Making It Grow Minutes

I attended an outdoor lecture at the Congaree National Park last month, an appropriate site as Dave Stahle, Professor of Geography at the University of Arkansas, and the world’s authority on bald cypress gave the talk, and the Park is home to the state-record holding cypress tree. Stahle takes very small and minimally damaging core samples from trees and studies them to age trees and document climate change -- he has sampled trees that are two thousand years old.

If you feel cramped or overwhelmed, you should visit the Congaree National Park right outside of Columbia. Of its 26,000 acres, the core protected area is fifteen thousand acres.

"Amaryllis" have hollow stems and you need to take certain steps if using them as cut flowers.

There are a zillion different amaryllis cultivars out there – a plethora of colors and flower shapes – singles or doubles, extra large or some smaller options. They make the best show in a garden if grouped and need about a foot of space between each large-sized bulb.

In mid-spring when all danger of frost is over, you can move your potted amaryllis plants outside to a partly shaded area.

In most parts of South Carolina, holiday amaryllis bulbs can be added to your garden or the front of shrub beds when all chance of frost is over. For successful transplanting, keep the indoor plant healthy and growing after it flowers to replenish or build back that bulb.

If you have amaryllis bulbs (actually the genus is Hippeastrum but we’re never going to call them that) blooming in your house over the holidays, you can take some steps to keep them healthy.

The magnificent flowering plants we call amaryllis, so popular as indoor plants during the holidays, really aren’t in the genus Amaryllis but rather Hippeastrum.

Hickory tree leaves are the larval food source of two hundred moths or butterflies; and one is particular is spectacular in both the larval and adult stage.

For people, shelling them is a laborious process and the tools used include hammers, vises, and a peculiar item called the Texas York Nut Sheller.

It's hard to harvest at home.

Twenty some odd years ago, Edward and I dug up a hickory seedling on his family’s farm. The foot tall seedling had a six-foot long tap root that fortunately took a turn and didn’t go straight down. We brought it home and heeled it in near the house.

One of the most beautiful of fall trees is the hickory. With leaves the color of slightly browned butter it is quite a standout.

Black cottonwood, Populas balsamifera, is a species variation of cottonwood that grows from the western tip of Canada down to Montana and through part of Texas.

Cottonwoods, Populus deltoides, are dioecious, male flowers and female flowers are found on separate trees. The common name comes from the incredible mass of fluff that the female seed pods produce when they open. The seeds are tiny and the cottony material containing them is a great dispersal method.

I personally have never seen a cottonwood in any other setting but they can grow in a myriad of conditions, making them good trees for reclamation sites.

The Friends of the Congaree Swamp is a conservation organization that plans trail cleanups, makes recommendations to South Carolina DHEC when appropriate, and is dedicated to the conservation of this treasured part of South Carolina’s ecology; the newsletters they share keep us abreast of current affairs and upcoming opportunities.

Our state has lost a remarkable citizen, Charleston gardener and hostess Patti McGee. Her love of gardening originated under her mother’s tutelage in Marion, South Carolina. Her husband Peter was supportive of constant tweaking and additions to their Anson Street property. McGee’s inquisitive mind and love of new people as well as plants, made her beloved by both the artistic and gardening community.

The recently deceased Patti McGee was known as a gracious hostess and accomplished gardener not only in South Carolina.

If you go to Clemson’s Home and Garden Information Center and search for "Selecting a Christmas Tree, Fact sheet 1750," you will find a list of all types of trees and tell you the complexity or lack of fragrance, how strong the branches are, shades of green with certain hues, and how well the needles hold on.

If you search “South Carolina Christmas Tree Association,” you’ll find ways of locating a farm near you. Click on “Member Farms” for the address, hours, types of trees available, and other services like premade garlands.

If you get a locally grown tree, the carbon footprint is as small as a reindeer’s print in the snow. On the other hand, artificial trees are made of plastic, and the carbon footprint travels from the oil fields to the manufacturer, the retailer and to your home.

When my children were little, going to get a Christmas tree was a great family adventure. With eleven-foot ceilings, we wanted a great big tree and kept a bamboo pole as a guide and we’d strap it to the top of the car to take in the field with us.

This plant's unusual leaves, similar in texture and appearance to yucca, are thick and stringy and deer and rabbits tend to avoid it – remember nothing is absolutely deer proof, but you certainly couldn’t go wrong trying it in your pollinator garden.

Rattlesnake master's slender flower stalks, topped with inch-wide inflorescences, makes a great contrast to other flowers in an arrangement and can be left tall and still be graceful.

Another of its pollinators are the predatory wasps who capture insects to line soil cavities or stems as paralyzed, but living , food for their young. Most are solitary wasps who are not especially aggressive to us.

Many people get most excited about butterflies on their pollinator plants, but Eryngium yuccafolium, flowering late summer, perhaps attracts a larger diversity of visitors than almost any other insect magnet. According to the Xerces society website --bumble bees, yellow-faced bees, sweet bees, multiple beetles and dozens of fly species.

By collecting the plant leaves' tough long fibrous veins, indigenous people could weave them to make moccasins and baskets, a better use than relying on the sap or root concoctions to treat snake bites.

This common name comes from the belief that the roots could cure rattlesnake bites - don’t try it!

The dried wood of osage orange is prized for firewood as it has the highest BTU on charts that rank that property among native trees.

The spread of Maclura pomifera, aka osage orange or bodark tree, from the relatively small Red River drainage system to 48 states was due not just it’s importance to native Americans.

Common names can be fascinating and puzzling.

An inspection by a certified arborist can help prevent losing your shade trees and perhaps having one fall on your house,

Trees react to tsevere internal pruning by adding lots of small leaf covered shoots at the ends of branches. New research reveals this actually makes the trees become susceptible to damage from strong winds

The University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry predicts that tropical storms and hurricanes will now be slower moving by 20 percent, and have 24 percent more rainfall. Your trees will be experiencing stronger winds and saturated soils, increasing the chances of their being blown over.

Future storms will have up to six percent stronger wind loads.

The range of black vultures is expanding rapidly across the south and creating problems for homes and also for parked automobiles.

You can easily distinguish between our two local vultures if you see them in flight. The slightly larger turkey vulture has a V-shaped wing pattern when soaring; the black vulture’s wings are held out straight and have white feathers at the tips.

Our native turkey vulture has almost no negative consequences associated with its behavior. Due to its amazing sense of smell, it can locate decaying animal remains from a mile away, even under trees.

These birds in flight have a V-shaped wing structure easy to spot as they are usually seen soaring in the sky, teetering slightly. The turkey vulture is truly nature’s vacuum cleaner.

Nature’s evolutionarily perfect scavengers, our vultures, are Johnny on the spot to deal with roadkill.

I have an uplifting ride to work as I pass the Fort Motte Garden Club Garden Spot, the Pollinator Friendly Garden maintained by Nina Mack, Julia Wolfe and friends, and then I go down a hill to cross the Congaree River and check out its water flow.

In the United States we have vultures – the black and turkey vultures in the southeast and the California condor out in the Golden State, each in a different genus but the same family.

The annual Sunbelt Ag expo in Moultrie, Georgia, allows growers to see the most up-to-date farming technology in the country. In addition to acres of exhibits, the organizers also select the Swisher Farmers of the Year for Southeastern states.

One of the features at U S C’s A C Moore Herbarium that I find fascinating is at their website.

Another of the native orchids Herrick Brown, curator of the A C Moore Herbarium at U S C talked about when he joined us for a program was the rattlesnake plantain.

Orchids in South Carolina? Yes, we do have orchids although they have their own special charm which is more subtle than some of the drop dead gorgeous tropical species.

Dr. Herrick Brown, the curator at the A. C. Moore Herbarium, will help identify plants for you...

It may be that fireflies first started glowing to warn off predators that they contain a toxin and taste horrible.

Once you discover the natural phenomena of our diverse state ecosystems, your world gets wider and wider without leaving home.