Making It Grow Minutes

Dr. Herrick Brown, the curator at the A. C. Moore Herbarium, will help identify plants for you...

It may be that fireflies first started glowing to warn off predators that they contain a toxin and taste horrible.

Once you discover the natural phenomena of our diverse state ecosystems, your world gets wider and wider without leaving home.

When I was young, we had lots of fireflies in our Columbia backyard in the summer. But when we went to camp or my grandparent’s summer retreat in Saluda, North Carolina, the numbers seemed exponentially greater.

Agent Carmen Ketron, recently on our SCETV program Making It Grow, told us she’d seen the synchronous firefly display at the Congaree National Park. This phenomenon occurs at the end of May or early June for about two weeks every year.

Our state and nation owe Harry Hampton a great debt for his love of wildlife and years of work promoting that the Beidler Tract not be logged but instead preserved as what is now the Congaree National Park.

It wasn’t until Russian Mennonites came to the northern parts of the US and Canada in the late nineteenth century that sunflowers became a crop of interest in the US.

The list of other birds that relish these seeds is lengthy, a short list includes ring-necked pheasants, quail bobolinks, goldfinches, meadowlarks, nuthatches and tufted titmice.

The N R S C Plant guide for sunflowers is fascinating. Among some of the sayings associated with sunflowers from the Teton Dakota tribes is “When the sunflowers were tall and in full bloom, the buffaloes were fat and the meat good.” Many tribes recognized the value of an infusion of sunflowers to treat chest pains.

Annual sunflowers, important in the cut flower industry, are grown commercially for seeds eaten by humans and birds, and for cooking oil. Sunflowers are one of the few important food crops that originated in north America.

The annual sunflower, Helianthus annuus, is native to North America and was widely used by early indigenous people as a food, a source for dyes, and numerous medicinal purposes.

Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine. a major agricultural crop, until recently grown on one hundred sixty million acres, and most of it processed for oil. Some think the Ukraine flag represents a blue sky over a field of yellow sunflowers.

Clemson’s Ag and Art Tour, from mid-May through June, features farms, art venues and more in eleven counties is a wonderful way to expose your children to farm animals, vegetables growing in fields, and the results of artists’ creativity.

We are proud of our farmers and artist, but to be real, we aren’t Iowa or New York city for either group. But sometimes smaller means more exclusive and unique and that’s absolutely true for Clemson’s Ag and Art Tours coming up in May through June.

We paid a sneak visit to Fox Hideaway Farms, one of Richland Counties stops for the Clemson Ag and Art Tours taking place from mid-May to the end of June.

Clemson’s Ag and Art Tours when you can visit local farms and even some artists’ studios, is free on weekends from mid-May to the end of June.

Will Culler of Clemson’s Agri-business team heads South Carolina’s Ag and Art Tour, the largest in the nation. What a great way to visit local farms and let your kids see where their food comes from.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNutly with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. As a young child, I began using U S C’s McKissick Museum - at that time it was a library. Today its mission statement includes these words “The University of South Carolina’s McKissick Museum fosters awareness and appreciation for the diversity of the region’s culture, history, and natural environment.” When the state of Pearl Fryar’s topiary garden and Mr. Fryar’s health was brought to director Jane Przybysz attention, she began work on a way to preserve this regional and national treasure. Eventually, with cooperation with the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the museum got funding for a topiary artist in residence – I’m sure that’s a first, and Mike Gibson, a self-taught and self-described property artist, is working with Fryar in his Bishopville garden. McKissick is to me an overlooked treasure for our state, please visit it on the old horseshoe.

When Pearl Fryar was transferred from being a plant manager up north to being an assistant plant manager in Bishopville, he was unable to buy property or a house in many parts of town. Despite these slights, he eventually turned his landscape on the outskirts of Bishopville into a topiary garden celebrated internationally. The theme of his garden was and is to this day love and open to one and all. He also supported scholarships for average students who otherwise wouldn’t have gotten higher education. His ability to spot potential even had him retrieving plants that had been discarded from nurseries and giving them new life in his garden.

Team Making It Grow traveled to Charleston recently to the small garden behind St. John’s Reformed Episcopal Church. During a Spoleto outreach project many years ago, this garden showcasing two of national artists’ unique skills was installed. A master of iron work design and craftsmanship, Phillip Simmons, created unique and appropriate gates and wall openings. Topiary artist Pearl Fryar designed a small but exquisite example of his unique artistry. A committee of the Garden Club of Charleston has been tending this garden but recently took lessons in Fryar’s techniques from Mike Gibson to learn some of the specific techniques. The McKissick Museum at U S C got a grant to hire Mike Gibson, a self-described property artist, to work and learn from Fryar in his Bishopville garden, as that world-renowned topiary artist is aging and limited in his activities.