<Narrator>: Making It Grow is brought to you in part by Certified South Carolina is a cooperative effort among farmers retailers and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture to help consumers identify foods and agricultural products that are grown harvested or raised right here in the Palmetto State.

The Boyd foundation supporting outdoor recreational opportunities, the appreciation of wildlife, educational programs, and enhancing the quality of life in Columbia, South Carolina and the Midlands at large.

McLeod Farms in Mc Bee South Carolina family owned and operated since 1916.

This family farm offers seasonal produce, including over 40 varieties of peaches.

Additional funding provided by the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation and Farm Bureau Insurance and Boone Hall Farms.

♪[opening music]♪ Amanda: Well, good evening, and welcome to Making It Grow.

We're so glad that you can join us tonight.

I'm Amanda McNulty.

I'm a horticulture agent and I get to come here every week.

That along with my co host Terasa Lott.

We get continuing education, don't we Terasa?

Terasa: We sure do.

There's always a wealth of knowledge on our panel.

Amanda: Also you coordinate the Master Gardener program and you sent something out a while back that said the number of hours that had been reported that they'd helped people in the last month was just astronomical and worth like $10 billion.

(giggles) Terasa: Yes, the numbers are pretty incredible so far our entire year, which is a July one to June 30 year, over 66,000 hours of volunteer service performed by our master gardeners.

So that really helps us to reach more people in the state.

Amanda: That's just wonderful.

Phillip Carnley, you are the commercial horticulture agent in my home county, Calhoun and in Orangeburg and essentially, because in Calhoun, we had one area that was always growing lots and lots of vegetables.

But I think even the traditional row croppers are now putting vegetables in too.

Aren't they?

Phillip: Yes, ma'am.

Everybody's trying to diversify and hit the different markets that are becoming available.

and Calhoun is one of those fortunate areas to have great land for both.

Amanda: Yeah, we do have some good land and of course, Orangeburg is just farming every place you look, It's wonderful.

There's still some farmland out there Phillip: Oh, plenty to go around.

Amanda: And thank you so much for helping our farmers.

Phillip: My pleasure.

Amanda: Okay.

and Stephanie, the horticulture agent in Greenwood, Stephanie Turner, who often brings wonderful friends down with her because y'all have a very active master gardener program.

<Stephanie>: We do our local group as the Lakelands master gardeners, and they do a lot of great things for our community.

Amanda: And of course, in September, I think you're all going to have a pretty exciting thing going on.

<Stephanie>: Yes.

So this year, "America In Bloom" is coming to South Carolina.

And so we are co hosting between Spartanburg and Greenwood communities, and they will be coming down to Greenwood and touring our uptown and our topiary display... Amanda: Which y'all have kept longer... are going to keep longer than usual.

<Stephanie>: Yes.

So if you know June has never been good for you to come to Greenwood this year is the year you can still come and see them.

They will be out through the end of September.

So maybe not the full breadth of them because you know they are fighting the heat keeping those topiaries going but they're going to be out on display.

Amanda: Greenwood is a lovely, lovely community.

<Stephanie>: Yes, yes.

It's a great place to be always something blooming, we say.

Amanda: Thank you so much for coming.

Appreciate it.

Dr. John Nelson, who was my scary teacher for a while.

Not very much anymore.

Yeah.

Oh, we had such a good time taking field trips and he would forget your lunch.

Sometimes I started pretty lunch because you were in a better mood.

Dr. John: Yeah, I was one I didn't want to have to put up with the quiz on the field trip.

It made it a little happier.

Amanda: Anyway.

You've been such a great help to us.

It's been fun to you know, we let people know about the herbarium too.

Dr. John: Yeah, well, I appreciate being on the show.

and of course it sort of fits right into what I was doing before I retired And I'm happy that I'm still able to be a botanist and putter around in the herbarium and still be botaning out in the, the natural areas of our state.

Amanda: Well, Philip, he was telling us some things he saw right here at our on parking lot here.

It sounds, like you can find place to botanize anywhere.

Phillip: Absolutely.

Amanda: And we're happy to tell you all that we've got some kind of exciting things going on that will give you a little pre.. a little peek at later on.

One of them is from the coast direct Dr. Sandra Branham, who's doing some incredible research that I think is going to help my vegetable growers in many ways.

Is that right, Phillip?

Phillip: I believe, so her work is going to progress.

snap bean production in South Carolina, hopefully with some research she's doing for heat tolerance.

Amanda: And then It's "The 30th Anniversary" of "Making It Grow".

and you'll be real excited.

You'll get to see Webbie Debbie, Debbie Hayes, and one of our very first appearances back in the early 2000s.

And Rowland himself, Rowland Austin at the Elizabeth Lawrence garden back again from the early 2000s.

So we'll have all kinds of little fun things happening for you this "30th Anniversary" year well Teresa one thing that stays current is our gardens of the week.

Terasa: Yes, Amanda "Gardens Of The Week".

It's so much fun.

It's your time to shine where we feature your yards, gardens, indoor plants, flowers, shrubs, you name it, and It's like taking a virtual field trip.

Sometimes we even move outside of the state Today we begin with a bountiful garden harvest and that was shared by Louise Cromer.

In Pelzer, Ann Sims shared oriental lilies towering both open flowers and buds, in Spartanburg Betty Bates shared a bumblebee foraging on a Purple coneflower, back in Florence Clay and Cindy Williams shared two absolutely magnificent red Dahlia flowers.

From Christine Penny landscaped area featuring Limelight hydrangea and bronze fennel.

and we finish up in Colombia with Leigh Wilkie who shared towering sunflowers.

Thanks to everyone who submitted their photos we have far more than we could ever show on air.

But you're welcome to visit our Face Book page.

Look at all of the submissions and of course when you see a say call for gardens of the week, don't be shy.

Post your photos in the comments.

Amanda: Thank you and thanks to all the people who participate we sure do appreciate.

Well, Terasa you usually have some questions for us So shall we see what we can do?

Terasa: We are going to try we're going to start by helping Gail in Florence with a tomato question.

She said: Amanda: Oh goodness well Phillip up the elusive summer tomato.

Can you shed some insight on this?

Phillip: Yes ma'am.

Tomatoes are a unique crop for South Carolina.

and we tend to have two different plantings a spring planting and a fall planting.

and with tomatoes they are self pollinated.

And so during the hotter periods of the summer, those the pollen can become sterile and so the blooms will just drop off without forming any tomatoes.

Now that will alleviate itself as our nighttime temperatures cool down and then you will start to have tomatoes again so long as you don't have a determinate tomato variety.

Amanda: Now, even though they pollinate themselves, I think that buzz pollination from some insects is can be kind of important too.

Phillip: It is that helps set the amount of seed so you get a good fruit size and quality.

and I believe the the term would be syndication from from different pollinators that buzz the blooms to kind of release that pollen.

Amanda: Because they're not, they're using wing muscles but not flapping, not flapping.

Phillip: So they're creating that good buzz and vibrations.

and different tomato varieties tend to do a little bit better in the heat.

but I know in the in the Midlands of the state where I'm at, we do see some Roma tomato production that is a little bit later into the season than say, some of the beefsteak or slicing type tomatoes.

Whereas a cherry tomato, they're very prolific.

So forgiving... is very forgiving and very tolerant of a lot of different things.

Amanda: So I believe some of the commercial growers who supply the can...

The big canary in South Carolina, the Roma's are real good for canning.

Phillip: They are fabulous for canning.

They are a what...

I believe our food systems and safety team would call low acid food, or it can be low acid and canned that way, but they are fabulous for canning great for pastes, you can use certain varieties of Roma for a slicing or cut type tomato, for salads, but It's most notable for its paste quality.

Amanda: and it used to be that tomatoes are one of the things that they said you could can with that pressure canning but because of the low acidity, I know our food safety people have told us that now you have to take special precautions with that so people can check with HGIC and speak with our food safety people there I believe, isn't that right?

<Yes, ma'am.> Okay, well, thank you so much.

For the elusive summer tomato.

Yeah, but, um, you know, some good old fashioned white bread and some mayonnaise.

and you could still have that great sandwich.

Dr. John: And put a layer of potato chips in there too.

You have to eat it over the sink.

[laughter] Amanda: Well, that's a new one on me.

I'm gonna have to try that one.

That sounds fun.

So it wouldn't make too much difference about the day to day.

Who would have known?

Well, Teresa?

Terasa: Well, poor Gladys from Ware Shoals reached out to us about a nuisance pest.

She said,: Amanda: Oh, goodness, gracious.

Oh, you grew up?

I can sympathize.

Yeah.

Well, Stephanie, there are a lot of things that you can treat fire ants with.

but I don't know about using them and vegetable gardens, we want to be real safe about things we're going to eat.

What's your advice?

<Stephanie>: Yes.

So my general advice, you know, our advice always is watch the label right on the product that you use.

So there's lots of ant control fire ants and control products on the market.

But not all of them for homeowners are labeled for vegetable gardens.

And so there are some that can be, you know, taken up by the plant, and then you would also ingest that chemicals and we don't want to do that.

So we want to choose ones that are labeled specifically for that use in that location.

And so there's a variety of products that use the active ingredients and those and that is labeled and these in your in these products is safe for using vegetable gardens.

And so there's some that are baits and some that are trenches and it just depends on the formulation that works best for you.

And we have lots of information on the HGIC about fire ant control in general and kind of understanding, you know, their biology and, and how they work.

Amanda: They forage and alone in a large area.

If you don't want to put if your if your vegetable garden is relatively small, you could use something and treat the out... exterior and have perhaps some more options.

<Stephanie>: Yes, so there's a bait so and a lot of times we say you know if you can just bait those fire ants properly, like late May, and then again in September, you should be covered for the year.

and you just follow those instructions on those baits.

Because if they get wet, they're less effective.

and you know, there's a better time of day, you want to make sure you put the bait out when the ants are foraging.

<They don't like hot weather.> Yeah, so you want to wait till the evening was a little bit cooler when they're foraging, you can put a potato chip, you know, just like John likes.

[laughter] You could put a potato chip that you know in the area and come back a few minutes and look and see if there's any ants on it and... Amanda: Get the fat... the fat free.

[multiple speakers] <Stephanie>: A lot of these baits have these mats and oils to them and so they don't store very well and the heat and things like that.

So you want to get just what you're going to use or keep it in a cool dry spot to store it.

Amanda: Don't get enough for two years.

<Stephanie>: Yeah, because they can go rancid or they can also attract other pests like mice and things like that.

Amanda: All right, well thank you so very much.

Okay, well Terasa.

Terasa: Well Dr. John is sort of famous for having a mystery plant so I'm really hoping he's going to be there what did we say that mystery doctor with a mystery plant or something?

Amanda: Well Dr. John I guess this is time to stump the panel.

What have you got for us today?

Dr. John: I have a beautiful many people might not think is too beautiful, but I think it is a beautiful plant that's aquatic and in fact it grows widely in the coastal plain so the viewers that are live in a coastal counties would probably see this if they have access to wet places particularly swampy places.

Amanda: Oh, not necessarily swimming pond.

Dr. John: Not so much that although you could find it in a swimming pond, but this is a plant actually two different species that look similar that love sluggish water.

and It's got this beautiful name Most of them are called mermaid Weed.

Amanda: Mermaid weed.

(laughter) Dr. John: So I'm not sure that many mermaids would like to embrace these plants because they're there, they get they need a little getting used too.

To appreciate.

But both of them liked it, like I said grow in water.

and they have very interesting leaves.

<Oh my goodness.> So one species that are the one mermaid weed that is called Proserpinca, which is a mouthful, Proserpinca palustris has beautiful leaves down at the bottom underneath the water, they'll be divided into little strands along the edges.

But the leaves above the water will not be divided.

So It's a really peculiar system that this plant this particular species has called headarafuly.

That is the plant the leaves look different on one part of the plant to another one.

Amanda: So under the water, it looks like cause you told us what it is?

You don't have to guess.

Dr. John: Not a mystery if I'm telling you.

Amanda: It looks kind of like maybe the mermaids hair.

Dr. John: Or very fern like okay, what a cool plant and this is a nice thing to grow in aquariums it is a native species.

Now, the second one, as I said, is a collection of related species that is also in the genus Proserpinaca which is still a mouthful, to say.

<Proserpinaca?> Proserpinaca but the second one is Proserpinaca Pecktinata which ah sounds great, almost one.

But Prosser... Proserpinaca Pecktinata all of its leaves are comb like or Fern like the the leaves on are these the water... underneath the water and those that are above the water, okay.

and of course both plants make similar kinds of flowers and little knotly looking fruits that will be axillary associated with the leaves themselves, because It's really pretty plant.

Both species are.

Amanda: Thank you so much.

and I don't have to go get up shoes are muddy to see it.

Dr. John: Well, if you want to see it close up, you might have to put your boots on.

Amanda: Okay.

Okay.

Well, as we said earlier, we're going to show you how Clemson people are working hard to see that our vegetable growers can remain in business in spite of changing times and conditions.

So let's go the Coastal REC.

♪[soft music]♪ <Amanda> I'm talking to Dr. Sandra Branham, who's a professor at Clemson's Coastal Research and Education Center.

And you are a vegetable specialist and geneticist.

And vegetables are such an important part of South Carolina life.

First of all, people love to grow home vegetable gardens.

And then for our state's economy, vegetable production on the commercial scale is very important.

But we have so many challenges.

How can you help our poor vegetable growers?

<Sandra> So we have the perfect climate here in South Carolina for disease.

You know, it's warm, it's moist, and that really creates an excellent environment for disease.

So we have really high disease pressure, insect pressure.

Also, as heat rises, plants where we are harvesting the fruit as the edible portion, they have trouble producing pollen.

You have pollen viability goes down, flower production goes down, and that means your yields go down as it gets hotter.

So those are really where I'm focusing.

<Amanda> So we know that people, you know, we say get your tomatoes and pick them until the end of May and then you're not gonna have any more 'til the fall.

And the same thing is happening with beans, with butter beans and with snap beans and things like that.

And, and that means first also that the people who are canning those or freezing them, they can't get things locally anymore.

They've got to bring things in from so far away and everything costs so much more.

So what can you do to try to help us?

<Sandra> So the last two summers I've had a graduate student, Morgan Stone.

Her project has been to look at all the old American cultivars across our breeding history, the last 50 years of snap beans.

We had 300 varieties in the field that we'd grown in triplicate.

We had 10,000 snap bean plants each summer that we were processing.

<Amanda> And so tell me what you've been able to accomplish and things that you found that enabled you to speed this up, if you can get a mapping of where the heat tolerance or the disease resistance is on certain chromosomes within certain plants.

So I can give you an example of melons.

So cantaloupe, I have a student, Venkat Ganaparthi, he's working on a project where we have a disease resistant melon that tastes terrible, and we have a wonderful flavored melon that has all the disease susceptibility.

You know, you can't grow it without it getting disease.

So he has crossed those two plants and then he mapped DNA.

So he found the parts of the DNA that control that disease resistance, that give you disease resistance.

And then he took, let's say, 500 plants.

You get the DNA out.

You look for that piece of DNA that has the disease resistance.

And he may be able to narrow that down to five or ten plants that have all the disease resistance.

<Amanda> What you've been able to do is by finding out where on the chromosomes some of these traits are, you don't have to grow the plant out to its entirety.

You can just get the first true leaf on some of them and really speed things up, at least as far as let's see which one of these 500 plants has disease resistance.

<Sandra> Right.

He just pulls out the DNA from that one leaf, finds the disease resistant pieces of DNA, and then can select maybe five or ten plants that he has to grow all the way to maturity to look at, you know, sweetness, flavor, all of these other traits that we really care about.

<Amanda> And that in itself is a lot of work.

And so you have the DNA mapped out for a couple of plants, but you're working on doing it for a lot more.

And so you've got one room that's an artificial growth chamber because you need to be growing plants year round to get them to the stage where you can start telling things about them.

<Sandra> Yeah, we have it, we call it our fake winter room so we can control the lighting and the temperature.

So we do short days like you would have in winter with very cold temperatures, and that's for, you know, the brassicas we have behind us.

They require that.

So we put them in there and then they will go to seed and then we can get that seed to use for our next round of breeding.

<Amanda> So that's why some of the plants that we wouldn't normally grow through seed, you have to, because you're going to have to grow them out and start looking at their traits that way.

But what this means is that we are going to be able to hopefully release plants, and it'll be such an improvement for the farmers, because they will be able to grow things locally throughout the summer instead of having to shut down.

<Sandra> Right, and then, you know, there's less transportation costs.

So we've got two thirds of the US population on the East Coast, but most snap beans are actually produced in Wisconsin, Michigan, New York.

So they're being shipped very far.

If we can grow them longer throughout the year here in South Carolina, then we don't have to ship them quite as far, so you have those reduced costs.

<Amanda> And then the brassicas, which are the collard greens, and all the mustard greens and things, and turnips we love so much, even though they're called cold weather crops in South Carolina, you said they are just, they love to get diseases, even though, because it's not cold here compared to other parts of the world.

<Sandra> So there's a specific disease that's caused by a bacteria.

It's called bacterial leaf blight.

There's nothing chemically that we can spray on these plants to try to mitigate this disease.

<Amanda> And so, even if you wanted and had the ability to spray something, in this case, you just can't.

<Sandra> Right, so we've been working really hard on developing turnip greens and mustard greens, collard greens that have that resistance, so if they get the disease, they have very minimal symptoms.

You don't get that loss of yield for the growers.

So they can still be profitable.

<Amanda> And this is, these are, there's nothing genetically modified about this.

So everybody can feel, if that's a concern of yours, you don't have to be at all concerned about that.

<Sandra> Yeah, everything we do is just traditional breeding, but we're using modern techniques, using DNA and markers to try to speed up that process.

But none of that is GMO.

<Amanda> And as new problems come, like this new nematode that we have, I imagine that the nematologists are going to try to start incorporating some of these ways to speed up the process of finding things that we can have that will cover the whole range of problems for growers.

<Sandra> Absolutely.

<Amanda> Sandra, it sounds like there's a lot of just plain old fashioned farming and gardening in what you do, but by bringing in this new research and these new ways of speeding up the process to find plants that have resistance to diseases and have wonderful flavor, y'all are really doing a great service to the farmers and to the citizens of South Carolina.

Thank you so very much.

<Sandra> I appreciate it.

I love my job.

I love my team.

We've all worked hard.

Thank you for having me.

♪ Amanda: As we face challenging uhm weather patterns, It's really important that Dr. Brennan's work is going to help people stay active and farming and her wonderful crew who work with her.

They are all remarkable people, and we thank them for what they're doing.

Well, Terasa, you say Dahlia, yes.

and I say Daihlia.

But anyway, a wonderful friend Ann Nulty.

and John, you've been out there because they had a seap on their property.

Dr. John: Beautiful, beautiful woods they got.

Amanda: But um, she also has a beautiful garden.

You know, they, the people grow those great big show dahlias I think are in wor... the weather's better than here.

But It's, you know, stunning.

We can have some that do pretty well in South Carolina.

So dear Ann gave me some she met me at the mailbox and gave me some some hat material.

Some gomphrena, some gomphrena, which is almost the same.

It's pretty pretty color.

<Stephanie>: It's lovely.

The butterflies love those.

Amanda: Yeah.

So anyway, you said you saw some gomphrena growing on the side of the road somewhere?

Dr. John: A different species.

Not the pretty cultivated?

It's kind of a weed that's shown up in a few places in the state.

Amanda: So not necessary don't need to go find that for my hat.

Dr. John: Well, you could, but you probably wouldn't want to.

Amanda: Well, this one thank goodness is pretty.

Well, Terasa, should we try and help someone else?

Terasa: We should.

and this question happens to be related to the topic.

That was the same as as the segment that showed about Dr. Brandon's work.

So It's short and sweet from Myles in Orangeburg, Myles wants to know: Amanda: Oh, goodness.

Well, we all like to eat beans and Phillip what advice do you have for our Orangeburg friends?

Phillip: So in the Midlands, we have a unique growing climate.

and we can get away with a fall crop of peas or beans.

And I kind of classify that as peas or certain are snapping or snap beans.

So really about the ideal time for a fall planting would be the first week of August.

Ideally, ideally, you can get away with a little bit later planting.

Amanda: Because who knows when winters really gonna come?

Phillip: It chooses around here like the lottery, which is kind of odd.

But usually we like to say the first week of August for any kind of bean or pea, whether that be Southern Peas, or snap beans or pole beans, or what we call the sweet peas or Alaskan peas, or English peas, we can get away with a good fall planting of those as well.

Amanda: So snap beans and pole beans, when I was coming along, we would have to string pole beans is that kind of a specialty crop that's not you don't see them canned much do you?

Phillip: Well string beans, they've changed a little bit with different varieties that have been introduced.

They're not quite as commonly grown in our area or in my area as the southern field pea or cow pea that tends to be a favorite as are butterbeans.

and they're making a great comeback thanks to the work that Tony Melton was doing before his passing and that research is being continued at the Pee Dee Research Station, and hopefully we'll have some very new introductions from his work.

Amanda: And then I've learned I've started getting white acre peas and these little cream peas they're quite delicious.

Phillip: Fabulous.

Very delicate flavor in comparison to something like the Dixie Lee cow pea or field Pea that people like this a little more earthy.

I grew up on on zipper cream, which is a large cream pea very awesome flavor, but It's very regional in the state of South Carolina.

Which pea varieties the people like.

Amanda: That's what your mom cooked... <Exactly.> Yeah.

So It's fun to think about foods and regions and how we are Terasa of course, things like that, you know, which you didn't have as a child in upstate New York.

Terasa: I've learned to enjoy them.

Yeah, Amanda: I know.

You're very you're willing to try aren't you?

Terasa: I am.

Amanda: Okay.

Well, thank you.

Is there someone else with some questions?

Terasa: Yes, this one is somewhat unique.

So sometimes people bring things into local Extension offices and would like some answer to the you know, the great question what is it and I think Stephanie brought one of those with her today.

Okay well, Stephanie what what did you get surprised with?

<Stephanie>: All right, so one of our clients brought this in, he had found it in his mulch, <Like in his mulch pile?> In his landscape bed and oh, just just worried.

Just kind of popped up where he hadn't planted anything gracious with it.

and he Yeah, Amanda: He wasn't weeding diligently.

<Stephanie>: Well, I believe he kind of watched it just to figure out what it was and then he brought it in for us to take a look at and unfortunately, I think it doesn't like me very much because you can see It's kind of dropped a bunch of its flowers, but um, it has a cute little yellow five petal flower.

They come in the axle, the leaf axles, and the the leaves are opposite.

and it has these.

It's kind of hairy on the on the petiole of the Leaf.

<A little bit a little bit hairy.> It is actually a native plant.

Found all up and down the east coast here.

It's a Fringed Loosestrife.

It's in the genus Lysimachia, Lysimachia ciliata.

and It's a good little wetland plant.

It likes shady, moist conditions and perennial.

Oh, yeah.

and according to some of the sources, It's pretty good for bees, they enjoy the flowers as well.

It's in that Primulaceae family.

and It's gets about two feet tall.

It's hardy in our area, obviously, it's in zones like three to nine, I believe.

but he generously left this with me.

Because you know, he didn't really have a use for it.

But I said, Well, I do.

Because we have that rain garden in front of our office.

Yeah, so we will be installing it in our rain garden in a shady spot.

<There's a shady spot in the rain garden.> Yes, we have a couple of trees in the garden.

So there's a bald cypress and a hackberry and a river birch.

It's a It's actually more of a bioretention area that we've kind of Yeah, you know, planted in.

Made more attractive.

Yes.

Yeah.

So we were encouraging some wildlife in there.

So I think this will be a fun specimen to add to that location.

Amanda: John, you want to add anything?

Dr. John: I just think It's kind of wonderful that somebody would have a really attractive wildflower coming up as a surprise garden.

That's kind of a nice touch.

<Stephanie>: I didn't do very much investigating with the client.

How we thought maybe it occurred there but you know, plants find a way.

Amanda: Well, that is too much fun.

Thank you so very much.

<Yeah, certainly.> All right.

Well, Teresa.

Terasa: Well, we get lots of identification questions.

This one was sent in with some photos and how perfect that Dr. John is here we might be able to utilize his but botany skills.

Brad from Cordesville said: Amanda: My goodness?

Well, John, I hope there's nothing wrong with his fig tree that this is something else.

Dr. John: First of all, I'd have to say that Brad in Cordesville have spent a good bit of time driving through Cordesville this past summer, I had this project done at Bonneau Ferry Wildlife Management Area.

Which is a really fantastic place and It's open to the public.

So viewers might be interested in learning, I'm just gonna Well, there there let me wander around that place.

Looking at the plants and trying to come up with a nice list of the species.

<Oh, so that when> Amanda: people come they can find it.

They maybe they'll have a printed thing or something to help people know what's what?

Dr. John: That would be a good idea and we found some kind of interesting stuff.

Well, but let's get back.

Yeah, all these pictures that Brad has.

I think I know what this is.

I have to say It's not his fig bush at all.

It's something else.

So he's got a Mulberry.

Brad has a mulberry tree.

Next to the fig bush.

Yes.

and, of course.

Let's see the cultivated fig is belongs to the genus Ficus.

But the mulberries belong to Amanda: All right.

the genus Morus.

We there are two species that you might see in South Carolina.

One of them is native and that's what he's got as far as I can tell.

The leaves that he's showing in these pictures look pretty scratchy and hairy.

and I'd say that this is plant is Morus rubra, red Mulberry, which is a native species.

and then the second space is if anybody was interested in this is actually an imported Mulberry, the white mulberry Morus Alba But which I used to use to feed silkworms, but he's got the native one.

Okay.

Morris rubra.

and I think I forgot to say the common name is Red Mulberry.

Amanda: Philip, he was saying that they were brought in for they were trying to have a silk industry here.

Phillip: Yeah, they were brought in to feed the silk moths.

Way back.

I don't know the exact timeframe.

Amanda: John do you remember when that was?

Dr. John: Well, I don't know the dates but I think that the silk industry in this state was actually prior prior if I got this right, prior to the development of rice culture, <My goodness.> So it was really a long time early on.

Phillip: The state's history.

Amanda: But um, we used to put our children we had one we have one on our property.

and I don't remember because it was a long time ago and I was trying to remember the children's names.

It was enough trying to keep those straight.

Put a sheet out and put the kids in the tree and they'd shake it and shake it and get those wonderful mulberries they were delicious.

Yeah, yeah, I think I think either one is is you know, make good fruit.

We enjoyed it.

and I guess the birds probably a enjoyed it.

Terasa: There's another species.

I believe that that was formerly a Morus but has been reclassified the paper mulberries, Broussonetia.

Is that the new Broussonetia papyrifera?

I think.

<Stephanie>: She's making it up.

[laughter] Amanda: Well, anyway, but so don't the when we would get the mulberries there was an older lady who lived right next to the driveway where the tree was, and she said, You can't let those children eat those.

They only fit the hogs and that they weren't they were delicious, but I think growing up that's what they had done with them.

So yeah.

Dr. John: I've heard this a lot really growing up to that mulberries have.

They're not good for you.

They have worms.

For some reason.

I don't know how that <Adds extra protein.> That's not true.

They're perfectly good to eat.

<Stephanie>: I used to eat them till my fingers were stained.

[laughter] [multi speakers] out of nature but don't they have an unusual leaf structure some formation sometimes Dr. John: We didn't even talk about that.

but um, but why white Mulberry and red mulberry the leaves can be very polymorphic in different shapes.

Sort of like the way a Sassafras looks.

Amanda: So sometimes it looks like a mitten.

Sometimes It's entire and then sometimes three lobes is that good.

It's fun to see those things.

Plants are fascinating.

Well, as again, this is our 30th year of "Making It Grow".

And early on.

Debbie Hays along with other people would come on and give us like Master Gardener tips.

and Debbie came home... came on in the early 2000s and showed us how to make potting soil so a visit back in time.

♪[introduction music]♪ Debbie: We'd like to re-pot a plant sometimes plants become root bound.

When they stay in the same container for a length of time the roots began growing in circles and they need to be transplanted.

What we'd like to do is prepare some soil and the first thing we want to do is to put about two cups of potting soil in our mix.

It can be a potting soil that you buy from from the store or any of your favorite garden stores.

and we just put that right in potting soil needs to be sterilized don't go out and dig it out of the garden because that will contain fungus and other materials that would not be healthy for your plant.

The next thing that we put in the mix is peat moss.

Peat moss is a good humus material, you can tell that It's real moist when you put it in the material.

Just mix it right in and it helps to give your your mix some organic material.

The next thing we want to add in some vermiculite, vermiculite holds water and It's real good for your plants so that as you water your planet can use the water better.

and then we'll add some sand that helps with aeration and drainage And then some perlite again, it does the same as sand.

and it just adds a little more aeration qualities to your mix.

and then I like to put in about a tablespoon of poultry manure.

poultry manure has the tendency to get a little nitrogen to your mix.

and then we add some bone meal, which is another organic fertilizer, some blood meal.

And some potassium.

Potassium is real good for durability of the plant, you don't want to put too much of that in there, just about a teaspoon.

Then what we want to do is mix this up.

After we get a nice mix, then we're ready to re-pot the plants.

Before we plant this plant, we'll need to score the roots, then go ahead and put your plant in the container.

and if you've got too much, just take some out.

and once you've put this in, you want to tamp it down so that you have a nice level surface here for watering.

and then once this is done, you want to water the plant and you've just created a nice new growing environment for your plant, nice and healthy.

♪[closing music]♪ Amanda: Was grand to see Debbie again, and we want to thank her for all the wonderful things she did for "Making It Grow".

It was fun to get to see her again as she shared information with us as she did for so many years on the program.

Well, Dr. John, you drove down from Colombia and I think you stopped at some favorite place to get a bowl of harmony or grits as you want to call it.

Yeah, in Wedgefield.

In Wedgefield, went out and collected some.

Dr. John: and I was at Battens restaurant, a wonderful place if anybody's ever traveling through that part of Sumter County, Amanda: yeah.

and cool little part of the state too.

So what you've what you find that you want to share with us?

Dr. John: Well, out of the the mystery bag, we have, we have this.

and that's a hint it is a kind of grass and look at sort of rolling kind of tall, but it was a little bit flopped over when I was examining it.

and I came up with a pretty rapid conclusion that this is a species of what we like to call witch grass, Amanda: Witch grass?

<Witch grass.> Which grass is it?

[laughter] Dr. John: and that's it.

Let's just say that the witch grasses, there's a lot of them a lot of different species.

Amanda: There's really a group call witch grasses?

Dr. John: Right, there's a lot of different species of witch grasses.

And they're hard to identify, botanist go around and around trying to be able to figure out the characteristics that will easily identify these things.

And these are in a very important group, there's so many different species and different habitats as well.

So they can be kind of characteristic of certain natural habitats that we have.

All over the state.

They're very, to me, they're very interesting.

and we know a lot of us, I think everybody here knows a good bit about grasses from their background.

And we all remember that grasses have around stems and edges said, Well, let's not talk about sedges but have a round stem and the leaf.

You can pull it away from the stem, <Oh!> right up here, where you see that the leaf blade.

I don't know if we can see this on the camera.

There's a little flange of tissue, that sort of hairy or like a little collar.

And this is very diagnostic from one species to another.

So this is very important to be able to see if you're trying to identify these species.

Amanda: species and what is that called?

Dr. John: It's called a ligule.

Okay, which is a funny word.

but anyway, this particular one is real easy to identify.

and I want to get spread some around so y'all can see this.

and you too, I want you to feel foliage.

The foliage is wonderful, wonderful and the stems.

What does it feel like?

<So soft.> <Pubescent.> And some people even think that it feels like velvet.

Okay, so this in fact is one of the witch grasses is called velvet, witch grass and it is native.

and you find this late summer as it is now.

It blooms all summer long, but you can still see it just about any part of the state.

This particular one is called Dicanthelium scoparium that's the name of it.

This is one of the easier easier ones to identify just because It's got that very, very velvety hairiness and also right at the node.

If you look closely, you'll see there's a little band where It's darkened and a little bit sticky.

Okay, so you can hardly go wrong with this one.

Velvet witch grass.

Amanda: So this is one of the easier ones.

<Yes.> and so did they grow in a variety of habitats?

<They do.> Dr. John: A lot of them will grow in damp places or wetlands.

and then others are characteristic of really dry forests including Well, savannahs and flatlands.

Amanda: And grasses, I believe, have an can have a root system that's really important for holding the soil in place and stabilizing it.

Is that true?

Dr. John: Oh, sure and of course, there are many grasses that are cultivated just for that.

<Okay.> and some weeds too.

<Okay.> <Stephanie>: That's a pretty cut flower arrangement, these little... Amanda: the flower when you look at it a panel even worse.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for bringing this in and sharing that with us <Mixed:>Witch, witch, witch switch grass.

Again, as part of our set 30th anniversary celebration, we're going to have many visits that Rowland Austin took around the place, and he went to the Elizabeth Lawrence Garden in the early 2000s.

So let's take a trip there with Rowland, Austin.

♪[introduction music]♪ Rowland: Elizabeth Lawrence was a prominent garden author and landscape architect who lived in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Today, her home and garden are both being maintained and preserved by Master Gardener Lindie Wilson, Lindy, it really must be an honor to own such a garden.

Lindie: Yes, it is an honor.

and it certainly has been a thrilling experience for me to garden in such a garden as this.

Rowland: Well describe this garden to us.

Is it really that formal?

Lindie: The plan of this garden is very formal.

There are wide paths, no grass, I'd like to add all meeting in the center, at this pond.

but the beds, on the other hand, are very informally planted, because they actually were her laboratory.

And she wer... experimented with, with all of the plants that she wrote about and all of her many books that she published that had been published about her.

And so this essentially is her laboratory.

Rowland: How about some of her plant material tell us some of the things that she selected and planted in the garden.

Lindie: Well, she heard certain interests and that she wrote about and planted, she loved all different types of bulbs and many of these bulbs are still here.

I call them survivor bulbs.

zephyranthes, particularly zephyranthes Ajax and all the others are here now the crinum lillies she adored and they are here and of course many many beautiful daffodils.

Rowland: Lindie you've got to tell me about this one Iris it looks so out of place growing in such an arid bed.

Lindie: It's iris ensata Japanese iris and yes, it not only is it growing, it is increasing this and It's an amazing thing that such a plant as that should do so well in such dry conditions.

Rowland: Well did Elizabeth select the stokesia?

Lindie: Yes, the stokesia that is planted in this bed.

Actually, she planted that has done very well.

Certainly it would be classified as a survivor plant.

Rowland: Well, what about the North Carolina treasure tree you've got to describe this one to us.

Amanda: Oh this is a beautiful, beautiful Stewartia pseudocamellia and it blooms Just about this time I'm in in June, and it has lovely, lovely white flowers.

And at this time that look like camellias.

Rowland: The Madonna and the child and especially the vine growing over it.

What is this vine?

Lindie: That vine is a very rare vine it's called herbolia croatia vine from Korea.

It's not It's rarely in the trade here in this country, and the moat... but the most amazing thing about it is, what was how did she get hold of it?

and what was she doing growing it all these years when nobody else had it?

This is one of the interesting things about this garden.

Rowland: Linda, you mentioned about the books that Elizabeth authored.

She authored so many of them probably the most, one of the most prominent as a southern gardener, and It's still used today and really contains a wealth of information.

Lindie: Yes, It's a book that is practical today, as practical today as when it was written.

It was a landmark book, because very little had been written at the time about gardening in the South East.

Mainly people wrote about gardening in England or in the Northeast.

And so this was a book that had strong regional appeal, but it was of interest or even across the seas.

Everyone read this book and revered it.

Rowland: We've talked a lot about Elizabeth Lawrence's plants but Lendie's got a plant that she really needs to boast about to tell us about that.

Lindie: This plant is a little cleome It's a dwarf cleome and I saw so it growing in a garden and actually, stole a few seeds with the provision of the garden and grew it for a few years with my friend Ann Armstrong.

We decided that it was really a nice little plant that wasn't in the trade.

So we gave the seeds to Alan Armitage and he trailed it for a few years and now It's out with our joint names Wendy Armstrong.

Rowland: Well, don't be so modest about it because I know you're proud it.

And you really enjoy this plant don't you.

Lindie: Yes, I do it.

It grows under very trying conditions.

and I like it because It's doesn't get so large.

It doesn't have the branching habit of most cleomes and in a small garden like this.

It's very appropriate.

Rowland: Lindy, thank you so much for letting team Making It Grow visit with you.

We've got so much history right here in Charlotte, North Carolina and throughout the South.

and Elizabeth Lawrence was really an icon in the horticultural industry.

I know you're proud to own part of her garden and to really share it with fellow gardeners.

Thank you so much again and good luck.

Lindie: Thank you.

Been fun.

♪[closing music]♪ Amanda: That lovely garden was started by as you saw a famous garden designer and she just loved to pack her garden with different things.

and The Wing Haven Foundation is now operating that garden.

So It's still there today.

And you can get information on it if you would like to visit it.

A lovely place to go as you saw then and still now.

And um, we want to thank you all for being with us.

We sure enjoyed having with us.

and I hope you'll come back next week.

We'll see you then.

Night Night.

♪[closing music]♪ ♪ ♪ ♪[captioned by: SCETV]♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ <Narrator>: Making It Grow is brought to you in part by Certified South Carolina is a cooperative effort among farmers retailers and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture to help consumers identify foods and agricultural products that are grown harvested or raised right here in the Palmetto State.

The Boyd Foundation, supporting outdoor recreational opportunities, the appreciation of wildlife educational programs, and enhancing the quality of life in Columbia, South Carolina and the Midlands at large.

McLeod Farms in Mc Bee South Carolina, family owned and operated since 1916.

This family farm offers seasonal produce, including over 40 varieties of peaches.

Additional funding provided by the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation and Farm Bureau Insurance and Boone Hall Farms.