- Oklahoma gardening is a production of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the land grant mission of the Division of Agricultural 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.

We've got another great Oklahoma gardening show.

I'll share a few different eucalyptus we have growing here in our garden.

We take a trip down to the Myriad Gardens to peek in on the conservatory renovation.

We learn about praying mantis, and then visit a local company raising worms.

Today I wanted to show a couple of plants that you probably are not used to seeing in the Oklahoma landscape, and that is eucalyptus.

We have three different eucalyptus that we planted in our gardens this season.

Of course, we know that eucalyptus are not native to Oklahoma, especially, and they are tropical, but there's no reason why you can add them into your landscape.

So the first one that I want to show with you is this lemon eucalyptus, these plants are actually been growing for two seasons and they were planted out here when they were just a couple of feet tall last spring, but you can see how it has shot and taken off now, and it's about 12 feet tall.

So eucalyptus, when you add it into the landscape, it's nice because it brings in this kind of grayish greenish foliage into your plant palette.

Lemon eucalyptus in particular, you're going to notice that it has kind of a sandpaper feel to the leaves that are lanceolate.

If you don't want something, that's this tall, you can easily control the height of it by planting it in a container, which will usually keep it around a height of about four feet.

If you do plan it in the landscape, you want to make sure to stake it.

You can see we had to stake ours with the T post in there because they, the lemon eucalyptus in particular, is very shallow rooted, and so it will flop, especially in our Oklahoma winds.

Now traditionally this will get to be about a 60 foot tall tree in its native Australia.

Next to it here, we have another eucalyptus that is little bit smaller, and I think it's cause it got overshadowed by our lemon eucalyptus.

But this one is our mint peppermint eucalyptus.

And I have to say the lemon eucalyptus smell of it is kind of comparable to the size.

It's very pungent.

Whereas the mint is a little bit more of a mild smell to it.

The other thing to kind of differentiate the leaves have these nice willow lanceolate are similar to the lemon eucalyptus it's much smoother.

It's not sandpappery.

You'll notice, especially on the new growth, that you have some nice red branching on them as well.

It's a little deceiving in our landscape here, but actually the peppermint eucalyptus will get much taller in its native Australia reaching about 150 feet.

The other thing that we can't really appreciate as an annual is that it'll develop this beautiful exfoliating bark when it becomes a mature tree.

Next to it, we have a one more eucalyptus that I want to share with you, and this is probably the eucalyptus that you're most familiar with.

And far too often, we see it as a fake plant in different hobbies stores.

And this is the silver dollar eucalyptus.

You can see how it got its name by these silvery spoon shaped leaves that are stacked on the stems.

It's very unique foliage to add into the landscape, that's why it's kind of fun to play with as an annual in your landscape design.

The other thing that you'll notice about this is that it not only has different foliage, but again, it'll have sort of that red stems to it contrasting that blue foliage.

And of course, we've got that traditional eucalyptus fragrance that comes with this.

So why settle for fake when you can go out and harvest your own fresh eucalyptus to put into your garden.

All of these eucalyptus are annuals here in our Oklahoma landscape.

So what we're going to be removing them pretty soon.

They were just started two of them, the lemon and the peppermint were actually started by seeds two years ago.

Whereas this silver dollar, you can start it from cuttings.

And so we're going to be taking cuttings from it again to overwinter for next year.

Of course, if you're above zone nine in North America, you'll probably be using this as an annual in the garden.

Eucalyptus is however high in oils, as I mentioned, and often referred to as the gum tree.

And when we're removing this, this is a good reminder that anytime you're removing or messing with plants that are either new to you or have high oil contents, you want to make sure to use some protections, some skin protection, gloves, and long sleeves in order to handle those because you never know how you're going to react.

Of course, eucalyptus we know is toxic to both humans and animals, except for the koala, which has adapted in order to eat it.

- We are back here today at a place that's near and dear to me and believe it or not, we are standing in the Crystal Bridge at the Myriad Gardens.

As you may know, it's going through some renovations and joining us today is Maureen Heffernan to tell us a little bit about those renovations.

So thank you, Maureen, for welcoming us back and, tell us a little bit about what's going on here.

- Well, thanks for covering it.

It's a really great story.

So we hope you come back and cover the whole arc of it.

It's really unique and what we're doing here as you can see, is a complete and utter renovation of the Crystal Bridge Tropical Plant Conservatory.

And the reason we're doing that is because it's just like a lot of older buildings and things, it ages, infrastructure gets worn out.

And so this was an opportunity to kind of, clean the slate and redo it.

And one of the reasons is not only aging infrastructure is that we just want to keep it really fresh and world-class.

There are so many things around us that are being new and built.

And so we want the Crystal Bridge in Myriad Gardens to remain highly relevant and be a quality cultural destination and the Crystal Bridge is our centerpiece.

So we're investing a lot of money and time to make this a jewel for the city.

- [casey] And so we're talking about just mainly the inside.

The outside shell went through a renovation a few years back, but now looking at the inside it's been gutted.

Tell us a little bit about what we might anticipate going forward.

- Well, there will be three levels, as the old bridge had, so where we're standing now, we're on the first level.

So we will have pathways through here, but everything will be new.

New flooring, new lighting, new planting beds, new interpretation.

We'll have new features that make it easier and more accessible for everyone to get around.

- [casey] Will there still waterfalls?

- [maureen] There will be a big new waterfall, so in the same general direction, but it will be much bigger and grander.

It'll be a two-story level.

There'll be plantings in it, so it's a very beautiful, dramatic waterfall feature as you come in.

As you proceed through the Crystal Bridge, there'll be a beautiful piece of artwork or sculpture that functions as kind of a threshold between the tropical and the arid sections.

And that will have a mist at the top.

It will look like cloud formation.

So we're calling it the cloud portal and it'll be a beautiful striking feature for the Crystal Bridge.

So at the north end, like it was before, we'll have arid plants.

So plants in the desert, arid sections of the world.

Really fascinating collections we'll add there.

We will be having a new reflecting pool - [casey] So you're keeping the theme of the same, having the tropical and the arid, but changing it up a little bit.

You'll also have a couple of terraces.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- [maureen] We are, at both sections, the north and south will have these overlooked terraces.

So there'll be really beautiful places just to sit and relax and enjoy the views.

They're also designed.

We can have small programs and school field trips.

We can have weddings and parties, so there'll be really flexible and beautiful.

And around each of them will be interesting plant collections to enjoy.

- And what can we expect of the catwalk that I know is a popular feature.

- The catwalk is super popular.

So it's fun just to walk that third level and get these incredible views down onto the floor, but we're adding some bump-outs with some interactive features like binoculars to look at things or sounds of the rainforest.

So there'll be throughout the catwalk as well as other areas, more interactive exhibits to enjoy and more interpretive signage, so everybody can make their visit more educational.

- Well, I can only imagine how much work it took to clean this out.

There was a lot of plants in here and I see one that's still left.

- I know.

- What happened?

Surely they didn't all just get thrown away.

- They didn't.

We had an epic plant sale that we call it of a couple months ago and we had thousands, it seemed, turned out for it.

So they all got a little bit of the Crystal Bridge to take home and we have wonderful, wonderful partners at OSU-OKC, just down Reno avenue where their horticulture school's located and they have some extensive greenhouses so - They are helping to babysit a lot of the plants here and all of those will come back and Nate, our Director of Horticulture, you'll be talking to him a lot about this.

He has been selecting new plants, to add to the collection.

So, that's one that he wanted to keep.

(laughter) So, we hope that it makes it through this.

- [host offscreen] Well, this is pretty exciting.

And of course, I'm sure that there's a lot of community support in this.

Can you tell us a little bit about just the overall cost to this project and who's helping you with all of that?

- Well, it's not cheap to (both laugh) demolish the inside of a conservatory.

So, the whole project is close to $11 million.

We have raised about nine and a half million, and that is through city support, Devon TIF funds and private gifts.

And our lead gift has been from Inasmuch Foundation.

So, we are very happy to name the conservatory, once it reopens, it will have a new name, Inasmuch Foundation Crystal Bridge Conservatory.

So, thanks to their very generous support, it helps accomplish this and do it at a very high level.

- All right, and so when can we anticipate that Crystal Bridge opening?

You know, about a year from now.

- Okay.

- So hopefully early mid October of 2022, we will be opening this back up for everyone to enjoy.

And we want people, we hope that we've planned it, so you not only come once, but there's a lot of features to come back with repeat visits.

We'll have more flower color, more changing exhibits.

So, we hope this is something that the city embraces.

It's just going to be a jewel and a new attraction for the downtown.

So, we're excited, but about a year from now it'll open.

- And knowing that you are a botanical garden, I would imagine there's going to be a fair amount of interpretation, signage, educational information to read in this new conservatory.

- Oh, a whole new schedule of that.

And we're grouping plants in a different way, too.

So, the stories are stronger and more coherent as visitors come through.

So, that's going to be one of our, I'm most excited about that in many ways, because your visit will be much more engaging and you'll really leave learning some fascinating things about the collection.

- And we have to ask one last question.

There has been a long time resident of the Crystal Bridge, where is Muffin going?

- Well Muffin, our feathered tropical parrot, he is, she?

He?

(laughing) I'm not sure.

He or she, They're getting an upgrade.

And so Muffin is, I think where's Muffin going?

He's on the second level.

- Okay - So he will have an upgraded cage and branches and all of this, and all of his old friends will be happy to see him and he loves the visitors.

So, he's excited too.

- All right.

We're all excited to come back next year and take a look at this new facelift of the Crystal Bridge.

- Thank you, Marie.

- Thanks, Casey.

Thank you.

- Have you ever seen one of these weird little, looks like a fossilized slug, or maybe a bird poop that's hanging on a tree or on your brick wall around your house?

We're here to tell you today what it really is.

These are preying mantis egg cases, and they're referred to as ootheca.

And inside that case, there are at least a hundred, maybe 200 tiny baby praying mantises, the local Carolina ones.

And they're waiting all winter long to hatch out in the spring.

So the mama praying mantis, she encases all of her eggs in this foamy weird stuff.

She extrudes that on a good, safe, perfect place.

And then she caps it off with this other white foamy stuff.

And that means that it hasn't hatched yet.

You'll see a lot of these in the spring where they're holes instead of this white foamy top.

And that means that they've already hatched and if you want to scrape them off of your house, you can do so.

But look to be sure that the, the holes are open and not covered.

So, there's at least a couple hundred new baby friends for your garden in there.

Keep an eye out for them.

(soft piano music) - Today we are here at a farm.

Believe it or not, there is livestock in there, although it's worms.

Today, we are at Vermico Farms in north Edmond and joining us is Mike Adel, who is the farmer, right?

- That's right, Farmer Adel.

- Yes.

(laughs) Mike, thank you so much for letting us come and see your process here.

- Yeah.

- Tell us a little bit about how you got started, why, why worms?

- Sure, sure.

So, you know, I was in a personal place of needing something to do.

Kind of between careers and asking myself, is it, is it time to kind of chase that dream of starting your own business and whatnot?

And after a little bit of research and looking into some things, talking to some people, we thought, you know what we keep hearing about castings and worm castings.

I personally didn't know a lot about them, but I kept hearing it.

- [casey] Yeah - [mike] And the fact that these, these same people were lamenting the fact that they weren't available nearby.

- [casey] Right, there, there's not a lot of them - [mike] They had to go out of state to, to get them.

And so, you know, for our new business, you know, that sounded like an opportunity.

- [casey] Yeah.

So tell us little bit about the actual process of getting the, the worm casting, yeah.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So it starts off with food.

- Okay - Right?

And so.... - This is the best looking food I ever seen.

- Isn't that good looking dirt?

It almost looks, you know, like castings themselves, but it's, this is black peat, and it's very, very rich in organic matter.

This gets brought in in bulk.

We pulverize it while we mix it with a little bit of grain, you can see a little bit of grain mixed in here.

And then it's ready to feed to the worms.

So, every two weeks, believe it or not, all these pails, all these buckets in this room, have to be, um, emptied and filled back up again with new food every two weeks.

So we harvest worms every two weeks.

- Okay, so this, this barn has a turnover... - A turnover, that's right, every two weeks.

- So how many worms are in each bucket?

- About 250 per bucket.

And it takes about 10 or 11 days for the worms to go through their two and a half gallons or so of food.

And then we leave them in the buckets for an extra three or four days, for them to begin, kind of getting nervous and moving around and rubbing up against other worms, and that's when the cocoon creation, you know, egg, if you will, egg creation process happens, when they do their breeding.

- Okay!

- Because we want baby, baby worms too.

- You want baby worms, so that you can increase your, your production here.

So tell us a little bit, once two weeks have gone past on these buckets, what's that process then?

- Sure.

So then every, you know, every day during those two weeks, we'll take out that day's portion of buckets and we'll wheel it out into the production area.

We're in the temperature climate controlled area right now.

- [casey] And I imagine the humidity is good for them.

- [mike] Yeah, this is good.

I mean, humidity, isn't quite as critical.

Temperature, these are European night crawlers and they're fairly temperate, if you will.

So we try to, you know, our thermostat's set on 73, which is right in the middle of, of kind of where they like it.

Anyway, it keeps it in the mid seventies, which is right where they like it.

- [casey] Okay.

- [mike] So we take them out of the temperature controlled room then.

We'll take a stack of these at a time out into the production area where we go through the harvesting process.

And harvesting is where we, ah, we'll dump out the worms onto the harvester.

So the top layer is where we catch rocks and big things and the worms, right?

And we catch those.

So that's a quarter inch screen and we regroup those worms and recatch them put them in a new bucket filled with, with new food.

And when we we've gone through that whole stack, we bring those back in here and they're ready to eat for the next 10 or 11 days.

The middle layer, there's a eighth inch screen in the middle, that is where the hatch and hatch material is... That's where the babies are in that hatch material.

So on days, and we always catch the hatch, but we don't always keep the hatch.

Right?

So on days that we keep the hatch and we're ready to grow some more babies and we do that five or six days a month.

- [mike] Yeah, cause otherwise we'd be overrun with kids.

So at any rate, we'll keep that hatch material, about 10% of which are really the cocoons.

- Uh-huh.

- Right?

And then moisten those down, split those up into buckets, you know, about half way full.

And moisten it down real good.

The babies need lots of moisture.

- [interviewer] Okay.

- [mike] They can't make their own moisture just yet.

- [interviewer] Okay.

- [mike] And we'll top that off with a couple inches of this food, and then set it aside for about a week.

And then we'll check on them, and as soon as it looks like they've eaten through that food, we'll put another two or three inches on top, and let them sit for another week or so.

- [interviewer] Okay, so you're slowly rearing them?

- [mike] Slowly rearing them and feeding them, but you gotta keep an eye on them, because we've had times when we've lost track of them, didn't feed them in time- - Okay.

- Didn't keep them moist enough, - Okay - and we lose them.

So they're a little more delicate than some other?

- Very delicate.

The older worms are pretty hardy.

(laughing) You know they, I can feed them early, I can feed them late, you know, they're okay.

The babies, you gotta pretty much stay on schedule.

- Right, right.

So then after all that filtering, Eden's best comes out, right?

- Yes!

- And that is the castings?

- Absolutely.

The castings all fall through that 1/8 inch screen, down into the conveyor where we catch it into the big super sacks.

- Mm-hmm.

- [mike] Right?

Right now, most of how we handle the castings is in those super sacks.

- [interviewer] Okay.

- [mike] And so, yeah, we'll bundle those up, and either set those aside for some of our commercial customers, or we'll pull one off the line, and then use that to fill up our four pound bags and our 30 pound bags.

We have smaller bags that are a little more retail friendly- - Right.

- and do-it-yourself friendly.

- [interviewer] So around Oklahoma City you have some retailers that are selling your 30 pound bags.

- Yes.

- But tell us a little bit about where we can find the smaller bags, cause you can mail those, right?

- [mike] Yeah, the four pound bags are available, like on Amazon.

- Okay.

- [mike] But those are also at the same retailers, but nationally available on Amazon.

- [interviewer] Right, okay.

Well tell us a little bit too, if you don't mind, about just, worm castings.

- Sure.

- What is it?

Why should we add these?

And I know sometimes there's ratios.

Tell us a little bit about what your recommendations are for the worm castings.

- [mike] Yeah, so two different things there.

One is why worm castings, right?

(laughing) Why do people, are they going crazy- - Yeah.

Yeah.

- over these things?

- Cause we can't keep them.

I mean, they, whatever we make in a month goes out in a month.

And it's been crazy.

It's been crazy fun.

I think there's, I don't know, handful of reasons why castings are so darn good.

One of them is, I think the main one is the nutrients.

- Mm-hmm.

- There's, part of what the worm process, is in the digestive process, and getting this, which is 40 percent organic matter.

- Okay.

- The worm uses up maybe 10 or 15% of that for themselves.

That other 85% goes into castings.

- Mm-hmm.

- So, a high organic matter content is what generates microorganism activity.

- Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

- And microorganisms, that's what, is the difference between, as they say, between dirt and soil.

- Right.

Yeah.

- Right?

The more soily we can make the dirt, the more organisms that are alive and going well in there, then you're getting all kinds of good benefits like soil, water retention, soil aggregation, right?

- Aggregation.

Yeah.

- That'll hold more water and less run-off.

Nitrates.

Wow.

The worms in their digestive process, high nitrate content in the castings.

And the thing about the castings is, unlike other types of soil amendments, it's real slow release.

- Yeah.

- Right?

Where a potting soil, a potting mix, might give you that good nutrient supply - Right.

- These castings will just, almost two months, just keep giving and giving.

Slow release.

- So as far as ratio, we kinda are gonna top rest or mix in a little bit?

- It depends on this, if you already have a mature and or pre-potted plant, something that's been going on the inside dressing.

But if it's new?

Absolutely.

People put a little bit of castings underneath the plant - Okay.

- and some along the sides.

There's a ratio of like one part castings, to two or three parts native soil or potting soil or whatever you're using.

- And what I have to mention, because we don't have smell-o-vision, - That's right.

- there's no smell to this.

It has actually, just kind of an earthy smell, but there's no stink to it - No, no.

- or anything like that.

- It's odor-free.

It's chemical free.

- Yes.

- Right?

- You could use it on house plants even, I would imagine?

- Absolutely.

Indoors, outdoors.

It's safe around pets and kids.

There's nothing toxic about it.

You can't use too much of it, I mean, from a standpoint of, of harming the flower - Right, right.

- or the plant.

Yeah.

It's kind of dummy-proof.

(interviewer giggles) It really is.

- Well, we like that in gardening.

- I do.

- So Mike, thank you so much for - You're so welcome.

- sharing your farm with us.

- Yes!

Glad you could make it.

(banjo 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.

(banjo music) - Next week on Oklahoma Gardening, we've got a Halloween episode that you won't want to miss, as we take a look at some raunchy plants and some spooky spiders.

(soft music) 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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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.

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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 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 Shops, Green Leaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, and Tulsa Garden Club.