Lets Talk Spring

Basically is what it amounts to.

So I'm not as worried about it. And if you were, if you're asking the same question about an immediate release fertilizer, I would say, well, you know it, could you get a gully washer rain that could wash a lot of dissolve and wash away your fertilizer. But I think on the barricade, you're probably okay unless it's just going to really rain a lot for a long time, all.

we knocked them back with bifen. My plan is to airate and top dress with composts and then stay on the fertilizer scheduled. But there's anything else I need to do. Oh, you know, with the lack of grass, we're getting a whole pile of I put barricade down in the fall, but we're getting up pile of weeds.

less weed issues you're going to have. You can use a product like a barricade as a pre emergent to stop the summer weeds, which are just we're on the doorstep of them germinating. So we want to get that barricade down for the earliest of those that sprout. That would be one option that you can do. Be careful when you use a pre emergent, always that you use it according to the label instructions. This is a case where if a teaspoon's good, a tablespoon is not better.

In fact, a tablespoon can be a problem because you got new grass runners that are out there trying to peg down some roots. And you know, if you overdo that pre emergent.

back in shape. Assuming the sunlight is good. If there's some areas where the tree shade is just taking too much of the solar rays away, then the grass is going to have trouble getting covered quickly, especially, and so that would be the only caveat to that.

are they talking about. Well, if you have a spreader that you walk behind and this isn't the handheld, this is the kind you walk behind, and it has twenty notches, well a quarter would be five notches, so five, set it on five or six, a notch above quarter and put out your pre emergence with that. Now, it's not the same as fertilizer for everybody listening. I'm sorry, Bruce, I have to have to do on my caveats because

people here and they don't always hear here. Well, so yeah, that is just the case for that, and it's a good rule of thumb. The thing I also like is, you know, you know about how much you want to put out of either fertilizer or a product like barricade, and it doesn't hurt to do it a little light the first time because here's here's a product you got,

here's maybe a newcheprudder. You haven't used that product with go light because you can always you know, if you go north south, you can always come back east west and add the rest of it. But at least that way you kind of know, and then going forward you know exactly where to set it.

helps extend the life. There's not a black and white line where you can keep it for x amount in the months or years. You know, it's it's a it's a very gray line. All right.

I wanted to come back to it. I was talking about when you put fertilizer down before rain and the fact that if you get a gully washer, it can wash away a lot of your especially salt based which would be a synthetic fertilizer. Not necessarily the slow release types because they don't turn those elements. Those nutrient elements loose to go into solution and head either down through the soil or off across the surface to the street

or wherever they're going. But it's always better to put fertilizer down and put the right amount of irrigation on it to move it in that way, you have control, it's more precision. You don't overdo it. And I realize you're using you know, your drinking water to water the lawn, which is what we do also, But it's just a it's a better way to go about it. Now there are you know, selobritase fertilizer isn't going to turn all those loose so fast. Also an organic type fertilizer, so

you take microlife for example. Microlife is a natural based fertilizer and when you put it down, it's not full of the salt form of the form of those elements. The microlife has to be microbially broken down, which it is. Microbes are excited to get some of that to jump on and it breaks it. They break it down and they release the nutrients into the swell. That's natural system. That's how nature works. You know, there is no salt

based fertilizer in nature. It's basically organic matter decomposing. Whether you know it is a bird poop in the jungle or buffalo poop on the high planes or whatever. I mean, we're talking about organic stuff that's got nutrients. It's being released. So that's microlife. Now, microlife's been around here for what thirty five plus years in the Greater Houston area. They're sixty two four long fertilizers, the number one selling fertilizer

that's organic here in the Houston area. The advantage of something like this is again that slower, a little bit slow release. It's not going to give you like three or four months like a synthetic slow would, but it's going to gradually release those nutrients and then you can

fertilize again as you want going through the season. The bottom line is just understanding how that's working, and basically it's working in that natural system with all the microbes, and you know, in each bag of microlife you got billions of beneficial microbes that help your plants. They help them grow stronger. You know, it also improves the soil. It is an organic matter. You're talking about being compost

down on the soil. Well, when you're putting an organic fertilizer, you are in a way they're improving the soil structure and things itself over time, and that is really important. Now you're going to find microlife in a lot of places. You can go to microlifefertilizer dot com and find out more about it. But I just wanted to comment a little bit about how that works and why it works

like it does. And I think those of you who are organic or who want to be organic, or finding that you can get on that schedule, you can begin to over time use those products the sixty four, the humates plus and on and on. There's a lot of those products from microlife, and you gradually, over time take your lawn into a more natural organic state of the cycle of nutrients and the improvement of the soil and so on. All Right, So, anyway, I hope that made

a little bit of sense. I was checking out Moss Nursery, say yesterday or day before. Anyway, the folks at Moss, you know that nursery is. It's not just a nursery. It's not just another garden center. That place has been around for seventy years, eight acres to wander on. And first time I went there, it was like, am I in like a botanical garden? Or is this a garden center?

You're walking around and there's just plants everywhere, and there's fountains everywhere, and there's all kinds of unusual and cool art everywhere in around the Moss Nursery grounds. I stand in Seabrook for those of you who haven't been there, on Toddville Road and Seabrook. You can go to the website. It's Moss Nursery dot com and Moss is spelled maas. But right now, don't stand still in the parking lot

because there are trucks coming in constantly. I think they got like six or eight shipments a day these last few days. I really mean that they are loaded on. They have like small cacti if you like those, if you like succulents, Oh my gosh, they're succulents, just everything you can imagine, and just trays and trays and trays and trays of them. It is an awesome selection. Now when you go in there, pretty much any plant you want, like do you want a Japanese maple, or do you

want a tropical plant? Or do you want herbs? Or do you want hanging baskets? Oh, right now they have a lot of beautiful hanging baskets that just came in. We're refresh off the truck, so you need to get by there and check it out. It's Moss Nursery on a seabrook on Toddville Road, if you want to give them a call two eight one four seven four twenty

four eighty eight. I always like wandering around there because Jim brings back all kinds of stuff from his travels, and you know, you may see some carved wooden mask almost like a totem pole like figures. It's just you never know, you never know. And fountains too. They just got in a bunch more fountains that are really beautiful, really cool. You know, adding water, the sound of water to your landscape is one of the coolest things that

you can do. I like going out in the morning and sitting on my patio and the bird feeders aren't too far away, and just watching the birds as they come in, but mainly listening to their songs. Birds are mourning people. Have you noticed that some of you are not mourning people? And I've never been a morning person, but I don't know. As I've gotten older, I've become more of a morning person. So I'm kind of like the birds. But boy, they will shut up in the morning,

and their songs are beautiful. The sound of water. We all at a fountain out there just off the patty a little bit. That is uh, you know, making the sounds of water, and it is just you've created Eden right there in your backyard. And it just didn't take a whole lot to turn that place into Eden. And that that's a cool thing anyway, It's something I enjoy.

Our phone number if you'd like to give me a call seven one three two one two kt r H seven to one three two one two kt r H. I want to remind you that my uh pro my publications are online at gardening with skip dot com and I put them up there so that I can answer your questions in a more effective accurate way. You know, the more I the more I make and answer brief, the less accurate it becomes. Have you ever thought about that?

Like you go to the you go to the doctor and you ask them to explain something, and if they just gave you like a forward sentence, well, yeah, that's not gonna help a lot, right, But you can go too far with this, But anyway, my point is that when someone calls and says, well, what should I do for such and such? I can give them an answer to that. But there's a lot of questions. There's a lot of butts, as I like to put it, You know, which turp do you have? How long has it been in?

How much sunlight is it getting? Do you see what I'm saying? And so that the devil's in the details, as they say, and so in these publications I'm able to put the details. For example, someone has stuff coming up in the fence line. Maybe it's poison ivy. Maybe it is some greenbriar or some peppervine or hackberry trees, or maybe in the in the yard there is torpedo grasp, well you don't want that one, or dallas grass growing that are very difficult to kill, and on and on.

I just created the sheet called herbicide products to use with skip'sweed wiper. Now I like this approach because instead of spring products all over creation, you put them on a sponge on the weed wiper. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to my website. I'll show you how to build one. And you put the right product on for the weed you have, and then you just reach down and wipe the weed. You can have a cup of coffee in one hand this morning.

You could be out there once the daylight arrives. You could be out there with a cup of coffee in one hand and the weed wiper in the other, walking through your yard. And let's say you had wild onion and wild garlic. You don't have to treat the whole yard with the with a herbicide. To do that, you put it on the weed wiper. You just go through and grab those squeeze it and pull them up and you're wiping it right on that weed and it works well.

And that's all online. It's a free publication that you can check out. So anyway, that's my point. There's a lot more on there. I guess I ought to talk about more of the publications that are up sometime, but anyway, that one I think almost everybody needs, because you're gonna have poison ivy pop up, or you're gonna have a weed that's difficult to control. You know what about nuts edge in a garden bed and you've got other plants and you don't want to kill those plants, but you

want to kill the nuts edge. Online look at my publications. We're gonna head over now to League City and visit with Ross. Hey, Ross, welcome to garden Line.

on the topics of the day. I mentioned that earlier that if you are going to put a lin in, you want to get that soil ready. You want to get everything as best you can, get it leveled out, get rid of the weeds that are plague you, that are perennial. So if you have a Saint Augustine lawn and you've got bermuda grass crawling through it, that's a

challenge to do. There is a way to kill the bermuda out, but it is, it's complicated, very expensive, and unless you hire somebody to do it, probably not going to happen. But if you are going to revamp that lawn, there's your chance to get rid of the bermuda. And

I don't care how long it takes. You know, one thing that happens when we try to spray a weeds sometimes is you'll you have a bunch of the weed and you spray and you get almost all of it, but then one pops back, and bermuda is notorious for that. Nut set is notorious for that. So you kind of have to be patient and wait, maybe a couple of weeks, get a little rain on it, and then or water irrigation, and here comes back, and then you got another shot at it, and you got to you gotta go after it,

because nothing gets everything with one apption. It just doesn't. Nature doesn't work. It doesn't work that way, and so be patient, but get it right. Keep in mind that the most important thing for your turf is probably the sunlight amount that it's receiving. Soil is important, and certainly watering, you got to water and stuff, but the sunlight that

is the fuel that drives everything in your grass. You want your grass to be healthy, you want it to be pretty and green, you want it to grow fast and fill in and all that get dense sun sun sun, that's the energy for everything lack. The more you go in the shade, the more the grass goes into a just trying to hang on and survive pattern. And then it gets too shady for that and it starts to decline. And when grass is in the shade and it starts going downhill, it is very hard to bring it back.

It just is because it doesn't have the energy to be able to do that. Imagine your body if you weren't eating right. You know, you eat three salting crackers one day. Okay, how much energy are you gonna have? You're gonna feel like getting up and running running a mile? No, because you don't have the energy. And the sun is

the energy source for our plants. And so when they don't go what they need, there's a marginal area where they get by, kind of like you're sitting around the house not doing much because you just don't have the energy. But they need energy, they need sunlight, and that is certainly true grass. That's probably the number one limiting factor that we deal with on grass. Now I want to talk about timing on weeds. We are in a crucial crossroads when it comes to weed management in our turf.

The cool season weeds are what you see right now in your grass. If you see weeds that are all up in the grass, that is a cool season weed. It's not a warm season that's the big old weed sitting there. That's the thing like clover and chickweed and hem bit and cleavers and carpet weed and a bunch of others, dandelions, things like that. They are coming through the season and they're putting on their show. They're about to start blooming and setting seeds. So their life cycle

is just like the blue bonnet. When you think a cool season weeds, think of a blue bonnet. It sprouts in the fall and it sits there as a little They call it a rosette because it's just a little bitty small plant that sits there waiting. When we start getting past midwinter, we're coming into spring, that blue bonnet begins to grow and all of a sudden, now you see these big mounds of blue bonnets on the highway. Where were they in November and October? They were there,

there was little plants. Then they start to grow, and then the next step is because it changes in day length and because of the warming temperatures, they start blooming and we get to drive down the highways and enjoy our bluebar on it. And then after they bloom, they set seed, and at that stage that plant has become we say at the bloom stage, it's become reproductive, meaning it's ready to start reproducing producing seed. And at that stage it's very hard to kill weeds and your lawn.

So you want to do it before they start blooming and producing it. They just starting to bloom. That's okay, go ahead, it's okay still. But the longer you wait, not only is it harder to kill the weed, but it's already made seed. And so that's that's kind of the cycle. And now's the time to knock those out or hand pull them. I hand pull mine ninety nine percent of the time because I don't have that many and I don't mind getting out there and doing a

little bit. There's there's gadgets to help that a little bit too, But however you go about it, just do it. That's the bottom line, speaking of just do it, Pierce Scapes is our number one garden Line preferred landscaper and there's a good reason for that. And if you want to see it, go to piercescapes dot com. Look at the pictures, look at what they can do. Whatever you want to make your landscape look good, I bet they

can do it because they do hardscapes. They do walkways, they do rock borders, they put in new gardens, they do landscape lighting, they do maintenance, cordly maintenance, mulching and trimming and fertilizing and replacing flower color in the beds is needed, and things like that. They help create better drainage. Peerscapes are they're professionals, from their landscape designers down down to their employees that have distinguished landscape irrigation, drainage backflow

pesticide certifications and licensing. And these folks, these are professionals and they do the job right. You can go to pierscapes dot com. That's how I suggest to do. It's easy to remember. If you want a phone number, it's two eight one three seven fifty sixty. But the bottom line is go check it out now. Even if you think I'm not going to do that this. Go check it out, take a look at what they can do.

You'll you'll be inspired. And then who knows, as we go through, maybe you'll just decide to pull the trigger right then, or at least in the future. You'll know who to call them, who to go to when you're ready for any kind of a landscape revamp. From a little fixing this and that here and there to I just want to turn everything upside down, to start over and have a beautiful place. When you see the pictures, you'll know what I'm talking about. Plants for all seasons.

I was looking. They've got their tomato plants in and they got a lot of them in. Of course, they're getting a lot of different kinds of plants. It's spring and they always load up on that. There they while back I was talking about, they'd just gotten in the potatoes and the onions. And by the way, if you haven't planted potatoes or onions, hurry up. You can still plan them. It's okay to still plan them. You're getting toward the end of the season, but you can do it.

Just don't delay. Get that done. While you're there. Check out their new indoor kind of the gift shop area, the place where they have their tools and seeds and all kinds of really cool stuff for the home, lawn and garden. It's right there. And you know, at Plants for All Seasons they understand that soil comes first. So when you go out and pick all your pretty plants out, in order to get to the checkout, you got to walk past all the fertilizers and the soil products and

things like that. And that's good because don't go home with those plants without going home with some stuff to make the plants happy. Brown stuff before green stuff. Brown stuff is fertilizers and soils, and Plants for All Seasons has the whole nine yards. And then of course if you have any kind of problems, you can go in there. We're talking about professionals. They've been doing this since nineteen

seventy three. They know what they're doing. You can go to Plants for All Seasons dot com or if you want to call them two eight one three seven six one six for six at Plants for All Seasons. I love going in there, love visiting with all the Flowerdy family and just kind of talking about we also kind of compare notes, you know, way, what are you hearing about what's going on, what are people bringing into the store these days, stuff like that that is very very helpful.

They got a President's Day sale on all kinds of painting supplies at your ACE Hardware store like K and m Ace and a Task Casita, K and m Ace and Kingwood, the Bay City Ace Hardware. Those are just example. They're all over the place. Ace Hardware dot Com find your store. They're all over the listening area. And that's cool. They got a lot of cool stuff. I was doing spring cleaning myself, you know, getting getting bens and shelving and things like that. Maybe you need to do that too.

Have you ever noticed how your garage the junk just sort of expands. It's like it. It goes through uh cell division at night, and now you have two pieces of junk where there was just one. I don't know how that works, but there bends to that or get rid of it.

I killed everything. I can't grow plants. No, no, no, no, no no, you do not have a brown thumb. There's no such thing as a brown thumb. Listen to me, trust me on this one. There's no such thing as a brown thumb. There are uninformed thumbs. And if you want to associate a color with your thumb, well, then let's do it this way. The more informed you get, the greener your thumb gets. Okay, And that's all it is.

The reason Grandma could grow anything. Grandma drop a pencil on the ground and'd sprout and grow a pine tree, you know, I mean, she could do anything. The reason is she was giving plants what they want. They have opinions about how much sunlight, how much drainage, how well the soil condition is in terms of aeration and internal drain They have opinions about nutrients. They have opinions about if they want to live at your house. Next time you go on a vacation to Colorado, do not bring

Colorado columbines and blue spruce trees home. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants will arrest you and throw you in jail. That shame on that. I mean, that's a torture plant, something that wants to grow here, That's what I'm saying. That's part of making it look like you got a green thumb. It's because you put a plant where it wants to be, and oh oh, put it in soil that it wants to be. And the better your soil and you make ge it lucky

and just have good soil where you moved. Most people have to fix their soil. They have to improve their soil. They have to take a look at what nature does and then go home and do that. That's why we had compost to the soil, by the way, because nature adds compost to the soil, and just a little different way than we go about it. You have a green thumb, closureiz and repeat after me. Click your heels together, and you will be like Dorothy and a wizard of Oz.

I have a green thumb. I have a green thumb. I have a green You have a green thumb. Just keep listening to guard line. All right, Well, I want to talk a little bit about I mentioned the importance of a post emergent weed control. Now before those weeds start setting seed. So that clover in your lawn, that chickweed that hand best, especially hand bet it's already blooming out there in the yards. You need to stop it now.

Handpull it, spray at whatever you're gonna do. Stop it now, or it will sentence you to thousands more seeds of that same species that you can deal with next spring. So you don't do it. You don't want to do that. Secondly, pre emergence. Pre emergents prevent the seeds when they try to sprout from becoming established. So if you right now in your yard, I'll bet there is some cribgrass seed, I'll bet there is some seed of other things, will graspers and other ones that it's a warm season weed

that comes up from seed. We've got a whole bunch of them. And if you're going to stop them from ever getting started, now's the time to do it. Because once they're up and growing. There are a few pre emergents that have a little bit of post emergent activity, like if the weed seed is really early starting, they'll kill it too, but some of them don't. And the main thing is get there ahead of it. And I

use the baseball analogy all the time. You start swinging somewhere between when the pitcher lets go of the ball and when it gets to your plate. If you wait until it's almost to you to start swinging, what's going to happen. It's going to be in the catcher's mitt and you're swinging in the air. That's what it's like putting out a pre emergent. You got to do it at the right time. You swing before he lets go of the ball, he just looks stupid. That's not going

to work. You wait too late and you're going to strike out. And that is true. Now's the time to swing with the pre If you're going to put one down, you get it down now. The barricades are great example. Put it down, water it in, get it into the surface of the soil, and then when they try to sprout, to give you about about sixty days, maybe a little longer where it's protecting against the weed seed sprouting. And so if you wanted to extend it through the summer,

you'd have to do it again at that point. Don't overdo it at any point in time. I know we're built thinking A teaspoons good, a tablespoons better. This is not only is that not true with pre emergency. You can do damage when you misuse products of all types, all types, even since that even organics, you don't misuse them. You use them properly because there are things that can happen that are not desirable. And so in the case of pre emergence, only what the label says. And I'll

let me explain it this way, just real quick. If you are a company and you have a product to sell, would you tell someone to use a teaspoon if a tablespoon was better. No, because you sell more products the more they use, right, So why would they tell you use this amount on the label. It's because that's the amount that works and that doesn't cause the damage that excessive amounts could cause. So believe them, if if they

if they could sell you more. They're in a business, right If a company making a product could sell you more, well they would want to do that. That's why we have a label. Labels the law. But more importantly for your home garden, label is the right amount without hurting things?

I remember growing up we had those metal chairs that were painted bright primary colors and it was like a metal seat curved around and had some little ridges in it, and then the underneath the seat was like a white metal tubing that curved around toward the ground and then back under you. And it like you could kind of bounce in that chair. It had a little bit of a springiness to it. You know what I'm talking about. Those kind of chairs. Well, those things are awesome. That's

retro cool stuff. Well, Ace powder coats can take an old chair like that and they can fix it up if it needs a little bit of a maybe it needs just a little bit of welding repair. This is true of anything they're doing. They coat metal with a special process that is way better than painting, way more durable, and they'll come in they'll do a little repair if

it needs it. If they in those kind of chairs had the little bolts and things through that were was resting and whatnot, they replace them with the stainless steel hardware, putting it back in. If you've got a little plastic feet on some piece of metal out there in the yard, or end caps, you know how the tube they put a little plastic endcap in it so water didn't get in there. They'll replace all that. And I don't care

what it is. I mean it could be it could be tables, it could be benches, anything like wrought iron, cast iron, aluminum. They'll do it all. And I'm telling you it's amazing. And the color choices you have. Do you think one hundred plus color options, like if you tell them black, they go which black? You know what I'm saying, one hundred plus color options any kind of

color basically they can essentially do. And I saw some stuff that had a real rustic almost you know how the old almost a rusty kind of cast iron look, you do it? And I looked at this, Oh, when y'all go and do that one, they go, oh, that is that's the color we put on it. And you know, if you want that kind of look, they can do that all the way through one hundred plus colors. I mean, I don't know what else to say. If you want to get a quick quote from them, just go outside.

Any kind of outdoor metal, from furniture to a lamppost to a porch rail, to what else? Maybe art a decorative metal art outside. Take a picture of it and email it to sales at Houstoncoters dot com. Sales at houstoncoders dot com. They'll give you a quote. And by the way, they offer free pickup and delivery to the greater Houston area. That's a good deal. Houston Powdercoders dot com. What do you have that needs to be brought back? Don't buy a new one. Don't have to buy a

new one. Have them come out and do it right. Get your stuff and bring it back to check them out. Look up Houston powder Coders on some of your social media and take a look at the kinds of work that they do. It's really cool. I was so excited. I was like wanting to come home and look for pieces of the metal I have powder coated because it is a nice process. That is true. All right, Well we are here. I was outside yesterday trying to get some pictures taken in a garden and the wind is

just blowing and blowing. And you know what I thought of is last year when had those storms come through that just wrecked havoc on our power grid. You know, people without power for a long time. And the pictures I saw around the Greater Houston area of tree damage were just heartbreaking, just hammered. And you know a lot. We can do a lot to protect our trees against that by pruning them properly and even by beginning with training them properly too. Martin spoon Moore from Affordable Tree.

He understands all this. He knows how to do it. You got to take care of your trees.

you got it. You need to do that. These are the most single valuable plants in your entire landscape. Give Martin a call. Seven one three, six, nine nine two six sixty three seven to one three six nine nine two six sixty three. That's Martin spoon More at Affordable Tree Service. Here is wife Joe will answer the phone and by the way again seven to one three six nine nine two six six ' three or a ff tree Service dot com. He does way more than training

and pruning. He can advise you on things. He can talk about what they can do, other things like deep feeding and just have him look. He'll know what needs to be done and he'll talk with you about it and you can decide. I hate it when a giant, beautiful tree is just split open and laying there. It's like, oh my god, you can't go backwards. You can't go backward. Let me tell you something else you can't do. By the way, while I'm ranting about this, you can't undo

a bad pruning job. Now you can go get a cheap haircut and put a bag over your head for a few weeks until it grows back. But with a tree, when when somebody doesn't know what they're doing gets a hold of your tree and messes it up, they know getting back to what it originally could have been there is not I mean they a good treat person can try to begin to repair damage and get it growing

back in a good way. But some of these hatchet jobs that I see driving around town, it's like, Okay, it's done, it's done, And so don't be that person. Just because someone has a pickup, a chainsaw and a business card to sticking your door does not mean they know what they're doing or should be turned loose on your trees. All right, enough of that, rent, can you tell I feel strongly about it. I do because I hate it when somebody has to go through all that

kind of stuff. In Jenny Forest Garden Center down in Richmond Rosenberg area is a awesome, awesome gardens that I love going down there. I love, you know, visiting with the folks Jennifer Forest. Just by the way that Danny is now on board with them, and that's a real nice addition to that as well. I was talking to him at the Home and Garden show down there in

the Richmond Rosenberg area a while back. But at the garden Center right now, by the way, they always have now in the spring they're always having on Saturdays typically they're going to have these educational programs going on that are really really helpful, very very helpful. In fact, next Saturday, Mike Sarrant is going to give a talk. He's or the guy from Oba and from Microlife. He's going to be talking about gardening the organic way. So it's free program.

You can go down there, go see Mike, tell him Skip said hi, and then let's see what else is going on. They're having a Valentine's Day learning experience down there too. But go to the website. It's enchanted that the website is enchanted Forest enchanted. Let me just give you, let me just give you the whole whole thing. All right, you're ready, got a pen. You're supposed to listen to Garden Line with a pen all the time, right, enchanted

for Richmond dot com. And I mean that listen with a pen because I'm going to be giving you stuff all the time, phone numbers or emails or got to go to this website and write it down. Enchanted Forest Richmond. Oh, I forgot the TX TX dot com. My bad Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. Chanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com.

in Washington State. I've seen blueberries and raspberries. It would not grow here because of the wrong ones. Go to a good mom and popgardens center, an independent garden center, and Chennit Forest what I'm talking about here. They'll sell you the lo chow varieties that do well here. They even have a three and one tree. It's like three different varieties grafted onto one tree, so you'd have room for three trees. Buy a three and one you can get all three kinds of fruit on that same tree.

That's pretty cool. Stop as well as all the things you need, you know, the tools of fertilizers, of soils and whatnot to get that off to a good start. So let them help you create a fruitful paradise, your little garden of eaton eat I n eaton all right, that's in Chennit Forest By the way. They're on FM twenty seven to fifty nine. If you're heading from Rosenberg, Richmond area up to sugar Land, it's off to the right down there FM twenty seven fifty nine. You're listening

to garden Line. Our phone number. If you'd like to give me a call seven one three two one two kt r H seven one three two one two kt r H. We will help you have success. That's my goal, at least that's what I would like to see happen. I was talking about the importance of post emergent now, the importance of pre emergent now if timing is what's important now. You know, there's a lot of ways to

go about gardening. There's things like organic versus synthetic. There's options there, and sometimes those two lines kind of get fuzzy right in between a little bit as you go across it. But however you want to go about it, you just need to do it. I mentioned that I do a lot of hand pulling in my yard just because I don't have that many weeds, and it's easy to do. You know, I've got a weed here and there, Why treat the whole yard for a couple of weeds?

But as your grass gets thinner, you're going to have more weed problems. And the term I use is wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants of weeds. So what is the single best individual start to weed control in your lawn. It's mow water fertilized. Mow water fertilized. That seems so simple. Come on, it's got to be more than that. No mow water fertilized. The more you probably don't want to hear this, but turf specialists will tell you this. The more often you mow, the denser your

lawn will be. And I'll use your shrubs as an example. If you let your shrubs grow out a foot and a half and then you cut them once a year back, how would that look. It would be ugly. You'd be cutting off all the leaves and be all dead twigs inside and stuff. It'll be horrible. But if you share that shrub regularly through the season, you have this wonderful dense wall of foliage that is just solid. You can't see in the shrub. It's a dense wall of foliage

that somewhat applies to your lawn as well. So the more often you mow, the denser. Your lawn is going to be watering as needed is very important. If your lawn gets drowdy, it's going to die back a little bit. It'll probably serve, but now sunlight hits the soil. The third thing fertilize. You need the right nutrients in order for grass to thrive, especially nitrogen. That is a single most important nutrient in your lawn for good green color and growth and density and health. Okay, you need more

than nitrogen, but that's the most important. That's why it's the first number that's the highest on a bag of lawn fertilizer. The first number mow water, fertilize. You do that all year this year and the vast majority of your weed problems can be overcome for weeds that are coming back from seed. Now something that's not coming back from seed. That's like you know, Virginia button weeds and dollar weeds and dichondra and all the things that just live in a lawn. That's not going to get rid

of them. They'll still be there. You have to treat for that. But the vast majority is just simply mow water and fertilized. That's a secret. I mean, you know, it ought to sounds like it ought to be harder than that.

It's not a black and white line, but you're more likely to get sick because your body is not able to fend it off. Plants are the same way. The stronger and healthier the plant, the better it can fend off many of the problems that attack them. So good health is important. That's why I did two schedules. I didn't just do a lawn pest, disease and weed schedule. I did a lawn care schedule. And that is the

mow water fertilized. It includes the aeration, It includes you know, the the azamite, the supplemental of the micros in there. That's getting the healthy lawn. And when you've done that and you've got issues that arise, and there will be issues that can arise even when you do everything right, flip the thing over and do the other side. And that's how to manage them, simple as that. All right, folks, I'm gonna take a break. Seven one three two one

two ktrh. Hey, welcome back to guarden Line. You would like to give me a call and talk about what is of interest to you? Seven one three two one two ktrh. That's the number. That's how you do it. Spend a lot of time on lawns today. But you know what, lawns is the topic that everybody, everybody seems

to have questions about. When I was Horticulture so Texas A and m Agrolife Extension Service for thirty five years, we used to say the three things that made the phone at the extension office where the three t's trees, turf and tomatoes. And that is so true on garden Line as well. When it comes to the number the first two trees and turf that the majority of questions. That's what people ask about because people are concerned about those I get it. When it comes to the vegetable garden.

Nobody calls me about their co rabbie or their a regular tomatoes, the queen of the vegetable garden. That is the case. Anyway, whatever your questions are about, we will try to give it a good shot. You know, when it comes to gardening and plants, there is no end to the learning. There isn't. There absolutely isn't. And I can tell you this because I've done it for decades

and decades, and it just always something new. There's some new plant that gets discovered, you know, COVID hits, and suddenly we discover there's eight hundred billion kinds of houseplants that you can't live about. Remember that. And so those of us that are order culturist, you know, house plants are kind of off on the periphery of all the kind of things people ask about and stuff. And so suddenly we're having to beef up on all these eight hundred kinds of this or that species and how to

grow it and everything else. But that's the fun part. That's one of the fun parts of gardening is learning. I love I love learning. And the more you learn, the more you're able to do what you want to do, have success with what you want to do. That's what we're talking about. There's no brown thumbs, there's uninformed thumbs. So let's get your thumb informed. I phone number again seven one three two one two K t R H.

I'm going to shift gears here. This is a time of year when a lot of people are planning fruit trees, and we've got some excellent selections of fruit trees in our various independent garden centers that we have in there in the Greater Houston area. I was looking at the

Buchanans Gardens Center Buchanans Nursery. It's actually, i should say, and there's native plants, because that's part of their name, and it's because they they absolutely have the best selection of native plants of anybody in the region.

a plum apricot cross, plum apricot cross. Okay, they have one called Flavor Grenade pluot and has to have a pollinator. But all their stuff is low chill. All their stuff will do well down here in the Houston area and even south of the Houston area. They've got excellent, excellent choices. And of course that you know when it comes to peaches, and they got a lot apples that do well. They got pears that do well. They even have an almond.

They've got tropical stuff. I mean, you know, it depends on the season as to what they have in at that time, stuff that's appropriate to plant. But if you're looking et ceteras and other things, Buchanan's Native Plants has it. And when you go to Buchanans Number one, it's fun. It's just fun to walk around there and see all that they have. But if you want to get a little bit of a gardening education, go talk to some of their people there. They're very knowledgeable, very very helpful.

And the times that I've been in there, I've been super impressed with what they know and with the selection that they have. So you walk in and you could say, Okay, I want to put more natives in my landscape, because I understand all the reasons. That's a good idea. I need something. I want something that will attract hummingbirds it's a native blooming plant, or I want something that will attract be a food source for butterfly larvae of some type.

They're going to have that stuff and they're going to know it. And they have native plants just in general Texas area natives. They've got native plants that are just from the Houston area here right around this area. They're immediately native right to our area. And when you go in, you're gonna find the selection and you're gonna find the help that you need. Anyway, I'm talking about them a lot,

but just because I really enjoy going in there. Buchanan's Plants on Eleventh Street, Eleventh Street in the Heights, Buchanansplants dot com. Sign up for their newsletter. It alone is worth going to the website for the newsletter that they send out is outstanding. So you need to at least sign up for that newsletter too. But anyway, all right, there you have it. Well, let's see here. I better run out to the phones. We got some folks out here. It helps to look over there that way, ever know.

And then Woody and Kingwood Welcome to garden Line.

reseeds profusely. It's interesting because after the blooms, the little capsules that hold the seed, they they explode, they pop and they throw seeds. And I've been in garden centers where there was oxalis on the ground and up in the pots. It was coming up because the ground weeds threw their seeds up into the bench, up onto the bench in the pots on top. So that's what you're up against, Uh, pre emergence that will work against you know, the broad leaf weed like that is one option for

that kind of oxalis. When you're dealing with the you know, the types with bulbs and are our in the ground, you're probably gonna have to go to something that's more like a two four D ingredient. And I would use my weed wiper for that, so you're not spraying it out everywhere and damaging other broad leaf plants with the spray. Okay, so I just do that.

thank you for your help. I'll give that a try. Yeah, you're going to do more than one, and by all means, don't let them bloom and go to seed again, because then you're just you're going backwards, right all right. Thanks, you appreciate I appreciate that very much. You take care. Uh yeah, I Uh. Someone was asking me about Nelson Plant Food and sources well ago, and I was telling you go to Nelson Plant Food. Uh, go to their website and you can find out exactly well you know

where to get it. It's now Nelsonplantfood dot com. There's a store locator on there. That's where you're going to find things like uh weed Nator that we were talking about. Weed Nator has a growth regulator that causes your lawn to go more horizontal and less vertical, less mowing, but still good coverage. And it's got a weed control product for killing existing weeds. So you wet your lawn to get the weed leaves. Wet put out this fertilizer. It sticks to the weed leaves, it soaks in, and it

kills them that way. So it's important to have wet leaves on your lawn to get the best result out of the turf Star Weedonator. And it is a widely available product here from the folks is Nelson. I'll talk about some of the other products here as we go through the show, but it is it is a product that works let's see here, I'm looking at Okay, I'm going to go out to talk to Phil here. Hey, Phil, welcome to garden Line. All right, I'm a put Phil back on hold. I'm going to take a break here.

Of Phil, we'll come back to you right after break.

Nursery has on February eighth. Find Landscaper's Pride products at your local garden center. Let's Grow together.

flowers on it. And I understand that if you buy a plant that doesn't have any flowers on it, it may be the best plant there is because it's going to put all its energy into growing and then setting some blooms. But you've got to have faith to do that. And a lot of people know I want a plant that is in a little tiny six pack with a one inch cell of roots, and I wanted to have a flower the size of a dinner plate on top. All right, well, go for it. But when we're wanting

to have success, it starts in the soil. That's where it begins. And Nature's Way resources I like to think of it as maybe the grandfather place of soil around here. Nature's Way has been around a long time. John Ferguson established it and with the idea of providing products for us to be able to garden in the way that nature does, and that is organic matter in the soil to help plants have success. And so now iansun running it and the whole team out there, they are a

great team, really knowledgeable folks. But anyway, the whole team out there, they produce still the quality soils, the ones that were born at Nature's Way, like roast soil and leaf moore composts, for example, they produce that. They also have fungal compost and by the way, either the leaf mold or the fungal compost is excellent for top dressing your lawn. Either way, leaf mold or funk well, both are good for top dressing the lawn. However, you won't

go about it. They have the mixes for various types of plants like vegetables and herbs. If you want to grow fruit trees, if you want to grow something acidic like an azalea or a blueberry, they have a mix for that. And when you go to Nature's Where or when you call them, you're going to go home with something to help you put a foundation down for success. Now you can go there and pick it up. You

have them deliver it. A lot of their products are sold by the bag in various locations around the Greater Houston area. So any way you want to go about it, just do it. That's the most important thing is just get it done. Most people want to skip that step because it's not as I don't know cool, you know, I'd rather have pretty flowers than talk about brown dirt. Well, if you don't talk about brown dirt, you're not gonna have pretty flowers. Nature'sway Resources dot Com We're going to

go now to the woodlands and talk to Ken. Hey, Ken, welcome to garden Line.

generally like to give them more time. Like if you're going to plant the spring, mixing leaves in right now, they probably wouldn't have time to really break down very good, and it might tie up a little bit of nitrogen and early in that process of breaking down. So what I'll often do is when they fall and we've got them gathered, maybe rototill them into the soil, and that gives them several weeks to do what they're going to

do prior to us getting out there and planting. But in my gardens, I tend to not do a lot of rototilling, So I just rake those leaves out of the way, build the soil like I'm going to build it whatever it needs, and then plant the plants and bring the leaves back in as a mult around them.

water a wider and whiter area. They come in three sizes. They hook up to a garden hose. They're easy to use. And the reason I said, like a tree's been in for five years. If this summer we go into one hundred degrees for one hundred days with the rain, which we occasionally get those kind of things coming, you just turn that thing on and you rescue water your tree with its right underneath the branch bread of the tree very very well. And it's that good rescue treatment. You're

going to get it at RCW Nursery. You're going to get it at Jorges Hidden Gardens. You'll find them at Siena Maultch down south and be Cannons and the Heights and Arborgate in Tomball and plants for all seasons on two forty nine on the way up the Tomball. It's widely available. Find them at Southwest Fertilizer too. Bob's got them there. But get you one. Keep it in the you know, keep it in your gardening shed or garage because you're gonna want to use it. Maybe you're gonna

plant a rose bush. They're good for that. To get the little one, the seven inch one for establishing a rose bush. That works well.

to pick out, and you're gonna have fun. And I gotta warn you though gardening is addictive.

get It, Got It Nursery Number one. They probably have it already what you're looking for, but if they don't, they probably can find it somewhere. They do their best and finding it and bringing it in. That's why I like to call them to get It, Got It a nursery. The huge selection, of course, all kinds of plants, herbs, perennials and annual shrubs, native plants, all of that. Right now, we're talking roses because pages and pages they have hundreds

of varieties of roses. They bring in at the end of winter every year and it's first come, first serve, so you know, they come in with several hundred time roses by the time, you know, you wait until spring and they're always they're always gonna have roses there. But there's no selection like the first where you it's just like, what do you want a climber? Do you want a bush? Do you want a miniature? Do you want one with red blooms, white blooms, coral blooms, whatever? Do you want

one fragrant not fragrant? Do you want a shrub? Do you want to cut flower, hybrid tea? All of it? R. CW is a favorite of rosarians because they do have that kind of selection. They also have a tree farm up in Plannersville where they grow their own trees and they grow things that are well adapted, well acclimated to our climate, to your yard right here. So when you get a tree from them, you know it's gonna grow here because it's from here. Think of it that way.

It's grown in this area right here, and you can't beat that. By the way. That tree farm is open to the public on but you got to listen to this carefully. It's up planners Though it's open to the public on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, only, and you need to make an appointment. Go to the website. I'm going

to give you that way website, whimsuntreefarm dot com. You have to make an appointment because you know this is a wholesale tree farm, and so you can't just a bunch of people show up, but making that appointment and go see go look see the trees themselves. Get pick out something you like. Uh, it's pretty cool. All part of that RCW world that we talk about all the time. We're going to go out now to Fairfield and talk to Marty. Hey, Marty, welcome to garden Line.

you know, still a few days away. But I don't see phrases, and probably not frosts based on the amount of moisture that's that's in the air. I don't think the temperature, the way it falls and stuff, I don't I don't think we're going to have a frost.

it's going to get down cold. Was it Saturday or someday later in the week, even the weather clears out and we get some actual, you know, good nippy cold weather. But yeah, short term, okay, much problem? Hey, you I saw some pictures. You were asking some questions about we control, and I saw pictures along, but I really couldn't make out the weeds other than some like annual rye grass or something coming up in there. Was there a particular of weeds that you were gentlemen.

I need this stuff. Skip talked about it and I can't live without it, and so don't make me.

called bark butter. Imagine peanut butter, but peanut butter that is loaded with all kinds of good stuff including like dried meal worms and all kinds of other stuff and you just smear it. I mean, you just go out there and take your batulu and just smear it on a tree trunk. Birds come up and they go nuts on this stuff because it has such quality feed in it and high protein and high fat and high calcium and everything they need because nesting season's coming, they need

that high calcium. Right now, one hundred and fifty different kinds of birds have been documented on bark butter. So this feeds all kinds of birds, and it's at wildbirds, and it's easy and plus it's kind of fun just to go smear stuff around. So I mean, you know, if some you just need significant others holding still enough, smear some on them, the birds will show up. Okay, that was going too far, but seriously, WBU dot com forward slash Houston. That's our wild birds. There's six stores

around here, easy to find them. And I'm telling you, I could talk all day about the quality products they have, from nest boxes to feeders, to quality feed not the kind birds kick out on the ground, the kind birds eat that attracts the birds you want to attract, and the knowledge there that may be the best thing. Yet you go in and ask a question, you say, I need to know this, They're gonna know the answer. They are experts at it. And I've tested them on this.

I mean, you know, I was talking to Rich the other day and he's the memorial in the store up in Oh Gosh, I can't I used to live there. I just blinked out. I can't say Cypress, thank you, Cypress. There we go, Cypress store. I lived in Cypress. Anyway, he's at those stores, and I was just picking his brain on some things. I do that from time to time, and I just it's always like, Wow, that's a lot.

That's a lot of good information to know. And these people they know, they know, and they can help you have success because there's nothing better than going out in the morning, get you a cup of coffee, sit out there on the patio or porch, and just listen to the birds.

then assessing how much living grass you have. And if you've got, you know, two sprigs of grass that a foot apart, and you take care of them, they will cover back over by the end of the summer season for sure. And if it's any wider than that, I definitely would put some plugs in and between them. At least some areas you may want to just take everything out and rest it so you get to what you want to see faster, But that's up to you how

you go about it. But the main thing is smooth it out firsthand and then just go back with the plantings. If the grass was growing there before they hit, it ought to be able to take it back over again afterwards. Some of your photos looked a little shady, and so that would be a concern that I would have with

the grass filling in. There may be a case there for going with solid sod and then trying to maintain that density going forward as opposed to waiting on it to crawl back across the space and fill in.

dressing and like you say, residing. Is there anything to help stimulate whatever is there to spread?

do that for your lawn. You can do if an area not too big like I think yours is, you can buy a little thing. If you step on it and it goes down the ground, you do some aer rating yourself. It's a little bit tedious, but you know it might that may be a trade off from spending a lot of money on it, and then you could buy bags of things like leapmole compos to spread over the surface and water it in real good and and

go go that route too, So I would. The bottom line though, is look up at the sky and look at the limbs and if you if you're not getting enough light, thinning out some of the foliage to get more light intensity into that area is going to be a very important key too, because light's the limiting factor.

And so if your trees have low hanging limbs, we say raise the skirt that outdoor low hanging limb around like an oak tree, you see that, printing that up to get some incidental light in from the side a little bit and then finning out the canopy above would be your two options there, all right.

on guardline and many many more. If you need a herbicide for weeds to prevent them or to kill them that are existing, if you need an insecticide, if you need a funge aside, if you need all kinds of plant stimulants and anything that's associated with success in the lawn and garden, they've got it. And that includes tools that includes soil amendments, fertilizers that like azemite. They carried the products from Nature's way, products from heirlooms, soils and medina,

and on and on and on. They got it. They walk in there, you're going to be treated right. They're very friendly service and the products they have at the top notch, including their tools. And then the selection is there's there's no place. I don't know how far you have to drive, but it's way out of the hous scenario to find any place. It's got what Selfwist Fertilizer has in terms of selection corner Bisonett and Renwick Selfist Fertilizer dot Com seven to one three six six six

one seven four four. While you're there, grab you some microlife. They've got all the microlife products you want. A liquid like the Biomatrix orange label, the seven one three liquid. It is great for foliage types of things that high nitrogen level. I use it on my houseplants. I use it on outdoor stuff too. I use it. They've got the Microlife Ocean Harvest Blue label. That's an organic four

two three product. It's not going to burn plants. People have long known fish mulsion and seaweed which they have. Seaweat two is excellent, excellent for plants and anything that microlife makes. I think seems to be there at Southwest Fertilizer, So go buy and check it out. There, but grab

you some of that microlife. You're going to find that when you get a microlife product, you're working with nature to improve, to improve the success that you have, whether it's a dense lawn or whether it's a fruit full tomato plant or anything in between. Floriferous flowers, Microlife Fertilizer

dot com. There's a list of the retailers there. It's available everywhere, and also there's a list of their products and you can learn more because I don't have time to tay about all of them on the air, but there are a lot of really good products produced by Microlife. But they've been doing this again for over thirty five years. We're going to go now out to the hobby area and talk to Chuck. Hey Chuck, welcome to garden Line.

really specialize in natives. You might try with with you know, being down south there some of the other garden centers like Mosses down south there, uh, and see if he has the native. But I like the improved ones. You know, there's there's some really good quality improvements where you get a per simon that's three or four times bigger than the little native ones. But anyway, those those be the options.

y a y a Hachiya. It's more of a conical kind of shaped, like more of an acorn, you know where it's. It's a little longer than it is wide. Uh there's Eureka that's more of a tomato shaped one. It does very good.

with your calls. I do want to remind you gardening with skip dot com. I keep referring to it because that's where I put everything that you will want to know. Seven one three two one two k t r H. I'll be right back, So welcome back. Good to be back with you. Hey, we're going to keep going here on garden line. We've got a lot of gardening to get done before the end of today, that is for sure.

Oxygen gets down in the holes, and it just stimulates a root system and in a heavy clay soil, that is very important to have success with your launch. A very helpful thing. It's done on golf courses all the time because people are trapesing up and down the golf course. It is a secrets of success, it really is. And you can do that in your yard. And if you are in the let's say the inside the Loop area, inside the Beltway area rather year around Houston, dot com

serves that area. Now Cliff Carson and the whole team you're around Houston, they're specialists. When it comes to coming out and doing core aeration and compost. You can do it yourself. It's complicated, it's very cumbersome to do it. I'd say, save the hassle of running a machine, which by the way, is probably not going to do a good corporation. It's just gonna punch it squeeze a hole open in the soil, compacting the side so the whole. Uh, you gotta transport it, you gotta clean it, you got

to return it. You got big posit compost in the driveway. Just call year round, have them do that. They use quality screened composts, no smell. This is quality screened compost, so it settles down readily, right down into your lawn out to the soil surface. So if you are inside the Beltway or if you're out in the Richmond Rosenberg area, that's another area they surface service out there. You need to give me a call and bring some fresh life into your soil and therefore into your lawn now year

round Houston dot com. That is the phone number. Excuse me, the website year round Houston dot com. Don't try to dial that the phone number eight three to two eight h four fifty three thirty five eight three two eight eight four fifty three thirty five year round Houston for compost, out dressing and air ration inside the Beltway and out in the Richmond Rosenberg area. We try to cover our ereas. There are a lot of folks that listen to a

lot of different directions and companies like this. You know, it's heavy equipment, expensive, heavy equipment hauling compost around. You just can't run all over creation doing that. And so we have more than one preferred supplier depending on where you live here in the Greater Houston area.

know he has a lot of fruit trees. I can't keep up with all the varieties that each of them carry. So if you're looking for a specific win, you meant to drive a little bit, go to one of our independent garden centers around town. But anyway, Republic of Texas is an orange that is pretty popular here in this area.

But the others are great, and you can read about each of them, you know, you go online, go to Aggie Horticulture, look at their cetrus and they're going to have a list of varieties and information on there. Or you go to a good garden center and they can tell you you know what they carry, you know the characteristics of it. It's kind of like apple. It's kind

of like apples. You know, everyone one of them is may be better for cooking, one of them is better for juicing, one of them is better for fresh eating, one of them is tangy, one of them is not. You know, so it's kind of that way with the satsumas and another cetrus. Of course.

week without the dogs chomping down on them. Then you could mow down low, get most of the weed tops out of there that you sprayed, and the products would have already translocated down And there's a bunch of them on the market. John. You know, being up there in the Tomball area, you've got a number of great outlets. I know they carry a lot of weed control products out at D and D feed out west of Tomball

on two forty twenty nine. But your garden centers, you know, like Arburgate up there, they're going to have that also. But you want to get there's one called Booneye weed beater. There are several versions of weed beater. The Furlan has a is it whed free zone? I think they Furloan has one. But they're all post emergent, broadly weak killers and they work. Use them according to the label. And don't lay get it, don't delay, get it done asap so that you can get ahead of all that. Okay, ship,

yes sir, thank you, Good luck with that. All right, here's another break. I'll be right back with your questions at seven one three two one two KTRH.

they're the best customers I could ever have. If you want to support our show, sponsor our show, be a partner and have me endorse you and what you do well to our listeners, email me through our website Michael Berryshow dot com, Michael Berryshow dot com.

isn't just an image on a screen. It's about a mom hearing the baby's heartbeat, maybe for the first time, and realizing that's a gift growing inside of her. Her One Preborn supporter said, knowing my gift could save a life was the most meaningful act of love I could give. For twenty eight dollars, you can provide an ultrasound and help a mom in crisis. Choose Life one hundred and forty dollars provides five ultrasounds. So this Valentine season, take

a stand, be bold, become a heartbeat hero. Dial pound two fifty, say the keyword baby. That's pound two fifty, keyword baby. Or visit preborn dot com slash beck that's preborn dot com slash beck.

putting it down now. So there's not a you have to fertilize palms on this day kind of rule out there. But if it's a slower release, that would definitely be one that I'd put down now, and it's ready to go when they when they start to grow.

at it. If it's brown and mushy kind of in there, it's probably gone. But I would give it some time, you know, let's wait, let's let the weather heat up real good and get into a few months of summer and see what's going on up there. Sometimes they're really slow to respond. They got killed back a lot, but

not completely. But you know, with me trying to do this on the phone, that's about as accurate as I can give you there, because if I was there looking at it, I might be able to see a little bit more.

you know, blackberries and strawberry. I'm talking about grapes. We were talking about per summons a while ago with someone. They carry that they carry a wide riety citrus to Arbigade is an excellent place to find everything you need. If you're wanting to start seeds. They have seeds, they have seeds starting kits that the color that has come into that place right now is outstanding. And of course

vegetables and herbs. Yes, it's time to get some tomatoes and some herbs and be thinking about depending on where you live when getting those out. And there's nothing wrong with buying a tomato plant today, even if you're not going to plant it for a week or two. That way you have the selection. So go buy there. They have a great range of varieties. Get you what you want, take it home, just water. You can pot it up in a little bigger pot if you want to put

it outside in the sun. We're about to go down in the thirties, so you'll bring it in then. But that's okay. Put it back out during the day. If it's a little cool, that's okay. You just don't want it below forties maybe for your tomatoes, but you can get ahead start that way. In the back is the parking lot off Thrashel Road that is so easy to access, nice safe, easy access from the back of Arbigate And those of you who've been there before, No, people love

this place. I mean it's like, even if you weren't going to buy a plant, just to walk through there and look at the yard art and the gift shops and it's you gotta go.

Take somebody with you because this is like, this is like an outing for gardeners and their friends and their family. So take somebody with you when you go out there. I talked earlier about the importance of taking care of your trees, and if you have not had your trees looked at, get Martin spoon More out there to look at your trees. Martin is the owner of Affordable Trees Is. He and his wife both answer the phone, Martin and Joe. If they don't answer the phone, then you called the

wrong place. Seven one three six nine nine two six six y three. He's gonna come out. He's going to make sure your trees are in top shape. And because new growth is beginning now in the spring, it's time to get those things pruned and get them in the best shape they can. So if we do have storms this summer, at least they have the best shot at having a good, strong structure that doesn't break in the least of you know, a little wind comes through and

starts tearing the tree up. Martin can help with that. He does deep root feeding, He does a lot of things. If your tree needs it, he probably does it. And so Affordable Tree Service aff Tree Service dot Com seven to one three six nine two six six three seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three someone asked me the other day about flower beds and how do I have good color? And we're talking about, you know, well, in the cool seat and here's some plants and in

the warm season, here's some plants that do well. And by trading them out and stuff. And you know the most important thing is the soil, right. We talk about that all the time, getting a good quality soil. And part of that is getting the nutrient mix to help that plant grow. It's not like you fertilize and it makes a plant grow. It's like a plant wants to grow. It's got moist soil and it's looking for nutrients. It takes all those twenty nutrients plus to help a plant

to grow like it wants to grow. And when you put that out on the ground, you have got you've got the setting where that plant will grow and it will bloom and it will bloom and it will bloom especially you know, a product like a color Star from Nelson Plant Food color Star, just think of it year round. If it has color, it needs color Star. That's kind of as simple as I can put it. Get the get it. Look at the label tells you how much

to use and whatnot. Now, If, on the other hand, you've got something like a tree or a shrub, then use Nutril Star Tree and Shrub from Nelson five different sources of nitrogen. It's going to release some, but it's going to gradually release over three to four months. It's got micro nutrients in it as well. And I don't care what kind of tree or shrub you have. This

stuff works. If it were a tree that was producing fruit, you know, maybe a citrus a peach in avocado, then citrus fruit and avocado Nutris Star citrus fruit and avocado from Nelson's. That's the one you're gonna want to use. Nelson's got you covered on all these products. The Turf Star line for your lawn, the nutri Star line for specific types of plants. They even have a Nature Star

line for organic products. Nelson Plant Food is widely available in our area, and if you want to find out where to locate it, go to Nelsonplantfood dot com and look at the store locator. Also look at the products while you're there. It's really cool. Well, here goes another hour.

I got one left today. If you want to get on the boards for when we start the next hour, all you gotta do is all seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H and Josh our Donathan get you on the board and we'll be ready to go when we come back from the top. Don't forget my lawn care schedules plural are online at Gardening with Skip that's me dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com.

The lawn care schedule and the lawn pestis and we management schedule synthetic and organic options from January through December for everything that you need.

FM three point fifty nine. It's now standing Garden Center. There's all this stuff going on out there. They have programs this spring. Uh just really really excellent. As a matter of fact, Next Saturday, February fifteenth, say that again. Next Saturday, write this down February fifteenth, I'll be there from twelve noon to one thirty. Twelve noon to one thirty, and I will be talking about tips for making gardening less work. Does that sound good or what the way

I like to put it? The subtitle is how to get more from your garden with less sweat and less ibuprofen. Tips for making Gardening less work. I'll talk about making gardening easier and more productive and definitely more fun, and we'll have some fun in the process. Again. That's the next Saturday, Enchanted Gardens on FM three point fifty nine on the Katie fullsher Side of Richmond. I'll be there from twelve noon to one thirty, so come out and

see me. By the way, their hours are Monday through Saturday eight to five and Sunday from ten to four, so this afternoon be a good time to get out there and check them out. When you go to Enchanted Gardens, first thing you're going to think is, oh my gosh, this is an expanse of stuff. I mean, they've got everything from every kind of plant you can imagine, certainly the ones that are most seasonally appropriate right then, and

all the way to some beautiful pottery. They're pottery selections outstanding. They've got a nice little gift shop. They got all the products that you know, the ones you hear me talk about here, like fertilizers from Microfias, Nitrofoss, Microlife, Nelson Plant Food and Medina. They've got soils from Nature's Way and heirloom soils you've heard me talk about those before. Excellent selection of roses going out there right now. Go check out their website. It's Enchented Gardens Richmond dot com.

Enchented Gardens Richmond dot com and come see me next Saturday from twelve noon to one thirty. I'll be there, look forward to seeing you. Let's go to Port Arthur and we're going to talk to Alan. Hey Allen, welcome to garden Line.

picked over by other people. Go and buy them right, bring them home, and if you're going to hold them for over a week, I would move them up into a little bigger pot and start watering and fertilizing them every day that you can get them out for every hour of sunshine that's where it's not below forty degrees, just put them out there, even forty five degrees, let's say, put them out there and they'll it'll help them, it'll help them acclimate to the temperatures and they'll grow a

little bit. And then when it's safe, like we don't have a thirty degree scheduled for a week, then go ahead and put them out, you know, and in your area done in sugarlane. That's probably you know, going to be toward the end of the month or early in March that you would actually be planting them out.

and core aeration serves, what do I do. I've got people for almost all the areas around Houston. If you're down south, let's say you're from Sugarland in Missouri City, all the way down like Highway six, all those communities Presno, Sienna or Cola, Alwa, Colony, Manville, or even over as far as Pairland. B and B turf Pros is your company now. The website is bb no end bb Turfpros dot com. Go there and check it out. This is a family owned business. They provide quality work. It is

so important to them that you are satisfied. They take care of you there. They're straight, they shoot straight with you there, high quality work. They only use quality products. They get their top quality leaf more compost from the folks at Ciena Multch So you know this is good stuff, right, and they go beyond, above and beyond to make a personal connection with you their client. They want you to be satisfied. B it B turf pros seven to one three two three four fifty five ninety eight seven one

three two three four fifty five ninety eight. I want to take a break and I'll be right back with a call from Jennifer up in Conro. Tell me you've read that song before, and I'll call you a liar. Well, that can only mean one thing. The chicks are in at D and D Supply up in Tumbole. I know that was a stretch, but I had to do it. D and Defeed is three miles west of Highway two forty nine and Tomball And listen, if you want back your chickens, you are not going to find any place

like this. Dozens and dozens and dozens of different varieties of chickens. Stuff you've never heard of. Have you ever had a speckled Sussek pulleck? Have you ever had an Americana pullet? How about a buff Brahma or a lavender wyan Dot. Those are all coming in this Wednesday, February twelve at D and Defeed store. And every week i'man on and on I'll talk about them again, because they keep getting new ones in every week, sometimes a couple of times a week, depends on the week, but it's

all on the schedule. Go to D anddfeed dot com look at the schedule for when they get their chickens in and you can find out about that. They got everything you need. You'll heat to go over the chicks, baby chicks, maybe some bedding material, perhaps a water, a feeder. They will get you set up.

jar there as well. So D and D Feed three miles west two forty nine on the left right outside of Tumble, not very far at all, and boy, the news is hit. The chicks have arrived. That's why all the chicks hang out. D and D Feed by the way, I didn't know if you knew that, all right, We're going to go now to Jennifer and Conro. Hey Jennifer, welcome to garden Line.

garden soil in an oven. And so if you had a little pot and you wanted to make sure it doesn't have any bad stuff in it, you can follow that. Nine chances out of ten, if you reuse your soil, you're not going to have a problem. But if you want to be extra careful, you can do that to the soil. I reuse mine all the time, but I always watch and make sure that you know there wasn't a disease problem in the plants that grew there before.

But you absolutely can do it. And now what you want to do is you want to get some a product from Nelson Plant Food and it's called Genesis Genesis and Genesis is something that you mix with the potting soil as you're working it back up again to replant into that pot It is it is a fertilizer, but it is a fertilizer in a very natural form that has a lot of extra good stuff in it and

it just helps plants hit the ground running. So Nelson Genesis it's available about in those little clear jars with a big white screw top lid, and it's it's sold all over the place, So that would be one. But yeah, beefing up the soil a little bit now if you if you don't, if you can't find it up there where you live, then get you something that it says it's a slow release fertilizer because you don't want to burn plants by putting too much nutrient in at one time.

You can put a slow release in and it'll feed it gradually over time.

it in yes, you will be fertilizing well with that. Actually, when I was saying that while ago, I was picturing seaweed instead of fishing mulsion. Seaweed is the one that doesn't have a lot of nutrients in it. Fish emulsion does.

partially stress related. So try to keep the soil evenly moist nice, well drained, but good even moisture in the soil, and a moderate amount of fertilizer, not too much nitrogen at that point, and I think you're going to get the best fruit set that you can.

generally it's three numbers. Well, what about there's like twenty nutrients that a plant can use that plants can use at different stages of their life growth, and so what about all the others those are equally important is the Big three, they just aren't needed in as high a quantity. That's what we're talking about with azamite. You know, a forty four pound bag of azamite will cover six to twelve thousand square feet lawn. Because we're talking about a

micronutrients supplement. The fact that you just need a little does not mean it's less important than nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium in your typical lawn fertilizer. It's equally important because they're both essential micronutrients. Macronutrients both essential. Forty four pound bag, Now, if you got a vegetable garden, i'd put about ten pounds per thousand square feet, and yes, I would use it in a vegetable garden because you want to pack those vegetables that you're growing with all

the nutrients that they need as well. You can go to azamite Texas dot com find out more about it, or you can just go to one of the places you hear me talk about on Guardenline. It's it's pretty widely available. Feed stores, the independent garden centers, places like Ace Hardware and Southwest Fertilizer. Those are all places where I've seen azamite for sale in the Houston area, so check it out. It's one thing that you can do it.

You don't have to fertilize with as mite when you're fertilizing other things, but you can same day put your fertilizer out, come back load up to asmite, put it out separate applications. It could be the same day or it can be six months apart. They don't have to be connected, but they can asmite for your trace minerals. We're going to go now to Crosby and we're going to talk to Tanya. Hello, Antanya, Hi Skip I am.

out to like Houston. Anyone that would do that like turf.

talk to them. I generally don't talk about that area because that's out peripheral for them, but the last time I talked to them, it seemed like they might reach out a little bit in that direction, so that that would be go to that web site, year round Houston dot com, and I think I think that maybe they can help you there. Okay, okay, that sounds good.

now Warren Southern Gardens. You know you're going to find a wide variety of plants. And they have the full landscaping services too, by the way these places do. So if you need to have them come out and do some landscaping thing, they can do it out in that area. But they they just are excellent at carrying a wide variety. Do you want color plants, do you want herbs? Do you want vegetables? Looking for a rosebush? Looking for whatever? They've got it and when you're out there, you know,

brown stuff before a green stuff. They've got Microlife fertilizer, Nitroposs fertilizer, Nelson turf Star fertilizer, uh they and other Nelson plant foods. They have the refill stations for the jars of Nelson and Microlife, the jars of each of those products. You take your old jar in and refill it, save a little bit of money and don't throw that plastic into the environment. Products that like the mosquito dunk

that I talk about. As we warm up here a little bit, I'll be talking about those they've got that airloom soils. They've got it all. They're ready to go. Just show up. Warm seven Gardens North North Park Drive, Kingwood Garden Center, Stone Hollow Drive. Both of them are open seven days a week. Hey, there's a good afternoon outing to get out there and get you some plant. It's spring, the fever is hit all right. Well, I'm gonna quit talk in there. Take a little time for

the news here as we take a break. If you would like to give me a call seven one three two one two ktr H and I'll be right back with your calls. Hey, welcome back to garden Line. Welcome back to gardener.

you can just go to the website. Sienna multch dot com that that tells your phone number how to get there, everything you need to know. Uh, everyone down in that region you need to know about this, and I know people that travel a little distance to get there because they do have great products, and we're talking about things like you know, they've got products from the excuse me,

heirloom soils. They got products from Landscaper's Pride. They have the fertilizers from Microlife from Nelson, the turf Star line and other Nelson products. They got Medina fertilizer, they got Nitrofast fertilizers there, and they have asomite. They're just talking about that, the trace mineral supplement. So if you want to get your soil right, the brown stuff, they've got everything you need. You can go there with your pick

up or trailer and pick it up. If you're within twenty miles, they'll deliver for a small fee to get it out to you. However you want to go about it, just go about it. It's time for spring planting, and don't put a plant in the ground before you fix that soil, so the plant has a chance for success, because that's why you're planting the plant for flowers or fruit or beauty. Don't PLoP an unprepared plant. Don't PLoP

a poor old plant into an unprepared plot. That was my Peter Piper version for a horticulture fix it first at Sienamalts. They're open Monday through Friday, seven five Saturday today seven thirty to two and closed on Sundays again five five twenty one Sienna mult dot Com. And I promise you they'll treat you right. They just it makes you happy to go in there and just the cheerful faces and the helpful folks. I love going into Cena Molt. All right, let's go out to the hill country of

Texas and talk to Rick. Hey, Rick, welcome to garden Line.

the same way with with the weed and feeds. There are some that they do just fine, but in general I like to use them separately. But anyway, it just depends on the situation. I don't want to overstate it. You know, yeah that let's see, that's got MCPA, it's got mecaprop I can but yeah, that's all post emergent in the weed weed Beater ultra, so you would need a pre like barricade. A night Foss makes a product called barricade, and that's a pre emergent. But don't delay.

It's time to get it down. What part of the hill country are you.

on that. If a grass can't get six inches of soil to grow in, you're watering it a lot to try to keep it alive in the drought because it just doesn't have that that soul volume that it needs to have some resilience in terms of moisture availability.

Grow six twelve six. It's awesome for a lot of things, but especially transplanting because that twelve, that phosphorus, the middle number really helps the throot development. Mix it in water. I do it in a watering can when I plant a plant, I don't care if it's a tomato plant or a rose bush. Drench it at planting with that product. A week later, drench it again with that product, a week later, a third time, drench it with that product. When you do that, you're getting it off to a

good start. You're gonna have the best possible chance of success with that. Now you can use it for foldio feed and other things. But like many Medina products, the stuff works and it's easy to find because it's widely available. Time for me to take a break. We'll come back with our last segment of Garden Line in just a moment. All right, folks, we're back. If you've got a burning question that doesn't need to wait until next Saturday, you

may call seven one three two one two KTRH. We're in our last segment of the show today and be happy to help you as we can. ACE Hardware Store has a motto, and it's ACE is the Place. And then I like to say it like ACE is a place for you fill in the blank, because it is whatever you need is there. I talk all the time about they've got the fertilizers and the disease and insect and pest control and tools and hoses and everything you need to have beautiful yard. Talk about the patio and

the barbecue pits and the landscape. You know, the little strings I call them beer garden lights.

reason is, and I belong to it myself. Every time you go shopping, you're receiving discounts. There are special offers that are only for ACE customers. They email them directly to you. As you build up your points on that. It just makes sense that, you know, you don't even have to carry the card around with you. They can look it up and they put it in the computer.

keeping it in top shape. ACE has got the products you need to do the recealing. Also of your deck, Now there's auspas ACE up in the woodlands. There's like Conro Ace in Montgomery done in Sinco Ranch. There's a hardware Hamilton Hardware is kind of off Highway six near Bear Creek. And then there's Wharton Feed and Hardware, Bay City Hardware, Bay City Ace Hardware. There's a lot of them. Go to Acehardware dot com, find the store locator and find your local ACE and get familiar with it because

you're gonna want to run in there a lot. ACE is the place. It's a one stop shop for a lot of things that you will need.

Now's the time to plant fruit trees. Get you your fruit trees, go to a Go to a good independent garden center where they know what they're talking about, because they can tell you does this fruit tree need a pollinator or not? The person working in a wow I'm not going A lot of places have people that don't know what they're talking about. They just don't. I've gone in and asked questions just to kind of see, you know, what they know, and it's like, oh my gosh, these

people are selling products. Go to hometown garden center, your independent garden centers that we talk about on garden Line. They'll tell you do you need two peaches to pollinate? They'll tell you the answers know. Do you need two plums? Maybe? The answers maybe. Do you see what I'm talking about? Do you need two blueberries to pollinate? Well, probably not need, but you'll have more and bigger berries if you have two different varieties to pollenate. You see what I'm talking about.

That's important. Now's the time to get your fruit planted, get it out there, get it done, find a sunny spot, and enjoy success with your fruitful endeavors. Your garden. I like to call it a garden of eaton E A T N eating. You can create that. And there are so many great places and great supplies here in the

Greater Houston area that were spoiled. We really are spoiled. Recently, I was out in Phoenix, Arizona, and of course, like when I go to any place, the first thing I want to know is let me see the best garden centers you got. Folks don't do a horticulture tour of Phoenix unless you want to go to the botanical gardens. I guess you're spoiled in Houston. I'm telling you you're spoiled. We have great places. It is spring. Get out this

afternoon and go visit someplace. You know, just just walk around, talk to the folks, see what they have. I guarantee you there's gonna be stuff you need. Maybe take some pictures of your landscape with you and say, look at this area. It's really dark and shady back there. What would grow there? Or this spot over here it stays a little wet sometimes, what plants would be happy in that area? Because most plants aren't in a wet sagy area, But there are plants that are. That's the advantage of

a really good quality garden center. Anyway, I do garden center to every day that I can. I love going out and seeing what's going on there and visiting with the folks that are out there. And you should too. You know, we talk about when I've said before, when you are cutting trees in a forest. The most important thing is to stop and sharpen the saw every now and then, or you'll be doing a lot of work and not getting very far along. Same is true with gardeners.

You got to sharpen the gardener. I sharpen my knowledge of stuff all the time, constantly learning, constantly getting better, meeting new gardeners, having fun. It is a great hobby to have because I don't care where you are, where you live, what you like. There is a type of gardening for you, from a terrarium with a light on top on the eight hundredth floor of a high rise downtown to that patio plant that can grow on a pot and grow some tomatoes on the eight hundredth floor

of a high rise downtown. If you've got the back forty and you can do whatever you want. There's a type of gardening for everybody. Most people want to have a beautiful lawn that is important to them, and you can have that with the right products. Remember, lawns need light. Lawns need light. Can they grow in shade?

it's a golf course green. Give it some light, leave some solar panels on it. MO regularly, water deeply, but infrequently. If you wet this is a general thing about all plants. If you wet them frequently, you're going to have more disease problems because diseases are spores that land on the leaf. While some of them are are in case of bacteria, individual bacteria land on the leaf. You keep them wet and they will infect that leaf, so let them dry out.

That's why there aren't as many disease problems in West Texas there as there are in East Texas because it rains over here. But then on top of that we water all the time. We water over and over again too frequently. Typically watering is too little, too often. I had a neighbor when I lived in Cyprus. His sprinkle came on about every other day, and the heads were so missiligned they wet the car. They wet my car

in my driveway. They were squirting up to my side, so I parked backwards on some days to wash the other side of the car. But anyway, water with a good soaking on an infrequent basis, even in the heat of summer. You don't have to water every week more than once, Even in the heat of summer. Once is enough. If you've got a wimpy lawn that you're trying to nurse back maybe twice a week with a half inch each time, but you need to be working your way

toward once a week or less. I've got areas in my lawn last summer they got watered maybe every two or three weeks because it was in a shade, and I had developed a good root system by proper watering, deep and infrequent, and then finally fertilizing. Fertilizing plants is kind of like us eating. You want a good quality food and you want to moderate amount you over eatn't turn out too good. When you push a lawn with too much fertilizer, you're not doing it any favors. Get

a good quality. We talk about all the ones all the time here on Guardline. We've selected the ones that I know will work well for you because I've used them myself. And we fertilize at the right time, according to my schedule, and you can have the most beautiful on on the block. Mow water. Fertilize in the presence of good sunlight. That's a secret to lawn care. It's no secret, all right, folks. Music means I got quit talking.

I've had a good time. I hope you have a fun day in the garden this afternoon or out in abouttown. Have a great gardening is supposed to be fun. Talk to you next Saturday.