(gentle music) (lively upbeat music) - Welcome to "Oklahoma Gardening."

Today we begin the process of making a beautiful leaf casting.

David Hillock has the 2023 Oklahoma proven tree and we discover a unique way to protect some tender plants.

(lively upbeat music 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 perineal.

(lively upbeat music continues) We have two different types of flowers on one plant.

(lively upbeat music continues) Capsaicinoids that gives the pepper its heat.

(lively upbeat music continues) As the gardening season comes to a close, we're always looking at ways of preserving our garden and holding onto it just a little bit longer.

You probably have seen the technique that we're gonna show today, in the fact that the finished product is a nice concrete leaf form and this is a way to hold onto your garden a little bit longer.

Today Ken Sprous is here with us today, a resident of Oklahoma City.

You're gonna show us how to do this.

- Absolutely.

- So first of all, I assume we have to pick a leaf, right?

- Definitely, gotta have the right kind of leaf.

You want to be careful with the ones that you pick 'cause you gotta have that right look.

- Right.

- And also you don't want too much damage on a leaf.

A little bit's not bad, but make sure it's not really covered in damage.

- And do you grow elephant ears just for this purpose?

- Pretty much, but I also like the leaves just because they really fill in a nice area As you can see, this is my little cubby area and we like to come out and sit and we're surrounded.

But, we definitely use elephant ears and I've got different ones.

I've got really large ones and then, of course, I've got some really small ones.

So you can kind of determine the size of the artwork you wanna create?

- Absolutely.

It just depends on what you wanna make.

- Okay and you've used other leaves as well?

- Absolutely, I've used some of my hydrangea leaves over there on the side and I've actually used lettuce leaves, eggplant leaves, all kinds of things.

So you get to pick.

- So is there anything that maybe we should stay away from as far as leaves that we have problems with?

- Yeah, any kinda leaves that have like fuzzy backs or thorny stems, things like that.

They really won't take the concrete too well.

It sticks too much and then you end up having a bunch of holes.

- All right.

- So you don't want that.

- [Casey] So let's look at a leaf and tell me which one we should pick here then.

- Well, we've got choices here.

Now you can see this one here, it has some good veining on it.

You wanna look at the back.

There's lots of nice long veins.

Plus also, if you're looking at this here, you also get some of these veins here.

- Oh, okay.

- In the leaf itself, not just the big veins.

So that would be a good one.

- [Casey] The texture of the back of the leaf.

- The texture of the back of the leaf 'cause that's what you're gonna see when you flip it over and you get the top of the leaf.

- [Casey] Okay, excellent.

- So the bottom becomes the top.

- [Casey] Gotcha, gotcha.

And how much of the stem should we take when we're harvesting these?

- That really depends on what you want to do with the leaf.

Whether you're gonna make a bird bath out of it and you need to run a hose through it, or if you're gonna make a wall hanger, you don't need a hole at all.

So you would just cut the stem off flat.

So it just really depends on what you want to use it for.

- All right, well, let's harvest one and get this started, huh?

- Absolutely.

What do you say we do a small one today?

- Okay, sounds good.

- So I've got this really nice one right here.

I'll just snip it right there and we have our leaf.

- All right and the next step is?

- The next step is we go over to our little work area and I've got something set up that we can already start.

- All right, I'll follow you.

- All righty.

- This is a nice setup you have here.

- Well, absolutely, we've got everything we need here.

Got some of the tools, sand, supplies, such as wet sand.

I'm gonna go ahead and set that down there.

We use what's called play sand and play sand is really crucial.

'cause it's not the course real multipurpose sand, you want to use play sand.

It's kinda what they would use for kids' playgrounds.

- So you can make that sand castle.

- Exactly, you can make your sand castle or a leaf mold.

- Or a leaf mold, absolutely.

- Exactly.

Also, we're gonna use the Quick Creek Vinyl Patch.

Now that's not necessarily an endorsement, but it is the best one out there.

- Right and there's a lot to choose from so it's important to choose the right one.

- Absolutely, a lot of people will pre-mix their own using three parts sand, which would be play sand, and one part concrete, Portland concrete or cement and then, of course, water and stuff.

But I like the already premixed.

- Absolutely, let's go with that.

- You don't have to deal with any of that.

- And it doesn't have the big aggregates in it or anything like that.

- Exactly, no big stones or anything like that.

Now, if you're making my stepping stones, I need a big aggregate.

We also use acrylic fortifier but what that does is it helps with the bonding in the concrete itself.

So I'm gonna pour a little bit in there, along with some water, and mix it all up to create our concrete.

Now you also get to choose whether you want color.

Now, a lot of people would like to use color.

My favorite, of course, is usually the terracotta.

I love terracotta.

It gives it a great look, but I also use a lot of buff, then you have the charcoal, as well as the brown.

- Kind of the brown, okay.

- What I like to do is mix this in with my water.

- Before I pour my water into the mix, 'cause that gives it a nice blend.

So it gets well mixed in.

- And how do you know how much concrete to put out there that you're gonna cover a leaf?

- That is just- - Trial and error?

- Trial and error, trial and error.

But I always have use for extra concrete.

So usually what I'll do is make a little heart-shaped mold or something just to- - You might go find some of the smaller leaves and do some of this.

(laughs) - There you go.

You can do that as well.

So there's always use for the extra concrete.

I think I've mixed up just enough to do this small leaf here for now.

- Okay, so are we ready to mix concrete, or what do we need to do with this leaf in the sand?

- Well first thing, let's go ahead and set up our mold, 'cause once you mix the concrete, you're on the clock.

Luckily it's not the fast setting, so we've got time on there.

But so what I like to do is make sure that I've got my full form set up the way I want it.

Now in this case, looking at this particular leaf, you can see that they've got some nice little ripples to it.

Now I wanna keep those ripples, so I've got some more of my sand here.

So what I'm doing is I'm gonna build it on the other side here.

Just grab some, I'm gonna put a little bit of sand there.

- So you wanna support those kind of folds in the leaf?

- That little fold there, And I'm gonna build up a couple extra in here just by pushing the sand up and then creating- - Can I give you some sand here?

- Little ripples.

Yep, that'll work.

So now as I put it on there, I'm gonna make my ripples in the sand, and that creates your fold.

So you can see how it's following the flow of the leaf.

- And you have the tail of it going up a little bit at the end there.

- Yes, now that is determined whether or not you want to use it as a waterfall or just as a wall hanger.

In which case, I'll show you how to do a wall hanger on this one.

So all I'm doing is I'm- - There you go.

- A little more.

Adding little folds in to it.

- Now could you use something else other than sand to support those folds, or?

- Absolutely, we can actually have little paper towels.

You get 'em wet, get it nice and round and you can actually slide that up underneath there.

This leaf is a little small for that, but on my bigger leaves, that's what I usually do.

Might wanna set that off to the side.

Now you also wanna make sure you don't have any sand on your leaf when you start your concrete, so I always make sure I get it all off, shake it off, set.

Now it won't blow away.

- That's your little weight, right?

(laughs) - That's my little weight.

- When you have extra concrete?

(laughs) - Yep, things to do when you need it.

So now I'm gonna go ahead and take my plastic, and this is dry cleaning bags.

Most people just throw 'em away.

I keep mine 'cause I want to use mine to cover up the sand.

And then I can put my leaf, and I don't have sand getting on my leaf.

So I'll put those down, and now I'm ready to do concrete.

- All right, so that keeps that, any concrete that might be on the edges from actually going in and getting the sand on there?

- Yes, exactly.

- Okay, gotcha.

- So now when mixing concrete, you wanna make sure you're protected.

Always make sure you have your little breather mask and glasses and gloves.

Make sure you have gloves.

(upbeat acoustic guitar music) I now have my concrete all nice and mixed, and the consistency you want it is about the consistency of peanut butter.

So you wanna be able to throw it around in your hand just like that.

So it makes it nice and easy, good consistency.

- Looks like Oklahoma clay right there.

(laughs) - Exactly, that's that terracotta.

So now that I got that ready- - Well this leaf is- - I'm gonna go ahead- Begging for concrete on top of it, 'cause it's blowing.

- Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead and cut off my stem.

Because I'm gonna turn this into a wall hanger as opposed to a fountain.

So I don't need the stem, so I'm just gonna get as close to it as I can on the bottom there, and just give it a nice little snip.

And then even clean up that edge there.

- So if there's some people that use this as a fountain, they would leave that stem there, which would create a hole through the concrete?

- Absolutely, it would create a hole through the concrete, and you just build up your concrete over the top of it without going over the stem.

- Right, okay, makes sense.

- So now that I got my concrete all mixed up, I'll go ahead and get me a couple little handfuls (concrete plops) and this is where we're gonna get in here, and we're gonna start working right in the middle.

So I'm gonna put my plop down and just start patting it in.

Now it's okay if something runs off a little bit, it won't affect what we're doing.

I'm just gonna keep working my way down, patting it down, and just keep working my leaf until I get it all the way covered.

Essentially, it's kinda like, I guess you might say this consistency is also kinda like playing with Play-Doh.

You remember taking Play-Doh and putting on newspapers?

- Yeah, absolutely, so now we let it dry?

- Not quite, there's still more to do to it.

I got another whole layer to put on there.

But before I do that, I need to create a wall hanger.

Now I will say this, if you want more, let's say you want to give yours a little more strength.

- There are fibers that you can put in the mix or what I've found is this is the concrete tape that you use for backer boards, for your like shower walls, your concrete boards, well you can just take some of this here, stretch it, you know, put out the tape on there and then put another layer of concrete on there and it gives it the strength that you want.

- Okay, so it's just a woven plastic.

- So it's kinda like putting in rebar.

- Right, gotcha.

- You know, so.

- Makes sense.

- But we're gonna make a concrete hanger, so first thing I need to do is take my little bar and I'm gonna take and bend it right in half.

- Okay.

- Boom, there we go.

So once I get that bent over, just slide it down in there, give it a little bit of pat and I'm gonna fill that in with more concrete.

And you can see I'm giving it the whole thing another nice big layer and that just reinforces it, gives it a little extra thickness, but except at the edges, I want the middle to be nice and heavy and work its way down.

Okay, so now all I'm doing is I'm cleaning up the back of it.

You know, not a lot of people see the back, but I do, I'm a little perfectionist, so I like to dip it in water first get it a little bit wet and then just kind of smooth out, smooth it out a little bit.

Kind of helps to blend everything together.

And, voila we have a concrete leaf.

- Excellent, okay, but we still don't have a leaf yet.

So what's the next step?

- Let me show you by the miracle of television, we actually have a leap already done.

- Okay, so how long would this normally sit here?

- I usually like to leave them sit for at least 24 hours.

Some people say three or four days, but to me I like 24 hours because my leaf is still green and I can peel it out better.

(soft upbeat music) - [Narrator] Join us next week as we finish the leaf casting process.

(soft upbeat music) (soft upbeat music continues) - Today we're highlighting the Oklahoma proven plant selections for 2023.

Our tree for 2023 is this beautiful tree, which is the Trident Maple or Acer buergerianum.

Now this species is actually native to China, Korea, and Japan, but is very tolerant and does very well here in Oklahoma.

Now this is a gorgeous tree.

It gets to about 20, 25, maybe 30 feet high.

So it's kind of a small statured tree in it normally wants to grow as a multi stemmed low branching tree, but as you can see, you can also train it into a single trunk.

And so it makes a great tree for the urban landscape.

Now this tree isn't very picky about its soils.

It's actually quite tolerant of a wide variety of soils.

And in fact, once it gets established, it's pretty drought tolerant.

It tolerates soil compaction, it tolerates air pollution, which also makes it a great specimen for a street plantings.

Now the leaves are this beautiful bright green leaf.

They're bright green above and a pale green below.

They have, as I mentioned, three lobes, with three main veins on them.

In the fall, they can turn, they can be variable in their fall color, but usually an attractive shade of red to orange or yellow.

This tree also has this beautiful flaky bark and as it matures, as the outer bark flakes off, it reveals this orange, brown inner bark below.

Now this tree does great in full sun or part shade, and as I mentioned, this is a great selection for the typical residential landscape because of its smaller stature.

So great planted around the home, but it is often or frequently been used as a bonsai as well.

(soft upbeat music) - Today we are here at the home of Nate Priest, who is the owner of Yucca Pointe Landscape Company.

And Nate, I know you guys focus on hardy succulents and a cacti, but we have Oklahoma winters sometimes and we never know when those negative temperatures are gonna come and hit us like they did a few years ago.

- That's right.

- So can you give us a little bit of any tricks if we wanna preserve and protect some of our hearty succulents?

- Absolutely, so my property here is not only kind of a little playground for my hobby that's gotten outta control, but it's also a kind of an experimental research station for testing plant cold hardiness.

- And most of the plants I try to grow, ideally, won't require any protection at all under a normal winter.

But as you alluded to, we had that terrible winter in February of 2021.

We got down to officially -17.

I think I recorded -15 here in the yard.

So we did cover quite a bit of stuff before that, because although we're like a zone seven to eight hardiness, we do get those zone four or five winters occasionally.

- Right.

- Very occasionally.

And some layers of frost cloth over plants can help 'em a lot.

And it really depends on the species of plant and what it's hardiness is.

If you know the plant can take -20, you may not wanna bother to protect it at all.

But if you know that plant's only hardy to 10 or zero, you're gonna want to protect it below those temperatures.

Here, we've got a little agave below me that's probably hardy to around five to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

And because it's a young plant, I may want to protect it a little bit on the coldest nights of the winter, at least for its first winter or two.

- Right.

- And it might be as simple as coming out and just putting a towel over it before the cold hits and maybe placing a few stones on the towel to hold it in place, you know, for the wind.

- Right.

- And Just that will make a huge difference in the protection of a plant.

And if it's a larger area, you can use frost cloth that comes in big rolls and spread it out and then weight it down.

You have to have some people to help you.

And luckily, my employees provide a lot of help for me in this landscape.

- Okay.

And now, this is a saguaro, right?

- It is.

Yeah, this is a real saguaro.

- Is this already here in Oklahoma?

- No, it's not, but it's, miraculously, they're doing very, very well.

- Okay.

- I've got 19 of these and they've been some of the toughest plants as far as disease resistant cactus.

Bugs won't try to eat them or anything.

They've done extremely well, which is kind of shocking considering how much more rainfall we get than their natural environment.

- Right.

- But they've got really great drainage and they're all planted in the cactus blend soil.

And so they've got the best conditions possible and lots of rock around 'em for some extra heat and stuff like that.

- So, how long have they been out here?

- The one I've had the longest has gone through three winters.

- Okay.

- And most of these have gone through two winters.

- Okay.

So how do you protect those in the winter time?

- So it involves Christmas lights, just simple mini LED Christmas lights, and you can wrap the plant with these from bottom to top.

- Okay.

- And then we're- - So even LED lights, they are giving off heat here?

Is that what?

- They're giving off just a little bit of heat.

- Okay.

- And amazingly, if you trap that heat with a cover, then it provides quite a bit of relief, about a 15 or so degree temperature gain over the ambient air temperature outside.

- Really?

Okay.

- Yeah.

- So just keeping 'em from being frozen.

- Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

- Awesome.

So how do we go about doing this?

- All right, if I can get untangled here.

- That's always the problem with Christmas lights.

- That's always the problem.

Yeah.

So I just start at the base and I try to wrap these, gotta be really careful with the spines, of course.

I try to wrap 'em a little extra heavy at the base, do a few wraps, just because cold air that gets underneath the cover from wind and such, could be worse at ground level.

And so I try to go extra heavy with the wraps down below and any extra heat will just rise up along the skin of the plant and provide more freeze protection.

So once I've done a few wraps near the base, I'll start to spiral up, just go round and round.

The bigger the plant, the more Christmas lights.

But it takes, surprisingly, not that many.

There's just two strands and I've had success protecting the big saguaro that's probably over three feet tall with just two strands of Christmas lights.

And through my experimentation, I tried different things.

And I thought for a while that I would need like heavy duty, higher wattage incandescent bulbs.

And all I accomplished with that was too much heat and the bulbs actually burnt holes in the skin of the cacti.

So I backed down to the regular Christmas light and it worked just fine.

So once I've got it completely wrapped, and with these little lights, it's not gonna hurt to have some extra, you can just keep going round and round until you've used them all.

I put thermometers on these, too, that are Bluetooth to my phone so I can track the temperatures and make sure they're good.

All right, so once I've finished wrapping the saguaro with the Christmas lights all the way to the top, we'll go ahead and cover it.

If you can hand me that- - Okay.

- ... cover back there, Casey.

- Yep.

Looks like a tomato cage here.

- It does.

- Or a ghost, one or the other.

- Yeah.

So I first started out using an upside down tomato cage and bending the legs in to give it a solid top and putting an upside down clear salad bowl on top of it.

- Oh, yeah?

- And that worked really well, but it was kind of a difficult setup and these saguaros are too big for that.

- Okay.

- So I couldn't find any big enough tomato cages.

So I found an even better system, which is this green woven wire that's available at most farm and home stores.

Comes in a roll, I think it's four feet, four or five feet tall.

- Okay.

- And you can actually, when you unroll it, it's already got this handy cylinder shape and then you can make it whatever diameter you want.

Cut it with tin snips and in like 10 minutes, you can build a cage that's custom sized for your plant.

And then I wrap it with frost cloth and then I've got adhesive Velcro on here to secure it, which works okay.

But you might have better luck with staples or wire if the adhesive on the Velcro is not strong enough.

I'm not sure how long that's really gonna last.

- Yeah.

- But then you can actually, you can cut the top into kind of quarters and then fold it in like a Christmas present to make its own top.

And then the same thing with the frost cloth.

And it's kind of nice when this is folded in, too, you've got a little extra insulation on the top to help hold the heat in.

- And this is just a spun woven thing.

And yeah.

- Exactly.

- Then you can buy that at garden centers and stuff like that.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

And then you can slide it over your plant.

- And take it all the way to the ground.

And I'll even scratch the gravel down an inch or two around it, especially any high spots, to get it right down in the gravel.

And then, I'll take tent stakes, and drive 'em in with them over, you know, with them hooking that wire.

And then I'll take some, oh, rocks, like bowling ball size, and kind of stage around it, putting pressure on it to help keep it from blowing over during high winds.

- Okay.

- And that system, amazingly, I keep thermometers on these to track where the plants are at.

I don't watch 'em all the time, but when I first set it up, I'll check it.

And I might just do it on like 20% of the plants, knowing that the others have the same setup.

But it'll keep this, on average, about 18 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the outside air temperature.

- Really?

- Depending on wind and other factors, but that's about the average.

So if it's, you know, if it's 20 degrees outside, this will be like 38 degrees inside the cover.

- So it's gonna keep it safe, hopefully, through those really bitter, cold winters that we have.

Do you just put this on for, you know, I'm watching the forecast, and I see a storm coming, and I go do this?

Or would this be something that we could potentially do on our tender ones that we know are tender and leave it through most of the winter?

- That's a great question.

I have left it on with no problems on these saguaros.

I'm thinking about not doing that now or maybe just leaving the cages on, and covering them when I need to.

Just 'cause it's only every once in a while, since they can take down to 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

Or maybe doing it sporadically if it's necessary for a fall cold front, but leaving it on from the beginning of December through mid to late February.

Leaving 'em on full time.

That's really up to the individual person.

- Well, Nate, it sounds like we need to go ahead and get our Christmas decorations out to help protect some of our tender plants.

Thanks for sharing this little tip with us.

- Yeah, you bet, thank you.

(stately music) (stately music continues) - [Casey] There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(stately music) (stately music continues) Next week we'll be finishing the leaf casting process and transitioning from spiders to poinsettias, right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

(stately music) - And I just forgot where I was going from there.

(laughs) - Hey, it sounds like we need to get, our kids, can't even say Christmas, right?

(stately 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.

(stately music) Join in on Facebook and Instagram.

(stately music) 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.

(stately music)