Announcer>> Making It Grow is brought to you in part by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture.

Certified South Carolina Grown helps consumers identify, find and buy South Carolina products.

McLeod farms in McBee, South Carolina.

This family farm offers seasonal produce, including over 22 varieties of peaches.

Additional funding provided by International Paper and the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation and Farm Bureau Insurance.

♪ Amanda>> Well, good evening, and welcome to Making It Grow .

We are so glad that you can join us tonight.

I'm Amanda McNulty.

And I'm a Clemson Horticulture Agent.

And I get to come and be with really smart people, which is like being in Continuing Education all my life.

We've got some fun things tonight too.

We're going to talk about Schweinitz's sunflowers, which are pretty unusual and fun.

And the incredible Greenwood Festival of Flowers Symposium.

Terasa Lott is indispensable to us, she usually brings us cookies, which is (laughs) just part of what she does for us.

But Terasa, you also are in charge of the Master Gardener program statewide.

And um, and now I think, instead of the local offices having to get people to come in and drive along.

Like Jackie would come from Columbia and drive to teach my students turf.

You've got that recorded and so that everybody watches the same and learns the same thing from an agent who's a specialist.

Terasa>> And that's right, so we did learn some things from COVID.

And perhaps we weren't being very efficient traveling all over the state.

So we are offering sort of a hybrid format.

Now it is live, so it's not pre-recorded.

Amanda>> Yeah.

>> And folks do still meet in different class locations across the state like Jackie's class in Richland, and they'll have a live instructor but being delivered via Zoom.

So they're still getting, I like to think of it as the best of both worlds.

Amanda>> I think so too, because they've got their Extension agent there who can expound after the program and help clarify things.

But you got somebody who's put a lot of time into figuring out what they're gonna say.

Terasa>> Exactly, like Zack, who was kind enough to share some of his time and talents talking to them about vegetable gardening.

Amanda>> Well, he is pretty good about that Zack Snipes, is... Are you a specialist or an agent?

>> I'm an agent.

One day I'll be a specialist.

>> But you're stationed down at the Coastal Rec, and tell people what you do.

Zack>> Yes, ma'am.

So I work out of the Charleston office.

And I work a lot with both farmers and researchers.

So the researchers are developing new techniques and tips and ways to do things.

And my job is to kind of educate them on what the farmers are doing, and then educate the farmers on what the researchers are doing to try to adopt some of that technology.

Amanda>> Okay, well, um, and one of the things is that if they can be successful, we hope that they can, you have some new farmers who are trying to come into the system.

And I think the average age of the farmers is like, not quite as old as me, but close.

And so if they can be more successful, they're more likely to be able to stay in farming.

Zack>> Right, yeah, business is hard enough on its own.

And then when you add the farming component to it, and weather and the environment and all that, it's it's very challenging.

Amanda>> Well, we thank you for what you're doing.

>> Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

>> Jackie Jordan has several counties she's responsible for, and I can never remember them.

So I will let you tell people your counties.

Jackie>> Sure, so it's Richland, Kershaw and Fairfield.

Amanda>> Okay, but in Fairfield, you're mostly just working with a few specialized fruit growers or something like that.

Jackie>> I work with a few small vegetable growers, some small flower growers, so a mix.

Amanda>> Okay, and, um, I think the cut flower business that people are coming in is, is kind of new but pretty fun, isn't it?

Jackie>> It is, it is, and I have several small cut flower growers.

Amanda>> Yeah, well, I think maybe we'll have to get some names from you and perhaps pay a visit to some of those people.

That'd be fun.

Davis Sanders, we are thrilled to have you with us again.

Davis>> Well, it's wonderful to be back.

Thanks for having me.

Amanda>> And you get up early and drive down from South Pleasantburg Nursery in Greenville.

And what a remarkable and diverse nursery y'all have.

Tell people a little bit about it.

Davis>> Well, we're Greenville's oldest continually operating nursery.

We're by...

The original owner opened in the spring of 1965 on a small property, spent the next two years finishing the property that we're on now, and moved down in '67, and we've been in business ever since.

The current owner was the original owner's General Manager.

So we've even kind of been in one set of hands since day one.

Amanda>> And I think y'all have, over the past couple of years tried to make it easier for people to see from the road.

I think y'all had spent some time cleaning up and... Davis>> Yes, we cleared the bank.

There was a lot of undergrowth and a lot of scrub along the road.

We're actually about 20 feet down from the road level.

We're right on the edge of the Reedy River floodplain.

And so we did spend quite a bit of time clearing that bank.

We built a stone retaining wall along the bottom, which actually kind of expanded our perennial area, and we're just keep growing.

We're getting to the point where our property physically can't handle a whole lot more business, so... Amanda>> Gosh, well, we really appreciate your coming down today, and it looks like we got some beautiful things to talk about.

Davis>> It's my pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

Amanda>> All right, Ms. Terasa, I think you usually start us off with something cheerful.

Terasa>> That is right.

It's become tradition to have Gardens of the Week, where we take a virtual field trip across the state to look and see what you're doing in your yards, gardens, or perhaps a beautiful space that you visited.

We begin with Karen Harris-Sweetman, who sent a close up of a pink flowered Evening Primrose, Ann Barber shared a Sunset begonia, and the flowers are just stunning, appropriately named for the colors, that red and yellow.

From Martha Snow, we have an outdoor patio area with a lovely flower border.

It looks to be a very inviting outdoor space.

Sandie Parrott shared what she called Little Miss Figgy, her cute little fig tree with one fig growing and a big planter with Asparagus fern.

And then we'll wrap up with Gail Bolt who sent us a hosta called Sum and Substance potted in full shade.

She said it doesn't exhibit the characteristic lime green foliage, but she's very happy with it nevertheless.

So thanks for sharing little snippets of your yard and garden with all of us, it's so much fun.

And I encourage you to visit our Facebook page and see all of the photos that were shared.

Amanda>> Thank you, Terasa.

Zack, as we were saying, we were trying to encourage new people to get into farming.

And that doesn't always mean that they have to have like 50 acres or 100 acres or 500 acres.

Sometimes people can specialize.

And so I think you've got a program that's kind of looking at people who want to start putting their toe in the water and finding out about things.

So tell us about that, please.

>> Sure, we've created a class called Farming Foundations.

This class was a collaborative effort between all the Extension agents in the state that worked with fruit and vegetable producers.

And we saw even before COVID, but during COVID especially, a lot of people were trying to bring in a secondary income, or maybe they thought about expanding their garden.

And well, we define a commercial farm as anyone that's selling to the public.

So that could be a 2000 acre tomato farm, or it could be the lady that's selling rosemary out of the back of her car at the farmers market.

And so we got so many calls and questions about how to start a farm.

Well, it's so complex, and there's so many different levels and layers to it.

We decided to create this online class.

The class is 14 modules, and they're self paced.

The class is free, but we do everything.

We go through everything from soil testing, to irrigation, to fertility, to, you know, the food safety standards, how to connect with your Extension agent, and so it's a really comprehensive class.

It's not everything you need to know about farming, but it really kind of gets you up to speed, so you can begin that farming venture and kind of avoid a lot of those stumbling blocks that trip a lot of people up.

Amanda>> Yeah, because those things are so important.

And these people haven't explored any of that before, and this is a good way to do it.

And I believe if they want to, it's just kind of you can jump in at any time.

You don't have to start and finish at a particular time.

How do they find out about it?

Zack>> So you can just type in Clemson online, and then Farming Foundations is the name of the class.

to finish the class.

We give you plenty of time.

Each module takes around an hour, maybe more if you're into it, and want to look at some additional resources we put out, but it's a combination of how-to videos, fact sheets, a bunch of different things to kind of approach learning from a bunch of different angles.

We have two tracks that folks can take.

They have the track that you can just take it and learn it for your learning pleasure.

Or we have another route that folks can take where we assign homework.

And if they do the homework where they have a soil test.

They have an irrigation sample.

They've done a farm checklist, and so it kind of gives them that first farm record keeping document for them to have.

Amanda>> And food safety is pretty important, and I think that's something that people don't realize.

We have really strict regulations when they bring them in, don't we?

>> Correct, and we have a whole Extension team at Clemson that focuses on food safety.

And so in the class, we kind of just scratch the surface on that, but then we really encourage them to take some of the classes and courses, and a lot of them are federally mandated that folks have to take these classes in order to sell produce.

Amanda>> And we always talk about the Agriculture Department, the South Carolina Specialty Foods, and you know, they're advertised that way, you know, this is, you know, from a South Carolina farm.

And so I think that's one of the things is that I like to do that.

First of all, it helps keep farmers in business.

And they've said that if everybody would preferentially get things, make that choice, like get strawberries that are from South Carolina, other than ones that came from California, that it could make like a billion dollars difference in our state revenue.

Zack>> Correct, it's a huge economic driver, and you know, you don't really have to grow that much in order to have a small farm business and really support the local economy, because there's so many components that go into starting a farm, the fertilizers, the plants, the people you hire, and that sort of thing.

So it's a huge economic driver to start these little farms.

Amanda>> And these days, when I think we're all trying to be more aware of what's going on with the environment and what we can do, that means that the carbon footprint is going to be smaller.

Zack>> Absolutely.

"Thousands of Miles Fresher," I think, is the slogan.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> But this program really complements the South Carolina New and Beginning Farmer Program, so I don't want folks to get confused about the two.

Our Farming Foundations is more of the technical in the field way to farm.

The New and Beginning Farmer Program is the business side of farming.

And so they really go hand in hand and complement each other.

Amanda>> And you can reach out.

We have an agribusiness team and people can reach out to the South Carolina Extension Agribusiness team, if they want to find out about that program.

Zack>> Correct.

>> But for this one, when I was looking it up, I just put Clemson Farming Foundations, and it came right up.

Zack>> Right.

Amanda>> It was pretty easy, even for somebody who's not very technical savvy like me, to find it.

Zack>> Yes, Ma'am.

>> I appreciate all the work you've put into it.

>> Yes, Ma'am.

>> Okay, um, Terasa, have you got a question we can help someone with?

Terasa>> Never a shortage of questions.

This one is about turf and comes from Duncan in Winnsboro.

Duncan said, "I only have a small lawn, "but I'd really like for it to look healthy.

How often should I fertilize?"

Amanda>> Uh huh.

Well, Jackie, I love the fact that you became a turf specialist, because the people would call and say, "Are there any of those smart men there who can answer a turf question for me?"

And you'd say, "No, but I'm pretty good."

(laughs) Jackie>> Well, I would say it really depends on what type of turfgrass you are growing, because that's going to determine how much nitrogen you need.

If you're growing something like Centipede, it has a very low nitrogen requirement, so you would only fertilize twice during the growing season.

Whereas if you're going something like Bermuda, it's got a very heavy fertilizer requirement for nitrogen.

So you would fertilize that at least three maybe even a fourth time depending on what's going on.

Amanda>> Okay, and some of those decisions are based on what your exposure is in your yard as to what turf you've decided to use.

Jackie>> Definitely site conditions, light, soil conditions.

Do you have sandy soil?

Do you have clay?

Amanda>> I was talking with some people down at the Medical University and they found a slow release turf fertilizer, interestingly, that did not have phosphorus in it, because I think a lot of our soil tests now show that we have more than enough phosphorus.

Is that correct?

Jackie>> That is, you can definitely find them out there, and a good turf fertilizer will have anywhere from 30 to 40% in a slow release nitrogen form, so that will slowly feed over the course of six weeks.

So you can space your fertilizer applications out by six weeks.

Amanda>> So most of them now have decided to put that in so that your grass isn't like getting a huge, too much nitrogen.

Jackie>> Right, right, and it's very, it's becoming easier to find a 15-0-15 with a large amount of it being slow release.

Amanda>> Okay, thank you so much for that information.

Jackie>> You're welcome.

Amanda>> And that's another thing that we do that helps protect the environment.

Jackie>> Yes.

Amanda>> Okay.

Okay, Davis, ooh, let's have some fun!

Davis>> Okay, what I've brought here are a couple of new versions of an old favorite.

These are Bidens.

That's actually the Latin name for it.

Most gardeners are familiar with little yellow Bidens that bloom all summer and just happy out there in the heat and the sun.

Well, they have introduced a Bee Series B E E. This one is called Bee Alive.

This one is called Bee Happy.

It is a Bidens, but it does have a lot more color and a lot larger flowers.

The bi-color one with the orange accents in it are very easy to work into most summer arrangements, and then the orange one will give you just a nice foundation for some of the other colors in the spectrum.

Amanda>> And are they very floriferous, just like the regular ones?

Davis>> All summer long.

Just a little bit of deadheading periodically to get the spent flowers off, and they'll go up into frost.

Amanda>> Okay, and once established, don't require a whole lot if you're going out there and watering.

Davis>> Not really, no.

They're very drought tolerant once they've got a good root system underneath 'em.

Amanda>> Okay, well, let's look at what else you got.

Davis>> Well, I brought some things that could even be complimentary to these Bidens I brought.

Everybody's familiar with the common geranium or Pelargonium, which is not a true geranium.

But this is what we've always called geraniums.

And over the past few years, there are just some older varieties that have come down the pike that also have very unique leaves, have got a lot of nice variegation.

It just gives you another little color to dip your paintbrush in for your summer palette.

This one is the Vancouver Centennial.

It's one of my favorites because that scarlet flower is just nicely offset by the green of the chartreuse accents in the foliage.

And the other one, to be honest with you, I have forgotten the cultivar, but this one has got, as you can see, the creamy variegation that's outlined with a darker green on the inside and then almost a purple color, then the dark green in the center.

Similar scarlet flowers, it's not as floriferous as most of the common Pelargonium like the Calliope and Caliente series, but... Amanda>> But you don't need that, because look at the variety and interest you have in the foliage.

It used to be when you had the old fashioned geraniums, you'd say, "Well, let's keep them in the backyard 'til they are blooming, then we'll bring them up front."

But these, I don't think, you know, even if they weren't in bloom, what a lot of interest that's gonna bring.

Davis>> Well, and with the reduction in flowers, you don't have to spend as much time deadheading either, which is an issue with most geraniums, yeah.

Amanda>> Well, tell us about the cultural requirements of these.

Davis>> Well, they definitely need full sun.

They can take just a little bit of shade, but the key for this one is trying to let them get a little dry between watering.

So it's excellent for pot culture, because most good quality potting soils are going to drain quickly, so you don't have to worry as much about overwatering them.

And they're pretty carefree other than that.

Plus the tubular shape of the flowers and the color of the flowers make them attractive to hummingbirds.

Amanda>> Do they?

Well, that's fun.

So actually, you could make a lovely pot using some of these lower and one of these in the middle.

>> Exactly.

>> And they would thrive on the same care.

Davis>> Yes, and this one also makes a nice focal point as a filler or a thriller.

It just won't be a spiller.

Amanda>> Okay.

(laughter) Well, this is just so much fun.

Thank you very much.

>> Well, thank you.

Well, Terasa, what's bothering somebody else?

Terasa>> Ah, this one is a vegetable question from Lance in Goose Creek.

Lance says, "My squash plants are making flowers, "but I don't seem to have any developing fruit.

What is going on?"

Amanda>> All right, well, Goose Creek is kind of down in your part of the world.

And everybody wants some nice summer squash.

So what do you suggest?

Zack>> Well, so this is a question in late April, early May, the phone rings two or three times a day about this.

With any cucurbit or anything in the in the squash family, you have male flowers and female flowers, and the male flower is just going to open first.

And then the female flower is going to open second.

The way you can differentiate the two, the female flower will have what I call like a tiny, cute little baby fruit on it, and if that flower does not get pollinated, then that fruit shrivels up and dies.

And so we'll get that question as well.

But the male flowers typically open first, and then the female flowers will open a few days later.

>> Okay.

>> And so what people are probably seeing is the male flowers are opening and there's no little cute, tiny little fruit.

Just wait, you know, make sure you're watering and fertilizing and that sort of thing, but just be patient and then the pollination will happen if you have bees and things there to pollinate.

Amanda>> It seems like that with squash, it'll be going along fine, and then we get the squash vine borer.

And you said that there's some things that we could try to do in our home garden to extend the time that we could enjoy our fresh squash without having to go out there and treat it every whipstitch and, you know, bring in pesticides or try to run a wire up there or some crazy thing.

Zack>> Correct.

So yeah, the squash vine borer is a moth.

And it is unique in the fact that it flies during the day.

And it lays eggs on the stem of the squash or any type of cucurbit.

The egg hatches, and then that insect's first bite goes into the plant, and it gets inside, bores inside of the stem, and then you have a healthy plant and then all of a sudden one day it wilts and dies, so it's very common for homeowners.

We can plant early in the season to try to avoid the flights of those moths, but a really cool new technique would be to use parthenocarpic squash.

>> So describe what that means.

>> So parthenocarpic just means that you don't have to have a pollinator like a bee to pollinate that plant.

And so you can grow squash and zucchini under insect netting so you could use like conduit and then insect netting, and you don't have to have that pollination event, and they're still going to set fruit, and so you can physically block out the moth when it flies by not using any pesticides or anything.

Amanda>> So you could just go to a good seed company and look in the catalog and search for parthenocarpic squash.

Zack>> You can search "parthenocarpic."

Some varieties that I would recommend are Golden Glory and Dunja are really two good varieties.

They are zucchini shaped, but the Golden Glory is golden like a squash but it looks like a zucchini.

Amanda>> Okay, well I just think that's wonderful welcome news, because Terasa's always telling me that she's on her hands and knees trying to run some wire around it.

(laughter) I think you're about to have a change.

Terasa>> We might try some parthenocarpic.

I'm debating thinking about trying a trap crop of some Hubbard squash to hopefully lure them so that they damage that and not the desired squash for me.

You can eat Hubbard, but... Amanda>> So there are some that might like Hubbard squash better.

Terasa>> At least I hope so.

Amanda>> Well, maybe we could try two things, and let us know, you know, give us some recommendations later on in the season.

All right, well, um, I think sometimes somebody feels like they have enough spots in their garden that are pretty that they'll send you a montage of pictures.

Terasa>> That's right, we call it our Spotlight.

So instead of Gardens of the Week, where we look at a few people's yards, this one is going to give more photos of one specific yard.

Today we visit Sandra Hughes from Greer, South Carolina.

Sandra's photos display a range of color beginning with pure white in a viburnum that she has outside her screen porch.

Then we see a white flowered clematis with deep purple anthers.

We then transition to pink with a few azalea flowers followed by two more clematis, both of which have varying shades of pink.

Finally, we finished with a cascade of red on a lush coral honeysuckle.

So thanks, Sandra, for sharing a little glimpse of your yard with all of us.

We wish you much gardening success.

Amanda>> Well, that was really fun.

And um, is the coral honeysuckle attractive to hummingbirds?

Terasa>> It is very much so.

In fact, I think, I can't remember who I was having a discussion with, but they said that's when they know that they should put up their hummingbird feeders, when they start seeing the hummingbirds coming to their coral honeysuckle.

Amanda>> Okay, fun, fun.

Okay, and of course, that's a native and perfectly beautiful.

>> Yes.

>> And I like this because it has perfoliate leaves.

>> That is right.

>> The top leaf goes all the way around the stem, yeah, one of those kind of fun little words.

All righty.

Um, we are now going to speak with Stephanie Turner who all of y'all who have been in our viewing audience know, because she's just been so much fun and helped us so much when we had to do things differently, and this year, Greenwood, which has a festival of flowers that's just wonderful, she's got a symposium, that's a part of that, and she's gonna tell us about it.

Stephanie, I think that y'all have a pretty exciting event coming up in Greenwood.

And I want you to tell us about it.

Stephanie>> Thanks, Amanda.

Yes, we do.

I'm really excited to be helping the South Carolina Festival of Flowers arrange their first annual garden symposium.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah, yeah it's going to be a full day event Friday, June 10.

And we will have speakers, topics all around the board of gardening, all kinds of tips.

We'll have Extension agents from around the Upstate that will come and present.

And at the close of the symposium, the Master Gardeners will give people a tour of Uptown gardens and pollinator gardens.

Amanda>> Wow.

And the topiaries will be out.

Stephanie>> The topiaries will be out.

Oh, yeah, we have more than 40 amazing topiaries this year.

They're celebrating the anniversary of the topiaries.

All the topiaries are decked out in fun party gear.

Amanda>> If people want to find out the agenda, and I think they're one or two things you may need to register for.

Where should they go and do that?

>> Yeah, so then you need to just visit the South Carolina Festival of Flowers website.

Amanda>> Okay.

It's funny how sometimes you have to look around and find something for a hat, and there's a wonderful, huge field behind the First Baptist Church in St. Matthews, and this little yellow flower in it, which I believe you said it's probably pachira, and it is something that can grow in a field that gets cut twice a year.

And so if you have a hard part of your yard, you might want to get some.

I think it is available.

And then the phlox came out of my garden.

And this phlox actually runs around too.

Sometimes it's nice to have things that run around, because I have a good many bare spots.

But Teresa, I bet you have a question for someone.

Terasa>> We do, and this one is a question about a weed.

Allyson in Camden says I've been battling chamberbitter, but my efforts don't seem to make a difference.

Can you help me get it under control?

Amanda>> Ah, there's always moving, right Jackie?

(laughter) Jackie>> Well, um, there's a couple of different strategies I would use.

For one, Isoxaban is a pre emergent herbicide that can be used.

Chamberbitter tends to germinate a little bit later, so coming in late April, early May.

Amanda>> Because after we usually put out a preemergent Jackie>> Oh yeah, but the first preemergent you would put out would be in February for crabgrass.

So by that time, it's worn off, but Isoxaban is the chemical you'd have to use for the chamberbitter.

And then really going in and using a good three inches of a mulch is a great way to keep those weeds from really taking over and you want a medium to a coarse mulch, because that top layer will dry out and help to prevent that germination process.

So in areas where you have it, go in and make sure you've got it heavily mulched.

And it is a weed that does need some light.

So make sure that you are mowing properly and taking care of your grass the right way to make it as thick and lush as possible.

Amanda>> Well, and I go out and hand pull it, and I put my radio, put my telephone, on some podcast, because if I let it set seeds, if I'm not mistaken, the seats explode and spread it.

I mean gripeweed is another.

Jackie>> Exactly yeah, exactly.

So if you can catch it early enough, so you can go out there and pay attention to your landscape and learn to scout for it when it's small, then hand pulling will be very successful.

Amanda>> I've done that enough, actually take a box or something and put it in there in case the seeds are getting close to ripe, but imagine exploding seeds.

So that's one reason it spreads so quickly.

Jackie>> It was all over my rose garden, and I went in and really went in with a good three inches of mulch, and I consistently keep a good three inches of a medium coarse mulch.

And that has done a world of good in eliminating it.

>> So you're not using pinestraw or something like that.

Jackie>> No.

>> Okay, well, thanks for any tips because it is a real bear.

But Isoxaban is a good way to start.

>> Yes.

>> Thank you.

Alright, well, we were talking about something that needs some sun, but I think now we have some things that needs some shade.

Davis>> And now we've moved into the realm of shade, but in keeping with the earlier plants, everybody's familiar with hostas, but it's not limited to just the big green and the big yellow and big blue foliage anymore.

>> Now this one we can't see because the tag's in the way.

>> Now let's turn them all around, because these are all the dwarf hostas.

We have three of the true unique dwarf hostas.

The one on the right here is called Curly Fries.

>> I can see why.

>> It's a sport, if I'm not mistaken, of the Praying Hands hosta.

It only gets about 7 to 10 inches tall grows in a nice tidy little clump.

Amanda>> So it's gonna get a little bit bigger.

This is a young one.

Davis>> Right.

I've also got, this one is called, I believe, Maui Buttercups.

>> Munchkin?

>> Yeah, Munchkin Fire, and it's very similar to the Curly Fries, but it does have a lot more yellow and gold in the foliage, and here again, doesn't get quite as large.

It'll only get about eight inches.

And one of the first true dwarf hostas to be widely produced is the Blue Mouse Ears, and it gets its name because it looks like little blue mouse ears.

>> So, some hostas can take a little more sun than others.

Are the ones that have some variegation, are they less tolerant or more tolerant?

Davis>> Typically the variegated ones can take a little more sun, but my yardstick is the thickness of the leaf.

If it's not a blue hosta, the thicker the leaves, the more sun it seems to be able to take.

The thin leaf ones sometimes tend to get a little bit crispy, especially in the afternoon sun, and blue hostas do tend to bleach out (clears throat) excuse me, quite significantly in the sun.

So they definitely need shade.

Amanda>> Yeah, because the color of this is quite beautiful, it really is.

Davis>> And on the other end of that spectrum, instead of size and color, we have textures.

This is one of the Proven Winner series called Waterslide.

And it is kind of reminiscent of the waterslides in a waterpark.

And right next to it, we have one that's varigated called Wheee.

So Whee, W H E E E, like you're sliding down a waterslide, but it's varigated.

(laughter) >> Wheeee!

>> Exactly, and these are relatively new introductions also in there, but they're also very widely available.

Here again, nice, shady spot for 'em that'll give you a little bit of a texture difference among all your other shade loving plants.

You've got the coarse texture begonias, and you've got the ride of color that are the impatiens.

But there's not a whole lot of texture going on in the shade garden.

Well now you can fix it with these guys.

>> Yes, now tell me how large these will be.

>> These are gonna get about 18 inches 18 to 24 inches tall and makes a nice show on about a 24 inch spread.

Amanda>> All right, and now they will be there throughout the summer, and then when we have a frost is that... >> They usually start to decline a little bit before that, depending on the length of your growing season.

If you're up in the mountains or in the northern foothills, they'll persist well into October, November.

Further south, they probably will start melting down a little bit before then, because you've got such a long growing season.

They just get exhausted.

Amanda>> They just get tired, but they come back next year.

>> Oh, absolutely, very durable, hardy perennials.

And finally, if you're not bored enough by hostas by now, we also have some things that are like little neon lights in the shade garden.

You can imagine what a pop of color this will give you in a dark corner of the shade garden.

This one is called Dancing Queen.

This was, I believe, the 2020 Hosta of the Year.

It's one of the medium size ones.

She's gonna get up about, probably about 24 to 30 inches tall with an equal spread.

Amanda>> Ooh, that's gonna be big!

>> And this one is Fire and Ice.

I'm sorry, this one's Fire Island.

I really liked this hosta, because not only does it have that nice color to it, it's a very erect grower, and the stems of the foliage are exposed as it grows.

So in addition to having that bright, yellow color, we'll turn it around here just a little bit.

The stem gets redder and redder as it matures.

>> Wow.

>> So you've got a really unique color combination there.

The only drawback to this one, is I have found that the snails and slugs really like this.

So you can put out a little bit of slug bait or a little bit of diatomateous earth around them and enjoy them just like all the other hostas.

Amanda>> And Terasa, it used to be we had to be real careful with the snail and slug bait because of dogs.

But there's one now that is pet proof.

So just be careful when you get it.

Davis>> And most of the commercial snail baits do have a bittering agent, so if if a non targeted animal does get it in its mouth, usually they spit it right back out.

Amanda>> Yeah, probably not an armadillo, but they don't eat things like that anyway, so I'm just waiting for them to come back this year.

Davis>> And if we have time for one more, this was last year's Hosta of the Year.

This one is called Lakeside Paisley Print, and it is a really pretty hosta.

We've seen all the different variegations.

This one is almost a tri-color.

It's got the blue green, the green and the yellow variegation.

It's got that nice ruffle texture, which would be a good foil for something like say a Dragon Wing begonia that's got the big bold, slick glossy flowers but not a whole lot of texture.

Amanda>> Wow!

Now is this one, it looks smaller here.

Or is it or is it just younger?

Davis>> Well, it's a younger plant, and it's not gonna get quite as large.

That one will probably get about 18 inches or so.

Amanda>> Well it certainly is, and you can always put it in a container in the shady part of the garden to give it even more umph and get more bang from it, don't you think?

Davis>> Hostas are an excellent container plant.

I have a good friend in Greenville who landscapes most of his backyard with hostas and almost all of them are in containers.

>> My goodness gracious!

Okay.

>> And he gets tired of looking at it in one spot, he just moves it to another.

Amanda>> Yeah, there you go.

(laughs) Well, I really appreciate that.

Davis>> Well, thank you.

We're all paying attention to sunflowers right now, and sunflowers are wonderful plants, and many of them are wonderful for pollinators.

There's a very unusual native of sunflower called the Schweinitz sunflower that we'd like to talk to you about now.

♪ We're in York County near historic Brattonsville, and I'm speaking with Robert Carter.

We're standing outside in a prairie.

And you've specialized in longleaf.

And when we read about, from the early explorers and all, we hear about how open everything was, and all of that, but here, I don't see a single longleaf.

So this must be a different sort of prairie situation.

And why is that?

Robert>> Well, there's two major factors, there's fire, and then there's the soil.

And then you could maybe add in animals.

There's some arguments about that.

So the fire regime here, which is how often you burn, naturally, longleaf has to have it and that's about every one to three years on the coastal plains.

Here, it was about every three to five years that it would burn.

It was typically caused by lightning.

Later on, the Native Americans learned that it was very beneficial, so they would burn some.

But even before the Native Americans, there were places like this.

They were just kind of open and prairie or savanna-like.

You know, a savanna is a prairie with scattered trees.

And a lot of it goes back to the soils that are here.

The soils here are what we call mafic, and that has to do with magnesium as the 'ma' part.

Then the 'fic' part has to do with iron, ferrous.

So mafic means that there's high magnesium, high iron, and it makes a clay that is dark.

So it's not like a red clay.

It is darker.

Yeah.

And the pH is higher, you know, in the Piedmont, you expect the pH to be, you know, three to four.

Around here in these basic soils, it's four to five, maybe even six sometimes.

So it changes, you know, the dynamics of the soil and the nutrients in the soil.

So then it changes the species that would be here.

Amanda>> We're in the Piedmont, but this is flat as a tabletop.

>> Yeah.

>> Why is that?

>> That's because it's developed from a gabbro and olivine.

Those are the parent materials, the rock it developed from.

Much of the rock in the Piedmont came from granitic type rocks, granites.

That's not what this soil came from.

The mafic soil developed from the gabbro.

And it's just really tough to break down.

So it ended up making these kinds of flat hills.

And when fire would get started on a flat hill, it would just kind of go across it.

So when you come to the Piedmont, you think of the rolling hills.

But when you get to a place like this, it's almost like you're in the prairie out west because it's kind of flat.

Amanda>> And we have historical records of people who came through and talked about it, and talked about some interesting animals they saw too.

Robert>> Yeah, even back to 1540, when DeSoto came through the Piedmont, he described prairies.

In 1701, when John Lawson came through this area, and he talked about going through, like 25 miles of prairie, people can't imagine that now.

And he also talked about seeing bison everywhere.

So there were herds of bison and there were elk here.

And those also helped to maintain the prairie because they would feed on the little saplings, tree saplings that were coming up, and you know, the bison, they can knock over small trees, so they were all part of maintaining this as a prairie.

People just don't realize that this was a much different world.

You didn't have a squirrel going from the coast to the Mississippi River through the trees.

There were these open areas with bison, and really, really dynamic, and you have species that have adapted to dwell and depend on these prairie areas.

Amanda>> And the one species that we're here particularly to talk about today, is the sunflower with the unusual name.

Robert>> Yes, Schweinitz's Sunflower, named after the Moravian pastor who also liked plants, and it's fire dependent.

It needs the fire to keep the environment open, because it needs the full sunlight, but it also needs it's seed to reach bare soil, and fire kind of plays that role because in the Piedmont we naturally have bunch grasses like you've got right here, this broomsedge, and the fire would come through here, and in between the bunches of grass, you would have the bare soil, so then the seeds could land there, and they could get started, start their life.

Amanda>> And they survive the fire fine as an intact plant.

Robert>> That's right, because they have tubers underground almost like a small sweet potato.

So actually, as the fire comes through, they have enough carbohydrate stores that they can just sprout back the next year.

They can actually spread to some degree through those tubers.

It's very slow, but you know, a bunch of Schweinitz's sunflower can slowly spread, seeds is the best way though.

It's an endangered species.

It's only found in York County, Lancaster County, then a few counties in North Carolina.

And it kind of specializes on these kind of prairie-like areas.

The only place you find it really anymore is, I think there's 24 habitats or 24 populations they've identified.

And outside of that, they're just scattered plants along the road.

I'll see them sometimes.

They'll be on power lines.

So they have very few populations, and then the populations aren't connected at all.

So that's why they're considered endangered, is just they just don't have the appropriate habitat anymore.

Amanda>> Are there other plants that you find in this community or other animals that are specialized?

Robert>> Well, there's Georgia aster, that's another one of these species that is kind of prairie, or they say post oak savanna dependent.

So it kind of has a similar niche, and it's become very rare.

It's found in a few states in the South, and any of those states is very limited and in the Piedmont.

There's also birds.

You know, we got the quail.

People know about the quail, and it goes in between the bunch grass, but then we have like Backman's sparrow.

It nests at the bottom of the bunch grass.

>> Sparrows nest on the ground?

>> Oh, yeah.

>> I didn't realize that.

>> It happens.

Nature will fool you sometimes.

And then there's a Grasshopper sparrow which is an appropriate name because he likes to be in these kind of areas with grasshoppers and Loggerhead shrike, the butcher bird, it needs these open areas so he can find the grasshopper so he can impale him, have lunch later, basically.

Amanda>> Okay, and I see there are a lot of things in here that we'd like to eliminate.

And y'all have plans to try to start doing controlled burns on a regular basis when all the conditions are correct.

Robert>> Yeah, when the conditions are right.

Hopefully, this winter, we're going to put a burn through here.

And that will knock back a lot of this and knock back most of the trees.

Now, this one here, the shortleaf, is one of the few pines that will sprout back, and that's an adaptation to fire, because in early descriptions, they talked about blackjack oak and post oak in these areas, but also shortleaf pine, but it's gonna knock back anything.

We got some sweet gum out here.

It'll knock that back.

We just kind of make sure it stays an open area and remains a prairie.

Amanda>> And also will leave some of those, get rid of some of these other grasses and leave some of those barriers so that when those wonderful sunflowers set seed next year, they'll get a chance to land on bare soil.

>> That's right.

>> Yeah, a seed that says don't be nice to me.

Robert>> That's right, yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm glad y'all are being nice to the Schweinitz's sunflowers here, and we look forward to coming back and seeing it in a different time of the year and different phase.

>> Okay.

♪ >> It's fascinating how different small ecosystems are home to different plants and animals that interact with them.

I really enjoyed going up there.

And I hope you enjoyed that too.

Terasa?

What have we got now?

Terasa>> Bobby in Moncks Corner is hoping we can help him.

He says, "Every year my squash and zucchini "end up with powdery mildew.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening?"

Well, he shouldn't feel bad.

That happens at my house too.

Amanda>> Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

Zack, what advice do you have?

Zack>> Yeah, so there's two main diseases that get on squash and zucchini.

There's powdery mildew and there's downy mildew, so don't confuse the two.

Powdery mildew, I tell folks, looks like you took some baby powder and just sprinkled it all over the plant.

You get this white, kind of dry, powdery looking fungal growth.

Downy mildew is a little bit different.

It has, if you turn the leaf over, you'll have kind of a velvety, purplish brown spores underneath it.

So the two are very different.

Powdery mildew is more of a dry weather, dry condition disease, and downy is more of the wetter disease.

So powdery comes in in the late spring, early summer, and really the best thing you can do is look for different varieties.

A lot of varieties have what we call tolerance to it.

And so they're still going to get the disease, but they can still produce a crop, a marketable yield from that crop.

Downy mildew, unfortunately, it comes every year.

You can almost set your calendar when downy mildew comes.

It's gonna come in late May, early June.

And it comes up from Florida on weather patterns.

So it's interesting, these spores traveled 1000s of miles in just a couple of days on these big weather currents.

Amanda>> So it doesn't overwinter here.

It overwinters in Florida, and then moves up, and don't y'all have like a hotline or website, people watch it move up?

Zack>> We do actually.

So we do this project, it's called the... We grow these sentinel plots.

So we grow a bunch of different species and varieties of cucurbits.

And we do it from Florida all the way up to up north in Michigan.

And scientists and Extension agents grow these plots.

And every week we go out and check.

And so we report it when we find these things.

And it has to be verified by a researcher.

And then it gets reported to this website.

And we can track how the disease is moving.

And you'd be really surprised.

These spores that come up from Florida can travel, you know, 1500 miles in just a few days.

So they get on these weather patterns, they're up in the sky and atmosphere, and then as it rains, these spores fall on the plant, and that spore germinates on the the leaf tissue, and then you get disease from there.

Amanda>> And if I'm not mistaken, the effective pesticide for this, fungicide for this is real expensive and beyond the use.

I mean, a homeowner, it'd just be way out of their pocketbook.

Zack>> Correct, especially for downy, and downy's the one, you know, usually is a lot more devastating than the powdery mildew.

So I just encourage folks, if you're growing squash plants, look for that resistance.

And then also plant early, because we know that it's coming in June every year, so if we can grow our crop and get it out around that June timeframe, we won't have to worry about it.

Amanda>> So you have a plot that you watch.

Zack>> We have one at the Coastal Research Center in Charleston.

Dr. Anthony Keinath, he manages that, him and his research team.

And Justin Ballew, an Extension agent in the Midlands, he has a sentinel plot there too.

So it's really interesting when Dr. Keinath finds it, usually Justin finds it within a day or a few, you know, even that afternoon, he'll find it on his plots.

It's really incredible.

And each year it gets on a different host crop.

So some years, we might find it on cucumbers first.

Some years we might find it on a certain variety of squash.

And so there's different pathovars, I guess you would say, of the pathogen itself.

And so which one shows up and which one, which plant it gets on is interesting from year to year.

Amanda>> So it kind of makes it tough to be a commercial grower of those.

They don't really know what to expect.

Zack>> Correct, and so in the past few years we've had this one pathovar of the downy mildew that's come up.

Well, last year, for whatever reason, it switched, and it was another one.

So we were growing resistant varieties almost like the flu shot.

You know, we chose the wrong variety this year, and that year, it really kind of devastated us.

Amanda>> Yeah, which for a home gardener isn't the end of the world, but for... Zack>> When you have a couple 100 acres... Amanda>> Yeah, especially if you've got contracting for somebody, that could really be devastating.

>> Correct.

>> Well, thank you for what you're trying to do.

Zack>> Yes, ma'am, plant early and plant often.

Amanda>> Yep, okay.

Terasa, what else is in the lineup?

Terasa>> Well, this one is also a problem, so to speak, from Liz in Columbia.

Liz actually delivered some leaves to an Extension office, some magnolia leaves.

"What is wrong with my magnolia and how can I fix it?"

Amanda>> Well, Jackie, it looks like you have some magnolia leaves.

Jackie>> Yeah, so the big thing is, this magnolia has lots of white spots all over the leaves as you can see, so her tree is being affected by scale.

And one of the things that you can tell the scale from algal leaf spots that can get on it, is you can actually kind of run your thumb over and scratch off the scale.

They come off fairly easily.

Amanda>> Oh, and what can you do if you have this problem?

Jackie>> Well, scale have a two stage lifecycle.

They have a crawler stage, and they usually hatch out around April.

And they'll crawl around on the trees or shrubs from April through August.

And then they'll start to settle down and put that protective coating on them.

And so knowing what stage you're in will help you determine what kind of controls.

Once they have that protective coating after August through up until the early part of April, you're going to have to smother them.

So you'll have to use a horticultural oil or neem oil to be effective.

Amanda>> I mean, magnolia trees get pretty big.

Jackie>> When they're in the crawler stage, you can use some systemic insecticides as well.

It's really important to know what type of scale you're dealing with, because there are wax scales, Florida wax scales, there are armored scales, there are soft scales, and some insecticides will be effective against soft scales, and are not effective against armored scale.

So you definitely want to make sure that you get the scale identified correctly, so that you can use the appropriate systemic.

Amanda>> Is the scale that's on the magnolia leaves, is that one particular scale?

>> Right, it is.

>> You don't have to carry that in if you know that's what you have.

Jackie>> Well no, actually on a magnolia, there's about seven or eight of different scales.

Most of them are armored that will get on the magnolia.

But in general, if you have a scale on one of your plants, I would definitely get it identified so you know for sure that you're using the right insecticide.

Amanda>> Okay, okay, and so just take it into your Extension office, and they would have somebody there who, or get it, to someone who could... Jackie>> Right, right.

If there's not anybody in that Extension office, then it can be sent up to the clinic.

Amanda>> Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you so very much.

Jackie>> You're welcome.

Amanda>> Um, Davis, I think you have two lovely things here.

Davis>> I do have a couple more things here.

Everything that we've seen so far today have been either cultivars or imports.

(clears throat) Excuse me.

These are two native plants.

The one on the left here is the giant coneflower.

This is Rudbeckia maxima.

Beautiful, gray green foliage.

The flower spikes will shoot up out of the middle of this and get up six, seven feet tall, and the cone in the center of the flower, it has the back swept yellow petals that are typical of the species in the genus.

But the cone in the center of it can be as big as a pine cone, just spectacular plant.

And the finches love them.

Amanda>> Because they dry and you can leave them there.

They're very attractive even after the petals fall off.

Davis>> Certainly are.

And if they're planted in the ground, since it is a native to both southeast and the plains states, they're relatively drought tolerant.

Once they're established, you don't have to spend a lot of time trying to keep them watered.

Amanda>> And this one, I believe, not to take away from the finches' food, but if you want to clear out some area around it and mulch, and then sprinkle those seeds from the cone, I think it's fairly easy to reproduce, and you can get some more that way.

Davis>> It certainly is.

And the finches also help scatter those seeds around a little bit too.

Amanda>> I guess they do, don't they?

And what's this one?

Davis>> This one is a type of wintergreen.

Everybody's familiar with the creeping wintergreen Gaultheria procumbens.

Well, this is a shrubby native of the Pacific Northwest, although it is hardy in zones six through nine.

This is Gaultheria shallon, which is a shrubby form of the creeping wintergreen.

This makes tremendous thickets almost like our native doghobbles in the Southeast in shady moist areas in the Pacific Northwest.

So given some shade and rich soil, it does perform pretty well here.

It does get the little...

I'm gonna turn this around just a little bit, if you can focus in on the flowers, it does get the little erica type flowers, it is one of the ericaceae.

And the berries that it produces are not red like the creeping wintergreen.

This one produces sort of a purplish blackberry.

It is edible.

The flavor's a little bit insipid, for lack of a better word.

But it is it is an important wildlife forage in the Northwest.

And once it's established here, I would think it would have the same niche in the environment.

Amanda>> So tell me a place where you would use this, and how far apart would you place them if you wanted to?

Davis>> Well, if you want to grow a thicket of them, the closer you plant them together, the taller they're going to get.

I would say probably spaced at least about four or five feet apart in an area that gets good shade and has a good deep subsoil of organic matter, pine forest or even a hardwood forest as long as you can put it somewhere where it doesn't have to compete so much with the roots.

Amanda>> And I know you have a little bit less horrendous summer than up there than we do down here.

How do you think it would do in the lower part of the state?

Davis>> The research I've seen on it shows that in a sandy soil or relatively poor soil, it just limits the size of it, so it might only get two to three feet tall down here.

Amanda>> Okay, well, that is really exciting to learn about.

Those are kind of hard spots to deal with sometimes.

All right.

Well, I want to thank everyone for being with us today and remind people that you can go to Farming Foundation, Clemson, and sign up for your wonderful program.

Thanks for that, and thank you all for the things you brought, and we hope that you will join us here next week.

We'll see you then.

♪ Announcer>> Making It Grow is brought to you in part by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture.

Certified South Carolina grown helps consumers identify, find and buy South Carolina products.

McLeod farms in McBee, South Carolina.

This family farm offers seasonal produce, including over 22 varieties of peaches.

Additional funding provided by International Paper and the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation and Farm Bureau Insurance.