We have been blessed with a truly special and spectacular spring to date. We have enjoyed some of the lushest spring growth and best spring flowers on just about every early season crop this season. As we all prepare for Mother’s Day Weekend this next Sunday, we will be about half way through the traditional spring planting season. There is still plenty of prime planting season to plant and enjoy most everything from summer vegetables to flowering annuals and perennials, to container grown roses, shrubs and trees. In fact, our night temperatures are just now consistently warm enough to start planting the really hot blooded crops like periwinkle, sweet potatoes, caladiums and okra. We have been very blessed with nice regular rains this year and nothing makes new plantings “jump” from the ground and grow like refreshing natural rains. Be prepared to water your yard when we do go a while without rain. Our Oklahoma winds can cause topsoil and container garden drying quicker than we realize and getting “too dry” can stress, burn or even kill our plants as we witnessed all too often last scorching summer. New plantings are especially dependent on your supplemental watering until they get well established and reach their roots deeper into the earth.
Mother’s Day and flowers have always seemed like a perfect match. Many of us have special memories of working in the yard or vegetable garden with our mother or grandmother. We often know their favorite flower or plant, remember them growing a special houseplant in their kitchen window, cutting fresh iris or roses to bring in the house or harvesting tomatoes and peppers and turning them into culinary delights. This next weekend is a special time to share with our mothers and grandmothers if we are fortunate enough to still have them with us or to remember them if they have already passed on. Invite mom over for lunch or dinner and give her a bouquet, a plant she has been wanting or that special decorative container or garden tool she has been hinting about. You can give her a gardening book, a membership in the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, a gift certificate to her favorite garden center or a coupon offering to work a few hours or a weekend with her in her yard.
If your mother is still alive, I hope you will be able to spend some time with her in person or on the phone this weekend and get to share some of the love and memories that make your relationship special. If your mother has already passed, this is still a good time to remember her and maybe plant a tree, peony, rose bush or other plant in your yard to help keep her memory alive at your home. I am blessed to have a very special mother, Marjorie Moesel, that helped expose me to the joys of plants and gardening very early in life. I deeply appreciate and treasure her loving support and encouragement of everything we’ve ever tackled in school, church, family and business. Thanks Mom for everything and Happy Mothers Day.
Rodd's Seeds of Wisdom 