Sometimes laurel thickets are called laurel hells and there are tall tales in the Appalachian Mountains about men and hunting dogs getting lost in them never to be seen again.

Although the common name of Kalmia latifolia is mountain laurel, you can find this handsome evergreen native plant growing, often in thickets, from the mountains to the sea.

Kalmia Gardens in Hartsville was the creation of Mrs. D. R. Coker, affectionately called Miss May. The property, originally owned by the Hart Family who built the 1820’s structure, had become a dump during the depression. Coker dedicated herself to turning a garbage heap into a free, public garden.

Recently, our team went to Hartsville and filmed at Kalmia Gardens. Director Dan Hill took us down the slope on that property which drops sixty feet to Black Creek. Several plants there are glacial relicts – they moved down ahead of the glaciers during the Pleistocene era.

In cockscomb celosia the fasciation trait is reliably carried in the seeds. Cactus plants also seem to spontaneously develop this peculiar growth habit.

Herrick Brown, now the curator of the A C Moore Herbarium at U S C, visited us recently with eye-popping examples of fasciation in plants.

A native weedy plant, Eupatorium cappilifolium has the common name of dog fennel as supposedly the peculiar smell of crushed stems and leaves is attractive to dogs.

Flowers, of course, are supposed to be perfect and just cut but an arrangement of just flowers can be rather dull – but add an interesting stick or branch to grab your attention and you’ll stop to smell the roses, so to speak.

Herrick Brown is the new curator of the A C Moore Herbarium at the University of South Carolina, taking over from our friend Dr. John – a k a Dr. John Nelson. Fasciation was the feature of some specimens Herrick brought to Making It Grow recently – a weird type of plant growth when the something goes awry in the apical meristem – the specialized group of cells at the tip of a plant –and instead of elongating they flatten out and divide.

The glorious deep purple Judge Solomon Southern Indica hybrid azalea graces many Southern gardens and the drive into our prized national treasure Brookgreen Gardens.