Who Wants A Green Lawn?

K t r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip rictor It's shop. Just watch him as so many good things to seas not a sun. Good morning, good Saturday morning. Glad you're joining us today. We are looking forward to visiting with you about the things that are of

interest to you. What kind of questions do you have? What's what are you struggling with right now out there in the lawn and garden, or maybe you're planning on putting in something new and would like to visit about that. I always encourage people to try something different, try something different. If you've never grown vegetables before, don't have room for a garden, that's okay. How about in containers we can help you with that. Have you never grown

a cut flower garden? Now there's a fun thing to do. We my wife and I put one in about a week ago. Some more flowers and things for enjoying indoors. Why not try that aout? How about herbs? Herbs are a thing that a lot of people have not tried. If you tell me, well, I don't have room for an herb garden. Yeah, you do. You got containers. If you have vegetables, you put herbs at the end of the vegetable rows. You can have used herbs in

the landscape. There's some herds that are quite herbs that are quite ornamental as a matter of fact. Well, if you'd like to visit about any of those things or other things, give us a call. It's seven one three two one two ktr H seven one three two one two k t r H. We're going to go out here and talk to our early bird of the day, Mel and Tomball. Hey, Mel, Hey, good morning, ship morning. I have a problem with molds for years here, and we

tried all kinds of stuff. I mean, I didn't make this gas stuff that you can put in area, which is expensive, and the even little guillotine that you can use to kill them. Right, most of most of their products are dealing with just moving them out, including a castor oyle treatment, which I haven't tried yet. Uh. Is there anything out there that I just assumed kill them instead of just move them away? Yeah, well you've got to. It's a challenge to control them because they let me just

make sure we're talking about moles. Rather than gophers. They don't have the big mounds of dirt above the ground, right, No, it's the mold. It's those little ridges you know that they pop up. And I tried a lot of stuff, but just like I said, I don't want to move them around. I want to kill the little raffle because they have dig enough. We have through the root of the flowers and all that stuff. Yeah, we're right there and tumble. If you go out to the folks

at D and D feed which is on twenty nine to twenty west. Uh, they have got they've got various things that you can use for that. You may have tried some of the things they have, but maybe not all. Let me, do you have a pen or pencil handy? I got it ready. Let me let me give you something to write down. Agra

Life Learn. That's a g R I Agra life l A F E learn l E A r N and then put dot t a m U as in Texas and m University dot e d U, so it's Agralife learn dot TAMU dot e d U. If you will type the word moles in to that search, that's the bookstore. And there is a free publication managing mold damage you you they email you the or they send you the link to the pdf. You can print it out, you can read it on your computer,

and it goes into great depth. I am not a wildlife expert, but they are, and the folks that wrote this will give you the ins and outs of dealing with moles and way more information and not give you on a quick phone call. But between that and running by D and D and grabbing some of the product that they have there, you're you are going to end up with basically your options or traps. And there are some poisons out there.

There are also uh you know, sometimes people can exclude them by putting in an underground fence around a small garden area, but most most folks don't have the either the area protecting is too big, or just the wherewithal to do that. All right, we'll we'll give it a thirty five. Well, good luck with that. I appreciate it. Yes, sir, thank you, you've et you take care. Good to have you with us today

our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you've not done your summer fertilization yet, or if you did, an immediate release fertilizer one of those that dissolves away whenever water hits it. You probably want to go ahead and do a summer slow release fertilization and Nitropos superturf. That's their sober bag. The silver bag is the nineteen percent nitrogen. Half of that is slow release nitrogen. It's a nineteen four to ten number.

That's the numbers on the bag, and a Nitropos Superturff will gradually feed your turf over the summer season. That is how you want turf to receive. It's especially nitrogen. You don't want it all to get it at once. You want to gradually feed it over time. That creates a good root system and it just ensures success. Now you're going to find Nitrofoss Superturf at places

like Bearing's Hardware both on Bissonette and on Westheimer Plantation Ace. They're in the Richmond Rosenberg area as well as Hiding and Feed on Stubner Airline in the Memorial area. Easy to find as all night Foss products are night Fass Superturf silver bag sixteen four to ten for a gradual feed on through the summertime with answers still hopping out there at the Bee Supply and Dayton. You hear me talk about them from time to time. They're always coming up with some really new

cool things. You know. They recently announced they're doing this b rental program. If you've got five to twenty acres you live within fifty miles a Dayton, they will come out and put bees on your property. They will walk you through the process of how you go about getting an ag exemption because bee that is an agricultural production enterprise, and they'll walk you through that process.

They bring the bees out, they set them up, they take care of them, and so it makes it very easy to go about doing that. But go to the website to find out more. Theb supply dot Com, the bsupply dot com, the b Supply out there in Dayton, Texas. They at beginning beekeeping classes. Those are awesome ways to find out how to get started or even if beekeeping is for you. You will find those classes to be very very informative. They have any other classes. I'll tell you

about more as we get closer to them in time. They also now have the leaf cutter bee purchases that you can make where you have these bees that come and they live in little holes in wood or in paper tubes. Actually that make it easier to clean. And you just hang them in your garden and they are very very efficient pollinators, excellent pollinators. But give them a call at nine three six seven seven six seven three nine, or just go

to the website where you'll also find the phone number thebesupply dot com. Bees are a fascinating thing. And by the way, they have a live highve there too, indoors, so you can walk in and see bees working behind plexiglass. You know, they come in through this long tube from outdoors into the into the the living indoor beehive, and it's just cool. When I was a kid, you could go to a place called is it Nickerson Farms or Stuckies that used to have the bee bees indoors and you'd walk up to

the glass and see them. Those are so cool. Driving across the country, those have been replaced by BUCkies now everywhere our Texas company. Maybe BUCkies needs to get some bees in the wall. That would be that would be interesting. Let's take a little break, We'll be back for your calls. Seven one three two one two kt r H. Welcome back to the guard

line. Good to have you with us, looking forward to talking to you about whatever's a ventry to you our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I should say instead of whatever is of interest to you, I say whatever horticulturally is of interest? How about that? With there are a lot of topics that are definitely way out of my league. When's the last time you

went to Plants for All Seasons? Up on Tomball Parkway two forty nine, that's the road that goes up to Tumble. You just head north like you're going to Tombull and when you exit for Luetta crossover Luetta and that's right there on the right hand side. Front door just faces right on to forty nine. Really easy to find, easy to get in and out of. And they always have good plants there. They always good have good information there. And that's you know, that is one of the best reasons to go to

a quality, equality, independent garden center like Plants for All Seasons. They've been doing this since nineteen seventy three. And if you think you got a brown thumb, you just go in there and start talking to them and they're gonna turn it green. They're gonna put the right plant in your hand. They are going to give you the advice on how to grow that plant, and then when you have questions, they're there to help you. It's not

just like one of these places where nobody knows what they're talking about. And well, I won't go on on that, but you know what I mean. Now, they they are there to help you. You can bring a sample in, you can bring a picture in. Uh, you know, you can go, hey, this has happening in my yard. What what are my options? What could I do? And they know what to tell

you, they know the right answers and they're willing to do it. So Plants for All Seasons just think of them as that full service place to get your green on as we'd like to put it. Plants for All Seasons dot Com. Plants for All Seasons dot Com. You can call them at two eight one three seven six one six four six two eight one three seven six one six four six Plants for All Seasons dot Com. Check them out today.

It's a good time to be planting some of these warm season cool excuse me color plants that we want I was in there the other day at Plant froll Seas living all the shade loving plants, lots of beautiful shade color options. Those of you who live in a neighborhood maybe where you have a little bit of trees and not quite enough sun for some of the flowers that love sun well plants fall seas. I'll get you fixed up on that. We can't go out now to Liberty and talk to Tracy. Hey, Tracy,

morning Skip. I've got a question about a peace lily that I received as a gift. It was on the front porch. The front porch faces the western sun. It was getting too much sun. I repotted it in some quality rose sola and brought it, brought it inside. It's facing in a trying to The window is a north window, so it gets a little bit of light, but it's it's just like it's melted. It gets watered about once a week or so, okay, kind of when it's dry. Now.

This morning, when I left for work, I put a grow light on it to see if some supplemental light might perk it up. And I just wanted to see if you had any suggestions. Yeah, we'll getting it out of direct souns good supplemental light could be helpful. You know, peace lily Chinese evergreen they call it. It is a very low light tolerant plant. But if you want to get it to grow, you know, grower

superducos. Don't grow them in super low light. They grow them in plenty of light to get the most energy in the plant and the most health growth and things like that. So yeah, you can do that. Just be careful with overwatering. If you pot it up and it's in let's just say it has a lot of soil. For the amount of greenery sticking up above the ground, it's really easy to keep it too wet, and they hate that. They don't want to go cry go dry. But you kill a

lot more of those by overwatering than by underwatering. And then in our house the temperature is so miles compared to outdoors that the water use rate is very low as well. So just be real careful on that watering. Uh, And that I've pretty much saturated it, and then it's got to opening at the bottom and I drain off all the water. So is that possibly why

it's all wilted down looking? Probably a little too much. Yeah, Usually I would recommend potting those in a pretty chunky material, you know, just to make sure that the water drains through really well. Roast soil is a good mix, a good blend, and it should be. Okay, I

just would I would just be careful with the water. I think that's the main The main thing is riot right, Okay, I will cut back on the water and the you don't think the grow light's gonna have a negative effect on it, So I'll try that for a few days, right right, just as you know, as long as you know within reason. I mean, I don't know whether you just have an inexpensive grow light or some of these are just about create almost date full sun levels of light. And I'm

sure that's not what you're putting on it. But just yes, supplemental light is always good for plants that you want to get them to grow indoors. Okay, Well, I appreciate your time and I enjoy the show. You have a great weeking. Thanks for being listener, Tracy, appreciate that. Glad we could be of some assistance to you if you'd like to give us

a call. Talk Gardening seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four uh visiting with ian id IT Nature's Way Resources yesterday and they are, boy, they are having one heck of a summer sail out there. You know, they have native plants,

lots of native things and now those that are not native. But they have an excellent, huge selection of Texas natives and pollinator plants in general, just plants that will bring in the pollinators, which is always a good thing to add garden. Now, they are having thirty percent off of most of their plants going through July first, so we got about a month, a little over a month of this opportunity. Thirty percent off is a huge good

sale. Now that excludes native sun perennials. That just the native sun perennials, but the rest are all part of that deal, a huge selection of those natives and the pollinators. For example, they also have a twenty percent discount on all the composts, all the malts, and all the soil blends. Do you hear that right? Twenty percent all composts, all malts, and all soil blends. But to get that a lot of times I'll say something and people don't listen to everything I say, so, please listen to

everything on this one. You got to mention Garden Line. Say you heard about this on Garden Line. When you go into Nature's Way Resources, talk to Ian, talk to any of the staff there, say I heard about a twenty percent discount you guys have on compost molts and soil blends. Now that includes both the bag product and the bulk product. So haul your trailer

in there. Bulk's always a better deal, right, buy bulk. You don't have to bag each a little bit of it, or take your trunk in there and your car, open it up, take your trailer, take your pickup either way, bagged or bulk. The twenty percent off both of them, and again that is that is an excellent, excellent opportunity. Just remember when you go in there to get this deal, you need to tell them you heard about it on Guardline and you'll be well on your way.

Nature's Way, By the way, where is it? If you don't know, you need to go up there anyway, because it was one of our original outstanding soil yards that we've had here in the Greater Houston area. On Interstate forty five going north forward Conroe, We're fourteen eighty eight. The road, the highway that goes to Magnolia, where it comes in from the left, you turn right and go across the tracture just south of Conro just a

little bit, and that's where Nature's Way is. Sherwood Sherbrook. Excuse me, I always want to say Sherwood. I guess I'm thinking of Robin hood Brook Circle, Conroad, Texas, one on one, sure circle. If you want the website Nature's Way Resources dot com, take advantage of that. This is a a really good opportunity. This past week I began preparing a flower bed. Now, if you listen to garden line, what is the most important thing? I hope you know this. What is the most important

thing you do to have success with plants? The answer is you're right. You prepare the soil first. And how do we say it? Brown stuff before green stuff. Well, you've heard people say do as I say, not as I do. Well, this is actually one I did this. I have a soil in the front flower bed that is the stickiest, nastiest, poorest drain clay on earth. I mean, it is horrible, and we excavated some of it out to do a drain a French drain along the

driveway there to get that out of the bed. That helps a lot, uh. And so I'm hauling that soil to a spot where I just need some fill in a back corner, a little low spot in there that I need to basically plug a hole with. We'll we're getting it out of the bed. And so what am I going to do. I'm bringing in already got some different kinds of organic materials, decomposed organic matter from compost to bed

mixes. I've got some rose soil, I've got some veggie and herbmic I've got different kinds of things that I'm putting in there and just building that soil and building that soil up and creating a nice, well drained soil. Before I do that, I'm putting in expanded shale. And probably don't talk about expanded shale enough. A lot of our you can buy it. Our soil

providers will provide you with expanded shale also. But what it is the easy way to think about it is imagine kitty litter that has been fired super hot. I'm talking about the old gray clay based type kitty litter. That's sort of what expanded shal looks like although it comes in different particle sizes, but it's been fired super super hot, so it's a very hard particle that is expanded and pitted with holes like the lava rock on a barbecue pit, but

on a microscopic level. And I'm putting expanded shale in. Some studies done by Texas A and m Agrolife up in the Dallas area many years ago found that when you put about three inches of expanded shale into the worst clay soils, that old black clay that they have up there that we have along the Gulf coast, to when you put about three inches of it in and build it up, that's enough to where you significantly improve the internal drainage of that

soil and it lasts a long time. Compost is a wonderful thing, all the decomposed organic matter thing. That's great. We should be using them all the time, but they decompose away. They don't stay as composts. They go toward humis and they decompose away. Expanded shale has that structural integrity where it stays like that. So the first thing I'm going to do in that flower bit is put out a lot of expanded shale and work it into the soil. Then I'll add some compost on bed mixes to the top and work

it into the soil. And when I'm done, I've got a bed that drains well, and then when I put my plants in it, I'll have success. If I'm not going to do that, I'm going to have to stick something that likes a swamp, like a Louisiana iris or button bush or something that can take soggy conditions. But we try to avoid that. If you have not been to ACE Hardware recently, you really need to go in and check them out. You know. ACE is a place for whatever we

need. During the holiday season, they were the place for Christmas lighting. During the spring, when we're starting to fertilize our lawns and things, they're the place where you get every fertilizer I talk about on garden line. We just went through a horrible time of weather where they were the place that helped you with dehumidifiers, with bleach, to clean things up with sandbags and all

kinds of They're always the place. I don't care whether you're going for traditional hardware items or whether you're trying to turn your outdoor setting into something really beautiful. ACE is a place for that, and you're going to find it. Pest control, disease control, weed control for your lawns. I like to do some of the nice outdoor things, from their barbecue pits to the strings of lights to create that ambience. To mosquito control. Oh yes, they

have all the products for that as well. Go to ACE Hardware dot com and find the store locator to find one of forty stores near you. And now here's Nikky with the news. Welcome back to Guardline. Hey, let's talk gardening today. If you'd like to do that, here is the number for you to know. Seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two kt r H. Simple as that. If you've not done your fertilization in your lawn summer, now's the time to do

it now. Folks at Nelson Plant Food have created the Turf Star line, which is now standing line of fertilizers for our turf, designed for our conditions here, for our soils here in the Southeast Texas area. First of all, they have Bruce's Brew. Bruces Brew is one we think of as an immediate release fertilizer because it does release most of its nutrient early on, which is good for a quick green up. But it also has two different types

of slow release in it, so it continues to extend release. So let's just think its front forward. In other words, you're going to get the majority of your release early on, but it's going to continue to feed over time a good while. In fact, over time it's good for quick green up. It's good when you have new turf, you're trying to get in some fast growth, trying to give a lawn a boost that really needs to get going. It just provides all the things that your lawn's going to need

in the right ratio. By the way, Slow and Easy Nelson's very slow release fertilizer. Now it has some nutrient release early on, so you don't have to wait six months for fertilizer to show up. No, it'll release some right away, but it will extend release even four months or more out into the season. So if you do Slow and Easy by Nelson in the Turf Star line Slow and Easy, if you do that now, you will not need to fertilize your lawn again until fall. It will fertilize your lawn

between now and fall. It will continue to release a little bit over time. It helps acidify the soil. It's got that moderate growth rate release, which is so important. You get too much nitrogen at one time, you get a lot of top growth at the expense of root growth. And let me make something kind of clear here. When people see a number on the bag that's really high, let's say that first numbers are really high nitrogen number, Well, that doesn't mean that you're putting a lot of nitrogen on.

It depends on how much you put down. So if you just put a little bit of it on, you're not putting much nitrogen on. If you put a lot of a number that's very low in nitrogen, you just really dump a lot on, then you're adding a lot of You see what I'm saying. It's a percentage game. So when you use something like slow and easy, even though the first number is high, that first number is like being released over several fertilizations through the course of the next few months. So

at each fertilization, essentially you're not putting too much on. So don't let the big numbers fool you on there. It's how much you apply it's the concentration and how much you apply. I don't want that to be confusing, but I do want it to be clear when you follow the schedules that I put online at gardening with Skip dot com, when you apply fertilizer at the proper rate, you're gonna have good results and slow and easy and outstanding product

by Nelson Plant Food that'll do just that. I hope that provide a little bit of clarity there, because I know people sometimes get confused about that. The real thing we're looking at on these lawn fertilizers is the ratio of nutrients. You know that over time, when you fertilize with the right ratios, you're gonna build the right nutrients into the soil and not have excessive of things

that eventually we'll catch up with you. You know, years ago here on guard Line, there were years where you know, triple thirteen was the fertilizer to apply, ten twenty ten even was put on lawns. And that middle number does not need to be that high. It doesn't for the long term, doesn't hurt if you do it once twice or two years of it, three years of it, But long term, you want to stay with a

three one two four win two. And that's why these fertilizers you hear me talk about are design like that, and that is the best way to do it. If you're seeing some a little bit of yellowing on your grass, that is typically due to an iron deficiency. Now there are different reasons we have iron deficiency. For example, lack of iron in the soil. That would be one to have an iron deficiency. But sometimes you have iron but

your pH is so high that the plants can't take it up. For example, take an azalea and plant it in a high pH soil and you will see iron deficiency because the nutrients aren't available to that acid living plant. Now, also sometimes iron can't be taken up because the pH is high, but also phosphorus is very high that midtal number, and when the middle number gets really high, the iron in the soil is changed into a form that's unavailable to the plant, and so it's there, but the plant can't get it.

Like driving a bunch of nails into the soil around your plant, there's a lot of iron in those nails not available to the plant, not in that form. So the goal is to keep the phosphorus in a lower range in our soils, and over time it builds up because nitrogen washes away, it volatilizes away, potassium even will leach away. The third number on the bag that phosphorus. It sticks to the soil particles. They hold it very tightly, and you can have phosphorus leaching, but in general it builds up

over time. So year after year after year, fertilizing with high phosphorus can end up creating a problem because once you have that problem, you can't go and take the phosphorus out of the soil. It's there. So that's a whole other issue. But just remember that when you see iron deficiency, it could be due to a lack of iron, it could be due to the high pH and it can be due to very high phosphorus levels. And the

fourth thing, actually there's four and five. In the spring, when the soil is cool and we're real rainy, we often have a little temporary iron deficiency in the lawn and that just sort of goes away, and that's due to the cool, cool, wet soil conditions that can cause that. The fifth, gosh, five different reasons. Iron efficiency probably more is root disease. Take all root rot. Roots, as the name tells, you take all root rot. And when you don't have growing root tips, you can't

take up iron. Iron is taken up at the end of the growing roots. So when you stop root growth, you stop iron uptake. And so that is another reason that we often see yellowing in the summertime in our lawns. Is a little bit of take all root rot involved. So though that's kind of in a nutshell iron in the soil. But when you see yellow, Saint Augustine, it's probably an iron deficiency. That's the ninety five percent

of the time. That's probably what you're seeing. And if you don't know for sure, grab a leaf blade that's yellow and pull it off and hold it up to the light. And if you see streaks of yellow and green going down that leaf blade, that's a sign of iron deficiency. It's called intravenal chleurosis. That's the fancy word for the day. But anyway, you like to give us a call on garden line seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.

Hey Jorges Hidden gardens done in Alvin Have you been down there yet, those of you who live down in that area. It's on Elizabeth Street in ALBN twelfth seven twenty one Elizabeth Street, just south of Highway six. So folks in Santa Fe and Dickinson, of course, Alvin a'l Gooa Arcadia, Alta Loma Hillcrest. This is a little hometown garden center you got going on down there. Hoy's always got a good selection of things. I mean he's had

roses, including some nice Peggy Martin roses for a good while. Now. He got in some citrus a while back. That is just outstanding selection of options. You'll find things like vegetable plants. You'll find things like of course I mentioned the fruit trees and other types of fruit trees as well. Horay carries the three sixty tree stabilizer for when you're going to plant a new tree.

Now, he's open on weekends on Friday from eight am to four pm, on Saturday from eight am to four pm, and on Sunday from eight am to four pm. Friday, Saturday and Sunday unless he's changed those times. I need check with make sure that's still going. And I think he's open some during the week as well, so just give you know, go buy there and check it out. This is a this is a garden center that just keeps getting better when you go. They just keep expanding and adding

to it and making it a better and better place. And if you're in anywhere around the Alvin area, this definitely is a place you need to swing by. They carry the kind of plants that do well there and they'll get them planted for you, get them established, or they'll sell them to you to plant. They also have us some services for taking care of, you know, planting and things like that. But Jorges Hidden Gardens in Alvin is one you need to visit again on Elizabeth Street in outn south of Highway six.

We're going to take a little break again for some news, of course, and when we come back, we'll take your calls if you'd like to go ahead and get on the board with the producer. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Is it still over? We still drew since my pole still ain't bringing nice soon. Welcome back to the guarden line. Good to have you with us. We are here to answer your gardening

questions. It's seven one three two two fifty eight seventy four. Those of you out in the Kingwood area, when was the last time you went by Warrens Kingwood Garden Center. You know, you got two great places out there. I was out at Warrens not too long ago, just visiting and picking up some things for some color planting we did. We did a little color color bed. I got some nice flowers to uh, really set things off for summer. Some pentas Egyptian starflower. Butterflies love it. And there's the

clusters a little five pedal flowers. That's what it's called star flower. Uh. And it just beautiful plants, excellent plants. We got some angelonia and several other things. As a matter of fact, while we're out there, you know, it's easy to find things you're looking for, and it's easy to find the whole complete set member brown stuff before green stuff. When you

go out to Warrens, you're gonna find the airloom soils products. You're going to find the mulches that you need, everything by the bag, the fertilizers that you need you hear me talk about on garden Line. They're there. They even have the little filling station for the jugs. And you're all set up. Then you bring the plants home with it and you can have beauty.

And they very knowledgeable staff. I always enjoy going out and visiting with Michael and the team out there at Warren's Garden Center, you know the place. It looks beautiful. In fact, when I walked in, I was really surprised at just how much color they had. It was like, Wow, that's great, and it always looks that way. They take care of it. They know how to put things together. They have wonderful combination planners.

They'll help you. You know, if you say I want one of the I want to be a big planner, just full of color and stuff draping over the side, they'll tell you, well, grab some of this, grab some of that, grab some of that, and they'll help you put that. In terms of choosing shop, put that thing together to take home and put together. Warren's Garden Center and Kingwood Garden Center out there in the Kingwood area definitely worth a trip, no matter where you live. We're

going to run out now to Montgomery and talk to Brett. Hello, Brett, how are you this morning? I'm good, sir. How can we help? Well, I've lived out here. A couple of years finally got the yard turned around. We have a really hard clay soil out here, and I have my front yard is basically a hill. It's pretty steep. Okay. Anyway, the question is watering, Yeah, and frequency, and you know, quantity. I guess I've read a lot about it, and I'm not really sure how to water this yard. Yeah, that's good.

On my schedule, the lawn care schedule, I talk about watering and how much water typically in an average year we would have each month, how much to put on our goal? In general in the sun, is this Saint Augustine? You said, yes, it's saying Augustine. And the front yard faces west, so it gets a lot of eating the afternoon. Okay, in general, about one inch of water a week. Now, if it rains, that could be your water, if it especially a slow rain.

If not, you want to irrigate. If you can get it to where you're irrigating once a week, that's best, No more than twice a week, because you want when you water, you want to wet the soil deeply, and it takes about an inch to wet the soil deeply in a clay soil especially now, if you have a slope and if you have a clay and the water's going to run off before you apply an inch, which it will, it'll run off. You want to do what's called cycle and soak.

That means a sprinkler comes on for however long it can and when it's about to run off, that's how long that cycle should be set and then let it go off for about forty five minutes and then come back on again. So on a given morning, you may water two or three times during that morning. Early early morning. That's the best time to get that good

soaking. And once you do that, then don't water again for a while as long as you can wait, because that allows oxygen to come back into the soil and the plant develops a good, deeper, resilient root system. And as you do that, over time, you build a grass plant that doesn't have to be squirted every day to keep it alive. Yeah, that makes sense. I currently have it watering, you know, one day, but I have it watering at three o'clock in the morning at nine o'clock at

night. Yeah, but maybe I'll tighten those up and do it all in the morning. Definitely do it all in the morning. You keep it wet all night, and you're gonna have more gray leaf spot, You're gonna have some other in the fall, you have more brown patch, large patch kind of thing. So get it down in the morning so when the sun comes out it dries up and O. But yeah, if you put all your water on I'm going to say in one watering, that could be a split

watering, you know, forty five minutes apart. If you do that, you get your what the money you spend on water in the ground as a bank account. That will help. When you do a little squirt every day, you wet the foliage and that evaporates and you lost all that water and then you just end up not wetting deep enough to build the root system that can be resilient, and that's what you need when summer comes. Well, it makes sense. I appreciate your help. Thank you, Brett. Good

luck with that. Thank you you take care. Sweet Green is a fertilizer by nitrophiles, a natural fertilizers based on a molasses type base that microbes have worked on and created a really quality fertilizers. Eleven percent nitrogen, one of the highest nitrogen levels of any organic furtizer. You're going to find sweet green is the kind of thing that you enjoy putting out because the smells so good.

I jokingly say, yeah, when you buy it, you're going to want to make another trip around the Loop in Houston just so you can enjoy the smell on the back of the car. Anyway, the sweet Green fertilizer will release into the soil because it's molasses space, the microbes gun nuts. That's why organic gardeners put down molasses in their soil for that same benefit to the microbes, creating that rich environment and when the microbes are happy, your

plants are going to be happy, in this case your lawn. You're going to find sweet green in a lot of different places. It's wide, widely available, like nitrofosh products are. For example RCW Nursery up on Tombaill Parkway, but Way eight they have it. Growers Outlets outlet up in Willis has it. If you go out to enchanted forest in the Richmond Rosenberg area,

they're going to have sweet green out there as well. The storms that we had that came through and just did their number on a lot of our communities around here, a lot of homes too. They took a hit on Buchanans native plants and the Heights and they had some tree issues that came down and stuff, and they cleaned up from that reallyzingly fast. And the place is

just they were in full swing last weekend already. But Buchanans in the Heights they're on Eleventh Street, is one of those places that's like you found a gem somewhere hidden away in Houston. You're going down Eleventh Street and you look up and you see Buchanans and you just want to wander in and you should, absolutely should. They have every kind of plant you could possibly want, from house plants to the best selection of natives in this whole region. I

mean, they have natives that are just native in the Houston area. They have natives that are Texas natives, excellent selection, and they have things you wouldn't expect, like maringa for example. I was just out in my garden this week looking at my maringa plants were finally waking up from the They kills them back to the ground in winter where I live and down in most of this area as well. But anyway, the maringa plants were coming back up.

I was just thinking about though. They are very healthy, nutrient A rich leaves, all kinds of it's basically maringas a superfood. It's a tree. But here again it goes back to the ground typically, or you cut it back to the ground. High vitamin D at a fungal, antemiicrobial, I mean, just any kind of thing. But they have those at Buchanans, so you can put it in. It's a little bit of an ornamental like mini tree or shrub, and then you can just enjoy the leaves.

It's not something you find anywhere. How about plants that mosquitoes don't like to sit in because of their aromatic foliage, like the cinitronella and the rosemary and lavender and some of the basils, for example. They have those. They even have combinate. You can put a combination of those together. Really cool. All of Buchanans Plants eleven Street in the Heights. Go to Buchanans Plants

dot com. Buchanansplants dot com. You've been listening to garden Line. We are going to take a break for the top of the hour in the news and we'll be back if you'd like to get on the board and be the first up when we come back seven one three two one two five I have eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I want to mention, by the way, while we're talking, on the fifteenth of June. I know that's a little ways out, but put that on

your calendar. Fifteenth of June, I'm going to be at Wabird's Unlimited in bel Air, Texas, one of the Wilbirds stores here in the Houston area. Wabird's Unlimited in bel Air from eleven am to one pm. Put on your calendar, come out and see. Kt RH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt RH Garden Line with scip Rictor's just watch him as the world gold so many

pay Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us. We are here to answer your gardening questions at seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I want to tell you about an event tomorrow that this Memorial Day weekend, there is a patriotic concert out in Sugarland honoring our fallen heroes. Now, this is the special event is free and it's open to the public. It is

called a Night to Remember, honoring our fallen Heroes. It is tomorrow night, Sunday night, at seven o five pm seven oh five pm at the Sugarland Town Square in Sugarland, Texas, right in front of the City Hall facade. If you want more information about it, you can dial seven one three eight two four sixty one twenty six seven one three eight two four sixty

one twenty six. They've got a lot of talent there, the Houston Tidelanders, the Fort Ben Brass Band, the dancers from Ballet Grace under the direction of Cookie Joe and Grammy Awards songwriters singers Bill and Kim Nash all there. Part of that tribute to those who have fallen in their service to our country

certainly something we all benefit from. And while we're talking about that, one of the reasons we have Memorial Weekend, just taking time to recognize that the piece, the comfort, just the security that we live in here came at a price. I'm paying the ultimate price for it. So if you're interested in this patriotic concert, it's thirty member chorus, brass band, dancers,

Grammy winning singers all there. It's going to be at again the Fort Bend County excuse me, the Sugarland Town Square down in Fort ben County tomorrow night, seven o five pm. I hope you can make it free. It can't beat that. By the way, bring some canned food for donation. They're going to be taking donations of can food for the East Fort beIN Human Needs Ministry, other a good reason to be part of this great event. We're going to go now to Magnolia and talk to Chuck. Hello, Chuck,

Hey, how you doing. I'm well, sir. How can we help? Uh? What are your opinions on liquid aeration? What is the what kind of product is it? What is being injected? What liquid is being injected in the ground. I don't know all the compounds. I just I know it's called liquid aeration. Okay, well, let me let me comment on it then a little bit. Sometimes a soil doesn't take in water because it seals up and it doesn't allow water to percolate in very well.

And there are some surfactant types of things that can help break that surface tension a little bit and help improve the infiltration a little bit. There are sometimes I've run across people that were injecting kind of a slurry of humate type product. And anytime you get humates in the ground, you you're benefiting the soil,

improving soil structure and therefore helping a little bit. But for the ultimate aeration, you want to be able to take a core out of the soil, pop it out onto the top of the surface, and then have some composts top dressing to fall down in those holes, and that over time is really going to do the most good building the you know, the internal drainage

on the soil. So it could the liquid aeration could give some benefits depending on the conditions of your soil and the product you're using, but in general I would depend most on the core aeration for the benefits. Okay, all right, thanks, all right, I hope that helps. Yeah, there's there's always a lot of new products coming out, a lot of new things and claims and stuff, and I just need it. I need to see some evidence, and I also need or personally try it and see how it

works. Mostly just some proof that it's actually working. Doesn't mean something new doesn't work, doesn't mean it does. I keep an open mind on all these things, but in general, I got to understand how that's working. And a lot of times things claims are made that don't that don't hold water. Oh that was a pun. Oh my gosh, I didn't even know I was making that. That's funny. Hey. Nitrofoss has a product called bug out Max that is an insect control product, and this stuff works fast.

Within forty eight hours, it's going to kill up one hundred and sixty different kinds of insects. It also lasts a long time. Nitrofoss bug out Max will if you apply it, it will basically protect your lawn over the coming couple of months against bugs that may show up. For example, chinchbug season starts. It can start as early as June, typically comes a little

bit later, a little bit further into the summer. We typically if we're going to have a webworm sod webworm season, we will start to see it at that time. Hopefully we won't have one this year, but you never know. It's kind of a roll of the dice, it seems. Bug out Max is very very effective for managing those kinds of pests that you might be dealing with and you're gonna find bug Out Max places like plants and things up in Brenham. You're gonna find it at Plants for All Seasons on two

forty nine. You're going to find it at Aspa's Ace up in the woodlands, all places where you can find nitro foss products. We're going to now go to Dickinson and talk to Linda. Hello, Linda, Hi. I have a crape mark Mountain Long and the looks very healthy. The leaves on it are curling, not like real tight like a girl's pair, but not a normally very interesting when leaves curl on those kinds of plants, not specifically Mountain Laurel, butle plants in general, there are a couple of options.

If it's the newer growth that's doing the curling, sometimes a hormone type herbicide the drift from it can cause that kind of damage, or accidentally getting some on the foliage of the plant, and a very low dose can cause that kind of damage. There's another thing that can cause it, and that is certain kinds of piercing sucking insects that feed on the foliage as it's trying to expand, and it just sort of gets twisted up from the chemicals in their

mouth parts as they feed. So it's going to be one of those two things. If you wanted to send me a photo of it up close in good sharp focus, as well as a photo of the plant in its setting, I'd be happy to take a look and see if I see anything other than that. Okay, what is there a treatment for? Well, it depends on what you find. If it was a hormone herbicide damage, such as a broadly weed killer apply to the lawn, then you just wait it

out. It's going to have to in time resume normal growth. If it is an insect, you could use certainly an insecticide, but I hate to send you out to buy and spray a product when we don't really know what we're dealing with there. But send me a picture. Turn some leaves over, if you can take a picture of the bottom of the leaves, look for any insects you see. And I'm going to put you on hold, Linda, and if you will, the producer will give you my email address

and then you can just attach your photos to that. And it replied, don't don't embed them in the photo, I mean in the email, but attach them. Okay, okay, thank you, all right, all right, there we go. I just just sent you. All right, Linda, here we go, put on hold. There we go talking about Texas moun Laurel trees. Now is the time to get some trees planted. We still haven't hit summer yet. I know it's coming, but with proper care, you can plant a tree any month of the year. And Verdant Tree

Farm has a wide variety. They have an awesome website. You need to write this down and go check it out Verdanttreefarm dot com. There you will see a listing of trees as you scroll across the page and it'll give you a nice write up, like what's the difference between the Montezuma cypress and a regular cypress that's on there. Each one is described that they sell. They also have their palm trees the same kind of way. Their an outstanding source

of palms. Verdon has trees. If you're looking for a quick shade tree, they have trees even up to like seven hundred gallons in size. An excellent source of trees. You can find them in West Houston on Barker Cypress. Down in Paarland on Broadway, Street. You can find them in the Heights area where Itin and Yale come together. They have free in office design consultation. Take some pictures, sit down with them, let them help find the right tree for you. They'll bring it out, they'll plant it.

When they plant it, they give you a one year warranty on that installation because they know how to plant it right. Verdant Tree Farm ten percent discount for military and first responders. And Patrick himself is has been military and we do appreciate him doing that as well as a service at Patrick at Verdon has provided for our country as well. We're going to now go up to let's see you. No, I'm I'm already passing a break. Oh my gosh, I gotta take a break here. I'll be right back seven one three

two one two fifty eight seventy four. Cause you know, I'm all of ba dabas ba daves No shob no mallum ba daves By Daves Now shovel, I'm allum ba daves By Davis. Now, welcome back. Good to have you with us on garden line. We're all about that green stuff, the plans, the flowers, the vegetables. That's what we want to talk about. Here's our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Hey, Wildbird's unlimited.

The place to get all of your wild bird supplies. That's where you get quality feed. Now you'll find cheap bird seed, and I mean cheap. I don't mean inexpensive. I mean cheap. If I'm cheap, birds seed a lot of places, and if you look at it, it's filled with those little red bebes. Birds don't like to eat that, at least most birds don't kick them on the ground, and you end up not getting you know't buy a pound of bird seed, you don't get a pound of bird

food. You get about a half pound or less. In some cases. Some of them is almost all that red stuff. Anyway, wildbirds has quality stuff like the nesting super blend. Very important to be putting that out now. We got some barn swallows at our house. We enjoy those things. They are antics every year and they are raising a nest right now. But

a lot of birds are nesting. Super blend from Wallbirds is excellent. Now you're going to find wildbirds in six different locations around the Houston area go to WBU dot com forward slash Houston WBU as in Wildbirds Unlimited dot com forward slash Houston. You can find all of them there, as well as quality feeders, quality bird houses, quality books, and most of all, quality advice and help so you can have success and enjoy the birds out in your landscape.

By the way, don't forget next No, on the fifteenth of June. I know it's a little far out, but on the fifteenth of June, I'm going to be at the Wallbirds Unlimited in bell Air. So those of you down southwest are really anywhere, come see me there at the Wallbirds. See what I'm talking about when I brag about these stores. We'll answer your gardening question from eleven am to one pm at the Wallbirds Unlimited out in bell Air. We're going to go now to Gary and West Houston. Hello

Gary, Hello, Skip, Good morning morning. I've got a couple quick, couple quick questions about a seven week old Zoisa patch that I put on. It's rooted well, it's taken in very well, and the residual fertilizer I'm sure is go on. They said to wait four to six weeks and early on I had bought a bag of imperial, which I still had, Yes, and I was fixed. I was going to go and put that down and then maybe in some certain amount of time follow it up with the

nineteen four. Yeah. Ten, is that okay? Yes? If you're gonna do imperial, do you have a pin or pencil handy? Yeah? You would normally put imperial out at seven pounds per thousand square feet. I would do it at about three and a half, about half of that, And I know that's a very low rate, but do it about half of that, and then about a month later, do it about half of that again, and then after another month or so, then do your imperial.

Okay, because what we're gonna do is rather than right now, with the rain and the nice warm temperatures at grass gloves, it's gonna grow a lot crazy. And I wouldn't want to overdo the imperial in one application right now. So we're gonna make a slow release out of it by splitting it in half, and then then the silver bag will carry you all the way to the fall fertilization easy enough. Now, I've got a big nuts edge problem

in my backyard. I've had it for a while I've used sedge hammer in the past it works, but I'm concerned there's a you know, some of it is in the zoysia, and I'm concerned about but treating it with sedge hammer plus and any effects on the zoizia. I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, as far as maybe spot treating or something, there are several products that are labeled for use in turf for nutsedge you just have

to read the label on whatever whatever you apply. I applied to product I'm trying to remember the name of it now with Halo's sulfur on Halo like the Little Angel Halo Love your Head, Halo sulfur on and it was labeled for zoysia and so but just read the label on them. It'll tell you yeah,

yeah, so that that should be okay. But again, when it comes to chemicals and things, one formulation of the same chemical versus another, they're not always the same and they're not always labeled for the same So just just check that to be extra sure. And I would definitely do spot treating. You know, you don't need to hit the hole on with it, and you're gonna have to stay at it because nuts edge is persistent, and even stuff that kills it doesn't kill it, meaning you may have it pop

back. You may have some nuts that haven't popped up yet that show up later. So just the thing is to be ruthless. When it gets about five leaves on it, you need to spray it. So just as a general guy, don't spray it when it first pops out of the ground. Let it get some leaves so you can get a lot of that product on the leaves of the nut's edge, and always add a spread er sticker just to be sure to make sure it sticks to that glossy nuts sedge leaf.

Yep, we'll do. And I had a bag of Heritage G should I put that out as a preventative or wait for some sort of symptoms? Because I don't have any symptoms of any I would not put Heritage G out. Now that's a very good product. The next you can use it against the number of things. It's one of the best products for take all root rot and that's something we typically If you look at my schedule at gardening with Skip dot com, the schedule I have in October and November two applications for take

all root rot. If you have that problem in your lawn, and Heritage g is an excellent one to use at that time. All right, Gardeningskip dot com. Yeah, there's two schedules and they're both free and makes it easy to find fertilizers and pest control products if you need them. All right, And while I've got you to your knowledge, do those little stick in pH readers work? And what is our pH level here? Typically it varies a lot, typically kind of higher on the on the Gulf Coast clays.

As you get into the East Texas piny woods, which we also have in this listening area here, then you're you're looking at a more acidic type of level. But the stick in meters not that great. Uh, you know, they're they're reasonably close, but there are things that can throw them off a lot. I would it's not that expensive to have a soil test done.

And if you know, if you've got a lawn and you do a good random soul test or if you have a garden or flower bed, that tells you really what's in there, and you don't have the soil test every year, so that that's right, Okay, all right, excellent, thanks for you, bet you Bet, take care, good visit with you. Let's see, we're going to go now to Sandy in southwest Houston. Hello, Sandy, Hi, Hi. I have some tit some kind of tit

caterpillar that's on my apple tree. Okay, and you know they've just wrapped them filter on all the leaves and uh do I cut off the branch and then spray the rest of the tree. Yeah, what's what's the best thing to do? Now? Don't need to cut it off. The leaves will regrow from those ten caterpillars. You can if they've got the webbing around them and helps to break it up a little bit. And then just spray with a product that contains B t be as in boy teas in tom and spray

it and they will eat it and that will kill them. It's an organic natural disease of caterpillars. And it's really fine. You're in southwest Houston, you should just run over to Southwest Fertilizer at the corner Abyssina and runwick. Bob's got bet there. He also has something called Spinosaid, which is good for caterpillars there as well, and both either of those you just but you got to squirt the leaves because you want them to eat the leaves, and

the webbing keeps the spray from getting on the leaves. So that's why we break it up. You know, just stay wellle coat hanger or something up there and kind of or maybe a broom and just kind of knock the webbing down a little bit and then and then spray them and be ready to do it again. You may have to do it again, you know, a week later, do it again a week after that, because it'll always be a few more that hatch out. But they're really easy to control, and

that stuff is almost as low tox as you can get. So is the be Is there a preference for the BT versus the Spini set? They both work well, Spinner said, lasts a little bit longer than BT does, but they're both good. I don't like to over use anyone pesticide because we tend to see resistance build up sometimes. Uh. And so if you either way, you're gonna you're gonna do fine. Just know that BT, after about a day it's not working. It breaks down in the sunlight. But

that's nice. It's natural, it's not toxic. It breaks down. Those are all good things. So all right, okay, yeah, just just go overbut you bet I appreciate that. Yeah, Bob is on Bisinet at the corner the corner of Bissinet and Renwick. Uh. And you know, Southwest Fertilizer has every thing. I mean, if ever i'm talking about a fertilizer, he's got it. If ever i'm talking about a pest control, disease control, we control by pass all of that. But it's not just

product in there. I mean he's got an eighty foot wall of tools. It's excellent quality tools. They got a little motor repair shop in the back for that as well. It's just the place to go for anything you're gonna need to take care of your lawn and garden and make it beautiful. Southwest Fertilizer dot Com is the website. He also has Azamite. You know.

Azimite's the product we put down about once a year. It's a product that has a lot of the trace mineral in it, the ones, not the three numbers on a fertilizer bag, but the essential minerals that are needed in tiny, tiny amounts. You can go to Azamite Texas dot com and whenever you're i usually would say do it when you're fertilizing, because you're thinking about it, then don't put it in the hopper with your fertilizer. Just fertilize

and then put your asmite down and put it down over the lawn. It works very well. And again yeah, Bob has that at Southwest Fertilizer. We are hitting a break here where I got a head to Nicky in the news. I see I got a bunch of folks out there, y'all. Hang on, We're going to get to each one of you. We'll be right back. She's mad all missus Zimbs, welcome back to Guarden Line.

Good to have you with us today. So if you have not done your summer fertilization, it is time and a good slow release fertilizer like Nitrofoss Superturf that's the nineteen four to ten fertilizer nineteen four ten, the silver bag that's the easy each Saint halfway across the store and looking for the wall of fertilizers, look for the silver bag Superturf nineteen four ten by Nitrofoss. Half That nitrogen is going to be in a slow release form, so it's going to

feed for three or four months going forward. It's a nice long, gradual feed that helps reduce mowing up to twenty five percent. And it also so we'll provide a good root system for your lawn by not overdoing the nitrogen in any one point in time. It's designed for our hot and humid southern climate. It does well in our soils here in the southeast Texas area. And

nitrofoss is easy fine, and that's an important thing. You're going to be able to go to Ace Hardware City a Memorial Drive and find this product. You can go to Katie Ace Hardware out in Katie and find this product. You can go to Stanton Shopping Center and Alvin. They also carry the Nitrofosh products like this super turf the slow release for summertime. Let's see, we are now going to go to Dan and excuse me, Bob and fullsher Bob, thank you for waiting. How can we help, Yes, sir,

thanks for checking my call. I have an issue with webs forming over the leaves and limbs of my red buds, and they've got hundreds of tiny little white worms on the leaves and sucking the lives out of my weeds, I mean out of these and I've never seen them on the red buds before. I've had them on the cons huh. So I was just hoping to find out a good insecticide or some kind of way to control that or get rid of it. Actually, yeah, well the simplest, easiest, safest stuff

is Bacillus thuringensis, which we just call BT. BT is okay. I heard that a minute ago. I was afraid you already answered my question, and I yeah, that's okay. That's a different plan on anyway. Yeah, it's a different planet, different worms, no problem, because they're they're outbreaking now and a lot of people are going to have that same question.

You can go to your full sha Ace hardware store on FM three fifty nine there and they're going to have BT that are also going to have something called spendo said s P I no s A D. But with both of them, the caterpillars need to eat them, so if you have to break up the web a little bit to get it on the foliage that they're feeding on.

That's why they put that web, is to protect themselves. Break up the web so you can spray the leaves they're eating, you know, if they're on one side of the tree and you spray the other side, it's not going to do any good. You have to put it on the leaves and then within twenty four hours they need to be chomping on those leaves to get the most effect. I see, okay, I see. And the

younger they are, the more effective these are. When they're just about to pupate and become a moth, these products aren't going to be as effective. I gotcha. I got so. Yeah, they're pretty young. I assume they look pretty young. It's all pretty fresh in the last couple of few days. Yeah, yeah, Well it's okay. You can knock them out real quick and that tree will releaf wherever you lost some leaves. Okay, great, great, all right, Sarah, thank you very much. Hey,

thanks for the call. Appreciate that, Bob a lot. We're going to go now to Hurta in Spring Branch. Hello, Herta, good morning. Big problem. When they turk down my trees that they had to after the tornado. They use big tractor equipment, okay, and they have killed I mean there's no grass. Yeah. My yard is one hundred feet wide and I have maybe three feet left of grass. Okay, Yeah, what's

the best thing to do. Well, if you've got enough sunlight, which if you lost the tree, I bet you got a lot of sun then any kind of a turf grass, well you can put it back in there, Saint Augustine, if that's what you had, you can put that back in. Uh. And you just need the fastest way. The easiest thing is to solid side it. That's also the most expensive. Or you can put some plugs in there, but then you're going to be fighting weeds in

the bare spots between the plugs until that grass fills in. So that's the trade off money versus hassle and time. Well, now if I saw the squares, is it okay to maybe a skip for foot? And will they grow together? Or do they will? They will? Oh? They will? Yeah, if you buy the squares, if you buy those little side

pieces, you can or you just hire somebody to do this. But you can even take a like a machetti and chop them into maybe three or four strips, you know, So think of them as a doormat and you're cutting the doormat, cutting the longside and you know, three three or four strips. Put those strips about a foot apart and get them into the soil and water them in. You got to water them every day, a couple times a day lightly the first week, and then about once a day for another

week to get them established. And by the end of the summer season they're going to have filled in. But that's the way to get the most out of your dollar. It is. You're trading it for work and labor. All right, okay, all right, thank you very much, Thank you heard. I appreciate the call. You take care. Moss Nursery done in Seabrook awesome, awesome place. If you have not been there, I don't care. If you're listening to me in Huntsville, Texas, you need to

drive down and see Moss Nursery. It is an amazing place. Eight acres to wander through, and it's like you've gone into another time, almost in the jungle or whatever. I mean. You you know, you're walking around, it's just beautiful. Every time you turn a corner, there's some unusual thing going on. They have a great selection of plants. I was looking

at some of the elephanteers, the tarot and the allocacia and colocasia. Those are the two most people would look at either one and call it an elephant. Ere they do. They have an excellent supply of succulents, beautiful cactus, many of them which are actually blooming right now. But at Moss you're gonna find everything you're looking for. It is not just an the garden center. This store is a seventy year old family owned operation where you wander through

eight acres into the beautiful houseplant greenhouse. What do you need? Do you need herbs? They got him. Do you need flower? Of course they got them. Do you need maybe a beautiful staghorn fern hanging from a giant old tree in the backyard. They got that, They got pottery, they got everything. You just have to go and allow time because you're gonna want to wander at Moss because it is that unique kind of place. Down in Seabrook, Texas on Toddville Road, Seabrook, Texas, Moss Nursery. Stop

in there and check it out. Here's the website Maas Nursery dot com. We're gonna now go to Dan in Beaumont. Hello, Dan, thanks for waiting. Hey, I enjoy this show because I learn aff a lot of stuff that I just wouldn't normally pick up on. And I appreciate what you're doing. I've got a question about a least footed bug. I've got them all over my tomato plants and they're sucking the life out of those things,

and I'm trying to get rid of them. Other than trying to vacuum them off and app them and all that stuff, there's just is there any easy way of doing it? Not an easy way. The real in a nutshell fast answer on the leaf footed bugs is that the leaf footed bugs are easiest to manage when they're young, and as they get older and get wings and are flying around, it takes a pretty stout insecticide labeled for the plants or

spraying them on to kill them. And there are some synthetic perithroid insecticides that will kill them, but they're all over the place, so it's kind of like your sprain everything. Trying to hunt down a bug sprain in the morning is helpful. They're a little more sluggish, but if you can catch them when they hatch out they look like little red with black legs critters that are

hanging together in a herd, you can. It's as easy as swatting them into a pail of knocking them off into a pail of soapy water, because they can't fly away or spray in them at that stage. They're very susceptible at that stage. But once they're adults, you gotta you gott to move to probably a synthetic perihid to knock them down. I was thinking about attacking them with the assassin bug and getting some some assassin eggs. Yeah, and

trying it that way. The assassin bugs won't eat leaf footed bugs. They just they just don't now, not not really now, they won't. It won't be a solution that you are accept you find acceptable, right, Okay, all right? What about next, say next year? Is there anything I can do now to prevent them from Yeah, not do now, but go online and look at what their eggs look like. They look like little flat shingles, and you may see them like if they're in your tomatoes.

You'll see them on a tomato. When you know what the eggs look like. When you're in the garden, just always be checking your plants out and you'll see these unusual looking eggs and go ah, you'd take your prunters and you'll prune that off. And you'll never see a dozen of those bugs that were all laid together like shingles. So that's step one. Number two is learn what the nymphs look like, and again I said, it was reddish

orange with black legs. And if you're checking, then it's easy to control them because the earlier you control, the better your effect is going to be and the safer your options are going to be for controlling them. So getting educated is how I would prepare for next year, and then I think you'll find it a little bit easier to do, right, Okay, all right, well I appreciate your guys, thank you appreciate the call out. There.

By the way, B and B turf Pros is our go to place for doing core aeration and compost top dressing in the South Houston South and West area. They cover that area, so if you live in Sugarland or Missouri City or as far east as Pearland or down south like Fresno, Sienna, Iowa, Colony, Manville or Cola, that's their area. They do fertilizing as well for you. But they come out and they do a quality product of quality leaf more composts. They get it from Cena Molt so you know

it's first, first class stop. Now go to the website bb Turfpros dot com. Bb Turfpros dot com. Here's a phone number. Always listen to guardline with a pen in your hand. Seven to one three two one or two three four fifty five ninety eight. I'll do that again. Seven to one three two three four fifty five ninety eight. Their number one goal is customer satisfaction. They do high quality work. I've seen their work. I've

talked to these folks. It is all about making a personal connection and that is why they are so highly rated and people who have hired them to do work are so satisfied with bnbachur Pro. And there's very little that you can do to make such a great impact on a lawn is to do a deep core aeration, especially in these clay soils and with compaction especially uh. Then a deep core oration followed by a quality compost top dressing that enhances the grassroot

system and it will just help that loan to recover. We're gonna move now out to belve up. I'm sorry I've gone over break. Chris, your first up. When we come back, we're gonna take a quick break I'll be right back. Welcome back to guard Line. Good to have you with us today. We're going to run straight out to Belleville, Texas and talk to Chris. Chris, thanks for being so patient. Hey, good morning. Quick question. I've got my wife a bunch of rose bushes, and

our grasshoppers are coming out of this coastal field next to us. Oh boy, yeah, oh boy. What can I do? Well? I mean, you can spray the roses things that will kill the grasshoppers, but they eat it, and meaning they eat some of the roses to get the poisoned to die when they're coming out of a grass field nearby. It's a challenge to do it. I've talked to people that tried roe cover fabrics over the

roses, you know, to get through that grasshopper onslaught. But I've had other people tell me that grasshoppers will eat through the row cover fabric to get to to get to the roses. So about all that you're left with, you know, would be doing just a spray like a seven S v I N spray over the roses or some other synthetic perrethroid labeled for use on roses

by fenthering kinds of products. There's probably not a by fenther and it's gonna be a different synthetic perithroid, but getting it on the rose foliage, so when they try to chew on it, it takes them down pretty quickly. It it'd be nice if you could go out and treat that fear yield, but that's not practical, of course, to go out and do. But this happens all the time, and they come in like, you know,

a biblical horde coming into your property from that field height. Wow, you know I would I would try the row cover fabric even just to see if it'll hold them off a little bit. Maybe even spray the fabric with with the product. Then there's an idea, I've never never thought of that one before, but spray the fabric as they try to eat through it. But yeah, they're just they're just not away. They're coming in. They're flying in, and so your first shot at them is when they're already on your

roses eating. Uh. And it's it's just not different. And if you owned a grassy area you know nearby, you could go out there and do one of the baits that are spread out on the ground because then when they're nymphs before they get wings, they eat that bait and it shuts them down. They never make it to the wing stage. But I just say that for people that are listening that might have at sess to a field. But yeah, well it's a pretty good ways between me and the hayfield, probably

half an acre. And yeah, I mean I still have I could, I could put some out there, I guess yeah, yeah, but the bait has to be done before their wings and flying around there. The bait's not going to work when they're flying everywhere. But that that's the best I

can I can tell you on that. You know, the the Native Americans used to dig a pit in the ground in the great high planes and they would get in a big circle with sticks and beat the grass, walking toward the center, and all the grasshoppers would go in the pit and they would eat them. You know, you can eat oh wow. Yeah, I've never had a grasshoppers, but I don't think you are are likely to try that. Yeah, yeah, I understand. I understand the problem. I

just wish we had a better solution. Thank you very much, Yes, sir, thank you for the call. Appreciate that if you're outing in Chanted Gardens. Channy Gardens is out in Richmond, Texas, and Katie Fullsher's had a Richmond. It is on Highway or It's FM farm to Market three fifty nine, easy to get to. Real nice. The Londenmann family has been in that community since nineteen ninety five. And in Chanted Gardens you're going to find every kind of plant that you might be interested in. I mean,

they carry the wide variety. It is a nice, beautiful spread out place people love to go just to walk through and look at it. But they're going to have every kind of thing you can imagine. Do you need summer color, mean, I'm talking about color that absolutely laughs at the summer sun in Southeast Texas. They got it. Do you need vegetables, do you need shrubs and trees? Do you want to create a beautiful container planting? They specialize in that. Oh my god, you got to go by and

just see the combo containers they put together. Enchanted Gardensrichmond dot com. That's the website. They're open Monday through Saturday eight to five, Sunday ten to four pm. And when you're out there, grab some microlife fertilizer. They carry all the fertilizers we talked about here on guard Line. They have Microlife. They have that the Microlife green bag, the six two four, that's the one that's a standard for low and fertilizing. You can use it for

anything. Microlife also, by the way, has humts plus. That's a zero zero four purple bag, purple bag, green bag. The purple bag is concentrated compost in a bag. It's like taking a big poly compost and bringing it down to the final stage of humus with all the benefits that humus has. Humic acid and fulvic acid are very helpful for the soil. Humus helps open up a clay soil. It is a consistent presence that microbes benefit from, that roots benefit from. It's what nature does long term to fix

and improve soil. Nature does. Humus humates plus by Microlife is that concentrated compost in a bag to do just that. We're going to now head to West University and talk to Jonas. Hello Jonas, good morning, Skips for getting my call. I appreciated yesterday I sent you a little email on a plant to scoring a back lawn that I think is cut Sue. So I would like to know how I can eliminate it and how in the world did it come to my lawn. Yes, I saw that, and that is

not cutsu. That's the good news. It's not cuts that is that is not kut zu. Fortunately. The bad news is you still got a invading, very fast fining weed. And there are several different things that could be from a distance in those pictures, you know, looking at the foliage, I can't make out specifically which one it is, but I can tell you what you can do about it, and that is a broad leaf weed control product for post emergent control. Now is is it? Is there any of

it in areas where you don't have desirable plants or is it everything? If you're covering, Yeah, okay, you're gonna have to just clip those vines away from the azaleas to get the azaleas sunlight. That that would be one one very important. I just you don't have them uprooted or just the time by the vine the weed vine. Yeah, yes, but that's a lot of digging. Good luck, I mean, but that would be that would

be an option. The other option would be to cut them off the azaleas and then spray the leaves of the vine with a post emergent product using a very coarse droplet at a low pressure. Don't pump up the sprayer a lot so that you don't have a mist going onto desirable plants like your azaleas and over, and then spray that product on it and stay with it to keep keep working its way back. I'm going to keep working on I've got a it's kind of a maple leaf looking leaf, and I need to take a

closer look to to try to nail that down. I had an idea last night and I can't remember now off the top of my head what. But it doesn't matter what the name of it is is it's a broad leaf weed and it's got to be sprayed with something that will translocate back in. Some people use glacys say it or round up type products for that. A wiper applicator, something that isn't a spray but that literally like a sponge, wipes it onto leaves. Those applicators are hard to find, but that that would

be another option to increase the safety to desirable plants nearby. You don't believe this is something that might be poisonous to the touchboard to handle, right? No? Yeah, no dermally toxic plan I know of has that kind of leave. I don't think so, now any kind of Some people are allergic to strawberry foliage, you know, they get another their forearms and it makes them break out. So there's a lot of possibilities. But as far as it being like a poison ivy or a poison oak or a poison sumac,

No, it's not like that. Okay, okay, good, that's good, all right, sir. And that's just another rule. Brief question. I've noticed crepe berdles, beautiful crepe murdles. Yeah, not yet, blue me. It's it a little bit late in the season, a little late, but summer slow to come on. By the way the music started, I'm about to lose you, all right, sir. Give it a little more time, be a little more patient, and call me back if they don't. All right, there we are another break. That hour went by

fast. We'll be back. Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richard Crazy just watch him as Welcome back to guard Line. Good to have you with us. What are we going to talk about today? You tell me seven one three, two one two five eight seven four. Sweet Green. Sweet Green is a product by Nitrofhos. It is a natural product. It's made with a molasses base, so it has

a wonderful fresh fragrance. It actually smells really good. Eleven percent nitrogen put it down in the ground. It waters in and the bacteria that are beneficial, the microbes that help plants to thrive, really love any kind of a molasses type substance of sugars down in the soil. Those carbohydrates very important for them, and so you stimulate the soil microbial activity. You also release that eleven percent nitrogen down into the root system. So if you're looking for a

natural based product from Nitrophos, well, there you go Sweet Green. They're the ones that have it, and it's widely available. kDas Hardware. You're gonna find Sweet Green at kDa Hardware, Ace Hardware City Immemorial. They'll have it down there. Stanton Shopping Center down in Alveston, Alvaston, Galveston. It's closed. It's on the way to Galvazton stand Chopping Centered down in Alvin.

There you go. Has got it as well as Fisher's Hardware, both the one in Southeastern and Southomore and the one in the port out there on Broadway Street. Gold places that you can get a sweet Green fertilizer. I'm inventing new towns right as we go here, Let's go to the Heights and talk to Nancy next. Hello, Nancy, Hi, Hi, I'm good, I'm good. What can we do? Well? I had a question about Chinese friend r. Laura Headlam, but my husband wanted me to ask

you something else instead. Okay, And you talked about feeding trees. What are they adding exactly to the soil to feed the trees and can that be done any any time of year? Well, what's added to the soil or just nutrients in general? Basically, lawn food is a good blend for feeding trees. So if you're fertilizing your lawn, you are benefiting the tree that already have an extensive root system. Now, if it's a brand new tree you just put in the ground the last couple of years, you want to

focus the fertilization on that area around the tree. We talk about a new tree or an established tree. No, it's probably about three hundred years old. Old. We're gonna go ahead and go out on a lemon and say that one's established. I think by three hundred years it's o to be. Wow, that is incredible valuable tree. However, how you said, yes, yes it is. It saved our house pretty much from extensive damage. But it got damage severely damaged in the storm. And so they want to

do some trimming and cutting to kind of balance it out. Okay, And so he said the tree ARBORA said that it may need some mile it's n y C O R R I Z P A. I guess, Mike Horizon, Mike Eriza, is are things in the soil that help with the tree. If that tree has been established that long, it's got if it's going to have, Mike Riza, it's got those already on the root system. Now adding them won't hurt anything, but it may or may not be beneficial

in the case of that particular tree. Okay, he was saying. It wasn't for like the older established routs. It's more for the newer baby ones that would be coming. Well, it won't hurt anything to Adam, like I said, though those are a tree that's been established has probably got a network of my celia that's already connected to it. But that's that as far as fertilizing. Modern amounts of fertilizer the most. Once a tree gets that age, it's kind of hit the stage where it's gotten as big as it

needs to get considering our rainfall, our soils and everything. You know, climates vary across the country. You go up to New England and you see giant trees and they don't get that big here because it's a differ. But once it's in the stage, if this is about as big as that species is going to get here, well, fertilizing to try to make it bigger is not helping the tree. Really. We fertilize to get the tree growing and to get it up to a good size, and then perhaps some maintenance

at times, but in general go ahead. Well, I was gonna say, it's really not to get it bigger. We're just worried about the health of the tree after the damage, okay, And we're going to be doing some canopy trimming too. Yeah, and so when you do that, you're going to have you're gonna somewhat imbalance the amount of roots with the top because you know, it was balanced before you lost some of the top. But

it'll recover from that and it'll be okay. Just provide. The main thing it's going to need is as we get into a long, hot, dry summer drought, if we hit one of those this year, a rescue treatment of a good soaking on a very infrequent basis, you know, once every two very frequent. Yeah. You don't want to make a dependent root system

up at the surface for squirting it with water. You want to just when it's like we've gone three weeks and it's one hundred degrees and it hadn't rained, it would be a good time to get out there and give it one good soaking to kind of rescue it. That's that's the main thing in your control. Okay, Oh, great one. I hate to do this one. What kind of year would be the best time to trim the oak? Well, the best time. The best time to prune a tree is at

the end of winter, right before new growth begins. You can do minor pruning any time of the year in areas where there is oak wilt. We try to avoid pruning except in the hottest months of the year and the coldest months of the year. But I think you know, in your area where you're calling from. I don't know if any active oak wilt centers, so it's not as big of a deal as it would be if you were in the hill country, for example. Okay, all right, thank you so

very much. I appreciate it. You bet, thanks, thank you. I appreciate that very much. Heirloom Soils is a source of a wide variety of quality soil products. Airloom Soils of Texas has got composted cocoa core. They have fruit berry and citrus mix for your fruit trees or citrus trees. They've got things. Yeah, like we used to call it the rose soil. They call it the roses and bloomers blend. Roses and bloomers blend. They've got that I was talking earlier about. We need expanded shale and a

heavy clay. They've got bags of just expanded shell. They have expanded shell mixed with composts. They have a veggie and herb mix, which also works for flowers, by the way. They have a cactus and succular mix. They have a potting soil. All this is available by the bag, widely available all across the Greater Houston area. And far beyond really and they also have the bulk. You can find the bulk soils out in the Porter, Texas area. You can go get them yourself. You can call up Airloom

Salce and say hey, can you deliver them? Just do this. Go to Heirloomsoilsoftexas dot com Heirloomsoilsoftexas dot com. There you'll find a calculator to tell you how much soil you need to fill in a bed. You'll also find all the contact information and more information about all of these really high quality You're not gonna find a better soil mix than you can find with Heirlooms Soils of Texas. And remember you've heard it here on Guardenline a million times, brown

stuff before green stuff. Get the soil right with heirloom soils, and then those beautiful plants you put in are gonna make you happy because they're going to be happy. That's how that works. We are going to take a little break here. It's time for a break. When we come back, Jim and Greg, you'll be our first two up. We free mass. Welcome back to Guardenline. Good have you with us. You know we love feed stores here on guard Line, and we have some awesome feed sourcer in the

Greater Houston area. You live up north direction in Magnolia, for example, Spring Creek Feed is really conveniently located right there on FM twenty nine seventy eight. It's just minutes away from Highway two forty nine Grand Parkway. They're going to carry the fertilizers that I talk about on garden Line. If I talk about a fertilizer, they've got it at Spring Creek Feed. They've got supplies for your garden and your lawn and your pond. That includes things like weed

killing, preventing diseases or controlling diseases, and pesticides to control insects. Really friendly, courteous staff there. It's always a pleasure to go in. When you walk in the store to stop for a minute and look around. It is amazing beautiful, lots of cool bling for the home too, by the way, when you're in there, they've expanded their garden section and it just

keeps getting better there at Spring Creek Feed. They do special orders if you need them to, and they have discounts for senior citizens, for military again here we are a World Day weekend and for FFA and for that are out there raising projects at Spring Creek feed in Magnolia. On FM twenty nine seventy eight. We're going to now go to Jim and Montgomery. Hello, Jim,

how you doing. I'm good, sir. I got these bees that seem to love my humming bird feeder and they there's millions of them, and they and they buzz around it. And I've reached up there, got my hand right close to them and stuff. They don't even sting it. But they they look kind of like a They're striped with a spike sticking out of the back end of them, and they're little, and they make a lot of noise, and there's millions of them, and they they're crowding out my

humming birds. Spikes sticking out rid of a spike sticking out the back end. It sounds like a wasp. Could it be a wasp? Yeah, that could be. They don't they never sting me. I've reached up right there and waved them out, try to get rid of them, and I've used the shop back one time and sucked them all up, but they just keep coming back, and uh, well, humming birds can't get to the feeders because there's all these laws for b Okay, I tell you what we

can do A couple of things. You can send me a picture if you want to get close, since they're not bothering you, and get close and take a good picture that's in sharp focus see what they are. But I tell you what would be better if you'll call a Wallbird's Unlimited store. They have dealt with us before and they can tell you what to do. That

would be the best answer because they are the experts on this. Uh. You can find if you go online to w b U dot com, Wallbirds Unlimited dot com, w b U dot com Forward slash Houston, UH that you're going to be able to find the Wallbirds stores that are that are closest to you. I bet the Woodlands is the closest one. Yeah, just call uh, Well, I don't off the top of my head, hang on just one second. I'll see if I can find find out. Actually,

I don't have the Woodland store. They're not part of our Wilbirds Houston group, so you would just have to hunt that one down. But if you go to WBU dot com slash Houston, there's six stores right there. You can call any of them. Doesn't matter which one you call, they'll tell you what's going on. There's one one up in Cyprus. It's not too terribly far away from you. But they all know what they're talking about. All right, let them let's see what they have to say about that.

All right, I'll do that. All right. You take care, Thanks for the call. Appreciate that very much. Ana Plants and Produce is up there in Montgomery, speaking of Jim and Montgomery. Ana Plants and Produce has a supply of anything that you're gonna need to have success with your plants. By the way, Memorial Day weekend, that's this weekend, thirty percent off all their plants. That's trees, that's shrubs, that's their cacti,

that's their succulence. And it starts yesterday. It started yesterday, and you'll go all the way to Monday through the weekend and the Memorial Day weekend. Ana Plants and Produce are on Highway one oh five in Montgomery, Texas. And when you go to Ana, you're always going to find every fertilizer that I talk about, and I mean every fertilizer they got, all the nitrofis,

all the nelsons that especially that turf star line. You heard me talk about microlife, organic fertilizers, all the airline, soils, Nature's Way, composts, like their leaf mol composts. They have it all there. So if you're looking for example to get you your microlife, the green bag the fertilizer, they're going to have it at Ana Plants and Produce, And that's an awesome fertilizer for your lawn. It's a six two four slow released organic.

When something is organic, microbes have to break it down and to release those nutrients out, so that gives you a little bit of an extension of the release time of it. And they'll also at Ana they're going to have the microlife humates plus that is the purple bag, the zero zero four. As you add that to the soil time and again, do it once a year each year, and you're just going to continue to build the soil. I mean, you can do it more. You're not going to hurt soil

with too much. It's not like a salt thing that's going to burn your plan. You put a lot of it on there if you want, But if you just do it once a year, follow the label rate, you're going to find that over time you're building a higher quality root zone for your plants, and that's important. And the Microlife green bag the six two four is just it. It's probably one of the top selling organic fertilizers that there is see the whole region. It's it's a quality product, been around,

well known and widely available. Yeah, so go out and visit Ana, grab you some Microlife, head out with it. But remember this weekend thirty percent off all of the plants, including tree shrubs, cacti, and succulents out there at Ana Plants and Produce. We're now going to head up or down to sugar Land and talk to Greg. Hello, Greg, Hi, skip enchanted forest. They planted my trees yesterday, my two trees yesterday.

And as far as they're about the size of a twelve ounce water bottle the diameter, and as far as watering those trees, being that they were just put in the dirt, how do I go with the water and schedule As far as alive, Yeah, that's a good question. Are you a clay soil there, Gregon combination? Yeah, clay. So what you need to think about is imagine that they didn't take the tree out of the pot, and they just left it in the pot and put the pot in the ground.

That is how your root system is going to be for a while. In other words, the soil all around it can be wet. But we're going into some really hot weather here the next few days hot for the season, that is when, and that tree's gonna be pumping water. So if it was still sitting in a pot on the ground, you'd go out and watered every day, just a little bit, just to wet that soil right

there. And so you need to treat it like that, and then gradually over the coming three or four months, you can wean it back where you're not water every day, but you're you're just kind of watching it and seeing how it's doing, and it's getting its roots into the soil around the pot, and you know, then you're weaning it off. But just the key thing is to picture underground, all the roots are still right where they were, and they're not going to just in a week all of a sudden be

way out past the branches. It's going to take time, so small amounts of water applied to that area. Now, if we go into heat and drought, and the soil itself is getting dry around the whole area around your yard. Then a good soaking to at least as wide as the branch spread of the tree. I'll set up a sprinkler and I'll wet the whole area out to the branch as far as the branches going a little beyond that, and I'll focus my watering on that. So as the tree gets bigger,

your watering area gets bigger, exactly. So yeah, so start warring today this morning, and then also Sunday. So you're saying every day, yeah, well every day a little bit and really really, you know, sometimes we get into June. You can probably go every other day really, but it depends on you know, if we have cloudy days, then you don't even need to water that day. It's not using enough water to worry about. If the soil around it is very moist some is going to wike in

toward it and things. But just remember that just because it's in the ground doesn't mean it's getting the ground moisture because the roots aren't out there to get it exactly. All right, Okay, I got it, Thank you so much. You bet, just don't keep it water logged. You create an underground bathtub full of water and it'll kill that treat if you do that. Okay, small, all right, thank you, all right, thank you

very much. I appreciate that call. Hey, we just went through storms and one thing we learned is when storms come the power goes out, some people are still getting their power. A good job was. I don't know how on Earth the power suppliers were able to get so many homes back on power is considering how many were out. Quality Home Products of Texas. They sell generac generators, high quality generator, but quality homes of Home Products of

Texas. That is a company that you need to go with. And here's why you can buy It's like, let's see you buy a car, a specific brand a car. You can buy those in different places, right, but who's going to give you the sales in the service quality home. In the case of the generator, they're gonna come out and they're gonna sit down with you and you can go in the store however you want to go about it. They will take time to find out which generator you need, so

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you and transparent every single client that they deal with. Quality TX. That's a website qualitytx dot com, or just give them a call. It's seven to one to three quality. Let's go now out to Paarland and talk to Tracy. Hello, Tracy, Hi, I just want to ask one little simple thing, If it's simple. I have all these crape myrtle trees with very few blooms on them. Question i'd put on them to make them pop. There's nothing you can put on them. But some crpe myrtle varieties they

tend to bloom earlier, are a little better than others. But in general, if you just give them time and sunlight. If they are in the more shade they're in, the less they're gonna bloom. If they're in good sun then that's good keeping the plant healthy. Does it when it needs water, water in it, a little bit of fertilizer to give it some vigor because the blooms are at the end of shoots, So the more shoots you have growing, the more crape myrtle blooms you can have. So don't overfertilize

it. Just just keep it growing and give it a little bit of time. And that pretty much is with what is within your power. Tracehre. I wish I could go tell you to spray it with such and such and blooms would pop up the next morning. But it's not that easy. Okay, all right, thank you so much, you bet, thank you for the call. Hey, it's time for a break. When we come back, let's see Roy and Richmond and Gabe and Friendswood. You'll be our first

two. Up. It's time for Nicky in the news, Houston one day. Welcome back to the Guardline. Good to have you with us. Hey, I want to remind you this weekend, Memorial weekend is a special tax holiday if you will. It's an opportunity. If you want more information, by the way, go to the Texas Comptroller's office. But it's water efficient products sales tax holiday this Memorial Day weekend. So what does that mean? That means when you buy a soacer hose drip irrigation hos or put in a

components of a of a sprinkler drip irrigation system. If you need mulch that counts as well, soil and compost, a rain barrel, maybe a water collection device. That's that's something we all need anyway. It rains so much here that boys save in the water saves the best water for plants that there is. Do you need any kind of a permeable groundcover surface to allow water to soak in and reach in to the soil. That's a water saving plants,

trees, grasses, water saving surfactants. Just a lot of opportunities out there on this weekend. So get out to your local garden centers, get out to your ace hardware stores, get out to your feed stores. Southwest Ferlile. All those places are going to have products that qualify for tax free holiday this weekend. Don't let that get by. For example, RCW Nursery. Rcw's the garden center out there where two forty nine Tombo Parkway comes into

belt Wag eight. Well, RCW Nursery is going to have those kinds of products available, many of them at least. And they also are an ex the source of all the fertilizers that I talk about here on Garden Line, as well as the soil based products which by the way, soil compost, mulchis they all count. They also have trees, wonderful selection of the best tree species that you would want to grow here at RCW Nurseries. They have an outstanding selection of roses. It's always a good time to go out and

visit RCWN. When you're out there, they will get you the products in your hand to go along with that tree, shrubber rose that you're planting to make sure you have success. Here's the website RCW nurseries dot com. RCW nurseries dot com. Gohe and check them out. We're going to now go to Gabe and Friends with Hey, Gabe, thanks for waiting. Good morning. How are you today, sir? I'm good, sir, good hey. I'm just looking for some advice on how to get rid of the dayflower.

Having a terrible time with it. Yeah. The problem with dayflower is it's kind of in between leaf and grass, and so the grass killers don't mess with it, the broad leaf killers don't mess with it. Oh my gosh. I'm trying to think of what will be effective hand digging them up when you can, when you've got a big clump, that's that's a good fast way. It's not going to and they seem to come back. Yeah, I know, jeez. Let me see. I've been done a bit

of a rabbit hole online. You know, different people say different stuff like my phosphate or I've heard bone eyed. Maybe we'd beater, I'm not quite sure. Yeah, we'd better ultra. Uh. I have not checked that label, man, I have not checked the bone eyed labeled to see if it's if it's labeled for that, is it growing in your turf or is it growing in what? So about two or three years ago it came in a little we mulched the whole front and backyard and it must have been in

the mulch and it's been here ever since then. Okay, oh mands, Yeah, Dave Flower, I'm trying to let me see if I can find a thing here that would give give me an option for on that bonnight the day fly. I just know, Dave Flower is a tough one to deal with. Yeah, let's see. So things with two forty in combination, So that'd be something like trimac would be effective against it. Trimech t r

I mac. But when the temperatures in the upper eighties and above, trimech is very damaging to Saint Augustine, for example, And so I would like, right now, you better spray really early in the morning so it drives off before the temperature starts going up. That would work. There are some other ingredients that are effective, but a lot of them are pretty tough on your lawn. Carpenter zone is pretty effective, but just watch the temperature.

Carpenter zone is very effective for that. Please pull that one again. C A R F E N T R A z O n E carfentral It's an ingredient. It's either in fertile on weed tree zone or bone eye weed beater ultra. One of those has car fenter zone it and I believe anyway, but just know that the stuff that will kill day flower is going to hurt

your Saint Augustine when it's when it's about mid eighties and above. Yeah, yeah, I can pretty much avoid the grass where it is, or I can't pull the ones that are along in the front of the beds and maybe spray the ones at the back, and I worry about also killing the other plants that are in the beds. Yeah, you want to be extra careful with that. I'm going to do some real research on that, and if I can find it for the end of the show today, I'll mention it.

I appreciate you stick around. Yeah, thanks, lot appreciate that if you're planting a tree. And remember I was just talking about the fact that lots of lots of tree planting can still be done because what do we say, the best time planet tree was forty years ago. Second best time is today. Three sixty tree stabilizer. You need to get one of those to stake your tree. Now you don't have to put three stakes in the ground and have the wires and the things to protect the tree from the wires and

all of that. Just get you a three sixty tree stabilizer or two and one iron post one t post. You hammer it in the ground about a foot and a half from the tree, hook up the stabilizer and set the strap around the tree just a little loose so it allows movement. That's very important. I just had a call the other day about someone had a tree that bent all the way to the ground because the tree was too weak. It had been kept staked in the nursery and it been like a fishing pole.

So what we need is we need to provide a little movement to strengthen that trunk and tree stabilizer it does that. You're going to find him itself with fertilizer plants for all seasons. Jorges Hidden Gardens down and out, then Arburgate and Tomba, Buchanans and the heights RCW Nursery where two forty nine comes

into it's easy to find them here in town. They work well. If you want extra stabilization, do two of them, one kind of pointing north south, one east west that way, whichever way the wind blows, you're covered with the three sixty tree stabilizer. We're going to now go to Richmond, Texas and talk to Roy. Hello, Roy, Hey, good morning to skip morning. Hey, you just noticed around the neighborhood these spider looking web on tree and we have some fruit trees and some other feed but we

haven't gotten it yet. Trying to see if there's any prementous type. Yeah, that we can put on our trees before. Yeah, there are. There are some products. If you know they're coming, you can apply. But if they're going to be you know, you spram today a week from now. A lot of those products aren't doing anything, so I would wait

until you see the first sign of a web. When you see the first sign, get you either b T sprays it's containing b T b as and boy tea isn't tom or spindo said s P I N O s A D. Both of those are organic. They will kill caterpillars when they're young, especially, and if you get a web, you may want to break it up a little bit. But if you're watching your trees, at the first sign of a web, spray it on the leaves. Because you get that on the leaves, the caterpillars eat the leaf, they get sick, and

they die. It's the fastest, easiest way to shut them down. All right, great, Yeah, because they're starting to pump up everywhere. Yeah, we typically have an early summer outbreak and then in the fall we have a doozy of an outbreak in some years. But just be watching for them. That'll take care, Yes, sir, thank you for the call. Appreciate that very much. Nitrophoss Super Turf. Super Turf is the silver bag.

It is the slow release fertilizer from Nitrophoss that if you apply it now, it'll carry you two or three excuse me, three or four months out into the future before you're going to need to fertilize again. It is a nineteen four ten fertilizer. Half of the nitrogen a slow release, so you get a gradual release, which means you don't mow so much and your lawn develops a good deep root system. Not excessive release of nitrogen all at once

cuts down on mowing up to twenty five percent. It's easy to find nitropas superturf because it's widely available throughout this whole area. For example, you're gonna find it at a Shantic Gardens down in Richmond, Shades of Texas up in the Woodlands area. And if you go to Fisher's Hardware both the one on Southmore on Broadway Street down to the Port, well, you're going to find

it there as well. It's time for us to take a break. When we come back, we will be getting to calls from Jonathan and John and we'll be right back in just a moment. Welcome back to Guardenline. Good have you with us today? Hey? Have you been looking at that landscape thinking it needs help? I need to do something. I want to create an outdoor, enjoyable outdoor sitting area, you know, with maybe some rock stone, some hardescapes, with some landscape lighting, all of that kind of

stuff, maybe a water feature. Even pierscapes can do all that for you, but they do a lot more. Pierscapes does irrigation work. You need a little work done in the system. Summer's coming and we're going to be running those irrigation systems. Get them out there to take a look at it, do a quick check over it, make sure things are in order,

and fix it if it's not. Pier Scapes can do drainage work. Remember the rain we had some of you have a little pond water sticking there's so long you're thinking about calling in a fish hatchery to stock the things so you can go fishing in the backyard. Pierscapes can drain those areas for you. Pierscapes can do a lot of different things like that now. Pierscapes will also do a quarterly maintenance if you like, just call them up. They'll come

in every quarter. They'll change the seasonal color. They'll mult your flower beds, they'll fertilize, they'll do weeding and trimming. They'll even do an irrigation inspection to see if any work needs to be done, all from Piercescapes. Piercecapes is an outstanding operation. If you go online and look at their website you will see the quality work they do. Piercescapes dot com. Piercescapes dot com. Here's the number I always listen to guard line with a pen in

hand. Two eight one three seven O five zero six zero two eight one three seven oh five zero six zero. We're going to go now to John and Katie. Hello, John, Hey, s GiB I appreciate you taking my call. Yes, So, question, how far do you recommend to planning a peachtree from the utility, like the power line and the gas line in the backyard. Well, the power line doesn't really matter. Peaches don't get big enough for that to be a bother your peach trees. You're going

to keep those at about seven feet ten feet somewhere in that range. No, the underground of the underground underground, we'll just remember when they come to dig them up. If they're closer than the branch spread of your tree, you're going to probably lose a huge section, if not all, the tree in that process. If they have to come in and do work. It's not like the roots of the peaches are going to invade a power line or a gas line. It's just, you know, if they were to have

to come in and do any work, that's the thing. So as far as the gas line's concerned and the power line and the peach tree is concerned, they can all co exist. Okay, appreciate it all, right, all right, thank you. But is there a said distance you would recommend planning away? You know, I would just say the branch spread of the tree would be my gauge. And that's just you know, if you had to go out there and do a trench and it's at the outer branch bread,

that's not going to be much of a damage to the tree. Okay, okay, appreciate it, all right, you bet take care? Ok for the call. Wow the storms, did we ever lose some trees? Just a reminder that we need to make sure our trees are ready for the storm seas and by the way, hurricane season starts in June and we're right there on the cusp of it. Martin spoon Moore Affordable Tree Service. That's what you need to know. Martin's been doing this for a very long time.

He knows how to take care of Houston trees. Have him come out do some selective pruning, trimming out dead areas, making sure your trees are safer in heavy winds. And you know the funny thing about trees is you can have a heck of a storm that comes through and your tree's fine, and then another storm comes through and you lose a limb and what's the difference. Well, it's nature. I don't know, but it happens that way. So don't assume if you made it through this last storm that you're not

going to have another problem as we go on through the season. You don't want these limbs to fall on anything valuable like your home or your car, or your fence or your neighbor's neighbor's home. So I can't stress enough the importance of getting a proper treecare person to come out prior to this upcoming storm season. It doesn't even have to be a hurricane. Martin Spoon Moore seven to one three six twenty six sixty three. That's seven one three six nine

nine twenty six sixty three. Or go online aff tree Service dot com. Tell them you're from calling from garden Line or you heard it on guarden Line, and make sure you get moved up in that list because Martin stays busy and he does give a priority to his guarden Line customers. We're gonna now go to Jonathan in Montgomery. Hey, Jonathan, good morning. I'm a oak tree in my front yard that has some lichen on the trunk and spread to the branches. So you have a gest so I want to do with

that. You know, there are products like moss max and some others that will kill lichen on branches, but the lichen isn't a disease of the tree. You see lichen growing on fence posts and rocks, so it does. It's not sucking the living juices out of a tree or anything like a parasite would. It's along for the ride. It usually is sign that the tree is not vigorous. When a tree starts to decline a little and the canopy thins and more light gets through, we always see a proliferation of lichen in

there. But the lichen isn't the cause of the decline. It's the it's the sign that something's wrong, something's going down. So you could spray with moss max. But my first question, you know, Jonathan, would be, hey, what can we do to get this tree vigorous? What does it need? Does it need a little fertilizer? Does it need? You know, whatever is is the cause of it lacking vigor? Okay, yess on that route, Well, fertilizer's always a good idea. What kind of

tree are we talking about? It's an oak tree, oak tree. Okay, And what's the trunk diameter about? Chest tie? Oh we were talking about a coke can. Are we talking about a steering wheel or your car? Oh, we're talking about at least a small answer. Okay, Uh, you know, probably a little bit more. I mean, it's the tree itself is about ten I probably wouldn't worry about it. I would just keep invigorating the tree if you want to give it, one to two cups

of fertilizer for every inch of trunk diameter. So let's just say let's just say it was twelve inches, then that would be you know, twelve cups a fertilizer would be what six pints three quarts a fertilizer, right, a cup or two per inch of trunk diameter. Spread it out as far as the branch, spread evenly, all underneath the tree, and watered in, and make sure it's a good high nitrogen fertilizer like a lawn fertilizer. But

don't use something that has weed control in it. Just fertilizer, and that would help with a vigor We just find an interior. Like live oaks, the interior branches tend to die from lack of light. And then you get lichens on those and people get alarmed about it. But again, the lichen isn't it isn't killing your Yeah, I mean a tree does seem to be dropping branches, yeah, lens not anything big. Yeah, Well it's like

maybe the diameter of your Yeah, that's kind of normal. Is it a live, live oak or some other kind of oak that I'm not sure? Okay, Well, I still feel confident in what I told you. So that's the approach I would tell you, and I do appreciate you you calling us this morning here on guard Line. Medina Products has a new product that I am excited about. It is super Grow Plus. Now it's one of their has to grow line. You know they have has to grow, They

have has to grow for lawns. This is super Grow Plus. It's designed as a lawn fertilizer. It's a sixteen zero two. Remember my little diet tribe earlier on too much phosphorus. That middle number, well does not have any of it, and that's okay. In fact, that's good. Sixteen zero two is a hose end applicator. It takes you about ten minutes to

do your whole lawn. One quart covers maybe four thousand square feet. Now, it's got a portion of the nutrient that's nitrogen in a slow release form, So that's sixteen zero two sixteen percent nitrogen and about a fifth of that is in a slow release form. So yes, it gives you a quick release, but it also gradually feeds over time. And you can do this as a hose in spray periodically. You know, you can apply it off and on during the whole season if you want, just whenever you feel like

your non lawn needs a little boost. It's got kelated iron. Again, I talked about iron earlier today. A kelated iron is a form of iron that doesn't tie up so fast in the soil. It's got seaweed extract, it's got molasses, it's got humic acids in it. It's just a good concoction for your lawn. From Medina. And by the way, don't tell anybody, but I've seen some beautiful tomatoes that were sprayed and the soil drenched

with that supergroup plus as well. So don't don't just think if it's for being for lawns, anything you want to give a boost to, it's going to do good on super Grow Plus from Medina. Look for it. You're gonna find in a lot of places widely available here in the Greater Houston area. Have you been down to Enchanted Forest. Enchanted Forest Garden Center one of my favorite garden centers here in the Greater Houston area. Enchanted Forest is always

let's put this way, it's always an enchanting place to go. It's beautiful, it's fun to walk around. They have so many beautiful plants. Just looks great out there all the time. Enchanted Forest is going to provide you with every kind of plant you can imagine. Remember this is the lawn and garden holiday tax holiday, Memorial Day weekend. You're gonna save on plants. You're gonna save on products like composts and soils and anything that saves water.

Also, guess what's happening today out there destin Note Texas garden guy is going to be out there at ten am. So the minute we finished talking at garden Line, Duston's going to show up and havoc out there at Enchanted Forest Nursery. They are on FM twenty seven fifty nine in Richmond, Texas. Here's the website Enchanted Forest Richmond dot com. Why you there, grab me some Italian ice from the Jello food truck. They always have fun out in

enchanted forest, and you're gonna have fun. Go out and see Destined today. He's a blast. Well. Another hour in the books today is flying by time. Flies when you're having fun. Except for Kermit the Frog. He says times fun when you're having flies. I'llbe it. Wabirds Unlimited on June fifteenth from eleven am to one pm. Wabirds Unlimited in bel Air, Southwest part of Houston. Wabird's Unlimited in bel Air next in June on the fifteenth on Saturday, eleven am to one pm. Put that on your calendar.

Come out and see me mainly stick around. We're gonna be right back. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to kat r H Garden Line with skimp Richt. It's just watching as so many things not a sorry, Welcome back to garden Line. Good to have you with us today. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we are here to talk about the things that interest you regarding

gardening. What would be of interest to you. Maybe you have questioned about turf or a tree or a fruit, trees or herbs or flowers or house plants. Lots of things we can talk about when it comes to horticulture and gardening, pest control, disease control, we control. You know that nature is an interesting thing because we talk about the balance of nature, and there is, in a macro sense a balance of nature. There are things that keep other things in control and so on. But in another sense, nature

is forever imbalanced. For example, I grew up in South Texas, and I can remember a year after year driving through the roads, the country's roads up between ranches and things out there. There were years where there were rabbits everywhere, and then there'd be years where there weren't many rabbits, and so was it coyotes, was it some disease rabbits? Who knows, but they had fluctuated. There was always an imbalance going on. Same thing is true

with aphids and lady beetles. For example, you got a lot of aphids on your plants, when lady beetles find them, you're about to have a lot of lady beetles because you may you can is a nice crop of lady beetles on a big fat group of aphids. And then when there's no aphids to eat, well, the lady beetles don't hang around in starve. They go somewhere else. So there's a there's a forever imbalance. It's a forever rebalancing. And that's kind of the cool thing about nature. It's true with

with weeds. It's true with disease and other things as well. But I know when it comes to weeds, wherever sunlight hits the soil, nature plants a weed. That's just how it works. Nature does not like bear dirt because you know what happens to bear dirt. It erodes away, it crusts, and it is just not a it's not a healthy environment. What is a healthy environment is an environment covered with plants. It's an environment where the

soil is covered with organic material. We call that mault in a garden, but in nature it's called the forest floor, for example. And so nature has a way of fixing problems. You get a scar on the earth, it creates bear dirt, and nature puts weed seeds in it and makes sure sure that it gets covered back up again. So although we don't like weeds from an ecological standpoint, They're just all part of nature taking care of things. So we have to figure out what to do. So we can have

a lawn or a flower bed, and there's ways we do that. There's lots of ways we can manage that. But it's just interesting to think about that. So I'll leave you with that thought. The imbalanced, forever rebalancing nature. I find that kind of interesting. We're going to go let's see here. First of all, I wanted to talk about it. We're talking about nature and stuff. When you look at the soil, microbes like carbon. They need carbon. They don't have a way of making their own carbon.

They have to eat it from somewhere, and so they get it from soil organic matter. But they also get it from things like a molasses type product. That's why organically you often see gardeners putting molasses in the soil. Is a stimulant to microbial activity. Sweet green is a fertilizer by nitrofoss that's eleven percent nitrogen. It's a base on a molasses type base, and it smells wonderful and it stimulates the microbial activity and the soil, creating that rich

environment to promote optimum health and optimum performance of your turf. At eleven percent nitrogen, sweet Green can be applied. It will dissolve away and go into the soil and provide that gradual feeding over time. As what happens is it finds its way into the body of microbes, the microbes de the nutrients released again, and then it's back in the soil soup for plants to take up. It's just that cycle of nature. Now, sweet Green, where do

you find it? Well, Shades of Texas has it. They're done up in the woodlands actually Woodlands area. If you go, for example, to Fisher's Hardware and Laport in South euston Southomore and Broadway, they're going to have it. You're going to find it at Shades of Texas which is on Genoa Red Bluff Road. Kingwood Ace Hardware also carries the Sweet Green and other nitropos types of products, so it's easy, easy to find. Let's go ahead and run out to who's been waiting here, Glinda in Parland. Hello,

Glinda, good morning, Skip. I enjoy your show. I'll say that first, well, thank you. I wondered who out there it was that enjoys it, and now I found her. So welcome. Oh yeah, anyway, I have an oak tree my front yard is that obvious seen grass oak trees. I get them trimmed every two years, and I've had them

deep fed and everything else from Lesbie's tree service. I don't understand the bark on one tree, the right side, the left side, the bark died and new bark is coming on. Okay, underneath that where the bark is gone. Yeah, And I don't know if it's squirrels. I don't know if it's ants. And when I had left, he's out here. He just I sprayed it with that black or feel spry for trees. He said, I didn't help it, I didn't hurt it. Okay, that's true. But so I mean, do you know what that is? Yeah,

I need you to turn your radio down in the background. What happens is something killed the bark. It could have been one of the freezes we've had in past winners killed some of the tissue. It could be a stress crack. It could be a lot of different things. But it doesn't matter what originally killed it. What matters is that it's trying to regrow bark in that area by putting in callous tissue. That's a good thing. Any bugs underneath the bark, it's just a place for them to hide. They're not those

ants and things aren't hurting your tree, your ear. I haven't seen anything. Yeah. Well anyway, well, I thank you so much. Yeah, the good news is you don't have to worry about it. Well, I'm going to go in college. Can get him this in Indie ounce so he can beat feed all the roots. Okay. Ah, well, I thank you for listening to me. And by the way, I didn't have I don't have my radio on. Okay, okay, Well, God bless you. That's interesting. I'm hearing an echo of myself. So I don't

know if the producer can fix that or what. But thank you Glenda for letting me know. Oh God bless you, by bye. Very interesting. Hadn't heard that happen before. Have you been out at the arbrogate lately? Oh my gosh, Beverly and the crew out there have got a load of beautiful plants. I'm talking about shrubs and trees and color. You know, they sell fruit trees. You're around, so it's always a good time to go buy a fruit tree out there. Beautiful selection of roses out at the

arbor Gate. When you're out there, remember brown stuff before green stuff. So when you go home with all those wonderful plants, the green stuff also go home with their one two three completely easy system. That is a food, an organic food that feeds anything with roots. No matter what it is, it works. It's called the organic food Complete. The Organic Soil Complete is a product that is a quality soil blended with expanded shail. And the

Organic Compost Complete. That's the three of the one two three that is a quality, high quality compost that also includes expanded shales. So see when you take those three home and you get the ground right, and then you take those Arborgate plants home, you're going to have success. It's as easy as that knowledgeable staff quality plants. You're not going to go wrong with. The Arborgate one of my absolute favorite garden centers out there in the whole world.

I mean, I travel all over the country and always love to come home to Houston. We've got the best garden centers in the world right here, and Arborgate certainly a destination place out there. On twenty nine to twenty, remember the parking lot and back off Trishel Road, easy safe access to the arbor gate. Let's see, it's time for us to take a little break and we're going to do that. When we come back Scott and Live, you'll be the first two up. Welcome back to garden Line. Hey,

good to have you with us today on this Memorial Day weekend. By the way, that reminds me if you want to put this on your calard Tomorrow night, Sunday May twenty six, Tomorrow night, at seven o five pm in Sugarland at the town Square right in front of the City Hall facade, the Exchange Club Sugarland is presenting a Night to Remember, honoring our fallen heroes. This event is free, it's open to the public. There's going to be a thirty member of chorus, a brass band, There'll be dancers and

Grammy winning singers lead the town Square tribute. It's just a wonderful event, really enjoyable to be part of. You're going to have a lot of good things going on and as a result, I also want you to remember to bring some canned food with you when you go, because the East Fort Bend Human Needs Ministry is going to be collecting canned food to help out folks in need. If you want more information, give Scott a call seven to one

three two or A two four sixty one twenty six. I'll give you that number again seven one three A two four sixty one twenty six again in Sugarland on the town square in sugar Land, in front of the city Hall facade. Tomorrow night, Sunday night, seven o five pm, a night to remember, honoring our honoring our fallen heroes. I'm gonna go now to let's see, We're gonna head out to Montgomery and talk to Scott. Hello, Scott, Hey, are you observed? Good up? And I'm calling about

my viral lementry. I've got habit for about food. Ye're kind of our recurrisimas gifts. And I'm getting baby lemons producing off on the plant itself of water bottom three day schedule. Get that afternoon time for probably about two hours, and I'm starting to drop those little baby lemons. They're not producing and growing in thighs. The idea is, yes, lemons want to be in a lot more sun than that. First of all, they need if you could get it six hours of sun, that would be better. Okay,

I know how to do that. Yeah, yeah, you give give it more sun. Look at the container. The container and the top need to be in somewhat of a balance. And so if you have a little tiny container and a big tree, it's going to get stressed. Its probably I would say maybe three four pot probably saying it's about say putting the half ball okay, pretty wide. Okay, Well let's just assume that's that's there.

You got good soal make sure the drain is oh yes, it's sitting on the concrete, or is it's sitting on the side, sitting on my table and my back fat oh back fatty? Okay, wow, okay, well, just keep it adequately moist. I don't know how to tell you how often you need to be water now days, is what I've been around, and water well in some soils and and you know, a lot of sun you end up made water more often than that. But but if you're sticking

your finger in to feel it, then that's a good gauge. Uh. The other thing would be just get it the most sun that you can and maybe a little nutrient boost, not a lot of nitrogen, but just a moderate amount. Get your quality of fertilizer blend that will cover the citrus and things like that, and it doesn't take much in there. In fact, I would probably go with one of the liquids, you know, the microlife Microlife Products makes a number of liquids. They have one that's a seven one

four. I think it's a I know it's it's a moat. It's an orange label bottle and I've used it for house plants. Mix it in water and you just pour it right on there and as you water, just a dilute solution of that get it bigger. But I think sunlight is the is the number one key to your solution. I got one of the quick courts. Then I'll let you go to another's other people. Oh, I've just gotten this stool terrarium. She used it like portal plants where she starts her

ceilings from. Yeah, and I've got a lot of little stuff come up. Seeds that she's planted in one of the pods. Well, that's because they're probably about maybe eight a quarter of an inch tall. Can only have been in that pot longer to more mature, or take them out and put them in a larger container. It's in a terrarium, you said, Yeah, it's there's like a little light, like a little forest of light, probably about two foot long. And then she just put her feet in the

pot. And well, you either have to print it back to make it where it can all get good lights still, where it doesn't overgrow, overgrow the little tiny space it's got, or move it out, put it in a bigger pot and put it outside of that area. But well, I'm going to goide on through the plant this year. I mean that thing all the time. That yeah, okay, Well, hey, put it on a timer and just run it about fourteen hours a day. That's all it's

gonna need. Uh. I wouldn't go definitely, not over fifteen or sixteen at the most, but fourteen hours more than enough. Yeah. All right, Hey you have a great more olday sir, and thank you for all your help do you get for the community. Thank you and you as well, Thank you. I appreciate that a lot. Yeah. Microlife has that that liquid, the orange label. They've also got a seaweed extract. They got a fish type fertilizer. It just really quality products for Microlife. You

can find them everywhere. You go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and when you go there Microlife Fertilizer dot Com. You're gonna find out about all these products, many of which I never talk about here. We just have time to do it, but uh check them out and then find out where you can get them because they're very widely available. And when you're feeding small plant you need, you don't want to buy a big lawn fertilizer sack to feed a little In this case, he had a lemon tree in a pot that switch

over to those soluble products. And Microlife is a good qualities producer of those kinds of things. And you're going to find Microlife everywhere. Like I said, for example, Ace Hardware stores they carry Microlife products and you can find Ace Hardware all over forty stores in the Greater Houston area, so you don't have a problem. They carry all kinds of the fertilizer, all of the

fertilizers really that I talk about here on Guarden Line. They've got him at Ace and every Ace Hardware store is independently owned, so everyone's a little different, but everyone is a great place to get everything you need for your lawn and for your garden. If you want to have a beautiful landscape and a bountiful garden. ACE Hardware can get you on the track to do just that. If you need to control weeds and diseases and pests, ACE Hardware is

the place to help you do just that. And remember this weekend is that tax saving weekend where those of the you're probably hearing me talk about earlier. If you're looking for water conserving products like drip irrigation, mulches, rain barrels, and ground covers that help water get into the soil, soiled bags of soil, and compost. It's also a time when there's some other tax saving things going on, but basically water efficient products is the one we're focusing on

today, on that water efficient tax holiday. It's available there. Ace Hardware Store is a good place. Just walk into ACE and say hey, what products do you have that are part of the tax holiday, and they can get you all set up. This Memorial Day weekend very good time to do that. We're going to now go to Rosenberg and talk to Live Hello, Live Hire, Hi, what's up. Well, we have a twenty foot percymon try. It's loaded with for simmons. But my husband thinks they were

webworms or silkworms all over the tree on the leaves. It looks white at a distance's beautiful. But he sprayed it with meme oil to try to get rid of it, and I don't know that that's working. It's also been on several redbuds and he just cut the limbs off. He trimmed out the tree. They're not neither, and it's on the leaves right. Yes,

the whole tree looks like it's in boom kind of why. Okay, so you need yeah, you need to get You need to get a spray product that contains either bt B as in boy teas and tom or or spinosaid s p I n O S A D spin nose sad that either of those have

both of them, either of them. Put them in a sprayer. And if it's a larger plant, like a like a red bud type that's not just a little plant, then you might need to get a little sprayer where you can set it to shoot a stream out so you can kind of break through the webs, because you got to get those products on the leaves of the tree, and when they engulf the leaves and webbing, it's hard to get the spray to the leaves. And these are things that kill the bugs,

the caterpillars that are eating your leaves. So you get the leaves wet with it, and then that evening, that that day, and that evening the caterpillars can be feeding on the leaves and it'll make them sick and he'll kill them. It's very very very low toxicity product. Okay, it's cover. So is it too late to really save them? No, they'll bounce back. I mean, if you'd lost all your foliage, it certainly isn't doing them any good. But the tree has enough energy to put out new

foliage. But you don't want the new foliage to come out and then the worms just keep going. You got to get rid of it. Looks beautiful. I thought it was an apple tree in bloom, I said, I said, no, that's the first sin. Then. Okay, all right, well that ought to get you out. Okay, all right, loub well, good luck with that. Thank you so much. Appreciate your program, you bet, thank you. I appreciate you listening. If you've got

insect problems in your lawn. For example, Nitrofoss bug Out Max is a product that'll do it control like one hundred and thirty different kinds of insects and you put it out and within forty eight hours it has gotten rid of whatever is eating on your lawn. So coming up here, well, for example, you got fire ants. They're not eating your lawn, but you don't like those. It controls ants. It controls fleas, flee larva, get

in the thatch of our lawn. When the pets run by and they go through their life cycle, hop back on the pet, the cat or the dog, and they come back in the house. Please and texts are controlled by Nitrofoss bug Out Max. Chinchbug season and then sodwebborm season is coming up. This product lasts for a long time. When you put it down, it's going to take care of it for the entire summer season. Nitrofoss bug Out Max. Where can you find it, Well, it's important today.

Where you can find You can fight it at Lake Hardware down Inclute. You can fight it in Gym's Hardware up in Montgomery. You can find it at the Ace at Sinco Ranch. All of those places carry Nitrofoss products like this bug Out Max very affect. It's always good to have products that work. You know that that is that is an important and important factor for sure. If you live down south of town and you're looking for a quality, quality soil type product, Ciena Maltch has got you covered. In fact, you

know brown stuff before green stuff. Ciana Maltz specializes in brown stuff. Here's what I mean. You go to Cianamltch. You buy bags of their mulches, you buy bags of their soil products. You buy bulk. You can get it in your trailer. You can they have them deliver it. They deliver within twenty miles of the location. Their website. You need to go write this down so you can find the location specifically, cenamultz dot com.

They're on FM twenty one or five twenty one FM five twenty one just north of Roast Sharon cienamltch dot com that they will also deliver like I said, for a charge, within about twenty miles of their area. They have the fertilizers that I talk about on guardline. So what does that mean? That means you get their soil products, You get the fertilizers that are there, you bring them home. You get the soil ready brown stuff checkbox checked.

Now bring in your quality plants and watch them thrive in the products that you got at Cinmals quality quality products. Love to go out there. I love the things that they carry. They know what they're doing and the product is top notch. I can tell you that firsthand, absolutely know it. Cnamultch dot com down on FM. I've twenty one just north of Roath sharing. Well, Nicky showed up in the room. That must mean it's time for

the news and here's NICKI. Some people think that song came from Guardians of the Galaxy. I think it was around a little bit before that, but it was good, good retro musical movie. If you're listening to garden Line, I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to answer your gardening questions. Guess what. We got some open lines here if you'd like to give us a call. Boy. We had some traffic gems today where people are having to wait, but right now got a little bit of opening.

So if you got a question and you don't delay in dialing, you can be right up and we'll help you with answering that question. Nelson Water Gardens is out in Katie and it think of it as your h let's just say your West Houston Garden Center because that's what it is. And Nelson Watering Gardens is also, oh gosh, it is a destination center. Trust me,

you're going to go there and you're going to get inspired. They have beautiful water gardens if you need them to come out and do, for example, a beautiful waterfall or install one of the In fact, the things they invented the big tall glazed pottery with water coming out of the top, bubbling over the sides and recirculating back up through the container. Again, they've got those

and they're gorgeous. There. It's stunning. It's absolutely stunning. But remember it's it is also a nursery and they have some really cool plants stuff that you don't just see everywhere. Rangoon creeper, that's the one I'm gonna start talking about more. Rangoon creeper is a vine and it is stunning in its just beautiful. And the color the blooms change color from you know, there's a red and white, a pink and a white as it changes its colors.

Wonderful. This weekend, remember Memorial Day tax free weekend. There is a discount for eligible items which includes plants and trees and grasses and mulch and soil and composts and underlayment, groundcovers. It's all there. Plus they've got twenty percent off all their plants and ten percent off all their bag goods and their fertilizers at at Nelson Water Garden and Nursery auting Katie. So what do

you do? You head west on it if you're in the Houston area, you go out that way and when you get to Katie Fort Benroad, you turn right and it's just a hop, skipping or jump on the right. In fact, you just about to throw a rock to it from there. Nelson Watergardens dot com, Nelson Watergardens dot com. Take the kids, they're gonna love looking at the goldfish and the koych a bunkin. They just have a real cool selection of everything for a water garden, but also an outstanding

nursery in and of its own. We are going to now head out to Kingwood and talk to Bill. Hello Bill, Good morning Skip. I have a raised bed here at my farm. It's a foot tall made out of concrete blocks. It is full of nature's way roadbed soil. I have a drift irrigation system on it and I'm trying to exclusively raise jalapenias. This year, I like cannon jalopenas, so I've got a bed full of halopenias. But I ordered pepper seeds from about a dozen or about a doffer different varieties

of pepper seeds. Man, you were into it, yeah, big, big time. So. But the issue is is that if you've got there to look at my bed, you'll see that about a third of the plants are just ridiculously big and tall and just putting out peppers like it's going out of style. But many of the other varieties are kind of short and shrunken and have yellow leaves, and they're just not doing all that great. And yet I have full signed, totally consistent dirt, totally consistent watering, totally

consistent fertilization, and yet some do well and some don't do well. So I was thinking that maybe you're an authority on pepper varieties toward the Houston area, and you could give me a listing of them. And many of these, by the way, are New Mexico Pepper Institute peppers, and they supposedly are the kings of peppers and do very well. Some of their peppers aren't doing good. Yeah, is it just telapenias or is it some of their others because they okay, no, no, no alopedias only. Yeah,

I don't get off it. I've raised all of those Trinidad scorpions and Trinidad bread seven pots and all that other stuff. They're so good for assassinations, that's true. And there's so hot you got to spray your malt twenty four to seven to keep it from catching on fire, so exactly. So yeah, I've never grown a halopeno that didn't grow, So why are some do? I understand some doing better than others, But what you're describing is strange,

Bill. I'd really like to see a picture of it. If you can show me the whole bed and then maybe show close up some of the symptoms so I can look at maybe I'll see something in the photo. There are some pests that can cause the leaves to twist up. When you see yellowing leaves, usually we think of either soggy wet soil conditions widely fluctuating moisture. Of course, they were all subject to the same thing as you described,

and possibly a root rot involved in those plants. But I really need to look at some pictures close up attach them to an email rather than embed them, attach them so I can zoom in and I'll be glad. I'll have to do that another time. I'll think, Okay, okay, well here's what I'm gonna do. Go ahead. One thing I thought of, how is is that when I built this bed two or three years ago, I put down a thick layer of cardboard on the ground to prohibit plants from

coming up from the bottom. Yeah, and I'm not sure that that cardboard has yet to degrade completely. And consequently, it could be that some of these peppers are more sensitive to moisture. Yeah, well they get lower down there. It could be, but don't worry about it. If you did it that long ago, that cardboard's basically gone. It's not holding any water at least, it's the microbes have taken care of it underneath. So I

think you're gould. Hey, I'm going to put you on hold. Would you get my email and then when you can send me those pictures and let me try to help you better than what I'm doing right now. Thank you. I appreciate that call. If you have not done your long fertilization, by the way, folks, it is time to get out there and get you some Nelson's plant food Slow and Easy. It's part of their turf Star line of products. Slow and Easy gradually feeds your lawn through the summer season.

And when I say gradually, I mean for a long time. You put down Slow and Easy. Now you do not need to fertilize your long again until fall. It carries you through that far, that slow release, that slight acidifying of soil, that gradual release creates the healthiest grass plant, the deepest rooted, most resilient grass plant that you're going to have, and

that is important. Slow and Easy by Nelson's look for it. You're not going to find a higher quality product than Slow and Easy by Nelson in the turf Star line of Nelson products. We are now going to head to Let's see goodness, boy I said, call and you did so here we go, uh Hockily and Ruthie. Hello, Ruthie, Hey Skip. I've got a quick question. Like everybody else, I'm having trol with caterpillars feasting on my plants. I have spen notad How long will it last when I spray

it on the lead. You know, Spinosa is going to give you a few days of control. It's into the tissue of the leaf right, unlike BT, and so it's going to be present for a while. I've never seen something that says it's three days, five days, two days, you know, I know it's over two though. It's gonna give you a little

bit of a control. Yeah. So if you did it, and I would wait a week before I did it again, just just because you know it, it's going to give you some control and then you'll know within a week if what it missed, and then then you can reach spray. Okay, perfect, that's one I need to know. Thank you, Thank you, Ruthie. I appreciate that call very much. Okay, bye bye, bye bye. Are you looking for a quality product, equality product for your

soil? The brown stuff? Landscaper's Pride, That's who you need to look for Landscaperspride dot Com. Just go there because they're like twenty seven different products that they have. You're gonna find garden Magic Soil. Gardeners Magic Soil is a pine based blends got humus, got composted rice holes, a chicken pellet fertilizer that'll give you three months up to three months of feeding. They've got bark molts, the most popular one decomposed it slowly and people love it for

that. Hardwood malts from true ground up hardwood, black velvet, the naturally black malts all from Landscaper's Pride. Just go to Landscaperspride dot com and find these quality products to get your lawn ready, get your landscape ready for the summer season, whether it's a garden or flower bed or shrubbed, you got to get the soil malts. Landscaper's Pride can do it. And if you go to the website Landscaperspride dot com you can find out where to get all

those quality products. Time for a correct break. When we come back, we'll go right back to the calls. Welcome back to Guardline. Good hey with us today. Hey, if you're looking for a quality garden center that's gonna have the products you need, don't forget. By the way, this is the Memorial Day tax free weekend where you can get discount or get tax free rather excuse me, tax free on products that help conserve water, for example, like a quality soil, quality compost materials, A lot of plants

and trees and grasses and mulches and things. They that's all a tax free weekend. This is a weekend to get it done. RCW Nurseries can get you set up on that. RCW Nurseries is a leader when it comes to quality plants and quality products. They know how to make sure you have success. They grow their own trees up in Plantersville. So do you want to put out a nice quality tree, one that is a species that grows here, a plant that has been grown properly so that it establishes well and does

well for you. Go to RCW Nursery and talk to them about it. They have all the products you need to go with that tree. By the way, while you're there, pick up some roadses, pick up their herbs, pick up all kinds of beautiful plants. How about some color like a viscus and the boogainvillea is oh my gosh outstand at RCW Nursery. RCW nurseries dot com is their website. The location it's on Tomball Parkway where it comes

into Beltway eight. Easy access getting in and out of there. And if they don't have something, well there's a reason we call them to get it. Got it Nursery. If they don't have it, they're going to be able to find it. I'll bet you if it's available in the market, they can get it for you and bring it in RCW nurseries. We're going to head now out to Ken and West Houston. Hello Ken, Hello Skip. I've got a quick question. I've got three great myrtle trees in my

front yard, one of which is just loaded with ball moss. Okay, and I tripped off what I could by cutting the smaller branches that seem to be more loaded. Yes, the other girls don't have any at all. And I don't know if the ball moss harms the tree are where it just looks bad. But is there anything special I need to do? It only harms the tree by shading the lower portions. You get enough ball moss in a tree, and it literally is blocking light just because it's there. It's

not a parasite. I've seen it growing on power lines, for example. If it was a parasite, it couldn't live on a power line. But when a tree gets a little bit weaker and you start to get light through, you see a proliferation of ball moss. In some parts of town are worse than others. It does attach to crape myrtles very well. I would physically remove as much as you could, even if that matt going up on a ladder. Now, if you got a thirty foot crepe myrtle, well

that all bets are off. But whatever, you can just physically with a glove on your hand just pull off. I just stripped my hand down a branch and it just rips right off. Get rid of it that way. In the spring, before the foliage comes on. You can spray a copper based product on the ball moss where you have access to get the spray on it, and it will die and then eventually it just sort of rots and

falls out. So dead ball moss looks a lot like living ball moss, but with that copper spray, it's gonna and it's gonna fall out, but it's done in the spring before the new growth appears. In coside kocide is one product that can be used for that. For the ball moss, it's too high to just physically rip out. All right, Okay, very good, thank you, Yes, sir, good luck with that. I understand the concern about that if you're dealing with pests in the lawn or you're gonna

be and you may be because here comes past season in the lawn. Nitrofoss Bugout Max is a product that lasts, it's got a it's got it insecticide in it that will control over one hundred and thirty different kinds of insects. And so whether you're dealing with fire ants or whether the larva of fleas. If you got pets and they're going in and out, you're gonna have flee larva in the lawn. It will control those ticks, also, chinch bugs and side webworms, which they're coming up. By the way, go to

my website Gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip dot Com, the lawn Care Guide and the lawn Pests, Disease and Weed Management Schedules. Both of those schedules are on there and you can see exactly when each pest may appear in your lawn. Nitrofoss Bugout Max, when you apply it, it's going to give you the whole summer long of pest control in the lawn. So you do it now. It takes care of what shows up then works

very very well from Nitrofoss, and those products are widely available. You're going to find Nitrovoss Bugout Max at a task asda ace up in a task ASDA at Lake Hardware Inclute, for example, or Gem's Hardware up in Montgomery. We're going to go now to deb in the woodlands. Hello, Deb high skip. Can you hear me? Yes? I can, okay, because I was having a hard time here and your producer there first couple of times. So our grass has like a lighter color green on it along with the

darker color green. And we let the grass grow a little bit longer and than most people around our neighborhoods. Most people have long services and they cut it down real short. We don't do that. I'm wondering why, if we've been following the schedule and stuff, why this is occurring. I've never seen this this early before. Describe to me again what in detail kind of what it is you're seeing in the grass. Well, the grass it's growing, but the grass, say, some of it is lighter colored green.

I don't want to say yellow. It's just a lighter color green mixed in with the darker color green. And we've been struggling with this. Somebody ran over our grass. We had big old patch we had to put in. It's just it's been brutal the last year. So these areas, are they kind of splotchy here and there, or is the whole lawn just kind of uniformly lacking green? Or what are you? You know, as I'm looking at it, part of it, one side of the driveway is kind of

squashy, on the other side seems to be like the whole thing. And I walked around the neighborhood this morning, I only saw like one or two other yards that had a similar situation. And again they're letting their grass grow longer than most people. Okay, well, so here, here's what I would do. Go out to some of the lighter colored grass, pick a grass blade and hold it up where you can see the light through it and see if it's there's some striping of green and maybe a chartreuse to yellowish color

in the leaf itself. That's an iron deficiency, and it can be brought on by a lack of iron. It can be brought on by high pH and hyphosphorus levels in the soil. You would need to use a keylated iron product for that. A lot of times I found following wet weather, especially cooler weather, but wet weather, that you go through a little bit of an iron chlorosis like that, and then it bounces back as microbial activity,

decomposes organic matter and releases nutrients into the soil. If you do find it, go ahead, go ahead. Have you already fertilized this summer? We Yeah, I think my husband said he's done everything. We put the imperial I think it was you suggested back in March. We put that on towards the end of March. Yeah, and then he followed up, like I

think in April with the regular fertilizer. Okaycause I asked him yesterday, I said, are we up today because we're getting ready to leave for a couple of weeks and I want to make sure we're not going to come back to a dead lawn. Yeah. Well, you know, different things can cause that symptom, so we're kind of going to work our way through the possibilities. One is the iron. You can do a keylated form of iron application

to the lawn and that helps get the iron in the plant. If indeed it's the iron, If you'd like to send me a picture of it and then maybe of the lawn so I can kind of see the pattern and then go up to one of these light areas and really close, like you know, five inches away. Take a picture of the grass or grass blades and let me look at that. I'll see if I see anything that helps me

maybe narrow it down a little more. Okay, okay, would we be doing any damage to it if we put any of that suggested tops, top soil, top dressing, compost top dressing, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, and Devin, I'm sorry, I got to run. We're running out of time. I got a couple more folks here I'm trying to get to. But good luck with that. I'm gonna put you on hold if you want to get the email for that, go ahead and do that. Let's see, we're gonna go to Mario here in spring. Hey, Mario,

can we do this kind of quick? Yes, good morning. I'm just having trouble with the crabgrass and nut search. Okay, it's coming up in the lawn now and it's like getting kind of bad. And I did the l realization and I did the barricade. Okay, all right, so the crab grass the barricade would do that. You got to get it down early enough. If you go to my schedule online I have an early to mid February application of that in your area. Probably mid February would be fine

to prevent it. You may have to reapply it about sixty to ninety days later to extend the preventative. Now that you've got crab grass, just mow it. That's about all you can do with it. Try to keep the seedheads from farming the nuts set. Will we see in Augustine take over? Yeah? Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah it will. It will if you mow water infertilize, which is also on my schedule. As far as enough, I did it, and if I just fertilize, should

I do it again? I mean, and I just didn't. Well, March you could do a yeah, you could do your your slow release fertilizer now March just was it a slower a fast release? That was the Just put the slowter on the like repulse. Okay, then then you don't need to do it again. Now you're good. As far as the nutsedge, you need to find a product with nutsedge control for lawns. Go to ACE Hardware near you and they'll have it. Sorry, what we do for a lot of times