Talking About Trees for Fall

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 Scape Richard. It's so crazy grim you just watch him as so many give things the septasys well. Good Saturday morning. We are glad you're listening today. I

hope you are. We're going to give you a lot of good advice today to help you have a beautiful landscape, a bountiful garden, whatever it is that you're interested in growing, for trees to turf, to tomatoes, to herbs and everything in between. Some flowers as well. Our phone number if you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two KTRH. As simple as that. I put something up on the website the other day and just wanted to make

a mention of it this morning. Doctor Lorry Stein, who is a fruit specialist with Texas and m Agrolife Extension, put together some really good information that's available online. I call it sage advice. Doctor Stein's been working with Fruit Gosh for a long time. I think I probably first met him back in about nineteen eighty three or so, and he's just really an expert when it comes to that. And what basically you put on up online is advice on

planting fruit trees. But it's not just like how to dig a whole advice. He talks about plant the timing for planting, he talks about deciding what fruit tree to plant. You know, there's just there's a lot of information. There's bear root trees, there's container grown trees there, you know, a lot of different kinds of fruit. And where you're going to plant fruit goes into that, goes into how to plant fruit properly, that that's important,

believe it or not, very important. Maintaining a weed free zone around the plants, how to go about that, and just basically everything in caring for your plant and getting it off to a good start. Again. The link to that is on my website, which is gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com, I send your link right over to it. By the way, on the website there you can also find our updated

lawn care schedule and our lawn pest disease and weed management schedule. And October is a big month in the lawn in fact, you're going to need both schedules in front of you to really look and see the things that are going on and what you need to do, what you need to get done, and so on. But well, for example, one of the things, get some a's mite down there on the ground. If you have not put

asimite down this year, you ought to consider on an application. Now, we typically tie it to the fertilizer time, but it doesn't have to be. You can put as might down any time of the year you want. It's not nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, it's not the big nutrients on the fertilizer bag. It's trace elements. And trace elements are as essential as are

the ones that are needed in large quantities. But as the word trace implies, we just need a trace of them, but they're absolutely essential as well. So that's why we say that don't mix it with your fertilizer, apply it separately. And that's really true. Anytime you fill your fertilizer hopper with anything, you probably need to separate the two things you're going to apply and make two applications because the particle size is almost always different between two different things.

Maybe you're putting down an insecticide or a fungicide, or a fertilizer or a herbicide. Those are all different or maybe two different kinds of fertilizer if you were wanting to do that, And some people do make it separate because the particle size is different and you want to get good even application. That is very important unless you like a striped yard. And I've seen some pretty interesting stripe yards of my time where the the application overlapped and you kind of

got bands of double applied nitrogen versus normal applied nitrogen. But yeah, Azimite Texas dot com is a website where you can learn a lot more about as mite. It's it's uh. It is a quality product and very popular product and widely widely available. Uh. Buchanans plants and the heights. I wanted

to mention some things about them. First of all, Buchanans really specializes in native plants and uh, they were on one of their social media they were talking about fragrant missed flower Adgertina have an incest that is a flower that really provides beautiful blossoms and we don't talk about it enough, but it's a large kind of evergreen shop very prolific white blue clusters. It's a Central Texas native as a matter of fact, And oh my gosh, is it ever a

butterfly magnet? And they have it there. They of course, they have a lot of things there at Buchanan's Native Plants, that is for sure. This selection I find, you know, I've been doing this thirty four years, and you'd think I'd heard every plant there is. But every time we turn around, it seems like Buchanans has come up with some new native that they now have available. Used to be natives were hard to find, not anymore. I just go to Buchanans Plants and you can find them and a

whole lot more. They have a lot of good information at Buchanansplants dot Com. They're on East eleventh Street in the Heights, so it's not hard to find them. We're centrally located. I always say, we got the best garden centers in the whole state of Texas and really beyond. You know, if it's the best in Texas, it's gotta be the best in the world

inherently. Right well, here in Houston, we've got north, south, east, West, Central Buchanans Plants is when I'm say Central, That's what I'm talking about, just a really high, high quality garden center with a lot of good information. I filled up a bird feeder the other day and make sure that our birds have plenty to eat, and also I made sure that they have plenty of water. Water is really important for your birds. As we move into these fall months, the days get shorter, the nights

get longer. There's just a little bit less daytime hours for our birds to fuel up. They spend a little more time on the roost at night. Well how do you get them through that? Well, Wabirds Unlimited has the Winter super Blend, and the Winter super Blend is packed with fat and protein. The birds need that, you know, to build up the reserves to get them through the winter season. I still have a few of the roofous

hummingbirds hanging out around here. I don't know if you've seen them at your house, but they'll occasionally come by and so leave a hummingbird feeder out through the holidays. You might be lucky enough to have one of those winter visitors. Now, Wibirds unlimiteds all over town. You can find them in Katie Pearland, Kingwood Clearlake Cypress Memorial bel Air seven locations. You can go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston, WBU dot com forward slash Houston and find

out where the wild burgeon near you is. By the way, holidays are coming, and I'm telling you if you've not thought about this before, Wabird's unlimited awesome place for holiday gifts. I mean, even if you're going over someplace for Thanksgiving, it may be somebody maybe across another state. How about a bird feeder from Wabirds Unlimited or some other really cool thing. Anybody would appreciate having something cool like that, and they have the quality products there.

We are going to take a little break right here. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. When we come back, Maureen, you will be the first up. Good Saturday morning, Good Saturday morning. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer gardening questions. Our phone number is seven to one three two one two KTRH. Simple as that, seven one three two one two kt r H. If you've not been to Quality feed ever,

or if you haven't been in a while, you need to go. I used to go all the time, and they're in their older location. Now they're in the new location. Really nice. It's still that same old fashioned feed store feel and everything you could possibly need, ever fertilizer I talk about, and then some anything you need for pest disease, weeds. They've got it all there. They specialize in chickens too. By the way, I don't know if you're into backyard chickens, but this is your place. I

mean they are constantly getting shipments and new chicks in. They got all the supplies you need to do that. And they're they're in central north central area of Houston. That's on Luzon Street eighteen thirteen Louzon that's near the intersection Equipment and Allsion. They're open Monday through Friday nine to six, Saturdays nine to

four, and Sundays eleven thirty to four pm. They've been a Houston tradition since nineteen twenty and boy are they ever stocked up on cool season vegetable plants. I mean, they've got a If you implanted garlic before, you ought to try their Dutch valley softnt neck garlic. It is one that is well worth growing and then all the other cool season plants. Now's the time cool season plants for vegetables that is, and also the perennial herbs. They've got

those, and now's the time to get them planted. So don't delay. Just run over there, not too far away from you, Quality Feed and Garden. You can go to qualityfeedco dot com you want to find out more information. We're gonna now head out to Lakeside of States and talk to Maureene. Good morning, Marlene Marine, Good, good morning to you. I sort of know the answer, but my live oaks are just dropping the egcorns. And it happened really intense as it is now, several years back,

and I just raked bookoos of those big, large black bags. But I couldn't remember whether I can do anything. I know that they've been shocked by the intense weather, but I just don't remember. So what do you do other than race? Yeah, you've got it. Unfortunately, there's just not a way other than that to deal with it, you know, unless you do out of one of these. There is such a thing, by the way as a yard vacuum. Vacuum, yes, vacuum. The reason I

don't like to use those though, is there. They're pulling up all the organic matter on the sole surface as well. Anything looser, all right, now, I won't want that. And so what do I do to help the tree? Obviously it's in stress. Yeah, well, what has helped the tree is getting some rain. That is the most important thing, getting those soil reserves. And it's got that. It doesn't need a lot of fertilizer right now. I mean you could put some down if you want.

The thing you put on for your lawn the fall fertilizer would be fine for live oaks as well at this time. When we get into next spring, you know, when you start seeing new growth appearing, that'd be another good time if you're going to do some fertilizing. But you know, as that livo gets bigger and it becomes a large, stately tree, we're not wanting to push a lot of new growth. And so that that's right, No, it is, it's there now. No, I have my lake Fide

estate was developed in the early seventies. So these little babies aren't These are Grandpa, Grandpa and grandma. These are huge all right. Well, in that case, I wouldn't fertilize it. And yeah, Okay, I'm not. I don't think I will. I have a short question, which is my dianthus or in the ground. I bought them a couple of weeks back, with your guidance, and so I put nutrients in the soil and they're

happy, some of them. Because we'd had some rain. Look as though I could start taking off the flowers that are getting not attractive, straggly. So should I feed? How soon should I feed them? Again? So they went in the ground three weeks ago. Three weeks ago. Have you have you put a has to grow a treatment on? Yes, that's what I started. Okay, yeah, I did that on you know, plant them, but I didn't know when to do it again, and figuring the

flower they're hungry. Yeah, yeah, absolutely well. And and the first goal is to get that root system built, the plant ready to go, because when you've got a robust plant, then it's going to flower. You know that it's ready to go. On there, I would do has to grow again. I normally do it three times. You do it right when you plant, to water the plant in and I'll do it maybe a week apart, but you you know three weeks are still fine, go ahead and

do it again. I think that'll be fine for them, and just watch how they're looking, you know, if they if they just seem like if they don't have good color, they need a little boost. We could switch over to something with a little more nitrogen in it. But in general you shouldn't have to do that. They ought to be okay with just the has to grow good enough. And I assume that I can treat my cosanthram moms

the same way. Yes, they went in the same time, same has to grow and they're looking great, but I know that great doesn't last if you don't help them out, So that has to grow again for them too. That would be just fine. I use it for any kind of anytime I'm transplanting, I'll do it several times just to help that plant get established. Because it's got more than just the six twelve six in it. It's got the salt medina soil activator, it's got humic acid seaweed extracts, so

it's really good. You can even use it as a folier. It's not going to burn the plants. So if you want to mix it in a little water and I use a watering can, I guess you could use a sprayer, but I just drench it over the plants, get it on the leaves, and let it run to the ground. Good enough, Okay, I'll just hang on listen to the rest of the show. Thank you so much. Hey, thanks for joing Mari. You take care of by bye. Yeah. That's an excellent, excellent product. And we're in planting season.

You know, I've talked about this a bunch of times this fall, but there is no better planting season than fall. Now, you can plant twelve months of the year here in the Greater Houston areas, Southeast Texas, or Texas for that matter, but fall is the best. And here's why. You have all the months of winter and early spring to mid spring to get roots established and roots grow. When the soil temperature is around, not below, maybe well around it's fifty to fifty five degrees, that's just fine

for root growth. And as it gets to sixty and so on, and our soil didn't get cold here. This isn't the north where you know the freeze line goes a foot deep in the soil or more. Our soil stays mild here. And that woody ornamental, that shrub tree, woody vine, the perennials, the ornamental native are the perennial and native types of grasses, the perennial herbs, and just anything like that. When you plant it in the fall, you have a head start on spring. And everyone remembers what

this summer was like. It was brutal. It was brutal. Well, plants that got planted at the beginning of summer versus a plant they got planted the previous fall is a huge difference, huge difference. So if you're thinking about putting those in, go ahead and get them in now. You have a great head start on the spring. We are going to now head out to Tomball and talk to David. Hello David, good morning, sir.

Hey, it's about two weeks ago. I talked to you about a Myer's lemon tree and fig. Well, I went to RCW and I got a fig and a Myer's lemon put them in the ground, and I asked him, I said, do y'all have anything that will just that I can water in and kickstart these things to really make them get going. Yes, they sold they sold me some stuff. I can't remember what it was, but I remember on the they sold it to me In bulk and it was Yeah, it said fruit and citrus on it. You can take it back and

pay half price to fill the juck up. That may tell you what it is. I don't know. I don't know what exactly what. It looks like rabbit food to me, but anyway, I put it down watered in. Uh. The citrus doing great. It looks like it killed the fig and maybe did I The leaves have kind of withered up and everything. Do I need to just pull that thing out of the ground and start over or

is there something to do with it? Well, it did not kill I guarantee you that product does not kill the fig. But it is excellent. They sell a root stimulator that they have there, uh, and they have several other products that they will sell you for helping a plant get established. And they're excellent, excellent products that you're not gonna You're not gonna kill a

plant with them. I don't know what would have done that to you said it was a fig that died, right, Yeah, it was the I'm willing to say the celeste celestia hunt and it it doesn't look like I mean the leaves that just withered up, like like the tree just got dying on me. Well, something happened to the roots. I don't know what. Uh it too wet, too dry? H who knows? You know? I can't. I don't have a crystal ball to look backwards and see what

that was. But don't not use that product. Now, follow the label, that's for sure. Anything you put down, you want to follow the label. Well, I followed their strokes well in this case. Yeah, and this came about a cup, but take about a cup ful? About a cup fool springing around it, watering in or yeah? But well, is that a pretty resilient enough that it may come back? Or just when do I just jerk it out of the ground and start over. I wouldn't

give up on it just yet. Take your little thumbnail and scratch the bark. Just scratch right underneath the brown bark. And if you see creamy light green to white, creamy color, that's good, that's alive. If you see paper sack or pecan brown, that branch is dead. But I would wait because it may come back on you. And I think probably what they sold you was was a microlife product that they often sell for planting, and you cannot burn a plant with that and you can't. You know, it's

a good, good product. So we had some good rain out there and it's I planted it with them, and then we've had some good soaking, so maybe it's getting too much water. I don't know. Well, if you know our clay soils, a hole in a clay soil is an underground bathtub and it holds water really well in a clay soil. And that's just one of the things we have to deal with. And the figs aren't usually

that picky about it. But I don't know. I can't predict what happened or diagnosed backwards what happened, but I can tell you this, those products are good and I would just be ready to go again if you wanted to, you know, get another fig. I don't know if you have plans of planting another fig or not. You keep oneting a container, but if not, just go back there and get one when you're ready. Give it

until spring, let's see if it comes out. And you have to be patient with it because things wake up a little bit slow, and before you see some new growth popping out, to know if it's if it's still alive or not. All righty, thank you all right, David, thank you. I appreciate that call very much. Yeah, the folks at RCW they know when it comes to planting trees and shrubs and anything, they know what they're talking about because I mean they grow their own trees in Plantersville wide selection.

By the way, this was a fruit tree call. But I'm telling you, if you need an ornamental tree, RCW has everything that you need. And you know, every weekend in October they still got their little funning games show going on out there. It's a little fall festival. There's refreshments and snacks for the families, and so I guess there's but your last chance to go out and do that. But while you're out there, you'll enjoy

also a fifteen percent discount on all those trees. So fifteen percent discount at RCWS if if you've never been there before. That's the nursery where Tambo Parkway two forty nine comes into Beltway eight. Just go to RCW Nurseries dot com. You can find out more about them there. We're gonna take a break now, and our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two k T r H. Give us

a call. Let's talk gardening about whatever is of interest to you. When we come back, let's see Sandy and Ken. You will be the first two up and I'm going to turn it over to Nikki for the news. Well, good morning. You are listening to Gardenline and we're here to talk about gardening. Obviously our phone number seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. If if you have not fertilized your lawn yet this fall, let me suggest that

you take a good hard look at Nolson plant Food carbo Load. Now, Carboload is designed exactly for this season. Nelson Plant Food has been producing quality products since they started forty years ago. In fact, October fourteenth was our fortieth anniversary when they open for business, and they just keep adding one quality product after another, and Carboload is the fertilizer for this season. It's a ten ten twenty, so it's got the really good pack of potassium in it.

It also has a pre emergent herbicide, so you need to That would be a reason it's time to fertilize anyway, but that would be a reason to go ahead and get it down as soon as you can. You want to get a hold of all the winter weeds. They as temperatures cool off and germinate. Are cool off and we get some moisture, they're going to germinate. In fact, here comes these cooler temperatures, a little bit of rainfall, we will see a lot of things happening in our yards, and

one of them is the sprouting of winter weeds. Carbo load will prevent that as well as providing a quality fertilizer, as all fertilizers from Nelson Plant Food It are. I'd highly recommend that you do not delay, because you know, it's kind of like playing baseball. If you swing after the ball goes over the plate, it's not going to go well right. Well, it's the same thing. You don't want to put a pre emergent down after the weeds are already up and growing. You want to get it down before.

So just another reason to do that. Let's head out to Cyprus and we're going to talk to Sandy. Hello, Sandy, good morning, Skid, good morning. I wanted to ask you a question about aphid. Okay, do they bite number one and number two if they get on your skin. What do you do? They don't bite, they don't have that kind of mouth part. They have a little mouth part they stick down into the leaf to suck the juices out of it. So there's nothing to do about them.

Just brush them off with your hand or the water. Yeah. Well, I washed my hand and then took a shower. O know what else to do? Because it happened yesterday. Okay, And and if they get on your like, the reason they got on me is because I was picking my hot ki and peppers and they were so close to each other and I didn't realize that apids were on the back of them, the leaves, and so that some of them got on me. But can I just wipe them

off the peppers and eat them? Still? Learn it? Oh? Yeah yeah, just rent them off, squirt them, you know, put them under running water and just blast them right off of there. Uh. They're easy to dislodge with a squirt of water. Okay, Yeah, thank you so much. You great day you as well. Thank you. I appreciate appreciate your call. Uh. Listen, the folks up at D and D feed in tom Ball. I was out there just yesterday visiting with Dover family.

The place just keeps getting better. It just they had opened a whole new little section that I wouldn't even aware of. And I mean they had all kinds of supplies in that section. You need a garden hose or or a handgun squirt. They have one of those bulk seed bin dispenser, so you can go along and if you don't want to buy a little packet of seed, you can just grab them, get a little scoop and buy them

by the bulk. Lots of good quality seeds in there, and that is a very economical way too, by the way, to pick up pick up seeds, those tried and true varieties they have done well locally. Now they've also got other kinds of seeds. They've got anything you need for your lawn. I'd keep telling you this time fertilized time, put on a per emergent, if you're going to do that, well, they've got all of that and a lot more at d and defeed, they're three miles west of two

forty nine on twenty nine to twenty down there in Tomball. You just head out west and look over to the left. About three miles out you'll be there. And when you go inside you'll know why I always am bragging about d and defeed your hometown feed store up in the Tomball area. And speaking of the Tomball area, let's go up and talk to Ken. Hello, Ken, Hey, good morning, good morning, thanks for talking my I

had a question on my pine trees. A couple of my pine trees for the past year or so, like the ends of the neagles will turn a kind of a bronze orange color, and it's like the the one third there towards the end, and then the rest of them are green. And then I'm just curious if you've heard of that before. So, so the end of the shoot is green and it's it's it's bronze. Back from that, it's green. Yeah, from the from the like the branch to the two

thirds. First two thirds is green and then the bronze orange color. That's a stress response. You know, we have things that are evergreens, but evergreen leaves don't live for those leaves have a life cycle. Your live oaks will drop leaves when we go into spring and get new growth because those old leaves are being cast off. That's true of magnolia trees and pine trees and a lot of things but when you go through stress, that's a little more

aggravated and it's just casting off those old leaves. Probably the drought conditions we had this summer. If anything damaged the roots, compacted the soil, you're in a trench around it. That would also be an example of something that could cause that kind of damage. But it's nothing to worry about. Yeah, they got water now, they ought to be good to go and just continue on from here. I don't the fact that the ends of the branches are still green, that's a good sign. I think you'll be okay,

all right, okay, thank you, all right, thank you. I appreciate that call to Let's go now to South Houston. We're going to talk to Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey, thanks for taking my phone call. I have an issue with an asparagus spern It's been planted in this bed for probably four years. Never had any problem with it, even during the draft that survived, and now all of a sudden, I know they're not frands, but for the practical purposes, I'm gonna call them frants. It

should be dying one by one by one. I don't know what's going on because it looks like that should be a pretty easy plant to grow. Can you tell me? I use hash to grow by the way, about three weeks ago, and it's just I don't know what's going on out there with it. Any any advice. Well, we can eliminate the has to grow as a problem. You're not going to burn a plant with it. And I mean unless you just you know, quadruple you know, applying it.

But even at that you're not I don't think you're gonna burn a plant with has to grow. That's something's wrong in the crown or roots of the plant. And I can't tell you exactly what it is. It could be a root rot, it could be certainly if it goes through a stress like dry conditions, that can happen, but those are pretty resilient. They've got those underground little storage. It looked like little potatoes under there that store moisture.

And it takes an extended drought to really do some damage to them. But that's a possibility. It's a possibility. I guess if it was very water logged for a while that could happen, or just a disease itself. I don't want to send you out to get some fungerside to drench over it,

not knowing what's wrong. If one looks like it's about to die out, and you know, you just realize this one's probably not coming back, I'd go ahead and dig it up and pull it up and take a look, take a look at the roots in the bottom and see if there's a lot of rock there. It's dying in sections, it's not like throughout the entire plant. So those roots are not easy to get up. They are very

extensive, and they are extensive and very difficult to dig out. Yeah, I did plant about two weeks ago, I did plant a crpe martle not too far from that plant. So perhaps I damage the roots when I dug the ground for the crape myrtle. But you'd have to do like you I think. You know, they are so resilient. You see them in in in esplanades and all, which is one of the ways I choose my plants because I figure they can grow on an esplanade. They're going to pretty grow

easily for me. So I think, apologically, I'm just going to end up digging this thing up and planting another one in its place. But actually, does I agree, And I know it's a booger to dig I got to go to a break here. But if you do pull one up, look and if you don't see any rotting, just put it back in the ground. It's probably fine because this is fall, it's time to plant. It won't hurt to dig it up and put it back in the ground. But if you see rotting, give me a call back and we can talk

about next steps. All right, Sorry, I got to run. It's time for another break here, but our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four will be right back. Well, good Saturday morning. We're glad you're listening this morning. We are talking gardening on garden Line. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four falls

for planting. I'm going to say it again and again and again, but I'm also going to say when you are going to have success with plants, you got to take care of the brown stuff before you take care of the green stuff. And what does that mean. That means first, fix the soil. Get the soil where it is right for the kind of plants you're going to plant. And that is exactly what Ciena Malts can help you with now. If you're down south of the Houston area near highway let's say Highway

six and two eighty eight north of Roe Sharon. They're on FM five twenty one FM five twenty one Ciena malts Do. They have quality products. Absolutely, every fertilizer I talk about they have in stock and plenty of it, by the way, plenty of it. They also have bulk in terms of moltch and composts, things like that. They've got bagged mulching, compost anything you need to get your soil ready so you can have success with your plants. That's Maltch. You can go to Sienna Multch dot com and find out

a lot more. By the way, I'm going to be there next weekend, so I'll tell you more about that later. But I'll be there next weekend. Dynasyna Moltz. They're open Monday through Friday seven thirty to five and Saturday seven thirty to two. Closed on Sunday. But remember it's so important take care of the brown stuff before you take care of the green stuff, and Sienna Multch will hope you do just that. We're going to go now to Humble and talk to Helen. Hello Ellen, Helen, good, good

morning, Good morning. I am interested in your pros and cons on me planning a mimosa tree over. I'm trying to get some quick shade. Okay, well it'll give you that, and momosa will give you the Mimosa is one of those plants that a lot of people don't like, and there are a lot of people that do like it. If you want something that grows fast and gives you some quick shade, that's it. But uh, they

tend to not be long lived in general. Now, you always can have plants that are exceptions to the rule, but they have several issues that can be a problem. They're not super strong wooded, but when it comes to some pretty low flowers, they certainly can produce that. So it's kind of up to you. Just realize that there's a day coming after you plant it where you're going to be pulling it out and doing something else in that spot.

Okay, do you have a suggestion for any other tree that would give me some quick shades that would be a little bit How big of an area do you need to have shade in out there? My god, I can't come up with dimensions. Okay, that's fine. Well, you know, some of the larger types of crape myrtles will grow pretty fast and give you some decent shade, the kind like, oh gosh, I can't say it.

Natchez is a white blooming type, has beautiful cinnamon bark. That would be an option you could do. Out there, trying to think, usually when we say fast and long lived, those don't go in the same sentence. And I'm trying to try to come up with some exceptions to that general rule, and there are some out there. Oh gosh, that would I would start with a considering a crape if you want some beautiful color as well, three months of color as a matter of fact, So that would be

one that would be the first thing comes to mind. Okay, okay, I certainly appreciate it, all right, thank you. I appreciate your current good luck with that. Yeah, mimosa is. I like mimosa. I grew up with mimosas and I just think they're cool. But you know, you just have to realize, even though it's a tree, think of it more as a medium age short to medium age tree in terms of it how

long it lasts. And again, I know somebody's going to call and say I've had one for thirty years or something like that, And there are those, There are those out there, but I can tell you there are a lot of other people that have had issues that have come up over the years with them. The folks out at the Arbrogate and Tomboal have loaded up on everything you need for your fall plantings. I mean they have you ever heard

of ornamentables, ornum metables, that's right, ornamental and edible. Put together something like a beautiful Swiss chart with the colorful petioles, the red petioles and orange and gold like varieties like bright lights and vulcan and whatnot. Those are gorgeous. We have mustards that have beautiful burgundy color in the foliage. There is a red red vein sorel for example, another ornamentaal lots lots of them

out there. Arbrogate's got that. They got so much more. I mean they're loaded up with mums, everything you need for you know, holiday plantings and gifts and whatnot. When you're at Arbigate, though, go ahead and grab you when you grab the plants. Remember brown stuff before green stuff. Organic food complete, that's a four four three organic fertilizer. Organic soil Complete, that is a mix that is blended for our soils for our area here.

And then organic compost complete and you know what compost is. This is a blend of more than one type of quality compost. Those last two, by the way, also have expanded shale and every time you turn the soil and add that to your clay soil, it just keeps getting better and better in a long term way. All of that's at Arburgate. You can go to Arburgate dot com. They're just a mile and a half west of two forty nine on twenty nine to twenty up there in Tomball, and it's always

a fun outing to go to Arburgate. By the way, check out their new parking area behind Arborgate. You turn in before or after the store and go around behind the store and it is an all weather wonderful access for everything that you might need out there in that area. While you're at Arbrogate too, by the way, you might want to pick up some Microlife fertilizers. You know, Microlife is a quality fertilizer. Microlife has the blend of nutrients

that do well here in our conditions. If you are into growing things organically that Microlife is a quality mix for that. It's available widespread all kinds of different places. But Microlife Blue plus Blue is one of the combos that I like to recommend. What is that well the blue The first blue is Microlife Ultimate that is an A two four fertilizer. It is good for anything you want to fertilize. It does super well. The second blue is Microlife Ocean

Harvest. That is a fish based liquid fertilizer. So if you're going to be doing some tree planting, you want to mix some of that into the soil. You're not going to burn the roots with it. You can do that if you want to water your plants in with that, they do well with that. If you want to use it as a folier spray, the Ocean Harvest, it works super well. That's the Microlife Blue plus Blue.

By the way, you can get Microlife anywhere that you shop just about go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and you will find all the place you can get it. Also, you can learn more about these specific products that I just talked about. It's super good stuff. I use it in a lot of different plantings that I have and I've always had good success with the microlife products. You just want to water mind, so they get into the soil and

the microbes go to town because that's what's going to be happening. Well, we're running out of our first hour here. I want to let you know that I'm going to be at Southwest Fertilizer today. Southwest Fertilizer on bissin Ut and Runwick. They've got everything you need. You know. I always say if they don't have it, you don't need it. I'm going to be

there. They're going to be giving a drawing for two door prices. They'll draw them at the end of my appearance there from eleven thirty to one thirty. There'll be a Toro battery blower is that cool? A Touro battery string trimmer as well. You don't have to drag a quarter around, you don't have to far up a motor. They're going to be giving both of those away and a drawing at the end. I'll be giving away SKIP certificates.

What's that. Well, that means that if you purchase something today at it's only available today October twenty eighth, ten dollars off the purchases and I got plenty of those to get out. So everybody stops in, stops by the table, asks the gardening question. I'll just add you a SKIP certificate and you'll be well on your way to getting the quality products that they carry with. They're gonna have Medina samples and bags that they're given away. They're gonna

have some other products. They're going to popcorn, cold drinks, and lots of Halloween treats. My gosh, what a what a fun time. Bring me in a bag, any samples you want identified or diagnosed, bring me photos on your phone. Let's talk. I always love to meet the folks that are listening to garden Line. We'll be right back. 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 Richt. It's so just as so many Welcome back to garden Line on what is going to be an outstanding, outstanding Saturday for gardening. This is a time of the year. We survived summer. Everybody's breathing a fresh breath of air, a sigh of relief, whatever you want, and here comes some cooler weather coming out pretty soon. By the way, it's just a good time to be

getting things ready to go out there in the garden. I mean, you actually want to go outside now right and get a little bit of work done. I wouldn't even mind working in the rain, you know it just when you do without it for a long time. It's just kind of nice to run around outside when it's raining and enjoy the fact that it is raining. I was talking about Arburgate earlier and their organic food complete that four four three

plus ten percent calcium that they have. It's really a unique, unique fertilizer. It's got the nutrients, the four four to three mix the nutrients, which, by the way, for your lawn is an excellent blend for this fall application that you're about to put down or hopefully have put down. If not, go buy and get some because it's what you need. It's got all the trace minerals in it. Forty five percent of it's just organic matter, and it is what is the microbial content, that's what I couldn't put

my finger on. Microbial content in it is outstanding. They add eleven species of micariza into that fertilizer. Eleven different species of micariza. So it is very safe, very non toxic, environmentally friendly, and you can use it on all kinds of things. I mean, if you're planting herbs, if you're planting vegetables, if you're putting it on your lawn, if you're going to you know, we've established some shrubs and trees and you want to do

some fertilizing around them. It's a good one for that. So that I need to talk about that more than organic food complete. I've got some at the house. I've used it before. I find it to be a very effective product to By the way, as far as I was talking about lawns, as far as lawns go, if you are having some issues with your lawn due to let's say compaction of the soil or just the grass is just

really struggling. Green Pro the folks at green Pro they're still doing what they do well, and that is specifically I'm talking about their aerration, the deep time core aeration. And what does that mean. Well, it's not all of those little units it rolls over the lawn and punches a little shallow hole in the ground. No, this one goes down and pulls a plug out

and drops it on the surface. I always say, it looks like you had a little dog convention on the lawn without these little droppings everywhere on top. That opens up. And then they follow it with a compost top dressing of quality screened, finely screened composts to fall down in those holes and that just opens up the soil. It allows air down in, It improves water infiltration after a rain, and it puts the organic matter in the soil.

And anytime you have organic matter in the soil emulating root growth because the microbes just go crazy. You can go to greenpro dot net. Green pro dot net. Their price is start at five ninety nine plus sales tax and it depends on your location. Drive from here to timbukto that'll be a little different.

But it's also the course of the size of your lawn. But as far as getting your lawn in a place where it can thrive, a good deep time core aeration followed by compost top dressing, that is a very very good start for creating that environment. Because you know what, a plant is only as happy as its root system. That's why preparing the soil first is so important. And we always talk about that. But when you make the

roots happy, you make the top happy. I used to say plants live in their roots, and that it's true, but that I think for some folks is a little bit confusing as to what I was saying. But really, when you create the soil volume and the soil content and the soil aeration and the nutrients and the microbial activity where roots can thrive, the plant can

thrive. And that's why the brown stuff before the green stuff. Folks at Airloom Soils, by the way, hey, if you need to if you're planning on doing some major soil work, they've got a deal going on you need to not miss. And that is the bulk specials that they're offering now. They're veggie and herb mix. I guess that's one of their most popular products, and for a good reason. By the way, it says veggie and herb. If you want to use it on a flower bed, it's

good for that too. It's just it's an excellent product. If you buy it by bulk, it's one hundred nineteen dollars a cubic yard. And if you get the supersack, which is a nice, neat, little one cubic yard sack, set on your driveway, neat clean. You don't have to own a pickup to have a supersack. You don't have to clean up your driveway when you're all done. One hundred and forty eight dollars for that. Now, the roast soil another widely used soil, not just for roses.

I know it says roses. Rose growers help design that soil, but you know the the rose soil is going to be good for anything, any kind of shrubs and things that you want to grow. Seventy dollars for a QB yard book, ninety nine for a supersack. You're not gonna find a better

deal than that. So if you're trying to fill up a big old vego garden or a raised bed, if you're trying to create a new bed, or just raise the height on a bed to improve drainage, go to heirloomsoilsoftexas dot com where you can find out more, how to order it, how to get it. If you don't go pick it up, I to porter you can do that as well. But heirloom soils the import on brown stuff

that comes before the green stuff. That's what we're talking about. Hey, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three, two one two five eight seven four. Want to make sure and take care of your soil and then your plants just thrive. What do they say, if you build it? They will come talking about baseball stadium or whatever you're building. Well, if you build the soil, your plants will thrive. It is absolutely as simple as that. Not a problem at

all. Hey, I think I mentioned this earlier, but I'm going to be out at Southwest Fertilizer today from eleven thirty to one thirty, and the Southwest Fertilizer that is where you find anything you need when it comes to taking care of your plants. Yeah, they're going to have bags of soil mixes and composts. They're going to have every fertilizer I talk about, every single one is available and then some at Southwest. Do you need disease control,

insect control, weed control? Do you need tools? Do you need to get your mower blade sharpen, your your weed eater tuned up? I mean, whatever you need. Southwest Fertilizers got it. They have expert folks that know what they're talking about. You go in with a sample. They help you. They know exactly how to take care of that. While I'm there by the way, I'm going to be given away. This is a great

day to go Southwest. I'm going to be giving away skip certificates for everybody that comes up to the table and ask a question, ten dollars off your purchases made at the store to day again. This is eleven thirty to one thirty. I'll be at Southwest. They're going to give away There'll be a drawing at the end of this time at one point thirty Toro battery blower and a Toro battery string trimmer. You don't have to be present to win, but you do have to be present to fill out the form to try out

for that. Now they're going to be giving away a lot of other products. They're gonna have Medina bags. The folks at Medina are putting away giveaway bags of some goodies that they have, popcorn, cold drinks, Halloween treats. We're gonna have a good time. I hope you'll come out to see me. I am looking forward to visiting with you answering your gardening question.

So grab those samples for identification and diagnosis. Put some pictures on the phone so we can look at them and see how we can help you have a more beautiful lawn and a bountiful landscape. It's time to take a break. Our phone number is seven to one to three two one two k t RH And when we come back, Jose and Joe, you'll be the first two up. Good Saturday morning, boy. The glow is beginning in the eastern sky. That means we're about to kick off a great day for gardening.

Speaking of great for gardening, if if you live up in the Montgomery area, A and A Plants and Produce is at Hometown feed Store just down the street from you. You know it's on the east side of Montgomery. Is you're heading toward Conroe Highway one oh five, you've driven past it one hundred times. You probably stopped there. This is a full service garden center,

family owned for over thirty years. Kathy took over from her parents from her parents, Adam and Alice Flores, and the place just keeps getting better and better. So anyone out in the Lake Conroe area Conroe willis all back up in there. Well, this is your hometown, Hometown Garden Center. They carry all the products I talk about. The fertilizers that I talk about, you can find them there. Hey, cool weather's coming. How about stopping

in at A and A and grabbing a chiminea. They've got all kinds of bling for the landscape, for outdoor living, pottery, different things like that. You're going to really be able to create a beautiful patio with the many things they offer. And you know the case of a chimney, that'd be kind of cool as you get a little bit cooler afternoon weather, cooler evening weather, get outside and enjoy that on the patio. They can fix you

up there at A and A plants and produce again. They're in Montgomery on Highway one oh five, just on the east side, open seven days a week from nine am to five pm. Let's head now out to Katie and talk to jose Hey, Josey, sir, my grass is still brown? What can I do to make it? I mean, I got some patchy spots where it's green, all right? WHOA, Well, you know i'd get down close and look at that. Is this Saint Augustine grass by the way, probably yes, Okay, get down on kind of hands and knees,

and look at the runners. If the runners have some grain in them, there may be some re sprouting that it can do. If they're brown, that area is dead. If the area that's brown is really wide, you're probably going to need to plug in some grass there. Put in some reside in those areas. If it's oh, let's say foot apart or things, you've got some green, living sprigs, then it'll fill back in when the weather worm's up next spring. You can get some pretty quick coverage if

the grass is healthy coming out in the spring. But what I would do right now for sure is put down a fall fertilizer application if you haven't already, because whatever grass you have, you want to get it as strong as you can going into fall. And that's why we have those fall fertilizers that have lower nitrogen but good potassium levels in them. Okay, yeah, where can I go buy that at? You can buy it at any kind of ACE hardware out there in the Kadi area, no problem at all finding those.

Just go to ACE Hardware dot com and look for their store locator, find the ones closest to you. They carry everything that we talk about when it comes to fertilizers. I don't know what direction you are from Katie, but you drop down to in Chantic Gardens just north of Richmond. They've got it there too. They're not too far away from Katie as well. Okay, all right, thank you, yes sir, Hey go online, hose

write this down gardening with skip dot com. Gardening with skip dot com on there is my lawn care schedule and I list all the organic and synthetic fall fertilizers that I would recommend, and so just print that out take it with you. It's really easy to find. Or if you happen to be out today, it's a little bit of a drive, but not too far.

Come see me at Southwest Fertilizer in Houston and they've got everything there. We can also talk about if you got any kind of questions you want to bring a picture or sample of that'd be another option there at the corner of bisinat and Renwick. Okay, all right, all right, thank you, yes sir, you take care appreciate that call. You know, our trees are the most valuable plants in our landscape. They add a lot of value to your home and when you have a quality tree, it is not only valuable

for the home. It's beautiful and it may shade your house. It may shade you in the summer sitting outside. Lots of good reasons to have quality trees, but you got to take care of them and if your trees need pruning. Martin Spoon Moore Affordable Tree Service, they're the ones that we recommend for that. It's easy. The phone number is seven one three six twenty six sixty three. When you call Martin or his wife Joe, all answer. If you don't hear Martin or Joe, you've called the wrong place.

Hang up. Seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three are If you want to go online Afftree Service dot com. Now you can just have them come out and do an assessment. Does the tree need pruning or not? They'll tell you if it does or if it doesn't. If you're going to do anything around a tree, disturb the soil, put in a sidewalk, dig a trench, build a house for crying out loud, you got to hire a quality person like Martin to come out first and talk to

you about what to do. Don't let some guy that just drives by and sticks a card in your door saying I've got to pick up in a chainsaw. I'll trim your trees. Don't let them touch the trees. The damage it gets done by people that don't know what they're doing is for the life of the tree. I mean, it's always going to be marred and have issues when it's done wrong. Call Martin now and get on the schedule. They stay busy because they do things right. Tell them. You listen to

garden lines, you get at the top of the list. Affordable Tree Service aff tree service dot com. Let's go out to Freeport and talk to Joe. Hello, Joe, Hey, how you doing. I'm well, thank you, Yes, sir. My question is I have a house in some Ravel, Texas in the front yard is just full. Nobody's lived there like six years. So the frontyardn't you know, had a lot of fertilizer or

anything. But I'm overran by. We call them cocker birds. They if you walk outside, the barefoot or the dogs and they were real spiky. Uh and uh. I was watching the YouTube and it was talking about using a pre emergent yes, uh during the fall time and maybe a post emergent. Uh. In March and April, I was wondering what's your thoughts on that? How can I get rid of these or at least control them? Do you know? Do you know if do you know what grasspurs are?

It's a grass plant? Is it that a different kind of bird? It must be that because it's like a weed. But if you get on in there and you pull one out, it's just like a bunch of spikes, you know, during the summer. It's real hard spikes. Well, there's there's there's grass birds that well, definitely they have got sharp spines. Uh. Then there's there's several others or something called burr weed. Uh, And there are other things that can have the pokey seed pods on them. So

knowing which one you have would be good. It'd be good if you catch them and take a picture of it, you know, email it to me or something. We could be more specific. But here's the deal. All of those things are warm season weeds, and so you're going to want to put the pre emergent down in February to prevent the warm season weeds. If it's certain ones of those, and if it's grassbur you could wait a little bit later and get it down in March because grassper germinate early march. Grassper

germinates a little bit later. Okay, that's a pre emerging in temporary. Yes, and a product like nitrofoss barricade would be an example of a quality product. And the nice thing about it is it works on grassy weeds and broad leaf weeds both to prevent. But you got to get it down and water down ahead of time. I cannot think of a winter weed that's a burr in your yard so that I wouldn't do the fall like like you heard online or something w eight and do it typically. February is when we get

our pre emergence again. If you will go to Gardening with Skip dot com. That's my website, Gardening with Skip. I have a lawn, pest, disease and weed management schedule and it tells you exactly when to apply those and it tells you exactly the products that you can choose from that will be very effective. Fantastic, all right, Yeah, but the barricade barricade is

something you need to have on hand. Have you have you fertilized your lawn yet for the fut No, sir, I haven't, like I said, you know, of course, I live down here on my life, and uh, you know, I plan to retire here in a couple of years up there, and I'm trying to get the yard and everything where I can take my dogs up there without yeah, stepping all over these things. Yeah. No, I understand that if I were you, I would I would stop by you know, Ash Hardware or something near you where you can get

the Nitrofoss Texas three step. Uh. That what you'll get is you'll get the fall fertilized that you need to get on right away. Very effective, very effective products, got the right blend for the soils including up there in some of the area. It's also got the barricade that it has talked about. And then it's got the nitrofoss Eagle turf funge side if you need to fight a large patch brown patch as well. But you can find it in all kinds of places, I know, you know, in your area.

I would look to a ACE hardware store probably to find it. Some of the feed stores we talk about here on guarden Line they carry it too down there. Okay, all right, fantastic, I appreciate it. You bet appreciate good day you too, Thanks for colling. Yeah, you can find the night foss three strap. Lots of places I know plants for all seasons. Carries it on two forty nine in Chanted Gardens out in Richmond, they've got it out there. Lake Hardware down in Angleton has it as well.

Not hard to find nit fross products, but that one two three RESTEP is a good combination do a good job for you on preventing things. And you know, in general in gardening, in horticulture, prevention or early interaction is absolutely the best way to go. Think of it this way. You can put something down and prevent a weed from ever showing up, or you can wait until they're up. And now you've got to find a product that'll kill the weed but not kill your grass. So see what I mean prevention being

better. If you are looking at a disease like brown patch and you've had it year after year. Number one, we need to talk about how to get your lawn healthy and on a good schedule to be able to avoid that problem most of the time. That will include not watering so often, not overfertilizing with nitrogen soluble nitrogen that's fast released overdone in the fall can aggravate that.

Not mowing your lawn too short in the fall prevention prevention, or putting a product down so that when the disease would show up, it stops it. Because once you see the big brown circles, you've got them all winter

into the spring, till the grassery greens again. When it comes to diseases and issues like that, or insects in your garden, catching them early the first time you see them, you know if you want a garden with less toxic options, if you want a garden organically or just the what we call

the softer products. It is most important that you catch pests early because as the pest gets old, or something like a stink bug when it first hatches out is much easier to kill than something than a stink bug that has wings and is flying around everywhere laying eggs. So you get more stink bugs. Your options are softer and they're more effective when you catch things early. So what do they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound to cure

the early bird gets the worm. May nikki, give me some more. We have a thousand and adages out there saying, hey, wake up, get it done. Don't wait until your house is on fire to decide to call the fire department. You know, prevent fires, don't try to put them out after they start. I wonder who invented the word stink bug. Stink bug the first person that grabbed one and smell their fingers that said, Hey, you're listening to garden Line. We're gonna turn it over to the

Nicky News Network. Our phone number is seven one three two one two k t RH to give us a call and joshall get you on the board. Well, good Saturday morning on a great day for gardening. You know, every day's a great day for gardening, right it is? It just absolutely is. It could be pouring rain outside, freezing, it could be in the middle of a hailstorm. You still can go inside. You can plant seeds for growing your own transplantch you can take care of your house plants,

you see what I'm talking about, or just do some armchair gardening. That's one of my favorite things. Sitting down, gets some seed catalogs, or go online and look at things, read up about stuff, learn about gardening. You know, they say that when you are sawing trees, you need to take time to sharpen the saw. I don't know if you've ever if you ever used a dull saw before. But it's a lot of work. Whether it's an axe or a hatchet or a saw, you got to keep

it sharp. Same thing when it comes to us gardeners. We've got to keep ourselves sharp, stay on top of things, learn more, come up with new ideas. There is always some cool new thing going on in the gardening world. I mean, it just is. It's it is a hobby that you just never finished learning. I've been doing this professionally for thirty four

years. I've been guarding my whole life, and there hardly a week goes by that I don't learn something new that makes me a better gardener, that makes you know, my gardening more successful, or maybe a new idea, a new plant that I haven't grown before. That's one of the things I so enjoy about gardening as a hobby. It's fun. It just really is. We say it's a good exercise too. You get out there and you

know you're walking around. These days, we've learned that you sit at a desk for a long time, just get up and walk around for a while. Over thirty minutes, it is actually a health benefit to doing that. Well, imagine getting outside and doing yard work, doing some things here, planting some plants, trimming some trees, walking around doing stuff. It's good for you. And I like to say gardening is a good exercise, and if you are a bad gardener, it's great exercise because you get to pull

more weeds up and down on your hands and knees more. You get the idea. It's kind of a joke, but hey, have fun out there in the garden. That is important. Well. Our phone number is seven one three two one two k t r H seven to one three two one two kt RH if you would like to give us a call and talk about gardening. If you have a piece of property and you've thought about getting a tractor, now is the time to do that. And here's why. It's

the Kebota deal. It's the Lensdown Moody deal. The combination of the two pick click and go orange. So the pick pick a Kebota tractor at Landsdown Moody. The L twenty five oh two is an excellent machine. It's the Kbota workhorse. Now, Cabota has a wide range attractors at Lansdown Moody, but the L twenty five O two is the one I would recommend first you take a good hard look at. Secondly, click on your package deal. You go to tractorpackage dot com and you choose the implements that you want to

go the package that you want to go with your tractor. Maybe you need a rotary cutter for mowing a big area. Maybe you need a front end loader for moving malt or carrying feedsacks or whatever else getting them from here to there. It'll do it. Do you need to dig postholes? Do you need a box blade for smoothing out soil? You get the idea, the package, and then finally go orange with a great finance plan, in fact, the best I've ever heard of. No money down, no interest for

up to eighty four months. Lansdown Moody is your deal. They're locally owned, they've been here in Houston since nineteen thirty six. This isn't some big out of town corporation. No, this is hometown through and through at Lansdown Moody nine locations here on the Gulf Coast. So just go to lmtractor dot

com and find the lands Down near you. Go buy there, hop up on one of those kbodas, and I think you'll see what I'm talking about when we're talking about a quality tractor and something that don't tell anybody, especially if you're trying to convince a significant other you're going to make this purchase. But it's also a lot of fun. It just it just is. It's a big toy, but a big toy that knows how to go to work and will make your work a lot easier. I always have enjoyed the times

that I can get out and get some work done on the tractor. You're listening to garden Line our number again seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four for the vegetable garden. This is the time when we need to be getting all the cool season stuff out there. Spinach you want to plant spinach, let us any kind of greens or regular and whatnot. All those blue leaved vegetables that

we also call coal crops, that we also call cruciferous vegetables. They are, by the way, you know what they're called cruciferous vegetables. Fun fact. You can share this with your family and friends and be the horticultural cliff Claven of your neighborhood. They're called Cruciferus vegetable because the blooms have four petals in the shape of a cross. Cruciferous across the shape of a cross. That's why they're called that. Hey, those are super healthy. I mean,

we know the compounds that are in those. We're not just talking about nutrients. We're talking about things that are even cancer fighting in green and a lot of the vegetables. Do you know onions, by the way, it's time to plant some onions too. Onions have corcetan, which is another ingredient, another nutrient, another compound that helps our bodies stay healthy. So when you grow your own vegetables, eat your own vegetables, it's just good all

the way around. If you got kiddos and you don't have a garden, now'd be a good time to get one. I'd suggest getting a vego bet I think it's the best way to go. I've gardened in treated lumber boxes, I've gardened in mounds on the soil no sides, I've gardened in cinder block sided boxes. Vego garden is the best way to go. And it's the metal is treated in a way where it's not going to rest in Corrode. It's painted with a quality paint that is beautiful. I mean, do

you want kind of a tan, or a green or a gray. They have all colors for you to do that. They're modular. You put them together with a little stainless steel screws so you can make them any shape you want. You know, do you have a patio and you want something to go around in an L shape or on the edge of the patio. You can do that with a Vego bed. They're really easy to do. Go

to vegogarden dot com you can find out more vegogarden dot com. You will be stunned by how beautiful they are, how complete, because of the modular nature, how versatile they are. And it's a Houston company. Now, there are impostors out there, the wannabes in the metal gardenbed business, but Vego is the original one here in the States. It's the one that's local, Houston company, and it is the one that I would highly recommend.

I've got Vego beds. They work, they're easy, they're attractive, and for any organic gardener there you have a completely safe sided bed to grow whatever kind of food that you want to grow in at Vego garden. It's as simple as that. But yeah, vegetable gardening right now, this is a time to do all kinds of good things. We can grow a lot of stuff in the cool season. You know, I just mentioned it few things, Sarah, But there are a lot of great veggies to grow. Our

garden centers are chock full of those. You can get the seeds and get to town, get the kids involved, or at least just grow in a five gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom and get a start on gardening. I think you will find that it is a very rewarding hobby. We're going to take a break. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two KTRH. Give Josh a call. Let's get you on the board so we can visit with you.

Next referencing Cliff Claven, remember the the uh mailman on Cheers that knew everything. Sometimes You got to read his explanation of how beer makes you smart. That is one of the funniest things that man ever said. Typical typical Cliff Clavin. Uh, you know, it is time to take care of your lawns and it is the month where everything's going on in the lawns and

Nitrophus has put together their Texas three step for just that. Now. The Texas three step is a fertilizer, a weed preventative, and a disease preventative. And here's how it works. She got the Nitrophosphall special that's a brown bag that is designed nutrient wise, the concentration, the ratios and everything for our soils for fall, because fall is when we strengthen our grass plant to go into winter for more heartiness. And by the way, potassium also helps

with drought of resilience and that way it comes out in spring stronger. Your early spring growth on your grass is based on the nutrients stored in the plant. And that's why fall fertilization is the most important one of the year. It really really is. Now. The second step barricade, that's a pre emergent I was talking about it earlier. It controls grassy weeds and broad leaf weeds. But you have to put it down and you have to water it

in about a half inch of rainfall or irrigation. You don't want to wait on that. These winter weeds are going to be germinating. This little coal spell coming in and cooling things off, cooling the soil off. We're going to see a lot of things like chickweed and hand bent and clover and annual bluegrass coming up. Get that barricade down to form a barricade on the sole

surface. The third step is eagle turf fungicide. That is a fungicide that soaks into the tissues so that when a disease like brown patch, the big circles we see in our Saint Augustine lawns, when it shows up, it's there to help prevent it rather than waiting until now you've got big circles, well, you know you're going to look at big dead circles until spring comes

and it regreens again. So get ahead of all of these things. Go ahead and get the fall fertilizer down so you have as much time as possible before the weather cools off in growth slows to strengthen that plant. Go ahead and get the barricade down before the seeds come up. And go ahead and

get the fungicide down. If you're going to prevent large patch, not everybody has large patch problems in their lawn or brown patch but if you do, if you see those circles, you definitely want to prevent rather than try to deal with it after they already appear. That is not going to be very effective to try to do the latter. That is something to keep in mind.

You know, the feed store that we talk about down in League City area is League City Feed and I don't know if you've ever been there before, but it's really easy to get to. They're on Highway three, a few blocks south of ninety six Highway ninety six. So if you live in clear Lake or League City, or Santa Fe or Lamark Baycliff, Webster, Dickinson, all those areas, this is your hometown feed store. Now.

The Thunderbergs have been running this store since they created it forty years ago, and Wes and his sister Madison, they are doing a great job around there. By the way, if you they're on a Saturday, I think you might even get to meet the dalmatian Rorshak. Is that a good name for a Dalmatian or not? You know, you stare at the dog and the psychiatrist says, okay, what do you see when you look at this downmation? I love that name, but anyway. They carry all the products that

we talk about on guardline. You know the nitrophoss, the azimite, the microlife, the heirloom soils, you know, Nature's creation, Nelson plant food, it's all there. Any kind of pest disease and weed control product is there. You need a quality pet food, it's there. Do you need stuff for your chickens or any other kind of livestock, They've got it at League City Feed. Here's their number two eight one, three, three two

sixteen twelve Monday through Saturday nine to six, closed on Sunday. So any day from Monday through Saturday, get off work, heading home, swing by there. They'll get you fixed up. That old fashioned service and a great selection as well. One of the reasons or two of the many reasons that we say League City Feed is your hometown feed store down in that area.

Just want to remind you if you have not downloaded the lawn care schedule and the disease pest or pest disease and weed management schedule, go ahead and do so. They are at SKIP or gardening with Skip dot com Gardening with Skip that's me dot com and you can get those schedules also at Gardening with Skip is the information I was talking to you earlier about what you need to know before you plan a fruit tree. Excellent article linked on there. Go check

that out. We continue to add more and more new stuff to that as well. You'll also see on there coming soon on there, as a matter of fact, is the talking about the Texas Tomato Conference that's coming up Texas Gardener magazine. Jay White and those folks have put together an excellent conference. I'll be speaking at it, lots of other great speakers that will be there. It is going to be an awesome day coming up here in January, and you want to get signed up for it before they sell out. It's

going to be out at the antiqu Rosing Pium. You do not want to miss that Texas Tomato Conference. I know we're thinking, why are we talking tomatoes in November, Well you got to learn about them because not long after January. In fact, in January, you'll be starting your own transplants. If you're going to do that, getting ready for a great tomato season. Fall is for planting, and fall is for planting, especially anything woody ornamental,

and for that tree farm. The folks at Verdant Tree farm. They have got a wide selection of trees and they have locations that are easy to get to out on Barker Cypress and West Houston, down in Pearland on Broadway Street, they're there. Up in the heights where Iten and Yale Street come together, they're there as well. Now they have trees of all sizes. I mean you can get a tree up to seven hundred gallon tree. They

may even have something larger than that. They will beat any advertised retail price. If you need palms, they've got that as well, one year warranty included and don't forget ten percent discount for military and first responders at Verdant Tree Farm Verdant treefarm dot com. We're talking about a lot of different things gardening today because it's just a gardening show. But we're going to take a break here in a little bit. But when I want to talk before we do

just a bit about herbs and the importance of fall for herb planting. Now, you may want this traditional herb garden where it is just all's what you know, symmetrical, the beautiful little traditional herb garden, or you may just want to put herbs and containers or you may want to put herbs like I do, in the vegetable garden or in the flower beds. Herbs can be ornamental chives that bloom. Just think of them as a little dwarf type of loriopy. I guess bordering a bed you can do that. You can use

oregano and time as groundcovers. They're just a lot. They're versatile plants. They're easy, easy, easy to do, and you can get them. You know. For example, it's Forest ad in Richmond. They've got an awesome selection of herb. They just built the new vegetable and herb houses out there now. While you're out at Enchanted, of course you're going to want to go home with some of their moms with all the other decoration of the

pumpkins and all the fall decorations. But don't forget that they also have an excellent selection of perennials, trees and shrubs along with the herbs and fall veggies there. I was out recently and I'm really impressed with the herb selection and everything else. You know, Danny and Klay Linderman out there at Enchanted Forest, they absolutely are the best when it comes to customer service and knowledge. And helping you have success. That's what you get at a hometown, mom

and pop kind of garden center, and that's what this is. But don't expect it to be some little limited thing when you go out there. Enchanted is in its name for a reason. It is beautiful, it's wonderful to walk through. It's gorgeous, it's inspiring. They have a white variety of products. Hey, do you need to refill let's say your microlife or your Nilson plant foods. You know you need a little those where you take your

containers out and you just refill them. It's a little more cost effective and you don't throw away a lot of plastic that way while you're out there. Bring your empty containers and get them refilled. Out there an enchanted forest, easy to find, easy to get to. You just all you have to do is head out to the right when you're going from Richmond up towards sugar Land, going up fifty nine. They are on FM twenty seven fifty nine

f twenty seven fifty nine en Richmond Enchanted Forest. I want to remind you again that I'm going to be out at Southwest Fertilizer after the show today, so you definitely want to come out. Hey, do you have a sample you'd like to bring by for identification or for diagnosis? Put it in a bag and bring it out there. This is going to be a really cool deal. It's not just a chance to meet me and for me to meet you and for us to talk gardening. Course, here's your one I to

eye one on one kind of opportunity to do that. But they're gonna be given away two really cool tools at the end of the appearance. You just have to sign up and register to win Toro battery blower and a Toro battery string trimmer. Got a lot of value in those two right there. Now, I'll be giving away Skip certificates to everybody that comes by my table with a gardening question. Ten dollars off anything you buy in the store today today,

only ten dollars off your purchases in the store. So we may be talking about something and I go, well, here's the product you need to fix that. Well, there you go, here's ten dollars off. You can do that, and we're gonna have a good time. They're gonna be giving away bags of Little Medina samples products. We'll be having popcorn, cool drinks, Halloween treats. You don't have to dress up for Halloween that you

can still come by and enjoy the treats at Southwest Fertilize You. They're in the corner of Bissinetta and run with south West Houston, So I don't care where you live. Uh, this is not a hard drive to get to. Come on out. Let's see, let's see you, and let's help you solve those problems. Hey, it'll be eleven thirty to one thirty, so just make your plans. Good day to get out, good day for

that good day for gardening and everything else. Our phone number is seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H. And hey, I have a special guest calling in after we begin the eight o'clock hour. You don't want to miss this. KTRH 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. Just watch him as the world gold. The blocks the clubs not a

sign. Well, welcome to garden Line. We are glad you're listening today. I'm your host. Skip Richter, and we are happy to visit about any kind of gardening stuff that you would like to talk about. Just give us a call. It's seven one three two one two K T R H. Simple as that you you Uh, I've got a special guest coming up. I was kind of given a tease for that before we went into the break, Felder Rushing. Many of you know who Felder Rushing is. Uh.

He has from Mississippi. He is as as I. He's been a horticulturist with the Extension Service in his case in Mississippi, but for many many years now has just been going on all over the country, very very highly sought after speaker, a very entertaining person too. By the way, I get the biggest kick out of Felder And I don't know how many books the guy's written, but a lot. He just is very prolific. And he's the ubiquitous Felder Rushing, I would say, because every time I turn around,

I see Felders coming to some place. He comes textas a lot too. And that's coming up and I'm going to save that. Let that be the mystery about what we're going to talk about when he does give us call in We're going to probably talk to him here at about I don't know, thirty minutes or so. But in the meantime, we want to talk plants about. Here are plants and things here in the Greater Houston area or just the whole KTRH listening area and Plants for All Seasons is a place that if

you've never been, you need to go. You need to be aware of it. It is a icon when it comes to home town garden centers in this area now Plans for all Seasons. The Flower family has been in this business since nineteen seventy three. Their experience really shows because when you go into Plants for All Seasons, you're greeded. Not just with family members, Cherry and others coming up to you and helping you with your questions, but their

staff, who's highly trained. They know what they're talking about. Do you need to take in a picture for a diagnosis, or hey, I saw this flower when I was in Mississippi does it grow here? And you know, do you have it? And so on. They carry all of that kind of stuff and they have that kind of knowledge. You can go to Plants for All Seasons dot com, Plants for All Seasons dot Com, or you can call them two eight, one, three, seven, six,

sixteen forty six. They are truly lawn and garden experts. Now, whether you are a brown thumb gardener needing a turn it green or a green thumb gardener, this is a place to go and plants for all seasons. Always has a great supply of everything, including the fertilizers we talk about here on garden Line. You hear me talking about you got to do this, you got to do that, and you know getting how important October is. They've got everything you need out there. It plans for all seasons, simple,

simple as that, not at all difficult to do. Gardening in this season is perhaps one of the most pleasant things that you will have done all year, because we went through summer and it was rough and we got winter coming and I don't know, winter is not that bad here in Houston. We know it's going to come, we just don't know which day or two winter is going to be in any given year. And we have such a nice

mill climate so we can grow things all year round. That is one of the benefits of being down in this area, this far south, where we can grow things like citrus, for example, and we can grow a wide variety of things that even in other parks of Texas you can't grow. You know, you head wes to here and trying to have an azalea or a camellia or a blueberry or something like that's a big challenge. But we live in an area where you can do a lot of that and then some and

our goal is just to kind of help you have success with that. If you are out in Bellevue or if you're out in the Baytown area, your hometown feed store is Texas feed Stop. And I always talk about the hometown feed store because you know what it's like. You go into a place, they treat you like family, They carry your bags out for you. They've got everything you need. That's what I mean when I say a hometown feed

store, and that is exactly what Texas feed Stop is. If I talk about a fertilizer, nitrofoss, microlife, you know, Nelson plant food, Medina. If I talk about products like heirloom soils, or you need to get a mosquita dunks for yours, They've got it all there. And then all the pest control, disease control, weed control. If you are a deer hunter, you need bags of corn, if you need things for feeding your animals, your dog, in your livestock, that's what it's all about.

Texas Feed Stop. Brian and Hope Roads have made this a part of the community, hiring the local teens to work there, supporting their community, being part of the community. That's what they're all about. And when you go to Texas Feed Stop, they'll treat you like family, and that in and of itself is worth something. Now they're on here. Here's how you get there. If you're on iten you head up Highway one forty six, just a few minutes up one forty six and they are right there on the

right hand side. And again, anyone even out in Baytown, it's just a it's just a hop, skip and a jump away to your hometown feedstore, Texas Feed Stop. We are going to now head to a Taska Sita and talk to Mike. Hello, Mike, Hey, how's it going, buddy? Well, how are you pretty good? Pretty good? I'm calling because I'm putting down a new side in my front yard and we had some new new waterline come through and they tore the grass up. I forget this

be a good time to do it. Okay, I've got two big, giant red oak trees in my front yard and they provide a lot of shade, and I'm guessing that's the reason that I've got patchy grass growth underneath the canopy there right. And I'm going to put a new side down. In fact, I'm going to do it on Monday. I just need to know what kind of preparation I need to get done to it before they put the

grass down. Yeah, you want to if there's any perennial weeds, like if there's some bermuda grass in there, or Virginia button weed or any kind of a perennial weed, you need to eradicate it right away, because that just is going to be something you have to deal with once you've got your new side in. If it needs leveling, if you got any holes or dips or things, you need to bring some soil in, go ahead and fill those areas and get it, you know, get it laid out nice

like you want it prior to lay in the sod. And then just when you put the sad down, make sure it contacts the soil well. I'll often water the soil if it hadn't rained recently before I put the sod down, lay the sod on it, and it's just because you want there to be moisture under the surface. So when those sod roots start to go into your soil, they've got moisture right there. And so when you lay it,

press it down so you have good sod to soil contact. And then water lightly and fairly frequently, probably once a day or so, just to help it survive until it gets some roots down into that soil. That takes about a week or so to begin that process, and within two weeks it ought to be rooted in pretty well. Do I need to scratch up the grass that is there? Yes? Before? Yeah, you want the you want the soil that comes with your sod to touch the soil that you've got

in your yard, got it, okay, Yeah, get that. Don't leave a gap of airspace under there with that that old debris, okay. And what about fertilizing. I would go ahead. Normally I'd say wait a couple of weeks to fertilize, but I would say about a week after, go ahead and put down your fall fertilization. And you can find that at

gardeningwithskip dot com. I've got the lawn care schedule with all the organic and synthetic options and the formulas are there for the Yes, yes, I have a number of I think I've got oh gosh, probably eight or so different fertilizer applications for fall for fall. Okay, yeah, all right, buddy. Well I really appreciate it, and I'm glad I was able to get through so quick. Yeah, good you were. You called it just the right time because it's loading up. Hey, I've got a run to a

break, but thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. Call. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Jim, you'll be first up when we come back. Welcome back to garden Line. Our phone number if you'd like to give us a call seven one three two one two five eight seven for Hey. If you are looking for a place to get the things I talk about here on Guardline Ace Hardware, You're not going to go wrong. Acehardware dot Com find the store locator. There's thirty

nine stores near you. I mean, so there is one near you, thirty nine stores in the Greater Houston area. The Ace Hardware Group has made a commitment to if we recommend it on Guardline. They're going to carry it. That's at fertilizers, that's pest weed disease, insight control products. Anything

you need for your lawn and for your garden to have success. Anything you need for that outdoor living area that you want to enhance for now that we got weather worth being outside in the afternoon and evening, well, they'll set you up. Do you need grilling equipment? Do you need outdoor patio furniture? Do you want to string our lights to kind of create that beautiful ambiance. They've got that in way way more at Ace Hardware. Acehardware dot Com,

find the store locator, find the store near you. Go check them out, and you'll see why I'm always bragging on Ace Hardware stores here in the Greater Houston area. Now we're going to go out to Cold Springs now and talk to Jim. Hello, Jim, Hey Skip, thank you so very much for taking my call. I got a question. I've got property there in Cold Spring and I want to plant some fruit trees and I'm thinking about doing some peach, peared lemon, and maybe a plum tree, and

I just wanted to know what variety do you think would grow well? Out there. I got a lot of red clay and gray clay in that land. And what do I need to prepare for that? Peach, pear, lemon, and plum. So the lemon, you're gonna to be ready to cold protect it. Either you get a mar lemon put in a very large container where you can dolly it into the garage on cold winter nights, or just have a structure ready to go where you can set it up to protect

it it get a little too cold. In cold springs. With that kind of soil, drainage is going to be critical, so making sure it's a raised mound. You can mix a quality compass bed mix into a large area and create that raised mound so drainage is ensured. Because those trees don't want to sit in a swamp, so hilly where I'm going to plant the trees.

Okay, so I'm not really worried about it. Good runof full sunlight, the most sun at least six hours the most sun you can get them now as far as varieties, if you go to the Aggie Horticulture website, just search it out. Aggie Horticulture front page is a fruit and nuts section and there is a free publication. You can look at it on the computer or print it out on every fruit you can imagine, including the ones you mentioned, And so I would go there. It'll talk about the varieties.

It has bands across Texas. So you find your county and you go, I'm in this band and here's the varieties they recommend for you. That's the fastest way I can get you to that answer. That is absolutely awesome. That's exactly what I need to know. Thank you so much. Skip. All right, Hey, thank you for the call. Appreciate that and good luck, love growing fruit. Oh Jim, I should have said this when we were on the phone. But go to if you go to my website

gardeningwith Skip dot com. It's not quite up yet, but it will be later today. A link to an article by doctor Stein on preparing for fruit planting, how to have success in planting fruit and you definitely want to check that out for sure. Listen, do you live out in Kingwood, Well, you've got the Kingwood Garden Center, you've got war in Southern Gardens. When you were out in the Kingwood area, You've got a lot of options, quality options for that mom and pop, local, hometown, full service

garden centers. You're always going to find plenty of color, and boy, is this ever the time to plant color in your landscape? Do you still need to pick up some moms? Yep, they're going to have that. Do you want to go visit their gift shops outstanding gift shops for really really quality things for not only gifts for other people, but things you might want

to add for your own place. There they've got a lot of new arrivals of different kinds of woody ornamental trees, like maybe you want a Chinese fringe tree or a red butter or are you time to put in a live oak, or they've got it all there. Do you need onion and garlic transplants or bulbs? Do you need spring bulbs for your garden? That you want a plant? Now? Do you want to buy some of that pink mullygrass that's their native of the month. Pink mulely grass is absolutely beautiful. Go

online look at a picture of it. When the sunlight comes through those little seed ons, it's like a pink mist floating over the tops of the plants. Just an example of the quality things that they have. It worre in Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Centers out there in Kingwood. We are now going to head out to Northwest Houston and talk to Ed. Hello, Ed, good morning, good morning. Question. The day is a planning day of some jazmine and various other things, maybe some flowering stuff. Good. I

need to add some soil I believe in the air to the bed. I want to plan it in. Okay, I've got pretty good soil. I long ago got down deep enough to get rid of most of the old clay. Yes, So now I want to know what would I put on top to kind of help make sure I've got good soil. Do you ever? I want to go get some bags of something, probably at Southwest Okay, well, hey, come come today. I'm going to be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. I might be there, Yeah, soccer at eleven

third. I'll see you afterwards. Okay, Yeah, get bye by one thirty because hey, I'm going to be giving away skip certificates worth ten bucks off. Okay, save you some money there if you come to the table and ask a question, I'll be giving a gift certificates out. That's what i'd recommend. They've got a wide variety of things. I mean, we have you know, you've you've got garden centers up in your area too. If you were you've missed getting down to see us today, you can do

that. But yes, you're you're on the right track. I'd get you a good quality like an heirloom veggie and her blend mix would be a good one for what you're talking about. Roast oil would be good too. Roast so will be excellent. I put some rose soil down several weeks ago because I killed that bed, and I went up to mister Ferguson and picked up, oh, some roast oil. There you go. I got a question

about the rose soil. It seems to be fairly sandy. Is that such a thing as getting too much of that down because of that sand content? No, that's to help improve drainage. That's to help, okay, the drainage. And I don't know what your soil is specifically, but I would

venture it's probably got a lot of clay in it. Oh yeah, and when you are at organic matter, another thing you can mix into the soil, not just put on top, but mix in is expanded shale, and that that also gives you a very long term benefit to the clay organic matter is great, but it tends to break down in time. Now that expanded seal, if I put it in, I need to kind of bury it down some or what, Yeah, it mixed it in. I would put

several inches of it generally. The research up in Dallas by Agrolife Extension, they said three inches. They were doing roses in a heavy clay soil like we have down here. They put three inches down and mixed it in, and it did wonders for internal drugge Because you're getting a lot of that porous material that holds up over time. I need to be especially careful about how

far down I get it to actually mix in. As far as you can practically go most moto tillers, you're not going to get definitely more than about six inches at the best. Yeah, notice would be stricted by hand with a little okay, the old the old fashioned way. Yeah, yeah, it is, well, anything like that would be good. Okay, all right, more likely I'll see you later on today, I hope. So you take care of it. Than yes, sir, you take care.

If you're up in Grimes County, you're fortunate to have Grimes County Feed around Grimes County Feed owned by the Roy family, has been a really a mainstain now for a while there in the Carlos, Texas area. They're two miles west of two forty four up in the Carlos area. So if you're in Navisota, if you're up in College Station, this is a great place to

drive down and get your supplies. They carry the fertilizers I talk about here, they carry the soul products and things they carry you know, if you need a tree hugger, sprinkler, if you need mosquita donks, all those kinds of things, they've got it there. Plus they have great feed of course, So those of you in rohdes Perrie and shiro Iola Reliance Community Anderson Bete Eyes or neighborhoods like Kingwood's, king Oaks and mere Wood, this is

your hometown feed store and they do a great job. You know. The family has a tradition of service. I mean we're talking about people that work in the Houston Fire Department, people that worked in the Houston Police Department. They're background and act culture is there. They support the local four H and FFA kids and it's just that's just the mindset. Public service is what they're founded on, and reinvestment in the community is what they're about at Grimes County

feet. Hey, the phone number is two eight one eight one four twenty four ninety four. If you're up in that area, swing by today and check them out. Let's see we're running. We got a little bit of time here. Let's go out and talk to Robert in North Houston. Hello Robert, good morning, scoop. Yeah, I've got a question about these fire ants. I have battled them forever, yes, and it seems like everything I use moves them, but they don't kill them. Okay, what

is a good fire ant bait? Do what you recommend? Where are the fire ants? Are they in the yard of vegetable garden or what? They are in the aerobic septy tank, they're in the water well, they're in the air conditioning unit. Okay, I got you, all right, So

you're gonna do You're gonna do a couple of things here, Robert. Number one, you want to use a bait as your mainstay, and do it as soon as possible, because when it gets too cool, they're not going to be out and is actively feeding and they're not going to be as effectively controlled could. There are a lot of products out there. There are andro products that do very very well that you can use there as Oh my gosh, I can't think of the other. The name of the other begins with

a knee bait. Heck, anyway, I'll think of it extinguished, extinguish, that's it. But I would always extinguish, yes, But I would also put some kind of a contact like dust around any electrical boxes that you have that they're going to crawl through. They'll short those those electrical connectors in there, and so I would go an extra extra step and have kind of a dust type product that is just a contact killer for ants because they can

do a lot of damage to electrical units as well. They're attractive. Okay, the dust, would that be like that guy tamacious Earth, No, I'd go I'd go with something stronger than that. I'd probably use like an orthene or a seven dust or something along those lines. But you're not treating

your whole yard with that. You're just using it around those electrical features because in addition to the baits, you want to make sure any ants that go in there are killed before they get to the contact points in your electrical equipment. Another thing is urban legend thing grits. The people say, sprinkle grits around, they kill fire insny truth to that, you know, let me let me answer that when I come back. I have to go to a break here, but I will say that out loud on the air when I

come back. We'll talk about grits and fire ants. All right, Okay, thank you, thank you. I appreciate your call very much. We're gonna have some fun with grits and fire ans. Yeah, we are. Just stay tuned. That's the teaser. Hey, it's time for Nicky News. Seven to one three two one, two fifty eight seventy four is our number. We're gonna have filter rushing at some point when we come back, and you do not want to miss that. We'll be right back. Welcome

back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here talking all kinds of things gardening. I'm gonna run right out to Brunham here and we're gonna talk to Leonard. Hello, Leonard, Howdy, howdy. I was real sympathetic to the guy that was talking about the ants and his electrical equipment because I haven't had a big building when I had a business here. They had three big air conditioners in it, and ants just love to get into contact points and that I don't know why, but they do,

they do, they do. Finally, one of the farmers out here told me, he said, well, you just get one of these rings that they put on cows this furbal. I don't know what they do, it's been a long time ago, but sure enough I went and got some from the feed store here and you put them in each one of those compartments where the contact points are, and by golly, it kills them. They don't come around, and uh, they work for you. What do you

mean by rings? I'm not following you, But there's something, and like I said, I'm getting really old. I can't remember, but it's something they used on cattle and it's you know, it's it's a ring, like a rubber ring or something. And I assure you that the peach store person people would know what it is. And it kills the things that get in the cows, ticks or whatever. Does the same thing to the answer and

keeps them away. Then I had a question. I said, well, while I'm on the phonem I'm going to ask you, and that is, what's the best vegetable for winter time? Like lettuce or something like that. That's what I like. Yeah, it depends on what you want to eat. But I grow a lot of all the blue lee vegetables. I think they're the best overall growing and that I call him blue leaf. It's the broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower called robbie kale collards. That whole group of Brussels

sprouts is in that group. Uh, those are all good, and it just kind of depends on what you like to eat from them, but they're they've got good, really good. Do you have lettuce? You have a lettuce you like or you're asking no? Yeah, I had a butter lettuce that I grew one time. It was delicious. I was wondering if there was any other kind. Oh, there's a lot of good kinds of lettuce. In general, avoid the head lettuce here in our area, avoid the

head lettuce and go with bib or leaf lettuce. I grow strictly leaf lettuces, and I've never had a lettuce that didn't do good. I have one. Oh gosh, it's what is that town in central Texas where second President Bush has his ranch. Gosh, because of the sea, I can't say the name of it anyway. That's the name of this lettuce because it comes from that area. I can't believe. I can't think of the name of that town. Anyway. It's a leaf. It's a Romain type lettuce,

and I like Romayne's a lot too. I've never had a Romaine that didn't do well. Hey, Leonard, I might have to run, but thank you very much for the call. I appreciate that. Take care you take care. Well, We're gonna run now out and talk to mister Felder Rushing Felder. Thank you for waiting. Hey, Skiff, good to hear from me again. You don't know, but I've heard you many times over the years in different national gardening groups and all, oh my gosh, and you're

still willing to call in after that. Well, you know, I live in England half a year, live in Mississippi f year, but I spent about a third of my life in Texas. I know you do. Every time I turn around, you're coming to speak somewhere. No, and it's not just it's not just a horticulture guarding but you know, and I hate to say this, because I'm not from Texas, but y'all have aptitude and that counts more than anything in the garden we do. We usually greet people

saying, welcome to Texas. What country are you from? Because by the way, that last caller, Leonard, he was asking about things. Have you ever do you ever mix lettuces up different kind you know, reds and greens and all make a little little like a mesx gloon mix. I do, And you know the mescaline mixes that you buy. I've not had success with because different crops don't grow well together. So I grow mine separate and then mix them in the slad bowl. There you go, There you go.

But one of my favorites, and it's partly because my partner hollers at me all the time, because I grow a lot of different things in the winter because it's easier than in the summer. You know what I mean, Yes, but I grow a lot of I grow a lot of different kales. And one of my favorites is the blue kale, the Tuscan blue called Larsonato. Yes, and it is so pretty. It'll take zero degrees given,

I mean, and it's a pretty plant anyway. She hollers, in me because it's so pretty with the blue foldies at all in a tasty that I won't pick get to put in soups because I like, you know, it's one of those elemental things I grew up as ornamental and edible. But it's so pretty that I think every winter garden flower pot should have so of this lass and opto kale is an important, pretty blue structural plant middle of the winter. It is a good one. And I like red boar too

for the same reason. Uh, you know, I would say the tuscano or the dino kale you're talking about is a better one to eat. But they're, boy, they're so pretty. Well. You know, you've been to extensions for a long time. I'm retired extension, and we both know that people are gonna do what they're going to do. But you know a lot of people plant collars because the's traditional. But kale you don't have to

have bacon grease to eat it. That's rights. Speaking of which, I had a call before you came on a fellow I don't it's his fiant day on garden line. But anyway, someone asked about using grits grits for fire ants and I always tell people that these are Southern fire ants, and if you put grits on a Southern fire might mound, they'll come to the top. And ashra Acon grease to go with that, and so yeah, it doesn't do any good at all. They've actually did some research at A and

M on grits. You know. The idea is they eat the grits and then they swell up and explode the fire aunt. Well, fire ants don't. They don't eat dry food. They liquefy it and drink it. So that doesn't work. Yeah, yeah, And who wants running grits? Right? Who want grits? Hey? Well, you know I can talk for two days to you. We have a good time. By the way, I listen to your podcast. If anybody is looking for a good podcast, Felder's got one over a Mississippi Public Radio and I have the best time.

That's my local that's my personal entertainment. You do a great job on that. Well, you know, skip a lot of what we do, and there's a real serious aspect of horticulture, crop production, you know, getting fill in the freezer all like that. But a big part of gardening is psychological and social and it's about you know, so it's gardening is not production ry, and it it's the process of doing things. And you know,

if you can't have fun, there's something terribly wrong. So my program, even though it's on National Public Radio, it's more of what I call infotainment. It is as it actually had a lot of fun. Well, speaking of speaking of infotainment and Veelder being ubiquitous, tell us what's about to go down over here in Texas with you? Well, I guess sort of let

me set it up by mentioning this skip. You know, I've and by the way, I go back with Bill Welch and Greg Grant and Jerry Parsons even oh my gosh, yeah, yeah, you could get thrown into jail just for mentioning those names in connection with your presence. I have a bumper sticker on my nineteen eighty eight four pickup truck that says, what would Jerry do? Oh my gosh. You know, I work at a garden center down at Corpus Christie back in the seventies. Is not there anymore, but

it's called Curry's down at six Points. But last week I was with Master Gardens in Dallas. Uh enchanted gardens in Richmond, Arbor Gate, Barton Springs. You know all these kind of places. Yeah, one of my all time favorite destination places, not just a shop, but just to go is the Antique Rosing Porium between Brenham and Collie Station, Independence and Mike and Jeans shoot and I go way way way back. I usually stay with him when

I'm in Texas. But Jim and Kim Keeter just bought the antiqu Rosing Porum Mike retired and they're having their first fall Festival Roses that they've had in years because of COVID and all but fault. Festival Roses is this coming weekend. And they got me on three times as I know, I know, Hey Felder, I have to take a break. Could you hold on and we continue those? Sure? Heck Ki, I'm sorry to do that, but

you know how it goes. We're going to We're going to take a break seven one three two one two kat r h if you'd like to give us a call and we'll be right back with Felder in just a moment. Well, good Saturday morning on what could not be a better great day for gardening. You're listening to the garden line. I'm your host Skip Richter, and we are talking with Felder, Rushing and Felder. We were before we went

to break. You were starting to tell us about this fall festival of roses and I'd like to hear a little bit more about that, okay man. And then, by the way, I know what our job is to help Texans get dirty, So you got to get back to the phone calls. But in a nutshell, the Anti g Rosing Porum, which is now owned by Jim and Kim Keeter, yes, having the first fall rose festival that we've had this before COVID and it starts out Friday night with a fabulous Texas

style farmed a table event. It's a ticketed event. You got to get tickets for it ahead of time and you can go to Anti Rosingporium dot com and getting information about that. But it is going to be incredible food, incredible music. Of course, me and I'm gonna be talking about what they call Sola Stylishall don't know if you've heard of that, No, I have not. Well, it's a take on nostalgia. Remember wishing things were way

back in the day. Soa stagia is when people are uncomfortable things are changing, we don't. We feel like we don't have control of our lives and politics in the weather and all that. Sol Nostalgia is that anxiety you get when things are changing beyond your control, and gardening is sort of like a foot grip in that by gardening and sharing plants and connecting with other gardeners collectively, we help each other get through this anxiety of a rapidly changing world.

You know, this weather is weird. But by working with pass along plants and earthkind plants and sharing with other people, it makes us connected to community, into the earth and using plants that we know do well in Texas that help us get a grip I guess, and sort of get through and connect with other people in safe way. So I'm gonna be talking about pass along plants, earth kind slow gardening, which is really just savoring what you do

all seasons and using all your senses. And that's gonna kick off Friday night. This is a ticket event for Friday night, this farm to table, which I cannot emphasize how cool, how Texas this is. But but Saturday and Sunday I'm giving talks. What Mike Shoot is gonna be there. Chris Wisinger of the Bulb Hunter and uh and those are free. So I hope people come out to the antique rosing form. It's in Independence, which is

really a cool place between Brenham and College Station. But the Friday night thing, the farm to table is an incredible opportunity. But the anti Rosing port book all the places I visit in a lecture in Texas, it is the place where I feel the most comfortable and secure and at home, surrounded by beautiful plants and really cool people. And it is such a it's such a site. If you've never been out there, it's a site for the eyes, I'm telling you. And then there's good. It's it's the destination.

And by the way, last weekend I drove out to San Antonio. We're having Oklahoma weather in Mississippi. I'm thinking, if that's where it's gonna be, we're gonna have an Oklahoma or North Texas gardens. I went to Fort Worth Botanic Garden to see what grows well there, because if grow well in Fort Worth, it'll take the weather I just had. And the roses play they got there, the earth kind roses and all the asters and all the

other fault Paris. You know, Texas, everybody talks about Texans wildflowers in the spring, but this time of year there's some incredible fault perennials out there. So anyway, that's the kind of stuff I savor. I'm getting ideas to bring back to Mississippi. But I'm gonna share what I've learned from people who've learned to cope with life and society and the personal issues through guarding.

That's going to be the ANTIQ Crosing poart of this weekend. Well, and that's what gardening does for us. You know, I personally believe that we are all supposed to be gardeners there. If you've ever noticed, it wasn't the cubicle of Eden that God grid, He knew where we belonged, right, So gardening is the place where we ought to be doing and enjoying and getting away. And there's so much research to support that too. So I grow stuff in the back of my for nineteen eighty four pickup trug. It

has been to Texas. I grow plans that will take one hundred and six degrees, they'll take nine degrees and according to Highway Patrol, that takes seventy nine miles an hour, just to prove that anybody can garden. I mean even growing fungus on some chilia back to the refrigerator. That's gardening. Oh my gosh, that's good. Hey. By the way, for those of you listening now, you're going to get to hell Herefelder several times, and

trust me, you will enjoy that. Mike Shute who used to own the rosen expert on roses, Chris Weisinger when it comes to old Southern bulbs, the ones you buy once and you get the dividends year after year, he's the king of that. David Byrne is breeding trying to work on roses that are resistant to one of the diseases that is an absolute you know, game ender for roses, and that's rose roset virus. This is going to be full of great opportunities to learn. But remember this that the farm to table

dinner Helder was talking about, that's on Friday night. But there if you don't get your tickets this weekend, I think they may go until Monday night before that closes. But don't delay because this is limited quantities. Antique Roseemporium dot com or give them a call. Ninety seven nine eight three six fifty five forty eight. Hey, Skip, I know you got callers on the line and got some other stuff, so I'm gonna get av you way.

But I'm saying that my job is to knit these plants and processes and the people into a tapestry that we're all part of. I think is an important thing. So look forward to being an anti grosing porum. Skip. Thank you for having me on garden line. And meanwhile, you get busy. Your your job this morning is to help keep Texans getting dirty. That's that, says ZS. Felder likes to put. Hey, and by the way, one of these days, when you come to Texas and are speaking,

I'm not going to be pre committed somewhere else. I'm gonna come see you. Oh man, we're gonna whoop it whooping it up as we say. All right, thank you, Skip, I appreciate you all. Everybody. Oh it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Felder. I appreciate that you take care. Yeah that trust me. You if you've never heard that guy before, oh my will be you'll be inspired. You absolutely will be inspired, that's for sure. You know the nitroposs three step that's the

one two three. That's the fall special fertilizer. That is the pre emergent to prevent weeds which are about they're actually starting to germinate and with this cool weather we have come and they will be Germany the cool season weeds. It prevents them. The third step is the eagle to our fungicide. For Lonza had been plagued by a large patch or used to be called brown patch. That's what everybody still knows it by. It helps prevent that disease. And

that's that disease. You've got to get ahead of it because once the circles appear, it's too late. Nitroposs three step takes care of each of those steps and it is time to get that fall fertilizer on the lower nitrogen levels, the good potassium levels that make your lawn come out of go into winter better, survive hard winter through greater heartiness, and then come out in the spring and do better as a result. You can find it at Warren Southern

Gardens in Kingwood, Ace Hardware and Sinco Ranch. Even the Girls outlet up there and Willis has the Nitroposs three step. It is as simple as that, real easy, easy, to do. I've been talking about fall is a time to plant. You got to get these plants in the ground. This is the time. It's the most important time. And just remember this. When you get a woody ornamental, whether it's a tree, whether it is a shrub, a woody vine, you need to have a tree hugger

sprinkler on hand. Just consider it one of the tools in the shop there with your spade and fork and the hoe and all the other tools you have. Put a tree hugger sprinkler on the wall because anytime you plant a woody ornamental, you're going to want that, and especially those that going into next summer that have less than five years on them getting established, you definitely are going to have the tree hugger because it waters the tree itself, the whole

area beneath the branch spread very very well. There's seven inch, eleven inch, fifteen inch versions. Just go to tree Hugger sprinkler dot com and you can find where to get them. And by the way, they're available, widely available, all kinds of places. Well, there we go, another hour in the books. Just another reminder. Eleven thirty two day after the show, I'm heading to Southwest Fertilizer to corner Abyssinet and Runwick. I'll be

there from eleven thirty to one thirty. We'll be doing a drawing at the end of that time. You don't have to be present to win for a Toro battery blower and a Toro battery string trimmer that Bob has put together. As prizes. I'll be giving away SKIP certificates worth ten dollars off purchases made today. So you come see me, Come to the table, ask a question, you get a ten dollars certificate, and believe me, there's only

ten thousand things in that place that you're gonna find that you need. Because if if Sethwist Fertilizer doesn't have it, you don't need it. That's as simple as that. We're gonna have some fun popcorn, cold drinks, Halloween treats, ladinas, putting some old sample bags together. It's gonna be a good time. Make plans. Come on out and see me. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program.

Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Scamp Richt. It's so trim. Just watch him as welcome to garden Line. We're glad you're back. We're glad to be here. Our phone number seven one three two one two kt r H if you'd like to give us a call. It is always a good opportunity to get to talk to gardeners. I love that, my favorite thing to do, so that's why we're here. That's why we're doing it.

Listen, if you are interested in fertilizing your lawn, which you should be if you've not fertilized it yet, this is a month you need to do it, the most important fertilization of the year. Now, Nitrophus is put together their Texas three Step Now that is a as the name implies, is three steps. First, is a fertilizer Nitropus Fall Special designed for our soils,

designed for fall application to our turf. Here, it's got what you need to make the lawn strong going into winter, which means it's strong coming out of winter. The growth in the spring is based on the stored reserves and your grass plant, your lawn plant, so when you strengthen it, it just comes out stronger in the spring. And boy do our lawns ever need some strengthening right now after this summer. Second step is a barricade that's

a pre emergent that prevents grassy and broad leaf weeds. You put it down, and this is important. Watered in with about a half inch of irrigation or rainfall would work too. It moves it to the surface so it can form a barricade that when a weed seed tries to come through it, it never sees the light a day shuts it down right. Then third step Nitrofoss

Eagle turf fungicide. This fungicide is a systomach. It soaks into the tissue so when large patch or brown patch shows up, when take all root rot, which will begin to become a problem when we consistently are having our knights down around fifty five degrees, that's when Takeoll also likes to infect. It

helps prevent that as well. Texas three step from Nitrofoss is available at Worn Southern Gardens out in Kingwood, at the Grower's Outlet up in Willis, at Ace Hardware, at Sinco Ranch. You can find it at Katie Hardware RCW and the Arbor Gate in Tombol. Many places carry a night of Foss. Texas three step. We're going to go to the phones now and we're going to head up to Fred in Cyprus. Hello Fred, good morning, Thank you for taking a call. Yes, sir, the subject came up when

I turned the ratio on. It was the fire ans. Yes, I started thinking. When I worked at Ace Hardware many years ago, the question was raspberries or fire ants. Ah, there is, Yes, there is, that's sure. But boy there I won't take debate and they don't will take abate. Yeah that's true. But the raspberry fire ants they don't crawl halfway up your pants leg and all at once started to bite. They may crawl all the way over your body in real fast form, but yeah,

they don't bite. No, they don't. I can live with creepy crawley. But I was in Louisiana one time in a peach orchard working on my master's degree printing some peach trees are actually thinning peach trees, and I swear these fireants got together and they were almost up to my waist when they all together said now, and let's just say that. The pants did not stay on, and modesty kind of went out the door because I was under severe attack. I went to work one morning and having to walk into the line

of the back indoors. Yes, the floor was moving, those billions of these things. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. All right, hey, well, thank you. I appreciate. I appreciate that. Call Fred, appreciate thank you. Yeah, you take care. Bye bye. We're going to go now to Jersey Village and talk to Clara. Hello, Clara, are you there? All right, I'm gonna put Clara back. It would help, It would help if I actually made it where you could talk to me. Welcome Clara, Good morning, Skip, and thank you for

following in Randy's footsteps and help thumbs green. All right, I have become smitten by border lilies. Uh huh So what I'm wondering if it's if they're good for this area and putting down the bulbs and do they stay down? What? What wisdom can you share with me about border lily? Where did you? Where did you? Did you grow them before? Someplace? No? I you know I got the famous bait of a catalog. Okay, all right, all right, well, uh so the border lilies. I

have not grown that plant before. That is a that is a new one. As far as growing them, I know that you there are different types. There's the the oriental lilies, the asiatic lilies that are pretty common. As far as how well they naturalize, since I haven't grown them, I don't know, and I don't see them a lot on the on the lists of plants that we recommend when it comes to bulbs, so I would think

that they're definitely gonna do good for a while for you. Again, as far as really naturalizing and sticking around, I think it probably is also going to come down to what varieties you choose. And I've seen some beautiful border lilies around here, and boy do they ever put on a show with those tall stalks and just gorgeous multi pedal flowers. But as far as the varieties that stick around best, I just don't know off the top of my head. Okay, well, I think I'm just gonna have to jump in and

give it a whirl. Yeah you should. You know, it's always a good time to try things out. And I found too that plants can't read, and so it may say that they don't grow here or they do grow here, that doesn't mean it's true. You may get lucky on that. So all right, well, thank you for giving us a call. I appreciate that very much. Thanks you, bet hey. In Chenni Gardens out in Richmond, I was out there just a couple of weeks ago. The place is it's a showplace. I mean, it's outstanding. It's on the

Katie Foster side. So if you're in Richmond, you head up toward Katie right where you get to FM three point fifty nine sixty four twenty three fifty nine to be specific, is in Chenni Gardens and when you arrive you'll know it. And it is a wonderful spread. They're open Saturday from eight am until five pm, Monday through Saturday, and on Sundays ten am to four pm. Every kind of fertilizer we recommend, they've got it. When we

talk about soil products, by the bag, they've got it. Anything you would want to plant right now, fall vegetables, fall flowers, getting the shrubs and trees and perennials in. I keep saying it's time to do that. They have the selection there at Chandit Garden. In fact, when I was out there the day, I even noticed that they had a veggo garden beds as well. So just another reason to swing by in Chenned Gardens,

the web site is Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Okay, we are hitting up on a break, so I'm gonna have to hang on here to come back to the next calls. Butch and Jeff and Joel you'll be first up when we come back. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Well, welcome back to garden Line. We are ready to roll here, got some calls on the board. I just want to mention Dee, if you are dealing with any kind of pests in your house

and you know how that goes. I mean, maybe you got you know, cockroaches running around the place, or pantry pests. Maybe you've got mosquitoes outside, maybe you know anything in the lawn firing. We're talking about fire ants today. McGrath Pest Control can take care of it. I mean McGrath's been around since what almost fifty years now, started by Scott's dad. Still family run covers any kind of pest problem you have. I don't care if it's got six legs, eight legs, four legs, like a road and

control you know, rak UNEs and stuff like that. They'll cover it. They don't require you to sign a contract. They show up on time. They schedule a time. Isn't that nice for a service company, not just to make you block your whole day waiting on when they might show up. Highly rated McGrath Pest Control because they take care of their customers. The owner still involved in the day to day operations and is accessible and they cover the

whole Houston area. With McGrath, it's modern technology and techniques with old fashioned customer service. Mechgrafpesscontrol dot com. That's the website, or if you'd like to give Scott a call two eight one four six' nine eighty two forty two eight one four six' nine eighty two forty we are going to head out to let's see Butch in Channel View. Hello Butch, Hey, good morning, Rick. How you doing good. I've got a problem. I've

got some I think side web worms up. Seeing the malls flying out of the on what I've been mowing yet, I've done three applications the BT spread out a week apart, and I'm still seeing them alls line up. Okay, Now, the BT won't kill the moths, but what it will do is if you have living caterpillars that are feeding on the grass, it'll kill

those when you're seeing the moths. But if you get down and look at your grass, or you see in sections where it's like there's no grass blades, just runners or anything like that, I hadn't seen anything like that. I just thought the moth was an indication, and yes, I just went with that. Yeah, moths are usually a sign that the caterpillars are coming, and because they're laying the eggs, I would walk through the grass take a closer look. But we are really late to be dealing with soidweb worms,

and I'm inclined to think that's not what they are. It may be, but if you look around and you're not seeing grass that's been chewed on, you get up close to a grass blade and you can see where they just been chomped on from the sides. I wouldn't worry about them because we

should be out of their season right now. But if they're still there, you know, it may be that another application is needed of the BT, or you could switch over it. Since BT's organic, I assume you'd prefer that you could switch over to spend No, said s P I N s A D. But I would put about a ninety five percent chance that you're not going to need to do that. Okay, I hand done with a

pump up prayer, so I'll do one more. Yeah, yeah, you could do that, or you could put on a hose end too, and that gets it not only on the grass, but a little bit goes down in the thatch where those little boogers are hiding. Okay, all right, so thank you, you bet, thanks for the call. I appreciate that very much. You know, when whenever someone is looking for products, like the Spino said, like the BT like you name it, if you need

it for your yard, Ace Hardware has it. Acehardware dot Com find the store locator. There's thirty nine stores in the Greater Houston area and they carry it all. They carry all the fertilizers that I talk out here on guardline and when it comes to pests, disease and weed control, they have lots of products. They are stocked up, they're accessible, they're easy to find. They're in your neighborhood. Acehardware dot Com. While you're there, make

sure sign up for the ACE Rewards program. You can earn up money back on your product on your purchases. I've done that before, you know, you go there, you shop, they ring you up and it goes on to your account and it adds up. And believe me, it is just another great reason to go buy Ace hardware. We're going to go now out to Jeff in Brink. Jeff, where is Brink? Do I have Jeff? All right, We're want to put Jeff on hole. We'll come back

and try him again. Let's go to Joel in Fort ben County. Hello, Joel, Hello, Skip, Yeah, I just I had fertilizer question, but just a ataboy. I was a part superintendent and belonged to the Texas Turf Grass Association, was a certified turf grass professional and in Galveston County where I lived at that time for fifty three years. And I want to say that I think that you and Randy worked with Nelson Clint Food and Texas

Turf Grass to develop some of our great fertilization schedules. And I use those religiously and they are the greatest things on the face of the planet. To all your viewers out there, use your fertilization schedule and you'll have a wonderful lawn or wonderful turf grass. Well, I appreciate that those are kind words, Joel. The other one was you were talking about fire ants stories.

Yes, in nineteen seventy five, me and the co workers FE were rebuilding fence along Catalan and we got a lot of rain and it was about six inches deep and it was cooling up. And I didn't know it back then, but fire ants could float, Yes, they can. And I got them just exactly like you did all the way up. And I was along the Highway three in Galveston County on a tracker when they all decided to bite me. Oh boy, and I had to pull over on the side of

the road and strip down. I had cars honking at me. Yep. It was quite an experience. Yeah, it'll humble, you won't it. Yeah, the way getting Oh but I don't know if you and Randy were back in the mid eighties working with Nelson uh on their you know, fertilizers. But I seem to recall that at least one or the other of you were Yeah that that. I guess that would have been Randy at that time, Uh, I was. I was still in finishing up grad school,

I guess, or or just finished grad school about that time. But yeah, Dean has been. He he worked closely with TEXA, A and M and designing his fertilizers for the turf and making sure that the blends, the chemistries the you know, making sure things released, that the right schedule and things is all done right. Of course, he does well with Texas turf grass. You know, it was because we were such a wide group.

You know, there was West Texas and South Texas, Southeast Texas and North Texas, and everybody had different kinds of grasses that they were dealing with. Ye and Nelson called in some of us, uh you know, golf course superintendents and park superintendents from the Houston Southeast Texas areas, and uh, you know, we we compare saul types and deficiencies and whatnot. There. I really I guess it was Randy. Yeah, this would have been in the

late eighties, but good time in my life. Yeah, that's true. That is true. Hey, thank you, Joel. I appreciate that info. Well, I appreciate all that you did. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks a lot, very much. Yeah. I don't talk about this when I talk about my schedule, but I just do want to mention that when I put that thing together. It wasn't just like you know, sticking a wet finger in the wind to see which way the wind's

blowing on what to do. A lot of time and effort went into this based on research by the sol and Crop Sciences Department or the Turf Department, the lawn pest weed Disease Management schedule, consulted entomologists, consulted weeds specialists, gonerant looking at the sole temperatures in the Greater Houston area through the year, because sole temperature affects weed germination. And so if you see something on my pest Disease and weed management schedule and it's said at a certain time, it's

because that's when that happens. Here with historically based data, and we really work hard, and I'll just tell you this. I will continue to update them. There'll be little changes made over time as we learn more and we get better and better at all these things. So thank you very much for the kind words, and I appreciate that. Let's go back now to Jeff. Jeff, are you there, hey, jere Is Brink No, this is show in spring? Oh spring? Okay, gotcha? How can we

roll? Okay? So, last month I put the pre emergence and bag of the eagle fungus side down. Now that things are getting even colder at night, is it time to put a second bag down? Or or thirty days ago we're still good for the season. And you said, which product the eagle the eagle funder side that is going to last a while, You shouldn't need it again a month later. It wouldn't hurt to put something down. But if you've got it down and got it on the lawn at that

time, it should be still doing you some good. But like I said, if you wanted to beef it up. With our mild temperatures, we can have large brown patch attacking in November even December, depending on where you are, and you know the temperatures that particular season. So it wouldn't hurt to do a second application. But in general we don't generally worry about having

to do that. Okay, next question. The spring would be a different thing, you know, But as far as this year, okay, every year I try to throw at least one bag of microlife down on the yard, thinking get some of those microbes into it, you know, instead of using the other fertilizers. Right, is it best just to do one application just straight all organic or like split the bag half have like nitropoles, half microlife, and then the next application do it again, split it fifty,

go one way or the other. Don't. Yeah, you don't need to do a split or anything like that. Just if you like microlife product, do that. I probably you know you're talking about that fungdricide. When you're looking at microbes and whatnot, different products can affect affect the health of those and so I wouldn't I wouldn't combine those things together, you know, like put the fund your sick down, then spray spray top over it, or

put the microlife down, spray the top over it. But either way you're gonna you're gonna have good success that there's no need to mix them up. Okay, all right, thank you, all right, thank you. I appreciate your call very much. Yeah, the microlife products I like to uh this time of the year is when I would do the Microlife brown patch, which is a five to one three. It's a good one for fall. Got a lot of microbes in the product. And then I like to combine

the Microlife bioinoculant. Really you can use that anytime of the year. But it's just an inoculant. It's not the fertilizer, but it's adding a bazillion different kinds of beneficial microbes to the soil and then they splash up on the surface of the grass plant and are helping outcompete problems that might be there on the grass. Now, the Microlife brown patch five to one three, that's an orange bag. The Microlife bio inoculant is a violent colored bag. And

just go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You'll find out more about those and you'll find out where you can get them, and they are widely available here in the Greater Houston area. We're going to take a break. It's time for the Nicky News Network. If you want to get on the boards with Josh seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are having a blast

today talking about all kinds of things gardening. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you have been thinking about getting a generator, now's the time. To do it. And it's not just getting a quality generator, as important as that is. I mean, Generak is a super quality generator, but it's where do you buy it? Where do you buy it? And that makes a difference because like any product, you got to have

service after the sale. But all Right gives you service before and after the sale. Generak works with you to choose the generator that fits what you need. They're not going to say you more generator than you need. They are going to do all the steps involved in getting it done. I mean from pouring a slab to put it on out there, to getting all the arrangements done with a HOA or the city Electrical, all that kind of stuff they take care of that, they walk with you through that. They've got twenty

four to seven three sixty five customer service. That's why they win the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award more times than really anybody can imagine. And I used to say it was seven times. I just found out they want it again eight times. The most prestigious customer service award the Better Business Bureau offers. They just take it home all the time. Seventy seven thousand plus established customers

satisfied fourteen thousand plus five star ratings. They engineer it, they install it, they monitor it, they take care of it, they make sure it continues to work right. They come out more than once a year check on your generator because when the power goes out and you're not at home, especially, you need something that's going to come on and it's going to back up

your entire home or just some more essential items that you want. And why do I say now, because late fall and winter is a slower time when it comes to generate the generator world. And to call in now, you get it done, you get it faster. It's kind of like, you know, five o'clock in Houston, everybody's going home. And yes, you can get on the roads and deal with traffic. It takes forever to get where you're going, or you can go in there in traffic on the road.

That's kind of what I'm talking about. Now's an excellent time if you've been even thinking about it, give them a call start that process. It'd be a great gift for the whole family really to add that to your home for protection because the many storm seasons we have are an issue. But hey, with our grid, you don't know when power is going to go out, and you need to know that you're going to have everything you need to keep the air conditioner running, to keep the heater running, and to make

sure you protect all that food in the freezer. For example, Quality Home Products not just a place to buy generators, but the place QUALITYTX dot com, QUALITYTX dot com, or give them a call seven to one three quality. Well, we got a board full of folks here. Let's get moving. We are going to go to Missouri City and talk to Ruben. Hello, Ruben, good morning, Good morning. I've got I've got six gardens of race bedguards each on sixty square sheet us some per light to add to

it. What is a spread rate? No one seems to know. Is it a clay soil? Well morever the years I've developed, but it's not very arable, so I just want to keep some per light in there. Okay, Well, there's not a particular rate. You know, I would probably mix two inches of it two inches of it down, But we have a lot of other things we can do for clay. That expanded shale is probably the best overall product in the world for helping your clay, and you

would need about three inches of that to do good. Anytime you add good quality organic compost, you're going to be benefiting that clay as well. Okay. And also I have the Maringa trees, three of them growing like a triangle, and they're kind of tall, about ten foot tall and lanky. Well, I damage them if I top of them all No, no, no, you can cut them off. They'll reach sprout, but I wouldn't

do that. Now, that's a tropical type tree. They will come back here they survive most of the time, or die back near the ground. If we have a bad winner, I would wait until spring growth begins to do that topping. If you're going to do the top. Okay, and final question, I've got some basil that is developing a lot of black spots on it, and I just maybe you are covered this, but what can I do? So what you do is nothing. Right now, basil is

going to be going out with the first frost that we have. I've got some on mind, and you don't want to be spraying a funge a side or back to your side all over your basil that you're gonna eat. I would just ignore it. And that's what I'm doing. Right now. Okay, Rubin, I appreciate that. I appreciate your call. We're going to keep rolling here. We've got a lot of folks hanging on. We're gonna move to Katie now and talk to Greg. Hello, Greg, Hello,

Skip, Good morning morning. We have tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage. With it getting down into the thirties this week, is there anything we need to do to protect them? Well, if you if you can put a cover over them and keep it pretty darn warm under there, you know, in the fifties, preferably, you can keep going on the tomatoes, I would seriously consider if it's going to drop down in the mid thirties, even I'd

seriously consider just going ahead and harvesting the biggest ones. We'll ripen indoors on the counter. But otherwise, if you can provide heat underneath the cover, prevent the wind from blowing up under there, you can get them through. But with the way our weather's going, as we cool off, ripening just slows down to a crawl. And even if it got you another week or two, it's probably not going to make a whole lot of difference. Okay,

how about broccoli and cabbage. Broccoli and cabbage or plenty cold hardy for the thirties. Yeah, even down to freezing, they're fine. If you get in the up mid upper twenties, then you got to do something for the brocc leaf. It's got heads on it. Okay, appreciate it. Thank you, you bet, thank you for the call. I appreciate that. Let's see, we're going to go now to Austin County and talk to Doris. Hello, Doris, Hello there. How are you? I'm well,

how are you fine? What's that question? I don't know? Okay, go ahead, Okay. Is it okay to put fertilizer down today with all the rain we had? That's fine perfectly, Okay. You just want to get a little water on the fertilizer so it dissolves and moves on down into the ground. Okay. They know if we were to go a week or so without rain, it would just be sitting there like a granule,

not dissolving away. Right, Okay, I didn't hurt If it gets stuck, well, the water will wash it off when I water it in on you, Yeah, well we'd wash washes it off. Just just sweep your driveways and you know, sidewalks, anything like that. Just to get the fertilizer back into your grass. Or you can use a blower to do the same thing if you don't okay, if some gets over on those hard escapes, because that just runs off into storm water and that doesn't do us any

good. Okay, thank you so much. You have a good day, all right, Thank you very much, Dorius. I appreciate that we are going to have to take a break here our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. When we come back, Gene, you'll be my first stop. Welcome back to Guardenline. We're in our final segment of the morning. I just want to mention that if you went through this summer in Houston and you have a clay soil, we had a heck of

a time of it. Because what happens is when it gets so so dry, the soil shrinks. That's where we get the big cracks in the soil, big enough to lose a two year old in the backyard. And then it rains and the soil swells and it gets big, and that movement is very hard on foundations. It's very hard on driveways and sidewalks. Fix my slab foundation repair that's what they're about. Ty Strickland has been doing this for

twenty three years. You can go to fix myslab dot com to find out more information, or you can give them a call two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. They are on time. They tell you when they're going to show up, and they show up on time. They fix it right, and they're fair priced. And what more can you ask for than that. If you see cracks in the brick outside, you see cracks in the sheet rock, don't allow. It doesn't get any better, it

just gets worse. Go ahead and call fix my Slab Foundation Repair and have them come out take a look at it. And when they do it, they do it right. We're going to head out now to talk to Gene. Hello, Gene Hello. I'm trying to find that when the per simmons are gonna be right. Okay. There are two kinds, two groups of per simmons. One is the kind that's non astringent. They don't make your

mouth pucker when they're not fully ripe. The other kind is a stringent that they've got to get really soft and go through some cold weather even to break down that astringency. Those it's going to take longer. We got to get further into the fall and cool off to do that. There are stringent types. Once they turn pretty orange, you can go ahead and eat them, even almost crunchy level. They're okay, But it depends on which kind you

have. So the non astringents would you could eat them a little earlier. These are pretty orange. But when I was a kid, that lady cross Street had one, and she always told me that we had to wait till the first fast was over. Yeah, that's true. But some people will pick them and they'll put them in the freezer, let them get cold, and then they'll bring them out and they'll do that two or three times, and they'll kind of cheat on it and get ahead of it that way.

Okay, I'll try at least because they're pretty orange. Okay, so I'll pick one and try it and see if it worked. Do you know what variety you have? No? I sure don't. Okay, they just pretty orange out there. Now. Well, if they're a stringent, you will

definitely know it. They will get your attention, but I would you know, it doesn't hurt to leave them longer, So it's not like they're going to go bad or anything like some fruit would just leave them a little longer if you don't want to lose one, you know, for no good reason. All right, okay, thank you very much, Thank you, Jean. I appreciate that call. If all us for planting. We keep saying it over and over again. And what comes first? Green or brown?

Brown? If you've been listening to garden line, what is brown? It's the soil, it's the compost. It's taking care of the foundation that that plant is going to grow in. And that's what Nature's Way Resources is all about, and that's what they've been all about. John Ferguson is a long

term leader in the soil business here in the Greater Houston era. He knows how to make composts, he knows how to take his time, he knows how to make it right, and he and his son Ian at Nature's Way Resources can get you set up with a quality rose soil with a leaf mole

compost. They sell stuff by the bags, they sell stuff by the bulk they deliver, and by the way, fungal Friday is any kind of a fungal based compost, they're going to have ten percent off the bag product and twenty percent off the bulk product on Fridays, ongoing on Fridays until they tell me it's over. That is a deal you don't want to miss out on because that is a super quality product. They also have a quality selection of

native plants in their garden nursery out there. Every time I go out there, I'm surprised at how it's expanded and how they just have more and more, and often I'll see something and it's like, Oh, I didn't know you could buy that here locally. They got it out there at Nature's Way Resources. They're on Highway forty five as you go north toward Conroe. They'll be on the right hand side, right where fourteen eighty eight comes into forty

five. Just cross over the railroad tracks and you're there nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety nine three six three two one sixty nine ninety for Nature's Way Resources. You've been listening to guard Line today and we've been talking about all kinds of things, talking about vegetables, talk about fruit, talked about lawns, talk about soil. I just keep you know, telling people October is the important time to take care of your lawn. It's the time

to get the fall fertilization. Now it's the time to get the uh any kind of a disease issues that you're going to be dealing with. If you've got a long plague by brown patch, how do we deal with that? Well? Number one, Culturally, we need to get that lawn in a healthier state. We need to avoid late applications of high amounts of nitrogen. A little bit is needed and a good quality fall fertilizer, but not excessive amounts of nitrogen. So a fertilizer like Nelson's carbo load. Why don't they

call it carbo load? Here's why. It's got the nutrients that the plants need, primarily the potassium with a little bit of nitrogen to go into the plants, so they are strengthened. The sunlight hits the grass and carbohydrates are produced. That's where carbo load comes from. What a carbohydrates do? They make it more cold hardy, and with a potassium they make it more disease or drought resilient as well. And with carbo load you also have a pre

emergent in there, so don't delay winter. Weeds are going to be germinating. We're about to get some cool weather, and when that temperature drops down, all of those cool and weeds, the ones you fuss about in the spring when they really are big and a problem and by the way, already blooming and going to seed, and it's too late to do anything about them. Well, why not deal with it now with carbo load. You get the fertilizer down there, and you get a pro emergent weed control product.

Just apply it and go ahead and watered in in. Don't wait for a rain that may come a week later. God, and watered in about a half inch of water, and it does what it's supposed to do. It goes to work. Hey, Nelson's been doing this since well it's been forty years now. October fourteenth was a fortieth year anniversary of the kind of quality

products. And we were talking about this earlier on the show, that Dean Nelson has been putting together making sure that his research based information on how they design the fertilizers, the nutrient ratios like this carbo load, for example, and that's exactly what they then create that you can then benefit from if you have any kind of plants here. You know, Carboload's part of the turf Star line, but they got the Color Star line, got the nutri Star

line. Nelson Plant Food had just kept adding to their lines all the time. I mean they have a Nature Star line of organic fertilizers from Nelson Plant Food. It's just a it's a good series of products that works very very well. So if you're going to get any kind of thing done on the lawn, now's the time to do it. This is the big important time where we get ahead of the problems and we don't wait and then react to the problems. You get so much more accomplished when you do things in a

timely way. And now's the time. Go online gardening with skip dot com. That's my website. The lawn care schedules there, the lawn Pest Disease and we'd management guide is there. Both of them give you both the synthetic and the organic options for getting the most out of your lawn care. Everybody wants a big, dense, beautiful lawn. It's got to be cared for in a quality way with quality products, and that's how we achieve that.

You know, we're running, we're running close to the end here. But just one other thing that I wanted to add is if you got any house plants outside, you need to get those things moved in before we have the cold weather. A lot of our houseplants spend their summers outside on a shady porch where they got a lot of light. If you got things like ficus, you want to move them in gradually. Don't just all of a sudden one day there and lots of light, and the next day there and almost

no light somewhere inside. Try to do that gradually. Check them over for insects and problems. If you've got spider micce or avids or scale or anything, deal with it before you bring them in, because once they come inside, you don't need to be spraying stuff all inside on them. Take good care of them, get them ready to go, get them inside. And if you don't have houseplants, now'd be a great time to go pick them up. Our garden centers have a lot of good options out there for houseplants.

There are so many good new ones. If you're a beginner and you want something you can't thank ill mother in lost tongue Sensavaria our zz plant, yep, that's right, two z's z Z plant. Those are good and tough plants. High light low light, getting a little dryn't it's not the end of the world. They can handle that and they get going again. Those are the two. If you can't grow those two, I can't help

you. If you have a lower light area, but you want some colorful plant in it, I would get the Chinese evergreen Agleonema comes in the standard green and green, silver splotchy types comes in kind that have kind of a reddish pink coral colors and everything. I've got two of those, and I just love them because it brings color to the indoors and it puts up with a little less light. There's a lot of tips there. As you're out

and about shopping today. Speaking of out and about today, I'm about to jump in a car and head to Southwest Fertilizer in the corner of Bi Sinet and Runway. I'll be there from eleven thirty to one thirty. Come on out. I don't care if you have to drive across town. Come on over and see me. I'm to be giving away ten dollars skip Bucks for purchases made there at the store today. By the way, when you're there, you need to check out that folding bench. I keep talking about that,

Bob has. You can use your ten dollars on that if you want. You just have to use your ten dollars today. You come to the table, you ask me a question, You get a ten bucks Skip certificate. Sign up because at the end of the day you don't have to be present to win, but get signed up for a Toro battery blower and a Toro battery string tremor. Those are big deal gifts to draw for. Medina's gonna have bags of their samples there. We're gonna have popcorn, cool drinks,

Halloween treats. Come on buy. We have a good time. Hope to see you there.