Native Plants

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A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Tuesday - June 05, 2012

From: Durham, NC
Region: Southeast
Topic: Grasses or Grass-like, Herbs/Forbs
Title: Plants for North Myrtle Beach SC
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

What plants will do well at North Myrtle Beach, SC that will take full sun with dry soil?

ANSWER:

You didn't specify what kind of plants - trees, shrubs, grasses, etc., so we are going to give you a practice exercise to introduce you to our Native Plant Database. We will pay particular attention that the plants we select are native to Horry County, due to its somewhat difficult position of jutting out into the Atlantic on the extreme eastern tip of the state. We begin by going to our Native Plant Database and, using the Combination Search, select on South Carolina, then Herbs (herbaceous blooming plants) under Habit. For now, we won't make any other specification, but after you have the hang of it, you can map your yard for sun (6 hours or more of full sun a day), part shade (2 to 6 hours of sun) or shade (2 hours or less of sun), and make your own search, even up to picking the bloom color and bloom time, where applicable. If you are selecting for groundcover, you will want to select 0 to 1' on projected height. This will make more sense to you after you have followed our search for blooming plants for your area. Follow each plant link on the list below to our webpage on that plant, where you can read how much sunlight it needs, if it needs moist or dry soil, what its projected height is, etc.

After we began looking at the blooming flowers, we wondered if you might need to know about grasses that would grow where you are. These are not lawn-type mowing grasses, but various types of grasses that will hold their place year-round, help control erosion, and are attractive.

Herbaceous Blooming Plants for Horry County, South Carolina:

Agalinis tenuifolia (Slenderleaf false foxglove)

Amsonia ciliata (Fringed bluestar)

Asclepias tuberosa (Butterflyweed)

Centaurea americana (American basket-flower)

Chamaecrista fasciculata (Partridge pea)

Coreopsis basalis (Coreopsis)

Grasses for Horry County, South Carolina:

Andropogon gerardii (Big bluestem)

Andropogon virginicus (Broomsedge bluestem)

Aristida purpurea (Purple threeawn)

Bothriochloa laguroides ssp. torreyana (Silver beard grass)