Over 1.4 million Houstonians garden for a hobby or pastime, and GardenLine is where they listen for advice and information on gardening and landscaping. Every Saturday and Sunday morning from 6 to 10, GardenLine answers listeners' questions on everything from aphids to zoysias, offering help to listeners both with and without "green thumbs."
Skip received his master’s degree in Horticulture from Texas A&M University, “the source of all earthly knowledge.” He has worked with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service for 34 years in Montgomery, Travis, Harris, and Brazos County where he currently serves as a County Extension Agent in Horticulture.
Skip has gardened in the brush country of south Texas, the rocky hills of the Missouri Ozarks, the acid sands of the East Texas piney woods, the semi-arid climate and high pH soils of central Texas, and the humid, hot climate and black clays of southeast Texas.
He is an enthusiastic student and teacher of natural gardening techniques. He helped develop Extension's "Don't Bag It" yard waste recycling programs, the "Composting for Kids" educational web page, and the Grow Green environmental education program which educates Austin area residents on landscaping practices to protect water quality.
Skip is a popular speaker for garden clubs, Master Gardener programs, and other gardening events across Texas. He has written numerous gardening articles for magazines and newspapers, including his weekly gardening column for The Eagle newspaper in Bryan/College Station. His “Gardening with Skip” YouTube channel features over 120 brief gardening videos.
Skip has served as the National Gardening Association’s regional horticulturist for the southeastern U.S. and is a contributing editor to Texas Gardener magazine. He has hosted the Gardening Success radio show in College Station for over 8 years. His book, Texas Month-by-Month Gardening provides guidance on planting and caring for your garden and landscape every month of the year.
He received the County Extension Agent Award from the Texas Nursery & Landscape Association in 2023 and was recently selected as a Regents Service Fellow by the Board of Regents for the Texas A&M University System.
Skip’s happy places are sitting in his garden observing and musing about the interactions of plants, insects, and the soil, and helping gardeners have more bountiful gardens and beautiful landscapes. Okra is the latest in a long list of his horticultural obsessions.