Poppy Pollen Addict

Yesterday I noticed a honeybee foraging in one of Catherine's  poppies, so I moved in for a photo. She was so loaded with the black pollen she could barely fly. She landed on a lemon balm leaf to groom--it seemed as though she had pollen grains in her eyes and couldn't see very well. Interesting that you can see tiny hairs on this leaf--I've noticed bees like to land on hairy leaves. Look at how much pollen is on her head and thorax! It looks blue-grey in the sunlight, but in the shade it is dark sooty black.

Here is a good shot of her grooming and look at that pollen load! I have never seen such a large pollen load on a honeybee. Amazing!

Now this is a plant that put in last year and it didn't bloom until now. IIRC it is dyer's alkanet. I'm interested to see if the bees like it.

The sweet cicely looks ethereal when it is backlit.

Oak Meadows Bee Garden

 The Environmental Youth Alliance is creating a pollinator corridor in Vancouver. One of the sites is here at Oak Meadow Park. This is a perfect place for native plants that bumble bees love.

 Erin Udal is working with a group of volunteers to monitor bee activity in Vancouver from June through September. This summer the EYA is also creating new bee gardens in four locations.

The placing of the pots: an important and serious ritual.

 The plants they chose include Oregon grape, currants, roses, camas lilies, lily of the valley, brown-eyed Susans, lupins and foxgloves.

There's also a bee nesting site. This square is filled with the kind of soil that ground-dwelling bees tunnel into to make their nests. The soil will be left undisturbed so the bees can do their thing without humans blundering in and digging up their homes.

 Here are the fabulous diggin' women who edged the garden and planted the bushes and bulbs.

 The plants will bush out and fill up the space. In the mean time we were tossing around some ideas for ground cover to keep out the weeds and provide even more blossoms.

Thanks so much to the folks at EYA for supporting our bees!

A Garden of Jewels

I just love this garden with its jewel toned flowers. It's a good grouping of plants for a bee garden, especially at this time of the year. It's about a block west of Burrard along the railway track.

What do we have? Mallow, cornlflowers, poppies,



lychnis (not really a bee plant),


lemon balm,
and I'm not sure what the pink flowers are--maybe a geranium.

Early Spring Weeding

It's time to clear out this carpet of chickweed invading the lavender in the MOP bee garden! Another woman will be taking over the bed this year and growing paper plants. I'm so pleased that the garden will be put to good use by an ecologically minded artist.

First we raked the oak leaves off the bed and pitched them into the compost, then we got out the serious hand tools and tackled the dandelions. We saved some of the larger roots to dry for tea.

I think we'll move this culinary sage into the herb bed.

We found this beautiful beetle hiding in the soil under the lavender. I'll have to look it up in my bug books.

While we were just finishing up, the sun came up and there was a very odd little warm, misty shower at the same time. It was uncanny, but it made us both smile. It feels like such a relief to get back into the soil after the winter.

I'm happy to report I saw a honeybee gathering pollen in a crocus last Thursday. I love an early spring!

Tartan and Tweed Tea Party

"My parents make weird art."

It was a hot and sunny September afternoon and the tea flowed freely: lemon verbena with dragon's head, wild bergamot with anise hyssop sweetened with lavender honey and stevia from the herb garden. Lois Klassen handed out maps and battery-operated listening devices for people to take her Garden Gnomad self-guided sound tour.

Sharon wears a hand-crafted hip bag for her digital camera that she made herself.

While I gave tours in the bee garden I had some unexpected visitors: an orb-weaver spider snatching a honey-bee from its web, a mouse running up a sunflower stalk and a garden gnome with a clock and an aversion to plaid. I was very pleased that the audience was particularly interested in the bitter melon plant and two people said they cooked it themselves. My friend The Herbalist says that bitter foods like this melon are very important as we creep past forty because they help our aging bodies absorb nutrients. I was asked questions about the dragon's head plant, wild bergamot and some suggestions for bee plants for balconies, so I will do in-depth posts on those subjects. It was so much fun to meet more people who want to plant food for the bees!

Sharon wears the Canadian Centennial Plaid and Jody wears the perennial Art Girl tartan with a cute gingham apron.

Cucumber sarnies and crudités made by yours truly.

Banana bread with walnuts.

Lois sends listeners into the garden.

The camera girls are mad for plaid. I'm having flashbacks to 80's punk!

Have you ever seen Flying Monkeys with horns in kilts? Well, you have now.

Stylin'!
Peter chills in the Weidenhammer sonic spa.

Microphones at the opening of the hive feed into the speakers in the ukulele. Note the spike board to deter robbing by racoons.

Solar panels power the microphones.

The other solar panels are at the back of the chair, which is actually in shadow in this photo. They power the skewers that are measuring moisture content in the soil which alters a b flat tonal scale that you also hear. Hopefully it blocks out some of the traffic from down the hill, creating a sonic refuge in an urban soundscape.

White Lavender

Yesterday was a good day to collect coreopsis seeds. The white lavender was alive with bumble bees. It felt like rain. Last night it finally did rain.

The Cherokee Trail of Tears beans are beginning to appear as if by magic.

The anise hyssop is popular with the Bombus terrestris. I like to munch on a leaf or two between tasks.

Sunflowers start to uproot themselves under the weight of their own heavy heads.

The garden vandal has been at it again and pulled out a whole corner of the bee garden. I rescue the marigold heads to dry to use in mosaics. My brain twists with anger. And sorrow.

Pulling Up Roots at the MOP Bee Garden

It's that time of year when if you really don't want something to set seed you have to cut it down or pull it out. Dragon's Head, or Dracocephalum moldavica is a member of the mint family, so it self-seeds readily. Since someone else will be taking over the garden next year, and most of the blossoms were spent, I decided it was time to pull the plants out to dry them and make tea. (I'll do a more in-depth post on that later.) The seeds on the dry parts of the plants rattle inside their individual pods, so they are just about to pop.

This sunflower was getting a lot of love on Wednesday. In this photo you can see a bumble bee, leaf-cutter, and a honey bee all feeding at the same time. That's why I love sunflowers--room for everyone!

Sharon and Jody and I cleaned and preened and watered in and around the garden beds in anticipation of our great big fall teaparty on Sunday Sept 13. Better get your plaid rags out of storage and dust off your sporran! It's a tartan and tweed dress code for this one.

This is a mystery plant I saved seeds from at UBC farm. I love the way the leaves smell.

This is nigella with its wierd and wonderful seed pods looking like internal organs from some part of the human body.

Syrphid flies and honey bees were fighting for space on the anise hyssop blossoms, even to the point of eventually chasing each other around the garden.

Agastache rogosa "Honey Bee Blue" grown from seeds I purchased from Van Dusen Gardens. I like the flavor of these leaves. They have a mellow licorice flavor without that sharp cat pee (sorry, but it's true) fragrance that some mints have.

Here is a daddy long-legs cowering in the shadows, hiding from a syrphid fly. Move it or lose it daddy!

And speaking of internal organs, here's a funny little apple growing in a corner of the garden.