Making It Grow Minutes

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.

When I was young, we had lots of fireflies in our Columbia backyard in the summer. But when we went to camp or my grandparent’s summer retreat in Saluda, North Carolina, the numbers seemed exponentially greater.

Agent Carmen Ketron, recently on our SCETV program Making It Grow, told us she’d seen the synchronous firefly display at the Congaree National Park. This phenomenon occurs at the end of May or early June for about two weeks every year.

Our state and nation owe Harry Hampton a great debt for his love of wildlife and years of work promoting that the Beidler Tract not be logged but instead preserved as what is now the Congaree National Park.

It wasn’t until Russian Mennonites came to the northern parts of the US and Canada in the late nineteenth century that sunflowers became a crop of interest in the US.

The list of other birds that relish these seeds is lengthy, a short list includes ring-necked pheasants, quail bobolinks, goldfinches, meadowlarks, nuthatches and tufted titmice.

The N R S C Plant guide for sunflowers is fascinating. Among some of the sayings associated with sunflowers from the Teton Dakota tribes is “When the sunflowers were tall and in full bloom, the buffaloes were fat and the meat good.” Many tribes recognized the value of an infusion of sunflowers to treat chest pains.

Annual sunflowers, important in the cut flower industry, are grown commercially for seeds eaten by humans and birds, and for cooking oil. Sunflowers are one of the few important food crops that originated in north America.

The annual sunflower, Helianthus annuus, is native to North America and was widely used by early indigenous people as a food, a source for dyes, and numerous medicinal purposes.

Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine. a major agricultural crop, until recently grown on one hundred sixty million acres, and most of it processed for oil. Some think the Ukraine flag represents a blue sky over a field of yellow sunflowers.

Clemson’s Ag and Art Tour, from mid-May through June, features farms, art venues and more in eleven counties is a wonderful way to expose your children to farm animals, vegetables growing in fields, and the results of artists’ creativity.

We are proud of our farmers and artist, but to be real, we aren’t Iowa or New York city for either group. But sometimes smaller means more exclusive and unique and that’s absolutely true for Clemson’s Ag and Art Tours coming up in May through June.

We paid a sneak visit to Fox Hideaway Farms, one of Richland Counties stops for the Clemson Ag and Art Tours taking place from mid-May to the end of June.

Clemson’s Ag and Art Tours when you can visit local farms and even some artists’ studios, is free on weekends from mid-May to the end of June.

Will Culler of Clemson’s Agri-business team heads South Carolina’s Ag and Art Tour, the largest in the nation. What a great way to visit local farms and let your kids see where their food comes from.

Gosh, it’s astonishing how many people have gotten into growing or wanting to grow some of their own food since we changed our lifestyles because of Covid. When I was young, my parents planted a couple of tomato plants in the landscape beds, and we had tomatoes galore. With new pests and changes in our climate, growing has become more difficult. Clemson Agent Zake Snipes, a vegetable specialist who grows produce all summer in the heat of the Charleston area is offering a free, on-line, self-paced program to help those who want to explore perhaps a market garden or hobby farm. Called Farming Foundations, participants will learn about soil testing, fertility, irrigation, record keeping, and even tools and safety issues. If you search Farming Foundations Clemson, you’ll get to the website. And get ready for some delicious BLTs.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNutly with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. As a young child, I began using U S C’s McKissick Museum - at that time it was a library. Today its mission statement includes these words “The University of South Carolina’s McKissick Museum fosters awareness and appreciation for the diversity of the region’s culture, history, and natural environment.” When the state of Pearl Fryar’s topiary garden and Mr. Fryar’s health was brought to director Jane Przybysz attention, she began work on a way to preserve this regional and national treasure. Eventually, with cooperation with the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the museum got funding for a topiary artist in residence – I’m sure that’s a first, and Mike Gibson, a self-taught and self-described property artist, is working with Fryar in his Bishopville garden. McKissick is to me an overlooked treasure for our state, please visit it on the old horseshoe.

When Pearl Fryar was transferred from being a plant manager up north to being an assistant plant manager in Bishopville, he was unable to buy property or a house in many parts of town. Despite these slights, he eventually turned his landscape on the outskirts of Bishopville into a topiary garden celebrated internationally. The theme of his garden was and is to this day love and open to one and all. He also supported scholarships for average students who otherwise wouldn’t have gotten higher education. His ability to spot potential even had him retrieving plants that had been discarded from nurseries and giving them new life in his garden.

Team Making It Grow traveled to Charleston recently to the small garden behind St. John’s Reformed Episcopal Church. During a Spoleto outreach project many years ago, this garden showcasing two of national artists’ unique skills was installed. A master of iron work design and craftsmanship, Phillip Simmons, created unique and appropriate gates and wall openings. Topiary artist Pearl Fryar designed a small but exquisite example of his unique artistry. A committee of the Garden Club of Charleston has been tending this garden but recently took lessons in Fryar’s techniques from Mike Gibson to learn some of the specific techniques. The McKissick Museum at U S C got a grant to hire Mike Gibson, a self-described property artist, to work and learn from Fryar in his Bishopville garden, as that world-renowned topiary artist is aging and limited in his activities.

Clemson Agent Zake Snipes, a vegetable specialist who grows produce all summer in the heat of the Charleston area is offering a free, on-line, self-paced program to help those who want to explore perhaps a market garden or hobby farm.

Lonicera sempervirens is a native, non-aggressive honeysuckle wonderfully attractive to pollinators, including hummingbirds and butterflies.

For a home garden, you may want a medium-sized trellis as it tends to flower at the ends of vines.

Clematis armandii, named ‘Apple Blossom’ has buds that are a lovely soft pink, and even when the flowers open, the lower part of the petals retain that color against the pure white center.

When COVID shut down many activities centered in the urban garden area, the staff started making flower arrangements and putting them out for medical professionals to pick up on their way to their workspaces. Eventually, as part of the goal of horticultural therapy, the grounds crew began collecting flowers, greenery, and grasses and letting people gather safely outdoors to make arrangements.

The Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston has embraced the mission of making its campus an integral part of its health and wellness goals and is a certified arboretum.