- Today on Oklahoma Gardening, we visit the Native Plant nursery in Oklahoma City.

We see how one couple has transformed their home landscape and learn more about the yard by yard program that's supporting healthy landscapes.

Finally, we share with you some consumer information about a variety of soil moisture meters.

Underwriting assistance for our program program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma Green and growing Oklahoma Gardening is also a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust shape your future, provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

I love sharing with you guys the cool things that plants can do.

We're back here at the Student Farm.

I wanna share with you a tropical plant that you might find in some Oklahoma landscapes.

It's important to know which plants we are dealing with so that we can continue to maintain them successfully for years to come.

Today we're here at the Native Plant Nursery in downtown Oklahoma City, and joining me is owner Brian Paver.

Brian, thank you so much for inviting us down here.

It's a beautiful nursery you have set up here.

- Thank you very much.

- So you've been here about two years - Right?

- And you've got some kind of display garden spaces.

Tell us a little bit about those.

- Right, right.

So as we come through the entrance, we've got what I like to call as trail.

And it, it's a, it's a space that highlights grass and grass, like plants that are shade tolerant, mostly because we're underneath the canopy of Eastern red buds.

The concept of shade, shade tolerant grasses I've heard of, I thought.

Right.

I know.

So I, I'm fascinated with this concept.

Yeah.

So I thought it'd be cool to build a, a display garden.

So that's where the nursery sets up as one would make entry, go to the left, go meander through Remroid trail and work your way into the wood stems around in the pergola area behind this.

And then everything on the other side of the nursery would be flowering herbaceous perennials.

- Okay.

And that just goes to show the wide range of native plants and how they can be used in the landscape.

Right, right, - Right.

- So let's get into some of the native plants.

And I'm asking you for your favorite, so Okay.

Let's, let's, you pulled a few, right?

- Yes, I know.

Yeah.

It's hard to do because it, you know, I would select just about five of everything that we, that we have.

So what, what we have here is if you think of landscaping, say your front yard or any foundation bed that's like a, like a rectangular space.

It's super common.

We would work in layers.

I like to think of it as in layers.

And I keep it pretty much as simple as possible.

Small, medium, large.

So small plants, ground cover.

And I, I love working with warm season grasses such as boli, gracilis, it's blue grandma.

- Yeah.

- This is basically full grown.

So this is it maturity.

So it makes a really, really nice, long alternative.

- Okay.

- And it's very, very drought tolerant.

I like to plant very dense.

So I say often that the biggest difference between traditional landscaping and working with natives is that the density, - Okay.

- It's it's density that we're, we're, we're after.

Which essentially your plants are doing the work of a living mulch.

- Okay.

- So the inputs for mulch, the inputs for fertilization and, and even watering and minimal maintenance, we can reduce all of that by planting densely.

- And you're reducing that space where seeds could pop up.

- That's right.

- They could germinate.

- Yep.

- You know, different non appropriate - Things.

Right, right.

Where there's exposed earth - Yes.

- Yeah.

Is where you're gonna find that a seed will germinate.

- Right.

Right.

- So we, I love working with grasses that are about this size.

So this is the perfect grass in a warm season growth pattern.

So full sun, it's gotta have it, it does not tolerate wet soil or wet feet.

It's gotta be well drained and it's actually prefers poor soil.

Okay.

So I will put, put, you know, you could work with, with blue drama in about a one foot spacing.

- Okay.

- And in between those one foot gaps, frog fruit would be a perfect candidate to use as a creeping ground cover.

It's flowering, it trellis around it, it kind of just meanders.

So it's a host plant to three species of butterfly.

Oh, wow.

So it's Oklahoma native.

It checks all the boxes.

It's very, very adaptable.

- It's got a little fruit on it later on.

Right?

- Yes.

This is, they're just beautiful.

Yeah.

So all of these plants also work well in planters.

Okay.

So elevated planters, all of them will do just, just, they'll thrive.

- And I love that around the nursery, you do have some planters on display, because I think, and even some raised beds.

Yeah.

Because I think we tend to think native being in the - Soil.

Right.

- But you can really do it in your traditional, - You, you truly can.

And I would encourage it too, because, you know, not everybody has a plot of land, or you don't need a plot of land for sure.

To make a difference in terms of landscaping for wildlife.

Making a, a difference ecologically, and this is another candidate that I would, I often do all, I use it all the time in between a grass or even this next plant, which is, it's a grass like plant.

It's kerick.

Okay.

It's a sedge.

This one is, happens to be one of my favorites.

It's super adaptable.

I've used it in full sun, full shade, wet sites, mesic soils, dry soils, rich soil.

It, it doesn't really, it, it's super adaptable.

- So if you're thinking you can't grow, wanna try this - One?

Yes, absolutely.

And it, it's kind of this, it, it's, there's, it, it will grow and it will, you'll have your in fluorescent seed head in the spring that looks almost like a burr.

Okay.

But it's, it's, it's beneficial for wildlife.

It's basically songbirds will, will pluck the seeds.

Okay.

It's really cool to see.

So I, again, I will plant this one on about a foot, foot and a half center, and then hit the gaps with your ground covers.

Okay.

And I, I think diversity, the more species that you can put together is gonna be beneficial.

I really enjoy working with mid range three to four foot size warm season grasses, like switch grass.

And I replace, I use these as a substitute for the, the, the concept of, of foundation shrub, like a boxwood.

- Oh yeah.

- So 75 to 80% of an entire design of a meadow that if I'm gonna do a meadow design, it will be a grass or grass like a Carrick.

I love working with Carricks.

And then the others will have a small percentage of would be say like a wood stem shrub, like this lead plant.

And probably 5% of the garden would, would comprise of wood stems.

Okay.

And the rest would be herbaceous, flowering type perennials.

- Okay.

And a lot of those flowers are gonna change.

Right.

You start out with one and you end with another by the - Fall.

That's so true.

- We've got rattlesnake master and rattle a few others that are Yeah.

Really gonna be showing off this summer.

Well, Brian, I know you've got a lot more plants and I know it's hard to pick just your - Favorites.

Yeah.

- But thank you so much for sharing this with us today.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Today we're here in Northwestern Oklahoma City at the Rutgers home.

And joining me is Jamie Rutger.

Jamie, thank you so much for inviting us here into your backyard.

- Thanks for coming.

- It's a beautiful native landscape that you guys have designed here, and I think sometimes people think it's wild and crazy, but you've done an excellent job.

Let's talk about your plant choices here.

- Yeah.

So right now, you guys came at a good time, so everything's starting to bloom.

We got the Mexican hats, we've got the Golden Crown beards coming up everywhere.

Engleman's Daisy, one of our new favorites.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

- And I know even walking back here, you've maximized that space in the side yard.

That's a lot of times just wasted space.

- Yeah.

We kind of wanted to have a full loop around, and a lot of times, side yards are just kind of ugly and a pain to mow.

And so yeah.

We made ours, we call it Caterpillar alley.

So we plants a lot of the host plants back there.

And a lot of these are host plants, but especially, you know, the, the dill and the milkweeds and those kind of - Things.

So Absolutely.

And you're, you're greeted by a nice little hedge of sand plums there, and I know you've got some other edibles.

Let's talk about those.

- Yeah, so we've kinda got some small raised beds here, but really a lot of the edibles are planted amongst, so like you said, the sand plums.

And we've got grape arbor over there.

We've got our blackberries.

And then also we really have some wild strawberries growing up as ground cover.

So we're really excited about those.

- So when you're out here gardening, you can - Kind of take - Advantage of some of those.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

And you kept a little bit of lawn too, right?

Because I mean, you gotta have some space to kind of have different events and things like - That.

Yeah, kind.

Our vision was that it wouldn't be just completely overgrown, everything, but that when people came in they could see, Hey, I could do this in my backyard.

It looks nice.

And, but it's also full of plants for wildlife.

Got all our little bees coming out now.

- Well, and I know you're gonna continue to have blossoms going through this the summer and into the fall.

And so what's nice about that is it continues to evolve, right?

- Yeah.

So really, we got a lot of stuff, you know, these iron weeds are gonna be coming up.

And also we've got these rudabeckia everywhere that'll be blooming a little later.

So, and in the golden rods, that's our favorite, - So.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, I see Lauren over there with your new baby, so I'm gonna go check in with her a little bit.

All right.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Hey Lauren, how you doing?

Hi.

Doing good.

I, I love this little garden you've created for your baby.

Zoe, tell us a little bit about the evolution of your garden in, in general.

- Well, when we started out, we kind of just looked at one section of our yard and said, what if we planted flowers here?

And then as we started to learn more about gardening and landscaping and planning, we would kind of pick a project to do for the year and put all the elbow grease and work into it, put it together and then, you know, through the winter, kind of reflect on it and see what we thought.

And then the next year we'd say, yeah, we really liked it.

How can we expand it?

How can we, you know, do something else in our yard?

- So this has been, what, a four year process or - A four?

Four years of hard work.

- Okay.

And you had a - Baby in that time.

How did you manage it all?

We have amazing grandparents for one.

But you know, at first we really tag team.

I, we would trade off taking care of the baby while one of us is out here doing the work.

And then, you know, when we can, we would bring Zoe out here with us and we would just bring her into the gardening.

And sometimes the gardening would go slower because of that.

But it was always more fun.

And, but when we do hard work and hard projects, we would wait till she goes to bed.

- Okay.

- And then we'd break out our headlamps and we night garden until we couldn't anymore.

- Well, it's a little cooler then.

At least.

- It's so much cooler.

It's breezy.

There's not as many bugs.

We actually really prefer it to gardening in the middle of the day.

- So when you guys built the, or bought this house, it was just a bermuda grass backyard, right?

- Yes.

- How did you find, you know, your resources and that sort of thing?

- Well, you know, at first we would just go to Home Depot and buy plants, But there's just so many plants and they weren't doing great.

So then we were like, well, you know what, what grows well in Oklahoma?

And we went to a local flower and garden festival.

We met a native plant seller, and she got us into the Native Plant Society and the native plant network.

And we made a lot of amazing friends who had tons of knowledge and connections, and they really got us into native plants.

And there's so many varieties, there's so much fun you can do with them.

We've got over a hundred species of native plants Wow.

In our yard so far.

And you know, we've just, we've loved it.

And they're low maintenance, they're easy to take care of, which is great when you're trying to keep a little human alive too.

- Absolutely.

You found your network of people to support you in both regards, - Right?

Yes.

- Well, I love your little signs that you've created here with your senses and your smell and touch and things like that for Zoe to enjoy.

But I've also seen you're expanding the design to the front yard too now.

- Yes, we're trying to minimize the lawn in our front yard and we've really enjoyed just enjoying our backyard and taking walks through it.

And we love for our front yard to be something similar where we actually enjoy, you know, exploring it, going through it, playing with Zoe in the swing and not just having, you know, a, a blank lawn.

- Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us.

It's just been a pleasure to experience your backyard and also hear about your story.

Thank you.

Yes.

Thank you so much for coming.

We're now in the front yard and joining me is Marcus, along with Oklahoma Conservation Commission.

And today we're talking about the yard by yard program, which is a great program to support native plant landscapes.

So let's talk a little bit about this program.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So the yard by yard program, it was started in in 2020 just before the pandemic.

So it kind of got off to a slow start.

But now on the other side we're, we're moving pretty quick.

And it's all about encouragement for homeowners to do eco-friendly landscaping.

And that can be anything from planning to pull on it or garden or making your own compost, growing your own food.

Yeah.

Jamie's yard is a perfect example of, of focusing on natives.

- They're doing a little bit of everything here, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

And so let's, does it have to be in the front yard or the backyard?

What are some of the regulations for applying for yard by yard?

- So the yard by yard application is kind of split up into four categories.

Soil health, water conservation, food production, and wildlife habitat.

And to, in order to qualify for the program, you have to check one box within each of those categories and you have to check five boxes total.

Okay.

The boxes that you'd be checking would be practices that you're participating in.

So boxes that Jamie is checking is he is using organic mulch, you know, that's a box that he would check for soil health.

Right.

He uses drought resistant plants.

That's a box he, he could check for, for water conservation.

He plants native host plants like milkweed.

That's a box he could check for, for, and wildlife conservation.

- So he's probably got more than just five to actually check there.

He's - Checking a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, but that all to say that there's a wide breadth of qualifying for the program and then maybe going to the extent that, that Jamie and Lauren are going where they're kind of all out, you can, you can garden in your landscaping beds and, and you can still qualify for the program.

It's really all yeses.

The program is meant to be encouragement.

There's only one.

No.

Okay.

And that's no use of pesticides.

- Okay.

Okay.

So let's talk a little bit about, you know, adding and creating a native landscape.

You can see in the front yard, it's still new, it's still starting.

So I think sometimes it's an education process for what people should have as far as their expectations.

- Oh, definitely.

You know, most, most native landscaping plants are perennials.

They kind of have to go through an establishment period before they get big.

It might ebb and flow a little bit.

There's a little work on the front end, you know, right here in front of us.

Jamie had to shovel all this mulch to get rid of the Bermuda.

And that, that's a lot of work, you know, and, and then you have, you still have to establish plants and whether it's native plants or or ornamentals, that that establishment process still requires things like watering, keeping the weeds down, all all that classic gardening stuff.

- Yeah.

And he has sprinklers out here.

I think that's kind of a big misconception is you don't have to water natives, but in order to get 'em established, you need to help 'em.

Right?

- Oh, for sure.

And I, I think any Oklahoma gardener is well aware that there's not many happy plants in July and August in Oklahoma, especially in sunny spots.

- Right.

- Dead plants are, are part of nature.

Absolutely.

But we don't necessarily want that in our front yards.

Right.

We want our, our front yards to be beautiful.

So they still require a little bit of care.

All that stuff you do for your other, your other gardens, your ornamental gardens, like pruning, watering to establish is still relevant.

Right.

Hopefully it's a little bit less right after plants are established, but the work's definitely still - There.

So they're hopefully gonna get some deeper roots to be able to tap into that longer supply of water that we get right now in the springtime.

Right.

So - A hundred percent yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

More definitely.

More, more drought resistant.

- So I would imagine having your signs out, that's a sign that you guys provide for anybody that has applied for this and actually been approved through it.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's kind of probably the big prize at the, at the light, at the end of the tunnel.

For, for people who apply to the yard by yard program, you get a sign, this sign kind of helps let your neighbors know that, hey, what I'm doing here is intentional.

I don't just have a, have a crazy weedy patch.

But these are native plants that are serving an ecological purpose and also gives them something to Google.

Right.

Some people might see a garden and be like, you know, what is that person doing?

But now they can google yard by yard.

Right.

You know, what is yard by yard?

They learn about eco-friendly landscaping.

They learn about native landscaping just by kind of having a sign out front.

- Well, I think this is a great educational program.

It makes it look intentional.

Is this a statewide program or, - Yeah.

Yeah.

So the yard by yard program, it, it is a statewide program, but in order for it to kind of come to your house, your county has to approve it.

We have about 30 counties that that participate.

Our biggest, most busy counties are Cleveland County, Oklahoma County, and Tulsa County.

And, and the reason for that is 'cause yard by yard is targeted at urban populations.

Okay.

The Conservation Commission, it started in the thirties after the Dust Bowl, and it was only really interacting with commodity crop farmers, you know, corn and wheat to try to help them improve their soil health and, and kind of save Oklahoma soils.

The yard by yard program is a step for the Conservation Commission into urban environments.

We, we want to get involved with, with all landowners, big and small.

And, and this is kind of our way of doing that.

- This is fantastic.

So if people want to find out more about this, where can they find that?

- Yeah, they can check us out on, on, on Facebook, the Yard by Yard Community Resiliency Project, or they can check out our website.

Okay.

conservation.org.

- Excellent.

Thank you so much, Marcus.

Today we are here with Claire Caldwell at recent OSU graduate and we've asked her to evaluate some of these consumer moisture probes that you might find at your local garden center.

So Claire, thank you for joining - Us.

Hello.

Thank you.

Oh, you're - Welcome.

Thanks for being on the show with us.

Tell us what you kind of found with all of these.

- So all of 'em kind of operate similarly in which you'll stick 'em down in the soil, wait about five minutes, and then collect your reading.

But each meter kind of differs on the instruction.

So the user will have gonna have to refer to the packaging and be sure how long they're putting them in the soil to get before getting their reading if they need to calibrate it beforehand, things like that.

- Okay.

So let's talk about the ones that you maybe liked and the ones that were a little more complicated.

- So I kind of have 'em been ranking here.

This one, the XXX moisture meter.

It's very straightforward.

It only measures moisture.

- Okay.

- And so it's very, very easy to read, just so one probe.

It's pretty small and straightforward.

You just, you know, insert it into the soil, collect your reading about five minutes later and make sure you clean it in between uses.

- Okay.

All right.

So that there's no moist soil staying on there.

All right.

- Any oils or - So, because it is only a moisture meter, it's a little bit more straightforward.

Some of these, like this one I see it's got three probes.

Tell me, and it says four-way, - This is the four-way analyzer.

So it measures fertility, light, moisture, and pH.

So one thing with this that I've learned is make sure it's on the correct setting, because I was measuring pH for a while and wondering why the needle was being a little weird.

- Okay.

- But it still is pretty easy to read.

It's still user friendly, just as long as you have on the right setting.

And I like this one because it's compact and small.

Okay.

So, - But maybe not gonna be able to go down, not as deep in the soil - Profile.

Yeah.

Super deep in the, to the soil profile, like you - Said.

Okay.

All right.

And it, but it, yeah, you're right.

It is very lightweight, easy to carry, carry out somewhere.

And that's the light meter.

Now, we didn't necessarily measure the nutrient or the light meter aspects, just the moisture being - Just moisture.

- Yeah.

And this one here, also a three way.

It says - They all are operate pretty similarly.

I would say this one and this one, and this one really are all kind of the same.

It's kind of hard to rank them because they all do like very well.

They're all pretty, pretty easy, easy to read.

- Okay.

- This one does differ a little bit.

So you, this one is the first one out of all these that you actually have to calibrate yourself.

So as long as you have a screwdriver, small enough to fit inside, you can turn this screw to make sure the needle is at a five or an ideal moisture that you need for your plant.

So as long as you know what your ideal moisture is, calibrate it to that setting and then you're ready to use it.

- Okay.

All - Right.

And it's also very easy to read and it only measures moisture as well.

- Okay.

And with a, a longer probe, you can go deeper, probably - More deeper into soil - Outside - Outdoor use.

Yeah.

- Okay.

And the next couple, - So this one is a little bit more tricky.

I wasn't the biggest fan of this one.

You have to insert it into the soil multiple different times to kind of get an average reading, take it out, clean it, and then you have to use this needle.

I want you to press on this.

It was a little bit more confusing, a little more tricky.

So I was kinda like, oh, that's not my favorite.

And you have to leave it in the soil a lot longer.

Okay.

A lot of 'em recommend you don't leave it in longer than 10 minutes.

But this one was kind of right at 10 minutes.

- Okay.

- And then this one I wanted to like, 'cause it kind of just goes along with these ones.

It's easy.

They're all kind of look the same, but we found this one was kind of a dud, not really measuring accurately, so, - Okay.

All right.

So at least all of these kind of give us a little bit more of an accurate - Reading.

- Yes.

And a lot of versatility with the probe length and the other features that it offers too.

Were the ones that had more functions, were they more expensive than the other ones?

Or can you talk about - Pricing - A little bit?

- So this one I believe was our most expensive along with this one.

And so with this one I was like, it has all this extra stuff.

It's I think over $50.

I was kind of like, I think ones like these where they're just as accurate and cheaper and more straightforward.

I kind of would go for those.

- Okay.

- All right.

- All right.

Well, I know sometimes, you know, as the horticultures, I can get really nerdy about these things, so I appreciate you kind of Sure.

Taking that consumer approach to these and just saying, which one seem to be user the most user-friendly.

Right.

Right.

And also, you know, some of the times these meters can be a little bit trickier to read if they, you know, you get older, it's harder for me to see things meter readers.

Yeah.

So thank you so much for sharing - This with us, Claire.

Thank you.

For sure.

Thanks.

- There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

Join us next week as we're back with a brand new episode of Oklahoma Gardening and The Maximilian Sun or the Maxim, gosh, I screwed up.

That's 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 Oklahoma gardening dot OK state.edu.

Join in on Facebook and Instagram.

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

Tune into our okay 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 Stillwater Gem.

We would like to thank our generous underwriters, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry, and Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Additional support is also provided by Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, the Tulsa Garden Club, and the Tulsa Garden Center.