Talking Bees with Dr. Juliana Rangel

or not, but we're gonna be talking gardening today. If you want to give me a call and maybe ask a question something that's of interest to you'd help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, and of course more fun in the process. Well seven one three two one two ktr h seven to one three two one two ktrh. Chented Forest is garden center down there in the Richmond Rosenberg area. In fact, to be a little more specific, it's on FM twenty seven fifty nine.

If you're in Richmond, you're heading up towards Sugarland Way, you know, coming up fifty nine. Then it's off to the right on FM twenty seven to fifty nine. It is a great place to visit. By the way, they got big beautiful shade trees and so walking out there, even on a hot day, it's just a it's a pleasant to be out and about and shopping and seeing

all the cool stuff they have. And they definitely have a lot of great stuff, lots of plants to support bees and butterflies and hummingbirds, just beautiful plants from color to things like herbs and vegetables to beautiful really just outstanding flowering shade trees, plants that have foliage. You know, right now that it's getting hot, we're thinking about shade, and they've got you covered on all kinds of things that thrive in shade.

rockrose is not a rose. It's more kin to hibiscus and okra and things like that cotton plant for example. They're all in the same family. Rock Rose is beautiful, little pink flowers, really nice Mexican petunia like Katie, little compact mounting type. They've got all of those there at Enchanted Forests. Now, if you what I would recommend you do is go to the website number one. It's awesome.

See everything you need to see, contact numbers, where it's located, all of that, and that is Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX. Dot com. They are open Monday through Saturday the summer hours eight am to five and on Sunday from ten am to four pm. The Enchanted Forest. They've got you covered on every kind of plant for every season that we have. And boy, if if you are looking to make some shade, they have some great shade trees too. By the way, you

need to go check those out. Best time flying tree was forty years ago. Second best times today. You can get it done right there at Enchended Forest. So I in my yard, I've been fixing a gate. I had a gate that was hanging a little bit, just kind of sagging a little bit, and I said, I'm gonna go fix it. So I took the gate off and I grabbed onto one of the posts and when I grabbed onto it, it moved and I heard a crack.

Now a person should not be able to reach up with one arm and pull a little bit on a post and it cracks. That means that thing is about twenty years too old. So I got to reset posts and get the gate set and everything like that. Our grand dog is visiting and the dog likes to wander, and so if I don't keep that gate firmly closed. We get to go up and down the street finding the rain dogs that we're not going to do that anymore. Now that I've got that gate fixed, I appreciate that

very much. The rain that we had has kind of settled off for a little bit. You know, we've got we got the summer cycle. We're going to be entering where rains are fewer and further between. And what happens when we get rain the clay soils that are kind of predominant in this region. I know a lot of you have sands and loams and other things, but a lot of clay soils along the Gulf coast. In fact, they gave it our local name. It's called Houston black clay.

That's the official soul scientist's name for the black clays we have down here. When they get wet, they swell. When they get dry, they shrink. And you know, from a gardener's standpoint, not so much of a deal, because we can keep them evenly moist by watering them. But around your house the tree roots pumping all the water out of the soil around the house, that makes that wet dry cycle worse. It exacerbates it. It makes it.

You know, it gets drier and more, and then it gets wet, and then it gets very dry again, and that causes the problems we have with our foundations. It's why you go through parts of Houston and in the summer they're fixing water lines because the soil is moving so much. It's literally breaking water lines deep underground in a bad drought. And then the sidewalks and the driveways and everything are moving, and it just it is what

it is. And so if you are thinking you may have a foundation problem, and that would be for example, you see cracks in the brick on the outside, typically at the corner of a windows where you most see them, but that's not the only place. Maybe you have sheet rock cracks inside or doors that are sticking. Those are all signs you need to have someone take a look at it and fix my slab. Foundation repair. They're the folks that can do it. Ty Strickland's been doing this

for twenty three years. He's an eighty Estonian, fifth generation Texan, and he knows our soil. He knows how to assess and fix foundation problems. The website just just go there. Fix myslab dot com. Fix myslab dot com. If you want to get him, a call to eight one two FI five forty nine forty nine. He shows up on time, he fixes it right, he charges a fair price fixmislab dot com two eight one two f five forty nine forty nine. He knows what he is doing, that is

for sure. I was visiting with somebody from Ace Hardware the other day and I have a barbecue pit that I got at Ace Hardware and we are enjoying it. In fact, we have plans tomorrow. We got a bunch of family coming over and we're going to be doing some major barbecue in all through the day. It's a lot of fun. But you know, you go to ACE, and I don't care what brand you're looking for. If it's a quality brand, the top quality brands that exist, they've got them there. You know you're gonna find Big

Green Egg there. You're going to find Tragger, You're going to find Rectech, You're going to find Weber and so on and all the things you need to go with it. And so for your weekend cookouts and stuff, it's your one stop shop. You know, if you got a pellet grill, you need the pellets. They got those there, of course they do. They have everything else you need and for your lawn, the fertilizers that we're talking about, by the way, they do have propane too, where if you've got a

gas grill to you can do that. Now, everything that you would look at to make that outdoor area just a wonderful place to hang out, to make your indoor areas more beautiful, you're going to find it Today's hardware. Oh yeah, and then all the hardware stuff that a hardware store has. They've got all that, but so much more. If you are up in the north side Spring Ace on Spring Cyprus. Northeast is Crosby Ace on twenty one hundred down southwest is Plantation Ace out there on Mason

Road in Richmond Rosenberg. You go over to Champions Ace on Spring Cyprus up northwest or down on the west side. Langham Creek Ace, by the way, is up there on five point twenty nine by Copperfield. Those are just a few of the miny ace Hardware's And here's how you find yours. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. Acehardware Texas dot Com. We're gonna take a quick break when we come back Melbourne, Paarland you'll be our first s up. Good morning, gardeners.

We are we are glad you're back with us. Listen, if you are looking to put in some plants that can survive the weather here, you know that summer it's coming, you can. As native plants specializes, I mean, they have every kind of plant in the world, native, non native, you name it. But the best selection in natives you're gonna find anywhere is right there in Buchanans Native Plants in the Heights on Eleventh Street. Just go to the website Buchanansplants dot Com. While you're there, sign up for

the newsletter. Get that newsletter. Make sure you visit the website because there's always good timely information on what to do. They have an excellent selection, by the way of some beautiful, beautiful plants that are natives that you probably haven't seen before or grown before. That's where you find them. Buchanans Native Plants, as well as all the fertilizers I talk about here on garden Line and everything else you need

for success. If summer heat is driving you inside, you won't believe the selection house plants and succulents and other things that are there at Buchanans. It's the place to go for a landscape that survives the insects, diseases, heat, drought, coal, rain, whatever we have here, the plants that are from here that know how to survive it, you're going to find their Buchanans native plants. Let's head out now to pair Land and if I can get my here we go.

Hey Melboyne, welcome to garden line. Hey Skip, how's are going doing good? Thank you? I've got a question. I've got two peach trees.

have the best size. If you can keep your peaches about you know, open up your hand wide and from the tip of your little finger to the tip of your thumb, that's about how far you want peaches to be apart. If the leaves are not large and healthy and there's plenty of them, it's going to cause the same problem as having too many peaches. You just those

are the keys. Lots of good sunlight too. If usually this doesn't happen within one year Melbourne, but as trees start to shade your trees, that will affect fruit set and and development. Those are a few things. Make sure it has adequate water. Yeah, do the trees look healthy in general when you just stand back and look at the foliage and everything.

may want to start on some of the printing. Now.

can do that. But the main thing you're wanting to do is is build a bunch of branches where you want them, not where they are now, over the months to come. And so that's going to be a kind of gradual thing. Now, if you didn't in the at the end of winter the best pruning time, it'd be easiest on the tree, and the wounds would heal the fastest. But then you would just have you would basically be giving up most of next year's crop, because that all sets at the end of summer and in the fall.

So if you can do some now and get some of the little you know, peaches set fruit on the little twiggy growth, the little branches that are uh, you know, smaller than a straw, a drinking straw. I mean they're they're they're small. Half the size of a straw. That's

that's where the fruiting comes on last year. So in order to have fruit next year, you need to prune now and then met probably prune again by the time we get to Actually, no, you're not gonna have time for another one, but prine now, and then the shoots that grow have the ability to set for it for next year as you kind of work it back to where you want it.

K t r H has a number of different fertilizer products on the market, quite a few as a matter of fact, they've got one called Sweet Green that's their organic line. It is a eleven percent nitrogen, which is really high for an organic product, but eleven percent nitrogen

fertilizer is typically used by folks for the lawn. And you know, if you were to do soil testing, what you're going to find is, while the while sun needs all these different nutrients, they are all important, when it comes to turf grass, the main thing it needs is nitrogen. And so a lot of times I will switch and just do a nitrogen application only occasionally, because if I'm returning my clippings and recycling nutrients, I'm keeping most of

this stuff around. Sweet Green is great for that. You know we're talking about basically with the eleven percent nitrogen, just a really good quick boost. I had a neighbor to use some Sweet Green last year and he was talking to me all about three weeks ago and he was saying, Man, that stuff just works. I mean it greens up and it looks good. Yes, that's true. It is a quality product from the folks at Microsoft and Microsoft Oh my gosh, I'm not even a computer guy.

Nitrofoss anyway, you're gonna find nitrofoss products many places, you know, I was just talking about Enchanted Forest. They carry night foss products down there at in Channon Forest. You can find it at Ace Hardware up there, and sick A Ranch. If you go up to Arbor Gate, if you go to Plants for All Seeds, if you go to you know RCW all these nurseries and things, a lot of those folks will carry us some nitrofoss products there as well. So just give them, give them a check and ask

sweet green, the organic sweet green from nitrofoss. You're listening to Guardline, I'm your host, Skip Richter. If you'd like to give me a call seven one three two one two ktr H. We're gonna go now to Kingwood and talk to Salvator. Am I saying that right is at Salvat all right, Salvator Salvator.

or citrus, then I would not do it. There is a product, a bait product called come and Get It that is from Fertilom, and it works very well, and it's organic, and it happens to have a label for use in edible like gardens and stuff, so you could use that one then. But anything that's labeled for those killing the mound is not that hard, you know. Pretty much, any decent insecticide you drenched down into the mound is going to kill them. But the baits are the better

long term solution to that. So that's kind of where we are, Salvator. I've got to I've got to go immediately to break hang on. I'll come back to you when we come back. Glad to have you on garden

line with us today. If you're back, if you'd like to call in ask a question seven one three two one two ktr H seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four if you like to die by the numbers, had a lady one time bus at me forgiven just letters, because then you got to kind of go through your phone buttons and find out what number

that letter is. All right, well, occasionally we'll give you the fifty eight seventy four if if that makes it a little bit easier for you, all righty, well, uh, if you are looking to get a landscape that is state of the art, beautiful, gorgeous, just whatever you want out of your landscape. You want it designed, you want it built, you want it maintained, whatever you want in that way. That's puer Scapes. That's what they do. You can go to the website peerscapes dot com. You can

get them a call. Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. Do you need the whole thing designed? Do you just want to revamp a bed, put in new plants, plants that are drought tolerant, heat tolerant, things like that. Do you need lighting? Do you need irrigation? Do you need drainage to be improved? Pierce Scapes does it all? Go to the website, look at it, look at what they do. See the quality of work they can do. Piercescapes dot com. Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty.

I was talking about some soil of somebody the other day, and they had gotten some soil products from Nature's Way Resources. Now Nature's Way, for those who aren't familiar, is the place up Interstate forty five almost to Toumbo in fact, where fourteen eighty eight comes in from Magnolia and HiT's forty five across the railroad tracks is Nature's Way. So if you're going north, you turn right across over the tracks and at Sherbrook Circle the website Nature'sway Resources dot Com.

That's what you need to check out Nature's Way Resources dot Com. Look at the products that they offer, so many quality products. They take time to do it right, and they've been doing this a long time, and they know how to make things. If you need a blend, like for vegetables, or for fruit trees, or for roses

and other blooming plants, they've got all of those. Do you need something for top dressing, Well, they've got the fungal compost, which is excellent, by the way, over Friday is Fungal Friday where you get ten percent off bags twenty percent off bulk. They also have leaf mole compost, which is outstanding for doing top dressing of your lawn. You got some areas of lawn that are thin and need a little boost, a lilaration, a little compost top dressing on those and you can really turn them around.

And Nature's weighs the place to do that. Nature's Way Resources dot Com makes it easy. So anyway, I was telling you that earlier this week, I've been working on fixing a gate. I also am putting some dud's in around the base of some trees. I'm tired of weed eating around the base of a tree, trying to kill the grass, so I just put a little small bed in around it. Put some things there at the base that can take the shade and do really well, and anything it looks better. So kind of having some fun

with that. A couple of other projects going on the orchard is needing my attention. My fruit trees are young, and so they always need a boost a fertilizer. So if you're if you've got young fruit trees, and you know the goal is to make a bigger tree pretty fast so you can hang fruit on it, right, I mean, you've got a little scrawny Charlie brown fruit tree. You're not gonna put many peaches or apples or whatever kind

of fruits et ceterus and whatever on it. So you want it to grow, and the way to get it to grow is to give it a good quality fertilizer. Standard lawn fertilizers work fine for fruit trees because they're heavy in the nitrogen in they support that growth. But buy a fruit, a fruit tree fertilizer, but just give one and do it. If you don't know how much fertilizer you use on a tree, go up to the trunk and figure out how many inches across is it.

You know, if it's the size of let's say a broomstick, a broom handle, Well depends on what kind of broom handle, but let's just say that's about an inch and a half something like that. Well, for every inch of trunk diameter, give it one or two cups of synthetic fertilizer, or give it three to five cups of organic fertilizer. So it just depends on which of the two you choose

to use. But that way you know exactly. So someone was calling earlier and had some trees with the size of a sense of a coke can, so roughly three inches across, So that would be three to six cups of synthetic spread out in an area all underneath the branches. Don't dump it at the bottom or essentially double that on organic spread out in that same area, working into the soil water. It didn't really good. Keep that tree growing,

keep training it to, don't let it listen. If you get a new puppy and you don't train it at all, you're going to have a problem when that thing's a dog, right, a big old dog. You gotta train your fruit trees. You gotta point them in the direction you want them to go. And life is so much better if you do so. Fertilize them, get them growing, but train them. Go online, go to the Aggi Horticulture website. It's Aggie Horticulture.

There's a fruit section and a publication on every fruit tree you would grow here, and he tells you how to print it and do that. The earlier you start, the better. When you have to cut a tree way back, that's a whole new operation, and you're going to set yourself back in your production back in the process. I'm going to head out to Pairland now and talk to Jessica. Hey, Jessica, welcome to garden Line.

I need to trim them back because of the leaves of the branches have grown halfway over my house, and I'm wondering, if I just trimmed my side, is it going to kill the trees.

But uh, they do trimming and feeding and everything. But they can come out there and certainly this would be just very easy for them just to do a proper prune job on those trees. But it's Affordable Tree eight uh seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three. When you call you, it's Martin Spoon Moore's company. You'll probably talk to his mom. It's a family business, so uh, just tell him you heard about on Guarden Line where

they're our customers are are our listeners? Are their their priority customers there at Affordable Tree Service.

and Baytown across the Kadie. They do all kinds of stuff, not just mosquitoes, but their mosquito bucket system is awesome. I'm telling you, I have it, I use it. It's amazing. And my neighbor the other day he said, I got to get one of those because he was seeing benefits actually at his house from my buckets that they work that well. Pest Bros. Is the company you need to call for anything. Termites, you know, cockroaches in the house.

You know, maybe your mother in law's visiting and she's screaming running around the house because there's cockroaches and so Okay, my wife says, if you're thinking about saying something, don't say it because you've already crossed the line. So I'm gonna leave the mother in law and roaches come out alone and just say call pest Bros. Two eight one two o six forty six seventy two eight one two o six forty six seventy for whatever bugs you well

with six legs dpestbros dot com dpestbros dot com. Let's go. Let's go out to Parallel now and we are gonna speak with Archie. Hey, Archie, welcome to guard Line.

picture a little bit. A lot of emails come in and sometimes kind of hard to keep up with them. Have you ever been out to Nelson Nursery and Ruder Garden out in Katie. You just head out to Katie on Town Turn North on Katie Fort Ben Road, and it's just up the street a little bit there. It is an outstanding garden center. I mean, it's a destination guards if you're you know, we I like to think of it as this is your West Houston destination garden center.

Take friends with you, get out there. Uh. They have all kinds of things, I mean, if everything from you know, landscape laying, a really nice selection of the perennial hibiscus, a kind with the big white, pink or red blooms that are dinner plate size. They have folks that know what they're talking about. They can direct you and point

you in the right direction. Milk weeds for your and other plants for your pollinators, beautiful pottery, and of course things for water, whether it's putting in a waterfall, putting in a disappearing fountain, one of those little, tall, not necessarily little, but tall eurns that the water just goes out of the top of and then recycles back in. It's the place and you're gonna find the products you need to have success with your lawn and whatnot there

as well. Nelson Watergardens dot Com, Nelson Watergardens dot Com, Katie fort Benrod and boy, with the hot weather heating up, now, what a great time to go out there and walk among their beautiful shade trees and enjoy the sound of water. Maybe you want to bring some of that home with you. I know I do every time I'm around one of those water features. It's like I got to have me

one of these. Someone was asking me. They were down I don't know what was it, Clear Lake City, somewhere down in that whole area around there, asking me about where can I get such and such fertilizer you talk

about done here? And I said, well, League City Feed, League City Feeds in League City there are a few blocks south of Highway ninety six, and so you know, they were kind of trying to find, well, where do you get I can't remember which one it was, which fertilizer, but it was like they had nitrofis they have as a might, they have microlife. You know, they got Nelson plant food. They got you covered on all of that. If you want airlom solves by the bag, they got

that too. There at League City feed. It's just an old time feed store, been around over forty years now, and they carry the bags out for you know, the old time service that you would expect from back in the day. Maybe you went to a feed store with a parent back when you were growing up, you remember that, Well, this is what we're talking about. League City Feed. The Thunderbergs have been operating this thing for over forty years now. They're open Monday through Saturday, nine to six. You can

swing by after work, closed on Sundays. Here's a phone number two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. So that's where you get the fertilizer down there. They cover that whole area. Of fact. I think of them as the hometown beach store for Santa Fe and Dickinson in League City, and Webster and Clare Lake and Lamarx and

Leone Elkaminarreal, all those communities down there. They serve that area just a few blocks south of Highway or of Highway ninety six on Highway three right there in League City. So if you if you are have not done a summer fertilization, it's time to go ahead and get that done. And you can make sure that you get your products down watermen really good. Follow the label. You know, the slow releases are the better choice, but you can use

an immediate release. You just do it in small applications, repeated over time, so you kind of make it slow yourself. If you haven't been to the arbor Gate recently, you need to go check out what they've got going there. By the way, a lot of you love their one two three easy system. And that is the food for anything with roots, a food for anything with roots, and it is a soil that is organic. It has expanded

shale in it, and it's a compost. The three products food soil composts, all organic, all available also by bulk from Arburgate. Check out the arbor Gate. It's west of Tomball on twenty nine to twenty. You've probably been there before. Today'd be a good day to get out there and visit it because when you go, your jaw's going to hit the ground all the beautiful plants and things that they have. It's time for me to quit talking. So we're gonna go away and I'll be right back with

your calls after the hour. All right, folks, welcome back to the guard Line. Good to have you back with us here. Archie. If you're still listening, I am not finding the picture. I don't know why you can't find it. In the emails. Send it me again if you would. If you got those photos, and then we can give me a call. We'll talk about them. Anyway. You're listening to garden Line and we're here to help you have a bountiful garden and a beautiful landscape and hopefully more

fun in the process. That's kind of the deal, right, We want you to enjoy gardening because gardening is a very, very enjoyable hobby. People worry about failing at gardening and they feel like they can't grow things, and they say they have a brown thumb. And I'm here to tell you that it's not as difficult sometimes as we make it. But it comes down to getting good information and giving a plant what it wants. That's the bottom line. Now, you go on social media, okay, don't get me started.

Drives me nuts. All the claims that are made out there and all the kind of goofy things. You know, if it's used to be a guy I won't use his name, but wrote books and everything, and he talked about putting beer on your lawn and of course people eat that stuff up. They love all kinds of weird stuf like that. Just just do things right. Just understand what a plant wants. Plants want sunlight, plants want soil moisture, plants want good drained and there's variations in all of

those factors. How much, son, how much do you know? There are plants that can take bad drainage. But in general, you give a plant what it wants and you're gonna have success with it. And so save yourself all the gimmicks and home remedies and all the other things, and just give the plants what they want. If you got any questions about those same, give me a call. You're on guarden line. That's over here. We can help you

have success. We want it to be fun. I promise you you do not have a brown thumb, no matter what. I don't care how many plants you've killed. You got to kill a lot of plants to be a good gardener, by the way, but you don't have a brown thumb. You have an uninformed thumb. Maybe, so let's inform that thumb. Give me a call seven one three two one two k t RH. We'll make it simple like that. You know, when you think about what a plants want, well, what is nature provide for plants?

nature does. Microbes rule the world. And when you do a microlife fertilizer, when you get one, whether it's the green bag, the sixty four that we put on our lawns, you know, the humates plus the purple bag, we're talking about microbes present in those products and built in fact, every bag contains just bazillions of beneficial microbes to help your plants. And then that includes i say bags, that includes their liquids, the Microlife Biomatrix orange label, the Ocean Harvest.

I just use some Ocean Harvest blue label on some plants I'm trying to get a boost on. I got some outdoor plants that are in containers and they're just kind of not happy. Part of it's my fault for not caring for them better. But I've got some Microlife Ocean Harvest blue label. It's a four to two three fish based fertilizer. Mixed it up in water like the label says, and watered with it, and I'll do that for the next two or three weeks and they will

turn around. Because micro Life products work. You can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out more about it, but the bottom line is that they work. My songbirds out in the yard and garden are really excited about the feeders that we have for them out right now. I put some Nesting super Blend in. That's a product sold by Wildbird's Unlimited Nesting Superblend, because a lot of our birds are nesting. I had some doves that came in and I've never seen this before, but we have

a swallow nest. It's a little mud nest under the eaves of the house at the front door, and we leave it there because we like it. We like having the swallows come in. They came in, did their thing. Now they're gone, and some doves came in and start bringing sticks and putting them on top of the swallow nest to make their nests right there. It's the strangest thing. But birds love to hang out at my house because we're always giving them quality feed from Wildbirds Unlimited. Cheap

bird seed is exactly that. It's not just that it's inexpensive. In fact, it isn't inexpensive because when half the bird seed goes on the ground because birds don't want to eat it, that's not inexpensive. That is a cheap product, but that's not inexpensive because you're gonna end up buying more just to get some in the bird's stomach. Well, the folks at Wildbirds Unlimited know how to make blends. The Nesting Super Blend that's their exclusive, The Cardinal Confetti

another awesome blend that my birds love. It's another good one. And you can go to any of the six wild Birds Unlimited stores here in the Greater Houston area Wan in Kingwood, won In clear Lake, When in pair Land, Houston West on Memorial Drive, Houston Southwest on bel Air, and Cypress. Up there in Barker Cypress, there's a wild Bird's Unlimited store there too. You get expertise, you get quality bird seed, you get all kinds of feeders and houses and everything else you need to be able to

go out and enjoy a really wonderful time. You know, gardening isn't just visual like colors and flowers. Gardening is fragrances from scented plants. Gardening is sounds from the birds and the sound of running water. And when you create that backyard place like bringing in birds, you just add to the many scents senses I can't say, I'm trying to say scent and senses at the same time, the many senses that you enjoy your gardens with, the visual,

the hearing, the smelling. It's a wonderful thing. And Wilbird's unlimited is a big part of being able to enjoy that. I'm going to need to take a little break here in just a second. When we come back from break, Mark and Katie, you're going to be our very first stop, so hang on, we'll be right back with you. Plans for all seasons is the Garden Center up there where Luetta comes into two forty nine Tomball Parkway, so you're heading up toward tom Ball or down from Tomball towards Houston.

It's just north of Luetta on the east side of the road there. It's been around since nineteenth seventy three. True lawn and garden experts at Plants for All Seasons. You can give them a call at two eight, one, three, seven, six, sixteen forty six. Go in there with your questions and your problems, take them samples, take them photos, or just walk in. They'll take time with you. They'll, you know,

describe the situation. I need a container and it's going to be in shade, and I wanted to have and what are some and they'll explain, give you options and put it together. Because they are experts, they know what they're talking about. At Plants for All Seasons. I need to take a little quick break here and again when we come back, Mark and Katie and Veronica and sugar Land, you'll be our first two up. All right, welcome back, Welcome back to guard Line, folks. Good to have you

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here in Houston, Texas. Financing options are available. Go to the website qualitytx dot com or give them a call seven one three Quality. As they like to say, quality products, quality service for a quality life. And they definitely step up to the plate and make that a fact when you contact them and when you let them help you get set up with the kind of power dependability that you need to go through summer. They walk you through the whole process. They take care of you. It is

a process, So go ahead and get started now. It's not like you call them today and the generator arrives tomorrow. You want to get it right. They know how to get it right. Quality Home Products of Texas. We're going to head out now and go to Katie and talk to Mark. Hello, Mark, Welcome to garden Line.

letting them get dry. And the challenge mark is that plant before you bought it was sitting in a garden center where somebody's watering it every day, because the whole root system is in that cylinder in the container, and so when you put it in the ground, it could pump that cylinder dry easily, even though you know you've watered the whole bed and the soil is moist well, the root zone soil is not moist because it pumps it dry. So you have to water right there at

the base for a little while. And it's kind of a touch and got thing where you're keeping it moist enough but not too soggy wet, and it takes almost a daily watering, well early on it does, especially if they're in some sun, to do that, and then gradually as they get established, then you know you're not worrying about such touch and go watering all the time. But that may have been what happened. It could have been

some damage in the transplanting process. But I would just dig down with a little hand trowel, go about four to six inches down and feel the soil right there at the root ball, and that'll tell you if it's moist or not and water accordingly.

Uh yeah, that's why your you know, your fingers on the end of your hand, or your best gauge of the of of that situation. All right, I'll try that, all right, Mark, thanks a lot. I appreciate your call. You take care, yes, bye bye.

great nursery anyway to go to. You good advice, but they they can fix you up.

really good. They've got plenty of sun loving geraniums, the ones that can take quite a bit of sunlight out there. And then of course the gorgeous, just gorgeous cajun hibiscus and beautiful kriite myrtles, beautiful roses. Yes, you can still plan all that stuff. Just keep the root zone moist and then beautiful color. One of my favorite summer plants is for annual color is summer snap dragon. It's just angelonia is a proper name for it. It's just a

beautiful plant. They got lots of that at RCW Nursery. They're the nursery where Tomball Parkway and About Way eight come together. Makes it really easy to get in and out. And when you get there, you're gonna find some really good stuff. We're going to go to sugar Land now and talk to Stephen. Hello, Stephen, Welcome to garden line. Hello, good morning, So morning.

the trunk of your autumn blaze. Uh, and so when you when you when you do that, they stay small, but you leave the leaves on them. Because that plant lost all its leaves when they got broken off. It's food factories were gone. So I don't want to take the food factories that it just put out and just cut them right away again, cut them off again. So if you tip them though off.

call that a nurse limb. A nurse limb, you're you're keeping the leaves on it because that tree is in shock already and it needs all the food factories that can get. And then the one you leave unpruned becomes the main trunk. It will take off and you will have dwarfed the other one that you don't.

It's a relationship for them with their customers. They do high quality work and customers. They want you to be happy with what they're doing. That is important and you will be by the way they do outstanding work. Now, if you live in the area, let's say from sugar Land all the way across I six all the way to Interstate forty five. You know, so Sugarland, Missouri City, Ciena ar Cola, Manvil, Alvin and then up Pairland friends would League City, Dickinson forty five. There, that's the region

they serve, and they do quality work. If your lawn is struggling, if it's thin, if you just can't get it to grow, you know you fertilize, it's just not doing well, probably needs some aerration done and core aeration followed by compost top dressing will really turn it around. BnB turf Pros only uses top quality materials from Cienamals. Just these products I talk about here on guarden Line basically family operation, honest quality work BB no end in

the website. BB Turfpros dot com seven to one three two three four fifty five ninety eight. We're going to go now to Archie and U pair Land if I can get my computer over there. Hey, Archie, I have just a second here, but I saw that you did resend me an email. But it has the it has the.

with us. I like hopping music. Keep things going. If you if you're if you're looking to get your lawn fertilizing done, you need to go ahead and do so.

So we're talking about October there. Probably I would go ahead and get it done, watered in really good. You're gonna be okay. Someone called me the other day and they'd gotten a gully washer rain after they put down superturf, and they said, I need to fertilize again. I said, no, you do not. Here's why super turf doesn't just dissolve away like typical salt based fertilizer and just you know, all gone in a good rain. It releases slowly over time, and not all the types of nitrogen are going to

be affected by water, so it gets real wet. It doesn't mean it's all releasing. It's a quality product. It's in a silver bag and it's from Nitrofoss, and so you can find nito Foss products, you know, at places like fish Ers Hardware, there's one down in Pasadena, there's one in La Port, there's one in Bellevue, there's one in Baytown Stanton Shopping Center, and Alvin carries Night Foss products as well as does D and D Feed up

in a Tumbole area. By the way, if you haven't been to D and D Feed, they are three miles west of two forty nine and tom Ball, so you just head out west, they'll be on the left hand side, about three miles out. Dover Family open that place and I believe nineteen eighty nine and it just keeps getting better and you're gonna find everything you need when it comes to fertilizers for your loan. And they even carry things like heirloom soils, heirloom sold bagged products there. They

carry brands of every kind of fertilizer. If you hear me talk about fertilizers here on Guardline, they're going to have it. At D and DE Feed, they do carry a complete selection. They have quality pet foods too, brands like Victor Star Pro Diamond Origin. And if you're dealing with pass weeds and diseases, their selection of products to help manage those plant problems is outstanding. You just just

head in there again. They're on twenty nine to twenty three miles west of two forty nine if you want to get McCall two eight one three five to one seventy one forty four two eight one three five one seventy one forty four out there at d And Defeed. I was in there the other day looking at some

of the products. I always stop into our garden center sponsors periodically, just okay, what's new on the shelf, what you got, and just really surprised at some of the specific products that aren't available in a lot of places, but they definitely have them right there in d And Defeed. If you are looking to do some pest control in your lawns, you know we've got a number of pests that begin about this time of the year to either attack or to be present in some years. And here's

what I mean by that. Chinchbugs the first generation that we really start dealing with that is a problem in our lawns. It starts occurring in June, July, August, and the later you get in the summer, the worst the chinchbug potential and problem is. Doesn't mean you have them right now that are a problem in your lawn. That don't mean you have to treat right now. Your lawn looks good, You're okay, but watch it because chinchbugs could

be coming. Sod webworms another one. Late summer, especially fall, or late summer and early fall. But that's another one. Doesn't mean you're going to happen. Some years you don't even know you have them. I mean they're there, they live in our area, but there's not outbreaks every year, but boy, when there are, you got to get in ahead of them. Those are just two prime examples. And then we've got grubs and grubs. We have two things we do, or two attempts at the life of the grub.

One of them is we typically are doing it in June when the June bugs there should be called may bugs around here, but the jumbugs lay eggs and the little tiny larvae are hatching and feeding near the surface, and they're easy to get to right then. That's why June is prime time for treating for them. By the time we get into July in August, the grubs have started going down in the hot weather, the dryer soils

and stuff. They're moving their way down and they're getting bigger, and a lot of products don't make it down that far. And so if you look at my schedule, Skip Richter's lawn Pest, Disease and weed Management Schedule free online at my website gardeningwith Skip dot com, you'll see what I just told you about chinchbugside web worms and early grub treatment, late grub treatment, and it gives you the products that you can use to control them at those times of

the year. So take a good close look at it. It's free. It's online, as is my lawn care guide. Our phone number here if you'd like to give me a call is seven one three two one two ktr H seven one three two one two k t r H. We'll be happy to visit about the things that are of most interest to you. Hey, have you been down to Intended Gardens? Intended Gardens is a garden center there in Richmond Rosenberg. In fact, what you do is you just head north of Richmond rosa Berg on the Katie

Fullsher side of Richmond, Okay. The road is FM three fifty nine out there where all the new neighborhoods have been being built for a long time now. And boy is it ever a Great Garden Center. Beautiful, beautiful things. If you're looking for pollinators, if you're looking for you know, just bringing butterflies and things. If you're looking for summer color plants that can just survive the heat, I don't care. If it's plants you need for sun or maybe you

need some plants for shade. They are good to go. They've got everything. And one of the things that I always think of first when I think of enchanted gardens is their containers. And the reason is because they have so many unique containers. Maria there just does some beautiful designs. You can buy those kind of a rustic iron. It's almost like a giant, heavy duty wire basket. I don't know if that's a good description of it or not. But they line them with liners, fill them with potting soil,

and do these mixed containers of all types. I saw one that was a butterfly container that was gorgeous. It was in like a galvanized metal container. You gotta have good drainage for those, but that's easy. It had a lantana in it, It had milkweed for bringing in the monarch larvae. It had what oh, it had pipevine, which brings excuse me. Dutchman's pipe brings in the pipeline swallowtail, a type of that had rue, which is another source for caterpillar. I mean they're gonna be butterflies on that

lamb eggs for their babies to grow up. All kinds of good things to eat. What a cool thing. Make one of those. Set it out there on your patio. Maybe you know, if you've got a little coffee table equivalent outside there. They got them. Enchanted Gardens FM three fifty nine Katie fullsher Cider Richmond right down the website. That's the easiest thing to do. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. By the way, they're open Monday through Saturday from eight to five and also on Sunday as well, So enjoy

yourself Outn't even chinny gardens. I always do when I go there. So what are we looking at here? I always have to watch my time and make sure that I'm not going too long. It always sneaks up with me. They say time flies when you're having fun, and I'm always having but here on guard Line, Medina products are one of those products. Been around a long long time. I do Ecompton back in the fifties. I mean, he was talking about Medina products long long time ago, and they have so many good products.

in water for transplanting. You can spray it as a folier if you wish to do that. Uh, it works. Medina Plus. Where you find Medina products, which is pretty much everywhere you know. You go into ace hardware stores, you go into feed stores, you go into our garden centers. You hear me talk about they're all gonna have Medina products and they work. I've got them on my shelf and when I'm heading out into the garden, I can just grab them, mix them in water for whatever I'm doing. Transplanting.

Whatever the activity of the day is, Medina's got a product there for you. Let's see, I'm gonna have to run to a break here. When I come back, Tom and Rocheron and David and Tomba, you will be our first two up. All right, welcome back to Garden Line. I don't think I've ever played blink one eight two on guard Line before, but now I have good to

have you with us. If you'd like to give me a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven for if you've got old metal furniture out there in the patio, or maybe you have a decorative things that are metal, you know, cast iron, wrought iron, aluminum, patio furniture, any of those things. Houston powder coders can put a fresh new life into your product. It doesn't

matter if it's rusty. You know, if you get some old hardware that you need new bolts, they put stainless steel hardware back in them. They get them refinished. If the straps are worn or the sling fabric is worn, they fix all of that. And then you have only one hundred plus colors to shoes from oh my, how can I ever find a color? And one hundred plus colors. When they get through, it looks new. It looks absolutely new, way better than painting. Houston powder Coders dot Com is

the website Houston powder Cooders dot com. Give them a call two eight one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight or email them a picture of what you got for a free quote sales at houstoncoders dot com. Head out and out to Tom n Rose Sharon. Hello, Tom, Welcome to guarden Line.

see if I see anything else on it. But I would just prien the dead ones. That one's out of there. Makes it a more manager patch to keep those old things out of there. Okay, thank you, thanks sir. Appreciate your call very much. Tom. Those are great blackberries too, by the way, glad to hear that you've got those. Yeah, I love those, love those things year round. Houston is a company that comes out and does cor aeration in compasstop dressing, and they do an awesome job of it.

They use quality materials, so when you go to year Round Houston, you're going to get something that is going to help your lawn to just be rejuvenated. It's going to breathe new life in the soil. The cor aeration they do gets the oxygen down in the root system. It helps break up that dense clay soil that gets compacted, and that's one of the problems for plants that are trying to grow in that kind of a mass. And then the compost stop dressing provides a coating over the soil.

Some of it falls into the whole microbes go crazy, they decompose it away, the lawn just gets better. They cover the area inside the Beltway, So that's where we talk about him. Here on Guardenline is our inside the Beltway compost stop dressing and core Aeration. The website year round Houston dot com, Year Round Houston dot Com. The phone number eight three two eight eight four fifty three thirty five. Go out now to Baytown and we're going to talk to Wayne.

It's really easy to build, and you can put anything on it that kills grass. I mean, it could be a grass only killer, or it could be something like glyphosate. And you put it on the sponges and that Johnson grass comes up higher than your lawn. So you can easily wipe it on the leaves without even stooping over with my weed wiper tool, and it translocates down and

kills the Johnson grass. It's good for any killing anything that's coming up above your lawn, or for getting underneath like a rosebush, to kill a poison ivy that's coming up under there. It's a very versatile tool.

I don't think so. All righty, I find your weed wipper gardening with skip dot Com gardening with skip dot com. When you see it, just see a picture of it, you go, oh, okay, I know how to build one of those, but it walks you through. It's really easy to do, and I use it for all kinds of things. Yeah, you bet, Thanks Wayne. I appreciate your call very very very much, that is for sure. Uh Yeah. The weed wiper is a handy little tool, and I encourage you to check them out. Try them out, see how you

like it. Jorges Hidden Gardens down there in Alvin, Texas. It's on Elizabeth Street and Alvin. Someone called today and talked about how they've enjoyed Horae. Well, of course they did. He's got all kinds of good things. He serves that whole region Alvin, Santa Fe Hillcrest, Algoo or Katie Alta Loma just south of the Highway six between Alvin and Santa Fe on Elizabeth Street seven to one three six

three to two fifty two. Ninety's got a lot more citrus than other kinds of fruit trees in He's got beautiful roses and crape myrtles and all kinds of things. He keeps a good stock of trees and other things at Jorges Hidden Gardens at your garden center down south of the Houston area. And see here, we've got to no time left, think Charles. I'm gonna probably have to pick you up right after the top of the hour.

If you want to hang on, you can do that, or you can call back if you don't mind holding I'll be back with you when we come back at the top of the hour. You're listening to garden Line. Hey, I got a special guest coming up halfway through the eight o'clock hour. You are gonna love this. Don't go away. She will be here also, by the way, in the nine o'clock hour. It's doctor Juvanna Rangello Posada. She is

a honey bee expert. And I'm telling you you're gonna learn things that are fascinating and some things that are practical too, like how do you take care of your bees around the landscape? How do you not kill your bees or hurt them around the landscape? She knows it all. We're gonna have her here. Can't wait to talk to her. Hang around. Time to go get a cup of coffee for now, We'll be right back, all right, folks, Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you good heavy

with us. We're looking forward to visiting with you about the kinds of questions that you have. You can give me a call it seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven to one three two one two kt r H. You hear me talk about the importance of taking care of the soil before you plant, fixing the soil, getting it right, getting it ideal, creating the perfect environment for plant roots. If you make roots happy, you're going to make the plant happy. And if the

plant's happy, it's going to grow. It's going to make give you roses. It's going to give you tomatoes, it's going to give you beautiful green foliage. Whatever you're growing that plant for, it starts in the soil. And see in a mulch is the spot where you get everything you need for making the soil bank account perfect for the plant. That would include things like compost, that would incl things like maltz. That would include things like bed

mixes like the Veggian or mix for marylom soils. You can get that at cienamalt That would include the nutrients that go into the soil, products from microlife and asamite and Nelson's plant food and nitrefoss and medina. They have it all. So when you go to Cienamltch and go home and put their products to work, and then you get your wonderful plants you're so excited about, you know, go into the garden center getting your plants and you're

bringing them home. Well, you're putting them into the perfect spot for them to thrive. That is cnamals. Cnimalts dot com is the website. Go there. You can find their hours there by the way, they're open today from seven thirty to two that we close tomorrow, but they're on FM five point twenty one kind of near where Highway six and two eighty eight are. Okay, so Sienna Maltz

dot com. That's what you need to know. Go check it out and then get the products and do not do not put a plant in the ground with out preparing the soil, and Cienamals can help you do just that. And head out now to the woodlands and visit with Charles. Hey, Charles, welcome to garden Line.

When you have it, and it's a problem in your lawns, then putting a pre emergent herbicide out is the best way to prevent those seeds from coming up, because they'll be back every year. So that would include there's a

product called Gallery that's actually pretty good for that. It controls broad leaf weeds specifically, it doesn't control grassy weeds, but it works pretty good for that, and so you're gonna need to apply it probably, ah boy, I would say maybe April, sometime in April, probably between maybe as late as early May. But the chamber bitter sprout's late and so but you don't want to wait too late

until it's already sprouted. But gallery will do it post emergent. Wise, it's hard to find something that's not going to hurt your your turf grass. I have not seen anybody try Celsius on chamber bidder as a post emergent application yet. I think that it probably would do pretty good, but I'm not sure. So I'm saying that with a big caveat on it. You would have to test it out to see Celsius is a product that even if it's in the low nineties, it's not going to hurt your grass.

Nilsen Plant Food, they have a product called turf Star Slow and Easy. It's part of the turf Star line. Turfstars all their fertilizers for your lawn. Turf Star Slow and Easy is a very gradual release of nutrients for four plus months out there. So you put it down now you're covered all the way up until your fall fertilization.

to bring it down. So turf Star Slow and Easy does just that. The blend of nutrients is right, the fact that it does the acidifying, it's got a beneficial effect really on the soul microbes, and some of the forms of nutrients that it puts out are actually can be utilized as well. So turf Star Slow and Easy from the folks at Nelson Plant Food. Many great products from Nelson, from the turf Star line to the nutri

Star line, which is fertilizers. You get a little jars a fertilizer for every kind of plant you can imagine, like booga and villia for example, and then the nutri Star for palms and ornamental grasses. Good time to be applying that too, works very very well. By the way, do you know that palm trees are actually a grass type plant. That's why we say palms and ornamental grasses.

From the folks at Nelson in the Nutri Star. If you'd like to give me a call, we're gonna take a little break here, but you can be first up seven to one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t rh OH. By the way, I wanted to mention, I'm still seeing gray leaf spot out in the lawns now things really heat up. The gray leaf spot tends to subside some

on us. But when we have high humidity or wet grass surfaces so it could be rainfall shade, it doesn't dry as fast in shade, so you tend to see more gray leaf spots. Sometimes in shady areas you're running the irrigation too long that or too often that promotes gray leaf spot. To fight it, there's a product called Eagle Turf fungicide. It's a systemic fungicide. It protects against attack by a number of diseases, including gray leaf spot.

But it also is a curative in that it moves up into the plant, the roots take it up, and then moves it up into the plant and makes that plant protected. It's kind of an antibiotic, I guess in our system, you know, and fighting disease and stuff that's equal to her fungicide.

to have you with us. Hey, you got a gardening question. Seven one three two one two ktr H. I want to give me a call and we'll help you with that. By the way, starting at eight thirty, coming up just a little bit here, we are going to have a special guest. Doctor Juliana Rangel Posada is going to be on and she is a researcher on honeybees in uh tex A and m up in college station. Boy, does she ever have a lot of good information on bees. Number one, You're gonna be fascinated. It is really cool

information that we're talking about. But also we're going to talk a little bit about bees related to our gardening. You know, what things we spray affect bees, how do we take care of bees, and what are some of the issues that we have. Dealer with bees. So anyway you can enjoy that she's going to be with us from eight thirty all the way through the end of the show today, all the way through up to ten o'clock.

So stay tuned, and you know, if you got any kiddos around, they might be interested in bee keeping or learning about bees. I think that they will really enjoy it as well. I was checking out Spring Creek Feed, which is up there in the Tombul areas north actually toward a Magnolia direction on FM twenty nine seventy eight, So think of northeast of Tumbule, just a few minutes

away from Grant Parkway and Highway to forty nine. They carry all the fertilizers that we talk about from turf Star that's the Nelson line, microlife and nitroposs as well as all kinds of things to control pests, weeds and diseases in your landscape. When you go in there, you're going to be greeted by friendly, courtious staff. They just

it's just a I enjoy going in there. You walk in and first when you look straight ahead, you see all this cool stuff you know, for your home and other things and caps and decorations, all kinds of you. Just think, am I in the right place? And then you look to the left and there's all the dog food and other things, high quality lines like Victor Purina. And then you look to the right and there's your gardens products, products to control weeds and diseases and pests,

fertilizers and whatnot. It's all there at Spring Creek Feed. Hey, if you are in the military or a senior citizen, there are discounts. Just ask them about it. They can do special orders and they do delivery service that's available as well. Spring Creek Feed in Magnolia on FM twenty nine seventy eight. Fun place. I promise you enjoy going in there. You probably go home with some stuff for your house too, because they got all kinds of good stuff as well. ACE Hardware stores all over the Greater

Houston area. When I say Greater Houston area, I'm talking all the way down you know, Rockport, Texas, And for example, there's an there is an ACE Hardware store on in Port Lavaca on Calhoun Plaza on Rockport on State Highway thirty five. Of course, here in the Houston area we've got them. We've got K and M out in Kingwood on Kingwood Drive, and the one in a Taska Seeda on timber Forest Drive. If you are in Spring on

Rayford Road, there's an All Star Ace there. There's All Seasons Ace up on Interstate forty five in Willis up north, and then on the east side we've got Uvaldi Ace and New Valdi Road, Deer Park Ace on Center Street, and Child's Buildings Supply on North sixteenth Way out there in Orange. And I could just go on and on and on. Lots of east hardware stores. Here's how to find yours. Ace Hardware Texas dot com. That's my garden line, ACE Hardware group that through the this whole region. Ace

Hardwaretexas dot Com. Go check them out. And by the way, just the tip. Lots of good things for the patio outdoors. Of course, they got all the fertilizers. You hear me talking about U and barbecue pits. That is my latest obsession. I'm becoming a barbeque nut. And it all started with a really cool bet from Ace Hardware. Uh you are listening to Guardline phone number seven one three two one two k t r H. When we get past the eight thirty hour, I'm going to be focusing the calls

more on things that are related to bees. So we've got uh, you know, doctor Rangel here at the starting just after eight thirty. So if you have a question about bees, or taking care of bees, or be keeping in general, or be issues and things, this would be a good time to call. Maybe you heard some fun factor about bees, you want to check it out. We'll be visiting with her. It's going to be a fireside chat, no lecture here, just enjoying ourselves talking about the wonderful

world of bees. I listened to a book on tape. I can listen on tape as I'm driving, and when I have to sit and read, I can't get so many books, so little time, That's what I'm saying. But anyway, it's called Honeybee Democracy. I'm gonna talk with her a little bit about some of the things in that book

as well. But if you are wanting to have your mind belong on the world of honeybees and how they communicate and what they do and how they make decisions, and even how that applies to human decision making, it is. It's mind bodling. It's so cool. Anyway, I'd recommend that book Honeybee Democracy really good one. I wanted to before we do take a break here. The Plumerius Society of America is having their annual show and sale right now today at the Bay in Clearlake Bay Area Community Center.

It's on Nasa Road one in Seabrook, Texas, and they're going to have a lot of plumeria growers with their their lines and things out there. They you can join the Plumera Society if you'd like to do that. Some cool raffle tickets. But again, it started at nine am, and oh it starts at nine am and it will go until one pm. So after garden Line today head over there. Head over to the Plumaria Society of America's

Show and sale. It is at the clear Lake Bay Area Community Center on Nasa Road Highway Won in Seabrook, Texas. You will love it, I have to warn you. Plummerias, like a lot of other specific types of plants, are addictive. You get in there and you start. Next thing, you know, you know, Hawaii, you'll be calling you saying, hey, we're running out of flowers, per lays, can you send us some of yours? Because it's a lot of fun. A lot of fun to do that. Well, I wanted to, Oh,

I know, I know what Moss Nursery. I had not talked about Moss nurserying a bit. That is a cool garden center. Moss Nursery is done in Seabrook, Texas. And listen, this place has been around a very long time. Moss Nursery eight acres to wander through eight acres and beautiful trees. Don't worry about the heat. Just get out there. Lots of shade trees. It's wonderful. When you go there, you are going to find so much blank. They have some

of those wall planters for example. Uh, they're just some of them are like Mexican tallavera, you know, with all the colors and painting and everything. Others are more plain and they attached to a wall. And then you just plant something that cascades down, you know, maybe a string of fill in the blank succulent. It may be something like a dichondra, the silver pony foot dichondra is beautiful

for that. Do you have shady areas, You're not going to find a better coalladium supply than at Moss Nursery and Seabrook or or Colius for that matter. You just need to go check them out. They're on Toddville Road and Seabrook, Texas. Here's the website, Moss Nursery dot com. Moss is spelled m a A S m a a S Nursery dot com. I was in their greenhouse for houseplants.

I always go there and their selection is unbelievable and they have everything from little starter plants like if you just you know, want to kind of go get started, and maybe a string of pearls or something like that you want to just get a little plant for that, or if you want like this giant staghorn fern hanging from a chain under your trees, you can buy that there. I mean, they've got it all, succulents, you name it. Their pottery selection is incredible too, really really nice selection

of pottery. They know what they're doing, they know how to take care of things. Let's head out on the phones. We're going to go now to Northwest Houston and talk to Rosemary. Hey, Rosemary, welcome to garden Line.

You know, you probably find them at Ace hardware stores and other places like that. So you can take a standard potting soil. I might take the one, and Airline Soils has a standard one type of potting soil, and then they've got one for succulents that is a little grittier that would also work well, and you could even put a little bit of pearlite in those if you wanted to loosen them up just a little bit more.

Just know that your potting soils break down over time and they go from being kind of a looser, chunkier to more of a mucky, decomposed down material, so occasionally you're going to have to kind of spruce those up a little bit. Plumarias are very tolerant of being being messed with like that, right. I bet you've went to the show and Sail today. I bet they'd have some soils for sale down there too, Okay.

George and Jersey Village. I just got about thirty seconds here, but let's see if we can help you with those tomato plants. What's your question?

We'll be right back with doctor Juliana Rangell. All right, welcome back to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to help you have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. Don't forget that last part. It's supposed to be fun. Well, I am privileged this morning to have doctor Jilliana Rangell as my guest. Welcome to Guarden Line, Doctor Engele, it's good to have you here.

And so that's kind of that. I like the way that they give us percentages, but really it's one hundred percent this one hundred percent and undred that's exactly right. Yes, those percentages don't stay in their boxes very well. That's well good.

do what they do, it's just fascinating. But anyways, listen to this book on tape driving down there, and all of a sudden he talks about his former graduate assistant. I think doctor Wrangell is like, I know that lady, and it reminded me to have Hey, I need to have you come in and we need to talk sometimes. That's a great book.

decide if they should live there and stuff. But if you think about this, folks, you're honeybees and your colony is expanding, and it's time for one queen to go off with some of the colony and find a new home. How do they find that home and how do they decide? You know, the whole colitay doesn't fly all over the

place checking out each hone. They have people that people I'm gonna anthropomorphized a lot on bees, I'm sorry, But they go out and they find places, and they have ways of measuring how big they are, because if the colony, if the cavity quality or quantity isn't large enough, they're not going to be able to throw up enough honey to make through the winter and other things. I'm sitting here talking like I'm telling talking right, I'm telling you, But how did that When those bees come back, how

do they tell the colony about that place? And what if five bees come back and they all have a different place they think is where they should live. How do they decide? And in the process of this book, you're not just going to learn about honey bees. But you're gonna learn some very interesting things. He does such a great job of showing how even our human decision making can be can be beneficially influenced by what we've learned from the bee world.

Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us. If you just tuned in, we're talking to doctor Julian Rangel. Julana is a researcher in bees and also a teacher at Texa and M University in the entomology department, and we are picking her brain as best we can this morning, and we're going to tie this back not just to the fascination of bees, which is alone. I could talk for a week with her really just picking her brain on that, but on what do we do as gardeners

because of what we know now about bees? And doctor Ango, would you talk a little bit about some of the work that you're doing, some of the research that you're doing, and then maybe we'll do some application of that from a home garden standpoint.

the colony level. So we have a postdoctoral researcher, doctor Kanan Money and a graduate student Gustafa working with my colleague, doctor Spence Beemer, who is a nutrition ecologists in the Department of Entomology, looking at the quality of the food that the bees are collecting in a different landscape level. So we have agricultural landscapes, rural landscapes, and urban landscapes, and so we're collecting pollen from well, we put pollen traps on the colonies to collect the pollen that they

are getting around their colonies. And then we're doing performing the all the nutritional content analysis, elemental analysis fatty acid analysis of all these pollens, looking at protein content and lipid content, carbohydrate content at different times of the year.

lot there right quantity wise. So to use a really silly analogy, it's like we need to turn our backyard into a Bucky's where when you drive in, you drive out, you tell your friends you got to go to that place. You have got to go check in clean bathrooms, clean bathrooms. I don't know beesney bathrooms. But you want to create a garden that they feel that way about, meaning they go back to the hive and there's a lot. And I've noticed in my garden that there are some plants

that are just good bee plants. Now, now we say bees as if it's one thing, but we're talking primarily honey bees right.

eating at random or equal amounts of every food. They actually kind of shop around for nutrients that they may be lacking, really, and so they go and get it from from whatever plant is providing that.

where they're going to go and do things. So tell us a little bit about the process of like food finding, and then whybe'll come back to food finding.

in nineteen seventy three. Yes, it's an a shaped motion that has a waggle phase component in the middle of.

the time. There's I know, the vitext they used to call a beekeeper's fround because it's blooming now and bees and there's a lot of itexts around.

how it says, hey, these flowers are so awesome. There's a BUCkies. I'm beside myself over there. You got to all go to this one place and all the bees know exactly where to go, and that's nice. What other kinds of things about the waggle dance and stuff that someone who's reading that book could learn possible?

So the colony decides to split because it was too large. The mother queen generally is the one that leaves with about three quarters of the workers. They stay in that cluster in place. We call it the BiVO whac and they can stay in that BiVO whac for a few hours to a few days, it depends on the decision

making process. And so there's about only three to five percent of the bees in that swarm are active, and they're called nest site scouts, so in not like they're like food scouts, but in this case they're looking for potential home sites and they are the ones that are active and looking for potential three cavities, while the rest of the colony in the swarm, ninety seven percent of them are cool quiescent, just kind of letting the knowledgeable

scouts decide and they start finding places and then if they like that place, because they have ways to measure the size, the size of the cavity, the entrance size, the height above ground, if it's drafty or if there's if it's wet, whatever that is. They kind of assess quality, come back and they're like, this is a really good place. They start performing that waggle dance, and so other bees

will follow. They will get recruited to that side, and they themselves visited and the side by themselves if it's worth advertising or not.

So the ones that the location that's most favorable is gonna get the highest number of dances, and therefore it's gonna get the favoritism of the of the scouts until they basically come down to one location.

So at all times of year they try to keep that brude in Asteria at about ninety five ninety seven degrees fahrenheit.

listening to garden Line. I'm your host, skipt Director, and you're here with doctor jimian Orangel from Texas and M University Agerlife the entomology department. She researches and teaches about honey bees, and we were picking her brain about amazing

and fascinating things about honey bees. Right now, we were just talking about how bees find flowers and how they communicate with each other, how they find their nest, their new nest when they those swarm breaks apart and goes into two, and how they communicate and make a good decision on where to go.

telling me about some concerns on current be popular. Yeah, So.

were just gone. There was still food left, and sometimes you still have the queen alive with just a few workers around her, and they didn't really know what was going on. What they did was find a kind of a post mortem type of forensic analysis of bees that colonies that had collapsed and whatever was left the bees that were left, and they assessed most of those colonies that had collapsed had really high levels of honeybee associated viruses, and not just one or two, but three or four

viruses all acting at the same time. Since that year, we kept records of colony losses year round, so they did summer loss, winter loss, and overall loss. And also as the beekeepers a question what percentage of laws is acceptable to you over winter. It's kind of like keeping livestock. You have a certain amount of loss that you have to.

in at least a decade, but something happening. We have not lost less than less than thirty percent per year, which is incredibly high because it's always twice at least twice, if not more, the amount that's acceptable to a beekeeper.

And imagine if you own one hundred, no let's say ten thousand colonies, that's three thousand colonies that you lost, and it's a huge loss of life, a huge monetary law that you have to get try to recuperate when the spring comes by splitting colonies, many ways to try to get up to the numbers that you had before the winter loss. But lately, lately it has we're basically

seeing CCD two point zero. But even worse were the early reports in February were of a loss of about sixty two percent of the colonies in the US had been lost. But at least those beekeepers that reported law reported their losses, and in this case there were a lot of commercial beekeepers. And so in the US about ninety five percent of all bees managed colonies are owned

by only about five percent of beekeepers. So if you get a huge number of commercial beekeepers reporting losses, then you can actually account for most of the managed colonies in the US, which the number fluctuates between two five and two point eight million colonies. And so it was estimated that about one point seven million colonies were lost last fall.

a pyriethroid fluvalinate. The mites became resistant to it within about a decade. So then we moved on to a product called kumafaus, an organo phosphate, and they became resistant to kumafhaus within a decade. And so then we moved to amitras, which is a for mammidine and luckily for us, it's been effective for the last twenty years up until now.

So the report about the high viral viral levels that cause all of these bees to die is because we're seeing more and more amitrized resistance in the my population.

a moment of discovery for new products. There's a new technology called RNA interference that it's showing promising results that's stopping the reproduction of the varroamite, and they're trying to get that product out this year here in the US. A couple more chemistries that are in the horizon, but there's not a whole lot of new products. It's new formulations of the same old products that are coming out soon.

So Project aps M we call it PAM, has a lot of resources.

We're going to spend the last part of the show this morning, the last thirty minutes, talking a few more things about honey bees. Thank for those of you I know you'd like to call in. We'll be back live tomorrow morning six to ten for all your calling questions. So if you have a bee question and I would like to get it in real quick, we'll be happy to take a question specifically about something we're talking about about bees. Doctor Wrangel, I wanted to go into the issue.

We have a problem with crape myrtle bark scale. They suck the juices on of the plant. They basically excrete out the sugary substances and we get the black city mold all over our crpe myrtles, and people have a fix with that. It's hard to control and systemic insecticides, the neonicotoid types are fairly effective against it, but once you start putting those into plants, you see reports of

bee losses and things on certain kinds of trees. I think you guys did some studies a good while back on crpe myrtles and talked to us a little bit about the importance of craige myrtle's to bees and then the issue of so how do I can what do I do about scale if I've got the honey bees.

bringing in. And so we did the collection of pollen every month, once a month, at at least five different locations per per city, and crape myrtle came to be one of the most important food sources in not just Texas in Florida as well so in other urban settings in other parts of the country. What also we found was we did the pesticide residue analysis of all of these pollen types, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that urban pollend doesn't contain as much pesticides as we

thought they would have. The polony is relatively clean in urban settings. Even though we did find some traces of chemicals, including some nicotinoids, a lot of them were below the level of detection. What we did find more of for fungicides, Yes, in some of these trees, but again not an alarming levels like you would find in agricultural settings.

a little minimal. So would you recommend maybe trying to time your applications when it's not like peak.

So and something we should be aware of our flower gardens and other things that's right.

everything as anybody would. But there are a lot of our lawn weeds that are popular with bees, so especially I always think of chick weed because every time I'm down in the grass and there's chick weed blooms, it's like there's honey bees on them. I've just noticed that. Well, we have a caller that I want to bring in with a question less in Dayton, Texas, out east of Houston. Hey, lest welcome to the garden line. Do you have a question for Doctor Range?

and all things bees. If you've been listening very long, you've already probably had your mind blown about the amazing world of bees and what we're learning now.

all the way to the central Valley of California. For pollination of almond, and then from there the migration kind of takes off, going to up and down the Pacific northwest and down south California, and then going west to all the other state and then about some is where we get our clover honey production in the north and

south Dakota and Minnesota. So a lot of people from the Texas area have kind of like dual citizenship and they are also staying They stay in Texas for some part of the year, but then they go and live in Minnesota or the Dakota's for a few months.

I had tried. I can tell I'm probably putting it from the spider, but I tried taking little bits of b pollen and boy, when I took I mean it's like a less than a quarter an eighth of a teaspoon of it, my eyes started watering and my nose it was like I was having an allergy from it. Do you know of and I know you're not a medical doctor, but any research that might show that by doing that you develop benefits or is that a question you'd rather like, Okay, what's the next questions?

for their presentations and their hard work. And we also have an endowed an endowment fund that people can donate money too, and so if you want to donate money, just let us know because we'll always take donations for research. But just remember that honeybees are responsible for pollinating one third of the food we consume, so keeping them alive also keeps us alive.