Home & Garden Radio with Michael Crose

By Angela Brightwell Okay, here it is. Everything you need to know about making a rose garden. You asked for it! If you don’t want to read this rather long statement about rose gardening, hit the delete button now… First: location, location, location!!! Most gardening failures in general are because the gardener has not selected the proper location for the amount of sun or shade that plants like. Roses require 8 to 10 hours of unbroken sunlight. Period. No exceptions. I used our north-facing front yard for my garden, as there are no trees to block sun from morning ‘til evening each day. DO NOT plant a rose where your house or any other house will provide shade…..no trees either. Next decide how big you want it to be. I have about 30 bushes in my rose garden proper, and then another 15 or 20 planted elsewhere, but the real show happens when they are grouped together in a formal arrangement. You can make a square garden like the Biltmore House rose garden or a round one like ...

L. E. Trenholm There is a renewed interest today in organic lawn care and a trend among many homeowners to consider long-term environmental concerns in their lawn maintenance programs. The term "organic" can cover many different aspects of lawn care, including fertility and pest management. There is also a certain amount of confusion and misunderstanding over the concept of organic lawn care and what it entails, and as to whether products are beneficial or fall into the "snake oil" category. What is Organic? By definition, an organic compound must contain carbon. Other than that, organics may be naturally occurring or synthetic compounds, and they may be fertilizers, pest control products, or biostimulants. More generally speaking, an organic care program would be expected to include integrated pest management (IPM) practices and recycling, and would emphasize a more naturalized and less manicured environment. Organic Fertilizers Organic fertilizers fall into two ma...

By Michael Crose This is a question that constantly comes up on my radio show. The Home & Garden Show With Michael Crose on the Busniss Talk Radio Network. It all started about ten years ago when someone called my show and asked about the use of diatomaceous earth (or D.E.) as a natural pesticide. I had heard of D.E. as something we used in our swimming pool filter, but I had no idea what it was made of or what it's uses were. This was soon to change. It did not take long for people from all over the world were sending me information about this wonderful mineral. Diatomaceous Earth in it's natural state is s soft rock like material consisting of the fossilized remains of little dead microscopic singlecelled plants of fresh and salt water called diatoms. They look like snowflakes in stone. Billions and billions of these delicate, lacy shells form whole mountains of this lightweight, white to golden colored mineral we now call Diatomaceous Earth. The D.E. that is in use today...