Let's Get It Done

Katie r h Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor It's sho crazy watch Trim. Just watch him as so many good things to see that crazy gas back again not sord sun Beamon of Tweet. Good morning on a what is going to be an awesome Sunday. This is this weather, This weekend has just been standing. I'm excited. I'm ready to go. I hope this afternoon you got plans to get out about and do some

maybe plant acquiring, so you're ready to go at the house. Boy, I tell you I was out at two different nurseries yesterday and just wandering around seeing what's going on. And boy, it's exciting seeing all new plants coming in. Everybody's ready to go. By the way, thanks to A and A Plants up in Montgomery for having me out. That was a great time. We had a lot of folks come out, and boy, you guys warmed me out with questions. I think I talked for a couple of at

least a couple of hours just answering questions. And I love that. I enjoy getting interact with people and helping them have a more successful garden. But we had a good time out there, and thanks again for folks at A and A for having us out. I was thinking about, you know, we were having a discussion one person and myself just about you know, how do you know when it's time to plant tomatoes? And you don't. That's the bottom line, as you don't. We have this thing called average frost

date. Yeah, we say, well, wait till after that. Well, okay, that's a good general guide. Some years it quits freezing and frosting before the last average day. Some years it's later. I think you should just get out there, plan them when you want to plant them, but be ready to cover them up. Even if you wait till after the date, just know that you're gonna have to throw a cover over them.

And the kind of frosts and freezes we typically have once we get close to that last average frost date, those are what we would call light frosts or certainly light freezes, where the temperature dips down at the end of the night below freezing, and maybe then it comes up within an hour after the sun's coming up, it's already above so all he had to do is protect him for just a little while. This isn't the same kind of protecting, so

even throwing a sheet over them can help. I like to use plastic on PBC hoops in my garden because it's easy to pull it over the hoops and put it on and easy to get it off. And plastic cosy air dead space, so that works good too. But yeah, it's a gamble. Some people are gamblers, you know, they take chances and so go for it. Other people are very conservative. They were a built end suspenders just

in case, and those kind of folks. We'll wait till later, but just remember don't wait till too late, because summer comes, and when it does, when it gets hot, the tomatoes quit setting. So you want to get as much tomato harvest as you can. In the meantime, I'm going to head out to Full Sure and we're going to talk to JD to start off the day. Hello, JD, do we have JD? Are you there? You go? Morning? How to skip? Good morning? How are you? I'm well, thank you good, thanks for taking a

call. So I got a couple of tree questions to start things off this morning. Okay, and this is something I had emailed you on earlier in the week. Yes, the issue number one is I've got some water oaks. So my house is about fifteen months old and got some builders grade trees installed, so they did water oaks and they I didn't know about this terminology, so forgive me, but I don't know that you've used it a whole

lot. But I definitely heard Randy use it the mulch volcanoes, yes, and so i'd heard that and then been listening and reading, and I figured, you know what, I need to try to drive these roots down into the ground, because I could already tell that they were going more horizontal than they were vertical. So I've dug out some of the dirt and these two oaks in my front yard to try to drive them down. We will be

mulching soon. And actually I live in a fifty five and up community, so kind of mulch is included in the price of the landscaping for the front yard. But I was wondering, because some of these roots are now exposed, should I put some dirt back on top of them and then mulch during the next couple of weeks. All right, let me address those yes, you're right to pull that mulch away. It is ridiculed that people make multip

volcanoes. There is no horticulture reason for it. It's one of those things that got started because it looks neat to people, and it is a bad horticulture practice. You're not going to drive the roots down. Roots are going to grow wherever there's oxygen in the soil. So in a sandy soil they'll be They can go a little deeper in a clay soil. Pretty much in all soils, the vast majority of roots are in the top foot of soil, the vast majority. So you do want to pull that back. And

what you want to do is go down the trunk. And in the picture where you have pulled it back, you see how the trunk flares out at the base. A tree trunk, you know, it can be essentially the same size going down and then right at the base it flares out. And if you don't see a trunk flare, the tree is planted too deeply. I help somebody out at Ana yesterday with a photo and that tree went in the ground. It looked like the way a telephone pole goes in the ground.

You know, telephone poles the same size all the way until it disappears in the soil. That tells you a tree was planted too deeply, and in the case of these, the mult made it too deep. So pull it back to you see the flare. If there are roots that are like coming out of the soil and going back down or something, you could cut those if you want. It won't hurt the tree. But if you just see the roots, don't worry about it. Just throw a mulch over them.

That'll be okay. They're not where they are is where there'll always be. You know, a root that's up at the surface is not going to somehow become lower in the soil. One thing I do notice, I want to say for I forget is the very first picture that tree was planted way too close to the sidewalk. There is not a long term future there. There's problems. So I don't know. I know, you can't tell them to come replant it because I guess the agent the builder hired them. Right.

Well, Fortunately, that very first picture that's close to the sidewalk, that's one of my neighbors. Unfortunate for them, yes, but I took that picture as example of what they were doing from them. So those other two trees, those are mine. So they're kind of almost right in the

middle between the sadewalk or the walkway into the house and the sadwalk. Yeah okay, well, good good, Yeah, Well your neighbor needs to change act because there is no future for that, I mean, and it's not going to take long before they're going to wish they hadn't had the tree there. But yes, pull the mault back, put a regular mulch down. Get you some shredded hardwood mulch, and uh, you know, just put it down over the surface of the trees. Like it looks like you've got

a wider area of soil than that first picture tree. But the wider you mulch, the better for the tree. And I know, at some point esthetically it's not acceptable. You don't want a twenty foot wide circle around trees. But the wider you can get it, the better off it is for

the tree getting started and doing well. And even on the one that you pull the mulch back, it looks like I hardly see a flag there, so you might want to go check you They need to pull some soil bake as well a little bit okay, but yeah, that it'll get them a little okay. There's definitely a swaar on that that. I guess that middle picture and then one more so JD hang on, hang on, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to take a break. I know you have a follow up.

Just hang on and we'll come back to you. All right, Okay, thank you, you bet all right, We're gonna take a little break here. Our number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. We're going to talk about a lot of things on the show. We I want to discuss some lawns a little bit later. We've got some other business to

take care of in terms of what to do now with your plants. Uh, if you are wanting to put out some fertilizer that is an organic fertilizer that provides the most nitrogen just about that you're going to find in any natural product. Nitrofuss has one called sweet Green. Sweet Green is about eleven percent on the nitrogen and it's basically a molasses based fertilizer with a microbial activity that really kicks up into high gear. Microbes like sugars, carbohydrates, especially the

bacteria. They love. Those. The beneficial bacteria that are in the soil help in your roots. When you put sweet green down, you are going to have a very strong beneficial effect on increasing that population and creating that environment that promotes the optimum health for your plants, your plant root system. Plants live in the roots. We've got to keep the plants happy by making the roots happy. That's kind of how it works. Sweet green smell is really

good too. I mean it's named right. I'm even just imagine something based on molasses, Well that was smell like, Well, there you go, that's what it is. Now. Nit Fuss is available all over the place. You know, I have any trouble finding it here there Yonder You can find nitrofacet Fisher's Hardware done in Baytown or maybe Lake Hardware down in excuse me, Lake Carbrea not in Angleton. Find it in D and D feed up in tom as well. Easy to find nitroposs and the sweet green product.

Now we're visiting with JD today talking about some things related to some of his trees, and we're going to go back. Hey, JD, think you had a follow up, was it on crapes, Yes, sir, so good news and bad news. So good news, and thank you for last fall encouraging me to wait till late in the season to transplant a crape myrtle, which I did and it looks like everything is working well with it.

But both of my crapes had some black city mold last fall. I had applied some something, some kind of I can't remember, some kind of soap okay to try to kill but it doesn't look like it worked. That's those last two pictures I had emailed you. Yeah, just I'm going to be trimming them today. But I was wonder many suggestions to get rid of that black city mold. All right, well, yeah, you do want to trim them. You want to cut off all the twiggy stuff down there because

you're just getting started on those developing a beautiful structure. It looks like you may have too many trunks too, in the sense that they're too close together, So you may want to find that out a little bit. Just think longer term as to what that's going to look like. As far as the

scale, here's the problem with scale. Systemics will get into the nectar of the blooms, and that takes a toll on honey bees in the summer because honey bees love crep myrtles in the summer, that's one of the few flowers that they have access to. So the other alternative is to deal with the scale when they're young. Excuse me. The young crawlers are going to come out in March or April, depending on the weather and where you live.

And if you can catch them at that stage, that's the baby's crawling out from the mother scale. They're unprotected, they have no covering to protect them, and it's really easy to kill them. I think this is a little more trouble than most people want to go to. But if you will go out to the branches where you see the little white spots, that's the scale, and put some double sided, double sided sticky tape around a branch and then watch it for you know, each day, just check on it.

Ever a couple of days, check on it and if you see little pinkish crawlers that have stuck to that, that tells you the scale are out and active. And then you can apply a horticultural oil spray, or you can apply a standard insecticide to kill them at that vulnerable stage. But the problem is timing it right. And the double sided sticky tape helps. You may have to redo the tape because it'll get dust and stuff on it and no

longer be sticky, but that's the best way to monitor. So you know in your yard in twenty twenty four when those scale are going to be ready to spray. Okay, and the spray is an oil or use of the other. Yeah, you could use horticultural oil or or an insecticide by Fentherren is a common one available and it sticks around a while. But you're just spraying the branches. You don't need because the scale is all on the branches.

You don't have to spray the leaves and everything on the plant. But either way, if you use an oil or either way, coverage is very important. So every spot on a branch needs to have the product on it, so you can't just spray like from the north side, then the south side of the branches the scale go free over there. All right, All right, thanks so much, appreciate it. You bet, I appreciate the

call. Good luck with that. You know, talking about trees, a vertin tree Farm is an outstanding source of a wide variety of types of trees. If you're thinking about a palm, well, they absolutely have a wonderful selection of palms that do well here in this area and they can guide you, you know, which are the heartier ones, which you know ones might be a better feature for a certain setting in the landscape. They can help you with that. The website is easy. It's Verdanttreefarm dot com. Verdant

Treefarm dot com. There's a Houston three Houston area locations. One is down in Pairland on Broadway Street, one is in West Houston on Barker Cypress, and one is where Yale and I ten come together kind of in the Heights area General Heights area. And really the thing I like about Verdon Tree is that they number one. They have really large trees. So if you want instant tree, they can do that up to seven hundred gallon trees. They do hand what we call a turnkey service. You go there, you pick

the tree you want. They don't just tell you we're going to bring a tree to you. You get to pick it out and then they tag it, they bring it to your house, they plant it and if they've come out and you know, they've done the installation. They offer a one year warranty on your tree. And the sooner you get this done, the better, because summer is coming and that's a tough time for a new tree. So let's give it a little more time and go ahead and the bullet and

make that decision and get those trees. Trees are long term value to your landscape. When you sell a home, the quality of the trees is a huge factor, and it's selling and what it sells for. Talk to the folks at Verdant Tree and get set up and enjoy the shade or the blooms or whatever you choose the tree for for years and years to come. You're

listening to garden Line. Our number is seven to one three two one two, five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four up at A and A Plants yesterday when I was up there doing an appearance and visiting with folks, the folks at Nelson's were nice enough to give us some turf Star weedenator to give away. Now, Weedonator, I don't know if you're familiar with that or not, but it is a product that kills

existing weeds. It's not a pre emergent only that just prevents weeds, but if you've got weeds there, it will kill them. And it also has a very release fertilizer, so it's going to feed for weeks and weeks and weeks going forward. At the same time, it's not an immediate release like our green ups. It's a slower release. So here's here's what's going on. You have hand bit and chickweed and other weeds in your yard. You sprinkle enough to just wet the weed leaves. You don't have to water the

soil, just wet the surface of the leaves. Put the turf Star weedinator out. It sticks the granule stick to those wet leaf droplets and it soaks in. Wait about a day or two, and then water again. And what that's going to do is move all that material down into the soil where all those nutrients can then be available for plant roots as it warms up and the nutrients begin to release. That's how weed Nator works. And we gave way several bags of it out there, and you know, it's a it's

a hot item. I've talked to a number of garden centers that the people are really asking for and there's a reason. There is a reason for that. With the turf Star Whetenator, I was looking at my own yard, and I don't know if you were listening yesterday, but I have some areas. When I took a little trip last year, it's like chinchbugs were waiting around the corner, and when I drove around the corner, they came to my house. They did something to the irrigation system that was coming on regularly

and quit during the two weeks I was gone. This is the worst time of summer, and when I got home, it was like a blow torch it hit that yard. I might have to be replanting the yard in that area. And so some of you are in that same boat and just realize that now is a great time to pick a good grass and start over. I'm going to do some experiments, try some different types of newer Saint Augustine's and Zosia's as well, by the way, just to kind of have a

little bit of an experiment going on. I guess at the house, I'm doing it in a way where it doesn't look like a hodgepot, but I want to learn about the new things. It's hard to keep up on all the new plants that are coming out, but I try to do the best I can. I don't know if you have been to Plants for All Seasons lately, but I was checking them out and listen, they just got all their proven winters in. I don't know if you know about proven winners,

but that is a national program of super gorgeous plants that just perform. They do super well, and they have all kinds of pansies. They've got calibri coas and all kinds of different beautiful plants that are in now and ready to go. And their selection of pots is really gorgeous. Last year we bought a couple of really beautiful ceramic pots from the folks at Plants for All Seasons,

and they just really set off the landscape. And if you do the combo of some flowers and a gorgeous pot, it is just a it's a show stopper, it really is. And they can get y'all set up for that. And you know, Plants for All Seasons, they're the ones just north of Luetta on Highway two forty nine Tomball Parkway, just north of Luetta. You can take pictures and you can take samples in. They'll help you with all that. They'll direct you to plants, they'll tell you how to

take care of them. They'll even after the sale. Of course, you come back in you say I've got a problem with this, or hey, I need something. Here's a picture in my yard. They can direct you to that because they only carry things that grow here, and they know what works and how to fix problems when problems occur. Plants for all seasons. Dot com or call them up. Write this down you want this number two eight one, three, seven, six, sixteen forty six two eight one

three seven six one six four six and I get back this week. I am going to get really busy planting peppers and tomatoes outside. I've decided, Nikki, it is time to get those apes. That time year, it is time to get a planted. Our garden centers are just burgeoning with peppers and is burgeoning a word? Did I make that up? Burgeoning with peppers and tomatoes, And it's an exciting time. Tomato is the queen of the

garden. You know. I don't remember ever getting a call at the extension office or here on garden line where someone asks me about Cole Robbie our regular or something. But tomatoes. Tomatoes, they rule, Yes, indeed they do. Okay, if you just close your eyes, can you imagine a fresh sliced tomato or popping a cherry tomato in your mouth and it's like a water balloon full of sugar, just explodes with flavor. Oh, it's what's for breakfast. It is what's there to go? And I've decided it's time.

I know how to cover a plant if I'm wrong about the weather. But I've just said, okay, we're done. We're going to plant. Oh it's time for Nicky and the news our number seven to one three two one, two, five eight seven four. Welcome back to garden Line. Hey, look outside, it's starting to glow in the eastern sky. Now, if your lights are still off at the neighbor's house, go bang on the door. Tell me you're missing garden Line for crying out loud. Get

up, man. They will rise up and call you blessed on this wonderful morning. Well maybe not this morning, but they'll appreciate it later. Hey, I want to tell you if you have a landscape that has been hammered by last year's drought in the summer and heat, intense heat and drought. That combo is a killer. You need to call the folks at Pierce Scapes and here's why. They can do several things that help with that. Number

One, you may need plants replaced. You may decide you want to redo, redesign a bed, or add a bed somewhere where you don't have one, and you want to tell them, I'd like some plants that are a little bit more resilient than these that I've been trying to keep alive with water for all these years. Secondly, your irrigation system may not be very efficient. They come out and they can check it and they can do a tune

up for it. If you have sprinkler heads that aren't reaching at the proper distance between heads, that happens a lot a lot of poorly designed systems. They can evaluate that and help because here's what happens when you have an inefficient system. You waste water because you run the water more than you need to trying to keep the driest spots in the yard wet while others are getting overwatered. Why not have them come out. You need to give them a call.

They stay very busy, but the sooner you call them the schooner. They can get you on the schedule to come out and do all those kinds of things. How about a beautiful patio, how about landscape lighting? Pierce escape, Pierce Capes can do all of that stuff. Go to the website and look at the kind of work they do pierscapes dot com. Now you'll see some taj mahals, but I don't care. If you live in a double wide, they can come out and put a beautiful landscape in around.

Don't be thrown off by you know, I've got to have you know whatever to have that kind of Do you want a water feature, you can do that. They can create that for you. I just like the versatility. I like the fact that they can go from A to Z and get all kinds of landscaping stuff done. Hey, here's the number two eight, one,

three seven o five zero six zero. They have a service and they have an ability to take any place and make it more magical in a place you want to spend more time outside, that's Puerce Scapes is good at that. That is what they specialize in. You're listening to Garden Lined, I'm your host, Skiprector and Our phone number is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.

I if you I was talked earlier about getting some trees planted in things. I've had a number of people that have either talking to me at appearances or in calls or putting in a tree or they they just put in a tree. And what you see around town as you see these trees that are that they use the guy wires. The wires where they put a strap around a branch and they tie it to a steak on the ground, or maybe they hammer in an iron post and they do them on like three corners of

the tree. So now you get these wires to trip over and that are sticking, you know, out in the yard. And wires can hold from the tree going away from them, but if the blows twittum, well they don't hold that. A wire doesn't pulls, it doesn't push. Maybe that's why I should put it. That's why the folks at three sixty Tree Stabilizer invented the product they invented, and it is a good one. It's a very very sturdy composite plastic arm that holds onto the tree and holds onto the

steak. It's made to go on a T post. It's got the ridges in it to hold firmly to a T post, and it has a strap so you can put it on a regular fence post to attach it to hold the tree. You can just put one on the tree. In many cases that's all you need. If you got a lot of wind blown from different directions, you can put a second one at a ninety degree angle. And the strap allows movement, and that is important. A tree needs to move

a little bit because movement strengthens the trunk. And so for you just to honker a tree down like I see these guy wire trees often done where it's like there it's a rock and they're afraid it's going to take off. No, it needs to move. Movement creates strength in plants. That's just a principle of horticulture and tree stable edders is designed for that in mind. Where can you get them, Well, you can get them at Southwest Fertilizer.

Now they started carrying them Jorges Hidden Gardens way down South Plants for all seasons, Arborgate, Buchanans RCW Nursery and there's more to come that this is going to be a widely available product, and there's a reason for it. They last a long long time. So you buy one. When you're done with it, just hang it up in the garage. Next time you need one, you can put it out there. And that's true with multi trunk crape myrtles too, like we were talking about earlier today, I'm going to go

to the phones. Now we're going to head up to Tomball and talk to Clint. Hello, Clint, good morning morning. My question is my favorite plan is pair of wheels? Is what pair whekles? Oh? Yes? And the ground here very rocky. Yeah, So I thought that maybe buil a flower box maybe six feet long, three feet wide. How deep should I would that have to be? Well, you could do You could do a box on the ground, or you could just put a mound of soil

and create a raised bed. You could do it either way. Periwinkles don't need that much soil, And so I would say, you know, what do you how much do you want? Do you want a four foot wide bed or do you want just a row of periwinkles. You could do that in a foot and a half wide bed. It just kind of depends on what you want to look at. But they are a very good plant for summer, the Madagascar periwinkle. People call them vinka, but I prefer Madagascar

prairiewinkle for a name. Okay, do they mix well with other plants? They do. Just you have to think anytime you're putting two plants together, how big does each one want to get? And then you need to plant them accordingly, you know, so you don't over proud them or you don't have all this gap and it looks like they're just scattered out in the bed. I'm glad I found your program. Well I'm glad you did too, And boy are you ever lucky to be up? And then Tomball there,

which way north south east west? Are you from Tombull? Oh? Are you in town or outside? Oh? Okay, good, Well you have to drive by Arbrogate every day. That's a yeah, arbigade. Yeah, I gotta go by there. Oh my, I was just out there yesterday, and boy does it look good. They got a lot of stuff coming in out there at Arbrogate. It is is a beautiful place. I always like to visit. I always liked to Well, I got to make sure I got some cash cause I get botting plants. I go crazy. Yeah,

I know, but that's you know what it could be worse. You could you could have a hunting lease or a bass boat. So you're saving money by growing plants. Oh yeah, it's a good it's a good hobby. Thank you tell you my call. All right, Well you take care of Say hi to them out there at Arburgate next time you go out. Thanks a lotle. I appreciate that that. I was just visiting with them. Man, they're getting a lot of color in and they can't keep it

on the shelf. I mean there are these big racks coming off trucks and the tables. People are hauling them off the tables, and it's like, yep, that's the place to go. I mean, if you want a good selection, they have it. And by the way, I don't know if I forgot to tell you or not, but earlier they do have the new parking lot and you've got to do I did it. I drove by

Arbigate yesterday and the parking lot was full in front. Because it's a great place and people know about it. And I just drove down to Trishel Road. It goes behind Arburgate. So whether you do before you get there, after you get there, it doesn't matter. You can't miss it. Turned on Trashel it goes round behind Arburgate and oh my gosh, the parking lot is great. It's one of these naturally. It just takes water right through and goes to the ground and you're just high and dry, walk right in

the back. Easy access. Yeah. Get you got to go out and check that out. Pretty cool stuff. Let's see where we're going to go next. We are gonna go, Oh why I tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna go take a break. When we come back from break, Crag and Chris, you're gonna be the first two up our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to guard Line. Glad you're listening today. We got lots to talk about. Hey.

One thing we do need to talk about, though, is the summer weeds are coming. They are sprouting. They like warming temperatures. When the soil hits about fifty five degrees, we start to see the summer weeds begin to pop up. Some of them. Wait a little bit later, but that that's when we need to be putting anything. If you're going to put a primergent down to prevent them, you need to do it now. Now is the time. Don't delay any longer, especially for those of you in the

southern part of our listening area. It's time. It's time to get it out. Night of Fuss has a product called Barricade. Barricade shuts down weeds by putting a barricade on the soil surface. You put it out at the label rate, follow the label always and then immediately go ahead. Well then have to be immediately. But after that you need to water it in with about a half inch of water or third of an inch of water even just

to move it to the soil surface. That's all we're trying to do is just get it down in the soil surface, because until you do that, that product is not down there, and when a weed tries to germinate, there's no product around to stop it. And so that's why incorporating it with water is very important. Now. Night Fuss Barricade can be purchased all over town. Night Fuss products are available everywhere. It makes it really easy to

find them. Lake Jackson Lake Hardware down in Kluke Lake Jackson. That is a good place to find a lot of those products. A task Asida. Ace Hardware also has the nitroposs products. You can go out to Sinko Ranch and Ace Hardware out there also has nitro fuss products like barricade. Makes it easy. We're going to run out now to pair Land and talk to Craig. Good morning, Skip, Thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir,

I have a couple of questions. One I called late last year about fringe tree and I wrote some of the stuff down, but unfortunately I forgot some of the things you told me. So we're looking the planet a couple of fringe trees in our yard on the west northwest side, and I believe you told us the plane about twenty feet apart, but I could remember where

you suggested coming from Peerland where we look to buy them. You know, we don't have any of those nurseries you speak about on your website, And is there any nursery in particular that you think would have this tree, because I don't see a lot in our neighborhoods or anywhere really, so I don't know how easy they are to find. Yeah, I think down in Proland you might be able to find those at Moss Nursery. They are over in Seabrook, so it's a little bit of a distance but not too far.

It's worth going anyway because it's a cool place to visit. You might find them on there. I don't know if Jorge has them at Jorges Hidden Gardens. He might, but that would be another one. And Jorge is over in the Alvin area, so that's also pretty close to you, but I would I would check with him first. He's on Elizabeth Street in Alvin. You can do just go to a Maps and look for j O. R. G. E. Jorges Hidden Gardens and he may have those as well,

or maybe he can get them in for you if he doesn't. Right, how big of a pot size would it would I expect to when I buy these things or whatever size you want. I mean, it doesn't I'm going to say it doesn't matter in terms of you having a tree. The difference is you get a bigger pot, you get a bigger tree. It's larger to start with, But if you wanted to save some money a smaller pot, it's still going to turn out to be the same kind of tree.

But yeah, it depends on the garden center and what sizes they're carrying. Right, and we've heard of your your advice planning to anything special for this particular tree once it's planned, as far as new tree is concerned, no, just treat it. Just treat it like a tree. I mean, there are a lot of good options out there. I you could use a lawn fertilizer on it. You know, I use a lawn fertilizer on a lot of my things just for trees. You know, in general,

that would work just fine. Uh, They're just you got a lot of options. It's not just a you know, you have to have a certain kind of fertilizer. Now you know, our different companies they'll make a specific fertilizer that you know, they design it, they create it for a specific kind of plant, and those are fine too. But in general, you can also in a pinch, just quade and use your lawn fertilizer on it. It'll do just you know what I was on what I was on hold,

I thought of one other question. Okay, we're planning on planning of a crepe myrtle white match has, which I believe is a medium size Okay, and it's going on the side of the yard where there were two pumped trees. Previously, they were both killed by freezes, et cetera. How far away from the original trunk or stump should the crape myrtle be planted so that its roots are impacted. I'm sorry, what kind of tree was there before palm trees? I think there were Florida sables. You know, I

just moved by the Yeah, I would just move over. You got to get enough away to make it easier to dig. But you know, just move a two or three feet over and you'll be fine, except for the fact that you don't have to be digging. But hey, listen, white Natches is not a medium size. It will get thirty feet thirty five feet tall, so you might want to look if you don't want one that big, you might want to look for a smaller one. Natches is a wonderful

crape, but it's not a small crape. Yeah, it's well, the space is not an issue. We'll double check all the sizes. We thought it was kind of like a like you right, maybe it's twenty to thirty foot tree. Okay, okay, thank you very much, Thank you. Craig appreciate, appreciate your all. Yeah, for those of you who haven't been out to Jorges Hidden Gardens, you gotta check it out. He's got avocado trees, got hibiscus in. They just got a bunch of those in.

They're loaded veggies and herbs. And when it comes to fruit, blackberries, blueberry, strawberries, raspberry. They even have elderberries. You know, you could buy an elderberry. That's right. They have mulberries as well too. Jeges Hidden Gardens is on Elizabeth Street in Alvin, just south of Highway six. So those of you in Alvin, Santa Fe, Dickinson, Hillcrest, you know, Arcadia, Alta Loma. I'll go all those communities. This is your backyard garden center right there. And boy, they have a

lot of other things. Peggy Martin, roses and on and on down there at Jorges Hidden Gardens. You gotta give him a give him a checkout. I think you'll enjoy it. Let's see, we're going to go now to Chris in Jersey Village. Hello, Chris, Yeah, good morning, good morning. I have a great neighbor. He's wonderful. He invites me to a Super Bowl party, as we get along grat but he just does not want to take care of his yard. And last year the same thing happened

to me. Skip the chinch bugs and the root run. I think the combination wiped out his yard and then croak creaked over into mine. And you know, our lawns share, you know, the common dirt and everything. Is there any any kind of barrier, skip that I could put between my grass and his grass to maybe keep you know, things from spreading over to mine. I mean, I've tried taking care of his grass, and you know it's it's more expensive to water it and to fertilize it and do everything

that you need to do. It's a large patch of grass that owns. But he'll come over with his lawnmower and just scalp it, you know when he mows it once every month, you know, and just gets it down to the ground where you know, myne grass is the lawnmower sittings all the way up. So I didn't know if you had any suggestions, Well let me, let me, let me just cut to it. Isn't There's not a barrier. So what you would do is if you see like chinchbug activity

in his lawn. Just spray a swathe through that side of your lawn to create that barrier. You can ask him if he minds if you spray a little over into his side, that would even be better. But that would be the option there. And as far as diseases, they're kind of ubiquitous and so it's not like takeoff patch is going to go from his lawn to your lawn. It's out there and when grass gets stressed, it gets that disease, and his lack of care for it is probably part of the reason

why that it's it's doing that. So so spraying is going to Spraying a barrier is going to be what you have to do. Okay, scared, that's kind of what I figure. Yeah, I give you a call this morning. Yeah, thanks for the call. Thanks for the call. Appreciate that very very much. You know, we talk about putting out fertilizers this time of year. You can put out azamite anytime of year. Fertilizers the kind you know, the ones with the three numbers on the back, Those

we put out in larger quantities to promote grass growth. Azamite is a trace mineral supplement that you're putting it out to put a bank account in the soil of the things grass needs and tiny amounts but are essential to the grass. That's what azemite is. It's a trace mineral or micronutrient product. Ten pounds will cover one thousand square feet of your vegetable garden. By the way, a forty four five bag will cover like six to twelve thousand feet long.

Because we're not putting a lot of this out, just a little. But the fact that it's a little doesn't mean that it's not very very important. Asmite Texas dot com. Just to go to azimite Texas dot com. Well here we put an hour in the books. This morning sun is just about to peek up above the horizon. I can't wait for a great day. I hope you're ready to go on that. Hey, I want to tell you about rom will be next weekend next weekend up in Montgomery County, the

Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show. It's going to be at the Lone Star Convention Center. I've been up there a couple of times for these, and I'm really looking forward to it. We're going to be giving away some Nelson fertilizer up there, actually I think no, we're going to be giving away the Genesis. I'll tell you more about Genesis when we come back, but the Nelson Genesis giveaways. I'll be giving a presentation up there and then

answering your gardening questions. Now that's next weekend. The show is March second and third. I'll be there on Saturday after I get done with the radio show. Here. I hope you can come up and see me. Kt RH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katy r H Garden Line with Scamp Richter's trip. Just watch him as world. So many things to welcome back to Garden Line.

Look outside, I see a little sliver of sunlight coming across the sky. This is a good news because today is going to be one of those awesome days. I hope this afternoon you got plants to get out, do a little yard work, maybe pick up some plants, pick up some supplies. Remember when we're taking care of our plants, we need to do the brown stuff before the green stuff, Right you ever heard me say that before? If you're listening to the Garden Line once even once you have and why

do we say that. Well, you know, when you go to a garden center, it's easy to get excited about the tomato plants and picture and the tomatoes are going to grow. You can taste them before you can put the plant in the ground. It's easy to get excited about flowers and all kinds of things. But it's the soil that makes all that happen. And if you go PLoP a plant into an unprepared plot Peter Piper picked a peckers, you're not gonna have success. It could be a great plant, but

you're not gonna have success. It needs to be in a soil where the plant roots can thrive and er. You know, I find that when you have a really quality mix, it makes it look like you have a green thumb because you're giving the plants everything they want. Remember that no brown thumbs.

There's only an informed thumbs. And I'm informing you if you go to Ciana Maltz yep Cienamlts down there Nurse North the Road, Sharon, They're on FM five twenty one down south, you're gonna find the kind of soils and fertilizers that make the brown stuff come alive and the roots will thrive and the plants will thrive, and you will be very happy and you'll be very impressed too. By the way, CINMLS has lots of quality, quality materials.

We're talking about composts, we're talking about bed mixes, we're talking about mulching materials. If I talk about a fertilizer on guard line, it's at Cienamltch. They carry all of those, all of the lines. So when you leave namlts or you call it, whether you call them and have them to deliver within about twenty miles their bulk materials, or if you just go there and get it yourself, when you leave, you're gonna have everything you need

to set your plants up for success. That is what Cennamulch is about. Here's the website, Sienna multch dot com, Sienna multch dot com. Go there and take a look. And when you're there physically, by the way, check out their rock materials. Their stone there, they're flagstone, and it just it's a wide variety of things and when you look at them, you're gonna you're gonna picture something in your backyard where you could use those to

create that little patio or oasis that you're looking for. Cienamultch dot com makes it easy. Let's head up to Cyprus, Texas and we're gonna talk to Melanie. Hello, Melanie. Hi. Yeah, I've already bought my weed and etter and I'm gonna got to get it out this week. I've heard all your how to dos on that. Do I put the pre emergent down before I do the whedonator? You could? I'm trying to think about that.

Yes, you could put it down. And what you're going to want to do though, is both both of them need to be watered in, but at different times, so you're gonna I would I would do the pre emergent down on the ground. Uh, then I would I would wet the soil and then do the whedonator and then one more light about third of an inch to wash. So I kind of thought i'd do one other question. You talked about the tumbling tongue. Yes, and plants for all seasons.

You had it last year and I bought it and they were great. Aren't they unbelievable? They're unbelievable. It was a hanging basket of three plants and then I transplanted them into like a big It was about a ten gallon big container and they did great. But now I'm going to try to find them again. I'm going to try to see if they've got it this year. I've got good news for you. They might. You can check them out. I was at Arborgate yesterday and they had a few and hanging baskets they

did. No. No, if you're you know, wherever you like shop, you can do that. I just happened to see those yesterday when I was out there. But that is a plant that I thought it was gone. I thought that variety was gone, and so I was so excited when I saw those that we did. We did a trial. Yeah, we did a trial in Harris County at the old Extension office when it was at

Bear Creek Park. I had seven gallon buckets and I put all like twenty different kinds of tomatoes in them, and we replicated it like three buckets of each tomato. Tumbling tom won hands down, and it was like an average of two hundred fruit off a plant. Now you got to water and fertilize them. And a little hanging basket's a smaller container. So I'm not saying you're going to get two hundred. But I'm saying, if you really keep it moist, don't let it dry out, and you keep fertilizing it,

that is a really productive little tomato. Well here's my question too on that. Do I need Like I still have this container full of dirt from last year, but do I need to change that out with the tomatoes. You don't need amend it. You don't need to, you can amend it. You definitely want to work in some kind of a nutrient type of material into it. That that's important to you know, beef it up because a limited root system has to have all the water and nutrients it needs for the plants

to thrive. And so that's what you got to create in that smaller container with jungle land. Would that be a good thing? Jungle is, Yeah, jungle land is an excellent potting mix. Nitrous nitrofuss will distribute that all around. And jungle Land it's got the you know, the blends of the Canadian blondb pede. It's got microhizo fungi and four different types of decomposed organic material. That's the outdoor. That's the outdoor jungle Land, and they have

the indoor one that's called junger Land water Saving soil. But I think you're talking about tomatoes you would want to go. Yeah, the outside, Yeah, the label will say something like jungle Land Flour and Vegetable Potting Soil. But that would be an excellent one to use. And you know you're there in Cyprus, so you're going to be able to go. I don't know which of the garden centers are carrying it up there, but I know you can find it at the ACE hardware stores around you. You've got the ACE

on Jones Road Plants Well Seasons, Oh, Plants Troll Seasons. That's great, Okay, go for it. Yeah, yeah, that's a good good mix. But when you buy that, also buy while you're there. At Plants for All Seasons, they're going to have the little canisters of the fertilizers that you can mix into the soil as well to provide the nutrients that you

need. You want to beef that up. The little canisters. Who oh, well, Nelson's Plant Food and Nitrofs, Plant Food and Microlife all will sell you little jars of fertilizer and they may be for vegetables or hibiscus or you know what I'm saying, yeah, you could refill them too, right, and you can. You can some of those in some places. Yeah, but I think they do have a refill station at plants for all seasons. For I believe they have the Nelson and the the microlife refill. But

just to ask them, I could be wrong about. What about that Genesis thing? Would that be good to put in there? Oh? Yeah, that'd be excellent to put in there. That, Well, you got to give it a try. I don't. I'm not sure if they're carrying it there. They may well be, but call them first and ask them if they have it or can get it. But Genesis is by Nelson. Pardon, so I know they have the wednater plants for all season? Has that Okay, Well they may have it, and Genesis is in the jars too,

the plastic jars. Oh it is, Yes, Yes, that's what I'll get. Yeah, it's a it's a good boy. We've talked about every fertilizer under the sun and this one call. So thank you so much. I'm ready to go to work all right now. You know the rule on guard Line is I don't charge for this advice, but I do expect at least half the tomatoes that that tumbling tom produces. Just drop them off at the station that you're convenient. I'll have to do that. Thank you.

I appreciate your help. Thank you. Melanie. Yeah. Yeah. That nutri star genisis. It's a six y one three fertilizer and it's got the indo and Ectomycrohisa fungiant humates and I've used it and I'm very impressed. You mix it into the soil you're going to transplant your plants into and it works super super well. We're gonna take a little break. It's time for that seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Okay, Josh, you're cracking me up. I used to be a county extension agent,

and most people don't know what a county extension agent is. Every state has has a Langrane University here in Texas's tex A and m LSU's over in Louisiana, Oklahoma State Cornell up in New York. Anyway, they have county extension agents and most people don't know what they are. But anybody who watched Green

Acres knows that there's such a thing called a county extension agent. Those of us who were one would rather you don't think of the County Extension agent on Green Acres when you think about because he was he was a mess, that is for sure. You're listening to garden Line. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one

two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, I was just visiting with Melanie who basically took me through the history of all fertilizer in terms that we just talked about every fertilizer under the sun. And I uh, we were talking about Melanie were talking about going by plants roll seasons, and I said, I didn't know if they had the Nelson genesis, and they do. I just heard from them, Sherry, and they do carry that over there too. So you can just kind of kill two birds, I guess with one stone.

That is a It is an excellent, excellent product for sure, if you are wanting to attract bluebirds and purple martins to your home. You know, birds eat insects, right, and they are a beneficial creature in that regard eating insects in our landscapes. And when it comes to nesting time, they need a lot of caterpillars to feed their young. That high protein, high fat caterpillar. Can't you just imagine how wonderful that tastes. Well.

They eat a lot of those, and that's important for their nesting time, and that's coming up. But you got to get ready for that now by putting out a bird house, a bluebird house, a special kind of house for bluebirds. And you also need to put up a Purple Martin house because the scouts are out looking right now for a place to set up home. And the folks at Wildbirds have you set up on both of those and they have some wonderful designs, beautiful houses really everything you need, even one that

one of the Purple Martin houses that will drop down. You don't have to take the whole pole down. It'll just kind of come down where you can get to it real easily and put it back up very very good. You know, there's six Wildbirds locations around the Greater Houston area. Go to dub b U dot com, WBU dot com, forward Slash Houston, WBU dot Com forward Slash Houston find the one near you, and when you go in there, you definitely need to go home with some of their bird seed.

Their bird seed is one hundred percent bird food, a lot of cheap bird seeds with all the little redbebes that birds kick out. You may think that's a cheaper seed, it's not because half the seed that you're putting out there, the birds aren't gonna eat, so you're paying double the price just for that. So while you're in wild Birds, make sure and pick up some of the quality bird seed blends that they have. Uh that blends for all

kinds of different birds as well. Well. You are listening to Gardenline and our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two five eight seven four makes it really really easy. Uh. Just a while back, I was down in Seabrook. In fact, I've gone twice recently. I've had to go down there for a couple of different things. But I stop by Moss Nursery, And if you've never been to Moss you really need to go. It is acres of wandering through

a plant wonderland. You're going to encounter all kinds of things. They have an unbelievable selection of pots. For example, and you know, whatever, what size pot do you want, Well they've got it. They're just all over the place. When you walk through, it's just like it's like you're walking through a botanical garden. You know, at every turn it's like, oh wow, what's that. That's cool? Well, go into the houseplant greenhouse and check out the cacti and succulents. Un believable, the selection,

I'm telling you. They they're on tables, they're on the shelves, they are on the ground, they're hanging from the rafters. That place is packed with all kinds of cool succulents. We picked up a string of tears. My wife lies likes string of plants, and so I grabbed me one of those when I was there the last time. Listen, here's an number you need this two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight. Two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight. They're on Toddville Road down in

Seabrook. If you haven't been, I've got a great outing for you this afternoon. You need to go check it out. Lots of plants, patio plants, plants for in the ground, plants for pots. They've got them all by the way. When you're there, they've got some really cool peppers in. Two of my favorite peppers. One of them is called fool to youew it has no heat at all. Now, why would you want a

no heat klopennio. Here's why. You can add a hot halopeno to it when you're making salsa, and you can make it as hot or mild as you want. Think about that. You want three mild klopenios with a and then one hot one, or vice versa for the hot ones. I would recommend you check out and they have this one there too. By the way, Mucho Nacho, does that name not tell you? It's a big old, thick walled klopennia. I love peppers. We're going to go out to

Sugarland now and we're going to talk to Ruben. Hello, Ruben, Hello, are you I'm doing well? Sir? Yes, sir, good morning. But based on that last phone call, I was warning like some gardening one on one tips about planning tomatoes. Okay, what's soil? What's the best seeds in the best season plant? Okay? Well, you're down there in Sugarland, so you've got a lot of places pretty close to you where

you can pick up some really quality materials you might want to try. Heirloom soil has a veggie an herb mix, and you can find that if you go down to the the Anchinna Gardens and Channet Forest down toward the Richmond Way. If you go up to Southwest Fertilizer Bess and that and Runwick just into Houston, you're kind of close to both of those and they'll carry those kinds of blends for you that also carry the fertilizer to go with them that you

want to mix into the soil. Because here's the key to success. You create a beautiful soil blend, you mix a good quality fertilizer into it, and that tomato they just thrive well. As they say, just add water. You just add water, right and it's going to be happy. And I know all those places are going to have a great selection of tomatoes right now. I was checking out the folks at Engented Forest. They built a new herb and tomato structure last year and that thing is packed with lots of

good options. So you're fortunate. You're kind of like right in the middle of a lot of good places to get plants and products and things like that. Awesome, all right, when you do, you want to plant them soon, and if you have to cover them, cover them up, but just try to get them in. Don't delay too much because you want to get that tomato harvest before it gets too hot. Oh, I got you all right. That's good, sir, Thank you so much. Thanks for

the call. Appreciate that. Good to talk to you, that is for sure. In the lawns, I've had a last yesterday talking to people out at a anda. Tons of questions about lawns. People care about their lawns. At the extension office, we used to say the three things that make our phone ring are trees, turf, and tomatoes. The three t's. Turf is a big one, probably the biggest one of those three. Nitropos has an Imperial fifteen five ten. And if you look at my gardening schedule

you'll see there's a spring green up that's optional. And what that is about is we put an immediately available fertilizer on the soil about now in order to get that grass to green up. It looks prettier and it's a stronger plant. As the weather warms, that grass is going to start growing. The temperature controls whether it's able to take off growing or not. But when it's ready to take off growing, you want nutrients in the soil that are there

to boot that growth. And that's what Nitrofoss Imperial fifteen five to ten is all about. It works very well. It's designed. You know, eight years ago Texas and m did research and found out that a three one two ratio like of the fifteen five to ten is what you need in order to get the best growth out of your grass. Now where do you get Where are you going to find it? Well, lots of places bearing hardware both

on Bessinette and Westheimer carries Nitrofoss fifteen five to ten. It's called Imperial. It's a red bag. By the way, Plantation Ace Hardware out there in the Richmond Rosenberg area carries it, and Hiden and Feed on I forty five north on Stubor Airline they have it too up there. It's real easy to find. But now the time to get that down. We get a little bit later we're going to start putting slower release fertilizers out. But now's the

time for the quick greenup. We're going to go. Now, let's see, we're going to go to trying to see who's been on the longest. Doctor Ruben In Sugarland. Hello, Reuben, we have Reuben in sugar Land. Okay, I'll tell you what I'm going to put Ruben on hold. We'll come back to you. Let's try Martha up in Cyprus. Hello Martha, Hi, Hi, Skip. I have a live ol tree. It's about twenty years old, and it was trimmed in November by the one you

recommend, and now it's dropping leaves like crazy. It ever dropped acorns like all the other trees around here did, and now it's just losing the leaves like terrible, and the other trees around here aren't okay. That is okay. You can rest easy, basically, And there's there's differences in years, but there's also differences in genetics between trees. But live oaks, we think

of them as an evergreen, but they go through a transition. And I to have two live oaks in my front yard, and one of them it's like it stayed green the whole time. The other one almost went there dropping leaves before the new leaves came on. That's the transition of kicking off the old leaves because the new growth is coming on. And again, it can vary a lot between trees, but that your tree is going to green back out. It's just fine. Okay, Okay, Now I'm you know,

I'm assuming. I'm assuming that you know, you didn't nuke it with a tree killing herbicide or some other thing is going on. But I didn't do anything to it. And Jack, I haven't been watering since the you know, the when we had the really old I turned my sprinkler off, so I haven't watered. Okay, Well, it's fine. We've had plenty of rain for a live oak, that's for sure. Yeah. I can't think

of any other thing, and that is a very normal thing. So you know, we're going to assume it's the obvious why my tree doesn't drop acrunt, some of the trees drop and like crazy, well it varies, it also varies. It just it's we The fancy word is, it's the vicissitudes of nature, Martha, And that's just kind of how nature is. So don't don't worry about it. You'll be okay. Try orients, you bet,

you bet. While ago, you know, I've been talking about these fertilizers and weed control products, and a while ago we were visiting with Ruben down or not Ruben. Somebody done in sugar Land. I'm we were talking about Southwest Fertilizer being a place where you could go and get things. Bob at Southwest he specializes in making sure they have everything you could need. Every fertilizer I talk about and more, it's there. Do you like synthetic,

it's there. Do you want organic, it's there. And that also applies to insecticides and fungicides and herbicides to kill weed, synthetic and organic. Eighty foot long wall of tools. I mean, they got a sharp shop in the back. It's just it's a one stop shop. But I can tell you this, if you don't find it at Southwest, you don't need it because they have everything that you could need. Every time I go in there, I'm surprised, Oh wow, now you've got some new stuff. This

only place I know that has what you have on the shelf. That is the kind of place At Southwest. They're in the corner of Bisinet and Renwick, Bisnette and Renwick. I would recommend you just go to the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. You can find out everything you want to know. And hey, this afternoon be a good time to stop in and check them. Out there. Well, we are about to hit another hard break here for

the News and Ruth in spring. You will be our first stup when we come back for the rest of you, if you'd like to get on the boards seven one three two one two k t R eight seven one three two one two k t RH. We look forward to talking with you, helping you with whatever kinds of questions that you might have. Hey, we want everybody to have success with gardening. That's why we're here. I've even heard reports that if you listen to garden Line, your plants start greening up in

the other room just hearing it. They can hear it too. Do you believe that, Nikki? I thoroughly believe. I believe all right, it's all yours. All right, we're hopping today on garden Line. Look, I love sock hopping today. For those of you who remember the oldies from the fifties, we are. We're answering all kinds of questions about gardening. We're talking about everything you need to do right now when it comes to gardening.

And when it does come to gardening, you want to make sure you are taking good, good care of plants before you even put them in the ground by giving them a good place to live. That's what we like to focus on. I want to head right now out to Spring and we're going to talk to Ruth. Hello, Ruth, Good morning, Chip. I'm not in Spring anymore. I'm now in Montgomery. Okay, all right, But my question is we've got our flower beds and the armadillos are just airing

them up. Okay, we'd like to do something with succulent desert desert escape or yeah, something like that, Okay, and we'd like to know where to get stuff and how to prepare our beds. Okay. Well, first of all, no matter what your plant, armordlers are going to be a problem, and what you're probably going to have to do ultimately is do a

live trap and relocate. There's a way to go about that. I know you don't want to have to go through that, but either that or a fence to keep them from wandering in would be your two options on them.

As far as succulents, you're close to ana plants and produce. I was out there yesterday and they have a wide variety of different kinds of plants out there, and as the weather warms up, they're just gonna be getting more and more and more things in. And I would talk to them and see, you know, if you know what you're looking for, let them know, see if they can get that in if they don't already have it, and if you don't, talk to them and they can give you some good

ideas. You know, Succulents can be a wide variety of things. I mean even I guess you could even consider inn agave a succulent, those big oldagave plants. And there's some really nice small ones that are just beautiful on down to the little houseplant size succulents. Okay, dude, you said A and E on Is that one oh five? H Yes, A N A is on one oh five in Montgomery, and there they do all kinds of things. I mean, they'll they have a landscape crew that'll come to a

spring clean up around your home. Uh. They do carry my launch care schedule at the desk. By the way, they have all the fertilizers I talk about here on garden Line, but sea potatoes. I was out just yesterday that onion sets out there. You can get your fruit trees and stuff that lots of real cool gardening bling. So I always love to go to an a awesome We'll check them out then, thank you very much. Just on the east side of Montgomery, just on the edge of town, like

you're heading to Lake Conrad. Appreciate that, Ruth. Yep, that is a cool place. That is for sure, I wanted to talk about just for a moment, Star of Hope. I was at an event by Star of Hope just a couple of weeks ago and was able to hear from people that have been benefited by the programs of Star of Hope. You know, Star of Hope is one of the oldest and largest homeless shelters in this whole

country. They provide services for more than a thousand homeless people a day, and they have places for men and women, a men's shelter, they have a women child they have a family area. When they bring someone into Star Hope. It's not like we used to say three hots and a cop meaning I'm going to feed you three times, give you a place to sleep, and a good luck. No, you can. You can take a pathway

to turning your life around and turning your children's future around. For example, job training, a place to live, care for the children, food interview training, even clothing to get, you know, dressed up and ready to go present yourself for an interview. Spiritual training. Star of Hope Mission changes lives. It's as simple as that they change lives. And I'm telling you the stories that I heard. It was hardly a dry eye in the room.

Because you know you're a compassion I know you have compassion, and this is a way to put your compassion into action. A dollar given to Star of Hope does a lot. In fact, for two dollars and eighty cents two dollars and eighty cents cost of a cup of coffee, you can buy someone a meal by given to Star of Hope Shmission dot org sh Mission dot org. I believe in it. My wife and I support it. We have for a long time. And I'm telling you this, This makes a

difference. Paul, what a what the need exists for that? Let's set out to Kingwood now. I want to visit with Joe. I think Joe has some questions out in Kingwood. Hey Joe, good good morning, Skip. I have a couple of questions regarding spring clean up for a while. You have the advised that we not go ahead and trim back our winter kill.

Yes, in case whether turned and we got in their freeze and did want to stimulate new growth to be prone to getting nipped by the cold, do we have the green light go ahead and clear off all the winter kill? Now? Yeah, I think you do. I mean, you know, if you look at the last twenty years average, we're just about there on a lake frost. But by the time something gets stimulated and growing and stuff, I think we're going to be in the clear. So I would

go ahead. Great. And then regarding when do you advise putting out mulch in the spring, is there a calendar date you go by, or is there a temperature trigger or what do you go by? For when do you put out your moult in the spring? Months out of the year is a good time to put out mulch? It really is, because your mulch in the winter time, it's it's moderating soil temperatures, it's protecting the soil,

and it's slowly decomposing to release nutrients where it contacts the soil. In the summertime, it's doing that plus you know, moderating that heat levels in the soil. And you know, any time of the year we can get a weed seed sprout, and so you don't want to leave the soil where sunlight can reach the soil or nature will put a weed there. So twelve months out of the year is okay, no problem doing it now? Great, all right, skip, Thank you appreciate the advice. All right, you

bet, I appreciate your call. Thanks a lot for that. Yeah, it's always you know, mulching is something that you just want to always make sure that you've got a coating on the soil, that that kind of thing. It's just important for all the reasons I gave, and even some additional reasons as well. You know, the folks at airloom soils they have a wide variety of things like malts. For example, do you need a leaf more compost? That's something we If you were going to say, multch the

lawn, I don't know if that's a right way to put it. But a leaf mo compost is a compost top dressing that we put in the lawn. And anytime you put some organic matter over the soil, that's a little less sunlight to hit the soil. Plus, the main reason we do it isn't for that reason. It's because it releases nutrients over time as that moves into the soil and helps to build the soil better and better and better.

They've got the works Potting soil now. The works is widely available. You're going to find it a kDa Hardware, Nelson's Water Gardens out there, and Katie has it as well. Mid County Farm Innederland. Those of you up in Huntsville, shout out to you. Huntsville Farm Supply carries airloom soil products like the Works potting soil up there. Airloom Soils. I was talking earlier about their vegetable and herb soil really really quality, mixed a lot of things.

Just go here do this. Just go to the website and look at it. Heirlooms Soils off Texas dot Com. You're going to find a soil mulch calculator there. So whether you're buying you know, a compost volume, a soil volume, a mult volume, you can go into the calculator and put in the dimensions of the area you need to cover and it'll tell you exactly how many cubiccards you need. And they have the supersacks, the qbcard supersacks which can be dropped right on your on your driveway, nice and neat

and clean. You can go pick things up at porter location for bulk. You can have them deliver it or you can buy it by the bag. And heirloom soils are widely available around the Greater Houston area. By the bag makes it really easy to just run in, even with a car and a trunk and bring some things home. You're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richer, and we're about to take a break. It's time for that. Our phone number seven one three two one two KTRH. Give

Josh a callin. You can be the first step when we come back. Have you ever heard of the jitterbug? That's what you do to that song? You do the jitterbug. All right, we are here on Guardline, ready to talk to you about what you're interested in. We got some folks on the phones. I did want to mention that I was talking to David at RCW Nursery just a couple of days ago and discussing their trees and stuff. They grow trees out at Plannersville and they have a wide variety of things,

and they grow things that belong in Houston. You know, it's not like going to some of these big box stores where who knows what they're going to sell you. They grow things that need to be grown here and planted here, and they have a really wide selection of some super quality trees. Several times I've been surprised, like, oh, you have that. I'd love to be able to recommend that tree, but I didn't know it was that available here. That is good to know. That's what they do now

at the nursery. Oh my gosh, the trees are there. Of course you can buy them there. They'll go plan them for you. Their rose selection is unbelievable. I mean I can't think of a rose that they don't have. They just really, really really have a good rose. They got roses from weeks roses and star roses and then some you know, anti croses. They are modern roses, shrub roses, hybrid tea roses. They've got it all and they got the products you need to plant the roses and have

success with them. They got those kind of fertilizers and other materials that we put in the ground to make success with the roses. Now do they have other things, Yes, they have everything. They have annuals and perennials and vegetables and herbs and you name it. But you just need to stop buy RCWS where two forty nine comes into Beltweg eight. It's really easy to get to there. Just go to the website and that would be the fastest way

to find out what you need. R c W Nurseries dot com. RCW Nurseries dot com and you need to go check them out in this afternoon will be a good time to do just that. I want to run out to College Station and talk to Bill. Hello, Bill, Hello, Skip, how are you? I'm well, sir. How can we help today? I have a question. Where can I find the essentially the Southwest Fertilizer of Brian College Station a place where I can get good roast soil, compost,

molds, fertilizer, et cetera. The best thing you got in College Station is Producers co Op and North of Brian. They have everything. They for example, they even have the like micro life fertilizers I've seen up there at Producers co Op and North Brian co Op. Well, thank you very much, you bet you bet. That's a that's a fun place to go through. Thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Yeah, Microlife. You know, they've got the standard for your lawn. And that's the sixty

four of the green bag. What I'm trying to talk people into giving a good hard look at and actually doing now is the Microlife Humates plus. Now, you can put that on any time of the year you want. Now is fine to do that. It's got a little potassium in it, but you're not putting it on for a fertilizer. It's not in lieu of fertilizing. It's essentially think of it as composted compost. Concentrated compost in a bag. You take compost to its fully decomposed state. That's humus. That's what

this is. It's loaded with microbes and it helps microbes. It provides the microizal fungi, the essential microbes that are needed, but the ones that are already there in the soil, it's good for them. It helps loosen to clay soil. Humus is very beneficial for improving a lot of things in the soil and microlights Microlife h mates plus. That's a purple bag by the way. It has just out and yeah, you can get it a producer's cop

in Brian, Texas. Let's go now to Orlando and Spring Branch. Hey, Orlando, good morning, skeep, thank you so much for your show. I have a quick question about two weekends ago, I spread some pre emerged herbicide. Yes, and last weekend I spread so compost. Is it okay to put some greenaup right now? Yeah? You can, there's no problem with that. Or should I or should I wait? Or should no? No? The idea and green up a spring green up. It's an

optional thing. But the reason people do that is because they wanted the lawn to get green early. And you've got a good healthy grass plant, You've given it some nutrient, and when the weather warms up, it's ready to get growing and it provides that early greenup. And the compost is not going to do that. A slow release fertilizer like we use in summer is not

going to do that as much. And that's why we do a fast release something that dissolves and gets right down there to the root system for the spring greenup. Yeah. Great, great? Have you have you happened to go to my website and see the schedules on there or not? I I printed this case. Yeah, and so it's just right now that between here and between March and April. Yes, put some greenup, I think, yes, it is uh huh the fast release, and that's in the yellow bar,

and it has a list of them right down below. Just it makes the schedule if you just kind of look at it a little bit, it makes a lot of sense and it's easy to find stuff. So yeah, now it would be the time. So for example, this would be a good time to put out a Nitropuss Imperial. That's the red bag and it's fifteen five ten. It dissolves away quickly, it goes to the roots and it's it would be called the spring green up, and you'll see that on

the schedule. There's a little gap between that and when we start our summer first. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all right, excellent, all right, and something really quick. So I had some three years ago I got some Cherokee roses and I have planned them in the ground up against the fans. They were getting a lot of song, but they were never bloom, and so I decide that I was going to put them

out of the ground and put them in that big pot. And so when I took the roots looked really really really like sad you know, so I just put some roast soil in the pot and I planned them. I put a little bit of fertilizer. But I've improved them. Should I improve them? Oh? Yeah that way. Yeah, in a pot, you're going to need to cut them back considerably. I would. I would cut them back probably When did you put them in the pot? How long ago?

Last weekend? Yeah? Yeah, i'd I'd print them. I'd print them by half. Yeah, okay about half? Yeah, cut them half back. Take all the little twiggy growth, take all the twiggy growth out, and cut the big canes back behalf okay, all right, and keep feeding them. Yes, sir, all right, thank you. I appreciate that call. Good luck, good luck with all those things. I appreciate that. You know all these supplies we're talking about, Where do you get them?

Well, you live near in Ace Hardware. I don't care where you are. You live near there's forty ACE Hardware stores here. Go to acehardware dot com and find the store locator, put in your zip code or let it just says, can we look at where you are? And it'll tell you a map of all of them, And at ACE you're going to get every fertilizer I talk about here. You're going to get the products to control weeds and disease and also insects on your plants. You're going to find everything

you need for your lawn and garden. You're going to find everything for backyard enjoyment, including barbecue and things like that. ACE is the place for everything you need. And with spring springing, which is what's happening on us, ACE is going to be a great place to find all the supplies, all the products, even tools and things that you need for your lawn and for your garden. We're going to head now out to Porter and talk to Jim. Hello Jim, Thanks Chip. How can we have Well, I got

a bunch of broad leaf and my sane augustine grass. Okay? Can I use on that safely? You can? And it's also in a product called Trimac, so uh. Trimec has three different herbicides that include two forty, But you want to use those before it gets hot. Once the temperatures are in the upper eighties and certainly the low nineties, those products are stressful to Saint augustine, but when it's cool they're not. Just follow the label,

don't overdo it if you want. You could do a combination product. Nitrofoss makes a fifteen to five ten fertilizer that has trimec and it's an early greenup fertilizer, So now would be the time to apply it. I would wet the grass first, so the granules stick to the leaves of the weeds and that allows them to move in. Yeah, put it with it's a fertilizer. Put it with a spreader, but you have to have wet leaves so

they stick to it. And then wait probably a day or two, probably two days if it were me, and then give it a good watering and that'll move the fertilizer down into the soil and you'll have done two things. You'll have dealt with all the broad leaf weeds and you will also have given the spring green up fertilization, which is on my long cair schedule that we

do and especially from late late February on into March. That's one of the problems I have on that except exist and so I'd have to turn it off in order to do that. Well, it just needs to go off for a day. I mean, you know, if it just went off for a day, that that's all it would need to be. That'd be sufficient. Yeah, that'd be sufficient. I don't know what time it comes on, but if it comes on in the morning, after it goes off, run out there and do the do what we were just talking about while the

leaves are wet. All right, just have to go on at midnight. Oh you need headlights on your fertilizer spreader. That's chilled. It's chilled and damp with okay, stamp in the morning and all right, all right, sunlights up, all right, you take care of Jim. Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. Appreciate that a lot. We're listening to Guardenline and here we do putting another hour in the books. It's just about time

for news and weather and all that and traffic. I'll be back our phone number seven one three two one two kt r H. You'd be the first up when we come back. Kt All right. Each Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H. Garden Line with Skip Richard. It's crazy. Just watch you as so many things crazy again. Welcome back, Welcome back to garden Line on a wonderful day for gardening. I'm telling you outside, this is

it. This is the best kind of weather we can have. It doesn't get too hot, not too cold, just a pleasant day to be I hope this afternoon that you will take advantage of this and get some of gardening done, you know, get some vegetables, planet or flowers, or certainly trees and shrubs. Now's the time to get those done. You really need to get ahead of things with the trees and shrubs, because listen, the

cold weathers passed. Unless we just have a little surprise, which we've asked the weather man not to let any of that, let any of that go through. But the hot weather is on the way, and I hate to be a bummer about it, but it's true. You know, when we're starting to look at things like, you know, the drafts of last summer and the heat of last summer, those things are in the future. They're coming. Hopefully this summer is going to be better. Though. We need

a break and we are sure hoping for that one. But whatever kind of summer we have, we have summer, and when summer comes, the demands on plants go up, and established plants have a good root system where they can handle that with a good soaking every now and then. But a new plant still has most of its roots in the container cylinder that went into the

ground. Roots start to venture out immediately they begin growing, but it takes time to create that nice, extensive root system that makes a plant as resilient as that species can be. And so the earlier you plant, the better off you are. So don't delight this weekend. If you need a rose bush, get it done. If you want to get a tree, get it done. Let's get that done. We can plant twelve months out of the year here. Some months are more challenging than others, so take advantage

and make it easier on yourself by going ahead and getting that done. I think you will. You will appreciate that. I'm gonna talk now to Anna out in Kingwood. Hello, Anna, Hello, I'd like to know what to do about red wasps, mud daubers and mosquitoes. Okay, well, red wasps, you just have to use one of those sprays that shoots a steady stream right out to the nest and it basically kills them instantly. It's

a freezing kind of killing thing. You just won't be careful don't get those sprays on plants because they're a petroleum type spray and that they can leave some little brown dead spots on your plant where they land on the leaves. I would make a case that if you're allergic to red wasp that's a big concern. If they're not near you, if they're you know, like they're not right by the front door kind of thing. They're over around the side of

the house under the eaves. Know that all day they're capturing caterpillars and bringing them back to the nests. That's our number one feed. So if you've got garden plants that caterpillars feed on, red wasps are helping keep those under control. That's the benefit that they do. Now. Mud daubers are primarily

catching spiders. That's their main food, and they build those darn nests underneath the eaves, and just catching them early and blasting that nest off with water as they're getting started on it is probably the best that you can do. There are some products that home pest control operators can put out there. I don't know how effective that would be on the mud dabbers, but that's what they're about. What was The third thing that you said mosquito mosquitoes, Well,

you just got all kinds of insects bugging out there. The mosquitos. You know, there are a few things. First, Culturally, wherever they're standing water, mosquitoes breed and they can do a generational turnaround in a couple of weeks, I mean two or three weeks. It's pretty fast. So if you've got catch basins under your plants, if you've got gutters at sag and whole water for a little while after a rain, those kinds of things

you need to fix or put some granules or mosquito dunks in there. That the dunks and granules have a natural disease of mosquitos and they work very well. So the other thing would be, uh, you know it. You you can use a foger if you need to go outside and have a little garden party and outside, you can use a foger. Uh. When you do that, you're killing every insect, and so there's there's some things you don't want to kill that will get killed. But at least you can have

your outdoor party without people being eaten up. Is there a company that would be good to deal with all three of these trying to think who would on the on the mosquito control. Uh McGrath pest Control, I believe can do things like that. I would talk to them. Let's see if I have a number here for them, Yeah, I do, Hang on just a second. The pest control is let's see two eight one four six' nine eighty two forty. Or you can go to the website met grathpestcontrol dot com.

You can go you can go out that way too. I would talk to them and see see if you know what they can what they can do for you. All right, okay, thank you so much, Thank you. I appreciate your call very much. Uh let's see, we're gonna go now to Mic in the Heights. Hello, Mike, Hi, how can we help? I have a stingweed or plant that's growing all over my backyard. It stings. You're pretty good, And I have a couple of chickens in my backyard and I wanted to know what I could use to kill that

sting grass that will not hurt my chickens. Well, uh, you know, when it comes to toxicity of things to chickens, I'm not going to be able to help you on on that uh. I would in general not worry a lot about it. If it's not something that chickens can peck and swallow, so a granule, they might be tempted to pay and swallow it. I don't know that they would, but that that would be a possibility. I would probably get a product called there's a couple of them, different

companies have them. Bonnyde has one called weed Beater Ultra, and I would use it as a spray and just target spray the nettle where you're seeing them, the little stinging weeds where you're seeing them, and that's a broad leaf problem, and that product I mentioned Bonnde weed Beater Ultra will kill them. But you won't do that for the weather heats up and so the sooner the better that you can get that out. Alright, I appreciate it, all right, take care of all right, you take care of Mike. I

appreciate that. You know. I've talked about before how gardening is more than just visual. When we think of if I say the word garden, in your mind's eye, you're picturing either vegetables or flowers, or you're picturing a garden. But gardening is also smells nice fragrances from fragrant plants. That is another another one of our senses that gardening really can create enjoyment with. Another one is sound. The sound of birds is wonderful outdoors to enjoy that.

But the sound of water, that is so simple to have because we can put in fountains, we can put in a little waterfall fountain, you can you can put in a disappearing fountain. And the folks at Nelson Water Garden

out in Katie, they actually pioneered the disappearing fountain container. So imagine this beautiful glazed container that is just showstopper attractive itself and has water coming out of the top and running over the sides, and then it goes down into a rockbed where there's a basin and the water's pumped back up through the container. And it's called a disappearing fountain. It's like it goes into the in the

ground and where did it go, Well, it's cycling. Nelson ploneered those and they have sets of pottery that I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life. They are absolutely gorgeous and they're out there in Katie. If you're heading out on I ten when you get to Katie Fort Ben Road. Katie Fort Benroad, you go north and it's a stone's throw up north of there. You can go to the website Nelson Gardens dot com Nelson Gardens dot com

and you need to go check that out their pots. If you want to do a watergarden like koi and water plants, they specialize in that, but they also have a nursery out there of all kinds of plants. You just need to go see it and take people with you because everybody will be amazed and wowed and the kids will love seeing the koi and the other fish that they have too at Nelson Water Gardens. We're going to take a break. It's time for that and I'll be right back. Welcome back to guard Line.

Glad you're listening today. Hey, spring is here, and what a spring means. Spring means new growth, Spring means flowers, and spring means a return of the bees. And when you have flowers, you're gonna have bees showing up. And bees are important pollinators. If you want to have a successful productive garden. One of the factors in that is good pollination.

Some of our crops like melons and squash just being examples cucumbers. They need bees to pollinate them, and having honey bees in your backyard is a win win because not only do you have better pollination, but you also get honey. What a deal. The folks at the bee supply out and Dayton they are taking orders right now for bees to be sent and picked up rather between April eleventh and May twenty fourth, So go ahead and get the order in

if you want to get those. They have two different strains of bees that they carry. After mid May, you can actually buy the whole hive from them. I'm talking about a box with ten frames. It's got a queen in it. They're already raising brood baby bees that is that are in the box. All of this is available at vbsupply dot com. Vbsupply dot com and listen. If you're not interested in starting beekeeping, at least go out

there and do the honey tours. The honey tours are wonderful. You get to taste all kinds of honey like wildflour and clover and orange and BlackBerry and on and on, and you learn all about bees in the process. For those of you who want to learn beekeeping, the classes are underway. Now. The next class you have to call them see if it's full yet, is March ninth. Then there's one on March twenty third April thirteenth, so you can see. They're about two weeks apart. It's a six hour class.

They cover everything. You get to go out and work with bees with their protective equipment they'll provide for and I'm just telling you it is. It is really cool and you'll get hooked because bees are really literally that cool. All at the bee Supply just remember thebsupply dot com. I'm want to go out now to Richmond and we're going to talk to Michelle. Hello, Michelle, Hello, good morning morning. I have a question about crane flies.

They're I'm being inundated by them. I can't walk through the lawn without them come springing all over. Yeah. I think their larvae is what I should be concerned about. Is that correct? That they may I'm worried they may chew up my lawn. No, they're they're not gonna They're not gonna hurt your lawn. It's okay. Uh, They're just they're a temporary pests that we deal with. I mean, they can occur different times. A year. But uh, they're generally not like you're seeing them right now, so

I wouldn't I wouldn't worry about them. Okay, so not even their larvae that I guess is in the soil. Yeah, they do have larvae, but you know, it's not like if you were to go to a turf university kind of tell me all the diseases and Pestsive lawns, crane flies are not on the list. They're not even anywhere on the list. So don't worry about that, right, Okay, they just seem awfully bad this year. So yeah, Well, I'm not an entomology specialist, so I can't

tell you exactly what food they're eating. I know the adults aren't eating anything that would concern you, but yeah, they're everywhere, and I know people the creepy crawleys alarm people and stuff. But if you can, if you can just close your eyes and ignore it, that would that would be the best, because there's no need to get out there and nuke the yard. Well good, great, great, I didn't want to have to deal with all that. Okay, Hey, thanks, Skip, appreciate it all right,

thank you, Michelle, appreciate the call very much. Hey, those of you in the central part of Houston and North, Buchanan's Nursery is just around the corner for you. And you know, I can tell you this. I've been to bu kin As many, many times, and I meet people there that have driven from some distance to go because it's that kind of

destination nursery. Like right now, they always have something. They specialize in native plants, and that's the name, not Buchanans Nursery, Buchanans Native Plants. They are a nursery, they are a garden center. Buchanans Native Plants specializes in that. And I don't care what kind of plant you need. Do you want a spring flowering tree? They've got four or five or six that you can choose from. Do you want stuff for the shade? Do

you want stuff for sun? Do you want things that have blooms that attract beneficial insects? Every kind of native you can imagine. They're going to have their at Buchanans the best ones. And listen. You got to go to the website Buchanansplants dot com. They have educational materials on there. You gotta sign up for the newsletter because you will be amazed at all of the information you'll learn and the inspiration that you get just from signing up for that newsletter.

At Buchanansplants dot com, they're loaded up with peppers and tomatoes right now. They have roses in. I mean, it's just all kinds of things about mid March. I'm going to be out there for an apparent. I'll tell you more about that later, but you got to go to Buchanan's Plants. It really is a wonderland of all kinds of things that are really really cool. Every time I go, I love it, And every time I go, I learned something because they don't just have your standard meat and potatoes.

They got that, but they've got stuff that you never heard of, and you learn about and you go, oh my gosh, where's this plant? Been my whole life for time I've ever said that that way. Well, Buchanan's Plants. Just go check them out. It's got to Bay Cliff. We're going to talk to Joan. Hey, Joan, I'm amusing myself this morning. I don't know what that means. Good morning, Hey, good morning. I have a Joey avocado that I bought last fall. It

made it through the freeze or a little greenhouse. But it's ready to get out now. I think some of the lower leaves or get yellow and the new growth at the top is looking very healthy. But I want to know what is the best soil and how is your hair for getting it into the ground. Okay, uh airlom CS makes a fruit soil, a soil for like citrus and fruits and things like that. You could also use the veggie

and herb soil for that avocado. The bigger of an area you can amend, the better, So don't just dig a hole and put the soil in the hole. You want to mix it in to a large area. If you can't do a lot of mixing like a rototilling spading, then at least set it down and then just kind of crack up the soil a little bit with a spade to blend what you just laid down with the soil below it, and then fill up the rest of the height of the bed with the

mix that you purchase. One of the ones we were just talking about, anom an heirloom. Yeahoom heirloom soils, they can they can get you you set up for they're widely up. You can go to Heirloomsoilsoftexas dot com and you can find out down in your area where can you buy bags of heirloom Okay, all right, thank you very much. All right, you take care. Yeah, Joan, are you still there? You already hung up?

Oh I missed? Okay, that's all right. Also, Joan, if you're still listening, Uh, you are not too terribly far away from Sienna. I don't have a little mileage marker on my computer screen here, but they do deliver pretty pretty close to where they are road sharing area, and so that may be a possibility to that may be a little outside the area, but you might want to give them at Ciena mulch Cina multa call

see what they if they can reach out as far as that area. When whenever I'm planting transplants, one of my favorite products to use to water those plants in is the Medina Plus. Medina Plus has in it. First of all, it's a six twelve six fertilizer. It's a liquid liquid. You you you mix it up and I put it in a watering can and then I water with it. It's got the six twelve six, it's got Medina

soil activator which stimulates biological activity. You've got the humic acid in it and you have seaweed extracts in it as well, So it's good not just for watering implants. You can mix it up, put in in a sprayer and spray is a folier feed for your plants. So those plants that were hammered by the cold weather that we had that would kind of kill back as they're putting out new growth and stuff, a little follier feeding as they get going

certainly would be helpful for them as well. It's one of the many products you can get from the folks at Medina Medina Medina excuse me, my Medina Plus. I couldn't say that. Medina plus is widely available. Widely available, as are the other products for Medina like horticulture molasses and the humate liquid humus, and the seaweed and the fish blend, lots of quality products and

many many more as well. So are you going to plan a tomato plant, are you going to put in a row or whatever you're going to plant, Just mix that up and when you plant it watered in with that. I would do it twice more too, by the way, I usually like to do a three time watering when I'm transplanting, watering at planting, watering a week later with the solution, watering a week after that with the solution, and by then there ought to be roots going and your other fertilizations and

things can kind of take over. That is helpful information. I think our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. The folks at Nitrofoss have a product called sweet Green. It is a sweet smelling fertilizer because it's made from molasses. So just think about what molasses smells like. Sweet Green is excellent at really kicking the microbes into high gear. Microbes like carbohydrate sugar, simple

sugars, and sweet Green does that. It's one of the highest level nitrogen contents of a natural fertilizer of an organic fertilizer. So the eleven percent nitrogen is a very good boost. And where do you get sweet Green? Well, you can go out to Growers Outlet and Willis and get sweet green. You can go to Enchanted Forest down in Richmond Rosenberg. Yep, they got sweet Green down there as well. RCW Nursery where Tombo Parkway comes into bout

Way eight. They carry Sweet Green also as well as other nitropost products. I like the smell. It's just it's just a nice, nice smell as well. On the broken record, when it comes to brown stuff over green stuff, brown stuff over green stuff and so Nature's Way Resources, you know, John Ferguson at Nature's Way created a lot of the fertilizers that are now available from all kinds of places. Fertilizers soa blends around town. So when

we say Leipmo compost, that's something he started marketing. When we say rose soil, that's something he started marketing with the Houston Roast Society helping him with that design. Well, they've a Nature's Way. You can buy bags, you can order bulk two of these and many many, many other products. Now on March ninth, they're having their Spring Garden Festival, and that's something you definitely want to go to. There'll be education there, the gardening education

talks, stuff for the kids to do. They'll have spring sangria, they'll have local vendors out. It's going to be fun. Write this on your calendar. March ninth, nine to two PM Nature's Way resources. So go up forty five. If you're in Houston, go up forty five where fourteen eighty eight comes in from the left, turn right, go across the railroad tracks and you're there. It's as easy as that. Leave your car open because you're going to want to buy some native plants from them as well.

Well, it's time for a break. I'm just going to turn it right over to Nikki. Welcome back to guard Line. Good to have you with us today. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are just talking about everything gardening, including what do you want to talk about. The phone number is seven one three one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I'm gonna head straight out to Memorial and now excuse me, Buffalo, excuse me. We're going to talk to Carrie

first. Hello, carry I Skip. I've got some plants that I've never had before that has some freeze damage, and everything I've read online said to cut them back immediately to the ground. It's by text esperanza Confederate roads and rows of sharing. Do they do? I cut them back? Just cut them back to where there's no dead Well, how do I do. I've never had these plants. Yeah, no problem. I'm surprised that vi texts

is is killed back. What you do on all plants is you take your little pocket knife for a thumbnail and scratch the bark and it'll either be a pecan brown paper sack brown color underneath, which means it's dead, that branch is dead, or it'll be kind of a creamy white or maybe a little bit of a green light green in there. That means it's alive. And that tells you where you need to prune back too. I would expect the Confederate Rose. I'm trying to remember what else, the Esperanza and there was

something those two. Yeah, those two were probably killed back to the ground. But I like to just let the plants tell me where to prune. And what I mean by that is you just wait and watch where the growth starts coming out, and then if the ends of the branches are dead not growing, and then you have buds coming out down lower, cut it off right above those buds, and that is a lot easier way to manage it. So that's the approach that I would take if I were you. But

the Vitex I'm a little surprised that it had much damage. The rows of Sharing some, but again it's a pretty tough plant. And then the other two I would expect more significant damage, but it could be different at your house here, your way up there. I'll just realizing now you're way up there in Buffalo, you got a lot colder. We were, yeah, we were in We didn't get above twenty for over five days. Okay,

okay, Well, the same thing about the first two. But I'm telling you rows of Sharon can take twenty, but it depends on did it go into the twenty hardened off and ready or not, and if it didn't, then damage to it. But yeah, just let's let the plants tell you where to prune or do the scratch test a lot and make your decisions that way. Are you listening to Guardline on the radio or how are you listening?

I heart, I heart Okay, yeah, I'm always curious for people a little further out, you know, if they're getting the signal there or what. All right, thank you, Carrie. I do somewhat, but it's too sketchy, so I just go with iHeart. There you go, all right? All right? All right, say hi to the folks up at Bobo's Nursery up there, I will do. I'm there quite frequently. You've got a good county extension agent and Richard Parish to tell him, Skip said high as well, good to talk to him. Well bye bye,

bye bye. Have you guys ever been listening? Have you ever been to Emerald Forest and Richmond Emerald Forest? And it's a wonderful It's a wonderland. It's just a beautiful, beautiful place to go. It's a destination nursery. We haven't We are fortunate to have destination nursery here and this is definitely a destination nursery. They're on FM twenty seven fifty nine. So if you're in Richmond going towards sugar Land, it's off to the right for the south of

fifty nine if you will. And it's on FM twenty seven fifty nine, twenty seven fifty nine. So, uh, you every weekend they've got talks ad Mike Saran out the other day talking about organic gardening. There's always something going on like that out there. Destine's going to be out there talking about springtime gardening March the second. Uh and so what did I just say? An emerald. Where am I? That's a whole nother thing, enchanted forest? Where? How did that come out of my mouth? I think it's

time. It's time for me to go take a nap. Enchanted forest. Thank you Josh for catching me on that one. Right now, they've got red buds. Oh my gosh, you think red bud is one plant? No, no, no, no no. They have over a dozen different kinds of red bud. Have you ever heard a bubblegum red bud? Have you ever heard of burgundy heart red? How about forest pansy red bud with beautiful burgundy leaves? How about rising sun with golden orange and yellowly? I

mean, you see what I'm talking about. In the Texas red bud, the native that is very drop and heat tolerant as well, they've got that. Of course, you're going to find a great selection of vegetables and herbs and roses and every other kind of plant in the world. You just need to go out to. You need to go, just go to enchanted forest out in Richmond there again, FM twenty seven fifty nine, just heading northward, Sugarland off to the right. I don't know where emerald came from.

All right, we are going to now go where we're going next, We're heading out to Memorial to talk to Elaine. Hello Elayne, good morning, Skip. How are you. I'm good. How can we help? Oh? Well, I think the previous you just answered my question with the previous caller. Okay, I have enjoyed Virginia Creeper in my courtyard climbing up the walls for a few years, but it really has gotten you out of control, and of course, being a deciduous vine, it looks terrible now.

Yes, so I just wondered how far can I cut that back? Yes, well, that's such a there's so many branches and vines crawling all over the place. Doing the scratch test is a little too tedious. Those things are all mixed up. It's not like a little shrub or tree. I would just wait and let it tell you it's gonna take. Then need to warm up a little bit before Virginia Creeper is going to want and I'll really tell you. Okay, here's where I'm alive and here's what I'm dead.

But I think you're going to need to wait on that to be sure. Okay, that is the one that has aspirations of takeing over the world. But it is a nice ever it's a nice green foliage vine to have well, and it does have color in the fall. It does. It does. The only way you can have color in Houston and the fall is to take a flame plain flight to the northeastern United States. I'm over stating it, but yes, Virginia Creeper does have great color. Yeah, all right,

well, thank you so much. You have a wonderful day. All right, all right, before you start emailing me or calling or something, I know we have fall colored plants here. It's just not as many as I wish we had, that's for sure. Let's see, we are heading up against a break. When I come back, Chris and Sue, you'll be the first two up our phone numbers seven one three, two one two, five eight seven four. Welcome back to Garden Line. Glad to have

you willis today. I'm your host, Skip Ricker, and I'm operating here with at least most of the brain stells functioning. Still, we'll put that to the test. My first thing running right out to Pearland and talking to Chris. Hello, Chris, Yes, sir, good morning, Good luck with the brain cells there, I know that I tell somebody the other day at the end of the talk out of A and A Plants, I tucked on the radio all day and talked out there for two hours. I had

three brain cells left. One was having my heart beating, one was helping my lungs breathe, and the other was trying to do everything else that's going on. Well, you're doing better than I am some days, all right, how can we help? Yes, sir, my friend, I'm calling on the half of my beautiful girlfriend. She is asking about cedar mulch. Is it true that it may repel termites, mosquitoes or any other you know, insects that we may not want either in the house or around the backyard.

Right, Well, first, good call on that description. You are a smart man. Secondly, cedar molts has some repellent properties when it's fresh for past That's why we make cedar trunks to keep the moths out right of our sweaters and things, or cedar closet sometimes. But as it ages, that starts to go down and it's not like you got to melt down here, and so you know, pests are going to go flying to the neighborhood yard. Neighbors yard. But it does termites though they're in nature. Anywhere

there's organic materials that hit the ground, you're going to find them. I find them in old cornstalk sometimes chewing on the fibers in there, the piece of wood laying on the ground. So we don't worry about those. We just want them to not be in our house. Trid, trid. Yeah, okay, well let's see answer we needed to hear. All right, thank you for the call. Appreciate that very much. Good to visit with you. For those of you who have a lawn that got thin last summer,

and a lot of people fall into that category. Now, sunlight is hitting the soil in between what should be a good dense turf. It's thin. Sunlight hits the soil. Nature plants a weed. That's how it works. And during the time you're working to build a dense lawn again, with proper mowing, watering, and fertilizing, you can put down a pre emergent product called barricade that's by nitrofoss. Now you put a little bit of water on it, just a third of an inch half an inch to move it

down into the soil and it forms a barricade. On the soil surface, so grassy weeds that are about to come up, crab grass, grassper for example. It prevents those broad leaf weeds that are about to come up through the summer, the warm season weeds. It prevents those and it'll give you two months, two and a half months, sometimes longer. It depends on the weather and stuff of protection against those germinating and that Nitrofoss barricade it's one

of the widely available products by Nitrofoss. And you know, nitrofoss products are available in a wide variety of places. I mean it's easy to findfics. If you go to an ace hardware store, you're going to find nitrofos in a place like that. If you go down to Southwest Feed and Fertilizer, you're going to find nitrofoss in a place like that. Many of our garden

centers as well are going to carry nitropos barricade. But remember this, those things are germinating now and you've got to get it down before they establish little plants. So if you're going to do that, don't delay. I would say this afternoon, go ahead and get it. Even if you can't put it down today, have it there. So if tomorrow or the next day you can get it down, you can go ahead and get it down, because that's how the product works, that's the strength of it, and so

you need to make sure and be ahead of things. I want to head out now to Lake Jackson and we're going to talk to Sue. Hello, Sue Hi. I was calling about my granddaughter. She lives in Anglton, of Anglton, and she has three Exoria plants which she had in their south in the south side of her house. She covered them in the winter and I told her they'll be okay, Okay. I go over there and all of the leaves have turned brown on them, and I scratched the bark and

that's still is green. Okay, good. Should she yank come out and replant them or that's what she's wanted to do, but I said no, leave them. So to see what's your opinion on Now, if you like Exoria and you've got green, green branches, trunks, whatever I would, I would leave them. I think that's what I had. You may have some dead ends of branches or things, and you could wait and when they start to put growth, you'll know to nip that out. But that's a

good sign that you've got green under the bark. I think they're okay, those are nice plant. I we can't give up on them unless you just don't like that flower. That's what I told her. I said, you know, those brown leaves will fall off and you'll get new ones. So and this is your your daughter? Is this your daughter or granddaughter? Granddaughter? Oh? Granddaughter? Okay, well that's that's one of the come to

grandma. I know they do you well when you know, I sound like you were going to say, she listening to you, and that would be a daughter, right, not a grind daughter. No, she covered. I'm good and she and you know, with the material and stuff. But they even on the south side, it still got the you know, they turn round. So uh, she may have left them covered too long. I don't know, but anyway, I don't they're you know, their expensive plants. And I told her, I said, no hold off on them.

So, yeah, they're a wonderful plant, wonderful plant down south especially. Yeah, but I wanted to talk to an expert on that. So all right, well you know what, I enjoy your enjoy your show, all right, Thank you very much, Bye bye. I appreciate that. And for my daughters. I've got a couple of daughters or more that probably listened to this show some You know, I'm just kidding, but you also know what I'm talking about, So just leave it at that. We're We're

glad you are listening to guarden Line today. I want to talk about a few different things. I got a little time here. Do some visiting. By the way, if you like to give us a call seven one three two one two kat r H. If you haven't been to my website, I want you to bookmarket. It is gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com right now on there. The most important things on the site for you are the lawn Pest Disease and Weed management schedule and the lawn

care schedule. Lawn care schedule is mowing, watering, and fertilizing and it lists every period of time from January to December you need to be doing something like that to your lawn. And it lists all the products. So if you want to do it organically, you'd want to do it synthetically or whatever. All the products are on there that I would suggest to use for those times. The lawn pest disease and weed management schedule is the same thing,

except this is what are the lawn problems? What insects occur in your lawn and when do they occur? And then what are the products organic and synthetic that control them. What diseases occur in our lawns here in this area,

and what are the products for that. What weeds occur and when do you treat and what do you use at different times of the year, because it changes if you're killing an existing weed or if you're killing a weed that hadn't sprouted yet, like we're just talking about barricade on preventing weed seeds well. And then across the bottom is all the products that you need for all of that, And I would encourage you to bookmark that's free. It's all free,

and print it up. Some people print them and take them to the store and say they point at it and go, I want one of these right here, and they can get you fixed up on that as well. One other thing I wanted to mention is for those of you who are interested in research based information on topics like local food and Texas wine growing food,

creating a supportive community for learning about all those things. The folks at the TEXA A and M Horticulture Department are going to create or are going to have an event called Texas three sixty Freshness Meets the Table. It's March fifteenth and sixteenth, So it starts off March fifteenth with Texas Wines and appetizers and they're going to be in the gardens at an that's the garden in the West Campus at A and M. Beautiful place to walk through. If you haven't been

there, you need to go up just to see that. And they're going to be wine and appetizer pairings and the gardens, and then they're going to have a farm to table dinner at Messina Haw Fineyard up in Bryan on Saturday. The next day they'll have a full day of educational activities nineteen breakout sessions that you can attend three workshops to choose from both in person and virtual. So like if you want to do it online, you can't drive up there,

you can do it that way too. The educational sessions are going to have garden inspired cocktails and mocktails along with the selection of shark tery. Finding that perfect opportunity for networking community building. If you want more information you need to First of all, you need to register, and the deadline is really upon us. It's February twenty eighth, so we only have a little bit

of time left for you to register. To pre register, but where you want to go is Taste three sixty three six oh dot t A m U dot E d U t A m U as in Texas a m University t A m U Taste three sixty at TAMUD. I think you'll find that interesting. It is very kind of a fun and not just educational, but sounds like a whole lot of fun as well. I want to remind you that I am going to be this coming Saturday, Saturday, the third of March

from twelve to two at the Montgomery County Home and Garden Show. So all of you up there in Willis, Montgomery, Conroe for sure, just anywhere up in that region, the woodlands for sure too. Come up to the Montgomery County County Home and Gardens. It's a really good garden show. I'm going to be giving a taco up there, and I'm going to be answering your gardening question. So yeah, you can bring me samples and pictures and we can go through all of that, I'll also be giving away some of

Nelson's genesis. That is the nutrient supplement that you put into a potting mix as you're repotting your plants and it works really well. Go to the garden Line Facebook page. Croll down, do you see a pepper plant and read what I said about it there. I used it on some pepper plants really really working well. But that's next Saturday, March the second, twelve to two at the Montgomery County Home and Garden Show. I hope to see you

there. I always love to meet the folks that listen to garden Line. That makes it kind of cool. Well, we're about to put another hour in the books here. We will be back the next hour. If you want to get on the boards with Josh, you can be the first up. Seven one three two one two. KTRH talking about KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scamp Rict. It's so trim. Just watch him

as a world. Welcome back to guard Line. Hey, it's good to have you listening today. What do you want to talk about give us a call. Number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. It makes it really easy to get ahold of us. We're here to help you turn a brown thumb green. Because if you've heard me say this before, here we go again. There's no such thing as a brown thumb. There's an uninformed thumb.

And when you learned the simple principles of horticulture, the simple things that we need to know to have successful plants, suddenly it's like you got a brown thumb, right, That's how that works. And so our goal is to help you turn a brown thumb green. That's the way I like to put it, uh, because it just I think it. It helps us understand that some people think they as a person, I just can't grow plants. No, that is not true. That is absolutely not true. You can

grow plants, and we can help you do it. That's what we're here for. If you haven't been out the antiq Rosenporium ever, you absolutely have to go. It is a destination place that is so cool. I love going out there. People. You know that whole region that's where the blue bonnet trails are up toward Brunham. Actually, Antiguros is north of Brenham, and you can just enjoy that. I know, April's like big blue bonnet

time, but don't wait till April go now. I mean, they have a wonderful selection, the best I know of antique roses in the whole region. They're well known across the country. Really, the place is just a destination. When you go there, you see what I'm talking about. They've designed it to be a destination and events are held there. In fact, coming up coming up pretty soon is their spring celebration March ninth and tenth.

I'll be out there on Saturday giving a little talk. They're gonna have speakers and artists in market, food trucks and of course all the plants and listen. It's called antiqurosen for him. And they absolutely are roses, but they are so so much more. Do you need certain kinds of native plants and perennials and salvias and purple cone flower and white lantana, pink skull cap,

coral, honeysuckle. Do you see what I'm talking about? On and on and on down the list, you're gonna find a lot of things out there, and it's fun to go. Bring bring family and friends and neighbors. If you've got a little garden club or a master gardener group, or a church group or whatever. In fact, that'd be a great thing to do on a Sunday afternoons to head out to the antique rosing for hum and just walk around and look. Make sure your car has some empty space ouver because

you're gonna want to bring back a lot of plants. Antique Roseemporium dot com. That's simple, antiqu Rozenborium dot com. Here's a number. I write this down nine sevent nine eight three six five five four eight and put March ninth and tenth on your calendar. We're going to head out now to clear Lake City and talk to Mark. Hello, Mark, Good morning, sir. Hope you're enjoying this beautiful weather. We don't get an awful lot of opportunity to play in. I am. I'm sitting like a goldfish and aquarium

looking out the window at the world. While I'm sitting here talking on a microphone, I can't wait to get outside. I'm watching all kind of birds coming to the feeders. There you go, it's really great. A while back, collars back. You're talking about fall color, and you actually can get a lot of cold tolerant fall color right now at hobby lobby. Oh is that right? Yeah, live plants. No, Oh, you're talking about the silk flowers. You know, someone joking, they told me one

time, he goes, I'm tired of pests. I'm going to buy silk flowers. And I go, well, they get dust mites and they and they get and they also go I don't know, maybe silkworms would eat them. I don't know. Anyway, enough of that mindsense, How can we help you today? Okay, by the way, in terms of anti crows and porn, they were out at the gardens gardens a couple of weeks ago for us terrific, terrific talk about roses. The best talk I've ever heard

our own root. You know, they don't have grafted roses, so, yes, they're hardier. I sent you a picture of what I think may be called sticky weed. Yes, I got it. Is that sticky weed. Well, it's got a bunch of names and facts, got more names than a criminal on the run. The common name that's most used around the country is catchweed bed straw, catchweed bed straw, but it's also called cleavers and velcrow plant for reasons that you know, if you've dealt with it,

it's like velcrow, very very sticky. It makes for those of listening that are going, okay, I didn't see the picture. Well, it's it's these long strands that go across the yard, just sprawling over the grass, and they going up the stem. They are little whirls of skinny strappy leaves in sections going up the stem. But the main thing is the belcroy nature of it. And at this stage you could spray it with a broad leaf post emergent product. But looking at your pictures, I can't even see the

grass underneath it because there's so much of it. And that's how this we does. What I've done is I will rake the with a like a leaf rake, and as you do, as you pull those strands, you'll see kind of where a little tiny root is going in the ground, and you can reach down and pull it there and then rake a little more and pull, you know, pull the root, and you just rake it up into

this big ball and shove it in a trash can. But the the weed itself is about to set a bazillion kinds of seed or numbers of seed. In fact, it's already your weeds are already blooming and starting to set. So I would get it out yesterday if you can. If not, go

ahead and do it today. Well, I can pull them out. I can reach down and find the ball, but there is so much of it, and it's growing within other garden things that I want to keep, and so the rake is it's kind of dangerous to use, especially my age. So I was hoping there were some I could paint on them, like the Tricliss fear pier. Well, I wouldn't do track repair, but you could

do a broadly we control like Bonne eye. But if you got other plants that are desirable, I wouldn't do a spray on that weed because you're going to have if you're careful with the rake in your hands, and I know it's work, but you can get it out of there without damaging other plants. You might have to do some pulling. It breaks off real easy, so you know it takes a while to get it. But at this stage of the game where you are right now, uh it is you just need

to physically get it out of there. That's your best bet. Okay, Well we'll put on some bluzz and give that a try. Okay. Well, I hate to be the bear of bad news, but well they don't shoot the messager these days. So yeah, And if you go online and google it, I think they make some sort of a tea tincture. And I don't know what it's for out of it, but uh, life gives you lemons, make lemonade, mark you could actually use that stuff for food value of it. Well, I wouldn't use the word food, but uh,

tea sometimes. I don't know. I'm not an herbalist. You'd have to go look it up. But I saw that one time and I thought, well that's it. That's true. I've got enough of it to produce an awful lot of tea. Well there you go. Well I'm a believer. And if you can't beat them, eat them. And I know a lot of vegetable a lot of weeds, dandylion and chickweed are edible. So so is amaranth and Lamb's quarter. Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate that a lot. We're going to take a quick break here. When

we come back. Tim and Robert you'll be the first two up. Welcome, come back to guard Line. Good heavy listening. We're talking about all kinds of things gardening today. This is the time to get out and pot up some plants for the patio, pot up some plants for indoors. When you do, you need to think about jungle land. Jungle Land is distributed by nitroposs and so you're going to find it in all kinds of places.

But basically what it is, there's two versions of it. One is called jungle Land Flour and Vegetable Planting soil, the other one Jungle and Water Saving Potting soialt. Now the flower and vegetables for outside, you put it in your containers whether you're growing blooms, vegetables. You can grow herbs in it as well. It's got Canadian peat, four different types of aged organic matter that's decomposed and microhizal fungi as well, and it just gives you the perfect

draining and also water holding ability that's just right for plant roots. Now for the indoors, the Jungle and Water Saving Potting soil has the crystals that absorb water. So if you forget to water your plants and they start to get a little on the dry side. There's still water in those crystals the plants can get and it kind of makes it let's just say a little more forgiving if you tend to be forget full. That's how that works. I know

it is. I've more than once walked into a room and looked at a plant and went, oh, forgot about that one. Well, where do you get these things? How about enchanted gardens out in Richmond. How about shades of green up in the woodlands. That's another good place you can get these. You can even go down to Fisher's Hardware. There's one in South Houston, there's one in the Port. Lots of places you can find jungle land and other nitrofost products as well. You know, one of my favorite

charities, absolutely hands down is starf Hope Mission. And it's because I believe in what they do and I believe in how they do it. And I don't know, some of you probably listening to me this morning on the way to church, and you have a compassion and you want to see that compassion and action in a way that matters. Well, you don't want to throw your money away just to hand out and who knows what they're going to do with a dollar or what a five or ten or whatever you hand out,

why not invest it into a program that really changes lives. Star Hope is that way. Recently, I was at an event and I heard a couple of testimonies from people that Starve Hoope had turned their lives around and the lives of their kids to That is important because with Starve Hope people can come in

and become part of their program to change lives. That includes a place to live, that includes food, that includes clothing, to go out and get a job, to interview, training on interviewing, training on life skills, breaking habits like drug abuse and other struggles in life, spiritual training for the

whole person. Starf Hope does all of that. They commit to the person that will commit to going through the program, and I'm telling you it makes a difference that lasts and that not only benefits them and their kids, which is it's all about that, but it also benefits our community. And Starve Up is that kind of place. You can go to s o hmission dot org, s o H mission dot org and find out a whole lot more, And I encourage that you would We're gonna go now to Tomball and talk

to Tim. Hello, Tim, good Morning's good love your show. Thank you, sir. I have an overabundance of monkey grass growing throughout my front lawn. They were planted around trees that are no longer there. I'm trying to figure out what the best way to kill that off without killing the grass or the nearby trees. Wow, that's a good question. I don't know. I've never tried to spray kill monkey grass, and I have a feet on. It's not going to be easy to control. You definitely don't want

to use a grass killer. It is not a grass, even though the words of its name say that it's not a grass. It's kin to theriopy and aztec grass, which is also auto grass. I've read online that perhaps round up for poison ivy might be inappropriate selection, but I wanted to get your opinion on that. Will round up, as Glycas say, If there's a product called round up for poison ivy, I'm wondering if it has tricle app here in it. But I don't. I don't have to look up

that product, you know. Let me investigate that one. The only way I know to deal with it. You don't want to hear, and that's digging it up. And I know that I know that it is. Yeah, yeah, and a lot of people love that plant. Maybe you need to just put a sign out free free nuts, edge plants. Just drop drop off a pound cake or something like that. We'll let you have all

you want, kind of a pick your own place for groundcover. So joking aside, Tim, let me look into that and I will do some hunting and probably if I find a good solution, i'll say it on the air. I don't want to guess at what I think my first thoughts would be, because I don't know that that's right. But h ok, yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, I would say shade it out, but I think it would grow underneath the peer and beam house. I mean it grows underneath

the magnolia tree. For crying out loud. You can't have more shade than that. Yeah, No, it's certainly. With the drought last summer, it was the only thing that was agreen on the entire long stone. Now, one other option would be to just do what it takes to kill it, and if that kills along, so be it in that area. And then put put long back in. That would probably be simpler. But let

me see if I can play. I'm inclined to do that at this point because I'm going to have to come back and resab where I kill the monkey grass anyway. So yeah, I will let me see what I can find. If I come up for something, I'll talk about it on the air because I need to know that myself. All right, thank you, I

appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate your call very much. For those of you out in the Kingwood area, you know, you got Kingwood Garden Center and you've got worn Southern gardens out there in that same area, not that far apart, and it's just a pleasure to visit the nurseries because they always are loaded up with the plants that you need, the color, the

containers they are. They really do good at those combo containers, you know, where you have a larger container, but you plant it with different plants. So it's just a lot to look at. It's really beautiful. They're good at that. Right now. They've got a lot of wonderful spring blooming trees, and we have four seasons here, and spring is a great time to have a blooming tree. So red buds, this thing warm up a little bit more. Here come the red buds Chinese friends. Another one that

comes out in the spring, saucer magnolias. I mean right now, that's the first harbinger of spring. And are they beautiful. It's a deciduous tree. It's not like a southern Magnoia's deciduous. And in the spring on all those bare branches early early spring, boom, these ballooms come out that are like saucers, like pink saucers, gorgeous on the plants. They've got those, so now's the time to get them. Now's the time to get them planted asap. Go to warrants. You'll get those. Do you want a

citrus? Do you need fruit trees? They've got that. And don't forget that leapier sale that we were talking about before. It continues until the third of March. So we're just around the corner on making sure you get the leap here. So we get a combination of different products on really good specials like you buy two or you buy three, and you just get a really really great discount on those. And that would include you know, that would

include things like azemite, for example. You heard me talking about azumite earlier. Amite is a nutrient supplement for trace minerals that we've put out. Well, they've got that and they got a really really good special on it as well, so I would encourage you to go out there and take advantage of

it. They got the heirloom soils, rose soil on that Leapier special if you like, canisters of Microlife or Nelson products, and they have refill stations two for them, by the way, they've got those on special out there as well. It's all part of the leap eerstyle, but only good until March third at Warren's Southern Gardens out there in Kingwood. We're going to head out to North Houston now and talk to Robert. Hello, Robert, Hello, Skip, How you doing good? Okay? Look, I's that an

Asian market in an Asian grocery store. I was going through the produce section and they had it, said elephantearsaid, it's just a stalk in the produce section and it didn't have the leaves on it, it just had the stalks. Are they edible? There's a there are edibles in that group of plants. There's one plant called tarot. That tarot root is edible. Uh. And so with the elephant airs you got allocations and colorcasias and other elephant regular

elephant ears. There's lots of different plants like that. But if you find it in a market like that, yes it is edible, and yes it's gonna look like what you think it's gonna look like. We didn't have the botanical name. We just had elephant here, so I was going, well, what you know it'd be. There's a lot of difference. You know, genus is a species, so I'm going which one is it? But yeah, anyway, okay, yeah, uh, And it's a it's a very starchy material. I have never eaten one myself. I need to do

that sometime. I just I just never had one to try and eat. But anyway, uh, people do. And then especially in an Asian market, you're gonna find those kind of things for sale that it's it's kind of cool. Do you think the whole genus that colloccasion would be edible? Uh? Okay. Among the many Colocasia species, there's tarot, which is Colocasia esculenta, and the Latin word esculenta means it's edible. That's basically the one. Uh. Now, I think there's some others that you can There's a

genus zen Zentha, soma something like that. And then the allocacious to have been a staple uh for edibles in a lot of those countries. I would I would go online before I send you out to eat everything under the sun. I would go online and you with a search you can easily find the specifics. But there are edibles in the collocations and in the allocations, and specifically taro, which is one of the most popular. That's colocasia escalenta.

The allocations are air shape leaves that tend to point upward like an arrow point. The collocations tend to hang down, and that's the one we usually think of as elephant ear uh. And so allocate for The easy way to remember is allocacia is an a and an A points upward. A capital a points upward. Okay, all right, I've been reading your article in Texas Order for years. Yes, sir, thank you, I'm glad glady on air now you know your resource. Thank you so much. Thanks, sir,

I appreciate your kindness to the call. Take care. Well, let's see here. I want to talk a little bit about spring greenup. If you go to my schedule at gardening with Skip dot com, the lawn care schedule is telling you that late February and into the first two or three weeks in March would be our spring greenup season. That makes the long green before it gets warm enough for it to really grow fast. It will green it up. And that's an optional application, but it's what a lot of people like

to do. It strengthens that grass getting ready to grow. Nitrofos has an Imperial product that's the red bag. It says fifteen five to ten. That's the ratio that was determined by A and M. And actually a lot of different Langa universities in their turf research over the years have proven that that works, and it works in our soils, it works in our region. Nitrofos Imperial is a fifteen five to ten product and you can find nitro fuss and a lot of places around town. For example, you can go out to

Kingwood Ace Hardware and they're going to have it. You can go to the Arbor Gate up in Tomball they're going to have it. Shades of Texas down in southeaston on Genoa Redbluff. They're going to have nitrofoss products like the Imperial as well. Well, it's about time to take a break here, so Lynn, I see you out there. We're going to take you first when we come back from break, because I'm gonna be able to have time to

give your question the time that it needs. I mentioned that schedule just now, and for those of you who haven't checked it out yet, go to Gardening with Skip dot com. That's where both schedules are. They're free. It's multicolor January through February. Everything you do, the products you need, and if you're organic or synthetic, there's options for everybody out there on those two schedules at Gardening with Skip dot Com. Well, we're going to stop

here. I'm gonna quit talking. Uh. It is a phone number you want to write down, and that is seven one three two one two k t r H. Give us a call right now. It's Nicky in the news. Nice, welcome back to Guardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter. Hey, what do we want to talk about today? You tell me.

Give us a call seven one three two one two kt r H. Landscaper's Pride has a wide variety of products to make your plants happy, to make your root zone perfect for plants to survive and thrive, things like their potting soils and all purpose potting soil age, pine bark, humous material. It just it just creates that environment that plants are going to thrive in.

I like to take it and even amend it. You can throw some shale into it if you want to get a little grittier for maybe succulents and things like that. So it's a very variable product. You can just use it as it is. Pot dirt is an OMRI certified organic soil. It's packed with nutrients, got worm castings, it's got sand of vermiculi and more so if you're doing annual color changes in beds where you really want to pop of color which welcome to spring, Yes, we do pot dirt it's a good

choice for that. The landscapers mix excellent internal drainage. So if you've got an existing landing bed and you want to kind of renovate it up and add some material up into it. With the fresh pine bark, the rice holes, the pearlite, even a slow release fertilizer in that landscaping mix, it's got it. And then then of course the rose mix very effective for any woody plant, but designed for roses as well as other woody plants, fresh

and composted bine, pine bark combined. It's got sphagnum moss in it, and it also has a slow release burtle. It makes it really really easy. Just go to do this, go to Landscaperspride dot com. Landscaperspride dot com. When you go there, you'll find out where you can get it, and it's widely available here in the Houston area. By it, I mean all of the Landscaper's Pride quality products that make your plants happy, make the roots happy, make the plants happy. Brown stuff then green stuff.

Really simple, simple formula. We're going to go out here to Santa Fe and talk to Lynn. Hello Lynn. Oh yeah, good, More on scale. I have a question about a magnolia tree that got burnt up by that summer drought last year. Yes, and it's about ten foot tall in about seven foot diameter anyway, and it's about three quarters of it burnt up from that drought. And what do you recommend I should do skiff, Should I tune it back? Or yeah? A good question. Good question,

Linn. We've seen all versions of damage on southern magnolia this past summer. Some plants killed out right, some burned just here and there where you can prune them and then keep going, and some burn back enough to where they're so disfigured it's just not the plant you want and it never will be, and so you just pull it and put a new one in. You can

scratch the bark. The leaves may be brown, but the bark could be alive, so you can scratch the bark to see, or you can wait for new spring growth to see where it starts to grow going from and prune it back to that if you if you're thinking I may want to replace it, if it's not going to make it, then I would get a little knife or thumbnail and get out there and start scratching bark, looking to see if it's like a paper sack underneath brown which is dead, or if you

got a creamy white or a light green which is alive, and then make an assessment. You know, I mean if the whole top half of it died, well, magno user trees not bushes, and so you know that would not be that'd be so disfigured. I wouldn't keep it, okay, I said, well, I'll I'll do what you said, and I'll just kind of like wait until wait a little while to makee spring time comes.

You'll see what happened. Yeah. The only the only reason to get ahead and do the scratching is if you're going to replant, well, it be better to plant sooner rather than later, so it make you help you make the decision earlier. Otherwise just wait, you can do that too. Thank you. I appreciate your call, sir. All right, Uh, have you been to Chenni Gardens in Richmond. You need to because it's another showplace

garden center that we have downe here. It sprawls out with color and vegetables and roses and trees and shrubs and pottery and all kinds of yard bling. I love the yard bling too. That is it. Now? In Chenni Gardens, you're going to find very knowledgeable staff people that know what they're talking

about. So when you're walking around, des grab somebody. They're all over the place and they're there to help you and eager to help you and friendly and they will they will direct you to a plant that fits the situation. That you're asking about that will help you combine a bunch of flowers into a

container. When I say help you, they're not going to come to your house, of course, but you can say, look, I want to do a combo container and maybe you get one of their containers and it's this big and what would you suggest for annuals and they'll give you some things you can put in it to create a beautiful combination. That's how they do things there. The London and family has been in that community since nineteen and that's

when in Chinnit Garden first opened. That's when the garden center first opened. And they there's a reason that it just keeps growing and getting better. It's because people know about it and people love to go to in Chanit Gardens. They're on FM three fifty nine, so if you're in Richmond heading toward full cir Kadie direction, FM three point fifty nine is where it is. Or go to the website and make it easy on yourself Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.

By the way, they're open today from ten am to four pm. So hey, I'm just saying, good thing to do this afternoon head out to Enchanit gardens get a little bit of inspiration and hopefully some plants by the way they carry. Our fertilizers recommend and soils would recommend also out there. We're going to go to northeast Houston down and talk to Fred. Hey, Fred, how you doing. I'm good. I got two questions. One of my yard for the weeds or what's what's what I need to do to

control them? And you say, a while back lady had some lights on some plants that kept them on that keep from freezing. Yes, yes, can you do you remember? Uh, well, let's start about Let's start with the weeds. If you see weeds, now those are existing weeds. Most of them are broad leaf weeds, and you need to use a broad leaf post emergent weed control. And one example of that. There there are a number of good things out there on the market, but one example is

a product by nitrofoss and it is a fifteen five ten fertilizer. So it's a fertilizer and it has trun it has trimic in it. And that what you have to do though for it is you got to you gotta get a sprinkler out there and turn it on just enough to wet the weed leaves just enough. You don't you're not water in your lawn. You're just wetting the weeds and have your product ready to go, and you fertilize the lawn and that granule sticks to those wet leaves and it goes in. The chemical goes

in and kills the weed. And then a couple of days later then if you want a water it's a good idea because you washed the fertilizer down into the soil and that is going to feed your early feed of your spring green up. And so you kind of can do both at the same time. Those weeds are going to be setting seeds soon and once they do that, they're hard to kill. Plus you have, you know, twenty years of weeding that you've just added to the to the soil from all those weed seeds.

Now the lights go ahead, n fifteen five can Yeah, it's a fifteen to five to ten with TRIMEC, tri I MEC tr MEC. That's three different harbicides that are in that granule. And you can do it without now the lights to warm things up. The lights and I'm gonna have to

run here, so I got to do this quick. But you just get one of those clamp light aluminum lights and get you either one hundred and fifty watt flood light bulb or if you really need to heat up a heat the red heat lamp bulbs and that creates a lot of heat and you put it underneath the cover to keep that heat in and to protect your plants when it's cold. I'm sorry I got to run, but I'm up against a hard break here. But I do thank you very much for that call. We'll

be right back. Welcome back to garden Line. Hey, we're glad you're with us today. We are entering our last segment of the weekend. You know, we're here every Saturday from six am to ten am and every Sunday from six am to ten am to answer your gardening questions. You can listen to past shows on the podcast if you would like to go about that way, get you iHeart Media app. And actually you can listen to live shows on the podcast too. We have folks from way outside the listening area that

listen that way as well. I want to just remind you for those of you who are up and let's just say North area up beyond Houston towards spring Well, Spring Creek Feed, Spring Creek Feed. They're in the Magnolia area on FM twenty nine seventy eight. I want to remind you that they're there because that's your hometown feed straw right up in that area, and Spring Creek Feed carries everything that you need. Of course, they have feed for animals,

they have feed for pets, quality feeds. By the way, for those friendly courteous staff always like to go in there. They greet you and they make sure you get helped and you find what you need. They've gotten a lot of shipment of some new betting plants in. They've got a load of different products that we recommend on garden line fertilizers, all the different fertilizers that we talk about, you're going to find them there at Spring Creek Feed.

If you need pest disease and weed control, yep, they got that as well. You can find that there. If you need any supplies for your back eared chickens, they can get you fixed up on that. But I think you're going to be really surprised they've expanded their horticultural slash gardening area in terms of products and plants and other things, and it's really nice again. They're on FM twenty nine to twenty, just minutes away from Grand Parkway

and Highway. Spring Creek Feeds and you can't miss it when you're dry, big old barn, beautiful place, love to go inside, lots of cool stuff with the home too inside there. You need a little of that extra farmhouse tot bling. They will get you fixed up. We're going to go now to Rosenberg and talk to Evan. Hello, Evan, are you there? Yes, I mispronounced your name, Yvonne. Thank you, yeah, now it's fine, Thank you, Hi Skip, thanks for taking my call.

So I have pretty much more weeds than the lawn going on, and our intent was last summer to really put the effort into our lawn to fix it, and of course we hit the drought, so that stopped everything. And then I've been traveling this whole spring, and so today's the day to get started. And I just heard your last call talk about the nitrofoss fifteen to five to ten with the TRIMEC. So I'm assuming that's my first step.

Is that correct? Well, that would be for the broadly feeds that are in your lawn right now, the existing weeds that would help kill them. They're going to be going to seed and going downhill and giving way to the warm season weeds. And as long as you have a thin lawn. While you're doing that, other nit frosh you buys, will grab a bag

of barricade and put that down that needs to be watered in. The first one, we wet the weed, just wet it, and then we put the fertilizer slash broad leaf control out and the granu'll stick to the weeds and that's how the chemical gets in the weed. After a couple of days, then you can water the lawn. And before you do that, I would put out the barricade and then water in and you get all of it done at once. You move the fertilizer into the soil and you move the barricade

into the soil surface. Because here's what's going to happen. Soon. The weeds you see now will give way to things like grassperers and crabgrass and other warm season weeds that are in the process of sprouting, and we got to stop them at that stage. If you wait too long, the barricade isn't designed to work on existing weeds. Okay, So when you say a few days between doing the nitrofossima barricade. Are we talking seriously a few days, like three days or like from weekend to weekend. No, no, let

me let me clarify that I probably wouldn't clear the we the weeds. Put down the fertilizer with trimec. It's a fifteen five to ten with trimac. It's like either a blue, bluish, purplish colored bag and it sticks to the weeds. And then you just wait, because you've wet the weeds. You put the granules they touch the weeds, and give it a day or two and then you're going to want to water it. But before you water, put the barricade down. So when you water, you not only move

the barricade into the soil, you move the fertilizer into the soil. Is that actually a few days? Okay? Well two days? Two days is enough between the two One day maybe enough, But I'd like to give it a day or two, and so you could put the barricade down right away. But both in and the fertilizer are gonna need to be watered in more than just wetting the leaves, which was the first step. Now we're going to put like a third or a half an inch of water to move it

down in the soil surface. Okay, Now the weeds are good, nice little tufts of you know, big puffs everywhere. Do I need to mow them down? Or just leave them as as they're right now? To put the nice fuss for the for the first step. You don't want to mow them. You want those leaves up there to catch a lot of granules, stick to the weed and kill the weed. Okay, Now I have dogs, Do I need to keep them away from the stuff or I mean, well, while the granules are sitting out there, I guess you could.

You don't want them tracking that stuff around or rolling around in it, getting in a fur. I mean, it's not like dog poison. You know, the dogs are gonna croak when they touch it. It's just would I would keep them off during that time. I know dogs have to go outsie every day, so they can trapes out there and do their business and come

home, come back in or something. But okay, all right, and then after that point, just keep I've got both your lawn schedule, care schedule and the weed management schedule cutted out, So then just pick up where they need to be at that point. Is that correct? Yes, Because what you will have done with everything I just said, you will have done your spring early greenup. That's the first thing on the schedule top left corner that you see. Okay, okay, all right, all right. I

appreciate the information. Thank you very much. I love listening to your show. It's been fantastic. And Enchanted Gardens is my one I go to down the street here, Oh my god, down the street. You're lucky. I know. I love that place. Say hi to them when you're in there. Thanks for the call. I appreciate that. You know, the Ace Hardware stores are where you can buy any of these products you've been hearing

me talk about all day. I mean the fertilizers, the soil blends, you know, the bags of soil, composts and molts, things like that. They've got everything, and there Ace near you. Acehardware dot Com. That's the website. Look at the store locator and you know, put in your zip and it'll give you all these stores that are everywhere nearby that you can go to. And if you hear me talk about it on guardline,

you're gonna find it at Ace Hardware that that's how we work. I mean, we've communicate with them and here's what we're going to recommend and stuff, and they make sure and have it stocked up. Things like ASMIT for example. That'd be another one you can find at ACE hardware stores. And when you're there, you're going to find tools. You're going to find pesticides,

you know, for insects and diseases and weeds. You can find all of that and a lot of other things to create a beautiful outdoor area that you can enjoy. And that's what it's about. One of the fertilizers say carry

is the Microlifeline and they have a wide variety of microlife products. For example, I've been talking today about the purple bag the Humates plus, which is a zero zero four, so it's not you know, there's not nitrogen and phosphors and if there's a little potasse, but we're not putting it down just with the nutrient. We're putting it down because it is a humous product, the final stage of decomposing organic matter. And so we call it compost in

a bag. So if you can imagine, you know that you had like five bags a compost and you just are ten bags, and you compost it all the way down to its final stage of humus. That's a bag of microlife Humantes plus, and you put that out. It helps with the microbial activity in the soil, but it helps with soil structure, and that is important. And this isn't like you put it out and tomorrow everything's different. No, you put it out and you make this part of your ongoing care.

That's how nature takes care of things. Nature makes soil better and better over time, and you can shortcut that with something like microlife products like the humates plus, like the six two four fertilizer that we're going to be talking about soon putting out as a fertilizer for your lawn, and it's just an ongoing process. Return your clippings too. By the way, when you return your grass clippings, you are taking exactly the combination of every nutrient that grass

needs. It's in the clipping and you're cutting them off and you're either dropping under the soil or you're paying somebody to haul them away. I call the latter. Renting fertilizer. Don't be a fertilizer renter. If you buy fertilizer, keep your fertilizer on site by returning the clippings. Do you know that if you were to take all the grass clippings, Oh my gosh, here's

the music. I'll make this fast. If you're to take the whole grass clippings of all your mowings through the whole season, send them to the labid A and m what's in these? I want the whole list of nutrients and how much is there? Your lawn mower puts out more fertilizer than your fertilizer spread er. Does I mean it? Even if you're fertilized three times a year, it does. Does that mean you don't need to fertilize now?

It doesn't. It just means that why waste that quality nutrient? Because if you get rid of your clip things, you just got to add more fertilizer. And they clippings have all the micro nutrients and things like that and them too, So don't send those down the street in a plastic bag. It just makes sense. It's called don't bag it. By the way, I helped with our one of our turf spatialists, doctor Kanoop, when he was doing the the uh Don't Bag It program in Texas. Anyway, we're out

of time for today. Hey, I've had a good time. I hope you have too. We'll see you next Satay.