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♪ opening music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Terasa: Good evening and welcome to Making It Grow.

Our goal is to bring you trusted gardening information in a way that's easy to understand and fun to watch.

I'm Terasa Lott coordinator of the South Carolina Master Gardener Program filling for host Amanda McNulty today.

You're going to have the treat of watching two segments today.

The first will take us on an adventure to a private garden very expansive on the shores of Lake Wylie.

and our second segment we'll focus on self expression and well being activities hosted at MUSC.

As always, we have a terrific panel of experts here to share their expertise and answer your gardening questions.

Let's meet them.

We're going to begin with Zack Snipes.

Zack is a commercial horticulture agent in the Charleston area and also Assistant Program team leader for the horticulture team.

That is a lot of responsibility.

Zack: That's a lot but I enjoy it.

I enjoy working with the fruit and vegetable producers and kind of coordinating programmatic activities across the state.

Terasa: Well, we know you have a lot of responsibilities, but lots of close relationships with those producers in your area.

<Zack> Absolutely.

Terasa: Next we have Hannah Mikell.

Hannah, this is your first time on the show.

We are so excited to have you.

You're an agronomy agent in Clarendon and Williamsburg counties.

<Hannah> That's right.

Yep.

Terasa: So we often feature horticulture agents and I know you're going to share later on a little bit about your role.

But let's have a brief teaser about what an agronomy agent does.

Hannah: Sure, I help with the pesticide program in my counties, as well as work with all the row crop agents in the state, trying to help our producers grow corn, cotton, soybeans, and wheat, and there's just other a few other specialty crops that we'll grow as well.

But yeah, we have a lot of research and data to interpret to all of our growers throughout the state to make sure that we're more profitable in all those industries.

Terasa: Very important.

We look forward to learning more later in the show and last but not least, Dr. John Nelson, a botanist by trade and retired curator of the herbarium at the University of South Carolina.

<John> Exactly right.

Terasa: But a botanist never truly retires.

So we can always look forward to your weekly column that tests our knowledge of the mystery plant.

John: The mystery plant column, I hope everybody will be able to find it, either in the newspaper or on Facebook.

Terasa: I do try to share it on our Facebook page whenever possible and it's really fun to watch people's guesses come in and you don't always focus on things that grow here in our area, but sometimes it's more culinary botany, I guess.

<John> I have several times used for the mystery plant column, some sort of a plant or item of produce from a grocery store.

Terasa: You're pretty lucky in the Columbia area to have diversity when it comes to the produce that's available.

<John> That's right, and I guess one of the one of my favorite places to go is to a Latin American grocery store, tea and that sort of thing.

Terasa: I think maybe I need to go on a field trip.

We should record a segment to one of your favorite grocery stores in the Columbia area <John> Well, I'm ready to do it.

Terasa: Awesome.

Before we start with our questions, we're going to go to one of my favorite aspects of the show and that is gardens of the week.

That is your opportunity to send in photos of your yard, garden or perhaps indoor plants especially at this time of the year.

So let's take a look.

We start with Patrick Brunette who shared at least three different colors of Thanksgiving cactus tended to by Glenda Patrick Burnett.

Sandie Parrott, featured three Phaleonopis orchids happily sitting on a north facing windowsill.

From Nikki Weed, several houseplants, one of which has a very unique container that looks like a cat.

Five pots in a plant stand was sent in by Amy Singleton.

Karen Kennedy shared a windowsill adorned by plants and another unique container.

This one looks like a pull behind camper.

How fun!

And then we wrap up with William Smith who shared a large indoor collection, seven containers of assorted plants, including a very healthy looking African Violet in the back corner.

I'm a little bit jealous.

African Violets are something that I do not have very good luck with.

So maybe I need to take some lessons from Will.

Thanks for sharing all of those photos.

We can't feature every single one on the show.

But I do encourage you to look at our Facebook page and see all of the submissions.

Look for our call for gardens of the week as well, and when we do that, post your pictures in the comments.

Do remember to hold your camera or your phone, whatever you're taking pictures with, horizontally rather than vertically, and this is going to make sure that your photo takes up a large portion of the screen.

All right.

With that I think it is time to jump into our first question.

This one came in through our Facebook page from Rick Davis.

Rick said I start a lot of plants in little peat pots to put them in the garden.

When I plant them something digs them up and destroys the roots and leaves.

How do I stop this?

Zack?

Do you have an answer for Rick?

Zack: Well, I think if Rick could talk to his dog, his dog would probably be able to tell him what's going on because he's probably looking out the window.

But it sounds like some type of critter.

Probably a squirrel.

Possibly armadillo.

Could be a crow or a turkey or something.

So all those animals are just kind of curious, and they feed on roots and leaves.

Terasa: Gardening can certainly be a challenge, especially with all the critters out there.

We're going to move to a show and tell.

Hannah, I think you brought in some samples that you took.

So this is going to help give us a glimpse into the world of agronomy?

Hannah: Sure, I sure will.

So this is, if you're passing along anywhere along 95, or some of our areas up in the Pee Dee and down through like Orangeburg and counties, we have a lot of wheat planted not as much as we have had in the past just because the prices have fluctuated on our market.

But when they're doing that, they plant it in late November, early December usually, and about this time of year our wheat is starting to turn a little bit lighter colored and getting ready for another shot and nitrogen, and so what the grower called to say or asked me about was, you know, how much do I need to expect on put out there and then if we see any insect damage, and so today, I'd like to just briefly discuss how to take a tissue sample and see what the plant already has available, and what we need to be looking at to provide the plant later on through the growing season to make sure it produces enough wheat, and then that's simply done by taking the top six inches of the plant, and so you could be kind of fancy with it and take some scissors, but I went out there and got a lot of chlorophyll on my hands yesterday, ripping that stuff out.

But as I went to the field, I kind of make a zigzag pattern and I take the top six inches of the plant and put it together in a bag and then we ship it off to the lab at Clemson, and they tell us what the breakdown is.

It's just like doing a soil sample.

Terasa: So the zigzag pattern was to make sure that you got a representative sample of the entire field?

Hannah: Yes, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

So generally, this field I was in yesterday, a couple of them were about 40 to 50 acres, and so what I'll do is I'll start at the front and then zigzag on my way through.

So if there's any sort of pattern from the spreader truck or their fertilizer pattern, this yesterday was an old tobacco field and then an old peanut field, and so where the wheat's growing I saw clumps of really growthy looking wheat, and I'm sure of that, I can attest to seeing any residue that's leftover, especially with peanuts, it's high nitrogen.

and it'll pick up a lot of residue from that as the peanut vine decomposes.

This is going to show more growth than if it was just in a plain just bare ground.

Terasa: So what has the crop that's been grown in that location before can influence the crop that's being grown at the current time?

Hannah: Yeah, and so we saw an up and down the field.

Taking a zigzag pattern walking through the field at random.

It helps to show a just an overall picture of kind of what our crop is producing, and while I was doing that, we have this little critter that I really love to look for this time of year.

It's called the hessian fly and it's so small, you can't normally you don't normally see it with your naked eye, but the way I look for it is this is how big the plant was at this time.

But when I pulled the plant up, I would take these leaf, the sheath of the leaf, and I would start to see some dying of these lower leaves, and so this fly lays an egg at the top of the leaf, and as it grows, it will pupate and come down here and then lay an egg down underneath the soil.

So if we were to spray herbicide, or pesticide or anything to control the insect from feeding, it's not going to be able to actually affect the pest at all.

So what we need to do is get an idea of how much larva is in the field to know when to spray and how to better control those during the season.

So as I pulled the sheath down, and I looked down towards the base, I would notice little tiny looks like flax seeds on those tiny little pill shape form and they'll stack all the way up through here.

and as they grow, they will suck the nutrients out of the plant, which in turn leaves our plant kind of wilted and laying over.

Well, each one of these.

I love talking about this, and it's a great time to go and scout throughout the year but each one of these will eventually produce the head of wheat, and so as you're driving through the field, and those golden, really pretty fields that we see in May, and June, these each will have a tall head of wheat that you'll see used in our feed in the stores for our chickens and cows and whatnot, or it could be grown for flour, dependent on the quality of our plant.

Terasa: How significant is that hessian fly in terms of being a pest of wheat?

Hannah: Great, I'm glad you asked because a lot of farmers do need to know this, they will see more of a hessian fly influx if you have wheat adjoining wheat.

So if we had field A over here and field B last year, this was field A, we saw a hessian fly.

I guess not really outbreak, but we saw some significant damage in this field.

Well, next year, we can participate or anticipate seeing some of the hessian fly move over across the road, and so if we move our field locations, if we grow resistant varieties to that hessian fly, and have timely sprays, we should be able to mitigate a lot of that damage.

Terasa: Fantastic.

That is such interesting information, and I think just something that goes unnoticed.

We don't think about all the work that goes into growing the wheat before it gets into those end products.

Hannah: Right.

Terasa: Thank goodness, we have agronomy agents at Clemson and, of course, other land grant universities across the United States to help our farmers to be able to grow and do that in a profitable way.

Hannah: Yeah, yeah.

We're glad to be there and add any kind of assistance we can.

Terasa: All right, and moving on to Dr. John, we have I think, a question for you from Helen in Conway.

She knows that you're a botanist and she said, What are those beautiful flowers that fill up the vacant yard near my home?

There are thousands and thousands of them all over the field and the flowers look like tiny little orchids?

Do you think you can help her identify that plant?

John: I think I can.

You know, I actually brought some I wasn't really meaning to but in one of the magic buckets that I brought?

Actually, I think I ended up with some of this stuff.

Let me reach down.

Terasa: Have plants.

Will travel.

John: I know.

Look at it.

Okay, so this, this has got to be what, what she's talking about, and Terasa: I think I know that one, John: I bet everybody here knows what this is.

and it is really a beautiful little plant.

It's got...it is in the mint family, and one of the reasons we know that is because it's got opposite leaves, and if we could get a maybe a close shot, we'll see that the leaves are indeed you know, two at a time on the stem.

Thus well, something ate that one off, but there was two right here and that is that this leaf has a real long petiole or leaf stock, and then there's the blade way out here, and then at the next node, the same thing.

So that we have two leaves, and each one has a nice long stock, then we go way up here, and look at that it's all different because the (laughs) the leaves are here but they don't have any stalk.

So that's kind of funny, but the flowers are in each axle of that is in the axle of each leaf, just between the stem and the leaf, and what she's seeing as she's driving along probably or just checking out her neighbor's front yard is that the flowers are produced by the thousands by these plants, and of course In one of these little one of these open fields or yards there could be, you know, I don't know how many thousands of these individual plants Terasa: Too many to count.

John: Pretty much, unless you had a graduate student go out there and do it, and the thing about this little plant.

I'll get you to do this.

I'll get everybody to do this is to... tell me what you think that it smells like.

And Hannah and Zack and y'all, y'all do this, just do it and like this, and you get it, you grind it up in your little hands like this.

It's kind of wet and messy, but you go... Hannah: It smells like plant corn planting season to me.

(laughing) John: It smells...Terasa: Parsley-ish John: Parsley-ish, almost potato.

Hannah: Oh yeah.

John: Musky.

But it is in the mint family, and as we all know, a lot of things in the mint family have smells, and this is one of the things this is actually an annual.

So, it comes up every single, late in the winter, a winter annual I think there', something in the Clemson press about annual weeds.

This is winter annual, It starts up in the winter.

and it'll be blooming early, early in the spring.

So, that's what we're seeing now.

The bajillian's of flowers, and they're really kind of pretty, I think.

Terasa: Henfit I think is the name.

John: Henbit.

Terasa: Common name we give to it.

John: Forgot about that.

Henbit is the name of it.

Henbit and I don't know why it's called that.

Terasa: Lamium purpureum?

John: Lamium amplexicaule Let me hold this.

Terasa: There's another Lamium, purple deadnettle.

John: There's another species of this, which isn't quite as common, and that's a lot hairier and the flower.

The flowers are a little bit redder.

That one's a different species.

But this is, in fact Lamium amplexicaule.

Terasa: Zack, do you see this as a problem with your commercial growers?

Do they have trouble with henbit in their fields?

Zack: Yeah, we see it a lot, especially when farmers leave fields fallow or they don't, you know, plant a cover crop over the winter.

It is a weed and it is an issue but it's also really good nectar and pollen source for a lot of our beneficial insects and pollinators.

So nothing in nature is ever black and white.

Terasa: You catch 22 really, when it comes to a weed, right?

A weed is just an undesirable plant or a plant in a place that you don't want it, and even though it can maybe not be I pleasing, although I do find those flowers, beautiful, perhaps not in someone's pristine lawn.

But also they can have benefits like providing that nectar resource at a time when there aren't a plethora of other things in flower.

But if you are wanting to manage henbit we do have some wonderful fact sheets for you at HGIC, You can just use your favorite web browser to find that.

Look up henbit or weed control and you will have fact sheets at your fingertips.

Now we're going to take a look at the private yard of a Master Gardener, Gilda Mitchell in Lake Wylie, South Carolina.

♪ music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'm in the beautiful garden of Gilda Mitchell on the shores of Lake Wylie in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

And this really is a garden.

When we came up I was so thrilled.

I said "there's no turf grass."

This is all greenery and texture.

Tell me how it evolved to become like this.

Gilda: I just love having zero grass to mow.

It just doesn't make sense to me and I didn't have children that needed a lawn to run on.

I have a beach they can run on, and my husband loved that.

That was just, he was all about that.

So that's where that came from.

And I saw the levels of the property starting from the beach on up the hill.

I was like, okay, this is just screaming for wonderful fun things.

Amanda: And, of course, Paul Thompson taught you the Master Gardener course when you came here.

Gilda: I'm a groupie.

We're his disciples.

Amanda: Well, yes, he's a pretty special one.

Gilda: Ain't he, though?

Amanda: Yeah.

Amanda: And then I think you even, your boxer, which is one of many that you had, what is the, what is that puppy's name?

Gilda: His name is Master Gardener Mitchell.

We call him Gardener and he - Amanda: He likes to help water the garden.

Gilda: He helps everybody, that's right, a big slobberer, yes.

My dogs are all...

I feel so secure with them around here with my dogs, and I moved here with my ferns that I had harvested out of the wild in Southeast Texas.

And so then I started every winter dividing the ferns.

Amanda: And what a perfect habitat for ferns, because really this is mostly a shade garden.

Gilda: Oh, and they're so happy here, and I irrigate the whole five acres out of the lake.

So they naturally loved all that.

And as I started developing the garden, and trying to bring other plants in, that this is basically, right now, the garden that deer designed, because they ate every hydrangea, every aucuba.

It was, it was horrible.

So, as those things were taken away from me, I look, and I've got these ferns, I've always got my reliable ferns and even with the hurricane that just came through, they are still, they're so up and fat and happy.

They're no work.

People look at my garden and they think, God, how can you keep all this up?

Because the fern beds are no work once they establish and, you know, it takes a few years once they get thick, no weeds come up.

In the winter when they turn brown, we weed-eat them.

They mulch themselves.

Start all over in the spring and all that time I've been able to tend another part of the garden that is not as needy.

It's not a needy plant.

Amanda: Well, the texture is just so much fun, you know, elephant ears, bananas.

How do the bananas come to be here and that beautiful little cathedral that we walked through of bananas.

Gilda: I think growing up in Louisiana you had to have a banana tree.

I mean, I've always saw banana trees, and when I first moved here, I brought bananas and they can't live here, and I can't keep taking them in and out.

So a lot of it was the textures, and the colors, the umbrella palms.

It was in the ditches in Louisiana.

And so it was just a no-brainer, you know, I just started putting out because the deer weren't eating them too.

So I just started putting out things that I loved.

So once I found the musa, and how can you look at an elephant ear and not smile.

It's just they make you so happy.

And next thing you know, I've got almost five acres.

And we're not finished yet!

Amanda: No, we're certainly not!

Gilda: We have lots of gardening still to do.

Amanda: Rice paper plant, all the rest.

Gilda: Rice paper plants.

Amanda: Another incredible texture because we have such upright bananas.

And then the rice paper plants with those wonderful horizontal... Gilda: You'd think I planned it, but I hate to admit how much of it was just accidentally worked out that way.

And the rice paper plant is wonderful for this area and for the way I water and irrigate, and they get so big.

They make me sneeze a lot, but they're worth it.

And I got them by knocking on a lady's door and saying, "I have some pottery I made.

"Can I have some of your rice paper plant and you take my pottery?"

and she was real excited to do that.

And that's where it started.

And I've done that... lots of times - barter, you know, pottery.

Amanda: Oh, it's so much fun to pass along plants and then it gives you a story with the plant.

Besides the beauty and the texture of the plant, you have a story.

Gilda: Hey, I don't want the technical name, I want the backstory, and I'm like that with the Olympics.

I don't care who wins or loses.

I just want everybody's back story.

So with my plants, it's, and I think, being a social worker for years, I'm used to, I gather information, and what's important to me is the really cool little pearls about getting to know things.

So, you know, as I walk my garden, I'm with my daddy, I'm with Marie Helen, I'm with all these people in my life that, you know, it brings them to mind.

Part of the specialness of the property for me is up the hill where I developed Fiacre, the patron saint of gardening that looks like Paul Thompson despite what he says, that I developed the area with the intent of a special contained area to have a home for the family ashes.

Amanda: Yes.

Gilda: And so there's four adults and nine dogs, or ashes, are in this area.

The ajuga and things started really growing good up there.

It was great.

So it's a special, it's a meditative spot, and it makes me happy to have Fiacre, especially with my gardening interests up there, and my husband would love that.

But, you know, and its a part of being remembered.

Amanda: And a table, I think your father-in-law made that.

Gilda: My father-in-law, oh, yes.

Trying to keep it all together there.

He was definitely a crafter, despite marbleizing the alligators.

But yeah, that little area that the moss just took over in and I know he's there and yeah, that was, you know, my husband loves that his dad had made these planters and the table and stuff.

So as much as I can, I like to keep that kind of thing together.

It's the family tradition.

Amanda: And you do have a moss garden and a shady place near the beach.

Gilda: Yeah.

Amanda: And it's perfectly lovely... but there are spots of mosses everywhere.

Gilda: Oh, yeah.

How much fun is it to take your shoes off and put your feet in the moss?

That just feels so good on a hot summer day.

Amanda: And I think you found a place where the fairies were.

Gilda: Oh, yeah.

Amanda: Tell me about what just happened when you lost a tree.

Gilda: We had a huge tree that came down during the hurricane, and the roots of it totally lifted the path, and I could see underneath it.

That's where the fairies have been hiding all these years.

I've been trying to find them.

They were up, next to the moss garden is the driftwood garden, and I didn't think they had moved that far up, but it was such a nice place.

It's so special now to walk over that hump that the storm made, and I am not high maintenance, it does not take much to make me happy.

Amanda: And the driftwood... Gilda: Oh, the driftwood is fun, isn't it?

Amanda: It's beautiful!

Gilda: I love it, each one is a piece of art, and it's so much fun.

How many boat rides can you go on?

So I like to go out and have people help me scout out for driftwood.

We drag it home, and then the next time they visit, they're always really curious about where I put the piece.

They relate to it.

Amanda: And, you know, I didn't, when I saw them, I didn't even think of them as being placed.

They just seem to be such a natural part of the whole garden.

The ambience that they bring.

Gilda: I try, girl.

(laughs) It doesn't always work out successfully!

I've had 30 years to move stuff around!

Amanda: And you love pottery and have your husband's boathouse.

You never got to put the boat in.

I think you've appropriated it.

Did you?

Gilda: I did.

He'll be so glad you said that.

He felt so slighted.

No, when we bought this house, I saw the boathouse, and I knew where I wanted to go with pottery and this was the perfect space.

So the boat got never got moved in.

Amanda: The interior of your beautiful home is filled with art that both you and fellow craftsmen have made.

It is so much fun to see it outside.

Tell me about when the man came to try to read the electric meter.

Gilda: Oh, that's great.

One of the first pieces that I did that I incorporated magnets into hanging.

How do you hang this pottery?

I was looking at what's attractive about an electrical meter?

Nothing.

So I've seen what this thing is right here by the door.

What do I do with it?

So I made the ball of it the face of a sunflower and put magnets on the back of the ceramic part and it just clicks right over the little ball.

And then that started opening up a whole new world of this is how I can hang my pottery.

I can do artistic things on a flat surface and then get it to work and hang on the side of the boat house and stuff.

Amanda: You do have a few flowering plants but some of them are not actually plants.

These beautiful calla.

(laughs) Gilda: My calla lilies.

I'm so proud of them!

These have been there 15 years and I've had some broken.

Limbs, I know, are going to hit them and stuff, but I was really frustrated trying to grow calla lilies.

It didn't work in my shady environment and stuff.

So I showed them, I made my own.

But, yeah, I'm really proud of that.

And I think any of my pottery that I do - because I make the asparagus and the green beans and the carrots, and I've been on a seed thing, making my big interpretation of interesting seeds that I've seen.

That's what I did last winter.

Amanda: I saw some peas in a pod in the house.

Gilda: I made English peas.

I'm in to English peas.

I went through, a lot of it is, especially if I'm hand building a project, you've got leftover clay, and you don't want to just waste it.

So what can I do with it?

So I make peas and whatever strange little thing comes my way.

Amanda: You do have a small sunny area, and so you do have a place for pollinators, but it's always kind of lots of salvia.

Because again, the deer are hungry and do come in the yard.

Gilda: Big time.

The pollinators did great out there this year though.

It's, like I said, very limited sun, so I've had a lot of sad losses, but the different variety of salvia I'm trying to collect really, and, you know, you only have a one shot deal, you know?

So it takes several years to get this developed, so it's four years old, and I'm beginning to see some of the old overgrown English garden effect that I want down there.

But it makes me so happy to sit in my rocking chair and look over there and watch the hummingbirds come by because they love this, they're loving the salvia too.

Amanda: The beautiful trees covered of lichens because they're so close to the water, the refuge for wildlife, the textures, a few Camellias and things for the winter.

But the winter is when you can do your pottery and then find ways to make that artistic part of you relate to the artistic part outside.

It's just been a wonderful journey for us to come.

Thank you so very much.

Gilda: Don't go, don't go, let's stay.

Amanda: We'll come back.

Gilda: Too much fun.

♪ music ♪ ♪ Terasa: We extend a big thank you to Paul Thompson, Master Gardener coordinator in York Chester and Lancaster counties for tipping us off about Gilda's garden.

It was absolutely magnificent to take a tour around.

I especially like how it's been sort of a garden of happenstance.

She mentioned how there were things that she planned however, the deer had other ideas, and so she has been really happy with the firms that have thrived in the area, and it seems she has a canine companion that also helps her garden, as well.

Mine, they seem to be more of a hindrance than a help, but I certainly enjoy having them out there.

Blueberries are one of my favorite fruits to enjoy, and Zack, I think you have some that you might can show us and explain a little bit about how we go from flower to fruit.

Zack: Absolutely.

So yeah, this is one of my favorite times of year, we're coming out of the winter.

It's been cold, not many crops to look at.

So I get a lot of calls during blueberry season when they're blooming and it's one of my favorite times of the year because there's a bee one of our native bees is southeastern blueberry bee, and it comes out this time of year, it's only active for a few weeks, this time of year, and they do a really interesting way of pollinating the flower they actually get in the pollen, the flower, and they're too large to get inside of the flower so they sonicate, and so they vibrate their bodies to loosen all the pollen and then the pollen falls on them, and then they go to the next flower.

Terasa: Almost like a like a electric toothbrush that you would use except they're able to do that with their bodies.

Zack: Exactly, and its...when you have a blueberry field and you have thousands of these native insects doing this.

It's really loud and it's a beautiful I guess melody when you're in the blueberry fields this time of year a lot of growers are spending time right now pruning blueberries, and so that's really important.

So that's why I brought these samples in.

We've been... We have some blueberry demonstration trials across the state, and so we've been spending a lot of time lately pruning those out and getting ready for the upcoming season.

So, what I've brought here are different highbush blueberries, in different stages, and kind of what I want to show is this.

Here on the right, if you guys can see this.

This is a shoot that is going to be very productive, and the reason we know that is we have the stem here has got good green growth, we have really large or fat stems and all the blooms are about in the same stage and so that'd be a really healthy fruiting stock that produce really good fruit.

Now, if we look at this one, comparatively, if you are pruning at home, this is what you don't want, and so we call these matchsticks.

So you see how small they are?

The smaller the stem, the smaller the fruit, and you'll also see on here that the wood, or the tissue looks a little older.

It's got some cracks in it, it's got some diseased tissue, and then you'll also see that the blueberries, the ones that are already pollinated, they're very small, and we have flowers.

We have blueberries, and so you're not going to get a good once over harvest or twice over harvest on these they're going to come in along and along during the year and they're not going to have a good quality when you compare them to a good shoot like this.

Terasa: You mentioned that those were high bush, and so not all blueberries are created equal and certain are more adapted to growing in South Carolina than others.

Would you be able to elaborate on that a little?

Zack: Sure.

So blueberries in South Carolina, we can grow southern highbush or rabbiteye blueberries, and just a general recommendation, the rabbit eye blueberries do a lot better and will do a lot better, in every corner of the state.

Highbush blueberries are a little more finicky.

They aren't as hardy as are rabbit-eye type and they can really primarily be grown probably from the fall on down, and the reason this is because they come in earlier in the season, and so they're more susceptible to those late frost and freezes taking out all the blooms and not having anything so in the coastal regions, and then in more of the coastal plains, we can plant them and get a longer season on our blueberries by beginning the season with Southern highbush blueberries coming in, and then finishing the season with rabbit-eye.

But there are tons of different varieties within those two groups, but the rabbit-eye for sure are more consistent for South Carolina.

Terasa: Now, would there be a difference between what you would recommend to a commercial grower versus a backyard gardener if they'd like to grow blueberries?

Zack: No, not really.

Honestly, it's just a economy of scale.

A homeowner, you know, the biggest thing or even a commercial grower, the biggest thing is getting your soil pH, right.

Blueberries are an acid loving plant.

A lot of people this time of year, they buy blueberries and plant them immediately and they don't soil test, and if your pH is not in the fours or low fives, A blueberry is never going to do what it should do.

Terasa: Yeah.

When you say acid loving, they are acid loving.

Zack: A lot of our blueberry farms, we pull soil samples and our pH is like 4.2.

So it's really acidic, and there's no way really to correct that once you've planted that plant.

So if you're looking to plant blueberries, you need to be looking six months ahead of time to soil sample, get your soil pH really acidic, to make it a good cozy home for your blueberries.

Terasa: So piggybacking off of the soil pH concept, Hannah is that an important thing for our row crop farmers to look at as well?

Hannah: Sure, yeah, so our plants are not acid loving plants.

and we see that, especially with our row crops that the lower the pH or the higher the pH, the more it can tie up some of our minor elements, like you well know and we teach in the Master Gardener courses, but ours are going to be around 5.5 to 6.5, and we typically mitigate anything that gets really low by putting out lime each year.

For a general rule of thumb every year or two, we want to at least be applying lime.

and I won't go into all the rates or anything like that, but if you're ever driving along through the rural parts of South Carolina, you see a big white pile.

It's...not salt or anything like that.

That's actually what they're going to be putting in the loaders to spread over the field.

Terasa: Wow!

Fascinating!

It's really good to know that the same principles we talked about for a home gardener still apply to large scale farming perhaps just at a different scale yet.

Hannah: Zack might be referring to like a pound of lime per whatever.

I'm referring to a ton.

A ton and a half, two tons.

Yeah.

Terasa: Very large quantities.

Hannah: Very large.

Yes.

Terasa: Especially if we need to change the pH.

Hannah: Correct.

We're getting our lime in on railcars.

Terasa: Wow!

Hannah: Yeah.

Terasa: Good thing.

I don't have to spread that all in my backyard.

I might have to hire a few of my friends and neighbors to help me get that out.

(laughing) and Dr. John, you know, we can expect to see species growing in the wild that are in that family that Ericaceae, is that the blueberry family?

John: Right.

The blueberry family, which is a little bit in a it's better to call it the Ericaceae, because everybody everything in this family is not a blueberry.

So this is actually the same family that gives us sourwood tree.

They don't look anything like blueberries.

Terasa: Right.

John: Nevertheless, the flowers themselves have many of these different genera are quite similar, and that's one of the reasons that they are placed in the same family.

So botanists like to think that, similarities that we see suggest relative, relationship or close relationship.

Terasa: Well, that makes sense.

Do you have a show and tell you might be able to enlighten us with?

John: I might.

(Terasa laughs) In fact, back to the magic bucket.

Now, everybody, close your eyes.

Terasa: No peeking.

John: Okay, now you can open them.

So this is a early spring blooming shrub that I've fallen in love with.

Actually, it was our it was on our backyard when we moved into the house, and we didn't plant it.

But I'm glad that somebody planted it in our backyard, and this plant, when it first starts making its buds.

They look like big ol' pearls, big ol' white, bright pearls on the stem.

Terasa: Hint Hint.

John: That's why people like to call this plant, pearl bush.

So this is not a native shrub and certainly not in the Ericaceae It's not in the blueberry family.

This is a plant that's in the rose family.

and you can see that when you look at the flowers, they do look sort of like an apple flower, or even a Blackberry.

Or what else like a quince, or all sorts of things in the rose family that we're aware that we're familiar with and can't think of right now.

But...flowers themselves are in the rose family, not entirely, but in many cases are boring, I think.

There's five sepals, and five petals, and then the goodies that are on the inside.

and beyond all that it is a shrub so it makes plenty of woody tissue, it'll make a nice tall shrub if you let it, if you let it do that if you trim it that way, or you can get it to get kind of flat and very branched.

Now these are sort of lawn like stems that I've got, and the reason is, I guess that last summer whacked the truth of the bush, seriously, and it's produced these things usually just about 10 feet tall now.

Terasa: I guess that's a good testament to the fact that pruning tends, certain types of pruning cuts tend to stimulate growth.

John: Yeah, pruning changes things, I guess.

but pearl bush is a real good name, not so much now, because we don't see any pearls because the flowers are wide open, but if you want to see this thing... well, here's one right here, you can still see the buds that are sort of like white pearls, and they're sort of attractive.

So now this plant, I'm not really sure how easy it is to find it.

Because it's sort of an old timey shrub.

Terasa: That's exactly how it was described to me, I had received a picture and you know, I'm a transplant from upstate New York, and this was not a plant that I was familiar with.

Someone sent me a picture and I shared it with an extension agent who's not with extension anymore.

But she said, Oh, this is an old timey plant called Pearl bush.

John: It is another member of the rose family that comes to us from...Eastern Asia.

and you would see this, at least in Columbia, where I live, this isn't very common every now and then you'll see it, but not at all common, and if you shake it real hard, the petals will all fall off.

Terasa: Looks like it's snowing.

John: So we could call it snow bush.

Terasa: We could Well, and that's why common names can be so confusing.

Terasa: This one makes sense.

John: It's not the scientific name though.

That's what we have to pay attention to, and that scientific name is Exochorda racemosa, which will distinguish it from all other plants, Exochorda.

Terasa: One scientific name to describe one specific plant.

John: That's right.

Terasa: A system that makes absolutely perfect sense.

I guess just because it's in a different language is what makes it so tricky for humans.

John: That's right, and it would be nice for us Americans if all the... all the scientific names could somehow be in English.

Terasa: Americanized (laughs) They're not.

They're in Latin, right?

John: They're in Latin.

Terasa: Very neat, and I think especially learning about how they are similarities between members of families, which is something honestly, as someone who was not trained in botany or horticulture to begin with that I have only just come to realize, and it's very much helped me, I might not be able to identify the specific plant, but I can say, Oh, this looks like it must be in the whatever family because I notice, you know, whatever characteristics.

Well, I don't know about you, but flower arranging is very therapeutic to me.

So let's take a look at some specific activities going on at MUSC geared at just that.

♪ music ♪ Amanda: People behind me are having a wonderful time and engaging in stress relief.

We're going to learn a little bit more about it.

♪ I'm speaking with Sharon Fowler, who's part of the grounds crew at the Medical University of South Carolina, in downtown Charleston, and Sharon, we got to watch you with some people doing something and it looked like they were having a wonderful time, but I think there was more reason for it than just having a great time and going home with some beautiful flowers.

Sharon: Yeah, well, it definitely was a good time, a sunny afternoon doing some flower arranging outside.

It's one of our practices is to invite people to do flower arranging as it can reduce stress.

Being with plants and in nature has shown to improve mood and bringing something like that into your home can just create a more happy, healthy environment.

So we set up some materials, some that were purchased, and some that were forged from around campus, and they got to enjoy a great practice of self expression and create some beautiful arrangements.

Amanda: We know that a lot of our healthcare professionals, no matter what department you're in, administration or actually on the floor as a student, and we had people representing all those things.

This has been a stressful time for everybody.

Sharon: Absolutely, yes, with the - I mean, the entire population at MUSC has felt the stress as everybody has over the last two years now.

So, to have something that's a little out of the ordinary, like stepping outside and creating a flower arrangement, that is an activity that would really focus a person to not think about what they have to do today or later today or next week, or, you know, just really be present in the moment, and find a slice of joy.

Amanda: Well, and there was a lot of selection involved.

I could see people making decisions about what they like, how to put it together.

I think it really takes you into a different place, And so for a little while, you get that peace of mind and serenity that we all need.

Sharon: Yeah, just peace and stillness.

Amanda: And that fits in with the overall theme of horti-therapy and inclusion, which is a part of the whole medical university's practice and philosophy, I believe.

Sharon: Absolutely, the grounds department, the entire MUSC grounds is an arboretum focused on the idea of healing through nature and that kind of power.

So, as a Farm Educator at the MUSC Urban Farm, that's something that I bring to work every day.

Amanda: Well, I think it's wonderful that you have this great campus to collect from.

I think they enjoyed the found material even more than the things you bought.

Thanks for letting us come and share this their joy today.

Sharon: Thank you so much.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ music ends ♪ Terasa: How uplifting to see the activities going on at MUSC supporting a more holistic approach to health and well being.

Looks like we've got another question, this one comes in from Clarendon.

Billy is asking when I grow my own transplants, they get long and leggy and don't survive.

How do I fix this?

Well, Hannah, that's your neck of the woods I think.

Hannah: Yeah, yes.

Nice to see a Manning or Summerton area or Turbeville person calling in.

So I think in my previous job, I used to do a lot of greenhouse work and when we would see it try to see it in the classroom.

We would try to do it just in the window and as we all know If we've ever done that growing up, we'd put them in our little soil disk our a little trays and plant our seeds, and depending on what type of seed it was, was when we planted it throughout the wintertime, but we would notice, especially the kids would get ready to transplant that thing and it would be so leggy that it would be three or four inches taller than what it needed to be right, Terasa: We maybe should start off...We assume people know what leggy means.

Hannah: But I, Terasa: It might not be what everybody understands.

Hannah: Sure.

Okay.

So when I think of leggy it's a long slender, almost translucent in some cases stem that just doesn't seem very viable.

Once it's put out in the the field or in your garden.

If a wind comes along, or any kind of really bright sunny day, it's just going to make it almost weaker.

So leggy is just going to result in a taller, leaner looking plant, less healthy.

Terasa: Yeah.

It doesn't have a strong core to keep it upright.

Hannah: Maybe like anemic and just weak.

In general.

So.

So if we're able to have a little more sunlight, especially more than what would you say, like 10 hours?

Probably.

John: Yeah, the more the better.

Hannah: Yeah, just a healthy growing environment.

Just like you wouldn't want to sit in the hot, humid room all stinking day, you'd want it to be a nice, even temperature.

Something that's not going to fluctuate as much probably, but have a nice long, easy sunlight period.

So it's not going to get scorching hot in your window sill.

Something that you can put in your sunroom and have just a just a nice plant growing period where you're rotating it and making sure that it's just not on one side of your tray, Terasa: Because they're going to reach for the light too.

So yeah, how about so is realistically, can we grow transplants inside in a windowsill?

Or are we going to need some artificial light?

Zack: Yeah, I think we have some really good fact sheets on this.

But you can grow transplants in a extra room in your house, fairly easy.

There's some plans online on the HGIC website, where we just take shop lights or the ballasts, you could buy in any hardware store, and you put chain on it, as when you seed your seeds in the flats, as the plants germinate, and as they grow, you want to keep the light right on top of them, and if they grow an inch, you move the light up an inch.

And when you're doing this, what you're doing is you're providing everything that plant needs right there right above it.

So it doesn't have to reach like it would for the sun in a window sill.

So as the plant grows, it's you know, concentrating, as you said, all of its energy in the core of the plant.

Another thing we can do to really toughen up transplants to make them survivability better, is to harden them off, and we do that with a fan.

So as soon as a plant starts popping out of the soil, or growing transplants, if you put a little house fan on it, and you don't want like on the number three setting Terasa: You don't want a hurricane, right away.

Zack: You want the plant wiggling and swaying a little bit, and what that does is it takes all the energy that's in the leaves of the plant, and it forces that energy into the stem of the plant, and so it actually makes that stem a lot tougher, and if you take that plant and then go plant it in the field, it hasn't stretched for light.

So all its sales are compact, and then when you plant it in the field or in your garden, it has all this stored energy and the roots and in the stem of the plant that it can immediately start growing in the field.

Hannah: Can we talk about commercial horticulture?

Terasa: Of course, Hannah: Because in some of my fellows that are growing around us, they're growing like 100 acres of something, and when they're doing that they're taking a transplant and they're planting it in the soil which there could be some soil borne diseases there.

Or like nematodes or some other kind of parasitic thing that some of our traditional plants just don't do as well with so can you tell them a little bit more about grafting maybe?

Zack: Yeah, so what I would encourage everyone to do, especially this time of year, as you're planning hopefully what you're going to grow in the garden is looking at variety selection, and looking at what those varieties offer you in terms of disease and insect resistance and how long they're going to take to get to maturity.

Especially with tomatoes, a lot of people grow tomatoes in the same spot every year, year after year after year and their production goes down over time.

There are some nematode resistant varieties.

So nematode is a small parasitic, worm like creature and it feeds on the roots.

So at the end of the season, if you pull up your tomato plants and the roots are all galled up and look real knotty that is, root knot nematode.

So you can select varieties that have a nematode resistance.

You can rotate.

We always preach rotation, and then grafting is another thing that we can do and grafting, Terasa: Goodness.

There's so much to think about when it comes to planning a garden and we can get go down that rabbit hole.

We're going to have to wrap things up for today's show.

But thank you all so much for being here for sharing your time and talent.

With all of our viewers.

We hope you've learned a lot.

You're welcome to engage with us on Facebook visit Clemson's Home and Garden Information Center and until then, happy gardening.

♪ music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ music ends ♪ <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 McBee, 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.