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Kalmia Gardens - ''The Laurel Branch''
April 02, 2025
Welcome to our e-newsletter, "The Laurel Branch."
Oysters in Paradise: A Successful Kalmia Tradition
On March 15th, Kalmia Gardens traded its South Carolina roots for Hawaiian ones for our Jimmy Buffett themed oyster roast. The evening was filled with fantastic music from Dee Tallon, tasty, steamed North Carolina farm-raised select oysters, a huge spread of catered foods from burgers to barbeque, flowing beer, wine, and margaritas, and best of all – great company. Our annual oyster roast is not only an evening of food and fun, but it’s also our biggest fundraiser of the year that helps to support the many facets of Kalmia Gardens. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to our guests, sponsors, board members, volunteers, and staff, who made this event possible. We can’t wait until next year’s!
Make Your Garden the Talk of the Town at the Darlington County Master Gardener Association Plant Sale at the Joslin Education Center
Spring is upon us and the time for switching out our cool season plants for our warm season ones is nearly here! For the gardeners out there, this is an exciting time of year where our garden is filled with new possibilities of flora to come. For those who are a little less into the garden game and prefer to be a bit hands off, this can be an overwhelming time of year. At the Darlington County Master Gardener Association Plant Sale, there is truly something for everyone.
Plant options range from colorful annuals, to exciting perennials, to tasty edibles, to even pre-made pots ready to place artfully right on your front porch, including custom made beauties (but more on that below!). The plants have been selected and cared for by our Kalmia Gardens volunteers and Darlington County Master Gardeners. Their eye for plants ensures there is something for every garden from sun to shade, wet soil to dry soil, and everything in between. Does this all sound a bit daunting? Don’t fret! Master Gardeners will be on hand at the sale and will be available to help answer your questions!
How do you get in on this plant paradise? Make sure to attend the plant sale on April 10th -12th, from 9am until 3pm on April 10th and 11th and 9am to 1pm on April 12th at the Joslin Education Center at Kalmia Gardens. So, how do you get in on a custom-made container planting? Call Susan at (843) 230-6324 to set up a time to drop off your container and to talk specifics, like what colors you’re looking for and if you have sun or shade. Then, for $10 for each container plus the price of plants, you have an instant landscape in a pot! Please contact Susan by Saturday April 5th to arrange for yours!
Celebrating Earth Day at Kalmia Gardens
At Kalmia Gardens, we know just how important the environment and the ecosystem is, as we see the wonders of nature every day, from the habitat at the Black Creek, to the elegant intertwining of our native mountain laurels along the bluff, to the intentionally planted gardens near the Hart House. On April 12th from 10am until 1pm, we invite the community to join us and local organizations here at Kalmia Gardens for our free Earth Day celebration. Meet local vendors and exhibitors who will share their passion for nature and conservation through animal exhibition, yoga demonstrations, informational booths, art, and more!
Getting Wild at Kalmia Gardens: Week in the Wild Registration is Now Open!July 7th – 11th 9am – 12pm: Rising first and second graders
Kalmia Gardens’ famous youth summer camp, Week in the Wild, returns this July and promises to be filled with fun, friendship, and a wildly good time! Registration is now open for all camps, so don’t delay in getting your campers signed up. Space is limited. Each camp is $125 per camper per week. Please call (843) 383-8145 to register.
July 14th – 18th 9am – 12pm: Rising third and fourth graders
July 21st – 25th 9am – 12pm: Rising fifth and sixth graders
New Adult Education Lecture Series Coming to Kalmia Gardens
Learning doesn't have to stop once you leave school. Kalmia Gardens is excited to announce Cultivating Knowledge: A Lecture Series. Our new program hosts guest speakers from different disciplines and areas to share with us their expertise on horticulture, the environment, and more. Lectures will typically be held on the third Wednesday of the month at the Joslin Education Center for $5 a lecture. Pre-registration is required and seats are limited, so be sure to register early to secure your spot!
April 16th from 12pm to 1pm will kick off the series with Kalmia Gardens' Assistant Director, Lucy Contreras's lecture: Native Plants - Inviting Nature to Your Doorstep. Lucy will discuss plants native to our area, how they can be used in your home garden, as well as how they can help to encourage a healthy ecosystem in your yard. Lucy has worked in horticulture for over ten years at different public gardens in South Carolina and New York. Her experience with native plants spans both her professional work, as well as to her home garden. To register for Lucy's talk, sign up here. To purchase multiple tickets, please complete the form for each ticket you would like to purchase. Preregistration is required for all lectures.
Save the dates for the following lectures coming later this year!
June 18, 2025, 12pm-1pm
Using Pesticides Safely and Effectively
Brad Fowler, Urban Horticulture Extension Agent, Horry and Georgetown Counties
August 20, 2025, 12pm-1pm
Garden Delicious: Using Edible Plants in Ornamental Garden Designs
Jimmy Brandt, Horticulture Supervisor at Moore Farms Botanical Garden
October 15, 2025, 12pm-1pm
Beekeeping 101: From Honeybee Biology to Starting Your Own Hive
Laura Del Vecchio, Senior Horticulturist and Resident Beekeeper at Moore Farms Botanical Garden
Interested in more upcoming lectures? Check our website Event Page, and don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to stay in the loop for the latest guest speakers!
SCETV’s Making it Grow Visits Kalmia Gardens
Making it Grow kicked off its new season with a trip to Kalmia Gardens to explore the often-overlooked allure of the winter garden. Clemson Extension Agent, Carmen Ketron, joined Kalmia Gardens’ Assistant Director, Lucy Contreras, to discover the botanical wonders that the winter landscape has to offer. If you missed it, you can watch the video here, of March 18th, Season 2025, Episode 1.
Kalmia Gardens Becomes an All-America Selections Display Garden
Kalmia Gardens recently became an All-America Selections Display Garden, allowing us to bring some of the latest and greatest plants into our manicured gardens for everyone to enjoy! All-America Selections (AAS) is a nonprofit organization that trials new plants before they go on the market. An anonymous group of horticulture professionals evaluate the performance of these plants, and top performers earn the designation of being AAS winners.
By being an AAS Display Garden, we are able to grow some of these newly tested and awarded plants right here at Kalmia in our displays. We have started seeds that AAS has sent us of some of their awarded cultivars, or cultivated varieties, and we can’t wait until they are ready to head out into the Gardens! Keep an eye out for their identifying tags so you can see what AAS winners we’re growing and how they perform here in our climate! To learn more about All-America Selections, you can visit their website here.
Support Kalmia Gardens during NASCAR Day Givethon!
Kalmia Gardens relies on donations to maintain the Hart House, preserve 38-acres of natural areas and formal gardens, and create a green space that is open to all year round, free of charge. If you would like to donate to Kalmia Gardens, consider donating through the NASCAR Day Giveathon, where donors can receive incentives from NASCAR, and have the opportunity for their generous gifts to be matched. On May 13th and 14th, consider donating to Kalmia Gardens! To learn more about the NASCAR Day Giveathon, visit their website here.
Partner Organization News: Sandhills Refuge to Host 17th Annual Youth Fishing Day
The Friends of the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge will be hosting their annual Youth Fishing Day on May 31, 2025 at Oxpen Lake. The free derby is open to those ages 15 and younger, but pre-registration is required and opens on May 1, 2025. Participants should bring their own fishing supplies, but bait will be provided. To find out more information about this upcoming event, visit their event page here.Partner Organization News: Participate in Free Volunteer Training for the SC Adopt-a-Stream Program on May 3rd!
South Carolina Adopt-a-Stream (SC AAS) is a statewide volunteer water quality monitoring program where participants learn to assess the health and water quality of their local waterways. The program offers certification in four different protocols: freshwater stream, tidal saltwater, macro invertebrate, and lake monitoring. Anyone interested in protecting South Carolina’s waterways can be directly involved by attending a free workshop and monitoring with SC AAS.
The program is led in partnership by the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services (SCDES) and Clemson University. SC AAS program coordinators with SCDES keep the program running and growing, and Clemson oversees the public database. Local partners across the state provide additional support and foster program growth.
All are welcome to become volunteer scientists.
Kalmia Gardens serves as a "hub" and coordinates, training programs and testing kit loans. The next training is scheduled for May 3, 2025 from 9am-3pm. For more information about the program or registration contact South Carolina Adopt-a-Stream.
Partner Organization News: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to host Caterpillars Count!
Join this citizen science project hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to help survey and count arthropods on trees and shrubs and contribute your data to help evaluate long term trends. To learn more and get involved, check out their website here!Chris’s Tip
With spring upon us, warm season planting is not far behind. Now, we need to wait to make sure the threat of frost is in the rearview mirror before we start putting plants in the ground or moving pots housed comfortably in the warmth of the garage or safety of our porch overhang back into the wilds of our open and exposed yards. While planting may be at the forefront of our minds, this month’s tip is about mulch.
Mulch may not seem that glamorous when your mind is juggling endless colors and designs for your beds to come, but trust me, mulch is important too. Mulch not only adds a nice finishing touch to dress up your garden after you’ve finished planting, but it also helps your plants. If you opt for an organic mulch, like wood mulch or pine straw, it will break down over time and will richen your soil, feeding your plants for years to come. However, most mulches will help to keep your soil temperature regulated and retain moisture within your soil. With all the work we put in to our gardens, having mulch help keep the soil moist so watering is reduced is definitely worth the effort of applying it!
There can be too much of a good thing though. When you apply mulch, you want to be careful not to go too heavy. Mulching higher than four inches thick is usually too much, and can cause some problems, like inviting rodents to seek refuge in its dense confines. You also want to make sure you don’t mulch right up against the stems or trunks of your plants. You may have heard the term “volcano mulching,” which is a pretty accurate descriptor of what you will see – mulch piled high right against your plants, creating a volcano-like appearance. Since mulch can retain moisture, that moisture will be trapped against your plant’s stem or trunk for a prolonged period of time, which can cause the plant to rot and decline. Make sure to leave some breathing room for your plants!
Happy planting!Dan’s Interesting Plant
The landscape really shines in the spring, and this month’s interesting plant certainly has a luminous flower you will be seeing everywhere, but may be overlooking. Gelsemium sempervirens or Carolina Jessamine, is South Carolina’s state flower and is native to South Carolina. It is a vine that you’ve probably driven past dozens of times that likely is giving the impression that a lot of trees (and maybe even some fences) are sporting yellow flowers that aren’t actually their own!
With many vines, it’s easy for them to hide in trees and shrubs, growing through their limbs and presenting themselves as a different leaf than the rest, or as a unique flower you hadn’t noticed before. For this reason, sometimes Carolina Jessamine can be a bit of a pest in the garden. It’s not unusual for it to seed itself around the landscape, coming up in areas you did not plan, or want, it in. To put it plainly, Carolina Jessamine can sometimes be a weed in the garden when it pops up in places we don’t want it, like twenty feet up a tree!
These yellow bell-shaped flowers appear in the early spring and have a light vanilla-honey fragrance. This plant is abuzz with activity as bees can’t get enough of it. Cultivars, or cultivated varieties, exist of this plant. ‘Pride of Augusta’ has double flowers, or an increase in petals, that are attractive to us, but offer little to no benefit to bees who are hungry for its nectar. With many plants with double flowers, nectar is often reduced, if it is available at all. The plant may be more visually appealing to us, as humans, but it’s lost its appeal and value to the wildlife that rely on it as a food source. This doesn’t mean you can’t plant any plants with double flowers, but if you’d like to feed the bees and other wildlife looking for a sweet nectar snack, consider incorporating some plants with single flowers too.
Beautiful Plants of Kalmia Gardens
Anise, Florida (Illicium floridanum)
Anisetree (Illicium anisatum)
Ash, Fragrant (Fraxinus cuspidata)
Azalea (Rhododendron indicum cvs.)
Azalea, Pinxterbloom (Rhododendron periclymenoides)
Beech (Fagus grandifolia)
Bladderwort (Utricularia inflata)
Blueberry, Highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum)
Blueberry, Lowbush (Vaccinium angustifolium)
Bridalwreath (Spiraea thunbergii)
Camellia, Japanese (Camellia japonica cvs.)
Carolina Laurel (Rhododendron minus)
Cherry Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus)
Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata)
Devilwood (Cartrema americana)
Dogwood (Cornus florida)
Dogwood, Double (Cornus florida ‘Plena’)
Firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea)
Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus)
Heartleaf (Asarum arifolium)
Holly, ‘Nellie R. Stevens’ (Ilex ‘Nellie R. Stevens’)
Holly, American (Ilex opaca)
Holly, Lusterleaf (Ilex latifolia)
Honeysuckle, Fragrant (Lonicera fragrantissima)
Mahonia, Leatherleaf (Berberis bealei)
Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia)
Oak (Quercus spp.)
Pomegranate (Punica granatum)
Redbud (Cercis canadensis)
Spicebush (Lindera benzoin)
Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera)
Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria)
Yellow or Carolina Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens)EVENTS:
Master Gardener Plant Sale: April 10 – 12, 2025
April 10 - 11: 9am - 3pm, April 12: 9am - 1pm
Earth Day: April 12, 2025, 10am - 1pm
Week in the Wild Youth Summer Camp:
1st and 2nd Grade: July 7-11, 2025 9am - 12pm
3rd and 4th Grade July 14 – 18, 2025 9am - 12pm
5th and 6th Grade: July 21 – 25, 2025 9am - 12pm
Registration For Camp Opens: April 1, 2025Find Us On Facebook and Instagram
If you are on Facebook or Instagram, make sure you “like” Kalmia Gardens on Facebook and "follow" Kalmia Gardens on Instagram. It’s a great way to hear about events, stay updated on what’s happening, and view some nice pictures. We look forward to seeing your “thumbs up.”Supporting Kalmia Gardens
Kalmia Gardens is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public garden that is kept free and open to the public thanks to generous contributions from our donors. If you would like to support Kalmia Gardens in any amount, please consider making a tax deductible donation here.
Contact:Dan Hill, Director Kalmia Gardens of Coker Universitydhill@coker.edu, (843) 383-8145
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