(gentle music) - [Narrator] "Oklahoma Gardening" is a production of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the land-grant mission of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University, dedicated to improving the quality of life of the citizens of Oklahoma through research-based information.

Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing.

Cooler temperatures are beginning to slow plants down.

So today on Oklahoma gardening, I'll show you how you can propagate your annuals for next year's garden.

David Hillock has a native shrub that's great for Oklahoma.

Then we go visit a stillwater backyard to see a habitat for the frogs.

(gentle music) (tool clicks) Looks like an ombre of sunset colors.

Not the flowers, right?

(branches thud) - Oh, that's good.

(gardener laughs) - Well, it's finally starting to cool off, which means fall isn't far behind and our first frost will soon be approaching.

And you know Oklahoma, we never know when that will really show up.

So it is time to start thinking about putting our garden to sleep for winter.

And one of those tasks might include taking cuttings of your annuals.

When we're really talking about true annuals, an annual is a plant that will be germinated from seed.

It will grow roots, grow vegetation, flower, and produce a seed, and then die in one season.

Now, a lot of our plants that we use here for landscaping purposes and annual color are tropical perennials, which means they actually are perennials down in warmer climates such as our Coleus.

Coleus is one that we often refer to as an annual here, but it's actually hardy down in very southern parts of Texas.

And so, while it might be a perennial there, it is treated like an annual here, which means it's going to die as soon as that frost comes in.

So the one beauty about annuals is that they provide us color all season long during our growing seasons.

However, we have to plant them every spring.

If you want to save your gardening pocketbook just a little bit, what you can do is take cuttings of your annuals this time of year so that you can overwinter and grow some of those plants to have to put back out into your garden next spring.

And you can do this a couple of different ways.

One of the main ways that we do on annuals is called stem cuttings.

And that's what I'm gonna show you today.

And the reason why you would do stem cuttings not only is to save money, but also, of course, you could bring in your annuals, but a lot of 'em have gotten pretty large this time of year.

And so to have to go and dig up your plants, they would probably suffer from that shock of just being uprooted, removing some of those roots, and then being transplanted or potted up and moved into a different condition.

So by taking some stem cuttings, this is going to give you a better plant going into your home or into your greenhouse that you might have.

So I've got some cuttings that I've taken.

And when you take cuttings, what you're looking for is probably the upper growth primarily, because typically, their healthier growth is at the top of the plant.

It doesn't have as much possible contamination from the soil that might have splashed up.

So you're gonna get about five to six inches.

You're gonna kind of be aware of where the leaves actually connect.

So, you know, five to six inches here, you can see I have several leaf nodes versus a Coleus, five to six inches.

You can see I took a bigger cutting here so that I could get more of those nodes which is where the leaf connects to the stem, 'cause that's an important part when you're taking leaf cuttings.

So we're gonna look at some of the cuttings that I have here.

Like I said, I got some catmint, which is a perennial, it tends to usually come back.

We've got some Cuphea here.

And you can see on the Cuphea, I took some larger branches.

And that's so I can take several different cuttings.

You primarily want to take your cuttings early in the morning 'cause that's when your plants are best hydrated.

They haven't gone through the warmer temperatures of the day just yet.

And so that is the prime time to take 'em.

Now I would say I tend to want to get cuttings that don't have a lot of flowers on 'em.

Of course, annuals are known to produce a lot of flowers, and so that can be difficult.

So you can see here on the Cupheas, I do have a lot of flowers.

So what I'm gonna do on this Cuphea is go ahead and cut again.

The reason why I'm taking a second cutting, obviously, it's too big, but when you're out harvesting your plants, as soon as you cut it, air is starting to go up the stem of this plant.

So by taking a cutting again, I've got a fresh cut that hasn't captured as much air there.

So what I'm gonna do is take a cutting off of the top.

I'm gonna come down so that I at least have two or three leaf nodes.

Now you can see these are pretty tight.

So I'm gonna come down to about here, and just cut right below the leaf node.

Now what I'm gonna do is remove some of these lower leaves.

And you can sometimes strip 'em with your hand, although that can be a little concerning.

Because what happens sometimes is you actually can pull the tissue down the stem.

So taking your snips.

- And just removing some of those lower leaves is good to do.

And I'll just do that up the up the stem there.

So now we have our cutting actually prepared.

Now the next thing you're gonna need to do is get some rooting hormone.

And I'm gonna go ahead and slip on some gloves.

And basically what this hormone is going to do is tell the plant it needs to grow some roots on those nodes.

And so, instead of dipping your plant straight into the bottle, again, you've got a plant here, you hope it's disease free, but it might have contaminants on it, so you don't wanna contaminate your rooting hormone.

So what we're gonna do is actually tap some of this into another little container here.

And it doesn't take a whole lot 'cause you're just going to kind of put it on this edge and coat it like this.

So you can see I've dipped those lower nodes into that rooting hormone, okay?

So now what we're gonna do is come over here with our pencil and I've got some pre moistened potting soil and some trays here.

And I'm just gonna go ahead with my pencil and actually make some holes in each one of these cell packs.

And the reason why I'm making holes instead of pushing the rooting hormone and the plant down in there is because as I was pushing that in, the rooting hormone would actually come off of the stem.

So this way it can go in there, and then I can press the potting soil around that stem, so the rooting hormone stays in good contact with that stem.

So we've got our first cutting done and we'll repeat that process.

Now, I'll show you on some of the other ones.

Again, I've got periwinkles here.

You can see I've taken a lower cutting, so I've got several there.

So I can come along here, and again, take a cutting just below the node.

I'll strip those lower leaves off.

And you can see there's some old flowers because these annuals tend to just keep blooming as they grow up their stem.

And again, if you get to a point where you're like, oh I don't need that much stem, then go ahead and trim it even shorter if you want to.

So, I will just then coat that.

And again, make my hole.

So what I'm gonna do is do kind of six pack of each one of these.

Now if you have something bigger, like say the coleus, the coleus leaves sometimes are bigger leaves and so you think maybe it won't fit in a six pack, that's fine.

What you can do is go ahead and trim it up.

So we're gonna take that much and remove that and we're cutting down these lower leaves once again.

And I'm even gonna take off this leaf.

You really don't need a whole lot of leaves to it.

You could probably even take these leaves off.

If you have larger leaves, what you can do is actually cut the leaves.

That doesn't harm the plant at all.

If you're trying to just worry about space.

'Cause a lot of times when you have those bigger leaves, they will overlap one another.

So go ahead and trim those down.

I'm gonna trim this down even further.

The reason why you're wanting to cut just below the node is because, again, that's where the roots are gonna initiate.

If I was to cut down here, a lot of times you're gonna have the roots grow here and all of this is just going to kind of end up deteriorating, which can lead to rot of your cutting.

So that's why we're gonna go ahead and remove most of that and just leave the node towards the bottom.

So again, we're gonna put that into our rooting hormone.

Now, on something bigger, you can see I've cut the leaves down on this, but you can also do this in a bigger pot if you wanted to.

So I'm just gonna again, put my hole in there and then kind of pat and make sure there's good contact with the potting soil around it.

Now, with any cuttings that you do, I'm gonna continue to fill these up, but you wanna make sure that, they are going to start losing moisture immediately, so that's the important thing.

You wanna kind of work quickly.

Only take as many cuttings as you can actually do and then go out and take a few more cuttings and then come back and get those in potting soil.

So you wanna make sure to maintain that humidity also.

So that's really important in order to allow those roots to develop because you gotta remember, you've removed this plant and you're asking it to do a lot by developing roots, but you've just removed all of its leaves practically.

So, you wanna make sure to create a high humidity environment so that it doesn't have to lose a lot of that through photosynthesis or anything.

You can simply get a baggy.

And so I'm gonna go ahead and label this and also put the date on here so that I remember when I did this.

And it's October.

And then also it is a coleus.

So I'm gonna label that right there.

Now you'll notice that I have some paper towels in here.

So I'm gonna go ahead and put some moisture on these paper towels.

Again, this is creating a greenhouse effect.

It's a cheap greenhouse, if you will, raising that humidity.

And then I'm just going to place my cutting in there.

So, when you do this, you're gonna seal it up.

If you find that it's getting too hot, you can kind of leave it vented just a little bit.

We're gonna place this in a kind of a brightly lit area but not out in full sun, not in a west.

- Facing sunny window, because it would actually get too hot in here.

So you wanna create some warmth to it and some light to it, but not extreme heat.

So this will create that greenhouse effect.

You can check it every so often.

It would be preferable to check it daily to make sure you're still seeing condensation.

You should see moisture on the bag.

If not, come back in here, open this up and spray it again so that you keep that moisture up.

You don't want to mess with your cuttings too much.

I know it can be tempting to come in here and sort of wiggle 'em or pull 'em and tug on 'em to see if they're rooted.

But really you're gonna wanna give 'em a few weeks to establish those roots.

And they're gonna establish the roots before you actually see growth.

If you're starting to see growth, then you can kind of rest assured that there probably are roots that have already developed.

So, at this point, we're gonna set that aside, like I said.

And on these, if you wanted to do something like this, if you're taking a lot of cuttings, I'm gonna go ahead and finish out these pots.

But once I do that, then you can kind of put a little bit of water in the tray.

Again, you don't want this necessarily saturated but just high humidity.

And we have something like this that we're gonna put over the top of it that will help maintain that humidity.

Again, you'll notice these are actually germination trays that we use in the springtime for our seeds but they work well for cuttings as well.

And they have vents, so again, we could allow some of that heat to escape if we wanted to.

But these really are ideal for home garden situations to kind of bring into your house allowing you to overwinter your annuals, saving your pocketbook a little bit of money next spring.

(gentle acoustic guitar music) - Our Oklahoma Proven shrub for 2022 is the buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis.

This is a native shrub.

It is found growing throughout all of Oklahoma except the Panhandle.

And actually it's found growing near water.

It's usually found growing along the borders, The banks of lakes, rivers, streams, ponds.

So it likes water.

And in fact, it'll tolerate wet swampy soils, compacted soils.

It just doesn't like to get really dry.

So, make sure you have it in a good spot that gets lots of moisture, or that you can provide some moisture at least during the hot dry part of the summer.

So this is a really nice plant.

It has bright, glossy green foliage on it.

Doesn't really have much of a fall color, but in early summer, this plant developed some really cool pin cushion-like flower clusters.

And we have some, this one's about done.

This one has just finished blooming but we use have some still on campus and around town that are still blooming.

They are white clusters.

Once they mature, the seed actually is a source for in, at least in its native habitat, becomes a source for ducks and other waterfowl.

These seeds structures can also persist on the plant.

Some of them can be a kind of a reddish, reddish brown color, and can be somewhat attractive later on in the season as well.

Now, the flowers are nicely scented, and they are very attractive to butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators.

In fact, when this thing is in bloom, it's usually just swarming with all kinds of insects.

And it's considered a good honey plant as well.

So there are a several landscape selections that are now available.

The species can grow up to 12 foot high.

So it's a multi-stem shrub can reach up to 12 foot high.

Most of the garden selections are smaller, more compact dwarf types.

So, an old cultivar that's been around for quite a while is called Sputnik.

And that was actually found growing in the wild in Oklahoma by our horticulturist, Steve Bieberich.

And it has pale pink flowers, or light pink flowers.

And it gets about almost the same size as the species.

A newer one, called Fiber Optics, is more compact, gets more like five to six foot high and wide.

Another recent cultivar is called Sugar Shack.

It's also a dwarf.

Gets about three to four, maybe five foot high and wide.

And that one has kind of the reddish brown fruits that'll persist onto the plant.

So again, this is a great plant, great for a native planting woodland area, especially, you know, wet areas and rain gardens.

But is a great landscape plant as long as you can provide some supplemental water to it during the hot and driest part of the.

- Today we are visiting the backyard of Brian Mitchell here in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Brian, I love this concept.

We came to see your frog pond, so tell us a little bit about it, if you would please.

- Okay, well, a couple years ago we thought we would try the having a pond, and we immediately realized we wanted a small pond because they're easy to maintain, and there's no pumps, chemicals, things of that nature.

If you do start having a problem you can empty it out.

- Yeah.

- And start over very easily.

- So it's like the simplest form of a water garden, if you would think of it that way, right?

- I think so, and so I put the pond in then I turned to my wife to, well we need plants.

(woman laughs) And so, we've got plants now and they're really doing well this year.

We're really happy with them.

- [Woman] So, so let's talk a little bit about the installation of the pond.

There is a liner in the, but it's fairly shallow, right?

- [Brian] Yeah.

It's a, it's a small liner.

Probably the water surface is about 10 foot by 8 foot.

- [Woman] Okay.

- [Brian] The, the liner itself comes out and underneath these these big flagstones that are around it.

And then the depth, 6 to 8 inches probably.

- [Woman] Okay, okay.

- [Brian] When it's full, so that's, yeah.

It's it's small, definitely.

- [Woman] Yeah.

So we're not talking water lilies and some of those extravagant water plants.

- [Brian] It does put, yeah, there are some limits - [Woman] Yeah.

- to what you can do, but we've overcome that, I think.

- And you were really intending this to be more of a natural ecosystem, right?

So you've got some native, kind of bog plants in here.

- Well we've developed some good, good water plants that are flourishing in this.

As I said, there's no there's no pumps, no chemicals, no filters.

And the plants; we didn't know how well they would do.

It's so shallow, there's no ledges or shelves to put pots down into.

They're simply along the edges.

And there has been some sediment that has naturally formed.

- Okay.

- Overtime leaves and things had gotten to the bottom and decayed and they seem to be rooting into that very nicely.

The only one that, the exception is the Papyrus.

Which we've got one of those cloth pots.

- [Woman] Oh, okay.

- [Brian] And we filled it up with some potting soil and put them in and they just love it.

I mean they they you can't over-water a papyrus is what I've been told (woman laughs) and so that's exactly, they've got a tremendous water supply there.

Plus they've got all the nutrients of the potting soil.

Without that soil spilling into the pond and and getting it contaminated with that.

- [Woman] Right, I I love the idea of using one of those fabric pots for a water garden plant.

- Yup.

- It's a good use, allows that water in but holds back the dirt from getting into you water as well.

- Absolutely.

- So, you do have some fish.

We've got you know you gotta create that eco system so we don't have a mosquito pond out here, right?

- That's true.

- So - As soon as we saw mosquito larvae form.

(woman chuckles) We, okay, we're gonna get some fish and so yeah went to essentially went to a bait shop and got some goldfish.

And they've done really well in there.

We'll probably let them, they'll probably make it through the winter depending you know on - [Woman] Right.

- [Brian] how hard the freezes and things are.

And so they they yeah they're a larvae doesn't stand a chance in that in that pond.

They'll they'll grab that in a in a heartbeat, yeah.

- But you've given 'em a better life than their alternate fate, right?

- They we're bait fish - As bait fish.

(woman chuckles) - And now they're pet fish.

So they're happy fish.

- Very good.

And so, let's talk a little bit about the plants that we have in here.

So you mentioned the papyrus, it looks like we have some of the native Horsetail Rush as well, and your pennywort here, that I know a lot of times is in people's landscapes so that's creeping into the water garden as well.

Tell me a little bit about, I mean the fact that you're under a big shade tree here, that influences, obviously.

You're not getting a lot of flowers off of any of this stuff cause they're not really flowering plants.

- Yup, we don't have enough direct sunlight - Yeah.

- it seems like to get flowering plants to flower.

They'll make it okay, but we haven't seen any any flowering take place.

The shade actually helps.

You don't want there to be an algae bloom in a pond.

And sunlight is a real big driver of those algae blooms.

So having the shade has actually been a pretty good benefit.

- Okay.

- And, of course we'll have a lot of leaf falling soon.

- I was gonna ask about that.

- And we do have a little net and when it's really intense this is a huge tree and there's gonna be a massive amount of leaf and other debris falling.

We'll probably put a net over at least part of this.

- Okay.

- And that will helps us keep it cleaned up.

You don't have to keep every you want some of the leaves to to stay in the pond and to fall to the bottom and create a food source for your plants But you don't want it to become overwhelmed.

- Right.

- Or once again, you're feeding a potential algae bloom later on.

- So, tell me a little bit you this was a Covid project for you I think is that (chuckles) - Yeah.

- How long did it take to kind of build it?

And we're two years out now and it's starting to kind of get that ecosystem happening.

- Yeah.

It's it we were looking for things to do.

We were stuck at home.

(woman chuckles) It was something that we could go to the local hardware store and get a liner and start experimenting with it.

And it didn't take us very long, we actually had previous owners had put a river rock and gravel in here.

We just had to scoop it back.

A lot of folks would have to dig.

- [Woman] Right.

- [Brian] We didn't have to do any digging.

And so, really putting in the liner and getting this getting it shaped was probably one day.

- [Woman] Okay.

- [Brian] Then we decided, well now it needs some flagstone.

(Brian and woman laugh) And so 4000 lbs of flagstone later, we've got the whole area covered.

But it really has made it a much more attractive pond area to have the flagstone instead of the instead of the gravel and rock.

- [Woman] Really, there's no electricity, I was gonna say, but I do see a little - Bubbler over there, so you do have a little bit of electricity to it.

- Yeah, that's something we might could do even without that.

We read about, you want to keep a high oxygen content in your pond, once again, for algae control purposes, and this is simply a fish tank bubbler.

And so, we put that in, and with that and some of our other efforts, we've had very little algae.

And another benefit of a small pond is you'll spot that algae really quick, and you can just pluck it out.

- Okay, well, so one of the other things I'm curious about with having a smaller, shallower pond, and having these bright, beautiful goldfish in there, do you have anything that might also want to come fishing in your pond that you've had issues with?

- We've provided fish dinners to several raccoons, and so, (Host laughs) lately they haven't been too bad.

- Okay.

- And so, yeah, we've had to do a little bit of replacement on our fish stock from time to time.

- Okay, but again, being bait fish, they're fairly cheap.

- They've gotten a happy life for quite a while.

(Host laughs) And I don't think we've had, I think we've only had one raccoon visit, probably, in the last couple of months.

- Well, it is a neat little ecosystem, and even a feeding ground, for some of the other wildlife in the neighborhood, huh?

- Well, raccoons have to eat, so, yeah, we take care of our raccoon friends a little bit.

- Well, I love this low-maintenance water garden, and for anybody that maybe is looking to kind of get into that, create a different aspect into their landscape, I think this is a great alternative.

Thanks for sharing it with us, Brian.

- You're quite welcome.

(country music) - [Host] There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

Be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead.

(country music) (country music continues) (country music continues) Stay tuned, next week we've got a spicy Oklahoma gardening show coming your way.

(country music stops) (upbeat music) To find out more information about show topics, as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources, including a directory of local extension offices, be sure to visit our website at oklahomagardening.okstate.edu.

Join in on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

You can find this entire show and other recent shows, as well as individual segments, on our oklahomagardening YouTube channel.

Tune in to our okgardeningclassics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous hosts.

Oklahoma Gardening is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, as part of the division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

The Botanic Garden at OSU is home to our studio gardens, and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful still water gem.

(upbeat music continues) We would like to thank our generous underwriter, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

Additional support is also provided by Pond Pro Shop, Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Tulsa Garden Center at Woodward Park, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, Smart Pot, and the Tulsa Garden Club.

(upbeat music continues)