- Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today we are featuring former host Steve Owens, as he shares with us his knowledge of rock gardening.

Then we learn a little bit about Steve's roots and where he got his passion for gardening.

And finally, we share a summer tour through Stony Plant Farm.

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 and endowment trust shape your future provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

Oklahoma Gardening's 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.

- Well, to give you a little background about rock gardens in 18th century England, the romantic movement had brought about a change in garden style.

The landscape garden or the naturalistic garden style had begun to replace the formal garden style.

And what this is, is a direct observation of nature.

The English would see a scene out in the landscape and they would try to duplicate that in their own garden, whether it be a trickling brook or a small pond or even a little waterfall or a small forest.

And the more adventurous gardeners even tried to duplicate what they had seen up on the mountaintops while traveling through the Alps.

And so that's how we got the rock garden.

Our rock gardens today are descendants of these small mountaintop gardens that the English tried to duplicate in their gardens.

Well, because rock garden plants require a rapidly and well draining soil, we had to consider our soil type.

And on the slope here, the first thing we did was spray the Bermuda after we outlined our garden to kill all the Bermuda grass.

And we came in and we excavated all the soil down to about eight or nine inches and we piled that to the side.

We then came in with about a three or four inch layer of crushed gravel and spread that over the bottom of the entire excavated area.

And we brought in about 14 tons of pea gravel.

This is a small pea gravel or a large sand or grit and stockpile that as well.

And then we brought in a large amount of composted horse manure.

And we made our rock garden mix by mixing equal amounts of these three ingredients.

And we would just fill up wheelbarrows or the bucket of our front end loader and dump that back onto the gravel in our garden area.

The next step was to collect all the rock.

And what you want to do is collect all of your rock from the same location.

And we were fortunate enough to go to some property that the university owns and collect all of our rock from the same place.

And this is good because you get a consistency throughout the garden.

The rocks are usually the same color, the texture the same, the mosses and lichens are about the same, and the age or the weathering is also the same.

And it's a good idea to study the rock outcrops around the state just to see how the rocks are arranged.

And if you notice, the rocks are all arranged in strata or layers.

And if you look, what we've done in our garden is arrange our rock in strata or layers.

You can see like the shelving.

And when you're setting the rock in to, to maintain or to achieve this look, you make sure all the strata lines in the rock are all running in the same direction.

You can see that we've laid our strata with kind of a lift towards the south end here.

And you can see we've got all the strata lines running the same direction.

Another thing you want to do when you're setting your rocks in is to be sure and bury them by at least a third.

This will make sure that they look natural like they were in place, and it gives them a look of permanence.

As you study the rock formations and outcrops around Oklahoma, you'll notice that not all of them have strata lines running in the same direction.

And we've tried to imitate that here in that we've made some of our rocks look like they were part of a layer of strata further uphill that have broken free and tumbled down the mountain as tus and come to rest in place, not in a layer of strata.

Another thing to remember when you're constructing your rock garden is to set a large number of the rocks where the top of the rock is sloping backwards into the the hill.

And this is helpful because the water will run backwards off the rock into the garden rather than spilling over the top and washing away your soil.

Now when you're out moving your rocks, we used a tractor with a fork attachment on the front to lift our large rocks.

And but be very careful when you're moving these.

Be sure and bend your knees and if you need help, please get a friend to help you.

Once you have all your rocks in place where you want them, then it's time to plant.

And for me, this was the funnest part of the construction process.

Your plant material, you don't want it to be over 12 inches tall because you don't wanna hide all the rocks that you've worked so hard to get in place.

And in our rock garden, we were fortunate enough to have a large enough rock garden to have a pathway through it.

And not only is it a place where we can walk through a garden, but we can also plant little plants in the little pockets and nooks and crannies of the pathway like these.

And when you're planting the rock garden, the first type of plants you wanna plant are your dwarf conifers and go through and spread those out in the garden and plant those.

And once those are in, come back with the dwarf deciduous shrubs and plant those in amongst the rocks.

And then you're ready to plant the perennials, the succulents and little grasses and other dwarf plants like that.

I, I love rock gardening.

I like rock crawling with off road kind of things, but, but yeah, I built a rock garden at the nursery and it's about to be featured in the Journal of the North American Rock Garden Society.

So I'm, I'm excited about that.

- Congratulations.

Congratulations.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So that, that is kind of my thing.

Rock rock gardening.

- Yes.

That's always sort of been a thing of yours right In, in horticulture is rock gardening.

I mean, you're still carrying that on with what you're doing now, Bussani.

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

I like a rock in so many ways.

Just, just, and I, I'd have to say one of the, one of the cool things about doing Oklahoma gardening was just meeting the people, working with the people here was, was so much fun.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Lasting friendships.

- Well, and let's get into some of those segments that you did.

You know, you mentioned that you kind of balance the subjects within horticulture a little bit.

- Try to, - Yeah.

What were some of the projects that really stuck out in your mind - As you step through the doorway into the prehistoric garden?

Here at our studio, it's like taking a trip back in time.

We've got species of plants in this garden that were present when dinosaurs roam the earth.

And a few that are even a little bit older.

Well, I'll try to tell you about this garden without getting scooped up and swept away by.

- Hello, welcome to this week's edition of Oklahoma Garden.

I'm your host, Steve Owens.

On today's show, we'll begin our series of gardening in southwestern Oklahoma.

And just like climbing some of these rock faces in the Wichita Mountains is a challenge.

So is gardening in this part of the state - Today on the show, I want to take you back to my garden roots and share with you some of the inspiration that got me interested in gardening.

And I grew up in Vian over in eastern Oklahoma.

So we've come over here today to look at the person who got me started gardening.

And that is my dad, Mr.

Les Owens.

So we're gonna take a look at his vegetable garden today.

Hey dad, welcome to the show.

Good to be here, Steve.

Alright, well dad, we, we always grew all these vegetables here and just, just growing up, we were always out here.

You had John and Mark and I working in the garden, but when, when you were growing up, you guys used to grow a lot of vegetables down in the southern part of town.

Yeah.

Down in south of - Iion.

Yeah, we did.

We were raised on a farm.

Dad was a sharecropper and we raised a variety of different plants.

We had green beans, corn, of course the corn we raised for our own team of horses because that's what we used to farm with back in the late forties and early fifties.

And we raised cotton, purple hull peas hired the neighbors from the neighborhood to come around to pick when the harvesters ready and hauled the produce to a cannery and steel, well, or alma, depending on which one was buying whatever was in season at that - Time, Alma, over in Arkansas - Across the state, state, across the border.

Yeah.

So it was really a, an exciting time growing up on a farm like that.

And, and we certainly had a large garden then because there was four of us boys at home and mother did a lot of canning, raised her own meat, had a smokehouse that we put it in and, and the smell of Morton Sugar Cure is one of my fondest memories of growing up on a farm.

I knew we had meat in the house when you could smell that.

- Well how many, how many acres did you guys crop down there?

- We, I think probably 80 to a hundred acres usually was the average size that we farmed back then having a team of horses to work at.

You know, you can imagine that would limit you to how much you, you could raise - Sure.

That, that help out a little - Bit.

Yeah, I remember the first year dad got a tractor, I think it was 1954 and he was really proud of that tractor, but I think the MAs was a lot more prouder than he was.

Okay.

Well dad here in - The garden that we have here, we of course used to have the, the old house here that we moved into when I was three years old and we had a garden out front, but years later we, we took the old house out and we built the other house and now you've got a a, a bigger garden.

And I'll have to say this, this garden's a little bit bigger than I've seen you put in in the last few years.

- Yeah.

Since I've retired in November I've had a little more time to spend in the garden so I decided I would go ahead and, and just completely fill up between the fences here and, and of course my wife and I don't use all of it, but as you can see later on, I have quite a few pinto beans, which we shell out in the roasting air stage and you kids and the grandkids all love them so much Last year because of the drought, I ran out before this crop was ready.

So I like to have a little extra instead of running out every year.

Alright, so you got, you got a lot of I've got quite a few.

These are tailor improved horticultures, dwarf horticultures I - Think.

Okay.

- Is the name of them.

And these are just now starting to produce, starting to fruit produce.

Yeah.

When they're that size they're delicious as snap beans but, and we eat them while they are small like that as snap beans.

And then when they do mature to the roasting air stage, they'll turn a pink and stripe it hull on them and then we can shell 'em out and put 'em in the freezer and all.

They're so good.

- Okay, well right back here you've got some tomato plants and this looks like kind of an - Odd place to put the tomatoes.

Did you plant these here, dad?

No, these were volunteers.

Okay.

That came up.

We would toss our old rotten tomatoes out and this would usually, what would happen?

I, I think this is a Rutgers that's coming up here.

Oh, the larger ones.

Okay.

The larger ones.

This one over here with the ones that are starting to get ripe.

I had a yellow pair of tomatoes last year, but you can see undoubtedly they were a hybrid.

So I'm getting some kind of a little red cherry tomato coming there.

- Okay.

That's something that happens.

We have some open pollination out here.

You, you never know what - That's true.

- What you're gonna get in the garden.

Well right up here dad.

I see you've got some, I guess some Swiss chard.

- Yeah.

- When didd you plant this, - Well we planted that pretty early in the spring.

We use it just like mix it with lettuce in a salad.

It's delicious like that.

You can see a little bit of a seed in that goes a long way.

Yeah.

So we'll have to start visiting with the neighbors with a sack of that soon.

- See who wants some Swiss chard?

Well right up here, see Dad, you got some, some young beans planted here and kind of a tub of potatoes.

What's, what's the story - There?

Well, this, this is where I had my potato crop.

I had three rows.

These are kennebec and because of the late freeze they froze.

They had gotten up about four inches tall and they had frozen down completely to the ground.

I thought about tilling them up, but some people said leave them there, they'll come out and sure enough they did.

And, and off the three short rows here I've got probably five bushels of kennebec.

This is a sample of them right here.

- Okay, well those are, those are some nice, pretty nice nice looking potatoes from some that froze back.

- Right?

Yeah, I was afraid because of all the rain and everything that they may not keep as well, but we'll see how it goes.

- Okay.

And on the fence here, you've got several buckets.

What are, what are those - For Danny?

That's my harvest buckets there.

Huh?

Always looking for something to pick the crop in and Alright.

I keep 'em handy on the fence here.

Yeah, that's pretty convenient.

You got some broccoli there, still producing a few little heads and - You've got a lot - Of harvest off of that so far.

Yes.

That was really good crop this year off of this packed man broccoli and you can see it's about reached the end of its life.

So I'll move that and prepare to plant something else a little later on.

Okay.

- So you're always, always adding, adding something else to the - Garden.

I try to keep the spacious filled.

- Okay.

And you've got a few different types of onions here that you planted this - Year.

Right?

These onions just came from right off of Walmart's shelf and the little packages I've got the yellow Bermudas and some red ones or purple ones.

Some people call 'em.

And then I had some white ones, which I think we've eaten most of them.

I didn't get a real good stand of these sets.

Sets is what I planted this year instead of the plants.

I don't know if they were too dry or what, but making pretty good onions now.

Okay.

They look, they look - Great.

- Yep.

- And as I look over here right before we get to the corn, I see you've dumped some, just some grass clippings here in the garden.

Right.

That's and that was something I remember we used, we used to do quite a bit just kind of snuffing - Out the weeds and building up the soil.

Right.

It builds the soil up and I use it for mulch around the tomato plants and pepper plants too.

It really works good.

Alright.

Sure does.

- Well what kind of corn is this dad?

It sure, sure is looking healthy and I think it's about as high - As an elephant's eye.

That's true.

This is candy corn.

You can see there's two ears on nearly all stalks and, and usually it makes two good ears.

Some I've even started three ears, but two good ears is great for a crop of corn.

Okay, well I I certainly - Remember being out in the garden a lot and hoeing around the, the, the corn and always trying to be careful not to hold down one of the, one of the young plants.

- Right.

- And dad, how come you got the, the corn in a, in a block instead of long rows?

- Well it gets better pollination that way.

My garden is about 45 feet long here and I can plant five or six rows of corn and it's going to block out real good where I'll get good pollination and you can see down through the middle there, it's got pretty good pollination all the way through.

Sure, sure.

Those ears look like they're developing really well.

- Of course the, the male flowers up here where the, the tassels drop the pollen and each grain of pollen has to land on a a a silk.

Silk.

Yeah.

On the ear here, those are the female flowers to create a a, a kernel of corn.

So we need one grain of pollen for every, every kernel.

And you've got a nice, nice stand of corn here, dad.

Well as we we move on through the garden here, we've got some more of these, these beans that we, - We we like so well.

Oh yeah, these are the first ones that I planted and if they're getting on into a ma mature stage, you can see the rain is covered in the dirt, but you can see the size of them.

They're plumping up and once they start drying, turning a different color pink and striped while then I'll know that they're ready to shell out and put in the freezer.

And hopefully this year I'll have enough to last until next harvest season next year.

- Okay.

Well dad, you've got a, a fence around the place to keep the rabbits out and I see you're, you're even utilizing the fence.

We've got some, some beans back here, some, some Kentucky, - Kentucky Wonder Pole bean.

Yeah, - Kentucky Wonder Pole Bean.

And we got, we got cucumbers, we got cantaloupe growing on the fence.

And just wanna real quick also point out on the, on the barn here, you've got your, your tools kind of up under the, the overhang of the barn, keeping 'em out of the, outta the rain there.

And you got that, that scythe, what, what do you use that for?

- Well that comes in real handy when your corn is finished and you can take that and swing it along and just cut these stalks off and, and same way with the bean plants, the broccoli, anything, you know, if you're gonna cut it down and put it in your compost bin.

Well that works real well.

- Okay, - Well dad, you've done a real good job this - Year and got lots of picking to do and I have, I'm sure I may get in on helping, helping you do this a little bit.

You might do it.

Well dad, thanks for showing us the garden.

Glad to have you out.

Thanks for teaching me how to kind garden.

- Glad I did - 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 Heleniams, the little zinnias, 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 I 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 Budani Plant Farm, and some of those are our false ves or stack of Taren.

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.

- 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 next week right here on Oklahoma Gardening as we take a look back with former host Kim Holmes.

- It's flesh and there's no heat in that part.

So if you'll go ahead and take a bite out, I'm really trusting you on this.

Oh no, it's cool.

It's not hot at all.

- 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 in to 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.