Making It Grow Minutes

Cottonwoods, Populus deltoides, are dioecious, male flowers and female flowers are found on separate trees. The common name comes from the incredible mass of fluff that the female seed pods produce when they open. The seeds are tiny and the cottony material containing them is a great dispersal method.

I personally have never seen a cottonwood in any other setting but they can grow in a myriad of conditions, making them good trees for reclamation sites.

The Friends of the Congaree Swamp is a conservation organization that plans trail cleanups, makes recommendations to South Carolina DHEC when appropriate, and is dedicated to the conservation of this treasured part of South Carolina’s ecology; the newsletters they share keep us abreast of current affairs and upcoming opportunities.

Our state has lost a remarkable citizen, Charleston gardener and hostess Patti McGee. Her love of gardening originated under her mother’s tutelage in Marion, South Carolina. Her husband Peter was supportive of constant tweaking and additions to their Anson Street property. McGee’s inquisitive mind and love of new people as well as plants, made her beloved by both the artistic and gardening communi...

The recently deceased Patti McGee was known as a gracious hostess and accomplished gardener not only in South Carolina.

If you go to Clemson’s Home and Garden Information Center and search for "Selecting a Christmas Tree, Fact sheet 1750," you will find a list of all types of trees and tell you the complexity or lack of fragrance, how strong the branches are, shades of green with certain hues, and how well the needles hold on.

If you search “South Carolina Christmas Tree Association,” you’ll find ways of locating a farm near you. Click on “Member Farms” for the address, hours, types of trees available, and other services like premade garlands.

If you get a locally grown tree, the carbon footprint is as small as a reindeer’s print in the snow. On the other hand, artificial trees are made of plastic, and the carbon footprint travels from the oil fields to the manufacturer, the retailer and to your home.

When my children were little, going to get a Christmas tree was a great family adventure. With eleven-foot ceilings, we wanted a great big tree and kept a bamboo pole as a guide and we’d strap it to the top of the car to take in the field with us.

This plant's unusual leaves, similar in texture and appearance to yucca, are thick and stringy and deer and rabbits tend to avoid it – remember nothing is absolutely deer proof, but you certainly couldn’t go wrong trying it in your pollinator garden.

Rattlesnake master's slender flower stalks, topped with inch-wide inflorescences, makes a great contrast to other flowers in an arrangement and can be left tall and still be graceful.

Another of its pollinators are the predatory wasps who capture insects to line soil cavities or stems as paralyzed, but living , food for their young. Most are solitary wasps who are not especially aggressive to us.

Many people get most excited about butterflies on their pollinator plants, but Eryngium yuccafolium, flowering late summer, perhaps attracts a larger diversity of visitors than almost any other insect magnet. According to the Xerces society website --bumble bees, yellow-faced bees, sweet bees, multiple beetles and dozens of fly species.

By collecting the plant leaves' tough long fibrous veins, indigenous people could weave them to make moccasins and baskets, a better use than relying on the sap or root concoctions to treat snake bites.

This common name comes from the belief that the roots could cure rattlesnake bites - don’t try it!

The dried wood of osage orange is prized for firewood as it has the highest BTU on charts that rank that property among native trees.

The spread of Maclura pomifera, aka osage orange or bodark tree, from the relatively small Red River drainage system to 48 states was due not just it’s importance to native Americans.

Common names can be fascinating and puzzling.

An inspection by a certified arborist can help prevent losing your shade trees and perhaps having one fall on your house,

Trees react to tsevere internal pruning by adding lots of small leaf covered shoots at the ends of branches. New research reveals this actually makes the trees become susceptible to damage from strong winds

The University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry predicts that tropical storms and hurricanes will now be slower moving by 20 percent, and have 24 percent more rainfall. Your trees will be experiencing stronger winds and saturated soils, increasing the chances of their being blown over.

Future storms will have up to six percent stronger wind loads.

The range of black vultures is expanding rapidly across the south and creating problems for homes and also for parked automobiles.

You can easily distinguish between our two local vultures if you see them in flight. The slightly larger turkey vulture has a V-shaped wing pattern when soaring; the black vulture’s wings are held out straight and have white feathers at the tips.

Our native turkey vulture has almost no negative consequences associated with its behavior. Due to its amazing sense of smell, it can locate decaying animal remains from a mile away, even under trees.