0:00 Welcome to the Best of Oklahoma Gardening #5024!
1:09 Renovating the Rock Garden at The Botanic Gardens at OSU
Cheryl Mihalko, OSU horticulture and landscape architecture professor, shares an update on the renovations in the rock garden at The Botanic Garden at OSU.
7:08 Designing a Succulent Garden
Cheryl Mihalko, Associate Professor of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at OSU, walks us through the design process of the new succulent garden at The Botanic Garden at OSU.
13:04 Succulent Propagation
Host, Casey Hentges visits with Tanner Kyler, a Landscape Architecture student at Oklahoma State University, about best practices for succulent propagation.
21:16 Succulent & Cactus Garden Update
OSU Horticulture & Landscape Architecture Professor Cheryl Mihalko updates us on the hardy succulent & cactus garden at The Botanic Garden at OSU.
Airdate (12/09/2023)
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Welcome to the best of Oklahoma gardening today we take a look back at the development of the hearty succulent garden we start at the beginning by evaluating the existing features of the rock garden then head to the OSU landscape architecture Studio to see the design process we learn how the students propagate succulents
And then look at the finished installation underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture food and Forestry helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing so if you’re looking for an easy low maintenance peral have two different types of flowers on one Plant C noid that gives the pepper it heat if you ever visit us here at the botanic garden at Oklahoma State University you probably have seen our Rock Garden well it’s been here for several years and it’s come to a point where we want to sort of give it a new
Life again so joining me is Professor Cheryl hako who is one of our landscape architecture professors Professor mahako so you’re going to help us with this project to tell us a little bit about where do we go because I think a lot of homeowners probably have a similar
Situation yeah it’s always great to think about a new Garden to plant a new Garden it’s really exciting but before we do that the site of the existing Garden can really tell us a lot about how that Garden did and potentially how our new Garden will do so I think really
Looking at the site we can really see the the bones and maybe it’ll help us make decisions for the New Garden so when you talk about the bones of a garden are we talking about The Hardscape the soil and Hardscape being any structures rocks stuff like that
Right right those things that um usually are Hardscape sometimes we talk about the bones of the Garden in terms of per permanent planting okay so when we look at this Garden it’s not just the actual site where the rock garden was existing it really is important to take a look at
What’s surrounding the site and what affects the site and so we have some really interesting features to consider about how we then bring into the New Garden so the black walnut that covers this Garden um doesn’t interfere with any of the light because we have this beautiful South Exposure that’s why the
Rock garden did so well but when we look at it it’s um of course any shade in Oklahoma is always appreciated but um it’s time that it just needs a little work too so we are bringing in an arborous to take a look at just liming
It up a little maybe bringing it up so that the when you look at the New Garden the leaves aren’t in your sight line and then also over time there’s been some of course ice storms that have broken some limbs so we’re going to get all that
Cleaned up okay so it probably just needs a little bit of maintenance on it anyway yeah so what’s kind of the first step I mean it can be intimidating especially for somebody who is not a professional architect like how do I approach this do I just start digging
And pulling plants or what I think it’s important to know where you’re going you know you have to have some idea about it that’ll really help out so in this case what we’re going to try to do in this Garden is going to be to introduce some new Cactus and succulent really cold
Hearty ones um and this is the perfect site because it’s already been a garden that has on a slope that uh has not been supplementally watered so we’re looking carefully in this Garden to see what we can reuse in terms of plant material okay and there are some things so your
Your design theme of a hearty succulent garden sort of was uh inspired by the fact that it was previously a rock garden right so it’s not like you’re going to change this all of a sudden to an aelia Garden that needs really high or low PH or anything like that you’re
Keeping the intention a little bit similar exactly we’re really just tweaking it um there’s been a lot of interests in cold hearty Cactus and succulent uh I know the ambassadors here have been very interested in it of course our cold cold Winters um and just
The variety so we’re going to um we are collecting plants now we’re looking at plants as far away as um T New Mexico trying to find native cactus so we’re getting all those ready um but as we look at this Garden some of the things that we can include are the yakas that
Are existing and um even in this case where the yakas are planted we’re going to go ahead and just leave them there and design around them there’s some other small plant material like some of the euphorbias I think we’re probably going to dig those up and pot them up
Until we plant but everything else will come out and when we do that we will uh probably any stone that’s football size or a little long a little bit bigger we’ll go ahead and pick those up and put them off to the side stockpile them and
Then really see what we have under there okay when this Garden was built um because it was intended as that rock garden we know we have really good drainage um but we really don’t know what’s all the way under there was there some fabric or some plastic is there
Something that we need to replace um so this is your opportunity to really dig in no pun intended and and actually invest or enhance that soil if need be right and the idea behind a succulent garden one of the things we know we can do to really help improve its viability
Is that we’ll actually build up so we do want to Dig Down clean it out see what’s there set those stones aside and then when we put the plant material back in we’ll be specifically sculpting it in a way that um the stones will help support
The plant okay Cheryl I always kind of think of it as like somebody redoing their living room right you’re probably not going to go and get a new couch but you might go get new thr throw pillows change the color of the paint some of that stuff and so that’s sort of like
What we’re doing here we’re deciding what we’re going to keep um and then what we need to change and then go forward with our plan well Cheryl I know y’all have a lot of work ahead of you and we look forward to actually following this through the season so
We’ll check back with you soon great thanks thank You Today we are in the landscape architecture studio in a hall where all the creativity happens and joining me is Professor Cheryl mahako Professor we’ve talked about the renovation of the rock garden to a hearty succulent garden but if I looked at that space I would be
Lost so tell us a little bit about the design process and how you get started right so um we did look at the space and we saw that that it had been previously used as a rock garden so we know it gets a lot of great Sunshine um it’s on a
Slope it’s gets good drainage so with climate change with a lot of new interest in Cactus and really cold hearty Cactus and succulent um we made a decision to go in with a collection so um we’ve been working on that we’ve done some site demo and so now it was time to
Begin to get a plan so what I did was go out and try to get something as built just really sketchy sort of some of the major rocks some of the existing plant material there’s some wonderful yellow yaka that we’ll we’ll keep um other than that the only real goal that’s important
Is to kind of screen off what really is this nice little Japanese garden so we’ll do some planting to kind of screen that off and really really work with this area okay so in terms of the plant material just beginning to think about overall shape overall masses the plant
Material that we be working with here’s kind of a general plant so um the stickiest and prickliest ones of course these wonderful choya and atias atias are the big paddle Cactus and there’s a lot of them that are cold hearty so we’ll sort of try those in the center
Here so they’re away from the public yeah right not so much on the edge the this um area that’s up towards the top want we want to put a lot of really nice bright color that’ll be eye-catching as you walk up to it so those will be some
Of the um hesp Barella which is the red yaka and then there’s actually a wonderful little cultivar called stoplights um that’s also a deeper red hella and then mix that in with some of the um nomia which is the red hot poker plant okay yeah and we have some
Beautiful yellow ones as well as red for this area so if you kind of use the color as sort of your yeah this is kind of what there’s a lot of beautiful pale greens here’s this kind of um reddish color a bit of yellow up here and then
In this area um we want to get close enough to really see them because a lot of them are quite small um they’re more of the barrel M mamalia or the echinos seras which is very much something like this they have a a beautiful bloom a bright bright Bloom but you know the
Rest of the year they’re just kind of um there not really eyeg grabbing and so a little closer so you can appreciate the detail of them yeah and we don’t usually Mass those they’re harder to find we don’t have as many we hope that they you know um expand but um yeah
Those will be in there and then on the edge uh again to little bit of safety but also lower so that it doesn’t block the plant material in the center again this will be really built up because of the importance of drainage um quite a
Bit of the Seer BM which is the hen and chicks okay so just sort of basic basic thinking and then the next stage is beginning to actually think about um specific color specific layout um what those will be so this is just an you know a quick onetime generation Beyond
This plant and here it looks like you maybe Incorporated some of the texture of the plant little those Pia pads and then the rocks are running through these are the memas and then um this beautiful red yua so further help you visualize what it might look like okay and so in
Addition to this we’re working on um finding plant material collecting plant material we have about half of what we need now it’s stored away in the greenhouse um and and how do you let me interrupt you how do you figure out how much you might need so you kind of know
Your space right and then you know the spacing of the plants you do and you um you know it’s really all over the board sometimes it’s because of budget you want it to be really full really quick and then you edit out of course with the the cactus it’s really great to
Propagate from them so you can plant full and if it gets a little too crowded you just really go and propagate away from that um so yeah it’s a combination of allowing it to grow some um and really just experience I’ve done a lot of this kind thing you are a
Professionally so in addition to this uh put installing the garden over time here we will um have available on the website um individual plants they’ll be coded so you could look them up but we are developing a nice subtle booklet that tells you the native range it gives you
A picture of the flower and the fruit so hopefully that’ll be really useful to Oklahoma gardeners that really want to try and move in this direction for their Garden well this is going to be a valuable resource and the fact that we’ll have a display Garden to kind of
Accompany that educational material will be fantastic thank you for walking us through this process you’re Welcome Today we are here with Tanner Kyler who is a junior in the landscape architecture department and while he enjoys designing Landscapes he also has a fond passion for succulents and Cactus and you are actually helping with the design on the hearty succulent garden we’re establishing but you’re responsible for kind of developing some
Propagation for all of that right yeah yeah so tell us a little bit about what we have going on here that you’re propagating okay so here we have some atias um these are native to Oklahoma and here we have some croas which means cylinders of Atia good description good
Des yes and uh they they they grow in similar climates and they they prefer Aid soils or Aid environments uh meaning they need really well- draining areas to survive and they also are quite cold tolerant um up to – 20-30 okay so we’re finding them mainly on West Western
Oklahoma side yeah yeah if you do find any of these species many of them are native to New Mexico and Texas as well okay all right so a lot of times we see these and the pads just drop off and propagate so is it really that simple
Yeah yeah I mean that’s how they spread in the wild if it’s not from seeds they they genetically clone themselves by dropping off a pad or an arm into the ground and it naturally roots and and a whole new plant will form so Tanner where do we get our cuting in order to
Propagate well you can get them from a local Nursery that sells cold hearty cacti or cacti that you would like to propagate or you can get permission from a land owner that um that and go and collect um a few of the pads off the plant this will not harm the plant it
Actually can benefit the plant by pruning it back a little bit um but do do not take the whole the whole plant or the whole stock from the ground as this can cause damage to the the the native species that live there right it can if it dies then there’s no more to
Propagate from so okay so you’ve got one from the nursery that we’re going to propagate here tell me a little about what how do we get these off and removed all right so right here along the Bas right here we’re going to just grab one of the pads and we’re going to just
Break it off just like that okay and then we’ll take it and we’ll set it down here but this one here needs to wait 24 to 48 hours to callous over so it does not get a fungal infection here um where it we place in the soil okay so that
Moisture kind of makes it susceptible to that fungus so like a like potatoes seed potatoes you want to kind of let those heal over so these guys have been sitting for a little while right two to three months actually can Theus here and you can see Roots
Actually starting to grow out of these AAS um and uh so yes they’re definitely ready to go in the soil so when we’re potting these up Tanner we don’t just need regular soil right what do we need to use we need something that can drain well because these um species are from
Aid regions where they don’t receive a lot of rain and if they receive too much they will um become susceptible to root rot okay and so we want to take um a generic potting mix with um plenty of paralite and then we’re going to mix
That with about a two Parts uh soil to one part sand to make a nice good draining mix okay potting soil is what we’re talking about Not Top Soil right so okay and then we’re going to lay this out flat here even you only need around
One or two Ines of soil just to propagate these things um because they’re not going to be staying in here very long and uh because they’re cold hearty we’ll be able to take these and move these out into the soil soon okay outside so I noticed you have some
Rooting hormone is that necessary and where do you put the rooting hormone on the cut on the callous that’s a good question yeah with the rooting hormone it’s not 100% necessary but it does help um with preventing fungal infections um near the callous areas and regions of
There and that’s where we’ll be putting it on we’re going to put it right here where the callus is all right so we’re going to go ahead and open this up we’ll just pull it little bit here and we’re just going to take those and we’re going
To give it a nice little dab in here around around the base and this will pre prevent uh fungal growth and it’ll help promote root growth okay of course you’re wearing gloves because even though there’s not a lot of spines on that there are some there’s some little
There’s there microscopic hairs yes and they’ll get all in your hands and they’re a big mess so definitely use gloves with rubber on the inside of them okay um and then we’ll just take these and we’re going to kind of bury the uh callous portion
Um in the in the base here and we’re going to push this down and kind of just gently push the soil around like this okay so we want to make sure that there’s plenty of contact on this pad to promote root growth from the base of it
Okay now normally I think of pads as being something like what you have over here where it’s on end sticking in the ground yes and that there’s nothing wrong with that form of propagation but but uh if you lay them on their on their backs here they’re going to form these
And this one already has started to grow one of its pads here and it’ll form pads in a 360° um angle around the P around the pad so it will versus here you’re only getting half of the circle so um here it will start and it’ll form its own little
Bushel here cuz in in nature they just fall off there’s no one there to plant them so they just they fall off they lay on the ground and if they root they can if they can root they will okay and so kind of like the ones that you’ve got
Growing here yes they almost sort of mimic nature and that they’ve fallen on the ground I know you’ve planted them propagated them but they they’re kind of curling up and then so will they start growing upright then or yes Yes actually they’re already starting to do that these right here
Have Roots already starting to grow we’ll go aad and pull one up to kind of show this and we have Roots right here M that have started to push out and and once these roots start and the weather’s nice outside you can at any point take them outside make sure you have well-
Draining soil where you put them and um they should they should take right off okay so is there a best time to plant these um and also when’s the best time to propagate these initially I find that propagating um in the cooler months is better whenever the plants are done uh
Fruiting and they’re done uh flowering so you’re not to hurt the plant um many of the pads and arms die throughout the winter due to the cold so it’s not going to hurt to take a few of the pads that are most susceptible to the freeze okay
And um well you take those um around I normally take them from like October to like uh December um whenever the weather starts to cool down and uh so after we’ve taken this cutting what do we do with it and how long does it actually
Take for it to take root so it VAR species to species but these atias took about uh 3 to 4 weeks to start um promoting Roots into the ground and these have been here for around two and a half to three months so they’ve had some plenty of time to to develop some
Really good roots okay so sort of an ideal winter project for gardeners if they wanted to do that um take those cuting in late fall and it’s low light in your house so that’s okay yes yes they don’t they don’t mind um uh the the low light actually if you put them in
Direct light along the southern facing window might be too much for them if they don’t have Roots they could end up drying up and dying and then they’ll be ready to be rooted and everything to go outside I recommend um an Eastern facing window is is the best for propagating
Cacti okay is there any concern about our spring rains that we need to be aware of when we’re planting them out yes yeah well with these species that are native here there is no issue with them but if you are trying to plant a drier species that’s more native um to
More Aid regions of the the American southwest um you want to make sure that you have really good well draining soil mostly composed of gravels and Sands um with very little clay um and this with with the clay if they were to receive too much rain they will perish due to
Root Rock right okay well thank you Tanner so much for this information and we look forward to following the Project Today we’re back here at our new Hardy succulent and cactus garden and joining me is Professor Cheryl mahako who took this on as a class project last semester so what do you think how’s the summer treated it well it was a long hot summer but um we’re really happy with it we’ve
Had really good success we haven’t lost any plants to the heat um and we’ve had really good growth this uh this summer yeah so it it it definitely looks like it’s starting to fill in you can see some of that new growth coming on some
Of the cactus um that are a little bit more of a tender lighter color green so that’s good report right there um tell us a little bit about you kept some of the old plants right we did we had the opportunity to work in a place that had
The right soil had a lot of these beautiful rocks and had some of the yucka um and we left those in mass in the places that they were um and we’ve even begun to add some other things that are similar in form and texture the Hellas here and some additional
Variegated yucka so that’s giving the garden a little boost in terms of it um looking like it’s a little bit established of course it’s going to take some years but um we’re real happy with it right and so tell me a little bit because I always I think a lot of times
People think Cactus are so different than a lot of your other landscape plants um but when we’re talking about spacing right because I I kind of probably think that they grow a little bit slower than some of our perennials but some do and some don’t I think the
Yakas um probably maybe seem a little bit slower but you can see the new growth on the cactus and they’re really just putting out new pads they’re really really happy our vision is to sort of have it just completely be this Wonderland of in mixed Cactus and so
When they get a little bit large for their spot we have the opportunity to uh propagate by removing pads okay so just like any other plant kind of space them based off of the requirement for that plant and give it some time right absolutely so you think in again about
Three years that would be the time I yes I think so I think so we have to just with our Oklahoma weather we have to just see how it goes but I think we’re in good shape with the selection of material that we got and also uh the way
We’ve placed the stones so when it gets really cold we should have plant material that survives into zone for but the way the stones are placed will give it that little extra heat in the winter okay all right so we’ve got plenty of hearty material but we’ve also because
We know we get those crazy Obama winners sometimes so little extra protection there and I think that creates that little microclimate right that sometimes we neglect and take advantage well in Oklahoma we have to do everything we can so the other thing is that we know we’ve
Got a great soil one that’s really um mixed in a real granular form so the water is going to drain right through so as whereas we’re always appreciating rain in Oklahoma this of course is a plant collection that doesn’t need a lot of water so hopefully when it rains it
Goes right through and being in the Sunny Spot we should be fine right south facing on a slope also helps with that as well so I know your class has been involved in some identification projects as well for these plants tell us a little bit about that mapping so this
Semester the studio design class um has come out already and we identified each plant in its location so they are uh currently developing an as built plan and that should be ready by the end of the semester so we’ll post that where everyone can see not just the name of
The plant but um where it is actually located in the garden okay excellent well that’ll be nice for visitors also that are here um and just for all of us to learn a little bit more about maybe some plants that we tend to not always
Um give it spoil Glory so thank you so much for sharing this with us sure thank you there are a lot of great horiculture activities this time year be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks Ahead join us next week on the best of Oklahoma gardening as we brighten up your winter day as we highlight some colorful summer flowers tell us a little bit about what your semester is like I don’t I wait let me re ask that question however like all Gardens and even some Home Designs
Occasionally I don’t even like what I’m saying 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. 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 in to our OK gardening classics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous hosts Oklahoma gardening is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service
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