Beth Botts fills in for Mike. Guests: Jean Bragdon from Lurvey's gives advice on winter houseplant care. Shawn Kingzette from The Care of Trees weighs in on the advantages and drawbacks of live holiday trees; Steve Sullivan , curator of urban ecology at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park runs Project Squirrel--do the squirrels know about this? And Beth tries to teach her listeners how to be citizen scientists through programs like Project BudBurst , Monarch Watch and CoCoRaH.

Guests: Maria Anna Rafac and Jeanne Phelan from Joliet Community College talk about sustainability efforts at that institution, The Frozen Robins threaten Mike's radio career and skewer Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel at the same time, and Mr. Brown Thumb tries valiantly to get serious about gardening events and news. Nice try, MBT.

In the second hour of November 28, 2010 edition of The Mike Nowak Show, the holiday caroling group The Frozen Robins (of which Mike is a member, in the interest of full disclosure) get loose and funny.The highlight is their holiday "tribute" to Chicago mayoral candidate and former Obama Administration Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Guests: Thom Kraak and Shawn Kingzette from The Care of Trees explain how to decorate your outdoor trees and shrubs without harming them; Mariani Landscape's Marni Wilson offers some tips for great holiday containers; Tom Spaulding of the Illinois Local Food, Farms & Jobs Council talks about the importance of keeping food dollars in Illinois; Mike and producer Heather Frey start a firestorm by suggesting that there is only one way to pronounce the word "Poinsettia."

Guests: Arborist Guy Sternberg, who created Starhill Forest Arboretum in Petersburg, Illinois, talks about his class, "Cemetery Botany," which he taught at The Morton Arboretum on Halloween Day; Jack Darin from the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club and Max Muller from Environment Illinois discuss their respective organizations' endorsements of Illinois candidates in this Tuesday's election; Mike introduces the first installment of "Good Growing," with correspondent Mr. Brown Thumb.

Guests: Benjamin Cox, Executive Director of Friends of the Forest Preserves (Cook County) talks about how the November 2 elections will change the direction of forest preserve management; Julie Rizzo explains how her company, Recycled Granite, saves thousands of pounds of the material from ending up in landfills; Scott Kuntz of Old House Gardens gives some advice on planting bulbs and discusses how he is transforming vacant urban lots to colorful bulb bed for his business.

Guests: CMAP Executive Director Randy Blankenhorn talks about the launch of Go To 2040; Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D. discusses the release of the film Living Downstream, based on her book of the same name, with director Chanda Chevannes; the creation of the Chicago area national wildlife refuge Hackmatack is the mission of Cindy Skrukrud, a member of Friends of Hackmatack.

Special Broadcast: "Our Community Garden" from Family Focus Our Place, 2010 Dewey in Evanston, sponsored by CEDA. Conversations about the Health & Wellness Fair and Community Garden Unveiling.

The 2010 STIHL Tour des Trees launch from Millennium Park, to benefit the TREE Fund. Guests: Scott Jamieson from Bartlett Tree Experts; riders Andrew Fittsley, Beth Buchanan, John Kirchner and Kristin Wild; Geoff Cowan from The Davey Tree Expert Company and Shawn Kingzette from The Care of Trees; Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Environment Suzanne Malec-McKenna; and rock icon and world class tree farmer Chuck Leavell.

Special Broadcast: "Growing In Austin" from the Third Unitarian Church in the Austin Neighborhood of Chicago. A discussion of Urban Agriculture issues with a wide-ranging panel of experts: urban organizers and urban farmers.