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Tom Ingram: Ask a Master Gardener

Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Q: What resources or suggestions do you have for those of us starting to plan for our gardens this year? — LK

A: Because it’s so cold and not much fun to be outside, this is a great time to begin making your gardening plans for the year.

One of the first things you can do is review your experiences from previous years. What worked? Why did it work? What didn’t work? Why didn’t it work? What do I want to do different this year?

If you are growing vegetable crops; which crops prospered? Which ones struggled? Which pests caused the most trouble? How can I better control them? Did my garden take too much of my time? Should I make some adjustments in how I water and care for my garden?

You get the idea.

One of the things we hope will become an even more valuable resource for you than it was in the past is the new Tulsa Master Gardener website (tulsamastergardener.org). We’ve spent the past few months updating the interface to be more user-friendly and have uploaded an abundance of gardening resources to help you become a more successful gardener.

In our “Lawn & Garden Help” section, you will find information on a variety of topics, such as general landscaping, flowers, trees and shrubs, soil, vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, insects and butterfly gardens. You will also find sections on organic and Earth kind practices, types of gardens, fertilizers and pesticides, pruning, composting and water conservation, etc.

If your plans for the year include a vegetable garden, we have information and videos on which varieties do well in our area, the best times to plant, garden layouts and how to plant tomatoes etc. If your plans include flowers, we have recommendations for annuals or perennials that do well in our area.

There is a lot of information available on the internet about gardening, and it is sometimes hard to determine if the advice or suggestion is appropriate for our area. On our site, you will know the information you read or the instructional videos you watch will be university-based information appropriate for the Tulsa County gardening community.

However, our website is not the only way we can help you prepare for this New Year. Our Diagnostic Center is staffed from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday with Master Gardeners who would love to share what they know about gardening. You can call us or email your questions via the information below. We hope you have a great garden this year and would love to help.

Garden tips

• Ornamental perennial grasses, such as pampas grass, may be cut back to 4-6 inches anytime in winter. However, because of winter attractiveness, most gardeners choose to wait until early spring to cut them back. All of the dead tops of these grasses should be removed by early spring, allowing sun to get to new growth.
• Liriope or "monkey grass" — which is not a grass but in the lily family — stays green year-round; it also benefits from trimming to 2-3 inches before new growth begins in spring. Liriope and all ornamental grasses will benefit from nitrogen fertilizer in spring when pruned.
• Prune fruit trees in January, February and March. OSU has a good fact sheet on pruning fruit trees, "Annual Pruning of Fruit Trees." You can find this fact sheet in the “Hot Topics” section of our website at tulsamastergardeners.org.