Tree Talk w/ Martin Spoonmore

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 Richter. It's so crazy just watch him as Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to talk all kinds of things gardening. Now, you know, we love our feed stores on garden Line and down in the League City area. League City Feed is your hometown

feed store. The Thunderbergs began that store over forty years ago. Wes and Madison still take care of the store and it is it is just as good as it ever was. In fact, when you go in there, you know you're going to get quality feed. But you also can find all the fertilizers that we've recommended for a long time on garden Line. You're going to find things to deal with pests, weeds, fungicides, certain quality pet food. If you got backyard chickens, they can take care of you. They

still carry the bags out for you. I mean, this is the old time feed store. Feel for all of you out there in San Leon and Baycliff and Webster, Santa fe el kaminarea, League City that whole region League City Feed is your hometown feed store. Give them a call at two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. Two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. They're closed today, but they're open Monday through Saturday, nine am to six pm. Seeking to swing by right after work and pick up whatever you

need. And you're gonna find what you can need there too. By the way, we are fortunate this morning to be able to have Martin Spoon Moore from Affordable Tree Care. Uh. And he's in the studio or actually he's in my phone with me right now. Welcome Martin. Watch up Skip. How are you, buddy, I'm I'm well. Some people say I'm barely tolerable, but I think I'm doing better than that. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm sorry I couldn't make you down to the radio station,

but this is my weekend to set up at church. So okay, I put all the chairs and tables and well that kind of stuff. I'd say, you got your priorities right, So we're gonna We're gonna let that one go. Hold on skip home. My ladies at church want to say Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry, Christmas, Dollie, you too. How many of you does it take to keep Martin in line? Over there? Are they already gone? Hold on, Jackie? How many keep me in line? What it takes the village? Right? Well, the crazy

Jackie? Yeah? Yeah, okay, all right, Well, hey, I appreciate I appreciate you being on. I've been promising listeners today that you're going to come in here and we're going to talk about all kinds of things about keeping a tree healthy, uh, proper pruning, proper planning, just just kind of the whole nine yards. Martin, what are what are some of the things the mistakes you see made as you drive around town, as you service people trees, people's trees across the Houston area. What are some

of the most common mistakes you see made? What you wish you could go back in time and fix. You know, the biggest thing for me, skip is the treatments of the trees, the deep rout feeding that's important to trees, especially here in our southern climate. The more you feed the tree, the healthy the root system is going to be, the better the tree

is going to cycle. And when you drive around see some of these big, beautiful live oaks and water oaks and something that is just going under so much stress because of the weapon we have, and people just don't do anything to it. Just watch it die and watch it just slowly go into decline. Right, Yeah, that's that's a good point. What I've seen is just it'll blow your mind when some of these people trim trees around here. It's range every time I see it. But yeah, you know, keeper

is not always better. Skip what is not always better. Cheaper is not always better. Oh my gosh, is that not the truth or another way to put as you get what you pay for, you get. Yeah, yeah, but I tell you driving around and looking at pruning job there's a website I can't remember the name of it, but it basically is horticulture pruning disasters. You look at it and people that just create these crazy looking things. There's a I saw a tree one time and it looked like a pac

Man with the power lines going through it. So they like cut a C shaped hole out of the side of a tree so that the power lines could go through it. I always tell people that, you know, if you don't plant the right tree under a power line, the power line company will take care of a tree for you, but you won't like what they do.

Yeah, we we dealt with that just Friday, to be exact, big beautiful eyeboat and been there for years and here, of course here comes the power line people and they take the whole backside of it all for you, and there's not anything you can do about it. You know, holler, but they don't listen. Yeah, yeah, there's all there's all kinds of trees. When people top trees, it's like top crate myrtles. Yes, it's just bad. You don't do that. Well, call that No,

I was gonna say when and that's for for life. When you screw up a tree bad enough. I mean, you can try to help it, but it's never going to be the same. No, it'll never be the same. If you've got to, if you've got to cut the top off of it, you might as well take you down. Same with the crate myrtles. And I you know, the crate myrtle massacres what we call it. Yeah, And when they when they do those some of those trees that way, it's just it's just horrible. There's no fixing it. There's

nothing you can do to fix the pace yep. Well, it's one of the one of the plants, one of the tree type plants in our landscape that is beautiful in the winter time because of that structure. And it could be a beautiful candelabra of branches, or it could just be you know, chopped off. That's another one. You know, you got a landscape crew nothing to do in the winter. Here's some printers go cut everything about head high. And then that's how that gets started. Along with the little volcano

cones of maults that we see everywhere. Oh my god, that's another thing. These people build these big mounds of malts and again these guys trying to give it away because they buy in bolt. But it's actually bad for your trees. And you're crazy. You keep pounding all that maltz around it like that you could act uppocate the tree. But you know, try to tell people, but they just sometimes it goes in one ear and out the other.

Brother, Yes, sir, I understand that. Go ahead. When you host a radio show, I know, I know you should, Randy crazy. You answer a question and the very next question is the same question. But that's part of the deal. That's part of the deal. That's Okay. The only time on that radio, Yeah, the only time it bothers me is when someone tells me what I said that I never said because they didn't quite hear it right, So maybe I need to make more sense.

Well, we'll see people hear what they want to hear. There you go, well down that road. Yeah, I got about a minute left here. So any other thing that you know, driving around, you go, man, I wish you hadn't done that. Here's one thing, skip You've got these people. You see them pruning these trees the wrong time of the year. And if you're going to prune the tree, oak trees, elm trees, maple trees up a cons you got to just make sure they

do it at the correct time of the year. And you know yourself, we don't kick off our trune until after October fifteenth through the February. You know. Now, the other scrub trees, ash and talas, we can turn them a little bit later, but we want to make sure that we prove them and deep root feed them at the right time of the year to get the better canopies. The nicer canopies, the healthier the tree. We want to make sure that you're doing it correctly when the tree is in the

state of dormancy. Yes, and that's come October fifteenth to the end of February, and we just start. That's our window, me and Randy, now you that's we live by that rule, right, Okay? Good? Well, Hey, I got to run. I got to run to a commercial. When we come back, I want to continue that. But we got Becky with a maple tree question. We're going to come to her first. Anyone else wants to call and pick Martin's brain. Seven to one three

two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to Garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here talking with Martin Spoon Moore today. We're talking all kinds of trees and apparently it has raised some interest. We've got a few calls coming in here that are kind of loading up the boards. We're going to get to. I just want to mention something before we do that, and that is a Star of Hope mission. I know that the folks listening to me today have a compassion. They want to be able

to help people in ways that really helped. They don't want to just give out a handout that does no good. They don't want to throw money away, but they want to provide not money, but in many cases your own time and being able to volunteer and to make a difference in lives. And that's what Star Hope does. You know, for two dollars and eighty cents, you can feed a person a meal. Star Hope gives housing for folks, They give job training, they give substance abuse help to overcome that.

They help someone take a life that really is at the bottom and turn it around and become self sustaining. And think about the benefit of that to children and a family. When you do something that turns a family around with little kids, you have made a lifetime change. It's going to last for years. Shmission dot org, sohmission dot org. I hope you will enjoy that. You will join my wife and I and being supporters on an ongoing basis of Star Hope. You're not going to find a better cause than that.

Well, we got Martin here on the line with us today, and let's see. I'm gonna also, Martin, we got a bunch of calls. I think I better run do those with you. Let's start off in San Leone talking to Becky Becky, how can we help today? Yes, I have a baby maple tree that I got from a big maple tree, and I wanted to know is it too early to planet now or shall I wait till after the freeze? It's probably about three feet tall. Why don't you take that one? Martin? Wait? Wait, I would probably wait till

the end of February. That way, if we do have a hard freeze, you can still have in the container and keep it out of the kind of weather. But I'd probably put it in the ground the first of March. Okay, any hard freezes. What type of maple? Is it? Red maple? But the leaves don't get read very often? Wrong, that's a good tree. After it was a silver leaf, I would tell you to throw it the garbage. But red maple, so yeah, it does well here. So wait till March and then put it in the ground.

Okay. And then one quick question about my ugly pecan tree? How can I stop it from producing broughten copont pacons? I don't want the pecans because the squirrels make a mess on my patio. There you go. Well, unfortunately, you can't stop the con from producing other than remove the tree. Yeah, I know. It's like you can keep the tree with me and skip we're talking about. You can deep feed the tree and try to put minerals back in the ground. The tree needs to produce, and if you

do that, then you start seeing a healthier pecan. But with pecans, it's one year you get a good batch, one year you don't, and then you get what the squirrels don't want you to have. There you go, okay, So the best way to solve the problem is remove the tree. I wish I could. Okay, all right, y'all have a merry Christmas, and thank you so much. All right, Hey, Becky, thank you. I appreciate that that call very much. Boys, you're welcome. Is that? Is that ever? Is that ever true? What's that?

I would I was just trying to get out of the column. For some reason, I'm not able to disconnect that. Josh, maybe thank you take care of that for me. Uh yeah, Martin, we we we do get a lot of tree questions, and it just it's amazing how everyone is I don't know, trees, turfing, tomatoes, the three t's, that's what makes the phone ring. I know it did an extension office.

It does in the radio too, But everybody wants to take care of me and for good reason and so and you know, Skip, I'll have to set it up after the holidays, so I could come in there maybe on a Saturday or something. And Fundays are hard for me because I do a lot of this stuff for the church a brailer. So maybe after the holidays one Saturday in January, we can come in just edit for all kinds of three questions for you, buddy, Well we get we sure get them,

and that would be that would be very helpful. Well, I got I want to when Randy I had me come in there on that show, then, man, the board would just light up with tree questions. I know. Any Okay, what's happening. It's happening right now. We're going to head now out to Wendy and Northwest Houston. Hey, Wendy, welcome to Gardline. Good morning, it's nice to talk to you. And Martin Welcome,

Bavius. My question is I have a Chinese pistachio tree that's about probably twenty three years old, and in the very beginning my husband cut the top off of it when it was just small, so it's pretty big and all the branches are you know, Uh, it's kind of like an umbrella, but underneath it there's not any green leaves. All the leaves are like on the end of the branches. So I didn't know how that it was supposed to be cut back now that it's so big and you know, bunched out

like an umbrella were. You're not supposed to cut the tops off posassio pistachios, but some people do it because they do get tall. As far as it underneath the canopy, you'd have to send us a picture so we can look at it that way. But the main things at the pistasio is to make sure you keep it fertilized every year, especially it does it produce no, No, I don't think so. I just thought that that was the name of it. I didn't know it would produce. Uh, some will,

some won't. I don't know that. Again, you just have to send me a picture of the tree so I can tell you more about it. You don't see a lot of pisastios here in the southern climate, use they don't. They just don't do very well. I think I think Wendy probably is talking about a Chinese pistache as opposed to like the nut tree pistachio.

Is that correct, Wendy, I believe. Okay, there's those are separate male and female trees on the Chinese pistache and so uh you may have one that produces the little clusters of berries, uh and then one that doesn't. And uh those berries can be a little bit messy. Yeah, without cedar berries. Okay, all right, but are are they supposed to be like that? You know, the the branch is just like bear, and then all the green greenery is on the ends. Is that the ones normal?

I've got one of my yard and it it just it does that. It has a very unusual branch and angle pattern and stuff. Yeah, but you'll see that. You'll see bear branch areas with the foliage out towards the end. The more the more you feed it, the healthier it's going to be. Okay, Yeah, it's healthy. It's just that I didn't know if it was supposed to be like bear all underneath on the limbs and then just at the ends was the greenery. Mike. My intends to shade out

the interior too. You know, you get a good canopy, it's kind of like a live oak. In a sense, and that you get this great canopy out there and the stuff inside without light starts to die out. Okay, okay, well, I appreciate the call, and thank you for giving me the information. All right, thank you, appreciate that you both. Bye bye, yeah, Martin. There there's so many types of trees around, and you're talking about the Chinese pistache and pecans and things that have

been called in today. What are some If someone walks up and says, hey, I got a house out here in a new division, don't have any trees in it? Or what would you recommend to some species you like this area. I'm the big red oak guy. Okay, I love the red oaks. I think they grow fast. The shoe mark not alls will

put on the big acorns, So I recommend the more than anything. But if you want the probably the slowest growing best tree, you're not going to be the live oat tree because one that takes root, it grows very fast, very well, and it's love very low maintenance. So well, Houston probably my favorite to the plant. Yeah, I don't I really don't mess with maples and pecans and stuff like that. There's too much, you know, the Mexican sycamore. It's very nice tree. The green ash is still

a nice tree if you want to plant something grows pretty fast. But I'm a red oak, live oat guy. Okay, Well, and there's a reason Houston is a live oak forest. I'm telling you it is just solid live oaks. And there's a reason I call me plant pine tree because it ain't gonna happen. Okay, no pines, no pines, no maples. I just don't mess with that stuff. Okay, I'm big on the red oaks. All right, very very good. Uh so. Uh. Our

phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four. If you'd like to give us a call any kind of tree questions, We're happy to take him here. I'm going to head out to Scott in Belleville. Now, Scott, how can we help? Hey? Yeah, you kind of sort of touched on what I'm calling about. I have two acres out in Bellville, very very sandy soil and a wonderful neighbor that we have just put up a little metal building that's uh, he won't allow us to paint

a mural on the back of it. So I need some trees that grow ass kind of fluffy to be able to block that out. Okay, any thoughts on how you looking? I'm sorry, we'll tree because all kinds of things you can plant back there that you can get plants, trees, I mean, what are you trying to Well, it's just right on our property line. He put he put up his metal barn and which is fine. We just want to put something up to kind of block that out. A

couple of wax myrtle. If you look at for privacy, you're not going to get that on the privacy out of a tree. So stick along the lines of uh oh wait, the Japanese blueberries they give you good coverage. The Texas wax myrtles, they give you good coverage. Something that grows fast so you don't have to look at it. If you start putting trees in, then that's going to be that's gonna get expensive real quick. Scott, is this is this a country property where you have some land or is it

more of the typical residential lot size. No, We've got over two acres out there and our house is smack in the middle of it. So this will be about one hundred feet away from us. But it's a big bright white metal building. So we just want to kind of yeah, you know, another another idea and you would have to buy this, I tell you what, you know what, I'm out of time here. Can you hang

on until we come back from break and Martin we'll be back. I'm all right, good, Well, we'll put you on hold for now, Scott, and we will be right back. Our phone number if you'd like to give us a call and ask Martin a question seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to garden Line. We're glad you're listening today. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here today with Martin

Spoonmore from Affordable Tree Service talking all kinds of thing trees. If you live up in the Montgomery area, your hometown garden center is A and A plants and produce that whole region up there, Montgomery, Lake, Conroe. You know the divisions on there. There's April Sound, and there's the Lago, Bentwater, Grand Harbor, all of those. This is your local place and they've got everything you need. If I talk about a fertilizer on guard Line,

they've got it. Do you need things like fungicides or pesticide herbicides. They've got it right now. They've got their wire outdoor lighting. You know, you see the little creatures with the white wires. It's bent wire and there's lights on it to look like a Reindeers. They've got all of that twenty five percent off on sale right now at A and A Plants and Produce here on Highway one to five on the east side of Montgomery as you're heading

toward Conor on one oh five. And it's just easy to get there because, first of all, seven days a week, nine to five. You can give them a call at nine three, six five, nine seven fifty seventy. And while you're there, you're going to find a lot of cool plants as well. They stay they stay way stocked up all year long, and it's always fun to go in and see the newest things that they've got. We're going to head now, Martin, We're going to go out to

Belleville and talk to Scott. Hello, Scott, Hey, how you doing good? How can we help? We were talking about you had me hold over on the break. Oh that's wanting to get some because trees or something to camouflage s chark white metal barn. That's right, thank you. I just want to make a couple of comments about screens. The further you the closer you get to a screen, however tall it is, the more it

blocks. You Know. It's like if you walk up to a ten foot wall, I mean, you can't see anything, but if you back up one hundred feet from a ten foot wall, you know, you can see something that's twelve feet high sticking above it. So if you've got a building like that, do you say it was two story now it's it's about fifty foot long and it's about one hundred and fifty feet give or take from our place. It's just we want to put something up there to kind of break

it up. Okay, Well, as you know, Martin ha mentioned the Southern wax myrtles of Possibility. Something in the country that I often recommend to people where they're trying to cover a long line that would require buying a whole lot of container grown trees, is you can buy contrivation bundles. You usually have to order that, maybe even in the summertime for a winter delivery. But it's bear root plants that may be I don't know, three feet tall.

They come in a pretty long box, and they're very inexpensive. You're talking about a few bucks for each plant, sometimes two dollars sometimes, you know. And you can get Eastern red cedar, which grows native through your area, you know, from Belleville up through all the way up into the College Station area. It's a it's a country tree, and it's very tough. It does well. They fast growing. They are pretty fast grown once

you get them established. But when you buy a bundle, you could plant them, you know, six feet apart, which is way too close. And then if some live or die, you're still okay. You just take out the others and they're evergreen. They get quite tall in time. Uh. And so that would be another consideration, especially again if you know, if you're going to have to buy like one hundred container grown plants of some

size. But we kind of like bi techs. I know, they don't have any leaves on them in the winter time, and so I don't know about those. But again, we just need something that's going to keep the leaves on it. Provide a canopy or a kind of like a Texas breaks hit all this polage. Even through the winter, mine are still pretty much in bloom. But they're not like they are due in the summer. They grow very fast if you want something to really grows this things grow foot two

foot a year. But staying away from trees and you know, big established trees because that's going to get real expensive for you. But yeah, the theater skip just messioned that's used to be by that in bulk. Yeah, somewhere I'm sure somebody has they just you know, come probably let you dig them up or not a favorite tree, but you know they know they will

grow for you. Yeah, that's right now. I wouldn't recommend them to That's why I ask if you were in a residential neighborhood, I wouldn't recommend them for that. But in the countryside where you got this roadway and you want to block it from view and the dust is coming off the dirt road and stuff. But they're a great tree. If you want more information on those, scott if you'll stay on hold, I'll have Josh pick up and get your email. Give you an email and I will send you a list

of two or three wholesalers in the southeast US. But again, they are typically sold out by now. On those trees and they're bare roots so you only plan them in the very cold part of winter. Sounds good. I'll do that, Thank you, you bet, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Oh Man Martin, I ask you about some trees that you like and species. What about when somebody's going to do some construction around maybe they're going to put in a sidewalk or they have to do some trenching by

a tree, A lot of damage can get done. And how do you help people with that kind of situation? Well, s get we do at the consultation. If people got trees, the big fifty sixty year old live oaks that they're trying to preserve, you have to put new sidewalks. It's doing foundations they do. They need a contractors to come out and do a consultation to tell them which way they can go, what they can cut, and how much they can trim on it. You know, if it's worth

even investing. It might be cheaper just to get rid of the tree than try and spend the money on preserving it. Yeah back times, Yeah that expensive, can't it? Another related question is that I get as people say, I've got these roots up above the surface, Now, how many can I cut? You know or questions like that free per year. But the trick is that they don't fertilize do the deep root feeding like we recommend,

Skip, that that root system would just keep coming to the surface. There's nothing you don't do about it. But you can literally take one root per tree per year. But you've got a deep root feed that tree to be able to do that. Okay, but you know, and don't come in here and try to cover it up with four or five, six, eight inches of dirt because you'll suffocate the tree. The tree to out, yeah, over it, especially a large area covering it up like that. Yeah,

the role of thumb is one root per tree per year. Deep root feed the tree every year. You can't make the existing roots go down, but you can start removing them, but you can keep more roots from coming to the surface. All right, there you go. Hey, we're hitting a hard break, Albert. I see you out there on the phones. You will be first when we come back. Right now, I want to give you our phone number one more time if you'd like to call in talk

to Martin seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host. Skip Richter. We're talking today with Martin from the Affordable Tree Service. Martin Spoonmore has been doing this a long time and he's helping answer tree questions today. So if you'd like to give us a call seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. For those of you who live in let's say central North central part of Houston,

Quality Feed and Garden Center is really your hometown feeds store there. I used to go to Quality Feed when they were their other location, and now they've moved to Luzon Street, which is near the intersection of Equipment and Alesion. They're open Monday through Friday, nine to six, Saturday nine to four, today eleven thirty to four pm. Now when you go into Quality Feed, you're going into a Houston tradition. It's been around since nineteen twenty eight.

Ken and Chris have owned the place since it's been thirty two years now. But in there, you're going to find all the fertilizers that I recommend, all the pest disease and weed products that you might need. You're going to find bulk seats. In fact, they have an antique seed rack from nineteen twenty eight stocked with heirloom seeds, any kind of feed that you need, and if you're all thinking about backyard chickens, you're not going to find

a better place in quality feed. They get shipments in all the time of new chicks into the store and they have everything you need, all the things you need to set up a backyard chicken, the feeders and the waters and everything else in a day to the chicks. And then they even make their own special Granny's laying mix for chicks. So it is a fun place to visit. I always like going in there and visiting with Cken and Chris.

The website for more information qualityfeedcode dot com. Qualityfeedcode dot Com. Again. They're on Luzon Street, near the intersection of Equipment and Allsion. Well, Martin, we're back here. I've got Albert out here in Montgomery. Let's go see what Albert has to say. Welcome Albert, Welcome, Welcome, Thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir, I got two questions about some nut all oaks. I got several of them. They're young trees,

probably ten foot tall. And it hasn't been raining much out here in Montgomery. How during the winter time? How hot often do I water those trees. Well, with the rain we're getting, you should be okay. But if we go into another drought period you probably want to water them every other day then. But you just watering the grass is not getting the moisture down

into the root zone. So you need to take you a little drill bit eighteen inches and make you some holes around the drip line or where the tree was planted, ten fifteen holes so you know the moisture is getting down into the root zone. Okay, if you get water in your grass, you're not getting nothing down into the root ball at all. The waters the grass and dirts getting most of it. So you god make sure you get water into that root ball. If they're about ten years old, that root ball

is probably going to be about eighteen inches twenty inches down. Put you a bunch of holes around each one of them. Start flying the water. Okay. And my other question is, come everywhere in march. What's your good fertilizer to you use to get them going pretty good? There's all go ahead, No go ahead, I say, I know you do the injections,

but do you ever do just a top dressing of fertilizer. No, no, no, no, we only do the injections, okay, And we love the Lasco products, the eight eight sixteen and the man I can't think of the numbers all in my head right now, but we just we stick to a lot of the less Co stuff. It seems to be doing well for us on the trees. Uh. But you can use anything as uh uh man. Any nitro falls and pertal home, any of that stuff makes good fertilized for trees. I don't know, you know you can try those

people like that. I'm a good roots stimulator. Any Medina products for us works well, has to grow soil activators, stuff like that. That's a good, good point, Albert. The good news is right now your tree is going to go deciduous and you don't have to worry about much hardly at all about water till we get back in Montgomery. That we you shouldn't have to do a bunch of water at all. But if we go through a period like we did last year and then get out there and me holes as

you can get down around that root ball there you go. You know we want to keep it. That's a good point. And you know last year that was so brutal that I mean, it was hard to keep up period. Years ago. Years ago, I saw a study in Stephenville, Texas where they took a peach tree and they planted it in a giant pot that had a scale under it. So it's kind of like where you used to drive a truck across things and weigh your truck when you were hauling in,

and weigh it again when you were going out. Well, imagine a pot with a peach tree. A mature peach tree they found was pumping forty gallons a day in the summer at its leaves. Now you multiply that times a big landscape tree and it's one hundred degrees for days and days and days on end no rain. I mean, that's a lot of water, and it's easy to go into pretty significant stress. And I know, Martin, I'll tell you that when a tree gets in that situation, you got to do

something for it. Yeah, dude. We kept all three of our machines running throughout the summer just doing deep root water, not even deep retfeeding on some major eyeboaks and water oaks and red oaks pecans. People wanted to keep them healthy and throughout the year. We probably didn't lose but maybe one through

the whole summer, which is not bad. But yeah, we go into those drought piers like that Skip. It's the more water, more mort you can get it down to that root ball, the better off you're going to be with them. That's a that's a good trying to keep alive. Yeap, Hey, Albert, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that call very much, Thank you, sir. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, Martin was referring to the hash to grow, the Medina hash to grow

six twelve six. I recommend it for any kind of planting. I mean, certainly you put in a tree watered in with hasht to grow. It's got the six twelve six, which is a nutrient, the macro nutrient content. It's got seaweed extract, it's got humic acid in it, it's got Medina soil activator. I even use it when I'm planting like a tamato plant, or a flower in a flower bed, or a shrub like a rose,

or putting in a perennial plant. Martin, what I always tell people is you water it in when you plant it, and then about five days later I'll water those plant kind of plants in again with it and about five days later again. I guess with a tree you could just keep going for a while. But generally for most small plants like tomatoes and flowers and perennials, three times about a week apart is a good way to give them a boost. Yeah, and I recommend that the soil activator to pretty much anybody

that has the clay gumbos soil in this southern climate. If you've got trees and plants and you've got just hard clave yeah gumbo that you can't dig through it, the soil activator is going to be your number one. Apply that every sixty to ninety days, just being I tell people, spray it on your sidewalk. It'll make that grow. You know. It's just to me and Medina soil Activater is one of the best out there. I wonder if you finally get trees to grow. Yeah, that's well, that's a good

one, well said, I appreciate that. Well, we're running up here against another top of the hour break. Are you able to hang around talk a little bit after that? All right? Yeah, I'm good to go. Okay, do you need to do I need to wait a minute while you go make sure in it and the ladies approve that. Oh no, they are all they're they got cookies and doughnuts putting out now, so all right, I don't need them mad at me. We're good. That sounds

fun. Well, we will come back, and we will we will definitely do that. We're hitting our little break time here in just a sec our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Let me say that again, seven one three two one two five eight seven four. If you will give Joshua call, he will get you on the boards and when we come back after the top of the hour break, you will

be the first up. In the meantime, I want to remind you that if you're interested in tomato growing and you haven't signed up for the Texas Tomato Lovers Conference that is coming up on January thirteenth. Now, this is quite a shind It gets an ol day deal. You get breakfast, you get lunch, and you get a lot of talks. I'll be there talking about the Ten Commandments of tomatoes. A doctor ong from the State Disease lab as a talk and I love this. Sounds like a pathologist the beauty of disease

tomatoes. So I guess we'll have to find out what that means. Patty Leander, writer for Texas Gardener Magazine, Best Varieties for twenty twenty four plus eight Steps to Tomato Grafting Success, Destinoak, the Texas Garden guys can be talking about mastering container grown tomatoes. Rosanne Green growing tomatoes with and for the young family. I mean, it's a big deal, a big shindig. It's limited space. It's going to be out there at the Emporium Chapel at

the Anti gurosing Fororium. So sign up soon the phone number two five four eight four eight ninety three ninety three, or you can just email Sally at Texas Gardener dot com Sally at Texas Gardener dot com to sign up for the Texas Tomato Lover's Conference. By the way, if you've got a gardener in the list, that would be a wonderful gift for them to be able to go out and just spend a whole day learning about tomatoes in the beautiful setting

of the anti crosing program out there in Independence, Texas. We'll be right back, 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 Scipe Richt. It's so crazy just watch him as well. Welcome back to Garden Line. We're glad you're listening and we're talking trees this

afternoon or this morning. I'm already to the afternoon. We're talking with Martin Spoonboorf from Affordable Tree Service and a lot of the things that you need to know about in terms of how do you care for your trees, the things we typically see done wrong, some of the trees that do a little bit better here than others. So it just kind of wide open if you've got a tree question. Dolls seven one three, two, one two five eight

seven four seven one three two fifty eight seventy four. I actually have an open board right now. It'd be a great time to get in and have an opportunity to talk to Martin pick his brain yourself right there off the bet. If you live down in the Richmond area, you need to know about Enchanted Forest. If you've never been there before, you really ought to go in. Chenned Forest is a wonderful place. I always love going out there.

They have everything you could possibly need. Right now, there's some incredible holiday seals going on. They've got forty percent off all the house plants, succulents and cacti and cool season. This is holiday season, I mean house plant season. We are at our house we I mean they've just got house plants all over the place, taking care of them, make moving things around, making sure they have what they need. And it beautifies the indoor part

of the home. Well when you're kind of honkered up inside because the weather gets a little cool, if you don't want to be out in the garden, take your house busy off forty percent off holiday decor, or twenty five percent off Christmas trees and wreaths and holiday imrillas, even some of the smaller points that is on sale as well. Now when you go to Enchanted, you're going to find everything. Their vegetable section is packed with cool seasoned vegetables.

Their herb section has a wonderful array, a wide array of herbs. And this is a good season to plant herbs. Anything that's perennial, whether it's flowers or grasses, whether it's a rose bush, whether it's a tree. When you get it planted during this season, it has a lot of time to get those roots spreading out and starting to establish so that when the hot weather arrives, you got a little bit of a head start. So don't don't delay, go ahead and take advantage of the sales that are going

on right now. Any Channing Forest is a great, great place you can go out FM twenty seven fifty nine out of Richmond. So if you're heading up toward sugar Land Way, it's off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine. Enchanted Forests are you you know what? You could just go straight to the websites too, I I you know, Enchanted Forest is uh. They redid their website recently, and I think I've talked about this before, but it is outstanding. Go check it out. It's Enchanted Forest, Richmond,

TX dot com. Simple as that. All right, we're gonna go back. We got Martin here. Still are you still there, Martin? I'm still here. Okay, I've been. I was a little worried that the ladies that put you to work again doing something else. You know what, These women at these church they'll find a way to get me doing things around here. Yes, no, I know, but yeah, see it's our Sunday to pull the trailer. So okay, we're like to sit up team for our church. That's good. Oh, that's that's very good.

Yeah. You know usually those kind of conversations start with here, make yourself useful, and then give you something to do. That's good. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. No, that's I just was saying hello to some of the church members. All right, good, yeah, I'm ready when you are all right, good, Well, I want to talk just talking

about trees again a little bit. You know about proper tree training. A lot of folks and you see this all the time when you go to a site, you see a tree that was not trained properly, and now you've got these really narrow branch angles or something where the bark gets kind of included and it's likely to split off during a storm and stuff. I think early tree training is really important. Like you to comment on some of that as

well, Yeah, it does. It's a you know, if you get trees where they're like you said on the construction site and that things are just hanging down everywhere, you want to start training the tree to grow up and you glad lives will snap off of it. You've got to be able to straightened that up so the tree can heal itself up. But you really want to start doing this underneath? Can't you work so you can't get the tree to grow in the proper wayfore you skip. That's that's that's a good point

when they just don't want to go there to start cutting limbs off. Yeah, one side the other. If you can't don't know what you're doing, then you're going to really mess the tree up. So it's good to have somebody like us who knows how to somebody has an eye like I do for tree trimmy. Yep, all right, all right, we're good. Yeah. They just give us a call whenever they needed They mentioned a guardline, buddy, then we put them at the top of our list. All right.

Well, we tell them to do that all the time, and not to delay because when you do a job right like you'll do, you tend to stay busy. And so don't wait till the end of winter to give them a call. Yeah, get on, I have to. I tell people they want to know when to start calling me. I'll tell them already in August to get on my schedule for October to February. Yeah, because after that. But after the fifteenth of October, we just we get covered

up really really fast. And it's all due to the garden Line. Thank you. Skip you know, but they are yearly just they know this time to year to prove these trees out when that tree is formant light. Now, okay, well we staying busy. All right? Well, good, that's what you want to do. I'm a run take a call. I don't think this is a tree related, but let me let me check on this one. Steven from clear Lake. Welcome to garden Line, Thanks sir. Actually, I do have a tree that needs a lot of help.

I think it's dead, but it's still green because all the weeds that are growing up over it. So I'll probably send Martin the picture. But what I called you about. I sent you a picture of a weed that's pervasive in my yard and my significant other's yard had little, tiny white flowers, and just wondered if it had a chance. You see that I got an email from was that Mark? Yeah, okay, I use Stephen because I don't want my friends to know how stupid I am when I'm on the air.

Well, don't worry about that. We won't worry about that what your weed is. That's called slender ast Slender astra sprouts during the warm season and it grows unnoticed in your lawn unless your lawn is drought stressed. A slender astra has a bluish green leaf, and it really shows up in a lawn that's dying from drought. But when people really notice it in when the little dime size white, pink, lavenderish color daisy like flowers start to bloom.

At this point, it's too late to spray. It's already reproductive, it's already got seeds viable on it. Your best bet is to pull it out as much as you can get out, because every flower's got fifty seeds and a plant one hundred flowers. So you pull one plant and you've done some good. So maybe you can't put it all out, But the more you get out the better. It's a taproot, so in moist soil, you just grab it where it goes in the ground, kind of wiggle as you

pull, and it'll come right out. You can use a weeding fork if you want. But I've got a patch next to a neighbor who doesn't take care of their weeds ever, and their slender aster comes in and I just go out there with a five gallon bucket on Saturday morning and spend a little bit of time, fill the bucket up, and do it again next Saturday. Well, I've not used a weaeding for it. Does that make it easier than just grabbing it with your fingers, because it comes up pretty easy

if they can get a good grip on it. Yes, it does for me too. Some people's hand strength isn't enough to really hang on, and some people, if the soil is not moist enough, it'll just break off, and so some people use a weeding fork to help out. But that's the best bet. You can use a pre emergent next year to prevent the seeds from getting established. But anyway, okay, all right, that's great,

thank you very much. And the reason I use an alias is because I once heard that there's no stupid questions, there are only stupid people asking them. No, I say, there's no stupid questions, there's stupid answers. Although I have heard stupid questions, I pretend that they're not. Uh, I'll worry about giving a stupid answer. You take care. Thank you

very much for that call. We're gonna take a break here, Ed and Marvel will be the first about two up when we come back with Martin in just a moment our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Than all right, welcome back to guarden Line. We're glad you are here. We got Martin spoon Moore from Affordable Tree Service helping with some tree related questions today. And Martin, I'm gonna have to run right back

to the phones. We got them lining up again here. We're going to go to ed in cat Spring. Hello, Ed, how you doing? I got a quick question on a red oak tree. All right, it's been planted about ten years and I'm noticing the box splitting up pretty good around the bottom area down there. I don't see any green wood, you know when I peek in there to look at it. Uh, that's something about find wise all right, Martin, Martin, what do you think here?

Have the questions? Kip? It was cutting out? Okay, we've got a yah it was. But I think I believe that just Ed correct me if I'm wrong. Was that he's got a red oak and at the base the bark is splitting that that show is the tree still have foliage on it. Yeah, I'm sorry. The song's breaking up. Yeah, y yes, Uh, what it's turning from from? Uh the weather? Okay, Well, that's showing signs of stress on the bark. So the deep root feeling will help you with that. But you also would want to put a

Freeni sealer on it. Uh, you know, it's just to kind of steal that wound. Uh. But definitely get the tree on a feeding program where you're supplying with what it needs to cycle correctly. It's just showing signs of stress. Okay. The drought weather this year, red oaks were one of the hardest ones to keep alive throughout the year, uh, with this drought. So the more you can deep root feed it, the better the tree is going to be. Thank you, all right, Well you take

care. Yeah. A lot of times, you know, Martin, in a yard, people will get the lawnmower and the weed eater too close to the trunk and out in a pasture they got the brush hog banging up against the trunk and you can do a lot of damage down there. Oh yeah, you just got to be careful around expecting the red oaks. The bark

is very salt on it, and it don't take much. And without putting a pair of eyes on his skip, you know yourself, it's kind of hard to see what it is. But sure sounds like he's talking to stress. But right again, we eat her a lot more too. They just gotta be careful around the red oaks and the maples, that is true. Something else, Martin that I've gotten a number of calls on in the past

year is what we call southwest injury. Where you've got the young like a red oak that has very thin bark, it hadn't developed the thick bark yet, and the sun shines late in the day, the warmest part of the day about four PM, and the cool season, it's baking down on that southwest side of the trunk, and the juices start to flow, and that night the temper drops down and you get these splits on the southwest side.

We've had a number of pictures come in. Typically someone will call and I'll say, is that on the southwest side, And you hear the silence while they try to figure out which direction it is, and then they're like, yeah, how would you what southwest? What? How how do you know that? But you probably have seen that before. You know, it's get a lot of these nurseries, except where you go buy them people planning their self, they don't. They don't do a very good job at maintaining the

red oaks. And I mean said, whenever you apply one, you want to make sure this it doesn't have the splits in it, It don't have any decayed spots in the trunk of the tree. H You just got to look for those kind of things when you're planting those red oaks. All right, they are a beautiful tree and one of my favorites to plant do well. We just got to make sure you get a good one. That's a good point. Well, now we're going to go out to Marv in Richmond.

Hello, Marv, Howdy howdy, good show there. I have a live oak that I a Southern live oak that I planned about two and a half years ago, and I've been trying to four feet it to get it going. It was probably i don't know, six feet tall something. I've got it like a twenty feet now and it's about six feet a tree drip line. Your customary lawn fertilizer is three one two during the growing year, and then you usually put your lawn to sleep with a one two three fertilizer?

Now, is it okay if I take that one two three fertilizer and fertilize that tree with it at this time of the year. And the way I fertilize, I take a rod and I poke it down into the ground about a tripe about twelve fourteen inches deep around the drip line with about twenty holes, and I bet I put probably close to twelve to fifteen pounds of fertilizer in those holes. Is it okay to do that again this time of the year with one two three fertilizer force feed it. I don't understand that,

but yeah, I don't know. I'm not familiar with that fertilized I would tell you a smart play would be go to if it's only two years old, go to a Medina product which is all organic Medina has to grow and feeds your tree with that for a few years. I don't think I'd be using any type of grass fertilize on it. I'm not familiar what you're using, but you gotta be careful with some of that grass products because you start putting products down with that tresine in it and then trees that will wind

up dying on him. Oh no, I'll be careful with that. I do use the nicrofos stuff then, you know, you know nineteen five nine or the six twelve sixteen. Yeah, you never we're gonna hear me say anything bad about nitrofals, Yeah, Marva, the nitroposs product that is used typically on lawns in the fall as an eight twelve sixteen. Uh right, And then that we'd lower the nitrogen because we're not trying to push the grass to grow, would trying to get that potassium in it for cold heartiness and

preparing it for coming into out in the spring. And that is exactly the one I'm using. That's why I'm asking if it's okay on the tree. Yeah, just make sure you're getting the hold down about eighteen inches okay, finally not that far, but it is. Yeah, the rootball on that tree is gonna be about twelve to eighteen inches deep. Okay. I'm going to make sure you get all the way around it. Okay, all right, thank you, Okay, all right, Mark, thanks for call.

Appreciate that. I appreciate that very much. Uh. You know, we're talking all kinds of things trees today here with Martin spoon Moore from Affordable Tree Service, and uh, we've talked a little bit about some different aspects of trees and whatnot. I was talking to someone a while back, Martin about the cypress trees. And I've got a house up in College Station that has

three cypress trees in the yard and they're the old ball cypress. So those darn darn knees are coming up everywhere, and that it's a clay soil stays a little wet, and boy, that is a lawnmower target that I just don't I could do without. But I don't know what you Is there anything you do about that kind of problem. What we do for customers with them, we show them that We tell them to get your little pick axe because they're so soft. Skip you just wing that pick axe one time. It'll

take that whole right off for you. Yeah, that's what a lot of customer customers, they love those trees. Falls Piper is a beautiful tree to me, but once those ds start, they don't stop. But man, it's such very soft. You could take your little grubbing hole or a little chopping eggs and just man, they'll come right off. Nothing to them. Yeah, well that way. Someone told me that a while back. And

you know what I found. If you picture a tree leaving the trunk and going out into the yard and then there's this bump sticking up the not I'll take my grubbing hoe and I'll hit it on the tree side, and then I'll hit it on the other side, and that whole section pops right out real easy. I was surprised at how easy that is. Yeah, we have we have our little chopping picking axe is what we carry on our trucks.

We take when we take roots out for people and they'll ask us about the knees and we'll show them, Hey, we can get one or two for you, but you're gonna you'll have a million before you know. It's a pekil grubbo and here's the way to do it. They come right off. Yeah, but you're not gonna stop it once it starts. Yeah, that's a good point. There are actually some types of cypress that don't do that, like the manta zuma cypress. Isn't bad about that. Yeah,

I know a guy up at Steven F. Austin University. Uh, he's a horticulture professor. He uh has gone to China and brought back germ plasm from cypress trees there that don't have knees, and he's been selecting seeds from all those to find the best ones to grow here. And I think that'd be a good service to just have a cypress that doesn't do that people could put in their yards, because it does get old chopping those knees out,

it does. But that cypress, I tell you they're good. You got standing water in your yard or property somewhere that you just can't get rid of the water. Put you a bald cypress or any cypress out there, give it, give it a year, two years that water be gone. Well, there you go. I got a friend that did that in sugar Land. He's he put about eight of them in there. He tried his backyard completely up. Okay, that's a that's a good approach, a good approach

to it. So when when you are out, you know, taking care of folks trees and stuff, do y'all ever deal with insects and diseases and things like that or is that a whole different area you don't mess with. Now, we take care of anything that consistent tree works. If we sprayed for the insects, the pine mark, beetle, the wooden board, we treat for funguses, anything that consists the tree work. You know. Me, I don't do grass and lawns and fences and all that stuff. I'm

strictly a tree. All right. We're good. Yeah, we treat every every tree. If if it can be saved, we'll tell you. Let us see if we can save it. If it can't, I'll tell you that too. I will not waste the timer money on it. Well, and that's what I tell people on the air, that you're not gonna sell them something that they don't need. You know, one of the issues we're

having a lot lately is crape myrtle bark scale. You know that the sooty mold just gets all over them, and that that's not an easy one to get rid of. No now, but time they get it dust, they done did the crap. They got tired of looking at it. They do the crepe myrtle mascar on it. There you go, that's what people think here, let's just cut it off. Yeah, Well, no, we're good, all right. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to take another break. Can you hang around for the next time? All right, I'm

all everybody, all right, we'll keep talking. Hey, if you want to ask Martin a question, give us a call. It's three seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two kt r H. If you like to doll boy the letters and you can pick Martin's brain and I'll jump in there and we will just see whatever kinds of questions you have on trees, We'll we'll dive right into it. So feel free to do that. We're going to take a break now and turn

it over to Nicky for the news. I can't go wrong with a sleep at the wheel. There's that Western swing. Hey, you're listening to garden Line and we're talking to Scott McGrath. Scott McGrath, I was just talking to somebody about best control. A minute ago. We're talking to Martin Spoon Moore. Martin, you don't you don't spray for roaches? Do you see there? Hold on just a second, let me get more there we go, get Martin up here. Martin, I did you hear that? What?

Oh? I was just saying. We're here with Scott McGrath, and then I said, oh, I'm just talking to somebody about pest control a minute ago. You don't spray for roaches, do you. Okay, you got control work, You got plenty you can do. Hey, I want to ask you. I want to ask you a little bit about tree removal. In fact, I have several things I want to ask about, but tell me a little bit about the tree removal process. I know that you

were talking about you don't plant pines. Boy, I tell you, when a pine dies and that bark starts to come loose, that it's interesting to climb, doesn't it. Yeah, it's very tricky. You really need to know what you're doing. But as long as the tree is holding its needles, even if the bark has come off, it's still you can still get up it pretty safely. Just got to live it out and then block it

out slowly. Yeah, it says you don't want to leave a pine tree standing too long after the bark and once the needles drop off of it, it really gets dangerous. Okay, as soon as they die, the stapess they do is get the pine out of there. Yeah. Well, somethings with water ropes too, if they die, man, try to pull those things out within a thirty or sixty days, because the longer you let it stands, the mortals dry out, and the more dangerous it is to climb.

Okay, and you know, I know, I know that you guys are insured. And I joke a lot about the what I call two jerks on a chainsaw tree service. Basically, somebody owns a chainsaw and a pickup and they drive around sticking business cards in people's doors. When you start looking at somebody that doesn't have insurance, a lot can go wrong. Even to a trained person, occasionally something can go wrong, and insurance is essential. Yeah, you want to have that ability to cover their property, houses and

stuff. And you also want to have that workman's comp to cover if somebody does fall out of one of those trees. Okay, you don't have those two things, I would send them on down the road. Yes, we don't really a tree company. Don't really need to be bonded. Everybody asked us if we're bonded, but we don't. That's only good for like test controls and somebody that's actually going inside the home. We have no business inside your home or your garage. All of our works outside, so we we

care the general liability and the workings count. Well. I've watched uh, let's just say, cheap tree companies. You know, people that come along for some little bargain fee to fix the take things out, and I've watched the horror stories that come from that. Number one, bad bad workmanship. Number two leaving a mess when they drive off. Now you just have this

huge mess in your yard that didn't clean it up. And then the insurance is another thing, and that's why it's so important to go with someone that knows what they're doing and has taking the professional responsibility of things like insurance, which I know you guys do. Yeah, it's just there's that chuck in a truck is what we call them. Truck Yeah, chucking a truck. It goes down to home depot, you get to a song. Next thing, you know, he's a tree man. There you go. Don't there

anything about it? How hard can it be? I mean, you just put the song. It's pretty rough sometimes, but I've been doing it for fifty six years. Yeah, about fifty six years I've been doing treework, so I've seen it all. Well, I believe it or not. I've taken a few trees down in my time, not commercially, not you know, right next to a six million dollar house or anything like that, and

just out in the field. And with pines, you know, they grow and people probably don't realize this, but they grow twisting like a barber pole, and so you've got grain that's kind of not just going up and down, it's kind of spiraling and sometimes you cut and it goes a weird direction you didn't see coming. Yeah, you really be careful. We're making cuts on pines and even some of the bigger oaks. You just gotta know where to not know how to cut it, because it can get away from me

quickly. There's a lot of fun stuff on YouTube that I love to watch, Like somebody I saw one the other day. It must have been like a Norfolk Cottumn pine down in the tropics, but it's a very tall, skinny tree. The guy cut the top off of it and it made lean to the side when the top fell, and luckily he was belted in because that tree came whipping up and I mean it flung him around like I don't know how I hang under that tree, but it was it was scary looking.

Yeah, I've seen the one on there there was a guy in the palm tree and when it bent it Ben shot him like a sling shot. Yeah, change that kind of stuff, But that happens here in Houston every day. Oh my gosh. I have a collection of videos or photos that are called why Women Live Longer Than Men? And there's one, Martin where a guy has a forklift all the way up to the top and there are two fifty five gallon drums on the forklift and a guy standing on the top

fifty five gallon drum to cut on a tree. So what could go wrong with that? Yeah, it's like if I did that, my wife would get on the phone and call the insurance company really quick to try to get me insure it up as possible, because oh my god, that's not gonna end. Well, hey, Martin, I've got to go ahead. Uh yeah. We love the people that use the ladders. Those those get those forty foot ladders out and go cut top the three off and next thing you

know, they're laying on the ground and so is the ladder. Oh boy, every day, I tell you that's it's sad and scary, but it's true. Hey, We're gonna go out to Dayton now and take a phone call from Marshall. Hey, Marshall, how are you doing? Hey? How are you doing? Skip good? Hey? I got a quick question. I was looking to order from a nursery to Oklahoma red bud trees and because they to me, they what I've seen, they cluster out more on

the flowers than Eastern red bud. H what do you think of going with something like an Oklahoma red bud? Oklahoma's fine, It's it's kind of one of the standard varieties that everybody knows, you know, been around a long time. There are a lot of other good ones. There's there's some that have a very interesting color, kind of a burgundy look to the foliage. There's some that one that is called Sunrise or something like that that's kind of

got golden yellows and orange bronze the oranges to the foliage. And but I tell you a lot, and it's it's hard to find. But the true Texas red bud, not the Eastern red bud with the heart shaped leaf with a point at the bottom, but the Texas it's got a more leathery leaf, a little bit shiny, uh and it's more rounded without such a prominent point. I've seen one of those growing outside a Lano, Texas, in

a pasture between the highway. It was right growing right in the fence line, and I mean it was green and happy in the grass all around it. It turned brown from the heat of summer, and that really impressed me. And So if you're looking for something that's a little tougher for the tough, hot, full sun of exposures, Texas red budd is also a good one. I can't seem to find anything other than Eastern red bud around here.

Yeah, you're gonna have to think outside the box of red buds because they're hard to find, and if you get some fine one, it's not gonna be in that good a shape because of the freezes a couple of years ago, the drought last year. A lot of nurseries and that's all they'll

have. But you're gonna have to go outside of the Houston area, like Skiff was saying, and search that way for red buds, any de size red bud, or any type of good red budd, because these nurseries nowadays will tell you anything that's just chewed up, being beat up and broken and that's not what you're looking for. Hey, I'm gonna have to jump in here, Marshall. Can you hang on just a little bit. I gotta go to a break and we can come back to your be happy to continue

this discussion. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight to seventy four. We got fifty minutes left on the show today. If you want to call in, now's the time to do it. Welcome back to Garden Line. We're glad you're listening today. I wanted to tell you about a couple of things we were talking about fertilizing trees and products and whatnot.

Microlife Fertilizer has what I refer to as their blue plus blue. Now that means a bag, a dry, dry fertilizer bag of Microlife Ultimate eight four six. It's an organic fertilizer. And then the liquid is Microlife Ocean Harvest. That's a fish based fertilizer. Those are used a lot of people use them when they're planting their trees. A lot of people use them on all kinds of things that you mean, you use them anything from lawn to

vegetables and whatnot. But those two products can pack a really good punch. Being an organic, they're not salt based, so you're not likely to burn roots or you're not gonna burn roots with them. The Ocean harvest is even good as a foliar spray. And you can find Microlife products everywhere. You can go online to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out locations, or you can just go to a place like south Fertilizer. You know Bob Over at Southwest

Fertilizer. He carries every fertilizer you can imagine, and then some everything I recommend here on guardline. And he's in Southwest Houston, the corner of Bissinette and Runwick. You can go to his website is Southwest Fertilizer dot com. You're going to find the best selection of herbicides and exercies and fungicides anywhere. At Southwest Fertilizer dot com. There's an eighty foot wall of garden tools. There's a Christmas gift idea for you. And also he's got that kneeling bench

I always talk about. It folds up and you can use it as a sitting bench out when you're doing garden work. You can flip it over and kneel down on it, and it's got those those legs that serve as handles to get up and down. If you're nowhere north of forty, you know how important that is. But Southwest Fertilizer is it's been around since nineteen fifty five. It's an institution. And the way I like to put it is, if they don't have it as Southwest Fertilizer, you don't need it,

because that's pretty much the way it is. We're going to go back out now to Marshall and we were here with Martin Spoon, Moore and Marshall. You were talking about that red bud, and I want to give you a few places to try. You may strike out on this, but we've got the RCW Nursery that has Williamson Tree Farm up in Plannersville, so they grow a lot of different kinds of trees. You've got Verdant Tree Farms, got three different locations here in the Houston area. They grow a lot of different

kinds of trees. And then Buchanans is a retail nursery done in the Heights. It specializes in natives and they might be able to get that Texas red bud in for you. They'll reach out to native nurseries over in the Austin area and whatnot. And then Arburgate out in Tomball is another one that has a wide variety. So any of those give them a call and see if they have it or if they can get it, and I bet one of those or more will be able to find that tree for you. Hey,

I sure appreciate that, thank you. Okay, all right, Well that was a lot Martin. I didn't know if you had anything else you wanted to add to the gate. Uh and Corney is probably be your best shots if you're in town to order a red bud like that. All right. I don't think for nant are those are going to have those type of red buds. I'm not one hundred percent sure. Yeah, Uh, Arbrogate or Cornelius to be able to get something a lot quicker. Yeah, good point.

Hey Marshall, thanks for the call. I appreciate that very much. Sometimes you just got to call around. You know, a lot of times those those plants that are really unique and special are hard to find because people don't ask. They don't ask for Nobody goes around asking for a Texas Red Bud or or there are a lot of other things that I wish we had more of here, like those cypress that don't produce these, but people don't ask for them, so you're not going to find them. Yeah, just

research to find it. Yeah, okay, Hey, let me ask you some more questions about stuff you guys do that I know other people are interested in. You do root barricading, and a lot of times people and you go into older parts of huon these big beautiful trees and the sidewalks look like the rocky mountains. I mean by kill yourself trying to ride a bike done the sidewalk. Tell me about root barricading, what's done and what it will

and won't accomplish. Root barricading is expensive. It's just about cheaper to cut the tree than it is to time you buy the right material to put it in. But what we do is trench along the side of the home about

about a foot away from the home if it can be done. If it can be you got room to get in their work about twenty four inches deep, and then we'll fly to Plexi glass three eighths plexi glass, or if you want to spend a little more money, they make an actual root barricade, but we'd have to get it out of trail out of North Carolina. Okay, but it's lifetime warrant to either one of those. I last a lifetime. Then put it down twenty four inches and make sure we cut the

roots. Steal the roots up after you cut them, and then put the froot bear came in the deep root feeds the tree. All right, it'll beep that forever. Good. That's good. A little work to get fruit. Berri is the Sometimes it's it's easier just to take the tree out. It's cheaper just to take the tree out than it is because root berry about about three grand every eight feet. Holy molyh Okay, that's why you say take on the flightway. Yeah, just another example of how doing things right

to begin with can help avoid some major expense down the line. Yeah. I think the last one it was right at three thousand, thirty five hundred every eight feet. Okay, mark off eight feet and there's thirty five hundred bucks. That's material, labor and to install it. Yeah. It's not a simple thing, that's for sure. Hey. One other question is about stump grinding. I know you guys do that too, Yes, sir, well, tell us a little bit about what you do and what you know

what situations that's especially helpful. The Well, if you got stumps that you're trying to get out of your yard, what we do is have you get called the four one one, have them come out and market. If you've got sprinklers and water lines and gas lines, electrical lines. Before we can grind that stump, all of that has to be marked everything because that machine will just tear it. It's designed to tear the stump out, grind it completely out, and it all depends on how deep you want to go with

it. Where's the stump. Our machine has to have a thirty six inch opening from the street to the stump to be able to grind it. Okay, and we'll grind it down about eight or ten inches for you and then watch your grass grow back over it. But yeah, we don't put that grinder on anything unless everything is marked. Yes, you know, so we know what's there. We don't dig around transformer boxes and stuff like that.

You don't know what's there. Yeah, And well you have to get that number out again because there's gonna be people that are out there just doing some other thing in the yard digging and it's free to have them come market right. Yeah, I think it was a one one. That's what it is. The call. Yeah, you come to market for you. There have been several numbers I've seen over the years like that. But you, I

guess a little quick Google search would find exactly what you want. You're just trying to market your water lines and electrical lines because you're gonna take a stump out, Yeah, and they'll come out and market for free for you. Well, when you grind the stump, you got a lot of wood chips mixed in with the soil there. Uh, you want all of that haul the way too? Yeah, every been that that needs to be. That's

not good for anything. A lot of people like to keep it. We tell them it's your choice, but we haul a lot away because it's not really it's not really good for flower beds or if you've mayby got a lot of properly with the low spots, you can put it out there. But for it to be any good, it had to break it up, and like compost, let it set up for years and it's turned it into a compost pile. Yeah, just cut grinding stump, throwing the flower beds.

It's not really good for that. Yeah. Well, and when you mix all that wooden with soil, it's gonna sink as it decays over time. So what was level will become a whole again. Yep, sure will do you do you have any recommendations when someone has a stump from a former tree? How close do you recommend planting another tree to that? Some people want to put them in the exact same spot, or what do you say? So a lot of people, when they let me take down a tree,

we'll tell them a lot of a lot of companies won't go back. You're not supposed to go back in the same spot for like two years after the stump's been grinded. But you can move it over a tree ten feet in either direction if you got room to work with away from the stop and plants a new tree. That's good. That is good information. I don't know if you can hear it, go back on top of old stump, all right, Martin. I don't know if you can hear the music, but

I can, and it's saying this show is coming to an end. I so appreciate you being on today. Thank you, thank you. This is Martin spoon more. Go ahead it with Missy and we'll set it up for a January. We could come me in on a Saturday. Do the radio show sounds like fun. The website is afftree service dot com and the phone number seven one three six' nine nine twenty six sixty three. If you're

answered and having Martin do the work, don't delay. Get the call in now because he's going to get booked up here, and that with thirty years of experience and doing things right, that that's kind of how things go. So please do that, Martin, Thank you, and please tell the ladies there that I so appreciate them them allowing me to take away their worker today