Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today, I'm going to talk to you about a beautiful English garden here in Oklahoma.

We're also going to look at the many different ways that vines climb in the garden.

And then finally, Shape Your Future is joining us as we walk through the student farm to identify pests and problems.

All this and more right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

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 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.

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That's what makes Oklahoma Gardening true to Oklahoma and true to gardeners.

Today, we are in Edmond, Oklahoma at the Stewart House, and joining me is Cindy Stewart.

And Cindy, I mean, your front yard was impressive.

I didn't even know what to expect coming out back here.

It's a surprise, isn't it?

Oh my God.

I feel like I walked into England.

Ah, that's not.

Well, that's kind of, that was the point.

I mean, clearly you guys love utilizing your backyard and living in that space too with the different areas.

Can you kind of share some of these different areas you have with us?

We've lived in the house almost 27 years.

And so we did start out with a, a lot of the, the outdoor stuff, the outdoor kitchen and, but then, but we added, we actually added a roof from, from the patio and extended it so it, the, the fireplace would be under a roof instead of exposed.

Right.

And then this little patio here we extended because we kept having water leak every time it rained up on the porch.

And so what was going to be about an eigh-foot extension wound up being a 20-foot extension.

And Bill loves to bring his coffee out here and, and be by the streams in the morning.

It's beautiful.

Part Of this landscape was because of function and utilizing the landscape - It Was.

Solving some problems with it, Right?

Exactly.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Well, you know, I see so much detail in your garden too.

It has a lot of personality and character.

Tell me a little bit about where you get your inspiration From.

Oh my goodness.

I read a lot.

I look at a lot of magazines and, and, and books and, and watch a lot of YouTube.

I become, during COVID we became hooked on YouTube.

Well, and I know you, you travel a lot and you have a lot of your souvenirs that I've, you know, for lack of a better word that you've collected from your travels.

And you've incorporated them into your garden a little Bit.

Absolutely.

Let's talk a little bit about some of those, the birds and the bunnies theme that's Going on here.

The birds and bunny theme.

Yes, they're gonna, you're gonna find birds, bird cages, bunnies everywhere.

They, they kind of sneak up on you.

But I just, they, they, they make me happy and I have both live ones and concrete ones.

And it just makes me smile and I think it probably makes everybody smile.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you've definitely set the theme of the English cottage garden.

Thank you.

I love how you've incorporated all of the vines and everything to kind of soften the hardscape.

Yes.

You've got one of your favorite roses behind us here.

Oh my goodness, the Peggy Martin rose, a, a, a gardener that I had planted that for me.

And I was having a garden tour and I heard her speaking to some women telling the story about the Peggy Martin rose and how a woman in Louisiana had this huge world renowned garden.

And when Katrina came, it was under 17 feet of saltwater.

And whenever that receded, only two of her plants survived.

And one of them was this Peggy Martin Rose who.

And they had been trying to find the origination of this rose and it had not been able to.

And so they just named it the Peggy Martin.

And as a fundraiser, they started taking, taking clippings and selling them.

And that's where this rose.

My, my one little stem is now three arches.

Arches.

I love how you've done that with the arches and stuff like that.

Every two years, I, I need another arch.

Build me another arch.

So I love the grapes that you have growing over your backyard.

And then also the partier garden really tells you it's English, Right?

Yes.

It does.

Everything about my yard, I, I say it's higgly piggly because that's an English term.

And because it's nothing was really.

There was never a, a major plan.

It just, it just evolved over years.

But I did know that I wanted a formal piece because of the, the dove coat that's in the center of that.

I, I decorated and made the partier because of have, of getting that dove coat.

Okay.

That, and it's a beautiful piece.

Another piece from your trips, right?

Yes.

So let's talk about the, the river that runs through it too, right?

So this is where it all started.

Well, this was the first thing that was a concrete for the backyard.

My husband and I had another home.

We had a very small pond and he always knew that he wanted something.

And this, this lot from one corner to the opposite corner is a 17-foot drop.

And so we knew we'd be able to do a streams with a natural drop.

So he had it in his head.

He knew what he wanted.

We went to a place in England, a hotel, and walked through their gardens, and it was exactly that they had exactly in their gardens what he wanted.

And he took a whole lot of pictures and brought it home and showed it to the guy that worked for us at the time.

And and they put this together.

So we have three ponds and two strings in this beautiful, beautiful, peaceful Sound.

And I love it.

You hear water everywhere you go in your garden, both in the front yard and the backyard.

Just enough to sort of drown out any neighborhood noise and things like that, right?

Yeah.

Well, you've done well with your bog plants too, and I love the annual pockets of the annuals throughout.

I see something at the end of the stream though that's drawn my eye.

Can we go take a look?

Absolutely.

All Right.

Cindy, this is just amazing.

And the punctuation at the end of your water garden creature is.

Tell me about this cottage.

Well, this is my hay bale cottage.

Right before we, we, we moved into the house, I was looking through a magazine and I saw this picture of an artist's studio out in California.

And she had this cottage and, and it said in the article that it was made of hay bales.

And I was like, "What?

What?"

And so I began studying and learning more about it.

Uh-huh.

And I decided I had to have this.

I had to have one.

This is kind of my present day dollhouse, playhouse that I didn't have when I was a little girl.

And then I always wanted, I wanted a living roof.

And at first we had grass.

We did that for several years.

And then that just, that was boring.

Hard to mow Too, Right?

No, you know, because it would grow and it would hang over and it was fabulous.

But I was just like, "I need color."

So we change it.

Every spring we put summer plants in, and every fall we put pansies and, and fill it up.

Well, it's beautiful.

I love the color.

And it adds a pop of color down here in your deep shade that you have.

Yes.

But going back to the hay bale cottage, I mean, thick walls and well insulated in there too.

It is.

They, they actually poured a, a footing and put the rebar in it and just stacked the hay bale on top of each other until they got to the right height.

We had bought windows and a door and they, they built it around the shapes that we had and they put the, the roof on.

They, they lined the roof.

They, of course, put the, the wood up bottom, and then they lined it with the same lining of our, of our, our pond.

Oh, okay.

So it's a real, real thick, thick.

And so in, in 27 years, it's never leaked.

Or 26 years, it's never leaked once.

Well, it's beautiful.

And I have to turn to next to your bridge here.

What was the inspiration for this bridge?

Well, my husband loves golf, and he is part Scottish.

And he loves St.

Andrews.

We've never been.

His inspiration was this is the bridge that is at St.

Andrew's golf course in, in, in Scotland.

And so we showed a picture of it to our wonderful stone mason and he came, he got it, he gave us this.

And very sturdy to walk across.

It Is.

It is absolutely functional.

Yes.

To get back to your house.

I mean, this view from down here looking back at your house is fantastic.

And there is so much that we haven't even talked about.

The greenhouse, the bochy ball court, you know?

I mean, there, it could go on and on.

But I just want to say thank you for inviting us to your backyard and to see this and to share with us your personality and the love of gardening that you have.

Well, I appreciate y'all coming.

It's our pleasure.

We loved it.

We just love to share.

It's there's just, it's just the two of us.

And so we need other eyes to see it.

Well, thank you for showing it to us.

Appreciate it.

We're back with another botany lesson.

And today I wanted to discuss vines.

A lot of times we think about planting a vine in our garden and we think it needs support, but do we know the proper way to support those vines?

So there are multiple ways in which vines actually grow or climb up a structure.

And so I wanted to kind of go over some of those different ways to save yourself a headache later and to make sure that you're also creating the right structure to support that plant.

So one of the ways that vines often climb is just simply by twining the top of the stem around structures.

So we see this with mourning glories, with wisterias.

And depending on how woody that vine is, of course, you want to pay attention to the size of the structure that you're giving it.

Of course, a wisteria is going to need a lot more than like a morning glory or something.

But here we have some weeds and we can see we've got this twine vine that has actually curled its way up this fleebine daisy.

And you can see it's even jumped over to the next one.

So plants like this will find a way to support themselves if you don't support them.

Many vines will because they're trying to reach that sunlight.

But this is a twining vine.

A lot of times they will start out smaller and they will have that younger growth that is more supple to be able to twist around whatever structure you have.

So it's best to give them something a little bit smaller so they can get that initial stem around.

But knowing what plant you have that you're dealing with might dictate how beefy that structure is.

Of course, a wisteria is going to need something a little bit bigger than say a morning glory.

Now, next we have here are vines that have tendrils.

So these vines you can see actually have little tendrils.

So they're kind of like these modified stems that reach out and they're what actually attach the main vine stem to the structure that's supporting it.

So here we can see we have a piece of a grapevine here, and you can see how woody that grapevine will get eventually, but it starts with something like this.

And these little tendrils that reach out and try to grab, giving it that space and that structure to grow upon.

Now again, knowing how beefy that plant material is, whether it's woody or herbaceous, because here we have a gourd, this is a snake gourd that also has tendrils.

And of course gourds, a lot of our vegetables we treat as annuals.

And so they just need some sort of a net or something to be able to grab hold of to support that plant material.

Now the next ones we have here.

So this is some Boston Ivy and also some Virginia Creeper.

So Boston Ivy and Virginia Creeper also have tendrils.

However, their tendrils have little pads.

If you've ever looked at like a tree frog stuck to the window and those kind of round pads, that's what this really looks like.

And those pads have adhesive that actually stick to whatever structure that it's growing on.

So be forewarned that if you put something like this around your house, it can actually attach itself and moisture can get in there between the paint or the wood and also the plant material.

So it can cause damage to your structure.

In fact, you can actually see one of these where I pulled it off and it pulled a little bit of the wood off with it.

So that is Boston Ivy and also Virginia Creeper that a lot of times you'll be seeing growing up on structures.

Virginia Creeper, often confused with poison ivy, but has five leaves, is what we find a lot of times out in the woods growing up in the trees.

Now, another plant we have here as an example is a vine that has aerial roots.

So this is euonymous winter creeper and is often used in the garden, but has become invasive in wild areas.

And you can see why because it's pretty aggressive.

And what happens is when it gets close to a tree, again, it's trying to climb up so that it can compete with resources and get some of that sunlight.

And so it will attach itself to the bumpy tree bark with these adventitious roots, these aerial roots that will cling to that bark, allowing it to travel up that tree.

So again, this is physically attaching itself to that structure.

So be aware of that too.

Now, there's other plants that we think of as vines that really aren't vines such as climbing rose.

We hear about climbing rose, but it doesn't actually climb itself.

So climbing roses are sort of like brambles in the fact that they put out these long branches that we have to mechanically tie those to a structure.

So we use some sort of tape or something to attach it, but it has no mechanical way of actually attaching itself to any structure.

So these are some of the different ways that vines grow, and it's important to kind of know so that you can provide the right support and also make sure that you're putting it in the right place and not causing any damage to your home.

Today I'm walking through the student farm garden with Candace Bacon from Shape Your Future.

It's always nice to get out in the garden, is it?

It is.

Absolutely.

It's a great way to walk around, get a little bit of exercise.

Absolutely.

But you know, it's a little hotter this time of year.

It is.

And so one of the things that I always think, instead of being strenuous and gardening, it's important to inspect your plants for any diseases or insects that might be happening.

So I want to give you guys some tips on how to do that today.

Okay.

So we have squash here next to us.

Guess what comes with squash?

Bugs.

Bugs, yes.

And in particular, squash bugs are the most prominent one that we have.

And we've got a lot of different eggs here.

You can see some that are kind of laying right there.

They're very distinct as an egg.

They're kind of often laid in a cluster and they're just this kind of bright golden brown color.

So one of the best ways to get rid of those, because if you look at how many eggs, there's probably 20 eggs right there.

There's a lot.

Yeah.

Right.

So we can just kind of get our, our thumb and kind of squish those and roll those and break those off.

And there we go.

We've killed at least 20 bugs before they've come out.

But I guarantee you there's a lot more in here.

So with squash bugs, you want to sort of monitor your population by looking down in the base of your plant.

Okay.

Because we don't like being out in the sun.

A lot of these bugs don't like to be out in the sun either.

And so they're kind of hiding down in there.

And I guarantee you there's.

Oh, look what we have right there.

There's one right there.

Oh, it's a squash bug.

Yeah.

So we've got squash bugs down in here.

Spinosid will kind of take care of that.

And behind us here, we have another problem that's going on.

So it's often, while you want to look at the detail, sort of step back, right?

Look at the bigger picture.

Look At the bigger picture.

Absolutely.

And what doesn't look right?

It doesn't look like it's thriving.

No, it does not.

And so what's happening here?

We've got vine bores that have kind of attacked these squash vines.

Now, is that also a bug?

So it is kind of this bore.

It's like a, a little bug that we'll kind of bore into at the base of the vine.

And do you see that kind of sawdust stuff coming Out?

Yes.

That's a telltale sign.

And so what it's doing is it's boring in there and you can kind of pull that apart.

There's a hole in there and you'll actually find the larvae in there.

So as it's eating through there, it's pushing that sort of sawdust material out.

It's really kind of it's frass, it's waste.

And so what happens is it prevents that water and the, the carbohydrates and everything from moving through that plant.

So you immediately start to see it wilt in the garden like we all would without water.

Absolutely.

So unfortunately, once it's at this point, there's not a lot you can do to it.

You can try to remove that bore, but usually you just lost the plant already at that point.

So other than bugs, what else would I be looking for when I'm checking my plants?

Yeah.

So there's a lot of times that it's not just bug problems.

It's environmental problems.

And I've got some examples of some tomatoes we can look At.

Okay, perfect.

So unfortunately, you know, you don't always get the perfect plant or produce that you're looking for.

But you can learn something from this.

So here we've got some kind of funky cucumbers as the way they're growing and that sort of stuff.

And this really is a result of poor pollination.

Okay.

So, you know, there's nothing that you necessarily did or we did - Right.

That caused this.

It just sort of is a factor.

And a lot of times it's environmental.

So, you know, when the flower is blooming and the bee and the pollinators were visiting, or whether it was self-pollination on something a lot of times it's just the wind, it's the heat.

All of that plays into the development of that fruit.

Unpredictable factors.

Exactly, exactly.

Environmental for sure.

Now, we also have some other things here.

So like this this is a really big cucumber, obviously.

It is.

And you can see kind of how it's got this scarring on the side of it.

Essentially, we've had a lot of rain, right?

And so what are cucumbers full of?

Water.

Water.

And so what happens is like a water balloon that gets a lot of water All of a sudden - Stretches it.

And it sort of stretches that skin out.

So this you can peel off and it would still be fine.

So it's still edible.

It is.

Okay.

It's perfectly edible.

Maybe not really using the skin on this or something like that, but definitely still edible with the inside.

Now our tomatoes, tomatoes are king of the garden, right?

Do you like tomatoes?

I love tomatoes, especially a fresh salad.

Everybody loves tomatoes, and unfortunately, Oklahoma is not one of the best places to grow tomatoes.

I did not know that.

Because of our heat.

And we all love tomatoes.

It's something we're still going to keep growing.

But our temperatures get so hot and our evening temperatures stay hot too.

Okay.

And that's when pollination happens.

And so a lot of times this time of year, you're going to see flowers on your tomato plants, but you won't ever get fruit.

And that's because the pollen actually is sterile at a certain temperature.

Okay.

So it just won't work.

But we do have some here that we have obviously growing, but we've got some calls that we want to talk about.

This is one that is a typical thing that you see in the summertime.

And this is called sun skull.

It looks like a sunburn.

It does.

And so like us that can get sunburned.

If we kind of clean up our tomato vines too much and don't allow some of that vegetation to stay over those fruits, what happens is we can get this sunburn and it just sort of turns to like a, a water bag right there.

And it's not anything that we want to eat at that point.

So that is sun skull.

It's kind of really severe case of it.

Again, like the cucumber, we've got some cracking where it's gotten too much water all of a sudden.

Okay.

You can have things like blossom and rot.

This is where the tomato is connected to the stem, but the flour was at this end.

Okay.

So this is why it's called the blossom end.

This is a calcium problem.

So it's actually not getting enough calcium.

But usually there's plenty of calcium in the soil.

It's just, it moves through the water.

And so it's inconsistent watering that causes this.

Okay.

So again, you know, not pretty.

You can also see some other things going on here.

Do you see how it looks like stars almost?

Yeah.

So that is likely a stink bug.

And a stink bug has a little straw that it kind of penetrates into that.

And so every time it does that, it scars those cells and then makes that stippling effect or the modeling effect on your fruit.

Hmm.

So again, you know, sometimes you have fruit that you're like, "Okay, I can just cut that out and still use it if you want to."

But a lot of times it kind of ruins the fruit overall.

So we've got some different things.

These were supposed to be like round slicers and the heat is causing them to have a little bit more of a point to them.

So just the heat really affects the development of tomatoes a lot of times.

So one of the things I always tell people, if your tomatoes are still looking good, they don't have any yellowing leaves and that sort of thing at the bottom of them, just keep them going through the summertime and they will start producing for you again.

Okay.

So, but don't be deterred if you get some problems.

We all do that.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Just really, it's important to know the insect you're dealing with.

And so proper identification, how to look for them.

Make sure you're checking down in the base of those plants under the leaves, right, because that's where they like to grow and get out of the shade like us.

So if I'm inspecting my plants and I don't know exactly what I'm looking at, is there a way that I could contact you all and try to find out?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So that's, you know, what extension is all about.

So if people want to bring in some of their problems, I see we have some powdery mildew on one of the squashes over there.

Again, it's on the lower part of the plant.

So you could bring in the symptomatic plant or produce to your local county extension office and they can help you identify it.

We also have some really great fact sheets.

Okay.

And so, you know, a lot of times we expect that perfect product, right?

Like we're so used to that.

Yes.

But sometimes you can work around it by peeling it and cutting it.

But sometimes you want to make sure that you're treating it also.

Absolutely.

That's good to know.

I'm learning so much.

You Know, and it's a great way to get exercise that's not quite as strenuous to kind of go out and walk through The garden.

It's also relaxing.

It's been really enjoyable.

That's what we're all about here with Shape Your Future is staying active and eating healthy.

So there are a ton of great recipes on our website on shapeyourfutureok.com as well as ways to stay active.

Well, thank you for joining me today.

Thanks for having me.

And as always, if you have questions about today's show, feel free to reach out to your local county OSU extension office or leave us a comment on 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 as we visit another beautiful garden full of color, and we finish up our botany series as we discuss the different ways plants grow, right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

So one of the ways that vines grow is just by twining.

So literally they will twist the top of the stem, will twist around, will pung twista.

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 oklahomagardening.okstate.edu.

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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 garden, and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful Stillwater gym.

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.