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.

♪ Hello and welcome to Making It Grow.

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

I'm Amanda McNulty, a Clemson horticulture agent and our show is a collaboration between SCETV and Clemson University, and we're so happy to welcome tonight someone who... actually Paul, I think you've been on the show much longer than I have, which is kind of explaining why we both have some gray hairs, I guess.

I think you used to be on with Rowland a good bit, didn't you?

<Paul> I was there with Rowland for a number of years.

I started in 1994, so... <Amanda> You were here before I am and will probably be here long after I've gone on, and Paul you're the extension agent up in York County, and that's a really growing part of the world.

I'm imagining that y'all are seeing a lot of influx from the Charlotte area.

Is there a good bit of development happening there?

<Paul> It's a lot of development.

It's amazing how much Fort Mill area, which is just south of Charlotte, has changed over the last ten years.

New school, new elementary school, I mean, when we came here there was one high school.

Now we got three.

<Amanda> Whew!

Gracious, goodness!

<Paul> That's quite a growth, and we really are just a bedroom community of Charlotte.

A lot of people work in Charlotte.

<Amanda> Well that means lots of questions for you, I'm sure, and fortunately you have a lot of experience in answering them.

And thank you for joining us tonight.

We appreciate it.

<Paul> Happy to be here.

<Amanda> Okay, Terasa Lott is in charge of the Master Gardener program coming from an administrative standpoint, and she does a wonderful job doing that, but she also is a part of our Making It Grow team and answers questions and responds to Facebook and does all kinds of things, but she also usually lets us start up our show with some Gardens of the Week.

Have we got some of those today, Terasa?

<Terasa> We do.

This is our chance to take a virtual field trip to see what's going on in your yards and gardens.

We're beginning today with Richard List, who shared the vibrant pink flower buds of his saucer magnolia.

Next from Roseanne Balint, the fruiting structures of her bottle brush and this was actually something she had a question about and was excited to learn that it was perfectly normal and not something she needs to be concerned about.

A photograph of harvested salad greens was submitted by Carol Boyd of Conway.

And we wrap up with Jared Magun's photograph of a picture perfect pink camellia.

I hope you enjoyed that random sampling of photographs from this week's Gardens of the Week.

Don't be shy.

We hope to see your photographs submitted.

You're welcome to post those on our Facebook page or submit them via email.

My email address is my entire first name @Clemson.edu.

<Amanda> Terasa, in addition to all the things you do with the Master Gardeners and helping us with the show, when you're looking at the questions submitted to Facebook, sometimes you pull ones out that you think our experts might help us with.

Is there one that Paul might be a specialist with?

<Terasa> I think there is one that is absolutely perfect as we had a viewer to ask, "what plants are suitable for small shady spaces?"

<Amanda> Aha!

Well Paul, I have been fortunate enough to visit your beautiful home outside of York, and I know that you do have some kind of narrow places between you and some neighbors that you've made wonderful use of.

Tell us what you've done in those spaces and what some of the favorite things you planted there are, please.

<Paul> Well sure, Amanda.

Yeah, I have 15 feet between house to house, and shortly after I moved in, I talked to the neighbors and we had grass growing in between the houses, and it really wasn't doing too well, so I asked if I could landscape both sides - their property and mine, put the walkway down the middle made out of recycled sidewalk, and anyway, I've got a lot of different species of plants, kind of more of a laboratory than anything else, but a very small tree that I really love.

In fact, there are three native species that grow in South Carolina.

And in the Piedmont, we have the Painted Buckeye, and so the Painted Buckeye can vary in flower color from from yellow to maybe some orangey tones to it, but I dug one up on the back of my property that was about a foot tall ten years ago and transplanted it in this little alley beside my house, because I didn't really want something that grew really large there, and it's done quite well.

It's up to a little taller than I am now, and of course it's exciting to see it multiplying the number of flowers every year.

It practically doubles in the number of flowers that it has, but it's got a really nice... mine happens to be a kind of a greenish yellow flower, about a six inch spike, and the bees visit it, and it's just a nice kind of coarse textured small tree that I think provides a lot of interest throughout the growing season, but especially beautiful when it comes on with its flowers in the spring.

<Amanda> I think that the leaves, that palmate leaf, is also very attractive, even after the flowers are finished, and when I've seen it in nature it's been as an understory tree, so it would be perfect for a slightly shady area, wouldn't it?

<Paul> Right, they normally grow in kind of colonies in the woods.

You don't just find them randomly.

Where you find one, you usually find multiple plants in the same area, and of course the buckeye, the the Ohio state buckeye, which is a different species of Aesculus, a much larger growing tree, but up in the mountains there are some larger growing ones too, one we call "horse chestnut" some people call but the three that I really like are these diminutive trees, the red buckeye in the lower part of the state, the painted buckeye in the piedmont, and then, not that I've seen one, but up in the mountains they have the yellow buckeye.

So anyway, great little tree.

I've got a lot of ground covers, native ground covers as well, and one of my favorites is wild ginger, and there's a lot of species of that, little heart shaped leaves.

Mine happens to be one called Asarum shuttleworthii.

I guess it was named by a guy named Shuttleworth, but it's the one that has the really small heart shaped leaves with the kind of silver veins.

It's evergreen.

It provides interest as a low ground cover all year.

Of course, growing up as a kid my mom called them "little round jugs."

It's a common name for them because they produce this little brown flower that's right at the soil level, so you hardly ever see it unless you part the foliage and look for it, but they're blooming.

Right now is when they bloom.

Another great little ground cover is the green and gold, and I've seen it growing in the woods around my house, but it's very commonly available now in garden centers.

They're nice little strawberry-like growing ground cover, just kind of a rosette of leaves, and it makes little rhizomes or stolons that run across the ground and make little plants, but it starts flowering, I guess mine started flowering in late February.

I saw the first bloom of yellow flowers, and the amazing thing about this plant is when it starts off, the flower is flat on the ground in the middle of the rosette, and over the course of about three months, the flower stalk elongates, and ends up being about three inches tall before it finally fades, but it's a long blooming, spring blooming ground cover.

It blooms a good three months.

<Amanda> It's a good strong yellow too.

It's not... <Paul> It's a really bright little daisy like flower.

<Amanda> It really brightens its corner beautifully, I think.

<Paul> Yeah, it does.

Another great little native round cover that also I've seen growing where I live in York County in the woods, and of course it's very common in the mountain areas, is Iris cristata, which is the little crested, dwarf crested iris.

I like it because the foliage texture.

I love irises to begin with.

I like the sword shaped leaves, but this one's really cool because all the leaves kind of have a curvature to them.

They all tend to curve in the same direction, away from the clump, and I think it just provides a very neat kind of textural interest when it's not in bloom, which is a good thing because it's one of those plants that if you go out of town on vacation for a week and come back, you might have missed the flower.

The flowers only last maybe two weeks and then they start fading away, and it's done for the year.

It is a deciduous iris, so it loses its leaves in the winter, but it starts popping out new leaves about the middle of March, and it will be blooming in April.

<Amanda> And Paul, does it slowly spread into a larger clump?

<Paul> It slowly spreads.

I started off with a small clump that might have been eight inches across, and now after probably twelve years, it might be two feet in diameter.

Another plant that's really great, and I'd really like to push this one, a native one, over all these hybrids that you buy, and that's the Heuchera americana, which is the native coral bells, and I have grown some of the hybrids with the really pretty attractive foliage and the purples or the lime green or the ones with the white variegation and this, that, and the other, and all of them after several years just kind of started fading away and disappearing.

The Heuchera americana, it just seems to stand our climate so much better, and it's just a great little evergreen ground cover with some interesting texture and coloration to the leaf, and it sends up the flower spike, tiny little flowers that hang down, and highly attractive to our native bees, so it's a great plant for that, for a woodland garden, and it's naturally found growing in hardwood, mixed hardwood forests.

Also there's plenty of other plants, just a sampling of some of the things that I grow that are really great.

I would like to talk about one fern, and it is not native, but it's got a native parent.

It's a hybrid between the lady fern, which is one of our native ferns, and a fern in the same genus, the Japanese painted fern.

So this is a combination.

It's kind of a mix of the two.

It grows like a lady fern, 18 inches to 2 feet tall, so it grows a little larger than the painted fern, but it's got this real silvery light foliage, and it's called the ghost fern, and it really brightens up a dark space and just has really been a fantastic fern that takes very little care.

In fact, ever since it's been established, and I know we've been through some drought years, I don't think I've ever gone around there and really paid attention to it and gave it a lot of water, but it does really, really well, and it's a fern that I think is great for brightening up some dark spaces in a shade garden.

<Amanda> Well Paul, I thank you for sharing this with us, and I think one lesson we can learn from what you've done in your descriptions, is that although some of these do flower, we can have things that have different shades of green and use that to add interest to these areas, and I hope that some people made a good list of these and will start trying this at their home.

Thank you for sharing your good ideas with us, and I know your neighbors are glad because with that just about an hour or so of sunlight you get every day, I bet that grass wasn't doing much there anyway, was it?

<Paul> No, it wasn't.

<Amanda> Okay, thanks a lot, Paul.

<Paul> You're welcome.

<Amanda> This time of year, oh my goodness, the phones sometimes ring off the hook in the extension office because people will have a swarm of bees that comes nearby.

Near where we are in Sumter, there's a sandwich shop across the street, and right next to it a swarm of bees came and got in a tree, and they were about to lose their mind.

They were so worried about the customers, but actually we have some very reassuring news for you, so just sit back and relax, and you'll find that you do not need to be alarmed.

I'm speaking with Ben Powell.

Ben is Clemson's apiculture and pollinator expert and we're so glad to join you.

What is apiculture, first of all?

<Ben> Sure.

Well, it's the study and practice of managing honey bees or other pollinators.

<Amanda> Alright, and let's start a little bit with honey bees, because anyone who has been a Clemson extension agent has had the call from a frantic person because there's a swarm.

In my case, right across from where I'm sitting is a little restaurant where people get sub sandwiches, and the bees were in a tree right by their front door.

<Ben> Oh wow!

<Amanda> Yeah, and so I had to do some quick calling and find out that what to do is, I think you do nothing.

[laughs] So let's talk about first of all, what is a honey bee swarm?

<Ben> Sure, well honey bees are social insects.

That means that they live as a family with the queen and workers and drones, and they all will basically work almost as a super organism.

Each individual bee does its own job, but the entire colony is almost like one living creature, and just like any living creature, it must consume, and it must reproduce and make more, and the swarming is the process by which honey bees make more colonies.

So what happens is the old colony divides into two, and the new queens are left behind and develop, and the old queen takes half of the work force to go form a new colony.

<Amanda> Aha!

We hear a lot about insect behavior being directed by smells and volatile compounds, I guess, that are created or extruded.

Is that part of that?

How do they know when it's gotten too crowded and it's time to go?

<Ben> Sure, well insects are a lot like little robots.

They've got little switches that turn on and off and make them do certain behaviors, and for insects actually smells and what we call pheromones, which they're kind of like hormones in our body.

Hormones signal body changes, right?

And we go through puberty and other things because of hormones.

Same thing with pheromones in the colony.

It's chemical signals that they share, which basically tell them what to do, and so swarming is largely caused by changes in these pheromones inside the colony, which says we're either too big for our space, there's too many of us, or the queen's getting old.

It's time to go make new colonies .

<Amanda> Okay, and what do they do in response to getting that signal?

<Ben> So, it's funny.

A lot of people think the queen is in control inside a colony.

She's big and she's got all the instructions, but that's really not the way it works.

A honey bee colony works like a democracy to some degree, so the workers are actually the ones who signal it's time to go.

So basically here's the science: the queen emits pheromones to the colony that says we're under control.

I need you to make eggs and search for honey, and do the kinds of things that colonies do.

When the colony gets really big, that chemical signal gets diluted, and then the workers are like, wait a sec, I didn't get the message.

And so they start sending signals back saying wait a second, we're either too big or there's not enough room.

We need to do something different.

And that feedback, that basically vote, that says Hey, we need to swarm goes back to the queen, and the queen responds by laying eggs in swarm cells, and these are going to be the new queens that form.

<Amanda> Okay, so those new queens are going to stay with the old hive?

<Ben> Yes, actually the workers are the ones to form them into new queens.

So workers produce food for the larvae, and in the case of a queen, it's something called royal jelly.

They feed them that royal jelly which is full of those pheromones and those chemical signals, and that queen, or those series of queens, develop faster than normal workers do, and what happens is when they're about fully developed, then the old queen signals to the rest of the colony, and the colony talks back and they say Okay, the queens are almost ready.

Let's go.

And so about half of the work force, the older foragers and the queen, leaves the honey bee colony, and those new queens that are left behind will develop and replace that queen that has just left.

<Amanda> Now, you've told me...I've heard you... once when you were talking, saying that it's kind of the queen almost has to get ready to run a marathon or something.

Does she have to change her behavior or anything?

<Ben> Sure, her job inside that colony is to make new bees and lay eggs, so she swells.

She gets gravid with eggs to the point where she can't even fly she's so heavy.

Well, if she's gonna swarm, and she's got to go with the rest of the workers, the workers basically tell her Okay, it's time to slim down .

And they basically starve her.

They get her shrunken to the point where she can actually fly again.

<Amanda> Okay, so they take off, and do they protect the queen?

Is she in the middle of a big ball of bees?

How is it organized?

<Ben> Right, so they're very vulnerable when they leave.

That queen is the only reproductive bee in the colony.

If she dies, the colony that left dies, and so they must protect her, so what happens is they will leave and go to a nearby tree branch, and she will land on that branch, and then all the tens of thousands of bees that swarm go and collect around her, and they basically ball up around her to protect her.

Meanwhile, they send out little scout bees to go find a new home.

<Amanda> Okay.

<Ben> The majority of the bees stay there, while the scout bees look for a cavity.

<Amanda> And before we had humans involved in this with hives, they would have to find a natural cavity of some sort.

Is that how it used to work?

<Ben> Yes, and they live in forest habitats, so it's typically a tree hole.

<Amanda> Okay, okay, so people just get so upset when they got... How many bees would be in a swarm, perhaps?

<Ben> Oh, ten, twenty, maybe even thirty-thousand on a really large swarm.

<Amanda> - Which gets people upset if you've got people walking in your restaurant all day, right by them, but should we be alarmed if there's a swarm in our yard or near where we park our car?

How should we react and what should we do or not do?

<Ben> So bees totally change their behavior when they're in a swarm.

They don't have a colony to defend, in they're all clustered around that queen, and so they're not defensive.

They don't have larvae and honey and food to protect, so they're not gonna sting like they would if you came around their colony, their hive.

So when they're in that cluster, lots of times people can be right next to them and they don't act defensive at all.

In fact, you may have seen videos of people doing the bearding thing where they got bees hanging all off their bodies and stuff.

<Amanda> [laughing] Nah, I haven't seen that one.

<Ben> Well these are events where they actually force the colonies to swarm, and then they keep the queen caged, and they do these strange behaviors where they place a bee on them and have them all cluster up on them.

<Amanda> Well I'm sure our state beekeeper doesn't do any of that.

[laughing] So there will be some bees flying away from that, the scout bees?

It won't just be perfectly quiet with nothing going on, but those bees aren't coming out to sting you, is that right?

<Ben> That's right.

They are merely looking for a home.

And here's another thing.

When they leave the colony, they take all the food they can with them.

They drink as much of the honey as they possibly can, because that's the only food they're going to have until they find a new home, and they eat as much of it.

So they don't want to waste that energy.

So when they form that cluster, they're actually really cold.

They can't fly very well in the cluster, and the few scout bees go out trying to find new homes.

Once a few of the scout bees have figured out a good place, they start signaling all the other scout bees.

Hey, come check this out.

Those scout bees get recruited.

Once they get to a point where there's enough scout bees going to the same place, like I said with a democracy, they all take a vote, and they say okay, we found it, and they all take off at once.

That's usually the kind of scary point in a swarm, because you have thirty thousand bees that all lift off at one time, and they're all buzzing around in a huge cloud of bees that's the size of a school bus.

<Amanda> Oh my, that big?

<Ben> Oh yeah, so when people see this cloud of bees move through their yard, they get very alarmed, but in all honesty, their job is to get to the new home.

They could care less about anybody in that area.

<Amanda> Okay, okay.

When they get there, how do they start making cells and making wax and getting the queen busy?

I guess they need to get some new bees so that they'll be ongoing organisms.

<Ben> Oh, yeah.

It takes about a month for them to start producing new bees, and so they've got a lot of work to do in that time.

Bees make the wax that they build their combs out of glands in their bodies, and that wax is borne by the sugars they consume.

So that honey that they gorged on before they left is going to be used to build the new wax in the new colony, and so once they find that cavity, they start building wax comb, and very quickly within a few days, they've made a small group of cells and the queen starts laying eggs.

<Amanda> Now does she travel around and lay the egg in each cell, or do they pick the egg up and carry it?

<Ben> She inpects it, makes sure it's just the right size and shape, and when it's correct and ready to go, she lays an egg in the bottom of the cell, and then it's going to take 21 days for that egg to turn into a worker bee.

Meanwhile, the remaining workers are doing their best to build that colony so there's more places to lay eggs.

<Amanda> Now, if the queen had been getting kind of old and maybe wasn't going to be as productive as a new one would be, what are they going to do with her?

Do they give her a retirement or how they handle it?

<Ben> Yeah, you know nature's not necessarily as kind in some ways.

If the queen has gotten to the point where she's got a sporadic egg laying pattern, she's not producing those pheromones that we talked about, then the workers will decide it's time for a new queen, and they'll kick her out, and when she gets kicked out, she's gonna die.

But workers will take those eggs that she's laid, and they'll form into queens.

<Amanda> Okay, so did they start that before they kick her out so they'll always be an active, viable queen, or can they get by for a few days without a queen?

<Ben> Well, they can survive for a month or so without a queen.

<Amanda> Really?

My goodness!

Okay.

<Ben> The queen's not necessarily in control of the hive.

She's just the main reproductive unit, so they want to protect her, but the workers and the signaling they do to each other is really what controls the hive.

So it takes 21 days to form a new worker, and they will take those eggs and start to turn them into queens.

That only takes 16 days.

<Amanda> Oh, goodness!

Okay, now we hear that bees are expensive, and sometimes if there's a swarm in your yard, do beekeepers want to come and capture that swarm?

<Ben> Oh, sure, yeah!

Free bees.

Right, so one of the tasks that beekeepers have is to split and divide colonies.

They try their best to grow their apiaries so they maintain losses that they have incurred before, and so swarms are a quick and easy way to get a new bee colony started.

It's a natural division or natural split, so most beekeepers are excited about hearing about a swarm and are willing to help homeowners with collecting a swarm.

<Amanda> Okay, so if people contact their local extension office, they'll probably have a list or they could call you and see if there's anybody nearby.

<Ben> Yes, actually probably the best place to go for information is The South Carolina Beekeepers Association website.

That association has linked to all the local associations, and there's about two dozen around the state.

So you can contact your local association, and they have a group of beekeepers that collects swarms.

<Amanda> And how long should people... we're gonna tell them just relax, don't go and disturb them, but just go about your normal daily business.

You can hang your clothes on the line and all of that.

How long does it usually take for them to find a new home and move on?

<Ben> Well, that's kind of a hard question to answer because there's a lot of factors: How many possible homes are around, what the weather's like, what food resources are available.

So typically when a swarm cluster forms, it's there for about a day, 24 hours.

<Amanda> Wow, that's good.

I wish I could move that quickly.

[both laughing] <Ben> Yeah, if there's a cavity nearby, they'll go ahead and move on, but I've seen swarms linger for three or four days at a time, but it's not a problem, because they're not defensive.

<Amanda> That would be cool.

Well, and then we have a home and garden information center that I just... whenever somebody asks me something, I just look there and they say gosh, you know so much because there's such great fact sheets there.

Is there a fact sheet there about swarms?

<Ben> Yes.

I just updated a new one that's a "Frequently Asked Questions" about honey bee swarms, and it's on the Home and Garden Information Center website.

<Amanda> Okay, well Ben Powell, thank you so much for what you're doing to encourage people to take care of and respond properly to these situations.

We sure appreciate it.

<Ben> We really appreciate the public's assistance, and next time you see a honey bee swarm out there, know there's help for you.

<Amanda> Okay, thanks so much.

<Ben> Thank you.

<Amanda> We thank Ben Powell for enlightening us about our pollinators.

He always has good advice for us.

I was out in my yard, and one of my native azaleas was blooming, this beautiful yellow one, and I also have some nice plant material that Riverbanks Zoo, Diane Baker, cut for me when I was up there visiting recently, so thanks to Riverbanks.

Terasa, I wonder what else, since Paul has a lot of knowledge about it from his many years of horticulture, we think he could help one of our viewers with?

<Terasa> I think he'll be able to tackle this question.

A viewer wrote in: We'd like to add some flowering vines to our landscape, but don't want to add anything invasive.

What do you recommend?

<Amanda> Well, rather than say all the things that we know we shouldn't have, like that Asian wisteria, what are some good things that we can plant, Paul?

<Paul> Well, one great vine is great for early spring and great for the hummingbirds and that's our native coral honeysuckle.

It climbs by twining, so the stem has to wrap around something kind of small in diameter, and so therefore, it's going to kind of stay where you put it.

If you don't provide any thing for it to climb on, it can't climb, so not one that's going to get out of hand and climb up the side of your house, or climb up the brick wall or that type thing.

But red tubular flowers that you can actually keep blooming by doing some dead heading after the first flush.

If you'll prune it below the flower head, it'll sprout some new buds below where you pruned, and then at the end of every terminal stem, will be a flower cluster.

<Amanda> Okay, and hummingbirds can enjoy it all that whole time, couldn't they?

<Paul> They can, and mine do.

Actually, I wait until I see the hummingbirds on that plant before I ever put out feeder.

I have growing in front of my office, which is a really fantastic vine in the early spring, and that is the evergreen clematis, Clematis armandii, so beautiful glossy, dark green leaves throughout the year, and in March, it is just a profusion of bright white flowers, and the one that I have in the office is one called Apple Blossom, which is a cultivar that has kind of pink buds, and the backside of the petals are pinkish in color to give you a little bit of extra color there, but it blooms for about three weeks, and then it's done for the year.

Lastly, a really nice native that you gotta be careful with because it's an extremely vigorous vine and that is the Bignonia or cross vine, and I have one growing around a little trellis I built to hide my trash cans so my neighbor didn't have to look at them out his window, and one vine on the corner, and it covers that trellis.

It is a solid wall of kind of orangey flowers.

I happen to have a variety called Tangerine Beauty, and I've got pictures of just a solid wall of flowers.

You can prune that back occasionally to get back inbounds, but you definitely don't want it close to your house, because it'll definitely just climb right up siding or bricks or that type thing.

<Amanda> Okay, well thank you for that, Paul.

You've given us some good ideas, some for smaller spaces and some if we have a little bit more room.

We sure do appreciate it.

I worked earlier with the community medical clinic of Kershaw County with virtual garden tours, and now let's go and take another tour in Kershaw County in downtown Camden.

And it is my great pleasure today to be speaking with the person who called me about this originally, Cathy Forrester.

Cathy, I've just loved... One of the nice things is I've been able to meet so many nice people in Camden, and I certainly include you among them.

Thanks for being here.

<Cathy> Thank you, and thank you so much for your time and doing this for us.

<Amanda> I'll start off a little bit about where you are.

One very small portion of your house was built as the housing for the enslaved people who worked at Bloomsbury, an extremely large antebellum house that fronts on a main street, Lyttleton Street.

So you go down, and you're very much behind in kind of a private area because you're nowhere near that large street.

Is that correct?

<Cathy> Yes, I think it's what's called a flag lot in that the post goes down the driveway and then it opens up behind another lot, but the wonderful thing for me is that I tell people my neighbors are everybody else's backyards, the perimeter of their backyard, so it's very private.

<Amanda> It is, and of course, the house has been expanded dramatically over the years.

It's not a huge house, but it is beautiful brick work with each addition that material has been carefully selected, so it seems very cohesive when you look at it.

<Cathy> Yes, I think it is.

The previous owners built an addition as sort of an L shaped addition in about 2000, which was ten years before I purchased the property, but it works very well and connects with the old part of the house which I think is charming.

<Amanda> When you come back there, you have a great, great, great big gravel area, and I was thinking gosh, this is a lot and you said you had the same idea, but since you're not on the street, there's no street parking.

If you're gonna have people over, you really need parking, don't you?

<Cathy> Exactly.

It's a long way down that driveway.

In the evening, of course, it would be dark, and even just when I have things delivered, whether it's for the garden or a piece of furniture, an appliance, it's rather prohibitive to bring it all the way down the garden, so it's turned out, although I thought I did not want that large an expanse of what I call my parking court, it's turned out to be very practical in terms of those things.

<Amanda> And one of the things I like is that you and your design with my friend Ricky Lacy, put in within that, another large green area with a crabapple in it, but that gives you a place for people to turn around.

They don't have to back up, and they can just drive and then turn and make a nice easy exit.

And then across from that, if you were standing on your front steps looking across, you've got a lovely hedge of magnolias, I think.

<Cathy> Yes, magnolias, and they back up to my neighbor's hedge of Leland cypresss, and so we brought out a nice sized bed in front of those magnolias that has daisies in the summer and some gardenias, and a few little roses.

That's the one area that the deer tend to get to, because it's a little easier access, but I enjoy looking at that, and I have a lovely urn over there which is lit at night, so it makes a nice view.

<Amanda> And you spent many years living in Charleston, and your family, your maternal grandparents also.

So you have been fortunate to have some things that were once theirs that you were able to bring and use as focal points, and the urn really is quite lovely, Cathy.

<Cathy> Thank you.

<Amanda> Let's walk around to the left, and in just a charming portion, you've got kind of a small little kitchen patio, I think you call it, and talk a little bit about how you use the brick and the bluestone and all to make these transitions back there.

<Cathy> Well, I have had several people comment since the garden was installed.

Oh, you came to Camden and put in a Charleston garden.

And I didn't really think of it that way, but having lived in Charleston all my adult life, I see it now.

It really is a very Charleston garden close to the house on those sides.

It has a lot of brick paving both that patio which has four beds in each corner, or one bed in each corner, four altogether, and we use the old bricks, some wonderful old reclaimed brick, and I wanted so much to have it set in the herringbone pattern, which takes a lot more time, my mason said, to install, but I really think it's pretty.

<Amanda> And Ernest, I know Ernest Washington, and Ernest is a master of that sort of work, so I think you won't find A more beautiful job than Ernest Washington does.

<Cathy> And I have a lot of comments on the brick work.

People feel that way.

And then around some of the walls around the patio areas, he used bluestone, and it has that wonderful rough cut, and I think it's called rough cut or rough edge look to it, and I think it adds an element of interest.

<Amanda> And you use that frequently in some of the more hardscaped areas, and it also gives a nice transition from the brick walls of the house.

There's that bluestone that kind of separates that to kind of let you know that something's going on that you're entering a different space, and one of the things that since it is a small small area, y'all used for continuity, white sasanquas that really just keeps it from being busy, I think.

But then you also have a lovely coral bark maple.

I think you had seen one in Charleston.

<Cathy> Amanda, I'll have to send you a picture of it because it's so beautiful right now, you know.

I don't have much that gives me fall color, but that has got beautiful, orangey gold leaves on it right now.

it is the Coral Bark Japanese Maple, and I'm just very fond of it.

In the spring, it has a beautiful pinky, reddish pink coral bark and very light lime green, sort of chartreuse green leaves, when they first come out.

So it's striking the spring as well.

<Amanda> As we turned the corner, you had some red tips that were just heavily encroaching, and I believe you took those out.

Because you are from Charleston, I think you wanted to have some memories of home, and perhaps some tea olives were used for that purpose.

<Cathy> Oh yes, I love the tea olives.

I have them several areas on the property and as you know, when they bloom, they all bloom at once, and it's just a wonderful fragrance.

I have a combination.

Some of the areas along the hedge line have olives, and some have podocarpus.

<Amanda> Exactly, because as we walk down the steps into what I kind of considered your extension of your dining room and your rear patio area, the podocarpus give you a slightly more formal and perhaps more opaque barrier, although you don't need a barrier, but backdrop from the from the yard next door, and that area I was fortunate to get to sit and eat with you one day, and you have four wonderful of the big white crape myrtles that are so popular now with the beautiful, beautiful cinnamon bark.

<Cathy> Yes, they're so pretty and they've been very happy in that location.

They've grown tremendously in the five years that the garden has been here, and the limbs arch over so that now that they've grown up some, I get really nice shade in the summer to be able to use that space in late afternoon or in the evening.

<Amanda> And nothing is more pleasant, I think, than the sound of water, and you have quite a lovely water feature there.

<Cathy> Thank you.

Yes, it's a very simple rectangular pool basin with brick and with a bluestone path around it.

I'm the same way you are.

I like to leave the door or the windows open so I can hear that constant water sound during the day or in the evening.

It's very soothing.

<Amanda> And then we turned and walked back towards your dining room where there are stairs, and you actually have a more formal outdoor table for dining outside when the weather's nice there, an iron with glass top.

And on the wall, I think you've got an espalier vine.

<Cathy> Yes, we do.

That's jasmine done in that sort of diamond pattern.

Of course, in the summers, I've learned...

I think this was the first or second year that I have it in place, and boy, when that jasmine takes off in the growing season, it takes a lot of time to keep it controlled and growing the way it's supposed to, and I think it's a nice touch there.

<Amanda> And then it's all very simple and pared and cohesive as you walk up again with more bluestone going up to your dining room, but as you first enter that, there are two fascinating statues, and do tell us the story of those, please.

<Cathy> Well, the sculptures were done by a man named Henry Mitchell, whose American home was in Philadelphia.

He had been stationed in Charleston in the Coast Guard, actually, in World War II, and he and his wife became close, life long friends of my grandparents.

So in 1980, my grandmother asked him to design and make some sculptures of the four seasons, and he installed them in Charleston in 1980, and unfortunately picked up pneumonia, so they were his last pieces.

He actually died in Charleston when he came down for the installation of those pieces.

<Amanda> You and I looked at them, and we really can't figure out who is who in each one.

<Cathy> No, I've never been able to know which feature.

I was told that one of the ladies, one of the seasons is meant to be his wife, and another is meant to be my grandmother, but I haven't been able to distinguish those either.

They each hold little shallow baskets also made of bronze, which the birds, I've found, adore as little shallow bird baths, so I've tried to keep them full.

<Amanda> Inside them with drainage holes, but the birds enjoy them so much that you stopped up the drainage holes.

<Cathy> I do.

On occasion, I've used florist clay or something to stop up the drain holes so they can have a bath.

<Amanda> Since I'm married to an artist, do tell us the story of this gentleman's wife's response when he said, "I'm giving up my career in the military to become an artist."

<Cathy> Well, he told her that after World War II had ended, and her comment was "you can be an artist as long as you never look like an artist."

She wanted him to put on a suit and go to the social activities that they liked to do.

[Amanda laughs] <Cathy> So they worked it out.

<Amanda> I neglected to mention when we first entered the little kitchen patio area, that you've got a sign there that reflects also some of the feelings about your grandmother that she must have been quite an unusual woman.

Tell us about that little sign that says, I think, My Grandmother's Garden .

<Cathy> Yes, in French La Maison de Grand-mere , which means "Grandmother's House," and when my grandmother was nineteen, they lived in the south of France for a year, and she would recount to us, decades later in the eighties and beyond that, that when they lived in that little village, there was a house near them that she remembered walking past frequently, that had a little sign just like that, that said La Maison de Grand-mere, so one time when my mother was traveling in France, she went to the pottery factory and ordered a similar sign, and so that I could not leave in Charleston.

That came to Camden with me.

And now I'm a grandmother, so I get to enjoy it.

<Amanda> That's fun, and your grandparents, like many people, wanted to get away from the heat of Charleston and went to the mountains, and they had a berry house, and I believe you have replicated that.

Tell us what in the world a berry house is.

<Cathy> Yes, well my grandmother said this was something they had seen on a trip to England, and it is completely enclosed with wire, so the pollinators, the bees, can get in and out, the rain can get in and out, but the rabbits and birds and deer cannot get in and out, and so it really saves your whole crop of berries.

I have mine planted with three raised beds of blueberries, which is more blueberries than any one person needs, I've discovered, and one bed of blackberries, and they bloom very prolifically.

<Amanda> And it's a very attractive structure, and in front of it, you have a fig tree that I believe has some history also.

<Cathy> Yes, I love having all these little touchstones of family members around me, and the fig tree was a cutting from a fig tree that my grandparents planted at the Charleston house in the early 1940's, when they first bought it, and it managed to live until about 2016, about a year before the house was sold, when it finally gave up.

We babied it along for many years, but that was as long as it wanted to go.

I feel very foruntate to have the next generation of that fig tree here bearing figs for me.

<Amanda> And then, I believe the Night-blooming cereus was also passed down.

Tell us about that one.

<Cathy> It was.

It was also a cutting from our wonderful landscaper in Charleston, who passed it on to me, and I keep it going although here, unlike Charleston, I've been bringing it into the house in the winters, just because there are more sub-freezing temperatures here.

Down there, it wasn't such an issue.

And it looks horrible.

I always say it looks like a plant out of Little Shop of Horrors.

Except, when it blooms two or three times a year, for one night, it's absolutely glorious.

The blossoms are probably the size of dinner plates, and beautiful white pearlescent flowers that have an incredible fragrance, and by the next morning, those flowers have dropped down, and they're all finished.

<Amanda> And I think those of us who enjoy remembering family members know how evocative and powerful a sense of fragrance can be associated with memories.

Don't you think so, Cathy?

<Cathy> Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

I cook a lot and bake a lot, and I think food is the same way.

The taste and the aroma of certain foods can just take you back to your grandparents' dinner table or whatever.

<Amanda> And so you do have a very large lawn area that's down because your property slopes rather dramatically, and it's really quite lovely to stand and look down there, the berry house down towards the bottom, and several fruit trees and crabapples and off to the side, but because so much of the part that you live in is kind of small little outdoor rooms that you've created.

When you get there, you get a nice sense of expanse, and it looks to me like, just the perfect place to play croquet and someone can send you far, far, far down the hill when they've got to hit your ball.

<Cathy> Well, my dogs love it.

That's their territory and the nice thing is, in that part of my property, if they want to dig for moles or something, they can have at it as much as they would like.

So maybe that keeps them from digging in the areas that I don't want them to dig in.

But it is nice.

It opens up to away from the Charleston garden to this very different sort of open expanse.

<Amanda> Although your yard does not lend itself to pollinator large areas because it's more formal than that.

You have pots sometimes that can track pollinators, and at your very front steps where I sat, we were just enjoying so much.

The buzz from the beautiful rosemary that was blooming.

<Cathy> Mmhm, recently the pollinators have been all over those rosemary.

I suppose they're getting their last bite for the season, and so they've been just full of rosemary lately, which I love.

<Amanda> Well, as I ended my visit and was getting in my car, I thought to myself isn't this wonderful ?

I am the world's worst person at backing up, and your remarkably well planned gravel area is so friendly to visitors and drivers that I left with only the happiest of memories of visiting with you.

<Cathy> Good, thank you.

Well I hope you'll come back soon and often.

<Amanda> Thank you, Cathy.

<Cathy> Thanks, Amanda.

♪ (gentle music) ♪ <Amanda> Thank you all for joining us tonight.

We hope that you'll tune in next Tuesday, because we'll be right back with more Making It Grow .

Night, night.

♪ (upbeat music) ♪ 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.