Making It Grow Minutes

If you’re interested in foraging, you might want to look in the old cookbook Charleston Receipts for the cherry bounce recipe.

Our native black cherry, Prunus serotina, is usually defaced this time of year by a large web of silk that houses several hundred leaf-eating Eastern tent caterpillars.

The wood that comes from our native black cherry tree, Prunus serotina, is the most prized in the forestry/timber industry. The wood has the beautiful deep red color valued by furniture makers, is strong, and is easy to work.

In the south, a fungal disease ruins its timber value, but to support wildlife, this tree should be tops on your list.

If you take a botany class, you learn that the leaves or stems of certain plants have aromatic compounds. Some of the aromas are pleasant, some definitely are not.

ur native trumpet creeper, Campsis radicans, has been introduced to China and is undermining a portion of the Great Wall.

North Carolina State’s Mountain Crop Improvement Laboratory developed a sterile cultivar of the Campsis vine.

With its long orange trumpet-shaped flowers, trumpet creeper is a hummingbird magnet.

Campsis radicans, has been known as “cow itch,” but, there is no evidence that it bothers cows at all.

The native vine Campsis radicans, trumpet creeper, is described as extremely vigorous – if it were non-native, it would be described as rampantly invasive. It doesn’t creep – it leaps and can cover a tall chain link fence and anything else it finds to climb by aerial roots and twining in and out of openings.

At Goodale State Park John Nelson and I examined the plant community growing on the swollen bases of pond cypress trees, Taxodium ascendens, rather than the better-known bald cypress, Taxodium disitichum.

A canoe trip in Goodale State Park is a great way to see the mini ecosystems that form around the bases of cypress trees.

Park Ranger John Wells wants more people to enjoy the magic of Goodale State Park near Camden. It’s free to enter – call at noon if you want to speak with a ranger about amenities or rentals.

Visit all forty-seven state parks and you can become a member of a special group eligible for programs offered just for super dedicated park visitors.

At the Xerces Society’s page on Building a Better Mulch pile they tell us that thirty percent of our native bees are cavity nesters while 70 percent nest in the ground. The USDA Agroforestry Notes --Enhancing Nesting Sites for Native Bee Pollinators --has tips to make your yard part of the movement to protect these insects – very few of whom are social and therefore defensive. Elderberry, boxelder...

Elderberry stems are semi-woody, the interior is filled with pith. The late John Fairey, renowned botany professor at Clemson, told students that this pith was used to pack delicate scientific instruments and still used by repairmen to hold tiny parts of jewelry and such. Mason bees and other insects, however, have long used the older hollow stems as places to construct egg-laying or brood chamber...

Professor Greg Reighard, Clemson researcher and international fruit specialist, explained that elderberries are primarily wind-pollinated. Although the flowers are extraordinarily showy, which you think would be a sign that they are attracting all sorts of pollinators, they don’t produce nectar so insect visitors are only collecting pollen. Still, their value to wildlife is high as the hundreds of...

All parts of the plants have compounds that are toxic to humans (not native wildlife). Fortunately, heat destroys the dangerous chemicals the seeds in the ripe fruit contain so you can make delicious wine or pies with them.

Elderberry bushes with their bold, textured leaves are now topped with broad flower heads filled with hundreds of small white blossoms, destined to become tasty dark purple fruits.

To discover where prothonotary warblers spend their winters, Beidler staff devised an ingenious system. Several birds, weighing about half an ounce, have been fitted with tiny backpacks that record information about where they go. The devices don’t transmit coordinates, they would be too heavy. This system is dependent on having some of the birds, with their site fidelity, successfully making the...

Prothonotary warblers have strong site fidelity. Although they have a large nesting area in the US, individual birds return to the place of their birth.

Prothonotary warblers have strong site fidelity. Although they have a large nesting area in the US, individual birds return to the place of their birth.

The Prothonotary warbler is sometimes called the swamp canary. These small birds are a brilliant yellow with bluish-grey green wings and a black eye that’s very striking on the yellow head. Males are a more intense yellow than females.

Team MIG spent a wonderful day at the Audubon Center Beidler Forest. On the one and three-quarter mile long boardwalk, you may sometimes find a cluster of photographers with lenses all focused on a small cavity in a bald cypress knee, hoping to get pictures of Prothonotary warbler parents flying in and out with insects for their babies. Sometimes called swamp canaries, these birds are one of the o...

The original purchase of eighteen hundred acres of virgin cypress and tupelo gum swampland is the heart of Beidler Forest. Imagine a place where several cypress trees are documented as being over one thousand years old. Cypress trees are well adapted to withstanding hurricanes; they are, compared to pines, flexible, and their extensive knees that develop when growing in wetlands probably provides...