Wildflower Wednesday: Early Summer Pollinator Magnets for Pollinator Week

Bumble on coneflower

June Wildflower Wednesday has landed in the middle National Pollinator Week. What a great time for me to showcase my favorite early summer wildflower pollinator magnets. Follow the link to find out more about pollinators and the week long celebration. As the Pollinator Partnership has promised:  The continent will be buzzing with events that will be happening throughout the week.

Bumble on Common milkweed

As a wildflower loving, native plant fan who gardens for wildlife, the plants in my garden need to be more than just pretty faces, they must be helpful for the critters that visit and live here. The Wildflower Wednesday early summer pollinator magnets fit that description to a T. I hope you appreciate their pretty faces and great wildlife value. 

Butterfly on Coneflower

 

When ever anyone asks me what plants to get for their garden I always say this: "It's your garden, you can plant what ever you want, but, please remember to plan for all the critters that live and visit your garden." 

Partridge pea and bumble

 I assure them that they will never be sorry! Pollinators will thank them by hanging around pollinating flowers, vegetables and fruits; beneficial insects will raise offspring that will gobble up harmful insects; and songbirds and spiders will keep the insects in check. The more they plan and plant for critters...crawling, flying and even digging ones, the healthier and more diverse their garden will be.
 

Asclepias tuberosa

Unfortunately, we've been convinced by advertising that a garden should be perfect and that insects are harmful and must be eliminated or they will damage our flowering plants and make them ugly.  It's important for all of us gardeners, new or experienced, to reconsider beauty and to begin to appreciate the insect damaged plant as providing food for a critter that may in turn be food for a spider, another insect or a song bird. 

Embrace imperfection in your garden

I encourage these gardeners to look at their plants very closely to find insects that might be living on them.  A friend told me she use to pull the caterpillars off her fennel before she knew they were Swallowtail butterfly cats. Now she plants extra fennel for the cats. We need to make sure those "ugly bugs" aren't beneficial insects before you pluck them off or squish them. Some of the "good bugs" include lacewings, lady beetles, minute pirate bug, soldier bugs, assassin bugs, braconid wasps, tachinid flies, flower flies and aphid mites. 

Flower flies on Hypericum frondosum

Take a close look at the Susan in the photo below. Can you see the disguised caterpillar? It's an Emerald Wavy Lined moth and it uses bits and pieces of the Rudbeckia for protective coloration. Caterpillars are especially at risk because they can't fly away when danger approaches. Camouflage is an effective means to blend into their environment and escape being eaten by a bird or wasp. If we are seeking perfection in our gardens, if we spray to kill aphids and other insects messing with our plants we lose critters like this. Trust me, you don't need to worry that  a critter like this will destroy your flowers, most are eaten by birds, spiders and wasps!

Emerald Wavy Lined moth (Synchlora aerata)

  We must consider the bigger picture. Our gardens might be an oasis of food and shelter for all kinds of critters in a sea of over fertilized and pesticide treated lawns. Think about that for a minute.

 

I know all about gardening in a sea of manicured lawns...Our neighborhood is changing from its established 1950s ranch homes with freedom lawns that light up each spring with Spring Beauties and glow in the summer with lightning bugs. Houses, lawns and trees are being bulldozed down at a frightening rate. In their place are 5000 to 10,000 sq foot megahouses with perfectly manicured lawns and the same old same old non-native shrubs, all for "curb appeal". What they get are fertilized lifeless lawns and shrubs that offer nothing to critters. 

I despair for wildlife.

 I fear that the new neighbors will complain about our "unkempt yards" next to their million dollar homes. Those of us that know how important a wildlife friendly garden is to pollinators and other critters have got to help educate these newcomers.

Maintaining a buffer between the  garden and the street can go a long way to helping neighbors see your front garden as attractive rather than messy. Posting signs has helped my neighbors understand what's happening in my garden. Sharing posts like this one on our neighborhood listserv and Facebook page keeps the conversation out in the open where others can learn and give support.

Stokesia laevis

My personal goal is to make a lovely garden that provides nectar and pollen for bees and butterflies from late winter until late fall and a garden for all critters to find food and shelter and to raise their offspring. I hope my neighbors get joy from seeing the pretty faces in the garden.

Gloriosa Daisy

 What you can do

If you're a new or even an experienced gardener and want to create a pollinator friendly garden or want to add more pollinator friendly plants to your garden, I urge you to take time to figure out what plants make sense for your garden conditions. Invest in a good wildflower identification guide for your part of the country, join a native plant society and visit your local botanical garden and arboretum. If you are lucky enough to have garden centers that sell native plants shop there and not big box stores.

 It took me years to figure out that gardening would be a lot more fun and successful if I gardened with Middle Tennnessee/ Central Basin natives. Local provenance matters. After all, locally grown native plants evolved with our wet winters and dry summers and will succeed in my difficult gardening conditions. So shop locally when ever it's possible.

'Solar Eclipse' and 'Cherry Brandy' are two Rudbeckia hirta cultivars that attract pollinators to an early summer garden

 Native annuals/short lived perennials like Rudbeckia hirta cultivars are wonderful additions to a pollinator garden. Lavender, sweet alyssum and herbs are also good additions to a pollinator friendly garden. Beneficial insects love many of them and we want beneficials in our gardens.

Hydrangea arborescens is a pollinator friendly native shrub

 When you're creating your beautiful pollinator garden, be sure to include trees and shrubs, you might be surprised to learn that many of the woodies are far more important to insects than flowering plants.

Elymus hystrix is a host for the caterpillars of the Northern Pearly Eye butterfly and several moths

 When you think about ornamental grasses, and you should, please consider planting one of our fine native grasses. Grasses like early blooming Bottle Brush grass fill the garden with movement and beauty all year long, while providing food and shelter for visiting mammals, birds and insects. 

Liatris

 

Fill your garden with native plants that are pollinator magnets! You'll never be sorry.

Pycnanthemum muticum attracts bees, wasps, flies, small butterflies, and beetles

Here's the nitty gritty for creating a pollinator friendly garden.

• Plant a lot of nectar and pollen producing plants, lots and lots; swathes work, so does repetition (Central Basin natives make sense in a Middle Tennessee garden)
• Don't forget trees, shrubs and grasses in your garden plan
• Plant host plants~so the offspring of butterfly, beetles and other pollinators can feed
• Plant for bloom from late spring to early winter. 
• Plant nectar and pollen rich fall blooming plants for migrating butterfly.
  
• Include water for bees
• Provide nesting sites near your garden for a variety of visitors: Build a pollinator condo, leave some bare ground for earth nesting bees and pile decaying logs for beetles who like to tunnel.
• practice peaceful coexistence. Bees sometimes choose to nest in inconvenient places. Rather than exterminating them, think of it as an opportunity to watch and learn about them up close.
• Take the pledge to never, ever, ever use pesticides in your garden.  I really do mean never!  

 If this post helps you have as much fun as I have gardening for pollinators and other wildlife then I will consider myself successful.

Happy Wildflower Wednesday and enjoy the events and activities from the Pollinator Partnership.
xoxogail

Welcome to Clay and Limestone's Wildflower Wednesday celebration. I am so glad you stopped by. WW is about sharing and celebrating wildflowers from all over this great big, beautiful world. Join us on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Remember, it doesn't matter if they are in bloom or not; and, it doesn't matter if we all share the same plants. It's all about celebrating wildflowers. Please leave a comment when you add your url to Mr Linky.

 

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.

A Gentle Giant for Pollinator Week

To help celebrate Pollinator Week I am republishing this post from 2015 on Eastern Carpenter Bees/Xylocopa virginica. I've added a few details and refreshed some photos. I hope you enjoy it! xoxogail 

There's probably no other bee that arouses irritation quite like this gentle giant. Just search "carpenter bee" and you will get hundreds, if not thousands of "results" and almost all are about how to get rid of them.

They're very cool critters and I love them even though they have tunneled into my front porch deck and my carport stained posts. We had the porch painted and they don't like it! They continue to nest in our stained carport wood.

 

Robbing a Penstemon

Five interesting facts about this gentle giant.

1. These big beautiful, noisy bees are excellent pollinators. In fact, they are being studied across the globe for pollinating green house crops like passionflower, blueberries, greenhouse tomatoes and greenhouse melons.

2. They are generalist foragers and are known to pollinate garden crops and garden plants. Like eggplant (Solanum melongena), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) and other species in that genus, cucurbits (Cucurbita spp.), cassias (Cassia spp.), Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens), cigar orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum), bee balm (Monarda spp.), aromatic sumac (Rhus aromatica), and wild lupine (Lupinus perennis).

3. They are buzz pollinators - meaning they use vibrations, or sonication, to release pollen grains from the flower's anthers. To release pollen carpenter bees are able to grab onto the flower and move their flight muscles rapidly, causing the flower and anthers to vibrate, dislodging pollen. About 8% of the flowers of the world are primarily pollinated using buzz pollination. Wildflower gardeners~all Dodecatheon are buzz pollinated! Eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries are also buzz pollinated.

Camassia

4. They typically visit flowers that have large, open-faces with abundant nectar and pollen; bloom during the day; are pale or saturated in color; have a fresh odor; anthers specialized for pollen collection by bees; and corollas with strong walls.

5. They are nectar robbers and cheat the pollination process by breaking open the sides of flowers, like salvias and penstemons to get at the nectar! 

Bonus info. The menacing/dive bombing carpenter bee you encounter is only protecting a nest. It's a male drone and he's all buzz and no sting!


Happy Pollinator Week where ever you garden!xoxogail

PS In case you need a reminder! Please, never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides in your garden. The pollinators will thank you by taking up residence and pollinating your fruits, vegetables and flowers!

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.

Gloriosa Daisies for National Pollinator Week

I am grooving on the 'Irish Eyes' and 'Indian Summer' Black-eyed Susans I planted last month.

 Seriously, just look at that emerald green central cone on 'Irish Eyes' and you'll know one of the reason I invited it to the garden.

'Irish Eyes' with that green center

I love all the Susans and have a special place in my heart for Rudbeckia hirta and  Gloriosa Daisy varieties specifically.

'Indian Summer' displaying hairy parentage

 Rudbeckia hirta flowers have been described as course, hairy and common...You know, that makes me appreciate them more.

'Cherry Brandy' and 'Prairie Sunset'

The Gloriosas have most of the characteristics of their R hirta parent, except the flowers are three times as large and their colors are mixtures of pure yellow or bicolored, many with dark mahogany red splotches at the base of the petals.

Yes, I do love the many colorful varieties and  the big flowers, but I also love that they're all rough and tumble flowers that can take the heat and humidity of our Middle South summers and continue to bloom until frost (deadhead them).

The cats of the Silvery Checkerspot feed on the leaves and nectar at the flowers

Pretty flower faces are delightful, but, you know me, plants that are invited to Clay and Limestone also have to have good wildlife value and Gloriosa Daisies do. Butterflies, bees of all sizes, wasps, beetles and even little loper caterpillars rely on the many Susans for food, and shelter.

Plant them in your garden and sit back and watch the pollinators. I've already seen small Carpenter Bees, Green Metallic bees, Bumbles and skippers visiting the flowers to feed and/or gather pollen.

Now get your wildflower on and share a favorite or two for National Wildflower Week!
xoxogail 

PS If you want to help pollinators this week and every week of the year, then, never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides. Also, make sure the plants you bring into your garden have never been treated with neonicotinoids.

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.

Pollinator Week: Xylocopa virginica

 Pollinator Week  has been proclaimed throughout the land! Here to help us celebrate is one of my favorite pollinators, the Eastern carpenter bee.

Five interesting facts about this gentle giant.

1. These big beautiful, noisy bees are excellent pollinators. In fact, they are being studied across the globe for pollinating green house crops like passionflower, blueberries, greenhouse tomatoes and greenhouse melons.


2. They are generalist foragers and are known to pollinate garden crops and garden plants. Like eggplant (Solanum melongena), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) and other species in that genus, cucurbits (Cucurbita spp.), cassias (Cassia spp.), Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens), cigar orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum), bee balm (Monarda spp.), aromatic sumac (Rhus aromatica), and wild lupine (Lupinus perennis).

 

cheating pollination!

3. They are buzz pollinators - meaning they use vibrations, or sonication, to release pollen grains from the flower's anthers. To release pollen carpenter bees are able to grab onto the flower and move their flight muscles rapidly, causing the flower and anthers to vibrate, dislodging pollen. About 8% of the flowers of the world are primarily pollinated using buzz pollination. Wildflower gardeners~all Dodecatheon are buzz pollinated! Eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries are also buzz pollinated.

large open faced flowers rich in pollen and/or nectar are favorites

4. They typically visit flowers that have large, open-faces with abundant nectar and pollen; bloom during the day; are pale or saturated in color; have a fresh odor; anthers specialized for pollen collection by bees; and corollas with strong walls.

5. They are nectar robbers and cheat the pollination process by breaking open the sides of flowers, like salvias and penstemons to get at the nectar! 

Bonus info. The menacing/dive bombing carpenter bee you encounter is only protecting a nest. It's a male drone and he's all buzz and no sting!

There's probably no other bee that arouses irritation quite like this gentle giant. Just search "carpenter bee" and you will get hundreds of thousands of 'results' and almost all are about how to get rid of them.

They're very cool critters even if when they tunnel into your deck/front porch/garage and I love them even though they have tunneled into my front porch deck! They are now nesting in several large cedar stumps that I have placed around the yard....YIPPEE!

Happy Pollinator Week where ever you garden!xoxogail

PS In case you need a reminder! Please, never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides in your garden. The pollinators will thank you by taking up residence and pollinating your fruits, vegetables and flowers!

 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.

Big Goings On At Clay and Limestone

Look who stopped by for the celebration~Eastern Swallowtail Butterfly

It's National Pollinator Week. The Secretary of the Department of Agriculture has proclaimed June 20-26, 2011 as National Pollinator Week. Clay and Limestone is joining the celebration with a look at the pollinators that live in the garden and the wildflowers that support them.

Liatris spicata with Bumble

Back in 2007 the Senate passed Resolution 580, "Recognizing the importance of pollinators to ecosystem health and agriculture in the United States and the value of partnership efforts to increase awareness about pollinators and support for protecting and sustaining pollinators..." (source) Each year since then, the Secretary of Agriculture proclaims the last full week in June as the official date of National Pollinator Week.

Poster available from Pollinator Partnership org.

Quick facts from the Pollinator Partnership

• About 75% of all flowering plant species need the help of animals to move their heavy pollen grains from plant to plant for fertilization.
• It's more then bees! About 1,000 of all pollinators are vertebrates such as birds, bats, and small mammals.
• Most pollinators (about 200,000 species) are beneficial insects such as flies, beetles, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths, and bees.
• Pollinators are keystone species~which simply means they are essential to our environment.
• Pollinators effect 1/3 of all food and beverages in the US
• That adds up to nearly $20 billion in food products each year

I don't grow veggies in my garden, but, I do need pollinators to pollinate my wildflowers. The pollinators and I are quite happy with our arrangement: There's plenty of pollen and nectar producing plants; there are host plants for offspring; water; bare dirt for ground nesting bees; there are seed heads for birds; and, there are fragrant or smelly plants for moths and flies.

If you look closely you can see the Asteraceae stars

One of the best nectar and pollen producers blooming right now at C and L is Liatris spicata. Dense Blazing Star is found throughout most of Tennessee and the eastern half of North America from Canada to Florida. It's practically foolproof and asks only for sunshine and good drainage.

Sunday in the garden

It rewards you with feathery stalks of purple blooms that are pollinator magnets! In my shallow soil it grows over two feet tall, but, in deeper soil (not richer soil) and true full sun, may top out at 4 foot. I haven't seen a pest on it but, I've seen, hover flies, bumbles, carpenter bees, green metallic bees, wasps, skippers and butterflies.

Liatris blooms from top down

I also grow L aspera and L squarrulosa, both bloom later summer and early fall, providing nectar and pollen for late visitors to the garden.

An Asteraceae family member, it has disc florets and no ray florets

With close to 40 different Liatris species in North America, you will be able to find one or two to grow in your garden. For instance Liatris punctata is perfectly adapted to western and desert gardens. Just check with your local native plant nursery....You'll love the flowers and the visitors.

xxoogail

PS my dears, you know the drill~Never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides if you have a hope to have a garden filled with happy pollinators!


In case you want to read earlier pollinator posts~

Now Is The Time To Bee-gin Thinking About Bees ( here)
This Is The Place To Bee ( here)
If You Could Plant Only One Plant In Your Garden~Don't (here)
Must Bee The Season of The Witch (here)
Go Bare In Your Garden (here)
We can't All Be Pretty Pollinators (here)
Eye, Eye Skipper, Big Eyed Pollinators (here)
What's In Your Garden (here)
Carpenter Bees (here)
Got Wildflowers?(here)
It's Spring and A Gardener's Thoughts Are On Pollinators (here)
The Wildflower and The Bee (here)
A Few Good Reasons To Plant Milkweek (here)
Got Shade? You Can Have Pollinators (here)
Royalty In The Garden (here)
A Pollinator friendly Shrub (here)

Other bee posts you might want to read~
Count Yourself Lucky To Have Hoverflies (here)
Bumblebee Hotel (here)
Still Taking Care Of Bzzness (here)
My Sweet Embraceable You (here)

Bee clip art (here)

*I receive no compensation, just immense satisfaction and joy from promoting The Pollinator Partnership.

This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011.This work protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.