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

Fall is for Planting!  After another intense and trying horticultural summer we are enjoying the cool and pleasant reprieve of autumn.  The days are getting noticeably shorter, the nights are much cooler and even the daytime heat is moderated.  Most all of the plant world that survived the hot dry summer is breathing a deep sigh of relief as they root out for every precious drop of fall moisture.  One big benefit of fall is that there is much less evaporation and dehydration stress on our plants.  Many of the plants that have survived are putting on a fresh flush of growth. The annuals are blossoming with a new round of flowers, even the tomatoes and peppers are producing new fruit.

This fall weather unleashes a multitude of new gardening opportunities.  Hardy mums always make a big color statement from state fair time to the first hard freeze in early November.  There are so many great varieties of cushion mums that produce gorgeous mounds of white, yellow, bronze, red, pink or purple flowers.  The pallette of hardy mums includes many flower styles. Hardy mums are perennials that will survive and come back year after year if planted in the ground in a sunny location.  They also make a great seasonal show in decorative containers but are a little less likely to overwinter if left above ground.  This is also the season for ornamental kale and cabbage, the early pansy plantings, asters and other cooler blooded bloomers.

For those gardeners who enjoy a green lawn through the winter months this is the time to overseed your lawn with tall fescue.  There are many good varieties of tall fescue that do well through the cooler months of fall, winter and spring in sunny areas to provide a green winter lawn.   The same varieties of tall fescue grow well year round in shady areas.  We usually sow the fescue seed in September or October at 8 to 10 pounds per 1000 square feet.  Some gardeners plant annual or perennial rye in the fall as a winter cover crop.  It is important to get the seeds in contact with the soil and to water them in soon after planting to get good germination.  A light application of a new lawn starter or general well balanced fertilizer will also improve seeding success.

Speaking of fertilizer, this is the time to do the last fertilizer application of the season to your trees and shrubs.  A good tree and shrub food or well balanced fertilizer will help support good root growth on your established plantings even as we enter winter as the roots that are underground will stay active in the warmer soil even after their tops have shut down in the colder air temperatures.

This is also the time to be completing your applications of pre-emergent herbicides or weed and feed products to your lawn to control winter annual weeds, cheat, rescue grass, downy brome, annual bluegrass and many others that germinate in late September to early November.  The pre-emergents must be applied and watered in before they come up to be effective or you will need to use a post emergent after they are up if you want to eliminate these weeds from your winter lawn.  Do not apply a pre-emergent if you plan to sow fescue or rye grass seed.

Hope you are able to go visit your local garden center and pickup some hardy mums to kick off the fall season.

We survived another dose of triple digit temperatures last week that put new stress on all of the Oklahoma plant kingdom.  It is amazing the difference in how much extra water our flowers, veggies and trees need when dehydrating at 100 degrees as opposed to even the cooler 90 degrees of this last weekend.  We are headed from hot, dry weather towards the cooler fall weather of hardy mums, pansies, kale and cabbage and overseeding lawns with tall fescue.  If you have sustained your plants with some extra watering, many of your existing plants will perk up with the cooler day and night temperatures. Many plants will give you a burst of new growth and flowers from now until the first hard freeze in early November.  Even my tomatoes are back to producing flowers and small fruit, an indication of better times ahead.

After two tough challenging summers in a row you are likely ready to enjoy some beautiful Oklahoma gardens where you can get some good garden design ideas, learn what plants are performing best and just enjoy the opportunity to visit with fellow Oklahoma plant lovers.

The Oklahoma Horticulture Society, our states leading group of plant lovers, hosts an annual “Garden Tour for Connoisseurs”.  This year the tour will be on Saturday, September 22^nd and will visit 6 great private gardens in Crown Heights, Mesta Park and Edgemere Heights as well as the impressive Chesapeake Employee Gardens.  The tour gardens will be open from 9AM to 4PM.  You can buy advance tickets at many OKC metro garden centers for $12.00.  You can buy tickets on the day of the tour for $15.00 at any of the tour gardens.  The Horticulture Society is anxious to expose young people to the joy of plants and gardening so children and grandchildren under age 6 can attend for free.  I always look forward to this premier OKC garden tour and get lots of great ideas to use in my own yard while discovering lots of new plant material and re-discovering other plants long forgotten.

All the proceeds from this great volunteer effort go to support horticulture scholarships at OSU-OKC, Tulsa Community College and OSU-Stillwater in addition to the great speakers, publications and educational efforts of the Oklahoma Horticulture Society.  Hopefully you will be able to attend this tour of these six great yards being opened for your enjoyment.  Thanks to Rosemary and Jim Keating, Rebecca and Robert German, Sharon Astrin and Randy Marks, Marsha and Carson See, Susan and Rick Wymer and Maggie and Phil Clayton for opening their yards for this tour of inspiration and discovery.  More details about where to buy advance tickets, the garden tour locations and the stories of each garden are available at www.ok-hort.org and click on garden tour.  I hope you are able to  join us and will look forward to seeing you on the tour as we support a great cause while having a wonderful time and getting lots of new ideas and inspiration.  If you enjoy the tour you might want to consider becoming a member of the Horticulture Society so you can be involved in all their other great activities.  You will be able to join at any of the tour gardens or on-line.

What a difference 2 weeks make!  14 days ago we were battling a long stretch of 100 plus degree heat and a punishing drought dehydrating every living thing across Oklahoma.  We are still in a drought but most of the state has been blessed with at least 1 or 2 refreshing rains and we have enjoyed a nice run of cooler August weather with highs in the low 90’s.  Our night temps have dropped into the 60’s and 70’s over this stretch.  Those lower night temperatures allow our trees and plants to take a deep breath and relax a little before facing the heat of the next day.  Many plants, like the ever popular tomatoes, can’t pollinate and set fruit with high night temperatures. These lower temperatures allow pollination again and should help all your plants that survived the furnace of July to find new energy for fall.  Many plants will start to perk up, produce new growth, fruit and flowers as long as you help meet their watering needs in this greatly improved “fall-like” weather.

This nicer weather will help improve your fall plant choices in a few short weeks at your favorite local nursery or garden center.  The fall hardy mums the last 2 seasons have been of lower quality than normal as growers fought intense August and even September heat which caused heat delay and smaller fall mums.  The fall crops are growing nicely in greenhouses across our state and with this cooler weather it looks like growers may produce one of their best hardy mum crops in years.  Growers have already potted up the first crops of fall pansies and this weather will help improve the quality of the pansy plants you can buy in late September and October to beautify your fall and winter garden.

 I want to take personal privilege to bid a fond farewell to David and Bev Shumate and all their fine team of horticulturists at Horn Seed.  We are truly sad to see them closing this landmark Oklahoma garden center after 91 years.  They have been in the current location for over 50 years at the old “Classen Circle”, and have served hundreds of thousands of Oklahoma gardeners and generations of market farmers.  They have made a huge impact on the beautification and health of all those Oklahomans they have served over the years.   It is sad to think about all that great talent and service we have lost in our community in the last several decades with the closing of so many wonderful independent growers and garden centers like Horn Seed.  I have fond memories of some of the others that closed before them including Higdons Nursery, Porter’s, Sneeds Nursery, Capitol Gardens, Bruce Rey Nursery, Satterlee Nursery,  Moesel’s Hort-Haven, Booton’s, and Warren and Son Nursery.  These local nurseries served the community in many special ways through education, support for local institutions, and a local knowledge of the trees, plants, soil types and water quality and a special desire to help Oklahoma gardeners succeed.  Please join me in saying  ”Thank You” to the Horn family for many years of service to Oklahoma and please try to support the remaining local garden centers and nurseries so they can survive to serve future generations of Oklahoma gardeners.

This last few weeks has been feeling very much like the summer of 2011.  The recent “flash drought” and very high, hot temperatures has put intense stress on most farm crops and our trees, shrubs and gardens.  Be respectful of your local water supplies and follow any mandated watering times but please walk your yard and property and do at least enough watering to keep your trees, shrubs, perennials and other long term or special plants alive.  It is best to soak your plants when you do water to support the deeper plant roots and to reduce surface evaporation.  You can apply a liquid polymer and wetting agents to make the “water wetter” and cause it to soak further in the ground and to stay longer in the soil.  You can mulch the tops of flower beds and container gardens with any of a number of kinds of bark mulches or hulls to slow down water evaporation, lower soil temperatures and retain water longer in the root zone.  A mulch of 1” to 3” thick over the soil surface will reduce watering requirements by 50 percent or more.  Mulching will also reduce weed germination, and will dramatically reduce your need for weed pulling or herbicides.  Lower weed population also reduces the competition for water so your desired plants can access more of the available water.

 You can almost tell how deep a plants’ roots go into the earth by how green the plant is. Compared to those stressed with leaves turning yellow or brown, wilting and even dropping from the plant.  Shallow roots plants like bermuda grass lawns will turn brown or burn the quickest while deep rooted trees like pecans can hang on the longest with limited stress since they are rooted deepest into the earth.  This drought is serious enough especially following the intense and extended drought of spring and summer 2011 that many shrubs and trees are showing the cumulative stress of these challenges.  Many are literally having their own plant style “heat stroke”.

 You can water by hand with a waterhose, or you can use many styles of water sprinklers.  Nothing beats drip irrigation for its slow, steady, soaking ability that uses less water while actually getting more of the water  to the plant roots.  You can also recycle bath or dishwater to water your plants.

Please join me in praying for rain but in the meantime get out and water the plants you want to save.

Here we are already at the halfway point of calendar year 2012 and almost 40 percent of the way through the 2012 growing season. Our growing season typically runs from our last freeze date in early to mid April to our first freeze date in late October or early November. But individual crops have their own calendars and time frames that may be based on day length, sun intensity, temperature or moisture availability. We know that some crops peak in the early spring like tulips, daffodils and forsythia. Others will peak in the fall and a few very hardy crops actually peak in the heat of the summer like okra, penta, lantana and crape myrtle. Our yards and landscapes are the most exciting when we plant a variety of plants so that we have color or can harvest at different points of the growing season. This diversity adds excitement to your décor and the aesthetic view and value of your property.  It can also enhance your interest in spending   time outdoors in the yard to observe the many seasonal changes.

You can plant container grown plants, even in the heat at this time of year as long as you stay on top of their watering needs.  We are entering our third week of daily temperatures around 100 degrees.   Those persistently hot temperatures along with little or no rain for weeks has put us back into drought conditions and many established trees and shrubs are under extreme stress.  New plantings will likely not survive without  your supplemental  watering.  Established trees, shrubs and even flowers and vegetables will be rooted deeper into the earth where there is at least some moisture in the soil that they can suck up and use.  New plantings have a limited root zone, nearer to the soil surface and can get dried out or dehydrated much quicker. 

Those of you that are growing plants in container gardens can observe a similar condition in that plants in small pots will dry out much quicker and need water more often because their container does not have as much soil mass, and cannot hold as much moisture after a watering where plants in large containers can go longer and need watering less often, but still more often than flowers or vegetables growing in a flowerbed in the ground. 

We were blessed to get a number of spring rains and to stay cooler through June compared to last year.  This has led to some really nice harvests of tomatoes, peppers, squash and many other veggie crops. Now that we are “heating up” most of the plants in your yard are counting on you for water,  to help them bridge through the drought and heat to survive until fall and the cooler temperatures and it’s refreshing, renewing rains.  If this is the time of year you get a chance to plant, please plant but remember that summer planting comes with a commitment  to water.   Do check your plants regularly and soak the new and established plants as needed.  Please remember your newer plantings will need water more often.