- Join us today on Oklahoma Gardening as we travel east to Muskogee, home of Honor Heights Park, and the butterfly Papillion.

Then we share a homeowner's passion for Iris.

I have a hibiscus that may look a little different than you expect.

We have an early season perennial to introduce.

And finally I'll share with you about the ETO peonies.

Underwriting assistance for our program 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.

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

We're back here at the Student Farm.

I wanna share with you a tropical plant that you might find in some Oklahoma landscapes.

It's important to know which plants we are dealing with so that we can continue to maintain them successfully for years to come.

Nestle in Honors Heights Park is also this beautiful kind of pocket garden that's gated called the Papillion.

And joining me is Robin Aguirre who is managing this space.

And I gotta tell you, these tulips are just looking amazing.

- They're great.

- We, we hit it at the right time.

You got beautiful color combinations.

So let's talk a bit about this little garden here.

- Okay.

- How do you manage this?

What's kind of gonna be the look of it later on and - After the tulips are gone and the master gardeners actually help us plant the tulips.

We start with our annual beds and like I said, the master gardeners help us.

- Yeah.

- So we come up with basically two different designs for both parts.

- Okay.

- One part is gonna be an ecotype garden where there will be eco-friendly beds, plants, stuff to dye clothing with.

Oh, okay.

So, we'll, we'll find, you know, different plants that you can use to break down and dye material.

This site over here will be a color wheel.

So basic primary colors will be in this and then they will fade out to the secondary - Colors.

Okay.

So this is gonna be the, the center of - The primary bed.

Right.

So this is gonna be the primary color bed.

And then like I said, they blend out from there.

Okay.

So the color wheel will spread from there - And that's gonna be beautiful.

Yeah.

I mean it already is beautiful.

So there's kind of some ongoing interest here.

- Right.

- All season people can come out and check this out.

But you had other stuff other than just these raised beds.

- Yes.

- I see a beautiful butterfly house across the way also.

Do you wanna tell us a little bit about that?

- Yeah.

We open our butterfly season Mother's Day weekend, which this year is September 11th.

And we will run until September 30th.

We have 26 different varieties of butterflies.

Some are native, there are a couple that are non-native monarchs, swallowtails, - Zebra - Long wings.

Zebra long wings are actually one of the ones that are non-native that we will have.

Okay.

We also have some helic cones.

- Okay.

So a lot of flowering plants.

And a lot of - Flowering plants too.

Yes.

Yes.

A lot of lantana.

- And then we also have a children's garden.

- Yes.

Yes.

- Which looks amazing with tulips as well.

Yes.

But you got some fun things in there for the kids.

- Right.

We actually have some interactive musical instruments that are like flowers Okay.

That they can beat on.

- Okay.

- And they make a, a different tune.

We also have like xylophones Oh yeah.

And everything.

We also have a large monarch that they can climb on or take photos with the walls, the fences are painted that they can take photos with.

- This is just a very colorful garden.

Right.

I love it.

And it's, it's, you know, got so much activity going on here.

Tell us a little bit, do you do programming here in the space also?

- We do programming, we do field trips, we do camps.

We hope to get the kids involved in actually doing our vegetable gardens.

This year we also do weddings.

Okay.

Birthday parties, different - Events.

Okay.

So is it free to come into this space or is there an admission - For it?

During the butterfly season, we charge a small admission fee.

Adults are $3.

Seniors, students and children are $2.

- Okay.

- All right.

So yeah.

- So if somebody wants to come visit, where should they find out more about this - Muskogee Park's website.

- Okay.

All right.

Well thank you so much Robin for sharing this with us.

I think it's a fabulous little space and you've just got so much going on here.

Yes.

At Muskogee Honor Heights Park, I would encourage everyone to stop by anytime of the year.

Iris are one of our favorite garden plants and I'm so excited because today we are just south of Stillwater and we are at Mike Bale's backyard, basically, where you have turned a hobby into something fantastic here.

Thanks.

So you've become a hobby Hybridizer, right?

- That's right.

- So you recently retired a few years ago, not necessarily really into Iris at that moment, or like how did this come about?

- Well, I, my grandmother got me interested in Iris and so that we were buying her Iris for Christmas and things like that in the eighties.

Okay.

And so I had a few here and there and we'd start out with, we had a little round spot out front and then it kind of grew and I got too many Iris.

So we, we expanded and then we came to this area.

I just had a few here and there and I collect them as I could.

And then I retired in 2018 from OSU and that's when things got outta hand.

And it, you had a lot outta your time, huh?

Yeah.

Right.

- So tell me a little bit about like where you are at now in your hybridizing journey a - Little bit.

Okay.

Well, for a while I was just growing and then I heard people say, Hey, let's, what about hybridizing?

Have you ever tried that?

And so I said No.

And so we started and, and, and it was one of those things where it's, it's fairly easy to do, frankly.

And so you just cross one iris with the other and, and then it's Christmas time when they start coming out, you know, and you see what's going on.

But, so I'm, I'm trying to, I don't have any specific goals right now other than I am trying to, there's, there's what they call a space age iris, which has got horns and flos and appendages basically on the end of the beards.

- Okay.

- And so people seem to really like those right now.

And then broken colored ones also that are, they've got colors all throughout all the pedals and it's just a mishmash.

But, so those are some, some things that people are really liking.

And so I'm kind of moving toward that.

- So you have a lot of different out here to kind of select from and you're, you're pulling the pollen from one to try to get some of those characteristics right.

Is that basically the - Gist of it?

That's, that's exactly right.

- And in each pod then that you develop, you can get all sorts of combinations of that - Genetics.

Oh yeah.

And that's, that really is amazing because I guess it's not any, any big deal because in parents, you know, humans, - You never know what the next kid - Gonna look like.

Right.

Yeah.

You never know what's gonna look like.

But, but in, in Iris it's really amazing 'cause you'll have a yellow, you'll have a purple, you'll have a mishmash of all, all colors, your reds and just all really a blue comes out and, and so yeah.

It's, it's amazing what kind of colors is they are and different and the same seed pod.

- Okay.

- They'll just come from two parents and of course they're getting grandma's jeans and they're getting grandpa's jeans and whatever else.

- Yeah.

Right, right.

So tell me a little bit about, like how did you kind of gear up into this?

Who, who were your community of people that you tapped into for that?

- Well, Oklahoma, Iowa Society is one of the, the biggest group that I, I got with and Hugh Stout.

I, I saw your segment actually several years ago on, on Hugh Stout and in Stouts Stouts Gardens dancing tree.

Anyway, we, we got to, I got to go into those society meetings and found out that, that there's a bunch of geeks up there just like me.

So I liked them, but I didn't realize how much I liked them until I got with other liked people.

And, and they, they started talking this and that and go, oh, that's pretty cool.

- So you've mainly got bearded iris out here.

Yeah.

But you mentioned to me earlier a different group that I'd never really heard of.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- Well, and the Aril breds are, I think that's what you're - Talking - About.

Yeah.

The Arils breds are, they're still a bearded iris, but they are basically, they have one parent as a, a Middle Eastern iris.

Okay.

And so they came from Israel or Iraq or someplace like that.

And they are desert iris.

And so they don't really grow very well in the United States in most places.

Now Arizona obviously - Can be some Okay.

So very drought tolerant.

- Right.

Yeah.

Very, very drought tolerant.

In fact, they don't like, they don't like much water in the summertime.

Okay.

They kind of go dormant, but they bred those with the bearded iris and they get the growing habits, which is really good for a bearded iris.

They'll grow about anywhere.

Okay.

In any kind of soil.

Yeah.

And they got those growing habits, but they got the neat patterns of the Arils.

Okay.

And so that's, so I've really kind of fallen in love with those.

And, and - Some of those characteristics of the Arils is the, - The - Kind of the splotch or the eye - Is that Yeah, they've got a splotch in the, in the fall there and then they have some striations that, but that are both on the falls and on the standards.

- Okay.

- And so those are pretty, pretty much standard characteristics of the aril.

Okay.

- And I noticed that a lot of yours are planted in a, a sandier soil.

I don't, you got a volleyball court behind you.

Is that your next to bed you're gonna plan in I see one eye sneaking in - Already.

Yeah.

There is a, there is one that kind of got there by accident, but that's not the plan right now.

But I do use it as a source for my sand.

That's, that's for the youth group at the church and, and the kids and so forth.

But, but I do use it and most of this sand that's in the soil here, I've added it, amended it.

Okay.

And, and so, and it's again, they grow fine without it, but they grow better - When they have some - Good drainage with some sand and good drainage.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

And, and you kind of just put them on the top of the soil 'cause they don't like to be buried.

Right.

I mean that's one of the things - That Right.

That the most of the time we recommend that they just leave just a little bit of the, the rhizome showing - Okay.

- In the summer around here, it does get pretty blistering.

And so it doesn't hurt to have them just maybe a half inch underneath the soil.

- Okay.

- But you definitely don't plant 'em like you do tulips six inches down.

Right.

'cause they're not gonna bloom.

So we have several out here now that just bloom for the first year that for the teenagers that it came out.

And they're pretty excited about their flowers.

And so, so we do that.

But it's, that's one of the things that historically the older folks have been the ones that, that have liked Iris, you know, and so forth.

But we're trying really hard to get younger people to, to look at Iris and it, and it's really working because, well I'm the, I'm the youth coordinator for our society, but also the region.

And so we're trying to think of any way that we can just get people excited and, and they, they've got one at the, the science museum, a garden up there that we've got going for the kids.

Oh, excellent.

It's an educational kind of thing.

And so anyway, - It takes some patience, right?

It does.

But it does.

But you, you actually speed up the process slightly.

- We do on hybridizing.

You can, you can make, you can kind of fake out the iris and the, the seeds themselves by taking them, soaking them.

Once they've dried out, you soak 'em and then it's a striation - Right.

- Stratification kind of thing.

So - Create that winter - Experience, make 'em think it's winter.

- Yeah.

- And then we leave them in there for about 12 weeks less for the smaller iris, they germinate faster, they start germinating in the refrigerator.

- Oh, okay.

- Yeah.

And then, and then I take 'em out, put 'em in cups, so just all of one deal in a cup.

And then as they get bigger, then we start putting 'em in their own separate cup.

- Excellent.

- But you need to separate 'em because every iris is different and you just don't very, - All those siblings, - Right?

Yeah.

Every sibling is gonna be a little different.

- That's right.

Yeah.

And of course you're keeping accurate records on all the lineage and that - Sort of stuff.

Oh, that's the hard part.

That's, that's the scientific kind of part.

And I'm going, oh my gosh, there's a lot of record keeping.

But you measure the flowers, you measure how tall they are, how wide they are, how many buds they have, all that kind of stuff.

And, and it's, it's a process.

But, but it's fun.

- Well Mike, thank you so much for sharing this with us.

And I know we're not the only ones that you like sharing this with.

So if somebody wants to come and learn from you, you're open and willing to share this.

- Yep, I am.

And and if they want, if they wanna be here when, have me here, when that happens, then they can send me a note and call me or whatever and they can, they can do that.

They can come out daylight to dark.

I'm the gates are open.

Just come on in and look at 'em and enjoy the flowers.

- All right.

So you have a Facebook page for people to check out - And message you?

We do.

Okay.

It's under praise the Lord Iris Gardens and so they can look that up and find out about us.

- All right, Mike, thank you so much - For sharing - This with us - Yout.

You bet.

Thank you.

- When somebody mentions hibiscus, you're probably thinking of the tropical flowers or the large hearty hibiscus with their amazing flowers.

But today I wanna show you another hibiscus.

This is called cranberry hibiscus or a red leaves hibiscus.

Now you can see how it got its name obviously, but this hibiscus is known for this foliage, not necessarily for the flowers.

In fact, the flowers won't, you really probably won't even get flowers because they come on so late in the season, really grow it for the foliage.

But you can see it gives you quite a show in the landscape here.

So this is an annual, it's only hardy to zones nine through 11.

So you're gonna grow it as an annual here in Oklahoma.

And we bought these as four inch pots with about a one to two foot stem on it.

Now when we planted these in the ground, you can see as soon as the heat cranks up, these take off and they will grow anywhere from about a three to a six foot tall shrub.

So we've got quite a lot of foliage and vegetation here for an annual that's gonna make a really nice display.

Now as I mentioned, this cranberry hibiscus is really grown for this foliage.

Not only does it give you this dark maroon color backdrop here, but it also has kind of a neat texture that it provides into the landscape with this sort of very deeply lobed palmate leaf that is highly serrated and almost kind of wavy on the edges.

So it provides a lot of texture now because it is such a dark maroon shrub that you're gonna put in the landscape, putting it next to something that's chartres or like our yellow marigolds are really gonna create a contrast and a nice pop in your garden.

Another color that you might consider is planting some silver next to it.

So down the way we have some Artesia planted in front of it.

And again, it creates a nice contrast in your garden.

Make sure you put this in the backside of your landscape because like I said, it does get tall now it wants, full sun and moderate moisture.

And because it grows so fast in the summertime, it can be a little bit brittle.

So you might be cautious of that.

So if you get a smaller one, that's pretty leggy.

What you're gonna wanna do is kind of pinch it back a little bit.

About a third of the way.

You can stake it if you think you're really gonna get extreme winds.

But if it does break on you a little bit, don't worry.

Usually it'll just cause it to grow out even more.

But by pinching it early, you're gonna create a denser shrub that's gonna be a little bit sturdier for you.

In our Oklahoma landscape, again, this is cranberry hibiscus and a nice colorful plant to add your landscape.

You might remember a couple of springs ago we planted up a container and I used perennials in that container.

And one of the things that I talked about is how you can utilize perennials in a container.

And if you want, you can either leave them in that container or then plant them in the garden and give them another life.

And so that's what I wanna showcase here is some of those perennials that were originally in those containers, we've planted them in the garden and I wanted to show how well they're doing here.

So if you remember, we had a Summit Alyssm down in the front to give us a bright yellow pop of color.

That's what I really love about this plant still.

And you can see that it's just thriving here in the garden.

It is does like kind of well drained soil.

So we have it in a slightly elevated garden here.

We still have it in a container also, so it's getting well drained soil there as well.

But it is just thriving in both locations.

Now this summit alyssum shouldn't be confused with the Sweet Alyssum as that is actually a different genus, but this one is hardy from zones three to eight.

And so you could leave it in the container.

It still does well.

'cause remember, when we're planting in a container, we wanna make sure that we're planting to a zone colder than what we are because it has that ambient air around it.

So we wanna make sure that it is hardy in there.

However, here in the ground you can see how it's really created a nice drift of yellow color here.

And so you might've seen some of the other segmennt we've done on phlox, how phlox makes a nice colorful drift in the spring.

But one color that phlox does not come in is this bright yellow.

So you get this nice cheery yellow here early in the springtime and you can see the foliage below it.

It's kind of a, a gray green color, almost a little bit of a blue tint to it as well.

So after it's done blooming, we will cut this, this flowers back to allow that foliage to recover.

The thing about this is because it's hardy from zones three to eight, it can get a little sensitive to the further south that you get in the hot, hot southern sun and also in really humid conditions it can, it can suffer as well too.

But right here in north central Oklahoma, it's doing fine.

This has been in the ground for two years and it's looking great now to another plant that we had in that container also was this April night.

It is a salvia, so you can see it here behind us.

It's just starting to come on in early April and blooming.

And you may be asking about the salvia behind this.

This is actually a different salvia.

It's called blue bayou that blooms even earlier in the spring.

So for the same reason we put 'em together in the container, purple and yellow makes a great combination.

And if you're looking to add yellow into the garden around a rock garden or over a wall, try this Summit Alyssum.

If you're new to gardening and looking to impress your neighbors with your gardening skills, you might try adding a peony into your landscape.

Now, peonies bloom, these beautiful large flowers in springtime.

And while they look like delicate plants, they're actually really tough perennials in our Oklahoma landscape.

They are originally from China, however, they're well adapted to the US being hardy from zones three to seven.

Now, a lot of times when we think about hardiness, we think it's, you know, maybe we're concerned about the winter months in the cold temperatures, but peonies actually need that chilling requirement during their dormancy in order to get them to come back out and re-bloom.

Now, there are a couple of different types of peonies to consider and kind of classification of peonies, if you will.

But if you're wanting to plant one that's well adjusted, I would suggest looking at a paonia lacto flora.

Those are some of the hardiest peonies that you can plant in your landscape.

And they are a herbaceous type of peony.

So they're gonna get about two and a half feet tall.

And what that herbaceous implies is that basically they're going to have herbaceous growth that comes up each spring with these flower buds, and then they will last into the fall months, and then they will just die back to the ground and then they'll resume in next spring.

Now there's also, you may have heard of tree peonies and tree peonies have a little bit more of a woody growth, so they are deciduous, so they are gonna lose their leaves, but you're gonna see some woody branching shrub growth that it will regrow from those shrub branches later in the spring.

Also, however, this particular one next to me here is called eto, which is basically a hybrid between the lacto flora and also the tree peony.

So it has a little bit sturdier branches that are coming up.

However, it is still herbaceous, but they're just a little bit sturdier so you don't have to worry about staking them as much.

You can see that they're covered with buds that are coming on and usually they have one primary bud and then they'll have about three secondary buds.

Now, what's kind of contrary to a lot of times what we might think, it's that primary bud that's actually smaller.

So that first flower bud that you get is gonna be smaller, but those secondary buds, when they start blooming, they're gonna be much larger.

You can see they still say smaller than a tree peony, a tree peony will give about four feet tall, whereas these eto peonies will get to be about two and a half feet tall also.

So it's going to be covered.

It's just now starting.

This particular one is called Smith opus two.

Now the flower of peonies can look different.

You can get single flowers, you can get semi double, and even double flowers that just have numerous petals on them.

They also come in a range of colors.

So this particular one has kind of, it starts out as real rosy color and it's got a deep burgundy down in the center of it.

And then as it goes and ages a little bit more, you're gonna see that it turns to kind of a blush pink.

We've got one here that's a little past its prime, but you can see how it's really lightened up in color.

So you're gonna get a combination of colors on a single plant on this particular one.

But some have yellow cream, they even go into peaches.

And then again, like this rose colored as well.

Now as far as the environment to plant your peony, you wanna make sure that you're planting it in nice, moist soil that is well drained.

It does like fertile soil, but they're pretty tolerant of our Oklahoma soils as long as they aren't, don't have wet feet.

The other thing is, is they can handle full sun.

Like anything, I think we all appreciate a little break from the full sun in August, so it could appreciate ours are planted right here on the edge of the trees, but I have seen them growing in full sun as well here in Oklahoma, so they can tolerate our Oklahoma summers just fine.

Now, most pe andies, you're gonna get about two and a half weeks of bloom time out of 'em, but in that period you're gonna get a lot of flowers, and as the plant matures, those flowers are gonna get larger.

So the more well established they are, the larger your flowers and some of 'em have a quite nice fragrance to 'em as well.

You just wanna make sure if you're cutting 'em and bring 'em in the house, check 'em for ants because a lot of times ants can get on those flower buds too.

But otherwise, it's a great addition to your landscape.

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

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

For the next three weeks, OETA will be conducting fundraising, but we'll be back with new episodes of Oklahoma gardening.

But I have another, sorry, that summer's just fine and I gotta probably make a prettier wrap than that 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.