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♪ good evening according to the calendar fall will be here in just a few weeks but those temperatures are still very hot which means you should probably exercise caution in using using garden moms in your containers just yet.

I'm terasa lott with clemson extension and you are watching making it grow.

We have a talented panel of experts here tonight to answer your gardening questions.

First on my left is davis sanders of south pleasantburg nursery.

Davis thanks so much for joining us tonight.

Thanks for having me it's always a pleasure.

I understand that you've lost someone special recently.

Yes the the upstate gardening community lost someone special.

Bow harper who was a personal gardner to just a whole lot of people in the greenville area.

Passed away unexpectedly about three weeks ago.

This is a picture of bow and his wife linda.

Bow was a a musician as well as a avid gardener.

He was an expert in exotic plants.

Although he did not have a lot of formal training and I had known bow for over forty years and you know later on in in his career and mine.

We always argued over who taught who the most.

Because every time we we got together.

Each of us learned something from the other, and he was up much loved and very well respected in the gardening community and his loss is going to affect all of us.

That's very sad news but I understand that he he passed doing what he loved.

He was doing what he loved.

He he went quickly and and just that that that type of ending, doing doing what he wanted and loved best.

I can't think of a better way to go.

I think we all wish for that and speaking of doing what you love.

Chase I think you get to do what you love every day through your work with clemson extension.

Right here in sumter and also clarendon county.

I do yes very enjoyable.

We're talking earlier about what a lot of folks are calling in about.

The one thing that i've been seeing a lot of folks calling about weeds in their yard still.

Which is probably how about you all over y'alls office but that is one of the most popular topics.

Oh yeah.

Why are weeds in my yard?

I've got weeds my yard too.

I asked the time.

But most the weeds that we're seeing right now.

They they ask how to get rid of them now and I say wait wait about a month or two and we're gonna have a whole new set.

Because we're a warm season weeds right now.

Right.

So really we need to start looking at focusing on those cool season weeds still be coming up here soon.

The winter weeds.

And then fun people who send me pictures and try to trick me with plants for plant i.d.

So.

We only want to keep you on your toes right.

All right and next to chase we have dan hill.

Assistant director of kalmia gardens at coker university.

How are things over in your neck of the woods?

Kinda warm kind of warm but still always nice at the gardens.

I would like to invite everyone to come out and stroll our shaded trails at the gardens and they can go walk on our board walks along block, black creek and just taken the nature and take in the scenery.

It's a very relaxing wonderful place.

Sounds good.

South carolina is home to many beautiful places and kalmia gardens is one of them.

You know here making it grow.

We try to keep up with technology and you can now not only watch us through your favorite cable or satellite provider, but you can keep up with us on facebook live.

Things are a little different this week i'm sitting in the host seat and there's no one sitting at my desk but that doesn't mean that we aren't there.

So you can log in to your computer through facebook live and vicky bertagnolli will be monitoring the comments from home.

So feel free to ask her a question.

Comment I know I always get excited when I see little emoji icons float across the screen.

So give her a thumbs up or a a like we hope one of the positive emoji would be great and that way you can stay a part of the conversation, even if you happen to be traveling.

So remember we are always available on tuesday evenings.

A rather new addition to making it grow is our question of the week, in this is a chance where we can preselected question and let the panel review it ahead of time to provide a more in depth answer to a question that someone might have in this week's question comes from howard bunch in summerville south carolina.

He sent us a picture of two different plants and said, is it too late to trim these way back?

So i'm glad that we have such diversity on our panel today.

It gives each one a chance to talk about something that they have expertise in.

So davis we're gonna start with you and if you could maybe talk about it.

Well right plant right place comes to mind.

Well that appears to be a chameleon japonica which of course as plant that in most cases can get ten twelve fifteen feet tall, easily and it should never be planted in a place where cutting it way back should be necessary.

One of the out one of the leading causes of plant decline is over pruneing.

It is quite possible to prune a plant to death.

However we don't know for sure if he planted this plant or if he inherited an existing property that had the plant already there.

The short answer is this is not a good time to prune it way back.

If it needs to be that severely renovated it's best done in stages over two or three year period so you don't shock the plant completely by cutting the whole thing down.

Great advice so right plant right place is always the first thing we should think about when we are putting something new into the landscape.

And now chase I how about could you talk a little bit about the purpose of pruning and maybe a little bit of how to.

Yeah there there's a few different reasons to prune, and just to keep it simple you know it could be for structural reasons.

So you want to kind of change the habit of the plant the way it looks like we see a lot of people do stuff like aspilia and you know what what some of the other cool ones but still.

Yeah there were go some of the crazy stuff.

Just just in general if you have dead stuff or disease stuff on the tree like branches you can take them off at any time.

Now if you were to go in so called rejuvenate the plant, so if you want to completely cut it down they leaves left.

That can be done camelia from, valentine's day to say around may first safely.

Like davis said, it could be a little bit of a shock and what you're gonna get a diesel with the shoots that come back up you have to retrain those over time.

You want to go now plants in general whenever you go to prune.

What your gonna want to look for this is on pretty much any plant and it's not always pronounces whose home the star treatment right here but there's a branch support coller.

This branch support coller is basically kinda, to keep it simple is a zone of healing.

Because when plants get damaged they compartmentalize or clothes off areas, instead of just you know healing the area they close it off.

So if we go in a cut to far back behind this coller.

What we end up doing is not allowing the tree to be a cop compartmentalized area properly.

To our look for is kindness pronounced the area.

If you see this pronounced area this little coller you're gonna want to cut right out in front of it then to allow heal properly if you can't see the caller at all you know it's better to err on the side of caution and just go out a little bit further but you don't leave a stump like this either.

Because what you get is rot back and they can't heal over it so.

Fascinating great I know certainly could use that information about how to prune and I think there really is an art to it as well.

You have to know what you want the finished product to look like.

You've got to do a three sixty around the plate yes they what are what the single white ten fifteen twenty years from now and just kind of it takes some practice.

You gotta kinda imagine what it's gonna look like but we actually have a great great h.g.i.c.

Fact sheet.

Is actually called the art and science of pruning.

I don't think it's a perfect name for it.

Paul thompson has done a video which is about pruning crepe myrtle.

Which is fabulous I wish that we could just plaster it every where.

But that's a story for another day.

You know dan there was another plant that Mr.

Bunch sent in that was not a camelia it looked to be one of the privet species and I know non native invasive species is something that you're passionate about.

Even through your work at kalmia gardens so maybe could you just touch on that a bit.

Yeah I do a lot of work with non native invasive species mainly a non native invasive plants and the ligustrum.

The private group of plants are are really problematic.

The they basically you could the homeowners buy them and they escape from the landscape and they get out in the wild natural areas and they they out compete our native plants.

And while they are out competing are native plants they don't provide any ecosystem services.

To the to the environment.

Native plants are a bridge for the energy from the sun to get to the rest of the traffic beating levels, and if you're an insect if you don't share an evolutionary history with the plant.

More than likely you're not going to be able to consume it.

So when these non native invasive species escape and get out they out compete our our native plants.

I am not a hundred percent native person.

I love my japanese maple in my yard and there's a lot of be like camellias a wonderful specimen that's not native.

So not all imported plants are bad.

It's just I have a problem with the ones that escape.

They get out in the landscape and misbehave.

Shure and there are some great resources that people can utilize.

When there's, before they go out and get plant material to put into their yard.

Right there are some really great resources and here are two of my to resources these are books that are easily found.

This one talks about plants that have the same attributes as well it's the ligustrum for instance it's evergreen it makes a great headge, just has a lot of listings of plants that can be used in place of those and this one right here put out by the forest service.

Is a list of plants that are better no no.

That are non native invasive plants and we don't want to have them in our landscape and this is available online.

It's not not print anymore but you can find it online a simple google search will bring it right up right up.

At your fingertips.

Yep indeed.

Very good well we have our first caller on the line I understand it is denise calling from calabash north carolina.

So denise how can we help you this evening?

I'm having trouble with a bobcat.

He's been visiting my farm.

I have a small farm with ducks chickens and so I have a lot of plants but he doesn't bother the plants.

What should I do?

Oh goodness.

I don't know if any of us on wildlife experts in terms of bobcats any anybody want to give it a go.

I would I would suggest contacting north carolina department of natural resources and not see if they can refer a licensed trapper, or someone who could possibly relocate the bobcat.

Unfortunately he is a predator and predators eat prey.

So making that making the prey a little bit less accessible to the predator is always first step.

Good step.

So we probably aren't the best experts but utilize your resources there in north carolina.

They might call it something different but something akin to your department of natural resources.

We hope that helps.

We have joe calling from columbia.

How can we be of assistance this evening joe?

I like watching your show and i've got a question i've grown when I was younger some banana pepper and harvested in the eaten it and it wasn't hot.

But now every banana pepper get at the store.

Is spicy hot, and I don't mean pickled, I mean fresh banana pepper.

It's supposed to be about as hot as bell pepper.

But all I get is the spicy hot one.

Can anybody tell me name brand or plants or a place where I can get seeds to the ones that are not hot.

My goodness well that is a problem.

But I can tell you now I I'm not sure of a particular like cultivar, but I grow sweet banana peppers in my garden that are are definitely not spicy chase you happen to know?

I mean on the plant label it should tell you if it's sweet or hot correct?

Yeah there's definitely some large, by no means am I a banana pepper expert.

Are going through that out there, but there's a lot of seed companies like reputable seed companies online.

I'm I'm not going to throw out any company name.

You know we can't do that right?

Right we can't really do that.

But yeah, so you can go on there and some of them have thousands of different types of peppers and you can go through and I'm sure you could find.

I mean there's all kinds of, look it eggplants these days I mean all my goodness yeah there's a white ones yeah who would ever thought we'd have a white egg plant would be growing here.

Or in pinewood south carolina.

Where I'm from.

There are lots of resources out there lots of different the banana peppers for you to try just look for either the label or the description if you're looking online for it to say something about it being sweet rather than hot.

Now it is time for us to take our virtual field trip and see what all of you are doing across the state.

We're going to start in darlington which is where I live and this photograph was sent in by ver'onica gallo-bambery and she said I did not do too much gardening this year but here are my window boxes at their peak, and that is absolutely beautiful.

I'm sure the pansies don't look that way now but it's almost time for pansies to come out for redoing them in the fall.

Moving on we have a lexington south carolina represented by a photograph from clint fuel.

He says it might be the end of the season and not as pretty or nice as it was, but our vegetable garden has served its purpose and provided a good bounty for the family.

So garending certainly has a season, and we are wrapping up the summer season and getting into the fall season.

From campobello south carolina we have gary and linda burch.

Who sent us this photograph of a u. Pretoria per fully eight I'm saying the pollinators we're loving it in their medicinal shade garden, and if you look closely.

You can see a little pollinator there on the flower perhaps this type of wasp and I believe I see some rebeckyus and black eyed susans in the background.

We're going to end our gardens of the week today with the donovan vedad in charleston south carolina.

He actually sharing a photo of his neighbor's backyard.

He said full of citrus trees and four o'clock flowers.

His neighbors nearly ninety years old and has passed that he's created over time from tree to tree.

Everything from caracara moral blood orange a lorry set soumis parson brown persian limes and meyer lemons he is my mentor, and I think that's one of the things that's so special about gardening is is the memories that it can create and the relationships that it can form.

Wonderful memories of growing up with my grandparents and picking strawberries with my grandfather and making jam with my grandmother and picking green and yellow beans and canning them with my grandmother and great grandmother from england.

So treasure gardening.

We have tommy in lake city, who is calling us with his question.

Tommy how can we help you?

Yes ma'am I called a couple a weeks ago and I asked about some caterpillas on a vine.

Ok.

But they are eating it up now I was wondering what I could do you know what vine it is?

I mean it was not my it I can't remember the name of it to save my life but it looks like a pin wheel.

Well it's awful I can't remember what the name of it is.

I am thinking that she might have passion vine or passive floura sometimes people call it so dan you want to coment?

Yeah those are gonna those are going to turn into go fertile areas so I would I would just enjoy watching them munch there really can eat a lot they really really do eat a lot.

But if you keep your eye on them, eventually they're gonna make a a really neat chrysalis and you'll get to watch the metamorph into a into a beautiful butterfly changing from a caterpillar to a beautiful winged insects.

So it's it's really good to watch really fun so I would just let them do their thing and enjoy the show.

Usually you mentioned kind of earlier about these relationships between plants and insects and and usually if they have established this relationship the plant can tolerate even pretty heavy feeding and and still come back.

So maybe that's not something we grow but sometimes people get upset about swallowtails on their on parsley your deal or or fennel so my my m. Response to that is usually will grow some for them and grow some for you and see if you can't share.

Absolutely because yeah it's quite a show and it's wonderful to see a butterfly emerge.

It's of really really special and they've all together so the plants used to get nibbled on so it'll be all right.

No problem.

Alright well let's see if we can help terry in lexington this evening.

Hey terry well we might have lost terry.

So I think we are going to do a show and tell item.

Davis you brought an assortment as usual, let's start maybe with this unusual foliage color over here.

Ok only on the far left we have a one of the nine barks fisacarpass.

Opealefolis.

That particular one is called panther because of the dark coloration and leaves.

It is the simie dwarf veriety.

The the the literature says and it's going to get three to five feet which in my opinion probably means in three to five years.

I think it's probably going to get a little bit bigger than that but the fiesacarpus is a a native plant that thrives in sun or part shade.

It can adapt to wet soils and it can adapt dry soils.

It's an excellent year round interest plant it is deciduous.

So it's going to drop its leaves in the winter.

But it does have the dark foliage in the summertime in the spring it's it's it's covered with the host a little golf ball sized white blooms.

It started as pink buds.

Little clusters of flowers, that or our favorite targets of some of the early pollinators.

In the wintertime when it doesn't have any foliage on it you see where the name nine bark came from.

Its it's a translation of a native american descriptive term.

Because the bark exfoliates cracks it develops fisher's it changes color and it literally looks like it has nine layers of bark or nine different types of bark.

So it's got a lot of nice winter interest, and of course being a native it's gonna to do well pretty much all over the southeast.

Ok, good to know about the bark.

People might think that there's something wrong with their plant right they might not be used to that exfoliating habit and they'll be calling up their extension office and saying what's wrong with my one of my plant?

Right right and as long as we know that it's a nine bark we'll say nothing's wrong with it.

Enjoy it.

That's right some some people appreciate some of the crepe myrtle species the natchez right has that I'm kind of cinnamon color exfoliating bark.

There right next to the nine bark, you have a maybe one of the lesser known holly's.

Yes that's one of the deciduous native holly's ilex for tissalada.

This particular cultivar is called red sprite.

Don't let the name fool you think of when you think of sprite you think of fairies and elves this one is going to get fairly large, going to get up six seven eight feet tall.

But it does develop a really nice crop of very large berries.

Being one of the one of the natives deciduous hollis when it drops it's leaves in winter are those those berries prosist for quite a long time until the cedar waxwings find them.

Anyway so it makes a really spectacular show after all the foliage has just dropped.

This is another one that can adapt to sun or shade and it doesn't mind and periodic flooding.

So it makes an excellent addition to a rain garden.

That makes it one of my favorites.

Get information and hopefully people will think more about expanding their palette of holly's to something other than just maybe american holly here and not choosing a deciduous.

I think we might have terry back on the phone from lexington and terry has a pepper question is that correct?

I do.

All right, how can we help you?

I have been planting cayenne peppers for ever and about the let the first year I planted them.

They were super hot like they're suppose to be.

And they're in pots on my deck.

But the last three years they have not been hot at all.

Should I change my soil would that help, or what would be the answer?

Well how interesting before we had we wanted a sweet pepper and the paper was hot and now we have we want a hot pepper but it's not, it's not hot.

So anyone have any knowledge about cayenne and why it might not be as hot as terry would like?

Well the the the the end question should she replace the soil is sort of a give away their.

Most pining soils to have a high percentage of organic matter in overtime that organic matter actually just gets broken down and used the plants may not be getting sufficient nutrition.

So changing the soil while actually changing the soil in a an above ground container.

Is out annually is actually a very good idea.

I think that if a if you change out the soil whenever you change out the plants.

I think you'll find that your cayenne peppers are still going to be hot.

Even sanitizing the pots is generally recommended.

Correct?

Chase you've probably dealt a lot with that in terms of propagation making sure you start with... Yeah it's like the number one thing you have to do is clean clean clean.

I'm not absolutely yeah the deal with this the first thing you need to do.

Because so many pathogens could just hang around, and davis talking about change out that soil.

That's key.

Because you talk about plants and you have syncs and sources on plants.

Some you know sources can be subs going to bring in nutrients like leaves for each sync is like a fruit, and it doesn't produce energy for you it just takes it all so loosing all that stuff that's an inside that soil in the pot.

And you got to give it back some how a lot of times you so you need clean the pot change out it should be something you do every year.

That's right and in the container it's different than a natural setting there's not really that opportunity for things to fremont say to break down indicating leaf manner and that kind of thing I think we must be on the topic of vegetables tonight.

I believe we have susanne and calling about a tomato question how can we help you?

Yes thank you so much.

I have a tomato that believe it or not after a long hot summer is still alive.

And it is six feet tall and I counted the blooms and so I could tell you that there were over twenty and what I'm wondering is how can i, what can I do to help it along so that those blooms will become tomatos.

Well you can ask mother nature for some cooler temperatures.

That might help.

I know the tomatoes can be finicky about about setting fruit as it relates to temperature.

Yeah we don't I mean we can grow both spring and fall crops of tomatoes here.

I think just kind of making sure it has what it needs and the soil, proper watering you know those are kind of the best things you can do right now.

Just making sure it has is based template so it needs to create a fruit the first place.

As far as like you know extended the seasonal little bit but i always used to my house is I just put up a couple wooden poles not person plastic over at night if I news and get too cold out that might get you about a week or two if you know if you're lucky.

You and still have those tasty tomatoes.

Well suzanne there's nothing we can do to control the outside temperature but I think you should be count yourself very lucky that your tomato is still healthy and it should I would think keep producing and maybe if you want to extend the season to like chase said and you can maybe get an extra week or so out of it.

It has a food systems and safety team and they help people who have ideas and would like to bring certain products to market.

So let's take a look as amanda visits with two of our food system and safety employees.

My guests today are with clemson extension food systems and safety program.

Adair hoover what exactly comes under that title?

So we were with corporate extension and we basically deal with anything with residents for south carolina or people making and selling food that has to do with food safety.

So if you had a resident whose freezer went out and they're wondering if the food is safe in there after a few hours.

We can help them figure that out.

If we have people selling foods in south carolina we help them with the food safety aspects of that.

And we offer a lot of trainings around the state that is incorporated.

And there's such a trend now in people who have these wonderful ideas and they want to do something with it.

Does that, is that something that ya'll help people with?

Yes it does.

So we help with our food to market program which is a food entrepreneur assistance program.

Food to market program?

Yes so that helps people who are looking to produce and sell their products to understand what regulatory authority they would work with, what food safety parameters, what testing?, what regulations, that they would need to produce that product how they want to produce it.

So we kind of help them through through that process.

We also provide some of those trainings.

We also provide some of that testing that might be required as well.

So you are actually trying to help them get a product to market.

We want them to do that.

Okay well let's talk first about gluten free.

Because that's something we hear so much about now.

It is.

So it's been around for a long time but we have a lot more people that are wanting to label their products as gluten free.

So even though there's not an actual logo that goes with it, there are recommendations by fda that you have to follow a certain amount that you have to have in the product.

So some entrepreneurs choose for us to test it for them.

They can test it themselves if they wanted.

But some choose for us to test it for them.

So we have tests that will do that.

And then we can provide them a letter that shows that under that result that it's gluten-free.

Then they can go ahead just like these products and label them as gluten-free.

And then here we have honey which I thought was pretty plain and simple.

But then we have an elderberry syrup.

And so what's the deal with the honey and it can be used in other things.

Honey is pretty much essentially safe on it's own in raw form.

But if you add an ingredient to it.

So elderberry syrup which are super popular right now, very often want to have raw honey as an ingredient in the syrup.

Instead of putting sugar they want to use the honey.

Once you start to combine those sometimes you sometimes you might get a situation where pathogens can grow.

So we will test it for ph, sometimes water activity just to make sure that it's shelf-stable.

Okay and then kimberly apparently things like this because a lot of health benefits are being proported to be associated with elderberry, sometimes this could be considered a food or sometimes a supplement?

Yes it can.

It depends on how that entrepreneur decides to market that product and package that product.

So we have to talk them through that process cause a lot of times they don't understand that difference and the regulations behind that.

So we have to say you know the number one how are you choosing to market it.

And also where are you envisioning it if it's being sold in a grocery store.

Is it with the pancake syrup or is it going to be in the pharmacy area.

So that can change.

So we do have to work them through that process so that they understand that if they're labeling it for any reason for health claims, then it's going to go under fda jurisdiction as well as in that pharmacy area.

And then here we have I guess some wonderful sauerkraut which mothers and families have been putting up for hundred of years.

And that a new twist on that is kimchi?

Yep.

We have on several producers throughout the state that produce kimchi and other fermented products which is really exciting.

And it's not a new process but I think we've seen it a lot more in trends what we have come in for testing.

So you know there's a lot of parameters that have to go through for that production during that fermentation process so a lot of times we have to talk with that entrepreneur and guide them through those science-based recommendations of that fermentation process.

So that they understand it.

Okay and so this can end up being on a shelf or in a refrigerator depending on how it's handled and sealed?

Exactly!

Yes and if they want to sell it shelf stable then we can give them those recommendations to be able to produce it.

Okay and then this looks so pretty and cheerful and what do we have here?

So that's a sipping vinegar or a or an herbal tonic, depending on how or whether you want it to be a supplement or a food product.

It's basically a vinegar based liquid.

That particular one has a ton of herbs and spices and all kinds of things added to it.

So for people who want to call it a tonic it becomes a supplement.

If you want to label it as of vinegar, a sipping vinegar than you can be a food product.

But it's a lot of fun it's really really tasty.

And we tasted this one and it was vinegary but not like drinking vinegar.

Yeah.

It's delicious.

Now.

This is some pretty strange looking stuff if this came in a package and I was asked to do something with it I would have thought i'd gotten lost in the mail and came after two or three months of sitting in the back.

Doesn't it?

It's super exciting.

Kimberly and I have loved this this year we've had a couple people.

It's called black garlic.

Black garlic!

It's where you take a regular bulb of garlic like I have there.

And it's been fermented and then dehydrated.

So it makes a milder softer garlic and it's really nice.

It's really interesting.

It's a lot of fun.

I think we've been pretty excited to figure out what to do like how to test that because they're there isn't a lot of research on that.

We've got two different kinds.

This one looks less intense than this one.

But both of them have been processed.

They're the same thing, different companies different, probably one just likes the darker, softer product.

Can this one be shelf stable?

It is shelf stable.

Well I have to admit, it's very very fragrant but it's not as garlicky as just fresh garlic would be.

Fun.

I am real coffee person and in the summer I particularly like iced coffee.

And I like cold brewed coffee for that.

What are some of the things I need to be concerned about a worry about or what are you worrying about for me with cold brewed coffee?

Yes cold brewed coffee has definitely become very popular with our entrepreneurs and producers of all coffee products but with cold brew coffee most of the time the entrepreneurs producing those want to sell it shelf-stable.

But they don't want to heat treat it.

So a lot of times we have to work through with the entrepreneurs about how to do that safely or just recommending selling refrigerated.

Okay.

But there's also not a lot of research based information out there yet on cold brew.

So we just have to extract from what we know of the science of them and the ph of the product.

Well, ya'll are scientists.

Keeping us safe.

Now this is a fascinating thing.

It's called kombucha and it's basically a fermented sweet tea.

Sweet tea?

Sweet tea with a scoby added to it and that's that gelatinous looking substance in front of it.

And that's a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast.

So the scoby goes into the sweet tea and it causes it to ferment and it turns into kombucha.

And there's a vinegary acid aspect to that as well.

People describe it as tart, tangy.

Yes.

Like tangy and fresh.

And do they add fruit flavors to it sometimes?

Is that why?

Yes.

That's why those are there.

A lot of times there might be different flavorings or fruit flavorings that are added after that fermentation process.

Thank ya'll so much for what you're doing for the consumers of south carolina, for the producers, for the entrepreneurs and thank you for sharing this information.

And if people have more questions where should they go?

The best place to go particularly for producers is the food to market website.

So we have one up there that can then contact erin and I with our contact information.

Download product testing forms.

Well thank you so much for coming and bringing this fascinating array of products for us.

Thank you.

When you think of clemson extension.

You probably think of traditional agriculture but as you saw in that segment our us resources extend far beyond that include helping people develop their products and bring them safely to market.

Back to our questions we have chris in greer south carolina chris I think you have a problem with some cedar trees.

Here we have years and we have noticed in the last three or four weeks, the very tip ends of the branches from one and a half to two and a half inches are falling off and when you look at them they'd look like they were freshly cut.

I didn't know that that if it was some kind of critter or, or what it was.

We would appreciate any help you can give us on this.

All right well we'll give it a shot so.

I thought for sure she was going to say she had these strange looking things hanging on the cedar tree and and that is not it was not cedar apple or rust at all.

But it does sound like maybe it is a critter could could this be a twig girdling for,twig girdler?

Yeah.

It's quite possible the twig girdler is a long horn one of the one of the long horn grasshoppers.

Are in the long horn grasshopper family and and that's what they do the the they'll take off just a little bit of new growth at the very end.

Overall would this be damaging to the cedar tree in general what should she be looking for so it shouldn't be damaging they're just they have evolved over the years just like we've been speaking about earlier on with plants and host plants and the the the bio community that inhabits those plants and if anything they're just going to make the the branch tips a little bit fuller from those when those freshly cut pieces fall off.

I think sometimes what we expect in the landscape.

What is beautiful to our eye.

We might need to kind of just refrain from things a bit and realize that the purpose of the plants and landscape is not just to be appealing to us right.

But is to provide those ecosystem services like like dan mentioned.

So maybe she should keep an eye in and make sure we know we we can't be certain that that's what's going on but chris keep an eye on those cedar trees and of course you can take some photographs and document what's going on and you can always reach out to your local extension office or home and garden information center if you need some assistance in the future.

We are going to move to augusta.

I think windy is calling us with the question how can we help you?

I was listening to you there.

Talk about the passion pot plants now they have no leaves and mine is in that same position.

Not a leaf on it.

My question is will the leaves grow back and I haven't seen any of those caterpillar eggs on there.

Well did the plant did the leaves get eaten or did they turn brown and fall off?

Just a green vine left.

Ok the vine is green.

Well I can't be sure but maybe the caterpillars have been that long yeah they may have nibbled away and curled away to metamorphose into a butterfly.

I would think there should be enough season let parting would put on to more leaves.

Don't you guys?

I think so I mean not only in the beginning of september so you have not I promise it'll be back.

You say that but I promise you I have had planted passion vine twice and not and had it not come through the winter.

I guess that's the problem is I planted it and it didn't as I see it going everywhere.

Well there are tropical passion flowers and native passion flowers.

The the the easiest way to tell apart as tropical plant is going to bloom all summer long.

The the natives just gonna bloom once in the spring and then it's done.

So I definitely know one time we we had one of the tropicals.

It had a red flowers it was not the purple.

But um it was very difficult it has been very difficult for me to find or know it's the native.

Because it'll just say passion vine or it might say passafloura but then it does not tell me that species name.

The best way to get that plan is to start from seed and find one of the fruits from last year's crop or find a source for may pop seeds.

Then you can know exactly what you're getting.

Right.

We have sylvia calling us from what walterboro.

I'm sorry wayne's borough what's going on sylvia?

Well I have two questions.

I'm in wadesboro north carolina.

The first question is, where is amanda?

Where is amanda she is in north carolina.

She is in cashers vacationing with her daughter, and the second question had to do with tomatos.

In the past two or three years we have not been able to grow tomatos very well.

Is it the weather the amount of rain fall or whats wrong?

All of the above tomatoes just can be very difficult to grow.

People generally have more success with the roma tomatoes are cherry or plums style tomatoes.

But the big slicing can't tomatoes can be difficult to grow there are a number of diseases that can affect tomatoes.

And so I'm not familiar enough with waynesboro to know what might be going on there.

I know we worry sometimes about tomato spotted wilt and if that's what what a person is having problems with they can look for one it's resistant to that.

Or some people have earlly or late blight.

Birdasilla.

What would be your best advice about I think the best place to start maybe she's already done it.

But a lot of people don't realize that tomatoes are nutrient hogs.

They use any thing out there so you need to if you want to grow tomatoes really well each year.

You know I would suggest doing a soil test to check behind them in keeping up that nutrient.

I mean each month you're going to have to we've got fact sheets on it your going to side test little bit.

To keep the estimate is up soil health.

We talked about that.

Another thing is that most folks don't think about.

Are the weeds around their garden.

So if you let weeds stay over winter.

Their diseases and pest insects they can hang out on those weeds.

So you need to keep up your garden during the winter time, and the stuff that's around it because say if a virus comes in you know sucking insect can transmit that minutes.

So if it's hanging out during the winter time of the year to put tomatoes out this spring.

You start out with the problem.

It's got to be a year round process going specially tomatoes.

Yes definitely and you know sometimes it's probably best to over plant whether it's to in in terms of having guaranteeing you'll have enough.

Right if you plant one tomato plant and it gets hit by whatever disease or insect then you're done.

You have no tomato so maybe plant enough that then if you happen to have a bang of the year you can share with your friends neighbors co workers right?

Right and everybody will be happy.

So we are or I am not but vicky from home is commenting away on our facebook live post.

So feel free to join in the conversation you can ask a question there.

You can answer a question.

You can talk about what you like about the show.

What's going on good in your garden.

Your favorite recipe for using up a plant.

Because I know my eggplant seems to grow like gangbusters.

I had to figure out what to do with it last night.

So that it wouldn't go back because that would be a shame to let good produce go bad.

So get on our facebook page and comment away.

All right well we have another north carolina caller tonight it's north carolina night how can we help you?

I think it's lynn calling.

Hello.

This is lynn from charlotte north carolina I'm on a condominium community board and we've recently had someone come in and vandalized our oak trees.

At our insurance by spray painting.

The oak trees with words and we're wondering what we do.

We don't think that we can actually wash these.

They sat through several rains but nothing is happened.

Some people suggested spray painting them black, but I felt that would be a bad idea any suggestions as to what we might do.

Goodness well I'm so sorry that you experienced vandalism.

Dan, I'm wondering if you've ever had anything like that happen at kalmia gardens?

Sadly we have and on our wooden structures.

We can sand it away but on our trees there's really not a whole lot you can do.

I've i've carefully scrape some of the bark off that has paint on it.

We don't want to scrape down to deep because then you get into the living tissue in the tree and that's a problem.

We've tried on different brushes and different techniques i'm not really sure of anything that would get bark or paint off of a bark without removing the bark and in damaging the tree.

Anything to add I don't know how readily available it would of whether any of the producers would be willing to part with the technology.

But now the the popularity of died mulches has has become really popular in last last ten fifteen years and a lot of those mulch dies are soy based.

So their their organic if if if lynn could find a a mulch yard that might have a connection with the supplier of that type product.

She might be able to purchase some of the some of the mulch dye and just spray on the trees and spread out on the train is just a thought.

Goodness it's really a shame that people vandalize our our spaces like that.

Davis you have two more plants that you brought for show and tell so i'd like to hear about them.

Take it over here on the right side on the earlier we spoke with the native plants now the the two on the right side one is a non native it is an asian and native and the other is on when a call half native.

The the the half native is the one on the far in down there that is a woodland ruby anise tree and it's a, it's a hybrid between the american in florida and this and the japanese and the solution palmer folium.

So it it really doesn't have a specific app that is just known as illicium woodland ruby.

It's got really pretty red flowers on it this is another one that that works really well.

In a rain garden because it can tolerate periodic flooding.

It does like a little bit of shade in the south.

But but other than that it's a it's just a really nice all purpose evergreen.

The the leaf would crush has that signature liquorish smell than all the listings have, and next to it is a characteristic or bluebeard that particular characters clinton insists is along with blue because it was, it was discovered in propagated off from the from those massive plantings of that plant at longwood gardens.

It's a a it's a wonderful plant for late summer.

Because it's got those are beautiful lilac blue flowers with eight with a slight fragrance.

Pollinators love it this time of year.

But it also adds a cooling touch to the summer garden because the up the summertime garden is usually a raft of those cooling blue and white colors in the show's just adds a nice little cool apperece to the to the summer garden.

So many different shades of of green I think that's something people don't always think about.

Is just the diversity and contrast you can get amongst the only it's not even taking flowers into account.

If if you look at most most flowering trees and shrubs the flowers typically only lasts for a week or two and now the rest of the year you've got all the other interesting aspects of it whether it's a deciduous plant that has a beautiful fall color.

Something that has the exfoliating bark like the landmarks of the crepe myrtles and just the the changes of seasons that they give the variety in the garden.

I didn't bring any companion plants with these but for instance the the nine bark in the holly combined the make of the make a stunning combination of some of the more delicate ornamental grasses.

Like being on smaller growing panicum switch grasses and the the little bluestem so so and not always think in terms of of fruit or flowers.

Always look at the the difference in foliage which color the textures that you can achieve.

All of these mass together would would make out of just a beautiful combination because all the difference all the contracts that are represented here.

Good information certainly so make us kind of expand our horizons when we think about what we're looking for in plant material.

So I think vicki tells me that perdue actually has a factsheet on graffiti removal from trees and out what I hear is it utilizes citrus based degreeser.

So I'm sure that vicki will post that on our facebook page if the caller from charlotte is is still watching and then that way it will be accessible to you and perhaps that will be a solution that you can utilize.

We have anna kay on the line from prosperity.

How can we help you.

I'm helping you by telling you the previt and lagustrum are very valuable plants.

I have honey bees at ours extracting the honey and while we were doing that I kept smelling this beautiful smell from the honey, and I am so sorry figure out exactly what it was, and after we harvested everything put it in the jars and we were eating it.

I can't smelling it and tasting it and it was just fantastic and I realize that the bees had been into the lagustrum flowers and the privot flowers.

Of which I had many.

So I'm I'm telling you this is praise for privot.

Well I I appreciate the sentiment and we do see some insects visiting privot flowers we also see birds utilizing the fruit and while some good may come out of it.

If we're thinking about honey bees which we utilize it but of course honey bees are are not a native species not certainly I'm not we need them.

We very much but in terms of like the birds consuming the fruit then they are contributing to the problem because then there making more lugstrams everywhere and there's been some really fascinating research on that.

When you look at the energy that our fruit has.

So this is this is just an example.

But so a bird would have to eat if a thirty to one perfect fruit.

Energetically it's not as much as let's say a blueberry.

Equal ten or so privot fruits.

So there's an energetic component to it.

Where the non native fruits.

Don't have as many calories as a native area like one of the excellent holly berries for example.

Arkansas there's been some other universities who's done some really really good research on the calories of the fruit as well as some of the some of the pollinator studies.

Because while the honey bees may utilizes flowers some of our native bees like the sweat bees and other bees that are native to this area don't necessarily utilize the the flowers as much but I'm glad he's got bees and I'm glad she's making honey.

Because that is a that is a super cool hobby in bees are super important for sure.

Absolutely.

We try to get one more question and we have pete from meldrum calling and I think as a someone a question.

Yes mam how are you Mrs.

Terasa?

I'm doing great how can we help you?

I work at a school and we got a it would be a little way and we got a water retention ponds all around.

Now and if there is some debate some people say that'll grow up some people say no those are the ones i cannot move when I keep clean and then there is a couple that we have to get the prisoner to come in during the summer cut them down and clear them out.

Laugh and some people are fussing about into you said little grow up let the bird usual and why and I'm just wondering what is the best use something they can they would made could just hold the water long enough to run on all I don't know who I want to know who should I keep them clean or let them grow?

Gosh that is a really tough question and i don't have all the information that I really need to answer the question because we need to know what the intention of the ponds was and so are they designed to be dry ponds which means that we're going to hold water temporarily and release it and then be dry most of the time or was it intended to be a wet pond where there's going to be a permanent pool of water and so we really need to know that so I would encourage you to check with the someone at the school district.

There should be some construction plans for that pond.

That tell about its design and it it should probably have some maintenance requirements.

You can also reach out to your local city or county storm water division and and we do of course offer upon management course which might be a good resource for you.

Which will help you in that long term maintenance of the pond.

Including what plants might be desirable and good in that particular situation and then what ones could potentially take over and create problems with the function of of that pond.

All right dan I hear you're having exciting event coming up at the gardens.

We are having a wonderful event it is is the starlight story and it is october tenth from five thirty to eight pm.

Then they will be it's kind of a farm to table thing.

They'll be wine tasting.

They'll be some wonderful foods.

Great people background music outdoor under education pavilion and it will be a fantastic event and you can call the number on the screen for more details.

Sounds like a fantastic evening.

Wonderful at a great location.

Before I forget I want to be sure to thank extension agent vicky bertagnolli.

Who is moderating our facebook live page from home so I appreciate her giving her tuesday night to do that and to help all of you who are joining via at your fingertips.

Dan I don't want to close before we see your exciting plant that comes back to life.

Alright this is a really really interesting plant that I found today this is called resurrection fern.

You see this one was growing on a oak tree during the storm knocked it off.

During dry seasons it'll be all dry and crumbly and looked dead you'll get a good rain and it will spring back to life.

Hence the name resurrection fern and one of the neat things a lot of gardeners call me about ferns.

I don't know if you can see the back of the leave the back of the frond but they're these little orange dots on their.

Those are our small randy and that's where the us sports live ferns reproduce with spores.

Instead of flowers and seeds.

So a lot of gardeners call me and say oh my gosh my parents have these or in spots on the back what do I do and I say let him alone because that's how those ferns make new ferns.

Yeah people might have seen those I'm sorry if they have received an arrangement of ok and there happened to be franz of ferns in there right now absolutely yep.

And they're pretty nice rusty color I think they're really fascinating very little structure.

Thank you all for joining me this evening it's been fantastic having davis chase and dan here to help me answer the gardening questions.

Next week amanda and Dr.

John it will take a visit to chase's property botinizing.

Until we see you next week we hope you get out there and enjoy your garden.

Good night everyone.

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