- [Casey] 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.

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Today on The Best of Oklahoma Gardening, we are reviewing numerous plants that will be great for any garden, from shrubs and trees, to annuals and perennials.

David Hillock and I will give you all the details.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (weeds thump) I've got another great, drought-tolerant plant I wanna share with you.

This is called Gray Santolina.

We have it growing here in our rock garden because it does like a good, rocky, and good drainage soils.

So, you can see here it's got that gray foliage, and usually that's kind of a telltale sign of a plant that is drought tolerant.

And so it can handle our Oklahoma heats, and sometimes those drier soil conditions that we might experience, as we head into those summer months.

Now, the foliage itself actually kind of reminds me of an Arizona Cypress.

It's kind of got that grayish green color that it brings to the garden landscape, and you can see up close, it has kind of a fuzzy texture to it.

What's unique about this is it actually, the species comes from the Greek word meaning dwarf cypress.

So it, it doesn't surprise me that it sort of reminds me of the Arizona Cypress, and you can see how it kind of spreads.

It'll create these kind of rolling mounds of this sort of like, a cloud-like effect in your landscape.

Now, in late spring, it also will put up these flower buds.

Now, these flower buds, while it is in the Asteraceae family, and they look like kind of like the little buds or the eyes of a daisy, and that's because they are, sort of, that eye of the daisy or the eye of the mum, because they lack the ray florets that you often see around the mu or the daisy.

Instead, they just have these button-like flowers that sort of polka dot the landscape, but that contrast between the bright yellow and the gray foliage makes a nice addition to any landscape.

Now, if you're not really interested in the gray color in your landscape, there also is a green Santolina to check out.

Both of these are hardy from zone 6 to 10, and again, a great addition in any Oklahoma garden.

(cheery upbeat music) (cheery upbeat music continues) - 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, 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 brown color 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, it can reach up to 12 foot high, and 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 Berrick, 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 a more, 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 persist onto the plant.

So again, this is a great plant, great for a native planting, a woodland area, especially 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 summer.

(fancy music) - We're back here in our All America selection annual display garden.

And one of the things I always like doing at the end of the season is to kind of showcase some of the annuals that have done really well.

Well, today I wanna look at the vincas that we have here, also known as the periwinkles.

Periwinkles have long been in the home landscape with their pinwheel flower that is just a traditional look, a classic look that we often see in the landscape.

But these particular annuals that I wanna highlight today are in the Mega Bloom series.

And so this particular one here in front of me, you can see, it has that traditional periwinkle look where it's got kind of that pinwheel floral display, and the white eye to the center of it.

This one is actually known as the Orchid Halo, as part of that Mega Bloom series.

There's also a Pink Halo, which has a softer pink color to it, and also the white eye to it as well.

Now if you wanna go with an even more classic look, there is one called Polka Dot that has your traditional white flower.

And it almost looks like somebody's gone around with a paintbrush counting the flowers, as each center has just a drop of hot pink right in the center of it.

Really attracting those pollinators to the center of that flower.

Now each one of 'em are a couple of inches wide, so that's really what sets this Mega Bloom series apart from some of your traditional periwinkles, is the fact that they are such large flowers.

And that they're held up on a very compact, tidy plant as well.

So you don't have to worry about them flopping.

But they're gonna continue to provide flowers throughout the season.

One of the other things that this series has really been bred for also is heat and humidity tolerance, which, as you know, we live in Oklahoma, and we are well familiar with heat and humidity.

So it's nice to have an annual that's gonna be able to handle that.

And as you can see, later in the season, it is still disease and pest free.

And so we're doing good there.

It does attract plenty of pollinators.

We've got a lot of stuff flying around us right now.

So if you're looking to add a periwinkle into your garden, and wanna put a twist on an old favorite, try looking at the Mega Bloom series that comes in this Orchid Halo, Pink Halo, or Polka Dot.

(fancy music) - Our Oklahoma proven annual for 2022 is the coleus.

Now coleus is a time-honored foliage plant.

It's been around for decades.

And over the decades they've actually released hundreds of cultivars, and they continue to, with the breeding process and improving them.

There's all kinds of leaf shapes, and forms, and colors.

They grow from six inches tall to nice, large, rounded 30 inch, 36 inch bushy plants.

They are just awesome.

So way back, several decades ago, they actually were considered and most prized for shady areas.

Then, some time ago, they came out with the sun coleus.

And they've bred into 'em more light tolerance, so sun tolerance.

And so now we have dozens of cultivars that grow really well out in full sun, and they are actually one of the best foliage plants we have for Oklahoma.

Now, these are plants that don't like to dry out, so it is a plant you're gonna have to keep consistently moist throughout the summer.

But other than that, they're really easy to grow.

Minor pest problems once in a while.

But they're pretty tough overall.

So the breeders have, again, like I said, they continue to improve their performance.

One of the things that they've kind of bred into them is less flowering, or later flowering, because we don't typically want them to flower.

So most of the time we're gonna come in and we're gonna pinch that flower out, so that we can keep it nice and bushy and clean.

So if you're looking for a great annual for full sun, or maybe part shade, or even as an indoor house plant, coleus might be a great selection for you.

(fancy music) - We've got a plant that looks like it's straight out of a children's storybook, "Jack and the Beanstalk."

But it's not actually called that.

It is called the wooly morning glory.

And I wanted to show you this vine because it's one that gets a lot of attention here at the Botanic Gardens at OSU.

It is a tropical.

And it's probably a good thing it's a tropical because you can see how monstrous it gets by the end of the season.

Now we actually just planted two small four inch pots in this container, earlier in the spring, after we're past any frost.

So after April 15th, we planted two small pots.

And you can see how big it's gotten by the end of the season.

- Now the reason why you really grow Wooly Morning Glory is because of this foliage, it's just beautiful foliage.

You can see, actually this is kind of one of the smaller leaves but how big these leaves will actually get.

They just have a nice kind of emerald green color to 'em.

But what's really nice is the underneath has this silvery sheen to it.

So when the wind is really blowing, the leaves are sort of dancing and you see some of that silver underneath kind of flick around and stuff like that.

And so the other thing too is you'll notice that it is a vine, it doesn't have tendrils like you would necessarily see where it sends these little vines out.

But just the ends of 'em, if I can find one here, the ends up of them will twine around and they'll even twine back up on themselves.

So they are pretty kind of woody actually.

So when we have to clean this vine off at the end of the season, we have to go in here with loppers, and actually cut it out of our trellis just because it has sort of of a woody texture to it.

But that gives it strength to sort of really support it.

Now you do want to actually give it something to climb on, but it will grow up to like 20 feet.

So you can really take it up to help cover and camouflage anything temporarily for the season.

Now again, this is called Wooly Morning Glory, which may make you think it's going to flower and it does.

But really again, we're growing it for the foliage, because the flowers don't come on until late, late in the season.

And in fact, if you see right up here, we've got some buds that are just starting to form here as we head into fall.

And so this is sort of a showy kind of calyx, but inside we've got the flower buds that are in there.

And so when it does bloom, it will be kind of a purple color to it.

Again, your traditional morning glory purple flower.

So depending on when winter decides to show up or that first frost, we may not actually get the flowers in it at all.

So again, we're growing it for the foliage, but the flowers is just a bonus.

So again, this is Wooly Morning Glory, and a great tropical plant to grow in your garden.

(gentle music) - Today I wanna show you the plant that we chose for our perennial for the Oklahoma Proven Program for 2022.

This is a great plant, the genus is Heuchera, or coral bells, there's actually several species, they are native to North America.

But this is a fun plant, it's very colorful.

Over the last decade or two, the breeders have done a lot of work with this plant and really, really improved it.

And there's all kinds of different cultivars and varieties out there.

This one here you can see has a nice, the underside of the leaf is a bright purple, and the upper side of the leaf is a dark green with kind of a silvery cast between the veins.

And then it also has this light, airy, flowering stem with little, tiny pinkish bell-shaped flowers.

But they come in a wide variety of colors, there's some really dark purple colors, some orange-ish colored varieties, and some really bright ones like a chartreuse or lime colored.

They do very well in shady conditions and semi-shady conditions.

Some of them will tolerate full sun if you provide adequate moisture to them.

Now, the darker colored varieties, they tend to tolerate more sunlight than the lighter ones do, the chartreuse and lime colored ones.

Sometimes you can put them out in full sun but make sure you have adequate water available to 'em.

The lighter colored ones have a tendency to burn up in the sun, so they're best provided in the shade.

Because of that light bright green color, they really stand out nicely in the shade as well.

Now the flower colors, they come in a range of colors as well.

They can be from red to pink to white.

You can see that this is kind of the habit of Heucheras or coral bells.

They grow in a clump habit, they don't spread a lot.

So you can create a really nice ground cover by placing 'em fairly close together.

Now, some of the plants are more drought tolerant than others.

Again, depending on the parentage of the hybrids that are out there.

They do have a very shallow fibrous root system.

So you do want to be sure to provide moisture, especially during the driest times of the year.

You wanna make sure that the crown isn't too exposed during the winter months.

It's a good idea to mulch around them during the winter because otherwise if they're exposed, the frost and freeze heaving of the soil will push them right out of the ground and expose the crown of the plant, which can cause some winter damage.

So if you're looking for a great perennial, long-lasting, some of them can be evergreen and some of 'em are deciduous, depending on the year, the severity of our winters, as well as the cultivar.

But they're great, long-lasting perennials that provide all kinds of color for you.

(upbeat music) - With my current lifestyle, as the mother of two young kids, I always am appreciating perennials that are very low maintenance.

And I wanna mention one that I discovered several years ago that's still one of my favorites, and that is this plant here in front of me called Verbena bonariensis, also known as Verbena on a Stick.

And you can see how it gets its name because it has these... - Purple, tubular clusters of flowers that are on these long pedestals or sticks, in essence.

You can see though what I really like about this is, because of those tubular flowers, it does attract a lot of pollinators.

So you'll find a lot of butterflies, and moths, and even an occasional hummingbird coming to this plant, and it really elevates those nectar flowers right above your eyes.

And so it's almost like you can see those moths and butterflies right there without having to bend down and look too much.

Now, the other thing that it does in a landscape is it actually doubles your impact in your garden space.

So you can see all of these flowers are well above the ground.

While it does have a little bit of vegetation on it, most of the vegetation is really low, and so you can actually underplant this with other perennials.

So you can see, we've got it underplanted here with some Rudbeckia, and the contrast between the purple and the yellow makes a really nice impact.

But for the same square footage in your garden, you're getting twice the floral display here.

Now, the other thing about this plant is it is hardy to Zone 7a.

So for most of Oklahoma, it is going to be hardy.

If you're north of that, you can use it as an annual as it will continue to produce these flowers on these densely branched pedestals throughout the summertime.

So you're gonna get a lot of flowers all summer long.

If you do grow it as a perennial, you should be aware it will recede.

However, I'm not promoting anything that is, like, what I would say a garden thug.

You don't have to worry about this taking over your garden anytime soon.

What it does, though, is it will reseed on occasion, and I often think it's really a nice surprise just seeing where it might pop up in the garden, and it sort of allows that ebb and flow and the kind of natural effect and design of your garden to come about.

So you can see, right here, we actually have one that just kind of popped up on the outside of the rock.

So it's sort of softens that edge of our path, but it's not gonna be any problem that you can't easily control if you feel the need to.

Now, when we look at the leaves, you'll see some of the vegetation, it is up on these taller stems, but like I said, most of it is down lower.

The leaves are serrate and they're really rough, and so that kind of allows it to be a little more drought tolerant.

It's not like a soft tissue vegetation, so that just kind of holds in some of that moisture a little bit well.

These stems are gonna hold up fine in our strong Oklahoma winds.

They're really sturdy.

It works well in either a perennial garden, a pollinator garden, or even a container.

However, with these stems getting anywhere from four to five feet tall, that might be a little intimidating and overwhelming for some spaces.

And for that, I have another solution for you.

(gentle classical music) So here you can see we have another Verbena bonariensis, and this actually was the 2022 All-America Selection, one of their winners for the ornamental category on the national level, and this particular hybrid has been named Vanity.

And you can see, what's so aesthetically pleasing about this hybrid is the fact that it's going to remain more compact, getting a height of only about 2 1/2 feet tall.

But yet it still offers all of the same great features of the traditional verbena on a stick as it lifts those flowers high above that canopy, kind of giving it that airy effect and allowing you to still layer it in the garden.

So if you're looking for an easy, low maintenance perennial, try Verbena bonariensis or verbena on a stick.

(upbeat country music) - Today we want to show you the tree that we have chosen for the Oklahoma Proven program for 2022, and that is the Ginkgo.

This is a fun tree.

I love it.

It's one of my favorites.

It's kind of a unique tree because it is one of a kind.

So the genus is Ginkgo, and the species is Ginkgo biloba, and that's it.

There is no other species within the genus Ginkgo.

The other cool thing about this is they have found fossils of the leaves that date back to what they think is maybe 150 million years ago.

It is a native to China, so it's not a native of ours, but it is a very tough tree.

It tolerates a wide variety of soil conditions.

It's a great urban or street tree because it tolerates compacted soils and dry soils quite well.

Just really needs well-drained soils or pretty well-drained soils.

You don't want it sitting in water.

But other than that, this is a pretty tough tree.

Pretty much pest-free.

Good, clean, beautiful foliage.

It's called biloba, because if you look at the leaf, you can see that it's kind of split in two, creating two lobes.

It's a nice fan-shaped leaf, and the veins of the leaves are almost parallel to each other.

So it's bright, bright green during the summer.

- And then in the fall, it actually turns a bright yellow color, which is really cool.

Now, this is a dioecious tree, meaning there's a male and female form of the tree.

It's usually a good idea to choose a male form to avoid the nasty fruit that the female can produce.

They're actually a large fleshy cone and when they ripen and fall to the ground, they're really stinky and messy.

So usually it's a good idea to choose one that we know is a male form of the species.

If you go into the garden center and just buy a Ginkgo Biloba or Ginkgo, or it's also called Maiden Hair Tree, and there's no designation of what it could be, you may not know what it is until it matures 15, 20 years later.

It takes a long time for it to mature, which is another thing that's kind of nice about this tree, to some degree, is it's a very slow grower.

This tree here that we're standing under, it's been in here for at least 25 years and I'm guessing it's probably only about 30 feet tall now.

So it's a slow grower, which, again, can be a plus or a minus.

Because it's slow, you don't really have to worry much about it getting out of control and really have to worry about pruning it or anything like that.

So if you're looking for a great tree that is easy to grow, trouble-free, has wonderful summer foliage and really bright yellow fall color, then this might be a great tree for you.

(cheerful music) - A lot of times we think about trees during the summertime, when they provide us with a reprieve, during our hot Oklahoma summers.

And also in the wintertime, we're grateful for our evergreens because of the green that we know will soon return to our landscape.

However, today I want to show you a tree that is still providing color, even in the middle of winter, and that is the Coral Bark Japanese Maple.

As you can see, it got its name from this bright red color that it gets on its new growth that is only intensified as we go into those cooler winter months.

Now, this tree, it does like dappled shade, so especially in hotter climates like we are here in Oklahoma.

So you can see it's planted here on OSU's campus on the east side of several more mature trees, just east of Theta Pond.

Those trees are gonna provide it with that dappled shade.

However, it is gonna get a fair bit of morning sun, but be protected in those hot afternoon hours.

The other thing is that shade that's provided by the canopy of the other trees will also kind of protect it from the harsh, drying winds that we often experience here in Oklahoma.

Now, we don't have to worry about the canopy of those other trees too much because this tree is gonna stay a moderate size of about 20 feet tall by 20 feet wide.

As you can see, it's got color in the wintertime, but once it starts leafing out, it's gonna have more of a light green lobed, traditional Japanese Maple leaf.

Now, we're gonna continue to get color with it in the fall as those light green leaves turn to a more of a golden yellow color.

Now, this tree is better suited for Eastern to Central Oklahoma, as it does like an acidic soil that is moist, yet well drained.

Now, while this tree isn't suited for all of Oklahoma, sometimes the bark is just as important as the bite.

(cheerful music) Next week on "Oklahoma Gardening", we look at the top two crops in the garden.

(bright music) (cheerful 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.

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"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 stillwater gem.

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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