Be a Lazy Gardener and K.I.S.S. for Healthy Plants

Everyone loves falafel—it’s a year-round staple, and the frozen options at Trader Joe’s make it incredibly easy to prepare. But today, you should probably rid your freezer shelves of any Trader Joe’s falafel: In the company’s third food recall this week, on July 28 Trader Joe’s recalled its fan-favorite Fully Cooked Falafel after being informed by the supplier that rocks were found in the food.

What’s blooming at the South Carolina Botanical Garden this week!

Summer at the South Carolina Botanical Garden (SCBG) that is a fun time filled with summer camps and children laughing and learning. Below are some of the simple, low cost ideas we used in our Creativity Camp to get children outside, where they enjoyed nature, and tapped into their creativity.

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Nothing says Christmas more than a poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima). Did you know that December 12th is known as National Poinsettia Day? Plant breeders have developed a wide range of colors in hues of white, purple, orange, and pink, but red poinsettias continue to be the most traditional color of the holiday season.

Garden Sprouts is a program I run at the South Carolina Botanical Garden that is designed for preschoolers and caregivers. This class takes place once a week for three months every spring and fall. The goal is to share age-appropriate nature-based activities with children, who are mostly three to five years old, but sometimes younger or older. Over time I have learned the caregivers also learn things they never knew, enjoy the activities immensely, and are able to connect more deeply to the natural world through this program. The structure of this hour-long program is three-fold, we begin inside with a book related to the theme of the day, a walk or outdoor activity, and finally a craft. In this blog, I would like to share some of the books, outdoor activities, and crafts we have done in this class.

Want to add a tropical flair to your garden this spring? Elephant ears will add a bold statement to a filtered sun or high shade spot. These striking “drama queens” of the garden may be either in genera Colocasia or Alocasia. The easiest way to tell these beauties apart is that colocasias (Colocasia esculenta) will have leaves that point downward, and alocasia (Alocasia species) leaves will point upward. Depending on the species or cultivar of each genus, the size can range from 3 to 10 feet tall and 2 to 10 feet in width. Both types of elephant ears are native to the tropical regions of Southeastern Asia.

What’s blooming at the South Carolina Botanical Garden This Week.

In a year when many of our favorite sporting events have been postponed or even canceled, the garden marches on! As gardeners, we have our own backyard competitions each year, keeping mental notes on which varieties we will plant again or replace due to their performance on our ‘home court’. But choosing which varieties will be in our starting lineup each year can become a daunting task.

Come for a fall stroll in the beautiful South Carolina Botanical Gardens and see what’s blooming this week.

The “Jurassic Garden” at the South Carolina Botanical Garden represents plant groups that trace their lineage back to at least the late Jurassic/early Cretaceous — a place where you can see dinosaur tracks, fossil casts, and the plants.

Can’t travel right now to see the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona? Come for a visit to the South Carolina Botanical Garden to see selection of the interesting native plants at the Chihuahuan Desert Garden Display.