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

 This time each year is always a great opportunity for introspection in our personal, business and gardening lives.  We as a society and as individuals have a long history of using this time period to celebrate what has gone right in the preceding year or years and to examine and study what has not gone as planned.  We then realign our dreams, set goals and make plans, for the year or years ahead.  We often call these New Year’s resolutions and we struggle with how big or how detailed to make these annual resolutions or plans.   We struggle with how realistic to make them – whether they need to be items to achieve in days, weeks, months or even years.  Only you can decide what is right for you and it is not always the same – some years you may feel called to make resolutions for months and another year you may be resolving or planning for decades or some combination of all these time periods.  Almost all of us make resolutions or plans, some on paper or computer apps but most just on the memory pad in our minds. 

My father used to always encourage us to think about our lives and gardens and to celebrate and continue or adapt the things you liked and to make plans to change the things you don’t like or those that are not good, positive and healthy in our lives and gardens.   He always said it is good to dream and then make real plans and set real goals for our lives and gardens going forward.  Dad used to always said this can happen at the start of a New Year as New Year’s resolutions or anytime we want a re-do or fresh start in our lives or in our gardens.

The calendar and the seasons create a great natural period to evaluate the past and plan for the future as the year transitions from 2014 to 2015.  All the new seed catalogs and garden magazines and email blasts entice us with new plant varieties, plants we have never tried and new gardening techniques and gadgets.  Think about the plants, locations or gardening practices that did not work well last year and try to determine if the problems were watering habits, planting too early or too late, soil type or PH, bad plant choice or just weather, hail, storms or other issues out of your control.    If the issues were ones you can control, think about what you will do differently this growing season.  Do you need to take some soil tests to the county extension office to do a wiser job of fertilizing your lawn and flower beds this year?  Do you have overgrown trees and shrubs that need to be trimmed or removed this year?  Do you want to build some new flowerbeds or to enlarge or reshape some existing flowerbeds?  Do you want to add a water sprinkler or drip irrigation system to your yard or flowerbeds?  Do you need or want to plant more trees and shrubs around your home, on your property or as hedges?  Do you want to add more decorative container gardens to your porch or patio?  Do you want to add an outdoor room or special place for your family and friends to relax outdoors?  Do you want to add a garden or fish pond or water feature?  Do you want to add a hobby or production greenhouse?  Do you want to start or expand a vegetable garden? 

These are a few of the many questions you can contemplate as you make your garden plans and resolutions for 2015 and beyond.  Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving is now complete and our attention has shifted to Christmas as we all prepare for a month of shopping, celebrating and worship. Plants play a key role in the Christmas celebrations. Most folks add a Christmas tree and greens like wreaths, evergreen rope or swags as part of their decorating for the holiday. The Christmas tree is one of the focal points for most family celebrations and can be a live tree you later plant in the yard or a cut tree you select at a tree lot or a garden center. We have a fair number of Christmas tree farms across our state and many families make an adventure out of going to the farm to select and cut their own tree. Some folks trim their juniper or other needle evergreens at this time of year to bring some fresh greens into the house to add color, scent and life to the festive atmosphere. You can even trim your holly shrubs or other broadleaf evergreens to decorate for the season. Make sure to keep your cut tree standing in water and to refill the water regularly to extend the tree life and keep it from drying out and dropping needles so quickly. If you go with a living Christmas tree to plant out in the yard later, it is important to keep it watered while in the house and to limit how long you keep it in the house before getting it back outside and planted in the yard. Two weeks in the house is best and you should not go over three weeks to avoid dehydration and getting the tree too soft before it goes back outside to face winter weather.

The poinsettia is the iconic flower of Christmas and we use them to decorate our homes, businesses and churches. Poinsettias are a fairly recent addition to the Christmas celebration as they were discovered in Mexico by the first U.S. Minister (Ambassador) to Mexico, Joel Poinsett, in the mid 1820’s. He sent plants of the “Christmas Eve Flower” back to botanist friends in the U.S. and it soon became our Christmas flower. The Poinsettia has evolved with plant breeding to a much more compact plant with impressive colorful bracts in hundreds of varieties and shades of red, pink, white, orange, peach, cream or mixed colors. The actual little yellow flowers are not very impressive but the bracts, which are the top leaves that change colors and make a ring of color under the flowers, are what we enjoy and most folks think are the flowers. Poinsettias are fairly heavy drinkers and will need regular watering while in the house. The varieties grown today will often keep their color and look good all the way up into February, March or April of the following year if you water them correctly and they get adequate light.

Even more recent additions to the Christmas plant party are Amaryllis and Cyclamen. Amaryllis are grown from a bulb and you can buy them already in bloom with their big brightly colored trumpet flowers on display or buy your own bulbs to plant and grow yourself. It is amazing to watch the flower stem emerge from the bulb and push upward to the light and then unwrap or unfurl the impressive and colorful flowers. The long amaryllis leaves usually wait to appear until after the flowers are about complete. Cyclamen or shooting star plants have benefitted from modern breeding and now produce lots more flowers for longer, in a wide array of red, white and pink colors. It is one of my favorite flowers and is being used more and more for Christmas decoration. Cyclamen are grown from seed or a corm, which is a kind of bulb and they like cooler temperatures and will do well by windows or in a room you run cooler.

We hope you enjoy this full month of Christmas celebrations and will celebrate Christmas with plants and greens that help create the holiday atmosphere and add to the fun.

It may not be winter on the calendar but it sure has felt like winter much of the last two weeks. It is best for our trees and shrubs if the temperatures drop somewhat gradually and they get to transition or are conditioned for the very hard freezes. We and our plants don’t get that choices, we can only respond or react to the conditions we face. The quick hard freeze has caused many leaves to drop while still green or just changing colors. The quick hard freeze will cheat many areas of the state from the full show of fall colors. Most areas of the state are still very dry and this increases the winter change risk to many of our trees and shrubs as they can dehydrate or freeze dry in these conditions. When we are dry it is important to still water your trees and shrubs periodically through the winter, especially trees or shrubs planted in the last few years that aren’t rooted as deeply into the earth.

Now that all those beautiful and colorful annuals have dried or frozen out, it is time to get serious about planting pansies to add some winter color to your yard and garden, plant pansies with a little blood meal to feed them through the winter. Pansies are one of the few color crops that you can plant in the fall and will actually grow and bloom through the cool and cold winter months. They do best planted in sunny area and will flower right through the winter and will finally succumb to the heat next spring. Few things give me as much enjoyment as seeing the pretty multicolored and interesting faces of yellow, red, bronze, purple, pink white, blue or other colored pansies peeking through a light snow or brightening a cold, dark dreary day.

This is the best time to plant your spring flowering bulbs if you want to welcome next spring with the color and joy of crocus, Dutch iris, daffodils, hyacinths, tulips or the many specialty bulbs of spring. Plant them now on a day when the ground is not frozen and they will grow roots through the winter and be ready to sprout flowers and foliage from the ground next spring. Plant your bulbs two to three times as deep as the height of the bulb with a little bone meal to feed them through the winter and get ready to host your own “welcome to spring” flower festival next March and April. The dainty crocus flowers spread though your beds or even scattered in your lawn will often be the first sign of spring. The royal colors and look of tulips and hyacinths is hard to top for early spring impact.

My favorites are still the daffodils or narcissus with their trumpets of yellow, orange or white. They often stay in flower longer, produce lots of impressive flowers, seem to be less attractive to moles and gophers and they often naturalize and come back year after year to trumpet the arrival of spring!

This is also a great time to plant and force many bulbs in containers to flower this winter inside your home. Amaryllis is now one of the most popular holiday plants after the traditional poinsettia with their huge and impressive lily shaped flowers. Paperwhite narcissus, tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils can also be forced into flower in containers if you buy cold treated blubs or cold treat your own in the produce crisper of your refrigerator.

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration this next week and take time to reflect on your blessings of family, friends and the garden or crop you enjoyed this past year.

Most of Oklahoma has now experienced their first light freeze and we have slipped into a pleasant round of Indian summer. Many of the more tender plants may have already frozen or they may have just been burned back. As we get colder in future freezes most plant material will call it curtains or make the conversion to compost material as they die from freezing. Some crops freeze at around 32° like sweet potatoes, others freeze at around 25°, and a few plants will survive down into the teens or single digits before shutting down. Annuals will be gone forever after they freeze unless it is a variety that leaves seeds behind that may sprout again next year. Perennials are crops that may freeze to the ground but the roots and crown will over winter and they will sprout out again next spring with new life. You can prolong the life of many of the less tender annuals and cool season plants with an occasional winter watering, especially before frosts or light freezes as a plant that is well watered will not dehydrate and freeze as easily. You can also cover plants for these early cold fronts with sheets, blankets, newspaper, cardboard boxes or commercial crop covers like Reemay fabric.

Oklahoma gardening is not over with a freeze. This is still a great time to plant trees and shrubs, the best time to plant spring flowering bulbs like tulips and daffodils and still a good time to plant pansies, ornamental kale and cabbage. You can also mulch your remaining plants to give them more protection, like a comforter, against the severe cold to come later this winter. The mulch will also hold moisture in the soil reducing the need for winter watering and the risk of plants getting winter leaf burn or dehydrating.

One of my favorite things is the chance to enjoy the natural show of fall colors as the leaves change on our deciduous trees and shrubs. The fall color is not only a spectacular show but it is also fun science to learn how the process works. It is a different show every year as a multitude of conditions are involved to determine how and when the leaves color and “fall” from the tree each autumn. The shorter day length is very consistent from year to year as one of the main triggers. But the day and night temperatures, timing of the first freeze, how hard the first freeze is, and moisture levels in the soil all vary from year to year. Like grapes for wine, fall color varies dramatically by year. The shorter day length turns a natural switch to tell the trees to start preparing for winter. With the shorter days and less intense sunlight the trees and shrubs turn down and then turn off the photosynthesis process that makes food for the plant. As the green chlorophyll used in photosynthesis disappears from the leaves we begin to see the yellow color of xanthophylls, the red and purple colors of anthocyanins or the orange color from carotenoids. These other pigments are allowed to put on their own show after the green chlorophyll is gone from the leaf party. In some of the most colorful trees, glucose is trapped in the leaves which turn the glucose a red color. This magical combination of factors produces a different but similar show of color every fall as our trees convert from making food and growing, to storing food. Make sure to spend some time driving and hiking to enjoy the show or you will have to wait another year to see what the show next autumn looks like.

Most of Oklahoma has been blessed with some much needed rain in the last two weeks. Hopefully more rain will fall our way in the near future. Those rains have made our plant materials much happier as we march towards the first freeze of fall 2014. If the averages hold true we can expect our first freeze in the next week or two. We often end up with several weeks of beautiful “Indian Summer” after or between some of these early frosts and freezes that will give us even more time to enjoy our gardening. If we are going to get a light frost you can extend the season of many of your plants by covering them with a commercial garden row cover, burlap, old sheets or towels for a few extra degrees of protection.

There are still many activities we can do in the garden and landscape even as we prepare to mourn the passing of all our tender annuals and vegetables as we bid farewell to another growing season. Fall is a great time to plant container grown or balled and burlapped trees and shrubs. Planting in the fall gives the tree roots a head start to grow and get established in their new home before confronting the heat of the next summer. This is the best time to plant ornamental kale, cabbage and the ever more popular and colorful pansies. I love to see the bright, happy colorful pansy faces in a multitude of colors as I head out to work and get home each day through the winter months. These cool weather crops can really brighten your yard and container gardens through the short, dark days of late fall and winter.

This is the very best time to plant spring flowering bulbs. Visit your local garden center and buy crocus and grape hyacinths to get the flower show started early next spring. Then select tulips, hyacinths, Dutch Iris, alium and daffodils to anchor your spring bulb plantings. Each of these bulb crops is available in many varieties and many colors to give you the chance to act like an artist and paint the spring welcoming party of your choice on the canvas of your yard. Most of these bulbs should be planted two times deeper than the diameter of the bulb in well drained soil. My favorite are the daffodils or narcissus which will often naturalize and come back year after year in your garden with their bright yellow trumpet flowers.

This is a good time to fertilize your cool season lawn grasses like tall fescue or rye grass. If you haven’t done your last mowing and trimming for 2014 it is good to mow and trim your Bermuda or other warm season grasses while they are still green, before the first hard freeze, so your lawn will have a neat, clean look for the winter. This is a good time to control broad leaf weeds in warm or cool season lawns with an application of post emergent broad leaf weed killer a spray or in granular form. Do not apply herbicides over newly seeded tall fescue lawns.

Fall is for planting but it is also a great time to enjoy the encore of your spring and summer garden crops. The weather is near perfect on many of these autumn days and it is a wonderful time to enjoy the last warm season flowers of 2014. This is a great time to enjoy the garden, whether weeding and cleaning, composting, planting or just sitting and relaxing in the garden.