okay, well, they're a problem mealy bugs are you know it? When they're small, things like soaps and oils can help with the young ones, but they get that protective mealy fuzzy coating on them, and it's hard to get a product to them. You said they were on

hybiscus, Yes, okay. You can use systemachs and the soil that go up in the plant and then meatly bugs sucking juices out of your plant so they get the poison. The poison not sprayed all over the plant. But any plant that is attracting pollinators, you'd rather not do that with because the content of that insecticide can get into the into the nectar or pollen you know, that that area and create a problem. So if you're if you're not

doing pollinators, that would be an option. Otherwise it's a matter of just spraying directly on them. It is really hard to get them all because you're gonna have to spray, and then later on you're going have to spray again, and later on you're not to spray again. But just diligently staying on them and not letting them build up their numbers is a good thing. Now, they do have natural enemies, which often don't do the job, as

in your case, they're not doing the job for you. But if we can build up those natural enemies that can help kind of keep them in control, keep them from being just an overwhelming kill your plant outbreak. All right, okay, so what this shouldn't I spray them with? What kind of systemic? I'm gonna I'm gonna put you on hold. I'm gonna have to go to break and I'll come right back with that answer. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good

Saturday morning. You are listening to garden Line and we are talking gardening. What a coincidence we're visiting with Jack out in Friendswood. Come back to Jack here on the media bed question. Jack, I'm gonna thinking about your call during the break and the I'm gonna tell you the name of the products that would be used on your hibiscus for mealy bugs, and then I'm gonna talk you out of it. Okay. So the the systemic would be in middo clo bred I AM I D A clo pr I D and there's many brands

of that in mid o cloprid. The problem with it is it's so good against sucking insects, but mealy bugs it's partially good on them. I mean, you're not going to knock them out. With it, you're gonna have to repeat. And just that concern with pollinators, I just it just makes me uncomfortable to use that one. Then they're just the spray on insecticides. You know, synthetic perrethroids and things will do some good, but not a lot. And the negative of those is meaty bugs have a lot of natural

enemies. And every time you you basically knuke a plant to kill the mealy bugs, you partially get the mealy bugs. You wipe out the natural enemies,

and then the mealy bugs become even more of a problem. So what I would do as I would get a hand gun on the end of your garden hose, I hand gun sprayer, and I would just blast everyone you can off, I mean literally physically knock out everything you can, and then follow that up with you could use neme oil, you could use horticultural oil, or you can use even in secticidal soap sprays and just really get them

on what's left in there. Those work best against the younger nymphs. So if you can blast a lot of the adults away and then be ready to do that and do that, just don't do it in the middle of the day when it's a hundred degrees, you'll burn your plants. So I would do it really late in the day or really really early in the morning with

any of those three. The horticultural oil, neem oil. I'd probably use kneem oil or maybe even insexticidal soap, and then just be ready to do it again, because if you use the synthetic chemicals, you're gonna be doing it again anyway. But then it's going to be you and the mealy bugs, because when you kill a beneficial insect, you inherit its job. Okay, gotcha, gotcha, I'll do that, all right. That's they're a problem bug. That's one of those bugs we don't just have great silver bullets

for. But that's okay. You can you can get them under control. Yeah, all right, sir, thank you, you bet, thank you for the call. I appreciate that well. I was driving down Houston streets. I always talking about this, but you know, it feels like you're going across the top of the Rocky mountains because the streets have heaved and shifted in the streets have you know, become real bumpy going down the street. That's our soil here, it shrinks in it swells. It breaks our water

pipes. You know, the city works department is always when it's during an extended drought, go in and deal them with busted waterlines. Ever, because the soil is shifting around, well, it does the same thing to your house foundation. And we're fortunate to have a quality company in town that knows how to fix foundations properly. And that would be fix my slab foundation repair,

Fix my slab foundation repair. Ty Strickland's owner. You can give him a call two eight one two five five forty nine, forty nine, or go to fixmslab dot com. That makes it easy. They've been doing this for twenty three years, I mean maybe. And here's what you look for. Is the door sticking. Do you see cracks on the brick outside? Do you see cracks in the sheet rock? Those are all signs you need someone in there quickly to take a look at it and tell you what's going

on and what the procedure would be to getting it fixed. Now, they're committed to a fair price. They show up on time. Oh my gosh, that in and of itself is worth anyone in a service business. Oh my, that is so helpful. But they know what they're doing. They fix it right, they give you a fair price, they show up on time. Maybe it's your driveway or sidewalk to fix myslab dot com. Check them out. Don't delay. The problem not going to get better. It

will get worse if you don't take care of it well. You're listening to garden Line. 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 love to brag on our feed stores here on garden Line, and I just think of them as our hometown feed stores. You know, whatever part of town you live in, there's a great feed store there to provide the kinds of service and the products you need. For those of you east of town,

your hometown feed stores Texas Feeds dot No. They're they're out there on North Highway one forty six in mont Bellevue. So if you're out on I ten, go north on one forty six just a few minutes and they'll be there on the right hand side. Now, Brian and Hope Rhodes, first of all their delight and they really have created a great feed store. All the products you're going to need. Products we talk about here. You're going to

find them there and more. Hey, if you're a hunter and you're looking for getting ready for the deer leash or something, boy, do they ever have a selection of equipment and livestock, food, different things like out all out there, Texas Feed Stop. They're going to have all our fertilizers, as I say that, all our products, are going to have the pesticides you need for various kinds of issues. And they carry it out for you.

I mean, they treat you like family when you go in and go in there and don't just you know, pass through to grab a product. Talk to the folks. They you will find out why I say. They're just such a delight and they make it fun to shop. They make you feel welcome. And that's the kind of business we like to go into. And that's exactly what Texas Feed Stop is that kind of business. Well, again, we're in the season where we talk about oh it's hot, oh

it doesn't rain. And you know, when you're a farmer or a gardener, you always have something to complain about. Too cold, too hot, too dry, too wet, too much pestilence, too much disease, whatever's going through. But we can overcome all those things. You know, good cultural practices, making sure that you prepare the soil, buying plants that want to grow here. That is important. And you know, I don't want to sit here and just trash national companies by name. I'm not going to

do that. But you know who we're talking about. They get in plants. They sell the same plants all throughout a huge region because headquarters is ordering them from everybody. And you go in and you find things that shouldn't be planted here. Well, a quality mom and pop feed store the kind or garden center, the kind we're talking about here, that's not what happens. They get plants that grow here, and they have staff that know how to

direct you. And an example of that for those of you living up in the Montgomery area, Lake Conro, even Conro, all through that region, your hometown nursery garden center is A and A Plants and Produce. They're on the east side of Montgomery. You've probably seen them as you're driving up down one oh five on north side of one oh five, just outside of Montgomery. If you live in Lake Lake Conro, if you live in Walden or April Sound, any of those neighborhoods, even at you know, Woodlands,

Magnolia, the whole area. This is a place you need to check out. They just keep getting better. I mean they've been doing this for thirty years. But now you want to walk through three acres filled the shade trees and fruit and nut trees and vegetable herb plants. Oh my gosh, hundreds of types of perennials and annuals, palm trees and so on. Do you need some stuff let's call it petio petio bling, you know what I'm talking about. Maybe at Chimeneia or maybe some arches, a gazebo, topiaris all

that kind of stuff. Whimsical yard art. They've got that too. Seven days a week, nine to five. You can't beat that. Seven days a week, nine to five. A and A Plants on Produce again in Montgomery, just east on Highway one oh five, just east of Montgomery. Go there and see what I'm talking about. When you drive up, you're going to see color everywhere. That's color that grows here, that does well here, because that's what they do at A and A Plants and Produce.

Well, we're gonna take a little break. I am so glad you're listening to garden Line. I hope you're enjoying it. I hope you'll tell your friends, your neighbors about it too. We need more folks listening. When I go out and I see horticulture malpractice, you know, like somebody that why on earth did they plant that? Why did they why did they do

that in their landscape? We get calls like that, and it just makes me Rex Mahart, if you will, because I realize somebody has gone out with enthusiasm to garden and they've not been well advised and now they're discouraged. They just spent money on things they're probably gonna have to redo. That's why we're here on garden Line. That's what we're like for you to tell you your family and your friends to listen. We gotta folks that listen all over

the area wide area, even out of state. But you can also listen to us by podcast, so check that out on your podcast out KATRH garden Line. It's not necessary early endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H garden Line with scarp Rictor. It's all crazy trip, just watching as a wood, so many seas in fibers comes back taking a well good morning on a beautiful Saturday morning, that is a good day for garden. You know, I think every day is good to

take for garden line because it is whether you're gardening indoors or outdoors. Indoors is not a bad way to garden either. I think a lot of people when they when they think of gardening, you know, of course they think I'd be an outside, But hey, you can start plants inside. In fact, if you want, right now be a good time to start broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower called Robbie russell sprouts, all those kind of blue leaf vegetables that we will be planting as we get into the early part of fall.

So go ahead and get those things started. You can have a beautiful old transplant that's ready to go in. One advantage of starting things from seed is you can plant varieties that you can't find locally. Now that doesn't mean the ones you find locally aren't worth planning. They don't. They are, But it's just saying, you know, maybe there's some new tomato that you

just heard about and you want to try it out. Well, it may not be available yet in the transplant market locally, so you can start them yourself. That's one advantage of it. Plus it's just fun. I know a lot of people like the convenience. I'm just gonna go buy transplant. That's fine, Absolutely fine, go for it. Do that a lot of plants. That's just the simplest way to go about it. But just remember

it's still a time for gardening because we're getting ready for fall. You know, when it comes to a quality piece of equipment for a small piece of property that you own, we're talking about equipment. I'm talking about a tractor and the things that go along with it. You're not going to do better than a Cabota from Lansdowne Moody. The nice thing one of the nice things about Lansdowne Moody is there's a number of locations around the area, so you

don't have to dry it at Timbuct two to find one. I mean, there's a number of Lansdowne locations. They are a prime dealer of the Caboda tractor. The excellent selection and supply. They've got that L twenty five O one that I've been bragging on lately, that particular tractor is just a it's just a gem. I like to call it a sweet ride if you know

what I'm talking about. That if you need to haul bags of malts, fence posts, you know, anything like if you need to maybe brushhog or mow through an area, all those kinds of attachments can be put with your Cabota a tractor to create exactly the package that you need. Now, they've got a special deal on the Caboto twenty five oh one and that is zero down, zero interest for eighty four months. That's seven years, folks, eighty four months, and I gonna last forever. It's going to take it.

They're gonna carry it in to Fall for a while. But don't delay on that. You can go to Lansdown Moody. You can go to the website and go to LM tractor dot com. Or you can go to Caboda USA just to learn more about cabodas. But Caboda and Landsdown what a combination. As we say, hands down, it's Landsdown and you go drive by, do me a favor, go by, drive by, stop and just ask to sit on one. Just ask and they'll let you do that.

Just kind of get a feel for what I'm talking about. You'll see why I say it's a sweet ride, and I'm so enthusiastic about the quality and in this case, the unbelievable deal that they're offering out there. We're gonna head out. Let's see, let's go out to Southwest Houston and we're going to talk to Alicia. Hello, Alicia, Hello, I am so glad that you are there and reminding me about the co Robi. I had some wonderful growing one year, so I'll go get some immediately. That's right,

Alicia. Do you know that in thirty four years of doing gardening advice, radio writing and all that stuff, I've never once had someone call me about their co Robbie. Well, that's why I called. At least you mentioned it, so go ahead with what you call for. I called because I was feeling bad about the man, the gentleman that was distraught about his pecan tree and it's shooting. I have three pecan trees. I live in this in Southwest just outside the Loop, and I have a paper show and two

regular both. All three of them are about eighty feet tall, very mature. They where I am, the water table is about thirty feet down and these guys put their tap root down and they're happy as anything. They got leaves coming everywhere. But they are shedding. They're shedding these little bitty black the cons and that's from last year, the ones that didn't mature last year.

So yeah, I took some binoculars and I looked at both trees because every year they don't make, you know, they do when they want to. And I looked at the paper shell. I don't see any beacons on that one. But the other two are loaded. We're going to have a bumper crop this year. And my neighbor on the back on my back door

neighbor has another tree in the front. It's the same variety as the large ones that I have, are not the paper shell, and hers is only about twenty five feet tall and it's making also, So the shedding is shouldn't be. You shouldn't be sitting, you know, said, take some binoculars and look at your tree. You'd probably be surprised. If the leaves are are dead and crumpled up, then it is suffering from water. There's a problem. But mine, they're just solid as anything. I love them.

Well, good sounds like you've got you know, at that age of tree. Wow, what a prize. Oh well, I bought the property because I've never owned a property it, never owned a tree in a factory of them. I am happy as a clam. Well, good, well, Alicia, I'm glad to hear that. And uh, I guess you're set up ready to have some holiday baking going on. But you know you're gonna you're gonna you have to deal with the squirrels. I'm sure you're familiar with

that. Well, I got a trick for that. I bought some roof roof flashing two feet wide and fifty feet long, and I had some professional tree person wrap it when it started right by my roofline so they can't jump from the roof on, wrap it all the way up to where it was too high they couldn't get in it. And one time I've got two cats that had little privileges. In the morning when I'm having coffee in my back, Jarge and my two pwin cats cornered a squirrel and he tried to run

up the tree, and I got videos and screaming at the cats. They double They sat there and triangulated him and wouldn't not let him down for at least up till they got Oh, man, I bet he use language that no one should have to hear, because squirrels will really fuss at you if they don't like what's going on. Oh, he's first and first, But I laughed. I was laughing and laughing myself as the work. Well that's great. Well, thanks for that's a that is a good information. And

really enjoyed visiting with you. Thank you very much for your colleagues. I appreciate that. We let's see, we are gonna believe we Yeah, let's go out to Cyprus and talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, high skip, good morning, Good morning. I have a couple of questions. The first one is my halapinions and bel Peppert aren't growing big as they did at the beginning of the summer. I'm fertilizing, I'm regularly. Maybe I'm doing

it too much, okay, But and then I switched fertilizers. I don't know if that's it, but my local ace didn't carry the one that I was using at the beginning. Hey, Sandy, and I'm not Sandy. I'm gonna have to cut in. I am horrible at watching o'clock and I'm just looking now and I've passed when I'm supposed to take a little break. Will you hold on to that thought and let's come right back and we will we will dive in. You are listening to garden Line. I'm your host,

Skip Ricter seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning on a Saturday morning for gardening. We are going to go back now to Sandy in Cyprus. Hello Sandy. Sorry we had to cut off there. That's okay. I was wondering why my bell peppers. They at the beginning of the summer, they were getting real big and you know, staying green and stuff. Now they're so small. I've got a lot of bell peppers, but they're small and they turn red. If I don't

pick them while they're small, then they get that root rot. And I'm not sure I fertilize them. I've switched fertilizers because the ACE hardware didn't have a fertilizer I was using, So I'm not sure if that has something to do with it. Okay, Well, so fertilizing is good. Sandy, do you have your radio on in the background. I'm getting somewhere I would okay, now. So bottom line is it, peppers are going to do that in the summer. It's just too hot and as plants get stressed.

As pepper plants get stressed, it having smaller fruit is not unusual. They will resume making nice large fruit when we get a little bit of a break in the weather here in about a month. So hang on to them. A nice sized plant is going to set a lot of fruit, and if the frost will delay, you may have peppers all the way up into Thanksgiving and who knows, probably later than that. So just stick with those. You said you did fertilize it. You didn't find the fertilizer you want it,

but you did fertilize them or not, I fertilize them. Like at the beginning of the summer, I was fertilizing m probably once a week or once every ten days, and I got a lot of fruit. But I switched because Ace hasn't had the fertilizer that I had, okay, been using, and so I had to buy whatever they had, Okay, And I think it's heat combination. Say that what combination? Like the heat and meat switching? Oh, fertilizers. Yeah, I don't think the fertilizer is a

big part of this change. I think that you know, if you bought a fertilizer dace, I'm going to believe that it was a good fertilizer. I could recommend some to you if you want to start fertilizing again going into fall. There's not a bad it's not a bad time to go ahead and give them a little bit of a boost, a very light dose, and then you can do another light dose a few weeks later and just continue to

encourage those plants to stay healthy and to continue to grow. And water is the most important thing, more important than fertilizer, believe it or not. But but adding good nutrition would probably help. So, okay, what do you recommend? I would say number one, Nelson's makes a very good quality vegetable plant food. They make one that's organic, and they make one that's synthetic that would do well. We have a lot of good fertilizers around here,

but I would I'd probably look at one of those. They'll produce them in a little plastic jar you know where you you just scoop it out and sprinkle it on. Yeah, And my gardens, I often use a turf type fertilizer too. I mean it it's got a good boost of nitrogen. That's one has in a little higher middle number. And so whether are you particularly looking for organic or synthetic or does it matter? Now? But I was using that job tomato and vegetable. Uh huh, I don't it's it's

it's spell job e s Yes, I know it. Are using the spice, was it spice? No? I was using that now, I was using their little granules. Okay, Well, I mean that's fine. I I happen to think a little more highly of the Nelson fertilizers for vegetables that we're talking about here. But you know it, we got a lot of good quality ones, and so I don't I don't think the problem is is fertilizing, but I do think you should do some fertilizing now. Uh And

in a small can I ask you another question? My blueberry? I haven't seen a blueberry in like two three months, but the plant is just getting used. Can I prune it? I would wait until winter, you said blueberry? Right, Yeah, you're you're talking about the fruiting blueberry. I

just want to make sure I've got the right plant. Okay, So what we do with blueberries is in the winter time we remove all the little twiggy growth and you'll you'll know when you look at it, you know, you have some the normal size of new growth, healthy growth, and then you get this little twiggy stuff. Remove all that. If your plant is more than four years old, I would remove one fifth of the canes back to

the ground. Okay, so after about five years you're you're getting some older canes that tend to not be as vigorous and productive, and so you would just go all the way to the ground and cut one out. And I'm not one fifth, you know, so you're not doing more than a twenty percent reduction of the whole bush. But that's after it reaches that age. In the meantime, just prune out the twiggy growth. If they're getting too

tall, it's just the species of blueberry. You probably have a rabbit eye in that case from the if it's getting tall, that's probably a rabbit eye type. And you just have good soil and you're taking care of it. Right. Yeah, it's in a pot and so I can't even see my pot to good night. Well you you really you must have two green thumbs, So that's good. Yeah, blueberries in a pot can be a challenge, obviously, you got that nailed down. A lot of people forget to

water them and they get dry and that stresses them and so on. All righty okay, thank you so much, Thank you, Bet, thank you, Sandy. I appreciate that very much. Yeah. Up up in the Cypress area, there are a couple of excellent, excellent ACE Hardware stores. I know the M and D supply up there on Luetta is a good one. I used to live a little south of that, and we went to

the Jones Road Cypress. Ace Hardware two good ones. But hey, with ACE, you only have thirty nine to choose from all over Houston, so it's not hard to find one in your area. They carry a wide variety of these fertilizers, a lot of the ones we talk about here. You know, they're gonna have your microlife, You're Nelson's, your your nitrofoss. They're gonna probably also have a pretty good supply of the Medina products as well.

And you you just can't go wrong with ACE. I mean, go to Ace hardware dot com, look for their store locator and find the one near you. But if I talk about a fertilizer here, if I talk about bags of a mulch and compost and things like that, they're going to have them at ACE and everything else. You need to make your outside really a fun place to be. And believe it or not, this hundred degrees is gonna go away and we're gonna want to go hang out on the patio.

I don't know. I you know, it's so hot. I've been doing a lot of grilling lately, and I'm looking forward to getting back outside and doing some more grilling before it gets cold. And ACE has the supplies for that as well. Not hard to find quality products and lots of them when you go into an ACE hardware store. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight

seven four. I was sitting with my wife in the living room the other day and low and behold, from around the fireplace, which was not on, by the way, I'm not that crazy, it comes a cockroach runner across the floor, and of course our two Golden retrievers immediately went right into battle. Well, for them, battle means playing with its, sniffing it and watching it crawl all over the house. I need to teach them how to retrieve cockroaches and put them in the trash, but they don't do that.

But I'll tell you who can't help you with your cockroaches. That's Scott McGrath. You know McGrath pest Control. They've been around a long time. They know exactly what they're doing, and it's that old fashioned service. It's the stuff I keep bragging on. You call Scott McGrath, they don't say, well, hold your whole Saturday afternoon, we may be there. No, they say the time they're going to be there and they show up at that time. That's why they're so highly rated. In addition to the fact

they know what they're doing, they do a good job with McGrath. With McGrath pest Control, you know you're going to get what you paid for it. That's two eight, one, four, six, nine eighty two forty or MacGrath pest Control dot Com. They service a whole entire Houston area with McGrath. It's their modern technology and techniques with that old fashioned customer service. That's what you need and a pest control operator and that's exactly what you get

when you have McGrath pest control. Well, Nikki, we were talking about Nikki's walked in here were we were talking last week about gardening kinds of questions. We need to get into some of that today. We have to do it right now. But some of the gardening questions for idiots, well I wasn't going to use that kind of line. Okay, all right, for the how about this help for the gardening challenged? There you go. Okay, there you go, And I will just preface this. We'll get into

this later. But for the health benefits of plants, I went out and bought all kinds of house plants. They're in the the same pots that I bought them. Man, Yeah, I have to transplant them. I have to put them into real, real pots. I need to know how. All right, we can. We can get into that a little bit later. Okay, that's a good question. Don't let me forget that. We need to talk about that. I've been haunting you for the last two weeks.

You know. Sometimes doing the show, the horticulture parts easy, but the mechanics of the show. I tell someone the other day, sometimes I feel like a I'm herding cats on roller skates on an icy pond, juggling steak knives. How about how's that for a visual? Here you go, It's like, hey, you're supposed to go to break dummy, so oh yeah, yeah, Well I'm just having fun. Cool cool, Okay, I'm gonna line up my questions and at some point we will go through that.

All right. Well, in the meantime, here is the Nicki News Network. It's old John still lotting gold in me A good morning on a great day for gardening, and you're listening to garden line. So let's talk gardening. What are your questions? How can we help? Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight

seventy four. I was out in the garden doing a little bit of planting this past week and one thing that I would recommend you do, and that is when you put a transplant in the ground watered in with a dilute fertilizer solution. Now, there are a lot of products out there, a lot of a lot of good products are good for kind of a watering in solution. But the one that I use, the one that I liked the best, is has to grow. It's a six twelve six fertilizer. Now that

is a liquid that you mix in water. I put mine like a watering can or something where I can mix it up at you know, a dilute rate, and then just drench it over the plant as you're watering it in. That new plant going in is it just think of it as a little baby. It doesn't have a good root system. It can't really reach out in the soil. It's gonna have to You need to keep that root moist, and you need to keep it well fed, and with a drench of

has to grow six twelve six. You're gonna provide that. I'll do it again five to seven days later, and five to seven days later again three times. When I put in a transplant, I don't care if it's a rosebush or if it's a broccoli plant. A water men with a good quality liquid plant food like that. Now the has to grow six twelve six by medina. It's got Medina soil activator in it, it's got humic acid in it, and it has seaweat extracts in it. So it is a real

cocktail of things that help a plant to thrive. They have versions where you can have a hose in sprayer. I just like the quarter quart bottle. It's got a little measuring cup and it's really easy to do. You're not going to burn your plants with hastrogrow six twelve six, and that high phosphorus content will really help with roots, and all the other ingredients in it, including the seaweed extracts, are really going to help that plant get established and

hit the ground running, which is important. Let's head out to Dan in Brenham and we're going to talk about some roses I believe, Is that right, Dan? Yes, I have some knockout roses that I've had for a number of years. They're very healthy looking. With this year for some reason,

they have real small blooms. Okay, the small blooms are telling me the plant is stressed and it's weak and the foliage isn't able to make as much carbohydrates, which are important with both setting blooms and developing good blooms and fruit on fruiting plants. Yeah, I want to prune them, but I told I was told not to prue. This time of the year is too hot. You prune your knockout roses and other roses, No, I have

not. No, I'm saying you do. You should when we get towards the end of August, shearing back by about a third, right, I normally do that. Well, I would do that, So it's not okay. Is there anything in the interim that I can use to feed them? Yes, you want to put you you can buy a quality rose product. I know Nitrofist provides a food specifically for roses. You can you can certainly do that there, you know, there's some other If I talk about a

fertilizer on garden line, it's a good fertilizer. I will not promote a fertilizer I don't know and use and know is a good. First they're they're well, they're they're established, they're probably fifteen years old, and they've always bloomed profusely. All right, So so here's what I tell everybody on roses. When you get towards the end of August, let's shear them back. You could do it in early September if you want, but late August,

early September, shear them back. Fertilize them, water the fertilizer around. I often will kind of scratch the fertilizer into the soil surface. If you're able to get around roses and do that, that just gets it kind of in the soil where volatilizing the nitrogen is. You put it in the soil and that on the plants. Right right, we're talking about a granular dry fertilizer and that we're doing here. We're sprinkling it all around the bush at

a rate that's appropriate for the size of the bush. I've been using in the past. I've been using the Nelson's Color Star. That is an excellent fertilizer that there's no nothing wrong with that at all, and it will give you good a good boost. But you're sprinkling your fertilizer around the rosebush. I scratch mine into the multure of the sail and then watered in really well.

You want to get a good soaking on there to get it get They getting water three times a week for about fifteen twenty minutes the sprinkler system. Okay, if you could change that to twice a week and give them a little more water when you water, I think it's better. And here's why. Now, knockout is about as disease resistant as you're going to get. But most blacks the more often you weet the foliage, the more disease problems

you have. So I like to go that root. But again it's it's shear them back, fertilize them, scratch it in, water the area very well, to soak it in, and you're going to give responsing growth from water, fertilizer and shearing that is going to have. You're gonna have the most beautiful October of blooms you've ever seen. That's very good. Thank you very much. All right, sir, thank you. I appreciate that call.

Good luck with things out there. And Brunham, well, let's see, why don't we when we go to Elizabeth here in Burton, Elizabeth, how's it going and how can we help high Skip? I emailed two photos to you this morning of pineapple qua the plants. I have three bushes planted on either side of my front porch walkway, and for some reason, I keep getting one stem of the bush that keeps dying. About fourteen days ago I cut off a dead stem, and then just yesterday I noticed another dead

stem. And I am watering with a spray hose for several minutes three times a week. So I don't know if it's I thought I was watering adequately, or if it's something else. Yeah, it's not a lack of water. I see your photos. I would follow that dead branch back. You have to kind of crawl into the bush to see, but look look for splits in the bark, or look for sap coming out of the stem of

the plant. Something is affecting those shoots and there are you know, we have all kinds of things that can cause the flow of water and nutrients to be disrupted. Typically it's a canker or you know, a borer could do that. These particular plants don't have borer problems typically, but something is going on back in there. And if you can figure out see what you see, I see your email, just reply back with maybe a photo if you if you can get a good close up, sharp focus photo, or just

let me know what you see. I think the bottom line is going to be you're gonna follow it all the way back and prune that one branch out. But if we if we can determine exactly what's causing it, look for a little pinholes in the trunk. There are some boards that could affect that. It's not common. Again, cankers. Cold damage will often do that. But it maybe too that your plant is just is just struggling, you know, with the hot weather and trying to pump enough water. I think

that's the least likely though. All right, well, thanks for your advice. I appreciate it. All right. Hey, I love pineapple guava. Those beautiful blooms are worth alone. The process they are and they smell great. They do, they sure do. Yeah, And if they get older, some people will not just keep them as a little bush. They'll let them kind of become a multi stemmed mini tree. You know. When I say mini, I mean like six seven feet tall at the most. And

that's another attractive feature is their barks. So glad you have that's true. Thanks, And I wanted to also mention your last caller who asked about roses if they consider joining the Houston Rose Society. I'm on the board and we actually put out a great newsletter that has, you know, tips for what to do with your roses every month. I received that newsletter. Well, why don't you just go ahead and give a quick commercial. When does a

rose society meet and how does somebody get involved? The road Society meets on the second Thursday of every month at seven pm. You do not have to drive into Houston. All of our meetings are virtual, so you can just dial in to hear the speaker. Our next speaker is going to be talking about growing roses and containers in the month of September. All right, there, you got it. Give me the date in time one more time. Yeah, the second Thursday, which is going to be September the fourteenth at

seven pm. Alright, and Houston Rose dot Org is a web unt. Well, thank you appreciate that call very much. Thank you. Yeah. Rose Society is a great thing, good information. Hey, we're going to take a break. Here's the number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. How about a peary sidewine? Is that a bride on them? Well? Good morning on a great gardening day. You're listening to garden

Line. We are glad to do Also, I tell you, I uh it's fun getting to talk with gardeners and and help people with their plant situations. Gardening is such a fun hobby. It's just I just because I'm biased doesn't mean I'm not right. Okay. It is the best hobby that there is. And I could go toe to toe with someone all day, bringing out research projects, bringing out you know, personal testimonials, and just the obvious. I mean, we are we are made to love aesthetic things,

and we are made to live in nature. That's just a fact, folks. And gardening provides all that and a lot lot more. You know, if you're driving around, maybe you're looking at your yard and you're kind of just seeing this sea of green green grass, green trees, green ground covers, green shrubs, and green green, green green. That's what happens in the summertime if we don't take steps to you know, plant things that flower

through the summer. One thing I like to do is drive runtown and look at yards and make note of things, like I love the look of that. I mean, you take a picture. I've taken pictures of things before, just because I want to come back and look and go, oh, how did they do that? Wow? Look at how those colladiums that are kind of white, that are very light and bright colladiums just brighten up that

shady area over there. That's an idea I could try. You see what I'm talking about, Well, do that and then give Peerscapes a call, because the folks at peer Scapes can recreate or they can even enhance something that you have down in a photograph. Now, you may not know exactly how to design. You may not be able to walk in and go here's what all I want. They know how you know, Bob and Candice. They

can create a design for you. There are Peerscapes that is just show stopping and you kind of have to give them an idea what you're looking for. Let them create that design, and maybe you're wanting to turn that backyard into a better outdoor enjoyment area for barbecuing, for sitting with friends, maybe got a little fire table or something going on. They can do the heartscapes, they can do the walkways. They can improve drainage in areas that need it.

They can fix your irrigation system when things go wrong, which they always do. Peerscapes can do all that and more. Go online, It's peerscapes dot com. Find out more about them there or just give them a call. Two eight one three seven h fifty sixty two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero. But do your homework, get out there and check things out. I mean, there's going to be a lot of wonderful things that appeal to you. You like the look of that, why not have

some version of that created for you and your home landscape. I'm a I'm a plant collector. I know a lot of us are, and I've said this before, but what happens with plant collectors is if we don't have a plant, we need one. I mean, that's how it is. There's so many plants, so little time, and so little garden space, so we end up having yards and it looks like a bomb went off in a garden center and everything rudy where it landed. You know what I'm talking about

maybe talking about you, I know I'm talking about me. Well, having professional design guidance is is really really helpful, and then having good plants. You know, we I see things for sale. It just frustrates me when I go into certain places where they just are selling stuff they shouldn't sell here. It's not going to do well here, or it's just going to be

one long disease problem. They ought to say if five bottles a fungicide when they say that plant, because all it's gonna do is suffer from diseases of the foliage. You know that we don't want that. So how do you avoid that, Well, you go to a garden center that is a mom and pop one of the ones we brag on here on garden Line, and we brag on them not because there are sponsors. We brag on them because

they are awesome. They're awesome. That's also why there are sponsors. The places I was griping about before, I wouldn't take as a sponsor on garden Line. But a place like Plants for All Seasons. You know, they're on two forty nine, right where Louetta comes in, So if you're going up Tumbole Parkway, they're right up there. They've been around a long time since nineteen seventy three, and the Flyherty family that many folks are involved in

that business, including family members and well trained staff. When you walk in, you're going to have selection, You're gonna have education. As you visit with people, they're gonna say, look, this plant would do well for that situation you're looking at. Or here's a new variety we have. Take a look at this one. Bring them in a plant sample, bring them in a picture. If you're needing help with stuff, they know what they're

talking about. They can direct you to a product that works and the safest option that's available Plants for All Seasons dot Com that you go there two eight, one, three, seven six, sixteen forty six. However you want to go about it. When you go home from Plants for All Seasons, you're gonna have quality plants, quality advice. By the way, they also deliver, and you're going to have that follow up help that as you start to have problems, they're there to help you. Their goal is not just

sell your plants. Their goal is for you to have success. Because when you have success, you're going to come back. You're going to see what I'm talking about. But what Plants for All Seasons can provide love going into a garden center that knows what they're talking about, that alone is worth the price of admission. Let's see, we are going to go here to Rick in League City. Hello Rick, good morning, Good morning, Skip,

Thanks for taking my call. Yes, this is probably a very basic question, but I did a sour sample with A and M from a place in my front yard and it came back that said that I'm extremely low in nitrate and extremely low in sodium. Okay, and I'm wondering what's the best way to treat that, and what how often and so forth. All Right, that's an easy one. Don't worry about the sodium. That's okay. I mean, I've never known anyone or heard or recommendation for someone of sodium down.

But the nitrate. What I would recommend you get is sweet Green. That's a nitrofost product. It's an eleven eleven zero four. I believe it's it's one of the highest percent nitrogens of any organic. It smells good, it's easy to use, and it's going to be available. It's going to improve the microbial activity in the soil because it's a sugary product. But I would follow the label on that. I don't know what your soil test said. If you want to send it to me by email, I'll take a

look. But in general, I would use ten pounds of sweet Green per thousand square feet on the lawn and in garden beds. I would increase that by fifty or even double for the gold. Okay, I did some, but I didn't obviously didn't do enough. Yeah, the recommendation on the sauce apple says one pound per thousand square foot of nitrogen, So therefore eleven percent times dam pounds is one pounds of nitrogen. Yep, that's it. I'll

do it. And how often should I do that? I would kind of watch if it's a lawn, see how it looks see you know what you know, if it looks like it's needing a little extra boost of nitrochen in growth, I would do it again. But in general, we're gonna have a gardening schedule up here real shortly, and it's going to tell you exactly how often to apply. But I would do it in the spring, after

you've mowed the lawn twice. I would do it in the middle of summer, and I would do it towards the end of summer, all three times. Okay, So there's nothing I should apply it now. Well, you could go ahead and apply it now, yeah, you could. This will be we'll call this towards the end of summer, and then the next application will be a fall fertilizer, which is something different. Okay, okay, okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. You bet, I appreciate

that call. Hey, you're listening to guarden Line Surprise Surprice. We're here to answer your gardening questions, So give us a call. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two k t R. Some people like to dial by the letters. It's easier to remember. It slows me down. I don't care for that. But seven month three two one two KTRH or fifty eight seventy four, whichever way you want

to go about it. We're going to take a break now. We will be back and if you want to give us a call, Josh will get you on the board. Butch out there in Laporte, Terrence in Lake Charles will be the first two up when we come back from break, and just hang on with us in the meantime, get to hear a little bit of news. We'll come back with some more gardening advice as well. We always

like to give you a few tips to help you have success. KATRH 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 him as a wooden clubs back ticking. Well, good morning. We are glad you're listening. This is garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and what are we here for? We're here to help you have a more beautiful garden

and a more bountiful landscape. That is the goal. If you planted a tree in the last twelve months, especially if you planted in the tree in the last couple of months, you need to know about tree hugger sprinklers. Now, treehears one of the It's a little device. You hook it up to your garden hose and it goes around your tree. It's got a little hinge on it. There's a seven inch, eleven inch, fifteen inch version.

When you have a brand new tree, you've got a little root ball root cylinder right there that came out of the pot, and it takes those roots of while to get out. You can turn your tree hugger on just slightly to water that area. Then as the tree gets bigger, you water a larger area. And you may have a tree it's been a ground five years, it's got a nice canopy. You want it to grow fast.

You don't want it in stress. You want it to be healthy because you've got goals of hanging a hammock in it, right, you want to get shade out of it, or flowers or whatever. Just crank that tree hugger up, water a wide area, the entire area beneath the branch spread. It's a very targeted way to give a good soaking for your trees and to keep them not just alive. I mean, certainly you can lose trees in this kind of weather, but to keep them healthy and vigorous so they grow

fast and they just are beautiful. Go to tree Hugger sprinkler dot com. It's real easy. Tree Hugger sprinkler dot com. They're available in a lot of places. I don't know how many of our feed stores and garden centers I've been in and seeing that tree Hugger Sprinkler, but it's well worth it. Think of it as an insurance policy for the plants that you purchased. We're gonna head out to Laporte and talk to Butch. Now, Hello, Butch, Hello, Skip, how are you doing this morning? I'm well,

thank you? What's up? Well, let me tell you I've got a baseball garden. I've got tomatoes, cowpeas and sweet potatoes right now. My question is, you know, I'll work them out and keep them watered, but I'm not sure about whether or not I ought to be fertilizing in this heat. And I need to know what you think you need to fertilize if the new if the soil nutrients are lacking, and the primary one we would worry about would be nitrogen. That's the one that is the most come

and go. You know, things like phosphorus, you put them down, they stick there forever. Nitrogen not the It's the other end of the spectrum. So I would look at my plants. If they look like they could use a little boost, I would give them that. Just realize that in this heat it is so stressful that even with adequate soul nutritions, your plants may look a little stunted. The green is a little less vibrant than it should be. And that's just a matter of them. You know, all

hands on deck pumping water to stay alive. And you know, when it gets hot, it actually affects the physiological processes, things like photosynthesis, which are essential for plant life and good green color. They start to shut down in super super hot weather. And so you know, the visually, I was saying, look at it and see what it looks like. And then I'm basically saying, well, it may look like it needs it, but it really doesn't. But if you hadn't fertilized in the wall. I'd give

them a boost of it. Just remember on those peas, anything that produces nitrogen nodules, like beans and peas, you don't want to push those with a lot of nitrogen because they end up making vine at the expensive production. Okay, I got another question, if you got time. Sure, I grew sweet potatoes earlier this year. I dug them about a month ago and got a good yield. But the runners and the vines that I cut off after I dug my sweet potatoes, I replanted or I I you know,

I set out some of those runners. They're they're taken off. And my question is will those produced sweet potatoes even though they aren't slips. H Well, that's basically how they get slips. But how long ago did you plant those? It's been about a month ago. I replanted them two months. I don't know it's gonna be. You gonna have some little potatoes on them.

It takes about one hundred and twenty days on a sweet potato, and as we get into fall, it takes more than one hundred and twenty days because it's cooling, it's slowing down, and sweet potatoes or a summer crops. So yeah, right, yeah right, Well maybe i'll have something to dig up in November if it doesn't frost before then. It's a good idea. Hey, by the way, but you know you neat sweet potato greens. I mean, it was just a few years ago that I learned that.

I don't know how I missed that all this time, but sweet potato greens are edible. You can go in line to learn how to do it. But even if you don't get the potatoes underground, you ought to try them out some different recipes if you like them, may do that, all right. They make a pretty plant, you know, they sure do they shure do. Well. Hey, I'm going to run to another call here,

but thank you very much. I appreciate your call very much. It sounds like you got one heck of a vegetable garden going out there in Laport. Now, Nikki's talking about a tropical storm coming in here at some point and coming day. I would recommend that you always have on hand some mosquito dunks. And here's the deal. It comes through and it rains, and you know there's water in the catch basins under your plants. In fact,

you've probably already got that. There. The sagging spots in the gutters with that decaying organic matter is mosquito heaven, and all they need is a thumble of water to drop an egg and create a new mosquito. So you want to use a mosquito dunk in any kind of stagnant water areas or a little doughnuts. They last about a month, they dissolve away, and they release a mosquito disease. It won't hurt fish, it won't hurt your pets,

it won't hurt birds or other wildlife. It is simply a disease of mosquitoes. And they have granules as well. You can sprinkle those in areas where you want to cover a large area. Maybe just throw a bunch of granules out over it. You can put those in. Maybe you know a water dish that's sitting out and tends to, you know, sit there for a

long time. It's real easy. When I go away off and put my plants in like a little kiddie pool with water in it, just so they can wake up water while I'm gone, I'll throw a mosquito dunks in there, just to absolutely make sure I don't have a crop of mosquito doesn't want to come back, easy, easy to find. Let's see, we're gonna go out now to Well. I'll tell you what. I'm running out of time this time. I'm gonna actually not take a call and go to break

Terence and like Charles and Jan and Beaumont, you were first up. When we come back. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I can get into double, I can have my buddy. Well, good morning. You are listening to Garden Live and we are here to answer gardening questions. We've got a few folks on the board. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven

one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. You know, years ago I used to go to Quality Feed when they were at their previous location that's kind of a north north central Houston. Actually the new location, which is what's important. It's on Luzon Street l u Z O N. It's near the intersection of Equipment and Alesion. But Quality Feeds have been around since nineteen twenty eight and Ken and Chris have owned it since. I don't know,

it's been there over thirty years that they've owned the place. It is that old time feature, and I mean really an old time feature. They got an antique seed rack from nineteen twenty eight stocked with heirloom seats. Ever fertilizer I'll talk about. Is there the soils I'll talk about. Are there the products that help control weeds, diseases, insects, on and on. They've got them there. It's a feed store, so you're gonna get quality feed.

They make their own potting soil, they make their own granny's laying mix for chickens. So if you've got backyard chickens, I don't care where you live in town. Quality feed is a place you need to know about. And here's why. About ever two weeks they get in a whole new load of chicks, and so you can go buy there. Whatever time of year it is and you're needing them, just give them a call because they probably are about to get another another shipment in. Now. That's Quality feed coo

dot com. Quality feed coo dot com. Check it out. You'll see what I'm talking about. It is a very cool old time feed store. It's always fun to go in. We're gonna head out to West Houston now and talk to Steve. Hello, Steve, Hello, how can I help? Okay, the speaker in the outs, I heard you talking about the sweet potatoes, and my aunt's eye doctor just swears by the fact that sweet

potato greens are a good deterrent to certain kinds of cancers. Really, I don't remember what kind he was talking about, but every time I take my aunt in there to have her check up, and she's eighty four years old, he always talks about eating sweet potato greens to try to help deter certain kinds of cancers. Well, that's news to me. I did not know that. And my uncle, her husband, who passed away about ten years ago, when they got married, he had never eaten actual sweet potatoes before.

He was raised up around the Wimer area, and all they have right when he was growing up was the sweet potenta greens, and so that was a new thing for him. When when she made sweet potatoes for him. That's cool. Well, thank thanks for that information. Yeah, I'm gonna have to look into that one. Yeah it. You know, I don't know how I grew up in the South and did not know that for fifty years. A couple of years ago, when I was when I was told

about it. Okay, all right, well there you go. I know, prey View A and M years ago they may still be doing it. Was working on developing varieties of sweet potatoes where the shoots would grow upward for a while so you could come in and do a mechanical harvest to make a commercial crop out of it. I thought that was kind of interesting, you know, because otherwise it be kind of hard to harvest sweet potato greens commercially.

But I did try to make you raising some sweet potatoes is past spring, and all I got out of it was the shoot, so I didn't get any potatoes out of it. Yeah, well there are some tricks. Yeah, there's some tricks to that. It's number one, starting with a good strong shoot as opposed to a spindley one, planning it at the right depth, and then the watering and fertilized. There's some things you do along there, and if you don't do them right, you end up with these

little finger sized sweet potatoes and not much to write home about. But if you do do it right, you can you can make a good crop out of them. But I appreciate that comment, Steve. Thank you. Very much. Okay, thank you, good night, Yes, sir, you take care. Uh let's see, I want to go now to tum Ball and we're gonna talk to John. Hello, John, Good morning, skid. I have a question about the arbit gate, the organic food complete. Yes, I know it's good for everything, right, it's good for shrubs

in the yard. But would you is that a fertilizer. Should I just keep it because it's a little pricey, just use it for my landscape and my roses and shrubs. I primarily would use it in those kind of situations.

The ratio is a general good one. It's not what we widely recommend for lawn application because of the ratio, but the products a good product, and so when you're doing flowers, when you're doing you know, your herbs, when you're putting in shrub or taking care of shrubs and a lot of things like I mean, you could use it in the vegetable garden too, would be great for that, but I would focus on those uses of it myself. Now. I know some people will use it for the lawn and

they have good results too, but I would focus on that. And one more quick question. I was a saying augusting guy. Now I'm out here in Tabo Bermuda, right, So the question is I'm gonna if I can get these runners out of my Bermuda, will the Bermuda eventually take over? If you've got seventy percent Bermuda thirty percent saying augusting, and you want to Bermuda lawn, yes, sir, okay, Yeah, So, droughty conditions favor Bermuda. A very good sunlight favors Bermuda. Uh, and Saint Augustine.

There are a few herbicides that are used in lawns that are really hard on Saint Augustine, and I'm gonna have to go look for an example of that. But you can essentially look at Saint Augustine as a weed in your Bermuda lawn and Berma buy a product for Bermuda to use for weed control, and it will kill the Saint Augustine. And there's not a pardon, pardon. It'd be a lot easier than pulling out all these runners. Would.

Yeah, it would. But you know, just as you as you mow high, uh, you're gonna favor the Saint Augustine, as you mow low, you're gonna favor the Bermuda. So I tend to not spray something if I don't have to, and I might just try it culturally by maintaining a low mowing height let's say about two inches high and as regularly as you can, and just try to go about it that way. But if you do want to do the spray, just know that there's some products labeled for Bermuda

but not Saint Augustine for a reason. Thanks you all right, sir, Thank you appreciate appreciate that very much. You know, when it comes to the lawns, A good quality product for a long term slow feed is the silver bag of Nitrofist super Turf. That's the nineteen four ten. I just like to call it the silver bag because you walk in the store, you look across the room and you can pick it out from a mile away. Nitrofist Superturf nineteen four ten. Gradual feed, you don't get up flush of

growth, which flushes a growth and about it. Two months from now are going to be promoting St. Augustine's brown patch, which is now called large patch disease. It avoids doing that by gradually feeding over time. It gives you a good gradual release, which means your mo time goes down a little bit. You know, you're not out there like you're fighting a hayfield because

you've overdone the nitrogen on something. It is designed by the requirements for southern turf grasses determined long ago at Texan m University for what our lawns need, and that would be nitro FoST superturf, which pretty much if I talk about a sponsor on this show, you know Ace Hardware, feed stores, great home, mom and pop garden centers. That's where you're going to find nitro foss products. You can find it right there. Let's see, We're going

to head out now to Beaumont and talk to Jan Hello. Jan, Hello, we have a water restriction. We have water restrictions in Beaumont. Before that, my lawn and my plants were doing fine. Now they're some of them are dying, especially the lawn. What should I do? Well? Are your water restrictions like you can't walk water, you can only water twice a week or once a week or what are they saying twice a week? I mean in the middle of the night for one of them at least.

Okay, I would make sure when it's your data water that you give a good deep soaking, A good deep soaking, that is important. It takes about an inch of water to do that. So a good deep soaking twice a week is more than enough water for a long in fact, eye water mine once a week. Just give it a good deep soaking. I've got a good, deeply developed grass root system. It's very resilient, and that's what I would recommend for that. For your other plants, the same kind

of thing. Give them a good soaking in the garden beds, vegetable beds, all of that good covering of mulch over the surface, at least a couple inches of mulch that lowers the soil temperature, which reduces water loss and water use by the plant. And in terms of you know, the roots, when this all gets too hot, roots have trouble functioning up near the top. When you mulch it, now you're holding that moisture in and you're getting more use out of that water. So those two tips is where I

would start. I'm going to start now. Thank you, all right, good luck, enjoy it. Thanks you bet glad, you're glad you're getting out there and being able to you know, deal with the restrictions. We got restrictions going in and a lot of parts of the area. That's what happens when it gets hot here in the summertime. If you live out in the Richmond area, maybe between Richmond and sugar Land, Enchanted Forest is a nursery that you have got to go see when you drive down the road.

The first time I drove down the road and all of a sudden, here I came upon Enchanted Forest, I could not believe it. I mean, it is cool. You know, it has that country barn. Look, it's got the big shade trees that makes shopping so easy when it's hot, and they always have stuff going on out there. I'll talk about some of these things in the future, but you know coming up this fall, there's gonna be a program in September sixteenth on beneficial insects. Wow, that's fun.

Folks from Nelson's are going to be out there talking about their products and how to successfully fertilize. I know the Andy for Medina is going to be out there talking about some of their products as well. On October seventh. Years truly, I'm going to be out there along with Pumpkin pelooza. I'm not sure what that. I don't am I the big pumpkin out there anyway, Lots of stuff going on and enchanted Danny and Clay. It's the customer

service, it's the knowledge. If you want to have beneficial insects, if you want to have butterflies, they have a selection of plants. In fact that you know this. They will if you need a like a monarch larva, they'll give you one to take home and put on your milkweeds. So they'll they'll even help give you a free head start. That is at enchanted Forest out in the Richmond areas between Richmond toward sugar Land and off to the right is where the enchanted forest is located. And by the way, here

is Nikki. And we were going to talk about potting up house plants, house plants in general. What I say, and this is a general guide, when the plant is three times the size of the pot, go ahead and move it to the next size. Okay. So that way, you know, if you take a little plant and put it in a big pot, you tend to overwater because it doesn't have the roots system to pump that soil dry, and it stays wet for too long, when it's in too small a pot, your water and all the time, and it's confined.

So in general, look for about three times the plant size compared to the pot size. Okay, so does the pot size determine how big it's going to grow? It can, But I mean theoretically, if you're fertilizing a lot and keeping it constantly moist, it'll get too big for that pot because you're supplying what it needs. You know. It's kind of like think about hydroponics, where they're just got a plant in water. You know, there's

not a pot size. They're given those reach everything they need and therefore they can grow plants. But in a home home landscape, home landscape, interior landscape, if there's such a thing, we we like to make it where we're not having to worry about it. I water my plants about once a week, and oh really, yeah, some people twice, But more plants are killed by overwatering than underwatering. Miles. All the stars in the sky miles, And I'm pretty sure it's a law in Texas. And you can't

do a radio show with a little asleep at the wheel country suite. I could listen to that all day it is, I'll shut up and just listen to music. Well, you're listening to the garden line, and I'm not going to shut up. We're gonna We're gonna talk about things that are of interest to gardeners. Nikki, do you have a You look like you are pregnant with questions of gardening? Is that I'm not even going to go Have

you ever heard someone say I'm pregnant in thought? Yes, I'm about to burst forth with this new Okay, Well, first of all, I am so indebted to you throwing off a comment about the healing nature of plants. Yeah, my husband was sick and so I went to the grocery store. I went to stores and I bought all kinds of plants. Yes, and he ended up going to the hospital getting great treatment by doctors. But I ended up with a house full of plants that I have to take care of.

And what I have found is they're healing me and the therapy that they are bringing to my life. So now I'm at the point that I have to get them out of the grocery store or whatever plastic things and put them. So what kind of soil do the pots have to have good drainage. Do you put gravel in it? Do I feed them? Do I put plant food in them? Well, we can pretty much finish the show. And I figured those are really basic questions. But I'm asking someone else probably

no, those are those are good questions, and yes they are. I'll start with the easy one. Don't put gravel in pots. I can explain why, but it doesn't do what you think it does, and it just takes up space that soil needs to be. Okay, don't do that. We talked about pots size. You know, a quality sail mix, and we have a number of the folks we talk about here that make a quality, a very good quality sail mix. I know, Heirloom Soils makes some

potting for indoor plants and some potting sail for outdoor plants as well. They can, they can fix you up, and they're easy to find. They're available everywhere. But getting a good quality mix, what that means when we say quality is that it does and have big chunks of wood and it's screened properly. It's gonna whole moisture, but it's gonna drain excess moisture, and those drainage hoes you're talking about are essential. We kill more house plants by

overwatering than by underwatering. Why do they make pots that don't have holes in them Because people don't want a saucer. They don't want a pot that leaks out on their floor or their table or whatever. And sometimes we just plant in things that are decorative, but they really aren't the best pot for plants. I have a few that don't have drain holes, but I know that I got to be real careful when I water. I'm not to overdo it. Just a little tip and trick. Sometimes you can put a little charcoal.

You can buy charcoal at the garden center and put a little charcoal in the bottom of your pot if it doesn't have drainage holes, and that way, if it gets wet, it doesn't start to get that anaerobic decomposition that causes problems. It kind of freshens or that people say it's sweetens. I don't know what that means, but it sweetens up the water in case you're forgetting over water. But yeah, drainage holes are better if you can do

that. I can't remember what else you threw out there. What is your favorite house plant. Oh my gosh, uh aglionema called Chinese evergreen. It does well and low light. It does well and more light. It's not the most low light house plant, but it's it's on the bottom twenty five percent for sure. The foliage. I like colors other than green. I mean, green's fine, but everything's green. So aglionema will have some coral, it'll have some reddish colors in the leaves. It's just really pretty.

And so I guess I've had to pick one. I would go with that one. It's easy to grow. It's not the most indestructible house plant, but it's in the top twenty five percent. The most indestructible one. Oh my gosh, mother in law's tongue. Sense of area. It's the snake plants. Another. You've got these longs things coming out of the ground. Take sun, take shade, takes neglect. If you can't grow mother in Law's tongue, don't call garden line because I can't help you. I mean,

if you this is like green side up type level. So do you feed them? You know, there's like common food, Yeah, a good A good quality slower leased food would be best because it gradually releases over time. There are a number of products that can do that, or a liquid food. A lot of people like to mix up the liquid. I use Microlife seven one four on my plants. It's a liquid, it's organic, it's got microbes in it. You give them a good drenching and you water

enough to keep them happy. If you put it according to the label, it won't burn your plants. But there are other liquid good liquid options out there on the market as well. Okay, all right, good plant. I think we're I'm about to go to my first break. But hey, that was fun. I've had a thousand people had those same questions that you had, I'm sure, so that was definitely time oil spent. Well, my goodness, we're get back in the show here. I'm gonna we're gonna

be taking a break here real quick. I just wanted to tell you that if you are looking for a quality tree and someone who knows how to plant it, that's for Damp Tree Farm Verdant Tree Farm, I should say, because what does verdant Verdant means green? Verdant Tree Farm v E R D A N T Treefarm dot com. They have everything you need if you need a palm tree for outdoors. Oh my gosh, they are the leader and all kinds of palms. They'll plant it. You get to pick it out.

Go there, you pick it out, they tag it, they bring it, they plant it, they tell you how to take care of it. They can grow. They can plant a tree any month of the year because they know what they're doing. At Verdant Treefarm dot Com. There's the location out on Barker, Cyprus on the west side. Down in Parland on West Broadway, there's a location. And up in the Heights where Yale comes into a ten yet another location of Verdant Tree Farm. Well, here we

go. We're gonna take a seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Gift Josh a call. He'll get you on the board and we'll talk to you when we come back. As well as d I see out there waiting. Just hang on as good as I want. I got a few years now, but there was the time in my friend, but I could really down. Well, good morning, and welcome to Garden Line. We're glad you're listening today. We're entering our last little segment. By the

way, we'll be back at six am. Tomorrow. We're here on Saturday and Sunday from six am to ten am. So tell your friends, tell your neighbors that guy that won't take care of his lawn has a messy place. You'd like him to clean it up. Man, turn him onto garden line tactfully. Maybe we can help. We're gonna head out now to Oh. Before I did the last break, I was talking about the Microlife seven one three someone four excuse me with Nikki on house plants and Microlife has a

wide range of products. They have some excellent products for the lawn. I always talk about the green bag, the six two four, and also the humates plus. That combination of those two is really good. And here's why. The humates. First of all, it's got a little bit of potassium in it, and it has a wide variety of everything that you would expect in a humate product. Humates are concentrated compost. And when you get humates plus that's a purple bag, by the way, that's concentrated compost in a

bag. So you do your fertilizing with the six two four, you follow

up with the humates plus the purple bag. That combination is good going into fall because in fall we're going to deal with things like brown Patch, large patch, We're going to deal with take all rout rod coming back again and doing infecting as it starts to cool off, and having a lot of that microbial content, having a lot of the organic materials on the surface, all of that works together to help minimize those as well as the fact that these

products are releasing a little bit over time and you're not getting that just super flush of nitrogen for example, to promote succulent growth. Go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You can find more information there about that seven one four I was talking about the liquid, also their ocean harvests, the fish based outdoor product alike. So much uh and these two long fertilizers that I was talking about, as well as where can I buy Microlife. That's not gonna be

hard to find it. It's everwhere, but Microlife Fertilizer dot com will tell you exactly where we've been to Head out to Port Arthur now and talk to d Well. Hello, d Hey, good morning, thanks for taking you. Bet. I've got two questions for you. The first one, I have a certified monarchy way station and I'm really concerned about my pollinator plants, especially the migration is going to start back up late September early October. The

only thing that surviving right now is Lantano indian blanket and cone flower. So I want to know what I can plant now to kind of beef up my pollinator plant. Well you can. You can probably still buy the various types of milkweed. Uh. And I have plenty of milkweed. Okay. Well, so if you're if you feel like you're stocked up on that. Monarchs,

there's a lot of different plants that they like the blooms of. So it's not really that difficult finding plants that as far as a nectar source for the monarchs, but taking care of their larva and that brings them in their lay eggs go through the life cycle and push you send them on their merry way and in the cool season. Uh, tell me again, what the plants are you currently have that right now? Right now, what's reviving the

heat is the Lantana indian blanket and cone flowers. And then there's some wildflowers that will pop up. It's it's a pocket prairie, So I just let whatever flowers grow. Yeah, yeah, Uh well, zennias are fast and easy. I mean, that's a that's an easy one that attracts a number of different butterflies to it. That's an annual. You can buy them, a blimbs on them, put them in the ground, and you're in business, and they don't mind the heat. They will keep growing for you.

So I would probably throw that into the mix just to kind of get something real quick out there, and then gradually over time, Uh, look at the lists of the plants for for monarchs and begin to develop your landscape in that direction. Makes it okay, you know, you kind of grow yourself. Go ahead, Yeah, I've got some zenia seeds from another local gardener. That are you suggesting that I get some plants that are already flowering right

now? Well, I mean if you want, yeah, if you want to hurry up and get there faster, I would get the ones that are already that are already blooming, you know, that look good. So there and there's a number of them. You know, we always talk about milkweed monarchs because that's what the larva like. But when it comes to plants that just to attract them. In you mentioned cone flower, there's one called Joe pieweed. It's not the tidiest of plants, but it is very attractive to

them. They will come in monarch. Yeah, monarda also called bee balm will attract them. In Golden rod not There are some cultivated varieties that you may be able to find in a garden center, but golden rod is another one that you can bring the monarchs in with. You know, they're pretty uh when it comes to nectar. It it's not that hard to please a monarch. So butterfly bush, that's one for the long term. You've ever grown boodlia, They love that and that is okay, really a really cool

one as well. All right, all right, My other question is i have an indoor aeroponic tower garden and I've started all of my fall plants in it. I've got broadly cauliflower, russels prout, cabbage, and I'm wondering when it's going to be the best time to transplant those seedlings into the outdoor gardens because it's so hot still. They're all about two inches fall now and they've got a really good root system going. But I'm just concerned about the

heap. I would say about mid September, I would bump them up into a I don't know, four inch pot or whatever size so that you can move them outside to a shady spot, because it's going to be a big change from your indoor temperatures. And even though you're bright, tower garden has adequate light to grow things, it's not like sunlight. And so move them out to a shady spot under a tree, on the edges of a tree, maybe a little morning sun. You just don't want to suddenly burn them

with that overall exposure. Give them, give him a couple of weeks there, and then put them on the ground. I mean you could even do that. Maybe a mid September probably about the best. Okay, all right, sounds great, Thank you so much. All right, good luck. Enjoyed the call. I'm glad you are out there doing some gardening. You know, gardening is a great hobby. Nikki was talking about the benefits of

it. And you know, they've hooked people up to monitors to look at their blood pressure, to look at heart rate and other kinds of health indicators, and they can actually show that someone who is in a plant setting has a different response than someone who is not. That is amazing. It's amazing to me that plants affect the add issue with children, plants affect dementia with older adults, Plants affect your blood pressure for example, and many many other

things. It's it's just an amazing thing. And that's what we get when we take our plants and enjoy them and engage with them and everything like that. If you need some plants, I don't know a better place to go down in Houston than Buchanan's Plants, Buchanan's Nursery. You can go to Buchanans Plants dot Com, by the way, if you want more information. They're on Eleventh Street in the Heights. By the way. They have an excellent,

excellent newsletter that you can sign up for and learn more. And there's always stuff going on. I've got some special events coming in. If you're interested in hummingbirds, they can really get you set up with the plants that will bring them in. Now we know hummingbird feeders are important, right that. I mean, that's fine. You can bring them right up to the window if you want. But there's a lot of great plants like Salvia's and

other there's and Buchanans has them. I always say things like you know they specialize in this or that. Well, Buchanans specializest and everything. If you need shade plants, they got one of the best selections. If you need hummingbird plants, Esperanza and Turk's cap and autumn stage. Oh my gosh, it's so easy for hummingbirds when you go to a place like Buchanan's Plants. So again East eleventh Street and the Heights Buchanans Plants dot com. But do

sign up for the newsletter because you can stay up to date. And their website is a wealth of information. I mean, if you want articles, gardening guides and things like that, how to videos, it's there on the Buchanans website. Can't brag on them enough. Really cool. Gosh, I believe I've run out of time today. It looks like I got about a minute left here to go. Too late for a call, that's for sure. We will be back in the morning at six am to answer your gardening

questions. And again, I do want to re iterate that you can listen to garden Line after the fact. If you miss a show by podcast there is whatever your podcast, you know, whether you have iHeartMedia or some other podcasts supplier. Just look for garden Line. I think there's two garden lines in the whole country, once a Lady and I'm not so the other one. So garden Line is available by podcasts. Great way to listen folks that

lived in Houston and moved out. We get calls from them because they're listening online or they're listen by podcast the show. It's it's just fun to connect with people. And if you know folks you kind of like what you're hearing on guarden Line, you think you know somebody that might be interested in that, We'll tell them about the show. We always like to have more listeners, get to visit with more people. And I don't know, if we can't find the answer, or if we don't know the answer, we'll find

it for you, and that is what we aim for. For those of you who've been emailing, I've been out for two weeks now doing some horticles cultural traveling. I'm working on getting back to them. Just be patient with me, but I will get to them.