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

We have been enjoying absolutely great fall weather with beautiful, comfortable days and crisp autumn nights. Our hardy mums were all a little late to flower because of heat delay caused by unusually warm nights until just the last 2 or 3 weeks. Once the night time temperatures dropped the hardy mum buds opened to reveal a flood of autumn color.

It has been near perfect for sowing tall fescue and rye grass turf seed, planting ornamental kale, cabbage, and pansies. You can start planting spring flowering bulbs like tulips, crocus, dutch iris, hyacinths and my personal favorite the narcissus or daffodils. They will root in and grow underground this fall and winter, ready to pop out of the earth early next spring bursting with color to announce the new growing season.

We are in the final stretch run of the 2010 election season and this year’s growing season. Our first average freeze will usually occur in the first week of November although they have happened anywhere from about now until mid November. This year we are likely to freeze somewhere around election day, totally unrelated to politics.Since our first freeze is likely in the next week or two, you should get serious about deciding which plants to save and bring inside, prepare for the final harvest of vegetable crops that will freeze and decide how to protect tender perennials.

Mulch your flowerbeds with plants you hope to overwinter to reduce watering needs and act like a blanket or comforter to provide the plants extra insulation and protection. Nature does this naturally with the tree leaves dropped each fall from our deciduous trees. You can mulch with leaves, dried lawn clippings or many commercially available bark mulches, pine straw, pecan hulls or cottonseed hulls.

If you have a greenhouse or enclosed patio you probably move some or many of your decorative container gardens, patio pots and tropical plants inside for the winter. Some folks work a deal with their local greenhouse or nursery and pay rent to overwinter a few cherished plants. Others move plants inside by windows throughout their home or try to overwinter plants in their garage. I have seen many geraniums, sprengeri ferns, hibiscus, oleanders and other hearty plants overwintered in the low light of a cool, but not freezing, garage still survive. They will look pretty ragged when you cut them back next spring and reintroduce them to the great outdoors where they will usually respond with new growth. You can also take cuttings of your favorite plants and root new young plants in water or loose soil mix to “winter over” near windows or large sliding doors before moving them back outside next spring.

We often get an “Indian Summer” with several pleasant weeks of weather after our first freeze. There are many crops you can extend with just a little protection if we get a light freeze but not a hard freeze where temperatures go below 25º. Physically cover crops you hope to extend a little later in the season with an old sheet or frost blanket fabrics available from your local garden center on nights we are likely to get light frosts or freezes.

The State Fair has just concluded, the football season is in full swing, the days are getting cooler and shorter, and all signs point to fall in the garden.  Garden centers across the state are also getting in the fall mood with displays of pumpkins, gourds, tall fescue seed for green winter lawns and big selections of fall bulbs for spring color.  The garden stars of fall are hardy mums and pansies. Although we plant pansies in the fall they really are most impressive through the winter when they will bloom and provide cheer until we get very hard freezes in the low teens. It is really fun to see a pot of pansies in bloom on the porch or patio poking through the snow. Pansies don’t get very tall, only 8” – 12” in height, but they make a great and colorful fall and winter border along the front sidewalk or in your front flowerbeds. They are a cheerful statement by the mail box or yard lamps. They will do best in fall and winter gardens planted in full or mostly sunny spots 6” to 12” apart. Add a little bone meal or slow release fertilizer to assure a great show until the heat of early next summer wipes out your pansies.

Hardy mums are the most widely known plant of fall. No plant says fall and makes the colorful impact of garden mums. They are beautiful, whether planted in mass like those you see on the Oval at OU, west of the stadium in Norman or as a single mound of flowers in a front flowerbed. There are literally hundreds of varieties of mums available in many colors and flower styles. The hardy mum varieties are perennials that will come back year after year. Show your own design style by planting a number of the same color and style or plant an interesting mix of varieties and colors for a completely different effect. Most garden mums will create a mound of colors from 12” to 24” tall depending on the variety. The many varieties will flower from now until the first hard freeze in late October or early November. Hardy mums do best in a sunny area and make a great show in large decorative containers as well as your flowerbeds. They are fairly heavy drinkers and will dry out more often than most other plants so be prepared to water thoroughly and regularly.

This is a great time of year to get back out in the garden and enjoy the plant world as it puts on a last batch of new growth and prepares for the fall color show. You can help the show by adding hardy mums, bulbs and pansies to your yard.

We finally received some relief from the intense summer heat as the temperatures dropped 15º for much of last week. Most of the state even enjoyed some rain. We still need to be on top of our watering as many trees and plants have been under extreme stress and we still have to deal with hot, dry weather for a while yet.

The “cold front” last week gives us hope that fall is coming and when we visit our local greenhouse growers we see thousands of hardy mums and pansies in production. In just a few weeks those fall crops will be showing color and it will be time for us to plant them in our yards for immediate fall color.

Besides watering, weeding and pest control this is a great time to harvest fresh produce from your vegetable garden. The tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and other vegetables that survived the summer heat will get a burst of energy with the cooler weather and begin to yield larger harvests.

We are at the tail end of the planting season for fall vegetable gardens. You should get your cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli plants in the ground right away. Kale, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, green peas and leaf lettuce should also be planted right away for fall harvest. Most of these cool season or semi-hardy vegetables will keep growing and producing harvests through several light frosts until we get a really hard freeze. You can plant spinach, Swiss chard, turnips, rutabaga and radishes up until mid September.

In just a few weeks we will be into prime fall planting season for trees and shrubs so now is the time to think about your yard and develop a long term plan in your mind or on paper of where you would like to add shade trees. Fall is a good time to change out or add foundation plantings, shrub fences, windbreaks or natural screens. Start preparing to plant these trees and shrubs in a few weeks after we have cooled down.

Now would be a good time to remove any old overgrown plantings you plan to replace or where you plan to create new flowerbeds to plant this fall. If it is currently an area covered by grass or weeds, treat with glyphosate (Roundup) or solarize by covering the future flowerbed with clear or black plastic so it heats up to kill the existing vegetation for 2 weeks or more before you dig out the roots and create the new planting area.

Don’t forget to water as needed and enjoy watching your plants leaf out with renewed energy as the rains come and the weather transitions to fall.