(tranquil music) ("Four Seasons: Spring" by Vivaldi) - [Casey] Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

It's time to reveal the winners that you've selected for our Water Garden Contest.

From waterfalls to water lilies, and creeks to koi, this show is making a splash so let's jump on in.

("Four Seasons: Spring" by Vivaldi continues) 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 low maintenance perennial.

("Four Seasons: Spring" by Vivaldi continues) We have two different types of flowers on one plant.

Capsaicins that gives the pepper its heat.

You might remember this past spring we announced the Oklahoma Gardening Water Garden Contest and we had several of you submit entries.

We thank you for sharing your backyard water gardens with us.

After posting those entries onto Facebook we asked you viewers to also go on and vote for which ones we should go and visit.

Well after tallying the votes we spent this past month traveling around the state to visit our top four Water Garden Contest winners.

(tranquil music) (water babbling) We are about two hours west of Stillwater in Chester, Oklahoma at the Louthan residence and joining me today is Susan Louthan and today we came to look at your water garden and it's fantastic.

I know this isn't the only one but tell me a little bit about this one first.

- This one is about 25 years old and my husband put it in whenever my mother came to live with us 'cause her health wasn't good and she could sit inside the house and look at the pond and the fish and when we opened the windows she could hear the waterfall.

- [Casey] You get that nice sound.

- And she loved it.

So it's been here a long time and we named it Pete's Pond because our cat, Pete, loved to come out and stand on the waterfall every day and get a drink out of the pond.

- No fish though, right?

(laughs) - No fish.

No, that was Rowdy.

(both laughing) - Well I know you do have goldfish in this pond, is that?

- Have all koi.

- Oh okay.

All koi in this pond.

- [Susan] And they're young ones.

They're probably two to three years old.

- So right now they're leaving the plants alone.

The plants seem to be doing really well here.

- Yes, but we've got 'em in the rings unless they escape and then they don't bother 'em.

- Okay, so you've got 'em in floating rings to kind of protect the plants.

- Yes.

- Well, it's nice.

Tell me a little bit about the rock that you've got around here.

I think it's a unique rock.

- Yes, he got that up in the Cheyenne Valley and he brought load after load home and put them around the ponds and around the yard because he knows I love rocks and I love waterfalls.

And so he put the waterfalls in for me, basically, his wife.

- [Casey] It makes a very pleasant sound, especially when you're sitting inside in the shade.

It almost sounds like it's raining outside.

(laughs) - And the other thing I liked about the rocks, when the kids were little they didn't fall into the pond because even barefoot you don't wanna walk on these.

- Oh, good idea.

- They're kind of rough.

- Well shall we go take a look at your other water garden?

- Yes.

- [Casey] Susan, it's just beautiful here.

- Thank you.

- So you've got a lot larger fish in here 'cause it's a bigger pond.

Tell me a little bit about how big this pond is and the depth of it.

- It's three foot or a little deeper and it's, I think, 1500 gallons of water and it's 35 years old, I'd say.

And some of the fish, the big fish, are as old as the pond.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- [Casey] Well it's definitely held up well and I love the stair stacked waterfall that you have over there.

It provides a lot of oxygen for all these guys, right?

- [Susan] Yes.

- [Casey] So you have a weeping crabapple, is it, over there?

- Yes.

- [Casey] Nice shade over there and really your water garden's under a lot of shade so we probably don't get as many flowers on the water lilies.

- Not on this pond.

- [Casey] How do you handle all these leaves?

(laughs) - [Susan] The leaves, we cover it with a net in the fall.

Both of them we cover in the fall and then uncover 'em in the spring.

- [Casey] And then just pull that off?

- [Susan] Uh huh.

- [Casey] Well, I like the all the trees that you've added around and honestly, I mean, I can't ignore the whole garden here.

It's an oasis that you've created here in Chester.

Tell me a little bit about what this property first looked like and how it's transitioned over the years.

- [Susan] When we built our home here there was nothing except two hedge trees and our Osage Orange and we've, over the years, planted every tree.

- [Gardener] Out front and on the place.

- [Interviewer] You almost have an arboretum with the variety of trees you have here.

- [Gardener] My father-in-law used to say I was a tree hugger.

(laughs) - [Interviewer] And I do love the osage orange.

You got a ginkgo right here behind us.

- [Gardener] Yes.

- [Interviewer] It's just phenomenal how you've incorporated into the landscape and a fire pit.

I mean, do you spend a lot of time out here?

- [Gardener] Yes.

Almost all day every day.

And in the evenings, we sit out here, and in the morning, we have coffee, and... - [Interviewer] So what's your favorite part of gardening and what inspires you to keep going?

- [Gardener] Just the planning and thinking, "What can I do next year?

What's the next thing I can try and grow in the greenhouse and plant?"

- And and you have a little experience in horticulture, right?

Tell me about that.

And your husband does too.

- Yes.

- Tell me a little bit about that.

- Well, I was in FFA in Guthrie the first year they let girls in, and I took horticulture under Dan Hembry.

- Okay.

- And was on the horticulture team and took landscape design, and then I met my sweetheart at Furrows Greenhouse and got married, and we've gardened together ever since.

He's got a degree from OSU.

- [Interviewer] In horticulture, right?

- [Gardener] Yes, in horticulture.

- [Interviewer] Although that's not what he is doing now.

I mean, he's doing it right here in your backyard, helping you.

- [Gardener] And it's fun to do what you want when you want.

- Yeah.

Well, it's absolutely phenomenal what you've created.

I mean, I wouldn't suspect that I'm in western Oklahoma.

This is not what I expected to find here, and it's just such a beautiful place here.

It really is.

I love the arbors that you've built around as well.

Did your husband do that or...?

- [Gardener] My husband's done everything structure on this place.

- [Interviewer] Okay.

- [Gardener] He comes up with it and does it, and I never say anything, 'cause everything he does is beautiful.

- Well, and you add all the finishing touches with the plants, right?

- Yes.

- Well, it looks like a perfect combination that you've created here.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

- Thank you.

(relaxed guitar music) - We're here at the Bourgeois residence for our next Water Garden Contest winner, and joining me is Pat Bourgeois.

Pat, I gotta tell you, before we get to the water garden, we just kind of had to stop and enjoy this side yard here a little bit.

It's just so enchanting.

- Well, thank you.

- Well, I mean, you come around the corner, you're in full sun, and then all of a sudden, you go through a gate and you're here in a secret garden.

I think you brought your English touch to this a little bit.

Can you tell me about the side yard here?

- [Pat] It used to be full shade before we had the freeze and I lost my crape myrtles to the ground.

- [Interviewer] Oh, okay.

- [Pat] But surprisingly, in three years, they're what, eight foot tall now?

- Yeah, they're... - So I'm hoping by next year or the year after, we're back in the shade again.

Being English, I really don't take to the Oklahoma East too well.

- I don't know that I do, being Oklahoman.

So tell me a little bit about this lawn.

First of all, 'cause very rarely do I ever see a mondo grass lawn, but I love this.

I love what you've done here.

- [Pat] Well, it's wonderful.

For one thing, we cut it once a year in springtime usually to get any dead growth and freeze more out of it.

And then, that said, I fertilize it once a year.

- [Interviewer] And I noticed how it transitions to cobblestone down there.

Tell me about that down there.

- [Pat] That's another necessity.

I live on a hill, so therefore the water rushes down the side, and it was either always muddy or washing out.

- Well, I love the color here.

I love your arbors with the wisterias.

They're beautiful.

- Thank you.

- And I hear the water teasing us a little bit.

Do you mind if we go take a look at the water garden now?

- Let's go.

(water rushing) (birds singing) - Pat, this backyard is just amazing.

- Well, thank you.

- And your water garden, I love this.

You've done something here that a lot of people don't do, and that's put one right underneath trees.

Tell me a little bit about that decision.

- Well, we wanted something that we could view from the house and close to the house.

I didn't want anything that we had to go to the pond.

And, in actual fact, my whole backyard was shade, so this seemed like the logical place, because it was down and it made for having a creek all along the back, the side fence there.

- [Interviewer] Yeah, and that's quite a creek you have.

It's about 15 feet long, almost.

- [Pat] Right, uh-huh.

- [Interviewer] And runs the length of your whole backyard.

- [Pat] Right.

- [Interviewer] So that's one way to divide your neighbor's yard from your yard.

- [Pat] Well, actually we have a little gate there, so we can go through.

So it's easy to step over.

- [Interviewer] So they get to enjoy it as well.

- [Pat] They do.

- [Interviewer] Very nice.

So you have goldfish instead of koi, then which is a nice alternative, especially for more of a low-maintenance garden, right?

- [Pat] Correct.

It's very... - Goldfish are very low maintenance.

- And you've got several bog plants in here and water lilies.

Tell us a little bit about how that sun exposure affects the plants.

- Well, we can grow green.

(laughter) So, the bog plants do very well.

They tend to get a little taller reaching for the sun, but we have to sacrifice on pretty lilies that so many people have.

- But I'm guessing you probably don't have an algae problem like a lot of times we get in full sun water gardens.

- Correct!

In actual fact, we put that water in 30 years ago, and have not made a full water change in all those years.

- Really?

So, you've been landscaping back here for 30 years.

Tell me a little bit about how it looked when you first moved in here.

- Well, they had put grass along the back here and of course under the trees it wouldn't grow, so it would have one bare spot.

- Okay.

- And then another bare spot.

Unfortunately we're on sandstone, so very difficult to dig.

- Yes.

- So my backyard is really like one big plant pot.

You go three foot down, we double spayed it.

- Okay.

- And did a lot of compost.

- And so this used to all just be grass and trees back here.

- Correct.

- And eventually it's evolved into this, which is I think just a mosaic of color, color of green really, but texture and form.

Tell me a little bit about some of the plants.

I love the shamrocks that we have behind us here too.

- Yes.

- The pop of purple.

- I try to get the color.

In spring time it's very colorful with the azaleas and camellias and all the woodland phlox.

- And what's unique is you've got pachysandra next to sedums which I wouldn't think would go together, but you know, typically one likes more, but you've got enough dappled sunlight coming through that the sedums are doing alright.

And then your hostas, you've got quite a collection of different sizes of hostas too.

- Well, before the storms we had even more shade.

So the hostas did wonderful.

One or two of them is getting burnt now, so they need to be moved.

But a lot of times I just push plants down.

Someone will give me something and I'll just see if it'll grow so.

- And then it finds its way eventually.

- It finds its way.

And if it doesn't grow well there, I try somewhere else.

- Well one of the unique plants that I think you have that a lot of people don't know about is this rice plant.

Tell me a little bit about that rice plant.

- Well, the rice plant is wonderful.

This year for some reason, it hasn't grown as well as it has in the past, and it's a lot smaller.

One of my friends said that theirs is five foot tall this year.

So it's a nice plant to have around the pond because it is a perennial and it's very tropical looking.

And so.

- Got those massive palmate leaves and normally the shrub will get about five, six feet tall even, likes shade right?

So a very unique plant for Oklahoma that a lot of people don't know about.

But I love how you've used it around your water garden here to kind of soften the rocks.

- I like a lot of plants, I like too many plants.

I can't resist the plants.

- No, you can never have too many.

And I appreciate the charm that you've added in with some of your little, you said friends have given you gifts and things like that.

It makes it special here.

I can definitely tell you've been tending to this garden for quite some time.

It definitely shows.

- Ah, thank you.

- And it looks like your fish might be a little hungry.

- Okay, let's give them a little food.

I use this little sprinkler so that when the children come over they don't over feed.

- That's a smart idea.

Well Pat, thank you so much for sharing your backyard with us.

- Well, thank you.

(gentle music) - We are in the backyard of Bob and Sue Jones just outside of Deer Creek.

And Sue, thank you for braving the heat with me today to share with your, with me your water garden.

- Yes.

- So tell me a little bit, you've had this water garden for several years now.

- The water garden is 19 years old.

We put it together ourselves.

We built it from scratch.

We brought something in to dig it.

But beyond that, it's all our touch.

- And it's all your design too.

- All our design.

We, when we built the house 20 years ago my husband said no irrigation through the center of the yard because he knew exactly what he was gonna do with this hill.

- It's perfect to have a beautiful long running stream and then also just have some series of steps of waterfalls as well.

It kind of gives you a good mix of sound as you're sitting here.

- It does.

It's so peaceful.

We really enjoy just sitting here and listening to it.

- Well tell me a little bit about the different functions of the pools that you've created.

- Well, we have a weir at the top where the water feeds in, comes down the stream.

We have a plant pond that we grow our lilies in.

And what other plants will survive our water because it's well water and, and it's high in boron.

It goes down another stream where our koi.

- And I think we've got a couple of Shubunkins, but where our koi live.

The plant pond has just gone crazy this year.

There's a shelf in the plant pond.

No shelves or any place where a bird, or anything can sit to try to get our fish, so we don't have to worry about our fish.

I know a lot of people have issues with their fish being taken by the big birds, but there's a shelf here.

The center part is sunken.

And in the wintertime we just put our lilies in the bottom and they sit there all winter and then start shooting up in the spring.

- Well, you've got some beautiful pink and yellow lilies that are taking off.

They're loving this heat right now.

- Yes, yes.

- [Casey] And your koi, I mean, have they been here 19 years, too?

'Cause they're quite massive.

- Some of them we have adopted over the last couple of years as people, well, I mean, we're members of the Water Garden Society and we'll have people contact the club over a period of time and say they're closing down their pond, or they've got too many fish and they need to rehome 'em.

So we have rehomed probably about three or four this year, but ours started out about this big, and they're now probably this big and we just enjoy 'em because when they started out they were either white or a pale yellow and now they're colorful.

So you just never know what you're getting when they're little tiny fish.

- They kind of transition as they mature a little bit.

- Yes.

- Well, it definitely shows that you're a part of the Water Garden Society, the Oklahoma Water Garden Society 'cause I know they're very active and they do a lot of stuff.

And you have a lot of projects that you've made through that, right?

To add to your feature here.

- Yes, we did the leaf casting.

We do that every year usually in August because we're waiting for the elephant ears to be large enough for us to cast, but we have the leaf casting here water feature and then there are various leaves sitting around the pond.

So what we do is we cast them, we trim 'em down with our grinding wheel, we paint 'em and then we put color on 'em and then we just set 'em out.

- Very good.

Well, it definitely adds a nice little touch to the garden.

And also we gotta talk about the plants that are around the water garden as well.

It's always kind of sometimes tricky to blend your water garden into the surrounding settings.

Tell me what you've done with some of these fountain grasses and stuff.

- And for us, because our water is so high in boron there's certain plants that will not survive it.

So once I find a plant that does well, I usually will duplicate it and put it around in various areas.

If something goes to seed, I leave it.

If I don't want it there, I obviously pull it up.

And I've gotten many things started just from seed flowing in, so.

- [Casey] I mentioned the Dahlberg daisies earlier when we first got here, how they've just sort of naturalized in your stone path here.

- They started out in a pot, seed blew in and as I say the next year there was more and it just continues to multiply.

- Well, it looks like a pretty tough and tolerant garden out here in our Oklahoma sun.

- Yes.

- Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

- Oh, you're quite welcome.

We enjoyed having you.

- Thank you.

(soft music) We are here at the Barber residence in Oklahoma City and joining me is Seddie Barber.

Seddie, thank you so much for having us here in your backyard.

And you are one of our water garden contestant winners, so I'm excited to see this and dig a little bit more into it with you.

Tell us a little bit about how your water garden evolved over the years.

- I bought the house in 2004, and the pond was in pretty bad shape.

It had a concreted that was crumbling waterfall.

It had no filtration system.

It had a box with just a pump in the middle.

So it was redone just shortly after I moved in the house.

I put in a skimmer over here in this corner which helped with the filtration.

And over the years we revamped it more because of leaning over here.

We moved the skimmer over to this side.

And because of the leak that we kept having here I had the whole thing totally redone about three years ago and put in a bog skimmer, so it's very much more natural looking.

- [Casey] Right, right.

- [Seddie] And so it's made it nice.

- [Seddie] Well, you've done an excellent job.

I couldn't even tell where those skimmers were.

You've camouflaged them really well.

And I did notice, though, that there's actually, the fish are going underneath the deck here.

That's kind of a neat feature.

- There is a tunnel that they put in and all the fish can fit in there.

It's a great place for them to hide if they need to from any predators.

I've been lucky.

I've only had one great heron that I've seen here and one egret in the past, so I've never lost any fish to any predators so they can all get in there, and in the wintertime they spend a lot of time in that area.

You don't see 'em a lot - [Casey] And you've got some big ones.

I think they would give an egret a little bit of a fight, actually.

The white one is beautiful.

He's kind of got that butterfly wing effect it seems like.

- [Seddie] Yes.

- Tell me a little bit, you've got some plants in here and I know, I mean, who would've thought July would be cloudy today, but, so the lilies aren't quite blooming.

Tell us a little bit about some of your plants that you have in here.

- Well, of course, I love the parrot's feather.

It's so nice and feathery looking.

I do have a real pretty colorful lily leaf there is a tropical that's a real pretty purple.

Then there's some yellow and pink lilies in here.

The taro.

- [Gardener] Is also a tropical that I have to take in in the wintertime.

(water sloshing) Then hyacinths, of course, they just keep reproducing and reproducing.

And I've got a society garlic over there that's just peeking up right now.

- So do you have any problems with the, you've got a Chinese pistache overhead, but other than that, not too many trees.

But I know sometimes the leaves can be a problem later on in the fall.

Do you have that issue here or?

- I do, but I net it.

- Okay.

- I net it at that time.

And to keep the pond as clean as possible.

- So what is it about water gardening that really drew your attention?

- I'm a big backpacker and camper and spent a lotta time in the Colorado mountains with water streams, and I've always just loved the sound of water and I'm just a real outdoors.

I would spend more time out here than in my house if I had a choice.

The more I'm outdoors, the happier I am.

- Yeah, I understand that.

And definitely also, you know, you mentioned you have a pollinator garden over on the other side.

So water is a nice feature for that as well, right?

- [Gardener] And I have a neighbor three doors down that has beehives.

- [Casey] Okay.

- [Gardener] And so the bees come here and get water.

So I have bees and I have birds that are always taking baths in the waterfall and the butterflies that are all around.

- [Casey] So this is the watering hole for the neighborhood wildlife, right?

- It is, it is.

And it's the place that I spend most of my time.

In the mornings, the dogs and I come outside and I sit here and have my coffee.

And it's a wonderful way to start my day.

- Absolutely, well, it's a very relaxing sound.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

- Well, it's great having you here, and I love to share my garden with anyone who wants to come see it.

- (laughing) Thank you so much.

(upbeat classical music) There are a lotta great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(upbeat classical music continues) For the next two weeks, OETA will be airing fundraising programs.

But join us right back here on August 26 for a brand new episode of "Oklahoma Gardening."

- [Speaker] Behind the scenes.

(laughing) (people laughing) (upbeat classical music continues) - [Casey] 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.

(upbeat classical music continues)