Oklahoma Gardening | Oklahoma Gardening September 16, 2023 | Season 50 | Episode 12

(gentle music) - Welcome to "Oklahoma Gardening".

Today, we're showcasing several unique plants.

We start off with the chenille plant, then the popular pawpaw tree.

I share with you about a plant disease that we have here at the garden.

Then we head indoors to see the lab research that's being conducted on some hops that were harvested a few weeks ago.

And finally, we wrap up back out in the garden with two more plants.

Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

Helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing.

(upbeat orchestral music) So if you're looking for an easy and low-maintenance perennial.

(upbeat orchestral music) You have two different types of flowers on one plant.

(upbeat orchestral music) Capsaicinoid that gives the pepper its heat.

(upbeat orchestral music) I want to share with you a fun tropical plant to add into your landscape.

Now is it tropical, so it will not overwinter outside, but otherwise it handles our Oklahoma summers really well.

This is called the chenille plant, and it actually loves hot, humid conditions as it is native to the Southwestern Pacific Rim.

So here you can see why it's called chenille plant, because it kind of has that fuzzy texture to it, but actually the French word chenille for what they call a fuzzy caterpillar.

So you can see how it got that name, because of these pendulous flowers that hang down, and they'll get to be about 18-inches long.

Now this plant is dioecious, so there is a male and a female plant, they are separate.

However, the female tends to be a better producer of flowers, and so most often you will find the female plant.

And usually it comes in this red form that you will commonly see also.

Now, the nice thing about this plant, even though it's not winter hardy you can bring it in as a house plant.

You'll just want to cut it back to about six inches, and then bring it back out the following spring.

And it's relatively pest-free, which also is just bonus, whether you're growing it in the greenhouse or you actually have it out in the landscape.

It's a unique plant that you might want to consider adding into your home garden.

(upbeat guitar music) I bet many of you have heard about the popular pawpaw tree, but few have actually been able to enjoy the flavor of the fruit.

Today I want to introduce you to a couple of pawpaw trees that we have here growing at the Botanic Garden that are starting to produce fruit as we go into September.

And so it's kind of exciting around here because a lot of us are anxious to try this fruit.

So a little bit about the background on pawpaw is the pawpaw is a native fruiting tree that's native all the way from Florida over to Texas, all the way up into New York and even into southern Ontario.

So being a tree that's hardy to zones five and liking acidic soil, it actually does really well in eastern Oklahoma specifically.

It tends to want to grow in shaded areas, because as a young tree it likes to kind of be in that understory where it can get some protection from sun exposure.

However, once it does get larger, it does prefer to have a little bit more full sun exposure.

You can see here we've got it planted under a few trees that we might have to be limbing up pretty soon as they continue to grow taller.

But they are doing quite well, they've been here for a couple of years.

And the other thing about the sun exposure, that can kind of play into what the shape of the tree will actually look like.

So when it is in more of a shady condition, you're gonna see that the branch structure is a little bit more open and that's so that the leaves can actually spread out a little bit more to get more exposure to sunlight.

Versus if it's grown in full sun, you're gonna have more of a pyramidal shape of that tree where the branches go all the way down to the ground.

So in native areas, you will also find that the pawpaw will often kind of sucker.

And so you'll get these pawpaw patches almost, and they'll actually produce fruit.

But a lot of times that fruit will quickly drop to the ground, and so you might be competing with animals for it at that point.

But the neat thing here is this actual fruit, this is what we're after.

And you can see it grows in clusters here on the tree, and it almost looks like a giant green potato growing on the tree here.

Now it will stay green, so you can't necessarily go based off of the color as to when it's ripe.

You're just gonna kind of.

- Feel love it.

And it'll sort of feel like a ripe peach.

So it'll be slightly firm, but also slightly soft a little bit.

And it should be able to break off pretty easily in your hand.

Now the reason why a lot of people haven't actually tasted a pawpaw is because they don't have much of a shelf life.

And so it's really, you gotta be around when they're ripe to be able to eat them.

You do not want to eat the flesh or the seeds that you'll find inside.

So when you cut one of these open, they have some rather large dark colored seeds that are in there.

It can actually kind of make it difficult to cut into it.

But the flesh inside of there that you're gonna find is actually a bright yellow flesh and it kinda contrasts with those seeds nicely.

And it has sort of a banana mango flavor to it and it's kind of got a custardy texture a little bit as well.

Now adding to that tropical taste of the fruit, you'll see that it actually has really large leaves also.

So you're gonna get more of a tropical foliage with this tree as well.

Now it will reach to be about a height of about 25 feet.

And so you wanna make sure to give it plenty of room.

And again, those fruit come from the flowers that are born earlier on in the spring and they're sort of a burgundy, kind of a brownish color.

They almost look like bells that are hanging in the tree.

You might not really notice them 'cause they're only about an inch in diameter.

Now, once those flowers are pollinated, then they will bear these fruits later on in the end of summertime.

Now they have relatively few pest problems, and in fact, they actually are a host plant for the zebra swallowtail.

So you might find that there are some caterpillars that are feeding on the young foliage, the newer foliage of the pawpaw, but make sure to check those caterpillars because they might be those beautiful zebra swallowtail that we always enjoy in the garden later on.

Now going back to the pollination a little bit, you wanna make sure if you're planting a pawpaw in your garden, you wanna make sure that you're planting two pawpaws because they are not compatible to self-pollinate, which means you have to have two genetically different trees in order for them to cross pollinate.

And so that's an important factor to be able to have that fruit that you're after later in the season.

So if you're looking for a fun unique fruit tree to add to your garden here in Oklahoma, you might look at adding two pawpaw trees.

(bright gentle music) You can see that our garden is starting to shut down, and a lot of times, you might be pruning this stuff to potentially take to a compost pile.

But I wanna talk to you about something that we discovered here in our garden.

And some people might think that it's actually a new cultivar or something like that, but it is not.

What we're dealing with here that we've identified on our echinacea is a disease that's actually a pathogen called aster yellows.

You can see that this flower has kind of a witches broom effect, where it's got multiple stems that are coming out of it.

They're usually thinner stems, and you can see it's kinda got stunted growth on it.

Also, the flowers, they tend not to actually ever turn to a color.

They tend to be light green.

So you won't ever get those flowers on there.

Now I know there's a lot of different cultivars, especially on different species within the Asteraceae family that you might think, "Hey this is kind of a unique looking cultivar that I've got."

But be aware that this is caused by actually a pathogen that is spread by a leaf hopper.

So we did actually take a sample of this plant, this echinacea into our OSU Diagnostic Lab and did get a positive identification for aster yellows.

So we do know that we need to remove this out of a garden.

Now it is a leaf hopper that spreads the pathogen, and once the pathogen gets inside that plant, it actually is basically throughout that whole plant, from the flowers all the way down to the roots.

So it's not something that you can actually just cut out and hope that it gets better.

There is no cure for this disease.

So to prevent it from spreading, you wanna make sure that you dig it out of the ground and go ahead and get it out of the garden so that it's not there for other leaf hoppers to feed on and continue to spread that pathogen.

So if you don't remove it, it can survive in the crown of the plant and the roots of the plant.

So go ahead, dig up all of that plant because that pathogen is still viable as long as the plant is green.

You wanna make sure that you then either bury it in your compost pile or put it in a plastic bag or burn it so that it's not available as a green plant for leaf hoppers to still feed on.

Now, once that plant tissue actually is dead, then you don't have to worry about that pathogen anymore.

So if in the compost pile, if it's buried, it will break down and you don't have to worry about that pathogen spreading to other plants that you later put your compost on.

The other thing is, as long as you remove the crown and the roots of this whole plant out of the garden, you also don't have to worry about any dead tissue that might still remain, plant debris that might still remain on the surface of the soil, because again, it's dead so that pathogen is dead.

Now, aster yellows, as they might imply, does affect a lot of plants in the Asteraceae or composite family.

- A lot of those that have the daisy or sunflower look to 'em like daisies, Rudbeckia, Echinaceas.

You'll often see 'em on there.

However, there's over 300 different species that are susceptible to get aster yellows including carrots, garlic, tomatoes, and even some of our grain crops are also susceptible to aster yellows.

So be aware of it and they all kind of take on a little bit different form.

But again, you'll usually see this kind of witches broom effect and you'll see some pale coloring.

Sometimes, the color will even turn white if not red and purple on the foliage and it'll kind of have a stunted growth.

Now we also saw some marigolds that look kind of similar to some of these same symptoms and so we actually tested it.

They also tested positive for aster yellows.

So, and those have already gotten removed out of the garden out this point because they were quickly fading and again they had that stunted leaf as well as some yellowing and almost whitish foliage on that plant as well.

There was another plant though that also has been grabbing my attention although I've seen this over the last couple of years and that's a Liatris plant.

So I noticed it last year and then I noticed it again this year which made me a little bit curious about it.

And so we did test it as well and it came back negative for aster yellows.

And in fact, what we are seeing on that Liatris is something that's just called fasciation.

Fasciation is just a physiological disorder that occurs when the the cells start growing erratically.

And so it is not a disease or anything that is spread, it's not anything that you have to be concerned about.

And the fact you usually only see it on occasion and it doesn't reoccur on the same plant.

So the fact that I saw it again on the Liatris this year is what kind of made me question it a little bit.

But it was negative, so it is just fasciation.

And so we can leave that plant in the garden and just kind of enjoy it for its unique display that it offers.

Now fasciation, again, can occur on a lot of different plants and in fact, forsythia is one that you may see it more often reoccur on it.

So again, it's another one of those plants that are just predisposed to genetically get it more often.

But you will see it on a lot of different plants.

And this is why it's important when you're kind of going through your garden this fall and you see anything that's curious and whether you should remove it or go ahead and leave it.

This is why it's important to get a proper diagnosis.

And you can always check with your local extension office by giving them pictures of something that you see as kind of different or you can actually take in samples and they'll be able to send that to the OSU plant diagnostic lab for positive identification.

(soft string music) - If you've been watching Oklahoma Gardening this season, you know that we've been following Katie Stenmark and her PhD research on hop production and the potential of hop production here in Oklahoma.

So, we've left the field and we're now in your lab here on campus.

So tell us a little bit about the lab process of your research.

- Welcome Casey to the Noble Research Center.

- Thank you.

- After we get the hops from the field, we bring them on into here and we seal them under nitrogen and put 'em in little vacuum sealed bags and we then can store them frozen until we are ready to analyze them.

- [Casey] Okay, so that just sort of preserves 'em until you're ready to use 'em.

- [Katie] Yep.

Preserves them and stores their acid content.

Keeps them nice and safe until we're ready to extract them.

- [Casey] All right.

So you've opened up a bag of that sealed hops for us and it looks just as if you harvest 'em the other day.

Right?

- [Katie] Yes.

So we've got our vacuum sealed bag right here.

I've opened up this bag and prepared my mortar and pestle to create a nice fine grind.

And so I just use my elbow work (Casey laughing) and I grind up the hop cones to a very fine powder.

After I grind 'em to a nice fine powder, I then weigh them out, get a nice specific measurement on the weight, and then I will add a extraction solution.

We use a 0.1% formic acid in methanol.

So that's an acidified methanol that will help us extract those acids from the hop cones, the ground hop cones.

- Okay, so basically chemistry is at work here and we're trying to get some acids extracted out of there so you can get a reading.

- Yeah.

- So after doing a little more with it, what do you do after that?

After you weigh and add that extract?

- So after extracting for a short period of time, I'm then going to spin down all of that particulate in a centrifuge.

- [Casey] Okay.

- After I spin down the particulate, I will then take that clear liquid extract from the top of the vial and move it on over to another container.

This new container is where I will then prepare this sample to be put on the high performance liquid chromatography machine.

- Okay, so at that point, you've left the powder, right, in the old solution and you've just got the acids out of the hops, right?

And so- - Yeah.

- Then we go to this fancy machine (Casey laughs) that I don't even understand at all, but basically there's a reading that comes out of it?

- Correct, so this HPLC is going to take a liquid sample.

- Okay.

- And analyze those compounds from the sample and tell me in a chromatogram, a picture form - Okay.

- exactly what the concentration in that sample is.

- Okay.

- And we use that to calculate back to our dry basis here exactly what the acid content is here versus what was in our sample we injected.

- Okay, and so how do you know, so basically we're ultimately getting a number of your alpha acids and your beta acids which mean good and bad things about hops, right?

- Right.

- So tell us, what are you kind of looking for?

What's the market looking for?

Or do you compare that to what the market has?

Are there standards I guess?

Right, so what I know, how I know what I'm looking for is I ordered some standards from the American Society of Brewing chemists.

Okay.

- These standards are alpha beta acids in their purest form.

I can then use that alpha and beta acid standard in the purest form to compare what my alpha and betas are.

- Okay.

- And that tells me their quality.

I can then look at some commercial cultivars and compare even further on a cultivar basis of the hops to determine how these Oklahoma hops are doing.

- All right.

So the closer we are to those commercial standards the better off we are, right?

- Basically, yes.

- So do we have any data at this point to kind of say where we're at with that or?

- Yeah, so I have ran some data and this would be from our harvest last year.

Some of the things that we look for in the hops are obviously that alpha and beta acid content, but there's storage index.

So how well have they stored over time?

Have there been any degradation to the acids and that sort of thing.

So I can look at that by comparing my data from last year to what I can see in the commercial industry.

Basically what we're seeing is that the acids are a little bit lower.

- Okay.

- The hop storage index is very good.

So they're storing really well.

- That's good news.

- But their acid content is probably a little lower, maybe even a little all over the place because we have an establishing hop yard.

- Right, they're young plants.

- They're young plants.

- Okay, okay.

So maybe that'll level off as we get more of a harvest on mature plants coming in.

- Yeah, more maturity means, hopefully, more stability for us.

But we're just gonna keep monitoring that as we go.

Well Katie, thank you so much for sharing this.

I think it's really fascinating.

'cause I know as a horticulturist I often think about a crop and whether it can environmentally grow in Oklahoma, but you're looking at the whole process.

And there's so much more to it, storage and whether the product is just gonna be usable later on or not.

So thank you for sharing that with us.

- Thank you, Casey.

Thank you for being here.

(bright music) - Junipers come in all shapes and sizes.

In fact, you can get some that are well over 18 feet tall and some that are under 18 inches tall.

This is why when you're selecting an evergreen juniper to plant in your landscape, you wanna make sure you're getting one that is appropriate for the size that you have to allow it to grow.

Because if you get the wrong one then that can be a problem later on.

The one we wanna talk to you today about is called the grey owl juniper.

Now, this is actually a cultivar of our native eastern red cedar.

So its genus species is actually juniperus virginiana.

However, it is a selected cultivar, again, called grey owl, meaning that it's going to stay relatively short.

You can see it will really max out about a height of three feet, but its spread is going to get up to about six feet in diameter.

So the nice thing about this is it really creates a low growing evergreen buffer if you're looking to add that into your landscape or something maybe on the forefront of some wooded areas.

Now the other thing you might notice is the color is a little bit different than our typical junipers.

And so grey owl does offer this nice blue-green foliage.

It's a consistent color that you are going to get.

Now it's similar to our native because of the fact that it is dioecious.

So you can see that this is a female plant as it has these nice kind of blue berries that are produced on it that birds often like.

Also, like our native eastern red cedars, this is very well adapted for our climates as it's hardy from zone four to nine, so we're right in the middle of that.

And the other thing is it can really handle our soil.

So whether you're on eastern or western Oklahoma it can handle both really dry drought conditions once it's established, as well as some moist conditions.

Now the one thing is, is you don't wanna put it anywhere where it's gonna be in standing water.

'cause that it does not prefer and it will not thrive in that location.

- But this is just one example of junipers, and there's many of 'em out there, on finding the right plant for the right place.

(bright music) You may have seen this tropical plant in Oklahoma landscapes, but it is a tropical plant.

However, it's one that we often see out in Oklahoma landscapes, or especially in containers.

And this is the Plumeria plant, or in fact it can be a tree in some tropical parts.

It's originally native to Brazil up to Mexico and the Caribbeans, and you're probably most familiar with it, related to Hawaii, where it was introduced into Hawaii in 1860.

And this is the flower that they use for those lays.

In fact, you can kind of just pluck those flowers off and they thread them onto string in order to make those Hawaiian lays that they welcome you with.

And they have amazing fragrance.

It has this very sweet fragrance.

Now these flowers come in a range of color from white to cream yellow all the way to an apricot and even this pink, kind of a rose color as well.

You can see the branch structure's kind of unique.

So it's sort of has this really large branching structure that really splits and opens up.

In Hawaii, they can get to be up to about 30 feet tall.

Of course, here in Oklahoma, where they're not winter hardy, they're only gonna get to be about as big as what you can actually transport them in and out to protect them.

And what's unique about these is a lot of times you might even see 'em sold this way that look like sticks.

You can actually cut those off, cure those sticks 'cause they have a milky sap to 'em, you'll wanna cure 'em for about two weeks and then you can stick those in the ground and vegetatively propagate them as well.

Plumerias will occasionally create seed pods but it's usually more rare and most seen using cuttings to propagate them instead.

So here, we do have them planted in the ground but they will then get dug up.

And in fact, they just kind of overwinter them in a kind of a shelter where it does not get below freezing.

So you wanna make sure that they aren't exposed to freezing temperatures, but they can handle some cooler temperatures.

So if you have a garage or a place like that, somewhere where it'll allow 'em to kind of go dormant but not freeze, that's a good way to overwinter them and then bring them back out into a container.

However, you can see that they do get quite large, and with these large leaves on there, they definitely can catch our Oklahoma winds.

So make sure that you put them in a container that's gonna kind of counterbalance that upper growth so that they don't blow over, also.

Other than that, with this foliage, let alone the flowers, it makes a unique attraction to your Oklahoma landscape.

(lofty orchestral music) There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(lofty orchestral music continues) Join us next week as we harvest some unique Oklahoma fruits right here on "Oklahoma Gardening."

(lofty orchestral music continues) That have already succumbed to it.

And the (chuckles) squirrel.

Sorry.

Huh?

And I need to, yes, I'm getting to that.

And then I think that's it, right?

(lofty orchestral music continues) 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 in to 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 underwriter the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

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.

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