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

It’s Oklahoma City Arts Festival Week so I guess we should have expected spring showers. Most all of the state has received nice spring rains the last ten days and a few areas have received even more than they could handle, mainly on wheat fields in southwest Oklahoma. Nearly all of our plants will really benefit from these deep soaking rains that provide life and energy to the plant world. Many trees, shrubs and flowers already appear greener, even shiny and seemingly stand taller and you can almost see them smiling and laughing with joy. These significant rains show the importance of well drained soil or planters for most crops. There will be some fungus and disease problems and even some plant drowning for plants in spots where the water stands and when plants go too long without a good supply of oxygen to their roots. One of the real benefits of improving your soil with organic matter over time is to create more air space and better drainage. That can be done by adding sphagnum peat moss or any of a number of kinds of good compost to your flower beds.

The big story as we celebrate the anniversary of the Oklahoma land run 127 years ago today is that this is planting season. Just as those early settlers rushed to plant gardens and crops at this season generations ago, this is our season to plant the crops we will enjoy and harvest for the rest of this year and for years to come. This is a special time of year when it seems we can and need to do most everything at once as spring opens a new growing season. We can plant most any container grown or balled and burlapped trees and shrubs with prospects for a very high success rate as long as we humans do a good job of watering later this year when it gets hot and dry. We can sow tall fescue grass seed in the shady areas, Bermuda grass seed in the sunny areas. If you are more impatient for new turf you can plant grass sprigs or lay sod for the quickest green lawn.

The stars of spring planting are the vegetables and color plants we add to the garden now to enjoy for the full growing season. This is prime planting season for the vegetables that anchor most Oklahoma Food gardens including tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. There are also many other warm season vegetables, fruits and berries you can plant now including container grown strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, blueberries and lots of other healthy and nutritious food crops you can grow in your own yard. The selection of color plants to liven up your flower beds, container gardens, hanging baskets and patios is expanding rapidly. New varieties are being introduced by the hundreds each year so there is always something new to try out in addition to the crops you have enjoyed over the years. The choices in perennials have really grown so it makes sense to add a mix of annuals and perennials to your garden. Most perennials don’t flower for as long but have a stage of great color before they start storing energy to make it though the following winter. The annuals, like begonias, petunias, impatiens, geraniums, penta, marigolds, zinnia and periwinkle put all their energy into growing and flowering to put on a show this growing season. We have over six months of prime growing season ahead of us before our first hard freeze next November. The sooner you plant your annuals and perennials the bigger they will get and the more you can enjoy them before winter arrives and closes out another growing season. We will get a nice growing spurt from most all of our plants after these renewing rains and as the temperatures warm up a little. Don’t plant in the mud but be ready to plant as soon as the earth is back to moist so you can get the most enjoyment and harvest from the full growing season.

We have passed our last average freeze date for central Oklahoma so we can feel safer to proceed with many of our spring plantings. Just remember it was only a couple of years ago we had a fairly hard freeze on May 3rd, so we still need to be weather aware. If a late freeze does make an appearance be prepared to cover tender vegetables and annuals with blankets, sheets, boxes, hopkaps, styrofoam cups or overwintering fabric. Other than a surprise last freeze, you can plant away on tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and most of the other warm weather vegetables. You can plant most of the color annuals like geraniums, petunias, inpatients, begonias, salvia, zinnia, penta, marigolds and dozens of other flowering annuals. There are a few really hot blooded crops that will perform best if you wait to plant them until after May 1st when the night temperatures are consistently above fifty degrees. These heat lovers that prefer a later planting include okra, sweet potatoes, periwinkle and caladiums.

We had already given the “plant away” signal for most all of the perennial crops as most of them are more tolerant of cooler weather. Consider adding a combination of perennials and annuals to your garden. The perennials will come back year after year if you select a good location and provide for their water needs. Most perennials only bloom for a few weeks of the growing season but they can provide wonderful seasonal color and rarity to your garden with reduced or limited maintenance and care. Annuals only live one season and have to be replanted each season but many of the annuals will bloom for months or much of the growing season since they do not have to store energy or food to survive the coming winter, like perennials. This is a great time to sow lawn seed whether it is a variety of tall fescue for shady areas or a strain of Bermuda grass for sunny areas. This is a good time to fertilize your trees, shrubs, vines and lawn if you have not fed them yet this year. If you haven’t had a soil test to know exactly what your soil needs consider using a good general purpose fertilizer when the three numbers of nitrogen-phosphorous-potash equal over twenty and have at least some of all three key nutrients. This could be blends like 10-20-10, 21-7-14, 13-13-13, 20-20-20, 17-6-6 or many others. Please water well within a day or two after applying fertilizer if you are not blessed with a good soaking rain to water in the fertilizer.

Many garden centers are offering a selection of summer flowering bulbs you can plant now to enjoy later this growing season. Select and plant dahlia and gladiolus for their flowers and caladiums and elephant ears for their impressive foliage.

Vegetable gardening has been growing in popularity every year and there are dozens of crops you can grow in the ground, in raised beds or even in container gardens. The best yields are often in raised beds or container gardens because the better soil mixes with great drainage and air movement in the soil but the traditional vegetable gardens in your natural loam or soil can improve every year if you will keep improving it with organic matter and mulch. Most every vegetable gardener grows some tomatoes and peppers but don’t be afraid to try root crops like carrots, radishes, turnips, potatoes and sweet potatoes or leafy crops like the many varieties of lettuce, kale, Swiss chard and others. Some of the most fun crops to plant are because of their rapid growth like watermelons, cantaloupes and the many varieties of squash. Even apartment and condo dwellers can tackle any of these vegetables in containers. They just can’t grow as many or as much as a vegetable gardener with a bigger plot.

We have about a seven month growing season so the sooner you plant now the more growth or harvest you can get from your garden this season. Plant away and have fun in your garden.

We have officially entered spring on the calendar but the Oklahoma weather is still being indecisive. In the last week parts of the state got down to 16° and the metro area got down to 29°. The wheat farmers across the western part of our state likely lost all or a significant part of their wheat crops as their crops were running several weeks early after a month of mild weather before this killing freeze in the west. We are likely to still have some frosts or even a hard freeze here in the metro area so it is wise to practice patience and wait until after April tenth to plant your tomatoes, peppers, begonias, penta and other warm season annuals. The “hot” season crops like sweet potatoes, caladiums, okra and periwinkle should not be planted until May first or after for best results.

You can plant away on trees, shrubs, most perennials and cool season crops. If you plan to create new flowerbeds or garden areas, this is the perfect time to get those prepared and ready to plant. If you want to do more container gardening this is a good time to select your containers and soil mix to be ready to plant when our night temperatures are dependably warmer. If the container gardens are small enough to carry inside the home or garage, you can go ahead and plant now and just be prepared to move them inside on nights that are going to be in the thirties or below.

Your lawn can benefit from a little attention at this time. We usually recommend applying pre-emergent weed killers or weed and feed type products by the time the Redbud trees are done blooming. The Redbuds of all color tones of pink, red, white and even lavender are in bloom now across our state so you need to get the pre-emergent down at once if you want to help reduce your crabgrass and sticker problems later this year. We have been running so far ahead this spring you may not get the full effect applying now but you will get even less effect a week or two weeks from now. Most pre-emergent’s only work when spread or sprayed and watered in before the weed seeds germinate. Once they have germinated you need to use a different product, a post emergent weed killer for control. This is the prime season to plant or sow tall fescue or ryegrass seed if you want new grass or to freshen up your turf in shady areas. These shady or cool season grass seeds should be sown by mid May.

We have had a spectacular show of color this year from all of the spring bulbs planted by the gardeners who thought ahead and planted tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and crocus last fall. The flowering shrubs have been awesome this year with beautiful flower shows form the forsythia, quince and spirea and we are looking forward to the wisteria, lilacs, azaleas and hydrangeas which will be shouting out their colors of joy very soon. You can plant all these flowering shrubs now so you can host your own flowering shows in the future. The flowering trees have also been impressive this year with splashy displays from the plums, apricots, peaches, pears and redbuds as we get ready for the crabapples and magnolias. You can plant any of these flowering or fruit trees now so you can enjoy this color in your own yard next year and for years to come.

If you decide to gamble and plant warm season crops while we are still at risk be prepared to protect those crops on nights when we get in the thirties or below. Oklahoma wheat farmers aren’t able to cover fifty, one hundred or a thousand acres of wheat but you can use Hotkaps, Wall-O-Water tubes or row covers and garden blankets or old sheets or even milk bottles and cardboard boxes to give limited protection to your tender annuals. You may not be able to protect a full peach tree but you can give some protection to a few early tomatoes. Don’t forget that new plantings need water and be prepared to water when Mother Nature is not providing natural rain. Enjoy the longer days and special times in your garden.

Spring is flowering all around us and we are seeing some crops flowering two or three weeks earlier than normal with the recent warm, mild weather. We have not only seen daffodils and crocus in bloom but even hyacinths, tulips and many other bulbs crops have bloomed or are blooming. Flowering shrubs are well into their spring flower show with forsythia, quince, spirea and many others already blossomed or in bloom. Fruit and flowering trees like peaches, apricots and plums are all at different stages of flower as are the wild sand plums across the prairie. Ornamental flowering trees like Bradford pears, dogwoods and some crabapples are also coloring the landscape with their annual display of flowers. It is amazing after all the ice damage to Bradford Pears to observe just how many are still here and how widely they are used in commercial landscapes and in home editions built in the last few decades. For all their structural problems in handling ice and winds, they are truly beautiful and impressive when in flower. We are seeing lots of other trees and shrubs budding out, some even starting to leaf out. We are at high risk of significant damage if we get another really hard freeze in the low twenties or below as the sap is running and the plant world is responding like it is spring. According to the calendar we have another four weeks of high risk of freeze. If we get a hard freeze now after several weeks of sunny warm weather without a freeze we will see damage. You may want to have some old sheets or blankets ready to cover shrubs or plants you are most concerned about if you see we are going to get a hard freeze. Gardeners always need to be weather aware. There are some commercial products like row cover, Hot Kaps or Wall O” Water pyramids that can help you protect important crops if we get a late freeze.

With the warm winter weather and most all crops responding early that makes the “deadline” to apply pre-emergent for crabgrass, stickers and other summer weed control come early as well. If you have not already applied your weed and feed or pre-emergent weed killer please put that at the top of your garden to-do list. The sooner you apply these products the more weeds they will control. Once the weed seeds have germinated these products will not work and you will need to use a post emergent weed killer or get busy hand pulling the weeds and stickers you do not want.

We are in the final planting stages for the cool season vegetable crops if you want to get your best results before the hot weather arrives this summer. You can purchase and plant cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and many other green leafy vegetables. Plant onion sets or onion plants. The earlier you plant onions, the larger onion you can grow as they are day length sensitive and it is harder to grow large onions as the days get longer. May folks like to plant their Irish potatoes on or near March 17th, also known as St. Patrick’s Day which just sounds like the right time to plant something Irish.

It is still too early and too risky to plant annual color plants or warm season vegetables like tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers and eggplant but it is a great time to plant trees, shrubs and many perennials.

Get your gardens and decorative containers ready for the warm season crops but practice patience to increase your chances for success. If you see yourself as a riverboat gambler and think you can beat the historical weather patterns you can try your hand at early planting, just don’t plant more than you can afford to lose.

It feels like spring has sprung early this year and everyone has been anxious to start gardening.  Trust history and the likelihood of more freezes ahead to resist the temptation of planting tomatoes, peppers, and warm season annuals until at least April.  There are many things you can and should do now.  Spend your time now planting the cool season vegetables, trees, shrubs and perennials as you prepare the soil for new flower beds.  Enjoy the early spring show of flowers including the bright yellow fountains of forsythia flowers, the hot oranges and reds of Quince, the dazzling yellow, white and orange trumpet flowers of daffodils or narcissus.  The folks who planned or thought ahead last fall and planted crocus, grape hyacinths, tulips, hyacinths and daffodils are being rewarded now for their efforts with the encouraging and beautiful show of bright spring flowers even while the grass and trees are still dressed in brown.

This is the time, the best time, to apply pre-emergent herbicides or weed killers if you want to control crabgrass, sandburs, goat head stickers, dandelions or many other summer or warm season broadleaf or grassy weeds before they ever germinate.  Think of these products as birth control for weeds.  You can spray them on your lawn or hire a service to spray them on your lawn or you can apply them as granules with a fertilizer spreader over your lawn.  Some of these products even work well in flower bed areas.  Visit with your nurseryman and check the product label to select the proper product and to use it correctly in your yard.  Depending on the product you select they will kill weed seeds for two to four months as the seeds try to germinate.  You can also apply most of these products as a combination weed and feed treatment so you can fertilize your lawn or flower beds as you kill the future weeds.  Most of these pre-emergent products only work to inhibit weed seed germination and will provide no control once the weeds have sprouted or rooted in and started growing.  There are numerous products to choose from but I suggest looking for a herbicide or weed and feed treatment that contains Prodiamine (Barricade), Dimension, Treflan, Balan, Gallery, Team (Treflan & Balan combination) or Sulfentrazone.  Treflan and Dimension can be used in flowerbeds as well as on lawns.  Do not use any of these pre-emergent herbicides where you plan to sow new grass seed this spring or in flowerbeds where you plan to sow seeds including vegetables or color annuals.  These herbicides kill seeds as they germinate – they cannot decide which seeds you want and which seeds you don’t want although some will work only on broadleaves and others only on grasses while several provide control on both grasses and broadleaves.  Pre-emergent weed killers will not affect new sod or sprigs on lawns or transplanting bulbs or established plants into treated areas.

Apply the pre-emergent as soon as possible for maximum weed control but before the redbud trees are finished blooming in your area.  These granular products need to be watered in after application to become active and to spread them into the seed “germination” zone.  Apply before a good rain or water in with the equivalent of a one-half to one inch soaking rain.  You can increase the effectiveness of granular products by applying at half rates going in one (like north/south) direction and the other half going the opposite (like east/west) direction.

Don’t forget to plant most of your cool season veggies and berries by St. Patrick’s Day for the best results.  Plant seed potatoes, onion plants, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, peas and other cool season crops now.  Plant berries and small fruits like strawberries, grapes, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and others like rhubarb and horseradish to provide years of fresh and colorful nutrition in your yard.