The South Carolina Botanical Garden is a treasure located on the campus of Clemson University.
If you can eat those delicious pine nuts without trouble, you probably aren’t allergic to pine pollen.
Agriculture is the largest industry in South Carolina, with timber being by far the most valuable crop, and pines are the largest component of that.
Pine trees produce male pine cones on the lower part of the tree and female ones towards the top, a clever way to prevent self-fertilization.
There’s actually a scientific method to establish when pines will be releasing pollen: by keeping a record of the number of degree-days above 55° Fahrenheit after February 1st.
If you can safely leave dead branches or even a dead tree on your property, you could end up with at-risk birds happily cohabitating with you.
In part of our large yard, one area has three dozen mature pines. Occasionally one gets hit by lightning and dies, becoming a snag, and we leave them up.
The American kestrel, our smallest falcon, is a handsome bird easily seen as they perch on power lines looking for prey on the ground below or flying past them.
We know about the crisis of people without homes but there is also a crisis for cavity-nesting birds.
Host Amanda McNulty of Making It Grow sees the natural beauty of the Wateree floodplain during her daily commute.
Ladybug larvae, both native and imported, are described as looking like alligators. But, there's an important difference between the two...
Asian ladybug beetles prefer to come inside the part of the house that gets afternoon sun.
Asian ladybug beetles will eat damaged apples, grapes, or other fruits, sometimes creating ladybug wine taint.
If you have Chinese wisteria, please be a steward of the environment and eliminate it.
Two vegetable scientists, Powell Smith and Mark Fortnum, traveled through South Carolina and Georgia on a search for old timey collard plants, especially ones in flower.
At the Coastal Research and Development Center 2023 brassica field day we saw a field with several hundred different collard green plants growing in it. There’re two major types of collards.
Nationally, South Carolina is the top state for producing turnips greens and second in collards, kale and mustard greens.
Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. There are 50 species of cotton in the genus Gossypium — basically they’re seeds with fibers attached. Only a few are commercially important.
I visually see changes in agriculture and society on my daily commute to Sumter. From the older compressed modular storage units of cotton, today’s extraordinarily complex cotton picking machines press the cotton into round units and wrap them in a protective covering before depositing them in the field, all the while continuing to pick cotton from the plants at the front of the machine.
Making It Grow celebrated thirty years of being on air with SCETV this year. The show was developed and hosted for much of that time by Rowland Alston, a Clemson Extension agent and son of an agent.
The early mechanical cotton pickers dumped their filled bins into carriers which were then emptied into wagons in the field. Workers drove these wagons to the gin daily and waited for hours as each was emptied and credited to the farmer.
This year's cotton crop seems phenomenal. It’s the closest thing to a snow-covered landscape I’m likely to see in these days of changing weather patterns.
Hickory tree leaves are the larval food source of two hundred moths or butterflies; and one is particular is spectacular in both the larval and adult stage.
For people, shelling them is a laborious process and the tools used include hammers, vises, and a peculiar item called the Texas York Nut Sheller.
Twenty some odd years ago, Edward and I dug up a hickory seedling on his family’s farm. The foot tall seedling had a six-foot long tap root that fortunately took a turn and didn’t go straight down. We brought it home and heeled it in near the house.
One of the most beautiful of fall trees is the hickory. With leaves the color of slightly browned butter it is quite a standout.
Magnolia grandiflora, our southern magnolia with large, glossy leaves is part of many nature-based decorations for holidays and special occasions.
The relatively modest Christmas decorations at Historic Columbia’s Robert Mills House reflect what would have been accurate during the 1820’s.