Announcer>> 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.

♪ Amanda>> Well, hello, and good evening.

We're so glad that you can join us for Making It Grow .

I'm Amanda McNulty, a Clemson Extension agent, and we have a fun and very informative talk with Chris Judge, an archaeologist later in the show.

It's just going to be fascinating, you just wait.

But it's also fascinating because Terasa Lott is here and she comes up with questions for us because in addition to doing the Master Gardener coordination, you look through our Facebook page and people are sending you questions, and you're kind enough to get them together for the show.

Terasa>> Why, thanks, Amanda.

It's certainly not all me.

I have lots of support with other extension agents, especially Vicki Bertagnolli, and then just everyone in Extension, that's what we do.

We field questions, right?

So I'm happy to help compile them and get them together.

Amanda>> Well, and we all learn so much.

Terasa>> We do.

Amanda>> Yeah, yeah.

Amanda>> Yeah, that's right.

Terasa>> Every day.

Amanda>> Phillip Carnley is... How long have you been with extension now Phillip?

Phillip>> I've been with Extension eight months now.

Amanda>> Eight months, well, we are thrilled to have you and you are working over in the area that I call home.

>> Yes, ma'am.

I work in Orangeburg and Calhoun counties as the fruit and vegetable crop agent.

Amanda>> So you do talk to some people about watermelons and cantaloupes and things like that as well, I imagine.

Phillip>> Yes, ma'am.

Watermelons, cantaloupes, peas and beans.

If you would grow it in a garden, that is my domain.

Amanda>> Okay, and those are things that just seem very Southern, and we're also glad when they come in locally, aren't we?

Phillip>> Yes, ma'am.

Amanda>> Okay.

Laura Lee Rose, you're the Extension agent down there in Beaufort, but you also help in Walterboro and help people in Colleton County.

And...you had a big area that was done for water quality in front of the y'all's office.

Is that still there?

Laura Lee>> Yes, the rain garden we put in many years ago now at the old office, and it's time for a spring cleanup.

Amanda>> Aha.

I think you have a native rose that grows vigorously.

Laura Lee>> We do, the Rosa Palustris.

It is so pretty.

But lots of thorns and I guess it's lots of its progeny in there that I need to pot up and send over to some other places.

Amanda>> You'll have to get some extra long gloves.

Laura Lee>> Yeah, gauntlets.

Amanda>> Absolutely, and then Keith Mearns, you're up there at Historic Columbia running God knows how many properties.

But I kind of think of the main places as being the headquarters is lovely.

It's small, and what I love to see there is you've got some baskets on the front or containers.

And you seem to use a lot of succulents in those.

Keith>> We use a lot.

Yes, we do.

So it's a unique spot right there: The Seibels House.

Yeah, with the containers in the front it's very, very warm.

It gets that winter sun in there.

So a lot of succulents do well for us.

Amanda>> And you don't have to change them out every whipstitch either.

Keith>> We try to do as little as possible, plug some things in here and there.

Amanda>> Yeah, I mean, because that's a lot of property to keep up.

But thanks to the Boyd Foundation, y'all have been fortunate to be able to bring a lot of unusual plants, and have a greenhouse and they've been wonderful friends.

Keith>> Yes, and they've greatly increased our capacity to take care of it all.

Amanda>> That's wonderful.

Okay.

Well, Terasa, I think you usually try to start us off with Gardens of the Week, so that we can start with something fun and lovely.

And I tell people that you don't have to worry about your whole yard looking good, just find one little portion, and send a picture of that.

Terasa>> That is exactly true, and I'm sure if you hunt long enough, you can find at least one spot that you would like to share with others.

So let's take our virtual field trip.

We start with some tulips that have started to flower from Patsy Lupton.

From Mara Schwartz, we have a spring time garden bed.

I know it's always so exciting when we start to see things greening up.

From Karen Kennedy, a bee inside a daffodil on a very damp morning, and it's such a good photo, I can see dew drops, or perhaps raindrops on that daffodil.

From Courtney Myers, a close up of a bright pink camellia flower.

And finally we wrap up with Don Booker who shared several orchids that are flowering.

He said they are really going to town this time of year.

So, we thank you for sharing your photos and giving us a little glimpse of what you're doing.

Remember to check our Facebook page and look at all the photos.

We can only share just a random sampling.

Amanda>> ...And I'm going to ask a question in that so many people love to plant tulips, and they really are so colorful and bright, but they don't persist well in South Carolina, and Keith, do you want to address that a little?

Keith>> Yeah, well, in general, we just don't get enough chilling hours.

Something sometimes people talk about with fruit trees, but with tulips it's a similar issue.

We just don't get cold enough long enough, and then our spring, compared to where they come from is quite short.

We go from cold to hot so quick that they just, they can't get a hold on things.

So there are some species tulips that we can do okay, Amanda>> I've seen some of those over at Moore Farms Botanical Gardens.

Keith>> They're much smaller than those big flashy hybrids, but they're nice in their own way.

Amanda>> But...daffodils and all seem pretty well adapted to our heat and, and summers, but you're not just supposed to go in and cut the leaves off.

Aren't you supposed to let the leaves brown?

Just look at something else until the leaves go brown because that's important, I think, too.

Laura Lee>> The plant needs to photosynthesize, and that's those green leaves need to stay on the plant as long as possible until they turn brown.

That's storing the energy into the bulb for next year's bloom.

Amanda>> Because Phillip, I believe that the bulb sending up that flower uses a lot of the carbohydrates that were stored and it needs to replenish them.

Is that part of what happens?

Phillip>> It does, and that's why those leaves hang around longer than the floret or bloom spike and that's why it's also important to leave them hanging on to that bulb for as long as possible.

Amanda>>...you tell me you like to drive on the backroads and isn't it fun to pass places where you'll see these stands of old narcissus that were in farmyards and things.

>> I love to see the old home sites with the narcissus and sometimes you'll see the bluebells as well.

Amanda>> And daylilies too.

>> A lot of daylilies.

Amanda>> Alright, Terasa, well, I know you've compiled a lot of questions for us.

So we'll get to those questions.

Terasa>> How about we start in Dalzell with a question from Frankie?

Oh, this is a question that I would be interested in as well.

He says, "My family loves strawberries."

"Are there any that I can grow at home?"

Amanda>> Ooh!

Phillip>> Well, I reckon I'll field that question as the fruit and vegetable agent.

Amanda laughing>> Have at it!

Phillip>> Strawberries can be a little difficult for the homeowner.

There are a couple of varieties that tend to work better.

Those being Camino Royale, Chandler and Camarosa, which are also widely available commercially.

And they are selected for a larger fruit and a good canopy to keep the berries from sun scalding.

Amanda>> Oh, so they can get hurt by the sun.

Phillip>> Yes, ma'am.

It's more or less depending on how sunny or cloudy the day is.

Usually you see it less when we have these overcast days that we've had here recently.

But every strawberry is also very susceptible to different fungal blights.

And those tend to do a little bit better for the homeowner.

Amanda>> Okay, well, thank you.

Should they save the runners from year to year or do you think they should start over with fresh material?

Phillip>> Usually it's advisable to start over fresh each and every year unless you're doing the everbearing in which case your first crop is usually about April or May.

And then you will follow that with subsequent crops until the first frost.

And it is possible to keep them year after year, but it's not advisable.

Amanda>> Okay, yeah, start fresh.

Phillip>> Yes, ma'am.

Amanda>> Well, thank you for helping with that.

We really appreciate it.

Terasa, who else can we help?

Or trying to help?

Terasa>> I'm sure we can help.

We'll try for Morgan in Cayce, who might be interested in helping monarch butterflies.

Morgan says, "Can you recommend some sources of native milkweed species?"

Amanda>> Okay.

And Laura Lee, why is milkweed so important for the monarchs?

If you'll remind people, please.

Laura Lee>> Well, the milkweed is the host plant of the monarch butterfly, and so the little caterpillars have to have the plant leaves to eat.

Amanda>> It's the only thing in the world they can eat.

Laura Lee>> The only thing.

Amanda>> Okay, yeah, and I have heard people say it's kind of hard to get it going in your yard sometimes.

Laura Lee>> Well, these plants, I was able to...

When I got the plants, they had already a whole bunch of little seedlings in the bottom.

So I've separated the seedlings out and have just grown the seedlings, and I keep them in a pan of water.

Amanda>> So you've been keeping them in a pot and not putting them out in the yard.

Laura Lee>> Right, these are just my... this is my nursery stock in the yard, but so I have planted some in rain gardens.

That was sort of my point of getting them.

It has a real pretty little white flower.

These don't get real big, and they can take some shade too.

This one is the aquatic milkweed or swamp milkweed.

And we're thinking this one is Asclepius perennis.

Amanda>> Okay, now, do you have monarchs come and eat it all up?

Laura Lee>> I have never seen a monarch on here.

But I do get flowers, and I may just not be in the monarch fly way.

Amanda>> Yeah, that's true.

Laura Lee>> Now, you can also buy...

There are seed companies that have these seeds available for your common milkweed.

And there are some websites where you can find the seeds as well.

Amanda>> Okay.

And then the Xerces X-E-R..., Laura Lee>> Right, X-E-R-C-E-S is the... they are the go to place for...

If you're a nonprofit, I believe they at one time would give you a flat of the Asclepias Tuberosa, which maybe not is the best host plant, but it certainly provides nectar.

And that's the other thing about...

The flowers are going to provide nectar for the adults, which they need for their flight.

Amanda>> A long, long, journey.

Laura Lee>> So the seeds are available.

You can... Do we want to talk about the tropical milkweed?

Let's just talk about the native ones.

Amanda>> Okay.

Laura Lee>> There are, I think, seven species of native milkweed in South Carolina.

Amanda>> We talked about the tropical milkweed in a show a while back.

And all of our shows are archived at MIG.ORG.

And you could find that by visiting there.

That's a little bit of a touchy subject.

But at any rate, we're all trying to do all we can.

That's right.

Alright, good enough.

Okay, Keith, I think you brought something to share with us.

Keith>> Sure.

Maybe we start with this one here, Amanda>> Alright.

Keith>> which is just waking up.

So you may or may or may not be able to tell.

This is a grape, and this is a really interesting grape for South Carolina and for Columbia.

This is a hybrid grape.

So as you know, we have a couple of native species of grape in South Carolina, one of them being the muscadine.

We have also some other ones that people like to call Fox grapes, couple other species.

And this as it turns out, is a cross between one of those Fox grapes and a European wine grape.

So all the wine grapes are all the same species, Vitus vinifera, so this is a cross.

It kind of happened by mistake, somewhere in Columbia, as we understand it, in the early 1800s.

Amanda>> A long time ago!

Keith>> Yeah.

Keith>> So we found out about it through, you know, historic documentation.

And we went about looking for it, and we found some collections of it out in Texas.

Amanda>> No!

Keith>> So we asked for those.

We asked them to share those with us, and they did do that, and that was wonderful.

It's called the Herbemont grape.

A bit of a story to it.

But there was a Frenchman who lived here in Columbia, South Carolina, during that time, who had found this and made it very popular, because they were actually able to make some wine out of it, which was, as we all know, kind of a difficult thing here in South Carolina.

And so that's how we brought it back to Historic Columbia.

We felt it was kind of important along those lines.

So it's the Herbemont grape.

We do have it growing at the Robert Mills House.

Amanda>> On an arbor?

Keith>> We have it growing on arbor.

Yeah, and it's a wonderful plant, makes these really big leaves.

It looks, if you're at all familiar with the way different grapes look, it looks like a wine grape does as far as its great, big, beautiful leaves, things like that, but it has most of the disease resistance of the native grapes.

Amanda>> Oh, cool!

Keith>> So it's a really neat plant for us.

Amanda>> Now, I believe you all are having an event where you have been propagating plants, and someone will be available for people who are interested in trying some of these in their own garden, is that right?

Keith>> That's right.

Yes, we do propagate plants from all our properties, not just to sort of have in case something happens, but to have available for people.

Amanda>> I think that's wonderful, so other people can try them too.

Keith>> It's going to be at the Hampton-Preston Mansion.

Amanda>> Okay, and you have a beautiful new gate through which you can enter now.

Keith>> That's correct, yes.

We have a wonderful new facility there that just finished construction and in a partnership with the Boyd Foundation, Amanda>> I walked through it the other day.

Okay, the Herbemont.

How do you spell it?

Keith>> H-E-R-B-E-M-O-N-T. Amanda>> Okay, Herbemont grape.

Isn't that fun?

Keith>> Mmm hmm.

Amanda>> We'll have to try some.

Amanda>> Okay, Terasa, do we have...

I think we actually this week are fortunate enough to have a spotlight garden, somebody who had been working hard enough to show at least half of their yard.

<Amanda laughs> Terasa>> Yes, and in this case, it's not a yard but a small hobby farm.

So this comes from Erica Schultz in Lodge, South Carolina.

And Erica said she has a small hobby farm with a high tunnel, and you know, that's a plastic covered structure, so similar to a greenhouse, but passive heating and cooling.

She also has fruit trees, and of course, she said a flock of chickens.

In her photos, we see several seedlings, so first tomato and pepper, then pole bean, cucumber, and grape.

Next, we see a close up of emerging maple leaves.

And finally, we finish with some flowers that I think could be candy striped creeping phlox.

So many thanks to Erica for sharing a little piece of her small hobby farm with all of our viewers.

Amanda>> Well, I just think that's lots of fun and not nearly so expensive as going into the production of a greenhouse and all that.

Terasa>> Yeah, true.

Amanda>> Well, good, good, good.

All right.

Well, have we got a question?

Terasa>> We do, you know, we always talk about choosing the right plant for the right place.

Amanda>> Yes.

Terasa>> And this question fits into that category.

Avery from Orangeburg says, "We're building a new house, how do I choose a grass for my lawn?"

Amanda>> Oh, oh, well, I think since Orangeburg's part of your responsibility, and this isn't a small fruit or vegetable and we don't want fruits and vegetables acting as weeds and as potential lawn.

How do you...

There's several Southern turf grasses that we can use.

How do you select one?

Phillip>> Well, usually I look at the soil type for Orangeburg and Calhoun Counties, and what we usually have there is very sandy soil, much like the rest of the state.

And our top three turf grasses, or four for that area would be Zoysia, Bermuda, Centipede and St. Augustine, with St. Augustine being the least desirable of the four.

Amanda>> Okay, because... Phillip>> It's disease pressure or tolerance is a lot less than the other three.

Amanda>> Isn't it kind of finicky in what you could put on it sometimes too?

Phillip>> And it is.

Between it and Centipede, it does tend to have some chemical issues.

The toughest of the four, or two of the toughest of the four, in my opinion, are Zoysia and Bermuda grass.

Bermuda is what you find on golf courses quite frequently as is Zoysia.

All four of these grasses are known as the warm season grasses or Southern grasses and grow exceptionally well in our climate.

Now, Bermuda needs the least input to make a nice lawn.

Whereas Zoysia needs a little bit more maintenance, a little bit more fertilization and is a little bit more needy.

Centipede, also known as poor man's grass, you plant it, it takes at least a year to two years to fully fill in, and it's the most hands off grass; it needs very little fertilization, very little irrigation once established, but you do need to irrigate during that establishment period.

Amanda>> Now, what if you've got...

When we were little, my brother and some neighborhood boys would play football in the front yard.

And we had Zoysia back then.

And is Zoysia one that can take some foot traffic?

Phillip>> Zoysia tolerates foot traffic very well as does Bermuda.

The least tolerant of heavy traffic that I've seen or noticed is the Centipede.

It likes to be left alone with little to no traffic.

Amanda>> Now, what if you live in a house like mine, that's about a million years old, and we don't have air conditioning except in the kitchen and one other room, and we like to have trees all around the house.

Is that going to have an impact on which grass you pick?

Phillip>> It does, Amanda.

Of those grasses, you'll see mixed results, but Zoysia tends to be the most shade tolerant, even over some of the Bermudas and the... Amanda>> Centipede?

Phillip> Centipede and St. Augustine.

St. Augustine will tolerate more shade than the Centipede, but it's not very shade tolerant.

My best advice is to mulch underneath any trees with large canopies or look into a native ground cover, maybe a Carex, like we had mentioned or talked about Carex as a ground cover, or a Mondo grass, Ophiopogon japonica.

Amanda>> Maybe the little tiny one that's not going to take over your yard.

Phillip>> It's not going to be the spreading Liriope that we all know.

Amanda>> I know.

I know.

I know that.

And...I was at Brookgreen Gardens recently.

And when I was... well, I can remember and probably Laura Lee, the avenue of oaks used to be...

The ground was covered of ivy with English ivy, and they have been really taking good steps to try to get rid of those things like that, that are so invasive, and they've removed all of that and it's mostly mulched.

And, you know, and that's quite lovely.

I mean, what's wrong with a nice mulch?

Laura Lee>> Mmm hmm.

Amanda>> I think y'all are going to enjoy our next segment.

We talked with Chris Judge, who's an archaeologist, and he brought some really cool things in to show us.

I'm talking today with Chris Judge, who is an archaeologist with the USC Lancaster, Native American Studies Center, and I don't really know what an archaeologist is.

Chris>> Well, archaeologists study past cultures, and we do it through the material remains and traces of the past.

So it's everything from artifacts, things maybe used by humans, that are durable, made of stone, made of pottery that survived in the ground.

Eco facts: things people take out of nature and use but don't alter, like shells that they eat for oysters or mussel shells, and they get thrown in a pile.

We can't tell the difference between one that just rotted and one that's been used for food.

Plant remains: I think you talked to Gail Wagner on a previous show.

Carbonized and burned, last a long time.

We can look at those for diet.

And then features: you know, fire pits, storage pits, grave pits, any hole in the ground, we can find it, and if those have artifacts, eco facts, in them, that's the kind of thing that we can use to kind of recreate the behavior in the past, human behavior.

It's not just about the artifacts, it's about the people that made and used them.

Amanda>> And in South Carolina, we feel like indigenous people have been here how long?

Chris>> Probably since about 16,000 years ago, in the last Ice Age.

Amanda>> Goodness, and were they highly mobile?

Chris>> Highly mobile.

They're following herd animals like mastodon and mammoth who moved to where the rainfall and the grass is, and so they have be ready to pick up and go.

So they have a lightweight toolkit.

It's hard to find where they've been because they would build a very lightweight house and then move on, and there's probably no evidence of those from the Ice Age.

So we rely on stone tools mainly for those early periods to learn about people.

Amanda>> And later on, I'm going to get you to explain how we know about some of these non durable objects, but first, let's just start with how did they get something to eat?

Chris>> Well, I'm going to call this "forest to table."

The first thing that they would use is something called an atlatl, and the atlatl is usually about two feet long.

Up in my right hand, we've got an antler handle.

Down at the bottom is a antler hook, and then there's a counterbalance weight, and then the shaft is made out of cane, and then it's got some buckskin kind of bindings, and what this did, Amanda, was it was used to propel spears, and so everybody thinks that the Native Americans had the bow and arrow all through time.

You show a bow to a kid, it's a bow and arrow.

You show an arrow to a kid, it's a bow and arrow, but they use something like this, and it's got turkey feather fletching.

It's got a point out at this end.

And by pushing from the way back, it gives you greater distance, velocity and accuracy in throwing a spear as opposed to where a javelin thrower would hold it here.

And so you just...

It's like casting a fishing rod.

You throw it, and this would have been how they would have gone after deer and other game after the Ice Age when the large animals that you could walk up and stab went away.

>>...you said this gave it a little more stability, so that it didn't... Chris>> If you're deer hunting, you have to be perfectly still, so if you don't have a weight back there, you're trying to counterbalance the spear in front of you and it allows you to stand still.

Deer are very skittish and they can see, hear, and smell you.

Amanda>> And then, that one has a point.

Chris>> This one has a wooden point on it.

It's something that I use for demonstrations and I don't want it to break, but they would be stone tipped.

We know that they used antler and bone, and, you know, this one here is a spear point used out of stone.

They would put these onto small handles, socket them into the spear, and then when you're done, it's a knife for butchering.

But it does double duty as a... Amanda>> As you said, lightweight toolkit?

>> Right, you got to be able to carry everything with you.

Amanda>> How did they make these, and did it depend on what was available, what type of stone was available?

Chris>> You have to get cryptocrystalline rocks.

So down in Allendale along the Savannah River, it's chert.

It's a rock that forms in marine sediment.

It's glasslike.

Over in the Pee Dee, it's rhyolites, a metavolcanic rock from the Uwharrie Mountains, mainly.

They're brittle and you can chip them, and it's a two step process.

One is percussion flaking.

You're using a soft hammer, or a hard hammer like a rock to chip.

Amanda>> But before, I just want to say, I mean, you make it sound so simple, but this was a complex creation.

Chris>> This is a scraping tool for working hides.

So once you've killed the deer and you're cooking it for dinner, you want to tan that hide.

You got to scrape out, scrape it clean of all the little particles that are inside there, and so this is a uniface.

It's worked on one angle, and used almost like a carpenter uses a draw knife or a plane to scrape.

Amanda>> All right.

Chris>> And so it can be used to work leather.

It can also be used to work wood.

Amanda>> Okay.

Chris>> But I'm just using this as an example of a percussion billet or a stone to do that.

So you're percussing, or pressure's the other one.

When you resharpen you get a nice edge, you're taking an antler tine and a handle that's set up in your arm here, and then pushing down and up to produce little like serrated edge like a steak knife, because that's what you're going to do.

You're going to cut meat, right?

And so the pressure flaking allows you to put a durable edge on there.

These are sharper than scalpels.

This kind of locks it in your hand and gives you more control and pressure.

Amanda>> Okay.

Chris>> Yeah.

>>Gosh, that's a lot of work, and all the time.?

Chris>> Yeah, it probably worked really well for people that really knew how to do it.

I'm an amateur.

Amanda>> So were people specialists sometimes?

Chris>> You know, you got to wonder if they were kind of like Renaissance folks that did everything, or if there were specialists.

Based on the humans that I know in the present, I would think some people were really good at it, and maybe you traded them, say "I'm not good at that, give me a couple of those."

"I'll trade something for it."

But probably everybody had a rudimentary understanding of how to do it.

Amanda>> If you wanted to cook meat, and I guess, I mean, it was absolutely fresh, you could eat some of it?

Chris>> Right.

>>but eventually you'd want to cook it.

Chris>>If you wanted cook meat, then you need a fire, and you've always heard of rubbing two sticks together, right?

It's probably a little more complicated than that involving the bow, and the bow's around longer before they use it as the bow and arrow.

Musical instrument, right?

The precursor of the piano and the guitar.

Amanda>> So did these people use it to make those kind of tones sometimes, do you think?

Chris>> They may have.

In Africa, they use a very similar one string instrument like this.

Amanda>> So probably that was universal.

Chris>> Yeah, could be, and then, what they'd do to make fire is they rub two sticks together, but they do it in a way that's far more efficient.

So you wrap your spindle around your cordage, and then you stick this down into the hole.

Amanda>> And this was something made specifically for this purpose.

Chris>> This is called a fire board.

We've got a little slot in the front, and you can see where it's been turned into charcoal from the pressure, and then you don't want friction up here, so you put a little oil off your skin on there, and you don't want to drill a hole in your hand.

Amanda>> Oh!

Chris>> So this just goes back and forth like this, and eventually a cone of sawdust builds up on the bottom there, turns into an ember, and then the little slot allows you to take some really dry inner bark of mulberry tree and drop that ember in there, and then blow on it, and you got your fire.

So you've hunted and gotten some meat.

You've got your fire and now you want to cook.

Amanda>> Yes.

Phillip>> Well, they're going to use the marshmallow hot dog technique: put it on a stick and hold it over the fire.

But they probably also want to use containers.

An early container is the bottle gourd.

Amanda>> Which was here.

Chris>> Which was here.

We cut it in half, cut the top off of it.

You've got a perfect container.

Now, it's not fire durable.

You can't stick it in the fire, but what they did was they took quartz rocks... Amanda>> Quartz?

Chris>> Quartz pebbles like these, put them in the fire, heated them up, and then dropped them into the water.

Now what happens with quartz, it explodes.

It heats the water, but it explodes and you get grits in your grits.

It grinds teeth down.

Amanda>> Oh, my goodness.

Chris>> So at the coast, they make... Amanda>> So you say by the time people were in their late 20's or so, they didn't really have any teeth left.

Chris>> They could have serious attrition to their teeth, yeah.

>> which is going to affect your lifespan tremendously.

>> Just from the grinding, yeah.

Amanda>> Yeah.

Chris>> At the coast they make clay balls.

We call them fire-clayed objects.

They just ball up some clay, poke holes in it, so when it heats and cools, the expansion doesn't crack it.

And heat these in the fire and drop them in the container.

Amanda>> And that was a big plus!

Chris>> Yes!

And then in the Upstate we have soapstone.

It occurs in a band from Stone Mountain, Georgia, to the mall in Washington, DC and it comes through Spartanburg and Cherokee County, South Carolina, and they could quarry this, and what they did was they made a hole in it because it's easy to drill, because it's a massive talc that's very soft.

You can scratch it with your finger nail.

Heat these up, drop it in the water and it's thermal, it's resistant to that shock of hot to cold.

Eventually they... Amanda>> So it didn't fill up the water with grit.

Chris>> No, no.

So no, solved that problem.

Eventually they make the whole bowl out of it.

Amanda>> Whoa, and this is a replica, but you could use this to cook fish, you could pull a little bear grease in there, put a fish in and just stick that in the fire and let it just cook real slowly.

Eventually, they start to make clay pots, and as they start to use really starchy seeds like Maygrass, Chenopodium... Amanda>> - which Gail Wagner - which Gail Wagner talked about in a previous program.

Amanda>> Because we have to remember that the three sisters was way, way, way down the road.

Chris>> Yeah, more, far more recent.

But these little starchy seeds, it's like rice, you can't break into the bag of rice on the way home from the grocery store and start snacking.

It's got to be simmered, and so containers that could do that were required, and so we see the rise of pottery vessels.

Now, in doing some replicated work with this, I worked with a guy named Keith Grenoble, who makes pots and uses them and cooks in them, and I was thinking we were going to do an experiment.

I thought we were just going to make a stew or a soup standing up like that.

But what he did was he laid it like that, put the meat in there and the fire's in the center and he just rolls this around, so the meat is turning over.

The heat is broadcasting into the pot.

So you can use these in a lot of different ways.

You can cook in them, you can store them, you can eat from them.

So they have multifunctions.

Amanda>> So these have been fired and are pretty resistant to having that slow exposure to heat.

Chris>> Yes, these have been cooked up probably 1400 Fahrenheit or greater.

So they're able to survive the fire.

Amanda>> So this was important when people had a source of clay near them.

Chris>> Yeah, not every clay works, but they figured out where those sources were and made some.

Amanda>> So where you are with the Catawba, apparently that was an incredible part of their life.

Chris>> They continue a tradition which we think is almost 5000 years old.

We have some of the oldest native pottery here in South Carolina for the whole country.

>>...when I read about it, it sounds like they still like to go to the same original places.

Chris>> They are going to the exact same spot for hundreds of years, if not longer.

Amanda>> Because they know the properties of the clay that comes from those places.

Chris>> They have a clay that they really feel is far superior to all other clays, and another thing that I brought with me today is a nutting stone.

Again, it's soapstone.

They've got these little pits in it.

>> Let's hold it up so they can see it a little bit better.

Chris>> Yeah, it's heavy, and then so they take black walnuts and stick them all in the little holes and... Amanda>> Black walnuts are the dickens Chris>> ...or acorns or hickories and then dump it out.

So they're mass producing nut foods which are important source of protein, predictable in the fall: you get them, you store them, you keep them dry, and deer hunting is not as predictable.

So that's a good source of food that they can use, and then...of course, once you get your food cooking, you got your fish cooking in here, and you got some Maygrass cooking in your pot over there.

Another thing that we know that the natives used was a beverage called Yaupon or Cassina made from Ilex vomitoria.

Amanda>> Yes.

Chris>> In the 16th century, they observe Indians and they're drinking in large quantities, regurgitating it to kind of get into a spiritual like almost like fasting sort of a state as a ceremonial sort of a thing, and unlike our tea, as I understand it, the leaves are green.

Amanda>> So they use the leaves, not the berries.

Chris>> The berries are poisonous, yeah, so you got to use the leaves, and you know, they kind of break them open and kind of muddle them a little bit, and then heat that up, and that makes a tea like beverage, it has some qualities of aspirin, it's got a little caffeine in it, and it was a ceremonial beverage, but you could probably drop a hot rock in here and let that slow, slow, slow cook.

Amanda>> So that was not done to get rid of worms or purgative.

I mean, when I was coming along, they used to worm children, every now and then.

Chris>> I never thought about that, but possibly.

>>But it was really to...in the way that some people fast.

Chris>> Yeah, Amanda>> During Lent and things like that during the Christian tradition and other traditions.

so this for them was to empty themselves and prepare perhaps.

Chris>> Right, right, the French cartographer Jacques le Moyne, in 1562 draws, makes drawings of them, and they're sitting around in a circle, there's big pots and they're brewing it, and then they're using conch shell cups to drink that, and then in that image, several people are in the active process of removing it from their body.

Amanda>> When the Europeans came, you said that the things that they brought made it so much easier to do many things that our peoples who had been here, the indigenous people said, "This is a lot easier, I can get a knife.

Chris>> Unfortunately, when Europeans came, Native Americans sort of assimilated to the mass produced materials.

So we see stump arrow points, the Europeans arrive, the Indians are breaking the bottle or wine bottles, snapping those into points.

But very quickly, they all have the flint lock trade gun.

Very soon buckskins go away, and they're wearing cloth.

You have Native men wearing silk stockings, and they're, they're softer than the tanned hides that they're accustomed to wearing.

Shell beads are replaced by glass beads.

Stone knives are replaced by iron.

Amanda>> You told me a fascinating story about how it was kind of unbelievably circumstantial and serendipitous that we found out about these, these objects that did not last.

Chris>> Yeah, you know, the fire kit that I showed is entirely of organic items, and so it rots away, but in the early 20th century, there was an Indian in California.

He was a Yani, and his name was Ishi, and last of his people.

He was distraught, decided he would walk to the end of the world, and throw himself off.

The cattle herders had moved in and were exterminating his community, and they caught him and they threw him in jail and Al Kroeber, who was at the Lowry Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, found out about it, went up there and got him and then in the summers, they would live off the land.

So he showed Kroeber how you make fire with the bow drill, and how you make a bow, and how you make a harpoon and how you trap and snare small game.

So while in evolution, there are no links to the past, there's no links, because it's a tree.

Ishi is kind of our link to the past for some of these kinds of things.

We call this experimental archaeology.

If we try to do some of these things, we bridge the gap between the static archaeological record, things that just don't tell us much, but the dynamic behavior that produces all of this, and, of course, there's always the possibility that we're wrong, but it helps us engage in the past and kind of come up with some theories that are viable.

Amanda>> Y'all have wonderful exhibits that change pretty frequently up there, and then there's some things that are always there.

So let's talk a little bit about the Native American Center.

Chris>> Everything's changing.

We have exhibits.

Our curator rotates them through very frequently.

And we're free Tuesday through Saturday to come up and come see Native American exhibits.

Sometimes it's this sort of thing.

A lot of what we do is rather than thinking about Natives in the past, we think about them in the contemporary moment, and so we've got exhibits on the different tribes coming in for a year where you can kind of look at those and art, mainly modern, Native American art tied to either the Southeast, or specifically South Carolina, >> Because people's culture isn't static; it changes.

Chris>> No, it changes all the time, as you know.

Like, how often did your parents say, "We didn't do it like that when I was a kid," and it's true.

Amanda>> So we're seeing that there.

Well, I want to thank you so much for sharing this.

Chris>> I appreciate it.

Amanda>> Absolutely fascinating.

Chris>> Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Amanda>> Chris was so kind to bring all those things in, explain some of the history of the indigenous people who are here, and they have lunch and learns that you can zoom or go to Lancaster to see.

I'm going to do one in May up there.

I love going up there.

It's a wonderful facility.

So, hats again, I had some fortunately, I had some forsythia that was going and I had some native Azalea, and I had some of the old fashioned hellebores, and with hellebores, you can't pick them and use them until they finish flowering and sort of setting seeds.

They'll droop too much.

I think these might be a little droopy, and then I think you know the name of the blue...flower, purplish flower.

Keith>> Oh, yes.

You get Spanish bluebell there.

Amanda>> Okay, and say I say the genus it was Keith>> The scientific name: hyacinthoides Amanda>> Hyacinthoides.

Isn't that fun.

Hyacinthoides All righty.

Teresa?

Terasa>> Well, let's see South Carolina is referred to as the Palmetto State.

So, this is an appropriate question from Paula in Beaufort, who would like to know when should I prune my palms?

Amanda>> Oh, gosh, Laura Lee, there are a lot of different palm trees that people grow in South Carolina.

You want to talk about our state grass?

>> I can.

Amanda>> First, and then hit some of the others?

Laura Lee>> First of all, this is a real soapbox of mine and I just have to give that disclaimer because it hurts my heart when I see trailer loads of green Palmetto fronds riding down the highway behind the landscapers truck.

It's a real disservice.

Research shows that the green fronds, the older fronds on the palm trees, whether it's a sable or whether it's a one of the jelly palms, those green fronds are actually the nursemaids for the new growth that's going to come out each month, and if you... remove that, it's the photosynthesis, they're still, they're green, they're still photosynthesizing.

Amanda>> - Even if they're half brown.

>> They're still, >> They're also half green.

>> That's right, and they're so they're still providing nutrients, the magnesium, the trace elements, manganese and those things, for the new growth.

But they're also, the older fronds that are hanging down are providing habitat.

There's so many animals that rely on the palms, from birds, to raccoons to the bats that are living down there, and bats are wonderful insect control.

They eat a lot of mosquitoes.

So, the best time to prune Palms is not, never, ever don't do it, and literally when you're pruning a tree, whether it's a palm, a monocot, or a dicut your wounding that tree, and that's an opportunity for diseases and other pests to get into the tree.

Amanda>> Now, we had a great big storm, and a lot of the old ones that had been hanging down for a couple of years, all blew off.

Laura Lee>> They fall off.

They...eventually that abscission layer, or maybe that's in dicots, but anyway, the frond will fall off, when it's not providing any more nutrition to the plant.

Amanda>> ...When they bring, if you had one bought to your house, they generally take the top growth off, as I understand the roots are, they don't have the same root systems.

It's like a maple tree or something, and so, it's kind of we got to redo the roots.

Is that correct?

Laura Lee>> Yep, and the best time to plant a palm is not in the fall, but actually, in the spring and into the summer because they need that warm soil temperature to be able to regrow those fibrous roots.

Amanda>> Active growth.

Now, you talked about, I like it when the bracts, you know, after the leaves, after they fall off, sometimes the bract is left.

I think it's kind of cool looking.

But there's not I mean, they, it seems to just be their decision and not mine.

Laura Lee>> Eventually, they're going to fall off on their own.

Keith>> So yeah, Amanda>> Let's do that.

Oh, because I was trying to look at Keith and bring him on.

Do you mind?

>> No.

>> Okay.

Keith, we were talking about the bracts earlier, and I like I love the way they look at them.

I've even seen people who've planted in them or things that grew in them.

just planted themselves in them.

Keith>> Yeah.

>> But I've never pulled them off or anything, but sometimes one, a couple of my trees have them and some don't.

Keith>> Yeah, it's interesting.

Seems to be from one plant to the other, they do this differently.

Sometimes they will shed those things, and they do it all at once seemingly, some how.

But I tend not to take them off because actually it's quite difficult and, and palm fiber, as it turns out, it's really, really hard on blades.

It's even worse than regular wood is, when you try to get through it.

So, it can be a difficult thing.

You're going to put a lot of wear and tear on your blade trying to get that off.

Better to let it loosen.

I guess to a point where it's real loose and you can just shake it off.

Amanda>> or just find something else to do There's always something more important.

than messing around with your palm trees.

Okay, well, thank you.

Okay, I think you got another show and tell for us, please.

Keith>> Sure.

Let's do this tree here.

>> Okay.

>> Okay.

So, it's a small little conifer, and this is a neat one because it's kind of a rare plant.

I don't remember exactly what the numbers are now, but people refer to this as Atlantic white cedar.

Amanda>> Oh my goodness.

Keith>> ...As a juvenile maybe it kind of resembles our eastern red cedar a little bit, but they're not really very closely related.

They're in different genera.

This is Chamaecyparis thyoides, is the scientific name on this, a really neat conifer.

You know, I rooted cuttings of this actually from one individual down at Moore Farms Botanical Garden, on a visit down there.

and it's neat as a conflict because it can grow in really moist wet areas, which is not something usually associated with most needle evergreen trees.

Amanda>> I think it likes sandy wet areas too.

Is that correct?

Keith>> I think so.

Amanda>> That's what I've been told.

Keith>> But they're always almost always associated with kind of baggy low places, which is, which is a really neat attribute, I think, Amanda>> Well, and when you get ride down the highway and Phillip, we were saying we always like to be on the backroads.

You see, cedar swamps, Cedar Grove Baptist Church, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, and I always thought they were talking about Eastern red cedars, but they're not, because they're talking about places where it's kind of wet, and as you go down towards the beach, sandy, and that that was the tree that was there, and I understand it's even more resistant to rot than on cypress, Keith>> That wouldn't surprise me, I really think it deserves wider use in the landscape, honestly, because it's not any trouble to grow, really, and especially if you have a place that doesn't drain real well, which happens a lot in urban centers, and in new neighborhoods, when there's been a lot of machinery that has come in and compacted and you've got really some not great drainage.

It'll be a really good option for you.

Amanda>> So, if I imagined it, like full sun, like most of our conifers.

Keith>> Yes, now it can, it will take some shade, the more shade it has, the thinner it will be and it will stretch a little bit.

>> Uh huh.

Amanda>> Yeah, yeah, but...and again, y'all are going to have an event where some of these plants are going to be available people who might want to try them in their yard and that's going to be at which of your properties?

Keith>> The Hampton-Preston Mansion.

So, and this is a good size to establish smaller plants are always easier to establish, I think.

Keith>>I really do.

I really favor containerized plants, because when you have a container, you've got the whole root system.

Now you do want to look for plants that aren't root bound in there where the roots are circling, that's not great, but it's always better, I think to have the whole root system as opposed to a plant that's been dug up from a field, can be a little bit difficult to keep alive.

Amanda>>...and Phillip if you get a plant that's I'm going to sit that down, so I can see Phillip, that is root bound and they're circling, you need to go in there and cut back those thicker roots and try to pull them out with your hands, if I'm not mistaken, Phillip>> That is right, you want to try and tease those roots loose, and redirect them in a way where they are spreading out away from the trunk of that tree, or if they're circling and they're a lot larger, usually about the size of your thumb.

We recommend that or I have recommended that you prune those off in a manner where that when they flush back, because they will regrow from behind that cut where they will flush away from the trunk of that tree as well.

Amanda>> and sometimes, you know, if you're at the nursery, you can't tell what's going on in the pot, or if you order or sometimes when you order things.

So, I ran into a situation where I had to, you know, they were this big going around and around and I just had to go in there and cut them off and just but they've done that and I've managed to keep them going.

>>...the biggest effect I've seen with that, Amanda is how many times has that plant been what we call stepped up or potted up?

The more times it has been transferred from pot to pot, the more difficult it is to really figure out how root bound that plant can be.

Amanda>> All right.

Well, thank you.

Well, Teresa.

Let's see what we can do for someone else.

Terasa>> Sure.

Well, Casey has a question about something I was unfamiliar with being a northern transplant.

Casey calls us from Conway and said, what are the best southern peas to grow in my home garden?

...So, one of the first things I had to learn was that southern peas are completely different than English peas, and in fact, I believe a southern pea is technically a bean rather than a pea.

Is that right?

Phillip>> It depends.

Lima beans are technically beans, but the southern pea is kind of in a class on its own.

It's not technically like an English pea, and there are several really great varieties.

They're very well adapted to our area, our soil structures throughout the southeast United States, and I have quite the personal affinity for those.

I grew up picking peas and beans with my grandparents when I was a young boy.

Amanda>> Who don't like butter beans over rice?

Phillip>> Oh absolutely.

The picking was always the hardest part and then sitting down and shelling, but there are several really awesome varieties.

For...beans, you've got Jackson wonder, which is an older Bush type, and then there's Thorogreen as another lima bean, and for the pea side there are several really good ones Brown crowder is a favorite that you'll find as is Pinkeye purple hull.

Now these varieties are old, but there have been some breeding improvements where they are bacterial and blight resistant varieties, and you'll find that a lot of those older types aren't as resistant, but the flavor is there.

I tend to personally like the cream varieties which have a lighter green color when shelled...and Amanda>> - the White acre >> Yeah, White acre is a good one.

Sadandy is another good one, as is Texas cream eights, cream 40s and cream 12s.

Amanda>> Goodness gracious.

I guess they've had work done to them.

Keith>> Texas has done a lot of research into the field pea or the southern pea varieties.

Amanda>> It's hot out there.

>> It is very hot.

Amanda>> ...did they have great water needs, or are they somewhat drought resistant?

>> They are very drought tolerant.

I wouldn't necessarily classify them as resistant, but very tolerant.

They would prefer to have adequate moisture, but if we get into a hot spell where rain is not as abundant as we would like it, they do take it on the chin quite well.

Amanda>> I know that we had got with the changes we see and the temperatures.

I believe in the way that sometimes tomatoes won't pollinate when the nighttime temperatures are above a certain point.

The same thing is happening with butter beans, and I think that they've been Tony started Tony Melton, our wonderful friend started some work over the Pee Dee.

Bruce McLean, I believe is continuing that work.

Phillip>> Bruce McLean is continuing Tony's research with butterbean varieties, and from what I have been able to ascertain from that research is most of our seed production for butterbeans had moved out west, and what that caused over time was those genes for heat tolerance to be switched off in those plants.

So, what Tony accomplished was growing those same varieties in our climate and under our new climatic conditions, and it reestablish that heat tolerance for those beans.

Amanda>> ...And that would be wonderful for farmers because a lot of them I believe, that was like a niche crop they could use in the summer.

Phillip>> It was and what you would find is on the roadsides and markets and farmers' markets.

Butter Beans tend to be a great fresh crop, fresh market crop that if you home gardened, everybody had their own beans, but if you had a little bit of excess, it was always common to see them sold at market.

Amanda>> Okay.

Well, thank you so much for telling us about that.

Keith, I think there's something else that's going to be offered up at the Hampton Preston.

Keith>> Sure.

So, this is >> That's a wispy looking...thing.

>> It's kind of funny, funky looking, isn't it?

So, believe it or not, this is in the genus hypericum, which >> Say it again please.

>> Hypericum.

>> Hypericum.

>> which are the St. John worts, St. John worts.

There are lots of different species.

The hypericum in the southeast, believe it or not, it's one of the larger genera of woody plants, and this is a really neat one kind of from, I want to say southern Georgia into Florida, it's kind of sandy places, but it does really well for us too.

This is Hypericum lissophloeus, and it doesn't really have a common name, but it's a really neat plant because it grows up right like this, and it will get eventually to maybe I would say four or five, six feet tall, eventually.

It takes a while to get there.

Amanda>> Is it going to fill out Well, no, it's kind of like a small tree form, and it's really neat because the bark that it gets eventually is this dark chocolate color and it exfoliates similar to the way a crape myrtle does.

Amanda>> My goodness.

Keith>> So, it has that bark quality to it.

But it's really nice and also doesn't have it right now, but soon it will make all these tiny little beautiful white, yellow flowers, say yellow flowers all over the top, and it moves quite nicely in the wind.

So, it's really neat little kind of collectors plant.

That's not really that hard to grow.

The only thing about it is you don't want to put it in a real wet spot.

It likes good drainage and that's about it.

Amanda>> Isn't that fun?

...and it doesn't even have a common name.

Keith>> No, not beyond maybe St. John's Wort because I think everything in that whole genus is called St. John's wort.

Amanda>> Well, fun, fun, fun.

All righty.

Terasa, we've got I think, about two minutes left.

Is there something quick that we might be able to?

Terasa>> This one might be quick from Regina in Yemasee she says there's a white tree that is starting to flower.

I see it all up and down Highway 17 What is it?

Amanda>> Okay, Laura Lee.

That's your neck of the woods.

Laura Lee>> Well, I think it's probably granddaddy greybeard or Chionanthus virginicus.

That's a wonderful small native tree, and right around Easter time, it just is in its full glory.

There are I believe male and female plants and they do form droops.

Generally, they're found in good, evenly moist soil, but you'll see them just about seem like going up and down, the highway or right around Easter you see one in every yard.

Amanda>> Well and if I'm not mistaken the male is showier, which you know like with birds, but the female as you said does have fruits or you know, and I understand that they're very attractive to birds.

So, what a wonderful plant to have in your yard to have a showy fellow standing up there and his nice little bride back in the kitchen making wonderful food for wildlife.

How does that sound?

And easy...to grow.

Yeah.

Awww.

That's fun.

That's...all right, well thank you all so much for being with us and bringing such fascinating things and fascinating information and we'll see all of y'all next week.

♪ closing music ♪ ♪ Narrator>> 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.