Planting to Avoid Disease

Katie r H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line with Skip Richter's So Crazy Trip. Just watch him as Black Days the Club back. You're not a sad credit. So good Saturday morning. We are glad you're listening. Boy, you're up early this morning. I'm glad to hear that. You know. We're going to cover a lot of stuff today, lots of different things related to your lawn, your garden, and we certainly invite

you to call in if you got some questions. Our number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two k T r H. Give us a call. Let's let's talk about the stuff you are interested in. I had some questions this week that came out about a shrub and I don't know it's unusual to have I get this question often, but not several times in one week. Uh. And the shrub is wax leaf lagustrium. Boy, those things have been around since I don't know

what, as long as I can remember. And they get this leaf spot and it causes brown spots on the leaves, and the spots are typically surrounded by a purplish border and then a yellow halo outside of that. And that particular leaf spot is a fungal leaf spot, caused by fungus spores that land on the leaf. The leafs get wet, the spores sprout, the spots appear. That's kind of how that works, and it's one of the reasons

I've ceased to be a wax leaf. Lagustrium fan I just uh, it's not on every plant that has it, but it's two darn prevalent, and once you get it, the spores are everywhere, and so you end up fighting it all the time and managing it is difficult. You got to pick all those leaves off if you can. I know you don't want to pick your leaves off your shrub, but just think of this. Every spot is a typhoid mary right there in the middle of your shrub, ready to reinfect

the other leaves on the shrub. So you pick them off, pick up the ones off the ground, and then you gotta spray. And this is one that you're going to be spraying about ever ten to fourteen days, especially

right after a rain. I have a little regimen that I will send out to people that have this and say we'll use this and then switch over and use that, because we always want to switch between the fungicides on something like this to avoid developing resistance to the disease can develop resistance to that fungicide. But anyway, who wants to get out and spray that much? Once you get it all cleaned up, you just kind of watch for it and at

the first sign go ahead and spray again. But just another reason that I'm not a fan of that shrub, you know. And my goal in my garden, and I think for a lot of you this probably will ring true, is I want to plant things that don't get disease, that don't have they're not plagued by some particular insect or something like that. And that's kind of the goal as we as we plan things. But this waxafagustrum is ubiquitous. I don't know that it'll go by the wayside in the sense that red

tip fatinia did because of its intimasporium leaf spot. But it's a pain and we have to deal with it. Hopefully, if you have a wax leaf, you haven't seen this disease yet and it'll stay that way for a while. That is what we wish for you. Hey, you're listening to Garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Listen. It's time to get your lawn fertilized. It is time. It is also the time when winter weeds are sprouting. October November.

They're pop up, little tiny seedlings. Don't even notice them, but boy, you'll notice them in spring. Nitrofoss has a three step program for that. It's the Nitrofoss Fall Special. That's the first one brown bag. It's got plenty of that third number potassium in it, a little bit of nitrogen. You need a little, not a lot, a little bit of nitrogen in the fall, and it'll promote winter hardiness. That's why we have fall

fertilizers. And it'll also ensure when it comes out in the spring it is strong because all the initial spring growth is based on the energy that that plant stored up in the fall, and that's why we put a high potassium fertilizer on in the fall. Number two, it's got Nitrofros barricade. That's a pre emergent weed control so what is a pre emergent, Well, think of the name barricade. You put it down, you water it in about a half inch of water, and it moves into the surface and forms a barricade

over the surface of the soil. So when a weed sprouts or tries to sprout, it sets it down right then and you never end up seeing weed problem. That's pre emergent. Once weeds are up and growing, there's things we use as post emergent if you're going to kill those weeds. But a lot of those things, especially as the weather heats up, are pretty stressful for your Saint Augustine lawn, and so it's it's easier just to have them

dealt with ahead of time with a pre emergent like barricade. Third step of the Texas three step from nitrofuss is eagle terf fungicide. Eagle is a systemic It soaks in to the plant tissues, plant tissues being your grass plant tissues. So when brown patch or which we also call large patch or even take all root rot begins to occur, begins to infect, that fungicide is there to shut it down before it gets started. When it comes to lawn diseases.

It is much better to stop them before they start, or right at the very very beginning of when you see them start, than it is to wait. Because the big brown circles, they'll be there until it greens up in the spring and because of the weather warming up. So if you wait until you see circles everywhere, those are your circles all the way up until probably March when we begin to see that green up start to happen. It's

real simple. You can get Nitropos's Texas three step and Plans for all seasons on two forty nine out in Richmond and Chanted Gardens where I will be later today after the show. You can get it there, and Lake Hardware in Angleton as well. Not hard to find that product around. If you've ever thought about, you know, having a little tractor on your place, drive around, say little, little or big, drive it around. Enjoy taking care of all the work you have, much much easier. There's a deal

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extended this best deal that I've ever seen going on. It's buy no money down for up to eighty four months, seven years, seven years. That is incredible. Now, Lansdown, that's a Houston company. I mean, you know them. They've been around since nineteen thirty six. They're not a big out of town corporation, you know that's come in here to sell their stuff. Now their hometown, through and through. There's nine Landsdown locations here on the Gulf Coast. Not hard to find one lmtractor dot com. Go

to lmtractor dot com. You'll see what I'm talking about. Lansdown Moody and drive stop in sometime at one of the Landsdowns. Hop up on one of those L twenty five O two's and check it out. I think you will see what I'm talking about. It is one sweet ride. We're going to take a little break here if you like to get on the boards. Just give Joshua call. It's seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we will talk to you when we come back. Good morning.

You are listening to garden Line. It is still dark outside, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about gardening. In fact, if you look at your window and your neighbors lights are off in their house, go bang on the door. Tell them they're missing garden Line, and they will rise up and call you. But they'll be so grateful. It may take a while, but they'll be grateful for you. Listen here in Houston our soils, the heavy clay soils. In fact, you find this in Houston over toward

Austin area up in Dallas. These heavy clay soils, they move around and when they get wet wet, they swell. When they get dry, this shrink. And anytime that happens, you start to see the cracks in the bricks on the outside, cracks in the sheet rock on the inside. And that's a problem. If that happens, you definitely need to call fix my Slab Foundation Repair. Ty Strickland has been doing this for a long time, twenty three years. He knows what he is talking about. Now tell him

your guardenline listener. They'll give you a free estimate, but they're committed to a fair price. They're committed to being on time. They show up on time, and they're committed to fixing it right. The website fixmyslab dot com, the phone number two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. We are gonna now head out to Conroe and talk to Cheryl this morning. Good morning, Cheryl, Good morning. I was wondering are we supposed to

I've seen some people do it and some people don't. Do we cut crate myrtles back in the fall, and if we do, do I cut all the little stems that stick out and just leave the the like the trunks part. Yeah. That that style of crepe myrtle pruning we call crate murder because it just really hacks back a beautiful plant and creates a not very beautiful platform. That's one of the beauty's of crepe myrtles, its forum in the winter time, even when it doesn't have leaves and flowers. I would avoid that.

I would avoid fall pruning and just go ahead and do it toward the end of winter. You can do it midwinter, that would be fine too. But when you prune, we used to say don't take off anything bigger than a pencil, just to get people out of the mindset of using a saw on everything sticking up above head high It's better to think of it like a highway where you're going down the highway and you got an exit ramp.

If you want to prune right above a side shoot, if you're going to try to bring the plant down lower, don't just stub it off so it looks like the end of a broomstick. You want to cut it just above a side shoot and you can bring it down that way if you need to. The bottom line, though, is you want to make sure that you do it at the mid to end of winter, and that you don't just top it like you see everybody doing a roundtown. Okay, got it? Thank you, I'm sure, I bet you bet. Thanks for the call,

Shore, I appreciate that very much. Yeah, crape murder. If you go online and do a search for crate murder, you're probably going to get a lot of sites that talk about why not to do it, and how you shouldn't do it, and on and on like that. The most important thing when let me say this, the most important three things. When you're buying a crate myrtle. Number one, how big do you want it

to be? If it's going to be over at the corner of your house and you only want it to get up about you know, eight to twelve feet or something. They're varieties that stay that small. Their varieties is only get three feet high, and then their varieties get thirty five feet high. And if you're going to try to keep a thirty five foot genetically potential thirty five foot myrtle down to ten feet, well, it's a mess. You don't want to do it. Number Two one, this disease resistant that doesn't

get powdery milder. You take one thing out of the mix of the things you have to deal with. Like I was saying early, you're about waxley flagustrum. Let's plant stuff that doesn't get sick, and the crape myrtle that's resistant to powdery mildew. That's one step in that direction. The other thing that you want is to pick the color you like. And almost you know, red, reds, pinks are really common. There's some whites to some

beautiful white. There's even lavender colors of crape myrtle, and you can pick everything you want. I have a list of old varieties online. I say olvarieties because I did the list probably ten twelve. No, it's more like fifteen years ago. But if you go online and do a search for skip Richter crape myrtle, this will pop up and it's a chart from three foot to thirty five feet all the colors. You'll see pictures of them. It'll tell you if it's resistant or not. That chart needs to be updated.

I can keep up with every plant that's out there, but anyway, it'll give you a start at least in looking what you are looking for. Cheryl being up in a Conro area, the Ana Plants and Produce. They they always have good selections of everything. I mean, you can get your great myrtles there. Ana Plants and Produce. They are on the east side of

Montgomery, right off of Highway one toh five you're heading toward Conro. They'll be on the left hand side there, and so anyone up around Lake Conroe, any of those neighborhoods you know, like Waterstone, De Lago, Grand Harbor, bent Water, Bald and all of that they're your hometown garden center. They carry all the fertilizers we talk about here on garden Line. If you hear me mention, hey it's time for fall fertilizing, go go to

Ana. They're going to have that fertilizer that we recommend seven days a week, nine to five. And you know that's a it's kind of hard to find them not open up at Ana Plants and Produce. They just they do such great things for the community too. I'm just seeing they did a low class for kids on gardening. They do those quite often as a matter of fact, And right now they are decorated up for Halloween. Little places you can get your picture taken. There a lot of fun up at Ana Plants

and Produce well. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. You know, the lawn care schedule that I put together is online on my website. The lawn pest disease and weed management schedule that I put together is also online my website. Write this down Gardening with Skip. That's me simple as

that. Gardening with Skip dot com. You can find that lawn care schedule and the weed, pest and disease management schedule, and you need to do that now because October is a big month in the lawn. It's huge. The most important fertilization you will put on all year is the October fertilization in your lawn. And the reason for that is after especially this year, coming out of the brutal summer, we had October fertilization, we dropped nitrogen down

because we're not trying to make the grass grow. We're trying to build the interior nutrient content in that grass so that it can make carbohydrates very well and go into winter healthy as healthy as we can make it. And that's why we have lower nitrogen. We have a good amount of the third number potassium on that schedule. And if you go to the schedules, you'll see when to apply it. You'll see all your options. Do you want something synthetic,

do you want something's organic? All the options are there, as well as a lot of other good information. Another reason October is important, it's when the weed seeds start to germinate for fall for the cool season, so chick weed and handbit and clover and all those winter weeds they're going to be germinating this month and next month. Fact, they can germinate in our warm winter. They can germinate someday in December or January if it's warm enough.

But this is a time if you're going to prevent them, that you want to do the pre emergent type thing to prevent them. Now, the third thing that the third reason that I think it's really important, is because this is when the big visual lawn disease occurs, and that's that is brown patch now called large patch, big old brown circles. You got to hit them

before they appear. But I'll tell you this, As you build a healthier and healthier lawn over time and it gets stronger and stronger, you're going to find that a lot of disease problems just aren't there. I have I never over fertilized my lawn in terms of pushing it with too much nitrogen. I give it enough to keep it vigorous and healthy, but not too much. I don't water a lot when it's not needed, especially, and that cuts down on brown patch a lot. We have a lot less problems from that.

But when we go into stresses, that's when we start to deal with the issues that we have on the lawn. Hey, if you'd like to give us a call and talk about something you are interested in, our phone number is seven one three two one two k T. Make it real simple, seven one three two one two k T r H. If you live up in the Magnolia area, I want to tell you who your hometown feed story is up there, that whole region up there. This is Spring Creek

Feed Center. The Spring Creek Feed Center is on FM twenty nine seventy eight and Magnolia. It's real close to where Grand Parkway and Highway two forty nine. In fact, they have a wide range of fertilizers. If I talk about it on garden Line, they carry it at Spring Creek Feed simple as that. Do you need something to deal with a disease or an insect or a weed, They've got that as well. Spring Creek Feed is really a

part of the community. You know local FFA and four H youth. They have discounts for them, people in military, senior citizens, there discounts for you. They'll even special order. If they don't have something, just go talk to them. I mean they have friendly, curtious staff and Spring Creek Feed is just it is your hometown feed center if you live up in that area. Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight, So it's fun to go

in there. They have so many different kinds of things that you can choose from at Spring Creek feed Today. As we get toward the end of the day, I'll be talking more about this, but I'm going to be out at Enchanted Gardens in Richmond now. I'll be there for two hours and that'll be from eleven thirty to one thirty. We're going to be giving away Medina products. Medina Rep's going to be there. Andy'll be there and she'll be

telling you more about the products that they have. We're going to be doing some really cool giveaways. I'm talking about those a little bit more. But it's a great time to come out if you live anywhere out west Southwest, or if you want to drive across town. I was up in Magnolia past week and we had folks driving from all the way across town just to come up and meet and visit and bring samples. I always like to do that. It's kind of your opportunity to get a one on one with me.

You can bring a sample you can bring a photo you want to diagnosed, you want it identified. You can even say, look, this is my landscape now summer did this? What do I do? What are some ideas, what are some plants? We can talk about all that kind of stuff. It's really easy. Let's go now to Magnolia and we're going to talk to Mike. Hello, Mike, Hello, good morning morning. How can we help. We're talking about being October November being a good time to fertilize

it. The ninety two down and I've got some barge brown patches going on. I guess it from the big as a beet that we've had over this past summer. Yes, can I put the Scott's three and one builder down? Will that help my yard? Or will it burn it up? I'm not a fan of that one. I'm just not. I'd have to actually look up to see what the third one is. I know that it's got nutrients and it's got the weed control. I guess it's some type of the

disease control. Oftentimes the nutrient levels in that if the first number is really high compared to the second and third number, that's a spring in summer fertilizer fertilizer. Don't do that in the fall. Try to get that nitrogen the first number down close to the third number, somewhere in that range. That would be the idea. Okay, okay, whate do you recommend for this time of year? Right away? Right now is a good time. Get it down, get it watered in. And here's why. As it cools

off more and more, the plant becomes less and less active. And you want it down now so those nutrients can do some good and it can build the carbohydrates that it needs. All right, Hey, Mike, I'm gonna be you bet Yeah, I'm gonna have to go to a break, put you on hold, and if you want to come back, we can do that. Right now, it is time for the Nicky News Network, and oh my gosh, I want to hear ten more times about the Astros winning

last night. All right, you are listening and the garden Line. We are here to talk about gardening, and I guess listen to a little bit of Kansas since they're going to be in town. If you'd like to give us a call, the number is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Simple as simple as that, if you'd happen to live in Kingwood, you are fortunate to have both Kingwood Garden Center and Warren's Southern Gardens right there at your

doorstep. That's not you don't have to go far. I mean, you can probably throw a rock and hit one of those garden centers from wherever you live. Out there. They always have things going on, you know, they've they've always a great source of all the fertilizers we talk about here. They're great things like asmite, things like the heirloom soil, the age leaf compost, just some really really good opportunities. You know. The Kingwood Garden

Center a gift shop is amazing. You just got to go in to see it. It is really cool. They of course have all the plants and everything else you need, but the gift shop alone is just worth a trip out there. Beautiful and out at the Warrens. First of all, don't write this down. Today October twenty first, from ten am to eleven am.

Ten am to eleven they're going to have a lawn fertilization class out there, and Michael Wagner is going to tell you all about what you need to know to get that lawn fertilized in great shape, so you might want to check that one out. I know that a good supply of fall asters. And I was thinking about fall aster the other day. Someone was asking me about the lawn weed, the slender aster lawn weed that is starting to bloom in lawns. By the way, pull them up before they go to seed.

It was reminding me of all the cool fall asters, which reminded me of the four seasons in the landscape. And in spring, eBay, spring fever, and seems like everything in the world is out blooming and beautiful and whatnot. Then summer comes and a lot of the whimps fry and die in the landscape, and we have to put in some good tough summer flowers, summer color plants. But oftentimes we forget about the fall, and in fall we have asters. In the herb garden, we have Mexican met marigold,

which is beautiful yellow flowers. And by the way, it didn't have to be in an herb garden as a beautiful yellow flowering plant. The salvia let's see, the pineapple sage. I can't even say the species name of it. Anyway, pineapple sage has big or long, tubular red blooms that hummingbirds love. They when you see tubular and red, that's probably a good hummingbird plant. But there are a lot of other plants that bloom well in the

fall. They're just right now. We've got some low growing and taller plants that are attracting in a lot of the butterflies that are getting ready for their migration, if not started already. And so think about fall and you plan your landscape, think about the four seasons, and then think about winter. You know, imagine picturing your landscape and all your evergreens are on the left side and everything deciduous is on the right side. What is that going to

look like in winter? You know, it's not balanced. So when you're planning these things, think about all four seasons. And summer is a little more challenging than spring, and fall is a little more challenging. But we have options and we should take advantage of them as well as in the winter season. You can have a beautiful landscape year round just by planning it out.

And you know, one of the cool things about our mom and pop garden centers, I was just talking about Kingwood Garden Center, Warren's Garden Center, North, South, East, West, and Central. In the Greater Houston area, you have got excellent mom and pop garden centers and they have staff that know what they're talking about. They don't just hire someone that doesn't

know anything and not train them like certain big national chains will do. But when you've got someone like that, you can walk up and say, what's a good fall what are some good fall blooming plants, and let them talk to you about them and how you would use them. And that is worth the price of admission right there. I mean, that is so valuable because your landscape adds a lot of value to your home and you want to take care of it, and you want to take care of your lawn too.

And you know, one of the ways we take care of our lawn, remember, October is the most important lawn month of the year. There are other very important lawn months, but October is it. And then Microlife has a combo package that is an excellent organic option for dealing with your lawn or in enhancing your lawn in the fall. First of all, is a Microlife brown patch that is a five to one three fertilizer five to one three fertilizer.

It does provide that potassium a little bit of nitrogen as well for your lawn to help it get stronger in the fall. It also has a lot of microbial content, and microbes rule the world, and microbes protect our plants, and we need to do that. That's why I add to the microlife brown patch five to one three, the orange bag. That's why I add the violet colored bag. Then that's microbe grow bioinoculant. Now it's not like

a fertilizer that you're putting out for nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. It is chock full of all kinds of good guy microbes that when you put them out there, you're inoculating your soil and your lawn. And as those splash around and get on the plant and diseases begin to show up, you have another layer of help and protection there. But the most important thing it does when you use microlife fertilizers year in and year out, you follow my schedule.

It's got microlife through the year on it. Then you just build a stronger and stronger lawn and you're going to find, like I was mentioning, earlier. A lot of the disease issues we deal with will be minimized or maybe eliminated altogether because your long grass is as healthy as it can be, because your soil is as healthy as it can be. That is exactly what they're

all about at Microlife. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Give us a call. We'll talk about some things you are interested in. I don't talk about vegetable gardening a lot, and I should. I probably should a little bit more. Uh. There are a few of you out there that have vegetable gardens, like a lot of you, not just a few. Uh. Not everybody has room for a back forty garden. You

know. You you may not be able to just plow up the backyard and put in a big vegetable garden, although I think that sounds like a lot of fun to have a vegetable garden that size. But maybe you're gardening and raised beds, uh, And you can drop any kind of a raised bed, quality soil mix in to a bed and you can grow anything you want to grow. I mean, it makes it so easy to do You can also garden in containers, so think about it this winter. Get a container

at least five gallons in size would be my preference. You can grow small statued vegetables like lettuce and spinach, and it's much smaller than a five gallon container. But I think it's beautiful to have a larger one because that way you can put a combo of vegetables in it and grow a lot of different things. So, for example, I garden in wheelbarrows. Also imagine a wheelbarrow with holes drilled in the bottom, and you fill it full of a

quality mix and then you plant in that a wide variety of vegetables. And I've had broccoli. I've had in one wheelbarrow, broccoli, spinach, lettuce. What else did happen that wheelbarrow? Okal a lot of different things and it was just beautiful. And you can move it in the sun wherever sun is. You can go into the garage with it when it's going to get bitter, bitter cold. I mean, it's a great idea something to try. Hey, we're gonna take a break. Our phone number seven one three

two one two fifty eight seventy four are ktrh I'll be right back. Well, good Saturday morning, on a beautiful Saturday morning, and it's gonna be a good day for gardening. It just is. It's gonna warm up a little bit, a little warmer than we might prefer it to be, but I'll tell you, it can be ninety eight degrees and I feel like I'm in an air conditioned room compared to what we went through this summer. Boy, that was that was amazing. These warm days of they're good because they're

delaying a little bit, are sprouting of winter weeds. That's a good thing. Uh, they are making our plants grow. You get good plant growth, you know, our cool season vegetables like broccolian, what not, all that stuff. They don't want thirty degree temperatures. I mean, they they grow best when a lot of the day is spent in the seventies, and

even the low eighties is fine with them. They do really well. So we're just taking a advantage of it and hopefully doing a little catching up and having a little more time for our lawns to pick up those nutrients and get ready to go. I was talking about gardening while ago, vegetable gardening and how you can do it in containers, and I grow in wheelbarrows. That's

a good example. Just remember though that in a container you need top quality soil, absolutely top quality soil, so that it drains well, but yet it also holds moisture and nutrients. And you want a soil that has been produced in the right way, and Nature's Way Resources does that. You know. Up at Nature's Way, they've been producing the premium soils for a long long time. They were the inventor of many of the great soils that we have here. And John and Ian now are just continuing to do the same

exact thing. You can buy them by the bag, and they've got some good mixes that do well in containers. They also have bulk if you want to have maybe you want to put in that garden bed box that you're just going to throw a bunch of quality stuff in there so that when it comes to growing, you are well on your way to success. The soil is the most important thing we do, and it's the first thing we do when

we want to grow anything. You can give Nature's Way. I call it nine three six thirty three twenty one sixty nine ninety nine three six three twenty one sixty nine ninety and they also while you're out there, if you do drive out there, they're up North Highway forty five just south of Conro where fourteen eighty eight comes in. Turn right and you get to Nature's Way. You can stop in, you can pick up bagged, you can order bulk, you can pick up bulk. If you've got a trailer or truck you

want to do that, you can absolutely do that. But when you're there, make sure and leave room in your vehicle for some of their quality plants. They've got a really nice growing nursery. Lots of good native plants too, by the way, very very good. So let's see if you'd like to give us a call this morning seven one three two one two five A. I'm going to go to the calls now and we're going to talk to Wayne and friends with Hello, Wayne, Yes, good morning, good morning.

I have a problem with those called bond wheat b I N d W E. Ed's purple flowers with the hot shape of leaves, and it's had to get rid of them. So what's the best way to get rid of them? Some people say that if youse are roun up to touch their leafs, the painted and there, and they were poising them down to the root. Is that true? Yeah? The the uh in the roundup will will kill and it'll go. It'll take it. It's time going all the way

down in there, but it'll do a good job of it. Bindweed has some underground storage abilities and because of that, it's it's a little bit difficult to get rid of. Where's it growing? What is it in your lawn? Is it's all round in it? I did you know? Okay, it's really Yeah. So when when it's around desirable plants, if you spray round up or any glyphosate product, you're going to kill the plants too when

it gets on them. What I would recommend you do is get a product that contains Trichlo peer t R I c l O P y R and I would and this is gonna be some hands and knees stuff, but you'd get that product and get a little little small foam paint brush, just a little one of those little foam brushes, dip it in the triclo peer and paint it on the bottom of the vines where they come out of the ground. Because it's going to come out of the ground that it's going to go all

directions and you don't need to sprail that. Just paint it on the base there along that bind weed. And when I say paint, you know, just dab it on. Don't get it on good things you like. But it's easy not to with a little paint brush like that, and you can kill it. It'll go back. Now, if it's a big, strong plant, it may take a second application, but you know it'll do it very well. Okay, can you spell the sicize again? T T R

I C C l O P y R try club here. That's good for any kind of a brush or tough vine or things like that does a good job. Okay, all right, I really appreciate it. Good luck with that. I appreciate your call very much. Oh boy, Yeah, this morning we're having a lot of fun talking about gardening things. Get to talk about some of the different aspects of gardening that I think sometimes we just don't spend enough time on. You know. Ace Hardware stores are all over the

Greater Houston area, thirty nine of them. So if you want to go one place and get everything you need for your lawn and garden, Ace Hardware is it. Do you need past control we need control disease control. Do you need fertilizers? Every fertilizer we recommend on guard Line is at Ace Hardware. You can go to Ace Hardware, find the store locator, and you get a little map of the stores near you, and it just makes it

easy to find your local Ace Hardware. I'm always amazed when I go in at the amount and selection of products to make your lawn and garden beautiful that they carry their at Ace Hardware. And with thirty nine stores, I mean, how convenient can you get. I'm going to take a little break here in a minute for the top of the Hour news, but I did want to mention this is place I haven't talked about a lot, but the Antique Rose Imporium. I don't know if you've been there before or not, but

it is an absolute wonderland. It's a little bit of a drive out just north of Brenham, but people come from all over the state. In fact, people come from out of state to go to this place because they are loaded with roses. Over two thousand roses available out there. They have antique roses, they have roses that just over time have proven themselves resistant to problem like roses can get. They have a great gift shop too, By the

way, but do you need perennials or annuals? Do you need native plants, vegetable starts, herbs. Don't let the name roses fool you. They go way beyond roses and so so very much more. Now on November third through fifth, put it on your calendar Fall Festival of Roses. It's going to be a really big deal. Lots of speakers. Go to Antique Roseemporium dot com. Antique Roseemporium dot com find out a lot more about the Rose

Imporium at about this event. You can also give them a call at ninety seven nine eight three six fifty five forty eight nine seven nine eight three six fifty five forty eight. You just have to go to the place and see it. I mean it is. It is really super cool, the buildings and the display gardens and stuff they have. I just have a good time every time I go there, and I fillip my memory card on my camera with photos because there is so many beautiful things out at Antique Rose Emporium.

Well, you are listening to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and if you would like to give Joshua call and get on the boards. When we come back from break, you'll be the first up seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four or make it simple seven one three two one two kt RH seven one three two one two kt R eight. Now after the show today, I'm going to be at Enchanted Gardens in Richmond. So if you're down in Richmond, UH and you're heading up north KT

direction, that's Enchanted Gardens. I'll be there for two hours. We're going to be from eleven thirty to one thirty answering your gardening questions, looking at plants that need identification or diagnostics or anything like that. If if you're bringing a plant sample in, put it in a little plastic bags, seal it up before you bring it in. Medina is going to be out there giving

away their products as well. And we've got a wide range of Medina products that are going to be given away today, and I'll talk more about some specifics later, but well, the hash to Grow that I talk about all the time is a transplant product that absolutely it's gonna be one of the things we give away out at the Enchanted Gardens today. I hope you can come

out and join us. It's going to be a beautiful day. And they are so loaded up with all kinds of products and plants and everything and enchanted. Make sure there's plenty of room in the trunk or back of the pickup because you're gonna need it. We'll be right back. Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Scared Richard. It's just watching

was taken sad Well. Good Saturday morning. We are glad you're listening today. We're going to talk about a lot of gardening topics as we go through the day. If you'd like to give us a call, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four and we're going to start off this hour with Doris and Conro. Hello Doris, Hi, good morning, schedule. Are you I'm well? Thank you? I am calling. I just moved into

a new house and they the sawd was put in in September. It just it was perfect timing because they laid it and then within two days we've got a really good rain good so that was a really good start. So I was wondering what it is that I can do to give it the very best base so that I can have this beautiful green grass that I want. All right, Well, right now, Doris, you want to get a fall fertilizer on it. A fall fertilizer application will help that grass get ready for

winter. It's not a lot of nitrogen. You don't want to make the lawn grow fast right now. You don't want to do that, and it just causes disease issues at this time of the year. But fall fertilizer and you get it down as soon as you can, because we want to give it as many days as we can before the grass just really slows down a whole lot for winter. And then that fertilization you're going to put on in the next week or hopefully within the next week, is going to make it

come out better in the spring. The spring growth is based on how strong it goes into fall into winter. Perfect. Okay, what product do you recommend? We have a I have on my lawn Care Guide, which is online. If you have a pin or pencil handy, it's gardening with Skip Dot com gardening with on there. If you have it, you know, do you have a preference organic or synthetic? And it has a list of what I consider the quality organic fertilizer share in the Greater Houston Areio. It

tells you when to apply them. Okay, I'm going to go. I have another question for you. I have in the front. I have a five It's about a five foot square flower bed right smack, dad, That's that's my flower bed right in front of the house. I would love to plant like some sort of a dwarf tree or something. It's just a perfect place for a small tree. But I don't know how realistic that is well, being right next to the house. Yeah, I five foot is a

little small for even the smallest of trees. There are some larger shrubs that would do well. You can take what would normally be a shrub and we say limit up. You cut off all the limbs all the way up to a certain height and then it begins and you sort of create a mini tree that way. So that would be another option. Try that. Okay. Could you just maybe recommend a couple of things. How much would how much sunlight? How much sunlight it's going to be and it's going to get morning

sun. Okay, it's not going to get heavy afternoon sun. The Chinese witch Hazel Laura Pedlum is the name. It has burgundy colored foliage, especially a little cooler weather. Now, some of those get here huge for a shrub. I've seen those things up, you know, fifteen twenty feet high almost. But you can do the trimming, and there's more compact varieties. So when you go find one, look at what it says its mature height that is going to be, and then you can make a decision as to

whether that one would work. That would probably be one. It can put up with quite a bit of shade as long as it's pretty bright, and that I think I would. I would probably try that. Just as far as what comes to mind off the coffere, good, perfect. We'll look at that and then go to the website. So I appreciate your recommendation. Thank you. I appreciate that very much. All Right, I have a good day you as well. Let's head out to Ron in Cleveland. Hello

Ron, good morning morning. Oh that lady would love Laura pedulum mine right now? Are really they're two years old. They're doing real good, real, colorful, good good to hear. What I got is I did a you know, two years ago, a kill till fill in seed on Randy's recommendation. I've also put in a couple drumming red maples off of Randy's recommendation three years ago and earlier this year. I went out and I got my

two weeks ago. Rather, I'm sorry, two weeks ago. I went out and got my uh Texas three step yes night barricade foss fund to side and I use ena or what was it six to four by microlife. Okay, now my trees, the leaves on these trees are three years old. Have they're kind of turning almost almost like they're drying out like that. But they've made it through the drought pretty good this year. And I'm not sure is there something I can put in the soil mixed with the water and just

pour around those root balls. Well you could do that. We don't want to push it with a lot of growth right now. Those trees are probably just worn out heading to dormancy at this point in time. Okay, but uh, there's a Medina product called has to Grow. It's a six twelve six and I use it for everything I transplant. But there's no reason you couldn't use it later as well. That six twelve six got a little lower

nitrogen level in it, good phosphors. Yeah, you might want to try something like that, but I tell you to be honest, you've put down a lot of good stuff, and so I think I would just hold. I don't think it's a nutrient issue that you're seeing. Okay. I was thinking that they made it, they made it through the drought, and then I thought, well, maybe it's this stuff I put down in the combination,

but I kind of I put it down a little bit lighter. Yeah, and I kind of kept that away from trees except for the microlife. Yeah, yeah, you know, because that's stuff that's good for everything. You bet it is, absolutely yeah, okay, And I did pick up at ace up in Cleveland. Well good, all right, Well, Ron sounds like you're doing it. You're doing everything right. So I would just you know, let's get them into winter and out of winter and then talk

about fertilizing again in the spring. Wonderful, Okay, I appreciate it, Thank you, sir. I appreciate your call very much. Yeah, that Medina six twelve six is just an absolutely excellent product. I use it for transplants. And when I say transplants, I mean a broccoli transplant. You're putting in a new perennial herb, you're putting in a rose bush, putting in a tree. It just perennials everything. It is an excellent product.

I'm going to be giving away some today when I'm at Enchanted Gardens after the show. But it's it's just a really quality product and I think you'll find that it works. Well. Well, we've already had time for a break, so we're going to do that and I'll be right back the phone number seven one three two one two KTRH. Well, good morning. You are listening to Gardenline and we're going to head straight out to Columbia and talk to

Brian. Brian, good morning, Yeah, good morning. My wife is put our tomato plants at potting soil a couple of times at pods, and I think I keep telling her, I believe it should be garden soil Dalton. They just haven't done real well in that poduct soil. Well, yeah, you know, there's a lot of different kind of potting soil is one word that describes about eight hundred different products and they're not all equal, that

is for sure. I would look there. There is a really good potting mix at Airloom Soils Makes, and it's going to be at Ace Hardware stores near you. Out there in Columbia and the uh The they do one for indoors and they do one for outdoors too. It's called the Works, and I would try that one. I think that you will find that it does it probably is going to be superior compared to what you've been using in the past. All Right, I appreciate it very much. All Right, Brian,

thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. Hey, if you are done in the Richmond air and you haven't been out to Enchanted Forest, you need to go the folks and Enchanted Forest are it's They've created an enchanting place, really. I mean, it is just beautiful out there. There's always something going on at it. Enchanted forests. They stay busy, and boy are they ever stocked up on all kinds of fall vegetables and flowers and trees and shrubs. You on a native plant, they've got those

out there. They Danny and clay. It's always a pleasure to go out and visit with them, just watching them in action, working with customers, helping people, taking them around, taking the time to explain things and help them have success. Now, if you're in Richmond and you're heading towards sugar Land, it's off to the right. It's on FM twenty seven fifty nine en Chanted Forest, and you need to check them out for sure. We're going to head back to the phones now and I'm going to head to Grimes

County and talk to Fraser. Hello, Fraser Hadi Hodi. I have a live oak tree that I put in the ground two years ago. It was a thirty gallon. It's got a trunk that's probably three and a half inches diameter. It's about the tree itself's about twenty feet tall. And it went from live to brown to dead. I thought a matter of minutes. It seemed about about two months ago. And I just noticed this week that it's got spr It has sprouts coming out, live shoots coming out about three and

a half feet to four feet up the trunk. Okay, should I just save that off? And yeah, I picked let to do it. Stay. Yeah kind of Just if I were you, I would leave it for now, and here's why it has very little foliage. And live oaks are going to have foliage through the winter that are going to capture sunlight, make carbohydrates and strengthen the plant. I would leave it, and then as we get toward the underwinter, I would pick one to become the new trunk and

cut it off just above that plant, above that shoot. And as that grows in time, you're going to hardly know that it was a little side shoot. I mean, the trunk will looks straighter and straighter the older it gets. Okay, what about the part that at the top that kind of

looks dead, cut that back at that point. I would if you want to bend the twigs and see if their supple still, or scrape them with your fingernails, see if they're kind of a creamy color, greenish creamy color underneath and you see life in them, then just leave it and let's wait and see. But it's probably not going to do a lot of growing until we get into warmer weather in the spring. Okay, So pretty much we'll leave it along till the spring and kind of go from there. That's what

I would suggest. Yeah, I think, so, Okay, have fun out there. And why, hey, do you ever go to Grimes County? Feed out there in Grimes County? Yeah, not a great place. And they carry the fertilizers. Grab them of their fertilizers. I recommend and in spring put two cups per inch of trunk diameter going across the trunk. Two cups around that tree in a big circle, evenly spread and watered and really good. I think that'll help. All right, we'll do that,

all right, Thank you very much. Have a good day, you two. Thank you. I appreciate that. You know. Nitrofoss is three step program. You've heard Collar mentioned it just a little bit ago. It's three things. It's a fall fertilizer, it's a weed prevention, and it's a fungicide that prevents diseases of the turf. So the Nitrofoss Fall Special, that's the fertilizer, and it is designed for our soils, our situation here in the Gulf Coast, a Greater Houston area, golf coast. It does really

well, and it's going to make your lawns stronger going into spring. But don't delay. The lawn's going to be slowing down when we finally get some really colder weather coming, so let's get that fertilizer down so that it has as much time as possible to take in the nutrients, make carbohydrates and get strong for the winner and coming out in the spring. Barricade is the pre

emergent. It controls broad leaf and grassy weeds. But again you want to get it down before the weed sprout, and that's going to be going on here in the next two or three months, so go ahead and get it down, watered in with a half inch of rain. Third step Eagle turf fungicide. Now that particular product is systemic. It moves into the plant and it protects. So when conditions are right for brown patch to make the big

circles, you've already got the fungicide in place. That's very important. Now where do you buy nitrophos products, Well, you can go to Bearings Hardware on bus net, you can go to all Spas Hardware up It's ace up in the woodlands, or you can go out to Brunham to plants and things and as well as many other places. Let's go out to Michael in sugar

Land. Hello, Michael, good morning. Skip one quick question before I really get into what I was gonna call what was that the third product you recommended for the three step The third product in order I give them is the fungicide. It's a systemic It soaks into the tissues and very important to get it down ahead of the disease for best results. In the main you mentioned what was that nitrophos nitrophoss eagle like the bird nitrophos egle turf find your size.

Yeah, okay, I'm on the schedule. I've been following down. But I have a couple of questions. Okay, the recent dry spell that we had. My house is north frontyard, north backyard, southern exposure. My grass in the front and on the east side is great. I mean, everything's green, the schedules working fine. But in the back I took a huge hit in some areas. I mean the grass might completely brown. But recently, what I've started to see is small patches of grass coming back.

Okay, unfortunately, I'm getting ready to put down the falls stuff. But should I should I over should I add something to the mixture because of that grass is coming back, or should I just leave it alone, let it do what it's doing, leave alone. Put that fall fertilizer down so the grass that you do have is as strong as possible. That way, when it warms up next spring, it hits the ground running and we get it refilled back in as fast as possible. Great second question White keeps me

at the garden line starts. I recently focused an African violet. Okay, yes, I also bought a big pot of nit and I got another question about that. But what can I put on that African violet? All right, well, let's do African violet. And then met real quickly because I want to get to some other folks the African violet. They make African violet foods, and when you go to a garden center and just say I need something that will work for African violet, it probably will say African violet on

the name, but doesn't have to. They can put you put the right product in hand as long as you go to a quality nursery that knows what they're talking about, and you Africa violets are best watered with a bottom watering system. There's little trays that hole water. They have a wick coming out of the plant and it wicks up water and that prevents a lot of the rot diseases. That can occur on the stem and around the leaves on the African violet, that's my suggestion. Great and on the mid Should I put

it in the ground or should I pot it? I'd pott it. Mint will take over the world, I mean like bermuda grass taking over your vegetable garden. It grows, it does really well. It's very enthusiastic and unless you have some sort of an underground wall to prevent it from going out, it's just going to constantly invade. Thank you guy, I appreciate you. Have a great day. Hey, Michael, thanks for the calls. I

appreciate that very much. It is tree care season. We are entering that season and you need someone who knows what they're doing to get out there. And first of all, take a look at your trees. What do you need? I mean, storms can occur anytime of the year, even though we think about hurricane season. Is storm time incur any time of the year. But do you need a professional? Well, Martin spoon Moore from Affordable

Tree Service is who you need to call now. Martin's phone number seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. When you call, you're going to talk to Martin or his wife Joe. If Martin or Joe doesn't answer, hang up, you've called the wrong place. Seven one, three, six, nine nine twenty six sixty three. You can also go to the website Afftree Service dot com. Afftree Service dot com. But don't delay on this, get on his

schedule. You know, when someone does things right and takes care of their customers, they stay busy, So tell them your guardline customers. You can get to the head of the list, but don't delay because they're filling up out there at Affordable Tree Service and we want you to be able to get them to come out and take care of your plants, your tree, in

this case, your trees. Anything you might need consulting with on your trees, definitely call them a spell if you're going to put any trenches around or build anything, or lay a sidewalk or you got to call Martin to come out and look at it, because after the damage is done, our options for helping your tree go down dramatically, so make sure and take care of them. When you do that, we are gonna let's see head out to

forest in the Galleria. Hello Forest, Hey, good morning. I was in my front yard yesterday spreading my Niker Frost's brown bag fertilizer that I bought from Bearing and noticed a tremendous amount of moths, which I suspect are sod webworms. I've put a lot of bifintherin down this summer for kinchbugs, and I'm wondering should I go back to that again with the bug blaster that you recommend, or should I pick a different chemical. You know, I have

never seen sod webworms start this late and come a big problem. We've got weather that is coming that it really shuts them down. There are hundreds of moth species out there that this could be. If you know what side web worms look like, and you're saying, no, this is I've had them before, this is what they are, then you could go ahead and treat them. But I would think it is unlikely that that's what they are, and so I'm a little hesitant until we get a good idea on those things.

Well, if I choose to treat, should I stay with bifinthern or should I go to a different chemical since I used it so much for chinchebugs? This summer by fenttheroner is very effective. If you have it on hand, you can go ahead and use it. There are a lot of other products that are insecticides labeled for launch. You can do those. I would probably stay with the byfinther and if I were you, Okay, all right, thank you sir, Yes, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Hey, have you been to Arburgate lately? Have you seen the new parking lot. It is so cool. You drive in either before or after Arburgate goes around behind the nursery. You park all weather, quick access, so simple, so easy. They just got a great shipment of old roses, old garden roses. They got another shipment of airloom bulbs in the kind of bulbs that naturalize it come back year after year after year. Now you

can buy those one shot wonders like tulips, but that's all. You get one shot and they're done when you invest I like to use that term. When you invest in airloom bulbs from Arburgate, you're gonna have blooming dividends year after year after year. While you're there by the way pick up their food. It's the one two three easy system. It's the soil food that feeds anything with roots, an organic four four three, which is also great for

your lawns this time of year. Also, their organic soil complete and their organic compost complete. All three go together so well, and your lawn just gets better and better and better over time. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Give Josh a call. We'll get you on the boards and you'll be first when we come back. Right now, here's Nikky. Well, good morning on a beautiful Saturday. It is going to be gorgeous today, a wonderful day to get out, do a

little garden shopping, do a little garden work. Sun is glowing in the eastern sky. I love it at the start of a day. Grab you a cup of coffee, go outside, take the radio with you if you remember the days where we carried radios around the house, and enjoy some of

this outdoor weather. Just the temperature is wonderful too as well. Hey, if you'd like to give us a call seven to one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two kt r H, please do so, and we'll be glad to visit with you about the kind of questions that you might have if you're looking for a quality potting soil. I want to tell you about Nature's creation, and the reason is that there's a lot to say about it. Nature's creation is a blend of potting soil,

a quality blend. This isn't a peat based soil. It doesn't have biosolids in it. I mean we're talking about quality. But they've added indo and ecto mic orhizal fungi. I know because is the tight so. Indo micuriza is a little fungus. It gets in the root and it reaches out and it grabs nutrients from around the soil and brings it to the root. That is cool. Ecto means on the outside, it surrounds the root, It protects the root. It enhances the root growth as it's also protecting it.

Now, this blend you know from pecan malt and pearlite, mushroom, compost, molasses, all kinds of native recycle, trees and shrubs, it's all there in Nature's creation. Organic potting soil with micorhizal fungi. Now you can find it at New Roots Landscaping in Houston, Rustic Ridge Gardens, in Willis Jimbo's Nursery in Santa Fe RCW up in Tombol direction right where Tombol Parkway comes into Beltway eight and all Houston Garden Centers Creation Organic Potting show with microorizol fungi.

You should check that one out. Yesterday, I was out in the garden doing some you know, little typical here and there out in my vegetable garden, working with some of the final trials of the Okra crosses that I put in this past year, and I just noticed the pepper plants were overloaded with peppers. And that's the way it always is, you know. You think of peppers. Peppers are hot, summer's hot. Plant them for summer. Well, you can plant peppers in spring. You can get a spring

crop. They tend to trail off in the summer. But never give up on your pepper plants because when the fall comes, they hang a lot of ornaments on those trees and they're just so beautiful. And when I say trees, you know what I'm talking about. I'm in fact, I got pepper plants that are six feet tall right now, and oh my gosh, I don't know how many eat all the peppers that are on them. But always

remember that when you're doing a vegetable garden. Very important. Hey, let's go out to wood forest and we're going to talk to Robert this hour. Hey, Robert, good morning. Morning. So I get a little confused by the temperature variations and growth of grass. Yes, and some days I think we should water, in other days I think just leave it alone. So is there a time or a better time for watering? Well that we

have good water pressure early in the morning. When you water early in the morning, then the sun comes out and it drives it off the leaves and they don't sit wet. The less frequently you can water, the better. We're entering brown patch season, and brown patch would love it for you to give it lots of nitrogen and then just keep it wet all the time. So, in other words, we want to water as infrequently as possible. We want that leaf surfaces of the grass to dry off as quick as possible.

As far as when you need it. You know, you can dig down and feel the soil, get an idea for it. You can take a long handle screwdriver and push it in the ground, especially in a clay soil. If it's moist it'll be it'll push straight down in the soil. But if you had a hard dry spot, it'll be like you hit a concrete walkway under there. There's different ways to check it out like that.

I would say, right now you need about a half inch of moisture a week, and that's about to drop even lower than that as we get some more coal fronts in here. Terrific. All right, what about putting what about putting the Microlife sixty four all over the grass right now and then water it in, Well, that would be good. I would go with the Microlive brown Patch six two four is a wonderful fertilizer. It's good for everything

that you have that you grow, including your lawn. But dropping that nitrogen a little bit more and then having that the microbial content in the brown patch product, I just think that's a better way to go for fall. But if if you've got six to four on hand want to use it, go ahead. You're not going to hurt anything. But at this time, it's just yeah, you hear me talk about fall fertilizers all the time, and there's a reason. All right, thank you, sir, Yes, sir

Robert, thank you. For the call. I appreciate that very much. Hey, I have a question. In your garage or in your toolshit or wherever you keep your gardening tools, do you have a tree hugger sprinkler hanging on the wall. Well, you should tree hugger sprinklers. It says tree, but I would say plant hugger sprinklers, because are you going to put in a rosebush? Are you going to put in some other shrub or a tree? Well, tree hugger that's the way to go. You can go

to tree huggersprinkler dot com find out more information. But you hook them to a hose. You can turn them on just a little to water a newly planted plant. You can turn them on a lot to go through those brutal summers and not have to run your whole lawn system for the tree. You just water the area under the branch bread of the tree. Tree hugger makes it easy. Just think of it this way. It's just a great tool to always have on hand. Let's head out to clear Lake and we're going

to talk to Mario. Hello Mario, Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking my call. I have a couple of questions. Number one, I called in several weeks ago about my boxwoods. They're tiny box woods. They're not responding. I did fertilize. Is it just a slow process or do I need to do something else? Are they green? They're just not growing. They're green, but I have brown parts of them have died, and so I want to they don't you know, they look kind of skippy.

I want them to look full and rich and okay, so I don't know what to do about it. All right, Well, with the days getting shorter and the temperatures cooling off, the all plants are going to slow growth, and those boxwoods are too. I would say for now, just hold and wait and let's see when when spring comes if they if they do better, I think some warm weather is the thing they need most, depending on what caused the problem nematodes, root fungi or broken branches or freeze damage

from last December. It was a freeze damage. Okay, well there, I think they'll be fine. I would follow the dead all the way down to where it joins something that ends up having living leaves on it, and print it all out right now and get that out of there, just in case there was a stem canker involved. You're getting that disease tissue out of there, Okay. The other question I have is I had a beautiful Japanese

blueberry in my backyard. I just loved it, and the freeze actually killed it, okay, and so I want to replace it with something that looks like it, but it's much more hearty. That's the second time, Okay, that's happy. First time during the freeze it came back. Fine, I got that second one. Hey, Mario, I'm going to have to take a break. I'm gonna put you on hold. If you want to hang on, we'll talk about it after the break, or if not,

I'll just talk about it on the air after the break. Thank you for calling in. Hey, it's time for a break. Seven one three two one two KTRH. That's the number if you'd like to call them beyond Well, good morning. You are listening to Gardenline, and boy, we are talking about a wide variety of things today. One thing I do want to talk about, though, is Ace Hardware. Ace Hardware thirty nine locations in the Greater Houston area. Go to Acehardware dot com find the store locator.

Check it out. You'll see what I'm talking about, and you'll find the ones closest to you. Have you not purchased your fall fertilizer yet for the lawn, Ace Hardware's got it and a lot more. Do you need issue products? Maybe to control disease or insects or weeds. Ace Hardware has it anything you need to make your place beautiful, from tools to products to you name it. Ace Hardmer has got it all and it's near you. That is convenient. You can't get any better than excuse me, any more convenient

than that. Let's see we are. I was just talking with Mario about some some shrubs and I said I would mention some taller ones. One thing would be the yopon. The standard types of yopon that get a little bit taller. They have evergreen foliage and some of them have berries, some of them don't, depends on you know what type you get. Yopon makes a pretty darn good hedge if you plan them close enough together. Nelly R. Stephen Holly. There's a number of different other hollies that do really well,

but Nellie R. Stevens is an example of one. Uh. And you know, I just think when you when you create an evergreen hedge like that. If you're trying to replace something that didn't do well that you want to have success with, it is important to have something that is either native or very very very well adapted to this area. So another one would be the Japanese youth that that is a very good tall plant. It'll grow in a little bit of shade and will grow and likes a lot of sun too,

and it will make a nice large hedge for you. Let's go out to Richard in spring. Hello Richard, good morning, Skip morning. I have a question. I developed torpedo grass in my front lawn. Is there something on the market these days that will help control this? I don't know anything that will kill torpedo grass and not kill your lawn. But the strategy that I would use is I have a little homemade weed wiper and basically those little

tools you grab a jar off a shelf with. They've got a little pistol grip on one end and about three feet long where on the other end, I attached two garden sponges and you kind of have to figure it out. Maybe use a little a little metal plate behind them from a hardware store, the kind with a lot of little holes in it for joining too, two by fours, and then I just put a product that'll kill grass on it on there. And there's grass killers and then there's general killers. The glycase

products go anything. The grass killers would be things like cephoxidem and fluazophobe. But when you go to a garden center, just say show me a grass killer. You squirt it on the sponge torpedo grass. As you know, it grows fast and it comes up above the lawn, and let it do that. Hold off on mowing a little bit, and then just reach down squeeze it, Squeeze those sponges on it, and pull upward and wipe it

on the torpedo grass. And you've got to keep doing it. You're not going to see it all at one time, but as you stay with it, you can get rid of it. Now, if it's in areas where you don't have a desirable plant, then just going in with those those kinds of weed killers I talked about directly on it would be an option. But it is persistent. It is like bermuda grass on steroids. Yes it is. It's a moose and that's that's true, all right, skiff, Thank

you very much. Hey, thanks thanks for the call, Richard. I appreciate that very much. You take care. If you I was talking about fertilizing your lawn and the importance of fall fertilization. If you have not put down a micronutrient application this year especially, you need to add asamite to your list of things to do. Now. You don't put the azmite in your fertilizer because particle size is different and therefore distribution doesn't do as It's not as

even as you want. So you fertilize and then you put asomite in a fertilizer hopper and you apply it in a separate application to your lawn. Only takes ten pounds or ecuse me, forty four pound bag will cover six to twelve thousand square feet. That's a lot, but it covers a lot because you just need a little bit of it. It's a trace mineral supplement. You can go to azimite Texas dot com and find out more. I would

suggest using it wherever you have plants growing. I do it in my vegetable garden as well, because I want to make sure the produce I'm eating has as much of a chock full of nutrients as we can give it. Let's see, We're going to head out to the woodlands now and talk to Veronica. Hey, Veronica, Hi, I have a question about my Asian jasmine groundcover. Large sections over the summer just died off. So I don't know why I want to replace it. But my question is do I need to

treat that area first or something before I put new plants in. No, No, there's no treatment. You mean it like a treatment that would kill whatever killed their Asian jasmine? Yeah, like if it's a fungus or I mean, I don't know what did it. Yeah, have you heard about this A lot that over the summer heat, a lot of Asian jasmine just died off. Yeah, yeah, because of the heat and drought and it

just hit a point where the plant could not hang on. And then once the system plants, you know, systems start to collapse, it's just you lose the whole thing. That happens to trees and Asian jasmine and a lot of other plants. No, there's nothing you can put down to control anything that's in the soil that would have killed it. There are a couple of root rots that could have been present, but you can't just put a treatment

down for them right now. I would replug it in. If you want to wait until spring when it's really going to grow, that's fine, but I would also do it right now because it has all winter to slowly start establishing roots to get a bit of a headstart. Okay, great, thank you, Yeah, thank you appreciate the call. Well, let's see you're listening to garden Line and I'm your host, Skip Richter. We are here to answer gardening questions. That's what we do here. We want to have

help you have success. The thing that discourages me the most is to hear a gardener or are someone who tried gardening say yeah, I tried it, it didn't work. I just have a brown thumb. You do not have a brown thumb. You have an uninformed thumb. And that's what we're here for. We're here to help you have a beautiful garden and a bountiful landscape. That's our goal. And I tell you if you want if you want plants for a beautiful garden and bountiful landscape, you got to check out Enchanted

Gardens out in Richmond. Now. The website's easy, It's Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. They're on FM three point fifty nine. That is, you go north toward Katie, so anyone out in the general Katy area all the way down into Richmond. I mean, this is just your backyard. And the Lenderman family has been part of that community since nineteen ninety five when they opened it up. It is an unforgettable experience to go to Enchanted Gardens.

And if you would like a little extra encouragement, come today. I'm going to be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. Eleven thirty to one thirty. I'll answer your gardening questions. I will help you pick out plants that would do well in a particular area. I'll diagnose problems on your plants. It's all free, it's all there, right there. And we're also going

to be giving away Medina products. As if God we just keep adding incentives here Medina products, we'd be giving away bags of their three two three. We're going to be giving away that has to grow lawn. We're going to be giving away seaweed. We're going to be giving away the regular has to grow, the one I talk about all the time for transplanting, you know, mixing up in water for your transplanting. That's just one use for it.

We're going to be giving away fish blend. I mean, the folks at Medina have put a lot of product into this and we are going to just have a good time. So come out register for the drawing, but most importantly, get a chance to see in Channa Gardens. Now, if you went last spring or this summer or something, it changes every day out

in Channa Gardens. You need to go back again to see it. They're open, by the way, Monday through Saturday from eight to five and Sundays from ten am to four pm, and so it's to find a time to be out there. They're going to carry all the fertilizers I talk about. Have you not done your lawn fertilizing yet? Come on out there. You get to choose your pick out there. They're going to have quality soil blends

and composts and multchz and things like that. They've got all the blame you know, fountains and wind chimes and garden art and stuff like that, but every kind of plant you can imagine. Allow yourself some time because it takes a while to get around and see all that they have. Out there at

Enchanted Gardens and Richmond. I hope you'll hope you'll join me in the meantime, if you have not been to the website yet, Gardening with Skip dot com, Gardening with Skip dot Com, that's where the lawn care schedule is, That's where the lawn pest disease and we'd management schedule is. We keep adding content to it. We're planning a major renovation to add a ton of

new content to the website in these coming months. I was just meeting with my web guy and talking about some of the things we want to do on there. We're gonna have some videos going up and a lot more publications that you can just print out if you want. Lots of good information there at Gardening with Skip dot Com. I hope you will give it a lookover.

I think you'll be impressed and especially be able to print out that those schedules where you can just print them out and take them in and point and say I want this stuff right here, and yeah, that's it. We'll be right back. Kat r H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H. Garden Line with Skip Richard. It's so crazy just watch him as super well. Good morning on a beautiful Saturday morning. Boy. I hope your plans

include outdoors today. I actually hope they include gardening and taking care of the lawns, you know, landscapes, getting out and doing a little bit of plant shopping while you're out there. Plants supply shopping while you're out there. You know. Verdant Tree Farm. Verdant Tree Farm has been around the Greater Houston area for a while now and they've been providing the kind of quality trees that you need to have success. You don't need someone selling stuff that doesn't

do well here. Verdant Tree Farm sells stuff that does do well. Here. You can go to the website Verdant v e er da nt Verdant Treefarm dot com find out more information. It's not just trees. I mean they have palm trees of course, a leader in palm trees. When it comes to large shrubs, you know, maybe in Nelly R. Stevens, Holly, Eagleson Holly, those kinds of things, Verden Tree Farm carries it all.

You can find that they Oh, by the way, they also have a ten percent discount for military and first responders and a one year warranty that's included with the installation. And you need to have them install it because they can plant it right. So here's how you do it. You go out there, you walk around, you pick the tree you want, they tag it, they bring it, they plant it. You're done and they know

what they're doing. If you don't know which tree you want, go talk to them, take a picture of your yard kind of from a distance, say hey, what do you think would do well? Here? Here's what I want out of it. I want ballooms or I want shade or something like that. Verdanttreefarm dot com. It's as simple as that. We are going to now head up to the north side and talk to Joe. Hello, Joe, Hi, how you doing through? I'm well, Thank you,

love your show. Thank you. I got a question. I got a beautiful yard actually, and I had some agustine grass before, but over the time I guess that I don't know if it's called bermuda grass. Yes, you'd overgrow my sant agustine. And don't get me wrong, it's all green, but if someon step on it, he's like a pillow. Yeah, and I would like my Sant Agustine to grow back. Well, Joe, there there is not a product. Pardon Joe, I'm not able to

hear you anymore, so I don't know something changed over. If I'm on speaker, go ahead and take me off speaker and just talk on the receiver. So there's not a product that kills bermuda grass that doesn't kill Saint Augustine grass. Uh there. There. If you're hiring someone to do some work, there are some things they can do. There's some things they can get a hold of that you can't. They can work toward that. But that's

a whole different story. Uh So, the bottom line is you either live with the two or you get rid of the Saint Augustine's easier to get rid of Saint Augustine in a bermuta than it is a bermuna in Saint Augustine, or you just like I said, get rid of it all and then replant

with Saint Augustine. If you're planning on doing the latter, the bermuna needs to be actively growing for the products to work, because if it's in a winter dormant stage, you're not going to get effective Bermuda control with that. Are you still there, Joe, Yes, sir, I yes, sir. Oh good. All right, So that that's kind of the story on it. Okay, well, okay, okay, no problem. I mean, it's green. Don't get me wrong. It looks good. It's green. It just I know, I just love Agustine. I feel the same

way. And I've got some a couple of areas in my yard where it's there's some mixture in there, and uh, I just went the root of Okay, I'm getting rid of everything and then I'm putting Saint Augustine back in. But if you're hold on, if large areas are that way, well then that's probably definitely not acceptable, but not a problem. I feel your paying say it. Thanks, thanks for the call. I appreciate that very much. Ciena Moltz south of Houston is a premiere multi supplier Number one.

They carry the best products available. Do you need bags, do you need bulk? Do you need it delivered? They deliver within twenty miles twenty miles aware well, twenty miles of ninety six fifteen FM five twenty one, so near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together, north of Roach Sharon FM five twenty one. Just go to Sienna Maltz dot com and you can find them. Do you need rock, Oh my gosh, they have a wonderful selection of rock. Maybe you want to put out a little concrete I

mean a little flagstone patio, that would be the place to go. I mean, they really have a good selection. Ever fertilizer I talk about, Is there ever fertilizer? Every single one is there. It's Moltz. It's a one stop shop. Go buy check out their product. See the quality that I'm talking about, and I have. I've walked the lot, I've looked at the different products, picked them up, checked them out, felt them, smelled them, all that kind of stuff, and this is good

stuff. Sienna Maltz dot com. They're opened today, by the way, from seven thirty to two. Closed tomorrow, So today would be a good day to get out there and check out what I'm talking about. When I brag on Sienna multch Hey, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I was visiting with Dean Nelson Nelson Fertilizer the other day and just talking

about some of the products and things that they have. And also, you know, I don't know if you know this, but October fourteenth, just a few days back, was their forty year anniversary. That's when they opened their doors for business. And the rest, as they say, is history. Their lines of fertilizers continue to just grow and offer you more and more options. Their Color Star line, for example, their nutri Star line, their Turf Star line, and their Organic Nature Star line are all there at

Nelson Plant Food. Right now, the thing you need to focus on from Nelson you need to focus on is their carbo Load. Now, carbo Load is designed exactly for the nutrients and the ratios that we need in our landscapes, in our lawns in the fall and the fall season. And for every bag they sell of carbo Load, they're giving two dollars to Randy's memorial scholarship. So it just gets better and better. I mean two dollars for every

bag for such a good cause. His memorial scholarship is for someone who wants to be a horticulturist, a hort student up at Texas A and M. What a good cause and what I know Randy would be very very proud to know that, but don't delay on the carbo load. It also includes a pre emer which means you want to get it down before the weed seeds all start to germinate. So get that product. Put it down now, watered in about a half inch of water. Be good, and you're done and

you're ready to go. And it'll last you all the way until it's time to fertilize in the spring, and your law will be stronger as a result of it too. By the way, well, our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was in the backyard yesterday. I saw I was looking out the window and there was this little bird sitting there, a finch. I believe it's a finch, It looked like one. And it

was just sitting there on one of our outdoor lawn furniture. Uh. And I just put out some water for them. And you know, it is so important when you want to bring birds to your landscape, and you should want to do that. You want to get their wild birds unlimited winter super blend. It's got the fat and the protein that will help them get through this upcoming season. Now, don't forget that some of the roofous hummingbirds will

make winter their home here. So continue to leave your hummingbird feeder up and get some of those visitors. If you're lucky enough to have one. What a cool thing for a winter day. We're still dry. You gotta get them water. And that's what I was doing when I was out in the landscape, taking care of my birds, giving them some water because they need that very important. Hey, go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston and you can find all seven of our wild bird stores in the Greater Houston area.

I'm going to take a break. We'll be back seven one three, two, one, two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning, good Saturday morning. Let me just say good beautiful Saturday morning, because that's exactly what it is out there. I can't wait to get out of here. When I get through with the show today, I'm going to be heading out two enchanted gardens out in Richmond, and I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. I hope you'll come out and see me while I'm out

there there. Hey, if you ever need roofwork, if you. You know, storm damage or just the roofs getting old. You're concerned about some things called Brinkman Brinkman Quality Roof Services. That's what it is. Jason Brinkman has created a company that has stood the test of time. What do I mean by that, Well, I mean they've been in the Houston area for

fifty years. And you don't stick around and win awards, by the way, such as a Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award, unless you're really taking care of your customers. Now, they have a twenty five year warranty on their service. They use top quality materials. It doesn't matter if you're putting on a shingle roof, a composite shingle, if you have a metal roof or something I think is really cool is the Brinkman's Timberline solar shingle. So this

isn't a solar panel that sits on top of your roof. This is a roof Brinkman Timberline solar shingle. Ask them more about that. You can go to Brinkman Quality dot com or you can just call them too. Eight one four eight h seven six six three two eight one four aight oh seven six six three and check out Brinkman. You'll see what I'm talking about when I say quality, dependable, just all the way around. It is what you

need in a business. Anytime I'm hiring somebody do any kind of work, I want them to show up. I want them to do a good job. I want them to use quality materials. Well that's Brinkman. That's the only way they know how to do it. Let's go out to round Top and we're gonna talk to Jennis. Good morning, Jennis, Good morning,

Skip, Thank you very much. How can we help? My question is about I have lots of live oat trees and post o trees on my property, and every year the years when we've had droughts, well we see bad results of that a few years later. Usually what is the best thing to treat those with? What BET's fertilizer? And how often the fertilizers? Now, do you have a preference for what you use for your yard in terms of fertilizers types or anything like that. Okay, well, there's a wide

variety of them. I know that the nitrophiles, I know Nelson's, I know Microlife all produces things that are designed for woody plants and for successful growth. I'll tell you on mine. I use lawn fertilizer myself, and it just I hadn't gotten around to going and getting one designed, you know, for trees. I probably should do that, by the way, But anyway,

I'll just use a lawn fertilizer. And when you do that, if the reason I ask what kind is if you're use in an organic, you need to use a little more of it because it's a little lower concentration. But for just the standard I use is for every inch of trunk diameter, give it one or two cups a fertilizer. So is this a huge How big is the trunk on this tree? What would you compare it to? Oh? These are like two hundred year old? True? Oh my gosh.

Okay, well I should have ass that up front when you get an older tree that what they do is they hit a point where they kind of reach about what our climate and soils or your soils there will accommodate. You may notice if you go up to the northeast United States, you see trees that are so huge. It's like, why didn't Reno get that big here? Well, it's it's because we have a different climate and soils, and once the tree is hitting that mature stage, you just don't need to push

it with a lot of extra fertilizer and whatnot. It's kind of got a balance between the roots and the top. And I would I would just I is there a lawn around these trees? There is some of them. Some of them are out in more like pasture areas. Okay, well, you know if it was in a bermuda grass pasture or something, yes, I would fertilize it because bermuda grass is a is a nutrient and water hog stealing

from the tree in the lawns. If you're fertilizing your lawns, I think that's sufficient for your for your treat, especially these older and if it was a young tree and we were trying to get it to grow, be a completely different story. Okay, I do have some young ones out our planet. Is that you still still lawn fertilizer? Good? You could you could you could purchase a fertilizer for trees, you know, or you could just use your lawn fertilizer if you've got that, and for every inch of trunk

diameter, you give it one or two cups. So just as an example, if it was the size of a soft drink can, we'll say, well, that's about three inches across, so it would get three to six cups a fertilizer and then and spread it all evenly in the entire branch spread of the tree. Okay, I appreciate it very much. Skip, Thank you you, Bet Jennis, thank you for the call. Appreciate that.

Hey speaking to the call. If you would like to call our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh, your tree is it's really not that complicated. We are making sure. The most important thing you do for success with your trees is to make sure they have water during extended droughts. You don't have to water your trees every week. That is absolutely unnecessary.

But during extended droughts, yeah, give them a little bit of water and take care of them. They'll do really well. Now. Proper pruning, proper care, yes, that is critical. Picking the right species before you plant, yes, that is absolutely critical. You want to do that, but in general, water is number one. If you're not if you're not helping them during drought, it's not going to do good. And if you've got a young tree and you want it to grow fast, let's fertilize it

and water it, both fertilizer and water. I like to say it this way. When you buy a tree, you want to be able to hang a hammock in it as soon as possible, So act accordingly. Hey, do you know that every weekend at RCW Nurseries they are having a libration of fall and the family can come out all their trees by the way, and they grow their own trees up in Plantersville, so they have a great selection of trees that do well here, all of them. Fifteen percent off discount

on all the trees. Now, you bring a family out for this because there's games and activities that have beautiful areas of garden areas where you can just walk through and enjoy and get ideas. And it is absolutely perfect for family photos. They've got it all set up and designed where you or the kids or your significant other get in there, let's take some photos. They got

refreshments and snacks and everything. It's all part of this autumn extravaganza. And when you're at RCW you will see the wide selection of plants that They carry things that do so well here, and there's not a better time to plant than fall, whether it's perennials or trees and shrubs, you name it, perennial herbs. Even now's the time. So get out to rcw's begin check them out. You'll see what I'm talking about. And it's a lot of fun too. By the way, I always like to go visit the place

and their roase selection. Oh my gosh, very very like four pages single space of rose varieties that they can get and carry there at the RCW. That is pretty cool. You know. When it comes to making sure your power supply at your house is always on, that requires a quality generator from Quality Home Products of Texas. Now. Generat is a great brand they carry and it does really well. And these generators are set up to be a backup that comes on automatically, so if you are on a family vacation and

power goes out, don't worry about the freezer. It's okay. The generator pops right on and it runs and it takes care of things. The reason I recommend Quality Home Products, and the reason you need to use Quality Home Products is because they take care of their customers. Every product they sell is engineered, installed and monitored by quality home products. That's a rare thing in

the generator world. Twenty twenty three Houston Chronicle Best of the Best. Eight times they've won the Better Business Better Business Bureau Award of Excellence and distinct the distinction for Customer Service. That's what I'm talking about. They've they've won the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award, the most prestigious one, the Customer Service Award that BBB offers, family owned and operated their local quality TX dot com Quality

TX dot com. Or give them a call one excuse me, seven to one three, your local seven to one three quality, seven to one three quality. Remember that when you're going to buy a generator, customer service is key, and nobody comes close to matching quality home products of Texas. We're going to head out now to Fairfield and talk to Marty. Hello, Marty, h morning Skift. It's a beautiful day to garden, isn't it? Hey? Yes it is. I am getting some new molts and a vetch

veggie soil on Monday. Yes, but I have an area that has really been overgrown with some beauty grass. Okay, it does have plants in it, so I can't really spray anything. How would you suggest I get rid of it? Besides get out and dig it out? What kind of plants are in there? I have a Petty Martin, Rose, Lantana and Esperanza. Okay, what I would do in that situation as one of two things, Well, I would I would use a wiper applicator for a product to

kilber mutagrass. And I make my own by using one of those grabber tools that you get a jar off a shelf with. They're about three feet long. Okay, if you can figure out a way, you or someone figure out a way to put two sponges on the grabber end. I take a kitchen sponge, the standard little small kitchen sponge. I cut it in half and with bolts and a couple of little metal plates that they use it.

You can buy them at hardware stores to join two two by fours. Using those, I bolt it on. Then you can squirt whatever you want to use to kill stuff on there, and you just reach under the plant, grab that leaves and just pull on it and it wipes it all the way down the runner, all the way up the leaves, and you can go through and do a lot of little surgical care in there around the plants. Now, if it's far enough away where you can spray, you can do

that. Maybe get a big shield, like a piece of cardboard or something so the spray doesn't drift over onto something good. But you can do that surgical removal that way. It's not easy, but at least it's an option other than digging it up, because when you dig it up, you're going to be damaging the roots of those desirable plants you mentioned. Yeah, what are you talking when you say that? Little metal things got a hinge like about it? Like a mall. No, it's it's a plate and I'm

just gonna guess that. And then they come in different sizes, but maybe about four inch four inches by five inches or something like that. They have little holes in them, and you put them where two two by fours join and screw into through the holes to join those two. They're simple, simple to do. You can devise anything. Use a piece of wood. The only idea is you need something to support the sponges so when you squeeze it they just just don't ben back. All right, got it? Thank you?

Hey, good luck, good luck Marty I hope you have success with that. I've used it quite a bit in the past myself. Well, here we are, time for another break. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four and now the Nicky News Network. Good morning on a gol Just Saturday morning, and a great day for gardening. You know, every day's a great good day for gardening. I don't if it's pouring rain outside. Hey, you got house plants, you got seed starting, lots

to do. Gardeners never run out of work, by the way, they never do. It is always something new every time you turn around. Hey, our phone number here on garden Line is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Have you ever been out to the bee supplying Dayton. I've talked about it before. You've heard me many times talk about it. I love to go there. I mean, it is a wonderful supply store for everything bees.

They have everything you need. By the way, if you want to get bees, the bees themselves ordered. If you're a beekeeper, now's the time to do it. You can pre order go to the website. Go to their website and pick them up in the spring. Spring pickup's going to

start about April eleventh, and I think go through the of May. Now they have a couple of strains of bees that you can choose from, but the early dates sell out quick, so if you want to pick them up toward the April eleventh end of it, of that time, you need to get that done as soon as possible. Now, the classes that they offer for beekeepers or for people who want to be beekeepers, they are outstanding. They have a wonderful little place there indoors where you can do your classes.

They give you lots of opportunities for hands on I mean, it is just cool. If you don't even want to think about keeping bees, but you want to learn about one of the most fascinating insects on the planet, go check out their new observation hYP over seven feet tall. It's got frames full of bees. You can watch the bees coming in and out from outdoors down this long tube to this giant plexiglass room if you will, where all the

bees are doing their stuff. Kids will find it fascinating and so will you too. And when you go out and do a little bee tour, you get'll be samples of honey, different kinds of honey in it. It's just a lot of fun. Hey, it's easy that website thebesupply dot com, thebsupply dot com or call them nine three six seven seven six oh seven three nine. Uh. The first time I went there, I'd never seen anything like the b Supply before. I mean, it is a really really cool

place. We're gonna head out now to pair Land and we're gonna talk to Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey, good morning. How are you today? I'm well, how are you doing doing good? Hey? I heard you talking about doing a core aeration on our lawn, especially after this long summer. And I'm down here and on the south side of Paarland, and do you have a suggestion for someone to do that in my area? Yes? Uh, gosh, I just went blank. Hang on, I'm say I'm gonna say it in just a moment. Oh heck yeah, let me

talk about correoration just for a moment. Cor Aeration brings oxygen into the soil, and if you've got a somewhat compacted root system due to lack of oxygen in the soil because the soil is so pounded down, it is important that you do the core aeration, and I always recommend doing a compost top dressing on top of it all. And the name I couldn't think a while ago was Greenpro. The folks at Greenpro they know what they're doing when it comes

to core aeration. I mean they've been doing this for a while. They are experts at it, and you're just going to find that when Greenpro comes in and they do a core aeration for you, you have success. They make it where the grass has the best chance in the world to grow, absolute best chance in the world. Cool. Well, I'll give them a call because I've done it, you know, rented the machine and done it. But it's just the ones that pokes holes and it didn't seem to do

is good a job. So I was wanting to try that and try to give this yard a chance after Yeah. Yeah. The equipment they use is it's very expensive equipment because it does the job right. I mean it does a whole you know, it corroorates a little bit deeper into the soil. And uh. They also with the compost top dressing. It's good. You can go online, by the way, you're talking about, give them a

call Greenpro dot net. I would go to Greenpro dot net or if you want to give them are it's two eight one three five one forty seven thirty three yeah, forty three. Yeah. Well, I certainly appreciate it. All right, thank you. I appreciate that show. Thank you. Keep good word. That's the plan, all right, all right, you take care? Yeah, boy, I can't believe I go blank. Just the opportunities that we have here in Houston for quality care of all our plants,

our trees, our lawns and things like that. That's really cool. And if you if you've got a law that's struggling during due to compaction, I would I would definitely give the folks at Greenpro a call. Uh head out now to Conroad and we're going to talk to Bill. Hello. Bill, I get a real quick question. I've got some old fertilizer. It's twelve twenty four to twelve, and I look at your schedule and I'm kind of going, Okay, I guess now is it decent time to use? It

doesn't sound like it's a good summer or even spring kind of fertilizer. Yeah. And the second question is how old's too old for fertilizer? Oh? In that twelve twenty four twelve, it's fine. I don't know. I mean, I guess under certain storage conditions you're gonna you're gonna maybe get some of the nitrogen volatilizing or something like that. But I wouldn't worry about. I'm a good and use what you got. I don't normally recommend it unless

a soil test indicates a lack of phosphorus in the soil. If you want to do it once there's you know, you're not going to hurt anything. But if you year after year go That's why our fertilizer recommendations generally through the course of the spring through summer season or very low phosphorus, just because it builds up over time. And that's why I don't recommend it. But if you want to go ahead and put it out now, let's see twelve twenty

four to twelve, that would be seven ten. I would put eight or nine pounds of that down probably let me go a little lower. Let me go six to eight pounds of that putting on your lawn right now per thousand square feet per thousand Yes, sorry, all right, pretty good, all thank you. You met appreciate that call very much, very very much. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of ways to go about putting nutrients on the lawn, and one of the best ways I think that you can

do it it is through an organic fertilizer such as Microlife. Microlife fertilizers are chocked full of microbes and that is really important. They also have the nutrient

blends and ratios that do so well here in our soils. Of those of you who've used Microlife for years attest to me that you know, here comes fall season and they're just not seeing the brown patch just by creating a healthy lawn full of microbes, full of organic matter, building the soil better and better and better, and you just kind of put the grass in a state where some of these issues just don't really show up. They have an ultimate, by the way, the Microlife Ultimate, that's a blue bag. It

is an eight four six fertilizer. And then they've got the Microlife Ocean Harvest and you've heard me talk about that one a lot. But that's a fish based fertilizer. And when you're putting in a plant, a new plant, you can put these. Normally, we don't add fertilizer to the planting hole but you can add a little mix it in with the soil you're filling back in if you want, or just fertilize on top. And they just really help that tree, shrub rose, bush, whatever you're doing, they just

help it to get established better. And both the Microlife Ultimate which is the Blue Bag eight four six, and the molt the Microlife Ocean Harvest which is also the Blue Bottle. They're available widely across town and you can go to Microlifefertilizer dot com where you can find out where they're available and learn more about them as well. Well, we're gonna have to run take a little break right here. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight

seventy four. Jess and Archie, you will be the first up when we come back on a beautiful Saturday morning. You're listening to garden Line and our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we're going to start off this section going out to Baytown to talk to Jess. Hello Jess, Thank good morning, scamp. I just moved in to a house and the yards overgoing Virginia button weed. I wondering what you can

recommend to get rid of that stuff. Let's see Saint Augustine lawn. Yes, sir, okayy, sir, I would say probably I would do Celsius. That works pretty well. Virginia buttonweed is hard to control. It's very it's very difficult, difficult to control, and so I think Celsius is going to do as good as anything for you and the home market. That is, you mix it up and you know, it comes in a little packet where you mix it up in water and spray it, and you're going to

have to redo it too. One spray, wait until you see growth in the spring, and then when you see growth in the spring, you see okay, there's button weed, go ahead and spray it. Then you're probably going to do something again about two or three weeks later to it as well. But just kind of watch how it goes. But the other thing with Virginia button weed just is do everything you can to not overwater. The more you keep the soil a little on the wet side, the more it proliferates.

And we'd rather slow it down a little bit. You can have a happy turf, a happy Saint Augustine with a lower amount of water and it helps not cause the button weed to just take over the world. Yeah, because it's it's like almost a whole turf's almost Virginia buttonweed right now. It's pretty bad. They have a big care of it a long time, so I know, I know, I hate, I hate those situations, but a lot of people have that and they have to deal with it. But

yeah, I would I would do that. I would do the Celsius, I think is going to be your best bet. There's some others that will knock it back a little bit. Now. There's one called speed Zone Southern that's pretty good, but I think the Celsius do a little better. Sounds great. Well, thank you for your helping enjoy the show. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. That is. Let's see, let's go out to pair Land now and we're going to talk to Archie. Hello Archie,

morning Skip. I wanted to I wanted to call in this morning and kind of throw out a little information. We're having next Saturday, October twenty eighth at the bel Air Civic Center on seven thousand and eight South Rice Avenue in bel Air. We're having the South Central District Rose Convention and the Houston Road Society is sponsoring that. We're going to have two seminars, one at ten

thirty growing successful Roses and containers. Donald Berger, a master rosarian, is going to present that and then at eleven ten propagation with the pros and Rose Cutting Exchange. It'll they'll be people. Yeah, it sounds like a great event. And I was talking to somebody the other day about Rose Society event and said, yeah, give us a call. Let's talk about that. How do people that aren't rose growers? How do they get involved in this?

Maybe they have a rosebush or they want to learn more. What does it cost them and what? You know? We'll go ahead viewing viewing starts. The viewing is open to the public and it starts at twelve thirty till three pm, and they can just come, there's no cause. But if they want to go to the seminars starting at ten thirty that morning, the cost is five dollars and that's for both seminars and the propit. That's you can hardly you spend more on a cup of coffee on the way to the

event than Oh. You're right, you're right. And there's going to be people from three states exhibiting their roses Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. There may actually be some people coming to even exhibit that's not in those three states, but we know we're and you'll see roses that you normally don't see because some of these people have propagated roses that may not even be on the market anymore. That's cool. Well, now we have to have a disclaimer,

Argie, and that is that roses are addictive and sore. If you go to this thing, we are not responsible for what happens. After all, after I got married in nineteen seventy eight, I bought three roses Love, Honor and Cherries that came out from I leave. It was Week's nursery that time, and from there on, you know, you just add more and more roses. Well, there will be there will be a cutt exchange. So after you've attended that class of how to propagate them, you may come

away with some cuttings from roses. Oh my gosh. All right, real quick, tell us again the time and the location for people that are interested. It's going to be at the bel Air Civic Center on seven thousand and eight South Rice Boulevard, bell Air, Texas. And if they want to go to our website. They can get that information too. And the seminars began at ten thirty successful Growing Roses in Containers, Donald Berger, a master

rosarian and just in general times. It starts at ten thirty the seminars, right, and the next one is the eleven ten. The five dollars gets you into both and then and at twelve thirty till three the actual you can go in and see the roses that are being exhibited and the arrangements. There will be arrangements. They'll be also a photos of people who are entering, the photos of their rose gardens and stuff. Okay, so there'll be a

lot to see. Sounds like it. All right. We'll say hi to all the rose folks for me, and I appreciate the call, Thank you very much. I'm going to get on here to another car, Yes, sir, take care. We're going to go now to clear Lake and talk to Mario. Hello, Mario, Hey skip, Sorry my phone checked out on me and I was away from the radio. I just need a replacement for the Japanese blueberry. Okay, that looks like it, but it's a

little bit more hearty, you know, because I don'm losing those. Yeah, yeah, right, Well, when you say looks like it, I don't know if I can give you looks like it, but I know that some of the upright types of you pond plant it close enough can make a wall of foliage. The Anne La R. Stevens holly is a good one. If you can get that established, well, it'll do well in doing that. And then the Japanese you ye w jepanees you has long strappy leaves.

It's an evergreen, and it again forms a nice little wall if you're trying to block off a view. All right. Actually, actually I have it in the center of a plant, you know, a planning Oh okay, different, So you know I kind of like that upright look that gives it a little height. Yeah, yeah, well Japanese sounds good to me. Yeah, that would work, That would do well. I mean there are other things you could plant. You just have to trum them and trum

them to keep them in that shape. That's that's the true, right, exactly exactly. All right, Well, thank you so much for taking my call twice today. I really enjoy your show. Well, thank you. I appreciate that you take care. Good luck with it with those. Uh, let's see, let's go now out to Sandy and Cyprus. Hello, Sandy, high skip, good morning morning. I have a question. Can I spray name oil directly on my okrah that's coming that's so small, but

it's got a fids on it all over? You know, Sandy, you'd have to check the label. Is it labeled for vegetables or not to be sure. Here's what I do, and I had. It's strange with okra. You get aphids maybe on just a few plants here or there, one plant, and it's just not evenly. Is that how it is with yours? They're not on every plant. They're starting to get No, they're not on every okra, but it's more and more increasingly. Okay, it's well, and it's even on. But my flowers that are trying the bud,

Okay, they're all over those. Okay. Well, here's here's the thing. We're ochre is about done. I mean, yes, we have a few more weeks of harvesting and things. But I just take a strong blast of water and blast a whole bunch of them off and get the numbers down to where they're not a big problem. That's what I do. If you

want to go out there with a spray oil or insecticidal soap. Either one of those would work on controlling the aphis okay, all right, all right, that's what I want to do. No, thank you, you bet, I appreciate I appreciate that call very much. Well, you know, time, I don't know. It always seems to fly. They say time flies when you're having fun. I'm having some fun. All right, let's see, we're gonna go now to Galveston and we're gonna talk to Michael.

Hello, Michael, how are you today? I'm doing fun, sir. Your answer, fella, given the name of a store in Leaks City, there's no store that handles a product you recommend. And he said League City Feed, And he said, I could get the phone number from that one. Okay, you know any lace in Texas City that would be nice too, because that's just a stone throw. Let me just let me just give you League City fee. Here's the phone number two eight one three eight who

O T you? Eight one three three two three three two one six one two one six one two two eight one three three two one six one two that's it. And if you haven't been there before, it's on Highway three, a few blocks south of Highway ninety six. Okay, yeah, well I on my way to tax Leak City there you go to know, all right, well, thank you, and they'll know all about the product, you bet, they all on what I need to put out and all that.

Absolutely all right, Well you take care of Michael. Thank you very much for that call. I appreciate that. Hey, guess what at eleven thirty today, I'm going to be an Enchended Gardens in Richmond. That's on FM three point fifty nine up Kaiti direction. So anyone outside west of town there, come out and see me at a Jana Garden's Richmond. Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on

this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richter. It's crazy trip. Just watch him as so many things up. Basic. Well, good morning on a gorgeous Saturday. Welcome to Garden Line. If you'd like to give us a call, write this number down seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, or if you like letters seven one three two one two k t r H, you can get a hold of us that way as well. The folks at Nitrofoss have their Fall Texas three step

package ready to go. What is the three step? I know about Texas two step. Some of you grew up doing the two step. Well, the three step is a fertilizer, a weed control, and a fungicide, three different products, all packaged together, all used at about the same time. Really, the fertilizer Nitrofoss falls special. You need to get that on

now. You need to get it on so as many weeks as possible that lawn can take up those nutrients and get stronger going into the winter because the high potassium levels and the lower nitrogen levels are ideal for just that to happen, and it comes out stronger in the spring. Is a result. Number two. The barricade, that is the pre emergent grassy weeds and broad leaf weeds are controlled. You put it down, you water it in about a half inch of water, and it just goes to the surface and forms a

barricade that prevents weed seeds from ever getting a start. And then third, Nitrofoss Eagle turf fungicide, Well, that soaks into the tissues of the grass and when a disease comes along, you already have been ahead of it, and that disease has trouble establishing things like brown patch, for example, or

take all root rot. Once our nights are consistently down around fifty five degrees, take all root rot gets really happy at that point in time, and it's looking for the opportunity to get into your grass plants one two, three Texas three step fall special barricade nitrofoss Eagle, Now where do you get these warren? Southern Garden out in Kingwood has them Ace Hardware over in Sinco Ranch or the Grower's Outlet in Willis. All of those are places where you can

find nitro foss. Not the only places, though, it is widely available around town. Let's head out now to Missouri City if I can find my little clicker there, and we're going to talk to Paul. Hello, Paul, Yeah, good morning. Skip two questions. When is the best time to do tree trimming, Well, it depends on how much you need to do. You can trimetry any month of the year. We do most of our pruning in mid to late winter, but a lot of folks once they

you know, cools off, tree gets a little dormant. They will do a little bit of pruning in the fall as well. But you know, if you need massive amounts, let's say, a major pruning job, I'd do it in midwinter. Do it in the in the winter, yes, h huh. Yeah, okay for a lot of pruning. But again for a lot of trimming. Yeah, if you just need to remove a lem here there, we can do that a lot of times there. Yeah, okay, okay. Now the other question is regarding a pineapple plant. I

bought one in the midsummer. It was a very nice little plant, put it in a big pot and it grew a little bit. But at one point when it got nice and ripe, I had really no intention to harvest it myself, but some cruter or something got to it and ate it. But my wife foot took the top of it. I guess the crown put it in water, and now a root system has developed. Now can I plant that? Yes? Absolutely, you plant that. That is how a

homeowner level. That is how you would propagate a pineapple is by cutting the top off, getting all the juicy pineapple e parts away from the base, and just at the very base where those little leaves go into the top rootel farm and once they're formed to go ahead and pot it up because you can you can have another pineapple from that new plant. Okay, great, So what is the best mix then for that The best just a quality potting soil.

They're not really picking. They just a good quality potting soil would be just fine for those Okay, okay, well, all good news, Thank you so much. Well, thank you. I appreciate, appreciate your call very much. If you're on what is it called Tomball Parkway, Tomball Parkway, going north toward Tomball direction, you're going to run across a really special nursery and that is called Plants for All Seasons. Plants for All Seasons is

just north of where Luetta comes into Tomball Parkway. And I mean just go there and look. You'll see what I'm talking about. Wide selection, beautiful, beautiful plants. If you want your fall and winter landscape to look good, pull in. Talk to them. They have folks that know what they're talking about. Sherry, and really the whole family. You know, this has been what a family operation since nineteen seventy three. They absolutely are experts

and all kinds of things. Take them a sample in there, Take them a sample, say what is this? Take them a picture? What do I do about this? Or how about this? I need beautiful fall color in the landscape. What do you think are my best options? They can do all that and more at Plants for All Seasons. Plants for All Seasons dot com is the website the number two eight one, three, seven six,

sixteen forty six. Let's see, We're going to head out to Spring Branch now and talk to David. Hello, David, Hi, good morning, Thank you very much for taking my phone call. Yeah. I had a quick question Mike. You know where I could buy ten fifteen onions to grow them, particularly through your nurseries that you announced there. Have you have you done any Have you looked for them at any of those nurseries yet?

I did? I don't call Plants for All Seasons and they will have them maybe in about in a few days, and I you know, and I tied one night, I can't remember, and they will not have them until a couple of weeks from now. Yeah, well that's a fine time to plan them. I mean, it's not really a problem. You can even plant little bundles of those in January, get them in the ground or maybe yeah, January, I'd do it in January, get them in the ground

and get them going, so there's really no rush on those. You can you can do that. Those Those are good nurseries, you know, that provide what what you're looking for. But most of our most of our garden line, garden centers should should have those on hand. And the feed stores too. Feed stores are really good about having onions. That would that would typically be, if I'm not mistaken, the feed stores are generally going to have those in around sometime, you know, after the first of the year.

Okay, well, I thought it was argent to get them now you know otol of fifteenth, But are you saying I can wait a while. And thanks for bringing that up, David. That ten fifteen is why they call it the ten fifteen is because that's the date you plant seeds in the valley in the Texas Valley down south. So we're not the Texas Valley and you're not planning seeds. So that's why we take the little transplants, the little clusters of plants or and plant them in the January time, getting a

head start on the season. All right, that makes sense. I appreciate that you take care, appreciate the call. Hey, it's time for a break. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, good morning on a gorgeous Saturday morning. You're listening to garden Line and our

phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you are, if you've got one of these landscapes that summer just wiped out sections, maybe of the lawn, maybe certain shrubs or trees or other things, or struggling, you need to give Pierscapes a call because they number one. They know how to design here, They know how to what plants to include for here. Give them a call and say, look, I need something that's dropped tolerant, I need a bed redesigned us talk about this or

that. They can do it all. And maybe you want an outdoor patio in the backyard something like that. Maybe your irrigation system needs work. Boy, did we learn about our inefficiencies and irrigation this summer where some parts of the yard were green and other parts didn't quite get enough water. Well, just go to pierscapes dot com. Pierscapes dot com. They do everything like that and more and they can turn your place. It's a turnkey job. You sit down with them, you plan it out, and they turn it

into a masterpiece. That's what they do. Two eight one, three, seven oh five zero six zero. They've been around since nineteen eighty eight and they have been creating beauty. Beth Way, go to that website purescapes dot com. You get some pictures of the kind of work that they've done in the past. Let's head out to bell Air and talk to Beth. Hello, Beth, good morning, Thank you for taking my call. You Bet,

I have a beautiful three story oak tree in my front yard. Unfortunate when they put the twenty plus years ago put the sidewalk in, they put it too close to the tree, and now it's breaking up the sidewalk. The roots are right and I need to redo it, Okay. Is there any way to I mean, there are roots all over the front yard going either to the street or to my driveway, no matter how I reroute the

sidewalk. Is there any way to protect those roots our special formulation put down gravel or is there some way to redo that and protect my tree without cutting roots? Because I won't do that. Yeah, rerouting the sidewalk as much as possible. That would be an option. Getting it further away from the tree. You know, when you get real close to the tree, I mean it almost tilts at an angle because you know, close to the tree is where the root is bigger, and as you get further away so much.

But rerouting would be an option. You certainly could do something where you you put it a little bit above the ground level, just a little bit, by bringing in some material and raising it up a little bit. Someone who knows how to poor sidewalks ought to be able to help you with that. The alternative to that really is just to selectively remove some roots from the

area, but they're just going to grow back. And I hear from your words that you don't want to get involved in that and that sort of Oh no, this is a beautiful tree, and no, I'd go sidewalkless, right, Well, is this a public sidewalk where no, No, we don't have sidewalks on our street in bel Air and it's just going out to the street. But I was going to try and reroute it to my driveway

like a lot of people do now. But even rerouting it, there will be some route gotcha, and I just want to protect them as much as possible. All right, Well, here's an idea, just a thought.

You can use those little metal borders they go around beds, you know what I'm talking about, the little yes I do, And you could put two of those sidewalk with the part and put a stepping stone like material in there, maybe fill in in between them with some decomposed granite or lay those stones on a decomposed granite base, and then if there was some movement, it wouldn't be like you cracked your sidewalk. I mean, you know you could.

You'd have a little room for some adjustment there. So that may be something that works for you. Okay, I'll give Do you know anybody who specializes in protecting trees with sidewalks or well affordable tree could advise you on what you're doing in terms of how it affects the tree or what you might want

to try elsewhere. I know Piercecapes does all kinds of landscape, from you know, concrete patios to just stones that are laid as a walking waystone kind of like what I just described, so you might want to try them as well. Okay, I really appreciate your show, and I've enjoyed listening and getting some hints for my gardening. Well, thank thank you so much. You have a good rest of your day. Appreciate that very much. When you want a quality roof, Brinkman is a company that does it. I

mean, we're talking about a company that's been around for fifty years. We're talking about a company that warrants their work for twenty five years. We're talking about a company that's won the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award in twenty twenty two. That is service that is making sure we're using quality products, we're doing it right, and our customers are happy. That's that's their perspective. Brinkman's Total Timberline Solar Shingle is a shingle. It's a roof panels that are your

roof, not on your roof, and they make energy for you. So next time we're sitting through one of these summers and the sun is baking down, be kind of nice to know at least you getting some electricity out of the deal. Right. They're full service. They do residential commercial. Give him a call two eight one, four eight oh seventy six sixty three or Brinkman Quality dot Com on the web. Let's head out now to John in Sour Lake. Hello, John, Yes, as I will say about a

plant, a dwarf citr trace all right? Uh, what's our pots? Would I make? Tell me about the citrus you're gonna plant? Uh? We hope find a dwarf satsuma. The satsumas are themselves a smaller statued plant, but I don't know of a variety of satsuma that's dwarf. Uh. Satsuma is going to take a little more soil. And here's the thing. The smaller your pot is, the more you're watering and fertilizing, trying to keep it from going into stress, especially the watering. So we try to

get him as big as we can. I've seen satsumas in something that's the equivalent, John, of a half whiskey barrel. Don't plant them in anything wood like a whiskey barrel. It'll rode away. But if you can get about that volume of soil, Hey, could you turn your radio down a little bit for me? If you can get to Okay, if you can get the volume of soil of a half whiskey barrel, you'd probably do a

satsuma in that rate. You can do any citrus in that well, any any small statuard ceterrus, like if you're gonna do a little lime tree or myr lemon or you know, those kinds of things you can do in a that amount of soil half whiskey barrel. But how much sun would they need? As much as you can give them. They'll tolerate a little bit of shade. It's one of the few fruit plants that I would say if you got some marginal amount of sun, they could probably do okay for you.

But everything wants full sun when it comes to fruit, all right, And when's a good time to start draft drafting? So are you going to graft the plants yourself? Well, I was gonna try to, but okay, I a little bit. Yeah. You can go online and just do a search for citrus grafting. There's a lot of good information out there. Uh

And it depends on the kind of graph you're doing. There's the uh tea buds or one way we do it where we have we want our plants the bark to be we say slipping, meaning if you if you broke a branch, it would strip as you try to pull it away the bark is loose on the wood. Then there's a cleft graph that we would do, uh at any time, really a cleft graph where you split, you cut off the trunk, split the trunk and slip the sion the grafting grafted variety in

there. Yeah, my daughter had a set. Some of it froze and it's got all the new growth going below the yes, yes, yes, yeah, just I didn't know if I could graft to the You can the new growth or just go back to the root. You can? No, you the new growth, the rootstock that's sprouting, you can graft to that. You sure can. Hey, John, I got to run, But good luck with that out there. There is a website at the Aggie Horticulture

website. There's something called patio Citrus. Just do a search for that and I think that'll help you a lot. Appreciate that call. Buchanan's Garden Center is always a fun place to visit because you never know what's going to be going on there. I mean they have activities going on all the time. As Speaker's coming in, I know November eighth, they're going to have a book signing when Nicole Burke and that'll be fun to get out and do that.

But when it comes to native plants, they just have an unbelievable selection. Lots and lots of native plants. Maybe you I just kind of get a little cooler at night. How about a chimenea on the patio, Well they have that and pinion wood to go with it. On top of it all, they got bulbs. They got every kind of plant you can imagine. Really one of the best selections of house plants that I've seen. Wide variety of house plants at Buchanans as well. You know you've probably been to

Buchanans before, but they're at East eleventh Street in the Heights. Or you could just go to Buchanansplants dot com and find out more about what's going on. Sign up for their newsletter. It's really excellent, excellent newsletter that they have there. Let's go to Pleasantville and talk to Deborah. Hello, Debrah, Hello, Skip, good morning, good morning. Quick questions, my take all patch in my grams. I've done the na Foster three step.

I'm curious about this peat moss application. Okay, should I do that? You sertainly can give it a shot. If you've already done the fungicide. We wouldn't want to put the peed on and then spray it because this pray would end up on the peat rather than on your plant parts in the grass. Here's what you do. You buy a compressed bale of pete moss. It's kind of like a hay bale, but wrapped in plastic, and it's almost it's almost hard because it's so compressed. One bail they it's a three

point eight cubic foot bail is spread over about a thousand square feet. You can put more than that, a little more than that if you want, but that's about the rate that was done in the research at A and M, where they found that it helped you put it on now and then you watered in just a little water just to kind of move it down to the root system or around the runners. And it has done a pretty good job

of suppressing pete moss. I don't generally recommend it because of the cost and the messiness and pete being a somewhat limited resource, but that research has shown that works pretty good. Okay, I'm gonna try it, so I have a new person coming in for you, a new homeowner and a new dad. He's going to buy that it chanted garden stop by. Oh my gosh. Oh Skip. Also, I'll go in a hole. I'll know him

when I see him, telling him to bring ten names. Yep. And because we're not getting ready to go to mine May Park to set up for the day. Oh my goodness, Oh my well, that sounds like a fun thing too. Hey, thanks for the call, Debra. I appreciate that very much. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four if you'd like to give us a call. And now it's time for the Nicky News Network. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your

host, Skip Richter. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. For those of you who are interested in downloading a copy of one of my two lawn schedules, all you have to do is go to my website and it's easy to remember. Gardening with Skip. That's me gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com. The laun care schedules up there. All the fertilizing you need to do through the year, organic, synthetic, whatever you want to you, it's up there.

How to water properly, micronutrient applications, aeration and compost, top dressing, the whole thing. It's up there. And then the other one is the Lawn pest, Disease and weed Management Schedule, and it talks about some of the different things when they occur during the year and what some of your options. Again, organic and synthetic both are for dealing with those. You know,

Nelson's Fertilizer has been around for forty years now. They have their anniversary just the other day, October fourteenth, as matter of fact, and they've created so many great lines of products. You know, Nelson's does have the Turf Star that we talk about all the time, the nutri Star, the Color Star, and their organic Nature Star line. Right now, the Nelson's product that you need to put your honed in focus on is carbo Load. Carbo Load is made for fall. This is the time, in fact,

right now is the time. I wouldn't hesitate at all to get it down because here's why. It's also got a pre emergent herbicide in it, and when you apply it and water it in, that pre emergent herbicide goes to the soil surface and prevents weeds from getting established. When it cools off in the fall, which we're there, weed seeds begin to germinate, especially as we go through October and November. Those are prime months. But they'll keep

germinating. And that's why I say, don't delay, go ahead and get it done. It's got the right blend of nutrients. It's an excellent product. And here's here's the bonus. Every bag they sell Nelson's is going to donate two dollars to Randy's Memorial Scholarship, the Horticulture Student Scholarship up at Texas A and M. A good cause and a great fertilizer. And so I

highly recommend you do not delay, because he who hesitates is lost. As they say, let's go out to Beaumont and we're going to talk to Donna. Hello, Donna, hikki. I'm concerned about my Mexican petunia player. Okay, a couple of a probably a month or so ago. I thought somebody could splattered paint all over it. And I was going to out see

what had been painted. But it's not that. It looks like a white, very thin layer of celt all over the lead on the top side of the leaves, and if I'm very careful, I can kind of scratch it off a little bit. Yeah, that there are different things that can cause that on a Mexican petunia. The fact that you're saying white, I'm trying to think of what the diseases that Mexican petunia gets. I've seen something like

that on them before. But here's the thing. If I were you, once we get into some cold weather, I would cut them back to the ground. Now, is this a little short type that's only about six eight inches high or is this a knee high to waist high type? No? Yes, this is the tall which it has been my best plant through the very hot summer, very hot. Yeah it is. But you know, just be careful because it wants to take over the world, and so you kind of to keep an eye on that. I would cut the whole thing

down to the ground. There's that's a good way to do it anyway in the winter time, and believe me, you are not going to hurt it one bit. It'll bounce back up and we get a little warmer weather with fresh new growth. It's not going to do much in the winter anyway, And just get all that material out of there when you cut it back and discard it. Normally I say, let let's, you know, recycle organic matter. But in this case, let's just get it out of here.

Make sure that. Okay, bag it and trash. Yeah, bag it and trash here, just to be sure. And if it comes back again next season, would you give me a call and we'll go a little further into it. I'll take a look at the photo, but right now, if I identified it, I wouldn't tell you to spray it, not at this time. Okay, Well, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you, Donna. I appreciate your call very much. Let's see, we're going to go now to the heights, so we're going to talk to Mike.

Hello, Mike, good morning, Good by you, sir. I'm well, thank you great. I've got a question. I heard you mention that Craig Myrtles, there is such thing as a three footer, you know, on three feet didn't get much bearer than three feet? Yes, who did you say was a source for those? Oh boy, you're going to have to just call and ask around. Uh, you're in the heights there, you're real close to Buchanans. That'd be an easy one to start with

checking. Uh, you might going up Tombo Parkway. The the plans for all seasons pretty close to you. There arbigade plans for all season Arbigate on Tomball carries a lot of those kinds of things, and I'm leap. I'm forgetting one hundred different garden centers. Oh RCW, I forgot RCW. I would definitely call them our nose. Yeah they do. I just don't know what those carry. But if you do that thing that I said, do a search for skip Richter and great Myrtle, you'll find that chart and at

least you'll have a few a few varieties. There's probably a lot of newer ones that I didn't get on the chart back when I did it. But yeah, give those calls. Do they grow not any taller than three feet of somebody? Yeah? They Some of them are real dwarfs. I remember. Now there's the names remind you of New Orleans, And I don't know how to describe it further than that. But you know, I don't know what then. I don't want to say names because I don't know what the

actual ones are. I just remember it's southern. It reminds me of Southern, like New Orleans area. But hey, just call them up. They'll know what they have, okay. And they do come in red or white. The dwarfs I know are in red. I can't, off the top of my head tell you the color range on those pink. I know they're pink too. There's probably a white one. I just would think there is. Okay, Skip, that's valuable information. I sure appreciate it. Thank

you so much for you, Thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. You know, I talk about a lot of different products here on garden Line, and where do you go to get all those things? Well, if you're looking for a place where you can be by any fertilizer, we talk about any insecticide, fungicide, herbicide. You want synthetic, you want organic, ready to use or mix up. Southwest Fertilizer Southwest Fertilizer dot Com is a website. They're down there in Southwest Houston, corner of

bissin Ut and Renwick. But they have an eighty foot long wall of tools. I mean it's on and on and on, you know, by a fertilizer spreadder. They got them there. They have everything there. In fact, I like to say if Southwest Fertilizer doesn't have it, you don't need it. Southwest Fertilizer dot com check them out. We're going to take a break right now, and our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four or two one two kt RH. Give Josh a call and

you'll be first up when we come back. Good Saturday morning, on a beautiful Saturday morning. For a gardening, for getting out and shopping for some garden products. Fall is for planting. Fall is for planting. Hey, if you'd like to give us a call seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I wish that I could bottle up spring fever, because we have plenty in the spring. Bottle it up and put it in the water supply for fall. Because fall is the best planning season of the

year. If you're planning woody ornamentals like tree shrubs and woody vines and rose bushes. This is the time ground covers, perennial groundcovers, perennial herbs, flowering perennials, perennial grasses, just on and on down the line. Fall is the best time to plant these. We have a mild climate here, and those roots from the plants you plant October November, for example, you

plant December too, they're just going to be growing through the wintertime. Not rapidly but just a little bit, but they will be ahead and they will do so much better as a result of that. And when we have summers like we had this year where it was hard to keep a new plant alive due to the heat and the drought, the fall planted plants have the edge, and that it's not a huge difference, but it's a significant difference, and I highly recommend you consider fall planting. And so before we plant,

what do we do we take care of our soil. Right, by the time you put a plant in the ground, you're eighty percent of the way to success or failure. That Think about that a minute. Eighty percent. Now, why would I make such a bold statement. What about fertilizing it and watering it and pest control and stuff. Yeah, yeah, okay, I get it. Eighty percent by the time you walk away. Why, you've picked a variety and a species and it's either going to be adapted to

here or it's not. You've picked a site that is either sunny or shady or somewhere in between, and the plant's going to have an opinion about that, and you've also prepared the soil or not. Does it need a raised bed for drainage? Boy? Does that ever matter? If it does, it's the bad drained spot. Does it need to have that soil loosen? Boy, if you have anything close to a clay, you've got to get some organic matter and some shale in the ground to loosen that soil up and

to give that plant success. Soil, soil, soil, It all begins in the soil. That is so important. And I know it's easy to get excited about a big giant hibiscus bloom. Not so easy to get excited about a little bit of soil, a little bit of compost. Maybe some people do. I do. But what do you do? Where do you get it? You get it from Heirloom Soils And they have a huge fall special, a really big deal. They're veggie and herb mix and their rose

sooil are both on fall special when you purchase a significant amount. And here's what I mean by a significant amount. If you buy it by the cubicyard bulk, the veggie and herb soil, it's one hundred and nineteen dollars if you want them to bring a supersack and set it in your driveway. Delivered one hundred and forty eight dollars for the supersac. If you want rose sooil, it's seventy dollars per cubicyard bulk and ninety nine dollars for the supersac.

Now, any way you want to go. If you're putting in a bed, you need more than just a few bags of soil. What a deal from Heirloom Soils. You can go out to their porter location. You can pick it up out there. But hey, just do this. Go to heirloomsoilsoftexs dot com airloomsoilsoftexes dot com. You can find out everything about it right there. But don't delay. Now's the time to build the soil, because now's the time to plant. And so we got to get going on this

stuff if we want to have success. Out to McAllen and talked to Al. Hello, Al, good morning, good morning. Let me ask you a question, is this like McAllen in the valley or where are you? Oh? Yes, uh yeah, real grand valley. Do you get the system? Do you get the signal? Oh, you're just one not iHeart not by radio. Okay, I got you all right, Well, enough of that. How can I help you? We can pick up some of it, but it trist sent them out. Yeah, okay, But what

I asked is I had bought from Randy Levin. Uh he was at one of the shows, and uh my sister in law took us out there and we bought a couple of bags of the leaf with the heritage. Uh and and also the medina asked you grow and I haven't used all of it. I've used about half the bottle. Okay. Since I heard you earlier say that you're going to see the Medina man, I was going to see. Well, ask him how long this stuff lasts? Is it? Whether he gets so old just throw it away or dump it out on a planet or

something. Yeah, I would go ahead and use it. How long something lasts is really dependent on storage conditions and if it gets blazing hot and the shed outdoors versus sitting in maybe your laundry room indoors or something. There's a big difference there. Yeah. I have a screen in port and it's sitting on a shelf out right out there in the air. All the time, okay, and it has she it's it's not in the sun. Well I would, I would go ahead and use it. I would just use it.

I mean, it's not going to hurt anything. I guarantee you that, you know, and so as far as I can't like crystal ball, what condition it's in right now, but I would use it. And you're too far away to drive up or we just you could be part of that giveaway that we got going on today. Yeah, yeah, Well we've got a lot to do here. We have a little few animals to take care of. I bet you do. Hey, Yeah, Medina is a great product, so I would I would just go ahead and use it. Sounds

great. Thank you for your help, all right, thank you, al, I appreciate that, and thanks for listening down there in Medeen and McAllen Texas well, you've been listening to the guarden line. We're going to go a little bit longer here, but we are here to help you have a beautiful garden and a bountiful landscape. That's what we do, and I've talked

about various things today. We always spend a lot of time on the lawn because that's the elephant in the room when it comes to our gardening and landscape care and whatnot that we have out there. We talked a little bit about trees and importance of trees. By the way, if you're planting a tree, pull it when you pull it out of the container. If you see roots going in a circle, go ahead and cut them. You can just

use your hand pruners and cut them. If something is just like a little lets see about a one gallon shrub, you can use a box cutter knife. It's got a little one inch blade you push out and cut vertically from top to bottom through the root ball a root cylinder, three places all around the root cylinder. Oh my gosh, I'm killing my plant. No you're not. If you come back in two weeks, you will see fresh white roots already growing on that root system. And circular roots don't unwind underground if

they're close enough to the trunk. If let's say it's a one gallon container, When that root gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and the trunk gets bigger and bigger and bigger, it's going to embed into the trunk and strangle it. And that by the time you see the problems above ground, in the way the plant looks. It's too late. It's too late to do so just cut those circling roots. It actually helps the plant establish better. Just if you pruned off the end of a limb, what would happen.

You'd get two or three buds that break, and now you've got new shoots coming out from the end of the limb. Well, our hair's a good example. We gripe about crape murder all the time. Well, what happens when they top a myrtle tree? You just get this crows foot of a mess going out in all directions. Well, when you cut a root, you're going to get that sprouting and it's going to go out in the soil and establish better. Watered in with medina has to grow for example, that's

a good product for doing that. We have a lot of great products, anything with fisher moulsion and seaweed, any kind of a product that has enhanced microbial activity, those are all good. Don't put fertilizer in the planting hole. If it's an organic fertilizer, you can and it won't burn the roots.

But I think unless your soil is just really poor, I would just suggest mixing fertilizer all through the area before you dig the planting hole, and then continue adding fertilizer to the surface and scratch it in a little bit. When you do that, it's going to work its way down in the soil and help the root system as well. Now Here we are in the fall planting season. When you dig the hole, if it's in a clay soil,

not just have a slick sided clay soil. Make the hole a little bigger, take your shovel and chop at the edges of the hole to kind of make it an ugly, irregular hole. All of those kind of things help. I will often take a spading fork and push it in the ground outside of the hole after I've plant it and break loose that soil kind of you're just pulling back on the top of the handle a little bit to sort of fracture the soil unto there, and it just loosens it up a little

bit. I know, digging a hole two to three times the root ball size is tough. Your chiropractor is excited because he's got some kids to put through college. But whatever you do, you want to loosen that soil up a little bit. Water it in as you fill the soil that you took out of the hole. Do not put potting soil or any kind of bed. Make sure any of that stuff in the hole. That doesn't help. If you want to mend the soil, amend it through a large area and

then dig the hole in plant. Those are some tips for having success. We want you to have some says. Hey, I'm about to head out to Enchented Gardens out in Richmond. They are on FM three point fifty nine, like you're heading up to Katie Direction. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. We're going to be giving away what five different kinds of several bags and containers and bottles of various Medina products while we're out there,

Andy, the rep from Medina, will be there as well. But the main reason you want to come out there is because Chened Gardens is just a great place to go and shop. You're going to find a lot of stuff. I hope you joined me. Don't forget to bring samples or pictures so I can help you even further.