Making It Grow

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Recently Davis Sanders from South Pleasantburg Nursery and I sat down and made recordings about soils, pollinator plants and more. If you go to "On-Demand Listening" at southcarolinapublicradio .org  you’ll find a plethora of podcasts to keep your mind occupied while  weeding the garden or cleaning out your tool shed. There are two options for listening to us if you click on Making It Grow.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The University of Florida Extension factsheet on trees and hurricanes speaks to the issue of properly planting a tree to improve its survivability. We Clemson people say not to amend the planting hole for several reasons -- one being that it can discourage the tree from sending roots into the less hospitable native soil.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The University of Florida’s Extension Service factsheet on trees that do and don’t hold up without serious damage in hurricanes has a suggestion that would make our urban forests

Clemson Extension Agent Amanda McNulty and host of  Making It Grow is joined by Davis Sanders from South Pleasantburg Nursery in Greenville, SC. This chat is about how pollinating insects not only need food and host plants during the growing season, they also need a source of nutrients to get them through the winter.

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Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The University of Florida Extension Service has a factsheet titled How to Minimize Wind Damage in the South Florida Landscape. We here in South Carolina who observe the trees that grow near the coast know that live oaks -- hundreds of years old -- still stand in places where hurricanes frequently make landfall.

Clemson Extension Agent Amanda McNulty and host of Making It Grow  is joined by Davis Sanders from South Pleasantburg Nursery in Greenville, SC. This chat is about how plants are capable of mulching themselves once established. However, providing mulch during their establishment period is critical.

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Clemson Extension Agent Amanda McNulty and host of Making It Grow  is joined by Davis Sanders from South Pleasantburg Nursery in Greenville, SC. This chat is about how retail nurseries are in the business of providing products for consumers and how their job is to satisfy the customers' wants while also educating them as to what they need and why.

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Clemson Extension Agent Amanda McNulty and host of Making It Grow  is joined by Davis Sanders from South Pleasantburg Nursery in Greenville, SC. This chat is about how plant nutrition involves much more than providing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Minor and micro nutrients and biological additives are equally important.

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Clemson Extension Agent Amanda McNulty and host of Making It Grow  is joined by Davis Sanders from South Pleasantburg Nursery in Greenville, SC. This chat is about how soil ecosystems are as important to plant nutrition as the nutrients themselves. Proper enhancements of the soil can actually reduce the need for additional fertilizers and nutrients.

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Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Although persimmons have consistently beautiful and early fall foliage, they aren’t often highly valued by homeowners, but people who plant them as a food source for wildlife and soil stabilization know their importance. The ripe fruits are relished by deer, possums, foxes, and raccoons and people – although you have to wait until they’re so soft you can only eat them with a spoon or they’ll turn your mouth inside out.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow.  A nearby stand of catalpa trees is kept pruned so that the owners can easily reach catalpa sphinx moth caterpillars that use the leaves as their larval food source. This stout but dully colored caterpillar is actually hard to find – most stands of catalpa I see don’t have them feeding on them. Their infestations seem to be sporadic; many other insects parasitize these creatures and some people actually purchase pupae to inoculate their trees.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Since summer seems interminable this year, I’m desperate for signs of fall. Several catalpa trees on my daily drive have caught my eye recently with their large leaves sporting a yellow autumnal color. Catalpa is known as a fisherman’s tree since it the larval food source for the catalpa sphinx moth. It has large, ten inches or so across, heart-shaped leaves that are yellow-green.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Clemson’s Home and Garden Information Center has a dandy fact sheet called Planning, p-l-a-n-n-i-n-g, a garden. You still have time to put out hardier winter vegetables like kale, collards, and turnips. Extension Agent Tony Melton and I have recorded podcasts about how to get a successful garden up and going and you can find those along with all sorts of other cool things to listen to.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Back in the day, we took a long bamboo pole with us to the Christmas tree farm be sure a tree would reach our tall ceilings. If I were worried about the fall webworms in my pecan trees, perhaps I could use that pole to break up some of the lower nests.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Many people try to spray insecticides on the nests of eastern tent caterpillars or fall webworms. The webs, however, protect the caterpillars and usually the nests are too high to effectively reach with your sprayer. Trying to burn the nests may start a fire or badly damage the tree. One specialists says that if you can safely reach the nest, use the five-fingered, digital, integrated pest management approach.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The fall webworms are spectacularly visible these days. In spring, adults emerge from overwinter cocoons, females lay eggs and the first generation of this native caterpillar begins feeding in early summer.   They don’t cause much damage as by the time their populations build up towards the end of summer, the deciduous leaves they’re feeding on are ending their life cycle.

Clemson Extension Agent and Host of Making It Grow, Amanda McNulty and Dr. John Nelson from the University of South Carolina AC Moore Herbarium continue their discussion on pine trees with more facts about the Slash Pine, the White Pine and the Shortleaf Pine.
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Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. South Carolina has two noticeable web-building caterpillars, the Eastern tent caterpillar and the fall web worm.

Clemson Extension Agent and Host of Making It Grow, Amanda McNulty talks with Dr. John Nelson from the University of South Carolina AC Moore Herbarium about the Longleaf Pine, the Slash Pine and the Loblolly Pine.
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Clemson Extension Agent and Host of Making It Grow, Amanda McNulty talks with Dr. John Nelson from the University of South Carolina AC Moore Herbarium about his recent trip to botanize in Nebraska.
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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 Ambrosia – the food of the Gods), and usually it tops out at a couple of feet.

Clemson Extension Agent and Host of Making It Grow, Amanda McNulty talks with Dr. John Nelson from the University of South Carolina AC Moore go in depth in the family of sunflowers.
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Clemson Extension Agent and Host of Making It Grow, Amanda McNulty talks with Dr. John Nelson from the University of South Carolina AC Moore Herbarium about the importance of botany and taxonomy in today’s world.
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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.

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,” you can find online. Printed in Crazyhorse, a College of Charleston publication, it’s available at the site Longreads.com.

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 pollinators to carry their relatively heavy pollen from one flower to the next, and that’s exactly what happens with goldenrod.

Clemson Extension Agent and Host of Making It Grow, Amanda McNulty talks with Clemson Agronomy Agent and SC Statewide Coordinator for the Industrial Hemp Program David DeWitt. They explain the challenges of growing, processing and marketing this new crop for South Carolina.

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.

Host of “Making It Grow” and Clemson Extension Agent Amanda McNulty talks with fellow agent Tony Melton about applying preemergent to your lawn in the Fall to prevent Spring weeds.

Host of “Making It Grow” and Clemson Extension Agent Amanda McNulty talks with fellow agent Tony Melton about the best practices for maintaining your Fall turf grass.