St. Louis gardening, one question at a time.
Garden Hotline treats gardening as a Saturday morning conversation with neighbors. Michelle Reeser-West fields plant questions, brings in local guests, and keeps the advice tied to frost dates, drought stress, pruning windows, native plants, compost, vegetables, and real St. Louis conditions.
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Garden Hotline is a local gardening show shaped by St. Louis weather, caller questions, and the practical rhythm of Saturday morning yard work. Michelle Reeser-West brings the conversation back again and again to timing. That might mean the tax-day-to-Labor-Day window for pruning boxwoods and other evergreens, the average last frost date around April 15, or the need to slow down when warm spring weather makes every gardener feel behind. The show is patient. It makes room for real uncertainty, especially when late freezes, heavy storms, hot spells, and drought stress all arrive in the same season. A dying arborvitae is not treated as a mystery to dramatize; it becomes a way to talk about mature trees, hot humid nights, regional limits, and drought damage across town. Callers and texters give the show its working shape. One person asks about impatiens returning from seed, another asks about ground covers, and another is trying to understand why established evergreens are failing. The answers stay close to homeowner choices. Compost can come from a local supplier, a worm-casting source, or a pile in the corner of the garden. Pruning can wait until the plant and the calendar are ready. Plant shopping can be exciting, but the show keeps reminding people that a warm week is not the same thing as a settled season. Guests broaden the range without turning the program into a lecture. Jean Ponzi appears around native landscaping, compost, pollinators, stormwater, and community resources. Nick Speed from Ujima brings vegetable gardening into the call-in mix. Other episodes point toward native plant groups, local nurseries, garden clubs, author visits, and remote broadcasts where people can talk plants while looking at plants. The tone is neighborly and specific. It is comfortable with Latin plant names, but it never leaves beginners outside the conversation. Garden Hotline works because it treats gardening as an ongoing local experiment, full of weather, mistakes, small victories, and better questions next week.
Made for: Garden Hotline suits home gardeners in and around St. Louis, especially people managing beds, shrubs, trees, lawns, vegetables, compost, and native plantings through unpredictable seasons. It is approachable enough for beginners and detailed enough for longtime gardeners who still want local context.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its combination of horticultural expertise, call-in immediacy, and regional timing. Advice is not abstract; it is tied to the week’s weather, local nurseries, community resources, and the kinds of plant problems actually showing up around town.
The KMOX Garden Hotline with Michelle Reasor-West features answers and responses to questions from beginner to life-long gardener.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Garden Hotline translates unruly yards and St. Louis weather into practical decisions grounded in plant behavior, soil conditions and careful follow-up questions.
Garden Hotline turns the problems visible from a kitchen window into useful, local conversation. Michelle Reeser-West moves between callers and guests with an easy command of specifics, asking enough follow-up questions to distinguish a struggling plant from a poorly suited one.
That dead arborvitae may have a St. Louis weather problem; Michelle Reasor-West can help you investigate.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Storm cleanup, failing evergreens, and native-plant resources keep this hour practical.
Garden Hotline leans into April weather concerns, moving from overnight storms to the May 16 cleanup tied to last year's St. Louis tornado anniversary, then into calls about stressed evergreens.
Spring damage and pruning advice come through in a practical, loosely stitched garden call-in.
Garden Hotline spends its spring hour sorting through what to cut back, what to leave alone, and how freeze and frost warnings have already shown up in the plants people notice first.
Practical garden call-in advice with a neighborly radio rhythm and a clear focus on real plant problems.
Garden Hotline settles into what it does best: practical call-in guidance for vegetables and other garden questions, with Michelle Reeser-West hosting and Nick Speed joining in studio.
A garden hour shaped by bloom watch and useful compost advice.
Garden Hotline keeps its footing in St. Louis as Michelle Reeser-West tracks hellebores, daffodils, star magnolias, saucer magnolias, and red maples, with freeze risk still shadowing the pink blooms.
A practical middle-February lawn segment on soil tests, shade, pine needles, and deer pressure.
Middle February gives Garden Hotline a familiar seasonal tension: the yard looks rough as snow recedes, but the best next move is still patience.
Practical food gardening for real spaces.
Cut flowers, real fields, honest growing.
It is halfway through April on Garden Hotline.
This episode provides gardening advice for the spring season, focusing on safe pruning times for boxwoods and evergreens after the average last frost date around tax day.
This episode of the Garden Hotline discusses the rapid changes in gardening conditions in April, with above-average temperatures prompting early plant activity and considerations for planting season and mosquito concerns.
Michelle Reeser-West opens Garden Hotline on a Saturday morning just after eight, right in the middle of spring weather whiplash.
This episode of the Garden Hotline discusses the challenges of spring weather fluctuations, freeze damage to plants, and practical gardening tasks for the season.
Michelle Reeser-West hosts the Garden Hotline with Nick Speed from Ujima in studio.
Michelle Reeser-West opens on a warm Saturday morning after the rain moves out.
This episode of the Garden Hotline radio show discusses recent weather, gardening activities, upcoming events, and features a guest interview with author Margaret Cartaya.
This episode of the Garden Hotline focuses on seasonal gardening activities, seed starting, and features upcoming guests including Joey Santori from 'Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't' for a discussion on native landscaping.
Garden Hotline opens with a grass seed and fertilizer business guest looking toward the promise of the middle of February.
This episode features an interview with Flo Smith, a horticulturist at the Kemper Center for Home Gardening, discussing fall garden triage and the center's resources for home gardeners.
This episode of the Garden Hotline features horticulture experts Glenn Kramer and Jeannie Metzger discussing their professional backgrounds in gardening, landscape maintenance, and turfgrass education.
This episode features gardening expert Michelle Reasor-West sharing plant-related insights, including a fun anecdote about petunias at the Indy 500, and inviting listeners to call in with their gardening questions.