Lovely, and welcome to the forum. The short answer is that gardeners in Oklahoma start every season expecting perfect weather!
Seriously, if you have a backyard garden you will hopefully have a fence on the north and west to protect it from the wind. Then you will learn to keep frost blankets or old sheets on hand to protect from unseasonable frost. There's nothing to be done for hail of course, but it doesn't hit every year, at least over here in the hills of Adair Co. Oh wait, Dawn uses netting to protect from hail because she gets it more often than some of us. You shouldn't have to deal with deer, groundhogs, armadillos or racoons in your corn, though.

Are you planning on flowers and veggies or just flowers? There are some very experienced growers of both in your area.

You may feel intimidated now but I predict within a single season you will wonder how you ever got by with just a small balcony. Your plants look lovely and well cared for. Its time you were let loose in some real space. Start out with something that feels manageable and just spread out from there.

If you are moving to OKC, you definitely need to go to the Annual Midnight Madness Sale at TLC around the first of June. Be sure to visit the "hospital" of still good but less than perfect plants. They go as cheap as a couple dollars and they are big sizes. See? You need more garden space already.

Texas and Oklahoma aren't all that different. The heat is about as bad in summer here as there but the winter can be a bit colder than Dallas Texas (say goodbye to zone 8 and hello to zone 7). We have the wind, the hail, the droughts, the tornadoes and all that good weather stuff like Texas.

This post was edited by GreatPlains1 on Fri, Jan 10, 14 at 23:19

Welcome indeed! That is a BEAUTIFUL balcony garden!

Not too much to add. The preceding comments are pretty adequate. But I do want to say that you will find a warm welcome here.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Welcome to this corner of the internet! Your balcony is gorgeous, and I have no doubt that you'll do just fine with a whole backyard to play in. I moved from my apartment balcony to a blank slate backyard about 13 years ago. My tip is to start small and work up to bigger things. My first "in-ground" bed was bigger than the area of my balcony, but not by a whole lot. The hardest part was actually digging in the ground. Like, you want me to actually dig this grass out before I can garden? Seriously? But, I spent more time on that little plot, amending and nourishing the soil than anywhere and it was my most successful part of the garden over the 10 years I lived in that house. The second year, I got big for my britches and quadrupled my garden (all ornamentals at that time) and the new areas took a loooong time to catch up in terms of vigor and health and lushness. I got ahead of myself, I think.

As for hail, it happens. If you are growing mainly ornamentals, it seems like it's less problematic, IMHO. I've had my garden totally trashed by hail (and I admit, I may have cried) but within a month or so, bounced back. When it happens to the veggie garden, it's harder to take, since the life cycle and "result" (the edibles) are so much more defined and the timeline compacted. I hoard my bigger nursery pots and if hail threatens when I am home, all my veggies get their "hail hats" (inverted nursery pots with a brick on top to weight it) as long as they are small enough to go under. And if not, well, I'll just go to the store and snag a few new plants and start again!

Welcome greeenllama! Where in OKC? I live near villa and nw 16th.

Here are pictures of my back yard when I bought, and then in the summer last year.

back yard, just prior to purchase:

Back yard later that same year:

Here pictures of July 2013:

and one cold one just to show:

{{gwi:1080530}}

Just about everything I got, lives in the ground. I am no container plant person... cause then I would have to stay home and water. LOL
Instead I put in soaker hose, and let the water stay on a fast drip,and hope for the best. So far, I haven't lost many plants while gone for up to two weeks at the time.

I hope, you can have a nice spot in the front, back or side yard of your future home. Realize, most of the plants on your balcony had lots of shade, and might not do well without any in the ground. It all depends on the location of your plants. If they don't do well in a spot, transplant them, or at least, plant them someplace different next year.

Again, welcome

Moni

I'm stuck on the balcony. It's GORGEOUS. I could only wish ONE of my garden areas looks that good. hehe

bon

greenllama,

Welcome to the forum. Your balcony garden is gorgeous!

I hope you won't let changing from container gardening to in-ground gardening intimidate you. You can do it. As already has been mentioned here, just take it slow. I wouldn't try to transform the whole back yard in the first year.

Our weather here can drive gardeners to distraction, but honestly, most of what happens is pretty easy to overcome. Tornadoes and floods probably are the most challenging, in terms of the amount of time and the recovery time needed. Hail? It happens. You prune off the damage, clean up the mess, hold your head high and carry on. You wont believe how quickly the plants recover and regrow.

I am not in the OKC area. I am way down south just north of the Red River across the state line from Gainesville, TX, so the big hail that so often seems to plague a lot of central OK and northern OK normally is not an issue here. I don't know how often the folks in the OKC area get hail, but in my location we get it once or twice a year, here in Love County and only in 1 year of the 15 years we've been here has the hail truly demolished my garden to the point that I just wanted to cry. (I didn't cry though. Oklahoma gardeners don't cry!) That was hail roughly the size of golf balls or slightly larger with a few larger than an extra large hen's egg. I haven't had baseball or softball sized hail since moving here, though we had it a couple of times in Texas before we moved here. We have had hail the size of baseballs to softballs in our county, but about 15 miles north of our house. I hope that size of hail never finds us.

I keep floating row cover (both heavyweight and lightweight) handy, as well as bird netting and chicken wire, and can throw those over plants to protect them pretty quickly if hail threatens. I don't worry so much about ornamental plants because they bounce back quickly, but try to protect corn plants (because if the plants' growing tips are damaged, you don't get corn) when they are young and small enough to be covered, and tomato plants for obvious reasons.

To me, the fear of having hail hit the garden and destroy it is worse than actually having it happen---so far, the damage we have seen from hail has been far less than I thought it would be when the hail actually was falling. It amazes me how awful the hail sounds hitting the roof, walls and windows and yet, when you walk outside, the damage to plants isn't all that bad.

Once we went about 3 or 4 years without hail, but then the law of averages caught up to us and we had it 11 times in one year. Luckily, it was small every time---from pea-sized to nickle-sized, and the damage was minimal. So, I wouldn't worry about it that much----the odds of hail hitting your specific garden real often probably are lower than you think. Even when big hail hits, it often does damage only over a few square miles.

Rain rarely damages my garden. I cannot speak for anyone else because some of the folks in other parts of OK get more of those torrential rainstorms with flash flooding than I do. My problem normally is a lack of rain, which is an entirely different issue. The important thing is to either select property with a well-draining sandy loam soil, or be prepared to spend time and money improving dense clay if that is what you end up with. I have mostly clay with a few veins of sand running through it here and there. In the clay-ey areas, I have raised beds where I've done tons of soil amendment. In the areas with the sandier soil, I've done less amending and do not have raised beds.(Raised beds with sandy soil drain too quickly in our climate some years.....)

If you've never gardened in the ground in the city, remember that there can be all sorts of buried lines....water lines, sewer lines, gas lines, and in some areas, electric lines, phone lines, etc. so before you dig, call and get the stuff underground marked with little flags so you know where not to dig. Getting the area marked is a free service.

Wind is an issue and someone already mentioned the need for windbreaks. I try to site planting beds where they are sheltered from strong north and south winds by buildilngs, trees and shrubs, etc. Where that is not possible, I grow lots of vines on the garden fence to help block wind and also grow tall plants like cannas to serve as wind breaks. I also choose ornamental plants that are pretty tolerant of the kind of conditions we have here. I avoid anything that needs lots of moisture and lots of pampering. I like tough plants that take a lot of weather abuse and just keep blooming their heads off.

SInce you're in zone 8 and will be moving to zone 7, you'll have to adjust planting dates a couple of weeks later than what you're used to. I only moved 80 miles north when we left Texas (Fort Worth) and moved here, so can plant almost as early here as we did there as long as I am prepared to toss floating row cover over the plants on occasional late nights. (Don't get me started on the increasing frequency of the occasional late cold nights we've had the last few years! They drive me up the wall.) I'm in a cold microclimate in the Red River Valley so even though my average last frost date is March 28th, in 5 of the last 6 years, we have had sporadic cold nights with freezing temperatures and killing frost through the first week in May. If I didn't have floating row covers, I would be stark raving mad by this point.

So, you don't have to fear OK weather too much---you just learn to adopt practices that take into account the fact that our weather conditions change a lot. I try to ignore the weather and do what I need to do on the schedule that is best for me and my plants. For a long time, I would put off planting and put it off and put it off because the chance of hail was in the forecast seemingly every day. I wouldn't transplant plants on a given day because it "might" hail. Of course, it never hailed and I regretted postponing planting. I could wait for three weeks and that hail never came even though it constantly was in the forecast, and then I'd transplant on a sunny morning (with no hail in the forecast), and hail would fall from a storm that afternoon that seemingly popped up out of nowhere. So, I stopped letting the weather control my choices. Now I just plant when I want to and then hope I am at home to cover up plants if the weather starts turning threatening.

We certainly cannot control what the weather does here, so we just learn how to work with what we get.

I think you'll love living here and gardening here. The people are the best people you'll find anywhere, and the weather is.....hmmmm.......never boring.

Because I was an experienced gardener when we moved here, I started really small the first year with two raised beds that I think were about 4' wide and 10' long. I knew better than to create more planting space than I could maintain. I crammed a huge number (as in too many) of plants into those raised beds that first year. Then, every year after that, we broke more ground and improved the soil and built raised beds.. It is smarter to start small with a manageable amount than to bite off more than you can chew and get discouraged because fighting the weeds and pests drive you up the wall. Nothing is more discouraging than seeing a garden that was blissfully beautiful in May be overtaken by grass and weeds by the end of June. Mulch is your friend. Layer it on thickly before the weeds have a chance to get started and then hope that high winds and torrential rainfall don't carry the mulch away.

Gardening here is wonderful, but it is not for sissies. (grin)

Dawn

Welcome!! So glad you've found us - we're a good bunch! :-)
There is much wisdom to be had from what's been said. The only thing I have to add is that I grew up in OKC...had a backyard garden here and then moved to Dallas for almost 20 years. Some things were much easier to grow there, some not so much. I do remember getting my veggie garden completely wiped out by hail once there. That said, I've been back up here for 6 years, had my garden decimated 3 times, and have had to have the roof of my house completely replaced for each of the last 2 years because of hail. You prepare, get out your pots, and make the best of what happens.

Let us know if and when you move - if it's fairly soon, and you have a place to garden fairly quickly (existing beds), we can all help with extra plants - we have a plant swap at the end of April. Even if you're not quite ready for plants...come and join us for food and fun - we've love to meet you!

Sharon

Oh my goodness! So much wonderful and friendly advice!! And I really love the pictures too!! I didnt expect so many comments so soon, I skimmed through them but I really need to go back, read it slowly and take notes. We are 50/50 if we can (and want to) move or not but should know for sure in the next week. If we do move, it would be to Edmond (and into my in-laws house to save money for a down payment on a house of our own.) The one thing that stood out to me the most is that I wouldn't need to water (by hand) every single day in the summer. I have lost so so many plants when we needed to leave for the weekend, I would rather chance the hail and have a big back yard. :) Thank you again x100 for all of the kind and thoughtful advice. I'll come back tomorrow (when I'm not so sleepy) and comment more!

Welcome!! I'm a new comer too but from Colo! What a difference gardening is here and I've only been in the house 6mo.
Enjoy your new home and good luck with the gardens.
Folks are sure friendly and helpful here.

Greeenllama: Once you buy a place -and have that front and back yard - measure the yard and make a plan. Spend a few days or even a few weeks planning things out before you pick up a shovel or a hoe. It'll save you time and trouble and heart-ache, later on. Promise. ;) Once you have a plan, just spend an hour or three per day on 'installing' the garden, plus a few extra hours on the weekends, and you'll have a good looking garden laid out and growing within a few weeks of your move-in date.

Three years ago wife and I moved from South Dakota and bought a small place in southern Oklahoma . I spent two weeks planning the garden(s) before I picked up a shovel and went to work.

Granted, our front garden is a bit more formal than most, but I wanted our veggie garden to look nice just because it was out front, where god and everybody could see it. (The smaller back yard is owned by my wife's dogs. They let me mow the grass once in awhile.)

From the pic of your balcony - which looks very much like the balcony we had in Phoenix (almost thirty years ago) - you'll have fewer problems starting a 'real' garden than most newbies will face. Heh. Your balcony looks so much like ours did, that I had to look twice! (Our balcony was huge! We had two hundred plants and a café table and chairs.)

This forum slows down a bit during winter, but things pick up once it warms up around here. Lots of good info and great ideas. Stick around. If you have a question about anything, someone here will have the answer, or they'll know where to get the answer.

Warren

(Pic of our front garden from the middle of last November.)