Spring is Coming !

Whether all you want to do is make the place pretty so many people drive by, or when you drive up you like the way it looks, or maybe you want to go in also in a direction of I would like some production from the garden. I want to see I want flowers to bring inside. I want herbs to bring inside for the culinary things going on in the kitchen, as well as maybe some vegetables. We can do that too. If you just want a beautiful, perfect lawn, well let's talk about how to get there. From here.

You can give me a call at seven one three two one two k t r H seven to one three two one two kt RH and we can help you have that kind of success. That's what we're all about doing here. I'm going to tell you something right off the bat, and I'll mention this number of times today. But today after the show at one pm, one pm, right after lunch, I will be at the Home and Garden Show down at the Fort Bend Epicenter. The Fort Bend Epicenter. Now this is the call it bras this

Home and Garden Show. It is on Southwest Freeway, so I mean it's just right there. When you drive down Southwest Freeway. You to see it right there. If you're heading down south the direction from Houston's come me on the left hand side. But anyway, I'll be there from one to three and what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through some of the essential steps to create a thriving spring garden and a thriving spring lawn.

And then I'll have time to answer your gardening questions and answer or gardening questions and assists you if you got any problems you want to diagnose. Maybe you got some samples you want to bring in, put them in a bag a plastic bag and make sure and capture whatever it is you want me to see. Maybe it's some leaves that aren't looking right, or a bug or a disease looking thing or and or take a photo on your phone and bring it in with you and we'll get to the bottom of it. We'll have a

the doctor is in clinic. I'm not a doctor, but we will have one of those. Come on, we'll do a plant clinic right there for you as well as me giving some tips to help you have success. And I'll be there for two hours, So come on out Fort Bend Epicenter, Southwest Freeway, the Brawses Home and Garden Show. I will also be bringing some things to give away as a result, so you may win some things as

you come in. I'm bring a whole bunch of different things in the giveaway to folks that come to the seminars. So look forward to seeing you. Hope you can make that today here on Garden Line. We love our feed stores and League City feed is you know one of those kinds of places where if you have memories of old time feed stores, you know, going in just the wonderful, just the aroma of a feed store I don't know, it's just a nice earthy smell. I love it, absolutely

love it. That City feeds like that. You It's been around for forty years plus, actually over forty years now, and it's down in League City. Of course, it's just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six on Highway three. So if you're on ninety six and you go south on three, just a few blocks it'll be there on the left. So it serves that whole region really, Elkaminar Reale, League City, Webster Baylift, Lamark, all those communities around there.

This is your hometown feed store. And when you go in, you're going to find products you hear me talk about like nitrofoss products, like product like the product asamite a, products from Microlife, heirloom soils, Nelson plant food and more all there at League City feed They also got really high quality pet foods as well. And it's kind of a one stop shop.

three in League City. I was out working on some things out in the yard this week, and one of the things that I noticed is the cold that we had had kind of fried back some of the tips of my long grasses, Saint Augustine primarily, but also I've got some Saint Augustine some Soysa both in my lawn. I love both of those grasses, really, I permute it is good too. Evergrass has its place. But anyway, I'm just kind of noticing that the freeze that had burned

that back. A lot of my plants that kind of got nipped good in the first freeze were taken to the ground in this freeze. And that's okay. But here's what I'm doing. I'm leaving the dead top growth. And the phrase I use for that is learn to like ugly, or learn to love ugly, or learn to live with ugly, however you want to put it. What that means is okay.

Let me use this as an example. In the front of the house, I've got some Mexican heather, which is a little short kind of spreading mounting plant, and I have some lantana and both of them are just fried on the top, but all the dead leaves, the dead tops on those are acting as sort of an insulation for the base. When heat rises up from the soil, it could either radiate directly up in the atmosphere or if it hits some foliage something to block that radiant,

it bounces back down. And you can see this on a frosty night. Next time we have frost and you've got frost all over your yard, you know that white, frozen frosty covering look underneath like a live oak tree, and there won't be frost. And it's because the heat rising directly up from there is being reflected back down onto the grass blades. So as they lose their heat

and frost would have developed, it doesn't. And that's just an example of what the principal I'm talking about about about something above the plant like that reflecting it back down having a difference. Now, that's not going to make the difference. You know, if we have a hard freeze. I'm not talking about that. I'm not frost, but it does make a little bit of a difference in a freeze. So if you can learn to live with ugly for

a while. Once we get past the freezes, then we'll clean all that out and things will look all pretty and everything again. But we need to be able to leave it as long as possible. Now, sometimes plants turn to mush. You know, if you had more of us a plant that has more moisture in it, like a cana for example, Well it's gonna be a pot of mush. And you can clean that out and get rid of it. But if you do, throw some mulch over the top of it, because you still want that blanket of protection.

I don't think we're done with freezes, and if we're not, we don't want to pull the plug too quick and open things up. Hey, I'm going to go to a break right now and we'll be right back if you'd like to give me a call. Seven one three two one two KTR eight and welcome back to the Garden Line. Wow, that wrong, Glad to have you with us. I'm going to run straight out to the phones. This we back off again and we're going to head to Cleveland and

talk to Cynthia. Hello, Cynthia, good morning, Welcome to Garden Line.

So if all is lost, at least you'll have re sprouting. You want to replace the tree, it'll the variety that's grapped will come back.

see that, then you know that's dead. And when it comes time to print, which isn't now, uhlater on, when the new growth begins, the growth will tell you where to prune. So that you're just gonna for now just hold on, wait and watch. I know it's ugly. I know you're wondering and stuff but don't jump the gun, and when it's time, you'll prone out all the dead.

And that may mean cutting it off above the ground, above that soil that you piled up, but it also may mean that your trunk and many of the branches are still alive and fine. But time will tell on that for sure.

mix in. They have regular composts and things like that, and so that may you know, I know, you're down just down the road from them, and they can deliver or you can go pick it up or those kinds of things. A lot of our composts and multipurveyers will sell by the bag. They'll sell them bulk and whatnot.

But from kind of what you described, I think the veggie and hermex would be a good a good blend for that and anything with that heavy clay and sticky heavy clay, it doesn't have air space in the soil. It's very very compacted, very dense. It water logs easily, and when you add decaying organic matter in it, which you know, compost is the term for basically for that, when you add that kind of thing in, it helps open that soil up. You just want to avoid compressing

it yourself with foot traffic or anything. Whenever walk on our garden beds, we always you know, avoid that because it just smashes them the clay back down again and the organic matter is helping to loosen it up over time.

So let's just hold off and then there'll be plenty of time to get it cleaned up and you'll be off to the races again with them.

the freeze, it's a little hard to assess. And as you have a few days, especially as the temperatures warm up a little bit, then you're going to start to see the tissues that were killed. Go from what if you scratch back the bark on little twigs and branches with your thumbnail or a knife blade, what it should look like underneath this creamy white or a very light

light shark treacy green color. Okay, but if it in time those freeze dead tissues turned toward brown or I like to use the descript or paper sack brown or pecan brown, that's what you see. Sometimes you get black and gray and they're depending again on how much freeze damage and the species. But that's obviously not healthy. Once you straight back and see that, well that's not going to come back to life, of course, and you would need to print it out. But at this stage we

still have winter left, and so to prune. Now, should you cut down into living tissues, then that is Prunting's a stimulating process and it sort of encourages a plant to re sprout. And we don't want ref sprouting now, we want it to be still, stay asleep, wait and then when spring comes, you'll the plant will tell you where to prune back. Okay, Now you can assess it with a thumbnail or a knife blade and keep checking here and here and here and here and here and

all over and decide where to prune. But I would say hold on right now, let the plant tell you when it comes out. If you need to get it burned out. Use that scratch test to determine, but don't cut down into living tissues to shit. That is not what you want to do. But that's one quick way to just do that kind of assessment on your plants. I love going to the garden centers. I just do that. It is so much fun to wander through a quality garden center. Buchanons is that kind of place. Those of

you who've been there know what I'm talking about. If you haven't been there, you need to go check it out. Buchanons is in the Heights. It's on Eleventh Street, and they specialize in Texas natives, but they have everything. If you want house plants, they have a huge house plant greenhouse that is unbelievably well stocked. In fact, one thing I kind of find cool is they've got these little

small two inch tropicals. I had little tiny pots and if you want together like a terrarium, which is a great thing to do in the winter season when you're gardening indoors. Tried that out. I mean, they have all this beautiful colored foliage and little two inch containers and you can build your own terrarium. And I use that just as an example, because when you go to Buchanans, you're gonna find few trees, fruit trees. You're gonna find

stuff for shade, You're gonna find gorgeous pottery. You're gonna find all the supplies, whether it's you know, products from Nature's Way or heirloom soil or Landscaper's Pride or nitrophoss or Nelson or you name it. Microlife's another one. They got plenty of that at Buchanans in the Heights. Go to their website buchanons Plants dot com. Write that down police Buchanan's Plants dot com. It is an outstanding website

full of good educational information. And you need to sign up for their newsletter so you can stay up to date on what's coming, the events that they're gonna have, the things going on at the nursery. Buchanansplants dot com. Go check that out. I'm gonna take a break now for the halfway through the hour news and I'll be right back at seven one three two one two k t rh All right, here we go back in the saddle again. A garden line. I'm your host, skip Rick

or we are here to answer your gardening questions. All you got to do is give me a call seven one three two one two k t R H. Wile ago. I was talking about Buchannan's plants and I wanted to mention that they have a seminar today at ten ten to eleven o'clock on Texas Native Gardening. You know they If anybody knows about native plants, it's Buchanans. Folks at Buchanans today Bugannans eleven or ten to eleven Texas Native Gardening free seminar. You can go to and check out

see if you were signed up for the newsletter. You already know that they are following them on on social media Facebook and Instagram. The folks at Greenpro are experts when it comes to providing a top quality compost, top dressing, and fertilizing to keep your lawn healthy. They also do core aeration. What is core aeration? That is where you pull a plug of soil out of the ground and drop it on the surface. That's different than an errator that just shoves a tine into the ground and squeezes

the soil open true creator and opening. It's better to do cor aeration and they do that. They've got the equipment that does a really good job of it, and so compost top dressing is going to help you know, it's going to feed your soul. Biology number one, that's what microbes really love is decaying organic matter and even some of the substances that are produced by organic matter. The core aeration or excuse me, the compost top dressing service can help to alleviate compaction, as will the core

aeration and helps on internal drainage. Because think about this. You got this heavy clay, like we're talking about Cynthia with Cynthia a minute ago. This heavy clay is there. So you pop a core out of the soil, put some compost top dressing on it. It falls down into those holes in the soil and roots start to thrive and grow, and with all the biological activity and everything else, little by little, that clay becomes looser and better as a

place for plant roots to thrive. That's how that works. So if you're long struggling from chinchbugs, from brown patch, from drought, take all root rod, all of that. If you've got a thick layer of thatch on top of your soil, compost top dressing helps speed the decomposition of that thatch thatches parts of the grass plant that are very slow to decompose, the runners, the roots, the nodes throw compost in there and it starts to decompose a lot faster and gets rid of that thatch for you.

So you got better rooting depth, you got better water absorption. Just give a post at greenpro call. They serve an area about forty five miles from Magnolia, So up north you know Spring, Cyprus, Woodlands, Conroe, willis over to Magnolia, Montgomery, cun in the northwest direction down toward Katie West, Houston Central North. Basically the northwest quadrant of the city is

where greenpro focuses. Greenprotexas dot com Greenprotexas dot com. Eight three to two three five to one zero zero three zero eight three to two five ones eero zero three zero. There are very few things you can do for a lawn that give the overall longer term benefits of cor aeration and compost. Hot dressing over the top. You're listening

to garden Line. I'm your hostp Richter. If you've got a gardening question you want to visit about seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Hey, if you want to take that to another level, I'm going to be at the Brasses Home and Garden Show at the Fort Bend Epicenter down in Rosenberg today, So all of you folks listening, you know, down Victoria, and then that holds everywhere southwest, especially of Houston, or you can

ride further if you want. Some people do. It's gonna be a good home and garden show.

gonna have a book there as well. I never talked about my book, but I'm gonna bring some of those with me today and i'll be answering your gardening questions. After I start off with a brief presentation, I'm going to talk about the essential steps to creating a thriving spring garden and lawn and then we'll have a lot of Q and A time, plenty of time to visit and take a good close look at the things that

are going wrong in your line. You got maybe you scratched a branch back and you go, I don't know if that's dead or not. Bring a picture of it, get up close, make sure it's in sharp focus. Fuzzy pictures gets you fuzzy answers. So you need a good sharp focus photo. We'll take a look at that. Be happy to visit with you about all those kinds of things at the Browse's Home and Garden Show today one

o'clock to three o'clock. Be there for two hours. One hour seminar followed by an hour of Q and A and diagnostics and everything else, including if you'd like to pick up a copy of a book and have it signed, we'll be happy to do that. Well, let's see, I was talking about checking out my lawns and some of the frost that had occurred on my plants. I have a some ginger. Ginger is one of my favorite flowering plants, by the way, and I'm there are lots of good

kinds of ginger out there. There's the variegated yellow and green Alpinia ginger. That's more of a foliage plant. That's why we grow it for its beautiful foliage. There is hidden ginger there, you know. There's My favorite of all the gingers is the hedicium. It's called the butterfly ginger. It's tall stalks. And my favorite of all the butterflies is plain old white butterfly ginger. It is so fragrant.

And then there's some other cool colors. There's kind of coral colored blooms and variations, you know, from the yellow to the to the reddish colors. Uh. And some of them are very fragrant. Some of them are not as fragrant, but they're all beautiful. They all make good cut flowers too,

by the way. But I've got some two different kinds of of a butterfly ginger that I hadn't some containers, so I had to protect those because whenever you have a container on top of the surface, what would have been root hardy below the ground in the soil suddenly now is exposed to the full brunt of the cold because you're set in a container in my case, on top of the patio out there, and it's going to get way too cold and cause more damage than it

would had that ginger been in the ground. Because multed well in the ground, ginger is a is a dependable perennial for us. So I had to bring them in real close to the house, cover them, come up, mult of them because they're about to go in the ground to get planted. Not the normal time of year you plant ginger, but you can plant ginger now. And we're going to be working on on some of that. But anyway, just a few of the things going on out there in the garden. Uh, you've heard me talk about Nelson

plant food before. Nelson has something called Jennison. It's one of their nutri Star line.

with regular fertilizations, but start with Nelson Genesis. Time for me to take a little break here. I am going to be right back at seven one three two one two KTRH. Welcome back, hey, it's good to have you with us today. We are going into all kinds of things related to plants to help you have success. Is the way I like to put it is I want you to have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. That is the goal here. So let's do that. You got some questions you want

to ask. All you gotta do is give me a call seven to one three two one two k t r H. Seven to one three two one two k t r H. We'll be happy to visit with you about those so that you can have success. By the way, if you're one of the good ways to have success in all kinds of things, not just your lawn and garden, but even around the house, inside the house, the patio, and you name it is Ace Hardware. You know. Ace Hardware has got a number of stores through the Greater

Houston area. You can go to their website ayshardware dot Com and find the store locator and there's just a whole bunch of red dots everywhere. So you're going to get to find more than one ACE near you that has everything you need. We got the Super Bowl coming up, so it's time to get ready to do some Super Gold Bowl grilling, if you will. Uh. And you go to ACE Hardware and you're going to find incredible brands like Traeger you know what what that means, a Weber, Rectech,

a Big Green Egg, and Blackstone. All those kinds of brands are available at our various ACE Hardware stores or as you go around town. If you're an ACE Hardware Rewards remember which I remember which I am, by the way, and you should be too. You just sign up for it, and as you purchase things at ACE, you build up your reward numbers, your count and being a reward member.

A lot of the stores you just have to ask your local store about this, but a lot of them will assemble and even deliver a barbecue pet for you, but just ask your store for details about that. But anytime you're on ACE, go ahead and sign up for ACE Rewards. It's very very well worth it. Easy, painless to do. If you want to get your garage in ordering, maybe you need some storage shelves. Spring cleaning time is here. I know, I know. I walk out in my garage about once a year and I look and I go,

you know, I've made a mess again. Time time to get this cleaned up. ACE has got you covered on that. And of course if you're doing spring cleaning, all the cleaning supplies and storage tots and everything else you need, I don't know. Just let's put let's make this simple. ACE is the place. ACE is the place, no matter what you're looking for. ACE is a place. We got Aces all over again. Up in Champions for Us, there's

Champions Ace Hardware. You go over to the Copperfield there and you got Langham Creek right there, a hard Memorial Ace Hardware and the Memorial Area. Go down to Richmond area, you got Plantation Ace. Just come north of Richmond Plantation Ace Hardware, awesome store. And they're many many more. Easy.

ACE makes it easy, they just really do. I was looking at my vegetable garden and if you can see a pick, if you can see my vegetable garden right now, you might be shaking your head going, what's wrong with him? Why doesn't he there and clean it up? And it's because I've been busy, been doing other things. But it needs me. Uh spring planting is just around the corner, and uh so it's time for me to get out there and do some cleanup. And that's easy to do.

In fact, that's one of the actually one of the things I enjoy. I'm probably weird in this way as a gardener, but I like a weeding and I like cleaning up the garden. And the reason is this. If you go out and you've got a weedy bed and you just get busy and you pull weeds on it or hoe them, or mulch the bed or whatever, when you get through, it looks beautiful and it's so rewarding to see that. You know, there are a lot of

things in life. And I don't know if you guys got a job, you may know that what I'm talking about here, But you know, you work all day and at the end of the day, it's like, what did I accomplish today? I know, I move paper around the desk and talk to some people about some stuff, But what did I accomplish today? With gardening and you got a weedy bed. Oh my gosh. Thirty minutes you look back and it's like, ah, that looks better. I like that. So anyway, I'm a little weird in that way. I

like that, but like cleaning up too. Right now, I've got some old dead stalks of some last year's okra and peppers and some other things. I'll just get in there and clean all those up real good. I'll be ready to go. Everything will look really nice and pretty for the next step of it. Whenever I'm there's different

ways to go about gardening. There's not one way. The old traditional ways you got a rototiller and you banged up the soil, made it loose, planted your plants, and you just rototilled more than one time a year for sure, every time you're doing a new planting. Whenever you had a plant, you pulled it out, shook the soil off the roots, and threw the plant away, and that you know, that was part of renovating. That's okay. You can still

do everything that way if you want. What I'm doing more now is a no till kind of gardening in the vegetable garden. And what does that mean? That means Number one, think about nature. Nobody's spading forks or rototill's nature. The plants die, the roots they had in the ground die, and now those roots are dead to haying organic matter that have created tunnels through the soil, opening the soil up.

Microbes get in there, they get happy, they go crazy, and little by little, as you fill the soil with roots and roots on annual plants are gonna ride away when the plant's gone in. On grassy plants, by the way, roots live about a year and then die. So grass

even builds its own soil that way. But when whenever I have let's say, well I've got some peppers and some tomatoes and things, I'll just cut them off right at the ground, or you just cut the base out right there and basically leave the base in the ground to rot. And so when it's time to plant around them, I just make my little trenches, dig the holes, put in the transplants, do whatever I'm gonna do, but I just leave it as a no till. Now, you don't

have to do it that way, but you can. If you have something that dies from a root rod, or let's say it's a tomato that gets nematodes on the roots, or some wilt fungal disease of the roots. Well, yeah, you want to get that out of it and then not replant that same family of plants in that area for a while. But in general, no tail is good. Farmers have gone to no til for years. There's a lot of no tail going on in various types of agriculture where they reconize, just cut it off at the ground,

leave the roots in the ground. They even have special planters that are designed to plant into no tail beds and do well. Now, if I were going to have to mix some amendments into the soil, well yeah, I would spade it. I would do that. I would get those down in there. If I were going to dig a trench to plant potatoes in, okay, I get it. I'm not saying, you know, this only way to do it. I'm just saying it makes a lot of sense. And it's a lot easier too, that is for sure. So

I've got to get out there. I'm gonna cut those peppers off, cut the okra off. Sometimes I'll pull when something is rotted, I'll kind of pull on it and it'll all break off there just below the ground. I'll get the base of it out out of the way.

But I had a soil knife, which is like a big old giant booe kne that's got a serrated edge on one side, one of my favorite tools, and I'll just go to the bottom of a cornstalk and just with that soul knife, I'll just just essentially cut it off right there at the ground, real fast and easy to do. And all those corn roots now have created the pathways into the soil to get oxygen down, to get water in faster, to stimulate microbial growth as they decompose.

And it makes sense, all right. So that's called no till. There's a lot of versions of it. There's a lot of ways to go about it, but it's something that maybe you ought to think about. If you haven't done that before. Just know this. You don't have to pull all the plants out and get all that stuff out of the ground. Nature doesn't do that. If you're looking for a cool place to find lots of quality plants,

plants for all seasons, is it? You know? They have been in business here for a long time since nineteen seventy three, and they are true lawn and garden experts, and if you're struggling with something, just take them a picture or bring a sample in therefore for them to look at. They can take a good hard look at it and tell you what's going on. And Plants for All Seasons is at Luetta and Tomball Parkway. Plants for

All Seasons dot com. Here's the phone number two eight one three seven six one six four six get your green on there. Plants for all seasons. Music means I got to stop talking here. We're going to take a little break for the top of the hour news. I'm here for your phone calls. If you would like to be one of the first ones up when we come back, just called now seven one three two one two k

t r H. Johnathan'll get you on the board. We'll be ready to go at the top of the news and we'll take your phone calls at that point in time. Don't forget today, I'm going to be at the Fort. Then it's a home and garden show down there in Richmond, Texas. I'll either from one to three at the foot and Epicenter.

things come up, we plant new things things. We can just continue to take our little piece of eden and turn it more and more beautiful as we go along. And I think that is a really cool creative process. It is a mind, body and soul healing process to get out there and just enjoy working with nature, just taking it and making it better. And what do we say, improving your plot in life? If you want to go about it that way, we can put it that way

as well. Speaking of improving your plot in life, if you really want to see your plot improve, Peerscapes can do it. They go here's what I want to do. Go to this website peerscapes dot com, piercescapes dot com and just look look at what they do on landscape lighting and tell me you cannot picture how much that would improve the property. Whether it's just your backpatio or whether it's all around the house. You want lights on the house, on the pathways, on security lighting, you know,

for or your own protection. Piercescapes has the ability to do magic there. Look at the hardscapes they do, Oh my gosh, patios and walkways and things that are gorgeous. Do you need irrigation work done? Do you have a bad drainage? Most people in Houston with our clay soils, you got some low spot that doesn't drain well. They can fix that. They know how to fix that. Maybe you just want quality care for your landscape. You know you're not a do it yourself or to get out

and do it all yourself. You want somebody that comes by once a quarter and gets in those flower beds and if they need replanting of the flowers, put some new stuff in, if they need some mulching replenished on the surface, if they need the irrigation check, they do all that. By the way, when they come by on their quarterly maintenance, they do the changes out of color little fertilizing, little trimming, whatever you need. That's part of that. And I could just go on and on. Piercescapes does

it all. Pierscapes dot Com go look at it. Then you'll see what I'm talking about. From you know, minor revamping of beds to a major top down, turnkey, gorgeous, beautiful turnover in your landscape. They can do all of that. And spring is the time to get get busy with turning out the places around. I've got some flowers that I'm going to be putting out, I say flowers at perennials that I'm going to be putting out in my beds. Last year I worked on salvia bed that I have.

I love salvia's. They're my favorite of all the perennials. You know, people often ask me, oh, your horticulture is, what's your favorite plant? Well, I got a billion favorite plants. I have one. But if you put a gun to my head and said come on, man, I'd say, okay, give me one species, give me one or genus. Rather, it would be the salvias. I love Salvi's, beautiful salvias. South Mexican bush stage blooms in the late summer and

fall Salvia mystic spires, beautiful blue blooms. Salvia greggy I. It's a little subshri that just now it comes in so many colors. Used to be kind of red and maybe white. Now we've got corals and purples and mobs and all kinds of versions of Salvia gregory. They're just absolutely gorgeous. And I could go on and on and on and on. There's a lot of Salva, hundreds and literally hundreds of types of salvia out there. Not all of them do well here, but a lot of them do.

And that is one of the most dependable genera of plants that we have, or the salvias. You know, salvias are in the mint family. Did you know that? Okay, nerd alert fun fact. You can be the next Cliff Claven at the next garden Club if you just listen to this. Mint family plants have square stems, and when you grab the stem, you can feel it fee the little four sides. That's what mint is like. Salvia is in the mint family. It has square stems. Agistash is

in the mint family. It's got square stems, And there are other members of the mint family. But I'm just saying fun fact square stems mint family. By the way, can you tell me what has triangular stems, sedges, sedges like papyrus, like the umbrella sedge that you see as an ornamental plant, like nutsedge nutgrass in your yard. Yeah,

nutsedge has triangular stems. So you can sometimes walk around blind reaching on plants and tell a lot about them just by feeling the structures and things like the shapes of the stem, for example. But anyway, that's just an extra that was what ever penny you paid for it. But I love salvias, and some of the salvias they bloom at different times. A lot of them are good about reblooming and reblooming salvias. Many of the types will

attract hummingbirds. Many of the tripes will attract butterflies. Many of the types can be used as cutflowers too, as salvias, and they just have a lot of good features. Many of them are quite drought tolerant. Most of them want good sunlight. But some salvia greggy I will put up with a very bright shade and do very well in it as well. So there's kind of a salvia for everybody out there. In fact, there's probably a dozen salvias that would do really well in your landscaping garden. I

don't know why I got off into Salvia's. I just it's one of the plants that I do like a lot. I do like a lot, but never forget. I only have ten thousand favorites, so we're not going to limit it to just one thing. If you'd like to give me a call and ask a question, our phone number is seven to one three two to one two kt RH seven one three two one two kt RH. I will be at the Epicenter, the Fort Bend Epicenter, which is on Southwest Freeway, having fifty nine down that direction

in Fort ben County near Rosenberg. I'll be there today after the show. After the show at one o'clock to three o'clock, I'll be there for two hours. I'll talk about some things, answer some questions, give a little talk. I have some copies of books there if you're interested in a sign book, I'll bring some samples to give away as well. An Enchanted Forest will be there now. If you've not been to Enchanted Forest, they're gonna have

a big old display there. Folks that enchanted fillids coulding Danny Millican who is their new manager for growth there an Enchanted Forest. Dany's got a long history in the green industry here in the Greater Houston area, but they will be there as well. And if you haven't been to Enchanted Forest, you need to go. It's out there on FM twenty seven fifty nine. So if you're en Richmond going towards sugar Land is off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine, you have got to go.

They've got bulbs, they've got fruit trees, they've got shrubs, they've got annual color. They have a beautiful gift shop. And if you need to get a beautiful tree or shrub in like maybe something that blooms like a Chinese French tree, they've got a good supply of shrubs in as well. And when it comes to plants for butterflies, oh my gosh, they have huge tablefuls of all kinds

of things. In fact, if you want to know what a butterfly looks like, go buy, Go buy and Jenni Forest because they all hang out there and they'll even give you a larva of the butterfly if it's on the planet, to take home with you. So it's kind of like what sour dough starter for your butterfly garden and gented forest in Jenny Forest. Go come just come by today to the Fort Ben Hoome and Garden Show and see them when you come by to visit with me.

Time for me to take a quick break. When we come back, we were going to go to the phones and Ron and Derek you'll be our first two.

will come back. But don't delay. Get it done now while the temperatures are still cool and the demands are low. Yeah. All right, well, I appreciate it. Enjoy your show. Yeah yeah. Now if you if you're wanting to keep more of it, you may have to kind of tie the branches kind of up together, like you're pulling them upward, and twine around the whole bush to kind of hold it together. That makes it easier to get in there and work underneath it without given blood. I would I would do

the printing thing myself. Either way, you'll be good because people right now, people are planting roses that have been ripped out of the ground their bear root, and they've been chopped off just you know, a foot above the ground, and they're selling them to you that way. So basically you're doing the same thing. At home, except yours are just getting dug and moved and watered in right away, same day, so it's even easier on yours. Okay, great,

I appreciate all right, sir, thank you. Good luck with that. Send me a picture when they start blooming. You bet, take care. All right, let's h it's head the Houston area and talk to Derek. Hey, Derek, welcome to gardenline.

product there. There are a number, by the way, the excuse me. There are a number of different products that are on the market for it, but the best are one that contain an ingredient called halo sulfur on Halo sulfur on. Now, I know that trying to remember a name like that is possible, but on the website, on my Nutsedge publication, it gives examples. I'm going to give you a few brand examples, but there's one called sedge Hammer Plus, like not sledgehammer, but sedge hammer Plus. There

is one called Martin's Nut Grass Eliminator. That's another one. There's a high yield product for it. The Monterey has one called nut grass Killer. Two. Those are all the same ingredient and they all work well on Nutsedge. I would encourage you to read the publication on there that brown stuff before green stuff, meaning you get the foundation right and then you put that green plant in the ground and it's going to hit the ground running and

you're going to be really happy with the results. Whether it's a whole bunch of tomatoes or a lot beautiful petunia flowers or whatever. The plant is. Soil first brown stuff before green stuff. And the place where you can get all your ground, all the brown stuff you need to do taken care of all of it, from compost to bed mixes to fertilizers is Ciena Mulch. Cena Maltch is just south of Houston. It's near where Highway six and two eighty eight come together. The actual road is

FM five point twenty one. But I just want you to go to Cienamultch dot com and there you can get the number in the road in the hours and all that kind of stuff. Sienna Mulch dot com. That whole region Meridian First Colony, Sweetwater, Paarland, Iowa Colony, Sandy Point, that whole region down there, Sir Ciena malt serves it. They'll deliver within about twenty miles for a fee if you want them to bring it to your place, or

you can just go get it. You can buy things by the bag, you and buy things by the bulk. They've gotten native hardwood, they got double ground mulches, two inch screen mulches. They have propucks from Landscapers Pride, they have products from excuse me, heirloom soils. And then when it comes to fertilizers we're talking about. By the way, they also have yeah, the landscapers Pride black velvet malts too, which is really special, and the rose soil, the veggie

nerdmix from heirloom soils down there. When it comes to fertilizers, they have stuff from Medina, they have stuff from Nilsen, they have stuff from Nitroposs, they have stuff from Microlife. They carry azamite as well, and this is a good time to be beginning with any kind of azamite editions. You're going to be wanting to put into your soil this year, and they've got that. So when you come

out to see anamalts, you have the foundation. You have done the brown stuff before green stuff, and now go find a fun great plant that wants to grow here and watch it take off and grow as a result from that. Ce animals dot com. Animals dot com. And by the way, they treat you right there too. They are just very very customer friendly. When you go in there, you have a good time. You will have a good time.

You're listening to Guardline. The phone number is seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two, five, eight, seven four, And we've talked about today. I was I was talking a little bit about frost and freeze assessment and how to go about that. I'm going to post I think I'm going to post something to our social media about frost and freeze assessment. Gave a little spiel about it. I'll mention some more a little bit later as we go

through it. The bottom line on frost and freeze assessment right now is relax, learn to live with ugly, don't worry about it. Don't feel like you need to jump the gun and cut everything off that's dead. Just wait. The easiest law is that fair way to go about taking care of your plants that were freeze damaged is just still. Let the plant tell you where to prune.

As we start to warm up a little bit, you're going to see exactly where sprouts of new growth appear, and then you know where to cut things off that are dead. If you want to get ahead of it, at least give it a few days after a freeze e vent like we had and some little warmer weather, and that way, those tissues that were killed begin to show the decline very well, and you may see underneath

the surface of the bark. If you scrape, scrape a little branch with your thumbnail or with a knife, you'll see instead of a nice creamy, creamy white to chartrouse green underneath there, you'll see paper sack brown color. And that means it's dead. It's dying, and it takes a little while for the for that to kind of happen and you to be real clear what you're dealing with. But either way, just wait and wait and see. You know, if you want, if you got a prone then at

least scrape and don't cut into living wood. Don't cut health healthy wood. That's a stimulating process. And the last thing your plans need right now is to be encouraged to try to re sprout because you pruned it back too much, then the next freeze is going to cause even more damage. Anyway, that's why, well here we are, and we are about the time for me to take another break. I want to remind you that I'm going to be at the Brass Home and Garden Show today

at the Fort Bend at the Center. It's in Rosenberg, Texas. I'll be there from one pm, so you have time to get lunch one pm to three PM. I'll talk for an hour in a seminar and we'll talk about essential steps to create a thriving spring garden and a lawn, a beautiful lawn in the spring. What do you need to do? What do you need to know? Let's get that done. We'll talk about that and then I'll answer your gardening questions and so just show up, bring me

samples and whatnot. I'll be doing some giveaways as well, and I'll bring some of my books that I never talked about on the air and I should anyway. I'll bring some and have some signed copies if you'd like to do that. We'll be right back. Good morning, Welcome to guarden Line. I'm your host, Stiff Rector. This is

garden Line. Guarden Line is a call in show. Now I can talk about gardening till the cows come home, but what this is about is getting your questions answered, helping you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. So in order to do that, you'll need to write this number down seven one three two one two k T RH seven one three two one two k T Right, how can we help? What kinds of questions do you have and we will

be happy to assist you with that. RCW Nurseries you know they've been around a long time. That that is the garden center that's right there where Tumball Parkway two forty nine FM two nine where that comes into belt Way eight and it's an easy access, easy to get to right there. When you go into RCW, you're going to find people that know what they're talking about. You're going to find service. You're going to find people that have a garden to here themselves for a long time.

They know what they're doing. In fact, they essentially are growing their own trees up there at the Williamson Tree Farm up in Plantersville area, and they have a quality stock of all kinds of things like that the tree. When it comes to trees, whether it's big or small. They can also come out and do the planting for you and take care of that. And listen, we're in tree planting season. Don't delay. I mean, you can plant

a tree twelve months out of the year. But the sooner you get it done, the better off it is. The easier it is on you, the easier it is on the tree to get established. So go ahead and call them and do that. Right now, they've gotten in a shipment of roses that is unbelievable. I'm talking about hundreds, hundreds of rose varieties. Their list, you can go to the website r Cwnurseries dot com RCW Nurseries dot com

and you can print out their list. And I'm talking about a chart that tells you the name, the habit of the rose, the class of rose, the color of the rose, is it fragrant or not, other helpful comments about that rose, and it's it's six pages long. That's so many roses that they have. So if you're looking for a rose that is disease resistant, that repeat blooms, that is an all America rose selection, that is apricot colored or red colored or pink colored or lavender color.

It's a shrub, it's a climber. You get to pick. And they've got their best stock of the year right now at r c W Nurseries. And it's time to get roses planted too. I know, we say roses. You know, Valentine's Day roses easy to remember. Yeah, that's true, and that's a good time. But you right today is a good time to plant a rose. Get one, get it in the ground. Talk to them. They'll get you some root stimulators, some other products you need to get success

with that plant. They'll even tell you how to do it. They won't come out and plant it for you, but they will do how to do it. And I'm telling you, why not a rose, it's a queen of the garden. If you've got a sunny spot. Roses like sun If you got a sun spot and you want something that just gives you color and color, they've got it. Do you want one that's a cut flower, They've got it. You bring those cut flowers in. Do you want one that is a shrub, a shrub type rose, you just

hedge it. You don't have to be a rose printing specially. Just headgs the thing and it'll grow and it'll look good. Knockouts that kind of rose. It does good. But oh my gosh, when you've got six pages of roses shoes from, you're not gonna do better now. R cwnurseries dot com. And while you're in there, yes, you're gonna find herbs and vegetables and flowers and other kinds of ornamental shrubs

and trees and everything else, including the products. You need to have success with them, So go check it out. You have been forewarned. The opportunity is there. There should be a there should be a line backed up on two forty nine and bout way a trying to get into that place today with the with the kind of shipment that they've gotten in on these beautiful roses. You know, I like roses. They I like easy care. Now when it comes to roses, I'm just kind of wandering on

on roses here because I like talking about roses. The you know, rose enthusiasts. They may be into the cut flowers and the really unique and beautiful hybrid teas and just all that kind of thing, and that's fine, you can do that, but you may just want a little groundcover, spreading rose. Do you know. Roses can be groundcovers and sunny spots. There are a number of types of roses that they stay small, they stay low, and they spread

out and they do really well. I mentioned I like shrub roses because I think it's pretty cool that to get a shrub with green leaves, so it's a shrub. It looks good, but then it blooms. I mean, what a deal? What a what a plus that is and it's easy. It's easy to do, you know. It used

to be roses were all prima donnas. I mean you had to sit there and in one hand you had an umbrella to keep the rain off of them because rain promotes disease, and in the other hand had a spray wand to squirt them every five minutes with a fungeeside to keep them from dying from some disease. Now now we have got a lot of roses with incredible disease resistance that they can be a very very low care maintenance shrub in your landscape and you get flowers

and in some cases you get fragrance too. So I think everybody will to plant more roses. How about an arbor, how about a pergola or maybe an archway going in to the garden or entering an outdoor patio sitting area, or an arbor over the top of an outdoor sitting area.

sides of the pergola just load up with flowers. Gorgeous, beautiful, beautiful flowers. That minds of Peggy Martin. By the way, that's one of the ones that in the last ten years has just been so loved and famous because it survived the New Orleans hurricane floods. It went for weeks out there years ago. You remember that one, Katrina, Peggy Martin. That's a good one. But Peggy Martin is just one example of many many good rowses. So anyway, that's the

one I have in my pergola. I love that thing. Well, you're listening to Guardline our phone numbers seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r h H. It is about time for me to go to a little break here in just a moment, I did want to mention that if you have questions that might involve a photo. You can call my producer, talk to Jonathan seven one three two one two KTRH. Tell him you got a photo you need to send me, and then follow that

up with a phone call. I'm not able to answer with my fingers typing all the questions that come in at the time just doesn't allow that. But if you will send me a picture or send me a question with a photo and then call in, we can discuss it. Because I'll tell you this, I know a lot of people are shy to be on the air. Don't worry about it. The pressure's on me, not you. And so send me a picture and I can look at it and then we can talk about Because somebody else is

going to have the same question. You may think, Ah, this is a stupid question. Nobody asks us. No it's not. It's not a stupid question. There's only stupid answers. And I'll worry about that, all right, folks. I'll be right back, and we're going to take a call from looks like Jimmy when we come right back. Alrighty, let's get right to the phones this hour. We're going to head to Conro, Texas and talk to Jimmy. Hey, Jimmy, welcome to garden line. Oh hello, do we have Jimmy? Yeah, there you are.

The standard way people propagate roses is to take a cutting and take the leaves off the Let's say the cutting is about four inches long, and you take the leaves off the bottom half of that cutting and dip it in a rooting hormone powder, which you can get at any garden center, and then you put it in moist like a potting soil or something like that, put a cover over it to keep the humidity in because otherwise they've dry it before it has a chance to

make roots. And put it in a bright spot, but not direct sunlight, so really like real close to like an eastern window or something like that would be good, or a northern window. Even you want good light, but you don't want direct sunlight. And it takes a while, but most roses are fairly easy to root. If you get a good, healthy cutting and you dip it in rooting hormone first and make sure it's in a moist condition. There's another way to do it that is a higher

percentage success. And if this bush has branches that are kind of sagging down toward the ground, you can go out toward the end of a branch. With roses, you don't want to root a woody limb of the of the rose bush. You know one that has bark on the outside. It's that big or old. You want to root something that's pencil sized or smaller, typically typically smaller. But if you take one of those and you bend it,

what it'll happen is it'll crack. It won't No, I'm not talking about snap off, but I'm talking about you just bend it, and now it's almost like that branch has an elbow on it. You see what I'm saying. You move it and it's attached, but it moves like

an elbow. And you put that elbow down in the ground and I will often take a piece of coat hanger, make a U shape a piece of coat hanger and push it into the soil to hold that elbow into a shallow hole in the ground, maybe three or four inches deep, and then put soil over it and keep it moist. Some people will just set a big, heavy rock over it. You just don't want the wind to blow the branch and pull it back out of the ground.

But if you do that, it will root. It may take a few weeks to do that, but once it is rooting, you can cut it loose from the mother plant and dig it up and move it wherever you want. So that's called a tip layer or a layer la yeer and it's more successful than cuttings because what happens is the mother plant is nourishing the cutting while it's developing, or the thing while it's develop uping roots as opposed

to being cut off. And now it has no nourishment and it just has to get a root done real quick before it dies. That's how it would be with a cutting. That makes sense. Oh yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, do this. Go online and do a search for layering l A y e R layering a rose and you'll find lots of good help to help you do that. Okay, And if there's nothing down low like that, then you've

got to do cuttings. All right. Hey, good luck with that, Jimmy, thank you all right, Yes, sir, appreciate that you as well. Thank you very much. Let's see here, all right, We're going to go to Brookshire now and talk to Mike. Hey, Mike, welcome to guard Line.

And I've got my own water well, so I'm a little concerned about putting down the right stuff there. And lastly, I'm adding a water softener that will also hit the spigots.

you have a bunch of questions and that's good. By the way, feel free to call back as often as you like, and we kind of walk through all of them. But as far as you know, making sure that you've got the kind of plants you want, there's a lot of good things out There's a lot of good trees

out there. You're just down the street from Nelson Water Gardens and Katie off it In and Katie and they have they carry trees and they could probably direct you to local landscapers who they would recommend if you want that kind of help. Down toward Richmond from you is Enchanted Gardens and the same thing there. They do carry a lot of trees and they could also direct you probably to some landscapers in your area. As far as trees go, I like blooming trees in the summer like

Craig myrtles are beautiful. Chinese fringe tree has white, shaggy spring blooms. That's a nice one. Didn't get too large, so it's one where you know, it sounds like you got the space for a large tree, but it's nice having some smaller trees around too, over a patio or something you can enjoy visually. But then there's beautiful shade trees that would do well. A nut tall oak and new t t A l nut tall oak is a good red oak that would do well out in your area.

And then there's a lot of others that also will do well there. Mike, I'm running up against a hard break. If you want to hang on through the break. When we come back, we can continue this this because i know you have you know, additional probably follow ups questions on it, but I'm going to put you on hold. If you want to stick around, we'll talk when when you get back. When we get back, time for me to take a top of the hour break. Just want to remind everybody I'm going to be down in regiment

area at the Fort Ben County Epicenter. That's on Southwest Freeway right there, so you're heading down south. That'll be on the left hand side. I'm going to be there from one to three today. From one to three now, I'll be starting off for about an hour of talking about the essential steps of creating a thriving spring garden and a lawn. In fact, yeah, just all kinds of things about having success in the spring. What do you need to know?

for example. Uh, they really in China Gardens has an unmatched selection of plants and in general, I mean if you're talking about vegetables or ornamental grasses, or flowers or herbs or shrubs or trees or roses or fruit trees or just everything you name it, they've got a good, good selection of it. They also have an outstanding selection of products to go with the things that you're purchasing there. Remember, we got to take care of the soil for you.

Take ore of the plants well Microlife, nitrofoss Nelson, plant food Medina, things from Nature's Way, things from heirloom soils, things from landscapers Pride. See what I mean. They've got it all right there now. In Chenna Gardens is on the Kjfullshire side of Richmond. They're on FM three fifty nine three fifty nine. You just go to the website Entented Gardens Richmond dot com Entented Gardens Richmond dot com. They're open money through Saturday from eight to five and

Tomorrow Sunday from ten am to four pm. By the way, I'm going to be out there in at Chenna Gardens on Saturday, February fifteenth, from twelve to one. I'm gonna be giving a talk on till for making gardening less work, talk about how to get more from your gardens with the way I like to put it, how to get more with less sweat and ibuprofen. I hope you make gardening easy and more productive and more fun in the process. Out there in Jenny Gardens and that'll be on February fifteenth.

From twelve till one, we're going to go back to Mike now in Brookshire. Mike, where do we pick it up? Here? We were talking about some things you might want to plant out there.

general listening area here, which is a large area. But that's why it's a big section on the calendar is the time to put your pre emergent out because you want to get those out before we'd seeds begin to sprout and come up. And when I say weed seeds in this case, I mean warm season weed seeds. The cool season weeds are already growing. But that's when you

do it. If you at the bottom of the schedule there there's a pre emergent section with synthetic and organic options for trying to deal with weeds in the lawn in a pre emergent way. Then there's more information on post emergent. But the main thing on pre emergence is you want to grab a product, you know, night frust barricades and I talk most about.

TAMU dot edu. And you want to choose the urban soil test form urban even though you're out in the country Berkshire. Urban means yards, gardens, roses, flower beds, you know that, that kind of thing. That's what urban means. But urban soil testing form uh. And then follow the instructions and when you get the results back, if you've got questions, you can maybe send me a copy of it and then give me a call to follow up on it and we can we can discuss some of that.

Or you can go to your county Extension office and your horticulture or agriculture agent can help interpret it as well.

could be five to ten places. Mix it all together and you need about a pint of soil to send in. All right, sir, you've met Thanks for the call, looking for You're talking it again sometime YouTube, Bye bye. Nature's Way resources is up there in Conroe on off Interstate forty five. In fact, if you're heading if you're heading from Houston north to Conroe, right where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia, you just turn right across the

tracks and you're there. Nature's Way. It's on Turrbroke Circle right there and they have number one. They've They've got every kind of soil product you possibly could want or

need in a very quality form. They've been doing this is kind of I guess you could almost say the grandfather of soil products is John John Ferguson at Nature's Way I and his son now runs a place carries the same tradition, same kind of quality products, from composts to bed mixes, to things for fruit trees, things for herbs. You need mulches, do you, I mean flower beds. They've got it all right there at Nature's Way. And all you have to do is go check them out and

you can. You can drive up there with your truck or trader and get some stuff if you want, you can, you know, have them deliver it for you. And lie of their products are available by the bag around the greater Houston area as well. Nature's Way Resources dot Com. Go to that website. Everything he needs there Nature's Way Resources dot Com. I'm gonna take a break now, I'll be right back with a call for from Christa out

in Richmond. Alrighty, Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Stip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions at seven one three, two, one, two, five, eight, seven four. Listen the super Bowls coming? Are you geared up for that? All? Right? Well, speaking of Super Bowls, one of the things I like to do most is grill. I like to grill up. I like to grill all the time, actually, but grilling burgers and whatever you're into grilling in kababs and things.

If you want to really have a good quality grill, you just need to go by ACE Hardware. Because what are the biggest best brands that the famous ones, the ones that people just swear by, like Big Green Egg They've got it, Rectech got it, Tragger got it, Weber got it, Blackstone, They've got it. ACE Hardware Store has got you covered for grills and all the accessories that you need. With Super Bowl coming up and all of that.

You got it. Now, when when you go to ACE, you got to get and you got to join and become an ACE Rewards member. Sure, simply you just sign the me. It doesn't take anything to do it. But when you do that, in average purchase you make you're earning points toward it. And a lot of ACE Hardware stores for their members will do an assembly and a delivery of grills to your house. So just ask about that. Where you shop at your ACE. You know there's a

bunch of Aces all over the place. You just go to Acehardware dot Com and find the store locator and find the one near you. Now, right now in my garage, I'm doing cleanup. Shelving units are available at ACE. Storage binds are available at ACE. Everything you need to get that spring cleaning done, both out in the garage and in the house. All kinds of cleaning supplies and things like that. ACE has got you covered. It's as simple

as that. You know, there's ACE everywhere. Like I said, there's one in Victoria, Victoria ACE down Base City ACE. If you go down to Galveston, they got Chalmers ACE down there. So it's just really easy to find an ACE store near you. I think we're going to go out now to Richmond, Texas and talk to Christa. Hello Christa, Welcome to Garden Line.

I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but if you had a pot on the patio, after two years, the pot's only half full of soil because what was there was almost all organic matter and it just decomposed away, So just use soil to fill in the low areas. But and the old malt is good. Maltmult decomposes and releases nutrients. It turns into compost which feeds microbes in the soil and makes your plants happy, your soil better.

So I would never get rid of olmult I generally, and I know you're renovating there, so I would pull it and set it aside, and then I would get all the bed done, and then I'd put the ulmultch back in and you can pull it aside to do your planting around it. But think of the forest floor. There's dry leaves on top, and then as you go down you get into rich crumbly leaf mold compost d materials that is the best of on earth, and then

the soils down below that. And that's what you do in your flower beds is when you have nu malts needed, when the olmult gets thin, just add nu mulch on top and leave that almultch because that's just when it's getting to be really good soil stuff.

It's fine stuff, especially because it's not dyeed. But any kind of a quality mulch put on the surface is what you want to do, just to maintain something that blocks the sunlight out and moderates soil temperatures.

kill them in a heartbeat. So a raised amound of soil to drain away excess water, fixing low spots that have poor drainage with either French drains underground or by raising the lava lap. It's all important, especially if you want to go with some more zeric types of plants. Okay, all right, thank you appreciate that. All right, you're listening to guard line. Uh seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two

five eight seven four. Listen, it's planting season. It's planting season. Uh. We're going to get to summertime and people are gonna call me and say, can I still plant a you fill in the blank, And the answer is going to be yes, with a little bit of a butt. Yes. But you got to water a little bit every day to keep it going without overwater in it and causing major problems. If you plant now, it's a more forgiving time. It's easy. You put it in the ground, you water

it in real good. It has a chance to establish roots, and you know you do have to rewater at times, but it's not like in one day that root balls already pumped dry again because it's one hundred degrees outside and hadn't rained in three weeks. So now's the time to get the plants in so you can get a root system established. And if you're going to do that, I want you to do one other thing. Gets some Medina has to grow six twelve six. Medina has to

grow six twelve six. It's got six percent nitrogen, twelve percent phosphorus that's especially important in root development, and six percent potassium. And with that it also has Medina soil activator to stimulate biological activity. It's got humate humic acid. Humic acid is produced by decomposed, fully decomposing organic matter. Hemic acids is one of the natural organic acids that's produced by decomposing organic matter and the microbes that are

doing the work. Okay, that improves sol structure, It improves nutrient uptake as well. Whenever your soil gets better, your nutrient uptake is going to improve. It's got seaweed extracts in it. Now you can use it as a folier spray. That's fine, But right now for planting season, I would especially make sure and get your watering can. Put some has to grow six twelve six from medina has to grow six twelve six plant food, put it in the watering can and water in your new plants with it.

I will often put it in a little container and set the whole plant pot in the container before I plant it to soak that root ball full of has to grow six to twelve six, and then plant in the ground. You can do it either way. Planet it and soak it, soak it and planet either way you want to go. Follow up a week later with another soaking of has to grow, and a week later with another soaking of asterword those three about a week of art and your plant will be well on its way

to success. And the more you do right now to get a root system out in the ground, the better that plant is going to not only take off running and grow well for you. But survived this first challenging summer, which every summer is a challenging summer here in the Greater Houston area. That is for sure. You're listening to garden Line phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two

five eight seven four. If you need any kind of supplies for your gardening, got to swing by Southwest Fertilizer.

than Southwest Fertilizer. Do you need a quality tool, go talk to Bob. They've got them there. They absolutely do. Full selection of soils and multiz from heirloom and nature's way and landscaper's pride. I mean, if I endorse it on Guardline, they have it at Southwest Fertilizer, And then they have a lot, a lot more and they know what they're talking about and they can direct you to the products that you need. You take them a sample,

you take them a picture, and they'll point you. They won't steer you wrong, they won't just try to sell you something. They'll tell you what the problem is and they'll show you your options and they'll have more than one for solving that problem. In Southwest Fertilizer Corner Bisont and Renwick. Here's the website Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Time for me to take a break.

I'll be right back with your calls in just a moment. Alrighty, we have some more garden Line to do, so let's hop right in and do that. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. I'm here to help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. Now I gotta do is give me a call seven to one three two one two k t r H. So we are going to go now out to Carrie. Hello, Carrie, welcome to garden Line.

they want to be in sunlight. So whenever you can, just have them out there where they get good sunlight. If it's going to get down, you know, freezing, well yeah, bring them in. But in general, as much as you can.

plan them underground. So what you're gonna want to do, and it's gonna be hard to do, but you're going to cut those roots. Just take your little prunters or if if they're little roots, you can just use a box cutter knife and slice vertically down through the sides of the cylinder root ball. And it's okay, very important to do this to cut those roots because otherwise you're going to have a wound up, root bound container and they're just not gonna thrive. They're not gonna take off

and thrive like you want them to. So then's the top part. You can cut it back. Go ahead.

And then dig the hole for the plant. And if you've mixed that in an area five feet wide, you don't have to dig a hole that's two times as big as the root ball because you've already loosened the soil out there. You want to dig it only as deep as the soil in the container. So if you were just a picture you've taken the plant out of the container and it's sitting on the ground, how tall is that soils that was in the pot? And if

it's a foot high, dig a foothole. If it's a foot and a half high, dig of a foot and a half hole, because you don't want to dig it deeper because then you'll fill with loose soil in the bottom. Because it wants you need to have it at the same depth that it was in the pot. You want the soil level to be the same, so if you dig it too deep, it ends up settling down too deep. So dig it only as deep as a root ball.

Dig it a little bigger than the root ball, not much, because you've already loose, You've taken a spading fork, and you've you've kind of cracked open the soil to get this compost. You spread around it down in the soil, dig that whole planet in and watered in really well. And I would wait to do that until we're past the danger of frosts in your area. You know, there's no hurry. Citrus is not going to take off growing real fast, real early on. And it likes it a little.

It likes it to warm up a little bit. So go ahead and get it in after you know you're not going to have any more frosts, and and and then do it as I described there.

to get your fruit trees planted. Prime time for planting fruit trees. I don't know what kind of fruit you're interested in growing, but I'll tell you this. You ought to grow something. Everybody has room for fruit trees. Now you're thinking, okay, no, I don't. I absolutely do not. What do you have shrubs? Do you have a garden bed? You do have room for fruit trees. You know, a peach tree is an attractive little blue spring blooming tree

that gives you fruit on top of the old. Deal you an area that's a little shady because fruit trees love full sun. Well, how about a blueberry or how about a fig tree? They both do good in a partial shade. They can they can do okay in that. It's not they want to be in shape, but they can do well in that. I'll tell where you can

get a lot of fruit trees too. I was talking to the folks out at Arborgate, Beverly Kennon out there, and I said, hey, I need you to send me a list of the fruit trees you carry They did pages and pages and pages and pages, all the standard stuff. You know, you want an apple, you want a pear, You want a blueberry, You want to peach, you want to plum, you want all that kind of How about this? How about a palm granite? They have those. How About a really quality type of grape that will grow here

in our area. How about all kinds of cetera, I mean, all kinds of centris, lots and lots, blackberries, thornless blackberries. You want a quality thornless BlackBerry. They've got those there. Unusual things like tangi low and pamelo and guava that's unusual. And olive like the arbiquinya that's one of the most common adapted varieties of olive attire here, and they've got those at Arborgate. I was talking, you know about blueberries.

They've got both the southernhigh bush type and the rabbit eye types of blueberries, both of which do very very well here. I mean, I could go on and on and on. Gojiberries, Native paw paws, Native mayha, oh, Native mayhow someone called me about a Mayhaw the other day, Native Mayhaw's They got gojiberries, as I said, jujubi's. Do you even know what a jiujubi is? Think of it as like a little miniature apple like fruit that grows and it is extremely, extremely tough plant all at Arburgate.

While you're at Arborgate, make sure and check out their camellias. Beautiful camellias in bud and in bloom. They've got roses in bloom out there at Arburgate. If you need cool season color. It's still okay, still time to be putting out things like viola's and snap dragons and alyssa and all of that. We got plenty of mild weathers still to come here. They've got vegetables, they've got herbs. They've

got you covered. That's the bottom line. Do you know you know that I talked about their one two three system, which is a soil for anything that has roots, a fertile eye the same organic fertilizer, and then a compost type material that is part of their one two three. They sell their soil and composts by bulk too, and they deliver it. It can be delivered. So give them a call at Arbrogate and say I need need to get a bulk amount, not just a few bags. I

need a bulk amount of this. They'll get you fixed up there as well. Remember when you go to Arbrogate, take Trischel Road around the back, because that's where the really cool parking lot is. It's so easy access, so safe, so easy to get in and out. Arbrogate's a popular place, and they stay busy in that front parking lot stays busy. Just go around the back. That's what I do. Just drive around the back. It's really easy to get in, and I think you will. It'll become your favorite place

to park. When you go by there. You listen to the garden line and I'm your host, Skip Richter. How can we help you with something that you have going on. Maybe it's a problem with a plant, a disease insect. Maybe you're dealing with weeds, or you have been year after year and you're wanting to know how do I get ahead of that. Well, give me a call. Seven one three two one two KTRH seven one three two one two k t r H. Someone was asking me about nuts Edge earlier, and I was talking about the

publications that are on my website. The website is gardening with Skip dot com and anything here on garden line where I need to put you a publication up there where you can find. It's going to be on my website. That makes it easy. And when I get questions that take a minute to answer, you know, like nuts edge isn't just a two second answer, It's better if I explain some things to you and give you your options where you can choose and understand how to go about it. Right.

I put that on the website, like freeze protection. That freeze protection publication I talked about for weeks now because we were having all the freezes coming up. It's there on the website and it's there all year long. And if you you got a friend in timbucktoo, I mean, if they live in the Allegheny Mountains of Wordsgany in

New York, I just made something up there. Anyway, if they live anywhere in the country, that freese publication is still applicable to them because it talks about how freezes happened and how we protect plants. And that's true in Minnesota and that is true in many Yellow Texas as well. So if you want my schedules, a lawn care schedule and the pest disease and weed management schedule. Think of a chart. On the left side is January, on the right side of December, and going up and down the

side or the specifics. How do you mow your lawn, how do you water your lawn, how do you fertilize your lawn, what do you use when do you do it? How do you control pasts, how do you control weeds? How do you control diseases? Both organic and synthetic options, they're on the chart. It makes it so easy. Just download it, print it out, keep it with you, take it shopping that way when you get into the store. You may I think I said something, but it's printed

there on the chart. Just just point at that and send me one of those and they'll take care of that. We put all that together to make it easier for you. Someone called about soil testing while ago and on there on my publications is a soil testing made simple, fill one page sheet. It explains how to take a soil sample, how to submit a soil sample, and you can print it out as a PDF. Most of my things are available as PDF documents as well. If you don't just

read them online and makes it easy. So I would recommend that you just booked that bookmark that gardeningwith skip dot com, and I'm going to be adding more to it and adding more to it. And if you're ever kind of wondering, well, what was that thing? He said, you can go and you can just look at that and it makes it real simple. I'm going to run here to Houston and talk to Andy. Andy, we got a little bit here. Let's see if we can get

your question answered before we have to go to break. Yes, good morning.

stature as well. You're starting back with a shorter maybe a you know, a foot or a foot and a half tall little plant there, So that is also another option. As far as blooming, plumerias need good nutrition, especially things like phosphorus and potassium the second and third number on the bag, with a little bit of nitrogen. In order for them to bloom well, they need an adequate supply of moisture, not soggy wet, but they need lots of sun,

lots and lots of sun. That's the most important, the sun, A little bit of nutrition and moderate moisture to have success with those. Okay, thank you much, all right, you bet, thank you. I appreciate that call. Kind of running short there on time, folks. When we come back, by the way, Kathleen and Tom will you'll be first up if you'd like to be second seven one three two one two k t R H own to remind you today this afternoon, right after lunch one pm, I'm going to be at

the Brasses Home and Garden show at the Fort. Then epicenter off Southwest Freeway, and I'll talk for an hour about essential steps to create a thrive in spring garden. And then i'll do Q and A with you with your samples and your pictures till the cows come home.

deerproof plant, because it may or may not. But choosing plants they don't prefer is a good idea. That's one, and there are lists of those online that you can look at. Secondly, deer in a rural area are quite skittish, and so it's kind of easy to spook them and they run away. In urban areas, they're not I've been in or San Antonio and seen deer in the middle of the day driving down a neighborhood street. Deer three deer laying in the front yard watching me drive by.

That's not a skittish deer. So those kind of deer are harder to spook because they're already used to human smells and whatnot. There are sprays that you can put out that usually are made of what's called putrescent egg solid, so think of rotten eggs. You mix up the spray you sprayed on plants into stincts, and deer prefer not to get around that. They don't like that. There are there are sound and light and water types of scared

devices out there too. One called one brand is called the scarecrow sprinkler, and it's because it's painted to look sort of like a scarecrow, or like a little crow rather, and it has a motion sensor, so when deer come walking through the yard, it comes on like a machine gun and just strafes water across them for about eight seconds, and it spooks them and they run away. But deer get used to anything. They do get used to anything.

Some people put out little human hair and I've used the flour in garden before that it spooked them away. They left, But then when it rains and washes in, it doesn't. But again, if they're used to people, the human hair smell even isn't quite enough. So the next step would be using a fence, and the fence needs to be at least six feet tall, probably more and

more like seven to really keep them out. If your area is small, the fence doesn't need to be as large because deer need to have room to get a running start, to jump or to land. Uh. And so if you have like a ten by ten fenced area, they're not going to jump into the middle of that. That's an extreme example.

something like that until they get rooted in. Then if deer nip them, they're just pruning them back and that the plant can sprout back out, whereas when it's a new plant, they just literally pull on it and they're rips right out of the ground.

But as you go away from starving to death, and as you go away from familiarity with people, it's easier to spook them away. So those those are your options. Carla, got it? Okay, great, I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to run. We got some some folks that lined up here. But thank you for the call. Good luck with that, Good luck with that. Yeah, but all right, bye bye. Let's see here. Where's next. We're gonna go to talk to Katie. Hello, Katie, how can we help?

out of control. So I need to know when I should prune it and how severely I can prune it because it grows probably two to three feet in circumference every year, and so now I don't want to have to use a ladder to get to things.

space the branches out. You know, if you're going to have a big tree like you've got, you may have seven or so trunks, five to seven trunks coming up from the ground in this huge clump space I'm out apart a little bit where they're not just one right beside the other, and open the tree up a little bit that way, and you can maintain some height on it height maintenance that way as well.

first up when we come back. Hey, welcome back. Good with us. We are going to jump right back in the phones here on garden Line and head out to Emily and sugar Land. Hello Emily, Welcome to garden Line.

to have maybe two or three shoots. They grow in its place, so now you can have two or three blooms instead of one. So each time you prune back, don't be afraid to cut it back pretty good and get fresh new growth coming out, and that will provide additional blooms for you. Don't try to grasp you.

is concentrated compost in a bag. So you take organic matter like leaves and grass clippings and whatever, and you decompose it, and we call that compost. You take compost and you let it decompose to its final state that's called humus. And when you reach the stage of humus, when we're creating humates with the hum humic acid and other things in it, that is really good stuff with

the soil. It improves all texture, it improves microbial activity, It helps loosen up a clay soil as it works itself as you work it, or it works yourself down into the soil. Microlife humantes plus that is a bluish purple bag and you can do it anytime of the year. You could do it now. You can wait until you fertilize in the spring. Put your fertilizer out and then put humts plus out too, because we're talking about two

different actions here and humans plus. For any kind of a soil, it's going to be beneficial, especially when you're dealing with kind of fixing up a pretty crummy clay or something like that. It's especially helpful in those kinds of situations. And that's from the folks at Microlife and you can go to micro Life Fertilizer dot com find out where to buy it. It's pretty much sold everywhere, and also about the other products that they carry. I'm

going to head nowt to Tanglewood and talk to Charles. Hey, Charles, Welcome to Guardline.

but it didn't stop it. What can I do now? Number one? Do I still need to stop it? Number two? What can I do now to guard against having it next year? And if I can't do anything now, when do I make sure I put something out next year?

schedule that you referred to. If you look on there, it's got mid January through February. Are actually into March is a time when we can have brown patch, and when we do preventive applications of the products that are there on the schedule to control it. Now you kind of have an option. The brown patch seems to be worse and better prevented when we do it in the spring, I mean in the fall, in the spring, we will get we can get more circles. I usually ignore mine.

I've got some in my yard right now, and I'm kind of ignoring them because once that grass gets growing, it's going to green backy. It's going to be okay, because brown patch that I can kill your grass, It just rots the leaves off. But if you want to prevent additional circles, now would be a good time to get a product out there that will help prevent it. Now, and especially in February. It's temperature moisture related, and so if we have mild temperatures, you can get brown patch

circles in the middle of winter. You know, if the temperatures are right. Typically it's a fall in the spring problem, early spring problem. But if you want to prevent it, get the right products out there now. If not, you know, like I'm doing, And that's just say, Okay, the circles are there, that's okay. It's going to be all green pretty soon, and I'm not gonna worry about it, Okay.

can go either way. Just know that it is basically occurring on the runners and at the base of the grass blades. That's where it's causing its damage. So you get either way you go about it. You just want to protect that area, all right.

place to get all kinds of products like this. You know, we're talking about stuff on my schedule and they D and D carries nitrofoss products, they carry microlife products, They carry Nelson Turf Star line, They have other Nilsen plant foods. One of the canisters, for example, they have products from Medina airloom soil products. There. At D and D Feed they carry everything you need along with quality feeds like especially high quality pet food for your pets, very good.

And then if you need to control weeds, diseases, insects, it's all there at D and D Feed. They're three miles west of two forty nine, just west on twenty nine to twenty outside of Tumball, so you're in the middle of Tomball. Head out twenty nine to twenty to the west three miles and they'll be on the left hand side. Dover Family's been doing this since nineteen eighty nine. They continue to expand it and improve on it, and every time I go by there, it's just like it's

a better place. It really is. It is good to begin with. Don't forget if those of you are into backyard chickens, they're going to be getting backyard chicken orders in pretty soon. I think we can get into February. We'll start talking about that as well. But go by, say hey to Jeff and the team there at D and Defeat. While you're there, pick up the products you need to have success with your lawn and your landscapes. Let's see here. I'm gonna go Chris in Jersey Village.

I'm picking up this phone call right before I have to go to break but let's see if we can get a start on it, and we'll finish you when we come back.

We're going to go back out to the phone call we started before a break with Chris out in Jersey Village. So Chris, we were talking about uh uh, you had some questions about the yard and let's let's continue.

closest one to you is on on Jones Road. I used to go out one when I lived up in your area. Uh and Jones Roid. Ace is gonna have Microlife and they're gonna, yeah, they're gonna have some other stuff and they're just down the road from you a little bit. There. Probably the closest one to you. You know what, also over pretty close to you, Hamilton Hardware over on Highway sixth North is about equidistant from you

there in Jersey Villas. But you mean you go into an ACE hardware store and you're gonna find these products.

Wildbirds Unlimited. And I'm telling you I love going in there, and I've been to a whole bunch of you know, we have six of them in the Houston area, there's if you want to find the one near you, you can just go to WBU that stands for Wildbirds Unlimited WBU dot com forward slash Houston and I'll show you where the stores are, and there's one nor Southeast. But

you're going to find them easy, easy to find. But when you go in there, you're going to find the quality products that will attract birds to your landscape in the best way. And there's a lot of cheap bird seed on the market, a ton of it. Most of it is about fifty percent of those little red bebes that birds don't really particularly care for. To be honest,

most birds that you're wanting to bring in don't. But with a Wildbirds product, you're getting you buy a pound of wild bird seed and you're getting a pound of stuff. It goes into a bird's belly, especially if it's the already whole seed, and they have whole seed mixes. So if you buy sunflower, you're getting the kernels, not the husks. Now, there's nothing wrong with the huss they just break them open, get the kernels out, and then you got a husk

on the ground. I'm fine with that, but if you want like one percent of the bag going into the bird belly that go to Wallbirds. They're no mess blends. It's called no mess. They have n M on the bags and you'll find all kinds. The newest thing at Wallbirds is called cardinal confetti. Cardinal confetti. Cardinal is in the red birds. Yeah, the cardinals. It's got safflower. It's

got black ole sunflower, it's got sunflower chips. It's got nutrius safflower called nutris saff It's got bark, butter bits, peanut halves, dried mealworms, stripes, sunflower seeds. Doesn't that sound yummy except the dried mealworm part. Dried mealworms are yummy to the birds. I'll tell you that. You can put it in a loose tray feeder. You can put it on a hopper. I use stuff like that bird eliminator,

excuse me, squirrel eliminator, not bird eliminator. When squirrels come up and try to get my feed, that eliminator just shuts the door and they can't get in. And you will not believe the kind of language a squirrel will use in your backyard where the children can hear it. When you can't get into my bird feeder. That makes me happy to break their hearts. But anyway, Wildbirds has got the eliminator. It's got all kinds of feeders. If you are looking for a wintertime feed, we're still in

the season where I would recommend Winter super Blend. Winter super Blend is loaded with proteins and fats, very helpful to birds. Less day hours to be out there gathering feed, colder temperatures, just they need a little extra boost. And that's why Wildbird's made Winter super Blend. I want take out one other thing, and that's bark butter. I mentioned that wall ago and that cardinal confetti blend. Bark butter itself is a spreadable suet that you smear on the

bark of a tree. That's why they call it bark butter, and the birds go up to imagine peanut but sort of and you just smeared it on the tree and birds were coming out and pecking in it. Well, this bark butter has got all kinds of things mixed into it, and they have documented over one hundred and fifty different species of birds that bark butter attracts. It's called Gem's birdacious bark butter. It's made by the founder of All Birds guy named Jen Carpenter. They also had the bark

butter and bits. It's little bite sized nuggets that you can put in a feeder. You can mix it in with the seed that you're already putting in there. They've got bugs and bits. Here we go mealworms. It's got the bark, butter and dried millworms in it. Now, if there are any birds listening right now, birds don't have saliva to my knowledge, but they're slobber coming out of the corners of their mouth listening to this, because this

is like, that's like talking to me about enchiladas. I mean, I cannot start drooling when you start talking about enchilada. This chiladas for birds anyway. Bark butter products super high and calcium that helps support the egg development. By the way, your birds are going to besting soon. They're out there, they're getting those those finding their nests, getting them set up. If you, by the way, if you want to do a one of those Purple Martin houses, time to get

those set up. Because we get into February, we're gonna have scouts coming around looking for a place to stay. You want your house up when the scouts are looking before they settle in on some other place. So stop by wild birds, ask them, ask them to show you the options they have for the purple Martin boxes. All right, I've been talking about wilberds because I'm excited about it. I love love feeding birds in the back. I love the sounds go out in the morning and enjoyed listening

to the birds singing. It's kind of cool you are listening to Gardenline, and I to give you a phone number, and that number is seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. I'm gonna take a little break here. We're coming back for the last segment of the day. I can take a call or two then, So if you like, I got a question, can't wait till tomorrow, Now's the time to give us a call. Seven one three two and two KTRH. Hey, welcome back, Welcome back

to garden Line. Hey, I got time for a quick call. If you have got one that's burning, maybe a burning question or something like that, we can do that. Remember when I finished today, I'm gonna grab me some lunch and head down to the Brazas home and garden Show at the Fort Bend Epicenter just off Southwest Freeway down there in Rosenberg, Texas. I'll be there from one to three. I'm gonna start off with one hour talking about the essential steps to create a thriving garden in the spring,

a thriving lawn in the spring. We'll go through that and we'll answer your gardening questions for another hour. For sure, I'm gonna have some giveaways that I'm giving away. I have some copies of Texas Gardener magazine. If you have not subscribed to Texas Gardener, you need to. You need to, and I'm gonna have some samples there. I'll give you one. Come take a look at least for the first However, many people that I have samples for I don't I'm bringing.

But anyway, i'll have those for you, answering your gardening questions. I'll bring some of my books. If you like one signed, I can provide that for you down there too, But mainly bring me pictures on your phone of problems of questions. What's this plant? What's this weed? How do I control it? Bring me samples. Throw some weeds in a bag, you zip it up and bring it on in. We'll take a look at them and we'll just have a little

plant clinic. I don't have a lab coat. I wish I need a white lab coat and I could say the plant doctor is in or something like that, even though I don't have my doctorate, by the way, but I'll be happy to answer your gardening questions. At the Fort Bend Epicenter, the Brises Home and Garden Shoe by the way, the folks at Enchanted Forest will be there. They have a great display. You can visit with them.

You can see examples of some of the plants that they had, some really cool plants they're going to bring in. And there's going to be a lot of other seminars too, I know just looking at the schedule. By the way, that Home and Garden show is going from yesterday to tomorrow, Friday to Sunday. Remember I'll be there today three, but they have a lot of other seminars. Andy chad Ester from the folks at Medina will be there. She has been there already talking. She's gonna give some more talks there.

And Danny from Intended Forest is going to be there as well, so you need to come by and meet him. Danny's is new to intended Forest, not new to the area. He's been doing gardening in all kinds of ways here the green industry in the Houston area, from botanical gardens to media to you name it. Danny's a real cool fellow to meet and he'll be down there giving some talks as well. So come on down, let's meet you

and let's have some fun. Bring me some samples. This is my first appearance this year, and I can't wait. I've been cooped up all winter not being able to go out and rub shoulders a gardener. So here we go. Come on out and see me. We had some calls today from sugar Land at different places. Come on down, let's do that. Let's get some products in your hands, some samples to try out. The We've talked a lot today, off and on with different things about soil regarding plants.

You know, the clay soils that we have, and they don't drain well, and almost all plants need good drainage. There's some that can live in a swamp, but most plants would prefer to have good drainage, good oxygen in the root system. Well, when it comes to your home, the problem with our soils. Is that these clay shrinks and swells. It gets bigger and it gets smaller. It literally does. That's way of cracks in the summer, Big

giant cracks in the yard. That's clay that has shrunk up. Well, what happens when you have a sidewalk or a driveway or a foundation on that You get damage, You get heaving and breaking and cracking and all kinds of things. Fix my slab foundation repair. Ty Strecklin's the guy tie owns it. Ty is a native Ustonian. He's a fifth generation Texan and he's been fixing slabs in this area for twenty three years, actually probably more than that. Now he knows what he's doing. He shows up on time.

Isn't that a nice refreshing change of pace for people? Somebody and then they never show up? Ty will he does. He fixes it right, and he gives you a fair price. And if it doesn't need work, he'll tell you that too. If you tell him you're a guarden line listener, free estimate for your guarden line listeners, have him come out and look is your sheet rock? Cracking is a door sticking that used to not stick. That's movement is the

brick on the outside showing cracks. Call tie, here's the number two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. Two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine, or just go to this website. It's easy fix myslab dot com. Don't be an ostrich stick your head in the sand. Call him bite the bullet. Let's take a look at it. Who knows. You may get good news and you don't even need to worry about it. But if you need it, he'll tell you what you need, what it's going to take, and he knows what he's

talking about, and he's an honest, fair fellow. We're gonna go now out to Oh my gosh, we're going all the ways San Antonio, Texas to talk to Doug. Hey, Doug, welcome to guarden Line.

little piget knife, scratch the bark back. It should be cream colored or maybe a sharpsose light green color in there if it's alive, and if it's dead, it'll be the color of a paper sack or even brown black gray streak sometimes, but gotcha, it takes a while after a freeze for it to fully show that damage color. But you could then follow keep scratching your way back toward the ground and when you hit green, then printed above that. But I would.

you it's coming back. Don't give up on it. But once we warm up a little bit and we're not worried about freezes, pull all that multi volcano you put around them away to get for you know, get oxygen down in there and they'll be back. They'll be fine with what you did.

however you want to go about it. You can listen to past shows that way too, So I thank you for listening in live. We will be back tomorrow morning and I'll be back taking your questions your calls. In the meantime, come on down to the Brazzes Home and Garden Show in Rosenberg at the Fort Bend at the Center. I'll be there at one o'clock and I'm going to be bringing samples of Texas Gardener Magazine. I'll have my

books on hand. I'll be bringing giveaways trying Nelson plant food as a matter of fact for you to receive, and then answering your gardening question. How could I do a talk? Be there for two hours. Come on let's meet