easy-to-propagate wildflowers, plus ‘celandine’ confusion, with carol gracie

“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.” Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

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.

In springtime, the deciduous woodlands around us are beginning to awaken as the delicate flowers of spring ephemerals pierce the blanket of leaf litter. Most of these woodland plants are found in areas with rich, humusy soil and layer of deep leaf litter; they flower when the leaves are off the trees and light reaches the forest floor in spring. These diminutive plants are beautiful, but beyond this, they provide critical support for newly emerging spring bees. As temperatures warm, native solitary bees visit bloodroot, trout lily, spring beauty, Virginia bluebells, and other spring flowers to collect pollen or sip nectar. Some of these bees have a close or exclusive relationship with specific flowers, a fact recognized in their names: trout lily bee (Andrena erythronii) or the spring beauty bee(Andrena erigeniae). Trout lily bees visit more than just trout lily, but the latter relies exclusively on the pink pollen provided by spring beauty to provision their nests. However, many other bees visit this spring beauty too. In fact, 58 species of bees have been reported as visitors to this tiny pink flower. Similarly, bloodroot, trout lilies, and Virginia bluebells are visited by a diversity of bees, including bumblebees (Bombus spp.), little carpenter bees (Ceratina spp.), halictid bees (Halictus spp., Lasioglossum spp.), and mason bees (Osmia spp.). Clearly, these spring ephemerals are of considerable importance to the survival of many spring bee species, a fact we rarely consider when we admire their flowers.

Spring wildflowers are garden stars in the wooded area of South Carolina Botanical Garden’s Natural Heritage Trail from February to May. The spring herbaceous layer is exceptionally diverse in environments with rich soils containing lots of organic material. Every day something new appears in the landscape!

The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) is the latest non-native species to take hold in the U.S. This planthopper is large (about a half-inch long) and originally from several countries in the Far East. It was first found in Pennsylvania in 2014, and active infestations are now established in Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and as of just last week, North Carolina. SLF has not been detected in South Carolina, but it is an insect for which we need to be on the lookout.

As summer fades and fall’s cool temperatures and moist days arrive, this is a fantastic time for planting perennials, shrubs, and trees. Under these conditions, plants get time to establish roots without the stresses of summer heat and dryness. Luckily, this is also time for the South Carolina Botanical Garden’s semi-annual plant sale. As well as offering great quality plants of all kinds, plant sales are our major fundraiser. Through them, you support our operations and the enhancements made to this unique and free public garden. The catalog is available online for pre-sale planning Preview the Catalog (PDF). Garden staff, volunteers, and Clemson University students will be available at the sale to help with plant selection. In addition, several partner organizations set up booths at the sale to answer questions about gardening-related topics and activities. To find out who will be here this year, check the catalog. For additional information, please contact Misty Shealy, Nursery Manager, at [email protected].

This heirloom grain, together with the skilled knowledge and forced labor of West Africans and their descendants, made South Carolina very, very rich. From 1720 to the outbreak of the Civil War, rice was the most economically valuable crop for this state. White landowners, who thought rice would do well in the low country, themselves lacked practical knowledge of rice cultivation. Instead, they paid a premium to slave traders to capture and transport laborers from the well-established rice region of West Africa to Carolina. During the 18th century, many enslaved people brought into Charleston came from this rice-growing area. These people and their descendants created the Gullah-Geechee culture in the low country.

As a new year begins, educators at the South Carolina Botanical Garden at Clemson University are excited for a new season of classes and events for all ages. Our entire new calendar is here.

At the beginning of the week, I noticed our native magnolias flowering profusely. First, the evergreen southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora), which line the entrance to the South Carolina Botanical Garden (SCBG), put on a show. Then, a few days later, one of our deciduous magnolias, the bigleaf, was covered in plate-sized flowers. In fact, the bigleaf (Magnolia macrophylla) has the largest simple leaf and flower of any native plant on the continent. Magnolias are an ancient plant, one of the earliest flowering trees (angiosperm) in the world. I love to think about these trees growing among the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years.

There is also an Open Day in nearby Litchfield County, Connecticut that day and in Dutchess County, New York (the other adjacent area to me). Be sure to check for those listings, too, and make a day of it.Can’t make it? How about coming June 2, or August 18? (Or come back; always something different going on.) On the August date, Broken Arrow will be here again doing a sale in time for fall planting, and garden writer and old friend Ken Druse will deliver a morning lecture on plant combinations and do a smaller afternoon workshop on propagation.All the details on those other days, including links to follow for the Ken Druse events, are on my events page.  Ken’s talk and workshop require prior

Dr. Tripp, the voice of Robin Hood Radio’s newest program, “Your Health,” received her D.O. from the University of New England. In previous incarnations she has her BS and MS from Cornell; her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, where she also served as Curator of Conifers for the famed J.C. Raulston Arboretum, and did postdoctoral work at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. She knows from trees and shrubs—and that’s what we talked about:q&a: great trees for gardens, with kim trippQ.What woody plants always got your recommendation—what did you try to encourage clients to plant when you were making gardens for people, while supporting yourself through medical school? A. The first thing I always did, especially with a new client, was to walk around with them and say, “Let’s just see what’s growing here now–what’s out there and doing well,” and have a look at it and see if we like it or don’t. And we’d go from there.I found a few plants in our region that no matter what the conditions, were always doing well—even with deer browse.They were thi