South Carolina Green Industry Association

Sunday marks the official start to summer! Check out these fun facts about the season:

🌻Sunflowers can count (and track): Young sunflowers follow the sun throughout the day—a process called heliotropism. Once they bloom, they stop tracking and face east to warm up faster and attract bees.

🏡The Cooling Effect: Eight average-sized residential lawns have the same cooling capacity as 24 home central air conditioning units.

🎾Wimbledon’s Centre Court is the most expensive lawn in the world: The Wimbledon grass needs time to adjust to peak tournament readiness. From March onwards, the emerald shoots get trimmed gradually to the optimum playing level of 8mm. Every day during the tournament, the ground staff mow the courts and a turf consultant measures the surface’s hardness, chlorophyll index and live grass content to determine the precise amount of water that gets sprayed on the grass at night.

🌱You can wear the smell of cut grass: Inhale the delightful smell of cut grass and what you’re smelling is a chemical compound called coumarin. Coumarin is among the most popular ingredients in perfumes, being included in almost 90%.

It’s World Environment Day, and the theme for 2026 is "Inspired by Nature, For Climate, For Our Future.” Get involved with these accessible, high-impact activities:

♻️ Daily Lifestyle Shifts
Ditch the plastic: Swap single-use plastics for reusable coffee cups, water bottles, and canvas grocery bags.

Conserve water: Place a bowl in your sink to catch excess water while washing hands or rinsing produce and reuse it to water your houseplants.

🏡 At-Home Projects
Start a compost: Divert food scraps from the landfill by starting a small compost heap or bin for your garden.

Plant natives: Enhance local biodiversity by planting native trees, flowers, or shrubs that support local pollinators.

🤝 Community & Advocacy
Organize a clean-up: Coordinate with your neighbors to clean up a local park, riverbank, or stretch of your street.

We’ve got some great design-build content coming from the team at DabneyCollins on SCgreenTV!

We are excited to offer a new resource - a job board featuring career opportunities from SC Green members! Find out what companies are hiring here: https://scgreen.org/careers/

If you are a member of SC Green and would like to promote current job openings on our web site, contact us at [email protected] 🌿

How do you sell more lighting? Rob Simmons, of Simmons Irrigation Supply digs into it on this episode of SCgreenTV. Link in comments 👇

Bees can be pesky, but they play a crucial role in pollinating plants, which helps to sustain our ecosystems and food supplies. In fact, some plants and vegetables won’t grow without being pollinated.

Encouraging bees in your customers' gardens can be as simple as planting a variety of flowering plants, providing water sources, and avoiding pesticides. Read more here: https://bit.ly/4f5c2Wd

🌞 Excessive heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States. As temperatures start to rise across the state, officials are urging residents to focus on heat safety before the summer season and Governor Henry McMaster has declared May 18 to May 22, 2026, as South Carolina Heat Safety Week.

Tips for Staying Safe in the Heat:
💦 Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water throughout the day.

🏃‍♂️‍➡️ Avoid strenuous activity during the hottest parts of the day (typically between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.).

👕 Wear lightweight, light-colored, and loose-fitting clothing.

The South Carolina Department of Public Health has developed an interactive Heat Related Illness Dashboard with data for the state and each county. View here: https://bit.ly/4fv1FLk