TALK 94.5 Liz And Nick
TALK 94.5 Liz And Nick
BRAD FOWLER CHECKS IN 8/26/26
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Brad Fowler, your Clemson Extension commercial horticulture agent. You know, proper irrigation is key to keeping things thriving, especially with our unpredictable weather. And speaking of irrigation, a big shout out to Conserva Irrigation. They truly are your sprinkler system caretakers from the Liz Callaway Show with Nick Summer.
SPEAKER_01And here he is, Brad. Brad Fowler. He is the Clemson Extension. Can commercial horticulturist.
SPEAKER_02I could have got I could have gotten a contractor, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you could have. Would revive the hive.
SPEAKER_02Thankfully, we do have a family friend. Uh, and he actually listens to the show quite a bit. Um he is I I I cannot put it into word. It wouldn't be happening without him. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_01And that's the point. The point is. What's his name again? Someone wants to know. I think it's Brad, right?
SPEAKER_02And it's just Brad. Everybody thinks my name's like Bradley or Bradford or something like that. It is just Brad. It is just Brad. Wow. My dad wanted me to have a short name to write. That didn't it it didn't inspire confidence. I was gonna say. You know, he's a typical guy. Brad. Just Brad.
SPEAKER_01It's like it'll be easier for him. He doesn't look too smart. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02This kid, he's he's gonna have a tough time. Oh man.
SPEAKER_01How do we screwed up at this one? I think I made it. We better go simple and short to the point. Four lettuce top.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Right five letters, six letters. Can't spend.
SPEAKER_03I can't. I gotta remember not to take a drink when you say something stupid.
SPEAKER_01All right. So Brad Fowler. Poor Brad. Poor Brad. Um, so uh what what you got going on? A lot of people talking about their lawns. Too many questions about lawns. So you're you said, you know what? I'm gonna make lawn school.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. That's what uh myself and and Carmen uh have decided. We're gonna do lawn school. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna try to help the people with the with the lawns um it's always a a really uh you know hot subject. People are always having questions about it, and so we decided to come up with a program called Lawn School. Uh it's gonna be over at the Ori Georgetown uh uh tech uh campus uh over at Market Common, and it's gonna be a full day about lawns like you're gonna be sick of lawns by the time it's all right.
SPEAKER_01But well you know something. But you because I'm already sick of a lawn.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you will know, you will know something. Now I can't force you to abide by what I tell you, but you will know how to do it uh at the end of the day. You know, we're gonna we're gonna lead you to the water. So uh we're gonna feed you lunch. There'll be a little bit of swag involved. It is a paid program. Um, but if you're interested in it, just send uh send me an email and I can always send you the link to to register for that. Uh, it is gonna be a limited space um because we really want to make it a more personal program. We want to be able to answer those very specific questions that people have and and talk about the very specific circumstances that the individuals have. And so we're not gonna we're not gonna try to get it too crowded. Um but yeah, we're gonna we're gonna do lawn school. We're gonna talk about everything lawn related.
SPEAKER_01So this will be held uh somewhere on the HGTC campus in Market Common.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, on September 19th. So it is a Saturday. So for those that uh have to work and stuff.
SPEAKER_03It's the day I gotta mow the lawn.
SPEAKER_02Well, I knew you would be really excited about it, Nick. I I said, you know, Nick's gonna be, he's gonna be there. But yeah. So you can take a break from mowing that day. And you can come, you know, come hang out with us.
SPEAKER_03Well, you write us guys a permission slip.
SPEAKER_02I got you. An excuse slip for the while that week.
SPEAKER_03We go to lawn school, so I have to skip doing the lawn this week.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. You you're gonna tell the you're gonna tell your wife at the end, like, you let me go do this one thing, and it'll look at least 12% better afterwards.
unknownReally?
SPEAKER_03I can invite you to my house, you know, for just some brats and whatever. Let's do that. And you can look at the lawn and go, oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, sure. You can skip lawn school next. Okay.
SPEAKER_02That sounds like a plan. Now, how do you sign up for this? Uh so it's through Event Bright. I have a link. Um, like I said, just email me and I'll send uh send the link out and you can get registered.
SPEAKER_01What's your email?
SPEAKER_02Oh gosh. It is B Fowler, B-F O W L E R at Clemson. For those of you who don't know how to spell Clemson, it doesn't have a P in it. It's C-L-E-M-S-O-N.edu. So B Fowler at Clemson.edu.
SPEAKER_03Why do they say it like that?
SPEAKER_02It's just our our we can't I can't help it. I don't I can't say it. Clems Clemson? Clemson Clemson. It is not Clemson, it is Clemson.
SPEAKER_03So what about Jed Clampett? I mean, there's two P's in there. What do you do with that?
SPEAKER_02Clampit.
SPEAKER_01Clampett?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. That one's beyond me.
SPEAKER_01All right, Brad. So uh so to sign up, send him an email. He'll send you the eventbrite. Is it also on the website?
SPEAKER_02Uh that we are putting a little blog on the Home and Garden Information Center uh website about it. Uh and uh lady from Clemson's writing up a little article uh for the website. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Suggestion from the text line. First one to come in, by the way. Uh you should just uh change your name to just Brad at Clemson.
SPEAKER_02Just Brad at Clemson. Then I'll know I made it. If I can get like a unique uh Clemson email, then I'll know that I've finally I've reached the top.
SPEAKER_01There you go.
SPEAKER_02I don't think it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01So another thing that people uh talk about this time of year is fungus uh in the grass.
SPEAKER_02There's fungus among us.
SPEAKER_01I remember like one time uh in my front yard I saw this big giant, it looked like a crop circle, and I was like, do we have aliens come down? There was like these ashy circles. Yeah. What is that?
SPEAKER_02So it's probably uh brown patch or or or large patch. Um yeah, this when we start getting into, I know it's not really getting cool yet, but it's gonna start cooling off a little bit on average. When we start getting into those cooler temperatures, our we're finally getting some regular rain, the humidity, the moisture, everything's up a little bit, you will start to see fungus. Whether it's in the lawn, it could be on your on your shrubs. Um, but a lot of times we're looking at the lawn and we see those big uh those big round uh patches. And so a lot of fungus does make a circular pattern for some reason, or like a semicircular pattern. Um, that's above my pay grade as to why exactly, but it does. And so we have to start thinking about doing preventative fungicide applications. Fungicides work best preventatively. Once you already have the fungus, the fungicide can can kind of stop it, but it doesn't necessarily cure it. And so that grass has to recover on its own. Well, what happens when we get towards the end of a season and we get a really bad fungal problem is that grass doesn't have any time to recover. And then let's say you get into a winter where we get like snow and ice that damages it even further, and so that's why we need to be to be preventing the fungus as much as we can. So putting out a uh a fungicide application sometime around mid-September is a good idea. You could do a follow-up application like four to six weeks later.
SPEAKER_01Is there a certain kind of fungicide?
SPEAKER_02Uh there's all kinds of different fungicides, and we've got a great uh fact sheet on the Home and Garden Information Center website that kind of outlines.
SPEAKER_01I mean, do they all respond to the same fungicide?
SPEAKER_02Well, what the all they they will, in a way, some sometimes you have to mix it up a little bit, but the most important thing to remember about fungicides is you don't want to use the same one over and over because it'll build up resistance. Fungus can build up a resistance after only a couple of applications.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so that particular fungicide, you gotta cycle them. You gotta use different things. And we can get really complicated in this because in lawn school? We will get into this in lawn school, yes. Yes, we will get into it.
SPEAKER_03In lawn school? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, if there if there are, they won't mean anything. Oh, okay. Because we've already taken your money. We've already taken your money at that point.
SPEAKER_03My lifelong grade point average. Yeah. I have a question for you. So I was uh tasked with cleaning out the nursery. I'm waiting for other texts to come in. Um and I told you a little bit off air about you know the nursery where we have like all that's what my wife calls it. I have all these little different plants and shrubs and bushes, and it just you know it looks really like a little greenhouse nursery? No, not like that really. It's just anyway. So like a garden? I got you.
SPEAKER_01You have a garden?
SPEAKER_03What do you call it that? I don't I don't know what you call it.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03It's got all these different types of shrubs and flowers and whatever. Yeah. Okay. So and in the middle, the centerpiece is this palm tree thingy that's like maybe five feet. Yeah. So we have the two knockout rose bushes. Right. And uh and you said to cut those in sometime in February, right? Right, right. Okay, so I've been leaving them alone. Well, as I got into it, because we kind of neglected it because, you know, baby and stuff. Sure. There is a weed that has taken over this thing and it has similar-looking petals. Okay. And it's killed off the the thing. There's only three. This thing had it was huge. It was about this big. I'm holding my hands pretty far. And it had like all kinds of little different branches. All of those were like dead. Except for three left. So I had to cut it all, got rid of the weed. Sure. There's only three little, and it has flowers on it. There's only three little branches of this giant knockout. Is this rose bush gonna come back?
SPEAKER_02It very well may. Knockout roses are really, really tough. And so I would I would let it go and let it do its thing because it certainly could come back.
SPEAKER_03Okay, well, I did. I got rid of the dead, left everything else that looked alive and blooming, and I just I don't want to lose it. The other one is like out of control, and I'll have to cut it in February again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. That's that's perfect. Yeah, and and and that can happen, like, and it it can happen really, really quickly. I mean, it's happened to me plenty of times where you do get some like weeds or a vine or something and take over a plant, and before you know it, it has just you know completely shaded it out.
SPEAKER_01Those vines are so hard to pointy. Yeah, it was vineyard. And they're like you have to go under the bushes and like really get it by the root.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01And uh and it fights back.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's the tough part.
SPEAKER_01I did.
SPEAKER_03I put on the gloves and I was digging and trying to get to the roots of it and and you know, detangling it from the from the base of the thing. Basically stranded it. You did the right you did the right thing. All right, so we'll just let it be and just let it keep an eye on it and it starts growing again. That's not bad.
SPEAKER_02Put some fertilizer on it in the spring.
SPEAKER_03In the spring.
SPEAKER_02Rose fertilizer.
SPEAKER_01Um sometimes a plant just gets old, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01What how old is an old plant?
SPEAKER_02Uh it depends on the plant. I mean, uh old for a live oak tree may be, you know, hundreds of years. Okay. Uh but uh, you know, we have our our like our our flowering dogwoods that were so popular, you know, back 40, 50, 60 years ago, uh, that uh everybody likes to put in their front yard. You know, you get a 40-year-old flowering dogwood, that tree's probably close to the end of its lifespan. Oh, really? Yeah, and so I get this, it's this weird thing that we as people have with plants. When we plant something or we see a plant, we just expect it to kind of continue in perpetuity. But plants are like people, they get sick, and there's no necessarily rhyme or reason to it. And eventually they will they will just die, and it just might be because they got old.
SPEAKER_03It doesn't necessarily mean you know Liz, can you pull up the text line uh and uh pull up the picture? Some you have to refresh your thing. Pull up the picture, make it big so he can see it. Someone wants to know why these is it lantana? Am I saying that right? Lantana leaves curling up. Did I say that right? I'm not familiar with that.
SPEAKER_02Uh, we might be looking for a different picture. Here we go.
SPEAKER_03It's got like pink flowers on it. Not enough water.
SPEAKER_02No, this is actually a picture of a crepe myrtle that's got some uh uh got some uh scale and sooty mold going on on it. So we're still looking for the for the Lantana picture.
SPEAKER_03That would be Aaron at 84, sent it.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01What's that tree?
SPEAKER_02That was a crepe myrtle that uh has been cut and um is is struggling.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so answer the crepe myrtle question first.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so uh it looks like we got some pictures of a crepe myrtle here. It's got some some kind of black stuff on it, and it's got these little white dots all over it too. So the white dots are a scale insect that then create that black sooty mold. Um the city the black stuff is not necessarily harming the tree, it just kind of is uh makes it look bad. But that tree has also been cut pretty heavily, and so when we cut those crepe myrtles, uh it actually weakens them to a certain degree, which allows more of those scale insects to to come in and and kind of harm.
SPEAKER_01Look at all the leaves they're losing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Did you find Aaron at 84? What do they do with that tree?
SPEAKER_02What do they do with the crepe myrtle tree? That's that's gonna be the tough part, is uh you're probably gonna have to um to use some sort of systemic insecticide. We've got some uh some fact sheets on the Home and Garden Information Center website um and try to get rid of that scale insect. Uh, I would also stop cutting it. Um, but I will be honest, uh, a lot of times when our crepe myrtles are are cut really heavily for a long time, and it looks like that one may have been, eventually you may reach a point with that tree where it's just never gonna be what it what it should be. And so that's up to the homeowner to try to decide, hey, is it time to take it out, or you know, you want to keep letting it go. Uh I believe we do have the Lantana picture here with the leaves curling, and that is very interesting. Um it could be a water situation if it's gotten really, really dry, but we've seem to have had, you know, a fair amount of rain lately. Uh there are some insects that could cause looks like it's in a container. Oh, yeah, it does look like it's in a container, doesn't it? So it it may just need some water, and the individual have to let us know if uh you know what the what the watering schedule is like. Um but leaves. Right, right, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Move it to another spot if it's in a container.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I would try to move it to another spot. I'd give it a little drink of water and see what happens. But you know, that one's a little bit odd. I can't say I've ever seen a Lantana look exactly like that.
SPEAKER_03How to kill volunteer palms community is inundated, says another.
SPEAKER_02Oh man, the best thing you can do is dig them up. Trying to like you can get like our our our palmetto trees and stuff at times can can start to volunteer. The sago palms can volunteer. Best thing you can do is dig them up. Trying to like do a herbicide or just keep them cut down, it's not gonna work. We had one at my old house. We would literally cut it down every single year, and my wife would use the fronds as decoration uh in a you know, uh in a base or something, and it would just come back every year. So digging it up's best bet.
SPEAKER_01All right. Again, please let people know how to get in touch with you.
SPEAKER_02Uh bfowler at Clemson.edu. You can also reach out to Carmen. She's my my counterpart. She does more of the residential stuff now, whereas I'm doing a little more fruit and vegetable stuff. Uh, but you can reach her at cketron uh at Clemson.edu. And uh yeah, either one of us would be glad to help anywhere we can.
SPEAKER_01All right. Um, I was just reading about the curling leaves.
SPEAKER_03Uh Aaron says it gets plenty of water, by the way.
SPEAKER_01It said that if you don't have holes, drainage holes in the bottom of that pot, it could be getting too much water.
SPEAKER_02Could be getting too much water. That is a possibility.
SPEAKER_01So if it doesn't have uh drainage where the water can go out, it's over, it's like sitting in water.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that'll cause root disease, which uh root disease always it shows itself in the leaves or the branches. And so that is definitely a possibility.
SPEAKER_01And they also said look at the curled leaves and see if you see little tiny dots moving. It could be spider mites.
SPEAKER_02They could be spider mites. There's always a chance it could be some insect damage as well. So this is one of those situations where I probably need a couple more pictures, do a little more investigation, a little closer up, uh, and reach out to me. We we'll get it figured out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, if you got speckles under there or something like that. All right, Brad Fowler, thank you. Uh Clemson Commercial Horticulturist, thank you so much. And of course, conserva irrigation. We'll see you in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_02Thank y'all.