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♪ Good evening and welcome to Making It Grow .

I'm so glad that you could join us tonight.

I'm Amanda McNulty.

I'm a Clemson Extension Agent, and our program is a collaboration between Clemson University and the South Carolina Educational Television Network.

We are happy that we can join forces and bring you this gardening program on Tuesday nights.

Tonight we are going to during the show turn the tables on Walter Edgar, who of course is beloved for his for Walter Edgar's Journal where he interviews fascinating people on topics that range from A to Z.

Today I get to interview Walter about his new garden and learn so much about the history of gardening in his family.

He has strong genetic inclinations towards being a gardener and you will be fascinated with some of the stories that he shares with us.

March is National Peanut Month, and peanuts are, of course, packed with protein and they are a major part of South Carolina agriculture.

Peanuts used to be grown mostly in Virginia, but now we are growing them all over the state.

They're very important in crop rotation.

They can really help.

When they plant cotton after peanuts, there's a dramatic decrease in nematodes, and peanuts are far more sustainably grown than almonds, for instance, which requires huge amounts of water, and bees must be taken to pollinate them, and then the carbon footprint's pretty high by the time they get to South Carolina.

Not the case with peanuts, and so if you go to Facebook, the South Carolina Peanut Board has a page there, and all during March they're going to have fun information and surprises, so do check them out occasionally.

I do like peanuts, and my husband even makes peanut soup which is surprisingly delicious.

Laura Lee Rose is an extension agent down in the Lowcountry.

She's, I always think of her as being Beaufort, but she travels up to Walterboro and other places, and Laura Lee, I think the Lowcountry has its own set of challenges in that you have a lot of people who move there and gosh, trying to grow plants down there is very different than it is in other parts of the country, isn't it?

>> Thank you, Amanda.

That's one of my main comments that I get from my Master Gardeners.

They say, "oh, I could grow anything in Atlanta or in Ohio, but I'm having a hard time with the soils here."

>> Well fortunately the ones who take the Master Gardener course at least learn the basics and I bet they have a lot more success when they complete that, don't they?

>> We get pretty good reviews for the class, I've got to say, and thanks so much to Terasa for her leadership in the state being the State Coordinator.

>> Well, and you bring an enthusiasm.

It does help having an enthusiastic teacher, Laura Lee.

>> I enjoy teaching it too.

I enjoy meeting the people and I say whenever I get a chance to anybody that will listen, that I have the best job in town.

>> I think you do and you bring a lot to it.

Thanks so much for being with us tonight.

Terasa Lott is as as Laura Lee referred, the Coordinator for the Master Gardener program throughout the state, but she also is very important to Making It Grow and answers all kinds of questions that people post on our Facebook page, and she comes over and helps us with the show.

Terasa, I think you've got a special plant that we're going to talk about a little later but have you got some Gardens of the Week for us?

>> We do.

First I'd like to share that I feel the same way as some of Laura Lee's Master Gardeners.

Coming from upstate New York I have a lot of success there, and felt so many more challenges here, so I understand where they're coming from, and we are going to take our virtual field trip now around the state.

I don't think we'll travel as far as New York or Ohio, but sometimes we do have photos submitted from North Carolina.

Let's take a look at what was submitted.

Deanna Altman share some bright yellow daffodils, sort of like rays of sunshine.

Carol Boyd harvested a bunch of turnips from her garden in Myrtle Beach.

Robin Rutherford shared her delphinium in flower on James Island.

Winter daphne is the subject of the photo provided by Karen Neely, and I just love the contrast between the green and the pink.

Then we're going to finish up with Betty Lou Smith who sent us her indoor plants and she said that is her apartment garden.

Thanks to everyone that submitted photos.

Remember this is just a random sampling but you can view all of the photos that were submitted on Facebook by visiting our Facebook page.

>> Terasa, now occasionally I think you're going to show images of birds that people have seen, and so I want to encourage people to, when they see something exciting in the garden or just charming, I don't think there's anything more charming than a little Carolina Wren, even though it's maybe not that rare, to send those to you as well.

>> That would be lovely.

>> Terasa, a lot of people aren't fans of turnips and my friend Ann Nulte, whom people hear me refer to frequently because she has such a wonderful garden that I forage for hat material, made a turnip souffle.

It was just absolutely delicious and I'm going to get that recipe, and if I send it to you, would you be kind enough to post it on Facebook since you can do that so much better than I can?

>> It would be my pleasure.

>> Thank you so much.

As I said, you interact with our Facebook fans and so often they post questions there.

Is there one that you think we might enjoy talking to Laura Lee about tonight?

>> Why yes, there is.

We had someone to write in that expressed an interest in including milkweed in her perennial garden but is wanting to know are there any species that are better than others.

>> Goodness, well Laura Lee is a devoted member of Native Plant Societies and goes to conferences.

I know Teresa, you've been to some too and they're supposed to be wonderful.

I hope when this is over I can go.

Laura Lee, can you help us understand some of the different species and how we might have success with some in our garden and why is there a push to include milkweed?

>> Well, milkweed is not only the host plant for the monarch butterfly, but also the flowers provide nectar and pollen for migrating insects.

There's been some good research from the University of Georgia that's looking at reasons why we should limit our use of the tropical milkweed, and that's because those milkweeds don't die back in the fall and winter, and they do sometimes sequester a protozoan parasite which affects not only the adults but the larva of the monarch butterfly, so the recommendation at least from my butterfly experts down here is that in the fall, go ahead and cut your tropical milkweed back.

You can cover it with a flower pot packed with some pine straw and then in the spring when it's time for those plants to grow back, they can, because they certainly do.

We see lots of chrysalis and caterpillars on those milkweed plants, and it's hard, Amanda, when you see the butterfly, when you see the caterpillars on there, it's hard to cut something back, but you can just lay those stems on the ground and the caterpillars will eat what they want to, but we just don't want to encourage them to be around all winter long.

>> Well Laura Lee, I would never remember to go out and cut something back, so what are some of the ones that are native to the United States that will naturally decline in the fall, but still be very important because if I'm not mistaken, milkweed is the only larval plant for the monarch.

So what are some of the species that you run into perhaps in small, good local florists, nurseries or perhaps when Native Plant Societies have offerings of plants.

What are some of the species that I could even grow?

>> Well, the swamp milkweed, the perennial milkweed, there's a white milkweed, there's a sandhills milkweed.

<Amanda> Goodness!

<Laura Lee> According to an article that Bill Stringer wrote for the Journal for the South Carolina Native Plant Society, he listed over 20 species of milkweed that grow in South Carolina, and I'll try to get permission from him to add the link to that article on your Facebook page.

>> So the difficulty is that those aren't being propagated perhaps, but there are some that are propagated, and I think one that you said you had good luck.

One of them even has come up from seeds in the pot and in cracks, and another one out in your garden reseeded.

That sounds like a good one for us to have, so talk about some of those, please.

>> So that was the Asclepias perennis, and it's a very small plant, and that's probably part of the issue why they're not being propagated by the nursery industry, is that they're not big, showy, beautiful flowers.

Now there are some milkweeds that do have big showy flowers, the syriacas for one, but I don't see that one growing in the Lowcountry.

I see that more in North Carolina and Virginia when I'm traveling up there, but this little swamp milkweed that we got, I got it because I was interested in having pollinator plants at one of our chapter offerings of native plants, and so I ordered a lot of them, and they came with the seed pods on them, and even little baby seedlings in the bottom of the plants, so I dug them up and transferred them into some bigger pots.

I'll put one in my suitcase the next time I come to see you.

>> Oh, fun!

And do bring your musical instruments.

I loved it when I would wake up in the morning and you'd already be down there playing, strumming away.

Laura Lee, what is it that's about the milkweed that protects the monarch from predators, please?

>> Well the leaves contain cardiac glycosides, if I can say that right, and the latex also can be sort of an astringent, but those elements in the leaves that the caterpillar is going to be feeding on, they are going to be poisonous to birds or other animals, are not going to want to eat that brightly colored monarch butterfly or caterpillar.

The caterpillar is pretty too.

>> And, if I'm not mistaken, they don't want to get a mouthful of latex, and they have an interesting way of cutting the veins that kind of feed farther down in the leaf so they don't get a mouthful.

[laughing] <Laura Lee> I know, I don't even like to get it on my hands, either.

It can be an irritant.

Plants that have latex in them, some people are allergic to that milky substance, so my recommendation is if you're going to be doing any kind of pruning, just wear gloves and something that's going to actually give you some protection.

>> And of course, Laura Lee, the monarchs overwinter in high mountains in Mexico and an Oyamel - I'm not much of a foreign language speaker - Fir tree, and with the changes in climate that we are seeing, there's an interesting phenomenon taking place called assisted migration, and scientists and people who are trying to protect the monarchs in that long overwintering, winter stage, are actually trying to move those trees farther up in the mountains because the monarchs need for it to be cold.

They need to kind of stay in hibernation because if they're warm, they'll use up a lot of their fats, and so it's interesting.

In all places, it's not just in the United States on their Great Migration north that they need help from people.

They need help at home as well.

Is the Xerces Society an organization that protects a lot of pollinators including monarchs, Laura Lee?

>> Yes, their mission is invertebrate protection, but they can provide lots of good information to school teachers or anybody that's looking for...

I think you can even order seeds or plugs for some plants from them for a specific project, whether it's a restoration project or school garden.

I'm not quite sure what their parameters are, but it's worth looking into.

Billy McCord in Charleston, he's worked for DNR for a number of years.

I know he is working on a project that they actually tagged monarch butterflies and are doing the research in the migration.

We may not be in the same migration patterns as the people in the Midwest.

>> My goodness!

Well, Laura Lee, thanks for all that information, and I'm always glad to learn about native plants from you.

>> Thank you.

>> Terasa, I think you're going to have a plant that you brought in that you're going to talk about now.

Is that right?

>> That is correct, and this one has a little bit of a funny name, Streptocarpus, and you might think it sounds a little bit like something that would make you sick, like strep throat that we probably all had as a child and perhaps as an adult as well, but no worries.

This plant won't make you sick, in fact as you know, indoor plants can actually help keep us healthy.

Well this one has beautiful flowers.

It looks sort of like a plant that I associate with my great aunts and grandmothers.

Is there any association?

>> Well if you're referring to the African violet, yes there is.

So I visited my friends at Forest Lake Greenhouses, and this particular display of lady slippers caught my eye.

Now when I think of lady slippers, I think of a plant in the orchid family, and you can pretty much tell that these are not orchids, so that's alittle bit of a misnomer, but the common name refers to a number of different plants.

This is actually a member of the gesneriaceae or the gesneriads, the same family as African violets, which you were describing, I believe, and they are actually considered now to be a member of this Streptocarpus genus.

<Amanda> Okay.

Well, is this plant similar in what it wants?

You do such a good job taking care of plants.

I know you've got a lot of orchids, and the main thing with them is not to overwater them.

Does this plant have any watering restrictions or no-no's or yes-yesses about it?

<Terasa> Well, I am going to give it a try, and I was not super successful with an African violet, but I'm told these are a bit more forgiving, so similar needs, a little bit particular about not liking to be too wet and not liking to get their leaves wet.

Their native homeland would be in tropical mountainous regions of Africa, so they're sort of a tropical woodland species, I guess you would say.

This particular series is vegetatively propagated through tissue cultures, and there are about 10.

I chose to try these two because I particularly thought they were visually interesting.

The red one is called Red By Color.

The top has that beautiful scarlet red, and then more of a blush red on the bottom that almost looks like how watercolors will bleed.

Then this one is called White Ice, and so it has that really white flower that has the deep purple veining, and that almost has a lace look, so wish me luck in taking care of these.

I am keeping my fingers crossed.

>> Well speaking of your fingers, I think your fingernail polish matches the red one today.

Show that to our audience, please.

>> Oh, Terasa, that's fun!

My husband's father used to say that he thought his wife kept her fingernails painted because she didn't have to worry about the dirt under them showing after she'd been gardening.

[laughing] I'm going to say that maybe that's a good reason to do it.

Well thanks for sharing that with us, Terasa.

So don't pour water on the leaves.

Carefully water with like a spout, just to get the soil moist, or sometimes you can just let it take up water from below.

>> That's right, and I do understand that you don't want to keep them wet all the time, so let them dry out a little bit, but not too much.

You know it's always a fine delicate balance.

>> Well Terasa, the next time you're by Forest Lake Greenhouse, please give my very best to Tim and Lisa King, because they sure are a nice couple who run that place over there, aren't they?

>> They are, and I will be sure to send your best regards.

Now let's take a look at perhaps one of your favorite tools for gardening.

>> When we moved in about 40 years ago into our new old house, our first house was pretty old too.

This house that we're in now was built, we think, about 1880 because the court house burned down, so they're not real sure.

It's really an old house and we're on two and a half acres, but back then they didn't worry about traffic because there weren't any cars, I guess, and so we're kind of right close to the corner.

I mean, for two and a half acres, we're right up by the road, and it's really loud and there's not a lot of privacy, and when we moved in, there was a deodara cedar and 5 red tips, and then there was a nice area off to the side with some camellias, but nothing else, and so I wanted some privacy.

I went and bought some $1 plants from Jimmy Kohn's nursery.

He's a wonderful propagator up in Sandy Run.

Of course, even though I'd taken horticulture, I didn't believe anything was going to grow, and I planted them real close together and way too close to the sidewalk, and so over the years it's caused problems.

So I decided to cut them all down.

I had a stump grinder come, and I went to replace them with Podocarpus because it's a narrow space.

This is one called Podocarpus Maki, M-A-K-I.

It's not huge tree form, but it's going to be like eight feet tall and 3 to 5 feet wide.

Anyway, so I had cut all these other Cleyera down, and I'm trying to plant in that area.

Let me tell you, the most wonderful tool I've ever had in my life is a DeWalt Sawzall, and there are other companies that make them too, so I don't have any stock in the DeWalt company, but this I use constantly.

It has changed my life.

So I was out there trying to dig holes for these plants I was putting in.

I'd gotten really nice ones, 3-gallon ones that looked nice and full.

Fortunately I had learned from Paul Thompson, that something new that you really have to be aware of, is the nurseries are putting three young plants together and making you think you're getting a mature plant, so I had to take them apart.

Anyway, I was digging holes for them, and there was this enormous root mass from the old Cleyera, and from some nearby trees, so I dug the hole with my Sawzall.

I buy carbide blades.

This is it.

It was just the most remarkable thing.

I had some tree roots that were this big that I was able to cut through with this.

I want to show you how this works.

You can change the blades easily.

This is the release for the blade.

You lift this up, and you have to set your mouth kind of funny, and the blade comes right out.

The whole blade was red because it was carbide, the special blades.

You can see I've used it all out.

Then to replace the blade, here's the release.

You lift that up, and you kind of look down in there and stick your tongue out because that helps for some reason, and insert this in.

They don't want me to stand up, but I'm going to have to stand up a little bit, because really it's easy if you're standing up.

There we go.

Okay.

So now that's in there nice and tight, and I pushed that back down.

This is the battery.

The first DeWalt I got had a battery that I could not change.

It was just impossible.

And what good is it to have a tool if you can't change the battery and you've got to wait for your husband to come home.

This one is much easier.

This is the release, this button right here, and you push, pull that down, and then you snap it, and then what I found is still, when I do that, I often have to do that.

I do it on the washing machine outside and it comes right out.

So it has a charger that I recharge it on, and then to put it in, you just slip it in.

Push it all the way to the back until it's good and tight.

So remember, this is the release, and even when you pull it and it goes all the way down, sometimes you have to give it a little bump to get it off.

Then it has a safety feature on it.

It has this button, and when this button is down, it will not come on.

That's the safety feature for when you're using it, so when you want to use it, you push it on the other side and then the magic starts.

This is the most incredible, wonderful tool.

It lets a woman of my strength and size and age do almost everything.

[saw whirring] It has a light that comes on.

Let me push the safety button.

There's a light that comes on, and I've learned I was cutting down some trees one day, and my friend told me the closer I keep my sawing to the front of the saw, the less ricocheting I have, and so try to saw as close as you can.

You can get blades in different lengths, depending on what kind of pruning you're doing.

I use this on pruning all the time.

This is what I think we should do rather than hurting your arms and your joints.

Use a tool.

I know there's some people that think the idea of digging a hole with this is anathema, but I think tools are made to be used, and the blade is completely replaceable.

So that is my story about my DeWalt Sawzall, and I hope that you will find one.

If you have one of the old ones with the impossible to change batteries, there is an adapter that you can get.

You don't have to buy a new saw, but I will say that this one is a little bit lighter, but don't feel like you can't just get the adapter and continue to use the one you have.

Remember I like to get the carbide blades now, and they come in different links, depending on what you're doing.

You can get even get one for metal, and there's some for cutting wood for people who are doing that kind of work, but again, there's some that say pruning, so I always get at least three of the long ones and three of the short ones, because sometimes they break when you're doing work.

You want to be sure you've got some extras on hand, and then you'll just have this marvelous tool.

Remember, it's a lot easier to replace a tool than it is to replace one of our joints, and I hope you'll use it like a tool, and really find that it makes your life easier.

And now, let's check back in with Terasa.

>> My Goodness, Amanda!

You are a woman of many talents.

Before we move on to our next question, I think we need to hear about your hat.

>> Oh, well this is a very early blooming Prunus variety, and the color is so pretty, and then we had talked earlier about Daphne, which is just... oh, I feel like I'm just sitting in a cloud of perfume Terasa.

It was fun.

I want to now switch to this.

As I referred earlier we had a wonderful fascinating time visiting with Walter Edgar at his new home.

♪ Well, it's my great pleasure today to be speaking with Walter Edgar who has an association with SCETV as I am also fortunate to.

Walter, everyone knows a lot about you, and certainly your beautiful voice is familiar to us, but I don't know how many people know how you came to be such a passionate gardener, and how you transferred your great love and affection from your home of Mobile to South Carolina, so please tell us a little bit about your history.

>> Alright, well I grew up in Mobile, Alabama.

My great aunt and uncle created Bellingrath Gardens which is now open to the public and managed by a trust and foundation, and as a young boy, I spent a lot of time down there.

But the real gardener was my Great-aunt Bessie.

It's named Bellingrath, that's her married name, but she was the gardener.

It was her inspiration, and my grandmother was her sister, and she and my grandfather Edgar lived with us, and they were both tremendous gardeners.

My grandfather was a retired businessman, and so he literally worked in the yard every day.

Once a week he had a helper who would come mow the lawn, but everything else he did.

<Amanda> So he was a hands-on gardener.

He didn't point and say "do this, do that."

<Walter Edgar> He was a hands-on gardener.

Everything planted with seed.

He disdained anybody who bought a potted plant from a nursery, and he taught me at an early age.

You know, he lived there in the house and I sort of tagged along with him, and all the borders were his, and he would help me weed.

He taught me a lesson, because one spring, I pulled up little marigold sprouts because they looked like weeds to me.

The difference in the fact that every time you walk out he said, "if you see a weed, take it up.

Don't say 'I'm going to weed on Saturday.'

If you see a weed, go ahead and pull it up."

So it was it was a never-ending process, and we had a much warmer climate than we do here, so there was always something blooming in the yard to be cut and brought into the house.

<Amanda> How wonderful!

And Walter, you came to South Carolina, I believe, as a student.

Is that correct?

>> Yes, I did my undergraduate work at Davidson College, and then I came to South Carolina to get my PhD, which I did in 1969, and then I went in the army for two years, spent a year in Vietnam on an advisory team, and while I was in Vietnam, I applied for a post-doctoral fellowship with the National Archives.

I thought, you know, I've seen southeast Asia.

I've spent all my world in the South, why don't I apply to work for the Daniel Webster papers in New Hampshire.

Well, the National Archives had other ideas.

They sent me to South Carolina to work with the Henry Lawrence papers.

Amanda, it was like a rabbit in a briar patch.

When you go to graduate school, you go off somewhere to work, and when that year was up with the National Archives and the Lawrence papers, I ended up with a job at the University of South Carolina in the History Department, where I taught For 40 years.

>> And Walter, you fell in love with your first wife, who sadly is no longer with us, who was a Rast, a famous South Carolina name in agriculture, and you gardened on Hollywood in Columbia for decades, didn't you?

>> Yeah, 42 years lived in the only house we had actually ever bought, and when we bought in that Hollywood section, it was what the real estate people called a transitional neighborhood, that was before chic.

Well that's all a young assistant professor and his school teacher wife could afford, but it was a wonderful place for a yard because we bought the newest house in the neighborhood, but it would have been built in '54, but that meant for the 40 years before that, while that whole section had been developed, everybody had dumped their leaves on that lot.

It basically had been the giant mulch pile for the neighborhood, so instead of red clay, we started off with a yard that was pretty nice to begin with in terms of nutrients.

<Amanda> Rich in organic matter.

<Walter Edgar> Yes.

<Amanda> And then Walter, your new wife was my mother's best friend's daughter Nela, and y'all have made a decision to move to Still Hopes.

That's a real downsize in property, and how long have you been there?

>> One thing quickly is when Nela and I got married 14 years ago, what house do you live in?

And she said it wasn't a question of the house.

She said she knew that my garden and my yard development meant so much to me, that we remodeled the house on Hollywood Drive.

We made a decision to move out here.

It was one of those things that happens.

Everything is serendipitous.

A couple of years ago, we had some friends who had to have rehabilitation.

You know, when you get to be our age somebody has a fall, and Nela said, "wouldn't it be nice if we had to rehab, we could do it at Still Hopes and not at some other places.

So you had to get on a list out here at Still Hopes, which we did.

We paid our deposit, so if we unfortunately broke an arm or leg, and had to be rehabbed we could be out here."

And then we got a call that said, would you like to come out and think about maybe at sometime, living out here?

And we said "fine, but we don't want to live in an apartment.

We want to live in a cottage."

This was the fall of 2018, and they said it will be 5 to 7 years before we can have a cottage available.

They were all occupied.

Well, 5 months later we got a call that said, "there's a cottage available.

Would you like to come out and look at it?

You have 48 hours to make a decision whether you want the cottage or not."

[laughter] Well, Nela and I had just packed.

We were getting ready to go to Mobile for Mardi Gras, which we do annually, and so we came out here to the cottage, looked at it late in the evening, and it was one of those things, Amanda.

We walked in the door, and it was just like this house was talking to us, and so next morning, before we left for Mobile, I signed all the papers.

We moved in in June 2019.

<Amanda> And Walter, you said that you decided that you, with the help of the very fine garden designer and head of the crew there, that you wanted to make a clean start of the yard.

Is that correct?

>> That's correct.

You know, we didn't do it right away.

You move in in June.

That's not exactly the best time, but yes, Chris Spearen, who is that the head of the landscape crew here and, by the way, for many years he was at the Botanical Gardens.

He's just an incredible young man.

I said, "you know, this shrubbery looks...

I know it's easy to maintain, but it reminds me of a parking lot.

We'd like to have some more Southern plants and some native plants, and certainly some as I say 'real azaleas.'

I don't like those ever blooming things."

And he said, "we can work that out" and so over the last fourteen months, we have redone the complete landscape around our house, and one of the things that we created front and back are cutting gardens.

Nela has her herb garden that she specifically wants, and everything was great this year until we just had a cold snap the last few days, and so the basil went.

>> Well let's kind of start with where you have a place for two automobiles, which is very fortunate, and both you and Nela have family objects that were important and lent themselves to be displayed.

I believe she, of course her mother was a reamer originally, and so she has two very large and beautiful cast iron pots that you used to flank the parking areas.

Is that correct?

<Walter Edgar> That's correct.

As you know, most of those decorative urns from the old days are very shallow, and they get very hot, so we have succulents planted in those.

Then there's a very large urn that my grandfather Edgar had worked with his family's firm, which was Mobile Pulley and Ironworks, and in the depression, there was not a lot of market for business machinery, so they did decorative ironwork: This pot, this huge pot of a nice Queen Kimberly Fern, and we have an iron table on the back porch.

So we brought these family pieces with us because it's just a bit of a who we are.

>> And then Walter, also Carolyn Gibbes Croswell, who's family also was in the iron business, I believe that her father Mason wanted you to have a memento from their business, is that correct?

>> That's correct, Gibbes Machinery Company, which used to stand at the corner of Blossom and Assembly, all around the top of the facade on four sides, they had these big cuts that said it was the Gibbes Machinery Company logo, which is actually the imprint in the manhole covers that they made.

When the university bought that building to tear it down, Mason had all of the logos removed, and he said he would like for me to have one, and Carolyn Gibbes, longtime friend, Croswell, called up and said "I'd like you to have one of these," and we've got it as wall art now.

<Amanda> That's wonderful.

Well let's talk about that lovely front porch area, and for privacy you have put in, I believe, a hedge - what will be a hedge of... Is it loropetalum that you chose, Walter?

>> It's loropetalum that I chose.

They're the miniature variety so they won't get that tall.

They'll get just about as tall as a safety railing that runs around the edge of that piece of property, eventually.

On the side closest to the street, we have miniature oleanders.

<Amanda> And then, in order to always have things that Nela can bring in the house, you have kind of an herbaceous area there that's filled with pass-along plants, and you're a good historian.

You had them all typed up for me, and I recognize the names of so many people.

Margaret Rembert, whom of course we know, gave you some daisies.

<Walter Edgar> She gave daisies.

They used to be our neighbors on Hollywood Drive, and she passed those along, so we brought those from Hollywood Drive.

<Amanda> And then you've got things from Mary Belser, I believe you've got some sage or salvia from Mary, and Rudbeckia perhaps.

<Walter Edgar> We got Rudbeckia from her, and the sage came from Mary Taylor.

<Amanda> Mary Beverly's mother, Mary Taylor.

<Walter Edgar> There's another agricultural connection, so again those plants came from Hollywood Drive.

We brought them with us.

<Amanda> And then the roof iris, that is a fun story, I think you said, because it kind of travelled across the ocean.

<Walter Edgar> Yes, the roof iris came from the late Henry Lumpkin who was a great professor of history at USC, but before that he had been the historian for NATO and he was based in Belgium for most of his adult life before he came back to Columbia, and he brought these iris with him.

They grew in the thatched roofs of cottages in the Belgium countryside.

When my first wife Betty and I bought the house on Hollywood drive, Henry came up with a gift of these roof iris, and those moved with us to Hollywood drive.

They bloomed the first year we had them out here, which was amazing.

I sent a photo to Harriet Whitehouse, Henry's daughter who lives down in Jackson, Mississippi.

She was just absolutely delighted because she had, as she said, a patch that Daddy brought down here.

<Amanda> Oh, from Belgium to Mississippi and South Carolina.

Isn't that a lovely story?

And from a great historian, a GREAT historian.

I'm sure you have given him many accolades over the years, very important.

And pampas Walter, which many of us have in our gardens, and we went against your grandfather's advice and just got it at a nursery, but yours has quite a story, I believe.

>> Yes, this again was a house gift when we got the house on Hollywood Drive.

My aunt, Mariedora, who passed away earlier this fall in her nineties, was a tremendous gardener, and she and my uncle came through town and she said, "you've got to have some of this in your yard."

She always called 'em "Moses in the Bulrushes" which is an old Southern name, but it's been there since '72 and I dug some of it up and brought it out here.

>> And then paperwhites, which people don't often realize are the very earliest of the bulbs, mine have been in bloom since November.

Yours, I think came from Betty Rast, your dear sweet first wife, and it travelled all around to Texas, or what's the story?

>> The story on that is her great-grandfather was the scandal of the family.

He was the only that did not graduate from college because he was part of the Great Biscuit Rebellion at South Carolina College before the Civil War.

When they rebelled against the food in the dining hall, they all got expelled.

So he, like a lot of other people when you have a problem, he went off to Texas.

When he left, his mother gave him a bag of paperwhite bulbs, which he took to Texas.

>> So he wasn't completely cast out of the family.

<Walter> No, he wasn't completely cast out of the family, but he got to Texas.

He stayed there, actually had a Texas family, went through the Civil War, was a veteran, his wife died out there, and he decided to come back to South Carolina, which he did.

He married a South Carolina girl.

When he came back, he brought the bulbs back, and they were planted at his wife's family's place over in Pelion, and therefore, we got them passed down from Betty's grandmother.

So they've been multi-generational, multi-moved, and multi-loved, and they are very sweet paperwhites.

I mean, they're the old-fashioned ones and we love 'em.

>> Yes, and then when we were filming the B-roll at your property, I was searching and searching to find three sticks because they marked a place where tiger lilies will come up.

Eleanor Pope, who has, I must say, the most beautiful small native deciduous magnolia that is so glorious in the fall, and is a marvelous gardener herself, did she give those perhaps to Nela's mother, and now they're hers?

>> Well what happened was that Nela's mother gave those to Eleanor when she and Bill set up housekeeping.

<Amanda> I see.

<Walter Edgar> When Nela and I got married, and we did the house on Hollywood Drive, Eleanor brought some corms over and gave them to us.

Of course, we moved those out here.

Yes, they've been cut back, but they did bloom.

Once we got 'em out here, they did bloom, so they liked the transfer.

<Amanda> [laughing] And then one of the things that you said earlier, I'm kind of of the same mind.

Azaleas should bloom in the spring.

You have azaleas that are reminiscent of home.

You have the Formosa, but then of course, since you're from Mobile, what's the other one that you have to have as well?

<Walter Edgar> The Pride of Mobile, which is, growing up, I knew what the official name is, but we had these two huge bushes at our house.

They were like 6, 8, 10 feet apart.

We called them Early Pinks and Late Pinks or Watermelon Pinks and the Pride of Mobile.

It's a watermelon pink color.

It's just absolutely beautiful, and of course, in their season, the Formosa and The Pride of Mobile are great cut flowers.

<Amanda> Yes, yes they are, and so attractive to pollinators as well and have a nice fragrance.

People don't realize how many attractive attributes they have sometimes.

And then Walter, although we've mentioned all these things, I think you and Chris together have done a wonderful job getting some continuity.

For texture you've got some Cephalotaxus, and you, I believe, some beautiful dwarf white sasanquas.

Is that correct?

<Walter Edgar> Yes, yes.

Some he bought, some brought from Mobile.

Bobby Green, who is kind of the keeper of Heritage Camellias, that's where you go to get them, has developed dwarf sasanquas, and at Mardi Gras in Mobile, we told him we were moving to a place we didn't have a whole lot, and he said, "well, I'll give you some things that will grow in a pot.

Some were in a pot, but also they do very nicely as a low feature in the garden.

<Amanda> As we walk around the house, you have a retaining wall which is nice because it gives you two levels to work on, Walter.

In the upper level, you have opportunities for seasonal color with some very large and attractive pots, which you can change out, I believe.

<Walter Edgar> Well, we do.

We change 'em out.

Right now they still haven't been killed, although I haven't checked after the last frost, which is pretty recent.

We have Crotons which of course gives wonderful color for the fall.

<Amanda> Wonderful color!

<Walter Edgar> And we had Hibiscus, and the cold did get the Hibiscus.

<Amanda> And that's a good place for you to have Nela's herbs because she enjoys having those fresh herbs, so I saw there were a good many of those there.

And because of the two levels, it really expands the amount of yard you have.

You also have a Camellia there that you said was Nela's favorite, and you said it was not one I was familiar with.

<Walter Edgar> Well, Lady Clare is her favorite, and that's an old-fashioned one.

It's a single.

It's one of the early bloomers, but it's as you know this year.

<Amanda> Everything's up for grabs, yeah.

<Walter Edgar> I mean, I've seen Pink Perfections in bloom, which you don't normally see this time of year, certainly not here.

But anyway, yes, Lady Clare is just a wonderful old-fashioned Camellia, and a very prolific bloomer.

We bought that because our Lady Clare was tall as the house on Hollywood Drive and we could not move it.

It had been a pass-along plant from Betty's grandmother, from her yard.

<Amanda> Oh my goodness!

<Walter Edgar> But the symbolism of that early bloomer... We've got some others.

We've got a Red Velvet, which is a great, dark, Christmas-y red.

One we got from Bobby Green, which is, everybody knows the Professor Sargent, which is a very tight carnation looking... <Amanda> Yes.

<Walter Edgar> Well, Bobby said, "the man got all the credit, but his wife was the real naturalist."

So he has developed a variation of the Professor Sargent, and I regret I can't recall exactly what the name was, because he said it's the Lady Professor Sargent, but he gave it a full name.

It's like the Merry Amanda Sargent.

[laughter] <Amanda> But we can call it the Mrs.

Professor Sargent if we want to.

Walter, of course you love fragrance, so you have tea olive, some of the smaller ones that won't overtake your yard.

And then you've got gardenias.

We have to have gardenias.

I think you've got some smaller versions of those as well.

<Walter Edgar> But we also have the traditional.

<Amanda> That would not be surprising.

You are a traditionalist in many ways.

And then you have talked about the fact that going from the heavenly soil on Hollywood Drive to Lexington clay and sand, so you're having to do a good bit of amending and caring for plants, I believe.

<Walter Edgar> Well yes.

Still Hopes is the retirement community.

Its built on the property owned by the Guignards.

The Guignards Brickworks for many years, Columbia's greatest industry, or one of the greatest industries.

Well, I know why they were in the brick business, because it's sand and clay.

So I discovered very early on, that anything I planted, we had to bring in top soil and a lot of mulch, and basically the two cut flower beds dug out and brought in just a lot.

It was necessary.

<Amanda> And recently, Chris has helped you add some irrigation at a newer area that's somewhat shady, and you said finally you can have some hydrangeas, and I think you are developing some native azaleas as well.

<Walter Edgar> Yes, we brought in some native azaleas, which again I'd grown on Hollywood.

They're beautiful to bring in the house, and of course they are untraditional colors.

You get yellows and bright oranges.

I know you can get a pink one, but I had Chris get the yellow and the orange, and of course his association with Clemson, and you love that too so.

[laughter] <Amanda> I'm not one of those football fanatics, I must admit.

My mother, of course was a giant Carolina fan.

You know how well behaved my sister is, and my mother was very much like that, but at Carolina football games, she would jump up on the bench and scream and holler, and we would act like we weren't with her because of it so completely out of character for her.

Well Walter, we are so happy in South Carolina and so blessed that you have made us your adopted state, and I know that my mother's friend, Cornelia is smiling down from heaven that you and Nela have found each other after losing your first wonderful spouses, and I hope that as you continue to develop your garden, you might let us come and see how much a Southern garden can be replicated in a relatively small space if one takes the time and care to every time you see a weed, bend over and pull it up.

<Walter Edgar> Well, thank you.

♪ (soft music) ♪ >> I look forward to visiting Walter's garden in a few years and see how it matures.

I think a lot of planning and work has gone into it.

Terasa, I bet you have another question that we can try to get some help with from Laura Lee.

>> There are always questions.

This one is looking for information about both native and traditional azaleas, everything from choosing the azalea, planting it, caring for it, pruning for it.

What have we got?

>> Well, first of all you can go to the Home and Garden Information Center because they are going to have exhaustive fact sheets on azaleas.

But the first thing with any landscape plan when you're choosing plants, is to choose the plant that has the right form and mature size and height, so when you start there, then you're not going to be spending a lot of time with maintenance.

However, there are some beautiful traditional, we call them Indica, Southern Indica azaleas, and those are the ones that I grew up with.

They were in my grandmother's yard.

My grandparents propagated azaleas, and we just loved to see those azaleas coming around - sometimes at Easter, sometimes before Easter.

The time to prune azaleas is after they bloom.

There are many other types of azaleas, Asian azaleas, but the native azaleas are just show-stoppers, and when you can find a good source for those native azaleas, whether it's an independent garden center, or one of the chapters, Native Plant Offerings, that is a great way to get your azaleas.

>> Thank you, Laura Lee, and of course they are deciduous, but the fragrance and the beauty they bring to your garden is irreplaceable.

I want to thank you so much for all the information you've shared with us tonight about natives, all sorts of natives and traditional, and I want to thank everybody who joined us, and we hope that you'll be with us next week, because we'll be right here on Making It Grow .

♪ Making It Grow is brought to you in part by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, certified South Carolina grown helps consumers identify, find and buy South Carolina products.

McLeod Farms in McBee, South Carolina.

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

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