Have nasty rats and mice invaded your home? Do squirrels scamper through your attic? Have you called the exterminator over and over again only to have the problem return? Well, finally there's an answer -- a product guaranteed to rid your home of rodents forever.

That's right. Fresh Cat! The only all-natural rodent repellent made from 100% powdered housecats! One whiff of this and rats will scat and mice will think twice.

How does Fresh Cat work? Simple! Rodents just can't stand the smell of their arch-enemy, the common housecat. So we've created a cat-based product that smells just like the real thing because it is the real thing. Housecats, pure and natural. No additives, no preservatives, no worries.

How is Fresh Cat made? Let's just say we start with USDA Prime Grade A free-range housecats. We get them from shelters, people with too many cats, you know -- friendly folks just like you. The cats go through a 4-stage process that begins, appropriately enough, with a CAT scan. We then remove the brain and spinal cord to prevent any danger of mad cat disease. After several hours in a state-of-the-art feline dehydrator called the Cat-a-comb, the cats go into a special grinder called "Catsup", which reduces them to a fragrant powder that fills plastic mesh bags. Fresh Cat is ready to use!

Just two 4-ounce bags of Fresh Cat repels rodents from an average room for up to 30 days. And while original Fresh Cat is a blend of several breeds, Premium Fresh Cat is available in Siamese, Persian, Burmese, and Russian Blue (new!).

Don't suffer rodent infestations any longer. Order Fresh Cat today! When it comes to chasing away rats and mice, it's the cat's meow!

Fall color is here, so it's time to champion one of the Grump's favorite native trees for fall color -- sassafras. Its peachy-orange leaves help make autumn the favorite season of all discerning gardeners.

Native to the eastern U.S., sassafras (Sassafras albidum) stands out for several different qualities. First, it expresses (and you'll want to remember this term to impress your friends that you really are into book learning) foliar trimorphism. This means that its leaves have three different shapes. Some are oval; some have two lobes and look like either right-handed or left-handed mittens; and some have three lobes. All three appear on the same tree, as you can tell from the photo above. 

Second, all parts of the tree are aromatic -- just tear a leaf and sniff it. Sassafras tea is a traditional country drink made from boiling the bark of sassafras roots. Grumpy thinks it tastes like root beer, which logically, it should. I remember as a kid making it with my Dad, feeling a little guilty about digging up those roots and skinning them. I hope the tree had plenty more.

What I didn't know at the time was that sassafras tea made this way contains a potentially dangerous, naturally occurring compound called safrole. A couple of cups during your lifetime won't hurt you, but regular consumption has been linked to liver cancer and something even worse -- testicular shrinkage. The Grump assures you he drank only one cup.

Fortunately, you can buy sassafras concentrates like Pappy's that are safrole-free.You can order Pappy's from their website, but I've also seen it in plenty of grocery stores. It tastes  like the real thing, only without the shrinkage. George Constanza would be relieved. 

A third cool thing about sassafras is that young trees have bright green bark. This makes them easy to spot in winter woods. Successfully transplanting one from the wild isn't easy, because the roots are sparse and stringy. The smaller the tree is, the more luck you'll have. I wouldn't dig a tree any taller than 4 feet. Some garden centers carry sassafras grown in containers. You can also order it from Mail Order Natives.

Most sassafras trees are understory plants in the woods, quickly growing 20-25 feet tall, although they can eventually grow 40 feet or so. Here's a photo of a nice one growing next to our headquarters building at Southern Living. 

Sassafras likes full or partial sun, although you'll get better fall color in full sun. Give it moist, acid, well-drained soil that contains a good bit of organic matter.

Here's an interesting tidbit for those who constantly battle pests. Japanese beetles find sassafras leaves irresistible, so if you have lots of Japanese beetles where you live, good luck.

On the other hand, deer don't seem to like sassafras foliage. Pick your pest.  

A final warning to manly guys out there. Don't drink any more sassafras tea made the traditional way. No one will believe shrinkage happened because the pool water was cold.

Totally Unrelated Question

Has anyone seen my son floating in a balloon over Denver, Colorado? I don't know why he crawled in there. FYI, be sure to watch our new reality show: Five Geeks in a Balloon.

It'll star Grumpy, his wife, his son, his cat, and a different guest star every week. Our first guest will be Matt LeBlanc, formerly Joey on Friends. Yeah, like he has anything better to do. 

Wouldn't you think that a new book called Black Plants would restrict itself to black plants? You would and I would, but not the folks who published it, Timber Press. That's one of the reasons the Grump is black-listing this effort.

Maybe I'm just picky, but I don't think red flowers and yellow flowers and blue flowers qualify as black, even if Timber Press thinks they do. So why would they publish a book about black plants in which a lot of the plants aren't black?

I haven't any proof, but I would guess Timber Press thought the concept of black plants was so intriguing that they were determined to beat everybody else to the punch. So they immediately commissioned such a book, instructing its author to write about 75 plants with either black flowers or black leaves. There was just one little problem. They couldn't get their hands on 75 quality photos of black plants.

Hmmm. What to  do? I know! Let's put in photos of non-black plants and tell people they're black! People are dumb! They'll believe anything.

And so we get photos celebrating the blackness of plants such as these:

Lily-of-the-Nile (Agapanthus inapertus). Where's the black?

Snakesbeard iris (Hemodactylus tuberosus). Where's the black? Little dark-purple spots on yellow flowers don't count.

'Chocolate Pot' painted tongue (Salpiglossis 'Chocolate Pot'). Where's the black? Just because some marketing guy names a plant "chocolate" doesn't make it black.

Forgetting for a moment the misleading title, the second bone I have to pick with this book is lack of useful information for people living in warm climates. Discussion of hardiness is restricted to cold-hardiness; nowhere will you learn how much heat the plant will take. Many of the plants are finicky plants meant for the collector, not the average Joe. Moreover, the vast majority of the photos are headshots of whatever plant is claimed to be black, so you rarely see a plant in garden context, showing how it may be effectively combined with other non-"black" plants. I don't blame first-time author Paul Bonine for this. I'm sure he brings a lot more horticultural knowledge to the game than Black Plants (160 pages, $14.95)exhibits. He simply has to produce what the publisher wants.  

What I can't understand is why Timber Press, arguably this country's most productive, respected, and successful garden book publisher, chose to produce this. Was it the economy? Did they desperately need a book they could sell for less than $15, as opposed to their hallmark -- luxurious, beautifully photographed, expertly written coffee table books that that sell for $40 or more?

I don't know, but in the future, I hope they will remember the following points.

1. Dark blue isn't black.

2. Dark red isn't black.

3. Dark green isn't black.

4. "Chocolate" isn't black.

5. Purple isn't black.

6. Bronze and burgundy aren't black.

As Mick Jagger might have sung if he reviewed this book, "I see a red bloom and I want it painted black."

Clay soil curses most gardeners in the South. It drains poorly, dries hard as a rock, and restricts the movement of air, water, and plant roots. It's a pain in the butt to garden in. So naturally, we look for things we can add to it to loosen it up and save our aching backsides.

A lot of people think you can loosen up clay by mixing in lots of sand. It's sounds logical. After all, among all the constituents of soil, clay particles are smallest and compact the most, while sand particles are biggest and compact the least. Adding lots of sand will therefore break up that clay, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, rototiller-breath! Sand mixed with our Southern clays forms a sort of nasty concrete. When it dries, just try digging in it. You can jump from a tree onto the shovel blade, but the blade won't move and you'll lose your dentures.

Instead of adding sand, add organic matter -- lots of it. Any kind will do -- sphagnum peat moss, garden compost, composted cow manure, grass clippings, chopped up leaves, chopped pine bark, potting soil, worm castings, whatever. Organic matter coats the clay particles, opening up pores in the soil through which air, water, and roots can freely move. It also makes the soil comfy for earthworms and other organisms that loosen the soil even more. 

So forget sand. Add organic matter to your soil every year, in gross quantities if you can. Organic matter can turn even the worst clay soil into good soil within a couple of years.

The Grump hath spoken!  

                                                                                                                            Photo by Jared.

Millions of people love dogs. The Grump does not. The Grump hates dogs and it's all your fault.

Well, it's not your fault if you don't own a dog. But if you do, you and it live in my cross-hairs. Because I won't have to wait long to be annoyed or disgusted.

Here are things dogs and their enabling owners do that tick me off.

1. Dogs lick. I don't care if they do it to be nice, dog slobber is gooey and gross and dog breath is invariably a hot breeze from hell.

2. Dogs eat anything and I mean ANYTHING. Even something that recently emerged from another dog. Think about that the next time you get licked.

3. Dogs bite. I'll never forget the time I was 4 years old and being pulled on a sled by my father when a mean dog from a house up the street saw me as fresh meat, burst through a storm door, ran out into the street, and bit me twice on the leg. I vowed never to go sledding again without a can of bear spray and a Tazer.

4. Dogs bark loudly, incessantly, and at nothing. I blame their thoughtless, cruel, oafish owners for this. Why wouldn't a big black Lab bark all day when he's penned up in a yard the size of a toaster for the weekend, while its owners are off skiing in Vail? Too many dog owners only care about the dog when they're around and forget about it when they're not. Total jerks, says the Grump.

5. Dog owners walk the dog for one reason only and it ain't exercise. They walk the dog so it will poop in someone else's yard. Oh, I'm wrong? Then why do they walk in the dark so that none of the neighbors can see them? Why do they carry 30-foot leashes so the dog can explore your yard for just the right spot? While I commend owners who clean up after their dog, the truth is, I'd rather you let your dog poop in your own yard. If this seems unreasonable, then you won't mind if my family comes over to use your toilet. FYI, we prefer two-ply.

Now you may ask, what does this doggy diatribe have to do with gardening? Well, dog offense affects my enjoyment of the garden. If I can't spend time in my garden without being assaulted by incessant, staccato barking from next door (don't dogs EVER get hoarse?), dog owners letting their pets pee on my petunias, or stepping in a load left by some cretinous canine, then I say, "Enough! Take your act to Vietnam, where everyone LOVES dogs."

Take Toto too.   

OK, how many times have you heard people say something like this? "Be sure to keep poinsettias away from children and pets, because they might eat the leaves and get poisoned."

Poinsettia or Poison? Hold Me, I'm Scared!

Poinsettias are NOT poisonous. The milky sap might not look appetizing (which is why very few sentient people would actually eat the leaves), but it won't kill you. In fact, according to Poinsettias: Myth & Legend by Christine Anderson & Terry Tischer, you could eat 500 leaves and the worst you would suffer is a tummy ache. That's nothing compared to the suffering of the poor plant that donated the leaves.

Look, I'm not suggesting adding poinsettia leaves to your mesclun salad, but there are far more toxic plants around your house and garden (dieffenbachia, angel's trumpet, Chinaberry, castor bean, mountain laurel, rhododendron, hydrangea, Japanese yew, oleander) and you don't give those a second thought.

No one has ever died from eating a poinsettia. The KGB has never bumped off an enemy agent by giving him a poinsettia. So stop spreading this stupid myth! And while you're at it, stop repeating that Tiger Woods was raised by tigers in the woods! (He was raised by a very nice panda.)

Is it a weed or a wildflower? A blessing or a curse? Everyone has an opinion (although only the Grump's is correct), but if you're looking for the showiest blooms of autumn -- those which routinely cause multi-car pileups in front of your house due to gawking motorists -- here they are.

The name? Helianthus angustifolius aka swamp sunflower or narrowleaf sunflower. Native to the eastern United States, this perennial puts on an autumn show like no other. One reason is that it produces masses of bright yellow blossoms up to 3 inches wide. Another is that in good soil, it can easily grow 8 to 12 feet tall.

Swamp sunflower is blooming right now in the South. The Grump is not alone in his judgment of its impact. Nancy Goodwin, creator of fabled Montrose Gardens in Hillsborough, North Carolina, places it prominently in her border. "When it blooms," she notes, "it's like turning on the lights." Here's a photo from her tropical border taken in late September just as the sunflowers are opening up.

So why do some people hate swamp sunflower? Because it won't stay put. It spreads aggressively by underground rhizomes and will quickly take over a garden if you let it. Plant one plant and next year you'll have 10. The year after that, you'll have 100.

The image below, taken in the Grump's garden, proves the point. I was given a single division some years ago and left it to its own devices. This is what it looks like today on the side of my house.

Beautiful? Yes. Problem? Could be, unless you belong to the Swamp Sunflower Society of America and dream of the day all ugly humans are supplanted by billions of swamp sunflowers.

Fortunately, there are easy ways to control the spread of this plant. For instance:

1. Swamp sunflower plants are easy to pull up and throw away. Just firmly grasp the stem next to the ground and yank. Nothing to it.

2. The wetter the soil is, the faster swamp sunflower spreads. Planting in regular or drier soil slows it down.

Another problem people have is that this plant grows so tall that strong winds and rain can break the stems. But the wise Grump knows how to prevent this. Wait until your swamp sunflowers grow to 4 feet tall and then cut them down to 2 feet. This will probably limit their ultimate height to 6-7 feet, but if that's too tall, cut them back again. Cut them back no later than July, though, so they have time to form lots of flower buds.

Where can you get swamp sunflower? Well, anyone who has it will gladly share some, I promise you. Niche Gardens is a good mail-order source. They offer 'Mellow Yellow' (NOT what you're thinking), featuring soft yellow blooms; and 'Gold Lace,' which grows shorter and spreads less rampantly than the species. Sunlight Gardens is another good source.

What Swamp Sunflower Likes

Light: Full sun

Soil: Moist; lots of organic matter; takes poor drainage

Pests: Powdery mildew

Growth Rate: Fast

Bloom Time: September, October

Where It Grows: Throughout the South, Zones 6 to 10

Grumpians, it has come to my attention that many weekend gardeners are wasting their precious time and money following stupid advice that has no basis in science. Therefore, every Friday from now until I feel like stopping, I'm going to debunk some popular myth for the benefit of you, my loyal readers.

Question -- My lawn service says I need to apply a high-phosphorus fertilizer this fall to encourage a vigorous root system. Is this true?

Answer -- Only if you're employed by a lawn service and make a living getting as many people as possible to do things that aren't necessary.

Every hort and agronomy student remembers learning that the three most important plant nutrients are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). This is the order in which percentages of each are listed on the fertilizer bag. For example, 16-4-8 means the fertilizer contains 16% nitrogen, 4% phosphorus, and 8% potassium.

Nitrogen and potassium are water-soluble and readily leach from the soil following rain or irrigation. Thus, they must be replenished periodically for proper growth of lawn grasses and other plants. Phosphorus, on the other hand, stays put. It binds with other minerals in the soil. The phosphorus you put down last year is almost certainly there this year.

The only way to really know whether your soil soil needs additional phosphorus is to have your soil tested in a lab. Ask your local Cooperative Extension service for a soil test kit (it won't be free, but it's not expensive). The vast majority of soils in this country have all the phosphorus they need. Excessive levels of phosphorus can make other important nutrients, such as iron and zinc, unavailable to plants.

Most of the phosphorus sold in this country is mined in Florida. Not coincidentally, most fertilizers formulated for Florida gardens contain little or no phosphorus.  

High-phosphorus levels in "bloom-booster" fertilizers are a waste too. Regular garden soil doesn't need it and you won't get any more flowers. Oh, it may make some sense to use a  high-P "bloom-booster" fertilizer on plants grown in sterile potting soil once, but after that they have all the phosphorus they need.

What have we learned here? That most likely, your lawn and garden already has all the phosphorus it needs. The best thing you can do for your plants is work lots of organic matter into the soil. And use a composting mower if you have one.