Vegetable Garden Tips

Welcome to k t r H Garden Line with Skip Richard. It's just watch him as world map basic. Good morning, Welcome back to garden Line. Let's talk about gardening. What would you like to visit about seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H if you'd like to give us a call and we will talk about those kinds of topics that you are interested in. The folks at r CW Nurseries, you know, that is the place where you can find a wide

variety of all kinds of things. That's a nursery that's on Tomball Parkway to forty nine where it comes into belt Wait eight on the north west side of Houston, and it's easy to get to, easy to find, and when you get there, you're going to find everything you need. I ask them for a list of their roses earlier in the year, and oh my gosh, like four or five pages, single spaced a list of all the different

kind of roses that they can get a hold of for you. They also grow their own trees out at Williamson Tree Farm out in the Plannersville area, and so they have an excellent selection of every kind of tree that you can imagine you'd want to plant here. Things that do grow here, and that includes when I say trees, I mean large shrubs as well, of course holly's and whatnot. They know how to grow them, they know how to pick the ones that belong in the yards here in the Greater Houston area.

That's what they specialize in. And it's all there at RCW Nursery. You know, David and the team out at RCW do an excellent job of all of that. And so here we are, we're at the end of winter time. If you want to get a woody ornamental on the ground, you're not going to find a better time. Don't delay, go ahead, go ahead and get it. Just pick it up, get it, bring it back. You can water a little bit while you get the bed ready and everything. Get get set and ready to go and get that thing in the

ground as soon as you can. This Uh, we've had a few kind of days of some cloudy, rainy stuff. That's gonna go away. We're going to be back in nice sunshine and it'd be a great time to get those things planted. Build a quality mix into the soil and put in a quality plant like they have. They're at the RCW Nurseries. You know, you can go online to RCW Nurseries dot com. You can find out more

about them there. But just know this that from fifteen gallons up the two hundred gallons, that is a place where you can get quality, quality trees and a wide, wide variety of roses along with everything else. If they sell at the nursery. You're listening to garden Line again our phone number seven one three two one two kt r H. We're going to go out to Cleveland now and talk to David. Hello, David, good morning, Skip. What's up. I have a I have three questions. They're probably pretty

short. First, I got a plumbria. A friend gave me a cutting about three or four years ago. I got in about a twenty twenty five gallon pot and I moved inside for the freeze. I've protected it well up till now. And my shed got a little bit cold. And it has three branches, but two feet tall, and the branches out in three and the tips of the branch is about excuse me, about six or so inches of them got cold enough that they turned kind of mushy. They're soft.

I'm not sure what I should do with that. It seems to be still solid at the bottom and there's green. You know, when you peel the skin a little bit, Have I lost that thing completely or probably it's probably not. You could have a soft spot on the stem somewhere, you know, where it also was damaged. But I would kind of wait and watch

it a little bit. You can cut out any area that you know is dead, that you know was rotted, and just get a fresh cut and make sure that it has a chance then to dry over that cut that you made, which it will, and it should be fine. Primaria doesn't even think about growing til it really warms up, and so there's still in a dormant stage. There's no rush on anything. Unless you just saw you had an active decay going on in there. Then I would go below that area

and make the cut. When you make a cut, you'll know if the center looks rotted or not. But I think it's gonna be. I think you're gonna be okay a bit two or three weeks from now. Probably do the cut on it. Oh yeah, you could. I would look it over it kind of feel on fill those stems and stuff and check it over and if you feel like that, you know you have an active decay going on. I would do the printing now, but I don't think you need

to. I think you can wait a little bit and then let's see what the plant looks like as we begin to warm up just a little bit. Okay, good deal. Now, I got a blood orange in a Sam Houston peach. Okay, the blood orange. It got really bit pretty hard by the it was twenty twenty one. I think the real super cold. I protected it. I had a heat lamp and all that. But the December before that it produced some peaches. It wasn't old enough. I thought I'd got them all off, but I hadn't. And not peaches, dang

it, oranges oranges. And yeah, it had hit some in some dense foliage at the bottom, and there were about eight of them, and they were really good. I followed Ranta's advice by knocking all the blooms and stuff off of it, and I missed eight of them. But it hasn't produced an orange since then. And it just got bit by this last freeze here this spring or winter, and it lost lost all the sleeves. But it looks like it's sprouting little leaves. Yeah, the all the stems are really

green and that right, that thing's probably going to be all right. How long should that thing go without producing oranges? Well, yeah, it depends on grain conditions and a lot of things, but it will start producing again. You know, you haven't lost the tree. As long as there's growth above the bud at the bottom, then that's growth through. Yeah. I never lost it down to the graft. It's still the same wood that it

was. Well, I would wait, I'd watch it and wait right now, David, and let the new growth do what it's going to do. I wouldn't want to print it anymore. Right now, it is super susceptible to cold because you've got succulent new growth coming out. You don't have a canopy to kind of hold in some of the radiant heat coming up from the soil, and so you don't want to add that to that pruning it, which is also a stimulating thing to do to a plant, is to prune

into living tissues. So just wait and as it begins to grow we kind of get past the danger cold. Then you can go in and do some selective printing in there to take out all the dead At that point. Yeah, the peach tree. I've had it for about probably eight years, and

I've never really got an edible fruit off that thing. Okay. It's produced some small peaches and most of the time the squirrels get to them, but and the birds, but none of them ever got to what you would call of something that you want to, Yeah, pull off there and put them out. So you said you've had it eight years, David, Yeah, probably seven eight years okay in the ground. Yeah, it should have produced for probably about eight inches in diameter. Maybe is something like that. It's

a peach that does well in East Texas. It should have done better for you. Is does every year do you get blooms from it? Yes? Okay, it does, and as long as frost hadn't taken out the blooms. I don't know what to tell you. It needs good sunlight in order to set bloom, produce blooms, sat blooms, and set fruit and develop fruit. All those require a lot of sunlight. So that's one possibility. Full sun Yes, for sure. Then I would I don't know. I

would wait and see. The only thing I can think of is maybe it's not the brighter you thought it was. Sometimes things get crossed up. But I think I'll just give it a little more time. If the tree looks good, I'm gonna have to take a break here, so I can't readig down much further into this one on. But look at the health, Look at the growth. You ought to have eighteen to twenty four inches and new growth on shoots by the end of the season. If it's more than that,

back on nitrogen fertilizing. If it's less, give it a little bit more. Make sure the drainage is good, and hopefully it'll it'll finally kick in. It should for sure. Hey, thank you, thank you for the call, and good luck. Thanks for you bet, thank you very much. We're gonna take a break right now. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip rich Or. We're here to talk about gardening.

Isn't that a surprise for a gardening show? Well, would you like to talk about gardening? Got a question? Seven one three two one two k t R eight seven one three two one two k t R H. And when we get to the end of the winter season, we are in like the peak season of the whole year for pruning trees and shrubs and things like that. And the folks at Affordable Tree. When I say the folks at

a Portable Tree, I'm talking about Martin spoon Moore. Martin's been around since oh my gosh, I think he's done this for thirty years now taking care of Houston trees. He knows what he's doing. That's why that's why Randy always talked about Martin spoon Moore service. I'm talking about Martin spoon Moore. When you get somebody that knows what they're doing and does it right, you

need to stick with them. Because listen, if you screw up planning a tomato, you can dig it up and put a new one in the ground. When someone comes in and messes up your tree with a bad printing job, that's permanent. Do not let some fly by night guys stick a card in the door of your front door and you know, have access to your trees. You got to know what you're doing or you do permanent damage to trees. It is serious the kind of stuff you see around town, and

it's heartbreaking because it's done. You can't go, you can't go put the branches back and do it right. Martin does it right. He does it right the first time. Listen. Here's his number. Just write this down. You'll want to have this on hand anytime you need any kind of tree work done. Seven one three, six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven one three, six, nine nine two six sixty three. When you call, you're going to get Martin or his wife, Joe. That's right,

the bosses. They answer the phone. That's the kind of business. This is afftree Service dot com. If you want to go to the website aff tree Service dot com, get on the schedule. He has a lot of work. Make sure and tell him that you're a garden line listener. That gets you to the front of the line. And anything that's going to be

done around your tree, Martin needs to be involved in that. Maybe you're going to put a trench in the ground, maybe you're going to add a driveway or a sidewalk or something that's going to be on top of the tree's root system. Because they reach way out in all directions. Get him there

first so that it's not too late and the damage is already done. Let him guide you through it, let him consult with you and make sure you take care of those giants of the landscape that add incredible value to your home. Don't trust them with somebody else. That's as simple as that. I'm going to go out now to Richmond and we're going to talk to Gus. Hello, Gus, good morning. Hello. How can we help today? Yes, I have a thank you for what you before all our gardeners.

Yes, sir, I just want to have a question about the Saint Augustine grass. It is the time to top dress it. And how much should I put on there? Yeah, you can. About a third of an inch is usually about right. It doesn't take a lot, just a little bit over the top of it. You want to use a very fine screened compost, you know, you want to make sure that you're not putting big chunks you know, of wood that the lawnmower is going to knock all around.

This is a high quality. It's best to use a finely screened leaf mold compost if you can, because that will settle down between the grass blades and do its work right there. All right. Just a concern about it being too early and now, yeah, it's really not, and in fact, getting it down a little bit early. It's just a little less light hitting the ground, so maybe some of the weeds that would have otherwise germinated don't quite get enough light to establish. Well, just a little bit of

a help there. It's going to release its nutrients over time. But you can do the top dressing at different times. You don't have to do it right now. I mean you can do it now, or you can do it a little bit later as well, So it's not a real specific date on the calendar. You have to get that done. Well. Thank you, all right, Gus, you take care. Good luck with that. Good luck having a beautiful, beautiful lawn. Boy. The season we've been

through last summer's that took its toll. Our lawns have been hammered, and we've got some thin talk to a lot of people. Are they're having to reap plant lawn sad in areas and you know it, And sometimes people go, I don't know if I need to replant or not. I had a lot of damage. And here's the way to look at it. Uh, if money's not that big of an object and you've got an ugly lawn, you can rip it up and reside it and put a new one in and

do that. If you are trying to save some and you look at your lawn and you've got living grass that's let's say, not a bit more than about a foot apart. Some of the little patches of grass. There's not like a three foot area with all dead grass in it. Well, that's within a foot. It's going to fill in. By the by the time we get into the mid season, it'll it'll have covered in. You're gonna have some issues with weeds coming up in those bear spots. But the grass,

the grass you have can recreate the lawn you want. But that's provided that it's in good health that you're mowing, watering, and fertilizing right. That's why I put the mow the lawn care schedule online at gardeningwith Skip dot com. Now, if you do that kind of care, you can get back into the lawn that way. People vary in their tolerance for weeds or for maybe being patient versus I want it right now. And that's your call. That's not my call to make. That's your call to your yard.

But I'm just telling you that if you if you have some living spriggs about a foot apart, and you take care of it good, you can get that to fill back in for you. But if it's suffering from diseases, it's going to be weak and it's not going to fill in really well. So that's that's the caveat that we have to deal with, you know, speaking of composts and mulch and things, and being down there in the Richmond area, you're not very far away there. Gus called in from down there

from Cienamals. Cienamulches is really a great place to get let me put it this way. I always say brown stuff before green stuff, and Cienamulch is a great place to get the brown stuff taken care of. And here's what I mean. They've got mulches, they have composts, they have soil blends bet we call them bed mixes where you bring the mix, you put it on the ground and you grow in it. It's already ready to go. They've got that. They have bags, they have bulk they deliver within about

twenty miles of their area down there. They also have the fertilizers that I talk about. That's part of taking care of the brown stuff, getting the soil bank account of nutrients ready, so when plants grow the roots, have everything they need things bend those nutrients by putting them into growth and taking off running. And that's what we're after. That's the kind of success we want, and Ciana Multill gets you set up for that. The website is Cenamultch

dot com Sienna Multch dot com. They're on FM five twenty one just north of road Sharing. And so for all of you living out in near Brasis Ben State Park, sun Creek Estates, Fresno Quo Valley, or Colo Cinti Plantation of course, Iowa Colony, all those neighborhoods around there, this is your backyard specialist in the brown stuff that makes the green stuff jump out of the ground with success. I'm going to be out at Cenamultch later this spring.

I'll tell you more about that later. Really looking forward to getting out there. They're open Monday through Friday, five or seven thirty in the morning to five pm. Saturday's seven thirty to two. They're closed today, but they'll be back open again tomorrow where you can begin to get everything you need so that this spring you have a show place because you built the foundation first

at Cienamulch. Our phone number if you'd like to give us a call is seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I am when I get back to the house a little bit later here and get through the show today and head back, I'm gonna I'm gonna be focusing in this the next week. My number one goals are to get some transplants moved outside. I've been growing some under

a light inside and they're nice, sturdy transplants. Get them moved out into the garden, and I've got some coverings ready to put over them, warm season transplants. It's a little early to put them out. I'll be planning these up in the College station area, and that's a little cooler. You get up Conroe College Station up that far, the last frost is a little bit a little bit later than it is down if you're in the Galveston area listening, for example. But if you're ready to cover them up, you

can go ahead and do that. If you're not ready to cover them up, what I would recommend, and I'm going to do this with some of mine, by the way, is to kind of hedge my bet is just bump them up into a bigger container. I have some that are just about ready to go into a one gallon container and finish. They're growing out, and that way I can put them outside. They can get sunlight and get

used to you know, the wind and the temperatures outside. And then on a cold night it's gonna get down in the ill, say mid fifties or lower, I'll go ahead and bring them in that far tomato that's a little cool. When you get down fifty degrees, I'll bring them in and then put them back out again. And when it's time to plan outside, I'm going to have a bigger plant with blooms. And oftentimes I'll even have fruit

on them already by the time I actually plant them outside. But if you're out shopping and you see some, go ahead and buy them and bring them home and do that. And here's why, somebody else is going to come pick them up, and you may go back and the variety you want isn't

available anymore. So there's nothing wrong with going ahead and getting them. Just remember they need good light, they need a little protection from really cool weather, and you need to fertilize them, keep them growing, and you can have quite a plant and quite a head start. That's all pretty important. Uh. So I here comes a call that's of interest to me. We got Mick in Wisconsin talking about palms. That doesn't that doesn't compute make in

my head. Tell me what's going on? Hey there, good morning. It's been a while since I've called end of the show. But oh, okay, well, yeah, I I grow all kinds of stuff, mangos, lemons, palms, bananas up here. But anyway, the uh and the question I have is, I have somebody sent me to Mexican fan palms from down there, and they came together. They're about I want to say, about half of a foot tall, okay, and they're growing really close together. And I want to know, I don't want to do this with

bananas, but I don't know how to separate these things. I don't want to kill them. Yeah. Let it. Let it warm up just a little bit for you. Palms like warm weather. We do. We even done here to a lot of our palm planting in the summertime because they just do well in that weather. Uh. And then you can just take a sharpshooter cut them apart and they'll be fine. Uh. The palm palms are basically they're technically they're a grass plant. They're not a tree like we think

of trees. Uh, and so appreciate that. Yeah, so just cut the roots. New roots will originate at the base of the palm because it is a grass plant, it's not a tree, and so that'll be just fine. Yeah. Tell me how you grow of that stuff? In Wisconsin? What you must to have one heck of a greenhouse. Yeah. In my in my office, I don't keep closing my closet. I have a lighting and mile our back and wow, reflecting the lights. And then I built a structure in the in the actual office itself. Wow, lots of

lights and high electric bills. Yeah, but that's fine. Man. It sounds like you're having a blast. What part of Wisconsin again, chaboy? And it's about an hour north of Milwaukee. You're not just in Wisconsin. You were up in Wisconsin pretty far. We're up here. Yeah, And I'll started. I was down in friends of mine, We're digging up banana plants from their yard, and I said, let me take a let me take a rhizome home with me. And sure enough, that's how it started.

There. You go hey, it's a gateway drug, man, it's a gateway drug all kinds of tropicals. You're in trouble. Thanks for the call, and good luck with that. I'd love to hear how things you go before you up there. Uh yeah, we could say we could recommend a lot of wonderful If you've never grown white butterfly ginger, that's a that's a tropical that you ought to try out. Put it in pots so you can protect it from the kind of coal you have. But that's the most

heavenly fragrance you've ever seen. I will do that, all right, nick Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate I appreciate hearing from you. All Right, it's time for Nicky in the news. Our phone number if you want to give me a call on Garden Line seven one three two one two kt r H boh you me, we see soaking it up. That's fine, it out. Just have fast your brothers, boll pops here you there ing nothing bad lead it's your face like along sermon on a pretty sunday.

All right, welcome back to Garden Line. We are going to talk about the things you were interested in and a couple things that I'm interested in today. It is time to get your garden in, man, I mean the warm season garden. We are on the doorstep of it. What we're doing is we're staring at the weather. We're listening to the weather man. We're rolling dice, we're rubbing on crystal balls, We're using our imagination. When's that last froster free is going to be? We don't know, it

doesn't matter. Here's the deal. Here's the way I look at it. I often will get out with an early planting, and I know it's a little early, but maybe I'll get lucky and it works. If it doesn't, I'll just replant, especially with seeds. That's easy to do. With the other plants. You bring them in, you get them going, you get that gardening fever flowing, and when it's time to put them out, you put them out there in the garden. I talked earlier about potting up

your tomato plants, just to be ready to go. Maybe you're gonna plant a few tomatoes and you buy several, but you plant a few and you hold back a few, pot them up and you've got them as a I don't know an insurance policy you could put out there our peppers. By the way, Plants for All Seasons has an excellent supply of tomatoes and peppers. I know, you know. Plants for All Seasons are on two forty nine.

They're just north of Luetta and Tomball Parkway, heading up toward Tomball direction or down from Tombol for those you coming in that way, just north of Luetta. They've got a wide variety of things like helopanos, tabascos, serranos, the Chaszzo pepper, the giant Marconi that's a that's a really nice one too, bell peppers. They've got all kinds of vegetables. Have you ever grown poc joy before? They have transplants of that. You ought to try.

It is fast, like in twenty eight days from seed you've got pock joy. So that is a great stir Fried's grape for soups. It's just a really mild brassica that I think is excellent. Girl. I always I have someone about to plant out in the garden myself, but they're set up, they're ready to go. What do you need? They've got it there, the tomatoes, the peppers, all kinds of things. They've got the roses and oh my gosh. Their seed selection is unbelievable, huge wall seeds

and bulbs, seeds, bulbs and supplies. Oh my, how about that? All there at Plants for All Seasons. Go by and see them. You know, when you go by there, you're gonna get good service. You're gonna get good plants, you're gonna get good advice, and if you need service after the sale, they're absolutely going to be right there for you.

So that is an insurance policy like you just can't get when you go shop at some place that, let's just say also selles, hammers or lumber kinds of you know, some of those places, not all, but you know what I'm talking about, Plants for All Seasons. That is a is a great place to go, and you need to get to know the flowertys there and find out the kind of service I'm talking about. We're gonna go over at the Galleria right now and talk to Chip. Hello. Chip,

Hey, Hey, I love your show. I appreciate it. Thank you. The question I had is can you I know no one has the crystal ball, but can you go ahead and put your try fruit. He's in the in the ground right now, and you know you have to cover them up if we got something coming through. But yeah, can you go ahead and put those things in brown or do they prefer a bigger container, like

you know of a large you know, like fifty gallon containers. Okay, some people have so all the decisions for trees can go in the ground now without any concerns. Are you talking about like citrus trees? Yes, they're like a couple of orange limes, lemons. Okay, Okay, out here there's a great sunny area that has the parents house that we want. Want to go ahead and put them in, you know you could, uh,

and then be ready to protect them. I think if they were mine, I would buy them on it and get the selection right now that that's best, uh, And then I would just hold on to them, put them out, let him get sunlight as much as you can. If we're going to get down you know below forty, bring them inside, just bring them in a garage or something, and then put them back outside again and let's

get a little warmer and then get them in the ground. That way, if you do, if we were to have one of these unexpected, very very cold spells, you haven't created a lot of work for yourself trying to protect it, and then you put perfect when you plant that. I've heard tell that maybe you pour a little fish emotion or something in the bottom of the hole that you might dig. Is there any like super trick that you might suggest to give the plant the best opportunity. So what I would do

is, now, if you wanted to mix in like a microlife. Microlife has a citrus type special fertilizer, you could mix that in with the soil around the planting hole. Normally we don't put fertilizer in a planting hole because salt based fertilizers, too much of them around the roots can burn roots when you're trying to get a plant established. But you could do that. Microlife's

not going to do that. You mix them in and then if you want, as it's after it's planted, if you want to water it in from the top down, drenched down on it with a solution of like Microlife's ocean harvest, you could do that. That would be a good example of that. Medina makes one called Medina has to Grow Plus and that would be another example of one of those Those kind of products are high quality and they go right in a solution to the roots and can help get you off to a

good start. But you're citrus isn't going to want to grow until it warms up, and so you can't make it grow with fertilizer right now. In fact, you want it to not take off too fast because it needs to warm up a little bit more. Okay, all right, thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. Hey, you've heard me talk about Star Hope here before on Guarden Line. Star Hope is a Cristi centered community that's been in Houston since nineteen oh seven. They've been helping the homeless

now for over one hundred and sixteen years. I mean that is a long track record. Now, I don't go that far that back with that far back with Star Hope. My wife and I've been supporting Star Hope now, oh gosh, probably the last time it did was over oh gosh, probably we're thirty definitely over thirty years ago. When we begin to help with Star Hope. It's a place that we believe in. It's not just three we say three hots in a cot, meaning they're going to feed you three hot

meals, give you place to sleep overnight. They can do short term, but what they're really here about is changing lives, long term job training, dealing with substance abuse, overcoming that, the kind of education and spiritual growth, life management skills and things helping people actually get job interviews, training them for the job interviews. They even have clothing there for folks to dress properly and to put their best foot forward. And do you see what I'm saying.

We're talking about a commitment, a long term commitment to help people change their lives. And when you're talking about I like to use the example when we're talking about mom living in a car with little kids. I mean, we are not just changing Mom's life. We are changing the future for those kids in a real, really real way. We're changing our greater Houston community with Star Hope. It doesn't take much. Just go to Star of Hope and check them out. It's s o hmission dot org s o Hmission dot

org for Star Hope. You're not gonna find a better way to put your compassion into action. We're gonna take a little break right now. Our phone number is seven one three two one two k t r H. I'll be right back. DOT. I was in love with you, Dot, I was in love with you a man witch dot. He told me what to do. He said it you never know what kind of song we're gonna play on garden line. Welcome back. We're glad to have you here. We

are going to talk about the things you're interested in. If you'd like to get us call seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. This is a time to plant trees. This is a time to plant shrubs. This is a time to plant roses. Now, if you're going to plant a tree, you need to give it some stability initially until it gets its roots established and you

know, can kind of hold up on its own. Well. The best way to do that is with a new product actually on the market called the three sixty Tree Stabilizer. What that is Imagine it's like an arm that reaches out and it grabs on to the post that you're using for your anchor post, and it grabs onto the tree with a soft rubber strap that allows movement on the tree. That's important. You don't want trees to just not move

at all. Movement in the wind helps strengthen them. You don't want to move too much, but you want to move a little bit in the three sixties. Designed to allow that you can put one on a tree. You can put them from two different angles, like ninety degree angles, so one is keeping it going north south, the others keeping it on the east west direction, however you want to go about it. They're made to attach to an iron post, one of those little t posts. They're designed just for

that. You can also put them on a big old round post and they do just fine. Going to find him at R. CW. Buchanan's Plants Arborgate plants for all seasons. I was, you know, the Verdant tree Pharmas out there the other day. They had some of those out there. Three sixty tree stabilizer is a small investment in a very significant investment. When you purchase that tree, help it get established and off to a good start. You know the goal. How fast can I hang a hammock in a

tree? That's what I think when I buy a tree. How fast can I hang a hammock? We want to get it on the ground. We're going to hit the ground running. And three sixty tree stabilizer is a great insurance policy. It'll last you forever, I mean a long long, long time. So any other future trees you plan or loaned to a friend who's going to plant one, these things are going to stick around, and they do the job right much better than wires that you're going to trip over.

Besides wires, they you know you. They keep you from pulling against the wire but not pushing toward the wire and the wind blows different directions. Three sixty tree Stabilizer has you covered all the way around. Really really products. I've messed around with them myself a long time ago when they're first working on getting the patent of this thing, and it's a great product. We're going to go out to Spring now and talk to Catherine. Hello, Catherine,

good morning, Good morning. How can we help? Do I trim turks cap? Do I take it down close to the ground or just a few more inches? I would take it. You could leave it as it is, but it looks a little straggly. I would take it down and cut it off about four inches above the ground. Just cut it all off, and when it warms up, it will come out like Gangbusters and it'll be a much more pretty plant. And it'll still Esperanza. Yeah, Esperanza will

do the same thing. Yes, sometimes it makes it through. This year we had enough cold. I don't I think Esperanza may be killed back to the ground at a lot of places. But yes, I just there are a lot of those semi surviving above ground perennials. Esperanza's one and Turk's cap is another one like that. The Golden showers is another one. Just cut them all back. And what about beauty berry? I have several beauty berries. The beauty berry is a shrub and that one you shouldn't have to cut

back like that. It should be surviving above ground unless for some reason it just was not ready for winter and that cold hit it. But I think I just need to wait for leaves. Yeah, I just wait for leeds. The plant, like I like to say, the plant will tell you where to prune back on anything like that when you see the new growth coming. I appreciate your help. Well, Catherine, thank you for the call. Good luck with all those plants. Those are all great plants too to

have. By the way, hey, have you been out to the enchanted forest. Enchanted forest is set up and they're ready to go if you need any kind of hell. Halloween, wrong time of the year in times day shopping. They've got the potted plants, just really cool stuff, all kinds of their gift shop. If you've not been in there, you got to go see it. It is every time I see it is just better and better and better, and you're in chanted for us. They've got all kinds

of plant if you need tomatoes and peppers and herbs. That their new section they built last year is just outstanding. And while you're out there, asked to see the gerber daisies. Gerber Daisy is just you know, Jay from Texas Gardener. He always ends every one of his little social media things with plant happiness, y'all. Well, if you gerber daisy is the poster plant for plant happiness. They are the brightest, most colorful, happy looking little

blooms you've ever seen in your life. Gerber Daisy's are beautiful. I've had them in containers on my porch over the years, many many times. Beautiful plant. Ask him it in chanted for us to see the gerber daisies. By the way, where is enchanted for us? Well, if you're in Richmond heading up Torch sugar Land Way, it's off to the right. FM twenty seven fifty nine FM twenty seven fifty nine makes it real easy? Or how about this. Here's a website Enchanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com.

Enchanted Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. It's always fun to go out and see Danny and Clay and the whole team out there, and they sure we'll give you the help you need to have success. We're going to go now to Magnolia and talk to Cindy. Hello, Cindy, Hi, how are you this morning? Well, I'm well, how are you? I'm doing just fine. The question that I have is we have Saint Augustine grass, and because of the bird seed, I'm sure that I'm feeding the birds.

I've got a lot of weeds in the yard, stinging grass and things like that, and I don't want to stinging grass on the dog's seat. Can you tell me what is the best thing to use to kill the weeds in the Saint Augustine without actually killing the Saint Augustine? Yes, right now? You want to use a post emergent broad leaf weed control product, so that would be that could be something you spray. There are things you mix up and can spray, or you can get a product that Nelson's makes.

Nelson's makes, of course a lot of fertilizers, but they make one that's called we Donator we Donator, and it has a fertilizer that's very gradual release, so when you put it down, it's going to be fertilizing your lawn for the next few months. But it has the product that kills the existing

broad leaf weeds that you're seeing. You need to wet the soil first, just barely actually wet the plant, just barely get the plant wet so that when the granules of weedinator land on it, they stick to that weed plant and they move into it. And then don't water for a day or two and it will move in the weed and it'll kill it. Then you want to water it to get the fertilizer down in the soil, all right,

And that's called the Nelson's Donator we Doinator. That's the fertilizer combo that you put on right now to kill those cool season weeds before they start blooming and setting seed. Don't delay. If you're going to do that, you need to get it done sooner rather than later while they're still most susceptible. That that spraying with just a weed control that you know, just spraying would just a herbicide itself would be an option, but for most things go ahead emergence

broad leave. Yeah, but let's just make it simple. The Nelson weed nator will kill the kinds of weeds you're seeing right now that are about the problem, and it'll fertilize at the same time. Yeah, okay, wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you. Bet youa Cindy, thank you. I appreciate appreciate your call. Thank you. That's high time to get that kind of thing done. Hey, uh, if you are wanting some you know, just good ideas and advice and guidance on

plants. The Aggi Horticulture website is excellent. I talk about my website a lot. I'm just getting it built, you know, gardeningwith skip dot com. That's where the schedules are and some other things. By the way, I just put a thing on soil testing made easy. Put it on last week on my website and it just gives you the real simple how to do it. Here's how you do a swell tester, say you send it in.

Really easy to do. But Aggie Horticulture website, there's a whole section on fruit, where you can get a free publication to view online or print out, whichever you want, on everything from avocados to I don't know what fruit begins with the Z. It's got all of them on there, dozens of fruit. It's got the same thing for vegetables, every vegetable you could want to grow in your garden. It's all free information. You should go check it out. You can learn a lot. It's very very hardful.

We'll be right back. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip Rictor. It's so just watch him as the world many things. Good morning, Welcome back to garden Line. Let's talk about gardening. What would you like to visit about seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H. If you'd like to give us a call and we will talk about those kinds of topics that you are interested in. Uh. The folks at r CW Nurseries, you know that is the place

where you can find a wide variety of all kinds of things. That's a nursery that's on Tomball Parkway to forty nine where it comes into belt Wait eight on the northwest side of Houston, and it's easy to get to, easy to find, and when you get there, you're gonna find everything you need. I ask him for a list of their roses earlier, uh in the year, and oh my gosh, like four or five pages, single spaced a list of all the different kind of roses that they can get a hold

of for you. They also grow their own trees out of Williamson Tree Farm out in the Plannersville area, and so they have an excellent selection of every kind of tree that you can imagine you'd want to plant here, things that do grow here, and that includes when I say trees, I mean large shrubs as well, of course holly's and whatnot. They know how to grow them, they know how to pick the ones that belong in the yards here in the Greater Houston area. That's what they specialize in. And it's all

there at RCW Nursery. You know, David and the team out at RCW do an excellent job of all of that. And so here we are, we're at the end of winter time. If you want to get a woody ornamental on the ground, you're not going to find a better time. Don't delay, go ahead, go ahead and get it. Just pick it up, get it, bring it back. You can water a little bit while you get the bed ready and everything. Get set and ready to go and

get that thing in the ground as soon as you can. This. We've had a few kind of days of some cloudy, rainy stuff that's gonna go away. We're going to be back in nice sunshine and it'd be a great time to get those things planted. Build a quality mix into the soil and put in a quality plant like they have. They're at the RCW Nurseries. You know, you can go online to RCW Nurseries dot com. You can

find out more about them there. But just know this that from fifteen gallons up the two hundred gallons, that is a place where you can get quality, quality trees and a wide, wide variety of roses along with everything else that they sell at the nursery. You're listening to garden Line again our phone number seven one three two one two kt r H. We're going to go out to Cleveland now and talk to David. Hello, David, good morning, Skip, what's up? I have a I have three questions they're probably

pretty short. First, I got a plummeria A friend gave me a cutting about three or four years ago. I got in about a twenty five doll the pot, and I've moved inside for the freeze. I've protected it well up till now. And my shed got a little bit cold. And it has three branches but two feet tall, and the branches out in three and the tips of the branch is about excuse me, about six or so inches of them got cold enough that they turned kind of mushy. They're soft.

Yeah, I'm not sure what I should do with that. It seems to be still solid at the bottom, and there's green, you know when you peel the skin a little bit, right, Have I lost that thing completely? Or probably probably not. You could have a soft spot on the stem somewhere, you know where it also was damaged. But I would kind of

wait and watch it a little bit. You can cut out any area that you know is dead, that you know it's rotted, and just get a fresh cut and make sure that it has a chance then to dry over that cut that you made, which it will and it should be fine. Primary I want to think about growing til it really warms up, and so they're still on your dormant stage. There's no rush on anything, unless you just saw you had an active decay going on in there. Then I would go

below that area and make the cut. When you make a cut, you'll know if the center looks rotted or not. But I think it's gonna be. I think you're gonna be. Okay, a bit two or three weeks from now, probably do the cut on it. Uh, yeah, you could. I would look it over, kind of feel on. Fill those stems and stuff and check it over. And if you feel like that, you know you have an active decay going on. I would do the printing

now, but I don't think you need you. I think you can wait a little bit and then let's see what the plant looks like as we begin to warm up just a little bit. Okay, good deal. Now I got a blood orange and a Sam Houston peach. Okay, the blood orange it got really a bit pretty hard by the it was twenty twenty one. I think the real super cold. I protected it. I had a heat lamp and all that good. But the December before that it produced some peaches.

It wasn't old enough. I thought i'd got them all off that I hadn't and not peaches. Dang, it oranges oranges, And yeah, it had hit some in some dense foliage at the bottom, and there were about eight of them, and they were really good. I followed Rantag's advice by knocking all the blooms and stuff off of it, and I missed eight of them. But it hasn't produced an orange since then. And it just got bit by this last freeze here this spring or winter and it lost lost all

the sleeves. But it looks like it's sprouting little leaves. Yeah, all the all the stems are really green. And that right, that thing's probably going to be all right. How long should that thing go without producing oranges? Well, yeah, it depends on grain conditions and a lot of things. But it will start producing again. You know, you haven't lost the tree. As long as there's growth above the bud at the bottom, then that's growth through. Yeah. I never lost it down to the graft.

It's still the same wood that it was. Well, I would wait, I'd watch it and wait right now, David, and let the new growth do what it's going to do. I wouldn't want to print it anymore. Right now. It is super susceptible to cold because you've got succulent new growth coming out. You don't have a canopy to kind of hold in some of the radiant heat coming up from the soil, and so you don't want to add that to that. Pruning it, which is also a stimulating thing to

do to a plant, is to prune into living tissues. So just wait and as it begins to grow, we kind of get past the danger cold. Then you can go in and do some selective printing in there to take out all the dead at that point. Yeah, the peach tree, I've had it for about probably eight years, and I've never really got an edible

fruit off that thing. Okay. It's produced some small peaches and most of the time the squirrels get to them and the birds, but none of them ever got to what you would call of something that you want to, yeah, pull off there and put them out. So you said you've had it eight years, David, Yeah, probably seven eight years in the ground. Yeah, it should have produced for probably about eight inches in diameter, maybe, is something like that. It's a peacha does well in East Texas.

It should have done better for you. Is does every year do you get blooms from it? Yes? Okay, it does and as long as frosted and taken out the blooms. I don't know what to tell you. It needs good sunlight in order to set bloom, produce bloom, set blooms, and set fruit and develop fruit. All those require a lot of sunlight. So that's one possibility. Full sun Yeah, for sure, Then I would I don't know. I would wait and see. The only thing I can

think of is maybe it's not the brider you thought it was. Sometimes things get crossed up. But I think I'll just give it a little more time. If the tree looks good, I'm gonna have to take a break here, so I can't read dig down much further into this one. But look at the health, Look at the growth. You ought to have eighteen to twenty four inches and new growth on shoots by the end of the season. If it's more than that, back on nitrogen fertilizing. If it's less,

give it a little bit more. Make sure the drainage is good, and hopefully it'll it'll finally kick in. It should for sure. Hey, thank you, thank you for the call, and good luck. Thanks for you bet, thank you very much. We're gonna take a break right now. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Welcome back to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip rich Or. We're here to talk about gardening. Isn't not a surprise for a gardening show? Well,

would you like to talk about gardening? Got a question? Seven one three two one two k t R eight seven one three two one two k t R. H. Listen, when we get to the end of the winter season, we are in like the peak season of the whole year for printing trees and shrubs and things like that. And the folks that affordable tree. When I say the folks at a portable tree, I'm talking about Martin spoon Moore. Martin's been around since oh my gosh, I think he's done

this for thirty years now, taking care of Houston trees. He knows what he's doing. That's why that's why Randy always talked about Martin spoon Moore service. I'm talking about Martin spoon Moore. When you get somebody that knows what they're doing and does it right, you need to stick with them. Because listen, if you screw up planning a tomato, you can dig it up and put a new one in the ground. When someone comes in and messes

up your tree with a bad printing job, that's permanent. Do not let some fly by night guy stick a card in the door of your front door, and you know have access to your trees. You got to know what you're doing or you do permanent damage to trees. It is serious, the kind of stuff you see around town, and it's heartbreaking because it's done. You can't go, you can't go put the branches back and do it right. Martin does it right. He does it right the first time. Listen,

here's his number. Just write this down. You'll want to have this on hand anytime you need any kind of tree work done. Three six twenty six sixty three seven one three six nine nine two six sixty three. When you call, you're going to get Martin or his wife, Joe. That's right, the bosses. They answer the phone. That's the kind of business. This is afftree Service dot com. If you want to go to the website afftree Service dot com, get on the schedule. He has a lot

of work. Make sure and tell him that you're a garden line listener. That gets you to the front of the line and anything that's going to be done around your tree. Martin needs to be involved in that. Maybe you're going to put a trench in the ground, maybe you're going to add a driveway or a sidewalk or something that's going to be on top of the tree's root system. They reach way out in all directions. Get him there first so that it's not too late and the damage is already done. Let him

guide you through it. Let him consult with you and make sure you take care of those giants of the landscape that add incredible value to your home. Don't trust him with somebody else. That's as simple as that. I'm going to go out now to Richmond and we're going to talk to Gus. Hello, Gus, good morning. Hello. How can we help today? Yes, I have a thank you for what you do for all our gardeners. Yes, sir, I just want to have a question about the Saint Augustine

grass. It is the time to top dress it, and how much should I put on there? Yeah, you can. About a third of an inch is usually about right. It doesn't take a lot, just a little bit over the top of it. You want to use a very fine screened compost. You know, you want to make sure that you're not putting big chunks you know, of wood that the lawnmowarer is going to knock all around.

This is a high quality. It's best to use a finely screened leaf mold compost if you can, because that will settle down between the grass blades and do its work right there. All right, that's just a concern about it being too early, and now, yeah, it's really not and in fact, getting it down a little bit early, it's just a little less light hitting the ground, so maybe some of the weeds that would have otherwise germinated don't quite get enough light to establish. Well, just a little bit

of a help there. It's going to release its nutrients over time. But you can do the top dressing at different times. You don't have to do it right now. I mean you can do it now or you can do it a little bit later as well, so it's not a real specific date on the calendar. You have to get that done. Well. Thank you, all right, Gus, you take care, Good luck with that. Good luck having a beautiful, beautiful lawn. Boy. The season we've been

through last summer, she's that took its toll. Our lawns have been hammered and we've got some thin talk to a lot of people or they're having to replant lawn sad in areas, and you know, and sometimes people go, I don't know if I need to replant or not. I had a lot of damage. And here's a way to look at it. If money's not that big of an object, and you've got an ugly lawn, you can rip it up and resote it and put a new one in and do that.

If you are trying to save some and you look at your lawn and you've got living grass that's let's say, not a bit more than about a foot apart some of the little patches of there's not like a three foot area with all dead grass in it. Well, that's within a foot. It's going to fill in by the by the time we get into the mid season, it'll it'll have covered in. You're going to have some issues with weeds coming up in those bear spots. But the grass you have can recreate the

lawn you want. But that's provided that it's in good health, that you're mowing, watering, and fertilizing. Right. That's why I put the mow the lawn care schedule online at gardeningwith Skip dot com. Now, if you do that kind of care, you can get back into the lawn that way. People vary in their tolerance for weeds or for maybe being patient versus I want it right now, And that's your call. It's not my call to

make. That's your culture yard. But I'm just telling you that if you have some living spriggs about a foot apart and you take care of it good, you can get that to fill back in for you. But if it's suffering from diseases, it's going to be weak and it's not going to fill in really well. So that's the caveat that we have to deal with. You know, speaking of composts and mulch and things, and being down there in the Richmond area, you're not very far away. Gus called in from

down there from Cienamlts. Ciena Mulches is really a great place to get let me put it this way. I always say brown stuff before green stuff, and Cienamultch is a great place to get the brown stuff taken care of. And here's what I mean. They've got mulches, they have composts, they have soil blends bet we call them bed mixes. Where you bring the mix in, you put it on the ground and you grow in it. It's already ready to go. They've got that. They have bags, they have

bulk, they deliver within about twenty miles of their area down there. They also have the fertilizers that I talk about. That's part of taking care of the brown stuff, getting the soil bank account of nutrients ready. So when plants grow, the roots have everything they need. Things bend those nutrients by putting them into growth and taking off running. And that's what we're after. That's the kind of success we want, and Cianamultchill gets you set up for

that. The website is cenamultch dot com Sienna multch dot com. They are on FM five twenty one just north of road Sharing. And so for all of you living out near Brasis Ben State Park, sun Creek Estates, Fresno Quo Valley, or Colo Senti Plantation of course, Iowa Colony, all those neighborhoods around there, this is your backyard specialist in the brown stuff that makes the green stuff jump out of the ground with success. I'm going to be

out at cenamultch later this spring. I'll tell you more about that later, really looking forward to getting out there. They're open Monday through Friday, five or seven thirty in the morning to five pm. Saturday's seven thirty to two.

They're closed today. They'll be back open again tomorrow where you can begin to get everything you need so that this spring you have a showplace because you built the foundation first at Cienamulch. Our phone number if you'd like to give us a call is seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four

seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I am when I get back to the house a little bit later here and get through the show today and head back, I'm gonna I'm gonna be focusing in this the next week. My number one goals are to get some transplants moved outside. I've been growing some under a light inside and they're a nice sturdy transplant. Uh. Get them moved out into the garden, and I've got some coverings ready

to put over them warm season transplants. It's a little early to put them out. I'll be planning these up in the College Station area and that that's a little cooler. You get up Conroe College Station up that far. The last four dust is a little bit, a little bit later than it is down if you're in the Galveston area listening, for example. But if you're

ready to cover them up, you can go ahead and do that. If you're not ready to cover them up, what I would recommend, and I'm going to do this with some of mine, by the way, is to kind of hedge My bet is just bump them up into a bigger container. I have some that are just about ready to go into a one gallon container and finish they're growing out, and that way I can put them outside. They can get sunlight and get used to, you know, the wind and

the temperatures outside. And then on a cold night it's gonna get down in the ill, say mid fifties or lower. I'll go ahead and bring them in that far tomato that's a little cool when you get down fifty degrees, I'll bring them in and then put them back out again. And when it's time to plant outside, I'm going to have a bigger plant with blooms, and oftentimes I'll even have fruit on them already by the time I actually plant them outside. But if you're out shopping and you see go ahead and buy

them and bring them home and do that. And here's why somebody else is going to come pick them up, and you may go back and the variety you want isn't available anymore. So there's nothing wrong with going ahead and getting them. Just remember they need good light, they need a little protection from really cool weather, and you need to fertilize them, keep them growing, and you can have quite a plant, okay, quite a head start.

That's all pretty important. So I here comes a call that's of interest to me. We got Mick in Wisconsin talking about palms. That doesn't that doesn't compute make in my head. Tell me what's going on? Hey there, good morning. It's been a while since I'm called into the show, but over the year. But okay, but yeah, I grow all kinds of stuff, mangos, lemons, palms, bananas up here. But anyway, and the question I have is, I have somebody sent me to Mexican fan

palms from down there, and they came together. They're about I want to say, about half of a foot tall, okay, and they're growing really close together. And I want to know, I don't want to do this with bananas, but I don't know how to separate these things. I don't want to kill them. Yeah, let it let it warm up just a little bit for you. Palms like warm weather. We do. We even done here to a lot of our palm planting in the summertime because they just

do well in that weather. Uh. And then you can just take a sharpshooter cut them apart and they'll be fine. Uh. The palm palms are basically they're technically they're a grass plant. They're not a tree like we think of trees. Uh, and so appreciate that. Yeah, So just cut the roots. New roots will originate at the base of the palm because it is a grass plant, it's not a tree, and so that'll be just fine. Yeah. Tell me how you grow of that stuff? In Wisconsin?

What you must have one heck of a greenhouse. Yeah. In my in my office, I don't keep closing my closet. I have a lighting and mile our back and wow, reflecting the light. And then I built a structure in the in the actual office itself. Wow. That's lots of lights and high electric bills. Yeah, but that's fine. Man. It sounds like you're having a blast. What part of Wisconsin again. Uh, Sheboygan. It's about an hour north of Milwaukee. Well you're not just in

Wisconsin. You were up in Wisconsin pretty far. We're up here. Yeah, And all started Uh. I was down in friends of mine. We're digging up banana plants from their yard, and I said, let me take a let me take a rhizome home with me. And sure enough, that's how it started. There you go. Hey, it's a gateway drug, man, it's a gateway drug all kinds of tropicals. You're in trouble. Thanks for the call, and good luck with that. I'd love to hear

how things you go for you up there. Yeah, we could say, we could recommend a lot of wonderful If you've never grown white butterfly ginger, that's a that's a tropical that you ought to try out. Put it in pots so you can protect it from the kind of coal you have. But that's the most heavenly fragrance you've ever seen. ILL do that, all right, nick, Hey, thanks for the call. I appreciate I appreciate hearing from you. All Right, it's time for Nicky in the news. Our

phone number if you want to give me a call on garden line. Seven one three two one two kt rh ooh you me, we me, I'm soaking up that fine it out. Just have fast your brothers boat. I'll tell you there ain't nothing in that. He's your face like a long sermon on a pretty sunday. All right, welcome back to garden Line. We are going to talk about the things you are interested in and a couple things that I'm interested in. Today. Uh, it is time to get your

garden in, man, I mean the the warm season garden. We are on the doorstep of it. What we're doing is we're staring at the weather. We're listening to the weather man. We're rolling dice, we're rubbing on crystal balls, We're using our imagination. When's that last frost or free is going to be? We don't know, it doesn't matter. Here's the deal. Here's the way I look at it. I often will get out with an early planting, and I know it's a little early, but maybe I'll

get lucky and it works. If it doesn't, I'll just replant. Especially with seeds, that's easy to do. With the other plants. You bring them in, you get them going, you get that gardening fever flowing and when it's time to put them out, you put them out there in the garden. I talked earlier about potting up your tomato plants just to be ready

to go. Maybe you're gonna plant a few tomatoes and you buy several, but you plant a few and you hold back a few, pot them up and you've got them as a I don't know an insurance policy you could put out there our peppers. By the way, Plants for All Seasons has an excellent supply of tomatoes and peppers. I know you know. Plants for All

Seasons are on two forty nine. They're just north of Lowe and Tomball Parkway, heading up toward Tomball direction or down from Tombol for you coming in that way, just north of Luetta. They've got a wide variety of things like Alapanos, Tabascos, serranos, the Schizzo pepper, the giant Marconi that's a really nice one too, Bell peppers. They've got all kinds of vegetables. Have you ever grown poc joy before? They have transplants of that. You

ought to try. It is fast like in twenty eight days from seed you've got pock joy. So that is a great stir fried grape for soups. It's just a really mild brassica that I think is excellent to grow. I always I have someone about to plant out in the garden myself, but they're set up, they're ready to go. What do you need? They've got it there, the tomatoes, the peppers, all kinds of things. They've got the roses, and oh my gosh, their seed selection is unbelievable,

huge wall seeds and bulbs, seeds, bulbs and supplies. Oh my, about that all there at plantchborol Sa. Go by and see them. You know, when you go by there, you're gonna get good service, You're gonna get good plants, you're gonna get good advice, and if you need service after the sale, they're absolutely going to be right there for you.

So that is an insurance policy like you just can't get when you go shop at some place that well, let's just say also sells hammers or lumber kinds of you know, some of those places, not all, but you know what I'm talking about, plants for all seasons. That is a that is a great place to go, and you need to get to know the floweries there and find out the kind of service I'm talking about. We're gonna go over at the galleria right now and talk to Chip. Hello. Chip,

Hey, Hey, I love your show. I appreciate it. Thank you. The question I had is can you I know no one has the crystal ball, but can you go ahead and put your fruit trees in the in the ground right now? And you know you have to cover them up if we got something coming through, but yeah, can you go ahead and put those things in brown or do they prefer a bigger container, like, you

know, one of a large you know, like fifty gallon containers. Okay, some people have so all the decisions for trees can go in the ground now without any concerns. Are you talking about like citrus trees? Yes, they're like a couple of orange limes, lemons. Okay, okay, go out. There's a great sunny area that has the parents house that we want. Want to go ahead and put them in you know you could, uh

and then be ready to protect them. I think if they were mine, I would buy them on and get the selection right now that that's best, uh, and then I would just hold on to them, put them out, let them get sunlight as much as you can if we're going to get down you know below forty, bring them inside, Just bring them in a garage or something, and then put them back outside again and let's get a

little warmer and then get them in the ground. That way, if you do, if we were to have one of these unexpected, very very cole spells, you haven't created a lot of work for yourself trying to protect it. And then you put perfectly when you plant that I've heard tell that maybe you pour a little fish emotion or something in the bottom of the hole that you might dig. Is there any like super trick that you might suggest to give the plant the best opportunity. So what I would do is now if

you wanted to mix in like a microlife. Microlife has a citrus type special fertilizer, you could mix that in with the soil around the planting hole. Normally we don't put fertilizer in a planting hole because salt based fertilizers, too much of them around the roots can burn roots when you're trying to get a plant established. But you could do that. Microlife's not going to do that. You mix them in and then if you want, as it's after it's

planted. If you want to water it in from the top down, drenched down on it with a solution of like Microlife's Ocean Harvest, you could do that. That would be a good example of that. Medina makes one called Medina has to Grow Plus and that would be another example of one of those. Those kind of products are high quality and they go right in a solution to the roots and can help get you off to a good start. But you're citrus isn't gonna want to grow until it warms up, and so you

can't make it grow with fertilizer right now. In fact, you want it to not take off too fast because it needs to warm up a little bit more. Okay, all right, thank you for the call. I appreciate that very much. Hey, you've heard me talk about Star Hope here before on Guarden Line. Star Hope is a christ centered community that's been in Houston since nineteen oh seven. They've been helping the homeless now for over one hundred

and sixteen years. I mean that is a long track record. Now, I don't go that far that back with that far back with Star Hope. My wife and I've been supporting Star Hope. Now, Oh, gosh. Probably the last time we did was over Oh gosh, probably we're thirty. Definitely over thirty years ago when we began to help with Star Hope. It's a place that we believe in. It's not just three we say three hots and a cot, meaning they're going to feed you three hot meals, give

you place to sleep overnight. They can do short term, but what they're really here about is changing lives long term. Job training, dealing with substance abuse, overcoming that, the kind of education and spiritual growth, life management skills and things helping people actually get job interviews, training them for the job interviews. They even have clothing there for folks to dress properly and to put

their best foot forward. And do you see what I'm saying. We're talking about a commitment, a long term commitment to help people change their lives. And when you're talking about I like to use the example when we're talking about mom living in a car with little kids, I mean, we are not just changing Mom's life. We are changing the future for those kids in a real, really real way. We're changing our whole Greater Houston community with Star

Hope. It doesn't take much. Just go to Star of Hope and check them out. It's so h mission dot org shmission dot org for starf Hope. You're not gonna find a better way to put your compassion into action. We're gonna take a little break right now. Our phone number is seven one three two one two k t r H. I'll be right back. Dot. I was in love with you, dot. I was in love with you wich dot. He told me what to do, He said it. You never know what kind of song we're gonna play on garden line. Welcome

back. We're glad to have you here. We are going to talk about the things you're interested in. If you'd like to get us, call seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. This is a time to plant trees. This is a time to plant shrubs. This is a time to plant roses. Now, if you're gonna plant a tree, you need to give it some stability initially until it gets its roots established and you know, can kind of

hold up on its own. Well. The best way to do that is with a new product actually on the market called the three sixty Tree Stabilizer. What that is Imagine it's like an arm that reaches out and it grabs on to the post that you're using for your anchor post, and it grabs onto the tree with a soft rubber strap that allows movement on the tree. That's important. You don't want trees to just not move at all. Movement in the wind helps strengthen them. You don't want to move too much, but

you want to move a little bit. In the three sixties designed to allow that. You can put one on a tree. You can put them from two different angles, like ninety degree angles, so one is keeping it going north south, the others keeping it on the east west direction, however you want to go about it. They're made to attached to an iron post, one of those little t posts. They're designed just for that. You can also put them on a big old round post and they do just fine.

You're going to find them at RCW. Buchanan's Plants, Arborgate Plants for all seasons. I was, you know, the Verban tree Pharmas out there the other day, had some of those out there. Three sixty Tree stabilizer is a small investment in a very significant investment. When you purchase that tree, help it get established and off to a good start. You know the goal. How fast can I hang a hammock in a tree? That's what I think when I buy a tree. How fast can I hang a hammock?

We want to get it on the ground. We're going to hit the ground running. And three sixty Tree Stabilizer is a great insurance policy. It'll last you forever. I mean a long, long, long time. So any other future trees you plan or loaned to a friend who's going to plant one, these things are going to stick around and they do the job right much better than wires that you're going to trip over. Besides wires, they know you. They keep you from pulling against the wire but not pushing toward the

wire and the wind blows different directions. Three sixty Tree Stabilizer has you covered all the way around. Really really quality product. I've messed around with them myself a long time ago when they're first working on getting the patent of this thing, and it's a great product. We're going to go out to now and talk to Catherine. Hello, Catherine, good morning, Good morning. How can we help I trim turks cap? Do I take it down close to the ground or just a few more inches? I would take it.

You could leave it as it is, but it looks a little straggly. I would take it down and cut it off about four inches above the ground. Just cut it all off, and when it warms up, it will come out like gangbusters, and it'd be a much more pretty plant. And it'll still smil to Esperanza. Yeah, Esperanza will do the same thing. Yes, sometimes it makes it through. This year, we had enough cold. I don't. I think Esperanza maybe killed back to the ground at a

lot of places. But yes, I just there are a lot of those semi surviving above ground perennials. Esperanza's one, and Turk's cap is another one like that. The Golden showers is another one. Just cut them all back. And what about beauty berry? I have several beauty berry The beauty berry is a shrub, and that one. You shouldn't have to cut back like that. It should be surviving above ground unless for some reason it just was not ready for winter and that cold hit it. But I think I just

need to wait for leaves. Yeah, I just wait for leeds. The plant, like I like to say, the plant will tell you where to prun back on. Anything like that when you see the new growth coming. I appreciate your help. Well, Catherine, thank you for the call. Good luck with all those plants. Those are all great plants too to have. By the way, Hey, have you been out to the Enchanted Forest.

Enchanted Forest is set up and they're ready to go if you need any kind of hell of Halloween, wrong time of the year, Valentine's Day shopping. They've got the potted plants, just really cool stuff, all kinds of their gift shop. If you've not been in there, you got to go see it. It is every time I see it is just better and better and better, and you're in chanted for us. They've got all kinds of plant if you need tomatoes and peppers and herbs. That their new section they

built last year is just outstanding. And while you're out there, asked to see the gerber daisies. Gerber Daisy is just you know, Jay from Texas Gardener. He always ends every one of his little social media things with plant happiness. Y'all. Well, if you gerber Daisy is the poster plant for plant happiness. They are the brightest, most colorful, happy looking little blooms you've ever seen in your life. Gerber daisy's are beautiful. I've had them

in containers on my porch over the years, many many times. Beautiful plant. Ask him it in chanted for us to see the gerber daisies. By the way, where is enchanted for us? Well, if you're in Richmond heading up Torch sugar Land Way, it's off to the right FM twenty seven fifty nine. FM twenty seven fifty nine makes it real easy. Or how about this. Here's a website Andanted Forest Richmond, TX dot com. Enchanted

Forest, Richmond, TX dot com. It's always fun to go out and see Danny and Clay and the whole team out there, and they sure we'll give you the help you need to have success. We're gonna go now to Magnolia and talk to Cindy. Hello, Cindy, Hi, how are you this morning? Well? I'm well, how are you? I'm doing just fine. The question that I have is we have Saint Augustine grass and because

of the bird seed, I'm sure that I'm feeding the birds. I've got a lot of weeds in the yard, stinging grass and things like that. I don't want to stinging grass on the dogs seat. Can you tell me what is the best thing to use to kill the weeds in the Saint Augustine without actually killing the Saint Augustine. Yes, right now, you want to use a post emergent broad leaf weed control product, so that would be that could be something you spray. There are things you mix up, can spray,

or you can get a product that Nelson's makes. Nelson's makes, of course a lot of fertilizers, but they make one that's called we Donator we Donator, and it has a fertilizer that's very gradual release, so when you put it down, it's going to be fertilizing your lawn for the next few months. But it has the product that kills the existing broad leaf weeds that

you're seeing. You need to wet the soil first, just barely actually wet the plant, just barely get the plant wet so that when the granules of weedinator land on it, they stick to that weed plant and they move into it. And then don't water for a day or two, and it will move in the weed and it'll kill it. Then you want to water it to get the fertilizer down in the soil, all right, And that's called

the Nelson's doator we Doonator. That's the fertilizer combo that you put on right now to kill those cool season weeds before they start blooming and setting seed. Don't delay. If you're going to do that, you need to get it done sooner rather than later while they're still most susceptible. That that and spraying with just a weed control that you know, just spraying would just a herbicide itself would be an option. But for most things go ahead emergence broad leaf.

Yeah, but let's just make it simple. The Nelson weed Enator will kill the kinds of weeds you're seeing right now that are about the problem, and it'll fertilize at the same time. Yeah, okay, wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you. Bet youa Cindy, thank you. I appreciate appreciate your call. Thank you. That's high time to get that kind of thing done. Hey. Uh, if you are wanting some you know, just good ideas and advice and guidance on plants,

The Aggie Horticulture website is excellent. I talk about my website a lot. I'm just getting it built, you know, gardening with skip dot Com that's where the schedules are and some other things. By the way, I just put a thing on soil testing made easy, put it on last week on my website and it just gives you the real simple how to do it. Here's how you do a swell test, so you send it in. Really

easy to do. But Aggie Horticulture website, there's a whole section on fruit where you can get a free publication to view online or print out, whichever you want, on everything from avocados to I don't know what fruit begins with the Z. It's got all of them on there, dozens of fruit. It's got the same thing for vegetables, every vegetable that want to grow in your garden. It's all free information. You should go check it out. You can learn a lot. It's very very harpful. We'll be right back.

Welcome to kt r H garden Line with Skin Director. It's so watch as the world. Welcome back to garden Line. Glad you're listening today. Got some interesting weather out there this morning, but that front is moving to the east. It is going to get away from us here and this afternoon is still going to be a good day. So let's not give up on

today yet we've got some rough stuff going on out there. We just hope everything goes safely for the folks that are dealing with the front coming through up further north than here in the the tornado issues and things like that, what would be extra extra cautious in those areas. But I tell you when it when it comes to the rest of the day, you just know, we got a gardening day here that's coming up, So I hope you'll get out

and enjoy that. For those of you up in the Montgomery area, you got a na plants and produce up there, outstanding, outstanding garden center. You know they've got right now in stock. They've got the sea potatoes. If you want a plant. By the way, now's the time. If you want to have a crop of potatoes this spring. You got to buy those sea potatoes and you cut them up with a couple of eyes on each section. Give them a couple of days to dry off, just so they

don't rot so bad when you put them in the ground. Then once they've kind of dried that cut surface, put them in the ground and you're on your way to success. Onion sets are out there too, fruit tree citrus trees. Of course, they have everything at Ana Plants and produce your color plants, your roses or shrubs, your trees. Lots and lots of quality

products too. When you hear me talk about night frost and Nelson's products, about microlife products, about airloom soils, Nature's way, leave mo compost, They've got all of that. It nate at A and A Plants and produce up there in Montgomery. You can hire them. Their landscape crew can come out. If you live around Lake Conroe, they can come right over there. Then do early clean up on your homes, getting the beds already, sprucing them up, ready to go. Let's have some beauty and really enjoy

that. Well, it looks like we've got Nikki coming back in for the news. I'm gonna pass it with the microphone back over to her. All ready, let me check there we go. News Radio seven forty KTRH activating the Houston area emergency alert system. The National Weather Service in League City has issued a tornado warning central Grimes County, east central Brasis County, northwestern Montgomery County, and southwestern Walker County. The tornado warning in effect until nine fifteen

tornado and quarter size hail is possible again. The affected areas include Richards, Carlos, and Rhones Prairie. The counties are Central Grimes County, east central Brass County, north western Montgomery County, and southwestern Walker County. This concludes activation of the Houston Area Emergency Alert System. Okay, am I back on,

now there we go, all right? I think I was just saying that the Ana Plants and Produce, the folks up there have every kind of plant that you would need and all the things you need to go with it, every kind of supply that you would need, all the products of fertilizers and soils and things. And they do have copies of my lawn care schedule that you can just go to the counter there and they've got them printed up.

They'll give you one or bring it in even better yet, just print it out and bring it in with you so you know which thing you want to point out and say, hey, I need one of these. We'll get you set up with that. By the way, guess what I'm going to go up to Ana Plants and produce not this coming Saturday, but the Saturday after. What day would that be with that would be the twenty fourth of February. February the twenty fourth, I'm going to be at Ana Plants

and Produce. And it gets even better. They are going to be given away. The folks from Nelson's are going to be giving way eight bags of turf star weedinator every fifteen minutes. I'm gonna have a drawing for a bag

of turf star weedinator while I'm there at Ana Plants and Produce. Now'll be there from twelve to two, and I encourage you bring me samples of plants for identification or for diagnosis, bring me pictures if you have something to identify or to diagnose, or if you just want to show me your landscape and say, hey, what would go good right here, or what do you

think's wrong with this over there? Let's talk. I love to meet the folks that listen to Garden Line. I don't get up that far very often, and I'm really looking forward to two weeks from yesterday, Saturday, the twenty fourth, A and A Plants and Produce. By the way, leave room in your car because you're going on a haul home. Some of the good things that they have available there. Those of you that live in the

Lake Conroe, Montgomery Conroe area. You already know about ana plants and produce and the kind of quality stuff that they keep on hand, as well as staff that knows what they're talking about to guide you and to having success. If you'd like to give us a call here on Guarden Line, our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two kt RH. That makes it really simple, didn't it. Uh? You know, the kind of cold weather we had a while back,

caught our plants unprepared. It got a little bit too cold for that. My goodness, Here we come with another newsflash. We got a lot of weather going on today. May Yes News Radio seven forty KTRH activating the Houston Area Emergency Alert system. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch. It had been a warning. It is a tornado watch in effect until three this afternoon. It includes nine counties Austin, Colorado, Waller, Washington,

Harris, Liberty, Montgomery, Poke and Sandra Sinto. Again, the National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch in effect until three this afternoon. This concludes activation of the Houston Area Emergency Alert system. Alrighty wow, that's

a little excitement going on in the weather. I hope everybody's staying safe, take care of yourself out there, keeping eye on the sky, and we just wish everybody the best, and that it kind of throws you off when you come in with such serious news and we're talking about you know that happen the fun things about gardening and taking care of plants and stuff. If you'd like to give us a call, our phone number again is seven one three

two one two five eight seven four. We had that weather back a little bit earlier in the winter where the temperature dropped down lower than it's supposed to drop down around here. Now I'm not saying when I say supposed to, I mean it doesn't not that it never happens. It happens actually quite often, but we don't expect all the time to have that kind of weather dropping down. And I think you have experienced that before. Back in February twenty

one, we had that freeze. It was just record breaking for so long, so cold, single digits. I had seven degrees up at my house a little further up north, and it was brutal. But then we had the December, not this December, but December ago, it dropped down and it caught plants unprotected. They were not hardened off and ready for winter. And then this year we had another coal one that hit later in the season

than the December freeze the year before, but our plants got hammered. And a lot of people have called and asked questions about what do I do about my plants? Well, one thing you want to do is as they begin to regrow, and that's coming as the weather warms up a bit. Got a couple of cool chili days here, not cold, but just the night times a little on the chili side, and then it's going to warm up

and these plants are going to get moving. And a product like Microlife their blue labels, I like the blue label that that would be the Microlife Ultimate by the way, that is a eight four six, a real fortified. Their fertilizer does super well for your plants. You can use that on transplanting as well, putting plants in and then the ocean harvest. That's the four

two three seaweed or fish based fertilizer that you can drench in. When your plants start to regrow, go ahead and drench them with that ocean harvest. Mix it up, follow the label. You're not going to burn your plants with it, don't worry about that. If you got some leaves coming on,

go ahead and spray those two. You can do a FOLDI your feed with that as well as well as with the Microlife's seaweed product on helping that new growth to get the nutrients and energy it needs to get some leaves out there, capture sunlight, make carbohydrates to fuel the plant and everything that it needs, and all that's for Microlife. Microlife has a wide variety of products.

I've used them for years. They work very very well, and I think that you just go to the website Microlifefertilizer dot com Microlife Fertilizer dot com. You can find out where they are learn a lot more about those products as well and the many options that you have. You're not going to go wrong with Microlife where you're working with nature in order to create a more resilient

landscape. And resilience is the key. We've been through a lot weatherwise, and our plants when they're treated right, when we select good quality plants and when we take care of them right, they just become more resilient and they're able to survive, as they say, the vicissitudes of nature. And boy does nature ever throw vicissitudes at us as it is doing today with the kind of weather that's passing through here. May it pass quickly? Please. You've

heard me talk about Starhope before. Starhope is a program that I fully believe in. I'm completely It's a christ centered community, been around Houston since nineteen seven, a long long time. More than a thousand homeless and nearly homeless men, women and children every day are served by Starrohope. Starhope provides every level of help that it needs to turn a life around. Their downtown Men's Center has over three hundred beds or women and Family Development Center off Red Road

off two eighty eight down south. It can host one hundred and eighty single women and one hundred and thirty families there. They serve about six thousand a week, six thousand meals a week there at Star of Hope. You can get involved in that. Just a few dollars provides a meal. How do you want to get involved? Well, go online? Do this? Will you do me? If I ever go to sohmission dot org and find out how you can donate. Find out more information. There's everything from volunteering to

donating money. Just two dollars and eighty cents provides a meal. I mean, that's that's the pocket change. Put your compassion into action in ways that are not just a handout, but that are a hand up to change a life for the people and for their children as well. Shmission dot org. You're listening to Guardline. Our phone number is seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.

I was talking to you yesterday about Verdon Tree Farm. You know. Vernon has the three locations. They're down south in uh Pearland, and they're up in the Heights area where Yale Street and I ten come together, and then they're out on Barker Cypress in West Houston. I was just out visiting out there at the Barker Cypress location this past week, looking at all the plants that they have all that. Boy, they have a lot of things coming

in. I believe I was visiting with them about some holly l nice large excellent hedge plant holly types. They have a number of different holly species they grow. You need a wall of foliage to block a view. They can get you set up with that. Of course, they specialize in trees that are just all the way up to like seven hundred gallons for that instant. Wow, I already got it. It hit the ground running. They take it out, they plant it. You pick it out, haven't put a

tag on it. They'll bring it to your house and they'll plant it for you. They'll even help you if you're looking at doing some developing, you want to redo a new landscape or even developing a community area. They can sit down with you and talk about what are some good species that would do good for that area. What is a good cold hardy tree, what's a drought hardy tree, drought resistant tree? They have all of that at Vernant Tree Farm v e er d Ant Treefarm dot com. Vernant Tree Farm.

Hey, if you are a military or first responder, they are for a ten percent discount for you as well and a one year warranty on what they sell when they do the installation. That is a great deal. And now's the time. Remember the hotter it gets, the more stressful it is for a new plant going in the ground. Why not make it easy get that done right? Now, get that done right. Now, let's go out to northwest Houston. We're going to talk to Rebecca. Hello Rebecca, Well,

good morning. My question is I have an oak tree, and do all those acorns need to be picked up? I mean, I hate for them to be sprouting up little trees, but I didn't know whether they actually needed to be picked up. Well, they don't need to be, but if you want to rake them up, I mean you can. You can just kind of clean them out of there and a lot of them will sprout send up a little tree when you mow over them. They just just chop

them off anyway, you don't have to worry about it. But if they're in a flower bed, yeah, you're gonna have to grab on to them, kind of pull them up. You do it when they're real young and pull them up with one hand. This makes it all easy, okay. But they all don't really all have to be I mean, there was a lot of them this year. There was a lot. I know, we call that a heavy masked year. That's the term they use. But oaks do that. They'll have seasons where it just really you get a lot of

acorns, right, but they do cycle. Different kinds of oaks are on a one or two year cycle, and but then we have these master years where it's like, oh my gosh, where did that come? Right? I think I think this is a life oak. I'm not exactly sure, but I think it's called a live oak. Okay. Does it have green leaves on it right now? Yes? Yeah, probably a life Yeah, it's right. Okay. So they don't all have to be picked up, but some of them probably should. That's completely up to you. You know.

If I'm gonna run around barefoot under the tree, I don't know. I don't like stepping on them. That's just me. That's just me. I'll pick them up. But you know, it's not like a sweet gum to that for sure. You need no one to run barefoot. Oh yeah, right, seriously, it's not. It's it's whatever you want to do. Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much. You bet, you bet. Thanks for the call, Rebecca. I appreciate that. I want to tell you something. As a former seven year old boy live oak,

acorns and a sling shot, you can have a lot of fun. I'm just you can have a lot of fun. Also, as a former seven year boy a China berry tree. Did any of y'all listening, did any of you grow up with China berry trees and a slingshot? We had a next door to our house was another house. It was actually a rental house my parents secure. And there's a China berry and a little kind of a

garage for parking out there, a little tin roof garage. And I'm telling you, give me a sling shot, put me on that tin roof underneath that China berry tree, and I could hold off the whole neighborhood for but a week. Okay, enough of those unnecessary bits of information. You're listening to the garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter. What are we

going to talk about today? Well, I want to tell you what's something one thing I would like to talk about, and that is what do you do with a landscape that is just brutalized by the kind of summer we had last year and maybe even by the cold weather we just had. Well, I ain't. One thing you can do is you can call Pieres Pierscapes love. I love going online to their website and looking at the kinds of jobs

that they've done. Now, a lot of those jobs. I mean they are like top of the line jobs and you're going, well, that's not what my house looks like. Okay, But they can do anything. Do you need just an added flower bed or a renovation or do you just need a little work on a sprinkler system? Do you something modest or do you want to go all out? Do you want to create a beautiful outdoor patio

with water features, with landscape lighting all the above. Perscapes can do it all from a to Z, all of that kind of stuff, and they do an excellent, excellent job. But you need to get them scheduled. Hey, they stay busy, you know, telling me you heard about on guardline that you heard you need to get it scheduled ahead of time, and they'll say, yes, absolutely, of course you do, because they want

to be able to get to work, get it planned out. You know, maybe it's a big job, gonna take a lot of time to get it all scheduled, work with you on the design, or maybe it's a simple job. They stop to get it planned out and scheduled so they can come out. If your sprinkler system isn't working wide, if you got broken heads, if the coverage last year, proved to you that that system was very inefficient and did not do the job of evenly watering throughout your yard.

To keep the whole yard alive, you need to call Pierscapes. They can do all of that and then some. I keep saying, Collum, what's the number two eight one three, seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh five zero six zero, Or go to that wonderful website piercescapes dot com pierscapes dot com. Take a look at the kind of work they can do, and then imagine for your home, for your outdoor goals, what might you have them do for you. We're going to go now out to

where are we going? To the League City League City and talk to Rubin. Hello, Rubin iod line. I ordered and received ten metal plastic. It should have been clear. Unfortunately it was too late to send it back. It's a opaque almost white plastic eating and the reason for this to tend top areas in the garden, ok, for this protect them to my TRAIND Is that going to be detrimental using the plastic in your garden? You're saying, well, actually what I wanted was a clear plastic, but I ended

up gaining almost so white. It's not opaque, it's almost white, slightly see through plastic instead. Okay, if you're if you're wanting, are you wanting to use it to protect plants against temperatures that are cold or what? Well? No, no, just just to tent up garden areas where we have excessive rains that just while they're growing. Oh, I guess you could. I guess you could. I don't fully picture what you're saying. Hey,

Ryn, I'm sorry, but Nicky's come back in. We gotta do a little news break or a weather emergency here, or just hang on just a moment. News radio kg RH activated the Houston Area Emergency Alert system. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning. This is a warning east central Grimes County. There are three areas. The counties are east central Grimes, northwestern Montgomery, and southwestern Walker Counties. Again, this is a tornado

warning in effect until nine to forty five. This concludes activation of the Houston Area Emergency Alert System. All right, there we are back, so Rubin, I guess you know, if you're just wanting to shed some water off the area, Yes, you could use any kind of a plastic just remember if the sun shines through it, it gets a little hot underneath it, so that would just be the only caveat that if I'm understanding here. Welcome back to guard Line. We're glad you're listening in today. Boy, what

a day, interesting weather going on north of town. To pray everybody's safe up there, property and people. Tornadoes come through up in that area. I just want to remind you down here, this front is blowing through and we are going to have an afternoon that is a good day to get out and get outside. For those of you shopping down in the Houston area looking for garden centers and plants and products and supplies and whatnot, it's a good

day to get out there. And it's going to just let this blow through here. Once you get past lunch a little bit, it's going to be a really, really nice afternoon. And I hope you will enjoy that and take advantage of it, because you know, the gardening is just such a refreshing and enjoyable hobby. It's such a hobby of hope. It always amazes me that every year it's just like a new start, you know, And there's a lot of things in life where new starts are much more difficult to

come by. You know, when it comes to gardening, if you don't like the way a plant grew, if something died, if it didn't do well, you can try again. You can do something different. And I just think that's one of the most refreshing things about it. And I don't think it's a coincidence that there is something that we call the Garden of Eden. There wasn't the Cubicle of Eden. Right. We enjoy being out in nature. We're just built for nature. We're built from being out among living

things and plants and whatnot. And I think it's a happy place, and I hope you enjoy that. There's so much research out there showing the benefits of being in nature, certainly gardening, but even just walking, walking through the woods, breath of fresh air, exercise, just participating in all the activities that the outdoors and enable us to be able to enjoy. Take advantage of that, especially this afternoon. Speaking of picking up supplies, Bob and

the folks over at Southwest Fertilizer, they are stocked up. I've been a couple of weeks since I've been in there, but they were already getting all these shipments in of all kind every kind of fertilizer I talk about, and then some is it Southwest fertilizer, every kind of pesticide. Whether you need to deal with insects or diseases or weeds, they've got you covered there.

They have staff that knows what they're talking about. You bring them a sample, bring it, put it in the ziplock bag, bring it by. I say, what's wrong here? What do I do? What is this weed? How do I kill it? They can help you with that. Take them a picture. They can work with you on that. They have the products they need, and they know how to direct you to the thing

you want. Listen. I have stood in big box stores before, watching customers stare at this wall of products, not knowing what to get or where to begin. I mean you can just see it in their eyes. They're like, Okay, I don't know what they were there for. I didn't butt in and ask them, but you know, as cockroaches or what are you trying to kill? And so they look for a bottle that's got the deadest looking bug on it and the brightest colors to the plastic on the bottle,

and that's kinw they choose their purchases. That is not the way to do it. You go into a place like Southwest Fertilizer and you they know the weed or the past or whatever it is that you're dealing with. They take you to the product that's timely for that situation and they tell you how to use it. And that is that's the way it ought to be done. That is good service. That's the old fashioned kind of makes sense service. That is just so important and unfortunately too rare these days. But not

a Southwest Fertilizer seven one three six nine nine seventeen forty four. That's the number seven one three six nine nine seventeen forty four. Or just go online to Southwest Fertilizer dot com. There at the corner Abyssinet and Renwick in southwest Houston. Go by there, go by to day see for yourself. By the way, when you're in there, kneeling bench, say show me your folding kneeling bench. One of those. I bought one for my sister. Wonderful thing. I bought one for myself, and it's like, oh my

gosh. If you need to sit and work in the garden, if you want to kneel down and get up. It's got a little handles to help you get up and down. It'll change your gardening life. And if anyone o north of forty, trust me, it will change your gardening life a lot. The folding Bod's got plenty of those on hand in there all right here, Where are we? Now? We're going to go out to Baytown and talk to Steven. Hello Stephen, Hey man, I'm a quick question

for actually two one. My grandmother has always told me turn the roses right at Valentine's Day? Is that too early? Too late? Perfect, No problem at all. You can do it now. You can do it in January. You can do it in February. Just you want to get it done. You know, heavy purning before you already start the new growth. You don't want it to start growing, and then you cut off all the growth that just spent energy to grow. So February is a good time.

Valentine's Days a good time. Okay. Second, I'm starting. I just bought a home, so I'm starting the the fertilizer schedule. Randy stuff starting that. Put down my barricade, Yesterda before the rain Friday night. Actually put it down sod watered in for me, because why not use that right the backyard. The front is beautiful already, the back is just clover and gross, and I know there's some some grass under there somewhere. Yes, is there anything else I can do now to start getting rid of some of

the weeds that have already come up? So if you've got this is in your lawn, Stephen, Yes, okay, So Stephen, I've got a schedule online also kind of an updated one that I put up on gardening withthskip dot com. You should download those two. I have two actually, there's one that just deals with fertilizing and mowing, watering. There's one that deals

with the pest diseases and weeds and so print those out. But what I would do now if you've got broad leaf weeds in your lawn is since you've put the barricade out, I would go ahead and get a broad leaf post emergent product like Bonides. We'd better ultra. There is a fertile homes Oh gosh, I'm trying to think of what they call theirs. I need to get that in front of me. Gosh. Anyway, they're for broad leaf

weeds. You're out there in the Baytown area. You've got some ace hardware stores really close to you, really easy to find, easy to get to. If I were you, I would just head out go to one of those and say I need a broad leaf post emergent weed killer product, and they can get you fixed up and you'll be ready to go spray that directly on the weeds. But do it steven soon, not later, because once those weeds start to bloom and set seed, you're not going to get as

good as results trying to control them. Okay, so that's like clover and such. That would be like clover, chick weed, hen bet, carpet weed, cleavers, all of those cool season weeds. Yes, sir, okay, perfect, Thank you so much, you bet, take care. All right. We're going to now go to talk to Rick. Hello, Rick, do we have a Rick there? You have a Fred? Fred? All right, we'll talk to Fred then mean Kingwood. Good morning, Skip, good morning. I have a very beautiful white pillar al fea I

think it's called. And for the freeze, I put a lot of hairloom composts around the base, and yesterday we didn't get a whole lot of rain. The last couple of days. But yesterday came out yesterday morning and this morning, and it was growing a very right at the base, right around the bottom of the of the plant. It was growing a very bright yellow. I think of fungus, of course, okay, and I'm thinking that's

just because the compost was doing a good job. Yeah. Now, when when we pile the compost around the base of a plant, we do that to protect the base if it gets frozen back to it. But you never want to leave composts piled against the trunk of the plant. Pull it back, leave a little gap there. Mulch is a good thing. About three inches deep. That's pretty good, but don't leave it piled up against the trunk. But yes, nature has a bazillion organisms that turn wood back into

soil, and that's kind of what's going on there. So I should pull back the moult. It's only about two inches high. Oh, okay, I should just pull it back down to the uh they pull it back to the base of the trunk. Yeah, that'd be better. You know, two inches isn't bad. But I would just I basically let mine go to the ground right at the base of the plant, and then have the multch sticking up as you go out from it. But that the yellow. There's

a lot of different kinds of fungi someone. Some actually look like a dog through up. Others look like scrambled eggs sitting on top of the mulch. Others look like white mushrooms. And it's all decomposer fungi that are doing what they're supposed to do. This was just a real pretty yellow Yeah, okay, well, don't worry about it. It's nature making the soil better. That's really what it amounts to. Those are called decomposer much. I appreciate it, all right, man, thanks a lot. Appreciate the call.

Fred, thank you very much. All Right, here we go. We're coming right back here. We're kind of jumping around here dealing with the alerts and other things. I tell you what, I'm gonna go ahead and go straight out to Kevin and Cypress Ranch. I believe Kevin's got a question out there. Kevin, welcome to garden line. Yes, yes, you got it, immen Cyprus. Uh, we've got three sets of large trees,

uh. And they're all three combined oak and a hiring growing in sin from the flare of the base and they're they're sort of parallel electrical high lines. All right, I'd like to get rid of the oaks. I want to keep the pines. Uh, the heads and times are pretty high above the lines at all. But I'd like to, you know, get rid of those. And I'm just warning if that would increase the potential of them blowing in a high wind situation, or blowing over the pine trees blowing over in

a high wind situation, or anything like that, you know. And then well, whenever you remove trees that have been growing to some trees that have been grown together, the other trees are more exposed to the to the air blowing through. They don't have that canopies of the other trees around them. So I can't tell you for sure, you know, not seeing the situation and the size and the trunk diameter and everything of everything. Just yes,

there's a potential that the trees you leave would have some problems. It may be worth having somebody come out and look at it. I would if I we had call Martin Spoon Moore to come out and just say, look, you know, hey, I'm out here at Syranch. What what do you think can we take these out? Are they going to be okay? Is there any kind of a pruning you need to do to help make them more

okay or not? And I think that would be probably the best, the best way to go because me just guessing over the air on it is that's not going to be a very accurate, very accurate. Do you need a would you like a phone number in case you decide to give them a call? Yes? And that last name. I didn't get a spoon more just like two words, but put together spoon and more and it's seven to one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three seven one three six nine nine two

six sixty three. His website is afftree service dot com. Okay, another thing I have a little bit of difficulty getting the getting the program inside my house has am FM radio. We're not knowing the correct okay numbers. Well, the truck truck works fine, it's always there. But yeah, the interior on these things, I'm not sure what's happening. Well, if you get the iHeartRadio app on your phone, you can listen live that way and

you can listen to podcasts that way too. It's a free app iHeartRadio app. You can listen on your computer as well, and it's kt RH. It's seven forty am. Hey, I got to run to another call. We're just about out of the show today. But thank you very much, Kevin. I appreciate your call very much. We're going to go up to UH Humble and talk to Butler. Hello, Butler, Hi, how are you? Good morning? You've probably been asked this question to million times,

but I've always missed it. My oak trees never shed their leaves, and as I drive around the neighborhood, even talk to people as far as Dallas, it seems to be a common thing, especially the lower leaves. Sometimes they're shed the top that they never shed the lower. Yeah, or some at all. This sounds like a red phenomenon. Sounds like a red oak probabably, Yeah, that's mine. Are they hold on to them up? I'm sorry, they do hold on to them in the interior. That's not

unusual at all. They'll come off later. Don't worry about that. Just nothing, not a sign of a problem at all. All right. Well, because of the drought last year, I was wondering if it was affecting in Lord of the early frost or anything. There's nothing that really can do that. Yeah, no, that it's it's not a problem. It's a good question, good thing to wonder about. But now some species, the Mexican monterey oak, also holds on to its leaves a long time, especially

in the interior, so not a problem. Okay, all right, thank you very much. Well, goods. All right, we have a good day you too. Thanks for listening. Appreciate you listening to garden Line. See if I can squeeze one quick one in here, let's say noe, we already had Kevin here in sy Ranch, right, leave Kevin just hanging on. Yeah, okay, all right, well, thank you very much. Well, look, I was trying to finish all the calls before we run into the end of the day. You've been listening to garden Line.

I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here every Saturday and Sunday from six am to ten am. Six am to ten am. Really easy to get ahold of us. You can listen to seven forty am on your radio. You can listen to the get the iHeartMedia app and listen to us live. You can do that. You can listen to past shows. You can go on your computer and go to the KTRH website find garden Line listen to us that way. A lot of ways to listen to garden Line, including

by the podcast with the past shows. In fact, on a number of different podcast apps will carry garden Line as well, not just the iHeartMedia, but that's the one that I like to use because I listen to the show live and everything. Actually I don't listen to the show. I'm talking on the show, but I do love podcast. That's a great way to catch

up on things. Thanks for being a listener. Hey, I hope this afternoon we're going to get this weather through here, and I hope you get out and get some of the supplies and plants and things you need to have a really, really good day. Remember two weeks fround'ming to be at A and A Plants and Produce in Montgomery. That's Saturday, the twenty fourth, at lunch. I hope you'll come see me.