St. Patrick's Day Gardening

Katie r H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r H Garden Line with Skip Ricord. It's crazy Trim. Just watch him as us so many good pleased to see crazy gables not a sound good Sunday morning. Welcome to garden Line, and congratulations on being awake this morning. We are happy to have you here, looking forward to a good day, talking about all kinds of things

that are of interest to you. About your plants, whether it's vegetable gardens, herb gardens, your flower beds, maybe some perennial flowers, ornamental grasses, shrubs, trees, vines. Do you have bugs that are bugging you? Do you have diseases that are infecting your plants and causing problems? Do you wonder what plant is that? Well, here we are Garden Line. Give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.

It is dark outside. If you look outside and you see your neighbor's lights aren't off, go bang on the door, tell them to wake up and they're missing Garden Line and they will rise up and call you. Blessed and

uh well, maybe not today. They may call you something else today, But eventually, as their yards become greener and they become more astute at putting plant life together in terms of fertilizing, watering, and caring for them and choosing goodness, they'll be so grateful that you turn them on the garden line. Okay, well, that's enough fun for right now. Hey, I wanted to talk about a few things today. I got a little fun fact for you, and this is This is the reward for actually getting up early

in the morning at least. I find this interesting. Every now and then I like to go a little bit nerdy, but I think it's interesting. Have you ever noticed, especially in the summertime, not this time of the year so much, but in the summertime when it's hot and dry, the ground's hot and dry, and you get those first drops of summer rain that fall on the ground. Have you ever noticed that really distinctive odor that comes up? You know, you know what I'm talking about. It's like you

can smell rain, Well, rain doesn't smell what are you smelling? Well? What's happening is a substance called petrochlore permeates the air with a fresh kind of a musky smell. That's what we say, we're smelling rain. It was discovered back in nineteen sixty four. Australian scientists discovered it and then at MIT back in twenty tens. I believe they studied the mechanics of the process. And here's what's happening. It's done in large part by plants and bacteria.

Isn't that interesting? I always tell you they ruled the world. Well, here we go again. It's a combination of some oils that plants make and then a particular type of bacteria call it an actinobacteria. These are really important in our soils for decomposing organic matter. They're used to make the organic insecticide spinosid. That's an actinomycet a type of bacteria that creates that substance. But anyway, they create a compound called geosman and that is like a type

of alcohol. And you know alcohols can have a very strong fragrance. Well, it moves up in the air when rain drops hit the ground, it like stirs up those organic compounds, and they are our noses are super sensitive, like a few parts per trillion in the atmosphere and we can pick it up. They blow along, and that's why even before the rain drops hit you may be smelling the petrochlor coming up because they move so readily on the ground. I don't know. I think that's pretty cool. That's why you

can smell rain. And again you can thank your plants and you can think the fact that these microbes in the soil are part of that, like they're part of just about everything else we enjoy. Speaking of microbes in the soil and soil, let's talk about one. Jungle Land is a product this distributed by Nitrophoss. It's a potting soil. Now you can use it outdoors on your plants to really push them toward a really beautiful growth. And here's how.

It's made up of a combination of Canadian blond peate. It's got four different sources of aged organic matter and microhizal fungi, and it drains well so you don't get the water logging problem. It also holds moisture, so you always have some moisture in it. That's how it works. Now indoors, there's the indoor water saving potting jungle land version, and that one holds the moisture and crystals so that when you forget to water, it's still there.

Now, all these nitrofos products, you're widely available lots of different places. You're going to find a bearing's hardware about the Bissinet and the west Timer one had that plantation ace out there in Richmond Rosenberg area. Yep, they've got it too, and hiding and feet on stupid airline. They will carry jungle in another nitrofost products. I'm gonna start off by going straight to the phones and welcoming our early bird today, Cheryl and Conro. Hey Cheryl. Hello,

Hello, do we have Cheryl there? All right? I'm going to put Cheryl on hold while we figure out what's going on and we'll come back to Cheryl. I uh oh, she's ready. Okay, here we go. Hello Cheryl. All right, we got a little glitch in the system. We'll eventually get her back on the thing. About this whole idea of microbes and microbes ruling the world, I find it to be fascinating because the more you learn about almost every aspect of life, microbes are part of that.

For example, we have more cells that are in us than cells that are us. So if you look at all the cells in your body, and then you look at all the cells that aren't you in your body, which are basically tiny, tiny microbes. There's more them than there are you, And that's kind of an interesting thought right there. Hey, do we have Cheryl on? Hello Cheryl, Hi, how you doing this morning? Well? I'm doing well. Glad to finally get you on. Welcome to

you're the early bird today. Okay, so my question for you is I have some high business that I bought. I bought a pack of thirty and I had about twenty of them rout. They're about take such your soul right now in the in the ceiling trees. Okay, when do I transplant them into the next five spot? And also do I need to some fertilizer on them where there's a smaller will fertilizer Bernal? Yeah? Sure absolutely? Uh

you said it was hibiscus, right. Is that the the perennial southern hibiscus with the big dinner plate sized blooms or is this the tropical the first one the tropical the tropical? Okay, so six inches high, it's time to bump them up. You could bump them up straight to about a six inch container or you could bump them on up into a gallon. I usually do it a little bit in stages because it takes a little less space up in

the process. In case one were to die. You know that you're gonna end up making them a bigger and bigger containers as they grow up high. But it's time to do that, and the weather is is pretty favorable. Hibiscus is not really wanting to grow right now much because of the temperatures, but it will and it's slowly waken up, so you can put them outside where you get really good light for them if they're not already outside. Okay, and what about the fertile ize, Yes, and then go ahead,

and then the fertilizers. Do I fertilize from there that smaller? Do I just continue to your little points? No? No, you do fertilize them. You definitely want to fertilize them when they're that small. Uh. There is a product that Nitrofoss makes and it is a hibiscus fertilizer. And the thing about the one I'm talking about right now is that it is a soluble liquid. I mean, it's a you mix it in water. It's called space space City hibiscus. You mix it in water and you water the plants

with that. I'm gonna have to take a break. I want you to hold on because I got a little more I want to tell you about this. Okay, okay, we'll be right back. Our phone number is seven one three two one two K t R H. Welcome back to the Garden Line on Saint Patrick's Day. Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Everybody out there. Well, we are visiting with a Cheryl up in Conro, Texas. And do I have you back? Cheryl? All right, we're going to put

it on hold and we're going to just find another way in there. There we go, Hey Cheryl, good morning. We're back when we finish finish that question we had. I was suggesting that did you get a Nelson has a soluble plant food called space city hibiscus, and it dissolves very quickly in water and then you water with it. Now, when you repot something that I do when I'm moving plants from a smaller container up to a bigger container, is all right? Is that any better? Oh? Yes, all

right? Good. When you move plants from a smaller container to a bigger container, you want to mix some nutri Star genesis transplant mix in that soil. That's a Nelson's product. It's a six one three. And so here's what I did. I was like bumping up some tuppers from little cell pots like you're describing, up to larger containers to grow out. And I mixed the six one three and the label tells you how much to use. And it is just loaded with all kinds of bacteria and the different kinds of fungi

that will help the plant roots establish better. And so it's just part of the soil mix. But then the soluble fertilizing is something you would do as you water to keep the plants growing over time. Okay. And then space yea space city hibiscus, and again that dissolves in water, the nutristar genesis. Okay, just remember, just remember genesis. That's from no Okay. I appreciate all your health this morning. Thank you so much, you bet,

you bet, glad to help, good luck. Hey, you know that when hibiscus are seeds that no matter what variety they came from, they are now genetically different than their mother. So they're a new variety, a new type. Every seedling is different, and so oh wow, I did not. Yes, So you pick the one you like best and you name it the Sheryl Hibiscus. Well, I wanted a blue one, and I find to be blue ones that were already in the pod, so I had

to order some seats in order to get the blue one. So hopefully out of these that I got to sprout, I'll find the blue one in there, all right, we hope. So well, thanks for the call. Thank you. You take care. I appreciate that a lot, a lot. You know, with all this rain that's going on out there, we are seeing quite a bit today. H Arbigate Nurseries new parking lot is the first thing that came to mind this morning when I was thinking about the rain

and getting out and visiting garden centers. You know, they put this new lot in in the back and it is a porous material, so when water falls on it, it's only concrete or asphalt where the water runs off somewhere. It goes right down through the parking lot down below, which I think is pretty cool. And it's an all weather surface, so I mean, you can drive out there. The men at the rain stops, you head out there and drive in the back, and that's where the parking lot is.

There's a road called Trishel Road. It starts before Arburgate, it comes around behind Arburgate and goes comes back to twenty nine to twenty. So if you miss Trishel on your way to Arburgate from either way, just go a little further and watch a little closer and you'll see the road and you can

go right around the back. And it's really easy. You don't have to park out on the road, you know, park out on twenty nine to twenty, just go go around the back and makes that's the easiest way to get in and out of Arburgate. Of course, when you're there, what are you going to do? The Number one make sure your car's empty, because there are gonna be so many plants you can't live without. At least that's how I feel when I go there. I was just talking about hibiscus

with Cheryl. Yeah, they got hibiscus. They got plenty of hibiscus. They got shrubs and trees and annuals of perennials and vegetables and herbs and everything else. And while you're there, remember your plants are only going to be as happy as the soil. They're growing in is providing for that. And the way to provide for your plants is to do Arbigates one two three. That's an organic food, that's an organic soil complete, and it's also an

organic compost complete. Just go say I want your one two three and they'll put it all together. It's got everything you need to keep your plants happy and growing, no matter what the way they put it there is. It's for anything with the roots. That's the organic food complete, and it will enhance a lot the growth when you put those plants in the ground and you've

done that for your soil. You're listening to garden Line and I'm your host today and i'm your host every day, and therefore, what do we want to talk about? You and me? We can talk about your vegetables or your lawn or whatever. We talk about the rain. You know how it is when you're in agriculture and horticulture, you always gripe about the weather. It's either too rainy or not rainy enough. It's either too hot or not hot enough. And that gives us something to talk about. But the good

news is we always need rain. And remember when when it does rain and we get a good soaking of the soil. That is a bank account that will carry your plants on into summer. We need a spring that keeps our soul moist so that we can as it starts to dry out in the summer, we have that bank account for our trees and shrubs that have a deep and extensive, extensive root system. Now is the time if you look at my lawn care schedule at gardeningwith Skip dot com, Gardening with Skip, you're

gardening with me, Gardeningwithskip dot com. The law care schedule, what does it say right now? It says it's still time to put your early greenups out and you can get that done. You know, Nitrofoss has a product that is called Imperial. It is a red bag and it is a fifteen

five to ten ratio. That ratio was determined by turf scientists at Texas A and M and other universities tension services of their langrete universities across the country really as being the ideal for that turf grass and nitrofives fifteen five ten Imperial red bag. That one will release the nutrients to your plants pretty quickly, which is why we say spring green up your lawn is not growing fast right now, but it can take up nutrients and it can turn green and the grass

can get stronger. So as the weather warms, it's already got something to get it going. We'll talk about slow release as we come to them a little bit later, but for right now, that's it. Enchanted Forest has this. The Imperial out there in Richmond, Rosenberg, Willis up, the Growers Outlet up in Willis they have it as well as does RCW Nursery were I forty five comes in to belt Way eight so it's easy to find. But the Imperial gives that early quick boost that is important for getting your lawn

green and pretty. It's not essential fertilizing on the schedule. We don't say you have to do this, but a lot of people like to get that early green up and get things going, and that is very very important. Nights Fuss products are going to work very well for exactly that you're listening to. Garden Line. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you want to get in, we got an open line right now, so you can call in. We'll be glad to visit

with you about anything that's of interest to you. Regarding gardening, It's always interesting because things start off a little slow and then people start to call in. A lady yesterday said to me that it's hard to get through to me, and I pointed out that that's something that my mom used to say for different reasons. But it's not that hard to get into garden line. It's just there's some times that are a little bit easier than others, and you

can do that. We try to get to as many call as we can, as fast as we can so that it's a little bit easier easier for you. For those of you down in the League City area, Santa fe El, Camino, Reale, Bay Cliff all through their webster all of those areas. League City Feed is your hometown feed store. Now they're closed on Sunday, but they're open Monday through Saturday nine to six, so it's easy

to find time to get by there and grab what you need. If I talk about a fertilizer, you're going to get it at League City Feed. You're going to find things like the nitrophos for example, the azamite, the microlife, the Nilson plant food. They're going to be easy to find there. They also, of course have premium pet food and everything else for your backyard chickens and whatnot. But if you need things to control past weeds and

diseases, League City Feed has it. The Thunderberghs have been doing this for over forty years. The family has and here's the phone number. Write this down so you can give them a call. Two eight one three three two one six one two two eight one three three two one six one two. They're on Highway three, just a few blocks south of Highway ninety six in

League City. I I always enjoyed going by there. Sometimes if you go, you can catch the dalmatian, their dalmatian, Madison Wes's sister's dalmatian. His name is Rorshchak. I think that is the best name for a Dalmatian. You stare at the dog and a psychiatrist says, what do you see in these spots? Sounds kind of good at least that amuses me. But I'm easily amused. Easily amused. Well, I was talking earlier about the microbes and how they rule the world. And there's more microbe cells in you

than there are cells of you, and what are they doing us? The one thing they do in us they do a lot of things, is they produce the feel good chemical serotonin. That's a great thing to fight depression, for example. Microbes are doing that for us. What do microbes do for our food? We could talk all day without microbes. You can't have cheese, you can't have beer without microbes. You can't have kim chi or other kinds of fermented food sauer kraut and whatnot. They play a part in everything.

I'm going to keep talking microbes today as we go through the day, but I just have to brag on them a little bit. Let's go out to Fairfield right now, and we're going to talk to Marty. Do we have Marty or were we gonna have to do it the other way? All right? Get Marty on here and we will. Hey Marty, how are you today? Good morning? Can you hear me? I can. We've got a little glitch, but we figured out a way around it. Okay, I know we're up against it, bright, but you can put me

on hold. Okay. I have a little buy a runner. Underneath it's a weed. It has a little tiny yellow flower and small strawberries. And you've talked about it before, but it's pervasive in one corner of my yard. Yeah, here's what can I put on it? You need to use a post emergent broad leaf weed control product on it. Have you fertilized yet? Yes? You have? Okay, I would go out and find something like b Nid's Weed Beater Ultra or Ferbicomes weed free Zone. Spray it on

those plants. You don't have to treat everything in the yard, and that will take it down. Don't wait until it heats up, because it's better to use those while it's not so hot. We are going to go to a break, Marty, and if you want to stick around for more, we'll be happy to do that. Well, it's time for Nicky and the news. Here's our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven

four. Welcome back to the garden Line. All right, for those of you who were on hold, we fix the phone system and it made you go away. Please call back and we'll be happy to get back with you. That it would be Marty, and I saw Bobby up there, and I can't remember there's a third person. But if you just if you just lost us, just call back Josh. You'll get you up right. In the order you were, you won't have missed out on anything talking about bacteria

and microbes and the way they benefit us. Nature's Way Resources is built all around the fact that there are microbes. I mean, think about that for just a minute. Everything that's organic, a tree leaf, a grass clipping, a tree trunk, on and on and on. Everything that was alive and is now dead. Microbes turn it back into soil. And when you know how to harness the power of that, from beneficial fungi, to bacteria,

to you name it. When you know how to harness that, you can create some wonderful products, the products that make jungles become huge and beautiful. How did that happen? Nobody fertilize that. Microbes did that? Microbes rule the world. Nature's Way Resources uses those microbes to create rose, soil, to create leaf, mold, compost, to create all kinds of products

and product blends that will help your plants be successful. John Ferguson is a longtime lead in this industry, and he absolutely knows how to create things to make your plants do their best. No matter what kind of plant, you just tell them here, here's what I got, Here's what I need to do, and they will put you in touch with the right product. They

have bags, they have bulk. By the way, every Friday is Fungal Friday, which means ten percent off their bagged fungal products and twenty percent percent off their bulk fungal products you can get. You can reach Nature's Way by phone at nine three six three two one sixty nine nine either on Interstate forty five North before you get to Conro on the right hand side. All right, we've got some callers back here, Marty, welcome back. Hold on, hey, are you there, I'm here, hear, yes, I

can, Okay, go ahead, Okay. I put the bond down a couple of days before any rain came, so I think I'm good there, okay, good, Yeah, two days dollar, I'm sorry, two days is perfect. That'll work. Oh my gosh, all right, lost Marty. We'll get her back in a minute. This is actually gonna be fixed. We we're gonna settle it down here. We just had a system crash. We'll get them back. It's okay. But let's see where was I to Oh? I was talking about microbes and things and how they rule the

world. It's so so interesting to think about the contributions that microbes make, and it really does go on and on and on. When kids are growing up, you know, not raising them in a sterile environment, let them go out and play in the dirt and stuff. Their health later in life will be improved by that. And sciences many research projects have shown that very

fact, just that interaction and exposure with the microbes that are there. There's another thing, how about the fact that we enjoy food that only microbes can make happen. You know, you can't eat grass, right, I mean, you eat it, but you're not gonna get much out of it. Do you know? Cattle cannot digest grass, But in their four stomachs along the way, I believe it's four stomachs along the way, they have tons of microbes that turn grass into stuff cows can use, and the cows turn

that into meat and milk and cheese and leather. You're getting the idea, on and on and on. Throughout everything that we enjoy in life, there's probably a way that some microbe is involved in the process. And I just find that fascinating. I think it's cool. It's why you hear me constantly talking about But if you want beautiful gardens and landscapes. Take care of the

brown stuff, and then the green stuff will thrive. And when I say brown stuff, I'm talking about the soil and the fertilizers and the microbes that are involved in them. And when I say green stuff, I'm talking about the plants that we enjoy. We tend to see the flowers and vegetables. We picture the tomatoes when we buy a tomato plant, and the lawns and

everything. The bottom line is that we absolutely can grow pretty much whatever we want to grow as long as the weather allows that plant by just creating the perfect environment make them happy. For those of you trying to call, please stick with us for a little while. We're still having some glitches on the phone. We will eventually figure this one out and get back to it. I apologize for the hassle and the difficulty trying to get through, but we'll

fix it here. This shows all about the callers. You know, when we talk about trees, there's a saying that the best time to plan a tree was forty years ago. The second best time is today, And I like that singing one time a master gardener up in Montgomery County, Jim Smith showed me a picture of a house that he and his wife, Fukumi, another one of our master gardeners. Such special people they were, that they had back I don't know, nineteen forties, it was a long time ago.

And as a little bitty house. There's a little bit tree they had in the front yard. And then he showed me a picture of it today and it's like, the same little house is there. It wasn't where they lived. The Samuel house is there, but the tree is just this beautiful giant oak. And that happened because two things happened. Number one, he planted a tree, and number two, he planted an adapted tree. When people want to buy a tree, they say, what's fast growing? Well,

don't do that. Grow fast, die young. Remember that grow fast, die young. And that is not universally applied to trees, but it is a pretty darn good rule of thumb. Now you can take a tree that's a long lived tree, let's say a red oak, and you can give it the care you need to speed its growth up to a nice pace, a very good pace. But the fast growing trash trees, the Arizona ashes, those used to be the tree to have and they're just junk.

And about the time that Jim took that photo and that gorgeous tree was there, about halfway to that picture, an Arizona ash would have fallen apart and they'd had to start all over. Quality trees are important, and Verdant Tree Farm knows how to choose the species that are going to do best here. Whether it's a palm and you need heartiness in a palm tree, they can provide that for you, or if you want some other type of palm, they can. If you want a quality tree, they can plant it.

They do a good job, they plant it right, and they help you have success. And they can get you on your waist with a smaller tree or a large shrub. They can also get you on your way there with a tree as big as seven hundred gallons, a seven hundred gallon root ball tree that's a big instant tree. Well they can do that at Verdant Tree Farm. Now there's three locations, so wherever you live, there's one that's

done in Paerland. There's one where in the Heights area where Yelle comes into Iten, and then one out of barker Cypress on the west side of town. Verdanttreefarm dot com. Verdant Treefarm dot com. Get a quality tree, get a quality grown tree, and then get somebody that knows what they're talking about and how to do it to plant it for you, and that'd be Verden Tree Farm. So trees. Everybody loves trees. We love the shade

of trees, we love the blooms of trees. And I think by the way kind of wandering off here on trees, but I think it's important to provide a variety of trees in your landscape. Now, one giant live oak is fine. It'll probably cover the whole property in your neighbors as well in time they get huge. But having some smaller trees or medium sized trees that are attractive is nice. One of my favorite trees now is that Chinese fringe. There's a native version of fringe as well, a native one we tend

to call Grancy gray beard. It's an East Texas tree. They grow very well here. The Chinese fringe is a little billow we are meaning the billowy blooms. There's a little more of them, larger clusters, whiter and just has a nice fragrance. And I love that tree. But a Chinese fringe is a small tree. That small to medium size tree grows a little slow, and so if you don't have room for a big tree, you have room for one of those red buds and other spring blooming tree. That's a

nice one to have around. We have things that are shrubs that can be pruned into many ni mini tree farm form. I've seen a Southern wax myrtle pruned into that. I've seen yo ponds pruned into a series of trunks with a little green up on top, creating the little miniature tree. There's a lot of ways to go about it, but there's a There is essentially a tree for every kind of situation that you might have, and always remember to consider. If you can get fall color, get it. But if you

can get blooms, get that too. It's time for us to take a break. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're going to chip away at this and see if we can solve this phone problem and we'll be right back. Welcome back to Guardenline on a Saint Patrick's Day. Happy Saint Patrick's Day, all of you. I hope you remember to wear green today. That was kind of the tradition that we usually follow. Right, I've been talking about timeliness of things, and especially

with fertilizing, getting the right fertilizers on at the right time. That is important. It's also important when you're controlling weeds, especially important now if you are wanting to stop the warm season weeds, the grasspurs and the crab grass and all the other warm season weeds. Barricade by nitroposs provides a barricade over the soil. You apply it at the label rate. Please listen to me on this one. Always apply a pesticide at the rate on the label.

Don't double up, don't triple up. Don't think you're killing weed deader than dead. Do the right rate. It's important. It's important for the success whether it's an insecticide of fungicide, herbicide. But on the barricade, follow the label rate and then watered in about a half inch of water. That is what you need to do. That moves it to the soil surface where it can do what it does, where it can do what we put it on to achieve. And barricade is available in a lot of different places,

like nitrofus products are two forty nine highway Tomball Parkway. How about plants for all seasons? They have it there down or up in the woodlands. Aspa Ace has barricade up there, and plants and things out in Brenham can carry carry the barricade as well as other types of nelson or nitrofus products. Well, I think we got the gremlin's fixed. Let's go out to Grove, Texas and talk to Bobby. Is it working, Bobby, yes, sir,

wonderful. How can we help. I have two plumb trees. They have a black song is Actually I saw it in the end of the year last year that they have a black fungus underneath the leaves that kind of in a close up picture that may have little white flakes. Yeah, that is. That is the fungus is city mold. It's growing on a sugary substanct and we have several pests that create sugary substances. Scale, certain kinds of scale can do it. Aphids can do it, mealybugs, white flies can

all do it. When you mentioned the little white I think what you're seeing is the cast skins of aphids as they molt and shed their old skin. That's one of the signs that aphids been around for a while on that plant. The easiest thing to do is just to get some insecticidal soap. Mix it according to the label not too strong, follow the label, and spray

upward from underneath the plum tree. Because these pests are primarily on the bottom sides of the leaves, gravity tends to have the spray drift back down on the top side of the leaves, but primarily getting that soap spray under because only way that it kills an aphid is by giving it a bath in soap. So if they don't encounter the soapy water, it's not going to work on them. And the insecticide soap is something I get from a A oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Insecttione of it really easy to find. It's

easy to come by out there. You're out and grove. Let's say I'm trying to find the local ace that's around the Beaumont Port Arthur area. We have supplying, Yes, you do you have in the in in Beaumont itself. Yeah, and if that's a close absolutely, M and dy in Beaumont right in the big middle of town. That one all that one, Yes, Oh thank you. Yes, sir, Yeah, they will definitely have insexie soap. Okay, good hill, Thank you for your hill. All

right, thank you. I appreciate appreciate your call very much. Uh. You know, in sexisice soap. It's so easy to use. But what people have to remember, it's not a poison. It kills by dissolving the waxy cuticle layers. It causes problems for the aphid, but it's a physical killer, not a poison type killer. So any spider mite or aphid that doesn't get a soap bath is not going to be killed. Coverage is very important, very important. Uh have you been out to Warren's Southern Gardens recently?

I tell you Warrens has always been just a show stopping place and it still is absolutely And you're also out there. You have Kingwood Gardens. Both are really cool to go to. They've got all kinds of very interesting things on hand. Right now. The color is just through the roof, I mean it is through anything you want to color up your garden. Do you need stuff for shade? Do you need stuff for sun? Do you need flowers? Do you need foliage? They can do that. They even you

know, they even got in some spring. Well, you know what a Christmas cactus is or a Thanksgiving cactus. There's also an Easter cactus, and it's called that because it blooms around Easter time. So the little it looks just the same, except does have the little points on the little pads that are the stems that look like leaves, I guess on them. But they have those as well, and so how cool to you know, how it's fun to have a Christmas cactus? So Thanksgiving cactus, Well, what about

an Easter coc They've got those out there. But for your landscape, they are absolutely loaded up. A gorgeous salvius, gorgeous bougainbilias. You just need to go. Absolutely, you need to go. We're in seven Garden and Kingwood Garden Center all out there in Kingwood. You're fortunate to have those around

those of you who live out in that area. Whenever you are putting a plant in the ground, I recommend that you water it in with a soluble plant food solution, something that at least has nutrients in it, but even better that has biological activity. Biological life microbes, the ones that rule the world that has to grow six twelve six is just that it's got a six twelve six nutrient content level in it. But it also has a Medina soil

activator to stimulate biological activity. It's got humic acid, it has seaweed extract, and you can use it as a folio spray. It's not going to earn very low salt content in that it's not going to burn your plants. I just mix it in water according to the label. When you plant the plant watered in with that solution, do the same a week later, the same a week later, and those three applications over a couple of week period will help your plant get off to a good start. It's as simple as

that. I'm going to go back out to the phones now and Marty, you are a persistent. Congratulations your garden line. We got you back the gremlins. Gremlins have fled. So we were talking about you said you had spread the bonnight weed beater ultra and you had a couple of days before rain or a couple of hours before rain. I believe, I can't remember. I had a couple of days, so I can go out and pull some

of it. But and then the other question was my dollar weed that I thought I had gotten under control is now back and I can't remember I used all the image. But what kind of image was it that I used on dollar weed? I call it a quarter weed because a dollar is made out of paper quarter it's a silver dollar. Oh well, it's not that big. Okay, I'm trying to remember which one that is, and I'll get

it here just a second. If if you if you sprayed it with image this year or that a previous year that you did, yeah, last year, okay, okay, well, let me let me find out. It's the image that that is for weeds as opposed to like the image that is for nutsedge. So I'm just going to confirm. Oh we just okay that hold on, j just a second. I'll tell you what. I'm gonna have to hunt that down. I don't want to hold them on the air doing it. I will come back and talk about that specific Okay, I'll

listen. Thank you, Yeah, and uh, just continue to do the cultural things too, Marty. If the area stays foggie wet, Virginia button wheat and dollar weed are going to be a perennial problem. If you can understand it dry out some, that sure helps you have to spray less. And what did I just do that? Because I have a prolific area of the wet stuff where my Virginia button wheed is. Okay, not yet, hadn't come up yet, but it will just you know, subsurface drains getting

the water out of there. Not most people run their irgrigation too much. That certainly don't want to do that. But it's where my vegetable garden are. Okay, I'm putting in a drip system though I'm working on it. Okay, Well, I think you're doing everything you can do, you know, for right now, By the way, it is the one that it says image kills nutsedge. That's what it says on the label, image kills the nutsedge. And so that would be the one that has the amazing quin

I believe is the ingredient. And I'm just about to tell it to you right now. Scrolling through these labels on the air is kind of a tough thing. I can't get zoomed in just one second. Well, I had I thought I had sprayed the one that I had, which was image for nuts edge, and I thought I had put that. That's on the front.

That's it, That's the one for dollar weed too. Image okay kills and I said for dollar it's amazing, Quinn, that's the ingredient that i'd said, well a minute ago, spell that A N I M A M A Z A q U I N I believe is how that's spelled U I N very good. I'll look for it. And if you're not getting good success with that, there are other products that will kill dollar weed. So you may want to switch if you're not having the success you want, but

that should work. I'll go to your website and look, thank you, I thank you very much. I appreciate very much. Yeah, well, you know I we're talking about microbes today and fighting with the gremlins on the phone and whatnot. I we got them all fixed, by the way, if you'd like to give us to call the phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. There are so many things that microbes do to make your plants happy.

For example, there are microbes that get on the roots of the plant and they signal the plant to fight disease and insect problems. Up on the plant, they cause a change in the way the plant grows. Is that amazing? Is that that is very amazing. There's a type of bacillus that is the strain is D seven forty seven, like the like the airplane, and it is Bacillus. Here here's a nerdy word, Amilia lico phatis. But you can buy it in products. They actually have products that you buy

on the shelf now, and it has that strain in it. You put it on the plant and it affects it fights disease of the roots, but it also signals the plant. So something that's going wrong up on the top, the plant changes its growth in some way that helps it resist and fight that problem. Microbes did that. Isn't that amazing? Very cool? Hey, I had a good time yesterday out at Buchanan's Nursery. By the way, thanks for having us out there and everybody that came out. It was

wonderful. The rain even cooperated and held off for us. It was a great day. Thanks to Kennanch for having me out. Katie r H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H. Garden Line with Scamp Richter's so crazy just watch him as Worlds. Welcome back to Garden Line on what's going to

be a decent Sunday to get outside and get some stuff done. I know we got some rain forecasts, you know, yesterday is supposed to be a real rainy, and I wanted to be cannons and had a great time out there. And boy, the people came out like crazy and the rain held off. They cooperated, and so I got to run around, do some shopping, have a good time. I had a lot of good folks come by and say Hi, bring some samples in. I just love that,

love getting out and talking to people that garden. It's just fun. And you know, I even learned stuff from folks because I hear your stories, what you've tried, what's worked, what didn't work, and things, and that's always really helpful to do as well. By the way, if you have got your calendar out there, I would hope that you would put down on it. Next weekend up in the Sci Fi area at the Home and

Garden Show. I'll be there at the Scifeair Home and Garden Show. I'll be there from noon twelve o'clock to two, and I'm going to be I'll be talking a little bit about some things related to gardening, but mostly just visiting with you and answering questions. I find that when I give talks they kind of turn into q and as anyway, but that's a lot of fun, and so come on out. I'll also have a little table there where

I'll set up and look at samples and just visit with whoever. That's always a great home and garden show, Slife Hair, Home and Garden Show. We'll be giving one giving away some Nelson plant Food products too, so there's a chance for you to get some of the real cool stuff that Nelson Plant Food provides. That's next Saturday, the twenty third of March, twelve pm

twelve pm noon to two pm. I don't know. It always throws me that noon is twelve pm instead of AM because we've been counting AM numbers ten, eleven, twelve, but twelve is not a number, and then the same thing in midnight. There's a reason for that. It just throws me. I always have to stop and think about it. This rain is I can tell you for sure something that it's doing, and that is causing our

black clay heavy soils, any kind of a clay soil to swell. That means that it actually gets larger and then when it dries out, it shrinks. That's why have you ever been walking around through the yard and like you see cracks that are huge in a droughty time and a clay soil so huge you could lose your small fuf fu dog down in the crack in the backyard. Well, that is the shrink swell potential of clays, and when that happens, it wrecks havoc on sidewalks and driveways. It wrecks havoc on our

home foundations. And that crack you see in the sheet rock, or the crack in the bricks outside, or the door that's sticking because things have shifted a little bit, those are all signs that you need to have your foundation checked. And Ty Strickland Fix that's my slab foundation repair, is a professional at doing that. He's been doing for twenty three years here in the greater Houston here I think maybe twenty four years about now. But anyway, fixmslab

dot com. That's his website, Real Easy fixmslab dot com. The phone number two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. When tie comes out, you know, several things. Number One, if you tell them you're a guardline listener, you get a free estimate for that. He'll come out and check for free. But you know that he's going to be on time, show up when he says he is. He's going to price it fair for the job you need done, and he's going to fix it right

and what more can you ask for? And that's exactly what That's how Ty does business. That fix my slab foundation repair. That's why people love to go to him. You know, aren't you that way? Don't you? When you you talk to a friend, go hey, I need to hire I don't know fill in the blank, plumber or electrician, whatever you're going to hire. Don't you doctor a friend, auto mechanic? There's a big one. Uh, And say who do you go to? How do you

like them? Oh? They're honest and they so that's who you go to. And when you get treated that way, you come back. And I'm really proud of our sponsors. But because of the fact that you get that kind of service, you get that kind of attention for your your planting, your landscaping, your gardening types of needs. If you'd like to give us a call, Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight

seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Landscaper's Pride makes a wide variety of products to make your soil a haven for plant health and growth and fruiting and blooming or whatever you're trying to grow. Twenty seven different bag products that they have that they also sell bulk, by the way, but they've got one called pot dirt Premium pot dirt Now that's an OMRI certified Organic soil. OMRI is the national group that certifies organics in products and

things. It is an excellent pod Dirt's excellent because it's got a lot of nutrients in it because it comes from things like worm castings and sand and vermiculi whatnot. It's got good drainage. It's just an outstanding product for a container. You can put it in annual beds, for example. You can put it in when you're doing a color change. You know you're pulling out your your cool season plants, you're putting in your warm season color. Great time

to spread some pot dirt and put it on there. Landscapers Mix is another good product. It's got fresh pine bark rice holes. Prolite even has a slow release fertilizer in it, so if you're renovating a bed or building a bet, it's a good mix for that. They've got rose soil, a rose mix rather that is just outstanding for any kind of woody ornamental, especially things that like a little bit more on this at X side, which a

lot of our plants are happy with that. Landscaperspride dot com that's where you need to go. Landscaperspride dot com. You can find out where you can get it, and it is very widely available, so you are not going to have to drive at all to find Landscapers Pride here in the Greater Houston. Greater Houston area. You're listening to the Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions if you have

a question. First of all, the gremlins we were talking to break and Josh was saying, well, maybe it's leprechauns today work that We've got them all run out of the system, so they're off bugging somebody else at this moment. Calls are working and we've got an open board if you'd like to call. It's a rare sight to look up there and see an open board. So this would be a good time if you want to get a quick

question in to give us a call here. The spring is here, and I know with spring the scissitudes of nature come in where we have rainy days on a day when we're wanting to get something done, and that just happens, and that's okay. But I would encourage you, even though it's a rainy day, get out and visit some of the garden centers. This rain's going to be spotty, it's going to be off and on and check out the gardens, pick up the supplies that you need and pick up the plants

that you want. And it's a good day for doing that. By the way, RCW Nurseries, which is the nursery right there. We're Beltway eight and two forty nine also called Tomball Parkway where they come together. It's the website and you want to write this one down is RCW Nurseries dot com. RCW Nurseries dot com. RCW they have they're known for trees because they grow their own trees, have a huge supply wonderful trees. They're also known for

the roses. They had them send me the rose list one times, like four pages long small print, that's how many roses that they have now. RCW Nursery has a lot of other things too. The color is outstanding out there at RCW Nursery. You know, they've been a sponsored garden Line since back in the bill Zach John Burrow days and of course through the twenty six plus years of Randy lemonhost in the show here and it's just we call it the get it, Got It Nursery because if they don't have it, they'll

do their best to find it for you. RCW nursries dot Com. Let's take a little break. We'll be right back. Here's the phone number if you'd like to get on the boards. Seven one three two one two KTRH. Welcome back to Garden Line on a Saint Patrick's day. Good to have you with us today. I'm your host, Skip Ricker. And what are we here for? To answer your gardening questions? That is what we're here for, to help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape.

And all that takes is some information. Like I like to say, there's no such thing as a brown thumb. There's only uninformed thumbs. So thanks for being a listener. That's informing your thumb, and thanks for being a caller too, that also informs your thumb. You know. For our lawns, everybody wants a beautiful green, just a gorgeous, healthy looking lawn, and we do a lot of things for that. You know, we

improve the soil in various ways. And one of the things we can do for our law is, especially in a heavy clay soil, you get this compaction, you know, from walking through it, and aeration helps that. But aeration in really any clay soil, even if it's not severely compacted, will benefit from an occasional aeration of the ground. The folks at Greenpro do two things. Number One, they go out and they will punch a hole into the ground, punch a hole into the ground, and then they pull

the plug of soil out of that. Okay, then when you pull the plug of soil out of that, you end up creating a hole where oxygen can come can move into the root system, very important, where organic matter can fall down in the hole, very important. Where your nutrients from the fertilizers can move down into the hole as well, to get them down through the root system. Green Pro does just that. You can go to the

website greenpro dot net. Now, if your lawn took a hammering last summer, but you still have a good amount of lawn, that's a lot out there. You can save yourself the whole resorting thing by going in and taking care of it. Let's fertilize it right. Let's have Greenpro come out do a core aeration, pulling the cores out and leaving them on the surface of the ground, and then follow that with a very fine screen compost top dressing,

which is what they use now. They serve the Springs, the Spring area and Cyprus, the Woodlands, Conroe, Willis, Magnolia, Montgomery, Katie, West Houston, Central Houston, and North kind of the Northwest quadrant about forty five minutes from the Magnolia Area's kind of what they serve up in that area. Give them a call, but first go to the website greenpro dot net and find out more about it. They can get your schedule once it drives out a little bit, and then get in there and do the

work. You can begin that process and you can do compost top dressing and narration at any time. You do an April and do it in May. There's plenty of time to get that done. But get on the schedule because they do stay busy. Like I said before, they stay busy because they do things right. I want to go to Cyprus and we're going to talk to Melanie. Now, Hello, Melanie, good morning morning. Can you

hear me? Yes, ma'am, go for it. Well, good, I'm working on my beds, my flower beds, getting the weeds out. And my question is that you know those pods that fall down from the oak trees that are all in the beds, now, do they compost dinner? Is it better to take them out? They're fine, leave them going. They just kind of make it in and mix it up. Some of the old maults. Did you just kind of break it all up or pull some

of that out. I'm going to put new mults in. I always suggest you leave the old mulch and put new mulch on top of it, because well, really, what plants if you think about nature without us involved, Organic matter falls on the ground and it starts to rot, and organic matter falls on top of that fresh and then fresh, and as it does that, that lower level is decomposing. Even faster because it's staying moister, and that top down decomposition that works its way into the soil, that is what

really makes them thrive. So never throw away the old mulch. Just get fresh and put it in on top of it. All right, I'll do that. And it seems like even though I'll put it like about three inches of mulch and all on, there's still some very tough weeds that pop through. Yes, so is there what should I put you on those? Right now? I'm digging everything up from the roots. Okay, But can you just spray in with something or somebody told me about cream, but I didn't

know if that would hurt. That's a pre emergent. That's a pre emergent and it can work. But when we go into flower beds and disturb the soil, we break up the benefit of that which is sitting on the surface of the soil. And so you can do it. I generally don't recommend it. I recommend mulching. Now, it depends on what weed you're talking about. But if it's a it's a perennial type weed, you can wipe a product on it. If it's a grassy weed, wipe a grass killer.

They are products that just kill grass. You're up in the cypress area, you know you've got two or three great ace hardware stores near you, and they will carry grass killers at those stores. If it's a broad leaf weed, you can use a glyphosate type product, but wipe it on because those glyphisate around it will kill your plants if you get it on them, and so you're going to be careful. So you just wipe it on the weed. And here's what I do, and you may want to try this.

You get one of those things that grabs a jar off the shelf. They're about three feet long. Sometimes they have suction cups on the end. Sometimes they have pads on the end, but a little pistol grip on the other end. And I put sponges on those grabbers and you put a few drops of the let's say grass killer or life sit on there, and you just squeeze it on the weed and then pull it up and wipe that product onto the weed surface. And you haven't put it on the soil, you

haven't put it on the plant. It's very very easy to do without damaging things. But that moves down in a perennial weed. Like let's say it is bermuda grass that's come in. That's a booger anytime it sticks its head up, gets it gets wiped with something. Do you think of a name of one of those killers, one of those tools? Oh, no, one of those one of those. The most of the over the counterweed killers you find have an ingredient called the foxidim And I'm going to only give you

the first four letters. It's a boy's name, Seth set H. It's the only chemical I know of that begins with seth. And if you just say I need a grass killer, the ingredient is Seth starts with seth. That it'll get you the right one without computing. Oh, they'll have it, absolutely have it. I know the Jones Road one has on a little further north than that. There's an M and D up in there, an

ace that that has it as well. Uh, it's easy, easy to find the one when I was thinking of that, M and D is up on Luetta Street, just just north in a little bit to the that's close to me. Yeah, easy, easy, okay, I'll do it. Thank you so much. All right, you take care, good, good to have your call hopefully. Yeah, those wiper applicators, I think they really make sense. And I know some people are gardening organically and they're not

going to use a week killer like that, and that's fine. Your option then is to hand dig it out, and that's a chore, but it's one of the reasons why it's always best to get it all out before you plan a vegetable garden bed or a flower bed, because it will those kind of knocks. Weeds will invade and be a problem. You know, we're kind of in that zone now of the season where we're still dueing the early green up if you want to do that. But it's about time to do

as well. This slow release fertilizers. I usually start those on my schedule about April first, but if you put it on now, it's fine too. You can go a little earlier. Plants do not know the difference between March thirty first and April first, they tell I mean, it's the same almost to them, So don't think about it as a black and white line. But Nitrovius has superturf. Superturf is a silver bag and that's a good

name for it. Super turf. It's a nineteen four to ten fertilizer that is designed to take half the nitrogen in that product and to gradually release it over time. And when I say overtime, I'm talking about a month, a two month, three month. You know, it goes out there pretty good. It depends on the weather and the temperature and whatnot, rainfall, but nitropas superturf the silver bag will give you consistence the long term results in

your summer lawn. And it's available out there right now. And where do you get it? Well, we're just talking about Ace Hardware stores. Ace Hardware stores carry superterurb it's a nitroposs product or widely available. I mean you can find them. Maybe live down in Alvin, Texas well, go to Stanton Shopping Center. You'll get it there. If you live up in the Memorial area, Memorial Drive, Ace Hardware City is going to have it out

in Katie Ktieace Hardware just another Ace that has it. You know with Ace stores, they carry such a wide variety of products. If I recommend a fertilizer, it's at Ace Hardware. I can tell you that they do strive to carry everything that I recommend, whatever the brand is. If you're looking for tools and gardening tools. By the way, it's raining today. Do you need a poncho? Do you need some rubber boots or as some people

call them, goloshes. Ace Hardware has that too. ACE is theplace dot dot dot you fill it in. It's a place for all of that, but especially it's a place for a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape. The fertilizers, the products that control pest, weeds and diseases, everything that you might need to have success. You're going to find an ACE Hardware. And we were just talking about where's the ACE Hardware up there in the Cypress area. Well, go to Acehardware dot com, aceharbare dot com. It may

ask you can I can I use your location? Just say yes, or find the store locator. It's on the page, and you'll find one or two, or three or four of the forty ACE Hardware stores that are close enough to you to go and get whatever you need to make your beautiful garden and bountiful garden as well. Let's see here we are going to go to League's City now and talk to Lowell. Hello, Lowell good all right, sir, morning yesterday morning, you had a collar asking about pineapple plants.

I've been raising them for about eight to nine years, and they're difficult to raise in this climate. I made the mistake early on of trying to play them in the ground. They do not like cold weather at all. No, they don't, you know they and you can't cover them up. I don't care what you do. You know they turned the mush. All right, Hey, loel I'm gonna cut I need to cut in. I'm about to hit a break here, so I need you to kind of get to

the question that you have. Okay, Well, you said, yes, something about putting an apple in the plant or something to to to release ethylene, to release ethne ethylene to initiate the bloom formation. That was what that was about. So where do you put it? Just in the in the center of the planet. Yeah, I just sat it in the top, but I put it like a dry cleaner bag over it, just to all

that gas in there. You know, if you have an apple and you have bananas that are enclosed place, it makes the bananas right and faster too. I am absolutely out of time, lot. I appreciate your call. Thank you very much. We're going to have to go to a break seven one three two on two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Guardline and

Happy Saint Patty's Day for those of you out there celebrating today. It is a good day to be outside getting a couple of things fixed and a couple of things in the For example, your soil it's too wet to work right now, but you can purchase the products and be ready to go when it dries out enough. Now that would include composts, that would include bed mixes like roast soil or vegetable and herb mixes and whatnot. You want your clay

soil to be in a moist state for the best effective amendment activity. For example, here's what I'm saying. If clay soil is very, very wet, it is like think of just warm butter and you just put a knife through it, and you put knife goes through it, and the butter just closes in behind the knife. I mean, it's a mess. It's sticky. The clay soil is sticky, and it just destroys structure even more to work it when it's wet. Plus things come up so much you spade and

forks. You can't get the soil to let go of the times you know what I'm talking about. If it's too dry, well you don't need a rototiller or a spading fork. You need a jackhammer to get that clay to break up. It's too dry to work. But right in between is a sweet spot. And if you can let the soil dry out a little bit

to that point, putting compost on mixing it up work. Now, if you need to get a bed put in, then I recommend you just buy the material you need for the bed and build the bed on top of the ground. If you can mix a little bit that zone between wonderful beautiful bed mix and clay soiled. If you can just blend it a little bit, it works a little bit better. But don't. If you can't, you can't. And I know for some of you you want to plant and the soil is too wet to work. So that's one thing you can do.

And it's always a good idea to add bed mixes of various types to the soil in order to have the best situation that you can have. Now, I'll tell you the folks at Airloom Soils, they have created some outstanding, outstanding bed mixes. For example, do you need a rose blend, a rose soil they have that. Do you need, for example, a veggie and our mix, They have one designed just for that. Do you need this regular compost? What do you need? They have it all and they

always have a good price. The rose soil has been I don't know if it's still on special but they had it on a special light, something like seventy dollars a yard or whatnot. And it's easy to find airloom soils. Airloom soils are available at over eighty stores in the Greater Houston area, so it's easy to find an airloom soil. What I would recommend is you go to the website Heirlooms Soils Soils that's Pluralsoilsoftexas dot com Heirloomssoilsoftexas dot com and look

at the products that they have. They have products that they can deliver and drop off. They have bags you can buy just about anywhere. And they also have something called a supersack. It's a cubic yard in a giant sack that can be unloaded and just set on your driveway, you know, rather than I had some soil dumped at my yard, actual soil dumped at my yard the other day and it just kind of went I wanted in a certain spot, but when they dumped it, it went out on the grass,

just a mass. Well, a supersack can help you avoid that, and airloom soils can provide that for you as well. So airloomsolso Texas dot com. That's where you go. And again, if you need to get in and get a bed created, you can drop it on the Do you want a vegetable garden, get you a box, get you a Bego gardenbed box or whatever kind you want to use, and just drop your mix right in

there. Just drop it right in the the box and you're gardening the same day that you set the box on the ground or put it together and drop the soil. And it makes it really, really easy. And remember it's all about the brown stuff. It's all about creating the foundation for success in a garden that helps them. By the way, when you're doing that, you ought to describe you some microlife fertilizer. Microlife fertilizer is an organic product

that will in many ways help your plants. Now there's the standard that I've always used. That's the green bag. It's a six two four, excellent for lawns. I use it for everything I know. The bag doesn't say tomatoes or what I'll put on whatever I got. It works very well. They also have the humates Now. Humates is the final stage of decomposition of organic matter. It is concentrated compost in a bag. It's a purple bag. The purple bag is hum mates plus. It's zero zero four on the

bag. We're putting it on there because it enhances your soil structure and it also is very helpful with all of the soil life. You know today we've been talking about microbes all day. Well, it humates is just its very helpful for creating the structure and the enhanced microbe populations that help plant roots roots to thrive because microbes and plants go together in very close, dependent, intimate relationship. And maybe I'll talk about that in a little bit too. Today's

Microbe Day. I think it seems to be at least the direction we're going here on Garden Line. But microlife products are easy to find. You can just if you want to go to the website. That's probably the easiest way to find it. But walk into any store and you're going to find it. But go to microlifefertilizer dot com. Microlifefertilizer dot com very widely available here and for a good reason. You listen to garden Line. Our phone number is one three two one two five eight seven four. It is safe to

call. There are no leprechauns or gremlins in our phone systems right now. The phone, the phone is working just fine. If you'd like to call and ask about a question. I want to mention something that I find a very very interesting and that is this is the year of the angelonia. Now there's a National Garden Bureau, and yes there is. Each year they give a year of plant. Twenty twenty four is a year of a angelonia. Some people call them summer snapdragons. I usually don't like when we name a

plant something that it's not. It's not a snap dragon, but I understand why they do that. Nice spires of color coming up just look beautiful. You're going to find these. They're easy. They're available in garden centers. The angelonias will take you into the heat way better than even petunias will. Petunias look great now and they look good for a long time. But angelonia

is just it's tough. When we get into summer, you get different heights of it, different colors of it, from a white to a purple, to a pink to a color that I can never say what color it is because it's sort of pink, kind of purple, kind of Yeah, you probably are saying it yelling it at the radio right now. I can't say. I don't know what that is, but it's beautiful. I do know

that. So I would suggest if you're doing a bed and you need a plant that comes up and you know, gets a little over a foot high two feet somewhere in there. It depends on the type of angelonia you get, it's an outstanding option for that and it's a good good thing to choose for our year of this year. And you're going to find that at a lot of garden centers, but on nowhere you can find it. You can find it Plants for all seasons, And I can know that without even going

there and looking for them. Plants for all seasons carries the top plants that do best here in the Greater Houston area. And that's why people go there, because they know when they go they're going to get stuff that when they take it home, it's happy to be here in your yard, in this climate, in the soils of the Greater Houston area. That's what Plants for

All Seasons does. Very trained staff, very knowledgeable staff. The Flowerty family has always done it that way, and you know when you go in there, they're going to give you an answer, whether it's identifying something or suggesting a plant, or telling you how to take care of it. Go to the website Plants for All Seasons dot com. Call them two eight one, three, seven six, sixteen forty six, or why not today just run out there and check it out. Plants for All Seasons is just north of

Lueta on Highway two forty nine Tombo Parkway. Really easy to get to. We're going to take a little break right here and when we come back we will jump on the phones. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to your guarden line on Saint Patrick's Day, and I think the music has reflected that today we're glad to have you with us, happy to answer your gardening questions. If you are wanting

to to renovate your landscape in any way, shape or form. Look out the window this afternoon when are training, do you see water gathering in an area that needs to have the drainage improved. And they can do that. They be in the people at Pierscapes. You go down, create a trench and you drain the water away either by gravity or put a sum pump in there. But they can turn a soggy wet spot that does where plants just can't thrive, into a well drained spot where they can thrive. They can

do that for you. They can fixturer irrigation systems and when summer's coming. I hope we don't need to water today. Summer's coming, though, and when those things pop up, if they're not distributing efficiently, if you've got broken heads, misaligned heads, whatever, you're gonna have problems. Plants are not going to do well. They're gonna die if it's hot enough and dry enough. But you got to get that fixed and Peerscapes can do that.

Pierscapes stays busy because they do good work, and so call them and get on the schedule. There's you know, you've got time to get some of these things done. But you don't have time to wait until it's actually time to do the project that you're trying to do, because by then they're gonna be booked up with somebody else. I mean, they stay busy, they do the work right, and you want to hire them to do the work

because of that very fact. Now, Pierscapes has been around a good while here in the Greater Houston area and they have been doing that kind of quality work for that time. If you need something designed, that beautiful backyard oasis, peer Scapes can do it. Here's the website Piercescapes dot com. Here's the phone number two eight one three seven oh five zero six zero. We're going to go now up to full or out to full sure and talk to Kim Hey, Kim hi skip. My husband put down some of the early

greenup, the nitrofoss early greenup that you're yes, exactly. He did that on Friday. And he also did the asamite. I believe it's some kind of micronutrient and you recommend it as well. Yes, he did watered in like this said right after it. But then we got rains on Saturday, and we've gotten rains this morning. It's stopped now. But my question is do you think we've wasted our money? Did it all wash away or do you think any of it got into the soil. No, it didn't all

wash away, and it did get into the soil. When we have the gully washers, you know where in the afternoon you get three inches of rain, a lot of stuff's going to get washed away, including nutrients you already had there that were up near the surface. And so but I don't think you did, and I think you'll see the green up from it and you'll be just fine. You don't want to reapply it because we're really close to

the season where we begin our slow release fertilizers in the summer. Right since you applied it recently, I would say probably way toward the end of April. And then if you're going to get a nitroposs there, a silver Bags super turf would be the one to but I would wait on that because you're going to get the benefits of this for a while. Okay, well, thank you so much. Is that it? That's it? All right? Thanks for the question. I appreciate that very much. Yeah, that is

a fact. Nutrients are they move some like phosphorus stick there and they don't go anywhere, and they build up over time. Some like nitrogen, they dissolve easily. They can wash down through the soil. If the soil has good internal drainage, they can wash off the surface and they volatilized as a gas up into the air. They're part of that cycle of microbes that's doing. All kinds of microbes help change the form of nitrogen and the soil so

your plants can get to it easily. It's amazing what they all do. I've been bragging on them all day. By the way, have you been out to Enchanted Gardens that's in Richmond Rosenberg. That nursery is a showstopper. I mean, you go and it's unbelievable. They even have something called green Glow ornamental clover for Saint Patrick's days. You just have to go see it. It's a little planet. It's really cute. It's got four it's four leaves, so I guess it would be lucky right to have some on hand.

Do you need cannas? What do you need out there? They've got beautiful succulents, cacti, all kinds of the out Talking about Angelonia's Yeah, they got that stuff. Do you need house plants? Their bugain villias look like you know. The place is ablaze with color, and it'll do the same thing for you at your house. It's always fun to go out there. It's one of those showstopper nurseries that we send people to. I take family to nurseries here in the Houston area. I love to go to Chenni

Gardens it because it's just so impressive. Enchented Gardens Richmond dot com. That's the website if you want to give them a call two eight one three four one twelve oh six. And when you're there, grab all the fertilizers and soil products we talk about on guardline. They're going to have them there as well. I'm going to go now to Tescassita and talk to share. Hello, Cheryl, I didn't worry, Skiff. I have a question about the

order of the following products I'm going to put down. I've bought some humates plus and I have some areas in the grass that are really light green, and I did what you recommended to a fellow last week about checking pulling the leap out and seeing if that striped underneath. I bought some were a lone related iron, Okay, And I want to know, you know, can I put them down on the same day like tomorrow? Yes you can. And then when you do the keylated iron, don't just put it on the

yellow spots. Put it evenly throughout that area because it will be available to the plant and help green it up and you'll see the benefit. But if you just put iron down in one spot, then you're going to have a splotchy, splotchy look to the lawn. So go ahead and try to spread it out as evenly as you can through that area. Okay. Because the hu made plus is you know, I put it down dry, and then before I water it in, could I put the keylated iron on it?

Yes you can. You can do, and then water everything else. And I'm going to answer more than you ask because there are other people wondering these same things. You could if you wanted to put down a fertilizer and then put down barricade pre emergent, and then put down azamite and then your iron keylated iron. I mean you could do all of those. Just don't do any two of them in the same spreading the same hopper because they have different

hopper settings because the particle size is different. But you could do one right after the other and that would be just fun. Okay, great, but telated iron is liquid anyway, Yes, yeah, and that's the form. That's the best form that you want to use. Okay, thank you. Does the bottle have a hose in sprayer? Is it on? It? Is that? No? I couldn't find any it a's during so I had order from Amazon and it's no. Okay, so I have to mix it myself. Well, look at the mixture. Maybe it has a setting for

hose inspiras, because that's the easiest way to put on iron. Doing a little pump up sprayer with iron that is difficult. And be careful when you use iron. Don't get it on your sidewalks, driveways because iron stains concrete and so it stains it a reddish color, a rusty color. So keep it, keep it off your surfaces like that. Okay, thanks you,

bet, thank you for the call. Appreciate that very very much. I was talking earlier about the best time planet tree is today and when you planet tree, the best way to secure it during its early months as it gets well established is with the three sixty tree stabilizer. Now you've seen everybody uses the guy wires, the little wires that go attached to the tree, and then they go all the way down to the ground and you trip over them, and you have to put pretty far from the tree to get the right

angle there on them. That is, that's just a mess to deal with. Three sixty. Tree stabilizer is a product. Think of it as like an arm, a very strong stiff arm that grabs onto the tree and grabs onto a post. It's designed to go into an iron post, one of the little t posts you hammer in, and I'd recommend going with that route. But you can put those posts pretty close to the plant because the tree stabilizer not that long, but it attaches to the post and it'll also attach

the regular round fence post if you want. But the other end has this rubber strap. When it attaches to the tree. You can set it a little loose, which you should, and allow it to move just a little bit. That's important. If you were worried about winds going north, south, east west directions, then use two tree stabilizers, one going at a right angle to the other one, and that way, no matter which way the wind blows. Your tree is secure and they last a long time and

they're not hard to find. RCW Nurseries has got them. Arbigates got them plants for all seasons. Buchanan's Native Plants down in the Heights Southwest Fertilizer, of course they have them. Horae Sidden Gardens down in Alvin also has the three sixty tree stabilizer. Good product works very very well. So who is telling me? The other day they were talking about something about honey. Oh,

they're talking about honey being something that helps heal. And I won't go into the specific stories, but there are components in honey that are very helpful for healing of certain kinds of issues that you might have as a healing would occur. And some people use it for that purpose. I use it for the purpose of putting in my mouth because I love it. And the folks at the bees Supply. Maybe you want to just try and learn about bees

and honey and taste some honey. That's called the bee keeping tour, the honey tour. Excuse me, I said, beekeeping, it's the honey tour. You go and you learn and you taste and it's just fun. But maybe you want to have bees. You know, bees help pollinate your garden and they help hollinate the fruit trees that need cross pollination. They're the ones that are going to do that for you. Well, they do bee keeping classes and they're underway right now. They've been going on for a little while

now. I think the next one it is March twenty third. Then there's one April thirteenth, April twenty seventh, there's a couple in May, about two weeks apart. In general, those classes are a great way to not only learn about bees, but to have a hands on working the hive itself. They get y'all suited up and everything. It's a lot of fun. Be Supply is everything you need to have bees, and you can have them in your backyard. And honey bees do not want to run around and sting

you. And you know, you go swat a bee or grab it with your hand or something. Yeah, but or go to the hive and start kicking on that. They'll defend their home. But honeybees are very docile and they have several strains that they sell at the Bee Supply that have been bred to be docile and productive, and that is really important at the Bee Supply. Now they're out in Dayton, Texas. But here's the website, thebsupply

dot com. I've been there, and I'm telling you the place is fascinating and I would highly recommend that you go out and check it out just for the fascination and learning. They have a hive where you can walk right up close. Your kids can walk up close and behind plexiglass watch the bees work in the hive. And it's long tube that goes from inside the store to outside. It is, as the kids used to say, way cool, way cool. You don't want to miss that. Well, you've been listening

to Garden Line, I'm coming back. We got a couple more hours in the books today. Glad to have you. By the way, don't forget that next week on Saturday, that is March twenty third, is the Sci Fi Home and Garden Show. Now, I'll be there from twelve o'clock noon to two pm, twelve to noon to two pm. I'll be talking a little bit about some things you need to know about plants and having success this

time of year. And I'll also be answering your gardening questions. And I find my talks tend to evolve into Q and as as time goes on Nelson Plant Foods donating some really cool Nelson products that will be given away. Another reason to come. I'll be at a table answering gardening questions. You can bring me samples. Next Saturday, twelve to two Sci Fi Home and Garden Show kat RH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services

advertised on this program. Welcome to kt RH Garden Line with skin Richt. It's so please the crazy trip. Just watch him as world us so many fiftiest sign Welcome back to guarden Line. Good to have you with us today. As all where to answer your gardening questions and that can happen if you give a skull seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four simple as that. Uh. Here on Guardline, we like to help you have success. And all it

takes is a few simple facts which we can provide. I follow along some simple guidelines and you can have success with plants. You know, those people you think have a green thumb, they just happen to be doing things right. There's no such thing as a thumb. That's green. A thumb that's brown. But if you want to talk about it that way, well, let's put it this way. You turn a brown thumb green by informing that

thumb how to grow plants the simple principles plants need. And that's what we do here on garden Line to help you have success because we want you to have success. Of course, it is important to enjoy your garden and landscape. And I was visiting with someone I see yesterday or day before. We

were talking about the fact that in gardening there are all these rules. At least people look at them as rules, like, for example, if you're going to plant a flower bed, you choose flowers that have colors from opposite sides of the color wheel because they complement each other they go together better. Or there's also kind of a tertiary color concept where you take like a triangle across the color wheel three different points, like in a triangle shape across the

wheel. That's fine, I get it, I look at that. I see what they're talking about. But at your yard, what do you want to look at? That's what you do? I mean if you don't, if you just like roses and nothing else, then you don't have to have annual flowers or vegetables or even a lawn. I mean, you see what I'm saying, it's your yard. Now. There is such a thing as the hoa, and they have an opinion about things. If you live with an hoa, of course, But the point I'm making is this, do

what makes you happy, what you like. That's why we're out there gardening. If you like growing fresh food and coming in and eating something that's fifteen hundred miles fresher than something you would buy in the store, then go for it that grow that. If you are just the lawn ranger of the neighborhood and you've got expenses of turf that are green, and it makes you happy to see that and feel like you're almost living on a golf course. Okay,

it's your yard. Do that. Have fun, enjoy that. Don't worry so much about the rules now principles where you know you're going against nature, you're going against you know what it is that makes a plan happy? I am, of course, But have fun. That is very important in gardening. A lot of people don't like weeds in the lawn, and barricade is designed to stop weeds from starting, so we'd see tries to sprout when the temperature's right for that species, and as it tries to put a root

down. Barricade is a barricade that shuts the thing down and you never get the weed in the first place. And it's easier to prevent a weed than to kill it after it's growing, because once it starts growing and the weather gets hot, some of the products we can't use on them, especially Saint Augustine lawns, because they'll damage it. Well, barricade will work for this.

Now. Barricade is widely available. You put it down, follow the label and watered in about a half inch of water and you're going to find barricade again. It's easy to find Inchenny Gardens down in Richmond they have barricade. Shades of Texas up in the woodlands they have barricade as well. And of course the Fissures Hardware, both the one in Southeastern and Southmore and the one in Laport on Broadway Street are going to have the barricade as well as

other nitropost products. We're going to go now to Paula in northwest Houston. Hello, Paula, good morning. Last week we were driving going somewhere, and I didn't get to hear all the question all the answer. Somebody had called in and asked about using compost as mulch, and yes, and that's what I was wondering about, because I've really had never done that before.

And well it's not a common practice. Number One, past is a higher priced product than just shredded hardwood mulch for example, especially like the leaf molds, right qbityard compost is yeah, because it's a prime product. But if you put composts on top of the ground, it will work its way into

the ground and the naturants will wash into the ground from it. And if you think about nature picture of forest, there there's the soil oil, and then this layer of decomposed leaf which is leaf mold compost, which is why so, and then there's the dry leaves on top, and so that's how nature feeds the plants. Is that way? So you can use it as a multi it's expensive. You can also put it on the surface and then

put regular mult on top of it as well. Oh okay, I'm not I'm just saying that anything on the soil that blocks the soil the light from hitting the soil is going to help with weed control. But yeah, you're right. I would not say just use compost as a general practice, well, because we have I have tomato plants and grow boxes, and I was wondering about using that leaf mold compost. I've got it mixed into the soil, but I was wondering about putting it on top. If you've already got

it mixed in, you're probably okay. But there's nothing wrong, nothing wrong with putting it on top to Yeah, okay, can I behind for a minute, Can I cry wine for a minute? Sure? A fellow gardeners. We had three we had three days the chances of rain. Right. I got a quarter of an inch the first day. I got nothing yesterday, and I got an eighth of an inch today, So I'm probably gonna have to get out more water. Well, okay, that's it. I want to get that off. We do allow belly aching sometimes, Paula.

But I'll tell you this, there are other gardeners out there like myself. I'm planting. I'm trying to plant some turf this week, and I can't be rototillying or doing things like that when the soil is so soggy, wet so I trade places with you for that particular practice. But I understand what you're talking about. All right, thank you, out of trouble. That's good. Do you need a supply for your garden of filling the blank,

mulch, compost, fertilizer, disease control control, insect control tools. Ace Hardware stores they're everywhere, forty of them around the Houston area. Ace Hardware dot Com and they got it all. They've got what you need there. We've been talking to people all day. They're asking about this and that and the other, and I just keep thinking, Okay, Ace carries out. Ace carries out. Ace carries out, and on rainy days like today,

they even have galoshes, rubber boots and park. The rain park is whatever ring I got rain park, I guess is the term you use. Some doesn't sound right about that. Anyway, They've got it all out there. You want to beautify, you've got a little porch or patio. You want to hang some of those lights, those strings of lights that go around and just create that evening, warm ambience glow. Ace. We'll fix you up on that. Go to Ace Hardware dot Com, find the store locator,

find the store near you, and you have got it done. I'm gonna go now. No, got to take a break. Okay, when I come back from break Ray and Raymond and Blake, you'll be the first two up. And here we go our phone number seven one three two one two k t r H. Time to dance a jig. There we go Little Saint Patti's day music for you here on Garden Line. It is just a pleasure to go out and visit nurseries. I love doing that. It's my favorite thing to do. And every time I go, I'm amazed at the

nurseries you have in the greater of your scenario. They are outstanding their showplaces. And I want to tell you about a showplace that's down in the Seabrook area. That is Moss Nursery. Now, a lot of you from down that region, I mean, you practically live at Moss Nursery. You know about the place, and you know why it is so awesome to go to. But a lot of you haven't been yet, and you need to because people drive a long way to go to this place. It's very special.

First of all, I'm going to give you the phone number and the website Moss Nursery maas nursery dot com two eight one seven four seven four twenty fourth eighty eight. I'll do that one again two eight one four seven four twenty four. Moss Nursery had just they get shipment. The trucks are lined up all the time bringing stuff in there. But they've gotten shipments of you know, the cacti that is just it's incredible. It is really beautiful. Have

you ever thought about growing like a staghorn fern? Yes, they have that too. They have like a hundred of men. I mean it go in their houseplanting greenhouse. If you like houseplants of any kind or succulens, you'll be amazed. I mean they're they're hanging from the ceat there, they're on shelves, they're on tables, they're on the floor. Just they have so many plants and they're always getting something new. I was bragging about that Chinese

fringe tree or earlier, say how much I like it. Yep, they've got those at Moss Nursery. You're always going to find what you want. You're always going to find the whimsicle too. Moss Nursery is not just another garden center. It is going to have things you would never expect. Every time you turn a corner in that place, it's like, WHOA, what is that? I've never seen that before. You know, I carved with actual wooden canoe, A carved an African mask, one of these giant like

you know, face things that have been carved. They're always Jim is always bringing stuff back. You never know what he's going to buy, and that just makes it more fun to go to Moss. Have a good time there, but I guarantee you will enjoy it. You gotta go. It's on Toddville Road in Seabrook. Check out my nursery. I need to get back. There's been a little while for I've been there. I need to get back over there and check that out. We're going to go now to Raymond

in Santa Fe. Hey, Raymond, how are you today? Hey? Thanks taking my call, doing wonderful. Thank you. I have two questions. One is I was starting to prepare my little raised bed for vegetables and ants have decided to take it residence here. What's the best way to get rid of thoat or a victim that moved or somewhere else in the yard. And the other question I have well, go ahead, well, no, go ahead, guess both of them. We're gonna say. The other one

was my other question was I don't live anywhere near water. How come my yard is just filled with crowdeds? Okay, because you have a water table under the ground. Uh, there may not be water sitting on the surface, but if they have water down a few inches below, they like that. And uh, you know that's that's an issue. We don't have a great spray for crowd ads you can eat. I was thinking about flooding my

yard and just selling crowded since the cost win so up. Well, either that, you know, either that, or import some Cajuns from Louisiana and just had them sit there and wait because they love those things. I love them too. I grew up with those kind of crowd heads, catching them out a little, you know, ditches and stuff like that. Piss the string and with bacon on it, you can get some good crowded. They're

a little tiny ones, though not not necessary worth eating. I don't know how to take to get rid of those things, but it is the water table that they Oh, okay, well, I wouldn't necessarily worry about getting rid of I just want to know how they only get here? I'm sorry, how in the world do they get here if they're you know, if I'm nowhere near? So they come up to the water table, I guess they crawl and then they set up house there. And yeah, but that

that is the deal. Let's go back to the answer. They fire ants, Yes, okay. I would get a product called come and get it. Come and get it. It's best and get it fertile, and it is an organic fire ant bait. And you don't have to dump it on a pot with crodit with those ants in it. You can just spread it around. They'll pick it up and bring it back and it'll kill any ants

in that area. That that includes out in your yard. You get a little bit out there, other pots and plants, those plant those ants have to go out to look for food, and they're coming. They're crawling all around, and they'll find the bait and take it back. That's the safest product that I know that you can use. Come and get it. Okay. Well, you can drench a pot, you know, with a with a chemical to kill them that way, quicker that way, But I would

just try to come and get it. I think you'll you'll be good with that. Yeah, well, since plants and veggie did in there, I didn't want to put any kind of chemical poisons down in there to get rid of themself. Yeah, that's right, all right man, Thank you for the call. Thank you appreciate that. And take care. If you have a tree, you need to take care of that tree because it is valuable.

Remember my story earlier about the pictures Jim Smith showed me of his tree back in the forties and then his tree back in I don't think that was probably the nineties when we talked to him big and beautiful. Well, you got to get a tree that's going to be a long lived tree, and you got to take care of it. And Affordable Tree Service is who you want to call. Listen, when you have someone come in and prune your tree and they don't know what they're doing, the damage they do is for

life. They you can mess up a tree such that you're always going to have issues where you're worried about a limb breaking and falling, where it just looks horrible and doesn't get better over time. Affordable Tree doesn't do that. Martin's been doing this. Martin Spoon Moore. He's been doing this a long time. He knows how to do it. It costs one hundred and fifty

to have him come out and do a consultation. If you hire him to do the work, you've already paid one hundred and fifty dollars of what is going to cost to do the work. It just it just folds right into that. The phone number is seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three. Aff Tree Service dot com. That's the website, aff Tree Service dot Com. Call him. Either he or his wife Joe will answer the phone and they can help

guide you. If you're gonna do anything around a tree, like trenching or putting in a sidewalk or anything, call Martin first because you can do damage that way too, and that is unnecessary, and he can guide you on what you actually need to be doing. I'm gonna go out to Kingwood now and we're gonna talk to Blake. Hello, Blake, let's go on skip. Always listen to you Saturday Sunday mornings. I appreciate your show and thank you. Happy uh almost said Valentine's Day, but happy Saint Patty's Day.

Okay, we'll go. I'll be sick. I'll be sixty on this Saturday before East or So. Walk into a room and I forget while I walk in there. You know what I mean. You're preaching to the choir. How can I help you today? Well, I'm just wondering tonight. I live in apartment. I just wanted to get the best soil I want to. I like growing. I like eating avocados like every other morning. But the seeds I like to to playing every once in a while. And I've

got a couple of them growing out of my patio. But they just look a little yellow, kind of not real green. And I'm wondering, what's the best soil, you know, since the living kingwod is? I mean, can you recommend something? And how should I plant it? I mean, I know they don't produce a tree. I just like to see they grow tall. You just like looking at them. Are you wanting a soul for containers or for the ground? Yes, a soul for containers, Well

you got There's there's very good options out there. One of them that's pretty easy to find is jungle Land Distribute of my nitrofis uh jungle jungle land land you've got. They have two versions. One is indoor that has water crystals in it, water holding crystals in it. The other, the outdoor one is called jungle land flour and vegetable. But don't let the flower and vegetable

throw you. It is a good potting salt for growing stuff yet, and so I would try that, and then I would use some sort of supplemental nutrition to keep a good steady growth on those plants. Put it in a large enough pot that you're not gonna have to water it trice a day to keep it out of drought stress, because that plant's going to get pretty large. And you know, eventually some people try planting them out the weather.

We'll catch up to you on that here. We just don't. We can't go ten years without an avocado freezing back, or at least not most locations are not gonna be able to pull that off. But yep, that's what I would do. Okay, I appreciate it. See if I have a blast week you take care of all right, Thank you, Blake. I appreciate that. And you're lucky being out there in Kingwood. By the way, you've got a couple of great nurseries. I love going out to Warren's

and kingw Garden Center up in that area. Well, you're listening to Garden Line. Our phone number if you would like to give us a call is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We've had people calling a lot about what I do at the weeds and milan. What I do at the weeds in the milan, Well, if you've got existing weeds, those weeds are cool season weeds. They sprouted back last fall October maybe November, and they've grown through

the winter. They've been very small, and then they take off growing. They bloom and set seed, and now you're sentenced to years of dealing with those weed seeds and your lawn. Well, the way we deal with that, we got a couple of ways. Number One, back or in the fall, we can put on a pre emergent product like the barricade from nitropas to prevent them from ever getting started. But you got them now, it's too late for barricade on those weeds, so you can use another nitrofass product

and it is their weed and feed trimech nitrofos. It's a fifteen five ten just like the Imperial, but this isn't the Imperial. It's a light blue bag and it has a post emergent weed killer in. It actually has three different ingredients that kill weeds. So what you want to do is you want to get the lawn weed surfaces moist or wet. You don't have to water enough to water the soil. Just wet the leaves, spread the nitrofoss weed

and feed fifteen five to ten with trimac on it. Those particles stick to the leaves and they will soak into the leaf tissues won't hurt your grass at this time of year, and you can put that down and it will move in, and then a day or two later you can water it in because it will have already gone into the weed leaves. Watered in to get the fertilizer as an early greenup fertilizer because it is fifteen five to ten, it's not slow release. It's an early greenup. It releases right away when it

gets wet into the soil. It works really well and it is available all over the place. We talk about all the time how nitrofoss products are easy to find. You can find them at the arbor Gate. You can find them up in Tombole Shades of Texas down south Eton on Genoa Red Bluff Road. You've probably been by there. Kingwood the Ace Hardware and Kingwood also has these nitropost products available. It makes it easy to find them when you can

get them anywhere you look and everywhere you go. Someone was talking to me about earlier. You may have heard the call. We were looking at putting out different kinds of things and can you put them out on the same day, And I said, yes, you can do all these things on the same day. You just don't do them in the same fertilizer spreading that same

time. And it's because you set the fertilizer spreader on a certain number so that whatever fertilizer you're putting out, or whatever material you're putting out is put out at the right rate. Well, you've got something like a barricade that's pretty fine, fine particle size, then you've got something big, like a chunky fertilizer. You know, microlife would be an example of that. Well, azemite is another one, and azamite we put out for the micro nutrients,

the trace minerals the plants need to grow. It's not a fertilizer in the sense of making your long term green and grow fast. It's a fertilizer in the sense of giving the grass plant a bank account for the essential things that are required for growth and health of the grass plant. That's what azemite does. Azamite Texas dot com. That is their website. It doesn't take much, So do your fertilizing and then come back, change your settings and

do the asamite. You can do both of those in the same day, or you can do fertilizing today and wait till summer. Put the asimite on. Doesn't matter what time of year, but if you haven't done it in a while, this would be a good time to go ahead and get that done. Yesterday at a Buchanan's Nursery answering gardening questions, people coming by. It was a blast, but we had a blast out there. Really enjoyed being out of Buchanan's Garden Center. They always it's just always a place to

go and see all kinds of things. I was when I walked in, I saw the coral vine that they had around the parking lot, and it just reminded me, now'd be a great time to go by there and buy a coral vine. They are beautiful spring blooms. They're not fully evergreen, but they drop some leaves, but it's just a gorgeous vine. And then the milkweed, so many selections of milkweed. Do you want monarch butterflies? You gotta go buy Buchanons, which is on eleven Street in the Heights and

get you some of that milkweed. Well, I'm talking into the news time, so I'm going to pass the baton to Nikki. Will be right back. Well, welcome back to Guardline on Saint Patrick's Day. Happy Saint Patrick's Day for those of you out there. We are going to go straight to the phones and we're going to talk to Suzanne in League City. Hello Suzanne, A hi. I have two questions. The first one is the what is the stuff that's dropping from the oak trees. It's funny kind of stuff.

Those are called catkins. That is the catkins K C A T K I N S. It's it's Is that good for the compost pile? Perfect? Just fine? Okay? Forrest the soil gets covered with catkins and the oak forests just thrive because they've become part of the soil. Okay, fantastic. Now I'm trying to think of my second question. Okay, oh yeah, yeah, I'm growing spinach. I have a pretty big garden and I'm growing spinach and it's been the first time I've ever grown it, and it's

it's producing like mad. But in between my rose is a mossy's uh flat weed. I haven't done anything about picking it up or trying to scrape it up, but it's slow, it's flat to the ground, but it's just just crazy. Well, there are some types of mosses that kind of fit that description, uh, and they like wet, and they like the kind of like acidic environments that are wet. I wouldn't worry about them in your

spinach patch. Just okay, because spinach is going to be bolting and going out here in a little while, and you can just turn up the soil and when you're well, you got some beautiful sound singing birds there in the background. Yeah I do. Yeah, But you say my spinach is going to stop growing now, Well, when it heats up, the cool seasoned greens like spinach and a regular, so I shouldn't plan it anymore. Now. If you want some baby spinach, you probably could, but it's it's

going to be bolting fairly soon. I don't I think I would just keep harvesting leaves off the plants that you have as long as okay, I will, and thank you so much, Thank you, Susan. I appreciate you. Bye bye bye bye. Yeah. We love our feed source here on garden line. Got some great feed source around the Greater Hue scenario. If you're up in the Tomball area, you've got D and D Feed. It's out there on twenty nine to twenty just to the west of Tomball a little

bit. Dandy Feed prides himself in carrying the products you need for your lawn and garden. Right now. They got a load of plants out front. You have to swing by there and check it out. All kinds of different plants that are out front, and that is in and of itself worth going by. But they have Nitropos fertilizer. They've got the other brand, for example, the Microlife. They carry that and on and on down the line.

Do you need barricade, We've been talking about that. Do you need the super turf, that nitropossmate they got that they It just goes on and on. They have things like age leaf, more compost and heirloom rose soil, the fruit berry citrus soil, the vegetable and herb soil. And they're always getting chicks in baby chick spring is the time for that, and just give them a call. One are the next group of chicks coming in? Two eight, one, three, five, one seventy one forty four.

I will say that number again, always listening to guard line with a pen in your hand. Two eight, one three five one seven to one four four. Of course their feed store they got everything else you would expect from a feed store. It's just a fun place to go. Let's see. I believe we're heading to Leak City next to talk to Greg. Hello, Greg Skip. I got a question to ask about whenning's a good time to

put a root barrier down to protect your foundation from oak trees. Anytime, anytime you can get in there and create a trench where you can put that wall of barrier vertical wall down into the soil to keep the oak trees from coming up close. You want to do that far enough away from the foundation

where it can benefit most. Here's the thing people don't realize. And I was talking, oh gosh, the other day, I was visiting with a fix my slab, and we were just discussing the thing about trees and foundations, and you know, I was amazed, number one, at the knowledge level that Tie had. He knows this stuff. But it's not trees going under your foundation and lifting it up like they do your sidewalks and like they

do your driveways. With the foundation, tree roots proliferate right there because it's for the water runs off the roof and it's always moist, and so your ground swells up when it's moist, and then tree roots are pumping that area around the foundation dry and the soil is shrinking, and that is how the tree roots damage your foundation. So if you're going to do a barrier, don't do it right beside the foundation, because it's essentially the same thing's going

to happen. You got to get out away from it as far as it's practical, at least a couple of feet out there away from it, preferably a little bit. Do you do it under the drift line of the tree or out away from the drift line? Well, I wouldn't limit the tree by doing barriers that close to the tree, unless you have to to protect

the foundation. I would say, you know, if a tree, I'll just if a tree is fifty yards out there away from the house, well it's gonna not be a problem, and you don't have to worry about getting by the drip line. But as you get closer and closer, you do have to have the wall to protect the soil under and around your foundation. So that's where you're and what kind of wall works the best. You know that I'm not an expert in I would if I were you, I would

let me let me give you a number. I don't. I don't think Ty does this kind of work, but you need to call him and ask him about it. It's two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. His website is fixedmyslab dot com. Fix myslab dot com. He could probably direct you to it. What they make is a very very thick, plastic tight barrier that creates that wall. It doesn't decay in the soil like metal, will rouster, corodea away and and whatnot. And he could probably

tell you where to get it or who to have do it. It's a chance he does it himself. I don't think he does that kind of work. It's nine yes, that's it. And another you know, another practice would be just occasionally to run a root trencher through there and just cut off all the roots that are going past the point where you would have put the barrier. Well, I got a sprinkler system, so that's kind of not an option. Yeah, it'd be kind of interesting. Well, you get

to play tacker toys with PVC when you break the sprinkler line. All right, Hey, thank you, Greg, I appreciate I appreciate you giving us a call. Good luck with that, all right, thank you, Matt. Take care. Yeah, that's a foundation an issue, but most people do not realize how the trees and why the trees affect the foundation. That way, Hey, if you're looking to do some super turf on your lawn, that's the slow release nineteen four to ten fertilizer that Nitrofoss makes. It's

their silver bag. Now you put that down and normally I begin those about the first of April. But listen, if you unless you just did recently a fast growth greenup like Nitrofoss Imperial, you can do the super turf now and just put it down. And I just said, D and D carries everything they've got that. You can find super turf at a lot of different places. Again, it is a nitrofoss product. So Lake Hardware and Angleton's gonna have it. D and De Feed and Tombal as I said, they

are going to have it. Fisher's Hardware down in Baytown they're going to have it as well. We'll time for us to take another break and we'll be right back with your gardening questions. Welcome back to the garden Line, and happy Saint Patrick's Day everybody out there. We're glad to have you listening to us. We're going to jump right to the phone to the number by the way seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four if you'd like to

give us a call. We're going to go out to Friendswood and talk to Kathy. Hello Kathy, Yes, good morning. We enjoy your program. Thank you. My question today is about johnsngrass that's overtaken a garden that had to be left alone due to a family illness. Is there. I was told a product called Eraser might do that, but I'm afraid of what's going to happen to the soil after I put it on there. Okay, do you have any desirable plants growing around the johnsngrass? No? Now that eraser

will do it, and you want to get it on the foliage. You don't need to drench the plants, just a little bit on the foliage, but getting on as much of the foliage as you can. Johnson grass has underground rhizomes that store energy and help it sprought back, and the erasure will go down into those rhizomes and it will kill them. Now you may have to do a second time later in case you don't get it all. Sometimes with a lot of Johnson grass, the spray coverage isn't quite what you need

it to be. But yes, that'll work if you spray. Give it a week to work before you chop it down or till up the soil or whatever you're going to do, and you can plant even seedlings without any any problem. Oh okay, okay. Johnson grass is a booger. I used to have to grub that out as a kid, and that is hard to get all those rhizomes out of the ground. Yeah, it was. It was unfortunate because it was an illness, so we couldn't. I couldn't. E didn't take the time to get out there. So yeah, those so

I really don't have to put anything else afterwards. It's going to be okay, that is so awesome. Yeah it will and that that'll work fine, okay, all right, so much, all right, bad eat Johnson grass because it's all right. Let now, I know you appreciate me helping you with that answer. So all you have to do here on Guardline, here's

the policy. Advice is free, but you need to bring half your produce drop it off at the radio station that we'll call it even Thank you, ken, Okay, sounds good, okay, bye bye, bye bye. We're going to go now out to Katie and talk to Evelyn. Hello Evelyn, good morning, Skip morning. I have my fruit trees, my plumb and peach trees have finished blooming, and I have a lot of tiny fruit on them. What can I spray them with to keep the insects from eating

them? Tell me what kind of fruit you have? I have plumb I can't tell you the name of them, and I have some peach trees. Okay. In the past years, have you had problems on those trees with insects. Yes, I had, but I was out of the country and when I came back, I didn't spray them, and the books got in them and made, you know, made worms and things in them, so I wasn't able to eat them. So now this year I'm home and I want to make sure that that doesn't happen. Okay, there's an insect called

the plum cerculio that is doing that. It cuts a little tiny crescent shaped flapp in the skin of the fruit, lays an egg under that flap, and the larva hatches and tunnels to the seed, which is where you encounter that worm. Fruit. They begin actually about now, or even tadbit before now. But it's not like your fruit's all infested. Don't worry about that. But you start spraying now then for them. And there are fruit sprays

that you can use. There are different brand, different ingredients. You just need to go to an ACE hardware, like you got an ACE hardware, Katie Ace. That's an easy one. It's on Pinoak Street out there in Katie. And I just say, I need a fruit spray that's labeled labeled for peach. I need fruit tree spray for insects and make sure it's label for peaches. For you know, there's insecticide you don't want to use on your edibles, so they'll get you that, and then follow the label.

Start today and about every depending on what the ingredients are, follow the label, but in general we say about every ten days to two weeks. You would want to spray again, Probably two weeks would be fine. And I can use the saying spray on both the peach and the plum, yes beautiful, because that insect attacks both those are called stone fruit because they have a pit inside. Peaches, plums, apricots, and nectarines, those are all

stone fruit and they all have this past problem. Now, if you have any fruit that falls like a worm gets it, you didn't kill the worm on that one. Pick those up and get rid of them because they pupate and go in the ground. Then they come back or they go off somewhere and over winter. But when we've lost the last bit of blooms fallen off, that's when you need to start those for plum curculia beautiful. Okay, do that, thank you, bet, thank you, Kate Elvik. Yeah,

that that is a past I have dealt with those before. I don't have a peach tree right now. In fact, we're talking about planting some fruit trees where we move to a little while back. I just haven't gotten around to getting that done. But that plum curriculo is the number one insect that deal that we deal with in peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, which those last two you don'tant to try to grow here. They're not going to do well here. But any of the stone fruit that plum curc likes

them. And it's the worm and the fruit. And anytime let me use this to make a point, anytime that we have a problem in the orchard orchard being one tree, if need be in the backyard, you want to practice sanitary measures. So that worm in the fruit, the fruit's gonna fall to the ground, or you're gonna throw it away somewhere. Well, that worm's gonna finish. That's that's worm and it's going to finish its life cycle. And then you have adults that'll be back laying eggs next year. So

get rid of those fallen fruit. If you see fruit that shrivels and dries and gets a powder on it, that's brown rot, which attacks stone fruit. Pick those off and get them out of there early on, as soon as you see it. Get them out of the orchard. You can bury them, you can put them in the trash and just get them away from there. When you see fireblight, kill a pear branch and it turns chocolate brown the new growth and just shrivels up. Cut about six inches below into

the green, below the dead area into the green. Cut it, get it out of there, and then spray lesol on your pruners before you go make another cut, because you can spread back fungal farblight from one cut to another, and so sanitation center it makes a lot of sense. Make it easier on yourself. We're going to go to Montgomery now and talk to Elaine. Hello Elaine, good morning Ski, thanks for taking my glad to have

you. I have a question about my lemon tree. This is the third year I've had it, and for the first two years, like Randy said, I took all the blooms off of it, and this year should be the first year for it to fruit. But all of the blooms and the flowers are just falling off, and I have fertilized it. But maybe I don't have a good fertilizer, so what can I do to make this thing bear some fruit? It's probably not the lack of fertilizer. A lot of

times citrus and persimmons do this too. They'll cast their fruit early on. You give it a big, heavy load and they just cast their fruit. It could be two things. Remember when it could be a heavy load on a small plant, a young plant which you have. It could also be a lack of pollination. So if bees don't get in there and do their work, your lemon fruit is not going to set and the blooms fall off,

and then the little green fruit turns yellow and falls off. So it's going to be one of those two things, the lack of pollinators or just that heavy load. Excessive nitrogen can be a problem for getting good fruit set also, so you don't want to do excessive But it's not a lack of fertilizer. Most likely that that cause. Do you have like no set at

all? Or there are some that stay, but the little kimdrils maybe they just fall off to the ground and then and then that's it, okay, So well the tree will will self then and and so I think as that tree gets bigger, more established, and you get in plenty of good sized pot to avoid stresses from lack of soil volume. Uh, then it's to be I haven't put it in the ground. Should I put it in the ground. It's in quite a large container. It's going to be best to

put it in the ground. No. I mean, the tree would rather be in the ground. But Montgomery is far enough up there where he's going to have to go to heroic measures to not have it freeze. And a container you can get you a dolly put a strap around it. And I think that's exactly what I did this last winter, was I trucked everything into the garage and left it in there. Would I would leave it in a container? I would? Yeah, okay, okay, all right now,

thank you so much. Now, if my advice works and you do get good lemon set next year, bring half the lemons to the radio station. We'll call it even you got it. And I want to tell you I took your advice about trying something new, and so this year I am growing

all of my vegetables from seeds. And I have to tell you it's really fun, is fun, and it's really fun and I look at it every day, and just just yesterday the last one sprouted, and so in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be putting everything into the bed and I'm very excited about that. Well, good for you, Good for you. I'm glad, glad to hear that. Hey have fun out there in

Montgomery. And thank you very much for that call. Listening to that call a while ago, I had the lady had the birds that were just singing in the background. I love birds, and wild birds is a place where you find out all about birds. They're so knowledgeable, and they have quality of food. Right now, your birds are nesting and they need high protein food. They don't need the little red bebies and the old cheap o bird feed nesting super blend, that's the one I'm telling you. You will see

a huge difference. And we need to support our songbirds. I mean, have you heard about the decline in numbers of songbirds in community. Well, when we come back from break, I'm going to talk about this a little bit more. But that is an issue, and so just stay tuned for that. I want to give you some more information. I want to remind you next Saturday, I will be at the Sci Fi Home and Garden Show. Now I'm going to be give and away some Nelson products they're providing for

giveaways there, so that's a cool reason to come. I'm giving a little talk about some things you might need to know about success in the garden and answering your gardening questions. I'll be there again twelve to two. Did I say talge with one while ago? I'll be there from twelve to two and it is at the Berry Center on Barker Cypress Road, the Berry Center twelve

to two next Saturday. Please come by, love to meet you. Katie r H. Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Katie r h. Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's so crazy just watch him as so many things to see. Well, I'm just gonna jump on right here. We are. Glad you're listening to garden Line. If you'd like to give me a call, maybe you have a question. Seven one, three, two, fifty eight,

seventy four. I just looked outside and the sky I see blue all over the place. This is amazing. That is so nice to see that move through. I love on an afternoon Sunday afternoon, Saturday afternoon, get out, enjoy the garden, enjoy the landscape. Go buy get some products you need to make sure you have a beautiful lawn, bountiful landscape, healthy garden. Uh. Before we went to break, I was talking about birds and love in the sound of birds. That is just an aspect of being out

in nature in the garden. It is awesome. In our landscapes are pretty much uh, dominated by plants from somewhere else that often don't get past, like a waxy flagustrum, like a nandina, like a red to plutina, like a petisporum. And when you don't have caterpillars, the birds don't have the most important food they need in the springtime. Insects and caterpillars have high protein content, especially the caterpillars, and that is what they use to feed

their young. When you're having some bouncing baby boys growing up there in the nest baby boys and girls, you got to feed them some good quality food and nature provides that in most landscapes, but not our landscapes. In many cases, Warbirds Unlimited produces something called nesting super blend. It's got dried meal worms and peanuts and sunflower chips, tree nuts. It's got safflow I can't say safflower. Safflower nuts that little bark butter bits super high energy for them.

Calcium carbonate too. By the way, now this blend is perfect for this time of year, and every bit of material in that blend is something birds you're going to eat, and that means you're getting your money's worth out of what you're buying. Very important. Wabird's unlimited as available all around town. There's about six stores all around the greater Houston area. So go to w b U dot com, WBU dot com, forward slash Houston and find

the store nearest Hugh. Also, while you're about out and about hummingbirds flying through they come here. The ruby throwed it. They're on pause here for a little while where they had even further north. And it's a good time to get those speeders out while birds can get you set up on all that as well. One stop shopping and trust me, when you go in there, it's addictive. You are going to start. I never consider myself a

birder a bird person. I guess I really in some ways or not compared to the true birders, but I love to track them to the landscape. We're gonna go Tomball now and talk to David Hey, David, good morning, sir. Hey. I got a weed problem. About three weeks ago. I put down barricade and nitrophiles, the fertiliars of the red bag, and unfortunately for me, the we he said, started to already germinate a

little bit. And with that fertilizer, I've got the beautiful I got the prettiest weeds in the neighborhood right now, okay, and they're plentiful, and I don't I bought a bag of Nelson Whedonator from D and D. And they said, wait a little bit, because I just put that fertilizer down. How do I get rid of When do I put it down? How do I get rid of it? Do I mow it first? And do I I'm afraid to do that. And once I get it down, what can I expect? Well, I'll tell you what I really need to know

is what the weed is that you're dealing with. It's got a bull it's got bull nettle, it's got some other stuff. It's just just it's a small hodgepodge of stuff. Yeah, so most of the weeds you see now, those are cool cool season weeds. They sprouted last fall and they're just now taken out. They're like our blue bonnets. You don't notice bluebonet's all winter, but the plants are there, but in spring they take off growing. The plants are big and the flowers are there. That's how our cool

season weeds do. The Of course the barricade is not going to stop those, but it will help prevent them season weed seeds coming on the if you if you use if you use the weed Nator by Nelson, that is a very slow release fertilizer. So even though you did a quick green I think you could probably still get away with doing that because a lot of the product in that is going to come a little bit later. Normally I wouldn't say do a green up and then do the you know, the Nelson weed Nator

right away. But I think you're talking about cool season weeds and what you're seeing now, things like bullnetal and whatnot. That's a perennial coming from underground as well as it can come from seed. But that put down, well, you could also spray them, like if you just want to do something right now, you could spray them with a product that controls broadly we now bull netle. I'm gonna have to consider that one a little bit. That is not a normal yard weed, and so I can't promise you that our

yard broadleaf we control post emergent products are going to kill it. They might, but you may have to go with something a little bit stronger on that particular way. Should I mow before I put it down? No, you want to get as much leaf surface as you can. Put it down, wait about a week, if you wait five days. Even if you put it down and wait five days, then you can mow because it will have

moved down into the plant. It'll start moving in right away. Whether you use the whedonator it sticks to the wet leaves, or whether you end up just spraying a product that has a blend of broad leaf weed control post emergent, isn't it okay? Thank you? All right, yep, thank you? Good luck up. You must have sandy soil, do you, David? I do? Yeah, very to dig in well nettle it loves sandy soils, and so do There's a type of flocks of pink flocks that loves

this kind of soucet. Well, they put out a flower that my wife loves like that. I hate it. But yeah, well, if it's true bull netal. Now one of them produces a big, old, fat white petal flower at the top. The other one produces cluster of little, small white flowers. Which which one are we dealing with here? Oh? Yeah, I got Well. I knew someone once at eight that eats bull netal seeds and he said they're very tasty. I leathered gloves and plyers.

I don't know what I would want to use to try to get seeds out of bull netal. But that's the whole nother thing. Hey, thanks for the call, appreciate it. You take care. You know. Another another option for your weed control is nitrophos weed and feed with trimec. It is a fifteen to five to ten. It's an immediate release. And I didn't mention this one just a second ago with David because he's already put down Nitrophoss's

quick release the imperial on the ground. So to come right back again and fertilize again, Well, yeah, I wouldn't double up on something that's immatia available like these. But if you need a green up, a spring green up, and you have broad leaf weeds in your yard. This will work. You put down a little bit of moisture on the surface to get the leaves wet. Just the surface of the leaves spread the trimech contained in this fifteen five ten out. It sticks to the leaves, it goes into the

plant. A couple of days later, you can really wash it off the plant by moving that fertilizer into the ground with a little irrigation. It doesn't need to sit a super long time, but that will work. And it's a nitroposs weed and feed fifteen five to ten. Now, I don't want to confuse you with these products. The Imperial just the plain spring green up product is in a red bag. This one is in a light blue bag, very light blue color bag. But you'll see on there it'll have the

trimec in it. And that's a very different kind of product. But it'll work and as a good time to do that as well. And you're going to find it at Fisher's Hardware in Baytown. You're going to find it at for example, Shades of Green Down in South Houston on Genoa Red Bluff. They're going to have it you can find it at Lake Hardware in Angleton. They also have it, and D and D Feed and Humbal too will carry this product. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back.

Nice little tune there on Saint Patrick's Day. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. We love talking about things that are of interest to you, that you enjoy in your garden. And you know, that's the cool thing about horticulture is there's so many plants. It's also for someone like myself and an extension horticulturists for thirty five years and now continuing on as a horticulturist after retirement. A little bit frustrating, because you know,

it's funny on Guardline when the phone rings. Someone could be asking me about their lawn. They could be asking me about a new variety of orchid that a they've encountered out there. They could be talking about how do you propagate a arborviety. I mean, you know, the questions are all over and horticultures all over it. You never learned it all. Someone once said, half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at. I'm becoming quite aware

of all the things I'm dumb at. The older you get, the more you realize, yeah, I didn't know as much as I thought I did when I was younger. That's a good good way to look at it. Southwest Fertilizer is a supplier of everything you can imagine needing for your lawn and guard. I mean they even have like a shop in the back where you can purchase equipment for taking care of your plants, lawn mowing and all that kind of stuff. But they also have a shop to fix all that.

To sharpen your morbiliders, by the way, get them sharp. A sharp mower blade is very important for having less strain on your mower, a cleaner cut, and a more attractive lawn overall, because you're truly slicing through the blades, not just bashing the ends of the blades off and you end up with a frayed surface surface. But when you think about Southwest Fertilizer, I usually think about that they have ever fertilizer under the sun, certainly all the

ones I recommend. They have every soil product under the sun. They have every insecticide, fungicide and herbicide to kill weeds. Everyone everything you hear me talk about is going to be a Southwest Fertilizer and a lot more options. They have knowledgeable staff that will point you to the product that works. That

is very very important to have. And you know something else about Southwest Fertilizer is when you go there, you know that when they direct you to something, they know what they're talking about and they are accurate in their diagnosis. And so you bring in a sample, you know, talk to Bob, talk to Aaron, talk to one of the staff there. They can point you to the right thing. Do you need tools, Yeah, they got

those two, I mean potting soils. You just name it. If you haven't been to Southwest, I don't care where you live, you ought to drive over there just to see this place. It truly is a one stop shop. It's on Bisonette Street, near the corner of Bisonett and Runwick in Southwest Houston. The website write this down Southwest Fertilizer dot com. Southwest Fertilizer dot com very important to know. We're gonna go out to Conro now and talk to Jimmy. Hello, Jimmy, Hello, how are you today?

I'm doing good? How'd you say, well, I'm doing good. How can we help today? I got a mold problem in the backyard. I was looking to treat those that Japanese beetle or those grubs, and I was wander with you would suggest to use Well, first of all, we don't have Japanese beetles down here, but we do have grubs and uh uh varmets from armadillas to you know, moles and things. They're gonna they're gonna feed

on insects in the soil as well. Uh you would need to use a insecticide that goes into the soil to kill the young larvae when they're growing. Now, well, to me, you're going to need to do this. Go to my website. It is gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com. If you look at that, there's two schedules. There's a lawn care schedule and then a lawn pest, disease and weed management schedule.

The second one has got insects, diseases and weeds on it. If you follow that schedule across from January, you will see that in June we treat for grubs in our in our lawns. Then now, okay, if you and there's it has a little number two by it, and if you go to the bottom and look at the insecticides, you can find the important information. But you also can see at the bottom treat if these pests are

found in turf. So not everybody in the listening area doesn't treat for grubs every year, but if you have a lot of grubs, that's when you treat for them. And it lists the products both organic and synthetic that your options there. Then we come back between July and August. If you missed some the grubs that you missed will be a little older, and you can

also use the same products to treat again at that time. But the products sometimes it's a little more difficult to control the grubs that have grown a little older. And down on the schedule at the bottom, it gives you the product to use in June and the product to use in July and August. All right, sounds good. Thanks a lot too early to treat for them now as the bottom line, all right, thank you appreciate that, Yes, sir, you as well. Grubs are a little bit tricky. You

know. It takes five to seven grubs per square foot to warrant treatment. Everybody has got grubs in their lawn. There's a grub here, there's a grub there. You know, you go out to dig up a new garden area and if you got a little grassy weeds out there, you're going to turn some grubs over. When you turn over the soil, grub being there is not the problem. When you get over five to seven grubs, then

they're eating enough grass to where they're really causing problems for your lawn. But you know, on the call from Jimmy, we're talking about the varmints that come in after the grubs. Well that's true, but know this too. I should have added this. Those barmits can go after earthworms and a lot of other things too in the soil. So just getting rid of the grubs may not in and of itself be you know, enough of a difference for

you. Have you been to Nelson Water Gardens out in Katie. If you go out to Katie on iten, you just look for the road is called Katie Fort Bend Road and you turn right, you go north and it's just a stone's throw up there. Nelsonwatergarden dot com. That's our website. You need to go now. They're Watergarden but they're also a nursery. They have a wonderful supply of They lots of beautiful shade loving foliage right now, like

kalladiums and different types of colias for example. There they have a good selection of urbs. But here here is their absolute specialty, and that is water gardens. That includes the tropical lilies that bloom in the watergarden. That includes the hardy lilies. They can go through the winter here and just and be just fine. The bloom in the garden. It includes a fish that go in those ponds. And it includes the fountains, the little waterfall fountains.

It includes the large disappearing fountains with a beautiful vase, you know, a glazed vase. They have all that and they go out and do work for you at your house. They'll come right out and do it. They'll get it all set up. You don't have to go through all the back breaking stuff of doing something. Nelson Watergardens now Nelsonwatergarden dot com. That's the website.

Go there. There, you find the phone number. There you find inspiring pictures, and there you'll find everything you need to get set up to make sure by this summer you have one heck of a show place. I'm gonna go now to North Houston and talk to Jason. Hello Jason, say good morge you men. How you doing well? I'm well, thank you Alrighty, just got a couple of questions for you, mainly around past management.

One of the biggest challenges I have is the spider might get known like some of my vegetables, and then also like these ant pals, Man, they just keep popping up, and it just like one of the biggest issues I'm trying to figure out is how do I get you know, how do I get rid of those in a natural way? We're not any using any chemicals or anything of that nature. All right, are the are you talking

about fire ants? Er, you're talking about just ants in general? Most cases it is fire ants, but ants in general would probably be something good to know as well. Yeah, you know every ant. The approach to some of these is going to be different. Like something that controls fire ants is probably not going to control some of the other answers. But in general answer not a problem. They don't in general, ants don't eat your plants. Fire answer a problem, But I'm separating them out. We'll talk about

them in just second. But other ants are very helpful. The only thing ants do that I don't like is they will actually take care of aphids so that they can get the honeydew from aphids. It's like a dairy farm. Maybe I'll have time later to talk about that, but so it's just fire ants for me that I worry about. I mean, there's leaf cutter ants, and there's carpenter ants that go into wood and weaken it. But what you're seeing on the ground is either fire ants or another small ant that's not

that bad. There's a product you have a pin or pencil handy, Yes, sir, I'm getting them together all right while you're getting it. This product is by Fertilo and it's called come and get it like your serving dog, Come and get it, and it's it's an organic bait. You sprinkle it around like it says to do. But fire ants aren't always out and active. So what I like you to do is get you like some potato

chips and toss them around the yard. Some people, you know, will put slices of a hot dog on a little one of those little ground flags wire flags that they used to mark lines, and then they'll come back in fifteen minutes. And if fireants had found it and they're on it, it's time debate. If they haven't hold off, they like oil, oily protein food. But that tells you when debate. And this in the summertime, they tend to not be out as much during the day as they are in

the cool times of the day. So that's your fyan situation. Spider mites, you can use blasts of water from underneath the leaves to just blast them off and keep them in bounds, or you can use an insecticyital soap spray the same application direction spring upward from under the plant, and that is you know soap. We give our bodies baths and soap. It's a very safe product, but not for spider mites or aphens. Copy that all right, thank you so much. You bet good luck. They're in North Houston.

It's fertilizer season, right, talk about microlife and microlife fertilizer products. They have fertilizers for everything. You know. For acid loving plants, do you have an azalea, Camellia guardina blueberry, they're red bag for our pickbag. Acid living plants does really well for that green bag for fertilizing your lawn. That's a six two four. And then the purple bag the hum mats plus,

and that's something you need to put out periodically. You're not putting it out to make the grass grow like the green bag would with the nitrogen to support a lot of new growth. You're putting it out to create better soil. It's humates, the final product of compost. It's compost that's been concentrated into a bag. Think of it that way you put it out and improves your sol structure. It also is a very good thing for the beneficial creat

critters. Thank you. That's easy for you to say beneficial critters. The microbes. They will just do that that are in the sid that help your plants thrive. That's the purple bag Microlife humates plus and I would do that too, not in place of fertilizing, but in addition to the fertilizing microlife fertilizer. Colm. You can find more information, and I think I just should stop talking and give it to you, Nikki, because I can't even

say my name right now. But we'll do that. Micro Life. I'm just going to practice life seventy one three r. If you want to give us a call. Here's NICKI welcome back to guarden Line on a beautiful Saint Patty's day. Oh my gosh, look outside, folks. If you've got one drop of gardening blood in you, this is a day for you. Got some sunshine out there, the clouds blowing out. It's just weather is pleasant too outside. Good day this afternoon. Get out there, get some

gardening done. Go by and pick up your supplies. We're talking about all kinds of things need to be done. Now. You got to be fertilizing, You got to be take care weed issues that you might have. It's time to plant a warm, seasoned crops still going full strong. Let's get them planted. If you want to have a vegetable garden or a vegetable growing in a container, it's important for that. So don't delay. Listen,

You delay and you're going to have problems. I know that when if you lived up north and you move down to Houston, you used to have plant You used to be planting tomatoes in April, and may probably don't do that here. You'll have tomato plants, but no tomatoes when it gets so blazing hot for so long get them in soon, get them in early. That

is very very important. And you know, if you're looking for flowers, if you're looking for plants, the sooner you get them in the better they're going to have a root system and get established and bloom, bloom, bloom up a storm for you. And that's what you want, right We want to get the best performance that we can for those of you living up in the Lake Conroe area or up in Montgomery. You've got a and a plants and produce right in your backyard, and they have a wide variety of things.

I mean, always have good color there. You're always having excellent color there. They are always going to provide you with all kinds of bling for your landscape. I mean, you know, do you need timinea for the back patio or are all kinds of other decorative things that you would put out in the landscape or around your outdoor sitting areas. They've got that. And then they have the fertilizers that I talk about here on guard Line. They do have that. They have a great supply of those, and you can

just make sure that we're taking care of that brown stuff. Like I always talk about the soil, so that the green stuff. Your plants look good. Always have a good supply, easy to get to, right on the side of one oh five on the east side of Montgomery. Those of you that live up live up at the lake, you may want to givem a call to have their landscape crew come out and do some early cleanup of your home around the Lake Conro area. They do that, Yes, they do

also do that as well. But go buy and see them, say hi. They generally keep my long cair schedule there at the front desk, so I would recommend that you asked them about that if you haven't already printed yourself up a copy. If you'd like to have us call today, our phone number is nine or seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four really easy, right, very

easy to dial in. Some people like to dial by letters, so seven one three two one two k t RH if you want to go that route, we can do that as well. The folks at Nelson's have a product called turf Star Weedinator. Another lawnline is called turf Star Right we donateor is a combination of a product that will kill the broad leaf weeds you have now and will also put a fertilizer in the ground to over time feed your lawn. It's a slow release, so the turf star weedonator. Here's what you

have to do. You want to wet the weeds leaves. You don't have to water your soiler. Just wet the leaves so the grain you'll stick to the leaves some. You put it out onto the turf with wet leaves so don't wet, and then five hours later go put it out. That leaves won't be wet anymore. Put it out, let it sit for a couple of days, and that after a day or two it'll be soaked in to the tissues of the weed. Then water and move it just enough, move

it down into the soil surface and that slow release fertilized. They have several so release chemistries that release nitrogen over time, and as it warms up and the microbes get active in things, certain chemistries will release the nutrients and you'll get two or three months of feeding out of this product in your lawn. It's a twenty percent nitrogen, which is a very good strong amount, but

it's not all going to get released at once. It's going to be released gradually over time, and turf Star weenaor is widely available also wherever you find the Nelson products that are sold. I want to go out now to Crosby and talk to Gerald. Hello, Gerald, good morning, how you doing. I'm well sir. How can we help today? Yeah? I know Randy always said you don't use the dyed mulch. So what do you recommend

to natural like theedar? Can you get cedar or what you can? Sometimes Landscaper's Pride has a maultch they call black velvet, and black velvet is not dyed. It's naturally that dark, and so if you want that look, black velvet would be your choice to make from Landscaper's Pride. You can go to Landscaper's Pride dot com. Their website, you can find all the places that sell it. You're up in the Crosby area. I can't tell you

off the top of my head who has it over in that region. The Landscaper's Pride can just go to their website and I think you'll be pleased with the look of it. And I agree with Randy. The dies it's just not a good thing, you know. I walked around Apollo died mulch the other day, and you know it, just like, why do you even do this? But anyway, to each his own, Okay, I have one more question, Yes, sir, is it okay if I put that that raised bed soil in my flower beds? Oh? Yes, absolutely,

it's actually excellent. I can't. I'll called the dirt place out here in Crowsby and they don't have composts, which I really wanted. But yees, so I thought I'd go with that raised bed stuff. You can do that. A raised bed mix will work just fine, you know I. I, yeah, I. You're going to get good results. So the main thing is that you're building the soil. And if you're building the soil, then you're going to have good results of plants. We always want to be

working to build the soil. You know, you're not that You're not too terribly far away from the heirloom soils up there in the Porter area and they've got a wide right, they're really quality soils and they'll truck it down and drop it off, or you can go pick it up there if you want. What was the name of that heirloom soils, Yeah, the one in Porter Airloom sols is the company. The product itself. H Warren's Rock and Mulch is in Porter, Texas, and there you can you can call them

and they can get you set up with deliveries in the bolt. Okay, all right, all right, well thank you much, you bet, thank you. I appreciate the call very very much. Okay, where are we going now? Let's see it is? Uh, let me do I tell you what. I'm going to hold off so I have time for you that are waiting on the calls. Here in Chanted Forest Nursery is an awesome place down in the Richmond area. Their website write this down Enchanted Forest, Richmond,

TX dot com. Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. They have a lot of good information online. But they're out there on FM twenty seven fifty nine. So if you're at Richmond going up to sugar Land, they're on the right handside on the left M twenty seven to fifty nine. This is a beautiful nursery and they have all kinds of it always looks good. I've never been there that it didn't look awesome. And my gosh,

it's spring. I can't imagine. If you like pollinator plants, they have a whole section of those super super vegetables, herbs, everything you can imagine. Just trust me on this one. Go visit Enchanted Forest. You will be very very impressed. I could sit here for an hour and not name everything that we have to that they have on hand as they carry it in Clay and Danny just experts at all kinds of things. They can guide you. You get good advice by people who know what they're talking about. I

find that to be very very important. So in Chanted Forest, Yeah, in Richmond, go by there and check them out, but mainly check out that website Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. That'll get you set up. You'll be able to look, you'll be able to see if there's a special on something going on, some event. Every Saturday, there's something going

on and Enchanted Forest out there in the Richmond area. And so for example, next Saturday, they're going to have garden Marcus out there talking about nurturing the garden within and they typically have a food truck out there too. So it just makes it fun. You know, go out, have a very very good time. We're going to take a break. I'll be right back. Well, when you hear bagpipes, what do you think, yeah,

that's right, it's Saint Patty's Day. Absolutely. You know, the fertilizers and things that we put on our turf, they provide nutrients and turf needs especially nitrogen. That's the number one. But phosphorus and potassium are important. But it really needs that nitrogen this summ of year to support good growth. And if you think about it, turf does not eat everything you put down on the first day you put it down. I eat is a not accurate

word, but you get what I'm talking about. It takes up new gradually over time, and some nutrients are released quickly and we have times for that. That's the early green up type thing. But as we go through the long growing season, we want nutrients that release slowly, and superturf by nitroposs does just that. Super turf is the silver bag and it will release the nutrients over time. The chemistries of the ingredients in it, some of them

the microbes will break them down and help with that release. So as the soil warms, that increases. But you get with super turf, you're going to get two or three months a fertilization benefit from that application. And you can do that now now is okay to go ahead and do that and start that process. Now, if you just did recently the spring green up like the Imperial, well don't do super Turf. Now, wait until sometime maybe

mid late April, and put it down at that time. Depending on when you put the Imperial down, I say about a month later, and then put that down and you're going to find really good results. And super Turf's widely available. One of these his ways to find. Nelson Brid's just got these hardware stores. They're all over the place and they carry Nelson products and it works really really well. But super Dark. The time for that is

for the whole summer season. We're going to start now. You'll make another application later on, but for now, that's the good way to begin, and it works super well. Let's go out to Waller, Texas and talk to Jim. Hey, Jim, good morning. How are you. I'm well, sir. How can we help today? Well, I have one side of my yard. It's about sixty foot by nine foot. It's bermuda grass. A house is about two years old. I know that's a lot

of clay, but it's become hard packed. The rest of the yard is fine, but this one side just seems to be kind of hard packed, and I was wondering if I could figure out a way to treat that as opposed to get machinery in there to do it. Machinery, Well, there's not There's some products that over a long time are going to benefit your soil structure and fix that. But you probably don't want to wait and develop over years that sol structure. It's good to do that anyway as a general practice,

but it's not going to fix it quick enough for you. You're going to have to use some sort of aeration. How big is this area? Would you say? Roughly? Very roughly? It's nine foot by sixty foot. Okay, I tell you what I would do. You can buy a little aerators to step on. They have like two little tubes and you step on them. And if you go through there and just take your time, do it when the soil is moderately moist and go through. You can punch

quite a few holes and just periodically do that. It's not a whole lot of work. You just have a handle and you step on it and push it down the ground. You can do a lot of that aeration yourself, and for that big of an area. You can get that done pretty quick actually, so that would be an option. I've myself in the yard. I've even taken like a spading fort and wiggled it down in the soil, just kind of moved it around a little bit to crack open a hole and

then done it again and again. Either way you want to go about it, you're physically creating a hole that composts can be dropped into. Nutrients like fertilizers will go down into, oxygen goes down into and I think all of that over time is going to be what you need to do. Compost top dressing is another part of helping that, and you can do that yourself in a small area like that. So the spike will work. Is that as good as the plug? No, it is much better to do core aeration.

But kind of going off your statement about not having to use equipment, that's where I went into the hand by hand doing it. That's a relatively small area. I know it's bigger than you want it to be for had work, but those are your options. Otherwise, having someone come in like Greenpro, they'll come in and do the job for you to do the they can do the Holy Yard and top rested too. But you can also rent. If you're a little small area like that may be good just to rent.

I know there are rentals. Unfortunately a lot of the rentals just push a whole open. I'd rather they take the core out. But if you can find one that takes the core out, that's better. Okay, Well, I appreciate it, Thank you very much, great day. Yeah, just remember Jim to add that compost because that's part of this process of improving the soil and fixing that over a long period of time. Appreciate your call. Thank you, Cinamlts. We're talking about compost, importance of it.

If you live down south of Houston, Cina, Maltz is your supplier for all kinds of quality compost materials. We're talking about stuff. They carry landscapers, pride, they carry airloom soils. They have all the fertilizers that I recommend. You can get Moltz. You can get compost, you can get bed mixes, you can get landscape stones. Uh, just on and on. They have it. And you know, I always say, take care of the brown stuff the soil before you worry about the green stuff. The

plants. Well they'll be the one that'll make your soil so good that your plants just naturally thrive better. They are at near north of Rosher near Highway six and two eighty eight on FM five point one. Here's the website. Just use the website. Sienna multch dot com makes it really easy. Cienamulch dot com. We're gonna go out to Tomball now and talk to Matt.

Hello, Matt, hey, scip I have a question about I'm trying to clear up some bermuda grass and then I'm going to plant New Saint Augustine side. So I was wondering if it's safe to use a grass and weed killer near a I planted a Sanfelive red maple about six weeks ago. Yes, and this'll be could I still you Is that gonna harm the tree? No? But when you use those products, you don't drench the soil with them. You barely with the foliage of the plant. That's all it takes to

work. Now, here's what you need to do. Though sometimes on young trees got thin bark, you may have a little shoot coming up or anything green. I would just to be extra safe, I would take some aluminum foil and just tear off a long strip, and they say the bottom three feet two or three feet of the trunk. Just put aluminum foil around it for the spraying, just to keep anything from getting on it. A normal tree trunk with old bark, it's not a problem, but let's just be

extra safe. Don't spray when the wind is blowing, because it'll blow the drift onto the foliage of desirable plants. And when I say wind blow, I mean even five over five miles an hour. That's that's too much. So early in the morning is usually a good time. And then finally, when you're gonna apply, don't pump up the sprayer too high pressure because that ends up creating a mist that floats away. Less pressure creates droplets that tend to stay in place, and it'll work fine for you. Okay, great,

thank you so much. Appreciate it all right, Matt, good luck up there in Tombo with that. When was the last time you were at the Anti g Rosenporium. I went just a couple of weeks ago, and I'm going to tell you the place was gorgeous, and the highways. You know, that's blueberry country, blueberry blue bonnet country, our state flower. Our state flower out there just explodes this time of the year. And their trails people, you can go on look it up, a blue bonnet trail

up through the Brenna Mary and all throughout their chapel hill and whatnot. It's just all on the way to go to Anti Rosenporium. When you get there, you're going to find everything you imagined. I mean antiq roses. Of course they for a long they ship all over the people from far away have them ship roses to them because they know how good Antique Rosenporium products are. They also have a nursery display garden where you can see everything from herbs,

houseplants, fruit, trees, flowers, and you name it. They always have good product projects going on out there, different events and things, so check out their website Antique Roseemporium dot com or give them a call nine seven nine eight three six five five four eight nine seven nine eight three six five five four eight. Next weekend they'll be doing a beneficial Insects presentation on March

twenty third at ten am. Then later that day at four pm they're going to have a gardening, a children in the garden activity that's all about Ladybugs. I'll leave it, the kids will leave and get to be part of a Ladybug release that's at four pm out there. If you want to look a little further out in the future, you know when Easter is blue bonnet season here, right, So they have their Easter egg hunt March thirtieth, various time frames for different age groups. I wonder if they have one from

my age group because I used to like to do that as well. They'll be posting stuff on their social media about it. Antik Rosenporium dot com nine seventy nine, eight three six, five, five four eight Take friends when you go. I'm serious, Really, this is an event. It's a special trip. We are so fortunate to have just like an hour but forty five minutes away from a lot of Houston. I mean that's not a drive

at all. Some of you even lessen that. Hey, next week and on Saturday, after the show, I am going to head over to Cyprus, Texas to the Barry Center. The Barry Center is on Barker Cypress Road and they have the annual seventeen ninual sci Fair Home and Outdoor Living show. It's free. Parking is free. You're not gonna be able to talk them down on those prices. Free admission, free parking. I'll be there giving a talk on gardening, and then I will answer your gardening questions about everything

you might happen. Given away free Nelson fertilizer products too, so you don't want to miss out. Hey, it's been a good weekend. I hope you've enjoyed it. Get out and garden this afternoon.