Take Your Kids Out to the Garden!

I really do. Don't tell me about brown thumbs. There is no such thing as a brown thumb. There's only uninformed thumbs. And we're gonna inform your thumb. And if you want to talk about your thumb like it has a color, well we're gonna turn your thumb green by teaching your thumb a few things. And all of a sudden you'll find that, I don't know, you may be walking across the yard and drop a pencil on the ground. Next morning you come out and it's rooted and grown

into a pine tree. I'm just saying, right, okay, I mean that's that's making a big claim for garden Line. But we're gonna give it our best shot. How about that. If you'd like to give me a call, here's how you do it. If I can find my number from me seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k TRCH believe it or not, I have to stick that number up in front of me because as many times as I've said it, in the moment I need it, just that's

not always there. Right, all right, we'll give us a call. We'll talk about the things that you are interested in. For sure. You hear me talk about Peerscapes a lot. Pier Scapes is the professional landscape company. Then we talk about all the time on guarden Line. The folks at Peerscapes, I don't care what you need, they can do it. And it's really true. Go online, look at their website Piercescapes dot com, Pierscapes dot com and just kind of click around in it. Look at their social media too.

Lots of pictures of jobs they've done. Maybe you are looking at that backyard spot kind of outside the back door alongside the house, and you're thinking, you know, a patio would be really nice. Maybe some stone out there, we could set up some tables and just enjoy things. How about a little barbecue put over here in the side. Maybe we need a little rock wall going around this bed. And you just keep imagining and get the inspiration from pierscapes dot com. You can find a lot of things there.

Now you give them a call, you get set up, come in, let's talk about what you're going to do. What do you want. Maybe it's revamping a bed, Maybe it's just the whole landscape. You know, I want to do a complete landscape. They can do that. You're driving around one night and you see beautiful lighting on somebody's home and you just think, you know, that would be a good security thing to have. Plus it's gorgeous going

out at night. They can do that. You got a wet spot that doesn't drain well, they can fix that. Pierscapes does it all. Also, they do quarterly maintenance, like, for example, once every three months. Coming out looking at your beds, sprucing them up, getting any weeds out, replenishing the mulch that's in the bed, making sure that irrigation is working well. As the season's change, you can arrange for various we call them color changes, you know, going

from pansies to petunia. In other words, as you come out of winter, there's there's nothing that they can't do, and when they get through doing it, it looks great. Pierscapes dot Com. Here's the phone number if you like to call them. Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh five zero six zero. This afternoon, I have some things I'm wanting to get my hands on, uh in as far as gardening is concerned,

and one of them is some plant propagation. I've got several different plants that I want to propagate, in other words, make more of and you can do that by seed. That's what nature does every day, is casting seeds out from one plant to grow more. And you can also do it about cuttings. There's other ways to propagate as well. But I'm going to be doing some cutting rooting myself, and I just haven't gotten around to it. I've got a little light table indoors. That's a nice quality light.

You get a good loose media one that grows. Excuse me that that you can moisten, but that isn't sop and soggy wet. Really important to have good oxygen down at the bottom of the cuttings when you put them down in a growing mix to root them. I've got some rooting hormone I keep in the refrigerator. That's how you keep it fresh. And it's just a dust. You

can also buy it as a liquid. Just put a little around the cutting, put it down into the mix that you are going to use for rooting, and then some kind of clear cover over the top that allows all the light to get through, but it doesn't allow the moisture out. You don't need them to dry out. Think about this, that cutting has no way of taking up moisture. It is rootless when you put it in there. But as it develops roots, then it can begin to

take up its own moisture. And you don't have to pull it out every day to look at it and see if it has roots. If you do that, a little tender root will break off and the cutting will die. So you just wait and when you see new growth starting on your cuttings, new little growth starting to grow out. You know it's got something down that's taking up nutrients to support that growth, and that means it has a root.

Rather than yank it out, I'll take a little fork, like to use a little plastic fork just to get underneath the cutting, kind of lift it up with the fork and then kind of shake it just a little bit and you can see the rooting media begin to fall off and you can see the roots. Then you pot it up into a new container and you're good to go. Anyway. I've got several people that are wanting some plants that I have, and so I'm just going to root some cuttings today and get some of that done.

It's some the other day as well. It's a lot of fun to do it now. Once they're kind of established with some roots on them, they don't need to stay indoors under lights. It's just it's so blazing hot in the months to come that I just usually start mine inside to do that. There's one other way that you can start a cutting that's almost like guaranteed success. It's close to guaranteed success, and that is with what's

called a layer la ye er. So let's say you have a vining rows, you know, a climbing they call them climbing roses. But and you go out toward the end of the vine and you bend it, and as you bend that it sort of cracks and it becomes like a hinge, like an like your elbow. Okay, so picture your elbow. Your fist is the end of the vine. And you put that elbow under ground or in a pot under the soil, have some way to pin it down. Set a heavy rock on it, take a little bent

coat hanger and pin it down into the soil. Keep that area moist. That wound will begin to callous where your elbow is, and roots will begin to form, and you just kind of have to check on it periodically, not very often, every couple of weeks, maybe a little bit. And once it's going got roots of its own, you cut it loose from mom. In other words, between your I keep using my arm as the example, but between

your elbow and your bicep. You know it's connected to your body that way, right, So you just cut it off there and now it's its own plant. You can dig it up. I like to do it in containers, because then you've already got it in a container and you just keep going anyway. There's a lot of ways to propagate, and propagating is fun. It's a great way to share things also that you just can't find anywhere.

You know, maybe or maybe a plant has a wonderful memory, you know, like it's one that you got from Grandma's house before she passed. And now the house is gone, it's no longer in the family, but everybody remembers that you fill in the blank a shrub that was outside, uh, and now you can share that with your other family members as a memory of Grandma, for example. See what I'm talking about. It's good to know how to do

some cuttings. Well, I'll tell you what we are getting my excuse me, uh, looking at a time to take a break here. I'll come right back, and Lisa in Seabrook, you're gonna be our first stop when we come back. Alrighty, welcome back. Good to have you with us here on garden Line. Look forward to visiting with you about the questions you might have this morning. Seven one three two one two kat r let's go out to the phones. Now we're going to head out to Seabrook and visit

with Lisa. Hello, Lisa, Welcome to Gardenline.

really good. There one that you might like. There's some native ones, and if I were you, I would you're done in Seabrook, I'd run over to Moss Nursery and ask them what kinds they have, what kins they can get that will be more tree form. If you go a little further west from here, Rusty black Harvo Burnham is really popular as a native tree. We have a number of native I Burnhams here in the country, and

so that one is good. It can be a little tricky to get started, but once it's established it's nice. It has fall color and makes little berries that attract the birds and things. But yeah, it just depends on which one. The southern arrow wood, I wouldn't say it's tree size, but it can get a little bit larger. That would be a possibility. Just make sure you get the southern one. So those are some of the things

if you're looking for other kinds of trees. Now, the Chinese fringe I like a lot, but it gets it probably you're going to see it eventually up around twenty feet maybe tall is a tree. I don't know if that's too big for what you're looking for or not. Okay, okay. It has shaggy white blooms in the spring. You can do an online search to see pictures of it. And the blooms have a nice little fragrance, very light fragrance.

But there's so many of them that when you walk around, you pick that fragrance up, which is nice.

All right, Lisa, Well, thanks for the call. Good luck with that. You take care if you are dealing with gray leaf spot in your Saint Augustine, and you may well be. Listen, gray leaf spots everywhere and the conditions, environmental conditions make it become a problem. Okay, So you go all through the heat of summer and you see very little greatly spot at that time. But about now the temperatures are a little milder, but we're getting more rainfall.

And then some people turn their sprinklers on way too often, and that's when Gravey's spot takes off. An eagle turf fungicide from nitrofoss can shut it down. It can shut it down. Just remember your overwatering is one of the things contributing to gray leaf spot in your Saint Augustine lawns. So number one's let's back off good soaking not very often when you need to treat for it. Eagle turf fungicide, Eagle turf fung aside from nitrofoss You're gonna find Eagle

at Ace Hardware. City of Memorial. You're gonna find an m dat and Rosenberg Bearings hardware on Bisonette and on West Timer, and also plants fall seasons, plants for all seasons as well. All righty, let's now head out the League City and we're going to talk to Walter this morning. Hey Walter, good morning.

really sure why this yellow. And it looks like I'm the only one in the block that getting the grass that is yellow.

If that's true, you can try an iron supplement on the lawn and that will help replace the there's iron in your soil. The grass can't get it because it's in a form. Grass is not able to pick up right now. So a supplement can help green it up for you, and that would be a good idea. Be very careful with your iron supplement because you've got driveways and walkways and things. And if you get iron supplements

on concrete, it stains at a rust color. So after you apply it, get your blower broom and get it off the surfaces and then watered in really good. It should do pretty good. I think you will also do well if you get it as a liquid form. A fertile home has a micro nutrient iron and other micro nutrients supplement. It's by fertile home. It's in a gray bottle, and it has more than just iron, It has manganese and other things in it. And I might just do it that way, maybe a hose hose en sprayer, and

that ought to green it up. Now, having set all that, the question is why isn't the grass getting the iron that's there in your soil one form One reason may be if you have high pH or hyphosphorus or other things, or there's a lack of iron. But another may be a disease called take all root rot, which kills roots. And when roots die, their ability to take up nutrients goes down, or you may if they're not there, they

can't take them up at all. So the overall grass plant is lacking because it doesn't have enough of a root system to do that. If take all is the problem, you're just going to need to go to my schedule, my schedule on my website UH for UH Lawn Pest Disease and weed Management, and you'll see take all root run in the fungicide row going across and it tells you when, and then at the bottom it tells you

what to use to control the take all. I can't diagnose take all just from a distant picture of a lawn, but having seen this so many times, I would say there's a fifty to fifty chance that take All may be involved. But still that fertilum supplement would be a good IDEA.

tree in the ground. It's a little scrainy tree in the ground. That's when we call it training at that stage, but it's pruning that's when it begins. If you wait until the tree is twenty feet high to begin pruning, you're messing up because you've already developed narrow branch angles. There's already structural things that aren't going to be good and strong. So you want to start your trees early. And that's where I would hire someone to come in

and help you with the training from the beginning. But if you already have an established tree, you need someone that knows what they're talking about to do the pruning. And that process is not it's not that difficult. Just remember that. It's like a lot of things in life. The sooner you deal with an issue, the less problems you're going to have, the less difficulty you're going to have and trying to deal with it. Okay, don't put things off, don't be an ostrich, put your head in

the scind if. I like to tell people this, if if you go outside with a saw, you're admitting guilt. And here's what that means. If you have a young tree and you see branches and you go, this isn't a good spot. I'm going to take my lopper prunters and prune this off and you stay with it diligently

like that, you almost never need to get the saw out. Okay, now, I realize there's situations where you got to solve branches, but I'm just trying to keep create the concept that the bigger the branches you're sawing off, the more you have put off a problem that could have been dealt with earlier. So don't from the time it goes in the ground begin the prunting process and get somebody that knows what they're doing. Affordable Tree Service Martin Spoonmore's company.

You heard about him on garden Line for a long long time. They know what they're doing. You can call seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three get an appointment. It's a family company. Martin's mom's probably going to answer the phone. UH, and just tell her you heard about it on Guardenline. Because Guardenline customers go to the front of their line. They're the priority. They're the priority. So and they fill Affordable Tree stays busy.

They they fill up really quickly because they do good work and people know them. So seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three. And it's not just for pruning, it's for advising on your trees. If you're going to do construction around a tree, you gotta call them to come in.

going to talk about today? You told me. I mean, I got a lot of things I can talk about a lot on my mind gardening wise, but hey, this is about you. It's about your yard, your garden, your flower bed. Let me give you one encouragement today this week,

well this week, how about today? Today? Be a good day anyway, Get involved with a kid with gardening, if you've got children, if you've got grandchildren, however you go about it, get a kid out there in the garden, get their hands in the dirt, and let them just get dirty, make a mess, and have fun in the soil. That is part of the fun of gardening. I know some of you, you know, have sterilized kind of situations. You keep kids in because you know when to get sick.

A kid that plays in the dirt. And this is medically true. When we're exposed to a lot of things like that, running around barefoot and stuff, it builds your immune system and you're healthier. But a child that learns to grow flowers and vegetables and things is more likely to eat healthier Because I grew it, I'm going to eat it. It's really different. Broccoli looks different when you grew it, as opposed to when your mom's trying to shove it down your throat.

Is that just normal for that type of fruit? Or doing something wrong?

that also really stunts them back. But I don't know what else to tell you if it's really too early for it to be a girdle a girdled stem. But you might just dig down around the base of the stem and make sure there's not something strangling the stem. Sometimes the little tag, those little tags that loop around and go through you know, there's a hole in the tag and you wrap it around the tree and go

back through the hole. Sometimes those can be real tight on the base of a stem or something else strangling like that. I don't think that's the problem. But we're kind of grabbing at straws here because everything else that could go wrong you seem to have done right. So I'll just continue to fertilize. You might want to give them a little boost of something with some nitrogen and see if you can push a little bit more growth

on them. That would be good. Are you real sure that the soil where that lemon is is very well drained.

a watering can. Can spray it on foliage. It's hard to get folier feed and a citrus, but if you try to do that, do it early, early in the morning when it's cool, and spray your folier spray upward to hit the bottom of the leaves, and you may get a little bit of a boost into the plant. That way, but a good drenching of the root system

is also good. That That's about all I got for you now, other than going out there and uh, threatening the plant that you're going to yank it out of the ground and throw it in the burn pile if it start growing, and that I go out there and sing you how's your well? Do you have a good voice, because that could also be the problem that might be growth.

of the root ball that you planted. Then you can come along with a little doll stick and stick it down in that pipe and then pull it back out and you can see if it's wet at the bottom or not. You can see if they're standing water in it or if you see what I'm saying, and you always want to water it and don't overwater it. That that keeps you from kind of overwatering it, because if water is coming up in that pipe, that's not good.

But the only other thing is just going by the temperatures and doing a good moderate soaking just periodically to help it along. And that's you know, you kind of have to learn your soil, if you have sandy soil or clay soil or whatever, frequency of watering is going to vary a lot. Okay.

not watering it every day. But my point is it needs constant water because the whole root system is right there in the pot, and the holes drain out well, so you don't overwater it, so it doesn't hurt the water like that. When you put it in the ground, the root system is still the same and the top is still pumping water out through the leaves on warm sunny days, so you are having to water frequently to keep that little root ball moist. You don't want to

overwater it and get soggy. That is deadly to a tree. But on the other hand, even in moist soil, the water can't wig end fast enough into that root ball to supply the tree. You're going to need to water the base of it. And gradually you're watering a bigger area but less frequently, And it's just a it's a transition. That's why it's so much better to plant and fall and winter in spring because the demands aren't so high. When you plant in July and August, you can you

can plant then and keep a tree alive. But that it's a touch and goat thing. Not too much water, not enough water, you know what I'm saying. So what you said about watering every day, Yeah, I could see a situation where you would water very lightly every day

that rootball, just don't overwater it. That's early on, But as soon as you can, you're wanting to back off, and you're wanting to switch your watering cycle to where eventually within by the time that you get the end of the first summer, you should be watering about once a week, and that ought to be more than enough.

of out there. I mean the you know, things like Big Green Egg, things like Trager, things like Rectick, things like oh gosh, what's Weber? There's another one in there more. I mean, I'm not naming them all. Ace Hardware has got it and they've got all the accessories you need to go with them. Uh, you need to find your local Ace Hardware store Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Listen, ladies, Father's Days coming up. I'm just saying, wow, this would be a good one. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Find

your local ACE Hardware store. They're all over the place, and at Acehardware Texas dot Com you can find out of course when you're in there, get some fertilizer for your lawn, get all the kinds of things you need to have a beautiful outdoor living experience. You can go to All Star Ace and Spring up on Rayford Road. You can go to K and M in Kingwood, which is on Kingwood Drive. There's also a K and M at task Asita, which is in an humble address out there on the east to the north and east of

us Cyprus Ace on Jones Road another good example. And if you're done in Deer Park, there's deer Park Ace, deer Park Lumber, Ace Hardware on Center Street. That's just a few of the many, many ACE Hardware stores that you'll find at ACE Hardware Texas dot Com. We're going to go now back to a task Asita and Jim, I think you had a quick follow up question.

for folio feeding. Centris tends to have a waxy kind of leaf surface anyway, a little shining, and so just spraying over the top you're not going to get the uptake. But in the morning, when the stowmates are open, spring upward to the undersurfaces would be the way to go about that. All righty, thank you sir. I'm gonna I'm gonna need yeah, I'm gonna need to run, but thanks

for the call. Jim. Look forward to, uh, you know, seeing some pictures of these these beautiful trees that you're taking care of you take care you too, talking about the ace hardware and just you know, find everything you need there. They have everything. I mean they have. You can get the propane tank there. If you've got a gas type grill, that's another another thing. Uh, and any kind of outdoor beautification around, you know, a patio of

landscape stuff. They've got all this good stuff for it. Hey, have you been to Plants for All Seasons recently? Plants for All Seasons is at Luetta and Tumball Parkway, which is highway to So if you're going north from Houston toward Tomball, you exit Luetta across over Luetta and it's right there on the right hand side. And if you're a green thumb, you probably already know about Plants for

All seasons. If you think you have a brown thumb, well, I'll take your thumb in there and they'll educate it. They know what they're doing. They're true lawn and garden experts. They really know their stuff. Right now, they've got some beautiful hidden gingers in a number of different types of hidden ginger. They carry a variety of plants. I'm just picking one out hidden ginger. If you've got a bright,

bright shady area is a perfect plant for that. It's got a big kind of a can of leaf sized leaf, maybe a little smaller than that, and then these bloomstalks that are just beautiful. They make a cup flowers too, by the way, but they come up from the center of the plant. That's why they call it hidden because it's not like the bloom is just sitting way above the foliage. It's kind of in the top of the plant there. Beautiful and you got they got them plants

for all seasons, which isn't a surprise. They carry everything that would turn your lawn into a more or your landscape into a more beautiful place in the springtime. If you want to get them a call two eight one three seven six sixteen forty six two eight one three seven six one six four six. You're listening to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're about to take a little break here for the top of the hour news

and we'll be back with your calls. Sunday morning is always a good time to call because it's a little bit quieter. People more sleepy heads on Sunday mornings seven one three, two one two fifty eight, seventy four or if you want to dial by letter seven eight seven one three two one two ktr H seven one three two and two k t r H. And we're going to take a little break here in just a second. I want to remind you that my schedules are online and they are free. Go to gardening with Skip dot com.

Gardening with Skip dot com. That's where you're gonna find him.

Good article on lawn care long Care one oh one. I would highly recommend that you read that. It talks about some of the basics of success with lawns and then, of course, you know me, you got to talk about dirt. Great gardens begin with great soil. Another new publication up on Gardeningwiskip dot com well, welcome back to gardening. Gardening on garden Line. That's what we're doing here, plant in the airways. I guess you could say, I don't know, tell that sounds a little bit corny to me. But

we want to help you have success. And today is going to be a good day to get out and enjoy this afternoon, we're gonna have some nice weather at least, you know, as far as I'm concerned whether we can we can actually get out and get a little bit done in Sometimes when it comes to gardening and gardening tasks, I think we we tend to kind of make something bigger than it needs to be. You know, we think, oh my gosh, I got to do this, I don't

know how to do this and stuff. It's really it's really not that difficult, and when you take it in small chunks, it works pretty good.

a little done toward the end of the day. It's still warm at the end day. But pace yourself. Take care of yourself too, by the way, take care of yourself because a lot of things that they sneak up on us. For example, a heat stroke is one that can sneak up on you. I remember, I've never had heat stroke. I have had heat exhaustion, and that scared me enough to kind of get my attention. But skin damage, you know, take care of that. I bought some little

sleeves that you slide up your arm. They're actually a kind that like bicyclists might wear. On one end your thumb, there's a hole for your thumb and your fingers to come out, and the sleeve just goes over the top of your hand and all the way back, all the way up into your bicep underneath your short sleeve shirt. And I use those driving in the car, but I also get out there and do some gardening. There's some nice brands out there. Come in different colors and shape,

sizes and things. But take care of your skin. Sun damages is cumulative. And these sleeves you may be thinking, yeah, it's blazing hot. I don't wear them. It's cooler to wear them. When I put that sleeve on, it's very it's very thin, a very kind of spandexy, I guess very you know, stretchy. And when I go out and if your body perspires just a little bit, it cools off real fast. It blocks the direct sun from getting on. You just got good SPF factor and it makes gardening easier.

The first time someone convinced me that gardening in a long sleeve shirt was actually cooler than gardening and shirt sleeves, and it's really true, especially if it wicks the moisture away pretty well. All right, well that's enough advice. I'm not your mom, but I do. I do like to remind people of those things because they are important. We want you to take care of yourself. Out in the garden yesterday we were watching the birds coming to our feeder.

I have the eliminator feeder from wild Birds Unlimited. It's one of my several feeders, but the eliminator from wild Birds on Limited. The squirrels can't get in it. They climb up the pole, they try to reach over there. When they grab a hold of it, the door shuts and they can't get to the food. And they don't like that, and I do like that. And we were watching birds coming to the feeders, and just so many kinds of birds now are out and about. You know,

it's nesting season. This is a time when birds need an extra powerful blend that's going to have the oils, the proteins, the calcium and things like that that are all part of everything from laying eggs to skeletal development of the birds. And wild Birds Unlimited has something called Nesting Super Blend. It's only available there. You can't get it anywhere else. You can buy it in bags, you

can buy it by those compressed seed cylinders. So whatever kind of feeder you have, you can put the Nesting super Blend in it, and you need to. It is a good support for our birds at this time. Now you're going to find Nesting Super Blend at any of our six wild Birds Unlimited stores here in the Houston AIO. So if you're listening to me and you're up in Cypress, well, there's one on Barker Cypress. Maybe you're kind of West Houston and a Memorial Drive store would be the one

close to you. Maybe kind of south in a little to the west, the bel Air store may be the best one for you. If you're in Pairland on East Broadway, you'll find a wild Birds. In clear Lake, there's one on El Dorado, and in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive another wild Bird's unlimited store. Now, while you're there, check out everything they have and spend some time talking to them. Take your questions, and these folks know what they're talking about.

They really do. They're experts, and if you have questions, they can help you. They can help you find the solutions. I love their bird seed for a number of reasons, but mainly because it is quality seed without all the filler. If you want to sell bird seed and you want to sell it cheap, and I use the word cheap not in a positive way, you just fill it full of the lower red bebes. And I've seen bird seed that is like sixty seventy percent red bebes. That's a

sortum and it just birds don't like that. That's not I mean, if they're starving to death, de leat it, but that is not what they like. It ends up on the ground and it sprouts, and now you got weeds under your bird feeder because you planted the weeds there by putting that in the feeder. Get a quality feed. Wild Birds Unlimited has blends for different seasons. They have different blends for different kinds of birds, different groups of birds,

and then they have something called no mess blends. So when you get a no mess blend, you're getting this certain amount of certain kinds of seed blend, but you're getting it so there's zero mess. For example, if there's sunflowers in it, the shells are already off, so you don't have a blow pole sunflower shells underneath the feeder. That's the no messed option, no mess option, and they will will sell you probably and cylinders if you want to go that way, or loose bags, however you want

to go about it. They have quality products and you see the difference. I've seen it in my feeders, just the enthusiasm and the amount of birds that are coming. They're just lining up down the block to get in there. Because I love quality seed, and that's exactly what they get from wild Birds unlimited. All right, So there you go. If you've never gotten into birds, you need to try. Just get one bird feeder, put it out where you sit in the morning with your cup of coffee, and

you will really really enjoy it. It is addictive. Though you've been warned all right on talking about gardening and garden line. I wanted to talk a little bit about some herbs today, and I'm not going to have time to get too far into them here before I take a break, but I just wanted to start with basil. Basil loves hot weather. I didn't even want to grow

when it's cool spring weather. It wants hot weather. And there are so many kinds of basil from the standard Genoees kind of type basil that you would think of when you're thinking about cooking with basil and making pestos and things like that, to all these flavored basils. You know, there's basils that are a lemony flavor. I have the African blue basil. I'm not particularly fond of it culinary wise,

but some people love that flavor. There's basils with the licorice type of flavor, the tie basil and things, and I grow the African blue just for the pollinators. I've never seen a plant that's just so covered with pollinators all the time. Is African blue basil when it goes to blum. It's a very good, hardy plant. But why not add some basil to your gardens this year. It could go in a flower bed, it can go in a vegetable garden. It doesn't matter where you put it

in a container. But we went out the other day and we were harvesting herbs. One of my daughters was out chopping through our oregano bringing some in because we were doing some cooking. And it's just nice having fresh herbs yourself, and they're not hard to grow. I'll talk about that more. We come back. All right now, we're gonna take a little break if you'd like to give me a call. Seven one three two one two KTRH. All right, folks, we're back. Good Davey back. Thanks for

hanging around with us on garden Line this morning. We've got some interesting questions here. In fact, let's head up to Cyprus and visit with Martha this morning. Hey, Martha, welcome to garden Line.

and shribbled. But I just set the pot out of the way because and the time at the moment to mess with it. In this spring, we came out the same thing as we looked and all of a sudden, here comes kllalilies out of the pot. Oh that's great, But yours look a little lanky and kellalily And it's a native environment. It's an African plant. I'm pretty sure that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's right. Anyway, it gets a lot

of sun, full sun kind of thing. Now, I've always felt like maybe we should put it in a little bit of a break from the hottest time of the day. So when we get into hotter summer weather, maybe give it a little bit of a very late day shade. But it'll be a more compact plant that way. When it gets super lanky and the petiols are thin of what you described, Martha and what's in your photos, they kind of flop over, and I wouldn't remove them. If they turn yellow, go ahead and cut them back near

where they attach at the base. But they are capturing sunlight, and they're making carbohydrates, and they're feeding the little bulbs that are that are in the soil there. So make sure that you leave the leaves on as long as you can, as long as they're doing something for you.

and so it can constantly lick the water up. And that way you don't forget to water it. You just have to throw some mosquito dunks in there periodically, so you don't breed mosquitoes in that.

about water or anything in the winter. And then when the spring growth comes, you will have those bulbs that have the energy they need to be able to bloom better for you next year.

me a picture of all the blooms on it. Will take a look at those. Uh yeah, kalallyes. You see those in stores now, they're selling them, you know, full of blooms. They have been for a little while now, they've been probably the last month I've been seeing them out there in stores. It's a good plant.

until spring. When you start to see new growth. That's when you bring it out and give it some good sunlight again. All right, there you go, and some people, if some of you grow them in the shade in your beds, give me a call. I'd like to hear about what you do, how much light they get, and everything like that. I know you can, and so maybe that that would be of interest to some other folks to hear about your success. Medina. Medina is a lawn and garden product source for all kinds of good things.

There are two products I want to tell you about right now. One of them is and they both go on a hose end. They're a bottle that has a little screw attachment onto the garden hose. One of them is Medina has to grow lawn, has to grow lawn. Remember when a bottle says the name of a plant, that doesn't mean you can't use it on other plants. It just means that's what they're primarily marketing it for, is lawns. Okay, it's a It is a twelve four eight. That's a three one two ratio, which is what I

like to see in a lawn fertilizer. Twelve for a Medina has to grow on You look it up at the garden hose, you go over your lawn, just follow the instructions. It's easy. It's just really easy to do. I like it because if you've got some spots that they just need a boost, you can go out there with your hose end sprayer. The hose end sprayer be in the bottle itself and you can just kind of dose those areas, I say, feather it out into the others.

You know, just you don't have just a line like with a dry fertilizer, where you drop it and then where it's not it's like green here, not green there. You can just kind of feather it out and really kind of give a boost to some little spots. But it's not just for that, it's for your lawn. The other product for Medina is called Supergrow Plus. Super Grow Plus same thing, bottle, hook it up to a garden hose. I mean these things are for sale in larger quantities too,

like gallons. But Supergrow Plus is a sixteen zero two that is a boost of nitrogen and it's excellent for lawns. It works very very well. I've used both of them. I like both of them. I would recommend that you use both of them. And so it just gives you the ability to do that precision application. Now, if you get anything that needs a boost of nitrogen and get

it growing. Could be your herb garden, could be your tomato plants and a vegetable garden or something else, you can use these Medina lawn products for that and it'll do the same good thing for those other plants as well. All righty Medina products from Medina. Now you're gonna find Medina products everywhere you go to Southwest Fertilizer. I mean they got probably every Medina product under the sun. You're going to find them at garden centers, you know you're

your independent garden centers. You're going to find them at feed stores. You're going to find them at these hardware stores. They're widely available, easy to find, and they work, that's the bottom line. As they work. You're listening to garden Line. My number here is seven one three two one two kt r H seven one three two one two kt RH makes it really easy to give a call and we'll talk about the things that are of interest to you.

I'm going to go back to herbs. I was talking about herbs before break and I mentioned the fact that basil loves heat. It's easy, easy, easy to grow. Give it lots of sun and enjoy it. Most types of basil will start to bloom and set seeds. If you're going for basil foliage to eat, that's not a good thing because when it starts blooming and setting seeds, it doesn't produce the big, old, nice leaves that you're wanting to harvest. It kind of runs out and it puts

all its energy into blooming and setting seed. That's when the pollinators get very interested in it, though, so you can go for that. I will share my basil back periodically to get fresh new growth on it, give it a little boost of energy with some nitrogen that has to grows twelve four eight has to grow on would be a good one to use for basil to give it a little boost. But anyway, you give it a boost and get some fresh new growth out and then

you just can enjoy it. Again. Consider all the different kinds I mentioned oregano. There's several types of oregano, several types of oregano that you can plant. Oregano makes a great groundcover. I would highly recommend you get herbs out of the herb garden if you want to make a beautiful Louis the fourteenth type geometric, all trimmed up in everything herb garden, go for it, do that right, but put herbs in your vegetable garden. I have chives at

the end of my rose. I have a regano growing at the end of the I put basil at the end of the tomato. In fact, if you're going to grow tomatoes, why not put basil on one end and a regano in the other. And you're just ready to go for all the stuff you do with tomatoes right there in your garden.

There's always a place for herbs. They're fun to grow, and it's not a healthier way to season up your food than with the herbs you grew yourself fresh from your garden. I need to take a little break here and we will be back with your calls at seven one three two one two kt RH A little bit of a Sleep at the Wheel for those of you who love that band from Austin, Texas. I do sleep

at the Wheel. Hey, you're listening to Guarden Line. Our phone number here if you'd like to give me call seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t R. H. Houston Powder Coders. That's the company that can transform your outdoor metal into something really special. Maybe you've got one of those old time chairs that there were tubular metal, you know that you kind of bounce on and they

rock or bounce a little bit. They have the typically primary colors you like, red and green and blue and everything pink. Well, they can take those and they can transform them again. You know, any kind of outdoor metal furniture, whether it's cast iron, rod iron, or aluminum, patio furniture, cast iron, axcume, any of the metals that are outside, Houston powder Coators will bring them in. If they got

some rust, you know, they deal with that. If they got old rusty bolts and things on them, they'll put fresh new stainless steel hardware in them. Any kinds of straps or sling fabric or anything that's part of the kind of furniture you have, they'll they'll fix that and then they powder cot it. Powder coating is better than painting. And over one hundred color options is that enough? I can't name five colors and they have over one hundred

color options that you can choose from. So, whether it's furniture, or maybe an ornamental metal hanging that's on a fence that's resting and you know, or brick wall and the rust is running down the wall. Let them let them coat it if you like the rust. Look, they can coat it and it looks rusty, but it's not. It's

powder coated. Do you see what I'm saying. They can do it all and all you got to do is take a picture of what you want to get a quote on and email that to sales at Houstoncoaters dot com sales at Houstoncoders dot com for a quick quote, and they'll send you a quote. If you go with it, they'll come pick it up and they'll do the job. They'll bring it back and drop it off all for you. If you're in the Houston area. Houston Powder Cooders dot com is the website. Go look at what they do.

Look at their social media too. They put pictures of all their great jobs on there and it'll be inspiration. You go, oh, I've heard Skipp talk about that all the time, but I just said and pictured it like the well. Houston Powdercoders dot com two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight please write that down two, eight, one, six, seven, six thirty eight eighty eight. We're going to go back to the phones now and we're going to have the

spring branch and talk to Herda. Well, hello, Herda, welcome about the morning.

because we want them green and full and thick. With daylilies and other flowering plants for that matter, our goal is the flowers, and so we don't have to over push with nitrogen and things. But you can get a lot of good products. The folks at Nelson Plant Food have a number of different products that will do very well. There's one called color Star. Color Star you'll find it little in your area wherever Nelson products are sold, and

follow the label on it. But color Star would be an excellent one for use on your.

And we'll continue to here for a while because I'm trying to convince you that you need to grow more herbs. I really think you do. There are very few plants that are so versatile as herbs. There are herbs that bloom. I planted some pineapple sage the other day. Pineapple sage is a Salvia, Okay, so there's a lot of great Salvius. Salvia is my favorite genus of plants that is out there. If I had to pick one genus, it would be Salvius. And I like a lot of plants, but I would

pick Salvius. Anyway. I planted some pineapple stage in late summer, and in fall it puts out even the most for the whole year. Red tubular, long, skinny blooms that hummingbirds love. Of course, it has a pineapple fragrance to the foliage, but in fall it is quite the bloomer. Another fall blooming herb is Mexican mint marigol. Some people call it Mexican marigol mint. That is not the name. It's not a mint. It is a marigold Mexican mint marigold. Okay.

It has a licorice smell smelling foliage. So think of black jelly beans. That's what the foliage smells like on it. In fall, it loads up a clusters of little yellow daisy like flowers that are absolutely beautiful. So that would be another good one to plant now so that you could enjoy it in the fall. There are herbs for flowers, There are herbs for flavors, There are herbs for beautiful foliage. Try some herbs this year. I'm going to take a break.

We'll be right back with your calls. Welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you with us today. Hey, uh, bugs bugs in the lawn? What do you do? What do you do for chinchbugs? It's not quite chinchbug season yet, it's coming. If you get my schedule, the long pest disease and we'd management schedule. You see when we start to look for chinchbugs, you see when we treat for grubs. You see when we deal with you know, various things through the year. That's what the schedules put there. What

about fire ants, that's another one they're always around. It seems like, well, bug Out Max Granules covers it all. Bug Out Max is a lawn and garden insect control and you put it out on your lawn and it deals with all the different things we're dealing with, from grubs to fire ants to caterpillars that are chomping on things. Even if you have fleas out there and the maybe you got a dog and there's fleas living in the thatch. That's part of the cycle of fleas and then they

bring them inside. Bug out Max granules by Nitrofoss that will shut them down. Now, so where do you get that kind of thing? Well, for example, you could get it at RCW Nursery on Tomball Parkway. If you go to Langham Creek Ace Hardware that's on five pot twenty

nine backside of Copperfield. There Plantation Ace Hardware on three point fifty nine that's north and Liddle to the east of the Richmond Rosenberg area, and then out in Ankleton, Lake hard where in Angleton on Velasco and Lake Harbor and Clute on Dixie Drive all places that carry night Foss products. Let's go to the phones now. We're going to head out to Magnolia and talk to Jane. Hello, Jane, Welcome to garden Line. Hello, Hello, Hi, how can I help?

or whatever. Out there. Bugs there are insects that suck the sap out of plants and they get the they get the minerals and nutrient kinds of things out of it. But they drink so much that it's going in one end and out the other end of the bug. And they're just constantly squirting that little little bits out and so it doesn't really hurt the tree much. The trees able to more than make up for it, but it does.

Sometimes some of those substances are very sugary, and we get honeydew, and therefore we get a city mold, the black city mold growing. That's some types of insects are causing that. There's other types that they just pe out a little watery substance, and that's what it is. Now.

You can look at it two ways. You know. You can look at it for what it is and get grossed out, or you can look at it as a nice missed system that helps cool you last summer when you're sitting underneath getting a little spray of the let's just say.

would ignore it. Just yeah, just you can get you can get the little umbrellas, I'm sure on Amazon for a good price. And so there you go. Maybe get your an umbrella while you're at it. Sounds good, all right, all right, thank you, take care you best. Thank you. It's go to League City and talk to Carol. Hey, Carol, welcome to garden Line.

could suggest some things. But really, if I could see a picture of the spots again and make sure I know which disease it is, I could better target recommendation to you. Okay, so.

we got we got the right disease. And so if you want to do this, if you'd like to go and take a picture of what you're seeing, show me the whole plant, and then show me up close and good sharp focus, check focus before you send them the top of the leaf, and then show me the bottom of the leaf on these spots. Then I can nail it down and get it right and not waste your time and money on something that may not work that well.

Because Michael buttinhil if it quickly is not working, then we don't need to be using it because it if it works, it works, and you shouldn't you shouldn't have that experience with it. But that's how it is. You just like you go to the doctor and they don't have like one medicine for everything that could make you sick, right, and so that's how it is with these fungicides as well.

the gardens. Remember that herbs are for everybody, and herbs are for everywhere. Containers, flower beds, I can even I've seen people use solid burnett, which makes a little mound of leaves that tastes like cucumbers. Solid burnett as a little lining around the bed like you would use litt riopy or something. I've seen people do that with chives too. That's another idea. Just a pute for you. Well, welcome back,

Welcome back to the garden Line. We look forward to helping you with the kinds of questions that you might have today. I want you to have success. Listen, Gardening is fun. The best hobby there is period.

One is visiting with gardeners. We're doing that right now, did it for thirty five years in the agrofe Extension Agent Texas A and M. And the other is sitting out in my garden and just messing with plants and watching bugs. You know, I enjoy learning and watching. It is a fascinating world to go out there and just be still a while and see what's going on.

for everybody, no matter what you're growing. And I've gotten a lot of emails Toda. I'm waiting on some follow up calls from these folks that have done emails. But lots of pests, lots of disease problems and things. If Southwest Fertilizer, you just need to put that on your rolodex.

Remember we used rolodexes. Southwest Fertilizer corner of bus Nutt and Runwick website, Southwest Fertilizer dot com phone number seven to one three six sixty six seventeen forty four seven to one three six sixty six one seven four four. They've got everything that you need.

disease is there. If it's insects, same thing. If it is spider mite's same thing, If it's weeds, same thing, they have it off. They don't have it, You don't need it. It's as simple as that. Southwest Fertilizer corner bus Nutt and Runwick stop ey there, say to Bob and the team, if you've got a question about something, you can take a picture in. You can take a sample in samples even better, put them in a little ziplock bag so something doesn't crawl away, and take it

to them. They'll do an assessment of it and you know, points you to the right thing. So anyway, that Waspertilizers the place you need to know, and the phone numer you need to know right now, is seven to one to three two one two KTRH. So you can give us a call and we can talk about the things that are of most interest to you. Yesterday I was talking about Moss Nursery and I made a statement. I saw some information from us about a place called the

Clay Pigeon. It's a grand opening and some of the bands that are going to be there and the fact they're having a crawfish boil and everything there, and we got some calls on it. And as I looked into it, what I found out was, well, actually Jim's got a new place in Austin, Texas, South Austin on Slaughter Creek Drive. Now, I know we have people that listen from Austin and

from that area. But if you are inclined to go over there, if you live over there, the klappage in Grand Opening Extravaganza Saturday, June fourteenth, from twelve to six pm. There will be a crawfish boil. There's gonna be music. Of course, it's Austin. You've gotta have music, all kinds of interesting stuff, pop up market and a lot of other fun things. Anyway, that is, if you want more information, just follow the Moss Nursery on social media. They've got

stuff posted. They even have a little qurer code you can click on with your camera to find out more. If you don't have plans for this afternoon, how about a plan? The plan is to go to Moss Nursery and go check out.

have gorgeous staghorn ferns hanging from trees out there. You just have to go see them. They're unbelievably beautiful staghorn ferns, whatever kind of plant you're looking for. Hanging baskets, hundreds and hundreds of hanging baskets for summer color. Things that will look good today. You got folks coming over this afternoon or this evening. Go get you some color from Moss Nursery, hanging baskets, container color, whatever, and you can

have beauty instantly. Moss Nursery, Toddville Road, Seabrook, Texas two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight two eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight. We're going to go down to Tomball and talk to Jody. Hey, Jody, welcome to garden Line. Good morning, Thank you for having me morning, Happy to do it. How can I help?

root loss. And that could have been due to soggi, it could have been due to dry Either one kills roots and they need to probably be moved into a very bright shade so the demands are lower on the plant and given some time to recover and be real careful with the watering during that time. Hopefully it's not so far gone that you have difficulty saving them. But that that is what I would do on those. And make sure and get you when you get guardian, You'll

always get you a good acid loving fertilizer. And you know up there and which which direction from Tomball or you.

the ground. Okay, okay, good, perfect, Thank you all right, Jody, you bet, thank you for call. Appreciate that very much. You two. I've got to run to a break here. Kevin or Kelvill and Tomball and Bill and Galveson you'll be our first two up. Welcome back to the garden Line, folks, Little Dolly Parton to get us go on this hour. We're going to head now down to Tomball. Let me get my right mouse. We have problems with today and we're gonna talk to Kevin. Hey, Kevin, welcome to garden Line.

just do a search for it. But managing mold damage it goes into the oh gosh, I can, It goes into the specific options that you have, some options involved bringing a pest control operator around to do it and whatnot. But it's just agro Life Learn a mu dot Eed, you do a search for mole, so mole publication when you go there, when you look at it, what it's going to tell you is your your basic options are trapping from a homeowner standpoint, okay, And there's a couple

kinds of traps. One kind is a loop. The trap sits on the ground. The loop is underground, the mole goes through. It's kind of gross, but the mole goes through and that loop snaps up on the mole. The other is a spike that goes down from the top. It's called a harpoon type trap. It tells you how to find out which it runs, are active, where to set the trap, how to set the trap and stuff. Uh, and that is the that is kind of what's in

your control. The idea of poisons don't really work the toxicans because moles don't really eat grain baits and things. But and the and then other things that only a PCO can do are out there, but that that's probably the best way for you to deal with them.

Just go to the website airloomsoils dot com and learn about it all the products they have, and then head out to your local garden center, feed stores. All kinds of places carry airloom soils products. You can buy them by the bag. If you're going to do a big job and maybe revamping a big bed or building a big bed, you can have them deliver by the cubicyard to your place, either dumping it on the driveway or bringing it by what they call supersacks cubicyard holding sacks,

or you can go out there and get it. Go to Porter. It's out on Highway fifty nine Inporter, Texas, the Warrange Rock and Malt location where airloom soils comes from. They have that stuff out there as well. But start by going to airloomsoils dot com airloomsols dot com find out the products that they have, all kinds of things. They also have shale too. You hear me talk about expanded sheales sometime and how it holds up longer than organic matter. Does even in keeping a clay soil open.

You can get it from there. Airlom Soils makes a combo of malt or compost and shale too. You can buy them both together in a bag. Airloom Sols quality products. I say that because I've used them and I've seen the results. Let's now, let's see we're going to head to Bill in Galveston. Hey, Bill, welcome to garden Line. Thanks get good morning. I sent you two photos good morning of some powdered plants. One has its leaves as well, the other one's doesn't have it. So what's the difference

and they got the same treatment, same place. Yeah, those are angel wing bagone. Well not angel wings or regular pogonias.

not a disease. It is some sort of a stress in the root system that's causing that defiliation. So I should make sure that that the drain holes are up from that flog. Yeah, make sure you know, water it a lot and see if a bunch of water runs out the bottom. If it doesn't, then stick a pencil up through the holes or something kind of open them up. So I don't know what could be done there clogging them, but just check for that. Bottom line is it's in the roots that we're seeing the problem.

surface so it can decompose a way. But it's gonna take a while before those plants have the root system that's out now in your soil and your planting beds to be able to need and take up the nutrients that they need. What was in the container when you bought them is enough to hold them for a good while, at least six weeks.

Whenever we are fertilizing plants, I just want to remind everybody of something sometimes I talk about fertilizer like you're giving a plant a boost. Like I was talking about, you know, the Medina Hosen spray application of a higher nitrogen product where you're just getting that nitrogen out in there to give it a boost, and that nitrogen is very volatile. That comes, it goes. The nitrogen that's there today is not going to be the nitrogen that's there

a month from now. I mean, it gets taken up by microbes, it goes off, it's a gas, it washes away. There's a cycle in the soil of nitrogen, but all the other nutrients, especially. We're building a bank account in this and so when you're using a product and you're doing it over and over again over time. You know he was talking about the arrogate organic product. You are putting lots of nutrients in the soil, lots of different nutrients, not just three, and as a result, you're building that

bank account. So as these trees began to grow, he had magnolia and eaglestunt whatever you're planting. The roots go out there and they go, hey, I need a little bit of this or that or the other. It could be phosphorus, or it could be potassium. It could be magnesium or sulfur or zinc or manganese or whatever. The bank account has it and it's ready to go and That is how we think of fertilizing, not just a boost that's more than nitrogen, but building the bank account

so the plant can have success. I'm going to take a quick break and Mike and surf side, you're my first step when we come back. All right, In our continued effort to find songs you've never heard before, one which reminds me if you're dealing with mosquitos, pest Bros. Pest Bros. Is the company you need to know about. Here's a phone number you'll want to write this one down. Call them for a quote. Two eight one two oh six forty six seventy two eight one two six forty

six seventy. I will be posting something this week on my mosquito buckets that I got from pest Bros. Or that pest Bros. What they do is they go out to your place, they set up the buckets, and they come monthly back to service them. That's how that works because they need to be maintained. These buckets have in them something to attract mosquitos, so they come in there, they lay their eggs. Those eggs will hatch into larvae that will never become an adult mosquito and then mama

mosquito flies off with two substances on her feet. One is a disease a fungus of mosquitos, and that mosquito won't last a long time. But anywhere it stops with a little bit of water, maybe your neighbor's got some old tires in back that are holding water, or a bur bath that they haven't tried to clean out for months. When it lands to lay eggs there, that water will get a little bit of a dose of that stuff that won't let the mosquitoes go past the nymph stage.

And so basically your buckets become bait stations to make sure that other stagnant water spots around your landscape and your neighbors hopefully will be shut down. It works, it's ingenious, it's excellent. Love that stuff. Now you can go to the website thepestbros dot com. When you get there, you're gonna find out other things, like they deal with fireance, they deal with wall of varmits running around the property,

like mice and rats and other things. They deal with termites, one of the worst pests we have in our home because they do so much dollar damage to our homes. They have a product that goes in a little trench around the outside perimeter of your home and it lasts for ten years and controls termites, and so you minimize issues of well, what if my pets exposed to this or that or the other. Best pros focuses on doing effective treatment what works in the safest possible manner, so

you get those long term results without worrying. Dpestbros. Dot Com two eight one, two oh six forty six seventy. We're going to head now to surf Side and talk to Mike this morning. Hello, Mike, Welcome to garden Line.

there's something called field heat that's in the vegetables. You know, those tomatoes are hotter hanging on the vine if you will when it's twenty five degrees outside, and so if you when you pick things in the morning, especially things that are prone to declining and quality, like sweet corn being the ultimate. You pick it while it's cool, you

bring it in. You either use it or store it or refrigerator, you know, whatever you're going to do, and it lasts a lot longer than if you waited until mid afternoon to pick sweet corn and you bring it in. The declines is going much faster at that time, So avoid the field heat. Pick in the morning in general that it doesn't matter for everything.

And then I got a couple others, one which has some little white bugs on them, and another one they're kind of I wondering if there's the mighty spider mites that they're kind of like a very very very very tiny kind of brownish color. Yeah, yeah, And I'm just wondering the uh.

but growing pretty soon. The best thing on that would be a systemic insecticide that gets into the plumbing of the plant, so when those scale insects suck the juice out, they get the point in that way, something on the outside of the leaf will be poisoned because it's not sucking juices out of the plant, and a product ingredient mid oh cloprid im I do clo p r I d e mid oh cloprid on the camellia specifically, will

help shut that down. The T scale. All right, there's some other systemics, you know, depending on where you shop. You're out there in full sure, you've got a really good ACE hardware store not too far for evening plantation ACE on three fifty nine. They're going to have a number of products like that out there, and I would try that. Then there's another plant that has white stuff, but it's along the veins of the of the leaf

that is also a scale. There may be some meai bugs on that one too, but they're on the veins because that's where they can get the main pipeline of the plumbing and get more juices out of it. And it's the same solution for that plant, Okay. And then the final one, I am amid cloak prid I AM I D O c l O p r I D. And there's a lot of brands of a middle clo prid in fact, oh gosh, yeah, there's just there's just

a bunch of brands of it. You don't you don't have to really, Uh yeah, it's the the I just tell telling them about a product a little bit earlier, uh, that had some in it. But the other thing, uh, the the plant with the kind of silvery centers of the leafs with green edges that could be spider mites. I'm too far away in the photo to see for sure, but it looks a little like spider mites to me.

Blasts of water from up underneath that plant, up under the leaves to dislodge them insecticidal soap spray early in the morning before the sun comes out and starts baking down, but both waters and insecticidal soap. You have to get the plant the bug wet. You have to blast it with the spray of water or soap. If a one leaf is over another leaf and so those bugs are protected by the leaf below it, You're not going to get control with those products.

outside blue label for outside. The label will tell you how to apply it, how to mix it and everything. They'll both give your plants a good boost and it's a good way to get things going so you have success with those plants. I'm gonna be back in just a moment.

University scientists turf researchers throughout the Gulf Coast region. If you get down to places like tex A and m LSU, Oklahoma State, Mississippi State, all the way across the University of Florida and everything. You're going to find a consistent message from the turf folks, and that is your fertilizers need to be in a three one two or four one two ratio is a general general guide. That's that's a good ballpark to aim for. And they need to

release the nutrients slowly over time. That is the best way. Now, you can take an immediate release fertilizer and if you overdo it, you get a lot of top growth. But what happens is you get to mowmore because it grows like crazy on the top, nice deep green, but the root system actually is less than if you fertilize properly. That's a weird thing, but it's true. And so with nine to five superturf, you put it down and for four months it is feeding your lawn for you over time.

It's designed for that design for our hot, humid summers and our Southern turf grasses like Saint Augustine Bermuda enjoys you. Now, when you put it down and return your clippings, they are going to release nutrients slowly over time is they decompose also, which means the next fertilization you've got is going to be the one if you put it down now, the next fertilization you have is going to be the one in the fall. This false fertilization nine five superturf

is available a lot of different places. You're going to find it at places like maybe down in the Sage Mind Area M and D. Beamer. There's an M and D Clare Lake as well on Bay Area Boulevard. If you go to Alvin Stanton Shopping Center on North Taylor carries night Foss products, and then in Baytown Fisher's Hardware on Alexander and Brenham Plants and things on Highway three sixty five Night to five superturb the silver bag makes it easy to find. And remember, let's go out now

to League City, Texas, and we're going to talk to Carol. Hello, Carol, welcome to garden Line.

those leaves. If it's rust, out of the bottom, it's like the little leaf explodes out these little, tiny, tiny microscopic orange spores, and you'll see them coming out of the bottom. You rub your thumb across it, and there'll be orange on your thumb, like you rubbed it over something rusty. But that's the why they call it the rust fungus. But a systemic would be a good way to go. I would probably try did you tell me you had tried the one called propacnasole, no shock? Okay? Okay,

I would try one called propa conasole, okay. And it's p r oh pr oh p I co o n A z o l e pro con a zouls o l E. Propa Conasol is a good funda side for a number of different things. It's available over the counter and you can just basically get it pretty much anywhere. Garden centers and feed stores, H eight hardware stores, places like that. Okay, City you've got some. Yeah, you've got You've got a League City feed store that I'll bet

you has Propa Connasol. It's right there just south of Highway three.

Because that's like when they say typhoid Mary, you know one sick person that gets all the others sick. Uh, And I think that, Yeah, yeah, I think that that would be probably your best bet, but I would try the proper condis. I think you're gonna probably have the best bet with that for an over the counter should that for whatever reason that work, there is something like the resistance in diseases. We can switch you to another one, but let's start with that one.

to four pm. OBA, the Organic Horticulture Benefits Alliance is hosting their Oba Palooza, the fourth annual. I'll be there speaking. Joe Gardner, awesome speaker, will be there and many other great speakers. Go to OBA online dot org. Slash register. All right, folks, we're back. We got one hour left today, one hour left this weekend on garden Line. Oh the way, We're glad you're listening in with us today. I hope you're enjoying the show. I'm gonna head straight out to

the phones this hour. We're gonna go to Richard's and talk to Glenn. Hey Glenn, welcome to garden Line.

a better answer for what you're looking. Yeah, yeah, tried, all right?

Every county in Texas is served by an AGROLFE Extension office, and in that office you have, uh all the counties are going to have somebody that works in agriculture in general, and that would be everything from raising livestock to growing pasture grasses and things, uh to farm ponds and whatnot. They're going to have a four h and youth agent,

which pretty much I've just heard about. Four h It's an awesome youth development program teaches leadership and all kinds of wonderful skills for youth that's not just about stock shows. Four each is good. And then a family and community health agent, and back a long time ago, the Family and Community health position focused on things like sewing, making

clothing and canning vegetables and food and other things. Now there's still those kinds of educational materials, but they do things they go away beyond that, like health prevention diabetes and heart disease, things like exercising programs like Walk across Texas wonderful progress. Listen, the extension service is something everybody outn't know who your agent is agunts are and reach

out to them to take advantage of that. In all the areas, all two hundred and fifty four counties of Texas in this part of the state, every county has an office. You get out far enough in West Texas where there are jackpipe rabbits than people, and you may have an office that serves more than one county. But over here everybody, every county has got an extension office

with several agents. Now, just while I'm rolling on that, if you are in Harris County, or in Galveston County, or in Fort Bend County, or in Brazoria County, or in Brass County or in Montgomery County, I'm probably forgetting somebody you have a horticulture agent as well in those counties that run the master Gardening program and do all the horticulture education. All right, so public service announcement. I'm getting a bunch of those out today. Let's head now

to Missouri City and we're going to talk to Ray. Hello, Ray, welcome to garden Line.

the surface there. Some people use a kind of a sand and loan blend, and some people put a little compost in it, but not too much compost because that shrinks back down over time, and you're trying to raise the soil level, not raise it up and have it

go right back down again. So a topsoil about an inch at a time time, let it grow back in and get thick and pretty, and then do another inch in those areas, and that'll kind of give you a way to you know, as you're looking at it, going now, I need a little more over there, a little more over here. Now. If you want to get it all done at once, you can do it all at once, but then you're going to need to put some side back in on those spots where you've covered it with

three inches of soil. Okay, I would I would.

looking forward to talking to you today. I got some show left here in our final hour of garden Line this morning, So uh, I guess call now or forever hold your piece until next Saturday when we'll be back again. Arctic Insulation Solutions I talked about them yesterday. They are pretty much the experts the way I look at it when it comes to cutting down on your heating and cooling bills. So, for example, they do things like foil radiant barriers. It's not aluminum foil. It's a quality product

on a very stronger base. It's an excellent product. But think of it like you would think of an aluminum foil that reflects heat back. Well, this goes up in your attic and it goes on the rafters across the attic. Because I have an opening at the top so he can escape out from behind there, and it can make thirty degree difference, and the temperature inside your attic, you know, addicts can get I've heard people have been attics and it was like one hundred and sixty degrees. I've been there.

I mean definitely one hundred and forty hundred and fifty even. Well, what happens to that heat. It's radiating down on the ceiling in your home. And if you've got gaps around like where the registers are, that the little grades that put the air conditioning out, or around a light fixture or ceiling fans or wherever. If there's gaps around there,

I mean, it is making a significant difference. Artic insulation solutions can also come out and they can do a seal up of all of those gaps and things and the difference that makes. It's like, well, if you left your window open all day to day in your living room or something, your air conditioner would be working pretty hard to keep up with that, and you would not be as comfortable in the room, would you. Well, that's why you need to have these guys come out and

do what they do. Now, the radiant barrier that's one option. Another option is they can put in insulation. They can do any kind of insulation that you want done. The one that I would suggest you take a good hard look at is blown fiberglass. It costs less and it works very well. And they'll they'll put an I stick fluffy layer in there that'll go up to about R

thirty eight on top of your ceiling. And that is really important if you already got some stuff in there and they're just gonna come in and top it off and get it right everywhere. It just takes a few hours for them to do that. They are very budget friendly, and so that means you go to them and you go, look, my electric bills are killing me. What can you do?

a fan in the attic that's solar powered. You don't have to run electricity to it, and anytime the temperatures in the attic get above eighty five and above seventy five percent humidity. By the way, you don't want mold in the attic. This fan comes on, and I mean it moves there about fifteen one hundred cubic fee per minute. It moves air out of the attic. Go up in your attic on a sunny day, or least stick your head up in there. Be careful because it is unbelievably hot.

You change the temperature up in attic thirty degrees, you've made a big difference in your air conditioning bills. So this kind of service ends up giving you money back over time or saving you money over time if you will, and as a result, it is worth the investment to do that. Now you can go to their website. It's arctic Houston dot com. Now most of us don't know how to spell arctic, so I'm gonna spell it for you.

It's not art, it's a arc tic Houston dot com, arctich Houston dot com, or call them call them at eight three two five eight six twenty eight ninety three eight three to two five eight six twenty eight ninety three. They can do anything needs to be done up there. I mean we're talking about old insulation, dusty, moldy, pestin, invested whatever. They get it out there for you. They disinfect the attic area for improved air quality. They're air seal all those things we were just talking. I was

just talking about their Arctic Solutions. Arctic Insulation Solutions, by the way, they cover all the way from on the west over in Berkshire, the east on the Bay Town up north to Willis and south of Galveston. If you're hearing my voice, they probably service your area. Eight three to two, five, eight six, twenty eight ninety three Arctic Solutions. Tell them you heard about it on Guardline. So I've

been talking about herbs today. Herbs are one of my favorite types of plants to grow because they're so dad gum versatile. I've talked about herbs. Of course, everybody knows herbs and cooking and that that alone is worth growing herbs. But herbs can be ornamental. I talked about using solid burnout or chives as lining about like you would line with the little riopy or something. Herbs can be ornamental,

like rosemary. If you have a Let's say you have a like relief in your landscape topographically, you know there's a high bed and then something lower. You can have rosemary spilling over the side the trailing types and they bloom really well, which attracts pollinators by the way it supports pollinators. Or you can have upright rosemary shrubs very

drought resilient. Give them good drainage. They don't want to be in a swamp, but give them good drainage, and once they're established, you're going to be doing very little, if any watering to your rosemary because it's a very very good tough plant. There are herbs that are groundcovers, like oregano and thyme, we could be using those. And there's herbs that have beautiful flowers. I mentioned Mexico at myrgold and I mentioned what was that pineapple, sayes salvia

that have beautiful flowers. Those are just two examples. There's way more than that. The term herb can be spread pretty far and wide over a lot of different things, and they are beneficial. One time I was in a garden up in Montgomery County, had the extension office there, and I saw a little mud Dauber type wasp and it was on time blooms in their herb garden, and oh, that's interesting, And I thought that mud Dauber is getting

something out of those time blooms. And it flew off and I saw it flew off to a fence, and I followed it and it was making the little round marble shaped mudballs. I'm not talking about the big long cigar shaped things that are underneath your eaves that you hate. About a little tiny round marble. You've probably seen them on the screen to your house. I took that mud ball and broke it open. You know it was in it almost a dozen looper caterpillars. They were out in

the garden eating leaves. So that mud Dauber was out there getting loopers and bringing them back and feeding it to its babies. And the herbs were also serving a function in that whole cycle. Herbs bringing in beneficial insects, parasitoid, wasp lay eggs, and aphids that cause the aphids to turn into a mummy. It's really cool if you're an aphi. It's like watching the movie Alien. But that herbs are an important part of our landscapes. Again, containers in beds

wherever you want to grow them. They are herbs to grow and you should try some. And plus I just like smelling them. You know, I cannot pass by rosemary without rubbing on the on the leaves of it and just smelling my hand as I go buy same thing with copper canyon daisy and some others. When my kids were little, one of my daughters, we had one of those topiary rosemary's inside that's like shape like a Christmas tree.

You know, you buy them at Christmas and bring them in and you know they're shape like a Christmas tree, and then you put them outside and plant them when the holidays are done. She would go out and hug the thing. I mean, she would bear hug that rosemary and she'd run down the hall. And I'd walk down the hall later, and I think Mussolini had invaded or something. I mean, there was like this Italian scent of wonderful

rosemary fill in the house. I love herbs, as I hope you can tell, and you should too, give some a try. You can grow culinary ginger. There's another herb, I'll call it a herb. You can buy the little ginger sections in the store, plant them in the ground about two inches deep. They need lots of consistent soil moisture, don't let them dry out. And they need shade, but bright shade. So under the eaves of your house is

a great place to plant those. If you keep them moist molt the soil that little bit you planted will expand and you can actually harvest a crop of ginger from your own beds. Just remember shade, shade, shade, but bright shade and moisture, and you can do that. People. Some people grow all kinds of things like that that are culinary. All right, well, there you go. That's my best shot at trying to get you to grow some herbs this year. Try something new. Every year we ought

to be trying something new, maybe a new plant. It may be no way to grow a plant, however you want to go about it. Try something new. Too much fun to have in horticulture in your lawn. It's time to be doing the slow release fertilizers, the ones that take a long time to gradually release those good nutrients into the turf. And Neilson plant Food has a product called Slow and Easy. Slow and Easy, and that's a

good name for it. It has it's designed. Dean designed that with several different types of nitrogen fertilizer in it, nitrogen compounds and some types of nitrogen. Some forms are immediately available. Some forms with some soul moisture and some warmth, they begin to release faster. Others it doesn't matter how wet it is, they're not going to release the nitrogen. There's biological activity that's going on to help break that

down and get it out. But the combination is with Slow and Easy you get a gradual feed over four months plus. I mean, it really feeds long term. And you can find Nelson Slow and Easy in a lot of places that carry no some products. And when you put it down, you're good. You're good to go until my fall schedule application. If you download my lawn care schedule at gardening with Skip dot com, you'll see when to apply it in the fall, when to apply fall fertilizers.

Slow and Easy will take you from now all the way through there. It's a super product. It works very very well, and it's widely available here in the Greater Houston area. Take care of your lawn and return your clippings now. If it rains for a week, and by the time you get out there. You know the grass is the tall. You could lose a toddler in the front yard. Well, then you're going to have to bag those up. But I would use them as mulches. I would use them as walkway materials. Put them in a

compost pile. Don't throw away those are free nutrients. Listen, when you put fertilizer on your lawn and you grow grass clippings, and you cut off those grass clippings, they are full of the nutrients that the plant took up. So do you want to, as I say, rent fertilizer, put it down, grow grass clippings, pay somebody to haul it off your curb, or do you want to recycle your fertilizer grass clippings or nature's own slow release fertilizer. You just get to decide when you mow. Am I

going to mulch them back in? Or am I going to use them for my compost in my beds and I walkways? Or am I going to pay somebody to haul away the fertilizer I bought? All right, Time for me to take a little break here. We'll be back with your calls seven to one three two one two KTRH got wide open lines right now. If you don't hesitate, you can be one of the first one or two up. All right, welcome back to Guarden Line. Folks.

pecans on it. And there's some neighbors behind me that have some pecan trees, probably within fifty yards and I don't know what that they've they've buried pecans in the past, but they've always been rotten inside, so I don't know what's going on on with those. But okay, what do I need to do to get this pecan tree to bear bear pecans?

it's vice versa. The pecan nutlets are receptive and then that tree's pollen is shed toward the end of that or a little bit later. So you want one of both types, either pollen first or nutlets receptive first. There are so many pecan trees around the area, and there is some they're wind pollinated, not be pollinated. That generally, you don't have to worry about putting two different types

of pecans in your yard. They'll pollinate themselves. And if you've got a neighbor with trees, they probably are the are going to pollinate your trees for you. If you don't know which type you have. Next spring, go out and if you can reach a branch to look at it. Notice when the nutlets come out, little tiny ones, I mean they're like a quarter inch long when they first come out. And then look at the pollen, and you're going to see one is going to be before the other.

If the ends on the nutlets are already black or brown, that means they're done. They've already either been pollinated or not. And just see which happens first. And that's the type of pecan you have. So I suspect around your neighborhood you're going to have some pecan dust pollen that is adequate to pollinate your tree. If that's not the case, then you would need to plant one that's the other

type from what you have. There's a website. Do you have a pin or paper handy there where you could write something down?

whatever you want to do with it. And read a little bit about those and the varieties and that thing I just got through describing to you about pollen first or nutlets first, and when you determine what you have, you can use that publication to pick a variety that's the other kind from what you have.

your heaves. They eat web worm and other caterpillars all day. That's their number one food.

will be Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens. You're going to find the most beautiful pottery I've ever seen, and all the kinds of those tall vase like urns that you used to make a water recycling or yeah, recirculating kind of fountain that by the way, Nelson invented that. Uh you you can buy them there or you can you can take any container that can turn it into one of those. But they are just beautiful. They have the fish to go in ponds, they have the things like

lily pads and others to go in ponds. But their nursery is just loaded with gorgeous plants, all kinds of things, from the houseplants that are inside to the plants on the outside. This is a good time. And I'm telling you, as we get into summer and things get hot, you need heat loving plants like vinkas and like pentas and zinnias and other things. They've got all of that at

Nelson Water Garden. And also at Nelson Water Garden, you're going to find the beautiful sound of water that alone is worth going and grab a kid to go with you and go in. When you and some child you know there, your kids, your grandkids, whatever, or maybe your spouse, I'm just gonna leave that one there. They tell them you would like some fish food to feed the fish, and they'll give you a little a handful of fish pellets and the kids can go out in the back.

There's a big old pond in the back where you can reach down and the fish literally come up a little bit out of the water and you can just drop the fish food right in their mouth and kids will love that. I love to go and just listen to the sound of water. There are a few things as therapeutic as water. But I got to warn you you're gonna want to come home with some kind of a water feature from Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens because they are so so cool. Well, I need to take

a little break when we come back. We got two calls and that is Dwayne in Mount Bellevue and Jim in a task Casita and y'all will finish up the day. Welcome back to Garden Line. Listen to Ace Hardware stores or the go to place for all the things you need for the outdoors, for the outside, for your lawn fertilizers. You hear me talk about all these fertilizers. Ace Hardware carries them. You hear me talk about pest control, disease control,

weed control products. ACE Hardware carries them. You need tools, They've got them there ready to go on that. And they got staff there that can help you, that can point you in the right direct help you have success. That's what ACE is all about. They say, ACE is the place, and you get to fill in the blank. ACE is a place for you fill in the blank. ACE Hardware stores are all over the greater Houston area. My group for garden line here. You just go to

ACE Hardware Texas dot com. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Find the one near you. Stores like Bakelface on Grand Avenue and Baycliffe, All Star, Ace and Magnolia on fourteen eighty eight, League City ACE down in League City, Lake Conroe, ACE on Highway one oh five out almost to Montgomery. Out there Port Lavaca, ACE, Calhoun Plaza and Port Lavaca Memorial Ace Hardware a Memorial Drive. I was there earlier this year, had a nice appearance there. Child's Building Supply

out in Orange, Texas on sixteenth Street. All examples of the many mini ACE Hardware stores you'll find at ACE Hardware Texas dot Com. Go into an ACE Hardware store, do a little shopping this week. And hey, if you're looking for Father's Day, I guess Ace is going to have tons of stuff for the guy on your list. I'm telling you. If they're into tools, they got you covered. They're into barbecuing. Oh my gosh, that they got you

covered everything you would need. It's a great place. Not just guys too, ladies and men both all kinds of specialty gifts that you'll find in your Ace hardware store. What's that out now, Tom up Bellevue. We're going to talk to Dwayne. Hey, Dwayne, welcome to Guardenline.

you got your Saint Augustine around that. If you could give that fig about a two foot in all direction circle, whatever you can afford to give it esthetically, go ahead and kill the grass in that big circle area and put a nice mult over the top. You can even compost over the surface of the soil and get that fig growing. And that was that will do more for making it grow and become a nice big tree that

will bear for you than even fertilizing will. Just that grass is a strong competitor with the fig. So that doesn't mean don't fertilize. You could also fertilize, but I'm just and uh, if you're looking, have you ever been to my website gardening with skip dot com.

and I would use one of those. You're gonna have to probably do it more than once, but that's the safest. If you get in there, you know, with the equivalent of the old round up type stuff, and you get it on the figure, you're gonna kill your fig. So I like that grass on the killers. But they're there. It's on the website herbicide less set up there. But I would get going on it. That's the biggest favor you can do it. It also keeps the weed eater in the lawn mower away, which which is important.

follow up with it all. I'm just not able to take on answering emails and you know, kind of end up a lot of times questions you sort of like you become pimpals going back and forth, and I'm just not able to I wish I could. But if you'll send me your question with some photos attached, then call on Saturday or Sunday and we'll talk about it. We've had a number of people that have done that.

me a good sharplaint and we will help you. Looking forward to helping you and pointing you in the right direction. It's time for us to go. I hope you have a wonderful week out there in the garden. Get out and visit one of our independent garden centers this afternoon. These mom and pop local businesses deserve your support. They help make it possible for you to get to listen to Guardline. Have you ever thought about that the reason you get to listen to guard Line is because they

are sponsoring the show and support our sponsors. I just asked that you do that, but maybe get out there and just have fun. There are so many good things to do, so much time, so many plants, so little time. As the way I like to put in, have a great week.