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♪ Good evening and welcome to Making It Grow.

We're so glad you could join us tonight.I'm Amanda McNulty I'm the Clemson extension agent.

Our show is a collaboration between SCETV and Clemson University Clemson University and an extension plays a big part because Terasa Lott who does most, of her daytime job is the fact that he's working with the master gardeners but then her other daytime job is being indispensable to Making It Grow.

Well thanks it's always fun to be here.

We're so glad you make the trip over from Darlington.

Not to much of a drive is not about an hour yeah yeah and then I think about an hour away also today we are so fortunate Andy Cabe, who's a horticulturist and at the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden did I say it the right way now?

yeah Riverbanks Zoo and Garden that's right way.

Okay good and that's just what it is.

isn't it?

So how long have you been up there Andy?

I've been there a little over twenty one years.

Twenty one years?

Yes ma'am.

Gosh I don't I thought we had child labor laws in South Carolina.

[Laughter] Well it has certainly I know that you've had a lot to do with putting the children's garden in and happy children are often jumping under that waterfall.

Arn't they?

Oh absolutely.

Yeah a nice way to cool off and then you got all kinds of some kind of funny I scream too don't you?

We've got Dippin Dots, is that's not funny?

I don't think it's funny anymore Amanda.

Oh okay, I haven't had any yet so okay come out there and I'll make up my own mind.

That's right.

Eric Shealy is also at the zoo when you do a lot of greenhouse work and what's your take a Dip and Dots?

My take on that it's delicious.

It is weird but it's delicious.

Well you know what just another reason for me to go to the zoo.

Right, and I'll I mean I need to remember to bring some is It quarters so that I can feed the goats?

Yes, Oh yes, yes because It's so much fun to feed the goats.

Yeah yeah yeah it really is fun, and then up in Greenwood uh'm a relatively new county Agent with an extensive horticulture background.

Stephanie Turner and an and and special her Kitty cat.

Who will make an appearance and uh'm Stephanie it I just, I think that you got a newspaper column I think you kind of hit the ground running up there.

Yeah it's it's coming up on the year extension and I'm I'm really loving working with the people in Greenwood.

We have a lot of exciting horticulture projects in towns and it's really been a wonderful start.

Well and I know that you enjoy this such a the, the city horticulturist there are so knowledgeable and you have a core of volunteers there and I imagine you all intermesh at times and that makes your job even more exciting.

Oh it sure does volunteers master gardeners and city of Greenwood staff and we all come together and Greenwood is really blooming.

It's a lovely city of people haven't been there they ought to make an effort this to go off and have a have a have a have a visit.

Well Terasa we usually like to start off with something happy.

Which is things that people have shared.

Yeah, we have added the Gardens of the week and I don't really remember whose idea it was at this point but I'm sure I'm glad that we've added it.

It's a chance to kind of look around the state, sometimes outside to see what's going on in your yards and Gardens.

We're gonna start with that Marilyn Caulder now this might be sort of an unusual photo this is a predator prey relationship.

So sometimes you eat sometimes you get eaten, as you can see in this photo.

Carol Ledford shared maybe a prettier photo with a crescent butterfly on rudbeckia.

Kind of with our unusual from Richard list we have a snake on the wall.

Richard said he went out to sit on the deck, when he noticed it.

It appears to be a black rat snake had the same idea.

You'll notice the snake is actually clinging to the wall of the house near the downspouts gutter.

Rachel and Keith Gaines shared their landscape bed looks like and nice respite for both humans and wildlife in Camden and then wrapping up with Janet Marie.

Who shared a mandevilla red that is brightening up a front porch.

Thanks to everyone who shared your photos.

It is so much fun and I get lots of encouragement and creative ideas from all of you.

Don't be shy you're welcome to submit your photos when we make a request and if you can't post them to Facebook you are welcome to email them to me at terasa@clemson.edu .

Thank you that is a fun way to start and then Terasa you are so good about getting questions from Facebook and other places, where people need some help on and I think you brought a list, so let's start checking them off.

We can do that.

We'll start with Brad in little river who asked, my pollinator garden is looking pretty scruffy what should I do to prepare for fall and winter?

Aha well Eric, I mean Andy I'm gonna let you do this one for me.

Uh'm let's help this person.

Well your the part part of the pollinator garden is gonna be scruffy.

That's just part of what it is, now the way you lay out your pollinator garden, you make it have some other things around that they're going to look a little more tidy and some things that you might be able to cut back and do some things with but the whole idea behind like a fully working pollinator garden is it you want to keep you know all of those brown stems up things like that number one the seed heads provide food source for birds also a lot of the you debris on the ground you insects might over winter under that you under some of that leaf litter so you to have a working pollinator garden really to kind of have the working ecosystem.

You're gonna kinda needed you know to look it's going to kind of look a little scruffy.

You got to imitate nature little bit, yeah.

So you think about the placement of the pollinator garden in your yard, if you're really if you're one of those people that really want a very manicured looking front yard, maybe look for a spot on the side or in the back if you get enough sun you to do this pollinator garden, or just like I said plant some interesting things around in maybe some decorative containers, something to draw your eye away from the pollinator garden you know the, the kind of brown mess with yeah maybe jan, I mean January February and March that's when you can start thinking about cutting it back.

Also some of the things that have hollow stems are used for egg laying.

Yeah, sure.

I think another reason to to not be cut everything to the ground and leave some of those things up.

I've got some sumac and I think it has some hollow stems, so I'm gonna leave that up.

You know another thing you can do in pollinator garden, is you can incorporate some other things within that garden, maybe it's a couple of nice tall ornamental grasses and you lots of times leave our ornamental grasses up for a good long while in the winter time.

Because a lot of them kind of brown out kind of nicely in and look attractive in the wintertime and if you still good yes is not authorized structures so you maybe think of a couple of things that you can incorporate in there a little bit just to like I was talking earlier drawing your eye away from all of your brown stems.

The rudbeckia seed heads, I think the, think the finches particularly like.

But uh'm last year I just took some of them and cleared out a space where I had some pretty good soil and just kind of strough them yeah and and I got pretty good results and you'll see after you have a pollinator garden for couple years, if you got a good site for it you'll see lots of others start to pop up the seeds are gonna drop.

Birds other things are going to disperse them and your pollinator garden can spread.

Yeah.

We had rudbeckia coming up in our lawn you know we've been working to establish a pollinator area, we don't really want to in the lawn, but I was able to dig them up and put them in one another area.

Yeah.

Pretty well seem to be pretty easy to germinate and also that the tall tall cone flower.

Rudbeckia maxima.

Yeah that one also I was able to.

Yeah it is and we had I had to do it a flower arangment recently and I use some of the dried you know because you need something upright, and I use some of the tall, tall dried seed heads of the rudbeckia maxima.

I mean it was dramatic it was almost as good as the stick.

Oh yeah, you can do a lot with a stick.

yeah and so I just use that for a stick and actually some people said that was pretty cool, yeah okay well thanks that was great Terasa, uh'm what else, who else can we try to help today?

Let's help Gloria in Fairfield.

She said were adding considering adding a rain garden tour landscape, do you have any resources to help us get started?

Okay, well you know we've been fortunate.

We've had a pretty good rains this year.

Stephanie I think that Greenwood has had some rain Gardens up there and can you help this person with some ideas and tell us why rain Gardens are important?

Sure yeah we actually have two pretty large rain Gardens in Greenwood.

One is right outside of our extension office and I when we were relocated to our current location, they had to deal with a bit of construction on the site and widen the parking area and so forth and of course that's going to cause some drainage issues.

So in that process.

They installed a rain garden, to help with clearing out some of that storm water runoff and you know we kind of back up and talk about the fact that you know if you have a lot of stormwater runoff or some wet spots in your garden.

That's a great place for rain gardens to help that water instead of going down into the storm drains filter down naturally through the soil back into the ground water and and you know that about rain garden functions as a good filter and it clears out maybe some of the pollutants in our case from the parking lot vehicles.

Like motor oil and things.

Motor oil and things that you wouldn't in any way want going into creeks and streams but the natural organisms in the soil can break those down into a non toxic compounds isn't that correct?

Yeah so in the soil the micro organisms in the soil itself can filter out some of that and debris and pollutants.

So it's great situation for that reason and that's also just attractive, instead of having you know a retention pond or something like that you can use plants to help absorbed and use that water and so we have that one over by the extension office and then we have another one in uptown.

The city of Greenwood was renovating some parking areas and same situation in that case.

you know we need a place for that water to run off and then recharge the ground water and filter out some pollutants.

So the one at the extension office is a very different theme than the one up town and so extension office we had some large trees incorporated in there and so we have a beautiful large river birch, I think it was established about ten years or so ago.

So some of these trees are really gotten and beautiful and large.

Really doing their job soaking up the water, and then we also have a lovely a bald cypress tree and in that rain garden and that bald cypress tree is putting up knees within the rain Gardens and we also have underneath the shade of those trees we have some wonderful elephant ears.

A big stand of elephant ears that have established and then around the perimeter we actually even have some roses planted.

That's not necessarily typical rain garden plant but we put it up on on the edge on the side can be like an introduction to the Gardens you that and then then that lower areas like these trees like the elaphantears some daylilies all these plants that you put in there need to be on the tolerate really two different extremes.

They need to tolerate flooding for maybe a day or so little time after heavy rain events while that water is working through and then they need to they'll tolerate long stretches of dry drought hot heat.

So that'the one pollinator garden over at the extension office and then the one up town they really put a shine to it and the master gardeners of come alongside the city and dominated a sign so that folks that park in that area can see why that Garden is special.

We also have a local artist come in and do a rendering of the flowers in the garden and the different plants so it's got a concept diagram of what is a rain garden and all the different habitat it provides.

From birds to insects and then again it has the and the artistic representation of the plant and so in that one it's got more of a theme of a pollinator garden.

So like we were just talking about pollinator garden and you can kind of see that garden evolve over the course of the season.

So it's something blooming at different times of the year.

From June there's a butterfly weed and the spider warts and then later in the season most rudbeckia.

Yeah the joe pi weed some daylillies.

The blue lobelia and so all of those when the switch grass we were talking about.

You know great the pollinator garden.

The switch grass and one of those the panicum.

That's really beautiful like previously mentioned, it'll just dry out in the winter and just be beautiful movement and color throughout the winter and into the spring and so that pollinator Garden is a rain garden, and it is it just takes the whole season and changes and invites different animals and pollinators and that's just beautiful in the back of the parking lot.

So it serves a great function and most people maybe might park in that lot and never noticed it, but if you see that sign you walkover and you'll see there's a lot going on in that rain garden.

But if you want to do you want in your yard there is a great resource on the Clemson website.

So you just go to www.

clemsom.edu/extension/raingarden and there's a whole guide talk how to write the whole process of establishing rain Gardens and all the plants that might be appropriate for you to put your rain garden this large palette of plants that really are those tough ones you take the extremes.

When and you're right they can be very extreme but it is lovely to think that you've got something that can be so pretty and is attracting birds, pollinators all kinds of wildlife and at the same time we realize now how critical clean water is and that it can be a real way that even at your own home you can have you can become a contributor towards seeing that that storm water doesn't run off your property with all that debris and all in it.

Thanks a lot and Thank and tell all our friends in Greenwood that we thank them for all the good things that they're doing.

They've got a great relationship with the city government, city government there really has bought into trying to be environmentally sensitive.

Haven't they?

They really have.

I've mentioned it before we're bee city USA.

They are trying to support all the pollinators and, and all the activities They do up there.

You know really using practical integrated pest management wherever needed.

Thank you so much for that Stephanie we sure do appreciate it.

All right Mrs. Terasa, let's see who else we can help with the with a dilemma?

Well Mike in Kingstree says I just moved to South Carolina and there are all these red flowers in the yard with no leaves.

What are they?

That is really a fun surprise and if you don't know what it is is it is kind of kind of like whoooaaah what's happening here?

They often in old Gardens you wonder like why are they going and seem to go nowhere?

But I think you got a a good explanation of what's going on here.

So they are spider lilies or a lot of people Charleston call them hurricane lilies because they come, they come up at a time when the hurricanes usually are hurricane season is usually in full swing.

So a lot of old time people just knew that there was a hurricane come in when the laser start, start worrying.

But really they come, they're lycoris that will and they're are a bulb underneath the ground.

They are wintergreen, meaning that they have winter foliage they are usually anywhere from fall blooming early fall to late fall blooming bulbs and but they bloom with no foliage.

Yes.

So they just come up magically and a lot of people call them surprise lilies.

So they have many many many different names but they they're all licoris to us, naked ladies.

Yeah.

naked ladies is a good one.

I mean, I mean.

I've used that one in a hat recently.

Well there you go.

and it's just there they're such a good reliable bulb.

Well and we think of the only ones I was really familiar with, were the yeah the naked lady which is big and the and the smaller lycoris but obviously there are a lot.

Look at what you've brought to us.

So this is this is a very small representation of the different colors and different, the sizes of the different ones that you can grow and they they come in anything from something that's like really red like lycoris radiata is the one that you find the red ones.

The red ones just pop up everywhere.

So lycoris radiata is perfectly scarlet red.

Then you get some that are tinged with blue and these and some of these in this arrangement are don't even have names there unknown they they hybridized very freely and then breeders can hybridize them.

So you get these touches of blue in there which is very in vogue right now.

In Japan it is almost an extreme sport.

To breed these plants.

Really?

They have show, they have full shows with them.

The way people are that daylilies here.

Basically yeah they are native to Japan.

Okay.

So that they they were actually brought to this country by a U. S. navy captain.In the eighteen fifties.

He liked plants and brought one back.

So that's where we you know in Old at the end Japanese in Japanese culture they represent death.

So they're in graveyards a lot and they are in Charleston as well as you know and, and so you see them pop up here and there.

Well a very I know the red ones are extremely hardy or are all of these equally hearty or?

So all of these in this vase have been in the ground for three years.

So they're persistant.

They are persisting, we have the white one is called wedelia.

We have one called gold flame here.

This is lycoris straminea.

The really gold one the front and the two right their unnamed but they're definitely hybrids.

Boy they're really exotic.

Springer around problem yeah it's a lycoris Springer are hybrids.

Hybrids, yeah yeah and then I a bet your wonderful Diane put this Diane put?

Diane Baker put this together she so talented.

Yes she's our resident floral expert.

She grabbed really she grabs stuff that we have just growing in the garden.

This I want you to talk about, because I would like, I just think it's beautiful filler I've seen in a long time.

So this is Eucalyptus Nicoalicia.

The willow leaf Eucalyptus.

Nicoalicia?

Yeah we grow it, is actually on the approved list for koalas to eat, but it is completely Harty in our in our region.

Is it going to turn into a tree?

Yes It turns into a very large tree, and our first specimen I think was twenty five years old and then we had to cut it down because it had such a big yeah I got too big and it had some rot in it.

Yeah.

But we of course have other specimens of it around.

Is it pretty available in the nursery trade?

It is not up here.

owns I mean I really would like to have.

Yeah we had had some at that plant cells previously but when people, usually people are discouraged because they they hear forty foot tree.

They get a little discouraged.

Because and they think about their grandmother's eucalyptus that she grew silver dollars and everything, and it is.

I mean it's kind of that same beast.

But I mean if the if you're looking for good filler there's no better.

Because it it does have a nice texture and you know when you go to the floral shops you can buy acacia, and acacia is a beautiful filler it's expensive though.

I mean and then you have to buy this and lasts in your yard all year.

You can just go pick it and put it into Christmas wreaths and put in Easter baskets it doesn't matter.

So really you could just plan to let it grow for six or eight years and then while it was still manageable you didn't have to call in a tree cutter.

I mean you could prune it back and keep it as a low hedge or a yeah I mean topped out.

Okay, well I am not really gonna put my eye out for some of that, because that's a great filler and then of course I guess this is.

Is this another one of the lime this is a limelight hydrangea?

Yeah and you know and they are just they're easy.

Gosh they are.

Don't you think?

Everybody's like I don't know how you get that hydrangeas to grow in the sun?

Well, that's because you have to grow hydrangea paniculata, not a hydrangeas cerrado.

Yeah you know yeah and I'm in there the nice thing is even as the flower dries, yeah there's a there's a lot of people who just who will dry them and use them in other arrangements throughout the year and of course we're next we're not shy to a can of spray paint.

We can, we spray them once in a while.

But this really that really is just a beautiful arrangement yeah she did a good job.

Yep and so again these would like to be in the sun I guess.

So they're they're kind of strange, in the winter they want to be in the sun with the leaves up and everything.

So they're one of those things that would do really well under a deciduous canopy.

So if you're thinking if you have a shade Gardens dominated by oaks or anything any deciduous tree really, that's perfect because if it gets almost full sun in the winter time that's what that foliage needs.

So the Foliage is drinking in sun making the food for the bulb and it's just growing and that way you get the maximum out of flowers this time of year.

Aha.

So we planted them I believe on a north facing wall that gets more sun winter.

Is it north facing or is it east facing?

I think it's east.

Yes it's east facing.

So these are on east facing but they get shade in the middle of the day.

All right, yeah, well it gosh you know I always think I've got so many things that are waiting to go in the ground and then y'all come and show me stuff.

You need, but you can find these all over in bulb catalogs and of course you know search on the internet for them.

Sure we actually search for the internet.

Then tell me the the species of the eucalyptus.

The eucalyptus is, eucalyptus nicoalicia, Okay.

Well that's pretty beautiful tell Diane thank you so much.

I will.

All right.

All right Mrs. Terasa, I was just taken aback by the beautiful lycoris and we were talking about the common name naked lady?

Yeah.

Right?

But I think there's another plant that some people will call a naked lady, the amaryllis belladonna.

Yes the belladonna.

Which also will come up on the stock without that's why we have to say lycoris.

We really yeah.

Then there's spider lily which everybody calls the Hymenocallis here the big white spider flowers.

They call that spider lillie.

Then you got know the lycoris.

That's why we also use them that's as we use Latin that's what John does I can be talking to someone in France Germany or Japan it when I use the word lycoris, they're going to know what I'm talking about.

John Nelson when you take his class says vee vee lanayous.

That's so big that lanayous we can all have some common we can know what plant we're talking about.

Goodness well we are going to take a look at the garden of Lynette Hudson who comes to us from Lamar.

Lynette sent us a few different photos including a clematis better than butter daylily.

I love that name A snail crossing the lawn.

Which is kind of interesting.

The bobo hydrangea.

A nest of baby blue birds and a photograph of a tree.

She said she saw the sun breaking through after a storm that was passing southwest of us in Lamar and just thought it was beautiful.

So thanks Lynnette for sharing a little piece of your yard and Lamar.

We really do enjoy having a little spotlight where we take a little deeper look at someone's yard or garden.

That was delightful, thank you.

I'm well let's move on to something else Terasa that someone might have a question.

Sure, how bout Greta in Charleston said; "We got a new puppy, while we were home during COVID."

of it we are going back to work now and we're concerned because our neighbor said our sago palm is toxic to dogs.

Is this true?

Well, Andy I think that is in fact true, yes.

Yeah very and I can imagine young dog gets used to being around people if left in of you know I'm sure there's a fenced in yard.

Might decide to go and chew on something.

So yeah you know that's not something real important just in general.

Especially if you're new to gardening and new to being a pet owner, one of the other or both.

It might not be a bad idea to get a professional to come over there walk through your yard with you and point out a few red flags that okay maybe you don't want your kid or your dog or anybody eating this foxglove plant, or you know or just some other basic toxic things you a lot of the is just awareness of placement in the yard.

That is good just you know these things.

It's interesting because the sago the cycads traditionally and there are different ones that grow in I mean there there from the age of the dinosaur.

It is space before traditional flowering plants and and they can be processed in such a way to get starches from them and have been used in diets, but I believe that there's one that that's native to North America that y'all have.

Yeah I think we actually grow a native north American one.

It grows in parts of Georgia and Florida is where it is native to.

It's called the Florida coontie.

Florida coontie.

This is you know if anybody's familiar with the cardboard palm that's a kind of cycad too.

This particular one is zamia pumila.

You know it's similar to some of those cardboard palms that you have as houseplants.

Yes but this is just kind of a dwarf version makes a nice ground cover.

So is it like to It two feet or so and spreading or what probably one to two feet tall maybe a couple of feet wide.

They're not very big but if you plant a mass of them in there.

We have some plan under some palmetto trees it makes a nice little under planting.

Yeah.

So it's a it's a good little one.

If we get a really really cold winter.

They might get knocked back in might kill the foliage off.

But they'll resprout.

Okay.

Almost like the sago palm.

St Louis upon is used to yeah.

If you get a mild winter or some protected spot, you don't have to worry about it too much.

But that is a pretty hearty plant for us.

Okay, and I believe can it take some sun or shade is a pretty adaptable?

Ours is in some high shade, kinda like a I'm not sure how well doesn't the dense shade, but as Eric was talking about earlier with the lycoris It was one of those things that I've done some high shade just blocking out a little bit of the sun it's okay.

But it'll also take full sun too.

Okay, so it's pretty versatile.

Okay and would be a different look because the sagos can get so big.

It is also poisonous too so.

Yes this one is too.

Yeah well.

If you want that look especially if you got a small yard, you know a duplex or condo something like that a town house and you want to have a little bit of that sago palm look.

But have a smaller space you might wanna to look at florida coontie.

Yeah yeah and if you don't get a real cold you could always throw blanket on it.

Definitely next day yeah which we used to have to do with Christmas ferns.

But not anymore.

It's at least it's been a long time at my house at sector damage on them.

Well it was fun thanks Teresa and I think people do need to be aware of of toxicity especially with young pups and animals that maybe are gonna to be lonely now when people if people are going back to.

Yeah find ways to occupy their time which might not be good for your plants or for in this case ASPCA is a great resource.

If you're looking for what would be toxic.

So they list dogs cats and horses, I believe.

Okay, well thanks for telling us about that resource, because it is, knowledge is powerful.

The emergency vet is not something you want to have to deal with we are very grateful for them.

They're expensive.

Right but we would rather not have to go there.

We had a wonderful Tom botanizing with doctor John Nelson but this time we were not tromping through the woods we were actually paddling at a wonderful state park over near Camden.

♪ I am at good all state park speaking with a state park ranger John Wells.

John you're in charge of this park and Sesqui, but I want to concentrate on this one because it's kind of a hidden gem, but so accessible to south Carolinians and there so many ecosystems here let's talk a little bit about some of the marvelous things that are available for the public at what I believe is actually even a free park.

Correct, Goodale State Park.

We're right off the highway one, US one just a few miles off of that, we have the park is free to the public.

We do not charge admission to this particular park.

We have picnic shelters small playground, it's a wonderful place for the families come out.

We also have a one hundred and forty acre lake here in the park, and it is covered with cypress trees all over the place.

It's a really neat the ecosystem because you have the land, water, you have a swampy environment where you have different plants and animals that call home.

You have the trees that a lot lakes don't have.

Trees growing out of the middle of the water.

We also have canoe trails on the few canoe trails in the park.

You don't hike it, you don't bike it.

You actually paddle the trail through the forest.

That's pretty remarkable.

It is.

But then surrounding the park that was a dryer area with a great variety and interest of plant material for people who like to do that as well.

Our nature trail, the official nature trail goes behind our community building and through the section of the forest back there, and it is a Moore dryer ecosystem there.

Also people call it a trail but you're actually walking the top of the dam that goes along the side of the lake, and I always thought really neat because the dam.

You're walking with the lake on one side and then the spillway it comes across and has a wetland area.

Another swampy on the backside of the dam.

So you anywhere you look as it could be different ecosystem.

Just standing in one space.

Well my friend John Nelson is here today and we're going to hop in one of your boats and go out on this beautiful black water and see all the things that are waiting for us in an unusual tour of Goodale State Park.

That'll be fine.

♪ John I really just can't tell you what it meant to go out there and see those little communities.

It was just so much fun.

Those places are fantastic I think.

I'm also glad we didn't fall into the lake.

But, we talked about those trees.

Those pond cypress in you said that they are different from bald cypress in a good many ways.

right so I'll go through that there they for one thing palm cypress.

Grows in ponds or places where the water is not flowing rapidly that is not riverine situations.

So you say pond cypress in places like Carolina bays yes that sort of thing or even in non pond cypress savannas which when they dominate the canopy there, but pond cypress and bald cypress of much different the way that their leaves are held on the branchlets.

So a pond Cyprus has the leaves are very tightly pressed to this little branch.

Where as in bald cypress they have the branchlet what looks like a feather.

It does.

Right and is very easy to see the different if you're in a place that has either one, and they seem a little more dense when you look at it from a distance because it's they're all as you said, that if I take one piece it's got a thousand leaves on it.

They're just spiraled very closely along that branchlet.

Then but like the bald cypress when we got out there they had that swollen base and on and then they've got that very textured bark, and of course there's plenty of moisture out there so the lichen almost looks like spanish moss you said.

Almost looks like Spanish moss will some of them.

There was so much.

There's a variety of lichens which will be on those on those trees including the snags, and we're talking about the the plants to colonize the base of Cyprus, and somebody said that it's sort of like each tree has its own little garden down at the bottom.

Just a variety of different things to look at.

We saw a lot of lyonia?

Lyonia is fetter bush.

Okay.

Its relative blueberry.

Alright and then we also saw itea?

Itea a is not in the same family but it is characteristic of most of the wetlands on the coastal plain.

Then there was a hypericum that we saw there.

It is a high sure there is and what about those the insectivorous plants?

Yeah, that was just so exciting because Sundews are actually my favorite.

I know they're not the showest.

There they were glistening.

Yeah it's amazing how the little glandular hairs on each leaf will have a drop of glazing glistening glue basically.

So in addition to those Sundews.

They're also pitcher plants another insectivores plant.

Another insectivorous plant.

We have several species in this state.

The one that we have here at Goodale State Park, is a species called Sarracenia rubra.

Red pitcher plant.

It's really pretty, and it's blooming now.

We also saw what looks to a lot of people like it's eastern red cedar, but this is a really different tree.

Right, it's a I a tree that's known as Atlantic white cedar.

It's not the same as their common red cedar.

Atlantic white cedar is a plant of wet places, usually stream heads, very commonly on the Sand hills, and I have they have a population of of Atlantic white cedar here on the hill, overlooking the pond.

One seed landed in base of one one of those buttresses and it's growing out there, and when you people go down towards the coast and they see Cedar Grove Church and cedar Swamp this, and all that, and they think they're talking about eastern red cedar.

They're talking about Atlantic white cedar because unlike regular eastern, like eastern red cedar.

Atlantic white cedar wants a wetter place.

Right and especially in places like Chesterfield in Marlboro counties.

They have good bit of that plant up there too.

John it really was a very special way to spend a Friday being out here with you and let's let's get it on the calendar to come back.

I will say to that the staff here could not have been more accommodating.

The state park Rangers here will do everything they can to help you get oriented and have a real good time.

Those guys, Big helped us.

those guys are great.

♪ Jonn Nelson and I had a wonderful time and during the ag.

and Art tour, he was one of the artists represented at Mill Creek Greenhouses, and I went over and found this wonderful picture that John had painted of people in a boat.

So so it's a wonderful memory for me of that.

Our state parks are under used, there are many state parks that are heavily used, there are many that are not heavily used.

You need to check out ones near you.

There you they are just pretty fabulous.

I want to thank you again Eric to tell Diane when you get backonce again for my hat.

but that that she sent some lycoris and some of that wonderful willow leaf eucalyptus.

Willow leaf eucalyptus.

Yeah yeah so that was really really really fun.

Okay well Mrs. Terasa, who can help now?

We're going to help Cameron in Spartanburg Cameron asked is kale a good option for containers and are there different types we could try?

Well, y'all apparently use those greens and containers some.

Stephanie could you grow it in a container and what if you wanted to grow it to eat, and what are some of the different ones?

Oh yeah, so kale is a very easy green to grow from seed and it does well in containers and actually, I like to eat kale as a baby green and so you can sow it more thickly in a container not so worried about the spacing.

Then you can harvest it cut and come again or you can cut them off all of the certain height and then just restart what you need.

There's a variety of different kales curly leaves and flat leaves.

One I'm particularly partial to the is blossom nado or dinosaur kale, because I had a nice it has a nice a little sort of leaf shape kind of reminiscent of maybe like a spinach in the baby leaf stage, and then as they get older the leaves get elongated and wrinkly and tuckered and so maybe like dinosaur skin for that common name and so yeah kale is pretty quick to germinate from seed too.

So I mean like in about a week you'll see some seedlings coming up.

That's another one of those that you know that you thin out your seed lings, you can use the thinngs in a salad, or as a micro green.

If you come and cut again do you sometimes like let it get about this big, or this big?

Then cut down kind of the middle of it?

How would how do you go about that?

it reached and that those cut leaves keep growing or how do you go about it?

I'm I haven't tried that.

So you're gonna cut the bottom leaves first, you know leaving the growing tip to grow.

The plants elongates and so you're just taking leaves off the the bottom, and so you end up with a naked legs but and then the growing top and you can do that over the whole season that way or you can like I said just come in and mow it down, and then grow another crop, and then one thing about kale is that you know a lot of people tell me they don't like kale because it's to chewy and to tough.

So if you the harvest the baby leaves, That helps with that problem.

Another thing is if you do allow it to get you know full size grown.

You can take those leaves and marinate or massage them in oil and vinegar before you eat them so let them sit in the fridge an hour or two and that'll make them much more manageable and not as tough and chewy.

that adds a little bit of maceration, will help with that I will say I did have some leaf miners on my kale this year and so you may want to keep an eye out for that.

Those are those insects you know that make little trails through the leaves.

You can see like it almost looks like someone took a little white marker and scribbled on nearly and so you just want to take those off and dispose of those because that in fact will emerge, and continue on the process, so go early and watch them get those out of there and they're fine.

Okay, so don't don't cut that and use it as a protein source when you're serving the kale.

Well I'm gonna try that because I like the idea of so it's almost like stalking tobacco.

You just take those bottom leaves off and that way you don't have they don't get so tough, because you're just using those young tender leaves.

That's a good tip good tip thanks Lott Stephanie.

Alright Terasa, we have a question from Viola in Gaffney who says I moved to a yard with lots of shade.

This is totally new as I came from yard with almost zero shade.

Can you help me with some plant ideas?

Okay well she's, I guess wants to establish some things that will be there throughout the winter I and year long.

Give us some ideas are y'all probably deal with that in places?

Yeah we have a fair bit of shade especially at the Zoo.

So we we deal in a lot of a ferns, some shrubs definitely some out of the ordinary plants.

Alot of perennials.

Yeah tell us about some of them please.

Well either first off you need to kind of do what kind of shade you have.

You know there's dry shade then there's moist shade kind of.

Dry shade is typically the shade is growing at the base of trees that you might have about two inches of soil you can somehow scrape through.

That's why we really love cast iron plants so much.

The cast iron plant is your perfect plant for a deep dry shade.

In fact it's one of the saddest looking plants, when it gets just the slightest amount of sun.

It'll turn yellow and look and look bad, but in the right amount of shade you just get this beautiful glossy green and the exciting thing is there's so many different new varieties of cast iron plants out there.

Plain green leaf.

The plain Green one or just you know, the regular old variegated one and other ones with spots or ones with spots and stripes there once I have frosty tips.

I mean this, it's endless fun one is gameus, you've got then, once you've got that could you go short ones tall ones and you'll find those are are becoming old some of them are coming a little more prevalent.

A little less expensive a little less expensive by nurseries.

But if you want to get something really cool maybe get one this specialty mail order nurseries and and you pay a little more than you want to get something out that you're gonna get on special.

I always like to tell people that Amanda that if you're going to take it all this time to do all this work here Gardens spend all this time.

Sometimes okay to splurge and spend a little money don't go out to eat once or twice and buy that thirty dollar plant.

Maybe don't tell your husband or wife you did it but.

You know one of the one of things about cast iron plants is if you've got a glass vase.

That you're doing arrangement in and you don't want to have to look at stems you can take one of those Aspidistra leaves and insert it down into and hide the mechaanics, and how this can't mechanics, Yeah it this works beautifully for that and also you can take a piece of thin wire and put tape on it and then bend the leaves into a shape My mother used to do that Christmas and I like to do that sometimes too.

What's so what are some of the other ones?

Some of other ones, that are very common that we use we use Japanese Holly fern a lot.

Yes, we use, and we have to tell people, to look on the back and not get, don't get worried.

Yeah because for their spores of how they reproduce don't worry about it it's not it's not a disease not a fungus, I get that all the time, We use we use all kind of ferns the autumn fern the Japanese Holly ferns.

we use a lot of wood ferns, I your you're looking at a very big category there.

We also use things like winton roses.

We love it we love the hellebores.

Now some of them hold there heads up.

Yeah they do they they sit up proud as somebody I know used to say.

But they their colors are just all over the place this white to red to black.

I mean you can get black ones now It which is I mean it's very in vogue to get the black ones, but I'd I just love the ones that are bright because gosh at the end they bloom in lent which is a very dreary time espeacially if you've given up sweets.

Well yeah but I had I love to see go out there and see like a little patches of white, pink, some purples and stuff like that.

It's it's better so we use things like that in conjunction with the ferns, sedges alot sedges are nice.

They even come in chartreuse colors so you it's a copper color, you know out there in the shade.

Unlike the grasses which have to have the sun.

Yeah just a little bit more tolenant.

Thats kind of a good point Eric makes is like the chartreuse and things like that.

In the shade it's so easy to get just alot of deep green in the shade.

Why we like to bring verigated plants like Lena perennials like some of the Solomon seals that are variegated.

That's my number one shade plant.

I love I love a variegated Solomon's seal and it they do so fantastic here.

Especially in big groups.

Now is this the shorter one or it can be taller.

I haven't seen the tall ones.

There's some six, four to six inches tall and some that are I just got a call from China that are close to four feet tall when they come out of the ground.

Yeah I just need to start looking at the catalog person.

Yeah I mean if it's cold or hot catalogs.

That's I mean that's that's our motto.

Yeah, there's always something to be done and sometimes it's looking at the catalog.

Okay avoiding nature.

Well that was pretty pretty pretty good one thing I've had trouble with is my aspidistra has gotten so big and and so I'm now having to go back with my sawsall and cut some of it out.

Yeah, and it gets it The Old leaves can get kind of you know, it is just one thing we do.

every three or four years maybe.

If we have big clumps of Aspidistra we'll go in there are just cut them back.

They're a little slow to push back out.

But it really I can cut it back yeah we come back when you were pretty okay thank you for that.

The bad thing with Aspidistra is thinning them out in the summertime.

Because wasp like to live in the crook of you know sometimes.

they yeah and that that little that gives enough of a rain shield and wasp.

I've been stung so many times.

Thank you for the warning.

By just doing it past April and your what I really tell people as those those new leaves are pushing up in February March.

Okay.

So go and look you'll see the new ones all over.

You can just cut down the old ones.

Okay okay, and that way you know you have that green growth coming up Thanks for the tip because I really do need to do that.

Yeah yeah it's it's and some a lot of people leave it for many years and then you go do it and then the wasp yeah.

Yeah okay alright Terasa, we've got time for one quick one Paul in Manning asks, I haven't had much luck growing carrots but my family loves to eat them.

Any ideas that might result in more success.

Well Stephanie some people I mean carrots.

Yeah the soil here can take on a hard for the carrot ot grow through.

have you got some tips that might give us some some success?

Sure a lot of times the problem here's our clay soils.

Especially in the upstate here.

One fun thing that you might want to try is again look to the containers.

So use a nice loose potting mix.

Get a nice big deep container, depending on the carrot veriety, or you can choose some of the smaller varieties.

They have some around like Parisian type carrot.

One called little finger.

Those are a little bit shorter.

So if you don't have such a massive container because you wanna make sure you have enough depth.

For the mature length of the carrot, or else you can also harvest early.

At the baby stage before it reaches that long that of your container, and so another thing to keep in mind the carrots seeds can be kind of finicky germinating.

So give them some time.

They can they can germinate over the course of a week or two weeks.

They're not parsley family, and those seeds like to take thier time germinating, and so make sure you keep an eye on it even evenly moist until thoses seeds are sprouted.

You want to sow them about a quarter inch thick.

Again remember you can use those thinnings with carrots as well.

It has a nice flavor the custer style dressing.

When we harvest your carrots you can use your tops as well so.

Okay, well thanks a lot I think I'm going to try that and then and they may be right out the back door close to the backdoor sometimes some of that's nice too.

Well everybody, thank you so much for all the good good answers and for watching and we will look forward to seeing you next week right here on Making It Grow.

Night night.

♪ 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.

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