Making It Grow Minutes

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The rarest of the North American Nyssa trees is Nyssa ogeche. The species name comes from the Ogeechee River in Georgia, a blackwater river, like our Edisto River in South Carolina. It, too has beautiful bald cypress trees growing in it. But In its massive drainage basin, you’ll also find this Nyssa species, with the common name Ogeechee lime, which only grows in four states. Like its relative Nyssa aquatica, it develops huge swollen bases but is a smaller tree, topping out at about forty feet. Like the other members in the Nyssa genus, it’s mostly dioecious, but usually has some perfect flowers on female trees; both male and female flowers are intensely attractive to bees and other pollinators. Tulpelo honey, from any of the Nyssa species, is considered to be extraordinary but ogeche honey is considered even more precious.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Nyssa sylvatica has two varieties. On drier sites, you’ll find Nyssa sylvatica var sylvatica. In wet areas, often growing with bald cypress, the variety biflora is found. Both exhibit beautiful fall color, have small flowers very important to pollinators and produce fruits relished by birds and certain mammals. Also, their leaves are browsed by certain animals. When, as often happens, they become hollow with age, wildlife shelters in those cavities. Wetland species are used in remediation projects. The wood is not useful for lumber -- its interlocking grain makes it difficult to split. The Wood Data base website makes an interesting connection between its use by wildlife and by wildlife artists ,“Tupelo is a favored wood for wildfowl carvings. It generally is able to take finer details, holds paint better, and does not fuzz up during power carving like basswood.”

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Today we fret over hollow trees, although educational websites say that those trees can be almost as strong as a tree still filled with heartwood. Trees near trafficked areas or buildings should be evaluated by an arborist. But for wildlife, hollows serve as homes for bats, birds, mammals, and reptiles. We’ve been talking about early farmers used sections of blackgum tree hollows to make bee hives. If you want to see a wonderful picture of one, search American Honey Producers, Early Settlers Enjoyed Sweetness of Honey. There is a 1939 photograph of a gentleman in the Smoky Mountains standing next to a bee gum made from a section of a hollow tree. His garb – overalls, boots, coat, hat and his full and thick beard were probably all the protection he needed when he needed to harvest more honey to make life sweeter.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. I’m still excited about George Ellison’s column in the Asheville Citizen Times “Why the blackgum has a hollow trunk” -- do look it up --as it paints a wonderful picture of how something that sounds bad – a rotten tree – was critically important in frontier life. The most popular use for cut sections of these hollow trunks was to construct hives called bee gums. Ellison recounts the story of a farmer in disagreement with his neighbors over whether Missouri should be a free or slave state. He gathered up his fifty bee gum colonies and placed them around his cabin. When an angry mob force surrounded his home, he shot his gun into the hives – those highly agitated bees attacked the would-be human attackers and drove them into the woods where they hopefully cooled their tempers and returned home to nurse their stings.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. George Ellison in his column “Why the blackgum tree has a hollow trunk," Asheville Citizen Times, lists how people used these pipe-like tree parts after heart rot fungus had rendered them hollow. Ellison describes how they were fashioned into rabbit traps (mostly caught possums), lined the upper reaches of wells, became containers when given a bottom, and were made into bee houses, called bee gums, in the days before prefabricated hives were popular. Also, the flowers of blackgum trees were important sources of nectar and pollen for those bee colonies. Imagine how important honey was in the lives of frontier and self-sufficient farmers. Honey doesn’t go bad; a good supply of honey could add important calories to a family’s diet and certainly was welcomed as a way to make foods tastier. And to light the darkness, beeswax candles were invaluable.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Certain trees in the genus Nyssa are most often associated with wet areas, the generic name honors the Greek water nymph Nyssa. All their flowers, both male and female, are very attractive to bees. I found an article in the Asheville Citizens Times about one type, Nyssa sylvatica var. sylvatica, that grows in the Blue Ridge Mountains (also way up the Eastern Coast and into Canada) mixed in with oaks and hickories and such. The article, which you should look up, Citizen Times, George Ellison, Nature Journal, "Why the blackgum tree has a hollow trunk," is fascinating. Gum trees are very susceptible to wind-dispersed fungi that cause the trunks and large branches to rot and become hollow. A hollow log was like a pipe to those living on the land and could be used for an incredible variety of purposes.

Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Fontella Bass, our half-tamed chicken who sleeps in the dining room in a dog crate for safety is remarkably and somewhat irritatingly demanding. She makes a racket in the morning when she hears me come downstairs until I take her out on the back porch, open the crate door, and put food out for her. In the summer, she kept me from sleeping late as I could hear her clucking and I felt guilty about making her stay in her crate after the sun was up. Unless you’ve experienced having a chicken fuss at you, you can’t imagine the delight that switching over to daylight savings time in the winter has been. Now I can snuggle back under the covers for an extended snooze, knowing that Fontella, too, is on a different schedule. I sure hope she doesn’t learn to crow.