Put Nature to Work for You

my gosh, it was incredible. Nice nice day. So thanks for folks at Arbrogate, for Beverly and all the team there for having me out. Had a good time. Thanks for everybody that came out too. I enjoyed visiting with you. And it's always kind of fun when people come up

to ask questions. Happens on the radio too, of course, but you know someone's walking toward you that you eye contact ice meat, and all of a sudden they reach in their persure their pocket and out comes this little zip lock bag with plant material in it, and it's kind of like a mystery gift, you know, you open it up and let's see what this one is. And so we had some really good, really good questions that came out as well. So anyway, I have to I

have a confession to make this morning. My garden needs help. It needs me to actually be a gardener, not just a guy who talks to other people and helps them with their garden. And so that is my plan for this week. I've got a number of projects that we're working on, a lot of planting that still needs to be done. And you know, the sooner you plant, the better off you're going to be because it's easier when plants have a little bit of a head start on

the heat. You can plant on the hottest day of the year in the middle of summer, but it's touch and go. You got to keep that root ball moist without keeping it too wet. And think about that. So when the pot you bought from the nursery, the container, when it goes in the ground, that whole root system is still You might as well have just stuck the pot in the ground because that's where all the roots are, so when you water, you need to think about that

water in that little area. And now does that mean you drench it every day? No, you will kill a plant that way, especially in a clay soil because think about this. Dig a hole in a clay soil and fill it full of water. Does it all run right out? Of course not. It sits there, and it sits there and it's it's there. It takes a long time for water to move out of a clay and when you put a plant in the ground in a clay hole,

that is what happens. So you you've kind of got to, uh do some bed prep ahead of time to have good success. And that would mean uh, mixing some organic material down into the soil. If you're putting in a raised bed, get you a good quality bed mix, put it on the ground and go for it that way. Uh you know, make then dig the hole. Okay, then you're digging a hole into mixed soil and things are just going to go better. And some plants just absolutely can't take wet feet and we can put we can

plant those. I like to say plant them on top of the ground. And by that what I mean is imagine that You're going to put in a zella in the ground, for example, and you got this clay hole. Uh, And it's like, nah, that's that's not good long term, probably going to stay too well down there. So you set the azella on top of the ground and then you bring a bed in around it. Now that that is a little bit of a ridiculous example, but it creates the mental picture that I want to create with you,

is your plant is above the soil level. What I'll usually do is spread out some good quality bed mix, mix it in a little bit with the soil that I have. That creates kind of a transition zone. So it's not like you're going from potting soil to solid clay and then continue filling the bed with the bed mix and then dig the hole to plant the plant. But in essence, that plant is like above or a little bit at least above the original soil level. And that helps when we get our gully washers or frog

stranglers as they say. And it happens here, it sure does. Now in a container, you want a quality mix. And I talk about jungle land all the time, jungle land flour and vegetable planting soil goes into a good container, and a good container means that it has a drain holes and it has adequate volume of soil capacity to support that plant during the heat. The hotter it gets, the more water plants need. The container is the entire

root system of available soil and moisture. So I've had containers that had water twice a day because the plants were big, the containers were small, and it was hot, and you just need to think about that. The bigger your container, the better off you are. But Jungle lends a quality mix to put in there. It's got decomposed organic matter and four different sources of it actually Canadian blomb pede and microhizal fungi to help those plants thrive.

Now you can find nitro fross products like the Jungle Land distributed by Nitroros. You've fded plants and things at in Brennam. You head down to Clute, Dixie Drive, Lake Hardware, They've got it down there, Fishers Hardware and Baytown Alexander another place you find quality night foss products. I would encourage you this year. I always trying to give you some ideas or things like, hey, have you tried this have you considered this before, Consider some big beautiful mixed

container plantings. And I don't care if you go and, you know, get the most expensive, beautiful, giant glazed pottery in the world, or if you just get a big old black nursery bucket and plant in it. Get a big container and fill it full of mix and put different kinds of plants in it. And if you need inspiration, Arbrogate would be a good place for that. I was out there yesterday and they had combo planters that had

all kinds of different things in them. And you walk by and you look at it and you go, I like that, or you know what, I like that plant in it, But I like these over here too, and it's like it gives you inspiration. And a mixed planter is like bringing the garden beds right up to the house or bringing them to your patio. I have mixed planners for shady areas. I have mixed planners for sunny areas. You just choose the plants accordingly, and a quality nurse

she's going to help you do that. Like Arburgate, Arbrogate up and Tomball. For those of you who weren't out there yesterday, Arburgate is on twenty nine to twenty just west of Tomball and it's easy to get to and when you park, remember to park in the back. That's the best place to park out there. Also, I just want to tell you that next Saturday, May seventeenth, at ten am, Angela Chandler is going to be doing a program on tropical dazzlers. This would be a good one

for mixed containers too, or just single plant containers. Bold beauties, you know, like Allocasia and colocasia. Think about people call elephant ears that kind of plant kalladiums in a shady spot. Oh my gosh, you can have a gorgeous kalladium container Zantho soma. If you like showy plants thrive in our climate. It never gets too hot and humid for them. They laugh at that. They love that. Go to Angela's class

Tropical Dazzlers next Saturday ten am. All you do is call Arburgate and they'll tell you about it and get you signed up for it. It's a ten dollars per person and it's limited seedings, so don't delay. If you're interested, go ahead and give them a call. Time for me to go to a little break here when we come back, we'll talk to you perhaps. All right, y, welcome back on a good Sunday morning. Good to have you with us here and garden line. I want to ask you

to think about soil and nutrients a little differently. And here's what the It's a common concept that when I fertilize, I'm feeding my plants. So you know, it's like you give them a low fertilizer, they suck it up and grow and do whatever they do, and then you got to give them a little bit more and do that. Well, that does happen, But think instead, turn that around and

think of your soil as a bank account. And every nutrient and the soil that plants have to have, if it's not there in adequate quantities, it limits plant growth. There's twenty something nutrients that plants can take up and use, but if one of them is limited, that's as much as the plant can grow. So you're building the sole bank account when you fertilize. Some plants, some nutrients like

nitrogen go away. They don't stick around. They volatilize or taken up by microbes or washed away, and nitrogen especially, but others stick around a while. But it's the bank account you're trying to build. And if you fill that bank account with all the nutrients that the plants need, you're going to have plant success because when they want to make withdrawals, and they make them every day, they're there. Asamite is a trace mental supplement that does just set okay.

It has things like boron in it or you know other micro nutrients that you would never think, oh, I need to go fertilize my law with boron now. Azemite has the micros that they need. But it's building the bank account. That's why you can do it anytime of the year. You don't have to just do it during

fertilizer season. It's just easier when you're not fertilizing your lawn to go ahead and bring it, bring the hopper back, fill it up with as mite, and go out and do that again with the asmite Asmytexas dot Com for more information build your soul's bank account. Let's head out to a task Acita now and we're going to visit with Jim. Hey, Jim, welcome to Guardline.

I'll cut mine. I plan one the other day, and I cut it in three or four places vertically used a little box cutter knife. If it's bigger roots, you need little pruners in there, but don't be afraid to cut them. Just like if you cut a branch on a tree, what happens is it sprouts out two or three more branches from where you cut it. That's what happens in the ground, and it'll happen within a couple of weeks. It'll start sprouting new roots and those go

right out and establish faster. So don't be afraid to cut those, especially those circling roots.

different mixes. They have one called Garden Light Mix and it basically is a little higher and composted organic matter. Therefore it's a little bit lighter and so if you need something with some extra excellent drainage, it can do that. It's got lead, more composts in. It's got some topsoil and mortar sand just to provide good loose strangers beca. See, that's one that's one of the many products that they

carry there. It Nature's way. When you go talk to them, whoever you talk to there, you know, they've got a lot of folks that really know what they're doing. You talk to Ian, you can talk to Leo or some of the others, and you just say, look, this is what I want to grow. What do you recommend for that? And they're going to be able to tell you what to use and why. And you can do it by bulk. You can do it by the bag. You can go

pick it up, you can have it delivered. You can find the bags in a lot of garden centers around town. So just remember too that Fungal Friday. Every Friday is Fungal Friday. It's fungo based compost, which is a high quality organic product. Ten percent off bags, twenty percent off bulk at Nature's Way. Here's how you find out more about them, how to find them, how to get a hold of them, everything, Nature's Way resources dot com, Nature's

Way Resources dot com. Try it out. I I you know, I talk about all the time that if I'm recommending some product, it's because I've used it, and I just some of these, you know, natures we have so many products it takes a while to get through them all. But just picked up some other things the other day for some new beds. We're putting in a couple of new mulches. I hadn't tried from them, and we're trying those out now, just to make sure you know that

the claims are true. Of course, I have no doubt about that them being true. I just like to try it and you know what I find out when I and this is true. Now I've got book knowledge. I went to school, I got a master's in horticulture. I got the book knowledge. But it is it's on knowledge that is so very important, you know, I don't. I'm not dissing book not I'm just saying that when I try something, I learned things that I didn't know. I didn't know. You know, they say you don't know what

you don't know. That's true. So when I start trying something, it could be a new plant that I'm trying out, and I may have it in a little too much shade, or maybe I put it in more shade than I thought it would take, and it performs well, and I learned something, And I encourage you to do that out in your garden. There is no don't think about failing or not failing. Really believe me on that one. Don't think about failing or not don't worry about that. Do

everything you can to have success. But if something isn't doing good, it's okay. You've learned something, and oftentimes you can fix it. One time, I had a rose bush that was in a spot that was a little too shady, and it bloomed, but it was like, eh, not that great, Okay, So one fall I dug it up and I moved it to another spot that had more sun, and boy, it was happy there. And that's what I'm talking about.

You learn and you try new things, and you get better and you grow, and it's all part of the cultivating of the earth. And with all the wonderful plant options we have, oh my gosh, so many plants, so little time. That's how I like to look at it. Anyway, Yeah, there you go. Nitropas Superturf is their product for slow release summer fertilizing. And when I say slow release, I mean like sixteen weeks. It's going to be releasing nitrogen out slowly and it's got on the nutrients and as well.

It's a nineteen four to ten fertilizer. It's going to be releasing those out slowly over time during that period and you get nice even growth through your lawns. It's the silver bag from Nitrofoss. It's easy to find when you walk into a store. You're going to find night Foss products at places like Fisher's Hardware down there in Baytown in Angleton, in Lake Hardware, Angleton on Velasco. I go to Clare Lake M and D and Clare Lake on Bay Area Boulevard some other places you'll find nitropas,

superturf and other nitrofoss products. I need to get out and do some more land fertilizing. I haven't fertilized one of my lawns. Haven't fertilized in quite a while. And I say one because my lawn is a big experiment. I have four different kinds of grasses. I know you're thinking that must look horrible. No it doesn't. I have two Saint Augustine's in the front with a big driveway in between them, so you kind of don't. No, it's not like, you know, it looks like a checkerboard or anything.

But I'm learning about two new Saint Augustine varieties as a result of that. So there we go in the back, two different Soisier varieties, trying those out in some sunny spots, some shady spots. We have two golden retrievers, which when they talk about the petty patter of little feet, these guys are like, I don't know the trampling of a buffalo herd. So if you want to test a grass. You can rent my dogs and they will tell you

if it can hold up or not. But it's all part of the learning curve and I enjoyed doing that. Have you ever been out to antigurosm for him? It's up north of Brenham in Independence, Texas and it is an awesome, awesome place. I love the anti g rosing for him. You go there and you're going to find pretty much any kind of roads you can imagine. I mean,

they have an awesome collection right now. They got a deal going on bue twenty something different roses that are on a good little sale if you jump out there and take advantage of it. And there's some really good ones in that group too. I was looking over their list thinking I haven't tried that one yet. Also, don't forget that today is, let's see, today's Mother's Day. Be a good time to run out there and grab a

rose to bring for mom. Also, on Memorial Weekend, which is May twenty four and twenty six, tax savings on water conserving products, so that'd be a good day to plan getting out and getting some shopping done. If you haven't been there, you need to go go to the website Antique Roseemporium dot com Antique Rose Emporium dot com. There you'll find out about events like their beneficial insects

seminar and kids activities on May seventeenth. You need to follow them on Facebook and Instagram because they're always posting some really good stuff there as well. But when you go to the website Antique Roseemporium dot com you can find out a lot more about them. They got some great perennials and other plants also that just thrive here and it is such a fun place to visit. Take

some friends with you. In fact, if you want to give them a call nine seventy nine eight three six fifty five forty eight, they can give you more information on your visit. But I promise you this is a beautiful place and you have a very very good time. Plus you need to leave room because you're going to want to bring a lot of plants on once you see those things growing out at the Antique Rosenporium. Must must visit Destiny. I'm gonna take a little break. We

will be right back. We'll head to forest in Galleria first and then the rest of you for your calls at seven one, three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Guardline on a nice Sunday. Glad to have you listening with us today this morning. Won't you get a cup of coffee and go outside for just a minute. It's starting to get light, which is about now. I believe it's just brightening up pretty good out there. Uh, and just listen, listen to the birds. It is the

most soothing thing. It's one of those nature sounds that I just love and it's like therapy for me just to listen to the running sound of running water and birds. I love that Wildbird's Unlimited here in the Greater Houston area is a place to go to bring the sounds in to your landscape. Folks at Wildbirds Unlimited have every kind of equipment you need, from bird feeders to the little bird baths, to quality quality bird seeds and blends.

Right now, they've got the seed of the season. I guess the blend of the season is Nesting Super Blend and it's only available at Wildbirds Unlimited. It's got all the things in it that birds love and need when they are doing things like laying eggs and bird young birds are developing in need that calcium for support in

their skeletal development. You can get Nesting super Blend with loose seed bags or seed cylinders or compacted cylinders, however you want to go about it, and you can get it anywhere at one of the six wild Birds Unlimited stores in the Greater Houston area. That includes the one in Cypress up on Barker Cypress, the one in West Houston on Memorial, the one in south West East Snow in bel Air in Paarland on Broadway, in clear Lake

on El Dorado in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive. Why there, make sure and check out my favorite humming bird feeder, which is the wild Birds Unlimited hygh Perch hummingbird feeder. You can see all the birds. It's a little flat feeder where you can see all the birds when they come to it. It's really simple to use and clean

and everything like that. So I like it so much, which isn't a surprise, because I love going to Wildbirds in Limit already do Let's see, we're gonna go out to the galleria now and we're gonna visit with Forest this morning. Hey, Forest, welcome to guard Line.

so you spray it. Caterpillars get sick. Nothing else gets sick, which is a nice thing about BT. But you got to use it pretty often. It only lasts a day or two in the environment, and then you need to respray it periodically to make sure that you get them spray the foliage and the fruit.

the plant, and that's what you're purchasing. The other is the ingredient as a direct and it is found in the name tree, but it's an extracted ingredient that comes out of it, so they they're different. That as a directing form might do a good job for you. The oil form for this particular problem, I don't think would be as good of a job.

south and southwest, a little bit southeast. They covered that and they're a family owned service that does quality work. They are all about customer satisfaction. Their review show it. They make a personal connection with you. They want to know you are satisfied now. Prices for corrodoration and compost stop dressing they are around They start around five hundred dollars depending on the yard size and how far a

company has to travel. Because it is it is a cost the endeavor for them to do it, but it works. It does work. Now through the month of May, they are offering free aeration with the purchasing of the top dressing. Through May free aerration. You buy the top dressing materials and service and they come do the aeration for free and then do the top dress on top of it. BB Turfpros dot com b B turfpros dot com. That is where you need to go see the work that

they do. It's amazing. I mean, they transform landscapes. But you just need to check them out and get on the schedule. Let's see here. Oh I was I wanted to visit a little bit this morning about some free tree questions that I've been hearing. Got some yesterday when I was out at Arburgate, and I hear these from time to time, and I just remember, you know, I need to mention the more because I mentioned something on

the radio and you're not listening now. You may be listening in five minutes from now or later today, later this morning. But when it comes to fruit trees, a lot of fruit trees pollinate themselves, meaning that an insect can move the pollen from one flower on the tree, or we even within a flower to the other flowers and so you don't need to have a second pollinator variety. Some tree like well figs, for example, don't even need pollination. The kind of fig we grow here doesn't need pollination.

If you go out to California, a different type of fig out there that is pollinated by a little wasp, but ours don't need it here. But if you are going to grow a lot of citrus, trees are going to be self pollinating in terms of they don't. You don't have to have two different varieties of satsuma orange to have oranges. And then there are trees that peaches are self pollinating. By the way plums mostly there is a plumb or two that doesn't need a pollinator. But

in general it's better if you plant too. That's true blueberries too, whether it's rabbit eye blueberries Southern high bush blueberries, the two primary kind we grow here. If it's just one variety, you can get some blueberries, but if you plant two varieties you will get bigger and more blueberries. And the reason is a little nerd alert here, but I think it's interesting. Blueberries can have dozens of seeds

inside and in any fruit. When a seed is successfully pollinated in forms you're going to end up getting a release of a hormone from that seed that makes the fruit get bigger. If you see an apple that's lopsided, cut through it sideways and you'll see the seed is dead on that side, that's not growing. Okay, So more pollination, more seed development in a blueberry means bigger berries. And that's true of a lot of kinds of fruit too.

So two for pollination. Apples, you gotta have pollinators. Pears for all practical purposes, have two for pollinating, and you kind of go through all the fruit and see, but check on that before you purchase fruit. A good unpop garden center, independent garden center like you hear me talk about on garden Line. They're gonna know, they're gonna know, and they are gonna send you in the right direction on that. So you don't even have to worry about.

Just ask them. They'll make sure you get set up right. I'm gonna take a little break here. We'll be back with your calls in just a moment. All right, Welcome back to garden Line on a lovely Sunday morning. Good to have you with us. Hey, I have a tip for summer vines. Vines. We do not use vines enough in our landscapes here in this area, we don't. And there's so many good vines out there, and you know,

there's vines for pretty much every situation. There's old, tame vines, you know, like the flowering pea vine that is sun nice. People use the flowers to flavor drinks, and then there's vines that like. Coral vine is one of my favorite vines. It blooms late in the summer and early fall. It basically is coming out of a sweet potato like structure underground. But the only thing about coral vine is it likes to run, and it will run like a kindergartener on

the first day school. You gotta be careful, don't just let it take over. But if you have it on antin contained structure, it is wonderful. And boy, are you supporting pollinators They will that place will be that thing will be a buzz but beautiful fruit. Anyway, I was thinking about that added enchanted gardens down in Richmond Rosenberg,

they've got a nice selection of vines. There's one called snail vine that looks it's curled up kind of like a snailshell, and you have to use your imagination a little bit, but it's pretty cool. Things like passion vine a beautiful, beautiful vines. So many good options out there. Mexican flame vines another good one. Put them on an arbor for shade. Plan them where they can cover a west wall for saving on your electric bill. We need to use vines, more annual vines, perennial vines, woody vines.

There are so many options. You ought to did that. By the way, if you get a chance, go to Enchanted Gardens Richmond and find out more about the garden center, how to get there, everything you need to know. It's open today from ten am to four pm Monday through Saturday eight am to five pm. Lots of beautiful plants there. Let's head out to Cove, Texas and we're gonna speak to Dnnis this morning. Hey, Dennis, welcome to gardline.

you know. And he's like it's broken away at the base like that.

of scratch the bark back on that branch. It's early enough to where it may not be fully browning yet, but it will be, and probably that whole branch is going to need to come out down at the ground level. Oh just cut that branch out of the tree. Now. Any other pruning you're doing, you're going to want to sterilize those punters just in case. So get you some ly salt and after you proNT it, clean them up and spram with lisoalt to get make sure you kill

anything on it. That way, if you were to cut on another branch, you wouldn't If that the canker is the problem, you wouldn't be spreading it. But that that's what I would do, all.

this is for it. I don't care if it's a percimin or a fig or a plumber, a pair or you know, grape vines or avocados or lemons and limes and oranges, and it's a fruit and this is for that. Especially formulate. It's got a balance ratio of nutrients, promotes vigorous growth, good root development, and therefore you're going to get better production. This formulation also includes micro nutrients that help prevent some of the common deficiencies that we can

see on some of our fruit plants. Nelson plant Food, nutri Star citrus fruit and avocado food comes a little jar. You're going to find it at garden centers, sometimes these hardware stores. Sometimes these stores they set on a lot of different places, but it's one worth having. If you have some fruit trees. Good list a little bit here, I'm gonna go. We can head out to Clear Lake and talk to joy this morning. We got an orchid event coming up down there south in excuse me, the

Galveston Bay area. Hey, Joey, are you there?

back for the next hour. I want to let's see this when we come back, I want to visit with you a little bit about success with the lawns and some of the steps and stages and things to watch for that we're looking at right now. In the meantime, you got a minute, go to my website, gardening with Skip dot com and look at the lawn schedules. There's one for lawn care, which is basically mowwater, fertilized and micronutrients and aeration, all the things you do to make

that lawn healthy and pretty and vigorous and dense. Okay. The other schedule is basically everything that goes wrong in the lawn from the standpoint of pests and diseases, weeds that you may want to prevent, or weeds that you want to kill that are actually growing currently and those two schedules are free to download. They tell you products to use for various things that are out there. They include organic and synthetic options for those of you who want to go one way or the other on that.

But they're free. And check out that website. I think you'll find some interesting information. We keep adding to it. We just put some things up recently that I'll talk about a little bit later in the show today. But when we come back, I want to talk about some secrets on lawns like that if I can get through the phone calls when we get back. I hope you're having a good Sunday morning, and I do hope that this afternoon you get a little bit of time and

or break get by one of her garden centers. They are just burgeoning with beautiful plants right now. It looks so good and there's so much inspiration. That's one of the things that I like to do is go to garden centers and get inspiration. See new plants, see new ways of combining plants. I like to drive around town too, for the same reason. You know, very if possible, when

I go somewhere, I don't use the major thoroughfare. You know if I'm going through a town, I'll zigzag through streets just because you never know what you're going to say. And that includes a good, the bad, and the ugly. And I've got pictures to show to prove it. But you always you get some inspiration when you see what other people have done. Maybe it's just the shape of a bed, maybe it is a particular plant, maybe it's

a combination of plants. What is appealing esthetically to you, And so keep an eye out when you drive around, go see botanical gardens, and like I said, go see garden centers, and it's been inspiration. Excuse me for you to have success with what you do. Take a little break here, we'll be back and with your calls. All right, welcome back to the garden Line. Hey, thanks for joining us this morning. We got a lot of things to

talk about this morning. I was mentioning before we went to break that I don't want to make a couple of comments about lawns. And right now we are transitioning into the warm season. It's it's kind of it doesn't feel like right now, but it's cool. I appreciate the cool. Don't complain because that's going to change. But in the warm season, our grass is everything's happening fast down in

the soil. Microbes are going crazy. There's organic matter and they're decomposing it, and all kinds of things are transitioning in the soil and making the grass really happy. And all you got to do is add water, as they put it, when we don't have water, good soaking on a periodic basis is important. People miss water, miss water. They overwater, and they miss water lawns. That happens a lot.

And what I mean by miswatering, well, when you're going to spend money on drinking water and you're going to squirt it out there on the lawn, you want to get every straw, every bit you can out of every drop. And so if you squirre Let's say you take an inch of water, which is about what a lawn needs during a week in the absence of rainfall, and you put an inch on at one time by watering a while letting it sit for forty five minutes, watering a

while letting it sit forty minute. You know, like that cycling soak is what they call it. That one inch basically almost all gets in the soil. You know, some evaporates off the foliage of the grass at the end when you quit watering. But on the other hand, if you took that inch and divide it into four quarter inch irrigations, you would barely with the soil at all.

I mean hardly at all to be on the grass blades, to be in the thatch, and it just wouldn't with the soil well at all, And each of those then would evaporate all away, so you get very little water in the soil when you do a little squirt on a frequent basis. It's better to give it a good soaking and then to let it dry out in between waterings. When I say dry out, I don't mean go into stress and die and all that. I just mean to really get to the point where that grass needs a

drink of water, okay. And by doing that, that soil volume that was full of water from that one inch soaking then begins to bring air back in as as the grass uses the water and pulls it out of the soil, and those spaces that had water in them now are filled with air, which means oxygen down into the root system. When you constantly keep it soggy wet at the top. You're not going to get oxygen down in the root system, you're not going to get the

healthy grass. You are going to increase disease, and you're wasting your money on water. What else can I say that? That's the bottom line water wisely, and it's not that hard to do. I'm sure I'll be talking about it as we go through the summer, but water wisely, let's head out to Jim in a tascasita. Hey, Jim, welcome back to Gardenline.

not in our area. So that's that. Azemite is a trace mineral supplement. It's not codd it's not made to be slow released, and it doesn't need to be because it goes down in the soil and is there in the bank account for the grass to get it when it wants it.

Highway seventy five, just south of Willis. You go to the website and they put their availability up there so you can see what they have in stock. And they also put their pricing up there, which is really rare for anybody to do. I mean, they takes a lot of work to keep up with all of that, but

they do. It's a place where you can go and find every kind of plant you can imagine, and if you want to follow them on social media, they're always doing little tours through the garden, I mean the nursery, showing you what they got growing in the greenhouses and other things. Every kind of plant you can want, fertilizers from Microlife, Nitropos Medina for example, products to control pests and disease and weeds and whatnot. I would just like to have you take a look at their macho fern

hanging baskets. They have a lot of different kinds of hanging baskets, beautiful flowering hanging baskets, but the macho fern is just the big fern, I mean, and it can get big and boy, you can buy smaller ones from them, but when one of their macho firms ferns gets big, I mean it's it's like five feet across or something's huge. Beautiful baskets and they have them there. They've got a good gift shop too, with lots of home and garden related items, so you ought to check them out. Growers

Outlet in Willis dot com. Pretty much any kind of plant you're going to want to grow, great availability. As we go through the seasons, and you can go online to that website, Growers Outlet in Willis dot com and learn a whole lot more about them. Let's see, We're going to run out now to Lakeside Estates and visit with the Maureene this morning. Hello Maureene, welcome to garden Line.

so these runners are sort of filling in. But I have normal hYP grass and then I have these runners which flat, so my lawn person is not able to laun you know, to cut properly. So what should I be doing pulling those runners out and putting in a piece of sod that looks like grass.

Austin and Brenham, Texas. ACE is the place you're looking for fertilizer. You're looking for some product to control weeds, pester or diseases. Maybe you looked at my schedule and you go, hey, I need this product. Go to your local ACE Hardware store and ask them about it. They probably have it. You can go to Acehardware dot com, ACE Hardware dot excuse me scratch that. We want our

local ACE Hardware stores here, Ace Hardwaretexas dot com. Acehardware Texas dot com, and you can find the Acehardware stores throughout this region where you can find everything you need for the lawn, for the garden, for beautifying indoors and outdoors. Ace Hardware. If you're planning on doing some outdoor development of the patio with barbiecue bits and stuff like that, Oh my gosh, go to Ashardware Texas dot com find out more. I'm going to take a little quick break here.

We'll be right back with your calls in just a moment. Welcome back to the garden Line. Thanks for joining us this morning. Appreciate you listening in. I hope you're having a good Sunday morning so far. You know, it rained and it rained and it rained this past week, and a lot of areas got a lot of rain, and everywhere you get a little bit of water, standing mosquitoes are going to breed and we are on the verge

of a big outbreak here coming up. That's just what happens in our area because we do get a lot of rain. Mosquito dunks are made to fix that. They are not a poison in the sense of some chemical to kill mosquitos. They are a disease of mosquitos. And now I have a bird drinks out of it, your family cat, if ladybug goes up to it, or anything, it doesn't affect them. It affects mosquitos. And mosquito dunks

are small beige donuts. They float in water. One dunk covers one hundred square feet about thirty days of protection there and it really works well. And what some people will do is they'll take one and kind of hit it with a little hammer and break it up into little crumbles and throw those around in small spaces. Maybe you got a little a bird bath or the plant reservoirs underneath plants that whole water. Boy, mosquitoes love to breathe those. But whatever you do, get dunks them in

the house, be ready to go. And because mosquito season, we're in for months of it here. And if you've got stagnant water, you will have mosquitos, and mosquito dunks will make sure you do not have mosquitoes growing in that water. Easy to find them sold in bead stores, ace hardware stores, garden centers. You go down Southwest Fertilizer and find them. They're easy to find. We're going to head out to Brownsville now and talk to John. Hello, John, welcome to garden Line.

they took a picture of. Could be several things, and so people think it's handy, and if they don't understand plants, they're going to think, oh, well, this is the truth. And it isn't all the time. And I can't speak to every app and every form of AI, but in general, be very skeptical of that sort of thing. Now, there are forms of AI, such as like a facial recognition kind of thing where it can look at well. Google has something called Google Lens and I use it a lot.

But if you can isolate the plant you want identified maybe by a bloom or by leaves, unless it's just a really common looking leave, it does a pretty good job. It does real good on insects too, but it just looks at the form and it searches all through you know,

Google Seed and heard everything over the years. It searches through everything and it says, this is what I think it is, and it often gives you several options, and even if it doesn't find the exact insect, at least you go, oh, this is the family of insects, and you can kind of look into it a little more yourself. But I use that there are plant apps too early on. I tried a bunch of them, and they seem to be more for other areas than for our area here. But that is not fair for me to make that

as a permanent, ongoing statement. I'm sure they've gotten better, but because I use Google NS, I just don't I don't worry about all the other apps. But I'm sure there's some good ones out there. Okay, well, I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, I talked about one the other day the other day.

For birds, you out in the morning and you're sitting there listening to all these birds, you can open the the what's it called Merlin app It's free from Cornell University, and it'll listen to the songs and you'll just start to see birds appear on your screen the name I heard this bird, I heard that bird. That's pretty cool stuff too. So there's a lot of good coming with AI,

as well as some real concerning things. But it's getting better. Okay, Well, thank you very much, all right, sir, you bet yeah, take care. Appreciate your call. Place well, Seasons is the place where people go for advice and for quality plants and products too. It amounts to that. I like the fact that when you shop the garden center, as you go to a checkout, you have to go into where the fertilizers and the soils and things like that are

because brown's up before green stuff. Right, don't go home with a plant without going home with this stuff to make that soil, that foundation for your plant a success. And that's how it is there. Now you're going to find products to solve problems. They've probably heard every kind of problem in the world. Been around since nineteen seventy three.

They're located on Tamboil Parkway Highway two forty nine, just north of Luetta, and it's easy to find them, easy to get to and when you walk in there, you can take them a picture. You can take them a little sampled in a bag. They'll look at it, identify it, and then tell you what to do for it. They're true lawn and garden experts. You can go to the website Plants for All Seasons dot com or give them a call to eight one three seven six one six four six to eight one three, seven, six, one six

four six. Let me make here. I wanted to We had a question a while ago about about some fertilizer specifics, and I want to I want to make some comments about that plants need nutrients, and there's you know, it depends on the count that you you read, but there's around twenty different nutrients that plants need, and some some things are only used at certain times in a plant's life or at certain stages and things. But in general, just say I run twent nutrients that a plant is

going to need. Those nutrients come in many forms, many of them in multiple forms, and there's forms plants can get and there's forms plants can't get. You could have a let's say, an azalea or gardena that's showing iron efficiency, just clear as a bell with yellow new growth at the ends of branches, and you send a sauce sample in and they say, there's lots of iron in the soil. Now, how can that be. It's because a higher pH and or hyphosphorus has made that iron a form that's unavailable

to the plant. Nitrogen goes through forms. There's nitrode, there's ammonia, and bacteria and other processes in the soil are constantly changing the form of nitrogen. The nitrogen the air you're breathing is about seventy eight percent I think nitrogen something like that. Well, you set a houseplant on the table in this seventy eight percent nitrogen air, and it's not going to turn green because it can't get the endto molecule. The nitrogen that we breathe in every day way more

than what we breathe in of oxygen. But bacteria can transform things. There's bacteria in the soil that can take air nitrogen and can turn it into a form plants can use, and it's constantly evolving in the soil in that way. So when we look at fertilizers, we just need to realize that in that fertilizer are nutrients in hopefully in a form that plants can use or that

microbes can use to break that down. So if you have a synthetic fertilizer, typically a salt based fertilizer, it gets wet, it dissolves, and those nutrients go out there for the plants to be able to take up. An organic type fertilizer, it is in an organic form, but in that form something like nitrogen gets released as microbes work on it into the soil and a form plants

can use. That's how nature runs. I mean, long before there were fertilizers around, Nature is doing fine just taking care of its plants and the soil, you know, by the beautiful natural system that was designed to take care

of plants as organic matter decomposes. But when a plant takes something up, it's going to take it up in whatever form of that nutrient that the plant can take up, whether it's potassium, or nitrogen or magnesium, you know what I'm saying, So are phosphorus, and so those forms are out there and they're available and there they typically in many cases are kind of cycling and changing around. Now a lot of the micronutrients, if they're in the right form that plants can take up. I said that about

iron a while ago. Uh, those need to be in the sole bank account, as do other nutrients. And just be aware of the fact that you get a gully washer rain and you're going to lose some nitrogen because it's going to wash away. Nitrogen on the surface is going to volatilize and go off as a gas. That's something that can happen too, and there's ways we lose nutrients like that. But our goal is to build that

sole bank account. And then there are things called slow release fertilizers, and these are done in a number of forms. There's different chemistries if you will, that can release slowly. I mentioned a sulfur coated products that are little prills as type of fertilizer that slowly It's like little pits and holes in the coating around that that the nutrients inside can get wet from moisture and then they can leak out and make it available to plants. There's other

forms that microbes have to break down. There's other forms that are totally well. They don't respond to getting wet and water. There's a different way that those typically nitrogen can release, and that's where we get some of the really slow releasing nitrogens. And when you see these products that are going to feed for months, that's probably what's

going on in those. You don't have to worry about all of that, but just be aware that the soil is a bank account and these nutrients are in different forms. A soil test is always helpful. I recommend fertilizers all the time here on guarden Line that are your general guide. Probably going to work on ninety five percent of people's yards is exactly what they need, right, But there's always exceptions.

If for whatever reason in the past, your yard was misfertilized, or the type of soil you have just didn't have that nutrient and adequate numbers, you may need a little different combo for your yard, but a soil test would tell you that, and that's why I recommend getting your sol tested. You can go to my website Gardening with

skip dot com. Gardening with skip dot com. There is a SOL testing publication on there, tells you how to do it, tells you how to get to the form, tells you how to send it in, and that is your foundation. You have to do that every year, just

maybe over five years. Just check on it and make sure you're in the right ballpark so that you fertilize intelligently rather than going with the probably in most cases good advice, but not the best answer for your specific yard, because your yard may be different than your neighbors because of past fertilization. All right, well, that's a lot of information right there. We're gonna take a little break here. I speaking of those, I wanted to mention Ciena Maltz.

That is the place you go for the quality brown stuff that sets the foundation for success. You can go to their website Sienna Maltz dot com. They're down near Highway six and two eighty eight south of Houston. Just go to Sienna Maltz dot com. You can find out how to get there. Whether it's compost or bedmixes or multches or fertilizers. Everything you need for the foundation for success is at Sienna Maltz. Go check it out cienamultch dot com. All right, now, welcome back to the Guardline.

Good to have you. We've got a lot of things to talk about today, including what you want to talk about. Give me a call seven one three two one two ktr H seven one three two one two KTRH. Will is it about whatever kind of horticultural topics that you might have? I was talking about nutrients going into that break there. Microlife is the number one selling organic fertilizer in the Greater Houston area. This is a six two

four bag, the green bag that I'm referring to. It's a standard, you know, elephant in the room with Microlife fertilizers used on lawns by people for many, many years now. Microlife's been around for over thirty five years. And when you look at a product like the sixty four the green bag, you're getting a three one to two ratio of nutrients, which isn't the ratio that grass takes up nutrients in, so it makes sense for the lawn. They also have products for acid loving plants. They have products

for if you're growing fruit trees and things. They make special products for various kinds of plants. And they have both the granular that we put out with the spreader around the yard, and then they've got the containers that are granulars that are smaller. They're not the big bags, but they're smaller containers. And then they have liquid products. And the liquid products include a lot of different things.

You know, in granules, you can get the humates plus concentrated compost in a bag to put out with your lawn fertilizer just not a don't think of it as a fertilizer. Think of it as a product to help improve the soil and nutrient availability. But with the liquids, you can get products that are just specifically certain microorganisms that are beneficial to plants, that help fight disease and things. They built their product line around using nature principles in

order to help make plants healthy and more successful. Whether you're trying to grow fruit or vegetables, or flowers or a lawn or trees or shrubs. Microlife's got products for everything, and they work. Microlafertilizer dot Com that's the website. Check them out. You're going to find them everywhere. It's hard to walk into a place that doesn't have microlafe fertilizer these days, and that is a good thing. We're going to go now out to Lakeside of States and talk

to Marine. Hello, Marine, got your photos.

runners into that area. I see iron deficiency, which is probably due to a disease called take All Root Rot. If you go to my schedule on my website, it's gardening with skip dot com. Look at the disease schedule for lawns and you'll see take All Root Rot. Mentioned.

October is the big month for controlling it. But something I think would be helpful for you to do right now is if you can get some peat moss, the compact peat moss and spread it out over those areas about a third of an inch thick, just a little bit, but spread it out and then water it in really well. And then your next step is to get a product from Fertiloan that is liquid iron and other micronutrients from Furloan. It's a gray bottle by fur Loan, liquid iron and

other micronutrients. Follow the label and Follier spray that grass with that in those areas because it's struggling. What's happening is the roots are dying back down the runner and the grass is trying to stretch out grow as fast as it can to get new roots in the ground, but the disease is also catching up those And by using the fertilough, you're going to sort of bypass the fact that it doesn't have the roots that take up

a lot of these nutrients. You're going to kind of fold your feed your grass in a sense with those nutrients. So I would do those two things, and then in October look at my schedule and it tells you what to use. You want a product. The first thing it's listed is called a zoxystrobin. It's on the schedule. We don't have to write it all down now, it's there, just a prontout and you want to treat it in October and again in November to try to get ahead

of this. Anything you do to prevent stress gives that grass the best chance of surviving.

garden center. They are open today from eleven to four with twenty five percent off of a number of things including roses and fruit and citrus trees and some of the decorations you like the cast stone animals and fountains and stepping stones and those self contained glazed fountains that I'm talking about. Twenty five percent I was a really good deal. All you gotta do is head out to Katie Go north on Katie Fort Ben Road and it's just up the street a little bit on the right

hand side. You can't miss it. When you're there, you're gonna find awesome plant selection. You're going to course find the water garden selection and everything from fish and plants to whatnot. If you got little kids, take them with you and tell the folks at Nelson that you would like your kids to be able to feed the koyfish. And in the back there's a pond where you can go. They'll show you the'll give you kids a little handful of food and they can go feed the cooy and

it is the coolest thing. They will really kids will really well, I really enjoy it. But then I'm still trying to figure out what i want to be when I grow up. So anyway, but it is a really really cool deal and it's a fun time to go out. Quality Home Products is who you hear me talk about all the time. For generators. You know about the storms we have and what it does to power when a branch falls on our power lines and then for two weeks you're waiting to get water on water, waiting to

get power. The nice thing about a generator that is a Generac automatic standby generator which they carry at Quality Home is it just comes on. Mean, it's not like you have to oh the power is off when you walk through the darkness and try to go outside and put gas in it and fire it up and get it going. Know that it does. It just comes on. It doesn't itself for you, and so it's like you

never lose power. And some people, you know, the big concern is, I don't want if I'm on a trip, my refrigerator and freezer to to go out and then all the food rots I have come home to that that is a mess. You do not want to experience that. Maybe though you need twenty four to seven power, you know, your job is primarily online and you've got to have that internet access and you got to have, you know, the constant power. You don't want your house to get hot, hot,

hot because the air conditioner can't come on. Talk to the folks at Quality. They can make sure you get the generator you need. And their service is impeccable. I mean I go on and on all the time about all the awards that they've won. Go to QUALITYTX dot com QUALITYTX dot com seven one three Quality. If you want to give them a call seven to one to three Quality, Go check them out. They know what they're doing. They've proven it for years. I'm gonna take a break

and we'll be back. Welcome back to the guarden line. Good to have you with us. Uh. When it comes to success with plants, you hear me think You hear me say things all the time like Brownston up before green stuff, which basically just means, don't PLoP a poor plant into an unprepared plot. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle peppers. Prepare the soil, give it a foundation, let those roots hit the ground running, and you have success. That's an example of the kinds of things that I say,

because that is what works. It is easy to get excited about flowers and vegetables and fruit trees and you bring them home and you're dreaming about the production that they're going to have. It is sometimes for some people hard to get excited about soil. You know, it's a big pile of dirt to them, and so like, well, I want flowers, I don't mess with all that. Well, if you want flowers, you better give them a foundation for success. If you want fruit, if you want vegetables,

it's all about the soil. And I say all about and you're probably thinking, well, it's about water, and it's about fertilizer, and it's about sunlight. Yes, yes, yes, I get that, but everybody understands that. But the soil is the foundation. That's where it all comes from. I mean, if you're going to build a house and you're going to go out there to a field and start laying two by fours on the ground and nailing them together, that is not going to be a house that lasts

or does very well. Right, You've got to have a good foundation for success. Soil is the foundation is It is what you build from. It is not something you plant and your plants struggling and then we try to fix it without digging up the plant. It's so much

easier to get it right before you plant. I've talked to several people that are redoing their lawns this summer and they're taking time, number one, to get rid of the weeds that are there, because it's way easier to get rid of weeds before you plant the lawn then once you got long grass in there, because then sometimes you can hurt the grass trying to control the weeds. They are filling in low areas, you know, getting you a good lawn fill mix. It could be kind of

a topsoil mix. It could be kind of a sand with a little bit of compost sprinkled into it. There's a lot of blends that, but getting those areas filled in and level because the more level it is, number one, the prettier it is. But your lawnmower isn't you know, bumping and bouncing and gouging and you know, as it goes up and down or drops in a hole and whatnot, getting all that leveled out is important and then bring your side in and do a good job of that.

We had some great sad producers. We're fortunate we live here on the Gulf Coast and so we've got we've got, you know, the sod factories right down around us here and lots of good varieties, good availability, and some of the new varieties are really exciting. I'm trying out some new things myself. I'm about to put in another yard for my daughter and we're going to be trying some things out in there and just learning and experimenting with them. But sod is it's not difficult to grow if you

give it what it wants. Just like any plant, SOD wants mainly sunlight. That's the number one thing we see go wrong. Lack a soil prop is also a factor. And heavy clays that are compacted from the piti pattern of not so little feet. That is another thing that can create problems for and once a grass plant gets stressed, then it's more likely to get sick. It's like us.

You know, if you're healthy, you eat right, you exercise, you get the idea that whole nine yards and you go out, you gather with a bunch of people, maybe someone's coffin in the room. I don't know. Your body has a little bit more resilience to it. I mean you won't get sick. It just means it's less likely, depending on what sick means. But if you don't take care of yourself, you're not sleeping, you're not eating right, you're not exercising. Your body is not a resilient, strong organism,

then you're more likely to get sick. Same thing with plants. Take all root rot in lawns, for example, that is primarily a secondary invader of stressed grass. That's the main thing. It's not like takeoll just flew through the neighborhood and landed in your yard and now it's tackling your grass. It's a ubiquitous problem. But when the grass gets stressed, suddenly you see take all root rot move in and start to attack it. And it's because that disease has

an opportunity. When that grass gets weakened from shade, from compaction, from you know, wear and tear, from a use of certain chemicals that weaken the grass, I can also open the door for take all to have a chance. There's a disease of oaks called hypoxylan canker that kills the tree. I mean it kills the tree at least major limbs,

if not the whole tree. That disease is everywhere. I talked to a plant pathologist one time who told me, you go out in the forest and you sample an oak tree, and you can find the hypoxylin organism out there. It's in nature. It's out there. But when that tree gets stressed, then hypoxyla moves in and kills a tree. Well what caused the death of that tree? Well, you could say hypoxylon, or you could say stress that led to it. And once the disease gets in, it's too

late for the tree. I saw a tree one time an oak tree. It was perfectly healthy oak tree, post oak in this case. And they put a pin around it and filled it full of goats. I guess they wanted the goats to have shade. And they stomped and trumped and put their little feet up on the trunks and stuff. And that tree turned a toast and it was a poxlin canker and it why did that happen? Well,

stress and the disease got its chance. Now I've been spending some time talking about this, but it's an important concept. Keeping getting the soil right, keeping our plants healthy, choosing things that aren't likely to get sick. Those are all secrets to success with that. For your lawns, if you haven't done your summer fertilizing, it's time to grab you some night topass Superturf nineteen four to ten, nineteen four ten. It's going to feed your lawn for sixty weeks during

the summer. It's easy to find superturf because it's a silver bag. And so whether you go to a hardware stores or south Its fertilizer, or you go to a garden center, you go to one of our feed stores here on Guardline, Superturf's easy to find. You're going to find it at places like my Swell Seasons right there on Highway to forty nine. You're going to find it at D and D Feed up there in Tumble. Go down to Laport Fisher's Hardware on Broadway Street. You'll find

nitrofass products there as well. As The main thing is get it done and then return your clippings and recycle those nutrients that you are putting down, and you're going to see success probably in fact, if you do the clipping return, you may not if you fertilize at this point, you may not need to fertilize again before the fall application. If you use something like superturf and return your clippings at RCW Nurseries the other day, and you know RCW,

it's just a great nursery. It's been around since nineteen seventy nine. That is a long time. Was that forty six years? If I did the math right, that's a long time. The Williamson family opened it. They still run it, and they also have Williamson Tree Farm, that family up there in Plantersville and they sell those trees, among other places at RCW nurseries. So you get quality trees that need to grow here, that want to grow here, that are the type you want a plant. They'll plant them

for you. You can get a smaller one planet yourself. The selection is outstanding on trees and on shrubs, and then you can just keep going. You know, they are well known by rosarians for their roses. Every time I pull up and the summertime, first thing I see is Boogain v is just look fantastic. They are awesome. They have beautiful vines, annuals and perennials. Everything you need to know. Just go by there. They're at the corner of Beltway

eight and Highway two forty nine. It's easy to get to, very easy access, and you're going to find people that know what they're talking about. They can guide you and help you and a good selection at RCW Nurseries RCW nursery dot com, corner of Tombo Parkway and belt Way eight. Uh, I've got a little I got a break coming up right here. I can't go into too much at this point.

If you'd like to give us a call and maybe be first stop, or if you call sooner enough when we come back from break seven to one three two one two kt r H seven one three two one two kt rh. That makes it easy to get in and we'll visit with you about the things you're interested in. If your question might involve a diagnosis, or I might need a photo, like, well, there's a bug on my plant and I don't know how to describe it. Well, there's a lot of bugs on plants. Send me a

picture first. Uh my grass is dying. What does it look like, Well, it looks like dying grass. Okay, send me a picture first. It helped me in order to help you. You give me a picture and I can do it now. It's got to be into good our focus, and especially with things we're trying to identify that are smaller, Get up as close as you can and take the picture from as close as you can. It's not the only picture, but one of them really close up so I can see it and identify it. Make sure it's

in sharp focus. If you send me a fuzzy picture, you're going to get a fuzzy answer. And you don't want fuzzy answers. We want to get it accurate, we get it right. I want to waste your time and money on products and treating and doing whatever you're going to do. If we're not on the right track, so help me help you with a good sharp focused photo. All right, just call out one Hundro, my producer. He can get you an email if you want to send a photo, and I do ask if you send emails,

you need to follow up with a phone call. And I'm not able to type out just too many emails to type out the answers and things to everything, and some things are more involved. It would take a long time to write it out. So follow up with a call, simple as that. Okay, here's the number again, seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two k t r H. It'll be back. Welcome back to the guard Line on a beautiful Sunday morning. I hope you are enjoying today. Glad

to have you listening with us today. Thank you for listening in You got any questions you'd like to ask? Seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. I was visiting with Cliff Carson from Year Round Houston dot Com the other day, Year Around Houston dot Com that's a company, that's the website. Uh. These guys are specialists when it comes to core aeration and compost top dressing. We're actually standing in a yard where we're I was

doing some filming and stuff. As they did the aerration and the cost compost top dressing and whatnot. I talked to the person who actually owned the place, uh two or three weeks to maybe three weeks later, and they were just talking about how the yard was coming in

so nice. It was filling in. They had had some kind of die back in some areas there's gaps and you know where sunlight hits the soil, nature plants of weed, and so you got to get that lone dense and compost top dressing following corperation is a very important way to do that. They come out, they take care of the job. If you're inside the Beltway, that's the primary area I talk about for year round Houston dot com.

Inside the Beltway. Go to the website year round Houston dot com or give Cluff a call eight three to two eight eight four fifty three thirty five eight three two eight eight four fifty three thirty five. They'll get back with you and get a good quote. Get out there and get that job done, so you'll set your line up for success to be well on its way to success. Let's head out to Sugarland now and we're going to talk to Judy. Hello, Judy, Welcome to garden Line.

so you need if you spray it. Let's see spray today, you would probably again on Wednesday or Thursday, want to spray again. And maybe you do that two or three times over a couple of weeks. And you ought to be able to break that cycle and enjoy your fruit rather than the caterpillars enjoying your fruit.

This this is a unique place. Okay. We're talking about eight acres cram full of gorgeous plants, eight acres to wander through, and wander is the right word for it. You're gonna go around corners and see statuaries and fountains and pottery and oh gosh, just stuff you would never expect to see, like a carved wooden canoe hanging from the ceiling of one of the pottery sheds. It's just

it's a cool place. It's fun. And Jim is very eclectic and he has all kinds of unusual things, so you're gonna find like ask him to show you his quirky t shirts. The eyeball plant that's one of them. He designed it, and it's just it's just off the wall. It's just different, you know, not the same old same. Oh they're flowering things everywhere there at Moss Nursery. Hanging baskets. Gosh, they have gorgeous hanging baskets, beautiful plants of all kinds.

The house plant greenhouse alone is worth the drive down. It is full of tropicals and of succulence. You know, maybe you want a string of fill in the blank, they've got them. They've got them all there. A really good selection of houseplants and then things that are more tropical that for example, stackhorn ferns, beautiful staghorn fringing. Buy a small one already mounted to a board. They have some huge ones as well. It takes a long time

to get them to that stage. But it's just the place to go and see all kinds of things that maybe you didn't expect to see. And whether you're looking for flowers from as lissam to zenias a to z they've got them there. But check out the hanging baskets. That's really listen. Moss Nursery is not just another garden center. This seventy year old family operated place is well worth it because they got everything you need for your landscape,

for your garden and the interior homescape. Remember we homescape our plants with house plants as well. Moss Nursery maas Nursery dot com two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight. Two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight. Someone was asking me a question the other day about where can I get and it was some product that you know, they'd look for and looked for and they couldn't find it. It's like, okay, well, if you listen to the guardline, you should know the

answer to that. The answer Southwest Fertilizer. I don't care what the question is. The answer Southwest fertilizer. If they don't have it, you don't need it. Really, ninety foot walle of tools, do you think you can find the tools you need? Their quality tools too? By the way, on ninety foot wall of tools, if you go on my website and see Skip's weed wiper. This a little thing I invented. It's easy to build. Bob's got the grabber tool. That has the section cups that you need

to build the weed wiper, he's got it there. You grab one off the wall, he's got him there. You hear me brag about the kneeling bench, he's got him there. It's just everything that you would need product wise, from fertilizers to insect control, disease control, weed control, we'd prevention. If you need help identifying something, let them get your eyes on it. As we say, they know what they're looking at, they know what the products are and what

is needed for various things. They'll point you in the right direction. You need some little bit of lawn equipment, sales and service, or getting blade sharpened. They do all of that in the back of a store there. Southwest Fertilizer dot Com. Southwest Fertilizer dot Com two seven to one three six sixty six seventeen forty four seven one three six sixty six one seven four four. We're gonna take a break and we'll act with your calls. All right,

we're back, we're back. Yeah, you got a gardening question, you'd like to give me a call? Seven one three two one two k t R eight seven one three two one two k t R H you hear me talk about airloom soils all the time, and it's because airloom Soils has quality products. They do, you know, whether it's their rosen bloomers blend. Think of it as a rose type soil, but a soil for anything that blooms. Really, you know, we talk about rosas, but rose is good

for a lot of things. They got the works Potting Sauce, Outstanding Cactus and succulent kind of a gritty mix for things that need extra good drainage like cactie succulents. They got the Veggie Nerd Mix, Fruit and berry and citrus Mix, Landscape bed mix. I mean, I could just go on and on and on. They also have a product that you can buy bulk and have them deliver it to

you and it's called a lawn mix. The lawn mix is a very economical product that if you're redoing a lawn, you should get a delivery of this and use it to fill in low spots to kind of smooth out over the soil to get ready to lay that grass down. It is an excellent product. You can buy it as a QB card Supersac, you can have it as a delivery I believe they do both on those So however you want to go about it, just if you're going to redo a lawn, their lawn Mix Bulk QB card

is the way to go. It really is. It's outstanding now. Of course, airloom soils is available by the bag and all kinds of garden centers all over the place. You can go to the website airloomsoils dot com airloomsoils dot com find out where you can get it. Or you can just flat go out to porter and pick it up.

You can pick it up, take your truck or trailer out there and get some, or you call them and have them delivered to you in a supersac or just a dump truck drump drop right there on your driveway. However is most convenient for you, that's how you do it. But the main thing is just do it and you're not gonna be disappointed with an airloom solce product. Every time I try one and grow something in it, it's like, yeah, that stuff or that's what we're talking about when I

say building a foundation, brown stuff before green stuff. Airlom soils perfect for just that. I was redoing a bed this past not this past week, couple of weeks ago, doing some revamping of it and whatnot, because you know, you have to continue to maintain soil over time. It didn't mean every day you're doing something. It just means

you need to build up a bit. Whether it's a potting soil in a pot, they tend to decompose down and it helps just spruce them up and get some fresh material in there, top it off and make sure that the plants continue to have good drainage and everything they need. And I was trying out some different products

on it. I'm always experimenting with something or the other, and I discovered that I was in a container actually in the specific case I'm telling you right now where the container had been there for years and I had topped it off with some stuff several times. But I dumped it out because I was going to use the container for something else. And I noticed at the bottom the soil had really decomposed a long way. I wasn't a humus yet, but it was getting there, and it

was very tight. Very if it was watered a lot, it'd be a little on the mucky side, you know, not really draining as well as it could and it just reminded me. Sometimes people say, can you reuse potting soil? Well off, you can. If the plant died of a root disease or a fungal disease, root rot something like that, Or if you got nematodes in it, because maybe they came in with some soil or on a plant or something, then I wouldn't reuse it, don't even think about reusing it.

But if it's just one like my case, where to you know, it kind of decomposed a little further, I could just get something a little on the chunky side. I put it in there, mix it in real good, you know, a decomposed bark, a little bit of rosemex or anything like that, and just rejuvenate it and keep going. And think about this. I hear people say sometimes potting soil, don't don't use old potting soil, you know, like it's out there, it's gone bad or something. Well, what does nature do?

I would say, and I'm not meddling here. You do what you want at your yard, but I would never let a grass clipping or a leaf leave my landscape. Those are valuable. They are very valuable. And you can run over our leaves with a lawn mower. If you've got a little grinder, you can use that, but chop them up so they stay in place, and use them as mulch everywhere you can. In my garden pathways, one leaves every year. I don't know how many bags of

leaves I bring home. My neighbors are so nice they back and for me and put them out at the curb, and I just bring them home and I use them as an all weather pathway. And I can tell you this after about a couple of years of that, and actually just one years enough you can scrape those dead leaves off the surface and there's some good stuff underneath there in that pathway. So put nature to work for you. Put your grass clippings back in your lawn. If if it rains and rains and you can't mow and the

grass is knee high, all right, bag it. But use those clippings. They can be laid out on a bed as a surface mulch. I don't put them thicker than about an inch, because you don't want them to just get all gooey and messy like they would in a bag. But spread them out and use them. Mix them into the soil your rotor tillings. No reason you couldn't use grass clippings. Mix them right in the soil and make your lawn better. That's all I'm saying. Then, look, organic

matter decomposes, just add more. That's how that works. I hope that's helpful for you. Hey, if you'd like to give me a call, and that'll be a good time. We've got open lines seven one three two one two kt r H seven one three two one two kt r H intended forest. I hope you've been there. If you have it, you need to go. It's a garden

center down there in the Richmond Rosenburg area. Specifically, it's on FM twenty seven fifty nine just south it kind of in between Richmond and sugar Land, but south of I sixty nine. They have a great selection of plants. But today in Mother's Day, you know that if you're looking for a perfect gift or an outing, maybe to take mom and go out and do they have some cool stuff. Maybe Mom likes rosebushes or tropical hibiscus. Oh gosh,

those are gaudian beautiful, A wide variety of perennials. Salvia is a milkweed, necanation, a lot more maybe herbs. Moms into herbs. How about an herb plant or just some herbs to scatter around in the landscape or in the garden. They have gift cards from intended forests that are a nice gift for really anybody that's a gardener in your list. And you got to see the fairy gardens. Take your kids out to see that. They're fairy garden items are fun for kids and adults. They've got one, you have

to go see it. It's kind of the left of the building. There there's a big tree and it's like ferry gardens all around it. On the ground they're really cool little miniature gardens. So anyway, you need to get out there. Though last time I was out there again, I'm always surprised at just how extensive their herb selection is. I'm always surprised at the selection of butterfly attracting plants, both the flower plants that the butterflies go the flowers for,

but also the larval food sources. So if you want butterflies, you need to feed the babies. Okay, So milkweed feeds monarchs, passion vine feeds the gulf fritillary. A number of different things feed various types of butterflies, So don't just plant for the adults to have nectar plant to raise their young as well. And Enchanted forest specializes in not for sure, great selection of trees and shrubs too, And it's fun.

It's a fun place to visit. I love the big trees. Gosh, you know when it gets hot and you know it's like it's hot, go there and enjoy shopping underneath those big, beautiful spreading trees. It's cool, literally cool compared it's been out in the sun. So on garden line, I generally give advice. I try to stay kind of general in ways, like here's some principles that plants want, but sometimes we have to get down to specifics on specific things that

you need to provide for plants. And as you give calls to garden, as you call in, I'll be guiding you, you know, specifically in the situation that you have. Someone called earlier today and asked about AI as a way to is it dependable? Can you use it? And the problem with answering is it dependable, It's just there's there's so many kinds of AI and so many levels. A lot of times as AI is learning, it's not very good and misses a lot of things. But as it

gets better and with some applications, it's amazingly good. But I wouldn't depend on it too much. And that's kind of what I was saying earlier. There's a lot of gardening advice out there. Sometimes I feel like, as a horticulturist that I kind of understand how a doctor might feel,

because everywhere a doctor goes number one. Everybody when they find out he's a doctor or she's a doctor, they start pointing at something on their body, going, so I got this sore right here that you know, and so suddenly they get to give free advice where they go. Number two, people have a lot of medical opinions. You know, they may feel like this kind of an oil or this kind of a I don't know, a supplement, or

is what they need. And the doctor's got to be sitting there going, Okay, I hear what you're saying, but you know, there's there's always a yeah butt and that's kind of what the doctors think. And well, I feel that because people always give me advice on plants, and I said, listen, I'm not going to sit there and be the integrate and say no, you don't know what

trum about. I know what I'm talking about. But I hear a lot of advice and I see it online and I just want to My public service announcement today is gardening friends. Don't let gardening friends get their advice just off of social media. Now, if it's a good, dependable source on social media, yes, but oh my gosh, I have quit going to Pinterest because it's like it makes my eyes bleed to look at what people put

on there. In fact, I could do a whole talk and somebody, I'm gonna do this somewhere, I don't know where. I'm going to do a whole talk just on what's wrong with this picture? And I'll take I'll take pictures of social media things and put them out there and say what's wrong with this? What you know, and just kind of teach people what the foreign things. I saw the other day a rose it was I called Bengal tigers stripe or something, and it had stripes that were

it just it's not true. There's no such plan as that. And there's a couple of accounts out there that are doing this all the time, and they drive me nuts, like pouring a ton of rose seeds into a crack in the sidewalk and then showing a picture of a wall full of roses that are in full bloom, and it's basically one rose that has been copied and pasted all over the wall. It's like no, no, no, no no. So anyway, there I griped. I have more griping to do about that, but I'll let you go from now,

take a little break, and we'll be back. It looks like with Diana and Cyprus, all right, now you're thinking that's not Simon Garfunkel, right.

a raised bed, and I was looking at it. These little bugs are coming crawling out of the air. It looked like ants, and I looked at him, but they had wings, And what it was was a fire ant mating flight. A fire ant mating flight. So basically, these fire ants, after a good rain or something, they'll come to the surface. The reproductives have the wings. They fly up in the air. Male and female ants fly up in the air. They mate until several hundred feet up

in the air. Now, first of all, how do you know, how do some entomologists know they have a hot air balloon and They go up in the air one hundred feet and have binoculars and go up there's two hey Louis, take it up another fifty feet. I don't know how they know how high they fly up in there and mate, but they do. And then they fall to the ground. The female falls at the ground, digs in the ground, and here we got another fireance mess started. That's what happens.

And when we get these rains they are spreading. Termites do the same thing. Termites will fly out the hovery reproductive flight. I'm told that they go way up in the air too late at night. Uh. And how do you avoid this? You call pest bros. Pest bros can control fireance, they can call termites, they can control household pests, they control mosquitoes outdoors. They've got it all covered and they know how to do it effectively, and they do so in the safest possible manner, so you get long

term results without the worries. Now go to the website thepestbros dot com dpestbros dot com two eight one two o six forty six seventy. They cover a wide area. I don't care if you live down in Texas City, if you live up in the woodlands. If you live way over western Katie or to the eastern Baytown, you're in pest Bros Region depestbros dot com. We're gonna go now out to Cyprus and talk to Diana. Hey, Diana, I got the pictures finally, and I'm ready to talk.

but it is struggling on that end. That's also the north end of the row. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that's the east side of your patio. Either way, it is struggling along. So you may need to put some sides on the bed a little bit so you can build it up a little better and raise those plants on that end. Probably way to fall to do that, and you may need to replant one of those. Looks real bad down there, but that may be a longer

term solution. Otherwise, you could use a keylated iron keylated iron, apply it especially to the yellowing plants. That may help some to fix some of the yellowing, but it's not going to solve the problem of soggy wet soil. So that would be my suggestions on those particular plants. The roses are really hard for me to make out in the pictures what's going on. I see the lack of vigor. It looks like some leaves have been chewed off, but I can't from the distance really tell that for sure.

Uh whenever, oh, well, we put them out.

and we had to they just died. I mean I pulled them all up and then I just wanted to buy two to put in to replace them because I didn't want to take that chance again. And they and they're starting to do that where they lose the leaves. But I know we have bunny rabbits and that's the that's another concern that maybe they're eating the foliage off the leaves.

But then something seems to happen to them. Would as last year, and we took out all that old soil, the mulch and everything, and we placed with some of that good soil that you'd recommended and mulish, and so we were hoping that then all this has happened, and now so our holidays in this prens is another story.

that's that's an aside. Just to keep in mind, I would say i'd get a good rose fertilizer, or you know what, You can use a lawn fertilizer on those roses too. Just put about a quarter cup of fertilizer around each rose and a big old four foot diameter circle. If it's an organic fertilizer, you can use a lot more than that. If it's a synthetic, I wouldn't go above about a quarter cup. And that's that's actually quite a bit. But sprinkle it all around. Just don't dump

it in a circle or anything. Sprinkle it around and then scratch it into the surface with a little rake or something, and then water it in really good. And I think you can push some vigor on that if it's getting good sunlight, and then let's see how they do. And as far as if it's rabbits, you know, I don't know on that.

them and then took them somewhere else to relocate. Yes, if you feel like that's the problem, that is work in trouble. But at least that way you would know what the problem was for sure.

for indoor plants. It's called water saving potting salt because that has crystals in it that soak up a lot of water, many times our weight and water when your soul gets a little dry, should you forget well, I know you don't forget the water. Should your neighbor forget to water? They're indoor plants. The crystals hold moisture a little longer, and the roots can get a hold of that moisture and it helps those plants not go into

drop stress. So it's not that you should never water, but it just means a little more forgiving jungle and water saving potting soil distributed by Nitropas. Night Foss products are located all over the place. You can find them at Ace Hardware City I'm a moral drive. If you go to Hiding and Feed on a student airline, you'll find nitofoss products there. Maybe down in mont Bellevue on FM thirty one eighty at Fishers Hardware. They carry nitofoss

products in those places as well. Those of you who are familiar with Buchanan's Plants, you know they're on Eleventh Street in the Heights. Have you seen the new building that they put in, the new checkout center that they put in. It is a nice strong metal roof, structure that it just if it's raining, you don't stand in the rain to check out. If it is blazing high, you don't stand in the blazing hot sun to check out. Is really cool. You know, they've been through a lot

at Buchanans. Twice last year storms came in knocked tree limbs on their checkout area and just crushed it and had to rebuilt, had, you know, reconstruct everything. So they said, that's enough. We're putting in a nice new barn structure here that we'll use for our checkout and you're gonna love it. If you haven't already seen it, it's open now, by the way. Buchanans Plants is the website Buchanansplants dot com. They specialize in natives, but they have everything under the

sun in addition to native plants. But let's say you're looking for a native that attracts hummingbirds, Well they'll walk you right over and show you the natives more than one that attract hummingbirds. Maybe you're looking for something to

attract pollinators or butterflies. Maybe you need a plant that will grow in the shade and bring color to the shade the whole section for that their house plank greenhouse is huge and it has tons of home I'm telling you unbelievable selection foliage, plants, succulents, strings of you fill in the blank, cacti. I mean it's all in there in the house plant greenhouse. You need to go see that. When you're Buchanans, they understand bronze stuff comes before green stuff.

That's why they carry a full line of microlife products nitrofoss Nilson plant food. They have soils from Nature's way and soils from heirloom soils, for example. They have their own all purpose blended mixes and things as well. When you walk out of there, not only are you going to have the products you need to set the foundation, but you're going to have the plants that are ready for success. They're experts at this. They know what they're

talking about. Buchanansplants dot Com, Leventh Street and the Heights. Go check out the website and sign up for their newsletter too. By the way, it is outstanding. Gosh, I what have we can talk about next? I have a confession to make. There's a saying that the cobblers kids go barefoot. Have you ever heard that? The guy that makes shoes, doesn't have time to make his kid's shoes. Okay, it's true. In horticulture, I have not planted okra this year. I know, I know what's wrong with me. You know.

I thought that I was so obsessed with okra I was gonna have to, I don't know, go wherever you go when you're maybe the Betty Ford Clinic has an okra section or something. But seriously, but I just had been too busy to get out there and do it. So that's going to happen this week. I'm going to get the okra in the ground. You know, just because summer comes and it gets blazing hot doesn't mean we

can't plant things in the vegetable garden. There's a lot of great vegetables that thrive in hot, hot, sunny conditions. Okra is one. Another one is malabar greens. Malabar greens, they're a little bit, a little bit on the slippery side, as people say salaimey. I prefer to say musilaginous because

it sounds better anyway. But it's a good one, a very good There is molokia, which is popular and a lot of Middle Eastern and some other areas around that whole region really, But it's a great green with rice dishes and lamb and different things like that. I grow that in my garden. Purslain greens. Yes, there's perslaine weed, there's personalaine flowers, and there's just vegetable types of perce lane that are grown for eating that can take the heat as well. We got many other options. A maringa.

It's actually a little tree. You can cut it back, make a bush out of it. The foliage kind of has a nutty taste. I like actually use it in smoothies. Adds nutrients and a unique flavor to the smoothie. But you can cook it as well. Lots of good greens. There's no reason to stop gardening. In vegetable gardening in the summer. We got a lot of good options. And if you want give me a call, maybe I ought to put something on the website, make a note of that.

That'd be good. Summer greens and summer vegetables would be a good addition to the website, a good handout for that. If you had planted a tree, you need a tree hugger, sprinkler. I mean if you planted a tree ten years ago, you still need a treeoggor sprintler. Here's why, goes around the tree. If it's a brand new tree, you barely turn it on and it waters that root cylinder that you just put in the ground, keeps it alive and well.

If it is a big tree, you turn it on a lot and you can water as big of an area as you want. To rescue those established trees during grout. Not just rescue them, but keep them growing fast. That's very important. Rosarians love this product too. It's good for roses as well. You're going to find it a lot of places. Southwest Fertilizer of course has its single ranch ase katiace K and m ace and a tasca set

of foolshere Ace. You're can find it at D and D Feed, Spriing Creek Feed Center up in the Tamboul area, Leake City Feed Arborgate, Nelson Water Gardens and Nurseries, adding in Katie RCW Nurseries, Warren Southern Gardens and kingwo Of Garden Center adding Kingwood and go down to Richmond Rosenberg area and Chenny Forest and Channing Gardens all carry tree

hugger sprinklers. Get you one. You need to have it, keep it in the garage because it is not only great for new trees, but helping those established trees to grow faster and better. That is important. It's all about water, all about water. That is where our trees get into trouble. You know, we do fertilize trees, and I do, and it's important. It helps. But you know the research that

I've seen fertilizing isn't a huge thing on trees. I mean, it helps, but it's not like you know, if you just fertilize a lot that trees are going to grow trice as fast. But water really matters. Water stresses and things really slow it down. And you know, when you plant a tree, your goal is to hang a hammock in it as soon as you can. So we got

to get that thing growing right. That's important. When you fertilize your lawn, the trees get the nutrients from that because their roots are up in the top foot of soil primarily. Yes, I know, forget the image you've seen online or on the side of a tree truck that makes the tree look like a mirror image top and bottom. No trees have a spreading fat lat root system goes

out about about twelve inches deep. The majority of the root system is twelve inches deep, and then the top as what the top is so up in that grass area you got a lot of tree roots. So for example, you get this superturf I keep talking about from Nitrofoss Superturf nineteen four ten. When you fertilize your lawn with that, it's releasing all summer and it's helping your lawn. But there are nutrients that those trees are also getting from it,

and they will benefit from that as well. When we fertilize our lawn, there is a benefit to the trees. Superturf releases slowly, which is what I like about it. It's going to go about sixteen weeks out or four months and it works well. And you're going to find it where you find other night foss products. For example, go to Langham Creek a hardware on on FM five twenty nine right there in the backside of Copperfield, katie As hardware on Penoak, the Ace hardware on Mason Road too.

On a single ranch is going to have it. You're just going to find it in a lot of different places that sell nitofoss products like Fisher's Hardbrown sophomore done in Pasadena. Well, let's see here, it's a little too short uh time here for me to start another discussion of something, So we're gonna move out of this session.

We got one more hour left today. If you'd like to give us a call, in fact, if you'd like to be on the first up, if you call now and just don't mind hanging through the top of the hour news seven one three two one two KTRH, you can be one of the first ones up when we come back. We'd love to visit with you about the questions that you have and to help you have success.

You know, gardening is supposed to be fun and if you do the right things, if you learn to think like a plant, if you can find out what a plant wants and give it that, your thumb looks greener to everybody because you're just giving a plant what it wants. That is all that it amounts to. So, h let's give you some tips on that. Let's have success with that. I want to remind you my website, gardening with Skip

dot com. Gardening with Skip dot com, you'll find my two laun care schedules, lun Care and lawn pest Weez and disease schedules. On there you'll find some other good things. In fact, when I come back, I want to tell you a little bit about some of the things that

we have put up recently on the schedule. I have a number of questions that have come up regarding things, and when I get a question over and over, I'll probably create a little factiont on it and stick it up there on the schedule, And I mean on the website. That way you could download it wherever you are bookmarket. I hope you bookmark the website Gardening with Skip dot com. That lots of good information on there based on the kinds of questions that people ask. Some things it's hard

to fully answer on the air. I mean, it takes too long, too much detail, and when you say it people doesn't you know, we don't retain stuff. I forget stuff by the end of conversation sometimes. But when you can get a printed out of it, then that way you've got reference. That's what we're about. When we're back, Hey, Leslie in Baytown, you're gonna be our first stop. Good morning, gardeners. What are we going to talk about today? Well, that's up to you. At this point oh. I actually have

a few things I want to add too. But one of the questions you have, how can we help you have success? And listen, how can we help you have fun? Gardening should be fun. It should be It is not. You know, we don't live in the days where if our crop fails are going to start the death. Okay, so we can the pressures off. We are just learning and having fun out in the garden and enjoying being

out with the nature. I was talking to somebody yesterday when I was at the arbor gate and we were just talking about the fact of how therapeutic gardening is, and you know, all the benefits and stuff, and then you know, you're just talking about getting outside in the garden and just being there and nature and plants and how it made them feel. Well, that's true. Well let's do this. Let's head out to Baytown now and we're going to talk to Leslie. Hello, Leslie, welcome to garden Line. Hey, Rick,

how are you doing. I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Thank you.

can do. There's a couple of ways to go about this. One way would be to take some plastic bottles, you know, like the two liter coke bottles, like the little drinking water bottles. Screw the caps on tight and just let them be full of air. Put them in the bottom and fill up a bunch of volume just just with that, and then you can throw your soil in. I mean, if you wanted to put something over them, you could.

I would just throw the soil in around them, and so they're taking up whatever percentage of soil of space you need them to, and then fill in the soil in around them. Okay, okay, that's great.

bottom of those bottles. And then actually, in this case, I laid a piece of hardware cloth that little square inch stuff you put underneath the rabbit cage. I cut a piece out to fit perfectly in there and set it on top of them. And then I took a little liner that was like weat fabric and put it on top of the soil, I mean on top of the wire. And then when I feel it was soil, the soil didn't fall all in because I just didn't need that much soil, okay, And that's what I did.

And then that way, when I had to clean it out, it was easy to dump it over and get the bottles out of the way and easy to go. So. But in general, be careful about replacing soil because the more you have, the happier those plants will be, especially in the summer hot weather conditions. Medina products are widely available and have been for a very long time here in the Greater Houston area. Medina Plus is an example

of that. You know, the original Medina sial activator has been very popular customers for a very long time, and then they added the Medina Plus which is fortified with essential micronutrients and seaweed extract, so you still get all the natural soil building advantages of the Medina hastergro or excuse me, Medina sal activator. I'll but you also have these extra ingredients which make it too a good folier feed for plants, tree shrubs, for lawns. The seaweed extracts

are in there. They help plants with achieving their maximum growth and yield potential. And it's just a good product. You should have it on hand. I like the Medina has to grow six to twelve six plant food, which I primarily use for trenchplanting. It has other uses. That's just the one where I most use. It's got a lot of phosphors in it, good for root development and so on. Whatever you do when you go with the Medina product, try it out, see how it works for you.

I know you're going to be happy with it. And they're so widely available that I don't even have to have to tell you where to get them because they're everywhere. I always see those when I go into feed stores and hardware stores like ACE and garden centers and places like that. Medina products I was looking at. I follow my sponsors Facebook pages and Instagram pages and just see because it always tells you what's going on, what they're doing in various locations and so on, and a Kingwood

Garden Center and Warren Southern Gardens. Those are two that are out there in Kingwood. I don't know how Kingwood got two garden centers like that, but they did good for you, Lucky Kingwood. Kingwood Garden Center has an outstanding gift shop inside. Now, these two garden centers have much of the same kinds of plants, but they're each unique in their own way. And so when it comes to that gift shop, that Kingwood Garden Center just amazing as

well as a lot of really nice cool plants. And then there's Warren Southern Gardens amazing in its own way. And in both of those you're going to find soil products, you're going to find fertilizer products, and then the plants to help you have success. That's what it's all about. Warren's is on North Park Drive, Kingwood Garden Center is on Stone Hollow Drive. Both of them are open seven days a week, so today it'd be a good day to get out there. This afternoon. Let's head out to

Friends with now and we're going to talk to Alan. Hello, Alan, Welcome to garden Line. Hey, Skip, how you doing today? I'm well, thank you. How can we help.

nutrients and creating a nice, good root system. But the bottom line is just fertilize them lightly as you go along. They like it a little acidic. So if you want to get you a fertilizer for azaleas and camellias and things, that would be fine. You could you could just do that. Uh, you know a lot of people grow yeah, yeah, yeah, the Microlife the one for acid loving plants would be good.

I'm hearing that. I got to go to a break here, but they can growing containers but at least at least twenty gallons and give them a good quality potting mix and some of the Microlife type fertilizers. That's the right ratio for this particular plant as well. Thanks thanks man for the call. So I have to run all right, you get a free break from weeds for the year if you can name that band. There you go, you

name it, and no weeds will come up in your lawn. Okay, all right, whoever believes that, call in with the name of that man you're listening to guarden Line. We're here to help you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful garden, a very productive landscaping garden, and more fun in the process. That is important. Ace Hardware is the go to source for everything you need for not only indoors but also outdoors for success with your plants, your gardens, your flowerbeds,

your roses, your lawns. They've got the products for all of that. Fertilizers, products to control pests, products to deal with diseases as well, and to manage weeds. And then of course on the patio they've got everything you need from the strings of lights that I just love for ambiance in the evenings, which is when we spend the most of our time outdoors in the summertime when it gets really hot here to barbecue pits and other things. In fact, they recently just had a good sale going

on on barbecue pits. I don't know, I need checks if they're still doing that, because I'm in the market for one myself. You go to ACE Hardware Texas dot com Ace Hardware Texas. Don't forget the Texas Acehardware Texas dot com. And you can find all the stores here in our region. My garden line stores for Ice here in the region can be found there. Check them out, you will love it. Go to an ACE hardware start.

Each one is independently owned, and so when you go to a store, whatever that owner wishes to do in the store, then they can add all kinds of different things. Sometimes you find ACE Hardware is that just have all kinds of unusual things as well as the standard stuff you've come to expect from an ACE Hardware. So you go up to Cyprus on Jones Road, for example, there's an ACE Hardware there. There is a Hardware City on

Memorial where I was a while back, not too long ago. Uh, And there's Kilgore ACE hard Run East Main down in League City. How about one more? How about Bay City ACE hard Run Seventh Street in Bay City. Those are just examples of the many, many ACE Hardware stores you can find at ACE Hardware Texas dot com. That is good. When I sugon with some of the folks from Nelson Plant Food the other day about some of the new products and things that they have, and there's a product

that's not new, uh. It is called Bruce's Brew. It's part of the turf Star line, and we were just talking about the details of different kinds of fertilizers, especially the nutri Star line that's specific kinds of plant foods, you know, hibiscus and flying tropicals is one example. Bruce Is Brew is unique. We talk about early in my schedule in the early spring, if you want to do a court green up early on, we use an immediately

release fertilizer for that because it's available right away. You put it down, you water it, and the nutrients are heading into the soil and the planet roots are taking them up pretty quick. Then they're slow release that we do all summer. Bruce's Brew is like a hybrid. You get an immediate release from it, initial release of nutrients and then it evens out over time for more regulated growth and so you get nice, good root development without

the extra mowing in your turf during the summertime. It's carbon based nitrogen sources. You know, microbes love carbon and they really stimulate them in the soil. Keeps the soil in its best shape. When you have healthy soil, you have healthy grass, less vulnerability to pests and weeds. U brew can do all of that, and it's widely available here in the Greater Houston area. Nelson planned food turf star line product called Bruce's Brew. We're gonna head to

Magnolia now and talk to Joel. Hello, Joel, welcome to garden Line.

longer term. A product called Belton b A Y L E t O n be Leton is a synthetic that is soaks in. It soaks into the tissue and it'll give you longer control of the powdery mildew. But there's your options organic ins that I.

old bolts and things are rusting. They got nice stainless steel ones. They'll replace them with. They'll take care of it. Replace those plastic feet and end caps on some of that tubular furniture you know has a little plastic foot at the end of the metal tube. Then they can take care of all of that kind of thing and make it like new. That free pickup and free delivery in the greater Houston area. You can go to the website to learn more Houston Powdercoders dot com. But here's

another idea. Take a picture of something you want coded. It may be out landscape art, inside of a building, metal or something. Take a picture of it. Email it to sales at houstoncoders dot com for a quick quote that's almost effortless. Check them out and see what they can do. Over one hundred color options. We're going to head now to Brenham, Texas and talk to rister. Hey, rister, welcome back to guardline.

But then I put mulk on top of it about three inches deep, and now they're just coming up everywhere. And I'm afraid to put a thought about putting wipe out or something on them that said that might hurt you, treat it would do.

I mean, you could burn the leaves off of it with a with a product that's toxic or you know that burns the foliage, but that doesn't change anything. It'll just keep growing with new leaves. There is a product called sucker stopper, sucker stopper. It's not really easy to find. I'm sure they probably have it at a Southwest fertilizer.

But if you can treat a sucker at the base after you cut it off, it is a hormone that is the plant't don't regrow shoot here, and it's not like forever, but it is a suppressive thing that it would probably help a little bit on this. Typically I would recommend it for like the base of crape myrtles where you get all those shoots coming out of the base for that, But you might try sucker.

control them. Unfortunately, some not all live oaks. Some live oaks are really prone to that.

us on guardline. Because Guardline customers are their priority that's seven one three six ninety nine two six six three. And it doesn't matter what you need. Do you need uh pruning or deep root feeding or pest control, disease control, stump grinding uh? And the most important is reconstruction care.

And I say that because by the time people get out there in trench or put down a driveway over a tree's root system, the damage is done and there we can try to help them, but way better to call Martin's team first and have them come on out. Affordable Tree Service seven to one three six nine nine two six six three. I'll be right back with Marty from Fairfield. All right, here we go, Welcome back to guard Line. We are in our last half hour of

the weekend. If you'd like to give me a call seven one three two one two kat r H. Now's the time to do it. As they say, speak now or forever, hold your piece. Well, call now or hold your piece for six days and we'll be back. We're gonna go out to Fairfield now and talk to Marty. Hey, Marty, welcome back.

You know, there's some that come in, but by and large I don't let them go to seed if at all possible, And that saves me a lot of trouble because you know, what do they say one years of weed is ten years of seed or something. So I try to do that. But anyway, I've learned that. You know, some weeds have spreading root systems, like a grassy type

clumping weed has a fiber spreading root system. And on those, if you grab them real load to the ground, hold on to them and kind of wiggle your hand back and forth as you pull, you'll kind of hear the individual little tiny roots ripping and tearing as you do that, and they come right out. If you grab them and try to pull, it just breaks off a lot of times. But that sideways wiggle as you pull works good. Here I am giving advice on how to pull a weed

or for crying out loud anyway, what does life come to? Anyway? That works for me. Then there's roots, the weeds that have tap roots, and the fall aster, oh boy, we'll be here this fall. That one has a tap root, and so you got to get a good base pull on it and the tap root comes right out. If the soil is moist. It is amazing how much weed pulling you can do. And I've been through the yard a bunch of times with a five gallon bucket and my handy dandy kneeling bench getting weed pulling done. And

so now can you pull Virginia button weed? And that doesn't work that way Other than getting the little buttons with the seeds out, that's about the only benefit that that does. You're not going to get the weed itself. Can you pull dollar weed over crying out loud, No? Or dichondra no, absolutely not, But a lot of weeds you can. And right now I still have some annual bluegrass going to seed, little tiny plants that have escaped somehow. You see them when they put the little seed head up.

Every one of those is coming out of in my yard. I am not going to deal with that anymore. Just stay on it and get the job done. But it's kind of therapeutic for me. It's one of the things in life where you know, you work for a little bit, you stand up, you look around, you see what you've accomplished. That's therapeutic, I think. So anyway, I like that, Well, let's go out to clear like now we're going to talk to Jim. Hey, Jim, welcome to garden Line.

root rot, the plant wouldn't come back. If it didn't enough to knock all the leaves off, it would kill the plant. So it's not a root rot. I don't think it's a folio disease. If the whole leaf is turning brown, if you get in brown spots, maybe a bacteria or fungus can do that. Yeah, that's weird. I don't know.

They absolutely work. I want to talk about a couple of kind of unique products on the market by Microlife. One of them is called bio inoculant, And what it is is it's an organic bioinoculant. It's got sixty three different strains of beneficial microbes, a lot of different strains in the basillas group. And I'm looking at the names of all these microbes that are in it. It's like, oh, you can buy that as a fungicide. Oh, you can buy that as you know what I'm saying. And they're

good for plants and they're part of nature. And it's micro grow bioinoculating by a big bag. Or you can buy it buy the little canisters, uh Clark canisters with a screw top lid that works. Here's another one, micro grow liquid AF. Now liquid AF specifically has eight strains of extremely dominating beneficial microbes that we know fight disease issues. It's not a fungicide, but it works. It's safe, it doesn't have an as an adverse effect on beneficial microbes.

These are microbes from the soil. These are microbes from nature, but they've been identified, they've proven to do this or to do that, to be beneficial. They put them all together in this gallon jaw a bottle or I believe it comes in a court to micro grow liquid af. It's a maroon kind of label as is by the way, the micro grow bioanoculant granule. Two more products from microlife that do work. We're going to go to a break here, David in Houston. Hang on, you're gonna be our very

first step when we come back, a right. Nice enough of that, this isn't a music show, although we do have fun with music on Guarden Line. Welcome back for our last segment of the day. Listen. If you are looking for a showplace, landscape, or the next step toward one, Pierce Scapes is all you need to know. Pierce Scapes dot com, p E A R C E S C A p e s dot com, Peerscapes dot com. That's it. Give them a call, get an appointment two eight one

three seven oh fifty sixty. I would like you to go to that website peerscapes dot com and see the work they do. Follow them on Instagram, follow them on Facebook. I mean, you will get inspiration, you'll get ideas. And I'm telling you, if you want to add to the value of your home, and I've done some of the do it yourself for kinds of things myself, it's not

the same. I mean when you get professionals in with design and the ideas that they have that might not have occurred to me, and you, oh my gosh, it adds value, incredible value to your home and also makes your house sell if you're selling a house, because people walk in and they just go, I want this house. That's it. That's as you're not selling. It's a place you can enjoy. Their hardscape work as unbelievable, their drainage work as unbelievable, The way they do irrigation and landscape

lighting and everything, it's all unbelievable. Just go to it. Don't believe me. Just go to this pierscapes dot com. Go look at what they do. Stunning, stunningly beautiful. All right, let's head out to David Now in Houston. Hey, David, welcome to garden Line.

the top. So what caused that? And Quinn, can I trim those extra branches and leaves or should I trim them?

the base as if you just cut it off. But uh, and I just want to make sure we still got a good trunk there sounds like we do, so I take all the others off. I don't know what caused it, Maybe it was a nick or something from machinery, but uh, you want to cut all those off and just have a single trunk coming up. And then if you can give it a multched area, David, that is even better. Trees hate grass. They grow in forests with leaves on

the ground. So the bigger the multch bed, the happier and faster that tree is going to grow.

bigger area. But but that mult bed, that forest floor environment of decomposing launch is tree heaven, tree heaven. So that's the best thing you can do for the tree. Yeah.

inch stub. I mean, cut them out at the base to minimize the re sprouting. There's a product called sucker stopper that is a plant tormone that you apply and it tells the plant not to regrow. Shoot right there, right then? Okay, So if you get too much of a problem with suckering, you may want to try sprain some of that on it, but I don't think it'll be necessary. I think if you just keep them removed, don't let them come up, I think you'd be all right.

good thick layer of mulch. Never tear the old mulch out, and you don't have to replace multch again, you know, as like I was saying about putting soil earlier. In nature, nobody replaces mulch. The design is that leaves fall on top of old rotting leaves and it just gets better and better. So when you need to add mulch ad maults, don't take the olmulch out. It's just getting good. I mean, it's it's gonna become part of the soil at that time. That's how nature does it, so no need to take

it away, Just add mulch. Is it. If the mulch is chunky, you gotta make it thicker because you're trying to block all the sunlight from getting to the soil. The finer texture to mulch is the less deep it needs to be to block the sunlight from the soil. So I'm not going to give you. I mean, the real time is about three inches for mulch, but I've seen times rowing a little deeper in that, and I've

had times where I didn't have to go that deep. Anyway, Let's go to Lake Palestine now and we're going to talk to Nancy. Hey Nancy, calling from far away.

The music's gonna start playing. We're gonna be out of time today, but I would do a very careful search wherever foliage is missing and find that booker and uh, and there's no need to spray for him, you just pick them off.

I put up recently. Lawn Care one oh one Everything you need to do about long care in simple terms. Go check those out. Running out of time. Take about more next week.