In honor of the fifth anniversary of Gail Eichelberger's Wildflower Wednesday meme, I want to share some of the wildflowers I grow in Oklahoma. Over the past five years, my garden has leaned closer and closer to a wildflower pollinator haven. Whenever I must remove a rose because of Rose Rosette Virus, I tend to plant a grass or wildflower in its place. The garden seems happier that way. It doesn't mean I've given up on tough roses yet though. Featured above is yellow Baptisia sphaerocarpa. I have two or three different yellow baptisias, a white one, two blue ones, and even B. australis x B. alba 'Purple Smoke,' a seedling from the North Carolina Botanical Garden according to the Missouri Botanical Garden. They should know. In my mid-spring garden, baptisias really shine, but don't try to move them about. Being prairie natives, they have tap roots. Move them, and they will sulk at best,...

These are the seeds which made their way into my virtual shopping cart from all over the Internet so far this spring. I decided to share them with you so we'd both know what I'm planting this year. Some are for the vegetable garden. Others are flowers that may go in the back garden, or maybe in the vegetable garden. I have a thing for sunflowers and zinnias, especially in my veggie garden. They make me smile.  I'll also divide them into cold season crops and warm ones. All of these are in addition to seeds I already have from last year. Tomato seeds seem to live forever if you take care of them, so I keep them for years. Colorful tomato cages in my potager during the summer of 2010. Franchi: Cold Season Chard (Bieta) 'Blonda Di Lione' is a beautiful white stemmed chard with light green leaves; Pac Choy (Cavolo...

It's time to prune roses in Oklahoma if you have any not yet stricken by Rose Rosette Virus. If your rose has Rose Rosette, shovel prune that puppy and bag it. Do not put the diseased plant on your compost pile. As of 2015, you cannot save an infected rose no matter what you read from some garden gurus. Instead, look at the science from Oklahoma State University and the University of Arkansas. When I started seeing RRD in my garden in 2009, no one was really talking about this problem. However, Jennifer Olson, Assistant Extension Specialist and Plant Disease Diagnostician at the Cooperative Extension Service, has an excellent slideshow of symptoms of the disease. Scientists are working very hard to find a way to stop RRD, but for now, there isn't one. Here's a quote from a paper on Rose Rosette Disease written by Olson, and Eric Rebek, Associate Professor and State Extension Specialist Horticultural Entomology from...

Everyone's mind and searches are on vegetable gardening right now. Those seed catalogs are like the Sirens' song, aren't they? Before you start a vegetable garden, ask yourself a few questions beyond which vegetables are easiest to grow. Sometimes, long-time gardeners act as though you should know exactly what to do right out of the starting gate, or they pretend that gardening takes some kind of magic potion to be successful. While magic happens from the very act of growing things, learning how to grow is like learning any other craft. Rarely, does someone know how to knit, crochet, cook or even keep their homes without learning some of it beforehand. Here are some questions that should be asked before you ever buy that packet of seeds or potting soil. What do you like to eat? The Ruby Red Swiss chard, shown below, is one of the most beautiful vegetables you can grow. However, if you...