Midlands December Native Tree & Shrub Sale

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The Midlands Chapter celebrates South Carolina’s December Arbor Day with a sale of native trees and shrubs selected to thrive in our region. Plan now for what you can get into your landscape when woody species are dormant–the best time to plant them.

Come shop beautiful native trees and shrubs that are especially beneficial to birds, insects, and other wildlife. From shade trees to showy fragrant azaleas, you’ll find a great selection. (P.S., They make meaningful holiday and commemorative gifts!)

Most are priced at $20 or $25 for 3 gallon pots.

Also on hand: native plant books from local indie seller All Good Books, and SCNPS hats, shirts, and tote bags!

This one-day sale will be at the Woodrow Wilson Family Home in downtown Columbia.

Saturday, December 2, 2023
1705 Hampton St., Columbia, SC

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

  • Volunteers shop early at 9 a.m.
  • Members of SCNPS and Historic Columbia shop early at 9:30.
  • Open to the public at 10 a.m.

Seeking volunteers! Help us unload and set up plants Friday, Dec. 1, and during the Saturday sale.
Email mnpsplantsale@gmail.com

 

Check out the plant list. (Subject to change)

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Everything You Need to Know About the Upstate Fall Plant Sale!

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We’re busy putting the final pieces of the online Plant Sale together. The floodgates will open to the general public at 12:01 AM Tuesday morning (that’s TONIGHT!!!).

But, before all that happens, here are some Very Important Things for you to know:

  • The URL for the SCNPS Shop is https://shopupstate.scnps.org/
  •  If you CREATED A SHOPPING CART during the viewing period, please be aware that THOSE PLANTS ARE NOT YOURS until you actually pay for them! They remain in inventory and might be grabbed by other customers if you’re not fast enough on the trigger!
  •  Once you’ve paid for the plants online, our amazing nursery volunteers will pull them and put your entire order in a safe spot awaiting pickup. You will then receive an email telling you to come on down!
  •  The Upstate Native Nursery is located at 180 Lakewood Drive, Greenville, 29607. For complete directions on how to find it (it can be a little tricky the first time!), visit the UNN page on our website (scroll down to the bottom of the page).
  •  Please DO NOT COME to the nursery to pick up your plants before you have been notified that your order has been pulled! We expect a mad rush in the first few days, and will be pulling plants as fast as we can. We’ll let you know when they’re ready for pickup!
  •  The sale will end at 11:59 PM Friday night (the 13th – just sayin’!). The plants MUST be picked up by 4:00 PM on Monday the 16th (but please, please, PLEASE, don’t come until we tell you to!). After that time, the plants will be carried back up the hill to the nursery and returned to inventory. (Which will make the plants very super sad. ????????????)

That’s it for now. Stay tuned!

Image Credit: Cynthia Gibson

Seeing Daylight and Cleaning Water at Columbia’s Hyatt Park

A man speaks to a group of people on a boardwalk at the head of an artificial stream.

Todd Martin, landscape architect for the City of Columbia, introduces Midlands chapter members to the revitalized Hyatt Park stream. Photo by Lynn Yenkey

The Midlands Chapter toured Columbia’s Hyatt Park last week with Todd Martin, landscape architect for the city. The recent park renovation “daylighted” a stream, removing 1150 feet of stormwater pipe to open up the water and mimic a natural creek. Martin showed the group the stream banks engineered with stone and a mix of native herbaceous and woody plants. The result echoes the nearby Smith Branch stream. In just a year, cattails and native willows have volunteered, too.

A group of people stand by a group of logs in a streambed. A man points downstream.

Todd Martin, landscape architect for the City of Columbia, points out bioengineering features of the stream, including logs that mimic a beaver dam at Hyatt Park. Photo by Lynn Yenkey

A series of pools and small dams, including large cedar logs to make an artificial beaver dam, slow and spread out storm water.

Now, instead of charging through a pipe unchanged, the water spreads in the shallow banks, slows down, and is allowed to absorb into soil and roots, along with pollutants and sediments. The change was visible: compared to the more turbid pools close to the storm water inlet, the water in the larger basin at the end of the stream is clearer and cleaner–improving the quality of water flowing into the Broad river and Columbia’s drinking water system.

Martin handed out photos of the former stream bed–a series of manhole covers–plans for the bioengineered banks and pools, and a list of native shrubs, trees, and seed mixes used. He kindly allowed us to share them here.

A group of people stands near a streambed at Hyatt Park in Columbia

Todd Martin shows Midlands chapter members the native planting bed below the splash pad above the stream at Hyatt Park in Columbia. Signs describe the project for visitors. Photo by Lynn Yenkey

The project team worked closely with the Hyatt Park Keenan Terrace Neighborhood Association on their goals for the park, and identified a gathering space as a strong priority. The renovation includes a naturalistic play area on the hillside between the stream and community building, adjacent to a new amphitheater for events. In warm weather, families can cool off at a splashpad at the amphitheater’s base, with water flowing from there into a wide garden bed and into the stream. In the open field downhill, large sections of the former water pipe form hillocks and a natural play space.

You can read more about innovative project, featured in Landscape Architect magazine in 2022.

A similar stormwater management project in Columbia parks finished in 2020 at Martin Luther King, Jr. Park in Columbia’s Five Points. Read more about it here. At Page Ellington Park in the Bull St. development, 2600 feet of stream was daylighted, and ponds created to make wetland habitat in a nature-based city park.

 

 

Midlands Spring 2023 Native Plant Sale

 

 

Come find the native plants that feed pollinators and birds, and bring some nature home! Shrubs, perennials, grasses, and vines are selected to thrive in the Midlands.

 Get the plant list here. Prices range $3-$20. Pay with cash or credit. BYO wagon is ok.

In addition to our sale plants, two local vendors will be here: Sal’s Old Timey Feed & Seed and Native Plants to the People. Chapter member Clay Parker has grown a variety of milkweed species (and more) just for the sale. There will be a great selection for a variety of soil and sun conditions!

It’ll be a festival atmosphere with food, art, and books for sale! Read more below.

When

Friday, April 14, 2023 6:00 pm until…
Members-Only Happy Hour and Early Sales
Bring your beverage of choice and come hang out, shop, and enjoy MNPS-provided snacks by the river.

Saturday April 15, 2023
8:30 am – 9:30 am: Final set-up and training morning volunteers
9:30 am – 10:00 am: Open to members
10:00 am – 5:00 pm: Open to general public

Where

Canoeing for Kids HQ
114 Riverchase Court, Lexington SC (MAP)

Food, Art, Books, Birds

Get a bite to eat from The Wurst Wagen. Find plant-based art from Candace Thibeault. Buy a native plant book from Columbia’s independent shop, All Good Books. Get a bluebird house and conservation info from Columbia Audubon Society.

Volunteers Needed

Set up on Friday, April 14 and during the sale!
Volunteers can purchase plants early. Contact mnpsplantsale@gmail.com to sign up or with questions.

  • Set Up Crew unloads plants from delivery trucks, places them according to a map, and installs plant signs on Friday during the day.
  • Cashier and Tally work together at the checkout to count up plants and prices, run credit cards, make change, and provide receipts.
  • Information Table hands out brochures and discusses how to learn more about native plants
  • Plant Helpers use wagons to move plants and will be assigned a list of about 5 plants to read up on and be ready to answer customer questions.

Plant of the Month: Hepatica, or Liverleaf

Hepatica americana (Photo Credit: Dan Whitten)

by Dan Whitten

I always like to introduce a plant by giving its name, location, and description, and then tell other stories like how it got its name or how it is useful.

The common names of two similar plants in SC are Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba) and Round-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica americana). The name “Hepatica” can be interchanged with the name “Liverleaf” (not to be confused with “Liverwort,” which is a spore producing vascular plant). Liverleaf is a seed-producing, herbaceous plant of the forest floor.

The scientific names have been changed a couple of times in Weakley’s Flora of the Southeastern United States. On May 21, 2015, the genus for both species changed from Hepatica to Anemone. Then on October 20, 2020, it changed back to the genus Hepatica. Thankfully, it remained the same in the latest edition of April 24, 2022. Interestingly, though, the 2022 version of A Guide to the Wildflowers of South Carolina by McMillan, Porcher, Rayner, and White categorized it as the genus Anemone. (This book was featured in the September 2022 statewide SCNPS program and is a fantastic reference for flower enthusiasts.)

Of the two species of Hepatica occurring in South Carolina, the Sharp-lobed is the less common and occurs over calcareous or mafic rock, typically found in the mountainous part of the state. The Round-lobed is more common, with a wider geographic distribution. The differences between the two are in the tips of the lobes of the basal leaves, which are either sharp or rounded (hence the common names). In the bracts which are directly below the petaloid sepals, they are sharp tipped in the H. acutiloba and round tipped in the H. americana.  

Impress your (granted, thoroughly nerdy) friends by asking a trick question: How many petals does Hepatica have? Answer: none! They have instead 5-12 (typically around 7) petaloid sepals which are born on hairy pedicels and subtended by 3 bracts that mimic the sepals.

The petaloid sepals can be white, blue, lavender or purple. The basal leaves persist throughout the winter, and generally the new leaves come out well after the flowers in the spring. The flowers of the upstate reach peak bloom in March, but they can also be found at Stevens Creek Heritage Preserve as early as February and up near the Blue Ridge Parkway as late as April. At Station Cove Falls, I’ve seen a few plants flowering on the first day of the year, and once I saw a flower on Christmas Eve. So I challenge you to find a native and herbaceous wildflower that blooms any earlier in the year than Hepatica.

According to the Doctrine of Signatures, a plant was used to treat the part of the body that it resembled, and because the lobes of the brownish leaf of Hepatica in winter resembled the liver (aka the hepatic organ) in color and shape, it was used to treat everything from cowardice to freckles, including jaundice and other ailments believed to be of the liver.

George Hyams was collecting Hepatica in May of 1877 when he discovered the then long-lost plant that we now know as Oconee Bells, or Shortia galacifolia.

Autumn Seed Collection Field Trip

Join Dr. Bill Stringer and friends for this years fall seed collection trip.  This trip will increase your knowledge about native plants and wild seed collection, while re-stocking our Upstate Native Nursery with native genotype seeds for the future.  To join, just meet at the Holly Springs store on SC Hwy 11 in Pickens county at 9:am.  From there the group will car pool to various sites until 2:pm.  Bring small paper bags, a sharpie marker, good shoes, drinking water and snacks or a portable lunch.

When:  Saturday Oct 15th from 9am – 2pm

Where:  Meet at Holly Springs Store, 6491 SC-11, Pickens, SC 29671 at 9am   Park in gravel lot above the store, not in store parking spaces.

Contact:  Bill Stringer- Catboyz@nctv.com or 864-979-3169 or Dan Whitten at sdwhit10@aol.com.

Upstate lecture: Bunched Arrowhead, Our Rarest Plant

April Upstate Meeting: Saving the Bunched Arrowhead, Our Rarest Plant

Tuesday, April 19 @ 6:30 pm8:30   Zoom Meeting

Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 832 7104 9525
Passcode: 384192

 

The Bunched Arrowhead (Sagittaria fasciculata) is one of the nation’s rarest plants.  It is an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act, and it exists only in two counties on earth – mostly in Greenville County and some in Henderson County, NC.  In Greenville County, it lives only in Piedmont Seepage Forests, a rare wetland type, in a band from Berea through Travelers Rest and Taylors to the outskirts of Greer.  It is found in the headwaters of the Reedy, Enoree, and Tyger Rivers.

Because of its limited range and because it is dependent upon these special groundwater-fed wetlands, the Bunched Arrowhead’s continued existence is precarious.  Its habitat has historically been eliminated by farming, livestock, and textile pollution.  Now, it faces the additional threat of development sprawl into northern Greenville County.

Over the last decade, the Native Plant Society has worked with local communities, the SC Department of Natural Resources, Upstate Forever, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Naturaland Trust to preserve Bunched Arrowhead habitat and to fight off development that would destroy these plants and their wetlands.  In northern Greenville County, the Bunched Arrowhead has become a symbol of the fight of local communities against development that would alter forever the rural landscape.

The Program

In this program, Frank Holleman will describe the plant, its habitat, and the fight to save it.  Frank is President of Naturaland Trust, which has acquired a number of Bunched Arrowhead wetlands for conservation, and a Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has represented the Society and others in battles to protect this plant and its habitat.  Frank is also a member of the Society’s Upstate Board and a native plant volunteer.

  Holleman is President of Naturaland Trust, founded 45 years ago to protect South Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains.  Frank is also a Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, a regional legal and advocacy nonprofit; coordinates SELC’s coal ash work across the Southeast; and works on clean water issues.  Prior to joining SELC, for about 25 years Frank practiced law at Wyche, Burgess, Freeman, and Parham in Greenville, S.C.  Frank served as the United States Deputy Secretary of Education, as Chief of Staff to U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley, and as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice.

Frank was a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun and Judge Harrison Winter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  Frank is a graduate of Furman University (magna cum laude), Harvard Law School (magna cum laude), and the London School of Economics and Political Science (M.Sc.).  In 2010, he received the Environmental Awareness Award from the State of South Carolina and in 2018 the Carl F. Kohrt Distinguished Alumni Award from the Furman University Alumni Association.  Frank and Anne live in Greenville and have three adult children and three grandchildren.


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Passcode: 384192
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Pickens Native Plant Garden Open House

Pickens County Native Plant Garden Hosts Scavenger Hunt

On Saturday, May 7, 2022, volunteers at the Joe and Maggie Rampey Interpretive Gardens, located at the Pickens County Museum of Art and History in Pickens, SC, will host an open house and children’s scavenger hunt from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.  The garden open house and scavenger hunt are part of the Pickens Azalea Festival.

Children will be challenged to complete a scavenger hunt to locate specific plants native to the Upstate. The selected plants are expected to be in bloom in early May. Garden volunteers will also be available to answer questions and lead tours. In addition to the scavenger hunt, the Pickens County 4-H and Clemson Cooperative Extension will sponsor a hands-on children’s activity.

Unique Garden Showcases Native Plants

Judy Seeley Pickens Museum Native Plant Garden volunteer. 10-2022 Swamp Sunflower in background.

Volunteers are ready to greet visitors on Saturday, May 7.

This unique garden, open since 2009, showcases a great variety of plants that are native to the Upstate. Volunteers from the Upstate Chapter of the SC Native Plant Society, the Master Gardeners of the Foothills, and the Upstate Master Naturalists Association maintain the garden.

According to Carol Asalon, volunteer coordinator, “The purpose of the event is to increase awareness of the garden and to educate visitors of all ages about not only the beauty of native plants but also the crucial role they play in maintaining a diverse and healthy ecosystem.”

Location and more information.

The Pickens County Museum of Art and History is located at 307 Johnson St., Pickens, SC, 29671. For more information contact Carol Asalon at carol.asalon@furman.edu.

Upstate Spring Native Plant Sale

 

Upstate Spring Native Plant Sale

April 2 @ 8:30 am1:00 pm   Conestee Park, 840 Mauldin Road, Greenville

NATIVE PLANT SALE

The sale is a large, in-person style again this Spring at Conestee Park, 840 Mauldin Road in Greenville. The date is Saturday, April 2nd from 8:30am to 1pm. Early admission at 8:30am is for members only with the general public admitted at 9am. Knowledgeable advisors will be on the sale floor to assist customers with plant selection.

The sale includes a wide selection of native shrubs, trees, perennial wildflowers, ferns, vines, and grasses. Cash, credit, and checks accepted. Visit the website, www.scnps.org, in March for updated information and a list of plants available.

Guest Vendors and special exhibits

Guest plant vendors include Carolina Wild, Jeff Miller – Carnivorous plants, Earthen Organics, and Saturnia Farm. Educational exhibits will also be on site, including beekeepers, soil enhancements, books on Native plants and an exotic invasive species public service booth.

Volunteers Needed

Many volunteers are needed to run the sale.  We will train you on the various jobs from moving plants, assisting customers, writing up invoices, holding plants while customers continue to shop, and loading plants into vehicles.  Click on the volunteer form below to see all the ways and times you can help make the sale a success.

To sign up to volunteer, click here!

 

To download a flyer to share with friends and neighbors, click here!

 

 

 

Upstate Spring Native Plant Sale

Upstate Spring Native Plant Sale

April 2 @ 8:30 am1:00 pm

NATIVE PLANT SALE

The sale is a large, in-person style again this Spring at Conestee Park, 840 Mauldin Road in Greenville. The date is Saturday, April 2nd from 8:30am to 1pm. Early admission at 8:30am is for members only with the general public admitted at 9am. Knowledgeable advisors will be on the sale floor to assist customers with plant selection.

The sale includes a wide selection of native shrubs, trees, perennial wildflowers, ferns, vines, and grasses. Cash, credit, and checks accepted. Visit the website, www.scnps.org, in March for updated information and a list of plants available.

Guest plant vendors and educational exhibits will also be on site, including beekeepers, soil enhancements, books on Native plants and an exotic invasive species public service booth.

Volunteers are needed to work at the sale on both April 1 and April 2.  Contact Kathy Harrington: pharmkat1965@gmail.com