Garden Success — Galls, Nests, and the Water You’re Not Wasting

This week on Garden Success, host Stephen Brueggerhoff walks through his own late-summer irrigation routine — twice-weekly watering, 15–20 minutes per station, guided by the Be Water Smart app — as a model for conserving water during the Brazos Valley's dry, triple-digit stretch, and shares a fellow gardener's report of possums and squirrels doing the fig-harvesting for her. Caller John opens a fascinating detour into insect galls on his live oaks — the tiny, non-stinging gall wasps behind those strange growths, why they're a curiosity rather than a health threat, and even their surprising historical use as ink (including, Stephen notes, in the treaties signed at Washington-on-the-Brazos). John also asks about weeping lesions on his water oaks, which Stephen flags as worth a closer look — with pictures headed to the upcoming Ask the Plant Doctor segment. From the inbox: a new Texas transplant named Jenkwan finds a bird nest in his garden hose holder and learns about the state and federal laws protecting non-game bird nests and eggs; Aubrey asks about a potted prickly pear cactus developing corky growth and a mature crape myrtle that won't bloom, prompting a rundown of light, pruning timing, and fertilization factors behind stubborn crape myrtles; and two different Johns write in about tree-watering habits — one wondering if watering the base of an oak helps the tree (it doesn't — absorption roots extend well past the drip line) and a site-visit with clients Vickie and her husband whose Shumard oak was showing leaf-margin burn traced back to overwatering. Plus a full slate of upcoming events: a native seed-saving workshop at Lick Creek Park tonight, fall vegetable gardening and the Brazos County 4-H Club Fair on August 15th, and the family-friendly Wings in the Garden pollinator event on September 26th.