Welcome to Oklahoma (soon!)! Yes our ground is natively red! We have lots of clay. I highly suggest compost, compost, compost! Clay gets a hard rep around here, but it does hold moisture a little longer than other soils, and we frequently need the additional time. It can get kinda (lol) warm here. Mulching will help even more.

I think you will like the weather change, at least during the winter :) We are a lot warmer than Minnesota. Snow days around here are usually for about a inch of snow....lol.

We have a lot longer gardening season here. Pansies, snapdragons, kale, all grow during the winter here. I'm sure up north those were summer ornamentals. :) We are cold enough that we can have peonies, but warm enough to grow more tropical type plants.

I'm sure Dawn will chime in here soon with a lot more informative information :) I hope we will see you here soon. I live in OKC, I'll be happy to answer any specific questions you might have about the city.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lisa's Garden Pics

I moved to the OKC area last July. Been working a lot in my yard. Look here for pictures of what I did:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v79/tahlequahgardens/Gardening/Edmond%20Yard/

and, go to the "master gardeners garden tour" post. We visited 9 gardens, and I took LOTS of pictures. :)

If you move just north of OKC, we could be "neighbors". :)

Moni

Molly,

I think moving to Oklahoma will be culture shock, but in a mostly good way.

THE WEATHER: Most years, you'll see the last frost in the OKC area in April, although sometimes a little earlier and sometimes a little later. April and May tend to be gorgeous and mild. The real heat arrives in June and then July and August are roasting hot most years. The cool-down arrives in September and we often have nice mild weather throughout September, October and Novemeber. A little cold arrives in December some years and other years it can be a bit colder, but still not too bad. January and February are cold (in the way we Okies define cold--it may not seem to be to you after Minnesota), and March is transitional with some warm, almost hot weather, and some cold.

THE SOIL: Lots of Oklahoma does have red soil and it comes in all types. There's clay in lots of areas, red sandy soil in others, brownish or yellowish sand or sandy loam in yet others. Northeastern and eastern OK mostly has great soil and higher rainfall. Central OK has lots of clay but lots of sandy loam areas too. Southern OK has lots of wicked red clay (the Red River is our border between Texas and Oklahoma) but some very sandy or very rocky areas. Some areas have fairly acidic, or at least neutral soil but others have fairly alkaline soil (and water). No matter what kind of soil you have, the key to success here is to add compost and other organic matter that will help it both hold water in our heat and drain well in our famous spring and summer downpours.

THE PLANTS: Many plants grow well in Oklahoma, but the specifics depend on your soil pH and type. You probably will notice that even though you can grow many of the same plants here as in Minnesota, they likely will bloom earlier here. Some plants that bloom in the summer in Minnesota may bloom in the spring here. Having never lived further north than my current location in southern Oklahoma, I don't know when plants bloom elsewhere.

Here in my part of OK, about 100 miles south of OKC, daffodils and hyacinths start blooming in mid- to late- February and tulips start in March. Larkspurs and poppies often start blooming in February or March and burn out because of the heat in May or June. Hollyhocks start blooming in March or April and are 'done' most years by June, but this year lasted into July. Daylilies start blooming most years in late May here and last through fall if deadheaded. Cannas pop up out of the ground in March (in a mild spring) or April (in a colder one) and bloom util the first freeze in October or November. My flowers may begin blooming a week or two or three earlier than those in OKC, but sometimes Lisa and I have the same types of plants--like larkspur or poppies--blooming at the same time even though we're more than 100 miles from one another.

One of the big mainstays here for summer flowering shrubs is the Crape Myrtle, and they come in a wide variety of sizes, from dwarf weeping types to small tree types, with blooms in shades of white, pink, lilac, purple and red.

The summer weather is hard on plants here, so it helps to include very heat-tolerant plants in your plans. It is hard to know which ones to suggest for you before you find an actual place to live and know what kind of soil you have. Lisa's and Moni's photos will give you a good idea of what grows in their parts of central OK. Some heat lovers that tend to do well in most parts of Oklahoma include zinnias (annuals that often reseed here), four o'clocks, cannas, lantana (not all named cultivars are reliably perennial), salvias/sages, yarrow, tall verbena (verbena bonariensis), marigolds and some lilies.

I've linked the Oklahoma Climatological Survey pages for Oklahoma County. Looking at them will give you an idea of first and average freeze dates, average rainfall, etc. for the Oklahoma City area.

There are a couple of books about gardening in Oklahoma that contain detailed plant descriptions. Another way to get an idea of what you can plant here would be to visit the website of Sooner Plant Farm, which you can find by googling. Once you look at their website, I think you'll have a great idea of the variety of plants that are either native or adapted here.

A lovely native tree here is the Oklahoma Redbud. It looks gorgeous when blooming (generally in mid-March in southern OK, and a tiny bit later further north, so maybe in later March to mid-April). I'm not crazy about it the rest of the year. It has nice foliage but is disease prone, especially in terms of fungal diseases that cause the foliage to get spotted leaves, yellowing and browning leaves, and sometimes quite a few dropped leaves.

So, what else do you want to know?

If you'd like, list some of your favorite plants and we'll do our best to tell you how they perform here.

Oh, one more thing....welcome to Oklahoma! You're going to love it here....unless you truly adore freezing cold weather. In that case, we'll just do our best to convert you to loving the ten months of the year our weather is great.....September through June....and we'll teach you how to endure the the two hotter-than-heck months, July and August (air conditioning, iced tea, swimming pools, lakes, etc.).

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OCS Data for Oklahoma County

I was in Minnesota spring before last and was there for about 9 years before that. The big difference I've noticed in gardening is the great need for mulch and organic content in the soil to hold moisture. Fighting the heat is very important.

I found that some plants couldn't take the heat, like pole beans and runner beans. I hear that some people grow two crops of tomatoes because the plants usually die in the heat of the middle of the summer.

That was the most surprising thing for me - how the heat affected things.