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

Hope your yard survived the “Welcome to Spring” snowstorm and cold front without too much damage. Some yards had virtually no damage while others saw the flowers frozen on their forsythia, quince, Bradford pears, apricots and peach trees. It was often a matter of just a couple of degrees of whether you got damage or not. We may have lost some of the impact of our early spring flowers and the fruit crop on the early blooming fruit trees, but I think we escaped major freeze damage to our trees and shrubs.

We are still at risk of frosts and freezes until about mid-April, so I would encourage you to resist the national ads to plant tender annuals now and show some patience for another couple of weeks on planting most tender annuals. Wait until about the first of May on real heat loving plants like periwinkle, caladiums, copper leaf and other tropicals to allow our nighttime lows to rise a little higher. If you do decide to plant early on tomatoes, pepper, begonias, impatiens, etc. be prepared to cover them on cold nights with Wall O’ Water cones, Hot Kaps, row covers, empty milk jugs or a sheet or blanket for a little extra protection.

This is still a good planting season for beets, broccoli and radishes as we get ready for full scale planting of warm season vegetables and colorful annuals in a couple of weeks.

This is a great time to plant trees and shrubs and allows them to benefit from spring rains and to get rooted in before the hot, dry Oklahoma summer. Trees and shrubs not only add to the beauty of your property, add shade, provide windbreaks and visual fencing or screening but when well placed can reduce your home energy bills. They are still the most effective air filters removing pollutants and carbon dioxide from the air and producing large quantities of fresh clean oxygen for your world.

Depending on your strength, most individuals can handle and plant trees grown in up to 15 gallon cans or 2” caliper on your own. Because of time demands you may want your nurseryman to plant even smaller trees and shrubs but most people probably want to get professional help transplanting trees larger than 2” caliper.  Always dig a hole 1 ½ to 2 times as large as needed. If you have clay or sandy soil then mix sphagnum peat or compost with your soil as you plant your new trees and shrubs to the same depth at which they have been grown.

Each week we should enjoy more pretty days than the week before so I hope you are able to get outside on those pretty days to enjoy your spring flowering bulbs, beautiful spring flowering shrubs and trees. Plant trees, shrubs, perennials and cool season plants now and get ready for the “Plant Away” sign in a couple of weeks.

Tornadoes and “spring forward” time changes have already visited Oklahoma, further confirming that spring really is at hand. It is still early to plant warm season annuals as our last average frost date around the central part of Oklahoma occurs between April 5^th and 15^th so it is best to wait to plant tomatoes, peppers, petunias, impatiens and begonias until mid April unless you are prepared to give lots of extra protection with Hot Kaps, Wall-O-Water or fabric row covers.

There are a bucket load of things to do now in the Oklahoma garden. Apply dormant oil spray to your fruit and ornamental trees to kill overwintering mites, galls, aphids, scale and other insect pests. Prune your rose bushes now, before they produce their spring shoots and leaves. You can also prune summer flowering shrubs, remove dead wood and shape trees and evergreen shrubs. Cut back dead or old foliage on ornamental grasses and lirope. If you plan to add fescue, rye or other cool season grasses this is a good season to sow those seeds, especially in shady lawn areas. Remove all dead plant matter from last season’s garden and cultivate your flower beds to remove winter weeds as you prepare for spring planting.

We are nearing the end of the pre-emergent weed killing season so apply your weed and feed type granular products or spray your lawn very soon with a pre-emergent herbicide to kill crabgrass and summer weeds before they germinate. You can apply post emergent weed killers to your lawn to kill the winter weeds that are green now. Most Oklahomans have Bermuda grass lawns so you can even use glyphosate (Round-up) over the dormant lawn to kill all the green weeds without damage to your brown lawn if you apply soon before the Bermuda greens up. There are some great new products available to homeowners that include both glyphosate post-emergent to kill live or green plant material and prodiamine (Barricade) pre-emergent to kill the summer weeds not yet germinated in one spray like that applied by commercial lawn services. 

The “food gardeners” are already in high gear as we wrap up the traditional planting season on Saint Patrick’s Day for seed potatoes, onion sets, onion plants, cabbage, cauliflower and lettuce plants. You need to plant seed for your cool season vegetables including carrots, kohlrabi, lettuce, peas, spinach and turnips. Get them planted at once, to get a good harvest before our hot summer weather. You can also plant broccoli plants and seeds for beets, radish and swiss chard all month.

You need to be wrapping up planting of asparagus, rhubarb and strawberry crowns. This is also a great time to plant grapes, blackberries, raspberries as well as fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs.

Decide what food you want to grow, what trees you want to plant and what flowers you envision in your yard and get out there and have fun in the garden.

Our challenge as March gardeners is that there are so many things to do in the garden and just not enough nice days to do it all. The forsythia shrubs are now unveiling their long arching branches of yellow flowers to trumpet the arrival of early spring. That is our indicator that it is now time to apply pre-emergent weed killers. Pre-emergent herbicides can be applied as a granular “weed & feed” product or as a liquid spray to control crabgrass and other summer weeds. The sooner you apply the pre-emergent the more effective they will be as they work like birth control to kill the weed seeds as they germinate.

This is the prime season to be planting your cool season vegetables. Old timers say to plant your seed potatoes by Saint Patrick’s Day, a good way to remember the planting “deadline” for Irish Potatoes. You should also be wrapping up your planting of onion sets and onion plants, bareroot strawberries, asparagus, rhubarb and most other bareroot berry crops in the next couple of weeks. You can also plant vegetable seeds for beets, carrots, swiss chard, kohlrabi, lettuce, peas, radish, spinach and turnips.

More folks are adding vegetables to their yard and learning the joy and satisfaction of raising some of their own foods. Even if you live in an apartment or condo you can grow most vegetables in container gardens on your patio. 

If you carried over some seed and want to see if they are viable before planting drop a few in a cup of water. Generally “dead” or bad seeds will float and “live” seeds will sink. Another test is placing some seeds between 2 moist paper towels on a cookie sheet in a warm room. Remoisten towels daily. If most seeds start to germinate within  days you can start the rest in seed trays indoors or directly in the garden.

March is pruning season and the time to remove dead or damaged wood and to shape your trees and most shrubs. Do not prune early spring flowering shrubs like forsythia and quince as you will cut off flowers that are already formed and getting ready to dazzle you.  Wait to prune roses until mid March so you don’t stimulate new growth too early that could be damaged by late spring freezes.

Prune your trees, shrubs and roses to open up the plant by pruning to a bud or shoot pointing away from the center of the plant. The first bud below the cut will almost always be the bud to develop into a new shoot or branch. If you are pruning a grafted fruit tree, rose or other shrub always prune off all shoots from below the graft. Prune trees to avoid splits and “Y”s and to protect a central leader unless training a fruit tree for an exotic trellis system. Make clean cuts at a slight angle downward and away from your selected bud.

Weed control in lawns is always a hot topic and inspires lots of questions. This is a good time to control the winter weeds that are now green in a Bermuda grass lawn. You can spray the Henbit, Chickweed or other winter weeds with glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round-up as it will kill all green weeds (and plants) it hits. It will not damage your Bermuda grass which is still dormant and brown and will not be effected by the glyphosate contact herbicide at this time of year. Do not apply glyphosate to fescue lawns or any green plants you want to keep. You can use 20% horticultural vinegar (acetic acid) as an organic alternative control to dehydrate the green weeds.

This is also the season to apply pre-emergence weed killers to kill crabgrass and other summer weeds before they germinate. Think of liquid or granular pre-emergent herbicides as “birth control” for weeds. They are best when applied when the yellow Forsythia shrubs start to bloom but before the weed seeds germinate. Pre-emergents will kill from 75% to 95% of most weeds before they ever sprout to compete with your lawn.

Most folks use a weed and feed product that will apply the pre-emergent weed killer along with the first round of lawn fertilizer for the season. You can also buy most all of the pre-emergent weed killers in liquid formulations, without fertilizer, to spray on your lawn just as many of the lawn treatment services would do if you hired out this service.

Look for these active ingredients in your pre-emergent in most of the major brands: Balan, Treflan, Team, Gallery, Sulfentrazone or my personal favorites Prodiamine (Barricade) and Dimension. It is much easier to control crabgrass, foxtail and other lawn weeds with pre-emergent herbicides before they germinate than it is to control them after they are grown and competing with your lawn this summer. You can use 60% corn gluten meal as an organic pre-emergent weed control.

Now is the time to apply dormant oil sprays to your fruit trees to control many insects and diseases. Apply lime sulfur, Bordeaux or a fungicide with cholorthalonil to control peach leaf curl on your peach trees. Make sure the temperature is above 40°, make sure to get thorough coverage of all limbs, branches and twigs and confirm that the spray has a chance to dry before rains or freezing.

Two weeks ago we visited about planting onion sets and plants, seed potatoes, bareroot strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus and other cool season vegetables and berries. It is a good thing we can plant all those crops up to Saint Patrick’s Day in mid-March as the soil has been frozen or covered with ice and snow most of the time and we haven’t had many opportunities to start planting. Watch for the nice sunny, slightly warmer days and start planting these crops.

Everybody was getting excited about spring after our big Christmas Eve storm and then we got punched again this last week with another round of snow and ice. Just as the sun rises each day we know that spring really will come and this year it will seem more special because of the winter weather we have experienced.

It is time to clean out those flowerbeds, take soil tests, prepare the soil and get ready to plant for a new season. It is time to start buying and planting the first vegetables and berries of spring. The weather warms across our state from south to north so the folks near the Red River can usually plant 7 to 14 days before the folks near the Kansas border. Remember we will frost and freeze many more times with our last average freeze usually around April 7^th or in a little over 2 months from now. Many cool season crops can be planted now and will tolerate our normal February and March weather.

Fresh asparagus is one of our most expensive vegetables and is a hardy perennial you can grow. Plant 3 to 5 crowns per person to harvest about 1 pound of edible stems or spears from each plant starting in year 2 for up to 15 years. Rhubarb is another hardy perennial grown from crowns. Plant 3 to 4 crowns per person if you like rhubarb. Spring bearing and everbearing varieties of bareroot strawberries are available at most nurseries and garden centers if you want to raise your own fresh strawberries for cobblers, pie, shortcake or just fresh, healthy snacks.

Onion sets and onion plants are available now to raise your own yellow, red or white onions. A good guideline is to plant ¼ quart of sets or 75 onion starter plants per person if you like fresh onions in your salads, on your hamburgers or sliced on the plate. Potatoes are one of the staple foods of many diets and now is the time to buy seed potatoes, cut them into 2 or 3 ounce slices with eyes or buds to plant in your garden.  There are many good varieties of white, red, yellow or gold Irish type potatoes so you can raise your own baked or mashed potatoes or cut your own French fries. Most folks plant about 6 to 8 pounds of seed potatoes per person.

The best time to sow seed for many cool season vegetables like carrots, swiss chard, kohlrabi, leaf lettuce, peas, spinach and turnips is from Valentines to Saint Patrick’s Day. February 14 to March 17^th are also good dates to transplant cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce plants.

You can raise all these crops in ground beds, raised beds and many folks are even raising some vegetables in large nursery cans or decorative containers on their patio or porch. Root Control, an Oklahoma company is having big success marketing their fabric tree bags in mail order catalogs and at garden centers for production of potatoes and vegetables on apartment patios and porches.

Use your imagination about where to garden but consider getting in on the fun to produce some of your own fresh, locally grown produce.