The Daily Grateful with Michael Crose

Michael confesses to creating a Florida lawn mystery in the 1960s: burying scrap lumber from building sites. Decades later, that decaying wood still sprouts mushroom fairy rings across Dunedin yards. Michael explains why those circles appear, why mushrooms are nature’s recycling crew rather than a problem to spray with fungicide, and how beneficial fungi help plants absorb water and phosphorus, wh...

Michael, your Garden Geek, is back with a rain-soaked October episode, recorded as a tropical depression churns through the Gulf of Mexico and heads for the Florida panhandle. Michael sends thoughts to listeners in its path, then breaks down what to do in the garden this month, depending on where you live. Up north, clean up spent annuals, plant spring-flowering bulbs before the ground freezes, an...

Michael Crose digs into Superthrive, the cult-favorite plant vitamin solution he's used and loved since the 1980s. He shares the story of meeting its inventor, the mysterious Dr. John A. Thompson, on his old radio show, and recalls handing out sample bottles to his horticulture students. From reviving a famous transplanted oak tree in Clearwater to rescuing cold-damaged palms after Florida fre...

https://youtu.be/XNVYhM6aVZg?si=RqHO5Im0VwJKQhxC In this exciting episode, I talk about Allyn Hane, who is known on YouTube as the Lawn  Care Nut. I have included a link to his YouTube channel and to a video he did about Bahia grass. First, let me say that I am a giant fan of Allyn Hane and his channel. He seems like a cool guy that I would enjoy going to a dive bar and day drinking with. Which, b...

Garden Geek Michael Crose returns for a gloriously unfiltered fall shrub tutorial that spirals into a scam-call showdown, a Beatles-vs-Beach-Boys debate, and his son Zack's one-track podocarpus obsession. Underneath the chaos is real advice: how to evaluate shrubs for stragglers, pests, and disease before you prune; why he ditches mulch entirely, insisting it locks nutrients away from roots; a...

Garden Geek host Michael Crose takes aim at the flood of "not-quite-fertilizer" products marketed to homeowners — humic acid amendments, kelp extracts, biochar, and other soil boosters that legally can't be labeled fertilizer because, well, they aren't. Michael shares a cautionary tale from his organic lawn care days in the '80s, when he sank serious money into a Texas compan...

In this episode of Ask the Garden Geek , Michael Crosedives into the wonderfully dramatic world of houseplants — and trust him,they're more temperamental than your ex. Michael shares decades of hard-wonwisdom, starting with the golden rule: light matters more than water, and it'sthe reason most houseplant deaths happen in the first place. Get ready for the legendary saga of the ficus benja...

In this episode of Ask the Garden Geek, Michael Crose walks you through everything your shrubs need as summer turns to fall. He covers how to properly evaluate your shrubbery — checking for insect damage, disease, dieback, and plants that have outgrown their space — before you ever pick up the pruning shears. Michael shares his approach to pruning (an art form, in his opinion), why he skips mulch...

Beyond the big three, Michael dives into crucial secondary micronutrients like calcium for cell walls, magnesium, sulfur, and iron. Drawing from personal anecdotes—from growing high-calcium tomatoes for his daughter to recovering his own health with vital minerals—he highlights how trace elements make all the difference for plant vitality. Plus, get his honest take on classic products like Super T...

Michael relaunches Ask the Garden Geek with a deep dive into surviving Florida's brutal summer heat. He explains how to spot true heat stress versus a dying lawn, and breaks down how Bahia, St. Augustine, Zoysia, and other grasses each handle it differently. Along the way, Michael shares decades of hands-on stories — from a golf-course nematode mishap to lessons on chinch bugs and grass variet...

After a meaningful run, this is the final episode of The Daily Grateful. Host Michael Crose shares an honest, heartfelt sign-off — reflecting on why the show ran its course, expressing gratitude to the listeners who tuned in and reached out, and looking ahead to what's next: a brand-new project exploring the history of rock and roll, launching soon as both a podcast and YouTube channel. This n...

Being grateful doesn't mean pretending everything's fine. You don't have to force the bright side. Sometimes you're pissed off, disgusted, even depressed — and that's okay. That's worth sitting with. It can feel dishonest to say "I'm so grateful" when you're exhausted, grieving, or seething. A pastor I knew — one of the most optimistic guys around — once g...

Michael Crose is back from an unforgettable weekend in Ormond Beach, Florida, and he's bringing all the good vibes home to The Daily Grateful. Known as the birthplace of speed, Ormond Beach captured Michael's heart with its slower pace, friendly locals, and stunning natural beauty along the Halifax River. In this episode, Michael shares highlights from his trip with Diane and her family, i...

It's been a rough couple of weeks — a night without power, unexpected bills, the loss of a beloved cat, and a needy remaining feline who isn't making it any easier. In this short but heartfelt episode, your host opens up about the toll of everyday stress and the simple cure he's leaning on: getting away, even just for a weekend. He's hitting the road with his ex-wife Diane on a sce...

Today's episode is a rambling, heartfelt one. While scanning old photos before a weekend trip across the state, our host stumbles on a free Windows tool called "Everything" that instantly digs up every file — including photos — buried deep in your computer. Searching by file type (.jpg, .jpeg) surfaces treasures he'd forgotten existed, including a photo of a birthday cake he bake...

Today on The Daily Grateful, Michael Crose gets real about detours — and why he refuses to call them that. From his son's spontaneous cross-country trip to Yellowstone, to Michael's own November road trip plans to visit kids and grandkids, this episode is about embracing the unplanned turns life throws at us. Then things get chaotic: a sudden power outage, a dead electrical panel, a $4,500...

What if gratitude wasn't about the big milestones, but the small, unchosen moments that quietly shaped you? In this episode, Michael invites you to look back on your whole life so far, not just the highlight reel, and find gratitude in the experiences you never asked for. He shares a deeply personal story from 2013, when an 18-pound tumor changed his path and taught him who he could count on,...

Some mornings, gratitude doesn't come easy — and today, Michael is being honest about that. In this episode of The Daily Grateful, Michael opens up about a stretch of life that's felt genuinely hard, and the surprising idea he keeps circling back to: reinvention. He revisits the true story of how, on his very first day at Dunedin Junior High School, he introduced himself with a brand-new n...

What do a Jane Fonda YouTube video, a 400-pound radio legend, and a Wednesday news club have in common? They all led Michael Crose to the same conclusion: community isn't optional — it's essential to a long, meaningful life. In this episode of The Daily Grateful, Michael shares a personal and sometimes controversial reflection sparked by an unexpected celebrity encounter, then pivots into...

In this heartfelt tribute to the late radio legend Gary Burbank and his iconic character Earl Pitts American, Michael opens The Daily Grateful with a twist on the classic bit — before diving into the real lesson of the day. This episode centers on a mantra passed down from an elderly goat rancher named Bill Ogle, whom Michael knew as a boy in Hernando, Florida. Watching Mr. Ogle calmly deliver a s...

Michael opens the week reflecting on Senator Lindsey Graham's sudden death and what it means to check in with your body before it's too late. He shares the raw story of his own 2013 health crisis — noticing blood in his urine, ignoring early warning signs, and ending up in emergency surgery to remove a kidney and an 18-pound tumor. From that near-miss, Michael unpacks the gift of good heal...

Michael returns after time away with an episode that's raw, honest, and deeply personal. After a stretch of life feeling "wonky" — and a devastating day that followed — Michael sits down to process the sudden loss of his 24-year-old cat, Cornelius, a beloved companion who spent every evening curled in his lap. In this episode, Michael reflects on what it means to grieve well: honorin...

What a difference a day can make. In this heartfelt and often humorous episode of The Daily Grateful with Michael Crose , Michael reflects on the simple but powerful gift of feeling better after a difficult weekend of aches, exhaustion, and uncertainty. While waiting on medical test results and battling a few frustrating technical glitches, he discovers something worth celebrating: improvement. So...

What if reinvention isn't something reserved for twenty-somethings chasing dreams? What if it's actually a superpower that gets stronger with age? In today's episode of The Daily Grateful with Michael Crose , Michael shares a surprisingly frustrating adventure involving a Florida certification renewal, an online portal that seemed determined to defeat him, and an unexpected assist from...

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