Garden Success — Crape Myrtle Bark Scale, Picking the Right Shade Tree, and Reviving Rosemary

This week on Garden Success, host Stephen Brueggerhoff works through a stack of listener emails and photos, starting with Walter’s rental-property crape myrtles — planted too close to the foundation and showing a light infestation of crape myrtle bark scale. Stephen walks through why mature size matters before planting any tree (oaks need 40 feet of clearance; crape myrtles vary wildly by variety, from ground-cover types to 75-footers), and the right-time-of-year strategy for treating bark scale: pressure-washing light infestations now, saving systemic treatment for the spring crawler stage. Listener Georgia, new to the show after Skip Richter retired, asks for replacement tree recommendations after two established oaks (a chinkapin and a Shumard) died at her South College Station home — Stephen runs through cedar elm, Mexican sycamore, and Mexican white oak as alkaline-soil-tolerant alternatives, plus thornless blackberry variety picks (Prime-Ark Freedom and Natchez) for her backyard fruit patch. A separate caller, Ameena, gets a detailed pruning lesson for leggy rosemary bushes — identifying dead wood, why cutting back into old woody growth won’t regenerate, and the “semi-woody tissue” sweet spot for selective pruning (with the same rule applying to lavender), plus a reminder to stop pruning both about six weeks before first frost. Plus: a full slate of upcoming events, including a free Trees and Tree Planting program at the Mounce library (October 17th), the Texas New Fruit Growers Conference in Rosenberg (October 15–16), the Trees for Brazos County sapling giveaway on November 7th (Texas Arbor Day), and College Station’s Trunk or Treat event at Wolf Pen Creek Park later in October.