On this February 21st live edition of Fix It Radio, fill-in host Bill Anderson sits down with Pam and Dennis Brewster for a timely Colorado gardening reality check: warm winter days can swell buds early, but that doesn’t mean spring has arrived.
They break down what you can do right now—especially pruning fruit trees, deciduous trees, roses, and summer-flowering woody shrubs—while warning against cutting spring bloomers like lilacs. You’ll also get practical guidance on pruning priorities (broken limbs, drooping branches, crossing/touching branches), avoiding over-pruning (think “no more than a third”), and why branch structure matters for snow load.
The conversation gets
SPEAKER 11 :
Walter? Upstairs! Are you alright?
SPEAKER 08 :
In the floor behind the chair.
SPEAKER 11 :
This is America.
SPEAKER 02 :
Does everybody know what time it is? Fix It Radio!
SPEAKER 09 :
And good morning, Denver. Today it’s Fix It Radio. It is February 21st and we are live. You can call in at 303-477-5600. I am filling in for John today. My name is Bill Anderson and I’ve got… Some great guests with us. They’ve been on the radio before. Many of you guys will recognize Dennis Brewster’s voice. He’s been on the radio a lot with John on Fix It Radio a little ways back and also with the shop radio, the car radio that he does, the drive radio, I guess it’s called. But Pam and Dennis, how are you guys doing?
SPEAKER 10 :
Good. Doing good, Bill. Nice to be here with you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Doing great. Yeah. Glad to have you. So I wanted to talk about gardening, and we come off of a few weeks of 60-degree days. I think someone told me that we have set the record for the most 60-degree days in January, February than ever in Denver here, and then we get all excited about springtime, and I think some of the plants even may have started swelling there. And all of a sudden now we’re sitting on, you know, this morning in my house, it was 14 degrees. So, you know, may not be, it may not feel like a good time for a conversation, but Pam, this is a great time for this conversation, isn’t it?
SPEAKER 10 :
It definitely is. Yeah. People need to be thinking about, you know, the next month, you know, on planning their garden and stuff right now so they can, you know, prepare right now for the planting. Yes.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. And, you know, sometimes we get a little anxious. I know you have told me this and I don’t listen to you every year. I still do it. But you get a little anxious and we start a little too early. So just we’ll start off here before we get into our topics. But when is a good time to start? you know, considering the frost, you know, I mean, there’s all kinds of different myths out there. You don’t start till after Mother’s Day or anything, but do you have a good general rule that we can, you know, mark down on our calendars as to, hey, now I want to start my seeds or now it’s okay to take those, you know, seedlings and transplant them outside and things like that. What’s a good measurement on when we should start that process?
SPEAKER 10 :
I mean, good. Still, Mother’s Day is a good time for that. You know, and depending where you live, like we live here in Elbert County and that’s the frost date. The last frost date is a little bit later, a week later here than it would be in Denver or the front range, because we’re a little bit higher. We’re not at that. 5280 down there like denver but um but but the thing is is um there’s really nothing that you can that you really should be planting unless it’s going to be i mean i wouldn’t even suggest planting anything outside right now unless you have like a greenhouse and a lot of people don’t have that but i think the thing right now that um that they would really need to start doing because things are swelling. You know, those buds are starting to swell. So we really need to do pruning if anybody has fruit trees out there to prune or deciduous trees. And any time you can do evergreen trees. But right now, you know, the focus would be on your fruit trees, your deciduous trees, roses, any woody shrubs that – that are summer flowering, not spring flowering. Because like a lilac is spring flowering, you don’t want to be cutting those because you’re going to be cutting off those buds for the flowers.
SPEAKER 09 :
So even though it’s still cold outside, now is the time to prune. Because I think I ask you this every Sunday. Should I prune now? And you say, let’s wait a little bit, let’s wait a little bit. But now you’re telling me we have the green light and we should start doing that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Definitely, yeah, definitely, yeah, because I think I mentioned to you I was already pruning some stuff, you know, but, yeah, do that now because, you know, it’s nice weather out there to do that, and it looks like these might even open up a little bit sooner than usual because they are swelling sooner, you know, those buds. So, yeah, I would definitely do that, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
And we’re talking about… Hang on, Bill. One thing I would say is every year seems to be different, too. Because, like, this year we’ve had all this warm weather, and it seems like the buds are a little bit quicker than before, than years past. So every year is different. But I think as far as her March, she’s always told me.
SPEAKER 10 :
Always February is when I start, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. But it seems like this year seems to be a little bit warmer than the past.
SPEAKER 10 :
Definitely, yeah. You can even look outside and see that that looks more like an early March kind of thing. You know, swelling of the bugs, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I was looking at my lilac yesterday. That’s right there by my garden hose where I, you know, water my animals with. And I was like, those things look like they’re going to leaf out at any moment. I mean, they were really, really swollen, Pam. I mean, probably that’s because of the nice days we’ve been having.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, yeah. It seemed like they never even, you know, they, you know, it seems like, you know, since it’s been warm, they never… I mean, they’ve always looked like they were swelling, even like, you know, in December when it was like, you know, where they shouldn’t be, or usually don’t, you know, and stuff. You just kind of got to go with the flow. And definitely if people are planning on pruning, you know, they need to sharpen, clean and sharpen their tools now before they do that, you know.
SPEAKER 09 :
And that brings up a good point because you want sharp tools, right? Versus a dull or a rusty tool because you can introduce disease by using a dull, nasty tool?
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, dull would be, so if you did dull, you know, then you don’t get a clean cut, so then it can’t naturally heal the best that it could. Yeah, so that’s why you want it. Want those sharp tools. And then, yeah, you don’t want any, you know, disease. And you want, you know, them to be clean. And, yeah, start off that whole season with the clean tools. Yeah. So what you could do is just put them in soapy water, brush off any debris.
SPEAKER 08 :
One thing I do is I soak some of her tools and I spray them with rust penetrant. And then I’ll clean them up really good after that. Well, I won’t clean them then. What I’ll do is then sharpen them. Really good. Get them all sharp and then I’ll get them all nice and clean after I sharpen them because they get all the metal off of them and stuff. But she always brings them to me. Like right now, there’s about five of them sitting out there for me to work on. So you just want to make sure they’re really super razor sharp because you want a nice, clean cut.
SPEAKER 10 :
Also, and you want to disinfect them before you start pruning. So, you know, for any kind of disease or mildew or anything that’s been carried over through them. And you can do that by, after you clean them and everything, you can use rubbing alcohol or you can do one-part bleach to nine-part water.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that was another thing I was going to ask you about because I’ve heard people say, you know, maybe it’s not necessary for every branch, but, you know, definitely when you move from tree to tree or bush to bush or whatever, they sometimes would wipe them off with an alcohol swipe or something like that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Exactly. Not really needed unless it’s a diseased plant that you’re then going to go to another tree or something. But you really, when you do prune, if you know it’s diseased, you need to prune it well into the healthy plant itself anyway. You don’t want to really be cutting into disease, you know. So if it’s a branch, just the end is diseased, then you just do it, you know, along the trunk in a healthy part of that branch. Usually.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes total sense. Just cut it back where it’s healthy and then you’re not worried about picking up the disease. That’s good. Okay, so now in regards to pruning, I know you told me, hey, just kind of use your Mr. Miyagi and whatever feels right, you know, but is there any suggestions on, you know, what should we be looking for across branches, drooping down branches, what branches stay and what branches must go?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so if you’re looking at a tree, you know, just you can say, okay, well, yeah, or there’s a broken branch. Let’s cut it down back to the trunk or to the next node or whatever. You know, you can kind of look at the tree and anything sagging down. Yeah, that’s drooping down. Yeah, cut that off. Anything that is touching because you don’t want them to rub. Because then that can introduce disease and insects, you know, can get in there. So you want to do anything that’s crossing and touching.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. And when you mentioned.
SPEAKER 10 :
You definitely don’t want to do more than a third at a time, you know, on a tree or shrub, you know. So just if you do it every year, then it’s a lot less that you would have to do, you know.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. And a node is the swelling thing that we were talking about earlier where the leaf is going to pop out. That’s a node, correct?
SPEAKER 10 :
Actually, if you look at a branch and you have like it coming off your trunk and then you have like maybe two splitting off, you know, cut that one. Actually, forget that I said from a node because then you’re going to be really, it’s going to, you know, that’s only in certain instances. But then you would just take one side of the branch, one of those branches off, you know, if it’s looking too heavy or if one of that’s drooping down or something, just so it has like nice branches coming out. You know, you really like the 10 and 2 kind of look. You don’t want anything straight out.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, you want them to reach for the sky.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, because if you have some that are straight out and you get a snow load, those are going to be the first ones to break. Or where the crotch is, you’re going to split the whole tree. But you get those when they’re young. That’s what you want to try to avoid when they’re bigger.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, because that’s what I was going to ask you next because they always said, you know, try not to have a fork because then you can, you know, on a heavy snow load or something like that, you can split. And you told me, too, always kind of try to minimize it. And we’re talking smaller trees now. We’re not talking established trees, but, you know, establish a leader.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, exactly, exactly. And if you prune whatever kind of deciduous tree from the get-go, from, you know, planting it – You know, and then if you structure it to where it’s going to be strong, then you don’t have to worry about it when it gets big. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Now, what about this? What about suckers that are coming up from the base, and how far up should we prune the base of the tree? Because I know a lot of times there’ll be little branches shooting out at the very bottom, and we don’t want that either. Right.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, you definitely don’t want any of that. You know, so you can, you know, prune all those suckers at any time. You can do that. You want to definitely do that, like, more in the spring versus when even they are, you know, growing. So you can cut those out. And then, you know, if you’re talking about, yeah, so you have those suckers. And what else did you ask?
SPEAKER 09 :
How much should we go up the base from? Because sometimes they’ll come out of the base there.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, okay, so you can cut out the suckers, everything that’s at the base. And then I think you were talking about how high should you be pruning. Well, just remember that if you have a tree and your first branch is coming out like three feet, that’s where it’s going to stay. It’ll never grow higher. It only grows from the top of the tree. So those branches are always going to be that low. If you want to, you should cut those, you know, when they’re smaller, you can cut those and then just keep, you know, making that higher as, as the tree gets taller. You know, you don’t want to cut a little tiny top, you know, you need that photosynthesis to happen. So the more branches and leaves you have, you know, but, but just know that next year it’s like, okay, that’s too low. Everything’s growing from the top. I can cut those lower ones off.
SPEAKER 09 :
I guess that makes sense. I don’t know why I never put that together. But, yeah, the branch doesn’t grow up with the tree. It grows wider. Yeah, that’s funny. I can’t believe I never put that together. That’s funny. Yeah, that’s good. So now… Now, what if we want to cap our tree? If you have a fruit tree, you don’t want it to grow really, really high because it’s hard to harvest the fruit from it. What if you’re wanting to try to keep it smaller now?
SPEAKER 10 :
When you have the leader, you can take off that leader to the next branch. Now, trees are more of, instead of a standard size, they’re more of they’re being, you know, hybrid for not being so tall, you know, which is nice. So, I mean, I haven’t had to prune really any of mine, you know, to not be able to get to the top, you know. But, yeah, so, I mean, if you wanted to, you know, when they’re small, you can kind of keep them small by doing that, you know, but… Nowadays, it doesn’t seem you really need to. I mean, before they used to, you know, have apple trees that were way high up. It’s like, I can never get to that. You know, I have to have a ladder to get to that or just let the birds have those. But not so much anymore. You know, they’ve done a good job of doing some hybrid for those fruit trees.
SPEAKER 09 :
Keeping them down there. And, yeah, that’s a good point there. Exactly. So what are some… I mean, we’re kind of going on the tree topic here, which is totally fine. We’ve got lots of things we can cover, but, you know, we’re going on the tree topic here. What are some good choices? Is it okay to buy trees from Home Depot? And should I get them? What about bare root versus a potted tree? And when should I put the bare root in? When should I put the potted tree in? And, you know, again, what kind of, where should I go? Should I go to a, you know, an expensive nursery or can I pick up the ones from Home Depot or Lowe’s, you know, or special order them online or, you know, do the Colorado Extension, which you’ve had a history with?
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. Okay. So, I mean, for buying a tree, you could always – I would go more to a reputable – nursery, actually. And you can get discounts, especially in the fall, because they don’t want to have those over winter and have to take care of them. So fall is a good time. Right now is a good time for bare root. You know, there’s some nurseries that do have deals on bare root. And you can plant those bare roots as soon as you can As soon as the ground isn’t frozen, and I don’t think it ever froze. Yeah, I don’t think so either. I’ve been digging where I live. It hasn’t been frozen. So you can sure do the bare root now, and you can get some good deals on that. They’re less expensive than the container trees.
SPEAKER 09 :
Where could you go for bare roots this time of year?
SPEAKER 10 :
Like I say, some nurseries, you know, some online. I’ve never done them online, but I’m sure there’s some nurseries online versus a local nursery. I know out here, you know, in Elbert County, you know, we have a nursery that sells that.
SPEAKER 09 :
They actually closed. Yeah, they closed.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I think you do have to – yeah, that’s what I thought they were going to do. But you can, you know, call your local nurseries and see if they have any kind of –
SPEAKER 09 :
programs for that okay and i also know around this time of year you know home depot and lowes will start putting out you know rose bushes and and you know blueberries and things like that is this the time to do that too is that considered a bare root um yeah they those usually are bare roots so i mean you you can you can buy those i mean and and they do well also you know um
SPEAKER 10 :
But there’s so much, like, what am I trying to say? There’s so much that comes into them, and, you know, if they care for them, that is fine, but sometimes, you know, I mean, you just never know. I think you’re just taking your chances, you know, but I think they do have refunds, you know, if something dies within a year. At least they used to have that, so I’m not sure about that. But, you know, as long as, you know, it’s a live plant, and then if you take care of it, I don’t see what the problem is. I mean, we bought from… from nurseries, from the box stores. I mean, so we’ve had luck with it.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s because she knows what she’s looking for and she knows if it’s a healthy plant. That’s the big difference. Because sometimes when you go to those, those plants aren’t in the best of shape. And if they haven’t been watering them right or fertilizing them right or taking care of them, then you’re buying what you get.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and even if you buy something that doesn’t have any leaves, you can’t really see, oh, is it healthy or not? I mean, you can always look at the bark. If it’s sunken in or if it has lines in it like it’s not supple and soft, then, yeah, I don’t buy it. You can always do the thumbnail test on your trees at home or even at, you know, the nurseries and see if you can see the cambium layer. If you can see the green… If you just take your thumb and rub up on it, your thumbnail, and rub up on it, and if it’s green, it’s like, yeah, that’s alive, even if you can’t tell. Yeah, so.
SPEAKER 09 :
I know some of the issues with, you know, the Home Depot and the Lowe’s and things like that is sometimes they’ll sell things that aren’t really suitable for our area, and you’ve got to be careful to watch that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Exactly. I think people definitely have to do their research on like, hey, this is my, you know, elevation. This is the kind of soil I have, you know, will this work here? And that’s why the Extension Office, you know, you know, their website is really good because they deal with Colorado. It’s not like, you know, hey, I can do hydrangeas here, you know, I mean, because I love those because I moved from back east. Well, you know, you can, but you have to do special, you know, acidic soil, you know, for that. I mean, you know, so it’s really good if you purchase natives. That’s what really grows here. And you can care for other things, but really know what you want and really what does grow here because it’s hard to garden in Colorado. You know, but if you have done it a long time and know what really works, yeah, just work with that.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s why the CSU extension is really good, because they’ll tell you what does work here. And sometimes the people at the nursery, they might still be from somewhere else, and they might say, well, I really like these trees. They did well where I lived, and they’re trying to sell it, plus they’re selling what they have. So you’ve got to be careful with that, too. Because I’ve heard people that work at nurseries and say, I don’t even know why we’re selling these trees. They don’t do good here at all.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, they have a buyer that just brings them in, and then, you know, they don’t really know the area. But, you know, when does the CSU extension come out with their bare roots? I mean, is it time to order? Is it time to pick up? Are we too late for that? Or what’s the dates of those?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so – So some – you know, there’s a seedling tree program where the nursery up at the CSU in Fort Collins has a nursery. And I think they’re doing some remodeling, so there wasn’t a lot of inventory with that this year. You know, and they don’t have a lot of, like – Like a lot of species, like your, you know, bare root trees. I mean, they’re more like for windbreaks and things like that. You know, they do have shrubs and stuff, you know, bare root shrubs and stuff. But I don’t think we had a lot of inventory this year. I’m not sure when they’re going to be done and start planting. How do you find out about that? Yeah, well, you can always go to the expansion. So you can always go – So you can go to the nursery itself up in Fort Collins. I don’t have the website, but you can always go to extension.colostapes. And that can get you at least to the extension, and there they would have information on, should have some information on that. I know they have information on agriculture, like for rural property, for grazing, seeding, noxious weeds, garden and landscape for the residential property, and then insects and pests, plus a lot more. So that’s a good, definitely good resource for a lot of different questions.
SPEAKER 09 :
Gotcha. All right. Well, we’re talking with Pam and Dennis Brewster, and we’re continuing this conversation of now’s the time to be thinking about your planting, especially for the spring. We just got done covering the pruning aspects, and we have a few more questions that I’ll throw to Pam there. But first of all, we’ve got to catch a break. So this is 560-KLZ.
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SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back. 303-477-5600. If you want to call in and ask Pam a question about gardening, pruning, or anything related to that, we would welcome your call. So just a couple more questions and then we’ll move on, Pam. This is a question I have for you all the time. So I go out and I prune my lilac. I go out and prune my grape. I prune my rosebush. Can I take those cuttings and can I propagate them?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so those would be like woody cuttings. So you can do that. You can go ahead and prune the end of a branch and you can put it in vermiculite or light potting soil. What you could do is also dip it in a rooting hormone. That would help too. And then go ahead and put it into that soil medium. And it’s nice to cover those, like put it in a small bag with some holes, so it keeps moisture in there. The main thing for those is over-watering will definitely rot those pretty quick. So they need less water than you really think, because they’re not even taking up the water because they don’t have the roots yet. So you can sure give that a try, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. And then on the other side of that, then if we were to, you know, wait till springtime and we got the new growth, which is like the green, the soft cutting, I think is what they’re called, you know, you could propagate at that point as well. And the reason I’m interested in propagating is because you can… you can be your own nursery. You can be your own supplier and, or you get a little network of people, you know, like, like you do things for me and I’m not so good at it. So I don’t really do anything for you. Sorry about that. I’ll catch up someday. We do things for, for you guys in other ways. Right. But it, you know, and you can start to, you know, trade and heck, there’s even some people that, you know, have a little, little driveway nursery that they’ll sell plants for as well. But that’s another thing that you can do as well. Is that correct?
SPEAKER 10 :
Sure. You can do that. Yeah, exactly. And also that’s always a good thing when you have people who have like kind of a little network, like if they have too many strawberries or something, take those plants out and, and, you know, you can pot them and give them away or, you know, like choke carries or something, anything that you have abundance of, like, lilac sucker so you know we’re always giving lilac plants away you know instead of just cutting them out and and um you know throwing them away don’t want to do that or mulch them is what we would do but uh but yeah it’s a great opportunity to uh to share plants you bet
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that’s so we’ll come back to that because I got another question on that in a second here. But I know I have taken some of my my lilac suckers. And I mean, I did this years ago and planted them around my property. And I tell you, they’re still only a couple inches high. And I don’t know if that’s because they’re not getting water where they’re at or what. But they’re just they won’t die, but they won’t grow either.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, and I’ve heard that a lot. They probably aren’t getting enough water, but, you know, they’re pretty hardy once they have the roots and they get established and everything. And mulching is huge, you know, especially at home. I mean, anywhere, actually, I would just say mulching is huge, you know, because then you don’t have the competition of any kind of grasses or anything. That’s usually what hinders things or else just the moisture doesn’t stay in there.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, and then the mulch holds the moisture in there. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 09 :
And you don’t want that mulch right up against the base of the plant because that could rot out the base of the plant there. You want to kind of pull that back. But you can use pine needles. You can use wood chips if you live in Douglas County. Douglas County has a great mulch program where you can go and get wood chips and stuff like that. There’s really a lot of things you can use. You can recycle your grass, you know, and what are some other ideas?
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. I mean, those are all good right there. And grass, of course, it decomposes really quick, but you still can use that. You can use a weed-free straw. You don’t want to use hay because, you know, if you use hay, it’s still going to have some seeds that might be viable, weed seeds in there. So you really don’t want to introduce that around your plants, you know. Cardboard. Yeah, cardboard. Newspaper. Yeah. You have to just make sure that it’s… You know, you can use those stakes to stake them down, those staples, the sod staples you can use, you know, to put them down. They’re going to break down. The cardboard’s going to break down, and so is the newspaper. You know, you just don’t want them flying around. But, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, that’s good. When you use cardboard, though, and if you happen to let it dry out, will that rob the moisture from the soil and rob it from the tree? I mean, one of the things where I live, and you and I live in the same area, but it seems like, man, I can’t get that water to penetrate the ground. I’ll sit there with that hose and hold it there, and it just kind of runs off because of our soil.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, and so when I use cardboard, I actually put mulch on top of it also, wood chips on top of it, but I do poke holes in the cardboard, you know, so then it does go down into there, and then it breaks down. You know, if it’s just cardboard on top, it’s going to just stay dry. You know, you do want to keep it moist.
SPEAKER 08 :
And he uses a really good, nice snap-on screwdriver to do that with, I’ve got to tell you.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, he does.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, do they still have a lifetime guarantee?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, they do.
SPEAKER 09 :
So there you go. She’s getting a new one, Dennis.
SPEAKER 08 :
That’s right. That’s my plan. I have old ones, but she always likes to snap on one. They work really nice. They do. They’re nice, for sure.
SPEAKER 09 :
They’re clean. Yeah, they go right through. That’s great. So this time of year, you know, we – so let’s go back to the planning of the planting. And let’s talk about what’s the first thing that we should probably start thinking about planting and should we start those seeds indoor and how do you harden them off and when do you move them out and or versus, you know, just starting the seed in the ground versus buying seedlings at the store.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I mean, it’s way too early to really be thinking of that. You know, I mean, what you could do is start planting your garden by saying, okay, this is what I want here. This is what I had here last year. Let’s change that to another bed because you want to rotate those crops, you know, in case there’s any problems. disease or insects that have been harbored in that soil that are specific to those kind of plants. That’s why you want to move those plants, you know, like your viney things, you know, like your watermelons, your pumpkins, stuff like that. You know, you want all that changed from where you were last year, you know, because you have those the squash bugs, you know, that can, you know, overwinter in that soil. And, yes, you want to change that. So that’s one of the first things I would think of. And then, you know, you can prepare that soil, too, you know, by adding compost now, a slow-release fertilizer, you know, you could put in there, too. But as for planting things, I mean, it’s going to be too early for you to plant anything, even if you started inside early. to then put it out because it’s still going to be too cold. Yeah, yeah. So April is really when you kind of start thinking of that, or you can start then planting, you know, your cool crops, you know, like your lettuce, spinach, stuff like that can go outside. It still might need to be covered if it’s going to be a deep freeze. You never know what’s going to happen. It’s not going to be deep, deep in April, but they can still get nipped, but you would want to throw a row cover over those. or buckets or something if you know it’s going to freeze that night. Once they come up, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
And one thing we do, Bill, is we sit down and talk about what kind of plants do we want to plant? What do we want out of our garden? What do we want to use? What’s in our diet? So we sit down and write these things down, and then we say, okay, what do we want to plant? What do we want to try new? Because we’re always trying to do something new. And then we talk about where we want to plant them. So we start right now just doing that. And that’s another thing people can do is they can walk around their property and go, what do we want to put out here? Do we want a tree over here? This is the perfect time to be doing all that. That’s what we do. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right, right. And that’s kind of where I was going with this. I know it’s way too early, but, you know, now’s the time to be thinking about what you want to do, what worked last year, what didn’t work last year, maybe change up what didn’t work. Or, hey, the truth is, Pam, that some things don’t grow in your area with your soil conditions and your situation. So you could try and try and try, and, you know, you may just need to give up on that one and move on to something else. But then to Dennis’s point, hey, let’s try something new this year, right?
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. And, you know, there’s another thing. We know people, well, you know Greg, and they grow different plants than we do, and they get better results in those for some reason than we do over here.
SPEAKER 10 :
Because of chicken manure.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. It depends on how they’re doing it, too. But I think it’s also in their, whatever they got in their soil could be a little bit different than what we’re here. Even though we’re only about a half mile to a mile away, there could be a difference in the soil. Right.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. That’s a great point because, you know, and you can fix your soil, right, Pam? I mean, with composting and things like that, we can definitely, just like my comment a minute ago where I water my stuff and it just runs off. Well, that’s because, you know, I don’t have that soft soil. It’s compacted clay. And I’ve heard people say it doesn’t really matter what soil you have. Any soil can be fixed. Is that true?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah. And I don’t know. Yeah. And fixed might not be the word, but you can amend it to take in more moisture, you know, like sandy soil. I mean, everything just leaches through sandy soil. So if you amend it with compost. then it’s going to retain more soil. So, yeah, I mean, retain more water. You know, and that’s what you want. If you have clay soil, you know, you want to amend it so it doesn’t hold so much water. You know what I mean? So there’s two totally different soils. But, yes, you can grow anything in any soil as long as you’ve amended it. And I will suggest, too, that a lot of people rototiller soil, If you want good soil, you know, healthy, I should say, soil, when you rototill, you make it just really powdery. That’s easy to plant things in, but then you disturb all those microorganisms, all of the worms, all the good things that are in soil. And so you don’t necessarily want to do that. You can turn it over like with a fork, you know, or something, you know, to put in your soil. to add your compost, you know, but you don’t want to be working that soil, you know, because then another thing what happens is it just blows away when the wind comes. If you have still chunks in there, chunks are really good because if you break open those chunks, you could even see the holes that the worms have been working in your soil, you know, and that’s what you want, you know, I mean, that’s what makes it healthy.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Cause when you go in there, it’s, it’s totally disturbing that. And the only time I use my rototiller is if I’m starting a brand new patch that’s never really been planted before, I’ll run over that just to kind of break it up. But then, then we start like, you know, Dennis just fixed my rototiller for me last year and I threw in a bunch of alfalfa seed, but I did go ahead and kind of break that up a little bit. And I threw the seed in there and it, It took and held, and, you know, I will never do that to that particular spot again because, you know, I’ve got that cover crop in there to bust it all up. All right, well, that’s great. I do have one more question, but we’ve got to take that last break, so stay tuned for that last question I have for Pam. We had a whole list of topics there, Pam, but we seem to only be on the trees and stuff, but it all comes together. It’s all one big topic that blends, so we’ll ask that question right after the break.
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SPEAKER 09 :
All right, and we are back. And looking at the topic list here, Pam, I think we actually covered everything but two items, and that’s one of them is regarding my question here. So we’ll cover these last two items on the list here as we come to the end of the show. Cool. transplanting and you guys had mentioned uh greg and you know we know greg the audience doesn’t know who he is but uh you know he has a bunch of blackberries that he said hey come and get them and because they’re growing outside of his bed or whatever and so i’m going to go over there and i’m going to dig some of those up and transplant them what’s the best way to do that
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, first, figure out where you want to transplant them. You already have that whole dug, so when you get them from his property, then you can go ahead and put them right in there, in that soil and everything, and then make sure you mulch it. But make sure that when you dig something up that has roots. Some people say, oh, there’s a sucker, but then if you cut it, if it doesn’t have any roots, it doesn’t have as much of a chance to then take on your property. But make sure there’s roots So dig it deep enough and make sure there’s some roots. But then all you would need to do is just transplant it into where you want it to be.
SPEAKER 09 :
So when you say roots, I mean, there could be a couple little strands or there could be lots of them. I mean, what’s your definition of enough roots to transplant?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I mean, so I mean, I would try anything. So like even if it doesn’t have a lot of roots, even if it has a few, I mean, it’s worth a try. But you want to get at least some roots. It could still transplant from the nodes, you know, where the roots would eventually come out when you plant it. So, I mean, yeah, you just have to dig whatever is coming out of where he doesn’t want it to be and then just, you know, just plant that. Yeah, but you’re probably going to get some roots if there’s going to be, you know, if they’re suckers.
SPEAKER 09 :
If there’s any contact in the earth. And if there’s not, you can do what you talked about earlier and maybe dip that in the rooting hormone or scratch the outer bark there and dip it into that vermiculite or that perlite and cover it up and see if it roots. Give it a shot, right?
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, you could try that, exactly. So if it’s going to be like a sucker and have it coming from underground, you’re still going to get, there’s going to be some nodes where roots are going to come out, and it’s going to be probably pretty, you know, it might be six inches, so you’d have to put it in some pretty deep stuff, you know, but I would probably just put it outside of the ground, actually.
SPEAKER 08 :
So when you’re digging these up, what do you need to do? When you get them out of the ground, you can’t let the air get to the roots? How does that work?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, because you’re going to take a chunk of soil then with you, and that’s what you need to do. You don’t want those roots to hit the air and dry out, definitely. So keep it in the soil that you just dig it out of. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Gotcha. That makes sense. Thanks for asking that, Dennis. But the question is the hole, what size hole do I need to dig for that new transplant?
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, and I would just dig – You know, you don’t want it deeper than what you’re going to transplant it into because you don’t want, when you water, for it to sink. You know, you want the same root soil level as you took it out of anybody’s property. Okay, gotcha. You can do it wider, you know, but don’t do it deeper.
SPEAKER 09 :
Gotcha. And when you amend it, what would you amend it with?
SPEAKER 10 :
Just a third of your backfill. So your backfill with a third of a compost, any kind of compost that you would get like at Home Depot or anything. You don’t want it all in nice potting soil because then it’s going to want to stay there. So you just keep your natural soil because you have those microorganisms in that and then you can add your compost to that. Mix it in and that’s what’s going to go around it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, gotcha. And, like, you had mentioned that, you know, Greg had chicken manure, and I have the chicken manure, too. Obviously, you need to compost that because it’s a hot manure. You put that directly on. It’s got too much nitrogen, and that’s what we mean by a hot manure. But I also have lots of cold manure because I have rabbits. I could throw some of that rabbit manure in there as well. I could do that right away, right?
SPEAKER 10 :
Sure you could, and it doesn’t need to be a lot of it. So just know that some people think more is better of a whole bunch of things and not so much. So just a little bit. Because those roots, you know, you don’t want, you just want them to be able to take in the nutrients. And even if it’s too much nutrients, it’s not the best thing. Yeah. Even if it’s not hot, you know.
SPEAKER 09 :
I think you’re speaking to me directly because I tend to think more is better. I think you know that about me.
SPEAKER 10 :
I am, yes. You got it.
SPEAKER 09 :
You had to get that in there. And also, we didn’t talk about this, but, yeah, no holding back now, right? That’s okay. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes, I’m sure we will.
SPEAKER 09 :
But also worms, composting worms. You have in the past, and I don’t know if you still do or not, but I have my red wigglers that I’ve kept for a couple years, and they’re still doing great. But you can use that to amend your soil too, yes? Yes.
SPEAKER 10 :
You can. Those worm castings are wonderful. They really are. And a lot of people think, well, I can put those red wigglers into the soil, but actually they don’t really survive out here at all. So it’s good to have those inside and you get those castings. Just use the castings and let those worms just work on all those scraps that you put in there, all those food scraps. Just use the castings. Don’t put the worms out there. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can buy a version of, you know, night crawlers that you can throw in your soil. But we actually, the soil has plenty of worms here, and even in Colorado, it’s, you know, you see them come out during the rain, or you go down and you pick up something that’s been laying on the ground for a while, and you’re like, oh, there’s worms there. So, you know, no matter where you live, there’s worms in the soil. You know, they go deep down below the frog level. Yeah. in the winter. So, you know, you just have the right conditions. So now I got a question. I keep saying that, don’t I? I mean, this, this is really Bill’s personal consulting time with Pam, just done on air, by the way.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
And I’ll still ask you all these same questions tomorrow. So when we transplant those, do I water, do I water them in?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, you definitely want to water them in because, you know, if you have air in the soil, then it’s going to dry out those roots. But if you water it, yeah, always want to water and set them in when you plant anything. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. And that can be kind of hard with the weather. You know, hoses are frozen. People have their hoses shut off. You know, their water lines out to their gardening areas are shut off. And so that can be a little bit of a challenge. You know, especially even if you had a greenhouse this time of year, it’s like, hey, getting water to those guys can be a little bit of a challenge.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. But you can always, you know, put a hose on and then unhook it, you know, after you’re done watering something. And definitely winter watering was very, very important this year and still is. You know, so I definitely would recommend winter watering to everybody, especially newly planted plants. plants whether they’re shrubs or or trees you know the established ones you know they’re kind of on their own but or if there’s an ornamental that you want to keep alive you know but but at least once a month to do some watering and make sure it’s going to be on a day that’s you know 50 60 going to be 50 or 60 degrees so that can sink in there and not freeze overnight you know so if it’s If the wheat is detrimental to the food, then that’s good. But I just wanted to throw that in there because that’s detrimental right now. So, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and that was the last point there that we wanted to bring up today was the winter watering. It was a great lead-in, so you’re a natural with that. But winter watering, especially with the lack of snowfall we’ve had this year, there’s not much moisture in the ground. So explain to me winter watering. I know you can buy gadgets that will do deep root. You can stick PVC pipes in the ground with holes and gravel. You could, I guess, just lay your hose on the ground. What’s the best options there?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I’ve never done, you know, and I’m a native, you know, of Colorado, so I’ve never done the deep watering. If you think of, let’s say, like the trees, you know, they’re really only about 12, 18 inches down, you know, so it’s not like, you know, you have some taproot trees, but very few that you really have to do anything for. So, I mean, if you just do like a frog eye sprinkler that sprinkles water You want to water where the drip line is, and that’s like the branches, wherever they come from, you know, they come out and then straight down is really where you want to get that water. It doesn’t have to be at the base of the tree. You know, it needs to be at where that drip line is because that’s where those leaves take in that water. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, and that makes sense because during the rain, the rain hits the canopy of the tree and then, you know, comes down on the leaves, and that’s why it’s called the drip line because it’s the outer edge of the tree, and that’s where the water generally hits. You know, when it’s raining, what do we do? If we don’t have our umbrella, we go get under the tree. Why? Because it’s dry. Yeah, as long as there’s no lightning, yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, yeah, we’re not. So when I do my drip line or when I water my drip line, you got me all flustered now with that comment. But can I just take the hose out there and do I leave it on for five minutes? Do I a couple minutes? What do I do there?
SPEAKER 10 :
And you don’t really want to just, like, leave your – I mean, you do want to sprinkle. So it can sprinkle all around that. You know, you don’t just want to, hey, here’s this. You know, just let your hose just hang out there, you know, because then you have to keep moving your hose. You know what I mean? If you don’t have a sprinkler on it, you know, because you want to get it all around the tree, you know, for the drip line. So that’s why I say a frog eye because it comes from – you can put it close to the base and then it goes out is where it really – you know, waters. So that’s what we usually use or anything that’s going to spray up and out, you know, and not too high because then you have that evaporation happening if it’s windy. Yeah, you don’t really want to do it when it’s windy, but…
SPEAKER 08 :
And how long?
SPEAKER 10 :
You know, it depends on the tree, you know, and what kind of soil you have. Or if it’s mulch, too. I usually do it about 15 minutes to a half an hour on a frog eye, you know, depending how dry it is. But if you do it every month and it still stays moist. If it’s really, really, really dry soil, then it’s harder. It seems to run off. You know, so if it’s wet at all, then you have more of a chance for it to go in. So one of the keys that I do, even for my yard, is you water it like for five minutes and then you go away and water something else for five minutes. And then when you come back, then it’s moist enough to take it in. You know, instead of just, you know, letting it run, run, run, run, run. If that makes sense, because it does definitely work. If you can get that soil moist before…
SPEAKER 09 :
You do a couple times, right? So you hit it once and then you move it to another and then you go back to it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, and then I do a half an hour, 15 minutes to a half an hour on that. On the second go time?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
On the second time?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, second time.
SPEAKER 09 :
Second time. And when you talk about a frog eye, you’re talking about the twin spot stationary sprinklers, I guess. I mean, if you Google frog eye, there’s actually sprinklers out there that look like frogs, and they say frog eye sprinklers. So what are you talking about exactly on that?
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, so they just have the two holes, the two kind of big holes, and then they kind of spray out low but all around in a circle. Um, yeah, they’re old fashioned.
SPEAKER 08 :
They do about a three or six foot circle depending on how high you turn it on.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
But they kind of stay low.
SPEAKER 08 :
They call them frog eyes. Cause they look, if you look at the sprinkler, it looks like two, two eyes looking at you. Yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Like frog eyes.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
I just sent you a package. I just sent you a picture.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
You can look at that and tell me that’s what you’re talking about. So, uh, you know, um, Broad fork, too, is probably the better thing than the rototiller. The broad fork is better than the rototiller. I was just commenting on the broad fork there. But we are actually out of time for today. So we could go on and on with this conversation. But, yeah, now is the time to be planning about it, to go back and listen. to this show again and get the ideas, get that watering going on, that pruning going on. Pam, Dennis, thank you so much for your time, and we’ll see you tomorrow.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. Take care. Bye.
SPEAKER 09 :
All right. Thanks. All right. Thank you, John. We’ll be back next week on Fix It Radio. Enjoy your guys’ week.
SPEAKER 03 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
