(gentle music) - Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Stay tuned as I share with you about No Mow May.

We then head over to Woodward Park in Tulsa to catch up with Mark Bays about tree decay and learn about low and high-tech methods used for detection.

Dr. Andrine Shufran introduces us to a new insect.

And finally, we make a stop at the newest addition to Oklahoma City's Scissortail Park.

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

So if you're looking for an easy and low maintenance perennial.

(gentle music) You have two different types of flowers on one plant.

(gentle music) Capsaicin's what gives the pepper its heat.

(gentle music) During the spring, a lot of times our garden can be a little slow to get started and allow for all of those flowers to be available for pollinators.

However, you probably have seen the wild flowers and sometimes even those lawn weeds blooming early in the season.

Those can all provide great forage for a lot of our pollinators whether they're migrating through or they're just coming out and they're starting to look for those forage plants.

While we've talked previously with the Department of Transportation, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, about their mowing practices, and they've actually reduced some of their mowing to allow for those wildflowers to be available for those pollinators, that practice doesn't just have to be limited to the roadsides.

In fact it's something that you could do in your own front yard by not mowing quite as often.

In fact, there's one campaign that's starting to sweep across the nation called No Mow May.

If you haven't heard about it something you might wanna check out.

In fact, it's the idea that in the month of May that you don't mow, or maybe you don't mow quite as often.

You can see here at the botanic gardens we've kind of allowed our lawn area to not be mowed.

And you can see we've got several different plants that are blooming, especially the white clover which is a legume.

So it's not only beneficial for the pollinators but it's also beneficial for the soil.

Of course, you wanna make sure to check with your local ordinances, both your city and also your homeowner's association, just to make sure that you're not breaking any rules that might be in place.

But by allowing your lawn to grow you'll see that you'll get a few more flowers, maybe whether you're a gardener or not you'll have those flowers available for those pollinators.

Now, if there are some rules that are in place or you wanna make sure that it just doesn't look unkept, 'cause sometimes when things aren't mowed it can have that look.

Not only can you download PDFs and make your own sign for your yard, but you can also adjust your mowing pattern to make it a little more intentional.

So maybe you don't wanna go the whole month without mowing but maybe you stretch the mowing schedule a little bit, allowing for those flowering weeds to grow a little bit taller before you cut them down.

Another option is to mow a border around your lawn.

Just by having a mowed border around the mowed area will make that area look a little more intentional.

So if you're looking for an excuse to ease back into your summer mowing routine, give yourself a break while allowing those pollinators a little extra forage by adopting No Mow May.

(gentle music) Today we are here at Woodward Park, joined by Mark Bays and actually many other arborists are out here as well for a workshop specifically about tree decay right?

- Yeah there's, this spring has really been a hard year for trees in Oklahoma.

We've had the tornadoes come through and ravage a lot of trees but even it's so windy in Oklahoma, we do see a lot of problems with trees sometimes failing in high winds.

One of the things we're learning about today is decay in trees.

- And so, I mean, homeowners obviously have concerns especially if they're looming over their house.

But there's a lot of technology.

It's not just a matter of looking at a tree and seeing that there might be a hole right?

- Yeah, well there's a lot of, the things that we're gonna learn about and there's some visual indicators that the homeowners can look on their tree to see, oh, my tree has this.

There could be a problem with that, but it might not be as necessarily as severe as they might think.

- Okay.

- So the purpose of this training today is we brought an international group of speakers to come into Oklahoma and teach us about how our arborists could be better skilled at identifying decay, whether or not that decay is or is not a problem.

And we even have one of the developers of the resistograph here, he came all the way over from Germany here to Oklahoma to teach us a little bit more about that.

- That's fantastic.

And so our, basically our arborist who are gonna help us.

- So when we have tree damage, are learning some of these different tactics to help homeowners.

- Yeah, we've never had this level of intensive training about tree decay in Oklahoma ever.

That's what's so great.

- That's exciting.

- And so now our tree care specialists all across the state will be in a better position to advise those homeowners that have concerns about their trees and they're just get a level of training on tree decay that we've just never had.

And I think that's just really a cool thing.

- And of course, whenever there is storm damage, we always tell people to find a certified arborist, an ISA certified arborist.

And so this is the training that they are getting right?

- Yeah.

- So it's not just somebody with a chainsaw.

(laughs) - It's not just somebody with a chainsaw.

So any time you have any work done on your tree, always make sure that it is an International Society of Arborculture, ISA, certified arborist because not only do they have to take a very intensive test to become certified but they have to take continuing education.

And this is why we brought this training to Oklahoma.

- Well, Mark, this is exciting for everyone here in Oklahoma and I'm gonna go check out some of the workshop, if you don't mind.

- No, let's go.

(upbeat music) - We are joined by Dr. Chris Luley, who is here to talk to us a little bit more about tree decay.

So we've got some trees here in Tulsa that experience some decay because of different reasons.

Can you tell us what maybe a homeowner should be looking for?

- Sure, there are some symptoms of decay that homeowners can easily identify.

First, homeowners should know that decay is very common in urban trees.

In fact, we did a study where there's some 60% of all trees have decay in the lower of 10 feet of this trunk, so not necessarily concerning if decay is present.

But symptoms of decay are symptoms like open cavities as we have on this oak, which are open and obvious but any size of cavity is usually due to decay.

Another good symptom of decay is presence of wood decay-fruiting structures such as conks or brackets or mushrooms that develop at the base of a tree, another excellent symptom of decay.

One other common symptom of decay is the presence of carpenter ants because carpenter ants nest in decayed wood and homeowners may see the frass at the base of the tree or carpenter ants, colonies of carpenter ants, associated with the tree.

And then sometimes homeowners can just see the decay, right?

- Right.

- Right, it's obvious.

- [Casey] It's obvious, yeah.

- It's obvious and that is a valid symptom of decay.

- So if they have a concern about a tree that maybe is in their yard, maybe over their house or near it or even up in branches, right.

You can have decay up in branches.

What should they do or how do you know whether there's potential risk there?

- Yes, and as I said, not all trees with decay have concerns associated with them.

The best approach would be to call a certified arborist that has the skill and the knowledge to do a basic assessment.

But in the absence of somebody, a professional, coming in, we often use some simple tools to do a test for decay.

One common tool is a sounding mallet which is a woodworker's mallet that you can tap to listen for that low, dull pitch that is associated with decay.

And you can hear it in this tree that when trees have extensive decay you will have a much, much more low pitch associated with that.

- Right, and you having a trained ear or a certified arborist having a trained ear to be able to detect that.

- Yes, it's a learned skill.

I wouldn't necessarily expect the homeowner to be able to pick a decayed tree out, but someone experienced with a mallet can do a fairly good assessment visually and using a mallet to listen for decay to give you a general idea of how much decay is in that tree and if it's a concern and if a more advanced test with a resistograph or a tomograph might be needed.

- [Casey] And I know you also have a drill here, what would that be for?

- Sure, there's another low-tech way to test a tree for decay and that's with a small-diameter drill bit.

And we use often use a earplug for a depth gauge.

You can probe into the tree where you believe the decay is present and look at the wood chips and feel the resistance to get an idea of the thickness of the outer shell of sound wood.

- Okay, and I'm sure, again, that's a little bit of a trained, you've tapped a lot of trees probably but that doesn't harm the tree or anything, does it?

- You would only wanna do this if absolutely necessary because there are strong barriers to decay in trees that the tree uses to keep the decay fungus from moving into healthy wood.

And if you break that barrier with a drill, this type of drill, you can potentially spread the decay.

So it's not something we do without reason.

But in the hands of a skilled arborist, this can be a valid tool to assess how much decay is present in a tree.

- So when we're talking about a kind of compartmentalizing of decay, are there certain trees that do that better than other trees?

- There are, and it really does make a big difference to what kind of tree.

Most of the oak species are good compartmentalizers, but even within the oak species, the white oak species are some of the strongest compartmentalizers or trees that contain decay well, where the black and the red oaks and pin oaks are not as good, but they're better than- - [Guest] Say many of our maple species, especially silver maple and red maple.

- Okay.

- And some other species that their strategy is to grow faster than the decay.

- Okay.

- Rather than to contain it where the oaks grow slower, but put a lot of energy into keeping decay in check.

- Okay.

So what about the location of the decay on the tree?

Are there certain areas that are more prone or maybe cause more failure?

- Sure.

We see the majority of failures come from the crown just because there's more branches and more locations for decay to be present.

But surprisingly, the next common location for decay to be present and for failures to occur is at the base and in the root system.

And a big reason for that is because that is where trees are commonly wounded by lawnmowers, vehicles during construction, and wounds are always entrance points for decay fungi.

So the base of the tree is particularly susceptible to wounding and then infection by decay fungi.

- Okay, so about decay fungi, like, is there a certain one that does it or certain ones that attack certain trees or can you tell me a little bit about that?

- There's many decay fungi.

I have a book out on decay fungi.

They're somewhat species specific.

- Okay.

- But the ones that attack trees and decay trees are very specific.

And there's, you know, there's maybe 500 or so that attack living trees, but only a small handful that are actually important.

So many of the decay fungi that are in trees are not as serious as others.

So there's only a small handful that can actually actively decay healthy sapwood or wood in the tree and cause them to fail.

- Okay, and, of course, you know, these fungi are important, right?

Because they're decomposing trees that fall down out in nature.

- They are.

- We just don't want 'em to ruin our trees that are- - [Guest] Just like everything else there's good and bad.

- So is it concerning, the fact that we've got this big open decay hole here and the tree's also leaning?

I mean, is that going to cause an off-balance there?

- It's not good.

I won't tell you that that open cavity with a park bench is good, but most trees actually fail when they're loaded by wind forces.

- Okay.

- And certainly gravity can cause some factors or some failures, but the most concern is high velocity winds.

- Which we have here in Oklahoma.

- And you have all the time in Oklahoma, as we know.

And the location of that decay in sound wood relative to that wind load.

So it's a misconception by many people that a lean is bad because it's going to cause the tree to fail.

Trees are relatively well adapted to leans in most cases, except when there's extensive decay present, as with this tree.

- Okay.

So is there stronger wood in this tree or weaker wood because of that decay?

- [Guest] There is.

And wood, depending on which way the load comes, which way the wind comes, is of different load carrying capacities.

Which wood mostly is strongest in tension than it is in compression when it's compressed or the wind is forcing it in one direction.

And it's weakest when it's twisted.

- Okay.

- So one of the best things that we can do for trees is to balance the crown so that load is distributed evenly to the tree when it's loaded with the wind.

- All right- - Perfect.

- Well, thank you for this information.

And I think we're gonna go check out some other technology.

- Great.

- Thanks.

- Thank you.

(mellow music) - Joining us next is Frank Rinn, who came all the way from Germany to show us some technology.

So you've got some fancy way to figure out how much decay is in a tree.

Can you talk to us about this?

And you are also the inventor, I should say, right?

- Yep, that's right, that's right.

- So tell us what we got here?

- About 35 years ago I got the idea from someone presented that a needle could help us understand trees.

So he said you should push a needle into the wood and measure the resistance against the penetration.

It didn't work, his idea didn't work.

So I developed a machine out of that.

That's the machine, we call it Resistograph.

And it basically drills in a thin needle into wood, measures the resistance and delivers a profile that shows us the internal condition of the tree.

- Okay, is it measuring both the torque that you have to turn it as well as the actual insertion of that?

- Oh yeah, very nice, yeah.

- Okay.

- It measures the whole work electrically that is necessary to put the needle into the wood.

- Okay.

- That means it measures the rotational and the thrust.

- So how far do you go into the tree with something like this?

- In this case, typically 20 inches.

- [Host] Okay.

- [Frank] But we have a long machine with about 40 inches drilling depth.

- Okay.

- But for most urban trees, 20 inches is sufficient.

- Okay, well, this seems like a very high-tech method.

In what sort of application would we use something like this?

- Actually, the biggest market for this is inspecting poles, utility poles.

- Oh, really?

- Because wooden utility poles typically deteriorate below ground.

- Right.

- And with this machine you can drill at the base of the pole.

- [Frank] To find out if there is decay below ground in that pole, that might lead to a collapse of the pole.

The second market is timber buildings.

Worldwide there are millions of houses built with timber and timber deteriorates over time.

And with this you can check without really destroying the timber because the hole is so tiny, small, tenth of an inch approximately, so that it's nearly non-destructive.

And we can find out if there is decay inside or if there are termites inside that eat up the wood.

And then the next market is urban tree inspection.

Trees like that, standing here in parks or along roads where this machine allows us to find out if there is internal decay that compromises the safety or the stability of the tree.

- Okay.

So it's not as simple as pulling the trigger, though, and just, - No, not that.

- And it tells you it's decayed or not right?

- That would be great.

- Tell me kind of what it actually gives you as a printout and tells you?

- Basically it gives you a profile along the depth of the drilling that shows the density along the depth of the drilling.

It reflects the tree rings in that density profile.

And when the tree is decayed, then the profile drops down and shows okay, there is deteriorated wood.

- [Blonde] Okay, so where there's deteriorated wood, that means there's no resistance there.

- No resistance anymore, no mechanical resistance.

And this is shown by these profiles and the people working with it first have to understand the biomechanics of trees to know where to drill, then how to drill.

That means how to operate the machine and then how to interpret the profiles.

And then how to evaluate what this means in terms of safety of the tree so that it doesn't collapse and kill someone.

- Right, this is not something that a homeowner would just buy in order to check out one tree.

- I wouldn't recommend doing that, no.

But there are experts even here in Oklahoma, so practically everywhere, that are focusing on that.

And fortunately there are people that really care about trees and get that education.

And when these experts buy equipment like that then it's really helpful.

First of all, it prevents accidents because they can identify trees that may be dangerous.

Second, it saves money for the cities caring about urban trees because they know that some trees for example, even they are obviously defective, they can still be kept in the city.

So using that equipment properly really lowers the cost for caring about the urban green.

- Okay, well, Frank, you know, we have a few storms that come through here and a lot of wind, so we appreciate you bringing this technology and training our state arborists here in Oklahoma.

Thank you.

- I enjoy that, thank you.

(bluesy guitar music) - Hi, this is Andrine Shufran from the OSU Insect Adventure.

Today we are going to be starting a new segment on bugs, a regularly occurring segment called "Bug of the Month."

And the first segment today is going to be about the crane fly.

Through the month of April, you will have seen a lot of these giant things that look like mosquitoes and go by a lot of names.

Some people call 'em mosquito hunters and some people think they're giant mosquitoes.

What they're actually is crane flies.

And a mosquito is a fly and a crane fly is a fly and a house fly is a fly.

But this crane fly just comes out in the month of April and it's very large with long legs.

Beautiful animal, comes out by the ton this time of the year.

Crane flies actually have a very long life cycle and the crane flies that you see flying around in April are only the adults.

And the adults have no mouth parts.

When they're larvae for two or three years in the ground they're eating and growing and eating and growing.

And then when they emerge from the soil as adults they've accumulated all the fat and energy they need for being alive for four weeks.

And all they're interested in is finding a mate, mating, laying eggs, and then they've used up all that energy and they die.

(ambient music) - Today we are down here at the second half of Scissortail Park making it a complete park.

Is that correct?

- Yes, it is he fully completed Scissortail Park, nearly 70 acres.

- Wow, well, it's exciting.

Thank you for having us down here.

Joining me today is Maureen Heffernan, who is the CEO and president of Scissortail Park.

Maureen, tell us what people can find down here at this new lower park?

- Well, hopefully a lot of people have been to the upper park since it opened in 2019 and now they can discover and have a lot of fun in the lower park, which is the additional about 32, 33 acres right across the Skydance Bridge.

So this park has a lot of open space and green space, landscape space, like the upper park.

But this is more of an athletic park.

At least this end of the lower park.

So we have a soccer field here.

We also have four pickleball courts, basketball courts, football court and they are open all day long.

I think we close at about 11.

The nice thing is that all of them are fully lit too.

So in the evening.

- You can come down and play and there's plenty of light.

And again, it's open and free for the public - So no reservations necessary.

If it's open, you go out there and play.

- No reservations.

There might be some days where we have some special events going on.

- Okay.

- Where it's closed for a special event or a few reservations, but for the most part it's always open and free to people to use the facilities.

- And it's not all just athletic sports fields either.

You've got some other kind of nature areas?

Tell us a little bit about that.

- We do, there's a new feature here.

Again, we wanted to do just something different from the upper park, and it's a nature playground.

We have a wonderful playground in the upper park but this one is meant to be more nature-based.

So it's things like logs and stones, and willow arches and little tunnels to go under.

And we'll be adding a lot more things.

But the main part of it is for kids to have self-direction play in nature, use their imagination, you know, just get back to the basics.

And it's very shady.

We've been able to keep a lot of the mature trees unlike the upper park.

So this section really feels more shade and more canopy right away, which is really nice.

And then right by that, just to the east of that area, is our most landscaped area of the lower park.

And it kind of continues the prairie type grass and native flowers that we've had just before Sky Dance Bridge on the upper park.

So it kind of jumps over the highway and connects the two parks together with this landscaping theme.

- So the Scissor Tail Park connects them and that's what's the distance there between the two?

- Well, it's really neat.

Our promenade feature connects at the very end of the upper park which is Oklahoma Boulevard to the very end of the park here, which is just before the Oklahoma River.

So from tip to bottom of the park, it's one mile.

It's approximately one mile.

- [Interviewer] Oh, okay.

- And so it's great for walkers because I can say, okay I'm gonna walk a mile there, I'm gonna walk a mile back or whatever section they wanna do.

It really gets people walking.

And I'm a biker.

I love to bike downtown, so now I can bike from the start of the upper park all the way to the river trail and connect to it without ever being on a street.

- Right.

- So it's really great for people who wanna walk or bike or anything like that.

The promenade just continues and it's just beautiful, the views.

And at the end of the promenade, at the lower park at the very south end, there's another hill similar to the one we have in the upper park.

And I have to say, if people come to the park they'll wanna go to the top and enjoy the beautiful views around.

It's really stunning.

In addition, we wanna add art into the park.

And so our first, one of our first big pieces it's called the Trash Monster and it was made by a local artist, Gabriel Freeman.

And the message is, we work with Oklahoma City Beautiful on it, that watch where you throw your trash because it could end up in the river.

And so it's a message of reduce, recycle, reuse and properly dispose of your trash.

- Well, Maureen, it's definitely exciting to see how active this space is and we look forward to seeing it grow even more.

- It is, and I hope people come down and experience it because it's really been a transformational project and it's just unbelievable what it has added to the quality of life for people.

- Thank you for sharing it.

(classical 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.

(classical music) If you're looking for inspiration this spring you won't wanna miss next week's sneak peak of the Tulsa Garden Club's Annual Garden Tour right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

- Then how we've reduced their mowing in order.

Spring months a lot of times are, no, sorry.

(drilling sound) (classical 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 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 Stillwater gem.

We would like to thank our generous underwriter the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

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.

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