Making It Grow Minutes

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The Brown Marmorated Stink Bug is considered one of the worst invasive species that’s arrived in our country from Asia. First discovered in Pennsylvania in 2001, it’s now found in most of the US and has spread to other continents. In all cases, it’s a major pest of agriculture and difficult to control, requiring increas...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. We’ve had ninety degree temperatures in October, but during a brief cool spell in September, one of the worst imported pests, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, started its annual intrusion into my upstairs. I awoke one morning to find these garden pests hanging out on my curtains and Edward had to suck them up with the va...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. I’ve heard stories of a farming family that almost separated as a new wife, raised in the city, put up wallpaper covered with morning glories. Ipomoea purpurea commonly known as Heavenly blue morning glory, is native to the Central Valley of Mexico and is considered an aggressive weed in agricultural crops like cotton a...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. This time of year I’m reminded of fixing flowers for the happy second marriage of a friend because I used a native and an imported flower that are flowering right now. Both of them seem to pop up overnight. The native plant was Farewell to Summer which grows in sandy, dry soils. The imported plant was red spider lily an...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. September 22 was the first day of fall. Today is October 2 and it is going to be 98 degrees at my home in Saint Matthews. On my commute to Sumter, however, I’m seeing one of my favorite plant in the whole wide world. The common name for is Farewell to Summer, the scientific name is Polygonella americanum. The USC Herbar...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Boxwood blight is a highly contagious fungal disease that is wiping out whole plantings of this beautiful evergreen which is the backbone of many gardens. If you have a maintenance crew helping in your yard, they can introduce the infectious spores from their shoes and clothing – and if they prune through their tools. T...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Boxwoods have always had several problems but overall, they’ve been reliable and invaluable landscape material. Now a contagious fungal pathogen has arrived from Europe and it is devastating to certain cultivars. Boxwood blight came to the United States 2011 and is spreading rapidly, initially by new plants that arrive...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. There’s nothing easier than having a landscape company come in and install a complete and mature-looking yard – well, you do have to pay the bill. The real work comes in keeping those plants placed way too close together healthy as they reach their mature size. I bought two dozen two-dollar boxwood babies to put across...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Although older plantings of certain boxwoods naturally acquire a billowing, undulating cloud-like shape, certain popular pruning practices can immolate that effect in some formal highly-managed settings. By removing large branches and sections of individual plants and letting others grow into those spaces, a fascinating...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Some boxwood varieties if left alone grow to their mature size developing a cloud like appearance with natural undulations. I grew up hearing about the boxwood clouds at the highly regarded school for women, Sweet Briar College in Virginia, where perhaps thousands of these plants which embody elegance and grace grow. Do...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Trees are considered the lungs of the planet – the byproduct of photosynthesis is life sustaining oxygen. They store carbon in their tissues and cool our summer temperatures by transpiration. The Arbor Day Foundation has a healtier earth goal that relies on yor adding trees to your community – Planting 100 million trees...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The U S D A cold hardiness map now comes in an interactive form – you have to prove you aren’t robot to use it, but it’s easy after that hurdle. Search U S D A interactive map then start clicking on your area of interest to make it larger. Almost the entirety of South Carolina is zone 8 (subdivided into a and b, b is wa...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Don’t be fooled into thinking that plants of a particular genus are going to have the same needs for a healthy life. For instance, I’ve talked about Hydrangea paniculata, panicle hydrangeas, as really preferring cooler temperatures than many parts of South Carolina. But the French hydrangeas, Hydrangea macrophylla, most...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Fall, when it finally comes, is the best time to add new plants to your yard. The tags that are hanging off the branches of plants at your garden centers, or the information about plants offered online, give you the range of cold hardiness zones that plant can live in. Sometimes I search the Monrovia nursery pages as an...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Plant cold hardiness zones give us the average lowest winter temperature we might expect in a particular part of the country. Statisticians use thirty years of records to get what meaningful number. The USDA plant cold hardiness zone map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into different 1...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Feel free to bring flowering stems of goldenrod indoors – with insect-disseminated pollen it doesn’t cause allergies. It’s ragweed that makes copious amounts of nose-tickling pollen so light weight that winds blow it far and wide. Our most common ragweed is Ambrosia artesimifolia (no one seems to know why it’s called Am...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow.. You might enjoy hearing some fun facts about goldenrod since it’s blooming everywhere now. Carolina’s AC Moore Herbarium lists over thirty different species of goldenrod, in the genus Solidago, collected here; some grow all over while others occur in only a few counties. Our state wild flower is Solidago altissima, som...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. I found a kindred spirit while reading up on golden rod. Althea Fann wrote a charming article, “Reflections of an Accidental Florist,” a College of Charleston. From her experience working for a Charleston florist, Fann delightfully recounts tales about brides and their insistence on having peonies and such out of season...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Clumps of goldenrod are brightening our roadsides and gardens. Garden club ladies don’t want watery eyes or runny noses, so you can bet they did their homework before encouraging our General Assembly to name goldenrod as the state wildflower. Plants with showy colorful flowers are usually trying to attract insect pollin...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Although it doesn’t feel like fall, with temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s, many plants we associate with autumn, especially in the aster family, are coming into flower. The roads I travel from St. Matthews to Sumter are made beautiful now by drifts of goldenrod. I thought that the scientific name of the genus, Solidago...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. At Botany Bay Heritage Preserve, scientists using LiDAR ,an aerial 3D laser scanning method, have discovered the oldest shell ring in our State, Pokoy 1, dating to 4300 years ago, the same period as the earliest Egyptian pyramids. This oyster shell structure was constructed and only used for a relatively short period of...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. If it's safe to turn around, when I see a turtle crossing the road, I try to get it across. My rescues are mostly box turtles. But we have two Department of Natural Resources Heritage Trust sites dedicated to protect the endangered gopher tortoise populations. The Tillman Sand Ridge Heritage Preserve and Aiken County Go...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The Heritage Trust Program, a division of the Department of Natural Resources, maintains, administers sites with cultural or ecosystem importance. As part of the culturally significant duties, a team of archaeologist works on those specific sites. They also train teachers in free workshops – two upcoming ones in Columbi...

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. South Carolina’s Heritage Trust Program has protected over 95,000 acres of land selected for unique ecological features or important cultural significance. Most are open to the public and some allow hunting and fishing. The goal is to protect and share with citizens and visitors to our state the incredible diversity we...