Narrator: Making It Grow is brought to you in part by Certified South Carolina is a cooperative effort among farmers retailers and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture to help consumers identify foods and agricultural products that are grown harvested or raised right here in the Palmetto State.

The Boyd Foundation supporting outdoor recreational opportunities, the appreciation of wildlife, educational programs, and enhancing the quality of life in Columbia, South Carolina and the Midlands at large.

McLeod Farms in McBee, South Carolina family owned and operated since 1916.

This family farm offers seasonal produce, including over 40 varieties of peaches.

Additional funding provided by the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation and Farm Bureau Insurance, and BOONE HALL FARMS.

♪ Amanda: Well good evening and welcome to Making It Grow.

We're so glad that you can join us tonight.

I'm Amanda McNulty.

I'm a Clemson Horticulture Agent.

And tonight we have some special things for you.

And we're having preservation tree art.

Oh, so beautiful with Michael Murphy, and Darnell and Susan Boyd Foundation, which has been so instrumental in supporting all sorts of activities across the state has done a marvelous job at Boyd Island, which is right near Riverbanks Zoo and Garden.

Terasa, we're so happy that you're with us tonight.

Oh, what do we do with that you you always put things on Facebook, and I'm occasionally the things in your own yard and pollinators that you see, you're quite a pollinator person, aren't you?

Terasa: Well, that I guess that's my philosophy of landscaping is really it should be how we can improve wildlife habitat, protect our natural resources be good stewards?

Amanda: Yes.

And especially since we know that there's been a decline in the number of pollinators and a lot of animals are under threat because of loss of habitat in so many cases.

Terasa: That's right.

And there are places where people have done wonderful things, but we need homeowners to act as well so that we can build the connections to get from place to place.

Amanda: Yeah, we've, who is it Doug Tamely who says we could have?

<Home Grown National Park.> Yeah, Home Grown National Park, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, just done with people she landscapes and so we, as individuals can make a real difference.

<We sure can.> Ok. Well Phillip Carnley, We're so happy to have you.

You came over from where I am St. Matthews, Calhoun County and Orangeburg Counties where you're now serving as the horticulture agent.

Phillip: Yes ma'am has been a lovely adventure.

In Calhoun and Orangeburg Counties.

Amanda: And we have a lot of specialty people are growing kind of fun vegetable crops and things like that for you to, for you to advise and probably learn from too.

Phillip: Oh, absolutely.

It's always a learning experience when you go out and walk the fields and Calhoun from peppers, cucumbers, the occasional watermelon, it's all it's all very interesting.

<And little bit of cut flower.> Yes, there are some cut flower here and there.

They're not as common as we would like to see, but they are there.

Amanda: Okay.

Well, thank you for being over here tonight.

Uhm Ryan Bean.

You're a natural resources agent, and although I think you go to the your office is that I guess in Kershaw.

But you're also doing a bit of work at some of the wrecks don't you?

Ryan: That's right, I get tried to get my hands dirty and feet dirty, just about as many places they'll let me.

Amanda: Okay.

And um, take a lot of calls from homeowners too.

<For sure.> Yeah.

Well, thank you for doing that.

And then Herrrick Brown, you have stepped into the shoes of Dr. John Nelson.

A C Moore Herbarium.

And I think you're still let him come up there and help you.

Dr. Herrick: Oh, yeah.

He's one of my star volunteers.

We have a group of volunteers that come in every Friday and stay pretty active.

And also have a small army of student volunteers as well.

Well, now, it's fun, isn't it?

It is it's great.

And it's always great to, you know, work with folks that are interested in doing that sort of work and learning new things.

Amanda: It used to be that herbarium work was kind of dangerous because you had so many mothballs.

Dr. Herrick: right?

Yeah, we don't use the mothballs so much anymore.

We just have better cabinetry that keeps the bugs sort of sealed out.

Amanda: Because even though your specimens are dried, still the greatest threat is that things other insects would like to come in and chew on your flowers, Dr. Herrick: Still a lot stored starch in those things.

So it's attractive to inscets.

Amanda: Well, thank you for coming tonight.

We do appreciate it.

<Thank you.> Okay, well, Terasa, are we gonna have some gardens of the week to start us off happily?

Terasa: We are.

The gardens of the week is your opportunity to show off what you're doing in your yard, your garden or perhaps you've snapped some photos of a beautiful place in South Carolina.

We begin today with Sandy Parrott who shared her rose flowers.

These are the Proven Winners oh so easy.

Italian ice shrub roses.

She said they bloom from April through November.

From Murray Johnston, a close up of loropetalum covered in dew or perhaps raindrops.

From Kenny and Donna White.

We have a young gardener in the making.

They shared their four year old grandson showing off the Zinnias he planted.

Jimmy and Sue Holloman showed us their fall inspired front porch, and we wrap up with Donald Toole who shared a pineapple plant that he rooted from an old top he said he kept it in a pot and nursed it through two winters.

Sometimes plants take a lot of work, don't they?

Amanda: They certainly can.

And some friends of ours have a greenhouse and they do that with pineapples, and they got a pineapple.

So I didn't have to go to Hawaii to taste a ripe pineapple.

Terasa: If we need to do a taste test like fresh off the plant versus some sample commercially... Amanda: It was delicious.

It was very good.

Yeah.

So save me the cost of having to fly over there.

Although I think there'd be other things to do in Hawaii.

Besides just eat pineapple.

Terasa: We should take a trip for Making It Grow.

I think a horticultural excursion to Hawaii.

Amanda: Let's put that in our wish bucket for next year.

Okay, well we have some questions Terasa?

Terasa: We do we're gonna start with a local question from Lillian she'd like to know Amanda: Goodness.

Well Philip we're here in Sumter, which is has Swan Lake Iris Gardens, which are Japanese Iris, but then I think there's also Bearded Iris and so I'm not sure what she has.

Maybe you need to talk about both both types.

Phillip: Well if they are similar in appearance but different in how you manage bearded versus Japanese IRIS.

I am a lot more familiar with the Japanese Iris.

And if you have Japanese Iris "Iris Ensata", now is the time to start cutting back in the fall for to prepare them to go dormant.

You want to cut back all the fronds <Oh you do.> To about six to eight inches and what that does is that just helps them ease into dormancy because they won't go fully dormant until later in the year.

And then if you have the ability.

You also want to divide your iris usually in the spring though not now.

These divisions will encourage a healthier Iris stand that following spring as well as a better bloom because there's less competition.

Amanda: Okay.

Now at Swan Lake, they have the iris on the edges of the water but you don't have to grow them that way.

Can't they grow in regular gardens with enough irrigation Phillip: With enough irrigation Japanese Iris can they are a more of a wetland species and are they like a lot more irrigation or water than your than your Bearded Iris, Bearded Iris I jokingly say you can grow those on a concrete block because they are very tolerant of adverse conditions especially lack of irrigation.

Whereas the Japanese are almost refuses to flower without the proper or adequate water.

Amanda: But beard iris really hate being crowded.

Phillip: They do they want to be thinned very frequently.

You want to keep them... Or the rhizomes they are rhizomeus.

And not technically, they're not a tuber like you most would suspect but they are a rhizome and underground stem, but you want to thin those out and where the leafs attached to that rhizome is called a fan.

And so you usually want two to three fans per rhizome.

<Okay.> And you and you want to space them three to six inches apart.

Amanda: And I think you actually leave the rhizome partially exposed.

Phillip: Correct on the Bearded Iris.

<On the bearded.> Amanda: Yeah, yeah.

So to same name, Iris and beautiful flowers, but very, very different as to their cultural requirements.

Okay, well, thank you so much for that.

<My pleasure.> Okay, well, Teresa, whom else can we help?

Terasa: I think Emory in Lancaster is hoping we can help.

The question is.

So sometimes we get folks who are disturbed because the deer are making a buffet out of their yard.

But this is a little different scenario.

Amanda: Well, I think that's lovely.

Probably not the question you usually get Ryan, but what would you advise her to do?

Ryan: I'd imagine from our standpoint, from that resource, we get this question a little bit different than the horticulture side of things.

But if you're looking to encourage them, we often encourage people to go out and there woods take note of what species you have if there's any mast or fruit producing trees.

Oh, God, do what we call daylight them, you know, reduce the competition from around them offer more sunlight space for them to grow, okay, which may help them produce more of a crop, which would encourage the wildlife to hang around in this case, deer.

You could also plant some plum trees or other fruit trees.

I would encourage you if you wanted to plant more mass producing trees to stick with our native species such as just our white oak.

A lot of times.

<Oh the acorns.> That's right.

Oh, yeah, they're important for sure.

Yeah, huge nutrient content there.

A lot of times people will recommend something like a sawtooth oak.

But that is not a native species.

And it doesn't have that much better benefit than our our native species.

The rumor was that they grew faster, put on a crop faster, which in a lot of cases they do, but a white oak that is cared for and right location will do just as well.

Amanda: Well if I'm not mistaken, Treasa aren't oak trees used by more as the larval food source?

Terasa: Caterpillar species, yes.

So if you want to get the most bang for your buck, put in an oak tree and you people get upset while the caterpillars are eating the foliage.

But especially you probably don't notice it.

Yeah, exactly.

And those those caterpillars also feed baby birds and many people enjoy watching songbirds in thier yard.

Amanda: Yeah, yeah.

So.

So I think that since because of coevolution, they would want to have native oaks to use as their larval food source.

<For sure.> Thank you so much.

Great.

Okay, Herrick, do you have a show and tell for us?

Dr. Herrick: not today, but I didn't bring anything in physically.

But I would like to talk about American Beauty Berry, which is probably getting to the point of past prime in terms of its peak color of the fruits this time of year.

But I have one that is growing in my yard, that sort of an heirloom that uprooted and brought from North Augusta and many years ago, my grandfather in law's estate.

<Really lovely.> And just to talk about the strength of this plant.

It was treated very poorly by me initially.

But it has since grown, and it's actually becoming a bit of a small tree, almost.

And earlier this year, I noticed that it was just covered in these bright purple berries, which is like sort of a show stopper in the yard.

And about a week later, I think the songbirds caught on and it was completely bare.

Isn't that something they just ate every single berry off of it.

Amanda: So something that would be good for people.

Ryan: For birds and hours view we're giving it a wild turkey and stuff yeah.

Amanda: Oh wild turkey.

How about that?

Okay, that'd be fun.

Every now and then I get to see a wild turkey.

That's a lot of fun.

Ryan: wild turkey love insects that are drawn to plants like that.

Yeah.

Oh, they Amanda: really?

Okay.

Well, thanks so much.

That's a lovely native that we could easily have in our yard because you said you just kind of brought it home and stuck it in the ground.

Dr. Herrick: Yeah, it's very hardy, it's got a really strong root system and can take a good deal of abuse.

Amanda: And full sun are parts of that?

Dr. Herrick: They'll tend to sort of wilt a little bit if you put them in a real dry, sunny location.

So maybe a little bit of shelter.

But again, it's pretty resilient.

Amanda: But it can brighten a slightly shady spot.

Dr. Herrick: Definitely.

So the lovely Yeah, you get the bright purple color from the fruits.

And then in fall when the leaves start turning, they're brilliant yellow.

Amanda: Oh my gosh, really nice.

Dr. Herrick: And then in the spring, the flowers are a little less noticeable.

They're kind of a light pink color, but they're also really attractive to small bees and other kinds of pollinators.

Amanda: Oh, gosh, it sounds like we all need to have that growing does't it?

<I think so.> Can it ever seed down?

Dr. Herrick: Yeah, and that that might be its one drawback is that it is very prolific in terms of seeding out.

<Okay.> So but you know, if you're like any other plant people just dig them up, share them with your friends.

Amanda: That is a nice thing about plant people.

Terasa: If people are looking for our native, they'll want to look at the tag because there is an introduced species.

I don't believe it's known to be invasive, but that's the Callicarpa Dichotoma and it's widely available in the trade.

So if we're looking for native, we want the Americana.

Amanda: Oh, thank you for telling us.

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it.

<Okay.> We I have a wonderful visit from Michael Murphy, who does preservation tree art.

And I'm the story of that and the results of what he does is quite fascinating.

♪ Well, my guest today is Michael Murphy of Preservation Tree Art.

And obviously, these trees have not been preserved.

I mean, they're no longer standing.

But you have found a way to give them a life after the tree has been removed through these magnificent bowls that you've made.

Mike: Exactly, yeah, they're just, it's just incredible, what I found out what's inside of trees.

With with the way you can turn them on the lathe and just get this character and, and these intricacies that that are in there.

Amanda: And of course, this was an offshoot of your regular profession, because you were a master certified arborist for years and years and years.

And so when something happened, your crew would have to go and take care of trees that had died or been blown over had to be removed.

And now you've found a way to to continue the life of the tree in such a way Mike: to keep it going.

Yes, Amanda: That's fun.

Well, let's talk about some of the specific ones and find out what makes these beautiful patterns that have too.

<Okay, great.> Michael, I'd like to know how you get from a tree that has had to be cut down into a magnificent bowl.

So show us a little bit of the process.

Mike: Okay, well, basically, almost every one of these bowls started out with a piece of wood that you might just find on your fireplace, on your on your firewood pile, and we take that piece of round wood and I cut it in the middle.

<Yes.> And then we'll put this aside for a second.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

And so we're gonna make a round bowl if I decide to make a round bow, I get on the the jigsaw and turn out a blank skull with a bowl blank.

And then you mount it on the, on the lathe.

And you do one side the back on the back, you take and you make the cleat.

And then you turn that cleat around.

And the interesting part is that when you form a bowl, you form the back and the underside first.

And it's the part that you don't really see, you're gonna see the the base here.

So we take that and we turned it around on the lathe.

And then this one you can see has quite a few holes in it.

And this is from wood grubs.

And this is the frass from the wood grubs.

And you have to kind of clean that out.

And basically, you at the end of the day, after you get finished, you have a bowl similar to this right here.

Amanda: Because this is their frass is insect excrement, yeah.

Mike: And they work their way around the bowl, they've worked their way around the wood and just kind of push the dust behind them and just keep working and working.

And these are the interesting things that I kind of look for in a bowl in a piece of wood.

Amanda: Then if you're going to use this piece.

Mike: Then this this is a round bowl.

And then people always ask how do you make a bowl with a live edge, and so with the live edge bowl, you make the cleat on the opposite side.

And then when you turn it around, you mount it this way, and you start gouging out the center.

And the bark is what's left it's what's left off and preserved.

But again, that you're making, you're forming the bowl you're taking, you're making the entire piece, the entire form of the bowl on the bottom, which is what you really don't look at all the time.

Amanda: Okay.

So we were saying that the things that make the bowls interesting are sometimes kind of funky on the tree, sometimes harmful, but these are examples of a burl.

And I've seen them sometimes I'll see I saw a pine tree and it went up and then it had this great big bump thing all over it in the middle of it and then it went right on up and I guess that was the burl Mike: That's the burl.

And it's a hyperactive growth grows on side of the tree doesn't really affect the inside of the tree doesn't have the grain of a tree and can be actually cut off and not do a whole lot of damage to the tree.

But no, we don't do that.

Amanda: And so look at it obviously had was something funky was going on because otherwise we wouldn't have this very interesting pattern in here.

Would we?

Mike: Absolutely not a lot of the bowl wells, a lot of the wood that I use, I use it because of the interesting grain.

But this there's no grain in here to find people would have a very hard time trying to describe or identify this type of tree.

These are this bowl and its neighbor here is from Redwood red oak, I'm sorry.

And it was growning Beaufort County and the tree had to come down and they cut the burl off for me, it was giant.

Amanda: That is just way too school...

Cool for School.

Look at that.

And the deformities in it.

Or of course what make it... Mike: Interesting, right?

It is old pieces of bark in there and decay and more fungus.

It's just incredible how it grows and dies each year and then just grows right on top of what grew before.

And then Amanda: And then over here we have one, that's also pretty cool looking.

And it obviously something wouldn't have the going on here.

Mike: This is a red oak also.

But this was knot this was where a limb had been taken off improperly.

And it had it almost looked like a burl.

Of course it had rounded out and wanted to see what was inside.

And this came out pretty cool.

Amanda: And that's kind of fun, because you don't know how to use get it on the lathe.

<No, yeah,not at all.> This is just yeah, it's just amazing.

And again, that none of these don't You don't go out and look for trees.

These are all trees that had to come down or are coming down on their own.

<Yeah, absolutely.> Okay.

And then this little fella here.

What happened with him.

Mike: So this was a tiny burl on the side of the tree, and just wanted to see what I could do with that.

Because usually you work with a big, a bigger burl, and you can kind of whittle it down to size.

This one was just kind of, uh, uh, not not much bigger than what we found out here.

Okay, well, let's see what's next.

Okay.

Amanda: I want to talk about this beautiful bowl because it's eastern red cedar.

And I just love cedar trees.

They're wonderful for wildlife.

And a lot of people don't give them the appreciation that they have.

But look at what happened here.

Tell me about how this bowl came about.

Mike: So the other bowls that we talked about, we cut the log in half first.

So this bowl, we use the entire round of the tree to cut and kind of turn and you can kind of see the center of the tree here.

And this is all the rings as you go around.

And you know how cedars they're not perfectly round there have like little concave areas.

They have a lot of character.

And so you can see that the edge of the bowl follows that.

<So this is the heart wood of...> The heart wood of the cedar.

Yeah.

Amanda: Isn't it just wonderful?

It really is, this is just the color is just so remarkable.

Mike: It just comes out really good.

People look at this and want to smell it, smell that cedar.

Amanda: And I'm now I just this is really kind of fun, because this was pine?

Mike: This is a loblolly pine.

Amanda: to just plane old trees and nobody pays a lot of attention to.

And, um, but what so it obviously had had some damage to it.

Mike: well this tree was alive, and when when it fell down.

And I wanted to bring out some of the blueing that happens in in pines when they start to decay.

And so you get more interest out of wood when you kind of accelerate its decaying process.

And so I took these pieces, and I put them into woodchips for four months rotting wood rotting wood chips, and to try to bring out the the blue try to accelerate that decay process.

But what actually happened was I disintegrated the conductive tissue with a tree so you can see those little holes are the vessels that the tree uses to or used to live and bring nutrients up to the leaves and leaves the food down to the roots, that form in the xylem.

So yeah, that's those are long tissues.

Amanda: So there are things you can do even after you can get the tree some down to accelerate and enhance and Mike: You get more a little more character trying to get as much character as possible.

Amanda: They have a lot of character.

Good old loblolly pine I declare.

Mike: You'd never know.

Amanda: Michael, I thought this was a huge tree.

And then use really surprised me because you said it was a red bud and I went nah, come on.

How could we have a red bud this big.

So this is a funky story.

Mike: So this kind of thinking a little bit outside the box.

I didn't this is a red a... red bud stump.

Yeah.

And I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.

But I knew I wanted to turn it somehow.

So I wound up actually turning it upside down.

And here, here's the trunk.

Amanda: So it really was kind of a normal sized red bud.

Mike: Normal sized red bud.

Trunk is a little bit bigger than this is these are where the roots came out.

This was the little root plate that it had.

And all this was everything here was below ground.

So none of this was actually actually part of the st.., above ground structural root system.

But you can see the root coming out here.

Amanda: Yeah, yeah, and so on.

And that's an and it had some differences going on in it that really were revealed during the turning process.

Mike: Absolutely a lot of tension going on.

And once it dried, a little bit more it, it broke up, opened up a little bit more so.

But it still has a lot of character.

Amanda: It does for a little old red bud.

But yeah, that's fun.

And then I think this one is also something we've learned to talk about.

Mike: This is what I call it my holy hickory tree.

And this was on the bank of the May River, and it died it it had hundreds and hundreds of a bore holes in it.

And we thought it was the Asian Longhorn beetle that was infesting our area.

So I contacted Clemson and we did some investigation.

And they we sent him some bugs and showed him some pictures.

And they said, No, it's not.

So we were happy for that.

But we also, I was also able to get quite a few bowls out of it.

And this is hickory wood in a hickory is very light wood.

But the insects created this kind of patina to it.

And this sepia color came out because of all that activity that was in there this more insects that I've ever dealt with in a tree before.

<My Word.> Every piece looks just like this.

Amanda: Gosh, and I'm well I'm very sorry for the tree.

I'm glad it wasn't Asian longboard Beetles, I'm glad that we got such a great bowl.

And this one, gosh, is just look at the coloration in that isn't that just delightful.

Mike: So this is sugar berry or hackberry.

And, again, a very, very light colored wood.

No, normally, and if you just took a tree and took a piece out of it, it'd be very uninteresting.

But the fungus that gets in there causes a lot of discoloration or a lot of character to the wood.

And you can kind of enhance that, like I did with the with the pine bowls by storing them in a rotted woodchips to get more of that fungus going for it.

Amanda: Oh, it's just beautiful.

But um, and when you do that you said you have to check on it periodically or else it just rot.

Mike: kind of hold it off for a little bit.

<Yeah.> Amanda: Some of them are so dazzling and spectacular, but this one has its own special charm.

And I think there's a nice story that goes with it.

Mike: There's a little story behind this.

This is a Hawthorne piece that came out of the Trillium garden on Spring Island.

And they have one of the largest natural Trillium collections in the Lowcountry and maybe even in South Carolina.

And this tree had fallen down in there and I was walking through with Carl Lamp and the naturalist down there and went back and grew up some of the logs and made a couple of pieces.

Amanda: And hawthorns are fun we call them Gumdrop trees sometimes because it Christmas we get them and put gumdrops on them you know you have to be kind of careful about getting them off.

Yeah.

But the colors is awfully pretty isn't it?

So it has it had decay in it.

That's probably why it died.

Mike: Yeah, decay as you can see going on going around in here and the hawthorn has that nice Heartwood anyway, but it decay gave the interest to the to the white wood.

Amanda: Yes, it is.

It's quite beautiful.

And then I think live oaks, we certainly don't want to leave out the tree that everyone in South Carolina loves so much.

And this one has some very special story to it.

Mike: This does.

So this is a piece that was turned from the largest live oak in Beaufort County to Cherry Hill Plantation Live Oak.

And this part of the tree fell off during Hurricane Gracie Hurricane Gracie in 1955.

And laid on the ground until 2009.

When we went in the company that I worked for, went in and cleaned it up and nominated it for the heritage tree.

And this tree is with the trees with sc.

And every year they nominated a tree for the heritage tree of the year.

And this was 2013 Amanda: And this had just been lying on the ground but again Live Oak even what's it's lying on the ground.

It's just such a hardwood it was just sitting there.

Mike: It's very hard, it didn't decay, it had some decay spots in it, but the entire log was pretty much intact.

(laughing) Amanda: I bet it was kind of an interesting one to do on the lathe because it's very heavy.

Mike: Oh, it's very heavy.

It's very dense wood, it's very hard wood, it's got to keep all the tools very sharp.

But you can kind of see all that tension in there.

You can, you could, you can just tell the age, and there's no rings in there, you can't really see any rings.

So this this tree is the largest live oak in Beaufort, and will be very difficult to age it because you can't see any of the growth rings.

Amanda: Well, I can certainly see a lot of beauty in it.

And the live books of course are just prized by everyone in South Carolina and southeast.

Thank you so much for coming.

This has just been delightful to learn more about preservation tree art Mike: Oh, thank you I was just falling in love with all those beautiful pieces and to learn how he does it, and that they often came from a very important tree.

That was a lot of fun with Michael Murphy.

Again, once again, my dear friend Ann Nolte came through for me.

She's had the prettiest dahlias this summer.

And Terasa, usually I feel like dahlias, you know, have their flush in the fall, and she has plenty now, but she's had them all throughout the summer.

Terasa: And that's fantastic.

I've had a few, but they weren't super happy.

Amanda: And then, the purple thing is, you said there are a lot of... Herrick: We use this term to talk about yellow composites.

We call them "darn yellow composites," DYC.

Amanda: Because they're hard to tell apart.

Herrick: Right, they all look alike, but these are purple, obviously, so we would call those DPC's, darn purple composites.

(Amanda laughs) Amanda: But they're beautiful, and I'm so glad to have them in the fall.

Herrick: Yeah.

Amanda: Yeah, okay, great.

Terasa, who are we gonna try to help now?

Terasa: Sonja in Orangeburg reached out to us and said, "I planted some gardenias last fall in the front of my house "as I wanted something evergreen with a nice smell.

"However, most of the year they have yellow leaves, "I'd rather just replace them at this point.

Do you have any recommendations?"

Amanda: Okay, well, and we do know that gardenias typically have a time when they're recycling their leaves, when they've got a good many yellow leaves, but if she wants something else, Phillip, do you have something that might smell good and not have yellow leaves?

(laughs) Phillip: Gardenia can be really tricky, and it fits a nice niche as a smell good, year round evergreen, but there are several problems that cause it to yellow, whether that be nutrient, water, or sunlight related.

Amanda: Or just turning its leaves over.

Phillip: Right, or just naturally shedding.

And it can be nutrient related too due to flower load which I have seen in the landscape, but I personally like to replace it with a dwarf variety of tea olive.

One that brings a very interesting, eye catching plant to the landscape is Goshiki.

It is a smaller variety.

I'm not going to use the term "dwarf," but it's smaller than your typical tea olive, and it also will have up to five colors in the leaf, ranging from white to a deep burgundy red and a few different colors in between.

And you get the little flowers that are associated with tea olive.

Amanda: Marvelous fragrance!

Phillip: And a great fragrance.

Now, it is not fragrans.

It's heterophyllus or Holly-leaved Osmanthus.

So the texture is a little different in a landscape, but it's a phenomenal plant.

Amanda: How big do you think it'll get within five or 10 years?

Phillip: Depending on the size at which you purchase it, you're looking at probably four to six feet in five years.

Amanda: Oh, my goodness, that's easy to maintain.

Phillip: And it's not quite as vigorous as your fragrans or some of the other ones.

It's a little bit more dwarfed in a way, dwarfed, but it's a great plant.

Amanda: And as far as I know, they just don't have any pests at all except people like me who like to cut them and bring them in the house.

And that's nice because if she wants to keep it a certain size, she can bring pieces in and have wonderful perfume in her house.

Phillip: And they're very tolerant to pruning, which is another reason I like to use the Osmanthus in the landscape.

If they do get too large, they respond very well to that pruning, heavy pruning.

Amanda: Okay, well, thank you so much.

I think that was a great idea for a replacement.

Alrighty, well, Terasa?

What else?

Who else can we help?

Terasa: This one comes in from Mel in Boykin.

Mel says, "I have an eight acre lot.

Is that enough to sell for timber?"

Amanda: Oh, my goodness.

So, I guess she's got a lot of trees around, but eight acres, when, I mean, when I see people cutting timber, it's like staging D-Day, practically.

There are lots of trucks and equipment stuff that comes in.

I don't know how that would work on a small lot.

Ryan: Well, you pretty much hit the nail on the head there.

There's a bunch of equipment, and that equipment is very expensive, and is also very expensive to move.

As we all know, gas and fuel is very expensive right now.

In order to move that equipment, not only are you paying for the fuel, but you're also paying for the time down and the employees that are moving.

So you've got a lot of investment just to get moved and set up.

And so in forestry, we typically say, for a clear cut, you're looking somewhere around minimum of 20 acres.

And for any type of intermediate practice, like a thinning, you're looking at minimum of around 40 acres.

That's nothing hard set.

It's just a matter of where you're at in the local markets and the people that are available to do the work.

But for eight acres, you're really looking for a land clearing company to come in and move those trees off of there for you.

There's really no avenue to sell those, unless you're in a situation where you've moved into a managed stand of timber, and you've got an eight acre parcel within that.

Amanda: Oh, you're in the middle and all around you people are growing trees.

Ryan: So in that case, you could partner up with your adjoining landowner, and when they do their next harvest of some type, have the work done on your property.

But otherwise, it just depends on the timber type that's there.

But yeah, you're typically out of luck.

Amanda: Okay, well, but they've got eight acres with beautiful trees on 'em.

Ryan: That's correct.

I would manage them as such.

Amanda: Yeah, I mean, and all kinds of, you know, activity with wildlife and things that go along with that.

Sounds pretty good to me.

And a lot of cooling, because we do know that there's a lot of cooling that goes on with tree canopy.

Ryan: A great way to reduce the power bill.

Amanda: Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Alrighty.

Herrick, have you got another plant that you would like to talk about with us?

Herrick: Yeah, goldenrod.

Amanda: Well, gosh pete!

(laughs) Herrick: You probably see that blooming all over the place on roadsides and powerline cuts and those sorts of things this time of year, but I just noticed, I've got a few volunteers in my backyard, and I was just really intrigued recently by the sheer number and diversity of pollinators that are just clambering all over the inflorescences.

And it's quite remarkable.

I think they even sort of seem to go into a state of torpor when it's cool at night, and you'll find sleeping on the flower heads in the morning.

But when it warms up, it's all a bustle with a bunch of different things.

Amanda: Yeah, yeah.

Amanda: And a lot of people associate goldenrod with sneezing and sniffling and Kleenex, but I don't think that's the cause for it.

Herrick: Yeah, I know.

You often see pollen indices indicate ragweed and goldenrod as culprits, but goldenrod really produces a much larger pollen grain that's designed to be dispersed or carried by insects, not moved around in the wind and breathed up into your nose.

Ragweed, on the other hand, does smaller pollen and it is airborne.

So I think it kind of gets a bad rap sometimes because of that.

Amanda: Well, as somebody who had to key out plants when I was in Dr. John's class, there are lots of different species of goldenrod.

Herrick: It's terrible, and it's not one of my strong suits, I'll admit it.

But yeah, there are a bunch of different species that we have here in South Carolina and across North America.

And we've broken out a couple of different groups recently, some that tend to have sort of a flat top.

So you see, everything used to be in this genus Solidago.

Amanda: I found some of the flat top one in water.

Herrick: Yeah, and so I think now we put that into a different genus called Euthamia.

Amanda: Okay.

Herrick: But you can definitely notice the inflorescence is sort of a different structure and has a flat top to it.

Amanda: But it's a bane for you people who are trying to identify things.

Herrick: Yeah, I mean, there's small flowers, it takes a lot of scrutiny under a microscope to kind of dissect the differences.

Amanda: Well, I hope some of your wonderful volunteers maybe peer into the microscope for you.

Herrick: Yeah.

Amanda: Okay.

Thanks so much.

The Darnall and Susan Boyd Foundation has funded incredible, wonderful, diverse projects across South Carolina.

And one of the most wonderful, I think, because we got to go visit it, is Boyd Island.

So let's go learn about this remarkable place.

♪ classical music ♪ ♪ I am at a pretty remarkable place: the confluence of the Saluda, Broad and Congaree River.

And I'm speaking with Susan Boyd, and we are on Boyd Island.

Susan, this is a remarkable place.

Susan: It is.

Amanda: Thank you for what you have done to make this accessible to people who love to get out in nature and see such beautiful places.

Susan: Would you like to know when this began?

Amanda: I would.

Susan: Well, I had been on a garden trip to Pennsylvania and they have a river there called the Schuylkill, I think, and we were taking a tour and we went out in the country, and when we came back down the banks of the river, I realized that it was a walkway but a very, very rough one.

But there had been bicycles on it and walking trails, but it would be a tough walk.

So I looked at that and I thought they have two rivers, I think, and we have three, and not one thing has been done to our rivers to make them accessible and something needed to be done.

So, I called Mike Dawson of The River Alliance and told him my feelings and he said, "Mrs. Boyd I will call Donny," my husband, Donald, "and tell him what I have," and it was this island.

Nothing had been done about getting to this island.

So when we first came over, we had to walk through the water, which came up a little above my knees.

So, that was the beginning.

Well, Donny was certainly an outdoor man, and so, he was thrilled to have something to work on the river.

So from there, we've gotten this far which is really quite far.

The most wonderful people work with this river and keep things going, and I think it's really exciting.

Amanda: And Susan, one of the things that's so nice is that now, which the River Alliance tries to make rivers accessible to people, we don't have to walk through water, and we have a beautiful walkway, so people with strollers or people who maybe just need a firm footing can come and you've got exquisitely designed sculptures that are benches.

Susan: Yeah.

Amanda: I mean, the whole thing is just remarkable.

And we're at one of those special places, because we're right on the fall line.

So these are unusual places, because we're right where the river stops having any white water in it, and it goes calm, and so that's where we find those wonderful spider lilies, Saluda Shoal Spiders Lilies and all that are here.

So it is, and y'all have left most of it completely as it is, just carved out enough to make it accessible.

Susan: That's the way it will stay.

Amanda: Susan, your husband, who was a very kind man, and quite an outdoors man was also very successful.

And the reason you've been able to make this generous gift to the citizens of South Carolina and visitors is because of the Susan and Darnall Boyd Foundation.

So tell me a little bit about the foundation and what things you enjoy supporting.

Susan: Well, we support schools, scholarships, the Sandhill Schools for Dyslexics.

We are big supporters of that.

We have couples, by the way, I think it's interesting.

We have one couple who has just moved from Alaska to bring their children down to the Sandhill School so they can learn to read and write.

There are many children out there, and the school is lovely.

We just gave a 9 room building because they've outgrown the other parts.

I have asked if I can order a math class.

Of course, I've never been able to do math.

(Amanda laughs) Susan: And that's what I tell the children out there, I say, "If I have had this school, I would be smart as all of you."

(both laughing) Amanda: The arts are important to you as well.

Susan: Yeah, yeah.

Amanda: Boyd Plaza at the Columbia Museum of Art, I believe, is... Susan: Yeah.

Absolutely.

Amanda: Named for your son, whom you lost, Darnall.

Susan: Yeah, that's right.

Amanda: And then, environmental things, bobwhite research.

Susan: All sorts of things.

Amanda: It goes on and on, doesn't it?

Susan: Ah, well, he loved to shoot.

So, the Wateree Gun Club down the Sumter Highway has some very interesting things to shoot at that are not alive, so don't, you know, yeah.

They even have a place for people who have been injured in war or something to shoot, and I'm told they love that.

Amanda: Of course they do.

Susan: and need to use it, yeah.

Amanda: I mean, people hate to give up something that is so important to them because of an injury.

Susan: That's right.

Susan: And y'all made it possible for them to continue.

Susan: It's for wheelchairs.

Amanda: Yes, yeah.

Susan: So, we try to do a lot of different things.

I wish my Donald was here now.

But, he set this up, and George Bailey carries it on, and makes sure that it all gets done.

So anyway, I have a lot of fun knowing that we're doing a lot of good.

Amanda: And if I might say, the historic houses.

Susan: Oh, yeah.

Amanda: The historic houses.

Susan: And the gardens there, Keith Mearns is the gardener and he is doing a great job.

We're getting ready now to under light all the oak trees around that house - Amanda: How beautiful!

Susan: - because there's no light out there at night.

Amanda: And I believe you have an interest in the zoo.

Susan: Oh, yeah.

Amanda: You'll help them make improvements.

Susan: Yeah.

I call them the fish tanks.

But I think that's not quite good enough.

But you know what I'm talking about.

And they are tearing up what's there, and redoing the whole thing.

And the fish tanks, they are more important to children than anything else to have out there.

Amanda: Well, you are encouraging conservation and appreciation of wildlife in nature.

Susan: Yeah.

Amanda: Susan, I want to thank you for joining us here today, and particularly, thank your wonderful husband and the memory of your son, and all the people who are in-laws - Susan: That's right.

Amanda: - who are working with you to help make these beautiful projects possible.

Susan: But we have another son, who is a huge help to me, wants to come out here more.

He lives in Charleston.

He's also coming up to take me to a party.

That's very important.

(both laughing) So, I have fun with him too.

Amanda: His name, of course, is?

Susan: He's Taylor.

Amanda: Yeah.

Well, I know he enjoys coming here and appreciating this beautiful spot.

Thank you, Susan.

Susan: Every time I come it gets really more beautiful.

♪ classical music ♪ ♪ Amanda: Boyd Island is just one of the remarkable places that has benefited from the Darnall and Susan Boyd Foundation, and if you go to The River Alliance, you can find out how to access many wonderful places, including Boyd Island, around the city of Columbia.

Terasa, is there someone we could help?

Terasa: We're going to try to help Jerrold in Elloree.

Jerrold said, "My pecan (or peCAHn trees) "have black spots on the leaves and the nuts.

"What causes this, and is there anything I can do?"

Amanda: Well, Phillip, is it the same thing if it's a PEcan tree or peCAHn tree that's causing the problem?

Phillip: It most definitely would be.

I'm gonna call it a PEcan, because that's what I grew up calling it.

Pecan in the South, it's not natural in our area It's native to the Illinois area.

But it does fantastically well here, and we see several fungal issues, the chief among them being pecan scab, and it has two different strains or races, race one and two.

Certain trees are resistant to one or the other, but never both, or at least not yet.

So we do see several issues with pecan scab throughout the year, and the only recourse is to spray, and it's only economical if you own an orchard.

Amanda: All right, okay.

Phillip: The homeowner, due to that, is kind of left out in the cold, unfortunately, unless he or she has their own ability to spray, but it is still very dangerous.

Amanda: Does it vary with the environmental conditions from year to year a little bit?

Phillip: It does.

Amanda: Okay.

Phillip: Earlier in this season and the pecan season we were very humid, so we did see some initial scab increase in population levels and densities.

But as we dried out, leading into the fall of the year, that population declined.

So scab was now not as severe.

Now, it's based on wetness, really.

And it's easy to tell pecan scab when it's on the nut.

It can be a little bit more tricky when it's on the leaf, because there is an insect called pecan black aphid that creates a lesion that is very similar to the damage.

Amanda: Well, the South Carolina Agriculture Department says, you know, "Support local agriculture," you know, and "nothing's fresher, nothing's finer," and we certainly have people in South Carolina who are harvesting beautiful pecans and we can get and enjoy them there, and we've helped our local farmers.

Right?

Phillip: That is right, and it's a great and growing business in South Carolina, especially in the Orangeburg area.

Amanda: And one thing, a lot of people like almonds, but, you know, they take a huge amount of water, and our pecan trees are just sitting out there doing beautifully, mostly, you know, with whatever nature provides.

Phillip: It's very fortunate that they use less water than an almond.

Amanda: Yes, it is.

Okay.

Well, Ryan, we're telling people to do soil tests this year, and it seems like I've heard that some people actually test their pond bottoms to find out if they need a lime application.

Ryan: That's right.

Yeah.

So every spring, it seems like the number of calls coming in about weeds in ponds are increasing, and we deal with them from the first time the water starts getting up around 60-65 degrees, so, early spring, and once those weeds start taking hold, they end up clogging up and make it hard for people to fish or swim or whatever they do in their ponds.

And so, we get a lot of questions.

"How do I control this?"

or "How'd this show up?"

And just like in our yards and our landscapes, weeds will become more prevalent when the pH gets out of the range to prevent them from taking over.

So we recommend taking a pond bottom sample, and that's nothing more than a soil sample from the bottom of the pond.

Amanda: Is it something you can do yourself if you read about it?

Ryan: So, you can do it a couple different ways.

The easiest way is not draining the pond, it's to use posthole diggers or a shovel if you can get out, just wade out in the water or use a little boat or something, and just bring the soil in, you know, not very deep, two to four inches maybe.

And try to take all the muck off the top, and then let that soil dry and bring it into your local Extension office.

Amanda: Okay, let it dry, because there's nothing worse.

It seems like farmers like to go take soil tests sometimes when it's wet too.

And then the poor office is left with all these things they have to dry out before they call the people to pick them up.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's important for people to know, because those recreational ponds do give such joy to people.

Ryan: They do, and that test will tell us what the pH of the soil is, and it also will notice any kind of really high or excessive levels of nutrients, so we can help address that moving forward.

Amanda: Okay, wonderful.

Well, I want to thank everybody for being here today and the wonderful things that we got to talk about.

I hope you all enjoyed it, and we'll see y'all next week right here on Making It Grow.

♪ Captioned by: SCETV <Announcer> Making It Grow is brought to you in part by Certified South Carolina is a cooperative effort among farmers, retailers, and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture to help consumers identify foods and agricultural products that are grown, harvested or raised right here in the Palmetto State.

The Boyd Foundation supporting outdoor recreational opportunities, the appreciation of wildlife, educational programs, and enhancing the quality of life in Columbia, South Carolina and the Midlands at large.

McLeod Farms in McBee, South Carolina family owned and operated since 1916.

This family farm offers seasonal produce, including over 40 varieties of peaches.

Additional funding provided by the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation and Farm Bureau Insurance and Boone Hall Farms.

(Thanks for watching)