Design

It's been a good weekend for gardening, glorious weather here in the Southeastern U.S.  I've spent a lot of time tidying up, planting fall vegetables, and getting ready to be away, yet again. a bumblebee magnet A quick trip up to the mountains late last week had me harvesting beans and tomatoes, but more importantly, admiring the wealth of native bumblebees visiting the Sedum 'Autumn Joy' that's in the middle of our sedum bed.  In flower just for a short while, it's amazing when the flowers are open.  The flower heads were covered with bees of all sizes. Back in the Piedmont, the bank of Sedum in front of the visitor center (at the botanical garden where I work) was covered with butterflies (buckeyes, tiger swallowtails, sulfurs, etc.) Sedum 'Autumn Joy'

After a LONG week, and not much time spent in the garden, I'm ready for reflections. Here's a lovely image of a bumblee and flower, from a recent excursion.

One of my favorite warm-season garden activities is watching flower visitors. Bumblebees, carpenter bees, squash bees, blueberry bees, leaf-cutter bees, honeybees, butterflies, wasps, hoverflies, sweatbees, and hummingbirds collect either nectar or pollen or both. I can't imagine why I ever (as a clueless graduate student) thought that this wasn't interesting, preferring the germination strategies of weedy species (hmm, at least that turned out to be useful). But as a gardener, and garden educator, I've had SO much fun observing flower visitors, and encouraging other folks to watch. This morning, a (female) bumblebee was foraging on one of the purple coneflowers in the front meadow, busily working through the fresh young flowers that make up the 'head' of a composite, collecting pollen (note her pollen basket) as well as nectar. I had to check with my gardening companion (uh, he studied pollination biology in graduate school) about their foraging habits!

I enjoy watching flower visitors. Are they collecting nectar or pollen (or both)? How are they visiting the flowers? Many are effective pollinators, transferring pollen between flowers, but not all are. This bumblebee was sonicating ('buzzing') horsenettle flowers ( Solanum carolinensis ) to discharge pollen. Then, they take the pollen back to provision underground brood cells. About 8% of the world's plant species require 'buzz pollination' to effectively transfer pollen to stigmas. Some large bees (such as this carpenter bee) 'rob' the nectar of available flowers, such as this Salvia , poking a hole in the base of the flower (corolla) tube. Butterflies rely on nectar for a source of energy as adults, some getting energy from rotting fruits. Some will collect salts and minerals from shallow puddles, dung, or salty spots. Here's a silver-spotted skipper visiting a bee balm flower for nectar, getting an energy-rich ...

Common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, is a robust plant, spreading by rhizomes (underground stems). But it's a favored host plant for monarch butterfly caterpillars, which is recommendation enough for me. It's just started to flower, and is being visited by lots of flower visitors, just like its relative, Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed). I transplanted it into our meadow thanks to my butterfly gardening friends, and it's flourishing. The bee balm doesn't much like the ongoing drought, but is a tough customer nevertheless. Bumblebees were active visitors close to dusk.

Butterfly weed ( Asclepias tuberosa ) is a great native here in the southeastern U.S. It's not a great host plant for monarch butterflies (as a milkweed), but it's a tremendous nectar and pollen plant for LOTS of flower visitors. Mine have been alive with visitors, from honeybees to bumblebees to syrphid flies to butterflies.

I think (after discussing this with my gardening companion - long distance) that there must be more common bumblebee species here than at home. I'll have to do more research, but my gardening companion (who studied pollination biology) suggests that the cooler climate here in England would favor more bumblebees, who can fly at lower temperatures, relative to butterflies and other insects. I have seen a few wasp-like flower visitors, but primarily a remarkable array (to me) of bumblebees, in addition to honeybees. Regardless, I've been having a field day observing and taking pictures of them!

I've enjoyed watching some impressive bees visiting flowers-- large golden-striped bumblebees, smaller bees with different markings, and honeybees. I've only seen a single butterfly, and that from a distance-- it looked like a cabbage white.

Late this afternoon I noticed a bumblebee settling down for the night on a rosemary flower. Not a very sheltered place, but perhaps the cooling temperature caught her (or him) there. There aren't many large flowers around now to provide a better place. Only the queen bumblebees will overwinter, in underground nests, so these worker bumblebees are just hanging out until frost. Honeybees, however, will come out and forage on warm days especially in late winter, when the early ornamentals (winter honeysuckle, Japanese apricots, etc.) provide nectar and pollen, since they're on a different schedule than our natives.

There are so many kinds of native bees, in addition to the introduced honeybee. They've been fun to learn about and observe in different flowers. The big carpenter bees with their smooth black abdomens are the biggest, except for the occasional queen bumblebee. They visit a variety of different flowers, and are strong flyers. They're not above 'robbing' nectar from Salvias, either, poking holes at the base of the flowers, thereby circumventing entering the flower 'correctly'. All of the smaller bees are fun to watch gathering pollen. These were visiting native Helianthus hirsutus and Rudbeckia fulgida flowers in the meadow. There's a specialist bee that collects pollen from these portulaca flowers in one of my containers, but I wasn't able to catch it in a photo.