Little Ex-Asters Everywhere

Ex-aster time is the best time to be in the garden. The days are warm and Autumn angle of the sun makes everything glow.

Leaves from the oak and hickory canopy have begun to fall and the sunlight that gets blocked all summer is now able to reach the woodland floor where it warms up the garden and spotlights these little beauties.

Even on cool mornings the sunny spots are alive with bees and other pollinators. You have to be very patient to capture a photo of the Bumbles, they're very busy in their mad dash to collect pollen and nectar to fortify their nests for the winter.

 Later in the day the skippers and Sulphurs can be seen flitting from flower to flower.

 Bee mimics, like the fly above are busy nectaring, too.

Green metallic bees are all over the little ex-asters.

 Although, the Bumbles are my favorites, I am pretty crazy about all the critters that visit and live in this garden. The little bees make me smile, they always travel in a pack. If you see one step back and look around and you'll see dozens of them.

 The ex-asters introduced me to the Bumbles and we've been friends ever since...

Asters (as they were once known) and other Central Basin natives grew with happy abandon in the forested woodland where this garden now stands. Sixty years ago a neighborhood was carved from the woodland and a house was built. Homeowners came and went, while the asters grew quietly on the woodland  edge. Thirty years ago almost to the day, my husband I bought this garden and this brand new gardener fell head over heals in love with the blue clouds of flowers that were covered with bees and butterflies.

 I built my garden around the flowers. I've allowed them to root and seed themselves with abandon.

They've spilled into the paths, crept into the wildflower beds and cozied up to the benches all over Clay and Limestone.

Each fall I wait with anticipation for those first blooms. With them come the pollinators. It's not that there aren't pollinators during the spring or summer, it's knowing that these will be the last until next spring that makes my heart soar and finds me dashing to the garden first thing in the morning.

What a beautiful dance. Swaying flower stalks and busy bees.

It's been a happy and successful relationship, if I do say so myself!

xoxogail

PS All the pollinators~ Bumble Bees, honeybees, Green metallic bees, hover flies, Miner bees, and large Leaf-Cutting bees, bee flies, beetles, butterflies, and skippers that visit the flowers for nectar and/or pollen are essential for cross pollination. So never, ever, ever, ever use pesticides if you want pollinators to pollinate your ex-asters and other plants!

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Pollinators come in all shapes, sizes and colors...

Green Metallic Bee, Ailanthus Webworm Moth and Hoverfly.

You've probably noticed that there are many small and colorful flying critters visiting your flowers during the growing season. Nature has provided us with an array of pollinating insects~ including wasps, moths, butterflies and bees.

I appreciate all the pollinators at Clay and Limestone, but, my favorite are the bees.

Occasionally honeybees visit, but, the bees that live in my garden are non-honey producing, social and solitary nest building bees. Way back in the early 90s they started referring to non-honey producing bees as pollen bees. Nowadays, we call them native bees! Pollen bees/native bees are valued for the role in pollinating our wildflowers and crops.

The Bumble Bee and the Green Metallic Bee are two of the many native bees that reside at Clay and Limestone. Both bees forage our gardens for nectar and pollen to feed themselves and their offspring. The Green Metallic Bees are solitary bees and care for their brood cells by them selves. Although, they often live in close proximity to other female bees, sharing entrance tunnels to their separate apartments. The Bumbles are social bees and live in larger colonies with many female bees caring for the Mother bee's off-spring.

Green metallic bee on salvia leaf

The tiny, but, beautiful Metallic Green Bees captured my interest and attention when I saw them swarming all over a late blooming agastache several years ago. Their color was dazzling.

They flock to the native ex-asters, agastaches, goldenrods and other late blooming flowers. They are generalists and have never met flower pollen they didn't like.

On the whole, generalist bees, like the Green Metallic Bee are more resilient. They aren't dependent upon a particular flower's pollen to survive. Even a degraded habitat with weeds and non native plants would be fine for them. Imagine the haven a well planned pollinator garden would be for generalist and specialist bees.

In the United States, honey bees, bumble bees, and approximately 4000 species of solitary bees pollinate agricultural crops, our garden plants, and plants of lawn, meadow and forest. How we garden and the habitat we create can contribute to the our native bee's health and survival in an often hostile world.

According to conservation biologists

• "bees are “keystone organisms” in most terrestrial ecosystems. That is all of us land dwellers!
• Bees are essential for maintaining the integrity, productivity and sustainability of many types of ecosystems: the forest understory, pastures, fields, meadows, roadsides, many agricultural crops, fruit orchards, and backyard vegetable and flower gardens. That is all that we admire and love.
• Without bees, many flowering plants would eventually become extinct. Can you think of any you want to say so long to?
• Without the work of bees, many fruit- and seed-eating birds and some mammals, including people, would have a less varied and less healthy diet. We need our pollinators! (source)

Although, this family includes brightly colored metallic bees,
the majority of halictids are drably colored and small like this small carpenter bee

Here's what we gardeners can do for native bees?

• Plant more native plants~annual and perennial~known to attract bees in your garden region
• Make sure you have several different plants in bloom from early spring to late fall
• Eliminate the use of insecticides that are toxic to bees and other beneficial pollinators
• Provide shelter from the wind, rain, or cold
• Provide nesting spots~Soft and exposed soil, decaying logs, nesting boxes, research what they need.
• Don't be in such a hurry to tidy up the garden or cover every piece of earth with mulch
• Provide water

We can do this. Together we can make a big difference. xxoogail

This is the second in a series on native bees and other pollinators in our gardens. Other posts about bees you might enjoy are also listed.

Part I~Now Is The Time To Bee-gin Thinking About Bees ( here)
This Is The Place To Bee ( here)
Bumblebee Hotel (here)
Still Taking Care Of Bzzness (here)
My Sweet Embraceable You (here)
A Splendid Creature For Your Garden (here)

*The Green Metallic Bee is also known as a Sweat Bee. And, yes, they are attracted to the gardener's salty sweat and, yes, they can sting. In case you wondered: their sting is rated 1.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index~making it almost painless! (1.0= Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.) But, pain is subjective~be careful out there. If you are allergic to bee stings even this tiny bite can be dangerous.


This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.