Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. We enjoyed the solar eclipse from the comfort of our Saint Matthews yard. Although lots of people searched out and set up camp in open fields, I’m not a sun lover and we simply made periodic forays from our covered porch out into an open area of the front yard to observe the progress of the blackout. Numerous shade trees help keep our eighteen eighties home cool, a value familiar to residents of cities with active urban tree programs. The City of Charlotte estimates that residents and businesses save fifteen million dollars a year in reduced air conditioning costs due to the cooling effects of that City’s prized and nurtured urban forest. Urban areas without an extensive tree canopy can have temperatures fifteen to twenty degrees hotter than nearby developed areas that have established a large canopy tree program.