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

We hope you have the New Year off to a good start and got to explore the special show gardens and visit a few of the gardening vendors this last weekend at the Home and Garden Show. The days are already getting a little longer again and with the garden show and gardening catalogs all around us we know that spring will be here soon. We may not be certain about the stock market, our home values or even our jobs but we know that the sun will rise and set each day and that spring will arrive in early to mid April with our last freeze of the winter.  The certainty of spring gives us something really positive to anticipate.

There are many things we can do now to get ready for spring. We have been very dry for a couple of months and are getting close to winter drought conditions.  You really need to water your trees and shrubs to keep their roots healthy. Winter watering also helps prevent cold damage or freeze burn on evergreen foliage should they dehydrate in these dry conditions. You can also dig new flowerbeds or rototill existing beds and add organic matter to get ready for spring planting. This is a good time to dig down 6” and take soil samples to your local county extension office from your lawn and flowerbeds to analyze your soil nutrient conditions.  These soil tests will help you see what fertilizer you may need later this season or if you have too much or too little of various nutrients and minerals. You often can pay for your soil tests with reduced fertilizer once you know what you really need. You will be living a greener, more sustainable life by only buying and applying what you need instead of overfeeding.

I have read several stories in the paper lately about staging your home and the importance of curb appeal. Whether you are trying to sell your home or just wanting to be a good neighbor paying a little attention to your trees, shrubs and landscape is one of the most important ways to make your home stand out with good curb appeal. This is a good time to focus on your landscape. A little planning could add big value to your home in the future or at least make it more likely that future buyers would at least look at your home. Use your staycation or extra time at home to add trees, rework flowerbeds or develop your patio and outdoor living areas. You will enjoy the new look, living in these revitalized spaces and they will add real value to your home and property.

It is hard to believe that another year has come and gone but 2008 is now history and we have entered the future of 2009. Through great times, tough times, uncertain times, one thing is certain, that time marches on and the seasons come and go. We are now dealing with the cold of winter but before we know it spring will be upon us followed by another hot summer and then a glorious fall and back to Thanksgiving, Christmas, winter and another new year.

This is the customary time to review our lives as we complete one year and to make new resolutions and set new goals and dreams as we start another new year. This is also a good time to review your garden and landscape plans and decide if there are any new projects you want to tackle this year. That process for gardeners is aided at this time of year as our mail box is filled with catalogs from the seed, plant and bulb companies touting their newly discovered plants, new varieties and new colors. For the higher tech gardeners your e-mail in box is probably filled with these same treasures or enticements encouraging you to try new vegetables, fruit trees, perennials, annuals, ground covers, roses and all other kinds of plants. I always enjoy flipping through these glossy catalogs with enticing pictures and often make a list of new plants I want to try.  Make your list then try and buy these plants locally at your neighborhood nursery, greenhouse or garden center who can often give you good input on what really works here in Oklahoma and can give you good local information on whether to plant the desired plants in the sun, the shade, in a container or whether there are other special care requirements.

With food prices having increased so dramatically the last couple of years you may want to start a vegetable garden to grow your own tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, potatoes, onions, melons and other more exotic foods. You may want to start a strawberry patch or add blackberries, raspberries, grapes or fruit trees to your yard to experience the joy and taste of home grown food. You may have been dreaming about adding another flowerbed, a pond and water garden, a cutting garden with flowers that excel for cutting and bringing inside to liven up your living room or kitchen table. You may have a goal to build a patio or outdoor living area surrounded with container gardens of beautiful tropical plants or want to build a hobby greenhouse.

You have to dream it, resolve it and plan it for most things to happen so take a little time to plan what you want to try or add to your yard during this New Year.

            Wow, I can’t believe it is already Christmas week and almost the end of a truly wild year filled with nonstop political and financial chaos, excitement and turbulence. The gardening activities and even the weather were about the closest things to even keel or normal in our daily lives this year.

Hopefully you have added a Christmas tree, Christmas greens, poinsettias, Christmas cactus or other pretty and symbolic plants to your home and surroundings as we all prepare for the family events, religious services and special experiences of this amazing holiday to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. If you are still hunting for gifts for the gardener in your family or a good friend who gardens consider gardening gloves, tools, special plants they have been wanting, a gift certificate from their favorite garden center or even a hobby greenhouse for someone really special.

We are very fortunate to have grown some significant national businesses based in our state. We went through some really tough times in central Oklahoma as we lost national firms like Scrivners, Fleming, Kerr McGee and others who sold out or merged and lost their home office presence in our state. We were becoming a branch office state and branch offices rarely make the investment in the state and community that you see from home office businesses. We now have a whole new crop of local home office businesses making big investments in our state and doing good things for our community. Companies like Devon, Chesapeake, Sandridge, Continental Resources and many others have joined the many local small businesses across our state to make significant investment back into their property, our state and our civic and cultural institutions. Chesapeake has helped lead the way on beatification issues with the beautiful landscaping of their corporate campus and neighborhood and support for many public beautification projects working with Oklahoma City Beautiful and the Tree Bank. Devon has also supported many beautification projects and is planning a magnificent new downtown headquarters and will use a TIF financing district just approved this last week to allocate over 7.5 million dollars a year for the next 20 plus years to support downtown streetscaping, major landscaping to Civic Center Park, the Arts Festival Plaza area and to make Myriad Gardens even more remarkable. What a nice Christmas present for our city and state.

Lets all hope the new year allows our home state companies to navigate these interesting financial times and be able to survive and grow these Oklahoma based companies that enrich all our lives and our quality of life. Have a very Merry Christmas.

Holiday shopping is in full gear, Christmas parties and church events fill our calendars as we all proceed towards Christmas Day. There are many plants and floral traditions that have became important parts of this month long holiday celebration to remember the birth of the Christ child. Over the centuries the Christmas tree, Christmas wreaths, garlands and greens have become an important part of the Christmas celebration.

In more recent years the Norfolk Island pine, Christmas cactus and the poinsettia have become key parts of our holiday experience. The poinsettia, native to Mexico, was “discovered” by our U.S. Ambassador Joel Poinsett in his travels around Mexico in 1825.  He took the first stem cuttings to send back to the United States to propagate. The poinsettia was used as a seasonal bedding plant in yards and on estates as growers learned how to grow the plant and began breeding efforts. By the early 1900’s key growers like the Ecke family began to grow them in greenhouses, learned they needed short days to bloom and bred more varieties. It is only in the last century that poinsettias have become the Christmas flower.

There are hundreds of varieties of poinsettias, most in tones of the traditional red but also now available in many shades of white, pink and marbled. The modern varieties will stay colorful for many weeks, even months, if placed in good light and watered correctly. Let the soil get lightly dry before you water and then water well. They don’t like to stand in water or to get too dry as either watering extreme can cause them to drop leaves more quickly. They will last longer if not in cold or drafty areas.

This friday is National Poinsettia Day and if you haven’t selected your poinsettia yet this is a good time to buy one or several to decorate your home or business. Care for them correctly and you may be able to keep the colorful bracts showy until March or April of next year and then you could grow them outside next spring and summer and try to force them into flower indoors next fall. They are available from little pixie style plants in 3” or 4” pots to the popular 6” and 8” pot size plants and even in giant tubs, grown as trees and in hanging baskets. Now is the time to select some poinsettias, Christmas trees and wreaths to set a happy and cheerful holiday tone in your home. I think we can all really use the happiness and good cheer this year.

It is Thanksgiving Week, when we have the chance to continue the great American tradition of reflecting on annual harvest, enjoying the fellowship of family and celebrating our many other blessings. Our pilgrim ancestors courageously came to this new land with very little as they started a new life in the America’s.  Everyone was farming and gardening literally for their survival. They were dependent on the land and the natural conditions of that season to meet their daily needs and to put away enough food and fiber to survive the long cold winter. Every person was involved in sustainable agriculture and the health of their crops and the yield at harvest could be a matter of life and death.

The pilgrims and other early settlers learned a lot from the native Indians including how to grow the crops of this new land and gradually got better at each crop. Some areas were better for corn and others were better for beans, potatoes or other crops and over time, sharing led to bartering or trading and eventually to street markets and today’s farmers markets and grocery stores. We no longer have to raise our own crops, unless we want to, and can select our own skill or trade and then barter or buy the food crops we desire. Prices can still go up when crops are reduced because of droughts, flooding, pests or other challenges but we can almost always get every crop because of production in other areas that can be transported where needed. Our farmers have grown very efficient so that each farmer can support dozens of families instead of struggling to support just their own family.

We are blessed to have the opportunity to grow the crops we choose, even pretty flowers or shade trees and are not forced to spend all our time and energy struggling to raise the grain, vegetables, fruits and animals needed to provide food and shelter for our families. Even though most of us don’t have to farm for our survival, many of us enjoy an inner peace and great satisfaction in raising our own vegetables, fruits and flowers. There is a special pleasure in getting your hands in the soil to plant seeds, bulbs or transplants and to help those small plants grow into the wondrous and beautiful plants that feed our stomachs and our souls.

Use Thanksgiving to appreciate and celebrate your bountiful harvest of the last year and count your blessings, especially the fact that your survival this winter probably does not depend totally on the bean, corn and potato harvest of this last summer and fall. Happy Thanksgiving!