Amanda Mcnulty

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Honey locust is a fascinating tree that has what are described as "wicked thorns," up to four inches long and occurring in groups of three on trunks and branches. There’re several ideas about why it has thorns. One theory is that mastodons, that had large grinding teeth and ate bark and limbs, browsed on this bark and the tree adapted by growing thorns. Seems a little far fetched but some scientists hold this theory, and mastodons were in North America for almost four million years. The thorns usually don’t occur higher on the tree than where a mastodon could reach leading to another theory -- the thorns were to keep them from eating the seed pods before they were ripe and fell to the ground. Researchers have found these seeds in mastodon dung.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Southern magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora, is a plant that offers something all year long. If you like to have greenery in the house, you can always cut some branches and they’ll stay fresh (if you change the water) for a month of so. For wreaths at Christmas they last on a front door that gets sun, unlike those that seem more seasonable since they’re made of Christmas tree cuttings. Even after they lose their green color, the dried yellow leaves are still attractive and can be used on a garden shed door. For weddings, I’ve made hundreds of feet of garland to use in tents, on the porches of houses, and inside churches. And, as the scientific name suggests, the flowers are indeed grand, fragrant, and as big as your spread fingers and fragrant to boot.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. If you walk around Swan Lake Iris Gardens in Sumter, you’ll see why you should carefully select an evergreen magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora, to plant in your yard. A massive grouping welcomes you as you enter the gardens, plants fifty feet tall with full limbs and brown backs to the glossy leaves. As you walk around, however, you come to a grove of seedlings which are somewhat rangy, not so full of leaves and without that beautiful brown underside. As new yards are getting smaller, there might not be room for an eighty-foot tall tree with a spread of thirty to forty feet. Don’t despair plant breeders have come up with selections that are much smaller, from thirty feet to some topping out at fifteen feet and narrow enough for a border.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. We are fortunate to have a house full of Oriental rugs that one person or another has given us – if you don’t have central heat in your house a wool rug on the floor helps keep your feet somewhat warm. The Chinese rug in the living room was under a sofa with a slipcover that came to the floor before we got it and the moths ate holes in that part that was in the dark.They are sneaky little fellows, and I try to not have any furniture over a rug that would give them that dark space. When I was young, people had companies come take up all their wool rugs when summer came, clean them and store them until moth season was over, putting down prickly sisal rugs in their place.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Doug Tallamy has taught us how important planting larval food sources is for moths and butterflies, which are the primary food most adult birds feed their babies, and the power of the mighty oak that serves that purpose for about a thousand different larvae. Well, for clothes moths, their larval food sources are wool, fur, silk, and feathers, all natural products that contain keratin. How weird is that! We are so focused on leaves. Silkworms are pretty focused on leaves, too, they are picky and want white mulberry leaves. Some people tried to start a silk worm industry here and planted white mulberries—they’ve spread all over, those Asian caterpillars weren’t interested in our native red mulberry – whose berries birds relish, and if you taste some, you’ll enjoy them too.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Once years and years ago, Lill was looking out the dining room window to the back porch and a possum was eating some of the cat food. She hollered out for Edward who went out, picked up the possum by its tail, and proceeded to take it outside. But the possum started climbing up its tail and Edward dropped it into the waiting jaws of Willie, our Brittany Spaniel. Willie ran outside with it. They went outside after a bit and there was Willie, chest puffed out, sitting by the dead possum. Tears were shed. When I got home, the possum was gone. For four more days the possum came back to eat cat food, Edward picked it up, it climbed up its tail and Edward dropped it into Willie mouth. Finally, it had enough and no more possum.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. This spring, I had the most wonderful treat in the world, my heart was lifted. On a six inch shelf on top of the fuse box, I noticed a pile of sticks and such. Thinking it was far too tottery for a Carolina wren, a bird that loves to nest in mail boxes, hanging baskets, empty plastic pitchers to successfully complete a nest, I went to clean it up. Flutter went my heart when a wren flew out. A couple of days later, I pulled up a chair and peeked in, and there were eggs! This mated-for-life couple had come in through the small hole cut in the aluminum door to the back porch, a pass through for cats, possums, and the occasional racoon, and chosen to raise their family there.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The gift that nature gave me this spring, a Carolina wren nest on the back porch, has ended in heart rending sadness. The small hole cut in the door to the porch used by the Carolina wrens was also successfully navigated a house wren, which in my book is as awful as cowbirds, but I have to remind myself that nature doesn’t play by what I wish were the rules. This bird has recently expanded its range into our state. The wren parents were trying to run this bird off. The next day a tiny baby bird was on the floor below its nest, I put it back and futilely searched for others, next day it too was gone. The house wrens destroy eggs and push baby birds out of their nests.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Until 1948, the mocking bird was the official bird of South Carolina, and many other states. Those garden club ladies are not to be discounted, as they lobbied for our own year-round resident, the Carolina wren, to take the mocking bird’s place. Carolina wrens are famous for talking, and loudly, all day long, perhaps it was a little bit of poking fun at those famous legislators of old who could talk all day and also loudly. Birds are dear to South Carolinians hearts, and we have wild turkeys as our state game bird. And how about a state duck? Wood ducks have that title and are among a handful that live here all year. And, like a college student who comes home to visit, the prothonotary warbler is our state migratory bird.

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Every July, visitors arrive at Clemson’s Edisto Research and Education Center in Blackville for