[speaker001:] well hi Bob
[speaker002:] hi
[speaker001:] hi um my lawn and garden well that that's quite a topic because uh basically my husband takes care of it
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] um but what he's done is he's done a raised garden in the back yard because that we don't have dirt around here you understand that the it's it's sludge it's it's mud it's cruddy
[speaker002:] yeah right right yeah that's the
[speaker001:] so you know instead of uh trying to break every rototiller that we ever rented um we've just decided to do the raised garden and it works out great he just built like a twelve by eight box
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] out of um lumber that's you know the Wolmanized lumber and it's I guess it's maybe oh say eighteen inches wide so it makes a really nice box set that on top of the dirt
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and then worked and worked and worked with the soil I mean bag after bag from Wolfe Nursery to uh fill it up
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] but over the years it has produced some of the best vegetables and garden um you know type things that
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] boy it's been really great and right now we have tomatoes out there and we've got you know have eggplant we're growing corn corn grows great here so um we really enjoy that a lot
[speaker002:] yeah oh that's good uh yeah well it's uh so far as vegetable gardening is concerned it has been uh many years since I've tried any of that uh I we did have uh we've been in our house uh where we're located now for about fifteen years
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] and about uh eight nine about nine years ago I guess we put a swimming pool in our backyard which means we don't have a backyard anymore uh so our our gardening is pretty much uh limited to plants uh you know shrubs and and trees that that kind of gardening
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] uh I in the years that I did have vegetable gardens there were you know there were times when I had really good gardens and there were times when they just they weren't very good at all and I guess uh the soil and the and the bugs together
[speaker001:] it's it's amazing they come up well someone told me they they come in the in the uh packs you know the seed packages that's where the bugs come from
[speaker002:] sort of um-hum yeah I wouldn't doubt that uh I always like to try to grow squash and uh the squash bugs would would just go crazy
[speaker001:] yeah oh those oh yeah we've given up on those ourselves
[speaker002:] and uh and in in my experience with tomatoes was that if I got tomatoes at all they usually got uh sun blisters you know or or it would rain on them and they would bust open you know when the heat hit them
[speaker001:] yeah I guess we've got an early early grow variety or something like that and they're just now you know starting to turn red so before hopefully before all this heat hits
[speaker002:] but uh yeah but uh but there were you know there were years uh we I grew uh the little plum salad type tomatoes uh quite a bit and had real good luck with those
[speaker001:] we'll have some tomatoes uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh one year at at a the house we lived in before which was also here in Richardson uh we grew okra and I I picked okra up until almost Christmas
[speaker001:] I know what you mean green peppers grow like crazy too around here
[speaker002:] yeah and uh and I still I still occasionally will grow uh jalapeno peppers uh we we like jalapenos and they they grow real well too now you can just stick one of those anywhere
[speaker001:] right yeah definitely right right
[speaker002:] uh one of the things that we're doing talking about uh about lawns and shrubs uh we have a live oak tree in our front yard
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and we just have more trouble getting grass to grow underneath that
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and we're in the process or at least in the planning stage of of putting in a bed around that oak tree
[speaker001:] I think that'd be really pretty really nice
[speaker002:] uh right yeah we're going to just have a ground you know put ground cover and and maybe you know maybe a few low plants under there
[speaker001:] I think I think that Asian jasmine just is so aggressive it'll take no time at all to surround that tree and probably your house and your back yard and your pool the way it goes
[speaker002:] right  and uh right  right we uh uh uh we uh brought some plants out we're from both from East Texas and we brought some plants in from there and uh one one of the things that we brought uh unintentionally was uh violets
[speaker001:] oh oh
[speaker002:] which is like almost like a ground cover and they really spread they really spread out and grow uh pretty rapidly when they you know when they're growing well
[speaker001:] oh oh that would be a good idea
[speaker002:] but uh but they uh they are I guess uh not an annual but a they they volunteer to come back every year but they do die off during the winter I've forgotten what the term is for that
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] but uh but they do die back during the winter so that you know they are not really very satisfactory for a you know for a full ground cover because of that
[speaker001:] yeah well that you know one project we're looking at is we're building a deck out back and we want to put a tree in and we've been looking around and maybe you could you know suggest something but
[speaker002:] but uh
[speaker001:] um the tree that we've sort of you know come upon is a Bradford pear and we wanted it for shade and we wanted it for you know for the leaf and um that's
[speaker002:] um-hum  yeah um I I don't I'm not familiar with that pear tree uh but it's a non bearing pear is that right yeah
[speaker001:] you know right it does it's yeah it's ornamental
[speaker002:] uh and then the uh of course the leaves drop off during the winter right so
[speaker001:] right that's true
[speaker002:] yeah we have uh we've had real good luck with uh and again these are like volunteer trees that we transplanted from east Texas but we've got a couple uh well we did buy one though we have a couple of red bud trees
[speaker001:] oh red bud
[speaker002:] and uh we've got one of those on our patio uh we've got a lot of rock and and around in our one area of our patio and we brought a a red bud tree in and it has done very well it has a a a little larger leaf than uh maybe even than a pear tree I know it's got larger leaves than a plum tree has
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] the uh the leaves are probably uh oh four inches or so in diameter and uh you know makes a pretty good uh tree it
[speaker001:] that would be a great shade tree then
[speaker002:] it it has uh of course during the early spring it has the red you know the red flowers that are really pretty
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] uh the only problem wit h it is it does have a seed pod uh you know a little it's a little flat bean type seed pod that uh will drop off you know uh when uh when they start drying out so there's a little bit of clean up work for that
[speaker001:] um but as long as you mow the grass around well you said it was around rocks but
[speaker002:] yeah yeah always it's uh with with our in our case uh it's fairly close to our swimming pool
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] and so the uh the flowers uh uh blow in there they don't drop in but they blow into the swimming pool so there's a good a good bit of cleanup you know in the swimming pool from that but it's you know it's not too bad even at that so
[speaker001:] well that's just in the springtime too isn't it
[speaker002:] right and uh but uh y eah we we've really enjoyed that uh the live oak tree that we have uh is in the front and of course the live oak is uh it's susceptible to bending by the wind it it it leans away from the predominant wind direction
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] and I think I think you'll find that uh we also have an apple tree uh in our side yard and it does the same thing the the southwesternly winds southwesternly winds which are predominant you know during the growing season make both of those trees lean toward the northeast
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] and uh so it's but that's uh the live oak tree that's you'll find that uh pretty much anywhere that there are if there's a grove of live oaks growing they're going to be leaning away from the you know the direction of the wind
[speaker001:] oh that's interesting get to know all these things
[speaker002:] uh if you if you go down along the uh Texas coast there a lot of them grow you know down there and you'll see them and there'll just be like twenty five or thirty of them growing real close together and they'll all every one of them be leaning away from water away from the from the water mostly
[speaker001:] leaning away from well that's interesting yeah I know that um we've done some other things with the grass and trying to
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] you know get the right combination of grass here
[speaker002:] right the uh
[speaker001:] because it's
[speaker002:] what kind of grasses are you growing
[speaker001:] well we see ours was a model house so when they set it up they had like these cement walkways across the front yard
[speaker002:] um-hum yeah
[speaker001:] and they had planted bermuda and then when they took the cement walkways out they stuck in um what what is that Saint Augustine stuff
[speaker002:] Saint Augustine right
[speaker001:] and I am a transplant here from the north myself and so when I saw that Saint Augustine I said oh weeds and I spent I mean weeks just pulling it up bag by bag
[speaker002:] hm
[speaker001:] until I went to the nursery one day and found out they were selling it by plugs you know and I could have made some money on all those big huge black bags of stuff I'd thrown out so we're trying to um
[speaker002:] right yeah
[speaker001:] after after this winter we had a lot of winter kill and hopefully you know some of the Bermuda will take over and because I really like that grass
[speaker002:] right yeah what you what you will find uh with the Saint Augustine grass is it's very susceptible to both diseases and to grub worms
[speaker001:] yeah that yeah the grubs
[speaker002:] you know uh the the grub worm is the larva of the uh June beetle
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] the June bug beetle and uh the grub worms uh in the late spring uh the the beetles come in and and they lay their eggs in the grass and then the grub worms come out in the larva stage and they eat the grass off at the roots they eat the roots of the grass off
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and uh we we had Saint Augustine uh in uh our yard before I mean before we the house we were in before and one year all of the Saint Augustine in our backyard died