Plants won’t notice time change
This weekend, the clocks fall back an hour as daylight savings time ends, and we will have more light in the morning and less in the evening.
Our plants will never notice the time change as they operate based on day length and light intensity. The day length will stay on the same schedule. We humans will just be changing our clocks.
In nature, plants pay attention to the changing of the seasons. Every day has a couple of minutes less sunshine than the day before with a little less sunlight intensity as we advance through fall.
Our trees, shrubs and plants also notice that the day and night temperatures are getting a little cooler almost every week. They use the day length, light intensity and temperatures as their plant clocks.
The important state and local elections occur Tuesday, and none of our plant materials will be voting or are even paying much attention to the mailers, phone calls, newspaper, radio or television ads.
They plan to continue to produce food, fiber, beauty and satisfaction regardless of who wins or who loses our human elections.
They will even promise to absorb and make good use of lots of that carbon dioxide in our environment while producing huge volumes of fresh, clean oxygen for all people, regardless of race, sex, religious or political beliefs.
Plants have so much to offer. They could make some pretty powerful political ads and some bigtime campaign promises but are probably much happier to not be a part of our human campaign process.
The fall colors have really popped on many of our trees and deciduous shrubs over the past two weeks, and in fact many trees already are dropping leaves as they wind down another growing season.
Don’t forget these leaves can make great mulch or compost if you collect them and allow them to start to compost or to break down before adding to the soil or mulching over existing flower beds.
This is also a great time to add bark mulch or hulls around perennials, tender shrubs or newly planted trees and shrubs to help provide extra winter protection.
Cottonseed hulls, pine straw, cedar, cypress, fir or pine bark mulch applied at 2 to 4 inches thick will act like a comforter and keep the soil and plant roots warmer this winter and will provide extra protection when we get hard freezes. Mulching also reduces the need for winter watering as it will keep the soil moisture from evaporating as quickly so that your plants will need less supplemental watering.
Some of the state already has had a hard freeze, but most of the state got a very light freeze a couple of weeks ago that burned back the foliage on some warm-season crops like sweet potato vines, impatiens and caladiums. Many plants from rose bushes to geraniums and petunias are loving the fall weather and producing a new round of flowers and color.
Great time of year
Please make some time to get outside in your yard, to visit the Myriad Botanical Gardens or your local public parks to soak in the closing beauty of the fall growing season.
This is a great time to plant pansies for fun flowers and color all through the winter. You still can get color from some varieties of hardy mums until we get a hard freeze, and although they will freeze to the ground, they should sprout out with new growth next spring and will flower again next fall as the days shorten in length. You can plant ornamental kale and cabbage to enjoy their interesting colored and bold foliage through most of the winter.
This is the prime time of year to buy and plant your spring flowering bulbs if you want to start next spring with the inspiring beauty of daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, crocus and many other spring bulbs. Daffodils or narcissus are my favorites since they often will naturalize and come back year after year with their yellow, orange or white trumpets of color in early spring.
Hyacinths add a special heavenly scent, and crocus start the season with their petite and colorful flowers whether planted in a flowerbed or scattered and planted “Johnny Appleseed” style on your lawn.
This is a great time of year in Oklahoma. Make sure to study the candidates and vote on Tuesday. Enjoy the beautiful fall days by soaking in the beauty in your yard and neighborhood, including the pretty flowers and fall color in our trees and shrubs.