Category Archives: beneficial insects

beneficial insects, birds, California Native Plants, Earth Day, pollinators

Celebrate Earth Day

Earth Day celebrates the natural beauty of our planet and reminds us of what we can do to keep it healthy.? Always on April 22nd, Earth Day is a day of education about environmental issues and is now a global celebration. In anticipation of this day I recently spent the morning in nature at the UCSC Arboretum where the birds and the bees were enjoying the nectar flowers. Whether you plant a tree, clean up litter, garden, hike in the woods or marvel at emerging wildflower, be in contact with the soil and breathe fresh air outside on this day.

Fremontodendron aka Flannel Bush

My day at the Arboretum started in the California native plant garden. Plants thrive when they?re natural to your area and the flannel bush, one of the most spectacular of our native shrubs, is a good example. Huge abundant deep yellow blooms cover the plant for a long time starting in the spring.

Iris douglasiana aka Pacific Coast Iris

Impressive swaths of rich blue Pacific Coast iris bordered the path. Nearby a bush poppy, covered with 2 inch yellow flowers put on it?s spring display. It will bloom sporadically for most of the year.

The South African and Australian gardens at the Arboretum is where all the action takes place for hummingbird watchers. The courtship display of the dozens of Anna?s hummingbirds, taking place inches over your head, sure puts one in contact with nature. You can bring nature into your garden with plants that attract these jewels of the avian world as well as butterflies, bees and other pollinators. Planting wildflowers on Earth Day is a good place to start.

Wildflowers like poppies, tidy tips, yarrow and baby blue eyes provide nectar and pollen for the pollinators, including honey bees, bumble bees and carpenter bees. Attract other beneficial insects such as ladybugs, parasitoid wasps and army worms to be the unpaid pest control agents in your garden. Beside wildflowers, plants such as aster, goldenrod and California fuchsia attract beneficial insects and are grown to attract, feed and shelter the insect parasites and predators to enhance your biological pest control. Everything is connected on the planet.

Protea or Pinchushion plant

The pincushion protea from South Africa is one the the brilliantly colored shrubs in this garden in the Arboretum. The flowers are striking, not only for their appearance, but also for their unusual structure and pollination sequence. They make a good long lasting cut flower.

Pink Rice Flower or pimelea ferrugine

In the New Zealand garden a beautiful small shrub with small dark green glossy leaves and masses of showy, fragrant magenta pink tubular flowers was attracting butterflies. The Pink Rice Flower was in full bloom and would sure look great in my garden in my well drained soil.

Remember that plants drink their food. If your soil dries out completely, your plants will starve. Take steps on Earth Day and the rest of the year to water wisely and retain the valuable moisture. Steps include improving your soil with organic matter, planning a smaller garden, choosing bush varieties of vegetables, placing plants closer together to shade the soil which helps conserve moisture and reduces weed growth. Mulch, mulch, mulch. Keep those moisture grabbing weeds at bay. Use a drip irrigation system to conserve water.

Celebrate Earth Day this April 22nd and throughout the whole year.

beneficial insects, gardening with children, gardening with kids

Fun Stuff to do with Kids in Summer

There?s never a dull moment when kids are around. With active imaginations they can make up a game wherever they happen to be. Two little girls, Adelyn and Scarlett come to my house to visit me and my dog, Sherman. We use scented markers to draw what?s outside the window, make jewelry from construction paper, create art projects from styrofoam and colored popsicle sticks, carve pumpkins in the fall and explore the forest. There are always hummingbirds to watch, songbirds to identify and flowers to smell.

Adelyn enjoying her new nature book

Last summer I gave each girl a new nature photo album filled with pictures of plants, frogs, birds and butterflies as well as family? taken around my house. Adelyn was three she got her first nature book and being that she?s five now she needed an update. This was Scarlett?s first book. Scarlett is nearly three. Now that they have a brand new little sister we?ll make another for Lorelei when she gets older. The book is one of those inexpensive four by six inch photo albums with sleeves for photos. Maybe the chipmunks will pose for a photo. There are quite a few in my garden. t?s fun to watch the girls run around and identify birds and flowers from the pictures in their book.

Later this spring the black-headed grosbeaks will return but for now Adelyn and her little sister Scarlett can find juncos, chickadees, purple and gold finches and nuthatches in their nature books. The flowers are the easiest to find as they don?t fly away and later the blue hydrangeas will be blooming.

Scarlett & Adelyn with pumpkin collection pre-carving

In October we carved pumpkins out on the patio. The girls drew on them with markers and their Uncle Matt and their father Matt did the carving. Lots of stories were shared and pictures drawn later inside at my drafting table. Little Scarlett goes right to the harmonica to entertain everyone. She?s getting better each time but was pretty good even the first time she picked it up.

Adelyn and Sherman at the nursery

A few months ago Adelyn, Sherman and I went to a nursery to look at all the plants. We had a great time smelling all the flowers and I pointed out the plants with scented foliage too. The nursery cat followed us down every aisle teasing the dog. Sherman has a cat at home so he?s pretty harmless. I had to laugh when Adelyn told me later over lunch that she thought the nursery would be boring but it was anything but.

Although I don?t have full sun we are going to try our hand at growing carrots this spring in the purple pot I gave her for Christmas. That trowel will be super helpful, too. I think both of the girls would like to harvest some of those Rainbow Carrots I see in Renee?s Garden collection. The French Baby Carrots might be a big hit also.

Scarlett serenading lady bugs

Both girls love lady bugs. Make your garden a more inviting place for these beneficial insects by planting lots of flowers and herbs to attract them. Lady bugs will patrol your plants looking for tiny insects and their eggs.
Flowers with umbrella shaped clusters of small flowers such as cosmos, zinnia, black-eyed Susan and yarrow are favorites of butterflies.

Edible flowers are fun for kids to grow, too. Some common ones to try are tuberous begonia petals that taste like lemon. Calendulas are spicy as are carnations and marigolds. Dianthus are clove-flavored, nasturtiums give a hint of horseradish and violas, pansies, hollyhock, squash blossoms and Johnny-jump-ups taste like mild lettuce. You can also freeze flowers like violas, fuchsias, geranium, stock and thyme in ice cubes.

Pet-able plants are a sure hit with kids. Usually we tell them, “Don’t touch”, so to actually have someone encourage this is a rare treat. If your own garden doesn’t have plants that look and feel so soft that you can’t resist petting them, consider adding lamb?s ears, artemisia ?Powis Castle? or fountain grass.

Adelyn with her drawing

In a garden, children can breathe fresh air, discover bugs and watch things grow. And, of course, a garden offers kids and everyone else fresh, tasty homegrown food. What better place for kids to play than in a place where they can use their hands and connect with the earth? Where else can they make a plan for a plot of land and learn the lessons of hope and wonder, suspense and patience and even success and failure? In a garden you can have conversations about life and even death in a way that doesn’t seem so sad.

To share one?s excitement and knowledge of the outdoor world with a child is fun and rewarding. The wonder on a young person?s face as they discover a swallowtail butterfly, a flower just starting to open or a bird feeding in the garden is priceless. And be sure to leave some time after a busy day out in the garden for kids to draw what they?ve enjoyed outside. I have my friend Adelyn?s drawings on my wall so we both remember the fun we have in the garden.

beneficial insects, edibles, honey bees, nectar and pollen plants, pollinators, sustainable gardening

Bees- Pollinators for a Bountiful Harvest

Pollination or the transfer of pollen in and between flowers of the same species leads to fertilization and successful seed and fruit production in plants. Pollen can be carried from flower to flower by pollinating animals such as birds, bees, bats, moths, beetles or by the wind but bees pollinate approximately 1000 plants worldwide including apples, blueberries, chocolate, coffee, melons, peaches, potatoes, pumpkins, vanilla, almonds and tequila. Clearly we need our bees- both native bees and honeybees.

pollinating_bee_African_Blue_basil
honey bee pollinating African blue basil- photo courtesy of Gaylon Morris

Honeybees aren?t native to the United States. The colonist brought them here in the 1600?s to pollinate apple trees and for their honey and wax for candles. They are loyal to the plants they feed on and that makes them valuable to farmers and orchard owners. It works this way. When a worker bee leaves a hive in search of food it will feed on on one type of flower- whichever type it tasted first on that trip. Unlike other insects that might go from a cucumber blossom to dandelion to squash flower the honeybee sticks to one thing. That way it picks up and deposits only one type of pollen making honeybees particularly efficient in pollinating crops.

We know that honeybees are having a hard time of it due to diseases, parasites and pesticides. Planting flowers that bees like can increase the chances of bees? survival as will cultivating native plants, especially those that provide nectar and larval food for pollinators.

Bees eat two things: nectar which is loaded with sugar and is their main source of energy and pollen which provides proteins and fats. Some of the common native plants that are recommended for the ecological region of our California Coastal Chaparral, Forest and Shrub Province by the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign to attract bees of all types include yarrow, columbine, California poppy, coral bells, silver lupine, penstemon, ceanothus, toyon, big leaf maple, mahonia, monkey flower, buckwheat, western azalea and purple sage.

bee_echium-wildpretii
honey bee on echium wildpretii

Common garden plants that can attract bees to your landscape and vegetable garden are herbs such as African blue basil, oregano, mint, catnip and cat mint, borage, rosemary, chives, hyssop, dill, comfrey and fennel. Edibles that attract bees are blueberry, pumpkin, squash, sunflower, blackberry, hazelnut, artichoke, beans, cucumber and peas. Crabapple, iris, lavender, salvia, sunflowers, monarda, aster, butterfly bush, sweet alyssum, alstroemeria, red hot poker, gloriosa daisy, scabiosa, coneflower and echium also attract bees of all types.

In your own garden an abundant and healthy population of pollinators can improve fruit set, quality and size. Crops raised in California depends on both domestic honeybees and native bees for pollination of almond, blackberry, cucumber and artichoke crops.

We can all help honeybees and other pollinating animals by being more mindful of the way we tend our yards. Reduce the amount of lawn you have and plant natives and flowers that will attract them. Use organic pesticides carefully and only if absolutely necessary. Buy local honey and support beekeepers. Honeybees and other pollinators need help to survive and we?re the ones to provide it.