Roots & Shoots

you do it. Seven to one to three, two to one two kt r H. Seven to one three two one two kt r H. I want to visit about a number of different things today, some things that are kind of different than what I generally talk about on Guardline, but still gardening related topics, and certainly we'll have your calls to talk about the things that you are interested in. We're kind of hitting that time where we're officially transitioning

our seasons according to the temperature outside. You know, I've been telling you that don't pay attention to the calendar

or to the temperature. Pay attention to the calendar, because summer drags on here and then we seem to be getting fall, and then we have another week of summer again temperature wise, but we have to do things according to the calendar, because there's such a thing as average frost dates average freeze dates, and those are based on basically about ten twenty years more like twenty years of data by the Weather Service, saying, okay, on average, this is when the first frost of fall occurs, and then

on average, this is when the first frosts of freeze freeze of fall occurs. My mouth still hadn't woken up fully yet, so bear with me. And when we're planting things, if it's a warm season plant, well it's not built to take frosts and freezes. And if it's a cool season plant, it's not built to take blazing heat either most cases. But we have to plant according to that and when those dates are coming, we need to start watching for them. Now, average can be a misleading word,

you know. I had a years ago a caller came in and said they wanted to know, what when is the first frost going to be this year, and worded that way, it's like, who knows, I don't have a gardening crystal ball. Because average just means average. We could have a frost a month earlier, we could have a frost not until a month later. And that's an exaggeration a little bit. But in general, average just means, you know, kind of what's in the middle of all the things

that could happen. And I realize I'm not going to get For those of you who are mathematicians, I understand mean, median, mode, average, all those different ways to say in the same thing. But you know what I'm talking about. So what does average mean? Well, I like to say average is just a guide and it basically means nothing. Why do I say that, Well, if you put one foot in boiling water and one foot in ice water on average, you're comfortable. You see what I'm saying. In other words, average is

just somewhere in the middle that we look at. So if you are looking at your garden and you're looking at the dates for your area as to when the average frost dates would occur, you want to always air a little bit on the side of being conservative with it, because it could come a little bit earlier than normal. Now, I've put together some stuff that is online on my

website at Gardening with Skip dot Com. Fact I'll mention this later in the show if I remember it, and it is the frost and Freeze publication that I put out. It's one that I did with one of the inn M horticulture specialists several years ago. But it's protecting landscape plants and gardens from frosts and freezes, and it goes into the whole nine yards. If you want to nerd out on the science of frosts and freezes, there's information

in there about that. But if you just want the basics, like Okay, what do I do with my citrus tree it's going to be twenty two degrees tonight? It helps you with what to do about those kind of things too, But that's on the website Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com. One time, when I was in Conroe, this is many years ago, as a horticulture agent. There a newspaper call and they were asking me about

frost and freezes. And I can't remember the conversation, but I think I said something about, well, the average free state for our area is such and such and and we were talking in the newspaper when this story hit. It said county horticultureist says the first freeze this year will be on and it gave a date, and I was like, I like, no, I didn't say that, And I spent two weeks trying to tell everyone I knew

that I didn't say that. That was misprinted. On that day, there was a freeze and it was the It was the first one for the year, of the last one, I can't remember which which it was. And if I just kept my mouth shut, I would have sounded like some savant, some what you know, predictor of the profit of the future whatever. But that was so funny, because yeah, I didn't say that, but boy, if I had kept my mouth shut, it's sure what it looked good anyway.

Number seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H. The folks at Nelson have created this fertilizer and we'd control called carbo load. Carbo load, What an interesting name. Why does it? Why is it called carbo load? Well, because in the fall, your turf grass takes up nutrients and especially needs potassium that's the third number on the bag. It doesn't need a lot of nitrogen. You don't want to push it into growth when we're entering the cold season.

But it needs a little bit because nitrogen and potassium are taken up together. Okay, that's the end of the nerd alert section here. But carbo load goes. The nutrients go into the grass plant. The sun shines on the leaves, which it's doing now, and the grass produces carbohydrates and carbohydrates or sugars that help prevent the grass from freezing. They protect the tissue. It's like anti freeze in the

grass plant. I remember when our kids were little, we made popsicles, you know, mix up kool aid water or something like that. We made popsicles, and when you froze them and the freezer some of you remember this, the clear water part would freeze fast and then right up at the very top would be this gooey sugary stuff that never quite froze all the way. Sometimes that's the principle we're talking about. Sugars in liquid in a plant are going to not freeze. The plant's not going to

freeze them. But that's what carbo load's about. It also has a pre emergent herbicide in it. The pre emergent herbicide prevents cool season weeds which you are germinating now, from being able to germinate and get established. So when you put carbo load out, and by the way, a forty pound bag covers five thousand square feet, then you water it in. And you have to water it in if it sits on top of the soil, neither fertilizer nor pre emergent is doing anything as a granule on

the soil. You water it in. The nutrients go into the soil so the roots can get them, and the weed prevention goes into the soil surface so that when a weed seed sprouts, it can't it cannot establish a plant. Car beload by now, so don't delay anymore. It's time to get that out. We need to get that out soon. And always follow the label, always apply everything at the label rate. Very important. All right, time for me to take a quick break. I will be right back with

your call. Seven one three two one two KTRH. It's always a good day for gardening. I was taking care of some house plants the other day. I make that statement sometimes it every day is a good day for gardening, and then someone will go, yeah, what if it's two degrees outside and hailing, you know, or something. Well, you have house plans, don't you. You have seeds to order, you have seeds to start, you have cuttings to root inside. There's a lot of indoor gardening activities and I enjoy

doing those. I do them a lot in the summertime when it's blazing hot and I don't want to be outside in the middle of the day, and also in the one time, I just, let's see, about three days ago, set up my seed starting racks. I got two racks that I'm using for seeds starting on a light to put on them. I'll talk about that more a little bit later in the season when we're getting ready to grow some different kinds of transplants. But anyway, I got

them set up, getting done ahead of time. I would encourage you, if you have not tried seeds starting before, to try that because it's really fun. You can grow your own seeds, you can start cuttings yourself, and you know, there's levels of gardening. There's the Okay, I'm going to go to the store, buy a plant, pay somebody to put it in the ground and then enjoy it. That's cool.

That's gardening. That's fun. You can do that, or you can go all the way down to where you are collecting your own seeds, you're germinating and growing your own plants. You're taking cuttings and rooting them yourself. I mean, there's a wide range there, and wherever you want to be in that range is good. You decide gardening is fun. It's supposed to be fun, and we try to make

it so here on Garden. Speaking of fun and gardening, Plants Fell Seasons has got some cool season color in now and cool season vegetables too, by the way, but they are just stunning. You need to go and check them out. You can check them out online on their Facebook page or just go by there. Plant Frell Seasons is on Tomball Parkway two forty nine, just north of Luetta. It's right there on the side of Tomball Parkway, just north of Luetta. You should see some of the gorgeous

blooms that they have right now. They've got pansies and violas that are just busting out with all kinds of cool color and a lot of other cool things too. If you put some of that out. Your winter landscape can be so beautiful. There is no reason that our landscapes need to just be blah in the winter. There we have a lot of good color options and plant

frall seasons can get you set up on that as well. Now, if you have any questions or any samples you want identified, or you just need advice on Hey, this is a shady bed and I can't get anything to grow well in it. What would you suggest? They can do all that. They are lawn and garden experts, So take some pictures, bring in some samples, go visit with them. Get your green on. As they say at Plants for All Seasons Plants for All Seasons dot Com two eight, one, three, seven, six,

sixteen forty six, you need to swing by there. Oh, by the way, they have bulbs. They have onion sets for your vegetable garden as well. Yep, they're ready for the season and you can be too. I was setting up my seed rack. I was just telling you about that. And one of the things that is important when you're gonna be starting seeds or rooting cuttings for that matter, is to have good lighting. In fact, that would probably be the single most important thing, although there are things

that are essential. You gotta have good temperatures, you gotta have good lighting, you gotta have a growing media, and all that. Those are all important, but where most people go south is on lighting. If your plants don't get adequate light, your seedlings are going to be spend ley and they're not going to do well. They are just knocking their lean and stretch and snap over because they don't have any strength to the stem. And good lighting

is important. And if you are really into gardening, or you know someone who is really into gardening and really would like to grow their own seedlings or start transplants, a great Christmas gift and it's not inexpensive. They as you get into really good lighting, you can spend a little money on it. That doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money. There's a range. We can help you with those kinds of questions as well, But that information will just change your whole efforts and seeds

starting and trying things out like that. So get good light. If you need to visit with me about it, I can kind of help direct you and guide you to some things. Get send me an email on that I can send you some links to some good lighting information and resources. But that changed the world when it came to seed starting. I used to do this and this was like the bottom line lighting that got me by on starting to mate a transplant or broccoli transplants or whatever.

And that was the old shoplights with the T twelve fixtures. Those are the bulbs that are bigger than a quarter in diameter, you know, the larger bulb. And I would put a cool white bulb in a warm white bulb because the warm white bulb is more of the red wavelengths. The cool white bulb has more of the blue wavelengths. And when you put one of each in a shoplight or four foot shoplight, you had a decent blend of lighting. And so I'd put two shoplights, hang them over my

planets and do that. Well, now we're kind of getting away from those effluorescent tubes. Now everything's becoming led. But it gets really confusing. I need to put something. I tell you what, I'm going to try to put something on my website about basics of plant lighting. I will make a note right now and try to do that because going through the whole thing on the air is

just not going to work. But if you want to spend just a little bit on a gift for somebody, a good led plant light that's in the white range, right range of wavelength would be a good gift because I'm telling you it opens up the world. You know, any plant is yours when you have a good light indoors, meaning you can buy seeds of all kinds of things you'll never find in a local garden center. And just because a garden center can't carry a nine million different things,

and you can start on yourself. All right, Well, there's a tip now, quick garden line quiz. If you've listened more than one show, you should know what is the mantra we say here on have success with gardening. Brown stuff before green stuff. Brown stuff before green stuff means you get the soil right and your plants, then the green stuff will thrive. Landscaper's Pride has been helping gardeners get the soil right for a long long time, over two dozen different products that they have. One that I

think is an outstanding product. It's their Healthy Soil Compost. It's made locally sourced green materials, composted down, screened down into a quality mix to amend your soils. Many of our soils here are heavy clays. Compost loosens up a clay, helps it drain internally better, get oxygen down in the root system. Compost helps the sand to whole moisture better. Sands drained too well, and compost helps hold a little

bit of moisture in there. The other compost they have is a mushroom compost and that is made from local mushroom substrate. You know those little white mushrooms that you get in the store. Well, when they grow those, they grow them on a substrate of organic materials and then when they're done with a crop, it goes out and it's sold. It's available for compost and for making composts, and for making a quality product, very rich in nutrients.

That's the Landscapers Pride mushroom compost. For more of their products, go to Landscaperspride dot com. Landscaperspride dot com. You can follow them on social media just to keep up the date with things. Also on there is a list of where you can buy their products, which is they're widely

available here in the stores in this area. You are listening to Guardenline and my number is seven one three two one two ktr H seven one three two one two kt r A Sunday's always kind of uh, somewhat of a humor on guardline for me, and that is that first thing in the morning, it's awfully quiet. Now, why would anyone want to sleep in? Early, early, early, early on a Sunday morning. And then at the end of the show, it's like, oh, everybody now wants to

call and it's harder to get in. So if you ever want to get into garden line without a weight, Sunday morning is a good time. Early Sunday morning is a good time to do that. Someone asked me the other day about azamite, you know, they said, is azimite a fertilizer? And the answer is yes, But it's not the same kind of fertilizer as the ones with the big three numbers on the bag that you put on

your lawns and gardens and things. Those big three numbers are macro nutrients, meaning your plants need a lot of them, and they're always nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in that order the three numbers, but they're secondary nutrients like things like calcium or sulfur or magnesium and then there's trace minerals that you just need a little of. Do you know did you know that a plant cannot grow without manganese? Did you know that a plant cannot grow without copper?

Did you know that a plant can't grow without zinc or iron? Okay, those are trace minerals. Those are all trace minerals. They are essential for plant growth. Azamite is a trace mineral supplement that you put on your soil. You can put in your vegetable gardens so your vegetables are more packed with all of the different nutrients and grow really well as a result. You can put on your lawns, and I do recommend that you do that. But whatever you do, you need to get your azmite

down on the soil to provide those minerals. So when do you do it, Well, you don't have to wait until it's time to fertilize the lawn to put on asmite. We wouldn't put out a high nitrogen right now in the lawn because we're going into winter. But now's a fine time to do asimite. So is the time in the spring when you're fertilizing your lawn. You could also add to asumite at that time. It is a soil

bank account builder. Think of it that way. When you need to buy something, you got to get money from the bank to buy it. Well, when plants want to grow, when they want vigor, when they want blooms, when they want fruit, whatever they're producing, they have to get it from the soil bank account to do that. And as might does just that. ASMI Texas dot com. That's the website. If you want to learn more about it ASMIT Texas dot com. Whether you learn more about it or not,

just do it. All right, time for a break. I'll be right back. All right, we're back. We are back on guardline. Welcome, Welcome back. If you are interested in asking a question, or have a plant you need identified, or any kind of thing like that, you can just give me a call. Seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H in Chenny Gardens down in the Richmond Rosenberg area is a destination nursery. And I'm not just saying that like it's a description I'm giving it.

I'm talking about being out there talking to people and finding out they've driven. Like I said the other day, it's ran and somebody who came from Austin, Texas. No, you're visiting family over here. No, we came over to shop at gardens. We love this place. So okay, well that is what of culture tourism. But that's the kind of garden center there. It is. It's on the Katie

Fullsher side of Richmond, that's north. So you just go up seven twenty three FM seven twenty three and three fifty nine, right at that corner FM three fifty nine, and when you get there, you're going to see a very gorgeous, sprawling place that has every kind of plant that you can imagine, certainly everything for the season. Like right now, for example, they've got strawberries in now's the time to plant strawberries. Everybody thinks they want to plant

strawberries in the spring. Don't do that. Plant them now because they have all winter. We have really mild winters here, and they'll grow all winter and you will get a bigger plant with more bloom buds already in the plant when spring comes. Do you know that strawberries as they grow over the winter time, the fall and winter season, they develop stronger plants that have more bloom buds that and it is time to bloom. You get more production.

So go to in chanted gardens. Grab some strawberries. You can put them in strawberry jars if you want those little terracotta containers that have the holes in the side for planning in. I just put mine in the ground. I put them in raised beds and all kinds of things. It is easy to grow strawberries here. You just get them in, water them in continue to provide small amounts of nitrogen over the winter, and they can do that. So grab your plants there. Also, if you need some

onion sets though, while you're in there, grab those. I challenge you yesterday to grow onions as year. Most of you have not grown onions yourself, and you should. If you don't have a garden, just get a big container. You can grow onions in a big container. They'll grow in that just fine. You just want to give them space. You'll probably I don't know, in a container. I'd probably put them about maybe four inches apart, something like that.

And then with onions, you keep pushing them with nitrogen and continually adequate water, not soggy, but always watering them, always fertilizing them. Here's why if you want success with onions, you need to get as big a plant as you can before spring, as big a plant as you can before spring, because every leaf on an onion plant is a ring in the onion bulb. I think about that just a minute. So if you've got a scrawny onion plant with three leaves, when spring comes, you're going to

have a scrawny onion bulb with three rings. The base of the leaf is the ring of the onion. So if you fertilize and fertilize and makes they never get dry and you just keep them going all wintertime. When the day link shortens or LinkedIn's and it starts to bulb, you're going to have something huge.

You're gonna find the fertilizers I talk about, and you're going to find incredibly knowledgeable and helpful people to help you have success. That is what they do there. I I was talking to one of my one of my kids. I call them kids there, they're long grown, but you know, I'm a parent talking to one of my kids the other day and they had purchased a home where they had some cracks in the outside of the home, and they were concerned about what do we need to do?

Is this a big foundation problem? What should we do? And I call Ty Strickland. Tay Strickland's the owner of Fix my Slab Foundation Repair, and I said, hey, Ty, here's the situation. What do you think you know, do we need to get somebody on This was in a town halfway across Texas, uh and outside his area for sure, but you know, he was so helpful. He was He talked to me about, you know, well, okay, how how how far is how BIG's a crack? What's this happening here?

And he's asked me a bunch of questions about it, And the bottom line was you know what that's movement, but that's within the range of something to not really worry about, and it's like, okay, well that's good to know. But that's the kind of guy Tye is. Tye is that service type industry person who does the job right.

He fixes it right, He shows up on time when he says he will, and he gives you a fair price, and if something's not needed, he'll tell you, and if it is, he'll tell you and tell you what your options are. You can go to fix myslab dot com. That's his website, or you can just give him a call two eight one two fifty five forty nine forty nine.

So if you're walking around the house and you look at the brick on the outside and you see cracks, especially underneath windows, that seems to be a place where cracks off and originate. Or if you're inside and you see cracks in the sheet rock or doors are sticking, those are all reasons to call Tie and have him come out and take a look at it. Tell him your guardenline listener free estimates if you are a garden line listener. He's been doing this for twenty three years.

He knows what he's doing ti strick one fix my slab foundation repair. Nobody wants to have foundation problems, I mean right, I mean that is like, oh my gosh, because this is like, this is my home. I don't have that problem. Well, you know the analogy of the ostrich, it sticks his head in the sand. Don't be the ostrich. I think that's That's basically what I'm trying to say is if you see a problem, have somebody look into it early. It's not going to get better, it may

not be a horrible thing. Just don't don't put it off because you're worried about it. Just just look at it. Our clay soils shrink and swell a lot, and they move. They definitely move, that's for sure. One of my back patios is actually the patio pad is heaving up and moving away from the foundation of the house just a little bit, just a tiny bit. But I was looking at the other and thinking, Wow, the power of soil is amazing. Is it shrinks and swells and moves and

all kinds of stuff like that. Well, if you are gonna take my advice and take care of the brown stuff before the green stuff, then you need to contact the folks at Heirloom Soils. And here's why they've got a really special deal going on, and that is their one cubic yard supersacks. They got their new branded one cubic yard supersacks out there. What is that, Well, you know the grocery sacks you buy so you don't have to use paper plastic bags. You know, those those sacks

of the handles. Imagine something so big and so strong that it can hold a cubic yard of soil material in it. And they just lifted up, put it on the truck, take it to your house, lifted up, put it on your driveway. And I've used to. I've had two different supersacks at my house, and oh my gosh, they are so easy. You know, for years I would just say, okay, dump it in the driveway, Just dump the whatever it is, mult compost whatever in the driveway and then I'm I'm shoveling it into super sacks are

so much easier, neat, clean, easy to do. And listen to this right now, They've got a deal where you can get their awesome leaf mold compost. If you're going to top dress on, if you're going to even just mix composts in the so leaf mold compost is the Cadillac. They're awesome veggie and herb mix. That's I've used it. That stuff will grow just about anything, but especially things

like veggies and herbs. I would use it for flowers too. Actually, uh for one hundred and twenty nine dollars for either one or the other or both h one twenty nine per qubic yard supersack and you get to keep the sack. You don't have to, you know, pay for the sack. Turn it back in one twenty nine. Now that you go to the porter, which is Porter Texas Out. I'm fifty nine on the access road on the right going

out and that's where you pick it up. Or you can call them and have them deliver it, but they're going to need a three sacked minimum for delivery, and there are delivery fees. If you want delivery, go to rockinmultch dot com slash delivery rock in maultch Warrens rockin malts So just Rockmultch dot com slash delivery, or if you want to go pick it up yourself, just head out to Porter and do it. Here's the phone number.

Call them up and they're not They're not open today on Sunday, but they are open Monday through Saturday two eight one three five four nineteen fifty two eight one three five four one nine five zero. By the way, they also have their new premium lawn mix for when you're gonna redo your lawn you want to fill in some holes and kind of get some organic matter in the surface. There seventy four dollars a sack for that and many many other products. Why are you there? All right?

Time for me to take another little break and we will be right back. Well, coming back. Allow music crawl our Louisiana lesteners across the George straight. Welcome back to the Garden Line. We're glad to have you with us. We're gonna go straight to the phones now and head out to Richmond to talk to Connie this morning. Hello Connie, welcome to Garden Line. All right, Uh, do we have Connie? See what? I'm gonna put Connie back on hold here and if y'all check on that, we'll come back to her.

Excuse me, all right, let's see, we're gonna try this again. There, do we have you Connie? Hello, Hey, welcome to Garden.

mix of some different products. The problem with leaf cutter ants is they they they're not attracted to the exact same baits as like fire ants or sugar ants or each ant has kind of certain things that attract it. And you can't just use a contact killer pesticide with them because they live in a giant underground cavern where they cut your You may know this, but they cut the leaves off your plants, They haul them back, they stick them to the ceiling of the cavern and grow

fungus on them and eat the fungus. Is that is that interesting? And basically grows weed fungus too, it's called mushrooms. But anyway, that's what they do, and so you kind of have to get abait product in there in a way that's going to be able to kill them. And I can I can send you some some kind of home concoction thing that that I think if you try it, you'll have success with it.

from losing stuff. I one night, in one night, I had a peach orchard, and in one night I walked out the next morning and three peach trees didn't have a leaf on them, and they all had leaves the day before. So I know what leaf cutter ants can do. They work fast, all right, they work fast, that's right. But they are fascinating, very fascinating. All right, Connie, thank you. I'm gonna put you on hold. Don't go away. Jonathan'll pick up and he'll give you my email address. All right.

That's it. One of the interesting creatures of nature. You know, we sit here and a lot of pests. You know, they just make you mad, like fire ants, they bite you make you mad. But when you look at just the world, they live in how they just just all the signs of what's going on in there. It is

a fascinating world. It's like honey bees, you know, honey We're very familiar with the fact that honey bees have ways of doing dances that tell other bees where to go get pollen and nectar, and they just the whole world of honey bees is fascinating. Well, we just happen to like honeybees because they give us honey. But a lot of creatures out there in nature are pretty interesting, pretty cool. But not when I've got three peach trees that don't have a leaf on them the next day

that I'm not into that, that is for sure. Okay, you're listening to Gardenline and I'm wandering around on all kinds of other topics. I wanted to mention that Quality Home Products is hiring professional licensed electricians and plumbing pros. Now, if you are a licensed electrician and plumbing pro, you should give them a call. This is a great company and people love to work for them for a number

of reasons. The pay is very competitive. They have comprehensive medical dental vision coverage of four to one K, matching retirement plans, holiday pay and time off, career advancement, very stable, reliable organization. You can go to Quality TX dot com, Quality tx dot com and apply online if you're interested. Quality TX dot com. And now you know, I want to congratulate Quality Home. You know they're a Houston company,

a local, family owned Houston area company. This is their thirty fifth anniversary and they built their company on trust and transparency and excellent sales. If you look at their ratings online, it's through the roof because they do it right. They absolutely do. They dedicated to make a positive bent pack here in the Houston area. I mean, you know there we're talking about donating to local food banks, funding schools,

providing COVID relief. There's so many ways that they are let's just say, good citizens, good business citizens of our community here and certainly in the sense of when power goes out, providing what's needed to keep our homes and businesses running. Quality Home. I yesterday was out working on

my patio again. This is like going to be a longstime story because it's taken me a while because there's a bunch of issues I'm having to deal with and getting it in, but getting those stones light down getting everything in place. And I have two Golden Retrievers, and these golden retrieves, we love our dogs, but I have found that you cannot shame a golden retriever. You know, I've walked out and said, you guys are bums. What are you doing? I get up? Come on, man, you

know I need some help over here. They don't. It doesn't phase them. But what they will do is when I'm not watching, they will go find a stick and take it to the back door and shred it into something I've got to vacuum up. And yesterday doing the patio, there were these little slabs that it's almost like thin tiles, tight slabs of rock, and they were taking them out in the yard and somehow with their teeth cracking them

and leaving rocks all over my yard. And I probably spent fifteen twenty minutes just picking up the rocks that they saw a need to crack in the grass. So Ellie and Tex are not let's just say they're in the doghouse today, but as they know, I don't really get mad at them. Love those dogs. Well, we're hitting the top of the hour. This this one went kind of fast. That was that was kind of interesting. If you'd like to give us a call, you could get online or get on the board that is during this

break and then you'll be first up. When you come. It's seven one three two one two kp r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. I want to remind you that my website, Gardening with Skip dot com gardening is skip dot com has my schedules on it. The lawn care schedule which is mow water, fertilized, apply the azmite type products, do aeration. It's all on that schedule. In other words, try to care for your launch. The second schedule is the best disease and we'd management schedule.

And that's everything that goes wrong with the lawn. When do chinchbugs occur? And how do you control them? When does take af thatch or large petture or ralei spot? How do you prevent the ks? How do you kill echo gat? Those schedules are free on the online with the ever good info. Should check it out Gardening with Skip dot com.

or something like that. I think that's kind of fun. One time, I want one time, many years ago. I did it the first time, and I still do garden in wheelbarrows? Have you ever thought about that? You get an old wheelbarrow and can get a new one if you want. Just make sure it has some drainage holes down in the bottom, and you feel it full of quality potting mix and you can grow anything and it's

great for the winter. Here's why you want to plant some things out there and in the wheelbarrow that might freeze if it got really really cold. What do you have to do? Roll up the garage door, send the wheelbarrow inside for the night, bring it back out the next day. You want to put you say you don't have room for a garden that has a good sign. If you got a wheelbarrow, you do you just roll it over to the sunny spot and it gives the neighbors something to talk about. As if they needed it.

They talk about you already, you know that right anyway, That is a whimsickle way of going about gardening, but it is fun for flowers and for vegetables. Speaking of whimsy, have you been to Arburgate a garden center recently? You know, when you go into Arburgate, First of all, you just stop in your tracks because you look around and there is so much going on. There is color everywhere, and then there is all the different kinds of garden art

and things just I can't describe it. You's got to go see it, maybe those of you who have been there to know what I'm talking about. Just all kinds of things that make your garden just look cool. Their pottery is gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. No matter what you're interested in, they've got it. By the way, the gift shops there are just loaded to the brim with all kinds of holiday arrangements, great gifts for your home or for somebody else. That's on your list and they have the expert advice

to help you have success. For example, let's say you decided, you know what, I want to grow blueberries and I want to grow them in a big container? Do I do that? And what do I need? Do I need two varieties or will one variety do it? How do I do that? What kind of potting soil do I use? What kind of fertilizer do I use? Walk into Arburgate and ask them wouldn't it be cool to have your own blueberries in the spring to enjoy in the summer. They can help you do that. That's what I'm talking about.

No matter what you're going after, Arburgate has got exactly what you need. They are on Tomball Parkway, which is I'm sorry not Tomball Parkway. They're off of Tomball Parkway about a mile and a half on twenty nine to twenty. So if you go up to Tomball up tom Ball Parkway, turn left on twenty nine twenty about a mile and a half out on the left, there they are tresh.

A road goes around behind them. It's a little loop and that's the back parking lot you want to go parking because it's very easy and safe access, easy to do, but allow some time because when you go to arbigate, you're going to need some time because there's so much to see and there's so many things that you will suddenly discover you cannot live without. I'm going to head No, back to the phones to go talk to Liam. Hello, Liam, Welcome to garden line. Hello sir, Hello, how can we help?

They only attack new tender growth. They don't attack old, tough, leathery leaves. So anytime you get a flush of growth, you can spray it. And the probably the most organic safest product that works is on that is going to be spin no sid spin spin spin. Oh. And then sad is the those pests make you sad. Spin o sad and uh, that's organic. It soaks into the leaf and so when the larva tries to choose through it, that's spinosid is inside where it will kill them. They

don't kill citrus trees. If you have a young tree you're trying to get to grow fast, they can set it back if you have an old, established tree. Some people just ignore them and don't worry about it. But that is how you control them. You just have to get ahead of them when the new flushes of growth occur. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, you bet.

Ace hardware stores. That is one place. There's forty Ace Hardware stores in the Houston area. And so when you hear me say some product, go into ACE and say, hey, you got some of this, and the answer is probably yes, Spino said, definitely is going to be a yes. It is so easy. And with forty stores, no matter where you live, you're going to find it. You already know that ACE is a place you get all the fertilizers

I talk about on guarden Line. You already know that ACE is a place when you're trying to control weeds, trying to control disease and pests, insects, all that. That's the place for that. But ACE is also the place for your holiday decorating, for making the areas that you want to enjoy nicer indoors and outdoors. By the way, ACE is, Yes, a hardware store. You everything at a hardware store should be ACE is. But ACE is a

place for top quality barbecue pits. For example. ACE is a place for some really unique and cool holiday gifts. I'm gonna I'm gonna be talking about that here in a couple of weeks once we get to the Thanksgiving weekend. So if you are looking for anything that you need like that, Ace Hardware is the place. It makes it so easy. Go to ACE Hardware dot com, find the store locator. Ace Hardware dot Com find the store locator and you can find the ACE store that is nearest

to you. I'm gonna need to take a little break here and when I come back, Kathy in Belleville, you will be our first up. We're back on the Garden Line. And what are we gonna do. We're gonna run first things right out for Belville, Texas and back to Kathy. Cathy, Welcome to Garden Line. Hi, Hi, how are you doing well? I'm doing great. What's up?

trying to catch up with that gopher. That was me And I tried one time putting a hose into the area and just turned it on and ran it and ran. Think I'm gonna float those guys right out of there. That didn't work. I won't. I won't say on the air ballistic things that I a while that was about it. I tried setting them on fire and everything else. Yeah, they're a problem, but I do have a recipe that's

some pcos Pescantal operators tell me works pretty good. So anyway, I ought to give you at least relief for a while before you have to come back and do it again.

the professional landscape whatever you need company. And I mean that When I say whatever you need, I mean you walk in, talk to them, talk to their designers, and get your whole landscape designed and created right there like that, or you walk in and go, you know what. My irrigation system is a mess. Can y'all come in check it out, fix it, do whatever I need? Or I got this poorly drained area and Skip keeps saying that plants need good drainage and I can't grow anything there.

Can you guys put some subsurface drainage in the interest just to all these I want landscape lighting. You remember how I said, make those outdoor areas just really special to be out in and you know we're so warm here in the winter. We enjoy our outdoors all through the winter time. The hard time to enjoy is on the summer day. But Peerskaps can do that. Do you want hard scapes like I'm working on in my backyard right now? Peerscapes can do it professionally, not like I

do it professionally. Do you want somebody just to come in and do maintenance on your bed? That's it. I just want you to come four times a year quarterly, put new flowers in, refresh the mulch, check for problems in the irrigation, fertilize. You see what I'm saying. They can do that too. Go to this website and you'll see pictures of what they can do and all the contact info is there Pierce Scapes dot com, p E A R C E S C A p E S Piercescapes dot com. You really need to check it out.

I'm going to go now to Tom in Dickenson. Welcome to garden Line.

And I'm starting to see some thorns on mine. So am I barking up the wrong tree with these seedlings?

that can bloom and set fruit. That's a maturing process. So it is not unusual for seedlings to be thorny. You just have to be patient with it, and eventually you will get non thorny. Although the caveat to that is some types of citrus do have thorns. That's just part of the type of Ceterrius. You know, like setsuma oranges aren't very thorny, but you know, certain kinds of other things can be thorny. But anyway, that's okay.

a desperate plea. I don't know what it is. If you're out in the Kingwood area, you've got two really cool garden centers. You got Kingwood Garden Center and warrens Now First Kingwood Garden Center. That's the one on Stone Hollow, Kingwood Garden Center at their gift shop right now. This is the third week of an ever increasing it's been going up every week. How much percent off is the items in the gift shop. They're cleaning house, so you get a whole bunch of new inventory in forty percent

off this week. Yes, it started yesterday. It goes all the way to the thirtieth of November. Forty percent off. So get over there. Whatever you can find. I mean, you're not going to better deal than that. Their gift shop is loaded with the widest range of things you've ever seen. It is really cool. And while are you there, you get to enjoy seeing Kingwood Garden Center too. It's a nice place to visit real cool plants. And then over at Warren's Southern Gardens on North Park Drive, they

are loaded up on their cool season color. They have bulbs in stock. They have got a really good deal on some of the mulch and are salt based mulch and soil based products and things that it's the kind of place to where you go and you just get excellent advice. You know, Michael and the whole team over there, they know what they're talking about, and they can guide

you to success. Maybe you've seen a beautiful, cool seasoned plant or with all these plants and flowers and colorful foliage coming out of it, but you don't know how to do that. Go talk to them. They'll walk you through. They'll say, here, grab some of this dusty miller over here, grab some of this blue violas over here. And I mean, they'll put the thing together for you and show you how to do it. I mean, if you want to harm them to do it, they'll do that. But they

can make you look good. That's what they do at Warren Southern Guards and Kingwood Garden Center out there in the Kingwood area. I'm going to head now out to Oak Forest and we're going to talk to a little Oh Elizabeth.

we call importation of natural enemies. This is something that's been done in gardening for a long time, where you bring in a natural enemy that takes care of the past.

So you get a neighborhood kid back there. You pick one horn worm, you don't have to say a word, and you put it on the sidewalk and step on it and it squirts like a ketchup packet in McDonald's as you stepped on and then you go back in the house and fifteen minutes later look at your kitchen window and there's going to be six kids that they've gathered. They could bring all their friends and show them this and after that, you don't have hornworm problems. Okay, I'm going to go with you.

in two days suddenly you've got giant horn rooms. They have to the moth has to lay the egg, they have to hatch out their tiny caterpillars. It takes a while for them to grow before you even see leaves in missing because there's a little small, right, and so if you just periodically you would just spray your tomatoes, like you know, I am going to go on vacation for a week. Just just spray them and you'll be You'll be okay that way.

need to go again on guarden line. With your calls seven one three two one two five eight seven or the most important thing you do. I'm just gonna say this over and over again. The most important thing you do if you want to have success with plans is prepare the soil first. Now very important. Also picking plants that want to grow there, in fact, that's essential. Picking a spot that has the amount of sunlight that plant needs, that's essential. But soil is it's so easy, it's in

your control and you can do it. And Cienamlts is a place where you can make that happen because the brown stuff that comes before the green stuff includes compost and includes sol prep. It might include expanded shale. It would include nutrients, fertilizers and things like that. When you make roots happy, that plant can thrive. Very very important. Don't PLoP a poor plant into an unprepared plot or

pick a peck of pickle puppers with peter piper. Plants need to have soil where they can create an extensive root volume full of rich, well aerated, oxygenated soil to thrive in, and they will reward you if you do that. Ciena Maltz is a place you go to get that done. Go to Sea Maltz dot com. They're down there on FM five twenty one near Highway six and two eighty eight south of Houston, siennamultch dot com. All the communities

around there. You can get hardwood Multch. You can get double ground malts, two inch screened mult There is brands like Landscaper's Pride, like heirloom soils. They also have rocks too, by the way, sand gravel stones on pallets. They deliver within twenty miles for a fee. And if you need the fertilizers, which you do, they carry all the ones

I talk about on Guardenline. Fertilizers from nitrofoss fertilizers from Nelson, plant food, fertilizers from Medina, from Microlife, from Azamite, Ciena Maltch. That's what you need to know, cienamultch dot com. We're going to go now to a Tascasita and we're going to talk to Veronica. Veronica, welcome to garden Line.

Skip's weed wiper. What it is is one of those grabber tools, you know, the things that you reach up to get a jar office shelf, and they got like suction cups on the end to grab something. You get one of the You get one of those and you attach sponges to it. But my little diagram on there shows you exactly how to do it, and then there is an ingredient called triclop peer that you put on the sponge. Now, the reason I like the weed wiper is you don't have to stoop down, you don't have

to dig. Those things are long enough to We're standing upright with your arm down by your side. You can reach all the way to the ground with them and you just squeeze the handle and the sponges wipe that product right on the leaves of the crepe myrtle in this case that's coming up only. So on my website gardening with skip dot com, there is how to build a weed wiper, and then there's herbicides for it, and that triclo peer t R I c l O p y R is listed on there for things like I

don't I don't put crate myrtles. Most people aren't trying to kill kraigmer but poison ivy pepper wine, you know those seedlings from hackberries coming up in the fence line. That it's really easy to do. And even if you don't build the weed wiper, the tricle apear ingredient is what you want to use. But you just have to be careful because if you spray it, there are a lot of things tricl appear will kill, so you don't want to get it on something that's not the problem weed.

I mean, if you if you can take a pint jar canning lid and a nail and a hammer and make a hold in the lid, you can build this thing. Seriously, that's about the total amount of work too. It's very easy to do. Star Hope Ministries has been around Houston for a very long time. In fact, Star of Hope, I don't even I can't imagine the number of lives

that they change, and they do change lives. You know, you're a compassionate person, and your dollars are hard earned, and you want to give them to some place that is going to make the most difference with those dollars. And I cannot think of a place that does a better job of that than Star of Hope. Star Hope feeds people six thousand meals a week for people that need that. Two dollars and eighty five cents from you can buy a meal. Star of Hope gives training for jobs.

It gives daycare for people that are there learning how to train getting back on their feet. Listen, when you lose everything and you're living in a car with your kids for maybe no fault of your own, whatever the reason, it takes a lot to get you back on your feet as a contributing member of society who can actually have a job. You know, to have a job, you got to a car or a transportation. To have a job, you've got to be able to do the interview. You've

got to deal with things like sometimes substance abuse. Starhope has programs for that. They change lives. I cannot think of a better way to put your compassion to work then to go to shmission dot org. S oh for Star Hope Shmission dot org. Well, you join my wife and I being supporters of Star of Hope. We're going to go now to Nope, We're not going to go. It is time for me to take a break here

pretty quick, Leanne and Cyprus. You will be the very first up when we come back from break, because I want to have time to be able to give you adequate time on your call. I just want to remind Joe. I was talking about the website before. There's a lot of information on there, and I put it up there because some things are hard to just explain, you know, one hundred times over the course of a couple of months, Like how do you kill a nutgrass? Well, it's a process,

there's a there's information to it. But on my website is all the free stuff of how to do it. So just go there and look at it and save yourself the hassle. That way, you don't have to worry about writing all these chemicals or writing all these names of plants down or whatever. We're doing. The publication on protecting plants from frosts and freezes is there on the website, and we're not there yet, but we will soon be there where you'll need that publication, So go ahead and

print it up or download it. It's free, and be ready when the time comes. All right, we're going to take a break. I'll be right back. Thanks for listening, and we do appreciate it. We really do appreciate that. I love visiting with gardeners, and so whenever we get to go on the air and talk with you that that's kind of my happy place right there. Absolutely, you know, if you can as plants in the Heights, it's such a cool place. If you haven't been, you really ought

to go. But I want to tell you what you what you need to do, and just if you'll trust me on this one, go to Buchanan's plants website. Okay, it's buchanansplants dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. Sign up for their newsletter and it is full of good information stuff you want to know, stuff that will really help you. For example, if you were signed up to their newsletter, you would know that the Holiday open House is Saturday,

December seventh from ten am to three pm. It's a free event with live music, kids, crafts, sano be there, drinks. I don't have santagates around so much drinks and more all there at the Holiday open House. You would know that December seventh, you would know when they got their point set is in. You would know that you can get some really gorgeous faux wreaths and garlands for beautiful

holiday decorations. Just year after year after year, you see some picture of those gorgeous things, and you would know about the native plant of the week, Like have you ever heard of Virginia sweet spire? You know, Buchanans Navy Plants specializes in native plants. Virginia sweets is so cool. It's native in East Texas area and beyond. But it has beautiful white blooms, fragrant little blooms that are like a bottle brush kind of but a small, thin bottle brush.

And you can make if you've got a shady area and you want a shrub that grows in there, and it's like, okay, I know about azelias. What else Virginia sweetspar will do well. It'll put up with some sun too. By the way, it's not just total shade. But you would learn about things like that. You would learn about when they're having a discount, like right now all the fall decor is fifty percent off. You need to go to the website buchanusplasts dot com. You need to sign

up for the newsletter. You will learn a lot and also on the website there's a lot of good helpful how to information. Let's set out to cypress now and we're going to talk to Leanne. Hello, Leanne, welcome to Guardenline. Alrighty, We're going to put Lee in on old here and let's see if we can there we go. You know what, Leanne, if I push the right button, I actually have you on the air.

the trichopere. So a little spongebrush and you know we're talking about a tea spoon or tablespoon of the product. So yeah, that that's not the problem. Then when you plant a new plant, the root systems can find and in the garden center is getting watered every day and so that it pumps that soil that root ball dry.

Even if the soil is kind of moist, it can still go into a little bit of a drought, and that burning tips can be anything from a little bit of a drought type symptom to if you put fertilizer that's salt based in the planting hole and those roots get burned, that that nutrient goes up into the plant and goes all the way out to the to the tips of the leaves and edges of the leaves where the water is all evaporating away, transpiring away, and it leaves that salt behind and you get a burn tip too.

So there's different things that can cause it. But I think your chittapa is fine. I wouldn't worry about that right now.

until spring. That way you could water right at the base, which is where the only place where all the roots are is still that little cylinder you put in the ground and just hand water there, I think that would probably be better. And a clay soil. If you overwater the hole becomes an underground bathtub, and now the roots are sitting submerged. So I would just watch out for the sprinkler on this one. Let's get it. You know it's gonna go dormant here, the leaves are gonna fall off,

and then it essentially almost needs no water. You know, the nature will provide enough for it.

the shelf, has to grow six twelve six plant. For what you do is I put mine into like a watering can and then just water in every time my plants an do that, you do it again a week later and again a week. Makes it real easy. You can get Medina all kinds of places widely available. It's one of the many products it's got. It also has that Medina Soul activator in it too, which I think is excellent, excellent. Alrighty, well, there's the music that means we are going to take a little break. We will

come back. If you would like to give us a call and get on the board so you can be first up when we come back. Seven one three two one two three ten seven.

Don't tell anybody. It's just hearing me listening right now. Don't spread that around. But that's okay. To be a good gardener, you got to kill plants because things happen. You learn that way. Sometimes it's no fun, you know, lose an expensive plant. But just by following some principles you can have success. You can minimize your plant killing.

You know, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants will take your name off the list as you learn a little bit more and you're less likely to get hauled off to horticulture prison for murdering some poor little plan Who can help you with that, you know. Microlife Fertilizer has a wide variety of products. They've got their granular products. That's things like the green bag, the sixty four, the summer fertilizer, the fall fertilizer, which it's

still okay to put on now. If you didn't get it done until now, you can still go ahead and do it. That is called brown patch. It's called Microlife brown patch and a brown bag brownish purple, herb, maroon, and the brown patch will give you the nutrient blend you need for going into fall, and it does really well for that. But then they also have their liquids. I like to use the liquid products. They've got a seaweed, They've got a fisher moulsion type product. They've got one

that I use a lot on house plants. It is an orange label, okay, micro see micro, I just want blank on the micro anyway, it's an orange label on it. I'll tell you in just a minute. It just stepped out of my mind and I find that it's excellent. It has no odor really, and so you can use it indoors. By the way, don't use don't use fish and motion indoors unless you have cats and want to see all the potting soil in your plant. Help because cats will walk them off for a fish. But fish

emulsion is such an excellent fertilizer, just not inside. But other products that they have, they have liquids. For example, the micro grow liquid is an excellent product for adding tons of microbes to the soil. Adding a lot of micro I mean I'm talking about the bazillions that add to the soil, and even for house plants, that is helpful.

It is helpful to be able to add additional microbial content because microbes help the plants to thrive by the way the product I couldn't say the name of the orange le biomatrix to seven one three fertilizer you can use I use it on houseplins, but I mean you can use it in any plant in your garden. It

just does really well. All of that's for Microlife. All you have to do is go to Microlife Fertilizer Com and learn about all of the many, many products, many of which I never even talked about here on guard Line. Just don't have time to do all of them.

all of our driveway in yard. And when the yard man would come and pick him up, and they were back again, and uh, and it got worse, and we called the tree man back. And we had something called twig girdlers, and it didn't have anything to do with the squirrels that they sprayed. Right in the meantime, I had to pick up the drop the whatever leaves and twigs had dropped, put them in a bag and tie it tight.

It's excellent talking to somebody the other day. Send them over there that's looking for some special certain kinds of shrubs, and rcw's got those, and so it's a good time to get them. Falls the best time to plant shrubs and trees anyway, and so you should do that. They grow their own trees up there in Plannersville at the Tree Farm, and I'm telling you RCW only sells plants that are going to do really really well. Here. Those

trees are growing. They've chosen those species because they know they do well here and you can plant them yourself. It's small. If you want them to come plant it, they'll do a professional job on it. They have the products like root stimulator and whatnot that you would want for that. But just go to RCW again the corner of Tomball Parkway at Beltway eight r cwnurseries dot com. We're going to go now to Huntsville and talk to Charles. Hey, Charles, Welcome to garden Line.

with three beautiful big leaves that the burrough has. And I wondered about should I mulch it around it with pine needles. I've got a lot of pine trees and I put a lot of pine needles around it. It had three adult leaves and it had one little one just starting. And we're getting cold weather. It's already been down in the thirty thirty five thirty six degree level those leaves should have if it was normal, those leaves

would have died and blown away by now. But what about up here in this You know I'm north of Huntsville, Alabama.

it since you got it on there. I think next spring you'll see it come back and all you The only other thing you need for success is to take the roundup away from your wife.

Listen to. Birds are about to be flocking back to the feeders there. They're there at the feeders already, but as we get into colder weather, they're going to be depending on our feeders a lot more. And that is a great thing because it's an opportunity to bring them up where you can sit and enjoy them, especially through the winter. Time, and I would recommend right now that you get some Winter super Blend. Winter super Blend is the wild birds unlimited bird seed for the cold weather season.

It's packed with protein, it's packed with fat. As the daylight hours or shorter and shorter now we are looking at less time for birds to be outfeeding. So being able to get a high quality feed and a short amount of time is very important. Remember to that it's always good to have water out. Number one. Birds need water every day and so having a dependable supply is important to them. And when they know there's a dependable supply,

they're going to come back there time after time. You know, if you have the water out for one day a week here and there, they don't know they get water to the house. I mean they may find it, but keep it out all the time. They need it every day and it brings them to your house, just like feed brings them to your house. Bird seed, so does water. So keep that out for them as well. Stop by wallbirds. I tell you there are so many gift opportunities in there.

Put something on your list for the holidays for gift giving. Purchase something for somebody else you know. You may know someone who is just not you know, they're not the typical bird watcher with binoculars wandering around through the woods, but they would enjoy something that really brings the beauty, the sounds of the birds and everything into the backyard. So a quality bird feed er, a quality bird house.

Just go to Wallbirds talk to them about it. If you know someone that already likes birds, They've got some awesome books that would make great gifts. Wildbirds Ilimited go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston w b U dot com forward slash Houston. We're going to go to Southwest Houston now and talk to Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn, good morning.

then some. Just if you haven't been in there, you need to drive over there and just go look at it and see what what is this? This kip keeps talking about the place where if they don't have it, you don't need it, Well go look, go see it. I've been talking to people today about my weed wiper, my homemade weed wiper. How easy it is to make. Bob's got the little grabber tools with the suction cups that you need to make one. They're there on the wall.

He's got stock of them. Get one, even if you don't need it today, just get it and get it made. It's it's so easy. Go on my website. You can do that. Grab His kneeling bench makes a good gift, and it's also buy one for yourself. I bought one for my sister, who is much older than me, the fact that I very much enjoy pointing out to her. And after a while I thought, you know what, I think I'm going to get me one. And I did. And I'm telling you, change your life, change your gardening life.

Me going up and down laying a patio stones and getting up and down and up and down. If I didn't have that kneeling bench, I don't know how you get buy I mean, because well, I know what happened. You wake up in the prenatal position the next morning and you can't straighten your legs out because you're so sore. It's a cool tool. Hey, he's also got an eighty or actually now ninety foot wall of tools. Do you need substacle to prevent weeds or kill weeds? Do you

need stuff to kill insects? Do you need stuff to fight diseases? Are you an organic gardener and you only want organic products? You're not going to find a bigger selection than Southwest Fertilizer. Yes, they have those two Southwest Fertilizer dot com corner of this and Runwick. You should check those out. For example, he's got there you hear me talk about the color Star and other Nelson products and things. You know, the color Star is Nelson's fertilizer famous,

I'll say, famous fertilizer for flowering plants. And why do I say famous, Well, because it has become so popular. Professional landscapers have been using it for a long time. Do you know that Nelson's ships the product out of state to commercial landscapers and others because it's so popular. It's not just textans. I mean people all over they find it, they try it, it works, and they buy it. That is color Star. Color Star has got five different

sources of nitrogen in it. It's got organic bone meal that provides phosphors, it's got organic blood meal that provides nitrogen, and I mean it's got five different sources of nitrogen. It feeds the soil and the soil feature plants. That's how that works. I would say put it out about every three to four months the growing season and in the cool season too. You know, in the cool season, micro activity slows down a little bit and the release

of nutrients are far slows down a little bit. If you've got a bed full of pansies and you want them to bloom, bloom, bloom. Have you ever you ever planted those things? And you know they bloom pretty good and then they just sort of kind of not do much. You got to stimulate new growth on them because new growth makes new leaves that catch sunlight, that makes sugars

that make blooms. That's how that works. If a cool season or worm season blooming plant is not healthy growing with green foliage growth, you're not going to have good bloom production. Color Star does just that. It's a nineteen thirteen six for all flowering plants from Nelson Plant. It comes in little jars two pound jars and larger a larger screw top lid type jar as well. Four pounds I believe is the weight on it. But anyway, bottom line is color Star. You need some of that and

it works and I would highly recommend it. You were listening to Gardenline. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two k t r H. Seven to one three two one two k t r H. Give us a call. We can answer the questions that you might have. I earlier on I was talking about let's see what was I talking about. Oh, we had a call yesterday about some leaves that were dropping off of

a tree. And I wanted to talk a little about another question that I haven't had, didn't have yesterday, but it's very closely related, and that is what causes small twigs to fall out of your tree a lot, or small branches to fall out of your trees a lot.

And there's there's a couple of different things. Number One, squirrels can actually nip the ends of branches and so on the ground you find this little section of a twig with leaves on it, and when you look at where it broke off, you can see that it was like cut with little squirrel teeth cut off and do that occasionally they'll just nip those little things off, and you'll see that. There are also little borers that can get into a branch, little pinhole size hole in them,

and that becomes a weak spot. The branch often dies because the flow can't get to the leaves toward the end of it, and it snaps there and falls off. And then there are twig girdlers. And we had a collar a little bit earlier that was talking about the twig girdlers, and those are really interesting insects. They are a long insect with very long antenna. It's kind of a brown black, little chewing beetle insect that gets on

the twig. And typically it's going to happen on twigs that are maybe the size of your small into your small finger, or even a little bit smaller pencil size even is a common size. And they stand there on the twig and they chew all the way around the twig as if you took a little tiny saw and you saw it not through it, but all the way almost to the center, all the way around it. And

then that twig, of course snaps and falls out. And you pick up this twig and it looks like it would just sawed off, perfectly sawed off, and that's the twig girdler. What that insect does is it lays an egg outside of where it cut the limb off. Okay, so that egg is now in the fallen branch, and you need to pick those branches up and get rid of them. Get rid of them, bury them down deep in the soil if you want to dig that kind

of hole. Put them in the trash and have somebody haul them away somewhere else, because they will hatch out of that and that's part of the life cycle of coming back into your trees. I've seen them do this to many kinds of trees, pecond trees. It happens a lot. I've even seen it on rose branches before. But that's

a twig girdler. You can spray, but there's really no need to just pick up all the fallen branches like that, and you've removed that whole generation of you know, of new offspring that are about to come out from your property. That's a twig girdler. Just a little minor pruning is the damage they do. I've seen some pretty significant cases, but nothing that was very alarming to worry about. All right, it's time for me to take a break for the news.

I will be right back with your calls. If you'd like to be first up seven to one three two one two KTRH. Welcome back to the garden line, folks. If you would like to call in with your questions, just dial seven to one three two to one two KTRH. You know I still say dial That's interesting. I catch myself every time I say it. Now at least I'm aware of it. If you remember the rotary phones, a lot of listeners do.

least for you. In my gardens out there, we are starting to harvest a lot of the coal crops cruciferous crops. Those are the blue leaf vegetables. That's things like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, coal, robbie kale, collards. What else is in that group Brussels Brussels sprouts. Anyway, those are all coal crops and they are packed with really good things for our health. Coal crops are they have a number of cancer fighting agents in them. They're just good for you. They really are

good for you. Now people have different opinions about them. Some of them can be quite strong, such as mustard that even though it's not blue leaf, that's actually a cruciferous vegetable itself, and I'm not quite up to mustard. It's a little too strong for me. But some people love it. And then there's others that are just not strong at all. They're just sweet. There is a vegetable called chi jim asi, and that's a name, at least once company gives on it. It's a it's a different

species of one of the coal crops. It's very mild. It doesn't have that mustard family pungency at all to it. But everybody's taste varries. I love kale, especially when we get some cold weather and the kale just seems to get really sweet. I think it's great. Isn't smoothies and my smoothies for example, And a lot of people don't like kale. One one time, I was watching a sports show and they were, I don't know, they were just chit chatting and they got off topic on TV, and uh,

this guy said he had a good kale recipe. And what you do is you take a cookie sheet a cookie sheet pan, and you spray it with a non stick spray and you put the kale out on it, and then you spray that with a little olivail and sprinkle se saal on it and you put it in the in the oven and you roast it until it's crispy, and then you take it out and you walk over to the trash and you tilt the pan and it slides right off into the trash because you oiled. Okay,

that's not a fan of kale right there. Some of you are going, yes, yes, I like that recipe. Others are horrified that kale chips just got thrown away. That's a good thing about vegetables. We can find lots of things we want to grow. But I want to challenge you to do something this year. Grow something you've never grown before. Eat something you've never tried before. I never was a kale fan. I grew up in the South,

and I don't know. There is something about the Mason Dixon line, where years ago kale was north of the line, college was south of the line. That's just kind of how the line drew through the country. Now we grow a lot of kale in the South way more than we used to. I don't know if they're growing College further up north or not. But anyway, try something you ever grown before. There's some good ones. That Cheams I

was talking about is an excellent, really mild one. Somebody that is not in the mustard at all would love that plant really well. There's a lot of different kinds of radishes. My dad ate the little cherry bell radishes that were so hot they'd burned the end of your tongue off. And I hate the hot radishes. I just

don't like them at all. But now there's very mild radishes, like the watermelon radish, which is the size of a turnip, and it has a beautiful red color on the inside with a white maybe a little green on the very outside, and then white and then red inside. It's beautiful. Have you ever tried growing those? Get your kids out there too. You know, when kids grow something and they're more likely to eat it, and when they eat fresh vegetables, they're

more likely to have a healthy life in the long term. Yep, that tried. Happy meals are not good for us. I'm not picking on one store. I'm just saying, or one restaurant. I'm just saying processed food, no fresh garden vegetables. Yes, what are you gonna grow this year? How about a Swiss chart? It is not extremely cold, hardy like spinaches, but you can grow Swiss chart. They're a low cover over it. We're gonna have some cold weather and it

does really well. Lots of things you can grow. Try something, grow carrot Do this, okay, one thing I haven't convinced you may think one thing. Get some carrot seed. Get a five gallon bucket, drill some holes in the bottom, put a quality soil mix in there, a potting soil, you know, the very high quality potting soil. Sprinkle some carrot seed on top of the surface. Barely cover them like an eighth of an inch as I mean, just a little bit of soil and press it down and

keep it moist. And it takes them a while to sprout, but when they sprout, you got to keep it moist. They will grow in that five gallon bucket and your kids will get to pull carrots they grew out of a five gallon big They will enjoy that. That is fun. If you also got kids and you want something kind of fun for them to do. They're not gonna lie cradishes, probably most kids don't. But you can get a chicken wire,

hardware cloth or something like that. You plant the seeds into a little container, a little flat container maybe for six inches deep and then put that hardware cloth or that chicken wire on the surface. They'll grow through it, and once they've developed their full sized round roots, you can then just pull that strip of wire off, wash the soil off, and what you've got is a piece of wire hanging in the air with the bulbs on

one side and the leaves on the other. That's pretty cool stuff, fun for kids, but I'm not thinking they're going to like the hot radishes. Let's go out now to Lake Jackson and we're going to talk to Ronnie. Well, Hello, Ronnie, Welcome to garden Line.

smash them, and to hold up the cover. But yes, you can still plant from seed if you want. It's just going to be a very long cabbage takes a long time anyway, and it'll it'll extend even longer. Okay, right, just what I need. All right, man, thanks a lot, appreciate appreciate that call. All right, here we go. Time flies and you're having fun or when you're droning on about kids and vegetables, we'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the Guarden Line. Good to have you with

us today. I'm gonna run right out the first thing the segment and we're going to go to Fairfield and talk to Marty. Hey, Marty, welcome to Garden Line.

Christmas tree ornaments. Okra dried arrangements can be sprayed too. You get the stem and the whole thing, and they use them like that. The seed can be ground and made into coffee substitute. Now, I don't think Folgers is in danger of getting put out of business coffee, but I'm told that, like during Civil war or something, when things were hard, they would grind up okresy to make the coffee substitute out of it. Kind of weird stuff. The pods are great fire starters when they're dry too.

I mean it's like you just put them underneath like the lugs in the fireplace to get it started or something like that. Or Yeah, there's a lot of different things people. George Washington Carver, I told you I was gonna drone on George Washington Carver, who is one of my horticulture heroes. Absolutely amazing man. He found so many different uses. He took ochra stalks and he soaked them in water and kind of like hammered on him and

made rugs out of okra stalk fibers. He also made paper out of the pith that then inside pith in the okre yeah you made he pounded it out into a paper like but that was him. He was the guy's mind was incredible. But anyway, I'll stop there, but yes, you're getting started.

S Up. I believe he found over one hundred uses for sweet potatoes.

our life where we need help from somebody. And when you put your compassion to work with Star Hope, that's two dollars and eighty five cents to buy one meal. So we're talking chicken feed here. Time to pocket change here, You change a life, you really do. You're part of the overall I have. I've been down there. I've met folks at Star Hope. Oh gosh, many years ago we used to volunteer and the place has changed so much

it is unbelievable. And if you could hear the stories, it would just inspire you to see the lives that they change. This isn't a handout, This isn't you know, Street Corner roll down the window. Here's five bucks. Good luck. This is getting involved in people's lives and changing their lives and changing the lives of their kids, and therefore changing our community for the better in the long run. Shmission dot org, sohmission dot org. We're going to go

to willisonow and talk to Mark. Hey, Mark, welcome to garden Line.

a little bit better. That's a generalization, but those are some tips. If you go to a you know, you go to a good garden center that can advise you and direct you in the particular cultivars they grow. But just remember acidic soil, lots of organic matter, constant moisture, consistent moisture, don't let them dry out, and a very very bright maybe a little morning sun, but very bright shade. And that's the secret to getting them to do well.

if you're willing to do a little. I've come down to Arburgate. You can find Japanese maples there, and they're going to know the varieties to carry and what to have there. So those are a few places.

any other comments that might come to mind. Most of the time you see a rye grass like plant.

the garden Line. I hope you're having fun this morning. I am. Someone made a mistake and asked me about Okra earlier. Thank you Marty for that. And I've been thinking about Okra all during the break, so this is a problem. There's probably a wing of the Betty Ford Clinic for Okra enthusiasts. I need to go there, I think. By the way, for those of you who want to become addicted to Okra, there is a book called The

Whole Okra. The whole Okra by Chris Smith, friend of mine from out in North Carolina area, and it is a book. It will fascinate you. It will tell you all about the history all kinds of He is like he went over the top with okra and it's really really fun and cool stuff. There's even a even made okra. What do you call fruit roll ups? You know that that gooey kind of gummy stuff. Well, they they found a way to make a kind of a fruit roll

up thing out a hook er. So I know all of you are are not watering at the mouth right now, but that's that seven seventy four Nilson Water Garden out there in Katie, Texas is an outstanding garden center because it's Nilsen Water Gardens and nursery. You know, the nursery itself is always full of really quality plants. Things that you are looking for to grow you're going to find out there, you know, and things you wouldn't maybe expect, you know, for example, the the butterfly vine. Have you

ever heard of butterfly vine? It isn't it's not a vine that it's not named that way because it attracts butterflies. It's named that way, because the yellow flower clusters are replaced by seed pods that look like butterflies. They do. Just google it, look, check it out. It's really cool. It makes a really good vine too. By the way,

very vigorous will will cover a structure well. And yeah, arrangers will take those little pods, dry them and the butterfly pods and dry them and use them in arrangements. They uh, let's see. I believe that next week midweek they're getting their Christmas trees in out at Nelson Water Garden and Nursery. They got all kinds of sizes, lots of good options on that, so you want to be aware of that. When you're out there, you're gonna find

lots of color and you're also going to find water gardens. Now, this would be a good time to schedule an installation of a water garden, because you know, it takes a while to get everything planned out and out there to your place. And if you'd like a beautiful waterfall, a beautiful waterfall, nobody can do it as well as Nelson

Water Garden and Nursery. They're outstanding at that. They created the disappearing fountain, the big like a tall vase type pottery that sits on a bed of gravel and water comes out of the pottery, goes down the sides and goes back the gravel and recirculates. They came up with that system and they have all the parts for it. So if you wanted to do it, do it yourself. For on it. They could tell you how to do it if you want to, if you want to go that route. But you should see the pottery that they

have for the water gardens out there. It is outstanding. They have the fish, they have the plants, they have everything else. And so we're kind of entering into this cool winter season where it's kind of an off season in some ways and many things. Why not go ahead and get set up to get an installation to add water to your landscape. The sound of water is so therapeutic. It is wonderfully therapeutic. Just and go out to Nelson Water Garden. Do this, Take your friends, because this is

a destination worth going to. You head out it. Ten you get to Katie Fort Ben Road and Katie turn right, go north. It's just a little bit up on the right hand side, and go back out there and just sit for a while and just listen to the sound of water coming from all over around you. It's inspiring and you will want that to be the next thing you add to your landscape when you experience it. Let's see, I'm gonna Oh, I wanted to give you the website

Nelsonwatergardens dot com. Nelson Watergardens dot com. Go to the website and check it out. You find a lot there. We're gonna go now to Angleton and talk to Barbara. Hey, Barbara, is it Barbara?

about an inch or too thick. You could go thicker if your soil is really a very poor clay and needs more amending. But it doesn't take as much mushroom compost as regular compost to provide the same nutrient benefits. Okay, okay. Now the one place I would not the one just to be sure. The one place I would not use the mushroom is on something that's a very acidic soil bed like for azaleas or blueberries or things like that, because it is a higher pH. But it's still good.

I've used it a lot for many decades. It's an excellent, excellent product. Just know that it will raise the pH just a little bit.

of cool gifts. Listen, if there's a do it yourself for in your life. Oh my gosh, top brands of all kinds of things that ACE has. I'm mister gardener, right so I'm always talking about they've got fertilizers. When I talk about a fertilizer on guardline, go to ACE and get it. It works well. Do you need to control or prevent weeds? Do you need to deal with insects and diseases? Ace has got all of that stuff.

But ACE is so much more. And right now we're in the holiday season, holiday decorations, holiday lighting, lots and lots of good stuff that you're going to find it neighborhood Ace. And when I say your neighborhood Ace, I do mean that forty plus stores in the Greater Houston area. Go to ACE Hardware dot com. Ace Hardware dot Com find the store. If you've not been in an ACE recently,

please go check one out. You will be very pleasantly surprised at all the things that are so cool and so helpful, that are available in your local Ace hardware store. Time for a break. I will be right back with more garden line, all those things some of us will take the branded for.

I love our fact that we got a camera incorporated into our phone. That is unbelievably good, unbelievable what those things can do. As a gardening photographer, which I am, I do photography for my magazine articles and other things, I can tell you this that the modern camera app development has just been a life changer. So here's a public service announcement. If you have a tree, you need to listen to this. Trees are the most valuable individual

plants in our landscape. They do all kinds of things, they provide shade in the heat of summer, and I, by no, summer is ten and a half months a year here just kidding. Trees can be dangerous. They can fall on your house, in your neighbor's house, or on your car, on people things like that. Trees are such potential for adding lots of value to your landscape, to your house if you ever tried to sell it. You

don't want to mess around with trees. You want to plant trees that will survive for years and years and get better and better. So forty years from now, you're not taking the thing down because it was a fast it was a trash tree. I say, grow fast, die young, trash tree. But you have the best tree on the neighborhood. Forty years from now. The best time to plant a tree is now, absolutely now, get it done. But if you have trees, you need to know about Martin Spoon

Moore an affordable tree service. Do not turn your trees over to some guy who happens to own to pick up a chainsawn and can put a business card in your door. Find somebody that knows what they're talking about. Because when I drive through neighborhoods all the time, I see trees and I see devastating pruning jobs. It's like they don't The people that did that did not know anything about what they're doing. And when you turn it tree into a hat rack like that, it will never

be the same. The branches that grow from it will be weak, they'll be poorly attached, they'll come down in a storm, and it's ugly. And don't do that yet, Martin from Affordable Tree. Here's what you need to do. Write this phone number down seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three, seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three. If you want to go to the website, it's aff Tree Service dot com. AFF short for Affordable aff Tree Service dot com. When you

call Martin or Joe will answer. The owner's answer the phone there. If you don't get Martin or Joe, hang up and I'll seven one three sex nine nine two six six three have him come out. He stays busy because he does good work. And Martin can come out eating look at your trees, tell you what you need

or don't need. If you got any kind of questions, like hey, I'm putting a sidewalk in across this tree's root system, or I'm putting a driveway about halfway underneath the branch bread and he can invite you on do that, don't do that, how to do it right? You know everything you need to know. Trees are valuable, and if you want to get Martin out there doing it, you need to call him soon and get on the schedule because winter is wheneverbody wants tree pruning done for a

good reason, and he stays busy. Give him a call seven one three six nine nine two six six three. You are listening to garden Line, and uh, I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here to help you have a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape. I try to direct you to places that I think are just some of the best places in town. Or when I say in town,

I mean the listening area around Houston. Uh all this area to go to products that are going to work because I've tried them, or because I've seen the research and they do work, and places that you just will enjoy. And one of those places is in Shenned for us. I was down there earlier this fall, and I just love going to Chenned. You know, you go out there and it Enchanted is a good name for it, because

it is just cool. From the time you drive up, it's like you're entering this really cool gardening world and you just want to head in there and get busy. They've got a great gift shop, they've got nice houseplants when you first walk through, and then it opens up into all kinds of things. Off to the right are the plants that attract butterflies. Right outside the back door, right there to the right, and I'm telling you, they've got things that the ballooms attract butterflies. They've got things

that are butterfly larval food sources. And if you want to have monarchs or golf fritillaries or swallowtails, there's plants that those larva feed on, and you can put those in your landscape and you will have butterflies. It's like field of dreams. You build it, they will come, and they've got them there. In fact, during the growing season when the butterflies are jumping on the leaves of their plants, and they'll even give you a free larva to take

home with you. When I say butterflies, I mean they're larva they'll get they'll let you take home one kind of like sow starter, no charge, and you get a good start at your own place. Right now. They got shrubs and trees. This is the prime season to plant them all kinds of things. My favorite spring blooming tree is Chinese fringe tree, and they've got those there, beautiful shaggy, fragrant ballooms. Medium sized tree fits our modern lots really

really well, and it is just absolutely gorgeous. And they've got red buds and all the other stuff that you would want. You go to the left and you got vegetables, you've got herbs, you've got the fairy garden things. You've got flowers of perennials and annuals and all kinds of things. You just need to go out there and see it all. Allow yourself a little time to wander around. Say hello to Clay and say hello to Danny. Out there. They will advise you and point you in the right direction

whatever your gardening questions are. That's the Enchanted Forest. And by the way, if you're in Richmond heading toward sugar Land, it's off to the right. It's on FM twenty seven fifty nine Enchanted Forest. If you want to go to the website, go two enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. I will say that one more time, and you need to go to the website. Their website is outstanding. It is enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. You are listening

to Garden Line. We've got to open lines right now and this is our last last bit of the show here last half hour plus a little bit if you'd like to give us a call. Seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. I uh. This past week, one of the things that I've been working on is getting some containers ready for planting. I've got some beautiful containers, and you know, you spend money on a quality container, a beautiful one, and you just have it for years

and years and years and years of enjoyment. And right now I'm going to be putting some vegetables in a container. I'll also want to get some flowers in one, but first come some vegetables in a container. It's a gorgeous container. We've got a rosemary that we're going to put out in a container out in front of the house, and the container's ready, it's just waiting on me to get through at that patio so that I can get out

there and get busy doing that. Nature's Way Resources is north of Conro, and you've heard me talk about him before. Nature's Way is the birthplace of a lot of quality soil products. John Ferguson years ago created Nature's Way and that guy is a soil science student through the roof. I mean the guy. The number of books and magazines and journals, professional journals he's read over the years, I couldn't even keep count. He knows what he's talking about.

And that's why it is the place where rose oil was born, where leafmore compost was born, where you can still get super high quality materials of all types. Mulches, compost. You can buy it by the bag, you can buy it by bulk. You can go get it, you can have them deliver it, you can go to US stores. They have different store outlets in Houston that carry their products. And it's just quality stuff. You're not going to go wrong.

I've got two different kinds of mulches that they produce that I've been testing out in flower beds and very pleased with. And of course the soil blends are just absolutely through the roof. If you want leaf mold compost to do some top dressing of your lawn if you kind of do a little do it yourself in there. They've got that Nature's way resources. Here's the phone number

nine three six two seven three twelve hundred. They're up Interstate forty five almost Conroe on the right, on the right hand side where fourteen eighty eight comes in from the left. Turn right across the tracks. Sherwood Circle is what you run into. Turn right again and you're there, simple as that Nature's Way resources. Let's head out to Jersey Village now and I'm going to talk to George. Hey, George, welcome to garden line.

but watermelons not. But it it's a nice addition to a multi vegetable dip tray.

You can plant radishes and turnips from transplants. You can do that, or beats also from transplit if you want to do that, but it is so easy to do it from seed. Now, carrots you definitely need to do seed. And here's why. That carrot sends a little skinny roots straight down in the ground long before it becomes a carrot.

It's just a skinny root. And if that root breaks, it will form two roots that go out or three, and if you were to try to transplant, when that root goes down in the transplant tree, it hits the hole and the oxygen burns the rootoff, the air burns the rooto off, and you will not have a long normal carrot route if you grow it from a transplant. So don't do that. You'll have weird carrot roots. You'll have provocative carrot roots, but you won't have you won't

have normal carrot roots. So always direct seed your carrots. And as far as I'm concerned, direct seed all your root crops, I think they do better that way. Time for me to take a break. We'll come back with your calls in just a moment. Nine or eight or seeing me seven to one three two one two ktright seven one three two and two ktr eight. You heard me talk about Microlife. I love to talk about Microlife because they make a lot of really good quality products.

You know. One example of that would be their humic acid complex. It's got some humic acid and some full vic acid in it. Now you're going, Okay, why should I care about these two acids? I don't even know what you just said well, when you take compost and you compost it to its final stage that's called humus, and in that humans are acidic compounds that do a number of things for the soil. They improve the soil's physical properties, They help fungal promote in good fungi fungal growth.

They provide there are minerals in those products for the soil, and the humic fulvic acid has also a little bit of kelp in it. It's really a cornerstone product for them. And anytime that you are putting something down into the soil, you can add that. You can drench it onto over your plants. It is beneficial for microbes, it's beneficial for the soil structure, and it goes with a several products

that Microlife makes. They make one call liquid humates. Plus it's a soil conditioner again, a stimulator of biological activity, and it just works. You could put it in a hose in spray or spread on your turf crash. You can put it in a flower bed, you can put it in a watering can to water things in. All products from Microlife. All you have to do is go online Microlife Fertilizer dot com and you can learn more

about these and other microlife products. I want to hit out and out of Jersey Village and we're going to talk to Chris. Hey, Chris, welcome to garden Line.

beautiful plants. You just love the additions they want. Yeah, and they add a very nice addition to the landscape.

And they're in Flat Rock, North Carolina. And these guys went around the world looking All they do is look at maples, apparently, and there's one hundred and eight types of Japanese maples and I'm sure there's one that would grow here.

be real careful with that. But there's a website called plants Let's see Plants for a Future, Plants for a Future. It's p FAF dot org and it's a really good website about all kinds of plants and uses and things. P FAF dot org. I'm pretty sure they would have a radio kardata on there, and in there you can go read about it and learn a lot more.

You take care. All right, folks, I'll be right back if you'd like to get on the line with me. Seven one three two one two kt r H. It's a nerd day at the gardening. Call it outside of the rain with the inside starting some seeds. I just put on a raincoat. We can garden in the rain right.

there somewhere. More useless information for the day. You're listening to garden line for useful information call seven one three two one two AH seven one three two one two Ktr'd be happy to help you with the kinds of questions that you might have. Earlier, I was talking about Medina products and the product called has to Grow six

twelve six. That's a Medina plant foods product that I especially recommend for when you're transplanting plants to put in a water can drench it over the plants down in the root system because it's got that twelve percent phosphorus in it, a little bit of nitrogen, a little bit of potassium, and twelve percent phosphorus. Phosphorus is important for roots. It helps stimulate the blooming and whatnot on a plant. But in that six twelve six is Medina soil activator

stimulates biological activity. It also has humande humic acid, which we know humic acid is important for sol structure, improving and proving nutrient uptake because when the structure is better, the root system is better, the root is able to take up nutrients to thrive and take up nutrients even better. And of course it got seaweed extract in it too. Lots of good products from me, this is just one Medina products have been around for a very long time.

They're time tested, and in fact, you know when I first began working my way through all the Medina line, trying this out and trying that out and trying the other out, I was just thinking, my goodness, They've got a lot of really cool products and has to grow six twelve six by Medina has to grow six twelve six. Plant food is just one of those if you're going to do any transplanting, you should have some on hand.

And listen, you should be doing transplanting. There is not a better time of the year to plant woody ornamentals, tree shrubs and woody vines, to plant fruit trees, to plant strawberry plants, to plant perennials, and including ornamental grasses, to plant cool seasoned flour. I mean, there's a lot of planning to be done. And when maybe you have bought some vegetables to set out as transplants, water them

in with Medina has to grow six twelve six. When you grow these tomato transplants, I keep trying to get you to grow some of your own transplants well water men, Medina has to grow six twelve six seven ktr h. We are in our last segment, we got time for

about another call. If somebody'd like to call in, we be happy to visit with you and help you as we always do, to have a beautiful, beautiful garden and a bountiful, bountiful garden, and certainly a beautiful landscape as well, and as I like to say, and more fun in the process, and more fun in the process. I am going to be doing my law and fertilization finally this week. I know I've been busy, but I have an excuse. It says the cobblers kids go barefoot. The Cobblers kids

go barefoot. So sometimes my yard has to wait because I'm around doing other things. But anyway, I'm going to be getting my fall fertilizer out and getting it watered in really good to make sure that my ground, my grass goes into winter stronger. Remember this, we talk about cold heartiness, and we don't live in an area where typical winners kill our grass. You know, it's not like it's touch and go, and if we don't do that, it's going to all die. But we can have winters

where there is cold damage to lawns. But I think the most important reason that we do a fall fertilization in our lawns is for spring growth, for spring growth. And why am I saying that now, won't that fertilizer be gone? No, because what happens is when you do a fall fertilization, the grass takes it up, It makes carbohydrates and creates, let's just say, an energy reserve in the grass plant in spring. It's not the roots that are taking up the nutrients that start that early growth.

The soil is cool, the roots are old, they're going to be dying and new roots replacing them as we move into spring. But it's that stored energy that supports early green up and growth and strength. So your fall fertilization is important for a number of reasons, not just for winter survival and health, but for spring growth early on. That is very, very important. And so if you haven't done one, it's still time to do it. We've got some great products out there that can help your lawn

be stronger going into the winter season. So if you haven't done it yet, go ahead and do it now. I'd rather we do it earlier. I'd rather i'd done mine earlier. But still you can go ahead and do it. Get it done now, because when you fertilize, now, maybe I should say it this way. Fall fertilizing is fertilizing your early spring lawn. It's supporting that early early growth before the grass is you know, the soil's warm enough and the rich systems or new roots are developing in things.

As that grass comes out of the winter and begins to grow, it starts to you know, as it warms up. The runners begin to grow in our sleepy headed, warm season turf, and they begin to grow, and then they're pegging down roots. And now you got new roots, and now there's a whole other world. And we're doing our spring fertilizations and other things summer fertilizations to keep it growing through the year. Fall fertilizer very very important. All right,

there was your tip for the day. I don't know, maybe I've getten another tip or two for the day, but it would be a good time to do that. So I've been challenging you all morning. What are you going to grow different this year? What are you going to try that's new this year? I want to give you one more challenge. What are you going to learn that's new this year? You know, we had a caller about a plant that is assailable or not. You know, maybe you are interested in learning about herbs. Why don't

you spend some time learning about herbs. You know, when you listen to garden Line, you learn. I hope you do. We provide that information to help you become a better gardener. But it's also important when you are wanting to try anything new or get better at what you do, to spend some time learning. You know, they say that the most important part of cutting down trees is sharpening the saw, and that is really true. And you are the gardener. We need to sharpen us as gardeners when we do that.

Printing season is coming. I see so much printing malpractice out there where people have trimmed their shrubs in a way that is not good. It's not going to help the shrub. You can learn about that, and now'd be a good time to do that. Spend some time learning. One good website that I'll give you that you can go to for a lot of good information is a

Aggie horticulture website. Aggie Horticulture from the Horticulture Department TAXA, A and M. It's it's Aggie hyphen Horticulture dot TAMU dot edu, but you can just google it Aggie Horticulture. When you get there, you're going to find a section on vegetables that has the Easy Gardening series of publications for every single vegetable you possibly want to grow, and things like fertilizing the garden, building raised beds, building the

soil disease controlled things like that. There's a fruit section that has a publication on every fruit from avocados to whatever fruit begins with a Z. It's got all those publications in it. They're free and it's science based information. Very good. And keep checking out gardening with Skip dot com. I keep adding stuff. I'm working with my designer right now. We're revamping the website and about to add a bunch of whole new cool information to help you have success

with your garden. So go for the day tip for the wires, however you want to put it. Learn something, get out and learn something. I just read about it and I just study it online. Then get out and try it, because there's nothing like experience. I've got a Master three in horticulture for textm that was helpful, And I'm telling you by day by day by day one most important of all