This month's Ask the Plant Doctor segment brings host Stephen Brueggerhoff back together with Dr. Kevin Ong of the Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab. The two open by tackling one of late summer's most common misdiagnoses: patchy, crispy lawn areas that homeowners assume are disease but are often just hydrophobic dry spots, with practical fixes ranging from soil polymer gels and compost topdressing to core aeration.

Kevin shares a milestone for the lab — recent National Plant Diagnostic Network core accreditation, a rigorous standardization process tracing back to a post-2002 federal effort to protect U.S. agriculture from bioterrorism and emerging pathogens — and gives a tour of Texas's three-lab diagnostic network, including the virus-focused Weslaco lab working with USDA APHIS and Border Patrol. The conversation moves into real quarantine stakes close to home: citrus greening and citrus canker restrictions covering the greater Houston area, and lethal bronzing disease now showing up in palms in Galveston and Harris counties, with insect-vector research still very much unsettled.

Building on last week's caller conversation, Kevin and Stephen dig deeper into distinguishing chili thrips from spider mites on roses (the classic shake-test-over-white-paper trick), why horticultural oils and soap treatments can backfire into sunburn-like leaf damage in Texas heat, and a fascinating detour into biopesticides — including Kevin's own past work with beneficial nematodes and a mystifying case where doubling a biological treatment's rate made it perform worse, not better. Caller Lynn phones in with details on the Brazos Valley Beekeepers Association's daylong Bee School (September 26th). Plus: a genuinely fun tangent on corn smut as a Mexican culinary delicacy, and a reminder that product labels aren't just guidance — they're the law.

Plus: upcoming events including blooming bulbs at the Bryan library (September 19th), Wings in the Garden pollinator event (September 26th), and the next Ask the Plant Doctor segment on October 15th.

This week on Garden Success, host Stephen Brueggerhoff kicks off with an insect he'd never encountered before: the rhodesgrass mealybug (also called rhodesgrass scale), identified through a Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab report on listener Robin's newly-established zoysia grass. Stephen traces the pest's history back to a 1950s introduction to the U.S., the parasitic wasps brought in decades ago to keep it in check, and why a systemic treatment with imidacloprid — rather than the contact insecticide her lawn service used — is the likely path forward.

Caller Catherine calls in with a chili thrips battle on her roses and Belinda's Dream shrub, and gets guidance on light fall pruning, rotating treatments to protect beneficial predator insects, and the Texas Superstar plant program for finding proven, drought-tough performers. That conversation opens into a broader tour of Stephen's own drought-resistant, low-water backyard favorites — Turk's cap, rock rose (pavonia), Mystic Spires salvia, African blue basil, thornless blackberries, and his six-plus-foot Belinda's Dream rose.

Listener Nick, working with an acre in the Wixon Valley area, gets a detailed how-to on establishing a blackberry berm: full sun, a percolation test for drainage, soil pH in the 6.5 range, berm dimensions, row spacing, and variety picks like Prime-Ark 45, Prime-Ark Freedom, and the thorny-but-tasty Kiowa.

Plus: a preview of next Thursday's Ask the Plant Doctor segment, and a reminder about the Texas New Fruit Growers Conference in Rosenberg (October 15–16) and the Wings in the Garden pollinator event (September 26th).

This week on Garden Success, host Stephen Brueggerhoff welcomes a bit of rain to the Brazos Valley and starts with a listener's flower ID request: a photo from Jimbo turns into a deep dive on zinnias, from the common Zinnia elegans (native to Mexico, named after 18th-century German botanist Johann Gottfried Zinn) to the more compact Zinnia haageana and the disease-resistant Profusion series hybrids.

Stephen lays out a full September to-do list for Brazos Valley gardeners: seeding beets, radishes and turnips; transplanting broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage (including his own trial of "Sapporo Giant" cabbage at the demonstration garden); light pruning of reblooming roses and leggy basil and thyme; and why it's still too early to fertilize dormant-heading turf. Caller Frances gets container-gardening advice for cool-season crops like radishes, beets, lettuce, spinach and mustard greens, plus tomato variety tips for a fall harvest.

Caller Bill works through a puzzling dead patch of St. Augustine grass under a shade tree — Stephen walks through shade stress, drought stress, chinch bugs versus take-all root rot, and how to submit a sample to the Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab. And a Tyler-area listener named John gets a two-part answer: his red oak's heavy acorn drop is "stress shedding" tied to heat and inconsistent watering (with a bonus explainer on the natural boom-bust cycle called "masting"), while his declining water oak leads into a rundown of how certified arborists assess internal decay, from sounding with a mallet to tomography imaging.

Plus: upcoming events including the Texas New Fruit Growers Conference in Rosenberg (October 15–16) and the family-friendly Wings in the Garden pollinator event (September 26th).

This week on Garden Success, host Stephen Brueggerhoff tackles a mailbag full of late-summer heat casualties, starting with a Master Gardener's bronzing Nellie R. Stevens holly — diagnosed as sun scald from sustained triple-digit temperatures rather than disease, with a side lesson on why this acid-loving holly (ideal soil pH 5.5–6.5) benefits from an actual soil test rather than guesswork.

Two callers write in about oddly similar mysteries: sticky droplets under a crape myrtle turn out to be aphid honeydew (harmless, and not worth spraying a tree too large to treat safely), while a post oak dripping sap on a driveway in Burleson County likely points to woolly aphids — with a fun aside on their beneficial lookalike, the mealybug destroyer. A hibiscus grower gets a rundown on treating a genuine mealybug infestation (insecticidal soap over DIY dish-soap mixes, and why horticultural oils are a summer no-go), and a grass mystery from listener Tom turns into a genuine discovery: a rarely-seen "Lindheimer muhly mealybug," solved with help from AgriLife entomology colleagues, with cutting back the grass mound recommended over chemical treatment.

Stephen also covers current stage-one water restrictions and the BV Water Smart app's cycle-and-soak watering guidance for the ongoing dry stretch, and reminds fall vegetable gardeners it's time to get broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower transplants in the ground.

Plus: upcoming events including blooming bulbs at the Bryan library (September 19th), a Texas A&M Forest Service tree research talk (September 22nd), and the return of the family-friendly Wings in the Garden pollinator event after a several-year hiatus (September 26th).

This month's Ask the Plant Doctor segment brings host Stephen Brueggerhoff together with Hannah Ayala, head diagnostician at the Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab, for a wide-ranging conversation about what's landing on her lab bench this summer. Top of the list: Phytophthora and cotton root rot, both driven less by the pathogen itself than by overwatering-stressed roots — a reminder that fungi in the soil only take hold once a plant is already weakened.

The two dig into plant-parasitic nematodes (microscopic root-feeders identifiable by nodules on pulled-up tomato roots), why no home nematicides exist and cultural controls like solarization and trap crops are the real fix, and a memorably gross tangent on tobacco mosaic virus — including the lab's go-to demonstration of detecting it straight off a cigarette. Hannah also flags a genuine first in her decade of diagnostic work: oak wilt confirmed in a post oak, a species she'd never seen it in before, alongside a growing caseload of Cercospora leaf spot on crape myrtles and a peek at the lab's forthcoming faster molecular testing for oak wilt (cutting turnaround from weeks to about a week).

Along the way: fungicide rotation and FRAC codes to avoid resistance, herbicide misapplication damage, a cautionary tale about a caller who'd been watering only her plants' leaves, and listener cases including JD's crape myrtle leaf spot and a persimmon grower's marginal leaf necrosis and mysterious fruit spotting. Plus a shared soft spot for American beauty berry, and a reminder that the lab (Research Park, Centeq Building) accepts walk-in samples Monday through Friday.

Plus: upcoming events including a tree-pruning workshop at Martha's Bloomers on August 22nd and the family-friendly Wings in the Garden pollinator event on September 26th.