We Made It Through The Freeze, What's Next?

seventy four Here on garden Line, we uh. I guess my motto or whatever for the show is I want you to have a bountiful garden, a beautiful landscape and fun in the process. That's that's the part we don't want to forget. You know, gardening is supposed to be fun, and it is fun. Gardening is. It's good for the soul, it's good for the mind, it's good for the body. It just there's a reason that there was a thing

called a garden of Eden. You know, we we are, we are made to be in a garden, we really are. I just think that in every way, shape and form, being outdoors and nature is such a rejuvenating experience. And I know, you know, we go through the ups and downs of gardening. We have weather extremes, finally now getting through some of this rainfall that we had, or mostly just kind of a misty, overcast, nasty day yesterday this morning.

But guess what happens today? We get some sunshine back and we have a good week, a really good week to be outside getting some things done. And so I hope you will take advantage of that. Gardening is good exercise too, by the way, getting up, getting down, walking around, moving sometimes you can. Let wellis let me put it this way. If you are a good gardener, gardening is good exercise. If you are a bad gardener, gardening is great.

scene for the home, for other gardens. It's a way to get from the house to some back garden bed or garden or orchard or whatever you have. And the lawn is just a standard part of our American landscapes now. And while you may not go, well, that's my favorite plant, well, it still is the area that makes a phone ring on garden line more than anything. Trees are right behind the lawns in terms of frequency of questions and things that we get because lawns are important. They're important to

people and taking care of them is important. There are a lot of good products out there that will help you have success with your lawn, whether you're dealing with insects pests, whether you're dealing with diseases, or we're dealing with weeds, or just wanting that garden or that lawn area to grow better. And Sweet Green is an example

of that. Sweet Greens from Nitropos. It is an eleven percent nitrogen fertilizer, which is very high for an organic fertilizer, but Sweet Green, through biological activity on molasses, ends up being something that releases quickly to the soil where microbes number one. They love it because they like any kind of a sugar molasses based product that really fires up, especially a lot of the beneficial bacteria, and it releases it to your plants and your plants do well. Sweet

Green from Nitrofos is available widely in our area. You can find it all across the region. Really plants and things over in Brenham carry nitro Foss products. The M and DS on Beamer and are the one of Beemer, the one Clear Lake as well on Bay Area Boulevard carry it D and D feed and Tomball's. Another place where nitrofost products are sold as is M and D s in Cypress on Lubetta Road. M and D ACE in Cypress area. Carry is that. So however you go about it, where you find it, you need to give

it a shot. You're going to find that the fragrance of it is pleasant. You don't usually say, you know, oh, this fertilizer smells great, but this one really smells great. It's easy to go on and at bottom line as it works. We're going to go now to the phones and head down to Wharton to talk to Ann. Hello, Ann, Welcome to garden Line.

you need to figure out is why it's there. Maybe you've got some scale underneath the leaves of that satsuma, and you flip a leaf over and you see these little tiny things like fish scales, but maybe a small or smaller than a tight lower case letter O. That's

a scale. And you can control those different ways. The least toxic way to control them is to use a horticultural oil spray spray upward from underneath the plant to coat as many of the lower sides of the leaves as you can, and the better you coat those scale not nime well, nim oil is okay. There are other horticultural oils too. There's many types of oil that's labeled

for spraying on plants. You just want to get one that's labeled for spraying on growing tissue, not a dormant oil, but we call them a summer oil or horticultural oil NIM is an example of an oil but there are many others. And again with oil, and you just need to remember coverage is everything. You got to have really good coverage in order for it to work. And I think that'll shut it down. Over time, You're going to have less and less of that sooty mold. Okay, well,

it's just a problem. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to run here. If you need to continue the questions, I'm gonna have to put you on hold. But if not, I hope that hope that took care of it. Hey, welcome to Garden Line, folks. Good to have you back. If you haven't been out to Nelson Water Garden and Nursery, I'm katie, you need to. You need to go check that out. This place is it is your West Houston garden center choice. I'll just put it that way. It's

a destination too. By the way, Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens is a place where not only do you find plants and the products to go with them. You know, you're ter fertilizers, We control things like that, but the water garden displays there are outstanding you can you will get inspiration I promise you that because they have everything they do, they will come and install water gardens for you, or they will sell you the parts and you can do it do it yourself for depending on you know

how deeople you want to get into it. I mean there's things like a disappearing fountain. It's a big beautiful vase. Water goes out the top, down the sides, comes back through, circulates again and it's just gorgeous. The birds will love it. Beneficial insects actually love love water too. They need a source of moisture as well. But for your esthetic, for your audio enjoyment, I love the sound of water, and

Nelson Water Gardens is just absolutely like that. And then Nelson's Nursery, the nursery part of it is going to carry all the plants you need, and right now they're stocked up. And the houseplant section where you have to walk through that going through the store, it is just gorgeous, some of those beautiful, well tended, just perfect little houseplants.

I love that place really nice. And then you get outside and you see the herbs and you see the vegetables and flowers and shrubs and trees and fruit and everything else. It's cool. It is absolutely cool. Allow you still some time to walk around. Take your friends with you when you go, because it's really a destination place worth going to. The website is Nelsonwatergardens dot com. It's on the Kadie Fort Ben Road, just just north of Ien. As you're going out that direction, and when you get there,

you'll see why I'm excited about it. Well, I love to go there. Talk to the folks there. They're very knowledgeable. They've been in the nursery business for a long time and they know what they're talking about. Nelson Water Gardens and nursery. We're going to go back to Anne out in Wharton. Now, Hey, Anne, how can we continue this conversation and help?

fertilizer sticks to the wet leaves. And then give it a couple of days maybe and then watered in uh and it will do a good job on broadleaf weeds in your lawn. And then it continues on as a fertilizer for several months actually feeding your your turf.

this fertilizer down, it sticks to the leaves. It does the same same type of procedure as far as getting getting rid of those. Both of those will take care of broadly fweds.

growth regulator for the grass. So the grass you don't get that rapid vertical growth or the rapid development like that, so you're not mowing so much, you know, you sometimes you fertilize. It's like, my gosh, I'm in mowed twice a week. Keep up with this thing. Well, with the weed eater, it does have that growth regulator slows it down a little bit. And so in addition to that, getting a month's of the fertilizer d kind of a good thing. It's one of the many products they have.

Nelson also has Bruce's Brew that's their immediate release. Bruce's Brew lasts for a good while. I say it's immediate release has an initial fast release of nutrients, but then it kind of evens out and releases over a little period of time too, so it's not just like a one and done, real quick thing. Bruce's Brew is going to give you a little bit of an extended feed

as well as that initial release. Very popular products from Nelson and you should be able to find them in a lot of different places around the Greater Houston area. You're listening to Gardenline and let's see seven one three two one two kt r H is our phone number. I want to remind you or let you know. First of all, thanks to the folks up at all seasons,

Ason Willis. I enjoyed going out there yesterday. I enjoyed getting to meet folks that listen to garden Line is a that is always a lot of fun to get to go and do that and help folks find the products they need to have success with their lawn and their garden. The next time I'm going to be out and about is going to be next Saturday. I'll be at the annual Spring Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show.

This is a great show. It's at the Lone Star Convention Center right there on Airport Road in Conroe, right across from the Extension office, Yager Life Extension Office. And I'll be there again on Saturday. And the show is open on Saturday from ten am to six and on Sunday from eleven am to five. There's no charge for admission to get in. There is no charge for parking, so that that is a really good deal. Now I'll be there from twelve noon to two pm, So grab

you some lunch, come on out. That's a visit. Montgomery County Master Gardeners are going to be there. They're going to just have the typical kind of home show they put on, which is an awesome one. Lots of different kinds of exhibitors and then a lot of good information too, coming from folks that are educating you. Now I'm going to be talking a little bit about how to have

a successful spring garden. Talk a little vegetables, a little flowers, definitely some lawns and trees, and then I'll just answer your gardening questions. So, if you got weeds that you're looking at in the yard, put them in a bag, bring them, let's take a look. We'll make them, put them under a hot lamp and interrogate them and make them confess their names, and then I'll tell you what to use to manage them. But we'll just give you

general tips. If you've got some photos of your property and you would like to ask questions, a photo is very helpful, you know, as we wave our hands in the air and go, well, there's this thing and it looks sort of it's kind of hard to help that, But bring me a photo. We'll take a look at it,

and we'll have some time to visit again. I'm going to do a little talk there first before we go to the We go to the just pure Q and a time two hours, twelve noon to two pm next Saturday, Lone Star Convention Center, Montgomery County Home and Outdoor Living Show. I hope you'll come out and see me there. I would love that. Hope we'll have a good time. I always try to have fun. Ive you've been to the appearances, No, we try to joke around and have some thun as.

We do that as well. Down in the Richmond Rosenburg area is enchanted forests. Now in Channa Forest is south of Interstate or Highway fifty nine. And if you if you are going from Richmond towards sugar Land, it's off to the right. It's down on FM twenty seven fifty nine. FM twenty seven fifty nine now in Channed Forest is just a haven for all kinds of plants. They you know, they took everything in and filled up the greenhouses and the bill buildings and even their offices with plants when

we had this freeze come through. So everything looks good. It's back out on the tables and it looks awesome. You're you are going to find a selection of vegetables. You can find a selection of herbs. You're going to find a selection of flowers that is just beautiful, with very healthy, very beautiful plants. They still have their fruit trees. You know, there's a there is all kinds of fruit there at enchanted forests. They've got low choll varieties. You know,

there's apples and peaches and plums. What are kind of fruits you're looking for? They've got them there, and they even have some if you haven't cleaned them out yet. There are three in one trees which are really unique. So you don't have room for three fruit trees. How about a true tree that has three different varieties of that type of fruit on the tree, so you kind of get three in one. That's exactly what it is.

Good selection of satsumas, including brown select and arctic frost, which is about as hearty as you're going to get with a satsuma. It's going to go down into the mid teens, if not lower, once it's well established, so that is hardy for et CEUs. Anyway, you got to get by there. Let them help you turn your place into a garden of eaton. Yeah, that's my corny dad joke. Garden of eating with fruit, with vegetables, with herbs, and then a beautiful place with all the blooms that they have.

Grab you one of the Chinese fringe trees when you're down there. That is my favorite spring blooming tree because it's beautiful. It has a light fragrance to the shaggy white blooms, and it doesn't get too big. It's not a giant tree. That's going to take over our typically smaller urban lots we have these days. It's a medium, small to medium sized tree and it works really really well in the landscape. And they have those chended for us.

They carry them. I've been there many times and I always walk over and say, yep, they're still around there. Great tree. Great tree to have. All right, let's go out to the Laporte. We're going to talk to Nolan. Hey, Nolan, welcome to garden Line. Good morning, skips.

all right to do that. Just hurry up and get it done because you want to give them the longest time you can before it gets really hot, so they have time to grow and then create those tubers, which is why you're growing the potatoes in the first place. Okay, thank you, all right, all right, sir, right, thank you. I appreciate appreciate that very very much. You take care. I appreciate it.

Year Round Houston dot Com. Here's a phone number if you want to give them a call. Eight three to two eight eight five five three three five. One of the best things you can do for your lawn for success is to have it aerrated and compost top dressed and year round Houston can do that. I'm going to take a break. I'll be right back, folks. Thank you. All right, folks, welcome back. I'm your host, Skip Richter.

We are here on garden Line answering your gardening questions, helping you have a more bountiful garden, more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process. That is definitely the case. If you want to give me a call the number seven one three two one two kt r H seven one three two one two kt RH. I was visiting with one of the folks from Microlife yesterday. We're kind of drilling down and talking about some of the products

that they had and things. And you know, Microlife has been around for over thirty five years now and it is the leading organic fertilizer in the Houston area. They have built their company around products that are loaded with microbes and loaded with the nutrients in the ratios that your plants want, and it works. That's as simple as that. That's one reason why it's still around and growing and coming even more popular. You're not going to burn your

lawn with Microlife products. They are natural based products. Put them on the soil, they start to get moist or wet, and the microbes jump on and they take them apart and release exactly the kinds of nutrients and the forms that the plants need to take up. One of my favorite Microlife products is their standard green bag lawn fertilizer. It's a six two four and you'll find it on my schedule when you go look on there. But I want to tell you something. This is a little secret here.

It's actually not a secret, but I use it for all kinds of things.

for your plants, and again loaded with microbes. Microbes make the world go around. Microbes make roots happy. Microbes make organic matter become soil. And microbes are the reason why when you go into a forest or you go into a meadow, plants are growing and they're happy because there is a constant cycling of organic matter going on that is helping everything to do well. I mean, think about this. Think about a place like the redwood trees on the

coasts in California, giant, giant trees. Who took care of those trees over the eons. Microbes, Microbs did microbes rainfall in good soil. That's kind of the three things that made it work. Think about the Great Plains when settlers came across in Conestoga wagons and the grass was as deep as a horse's belly. There was nobody doing a crop dust or a fertilizer in that grass. It was

microbes run in the world. Now, you come home and you build a garden, and you want more tomatoes, and you want better fruit, and you want a nice dense, thick lawn that you can pounds your feet across and it still holds up and does well. Well, yeah, we fertilize, we boost it, we air a, we do all kinds of things to help that happen. But never forget microbes are ruling the world. And that's why microlife is based around microbial activity. And they have many products, dry products, granulars.

They have liquid products like the Biomatrix that's an orange label seven one three. The Ocean Harvest is a blue label. It's a fish based fertilizer four two three. You're going to find microlife all over town. If you want to go to the website microlife Fertilizer dot com, you can find all the specific places where you can find it.

And for those of you who aren't around Houston you're living listening to me over in I don't know, New Bramfels or someplace, microlife is available in your areas too, all right, you are listening to Guardline again the phone number seven one three two one two kt RH seven one three two one two KTRH. I introduced you to a new sponsor yesterday, Pest brother Pest Brothers is a

regional pest control company serving our Greater Houston area. And when I say greater, I'm talking about from the woodlands all the way down to Texas City, from Katie, all the way across town to Baytown. They cover this area. And when you're needing let's say, termite control or protection against termites, it's much better to have them come out and do the things that prevent termites than waiting until they're chewing through you two by four us before you

call Pest Brothers. They've got some really great, steady the art products for doing that. Other kind of household pests, you know, the cockroaches that come in and crawl around. They can take care of that. That kind of exterminating for you outdoors fire ants and mosquitoes and even wild varmits, you know, rats and mice. More and more, I'm getting calls on things where yeah, that was a rat that came at night and chewed on that or stole that

or whatever. They can control all of those kinds of things, and they know how to treat effectively. They know how to do so in the safest manner, so you get long term results, long term results without the worries. You know, you got pets, you got kids running around out there. Call Pest Brothers and talk to them. Ask for a quote. Two eight one two oh six forty six seventy two eight one two o six forty six seventy or go to their website which is the pest brosbros dot com,

Thepestpros dot com. When you're calling them, you gotta to ask them about their mosquito control system that is basically based on bait station buckets that they put outside. And let me just say it is fascinating. Maybe later today I'll tell a little bit more about that specific thing, but it is state of the art. It is super safe,

and it is incredibly effective. And those of you who've lived in Houston and know about summer with mosquitos, you got to know about the system called Pest Brothers two eight one two o six forty six seventy. We're going to head out now to Vider and talk to Ethel. Hey, Ethel, welcome to garden Line.

that's what you're looking for. I kid around with some gardeners and I always say, well, if you want a lilac, just gets you a lavender colored grape myrtle and spray it with perfume and you've got the same thing. But that's not quite the same thing for people who grew up in lilac country and love that fragrance.

on a raised mound. It produces in the spring purple clusters that look like grapes of flowers that smell like grape kool aid or the remember grape super bubble bubblegum. If you remember that, they smell very strongly fragrant, very strongly fragrant. Then there's guardinas that have a nice fragrance. You know, there are a lot of plants that can have some fragrance, depending on sunshade, how big you want it to get, and what's fragrance you like.

your Saint Augustine. When the temperatures in the upper eighties or nineties, barricade. Now, we'll do the trick. You put it down, you water it in. Half inch of water goes into the soil. And when all of the summer eats crabgrass and grassperrs and you know all those things we deal with in the summer, when they try to sprout the barricades there say no, I'm a barricade. You can't come through. I Am not going to let you become a weed. We're going to shut you down right

here at the seedling stage. Barricade does that. It comes in ten pound bag. Ten pound bag covers five thousand square feet. It's one of the great products from Nitrofoss that they have all over the place. So if you go to Barings Hardware on Bissinet, Bearing's on West Timer, if you go to M and D in Rosenberg, that is a place you can get Nitrofoss products, Ace Hardware, City and Memorial Plants for all seasons on two forty nine. These are all places that carry Nitrofoss products like barricade.

But know this, follow my schedule. Don't wait. Do it now because it prevents weed seeds from establishing. If you wait until you got three inch grasspur plants or something, it's too late to use the barricade. It's a preventative, but it works. But do it now and water it in and you will have a good success with that. We're going to go back to Vider and talk to Ethyl and Ethyl. The bottom line on if you're wanting

to improve your soil for lawns and things. You can just put a compost down, you can mix it in. It only takes a couple of inches. You know, you're not trying to turn it into a nice fluffy garden bed.

You're just trying to put some organic matter in there and smooth over the soil and make sure everything is is kind of level so you're not stepping in holes when you're walking around on it, and then put your soil down on or your side down on top of that as it warms up a little bit, so it is going to be very willing to immediately start to root in.

You know, you have a lot of different kinds of metal and wood and rock sided beds, whatever aesthetics you're wanting. Just get a good quality bed mix and put that down to grow.

and mult and they will do bulk deliveries. So if I were you, I would I would consider that and just you know, unless you just need a tiny bit, then you probably need to go get it because the cost of shipping. If you're just going to get like a yard of soil, it's not worth that. But if you're going to get a larger quantity, it may be.

the bag. And then they also have bulk. You can go out to Porter and get it on US fifty nine out there in Porter, or you can have them deliver it and they can deliver it by dumbing it on the driveway, or they can bring it in one qbicyard supersacks. You got to buy at least three supersacks for delivery because of the amount, and there are always delivery fees on bulk materials here on gardening types of products. Here in the Eastern area, but they have a number.

They have a premium lawn mix, which is it's made with Mason sand in compost and some bed mix and it's really good for prepping the soil for putting down. Said.

It's a very economical product too, by the way, But however you go about it, you can go to Rockmoltch dot com r O c K the letter n Mulch dot com slash delivery, or you can get them call to eight one three five four nineteen fifty for all those bulk types of items and then just go to your local garden centers, your ace hardware stores, your feed stores, south those fertilizer places like that, or where you're going

to find their products by the bag. I've used them a number of times in my landscapes and gardens and find that they work very very well. If you haven't met up the plants for all seasons, you need to go, especially if you have a vegetable garden. Right now, they got a shipment of onions in, just lots of bunches of all kinds of onions. You know, we're talking about red onions, yellow onions, white onions. And they also still

have some potatoes. I believe last time I checked these potatoes there, it's time to get all those in the ground, and now's the time to do that. And by the way, when you're in there, you'll be inside in their area. Go check out their seeds. They have an excellent selection of all kinds of seats, flowers, and vegetables, you name it. It's beautiful and I just like walking around in there. I mean they have the little glass toadstools that you put all through the guard you know, that kind of

yard art and things. It's just real whimsicle and fun. Lots of quality tools. I mean, it's just a good place. And then of course you got to go outside. They have the fertilizers I talk about on guard Line, They've got the soil products I talk about on guard Line. And then their plant selection is just awesome, and the knowledge of the folks that work there outstanding. You go in, you ask a question, you get an accurate answer. They know it, they've seen it before. They're gardeners. They've been

doing this since nineteen seventy three. They pretty much have seen everything you could haul in in a sample or with a picture, and they're gonna be able to tell you what to do about it. That's it. Plants for all seasons. They're on Tomball Parkway two forty nine if you are going north and you exit Luetta crossover Luetta and they're right there on the right hand side. Plants for all seasons. I love visiting garden centers. You know, my happy place is just going from one garden center

to another all over town. That would be a good day as far as I'm concerned. And it works, works really really well. I was checking out the Peerscap's website yesterday and looking at just the landscape lighting and what they can do to the outside of your house, both for security but also for just a beauty standpoint. Is amazing. If you've got an area that doesn't drain, they can fix that. If you've got irrigation issues, they can fix that.

If you need landscape, hardescapes, they can fix that. They can create those. Yeh see it. I'll just say here, here's a website. Go to Pierscapes dot com, Peerscapes dot com, and I'm just ask you just do this. It's a fun thing to do. Even if you're not in the market for a landscape right now, go look go look at what they can do and it's amazing. Pierscapes dot com. Well just another reminder, uh, talking about what's up next. I'm gonna be at the Home and Garden Show up

in Conrod, Texas. The Montgomery County Home An Outdoor Living Show March first and second is coming weekend. I'll be there Saturday from twelve to noon, So come out and see me. I'm gonna give a talk, my answer questions I'm diagnose. I'm going to identify, shake hands, and kiss babies.

I love talking to gardeners. I've been doing this for thirty six years now, I believe, and it just every time a phone call comes in, you never know what people are going to ask, but it's always it's always good. You know, gardeners some of the finest people you'll meet. I tell you, I've been to so many garden clubs and master gardener groups and garden centers visiting with gardeners, and just I just enjoy gardeners. They are fun people,

they're hopeful people. They're people that want to make that little patch of earth they call eden around the house a better place, and they really have that inspiration and a positive outlook too. You know, when you stick a seed in the ground, it looks like a little little chip of wood or a little piece of tritius, and you put it in the ground and you're thinking you're going to get a flower on of that, You're going to get a tomato out of that, and you do,

and you do. It's just it's just trusts that when you do things right, you're going to have success. Well, I'll tell you what. Let's go straight out to the phones and we're going to head to Conroe and talk to Diane. Hey, Diane, welcome to garden Line.

if I didn't want to garden the area again. He made this to me that I could use thirty percent vinegar for the weeds, because I told him I don't want to garden that area this year. But he was telling me, you know, to avoid chemicals, to use thirty percent vinegar, it would kill weeds. Can what is your opinion on that.

it to dandelions. They're perennials. They've got an underground storage structure, and if you did it to dandelions, they would turn brown very Vinegar kills very fast, like putting gasoline on something. Just fries.

But when you do that, you got to follow up with some next step of what you're going to do gardening wise, because when you create a beare space, Nature's going to plant more weeds in it. Nature doesn't like bear soil showing, so use that to kill weeds. You put mulch over it. Yeah, you put about three inches of mulch and you're in good shape with the exception of certain weeds.

It is one of our favorite feed stores here on garden Line. And for those of you out west twenty nine to twenty you will be very impressed going by DND Feed and Supply right now. They are in the big middle of chick arrival season and they get all kinds of species of chickens, our species, varieties of chickens

in there. They also have nitrofoss, boneye, microlife, turf, star Medina, airloom, soils, Nelson plant and they have the whole thing, I mean, anything you need to put on to make your plants grow, to get rid of weeds, diseases, insects. They've got you all covered. Three miles west of two forty nine on twenty nine to twenty. Here's a phone number two eight one three five one seventy one forty four two eight one three five one seventy one forty four go check them out.

Seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. If you look at my schedule, you will notice that there is an optional spring green up fertilization that is going on right now, right now out in the garden. And what does that do? That is a first of all, you're using a product that releases quickly and goes into the soil and the plant grass, the grass, plant roots take it up, and you get a greening us an

earlier greening on your turf. Now it's still kind of cool, the soil is still kind of cool, so the grass isn't gonna take off and just grow all over the place. Right now. It's an early one. It's a green up. Okay, we'll be doing regular fertilization here on a couple of months, probably, uh, really getting into that uh in Earnest ninety five, Imperial fifteen five to ten is an excellent product for spring green up. Now you're going to find it at places

like in Chenny Forest. You're going to find it. There's ace hard of a single ranch, Aspa's ace in the woodlands. The Arbigade Nursery carries some nitroposs products. When you find a quality product that works, you stick with it. And it was over fifty years ago that Texas A and M and other Southern universities we're discovering what grass needs is a three one to two ratio fertilizer, something in that range three one two four one two, and that

is when Imperial was born. It's still the same formula sold, same red orange bag. So you walk in the store, you look at all the fertilizers. You see the red orange bag that's nitrofoss Imperial fifteen five ten. Put it down right now, watered in, and then you just walk away. It's taken care of. Follow the label carefully. It takes about seven pounds of that per thousand square feet, about seven pounds per thousand squiffee for it to do its trick.

Now it comes in other formulations. You know, they have a fifteen to five to ten that has a post emergent weak control product in it as well. We talked about that a little bit earlier today. But night Fist Imperial, the red bag that is the one that you would use for your spring early green.

a look like there's something called chlorosis. So looking up, looking up and trying to do my own research, it looks like if there is chlorosis. I guess it's pretty common in oak trees, but there's not I'm hoping there's a cure, but there's not really a cure. I don't know there's anything that you might be able to help me with. The tree is probably about i'd say fourteen feet tall, maybe has about a ten to eleven inch diameter at the base of the trunk.

Generally we don't supplement oak tree for iron. That's just it's too big of an area of soil to have to deal with, and often supplementation is temporary. So the thing that you can do that helps is, you know, as you get oxygen in the soil, as you get organic matter into the soil the broader of an area. You can you know, mulch around it, doing cororation in your lawn and things, and compost top dressing. All of that over time is going to help move away from

that particular direction. You can add iron supplements to it, but not all. Is a very good oak for our area, and it puts up with a lot. It puts up with soggy, wet soil better than a lot of oaks do. And it's just a good one. So I wouldn't be too concerned about it right now.

over time things get better on it. But if you want, let's end it this way, Brandan, if you want to send me some close up photos in the spring as the new growth begins and you see what you're seeing, I'll be happy to take a look at them and just make a comment on that. And I don't think I'm going to change my mind. I don't change I don't think I'm gonna change my mind, but I'm one to take another look. I'm going to put you on hold and my producer Jonathan will give you a email

address if you choose to do that. Thanks a lot for your calling. I appreciate it, all right, folks, Yeah, that oak trees, you know, this is just another reminder of why we plant plants that want to be here and not till oak wants to be here. It's a great oak for this area, and there's other great oaks for this area. But when you start planning things that don't want to be here, we often have problems that it's just really hard to alleviate. And so adapted plants

so so important. Whether it's a shrub, a tree, or a flower in your flower bed, adaptive plants are very very important if you're looking for a place to get the things you need. Like I was just talking about iron and y, Well, you can do an iron keylate. That's a form of iron that doesn't tie up so fast. Where do you get stuff like that? Well, look around your neighborhood and there's an ace hardware store somewhere close

to you. You can go to ACE hardware dot com and you can look at the store locator and find your closest aced hardware store, and they're probably going to have it because they carry all those kinds of things. They carry things like fertilizers and things to control weeds, both preventing weeds like the barricade was talking about things to kill existing weeds, things to control diseases and insects.

The tools you need, you know, water hoses and gardening tools and just the whole thing to make the outside look really really good. And then of course they they are a hardware store, they have good stuff for the inside too. You're doing spring cleaning, you need some bins you're doing you need some of the materials you use to stain or seal your deck, you know, before the weather takes advantage of it. Ace Hardware's got all of that. They got their President's Day sale and all kinds of

painting supplies. Mowen faucets twenty percent off this month. So if you're thinking about replacing a faucet, now it's time to get done because you get a fifth off, twenty percent off of Moen faucets right now, Grab some air filters. They have buy three get get one free every month. You're throwing a new air filter up there. You should be to take care of your air conditioning unit, keep the dust out, make it run more efficiently. ACE Hardware's

got you covered. Sign up for the ACE Rewards program. When you're in ACE. You you can sign up online a sword dot comes sign up online, but you're going to get discounts. You're going to be special offers only available for ACE Rewards customers. They email them directly to you. So I mean it's a win win, you know, just sign up. Didn't cost anything to join up with it.

And we got ACE Hardware stores all over the place that just they just do really really well for the neighborhood when it comes to supplying your whole supplies that you need to have success. So ospose ACE up in the Woodlands, Lake Conroe, ACE and Montgomery Single Ranch, ACE at the K and M ACE in Kingwood. There's also a K and M and a tuscas Sita up in Base or DNA based city. There's an ACE Hardware store out in Wharton. We had a call from Wharton this morning.

For man there's ACE Feed or Wharton Feed and Ace out there, and then Hamilton Hardware, which is just off Highway six near Bear Creek Arey and West Houston. There's an ACE Hardware there that's just up for you. Of the many, many Ace Hardware stores that we have in our area, they do a good job of what they do. And again I just want to thank one more time the folks at All Seasons, Ace and Willis. We were

up there yesterday. And folks, if you live in that whole area Willis Lake, Conroe, Conroe, you have got an awesome ACE Hardware store right there off seventy five, I mean off of forty five. It's it's easy to get to. It's on the feeder right there and Ellis, and they're well stocked. I was wandering around the store looking at all the things ahead, and yes, what you expect of Ace, they're going to have a little of everything and some good stuff indeed, so you need to go check them out.

You were listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to help you have success. You can dial me in oral to me at seven one three two one two KTRH. I always using word dial. It's a leftover from back in the days where you had that little round thing on the phone and you had to stick your finger in it and turn it in a circle. Some of you are going, what are you talking about? Well, look it up. Yep, you can give me a call. Punch the numbers in on your cell phone.

You call me at seven one three two one two KTRH. By the way, did you know your cell phone's a great way to listen to garden Line? It is it is, I mean listen on the radio. We are you know kt ARCH is a radio station. But if you download the iHeartMedia app and you find guard Line, just do a search for garden Line. There's only two in the country. One of them is a lady somewhere up in tim Buck I on the other coast. But anyway, garden Line and just make sure you connected, and you know, save

that station. You can listen to pass shows and you could be also listening right now. In fact, you know, as the sun comes out and get a little bit light, if you wanted to go outside and do some things in the garden, maybe you're purning a rose bush. You get a question, take a picture of it with your phone. Email it the garden Line and I mean live from your garden. We can answer that question right there. I think that's pretty cool. I like listening to stuff with

my phone. I just I just think that's a great way to do it. So anyway, take it as you wish. Someone was talking earlier about Nature's Way. You know, Nature's Way is up there in Conra. In fact, I was mentioning it for a lady that called from Conroe, Diane. Nature's Way Resources is just south of Conroe. If you're going up forty five toward Conro, it's on the right when fourteen eighty eight comes in. That's the road to Magnolia that goes off to the left. You just turn right,

cross over the tracks. You're there on Sherbrock Circle. Nature's Way. Nature's Way has been around a long time. They're kind of the grandfather when it comes to the good soil products for our area. You know, John Ferguson years ago began increasing his line of quality products with the determination to help people make their soil better because that's the way nature does it. Hence Nature's Way, you're going to find leaf mole compost, fungal based compost, both of those.

By the way, leaf mold and fungle based are both good for top dressing your lawn. They have a fifty to fifty compost mix. It has leaf mold and fungle based compost. They've got I talked earlier about using their aged double ground molts. It works well. They have a composted native mult and a Zealiu malts. They've got soil blends, a landscaper's mix, a blueberry mix, a rose soil. Ross oil was born by the way at Nature's Way, as

was leaf mole, compost and many other things. All you got to do is go buy there or call them have them to it. You'll find their products for sale in some local garden centers and other places. Here's the website Nature's Way Resources dot com. Nature'sway Resources dot Com. Call talk to Ian who now runs the place, Ian Ferguson and his whole team there and they can get

you set up with the right kind of products. Here's a phone number nine three six two seven three twelve hundred nine three six two seven three twelve hundred or Naturesway Resources dot Com. You'll get a quality product and we'll make a difference because we say brown stuff comes before you put the green stuff in all right, folks, we're back. Welcome to Gardenline phone number seven one three two one two k t R seven one three two

one two kt R H up in Willis. In fact, I was just step there yesterday visiting with folks at Growers Outlet. And if you haven't been there, you need to go. Grows out in Willis Is on Highway seventy five in Willis just a few minutes away from Interstate forty five. So if you're up there in one of the lake neighborhoods like bent Water, April Sound, if you're in Willis, if you're in New Waverley or down Conro area, this is a place you need to know about and go.

They carry First of all, they carry the fertilizers and I keep talking about like microlife and nitrofoss products from Medina for example or there. And they have a lot of different products. A really cool gift shop too, by the way, and a lot of different kinds of local like Honeys, special pickle foods, jellies, jams. It's really cool. Bath and beauty products are in there. I saw some of those, but right now they just get in a bunch of fruit trees. They have got a really good

selection of fruit trees. They have a good selection of veggies, very healthy plants too. I was walking around looking at them, taking some pictures of them. They specialize in perennials and ferns in gallon containers that are excellent, excellent for this area. We were visiting about some of the different kinds of salvia's and some other plants that really do well here, and they know all about that stuff. If you need shrubs, trees,

they've got you covered. Now here's a cool thing. You can go to their website grow and write this down. Growers Outlet in Willis dot com. Just all one word Growers Outlet in Willis dot com. Go there, check it out. You can go online and you can look at their availability. That's unusual. Not many nurseries do this. But for example, every I think it's Wednesday, they update the veggies and

bedding plants. You know what they have. So if you're thinking, well, let's see do they have this in stock, we just go look. You can see on there. You can see and other plants as well, and so you can purchase for picking up later on. You can purchase them online to pick up go by and pick up later. It's just a good place. And they have a few firm baskets right now, but they're about to get a whole bunch of them in. But they have these macho ferns

that are huge. I'm serious. If I stand with my arms stretch out to the side, that's how big these ferns are. Literally, no, no exaggeration. Of course, they have smaller ones as well, but a twenty inch fern basket with a macho fern, it's like it's like a VW bug. It's a monster of a plant. And they're really really good. So you're going to create that beautiful you know. Let's get past the freeze where he starts taking ferns outside.

Wait a little bit longer on that, but they got them there ready, and they're getting a whole bunch more in so Growers Outlet in Willis dot com Growers Outlet Willis on interstate or an interstate on Highway forty five north. Just a few are Highway forty five north. Highway forty five. It's actually south of Willis, but easy to get to and you'll be impressed when you go by there. Let's head out to Kingwood and we're going to talk to Joe, and so Joe, welcome to garden Line.

have another hard freeze, but I don't. The chances of a good significant one are unlikely. And if you waited, let's say a week or two and then you did this trimming up, when the plant begins to grow is when the weather temperature says grow, so that's the big factor. And as things warm up, and we already got some perennials. By the way, they're pushing new growth out of the base. I would go ahead and get that done.

Daffodils and Narcissus narcissus have the little white flowers, well, paper whites, excuse me, have the little white clusters of flowers. Daffodil narcissus is. There are many types of narcissus. Those do good, but you want to find ones that are more likely to naturalize here in our area. Not all daffodils are equal when it comes to how well they naturalize. There are your local garden centers typically should do a good job of carrying the ones that do better here.

And you can also go online and you can you can hunt that down. You know, there's actually an online company that sells to some of our local garden centers where you can go online and you can just read about varieties, and if you can find those locally, that's great too. Our mail order. But daffodil is a good one. Another good one is in the summertime are rain lilies

and copper lilies. Now those are little tiny plants. They fry, dry, disappear when it's blazing hot, and then we get a little rainfall and out of the ground comes new growth and blooms, little white blooms. Some of them have little pinkish blooms. The copper lilies have kind of an orange yellow colored bloom, and so they're just there every year for you. And there's a good list of different options that can carry you through the season. It's not a bulb,

but the cemetery irises do really well. It's surviving year after year, and there is primarily a spring bloomer.

couple of weeks and they go away. So mix your mix them all up in your yard so there's always a surprise coming on.

a starburst up on top, and they're beautiful. And they're another one that appears in the fall after we get our first little cooling rain spell coming on. So that's another one. Go to a good garden center and they're gonna be able to show you all the different things that they carry like that.

has fun when things you're trying to do don't work. Right, No, that's not fun. We can make it fun. Let's do it is fun. It absolutely is fun. We will talk about all kinds of ways to have fun out there in the garden. The more we get out. The more we try our hand at working with nature and creating beauty, The more we create bounty, the more we put food on our tables. That is fifteen hundred miles closer than the food we're getting from the grocery store. That is fun.

That is cool stuff. When you grow your own herbs and you bring them in to season things. We were barbecueing last summer, and there's a rosemary called barbecue. It's basically it just has long, straight stems and you need to pull all the little rosemary leaves off and you use it as a skewer to put your little kebabs on the That's just fun. I mean, that's cool. I mean it doesn't change the world in terms of flavor. It helps, but it's just fun because you grew at yourself.

How about a base of flowers that you grew yourself. There are a lot of flowers almost every season of the year that you can grow here that you could bring in and use as a decoration the landscape plants to make a good good floral decoration in general. How do you want to have fun? Do you want it to be food? Do you want it to be beauty? Do you want it to be fragrance. Oh my gosh, we're talking earlier about some fragrant plants. You go outside, I tell you what, here is a garden of eden.

You outside, you have a patio, You put up some bird feeders and whatever bird you know, bird baths and everything else to bring the birds in. And you get you your early morning cup of coffee, and you have some plant that is sitting there, maybe on the southwest side. We tend to get more southwest winds than other directions here. But wherever you just got some plants around. Maybe it's a citrus tree and a container on the patio, and you are smelling the fragrance, you are hearing the songs

of birds. You're seeing the beauty of the garden. Oh my gosh. It just doesn't get much better than that. That is a special moment. And you can create that at your house. You can create it now. The best time to plant a tree is in the dormous season because that tree needs time to establish its roots. So get your trees and your shrubs we call those woody ornamentals. Get those things planted now. And when you plant them, it helps if you will get you one of the

three sixty tree stabilizers. That's a bar that attaches to a post. They have an attachment that fits t posts real simply just driving straight down on the ground, or if you want to put in a post, you know, like a regular round fence post, they'll attach to those two. The other end attaches to your tree, and it's a soft rubber strap that has holes in it. So just like on your belt, you know, you can tighten or loosen your belt by going too a different hole. That's

how that strap is. But the good thing about this is trees need to move a little bit if you honker them down where they don't bend at all. There's a principle of nature that when we stretch things, they get stronger. And here's an example. If you took one arm and you just tied it beside your body where you never used it, and the other arm, you went to the gym and you lifted weights until it was worn out, and then a couple days later, you lift weights until it worn out. Do that for a few weeks,

and what's gonna be the difference in your arms? Right? Okay? Same thing as true with tree trunks. You bend that wood, you bend the upper roots that are helping anchor the tree just a little bit, not a lot. I'm not talking about going horizontal here. I just mean moving it, moving that and it strengthens it. You got tomato plant.

If you're growing tomato plant transplants right now in your house and you run your hands over the top every day just to make it thinks the wind blow and just bend those little stems, they will be stronger than a plant growing in perfectly still air. All right. So I said all that to say, a tree support needs to give a little bit, needs to let the plant move a little bit, not a lot, but a little bit. That's what three sixty Tree stabilizer does. You're gonna find

them all over the place. They've got them at Plants for All Seasons. You can find them at Buchanans downtown, at Arborgate up and Tombole Sanamal's down south of town. Also south of town in Alvin Jorges Hidden Gardens carries the three sixty tree stabilizer. You're gonna find them at RCW Nurseries too. Those are just some of the places where you can find this product. Get you one if

you have a larger tree that you're planting. You may want to one kind of north south, one kind of east west, holding on so whichever way the wind blows, it stabilizes the tree. Now you can go out, you can buy wire, you can stick posts in the ground. You can stretch that wire over and put a piece of garden hose in it so it doesn't cut into your tree trunk, and do that three different direction staking It's just something to trip over and in the way,

and it's unnecessary. Tree stabilizer works better. You should try one. You are listening to guard line the phone number seven one three two one two. What kt r H can you answer that? Can you finish the sentence for me? Say it all the time, k t r H seven one three two one two KTRH. Give me a call. We can talk about whatever the things are that you are most interested in. Well, I want to talk about

Arburgate Garden Center for a little bit. Arburgate is one of those destination places where you kind of get to have it all. And I really mean that a good garden center has selection. I can find a better selection than Arburgate. A good garden center has staff that know what they're talking about. We're talking about people that know garden. We're talking peype the garden. When you go to Arburgate,

you get help. And I've talked to them before. You know, they have a customer come in and ask a certain kind of question. We'll visit about it a little bit.

You want to get plants at a good garden center that grow things that and sell things that belong here, not something that never should have been brought across the Texas state line and sold. Arburgate is that kind of garden center. You want a place that can help you create the foundation for success. I always say brown stuff before green stuff, brown stuff before green What does that mean? All it means is fix the soil first and then put your wonderful plants in and they will succeed. Don't

PLoP a poor plant into an unprepared plot. First comes to brown, then comes to green when it comes to Arburgate. The brown is a soil for anything you want to grow. It has some expanded shale in it which helps our They have a compost that also has expanded shale. Awesome product. And by the way, the soil and compost are available by bulk. Just ask them at Arburgate. They can they can deliver that and bulk to you. And then finally the fertilizer for anything with the roots. It's an organic

fertilizer and it works. So there you go. You get the brown stuff, but in the back of the car you buy the green stuff that will grow here, that will thrive here, and you're good to go. Whether it's cool season, color, vegetables, herbs, fruit tree that fruit trees year around, fruit trees, berries, grapes, seeds inside all kinds of their gift shops are unbelievable. They the more than one yes, and you got to go in and see them. Whatever kind of planet is, they're going to have it

at Arbigate. And then finally a garden center that is fun to walk around. And Arburgate is just it's just a little botanical garden of all kinds of things. From yard art to plants to interesting iron art structures. To just go by there and see it. Park in the back parking lot by the way, that's off Treschel Road. Just a little loop goes round behind Arburgate and you will be very impressed. I guarantee you. And don't ever go by yourself. Take some friends with you because it

is just too much fun. This is like, this isn't just like going to the Stormline grocery and coming home. This is an outing. It's an experience. All right. Well I kind of droned on there, but I love that place. I absolutely love it. You're listening to Guardline and the phone number is seven one three two one two KTRH. Give me a call. We'll be visiting about the things that are of interest to you coming up here. Oh my gosh're about to start playing music. How can we

be done with another hour? That's impossible. Hey, I want to tell you about something before I forget coming up in March. I'll try to announce this a little bit later, but the Pioneer Unit of the Herb Society of America is having their annual Herb Forum. It's going to be up and round Top at the Festival Hill Institute. Now let me just give you the website. I'm gonna tell you some other things, but you want to go find out all this information. Festival Hill dotorg. Festival Hill dot oorg.

Go there, find out all about it. It's an eighty dollars registration, but you're getting some incredible speakers. The theme is Unlocking the Mysteries of Herbs Superpowers, how to restore the biodiversity to your soil, the science of aromatherapy, healing chemicals of herbs, growing herbs here in Texas. There'll be demonstrations, you get to interact with the speakers. It's Saturday, March fifteenth,

from nine am to four pm. I'm an old ideal and if you've never been out there, it's a beautiful place. Festival Who's a beautiful place? Festival Hill dot org. The Annual Herb Forum Unlocking the Mysteries of Herb Superpowers. There you go. That sounds like a fun outic. All right, Well, I'm gonna take a little break here. I'm a little low on coffee and in order for me to stay coherent, I'm aout go get I'll be right back.

But I've been traveling and I have been working on some other projects and doing some consulting and different kinds of things, and it is time for me to get home and take care of things at the house. And I can't wait. I love getting outside.

there are two things that are in gardening. There's the bronze stuff, which is a soil, and there's a green stuff, which is the plants. Now, you want plants that want to grow here. You want plants that are healthy and plants that are strong and all that. But first, first, first, first, you got to get the soil right before you put the plants in. At cienamlts, you get the soil right. Do you need a soil blend maybe something like a

airloom soils veggie nerd mix. They've got that do you need a quality multch for example, do you need a just compost, a quality compost. They have everything you need to turn that soil into something special. They have bulk or they have some things in bags. But I'm telling you, whether you go by there and pick it up or whether you have them deliver it, they do about a twenty mile radius delivery. And by the way, they're they're in on FM five point twenty one near Highway six

and two eighty eight. So those of you listening that are in Siana Plantation, Quel Valley, Manvil, Roach Share, and Sandy Point Arcola. I have a colony Pomona Meridian. First you see what I'm saying, Paarland, sun Creek Estate, Sweetwater Reshnent. This is your hometown one stop shop for everything that creates the perfect foundation for your plants. They also part of the brown stuff is nutrients. So where do you get microlife Nelson's turf Star, Medina products, Nitrefoss products, ASA mite,

which is that micro nutrient trace mineral supplement. Where do you get products from heirloom sauce. You get them at Santa malk They have all that. When you drive off from Sanamulta. When you hang up the phone, they're going to bring it twenty miles for small delivery fee. When you're done there, the foundation is ready to be built. And then when the plants go in, everyone says you got a green thumb. Well, you have a green thumb because Ciena must help make your thumb for green by

providing you the good stuff. They're open money through Friday seven thirty to five and Saturday seven thirty to two, closed on Sunday. Go to the website Cienamultz dot com. Check them out and see why I'm so big on that particular company. Also another reason is they're friendly, and they're fun, and they're they're enjoyable, a pleasure to work with. And I haven't even gotten into talking about their beautiful flagstones and other kinds of river rocks and gravel saying, oh, what.

down because it's concentrated compost in a bag. It is humus. And every time you add a little humus to the soil, little humus to the soil, over time, it is just getting richer and richer and richer. That's how nature builds soil by taking organic matter and taking it past compost all the way to humus over time, and microlife hum mates plus. The purple bag just gives you a way to do that in a short cut. You've already got the humus product in your hands. Spread it out there,

follow the label. You can do it anytime of a year. You can do it when you fertilize. I mean you could go out, you know, first put your fertilizer out, or first put the hum mats plus out then put the other one out. Either way you go about it, you're going to have the same results. But in addition to your spring fertilizations, consider adding the Microlife humantes plus to your lawn does real well, also does good. You know you got a clay soil and you wanted to

improve it and put in a garden and things. Oh my gosh, you got to put the image plus into that. You are listening to Garden Line. Our number here if you'd like to give me call seven one three two one two kt r H. Seven one three two one two kt r H. How can we help you have success? All right? I want I've been wanting to talk a little bit about success with tropical types of plants. And I know it's still kind of cool outside, but we're getting really close to a time when we can start

putting tropicals outside. I had a number of calls from people, you know, saying things like, well, i've got some hibiscus, or I've got some gingers, I've got something like that that is in the garage. I've had emails on this too. When can I bring them out? How do you know when it's safe to bring them out? Well, you don't. You You can listen to the weather man. You can consider how far out that forecast is, because the further

out it is, yeah, don't morey ify it is. But when things warm up those plants are ready to grow. I tend to be on the conservative side what I'll do. I may even buy a plant before it's time to put it out and just take care of it. Bring it in as needed, bring it in, make sure you are taking good care of it, protecting it from the cold. And when it gets warm, then those plants are really ready to grow and you can pin them a little earlier.

I've got some ginger, for example, that's in pots right now, and I could stick it in the ground and mulch over it and it'd be fine. But I generally wait until it's ready to grow and put it out at that time. That gives you a little time, a little extra time to prepare the soil. And it is so important to prepare the soil ahead of time. So get those soil right and then move those things out. In the meantime, put them outside every time we have a

little bit of sunshine. This week's going to be a good time even for tropicals to be out there capturing a little bit of sunlight in preparation for when we put them in the ground. Let me take a quick break and I'm going to come back with your calls and more gardening information. All right, we're back back with garden Line. Hey, thanks for being a listener. I appreciate that. I hope you're having fun. I hope you're having tips that help you have success for sure. You know, folks

at Nitrovis have an organic fertilizer. It is a product called Sweet Green. It's based on molasses that microbes have done a little work with and created an eleven zero zero fertilizer. So when you put you know, organic gardeners will put molasses in the soil because they know that carbon really stimulates a lot of microbial activity, especially with

beneficial bacteria. Well, Sweet Green has the same effect in your soil and be an eleven percent one of the highest analyzes for an organic plant food that you would have, and it being a lassis based product just smells good, smells great. I joke around and say when you when you buy it and go home, you want to take an extra loop around six ten just to enjoy the

fragrance of it. Maybe not, but you know what I'm saying. Anyway, you're going to find it at a lot of different retailers, like other MICU, like other products that are from Nitrofoss and this microbially active product is going to be available at places like Plantation Ace Hardware, A Langham Creek Ace Hardware, r CW Nurseries. Uh and there's a Lake Hardware now in Angleton. There's hardware done include too. They carry nitrofoss

products like the Sweet Green. It's a pretty quickly available microbes get a hold of it and they release the the nitrogen that's in it, and you're in business in your lawn will show the show the difference as a result, too, Sweet and green. That's a good combination. That's a good name. What you thought of that? I like that name.

both locations open seven days a week. They served that whole region up there, you know, not just Kingwood, but Humbolo Task assieda new Caney Valley ranch and porter all that area. You're gonna find the products you hear me talk about, like Microlife products, nitrofost products, Nelson turf Star products, airloom soils, the Nelson plant food and the jars or there. They carry a lot of things. And they even have the refilling jars there for Microlife and Nelson plant food products.

So when you buy a jug of either Microlife or Nelson plant Food and you don't have to throw the plastic away and go buy another jug, you can save some money and avoid throwing plants in the environment by going to the filling station. You pull down a little handle and refill your jar. And it's economical, it works. It just makes sense all around. And they've got that. We're in Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Center. You're gonna find great selections right now. The herbs and the veggies

are there, they're ready to go. They got citrus and other fruit trees. They got roses, certainly, flowers like annuals and perennials, and many kinds of native plants as well. I just think one of the features that I always am impressed with with them, I was out at Warren Southern Gardens a while back and they were working on designing and making custom potted containers of plants. You have multiple plants in a container, so and you can go out there and they can even help you with the shopping.

But like, here's the container, I like, I want that one. Okay, Well, here's some soy you put in it. What kind of flowers?

little bit better weather here, and do some shopping. I was talking about some different things this morning. One of the things that I wanted to mention is outdoor seed starting. We're getting really close to the time when we're going to start putting those warm season seeds in the ground, things like cucumbers and squash and corn and whatnot. And sometimes people get confused about how deep do you plant a seed. So I'm going to give you a quick

quick tip here. For most seeds, if you will plant them, about three times as deep as the seed is wide, that's about the right depth. Therefore times as deep as the seed is wide, that's about the right depth. The finer textured your soil where the seed is the better seed to soil contact that you get. So if you get this little seed and some real chunky soil, there's a lot of air around the seed, you know, it's not just soil kind of packed up against the seed.

If you can get a finer textured soil, you need to put a little compost of very fine texture composts down in there too. But that helps the moisture go into the seed and stay in the seed. And planting with the right depth is important. Now, there's a few seeds that need sunlight to germinate. Do you know that the red rays of the sun specifically, that's the wavelength that primarily is active there. They help germination and so let us for example, we plant on top of the ground.

And now still time to plant lettuce seeds and have a nice little harvest of lettuce. But we put them on the ground and we keep it moist, wet the soil. First, sprinkle the lettuce out, wet it again with a fine mist, and keep it moist with periodic misting, and that let us he will germinate. Carrot's is helpful if you're not too deep on those too. When you plant a seed too deep, it never sees the light a day, literally, it just can't. It is not able then an energy.

You know, put a you put a broccoli seed, you know, four inches in the soil. I mean, there's no way that thing's ever going to make it to the top. But think about that three or four times a width of the seed. That's how deep. Cover it with soil, fine textured mix and you will have success with your seat. Keep a moist when a seed. Here's a here's a biochemical tip for your seed starting, or biochemical information for

your seed starting. When a dry seed sets there dry, it never sprouts, whether it's a weed seed or seed. You plant it. When it gets moist, it takes in water, and when water goes inside it starts a series of biochemical reactions that are absolutely miraculous. I mean this is it is an amazing design the way that seeds are are designed to work, and that is the water comes in, it starts these biochemical reactions and all kinds of things

are happening. I won't bore you with all the details on it, but the bottom line is, here comes a root out and then here comes a shoot up. And in the stage of that germination, if it dries out, it dies. There's no recovery. Once it gets a root down with some measurable depth, then it is able to withstand a little bit of drought because it has a root that's reaching out into other parts of the soil. But right around that seed, you got to keep it

moist up through the germination process. Not soggy, but not dry. Keep it moist and you'll have success when the biochemical reactions start because the seed is taken in water. Here we go. Some of my seed I will actually pre soak before I put them out, And that's a good option. You can do that. You like okra, for example, and spinach, I will put in very hot water. Just get good hot water and put the seeds right in it and let it sit on the counter overnight. The water cool off.

That's okay. The hot water makes the moisture go in the seed faster, and then it goes off real quick anyway, and then in the morning when you plant it, you already have a well soaked seed. It's it's imbibed the water it needs and it's ready to start that process. And it gives you a little bit of a head start, and it gives you a little bit of a higher percentage of germination. To pre soak. Now, I don't pre

soak every seed. I don't pre soak lettuce seeds, and I don't pre soak you know, a little broccoli seeds and things like that, or pinto beans necessarily, but it is a tip for some seeds it may be a little slower to sprout for getting a good start on them.

If you have any kind of outdoor furniture that is metal that ain't looking so good, you need to call Houston powder Coders or even you can call them at two eighty one six seven six thirty eight eighty eight, or you can just go to the website Houston powder Cooders dot com. All the information is there Houston powder Cooders dot com. Another option would be to send them an email. Take a picture of your outdoor furniture. It

maybe it's painted metal furniture. It could be wrought iron, it could be a cast iron, it could be a luminum patio for whatever it is. Take a picture of it and email that picture to sales at Houstoncoders dot com. Sales at Houston Cooders dot com, say hey, I just need a price aned estimate on this. What's it going to take? They will, They do free pickup and delivery in the Greater Houston area, and they can do any

kind of metal. I mean it could be you know, some kind of wall art hanging outside that's cast iron or something, and they can they can powder coat that. And they don't have to paint it. I mean they can paint it. They got a hundred say paint it. It doesn't have to be colors, is what I meant to say. They have over one hundred colors in stock, and more colors even that are available, but that in those colors or colors that look like even rusty iron,

you know, they have that colors. If you like that natural rustic look, they can powder coat it to that color too. Or maybe you want, you know, bright canary orange or canary yellow, or a beautiful blue or red or something. They can do it all. They can do it all. You just got to get a hold of them. Send a picture to sales at Houstoncoders dot com or go to their website Houston Powdercoders dot com. Find out

all you need there. They're right up in north central Houston near the intersection of Beltway eight and Hardy Toll Road, so it's easy to get to. But remember they'll come up, they'll come out and they'll pick it up and they'll deliver it for you. And all the things that your furniture needs, whether maybe you've got to replace the rusty

bolts in hardware, they'll replace them with stainless steel. Those little plastic caps that you know sit on the feet so the metal doesn't scratch along your patio, they can replace that too. They take good care of it needs a little bit of welding. That's also a service they can offer is putting a little well to strengthen that. And take that old furniture that maybe about to hit the road and be thrown away, turn it around, make it something special. Houston Powder Coders. They do good work.

I've seen it. It's amazed at the work that they do. Anti Grosenporium is one of the favorite places that I like to go visit, and if you haven't been out there, you got to go. It's north of Brownham, it's in Independence, Texas, and it's like you've gone into a different time. They've got some gorgeous buildings on site that are historic that it's so cool to walk through them. I love walking. I took a picture of In fact, the banner on my website currently is me on the porch and one

of those buildings at antiq Rozenborium. So you go to gardening with skip dot com, there's a picture of one of the buildings along with me standing there getting in the way of that good looking building. Anyway, if you go to Anti Rosenborim, you're going to have a wonderful time and you need to take your friends, a lot of people. I mean, it's almost like, you know, going on a special trip to go visit a botanical garden

or something. They have a deal right now, well, I say, right now, do you know they offer free self guided tours where they give you a little brochure and you can walk through on your own pace. Learn all about the plants and the place and everything. It's really cool. Or they have a paid guided tour that the owner, Jim Keater himself will take you out. He'll walk you through, diving deeper into the history and the horticulture behind their

beautiful landscapes that they have out there. Either way you want to go self guided, se a free self guided tour with the pamphlet, or go out pay for the tour with Jim Keeter get really good insights and not only the plants they have, but the history of the place and the care of those plants. Now you got to write down the website Antique Roseimporium dot com Antique Roseemporium dot com and go to that website check out upcoming events. They've got some really cool events that are

coming out. In fact, one of them, I believes in it's coming out right around the corner, So don't delay, get out there find out about them. They have a variety of events from free events and some very special celebrations, which is what their Spring Garden Party is. Drinks, dinner, desserts, music, and more. It's a paid event, but boy is it ever special. So check them out. You want to know

about that all right. Well, I was talking about ACE Hardware before and mentioning that, you know, you got your Mowen faucet sale going on, You got your air filters and things like that, spring cleaning aces ready for that. If you need to exchange your propane canisters or proprane refills, so your local ACE store can probably take care of that for you as well. You know, Ace Hardware, the

stores are all over the place. There's a Rockport Ace, there is a Plantation ACE down in the Richmond Rosenberg area. We got Jay and ours ACE Hardware up in Porter Bay City, Ace Hardware and bas City, there's a lot of them. Go to ACE Hardware dot com and find the store locator and find your local ACE and go in and you will be surprised at what they have for outdoors and for indoors. Already we're back, Hey, welcome back to Guardline. Good to have you, Good to have

you listening in with us. Listen. If you want to do one thing to turn your outdoor porch or patio, any kind of outdoor sitting area into something special, even to decorate the front of the house, a container full of color is the way to do it. I mean it's fast, like today this afternoon. You grab a container, you grab some soil, you plant the plants. You're in business. That's fast. That is fast and easy. But you need a good quality mix to go in the container. What

is a good quality mix. Well, it has a lot of organic matter, is very microbial active, microbially active, and it has an adequate volume, meaning a good size of the container. It holds moisture so it doesn't all run out, but it also drains well so it doesn't stay soggy wet. You don't want to create a swamp. You don't want to create a mucky goo. And that container well, jungle Land from Nitrofis does all of that. It is a

very special mix. It's got specifically blended Canadian blonde peat, different four different actually sources of aged bark, and a microiz of fungi in the mix itself. It really revitalizes potting plants. If you want good lasting color and good performance. Remember it all starts in the soil, brown stuff before green stuff. When it comes to containers, jungle Land is a good brown stuff. They also have an indoor jungle Land which has water saving crystals in it. These are

little crystals that swell up with water. So and I know you don't forget, but when your neighbor forgets to water their houseplants, these crystals still have some water to help it go on until it finally dawns on your neighbor to water their houseplants. Where do you get it? Well, Nitrofris products are widely available. You're going to find things like that at plants for all seasons. In l Wadda.

You're going to go to Katie's Hardware, which is in Katie of course Court Hardware, which is in the Stafford area. If you go down to Alvin the Stanton shopping Center, you're going to find night Fresh products there as well. We're going to head straight out to the phones now and talk to Diane in Cyprus. Hey Diane, welcome to garden Line.

excuse me, I have to excuse my voice. But it started changing and they started turning black on the on all stems and the trucks. And I tried everything that I could. I was listening to a lot of your advice and but I ended up losing all four of them. But what I wanted to do is get advice from you how to prepare the bed properly with the right kind of soil and the nutrients that are needed before I plant some more. I'm not going to plan as

many this time. I'm just going to do too to make sure that they'll surprise.

service your area. The Nature's Way Resources is on I forty five up toward Conro and they service that area. You can also get from heirloom soils. They sell both bulk and in bag. Around your cypress area. You may check with some of your ace hardware stores. You know other centers I know over at plant Roll Seasons they carry some of the soil types of products that are going to be successful for that. When you want a good rose mix, build up a raised bed high enough

to ensure good drainage. And know that the bed is going to settle after you build it, So if you built it a foot high, by the end of the season, it's going to be about eight inches high because it literally just settles in a lot. So make it a little extra high to begin with. But a good roast soil mix and then follow that up with good fertilization and small amounts through the season and your roses perform. Well, don't forget to maltz the surface too to keep the weeds down.

four roses. We're gonna go to Spring Branch now and talk to Josh. Hey, Josh, welcome to garden line. Hey, good morning to get some morning.

belt Way eight. They're really easy to get to us right down below. So you just just set it, put it, you know, put it in your in your maps, and you'll you'll take it right there to it. RCW Nurseries dot Com that's their website. Now. RCW is a nursery that is going to have what you're looking for. But if they don't, they probably can get it right now. Roses, roses, roses.

This is a rose season and they get in. If you look at their print at the rose list, and it's like pages long, single space, and rosarians across town they know about RCW Nursery and the roses that they care. It's a very favorite of rosarians and every other homeowner people like me and you that enjoy beautiful roses. Roses are the queen of the garden, you know, and there's nothing like it. Whether it's a climbing rose, whether it's a miniature rose, a groundcover type rose, a shrub rose,

a hybrid te for those long, beautiful cut blooms. You take your pick and RCW is gonna have some options for you. They also grow their own trees up there in Plantersville, and so when you buy a tree from RCW, it's a tree that's been grown right, it's a tree species that does well here, and you can take it home and plant it. If it has any size to it at all, just have them do it. You know, you can hire them to come out and do the planning for you for something that's going to be way

more weight than you want to be handling around. But the main thing is just go there. RCW nurseries dot Com Again, Tombo Parkway which is ibly two forty nine and belt Way eight. Time for me to take a break. When I come back, Randy in Liberty, you're going to be our first s up steal folks. Welcome back to

the guard line, Welcome back to Guarden. I listen. I get a lot of calls, get a lot of pictures from the emails too, about lawns that are struggling, loans that have maybe it was chinchbugs last summer, or drought conditions or extra compaction. Boy, that's a biggie. You know our clay soil as you stomp on them and they compact, and without good aeration, roots don't do well. Your grass

doesn't thrive. And BnB Turfros that's our company. Down south and south and a little to the west of Houston, so places like Missouri City and Sugarland, all the way down interstate Interstate six. Boy, I just upgraded that street Highway six, Fresno, Siena, Arcola, Iowa Colony, Manul all those communities along there. BnB Turfrose covers that all the way over even to Pearland. They serve that area. Now, this is the family on service and these folks are going

to give you honest quality work. Go look at their ratings, Go look at the customer satisfaction that they have. Go look at pictures they on other website, social media. Look at the pictures of what they do. High quality work, quality products. They only use products that I recommend here on garden Line cnmls for example, that's where they get their top quality leap mole compost from the folks at Cnamalts. That's what I'm talking about. VMB Turfros. They don't cut corners,

they do it right. They make a personal connection with you. They ensure that you are satisfied. That's very important to them, and it shows up in the ratings that they have. They will come out. They will do a core aeration with quality equipment that makes that pulls a plug out of the soil and drops it on the surface. They will follow that with the compost top dressing and spread

that compost out. And I'm telling you cor aeration compost top dressing, especially for heavy clay soils, but really any kind of a lawn that's struggling, it is going to get oxygen in the roots. It's going to invigorate the lawn. You're going to have success. Golf courses or people are trapesing up and down them and running the carts across them. They are ate those things because they want the grass to be perfect. They want it to be at its best. Let BnB turf Pros do that. The phone number seven

one three two three four fifty five ninety eight. But I would just go to the website BB no end. In the website Bbturfpros dot com. Bbturfpros dot com, you could see the work that they do and it's good, I'm telling you. Without hesitation. Awesome, Awesome. We're gonna go out to Liberty now and talk to Randy. Hey, Randy, welcome to garden Line.

clumping type of bamboo. Now, wherever you go and do your shopping, your quality garden centers and things, you're going to be able to find bamboos. And if it's a good mom and pop, they're going to be able to tell you which kinds would be best what they carry for your situation. There are some clumpers that get twenty feet tall or more. I mean they really grow tall. There are some clumpers that stay a little shorter, and some of you need top them off if you want that,

don't get so big. They vary in heartiness. In general, the clumpers tend to be a little less hardy than the running bamboos. But there are some clumping bamboos that are very dependably hardy for Houston area. So go to where you would find a good quality service from an independent garden center. Say what kind of clumping bamboos do you have? And find out more about the ones they carry, and you're gonna do good. You're gonna want to plant them.

Look at what the width of the plant should be, and I would plant them probably about fifty to eighty percent of that width if you want a solid cover. Okay, So if you put them too far apart, they'll never touch one to the next. So if you want that solid cover, you gotta squeeze them a little bit. Remember too, with bamboo, probably the most important thing I'm tey Randy, is you got to be patient because the bamboo specialists

tell us that here's what they say about bamboo. The first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps, and the third year it leaps. And that's true. You plant it and it's just sitting there. You're going skip. You told me to play this bamboo is not doing anything. Be patient. Second year a little bit of growth and the third year year in business. So be patient with bamboo. But good bamboo makes a wonderful screen. Wonderful screen.

your lawn dries out, you start to lose grass. Well, don't let the bamboo dry because your goal these first especially three years, is to get that thing growing as best you can, get the most robust root system you can, and so don't don't ever let its summer heat and drought stress. Just keep it, keep it watered.

They cover that area. They do the indoor pest like termites and roaches and all the other credits, a crawl around the inside and then on the outside, fireance, mosquitoes, wild varmits, like rats running around the property. Yes, they are out there doing that. They know how to treat, they know how to do it in a safe way, and they make sure that you get successful long term results without the worry about, oh my pets or my kids are out there running around. Call them for a quote.

Two eight one two oh six forty six seventy two eight one two o six four six seven zero. Here's the website, the pest Bros Bros dpestbros dot com. Ask them about their mosquito bait stations. It's the new industry green standard for effective safe mosquito control. And when they tell you about it, it's gonna blow your mind. It is. It is the coolest, most effective, most safe system you can come up with, and you can get it from the pestbros dot com. I'm gonna head out to Missouri

City now we're gonna talk to Josh. Josh, you are the caboos of the show today. Last collar of the day. Welcome to garden line.

the beds raised up so excess water flows off. You get a little bit of rain up there in Houston, Missouri.

If you want to bring me some samples of things to identify, like what's this weed, what's this flower? If you want to have things diagnosed, what's wrong with this plant? Bring me some samples in I'll do that. And if you would like to bring photos on your phone, we can take a look. We can see what's going on and help you have success. That's the goal there. So

I'll be there for two hours, given a talk. For a while, I'll be giving away some products from the folks at Nilsen Plant Food and as folks from Medina Medina plant products as well, so really good quality products. I have plenty of those on hand. I'll bring some Texas Gardener magazines with me to provide for those of you who don't receive Texas Gardener you need to, I'll give you a sample to take a look at. It's a great magazine, awesome magazine written by Texas gardeners, including myself,

for Texas gardeners. So come on out to the Montgomery County, Montgomery County. This is seventh Daniel by the Way, seventh annual Spring Montgomery County Home Outdoor Living Show at the Lone Star Convention Center on Airport Road, right across from the Extension Office and Montgomery County Agrolife Extension Office right there in Conroe, Texas, twelve noon to one pm. Hey, guess what Parking's free admission is free. Okay, you're out of excuses. See you next Saturday. That's one way to

put it. I'd like to joke around a little bit here on guarden line. I was talking about my yard.

to go. I'm going to be doing a kind of a mode down of the of the of the grass, you know, get all the dead top growth out cut down just a little bit. Now. That mowing is going to come a little bit later, because I want to make sure and leave that sunlight blocking cover. Even though the dead grass is blocking sunlight. The red dead grass blades are blocking sunlight from reaching the soil. So it cuts down on your weed problems. So I'll leave that just a little bit longer, but it's not long before

that mowing is going to get done. Also to it remember, now's the time if you're going to do a pre emergent herbicide, you need to do it now now. Now go to my website gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com. There is a free lawn care schedule and a lawn pest disease and weed management schedule. They're both multicolor beautiful, easy to follow, and they're available for you to download or just look on your computer and it tells you when to do what. So if

you're wondering what did chinchbugs typically occur here? When do I treat for brownpaths? One? Need you need to get a pre emergent herbicide down by? And what products are available out there to use? Those schedules answer all those questions. When's the best time of fertilize at this time of year? Which fertilizer should I be using? You know, we don't use the same fertilizer all year, different times of the year. We have different products that we're putting out. It's all

there on the schedules. It's all free. Can't can't beat that price, that's for sure. If you'd like to give me a call seven to one three, two to one two k t RH. Seven to one three two to one two kt RH. It is time now to do your pruning to spruce up things. You want to do

it right. It is very important that when you take care of your plants, when you're going to do pruning, you want to do that pruning properly, because just to cut a plant because you own a sharp saw or pruners, however, seems right to you, that is not the way to go about it. You need to learn what that plant needs needs to succeed. And that's why we see crape murder everywhere around town. People look around, they see these landscape companies that are just whacking them off above a

little above head high. That is not how you pun a create myrtle. That is not how you pune a creat mardle. They call that crepe murder, just to make the point that that's not how you prune a creat myrtle. But people do it so people do it right. Remember when you were a kid and you said, can I go to I don't know, the mall or something? And your parents said no. And they said, well, Mary or Johnny's getting to go to the mall. His parents will let him go. He said, well, if Mary or Johnny

jumped off a cliff, would you two? Remember that annoying conversation you had with your parents. Well, just because landscapers are printing crapes like that does not mean that's how you purne them. It does not. Landscapers create multi volcanoes at the base of plants. It looks like you have giant fire ant mounts that are piled up against the trunk of the base of the plant. That is not good for trees. Don't do that. Do it the right way.

Learn how to do it, Learn how to prune the plant you have, Take good care of it that way, and you're going to have success. The folks at Medina have created a lot of different products that work and that will give you success with your plants. And there's so many of them. You know which one do I talk about next, because there's always another good one. One

of them I like is Medina plus. Medina Plus is fortified with extra micro nutrients, and it's got seaweed extract in it, which is very important, very helpful for plants or getting gardeners who have known that for years. You can use it as a folier feed for whether it's a tree, a shrub, a perennial, a flour, a vegetable, a lawn. I mean, it's not going to burn anything.

Medina plus it's got over forty trace elements and it's got sided kinin, which is a natural growth hormone that comes out of the seaweed extract, some magnesium, iron, zinc, and vitamins. A lot of different things are in the Medine Plus. It has all the benefits of Medina soil activator plus all these other things. Now, if you were going to soak seed, remember earlier I was talking about I soak my seed the night before I plant them. Most types of seed you can soak them in Medina plus.

It'll work and it helps them as well get off to a good start. You can also use it a drench in new transplants. You can put on a hose in sprayer and newfolier with it, folder feed with it. It's all from the folks at Medina Medina plus a liquid product that is widely available here in our Greater Houston area. I am coming up on the first break. When we come back, Carolyn Spring will be our first caller coming up and you can be sucond seven one

three two one two KTRH. Well, hey, welcome back, Welcome back to the garden line. If you can get yourself to the the Seabrook area and go by Moss Nursery, you need to do that.

wander through there. And by the way, it's an old weather greenhouse, right, it's a greenhouse. Got to cover over. It's nice and warm and toasty inside. It's time to get by there, because I'm telling you this, when the sun comes out, people are gonna be covering it up, and you got to get out there and get yours first. But they have a great, great selection. They also got in some bonsye nice little buns eye already in containers already. The training has already be gone on them. And that

is a cool thing. If you ever tried it, you ought to try one of those. Those are fun if you like yard art, and if you like decorations like pots that have the colorful pots. I don't know anybody's guy as many as they do down there at Moss Nursery. And then the little things like you know, the multicolored salamanders and frogs that you put out there in the ground and decorate, just so you know. That's what Moss

is like. It's so whimsicle. You walk around the eight acres of this family owned nursery, seventy year old nursery. You walk around the eight acres, and every corner you turn there's something else interesting. It's of course the plants. Plants are everywhere, every kind you can imagine, but all the whimsy, you know, the decorations, the statues, the water fountains, the just go see it. When it comes to hanging baskets, oh my angel wing Bagonia baskets have come in recently

and you should see those things. They are gorgeous. Anyway, I could just go on and on Moss Nursery in Seabrook on Toddville Road. I don't care where you live. Drive over there, take a look at it. It is a great place to visit. Out to spring now and we're going to talk to Carol. Hello Carol, welcome to garden Line.

use the one with water saving crystals. For the outdoor version, the standard jungle Land for vegetables and flowers works well. As your container gets bigger, you can start to use something a little more chunky. I know people that even put like a rose soil in a very very large container because you know, you just have the volume in the space to be able to do that. What are you wanting to grow in the container?

to it, that would be a good one. Actually five gallons, it would be five for that fine for that, But veggie nerd mix would be the one I would go with, even in a large container.

plants like Camellia azalea. The if you see if you see blueberry, Commillia azalia or anything on a label that's an acid loving plant fertilizer, you could you could use that, you know. Another one I would do, especially if you're going to be transplanting into these containers soon, is get you some of Nelson has one called Genesis. It's an organic type product that you mix into the potting soil before you plant, and then you plant in it and it helps it get off to a better fast start

after it begins growing. Then you can continue to fertilize with regular fertilizers in small amounts, but start off with that Genesis in the soil and you're going to see a better result in your plants. I've tried it myself. I rel like it. Hi, all right, Well, thank you very much, all right, Carol, good luck. Send me the pictures when all these things start blooming and fruiting and everything else. And you know, if it's vegetables, you gotta share half the produce with me because I've tried to

help you out today. Okay, well, I'll do my best. I'm joking you don't want to share? Bye? Oh boy? Why do I say that? I don't know? All right. Whild Bird's Unlimited is the place that you go for anything anything related to birds. Do you need feeders? Do you need houses? Do you need a bird bath? Do you want advice? Oh? My gosh. The folks at wild Birds Unlimited, no birds. I picked their brain all the time.

I get questions from callers or I have questions myself or my own backyard, and I just ask and they always have a good, thoughtful answer because they know what they're talking about. Cardinal confetti, the new blend. That's one you need to get. Now. Everybody loves cardinals at a bird feeder. They're so beautiful. They even have the folklore that goes with them. But cardinals love that Cardinal confetti.

It's got a mix of all kinds of cool stuff, including dried meal worms and sunflowered chips and something called bark butter bits and peanut halves in it. They love it. You can get the cardinal tube feeder to feed it. You can get the good evening cardinal feeder to put it in, or you can just put it in your feeder. It's okay to do that. Bark butter is a spreadable suet. You smear it like on a tree trunk. You can

smear it on anything. If your husband's taking a nap out there on a lazy boy, smear some on him. The birds will show up. They've documented over one hundred and fifty species of birds. That I mean Jim's berdaceous Bark butter is like bird crack. They love that stuff. It works really really well. But bottom line is go to wild Birds Unlimited. No matter what kind of bird seeds you're going to get, you're going to get quality seed that birds like. There are no mess blends, have

no mess. You buy a pound of no mess blend from Wildbirds Unlimited. A pound goes into a bird's tummy. That's how that works, not kicked off on the ground, not shells land all over. It works. How do you want to go about it. Just go there. That's the main thing. Let's go out to Sugarland. Now we're going to talk to Denise. Hey Denise, welcome to garden Line.

kind of hard. So you sort of esthetically create what you want and be willing to cut it back and be willing after you cut it back and it starts growing. To cut it back some more to keep it into the shape and size you want. And there's not a rule. There's not a picture book on how to prune of vitex.

going to get a sprout from it. So if you're not getting enough growth down low, you may need to do a little heavier pruning to kind of force it to push some other growth out.

It'll overall it'll look better. But the main thing is to do this. Go ahead.

kind of plant that you want. But you have to stay with it because vitex it just kind of it just kind of haphazard in the way that it grows, shoots very very different kind of plant.

currently in your lawn. Barricade in the fall will prevent what you're seeing now, But for now, it's the grass burrs and the crab grass and other warm season weeds that will be starting to germinate if they haven't already, because we've had had that week of eighty degrees and we're about to have a decent wa this week. Get it down now, water it in half inch of water, get it into the soil surface. Then you're done. Then you're done. Then it goes to work and it's up

the barricade to take it from there. Now you're gonna find barricade at D and de Feed up in Tomol, you're gonna find all the really night fast products. The place is like the M and d Ace Hardware, which there's one down in on Beamer. There's one on Bayer Boulevard, Sagemont, Clairlake Beamer, M and D and Claarlake B and D. M and D is the place plants and things in Brunham. Another place M and D up in Cypress on Louetta Road. That's another place you can get night frost barricade. Let's

see here. Where are we on time? Yeah? I got a lot of time here. I tell you what. I'm gonna hold off a Nick and Cypress, Adolf and Menville. You'll be our first two up when we come back. I'd like to be able to give you plenty of time to answer your questions before we run along. So we're gonna hold off just a second here. Bu can just native plants in the Heights is one of those garden centers where you better leave yourself some time because

it is. It's outstanding. When you wander through there, you see all kinds of things. They specialize in natives, but they have everything. Greenhouses, full of houseplants. They got lots of good fruit right now in stock They've got shade loving plants. They've got annuals, perennials and herb flowers. Everything you need, and they have train staff that know what they're talking about. Plus brown stuff before green stuff. They've

got heirloom soils, they've got Nature's Way Resources soils. They've got Nelson Plant for nitrofoss microlife. The whole nine yards is there to help you have success. Go to Buchanansplants dot com. That's the website, Buchanansplants dot com to have your success. They're sitting there visiting my producer trying to figure out, well, how does somebody decide to name a band Papa Roads or a cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I think a couple of people were sitting on drinking and they made a bad I got an idea for a cartoon, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's like that had to have been induced by some substance. Anyway, you're listening to garden Line. We're not here to critique music. Or cartoons. We're here to help you have success with your garden. So let's get on with that. We're gonna head out to Cyprus, Texas and talk to Nick. Hey, Nick, welcome to garden Line.

weed control. So they'll stay there, but they're gonna they're gonna kind of get hot and burn up here for too long, So you can just keep mowing them and ignoring them for right now.

Highway three and it serves the whole region. I keep telling you all this. I mean, don't you don't have to leave live in League City for this to be your feed store. If you're in San Leone or Lamark or Baycliffe or Webster or Santa Fe Clare, Lake City, I'll come into Reale. Dickinson is not enough. This is your hometown feed store. It is. They carry nitrofoss, they carry azomite for your tradition mentals, they carry in microlife, they carry Nelson plant food. You're going to find a

lot of different kinds of products from them. They also have some airlom soils on hand to by the way, if you need pesticides and secticides, if you need fungicides, if you need these weed control products we're talking about, they're at League City Feed. You're going to find them there now. This place is open Monday through Saturday until six pm, nine to six pm, so after work you can swing by there. They're closed today, but all week long,

all the way through Saturday, nine to six pm. Here's a phone number two eight one three three two sixteen twelve. Whether it's things for your yard and garden or maybe your backyard chicken supplies, they've got it. They got everything but the chickens. I believe that's the way they put it when they talk to me. And also some nice local honey from that area down there too. Go buy, say hi to the Thunderbergs and grab you some quality products. Old Time Feed Store still carry the sacks out for

you if you want them to do that. League City Feed on Highway three, a few blocks south of Highway ninety six in League City. We're heading to Manville, Texas next to talk to Adolf. Hello. Adoff, Welcome to guard Line.

products are widely available. You go onto Fisher's Hardware, both the one and both the one in Pasadena, the one in La Port, the one in Bellevue, and Fishers Hardware down in Baytown. They also carry it as well down there. Hiding and Feed on steubenor Airline North they had it. And in Chenna Gardens at Chenna Gardens out in Richmond Rosenberg on FM three point fifty nine carries night to Foss products and so stop by there and you can find your night Foss products in those places as well.

You are listening to guarden Line, and it is time for me to take a break, So I'm going to stop talking right now and turn it over to a quick break and I'll be right back with your calls at seven one three two one two k t RH. So, welcome back to Guardenline, Popes. Good to have you with us. You know, when you're trying to have success, you know you've heard me say that ten thousand times. It begins with the soil round st up over green stuff, all

of that. The folks at Heirloom Soils have really perfected the soil slash compost slash moltz slash bed mix.

They do not use bank sand a lot of times. The bank sand you're going to get nut's edge and other kinds of weed problems. They use only a washed sand product to try to avoid any kind of weed problems or any kind of a clay Sometimes there's a clay content in that too, and the wash sand helps avoid that. Now, they don't use raw top soil because you know you skiop tops, are you gonna get wheat seeds? Weat seeds are everywhere. They only use composted soil fines.

It's a little kind of a small particles that fall out of the in this process that are soil themselves, but they're very very fine textures, and they they use that. They only process their ingredients in house. You know, they want to maintain the quality. They want to avoid issues with contamination. They don't let their piles go sour where

they end up. You know, if you let an organic matter pop sit and go anaerobic, no oxygen, you get some nasty smells and you get some nasty chemical compounds that nature forms in those conditions that you don't want. The folks at Airloom Soils they avoid that. They know how to avoid that. They compost, they cure, they blend all the products in house. Now whether you're buying, and I could spend spend a whole hour talking about all

the different products they have. The compost at hardwood moults, the landscape bed mix, the rose blend rose it says rose and bloomers really because anything with flowers like that's going to do well. The works potting soil, the cactus and succulent mix, the veggie and herb mix, the fruit did I say fruit berry and citrus mix. And they also sell just expanded shale and they excel. They sell an expanded shell plus compost and our clay soils. Compost

is great compos a miracle worker for our soils. The compost breaks down over time, and so the expanded shale. Think of it as a little tiny miniature law a rock. They'd beal tiny with all the pores in them. And you put enough of that in soil about three inches over a clay soil bed and mix it in thoroughly, and you've got a very long term, loose arable soil that clay doesn't just mash down and reform like that around it. Expanded shill has its place, and then say

you expanded hill too, and different products. Heirloom Soils is the name of the company, and they are out there in Porter, Texas. They do delivery's book. You can go out there and you can get it yourself with your vehicle, or you can just drive around town. Go to some good garden centers, go to good feed stores, ace hardware stores, Southwest fertilize. There's a lot of places you can get heirloom soils. You need to try them. They work all right.

That's that. Hey, I don't want you to forget, but I am going to be at the spring Montgomery count excuse me, the Montgomery County Spring Home and Outdoor Living Show next Saturday, March first, from ten excuse me, from twelve twelve noon until two pm. I'll give a talk. I'll answer your gardening question. Fill your plastic bags full of weeds and plants to identify. We'll do that. If you want to do that, we won't do that. Or bugs. Take a bug, put it under a hot lamp, make

it confess its name. We'll do that. And we'll also just answer any gardening question. To bring me photos on your phone. We can do all that as well. I wanted to make a comment about pruning right quick, before

we get too far along here. When you are pruning, if you think there may be a disease, maybe a canker disease like or something like fireblight on a plant, and you don't want to spread that from one plant to another, or from a healthy portion of a plant, or from a sick portion to a healthy portion, you can sterilize your pruners between cuts. But here's what you need to know. There are three ways to do it, and the first one is ten percent alcohol in water.

Excuse me, ten percent bleach in water. Ten percent bleach in water. That works to kill the disease, but it if you don't really clean those and oil those prunters, you're going to get rusting and pitting really bad from that bleach water, So you got to be extra careful with that one. The next one is rubbing alcohol. Just a good strong alcohol solution. You can buy those little paint jars of it, cut the top off and dip your prunters in those. They're cheap, it's easy to do,

and that works well. The way I like best is just something like lyf salt that you spray on them that kills germs. We know that that's what they sell it for. And you just spray both sides your printers, kind of move them around a little bit to get them all in there, and then go on when possible, prune the healthy part are healthy plants first, and then last do the printing and the disease rather than vice versa,

which means you're carrying that disease along. But that printer sterilization trick is very important if you want to avoid spreading things. Some of the rosecankers, some of the fire blight that attacks pairs and Pyracantha and other plants out there. It's a tip I hope that helps. I do want to mention one more time. I talked about azimid earlier.

But azemite is a trace mineral product. It is mined out of Utah, has seventy seven known trace animals or micronutrients in it, and it provides those things that are essential for plant growth but only needed in small amounts. A forty four pound bag covers six to twelve thousand square feet of your lawn. I use it in a vegetable garden ten pounds per thousand square feet in your vegetable garden. That works good too. You can go to asmit textas and learn more about it, and you can

do it anytime of the year. Now, if it's easier for you to remember to do it when you fertilize with your regular lawn fertilizers, then do that. Just put them in separate applications. Don't mix them because particle size is different. But put out your fertilizer and then your azemite,

or your azemite and then your fertilizer. If that makes it easier for you to do it, then but don't think that you can only do asamite when I have fertilizer schedule on my schedule, fertilizer times on my schedule, has Mike can be done anytime that you want to do it. All right, let's uh, let's take a little break from me talking and go out here, and we want to talk to Tony and Cyprus. Hey, Tony, got a couple of minutes here, Let's see what we can do a sally.

a few good ideas that you might want to consider. Say, appreciate it all right, sir, you bet, thanks for the call man. Appreciate that