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

We are enjoying an absolutely gorgeous fall with the first signs of fall color showing on Bald Cypress and a few of our other trees and vines. It is a great time to overseed tall fescue lawn seed if you want a green lawn through the winter and early spring. The hardy mums are spectacular right now as they deliver mounds of color to our fall landscape. The mums will generally stay pretty until our first hard freeze in early to mid November.

Now is the season to start adding pansies to your landscape. They are one of the most remarkable plants as they lift their cute flower faces up to liven our yards and container gardens all through the winter and early spring. It is always fun to enjoy their yellow, white, orange, burgundy, blue and majestic purple flowers as they bloom even during snow and ice storms. Some pansies and their close cousins, violas, produce solid color flowers but many produce flower faces with the lower or jaw petals in one color and the upper or eye petals in another color which creates a really fun and colorful floral display. The pansies are available at your local nursery in many sizes but most are grown in an 18 count cell that is 3 ¼” to 4” square and makes a nice size plant to transplant into your porch urns, patio pots or front flower beds. I love to plant pansies along sidewalks and in front flower beds to help cheer me up through the winter when I leave the house or come home.  These tough little plants do best in the fall or winter garden when planted in the full sun. They will start to wither and run out of energy next spring and finally surrender or melt in our hot summer heat but they perform like few other plants during the freezing season from November to April each year. Once you have planted pansies in your garden and marveled at their ability to flourish and flower while most of the rest of the plant world is frozen or hibernating you will want to plant them and enjoy their winter charms each succeeding year. You can experiment with different colors, different faces, small or large flowered varieties but do plant some pansies and see if they don’t become one of your favorites.

Fall has officially arrived on the calendar and we are enjoying our second straight week of near perfect autumn weather. This is a great time to be outside doing the many fall gardening activities. This is the time to apply pre-emergent weed killers to control winter weeds and grasses and the final lawn fertilizer for the year. You can do both at once with a weed and feed type product. For years nurseries advertised “Fall is for Planting” and indeed this is a great time to plant container grown trees and shrubs in your yard. The roots will grow through the winter and the cooler weather will cause less transplanting stress and they will be ready to sprout out with new energy next spring. This is also a good time to plant additional perennials in your yard.

Hardy Mums are the star of the fall garden. Many varieties are just bursting into color and most varieties will stay showy until our first hard freeze in November. You can buy them now, in color, at your local nursery. They are available in hundreds of varieties and a virtual rainbow of colors like yellow, bronze, ruby red, pink, orange, white and lavender. The flowers are available in daisy, spoon, button and small and large double styles. They vary some in growth style from shorter cushion mums of 12” to 18” tall to the larger Belgian style hardy mums that can grow to over 3’ tall. Most all varieties make a nice mound of color and are perennials that will come back year after year with a little attention to watering. They make a spectacular display in front flower beds, by outdoor patios or even in container gardens and urns on your front porch or patio.

Nothing says fall like football season and hardy mums and our friends down at the University of Oklahoma in Norman combine these two fall traditions into an impressive display on their main oval each fall. It is one of Oklahoma’s most spectacular floral displays. Even an old OSU guy like me has to tip my hat to them for this impressive hardy mum display that is well worth a visit to Norman. It will make you want to plant 1 gallon, 2 gallon or larger hardy mums in your yard.

This is also the time to start sowing your fescue grass seed if you want a green winter lawn. You can also start planting pansies, kale and cabbage for fall and winter color. Enjoy fall and get outside in the yard and experience why “Fall is for Planting”.

The start of the State Fair is always a good reminder that it is time to apply fall fertilizer to our trees, shrubs and lawns one last time before winter. Since this is also the time to apply pre-emergent herbicides for winter annual weed control on warm season grasses you can use a weed and feed type product on your lawn to both fertilize the lawn and control the winter weeds. Do not use a pre-emergent weed killer on the areas where you plan to sow tall fescue, perennial rye or bluegrass seed. Late September through October is the prime season to establish cool season lawns or overseed Bermuda to have a green lawn this winter. .

We apply a pre-emergent in the early spring to control crabgrass and summer weeds. We apply it now to control winter annual broadleaf weeds like chickweed, henbit, fleabane and grassy weeds like annual bluegrass, cheat, downy brome, little barley and rescuegrass. Depending on soil moisture and the weather these will germinate or sprout in late September to early November. A pre-emergent herbicide must be applied before the seeds germinate in order to work. Once the seeds germinate a pre-emergent will not be effective and you have to use a post emergent for weed control. Most pre-emergents are effective for sixty to one hundred twenty days after application. All pre-emergents need to be watered in for them to be effective. If you don’t get ½” of rain in one to two days after application you will need to water thoroughly to activate the product. The pre-emergent herbicide needs to be watered into the root zone where the weed seeds are located to be effective.  Look for a weed and feed product containing Barricade/Prodiamine, Dimension, Sulfentrazone, Simazine, Balan or Treflan herbicides for best results.

The days are getting shorter, the temperatures are cooling down and autumn appears to have arrived. Soon it will be time to plant hardy mums, pansies, ornamental kale, cabbage and other fall color plants. In the mean time enjoy the Crepe Myrtle, Autumn Clematis, Roses, Lycoris (Naked Ladies and Surprise Lilies) as they bloom in our yards. Start shopping for your spring flowering bulbs like tulips, hyacinths, crocus and daffodils to plant in your yard later this fall when temperatures are cooler to create a welcoming party early next spring.

These are pretty amazing times for Oklahoma City. The MAPS Projects have all been a great success and set a tone of action and progress for our friendly community. The ballparks, library, canal, museums, Bricktown and the river are transforming our community and have led to many additional private projects and investments. The Oklahoma river is in the earliest stages of development and over time may have the biggest impact of all these projects. Our city is progressing on the MAPS for Kids to build new school campuses and to remodel most of the other school campuses and are even landscaping some of these school buildings so they don’t look like prisons. After OKC’S  amazing response in hosting the homeless New Orleans Hornets, we have now landed our own NBA Basketball Team and the momentum keeps building. We were excited that Sandridge Energy acquired the vacant Kerr McGee building and will develop it as their new home and take over care of the lovely Kerr Park in downtown Oklahoma City, a rare example of good landscaping in our downtown area.

This last week Devon Energy announced plans to build the first skyscraper in Oklahoma City in decades. This project will be almost twice as tall as the tallest building in Oklahoma City but will be softened with a beautiful landscaped atrium and over 2 acres of outside park with gardens that will be open to the public and we hope will be done to a scale and quality to set an example for our city. We have a lot of room for improvement in urban landscaping and beautification when compared to peer cities like Columbus, Ohio and Chicago since we have limited trees, few flowerbeds, large street container gardens or hanging gardens to add excitement, color and air cleaning charm to our downtown concrete jungle. The amazing Devon project is estimated to cost 750 million dollars by the time it opens in 2012. That compares to the 350 million invested with the penny sales tax in the MAPS Projects for the Ballpark, Arena, Bricktown Canal and Library. We now are investing 512 million in the MAPS for Kids penny sales tax to rebuild all of the city schools. The new privately funded Devon Tower will cost almost as much as all those MAPS and MAPS for kids projects put together. The parking garage across from the street north from the Myriad Gardens will be transformed into the new Devon Tower. The Devon Tower will be built in a Tax Increment Financing District where the extra property taxes from the development for 17 years will be diverted to further infrastructure improvements within the boundaries of the new TIF district.

Larry & Polly Nichols and the good folks at Devon could use this economic development tool to make further capital improvements on the Devon property but because of their love for Oklahoma City and the desire to be good neighbors they want to see most of it used to transform the Myriad Gardens, Centennial Park and other public spaces in their new downtown neighborhood. They have hired two sets of nationally known landscape architects to help with developing master plans, to tour other urban parks and gardens and to help host a community input seminar this last week to discuss ideas and determine the best ways to use these funds to take our already gorgeous 17 acre downtown Myriad Gardens and transform it to become an even more active and integral part of our community’s activities. There was a strong concensus among those at the input meeting to retain the Botanical Garden focus but there was an agreement that the outdoor gardens could benefit from lowering the soil berms in areas to open up the gardens and the conservatory for more street level views, by adding one or two restaurants, more event plazas and spaces, food kiosks for events and lots more seating areas. There was interest in game tables for checkers and chess, wifi access throughout the park, possibly adding an outdoor ice skating rink, an area for movies in the park, more fountains and water features.

There was a lot of debate about what features should be in a remodeled Myriad Gardens and what should be in the giant “Central Park” type area proposed to be built with MAPS III that would be 3 blocks wide and stretch from just south of the Myriad Gardens for a full mile south to the Oklahoma River to transform the big new city area that will evolve when the new I-40 opens in 2012 as it moves south near the river. Most of the group thought big space projects like basketball, soccer, skateboards and bandshells belong in the future park and the Myriad Gardens should be the star attraction south of Devon Tower and at the north end of the planned Core to Shore Park. These are exciting times that will shape our city for the next century and beyond.  Send me your ideas and I will forward them on to those working on the master plan for the new and even better Myriad Gardens.

The Olympics are always a very special experience and it is a lot of fun to watch all the great competitions, many in “minor” or specialty sports that never get attention except during this world wide athletic festival that plays out every 4 years. It is natural and exciting to cheer for our USA Team members in all these competitions and is particularly satisfying to cheer for our Oklahoma neighbors competing for the United States in gymnastics, wrestling, baseball, weight lifting and other sports during these 16 days of athletic events. Its not just Oklahoma athletes starring on the world stage as China hosts these Olympic games. Two significant Oklahoma plants were also selected to perform on this world stage. Dr Carl Whitcomb of Lacebark Research in Stillwater is famous for his Crapemyrtle breeding and the Chinese were impressed with many of his varieties and back in 2002 acquired thousands of unrooted cuttings of his breakthrough cherry red variety “Red Rocket” to root and grow out to plant around Beijing at Olympic festival sites. It is very difficult to ship plant material around the world both because of freight and handling issues and because each country has its own phytosanitary rules to protect against introduction of new pests, diseases and invasive plants. We don’t allow, with very few exceptions, plants into our country with soil on the roots so we usually move plants around the world as seeds or rooted or unrooted cuttings. Most other countries have similar rules. In this case the Chinese acquired thousands of unrooted cuttings, air freighted them to China where they were rooted and grown into large mature plants. Each year they took additional cuttings and grew more Red Rocket Crapemyrtle until they built up a large supply to make an Olympic impression on Beijing as they host the world. The irony is that the Crapemyrtle is native to China and comes from the southern and eastern foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. They have been grown in China for thousands of years, were introduced to Europe by Dutch and English traders in the 1700’s. They did not perform as well in Europe’s cool mild summers as they love the heat. In the mid 1700’s Crapemyrtles were introduced to Charleston, South Carolina where they flourished in colors of medium to light pink, tones of lavender and white. Dr. Donald Egolf at the National Arboreterum in Washington, D.C.  bred Crapemyrtles for years and the holy grail was a true red flower. Dr. Carl Whitcomb of Stillwater collected seed from one eye catching plant in 1985 and those 5000 seedlings led to the breakthrough and patented Red Rocket variety after six generations and over 100,000 seedlings. Red Rocket is a vigorous upright plant that can grow into a large shrub or short tree of 15 to 20 feet tall. The flowers are bright cherry red and very showy in cone shaped clusters up to 24” tall. In Oklahoma they often bloom from early July into October. Crapemyrtles do best in full sun and bloom on new wood so the more they grow the more they flower.

All over Oklahoma right now you can enjoy the best of our summer flowering shrubs including Althea (Rose of Sharon), large flowered hardy hibiscus and many colors and varieties of gorgeous Crapemyrtle including the many varieties bred right here in Oklahoma by Dr. Carl Whitcomb. Crapemyrtles are definitely a gold medal winner for producing spectacular color and excitement in the Oklahoma landscape. Many of the newer varieties are more tolerant of hard winter freezes and as a result are less likely to freeze back to the ground. Many newer varieties are also more resistant to powdery mildew and less likely to need a fungicide spray.

Riviera Bermuda grass, bred at Oklahoma State University and produced by Johnston Seed and Grain Company of Enid, Oklahoma is becoming well known for use on athletic fields around the world. Since its commercial introduction in 2004 it has been used by NFL Teams like the Washington Redskins, on many famous golf courses including Gary Player Courses in South Africa, on horse racing tracks in Asia and even on the OU Sooner football practice field. But now its most famous installation is at the Beijing Olympics Wukesong Sports Center which will host the Olympic baseball competition giving Stillwater native, Brett Anderson, a special kind of homefield pitching advantage on the very tough Riviera Bermuda developed by OSU turf specialists in the OSU horticulture department. Johnston Seed grew and then shipped the Oklahoma grass seed to China where it is planted to produce the thick, tough athletic field which will host baseball players from around the world. The Oklahoma bred Riviera Bermuda is much tougher as it is bred to tolerate both our extreme heat and cold in Oklahoma where Arizona and California Bermuda are not nearly as cold tolerant when bred and raised in the desert. The early reports on the grass field are good and it appears it will be another gold medal winner for Oklahoma plants at the Beijing Olympics.

China is a huge country with many climate zones but much of China is very similar to Oklahoma and so it affords the opportunity for some of our plants to adapt there and many of China’s plants to adapt here. The plants collected by the last US government plant exploration research teams in the late 40’s and early 50’s before the communists took over China and shut the trade doors ended up at the USDA Southern Plains Research Station in Woodward, Oklahoma and many of the surviving plants are now mature specimens. Oklahoma Nurseryman, Steve Bieberich, of Clinton has participated in recent plant expeditions to China now that the walls of trade are open once more. Enjoy the Olympics and watch for our Oklahoma plants as well as the Oklahoma athletes to shine on the world stage.