My hoary skullcap is coming into bloom! This is its third year and the best it has ever looked. The bumblebees and sweat bees seem to like it, too! I have no idea how it got its unusual name, but it sure makes it an easy one to remember!
My bluebird box in the backyard has bluebirds nesting in it this year! Typically, they will raise 2 or 3 broods in a season. These are pictures taken the day before the first brood fledged. Have you ever seen such determination?
Looking out at the big world!
Almost ready to go!
A few years ago, I went to a flower show with a friend where I was given a “freebie” lily bulb in a plastic bag. I had no idea what it was or what it would look like, but I took it home and planted it. That year it grew, but didn’t bloom, but the next year it was stunning! Since then I have found that it doesn’t bloom every year, but when it does, it is gorgeous! Each blossom lasts only one day, then a couple days later another one opens. It’s not a native, but I love this lily!
My unknown lily
This video of her cat playing is from Deb:
Silas playing with a ball and a shoe
I planted some pink threaded coreopsis, another native perennial, on the west side of my house a couple years ago. It didn’t do very well last year, but this year it has taken off and actually spread, and now it is in full bloom! It was advertised as attractive to butterflies, but so far, all I have seen are numerous sweat bees, barely 3/8 inch long! These are the same bees I wrote about that have been pollinating our beans. In the first picture, I just wanted to show the coreopsis, but the second picture is greatly enlarged to show one of the tiny bees. I actually caught one at rest!
Pink threaded coreopsis “American Dream”
Tiny sweat bee on pink coreopsis–enlarged
Bluebird nestlings, about one week old
I monitor bluebird boxes at a nearby state park, and today I had three boxes with a total of thirteen nestlings, all about a week to ten days old. It must have been naptime this afternoon, because they were all sound asleep!
My swamp milkweed has been quite a magnet for bumblebees! Here is a video I took yesterday. It sure makes you appreciate the saying “Busy as a bee”, doesn’t it?
We plant a vegetable garden in our backyard every year with peas, lettuce, onions, green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, pattypan squash, cucumbers, various tomatoes, and peppers. Right now, the beans are coming in–Beans R Us!! While picking all these beans, I have been amazed at all the tiny, native bees that are all over the plants. I have never really thought about how all those bean flowers got pollinated to make all those beans, but now I know! It’s not the honeybees that do it, it’s the tiny, almost invisible native bees that do the work! I think these bees I’m seeing are sweat bees, barely 1/4 inch in length, and they are everywhere!
Back in June, I purchased a mason bee habitat and hung it up in the garden. Mason bees are another type of native bee that is a major pollinator of fruit crops in the spring. I hoped to attract some mason bees to my habitat so they would lay their eggs in it and emerge next spring to pollinate my garden, but I think I may be too late this year. However, someone has moved into at least one of the holes! I have no idea what kind of bee it is, but I’m pleased that someone thought my little habitat was good enough!
This is my mason bee habitat. Someone has moved into the largest hole on the left!
So thank you, native bees, for our abundant bean crop! I may not feel so grateful in a few weeks when I’m sick to death of beans, beans, beans, but right now it’s wonderful!
It’s early summer in Delaware. The spring flowers are finished and the spring ephemerals have vanished until next year. Here in my yard, the summer show is just starting. My bee balm is beginning to bloom along with some swamp milkweed called Ice Ballet.
Bee balm coming into bloom
Swamp milkweed
“Ice Ballet”
It looks like one of my jack-in-the-pulpits is going to actually make some berries! If all goes well, they should be bright red in the fall.
Jack-in-the-pulpit with berries
The butterfly weed and false sunflower in the front are doing well in the sun, though I think I need to move the false sunflower to a different spot and maybe get some more so it doesn’t look so lonely!
Butterfly weed
False sunflower
Back on the north side, my ferns are growing lush and full. Isn’t it interesting how they get smaller as they get closer to the northeast corner of my house with more sunlight? They definitely like shade!
Ferns and day lilies on north side
Indian Pink
Here is a close-up of the gorgeous blossoms on my Indian Pink. I saw a hummingbird at them this evening!
Deb
FROM WEEDS TO BEES 