Start Those Seeds Now

Kat r H garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's crazy trip. Just watch him as us. So many good things to see that crazy not sorry, incredible good Sunday morning. Glad you got Yeah, I'm glad you're up. I hope you got a cup of coffee or something to help your eyelids open up. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and guess what. We're here to talk

about gardening. If you would like to give us a call, maybe ask a gardening question, here's the number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven to one three two one two five eight seven four. I don't know how many of you have actually are actually active on Facebook and follow garden Line on Facebook, but you should. We always posting different things on

there. A few days ago, a couple of days ago, I posted some stuff about what to do about the freeze after the freeze right, and not just protecting before, but what about after? Well. I gave a number of different steps and I'm going to go through some of those this morning, just to kick us off. You know, you you look at your plants and they look dead. Of course, a dorma plant kind of looks dead anyway, couldn't any leaves on it. So what do you do?

You? Number one? You assess the damage by scraping some spot on the stem. You can take your fringer nail, you can take a knife and scrape back the outer bark. And when I say a stem, i'm talking about you know, things that are the size of a pencil or even smaller. You can do that on a little larger branch too, size of one of your fingers. But the goal is to just get back behind that outer

brown bark and look just right underneath it. And if the branch is still alive, it's going to be a green to light green to creamy color underneath there. If the branch is dead, it's going to be papersack brown. It's pretty pretty clear and easy to tell. Sometimes it's a grayish brown color. Just depends on the plant. It takes a while on some plants to really show the full extent of the damage, and so I usually say wait a few days, let it warm up for a couple of days, and

then do that I've noticed already, though some plants I've checked. I was looking at some fireman's cap the other day and some others that are not that hardy, and they definitely took a major hit. So anyway, that tells you, tells you whether it's alive in that spot or not. And you can work your way back, going further and further back and see if you find some green. If you find some green, then stop there. If you're going to prune, prune out the dead, not the green. When

you cut off dead wood, it does nothing to stimulate growth. When you cut into green living tissues, pruning is a growth stimulating process. You begin to get bud break below it. Should we go into some nice mild weather, let's say it gets in the seventies and stays there for a few days, which it can do. Of course, you may start to get bud break, and then if we have another hard freeze, which is possible, that would be severely damaged, and you would just increase the damage you have.

So I try to get people to tolerate some ugly. That's right. If you can tolerate ugly, just wait before you cut things back. If it's a lower lying plant like a Mexican heather or perhaps some succulent growth on perennials that sort of melted down and turned a mush. That's a protective cover over the base of those plants. And a lot of plants can reach sprout from near the base. And so just if you can stand to look at

the ugly, just leave it. It's fine. If you have to print it out, then go ahead and throw some compost or mulch over it just to kind of protect it. If we have another hard freeze, that that little coating of mulch over the base of the crown, the base of the plant will help protect it until it gets through. And then if you want to pull that back as growth begins, you can do that. So those are a couple of steps. I'm going to get to some more here.

I want to continue to kind of walk through the different options as we go through assessing. So what I prefer to do on plants, and again, you got to tolerate a little ugly out there is let the plant tell you word of prone. Sometimes you know, one branch maybe die back further than others, and it's kind of hard to tell unless you just scrape the heck out of the plant all over the place right word to prone. But when new growth begins, you're going to see break wherever there's a living tissues.

And so when you do that, it tells you exactly where to print and you can go ahead and remove all the dead wood then because it'll be actively growing. Chances are by then we're kind of past the dangers primary danger of a hard freeze for sure, and it's just a better time to do that. So I like to let the plant tell me what to do. That's kind of the bottom line. Some plants are going to be slow to come

out. One of my favorite summer flowers is redbird of Paradise also called Pride of Barbadoes, and it doesn't want to wake up until it really warms up. It's going to be May even a little later before it's really wanting to grow. And so that one you may think, well, it's dead. No, just give it some time. It's going to come. It's probably going to come back from what we had, especially if you had it somewhat mulched around the base, it should come back. But anyway, that's just

a fact on that. Sago palms are also slow. Oh gosh, and we had our February twenty one freeze, there was segos. It was way into summer before we started to see some new growth on those plants. And so just be patient on certain kinds of sleepyheads like that before you go into it. Whenever you see fresh new growth on the plant showing it's coming out, it's going to need some extra nutrition and that's where you would jump in. If on the new growth you can do a folier spray. Something like

Microlife's Ocean Harvests or Medina Plus are both good for that seaweed. Both Medina and Microlife have a seaweed product that works very well on that new growth. And then I just drenched the soil with those first two Ocean Harvest and Medina Plus to strench the soil, let it soak into the soil, and take care of the roots because there's a nutrient and other things as well that are beneficial with the plant in those products. So then also consider a dry fertilizer

application. I like to use a term called scratched kind to try to figure out a way to describe how do you mix fertilizer into the soil. And when you have a bunch of roots. You're not going to spade it in. You're not going to chop it in because you damage roots. So just imagine like your fingers or one of those little hand tools. It has the essence of metal fingers out there, and you're just sort of scratching it into

the surface inch or two just something like that to work it in. Then water it in really well and that will give you an ongoing nutrient availability to the plants. And so that would be stuff we're doing as there's new growth coming out and we're supporting that new growth. Very very important to do that. So those are a few tips, and again that was that was off of Facebook. We post things all the time up there that can help guide

you. Also a few things that might entertain you as well. And if I'm going to be doing an appearance somewhere, there's other other programs activities going on we want to tell you about. It'll all be there on Goldline Facebook page, so I hope you will take advantage of that. We're going to take a break. Our phone number is seven one three two one two ninety eight seventy and I'll be right back. Welcome to garden Line. Good morning,

still dark outside. We're glad you're up. Glad you're listening to garden Line. If you got any gardening questions. Here's a number, by the way, if you try to dial the number I gave before break, I don't know who you ended up with. I was looking at one number and in saying the wrong one seven one three, two one two, five, eight seven four. If you will write that down, then no matter what number I say, you know where to go about that. That would work.

Seven one three, two one two five eight seven four are just k t RH. You can't go wrong with that. That's also another way to dial. Uh. Do you like dialand letters or do you prefer numbers. I'm curious. I prefer the number because I know right where it is. When I look at the letter, I have to go find that letter on the on the dial pad. I don't know that. That's not like a super hard thing to do, but it just I don't know. Just prefer

the numbers myself anyway. All right, So hopefully you got the right number. You can give us call. We can talk about what you want to talk about. One thing I like to talk about is is the songbirds in our landscape? I've told you before about some of the feeders that I have and some of the birds we attract and whatnot. It's just it adds another another element to gardening. And that element is not only beauty watching birds, but also the element of sound with their songs. And I think that's cool.

You know, gardening we think of a garden as visual, right you see flowers or whatever plants you're looking at in the landscape or a garden, and so that's visual. Gardening also has a textural standpoint to it. For example, the big bold leaves of an elephant ear, the fine lines of ornamental grasses. Gardening has a movement aspect to it, watching things wave in the breeze like an ornamental grass wood. There's a movement to the way things

are. And there's also sounds. If you've ever sat underneath a clump a large clump of bamboo, not the running bamboo. Don't blunt that one unless you've got a very good system to keep it from running, but a clump of bamboo, and listen to the breeze blow through the leaves. It sounds like a light rain falling. The leaves are kind of stiff and almost papery in a sense. And as they move around that you hear this sound of

a light rain. That's kind of cool. The sound of water in a garden or in a landscape or on a patio is a very soothing sound, and that is nice. The sound of songbirds is another and I think that that is just an element everybody ought to have a part of. Unfortunately, here in the Greater Housonary, we've got the wild Birds Unlimited stores, six of them around the area. They can get you fixed up on everything you need right now. Bluebirds or this is a time when they begin to get

out there. They're looking for a place to live, and if you have a house, they may decide, hey, that's where I want to be. They're certainly not going to stay if you don't. But bluebirds are beautiful little birds, and they also excellent it capturing the insects and things in our gardens. But bluebirds are just a wonderful, easy bird to enjoy. And bluebird houses need to go up. Now. Purple Martins. About February, we're going to start seeing Purple Martins arriving looking for a place to set up

shop. And if you don't have a purple Martin house and you want one, you need to get one. And wild Birds Unlimited has an incredible selection of all kinds of bird houses, bird feeders, and bird seed. In the wintertime, we really talk about the need for proteins and fats for our birds, and the winter super blend by Wildbirds provides just that. Wildbirds doesn't just put a sack out there and say here's bird seed, as if all birds all the time need every You need the same thing if you want to

attract certain kinds of birds. They have a variety not just of seeds, but things like suet and other things that attract the birds you want to attract in the season that you want to attract them with the kind of food that is best, most helpful for those birds. And I like that. I also like the fact that their seeds are not they're not wasted. A typical cheap bird seed can have over fifty percent of the little red bebes that birds

don't like to eat. That's a milo in there, and it's just not it doesn't make sense like you pay X dollars for a sack and if half of it or more is not something the birds are going to eat, you just paid twice that much for that bird seed, because if you look at what you actually got for birds, you see what I'm saying. Wilbirds isn't that way. They don't put that stuff in there, and they do have the specific blends for different groups and kinds of birds. And I would encourage

you to visit a wild bird store today. You know that today'd be a day to just get out in your yard, look around and say, hey, do I want to put a Martin house up? Where could it go? And so on. Go into Wilbert's, talk to them, let them guide you through it, and you will find a lot of inspiration, a lot of assistance to there. Wilbird's unlimited. If you want to find one, just go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU dot com forward slash Houston. We're going to go out to the phones now. In fact,

we're going to head to Katie and talk to Hank. Hello, Hank, good morning, sir. I have a question about I've got two live oaks. I want to put weed berrier around them, but they're about eight to ten feet from a pool. They don't seem to be a problem there, but I just wondered what the problem would be. There's not really a problem

with doing it. One thing about weed barriers is initially they're okay, and then over time, as you get decomposing organic matters and things like that on top, we'd seeds start to land, and now you got weed seed down the roots kind of sticking down into the barrier, and it becomes a little bit of a management issue. But you know, there's not something that's going to hurt your tree to put the weed barrier out there. What about putting

gravel or you know, one inch grave on top of it. You know, it's kind of the same thing whenever, Well, you can do that on top, but still you're gonna eventually there's gonna be weeds that start to appear, that the seeds fall into the top of it. And if you

like the aesthetics of the barrier with gravel on top, that's fine. The only thing is some live oaks roots brout really bad, especially ones that the seed sources are more like from central Texas and along the Gulf coast, and those things are sending up suckers everywhere around the base, and so they're kind of lifting up the cloth and if you have a little gravel on it. Sometimes it sort of falls off to the side and now you got barriers sticking

up through the gravel. But probably you don't have that kind of oak here posture. Thank you very much, all right, Hank, good luck with that. Appreciate that call. Yeah, live oaks are you know, they're really an amazing tree. I guess they say what familiarity breeds contempt sometimes, so we have a whole lot of something just planted everywhere. We sort of don't appreciate it as much. But if you think about it, Houston is basically a live oak forest. I mean it really is. Drive through town,

look around, there's just a lot of live oaks here. And there's a reason for that. Live oaks. When we went through the February twenty one freeze, very little damage. I saw a little bit up further north of here, but in general they're incredibly hearty. When we went through this past summer's drought, they're doing really well. Unless it was a very young

live oak that hadn't established roots, they do well. They're just resilient and they're beautiful and they cast a very dense shade, which for a gardener it can be a little bit of a problem because you know, you like to grow things underneath them, and the plant palette options under a live oakre are more limited just because of that dense shade. That's pretty much twelve months out of the year, except maybe a little during the transition of leaves in the

spring. But anyway, I think they're a great plant there, and again there's a reason that they're planted everywhere anyway. Kind of cool live oaks. For those of you out in the Kingwood area, you know, you've got two great garden centers. You've got Warrens and you've got Kingwood Garden Center out there, and they're both a great, great place to visit. Right now, they are stocked up on Microlife's three step freeze recovery system that includes that

Microlife Ocean harvest. By the way, the three steps is the ocean harvest, which is a drench that we're going to do that to get the plank as the plant begins to get going, and then they follow that. Excuse me with the green label bag. The sixty four we think of it is lawn fertilizer. It's really fertilizer for anything you want to use it on six four, and then then about a week later they'll do another durnch of the ocean harvest. That's the three step. Well Warrens in Kingwood, they let

me know they are stocked up on that and ready to go. So all of you who want to take care of your plants and help them out of the cool weather, we just went through the cold damage that would be. They still have frostcloth, by the way, and frost cloth if you take care of it, you can use it year after year after year, and that way when a freeze is forecast, you're not scrambling around trying to beat

the other gardeners to the supplies of frost cloth around the area. So no problem with going and habing it, folding it up, take care of it, get it out of the rain, you know, don't leave it out all year where it just sun and rain are on it, and it'll last for years for you. Also. Warrens, oh my gosh, they have a really nice little toasty area where they have all their houseplants and a great supply, great supply house plants looking for a good home. And I think

houseplants are something we need to be doing more of. And with all the new plants that are out there now, the new houseplants, a species and varieties. You should go take a look and just see some of the really

cool things that are on the market now, really nice well. Warrens and Kingwood both again out in the Kingwood area, easy to find, and I would encourage you to just go check them out and make sure that you are not only visiting periodically, but also subscribing to find out information, check the website, get the newsletters and things so that when new events come up,

you were the first to know. That's important. I love our mom and pop garden centers because so much of the time they're having different events out there. The things you can go to a class or a speaker coming out, a workshop. I know Warren's in the past had those container workshops where they show you how to combine a container. That was last last year they were doing. I bet they'll do that again someday. And that's just fun and

it helps you to create beautiful, beautiful things. Nice to have that kind of a garden center. And that's why we're always well, it's one of about ten reasons we're always bragging on our just an incredible amount of really cool mom and pop garden centers, north, south, east, west, Central here in Houston. No matter where you live, there's two or three you can get to and really enjoy. Well, you're listening to garden Line.

I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening questions. About to take a little break here for the news with Nikki. Our phone number, and I'm going to give you the right one this time. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We'll be back in just a moment, and when we come back, I want to tell you about some things going on here in the area that I think you might be interested in. Welcome back

to guard Line on a early, early on a Sunday morning. We're glad you hear. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and here is a number if you'd like to give us a call. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I have been talking about the freeze a lot and freeze recovery a lot. That seems to be what everybody's interested in right now, and for good reason. We just went through a pretty good one for this area. But this is the kind of thing that happens from time to

time. We just have to prepare for it and be ready for it. And I find that as you go through, you know, the year's gardening and becoming better and better at it, that as we learn, we just kind of figure out how to do things like what is the best way to protect our plants, take care of our plants? What's the best ones to plan here? How do we take care of them properly? That's that's all part of the deal, and that's what we're here about on Guarden Line.

We can provide you with the kind of guidance so that you can have a beautiful landscape, a bountiful garden, because that is one of the best hobbies. In fact, I'll just be biased and say the best hobby. But remember just because I'm biased, I don't mean I'm wrong. I'm happy to

be right and biased about that. Gardening is a wonderful hobby. I brag on gardening all the time because there are very few things where you can get the mental benefit, the peace of mind benefit, just the physical benefits and just overall well being that you can with an activity like getting out and enjoying plants and enjoying the garden. So there we go. That's what I think about it. If you are wanting to get out and do some planting in your beds, now's the time to do it. You know. I wouldn't

say this is last calf. No, we can plan any time of the year. But the sooner you get planting, the better off your plants are going to be when summer comes. That would be true, especially with tree shrubs with vines. But it's all also truth. Perennials, perennial grasses, getting them in. Now. Roses there's another one. Don't wait till Valentine's Day. Just go ahead and get the roses and get going. I mean, you can plant them on Valentine's Day, but you don't have to wait

until then to be able to plant roses. Our garden centers are stocking up on those things. They look good and when you do get a quality mix to put them in. That is the single most important indicator of success is soil that is in good shape for plant roots. It's as simple as that. So for example, Landscaper's Pride, they have a rose soil, a premium rose mix and it's got composted pine bark, it's got sphagnum moss in it. It's got a slow release fertilizer too, that's put in there,

it's going to take about three months to fully release those nutrients. So as your roses or whatever you plant it in and by the way, rose soil is for a lot of things, not just roses. Any kind of shrub

or tree or perennial can do well in that. But as you put it in there and those roots venture out, they're going to find that slow release fertilizer, and so Landscaper's Pride, you know, they're local, their top quality resources through here throughout the southeast and east part of the Unit of Texas. Just a really really they've been around for twenty years, since two thousand

and two, twenty seven different products. You can also buy bulk from them, by the way, if you want, But you go online to Landscaperspride dot com Landscaperspride dot com and you can find out where the stores are where you can purchase Landscaper's Pride products. And this is the time when if you're gonna do some planting, you need to get a good quality product to be able to do it. First, fix that bed and then go get you some roses and shrubs and things and get them in. Let's get those roots

going before it heats up so much. This is, by the way, they also have black velvet mulch. It's a composted mulch. It is not dyed. It is naturally very very that's why they call it black velvet. We hate dyed mulches here on garden Line, but this one is not a dyed multi it's naturally that color. And it's always a good idea to have mulch on the soil surface to protect the soil moderate temperatures as we just went through, and also to keep those weeds from taking over and becoming a problem.

I want to talk a little bit about vegetables for just a minute. We don't do a lot of that on guard Line, and I love growing healthy things to eat. By the way, there's another benefit of gardening, grow your own healthy food. But this is the time of year when we've kind of gotten We'll just say we're in the middle of the winter season, but we're really kind of late in the winter season, because you never know when spring's going to arrive here this far south. But I'm planting some broccoli.

I've got some kale. We've got lettuce. All the cool season greens can still be planted out in your garden. Carrots, you know. I guess you could get a little brave and start off with some radishes and things right now too. You'd be ready to cover them up. We have a good hard freeze. But those can all be planted inside the house. I've got eggplant and peppers and tomatoes that are growing in little cells underneath a quality

light, and they are going to be ready to go. When we get a little further along, I'll be putting those out in the garden, but I'm starting them inside for that head start. And one thing you need to remember is we have here in this area. The way I like to put it is we don't have a long growing season. We have two short growing

seasons. And that's partially inaccurate, but it makes a point. If you were to go up let's say, go up halfway up north in the country, Kentucky, somewhere in there Kansas, you've got a very long growing season. It gets hot in summer, but not as hot for as long, with nights that are also hot, so you can grow things that take a long time. Like a brandy wine tomato, for example, It takes about eighty days for that to come to harvest, and you have time to do

that in that zone. You go further north than Minnesota and what is the last snow melts? What in June first and it starts snowing again on September first. I'm joking, but you get the idea. They have a short

growing, shorter growing season. But down here we have this blasting inferno called summer, and so we have a spring season and we have a fall season for a lot of the things that we grow, like a cucumbers and tomatoes for example, And so we want things that move fast and we want to get them in early so that we can get the best harvest time we can out of them. Taking that brandy wine tomato as an example, it'll grow

here. And I mean if you plan a brandy wine that already has fruit on it because you've potted it up to about a one gallon pot over time and try to go out, you get some harvests, but you don't get as much then you get as many tomatoes as one that's faster that maybe matures in Oh, I don't know. Sixty five days or something along those lines. So we want to get a head start, and that's why we do it with transplants. It's also a plant a little bit early. Put a

cover over the plants to help them on cold nights. Those plants that are in your house that you're growing as transplants, they're living the life of Riley. I mean, you keep it really comfortable in there for them. When they go outside. It may be a seventy five degree day, but that night there's a little breeze and it's fifty eight degrees or fifty five degrees or whatever. The temperature even lower sometimes and that is a shock to them,

and so we have to give them some protection for that. But anybody can garden, and anybody can start transplants. There's all kinds of tools and supplies that will help, like seed starting mix and certain kinds of trays. Bego makes a really nice seed starting tray with clear domes that go over them. It just makes it real easy. You can do it in a dixie cup if you just want to grow a few, punch some holes in the bottom and get busy. I encourage you to try it. This year, we're

going to take another little break here. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four. I'll be right back. Welcome back to guard Line. We're glad you're listening in today. Hey, I was telling you earlier. I'll tell you about some things going on in the

area that I think you might be interested in. Next Friday, yep, Friday the twenty sixth, at the United Way Greater Houston, Downtown Houston from eighth in the morning to three point thirty is oba's annual Organic Science Day event. Organic Science Day Event, now what that is. It's a day full of learning from a lineup of speakers who are really leading experts in the green

industry. The author of the Teeming series, Jeff Loewenfelds. And by the Teeming series, I'm talking about teaming with bacteria, teeming with microbes, you know that that sort of thing. He has all kind of teaming nutrients. Another one excellent author. He's going to be their chance to meet him and get a book, a sign book. As a matter of fact, lots of other great speakers. Again, if you want to attend, you need to register, so go to OBA online dot org slash register. That's OHBA

online dot org slash register there, there's a couple of snack breaks. There's a meal in the thing, so you know you have to pay to be part of the program, but mainly what you're getting is just a full day of learning. I'm going to be there visiting with folks and enjoin the program as I always do. So I hope you can join us February or Friday, January twenty sixth from eight am to three thirty pm at United Way.

But remember, go register first so you're ready to go. Another thing that you need to know about if you are a vegetable gardener, if you're a vegetable producer, if you want to be a vegetable producer, the Fort Bend County Extension Office Agro Life Extension Office is having their thirty ninth annual Regional Vegetable Conference. Again a full day of learning. They're gonna have topics on bees

and honey production. There will be backyard gardening and alternative techniques or be building, soil growing, mushrooms, integrated pest management, a lot of different kinds of things. Now, if you want to go, what you need to do is register and to register, go to thirty ninth th Annual Vegetable Conference dot event Bright dot com thirty ninth Annual Vegetable Conference. Another way to do

it. Here's the phone number. It's probably easier. Two eight one six three three seven zero three three two eight one six three three seven zero three three. That is in for Ben County. It is at the Fort Ben County Fairgrounds, the Fort Ben County Fairgrounds. Uh. And it's out there just south of Rosenberg a little bit, just cross a highway fifteen nine from Rosenberg, so the Fort Ben County Fairgrounds on. By the way, I should tell you that February eighth, that is a Thursday. A lot of

our activities are on the weekends. This is a Thursday, and again it is going to be a lot of information, lots of good information eight am to three thirty pm with a lunch included. By the way, the registration, if you do it soon before the twenty six it's thirty bucks. If you wait until after or January twenty seventh or later, it's going to be forty bucks to attend that. No want to miss out on that for sure.

Talking about gardening this morning and growing transplants and getting those out there, making sure that you've got good, healthy transplants. If you've never grown vegetables before, try it. Try it. Here's something. If you're listening and you have never grown a vegetable garden, but you would like to grow something. Get a container that is about ten gallon, or it could be larger, but about ten gallons in size. Make sure it has holes in the

bottom. Fill it full of a quality mix for growing things, a quality mix, and then transplant a tomato into it. Put it in a sunny spot. Make sure you water it adequately. Now I've grown tomatoes in five gallon buckets with holes drilled in the bottom. The problem with that is tomatoes get pretty large and you got to water it a lot in order to keep the soil moist and keep it out of stress. So can it be done?

Yes, what I recommend it. I would recommend getting at least ten gallons if you're going to grow a tomato, and have it a little easier to manage, because those things dry out. You don't have to be watering them twice a day just to keep them going. But just as simple as that. You want to grow a pepper eggplant, you can do that. If you want to grow right now you want to to day go outside and

plant something. You can also do a container doesn't have to be as large as for a tomato, and sprinkle some lettuce seed on the surface, moisten the surface and let them sprout. Don't bury let us seed. It needs light to germinate, but try that. Get some spinach seed, plant those. You can cover those up just a little bit and help them get going, keep them moist Typically for seed, by the way, I will soak

it overnight. If it's something like, for example, Swiss charred and lettuce and okra sweet peas, things like that, I'll soak them overnight in warm water and that helps to start that swelling of the seed which initiates germination. You can just plant dry seed nature plant to dry seed and it gets wet on the ground and it begins to sprout. But if you want to speed it up a little bit, an overnight soaking and warm water would be a

good way to do that. By the way. Finally, now we are seeing we have seen a break from the drought and we're about to see a lot more rain. This week is going to be a doozy some lot of areas about four inches of rain is predicted. That is a lot. And what happens when it rains here, well, one thing that happens is the soil absorbs water, and our clay soils is Houston black clay. It swells up, it actually expands in size. When it gets dry, it shrinks.

That's why you get the big cracks in the backyard, large enough to lose a small toddler in in the backyard. But when it swells and shrinks, that wrecks havoc on our foundations. If you see cracks in your sheet rock, or cracks in your brick exterior on your home, if your sidewalks are buckling, or your driveway, call fix my Slab Foundation Repair. Ty Stricklan's been doing this since twenty ten, over twenty three years. Fix my Slab. Now. The nice thing about hiring Tie to do your work is

that it's going to be on time. In other words, he tells you and he shows up, and it's going to be a fair price. He prides himself on that, and he's going to fix it right. And those three are the main things you need. And that's what he provides on time,

fair price, and fixed right. Fix myslab dot com. It's a website fix myslab dot com, or you can just give him a call two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine two eight one two fy five forty nine forty nine for fix myslab dot com check check out around the house. Look, you're going to see this kind of thing because it's just part of what we live with here where we have the shrinking and swelling of our

soil. It's amazing how much power those kind of soil movements have. You see broken water lines down in Houston all the time in the summertime when it gets really dry and cracks that A really powerful force is soil when it's shrinking and when it's swelling back up. I was talking to you yesterday, you

know about this is the time to use some landscaping redos. Maybe you got plants that died from the freeze, plants that died from last summer's drought, and you want to redo it. Apes is your company to do that. And Jason Garrity and his team there at Peerscapes, they know what they're doing. They've been doing this since nineteen eighty eight. Peerscape has been around now two eight one three seven fifty sixty two, eight one three seven fifty sixty.

That's the phone number. The website is peerscapes dot com, and I encourage you to go there because when you go there, you're going to see pictures of the kind of work they can do. And it doesn't matter if you have a giant, beautiful home and you want the whole thing redone, or if you've just got a modest place and you just want some work on an irrigation system. Maybe you want some landscape lighting, maybe you'd like to add a water feature. I was talking about the beauty and the sound and

comfort of water in the backyard, back patio environment. They can do all of that. They can fix areas with poor drainage so you don't have standing water anymore. Pierscapes. Give them a call. It's time, because you need to get set up and you need to be ready to go when the time to get in there and get that work done arrives too. Eight one three seven fifty sixty. Well, we're going to take another break. I

hear the music. That means I have to shut up pretty quickly. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I want to remind you that if you are looking for good additional gardening information, I'm putting together a website. It's been up for a little while. We are really working on a lot of things right now to go up and enhance it. But what you

will find there right now is my lawn care schedule. So if you want to know from January to December, when I fertilized, what do I use? Organic and synthetic? What about trace minerals? If you want to know about aeration, mowing, proper mowing, guess there's such a thing as mowing right, watering right. It's all on there. And also my lawn pest disease and we'd management schedule again January through December, organic and synthetic, it's

all on there. E T r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to Casey r H Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's crazy Trim just watching as so many things to sets well. Welcome back to Garden Line. We are talking all kinds of things gardening. This morning, it's still dark outside. If you see your neighbor's lights are not on, you need to go bang on the door

and tell them they're missing garden Line. They will rise up and call you blessed. This morning, they'll rise up and call you something else, but eventually they will rise up and call you blessed and appreciation for you turning them on to garden Line. Hey, we got to have a little bit of fun here right I wanted to mention I was talking about growing some transplants inside a little bit earlier, and I'm going to be posting something to Facebook today,

the garden Line Facebook page. You need to be checking this out if you're interested in learning about growing transplants. And this is a like a I could say a course, but it's like a one hour lecture that covers all kinds of aspects of growing great transplants. I would recommend you take a look at it. If you're not interested right now, maybe book market for coming

back to later. But it's a training that I did online and it's part of a Gardening in the Gulf series we did as I was a horticulturist with agrolife extension, and it's called growing Great Transplants, and it gives you the tips for all of it, the soil, the lighting, the temperatures, taking care of them. Do you know that you're supposed to pet your transplants? You are. Here's why. Whenever in nature something gets stressed, it can get stronger. For example, you go to the gym, you work

out, You wear your muscles out, and they get stronger. Give them time to recover and they bounce back, and then do it again, and do it again, and do it again, and you just build and build and build your muscles. When a tree trunk is out there in the wind, a young tree, and that wind is moving the trunk and bending it a little bit like it, that would happen. Those trunk tissues literally get stronger. The same thing happens with transplants. Have you ever grown little tomato

seedlings and they're spin ly and thin and they just break so easily. Growing in still air, that's gonna happen. Growing in low light, that's going to happen too. So what we do is what I do. I go over in my transplants. I need to talk to them every day anyway, right, go over there a couple times a day and just take my fingers and just kind of brush through them. People. Sometimes people use your hand

or a pencil over the top. Some people set up a little oscillating fan to go back and forth, and each time it does so, it moves the plant a little bit and the stem gets stockier, stronger. That is just a fact of nature that that kind of effect has had when we when we do that to our transpants. One little tip there that's also in the training. By the way, growing Great Transplants. Look at Facebook and we're

going to have it up there. I'm also going to be adding it to the website this week for those of you who want to do seeds starting or won a book market for future seed starting. Let's head out to the phones now. By the way, our number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're going to talk to Tammy and Tomball. Hey, Tammy, let's see. Let me try again. Now do we have toil? Hey? There we go. Hi, Sorry I didn't have you

the first round. Oh, good morning. Hi. My question regards read using potting soil for tomatoes and peppers. I know in the garden you're supposed to move them around. How does that work with potting soil? You can reuse potting soil. The times when I would not reuse it is if the plant that was growing before had some sort of a disease, especially a root type disease, then because then you would be reintroducing that to the new planting

you're putting in. But otherwise you can redo it. I use mine all the time. As you notice in your pots, after a year or two, the potting level sinks down because that potting soilt is continuing to compost away, and so I will take it out and mix it with fresh new potting soil to extend it a little bit. But there's not a problem with reusing it other than the disease issue. Okay, awesome, thank you. Yeah.

The one time I probably wouldn't do that, Temmy is with seedlings, like if I had some potting soil outside and then bringing it in to start seeds. In seedling environment is very warm, very humid, and it's a disease heaven, and so there could be spores and things out there that that would be a problem for all right, Okay, thank you, Yes, thank you. That's a that's a good question. That tammy head right there there. There is a way to pasteurize old potting soil or old potting mixes.

Uh. Some people will do that, you know, they bring in composts and they're going to mix it into a potting mix. And in general, yes, you can do that. Nature plants seeds in rotting composting materials and doesn't You don't have to worry about sterilizing the forest floor. So a seed can come up, right. But in that environment where we start seeds, we can have things called damping off. And that basically is your seeds come up and they just fall over and rode at the base. Uh.

And that's called damping off. And it's due to rise actni epipium. There's different disease organisms that will do that. What you can do for those of you who care to do this, most people are going to say, I'm gonna do that, But if you want to, you can put potting soil that you want to make sure is let's say, cleaned up, no bad stuff in it. Put it in a turkey bag. Remember those bags. Slip a turkey and a bake in the oven. They can take the heat.

Well. Take moist potting soil it needs to not be dry, moist and put it in a turkey bag. Set it in a big long like brownie dish or something large like that. Poke a few holes in it. That's important, suffer air to escape, just a few little holes, and then put it in the oven. I don't have the temperature at the top of my head. Maybe I should post that too, But anyway, you take it up to a certain temperature. I think it's about one eighty, but I'm not sure on that one. Anyway, if you don't heat it

hot enough, it won't kill anything. If you heat it too hot, it will run you out of the kitchen and your house will smell horrible when you overheat that stuff. So be very careful with it. But you heat it up to a certain temperature for a certain amount of times, not very long, and that reaches that temperature that kills the bad stuff, and it would be like a pasteurization type thing, not a complete sterilization hopefully. But anyway, then when it cools off, you can reuse it. Some people

will go through that trouble. I would just say, get some nice, fresh new potting soil. It's probably the best thing to do if you have concerns over disease and whatnot. But that is an option that you can do. Let's see here we are. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We love to talk about our feed stores here on garden Line and League City feed down in the League City area is just a great place.

It's one of those old time feed stores where you get person service to carry the bags out for you. The Thunderbergs have been running League City Feeds since what their grandfather built it forty years ago, and now Wes and Madison's sister, they are basically running the place and it's I love going in there. When you go in there, you're going to find all the fertilizers that I recommend on Guardenline. You're going to find the pesticides, herbicides, bunge sides,

things like that. Of course, you're going to find premium pet food, quality pet food. They're going to be supplies for all your backyard chicken needs. And it's a feed store, right, you get the idea. But when you when you go in there, you're going to have everything you need to have a successful garden in terms of fertilizers and pest management. And the phone number is two eight one three three two sixteen twelve two eight one

three three two sixteen twelve. They're open money through Saturday nine to six pm nine am six pm and they're on Highway three, just a few blocks out of ninety six. So if you live in Santa Fe, Clare Lake, Webster Baycliff, San Leone, O, Kamina Reality, that whole area, League City Feed is your hometown feed store. We're going to take a break right now and we'll be right back. Welcome back to garden Line. We're glad you're listening this morning. Hey, here's a phone number, give us

a call. We can talk about whatever your questions are regarding gardening. We want you to have success. Just dolls seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, seven to one three two one two five eight seven four and we can talk about the things that interest you speaking of and we can talk. I'm going to be heading out to the at to Fort Benk County next Saturday. You know, we do the garden Line show here until ten am, and I'll jump in a car next Saturday, twenty seventh and

head to the Fort Bend Epicenter for the Brasses Home and Garden Show. The Brasses Home and Garden Show is a great opportunity to get out and see a lot of cool products. And I'll be giving a talk on plant tips for spring, dealing with coming out of the freeze thing, just all kinds of things. I'll be answering your questions too. By the way, I'm gonna set up at a little table there, and just as you come by, let's meet. Bring me some samples of plants or bugs or questions that you

might have. If you got photos, check them, make sure they're in sharp focus so I can help with them, and then bring them by. We'll take a look and we will help. And whatever kinds of questions you have, vegetables and herbs and flowers and lawns and trees and planting landscapes, you know what might be a good plant for this area, all those kind of things. Again, that's a Brasses Home and Garden Show next Saturday. I'll be there from about eleven eleven thirty for about two hours. They're at

the show, so I hope you'll come by. I always like to meet and visit with folks that listen to Garden Line. That's an opportunity. All right, I have a garden line quiz. It's the same quiz almost all the time. That is, what is the most important thing you do have success with plants of any kind. The answer is if you said, improve the soil. First comes brown stuff, then comes green stuff, ding, ding, ding, winter winter chicken dinner. You got it. That's right.

And Heirloom Soils has a variety of different cool soil mixes that just work very well. I like their Heirloom Soils rose soil. I like the veg and herb mix. In fact, I just just about to fill one of my vego beds with some veg and herbmex here coming up soon when I can actually get back and do work at my house instead of talking to you about what's going on at your house. They also have lead mold compost. Now,

these are all available in bags all over town. If you are trying to help a plant that's recuperating from the cold, they would suggest, for example, that you take some of those products like the vegiane ner, mix the heirloom rose soil and mix it in real carefully around the plant, all through that area. Just gently mix it all in around that area. Maybe mix it. A little of the MICROLFE sixty four is with it as well.

They've had good success with that as well, of course, and then watered in really well, and as that plant begins to send out fresh new roots, it's got a really nutritious soil mix to be able to survive, and not just survive, but thrive. That's most important. The beneficial endo and ectomycurza in the heirloom sols mixes is just an extra boost. You know. That's part of nature. That's how nature takes organic matter and turns it

in to stuff that's rocket fuel for plants. It's the endo and ectomycroiza and other microbes that are out there, and you're going to boost that when you put down a quality mix like the airloom cells Rose or airroom cells Veggie and Herb, or even their leaf mold compost by the way, airlom cells. Folks, if anybody's listening, you knocked it out of the park on the new bag of leaf mold compost. I mean that just pops. I love

that new design really clear. I mean halfway across the store looking up you can see what that is and after and it's a super super quality product. We're going to head out to Parland now and talk to Kay. Good morning, Ka, Good morning. How are you doing this morning? I do. I'm doing well. K. I'm inside and I'm not freezing to death, so all is well me too. You may have already addressed this. I don't know. I overslept and I've just been up about fifteen minutes,

so I missed the first part. But I was wondering about how long can you keep plants covered because I don't know what are we going to get another freeze spell? I know they need to have fresh air and so forth, but I didn't know how long. Well, it's you're not supposed to in pairline there, you're not supposed to get another freeze, you know. If it's not so much the air that they get, it's just getting back to

the sunlight again. Sunlight helps the plants make carbohydrates, carbohydrates or sugars. They're like anti freeze for the plant. So far to support growth, to support health, you can't leave them in the dark too long, So I'd go ahead and pull the covers over. I mean, if we're gonna have it, doesn't hurt to leave them on a few days. If you need to but I would pull them off as soon as you can, and I think now is as soon as you is. Fine. Okay, very good,

Thanks so much. You have a great day, all right, you two, Kate, you take care. Yeah, go ahead and get those covers off. You know, it's just we're gonna have some chilly nights, but we're not gonna we're not gonna be looking at the free stuff like we just went through. That's a good thing. That's a very very good thing.

Uh. You probably you know, when you go out and you're you're trying to cover and protect your plants and take care of them, you probably think, Okay, what maybe I just need to plant things that don't freeze. Well you can do that, but let me let me just offer my perspective on some of these kinds of things. And this includes the heat and drought from last summer, and includes the really good hard coal snap we just

went through. Gardening is a process, and gardens and landscapes evolve the idea that you're gonna you know, you buy a house, you put in a landscape, and you're set to go for the next twenty years. I wouldn't think that way. You can plant things that are like that. They don't freeze, they don't have drought heart problems, but there's a moderate amount of water. But that's a rather boring landscape. I like to change things out. You know, containers on the patio with color, that's a great thing.

Well, you're changing those out all the time. So if you have a plant that gets too large, it needs to be cut way back or replaced with something that gets smaller. As plant breeders keep coming up with better options, maybe it's a plant that is more compact so more people can use it. You don't have to have this giant space for it to swallow up. You need to do that when it comes to plants that die from a freezer drought, get out there, pull them up, and plan something else

in that spot. It's part of the transitions of nature and in nature, but it's also part of gardening and landscaping, and I personally, I think that's a lot of fun. Now. I wouldn't want to have to replace a bunch of very expensive shrubs every year, of course, but some transition is okay, and just you know, occasionally you just lose something. I just had a patch of strawberries. I got through the first freeze. I left town forgot to cover them up for a left and when I come back,

I'm going to have some problems. The second freeze where I live was a little bit a little bit too cold to that. Probably lost lost the initial crop, but I'll get more. But that's just part of the deal. It's okay, don't be discouraged. Just enjoy. Just enjoy. That's important. You know, we just came through that freeze and a lot of you are out there transitioning your plants, and I've talked about products and things and how we help them come back out of the freeze. Well, Ice

Hardware has got you set up on all of that. For example, do you need a new set of prunters loppers for example, a saw, a pruning saw. Do you need some of the products for fertilizing for the sole amendment products that we talk about in bags, Ace has got that. Did you have some pipe damage during the cold, Well they can get you set up on that. Any kind of plumbing repair part, they've got it. Insulation for your pipes, by the way, going forward, they've got it.

Why not have some of that on hand so next year when you have issues, you're good to go the little covers that go over your outdoor faucets. For example, do you need repair on your sprinklers? You know, people came over to visit and they as they backed out of the driveway, they kind of cut the corner ran over that sprinkler right at the edge of the grass and driveway. And you'll know it when you turn it on the first time and you get a guyser there. Just go to ACE. They've

got the products you need to fix it. Ace is a place for that. Also, you can find ACE Hardware is all over Houston. Go to Ace hardware dot com and look for the store locator and find one of the forty Ace Hardware is near you. In fact, you're going to find three or four that aren't too far away. Cool thing for the ACE Hardware discussing plants and plants starting don't forget. I'm going to put that on Facebook. I'm going to put the link up for It's about a one hour lecture on

all aspects of starting seed. Lots of good pictures and it's me doing it on the on a website and I'll put a link to that up on Facebook. I would encourage you know, you may go one hour. Well, that's fine, you bookmarket if you don't want to watch it now, but

the next time you want to learn how to garden. This is like a gardening seminar in your living room, okay, And it'll tell you all aspects of how to plant seed, how to take care of seed, how to have success, the kind of lighting that it takes, and why that's important, and on and on and on down the line. So be looking for that on our Facebook page. If you don't join us, if you don't follow us on Facebook, please do because there's always good information that's popping up

that we're putting on to our Facebook page. Important. I think learning is important. What do they say that what I can't remember how they put it, but basically what it amounts to is if you've got you know, if you're if you're cutting down a forest, if you're a lumberjack or whatever, you got to stop every now and then and sharpen the saw because at some point the saw gets dull and you're just not getting the job done well.

The same is true with gardening and learning. You got to sharpen the gardener. In terms of sharper I know more, I know how to do things more I've learned about new issues that are going on. The gardening is a learning process. That's one of the things that makes gardening keep us young. Nikki just came in here. We're about to do the news, Nikki. Gardening keeps us young. It does even your house plants. It's a fountain

of youth. Absolutely, so quit looking for some water somewhere from the gardening is a fountain of you, it really is. It brings hope every season. I mean, you look out and it's bleak. There's gonna be bulbs coming out of the ground. In blooming, there's gonna be seeds, and it's my best garden always is the next one that I'm gonna s Yes, that's the way I like to look at it. Well, it's a chance for you to get out and exercise without doing anything strenuous. But you are

moving. You're moving a whole lot of muscles, You're getting the sunshine, the benefits of that. So lots of reasons, lots and lots of benefits. Yeah, even now sitting in offices, say hey, get up and walk around every few minutes exactly. Well, gardening is that on steroids? All right, we're gonna take a break seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I'll be right back. Well, come back to garden line. We are talking about all kinds of things timely regarding your garden.

Here on guarden that's what we do, you know, kind of give you the idea of what what should we be doing? Now, how do we do it? If you've got any questions you'd like to ask of me seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two k t r H. That's another way to go about it. We'd be glad to visit with you about the things that are of interest to you.

I was talking earlier. We were mentioning the the airlom soils, and I'm saying that they were, you know, suggesting like a sixty four, a Microlife sixty four to put in there and mix in with it. It's a it's a great product. Microlife has a number of great products. As a matter of fact, right now, you know, the focus is on the freeze recovery, and that's the three step that they recommend would be the Microlife Ocean harvest. It's a four to two three fish based fertilizer as a drench

over the plant. I would say also as new growth comes, spray it on as a folier feed. It's not going to burn. It's not salt based. It'll be just fine. Uh. And then follow that with their sixty four, the green bag that we normally think of as lawn fertilizer. But I'm telling you the sixty four is a general use good for a lot of different things, including just helping plants get off to a boost. It's got a little higher nitrogen level that first number. That supports the vigor and

the growth and nice green growth. And then following that about a week later with the ocean harvest again as a drenched the four two three the liquid and that's just a one two three easy if you're planting, why not the ultimate that's the blue bag Microlife Ultimate. You can again mix that in the soil. Normally I would say, do not put fertilizer in a planting hole. Well, this is not a salt base. Not going to be a problem with that. Anything that's going to release slowly, it is not going to

burn like that. So Microlife eight to four can be mixed in to the soil around the plants, and then as the roots go out, they'll just encounter it pretty quickly. Actually, the new roots will begin to grow even before the top has a lot of growth going on because roots can grow and temperatures when the soil is like fifty to fifty five degrees, you're going to get some root growth there. And that's pretty much all season long in our

location. Now, you can find microlife all over town. But if you want to, if you want to look for local places, just go to microlifefertilizer dot com and you can find out specific places that have the microlife fertilizer available. I want to mention that reminds me too, want to tink a microphone. Think about the the OVA Organic Science Day event. Now, the Organic Science Day event is Friday, January twenty sixth. It is from eight am to three thirty pm. What is this event, Well, it's a

day full of lectures by professionals in the horticulture Injoy. Some of the best professionals and experts in the green industry will be there. Now Jeff Loenfels, he's the author of a number of books. We call it the Teeming series is Teaming with micros, Teaming with nutrients, Teaming with fungi, They're all really interesting. If you want to nerd out on soil, this is some pretty cool stuff. There'll be many other great speakers through the course of the

day. You have to go online register. There will be serving a meal. There's a charge for this if you're a non member of Microlife a Microlife of Oba Organic Horticulture Benefits alliance. It is one hundred and twenty five bucks for the day, but that includes again speakers. You're just not going to get elsewhere a couple of breaks to get a nice meal in the middle of it. So I would recommend you check it out Oba online dot org,

ohbaonline dot org, Forward slash register. I'm going to be hanging out there. I always like to meet gardeners and things, and this is a great place to meet a lot of the leaders in the industry as well. So I hope you'll consider joining us this Friday. That's just right around the corner if you would 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. Talking about seed starting this morning, talking about freeze recovery. This morning, we're getting into the season pretty quick here where we're going to be talking a lot about lawns. And when you consider the things we do to our lawns, of course, we've got we fertilize, we may have insect control, we may have disease control, we may have weed prevention, we may be killing existing weeds. All of the above you're going

to find on my schedules online. My website is Gardening with Skip dot com. So when you hear me on guardline, I'm talking about these schedules. That's where you get them. Gardening with Skip dot Com. And there's a fertilizing schedule, and there is the weed disease or pest disease and weed management schedule. You can print these out. You can stick them on their refrigerator if you like, and you got them there and you can just kind of look, oh, it's mid March. What should I be doing now?

What should I be looking for right now? It's all on the schedule. If you want synthetic options or if you want organic options, they're all there on the schedules. Makes it really really easy. You can bookmark them and go back and check them. I just say, just print one out if you're going to go in and maybe you want to purchase a product for some disease pastor weed management. You just pronount and take in the store with you and go down the bottom and say, I want one of these right here?

Do you got this? And that way you don't have to remember what the name of it is. It's all right there on the schedule to make it really really easy for you. I was out visiting Plants for All Seasons not too long ago, visiting the sherry out there and just talking about the season and the season we've been through and the season coming up and things, and if Plants for All Seasons is always something new going on. Right now,

we are just on the edge of spring. We're just trying to figure out, you know, what is it going to quit freezing to get those tomatoes going and other things like that. And they are set up. They're going to be trucks lined up a mile long bringing all kinds of plants in there. Probably already some deliveries have started. But Plants for All Seasons is a great place to get plants that belong here, tents that grow here, from a family that's been here a long time in this business. You know,

they celebrated their fiftieth anniversary. Just recently been doing this since nineteen seventy three now, the Flowerty family. The thing I like about the business they've created there is not only do you get plants that grow here, but you get people that know here, They know what it is to garden here, and you get good advice. You can take them a sample, you can take them a picture. You can walk in with a question and say, look at this. I've got this area here. It seems like every time

I plant something there it just doesn't get enough sunlight. What what would be good there? That would you fill in the blank. They can do that for you and they won't steer you wrong. Plants for all seasons. Dot com that's the website, or just give them a call. Two eight one three seven six one six four six two eight one three seven six one six four six. By the way, if you haven't been there before, they're

on Highway two forty nine. As you're heading from Houston up towards tumbul direction, just you exit for Lueta and just cross over Luetta and they're right there, not too far on the right. Get your grown, get your green on is how they like to say it at Plants for All Seasons dot com. A little bit of happy music for a Sunday morning. Welcome back to garden Line. Let's talk about what you are interested in regarding your plants. Uh. I like to kind of in my mind, I sort of go

through the yard and think about, Okay, what's what's in front. There's the lawn, the shrubs, the trees, the flower beds, and then there's a garden and vegetable garden and all of that, and just talk about things we do in all of those areas. One big thing is our trees. Trees are the most valuable part of your landscape. They they make the most. Uh, they add most to the value of your home. Number one to have big beautiful trees. Are beautiful blooming trees as well, very

valuable for that. They're valuable for the sense of shade. You know, there's this thing called summer down here in the South, and it can be rough, and trees that provide shade make it more habitable to be outside. There are also trees that shade or location of the tree may shade your house or a western wall. I've got a western brick wall in my house, and I was surprised. I walked by one day and I literally could feel

the heat coming off that wall. I mean I was walking about two feet away from the wall, and it was like there was a fire burning over there, and just the radiant heat hitting my face. It was just I put my hand on the wall. I was like, Wow, that's hot and interesting. I went in that room that evening, sunny gone down a

good while. I mean it had been down for probably an hour, and I put my hand on the sheet rock of that wall, and I could feel the heat still, the warmth from that wall radiating into the house. Now, guess who got to pay for the air conditioning to cool that room off? Me? What about a tree that would shade a wall like that? What about a vine that would shade a wall like that? You know, we talk about energy efficiency, we talk about saving on our utility bills.

Plants can do that for you, and trees can do that for you. Trees are very very important, and you need to choose them carefully and wisely. You want a tree that's going to do what you want it to do and keep living fast, grow fast, die young. Remember that, grow fast, die young, or fall apart young. Trees that are not long term or just trash trees, and we don't need that. We need

something that lasts and then we need to take care of them. That's one of the reasons why I'm always sending people to Martin spoon Moore an affordable tree. Martin's been doing this for a long time. He knows, he knows what he's doing, over thirty years now in the business, and as a result, people line up to get Martin to come out and do their work. That's why I would say, if you're thinking about any tree work, or if you need your trees looked out, go ahead and get on the

schedule now, don't delay. We're in the big peak of tree pruning season right now on one three six nine, twenty six sixty three seven one three six nine nine two six six three or go to the website. This is easy. Hope you got a pin afftree service dot com, aff tree Service dot com. Tell him you're a guardline listener and that'll get you the front of the line because a lot of people want Martin to come out and do the work for him because of the kind of work he does. But this

is the time to get on get on the line. And get a hold of them and make sure they come out and check things. If you're going to do anything around your trees, maybe you're going to put in a sidewalk or a patio or a driveway, or maybe you're going to do some trenching to run a water line or a power line or something. Call Martin first, have him come out. Once the damage is done. There's not a

whole lot that they can do to help the tree. Once you've cut all the roots off one side of the tree, for example, call him first for a consultation. Or if you're going to plant a tree, call him to come out and what would you recommend here. Listen, this is a long, long, long term investment worth a lot for your home. Don't just shoot from the HILP. Get an expert that knows what they're talking about.

We're going to head out the phones now again the number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four, and we're going to talk to Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn, Hey, I was reminded yesterday when the lady called in about her amarillis that I need to ask you. Last year I bought a waxed amarillis from Brookwood and it still has a leaf coming up. Should I now break that wax and plants plant the bulb? Oh? You, Oh, it'd be too late. You can You can do that if you

want. And no, it's not too late to plant. I think if you've waited this long, I I might a couple of options. You could get us started inside and some soil, or you could go ahead and put it out. Amarillas are fairly hardy, and most of the time we get away with them. Here there's one type that's quite hardy. But uh, and I'm just thinking about setting it out. We get around another hard freeze as it begins to try to grow, But I think that'll still be fine.

Just be ready to throw a bunch of mult over it when you put it in the ground. But it's always it's always good. Went in doubt. Just get those bulbs out there and get them in the ground, and okay, let them get Yeah. I don't have a lot of options for where I plant it. Okay, Well, does it require full sun or do it towel race some shade? Actually, I like to put them in a deciduous shade, so in the wintertime sunshines through and in the summertime.

They have some shade, a nice bright shade, but some shade, and they'll okay, they'll do that. Yeah, I have a live oak, so if if I plan it, say twenty feet away, it'll have shame, but it'll still get some sun. Yeah, some son. Ideally, if you could do morning sun, that'd be good. But you know, just try it out, see how it does. It's gonna survive. And if you just don't get the performance, the blooming out of it, you

can always try moving it somewhere doing something a little bit different. Okay, great, And I wish you had another hour for your program because I really enjoy it. Well, that's kind of you know, we go to ten am, so we got four hour. Yeah, but i'd like you to go to eleven. I'll tell you what. I'm gonna call you on Saturday and Sunday mornings when I actually get up, start to get ready to come over here, and we'll see how you like that extra hour. Thank you,

Carolyn, that's sweetie to say that. I appreciate very much. Good Luckily, you're good lucky boy. Oh my goodness. Let's go to Spring and we're going to talk to Chris. Hello, Chris Nip, how are you today? I'm well, thanks very well. Hey, I just we just had a lot of paperwork done in our backyard over a thousand feet and there's a lot of dry cutting going on, and there's a pretty good coating

of his paper dust all over the lawn and the shrubs and beds. Do I need to do anything as far as any offsetting of treatments or just let it soak in and not worry about it. I wouldn't worry about it. If it's a it's a If it's a drifted dust from some paper cutting, I think you'd be fine. I don't think there's a practical way to worry about it. I don't you got it? You gotta clay in there. I'm trying to think of what else might be in pavers. I'm not sure

about how those get made. I know it's a fired clay product, but no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't worry about it. Okay, all right, A really quick second question if you got to say, sure, are you familiar with a something called a root quencher or O T q U E N C H E R No, what does it do? It's a product Mada it's from California, but it's a it's a true that you are going to the ground and then allows you to deeproot your trees on a regular basis

just by pouring water into those tubes. Yeah, I wouldn't do that. Here's why nature waters from the top down. That's how trees everywhere, that's how they grow. They get water. It soaks down from the top. Now, in drought conditions, you can make a case for hiring someone to come in and do a deeper watering where they put water down in the sew. But they're poking that thing in all over the place. They're wetting a

large volume of soil. And you know, one or even three or five of those tubes down in the ground is just not going to make It's not going to support it. And I know you would think, well, the roots will gather there, that's dependable water, but it just it doesn't work. It doesn't work that way. Okay, Okay, Well I appreciate that because I've been looking at it as wells tree rings, so like you're still ring fan, Yeah, tree ring's fine. Now we're talking about a brand

new tree or are we talking about an established tree? Are established Okay, yeah, I wouldn't worry about that. You know, when I was originally when I came out with my master's in horticulture, I was a fruit specialist.

That was my focus. And with peach trees, we would start off with drip irrigation and that just what's a spot that gets a little bigger, but it's a spot right shape, like a turnip underground typically, and you'd put three to two drips, and then four drips and then six and at some point that tree's root system is so wide that you can't give the tree

enough water in those few spots to support the top of the tree. So we switched to microsprinklers in the orchard where it wets a much larger volume of soil to support that tree. So the same is true with your landscape trees. You can't in a few spots, you know, supply everything that a large, large growing tree is going to need. Again, hiring someone to deep root and a number of spots to rescue during a drought, that's a little bit different. But just having a stationary one, two or three spots,

it is not even come close. Great, great, it's great information. Thank you. How often do you do I mean we have deep root feeding done once a year as it sufficient. Well, yeah, I mean it depends on what you use. What they use. You can go in with, you know, putting some material down in the soil. You can also I'll tell you something else too, when you fertilize your lawn, a lot of that nutrient is washing down into the soil and is also benefiting the

tree. So it kind of depends on the situation. I think the ideal for a tree would be to have a nice thick mulch all around it that decomposes constantly over time. Essentially, it's equalling the forest floor in our landscapes. You're not going to turn your whole front yard into a mulch bed.

So coming in with some top fertilizer or with putting some fertilizer down into the soil by somebody who knows what they're doing and has the right blend of nutrients, the right ratio of nutrients to support that tree, that that would do. That got it? Okay, great, thank you very much. All right, thank you. I appreciate the call. Chris. Yeah, you know, the uh whenever you're looking at something like that. I was talking

about Martin Spoon Moore from Affordable Tree. I was looking at some videos of watching them do their work, oh gosh, several months ago and just pushing that deep root down in the soil releasing the water. This was a watering. It wasn't adding the nutrients in this particular video, but just doing it in a lot of places to create the volume. That's the key. And during droughts, you know, if you turn on a sprinkler and you're underneath

your tree. You know I talked to you before about the treehover sprinklers and you water the whole area underneath the branch spread of the tree, that'll get them through a drought. Their roots go way beyond that. But we can We can't go to your neighbor three houses down and knock on the door and say, hey, some of my tree roots over here. Can I water your lawn? Actually they would say yes, but you got to use your own water to do it. But seriously, joking, aside wedding a volume,

that is what is really important in order to have success. We're going to take a break here Leo and Missouri City. You will be the first up when we come back. I want to make sure that I have plenty of time available for you. Uh. The I want to mention to you before we go to break if you need to give us a call. Seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four is the number. Josh will get you on the board and we'll come to you after Leo when we

come back. If you're interested in the lawn care schedules, don't forget the website Gardening with Skip dot com. I've got the lawn care guide that tells you everything you need so when you go in to get the right products, the ones we recommend here on guardline, the right products for your lawn, you just have it right there printed out in your hand. The weed disease schedule the same kinds of things you know, for example, when do chinch

bugs typically occur? How about side web worms? If we have a year with those, it's on the schedule. When do you treat for grubs, It's on the schedule. What about brown patch or large patch as you call it. Now, what about take all root rod? What about gray leaf spot? You see what I'm saying, It's all on the schedule. Well, we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back and we'll answer your questions. 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 Skin Rictor. It's so crazy. Just watch him as Good morning, Good Sunday morning to you. I am glad you're listening to garden Line today because I like to talk with you about what's going on. You can give us a call if you got a question. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Right now, I'm going to head out to Missouri City and we're gonna talk to Leo. Hello, Leo,

Hey, how you doing this morning? I'm good? Thanks? What's up? Man? Yeah? I want to answer about the magnoga trees. I mean, you know, I have a magnoga tree. It's probably about twenty five to twenty eight years old. So you know, my wife she's saying is dying. I'm saying, I'm gonna give it a chance and everything. You know, Yeah, is it all brown or what what are you seeing? Who is it? Yeah? It got some brown, it's still got some green, but it got some brown. But I know that you know,

we're going into the fall. So yeah, yeah, so a lot of leaves are going to probably fall off when you come into spring and new growth comes. That's just kind of how magnolias do. So that in and of itself won't be a sign. The magnolias took a heavy hit this year during the heat and drought. It just all over town. We saw complete death of the trees. Right, But if you got green on it,

then whatever's green has a chance of taking off and growing again. Now when if you look at the tree and like all the tops brown and there's a green branch off one side or something, well that's not gonna be a very pretty tree. When when it keeps going dead, is dead. But I would give it a little bit more time and see. But but depending on the extent and how disfigured that tree is going to be, I would make the decision on whether to keep it or not. Hopefully it'll be okay,

yeah, yeah, yeah, spring is Spring's gonna be your answer. Let's let some growth get I probably let it get to about you know, April or May before I really make a full assessment. Okay, all right, Dan, that works. I appreciate it, Yes, sir, thanks for the call. Leo. All right, you take care. I appreciate that very much. Let's see, we're gonna go out now to Richmond and talk to Jenny. Hello, Jenny, Oh, good morning. How are you. I'm well, thanks, Yes, I have a question for you.

So, my good old leaf and my snake plant have both kind of been struggling indoors, and I'm wondering if I need to fertilize them, and if so, what should I use. Okay, snake plant is easy and so it shouldn't be struggling if you forget to water it. If it gets not quite enough light, it still does. Okay. It may be in an area that is just absolutely so dark that it needs more light. That's a possibility. Fiddle leaf being a ficus, they can be kind of persnickety.

They get a little dry, and they get big brown spots in the leaves or leaves completely fall off, and you just need a more consistent moisture. You may want to look at the pot versus the plant size, and if you have a little bitty pot compared to the size of the plant, maybe it would help to put it in a larger pot just so it has a little more soil volume. So it can get nutrients from a larger volume of soil, it can get moisture from a larger volume of soil. But also

with it, it needs a decent amount of light to do well. Okay, is there is there a soil in particular that you would recommend for snake plant, Not a particular one, just a good quality indoor potting mix would do that, and so you you know you yeah, it doesn't. I wouldn't put them in roase soil, for example. I would find something that's made for indoor plants. And we got some really good quality ones out there on the market. Uh, depending on you know, we're okay, you

shop, they're gonna have. They're gonna have one of the ones, one of the ones I talk about here on Gardland wonderful. Yeah. I've over watered my snake plan a little bit and I've lost a lot of the you know, the leaves from it, and there's about three that are still surviving and it's dried out and they're standing tall. Now I'm thinking it's time to put that in a bigger pot too, and I need to give it some new soil. Sounds like it might be. It might be. Can you

turn that radio off in the background for me. Uh. The it what you will find. Snake plants often get lanky. In fact, I've got one that's too lanky right now. Uh. And there's a thing called notching, and so you just got to go online do a little search. But basically, a notch is cut just above a bud. Wherever a leaf attaches to the stem, there's a bud right above that. So everywhere a leaf has fallen off, you can see those spots on your stem right above it.

A notches cut above that bud, and it helps force that bud to take off and grow. I can't describe it fully on the air. If you do a look for it, you may try that a couple of places and maybe that would help put some branches in a little bit lower end that it'd be worth a try. Wonderful And may I ask you one more question sure regarding meme oil. So when my fiddle leaf was getting some brown spots, I tried to, you know, do some self diagnosis on the internet,

and so I started spraying or down with mem oil. Is name oil beneficial route like on a routine basis? Or should I only use it periodically? Yeah? Nem oil. It is primarily used for smothering small insects like spider mites or like young scale crawlers and wipe flie people the plants and things like that. That's that's its primary use. It has a little bit of an insecticide in it. If you wanted to use Name as the insecticidal ingredient,

it's not the name oil. It's a compound called ASA directin And when you go grab a bottle of Name and you look at the label, the ingredient is either going to be Name oil or it's going to be as a direct and begins with an A, A Z. And the second one is more of an insecticide to spray on the planet. It's a growth regulator, natural growth regulator, but the oil is more of a smothering. So they killed differently. They both can do that, but different kinds of pests.

One or the other may be better. What was the problem again that you were having that you used it for? Well, when I saw those brown spots and I was thinking that there was something attacking it, But now I think it's not getting adequate light. I guess yeah. Probably the only disease for I see for nem oil is it helps with powdery mildew. It's pretty good on powdery mildew, which is a surface fungal growth that also gets into the leaf. But other than that, Okay, okay, thank you so

much, and I love listening to y'all. Well, thank you, thank you. Tell your friends. By the way, I'm going to be out there in Richmond at the Home and Garden Show, the Brasis Home Garden Show next Saturday after the show, so hope y'all can get out. Oh, I'll have to see bring me one of your leaves. I'll take a look at it, all right, Okay, thank you, Jenny. I appreciate that very much. We're going to take a break. Our number is seven

one three two one two five eight seven four. When we come back Archie in Pairland, you'll be first welcome back to Garden Line. We're glad you're listening this Sunday morning. We are talking about all kinds of things gardening. I was talking about earlier about making sure that our plants that went through the freeze struggle, that had damage and things like that, that we give them

I'm a boost when they come out. And one of the things that works really well for that would be Medinas Medina plus specifically Medina seaweed is another good example of that. And as these plants begin to try to grow, providing a good drenching to them with Medina plus and or you can do both if you want. Medina seaweed works really well. The material soaks down in the

ground, it's got the nutrients. How's are the compounds in it. They're very helpful to plants as well and kind of helps them as they're trying to get that growth started and get them going. I would use those both as a folio feed too. By the way new growth coming out, you can provide a spray for that foliage. It's not going to burn them, make them according to the label, and that works really well. One of the

many are too. Actually, of the many products by Medina they're helpful and can really help you turn a stress landscape into a healthy one and if you have a healthy one, to make it even more beautiful, more productive as well. Medina Plus and the Medina seaweeds specifically in this times where our plants are going to be coming out and recuperating from what we just went through. I'm going to go down to Paarland now and talk to Archie. Hello,

Archie morning, Skip morning. I have a bed of archangel angelonia out in my front. It's about ten foot by ten foot. It's a raised bed. And last year when we had that really bad freeze, I went out and got a couple of yorks of composts and just you know, shoveld it all on the top of all of them. And afterwards, you know, I removed all the composts from around them and cut them back, and I saved about eighty percent of them, but I lost about twenty percent of them.

And there's about seven flats of those out there. And this year, instead of going and getting the compost and covering them, I put blankets and frost blankets on top, and then I put a tarp on top of that and waved it down all the way around so the wind did and get up under well. I went out there yesterday and removed all of that, and they look deader than the door nill. I mean, they're just brown.

And I don't know if I can cut them back and you know, get some from the from the surface of you know, from the ground up. Uh. You know that I was impressed that you did what you did last year and got through it. Angelonia is not a coal weather plant. It's just not happy when it's cold, much less freezing to death. I would take my thumbnails straight back on those little stems a little bit, and you're gonna tell underneath it's gonna be mushy brown gray, or it's gonna have a

little creamy, creamy to green color underneath. If you see that, then they can sprout from the base. But they're not gonna do anything until it warms up. But chances are you lost them. If I had to like roll the dice and say what I think, I think they're gone. But do the scratch test, and if you find green near the base, there's a chance that they can bounce back. That's a wonderful plant. By the way, our angel angelonia just and when it's hot, it just laughs at

the sun. It's it's a good one. Well should I cut them back now, you know, to the base? Or should I wait? I would wait. I've been saying I learned to like ugly. That top growth that's all dead is somewhat of a covering over those plants. And if you do have to recover something, maybe we have a lighter freeze at least it'd be a little bit of a protection for you. The compost. What it did is it got all around the base and truly warmed up those stems at

the base. Uh. And that's why last year worked a little bit better than this year did. Yeah, I was thinking that, you know, the cotton blankets and and the frost blankets on top of those, Maybe I maybe I maybe I covered them too much. No, I don't think you did. Uh. You know, I'd have to see the situation to see what might have gone wrong on it. But you can't cover them too much

when you're protecting against coal. Some good should I put some ocean harvest on there or some medina plus when the new growth begins, give a good drenching of those other words, we're doing that right now. It's not going to help anything. Right. Well, you'll get the nutrient from it and the soil, but right now they're number one, you don't know if they're alive. Number two, they're definitely on hold, being a warm seasoned plant in

cooler soil than they want, cooler tempson they want. Yeah, I know, I know. Randy always said you can't bring back dead, So that's a good that's a good point. Yeah, all right, well, thank you so much. Hey, thanks for the call. Appreciate that we get here. There we go trying to operate my computer. At the same time, I'm talking a good thing. I wasn't trying to chebe gom at the same time. Out there, you know, he's calling them from Pearland.

I was about to tell you run over to Pearland Ace because Ace. ACE has got all kinds of stuff like that, all the supplies we're talking about, you know, a lot of the products we're talking about in the conversation that we had right there. ACE Hardware is all over town, and it doesn't matter you know what part of Houston you live in, there's one close enough to go find the things you need. And Ace, we say, ACE is a place where, you know, ACE is a place for in

other words, of course it's a hardware store. It's a place for plumbing and lighting and all that. Of course it's a place for your landscape too. ACE Hardware carries all the fertility that I recommend on guarden line. What forty Ace Hardware stores around the Greater Houston area is not hard to find one. Do you need pruning equipment they've got that there. Do you need covers

for your plants, They carry that kind of stuff there. But they also are the place for coal damage to your home, to your pipes, any kind of plumbing repair part you need, they've got it. If you've got a damaged sprinkler head, you know, we run over them. Different things happen. You can go to ACE. You can get the supplies you need just to get out there and get that thing fixed. And by the way, if you don't know if you have damage or not, you will when

you turn it on the first time. That's when the geysers show up. But ACE is just the place that's kind of the way to look at it. Go to Acehardware dot com. They have a store locator. You can find the ones near you, and they're all over town. And I think when you walk in, if you haven't been in an ACE recently, you're going to be pleasantly surprised. They really have a wide right. I'll tell

you this. I promise you you go into an ACE Harder, walk around for a while, and at least ten times you're going to go I didn't know they had that, Yes they do. Absolutely. ACE is a place we're talking about all kinds of things for your home, your garden and whatnot. I want to talk a little bit about the house plants. For just a little bit. I realized they didn't go through the cold. That's nice, isn't it. I encourage you to add more house plants to your home.

Now. I'm kind of a place that I'm in right now where I do not have good lighting except in two rooms. There's two rooms that have really good lighting, and the rest of the house it's for a variety of reasons that's just not very bright. And remember, our eyes can adjust to the light. So if it's low light, our eyes adjust and we can see again. And if it's highlight, our pupil's closed down and we can see fine again. Houseplants don't really do that, and so what may look

okay to you is probably much less light than the plant needs. But there's houseplants where every kind of lighting situation just about and there are things we can do to improve on lighting. I've got one area where it's in a living room where I really really want to have some beautiful house plants, and they're all crowded over by a window right now, trying to get light I'm about

to put in some plant lighting in there. You can buy nice plant lights that are just an attractive feature in the home, and you can also just buy standard plant lights like you would start seedlings for a new crop of annuals, perennials, things like that. But consider where you might use some houseplants, because there's a lot of new cool ones out there on the markets. Plants make a home feel more comfortable, more livable. We were made to

be around plants that you know. I always say that it wasn't the cubicle of Eden, it was the garden of Eden. We're made to be around plants, That's what that is. Just part of the connection between humans and nature out there. And when you change a somewhat sterile indoor setting into one where you have a lot of plants, it really affects just the mood of the room. Plus they're fun to mess with, you know. I just got through making a bunch of cuttings that have rooted, and now I need

to pot them up again. I had a vine that was just taking over the world. I just cut it way back up, chopped it all up, put some I put them in water because it was fast and easy it's not the best way to root, but you can do that. And I'm going to pull them out and put them in a plant, and here we go. I got a brand new hanging basket just ready to happen on the way. So I hope you'll take advantage and enjoy that. If Buchanans,

I always like going to Buchanans and the Heights for that reason. They have a house plant house. You know, it's a big greenhouse area where they have all kinds of things and they I promise you you walk into there and you're going to see house plants you've never seen before. You're going to say, what is that? Because they have that kind of variety. And the Heights Eleventh Street in the Heights is where they are. If you haven't been, you ought to go go today. It'd be a good day to get

out and do that this afternoon. Buchanans Plants dot com that is the website. There's always something going on. Educational programs at Buchanan's Plants. I think there's a there's one I'll tell you about in just a minute. But it's a oh my gosh, I can't think of the names. It's basically a Valentine's Day. I think they call it Gallantines, like for it's for ladies to come in there. And that's the Buchanan's Plants. But that stuff's going

on all the time. Every kind of plant you need is going to be there at Buchanan's Plants. Now they call I keep saying Buchanan's Plants, I need to say Buchanan Native Plants, because that's the name of the place. That is their specialty, that's their strongest point. But don't be mistaken. Begin in test house plants. They've got shade plants, they got fruit trees,

they've got all kinds of things. But if you're looking for natives, you're not going to find a better selection of all kinds of natives, including They even have a table where they just put natives to the immediate Houston area right there on the table. Makes it kind of easy and it's always fun too to go by and visit Buchinnans. We're going to head out now to southeast Houston and talk to Julia. Hello Julia, Hello, Rick, how

are you doing today? I'm good. I'm not sure this is a question for you, but I don't know where else to go or if it's a pest control, how do you deter mudbugs from making their mounds in your yard? Well, you can import some natural enemies. If you know anybody from South Louisiana, they probably come in and eat them all up for you.

Right. Sorry, that was uncalled for. When I was a kid, we used to drop bacon on a string down in there, try to pull the crowd heads out of the hole, because, yeah, you can meet those things. Uh there, I don't know of a good labeled way to do it. There are some products that will control mud bugs. I'm just not going to spout out things that are not labeled that are not essentially legal for use. If you will on the air, you probably do a little

search and find some of those kinds of things. But there there's not a mudbug aside. If you will on the market where you flip the label over and it says use this at this rate to control crowdads or crayfish in your yard. They like a high water table, so if it's possible to fix that through subsurface drainage or something else, that will help. But wherever they can dig a hole down and have a water table down there, they're going to do that, and you're gonna have a lot of problems with them.

That's just part of the part of the deal. Okay, I understand that my sister is the one that has the problem. She lists in Texas City behind Moses like okays a problem. Yeah, yeah, I hate to hate to turn it loose that way. I just on the air not going to give home remedies that I don't have a label on them. There's a number of reasons for that. But you can find stuff like that if you want to go that route. Would it be possible a pest control person would take

care of that? I bet they could. I sure, I sure would talk to them and see see what they can do. You know you, Yeah, I think so. I was trying to think if I've ever talked to one of our pcos about about that sort of thing, and I can't remember doing it. They may have a product that they can use that they're able to use when it comes. Hey, do you have a number for McGrath pest Control? I remember you talked listening to him on the air one day. I don't have the number, but I will take it down all

right here here it is. You can go to the website Metgrathpestcontrol dot com or here's the number two eight one four sixty nine eighty two forty two eight one four sixty nine A two four Oh. If you talk to Scott he can tell you whether or not he can do it. I appreciate your help so much. Thank you, Thank you today, by bye bye. All right, time for a break. NICKI is in here for the news. If you would like to give us a call, our number is seven one

three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Nicki, Uh, every time you do the news, I keep waiting to hear no. I was dreaming last night. Actually the Texans won. Well, you'll keep breaking my heart over and over again. Keep listening. Miracles happen. Just keep listening. It might change. Let's be an optimist about things. Right there, you go, All right, we'll be back. Here's NICKI. We're gonna move to the news and talk to you in just a minute. Welcome back to

Guardline. Glad you're listening this morning. Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Someone asked me the other day, when when is it time to start applying asmite fertilizer. Well, first of all, yes, Azimite has nutrients, but don't think of it like a fertilizer like the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, the big three we need a lot of or fertilizing all the time. This is a supplement to build trace minerals

in the soil, and so the time is anytime. You know, putting azimite down doesn't like push all this new growth out of the ground like a nitrogen fertilizer would, but asimite provides the trace elements that are essential for plants. So you can do that anytime you want to do it. You can do it right now if you want to, you can wait and when you fertilize, then just finish fertilizing, turn right around, put azmite in and

do that at that time. You can go to azimite Texas dot com azomite azom it Texas dot com and you can find out more about azumite there. But remember, asmite isn't just for lawns. Vegetable gardens are great. Do you want to make sure your produce has a good, nice, full, complete stock of all the different things our bodies need as we consume the produce. Well, Asmite is a great way to provide that as well. It one takes about ten pounds per thousand square feet in a vegetable garden. It

goes a long way because you're not putting a lot down. You're just putting a little because it's a trace element, but it's also an essential element. That's how that works. By the way, if you have not had a soil test done, now be a good time to do it. You know, early before the season gets going. It's always a good time to check on things now. If you've had one done in the last two years, three years, that probably don't have to do that again, but it's a

good way to monitor where you are now. You wouldn't want to put on fertilizer and then sell test immediately because what's your basic going to get is what's in that fertilizer too, and that throws things off. You want to sample when you haven't fertilized for a while, and now's a good time to do

that. The best soil test is one where you go down in the soil vertically about six inches deep, and you take a core out of the soil that represents the top inchs all the way down to six inches deep equally. Because some nutrients tend to tie up in the surface after your phosphorusus that way. But when you do the vertical core, you get a good example of the whole the majority of the primary root zone of like your turf plant,

for example. And you just do that in several places. Try to avoid the little green spots where the family dogs stop last week, as you can imagine that or last year. That would throw things off a little bit. But do it in several places. Mix it together. Nicle in a bucket that hadn't had fertilizer in it, and put about a pint into a Ziply, I take a court bag and put about a pint of soil in it and then send it off to the lab. If you want the website,

I need to put this on my website. But the link is Soil Testing dot T A MU, dot E d U. And one reason so testing is important is you'll hear me say, and it's on my schedule. Put a three one two type fertilizer or some blend of nutrients that's out there for lawns. Is typically that put that out there at this rate. And I'm telling everybody in the Greater Houston area and further to do the same thing. Well, that's a good average. You're not going to go wrong with that.

But let's just take you and your next door neighbor. If your next door neighbor has been using triple thirteen for the last ten years, they're going to have a really high phosphorus count. They really are, and they don't need any And so you could fertilize with almost a real high nitrogen high potassium, and you wouldn't You wouldn't need much the phosphors. Maybe they have high magnesium and you have low magnesium. Maybe they have high potassium and you have

low potassium. So one size doesn't fit all, but it's it's a good way to go, and you're not going to go wrong using the things I recommend because they are that Basically, the fertilizers I recommend are based on what the turf scientists tell me are in grass. So we're feeding the grass with the ratio of nutrients that are in grass. Does that make sense? And a lot of plants are that way. I use a three one two for a lot of different things, a four to one two for a lot of

different things. But I use a varied variety of fertilizers, and there are situations where you want a different blend, and so you can do that. That's just fine. But remember a soil test is the way you know where you're starting so that it can guide what you choose to add. Does that make sense? I hope it does. We love FEAT stores and just in fact, just what was it a couple of days ago. Yeah, a couple of days ago. I was passing through and stopped at D and D

feed out in Tomball there out west of Tombaal. D and D is one of those feed stores you used like to walk into and see what they have because they have everything. You know, if I'm talking about a fertilizer, They've got them all there. If I'm talking about things like leafmol compost, heirlooms, rose, soil and fruit, berry and citrus or veggie and herb, they've got all of that there. And occasionally they're bringing through different kinds

of plants. In fact, there's usually plants there too. They got fruit and citrus coming in the middle of February. They were telling me about that. If you're interested in backyard chickens, chicks Week, I like saying that chicks Week is February sixth, they're gonna get a bunch of chickens in and if you would like to try some backyard chickens, and you need supplies for the chicken, including the feeds and the chickens themselves. They have a great

supply there coming in. They also have red, white, and yellow potatoes. By the way, that's three different kinds of potas it is not one. It'd be cool if you had a potato that was red, white, and yellow. But the red, you know, thele soda, for example, is a real common red. It's proven. I grow it all the time myself. YU kind gold is the one that's it's golden color, yellow colored, almost looks buttery even before you put butter on it. All of

that is that D and D feed and more. Just check them out again just west of Tomball out there on the south side of twenty nine to twenty at D and DE feed chicks week for crying out loud, All right, So what are we going to talk about on guard line now? I want to mention a little bit about fruit trees. Late winter, midwinter, late winter is a great time to plant fruit trees. You can plant container grown fruit anytime, but a lot of our garden centers are going to be getting

in their stock of fruit trees here. Some of them are already stocked up pretty good on it, and now's a good time to do that. And when you get them in the ground, you want to make sure number one, they have good drainage. Fruit does not like swamps. I don't care if it's apples, pears, peaches, plums, even figs. They don't want to just sit and drag with the roots are drowned in constant moisture. In fact, I'll you know, I saw that. I knew that,

but I saw it visually. I want to tell a little story about figs. I want to come back from break right now. Need to take a break. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two five eight seven four. I'll be right back with a fig story and your calls. Welcome back to garden Line. Weird to take your calls, answer gardening questions. That's what I've been doing today, plus throwing in some just general tips things you need to be aware of, things you need to be doing right

now, preparing for right now. It's always a good time to prepare the soil. It it's always a good time to prepare the soil. There's not a season for doing that, like there are seasons for a lot of things, getting good quality mixes, making sure your soil. Here's what soil needs. Number One, you need good drainage. And in our Houston Black clays, we typically don't have good drainage. So we add well, we do two things. Number One, we build up a raised bed. The water

runs off that to a lower area in the bed. The roots of the plants that are in the bed are up a little bit higher, and they're not in anaerobic conditions, meaning they're drownding underwater. They can't breathe. And do you know roots have to breathe. If I can anthropomorphize a little bit on roots, basically they have to have oxygen in order to do the respiration processes that go on in the root, and so you put them underwater,

they can't breathe. A few plants have adapted a mechanism for doing for surviving that way, but in general, almost all without almost without exceptions, your plant roots have got to be able to have oxygen. So raise beds help. The typical soil in the area predominantly is kind of like a Houston black clay soil, and that is a very thick, heavy, sticky color that shrinks and swells and does not drain well. It doesn't let water in very

fast. I heard one time soslicidentists told me that a Houston black clay without any organic matter, without any roots, just the clay, it can take absorb water at one eighth of an inch an hour. Now, Nikki was just saying, well, Ago, it's about to start raining and we're going to have days where we get four inches of rain. Well, it can't take it in that even close to that fast. So what do we do. We add organic matter we had compost, and that massive clay starts to

break apart into clumps, if you will. I like to use the analogy of a bowl of popcorn as an example, because that's the visual. People can imagine that you've got these clumps of popcorn and there's space in between the

clumps because of the way it's clumped together. When you take clay with organic matter and you create a structure we call it structure to the soil, it helps it absorb water, it helps it to drain internally better, and then the organic matter itself is a place where microbial activity is very high and you get a lot of the things going on that roots need to thrive. That that's the fast, easy way to put it. So we need to improve our soil. That is very important, and it's always a good time to

do that in my vegetable garden. When I finish a crop and I'm gonna put in another crop, I'll mix in some organic matter or mix in some nutrient, whatever is required at that time, and just keep getting it better and better and better. Listen, when we don't take care of soil, when we strip off all the plant growth and it's hard, and the sun's making down on it and we're walking on it and compacting it, it becomes

a place where plants just struggle at best. But if you turn it back over to nature, like a think about this, a tropical rainforest out in the middle of nowhere. The tree leaves are falling, little parrot poop here and there, and it just hits the ground and it rots and it rots and it rots year after year, decade after decade, and that soil just gets richer and richer and richer because nature builds soil naturally, and the meadows

nature bills soil naturally. Do you know that grass? Think about the Great Plains. When the settlers were coming across the Naconastoga wagon, they said, grass as deep as a horse's belly. Well, those grass plants, their roots live about a year and then they die, and not all at once, but there's a process of living and dying that's going on in the roots. So a root pushes into the soil. A root is organic matter. It dies, it rots, it leaves a chamber open. Earthworms follow those

chambers because they like to eat the decaying organic matter. Water then has a way to infiltrate, and the soil gets richer and richer over time. So why am I going into all that description. Well, if you learn to think like what nature does, then we know what to do in our gardens our landscapes to have more success. And it's as simple as that. It's always a good time to build your soils. In fact, I did not plan this. We're gonna We're gonna go to the phones and talk Lewis Luise,

I was just talking of about soil. What's happening? So I I just listen to your conversation. Well, you're you're talking about about soil, clay, organic matter. Yes, and when I when I present the topic at garden centers or you know, some gardening groups that want me to talk about soils. The best way I can describe this is clay are sticky particles. They bond so as a parent. Imagine you have teenagers and you have a girl or a boy, and the girl or the boy has somebody that

they like. As a father of daughters, I already know I'm gonna like this one. Yeah, and so they're gonna like they're they're trying to have a kiss, right like the first case or a make up session. Yeah, we can't let that happen, Louise, Okay, So compost in this In this instance, compost and expanded shell does the disruptor, which is the parent that stands in between the two kids. Okay, there you go. It doesn't let those clay particles bond. Okay. Therefore it starts creating more

porous space, and it starts creating a softer, looser environment. There you go. Keep in mind the organic matter and expanded shell is that this rupture between those two sticky clay parties. And I'm glad you brought up the expanded jail because organic matter is wonderful. I mean, it's the miracle cure for also a problem. And we've talked about clay, but sand can't hold water and nutrient. It runs right through and organic matter helps it hold water and

nutrients. So it works for all soil. But you mentioned right now, you mentioned that expanded shale though, uh, you know, organic matter does decay away, but expanded shail is like a little fired rock with with porous air space into the rock, and it will help keep that clay apart for an even longer time. Absolutely, And over the years I've gone phone calls from you know, customers asking me, so I put it. I spread this expanded shell on the compost, but the soil is not softening that the

clay compacted areas are not getting used. And I'm like, well, you have to work it in, because if you don't work it in, you're not creating that disruption in the structure within that environment. Right, That's good. I like that. Anyways, thanks, Without analogy, I I and the listeners will not forget that. Yeah, and nobody forgets that because you always think about it. It's making out in the parenting the disruptor. Right, that's that's I do think about that. Yes, I did a half

for years. Hey, thanks a lot, man, I appreciate I appreciate that very much. Happy Sunday to you. Take care parent and teen analogies. I've got a number of them as including one for per trees. Professor of mine in college he used to say, when you have a tree and it has two trunks side by side, both growing together, take one or the other out. It's it's like a young man having two girlfriends and thinking that's going to get better. No, that doesn't turn out. Well.

You gotta make a choice, buddy, take one or the other. Don't leave a narrow forked double trunk tree. It just gets worse over time. So for all of you with parents that are yelling amen out there, or all of you with kids rather there you go. Oh my gosh, we're having fun on garden Line today. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two five eight seven four garden Line where you get plant growing advice and apparently parenting advice to as

a result. Oh my gosh, I love this, love it absolutely. Hey, don't forget that next Saturday, I'm going to be out End where tell Me bras is Home and Garden Show and for bencount in Rosenberg at the Fort Bend Epicenter. After the show, I'm gonna jump in a car head that way. I don't know, leven them thirty. I'll get out there, be there for a couple hours. I'm gonna talk about all kinds of spring tips, give a little presentation, and then I'm going to hang around

for your questions. Do you have pictures? Do you have samples the things you want to bring in, Let's take a look at them. Come on out. Love to meet the listeners. And this is an opportunity, first chance of the season when I'm getting outside and doing some things like that. So I hope you join us out there. Hey, we'll be right back. 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 Skip Rict.

It's so crazy Trim, just watch him as the world. Welcome back to garden Line. We're glad you're listening on this Sunday morning. Well let's see, we got the coal behind us. Now here comes the rain boy that sounds like some gully washing going on in these coming days this week, so you're gonna have a lot of time to be inside while you're enjoying the indoors, enjoying your housepend don't forget that our garden centers have got unbelievably good selection

of all kinds of things like indoor you need fertilizer, indoor plants. If you need indoor plants, it's good to get out and do that. Bring it home. If you've got house plants that need some care. I've got a couple of them that need to be pruned up. I've got a vining plants, a type of fellodendron that's vining, and oh my gosh, those vines are like ten feet long. It seems like there are at least eight

and I need to cut that thing up. I'm gonna cut it up and make a bunch more one of them, just wrap those vines around on it. I don't know. If you've grown a pothos ivy before, something where it just gets long and lanky, you can just lift those up, put them across the top of the pot. If it's a hanging basket for example, which mine are, and let them, drape down as they get long again lift them up and put them through the pot and you can just end

up with a really nice set of foliage that looks great. One of my daughters actually actually attaches her pothos type ivy materials to the wall. She has these little things you stick on the wall and you kind of clip the ivy vine in there, the pothos vine in there, and so these things are sprawling all over the walls and cross the ceiling and everything's kind of crazy. But that's one fun thing about plants. We can kind of do what we

want, invent the kinds of stuff we enjoy messing with. If you're gonna do some soil work and you can get out today and get that done, get some fertilizer put down and mix down if it's needed. The we were talking about compost and bed prep and everything. This just kind of helps settle the soil in getting ready for planting time. One thing that a ninety two year old gardener used to always say, mister Alden Colston up in Conroe, Texas, he was at the community garden there. He would always say,

you can always add water, but you can't take it away. What he meant was, you know, when it's soggy wet, you just kind of stuck. But if it's dry, you can add water, of course, you can water your plants. And the reason is he would get his beds built in the fall for his spring garden in the community garden, and he would get them all built, everything right whenever he had some reasonably dry weather

to work with. When spring came, he was ready to plant. And it could be it could be too wet to rod, hotail or spade or whatever the soil that his beds were ready so he could go right in and get the planting done. That's a good advice that would hold for any time of the year when you get a chance to get the all right, get this all right, so you're ready to go. You're ready to plant. Just a little tip of advice for folks that are new to gardening, and

it would like to have a few ways to have more success. You know, our goal on garden Line is to help you have success. Uh. And and when you call in or when you just listen to other people's calls, you get little tips here and there, little things to avoid, little things to do. Uh. And you start to accumulate those over time, and you just become a better and better gardener. The way I like to put it as your thumb becomes greener. People say they have a brown thumb.

You don't have a brown thumb. You have an uninformed thumb. And information will turn that thumb green, if you want to think of it that way. And that's what we're here all about. If you'd like to give us a call, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We're about to well, we are in our last hour of the weekend here on garden Line. We're here every Saturday and every Sunday from six am to ten am both days for you to call in ask your

gardening questions. So we're about to be hold up here for the week with rain, and I'll be back again next Saturday. If you got friends, tell them about garden Line. You can listen live, of course, on the air pretty much from Louisiana to New Bronfels and North and South as well, or you can listen online. You can listen to a podcast if you've got a podcasting app, just you know, tune it to garden Line and

it'll you can listen to past shows. Maybe you forgot to write down the name of a website or a product or something else that I gave out here some event going on. You can do it that way. You can also listen live online on the internet. So that's just another way. We have folks listening from all over and I always wondering, how do you listen to garden Line and Alabama or Porto Rico for crying out, And that's how they do it. That's how you can do it too. We're glad you're listening

today. So I'm going to be talking a lot about a lot of different things right now. I just want to make a few more comments about trees. Trees are the most valuable part of our landscape when it comes to what does it add to the value of your house? How does it help with shade, How does it make your outdoor living more comfortable in the summertime, how does it protect or how does it help with your your heating cooling bills? For example? Trees can help with that. And Martin spoon Moore an

affordable tree. He's an expert in getting this done. Martin's been doing this a long time, a very long time. He knows what he's doing. There's a reason that Martin stays busy, and that's because when you do a job right, people hire you. The word gets around, it builds up. You know, in a business you never have It's never a good long term strategy to cut corners. It's just not. And with Affordable Tree, Martin knows how to take care of your trees. He can advise you,

can come out and advise you. He can come out and do pruning. He can eat a planet a tree if you need him to, or tell you what kinds of plant. If you're about to do a trench or if you're about to put some kind of a concrete slab over the soil around the tree's roots, call him first. Let him come out and do that. In the summertime, he's doing deep root watering to help during those extended drafts that we're dealing with. Af aff Tree Service dot com. Aff Tree Service

dot Com seven one three six nine nine six sixty three. That's the phone number to give him a call. Hey, don't delay, He says, very busy right now. I don't know how he's getting it all done. I mean, lots of pruning going on lots of things like that. Call him, tell him your guardline listener that gets you to the front of the line for a thing. You know, wherever there's space that hadn't already been booked, and let him know that. And that's important to let him know

too. Just do that and get him out there to take a look at your trees. Trees are valuable and don't cut corners when it comes to trees. When you make a mistake when you hire the guy that owns a business card, has a business card, a pickup in a chainsaw I call it the two jerks on a chainsaw tree service. To come out and just go after your trees, you're gonna end up with hat racks and a mess that forever marred and ruined the structure and strength and stability and everything of that tree.

Don't do that. Don't let anybody touch your trees that doesn't know what they're doing. Let's go out to the galleria. We're gonna talk to Chip. Hey, Chip, I've taken this call with about twenty seconds, so let me get the question in and then we'll take a break and I'll be right back. Hey, I appreciate it. Love the show. Hey, we so we're building a backyard garden, and in essence, we're going to

be raised beds. And where best would you suggest to get the seeds and or young plants that would be planted in there that's going to be grown correctly. And then the tropicals when do we plant them? And where do you get them? All right, that's all good. Let me let me come back so I can devote some time to that. Thank you. Just hang on a little bit here and I will come right back with your answers. Well, it's time for a break. Seven one three, eight seventy four.

Well, we're about to good, call Josh. We are about to see the rain. Hey, you're listening to garden Line. Our number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We're gonna head back out to the galleria and talk to Chill. Hey, Chip, what what are you wanting to grow in those beds? We don't have vegetables or flowers or what or what you know, it's gonna be a vegetable and kind of

a family of four. So there's enough land that gives it some good sunlight and they're just gonna basically steak off and and we're gonna build a set of raised beds, and I've been kind of researching it to see, you know, potatoes, cucumbers, edibles, basically little row of lemons and say limes on the outer. And then you do have a real big back fence, and we're trying to figure out how to populate that back fence in some sort of artistic way. Okay, you know, because it's over there, you

know what I mean. So we yeah, hey, well, good idea. Well, you've got several places they're kind of close to you. Down on Bissonette and Runwick. You've got a Southwest Fertilizer which is down in the Belly area that's real close to you. Up in the Heights, you've got Buchanans Nursery, and they're going to both of those places. Is going to

have the fertilizers and the soil bags and things like that. I don't know if you're going to bulk bring in soil or if you're going to get it by the bag, but if it's bags, they're going to have it. Up in the up in North Central, just a little to the east of Buchanans, you've got quality feed and they have a great supply of seed. They have actually an antique seed rack from the nineteen twenties. It's stocked with heirloom seeds. So those are all options for you on all those kind of

basic supplies. And where sir, would you get the actual plants themselves? And when would you put them in the ground. Let's say, I mean it's a little cold this last weekend, but you know, I think we're almost over it, right, you know, get the soil right, and where would you source the actual you know, fifty five gallon the big boys that might come in in the back, say row of setting in your garden,

well rather than watching it grow right right? Well, you know the place I mentioned are both going to have the soils and the seeds for example, and all of them will carry some plants, especially what we call betting plants, the little annuals you put in. But Buananan's is going to have the biggest selection of those. And if you're looking for citrus for example, and stuff, Buchanans is the closest to you to be able to get those

kinds of things. And if you're willing to drive a distance, there's lots of great places all over, but I think as far as somewhat nearby those Have you been to Buchanans before. I have not been to Buchanans. I've been to Southwest and others. Yeah, yeah, good, good. Well you know how great Southwest is for supplies all kinds of things. You need to go to Buchanans. Check them out. Maybe this afternoon you get chess. Get out there where all this rain gets going. Uh, and just

see what I'm talking about. I mean a wide, wide variety. And they always have a good selection of for trees too that they bring in for planting. Oh good, very good. That's what I needed to hear. I appreciate the show. All right, hey man, thank you sure, thanks for the jail take care. Yeah, you know, we're fortunate here in Houston. I've said this before, but we're fortunate here in Houston to

have just an unbelievable group of garden centers and soul suppliers. Really. Uh, if you're looking for plants that people in a lot of big cities cannot get, especially outside the big city, uh, you got it here.

You're fortunate. If you're looking for quality source, listen, I have been I've lived in a lot of different areas and I've seen a lot of different kinds of soil yards and to have places that produce quality mix that is not to be taken for granted, because as I keep saying, that's the most important thing in success with plants is to have a good mix. We got it all here, So you're fortunate, North, South, East, and West. I just I love to get out and just go visit them just

to see what's new. Because if there is some new exciting thing on the market, they're going to have it. And every time I go to one of our real great mom and pop local garden centers, I walk through and they'd be like, what's that. I haven't seen that herb before, And you know, go look at it and read about it and learn something about it. That's the cool stuff. Real fortunate to have that. Hey, our phone number if you'd like to give us a call. This is the

last forty minutes of garden Line for this weekend. Seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. He mentioned Southwest Fertilizer and Southwest Fertilizer has got let me put it this way, I like to say this it they don't have it, you don't need it. And I mean that. I mean, is it a fertilizer that I recommend on garden line, They've got it. And more. Is it a soil type, you know, a quality bag of a quality soil

mix or potting mult or something, They've got it. Do you need something to control insects or diseases or weeds, They've got it. They have a wider variety than anybody I know. They've got synthetic, they've got organic. So whichever way you want to go, they got you covered there. They've got plenty of tools if you need to get you know, your small engine equipment, something sharpened or tuned up or whatever kinds of things. They're set

up for all of that. And Southwest is a one stop shop. And you're not going to go in there and then tell you, well, we don't have one of those. If you've got a problem, take a picture, take a simple They're experts at that, they know what they're talking about. And you know I bragged on our garden centers. I'll say the same thing here. Knowledgeable staff, knowledgeable staff, friendly staff, helpful people. That kind of service may be that you thought was long gone it's not.

It's not here in the Houston area, and it's certainly not when it comes to Southwest Fertilizer. There are phone number seven one three six six six one seven four four, or just go to Southwest Fertilizer dot com. I always like to go in there. We've talked about a lot of different things related to gardening today. I haven't really mentioned much about herbs, but I think that if you're a vegetable gardener, if you're a flower gardener flower beds,

you need to think about herbs too. And here's why herbs. Yes, we grow them primarily. The reason people grow herbs is for culinary and absolutely fresh herbs. Yeah, we were over the holidays, you know, we were cooking at the house. The kids are in and stuff, and to be able to walk out and grab a sprig or rosemary or something and just bring it in and go right to cooking with it. That's cool, that's fun. But herbs are also ornamental. The rosemary I just mentioned it makes

a beautiful little evergreen bush. If you give a good drainage, it does well here. What about a groundcover? Have you thought about time or you thought about oregano? For example, those are just two examples of herbs that make good groundcovers. We got herbs that bloom like chives. A row of chives down a walkway looks sort of like kind of ape, a skinny leaf lariope. I guess if you want to use your imagination, but then it

sends up these blooms that pollinators just love. I've got onion chives and garlic chives, and we just love those things. Lots of good herbs to grow. Some are very ornamental pineapple sage. It's a type of salvia blooms primarily in later summer in the fall, big long or skinny, tubular red blooms that hummingbirds just love. It has a pineapple like fragrance to it, but

it's also a beautiful ornamental. So think about herbs this year. You could do it just in a pot, or you could use them in your landscape. I like at the end of my vegetable rows to plant some herbs, especially the ones that bloom, to help support pollinators, because that's one of the things that herbs will do. And hey, we need more pollinators attracted to our gardens and supported by our gardens. Well there you go. Let's head out to Baytown and we're going to talk to BJ. Hey, BJ

Hi. I was wondering, I understand that gravel is not very well for when you read pot of plants to put in the bottom of your pint of for drainage, would lava rock work? No, you don't want to use either of those. Fast answer, you don't need it. You don't need it. If your if your pot has adequate holes for drainage, you don't need them. What I will do at the bottom is I'll put Sometimes I use that little uh screen fabric, you know, not the metal window screens.

But then I don't know if I don't know what they're made out of. I'll cut a setting in. Yeah, I'll cut a little circle the size of the bottom of the pot and drop it in there, and the soil doesn't wash out. Another thing I do is I'll put coffee filters, a couple of coffee filters in the bottom that holds the soil and after it kind of sets up, the coffee filter is going to ride away, but it holds the soil in and it sets up and it doesn't wash out as

well. Here's what you do. If you put the if you put gravel or other things like lava rock. In What you're doing is you're reducing the amount of growing mix that that pot can hold. And we need every bit we can to get through soil to get through heat, you know. And it doesn't improve drainage. I guess sometime I'll drone on have time probably today to do much of it on but just trust me, gravel does not improve drainage. And either do styrofoam, peanuts or broken pot shards or lava rock.

Okay, thank you so much, dear. I appreciate it. Hey, good luck. Thanks for the call. Appreciate it. I'm glad you called because I I really do appreciate those kind of questions. That is one, there are a lot of myths in gardening. In fact, one day, one weekend, I should just do gardening myths one at a time and go through them, because these do not die. They just keep going on and on and on. So I would tell you that don't put stuff in

the pots for drainage. It doesn't work. And here's why water moves from large particle size towards smaller particle size. Capillar reaction draws it. If you want an example, put a little puddle of water on your counter and take a paper towel and put the corner down in the puddle. And where does the water go up? Away from gravity? Right, it goes uphill because of the particle side called the fibers in the paper towel, it pulls it up. So when you have a good potting soil and then you got better

gravel underneath it. The only way water gets in the gravel is when there's so much of a water column in that potting soil that it literally drips out of the soil into the bottom. So the bottom layer of your soil in that pot we grovel in, the bottom is soppy, saturated, wet, and water by gravity falls out of it. If you just fill the whole pot with water, the bottom layer is always going to be soppy, wet, and it's going to drip out the holes of the pot. But you

have more soil, and here in Texas we need bigger containers. We need more soil for our roots to supply water through the course of a very hot day, to supply nutrients, more nutrient room for more room for roots to reach all kinds of nutrients in the soil. It you know, I can just drone about the physics of it, but just trust me on this one. It does not improve drainage. It does reduce the available amount of soil. And all you do is you move the wet spot, the soggy spot

at the bottom of your potting soil in the pot. You just move it up and instead of having root zone, now you have a bunch of air and gravel in the bottom and you've lost the use of that area. So that's my fast answer. One very fast. But anyway, that's my answer. That's why I would recommend that you not do that. Please please don't do that. But yeah, the tip about a window screen just to keep

the soil in that works really really well. I've used. I've also used, like some gardeners by the Organza bags to slip over fruit to protect them against pest. Organzo works really well. It's a synthetic fiber. Put it in the bottom of the pot over the whole works just fine. Did one the other day, just like that. I've also used the coffee filters. They do decompose away. But that's just another thing that you can do as an option. Free tips from garden Line. You heard it. I don't

know if you heard it first here, but you heard it here. Just something to think about. Hey, I want to remind you again that the Organic Science Day event by OBA the Organic Horticulture of Benefits Alliance is going to be this Friday, January twenty sixth from eight am to three thirty pm at the United Way. So what is this event. This is an event that brings in some of the best speakers that you can get on all aspects of

gardening and organic horticulture. They're going to have a number of speakers. I think the keynote guy is Jeff Loenfellows. He's the author of a number of books like Teaming with Microbes, Teaming with Bacteria, Teaming with Fungi, Teaming with the Nutrients. And you hear me droning on about soil. He'll take it down to the level of the microbes and talk all about what's going on in the soil and how these are helping. This is again eight am to

three point thirty. If you want to go, you got a register. There's a cost to this because you're getting incredible speakers, You're getting a whole day full of it. You even get you even get the lunch. They always have a good healthy lunch there as well. Go to o HbA online dot org slash register OHBA online dot org slash register to sign up. I'll see you there this Friday, if you show up Friday the twenty six from eight am to three thirty pm. Well, now it's time for Nicky in

the news. We're gonna see if there's been any movement on that Texans school texts school. I can't get over that man, and I can't get over at Niki. We'll see. Welcome back to Guardline. We are glad you're listening today, and we're talking about all kinds of things horticulture. In fact, we talk about what you're interested in when you make a phone call.

That's what we talk about. Five excuse me seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you'd like to be on the air and visit with me about plants. We're going to go straight to Conroe and talk to Carol. Hello, Carol, Hello, I have a question about all these down trees. Can they be shredded or sanded down somehow to be put into the soil and all that just spread it everywhere. Is that going to help airate and do something with

them? They're just going to be burned if we can't figure out something else to do with it. Is that a good thing? Well, you can. You can grind them up. There are machines that can do that. If it's just branches. You know the folks that bring the little trailer around with the truck and they grind them and blow them into the back of the truck. That's one level. Another level would be having them go to a soil yard one of our accomplished producers that puts them in. These giant machines

that can even take tree trunks and grind them up. Uh, And then the stumps themselves. Stump grinders can do that. Chips are helpful. I wouldn't put the material directly into the soil. I would put them on the surface as a mulch. That's it's primary best use. It's not practical to get it all down in the soil, and big chunks of wood that haven't been decomposed really aren't the best thing to add directly to the soil in mass

amounts. All right, So do you just call one of these places and see I got trees down and they come and get them or do I haul them there? And they yeah, you would have to haul down and then I bring them back to my house. Right. Well, you're in Conros, so you got Nature's Way, which is right where fourteen eighty eight comes into forty five across the railroad tracks. You could call them and ask them.

They don't go get trees. To my knowledge, I'm almost sure they don't, but like landscapers will bring greenways down and things like that for them to grind up and use. So that would be one option. Are we talking about a whole bunch of trees, Well, there's just yeah, there's several several and rather than just burn them, I thought, well, why wouldn't that be organic material? It could be yeah, of recycled in some

way here on the property. Yeah, that rent a machine that would break it down to you know, chop it up so that it would fit in there. But we were just trying to do something other than burn it. Yeah, not really. With the trunks, that's going to be a lot of labor cutting it up and getting it in the place to haul over and stuff. There are companies, there are land clearing companies that will come in and aside from the logs, they will take all the branches and everything and

they just run over it. It's almost like, oh gosh, I was going to say lawnmar but the blade doesn't go sideways. It just is like a rototiller. Think of a rototiller, but with big giant blades that chop up trees and they just mow over the drop limbs and things. They shred it all and leave it on the surface as a mulch. And that's actually very good for a forested area, you know, to do that. Okay, okay, all right, I'm look into those. Thank you, all

right, Thank you, Carol. Appreciate the call very much. We're going to head out now to Jeff. Hello, Jeff, Hello, Skip, how are you. I'm doing good? What's up? Good? Listen? Earlier you were talking about with the gentleman that was looking for seeds and things like that. Yes, you mentioned a feed store seed store in near Buchanans. Yes, that's Quality Feed Quality Feed Quality Feed. Couldn't find it on

Google maps. Okay, well they're there. They're so like if you take forty five and sixty nine and I ten and six ten and make a box out of them. Quality Feeds in the lower center of that area, just above it ten almost due east of Buchanans as the crow flies. But they're on Luzon Street l u z n uh and it's that old town, old time feed store. But they have a lot of things. They bring plants in, they've got soils, they specialize. It sounds like a good adventure.

Yeah, it kind of is. And they got all the products we're talking about, kind of like the old wall bash. Well, yeah, I mean that was a good I remember, that's cool. I've been going to Quality Feet since they were in another location. This is a newer location. They've been there a while, but uh, it's it's it's a good stop. And when you're in there, they show me your nineteen twenty three seed track. They got this old seed track from feed store. They put

their heirloom seeds in cool. All right, Well, thank you, and that's that's all I really needed. But sorry to hear about Randy. Yes, I think I think you've done a good job of filling the shoes. Well, Randy, Randy was a legend and he held this place down and built it for what twenty six twenty seven years. Yeah, and that was I don't know if you know, Randy and I go back to college days. We were in the same dorm together and really none a long time as

well. Okay, we're in Moses Haul up in the north west corner of campus where things were a little bit rowdy up there. We won't talk in case I got any kids. Listen, we're not going to talk about that anymore though, Randy, you know, hey, that that was the side of campus. It was really close to the Chicken and all that. Yes, it was. That's part of was Yes. Hey, you know those are the days before over Dixie Chicken, right man, you can just stumble

your weight. Well, see there, we were not going to go there. Jeff, thanks a lot for the call boy. That's funny, plausible. Deniabilic, thanks Josh, that's oh gosh. I just tell them I was pure as the wind driven snow. I don't know what kind of college stories you want to hear, but I ain't got any. I also joke I also, yeah, that's right, I was studying all the time. I also joked at Randy and I gave each other our twenty dollars bill to

never tell our kids someday about what was going on? All right, enough of that, listen. I haven't talked a lot about lawns. But even though it's a little early for lawns to wake up and get going, it's not too early to use turf star weedinator. And the reason is turf star weedenator is a post emergent broad leaf weed killer and a furtilisure so that chickweed and hind bit and carpet weed and cleavers are also called velcrow plant. There's

a lot of those kind of weeds that are in your lawns. If the lawn is thin and sunlight hit the soil, they're already growing. It's too late for a pre emergent. But when you moisten the lawn with just a little water to wet the surface of the grass and the weeds, and then you put down the turf star weedinator, it sticks. Those granules stick to the wet weed surfaces, and that's how it moves in and it takes them

out. Those weeds in about what is it, about four to eight weeks from now are going to be already well on their way to blooming and to setting seeds. And it's too late then to do much about them, and you've just sentenced yourself to ten times the weeds, if not more, for next year. So by doing the turf Star, we need her now. It's a slow release fertilizer, so it takes about six weeks after application for the ammonium and the urea, the urea end that product to release UH.

And then then there's some slowly available nitrogen water we would call water and soluble nitrogen. Then release is slower over time, and that comes later on when the turf is waking up and needs to do. It's turf Star we donators simple as I find it all over the place from Nelson Products. Well, it's time for a break. Here we go again. We've got one more segment left today, if you'd like to call seven one three two one two

fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Guarden Line, our last segment of the day. We are going to head out to Spring Branch now and talk to Larry. Hello, Larry, Hey, good morning. Skip. Got a question about the weed Nater. I bought a bag. I want to know if it's a good time to put it down. I'm concerned about all the rain coming this week. I would not do it right before all this rain. The end of the week or whenever this stops. It's still okay,

time to put out the weed. Nat the weeds are not going to be knee deep out there and it blooming and everything. Just get it a little ahead of time. But yeah, it would be better just to wait right before. I don't know what total of about four inches in some areas, it seems to be about an average. That's just too much water. So hang on, you good, you bought it, so you're ready to go when you can, But just hold on. Yeah, I'll start it, okay, Thank you so much, sir. You bet you too,

Thank you very much. I appreciate that call. Yeah, you know the I know it. Here we go. I know that a lot of people like to put out like their fertilizer before rain, because when you apply fertilizer, you want to water it in. That's good, that's natural. But you can't control how much it rains. And so if you're going to get a half inch of rain or so, that would be a good time to

do it. It would wet it enough to move it down into the soil a little bit, even an inch if it came slow enough to not just gully wash an inch in an hour, but it's better to just turn it, turn on your sprinklers and water it in and unless you just know that you're not going to get too much rain, because four inches for an immediately

available fertilizer. Fertilizers come in different types of organic and synthetic, of course, but among the synthetics there's some that it's just like putting salt and sugar and water. It dissolves and it goes into solution, and there's a there's a purpose and a reason though that it's very fast acting in everything. But those kind can dissolve and you get you lose a lot to your nutrients when we get four inches of rain. The slow release tend to not do that

because they release over time. There's different chemistries that cause them to release slowly, but they release over time. But even then, when you just have water sheeting off the lawn, it can pick up granules and move them a little bit, and so I would just wait, don't do that wrap for a rain afterwards, you know it doesn't take much water just to water mint a little bet or maybe you know you're gonna get a little bit of rain just a little, that's fine. But I wouldn't run out right before.

And that's true for you know your vegetable gardens and other things. It's gonna be a lot, So just just hang on, Just hang on, it's fine. Go ahead and get them now, while the supplies are there, while you know you're there, you're shopping doing some other things. Get the products you need. That's just fine. In fact, I've got several different things in the garage right now that I'm waiting to put out there. I've got them, I'm ready to go. First time I get a whim,

I don't have to run to the store and go buy them. I already got them, and I can head out if I got an hour, hour and a half time, I can run out there and get it done, be done with it, don't have to worry about it. So it's always good to be prepared. It's also always good to use your head a little bit. I try to do that myself when I'm going to be doing any

kind of gardening activities. Just kind of think through this. One of the challenges I like to give people every year is to try try something new in gardening. Try a plant you haven't grown before. Try a type of gardening you haven't done before. Try, especially with vegetables, Try something you haven't eaten before. I don't know why it is, but the typical Texas vegetable garden is going to have the meat and potatoes. Stuff like potatoes, like

tomatoes, you know, onions maybe in it. It's going to have a lot of the basics, even broccoli. But there are so many vegetables, especially from other cultures, other ethnic cuisines, that are wonderful. And if you get to exploreing, you're going to find things you like. I remember the first time I discovered Backchoi, it was like, man, this stuff is great. There's another one here. This is going to be a little hard to find, called chi Jemsi. I'll spell itch c h I j

I m I s ai. I believe that try. Baker Creek Seeds sells seeds for it. There. It's a cross between two different Asian vegetables. You can buy that cross from other places. They don't call it Chiamsi, but it's very mild. If you are kind of not a fan of mustard, that strong mustard flavor that's present in a lot of the cruciferous vegetables. Chijemasi is very, very flavorful. Chinese cabbage that is an awesome one.

I remember doctor Jonovac who's now working with the gardens out at Rice. He was my vegetable professor in college, and he talked told me about Chinese cab. It just many years ago. But it's like if you imagine a head of lettuce and a head of cabbage something in between. So it's mild enough to use as a mix in salads. It's wonderful for stir fry. It's just a great vegetable, easy to grow. Try some things like that. I mean I could go on and on and on and try some different things.

I remember the first time I decided to do a hanging tomato plant, an upside down tomato. Have y'all seen those? You can buy little bags to grow them in, but you don't have to. You can get you a five gallon bucket. It's already got a handle on it, and you drill a little hole in the bottom so that you can take your tomato transplant

and push it up through the hole. If it's coming out a little six pack or if it's like a four inch pot, you just kind of What I'll do is I'll wrap the plant in a like a paper towel, so you can create a little tube with the leaves instead of leaves and branches going

everywhere, and you just slide it right down through that hole. If the root ball isn't enough to not fall out of the hole, I've just taken like paper towel or something like that around it, just to kind of create a little bit bigger thing there to hold it, and then fill the pot full of potting soil. It helps to drill a hole or two also in the pot, so all the water didn't have to drain out of that one hole. But you don't have to hang it upside down. I've done that

before, and it's cool. You need to do it. I would suggest doing it with like a vining type of a grape or a cherry tomato, something with clusters. What will happen is the vines will hang down, but then they'll try to turn and grow up, because that's how plant tomato plants want to grow. And then with the weight of the fruit, it hangs down. But it's quite a conversation piece. Then in mind, I just thought, well, hey, we're gonna why don't we just do put some

plants that like to grow together, like basil. Right when you cook, you want pesto, you want tomato sauce. You so I just put basil in the top of it. Coming out of the top of the bucket, you got a water it a lot that's five gallons doing everything for both plants. But it gives the neighbors something to talk about. And they're already talking about you. You know that, right, They're already talking about you. Now they have something else to talk about. But that's different. Have you

ever done it? Try it this year. See how that works. You just need to put it in an area that gets good sunlight. There are a thousand other things you could be doing out in the garden, a lot of different things that are different, that are new that you're trying something new, And especially with flowers and the beauty and cut flowers. Have you ever grown cut flowers? Try some zenias or the Gateway Drug for cut flower growing.

Everybody can buy zenia seeds, scatter mouts real easy to do. Sunflowers are easy to do, but there's lots and lots of other flowers you can grow for cuts, for making the indoor vases in your house, making that a beautiful area, a nice little gift when you go visit somebody. So think outside the box. Gardening is fun, and I know we have these guidelines, you can call them rules, but don't worry about all the rules, the ones that are good horticulture practices. Yes, but it's your place.

What do you want to grow? What do you want to eat? What do you want to look at? What do you want to try? You know you're not going to fail at gardening. You're only going to give up. So don't be afraid to fail. Try some new things. Our garden centers. I promise you every one of the garden centers I talk about on garden Line, North, South, East, West and Central, they are going to have something you've never grown or seen before in the garden center.

Go try it? Why not? Why not think outside the box? Have I encourage you to do that? I hope? So I'm trying. It is fun. Gardening is meant to be fun. So don't worry about well I fail or not. J. C Ralston, North Carolina University, North Carolina said to be a good horticulture, she got to kill a lot of plans. Don't be afraid to kill it. Have fun. Hey, we'll be back next week. Thanks for listening to the Gardenline. Talk to you next Saturday. Mm hmm