Making It Grow Minutes

In cockscomb celosia the fasciation trait is reliably carried in the seeds. Cactus plants also seem to spontaneously develop this peculiar growth habit.

Herrick Brown, now the curator of the A C Moore Herbarium at U S C, visited us recently with eye-popping examples of fasciation in plants.

A native weedy plant, Eupatorium cappilifolium has the common name of dog fennel as supposedly the peculiar smell of crushed stems and leaves is attractive to dogs.

Flowers, of course, are supposed to be perfect and just cut but an arrangement of just flowers can be rather dull – but add an interesting stick or branch to grab your attention and you’ll stop to smell the roses, so to speak.

Herrick Brown is the new curator of the A C Moore Herbarium at the University of South Carolina, taking over from our friend Dr. John – a k a Dr. John Nelson. Fasciation was the feature of some specimens Herrick brought to Making It Grow recently – a weird type of plant growth when the something goes awry in the apical meristem – the specialized group of cells at the tip of a plant –and instead of...

The glorious deep purple Judge Solomon Southern Indica hybrid azalea graces many Southern gardens and the drive into our prized national treasure Brookgreen Gardens.

A move to Florida for his health lead to the creation of a real beauty.

Brookgreen Gardens is a national treasure with stunning, sometimes whimsical sculptures set in acres of horticulture splendor. Not long ago, I was visiting, and although beautiful at any time of the year, the long drive in was breathtaking as the Formosa and Judge Solomon, both purple pink but with a subtle difference, were in full flower.

I went to Brookgreen Gardens recently where the drive in was at peak beauty with the Indica azaleas in full bloom. Some of the old Indica azaleas are named for people with curious histories.

When I was young, Momma would sometimes ride us around to look at the beauty of springtime in Columbia. People tended to have the same plants in their yards – backbones of spring beauty were the Southern Indica azaleas, with the scientific name Rhododendrum indicum.

Lonicera sempervirens is a native, non-aggressive honeysuckle wonderfully attractive to pollinators, including hummingbirds and butterflies.

For a home garden, you may want a medium-sized trellis as it tends to flower at the ends of vines.

Clematis armandii, named ‘Apple Blossom’ has buds that are a lovely soft pink, and even when the flowers open, the lower part of the petals retain that color against the pure white center.

Swamp jessamine doesn’t have the sweet fragrance of yellow jessamine, but it blooms in the spring and the fall.

Our state flower is actually a vine. Yellow Jessamine, Gelsemium sempervirens.

Common seedling redbuds can grow to twenty feet pretty quickly and that makes it hard for me to reach the flowers which are at the ends of the branches.

Redbuds make our woodlands beautiful with their early purple/pink flowers. Breeders have gone to town with this native and all sorts of cultivars are available.

Cercis canadensis, our native eastern redbud, is an early bloomer. With protein rich pollen and sweet nectar, it’s an important food source for many native bees, including the blueberry bumble bee.

When people from the the Mediterranean areas of Europe came to North America and saw native redbuds, they called them by the familiar name of Judas tree.

Well, as soon as you think you’re giving the right information, you find something that makes you back track. Our native redbuds prefer partial shade but driving down Devine Street in Columbia recently, I marveled at the beauty of the redbuds growing in absolute full sun.

Cercis canadenis, redbuds are in bloom in South Carolina and what a distinctive and lovely understory tree they are.

Like many birds, they also enjoy fruits and berries, in season, which are a consistent part of their diet.

Male sapsuckers spend several weeks drilling out a nesting cavity, preferring trees with heart-rot fungus if possible as they are softer to drill into.

If you are worried about a tree used by sapsuckers, you can wrap small gauge chicken wire or such around the trunk.

Amazingly migratory, this bird nests in our part of the country as well as in Alaska and Canada and drills sap wells into trees, over years they are lined up perfectly above the depressions of earlier drilling.