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

Welcome to the official start of spring gardening for 2016.  A few folks may have already planted their seed potatoes and onions but the recommended planting season on most cool season vegetable crops is from Valentine’s Day or February fourteenth through St. Patrick’s Day on March Seventeenth.  This is now officially the season to plant your white, red or yellow onion plants and onion sets, as well as your red, white, yellow and purple Irish seed potatoes.  This five week stretch is also the prime season to transplant small starter plants of cabbage, leaf or head lettuce and cauliflower which has exploded in popularity as the basis for many new eating diets.  Many leafy and root crops that thrive in the cooler seasons of late winter and early spring can easily be grown from seed.  This is the time to plant carrots and turnips that are healthy root crops.  Plant seeds of leafy crops like spinach, leaf and head lettuce, and Swiss chard to liven up your menu with fresh home grown greens.  Green peas and kohlrabi should also be planted by St. Patrick’s Day.

There are also many perennial food crops to plant now in the early spring season to produce fresh nutrition and great taste for years to come.  Plant crowns of asparagus on about 2 feet centers, let them grow the first year and start harvesting spears in the second season.  Rhubarb is an old fashioned treat but is also grown from crowns which look like dried roots.  Plant rhubarb now and make your own fresh rhubarb pie in future years.  Strawberries are easy to grow from bareroot plants available at this time of year.  There are many varieties based on whether you want everbearing varieties that will produce less fruit at a time, spread out over a season or spring bearing that will bear most all of their fruit in one spring bearing so it will be easier to host a strawberry shortcake party and entertain your guests at one event.  There are many varieties of strawberries depending on the size of fruit and sweetness you prefer.  Performance of all these fresh food crops will vary depending on your soil type, drainage, soil ph, watering habits, water quality, light levels, weather and many other factors.  Your onions or strawberries of the same variety may taste different that those of a friend across town.

If you want to add fruit trees, grape vines or many kinds of berries the least expensive way to get started is with bareroot plants which should be planted over the next few weeks for a high rate of success.  As it warms up and certainly by late March you will want to switch to container grown fruit trees, grapes and berries to maintain a high success rate in transplanting these crops into their new environment.  Visit with your local garden center or nursery for help in selecting the right variety of raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, gooseberries, grapes or other berry crops for your yard or farm.

It is always appropriate to plant container grown or balled and burlapped trees and shrubs as long as the soil is not frozen.  This is the beginning of the weed & feed season to apply pre-emergent weed killer to your lawn by spreading herbicide granules to kill the summer weeds as they start to germinate.  You can also apply pre-emergent herbicides by spraying your lawn.

Don’t forget tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and the time to remember and celebrate all those we love.  Few things communicate love, respect, passion and affection better than flowers.  Visit your local florist or garden center to select the fresh flowers or live plants that your loved one will cherish, enjoy and remember.  Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you who take the time to read this column.  I enjoy this time together and hope you have a special day with precious time with at least some of those you love.

We live near the largest landfill in western Oklahoma City and I continue to be shocked by the hundreds of truckloads of broken branches and brush I see headed there each day on all the disaster clean up trucks and trailers.  Many homes and businesses will need to plant new trees this year to help restore and grow the “green canopy” in our communities that was heavily damaged by the two devastating ice storms after Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In a previous column we suggested many good choices for large trees that grow to forty, fifty feet or taller for planting across central Oklahoma.  There are many good choices for small or “understory” trees that grow to 20 feet tall and medium trees that grow to forty or fifty feet at maturity.  Selecting the right tree for your yard depends on your soil type, distance to your home or other structures, purpose of the tree, whether for summer shade, fall color or sheer beauty and color like flowering or ornamental trees.  Visit with your local nurseryman to help select the right tree for your site conditions and what you are trying to achieve.  You can plant container grown or balled and burlapped trees most any time, including now, as long as the ground is not frozen.  Dig the planning hole two to three times larger in diameter as needed and half again as deep as needed.  Add about one third Canadian or Sphagnum peat to the backfill and plant the tree so the top of the soil ball is at ground level.  Then water in your new plantings and water deeply and regularly the first couple of years after planting.   Water is usually the main key to tree survival.   Mulching the top of the soil around your new tree with two to four inches of bark or natural hulls of some type will reduce watering requirements and help insulate the tree roots.

Some of the best medium size trees that will grow to twenty to forty or even fifty feet tall depending on soil conditions, watering and variety selection include Chinese Pistache; many varieties of Eastern Redbud, our state tree; Saucer Magnolia, Goldenrain tree, Western Soapberry, Live Oak, Osage Orange, River Birch, Japanese Black Pine, Virginia Pine, Chittamwood, and Japanese Pagoda trees.

There are a number of very good small trees that you can add to your property to achieve screening, a small shade effect or just to beautify your yard while reducing wind and helping clean the air and create fresh oxygen.  Consider spring flowering trees like ornamental crabapples, tree lilacs and purple leaf plums.   Summer flowering small trees include Crepemyrtle, smoke tree and Vitex (Butterfly Bush).  You can plant small trees that produce colorful berries or fruit like Serviceberry and deciduous Holly including Possumhaw and Winterberry.  Other good small trees include Amur Maple, Japanese Red Maple (in a protected, partially shaded area), Yaupon Holly, Foster Holly, Nellie R. Stevens Holly, and Washington Hawthorne.  These are just a partial list but include many tree species recommended by the Oklahoma State University Extension Service and Oklahoma nurserymen I respect.  With so much tree damage we are likely to have high demand for trees and shrubs this next spring, summer and fall.  We are likely to have tree shortages as the year progresses so you many want to decide on your tree selections and plant sooner before the supply gets really tight.  Remember that nurserymen can’t just snap their fingers and grow more trees.  Many of the trees you will be buying are two to five years old or even older on larger trees.  You will be buying trees started in 2010 to 2013 or even earlier depending on the size and species.  Nurseries are not immune to ice damage so their supplies and availability may have been impacted by the same ice storms that “pruned” your trees.  Thankfully the smaller trees at nurseries have less branch span and are usually less effected by ice storms than the large trees in your yard.

Select some new trees and shrubs and then have fun planting the shade, beauty and clean air that will shape the future of your home, neighborhood and our state.

This is a great time of year to be adding houseplants to your home to enjoy while we are inside for more hours each day. House plants can improve our attitudes as they lift our spirits, help clean the indoor air and provide us more oxygen.  Besides foliage plants like spathiphyllum, dracaena, ficus, dieffenbachia and so many other great foliage choices enjoy flower plants like kalanchoe, African violets and anthurium.  Try forcing some bulb crops like Amaryllis, paper whites, tulips, crocus & hyacinth for extra fun and indoor excitement.

With all the ice and wind damage to our trees it is time to start thinking about adding some new trees to your landscape to replace those that have been heavily damaged by weather or age so that you are preparing for your next generation of shade, cooling, air purification and beauty. Today we will offer my top 25 list of deciduous large trees for Oklahoma that will ultimately grow to 40 feet or more in height.  My favorites include Bald Cypress, which is well adapted from swamps of southeast Oklahoma to the dry highlands of the Oklahoma panhandle and has distinctive fine fir like leaves.  Common Hackberry is still a tough durable large tree selection.  Ginkgo trees go back to prehistoric times but still produce bright yellow fall color with a distinctive leaf pattern.  Sweet gum trees produce an elegant and stately shade tree.  Live oaks, Water oaks, Burr oaks & Chinkapin oaks, White oaks, Sawtooth oaks and Shumard oaks all provide great storm tolerant shade if you are willing to be patient for the harder wood of a slow growing tree.  Thornless honeylocust, Londen plantree, Kentucky coffee tree, Osage orange are other large tree options.

Chinese Pastache and Lacebork elm are great trees that have seen more use in Oklahoma landscapes in recent years. Japanese Zelkova, Chinese chestnut, Japanese Pagoda tree, Western Soapberry and Greenspire Linden are other worthy large tree choices.  Red Maple hybrids like Red Sunset, Autumn Blaze and Autumn Flame, or one of my favorites, Oklahoma’s own Caddo Maple, discovered in the canyons of Caddo county all provide beautiful fall colors of red and oranges while producing great shade.

Visit with your local nurseryman to help narrow the tree choices for your site. Be observant of whether it is a dry open site or an area that sometimes stands in water.  How close will the tree be to your home or other buildings, electric or water lines and other trees?  Do you want fall color, or do you want faster growing shade even if that softer wood means you are more vulnerable to future storm damage or do you want slower growing hardwoods which will be longer living trees that are generally more resistant to storm challenges.

Dig your planting hole about twice as big as the soil ball of your container grown or balled and burlapped tree. Amend your soil from the hole with sphagnum peat or compost and plant the tree so it is at original grade or a little higher.  Stake the new plantings if necessary and be prepared to water after planting and throughout the winter when dry so that tree gets at least an inch of water each week from rain or your water hose when conditions are above freezing.  Enjoy selecting the trees for your yard and home and the satisfaction of knowing you are planting for now and more importantly for future generations.

Welcome to the New Year 2016! This is an exciting time of year as we say good-bye and close one chapter of our life and open and plan for an intriguing new chapter, full of hope and possibilities.  Just as we take time to examine and assess our personal lives at this changing of the years it is also a good time to review our landscape and gardening efforts of the past years.  We use this changing of the calendar to set new goals and make new plans for our life, our families and our business activities.  It is also a good time to sit in our favorite chair or at the kitchen table and make a few plans and set goals for our yard and gardens in this New Year.

Did you get a lot of ice damage to your trees and need to allot some time for real pruning and shaping not just storm response? Do you need to plant some new trees and shrubs to replace some lost to age or ice storms or just to create new islands of shade and cooling in your yard?  Do you need to plant a hedge to screen your view from current or planned development or to create a backyard room?  Have you dreamed about starting or expanding a vegetable garden or creating a new flower bed?  Do you want to add a patio and decorate it with a collection of container gardens?  Do you want to add a water garden and be able to meditate and ponder the world as you watch your Koi fish?  Do you want to plant a butterfly or pollinator garden to attract more butterflies and bees to your yard?  Do you want your own cold frame to grow cool season vegetables later into the fall and to get an early start on spring?  Do you want your own winter greenhouse, equipped to grow your own spring vegetable and flower transplants or do you want to do a full year round greenhouse with heating and cooling?  Do you want to add an outdoor living room with a fire pit or kitchen surrounded by pretty and relaxing gardens?  All these things are possible but you have to decide on what is your dream and then set about to make it happen.

As we wrap up the Christmas festivities and family gatherings and start the New Year, gardeners start to receive all the new seed and plant catalogs by mail and now e-mail. These beautiful pictures of the newest varieties of flowering annuals and perennials, tempting bulb crops, the wide variety of known and mysterious vegetables, fruits and berry crops as well as shrubs, ornamental grasses and trees can get almost any gardener fired up for the spring season that lies on the other side of the winter we are facing now.  Some folks call these enticing garden catalogs and email blasts “garden candy” and they truly get gardeners in the spring spirit.  I am a proponent of the “buy local” movement and encourage you to support your local greenhouse, garden center and nursery businesses.  Study and enjoy these catalogs, make out your wish lists and then visit with your local nurseryman for their advice and buy what you can locally or at least in our region.  There are native plants that are well adapted here and many great plants that are not native but that still adapt well to our area that may be from similar temperate zones around the world.  There are many other beautiful plants that look enticing in these garden catalogs but just do not adapt well to most Oklahoma conditions.  Some plants can’t take our hot, dry, windy summer conditions, some can’t take our winter and other plants don’t handle our rain or drought surges well.  A local nurseryman will often have experience to give advice on your selected new plants or to suggest a better variety or plant.  If you can’t find the plant locally and it may be something you really want to try, check the plant hardiness zone and go for it.  Most of Oklahoma is zone 7 with zone 8 south of us in North Texas and zone 6 north in Kansas.  If the plant you want to try says it is adapted for zone 7 it could be fun to try something new.

Have a great new year and we hope you stay warm and safe as you study your catalogs and garden web sites while setting your garden goals for 2016!

We have less than a week to go before Christmas and just a couple of weeks left as we close out the year 2015. Part of the state was hit with a harsh ice storm that caused great damage to many of our trees and shrubs three weeks ago.  Hopefully you were not a victim of that ice storm and have been able to use the unseasonably beautiful weather the last couple of weeks for planting pansies and spring flowering bulbs instead of pruning and hauling downed branches.  This tree and shrub damage is a reminder of why our neighborhoods, communities, and property owners all across our state must always be planting new trees and shrubs to replace those lost over the years to old age, new building and development, diseases or storm damage.  If we want to enjoy the clean air, fresh oxygen, soothing shade, fall color and summer cooling of trees in our community we must all plant new trees and shrubs regularly over the years to develop and then to maintain a green canopy.

Christmas celebrations include lots of greenery from Christmas trees to ropes, garlands, swags and wreaths of evergreens. Poinsettias, amaryllis, paperwhite bulbs, ivy wreaths and topiaries and many other plants also help us decorate and celebrate this joyful and festive Christmas season.  Gifts have been an important part of this holiday since the three wise men showed up with gifts for the baby Jesus.  There are many wonderful gifts you can still get for your gardening friends or yourself as you celebrate Christmas.  Visit your local nursery or garden center and buy a pretty colorful plant to give now or consider a gift certificate so your gardening friends can buy the exact tree, shrub, rose or other plant they want now or next spring when they plant for a new growing season.  Consider gifting a hobby greenhouse for your spouse or a really good friend, garden tools or garden equipment you know they want, need or would really enjoy.  Gift a composter to make better use of all their fall leaves, rain barrels to collect water or a drip irrigation or sprinkler system to help with plant watering.  Most gardeners appreciate new garden gloves, garden aprons, gardening boots or other garden supplies.  Gift a membership in the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, Myriad Gardens Botanical Gardens, Tulsa Botanic Gardens, Oklahoma City Zoo and Gardens or a plant society that may be of special interest to them. Gift a trip to visit a garden or gardens they have been wanting to see or give a day or weekend of your time to help with their yard and gardening efforts.  Garden books and garden magazines are always an appreciated gift and inspire new ideas and stimulate gardening imagination.  Finally contemplate a long term gift to encourage more horticulture education to a local or state 4-H or FFA group or to support horticulture education at Oklahoma State University in Oklahoma City or OSU Stillwater.  Support local beautification efforts in your community through Oklahoma City Beautiful, Keep Oklahoma Beautiful or the Oklahoma Tree Bank Foundation or other similar groups across the state.

It is pretty easy to make a gardener happy from the joy of a new plant experience to helping support more tree planting across our state. The better you know the person and the more personalized the gift is to their area of interest the more memorable your gift will be.  We wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and hope you will create many great new memories to remember for years to come.