Lili Singer: take two fish emulsions and call me in the morning.

"How come the ice plant in the trunk of my car isn't blooming?" asked one radio caller in complete earnest. Without missing a beat, Singer shot back, "Well, are you parking in the sun or the shade?"

As the David Viscott of horticulture on KCRW's amazingly popular The Garden Show, Singer has been tackling such botanical brainteasers since 1982, advising a loyal following of flora fans distraught over their dieffenbachia or befuddled by their bougainvillea. And with gardening fast becoming the workout of the '90s, her soothing manner and expert advice is more popular than ever.

"Basically, I'm a troubleshooter," says the nursery nabob, who comes from a family of green thumbs (her father specializes in growing rare succulents) and now runs her own garden consulting business. She recently began publishing The Southern California Gardener, a bimonthly newsletter full of helpful hints for budding botanists, not to mention some chauvinistic flackery for local flowers. "Most books are written for a national audience," she says, "and don't apply to Southern California--even the instructions on seed packets are wrong."

Alas, even with her wealth of knowledge (she can tell you the common and Latin name of most plants and fields questions sans reference books), there are some problems even the good doctor can't solve. "I'm real sorry," she had to tell one caller agonizing over an ailing citrus tree, "but it sounds terminal."

Oh, and incidentally, she says with a smile, ice plant is a bad choice for your trunk. "Try shade-tolerant begonias instead."