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

Container gardening started centuries ago but has mushroomed in popularity in recent years. I have toured old Roman ruins in Turkey and Europe and have seen the remnants of large urns and other early container gardens. I am uncertain exactly what plants they grew in those stately and impressive stone containers but as conservatories and the first greenhouses were created in old Europe for the early day royal families they hosted their collections of container grown orange trees, lemons, limes, bananas and other exotic fruit trees, shrubs and plants brought back to their kingdoms by early day plant exploration teams sent sailing around the new world. Some of these early royal conservatories were called Palmery’s to host exotic palm collections. Then herbs, vegetables and other plants in addition to the palms and trees were often moved in large stone, wood or ceramic containers out on patios or verandas in the summer and back into conservatories for winter protection and enjoyment. For years we have used a limited number of container gardens, often in urns or other decorative pots at each side of a main entrance or a couple of container gardens on a front porch or a back patio to create a more welcome, beautiful and inviting atmosphere.

There have been many plants used in modern container gardens but the most popular has probably been a colorful geranium plant surrounded by asparagus fern, sometimes with a dracaena spike to give another texture and a little height. Hanging baskets have surged in popularity in recent years enjoying their greatest use in the last 20 years since the fabled “Hanging Gardens of Babylon”. This surge in container gardening is being driven by several main trends. Container gardening can be enjoyed by practically everyone whether you live in an apartment, a house or an estate. They are easy to plant and give you a chance to make your own artistic or design statement since there are literally thousands of containers you can use and thousands of plants that can work well in container gardens and even more combinations of plants that you can put together to create your own unique container garden. If you have a greenhouse or patio room you may be able to select your favorite container gardens to bring inside this fall to enjoy for the winter months and then return to the patio or other special spot next spring like you are royalty with your own conservatory. I have one friend who tells me he likes container gardens because he can move then to where the action is. He says they have some front porch friends and some patio friends and he moves most of his container gardens to the porch or patio depending on their guest hosting plans. Part of the rapid growth in container gardens is because of the dramatic expansion of choices in available containers and plants that do well in these containers. We live in the period that will be known as the container garden rebellion. Most of the old rules for container gardening have disappeared to where most all kinds of plants and a wide combination of plants can be used and enjoyed in container gardens. You are definitely not limited to orange trees, palms, herbs or geraniums and fern. Today we plant vegetables or tropicals with color plants and other previously unimaginable combinations.                

This is a great time to plant most everything including your own container gardens. The larger the container the easier it is to manage as far as watering and feeding. Use a good, well drained soil mix in your container gardens. If you are replanting an older container you should plan on changing the soil every few seasons as most soil mixes used with annuals will lose their porosity over time and not provide a good mix of air and water to the roots. Soak your container gardens after planting as you would a new flowerbed and then check the watering regularly. Make sure the container has one or more drain holes so the roots will not stand in water. As we get hotter and drier they will dry out more often, smaller containers and hanging baskets may dry out daily. You can reduce watering on container gardens by about half by adding polymer water absorbent crystals to your soil mix. You can also reduce watering by mulching the top of the containers with a bark or other natural mulch like you would use on your flowerbeds. Feed your container gardens regularly or use a slow release granular fertilizer periodically to keep your plants healthy and blooming.  Some folks like container gardens because they don’t have to bend down and dig in the ground but can plant than on a table or bench and set them where desired. One lady described container gardening as a planting hole she doesn’t have to bend over to reach and she is excited because the hole comes to her. One other interesting trend is setting container gardens on top or partially buried in flowerbeds to create focal points, provide different height elements to your designs or to make it easier to save special plants to bring in before winter.

We have been blessed with magnificent weather the last couple of weeks so get outside and work in your garden. Add a new flowerbed, plant some new trees, replant your old container gardens or add several new container gardens to liven up your home.

We know spring in Oklahoma has really arrived when we get night after night of full time weather coverage from Gary England and his storm chaser, Val, Mike Morgan and our other high tech weather experts. I hope your home, gardens and neighborhood were spared from any of the wind, hail or tornado damage.  When it is not storming, May is about our best planting month for darn near everything especially any container grown color annuals, vegetables, perennials, groundcovers, roses and other flowering shrubs, trees and vines. The garden centers and nurseries usually have their largest inventories to choose from and even more important their broadest selection of types of plants and many different varieties of each type of plant to add to your yard.  Since their traffic and volume are greatest at this time of year they can stock many items that are just hard to locate at slower times of the year.

We are being blessed with dramatically more rain this year than last year but remember that plants still need adequate and timely moisture to get established and reach their peak performance. Make sure to water new plantings in thoroughly and then to check them regularly for when they need a good soaking. Plants in loose or well drained soil will need supplemental watering more often than plants in heavy or tight soils. Plants in the full sun will need water more often than plants in the shade. Plants above ground in containers or especially those even more exposed to drying out from sun and wind in hanging baskets will need watering more often. Plants in the wide open and most exposed to wind will need more water than those in protected backyards or courtyards. Mulching the top of the soil with two or three inches of an organic mulch like a shredded bark, cocoa hulls, cottonseed hulls or pecan hulls or pine or other straws will dramatically reduce weed problems, keep the soil temperature more consistent and will often reduce watering by at least half. The sooner you mulch after planting your flowerbeds or containers the more benefits you will enjoy from this great Oklahoma gardening practice.

Mothers Day is this Sunday and flowering plants are one of the very best ways to remember your mother and let her know how special she is in your life. There are literally thousands of horticultural choices to allow you to select just the right choice for your Mom. Many people send spring bouquets, cut roses or other lovely cut flowers. If your mother loves roses and you know she has been wanting another for her yard, pick out a live rose bush. If she has been admiring the neighborhood wisteria vines, crepe myrtle or a certain fruit tree surprise her with the tree, shrub or plants she has been talking about. We lost my special grandma, Sara Nee Ball, a few years ago but she used to love iris and roses at anytime but seemed to really enjoy new varieties each Mothers Day and I still think of her every time I pass beautiful blooming iris or roses. My mother has always loved all kinds of plants and since she just got out of the hospital with her broken hip she should not be planting her new Smoke Tree and Japanese Red Maple from her temporary walker although I am sure she would figure out a way so we may have to contribute our time and a little effort to help plant her new Mothers Day treats this year. I am certain most mothers would love the gift of some time, muscle power and fellowship to help in their yard as part of their Mothers Day gift.

Container or patio gardens and mixed combination gardens are very popular right now and make a great Mothers Day gift for a patio, porch or balcony and there is an almost endless choice of plant combinations and special containers for these gardens. You may even want to plant a treasured family container with plants that bring back memories for your special mother. If your mother lives inside consider a pretty houseplant or beautiful blooming plant.

Happy Mothers Day to all the remarkable women out there and I hope you all get to spend some special time with your children in person or by telephone this weekend. I can’t tell you how important my Mother, Grandmother and Wife are in my life and I know that most others are blessed to have Mothers and other special women that helped shape their lives and help keep us straightened out and help make life worth living. We thank you all this Sunday for the difference you make in our lives each and every day throughout the year.

What a difference a year makes! This year we have been blessed with more normal rainfall and our ponds, lakes and streams are filling with water and our topsoil and deeper subsoil moisture is in much better condition compared to last year’s drought. All of our trees, shrubs, lawns, vegetables and garden flowers are off to a much better start and the state is looking a beautiful spring green. Last weekend was absolutely gorgeous after the two preceding weekends had delivered late freezes or at least the threat of frost on the heels of several weeks of unseasonably warm weather. If the weathermen are correct on their seven day forecasts we surely have escaped our last cold weather of spring and the threats of more freezing so we should now be able to plant even the “hot” blooded plants like periwinkle, caladiums and okra. Some of the early planted vegetables and spring flowers that survived or escaped the late freezes are really looking good and after getting their roots established they are producing a surge of plant growth and beginning to flower. Even though many folks will succeed with their early plantings if they missed the frost and freeze damage the next month is really the prime planting season for most all sunny or shady area bedding plants, perennials, Bermuda and other sunny area grasses and container grown trees and shrubs.

Your success in gardening is often effected by the job you do of soil preparation for your new plantings. The addition of sphagnum peat moss, composted bark, composted cotton burrs, composted alfalfa or other organic matter will enrich your soil, lower the soil PH and improve the air and moisture movement throughout the soil root zone. After you select and transplant your plant choices make sure to water them in very good and then to soak them regularly, especially any week we don’t get good soaking natural rains. You can further reduce your watering and dramatically reduce weed pressure on your plantings by mulching the tops of your flowerbeds with a one to three inch thick top surface mulch using cottonseed hulls, cocoa hulls, eucalyptus or bark mulches of cypress, cedar, oak, pine or fir bark. If you apply the mulch soon after planting it will keep the soil temperature more consistent, retain moisture in the soil and prevent most weeds from germinating and competing with your chosen plants. It is early enough that you can plant small or large plants and still get significant impact this year. You can plant larger plants now if you want more immediate impact but the smaller bedding plants will often catch up in fairly short order. If you wait later into summer to plant annuals you may want to start with larger plants as the time to the first freezes in late October or early November gets closer and allows for a shorter growing season.

Proper watering is probably the most important thing to do for your plants and along with light these are the key building blocks of plant life. Don’t forget that just as we need food in addition to water so do our plants so you need to apply some granular, water soluble or slow release fertilizer to get the maximum impact from your plants. Just as we can over eat you need to read the instructions and not over fertilize your plants. If you will do a soil test every couple of years that will go a long way to insure you feed your plants correctly. Feeding correctly is good for the environment, over feeding and causing nutrient rich runoff can be bad for the environment.

About half of plant material and gardening supplies are now purchased at box stores or discount stores and sometimes you can get some good buys and even some nice plant material if it hasn’t been at the store for too long. I would encourage you to also shop your local nurseries and garden centers because they usually have a much broader selection of plant material, are often real plant lovers with much more plant knowledge, particularly local knowledge and can be important advisors in helping you select the proper plant material and to be successful in your gardening efforts. Our state and country needs to support these local independent businesses and keep this type of knowledge and assistance available for future reference.

Don’t forget to visit the Oklahoma City Arts Festival which is underway through Sunday and in addition to the beautiful and imaginative art you can enjoy the newly reopened Myriad Gardens Conservatory which has been closed for remodeling since January and the beautiful Myriad Gardens outdoor gardens. Also take time to enjoy all the pretty landscape and container gardens around the Arts Festival Grounds. Over 20 volunteers have worked hard for several months to grow and plant all these beautiful flowers. I am very proud of my wife Dona and my mother Marjorie who have worked hard with Randy, Laura, Jimmy and so many other volunteers to prepare all these horticultural delights for your enjoyment and to help create an environment of natural beauty for this special event. My mom actually fell and broke her hip finishing one of these Art Festival flowerbeds last weekend so you will need to enjoy the arts festival for her as she will be out of action and won’t get to partake of the festival again until next year.

This is a great time to get out in the yard and plant some live plants for your continuing enjoyment. This isn’t the theater so we don’t want to break a leg or a hip but we do want you to have a good time and soak in some natural beauty and the many wonders of plant growth and development.

The weather always figures out a way to be at the center of any Oklahoma gardening discussion. After 4 weeks of unseasonably gorgeous spring weather where we hardly ever dropped below 40 degrees or even 50 degrees for much of that month we got quite a little cold front last Easter weekend that took us down below freezing across much of Oklahoma and resulted in a hard freeze in parts of northern Oklahoma and particularly in the northeast part of the state. Our last average frost date is usually around April 7, although we have had killing frosts recorded as late as early May. Weather fronts like last weekend are why real nurserymen and garden centers try to get folks to wait to plant annual vegetables and ornamentals until around mid April. It has been so warm and pleasant this year and with most of us having cabin fever from a winter indoors many Okies had already started planting tomatoes, peppers, petunias, impatiens, begonias and other warm season crops.          

Hopefully, your early plantings survived the cold snap and will get a new burst of growth now as the weather warms up and chances of more frost disappear from our weather forecasts. We are now at the start of the main spring planting season and you should be able to proceed with planting most all kinds of plants except for the most heat loving plants like periwinkle, caladiums, okra, melon crops and sweet potatoes which will do best if you wait to plant them after May 1 when night temperatures will have warmed up a little more. Hopefully you have already done some soil preparation and are ready to “plant away” now that we have passed our last average freeze date. If you haven’t already prepared your flower beds with the addition of peat moss, bark or cottonburr compost or other good organic matter make time to do some good soil preparation before you plant for best results. My Dad used to always emphasize that soil or flowerbed preparation is to gardening as your foundation is to your house. If you have a good foundation your home will stay level, secure and strong. If you have happy healthy soil that is well drained and open enough for good air movement with active mycorrhizae, enzymes, good bacteria and earthworms you are likely to grow happy and healthy plants. If your soil is tight and compacted and stays very dry or stands in water your are likely to struggle in your gardening adventures. Regular addition of mulches, humus and organic matter over the years will continuously improve your gardening experience. 

Remember the importance of watering your new plantings to help them get established, well rooted and to grow without drought stress. A thorough watering after planting and regularly thereafter as they start to get dry but before wilting or discoloring will maximize their growth and impact. Regular feeding with a water soluble fertilizer you mix with water and water onto your plants, a well balanced granular fertilizer, or a specially blended slow release fertilizer that can feed for several months will help your trees, shrubs, lawn, vegetables and flowers maximize their performance. You can now “plant away” on container grown trees, shrubs, perennials, vegetables, summer flowering bulbs, grass seed or sod, and color annuals.

Take a close look at the plants in your yard to see if you got any cold or frost damage. The first part of the plant to show damage is usually the tender new growth at the ends of each shoot. If your tender shoots all look green and alive you probably escaped any significant freeze damage. If some of these shoots are black and limp or browned on the edges you probably got some light frost damage and want to watch those fruit trees, shrubs or annuals to observe how they respond. Sometimes they will grow right out of it and you will notice no lasting effects. If the growth tip actually froze it is usually best to cut off the damaged shoot and new growth will likely come out on the good undamaged stem or tissue below the frost damage. If you are in one of the areas to the north that got a really hard freeze, some got as low as 17 degrees, you could have frozen back your fruit crop, berries, vines and plants all the way to the ground or you may have totally frozen out tender plants. Fruit trees, berries and shrubs that froze back hard may not produce a crop at all this year and it may take several years for the plant to return to the size and condition before the killing freeze. Thankfully, for most of us in central Oklahoma the anticipation was worse than the actual event and most plants I have seen were not damaged or suffered some “freezer burn” to their softest terminal shoots and will quickly bounce back with new growth below the damaged shoots.

Keep an eye on the weather but take advantage of the beautiful spring days to get out and exercise in the garden and to plant more trees, flowerbeds and container gardens.

What a wonderful time of year to be out in your yard, walking through the neighborhood or driving around the state. Nature is putting on a spectacular show of new life and renewal from the deep green wheat fields showing vibrant life after our recent rains to the gorgeous splashes of blooming redbuds mixed through our neighborhoods and across the native landscapes. Every year at this time when they are alive with spring color it is easy to understand why our early state leaders named the flashy redbud as our state tree. Everything progresses so rapidly at this time of year that you have to be paying attention everyday or at least every few days or you will miss part of the great spring nature festival. You can relate this annual show of spring to a magnificent play and you want to be paying attention so you don’t miss a single act of the play. The crocus, peach and apricot trees, forsythia and ornamental pears have finished their color show or act for this year and now we are enjoying some beautiful long stem tulips along with the later varieties of daffodils from these fall planted, spring flowering bulbs. The trees that are starring in the current show include the widely adapted redbuds, cute white sand plums and beautiful pink and red flowering crabapples and the more sensitive dogwoods. The elegant dogwoods need a little extra protection and should be planted on the north or east side of the house or in the shade of other trees. The flowering shrubs starring in the current show include the amazing displays of purple, white and lavender wisteria, the very special scents and flowers of the lilac bushes, many similar to the plants bought to new homesteads across our state in the covered wagons of the land run. The first flowers on the azaleas are just starting to show color and this is another very special flowering shrub best grown in acidic soils with lots of organic matter on the north or east of the house or under the shade of larger trees and shrubs. The hydrangeas which produce beautiful large pink or blue flower heads depending on the soil PH also do best in the same sheltered environments as the azaleas. You can enjoy beautiful public azalea plantings under the trees at Will Rogers Park in Oklahoma City or by visiting the gorgeous and famous hillside plantings at Honor Heights Park in Muskogee.

The creeping phlox are awash in purple, lavender, pink and white colors and provide a lot of color in mounds against the ground. With wisteria, lilacs and phlox all flowering in beautiful shades of purple this may be the best time of year for purple plant lovers in the garden. This is a great time to plant trees, shrubs and perennials. We have been unseasonably warm for almost a month but it is still risky to plant warm season vegetables and color annuals. Our last average frost date in central Oklahoma is April 8 and it is not unusual to have a frost or freeze up to the middle of April so it is best to wait to plant these warm season crops until at least April 8 or preferably April 15. If you decide you want to go ahead and plant tomatoes, peppers, petunias, begonias, marigolds, and other warm season annuals be prepared to protect them if we get another cold front that takes us anywhere near the mid 30’s or below. Really hot weather crops like periwinkle or caladiums should not be planted until early May when night temperatures are consistently warmer.

Now is a good time to plant tall fescue seed in shady areas and you can plant Bermuda grass seed after April 15. We are at the late stages of the weed and feed application season to kill summer weeds before they germinate. At this stage you may want to apply a product containing Dimension which is both a pre-emergent crabgrass and weed killer and has some post-emergent crabgrass control for up to 4 weeks after germination. As you start to mow your lawn remember it is best not to cut off more than a third of the grass blades in any one mowing. This is a great time to add sphagnum peat moss, processed pine bark or compost to your flower beds and to select and prepare your garden containers so you are ready to plant your yard with color when we get past the risk of frost.

Turn off the television for a little while each morning or evening and spend some time out in your yard or local parks enjoying the amazing symphony of spring color and renewed life unfolding all around us.