- Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today we head to OS U'S Campus to learn more about landscape services collaboration with the Center for Sovereign Nations, we have a new plant app to share.

We celebrate the year of the calladium.

And finally, Shelly Mitchell shows us how to air layer plants.

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'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.

It's not often that you see a full native plant garden on a university campus, but OSU is not your typical university.

Recently, students with the Center for Sovereign Nations and OS U'S Landscape Services Department teamed up to further enhance the native plant corridor.

- Trees are the backbone of our landscapes.

So we're a very tree focused tree forward campus and university.

We are a tree campus Higher Education University through the Arbor Day Foundation and have been for 14 years consecutively.

And we're also level two arboretum through the Morton Foundation.

And so we take our tree care very, very seriously.

We, we love our urban forest here on campus.

- I have a real passion for native plant gardening, for native plant restoration.

I think native habitat is indigenous Oklahoma is important ecologically by my major, my educational interest, but also culturally through my background as an Osage citizen and as a proud tribal member.

And as a member of the Center for Sovereign Nations on campus, - Oklahoma celebrates Arbor Day the last full week of March as Arbor Week in Oklahoma.

And we always plant an Arbor Day tree on campus as part of our tree campus, higher education accolade.

But this year it was super special because we had a student organization reach out to us and say they wanted to plant a tree on campus.

And so the timing worked out just perfectly to have them here in the native plant corridor planting a native species.

- I really have dreamed about putting native plants being a part of a native planting on campus for a very long time.

I didn't know who to talk to.

I didn't know what to ask.

So I thought that this would be a great space to do so because it's right outside Life Sciences East where the Center for Sovereign Nations is.

I got in contact with Kaitlin and she and Nick Ette were very enthusiastic about doing this project, which I was very pleased with.

- We were really nervous to see that they would be really strict with their landscaping rules and they really weren't.

They were so happy to collaborate with us and made us super excited to work with them.

- We love it when students reach out to us and that's how it typically works, is we have a student group who's really, really excited and they want to plant a tree on campus and be involved in the landscape as landscape services.

We're not here just working in the background.

We're here for the students and we serve them first.

And so we take any opportunity we can to work directly with them.

- Campus provides such opportunity for people to be exposed to landscaping with intention, landscaping with a message.

And I wanted to represent my culture outside of my building life Sciences East 1 0 5, where the Center for Sovereign Nations is located.

I really, I thought it'd be something special for our members to be able to have a piece of our culture out here visible every day.

In our daily use space.

We chose hackberry and service berry hackberries and service berries are very important cultural foods to Native American tribes historically, as well as being fantastic foods for native birds across the country.

Service berries especially, as well as their host plants for various butterflies like the Hackberry Emperor and other pollinators that are very crucial for our ecosystems.

Native Americans have a history with the land, with with the plants that are here.

And because of that relationship, the service berry stands out as a very prime example 'cause it's so abundant in the summer.

It's, there's so many fruits, there's a long history of it.

Nourishing communities of providing a major food source and just, it gives joy.

It makes me happy.

- So we selected a hack berry here to be an overstory tree.

We lost a beautiful American elm here a couple of years ago just due to natural decline.

And so there was a large space available for an overstory tree and being a native tree, that's what we selected.

And then the surface berries are understory trees, which will stay smaller in the understory and serve a different purpose.

- My favorite part of the today's celebration is the collaboration between the Native American Student Association and our landscape services.

The Native plant corridor highlights our university's commitment to serve the institution and honor of the heritage of so many of our current former students as well as our community at large.

I'm proud that this event highlights and shines a light on the great work of our students.

- I didn't realize how shared our missions were, how aligned aligned we were with the native plant idea and what to do with the corridor.

And it made me very happy that you and landscaping team, the landscaping team were very receptive to having Native American representation on campus, specifically through NASA and the Center for Sovereign Nations.

There's two service barriers in a hackberry.

They, they give me so much joy, they, it makes me very happy to think that these will be long-term signs of Native American Student Association on campus, representation of us and what we believe and how our connection to the land.

And I think if I were to come back in decades to come, I'd be very proud.

I'd be very proud to see these still around and to see them taking care of our members and our community and our campus.

'cause these trees are silent members of the club right now.

They, they'll be, they're very long.

They're committed for the long term.

- Today we're in the garden and joining us is Brenda Sanders, who many of you may recognize as a former host of Oklahoma Gardening.

But Brenda's been working on another project behind the scenes and that is the Planted Okay app.

So Brenda, we're so excited about this app.

Tell us a little bit about it.

- Well, thank you and I'm excited to talk about it because it's been a long time in development.

A lot of people has been a lot of, we've, I think we've worked on this about four years now.

- Oh really?

- Yes.

Which started with an idea of wouldn't it be nice to have all of that information that we have on OSU fact sheets and brochures in a form that people could take with them on this handy device called an iPhone.

Right.

Or Android.

- And it's not like we have to look it up on the internet.

It's all in this app and it links to different things, - Right?

It does.

So we actually entered an app contest and won with the app center.

And so they did the design, you know, the part that the public would see.

And then from there we were able to get a grant from the U-S-D-A-A-M-S and it's a specialty crop walk grant that paid for the actual programming of the app, which also happened at the app center.

- Okay.

And - So anyway, - It was a big, so there's a lot of behind the scenes to get to this point.

And so it's so exciting to officially launch it.

So let's talk a little bit about what people can find.

If you wanna kind of walk me through Yeah.

What you, what we see on there.

- Well, it has to do with landscape plants.

So we don't have vegetables yet.

Right now we have about 275 plants that are either Oklahoma native, US native, or just non-native plants that are adapted to our area.

They've been, a lot of 'em are Oklahoma proven plants, things like that.

- Okay.

- That have been demonstrated to do Well, you know, states - And you can kind of filter on what your definition of - Native - Is, right?

- Yes, you can.

You can.

And actually you can filter on that.

You can filter on things like low water use up to high water use.

Okay.

Same with sun, low to high.

You can also filter on flower color time of year that it, you know, does it have beautiful fall color or maybe it's got some winter interest or something like that.

We have several different filters that you can, you can search pollinator birds.

Exactly.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- We have that as well.

- All right.

So, and let's talk a little bit, how do I find the plants and, and what, how do I use this app a little bit more?

- So there's, there's a couple of different ways you can go about finding the plants.

One of the easiest things is just to start up here at the top with the filters.

- Okay.

- And then pick what you want in your filters.

Go down to the bottom and put, save the filters.

And then search for plants just by using filters.

- Okay.

- So that's kind of, if you really wanna focus in on stuff, - Set your parameters basically for your garden.

Exactly.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- The other way you can do it is come on this homepage that we have and just come to plants and then it will bring up like annuals, perennials, deciduous trees.

Or you can even go up to all plants at the top.

But then you could search, say you're wanting to plant, you know, some seasonal color, you'd be looking in annuals.

And so you could go on there and then you can either scroll through there or you can use the filters to narrow that down more.

- Okay.

Okay.

- And - So essentially it's like a, A plant catalog.

- Yes.

- And you can either figure out maybe what you need to buy or you can also kind of create a list of what you already have, right?

- Yes, exactly.

And that's good that you said create a list because we actually have the ability to do that on - Okay.

- The app and there's a little plus sign on each of the plants and if you press on that, that will open up a list.

- Okay.

- And then you can make your own lists and put them in there and add plants.

You can also delete them if you decide, no, I don't want that, I want something else.

And the idea is that you can create, say a list for the backyard front beds, whatever you want, and you can have as many lists as you want.

And then you have that with you when you go to the store, when you go, you know, to the garden center, you can start asking right about the plants.

- Oh, very - Good.

Yeah, - Very good.

- And if, if they're available.

- Right.

And, and I would also probably create a list of what I already have in my garden too.

Just 'cause you know how plant tags get lost.

- Yes.

Yes.

So it's - Kinda like, no, I do have that one already.

Or move it exactly from the bot to the current existing.

Right.

- And the other thing is, is if you have something, okay, I got all these plants and I got home.

- Yeah.

- You can go back to that plant and if you scroll to the bottom on that plant, it actually has a description and, and a little bit more of when you would need to prune it or Oh, okay.

You know, depending on the plant.

Okay.

It's like maybe some key elements of plant care would be some maintenance - Information.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Common name, Latin name.

What are we looking at?

- Do you have both?

We have, - Yeah.

- And actually you can choose to sort by common name or by Latin name and you can also sort by relevance or by alphabetical order.

There is also a direct link to any of the OSU publications that are available that have to do with landscape plants.

- Okay.

- And so, you know, if you wanted to see plant care, we have categories for those.

- Okay.

- Beneficial in six plant care, landscape design, ornamental plants, things like that.

And then if you choose, you can see all of the fact sheets that are available and you click on that, that takes you actually to the OSU website.

- Okay.

- We basically have the lists, the plants, and then also the publications.

Those are our three main things that are, you're able to access right now for this.

- Alright, very good.

And again, it is free.

Where can people download it?

All your app stores I assume?

- Yes, it's available on the app store and also on Google Play.

Okay.

For Android.

- Okay.

- And you can, you can either just look that up in the app stores, you can also go to the OSU extension website and Google plant it.

Okay.

And it will bring up an app page.

- Okay.

- That tells about this and then also has links directly to where you can download - It.

Okay.

So planted.

Okay.

It is free available either at your website or on the app stores.

- Yes.

- For both iPhones and Androids, which is really exciting.

- Yes.

- And what if people have feedback?

'cause it's kind of the first version of this.

- There is actually a feedback place that you can go here in the menu user feedback.

Okay.

And we really, really want you to help us out and send us feedback and that will help us improve the app.

And you know, for version 2, 3, 4, we can add either plants to it or also other functions.

Okay.

- So, and hopefully maybe a vegetable one on the horizon as well.

We've - Already had people ask for that.

- Perfect.

Thank you Brenda so much for this.

This is exciting.

- Thank you.

- Download the PlantitOkay.

App for Android and iOS.

It is the year of the calladium.

We're busy here at the Botanic Garden planting them in the ground.

And you might be familiar with calladiums but they've come a long ways.

And joining me today is Cindy Townsend who's here to share some of those new developments.

So Cindy, I mean what I remember of the calladium is it's a shade tolerant plant and that's where you had to keep it.

But - Well now they are a game changer because they're no longer just for shade, they're for sun and shade or that transition zone.

And so what excited me about the calladium's is they have consistent color and we've had so many people have the north and south side of their house or the east and west side of their house and they wanted consistency.

They wanted the same plant, - Right?

Yeah.

- But they couldn't do it because you have more sun or more shade on one side - Or even the left side to the right side of your front door.

- Right.

Right.

And so calladium's, what they've done with the calladium's and the breeding process is you can now have the same calladium on both sides for that consistency.

- Oh, - Excellent.

And and and they do great.

- So we've got several of 'em here.

Some of 'em are the ones we are planting here at the Botanic Gardens.

And then you've got some others to show us.

So it is the year of the Cladium.

So there is a calladium of the year.

Correct.

- Is that the Blushing Bride, which is a sweet name, is the Cladium of the Year.

And the neat thing about Blushing Bride for us in Oklahoma especially is it is a strap leaf.

And the strap leaf is more aero like.

Okay.

Right.

But they're also a little bit shorter, they're more heat tolerant, they've got a thicker consistency.

And another thing about Blushing Bride is it reveals the color change in, in the caladium.

So like they'll start out a little bit more pink as a blushing bride and then turn white and be that full blown bride.

So it really is a great example of what a caladium can do.

- Right.

And I just love that they're come the colors that they're coming in.

You've got some that are almost like an orange color here too.

- Yeah, we've got dawn dusk.

And what I love about that is it has a more tropical feel.

And another thing that I think is great is they've got usually think of aliums as white and red and pink.

- Right.

- But they've got these oranges and other colors that they're incorporating in.

They've got like fall colors that you can now have with the caladiums.

And that's why I love Donda dusk.

It kind of reveals that tropical feel.

Blotchiness.

- Yeah.

- And brings in sensible oranges.

- And now that one is a shade plant I believe.

Right?

- This particular one is okay.

- Okay.

But the rest of these are more towards the sun.

So let's kind of go down the line here and let's look at what all we have.

So hearts delight.

- Yeah, hearts to delight is one that's got a lot of red in it and it, it goes from full sun to full shade.

- Okay.

- And then this one, I love this one.

Isn I isn't fun mean look at how big that leaf is.

Pepper, it's like a party on one leaf.

It's just, and this is a fancy leaf and that's a good example of what a fancy leaf is.

It's nice and big and bold.

You can put this kind of towards the back and it really is like a party.

- Well and it's so ruffley too.

That was the other thing that caught my eye on that.

So now we've got puppy love here.

That's a nice little pink one.

- Well, and puppy love just has a sweet color to it and it's more of a medium, medium range.

So you can kind of use that as a filler to, to have other colors.

Okay.

Filling in next to it.

- And the, and the nice thing is I think a lot of times when you were to plant these in the shade, you have to think about how to highlight them so that they're not so dark.

Which is why these white ones work well.

But we don't have to worry about that when they're in the sun anymore, do we?

No, we don't.

This one is water's edge, which is just a beautiful one here.

I mean you can't go wrong with white in the garden, especially at night.

Right?

Oh yeah.

So it's gonna kind of highlight that even more.

- Yeah.

And then again it's got that big bold leaf to it and the more sun, the more white you're gonna see - And the, and the big difference with the white star here too is I like how it's got that starburst of red in the center of there.

Isn't that fun?

Yeah.

And of course these are gonna get bigger.

They're very, they're very small at this point, but they are getting larger.

We've got, what is this one?

This one?

Red, - Red, red glamor.

Yeah, red glamor.

And, and it does have a bit of glamor to it.

It's kind of got a shine.

Oh yeah.

It's got a nice frame with the green and then it's got a dark red vein and then it just kind of shines.

So it, it really is glamorous.

- And then finishing off here, burning heart, I mean that again, that sort of goes back to a little bit different color.

I mean it has a little bit of that orange mixed in it.

- Yeah.

- Well, you know, ca classic caladium's really hooked us up with several of these bulbs and we appreciate that.

Tell us a little bit about, you know, planting these, what the timing?

I mean it is June and we're now getting 'em on the ground.

A lot of times I think people think it's April 15th, let's get the annuals out.

But that's not the case on caladium.

So you wanna hold off a little bit.

- You really do.

You put 'em in the same time, you know, you want like 65 degrees in, in the nighttime.

So that really does push that planting schedule back.

So it's something that you might leave space for while you're in a rush to plant things early spring.

They're also a plant that will carry you through the summer.

So when other plants are kind of exhausted from the heat, that's when the caladium's really shine.

- And you don't have to worry about the, the color because unlike flowers that might die every, you know, these are gonna be consistent with the color throughout the season.

So that's, yeah.

Fabulous.

Well also planting them as far as bulb versus actual plant, can you tell us a little bit about that?

- So when you wait for the temperatures to be right, the bulb will come up pretty quickly if you're impatient or have something that you really need color for - Right.

Want that instant - Gratification.

Yeah, you can, I would go ahead and buy the finished product and go ahead and, and get that in.

And I know you really can just plant the bulb because they'll come up and start doing their thing within about four weeks.

- Okay.

- So that's a, a good thing.

And and the bigger the bulb, the more the leaves.

- I was gonna, I was gonna say a lot of times we question what size bulb or how big of a bulb, but that really does correlate to the number of leaves you're gonna get, right?

- Because you've got dormant buds right there waiting to burst open.

So the bigger that bulb, the more dormant buds you have that can just explode - Out.

Okay.

So if people don't have palladium's out just yet, it's not too late.

Not at all.

And we've had a really wet, mild spring, so there's plenty of time to get 'em out and people are kind of pushing this into fall color, right?

- They are, we're pushing 'em into fall color and Christmas.

Christmas caladium's are, you're gonna start seeing a lot.

- Okay.

- And they're gorgeous.

I I, you can tell I get super excited about the caladiums.

- Well they definitely have those Christmas colors ready to go for us.

So thank you Cindy for sharing all of these great palladium with us today.

Thanks Casey.

- Okay, so today we're gonna talk about a process called air layering.

Air layering can be used in several different ways.

One time, one way you can use it is if you have a plant that's kind of getting weird, you can chop off a branch, but instead of throwing it away, you'll have roots here and you can have a whole second plant.

So that way it's a way to trim things up and keep another plant without just throwing it away.

So the process, the first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna figure out where you wanna do this.

You're gonna take a sharp knife and you're gonna make two cuts about an inch apart.

And then you're gonna take off, you're gonna girdle that part of the plant.

Now this is where we want roots to form.

So then we're gonna take some rooting hormone and we're gonna spray it where we cleared off the area.

Then since it's gonna be not have access to water, 'cause you just took off, its access to water.

We're gonna give access to water by putting coconut core around it.

And coconut core is the inside of the coconut between the husk and the actual coconut.

So you can get it at stores when it's dry and then you can rehydrate it and it makes a lot more volume.

So then you're gonna put it around where you just put the rooting hormone where you want the roots to come out.

And after you do that, you're gonna wrap it in clear cling wrap.

But then you don't want it to get, you don't want it to dry out.

So you're gonna make sure that you secure the ends so that it no air can get out.

And then you're gonna put aluminum foil around it.

So that one, if it's wet and it's behind something clear, it'll form algae, which don't want.

And two, if it's in an area with a lot of sun and you have aluminum foil on it, it'll reflect the sun.

So it'll keep it from getting so dry.

So after you get that done and you wait a few months, I started this one in August and it's now January.

So there will be roots under here.

And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna harvest this and plant it up.

And so to harvest it, I make sure I go beneath where the roots are now and I'm just gonna cut it - Off.

- And so now we should have roots.

Okay, so now you can see we have the roots and they formed around where I made the cut and put the rooting hormone.

So I made sure that it was gonna stay wet.

It did stay wet 'cause we have roots.

And now all I have to do is pot it up.

So I'm just gonna put it in here, add some soil, and now you've made this look a lot better.

And then you have one now that you can give to a friend or you have two now.

So that's the whole purpose of air layering.

You made one look a lot better and you have another one to give away.

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

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

Our gardens are growing and farmers' markets are in full swing.

Join us next week as we share another great new episode of Oklahoma Gardening.

Joining me in the garden today is Brenda Sanders, who - Many, hold on.

It's okay.

And start over.

- Joining me in the garden today is Brenda Sanders, who many of you at may rest 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.

You 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 G. 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.