Making It Grow Minutes

Mountain Laurel has a fascinating pattern of twisting and turning branches, very decorative to look at but hard to maneuver through.

A relative of our beloved mountain laurel is Kalmia angustifolia, called white wicky or sheepkill.

Although the common name of Kalmia latifolia is mountain laurel, you can find this handsome evergreen native plant growing, often in thickets, from the mountains to the sea, including on South Carolina's Fort Jackson.

Kalmia Gardens in Hartsville was the creation of Mrs. D. R. Coker, affectionately called "Miss May."

At Kalmia Gardens, a northern type of mountain laurel, galax, and a specific witch hazel have persisted in that unusual ecosystem.

Cicadas are native to our area and have been coexisting with their ecosystems for eons and eons.

Residents of the Palmetto State won’t have to go too far to experience the emergence of maybe a billion periodic cicadas.

When Thomas Jefferson was president, there was an event that is finally repeating itself this year -- a concurrent emergence of two specific broods of periodic cicadas; and it won’t happen again until about another two hundred years.

Unlike some people these days, cicadas don’t have dating apps; they use sound to find a mate.

Naturalist Austin Jenkins talked to us recently about the periodic cicada emergence in South Carolina. Our state’s cicadas that will come out in huge numbers in the Piedmont are on a thirteen-year cycle.

The South Carolina Botanical Garden is a treasure located on the campus of Clemson University.

If you can eat those delicious pine nuts without trouble, you probably aren’t allergic to pine pollen.

Agriculture is the largest industry in South Carolina, with timber being by far the most valuable crop, and pines are the largest component of that.

Pine trees produce male pine cones on the lower part of the tree and female ones towards the top, a clever way to prevent self-fertilization.

There’s actually a scientific method to establish when pines will be releasing pollen: by keeping a record of the number of degree-days above 55° Fahrenheit after February 1st.

If you can safely leave dead branches or even a dead tree on your property, you could end up with at-risk birds happily cohabitating with you.

In part of our large yard, one area has three dozen mature pines. Occasionally one gets hit by lightning and dies, becoming a snag, and we leave them up.

The American kestrel, our smallest falcon, is a handsome bird easily seen as they perch on power lines looking for prey on the ground below or flying past them.

We know about the crisis of people without homes but there is also a crisis for cavity-nesting birds.

Host Amanda McNulty of Making It Grow sees the natural beauty of the Wateree floodplain during her daily commute.

Ladybug larvae, both native and imported, are described as looking like alligators. But, there's an important difference between the two...

Asian ladybug beetles prefer to come inside the part of the house that gets afternoon sun.

Asian ladybug beetles will eat damaged apples, grapes, or other fruits, sometimes creating ladybug wine taint.

If you have Chinese wisteria, please be a steward of the environment and eliminate it.

Benjamin Franklin brought the tallow tree to the U.S.