On Canada day, we braved the rain and went for a hike thru Nose Hill Park in NW Calgary. The sites of so may blue lupins was a site to see, along with many other wild flowers but my absolute favorite was finding a lonely frog orchid - I enlarged it so you can see the happy smiling frog :)
The two Clematis plants in the back are blooming. These are variety "Sweet Autumn", which I thought were supposed to smell like vanilla. But I don't smell anything from them at all. And the bees seem to be ignoring them (and the Black-eyed Susans). That whole patch is meant to be bee-friendly. But the bees are constantly on the Anise Hyssop and Borage. and sometimes the Comfrey.
Here are a couple photos from the back yard. There are a couple Purple Foxgloves flowering, but the bees seem to be ignoring them (and the two Sunflowers I bought specifically for the bees). But the Bumblebees are all over the Comfrey; there is a constant buzz as they vibrate in the flowers. A couple weeks ago they were all over a huge Rhododendron plant next door. It must be 20 - 30 feet tall and had massive numbers of flowers. Every time I walked by and stood quiet, I could hear the buzz of the Bumblebees. Funny though, I had a few Borage plants last year and I let them seed. But so far I haven't seen any new plants come up. They should be up by now, shouldn't they?
The neighborhood honeybees seem to like one of the water buckets I keep in the back yard. I did some research and learned that purple is a bee's favorite colour (they can't even see red; it's beyond their spectrum). So I found a purple watering dish at a local pet store (for a rabbit or hamster or some other small animal) and some purple aquarium gravel (to make sure it is non-toxic and won't leach chemicals into the water). Filled the dish up with the purple gravel and then water (so they don't drown). The result: the bees STILL prefer that one bucket beside the watering dish even though they risk drowning! In fact, there are seven or eight buckets of water around the yard that are always filled with water--but the bees always go to the same one. Baffling. I wonder what's so appealing about that particular bucket of water?
I'm lucky enough to live a 15-mn drive to a very nice place, "le conservatoire national d'Ilex". We visited it in October with members of the Europen branch of the Maple Society. I went there again yesterday and took a few photos - to be honest, I'm more interested in maples and flowers than in the about 100 hollies they keep. They also have a collection of Clematis.
It was a pail of Mediterranean Mix Olives. With brine, ascorbic acid, lactic acid, salt, etc. It was emptied about three weeks ago, and then re-filled. There are about four others nearby. Even the wasps go to this one all the time.
One of the Hens and Chicks plants in the back yard is on the verge of flowering. The flowers are not open yet, but the Bumblebees are already crawling all over them, trying to push their heads into the flowers. They must have a smell the bees like. But they are completely ignoring the Hydrangeas. The only thing I ever see on Hydrangeas are Yellowjackets, resting on the leaves.
Funny name, hens and chicks ;-) Here, the common name is joubarbe (from the latin Jovis barba, Jupiter's beard). Another less frequent vernacular name is "herbe du tonnerre", grass of thunder (? !!!) I have several species, including dwarf ones but it's been a couple of years since none of them has flowered...
Since last year, the pots around my yard have collected a variety of plants. (If a plant dies or gets repotted, I usually leave the pot, with soil, around the yard for re-use. Whether it get re-used or not, most of the pots get a wide range of plants in them from who-knows-where. Here are a few photos. One pot has an Anise Hyssop, Black Locust, Japanese Maple (I think), a small Spruce (?), and a few unknown sprouts in it. I'm not surprised about the Anise Hyssop. It grows in the ground in a little garden plot, and I was hoping it would come back each year. Out of six plants, one came back this Spring. But there is this random Anise Hyssop growing in this pot. How it got there, I don't know, but I'm glad it's there. No idea how the Japanese Maple got there, assuming that is what it is. And the little prickly sprout looks like a baby Spruce tree. But I guess it won't be known with certainty until it gets older. There is another pot with Red Alder, Black-eyed Susan, Common Selfheal, and a few other sprouts. Actually, I have many pots with little Red Alder saplings, And many pots with Yellow Birch saplings. (I have no idea what to do with these. They'll probably be thrown out, unless somebody is interested in them.)
