(gentle strumming music) (soft music) - 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.

Today on Oklahoma Gardening, we are putting some time into a new potager garden, Dr. Justin Moss gives us a review of some of those pollinator-friendly weeds we may be seeing in our yards, I talk with Dr. Sergio Abbott about one place we need to avoid adding plants, and finally, I have a special announcement that I want to share with you, so stay tuned.

(soft guitar and piano music) You may remember that last year we started talking about the backyard demonstration garden that we're establishing here, at the Botanic Garden.

And the intention of it is to help showcase different ways of growing fruits and vegetables in your very own backyard.

And each yard has a little bit of a different theme.

Today, we're focusing on the yard that we have named the Country Club Residence, which is going to be a yard that's a little bit more aesthetically designed to incorporate fruits and vegetables.

Now, a lot of times we think about fruits and vegetables as being planted in rows and traditionally, that's how they were done so that we can get our implements in there or to be able to easily hoe between the plants, but that doesn't have to always be the case.

And in fact, we are establishing what is called a potager garden here, behind me.

And this potager garden, what it actually means is a French kitchen garden.

Now, typically, a potager garden incorporates both ornamentals and edibles together, if you just kind of think of the English cottage garden meets the vegetable garden.

Now, typically, a French kitchen garden is as it implies, directly just outside of the kitchen door or right off of the house.

Because we don't have a true house in our demonstration garden here, what we're utilizing is kind of the door of our hobby greenhouse.

And so you can see we've got four quadrants that are laid out.

And what we had first needed to establish this was, of course, you've gotta get rid of any Bermudagrass and weeds.

And so last fall, we came in here and we sprayed this out a couple of times because with Bermudagrass, sometimes that takes that.

And then we laid out a line to make our quadrants.

Now we have a three-foot wide path that have five by five-foot quadrants on each corner here.

You can see to further kind of establish that, we have made raised beds.

And you may or may not want to make raised beds, it just depends on what's suitable for your situation.

But right here, we have a little bit of a low area so we didn't want our plants sitting in too much water, so we made sure to bring up the soil level a little bit.

And to hold that soil in, like any raised bed, you can use multiple materials to do that.

You could use bricks or pavers, a stone, or possibly even like a waddle fence to really give it that kind of English or French look to it.

However, we took another route.

We used sort of this rustic wood material, but actually, we just recycled some palate wood in order to make these.

So you can see we cut the wood at different lengths to kind of give it that live edge that we then attached to another board behind it, so we're able to install one whole side at a time.

So that helps hold our soil in here.

Now, to further establish that formal layout look, we came in here with some Baby Jade Boxwoods.

Now, we specifically chose these Baby Jade Boxwoods not only because they're evergreens, so again, they're gonna give us that kind of formal look throughout the winter months when we have fewer plants in here, but also because of their fact that they like full sun, as well as they only reach a maximum height of three feet.

Now that is over time and with maturity because they are, in fact, slow growers.

So all of that means less maintenance for us.

If we had gotten a different, larger cultivar of a Boxwood, we constantly would be contending with having to maintain these and keep them in check.

So making sure that you're getting the right plant for the right location is important, as we chose a very compact Baby Jade Boxwood here for this.

So we've got this established.

Again, eventually, these will grow together, kind of reinforcing that foundation plant and our borders here.

And inside we'll be able to change out and put different vegetables or ornamentals in there as well.

- Now, incorporating ornamentals into your landscape with your edibles, not only does it give you that aesthetic value, but it also is beneficial for bringing in more pollinators to pollinate some of those vegetable crops that you're trying to grow as well.

In addition, if you planted some edible flowers in there, you might be able to use to those in the garden such as pansies or nasturtiums that are often added into either desserts or salads.

Now, as we go through the season and when the temperatures warm up a little bit, we'll get some of this inside planted, but I wanted to shift your attention to another area that were actually planting and that's the pavers that are right here under my feet.

So you see we've done a checker board pattern with our pavers and we've got 39 holes in our pavers here.

So we thought this would be a good opportunity, again, not only to save on the number of pavers that you have to purchase, but to incorporate another sensory experience as you're walking through this garden.

So we're going to today be planting some creeping thyme in each of these holes.

Creeping thyme is an excellent choice for this because it is drought tolerant.

So if it does dry out between the heat of these pavers a little bit, it should be okay.

The other thing is it can handle some light foot traffic as well.

What I'm gonna do is not put whole plants in there, but actually divide them up.

So we're gonna go through here and sort of just find some rooting pieces such as right here we've got one and then we'll go to one of these open squares and kind of dig it up a little bit, cultivate it a little bit and then get those rooted back in there.

So each one of these in no time, with a little water, will take off and fill this space.

Now that we've got our creeping thyme planted in between our pavers, we wanna make sure that not only do we water it in, but we wanna make sure to keep the traffic off of it.

So what we're gonna do since we're in a public garden is we are going to actually put some flags and stakes up to prevent the public from really accessing this area a little bit or trying to keep them off of it.

If you were doing this in your backyard, of course, you wouldn't necessarily need to do this.

You would know where it is and so you just wanna allow that opportunity to get rooted in the ground and doing so, in no time, you will have a beautiful garden that is established in your pathway.

(upbeat music) - So it's springtime here in Oklahoma and we're gonna have a lot of springtime weeds popping up in the lawn and in the garden.

And so what we can see out here is maybe a lot of purple flowers, maybe a lot of white flowers and some look very pretty and some look very tall and very mature.

So you may be wondering about, well, what can I do about some of these weeds that are coming up that I see in my yard, in my garden in the springtime?

Well, the problem we have is that these are so tall, so mature, that they're a little tough to control at this point and also we have to remember that a weed is just a plant that's not growing where we want it to grow.

So for some people, they may look look out and see these purple flowers, these white flowers in their lawn and think, wow, that's really beautiful and may not do anything about it and that's okay.

They can attract pollinators.

They can be beautiful for the yard.

But others might look at that and say, "Hey, I really need to clean that area up, "but first of all what we have to figure out "is what are we dealing with?

"What are these plants with purple flowers?

"What are these plants with white flowers?"

So we can take a closer look and try to ID the weeds and then that'll give us an idea of how to deal with them when it comes to control.

Maybe it's a little too late this spring, but we can get on top of it for the next growing season.

So we'll take a look at a couple here and a very common one we have here in Oklahoma is this beautiful purple flower we see here and this is called henbit and the thing about henbit is it's gonna grow out usually in disturbed areas of the lawn especially if there's open soil, but you'll also see it coming up, if you have a Bermuda grass lawn or a top fescue lawn, you'll see it kind of popping up in area is there too.

And so the purple flowers is really the key indicator this time of year, but these are actually winter annual weeds and so what that means is they may germinate during the winter, maybe even last fall, they survive throughout the season and as we come into March, April, you'll really see them start to take off and grow and you'll start to see them flower.

And so for the most part, these are winter annuals, but they can be biennials as well.

They're actually part of the mint family and so if you take a look at the leaves, they may remind you a little bit of mint.

If you look at the purple flowers, they're tubular looking.

- And if you take a close look at the stems they're usually like square or four-sided stems.

Also you'll notice the leaves are opposite in a whirl and they usually do not have a stem on the leaf or a petiole and so you'll see them coming directly off at the top of the plant like we see here.

Now another one that you may find that also has purple flowers, looks very similar, it's actually right here together.

It's called Purple Deadnettle.

It's almost like a close cousin to the henbit, also in the mint family.

I think the leaves look more mint-like on the purple deadnettle than they do the henbit.

But you also see that at the very top there's a reddish or dark purplish color tent to the leaves.

You'll still see the purple flowers, much smaller, not tubular-looking though.

And then as you go down there, the stem, it's also that square stem and you can feel it as you touch it but you may see petioles on the leaves as you get farther down the stem.

So that'll help you differentiate between the two but both are winter annuals, both in the mint family, really gonna deal with them about the same way.

Now we also see some white flowers out here as well and this is shepherd's purse.

And what's neat about it is, again, at this time of year it's gonna be seeding out and so you see these little seed pods, It almost look heart-shaped at the top or like a shepherd's purse.

That's where it gets its name and beautiful white flowers on it.

It comes up like a rose and so really, if you find it earlier in this season, it'll almost get confused with a dandelion or something.

With that, the leaves close to the ground and then all of a sudden springtime hits, boom, they shoot up and start to set these white flowers in these shepherd purse looking seeds.

So those are some common ones that we deal with at this time of year.

There are others scattered through here, maybe a little tough to see, but I also wanna mention that you'll find Carolina geranium and that one is actually growing here, a little closer to the ground, not gonna have the purple flowers but some people get it confused with henbit but the big difference here is you're not gonna see those purple flowers coming up from the ground.

Also in here, there's a grassy weed or two.

So I'm looking right down here and I see annual bluegrass.

All these are winter annuals.

The difference is you have some broad leaf plants like I've been talking about.

You also have winter annual grasses like annual bluegrass that will come up.

So to get on top of these you really have to have a program of having a healthy lawn, a healthy garden to keep the weeds out, doing what you can do to have a nice healthy yard like proper cultural practices, fertilization, irrigation and so on.

If you really want to prevent these weeds from coming up you can put a weed preventer down in the fall or in the early spring slash late winter.

When it gets to this time, when you're trying to battle them, really all you can do is mow it down and keep it from going to seed or let the flowers stay out there and just enjoy the butterflies and enjoy the pollinators as they come through your lawn.

(upbeat music) - Today, we are out here at the Bortiana Garden and behind me is a demonstration area for different onsite septic waste systems.

And joining me today is Dr. Sergio Abit, who is a OSU Extension specialist, and I know many of you might be wondering, why are we talking septic systems?

But as we head into spring, there's a lot of planting that begins happening.

And I wanted to make sure that we cover why it might be important to consider where our septic systems are before we start planting.

So thank you for joining us Dr. Abit.

- Oh, it's my pleasure.

- So tell us a little bit about just let's start at the basics.

What are the two most common systems that a lot of people may have in their backyards?

- So two most common types of septic systems, number one would be a conventional system, the pipe and gravel.

It doesn't run on electricity.

Everything moves by gravity, but it relies on the soil in your backyard for treatment.

- [Woman] Okay.

- [Sergio] So large open space, attempting to plant something in it because it's an open space, sunny space.

- [Woman] So you still have your septic tank and then it flows into a drain field.

- [Sergio] Into a drain field.

So that's the conventional system.

- [Woman] Okay.

- The second one it's gaining in terms of popularity is the aerobic treatment systems.

So this is-- - [Woman] Are those the sprinklers that we see?

- [Sergio] Yes.

That that's exactly what it is, and if these are systems that are installed in areas where in you don't have the ideal soils, so what you do is you have a system that effectively pretreats the wastewater prior to applying it in your backyard.

- [Woman] Okay.

- [Sergio] And that could be either applied subsurface by a drip.

- Or the more common one is, again, via a spray irrigation.

So again, sprayed in large open spaces that, you know attempting to plant something.

- Okay, you mentioned pre-treating.

So is that septic tank different than your traditional one or?

- It is, it is.

So the conventional system, the septic system in there is just for temporary storage.

So you separate the solids from the scum or the grease and then you effluent that is treated in the field, but for the aerobic treatment systems you have kind of like big tank with different chambers in it.

The most important part of it is that you aerate the waste water or the effluent with oxygen, atmospheric air in order to improve or increase microbial activity.

And when the microbes are active, what do they eat?

They eat, you know, organic matter in your sewage and that is how it's treated.

- Okay, so is there electricity to that system too then?

- Yes, so it runs electricity, basically, it's power the pumps to power the aerators, and of course, to dispose of the wastewater in the backyard.

- Okay, so ultimately we have two different systems that have different effluent water.

First of all, before we go further, what is effluent water, if you could kind of tell us what that is?

- So effluent water is the pretreated water.

So all kinds of water that comes from the house it goes to the septic tank.

It's pretreated to some degree.

It might look like it's clean water, but no, it's not.

It has to have a lot of pollutants in it, a lot of harmful chemicals and of course, microorganisms in it.

That could be harmful if it gets into the environment or, you know, gets in contact with people.

- Okay, well, I know a lot of times these are put out in open areas, obviously.

So they've got a lot of soil and space for this drain field.

So, tell us a little bit about why is it important to kind of consider these with landscaping?

- All right, so as we mentioned earlier, it's always tempting to plant in these open spaces.

- Right.

- But take note that what is the purpose of the septic system?

Is really to treat a waste water and anything that you plant in there might get in the way of the septic system doing its function.

- Okay.

- So we gotta choose the right plants.

We gotta put them in the right places because we don't want our plants to interfere with the function of the septic system itself.

- Do you want plants?

First of all, I mean, maybe it's better to not have any plants around them, is that?

- Well, we need plants.

- Okay.

- We need plants because for two reasons, one we need the plant to cover the drain field where you spray the effluent, or you have your lateral lines because that just to prevent erosion, erosion losses.

You don't want that to happen in your property.

- All right, because you want that soil, that soil it's like filtering that, right?

- The soil is the star of the show here.

That's the one that is purifying your water to some degree.

Second reason why you need some vegetation and it, because they actually help in the disposal and the treatment of the water.

So, some of the water in the subsurface might be whipped up closer to the surface and it could be reached by the roots closer to the surface, then plants absorb them.

And then of course, via a transpiration that could be disposed back to the atmosphere.

- Okay, so it sort of sounds like you're making a case for compost tea, but that's not the case, right?

We don't wanna plant vegetables around at all.

- No, no, no.

Well the best vegetation would be tuff grass.

- Okay.

- Not the leafy vegetables, I know, because again, the water is not safe, not safe for, you know, to get in contact with this leafy vegetables or any kinds of vegetables, or even pot flowers that we pick and bring inside our house.

So that could be a hazard.

So yeah, that's a source of water, but not the kind of water that we want to get in contact with anything that we, it just or eat.

- Okay, and we hear a lot about putting grasses that you wanna make sure that it's tuff grass, not natives, right?

Cause natives can have deep roots.

So let's talk about the root systems, like how far away should we really keep any of our larger woody plants from our drain field?

- There is a rule of thumb that if it's deeply rooted that in trees that they could actually grow, the roots can grow laterally, that they should be at least 10 feet away from the boundary of where your lateral lines are.

So away, because again, you don't want the roots to grow and go into your subsurface lateral lines because they can grow into the pipes.

And when they grow into the pipe, they could mess up the flow of effluent in there.

Or they could even like break the pipe.

So now if you have broken pipe, that means a malfunctioning septic system, requires a few hundred dollars to fix, and of course, if it takes a week to fix that means you cannot flush your toilet for a week.

- All right, good to know.

- Let's not do that.

- We don't wanna sacrifice all of that over a few plants.

- No, no.

- And the other thing too, I know is like, what about these lines you've got underneath, you've got material and equipment underneath your surface area and so you might not be aware of it.

What about like me mowing, is my mower okay or is there potentially any damage that we need to worry about with traffic going across these mower lines?

- Regular mowing is okay.

- Okay.

- Regular mowing is okay, but some of these, specifically those that has spray heads, you better know where of those are because you don't want your mower to mess up the spray heads.

- Right.

- And your septic system will malfunction right there.

The other thing is you don't wanna run anything that is very heavy in your backyard and whether you spray this stuff, right?

Because compaction of the soil, it means what?

It means soil that does not allow infiltration of water.

So if you have ponded effluent on the surface that's not very good because that could run off to your neighbor or run up to your garden that has vegetable.

- [Interviewee] Goes on it.

So also you don't want...

It's best to know where these lines are where the spray heads are, because if you had to do some minimal earth working at least you wanna avoid those areas because you don't wanna, dig deep enough and cut some of the lines.

Those drip lines could easily be cut by just simple earthwork.

- Okay, so a lot of talk about the drain fill specifically any concern about roots around the septic system and then like the septic tank itself.

- Mmmh.

- And then also what about lagoons?

- Okay, first we have roots around septic tanks.

Roots are not a big problem in septic tanks, unless of course you have leaks in your septic tanks, and that could happen.

That could happen you might... - Roots seek what water, right?

- Yeah, so roots seek water.

So if you have leaks in septic tank roots seek that, and then they'll enlarge that opening.

It'll just mess up your tank even more.

- Okay.

- You also mentioned about lagoons.

- Yeah.

- Well, I'm a fan of lagoons, right?

(Casey chuckles) If you are in the country, you don't have neighbors, you have at least two and a half acres of property, then you can have lagoons.

It's not what we hear about, suspects that it just goes straight to a lagoon.

You still have a septic tank.

- Right.

- And then just the partially treated effluent goes to the lagoon.

- Okay.

- There's rules that governs this, the designs has to be followed but for the most part it works if it's maintained correctly.

- All right.

Well, thank you so much for giving us a completely different aspect on our landscape design as we head into spring.

Thank you.

- You are welcome.

(gentle music) - Oklahoma Gardening has been airing on OETA since 1975.

And in that time, technology has changed a lot.

In 2010, we began with our Oklahoma Gardening YouTube channel.

We thought this would be a great opportunity to bring what we treasure here in Oklahoma to the rest of the world.

Recently, YouTube recognized us for having over a hundred thousand subscribers.

And in fact, we're up to now 109,000 subscribers.

And as we celebrate it we just wanted to share this news with you.

And we thought it would be a fun time to of share some fun facts about our YouTube channel.

Since 2010, we have had over 28.7 million views on our YouTube channel.

With over 2,300 videos that we have on our YouTube channel, we really like to push our channel as a resource for gardening questions.

So you can go onto our OklahomaGardening YouTube channel, and search it for any information that you might be looking for.

There might be some of those unique fines in the gardening world.

As I mentioned, Oklahoma Gardening has been airing on OETA since 1975, and in that time technology has changed a lot.

So while it actually began being live down in the studio over time it was prerecorded.

We have even some of those older segments on our OKGardeningClassics YouTube channel if you wanna subscribe to it as well.

But regardless, if you subscribe you can opt in to be notified when we upload new videos to either one of those channels.

We hope you continue to watch us both on OETA, and if you miss perhaps one of those shows, you can always find us on OklahomaGardening, YouTube.

Thank you again for subscribing to our channel.

(bright music) There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year, be sure and consider some of these of in the weeks ahead.

(bright music) - [Narrator] It's amazing how quickly a garden can change.

Next week, we harvest some special spears.

Becky Carroll has some chilling information to share.

And we've got another little helper in the garden all this and more next week on Oklahoma Gardening.

(bright music) (bright music) (lady chuckling) - Good brief.

I'm not gonna be on camera.

We have exciting announcement today to make.

We have won... We didn't won, we received from YouTube.

(audience chuckles) (gentle music) - [Narrator] 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 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 Day View Plans, the Tulsa Garden Center at Woodward Park, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, Smart Pot, and the Tulsa Garden Club.

(gentle music)