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.
We are passionate about sharing nature with children and have several opportunities for young children through to teens. The youngest visitors can participate in monthly Stroller Struts and weekly Garden Sprouts; both programs are dedicated to exploring seasonal themes with fun, age-appropriate activities. We recently expanded our well-established 4-H Junior Naturalist Program to include a new program for teens. Visit these links to learn more about Junior Naturalist 1 and Junior Naturalist 2. For homeschoolers, our extremely popular Homeschool days classes explore the night sky in February, seasons and weather in March, flowers and pollination in April, and all about birds in May.
Families can enjoy weekend educational events through our monthly Nature Center and Hunt Cabin Open Houses. Each open house includes fun, hands-on activities, experts on hand to explore the month’s theme, and suggestions for getting outside and exploring the natural world. Open houses take place on February 25, March 25, April 29, and May 27.
For adults, we are launching a new series: Discover South Carolina. If you are new to South Carolina or want to know more about this state’s natural beauty and history, this class is for you. Explore the plants, people, and animals that make this state their home. We’ll begin in the classroom, then spend time in the field visiting our Natural Heritage Trail to experience each natural habitat. Through this program, you will gain a more profound knowledge of the beauty and uniqueness of South Carolina.
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North Carolina State Extension wrote an excellent publication on terrestrial flatworms, with common species around yards and gardens in the Carolinas called land planarians or hammerhead worms: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/terrestrial-flatwormshammerhead-worms.
The Upstate is one of the few places in South Carolina with the right climate and soil conditions to grow productive apples trees. While the actual trees can be grown in most any part of the state, higher temperatures and humidity in the midlands and coastal plains make disease pressure hard to manage.
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.
Our South Carolina water resources help producers grow the crops we eat, supply drinking water when we turn on the tap, and support industry and our outdoor lifestyle. It is important to recognize how we use water in our community so that we can each do our part to help conserve this important resource. Do you know who is the biggest user of water in South Carolina? It may not be who you think.
The Asian longhorned beetle (ALB; Anoplophora glabripennis) is not easy to miss – adults of this large, black beetle with white spots, black and white striped antennae, and blueish feet are between 1 and 1 ½” long (Fig. 1). ALB larvae are equally striking as the large, white segmented larvae can be nearly 2” in length (Fig. 2). Established populations in the U.S. are found in Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, and a new infestation was recently found in Charleston County, South Carolina.
Clemson University’s Cooperative Extension Service is proud to offer a brand new program to the citizens of South Carolina! Many landscape professionals, whether in the private industry, grounds-maintenance, or employed by government agencies, are in constant need of good training resources for themselves and their employees. Many homeowners also want to know that their landscape operators/providers have the skill set necessary to deliver consistent, high-quality service.
Copperhead snakes (Agkistrodon contortrix) are found throughout South Carolina and are one of the six venomous snake species, out of 38 total snake species, that our state has.