- Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

First we showcase our 50th anniversary garden.

Then former host Steve Owens returns to share his garden with us.

Then we visit Markham's Nursery, where they're celebrating a golden anniversary also this year.

And finally, we stopped by Martin Nature Center where they got started alongside us in 1975.

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.

You guys know it's our 50th anniversary of Oklahoma gardening and we've been celebrating that all season long during 2025.

Part of that celebration is we wanted to have a 50th anniversary garden.

Joining me today is Connor Schmitz, who was very instrumental in bringing this to life here.

So Connor, thank you so much.

Let's talk a little bit about this garden.

- Yeah, so this garden was a real team effort.

So you know, the people at at Oklahoma gardening, you guys, you guys helped, you know, with the vision and with the trellis that that golden Jasmine Vine is growing on.

And then we built this raised bed here for these OKG letters to go on.

And then Steve Owens was the one who's, you know, gave us the plant combinations for these beds on the side.

So yeah, it was kind of a, a lot of different people that all are integral to, you know, Oklahoma gardening coming together to make this garden happen.

- So you had a little bit of an engineering mind and I know that it's a little more involved than just sticking 'em in the ground.

How did you do this slope and make it to scale with the 50?

- Yes.

Yeah, so the Botanic Garden director, Lou and I, he, he helped me build this.

But we kind of started with establishing a focal point where people would probably take pictures of it from, - Because we want this to be like a selfie - Area, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so we knew that, you know, you had wanted it to be raised in the back so that you could walk behind it, but we wanted the OKG letters to be legible.

So yeah, there was a lot of sketching and measuring and you know, trying and retrying that went into it to make sure that you could read the OKG and also still see the 50 behind you and, you know, stand in front of this slope here.

And so, yeah, we were able to, you know, make the curve and make the slope and you know, let it all come together.

And - The Golden Jasmine was one that Steve Owens recommended.

- Yes.

Yeah.

- But the Joseph's coat is a really great one if you're ever wanting to kind of create letters.

- Yes.

Yeah, for sure.

Absolutely.

It's really easy to trim and hedge and kind of as it puts off, it's this golden threads puts off new growth.

It's a little lime green, but then it does kind of mature to more of like a golden, as the, the older leaves will kind of thin.

And so, and then if you shear it, it's really not a lot of time, as long as there's, you know, you're watering it, fertilizing it, nice sunshine, it will put off new growth just in a couple of days.

Okay.

So you really have very minimal downtime in, you know, shaping these letters so that even whenever we make a mistake and we cut the OA little wrong on one side, which we have done, you know, as over the season, you know it will, it'll grow back pretty evenly.

- Okay.

And, and when we're talking about designing with color, you don't wanna go all in with color 'cause you need some contrast to it, right?

- Yes, absolutely.

So that's - Sort of what we've done on the sides here is flank it with some maroons and burgundy colors.

- Yeah, so there's some like cool tones, but also some, like the Alabama Sunset Colus does pull in some of the golden tones and offset them with a contrast of red.

The biggest contrast is obviously the, the red begonias that are there that are a staple classic.

And, you know, landscaping, the, the Purple Heart has done really well.

It's just like a really great plant for filling in all of the gaps that come in.

And then we have purple fountain grass in the middle of each of those beds that kind of flank the OKG.

And it's just some nice drama.

- It gives you that thriller, - Right?

Yeah, - Exactly.

On the side - We're always looking for the thriller.

Yeah.

- And Connor, you didn't just design here, you went all in with the color gold and I would really encourage people to come visit.

And you've got an event coming up.

Tell us a little bit about that.

- Yeah, so our Garden Fest is coming up at the end of September, last Saturday in September, Saturday the 27th.

We'll have our mums and pumpkins for sale.

So people can come and buy some mums and pumpkins, shop all of the vendors that we have and come see the gardens.

They'll kind of be in their peak around then.

- Absolutely.

And take a selfie here and tag us on it if you do.

I think we should go take a - Selfie.

I think.

So let's - Do it.

- Today on the show, I'd just like to show you some of the things I've got going on here at my home garden.

So these are the beds we just looked at 21 years ago.

A lot's changed since then.

And at that time I was highlighting a lot of the pensman that we had planted in this area over here.

Well, pensman don't live that long, even in the wild, maybe three to five years.

So those are all gone.

I've got a few planted in my rock garden, we'll take a look at that in a little bit.

But a couple of the other plants that we highlighted, the golden false indigo is still alive over here.

It's a little bit dormant right now, turning a little bit brown because that's the way some of our natives survive.

Drought.

They will go dormant or partially dormant and that's what's going on with that plant.

Another plant I highlighted was this lead plant and I talked about how it was the first one I've ever grown from seed.

It's still hanging in there.

It blooms great in the late spring, and since then I've grown thousands from seed, but that was the very first one.

So that's kind of a special plant for me.

The snow on the mountain, this annual has been growing in the bed for several years, and this is of course a plant in the euphoria family related to poinsettias and some of those plants.

But you can see how it gets its name snow on the mountain.

Imagine a deep falling of snow packed on the top of a green peak there.

And you can see how I get this name snow on the mountain.

Well, back behind me here, 21 years ago, there was this old cedar archway and it was the entrance to my garden.

You can see we've taken it down.

We've added the armadillo fence and we've done a little bit of work since then.

And I'd like to show you some of the garden now.

Well, I have been on the show a few times since I left back in 2007.

And back in 2021 I was highlighting this garden.

We had some waddle fences.

We were talking about how to build those and I mentioned that they don't last that long.

So after about four seasons, we took out the waddles and then we did a a vine garden.

So we've got these structures with different vines.

We've also got lots of plantings at the base here.

A lot of people like this ginger.

It's sometimes called Siam tulip.

That is a tender plant.

We'll dig that up, pot it up, take it in the greenhouse for the winter.

I like a lot of containers.

So if you're in our garden, you're gonna see tons of containers grouped together, like right here in the center.

We also line them up along the pathway in this part of the garden.

Well, as you can see, we also do a lot of raised beds.

These beds are of course raised with old railroad ties.

And in this particular spot, because we, we like to change things out every year, we've got sort of this color transitioning theme up here in the front.

We've got lavender colored plants, then it transitions to white, pale, yellow, darker yellow, orange, all the way to red down at the very end.

But we've got flowering plants, we've got foliage plants and foliage plants are something that I really like.

Every year we'll take one part of our garden and I'll create a foliage display.

That's where we highlight the leaves of the plants and we do a design without any flowers.

And that's what we've got going on here with the different sweet potatoes.

We've got coleus, we've got just some other green and somewhat silver plant.

So the theme is kinda red, black, and green.

One of my favorite gardens that I've constructed during the last 21 years is our rock garden.

And I'd really like to show that to you.

The rock garden we constructed about 11 years ago here on the property.

And we were so fortunate that all of this rock was on another part of our property.

And all I had to do was rent equipment and bring it in and construct the rock garden.

We were so fortunate that last year we actually got featured in the Journal of the North American Rock Garden Society.

And it was really exciting for us because people all over the world wanted to see how we created a prairie rock garden.

But this has gotta be one of my favorite gardens.

We planted a lot of plants here.

We also planted things that have seeded out.

So you see these little Dakota gold Helens, the little xenias, even some of the periwinkles, these things will reseed every year.

And all I've gotta do is just thin them out.

I call it designed by elimination, but absolutely love the rock garden.

Well, in the video from 21 years ago, there were three beds behind me.

They were constructed out of native sandstone as the material to create the raised beds.

And you can see those are obviously still here and planted a little thicker now than they were 21 years ago.

And like creating new displays in those each year, we have about a thousand plants that we offer here at the nursery.

There are about maybe 100 or so that are exclusive to Bustani plant farm.

And some of those are our false ves or stack of tar for those.

I've got a collection of them planted in one bed over here, and they're not winter hardy plants, but they are tremendous for attracting butterflies and hummingbirds.

Well, thank you so much for coming back to take a look at the garden.

I've got a few more beds I wanna build in the future.

And hey, maybe in 21 years we can do another update of the garden.

- We are down here in Goldsby, Oklahoma at Markham's Nursery, and we are here to celebrate not only our 50th, but you guys are celebrating 50th as well, right?

- Yes ma'am.

Thanks for letting us join in.

Hey, - Absolutely.

Thanks and congratulations on your 50th as - Well.

Well, thank you very much.

- It's been a long road, right?

For this 50 years work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit about how y'all got started in 1975.

- Well, just family farm and looking for another way to make some income.

- Yeah.

- And started planting, you know, tomatoes and doing things like that and experimenting with greenhouses and growing hydroponic tomatoes and paddling them.

And then went to growing hanging baskets and I mean, you know, and moved here in 82.

- Okay.

- And once we got moved here and people would, you know, that's where they, that's what got us here.

I mean, we started in 82.

- Let's talk a little bit, I mean, obviously you've got more than just tomatoes and hanging baskets here.

Yeah.

You, you've expanded quite significantly.

What all do you offer to people?

- Well, what we try to offer here is anything that, that pertains to whether or not it's landscape gardening or vegetable gardening or anything like that.

And all of the supplies and the stuff that they need to be successful in it.

I mean, we believe in providing our customers with products that, that where they know that they've given it their best effort and giving 'em their best chance for success at, at what they've set out to do and - Right.

- And we, we, you know, that's what we want be able to provide to 'em all the time.

You know, that keeps you, you know, having a, a consistent turn of product - And, and quality, quality, - All that kind of - Thing.

And quality, because literally your name and reputation is on it.

Right?

- Yeah.

You can't, you, there's just no, all those sources are highly vetted and - Yeah.

- And, you know, and they've been partners of ours.

I mean, for, you know, 25, 30, 40 years.

I so absolutely.

You know.

Yeah.

- So, as somebody who, obviously plants are a passion here right.

But you've kind of gone towards composting.

I I also have a fondness for soil.

Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about - That.

Well, I mean, I just a firm belief that back taking back to the firmer days, you know, that having the right kind of seed bed and having the right kind of preparation of the soil and everything before you go and plant a crop once again to give it, its its best chance of success.

Right.

And so, you know, we believe in, in making sure that we, our soils are correct and proper and ready to go plant in for that purpose.

And so led us into getting into the compost business in a roundabout way, but we're in it now and, and we really do enjoy the, what we've learned from it.

Right.

Really as much as anything because it's really a fascinating type of a science and stuff.

But what it does is for our soils and how it regenerates them naturally and everything is really an impressive and impressive thing to see.

It's, you know, it's how nature takes care of itself in a, in a major way.

And it's been, it's fun to be a part of that.

- Absolutely.

Well, we were here and it's kind of quiet 'cause we're picked the hottest day, right.

I think to come to a plant nursery.

But as we kind of come out of summertime, what can people start thinking about doing in their landscape?

- Well, I mean, that's one thing we're a full-time nursery tour tour.

Right.

We're out here in the summertime right now.

Right.

But I mean, yeah, I mean, right now though is, is the best time to start planning what your project's gonna be.

I would say to make sure that you don't plan over, plan what you can take care of, you know, right away.

But get those projects planned out and everything, and then be ready to spring on it when it starts to really cool off here in the, in the next couple of weeks, we're almost there.

- Right.

- And, and then it becomes a really adv advantageous time to, to plant plants of, of all different varieties.

Now people say on, on trees and everything too, but we'd like to say to plant those with a little bit more when they're dormant and everything, but to get prepared for, for that, but to do flower beds and everything in September and October.

- Yeah.

- Or to grow a fall crop of broccoli or something like that.

I mean, you know, it's a, it's a great time of year to do that.

- A lot of your p perennials are good to get established in that fall - Time.

Yeah.

And regenerating a lot of times.

And you know, you know how begonia looks during the summertime here and, but, but you, at the end of October, you're, you can't pull it up.

Right.

You know, so it's one of those kinds of times and stuff.

- Right.

And of course, annuals, right.

You're probably gonna have all the Oh yeah.

The fall foliage plants to put out your, your different moms and things like that as well, I imagine.

- Yeah.

And cons and constantly expanding our, our growth, our, our production of, of those types of things where we've got good control over 'em here and, and know how to grow 'em.

And, and so we're constantly expanding out into that too, and providing other stores with material.

And so always something going on, you know.

- Excellent.

Well, there, there's something to be said for buying local, right.

And that doesn't mean just produce, but it also means your ve or your plant material as well, because it's used to this Oklahoma climate already.

- Well, and that's one of the things that we really do believe in too, is that not not trying to, to force a round peg into a square hole, you know, with, with plant material out there in the landscape.

Especially where, you know, there there's certain things that do well here and there's just certain things that won't do well here at all.

And so we try to steer our customers in a way to where, you know, hardiness means something and, and lots of new cultivars out there and lots of different plants to experiment with these days.

I mean, they're all over the place.

- Yeah.

- So, makes it interesting to see different colors and shapes and of, of those kind of things.

And new plants too.

But yeah, a lot of things going on in the nursery business right now.

I mean, a lot of, a lot of breeders are real busy, you know, working in the plant improvement business, I'll call it.

But we'll see if it is in the, in the - Long run or not.

It is an exciting time to try some of those new plants.

Right.

Thank you so much, Monty, for sharing this with us today.

- Well, you're welcome.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Alright.

- Today we're here at Martin Park Nature Center just north of Oklahoma City near the turnpike.

Surprisingly you wouldn't think it joining me is Neil Garrison, who has a long history here at Martin Park.

Neil, thank you so much for being here with us.

I mean, what a beautiful office.

Yeah, right.

- It is a nice place.

- So tell us a little bit about your history with this place.

- Well, I worked here for 30 years.

I retired in 09 and it's, well, the main reason for working here for 30 years, it's a wonderful place.

I really enjoyed what I was doing here.

And then after I retired I said, what am I gonna do with my life?

Well, I still come out as a volunteer here and do the things that I love, leading nature hikes and stuff like that.

- So, and you were a naturalist Yes.

Was your role here, right?

- Yes.

- And what, one of the reasons why we're down here is Oklahoma gardening, celebrating our 50th anniversary.

And I know you guys are too.

Yes.

Can you tell us a little bit about the history of this park?

- So it's been park land for 50 years and prior to that it was privately owned property and that used to be an active cattle ranch back at that day, it was in the sixties is when they had an opportunity to go to the voters and says, here's the idea.

We're thinking about there's, there's a parcel of land here.

And if the voters say yes, then through a bond issue we'll provide some funds to actually buy this, keep it as a green space, and then we'll do have it in the park system and we'll deal with that from there.

So from 1962, the voters said, yes, they bought the land, it was a green space.

And then the question came up, well what are we gonna actually do with it?

Are we gonna put some swing sets and slides and stuff in here like this?

And in 19 74, 75 is when they actually decided, well, it has so many natural features, how about if we actually have a nature center here?

So that's how this all got started is it's, it's a natural ecosystem with hiking trails that go through the area.

There's an interpretive facility that's here in the park itself.

So it's a place for people to come out, enjoy the outer doors, and then also learn more about the outer doors too.

And the, and the real nice feature about the park is that it is in Oklahoma City.

- Yeah.

Managed by Oklahoma City.

- Yes.

- The city of Oklahoma City.

Correct, yes.

Yeah.

- This is Martin Park is a neat attribute in that if you've got a couple of hours to spare and you don't want to drive halfway across the state, come to Martin Park and enjoy the natural system.

- Absolutely.

We're right off the turnpike.

I mean, you wouldn't even know it.

And as you get deeper into it, you lose all that city traffic noise.

- Yeah.

- What are some of the wildlife that people can see here?

Obviously birds.

We've got one that's kind of flying around us here.

- Yeah, there's kind of an unusual situation right here.

For the most part, the birds are kind of standoffish and they're not gonna get close to people.

But this one little individual bird that we have this morning for some reason, well there we go on cue.

He, he has this fascination with people that for some reason he's acclimated to people the most remote corners of the park.

Way in the back is managed as a nature sanctuary where there are no established trails.

And the main reason for doing that is to have a hands-off area.

Is that there are those species of animals that are not like this little bird here, that they, they would not do well with excessive human disturbance.

And so what we do is provide a home for them, a sanctuary for them where they can go, they can still live in the park, but they don't have to be shoulder to shoulder with people.

- And also not just animals, but you have beautiful plants.

Right.

As a, as a horticulturist.

I'm coming to look at the plants too, and I mean, this is a massive burque we have behind us.

Let's talk about some of those key features that you'll find in the park - Also.

Okay, so the flora standpoint, the native plants, the wild plants and stuff like that, that's kind of the forte of Martin Park in that there's those species that are Oklahoma species, those species that are central Oklahoma species that are cast iron plants, they don't need any kind of pampering.

They've always lived here.

And if there's a drought, they can weather a drought.

If there's a excess moisture coming outta the air, they can deal with that.

If it's hot, it's cold and all that kind of stuff.

They don't need people to come out with a garden hose, a bucket of fertilizer or something like that.

They, you pretty well just stand back and they just take care of themselves.

But the other thing that goes hand in hand with that is we have a lot of native flora that's out here, but the native wildlife that lives out here, they've always lived in an association with those native plants.

So when they're looking for food sources, the food source is gonna be there.

When they're looking for places where they can hide from some animal that might wanna do them harm, there's places for cover where they can get away.

So that's, that's what's kind of neat.

- It's a beautiful place out here.

I mean, and there's so much to see.

We can spend all day out here with you.

And I know you're a wealth of information and we're so excited that you guys are celebrating your 50th anniversary.

And I would encourage anybody, again, it's just a short hop right over here from anywhere in the downtown Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

Really.

- Admission is free too.

- Admission is free.

Yeah.

So where can people find more information if they wanna come out and visit?

There are hours.

And those change from season to season.

Yes.

But a lot of programming that you guys offer as well, including some of you do yourself.

- Yeah.

I've been retired since oh nine, but I love this place and I love doing nature hikes and stuff, so I still come out here as a volunteer.

I lead birdwatching hikes and then I also lead native plant hikes as well, so people can participate in that.

And there's no charge for participating in in those educational programs.

But in addition to that, there's a lot of other programming that's out here as well.

- So your website would be the best place to give that information.

- Yes.

- Alright.

Well thank you so much Neil, for sharing all of this with us.

- You're welcome.

- We are excited to have received a state of Oklahoma Governor's commendation, recognizing Oklahoma Gardening's, 50 years of horticulture education.

Thank you to all of our loyal viewers and supporters for making this possible.

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

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

Next week we have another former host returning to the show.

So join us right here on Oklahoma.

Gardening.

No, don't even know what show I'm on.

It's there's only one.

That would've been a good blooper.

Whoa.

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 Oklahoma gardening dot OK state.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 into our okay 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 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.