- [Narrator] "Oklahoma Gardening" is a production of the Oklahoma cooperative extension service, as part of the land grant mission of the division of agricultural sciences and natural resources at Oklahoma State University, dedicated to improving the quality of life of the citizens of Oklahoma through research-based information.

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

- Welcome to "Oklahoma Gardening.

Today, I'm going to show you the species of tulips we planted last fall.

We head back down to Oklahoma City to check in on the renovations inside the crystal bridge at the Myriad Botanical Gardens.

Jim Shuffler talks to us about watermelon, and Wesley from the Oklahoma Mesonet shares with us how to better understand our soil temperatures and moisture.

(upbeat music) Almost like an ombre of sunset colors.

Not the flowers, right?

(upbeat music) Tulips are a symbol that spring is here.

And it's probably one of the most recognized spring flowers that we have.

It is well known for its bright color, and it's no wonder that we have 'em planted in gardens all across the world.

In fact, they're such a popular plant that at one point in their history, they actually were traded, the bulbs were traded as currency.

With such an array of color and variation, you can see we've got some that are double.

We've got some that have more of the pointed parrot style and then even some of the fringed ones.

They come in in quite a selection.

And when you're planting them in your landscape, it's almost like painting.

You can add yellow to an area or red to an area, to really set off that area in early spring.

One of the big things about them also is they come in different stages of bloom time, so that you can plant them and have your display change through those spring weeks.

Now, one of the drawbacks to our beloved tulips, hybrid tulips, is that they're often treated as annuals.

And so with some of 'em being quite pricey, that's quite an investment in your tulips.

However, if you have invested in species tulips, such as what we have here, then you might get a little more bang for your buck.

Now, there are some differences, obviously.

You can see the hybrid tulips really have been bred to have an impressive flower on top of them.

Whereas a lot of your species tulips are gonna be a little more dainty.

You can see also the foliage is typically more narrow and smaller as well.

This past fall, we've planted several species tulips in order to really evaluate their performance and how well they return for us.

So, obviously this is their first spring, so we expected all of them to kind of come up and make an appearance.

We've planted about 25 of each of the species tulips that we were able to find.

Now, one of the first ones that we noticed of ours that we planted here was the Tulipa clusiana variety chrysantha.

It produces this bold yellow color like hybrids.

However, you'll notice that it is much more smaller and a compact flower.

The other thing is you'll notice that it has these red sepals on the outside, kind of giving it more of a bicolored appearance, especially if it's a cloudy day when they might not open up as much, you'll see the yellow and red bicolor appearance.

Another clusiana that we have is cynthiana, and it is very similar, again, giving you that bicolored appearance.

Now, another variety again under clusiana is stellata.

And the difference between it is that it has more of a white interior petals with rose-colored sepals that kind of create more of a blush-colored tulip.

Again, these sort of remind me of like a rain lilly look to 'em, especially when they're fully open on a sunny day.

Now, very similar to those are two cultivars called lady Jane and peppermint stick.

And both are very similar, again, with kind of that rosy or blush-colored sepal with a white interior, giving you that bicolored look.

However, they do vary a little bit in their appearance as well as their height, mainly is what I noticed here.

Another yellow species, if you're really trying to get more of that tulip, that bright-colored yellow, is to try Tulipa sylvestris.

It has a pure yellow color through and through, and it's definitely gonna bring somebody's attention.

Again, much smaller, though, than your typical hybrid yellow tulips that you might have.

However, again, we're gonna hopefully see these return and multiply over the years.

Probably one of the most unique-looking tulips is the Tulipa turkestanica.

Now, a lot of times when we think of a tulip bulb, the hybrid tulips, we think we get about one flower per bulb.

Whereas this turkestanica is going to produce more of a cluster of flowers, and sort of actually kind of reminds me of something that looks like a snow drop.

- Having some tiny little bell like tulip flowers on it.

And again, as the sun comes out more, they really open up to reveal more of a star shape to 'em and they sort of have like a little bit of a blush color to the outside of their petals as well.

Tulipa whittallii is going to have more of a traditional look where you do get the single flower per bulb that you plant in there.

Again, slightly smaller, so you're gonna wanna plant your bulbs a little bit closer together, but it offers kind of a really unique red coppery color to your garden.

The flowers are held up on really thin stems and they almost kind of look like wind socks as they kind of blow over in the wind a little bit.

Now, if you're really looking to add a little more color 'cause I know some of these are a little bit daintier to add into your garden, if you're looking for some more of an impact from your species tulips, you might wanna look at shogun, tulipa tarda or tulipa bakeri, Lilac Wonder.

These all gonna offer you a little bit of a bolder color to their flower and a bigger flower I should say also.

While they are a little bit shorter, shogun is gonna offer you a really nice apricot orange color whereas tarda is going to have a beautiful yellow center where the tips of it are kind of tipped in white.

And then finally, lilac wonder is gonna offer you a yellow center with kind of a Pell purple, pink flower to it.

So I really like these.

They kind of have a little more of the traditional but yeah, again, a simple single flower to them.

Now we have about three other species tulips that haven't quite bloomed for us just yet.

But tulipa humilis is said to be one of the earlier blooming tulips.

The one we have is Persian Pearl but we have yet to really see it come up just yet.

We also have tulipa linifolia, which is a red flower, and then tulipa batalinii or Bronze Charm, which still has buds on it and should be blooming shortly for us.

So we're excited to see those.

And while we didn't necessarily plan this walkway as far as a beautiful display of big hybrid tulips, that wasn't the point.

What we did here was we planted different plots of about 25 of various species in order to be able to identify how well they're doing, which ones are growing and which ones hopefully will return for us next spring.

You can also definitely see the differences between them.

Some of them have, like this is the shogun next to us here, have very similar foliage that you might find some of that broader waxier foliage.

Whereas, such as Lady Jane here next to me has a very thin foliage.

So again, they're gonna look slightly different than your traditional hybrid tulips but the nice thing is is that you should get a return on your investments.

So we're excited to see how many will come back and we'll report that next spring.

Now, as far as planting them, you're going to plant them like you would do your traditional bulbs.

Because they're a little bit smaller, you might wanna plant them a little bit closer and also a little bit more shallow, again depending on which actual species you get.

The other thing is they don't like wet feet either.

So this is a really ideal plant to put in somewhere say an alpine or rock garden where it's gonna get good drainage and add just that soft, unique texture to your garden.

(light guitar music) - I'm Maureen Heffernan 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 bumpouts here.

And so at each station, we'll have a really interesting, fun interactive component to learn about plants or wildlife as well as lots of other interpretation on all levels, signage, interactive features, displays, is a 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 tried 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 Merusi found out in Oregon.

And he showed us pictures of them, and you thought they were sculptures.

They're older, weather worn, 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 bromelia 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 reenvision 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 outta the way at this point.

And our contractor lingo has just been fantastic to work with, the whole team, ADG, Scott Merusi, Charles Sparks with our gift shop we'll be opening in October.

So yeah, 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.

(country music) - We're down here at the West Watkins Research and Extension Center in Lane, Oklahoma and joining us today is Dr. Jim Shrefler.

Dr. Shrefler, thank you for having us down here again today, and it looks like we're talking about watermelon.

- Glad you could be here.

Yes.

- One of our favorites in the summertime.

Can you tell us all the keys to how to grow a good crop of watermelon?

- Okay, yeah.

And to start with, if you live in an area where you have the right environment and soils and things like that, that's the first starting point, it's very important.

- So what are some of those soils?

- And this soil here is called a fine sandy, loam soil.

Generally for watermelon, they will do best on some sort of pretty sandy soil, deep sand is actually maybe one of the better soils.

- So good drainage.

- And good drainage.

- So if you don't have deep sandy soil, maybe a raised bed?

Is that what... - Sure, that would be good.

And you can grow watermelons, I don't wanna discourage but you grow watermelons a lot of good places, if you, again a deep top soil is important because they have a deep rooting system - So when should we be thinking about starting our watermelon crop?

- Okay.

Many people wanna, well they're anxious and wanna get in the middle of April, end April they say, "Well (indistinct) freeze, I wanna, last freeze.

I wanna plant my watermelon."

- Right, April 15th, they gotta go out and plant, right?

- Right.

But, and that's maybe okay for tomatoes but watermelon's a very warm natured crop and really to get good seedling, seed germination, seeding development, plant establishment, you really need that soil to be warmer.

- Okay.

- So I kinda like the wait almost until the 1st of July or of, excuse me, of June actually, to plant watermelon.

- Okay, sort of like okra, right?

Is that ... - Kinda like okra, yes, yeah, kinda like okra.

- And when you're planting those, do you direct so or do you start with transplants?

- You can do it both ways.

Again, for my recommendation, for people that, unless you really need to use transplants if you're growing seedless melons for example, my recommendation is direct seed, you're gonna have healthier plants.

And again, if you wait until that soil's nice and warm, you'll put the seed in the ground and they'll be up within four or five days, and that plant will just take off growing if you keep it watered.

- All right.

Well looks like your crop is doing pretty well here and we're kind of shooting this ahead of time.

So this is not, I know we're gonna air it next May, but this is not May, I'm gonna go ahead and say that.

- Okay, so.

- But yeah, we've got a good crop here so you can expect that.

- Right.

- Tell us a little bit about how much you've been growing watermelon out here in Lane.

- Okay.

Well we've been here at this research station and actually I'm the only horticulture steward now, but 20 years ago or less than that, 15 years ago, there was a pretty good group of people, all of them involved somewhere out there with watermelon cause it's an important crop.

- And it's a good crop because it's a crop that'll be productive even in these hot summers like we're having when the temperature is above 95 degrees every day.

- Well, yeah, we're in mid-summer right now and tell us how our watermelon are progressing.

- These watermelon bunches are doing pretty quite well.

Actually, we have some fruit that are probably about three weeks or so away from being ripe.

Now, we've kind of been lucky here.

I have not used any fungicides on this crop.

And that is if you were really growing watermelons and wanted to protect them from the hazard of disease that will affect the foliage, and there's several, you would wanna put a fungicide on there.

Again, I didn't do it.

Haven't done it.

And we've been lucky 'cause these vines are very healthy.

In a year when you have pretty dry conditions, don't have too frequent rainfalls, you may get away and you may not have much in the way of those foliar disease problems.

- Okay.

- But again, it's kind of an insurance practice.

Policy would be to apply fungicides.

- Alright.

- Every couple weeks.

- Okay.

And as far as watering goes, I know watermelon like water, but they also like good drainage as mentioned by the soil.

- Right.

And you might be able to see these are planted on somewhat of a raised bed.

A little bit hill, a little hill and that's to improve the drainage.

You know, if you do get some, even though it's a Sandy soil, if you do get a real wet period, the plants roots get waterlogged.

And that can set them back.

- [Woman] Right.

And you have these on drip irrigation?

- [Farmer] And we use drip irrigation and that's just a very efficient way to be able to irrigate.

You put the water right where it's needed for the plant to use it.

And you're not watering the rest of the soil surface and encouraging new weed growth.

- Right, right.

So what are, the big question, I guess, and it looks like we've got some watermelon that are coming on.

When do you know they're ripe?

- Well, one way to determine if their ripe down in this area is watch when the wildlife start feeding on them.

And you might, sometimes it might be crows.

It might be coyotes.

It might be raccoons.

It might be foxes.

- [Woman] So, they're the best indicator?

- [Farmer] They all seem to know pretty well when that fruit is ripe.

- [Woman] Okay.

So that's also a problem though?

- That is a problem.

Yes.

That is a problem.

- Once you find out that they're signaling that they're ripe, what do you do about that?

- Okay, there's again, working for a commercial grower, they might wanna put in some tall fences around their fields and various other things.

It's a serious problem though.

But for a small planting and home garden situation, something that we've found, and we've tried this several years now, is to just stretch some netting.

Bird netting, horticulture fabric could work, over the vines when you know that the fruit are just about ripe.

Go ahead and cover 'em.

And that keeps those animals away from them.

- [Woman] So they just don't want to climb underneath that netting to get in there?

- [Farmer] They don't climb under it.

They don't climb underneath it, no.

And I haven't seen, they haven't tried to eat through, the birds don't peck through the netting either.

We haven't seen that so far, at least.

- Alright.

- So just an idea that something, so if you have some materials like this around, just don't throw 'em away.

Keep 'em and you can put 'em to use.

You'll only have it on there for a couple weeks.

You know, just put it on when those fruit are ready and then remove it.

- It seems like a really easy mechanical method that would be a good deterrent for those things.

- Sure, sure.

Something easy to do.

- Excellent.

Well, thank you for sharing this Dr. Shifflin.

(positive music) - Hello again, I'm Wes Lee with the Oklahoma Mesonet.

Officially, I am an Assistant State Specialist with the Biosystem and Ag Engineering Department here at OSU.

But I am housed at OU at the National Weather Center.

Which is the headquarters of the Oklahoma Mesonet system.

There I am considered the Mesonet Agriculture Coordinator.

In agriculture, whether we're talking crops, or fields, or gardens, nothing is more important to us than what is happening on the ground surface.

And to determine that, we use sensors below ground at each of our Mesonet towers across the state.

We have 120 towers that are on the public website.

And at each tower you have access to soil moisture and soil temperature, that is updated every 15 minutes for temperature.

Every 30 minutes for moisture across the state.

Our depths of our sensors range from two inches to 24 inches in the soil.

There are 2, 4, 10 and 24 inches at each location across the state.

Now, all of those sensors are underneath what we call a sod cover.

That should represent general native plants out there in the landscape.

But we also have soil sensors underneath a chemically treated bare soil.

Only one and it's at the four inch depth.

And so anytime you wanna know temperatures or moisture underneath bare soil, you can take a look at that.

Our soil temperatures record, as I mentioned, every 15 minutes.

We get a reading from the tower that gives us the soil temperature information.

How could you use that information?

Well, in the horticulture landscape, it determines things like when we need to put on a pre-emergence herbicide on our lawn.

Or it determines when we need to put seeds in the ground if we're planting a vegetable garden.

- So, with multiple different depths and different situations under sod and under bare soil, the question arises as to what sensor or what depth we should use to determine our operations in the field.

I like to use the four inch under sod, when I'm dealing with a lawn situation, so that's primarily what I look at.

I also like to look at a three day average, because that takes out any short term fluctuations, with a really cold or a really hot day.

If I was planting seeds in a bear soil garden, I probably would lean more towards the sensor that we have underneath bare soil.

But, it's at that four inch depth to look at.

Again, I would look at a three day average to try to determine when I want to reach that thresholds of putting seeds into the soil.

As far as soil moisture is concerned, we have multiple different ways of looking at soil moisture out of this set of sensors that we talked about.

One of them is called plant available water.

Now, there's two ways of looking at plant available water.

One is in inches for your specific Mesonet tower location.

It will estimate the inches of plant available water from the surface of the ground, down to a certain depth.

For example, the four inch plant available water utilizes the two inch sensor to estimate the inches of soil moisture in that four inch slice of soil.

A problem with plant available water, it is a very soil type specific.

So, it's hard to compare one location with another.

The other way that we look at plant available water is with a percent.

And, I think those are easier to look at.

We consider a soil that is completely full of water as concerned as plants are concerned, to be 100% in there.

And, so if we turn that inches of water into a fraction for each location, I think it creates a map that's easier to read.

Probably, my favorite way of looking at soil moisture is what we call fractional water index.

This is simply how wet or how dry is that sensor in the soil at each one of the depths.

It does not try to estimate soil moisture above or below that location.

We put this on an index of zero being as dry as the sensor can read, and one being as wet as the sensor can read.

So, your soil moisture is gonna range somewhere between zero and one for each location in the state and it provides us a comparison of one site with another when looking at our soil moisture values.

Thank you for allowing me to visit with you about our Mesonet system and some of my favorite sensors.

For more information, you can visit our website at mesonet.org or you can download an app for your phone.

I'm Wes Lee, and thank you again.

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

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

(upbeat music) - [Narrator 2] Next week, it's one of our favorite shows that we get to produce each season.

Join us as we take a sneak peek at the Tulsa Garden Club's 2022 Garden Tour.

It's coming up soon and you won't wanna miss it.

- Help their petals as well.

- [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 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.

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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