Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today we've got a full show as I start out by showing you a fun fall project that you can do with the kids.

We then catch up with OSU's Landscape Services to see all the preparations that go into America's greatest homecoming.

We'll also take a look at how they manage any winter storms that may be approaching.

Finally, we've got a special recognition for someone who has left a lasting legacy here at the Botanic Gardens at OSU.

All this and more, so let's get started.

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Oklahoma Gardening is a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

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

Today, we've got a fun DIY project.

We are going to make flowering zinnias essentially out of pine cones.

It's a really fun project you can do anytime of the year, and it's one to get the kids involved with as well.

You're going to start out by actually going and collecting pine cones.

Usually, you can find pine cones generally anytime of the year, and it doesn't even matter if they're slightly damaged.

We've got some here that are damaged.

You can still use those as well.

What we're going to do first is by cutting those pine cones.

This is where you're going to want the adult to help with this.

I would recommend maybe wearing a glove because those pine cones can be a little bit spiky on end.

What we're going to do is like this one that's damaged, we can just take and we're going to cut the center of it out just like that.

Usually, you'll get two ends.

That other end was damaged anyway, so we won't want to use that.

You might go ahead and clean up some of these that are loose or broken in there, and that will work just fine.

We're going to go ahead and use this pine cone.

Once you get plenty of them that are cut, what you're then going to do is spray paint them.

Spray paint is really the easiest way to get that base coat done.

You can use just your regular acrylics with a paintbrush.

It's just a little more tedious to get in there and get all the nooks and crannies.

What I was going to say is you can either use this side or this side.

It doesn't matter whichever one is your preference.

You can see how we've spray painted some of them, so the bottom is up, and then we've also spray painted some so that the cut end is up.

It's up to you, whichever one is your preference.

So we've got a few here that are actually already got that base coat, and so now what we're going to do, if you look at zinnias, they sort of have a little bit of color on the center of them or the eye of them, and that just sort of helps make them look a little more 3D if we also paint that on ours.

So we're going to take some of these and paint a center to them.

So here's where the detail work comes into play, and this is fun for kids because really they can be creative.

They can use whatever color paint you already have on hand.

It doesn't have to be really like a zinnia color.

If you have bright blues and greens, by all means let the kids have fun with it and play with that.

So we're just going to use a little bit of yellow paint here on the center of this and paint that center eye.

You can even sort of streak it out a little bit because some zinnias do have that effect if you wanted to, and we might come back with another color in the center of that.

Make sure you keep some rags on hand because paint can get a little bit messy.

On this one, you can see what we did was we did yellow, but then we also did a deeper purple to the center of it, giving it more of that 3D look.

So once you've got all these painted, you're simply going to let them dry, obviously.

But how do you use these?

There's a lot of different ways to actually use these.

You can just put them in a tray if you want just sort of a decorative table.

You can also go out and collect sticks, and you can hot glue them to sticks as well.

So you can make some sort of arrangement, stab these into some foam, you can have them like that, or just put them loose in a glass vase or a mason jar.

I've even seen where these are attached to a frame, and then they have the frame around it, and so it sort of kind of sets it off like botanical art that way as well.

But what we're going to do with ours that we've got finished here, so we've got our grapevine wreath, and we're just going to wire a few of them as a cluster down here on our grapevine wreath.

Now when you're choosing your colors as to which one you want to use, feel free to use whatever you want.

If you go with kind of the yellows and the oranges and the whites, it's going to have more of a fall color to it, so you can make it a fall wreath.

If you use the vibrant colors, you can make it a spring wreath.

You could even, you know, just get orange and whites and make it your team color wreath if you want, whichever team you're rooting for.

Of course, ours are orange and white, but we're going to add those on here to our wreath, and we're using just this florist wire to kind of twist around the pine cones a little bit.

Kind of got to manipulate it and get it into those crevices a little bit.

And then you're going to wire it up.

It's really easy to wire that through the grapevine wreaths.

Those work really well.

So I'm just going to keep wiring these on, and you can do a cluster.

I've seen where a whole wreath is done as well, which is just beautiful.

But again, depending on how much work you want to put into it.

So I'm just going to keep wiring these to finish up our wreath here.

All right, now that we got our last one tied on there, you can see we just kind of did it on the lower side here of our wreath.

You can, again, do it all the way around if you've painted that many, or just a little accent is nice as well.

You could add a bow on here.

Again, another option is to put them on sticks if you wanted to just have individual flowers.

But all of this is a great way to kind of decorate your home, bring a little bit of the nature inside, or you could actually attach these to a gift and sort of personalize it that way.

So give this a try.

It's a great family activity.

Some of my favorite gardening gifts are this rogue hoe that my wife got me for Christmas one year.

It's a triangle-shaped scuffle hoe that works really well to just clear up shallow surface weeds in the garden.

One of my favorite, doesn't do a lot of soil disturbance, but can really get the roots of weeds that are in the garden.

And then another one of my favorite gifts was this miniature or handheld stirrup hoe.

So I love my normal stirrup hoe to use in the garden as well.

This one's really nice if you've got an elevated raised bed, or like me, if you've got a really little toddler, they can get down there and play and help you with the weeds while you're working in the garden.

And this handheld stirrup hoe is a lot of fun.

Today, we are at the epicenter of America's greatest homecoming, right here at Theta Pond on OSU's campus.

And joining me is John Lee, who's Director of Landscape Services.

And there is a lot going on behind the scenes from a lot of different people, but specifically Landscape Services.

Let's talk about what your crew's involved in this week.

Let's talk about it.

Well, homecoming is just one of those activities that you never know what you're gonna be tasked with, but it's just one of those special moments that our Landscape Services teams gets to interact with the campus, the students, and just be creative.

Create these engagements, these opportunities that just provide the overall experience that you get to have here at homecoming for the university.

During homecoming week, yeah, it's very exciting.

Our main focus is the orange glow lights that you see here.

We light up Theta Pond and have it kind of be a backdrop for the homecoming activities.

The part I do the most is dyeing the fountain orange.

So past several years, I've dyed the fountain.

Every Sunday when they gather up, seems like the crowd gets bigger and bigger every year.

So one of the things that I think is so unique is the detail on this campus, but you also have a lot of maintenance that's happening, just general maintenance.

How do you prioritize all of this right before 80 ,000 people converge upon your front door?

For sure, it takes our entire Landscape Services team.

So all 70 plus folks, the full-time staff, they're hard on the maintenance to get everything dialed in and looking really good for campus and all of our visitors.

And also we have really special and unique displays, a lot like our battery operated lights that will come on this evening, our orange glow lights that will shine bright this evening.

And we have mum displays right now on the formal lawn and formal garden.

It says, go pokes out of mums.

And we've dialed in our seasonal color.

We also have all of our topiaries out on campus.

We have, for the first time ever, planted a pumpkin patch.

So landscape designer Nicolette, he took the lead in that, hand planted a pumpkin patch.

Now we have over 400 pumpkins, different varieties that we've decorated campus with for homecoming too.

And with these pumpkins here, we wanted to have a spot to where we could grow some pumpkins on campus and be able to use those for decorations and for opportunities to kind of expand with inner engagement and activities with students.

So we successfully grew about a quarter acre of pumpkins.

We have about 15 different varieties of pumpkins that we tried and it was our first year.

So it was really just trying to experiment, see if it was possible and have a lot of fun with it, as well as get to incorporate these into our beautiful landscapes and be a part of the fall festivities and engagements that I think add to the overall experience of the campus beauty on homecoming.

So this is not something that happens overnight, obviously.

You've planned and prepared for this.

Tell me how this sort of fits into your, I mean, this is a big deal, right?

On your calendar every year.

For sure.

October is our busiest month of the season.

And actually it's one of our busiest months of the entire year.

And the entire team has it on the schedule and we work backwards from homecoming day.

So we plan all of our seasonal color plantings, topiaries, all of these displays for campus backwards from the day.

The thing is that we do something different.

We get to do a little bit different things outside the normal, such as the floating pots this year.

It's always something different that the guys come up with to throw something extra in to just make it even better than it was the year before.

Homecoming is the best time of the year.

We get to see all the extra people come around.

We get to see all the alumni, the crowds and show them what we're capable of, what we can do.

It's a really fun week.

There's energy to campus.

People are a little bit more relaxed.

And it's great to be down here amongst all the activity on University Street.

I would have to say just the whole process from start to finish.

I mean, it all comes with an idea and a design.

And I think that's the beauty of our landscape department.

Everything is so well thought out from the very beginning.

And to see these designs and see these ideas come to life is what really just feeds our whole team.

And we're so blessed to have a team that just loves to come to work.

And I think that's what feeds for all the events that come after this.

You know, we'll ride this wave if there's excitement with it and get to be there with the students.

And then that's what's going to stir the ideas for next year.

A lot of times people think, you know, the garden is going to sleep, starting to go dormant.

But you guys are busy all winter long.

Let's talk about once Homecoming is done this weekend, what's the next step?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So you're right, landscapes year round.

So what our team is really good about is being prepared.

So right now we're actually servicing all of our snow and ice equipment.

It's much better to go through all your equipment and all of your materials when it's 70 degrees outside, as opposed to 12, right?

So we're actually planning for January and February and March right now.

OK, and then also you've got a couple of more events coming up on campus.

Let's talk about holiday preparation.

Sure.

So directly following this Homecoming orange glow set up, lighting set up, all the Homecoming facilities, we're going to dive right into holiday lighting and switching out all of our seasonal color.

OK, and then hopefully you won't have bad weather, but you'll be prepared if the snow comes as well.

You got it.

So that's that's a big priority for us is to make sure we have everything are working our plan for snow and ice removal first.

And then our seasonal color follows all of the holiday lighting displays for the end for the winter break.

All of those will be just right in order.

And so we're going to be busy all the way through to the end of December, really trying to get everything organized.

And this is a fun time for you guys.

I've seen you all out enjoying this energy that comes onto campus right now.

100 percent.

We're we're so excited to share what we do.

And the team really just rallies around Homecoming.

So we're excited.

We've worked all summer long to provide seasonal color displays, our topiaries, well manicured and fertilized groomed lawns.

We want to share that with all Oklahoma State family and guests.

And you also do that via the parade as well.

You got it.

We're so excited about our float this year.

We're actually craning out of one of our largest topiaries.

And I hope we'll get some video and folks will come to the parade and see that topiary on it on our float trailer.

Super unique.

I think it's our best one yet.

Well, John, we all appreciate the beauty that you bring and your crew brings to this campus and appreciate the hard work that goes into making it one of America's greatest homecomings.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

While snow might seem a long ways off from right now, it's not too early to start thinking about it.

And last winter, we were able to catch up with John Lee as he discussed how they handled one of our biggest ice storms and snowstorms last year on campus.

Let's take a look.

Today, we're on OSU's beautiful campus.

And joining me is John Lee, who is the director of Landscape Services and has the biggest backyard to maintain when it comes to snow removal.

I agree.

It feels that way for the entire team.

How many acres?

700 acres.

OK.

700 acres, 42 miles of sidewalk.

Countless parking lots.

All right.

Well, let's talk plants first before we get to the hardscape, if you don't mind.

Let's do it.

Because you probably have the largest pallet of plant material.

Are there any plants that you've noticed can kind of handle?

And I know snow is a little different than ice sometimes, but which ones kind of tend to handle it better or don't handle it well at all?

Thanks for asking.

That's a big question for Oklahoma weather and plant selection.

It's more the cold hardiness, which we all know to check our cold hardiness zone and to plan on what you choose to plant in your gardens based off our cold hardiness zone.

We even push the envelope a little bit more on Oklahoma State.

And I could tell you some cultivars of hollies that have performed very well, considering our negative wind chills and our negative real time temperatures.

I can tell you some ornamentals that have performed very well.

As long as you follow some cultural practices where you don't cut them down too early and then leave some insulation around the crown of plants.

We have a lot of plants that are very successful and will will green up in spring for us and perform.

We've got a lot of Oklahoma native ornamental grasses, obviously, that fit that bill.

Great selections, great selections of Oklahoma natives that perform well can take these brutal temperature swings and freezing temps.

And then, of course, the snow and ice pressures.

And it's not just the snow and ice, because actually that can kind of insulate a little bit, but it's the winds that can be so bitter, especially on evergreens.

You got it.

Absolutely.

So those wind chills, those bitter wind chills, those negative degree wind chills that that really tax the plant and especially evergreens.

And we know that, you know, the the cellular walls of those evergreens are a lot different than some other ornamentals and herbaceous and perennials.

So they they have a challenge when it comes to this type of weather.

Right.

And of course, you guys probably use a little ice melt on campus that has salt in it.

So let's talk a little bit about how that can affect the plant material.

It is part of our our procedure to ice melt and melt off hardscape areas with pedestrian traffic and vehicular traffic.

We're very careful about that.

We're very particular on how we do that and how we apply our ice melt and when and where is important.

And even the the type of ice melt that we use is important to to speak to that salt content.

So let's talk a little bit of more specific details.

Like you said, you're very careful about that.

What any suggestions for us homeowners on how to manage that better?

You got it.

So more is not always better.

And so to understand your product is what I always tell people is make sure you read the label of any product you're using as we should.

Specifically, ice melt.

So when you put it out, not more doesn't work any faster than what you can put out like you should.

So quite often we over apply.

I see folks that are over applying ice melt in residential areas and commercial areas where it wouldn't take that much to do the same the same work.

Because it's not it's not supposed to be grit.

Like you can use sand for grit, right?

That's a great, great point, Casey.

Yes.

Ice melt is not intended for traction.

And sand is meant for traction.

Ice melt is intended to do just that melt through the product so you can break the adhesion and then get it out of there.

Yeah.

And I know different products have different marketing techniques of how to melt that ice, right?

You've got one that really works below that ice level.

We do.

We use a product that their technology is called liquid fire and and the preal of the ice melt.

You know, it works its way through whatever top layer of ice or snow that is and then hits the concrete, heats up that and breaks that adhesion.

So it doesn't make it disappear.

We still come back and scrape it or burn it off.

So somebody that's walking is like, well, it just made little holes in the ice.

It's actually working underneath there.

Yeah, just just help doing exactly what we intended to do.

Good to know.

So obviously mechanical removal of that snow and ice is critical.

Any tips and tricks on how to do that more efficiently at home?

You got it.

So it's the amount of material.

So the volume that you're trying to move.

Don't take big bites.

Don't get in a big hurry.

Dress appropriately, layer, layer, layer.

So as you get warm as you're moving and scraping snow, you can peel a layer off so we don't start sweating or something.

But don't take a big bite.

So use the right shovel and most importantly, don't walk on what you're about to scrape.

Don't drive on it about what you're about to scrape.

You compact that layer of snow and you force an adhesion to the concrete or hardscape underneath.

Very difficult to get it off.

So walk outside your sidewalk.

Start scraping back towards your goal.

Same with driving.

OK, makes sense.

Definitely.

And so I know you do have a few plants here that are very sensitive, maybe to the weather.

Let's talk about those.

Your topiaries, right?

Super unique plants at Oklahoma State.

So yes, our topiaries, the ones that we intend to stay out year round, we treat those very differently, obviously.

And so we wrap those.

And when I say wrap, it's a two layer wrap.

So you got to be very careful about putting plastic over any plants out in your landscape and to not leave it forever.

So if a plastic, if you drape plastic over any of your ornamentals to protect them from freeze or wind chill, anytime that plastic hits the plant, you have a chance of freeze burn.

So it's even better to insulate the plant first with a blanket or something of that nature.

That's just what we do with our topiaries.

You use blankets or burlap?

Sure.

Yeah.

Any type of fabric like that.

We use U-Haul blankets and we wrap them first.

Then we use the plastic to help.

It helps insulate, but the wind chill as well and even keep some moisture and insulation for the plants.

OK, and touch on that fact that we don't leave that on forever.

Right?

This isn't a one in dawn and see you in spring, like wake up in April.

No, this is you need to watch the weather.

OK, so yes, just as you've watched the weather to prepare your gardens, you need to watch to make sure you take these wrappings off so they will cook.

So and you don't want to you don't want that micro environment that you've created to harm the plants that you're trying to protect.

OK, well, most of our homeowners probably don't have topiaries, but we do have some sensitive plants that we might want to protect.

So thank you so much for this information, John.

You got it.

So this is one of my favorite garden gifts to give to friends.

If you have a gardener in your life, I love that with this stool, it's very easy to open up, sit on, use in lieu of a kneeler in the garden when you're working, pulling weeds and such.

I can store all of my essential tools, gloves, snacks and water bottles, take them with me.

The best thing about this is it's a very affordable gift.

You can get them anywhere that you would go to like a camping, sporting goods section and look for these.

They some have a back, some come backless and they're usually about $10 to $20 to find.

We want to take a moment to recognize Dr.

Lou Anella and the tremendous impact he has had on the Botanic Gardens as he approaches retirement.

Since joining OSU's faculty in 1997 and becoming garden director in 2014, he has helped shape the gardens through projects like the Horticulture Education Center, Tree Walk Village and countless improvement projects completed alongside his students.

But Lou's legacy extends far beyond the projects he's built.

He has taught and inspired generations of horticulturists, including myself, sharing his knowledge through funny stories, unique plant descriptions and a passion for teaching that makes even the trickiest plant names memorable.

Today, we not only celebrate the projects that he has built here at the Botanic Garden, but also the lasting impact that he has had on so many people and the memories that he is leaving behind.

Lou, thank you for all that you have done over the years.

While there are still things to do in the garden, our Oklahoma gardening season is coming to a close.

We want to say thank you for joining us over this past season as we've endured a not normal yet typical Oklahoma weather pattern.

Over the next coming months, you will see that we are going to re-air some of our popular segments on our Oklahoma Gardening best of shows.

In the meantime, feel free to reach out to your local county OSU Extension office or stay in contact with us on social media.

My recommendation for a Christmas gift is a mini Hori Hori knife.

This is perfect for weeding and planting and pretty much any garden task you'd like to do.

But it comes in only four inches and will fit in your pocket.

My gardener gift idea is this leather pruner holster.

I really like it just because it's 5% leather and I'm able to carry my pruners around the garden and not poke holes in my pockets.

And you can see mine is pretty beat up because I've been using it for a couple of years now, but it still does exactly what it's supposed to do.

So this is really nice.

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 begin our best of Oklahoma Gardening episodes.

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.

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 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.