Yesterday, when I took my camera for a walk in the gardens, I didn't see any bees around the row of flowers that are supposed to attract insects and birds. I was beginning to think that growing them was a waste of space in our tight garden. This morning, I thought I'd see if I was just viewing the flowers at the wrong time yesterday. Maybe there would be pollinators this morning.
Well, yes there are.
Do you see the pollen basket on the bee's leg?
There was a bee in this California poppy, but I didn't want to wait around in the heat for one to come back. Aren't those overlapping petals lovely? I love how translucent the poppy looks with the sun shining through it.
Sadly, harmful insects are also attracted to this row of flowers. There is our garden wrecker - Japanese Beetle.
Not sure what these flowers are called, but they are more than carrying their weight in the pollinator-attraction game. And, it looks like they are a flower that keeps on giving. Do you see how the centre keeps growing higher? New pollen every day.
It seemed that, from what I saw this morning, the elderberry bushes attract the most bees. Everywhere I looked there were different kinds of insects and bees engaging with the flowers. This bumble bee zipped around and around like it was so happy to have found elderberries.
Maybe we should ditch the row of flowers and just rely on the elderberries.
This dragonfly looks like it is a mini-drone. It looks threatening. I know nothing about dragonflies, so I googled and found that this is the Common Whitetail Dragonfly. Now I am happy that it looks threatening.....
..... because it is threatening
...... to mosquitoes.
One more vote for the elderberries. This one's territory was next to them.
Look who is peeking at me! Virginia Ctenucha is a moth that feeds on nectar in the daytime. It's a pollinator!
And, there it is in action. It looks very serious about getting that pollen.
I am not sure that my garden dilemma really is a dilemma. This year we have abundant crops of every types. Never had so many melons coming on. Maybe it's because we chose to attract pollinators to the garden.
And, when those pollinators land on the thousands of little sunflowers' stamens, they will go home happy.
In January, when the William Dam seed catalogue arrives, I will probably succumb to the pretty picture of the Pollinators, Beneficial Insect Mix.
Again.
“Have you ever noticed how ‘What the hell’ is always the right decision to make?”
Terry Johnson, Insignificance
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