Wild Garlic

There are more than 500 species of alliums, many of them are cultivated for their showy flowers, but there are many that grow naturally, like wild garlic. I begin noticing them in the fall - their foliage is thinner and more upright than the grass around it. It also stays green, a different shade than the grass, which is starting to go dormant at this time of year. When they bloom they form a golf ball-sized cluster of tiny flowers, which are packed so tightly that it’s hard to isolate just one. And they have much more color than one would realize close up with lime green ovaries and the bright yellow pollen.

They’re not just all show - in the past, these perennial herbs have been used for medicinal purposes. Native american tribes used wild garlic as treatments for asthma and high blood pressure, and as a digestive aid.

Chamberbitter

When you buy your first house, there are things you probably never thought about before - like weeds. Mostly you just want to get rid of them, but when I started studying to be a master gardener, I wanted to know what they were - before I killed them.

I remember chamberbitter from those early homeowner days, and I remember thinking it looked like a tiny mimosa tree. Apparently I’m not the only one, because one of its nicknames is mimosa weed. It usually wouldn’t get very big, but it was everywhere. Every so often, a few of them would go unnoticed, and they would grow large enough to produce seeds. In fact, they produce a lot of seeds, and they can do it as early as two weeks after their own germination.

Maybe that’s why they have another nickname - gripe weed. But there is an upside. In South America they are believed to be good for the treatment of kidney stones.

Root Beer Plant

I don’t see root beer plant, or Piper auritum, very often around Charleston, but it’s one that people should consider growing, if only for its culinary value. Known as Mexican pepperleaf to some, it has an anise flavor, and has a variety of uses. It can be used as a wrap for curing cheese, or while cooking meat or fish. It is sometimes added to mole sauce, and it can even be made into a liquor!

The white cylindrical stalks are actually flowers that bloom in the summer. They look fairly smooth, but on closer inspection, they actually have a rough texture. And until you notice a few leftover grains of pollen do you realize every one of those bumps is a flower!

Also known as hoja santa, or sacred leaf, the name alludes to a Mexican legend that the Virgin Mary dried the young Messiah’s diapers on its branches. While it’s native to Mexico and Central America, it does well here, dying back in the winter. I’ve had this mystery plant in my yard for almost a decade, and it wasn’t until now that I found out how interesting it is.

Bahiagrass

I remember Bahiagrass from my childhood. In the summer when you waited too long to cut the grass, or even when you didn’t, there they would be - the Y-shaped seed heads sticking up above the lawn. I considered them a scourge, until I looked closer.

Bahiagrass is native to South America, and was introduced into the United States in Florida, where it was used as a forage crop, and it primarily grows in the southeast. Because it is aggressive and drought-tolerant, SC Department of Transportation began using it as erosion control along highways and on slopes, which lead to one of its nicknames, and what my grandmother calls it, “highway grass”.

While it is planted for forage, I don’t know anyone who intentionally grows it in their yard. I think it just shows up, by wind, runoff, or a landscaper’s mower. I have a yard full, and it’s fine most of the year, but in June when it starts growing, I have to mow twice a week just to manage it.

I continue to loathe cutting it in the summer, but maybe I’ll remember how interesting and beautiful it looks up close.

Carolina Yard Gardening School

I had a lot of fun at the Carolina Yard Gardening School this weekend.  If you don't know about it, it's put on by Clemson Extension and the Tri-County Master Gardeners every March.  There are two classes, two hands-on workshops, a keynote speaker, gift bags, compost, and lunch, as well as plants and other gardening-related items to for sale.

I volunteered two years ago, and one of my favorite things about it that year was all the free stuff I got to take home - seeds, plants, compost, and even food.  I missed it last year at the last minute - the night before I hurt my back, bad enough that I was out of work for close to two weeks.  This year was different.  I've been out of gardening for most of the past year, for a number of reasons, and I've been pushing myself to get back into it - I worked the Master Gardener office earlier in the week, and I went to a couple of seminars earlier in the year.  I knew today might go a long way in reigniting my love of gardening...and I think it did.  More than anything else, I enjoyed the people this year.

When I arrived before 7:30am, I didn't have an assigned task, but found work hanging baskets around the building, and helping people with rain barrels they had purchased.  Then I was told I was going to help run a powerpoint presentation during the opening segment, "Making It Grow", with Amanda McNulty, Amy Dabbs, Millie Davenport, and Zach Snipes.  I'm not usually a fan of being put on the spot like that, at least not with a rehearsal (don't ask me about being a page turner for pianists!), but it turned out to be a no-brainer and it was a lot of fun watching the "show".  The rapport among Amy, Amanda, and Millie was fun to watch, and Zach's great too - he's the new kid, literally - very young, and a new agent at the Clemson Extension.

There were a lot of volunteers, so after the first segment, I was able to attend some of the classes and workshops.  During the first time slot, it was a toss-up between heirloom gardening and integrated pest management, but the science geek in me won and I went to the "IPM in Your Backyard" that Zach gave.  Plant pathology is one of those very dense subjects that take many times hearing to sink in, at least for me, but I've immersed myself in it enough over the past couple of years that I'm starting to get the hang of it.

I sat in on parts of two lectures/workshops -  Spring-planted Bulbs and one about creating backyard bird habitats - and then I went to Amanda McNulty's lecture called, "Where de Rice?".  It was completely fascinating.  It ranged from the link between sickle cell and malaria resistance to rice steamers and division of labor on plantations.  I can't say enough about it - she really made my day.  The last class I saw was Amy's vermicomposting workshop.  I've heard her talk about worm composting a number of times, but I think this was the first real class setting I have been to, and she went into much greater detail than she has in the past.  It was very interesting - it's something I would definitely do if I didn't have chickens to feed my kitchens scraps to.

Like I was saying before, it was the people that made today fun for me - Amanda McNulty and her craziness, Amy for just being Amy, Zach and his love of plant pathology, and Millie Davenport and our conversation about our chickens!