I am brokenhearted.  Unless something miraculous happens, this will be my last week to publish this article, work as a County Agent, and serve the great people of the Pee Dee.  I am retiring from the best job on earth and the   memories flow like the Great Pee Dee River. One of my Dad’s favorite sayings was, “If I have done it one time, I have done it a thousand times.”   When I was young all I could think about was the thousand rows of crops he had for me to hoe and harvest, but I really didn’t understand the meaning of his words.  Now, after teaching a thousand Master Gardeners, writing a thousand news articles, and making a thousand presentations to community groups, I think I am beginning to understand a little.  Each endeavor is so very important, but with each event you learn much, improve a little, and continually move to another. 

            Doesn’t this sound a little like gardening?  Each plant is cherished, nurtured, and really babied but there is always more to plant, care for, and harvest.  Some are annuals, biennials, or perennials, while others, like the Angel Oak, are thousands of years in age.    My sometimes feeble attempt at gardening always includes picturing or placing myself into the life of the plant itself.  In other words, if I were this plant what would I require, want, and need to flourish?  Just like people, each plant has its own requirements to excel.  Azaleas, rhododendrons, blueberries, and camellias like a lower pH than most plants; however, tomatoes and peppers prefer a fairly high pH of 6.5. Turnips, mustard, cabbage, collards, and sweet potatoes require more boron while peanuts require more calcium.  We could continue in this vein for eternity, and this is one of the reasons I tell all the folks who take the Master Gardener Course that they will truly never be a master of gardening.  I have worked with plants all my life and every day I still learn.

            To mark my retirement, the great people in my office are giving me a party.  After all these TV shows, articles, and presentations over the years, many people introduce themselves to me and say that they feel like they’ve personally known me.  Well, I feel like I also know you, and, in fact, through all my appearances at many civic and community organizations we may have actually met.      Therefore, this is my invitation to you to come to my retirement party which will be held on   June 5th from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. at the Schoolhouse Restaurant in Scranton.  $7.50 is the cost of the meal, which you can pay at the door.  You may call my office at (843) 661- 4800 for more information. I hope to see you there.

Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer.

   One of my fondest childhood memories is going "Garden Getting" with my dad.    Daddy loved to garden and always had a gleam in his eye when we went searching for those plants, seeds, and tools to make our garden successful enough to feed us nine kids.  Our first trek on this important journey, made about this time of year, would be to buy supplies for our spring garden which not only supplied us with sustenance but lifted us out of the gloom and monotony of winter. McBee High School was the first stop where we bought vegetable transplants from Mr. E. B. Earle, our local agricultural education (ag-ed) teacher.  Mr. Earle is still living and is a legend in the McBee area.  I clearly remember pulling transplants out of Mr. Earle's make-shift hotbeds made from light-poles covered with plastic and heated with strings of light bulbs.  Today his son Pat continues his father's work in McBee, as he has taken over the reins as the ag-ed teacher. Pat, too, grows excellent transplants; however, he utilizes modern greenhouses and growing techniques.  Many ag-ed teachers all over the state have similar programs that not only supply excellent transplants to gardeners but also are excellent teaching tools for their students. Next, we would visit the hardware store in McBee.  Back then the local stores, although, small, carried as much merchandise as possible to keep the community functioning. Many times they would have that one item you needed to complete a job.  McBee doesn't have a hardware store at the present, but many local communities do.  In fact, for many years my son helped manage a hardware store in Bethune.  With the high price of gas today, these stores are returning as a part of the life blood of these small communities.

   Finally, we would head to Hartsville (the big city) and visit our local feed-and-seed establishment which I called the "Checkerboard Store" because of the checkerboard painted on its side advertising dog food.  If I close my eyes and think back, I can still smell the pungent onions and the musky potatoes, hear the seeds rustling as they are poured into sacks, and see Daddy smiling as he bought his brand-new version of the Farmer's Almanac.

   To learn more about decorating, gardening and country living watch both of our Emmy Award winning TV programs, Making It Grow (MIG) and Down Home with Tony and Amanda.  MIG can be seen at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday nights on regular ETV.  However, at present Down Home can be seen on digital cable and some satellite systems on the SC Channel (channel 802 on Time Warner Cable).  Also, you can view both programs on the web at www.mig.org. The Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service
offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, disability, political belief, sexual orientation, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity
employer.

   Roses are red, violets are blue, I love giving a living gift of love to you.  There is something special about giving a present that is alive and breathing.  However, all cut flowers, roses included, actually start dying the minute they are cut.  They are still alive, but their life is short and fleeting.  However, if you give a rooted plant and it is taken care of properly, it will continue to live, grow and keep on giving.  In my immediate family, this scheme won’t work    because I am the plant person and my wife has no use for them. Giving her a plant would be like giving myself a gift.  Guess I’ll have to think a little harder for Valentine’s Day.
   However, back when Mama was with us, I loved to give her a rooted plant on Valentine’s Day.  Lord, I miss my Mama.  If you are privileged enough to still have your mother, tell her you love her with a special plant.
   I do not know who loved plants the most, my mama or my daddy.  In those days getting a potted plant was something out of the ordinary.  Mama would get a plant for a special occasion like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or a death in the family.  Daddy would plant it somewhere in the yard.  If they were asked at a later time about that plant, their response would be something like this, “We got that one at Uncle Sam’s funeral in 1965,” or, “Tony gave me that for Valentine’s Day in 1968.” Not only was the occasion special but it made the plant special.  The plant was part of a treasured memory.  Mama had an acre yard and seemed to never run out of places to plant my Valentine’s Day gift to her.
   Also, remember that plants need a little love, too.  They have feelings of a sort and do react to how you treat them.  I don’t think my plants receive culture by playing classical music, but they should not be butchered.         
   It is getting to be that pruning time of year, when most plants shake at their roots. Plants cannot, but I would run if I saw a chainsaw-slinging, lopper-poking, power-hedging amateur pruner coming at me -- my worst Halloween nightmare.
   Actually “Crape Murder” is rampant in the Pee Dee.  This is the ghastly, so called pruning procedure of giving crape myrtles a flat-top haircut.  Since the butchered plant sticks out like a sore thumb in your yard, it tells everyone that you know absolutely nothing about gardening.  If you religiously read this article, then I am preaching to the choir, but pruning should be done to benefit the plant not to release the pruner’s inner frustrations.  Pruning is supposed to improve the health and strength of plants.
   Proper pruning is fairly simple.  I like to say it is not brain surgery, but it is plant surgery.   As you prune keep in mind these pruning for strength rules.
1.  Thin out dying, dead, or pest-ridden twigs and branches.
2.  Remove one of the branches if two are rubbing or crossing.
3.  Remove branches that form a narrow, V-shaped angle with the trunk.
4.  Remove upright-growing side limbs that grow taller than the main trunk.          
   Besides experiencing the immediate gratification of properly pruned plants, consider the    long term, living benefits to you and your landscape.
   Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer.  Please watch Down Home with Tony and Amanda on Thursday nights at 8:00 pm on the SC Channel (ETV's digital station).

   Because it is too hot to pull them, weeds take over this time of year.  Give a weed an inch and it will be the ruler.  Nice neat beds in the spring become a literal mess this time of year.  Don’t be ashamed it happens to everyone; even your county agent sometimes has to step back, and come-up with a strategy to fight those persistent invaders. Here is a few suggestions to take back your yard from the weeds.
   First of all, don’t over-do anything including fertilizing, irrigation, or tilling.  Put the fertilizer and irrigation water only when and where it is needed.  Extra fertilizer and water between ornamental plants encourages weed growth.  This is why I love trickle irrigation in a high tech yard and hand watering in a low tech yard.  With trickle you can add fertilizer (fertigation) and water just to the roots of a plant and not the weeds.  Most of the time we should be sidedressing (where the fertilizer is placed just where it is needed) and not broadcasting (where the fertilizer is arbitrarily spread-over the entire area).  However, be careful, either apply a slow-release fertilizer or apply only a small amount of regular fertilizer at one time (spoon- feeding) and don’t apply too much fertilizer or glob a lot of fertilizer at the trunk or main stem of a plant.  In fact, it is getting toward the fall and getting a little late to be applying much fertilizer to grass, trees, and shrubs.  Believe it or not tilling may kill weeds but it also brings weed seed to the surface so they can germinate and come-up. For less weed growth and healthy plants, always mulch.
    Next, an herbicide is anything that will kill plants and if used properly by the label directions will help you get back your yard. However, if I were a flower, shrub, or tree my worst nightmare would be a weed-crazed, sprayer-nozzle-pointing, spreader-slinging homeowner intent to kill those yard invaders.  There is no Muligan (like in golf) here and after you have put it out saying “Uh Oh” doesn’t help so “Think before you apply.”  Some of my favorite herbicidal tactics are:

        1. Using Vantage or Poast to kill grass.  These products are labeled to spray over the top of many plants including shrubs, trees, flowers, vegetables, and centipede grass.  I use them to keep my very invasive Bermuda grass lawn from taking over my flower beds.
         2.Using a funnel taped to my sprayer nozzle to keep down drift of glyphosate (Roundup) or using a paintbrush, roller, hand wick, or etc. for exactly application without killing nearby plants.
         3.Using a pre-emergent herbicide to prevent weed seed from germinating and growing is always a good first-line of defense. 

   Next, when weeds get out of hand, don’t forget the weed- eater or the lawn mower.  They may not totally annihilate weeds but will keep them suppressed.  I have even seen larger growers mow between the rows of vegetables.
   Finally, if you cannot beat them join them.  I have always said “A wildflower is a well placed weed.”  Planting things like wildflowers may cover or overcome many weed problems.  However, many people still consider them more like weeds than flowers.  So if you don’t want your neighbors complaining don’t plant them in your entire front yard like one of my Master Gardeners.

   I love this cool weather; however, sooner rather than later it will get hot in the Pee Dee.  Soon that coat I sported this past week will turn into a sweat soaked tee-shirt.  If it doesn’t get warm up before long, those recent northern transplants might think I am lying about our hot summers, but I’m sure July and August will make them believers.  The one thing I’m sure of is that they’re delighted to have given up the frigid north for our ten months of glorious weather here in the Pee Dee.  It may take a few years, but they will learn how to answer the question “How hot is it in the Pee Dee?”

    It’s so hot that so-called June Bearing strawberries stop bearing in June and folks are trying to hold onto spring by fighting over that last gallon of these locally-grown crimson beauties.

   It’s so hot that lavender and lilacs don’t live long here, and the only time we get to smell those fragrances is when we use perfume to cover the scent of our glistening, perspiration, or just plain sweat.

   It’s so hot that tomatoes drop their flowers, stop producing, and give us little sustenance since homegrown ‘mater sandwiches are our #1 favorite summertime food. 

   It’s so hot that beans drop their flowers, stop producing, and give us little sustenance since butterbeans are our #2 favorite summertime food.

   It’s so hot that okra has to be picked daily, and fried okra (taking the place of ‘mater sandwiches)  becomes our #1 summertime food because southerners love anything fried, and boiled okra becomes #2 since it so slimy that it doesn’t take much effort (in this heat) to swallow.

    It’s so hot that sweet potato becomes our favorite pie because sweet potatoes (and their close kin morning glories) take over our gardens in August since they love the heat.

    It’s so hot that Camellia sinensis becomes our favorite plant since it is the source of those tiny little tea leaves which when combined with tons of sugar make our southern life-blood, sweet tea, which keeps us hydrated and sweating.

   Finally, it’s so hot that kudzu grows faster than some folks walk, talk, or work.

   Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer.  If you enjoy gardening and using flowers and plants in decorations, please watch Down Home with Tony and Amanda on Thursday nights at 8:00 pm on the SC Channel (ETV's digital station). If you don't get that channel, you can go to www.mig.org, select streaming video, and scroll down to where our shows are archived.