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

It has been a tale of two summers. The first part of our Oklahoma summer was unusually moderate in temperature and wet with record setting rains. The second summer arrived about two weeks ago and has been unleashing a study stream of triple digit blazing hot summer weather. It is amazing how quickly the transition occurred and how soon the change impacts we humans and our trees, shrubs and gardens. We got away most of this summer with limited watering as Mother Nature was providing the needed moisture on a regular basis. Now in less than two weeks of the punishing and searing heat of an Oklahoma August many of our mature and established trees are shedding leaves. They drop a few leaves to thousands of leaves to adjust the canopy they are supporting to the available moisture and root system.

Driving around Oklahoma this last weekend I saw many young trees planted this year or last that have gone from looking good two weeks ago to all brown or largely brown foliage. The shock of the intense heat and dry hot winds has blistered these new trees and shrubs that do not have established roots deeper in the ground where moisture is still available. You may have been able to get by without watering or sprinklers through most of July, a couple of months later than in normal years. We are definitely now in a “water” or suffer near death cycle for many of our color plants, container gardens, hanging baskets and recently planted trees or shrubs.

You can still add some container gardens to your porch or patio. I would refrain from planting trees, shrubs and flowerbeds in this heat unless you soak them in, mulch the top of the soil and are prepared and committed to regular watering for the rest of this growing season. It is amazing how quickly the topsoil dries out once we get these blazing hot August temperatures. Concentrate your garden time while this hot weather lingers on watering and mulching your existing plantings to survive and grow. Then you can tackle new plantings after the weather cools a little as we approach fall season weather.

In watching some of the PGA golf tournament hosted by our good neighbors over at Tulsa this weekend on television you could see how the players and crowds were sweating and burning. As hot as they were they could towel off, pour water over their heads or go stand in front of fans or go into air-conditioned tents.  Your turf, flowers and trees cannot move to get that relief and in this weather they are dependent on you to bring water and relief to them. Trees and shrubs can adjust how much plant they have to support by dropping leaves or even whole branches as they fight for survival but you can truly make a difference with regular watering.

When you water, water thoroughly so that you will soak the soil to a depth of four to eight inches instead of just squirting the plants or top of the soil. You can add polymer water absorbing crystals to your soil to help the soil retain water longer and reduce watering. I often mention mulching the top of your flowerbeds and container gardens and a two or three inch thick top cover of bark mulch, straw or natural hulls like cottonseed hulls, cocoa hulls or pecan hulls will cool the soil and reduce evaporation of soil moisture. Mulching will often cut watering in half while producing happier plants. Hand watering with a water hose or strategically placed overhead sprinklers can provide the needed soaking.

Use of weeping soaker hoses or installation of drip irrigation can help you grow better plants while delivering the water most effectively to the root zone of the plants. A good system can reduce water use by fifty to seventy-five per cent while growing better plants. One of the best ways to water new trees or large shrub plantings for their first season or two is a reinforced plastic bag from New Zealand called a Tree Gator that drips water around your young tree. You fill the fourteen or twenty gallon bag with water once or twice a week or as needed with a waterhose and it will slowly weep out around the new tree over an eight to twelve hour period so that the tree gets the full use of all the water.

It is time to start preparation and planting for your fall vegetable garden. You can also do soil preparation for winter fescue planting which should start around mid September. We are approaching the season to apply pre-emergent weed and feed products to your lawn to kill winter weeds before they germinate and we will explore that subject more in our next column.

This hot summer weather is resulting in a surge of insect problems. Red spider mites and scale seem to be especially active so be on the lookout for pest problems and visit your local garden center to determine the best chemical or other approach to keep them under control in your garden. The middle part of the day and afternoons can be too hot to enjoy being in the garden. We have fairly nice weather early in the morning and as we approach sunset so those are best times to enjoy the garden in August.

What a difference a year makes! Last year and the year before we were dealing with major droughts across Oklahoma and it was just downright hot and dry.  It seemed like we were having to get out the water hose or sprinklers every day or two to nurse our plants and yards through the punishing summer heat. This year we have been blessed with summer moisture beyond our wildest dreams, sometimes more than we can handle. We have had to supplement the natural rains with hoses and sprinklers only on occasions rather than on a regular schedule. Even now as we are heating up in the 90’s the humidity has been so high we don’t dry out as quickly. When the air is hot and dry it pulls moisture or dehydrates the soil and plants much quicker than during these current hot and moist conditions.

Our topsoil and subsoils had been so depleted of moisture the last two years that we had wondered how many years it would take to get back to reasonable levels. According to the Oklahoma Mesonet network with weather stations in all 77 countries, our topsoils are now replenished to good to excellent levels. Even our subsoils have mostly been recharged to good and excellent levels. If only our water aquifers could recharge that quickly but they take years, decades or centuries to replenish these important deep underground water reservoirs.

I live near lake Overholser and since late May I have gotten in the habit of visiting the dam several nights a week to walk, enjoy the amazing sunsets and watch the water levels from all these summer rains. The lake has been absolutely full to the top of the dam locks or to the rim of the lake bucket, as my nephew calls it, for several weeks. The last two years the lake had been many feet low and the city was buying water to add to the lake to meet our critical water needs. This year there has been at least one gate and often two or three gates on the dam open around the clock for over eight weeks releasing free water downstream that just won’t fit in the lake “bucket”. What a difference a year makes!

Making time to study and enjoy the beautiful sunsets the last couple of months relates a lot to our gardening experiences. When you stand on the east banks of the lake and watch the sun set on the west side of the lake across the water you quickly realize no two sunsets are alike. Depending on clouds, humidity and many other factors the good Lord paints a completely unique sunset each evening. The sunset painting or picture changes rapidly during each evening, never to be repeated exactly the same, particularly as the sun gets closer to the horizon. If you are snapping pictures of the beautiful evening light shows it is amazing how much it changes in just ten or thirty seconds and it can be a completely different show in a matter of minutes.

Our gardens work the same way in producing a constantly changing kaleidoscope of activity. Plants, grasses, trees and shrubs all grow, flowers come and go, fruit comes and goes. Bugs and diseases, rains and droughts, old age, lawnmowers and pruners reshape our plants as part of this constantly changing garden show. We may not notice the garden changes in seconds as with a sunset but the changes from day to day and week to week are significant. One of the real joys of gardening is to watch and enjoy the growth and changes in your yard and the individual plants on a daily or regular basis.

Sometimes we like something so well one year we try to plant it again and repeat the same show the next year. Sometimes it will be better and sometimes worse but rarely the same because the conditions every year are different. This year most of our plants have grown larger and are holding up better in early August because of our more moderate weather and the extra rains as long as you have well drained soils. Several of you have e-mailed to tell me you have your most vigorous tomatoes ever, covered in fruit while others have e-mailed that their tomatoes have struggled this year. The bragging folks are probably in sandy or sandy loam soils and they did not have water standing around their plants starving the roots of oxygen. The complaining folks are probably in clay or tight soils and likely suffered from poor drainage and a loss of a good oxygen/ moisture mix in the soil. 

Now that it has quit raining every day for a couple of weeks and warmed up we are transitioning from fungus and disease problems to insect problems. Be on the lookout for bagworms, mealy bugs, aphids, thrips and the like. We are warm enough now that you need to be watching for when to water. Applying a layer of bark or hulls natural mulch is almost always a good idea that is worth the time and effort. You can still plant container grown plant materials as long as you are prepared to water new plantings. Make time to get outside and work in the yard. It is good exercise for the body, food for the soul and it is fun and very rewarding to enjoy the constantly changing landscape.

This has been a really unusual summer with our mild temperatures, amazing number of days of rain and the actual record setting amount of rain. Usually we would be spending time watering and fighting hot temperature problems like red spider mites. Instead we have had to do limited watering the last 6 weeks and have been battling fungus and disease problems instead of insect problems. Some plants in high areas or well drained soil look the best anyone can remember and are covered with flowers while some plants in low areas or poorly drained soils have died from rot or disease problems or are struggling for survival. Plants need moisture to their roots but they also need oxygen to the roots and if the soil stays flooded or saturated for too long the plants can get too much water and literally suffocate some roots or even the whole plant for lack of needed oxygen to the roots.

Now that the temperatures are rising to more normal summer temperatures and we have had much less moisture over the last week the soil will rapidly dry out. Soon we will need to start doing our normal summer watering and it would be a good time to mulch the surface of your flowerbeds and container gardens with a two or three-inch layer of cotton seed hulls, pecan hulls, bark chips or other natural mulch. Don’t forget to deadhead or cut off the spent or bloomed out flowers from your blooming plants like roses and geraniums to help divert energy from making unwanted seed heads towards additional flowers. With all the rain many geranium plants were damaged by a fungus called Botrytis and look bad. If you will pick off the dead or damaged flowers and leaves the plant will send out more new flowers. If your color plants have too many yellow leaves you can speed up new growth by picking off the yellow leaves before the plant spends more energy on them. If your plants are too stretched and lanky or have some stems that are weak or barren cut the whole plant back or at least the weak stems to stimulate new growth from lower on the plant below your cut or pinch. This will ultimately make your plant stronger and fuller.

You can still select and plant most all container grown trees, shrubs, vines, groundcovers, annual and perennial color plants in your flowerbeds or container gardens. There are thousands of varieties of plants available for you to select for your own personal yard and many plants make a great show in our Oklahoma summer. The following ten plants are some of my favorite summer color plants for Oklahoma in no particular order. I love crepe myrtle shrubs that produce a unique bark year round and gorgeous and impressive clusters of flowers through the summer heat. New varieties, including many bred by Dr. Carl Whitcomb of Stillwater add new colors and are more winter hardy as they come back year after year to provide summer color. Two plants that remind me of my grandmother Ball and were stars in her garden but just get better and better over the years are the easy to grow daylilies available in literally thousands of varieties spread across virtually ever color you can imagine and the canna bulbs grown into confident spikes of summer color. You can see how beautiful cannas are in front of homes or businesses. Imagine the splash of acres of cannas at Horn canna farm, the largest canna farm in the country out by Carnegie, Oklahoma. Two plants I remember growing as a young boy with my father are Penta and Lantana and these remain two of my favorite sun plants that thrive in the Oklahoma heat. Pentas grow a nice mound eight to eighteen inches tall and have colorful clusters of flowers made up of many star shaped flowers in many tones of red, pink, white, rose and lavender. I remember taking cuttings of the pentas and lantanas just before frost each year rooting them and growing them through the winter to have them ready for customers the next spring. It was fun to see people excited about taking home and growing these plants we had cultivated all winter. The lantana also blooms in clusters and thrives in the summer heat. Although available in many colors and creeping and bush styles, I love the bush or mound styles with clusters of flowers in combinations of orange and yellow. Two summer perennials I always enjoy are the many varieties of coreopsis and the bold Rudebeekias. I love a beautiful yellow coreopsis as the center of a large container garden or even more in a mass planting of the delightful yellow covered mounds, which always reminds me of massive fields of yellow wildflowers, which are a related variety of coreopsis. Now there are also thread leaf varieties available in several colors. Rudebeekia with their bright yellow or orange flower petals always stand out with the bold “black eye” at the center of the flower and although pretty as a single plant are most impressive in mass or group plantings like those currently in bloom by the parking areas at Will Rogers Airport that almost take your breath away and make you want to pull out the camera to capture the color. When I was a lad growing up we used to think of begonias as a shade plant but there are many great bronze leaf and specialty varieties that can thrive even in full sun in addition to many that still do best in the shade. Some varieties are grown mainly for the foliage but the most popular varieties offer pretty foliage and delicate flowers in such numbers to make an impressive show.

Two of my favorite shade annuals are the many varieties of coleus, grown for their colorful and imaginative foliage and the many varieties of impatiens. I remember a trip as a boy to College Station, Texas with my Dad to collect cuttings and plants of the Texas A & M hybrid coleus and their impressive combinations of colorful foliage with good vigor and upright growth habits. Some of the new varieties are descendants of those A & M hybrids and they work great in pots, scattered in flowerbeds or in mass plantings.  Some of the new varieties can even tolerate the sun. There are hundreds of varieties of impatiens and they make a great show in shade or part shade in hanging baskets, container gardens or I love them in mass plantings of a single color or combinations of the many tones of colors available.    

Get outside and water your existing plants when needed, plant a few more trees and plants to green up your world and select your own favorite summer color plants.

Last week was the official start of summer as we celebrated the summer solstice. So far this year we have been sheltered from our normal hot dry summer weather but it sounds like the pattern may be changing from the moderate temperatures and regular rains to actual summer weather. We’ve finished picking the last of the strawberries in our strawberry patch and so we will have to switch back to store bought strawberries if we want more fresh strawberry shortcakes. We are enjoying an amazing harvest of apples, peaches and even apricots this year so now we are switching to fresh baked apricot pies,  peach and apple cobblers and apple turnovers. It is hard to beat the joy of fresh vegetables, berries and fruit grown in your own yard or on your own farm.  We usually only get an apricot harvest in central Oklahoma every third or forth year because of late freezes so I have been really surprised to get such a great apricot harvest this year when we got a fairly hard freeze on Easter weekend. Somehow that freeze missed the apricot flowers and we will get to enjoy fresh Oklahoma apricot pies and apricot preserves this year.

Every plant or tree is a weed somewhere and very special someplace else and every plant has certain times of year when they draw our attention and become one of our garden stars.  Right now the daylilies are covered with flowers, the magnolia trees are showing off their beautiful large white flowers and the mimosa trees are downright beautiful. A lot of people think of the mimosa as a weed tree or focus on the mess they can make after flowering but few trees are as beautiful when covered with flowers as the mimosa with their unique pink flowers.

Since we have been so moist I have been hearing a lot of questions about fungus and disease problems on lawns, roses and flowers. There are a number of good fungicides available that can help you with these rot, mold and leaf spotting issues in addition to cultural practices of trying to let these plants get drier, cleaning off bad leaves and deadheading spent or bad flowers and increasing air movement through disease challenged plants. As it has warmed up we are seeing a lot more insect activity and damage from worms, mealy bugs, aphids, thrips, scale and the like. Bagworms, grasshoppers and red spiders are just starting to make their annual appearance and are much easier to control if you attack them at first sighting instead of waiting for them to get large and well established. If you are having insect or disease problems take a sample of the problem in a jar or sack to your local nurseryman so they can identify the problem and prescribe the best cure.

The weather has been so moderate and agreeable this year that most all of our yard plants and trees are doing really well and making a very nice show. You can still enjoy a great deal of success this year from container grown plants you select and plant out now. Annuals like geraniums, marigolds, penta, zinnias, periwinkle, petunias and hundreds of others planted now will still be showy for four or more months until we get our first hard freeze. You can also plant trees, shrubs, vines, berries, ground covers and perennials to add more color to existing flowerbeds or to fill a brand new flowerbed. You can still plant your own patio or container gardens in your favorite containers or you can buy preplanted hanging baskets or containers to add color and excitement to your porch or patio. Since the daily rains are predicted to be over now you will want to mulch your flowerbed and container gardens with a bark, straw or hull natural mulch. Applying a two to three inch soil cover mulch will reduce watering, cool the soil temperature and dramatically reduce weed population in your flowerbeds. With your plants growing so fast and drinking more water at this time of year do not forget to feed them with a good water soluble fertilizer every fourth or fifth watering or with a well balanced granular or slow release fertilizer. When the rains stop, don’t forget to step up and take over the watering responsibilities and remember to really soak your plants as needed. Water more often in hanging baskets and smaller containers and once or twice a week depending on soil type and mulching in your flowerbeds.    

Most of nature and our gardens are really pretty this year so make sure to set aside some time to watch an early sunrise or a late sunset in your garden or a nearby park and enjoy time in your yard.

What a difference a year makes. Last year we were dealing with a drought, worrying about water rationing, talking about installing drip irrigation systems and discussing the importance of mulching all your flowerbeds and container gardens. This year we have been blessed with more than average rain, have not had to do much watering on our plantings and thankfully our water reservoirs have mostly filled up and it doesn’t appear we will need to worry about water rationing. Now that we are getting hotter, it is still a very good idea to mulch your flowerbeds and container gardens with a bark, straw, hull or other natural mulch to reduce watering, keep your soil temperature cooler and to help control weeds. In the future it will improve your soil when mixed with the soil and as it decomposes. It is still a good idea to start thinking about designing and installing a drip irrigation system to reduce your water use and get the water most efficiently to your plants root zone. But at least it is not urgent this year so you can take your time to study and do it right as we all work to embrace sustainable gardening practices and do our best to be responsible stewards of our water and other resources.

Many folks have told me it has been so wet that they haven’t planted all they hoped to or that it has rained on some key weekends when they planned to work in the garden. Others have told me or E-mailed that they don’t think they can be successful planting once June or summertime arrives. That is wrong. You can still plant most all container grown plants and enjoy good success as long as you remember to water your plants regularly.  This is even truer this year than normal since we have enjoyed more moisture and more moderate temperatures. You can still plant most all annuals or color plants and you will still have five months of growth and color before our first freeze in November. You can plant most all perennials, shrubs, trees, vines, and you can still get a nice crop of tomatoes, peppers or many other warm season vegetables or herbs planted in June. The later you wait to plant the larger plant size you may want to start with to make an impact in your yard.

Most all nurseries and garden centers now offer larger size plants as the season progresses including many colorful annuals in 4”, 6” or even 1 or 2 gallon size containers so you can get your lantanas, marigolds, petunias, zinnias dianthus, pentas, geraniums or hundreds of other plants in various sizes depending on your patience. Most garden centers also offer a nice selection of pre-planted container gardens and hanging baskets that will make an immediate impact on your porch or patio.

Remember more rainfall leaches your fertilizer while stimulating more plant growth and may call for you to fertilize your flowerbed a little more this season with a good well balanced water soluble or slow release fertilizer. Remember to “dead-head” or pick off the bloomed out flowers on your roses, geraniums and other flowers to stimulate more new flowering instead of the energy going to seed formation. 

Be on the lookout for insect or disease problems and take samples of any problems you don’t recognize to your local nursery or garden center to help diagnose the problem and prescribe proper treatment. You and your family will enjoy planting live plant material, watching it grow and flower. It not only beautifies your home or business but it can provide real personal satisfaction and food for your soul while providing a good physical workout so get outside and plant something and enjoy your yard and garden.

Many men enjoy plants, so if your Dad, Father, Papa or whatever you call those special men in your life likes inside or outdoor gardening, select something he needs or wants. A fruit or shade tree, rose bush, crepe myrtle or other flowering or evergreen shrub, flowers, vegetables, herbs or a plant for his office or home would all be appropriate. A bird feeder, sprayer, fertilizer, garden gloves or a sack or two of mulch might hit the spot. A gift certificate from his or your favorite garden center or nursery is always welcome.

I was very blessed with a wonderful Dad and two special grandfathers I admired. Even if you don’t buy them a gift, plan to go see or call those Dads in your life and thank them for all they mean to you.  Happy Gardening and Happy Fathers Day.