If You Plant It, They Will Come....

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I had been doing some planting in the garden. When I got home from work today, I took a stroll around the garden so see how things were doing and if anything sustained any damage from the strong storms we had yesterday and last night.

Luckily, there was no damage.  Also, I was thrilled to note that there were several bees enjoying the perennial Salvia.  It didn't take them long to find it :-)

I thought I'd share some photos that I took - they make me so happy :-)

As always, if you click on any of the photos, it will enlarge and you will be able to see the bees more clearly.

Did you know that June 18-24, 2018 has been designated National Pollinator Week? Several states have also proclaimed a State Pollinator Week (Texas hasn't -- yet).

The Pollinator Partnership website has information about pollination for farmers and gardeners, as well as fun stuff - how to build a bee condo, how kids can help pollinators and more.

There's also information about how to contact your governor to ask them to proclaim a State Pollinator Week, including contact information for the various state governors' offices and a sample letter or phone script to get you started.


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Butterflies and Bees

One of my favorite pastimes is watching the bees and butterflies enjoying the bounty of our island beds.  This year seems to be shaping up to be a good year for them.

This lovely pink flower is much beloved by the pollinators of all types that visit our garden.  But I have no idea what it is!! 

In fact, at it's base, I have a sign which states "I don't remember planting this"!  The very fact that it has taken hold and is thriving so well leads me to believe that it is, in fact, a weed.

If anyone knows what it is, I would really appreciate if you could let me know in the comments.   here's another photo, showing the forming seed heads.

The bumblebees also love the Salvia Greggi., there are usually at least five of them bumbling from bloom to bloom at any given time.  They make me smile.

Another visitor this week has been this Black Swallowtail on the Dallas Red Lantana (at least I think think it's a Black Swallowtail).  I haven't had much luck getting a good photo of it's wings to ID it with.  I tried again earlier today with no luck at all!

I have better luck taking photos of Gulf Fritillaries.  They seem to like landing on blooms to eat, rather than fluttering around like the Swallowtails do.  Makes the photos much easier.  Here's one on the Violet Queen zinnia. 

Here's another one enjoying the Profusion zinnia.  You can also see the sign I mentioned earlier in the post.

I'm also seeing Monarch butterflies in the garden. This looks like a female, so it's not one of the ones I released a couple of days ago from my Monarch Nursery, which were both male.  

Speaking of the Monarch Nursery, I still have 4 chrysalides in the enclosure in the bathroom.  Here's a photo of some of the caterpillars before they changed.

And here's one who has left the milkweed and climbed to the top of the enclosure to make his chrysalis.  

I'll probably get a lot more caterpillars and chrysalides later in the year, as the Monarchs prepare for their migration.  Last year I had a total of 30.  I'll see if I can match that this year :-)  Wish me luck!

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

A Weekend in the Garden

For the past few years, the island beds have been filled with bright orange "Profusion" zinnias.  The bees and butterflies loved them and they had self-seeded in years past to the point of overflowing. I was rather surprised this year when I realized that although the cosmos and cleome had self seeded, the zinnias had not.

While I love the cleome and cosmos, I wanted some more nectar sources for butterflies. I've seen very few butterflies so far this year and worried that the reason might be the lack of their favorite flowers. Or perhaps not, but I decided that planting some zinnias to add diversity to the island beds couldn't hurt.

So on Saturday I headed out to my favorite garden center, Plants for All Seasons, and checked out their selection.  I came home with a flat of yellow, orange and cherry red Profusion zinnias, along with three Torinias and six Ageratum Blue Mist. It was blisteringly hot by the time I got home, so I set the plants on the patio in the shade and retreated indoors for the rest of the afternoon.

I got up early on Sunday to do the planting.  It was overcast and threatening to rain, which kept the temperature down a degree or two, but the humidity was at 90+ percent.  Sweat was rolling off me, but it felt good to have my hands in the dirt, pulling out the bermuda and nutsedge that is ever present in the beds, and planting the new additions.

My back was feeling much better since my fall on the tile floor a couple of weeks ago.  The gentle bending exercise seemed to do me good.  I tried not to over do things and paced myself - weeding or planting for 10 minutes or so and then sitting on the patio with a tall glass of ice tea to recuperate, and then back out to weed some more, or plant something else.

Last night we had an impressive Texas thunder storm and amazing light show, with approximately an inch and a half of rain. I hope the new plants show their appreciation by spreading and blooming profusely!

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

The Bees are Buzzing

Down in the corner of our garden, by the birdbath and the wall where I put the bird seed, I've got two Savannah holly bushes.  I planted them when I moved in and haven't touched them since.  They're about 12 - 15 ft tall now and at this time of year, they are covered in tiny little blossoms.

When I went down to sprinkle bird seed on the wall this morning, the first thing I noticed was a happy buzzing sound that took me right back to my childhood.  I turned to look, and the Savannah hollies were alive with busy bees. 

Naturally, I grabbed the camera and took photos.  Most of them ending up being not very inspiring photos of a bee's back end with the rest of it hidden behind a leaf, but I did get a couple of decent shots to show you.

  
And, upon looking around the garden, I found that my little bluebonnets were popular with the bees this morning too.

Never let it be said that we aren't doing our part for pollinators :-)

Have a great week, everyone.   


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Happy Belated Pollinator Week

OK, so I'm a few weeks late in officially recognizing National Pollinator Week, which this year was celebrated from June 16th - 22nd.  But I saw a post of Facebook yesterday asking, "Where are the bees?"   The poster lamented the fact that they had no bees in their garden and they were worried about the consequences.

My iPhoto library helps me keep a record of when I see things in the garden and last year, I seemed to have a lot of carpenter bees and bumble bees in the garden at the end of August and into September.  Not so much in July.

So as I was taking a stroll around the garden this morning, I was pleased to see there were a few bees out there. 

The cucumber vines are covered in flowers and we've already harvested some good sized cukes. This little honey bee seems to be making sure that we get some more cucumbers later in the summer.

 This is better than last year, when we had lots of flowers and not one single cucumber.

Further along on my garden stroll, I noticed some bumble bees on the zinnia - nothing like the numbers we had last August, but it's early days yet :-)  

After a five minute stroll with my camera, the sweat was pouring off me. and that was the end of my foray into the garden for today! I'm glad I was able to find some bees, and hopefully our garden is suiting them and they stick around for the rest of the season.

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Wildlife Wednesday

I was putting out bird seed today and became aware of a sound I haven't heard in a while - that wonderful summer sound of gently buzzing bees.

I was standing by the Savannah holly in the Bird Bath Garden and looked down to see it covered in little blooms which were being visited by three or four bees.

I got this photo of one of them (you can click on the photo for a larger view).  

I'm not up on my bees, so I'm not sure if it's a honey bee or something else. But whichever type it is, it's very welcome in our garden.  And it can invite it's friends too -- enter and pollinate!
 



Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

The Garden in July

While June was an exciting month, with all the Monarch caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly action going on, I'm rather disappointed with the garden in July.

Looking back through photos from this time last year, it does seem I had more blooming in the garden then, in spite of the drought.

This year, the Vitex already bloomed and is now a mass of seedpods that need trimming off.  Trouble is, since the tree is about 18 feet tall now, I can't get to most of it.  It will have to do it's own thing and hopefully bloom again later in the year.

I've been worrying about the Rose of Sharon, that was star of the garden last summer.  The one that bloomed so prolifically last year has put out about two blooms so far.  However, when I took a peek at it yesterday, I noticed it has a lot of buds on it, so hopefully we'll see some flowers soon and out little hummingbird visitor will have some natural nectar to drink.

There *are* some things blooming in the garden - you just have to look for them.

This Cat's Whiskers plant, Orthosiphon aristatus, is a new addition. I planted it in the island bed this spring and it seems to like it there.

I adore the blooms, which really do look like cat's whiskers (and I should know!) Apparently butterflies and hummingbirds are attracted to it, but I haven't noticed much activity on it yet.

We have three crepe myrtles - two in the back garden and one in the front.  The two in the back are in full bloom with (thankfully) no evidence of that sooty mildew that young crepe myrtles are plagued by.  The one in the front, that the builder put in, looks pathetic and I'm considering ripping it out in the fall and planting another.

The veggie garden is doing okay.  This basil smells wonderful and is covered in blooms.  The tomato plants have given us quite a few cherry tomatoes and we've had a few tiny carrots as well.

We had thought the pepper plant wasn't doing anything, but finally it's getting some buds.  The cucumbers had us puzzled for a while.  They had lots of blooms but no fruit.  We assumed we weren't getting any pollinators for some reason and determined to help them along by pollinating ourselves.  That's when we noticed there are actually very few female flowers on them.  Hmmmm.

Once again this year, the "Midnight Lace" sweet potato vine is blooming. I've never seen blooms on the light green variety though.

Another plant covered in buds is the white Texas Star Hibiscus (no action on the red one yet).

The bud was opening yesterday and when I looked out after this morning's rain storm, I saw it was fully open. It got beaten around a bit by the wind and the rain, but I think it still looks beautiful.

Before I go, I thought I'd share a couple more Monarch photos with you.  The first one, I didn't even realize what I was taking a photo of last week.  It wasn't until I downloaded the pics to my computer today that I realized I had photographed a Monarch butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

We counted 8 hatched chrysalises around the house.  There's one more still to come, on the fence in the back garden.

Here's one of "our girls", resting on the front window sill before taking off to parts unknown.

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Busy Bees

Stepping out the front door this morning, I noticed that the front flower bed was buzzing with activity.  

At first, I thought they were bumble bees,  Bombus sp. But as I watched, I realized there was something different about them.  Instead of fuzzy, yellow and blacked striped bodies, these had black shiny bodies. After taking these photos, I looked them up and found out they are Carpenter bees, Xylocopa sp. 

 There were quite a few of them, and they were loving the tropical milkweed.

Unlike termites, Carpenter bees do not eat wood, but they do burrow through it when building their nests.  They may have been attracted to the vicinity by all the construction going on either side of us...

 
Look at all that wood!!  They must have felt like they won the lottery!

I'm not to worried about them.  Our house has no exposed wood and I think our neighbors won't either, once the houses are finished.

And in the meantime, the bees are pollinating our garden:-)


They were hard at work in the Vitex in the back garden too.

 In fact, the Vitex was teeming with life.  Bees were buzzing all around me.  

Or are they bees?  Sure, they have black and yellow stripes, but something doesn't look right to me.

I went online to try and ID them, and didn't find any bees that look like this. Wasn't sure what else to look under and searches for "yellow and black striped insect" brought up lists of beetles.

 Anyone have an idea what they are?
 

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.