(soft piano 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.

Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today, I'll share one of my favorite perennials.

Mark Fishburne is back to show us how herbarium cards are made.

We look at the differences between native pecan groves and improved pecan orchards.

And finally, we've got a native sand verbena that would be great for Western Oklahoma.

- This one looks like a cornbread of sunset colors.

Not the flowers, right?

(people chattering) - With my current lifestyle as a 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 under plant 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 are 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 of 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 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.

(lively 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 their traditional verbena on a stick as it lifts those flowers high above that canopy kind of giving it that area 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.

(lively music) - Today we are joined by Dr. Mark Fishbein to talk about pressing a herbarium card and all the information that needs to be collected.

So thank you for sharing this with us.

Tell us what the first step is.

- Well, glad to tell you about it.

So we collect herbarium specimens in order to document what species occur where and when they were collected, when they're flowering, when they're fruiting, et cetera.

And to preserve material that can be studied by researchers at any time in the future.

So when doing so, we wanna collect as much information as we can to make them maximally valuable.

And that means knowing exactly where you were and when you collected it, and to write down things like the color of the flowers which won't preserve very well over time they may fade, the height of the plant.

And so I might jot down for this indigo plant that we just collected, it's flower color being pink, and that it is a shrub, and maybe a few other things like that.

- [Casey] Okay.

So when you're collecting can you collect from the wild?

We didn't collect this from the wild we just got it from our container over there.

- [Mark] Yeah.

More often than not it's wild plants that we're interested in because we might be interested in how species are responding to climate change or morphology changes from place to place.

- [Casey] And now this indigo is a big plant you just took a small portion of that, so that would be something you would write in your information.

- Exactly, this specimen here is not telling the whole story, so I try to fill that out a little bit with my notes.

- Okay.

All right.

So obviously a 3D, you know four dimensional, three dimensional plan here.

How do we press that so that it's flat.

- 'Cause yes, ultimately the herbarium specimen is gonna be two dimensional.

And so I just need to write down one thing on this sheet which is gonna be a collection number from my field notebook.

And then when I come back to this later I can connect my notes with my specimen.

- Okay.

So we just got regular newspaper there that you're pressing it in.

- Yeah.

So this plant press is made up of newsprint, and bladder paper to soak up water, and corrugated cardboard to allow ventilation and airflow.

- So fancy materials you need here (laughs) - Yeah.

It's amazing.

This technology that's hundreds of years old is just as good today as it was when it was first developed.

So here, what am I gonna do with this?

I'm gonna turn some leaves over because when this is too dimensional I wanna be able to study the top and the bottom of the leaf after this is glued down on a sheet of herbarium paper.

I'm gonna fold these flowers down into a place where I can see them later.

And then I'll just fold that over make sure everybody stays inside.

And this, as we'll see later is gonna turn into a beautiful herbarium specimen.

- Okay.

So it's really about just pressing those trying to hold them as structurally as possible down.

- Yeah, arranging it because not only do we wanna get the most information out of them, I think of a herbarium specimen is not only a piece of scientific information but also kind of an artistic expression too.

And a beautiful herbarium specimen is something that anybody could appreciate.

- Yeah.

And now this obviously isn't the end of the process, so we'll-- - It's not.

- Capture more of the process but tell us what's gonna happen and how long will we need to let this dry for?

- So to make a nice specimen it's crucial for it to dry as quickly as possible.

So we generally get some help especially on a humid day like today.

So we have equipment in the Herbarium, a heated dryer that has a good airflow in it, and this could be dry in two or three days.

- Okay.

So is this something that, you know if I was a gardener at home and I kind of wanted to make a collection of what's in my garden that they could do, and do they need an official plant press like this or what could they do?

- No, you can be very inventive about this and anybody can make a herbarium specimen.

So it's just a matter of having airflow and something to squish the plant flat.

So you can use your imagination about how to do that.

I have in a pinch used stacks of heavy books on top of just newspaper with some cardboard that I had in the house, and that was good enough, especially when I lived in Arizona where it was nice and dry.

- Okay.

So other than that is there any preserving technique that's, you know, nothing that's painted on them or sprayed on them to preserve them.

- Yeah, it's amazing.

Once the plants dry it can stay in good condition and provide information for literally hundreds of years.

We can study herbarium specimens that were collected in the 1500s and still learn things about those plants.

- Wow.

That's exciting.

And what is the oldest one that you've got there?

- So at the OSU Herbarium we have a specimen from 1843 that was collected in Oklahoma when it was...

Even before it was Oklahoma territory, much less the state.

- Okay.

Well, if the trees could talk as they say, right?

Well, thank you so much for sharing this and we'll catch back up as this dries.

- That sounds great Casey.

- Thank you.

(gentle upbeat music) (relaxed instrumental music) - Today, we are here at a pecan orchard just outside of Skiatook.

And joining me is Chad Selman with Selman Farms.

Chad, a lot of people might think that a pecan orchard is a pecan orchard.

But you, who are an expert, know there's differences.

Tell us a little bit about the two different types of orchards we have behind us here.

- Yeah, so we have an orchard to grove, and a orchard is in rows, and a grove is sporadic.

- [Woman] Okay, they're all pecans, right?

- Yeah, they're all pecans.

Now, the ones in rows are going to be primarily Pawnees, which is an improved variety.

And what we did is we planted those trees.

It came up as a seedling or a native tree, and then we grafted that tree, took a limb off of another tree, grafted it to that tree that was growing, and then made it a cultivar.

- So they have native root stock, so they do well in the soil here and are adjusted, but yet they have an improved-- - An improved variety on the top.

- Variety, yeah.

- Growing on top of the tree.

- Okay, but then the grove behind you, tell me a little bit about what that is.

- Yeah, so it's a 90% native trees.

- [Woman] Okay, all the way?

(laughs) - [Chad] All the way, top to bottom.

So those ones we didn't graft.

They're just there naturally.

And what we did was cleaned up a block of woods around 'em and left the pecan trees.

- [Woman] All right.

- [Chad] But the, you know, the difference between the improved varieties and the natives are the natives are a much smaller nut.

- [Woman] Okay.

- [Chad] And the improved varieties are much larger.

So primarily, what you're always seeing are improved varieties at the stores and the-- - [Woman] Especially when you're wanting those big kernels, right?

- [Chad] Yes, yes, yes, exactly.

- So is one better than the other, or what's the differences, I guess?

(Chad laughs) Is there a flavor difference?

- Yeah, that's always a great debate between the pecan growers, which one is better than the other.

But in reality, the one with the higher oil content has a higher flavor value to it.

- Okay.

- And so, most of the time, it's generally the smaller nuts have the higher oil content, rather than the bigger ones.

- [Woman] Oh!

- But everybody likes to see, likes the bigger ones because they look nice, big, and very pretty, and that's okay.

- So it's a little bit of the cherry red apple versus the taste of that apple.

- Yes, exactly.

- Okay, yeah, so maybe the smaller ones actually have a better flavor for us.

- Yeah, and which, lot of, I mean, all the natives are really used in for confectionary purposes.

- Okay.

- So they're not really, you're not gonna see that many of 'em at your farmers markets and stuff like that, so.

- Okay, well, what about the maintenance?

So obviously, these are, the cultivars are in nice rows, but your natives are kind of, like you said, sporadically planted by nature.

- Yeah, yeah.

- How does that apply with the maintenance on the two?

- Yeah, so on the maintenance, for spraying for the insects, they're gonna be the same insects that feed on 'em both.

And now, the difference is the natives are more scab resistant, and most of the improved varieties are susceptible to pecan scab.

There are some that are more resistant that USDA's come out with, OSU, and some other people have came out with and researched.

And these are Pawnees, which they're very susceptible to scab.

And so, we'll have to come in and spray these.

During the summer, we'll spray 'em about every two weeks, starting after bud break, and finish all the way into August.

- All right.

So that kind of applies with your costs of production-- - Yes, yes.

- And also, if somebody's looking for something that maybe has had less input on it, they might look for a native pecan?

- Yeah, a native pecan or there's some other, like I said, there's other resistant varieties out there that people are planting now rather than the Pawnee.

And a lot of guys are planting, like one around here, in Oklahoma's very popular, is a Kanza.

- Okay.

- And that's really growing.

It's a great nut, has a great flavor profile.

It's not gonna be your great, big, giant nut, you know?

It's not one of the biggest ones, but it is a very good nut, very productive nut, and it's easier to grow.

- So tell me, I know there's a lot to the set up and layout of an orchard, that you plan a lot of trees and then later on have to go thin out those trees.

Do you thin the natives ever or what is that process?

- Yeah, so on the improved varieties, you know, we're planting generally on 35-foot spacing.

Some of 'em are doing 40s and 45s.

After about 20 years, they're going to be starting to grow where they start getting too much shade and they're shading each other out.

So what we do is we go into those rows and we take out every other tree.

So we're going to take out 50% of those trees.

And you're really not gonna see much of a production difference between one year and the next year because that sunlight is hitting those other trees so much, and those other trees are gonna produce that much more.

- [Woman] Okay.

- [Chad] 'Cause if you didn't, your production will decline.

And once you take 'em out, your production goes up, you're on the same trees.

Same way with the negatives.

That works both ways.

So a good rule of thumb is, if you can't grow Bermuda in your pecan grove, it's too tight.

- [Woman] Okay.

(laughs) - [Chad] And if you look at noon, you want 50% shade, 50% sunlight.

- All right.

Speaking of kind of what's underneath pecans, I know there's a lot of people that are grazing under pecans now, too.

Tell us a little bit, can you graze with cattle under both native and improved, as well?

Is there any-- - Yeah, so you can.

There are guys that both and some guys that really just graze natives and non-improved.

But because of the improved varieties, you know, we're taking care of them, have a lot more inputs on 'em so we want them to produce their fullest potential.

And there's also chemicals for scab and stuff that have grazing restrictions, and stuff like that on there, so it's a little harder to deal with than a native orchard.

Also, I would suggest maybe pulling them out before your harvest.

- Especially on improved varieties because the cattle are gonna stop them in the ground and they might eat a handful of them too.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody loves the pecans.

- Yeah.

And, you know, the value per pound is more on improved variety as well than the native.

- Oh, okay.

- And so that's one of the primary reasons for doing so.

- Okay.

Well, and if you don't know which way to go, you just go with both, right?

- Yeah.

That's right.

- Excellent.

Thank you so much, Chad, for sharing both of these, both the orchard and the Grove with us.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Today we are here at the Botanic Gardens at OSU and joining me is Dr. Eric LoPresti who's brought some of his research plants and, Dr. LoPresti, this is a new plant for me.

It's sand verbena?

- The sand verbenas.

- Yes.

- Tell me a little bit about these.

- Okay.

This is a group of wildflowers that occur as mostly in the Western US, Canada, and Mexico.

They occur as far East as Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, and then all the way to the Coast in California.

- Okay.

So they can handle those hot climates, right?

- They love hot climates.

There's a lot of these that are native to both the Mojave and the Sonora deserts.

- Okay.

So looking at the leaves, they kind of look almost like succulents.

Tell me a little bit about the variability of some of these species that we have.

- Yeah.

So these grow in sand dunes across wherever sand dunes occur, coastal sand dunes, desert sand dunes.

And so a lot of them do end up with somewhat succulent leaves, probably somewhat for water conservation.

A lot of them end up with a kind of low growing habit where they creep across the sand dunes and if we let these grow naturally, they'd spread really far out.

Whereas there are a few that grow kind of more erect and more bushy.

- [Host] Yeah.

This one almost looks like an onion chive from a distance.

- [LoPresti] Yeah, this is one of the species that grows on really odd soils.

This grows on gypsum soils in Northern New Mexico and gypsum soils often have plants that have these very tiny chive like leaves.

- [Host] Also I was Noticing some of 'em have very sticky leaves.

Tell me a little bit about that.

- Yeah.

A lot of them have sticky leaves and that's a very common adaptation to sand in general.

And the sand actually forms a coating on the leaves and in the wild, they would be entirely covered with sand.

And that probably protects them both from further wind blown sand.

So you can imagine getting like sand blasted would be really bad for the plants in, you know, really windy coastal or, or desert dune environment.

And it also protects them from herbivores because what wants to eat sandy plants?

- Yeah.

Well, tell me a little bit about the soil type too.

Cause you said one was grown in gypsum, but I mean these pots are not light to unload.

- They are really heavy.

Yeah, you know, their name makes sense.

The sand verbenas, they grow in sandy soils.

Almost every species grows in, you know, very sandy soils where not very much else could survive.

And so when we grow them in the greenhouse, we use half play sand and half potting soil.

I grow them in still water, in raised beds where I put sand into the bed.

So if you were really committed to it, you could grow them just about anywhere.

- [Host] Okay.

Well, they're beautiful plants and they have a history too.

Can you share a little bit about that history in the horticulture industry?

- Yeah.

So these were very popular garden plants in the 1700s, 1800s and the first few decades of the 20th century.

And then for reasons that I don't know, their popularity waned and after World War 2, they virtually were unavailable in the horticultural trade.

Whereas in seed catalogs before that, you could find three, four or five or even six species of these available.

And Darwin grew a couple species in his garden, Asa Gray, who many people consider sort of the foremost American botanist, grew them and studied them.

And so they were really popular for a long time and now they aren't.

And I think it's time for a resurgence of interest.

- Yeah, definitely.

They have beautiful flowers that kind of come in a range of white and pink, is that- - Yeah.

Most of the species are either white flowered which is pretty typical for things that are pollinated by moths or pink flowered, which can be pollinated by an awful lot of pollinators in general.

However, there are some yellow flowered species, some red flowered species and some sort of almost purplish species as well.

- Well, Dr. LoPresti, I know you've got a graduate student who's working on the native species here, so I'm gonna go catch up with her and look at some of her plants as well.

- Awesome.

Thanks for having me.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Hey, Sierra.

- Hi.

- How are you?

- Great.

- Thanks for bringing these plants here.

They're beautiful.

- Of course, they are.

Aren't they?

- And so this is what you're studying primarily Western Oklahoma, kind of what's the range of... What is the species too tell me that first?

- Yeah.

Abronia fragrans is really widespread.

So it occurs from most Northern type Mexico all the way up to Canada, even, and throughout majority of its range, it has white flowers like this.

And so one of the common names is actually snowball sand verbena for these big clusters of white flowers.

But what I'm studying is this population in... - Western Oklahoma and Northwest Texas that has pink flowers.

- Okay, so why do they have pink?

They're the same species, right?

What's the difference there?

- Yeah.

Is it the soil or what is it?

- We had an undergrad, Natalie DeMaras look at soil and see if that has an effect on pink and white flowers.

It doesn't seem to, so I'm focusing on the pollination ecology.

- Okay.

- And evolution of these plants.

And so our idea is that with these the pink plants that are not only pink but also have flowers open a little bit longer into the day that they where butterfly or other daytime pollinated.

- Oh, okay.

- And we seem to be seeing that already.

- Okay, so the white ones attract those night pollinators, maybe the moths and stuff.

- Yeah, Yeah - Okay, and they're related to the four o'clocks that we know in the garden.

- Yes.

- And so they'll open and close at different times is that?

- They're the same family, and so four o'clocks are actually named for the flowers like open in the evening around four o'clock and are closed through most of the day.

- Right.

- So as you can see with these white flowers, they're all closed right now.

They're not open at all for daytime pollination, but looking at a lot of these pink flowers, they are still open, and so they're receptive to daytime pollinators.

- Well, I know Western Oklahoma can kind of be tricky with some plants, but this one looks beautiful.

Maybe something that a homeowner might add to their landscape if they have that right soil.

- Yeah, they love sandy soil.

So if you add 'em to a raised bed with sandy soil or if you just have sandy soil where you're living in Western Oklahoma, you'd be set.

- Perfect, thank you so much for sharing this Cierra.

- Absolutely.

(upbeat guitar and banjo music) - 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 guitar and banjo music) Next week, join us on Oklahoma Gardening as we discuss the good and the bad of the summer garden.

(upbeat guitar and banjo music) - But in all of our collection, I always was like, well that's not gonna fit on that card.

- Well yeah, I really do think it could happen.

- 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 Day View Plants, the Tulsa Garden Center at Woodward Park, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, Smart Pot, and the Tulsa Garden Club.

(upbeat guitar and banjo music)