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

We are already enjoying some really nice harvests this year on our tomatoes, peppers, squash and the watermelons, cantaloupes and okra are all coming along nicely as long as you have been attentive to your watering responsibilities.  We have been blessed with more moderate daytime temperatures than last year, and have enjoyed a big improvement with nighttime temps in the 70’s instead of the 80’s and 90’s.  That difference in nighttime temperatures is huge, giving our plants a chance to relax from the intense stress of the hot summer heat.  Last year we got almost no tomatoes across Oklahoma because we had super hot days and the night temperatures from late May on hardly ever dropped below 80°. Tomatoes were hard to find last year because they are usually not successful at pollinating above 80°.  No pollination means no fruit on tomatoes.

We are having a much better summer this year for most all of our ornamental and vegetable crops.  It is very important to be diligent about your watering.  Learn to “read” your plants for when they are under stress or very dry.  They will often wilt or display droopy leaves or stems when crying out for water.  Many plants will get pale or turn a grayish or lighter bleached out green color when dehydrated and screaming for your watering assistance.  Observe and watch your plants and they will do a pretty good job of communicating with you when they have an extreme need for water.  If you miss these early signals they will often “sunburn” or scald either big brown spots on the leaves of broadleaf shrubs or plants or will burn around the perimeter or outer edges of tree leaves.  You can reduce watering requirements by adding polymer gels or liquids to your soil or by mulching the top of your gardens and flowerbeds with a layer of 1’ to 3” of hulls or one of the many choices in bark mulches.

 There are many plants that love the heat and make their big show in the summer. One of my favorite flowering shrubs is the Crape Myrtle.  There are many varieties that do great in Oklahoma and they are making a huge splash across our state right now in many tones of red, pink, purple and white.  There are dwarf varieties that only grow a couple of feet tall, intermediate sized shrubs and varieties that are really small trees of 15’ to 20’.  Some varieties are susceptible to mildew and some are not as winter hardy and may freeze back to the ground in really harsh winters but they are a largely trouble-free plant that makes a fabulous show in our Oklahoma summers.  They are so impressive that someone needs to start a crape myrtle festival in Oklahoma! 

Shasta daisies are making a big show in the perennial garden while periwinkle or vinca, lantana and penta are starring in our annual flowerbeds.  The mornings and evenings are a great time to walk, water or enjoy your time in the summer garden.

Hard to believe but we are already at the mid-year point of 2012 when we prepare for the big July 4^th holiday.  As we celebrate the birth of our great country there are lots of things to do in the garden.  First and foremost besides enjoying your garden and harvesting vegetables, berries and fruits is watering!  Now that we have hit triple digit temperatures with hot dry winds your plants are counting on you to assist them with cool refreshing water to prevent their dehydration.  Mulching with bark or hulls is the other practice that will really reduce water use and help your plants thrive.

 With the hot weather, our bugs and pests tend to explode and give us problems.  Not only are our bug populations greatest at this time of year but our trees, plants and vegetables are more vulnerable and less able to defend themselves when they are under stress from the intense heat and drought.

 We have been battling many kinds of worms from bagworms to earworms, cutworms, webworms, and hornworms.  You can control these worms by hand picking the worms, spraying with Dipel or Thuricide, which are natural BT products or spray with Carbaryl, permethrin, deltamethrin, or malathion.

 We are seeing a lot of grasshopper problems and if they are out of control in your yard you can use malathion, orthene, permethrin, deltamethrin or imidacloprid.  Red spider mites love the summer heat and can overtake tomatoes, cucumbers or roses in a matter of days.  You can first try and wash these tiny mites off with strong jets of water.  Remember to rinse the bottom of the leaves as well as the tops of the foliage.  You can apply an ultra fine refined horticultural oil spray, soap, or Neem extract based product to smother the spiders and achieve some control.

 Squash bugs, flea beetles, pillbugs, snails, slugs or other critters that crawl across the garden soil can be controlled with diatomaceous earth which is the microscopic skeletal remains of diatoms which were a single cell algae-like plant.  There razor sharp edges physically cut the protective cover of crawling insects and kills them but will not harm humans or earthworms.  If that doesn’t work you can spray many chemicals for control.

 Aphids and other sucking insects can be controlled with products from a neem tree extract, ultrafine oil spray, horticutural soaps, pyrethrin, permethrin, spinosad, bifentrin or malathion.  If you have a lot of ants you can kill them with an orthene or an acephate based product, or by using any of a number of ant traps or ant baits.

 Just as there are many thousands of species of plants there are many thousands of species of insects, some good guys and some bad guys.  Take a sample of your problem in a ziplock bag to your local nursery or garden center and they can help you identify the problem and recommend a solution that fits your comfort zone across the organic to chemical spectrum.  Take time to enjoy your garden and Happy Birthday America.

Oklahoma gardeners are already harvesting their first home-grown tomatoes, squash and other fresh produce.  As bad as the crops were with the drought and excessive heat last year they are to the great side this year as we have been blessed with cooler temperatures and fairly regular refreshing rains to put most plants in a happy mood.

 Hopefully you got some flowers and veggies planted earlier this year and are already getting to enjoy the work of nature as you watch those plants grow and develop.  Most plants are now container grown and can be transplanted at virtually any time the ground is not frozen.  We certainly don’t have to worry about frozen ground now, so you can still plant most everything if you make the commitment to water these new plantings when needed between natural rains.  We are only two months into our normal growing season but we still have 4 ½ months or over 2/3 the 2012 growing season ahead so you can still get lots of color this season by planting annuals.  Trees, shrubs and perennials planted now will provide color and interest this year and joy and beauty for years to come. 

 Last year I added a bunch of new perennials to my flower beds, and they are back this year even more impressive with larger crowns, and spectacular mounds of flowers on my Shasta daisies and Echinacea cone flowers.  Most of the perennials don’t bloom for as long as annuals but by planting a good mix of perennials you can have some crop in bloom at most all times while adding a  lot of seasonal interest to your landscape.  There are literally hundreds of perennials that do well here in Oklahoma and will come back year after year.  Visit your local nursery or garden center and start adding a few species from bright yellow Coreopsis to stunning blue hardy salvia to your yard each year and before long you will have an impressive mix of plants that liven up your yard with minimal care.

As Oklahoma gets hotter and drier heading into July and August please be prepared to water your plantings to keep them happy and growing rather than stressed and dehydrated.  You can do this by soaking them by waterhose, sprinklers, soaker hoses or by installing a drip watering system.  Remember that soaking with a good slow watering equivalent to a 1” rain is far better for your plants than a daily spritzing or squirting!  The hotter and drier it is, the more water your plants will need to replace the water lost from the plant and the soil.  Plants in containers, and particularly hanging baskets, most exposed to the drying winds will need more supplemental or human watering than plants grown in the ground.  Mulching is one of the very best gardening practices in Oklahoma and will reduce moisture loss from the soil reducing watering by up to 50% while keeping the soil temperatures cooler and dramatically reducing weeds in your garden.  Mulch with 1” to 3” of the bark or hull mulch of your choice to earn these great benefits.

Enjoy your garden and take time to sit in the yard and watch your plants grow and bloom while eating some fresh strawberries or veggies.

Welcome to June and the launch of our three brightest and warmest months of the Oklahoma year.  This is the season when our plants have the most light so their chlorophyll factories can be their most industrious and productive of the year as long as they have access to adequate moisture and don’t get overheated. We can help to create the right environment for each plant by planting them in the proper spot to have the greatest chance for gardening success.  It is important to know if a plant does best in full sun, partial sun or full shade.  Does plant need a well drained soil and doesn’t like “wet feet” or one that likes to stay damp or even relishes bog type conditions.

 We have finished only about two months of the 2012 growing season and have about five months still ahead to enjoy our annual plantings.  Many of us in the horticulture business are always so swamped in April and May that we rarely get to plant our own gardens and containers until June or after.  I have gotten much of my planting done the last couple of weekends and will plant more soon. You can be very successful planting container grown annuals, perennials, shrubs, and trees at this time of year as long as you will be diligent to water them in well and to water regularly as they confront the summer heat.

 This is a great time of year to consider installing drip irrigation to provide even and regular watering to your vegetable gardens, flowerbeds, trees and even container gardens.  Once installed it is fairly easy to automate these systems with a timer to assure nice slow, soaking water applications.

Most plantings will benefit from an application of natural mulches like bark of pine, oak, fir, cedar or eucalyptus or hulls like pecan, cocoa or cottonseed. This will reduce water evaporation from the soil and watering volume and time by up to 50%, while keeping soil temperatures cooler and more consistent.  Another bonus of a mulch “comforter” of 1 to 3 inches deep over the soil surface is the dramatic reduction of weed germination and competition with your desired plants.

 Many of you sustained tree damage lately from the hail and high winds.  Make clean cuts where branches were twisted, ripped or torn from your trees or shrubs then prune as required to balance the remaining tree canopy.  This is a good time to feed your lawn, trees and shrubs before we enter the really hot season.  Visit with your local nurseryman to help select the proper fertilizer for your soils and specific plants.  Due to the mild winter, we need to be watching for worm, spidermite and other insect damage.  Take a sample of problems to your nurseryman to select the proper controls or remedy.  This is the best time of the year to treat your lawn for grubs if that is one of your challenges.

We continue to be blessed with regular rains this year and the great outdoors is alive with color and excitement.  Please make time to enjoy your yard and garden, visit your local parks and enjoy some time with the wonders of nature.

We continue to be in prime planting season across Oklahoma.  2012 is a vintage plant growing season which began several weeks early. We have been blessed with a number of nice, slow rains to stimulate remarkable growth on most of our vegetable and ornamental crops.  One of the fastest growing areas of gardening the last few years has been container gardening.  Container gardens have been popular since long before the Roman Empire and their great planted urns.  Container gardening has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence that shows imagination way beyond urns, old farm tractor tires and hanging baskets.  The containers themselves allow the gardener to make a design statement in addition to the palette of  plants you choose to grow in the containers.  Container gardens empower both homeowners and apartment dwellers.  If you have a patio or deck you can select containers and grow strawberries, flowering annuals, small shrubs, and vegetables to feed your stomach and your soul.

 There are literally thousands of containers you can select to show your personality, fit your design scheme or to make a statement.  There are then thousands of choices of plant material and combinations of plants you can plant to really personalize your container gardens. Selecting the container does require a little more thought than just appreciating the look or design of the container to increase your odds of container gardening success.  The larger and deeper the container, the easier it is to manage the watering, especially as we get into the much drier, summer season. There should be a drainage hole so water does not stand in the root zone.

 Smaller container or hanging baskets up in the air and exposed to more drying winds will need to be watered more often while larger containers will be slower to dry out and require less human attention.  Select a good well drained soil mix to add to your container rather than just filling with topsoil or loam that is often too tight and heavy for container gardening and will not breath and dry out like a good soil mix with sphagnum peat, composted pine bark and other soil amendments.  Any commercial soil mix should be PH corrected to 5.5 to 6.5.  You can add polymers to help keep the mix from drying out so quickly or mycorrhizae to stimulate and colonize natural biological activity in the soil.  Container Gardens, like your garden beds, will benefit from a couple inch layer of bark or hulls mulched over the top of the ground to reduce watering, weeds and to maintain a steady soil temperature.

 Avid gardeners may have up to dozens of container gardens, and love them because they are easier to work since they are literally “planting holes” raised up out of the ground.  They can be moved from front porches to back patios or wherever you want to make an impact when hosting parties or guests.  You can move them by the season or for a single night event. Many folks have adopted the European idea of even setting container gardens in flower beds amongst other plantings to create focal points and to add more heights to the landscape as well as the “sculpture” type impact of the container itself.

 The possibilities are endless so visit your local nursery or garden center and select some preplanted decorative container gardens or hanging baskets.  It can be even more fun to select your own plants to show your container gardening flair planted in the containers you already have or in the new containers that capture your imagination.