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

Thanksgiving and our celebration of the annual harvest are now complete and our attention turns to the month long celebration leading up to Christmas.  Most are now thinking of Christmas trees, poinsettias, evergreen wreaths, Christmas Cactus, Amaryllis and other Christmas traditions.

There are several choices if you want a live Christmas tree for your celebrations.  You can go with a live cut tree, a container grown or field dug living tree to plant outside later or a houseplant style tree like a Norfolk Island pine.  There are a number of Oklahoma Christmas tree farms where you can select a cedar, pine or fir tree that has already been cut or you can start or maintain a family tradition and select and cut your own fresh Christmas tree.   Most of the cut Christmas trees that our found at Oklahoma retailers come from Washington, Oregon or Michigan and are usually different varieties of firs, spruce, pine or cedar.  Cut trees are available in all sizes, densities and shapes depending on the variety, the weather in their lifetime and the level of care and pruning they received during cultivation.  You should make a fresh cut on cut trees and set in a Christmas tree stand that holds adequate fresh water to help keep the tree hydrated.  Check the water regularly while in your home, adding more as needed to help prevent needle drop and drying. You can add a polymer gel product to the water to help extend the life of your cut Christmas tree.  Some folks like to bring a living container grown or dug evergreen into the house as their Christmas tree and then plant it out in the yard afterwards as a living memory of your Christmas Celebrations and an addition to their landscape.  Since our homes are warm and drying  it is best to limit the time you have a true living Christmas tree in the home to ten to fourteen days so that it is not too dry or “soft” when moved outside and planted in the yard after Christmas.   Some folks, especially those in apartments, the hospital, nursing home or other small spaces like to decorate and celebrate the Christmas holiday with a Norfolk Island pine tree that makes a good houseplant year round and decorates nicely for the holidays.

Many folks celebrate the Christmas holidays with blooming Amaryllis bulbs, English Ivy on living wreaths or trellis, pots of Holly, Thanksgiving and Christmas cactus in bloom, but the icon plant for the Christmas season is the Poinsettia.  Discovered in Mexico in the early years of our country, U.S. Ambassador Joel Poinsett sent plants home to the United States.  Short days cause the Poinsettia to flower which put them flowering near the Christmas season, and they exploded in popularity and have become our Christmas flower.  Active breeding efforts around the world keep bringing us new varieties, colors and sizes of Poinsettias.  The actual flowers are small and not very impactful but the upper leaves or bracts that surround those plain Poinsettia flowers come in all tones of red, white, pink and mottled or streaked combinations of those colors and make a powerful and beautiful statement.   The newer varieties of poinsettias will often have showy bracts from late November up into March or April as long as they are watered correctly and well cared for.  Water the poinsettias when dry, being careful not to overwater or to leave them standing in a pot cover or saucer that is standing in water.  They do best with good light near a window but will hold up for months in good artificial or indirect sunlight.  Poinsettias are available at many fine retailers but it is especially fun to buy them at a nursery or greenhouse grower that has grown them, where you can select plants right out of the growing greenhouse and make it a family adventure.

The really hard freeze a week and a half ago clearly wrapped up the 2013 growing season for all but the hardiest cool season plants and our evergreens.  The evergreens now show why they earned that name as they stand out in our landscapes with their bright green as all the annuals have frozen out and the deciduous trees and shrubs have mostly dropped their leaves as they go into winter hibernation.   The pines, junipers, cedars, hollies and other evergreens will help cheer us on though the long, darken winter months.  It is easy to see how they inspired our ancestors to make wreaths, swags and to bring boughs of these beautiful evergreens in to living up their homes for Christmas and the winter months.   Like many gardeners, I always suffer a little grief and mourning as our tomatoes, peppers, warm season vegetables and beautiful flowering annuals from marigolds to penta to begonias all froze out and went to plant heaven.  We know this time comes each year, it is part of the normal march of the seasons we enjoy but the saying goodbye can still be painful.  This process does set the stage to think about the season gone by and to start to plan for the season ahead when there will be a chance to start again as nature will very soon produce a new spring and another season of gardening. 

 Even after the hard freeze there are still many plants to plant at this time of year, plant pansies for color all through the winter.   Buy and plant your spring flowering bulbs now for color next March and April from tulips, crocus, daffodils, hyacinth and many other lesser known spring flowering bulbs.  This is a great time to add new trees and shrubs to your yard.  We have lost so many trees in the Oklahoma landscape the last few years from ice and wind storms and the slow torture of droughts that you may need to replace some trees or just want to change your property with trees.  Trees can provide natural cooling and shade as well as serving as wind breads and natural fences or sight barriers.

 At this time of year you can successfully transplant container grown trees, balled and burlapped trees dug out of the nursery or root control trees grown in special root pruning bags.  Fall planted trees get a nice head start on spring trees as the roots will grow and start to get established underground even while the top of the trees and shrubs are in winter hibernation.  Just water them in good after planting and periodically through the winter if the earth gets to dry. 

 As we mourn the loss of our annuals make time to start planting for the future.

The deciduous trees and shrubs have been putting on their annual living art show the last couple of weeks as the leaves and entire tree canopies march from green through tones of yellow, bronze, orange, almost purple and shades of red. 

Instead of talking about photosynthesis, carotenoids and anthocyanins and how we get these spectacular but fleeting shows of fall color, just get outside and enjoy the ever changing chorus of fall color while it lasts.  Enjoy the bright yellows of the poplars, walnuts and honey locusts or soak in the reds of the Bradford pears and many varieties of colorful maples.  Every tree has its own fall fashion show and many people select trees for their yard or properties with fall color as one of the key selection criteria.  If fall foliage is important to you, watch the trees in your neighborhood that you like, identify them or take a few leaves to your local nurseryman.  Purchase and plant the trees you desire to paint the fall color you want in your landscape.  Fall is the second season for planting so this is a great time to plant new trees and shrubs in your yard so that they can “root in” to their new home before next spring.  You can plant container grown or larger “balled and burlapped” trees and shrubs up until the ground freezes later this winter. 

As we enjoy the festival of autumn color on our trees and shrubs at this time of year we can plant the many kinds of spring flowering bulbs now to get a festival of early spring color next  March and April from crocus, grape hyacinths, tulips, daffodils, hyacinth, and many lesser known spring bulbs.  Now is a great time to plant all these bulbs so they can grow underground through the winter and will be ready to spring from the ground next spring to announce the end of winter and the arrival of spring.  Visit with your local nurseryman for help on planting depth and bulb spacing but we generally plant the bottom of the bulb from 3” to 8” underground with the growing tip planted up.  The smaller bulbs like crocus are planted shallower and the bigger bulbs like tulips or daffodils are planted deeper.   Smaller bulbs usually make smaller plants and smaller flowers so they are spaced more closely together to make an impact while larger bulbs generally produce larger plants and flowers and can be spaced further apart.  A bark or hull mulch of 2” to 3” over the soil surface helps produce the best bulb beds but you should take that into account as part of your planting depth.  Spring flowering bulbs need 6 to 15 weeks of cold to prepare for their big spring premiere.  They will use the winter to grow roots and vernalize so they are ready to perform when the temperatures warm up and the days lengthen next spring.  In Oklahoma most tulips and hyacinth are a one year show, as they rarely naturalize here.  Daffodils or narcissus are a great choice in Oklahoma because they most often will naturalize and come back year after year, often growing in clump size, as long as they are planted in a well drained soil. Don’t forget to try some of the lesser known spring flowering bulbs like allium (flowering onions), anemone, ranunaculus, chionodoxa, aconite, snowdrops and Scilla. 

The leaves they are a changing!  The temperatures and day lengths also are a changing.  These happenings are very closely related as the changes in day length, light intensity and temperature (night temperatures in particular) leads to the fall color.  As the earth rotates and we get fewer hours of sunshine each day and our nights get longer, the temperatures slowly drop leading to autumn and then winter as we get less and less sunshine.

Some years the reds, oranges and yellows of our fall tree leaves are more intense and more plentiful than other years.  The actual temperatures, moisture levels and cloud cover can cause this variation from year to year.   The reds are best when we have a number of warm sunny days with crisp cool nights but without any actual freezing temperatures.  Trees produce a lot of sugars in the daytime as they do their photosynthesis but the cool night temperatures keep the sugar sap from flowing back through the leaf veins and into the stems, branches and trunk of the tree.  That is when anthocyanins or red pigments that are mainly produced in the fall come into play.  These anthocyanins allow the tree to recover nutrients from the leaves for the next season before they fall off the tree.  These anthocyanins give leaves their shades of red, purple and crimson. 

The yellow, gold and orange colors are created by carotenoids that are always in the leaves but become unmasked as the green chlorophyll shuts down production during the short cool days of autumn.  The same carotenoids are what give color to corn, carrots and bananas where those vegetables or fruit don’t have chlorophyll at work.  Since carotenoids are always present in leaves those colors are fairly consistent from year to year and the trees that produce yellow leaves each fall do not change as much from year to year in response to weather. 

The weather earlier in the growing season can also impact fall color.  Severe droughts like the last two years can delay the start of fall colors and reduce their intensity.  A warm wet autumn will reduce the brightness of fall colors.  An early hard frost or freeze will just kill the leaves and cause them to drop early.   The best fall colors come after warm, wet springs, a summer that is not too hot or dry and a fall with warm, sunny days and cool nights.  Much of our state has had the best conditions in several years to produce good fall color so if we can avoid an early hard frost we are expecting a great show of fall color.

Make time to drive to southeast Oklahoma and the Talimena Scenic Skyline Drive for the best tree color in our state, to visit the arboretum at Will Rogers Park or just drive through neighborhoods to soak in the show. 

As you enjoy the annual symphony of fall tree color don’t forget this is a great time to plant new trees and shrubs.  You can also plant pansies for show all winter and spring flowering bulbs to announce the arrival of next spring.

We are in the heart of fall and nearing the end of the growing season for most of the annuals and warm season crops.  Our first freeze often happens in early November.  Make time to enjoy the fall burst of new production on your tomatoes and other veggies that survived the heat of summer and the harvest from your fall garden you planted back in late summer.  You may be enjoying the fall color of naked lady or lycoris bulbs as they flower without any foliage.  This is also the time to enjoy a last round of color from all your flowering annuals and to enjoy the symphony of fall color on your trees and shrubs as they begin to show their fall colors before dropping and blowing into history and becoming compost for the future.

There are many things to plant at this season of fall.  You should be winding up your sowing of tall fescue and rye grass if you want a green winter lawn or fields. This is a wonderful time to plant trees and shrubs to replace trees damaged in the storms of the last few years or that have died from old age.  Shade trees, fruit trees and shrubs planted in the fall will get a big head start on rooting in to their new home before facing their first hot dry Oklahoma summer in their new home.  The roots will grow most all winter, helping new landscape plantings to get established to create wind breaks or natural fences, to provide shade and to make a landscape statement.  Remember that plantings of trees and shrubs are the foundation of any good landscape and their value and impact grows every year until they die.

There is an ever growing palette of fall color plants to jazz up your fall garden and add excitement to your yard and outdoor living.  The hardy mums or chrysanthemums and hardy asters are in full color and most varieties will stay showy through several light frosts.  You can buy full grown hardy mums or asters in many sizes to add to existing flowerbeds or container gardens or to create a whole new experience.   Flowering kale and flowering cabbage are two popular fall crops that will make a colorful impact well into the Oklahoma winter.  Pansies and violas are my favorite plant for winter color.  They would be fun, charming and beautiful at any time of year.  They have a special impact as one of the few flowers that bloom right through the winter when few other plants bloom or are seasonally showy across Oklahoma.  The selection of pansy varieties and colors has grown dramatically in recent years.  You can select a multitude of single color or multicolored pansies in all tones of purple, blue, red, burgundy, white, yellow and orange.  You can do mass plantings of a single variety or mixed plantings of many or several colors and varieties.  My favorites are the multicolored varieties where the pansy faces have one color on the upper petals and another color on the cheeks or lower petals of each pansy flower. Have fun selecting and planting your pansies and other fall flowers and spring flowering bulbs and enjoy the autumn colors as the trees march into fall.