December 13, 2025 • 9 mins
Ron Wilson shares his expertise on winterizing outdoor spaces. He discusses the importance of securing evergreen branches from heavy snowfall, recommending the use of pantyhose to tie them together. Ron also talks about the dangers of ice dams, which can occur when gutters are clogged with leaves and debris. He advises listeners to check their gutters and downspouts before winter and to consider installing gutter guards. Additionally, Ron shares his personal experience with snow-covered bushes and the best methods for removing snow without damaging the plants.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, it's time our friend Ron Wilson stops in
and helps us out. Well, we're not going to do
any gardening today, Ron, Is that alright with you? Is
it okay? We don't do any gardening?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Sure, okay, So it looks pretty winter.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Indoor indoor gardening.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Indoor garden. It's too early for that.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh no, no, oh no, you brought all those house
plants in. Now you got to take care of those.
Missus Wilson's into that big time. Now is driving me crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Plants are everywhere for your advice.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Not as much. No, I'll throw it out there now
and then.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
But that isn't doing good.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, here is this supposed to be here? But yeah,
indoor gardening, I mean, you know, sure, holiday plants all yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So somebody asked me this question, and this is a
good question too.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm sure you had an answer. Well, you've been doing
this for a long time.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I kind of got an answer for it. Sure, I
understand what the problem is. Led. Christmas lights outside are
very energy efficient. They don't get hot like the incandescent
Christmas bulbs.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Correct, And I learned that from my friend Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And when it snows, it covers up all my ball.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It doesn't melt the ground, it.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Doesn't melt the snow. And then I got all this
snow on my bushes and over my bulbs. Should I
sweep that off? Ooh, there's a little twist in that.
People used to ask you that question all the time.
Maybe the Christmas lights weren't an issue, but snow on
bushes that's kind of natural, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah? On evergreens sometimes you know, it can start to
weight them down if it looks like it's gonna pull
them apart, like some arbor vity or multi stemmed, multi
leadered in the middle, and it can actually pull them apart.
And a lot of times if I stay apart more
than a couple of weeks, they don't come back together.
So in areas where you think you're gonna have some
heavy snowfall, what we recommend is take a pair. Believe
(02:01):
it or not. Pantyhose is one of the best tie
up materials that you can use and go up about
a little bit more than halfway and tie all three
of those leaders together. Okay, just secure. It'll pull them
up tight and they can hang on to each other
and they won't split off. But I have like a
hemlock and a few other evergreens in my patio area.
(02:21):
Then if it starts to weight them down, it looks
like it's going to break a branch. I'll take a broom,
all right, like a straw room or whatever, and I
will brush upward, not down, but I'll brush upward and
kind of vibrate the broom and shake it off and
dislodge it and make it fall down. So I will
do that to prevent it from breaking. But otherwise, you know,
(02:42):
otherwise you just you know, you kind of let it
ride hydranges and still have flowers on them. Sometimes it'll
get ice and snow on there. They'll start to weight
down and also looks like it's going to break that branch.
I'll go ahead and deadhead those, get those off of there.
But then when you get the lights on air, that's
a different store, because then how do you shake it
and keep the lights on it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, I'll tell you before he asked that question, I
didn't have I did. I wasn't concerned really about the bush.
It looked fine. And you know, I've never seen by
walking through the woods with the broom to clean all
the trees and bushes. Yeah, but I did, you know,
I did want to kind of expose some of the lights.
And I wasn't going to get up there with a
(03:21):
rake or something and try and go over the top
of the bush and get tangled with a cord. So
I took a broom and got to the bottom of
the bush and just hit the branches vibrate at the bottom, right,
and it knocked some off, and that was good enough
for me. I didn't want to you know.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, you just loes enough weight to keep it from
breaking them. That's all you want to do, right, And
you're right if you can get to the bottom of
that and just vibrate it a little bit or knock
it like you did with it something soft, right, Yeah,
you know what a sponge hose you were were your
mop oh ye sponge. That's good because it doesn't hurt
the trunk. You put that in there and kind of
vibrate a little bit.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Well.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And then the other interesting thing, it really depends on
what kind of snow we had, because it said snow
we had a few days ago was kind of a slushy, heavy,
wet snow. The snow we're gonna get today, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The light snows be a little dryer, Yeah, not an issue,
all right, it's the wet snows and a little bit
of ice in there. That that that's where we started
to get into trouble. Right, And of course pairs ornamental pairs,
which we don't plan anymore. They're invasive, but they still
have leaves on them late in the season. Yeah, a
lot of and and you know, so a lot of
times they'll collect that up and that's one of the
reasons why they split, right, you know, other than the
(04:29):
high winds. But they'll split from that.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Well, in another week, we may have ice dam issues.
That's another thing.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I hope everybody paid attention. Sometimes I feel like I preach.
I preached. Everybody goes shut up. I'm talking about don't
let leaves clog up your gutters. And you know, we man,
we went from mid fall to winter this year. Sometimes
sometimes we don't need to avil winter, but man, we
went from midfall leaves fall into snow.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
You know, my mom has a I don't know which
one she has. Well, she has some kind of gutter
guard keep the leaves up. And the guys were collecting
the leaves in her house a couple of weeks ago,
and they she said, can you go up there and
just kind of blow those, you know, get stuff out.
It was amazing what they still got out of there, really,
because I mean sometimes that stuff kind of swifts down
through and you know.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
It across opposing right. Yeah, So it depends what you're using.
That's why. The one thing I really don't like is
those Maybe you've seen them. It's gutter guards. They're like
a block of foam and it, you know, lets water penetrate.
Oh yeah, but then when the leaves get stuck on
the surface of that and start decomposing, it gets black
(05:38):
and gooey, and it clogs up that foam and you
don't have good drainage. You're just clogging up the foam
instead of the gutter.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So not good.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I don't got to stay on top of that because
you know if and again a lot of people don't realize,
ice dams in a lot of cases occur just because
you don't have enough v insilation in the attic melts,
the snow at the top of the roof, water runs down,
it gets the overhang and where the gutters are, and
it freezes and then you got big problems. So because
(06:11):
there's nowhere for that water to go, issues with the weather.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
When we were pulling in yesterday, I said to my wife,
I looked up at all the roofs and ours was
still white. Good neighbors was not very white. And I said,
see Gary Soli them would say, look at that roof
right there. It's gonna be a problem, gonna be a problem.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Who there you go?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
She said, who you said? Who? All right, mister Wilson,
we'll talk to you all.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Right, have a good one.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Take care. We'll continue at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Start a project and don't know how to finish it
and call Gary at one eight two three talk. You're
at home with Gary Soliva.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Well, it's fall, and that means smart homeowners are preparing
their homes for winter, especially they're plumbing. Hi the scary
solvent for roto router plumbing and water cleanup. I want
you to go outside, unscrew your garden hose and check
those outdoor faucets for drips.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
If they're leaking now, they could freeze and burst this winter,
causing expensive water damage and plumbing repairs. The time to
fix dripping hose bibs is right now. Call Roto Router
at one eight hundred. Get Roto for fast, reliable plumbing service.
Soon we're going to be spending more time inside our
home where the air is five times worse than the
outdoor air. Get that stagnant, stuffy air out with an
(07:51):
easy breathe and reduce airborne particles by eighty five percent.
Don't get trapped inside a sick house breathing dirty, musty
vampire this winter. Right now, get two yu ministats with
every easy Breath purchase. Give them a call at eight
six six eight two two seventy three twenty eight or
visit easybreed dot com. Hey Garysalvin here. I love products
(08:14):
that really work, and Jaws that just add water system
is one of my favorites. Just in time for the holidays,
the Jaws Holiday caddipack is back loaded with four great cleaners,
the glass Cleaner, I love that, kitchen, bathroom disinfecting cleaners,
even a foaming dispray perfect for your home, or is
a great gift for someone Right now. You get twenty
percent off in free shipping when you used my promo
(08:36):
code Gary at jawscleans dot com. That's Jaws Cleans dot com.
Make your holiday shine with Jaws Hey, Gary Salvin here
Oto Exits Eliminator. It's been receiving rave reviews for years
and there's a simple reason for that.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
It works.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Comments like I've tried everything to get the dog urine
smell out of my carpet and sofa, but then one
application of otero exit Eliminator and the smell was a eliminated.
Thank you, Odor Exit, Hey, don't be unprepared for life
smelly accidents. Be prepared with outor exits Eliminator eliminate odors
when they occur. Come to outer exit dot com for
(09:11):
the best pricing, combos and service
All right, it's time our friend Ron Wilson stops in
and helps us out. Well, we're not going to do
any gardening today, Ron, Is that alright with you? Is
it okay? We don't do any gardening?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Sure, okay, So it looks pretty winter.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Indoor indoor gardening.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Indoor garden. It's too early for that.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh no, no, oh no, you brought all those house
plants in. Now you got to take care of those.
Missus Wilson's into that big time. Now is driving me crazy.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Plants are everywhere for your advice.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Not as much. No, I'll throw it out there now
and then.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
But that isn't doing good.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, here is this supposed to be here? But yeah,
indoor gardening, I mean, you know, sure, holiday plants all yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So somebody asked me this question, and this is a
good question too.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm sure you had an answer. Well, you've been doing
this for a long time.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I kind of got an answer for it. Sure, I
understand what the problem is. Led. Christmas lights outside are
very energy efficient. They don't get hot like the incandescent
Christmas bulbs.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Correct, And I learned that from my friend Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And when it snows, it covers up all my ball.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It doesn't melt the ground, it.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Doesn't melt the snow. And then I got all this
snow on my bushes and over my bulbs. Should I
sweep that off? Ooh, there's a little twist in that.
People used to ask you that question all the time.
Maybe the Christmas lights weren't an issue, but snow on
bushes that's kind of natural, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah? On evergreens sometimes you know, it can start to
weight them down if it looks like it's gonna pull
them apart, like some arbor vity or multi stemmed, multi
leadered in the middle, and it can actually pull them apart.
And a lot of times if I stay apart more
than a couple of weeks, they don't come back together.
So in areas where you think you're gonna have some
heavy snowfall, what we recommend is take a pair. Believe
(02:01):
it or not. Pantyhose is one of the best tie
up materials that you can use and go up about
a little bit more than halfway and tie all three
of those leaders together. Okay, just secure. It'll pull them
up tight and they can hang on to each other
and they won't split off. But I have like a
hemlock and a few other evergreens in my patio area.
(02:21):
Then if it starts to weight them down, it looks
like it's going to break a branch. I'll take a broom,
all right, like a straw room or whatever, and I
will brush upward, not down, but I'll brush upward and
kind of vibrate the broom and shake it off and
dislodge it and make it fall down. So I will
do that to prevent it from breaking. But otherwise, you know,
(02:42):
otherwise you just you know, you kind of let it
ride hydranges and still have flowers on them. Sometimes it'll
get ice and snow on there. They'll start to weight
down and also looks like it's going to break that branch.
I'll go ahead and deadhead those, get those off of there.
But then when you get the lights on air, that's
a different store, because then how do you shake it
and keep the lights on it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well, I'll tell you before he asked that question, I
didn't have I did. I wasn't concerned really about the bush.
It looked fine. And you know, I've never seen by
walking through the woods with the broom to clean all
the trees and bushes. Yeah, but I did, you know,
I did want to kind of expose some of the lights.
And I wasn't going to get up there with a
(03:21):
rake or something and try and go over the top
of the bush and get tangled with a cord. So
I took a broom and got to the bottom of
the bush and just hit the branches vibrate at the bottom, right,
and it knocked some off, and that was good enough
for me. I didn't want to you know.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, you just loes enough weight to keep it from
breaking them. That's all you want to do, right, And
you're right if you can get to the bottom of
that and just vibrate it a little bit or knock
it like you did with it something soft, right, Yeah,
you know what a sponge hose you were were your
mop oh ye sponge. That's good because it doesn't hurt
the trunk. You put that in there and kind of
vibrate a little bit.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Well.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And then the other interesting thing, it really depends on
what kind of snow we had, because it said snow
we had a few days ago was kind of a slushy, heavy,
wet snow. The snow we're gonna get today, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
The light snows be a little dryer, Yeah, not an issue,
all right, it's the wet snows and a little bit
of ice in there. That that that's where we started
to get into trouble. Right, And of course pairs ornamental pairs,
which we don't plan anymore. They're invasive, but they still
have leaves on them late in the season. Yeah, a
lot of and and you know, so a lot of
times they'll collect that up and that's one of the
reasons why they split, right, you know, other than the
(04:29):
high winds. But they'll split from that.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Well, in another week, we may have ice dam issues.
That's another thing.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I hope everybody paid attention. Sometimes I feel like I preach.
I preached. Everybody goes shut up. I'm talking about don't
let leaves clog up your gutters. And you know, we man,
we went from mid fall to winter this year. Sometimes
sometimes we don't need to avil winter, but man, we
went from midfall leaves fall into snow.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
You know, my mom has a I don't know which
one she has. Well, she has some kind of gutter
guard keep the leaves up. And the guys were collecting
the leaves in her house a couple of weeks ago,
and they she said, can you go up there and
just kind of blow those, you know, get stuff out.
It was amazing what they still got out of there, really,
because I mean sometimes that stuff kind of swifts down
through and you know.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
It across opposing right. Yeah, So it depends what you're using.
That's why. The one thing I really don't like is
those Maybe you've seen them. It's gutter guards. They're like
a block of foam and it, you know, lets water penetrate.
Oh yeah, but then when the leaves get stuck on
the surface of that and start decomposing, it gets black
(05:38):
and gooey, and it clogs up that foam and you
don't have good drainage. You're just clogging up the foam
instead of the gutter.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So not good.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
I don't got to stay on top of that because
you know if and again a lot of people don't realize,
ice dams in a lot of cases occur just because
you don't have enough v insilation in the attic melts,
the snow at the top of the roof, water runs down,
it gets the overhang and where the gutters are, and
it freezes and then you got big problems. So because
(06:11):
there's nowhere for that water to go, issues with the weather.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
When we were pulling in yesterday, I said to my wife,
I looked up at all the roofs and ours was
still white. Good neighbors was not very white. And I said,
see Gary Soli them would say, look at that roof
right there. It's gonna be a problem, gonna be a problem.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Who there you go?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
She said, who you said? Who? All right, mister Wilson,
we'll talk to you all.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Right, have a good one.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Take care. We'll continue at home with Gary Sullivan.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Start a project and don't know how to finish it
and call Gary at one eight two three talk. You're
at home with Gary Soliva.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Well, it's fall, and that means smart homeowners are preparing
their homes for winter, especially they're plumbing. Hi the scary
solvent for roto router plumbing and water cleanup. I want
you to go outside, unscrew your garden hose and check
those outdoor faucets for drips.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
If they're leaking now, they could freeze and burst this winter,
causing expensive water damage and plumbing repairs. The time to
fix dripping hose bibs is right now. Call Roto Router
at one eight hundred. Get Roto for fast, reliable plumbing service.
Soon we're going to be spending more time inside our
home where the air is five times worse than the
outdoor air. Get that stagnant, stuffy air out with an
(07:51):
easy breathe and reduce airborne particles by eighty five percent.
Don't get trapped inside a sick house breathing dirty, musty
vampire this winter. Right now, get two yu ministats with
every easy Breath purchase. Give them a call at eight
six six eight two two seventy three twenty eight or
visit easybreed dot com. Hey Garysalvin here. I love products
(08:14):
that really work, and Jaws that just add water system
is one of my favorites. Just in time for the holidays,
the Jaws Holiday caddipack is back loaded with four great cleaners,
the glass Cleaner, I love that, kitchen, bathroom disinfecting cleaners,
even a foaming dispray perfect for your home, or is
a great gift for someone Right now. You get twenty
percent off in free shipping when you used my promo
(08:36):
code Gary at jawscleans dot com. That's Jaws Cleans dot com.
Make your holiday shine with Jaws Hey, Gary Salvin here
Oto Exits Eliminator. It's been receiving rave reviews for years
and there's a simple reason for that.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
It works.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Comments like I've tried everything to get the dog urine
smell out of my carpet and sofa, but then one
application of otero exit Eliminator and the smell was a eliminated.
Thank you, Odor Exit, Hey, don't be unprepared for life
smelly accidents. Be prepared with outor exits Eliminator eliminate odors
when they occur. Come to outer exit dot com for
(09:11):
the best pricing, combos and service
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