Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:35 am (GMT 0)

The monsoon has set in at the right time. rains everyday, keeps on raining. work outside is not easy. plants need a lot of trimming and pruning once the rain slows down. but the heat of the summer has gone, it is very cool this time of the year.



i had been waiting for this plant to flower for a very long time. and this year, it has bloomed. i just love the fragrance it gives, heavenly.





mexican tuberose – polianthus tuberosa ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )





beautiful ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )



this is one more of my plants, once it blooms, it stays for along time, each opening to give blue, yellow clours











flaming torch – billbergia pyramidalis ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )





















( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:59 pm (GMT 0)

thought i would post some of my ordinary flowers. i was too busy to write anything. and then, it is easy to put off. here are some flowers which looked good today.

one of the new ones ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

ixora ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

amarillus ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

ginger lilly ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

new shoots from the flower itself ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

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But our new pink bunga bakawali is beginning to to show its prominence, letting out shoots artistically.

pink bakawali, two new shoots

different angle of pink bakawali new shoots

a new shoot coming from the base

a different view showing other plants around.

Judging by the first bunga bakawali blooming way back January 17, 2011 (  Bunga Bakawali Blooming, the stages.), the pink bunga bakawali will take a while to flower. I wouldn’t know exactly when, but the leaves got to get old and matured to let out buds and flowers…..

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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:59 pm (GMT 0)

thought i would post some of my ordinary flowers. i was too busy to write anything. and then, it is easy to put off. here are some flowers which looked good today.

one of the new ones ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

ixora ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

amarillus ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

ginger lilly ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

new shoots from the flower itself ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:59 pm (GMT 0)

thought i would post some of my ordinary flowers. i was too busy to write anything. and then, it is easy to put off. here are some flowers which looked good today.

one of the new ones ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

ixora ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

amarillus ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

ginger lilly ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

new shoots from the flower itself ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:59 pm (GMT 0)

thought i would post some of my ordinary flowers. i was too busy to write anything. and then, it is easy to put off. here are some flowers which looked good today.

one of the new ones ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

ixora ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

amarillus ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

ginger lilly ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

new shoots from the flower itself ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

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Nectaring on a late season ex-aster

Who could be immune to the charms of the big eyed skippers that visit our gardens all summer and into the fall. Certainly not me! Skipper is the perfect name for these fast, agile, erratic fliers and seem to skip from flower to flower.

Can you see the clubbed antenna?

They look more like moths then butterflies, but, they are indeed butterflies. Skippers are small to medium, usually orange, brown, black, white, or gray. Some are brighter or iridescent colored. They all have those large eyes (even their caterpillar has a large head), short antennae (often with hooked clubs), stout bodies, and three pairs of walking legs. Adults of most species have long probicscises and feed on floral nectar.

Characteristic double V stationary pattern

Although, not as efficient as bees, skippers and other butterflies, play a role in pollinating day blooming flowers. Some skippers are specialist, but, the ones that frequent my garden will visit every flower in bloom. Butterflies in general, tend to favor big, fragrant, colorful flowers with someplace for them to land. Skippers seem to land on the flat composites and even the tubular False Dragonheads and other flowers with perfect ease.

Pollination is incidental! Skippers are there for the nectar. While they’re sipping nectar a few pollen grains will stick to their legs and be carried to the next flower on the plant-resulting in pollination! Lucky for those of us who like our plants to go to seed and spread their offspring around the garden. That’s one reason large swaths of flower make sense ~Pollination will be more successful then if you have a plant here and there. All pollinators need to find plenty of food in one area from a wide array of flowers that are in bloom during the spring, summer, and autumn.

Horace Dusty Wing (?)

Skippers are members of the Superfamily Hesperioidea. We have about 275 in North America; many of which are found only in Arizona and Texas. Middle Tennessee, where I live, has approximately 50 different skippers~ and I am thrilled to be able to identify three of them! Thrilled also to be in the company of experts who admit that they have trouble id-ing them~Except in the lab and we aren’t going to harm any skippers to get an id!

Male Skippers are often found perching in the sun

characteristic clubbed antenna with hook

Since they are almost all plant generalists and many of them share the same host plants~planning a habitat that will attract butterfly/skippers is not difficult. Almost all of the plants we plant in our garden to attract native bees, are just as attractive to butterflies. In fact, any well designed wildlife habitat will be a perfect environment for bees, butterflies, flies, moths and other pollinators.

Nectaring on Caryopteris-See the proboscis, its long, flexible “tongue.”

My favorite plants for attracting pollinators to my Zone 7, Nearly neutral clay soil garden are: Asters/symphyotrichum, Penstemon, Monardas, Liatris, Veronicastrum, Agastache, Solidago, Vernonia, Eupatorium, Lobelia, Asclepias, Pycnanthemum, Ecinacea, Silphium, Tradescantia, Baptisia, Verbesina, Zinnias and Clover
Native grasses and sedges-little bluestem, descampsias, panicums, bottle grass, Carex platyphylla, Danthonia spicata (poverty grass)
Native shrubs- hydrangeas, iteas and hamamelis
Native trees-oak, locust, hickory, cercis, celtis, elm

Epargyreus clarus — Silver-spotted Skipper on False Dragonhead

You can visit any number of sites on the internet to find out which plants make sense for your garden. I recommend you visit the Pollinator Partnership or the Xercis Society for even more information about pollinators. You can also get my newest ‘go to book’, Attracting Native Pollinators. It’s a fantastic resource, but, you don’t have to take my word for it. As Douglas Tallamy says, this book “belongs on the bookshelf of everyone who values the future of the natural world.”

Skipper enjoying Verbena bonariensis

Of course, you already know what I am going to say here! If you want to attract pollinators~Never, never, never, ever, use pesticides in your garden.

xxoogail

This post is part of a series on native pollinators in the garden~ Earlier posts and their links are listed below for your convenience.

Part I~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)

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)

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.

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Flies Pollinate, Too!

Unknown fly nectaring on Hamamelis mollis at a local nursery

Yes, I did say flies! Those pesky, annoying creatures that buzz around our heads and food are excellent pollinators.

Unknown fly nectaring on Hamamelis vernalis

I’ve been hoping to capture at least one photo of a winter pollinator visiting the Hamamelis vernalis at Clay and Limestone. It’s been my quest to discover if there is a specialized pollinator. What a surprise to see flies! Not anything special either. They look like, your regular old houseflies, too. But, there they were on a warm February day, nectaring on (and hopefully carrying a bit of pollen to the next flower) the only blooming plants in my garden~the native witch hazels.

True Flies only have two wings

Dipteras, the two winged insect group named by Aristotle, is large~with over 140,000 species world wide! Although, many members of this group are real pests (gnats midges and mosquitoes), many have ecological and human (medical and economic) importance.* Entomologists can and do spend their entire careers studying one or two families! For today’s post, we’ll just take a superficial look at those critters most likely to visit our gardens! (Forgive me, please, but, I do have to use the word maggot!)

Hover Fly on Gaura

Flies~have a holometabolous life cycle. Which means they have complete metamorphism from egg to larvae/maggot to adult. They live in water, soil, plants, the sea, streams, lake, rivers, animals and even other insects. They are opportunists and will eat almost anything. That’s one of the reasons they are SO important for our gardens…their voracious appetites!

Flower Fly on monarda

My favorite fly pollinators are the Syrphid Flies. I know you’ve noticed them. They are those beautifully patterned critters that we see hovering and darting about the garden. They’re known as Flower Flies in the US and Hover Flies in the UK. They’re stingless bee and wasp mimics, so, you don’t need to be afraid of them. They are excellent pollinators and their larval stage is equally important. They eat aphids, scale and other soft bodied garden pests! If you see Hover Flies hovering and darting about~look nearby for their larvae. (I know, there’s that word again!)

Look for their white, oval eggs, singly or in groups on leaves. They’ll hatch into green, yellow, brown, orange, or white half-inch maggots that look like caterpillars. You might even see them raised up on their hind legs in order to catch and feed on aphids, mealybugs and even some beneficial bugs.

They are beautiful creatures and I am always excited to find them hovering and darting about. Their presence assures me that the garden has a good mixture of plants to attract them and other beneficial insects.

One pair of wings and a honeybee mimic

To attract them to our gardens we can plant a variety of annual, herbs and native perennials. Achilleas, asters, dill, lemon balm, spearmints, monardas, penstemons, veronicas, zinnias, thymes, sedums, sweet alyssums, fennels, buckwheat, and lavenders are just a few of the many plants you can choose to make your garden a haven for all pollinators. (source and list of flowers to plant).

But, back to flies!

Generally speaking~flowers that are pollinated by flies and gnats have similar characteristics. The arum (below) is a perfect example of a flower that has evolved specifically to attract them. Its rotting flesh ‘fragrance’ was wafting across the David-Peece garden during our Austin Spring Fling visit in 2008.

This arum smells like rotting flesh to attract its pollinator flies and beetles!

Characteristics of fly attractive flowers are generally~

• Pale and dull to dark brown or purple
• Sometimes flecked with translucent patches
• Putrid order, like rotting meat, carrion, dung, humus, sap and blood
• Nectar guides not present
• Produce pollen
• Flowers are funnel like or complex traps (source)

True flies on fall blooming Crocus speciosus

Personally, I’ll pass on the exotic and smelly fly magnets! Houseflies, Green Bottle Flies and even Blow Flies are welcome to stop by for a bit of nectar and to pollinate the winter blooming hamamelis. I’ll continue to plant for all visiting pollinators~I pinky swear: to plant a diversity of flowers that bloom from early spring to late fall; to provide water; to leave a bit of bare ground; to plant natives and species when I can; and, to never, ever, ever, use pesticides.

xxoogail

This post is part of a series on native pollinators in the garden~ Earlier posts and their links are listed below for your convenience.

Part I~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)

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)

*Oh my~Blowflies are important in forensic science; their maggots are being used in medical research on wounds; and, they’ve also been introduced in a greenhouse experiment to see how well they can actually pollinate.

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.

Related Posts:

• Spring / Fall Clean Ups

Flies Pollinate, Too!

Unknown fly nectaring on Hamamelis mollis at a local nursery

Yes, I did say flies! Those pesky, annoying creatures that buzz around our heads and food are excellent pollinators.

Unknown fly nectaring on Hamamelis vernalis

I’ve been hoping to capture at least one photo of a winter pollinator visiting the Hamamelis vernalis at Clay and Limestone. It’s been my quest to discover if there is a specialized pollinator. What a surprise to see flies! Not anything special either. They look like, your regular old houseflies, too. But, there they were on a warm February day, nectaring on (and hopefully carrying a bit of pollen to the next flower) the only blooming plants in my garden~the native witch hazels.

True Flies only have two wings

Dipteras, the two winged insect group named by Aristotle, is large~with over 140,000 species world wide! Although, many members of this group are real pests (gnats midges and mosquitoes), many have ecological and human (medical and economic) importance.* Entomologists can and do spend their entire careers studying one or two families! For today’s post, we’ll just take a superficial look at those critters most likely to visit our gardens! (Forgive me, please, but, I do have to use the word maggot!)

Hover Fly on Gaura

Flies~have a holometabolous life cycle. Which means they have complete metamorphism from egg to larvae/maggot to adult. They live in water, soil, plants, the sea, streams, lake, rivers, animals and even other insects. They are opportunists and will eats almost anything. That’s one of the reasons they are SO important for our gardens…their voracious appetites!

Flower Fly on monarda

My favorite fly pollinators are the Syrphid Flies. I know you’ve noticed them. They are those beautifully patterned critters that we see hovering and darting about the garden. They’re known as Flower Flies in the US and Hover Flies in the UK. They’re stingless bee and wasp mimics, so, you don’t need to be afraid of them. They are excellent pollinators and their larval stage is equally important. They eat aphids, scale and other soft bodied garden pests! If you see Hover Flies hovering and darting about~look nearby for their larvae. (I know, there’s that word again!)

Look for their white, oval eggs, singly or in groups on leaves. They’ll hatch into green, yellow, brown, orange, or white half-inch maggots that look like caterpillars. You might even see them raised up on their hind legs in order to catch and feed on aphids, mealybugs and even some beneficial bugs.

They are beautiful creatures and I am always excited to find them hovering and darting about. Their presence assures me that the garden has a good mixture of plants to attract them and other beneficial insects.

One pair of wings and a honeybee mimic

To attract them to our gardens we can plant a variety of annual, herbs and native perennials. Achilleas, asters, dill, lemon balm, spearmints, monardas, penstemons, veronicas, zinnias, thymes, sedums, sweet alyssums, fennels, buckwheat, and lavenders are just a few of the many plants you can choose to make your garden a haven for all pollinators. (source and list of flowers to plant).

But, back to flies!

Generally speaking~flowers that are pollinated by flies and gnats have similar characteristics. The arum (below) is a perfect example of a flower that has evolved specifically to attract them. Its rotting flesh ‘fragrance’ was wafting across the David-Peece garden during our Austin Spring Fling visit in 2008.

This arum smells like rotting flesh to attract its pollinator flies and beetles!

Characteristics of fly attractive flowers are generally~

• Pale and dull to dark brown or purple
• Sometimes flecked with translucent patches
• Putrid order, like rotting meat, carrion, dung, humus, sap and blood
• Nectar guides not present
• Produce pollen
• Flowers are funnel like or complex traps (source)

True flies on fall blooming Crocus speciosus

Personally, I’ll pass on the exotic and smelly fly magnets! Houseflies, Green Bottle Flies and even Blow Flies are welcome to stop by for a bit of nectar and to pollinate the winter blooming hamamelis. I’ll continue to plant for all visiting pollinators~I pinky swear: to plant a diversity of flowers that bloom from early spring to late fall; to provide water; to leave a bit of bare ground; to plant natives and species when I can; and, to never, ever, ever, use pesticides.

xxoogail

This post is part of a series on native pollinators in the garden~ Earlier posts and their links are listed below for your convenience.

Part I~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)

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)

*Oh my~Blowflies are important in forensic science; their maggots are being used in medical research on wounds; and, they’ve also been introduced in a greenhouse experiment to see how well they can actually pollinate.

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.

Related Posts:

• Spring / Fall Clean Ups