Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today we head to Oklahoma City to see a backyard getting renovated with native plants.

We then learn about the sycamore tree.

We also learn about how and what perennials to divide this time of year.

And finally, Christy is whipping up a fall dish in the kitchen.

So let's get started.

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Today we are in Mustang, Oklahoma, and joining me is Brian Peaver with Native Plant Nursery.

And Brian, we are here in a residential backyard, one of your clients actually.

And essentially they're wanting a native plant landscape.

Let's talk about that, especially in a HOA that can be sometimes tricky.

Absolutely, right.

So here specifically, this site is prepared very well.

So what's being asked of us on this site is to bring the plants, place them as if we were going to plant them ourselves.

And so we're helping with the design, the plant selection and placement.

And our goal is to place everything as if we were going to plant them and then have the client later as time, as they can, they're going to plant them themselves.

So they're doing the labor, but you're doing the field design, essentially.

And you've got some nice kind of outlines to work within right here.

That's right.

So, and that's important because especially if you're in a HOA or urban, like most, most of the landscape installations that we're doing, the native plant gardens are in urban settings.

So one way to kind of like, to make the landscape feel purposeful is to have these nice clean lines.

And they've done a very good job, all of this hardscaping, they've defined the borders very well, which gives the entire garden a sense of balance.

Yeah, exactly.

It kind of keeps it in its parameters, right?

Because the native can be a little looser, right?

In form and structure.

So having those outlines gives the whole landscape structure.

Absolutely.

So what was the client's request when they approached you?

Okay.

So basically a dream come true.

My landscape started about six years ago, and I had this dream and idea of a dances with wolves kind of landscape and mixing in, you know, the native American heritage with the buffalo and native plants.

And we're at that stage now where we're going to get, have the fun part and putting the native plants in.

But the hardscape's in, the design is in, and I'm excited to see what Brian and the nursery can come up with in planting these beds.

I typically design my gardens just by the nature of what guides me.

It tends to be around 75 to 80% grasses.

Grass or grass-like plants.

And the other being forbs or broadleaf plants.

Right, right, right.

And the trick there is to use grasses and to think about them in terms of like an evergreen, because they will have this four season year round interest, whether it be color or texture.

So I will create like a swath of say, little bluestem.

And then we have some cultivars.

We have many cultivars of little bluestem today, many cultivars of prairie dropseed.

And what we can do is then create like this bed within a bed and shape, whatever we envision in this space, we could create a little small swath of a compact version of a prairie dropseed.

And that starts to give it these, these repeating formations where you can balance the garden out.

And then where that, where their space and where it makes sense from wherever it's not competing with sight lines, you would introduce your, your taller, you know, two to four foot perennials, your plants that are flowering.

So you're making swaths of some of these grasses and mixing in some of these forbs or the broadleaf.

What about any of the like prominent, like a switchgrass that you maybe just need one essentially because they're so big.

Exactly.

I know.

And that's, that's, that's very, that's, that's a very good point.

So that's exactly what we have here.

So we've got a sorghastrum.

It's Indian grass, one of the big four prairie grasses, tall grass prairie, one.

So I've kind of prepped and pre-planned and placed plants in the vicinity of where I think they might go.

And then we'll just draw from those in this area and then just design on the fly.

It's more of a, you know, you set it, you set your swath, you kind of, you set, step back, gain a new perspective, shift some things around and make it feel right.

It's important to know that it's a work in progress.

If this is how you would envision this and you're good to plant, go ahead and plant them.

Then, and just know that it's going to look sparse at first, but it will fill in.

And I'll grow to love it.

Yeah.

Great.

I love it.

I love it, Brian.

We're back on America's most beautiful campus, OSU, where I want to talk to you today about another tree that's perfect for winter visual interest.

You'll notice on the American sycamore behind me, it has beautiful brown to gray bark that sloughs off to then show this inner white cream bark.

And that provides a lot of the beautiful winter interest.

Also, it has these persistent spherical fruiting bodies that stay on through most of the winter.

It's native to most of the Eastern U.S., including Eastern Oklahoma, and the American sycamore thrives best in riparian or flood zone areas.

So wherever you plant this tree, please make sure it gets adequate water.

It's very fast growing.

It can grow to between 75 to a hundred feet tall and wide.

So also make sure it has an appropriate space for it.

This tree is hardy and zones five through eight.

It likes full sun and can easily be found on our local markets and is available in many different varieties.

The only real inconvenience with this tree is that it's going to produce a lot of litter.

In the leafed out seasons, it has leaves that are four to 10 inches large, and they're going to all fall in the winter.

It also can drop a significant amount of smaller twigs and branches.

So the litter is the one thing that is inconvenient about this tree, but it's still an amazing selection for our Oklahoma environment and provides beautiful winter interest.

I'm Caitlin Constein.

I'm a master's student in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, and today I will be talking about digging up and dividing perennials.

The process of dividing a perennial includes digging up a plant and separating it into smaller plants.

Many perennials grow very large root systems over time, so dividing a plant is not only a great way to maintain the plant's health, but it's also a great way to get free plants.

There are many ways that you can tell that a plant may need division, such as a decrease in plant vigor, a decrease in flowering, as well as a dead center of the plant while the outer edges still grow.

This is very common in ornamental grasses as well as irises.

And then another way you can tell is if your plants are beginning to get overcrowded and kind of grow on top of each other.

A good example is these daylilies in front of me.

They are definitely a good candidate for division.

And there are also many benefits to dividing your plants, such as an increase of plant vigor, an increase in plant flowering, as well as a decrease of overcrowding.

And fall is actually a great time to divide many perennials because the summer heat is coming to an end, so these cooler temperatures will stress these plants out less during the division and transplant process.

It's also a great time because the soil still has some warmth, so these roots will be able to establish before the winter comes.

You want to make sure that your soil has some moisture in it to reduce the stress of your plants, but also to make the digging process easier for yourself.

And then once you begin digging, you want to make sure that you're at least digging 6 to 12 inches away from the center of your plant to reduce as much root loss as possible.

So now that we've dug up our plant, we can kind of evaluate our root system and see where the natural clumps are and decide where we want to make our cuts.

So I think I'm going to cut off this area right here because this clump is naturally forming together.

Now we have a new division that has a healthy set of roots and foliage attached to it, but as you can see we still have a lot of plant left, so you could make as many divisions as possible from this plant by cutting it in half and then into quarters.

As many times as you can, you just need to make sure that each division has a healthy set of roots and foliage.

When replanting our daylilies, we want to make sure that they're around the same depth as they were originally, and we also want to make sure to try to spread out the roots as much as possible for root establishment.

And now we have our daylily replanted.

We want to make sure to water it in thoroughly and then also to monitor the soil moisture in this area for the next few weeks during plant establishment.

And also, this isn't the only type of perennial that can be divided during the fall time.

There are others such as hostas, shasta daisies, Siberian irises, and salvia, but it should be noted that not every perennial can be divided in the fall, such as fall flowering perennials, because you do not want to disrupt their blooming.

But those would be good to divide in the springtime.

And just remember that dividing is not only a great way to propagate your plants, but it's also a great way to share your garden with your community.

What's kind of the expectations for it to sort of achieve that final look?

Is that a year or two years, three years?

Well, we're looking at a lot of grasses for one.

So, warm season grasses are going to grow when you think about lawn turf, like your full sun lawn turf, like a Bermuda turf grass.

These grasses grow right in sync with this.

So, they're going to also probably, a lot of these grasses are already a year old.

Next year, by this time next year, they'll be fully mature.

And the space in between each plant, I think when I compare native plant gardening to like conventional landscaping that we're all so familiar with is the density and diversity.

So, I like to use a wide, diverse range of plants.

So, today we're looking at seven or eight species of grasses or sedges or grass-like plants.

Then the goal, the idea is to fill in the space nice and dense to basically create a green mulch.

It eliminates the inputs, continuous inputs for mulch eventually.

First year, yes, I'd recommend mulching to cover the bare earth, to keep weed seeds from germinating.

Then going forward, it's pretty easy.

I mean, nothing is maintenance free.

So, you're going to have, it's going to require some inputs in terms of helping the plants along during drought while they're establishing.

So, what's interesting about grass, many things, but two-thirds of the biomass is below grade.

You don't see it.

So, extensive root systems, they're drought resistant, they're adapted to our climate, you get four seasons of interest, vertical rise, you've got clumping grasses, you've got creeping grasses, you've got, there's grass for about every situation.

And there's shade grasses too, true grass.

The color variations, the texture, if you can think of them as more like an evergreen, then you start to envision how these plants will behave going forward.

So, they're going to reseed, they're going to migrate, then you can kind of, you can look at it like, well, all right, do you want your garden to maintain the original design or do you want it to finally, do you want it to all just naturalize and become this, you know, this blended prairie mix?

Either way, it's going to require you to get in there and maybe thin them out every three years.

There's not a lot to do with the grass.

You'll prune them, I would recommend pruning them or lopping them down, like right, you know, March, April, as the new growth emerges from spring, take the old growth out at that time.

So, why is fall the best time to be doing this right now?

A lot of times, we're coming out of the season and shutting down, but you're starting a garden.

I know, it is.

It's optimal for these types of plants because what we, like I said, the root structure in the ground is going to continue to, we have mild winters, I mean, you know, 50, 60 degree days in December is not unheard of.

So, these roots are still going to be activated, they're still going to be growing, there won't be much going on above ground.

You won't see, but by the time spring settles in and these plants will be ready to take off.

They're primed.

Right, and we're coming into cooler temperatures too.

Yeah, I know, right.

So, basically, your plants will be hardened off over winter too.

They're more adapted by the time spring arrives.

Okay, well, is there any last-minute, like, misconceptions you want to clear up about native plants and using them in your backyard?

Oh, well, native plants are, they're critical to the ecosystem of which we all exist.

I think, more than anything, if you don't, if you're not comfortable yet with starting a native plant garden, start with something.

Just take action and then that will lead you to other areas that you will become more comfortable with.

Right, and you can integrate natives into some of your existing landscapes as well.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, and I, you know, if you could, 80 percent of your overall landscaping, I mean, grandmother's heirloom roses can stay.

I would never recommend taking those out, but yeah, you can work with it.

These plants will all work together.

Right, all right.

Well, thank you, Brian, so much for sharing this with us, and we look forward to coming back and seeing what this landscape looks like in a year or so.

Yeah, absolutely, me too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Today, we're in the kitchen making pumpkin risotto.

Now, this recipe is great this time of year because we can use our fresh pumpkins.

A pie pumpkin like this is going to work great for this recipe, but you only need about 12 ounces of pumpkin.

So, we can also use a carving pumpkin, which works great if you're going to be carving one anyway for Halloween, or you can use a can of canned pumpkin as well.

For if you're using a carved pumpkin, you're going to want to use the pumpkin immediately when carving.

Once it's been carved and set outside, that's no longer going to be safe to eat, but while you're carving your pumpkin, you can still use the seeds.

You would, you know, still be able to roast your seeds if you wish, but we're going use those other parts that typically get tossed away.

So, like the little cutouts that you use from the eyes, these work well.

You'll just want to take a knife and cut away the skin, that outer skin layer.

We'll toss those aside.

We can still put those in our compost, and then also you can use the top of the underside of the top of the pumpkin as well, because that's a lot of good pumpkin that's still along that top, but that you don't need to sit outside of your jack -o'-lantern.

So, for that, we can just cut it away, and again, we're going to need about 12 ounces total of pumpkin, and then we're going to cut it up into some diced pieces.

That'll help us to help it to cook down a little easier.

Now, pumpkin is great to add to recipes because it's a great source of beta carotene or vitamin A, also some fiber.

There's some good nutrients that we can add to our risotto dish, but I'm going to add it to my scale to make sure that we've got about 12 ounces.

Okay, now we're going to heat a pan over medium to high heat, and then we'll add one tablespoon butter and one tablespoon olive oil.

We'll wait until our butter is melted, and then we'll add one small onion that's been diced.

We'll add one clove garlic diced, and we'll let that cook until our onion has been softened.

Okay, after our onion and garlic have been added and the onion is softened, now we're going to add our pumpkin to the pan.

Now, we're going to put the lid over the pan so that it allows the pumpkin to start softening, and we'll let it cook for just a couple of minutes.

Okay, and now we'll take the lid off, and we'll use a potato masher to start roughly pureeing the pumpkin in the pan.

Once our onion is soft, then we're going to go ahead and add our one and a half cups of risotto to the pan, and we're going to stir the risotto.

We want it to cook and toast a little bit on the outside.

Okay, then to our risotto, now we're going to start adding some chicken stock to the pan.

Now, we're going to use three cups of chicken stock total, but you can also use vegetable broth for this recipe, but we're not going to add all of our stock at once.

We're going to pour just enough to cover the rice, and then we'll let that cook into the risotto, and then we'll pour little bits at a time, somewhere about a half cup to a cup at a time while we constantly stir, and we'll keep doing this method of a little bit more of our chicken stock to the risotto until we've used all three cups of our stock.

This method will make our risotto nice and creamy.

Okay, and now once we've added all of the stock and our risotto is tender, now we'll go ahead and add our seasonings.

We're going to use just a pinch of pepper and about a half of a teaspoon nutmeg.

Now, you can add more seasonings later if you'd like, and then we're also going to add three quarters of a cup of freshly grated parmesan, and mix this all together, and now it's ready to serve.

This is our pumpkin risotto.

I hope you give this a try.

And as always, if you have any questions about today's show, feel free to reach out to your local county OSU Extension office, or leave us a comment on our social media.

There are many great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

Join us next week on Oklahoma Gardening as our season comes to a close, but the landscape chores are far from being finished.

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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.

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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 the Tulsa Garden Club, Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Tulsa Garden Center, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, and the Tulsa Herb Society.