I just want to tell you my own experience on moving here to tahlequah. I came in November 7 years ago and brought potted plants and couldn't plant them, so I put them under the porch, and the snow drifted under it and killed everything but a bonsai. i love all my price roses.

almonds grow here as do cherries and hazelnuts. i have a bay bush, the kind you make candles out of the berries, not bay leafs for cooking. i think they are different. maybe someone here can tell me.

i believe we are in 7a zone.

people cover their fig bushes in the winter.

be nice having you here.

George lives near Tahlequah. I just searched for him, and it shows 6 B on his posts.

I thought I remembered from when I lived there... but I guess not.

Georgia is very similar to Oklahoma, but I think, we get hotter here, and drier too.

Welcome to Oklahoma.

Moni

This site says 6b as well

Here is a link that might be useful: Talequah

It is pretty up that way! Welcome to Oklahoma :)

6b. then i will quit changing my zone when i come on here. thanks for letting us know.

Hi, Laura,
Just want to say welcome. I know you haven't moved yet but you are going to love it in Oklahoma, especially the area you are moving to. It is very beautiful.
Welcome to this site, too. You will be amazed at "the kindness of strangers" here. People won't be strangers long, tho, because any questions you have, folks will step up to help you & spend amazing amounts of time researching, even, to give you a hand. Glad you are coming our way.

We are near Tahlequah and have had a Brown Turkey fig for over 20 years. This has been the best year we have ever had for our bush. It produced over 150 figs--despite losing the early crop to late frost. This is also the first time in years that we have fertilized it so maybe that helped. We have never covered ours.

We have a hardy almond that has borne amazingly well for the last few years--even this year's late frosts didn't kill the blooms. I don't think most almond trees would produce here.

Stella is our favorite fruit cherry as it is self-fruitful. For pie cherries, Montmorency produced very reliably for us for over 20 years until the ice storm of 09 destroyed most of it and the snow storm in May this year broke the remaining branches.

We've never grown hazelnuts here or bay.

My sons who both were stationed in Georgia say that it is even more humid there than here in the summer, but not usually as hot or dry. That's been years ago but that was their impression.

If you are interested in vegetable gardening, let us know when you get here. George is involved in a seedsaving group and Glenn and I are getting involved too. We'd be happy to get to know you

Welcome Laura! I sent you two private messages.

George

Welcome!! I just moved here in June from Colo. Lot different than Ga. We're in Grove.
It has been an experience so far. I love it here. Can't wait to garden this spring!
The folks here are very nice and helpful!!

Welcome Laura (and family) to Oklahoma!

The best group of gardeners on the planet, hands down. (Attributable to Oklahoma wicked weather.)

I just don't know how any beginning gardener, including myself, can manage in Oklahoma without help.

I hope your move is somewhat easy and you settle in quickly.

bon

I have a friend who has a fig tree and never has to cover it because it is indigenous to this area.

Welcome to the forum, Laura. My experience with fruit trees is very similar to Dorothy's experiences, but I am a lot further south than she is or than you will be.

I haven't tried growing hazlenuts or bay trees. I think you could keep a bay tree growing in a large container if you are able to overwinter it in a warmish location. I have overwintered zone 8 plants in my garage (I'm in southern OK in zone 7) many winters....dragging them outside during the day and leaving them out on mild nights, but dragging them back inside when temperatures are expected to drop colder than what they can tolerate.

I know that garden writer Louise Riotte grew hardy almonds in Ardmore in southern OK, and think maybe she grew hazlenuts as well, though I'd have to look back through her books to verify that. One forum member here who lives in NW OK but who hasn't posted here the last couple of years grows almonds, and gets a good crop from them at least as often as the related peaches and plums produce a crop.

I've had fig trees freeze to death here, and I am so far south in southcentral OK that Texas sits to my east, south and west. However, they really didn't freeze merely because of the actual overnight low temperature. It was more complicated than that. First, they were very young trees with fairly immature root systems, having been planted only the previous spring. Secondly, the weather had stayed abnormally warm all the way until mid-December, about a month after our typical first frost normally would occur and the trees really had not had to tolerate any truly cold weather that fall or winter.. Because of that, the trees had stayed lush and green and had not become hardened off to gradually colder nights, which left them ill-prepared for a sudden plunge down into the teens. Instead they went overnight from weather with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s or upper 40s to a night in the mid-teens and days in the 30s or low 40s. It likely was the lack of conditioning to gradually cooling weather that hurt them more than the night in the mid-teens did. In general, though, fig trees here will recover just fine even if they freeze back to the ground. The regular freezing to the ground does mean they tend to be more shrub-like than tree-like here, but if you go a few years without a hard freeze killing them back to the ground, they will regain more of a tree shape.

We've been here 15 years and I've had figs freeze to death twice in those 15 years. I'm in a super-cold microclimate though, in a low-lying creek hollow in the already low-lying Red River valley and our temperatures often drop much lower than forecast. People on higher ground a few miles from me don't lose plants to very cold nights as often as I do. So, the microclimate around your new home will play a role as well in how well marginally cold-hardy plants survive. I grow Brown Turkey fig here, but if I ever see Chicago Hardy in a store here, I'll buy one of them because they are even more cold-tolerant than Brown Turkey.

Jessaka, Fig trees are not indigenous to Oklahoma. They are indigenous to the Mediterranean. Your friend may have fig trees that were planted decades ago and that may have given them the impression they are indigenous here. I do think it is possible that the figs in your local area may have naturalized well in your climate, but that doesn't make them native to the area---just very well-adapted.

Dawn

thanks dawn. i just assumed she was correct by figs. what i have growing very well here is a bay berry bush, since bay laurel, i was told doesn't do well here. it appears you can use its leaves in cooking.

I see that some of you have zones like "z6ok" . What is that? OK for Oklahoma, 6 - is that for regular zone 6? Z no clue! So, what is Tahlequah/Welling?
From what my son tells me, there are micro zones all over everywhere, within feet of each other, and soil types are the same way. How do you figure all this out?.
I know it gets cold there and terribly hot and the wind blows a lot. Why am I moving there!! My son is there, my daughter up the road in KC. All my brothers in Texas. And the people are nice. My family wants us closer and we are getting older. Also feel the need to be West of the Mississippi!

i have lived in windy places and don't consider tahlequah or welling windy at all.

The best part of moving to Oklahoma...you can grow peonies :) I imagine Georgia is too warm for them. There are trade offs in moving to a slightly colder spot. There are things we can't grow here, but there are other things we can.

There are several soil types in Oklahoma, but in my yard it is just RED clay! Read up on composting and lasagna gardening. No matter what your soil type, compost is your best friend.

I wouldn't worry too much about the micro climates. You will get a feel for it after a while.

Hang out with us! Do you grow veggies? Most of the board are veggie growers, but I lean towards flowers and butterflies.

The soil in Tahlequah and Welling is brown. I hate red soil after having lived in the Florida panhandle.

Jessaka, I think that your friend likely believed the figs were indigenous to OK because they have had fig plants that have frozen back in very cold years, but whose roots survive, enabling the plants to come back from the roots. That is typical of figs in zones 6 and 7 where it can sometimes get fairly cold compared to temperatures they experience in the Mediterranean. Or, possible figs have volunteered from seeds scattered by birds, and having new plants sprout makes it seem like they are native here.

Laura, I think it means plain old zone 6. Remember, though, that zone 6 isn't the same in every part of the country. Zone 8 is the same way. You know, zone 8 in Georgia or Texas is not the same thing as zone 8 in the Pacific Northwest. Zone 6 Oklahoma is probably milder than zone 6 in some parts of the county, but its erratic nature can drive gardeners up the wall. In 2010 some places in northern OK had a couple of feet of snow on the ground in February and a persistent cold spell with temperatures well below freezing for at least 5 days, and then it abruptly warmed up into the 60s and 70s a day or so after that. It is the abrupt changes from normal weather to extra cold or extra hot weather (often all in the same week) that makes zone 6 in OK perhaps a little more challenging than zone 6 in an area where the weather stays cold once it gets cold.

All that the zone maps tell us are "average cold temperatures" for any given area. They don't really cover average daily highs (the AHS heat zone map does that) and nothing can really quantify how the temperatures here seesaw up and down so abruptly.

Yes, microclimates are very common here, and the soil changes a lot. You simply learn from experience how to deal with whatever microclimate you have and whatever soil you end up with. Some parts of OK are very windy, but I don't feel like my part of it is as windy as places further west and northwest of us. There are some very windy periods of time (March winds can be so brutal) but the worst wind I ever see at our house is only in the 50s, and that is not a real common occurrence. I only remember having wind in the 60s one time. People on high ground with little around them, like tall trees, to serve as windbreaks have more trouble with wind than those of us in low-lying areas. Or, people out west in this state have a lot of wind issues, but you won't be living in western OK.

Oklahoma is a great place to live. The people are extra-nice, extra-friendly and fun to be around, but the weather is a huge challenge. You have to be persistent and determined (or, some would say "stubborn") to garden here.

Lisa, Hey, some of us veggie growers also grow tons of flowers for the butterflies too. (grin)

And, for what it is worth, I still have oodles of zinnias, cosmos, and lantana in bloom and the flowering areas are a butterfly haven right now. Even the trumpet creeper and passionflower vines still are in bloom and we've had hummingbirds until just 4 or 5 days ago. I'm glad we didn't get frost here this morning, as it will allow the flowers to stay in bloom a bit longer for the butterflies.

Jessaka, You know how much I hate red clay, even though I chose it over the sugar sand found in many parts of our county. The few sandy soil areas we have found on our land have a beautiful brown sandy loam, although it still has far too much sand in it and far too little loam.

Dawn

yes, the people are super friendly. i came from california and was shocked when i came here. it is even more friendly that some other states i have lived in, that i won't mention.

i have flowers in bloom too. zinnias and cleomes and some red spider lilies, which the latter are just finishing.

Haha, Dawn ;) Yes, you do grow lots of flowers!

Hey Jess. You'll love it here. My honest opinion is if someone can garden with any success in Oklahoma that person could do it anywhere. Listen to dawn and everyone else here and youll great.

Mike

mike, it is laura who is moving here. i am here already.

oops Im soo sorry!

Laura, welcome to OK.

Hi Laura-- hope you enjoy OK. I'm a lurker from south of the border (Red River).

Dawn is spot on, and you will need to keep your cooking Mediterranean bay tree in a large pot-- something like a 20 gallon garden bucket works very well for both my MiL and for me in dfw. My MiL's bay lives in a courtyard, and mine lives about eight feet from the house in a sunny south-facing back yard. Both of those bays have tolerated freezes down to 30F occasionally. Mm. Freezes that go down to 30F for a couple of hours and then the temperature goes back up. NOT freezes where it stays frozen for hours or days on end. When that is forecast, the trees/bushes get hauled inside. They do seem to tolerate less than sunny indoor winters pretty well. Ditto for figs here.

Hi merrybookwyrm, I haven't seen you on here in a while. I hope you had a good garden this year.

We moved here from Fort Worth in 1999 and, apart from the obvious fact that I miss being geographically closer to my family, the one thing I miss most about the DFW area is the relatively mild winters. We get a lot colder here occasionally than I expected and sometimes the cold weather hangs on for days.

In 2010, we had a lot of snow at our house and once stayed below freezing for 5 consecutive days and nights. For my part of OK, that was fairly brutal winter weather, but many parts of the state were much, much colder than we were and some set all-time cold temperature records. Then, when the cold spell finally broke, we hit the 60s or 70s within 24 hours. That sort of swing from very cold to very warm winter weather reminded me very much of living in Fort Worth even though extreme cold is more rare there.

When we first moved here, I felt like any winter weather colder than 20 degrees was unbearably cold. We get down into the single digits virtually every year, though not necessarily very many times in any given year, so I've had to adjust to being colder and I've had to learn to cover up or carry plants inside more here than I did down there. Most years, we have at least one or two nights where our low temperature bottoms out around 0-2 degrees. That's one or two nights too many for me. I bundle up in very warm clothing on cold mornings when I go outside to do the animal chores very early in the day because I don't like being cold, and once I am back inside the warm house, I do not want to go outside again.

Dawn

Welcome to Oklahoma! I have been here 14 years and love it. The summer we got here it blew hot wind all summer long and I wondered what kind of hell I had moved to! But all the friendly people make it worth while...and the wind does finally stop. When it does, you'll start praying for at least a breeze because it is so darn hot! I came to gardening just a few years ago due to a change in my career making it possible to have time for it. I'm learning by trial and error...and a great knowledgable neighbor! Recently found this site and have been lurking. All the nice things people are saying about each other are true! Everyone seems willing to lend a hand, both literally and figuratively!

Well, I now have a idea of what zone I will be in. Hot, cold, wind, erratic , micro zones everywhere, multiple types of soil. It will be interesting! I grow lots veggie. Some fruit, and perennial flowers.
I am in the process of rooting some things I want to try there. Hate to spend money on things that will die. I like survivors! I have marked where some of my favorite flowers are and ones that I MUST take, Moma's Amaryllis, Grandma's peonies etc. In the purge/pack scenario I see all my garden art, bird houses, cool tools that must go also. Wish I could take my attached greenhouse. Need to see which blueberries will work there, also apples, and pears. I will bring a baby of my fig tree. I will just plant it on the South side of the house TO BE.
I have to build a house, start a new garden , learn my way around, met people and I am old and much slower than I would like to be.
I will not be putting this house on the market until the first of the year. That gives me some time to clear it out and spruce it up. Root things, etc. also get in shape for all the work to come! Also there will be no weeds to deal with at that time of year.
Appreciate all the welcomes and greetings.

Well, I now have a idea of what zone I will be in. 6b - Hot, cold, wind, erratic , micro zones everywhere, multiple types of soil. It will be interesting!
I grow lots veggie. Some fruit, and perennial flowers. I will have bees and few chickens.

I am in the process of rooting some things I want to try there. Hate to spend money on things that will die. I like survivors! I have marked where some of my favorite flowers are and ones that I MUST take, Moma's Amaryllis, Grandma's peonies etc. In the purge/pack scenario I see all my garden art, bird houses, cool tools that must go also. Wish I could take my attached greenhouse. Need to see which blueberries will work there, also apples, and pears. I will bring a baby of my fig tree. I will just plant it on the South side of the house TO BE.
I have to build a house, start a new garden , learn my way around, met people and I am old and much slower than I would like to be.
I will not be putting this house on the market until the first of the year. That gives me some time to clear it out and spruce it up. Root things, etc. also get in shape for all the work to come! Also there will be no weeds to deal with at that time of year. Hopefully, the market will be better and it will sell fast.
Appreciate all the welcomes and greetings.

aura,

think of me when you get here as i will share some flowers with you. i am sure others will as well. join the garden club in tahlequah, and everyone will share with you and give advice.

i found the best way to meet people here is to join clubs like the garden club, book groups at library, photography club,
a church if you are a church goer, etc.