Rodd's Seeds of Wisdom Horticultural tips and tricks from Rodd Moesel

This is the four “P” season, time to prune, pre-emerge, prepare and plant in the Oklahoma garden. We have had unseasonably warm weather the last few weeks as Oklahoma does on occasion and already have daffodils blooming, a few fruit and ornamental trees in flower and buds popping on many other plant materials. This is a good season to prune trees, shrubs and most everything except spring flowering shrubs and fruit trees as pruning those now will result in reducing your early season harvest of flowers or fruit. When pruning trees and shrubs first prune out any dead wood or branches. Then prune to shape the tree or shrub as you hope to size or shape it. There are also many plants, like roses that respond well to harder pruning where you cut back the canes or braches to stimulate new energetic shoots from down low on the bush. Remember the new growth will usually come out from a bud or joint just below your cut. If you pay attention to the location of the bud on the joint you can even predict the direction of the new branch to assist you in shaping and directing the plant. Use clean and sharp cutting tools to make a clean cut instead of smashing or ripping the cut which will require longer for healing.

If you hate to fight weeds and want to reduce your weed pulling frustration in your lawn or your flowerbeds, later in this growing season, this is the time to apply pre-emergent herbicides for control of warm season weeds and grasses. We usually apply different products on the lawn and in the flowerbeds. You need to identify your type of lawn grass to make sure you select the best herbicide to spray or spread as granules. Make certain not to use a pre-emergence herbicide on lawn or flower bed areas where you plan to sow seeds or if you have plants you like that come back from seed each year. These pre-emergent weed killers work by killing the seed as they start to germinate. Some pre-emergents kill grass seeds, others kill broadleaf weeds and some work on grasses and broadleaf’s. None can tell the difference between good seeds and bad seeds so do not use them where you plan to sow good seeds. Most pre-emergent’s work for four to twelve weeks after you apply them to your lawn or flowerbeds. They work best when watered in well after application. There are post emergent herbicides you can apply after the warm season weeds and grasses have germinated but they are more selective and more likely to burn or damage plants you don’t want to damage.

The third “P” is for preparation. We can already plant trees, shrubs and cool season crops this is the time to take soil tests, create new flowerbeds, add peat moss, compost or other organic matter to your existing flowerbeds before the main planting season for warm season crops. This is a great time to get your containers cleaned up, filled up with good soil and ready for planting. You can do a spray of dormant oil to help control scale and other pests before the season starts on your shrubs and trees.

We have entered the planting season and can now plant bareroot fruit trees, grapes, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb and horseradish. We can plant Irish potatoes, onion plants, onion sets and seed or plants of lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and many other green leafy crops or root crops like radishes and carrots.

Take advantage of the pretty days to escape your cabin fever and get outside in your yard and engage in the four “P’s” of late February – pruning, pre-emergents, preparation, and planting.

Lots of pretty warm days and just a few freezing nights the last couple of weeks has really stimulated our spring fever. The humans and the plants are getting anxious and want to start growing. Many of the early spring flowering bulbs are pushing growth up out of the ground and will soon be in flower. Many of the perennials are starting to send out their first growth of spring. Flowering shrubs, fruit trees and our ornamental trees all are producing swollen buds, pregnant with first new leaves of spring ready to burst forth. This is always a tricky season for Oklahoma gardeners. We are anxious for the growth of spring but hope it doesn’t get too warm, too early and cause the new growth to come on out and to then get damaged by a hard freeze which is likely still ahead of us. Our last average freeze in central Oklahoma is usually around April 7th but in the last five years the last freeze has been as early as late February and as late as early May so we have one to three months before the last freeze based on recent history. Many gardeners practice their gambling skills by planting earlier than the safe date in hopes of getting an early start on the growing season and a longer overall season. This is a risky practice and often results in planting twice. There are a number of products and techniques you can use to provide extra protection from light frosts or freezes. Cover tender plants with boxes, sheets, blankets, even newspapers or use a commercial product like hot kaps, row covers or Wall-O-Waters for extra protection of three to twelve degrees.

There are many plants you can plant now without being a wild gambler. You can plant ornamental trees and shrubs, fruit trees, flowering shrubs and many perennials or cool season annuals now. Over the last decade many more folks have gotten involved in food gardening and are raising fresh produce and berries very locally, right in their own yard. There are a number of cool season crops to plant right now and most of these are very easy and trouble free to grow. The hardest work on most of the cool season crops is preparing the soil, planting them, then the all important watering as they grow. Some of the easiest crops are root crops like Irish potatoes in red, gold, purple or white and onion sets or plants in yellow, white or red. These are usually plant, water, water and harvest type of crops. Plant these from now until mid March. There are many perennial food crops to plant now including strawberries, rhubarb, horseradish and asparagus crowns as well as grapes, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, gooseberries and youngberries. Sow seed of cool season greens like lettuce, mustard and Swiss chard, root crops like turnips, radish, carrots, beets and specialty crops like kohl rabi and Brussels sprouts.

Not only the trees and flowers are starting to germinate or grow but also the crabgrass and weeds. This is the time to kill crabgrass, goat heads, sand burrs and summer weeds before they germinate. Most good herbicides or pre-emergent’s will kill the weed seeds as they start to germinate for about four to eight weeks after they are applied to your lawn or garden. Depending on the product you apply, if applied at mid February it will kill most of the labeled crabgrass or weed seeds that try to germinate over the next four to eight weeks so until mid March or mid April depending on the product. They should be watered in well after application. There are a number of good pre-emergent’s but I suggest one that contains one or more of these active ingredients, Prodiamine (Barricade), Dimension, Treflan, Balan, Team (Treflan & Balan), Gallery, Tupersan or Sulfentrazone. These are all available from many manufacturers and in herbicide only or weed and feed combinations so you can feed your lawn at the same time you are controlling or killing future weeds. It is generally much easier to prevent or kill the crabgrass and weeds at germination then to control them later with a post emergent herbicide.

Enjoy the warming sun as you do these garden projects, prepare the soil for warm season planting later, get your soil tested and prepare for a full spring of gardening.

We have had a relatively mild winter but it has been a very tough winter on many of our trees, shrubs and other plant materials. The two hard cold fronts that dropped into single digits occurred while most of the state was very dry. Unless you had been watering your outdoor plants before these really hard freezes, these cold blasts caused more damage than usual as it froze hard on these dehydrated and already water stressed plants. Many of our broad leaved shrubs including many varieties of euonymus, boxwood, photinia and hollies literally had some of their outer canopy foliage and the foliage most exposed to the warming south sun light during the cold ‘freeze –dried”. Many of these broad leaf shrubs that were not watered well before the arctic blasts will lose some or even a lot of existing foliage. Please let this be a lesson to water your trees and especially shrubs periodically through the winter when we are really dry and nature is not providing us adequate periodic rain, snow, sleet or the dreaded ice which all give us natural moisture.

Most of these trees and shrubs will survive but many on the south side of the house or in the open will show some freeze burn and damage and may require some trimming and shaping this spring when you can really assess the damage.

The days are already well over thirty minutes a day longer than they were just a month ago and the sun is growing more intense as it moves gradually to the north and more overhead to us. The extended warmer weather of the last couple of weeks is already causing the buds to swell on many of our trees and shrubs. Spring will be here soon. I have even seen a few daffodils bloom already that were in protected sunny areas. We can and should prune many of our trees and shrubs to remove dead branches and to remove storm damage as well as to shape the plants. We can take advantage of the nice days to prepare our soil in new or existing flower beds to get ready for spring planting. In a couple of weeks it will be time to begin our vegetable gardens by planting our cool season crops like seed potatoes, onion plants, onion sets, cabbage, cauliflower, leaf and head lettuce, green peas, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, carrots, turnips and spinach. For central and northern Oklahoma we usually suggest planting these cool season crops between the middle of February and the middle of March. A good way to remember this cool season vegetable planting is to plant between Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. It is easy to get anxious on the nice sunny, pretty days of winter but do not plant the warm season plants too early or you will get to buy them or plant them again. Spend the next couple of weeks getting your beds ready and then you have the month long target to plant cool season crops and we should wait until April to start planting the tender “freeze sensitive” warm crops.

It will also be time to start thinking about pre-emergent control of crabgrass, sand burrs and other summer weeds in the next few weeks. There are many good weed “birth control” products available to apply alone or in combination with a fertilizer as a weed and feed treatment. Most of these herbicides last and kill seeds as they germinate for four to eight weeks after they are applied. We don’t want to apply too early and miss a lot of their effect but we don’t want to apply the pre-emergent summer weed control too late when many of these weeds have already germinated. For best effect apply at about the time the beautiful yellow flowers of the forsythia flowering shrub are blooming in your neighborhood. We will talk more about the pre-emergent herbicides in our next column.

Take advantage of any pretty winter days to clean up your gardens, prepare the soil and to get ready for spring planting. Spring is coming!