- Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today I'll show you our backyard cut flower garden.

We head to the OSU Student Farm to see their new post harvest facility.

David Hillock introduces this year's Oklahoma proven shrub.

Then we head down to Shawnee to learn more about clover lawns.

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

Oklahoma Gardening is also a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Shape your future provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

Oklahoma Gardening 50th anniversary.

I love sharing with you guys the cool things that plants can do.

- People in Oklahoma love their gardens.

- I feel like this is the People's show.

We all know we're working towards the common goal and that's to produce the best quality television and information for our audience.

We're here in our backyard garden where we've started a cut flower garden.

Now this cut flower garden, we established it with transplants and so to protect those transplants from a little rabbits that you might also have in your garden.

We've used hardware cloth because we do have a fair amount of rabbits out here.

Now you can see our transplants have taken off and they're doing quite well in the garden.

We've got a good mix.

So I thought I would share with you what we're growing here in our cut flower garden.

To start us off, we have a lot of snapdragons here.

Now, snapdragons are a cool season annual and the nice thing while the rabbits might kind of go after 'em, so we've protected them.

They are pretty deer tolerant.

So if you have a deer problem, you might look at snapdragons.

Now to start us off, we have an All America selection cultivar here and it's called double shot yellow red heart.

So it's a little bit shorter.

You can see this one and another one.

That's all American selection.

We grew these in our garden last year and they actually did well even considering them being cool seeds and annuals.

They continue to bloom throughout the season.

So this one next to us is early sunrise mix.

You can see it gets a little bit taller and it kind of has different shades of those kind of sunrise colors.

Now one of the things, I'm gonna go ahead and harvest some of these.

So the nice thing about a lot of cut flowers is they actually do better if you continue to kind of cut some of those flowers because that initiates more flowering.

So when you're cutting a flower, what you wanna do is cut it back to a branching stem so that it will continue to then branch and put off more flowers.

Now you can see this particular one, it's kind of blooming quite a bit, but it still has a lot of flower power left in it.

So that's the nice thing about this.

I'm gonna strip some of these lower leaves off here and then put that in my vase just like that.

We've got another one I'm gonna harvest here so you can see we've got plenty that will continue to come on, which is nice.

We also have next to us one that we probably should have staked up a little bit and this is called Maryland Flamingo.

So it's a little bit smaller.

And you'll notice if you look at this because it was leaning over, the flower is crooked.

So snapdragons are what they call tropic so they know which way the ground is and which way up is.

So it was laying on the ground like this and then the flower tried to grow north.

And so when you put this in your cut flower arrangements, if you've ever received snapdragons that are a little crooked, that's because they were probably shipped laying down and then the flowers kind of moved upward.

So that's kind of a unique thing about the snapdragons in particular.

Now behind us here, we have a couple of more that are still yet to come on, but this is the double shot orange bicolor.

So again, a little bit smaller but an all America selection.

So it's gonna be a nice mixed add in here as well.

Now if you notice I mentioned that both of these all America selections are called double shot and that's because the flower is actually a double flower.

You can see how it's got these extra petals here in the center as opposed to your traditional snapdragons that just have this single upper and lower lip of the flower.

So one of the plants we have in our corner here is a little bit taller and this is the double click mix cosmos.

So what's unique about this cosmos is that it's semi double flowering.

So if you look at the white one here, you can see how it's got a lot of petals to it, but this kind of lavender, pinkish purple flower, it's not quite as double as the white one.

And then of course it is a mix.

So we've got the white, the pink, and then we have a burgundy color down here that actually has more of a single flower style to it than the white for sure.

The other thing that's nice about the cosmos is it gives you kind of this feny texture.

So when you're making a cut flower arrangement, you're always thinking about what's that filler gonna be in your container.

And so having this fern, when you're cutting some of these, I'm gonna cut some of these, you're gonna get a little of that feny stuff to also incorporate into your flower arrangement.

Now next to us here we have some different Gomphrenas.

So the Gomphrenas are nice and not only for cut flowers that you can use in fresh, fresh flower arrangements, but also for dried flowers 'cause they're almost like a straw flower.

So this first one we have is atomic purple.

You can see it's kind of got like a white center to it that fades to an ombre kind of dark purple.

Then we have the Glab bosa mix, which has this like real sharp purple and then a light pink with it also.

And I think there is a white that's also in that mix as well.

And then we have strawberry fields.

It's gonna give us this kind of reddish, little bit of orange at the top of that.

And it's also a little bit taller in the mix as well.

Now what kind of cut flower garden would we have if we didn't include zinnias also?

So we have some of these classic zinnias, but the nice thing, you know, a lot of times people were a little bit leery to put zinnias because of powdery mildew, but a lot of the cultivars are more resistant to that.

And so this first one we have here is called Oklahoma Mix, which is just a little bit smaller flower, but it's gonna be a nice mix of all your colors to incorporate.

The nice thing about these, again, like the zinnias and some of the others, is you're gonna cut these back to a branch so that then they will continue to bloom more for you.

So they're just now coming on.

We also have some dill.

So again, adding that filler into your garden is important so that you can have that into your container.

Dill is fragrant, so when you're gonna bring it in, some people maybe don't like the smell of dill, so you could use something like bronze fennel.

Also, it's gonna give you a little bit of a purple color or just regular fennel as well.

Here we have Benary's mix.

And so Benary's mix is again sort of the same colors that you get in Oklahoma mix, but they're much larger flowers.

And then finally we have another mix that really has our strong OSU orange color and this is called orange cactus.

And just look at these flowers, they're massive.

So you're gonna get maybe a few flowers on the plant, but again, it will continue to bloom.

You can see if you cut this one, you've got several buds that are coming on behind that.

So these are real showstoppers to add into the garden.

So we're really excited about our cut flower garden.

And if it's something that you've never tried, I would encourage you to do it.

It's a lot of the same plans that we would normally use, but it's sort of concentrated so that you know where you can go harvest those.

And the good thing about a cut flower garden is on a rainy day like this, when you're worried about them kind of falling over in the rain, you can harvest some of them and then bring them into your house.

And that's only encouraging more flowers later in your garden.

- We are at the OSU student farm where we're growing acres of vegetables and that really necessitated the need for us to have a post harvest processing facility.

So I'm here with Parker to tell us a little bit about it.

Parker, we have this facility really have four main purposes.

What are they?

- You bet.

So kind of the four main purposes of this facility, the four, the four big needs that we have filled through this.

We need a tractor parking, we need kind of a garage workshop tool storage area.

We needed a place for cold storage of produce, get 'em, you know, get 'em in out of the heat and and cool down.

And then we needed a wash area to wash the produce.

- All those things are important for a working farm, - Right?

Yes sir.

Yes sir.

- First talk about the cooler, you know, how did, how did we get coolers in these buildings?

Were they bought this way or did you have to install 'em?

How did you get those?

- So we got the coolers as kits, kits from CoolBot and they came in on pallets in pieces and they kind of fit together like a giant Lego set.

So we got 'em in, we marked out the area on the floor for 'em and, and started by gluing down the foundation and putting the walls up and the roof on and, and then some more professionals you could say, came in and put in the AC units for us.

- Okay, so these are special cooling areas, pretty large.

You can walk in there, right?

- Yes sir.

Yes sir.

- You have two of them.

Why?

Why two?

- Well, some produce needs a different temperature than others.

So for instance, tomatoes, you know, you don't want 'em to be as hot as they are in the field.

You want 'em cool down to around, you know, 50 degrees or so.

But if you go cooler than that, they start to get damaged greens on the other hand, and you know, other, other crops, they could go cooler, they could go closer to freezing, you know, a little warmer than freezing, but, - So you can control it two different temperatures because you have two different coolers, - Right?

Yes sir.

- And it looks like they just have window units or something in there.

Yeah.

So can I just go anywhere and buy a window unit or are these special or - These are, these are special.

So yes, they are window units, but CoolBot makes a system that kind of, you could say hacks the programming in these window units that allows 'em to go cooler than they normally would.

So there's programming and hardware that goes into this that - Changed.

So they are some heavy duty units and they can handle the cooling then?

- Yes sir.

They're much more heavy duty.

Yeah.

- Now what if, what if say they quit working or the power goes out, how would I know?

- Well these have wifi enabled receivers or transmitters and so you can hook it up to your phone and you can monitor all the time whether they're working right or not.

You can set the temperature.

So - That's, that's pretty handy then.

Very handy.

Pretty important too, - Right?

Yes sir.

Yep.

- Okay.

What about the washing station part of this?

Sure.

How does that work?

- Yeah, so we've got a greens bubbler over here for washing our greens, but then for other farmer produce a little bit tougher produce, we've also got what we call the the vegetable car wash. - Alright, I like that.

- Yes sir.

Got a conveyor system that feeds the produce into these misters misters, kind of rinse it off and you got brush rollers that brush the dirt off.

And then there's also one large brush in there that kind of really gets it clean and, and then once it goes through the actual, you know, wash part of this washer spits it out onto a round table that spins slowly and that just allows people to stand around the perimeter of this table and sort produce, - Get it sorted in - Packs sorted.

Yes sir.

- So really that's, you can take it from the field to market ready right here at this facility.

- Yes sir.

That's right.

- That's pretty neat and pretty important.

- Yep.

- What else would you say about this?

Do you think it's large enough for a acreage and a small farm like this?

- Plenty large.

Yep.

I think, you know, this is kind of top of the line for a small farm, but we can wash and you know, sort quite a bit of produce in a day with this equipment.

It's very handy.

- Thanks Parker.

I really like this.

You can take it from the field to the market, all with this facility right here, - Right?

You bet.

Thank you.

You bet.

- I also wanna introduce a new member of our consumer horticulture crew here at OSU and that's David Hilla.

- Our 2025 Oklahoma proven shrub is Cali Canthus.

This is a genus of a handful of species, probably the most popular one being Cali Can Floridas, which is a southeastern native, but it's very popular in the, in the industry, in the landscape though there are a couple other species and a lot of hybrids that have been developed from those species over the years.

So in general, the Cali Canthus, also known as Carolina allspice or common sweet shrub is noted for its fragrant flowers.

The species will generally have kind of a brownish to reddish flower that's about one and a half to two inches wide.

And it blooms in the spring on new wood, but it will bloom sporadically throughout the summer on older wood as well.

This one is, you can see has a much larger flower.

It's about twice the size, about four inches wide.

This one's called Aphrodite.

And so it's a very, it's probably one of the better forms that are available out there.

Rates very high in its performance.

You can see it can be a nice dense shrub.

It will tolerate full sun or shade, even D dense shade, but it's gonna be fuller, thicker in full sun.

Now this shrub can also sucker and sometimes form form colonies.

So if you don't want that, you can just clip out those suckers as they appear.

But if you know wanting something to grow in, in kind of a naturalized area in your landscape, this would be a great selection.

There are other cultivars, like I mentioned, there's a western species out of California, that one is called Cali Canthus oxygen Tallis.

And then they have a Chinese form Occidental chiantis.

And they use those to do the hybridization to create larger showier flowers, but also keep the nice fragrance of the flowers as well.

Some of the other cultivars include Athens, which has yellow flowers and Venus, which has ivory colored buds that open up to almost a pure white.

And then there's some purple leaf forms too called like peria.

So all of these are available and they make wonderful landscape plants.

Now this shrub is typically found growing along river banks in good soils, but it also tolerates clay quite well.

It's a, you know, pretty tough tolerates wide range of phs.

So it should be a plant that would, that you can grow throughout most of Oklahoma.

Now this shrub can reach six to 12 foot in height in some cases, but there are some slightly smaller versions of it available.

But again, if you're looking for an awesome shrub, puts on a really nice display in the springtime with these beautiful colorful and fragrant flowers.

They refer to the fragrance of these as having a pineapple, banana, strawberry aroma, which is really nice.

And the, the foliage and the stems also produce a nice sweet smell if you crush them.

But anyway, this is a great shrub for your landscape and if you're looking for something that's gonna provide some nice color in the spring and just be a nice overall well-behaved pest free shrub, this would be a good one for you.

- Today we're down here in Potawatomi County in Shawnee, and joining me is Carla Smith, who is the horticulture educator here for OSU County extension.

And Carla, you guys have a unique demonstration plot that we're actually standing in the middle of here.

Tell us a little bit about this white clover plot and why you started this.

- Yes, this is Dutch white clover and we began this project just kind of by, from conversations that we were having with a lot of different clients and at conferences and meetings where it's like, what else can we use for our lawn space besides Bermuda grass or, or turf grasses.

And so there were a lot of questions and then as those conversations were happening coming home and looking at our property here and really how do we make a different recommendation if we haven't tested it out, right?

So we looked at this area of lawn that was really below average.

It had some Bermuda, quite a few weeds, and it just wasn't thriving as it was already.

- And it's kind of a small little parcel, like you're kind of crammed in here between a few things.

- Yes, this is about a thousand square feet.

So when you think about a homeowner's location, a size that maybe they could consider or just, you know, large enough to test, but not the entire area.

- Right?

Right.

- And then we have a butterfly garden that our master gardeners manage.

And so we needed a buffer zone between the garden and our lawn space.

And this actually has served really well for that.

- Okay.

So yeah, I mean, yeah, this is not necessarily a substitution.

We still might need that turf area to play and have recreation or whatever.

And you guys have that out front here.

Yes.

But sometimes there can be drift if you're using chemicals or things like that.

Right.

And of course we wanna protect our butterfly garden.

So - Yes, we had the 10th anniversary of the garden last year and so there has been quite a lot of investment with that.

And we try to think also about, you know, a lawn alternative, but like how can it be beneficial?

And so the flowers and the extra nectar for our butterflies.

So it really compliments our butterfly garden.

And yet it's also a way to kind of test out a, a new conversation that that's happening in a lot of circles.

- Okay.

So let's talk about kind of the timeline.

This is, you're going into the third summer with this, right?

Tell us a little bit about how you established it and when.

- So this was planted in May, early May of 2023.

Okay.

So we were looking at a pre-plant application of an herbicide in order to get rid of what Bermuda was here or at least, so knock it back a little bit.

And so 10 days later we came in and did the seeding application.

This soil is actually a fairly heavy soil texture, and so it was also aerated at that time.

Okay.

And so it was actually a light rain the day that it was planted.

And within five days we had a cool season.

Normally I wouldn't recommend planting clover in May, but the timing of our weather, we just had that window of opportunity where it really worked well.

And within three weeks this was completely green with the newly established.

And that's from seed?

From seed.

- Okay.

Okay.

Yes.

So yeah, maybe a little late because this is a cool season crop.

So let's talk about that.

'cause obviously Bermuda's warm season, so we're, we're looking at a different season for this material also.

- Yes.

So we were able to get it established and begin to see how it was gonna perform heading into the summer months.

But we also had a lot of rain that year.

- Okay.

- So in a normal year, I think we would've hit more challenges, but because of the nature of this location, actually the building shades part of this space over around, you know, midday to late afternoon.

So the areas that got full sun further this direction we're a little bit more of a challenge.

We could tell that it stressed a little bit more as the temperatures rose in in July.

And, but we did have enough rainfall.

We actually didn't supplemental water a whole lot the first year.

This was probably only watered three times.

- Okay.

- So it stayed really nice the first summer.

The second summer we had a let less rainfall.

So we have had some periods of time where it hasn't been real attractive.

But that's also kind of why it's on the backside of the building.

It's not that front lawn front entry look that you might might want.

- And of course we're kind of right here at the end of the, the peak season with the flowers and everything.

And while it's not native Right.

Or, you know, and that can, there's a big definition to that, but it is native to Europe.

It is a good pollinator plant because of these flowers.

- Yes.

It's a great pollinator.

We have a lot of bees.

St. Gregory's, Abby has a lot of beehives.

They have a honey production and so a lot of times we'll see, we're assuming some of their bees here.

We have bumblebees and butterflies.

We also see birds in this area at times.

And it is just been a wonderful addition to the butterfly garden to supplement nectar at a time when our butterfly garden is still sleeping.

- Yeah.

- So it, it's been a big benefit.

We do let it just go to seed and the, the flowers that are beginning to brown, we'll go ahead and, and shatter and, and go to seed and we just let them, and then we usually will get a secondary bloom for quite some time in the fall as well.

- Okay.

And I know maybe people aren't gonna convert a whole area to clover, but to be aware of it because we have some in our backyard garden concept where we just let it grow and it's kind of like, let it do its thing for a while and you know, if it's in a Bermuda grass, kind of mow around it and offer it to the bees that way too.

So can you share a little bit about what some of your constituents here have said and responded to your demonstration?

- This has been rather interesting when we start talking about some of our conservation ideas and, and some people really like the high maintenance lawn look.

And so, but for many of us, you know, that may, the, the thought of a patch of clover may take us back to our childhood when we were playing in the yard.

I know in my yard at home, my dog loves the clover area because she just goes and lays down and it's cool and right.

I mean, even as children, a lot of us would, you know, play in the clover in our yards.

A lot of our cattlemen plant clovers in their pasture for the livestock, you know, for winter forage.

And so it's been a interesting feedback that we get depending on their, and so we do have a few that don't like it not being a very manicured mode look.

So we do have some that when they see clover, they think that it should be taken out of the lawn.

And so there are different perspectives, but, and when you look at a neighborhood or a home situation, that homeowner gets to make those choices.

- Right.

- Right.

And so this is just kind of an example of what it may look like.

And we have been very, very open with the good of the bad and the ugly of, of what this is sometimes because it's not a hundred percent pretty all the time.

And even today we have a little bit of grass in it and that will be addressed over the next few weeks.

But it does, it's not a no maintenance.

It, it is does require some hand weeding.

The first summer we had amaranth and chamomile and nutsedge and, and a lot of things that we would just need to hand pull.

So it does still require maintenance to get some of those things out of the space because you're, we're not spraying this.

Or you can have - More bio biodiversity if you left that there too.

So - Yes.

Yes.

We have a few of our things from the butterfly garden that have migrated last summer we had some zinnias and sunflowers that were germinating that had blew over into the space and we just let an area of zinnias bloom.

Right.

So it it's kind of, it, it, it is serving our purpose to test it out.

Right.

And let people see a real look of what that may look like.

- Well, Carla, thank you for sharing this great demonstration and giving us another alternative to Bermuda Grass.

Thank you for coming.

There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

Join us again next week for another new episode of Oklahoma Gardening.

I think that they are established and we're doing well here.

I don't like what I'm saying.

- I got it.

So you don't, I would - 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.

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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.

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We would like to thank our generous underwriters, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry, and Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

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.