Garden guru

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Garden guru

Spend some time with Amanda McNulty, host of SCETV’s Making It Grow.

Photo by Milton Morris

Amanda McNulty

AGE: 69.

HOMETOWN: St. Matthews.

FAVORITE FOOD: “I love South Carolina oysters. They are the bomb.”

LITTLE-KNOWN FACT: Served for 12 years on the St. Matthews Town Council.

FAVORITE PASTIME: Going to movies with friends.

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When she was a girl, Amanda McNulty, South Carolina’s beloved horticulturalist and public television personality, spent her days playing outdoors in wooded, undeveloped areas of Columbia. But she took relatively little interest in the flowers and plants that would later become her stock in trade.

That changed when in her late 20s, she took a gardening course at Clemson University. Almost at once, she realized she had found her true calling, and graduated a few years later with a degree in horticulture. Today, McNulty shares her vast knowledge of plants with viewers of Making It Grow, the popular Emmy Award-winning television show she has hosted since 2012. Traveling around the state, McNulty and her three-person crew produce more than 40 shows each year.

“We have a wonderful time,” McNulty says. “We see many different parts of the state and it is so fun to meet with people.”

Fans frequently ask to have their photograph taken with her, and invariably inquire about McNulty’s famous homemade floral hats, which she wears on her show.

“My children and I used to like to make flower hats,” she says. “We would weave things we found in the yard and put them on our heads just for fun.”

McNulty also writes and narrates about 150-minute-long radio spots each year, and concedes that the relentless challenge of generating compelling topics is probably the most difficult part of her job.

And her favorite part of her work?

“What I really love most about these shows is going out and interviewing people and learning something new,” she says. “To me, that is even more interesting than horticulture.”

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Tune in

Viewers can watch Making It Grow live at 7 p.m. Tuesdays on SCETV or live on Facebook. Past episodes and McNulty’s radio spots can be found online at mig.org.