FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Plain Living w/Bill Finch 10.6.2024 "Grasses for the Masses"
It's time for Plain Living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. With nationally recognized nature writer and award-winning horticulture and nature expert, Bill Finch. Bill shares his knowledge of conservation, natural history, and gardening. Let's talk about living and growing in the deep south with your personal garden and nature consultant. Here's Bill Finch on FMTalk1065. It's a Gulf Coast Sunday morning. It's an Alabama Sunday morning. There are many things we could be talking about today. But I have to start by saying to some of you, and I say it as a courtesy, "I'm sorry for your loss." But I will also add, let me distract you this morning. Surely, there are other things you could be thinking about other than your disappointment this morning. So stay tuned. You know, I think that it's time. We talk about grasses. I'm getting a lot of calls. I get a lot of questions all the time. In grasses, I have to start by saying, it's hard for me not to talk about grasses, right? Because gosh, I love grasses. I'm out there looking at the broom's edge. It's about the bloom right now. The split beard, bluestem, is about to bloom. The Indian grass is blooming. Those golden strands of it are just stunning. You know, big bluestem, the beautiful panikums that we really don't even have any common names for. Red top panikum, we'll call it. They're out there blooming right now. They're so gorgeous. They're so beautiful. You never heard of these grasses, have you? Those are the things I'd love to be talking about. It's hard for me not to talk about them right now because they're so cool. You know, the interesting thing is, mobile and ball and counties in Alabama were before we paved so much of it over, and perhaps they still are in spots. The center of grass diversity in eastern North America. Isn't that amazing? I mean, we're talking, we're not talking the two or three species of grasses, you know. We're talking hundreds of grass species. Isn't that incredible? So you'd think, gosh, we should have a really easy time choosing grasses. But no, we don't. And I have to give you the primer because for some reason we had to have the queen's grasses. Only the queen's grasses were gonna do be suitable for us. So we have this whole weird grass philosophy that we've developed here in the past, oh, I guess 60 to 70 years, and it's just gotten progressively worse, where all of our grass has to look like some kind of sheep moan lawn that the queen has over somewhere in England, where they have no grass diversity. So I have to start off by saying, when we talk about grasses, I want you to understand that your choices are miserable when it comes to lawn grasses. You've got, you're sitting in the center of grass diversity in eastern North America more than likely. And when we talk about the grasses, you can grow in your lawn that are available now. We're talking about three or four types of grasses. They're not all that different. Many of them, they all have problems. They were chosen for many reasons. Part of it is that they're easy to grow as sod, easy to cut and easy to move to your house. Part of it is that they have that queen's grasses kind of look to them, where everything is this even green in theory. But of course, that's not how it happens. And that's why I'm getting calls right now from lots of people because the three species of grass we've allowed ourselves to grow because of the fact that we've got to have the queen's grasses. Everybody's got problems. I know you do. I know there's a patch of dead grass somewhere in your yard. And I know that you're going to wonder what to do about it, and I can tell you right now, if it's dead, you can let the grass grow back. There's not anything you can do about a fungicide this time of year. In fact, we're coming on the time of year when you really don't have to worry as much about grasses in theory. In fact, it's probably the best time of your grasses because one, it's not raining all the time. The humidity is down, the night temperatures are fine. They're actually going to grow really, really well if you let them. If you let them, but you're going to be seeing the effects of what happened over the summer when there was too much rain, when you irrigated too much, when you put on too much nitrogen, when you tried to grow exclusively the queen's grasses, which were always going to have problems no matter what you did. But let's talk about grasses, just a second. What is the difference between the grasses that grow wild and the grasses that grow in your yard? This is important because it's important if you want to understand growing native grasses and the grasses we import from Asia, which is mostly what we do or Africa, which is mostly what we do, are the Caribbean, which is what we do with St. Augustine. What's the difference between those grasses? There's a big difference in most native grasses and the ones in your yard. This is important to understand. Native grasses grow in clumps. They grow from a crown. All the stems are coming out in one clump right close together. Most of the grasses that we spend our time importing, for better or for worse, are rhizomatous grasses, that is they produce runners from the roots to make a mat. And that's why Bermuda grass does what it does and that's why it wants to make a mat right in the middle of your vegetable bed, right in the middle of your garden bed. And you can't do much about it and you can't even barely pull it out because those rhizoms are going deep, going over the surface, they're just goodness gracious. It's why cogon grass has become such a huge issue, is that it's rhizomatous. It's not a clump. It's a rhizome and it's got these storage tubers underground and it just spreads one plant. Doesn't even have to produce seed. In fact, most of the cogon infestations probably don't come from seed, probably come from roots that are brought in. Cogon's a terrible thing, terrible thing, it's hard. Almost as bad as Bermuda grass may be worse in some ways, but hay grass is the same way, not quite as rhizomatous as some of the others, centipede is that way, St. Augustine is that way, it's just that St. Augustine is relatively easy to deal with. So let's talk about the grasses that you can grow in your yard real quickly, you don't have any choices. You got St. Augustine, if you want a summer grass, you got St. Augustine, you've got centipede, you've got, oh help you, I am so sorry if you do have it. You got Bermuda, which is probably the worst. You got Zoysia, there are several kinds of Zoysia, I highly recommend you don't go with a fine bladed Zoysia, but that you go with a broad bladed Zoysia that can be mowed high. There aren't many choices, right now apparently the only choice is a variety called Palisades, which is okay, not great in terms of the really big bladed Zoysia's. Those are the ones you can plan, it's pretty pitiful isn't it? So are you, do you have other choices, well you probably do, and we can begin thinking about those, one you don't have to grow summer grasses, you can grow winter grasses, as long as you don't mind how your lawn looks too much in summer, don't worry about your summer lawn, make your winter lawn look good if you really want a nice green lush lawn, it's so much easier to do it in winter, and you'll have six months, maybe seven, of good green grass, you know how many months of good green grass you're going to have if you grow a summer grass, oh six or seven, so it's six of one, half a dozen of another, exactly, precisely, grow a winter grass, why not, spend your effort on growing a winter grass, you call me, we can talk about how that's done, you can grow something besides grass, you can grow something besides grass, and that's a really important alternative, there's so many things in the world besides grass, somebody thinks in the world besides your loss last night, we'll be talking about that as the show goes on, give us a call, 251, 343, 0106, home for plain living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast, let's talk about living and growing in that deep south, with Bill Finch, call 251-3430-1006, yeah, so welcome back to the Gulf Coast any morning, it's an Alabama Sunday morning, I feel obliged to talk about grass, a lot of you are new to the Gulf Coast, relatively speaking, and a lot of you have been here a long time but are still new to the Gulf Coast, relatively speaking, and sometimes we have a hard time figuring out where we are and how it's different and what's going to be different here, and grasses are one of those things that are going to be very confusing if you've moved here from other places, we don't have, if you want to have a grass that comes up in summer, let me start here, that's green during the summer, you don't have a lot of choice in terms of seeds, in fact I'm just going to say you got zero choice in terms of seed if you want a conventional mode lawn, almost all the lawns you can grow that are green during the growing season, say from May, October, November, the ones that are green during that period, they're all going to have to be planted from sod, just sorry, that's the way it is, you got four choices basically, somebody will think of another one, but they're hard to find, you got to find them, you got St. Augustine, you got some kind of crazy hybrid Bermuda which I just am going to tell you, oh don't make that mistake, do not make that mistake if you want a garden, in fact if you're listening to this show you probably have some inclination to garden, and if the only thing you're interested in is grass, you're probably not listening to this show, long grass that is, and three you got centipede which is one of the weaker, it's really funny about centipede, centipede was designed to be a grass that didn't require much maintenance, and so it didn't have much of a root system, it didn't grow all that fast, listen to me, pay attention, centipede, it was easy for side growers to grow because it had a shallow root system, it was easier for them to dig up, it was easier for them to move it around, you pay an attention, it didn't need any, it didn't need much nitrogen, it didn't need much fertilizer, in fact it reacted badly to having too much fertilizer, and it was adapted to acid soil and didn't need a lot of lime, in fact it reacted badly to having too much lime, it's all those things, it's just crazy, so what do people do when they get centipede, they fertilize it too much, probably you could get by without ever fertilizing it, they fertilize it too much, they put lime on it, you pay an attention, it's not green enough, it didn't turn it, it's got a not natural yellow green color, it's not going to be dark green, and then they have all kind of problems, now the truth is they have all kind of problems, even if they didn't do that, but the things we do to the centipede lawn make those problems much much worse, you're getting it in, you're getting it planted because it was cheap, you know, I mean it's like buying a, I don't know, something really cheap off Amazon, you know it's going to break, you know it's going to break, it's just a question of when, and sooner than later with centipede, that's just a warning, that was the third one, the fourth one was Zoysia, and Zoysia has got some attributes that are worth thinking about, let's go back and talk about St. Augustine for just a second and why it's a good lawn, why I like it, it can be very thick, it can be very lush, it deals with, it generally deals with our summer conditions better than most grasses, it's very soft, it's wonderful, and I am not the kind of guy who is going to sit in the house looking out at the lawn, I don't know if you are, I'm sorry, I just don't look out my wind and say oh I'm going to spend the rest of my life looking at that pretty lawn, I'm going to be out walking in it, I'm going to out be rolling it, I'm going to sit in it when I feel like it, I admit, I'm 65 years old, if you don't mind my saying so, I still sit on the lawn, it's a great place to sit, it's a good place to sit, you should have a place to sit, you don't need acres of places to sit, you just need a good place to sit, and St. Augustine makes a great lawn to sit on, it's very soft, and if you mow it correctly, listen to me, if you mow it correctly, 4 inches high, it's going to have some of the fewest problems of any grasses, it's not going to be problem-free, there are problems St. Augustine has that other grasses don't have, but it's going to be one of the more relatively good grasses and it's soft and it's nice, don't over plant it, it heals itself really well, this is cool about St. Augustine, this is important because you're always going to have a problem, always with every grass, you're going to have a hole, and with St. Augustine you're going to have holes more than with some other grasses because it doesn't deal with where really well, so if you're playing football out there on your St. Augustine, or if the dogs are running over it, you're going to get a path, you're going to get side-torn up, the good thing about St. Augustine is given half a chance, keep the dogs off that run, keep them from running there, if you don't play football for a few weeks, that St. Augustine is going to repair the damage really well, it grows well, and it doesn't, it's very easy to garden around, this is hugely important, you want to have a vegetable bed, you want to have a flower bed, you want to have shrub beds, oh boy, just put in Bermuda and see what how miserable life can be. St. Augustine is easy, it's easy to slice off, it's easy to weed out of beds, and it's easy, relatively easy to keep it out of those beds. St. Augustine, good choice, it's got some problems, every grass does. There's this, this is called take all, that in very stressful, full sun conditions can affect St. Augustine, and it, it seems to be worse at certain times, under certain conditions I can't even tell you why, by the time you've noticed it, it's probably too late. There are a few people who have take all, and they can't use it anymore, because that take all just gets the St. Augustine again and again. Now you can add lots of organic matter, and this makes a ton of difference, so if you add tons of organic matter before you plant St. Augustine, and you make sure that you keep the organic matter going in that St. Augustine yard, you're probably not going to have a huge problem with take all disease. Organic matter is pretty important, we can talk about how to do that, that's one of the downsides. It's going to get a fungal attacks, yeah, it'll repair itself for most fungal attacks, because by the time you notice those fungal attacks, unfortunately, it's going to be too late to do much about them. They were already done. St. Augustine, it's a good grass, it's of your choices. You've got a choice. The centipede, I told you, it's just a misery grass. Bermuda is a misery grass, and that leaves Zoysia. You only got one choice now. I used to have some others. I think the only one I can find now is commonly sold as palisades. I don't recommend the finer bladed Zoysias. You can get them, it's like sitting on a pin cushion. They're also very finicky. They also seem to not repair themselves very well. This is important. They are very shade intolerant. Palisades solves most of those problems, and there's another big thing that St. Augustine and palisades both have in common. They can be mowed relatively high. St. Augustine, certainly, you can mow it four to six inches high if you like, and you're not going to have many weed problems. You're going to have fewer disease and insect problems. Palisades is pretty much the same way. With both of those grasses, I think it can help to mow it a little lower in spring when it first starts emerging for the first few mowings, but then pump it up, pump it up to four to six inches. It'll make a ton of difference in how that grass performs. A ton of difference. Those are your four choices for those warm season grasses. There are the cool season grasses, and this is what people up north are used to, and you can see those, and that's really the only way to do those cool season grasses. As I said, you got six months of cool season grasses. You got six months of warm season grasses. Most people have put all their effort into the warm season grasses. In essence, most people are out on the lawn during when that grass is green, particularly on the Gulf Coast, when the cool season grasses are green. Why not think about cool season grasses? Nothing wrong with that. You can do that. It's just you got to realize you're not going to have a green lawn in summer. Maybe you've got centipede, and it's spotchy and splotchy and, well, you live with it, but go ahead and seed over it with a winter grass. We'll come back and talk about that. I'm living in the garden again, and I'll keep on praying with two dirty hands. You get plain talk on plain living. Let's talk about living and growing in that deep self. With Bill Finch, call 251-3430-106 on FMTalk1065. All right, welcome back. It's a Gulf Coast setting morning. It's in Alabama Sunday morning. I feel obliged to talk about grasses, and I'm being nice, and I'm talking about the four grasses that you believe you only can grow, and the way that we grow them, which is to say we grow grass like the Queen Anglin, the Queen's grass. You know, it's got to look moan. It's got to look dear. It's got to have little bands in it. Oh, it's just weird. Think about it. It's weird. Yeah, so I'm entertaining you now by talking about those four grasses, and I'm not going to tell you that it will ever be perfect. It can't be. It won't be. You live in Mobile. You live in Birmingham. You live in Montgomery. You live in Oxford. You do not live in England. You are going to have all sorts of disease and insect and pest problems. And let me also say that as you're worried about grass, if you woke up this morning worried about your grass, or if you spend more than 15 to 20 seconds thinking about, oh gosh, why does my grass look that way today? You're worried about the wrong things, folks. You got a lot of things to worry about. You know, you're always going to have something green in your grass. That's always fine. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. We did give you some alternatives though. If you've decided you have to grow the Queen's grass and you're going to be out there and you love spending wasting your time mowing grass. Because there ain't nothing better to do than mow grass. And I've mowed grass. I've mowed grass since I was, what, eight years old? Done it professionally, if you will, since I was 14. Is that fair? Yeah, it's true. So, I've been dealing with grass for a long time. I know a little bit about it. Understand a little bit about it. And I can tell you, from long experience, it's never going to be perfect. Please don't think it will be. Please don't try to imitate. If you try to imitate a golf course, and they're struggling right now to believe me with this heat and other things that have happened this year, the rain. If you try to imitate that, you better hire a ground screw. And I'm serious, a big ground screw. And you better dig up your lawn and start over and put things like layers of charcoal. I'm serious. I've got some prescriptions that are a little easier than growing a golf course. It'll make your lawn a little better, but they do incredibly ridiculous things to make that grass grow the way it does. They drench it with herbicides and pesticides more than you would actually be able to put on. And I'm just telling you, don't think about that. Just think about having a nice place. That's what we can talk about. It gets really hard when it gets much bigger. You can grow cool season grasses, and it's the easiest kind of grass to grow. Let's say you've got a centipede lawn, and you're not happy with that centipede lawn. You'll never be happy with it. It'll never be as green as you as the queen of England thinks grass should be. And you believe you follow the queen right into wherever she is now. So, what do we do? Well, here's the thing. If you want that nice green color for a lawn, think about winter, just overseeding your lawn for winter. There's several combinations of rye grasses. I can't even tell you which is going to be best. Some years it varies. Annual or perennial, you can grow both. There are mixes that have both. My good friend, Bobby Green, recommends some of those mixes. I think eol something or another brand. There's a bunch of different types out there, but those rye grasses can actually do quite well over winter, and you'll have a green lawn most of the winter, particularly, in fact, all the winter. You'll be luckiously green. Even as far north as Birmingham, and in many years, even as far north as Huntsville, it'll be a beautiful, beautiful lawn. For six or seven months, isn't that easy? And you'll have six months, five to six months, where your centipede looks like centipede. So, spin your effort on those winter grasses, if that's important to you. I always say, if you've got some trouble areas, grass needs sunlight. All of the grasses we grow needs sunlight. And a lot of it, even St. Augustine, which is one of the more shade tolerant, even, and I hate to say more shade tolerant, because it won't grow in a lot of shade, even the zoysias, the broadleaf zoysias, which are a little more shade tolerant. No, they're not going to stand. If you perceive there's shade in your yard, I guarantee there's a lot of shade in your yard. And you're going to have a hard time. And in those areas, I recommend moe's monkey grass. It's great. Monkey grass is not a true grass. That's one of the reasons why it succeeds. It's a little like cogon grass, for those of you who understand cogon grass, in that it has a root system that supports those stems. And it has thick blades that are relatively hard for fungus and insects to affect, apparently. And you can mow it, just like you do a grass. And it's going to be the darkest luscious green. It's going to be so green. You're going to make the queen jealous. It's so dark green. It's beautiful. It works well. Gets a little brown when you mow it. It'll grow out of it in two days, three days. Just the very tips. It's fun. It works great. It's a great grass. So those are your choices. And then there's the native grasses, which gosh, I wish I could talk more about. And we are in the next segment. We're going to talk a lot more about those native grasses and what your choices are with the native grasses and how to grow those native grasses. And to grow the native grasses successfully, you can't think like the Queen England, folks. You got to give up this queen thing. You ain't living in England. Thank goodness. You're living in Alabama. And the grasses here are different. And we have so many grasses. And they're so cool. And they're so beautiful. I'm watching them now. And you got to grow grasses like we can grow. We'll talk about that in our next hour. We do have some collars this morning. Apparently some of you have recovered from your loss. Or maybe you didn't think it was such a big loss. That's fine. You can give us a call anyway. Either way. So I got a question this morning. Any suggestions for low-quatt, low-quatt's flowering? Somebody from Fair Hope, Kathy. And she said, I've got, she said my low-quatt's keep the, it keeps getting killed by the cold. Well, in, and I don't know where in Fair Hope, this is an important question. If you're, you know, there's two, there are two Fair Hopes. There's the old Fair Hope down by the bay where the temperature is fairly warm and stable during winter. There's the new Fair, there's the new Fair Hope out by Walmart, where the temperatures are quite cold in winter. Believe it or not, the temperature differences between those two places, I mean, it can be 10 degrees at times in, on the coldest days in winter. It's, it's wild. And that's the effect of the bay. The closer you are to Mobile Bay, the more likely you are to have low-quats every year. It's just that simple. As you move farther, but, but it should not be a problem even in the interior of Baldwin County, even in the interior of Mobile County, you should be able to have low-quats most years. We've gone through several bad winters and here's, and I, I don't, I hope it's not going to be like this forever. One of the problems with low-quats is that the fruits are very hardy. They're really surprisingly hardy in my observations, but the flowers are very vulnerable. So if you have a frost during the flowering period, you've probably lost your crop, particularly if it's a hard freeze. And lately, we've been having frost and freeze over the lately, meaning over the past, though five to seven years, we've been having more of those frost and freezes during the flowering period in, generally in November, sometimes as late as December, but that's generally when they flower. What can you do about that? If, if, if, if that's happened, well, you can hope that we won't have a frost that early, because generally our frost tend to occur a bit later, particular freezes in, in December, well after the flowers have developed and the fruits are on there. And usually they can stand pretty well during that. Not every year, some years at the fruit gets it, but rarely, much more rarely than the flowers. So let's say you don't have a perfect year. What are you going to do? First thing I would do is make sure that the area under your low-quat is bare ground. This is something we learn from citrus growers. It's going to make a big difference for you. Don't mulch under a low-quat or at least rake the mulch back during those cold spells. Don't grow grass right up to the edge of the tree. Pull that grass back. And the reason is, is that the grass and the mulch serve as buffers that keep the heat from the ground. And there's a lot of heat stored in the ground there from rising up into that tree and protecting the tree during cold nights. Does it make a difference? Oh, yes. As the citrus growers, they know this. They're very good about it. Low-quats are exactly the same. Exactly the same situation. And that evergreen canopy will help to protect those flowers with that, keep that heat stored around the plant. So that's one way. Make sure the ground heat has access to the canopy. Also means the sun will have access to the ground so we can heat the ground up a little better as well. A couple of things working for you. The other thing is, it's only a few days a year. Cover the low-quat if it's not too big. And you don't even have to cover the whole thing. You could just take a blue tarp if you're desperate and pull it right over that low-quat. Boom. If it's not too big. And you could do that with many low-quats I've seen. And that'll work really well. You'll probably have to tie the edges down so it doesn't get blown off. You'll have to figure that one out. But that can work. That could work wonders. And it's usually only one night. I mean, it's just going to be one night. Boom. Easy. Isn't that easy? And then the fruit will survive. I will also say it's kind of interesting in downtown Mobile. It's almost every year the low-quats are fruiting. It's really rare. And that I think is because of the heat given off by the pavement. Particularly during those early part of the winter, the heat from the pavement and other buildings and other things is still retaining a lot of heat. And it just builds up around those canopies and they produce almost every winter. Does this help you? Those are the three ways. Hope that the weather's better. Likely chance that it could be this winter. That you won't have a frost until later to keep the ground bare underneath the tree. Particularly during winter. If you want to put mulch on it, that's fine. But make sure that is far out onto the canopy as you can. Right? To the edges of the canopy, if possible, that you don't have too much grass. If that's what you're, if that's important. All right. We'll be back. Welcome back to Plain Living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. Questions on conservation, natural history and gardening? Talk with Bill Finch. Call 251-343-0106 on FMTalk 1065. No, Perry, please forgive me. Tell me where Barmay is. Is that a? I don't know. Maybe I just don't know. I thought it was someplace in Asia. But maybe there is a place called Barmay. Maybe the voice transcription didn't work. Yeah. So a lot of places do real well with low quads most years. If you've got a, if your low quad is having some problems, it may be in a particularly vulnerable position. Cathy, I've never got a sense whether you're Fair Hope. You live in the new part of Fair Hope out by the Walmart where it can get really much colder. Surprisingly cold for Baldwin County out there compared to the part of Fair Hope near the water. And that, that would help. You know, the other thing that can help with low quads, and I, I should mention this, keeping that ground layer open underneath, no grasses, no mulch during winter. Now you can, in summer, you can have all the mulch you want. Probably a good idea. But rake it back when you're expecting those first frost so that that ground can absorb it. Or let it just break down, which it probably will over the summer. Put it on in spring. That's a good time to do it, right? You want it during the summer. It'll mostly break down. If there's anything left that you're not seeing a lot of bear darts, scrape it back. And then after, you know, and, and, and that'll be good. You'll have that nice bear dirt with a lot of organic matter for winter. And, and that's good. It'll help to warm it. But the other thing is, and this helps a lot of people, the canopy of longleaf, or shortleaf. If you've got trees with really high shade, and longleaf can do that very well, slash pine can do that very well, lob lollies sort of can do that. And it's on the south side of those trees, but the canopy sort of overhangs it just a little bit. And there's plenty of sunlight filtering through that canopy in the mornings and the afternoons, and on the south side, which is when you're going to need it the most. That helps a lot in terms of hardiness, keeps the heat from escaping. So if you're, if your neighbor's loquat did really well, produced tons of fruit, and yours didn't, there could be several reasons. One, what was under the tree was the ground bear, or two, what was over the tree, and it could be over the loquat tree. It could be other trees. Now, if you, if it's the trees are on the north side, and they're preventing it from getting any sun at all, that could be a problem. So it's a balance, but certainly having a few trees around your loquat will help to control the loss of heat and make your loquat perform better. So it's sometimes location. Yeah. Barnwell. So, okay, sorry. Barnwell is the place that we were, not, not Barma. Good. South Fairhope. Yeah, and, and Barnwell is one of those areas where it's a little warmer than it is out near what they call that place, Walmart. Sorry, it's the way I think about it because, you know, I sort of see Fairhope change dramatically when that Walmart went in, and a lot of people moved out there into those agricultural fields. So that's kind of the new Fairhope, and Barnwell is too, but it's, it's, it's a little warmer for a variety of reasons. But the trees can make a bit of difference, and the background can make a bit of difference. There it is. It's in full sun. Yeah, about, about Walmart. I'm, I'm, it's in full sun. So Kathy did that help. I hope it helped. I hope you don't feel frustrated by that. The, the, it's okay that it's in full sun. You don't have those trees to protect it. So you're going to have a little, a few more problems. It's good. It's maybe more productive there. And in fact, the most productive trees I've ever seen. We're in full sun. No question you're going to produce more fruit that way. As long as you're not losing too much heat and keep that ground bare underneath, throw a tarp over it. And most years, you're probably won't even have to throw a tarp over. But if you see, if you see a frost coming on, just try that. If, and it's just at that critical time where they're flowering, I wouldn't even worry too much while they're fruiting. It doesn't seem to be a problem once those fruits are, are nice sized. So by late December, they survive a lot of cold, but it's that first cold spell that seems to create the problems. All right. Enough about enough about that. Johnny, I, you know, I think this is, this is apropos. So Johnny sent me a picture of an area down in Grand Bay under the oak tree. And it, it looks like a live oak, probably. And the grass is doing terribly there. And it's doing terribly there. It's, it's interesting. It always does this with the live oaks. And I, it's kind of really dramatic. Underneath the live oak, the grass will be kind of finish. And then on the edge of the live oak, where the edge of the limbs, just out from the edge of the limbs, where the roots have extended boy, it's going to be just bare because those roots are just grabbing everything they can. This is the roots live oak and they're competing with the lawn. In those areas, you have to keep your lawn cut very, very high if it's going to survive at all, if you're using a traditional lawn. But Johnny, if you're worried about it washing, I just plant some bands, plant some bands, a monkey grass. It works really well. And I, I, you know, you could start in the most difficult places or you could start out in the areas where you're losing grass out from the edge of the tree, near the edge of the tree and put it there and just put those bands, put a solid band where you want it to catch sediment because it works really well. Now, Johnny, listen, listen, folks, when I say monkey grass, folks who used to lyribe monkey grass being tall and even flowering because it's actually lily turf is another name for it. But it does have that name turf. So it can be mowed, probably won't flower that way. That's okay. The flowers are only so, so interesting. And it won't be tall. You can, and it actually takes a surprising amount of use. And you know how often you have to mow it? Only as often as the weeds need it, which is about, I don't know, once, twice, three, four times a year at most. It's a great grass. It's a great way to deal with those kind of trouble situations. Johnny, where are you going to get your monkey grass? You got neighbors. They all planted monkey grass at some point. You know, I think monkey grass, I think of my old place in Cypher Shores when I was growing up. I wonder who's living in that house now. I think it's still there. And I think about how much monkey grass was in that yard. It was like, oh, we don't know what else to do. Let's blow the monkey grass. That's, you know, we all did it. I, I, you know, I was six years old. I guess I can't be totally blamed. But if I had been 50 years old and knowing not much more than I did, then most folks didn't, I would have planted tons of monkey grass. It's everywhere. And people are always digging it up and getting rid of it. It gets in their beds. Just say, look, I'll, I'll relieve you some of this in your beds. Just dig it up. It is so easy to transplant. It is so, you can, it takes so much abuse because it has these little storage tubers, if you will, on the roots that, that help it to manage. It just doesn't desiccate very easily. Very tough. And this is the situation where Lily turf, where monkey grass, larvae, whatever you want to call it works really well. Some people are going to tell you mondo grass. But one of the few disagreements I have with my good friend, Chris Francis, is mondo grass. I, mondo grass is great. It's fine. It's beautiful. It's got cost you a bloody fortune. Also didn't compete with the weeds as well. But all right, we're going to be back. We're going to talk about something besides long grass. It's time for plain living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. With nationally recognized nature writer and award winning horticulture and nature expert, Bill Finch, Bill shares his knowledge of conservation, natural history, and gardening. Let's talk about living and growing in the deep self with your personal garden and nature consultant. Here's Bill Finch on FM Talk 1065. All right, folks. Welcome back. It's Gulf Coast. Any morning, it's an Alabama Sunday morning. I got to come up with a new term. So it's not just slow down depot. Oh, it's site, whatever. Listen, folks, if you go, if you take a picture of your lawn into site one, and you say, what's wrong with my yard, you know what they're going to say? We got a chemical for that, buddy. And they're going to say you don't have a clue what's going on with your lawn from a picture. How well do you think those site one people? It's like going to Walmart and asking for plant advice. It's like me flying a paper airplane and thinking I can fly. No. Those guys at site one can't look at your lawn from a picture and diagnose what's wrong with it. But boy, they got a chemical for it. They sold you that chemical. Did it make any difference? No. Because it probably wasn't mold crickets. Do not listen, these retail. Okay, let me be careful. Most of the retail outlets, and certainly I will feel very good about saying this, all of the chain outlets I am aware of, are not going to be able to diagnose your lawn problems and recommend a chemical to treat it. And I just hated to do this and I didn't want to talk about grass the whole time because people worry about it too much. I don't think, you know, there was a time when mold crickets were a problem and it was because they had a particular type of mow cricket, the tawny mow cricket had invaded. It got to be a little worse. And suddenly then every crackpot lawn advice person in the south was saying, oh, it must be mold crickets because they didn't know what else to say. And they could say you something that would kill mold crickets sort of. Every lawn is going to have mold crickets. It's only if the mow cricket problems are bad that you really need to worry about it. So what's the best way to know if it's mold crickets? Well, just the mere fact that mold crickets are rarely a big problem anymore. But if you'll go onto the internet, if somebody has got you believing that you got mold crickets and you're convinced that mow crickets are the problem with your lawn, there is a way to test and basically you sample your yard for the number of mold crickets. And it's you can go on the internet. I think Georgia still has it on their site. Auburn should have it on their cooperative extension site. Look, sampling from old crickets, testing for mold crickets. Do not get this advice from site one on the internet because they're going to sell you a chemical. This is from people who don't have anything to sell you. Right, they're going to tell you take a coffee can, you put it in the ground, pour water in there and see how many mold crickets float up. Count them. Do that kind of sampling. You're always going to find a few mold crickets. Rarely do they cause big problems in lawns anymore. They're minor. Minor. Do you need to treat for mold crickets? Almost never. Almost never. Your problems are going to be fungus. Your problems are going to be water molds. Maybe tropical fall web worms. Maybe fall army worms. Rarely chinch bugs. No, there's site one's going to say. You can look over that too even though we rarely have a problem with chinch bugs all on the Gulf Coast. Maybe a little more common inland. Just, I'm telling you, don't fret about it. Mostly it's going to be fungus. Mostly by the time you notice the damage, it's going to be too late to treat. Unless it's something like fall web worms, the tropical web worms, which you can treat, but you got to notice when the moths are flying. That's when you notice it. But if it's that big a patch, it's probably not mold crickets. And if it happens suddenly, it's probably not mold crickets. It's probably a fungus. And it could even be cake all. But goodness gracious, do not get your advice from site one. That's the lesson I can give you right away. And thanks for letting me know because I need to say this to people because site one's going to pass itself off as an expert. Those guys are not experts. And anybody who can tell you, I can look at a picture and tell you that this is precisely what caused it. Nah, it's pretty rare. I'm even cautious. I can tell you that in most cases, when I see pictures of lawns and there's a big brown patch, just on probability, I can tell you that it's more than likely a fungus or a water mold or something like take all, which I think is a water mold. But it's not going to be mold crickets. Anyway, there you go. And mostly you can't do anything about it. Catherine, let's talk about what you want to talk about. Bill? Yes, ma'am. I know that generally you're not supposed to fertilize into the fall, but I've got a couple of things like a trailing bride, hydrangea, and a big pot. And it doesn't look so good. And some other things in pots and maybe some hydrangeas and chameas. I wonder if I should, if it would be all right to fertilize at this time, or not? These are all in pots? No, I only have really one or two things in pots. This trailing bride, hydrangea, is in a pot. The red stuff is basically in the ground. Yes, so here's what I would say. Your problems with the ones in the ground probably aren't going to be remedied by fertilizer. And so if they're having problems, it's probably the result of excess moisture or soil problems that have to do with too much moisture, or too much compaction, or maybe being too close to the house. I don't think the fertilizer is going to help. And could you fertilize this time of year? You could probably put cotton seed meal on there, and it probably wouldn't cause a problem, but there's no need to risk that because it's probably not going to solve any problems either. Put the cotton seed meal on. These are the plants in the ground. Put that on next spring. No need to do it now. What you do need to figure out is, are the other things that can cause, because fertilizer rarely solves problems. And rarely, I mean, it's almost never with things like chameas. If you've got a problem with a chamea, it is not about the fertilizer. It may be about the soil. It may be about too much moisture. And we need to figure that out. So maybe you can send me some pictures of those chameas, Catherine, and let me look at them, and give me a sense of where they are in the landscape. And in this case, I can work with pictures because I can tell you what's happening around the plant. And it's pretty easy to diagnose if the plant is too deep, or if it's in a bad vulnerable place. But think about moisture. That's going to be the first key for those plants. Think about whether it was planted too deep. That's going to be an issue, but fertilizer is not going to help those plants. I've said that too many times. But now the plants in the pot probably are, probably do need some fertilizer. And that's tougher. I would also, what was the last time these were repotted? About, well, about two years ago. Yeah. So they're probably getting to the point that they need repotting. They're going to lose their leaves here pretty soon, I assume, right? You're going to leave my side. I wouldn't. Don't mess with them now. Sometimes next spring repot them. Okay. When you repot them, and you put new soil in there because of the way we get soil, it's inevitably going to have fertilizer in it. And that's all you need to do. Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. If you have any more questions, you call me back. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Catherine. Send me some pictures of those commies. Okay. I will. All right. Welcome back to Plain Living for Alabama. I'm the Gulf Coast with Bill Finch. Ask Bill about gardening and nature in your backyard. Call 251-343-0106 on FM Talk 1065. All right. Welcome back. You know, here the interesting thing was that, so I said it's probably not mulch. It's, and the person had already bought the chemical from one site, and it didn't solve the problem. I'm just saying. So somebody said, yeah, I got a problem of mulch. It's because I live next to a golf course, etc. And I had to have professionals come in and I don't know. Maybe that's the case. Did the moles do that? I don't know. I don't know what, I can't see that, but it's interesting living next to a golf course. You're going to a lot of things that, like the Laura Wasp, which have become one of the reasons why we suppress mulch crickets. Is that the golf course spraying for insects is going to kill off the Laura Wasp as well. And so it may mean that you get outbreak snakes, so yes. So actually it's applying the chemicals, maybe the problem. And plus golf courses are sterile. And so a lot of things that could be preying on those mole crickets, they don't have anything to live off of like flowers and other things. It's, yeah, I all bets are off. You're right. If you live next to a golf course, enjoy the golf course, because it is going to change things in your own yard. I still don't know if it's mole crickets, and I'm not going to argue about it. I am saying this. Asking the person at site one to bring in a picture to site one and asking the person in site one, what's wrong with your yard and what chemical applies like me, it's like, you're coming to me because I build paper airplanes asking me to fly the Concord. I mean, it ain't going to happen. It ain't going to happen. They're not that probably better trained than the folks at low down depot, probably. But they got a lot of chemicals they want to say. And they're going to find a reason to say you one of those chemicals. Chemicals are not a great way to deal with mole crickets for several reasons. And it's just and you can look at several websites and they'll tell you about it. Go to University of Florida. Anyway, there it is. And I don't think that's probably most people's problem. We're going to talk about something else. We're going to talk about real grasses. We're going to talk about fun grasses. We're going to talk about fun talking about grasses. If I don't mean to sound too insistent about it, you better have fun talking about real grasses. Sean and I are going to have a fun time talking about real grasses. Sean and I talk about real grasses a lot. And by real grasses, what we mean are not the four types of long grasses that you can grow or the seeds that you can plant over winter. We're not talking about the queen's grasses. We're talking about that wonderful diversity of grasses. The full cord of grasses that are part of the landscape in Mobile and Bowen counties and all of Alabama. Mobile and Bowen County is probably the center of grass diversity in Eastern North America, maybe even still after we've paved over so much of it. It's really interesting all the best grasses. There's so many incredible grasses. What I think about Tuesday grass, if you don't know what Tuesday grasses is, oh heaven's to best. You don't know what you've missed. It's one of the, it is one of the great grasses of the south. It's beautiful when it blooms. Only blooms at certain times. When it's, it's beautiful when it grows. The stems are great and roots are great to chew on. Oh, they're delicious. They're delicious. They have kind of a fizz to them. And they kind of have a slight, how do we say numbing effect on your mouth? And it's not so much a numbing effect. Is it just, just an effect of eating the grass? But it's really wonderful. It's, it's wonderful to try it. Perfectly healthy. It's, in fact, in China, they have toothache trees as we do in, in the south. And toothache trees have the same effect. It's odd that, that a tree in a grass have the same effect, right? It's, is odd to me. But they do. And it's actually, actually, I have a word for it, which I would never pronounce because I don't remember the intonation. But it's basically ma. Somebody who speaks Chinese will correct me. And it basically means that tingly sensation. Doesn't mean horse. It means that tingly sensation that you get in your mouth when you eat toothache tree. And it's, so when you eat Sichuan peppers, true Sichuan peppers, true Sichuan peppers have that nice tingly pepper equality that's really nice and really fun. Toothache grass, wonderful grass. Just, I gotta get started on the grasses. And then there's all the blue stem grasses. There's so many split beard blue stem. The, the, the chalky blue stems, it just, the list goes on and on and on. Big blue stems, little blue stems, little blue stem, which is not a true ender program, probably will be someday. And then there's just the king of all grasses, which is broom sedge, which is, which is the, which is the healer. It's the healing grass. It, it's going to be the grass that brings us through from all the destruction we brought, all the destruction we brought on ourselves. I think broom sedge is going to help us out yet again. It always does. It always will. And it sort of prepares a place for the other grasses. Thank you, broom sedge. I thank you all the time. You're a wonderful grass. These are the native grasses. And I haven't even started, I haven't even just begun touching on them. Just barely even touching on them. True bushy blue stem, the coastal bushy blue stems. There's all these panicum grasses that were in the juice, panicum, kolia, kolia, tainia, grasses. Oh, never mind. That's the Latin name. But we don't really even have a good name for these beaked panic grasses. If you, you know, beaked panic grasses are one of the great forage grasses out there, and we never talk about it. And it's great. It's beautiful. I love beaked panic grass. Beaked panic grass. Beaked panic grass. Beautiful grass for your pastures. A beautiful grass in the lawn. It actually is really beautiful, very smooth blades. You'd have to cut it really high. Most of these grasses need to be cut high. Eight to 12 inches high. It's a different way of thinking about a lawn, isn't it? They're very soft. Gosh, I would love to have a lawn of beaked panic grass. It would be so beautiful. There's slightly, there's a rhizomatous version, but they're mostly short rhizomatous. And, but you could, you could actually have a lawn out of beaked panic grass if you mowed high enough. And I love the way the seeds come out. And the seeds are great for quail. All these other wonderful things. And these are grasses we don't even know to look for. Sean, are you looking for beaked panic grass? Are you looking for the other relatives of beaked panic grass? If you're not, you call me and I'll give you a description of them. They're really cool. I bet you got them. And they're really great for quail. They're really great for wildlife. They're really great for forages. They're great for horses. There's so many wonderful grasses out there. I can't even get started on all of them. You know, there's tickle grass. I've been looking a lot of tickle grass here late. Even the cool season grasses are really cool tickle grass. You want to know what tickle grass is? It's beautiful. It gets this purplished little leaf. You can actually make a pretty good lawn too. It's another cool season grass. I actually think that one could be managed as a cool season turf, if you will. So many wonderful grasses. You never hear about them. You're not going to hear about them. It's site one. I promise you. You're not going to hear about them. You're not going to be sold, but they're really great. And managing those is really a matter of mowing at the right height. And we can talk about that. You've got to mow high enough. You've got to mow at the right times. We can talk about that. You give me a call. You give me a call. And let's figure it out. Sean, I want to say to those of us who've had questions about what is the proper time to burn these native grass pastures? And I will say I am very happy, very happy with what I'm seeing from August, September, and early October burns. I think even in south Alabama, into October is probably fine. It's probably better to do the August, September, because it gives those native grasses a chance to come back. And they do. And they seem to out compete a lot of other things when that happens. It's a good time. If you wait too late, if you wait until winter, you're going to encourage fescue and other non-native grasses. Be careful about that. I also think that's when your kogan grass fires are going to be at their hottest. And so if you want to burn kogan, if you've got to burn kogan, I think burning it while the overstory is still a little greenish is probably the best time to do it so that you don't get the ground too hot, which means that only kogan is going to come back. But you might get some seeds coming back. So burning that kogan grass before winter is a good thing. And I think even August, September is probably a good time to do it. Oh, we could talk a lot more about this. We'll be back. FM Talk 1065 with plain living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. Call 251-343-0106. Here again is your personal nature expert, Bill Finch. All right. Welcome back. Gulf Coast anymore. So there are people who love to blame mochrickets for things that go wrong in their lives. There's a couple of reasons why mochrickets are not the issue they used to be or that we once predicted they would be. And one is is that we introduced a couple of predators that are very effective on those mochrickets and they really can control them. You're definitely going to see adults. They're always out flying. We have native mochrickets. We have non-native mochrickets. They're usually out. So what do you do if you actually? So what do you do? Let's just let's look at it. I don't want you to get paranoid. I don't even think you need to try this because probably your problems aren't mochrickets. But if you do have problems with mochrickets, one of the ways you can tell is to mix a couple or three or four tablespoons, a couple of three or four drops really of detergent, like dawn or whatever the heck. In a gallon or two of water, a gallon, and put it on the lawn and see how many mochrickets come up in areas where you think there's mochricket damage. Now obviously if you put it where it's already brown, to be fair, if the mochrickets are the problem, you're not going to see them there. They're going to be feeding on the edges where it's green. See how many mochrickets actually come up? There's actually a more sophisticated way of doing it and that is to basically get a... people don't recommend any more because coffee doesn't come in cans, but to get something like the size of a coffee can, cut the bottom out of it, and pour the detergent water in there and see how many mochrickets come up and sample that at several places in the lawn, and if you're seeing more than two or three come up on average with each can, you got a problem. Two or three probably tolerable. Two is certainly tolerable. One is certainly not to be worried about, but you might not see any mochrickets at all, and that's the way to tell. Now do I recommend that you run out and do this right now? Probably not because it's probably not the problem. Now I'll tell you something else about mole crickets, and this is where site one drives me crazy. Oh, I shouldn't say that. A lot of these places that purport to give you information, and they got chemicals to say you. Those chemicals are only going to work at certain times a year, and basically you're going to have to apply it not when you see the most adult mole crickets because that's not going to be very effective. You're going to have to apply it when the young are hatching out, and you don't see them, and that's usually not in April, and it's usually not this time of year. It's going to be July, early July, June, July, August, is when they're going to be hatching out. It varies depending in various places. It's going to vary, and so you've got to time it with the youngens. It doesn't help to have the, they've got to be at just the right stage, and you've got to apply it then. And there are several chemicals out there. They all have really negative effects on a lot of life, and so it could be that if you don't have mole crickets, you're going to have a problem with other creatures that basically break out, and in fact applying mole cricket chemicals at the wrong time, and in the wrong way could mean that you have mole cricket problems worse the next year, because you've gotten rid of some of the things that may actually be controlling those mole crickets. You just got to think about it. You just got to think about it. You know, I'm not going to say you never will have a problem with mole crickets because some of you probably will. I don't think it's going to be a big problem in general, and I think it's going to be pretty rare, and I think people are still, I don't know what to say. If you've got moles in your yard, is it because you've got mole crickets? No. If you've got moles in your yard, it's because you've got insect life, and it's pretty healthy, and it's a good thing. And they've been run off from the golf courses the moles have, because the ground there and the golf course is so toxic, the moles can't live there. So, yeah, the moles are a different thing. Maybe grubs. They could be eating earthworms. They could be eating a lot of things. Mole crickets, maybe, if they're there. We talked way too much about mole crickets. I'm just telling you, I guess what I'm trying to say is don't worry about mole crickets. They're not a huge deal. Oh heavens to Betsy. We've been talking about lawns today, but we want to talk about grasses, and we want to talk about how to manage these grasses. Listen, how do you manage native grasses in your yard? Think of you're going to want to place if you're growing native grasses, and there's some beautiful ones out there. They're lovely. They're so much fun. You can mix them with wildflowers. It's a really great way of doing it. There's some formulas for doing it. If you live in the country, 90 percent of your open ground ought to be native grasses. And we could talk about how to do that if you're in the country, and you have some big spaces. Let me talk about a smaller space now. When you're thinking about the lawn, think about areas. Think about the areas where you need soft grass you can walk on. That's in paths. That's in areas and circles that where you might want to sit. If you're not sitting on your lawn this time of year, while it's nice when it gets dry, you're not enjoying the lawn. You want to lean back on the lawn. You want to look up at the clouds, right? So you want some areas to do that. How big do those areas need to be? Well, think about it. It doesn't have to be huge. So think about the amount of effort you want to put into those areas, how often you want to mow it, and try to restrict that. I mean, I can't, there could be people out there who want to have five acres of St. Augustine. And all I can say is, Godspeed folks. I'm not going to solve your problems for you. You've created them. It's massive. And I can't fix that. But for those of you who can be rational and reasonable about having a lawn, think about where you want it. Think about the pathways. You want it there. You want some areas where you can walk that the grasses is mowed frequently, mow it about four inches, solve the weed problems, and then have other areas where you have great native grasses. Old paintbrush blue stem is so beautiful. It is such a beautiful grass. It's such an incredible grass. This time of year when it's flowering and the light coming through it, and it's got the stems have got this red and purple and blue, and silver, and the flowers themselves, which are these little fluff balls that are kind of like old beards at the top of the grass, and they're split, and it's sometimes called paintbrush blue stem. You'll see why. Beautiful grass, very companionable with other grasses. And you know the cool thing about paintbrush blue stem is that the grass leaves themselves are silvery blue. Isn't that beautiful? And they stay only about old 12 inches high through most of the year until they bloom, and then they put up, and that makes them a great companion for wildflowers. And they're clumps, so they don't spread. They don't, they don't spread and the clumps don't get bigger and bigger. They just get the crown gets a little bigger, but so you can plant things in between them. And you get all these great wildflowers in between them. Well, kind of wildflowers do you want it? Oh boy, we can talk forever about that. It's so much fun. So think about large beds of these native grasses. And there are this is actually it's really interesting in much of the world where you they're using American native grasses because they're so beautiful in these large swaths of beds, which is probably not a good thing for places in Europe, but they're doing it anyway. And they're thinking it's really beautiful. Paintbrush blue stem is popular now all around the world. It's being used widely. And and it's our one of our native, one of our native blue stems paintbrush blue stem. Beautiful thing. Great, great way to get started. Beautiful thing. If you're out, if you have a pasture, and you're trying to convert it to native grasses, one of the first things, particularly on the coast, one of the first things to do is to let that is to let the native broom sage take over. And I'm going to tell you to do that first because it will help you to get rid of the Bermuda grass, which is not native. And it will help you to get rid of cogongrass, or at least keep the cogongrass at bay. And you can spot treat the cogongrass, but it works great. And it's a beautiful grass. It's absolutely beautiful and fall. One of the things I look forward to and fall is not, oh, the tree color is nice. It's wonderful. But one of the things is looking in November on those misty mornings when that grass is so incredibly orange. You think I'm lying. I mean, I'm telling you, it's beautiful. It's stunning. There it is. It's great. So it's really fun to use those native grasses. And then as you get, as you get things stabilized with the broom sage, you can come back with the other native grasses, like little bluestem, which is beautiful, has its own beautiful plum color and fall. Beautiful color and fall. You can put in big bluestem. You can put in the panicum grasses. You can, there's so many different things. If you've got horses, you want to think carefully about which grasses you use. If you've got horses, you can call me and we can talk about which of those panic grasses. I wouldn't use switchgrass. Not good for horses. Not, not great for horses. Just try to avoid switchgrass in general. Probably a little bit of it's fine, but you don't want a whole pasture full of it. Gamma grass is going to be great for those horses. Big bluestem's great for those horses. Indian grass is pretty good for those horses. There's a whole suite of them that are really nice, really good, really beautiful. Toothache grass is boy do I love toothache grass. Don't you wish you had some toothache grass? Everybody should have toothache grass. Nobody's selling it. But it's a beautiful grass. It's a wonderful grass. It's just like this medicinal grass. I just want to be like a bear. I want to go out and I want to pull up the roots and I just want to chew on a sit down on my haunches. It's trying to be nice here. Just like a bear and just chew on that grass and smile just like a bear eating toothache grass. What a cool thing eating toothache grasses. It's so wonderful, so beautiful. Every launch would have it. It's a beautiful grass. It's like the most golden field of wheat you've ever seen. It is the most beautiful golden color when it blooms. There's a trick to getting it to bloom. We can talk about that once you get it, get it, get it. There it is. Jim in Georgetown. We're going to be back. FM Talk 1065 home for plain living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. Let's talk about living and growing in that deep south with Bill Finch. Call 251-3430-106. Jim in Georgetown says the most of my lawn looks like a golf course is when it looks like the rough. And yeah, that's fine. If somebody says, "Well, why aren't you going to tell me how to make my lawn look like a golf course?" I'm going to say, "Well, because it's like you're asking me, why don't you tell me how to stand in a bed of fire ants?" Yeah, you ain't going to have nothing but trouble. I ain't going to have nothing but trouble. And if you don't think those lawn, those folks running those golf courses have nothing but trouble, and they're causing lots of other people trouble because of the chemicals they use to keep that going and they're causing themselves trouble. I can't do that any more than I can tell you to stand in a bed of fire ants on purpose. Sorry, ain't going to happen. I want to tell you how to live peaceably with yourself, with your yard, with your neighbors, with the life around you. That's what we're trying to do here. And that means not using the golf course as a model because golf courses do not live peaceably. Golf courses are perpetual stress for everything around them. Okay, you're playing golf. You enjoy it. That's fine. Glad for you. Happy for you. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how you manage those greens. And that's not what you want as a model. It doesn't work. It won't work for you. I can guarantee it. Unless you have, unless you hire somebody full time, basically, to manage it. And they're going to have to start all over. And you're going to have to pay them a lot of money. And you're going to spend a lot of chemicals. And it ain't going to be good for anybody. And it's not something you're going to do casually on the weekends. I promise you. And you're still going to have problems. Look at the golf courses. They're having problems now. A lot of them do. And they will continually have to change grasses because they have problems. I'll still talk about that. Let's still talk about that. So Jim and Georgetown says to me a couple of weeks ago, or maybe his last week, and I did answer him. And this is a good week to answer him. And he says, how long before if I got Broom Sage, I planted some Broom Sage, how long before it took over a large area of my yard. And more than likely, just simply mowing at the right height will allow the Broom Sage to come in. Jim, surely you've got it around you. And I've just quit mowing areas. And it's amazing. Within the first two years, most of that pasture area was covered in Broom Sage. And mowing, you might have to mow once, mow early, mow in mow in May. And that'll give that Broom Sage plenty of time to come in. If you have to mow twice a year, stop your mowing in July, mow high whenever you mow. And you're going to get that Broom Sage coming in pretty well. You're going to get the Broom Sage coming in. If you've got Kogan grass already, the Kogan grass is already there. It's going to be a little trickier. And you're going to want to spot treat areas where the Kogan grass is. But look for the focus on the areas where you're seeing the most Broom Sage coming in and getting the mowing height. Broom Sage has a, it's going to have a difficult time struggling with Kogan. Everything does, but Broom Sage is the one that's going to do it best. It's going to do it the best. If you've got Broom Sage coming in in areas gym and it's pretty strong, look for areas nearby and spray that don't have the Broom Sage. Don't have the Broom Sage and spray those out so that the Broom Sage can get into them and it will pretty well. You can call me next week and we'll talk about how to spray it out if that's what you want to do. Lots of ways of doing that. Morris, have we got time? We're going to try it. Morris, we do have a little bit of time. I'm listening. Tell me what's up. Hey, man. Hey, man. Yeah, I called a couple of weeks ago, just missed it right there at the end and so you know, I called you last year, I think, and told you it had $300 to made a plant or my tomatoes. This cost me $300 to plant them. Yeah. And well, and then we fast-forwarded and I've got bed, back here, some organic mulch and organic material and did the garden and planted tomatoes and cucumbers and everything. Well, my cucumbers are $150 a piece. Yeah. Everything just didn't work. Okay. It just, I worked and worked and worked and worked on it. So I do have some of the big planter buckets and so that's, I'm done with the garden thing because it's just, I don't have time to manage like I should and I just want to put them in some buckets. So what's good for this time of the year well, so this is the time of year. Thank you. Morris for let me say this is the time of year for broccoli. It's the time of year for kale. It's the time of year for collards. It's the time of year for cauliflower. It's the time of year for arugula. It's the time of year for mustards. It's the time of year for beets. It's the time of year for carrots. It's the time of year for parsley. It's the time of year for cilantro. Did you write all that down? No, I've got that etched in my memory. That's what I try to grow. I had, when I was in Birmingham, I had a really beautiful raised yard, raised big garden and I had a buddy of mine that had a trained horses and showed horses for 30 something years. So he had a big old pile of horse manure and so I just filled those things. Man, I could not grow anything. Everything grew. Yeah, so here's the thing. Here's the thing. I think that if you've had problems over the summer, we can remedy that by what you grow. But this time of year, things are going to be a lot easier to grow in the beds. And so I mean, there are things that will be a little more difficult. Carrots will be a little more difficult. Beets are going to be a bit more difficult, but kale and collards, broccoli, get them in the ground. They're going to do well. You'll have a few bugs that come up, but you're going to have those problems in pots as well. Cover them with insect netting and you won't have that problem. And they're going to do great in beds as long as you've got plenty of organic matter there. That's the key. Getting that organic matter, don't give up on the beds. This is a great time to grow those beds through the winter. And it's going to be much easier to grow these through the winter in the ground than it is in pots because unless you're going to move those pots inside on the coldest nights, so don't give up. If you hold your breath, Bill, your turn really close. Do you think that's going to happen? Yeah, breaking them inside. So that's good. So I wouldn't. I wouldn't. That's too many. So think about putting them in the ground. Listen, during summer, you pick for the Gulf Coast, you pick two of the most difficult crops, but there's so many things that will grow well during the summer that are so good. I am eating so much okra. And I love okra. I love okra. And it can grow really well. Eggplants can do really well during summer. Basil does great. I eat basil all the time, and it is so good during summer. So there's a lot of great summer things we'll talk about, but now's the time to start focusing on winter. I think you can get these things in the ground. Parsley does great in the ground, and there's so many things you can do at parsley. You call me back next week. Get you a good flat leaf parsley, and we will talk about how many different ways you can use parsley. And I'm talking about using it like a vegetable. It's great. Fennel. Did I mention fennel? Did I forget about fennel? Fennel grows great. I love fennel. Bulbing fennel is wonderful. And particularly with fish, it's great, but it's good with everything. And I just love all these great things to grow during winter. Yeah, well say back in the day, Bill, probably 20, 25 years ago, you go into a restaurant you would order a bowl of vegetable soup or chicken soup or whatever, and it's reasonably fresh and you had to get both. Then somebody come along and they started chopping little fennel and a little herbs, and they throw that in there, and they called it gourmet, and they charge you twice as much for that same bowl of soup. Yeah, so when you grow it out of your garden, you charge yourself for that. Yeah, right. Right, so you put that $20 in a bank somewhere. All right, sounds good. Thanks. [Music]