KTRH GardenLine | 8-6-23

Kat r H 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 so crazy, Trim, just watching so many takes backing a s well. Good Sunday morning, Good Sunday morning, on a good day to be outside this morning, A little bit certainly a good day this afternoon to get out and visit one of our mom and pop local garden centers around the Greater Houston

area. There are some some cool plants in stocked in I'm looking at some of the new things going on Buchanans Nursery. They actually have a nice selection of hummingbird plants all right now. The hummingbirds are flying through by the way, they're starting to arrive. Their big month is going to be September here as they do their migration. But they will eventually head on out most of them. A few we always have a few scragglers. But now's the time

to get out hummingbird feeders if you have them. But I tell you now is also the time to plant hummingbird plants because that just sets you up for a lot of years of success. And I think I always get excited when I look at lists of quality plants that do well. I have some turks cap in my yard. That's that's one of the ones that Buchanans is keeping in stock. In fact, I think they keep that thing in stock all the time. Firebush Amelia pattens is another one of those kinds of plants.

The coral high cuckle is really nice in the spring, and of course this esperanza will take you through summer. The red yuca does amazingly. You know, that's a plant that looks like, well, this ought to be in West Texas own, but it just does well everywhere as long as you don't drown it. Uh, and it its flowers are really loved by by the hummingbirds. There are many other of these we could just keep going on and going on with with things like a pineapple sage. That is one that blooms

in the fall season, primarily late summer and fall. You can get blooms at some other times, but that's it's that's it's at least for me when it's done its best. And just another reminder to always have things that are blooming at different times of the year. You know, your your cigar kafia that is a good one for hummingbirds in it. It'll bloom fairly late in

the season. That's when they're coming through, and that's when you want to have them because once they find your place and they realize, hey, this is a good wayte station, uh, then they're going to be back. And I guess the way I look at it is turn your landscape into a horticultural Bucky's for hummingbirds and they will pull in there, you know, uh in the fall season, which is what we want. Buchanan's has a lot of a lot of other good things like that. You know, they've got

their shade plant collection is really one of the best I've seen. I really am always amazed. I always going there and I see some new plants I haven't seen before, and it's just like, yeah, you know, it's been a long time, but that is that would be an awesome plant to plan here. Of course, they specialize in natives. That's the that's their big deal, the thing that uh yeah, I guess they're known for its in their name. But don't just think natives, I mean think everything.

Right now, They've got a lot of carnivorous plants that they are making available, and this would include a lot of the thing you know you may have known of venus flytraff you know, you put inside in a little glass bot or plastic box and and of course feed it flies. But they have outdoor carnivorous plants as well, some that actually will survive here in the right location and the right situation. They'll survive right here and do well. And so

I would encourage you to get by. I can tell you this there. I defy anybody to walk through Buchanans and not find a hundred plants that they absolutely would love to have that they don't already have in there and their landscape a good time for doing just that. I was talking to somebody the other day about plants that are fragrant, and in fact, I'm going to be

doing an article coming up here on some fragrant plants. And you know, we walk out in the landscape, we look at our plants, and we just you know, there's the visual that we buy far you walk into nursery, there's a big giant red hibiscus flower. I want that plant. But there's also the sense of smell, and there's also the sense of sound and of course, the sound can come, especially when we bring in our songbirds, but it also comes with some of the plants. You know, a

clumping bamboo. As the wind moves through and kind of rustles the leaves, it almost sounds like a raining when you sit underneath a larg clumping bamboo. By the way, plant a clumping if you're gonna plant one, don't the runners unless you go to great links to keep them confined. You do not want to get started without at least in my experience, and your neighbors that if you plant it on the property line don't want you to do that either.

I guess I ought to give you our phone number. That's what we're here for. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you haven't done a fertilization in the last couple of months, or maybe three months at the most, I would say you need to get that done. Fall is coming, and so you know, a product that will give you a good three one two ratio would be a great way to go. You're not going to do better

than a microlife. There's a six two four green bag. It's a good ratio. Of nutrients. You of course get the big three six two four, but because it's made of organic materials, there's everything that was in the organic matters is there, and then that includes secondary nutrients, that includes the trade setlements are the micronutrients as we call them. It's all they are packed

into that bag of Microlife. You can throw in a purple bag of the humates plus and then you're adding something that is the equivalent of composted or concentrated compost in a bag. You can find Microlife products all over town. If you want to specifically look for places, go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer dot com and when you're on there, check out the green plus purple combination that we recommend through the summer. And really you can use it all

all year round, just about whenever you're fertilizing anything about. For right now we're talking we're talking lawns, and that would be the sixty four green bag purple bag Humates plus from Microlife. I was talking about cents and things that

have a nice fragrance. One of my favorite plants is sweet almond verbina a Loisier Vergatta and I grew up in South Texas where there's something called whitebrush and whitebreg makes a wonderful honey The honey bees absolutely love it because you get down in the hot, dry South Texas area and anything's got a bloom on it, bees will take advantage of it. But this is a relative of it.

But it makes a shrub slash tree. It gets quite large. In fact, the one thing I'd like them to do to Sweet album of Verbena is come up with a more compact form, something about four or five feet tall. But it's still well worth planting. It has this wonderful vanilla almond kind of fragrance that you just have to smell it. I know what I'm talking about. Bees love it, absolutely love it. I've mentioned it began

as a minute ago. They've they've got a good stock of it in and I would plant something like that maybe on the south end or west end or west side of your outdoor sitting area if your landscape layout allows for that. And the reason is, you know, the during especially the warm gardening season, our primary wind is out of the south west, and so that way it wafts the fragrance toward wherever you sit. It just makes sense to me.

Well, I believe it's time to take a break. If you would like to get on the boards, give Josh a call at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. This will be, this will be, will be. Well, good morning, good Sunday morning. You're listening to garden Line. We're here to talk about gardening. That makes sense, doesn't it. If you'd like to give us a call, our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four fifty eight seventy four.

We'll talk about whatever you're interested in related to the garden. Could be vegetables, lawns, trees, I don't know, maybe even let you brag on the bestimated patch you've ever grown before this summer. Well, it's just a fun time to get out in the garden and enjoy ourselves. You know. The gardening is I think that the best hobby that there is because of all the benefits that it has, and and folks that are interested in gardening but feel like, yeah, I don't know how to do that. Well,

that's why we're here. Give us a call. We will get you on the right start so you can have success. Because I think everybody can garden. I think it's just a matter of learning some basic principles, weeding through some bologna that's out there, and coming down with Hey, here's how it's done. Here's some tips, here's some suggested plants, and we can get you off to a good start. And that's what we want to do. We're speaking getting off to a good start. This morning. We're going

to head out to Spring and talk to Daniel. Hello, Daniel, Hey, skip a great show. A love it. So I've had an issue with lantana. I've got a lot of it on the south side of my property. It was blooming like crazy for a while and then all of a sudden it stopped booming. I took a look at it yesterday. It looks like I've got a lot of mealy bugging in its space. You know, it's a little cottony. Look at these bugs. Okay, well they're tough

to get rid of. Um. You know, using a systemic on that would probably not be good because lantana is one of the plants that it'll even attract hummingbirds, but it attracts, you know, some beneficials that we would rather not put the systemic in the beneficial insects through the nectar. I guess that that kind of leaves us with the you know, the old Really a

couple of options. One is cutting a plant like that bat and getting all the debris out of there, to get as much of it as you can out, and then as a new growth comes out, doing some treatments on it to try to shut down the problem. So you may want to go through a period where you're not blooming just to get ahead of this one. All the other things we do form mealy bugs, like it's excital soap,

horticultural oil. Getting coverage inside the canopy of a lantana plants pretty tough, and you absolutely have to give the bath the bugs a bat in that stuff for it to work. That they aren't poisons the oil and the soap they coat the bug and kill them physically like that. So that's not really practical. Go ahead, I don't know that's it's just say yeah, yeah,

it's a it's a problem. Now. Mealybugs have their enemies, and so one thing you want to kind of avoid is getting on an insecticide treadmill where you know you're just treating and treating, because when you kill the things that attack mealybugs. They can be worse. We have that even a worse situation with white flies, the same kind of problem. We spray and we end

up helping the white flies in the process. But I would you know, you might try something like a perretheran based insecticide, something hopefully that's not super long lasting. The goal is to spray them, get it done, and then you know, have have that product no longer killing insects so that the beneficials don't they're able to recover. Got it, Okay, yeah, not, I'll get whatever it is what it is. I'll just get up the shears today and start cutting back, right. Yeah. And after you cut

back, then you can use you know, whatever you want to. Just shut down, you know, get the blooms off there. Just shut things down and I think you can get ahead of them. Okay, I appreciate it. Hey, Daniel, thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Yeah. Some of these pasts they are just I mean, they are

they are tough. They're very tough to deal with. Hey, if you are interested perhaps in getting a new roof, maybe you had some damage to the old roof, maybe it's just getting old, or maybe there are some new technologies you would like to take advantage of. Well, Brinkman Roofing would be the the the company you need to talk to. And here's why I say that they've been in business here for fifty years. This is not a fly by nice night stick, a business card in your door, storm chaser

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fit perfectly. They also have a solar shingle, which I think is pretty cool. So instead of a big panel on your house, now you got a shingle that it itself is the sun collecting energy making device. And boy, can you ever make some energy these this summer with all of these blazing sunny days. Well, if you want to find out more about Brinkman, just go to the website. It's Brinkman Quality dot com Brinkman Quality dot com. Or you can give Jason and his team a call at two eight one

four eight zero seven six six three. We're gonna head now out to stagecoach and talking to Jerry. Hello, Jerry. Hey, it's a Terry with the team and that's okay, Terry, all right, we'll talk to Terry. Yeah, I got a question. You know what this for long heat dry, So we got going on looking for the truth about water in the

lawn. All right. I've always been told with doing water tonight, Joe getting molden fungus, and then don't water during the heat of the day because that'll shock and burn it up. But I go out to the golf course and they're watering during the heat of the day and green Step says, oh no, that's fine. It depends on what kind of fertilizer. And then is it, you know, better to do five minutes a day every day? Are you better off? You know, soaking it's for twenty minutes every

fourth day. So it look just fun to have all these conflicting comments by people who claim that they're right and other people are wrong. That's why I'm calling an expert to get the lowdown. All right, well, thank you, but folks, at a twenty dollar bill, we'll get you that kind of compliment. By the way, now, I would put this way number one, The idea that if you water during a sunny day you're going to

burn your plants is absolutely false. Now if you had, you know, if you lived up in College Station where there's so much sodium in the water, it'll fry plants. Yes, that may be a possibility, but in general, no, I mean think about this way. When it rains, raindrops are left sitting on leaves of whatever plant, and then the sun comes out. And that's one of the things people say is the raindrop acts like a magnifying glass. And you know how a magnifying glass with a sun will

burn things. Well, every time it rained down, our plants would have burn spots all over them. So that's not true. The way you take care of a lawn is you give a good deep soaking on an infrequent basis.

So if you can fill that soil profile. Let's say you apply one inch of irrigation and fill that soil profile, and then over the coming week the water starts to move out of the soil, whether it's evaporating or moving into plants or moving down with gravity, And as it does that, it brings oxygen back into the soil, which is really important for the root system.

And then you water again when it's needed again. The little squirt every day or every two days, or even every three days really is more than you need to water. Now. I know some people like to water twice a week, and I'll let me just say, I'll go along with that to a degree. I mean, that's okay, but I don't water my lawn hard to even once ever seven days, and I've got a good, deep rooted lawn and i just don't need to. And every time you water,

you increase the potential for disease problems. And if you don't water very long, you end up just wetting the thatch and the grass blades and very little goes into the soil. So that's why I like to put on an inch when I water. That may have been more of an answer than you were asking for, but hopefully that is what you want to know right now. That helps, thank you. Huh you bet, yep, that's it. So if you want the most efficiency, water when evaporation is the lowest

and that would be about right now before the sun comes up. All right, sir, all right, thank you, Hey, thanks Terry, appreciate the call. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, do you have a little piece of property that you purchased outside of town. Maybe it's not a little, maybe it's a big, but you're needing some kind of equipment, you know, to help you get the jobs around the

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o one. With the package that you can put with it, you mean you can put a front endloader on. You put a mower on the back. I mean all kinds of things. Go to Lansdown Moody because that combination Lansdown Moody and Caboda that is a winning combination on both sides. You can go to lmtractor dot com LM tractor dot com and listen to this. Now's the time to do it because zero down, zero percent interest for seven years, that's eighty four months. That is that is an opportunity that you do

not want to pass up. You can contact Lansdown Moody at LM tractor dot com. There's Lansdown Moody's all around the Greater Houst scenario. Or just go to Caboda USA and you get more information there as well. Yeah, that's it man. I love doing stuff on a tractory. Used to have a little property up in Willis excuse me, and uh just getting out and you know, working on the land and moving things around and planting and all the kind of stuff. It's just a lot of fun, I guess. Uh

like Eddie Eddie Albert from Green Acres. Do you remember green Acres? Nikki? All right, Green Acres is the place to be a place to be. Farm living as a life for me land spreading. All right, Well, enough of that, it's time for the Nicky News Network. We call that NNN around here. Hey yeah, Curtis CNN, but you don't know you want NNN for me spreading out keep man, hadn't just give me that

country man? How many of you remember green Acres? So that was a lot of folks in reduction to a county agent, which is what which is what I do as it done it for forty three years county extension agents with Agrilife Extension. That we cringe when we see green Acres because I don't know, mister Kimball was not exactly the best representative of the field. Let's say he was outstanding in his field, but he wasn't outstanding in his field.

If you know what I'm saying. All right, you're listening to Garden Line our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four R just K T R H. That makes it simple and easy. We're here to talk about all kinds of things gardening with you this morning, and that's what we were going to continue to do. I was talking about fragrant plants a little bit earlier, and

I mentioned alman Verbino, which is one of my favorite. Another good one, and it does so well as we move east in Texas. The further east you go, the better it seems to do. Is the gardenia gardinia just has a heavenly fragrance. I mean it, it's a perfume that is just unbelievable. I really enjoy that. Sometimes it give me a little bit of a challenge to grow, especially if you have a heavy clay soil or high pH soil, and some of those conditions can give it a little bit

of a challenge. But it's a good one. It is a very very good one. Another one that I love is white butterfly ginger. And by the way, that one is late summer and fall is when it does most of its blooming early fall. The white butterfly ginger is a type of hedicium. It's a very upright stalk with just a cluster of beautiful white flowers. There's other hediciums, other colors that are very pretty, but I love the fragrance of just the plain old white butterfly ginger. We I think I've told

you this before, but when one of my children was born. I cut a flower from the garden, brought it into the hospital room, put it in the vase, and nurses were walking in from the hallway trying to figure out what that smell was and where was it coming from. I mean it literally is that fragrant and wonderful and enticing. One of our main I guess, almost a poster plant for native plants here in Texas is Texas Mountain Laurel. It's got those big clusters of purple flowers in the spring, and it's

a native. Of course, it needs really good drainage to do well over here, but you can grow it over here. It just, you know, you just don't need to. It needs to think it's still up on a hill in West Texas rather than a swamp in East Texas. And so you treat it accordingly and it'll do pretty good. But it has it's fragrance, I would say, would be gaudy. If you can call a fragrance gaudy. Think of the old grape bubble gum, remember that superbubble bubble gum

in that strong grape grape flavor. That's what it smells like. And it again will knock you down when you walk around the corner and that breeze wafts by, you will really really know you've got that plant. As many other good fragrant plants, but the nose nose some of those wonderful plants. Let's head out to Katie and we're gonna talk to Hank. Hello, Hank, good morning. I have doorga grass. It's on the east side of the

house. Plenty of sun and there's a patch of its just discoloring and it may be a little brown spot or two, but for the most part it is continued to discolor. H And it's a it's just a pretty large area of kind of irregular, no pattern to it. Yes, yeah, it may be. On an average Zoysia can become a very dense grass and a lot of times if you're water infrequently, you could be creating just a disease. Have an environment in there, and you may be seeing one of the

several diseases that can attack zoysia that's going on. That that's a possibility, of course, me hearing a description and diagnosing a disease that's not that you know that, that's a very best shot kind of approach. Um, Well, of course I did the opposite. I thought it was a lack of water. So I'm found a water more okay issue, Um, well, you know that could be the problem. It could be that it's a lack of water. Next time the water's on and just kind of go look at

how your sprinklers are distributing. Sometimes our systems there's areas that just don't get as much water as the rest of the yard, and so that could be a factor. But over WHI trying to say. Yeah, what I was trying to say is it's definitely not a lack of water at this point. Okay, Okay, well then we'll then we'll go back to the maybe too much as being a possibility. There's a disease called take all root rot. They can affect zoysia. I don't I've never noticed chinch bugs as a big

zoysia problem. I suppose they might feed on soysia a little bit, but I don't think Okay, yeah, I pulled it up. Okay, yeah, I think we're probably talking about a disease of some sort in there. I would let's back off. Let's water if we can soaking once a week, but but not too often. Try to try to have that grass spend most of its week dry, meaning not wet foliage. You know, the soil will have moisture from your watering. It takes a while for that to

move out. But that's what I would recommend. The only other thing would be to take a sample and send it to the state Plant Clinic and have them put it under a microscope and officially diagnose it. They could name the disease and what to do. But I I'd try backing off on the water first and see if it gets better. If that doesn't work, you bet you, you bet you, and and thank you for the call, Hank.

But if that doesn't work, give me a call back. We can switch over and we can move to a funge decide if we think we need to. Okay, what did you us? Okay, it's one turf side or something I don't remember. Okay, it's like a hundred dollars a bag. Okay, and how long ago would you do that? Yesterday? Oh? Okay? Well, hey, you know I was gonna say, just calling garden line will make it get better. And since I know you just put a fungicide down, maybe I can take credit for that. We don't

eat a way. I feel better all right, Yeah, that's good. Well, let's see how it does. If it was that particular product you mentioned, we may need to possibly shift to a different kind of product depending on the disease. You know, not one product, just like one medicine doesn't fix all our woes. We may have to switch. But I think the combination of that and backing off the water, I believe you're gonna be okay. Hang, thank you, sir. All right, you take care.

Thank you for the call. Appreciate that our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. When you need stuff for your lawn and garden, I don't care where you live in the Greater Houston area. Where can you go? Well, I'll tell you where you can go. You can go to Ace Hardware. There's thirty nine locally owned Ace Hardware stores. That means each one

is in its own way a little unique. Of course, they're all Ace Hardware stores, but each owner gets to kind of create the type of store they're looking to create. Carry you'll find some very unusual things that, you know, someone decides to focus on a particular type of thing. I know, some of them have like fudge bars in them. Can you imagine that? Go to hardware store and I mean it is outstanding the selection that they

have. There's all kinds of things in Ace, but most importantly there's fertilizer. There's products that you need to control disease, insects, weeds on your lawn, and then there's everything else you need for indoor and out or living. It is the one stop place. If I mentioned it on garden Line, go to ACE Hardware and you'll find it there. Go to Ace Hardware dot com to find one of those thirty nine store and probably two or three

near you. Just look for their store locator and they'll be all set up to go. Well, we're gonna take a break. It is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd like to give Josh a call and get on the boards. Is it's still over? We still drew, that's my poltid ain't ringing I as soon it stid ain't. I've hadn't mind to take time to buy somebody into but I'm not too sure that

I'm still over. Good morning on a what is to be a beautiful Sunday, I am seeing a little light gathering outside start to make out some things. I think if you get out today in the early morning hours, you're gonna find it to be downright pleasant. Okay, now, isn't it interesting? How you know? If I were to see the high for the day it was going to be ninety six, I would get really excited. And that's a sad, sad situation when ninety six is exciting, But it is

what it is. It's where we live. But the morning hours are a good time to get out there and get some work done. I like it because it's quiet, and I like it because the birds are singing. They get up and they do their thing, and I get to be out there and enjoy. Let's just say, that's kind of a therapy, right, I think that you might agree with that, may be able to identify with that. And we start messing around with plants and we start puttering along and

trying to grow things and do different things. It just, I don't know, it's fulfilling. It's a renewal, renewal process. You know. Gardeners are always hopeful because we always know that next season is going to be the best one we ever had. Best tomatos we've ever grown, the sweetest peaches we've ever had, the most beautiful landscape we've ever had. If you're interested in retiring, maybe you're looking to move and find a community where you can

live a very active, enjoyable lifestyle. You know you've you've done the work, thing you've been through that you would like to just kick back and really enjoy yourself. Well, Dellweb is that kind of community. They design them for folks that are fifty five and better. They design communities that have programs, active lifestyle programs designed around you. They design communities of beautiful homes with beautiful walk places. The one down in full Sure that's going in less than

two miles from downtown Fulsure on three fifty nine. That Dellweb community has a community garden in it as well. Now you can go online to dellweb dot com slash Houston and find out more information about it, or give him a call two eight one four five nine zero six zero nine. You need to go buy there and look at it, because that way you can discover that

Dellweb difference for yourself. And I think as a gardener, that is one heck of a great idea to have a community garden right there in the community. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was talking yesterday to a group of folks at the Opapalooza and we were talking. I was talking about the two teas that make the phone ring. Trees and turf. That's the two main ones and all the things we do to take care of

our trees. And you know, trees are resilient. They have extensive root systems. An established mature tree has roots reaching out maybe two and a half times the height of the tree in all directions. Ferries with soil and species and whatnot, but the bottom line is the root are way out there, way past the branches. Now there's there's roots from the trunk all the way

out. So when you're taking care of a tree, maybe you've just planted one, maybe you planted one last winter or last fall or even a year ago. Those trees have very limited roots system. Still they're working their way out and you know, the day after you plant it, the whole root system still in that cylinder. How do you take care of it? Well, the way you do it is you keep that root ball moist with small amounts of water really on a day or every other day basis for the first

week or two or three or four, and then not large amounts. You don't want to create a swamp. You want to keep the soil just moist for the roots. And because the roots are confined pumping all the water out of one spot, you gotta water that spot. And then as the tree gets bigger, you water in a larger and larger area. Someone call me the other day and they add a tree about the size of a coke can, about three inches across, and I was telling them, what you need

it. You're probably gonna need a water about a twelve foot wide circle once the tree is hitting about that stage. And that's why I like tree hugger sprinklers because you can do that. Yeah. Tree hugger is it's a little sprinkler. You put it up around your tree. It has a little hinge so it goes around the tree. You can turn on the valve to you know, of course you have your faucet at the house, but the valve on the sprinkler you can turn on to just barely put water out or to

water a wide area. Now you can find tree Hugger everywhere. I mean every time I go into one of our sponsors, I see tree Hugger in there. Whether it's a home nursery or whether it's a feed store, whether you know an ace hardwarester, you're gonna find tree Huggers. You can go online to tree Hugger Sprinklers dot com and find out more information. I'd recommend you do that, but I'm telling you, when you invest in a woody ornamental plant, and when we go into this kind of hot and very little

rain, it is very important to keep the soil moderately moist. And that requires some thinking and some doing. Where are the roots. Now it's a new plant, they're all at the bottom. It's an established plant, they're all way out beyond the branches. And if it's somewhere in between, well you get the idea. But you've got to make sure they don't lack for water, because when a tree gets stressed, then you're going to end up

with all kinds of problems. If it's an oak tree, hypoxylan canker can come in and kill it Upoxyland is out there across Houston and all the oak trees. It's there, but when the tree gets weak, it moves in and it kills the tree. So how do we avoid hypoxylan. We can't spray for it. We keep the tree out of stress. That's what we do. And speaking of trees and deep root watering is important. You can put the same as deep root feeding, but it's getting water down there in

the ground. Sometimes you put the sprinkler on for the lawn and you just don't get it wet deep enough to really benefit that root system. And the folks that Affordable Tree, Martin spoon More, they know how to do this. They have the equipment to do this. You can give them a call at seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven three six nine twenty six sixty three. They can come out and during these hard times.

But remember, don't wait until the tree looks like it's having a problem, because you are way past when you should have saved that tree. When you get to that point, now, folks like Martin and Affordable Tree, they're going to be able to do all kinds of heroic things to do whatever is necessary to help your trees, but avoid the problem rather than hitting the crisis stage. And you know, there's no tree ambulance to come out and save the tree, and you need to take care of it. And that's why

having them come out and do deep root feeding is important. Go to aff Tree service dot com, I said deep root feeding. I'm at deep root watering. In this case, they also do deep root feeding. Give McCall also seven month, three, six nine nine, twenty six sixty three. Pretty simple, pretty easy, And it's nice hiring somebody who shows up when they say they'll show up, and does a good job and doesn't sell you something you don't need. Oh my gosh. I mean whether you're going to

the mechanic or hiring a landscaper or hiring a treecare person. I just want somebody who will tell me the truth and do what needs to be done for a reasonable price. That's why I like Affordable Tree so much. I talk about how important it is to take care of our soil, and yesterday I was visiting with some of the folks from Nature's Way and they are really the originator of a lot of the quality soils we enjoy here, whether it's rose

soil, whether it is you know, a leafmol compost. They're the ones who they started it, they know how to do it, and they have plenty of supply of all of that on hand. They also have a two acre nursery that is being expanded with one of the better selections of native plants in the Houston area. Pretty impressive. Nature's Ways up there on forty five forty five. As you head toward Conrow about where fourteen eighty eight comes in, you just turn to the east to the right if you're going north,

cross over the railroad tracks and you're there. They sell bag, they sell bulk, and you can get deliveries. Always start with a soil, and always start with quality composts, not wood chunks. We're talking about quality material and Nature's Way. They don't know how to do anything other than quality material. They don't know how to do anything other than take the time that is needed to make quality. Anybody can grind up some wood, throw it in a pile, keep it wet, get it to turn dark, and then

start selling it. That is not quality compost, and then it's not on Nature's Way goes about doing their business. Well, you are listening to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are going to take a little break here to the noon news, not Noon the news, top of the hour, if you would like to give us a call seven one three two, one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. A little bit later this morning, in the next hour,

the eight o'clock hour, we're gonna have Dean Nelson come in. We're gonna talk about the Randy Lemon Memorial Scholarship. Maybe I'll pick his brain a little bit for some of the fertilizer technologies that are out there. But we're

gonna really go into a little bit deeper dive into this scholarship. And I know a lot of you listen to Randy for years and years, very beloved lots of lemonheads out there, And I can't think of a better cause for those of you who really enjoyed listening to Randy, who appreciated the way he helped you for decades, stick around for the eight o'clock an hour for that. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised

on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with scarp Rictor. Just watch him as a wood well good Sunday morning, the sun has broken through. It is beautiful outside, and I would suggest taking advantage of the cooler part of the day to get a couple of things done and then being ready to make plans to head out and visit some of our garden centers this afternoon. I know it's hot. I know it's hot outside, but there's stuff to be doing. Now. We're preparing for fall. Now, we're taking of

our lawns. Now, we're making sure that our plants have what they need to get through this heat. And go to a quality garden center, a mom and pop that knows what they're talking about. They hire people that and they train people to know what they're talking about. And you get service, You get help, you get what you need, You get answers that are correct, you get a friendly folks knowledge before I mean, can I go

on and on? They're just there is no better way to save money than to go to a quality garden center by a quality plant that has adapted to your area, with advice on how to take care of it. That is the package right there. I mean people think that you know, you save a nickel here on some plant. It may be a plant that shouldn't even be planted here. Some of the pot I'm not going to name names. Maybe I should, but I'm not going to name names. There are some

national companies out there that have garden centers all over the place. But I've gone in and seeing red rad bras for sale in Houston. I've seen, let's see conquered grapes, well, just grape, juice, grape. I've seen those for sale here. They don't they don't grow here. You don't plant those here. But same package of plants, I guess, goes all over the place. Who knows. That's why I like to go to a quality home mom and popping garden center. Plus, it's just fun. It's

just a lot more fun plants that are being taken care of. Well, here I go. I'm just drowning on our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four, and we are going to head out to the woodlands and talk to Brian. Hello, Brian, Good morning, Skip. I got a question about three East Pilatka holly trees that I planted in the spring. They were thirty down and I saw my watering system sprinklers were taking care of them. But I noticed yesterday that one of them is losing

a lot of its leaves. I've done a more of a deep watering to it, but I need to know is there anything else I should do as far as maybe any kind of fertilizer to help it out. No, not fertilizer right now, Let's just keep the roots hydrated. The first year or two for hollies is very critical once they're established. You know, we're not so worried about a little bit of drought here and there. They're pretty tough. But the first year or two is critical, and they don't really have

a way of showing you they need water other than turning brown. And it's a little late, you know what I'm saying. And so we want to always just dig down in the soil about six inches four inches, feel the soil, and then you know for sure. I mean, I could tell you put on this much, you know, a week. I could tell you a lot of other kind of rules of thumb, but the bottom line is in your soil, which may be anything from a sandy soil to a

heavy clay to a really quality rosebed mix or something. There's a lot of variation, and all the spot could be sunny or shady, and it just varies so much. That's why I just say, look, get down there. You don't have to do it every time you water, but just get on occasionally and feel and see how are things going? Am I keeping this adequately moist? And that's about the best advice I can offer to you on those East polatkas that you're dealing with. That's a beautiful holly. Okay,

great, Yeah, that's that's what I'll do. I'll just be more diligent and checking the water level. I think that's the most important thing now once they're established and they're growing. Yeah, I'm a little bit of fertilizer, A little acidic type fertilizer especially would do well. So if it's made for azaleas and gardenias and blueberries and stuff, that'd be a good one for hollies

too. That works pretty well. But right now it's not a lack of nutrients, and we don't want to complicate things with especially a salt based product and overdoing it during a dry, hot, dry period. Okay, great, I appreciate the advice. All right, thanks sir, appreciate the call. That's uh, you know, taking care of our plants is really important. I was, I have a you know, I kind of spend part of my day, part of my day, part of my week up in

the Brian College Station area and come down here. I'm here all weekends. It's it's kind of a interesting doing see in both places because you see a lot of variation in things. But anyway, I got house plants in both places. And I came back the other day and I was checking out my house plants here in Houston, and some of them were not very happy with me. I had let the temperature get a little warm in there, and

they were kind of like, where have you been. But every time I come back, they always get excited to see me because I show up. I get my watering can out, and I put in some Microlife bio matrix. That's the orange label Microlife. It's a seven one three. I like that higher first number in this liquid fertilizer because house plants or foliage plants buy and large, even if they have a few of them have a bloom on

them. But in general, this is a super way to get vigor to support vegetative growth, which is part of the beauty of the house plants. Microlife Biomatrix orange label. Outside, you can use the Ocean Harvest blue label. That's a four two three fertilizer. It's a fish based fertilizer. It's essential for taking care of all of your outdoor family plants. Now. I love it for containers because you know, you mix it up, follow the label, it's not going to burn infect You can dilute it down and even

use it as a folior spray if you want to. By the way, the other thing about that orange label, the Indoor seven one three is it has a lot of beneficial microbes that are in that product itself, and just another reason for that product to be successful or your plants to be successful when you use it. That's why I use it. Go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com, Microlife Fliser dot com. Check out where you can buy Microlife. Check out the products that I just talked about, learn a little bit more

about them. This is a good time for indoor gardening. Hey, when it's one hundred degrees outside, why not mess around with your house plants? Right. I think it's so cool that we have a hobby that we can do indoors, we can do outdoors, you can do inclement weather and nothing stops us. Well, let's head out to Alvin and we're gonna talk to Debbie. Hello, Debbie, I skip. I had a fifty year old water oak removed from the front yard because it was rotten. They did a

great job with the removal and the stump grinding. Well, now I have the opportunity to have someone with an excavator come in and remove the root ball, okay, and I'm wondering if I should do that or just leave it be and wait until next year to replant a tree. Well, if you can get it out of there, that's good. You know, stump grinders can come in and chomp it all up, But then you end up with a lot of raw wood mixed all in with the soil in that spot.

And so that means it's going to settle a lot more over time, because that wood is going to decompose away over time and tie up the nitrogen for a while when it starts that decomposition. So I mean, if you got somebody that can pop as much of that trunk and or you know, stump and root out of there, I would do that. Otherwise, you know, you can do everything from just leaving it in place and turning the stump into a feature in the yard to having it ground or you know, whatever

is most convenient for you. Okay. I just didn't know what would happen to if there was a sewer line nearby. Oh, that's a good question. That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know that. I mean, you would need to make sure on that one, the chances of them running that right under that oak or even really close to the oak or slim. But if the house was old enough, it could have predated the tree. But I doubt that's the case. Yeah, yeah, all right,

Well on that one, I don't know. You have to get somebody out there to you know, try to figure out where these lines are and where they're going if you don't have a map with the property, so to just kind of be careful. All right, thank you, you bet you take care of Debbie. All right, it's time for a break. Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four give Josh call, get you on the boards and we will talk to you when we come back.

Well, good morning, good Sunday morning, on a good day for gardening, for talking about gardening. Maybe some of your awake and shuffling around the house, a cup of coffee, getting ready to go to church, or whatever you are is in your plans for today. We are glad you're listening. Thank you for listening. We enjoy getting to visit with you about

all kinds of things. Plants, you know, it is it is summertime, and sometimes when you know, I've been talking all day about protecting your trees, taking care of your trees, watering your trees, all those kind of things. Well, it's also a time when you can steal plant trees. Now, if you go to a verdant tree farm, for example, you get to wander through there and pick the tree out you want. It's kind of like shopping in the grocery store. Go down the aisles and I

want that, I want this. Well, they'll tag the tree for you, and they'll bring it to your house and they'll plant it. And they know how to do it. They know how to successfully plant a tree. And this kind of weather if you'd like to do that, If you want a palm tree, this is a great time for planting palms. You know, palms actually are best when they're planted in warmer weather. And verdant tree farm has a selection of palms, like I mean, nobody's business. All

kinds of wonderful palm trees that they carry. They got the Florida sable in the Midjule and Canary Island, and the mule palm, the windmill palm, and on and on. When you think about palm trees, you need to think about Verdant tree Farm. But not just palms. Verdant carries all kinds of trees that are quality and they know what they're doing. So you can take a picture of your house in there and say, hey, what do you think would be good in this spot in the yard, and they can

help you with that. They can advise you on that. That is Verdant Tree Farm. And I know the word is pronounced verdint, but for some reason, in my head, Verdant as someone always comes out. So if I'm using it like I'm trying to say the word greening, I guess I'd say verden. But that doesn't make any sense, does it. Hey, let's go out to Montgomery. We're gonna talk to Jim. Good morning, Jim. Hey, how are you doing? I'm well, thank you? How are you today? Oh man? Loving the dream? There you go?

What's up? I got a question about about rose a rose and also have a comment after that if you don't mind about the music. But there's a heard of a rose, a purple rose called a B Tide. Have you heard of that? I was wondering how hardy that would be? No, I have not. I have not heard of that EBB Tide. We had him in in Tyler, Texas. They said that some nursery up there had him. And I was just told about it because I was I was wanting a purple rose and they said that that's not you know, real you

know, there's not real purple or something. But uh, but you know, they said an EBB Tide would be the one. And it was about sixty five bucks for one. You know, it's three gallons size, I think is what they said. Okay, it was just a friend of mine talking about it. It had been up to Tyler and saw one or something. I don't think you gonna have to go Tyler to get one. R c W Nursery carries EBB Tide that they have a lot of four pages long

of roses and they do. Okay, EBB Tide. Arc W is the nursery over there where two forty nine, tom Ball Parkway comes into BELTWAYE. I know where it is. I was like to make a comment about the music. There's a song by the Beach Boys called a Sloop John B. I know that. And every time you have one of those that caller that calls up pretty regular, her name is John B. It always reminds me of that song. Okay, John B. If you're here, and if you're listening, you heard that, Yeah, slop John B got on the

sloop jomb Yeah, my grandfather and me, I remember that. Yeah, that's a great tune. Well, thank you. Well, we try to surprise you with music so you never know what's coming next. I heard a rumor already that we might we might actually I don't know, play a yodeling or a barbershop song every night. We try not to. Well, we have fun here. Come on, have some fun with us, all right, Jo, thanks a lot, and yeah, give our CW call. They'll get in today. I don't know that. I know it's on the

list of the roses they carry. Then if they don't know it, they'll get it. That's our CW. All right, I'll talk to them about it, all right, all right, you take care. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Yeah, you can give us a call. We'll talk all kinds of things gardening with you. If you'd like to. Josh, you get you on the board too. By the way, Hey, if you live up in the Spring Creek area, we're talking about

Magnolia Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight. Your hometown feed store is Spring Creek Feed Center. They carry the fertilizer lines that I talk about here. They carry lawn and garden supplies. They carry things like herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, those things. They carry all the kinds of feed stuff you need, quality food for your pet and for your animals. They are I'll tell

you. When you walk in there, you are greeted. It's friendly, courteous staff, just like you would expect from one of our garden line feed store favorites that we have around the community. If you're FA, f H, Military, senior citizen, there's discounts for each of those groups. They even special order products and they have a delivery service. I don't know what more you could ask for Spring Creek Feed and Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy

eight. I love going into feed stores. So I don't know, there's just something just something unique about it. Maybe it's because I grew up and going to feed stores and you know, they're just that that feed store smell that I love it, you know, the smell of fresh feed and things

like that. I think that's cool. I was talking earlier about the importance of getting your lawn fertilized if you haven't already, the importance of continuing to provide a gradual supply of nutrients over time, and that over time, the that is the key. You want to gradually feed your lawn over time when you do that. Now, nitro Fole Summer Essentials has a product, it's a sweet Green product that I think is an excellent choice. It's a it's

an organic fertilizer. It's made from a molasses base, and so when the microbes get ahold of anything that's sugary like molasses, that makes them very very happy, really kicks them into high gear. The Sweet Green is eleven percent nitrogen and it will just dissolve away into your lawn and you will see the results from it. Now You can get sweet green every where you get nitro files, so Ace hardware stores, Mom and Pop, Garden Center's feed source.

It's available in a lot of different places, but that nitrofos sweet green. By the way, you want to put about ten pounds per thousand square feet on your lawn when you fertilize about ten pounds of the sweet green per thousand square feet has a wonderful fresh sweet smell. That's why they call it sweet green. I think you ought to try it out. They got a great stock in this year because the demand has been so high on that product, and for good reason. We're going to head out now to Huntsville and

talk to Charles Well, good morning, Charles, Good morning. Yes, I'm in Huntsville about forty miles north and my pear trees last year were just loaded and this year not a pair. And I had a neighbor that had a huge pear tree and it was the same situation. Last year. They were loaded. This year, no pairs. Is that normal for them to produce every other year? Well, there can be a little bit of that, not as much as with pecans, but you can get a little bit

of that because pears do ripen a little bit later in the season. They're not as late as pecans though. That's why we don't have that alternate bearing so bad. Let me ask you a question. Did your pears get a little stressed from heat and drought last year and then maybe bloom a little bit on the fall. Did you notice that, Well, we didn't have the heat and stress that y'all did down there in Texas. Okay, so you didn't have a fall bloom on your pears, No, I did not.

Okay, in the spring this year, did your trees bloom? No, they did not. Okay, the apple tree, the apple tree did great, it's loaded. But the pear trees were just void of blooms, even blooms. Okay, well, there we're getting to the bottom of the problem. Then for some reason, they didn't set blooms in the previous year, and your pear trees have been setting blooms since a little a little bit earlier in the summer, and it'll go on into the next month or so.

And so this is a critical time that they're adequately watered, that they're not in stress, because you want to get those blooms made now, because by the time we get to a late fall all the way up until bloom time, you know they've either done it or they have it. And so next spring for you to have a bloom show, that means July, August, maybe early September, mid September. Those trees are needing to do that bloom set. So that's when we really want to avoid any kind of stress.

That would be about the only thing I can think of. There's not a disease or an insect that causes them not to set blooms. So it's going to be something along one of those lines. What can you spray an apple tree with? I noticed that that the apples I'm getting have little black holes in them, and some of them are turning rotten and even when they fall. Yeah, we have a problem with that. Apples are a challenger because of our heat and humidity. And there I'm not there. I'm north.

I'm north of Huntsville, Alabama. Oh, Huntsville, Alabama. I miss that. I'm sorry. I think in Huntsville, Texas. I missed that, all right, So hunts I'll now, Okay, Well that helps you know. We've got a Paris, Texas. So if you come told me you're calling from Paris. I wouldn't think France, all right. So anyway, yeah, there there are home fruit labeled spray products that have fungicides end them that you can spray for the black rot and for some of the leaf

spots on apples that apples are prone to foliage issues. And so I would I would go to wherever your local garden centers are out there in the Huntsville area, and uh, you know, see what they have on hand. But you're going to have needed to start that a little bit earlier if you if you've got fruit, you're needing to spray for the sake of the fruit, But when you have leaves, you're having to spray for the leaves too, because if you get a lot of leaf drop on your apples, then

again same thing. They're setting their bloom buds now, and there's not the carbohydrates they need to do as good a job on that either. So I wouldn't delay anymore. I would go ahead and get out there and try to protect whatever you have left, because even if you don't, you know, an apple that already has disease is a goner, but you do still have the potential for setting those bloom buds. For next year, or protecting any

apples that haven't gotten infected yet. The problem we have is a lot of the garden centers up here don't carry the line of products that that we I used to live in Houston, So yeah, we just can't get the products that you carried down there, right right. I understand that there are some ways to mail order some stuff in you can you look online for that kind of thing. That's a possibility when you just can't find it local. Yeah,

I think Amazon. I just how about one name, one, one thing that you could tell me for the the apple tree that I could order online from Amazon. Well, you're catching me off guard in that. I'm trying to think of. You know, what is labeled for the apples for that particular fungicide. Probably a product that had either manab or manko zeb in it that was labeled for apples would be a good one to try. Those are pretty effective fungicides. Let's see the leaf spots. Something with a dacannil

in it would do that. But I think the app the apple, I don't think the apple rots Dacannil's gonna work on. So I may look for the manab manca zab maybe something would have like a propocondazole type product, But again it's all going to be about is it labeled for it or not. You can find those products. If they don't have apples on the label, don't use them on your apple. I'll look for those deals. Okay.

I appreciate your insight and thank you for your information. All right, Charles, thank you for calling, and have a good time out there in Huntsville, Alabama. I was talking about fertilizing in your lawn a minute ago, and when you fertilize you always need to think about micronutrients as well. And asamite is a mind product that is a basically a crushed mineral mind up in Utah that is chock full of all kinds of trace elements, trace elements that

your plants need. Certainly the lawn is well as other plants. I put it in vegetable gardens because I want my produce to be as packed with quality nutrients for my own human health as I can, and asamites that that's what it is. Go to Azamite Texas dot com to find out more information. I wouldn't mix it with my fertilizer and apply it at the same time because

particle size is different. But I would follow up first with the fertilizer and then asamit, vice versa, and make sure you take care of those things and get that done. Well, it is time for the Nicki News Network, so I'm going to bow out here. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Give Josh a cold who'll get you right on the boards. Well, good morning, good morning, and welcome to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here

to talk gardening. What is your question? What are you interested in? And we'll go from house plants to orchids to I guess that would be a house plant. You know, that's an interesting thing. I just just occurred to me. We call things house plants, but no plants are native to

the house, right. House plants are typically jungle plants, not always, but oftentimes we find them in some tropical rainforests somewhere and we figure out, you know what, they're living here without hardly any light with due to the heavy tree canopy, you know, so maybe we can bring them home,

grow them in the house, and that's how they get there. But it helps to remember that and because then you realize the environment that plant is used to being in the temperature environment, the kind of moisture, and other things that are kind of a clue to how to take good care of it. If you are interested in redoing some beds, and I hope you are, because fall is coming and fall planting is coming, you need to go to the arbigate and you need to get there one two three, completely easy system.

And here is why I say that. The first part is a food that feeds anything with roots. They have a four four three ten percent calcium added. Additionally, it's an organic food, a complete organic food that you can mix into your beds to provide those nutrients to create that bank account. In the soil. They have an organic soil complete. Now that would include a compost and expanded shell and large particle sand. So this is a soil

that's going to stay loose. It's going to stay open each time you add it. You know, the compost breaks down as all of our composts do, that's how nature is. But the particle sand and the expanded shale, each time you're adding it, you're redoing that bed and you're building it up better and better. And the soil just gets really really good, perfect for

plant growth. And then finally there's their organic compost complete that's a third of the one two three and has two different kinds of compost blended together again shale component inside of it to promote aeration and to promote drainage. If you have a black play, so you absolutely have to be using some expanded shale when you're mixing up your soil. Always we want to add compost. It's always a good idea to add compost, but expanded shale as well is important.

So Arburgate's got it all put together with a one two three. So you're getting ready for those fall flower beds. Maybe even plant marigolds or something for the fall. You're getting ready for the fall vegetable garden. You need something for containers. Even this stuff works, it just it works. And when you're out at Arburgate, pick up that one two three and do it again and again over time, and just watch your soul get better and better.

And when the soul gets better, production is better, more bountiful, more beautiful. Well. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four and I was out in the front yard yesterday and not yesterday, earlier this week, and I we have a Vitex tree, and this vitex has bloomed, but now it's in another cycle of bloom. And I was just standing there. Number one, I like the fragrances. You know, the regular blue purple

Vitex has fragrance. It sure does. I was enjoying that, and I just noticed motion in the tree and I looked and it was bees. All kinds of pollinators were just going through. There's three or four. There was two that I didn't even know what they were. I mean, they weren't honey bees, they weren't bumble bees, and they were just working those blooms. And it just reminded me how important it is to take care of our bees. Bees are the thing that keeps this world fed, if you will,

and it's really important to take care of them. If you've never put bees in your backyard, you ought to consider doing that. You know, it is really not that difficult at all. You can improve your pollination in your garden. You can also have a source of honey right there. Bees are fascinating, fast, senating world to learn about If you have never been to the Bee Supply in Dayton, you really need to go. First of all, just go to their website and learn therebe supply dot com. They

have once a month now during this time of the year. Once a month they have beginner classes out at the Bee Supply where if you're interested in getting into bees, you learn the whole nine yards and they hold your hand and walk through the process. Even after you purchase products, go home, set them up and you run into some issues. They are there for you and

they will see you to success. That is their goal. Now, if you just want to learn about bees, go to one of the free honey tours there once a month out in Dayton, and you get to learn all kinds of stuff. Kids have got to go do this, but I'm telling you as an adult. Last time I went out there, I talked to them for I think two hours, and I'm still learning more about bees as a result. They have a honey tour where you get to sample a lot of honey too, which is another kind of fun and cool thing to be

able to do. Let's head out now to clover Leaf and we're going to talk to Gordon. Hello, Gordon, Hey, good morn. How are you doing today. I'm well, thank you. I called you a while back. Uh, planting my side in my yard okay, and used all your helpful tips and everything is looking green except the parts that I didn't plant. But my question is, when Randy was still alb God bless his soul, he said that there was a something called carbo load with a and it

contained a pre emergent harbicide in it. Yes, And I don't know if that was Nelson's or whatever it was Adams or that was Nelson Nelson. Nelson Nelson's has a carbo load and it's designed for the fall application. And so when you put that on, uh, it's not super high nitrogen because we do not want high nitrogen in the fall like we do through the rest of

the year. You know, we do the three one two or four one two ratio products during the year, but when we get to fall, we back that nitrogen down to closer to or even a little under the potassium levels. And so the carbo load is that kind of product. It's designed for that and it works very very well. That gets your grass nutrient wise packed

up and ready to go to move into winter. So that when it comes out in the spring, you have a healthy grass coming out because people don't think about this, but they think about you know, here's the spring and my grass is growing. The roots are all out there taking up stuff. No, actually, initially coming out of the winter, it's what the grass went into winter with that's supplying the energy and the growth. So that's why that shop that should keep a green throughout the winter. Well it's not.

It's not so much that it keeps it green. It's that think of it as this. It's anti freeze. It's carbohydrates in the plant to protect it against cold, but to have that energy when spring comes to take off growing when the plant doesn't have the same root system that it did during the growing season, it's that initial Now this the greenness over winter is based more on the temperature. You don't want to push a high nitrogen fertilizer onto your grass

going into winter. That would that would be not the ideal scenario. That's why we like things like Okay, so I've been putting the Medina, not the lawn fertilizer, but the Medina soil activator. I've been using that since a plant the grass and yeah, well so that's don't think of that so much as a fertilizer. Think of it as a stimulant. Okay, but the fertilizer would be separate from that. But there's I called them and they

told me that I can't overdose my law and I'm like I can't. Right, Oh good, I'll use I'll use a lot of all Right, Hey, Gordon, I have run out of time. I've got to go to a break here. But I hope that I hope that helped you. Sounds like Randy got you on a good track and you're still going than you can I ask you. Or we're gonna have to hold on till after break, So I'm gonna put you on hold. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We'll be right back. Well,

good morning. You are listening to garden Line and we are here to answer your gardening questions. Hey, have you ever heard when life gives you lemons, make lemonade? Right? Well, what do you do when life gives you blazing hot sun? Day after day after day? You make electricity? You put you put a solar device on your roof. Man, maybe you don't want to look at one of those big old panels sitting on the roof. Well, brink And can fix that. Brinkman has something called a solar

shingle. Is that cool or what it's Actually, it's not on the roof above the roof, it's it is the roof. And they know how to do this. I mean they protect your home while they create electricity for you. Fully warranted twenty five years now. Brinkman is the quality roofer that we brag on here on garden Line because fifty years in the business, they know

what they're doing. This is their home turf. They have a reputation and they keep that reputation in fact to be a twenty twenty two Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award winner. That doesn't come easy, but they make sure that they do the kind of work and use the kind of materials that earn them that kind of respect from their customers. You can go to Brinkman Quality dot com, Brinkman Quality dot com or dial two eight one four eight zero seven six

six three. I'm going to head out back now to clover Leaf. We were talking to Gordon Guard and I think you had a follow up question. Yeah, I just have the thing with the medina has to grow. I have a bottle of that. Yes, when is a cutoff date to where I should not use that anymore? There's not a big cutoff date. As we head into October, our grass is slowing down quite a bit, and it just kind of, you know, it's still taking up some things to

prepare for winter. But I would say once we get passed about October, that's probably long enough to be using something like the medina has to grow. I would at that point I asked you before, this will not burn my grass in the heat. But if I use it likes first thing in the morning, right, it should be Okay, yes it won't. But just follow the label on any product you use. Always follow the label, you know. All right, Okay, all right, you guys have a blessed

day, and you too. Thank you for the call. I appreciate that. If you're thinking about retiring and you're interested in a quality community, you want a beautiful home, you want a beautiful setting, walking trails, you want active programs, active programs, lifestyle programs that are designed around you. That's what Dell Web's all about. I mean, they've they've been doing this

for seventy years now. Dellweb has a new community out in full Shirts on FM three fifty nine, just about two miles from downtown Full Shure, and it has all the things you would expect from Dell Web. Plus it has a community garden that I've been helping them with and I can't imagine a better place. You know, you go live and you get all the stuff I just mentioned, Plus you have a place to go garden where you don't have to dig up the backyard, where you get to gather with friends and visit,

you know, gardeners. I don't know whether we get more gardening done or more visiting and opining and pontificating about plants done, but that's the fun of gardening, is getting together and just enjoying it with other people. And that's what you would do in a Dellweb community like that one down in full Schre dellweb dot com slash Houston. You can get more information there or you can call him two eight one four five nine zero six zero nine. Our

phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We're gonna be taking a break in a minute, and when we come back at eight o'clock hour, we're gonna have Dean Nelson from Nelson Plant Food here.

We're gonna talk about the Randy Lemon Memorial Scholarship. Now, I know we have a lot of listeners that listen to Randy, many of you for almost all twenty six or seven years that he was doing this, and Randy was an icon when it comes to plant I mean, there are people that would not go to the garden center without checking with the Randy first, because that's

just the reputation that he built. He helped a lot of you in your landscapes and in your gardens and just provided that week to week entertainment on the weekends, you know what I mean. Randy was beloved here. I can think of a not a better way to honor and recognize Randy than this scholarship. And we're gonna spend some time talking about it next hour, but I just wanted to kind of give you a heads up that that is coming. Let's head out now to Spring, Texas and we're gonna talk to Rich.

Hello, Rich, good morning. Skip. Following up on the diesel exhaust fluid. Yeah, I called in last week about yes, yes, did did you have a chance to look at it? I sent an email with a couple of links I did. I saw that, and I glanced at it, but I bookmarked them so I could come back. At the time I was looking at it, I was having to run and do something else. But yeah, that's something I did not know about. I had never

I'd never heard about that before. But you do it all right. But it seems it seems interesting based on the you know, cost per gallon for a fifteen zero zero So that's why I was interested. Well, it is, and you know, I still want to look into it a little bit further. You know, I when I see something like that, I always think, okay, wait a minute, where's the yeah butt in this? And I interest in glancing at it. I didn't see that, but that

that is interesting. Just remember though, that we use a quality for alizer. You're getting a lot of other ingredients, a lot more things you got the Big three, of course, but you often have a lot of micros that are there, sometimes microbial activity as well. So I just understood. And I use azomde and some other things and the normal nitro fosl sortalizers. This would be something that was interested in just to spoon feed, you know,

once a month a light application. Well that's interesting, yeah, that you know, and doing this forty three years. There are not many things I haven't heard of, but that was one I have not heard of. So it's a good day without it to learn something else, right, it is. Thanks, good, Hey, Thanks. I appreciate the call, Rich and thanks for sending me that information. And this is just a reminder. I need to go back, but I did bookmarket so I could come

back and study that a little further. Appreciate your call, right, Thank you. You take care. If you live in the Kingwood area, you are fortunate in that you have two out standing mom and pop garden centers out there that would be Kingwood Gardens and Warrens Southern Gardens. Now, these folks they carry the products we talk about. You know, if I'm talking about a fertilizer, they're going to have it at Kingwood Garden Center and at Warren's

Garden Center. They have those Microlife and Nelson Plant Food filling stations for your jugs. You know, how you go into a grocery store and you can buy peanuts and stuff. You pull the little handle down and fill up a bag. That's what we're talking about, except you take your empty canisters from those products. You go in there and you fill them up. Saves a little money, saves a little bit on putting more plastic out there in the

environment. Now, right now, the weekly special this weekends. This weekend, it is called the Hibiscus Happy Hour. And I don't want to be clear. This is at Kingwood Garden Center. This is at Kingwood Garden Center. One gallon Cajun hibiscus, that's my favorite tropical hibiscus, nineteen ninety nine, from two pm to five pm. And that happens on Saturday. And that happens on today Sunday. Okay, so that's your opportunity. Now.

Both locations have Mandevilla on sale, the beautiful tropical blooms of Mandevilla. Here's your chance to pick those up. And we got a lot of Mandevilla weather still to come. An interesting thing out at Warrens Garden Centers are having a fall garden soil prep it's a cultivate a harvest of abundance. That's August nineteenth, so it's coming up in a couple of weeks. Nine am to ten am. It's free nine am to ten am. But you will learn all

about preparing your soil. Space is limited, even though it's free, space is limited, so reserve your spot at Warren's Garden Center out there in the Kingwood area. Kingwood Garden Centers on Stone Hollow Drive Warren's Garden Centers on North Park both are open seven days a week, so just a good time to get out there. See the beauty. The gift shops are amazing for those places. But here's all the other reasons. Now more reasons to want to

head out to Kingwood and Warren's Garden Center out there the Kingwood area. Let's see, I am going to Jim. I'm gonna go to you next out in Conro. We've got about a minute, so let's see if we can get it done in a minute. Okay, okay. I planted a large red maple tree last fall or head. It done by RCW, and it's having some issues with this heat. I think it's though that it's been overwater rather than underwater, and I wonder if I could send you a couple of

pictures and could take a look at it. Yeah, but as we finished talking here, I'll put you on hold, Josh. We'll get you the email so you can do that. Make sure they're in good sharp focus. Maybe some close ups of some leaves or any other symptoms, but also of the whole tree. We'll take a look. Yeah, overwatering or underwatering, but either way you could do it. It's a new tree, still putting roots out there, so it's easy to overwater. Still confined, somewhat confined

root system. But if you got it, if you got it from our CW, those folks know they were quality trees, and they plan them right and get them established. And so if they did the planning for you especially, we know all that was taken care of. We just got to figure out, you know, what's going on and turn them around, right all right? Jee O, yes sir, here you go on hold and Josh we'll pick it up. We're gonna be taking a break here run I see

out there in League City. We're gonna have to hold on until after the news at the top of the hour. If anyone would like to give us a call seven one three, two one two five eight seven four, maybe you just want to tell about something that Randy did that you just really enjoyed, that really helped you some ways, that he was helpful to you. We would love to take some calls like that. During the eight o'clock hour, we're gonna have Dean Nelson here and we're gonna be talking about the Randy

Lemon Memorial Scholarship. And but I would just like to take some time to remember Randy, just to remember the impact that he had. And I think there's no better way than to hear from you as to what was significant, what was important? How is that helpful? Randy was beloved by a lot of folks. And you know, I didn't meet Randy until about nineteen eighty three when we were in college, but I've known him. I've known him since that time, and he was always a character. I was enjoyed visiting

with Randy. That was a lot of fun. But he was also an important icon in the hoard industry here. So let's let's talk about that a little bit. Give Josha call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I will be right back and we look forward to talking to you more. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services

advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scared Victory, just watching well, good morning, Good morning on a beautiful Sunday morning, and we are glad you are listening today. Hey, if you need to get your landscape taken up a notch, you need to call Jason and the team out there at Peerscapes. Now, Peerscapes is one of those places it does at all, and they do it right. They've got designers that know how to design beautifully. Do you need a rock border, do you need a

hardscape? You got an irrigation problem that needs fixing, or maybe a drainage problem that needs fixing, that's important here in Houston. All you have to do is go online to Pierscapes dot com and leave an online enquiry, or you can give a call. They'll be back open again tomorrow morning. Two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero. Don't delay, though, go ahead and get that done because fall is coming and there's a lot of

things that may be involved in that landscape renovation. You want to get it started now so you can really enjoy the show place that you're going to end up with when you do that. I'm here with Dean Nelson Nelson Plant Food, and we have been talking about the Randy Lemon memorial scholarship, And I do hope those of you who are here would would agree and consider that a

very worthwhile thing to donate some money toward. You know, normally I talk about Dean, I talk about your fertilizers and online, but here I got the man himself. You know that featherlight, the eighteen to eight, that's such a good one through the summer. Why is it that when you put the feather I'm sorry, featherlight, I'm sorry, slow and east twenty two two ten is the one I met. Yeah, the featherlight's the next one I want to try out, by the way on then, but twenty two

two n Why is it that that nitro did and just available? Because fertilizers often we call them flizer salt, so you put salt and water and the whole sodium chloride is right there in the glass and ready to go. What about it? What's the technology that makes up twenty two percent nitrogen release over time? Well, there's there's different ingredients we can use to make the fertilizer release different ways, and the nitrogen, of course is the big one.

It's slow. Rely, he have nitroc cycomonium sulfate urea. It's it's immediately available, especially in potasium nitrate, and it's gone also in about six weeks. But then you've got the you know, the bio solids that last longer. And it's all about the nitrogen cycle is what it is, and the nitrogen cycle any kind of there's all. The plant doesn't care where the nitrogen comes from. Yeah, it can come from manure, it can come from

lightning, you know, the air in slow release or fast release. But the bacteria in the soil is what converts all of it to plant available. It has to be nitrateed. Nitrite is the N O three n O two molecule for the plant to start using it. But other than potassium nitrate, it's it's it's a maniacal nitrogen or it's urea, and so the materia has to convert that, okay, and in slow and easy. The blue stuff and the green stuff you look at as a bunch. I mean, it's

like eighty percent of the nitrogen is slow releasing. That nitrogen is the only nitrogen in the world that is man made, and it is it is broken down with the bacteria that makes it released slowly. That is good it's it's carbon and nitrogen. That's what we call carbon based nitrogen. And as the bacteria want the carbon for energy, it releases the nitrogen. And they've they've designed that stuff so it'll last six months. And it's a really even slow

even curve. I showed you the Courage yesterday. It's just flat, it goes up and it's just really slow, and neutraline is a little faster. And then we put in some some bacteria inhibited nitrogen which is slow release, slow release. Also it slows the bacteria down, breaking it down right okay, And then we put in ammonium sulfate to make it up front of nitrogen. So it's got five different nitrons in there. Well that and that's what

makes it. That is the way it does that is interesting. And the other advantage of a product like that is, you know, if you if you put out a regular immediately available and you get a gully washer for a couple of days, it's just going to dissolve and wash away. And but thus the grandiles, you know, they it's gonna take them while where they're willing to give that nitrogen up. And in the process that you just talked

about, and you talked about a salt. You know, there's a good salt, bad salt, you know, passing SOULFI it's a good salt facing cords of bad salt. The nitro form is zero salt none zero, yeah, and so that that helps the plant. All right, good Dean, thank you so much for coming into Dre. I appreciate having you here, and thank you again for what you're doing and getting this Randy Lemon and Scott

we it's been industry has been good to Julie me for forty years. We still enjoy getting up going to work every day, and and we're gonna keep on doing it. And if we can help out Aggie Aggies anytime anywhere and put Randy's name on it, then uh, we'll do that. All right. Well, thanks again, I appreciate that. By the way, you know you're gonna find a nitrofoss and pretty much anything you're looking for at Southwest

Fertilizer Bob down there. They have got everything. I mean, if you're an organic gardener, if you're a synthetic gardener, if you need tools, if you need your law more blade sharp and if you need small engine repayer, if you need any kind of a product for controlling pass for controlling diseases. I don't if Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have it, you don't need it for your lawn and garden. I mean they have it all. They're in the

corner of Bissonette and Renwick. You can go online to Southwest Fertilizer dot com and find out more about them. But the main thing you need to do is just go in there. You got a plant sample, you got a picture of a problem. They'll take a look at it. They'll identify it accurately because they know what they're doing, and then they'll take you to a product that'll fix the problem because they understand the different products, how they work,

and what's needed. That in and of itself is well worth a trip down to Southwest Fertile Leisure. I enjoy going to good garden centers and on the way back, I was down in El Campo the other day and on the way back I stopped in it and Chanted Gardens up in Richmond. They're out there on FM three fifty nine outside in Richmond on the Katie Fulsher side of Richmond. If you will, and you by the way, you can go online to Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.

You can find out more about them, you know how to get there and all the things going on. They've got a lot of good information online, I mean really really informative information online for you to learn more about it, so you can find out for yourself. You know what it is that you might want to grow, what you might want to do, if you need supplies, if you need plants, whatever you might need, they have got it. There, got some really nice ornamental grasses that are just looking beautiful

right now. Fall is a beautiful time for ornamental grasses. It's also a place where you can get frog fruit one of those native groundcovers. It's really becoming popular that are here on the market, all out there at Enchanted Gardens out north of Richmond toward Katie three fifty nine. I know that some of you live way up north and they're listening to the show, maybe Navasota Bryan

College Station, anywhere up there. Well, you need to know about your hometown feed store, and that is Grimes County Feed now Grimes County Feed. The family. Chris served for fifteen years in the Houston Fire Department Public service has always been his passion and that shows up daily at the way they do business there at the feed store. He puts his personal cell phone number on the business card. See that The idea isn't to get your money and get

you out the door. The idea is to continue to help you have success because that's what makes you want to come back. And that's the kind of service that we all appreciate in any kind of industry. The roy family has been living in Northern Grimes County for the last twenty years now. They just celebrated their fifth anniversary for Grimes County Feed and Farm, and in fact,

they have a customer appreciation Week August seventh through August twelfth. So there's ten percent off on that tree hugger sprinkler that I keep telling you you can't live without, ten percent off on their plant foods like the Nelson's Medina, nitro Fos Microlife, ten percent off all of that at Grimes County Feed. You need to check them out. They are well worth it. Hey, here's a phone number if you want to give them a call. Two eight one

eight one four twenty four ninety four. We're gonna take a break. We'll be right back the phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Well, good morning, good Sunday morning. You are listening to garden Line and we are here to talk about whatever is of interest to you in gardening. And I'm gonna I just want to tell you something. If you are putting in transplants and it you know you can be planning things now, but falls coming. We've been planning a lot of things and you need

to know about has to grow. It's a six twelve six liquid product. Now has to Grow is from the Medina folks. It's got Medina soil activator, and it's got humate humic acid, and it has seaweed extracts and at all things to help stimulate not only rooting, but fruiting and blooming. You can use it as a folier application. It's not gonna burn your plants. Just follow the label on that. I like to use it in a can of water mixed up to drench on my transplants. When I plant, I

water them in with a has to grow water. Then about five to seven days later I just do it again, and then five to seven days later do it again. Those three applications will get your plant off to a good start. In fact, I would say when you plant them and you water them, don't don't stand over the plant because they're gonna grows the fast. I come up and hit you in the chin. Okay, that's a little

bit. That's a little taking it too far. But seriously, a good, strong, healthy start for plants is really important, and the has to grow. Six twelve six will do just that. I'm going to head up to northwest Houston now and we're gonna talk to Maggie. Good morning, Maggie. Do we have a Maggie there? All right? I'm put Maggie back on hold, Josh. Maybe we can get her back and get going again.

I think it was it yesterday or this morning. I was talking about birds and being out and in the backyard and thinks I got a brand new bird bath, a bird watering a bath, and boy watching their antics and that is just a blast. You know, it is so hot and drying out. You've got to have water for your birds and other wildlife. You gotta have water for your beneficial insects. For your bees, for example, a little bird bath where they can come up to the edge, they can

do that, and where do you get it. Well, wild Birds is going to have a selection like you just haven't seen of all things related to birds, including bird best. They even a little mister and dripper up there. The mister the hummingbirds fly through it, just get their wings that they love that. The little dripper. You'll see birds it's drinking right out of

the dripper itself over the bird beat. They have quality food were our birds are dealing with molting right now at the end of summer and so all through August. That nesting superblend is really perfect. It works good feeding all the time. One thing I like about wall birds food is that it is designed with the birds in mind, with the things that the birds eat. A lot of these feeds that you see out there, bird feed it's got the little red babies. That's a milo and they kick it out. They don't

want it. It's hard to crack. They don't care for that. And a huge portion of what you paid for is that kind of I don't care about it. The birds say Milo babies, And with wallbirds, you don't get that. You get one hundred percent of what you buy is what the birds eat. You can even buy mess free feeds. They don't drop the shells all over the place. They're real clean and neat. Maybe your feeder is over a patio and you don't want to breathe all over it. Wilbirds

Unlimited. Go Towbu dot Com, forward slash Houston and you can find one of the seven wilbirds in our area. Well, let's head back out to northwest Houston. I believe we have Maggie. Now, is that correct? Okay, where's Maggie. We're gonna try to get you one more time. Maggie. I'm gonna put you back on. Okay. Oh, there you are, there you are. I'll be real still with my phone. Okay, Okay, I have a question. I have an agga tampus. I have three of them. I bought them the first of the season. Yes,

they get sun from noon the rest of the day. They are just burning up a water about three times a week. I get about ten minutes when a water, So dude, I need to move them. Well, they they need bright light, but they don't need to sit out in the full brunt of the sun. So yeah, well just kind of look at the sun's pattern through the day and a little bit of sun is okay. But not full blazing all day. If that's what you have, then I would I would try to just keep them going for now. Don't move them

right now. But when fall comes, then try to move them. Let's get a little pressure off of them before we rip them up and do the root damage it's involved in moving. Okay, how much watering should I water them? Keep the soil moist depending on your soil, depending on the temperatures, depending on the amount of light watering will vary a lot. But you just dig down and feel the soil about four or five inches deep, and

you'll know when it's not moist. Agapanthus does not want to dry out completely, nor does it want to be in a swamp, so you just find that sweet spot. Oh that's great, that's good news. I enjoy your show. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Maggie. Thank you very much as well forgiving us a call. Hey, if you're interested in a place where you can retire and have a beautiful home, a beautiful community, and a very nice active lifestyle to enjoy those years, well,

that's a delleweb community. There's one down in full Sure, about two miles out of downtown Full shure. It's got everything a Delleweb has, which is everything. And plus they have a community garden, and so here we are, we're gardeners, and I can't find a better package of benefits than a Dellweb home, a Dellweb community, and a community garden to enjoy as well. Go online to Delleweb dot com slash Houston. You can find out more information there or you can give him a call to eight one four five

nine zero six zero nine. We were somebody who is not listen, see not from this part of the state, was at the house and looking there was actually a cockrow treant out yes in my house at Cocker Trend, and there was just a reaction to them like, oh my gosh, it's like it was this giant flying alligator about to attack the world. Well, it doesn't bother me so much, but I do need to get that under control.

What I need to do is call Scott McGrath over at McGrath Pest Control McGrath Pest Control and by the way, their website is macgraff pest Control dot com. They have been in business since nineteen seventy four, oh you know, forty nine years now. Still family run They're one of those good old time service companies that say, you know, not, hey, take off your whole afternoon. I may be there sometime in the afternoon, like a lot of service companies. No, they tell you when they're going to be

there, and that's when they show up, super highly rated. They cover the whole Houston area. Scott is involved in day to day operations and is accessible to all the customers and he knows his business. Give him a call two eight one four six nine eight two for zero. You know, every season has the issues. When you get into September through February, we're going to be dealing with a lot of rodent calls, a lot of that's when rodents are kind of peeking out. February through March is the peak of the

termite season. There's always something to go on. I need to get them right now, to get some cockroaches out of the house. For crying out loud, Apparently not everybody enjoys living with those little buggers crawling around everywhere. Scott knows what to do, he knows how to get it done, reasonable price, and he does what he says he's going to do. Let's go now and talk to Chris. Good morning, Chris, good morning. Thank

you for taking my call. You bet, how can we help? I got well, I have a compost pile that I've been throwing different things into all summer long, and one of them was a sweet potato. And I think going out, you know with the thing on the apps that tell you what something is. At first it said morning glories. There's never been any flowers, and now the leaves are really big. There's a lot bigger than a morning glory. And now it's saying maybe it's sweet potato. Okay,

well those are related. And a sweet potato, if it ever bloomed for you, it would look like a morning glory. That's what the flower is, just a little bit smaller than the ones that are bred for fines and are ornamentals. But that's probably well. If you want, I can put you on hold and Josh, you'll give you an email. You can send me some pictures up close. Put your hand or something that shows me the

size of the leaves in the picture. Could be a pencil or you know, you know what I'm talking about, and let me take a look. I'll tell you what it is. But from what you're saying, I think you probably have either a sweet potato or a morning glory, and they are almost the same thing. They're very closely related. The morning glory leaves should not be glossy. The sweet potato leaves may have just a slight sheen to them, kind of a glossy sheen to them. The sweet potato, the

morning glory is more of a heart shape than the sweet potato. Sometimes there's a little sort of lobes on the sweet potato leaf, not completely, but a little bit, so those those also may help you distinguish it. All right, Well, what I'm wondering is if it is sweet potatoes, should I go ahead? And when should I harvest them? Or just let this

go? I would wait Wherever they come out of the ground. The ground will start to heave up as those large roots which are very near the surface, as they start to swell up, it sort of pushes the ground up a little bit, and you see some light cracks in the soil around the plant as it's heaving up. There's not a ripening for them, but you want to give them time to fully develop. Otherwise you have little finger sized sweet potatoes instead of nice sweet potato sized sweet potatoes. So I would wait,

let it get a little further along. I don't how long would you plant? How many months ago? Well, I didn't plant it intentionally, compost pile, and I've been heading more and more stuff into that. Let's just wait until sometime in October. Then chriss and dig them. Then there's no harm in waiting. It may or may not be sweet potato, but you'll know at that time. All right, Okay, we'll go ahead and send a picture just a few minutes. Then who do I send it to?

All right, I'm gonna put it on put you on hold, and Josh's gonna give you the email address to send it. Just make sure it's a good, well focused photo. Thank you very much. Okay, already, that is a good deal. Hey, if you need anything for your garden, I mean we're talking about fertilizers, We're talking about pesticide like insexicise, fertilized. How about soil, bags of soil mixes. How about some outdoor furniture to beautify your garden, outdoor living areas. Maybe a barbecue pit.

Oh my gosh, is this ever barbecue country? And barbecue kind of weather that we're having here? Ace Hardware has all of that. ACE Hardware is the stop for everybody because they're everywhere. Thirty nine ACE Hardware stores from the Greater Houston area. There's one near You go to ACE Hardware dot com, Ace Hardware dot Com find their store locator and find the ones that are close to you, and there will be ones, in other words, more

than one that's close to you. And when you're there, joined the ACE Rewards program. I belong to it, and every time you go in and buy something, you get money back on your purchase. So it just makes sense because, believe me, you're gonna want to go back because they have everything you need, they got a reasonable price, and you know the old time hardware field where the person that greedid you was friendly and they knew what

they were talking about. That's the modern ACE Hardware as well. But when you walk into one, if you've not been into an ACE in a long time, you are going to be amazed at all the different things. I mean, it's pretty much. I guess if they threw groceries in, you never have to go anywhere else other than an ACE Hardware. No. Seriously, they really stock a lot of things and it's a great, great deal. We're going to head out now to Katie and talk to Katie. Hello

Katie from Katie, Hi, how are you doing well? I'm well, thank you. I have a question about using the half to grow six to twelve six fertilizer on my potted plants on my patio. Okay. I have always used that like on the first of the month, and I have not done it in July or August yet, just simply because I was worried about doing that during this heat. Is it safe to do? Should I do

it? Should I not? It would be it would be okay. You could go ahead, just just follow the label, do it the end moderation, follow the label and you'll be fine. Okay. I pacifically that my hybiscus are really struggling in this heat. So it's just mainly water is what they need. I mean, if you're in a container, you can move them where they get a little bit of afternoon shade that gives them a little bit of a break. But no, you're you're on a good track there.

It'll do just fine. All right, Okay, I will do that act. That's the other question I have. Is it better to do this in the morning or in the evening, because I've noticed I've been watering a lot of times in the evening, but some of my souls are beginning to get that white, you know, like no step. Yeah, I just just keep it moist. It doesn't matter when you water. I usually water in the morning when I'm on my way out of the house, or in

the afternoon when you're coming home. It doesn't really matter. Just keep the soil as evenly moist as you can. And depending on the size of the container, that may be watering more than once a day or every two days. Hey, I got to go to a break, Katie, but I really appreciate the call. Thank you very much. It is time for NNN, not cnn NNN Nikki News Network. We need some news music like remember that. Okay, good Sunday morning. You are listening to garden Line.

I'm your host, Skip Richter, and our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two and two K t our h give us a call. Let's talk about the things that are interesting to you, the things that you care about that you're interested in. Hey, if you if you are planning on putting some fertilizer out on the lawn, and you were looking for an organic product with a fairly high content of the nitrogen. For example, that would be Sweet Green. It's eleven percent.

The first number of the bag is eleven I believe eleven O four zero four, and that will provide not only the nutrients, it breaks down really quickly with the microbes that are in the soil they get on that sugar stuff. They love a molasses based fertilizer, and you will too. By the way, it smells a wonderful none named sweet Green is for a reason. That's exactly what it smells like. When you do the Sweet Green on your lawn, you're going to feed the lawn. You're going to stimulate the microbial

activity in the soil too, which is really important. And the Sweet Green, remember that was a product that last year we were looking at trying to find enough of it to go around because how popular it is. This year, they're stocked up and they're ready to go. But I wouldn't delay. It didn't hurt to have a bag ready to go in the garage at any time. So you may want to grab two. Hey, where do you

get nitro foss well pretty much everywhere. If it's ace hardware store, if it's a feed store, if it's a garden center, we talk about I'll bet you they have nitro foss widely carried through the area, easy to find, and that's sweet green. For those of you who are looking for an organic option, or maybe you don't care about whether it's organic or not, you just want a good fertilizer, that's sweet green. Sweet Green by Nitrofoss,

really really good stuff. I was talking about earlier about bragging on my Grimes County Feed and Farm out there in Carlos, Texas. And I don't think I told you exactly where they are. They are about two miles west of FM two forty four on State Highway thirty. So those of you who listen up there, and by the way, I've been very surprised at how many people back up through that part of the country. I call it God's Country out there. Listen to garden line up there. A lot of folks

out in that country. Beat Eyes and Iowa and Shiro and Anderson all through there. You know, if you're in the Brian College Station area, that's your hometown feed store as well as as if you're in the Navasota area. Also, I just love going in there. I need to get back in there. It's been a few weeks since I've been in there, and I

need to get back in say hello to those folks. But again, two miles west of FM two forty four on State Highway thirty, locally owned and operated, we are going to head out of the phones and we're going to talk to Gerald. Good morning, Gerald, Good morning. How are you doing well? I'm well today. How are you? Oh, I'm doing pretty good. Stand in the heat, yes, sir, hang in there. It's fall is coming. I don't know when it comes. It may

be December third, but it's coming. Yeah, that's why I'm afraid of all right. Yeah, what I need to know two quick questions is it is it okay to put down some fertilizing all this stuff? And if so, what numbers shoot I put down? All right? Well, in general, we want a fertilizer this time of year that has a larger first number, a small second number, and a medium third number. That's why we say three one two ratio, so a four one two ratio, and it

doesn't have to be exactly that, but that's what you're aiming for. So I just I was just talking about the nitrofos sweet Green that's an eleven zero four that would be a good one. That's an organic type fertilizer that is based on the molasses, and so it's it's an excellent choice. If you want something that's gonna last longer out there, then I would consider nitrofists super turf that's a nineteen four ten fertilizer and nineteen four ten and the chemistry of

it, it's designed so that that nutrient is not just immediately released. You know, some fertilizers we call them salt based. They it's like, you know, you put table salt or sugar in water and it just designs and suddenly the water is filled with what was in the granules, right uh, And when fertilizers can be that way. But this type of fertilizer, the nineteen four ten, that has got a chemistry that the microbes just can't break it down right away. It takes a little while for the full release of

those nutrients. And so if you want a longer term feed, that would do it. Either way, you're not going to go wrong with either of those two nitro Foss products and that was a nineteen Yeah, nitro foss n I t ro dash pho s nitro foss. And you're gonna find it everywhere. You know, if you've got an ace hardware, new you you got nitro fiss. You know, the feed stores carry it in a lot of things. But it's the easy way to remember it is it's the silver bag.

They put it in a silver bag, so right when you walk in the store you can see it right there. Okay, all right, one more quick one. Sure all the plants I had out for the spring or burnout? Now? So what what's good? What's a good plant right now that will last till a Paul were talking flowers a vegetable, No flowers in a pot. Flowers in a pot. Uh Angelonia will carry you on into fall. We get a little further into the season, and I would probably

put out marigols, the big old pom pom types. You know, there's little small marigoles size of a quarter. There's other blooms that are size of a tennis ball. That's the palm palm, the African marigoles. And boy, when they go into fall, they just get brighter and prettier. And the spider mites don't bother them. But I would wait until the end of August probably to start doing those. But the angelonia would look really good right

now. Hibscus, the tropical hibiscus, absolutely awesome right now. Manda villa is a little bit of a vine. If you've got a little small trellis. It's not a vigorous vine. You can put in in a container and it'll look really pretty too, just a few choices. Zenias, the compact typese angelonia. It's like a N G E L O N I A. You go to a good garden center and tell them you need an angelonia. Some people call it summer snap dragon. It's sort of snapdragon ish, but

definitely not a snapdragon. But it definitely is a heat tolerant plant. You'll see them all over the place and commercial landscapes. They're good in pots. They do good in pots. Yep. You just you know when it comes to plants in pots, Gerald it's how big is a plant, how good of a quality mixed you have in the pot, and how big is the pot. Those are the three important things to in getting it set up. If you have a big plant and a small pot, you're gonna water it

three times a day trying to keep it alive. If you know, if you've got a good sized pot with a good soil that holds moisture but drains, well, you made water it every other day. I mean, you know, it's the key is to get that right so you're not having to remember every few minutes to go out there and water the thing. Yeah, okay, well I appreciate it. Well, I appreciate your call. Thank

you very much. We're going to take a break right now. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four and Sam, when we come back from break, you are the first up. Well, good Sunday morning. You are listening to garden line. Let's sad, nice day out there. Good day to get out and put around a little bit in the yard early this morning. Good day to get out and visit some of our garden centers to this afternoon as well as some of the other sponsors

that we have that have the quality products that you need. Remember, this is a time it's fall. It's falls on the doorstep. I know it's one hundred degrees and it doesn't feel like fall, but you need to tell your brain this is fall, because now is when you would be planning to make some peppers and eggplants, for example. Don't delay one more day because those things need to get in really quick. If you're going to get a crop out of the things. Very soon, it will be playing in green

beans in the vegetable garden and squash and cucumbers and things like that. And then next thing, you know, in September October, really October two, we're putting in coal season things like the coal crops, the blue leaved vegetables, cabbage, cauliflower, kale called Robbie. What am I forgetting broccoli? Of course I couldn't forget that one? Collards? You know, the time

to start those though. If let's say, have a packet of broccoli seed and you want to grow your own transplants, now's the time to get those things started. You know. The our weather here it is quite unique, because a lot a lot of places have unique weather, but here we just have this blazing inferno where we're having to get ready for some things that don't like a blazing inferno, and so you just kind of have to take care

of them. You need to keep them watered, you need to get ready to go, because when it comes time to have the fall harvest, all this stuff needs to have been done a long time ago, and a long time ago as now. So what that means is, for example, you put out, let's say you plant a new tomato plant, or an egg

plant or a pepper something along those lines. Well, they may need a little bit of a shade for a week or so just to kind of help get them acclimated to the full sun and the new soil and the roots are getting established. You need to water them carefully so they stay moist but not saggy wet. So that's kind of a touch and go thing, but that's

what we do so that we can enjoy the benefits later on. You know, we were just just visiting about flowers and flowers that could go in a container now, and there's so many options out there, lots of good ones. But we're still planning our warm season flowers now. It'll be probably October before we really start to think about things that might be more cool season, you know, a lesson and snap dragons and the many many cool season flowers

that we have to plant. We'll be getting to those, but not for just a little while. In the meantime, you want to keep your law and healthy moderate fertilization, always having some gradual amounts of nutrients that are being released. The best way to do that is a slow release fertilizer. I talk about them all the time. If you don't have a slow release furtilizer,

maybe you've bought something that's an immediate release, immediately available fertilizer. Will just take what you would have put down in an application and divide it into two or three and make two or three small applications about four weeks apart. And if you do that, what you're going to do is you're going to gradually release those nutrients because you're only putting them on gradually. And that's a way to kind of turn a fast release into a slow release, if you

will. It's not the best of technologies, but it sure is a good way to you know, if you've got some fast release on you go ahead and use it that way and get that done. In the meantime, the most important thing for your lawnch right now is to be watered adequately, not overwatered, not watered every other day so that the grass spends half its time

wet. You're inviting diseases, you're inviting chinch bugs, and when the cool weather hits, you'll be inviting the large patch which we used to call brown patch, those big circles. You want to water with a good soaking on an infrequent basis. And my new chart that's coming out on lawn Care talks about watering and I've got in there January through December, how much on average

we get per week and rainfall here in the Houston area. So like on the summer months, it's about an inch that our plants are needing, but when we get into the fall in the spring, we drop down to a half inch. And then when we get in the cool season, the very coldest season here, we don't water the lawn at all, and so we need a water accordingly. And the best way I know to do that is

a free app called water my Yard. You can visit water my yard dot org online sign up there, or go to the Apple Store, the Apple App Store or Google Play if you have an Android and download the free app and you sign up and it's free, and it's free science based watering recommendations to promote a healthy lawn that's tailored for your yard and how could we say that it's tailored for your yard. There's little weather stations you would need to

notice them. They may be out at a golf course or somewhere and it's a low weather station and it's it's measuring the temperature, the wind speed, the humidity, the amount of solar radiation. You know, cloudy days versus sunny days. We got those things. Well, it's a small or fires coming out of Canada or whatever it was with you know, all the particulates in the air that actually affects solar radiation and cuts down on the amount of

water that plants. You use in areas where something like that would happen. These weather stations figure it all out for you and they send you an email say you need to water this much this week, and that's so much better than me, sayan water an inch a week. Water an inch a week, Well that's a good rule of thumb. But water myyard dot Org gives you the full value of tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and science and sends it to you for free. I got one the other day and

it's at water point four eight inches this week. That's what my lawn used. Based on all of that, I wouldn't have known that without water myyard dot org. I really encourage you just try it out. You don't have to keep using if you don't like it. I think you will find it really really helpful. Well, let's go out now to pair Land and we are going to talk to Mark. Mark, how are you doing out there?

I'm doing okay, all right. I have a question about how to get rid of day flower and it's taking over my front flower bear, particularly around my plumbago. I've tried a lot of things, and it's been proaching into my yard, into my lawn. Yeah. It's a it's a demon. Yeah, yeah, I day flower is. It's one of those Um, it's one of those weeds that you know, normally we talk about broad leaf weeds and grassy weeds, right, and so with the broad leaf weeds,

we use broad leaf herbsides. With the grassy weeds, your grassy herbicides, and day flower just seems to be kind of caught in the middle of the whole whole nine yards. Uh. There is a product called Speeds on Southern that has day flower, that has some day flower activity and it'll it'll do a pretty good job. Fertilham has a weed free zone also that does

a pretty good job. The problem with those is when it is over the mid eighties, even the upper eighties and above, especially above the upper eighties. Uh, these products can hurt your lawn. And so if you can find really really early time of the day, I mean the coolest moment of the day and right now, we're lucky if we make it to eighty degrees

right overnight. But that if you can treat then and get it dried up before the temperature is up there ninety and above especially, and do spot treatments where you just as much as possible squirt the day flower weeds and don't just like treat the whole lawn with the product. That's probably your best bet to

try to minimize damage to your Saint Augustine. I normally don't recommend those products right now, if you know, if there's any way to wait and treat at cooler times of the year, But that day flower loves warm weather. It's like dove. Doveweeds the same kind of thing. Basket grass is another one that challenges us to work with. There is another product called Celsius like

fahrenheit and Celsius. Celsius is a little better when the temperature gets warmer, now one hundred degrees, I think that's asking too much of any herbicide, But Celsius might give you a little better, a little less of a temperature negative effect, like most of the other broad leaf we control products will. So you might want to go for that one. You can buy that in a lot of places. You're done there in Pairline, you probably got an

ACE hardware. In fact, Pairline does have an ACE hardware, more than one in that area that would probably carry the Celsius. You'll find it in a little little packet. It's almost like, you know, like a sugar packet or whatever, but something about twice that size, and it's made to just mix up and use. It's a one off. You know, you don't want to buy a bottle of celsius. I mean number one, you'd have to. You'd have to, you know, sell the family jewelry and

rent the kids out to pay for the thing. But just a little packet's very affordable, and it's it's a one and done. You get it done and you're done. I think I would try that one and see how it works. As long as day flour is actively growing, it ought to do a pretty good job on it. But with these kind of tough weeds, we often find that one application usually is enough. We have to come back and here again. So just be ready to get after it. Yeah. When I didn't know what it was, I just dug it up. But

it comes back with a bench in. Yeah, I know, I know, I know. I hate that. Hey, Mark, thank you, thank you for the call, and thank all of you for being listeners to garden Line. We are wrapping up another weekend or the garden Line call in show. Remember you can listen to us by podcast. We got the iHeartMedia podcast app or other podcast apps. Look for garden Line. I think there's two garden lines in the country. One is a lady somewhere and need to

figure out where she is. She does a show called garden Line. The others meet and so we can provide you with past shows that way, if you want to go back. I was just talking to Gerald here. We're talking about you know, day flower weeds and stuff, and you go, what are those things? He just said, Go back and listen to the podcast. You can hear it there, but remember you always listen to guarden line with a pen and a paper handy because you need to write stuff down.

Hey, we look forward to talking to you again next Saturdays, starting at six am