Making It Grow

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 warmer) with small outlier pockets of 7 and 9. Contrast that with some western states.

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, mostly have the warmer zone five or even six as their upper limit.

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 easy place to get the zones where specific plants should grow well.

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 10-degree Fahrenheit zones.

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.

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, sometimes listed as Solidago canadensis.

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

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.

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

Rock Hill's Blackjacks Heritage Preserve provides a protected space for this rare sunflower among many other species.

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 time – from 20 to one hundred years.

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.

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 Columbia, concern shelter and nutrition.

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 have in South Carolina.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. One of the remarkable features of our state is the incredible diversity that comes from our encompassing mountains, foothills, piedmont, sandhills and coastal plains ecosystems.