- [Announcer] 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.

Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today, I'll share with you all about the Pineapple Lily plant.

We then take a look back at the transformation of the Myriad Gardens Crystal Bridge Conservatory and then we head over to the survivor tree at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, where we learn more about what is being done to protect and preserve this special tree.

(mellow music) - Almost like an ombre of sunset colors.

But not the flowers, right?

(soft music) Who says you can't add a little tropical flare to your own backyard here in Oklahoma?

With this plant Eucomis you can do just that, also known as Pineapple Lily.

Eucomis adds a bold texture to any landscape.

You can plant it individually, or you can plant it in mass with several of them.

Regardless, the texture to some of the surrounding plants is gonna really add a nice landscape design to your backyard.

Now, just the foliage alone is impressive as it comes in both a burgundy color and also a green color.

However, you're also going to get flowers that start blooming in midsummer.

And you can see they're just now starting to bloom.

And why it has its name Pineapple Lily is because it produces these pineapple like flowers with these brax or modified leaves on the top of that kind of resembling a pineapple.

Now, this is fairly small still.

It's gonna continue to grow and elongate and you can see all of these flowers will soon open and it's going to flower for us for about eight weeks which really extends our summer garden.

As a lot of times our other garden is starting really starting to fill that heat.

This tropical plant is going to start taking off.

Now, you'll also see the spike of the plant here is burgundy.

However, a lot of times you'll see kind of a speckled look to that stem as well.

Depending on which hybrid you get of Eucomis, the flowers are gonna range in color anywhere from white to a pink color.

So again, that adds to the variety that you can add into your garden.

Now, this is a plant that is native to South Africa and so being tropical, it's going to like moist conditions.

However, it does want well drained soils that have a lot of high organic matter in them.

So it might not be suitable for all of Oklahoma, but it is hearty to know zones seven A.

So you can leave it out.

It'll come back for much of Oklahoma.

However, if you're north of that zone then you might wanna think about digging those bulbs up and storing them in a dry, cool location and then planting them back out the next season.

If it is a perennial, it's going to get about a two foot by two foot clump for you and you might wanna think about dividing that early in the season if that mask is too large, or you wanna share it or spread it in your garden.

Otherwise, this plant is a great way, not only to because of the foliage, but also the flower to add that tropical look into your backyard.

(mellow music) - I'm Maureen Heifer and I'm the director of Myriad Botanical Gardens in Scissortail Park.

This Crystal Bridge officially opened to the public in 1988 so we've changed a lot of it.

I mean, things that were just outdated, the infrastructure needed replacing, and then how could we improve it.

So the circulation, I think, is the way we've improved it.

Certainly, all of the new interpretive elements are really gonna add a lot of interest to people that we didn't have before.

- Up on the skywalk, that we call it, before it was a wonderful place to walk and look over, but for kids and people in wheelchairs, you couldn't see the beautiful view, and there wasn't any interpretive information up there.

So we've created three bump-outs here, and so each station will have a really interesting, fun, interactive component to learn about plants or wildlife, as well as lots of other interpretation through on all levels, signage, interactive features, displays, is the way we've improved it.

Just opening it up more, like you can see how beautiful this terrace is, to really see the views.

The waterfall feature, I think, is totally reinvented.

It was, we had a waterfall there, but it was a lot of, kind of water coming out of a pipe, in a way.

And you know, which is okay, but I think we really wanted to bring this up to a world-class level.

And so investing in that I think will make a big difference.

So we just try to make it more engaging, more accessible, more comfortable, more educational, hopefully more beautiful.

One big feature, which will be really interesting, is the way we're grouping the plants.

Nate Shane, our Director of Horticulture, has spent hours, countless hours on a planting plan.

So we're grouping plants by education categories, so we can really tell some nice stories in certain areas, that really build on your knowledge.

So you can see all kinds of plants that are commodities, spices, fruits, in certain areas, and really understand how they grow and what they're used for.

We plan to add some redwood roots that our designer Scott Murase found out in Oregon, and he showed us pictures of them, and you thought they were sculptures.

They're older, weatherworn, beautifully patterned and intricate, and an amazing design and look to them.

So they're quite large pieces, so we're positioning some of them up in the Bromeliad Terrace, and then we'll plant into them.

So it really gives us more natural effect, and I think people will appreciate the story behind them when they learn more about them.

There'll be one towards the entrance, and there may even be one up here on the terrace to look at, too, so we're trying to re-envision what a conservatory could be, an updated, modern conservatory with some unusual elements that we thought they may not be what you think of as a "sculpture" sculpture, but they really serve as that, and we can plant into them, so I think it's gonna add a lot of interest to the project.

The plants will be here next, we're bringing soil in tomorrow, plants will be here next month.

And I would say we're 65, 70% done.

A lot of the big work, I think, is out of the way at this point, and our contractor Lingo has just been fantastic to work with, the whole team, ADG, Scott Murase, Charles Sparks with our gift shop will be opening in October.

So yeah, it's so far, so good.

We hope to open to the public, if you're a member, you can come in in October.

Otherwise, we'll be opening to the general public just before Thanksgiving.

(bright music) - This might not look familiar, but we are actually right back here at Myriad Gardens' new Crystal Bridge that's gonna be opening soon.

And joining me today is Maureen Heffernan, who is the CEO of Myriad Gardens.

Maureen, thanks so much for giving us a sneak peek a little bit.

- Well, thanks for following our project over these almost a year, I think.

- Yeah, yeah, it's been quite a process, and this tree has survived it all.

- I know, we've survived it, the tree survived it, and we're so excited to be almost done.

- Yeah, so obviously we've got some plants coming in, I know there's still some more little tweaks to do before the grand opening, but let's talk about what you've got done so far.

- We've got lots of little tweaks, but the big things are all in place.

So you can see it's completely different from the the previous one, so the thing I think people will notice first of all is that there's an open canopy.

Before we closed, it was truly like a rainforest in here.

- Right.

- So it's gonna take some time to grow back, but in the meantime, there's a lot of light in here.

You can see the beautiful architecture.

So, but we have planted, we'll probably have as many, if not a little bit more, plants themselves than before we closed.

- Okay, and you still have the dry and the wet side, too.

- We have the dry side over here on the north, and the rest of it is all tropical-type plants.

- Right, right, and then you've grouped the plants, is that right?

- Yeah, among the many changes we've made is we thought about how do we tell stories better?

How do we interpret the collection better?

And so our Director of Horticulture, Nate Shane, suggested we group things that have some similarities.

- Okay.

- So when you're there, you can really talk about a group of things and learn more about them.

So for instance, behind your shoulder here, we have mangoes and avocados and pineapples and bananas.

So a lot of things like that are in this section.

And behind me, I think there's an olive tree, there's coffee beans, so kind of commodity-type things.

- Okay.

- And what you don't see today here, but- - One of the things that we have to add back in is all of our new interpretations.

So, we're really excited about how our new interpretation, everything from plant labels for individual plants, up to telling stories, interpretation, will all be installed here.

So, it will be a much richer experience for all ages to come through.

You can learn as little as you want or as much as you want.

We have different levels of information.

So, that'll all be still to come.

- So, there's a little bit of a low roar in the background that we all, there's always water in here and there still is a nice beautiful big waterfall behind us.

- Well that was a tradition we kept.

When you come in, you hear water.

- Yes.

- The different kind of sound.

But yes, that's our new waterfall, which is really a beautiful piece.

It's a big focal point.

And again, it's very new, the planting's on either side of it, but they'll start to grow over and overhang and soften it.

But, it's a wonderful feature to have.

In the rainforest, you have to have water, waterfalls.

This is kind of a stylistic kind of modern approach to that.

- And you sort of balanced it with water now on the other end too.

- We do.

You're right.

- It's like an oasis in the desert.

- It's kind of, you know, moving water and still water.

So we gotta have the yin and yang of waters here.

But, the reflecting pool is really beautiful.

We've got some papyrus growing in there, water lilies and above it we'll be hanging these three large flower balls which will change with different seasons.

So, their reflection as well as the, the sky and the architecture is all reflected in the pool, so.

That's a nice feature that we've added.

- And I know you've changed the walkway, there's a gift shop, you've got an art gallery now out front that's kind of themed with a grand opening.

Give us a little bit of a teaser about that grand opening and when it is.

- Well, it opens to the public on November 18th and then we'll be open seven days a week, Monday through Saturday, nine to five.

And then on Sundays 11 to six.

Starting Black Friday and then all through December we'll have extended hours on Friday and Saturday evenings until eight so people can come out and tour the new Crystal Bridge or shop in the gift shop during the holiday season.

- So, even though that looks almost complete there's still some more to do but it will be ready to go for grand opening.

- Yeah, I look at here and I see everything that's missing and how much more canopy it will feel.

We'll be putting in a lot of containers through here with plantings and up by the waterfall, all the interpretations, seating, benches.

We also have a new discovery room.

It's not a big space, but it was an unused space between the elevator and our second level entrance into the conservatory.

So, we've turned it into a really family friendly, kid friendly room that has some really wonderful interpretation and graphics showing how plants and insects work together to help each other and strategies that they both have to survive.

And so, that will be opening too.

And it's really colorful and fun and it's a good place to either start your visit or end your visit and we'll have little activities for kids to do when they visit in the discovery room.

- Well thank you Maureen for sharing the sneak peek with us.

- Well thanks for covering this project and hope you'll continue to cover it.

- Absolutely.

(upbeat music playing) (upbeat music playing) (upbeat music playing) (music fades) - Today, we are here at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and behind me is one of the most well known trees especially to people in Oklahoma.

Joining me is Gabriel Taylor who is responsible for maintaining the grounds here and we're talking about the Survivor Tree today.

Gabriel, I know a lot goes into keeping this tree healthy.

Can you tell us a little bit about that daily, weekly, monthly maintenance that happens?

- So, yes, I'm the Director of Facilities here and I get the honor of being able to take care of the Survivor Tree.

And that's not just eight to five jobs, that's a 24/7 job.

When I'm not here, we have security watching over it 'cause we have security here 24/7.

So, they're also watching the grounds and making sure that during ice storms, during storms that nothing's happened to the tree.

So, they keep an eye on that for us and then call us at all times of night if they have any concerns.

Some of the daily stuff that we do is we have, we walk by and we take a look at the limbs themselves and then we also look at, make sure that no one's done anything overnight or to the tree itself or shoved anything into the bark.

- Yeah, some people might think they're giving a donation or they're leaving a tribute behind but, it actually can cause damage to the tree.

- Yes.

We wanna make sure that it stays healthy and that nothing's inside the bark or anything like that so that it grows in there.

And that's why we have a donation box here for that reason in case somebody wants to kindly leave a donation for us but we take the overall health of it.

- And then the weekly items, as we make sure that as the tree develops or during the springtime, we take care of picking up all the seeds.

And when Mother Nature says that it's time to let go of the seeds, we go through there daily and sweep up the seeds.

And then we take those seeds and then we give 'em to Mark, we have 'em, Mark Bays, to have 'em planted, some of them.

And then some of them we send off to our supplier to have 'em put into little packets for people to grow their own survivor tree.

- [Interviewer] Okay, 'cause I know those are given away at different times throughout the year and to some of the surviving families and different parks around Oklahoma have those as well.

- Yes, on April 19th, we give those, we give a certain amount of those away.

The saplings.

We are also selling those online at thesurvivortree.com.

- [Interviewer] It's an American elm, right?

- [Gabriel] That is true.

- [Interviewer] How old is this tree?

I mean, it's been through a lot.

And not to mention the bombing, obviously.

- [Gabriel] We believe, I don't know exactly.

No one can tell us exactly how old, but it's quite old.

We don't know.

We've had pictures from 1940 with it in the parking lot or in someone's backyard.

So there's no telling how exactly that it might be.

But with a guess-timation around a hundred years maybe.

- [Interviewer] So today something special is kind of happening and it's preventative treatment, right?

Tell us a little bit about what's going on today.

- It's being treated for Dutch Elm disease.

We're not worried about Dutch Elm, but we're just doing preventative maintenance.

We want to be proactive here versus reactive.

So then make sure that it lives on as long as possible.

- Well thank you Gabriel for sharing this.

And I'm gonna go find Mark Bays to find out a little bit more of the technical information about this treatment, if you don't mind.

- Sounds good.

(light music) - So Mark, we just finished up a preventative treatment on the survivor tree.

Tell me a little bit about that process.

- Yeah, so this is an American Elm.

American Elm just across United States is at risk to get Dutch Elm disease.

It does not have Dutch Elm disease, but there are some preventative measures that you can take.

We've treated it in the past before and we just thought it was appropriate to again, treat it today.

- Okay, and is this something that you do in the springtime typically?

I mean, - It's a really good time is like today, we came here early in the morning.

It's kind of the sun's out, it's warming, it's early in the spring, so there's a lot of fluid moving through the tree.

And so what we did today is we used a fungicide Arbor Tech and folks from Rainbow were nice enough to donate it because it's kind of an expensive product.

So they donated it and we had it mixed.

So there's a mixture depending on the size of the tree that you use.

You mix it up, you drill a bunch of holes in the bottom of the tree, it's not hurting the tree.

These are just very small wounds that you're creating.

- [Interviewer] And there's number of holes is based off of the size of the tree.

is that correct?

- Correct, yeah, so the number of holes that you put in around the circumference of the root flare, you want it down at the bottom, and the amount of product that you use is all dependent on the size of the tree.

So we measured this tree earlier.

It's 43 inches in diameter.

And so all, everything that we used was based on that, based on the label of the fungicide that we're using.

- [Interviewer] And so then, basically it's sort of an IV, it just takes it up, right?

- Exactly.

They're very small amount of pressure was to initially get it started.

So 18 to 20 pounds of pressure they were using.

And that just initiated the process to kind of get it flowing and they put in 50 gallons of fluid into the tree here with the mixture.

But then towards the end, we unplugged that and you could see the fluid moving in.

So the tree's natural system in the xylem, moving the fluids up through the tree, kind of was sucking it up.

And that's why it's good during the spring.

Those fluids are moving, the trees are transpiring, bringing in water from the roots.

So all this now is being moved in throughout the whole crown of the tree.

- Okay, and so that prevents the fungus from developing or a beetle?

'Cause I know it's transmitted through a beetle.

Tell me a little bit about the, what that prevents.

- Dutch Elm disease is spread a couple different ways.

If you have all Dutch Elm trees in a row and one tree gets a Dutch Elm disease, it can actually go through the roots of the tree.

And we saw that a lot in the Midwest.

Dutch Elm disease was introduced upper part and the middle part of the country back in the 30s.

And it's just spread all over the place.

This is a very isolated elm, so there's no root connections with other elm trees.

The one way it could get it is the other way.

There's a European bark beetle that is spread.

It helps spread it.

And there's an American elm beetle that doesn't spread it as much.

So it's the European bark beetle that spreads it a little bit more often.

- What happens is you have one of these small beetles that emerge as an adult out of an infected tree, because the adults lay their eggs in these dying trees.

And so when those adults emerge, then they fly out, then they start eating on uninfected trees, so that fungus is transmitted by the European beetles inside their body, outside their body.

So when they start chewing on a fresh tree, that's how it can get transmitted into the xylem or the fluid of the uninfected tree.

- Okay, so this is an actual fungicide though that prevents that - Yes.

- fungus pathogen from getting into that tree.

- Correct, so this fungicide, now that we've injected it at the base, it's moving up through all the different stems.

A lot of times you'll see flagging with Dutch elm disease and you'll see that browning on the very tips.

And that's where the beetles actually like to feed on the unions, on those little small branches.

And so with the fungicide up there the insect will still feed but if some of that fungus is transmitted in there the fungicide is in there to kill the fungus.

- Okay, well I'm so glad that you're protecting our tree and I know it's a whole team of people that is taking care of it.

It looks beautiful again.

You would never know you were here this morning - Right.

- Because you have this grate around it, right?

So that's what was pulled back and it's all cleaned up now.

- [Mark] And that's what was important about this.

And when they first designed this we knew that we were gonna be having to get in and treat the tree through time.

So the whole design around the promenade here is they made it to where you can remove it to expose those root flares to do this kind of treatment in the future and what we did today.

- Okay.

So obviously going back to Dutch elm disease a little bit it's not typically something we preventatively treat on most... Just trees that are out there that might be susceptible.

But if the homeowner has a prominent tree that they are concerned about for whatever reason or has value to them this is something a homeowner could hire an arborist to do.

- Yes and you'll have to have a certified arborist come out and do this.

This is a controlled chemical.

You just can't go down to a garden center and buy this.

And there's some technique that you have to do.

There's some special equipment that you have to have to do it.

And then the fungicide itself, nobody can just go and buy it across the counter.

- Right.

- But it is a little expensive.

But if you have a very meaningful tree for you and it happens to be an American elm then each of us are gonna have to decide whether or not we want to do that on a regular cycle.

In Oklahoma, the average time for treating it is three to four years.

- Okay.

- So on this particular tree, on the survivor tree we know that we're in pretty good shape for three or four years.

And then we'll reassess the health of the tree at that time and make that decision then if we need to do it at that time.

- And of course, the health of it will continue to be monitored daily - Yeah.

- by Gabriel and your staff as well.

- Yeah.

- So we appreciate you guys taking care of this tree and looking after it.

Thank you so much, Mark.

- Thanks.

You bet.

(jazz music) - [Casey] Join us next week on Oklahoma Gardening as we perk up the winter scene with some summer flowers.

(jazz music) (soft uplifting 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 Oklahoma Gardening YouTube channel.

Tune in to our OK Gardening Classics 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.

(soft uplifting music) 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.

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