The Magnolia Standard in 5 Minutes
Issue 38: The First Day of Fall Edition

This is The Magnolia Standard in five minutes. It's Tuesday, September twenty-second, the first day of fall.

Four stories from Greater Magnolia today. A college that crossed a hundred thousand students. The monarchs on their way through. What houses sold for in August. And a plant shop in Pinehurst with eight days left.

We'll start with Lone Star College.

Lone Star counted one hundred thousand and twenty-three students this fall. That's the first time it's ever cleared six figures. When it opened in nineteen seventy-two, it had six hundred and thirteen.

The price didn't move with the crowd. In-district tuition stays at a hundred and eleven dollars a credit hour, for the third year running. Twelve hours comes to thirteen thirty-two a semester.

For this part of the county, the line on the map matters. A Magnolia ISD address is in-district. A Montgomery ISD address is not, and on a full load that's about sixteen hundred dollars more a semester. The other side of that trade is the college's property tax, which in-district homes pay. On a typical house in seven seven three five four, that's about three hundred and nineteen dollars a year.

The new Magnolia Center on Escondido Drive is in its first full fall.

Next, the butterflies.

The equinox lands at five past seven tonight. The monarchs keep their own calendar. Monarch Watch, out of the University of Kansas, tracks when they pass each latitude. Magnolia sits right around thirty degrees north, and the peak window here runs October fourth through the sixteenth.

Last winter's count in Mexico was up sixty-four percent from the year before. Still short of where researchers want it. And the federal decision on listing the monarch as threatened was due last December. It still hasn't come.

In October the monarchs are fueling up, not laying eggs. They want nectar. Gregg's mistflower, fall aster, goldenrod, lantana, the fall salvias. One caution. Tropical milkweed, the red and yellow kind, doesn't die back in a mild fall, and it can hold monarchs here when they should be moving south. Gardeners cut it back this time of year.

The Montgomery County Master Gardeners hold their fall plant sale Saturday, October tenth, nine to noon, at the AgriLife office on Airport Road in Conroe.

Now, houses.

Greater Houston sold about seven thousand one hundred homes in August. That's eleven and a half percent fewer than a year ago. The median price was three hundred thirty thousand.

Closer to home, the four ZIP codes split four ways. In seven seven three five four, the price barely moved, up under two percent, but sales fell about seventeen percent. Stagecoach and the west side dipped a little. Pinehurst sold barely half as many homes as last year. And in Montgomery, seven seven three one six, the median jumped almost fourteen percent to about four twenty-seven, on a third more sales, with houses taking a month longer to sell.

And under all of it, the rate.

Freddie Mac's thirty-year average was six point nine five percent last Thursday, up from six and a quarter a year ago. On the Magnolia median, with twenty percent down, that's about a hundred and twenty dollars more a month than last year, on a house that costs under two percent more. The full story works the math with every assumption shown, and lists what a household can check for itself.

Last one. A goodbye in Pinehurst.

Potted Nursery, on Highway two forty-nine, closes September thirtieth. Everything's half off, and that includes the shelves. That's how you know it isn't a promotion.

The shop opened in December twenty twenty-four. It carried four to five hundred tropical houseplants at a time, anthuriums, philodendrons, alocasias, brought in from as far as Thailand and Malaysia. The owners mixed their own soil for plants that grow on trees, not in dirt.

Their note to customers reads, in part: "Thank you for giving Potted a chance. We are incredibly proud of what we have created together." What's left on the thirtieth goes with the doors.

Coming up. Voter registration closes October fifth. Medicare's free seminar is Wednesday at the library, and Dolly Parton Day is Friday. The Saturday money column is back this weekend.

The full stories, with every source, are at the magnolia standard dot news. That's the Magnolia Standard in five minutes.

Thanks for riding along. See you next edition.

Written by our newsroom, voiced by computer.