- Today we take a look back at several former hosts.

We start with Sue Gray and Jim Gallit as they share some tips on water garden construction.

Then we take a look as Sue spoke with former host Raymond Kays about hibiscus breeding.

Sue then shares her personal vegetable garden and finally she tours us around the Tulsa County Master Gardener's Demonstration Garden.

Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing.

Oklahoma Gardening is also a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Shape Your future provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

Oklahoma Gardening 50th anniversary.

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

- People in Oklahoma love their gardens.

- I feel like this is the People's show.

We all know we're working towards the common goal and that's to produce the best quality television and information for our audience.

- This water garden is a good example of what you can do with just a plain, rectangular backyard here in Oklahoma City, they've made it into something really special.

- This pond is a good example of one of the simpler methods of constructing a garden pond.

It has a PVC liner that's a heavy duty plastic liner that lasts quite a long time.

It's just a hole that's dug in the ground and lined with the PVC liner.

The edges come up over the lip and then the edge is disguised.

In this case by flagstones that are cemented together.

You can use any sort of edging, any stonework, brickwork, or even woodwork to cover up the edge.

And the black PVC liner is quite inconspicuous, lasts quite a long time.

And again, it's very easy and quick to install.

- One tip we might give you on designing a pond like this that it's at ground level, is that you want the flagstones to slope up slightly as they approach the edge of the pond.

That way if there's water coming off the roof of the house or any herbicides or fertilizers draining from the lawn, they will not drain or flow into the pond.

You wanna avoid any excess water coming in here other than rainwater.

- We have a very nice example of a yellow water Lily.

If you remember down at the myriad gardens, there were several very large clumps of lilies down there, which were very effective in a large space like that.

This is a, it's not a miniature, this is a small variety of water, Lily.

It's at about the maximum size it's gonna get.

So you can match the variety and the size of the lily to whatever size pond that you decide to build.

Actually, there are smaller miniature water lilies and the those, you can fit two of them in half of a whiskey barrel.

So you, again, you can match the size of your lilies to whatever size pond you've got.

- Now this backyard has been developing over the past few years into a water garden haven.

This pond was done last year and then just two weeks ago they finished this decking and filled this pond with water.

This is a pond that is built up slightly.

Boxed in and again lined with PVC and surrounded by wood decking.

And it's a good time to mention that on a new pond like this, you don't just fill it up and pull, put the plants and the fish in right away.

There's gotta be a transition period.

You fill it with water first, let the water come up to temperature, treat it, put the plants in, quarantine the fish, and then they go in last of all.

- You'll notice a lot of the marginal plants aren't established yet.

As, again, this is a very young pond.

They will, if you give them a chance to grow, fill in.

Well also look at some of the water lilies.

These are different ones from what we saw either down at the garden or in this.

There's older pond.

If you notice the red foliage on this one right near me and the variegated foliage on the one closest to you.

These are tropical water lilies.

This red foliage and variated foliage is only available in the tropical lilies.

Now we have hardy lilies and tropical lilies.

The hardy lilies are just what they sound like.

They will survive Oklahoma's winters without any extra care.

The tropical lilies will not survive the winter.

If you want to save them over, you need to take some special care.

But again, there's variety in flowers and in the tropicals variety in the foliage.

- One last thing we want you to notice about this water garden is how nicely they've tied in raised beds to make the transition from ground level up to a higher level.

With the second pond, everything ties in.

There's a harmonious relationship here and this might give you some ideas for your own water garden.

So you don't just end up with a hole in your, in the ground, in your backyard.

Do a little bit of landscaping around it to soften the edges and you'll end up with something really special.

I came here and I got a wonderful education from some people hosted this show.

- Yeah, let's talk about some of that.

- Professor Kays, and he was wonderful and very precise, very in depth knowledge.

What I remember most about Professor Kay is I'd come to him some with some great idea for, you know, how to line up my hours for the semester.

And he'd say, Susan, you're as optimistic as a seed catalog.

We're visiting the Garden of Professor Raymond Case here in Stillwater.

And Professor Case is retired from OS U'S horticulture department and many of you remember him fondly as longtime host of Oklahoma Gardening.

Hi professor Case - Greeting.

Sue, it's great to have you here.

Thank - You.

Enjoyed - It.

Yes, I did do that and I enjoyed it immensely.

- Great.

Well, let's see.

Now when you did Oklahoma gardening, you didn't have the luxury of a studio garden right here in town, did you?

- That is right.

Two things.

I, I went to Oklahoma City to the main station and we had a garden there.

The one thing we didn't have that you have are cordless mics.

- Oh yeah.

- And I felt kinda like someone was about to be hung sometimes when your cords would get hung up.

But it was a great time and I enjoyed it immensely and I, I developed a lot of friends from it.

Sure, - Yeah.

I said wonderful experience.

- That's right.

- Well, I understand that you've been hybridizing hibiscus lately.

- Well, there's a lot of things you're interested in.

And one thing that I, this past year I did was I found rather interesting was taking the varieties.

And I have here five different varieties that I then chose to cross one with another.

And each of these was crossed with each other.

And that was last year.

I saved the seed, took it into greenhouse and planted it and planted it.

And these plants grew from that.

And they're in bloom this year.

And this is a diversity of color we happen to get from that.

I had no idea what I would get, but, oh, that's beautiful.

It's kind of fun.

- Yeah.

And you can see some crosses in here.

- Yes.

Pretty - Clearly - Between the flower and the foliage because there's differences in foliage between this one and the others.

But, but it, it is rather enjoyable - Now.

A lot of gardeners have never done any hybridizing of flowers.

They may have read about it.

How do you go about that?

- Well, first you have to recognize which are the male and female parts of the flower and - Sure.

- Get the pollen in the right place.

- Yeah.

What my, this lemme - Taste one like this for example, it just bloomed out today.

And if I wanted to hybridize this one, first thing I do is cut off all those petals because I don't want too many insects being attracted to it.

Sure.

And this is the male part of the flower and this is the female part right here in the center.

I wouldn't usually, what a a, a legitimate plant breeder will do will be remove the male material since this is still attached to the plant.

Then I will take one of these varieties that I would want to and come over and possibly not do anything with it at all, but just brush that pollen on the female part of this flower.

And in that case we have affected pollination.

Now if it combines, then it's fertilization and then we'll get seed set.

I'll come back later in the year, take off that pod.

And since this is in the Cotton family, we would expect a pod, kinda like a bowl of cotton.

Sure.

Or a bowl before it opens.

There's no, there's no fiber in it.

And as I say, these are things that have come out of it.

And I will be interested in seeing that these get a good home.

- Oh yeah.

Well they are.

- I suspect we'll have a number of 'em in the park here in, in, in store.

- And one thing I wanna emphasize that these are hardy hibiscus.

- These are hardy, they're not the tropical, they die back to the ground each winter.

Just like you'd expect asparagus to die back.

- Sure.

Right.

- They cut the old tops off.

They come up in the spring.

And some of the plants I have in the yard have been with me more than 35 years.

- Oh would be.

So - They are hardy.

- Sure.

And a wonderful addition to the landscape.

Right, right.

In extension, we do impact people's lives.

And I, I kind of developed a motto over the years, if at the end of the day I've helped one person and I've learned something myself, that's a great day.

And that's what it's all about, is helping other people.

As we start a new year here on Oklahoma gardening, we wanna bring you a new feature each week.

And that's gardening for children.

Good to see everyone again.

And today we're in my garden and this is shot in early summer, late spring, early summer.

And just wanna show you round at some of the things that are growing.

It's been a difficult spring in Oklahoma.

Every spring is different and difficult.

This one had an extended cool period which made for a glorious salad garden.

This was planted in late March.

And we have turnips bok choy.

And I let the bok choy bolt because it attracts beneficial insects.

I like to see those little pollinators around.

We have a brazing mix.

We're at the tail end of our butter crunch lettuce.

We have lasana kale and that is still good.

I like to harvest these smaller inner leaves 'cause they're a little more tender.

And then kohlrobi, we have both purple and the white right here, very colorful.

And just think of that as an above ground turnip.

And it takes the heat a little better than turnips.

So as our Tokyo cross turnips are finishing up, we can switch to eating the kohl rabbit.

And my family and I like to have something fresh on the table every day.

So this garden is not huge, but it has a lot of inter planting.

And our, our objective is to have something fresh to eat seasonally.

We have the rainbow chard and I love growing chard.

We grow it all winter long in containers in a small cold frame.

And then of course we have it here in the garden.

And I prefer chard to lettuce now because it doesn't go bitter, takes the heat, takes the cold.

It's just a wonderful salad green.

And as you know, it's a variant of beets.

It's a type of beet that was bred for foliage instead of the roots.

We have carrots here, three different varieties.

And I can always tell if my garden needs irrigating, if my carrots are hard to pull out.

So I keep these raised beds pretty moist.

This is a nanty's type carrot, so it's fairly cylindrical in shape.

And then over here we have three varieties of beets that are, are not quite mature yet, but there are golden beets and red both.

And at a neighbor here yesterday asking why everything's so crowded together.

And that's to help with weed control.

And if you're going to grow things in a small space like these raised beds, you want to maximize the crops you have.

I have a small crop of potatoes here.

And then we have tomatoes using the stake and weave method.

These are some cherry tomatoes called black cherry, certainly not ripe yet.

And then I've interplanted some small red bull bell peppers here and interplanted melons here.

This is lily Crenshaw melon.

And as it grows, it can spill out into my aisle ways and still leave the tomatoes.

Plenty of space to grow.

Right here we have some cauliflower that is just forming a head.

And I could have covered them with remade to keep the pests out instead of been handpicking.

'cause again, it's just a very small garden.

I'm out here every day, so I use clothes pins to blanch the heads, keep the sun out.

You could also use string or rubber bands.

I tend to use a lot of clothes pins in the garden because I use remake for frost protection.

I use wire coverings on things for wildlife prevention.

They're just useful for all kinds of things, including hanging up laundry.

In some other areas of the garden, I have more inter planting.

If you look right here, the behind this fence is our spring strawberry crop.

It's just finishing up.

And I have this plastic construction fence here because squirrels, birds, and all kinds of critters love strawberries.

And so when it was cold, I was able to cover it with remay.

Now that it's warm, I can cover the top with more wire to keep the birds out or remay using clothes pins again.

And then I use old pieces of leaky hose about this size and shape to just sort of lay around the garden because they kind of look like snakes.

And I, I like to think that that scares the birds away as well.

No scientific proof on that.

But I've used that in the past to among my tomatoes, I'll lay those pieces around.

It looks like a black snake.

So who knows.

Right here just coming on, we have some bush beans and they're just now flowering.

It's a variety called tender green.

And then I have two varieties of peas.

These are super sugar snap and of course they're edible, completely edible pod.

You can eat the whole thing.

And you need to know your pea varieties so you know when to harvest them.

And these of course can be picked at any time you wanna get them before they're too big.

And if they get large, you do have to pull the strings off.

But the whole pod is edible.

This variety is more of a traditional pea variety that when I purchased it, the package said snow peas.

And that's where it does not pay to buy cheap seed because they're not snow peas.

You have to shell these out and they are delicious.

But the pod is not edible and they are fairly tough.

But you can pick them when they're real young I guess, and stir fry them.

But basically we're shelling these out and using them to make potato salad and just eating them fresh.

And certainly you can eat them raw in the garden as well.

On around here.

One way I'm able to get a lot of production or productivity outta the raised beds is I don't own a rototiller.

And even though we are a small family, I do all the gardening pretty much myself.

And so I like to use forks of different sizes more than just for eating.

I like a small fork like this.

If I'm digging out weeds or dividing perennials, and this is a child's spading fork, but it's great for small raised beds.

And then I'll use a fork like this for digging potatoes or just cultivating in general around the garden.

And then this is my primary tillage tool.

Those of you who are involved in production agriculture know what that means.

Primary tillage is initially breaking the ground.

And a lot of you have heard of broad forks and you've seen broad forks for sale and catalogs.

I just discovered this one this spring and it is really built to last.

It weighs 22 pounds and is built outta the same kind of a steel that you might use on a tractor and so on.

And I don't think it's ever going to break.

And some catalogs when they sell their broad forks say we do sell replacement tines.

Well, that was a red flag to me and so bought this one.

It was expensive, but I think I'm pretty sure it will outlive me.

But this is an area of Bermuda grass that I loosened up earlier about two months ago and didn't get back to it.

You know how you get busy in the garden, but I do intend to loosen this up and plant a strip of purple hull peas next week.

And so you put this in the ground and you lean it forward and you just ride it.

It's easy, easy on your back and just lift up and you don't lift it, you just slide it back, rotate forward and you just ride it back again.

And comes from a company called Meadow Creature.

I've not seen any other company sell one particularly like this, so I'm not on retainer with them or anything.

And it wasn't free.

I just like it.

So you can use that to loosen the ground up and then you can go back and of course, pick the Bermuda grass out.

If you don't have Bermuda grass, you're really in in good shape because you can just prepare your ground.

And so my regular beds, I'm able to go down 14 inches and you can see I'm not huffing and puffing.

It's just easy.

And it cultivates the soil without disturbing the microorganisms in the soil so much.

It's not turning the ground over, it's just loosening it.

I really wanted to show you the surprise that's behind our building now, fronting on 15th Street, we have a front landscape, but back here is our annual and perennial garden that very fugate and the Master Gardeners planted a few years ago.

And Hello, the last time I joined you here was, oh, about 30 years ago when I worked here at the Tulsa County Extension Office.

This was just beginning to be a teaching garden for people to come and learn about what they could landscape around their own homes.

And it has expanded greatly since then.

What began in 1983 as a few plants around the building in 85 started as a small master gardener garden with a few vegetables and a compost bin.

Now it has expanded into multiple gardens all around the building.

And from 85 to 2025, it's now been a 40 year effort on the part of the Tulsa County Master Gardeners.

They have garden beds facing every direction of the compass.

So you can come here and learn what will grow best in your own garden at home.

Behind me on the corner where there's a lot of sun is a zeroscape garden that shows you what will grow in extremely hot, sunny environment in a parking lot, what will survive.

And there are plants there that have been there probably 20, 25 years.

And then we have more verdant areas that are under more increased irrigation.

We also have, we have fruit trees, we have vegetables.

There are perennials, annuals.

There's a complete list that you can access as you walk around the gardens.

There's what's called the master gardener teaching Garden plant list.

And I added this up and there are over 400 species of plants in this garden.

So to me, this is in the middle of Tulsa.

It's a little gem that you could visit any time of the week.

It's open.

Don't try to come here during the state fair.

Parking would be tough.

But otherwise you can come here and learn.

You can grab this list from one of several little boxes spaced around the building and follow it along and learn what the plants are.

Most all of them are labeled and you can figure out what will grow best in different aspects of your property.

And this is all what we have right here is all a south facing garden again in a parking lot.

And we have beautiful things such as the cannas.

We have hyacinth bean, a little shaded area.

A lot of people have a little pergola around their yards to cut the intensity of the sun.

And that's just a little gem.

And then there are a lot of water features as well.

Probably five or six different water features.

And it's cooling.

It's relaxing and it gives you ideas of small spaces that you can put in around your home and totally change the character or maybe mask noise if you live in a a noisy area, an urban area, for example.

And this area, for example, is beautiful with the purple heart, some ferns, hearty bananas, just an entire mix of plants.

As we go on down.

Color is featured everywhere around the building.

In fact, this has a list of all the annual plants that are put in, such as the begonias and so on.

And this is just a little garden cart that they've put in and added some annual seasonal mix of plants.

And then on back, there are vegetable plantings in raised beds to give you an idea of what you could do in a very, very small garden.

Now all of this is maintained by the Tulsa County Master Gardeners.

There are over 400 of them now and there are 75 who maintain this entire garden area.

The garden is paid for by the Master Gardener annual Plant Sale.

So if you buy plants at their spring plant sale, you're supporting this garden.

So there are no taxpayer funds that go into it.

And again, it's maintained all by volunteers, but it's all here for you.

There are ramps here.

If accessibility is an issue, if you have a loved one who uses a walker or a wheelchair, they can walk around the entire building and not have to go up any steps that the front of the building.

There are some stairs that go around some water gardens, so be careful around those.

But this garden is for everyone and it gives everybody some idea of what they could plant in their gardens as they go along.

And you're going to notice gardens have different themes.

On the west side of the building is a monarch weigh station and there are butterflies all around there, and it shows all the plants that you can grow that will attract butterflies.

There are container grown fruits, there are raised bed vegetable gardens.

There's a woolly morning glory growing up.

The trellis in the front garden that has wonderful architecture to fill in a space with a very bold vertical statement.

So feel free to visit this garden or any of the extension offices around the state, many who have demonstration gardens and enjoy learning about plants that grow in your area.

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

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

You won't wanna miss next week's show as we celebrate the best of former hosts, Steve Dobbs, right here on Oklahoma.

Gardening.

- Really, a lot of people don't realize that fall is one of the best gardening seasons you can have in Oklahoma.

It's just the reverse of our spring conditions, but it's just perfect for a lot of vegetables.

- 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.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 OK 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.