This is truly my favourite time of year in the meadows at our cottage on Lake Muskoka. Why? Because the flower variety is at peak and the bees are at their most plentiful and buzzy. So my 17th fairy crown for August 5th celebrates the pollinator favourites here, including the champion, pink-flowered wild beebalm or bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), as well as yellow false oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides), biennial blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta), grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) with its dark cones, mauve hoary vervain (Verbena stricta), oregano (Origanum vulgare) and a few of my weedy Queen Anne’s lace flowers (Dauca carota).
I call my wild places on either side of the cottage ‘Monarda Meadows’ because wild beebalm (M. fistulosa) is the principal perennial there and in all the beds and wild places around our house, where it grows as a companion to Heliopsis helianthoides, below.
There’s a reason wild beebalm is called that; it’s a literal balm for the bees, specifically bumble bees whose tongues can easily probe the florets!
Another frequent visitor to wild beebalm flowers is the clearwing hummingbird moth (Hemaris thysbe).
False oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) is one of the most aggressive natives I grow. I’m happy to leave it where it lands, but it often sulks in very sandy, sunny spots when summers are hot and dry. It’s much better in the rich soil at the bottom of my west meadow, and I try to ignore all the red aphids that line the stems in certain summers.
But heliopsis also attracts its share of native bees, including tiny Augochlora pura, below.
Unlike the blackeyed susan I wrote about in my last blog, R. fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’, the ones I have at the lake are all the drought-tolerant native Rudbeckia hirta, below, with a long-horned Melissodes bee. Biennials, they have seeded themselves around generously since 2003, when I first sowed masses of seed (along with red fescue grass) on the bare soil of the meadows surrounding our new house.
Sometimes they manage to arrange themselves very fetchingly, as with the perfumed Orienpet lily ‘Conca d’Or’, below.
Other times, they hang with the other tough native in my crown, hoary vervain (Verbena stricta). Both are happy in the driest places on our property where they flower for an exceedingly long time….
…… as you can see from this impromptu bouquet handful featuring the vervain with earlier bloomers, coreopsis, butterfly milkweed and oxeye daisy.
Bumble bees love Verbena stricta.
The other yellow daisy in flower now — hiding at the top of my fairy crown — is grey-headed coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), also a favourite of bumble bees and small native bees in the meadows. A vigorous self-seeder, it nevertheless does not always land in soil that is moisture-retentive enough for its needs; in that case, like heliopsis above, it wilts badly. But I love its tall stems bending like willows in the breeze.
Also in my fairy crown is a familiar hardy herb that fell from a pot on my deck long ago and found a happy spot in the garden bed below: Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare var. hirtum).
Its tiny flowers are also favoured by small pollinators.
The last component of my midsummer fairy crown is the common umbellifer Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota). As much as we think of this as an unwanted invasive weed in North America, it was reassuring to see a native potter wasp, Ancistrocerus, making use of its small flowers.
As always, my fairy crown has a lovely second act as a bouquet.
Finally, I made a 2-minute musical video that celebrates these plants that form such an important ecological chapter in my summer on Lake Muskoka.
The 11th edition of my year of fairy crowns for June 13th features the indigo-blue spikes of woodland sage Salvia nemorosa ‘May Night’ (‘Mainacht’) and ‘Caradonna’; the soft lavender-blue of ‘Dropmore’ catmint (Nepeta x faassenii); the airy purple globes of Allium cristophii; the tiny white flowers of graceful Clematis recta ‘Purpurea’; the almost-hidden flowers of native ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius); and a few cheerful sprigs of old-fashioned yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata).
My front yard pollinator garden begins its serious work in June, when the woodland sage (Salvia nemorosa) and catmint (Nepeta ‘Dropmore’) come into flower. It’s been a few weeks since the final brilliant tulips and camassia withered and the garden settled into a quiet green period.
Now the sage’s deep-blue or pink spikes and catmint’s pale-lavender racemes impart a soft quality to this little garden amidst the lush foliage of the emerging summer perennials.
The spiked flowers of the woodland sage and the cloud-like blossoms of catmint contrast beautifully with each other. Though neither is native to my region – both originate in Europe – I had no hesitation in including them in my garden. Interestingly, ‘Dropmore’ catmint is an ultra-hardy Canadian cultivar bred in 1932 by Dr. Frank Skinner in Dropmore, Manitoba, a cross between Nepeta mussinii and N. ucranica. Its silvery, mint-scented foliage forms a large, attractive clump and is easy to divide in spring. My woodland sages are a mix of no-name varieties, most of which were included in a four-pack of perennials, along with milkweed, to support monarch butterflies.
As a photographer, I have always had a keen interest in capturing the ageless evolutionary pact between flowers and insects that sees nectar and pollen exchanged for pollination services. Translated: I love photographing bees! And catmint with its bumble bees…
…. and sage with its honey bees are perfect models for insect photographers.
In the back garden, June brings the ebullient flowering of the herbaceous clematis, C. recta ‘Purpurea’. Unlike its vining cousins, this clematis – sometimes called ground virginsbower – is bushy and covered with masses of tiny, scented, white flower clusters.
Because its abundant, slender stems grow about 4 feet tall (1.3 m), it tends to collapse in a heap once in full bloom, so I added a filigreed, iron screen behind it to make it fall forward, at least. It benefits aesthetically from its juxtaposition with the white-edged hostas nearby.
It also attracts native bees and hoverflies and makes a useful, frothy filler in June bouquets.
There’s an old-fashioned perennial that flowers in one of my borders now called yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata). It’s one of those plants gardeners buy before they develop ‘sophisticated’ taste, and later find a comfort because they come back reliably each year, have no pests, and ask no special care. They are tough.
In the border, yellow loosestrife nestles itself between large hostas, tolerates an insistent regiment of ostrich ferns at its back, and manages to hold off June’s ubiquitous weeds, including enchanter’s nightshade, garlic mustard and wood avens. Weeds, of course, are part of the gardener’s lot and early summer is paradoxically the most joyfully floriferous and alarmingly out-of-control time of the gardening year. If attacked now, weeds can be kept at a manageable level. Or, as I have discovered, they can be largely ignored and the “manageable level” becomes a moving target. The secret is not to stress too much.
Beside the yellow loosestrife, I planted a few star-of-Persia alliums (Allium cristophii). They are now seeding through the border, their big, lilac umbels very attractive to bumble bees…..
….. and other native bees like Agapostemon virescens.
In a back corner of my garden is a large, native ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) that blooms now with spirea-like clusters of small, white flowers that cover the shrub and attract native bees.
After the flowers fade, the seedheads turn an attractive red that seems like a second flowering (see below); in late autumn, the foliage turns yellow. Garden experts often describe ninebark as “coarse” and I have to agree; more problematic is that branches often die off and have to be removed. Like lilac, ninebark can be rejuvenated by pruning back the oldest stems to the ground, a practice that encourages the newer stems, more productive stems to grow.
Finally, a “quiet” little bouquet to celebrate this “quiet” time in the late spring garden, before the summer perennials hit their stride.
In my second blog looking at trees native to eastern North America, I’m focusing on a crowd favourite: eastern redbud, Cercis canadensis (as well as a few of its overseas cousins). One of my great botanical thrills was driving through North Carolina in early spring 2003 and seeing the spectacular combination of flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) with redbud in the woods along the highway. This photo from my slide film days shows these two native partners at their flowering peak.
I wish I could say that eastern redbud is native to Ontario, but that is not the case unless you count a reported single sighting in 1892 by botanist John Macoun of a tree on the south shore of Pelee Island (which is itself the most southerly piece of land in Canada). Nevertheless, redbuds grow very well in gardens in southern Ontario, particularly if they’re sourced in Michigan where their hardiness is more assured than those from more southern climes. They reach about 30 ft (9 m) in height and spread. That considerable width, especially, means they’re not always the best choice for a very small garden, though they can be pruned to maintain the desired shape. I love the redbuds that grow at Toronto Botanical Garden, below.
Redbud is from the legume family, Fabaceae, so its magenta-pink flowers resemble its familiar cousins like sweet pea, lupine and runner bean. In a good year, the clusters literally cloak the branches. Like many other legumes, the flowers are ‘papilionaceous’, from the Latin papilion for butterfly and describing the shape of the corolla. They are also ‘cauliferous’, meaning they emerge directly from the branches before the leaves are produced. But unlike many other legumes which bear compound leaves, redbud leaves are simple and heart-shaped.
Redbud flowers are edible, rich in Vitamin C and especially good in salads. According to Mother Earth News, they “have a delicious flavor that is like a green bean with a lemony aftertaste”. They are also excellent sources of nectar and pollen for early bees, and used by native bees like this cellophane bee (Colletes inaequalis) in Toronto…..
…. and also honey bees (Apis mellifera), provided temperatures are warm enough for them to fly. This one was near the hives at the Toronto Botanical Garden.
There is a white-flowered form (C. canadensis f. alba) which looks especially beautiful when planted amidst pink-flowered redbuds.
It is also popular with bees, like this bumble bee queen.
At the Toronto Botanical Garden, there is a lovely raised copse of assorted redbuds underplanted with spring bulbs.
Cascading over the stone wall in the photo above is C. canadensis ‘Covey’ or Lavender Twist™, a small, weeping eastern redbud found in Cornelia Covey’s garden in Westfield, NY in the 1960s and propagated and patented by Tim Brotzman. It is perfectly placed in this garden, below.
There are several good cultivars of eastern redbud, if your taste runs to coloured foliage. ‘Forest Pansy’ is one of the oldest. Found originally in 1947 at Forest Nursery in McMinnville, Tennessee, it was patented in 1965. In spring and early summer it is a rich, wine-red, but I love standing under it later in the season when it has lost some of its red anthocyanins pigments and takes on this mottled look.
‘Ruby Falls’, below, is a cross between ‘Covey’ and ‘Forest Pansy’. It’s a small tree, 6 ft (2 m) tall and 4 ft (1.3 m) wide.
I photographed luminous C. canadensis ‘Hearts of Gold’ at wonderful Chanticleer Garden near Philadelphia, my very favourite garden in the U.S. (If you haven’t been to Chanticleer, have a read of my 2-part blog starting here.)‘Hearts of Gold’ with its large, chartreuse-yellow leaves was discovered in spring 2002 in Greensboro, N. Carolina by Jon Roethling (now director of Reynolda Gardens in Winston-Salem).
When I was visiting the United States Botanic Garden in Washington DC in June 2017, I was entranced by the beautiful foliage of Cercis canadensis ‘JN2’ or Rising Sun™, below. Long past flowering, I was treated to the sight of apricot-orange emerging leaves, changing to yellow, then chartreuse, then dark green. With a 12-ft (3.6m) height and 8-ft (2.4m) spread, this redbud was found in 2006 and introduced by Ray and Cindy Jackson of Jackson Nursery in Belvedere, TN.
The abundant fruit pods of redbuds are called ‘siliques’, from the Latin word siliqua, meaning a pod or husk. It is defined as a long dry, fruit (seed capsule) with its length measuring more than twice the width, consisting of two fused carpels that separate when ripe. I found the eastern redbud, below, loaded with seedpods in Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery one August.
This is that same tree in the cemetery in autumn, showing off its bright yellow fall colour.
There are two other varieties of North American redbud: Texas redbud, C. canadensis var. texensis and Mexican redbud, C. canadensis var. mexicana. I found the latter with its frilly, circular leaves and deep-pink ‘siliques’ at the University of California Berkeley Botanical Garden.
The native European redbud is Cercis siliquastrum from the Mediterranean, its Latin specific epithet chosen by Linnaeus to denote those siliqua. When I was on my wonderful botanical tour of Greece in autumn 2019, I found redbuds putting out a second flowering in Thermopylae, scene of the historic 480 BC battle between the Persians and Spartans.
And I found it flowering in the pouring rain in the countryside in Attica.
On a long-ago trip to Paris, there it was in the garden of the Tuileries, below.
Back to North America, I was visiting the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden in March 2014 and was delighted to capture an Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna) nectaring in the flowers of the western redbud (Cercis occidentalis). This is usually a multi-stemmed shrub and about half the size of eastern redbud and the leaves are more round.
Honey bees were enjoying the western redbud flowers as well.
I found Chinese redbud (Cercis chinensis), below, at RHS Wisley in England way back in 1992. Although it is listed as much taller (49 ft or 15m) than eastern redbud, it evidently usually grows in the wild as a multi-stemmed shrub.
While visiting Van Dusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver in May 2014, I found C. chinensis ‘Avondale’ in flower in their Asian collection. A fairly small tree introduced by Duncan and Davies Nursery in Avondale, New Zealand, it grows about 10 ft (3m) tall x 6 ft (2m) wide.
On May 4, 2019, I photographed a dense, multi-stemmed shrub labelled Cercis gigantea at the late plantswoman Francisca Darts’s garden, Darts Hill Garden Park in Surrey, B.C. (below). In ‘Trees and Shrubs Online’, authors Ross Bayton and John Grimshaw write: “This species is enigmatic. There is no record of the publication of the name in either the International Plant Names Index (www.ipni.org) or the International Legume Database & Information Service (www.ildis.org), and it is not described in the (currently draft) Flora of China treatment, and yet it appears in the catalogues of several nurseries and botanic gardens…. The limited information available via the internet suggests that C. gigantea is similar to C. chinensis but has much larger leaves and a more vigorous growth rate. Plants originating from seed collected as C. chinensis during the 1980 Sino-American Botanical Expedition ( western Hubei) were later identified as C. gigantea by Dr Ted Dudley at the US National Arboretum…. supporting this supposition of similarity between the two taxa.”
I will leave you with my photo of eastern redbud in the Japanese Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens from April 28, 2018, and the words of naturalist Donald Culross Peattie — always the romantic — from his ‘A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America’. “When the redbud flowers, the still leafless deciduous woods display its charms down every vista; it shines in the somber little groves of Scrub Pine; it troops up the foothills of the Appalachians; it steps delicately down towards swampy ground in the coastal plain, flaunts its charms beside the red clay wood roads and along the old rail fences of the piedmont. Inconspicuous in summer and winter, Redbud shows us in spring how common it is.”
My long Covid Winter project has come to an end. Spring has sprung and I am ready to be outdoors! I began on November 1st with an entry every day, except for a few days off at Christmas. Altogether, I logged 144 #janetsdailypollinator posts over the months of November, December, January, February and now March. In going through my photo library, I have enough pollinator photos for 4 more months of daily posts, but it’s time to be in the garden. Here are my posts for March, and one GIANT family portrait at the end!
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March came in like a lion… or was it a lamb? I can’t really remember, because March is March: still winter, the odd warm caress of spring, snow flurries, driving rain and the faithful return of the cardinal’s song. On March 1st, I celebrated stiff-leaved goldenrod (Solidago rigida/Oligoneuron rigidum) with honey bees, below, and recalled the way it grew in my beekeeper friend Tom Morrisey’s tallgrass prairie at his farm in Orillia, Ontario. I wrote a blog about Tom & Tina’s wonderful property and his honey harvest there.
On March 2nd I remembered all the honey bees I found feverishly gathering pollen on a southern magnolia (M. grandiflora) while I was wandering around a beach park in New Zealand. And I looked at various other magnolia species and the latest research on their ancestral pollinators.
We love preparing dishes with the leaves of culinary herbs – and bees love herb flowers! March 3rd saw me recounting the many bees I’ve seen on basil, below, as well as oregano, thyme, rosemary and sage.
Many species clematis attract bees and on March 4th I featured several, including Clematis pitcheri (below), C. koreana, C. recta ‘Purpurea’, C. jouiniana ‘Praecox’, C. virginiana and C. heracleifolia.
A favourite native wildflower – and one I grow in part shade at the cottage in Muskoka – was featured on March 5th. Golden alexanders (Zizia aurea) attracts solitary bees, especially Andrena mining bees like the one foraging below.
March 6th was my tribute to the popular European woodland or meadow sages (Salvia nemorosa) like ‘Amethyst’, below, that attract all kinds of bees during their early summer flowering.
“Seven-son flower” always reminds me of martial arts but it’s all about the Chinese translation of the seven flower clusters on the branches. Heptacodium miconioides from China was my March 7th pollinator plant because the bees adore it, especially since it flowers in late summer or early autumn when there isn’t a lot of nectar on offer.
The native subshrub lead plant (Amorpha canescens) starred on March 8th and I featured photos of plants in the Piet Oudolf-designed entry border at the Toronto Botanical Garden. That’s a common eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) foraging on the flowers, below.
March 9th saw me honouring ‘Jeana’ summer phlox (Phlox paniculata), a much-in-demand cultivar of an old-fashioned North American native that is absolutely irresistible to butterflies and bees. I photographed ‘Jeana’ with her insect admirers at New York Botanical Garden back on August 18, 2016. I also wrote a blog about NYBG you might enjoy reading!
I donned my rubber boots on March 10th and went into the Muskoka wetlands to check out bumble bees and dragonflies on pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata).
On March 11th, I featured hardy border sedums or stonecrops (Sedum spectabile/Hylotelphium telephium) like ‘Autumn Joy’ with pink flowers and succulent leaves. They are among the best late summer perennials for attracting butterflies and all kinds of bees.
Old-fashioned veronicas or speedwells were my pollinator choice for March 12th. Bees and wasps love them, whether the common thread-waisted wasp (Ammophila procera) on Veronica spicata ‘Darwin’s Blue’ in my cottage gardens, below, or bumble bees and honey bees on several other veronicas I featured that day.
On March 13th, I recalled my Victoria, BC childhood and the pungent fragrance of calendulas or pot marigolds (Calendula officinalis) in my mother’s garden. It was an etymology lesson that day, for “Calendar” derives from the Latin ‘calendae’, i.e. first day of the month and also gave its name to calendula, i.e. the “flower of the calends”. Because the plant flowers every month of the year in the Mediterranean ,where it is native, the ancient Romans named it for the tax assessed on the first day of each month – the calend.
I went for a ‘confusing nomenclature’ lesson on March 14th with Russian sage, Perovskia atriplicifolia. You see, it’s not really Russian but native to western China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey. And it’s no longer called Perovskia, but Salvia yangii. Revisions to familiar old names based on genetic sequencing tend to irritate gardeners (not taxonomists), but bees don’t care at all. For them, it’s just the same nectar-filled flowers with a different name.
“Beware the Ides of March”. Every high school English student remembers that warning from Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’. For my March 15th post, I chose to go with “bee ware” for the Ides of March and picked bee-friendly, native red maple (Acer rubrum) with its abundant, early spring pollen and nectar for bees like the unequal cellophane bee (Colletes inaequalis), below. This date also initiated my final 16 days of the series, each of which will focus on a pollinator relationship for spring.
March 16th celebrated winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), the earliest spring bulb and a great source of pollen for bees. I also explained how this plant exhibits a temperature-mediated plant movement called thermonasty, the yellow flowers closing in cold, cloudy weather and opening wide in warm sunshine.
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Willows (Salix spp.) were my focus on March 17th, being that they’re such important early-flowering sources of pollen for bees provisioning their nests, like the unequal cellophane bee (Colletes inaequalis) on pussy willow below.
On March 18th Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) from Europe was my spring star, its clusters of tiny, yellow flowers a welcome sight for bees and hover flies. I also offered a little lesson in ancient botanical nomenclature, from Theophrastus to Gerard.
The first crocuses emerged just in time for my March 19th post honouring them as abundant early pollen sources for honey bees. I also gave a little visual lesson on the #1 threat to honey bee colonies: varroa mites.
On the first day of spring, March 20th, I honoured a sweet-scented, very early-blooming shrub that’s been in my garden for decades, Farrer’s viburnum (V. farreri), named for explorer Reginald Farrer. There are always butterflies and bees searching out nectar on the pale-pink blossoms. I wrote a blog on this plant, too.
On March 21st I posted about the little blue-flowered bulbs called Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) that appear briefly in my front garden in the 2-month parade of spring bulbs. Their bright-blue pollen and nectar is collected by bees (including native spring bees Colletes and Andrena) and butterflies. Curiosity about the interaction between native spring bees and this non-native bulb prompted me to write a 2017 blog called The Siberian Squill and the Cellophane Bee.
Bee-friendly early spring Lungworts (Pulmonaria spp.) starred on March 22nd, along with an etymology on their common and Latin names, rooted way back in the day when the white spots on the leaves of the herbalist’s P. officinalis suggested lung disease. Fortunately, medicine has become a little more evidence-based today.
“I was born in Amelanchier alnifolia”. That was my opening line for my March 23rd post, and of course it referenced my birth in the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, or what the Cree called Kaminasaskwatominaskwak, “the place where many saskatoon berry bushes grow”. I also explored why so many serviceberries seem to bear abundant summer fruit – without ever having had pollinators visit. That’s because (unlike the one below, A. humilis, at our cottage on Lake Muskoka) some Amelanchier species are ‘apomicts’, producing fruit asexually. If you want to read more about my visit to Wanuskewin Heritage Park outside Saskatoon, ‘where many saskatoon berry bushes grow’, this is my blog from 2018.
Bees love grape hyacinths (Muscari spp.) and so do I. On March 24th I featured the fragrant blue-flowered bulbs and all the butterflies, bees and flies that forage in the bell-shaped flowers.
On March 25th I paid tribute to crabapples (Malus), especially my little weeping ‘Red Jade’ that grows beside my lily pond. It has its problems, but on those odd-numbered years when it flowers (2017, 2019, 2021!) – being an alternate-bearer like some of its biennial-bearing wild crabapple ancestors of eastern Europe – bees and butterflies enjoy foraging on its white blossoms. Later, birds and squirrels and even raccoons enjoy the tiny red fruits.
Despite having previously posted four different alliums (onion family) for pollinators in my series, on March 26th I featured several more possibilities, beginning with Allium giganteum hosting a carpenter bee, below, but also A. cristophii, A. ‘Purple Sensation’, A. obliquum, A. nigrum, A. ‘Millenium’ and, from the veggie garden, chives, A.schoenoprasum and regular onions, A. cepa.
Blackberries! My March 27th post was a bit confessional. The fact is, I fight with my native Allegheny blackberries (Rubus allegheniensis) at our cottage on Lake Muskoka, below with a native Andrena bee, and secretly loved the jam I made as a kid in British Columbia from the highly invasive Himalayan blackberries (R. armeniacum).
Because I loved watching a rain-soaked bumble bee nectaring in the pendulous blossoms of redvein enkianthus (E. campanulatus) in the David Lam Asian garden at Vancouver’s UBC Botanical Garden, my post on March 28th paid tribute to that beautiful Asian shrub.
On March 29th, I featured a beautiful, big Asian shrub that my next-door neighbour grows – appropriately called beautybush (Kolkwitzia amabilis, recently renamed Linnaea). I always think of it as my “borrowed scenery”, to quote a Japanese design concept known as ‘shakkei’. June bees and swallowtail butterflies love the scented flowers.
Most of my garden ‘weeds’ seem to get on very well without the help of pollinators, at least none that I notice. But Virginia waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginanum) is a little native perennial that I did not plant – i.e. a ‘weed’ in some people’s estimation – but bumble bees are so happy that it has found little niches here and there in damp, partly shaded soil. It was my pollinator plant for March 30th.
The final pollinator post of my Covid winter series for March 31st was a bulb I grow and love in my spring garden, as do the bees. Camassia leichtlinii ‘Caerulea’ is a commercial cultivar of great camas, an edible bulb native to the Pacific northwest that is nevertheless hardy in most of the northeast. In Victoria, B.C. where I grew up, the parent species is part of the Garry Oak ecosystem, along with the smaller Camassia quamash. I wrote a blog about that back in 2014. In my front garden, the tall lavender blue flower spikes look gorgeous with late tulips; in my back garden, it pairs with alliums. If it has a fault, it’s that the flowers are rather fleeting – being so beautiful, you wish they’d last much longer.
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So that’s it. One-hundred-and-forty-four posts later, I can satisfy my love of geometry and photo montages with a BIG display of all my Covid winter pollinators. I hope you enjoyed the ones you read about, and don’t forget, if you ever want to see them again – on Facebook, Instagram or anywhere on the internet – you just have to click on the magical hashtag #janetsdailypollinator, and up they’ll come, buzzing, fluttering, rolling in pollen and probing deep into flowers for sweet nectar.
Winter is slowly coming to an end and I’ve completed the fourth full month of my 2020-21 Covid project – 28 more pollinator vignettes on my Facebook and Instagram accounts. (If you missed the other months, here are the links for November, December and January. And if you’re on Instagram or Facebook, you can access all of my posts with ALL of the additional photos by typing into the search bar #janetsdailypollinator. It’s hashtag magic!) And this is the February family photo of the plants I mention below!
I began the unusually snowy month on Feb. 1st with calamint (Calamintha nepeta ssp. nepeta), with its clouds of tiny white flowers always buzzing with bees. In that post, I also included some photos of a beekeepers’ honey harvest tutorial at the Toronto Botanical Garden.
On Feb. 2nd I honoured redbuds (Cercis spp.), whose magenta or white pea flowers always attract lots of bees and hummingbirds to the trees, including the unequal cellophane bee (Colletes inaequalis) below.
Native ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) was my star for Feb. 3rd, a big shrub that attracts many native bees and honey bees to the flower clusters, like the andrena bee below.
On Feb. 4th, I showed off a honey bee performing acrobatic maneuvers to gather the bright orange pollen of male asparagus flowers (Asparagus officinalis). On that day, I also included my recipe for a favourite dinner party course, curried creamy of asparagus soup.
Bees love fragrant lavender and so do gardeners. Feb. 5th featured a few species, including English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), below, with a honey bee – as well as ways to design with lavender.
Feb. 6th paid homage to all kinds of clovers and sweet clovers, beginning with Dutch white clover (Trifolium repens) hosting a honey bee, below.
On Feb. 7th, I took a fast hop to New Zealand to recall my great joy in 2018 at finding a lonely honey bee on manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. That white-flowered shrub is the source of the famed (and very strong) manuka honey! Check out my blog about this part of NZ, titled Bay of Islands – Māoris, Kauris and Kia Ora.
Purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) was featured on Feb.8th. This gorgeous tallgrass prairie denizen is a favourite with all kinds of native N. American bees, including the bumble bee, below.
Blue mist bush, bluebeard, blue spirea…. call it what you will, but Caryopteris x clandonensis, my pollinator plant for Feb. 9th, is a stunning, late-flowering shrub with blue flowers that bees adore. The variegated one with a bumble bee, below, is ‘Summer Sorbet’.
On Feb. 10th, dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) were celebrated as a pollinator food source, not a weedy scourge. Oh… and I had to include a photo of my granddaughter that day with her springtime dandelion fairy crown!
Buckwheat anyone? On Feb. 11th I recalled a visit to an entire field of buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) in Collingwood, Ontario in order to photograph the honey bees from the nearby hives belonging to Curry’s Farm Market. What a sight that was!
Nectar-rich cranesbills or perennial geraniums starred on Feb. 12th when I found every bee on every possible species in my photo library (9 in all), including the mourning widow, Geranium phaeum, below, with its precarious perch for a honey bee.
Tropical lantanas are generally good butterfly and bee plants to grow as annuals in colder regions, but hummingbirds like them too, as I showed on Feb. 13th with trailing lantana (L. montivedensis), below.
For Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14th, I picked one of my favourite pollinator perennials, purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). I have it growing in my front yard pollinator garden in Toronto where it attracts butterflies and bees for weeks and weeks in midsummer.
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I rarely see a cornflower without a bee, so on Feb. 15th I celebrated annual and perennial cornflowers (Centaurea species), including the four below, counter clockwise from top left: mountain bluet (C. montana); big-head cornflower (C. macrocephala); annual cornflower (C. cyanus); and Persian cornflower (C. hypoleuca ‘John Coutts’).
Rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) is an unusual-looking prairie perennial which makes an architectural addition to a border, where it often attracts wasps and flower flies as well as bees and butterflies. It was my choice for Feb. 16th.
Borage (Borago officinalis) was the daily pollinator for Feb. 17th – an edible annual for herb gardens and much-loved by bees.
On Feb. 18th, I made a little joke about sneezing in Covid times (don’t do it!!) to introduce perennial sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale), so-called because the leaves were traditionally crushed and dried to make a snuff.
On Feb. 19th, I chose Agapanthus with a honey bee to lead a photo parade of some of my favourite scenes from gardens in New Zealand, where agapanthus grows like a weed. I focused especially on artist Josie Martin’s spectacular Giant’s House Garden in Akaroa, which I celebrated with a blog called The Giant’s House – A Mosaic Master Class .
Do I have a favourite pollinator plant? It’s a toss-up between the orange-flowered butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) I featured on Nov. 5th and wild beebalm (Monarda fistulosa), my star for Feb. 20th. Since I call the west meadow at my cottage “Monarda Meadow” for this easy-going perennial, it’s only natural that I enjoy the tremendous number of pollinators attracted to its shaggy pink flowers, from bumble bees (below) to butterflies to clearwing hummingbird moths to actual hummingbirds. (Oh, I wrote a blog about it, too, called A Balm for the Bees!)
Feb. 21st saw me explaining the unusual nectar guides on a horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) inflorescence, which show yellow when nectar-filled and unpollinated – yellow being a colour bees can see – but turn red (bees can’t see red) after pollination.
Obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana) and a lot of nectar-robbery was on my mind on Feb. 22nd, featuring this northeast native with its moisture-loving, wandering ways. That’s the eastern Carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica), below, stealing a little nectar by piercing the sepals to get at the nectaries at the top of the tubular flowers.
So many gardeners love old-fashioned peonies, but the doubles aren’t accessible to pollinators. So on Feb. 23rd, I celebrated bees on single and semi-double herbaceous and tree peonies (Paeonia spp.). By the way, that’s the appropriately-named brown-belted bumble bee (Bombus griseocollis), below.
South African honey bush (Melianthus major) is hardy on the west coast and a lot of the garden cognoscenti enjoy growing it for its hummingbird- and bee-friendly flowers. My Feb. 24th pin-up pollinator was an Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna) I found nectaring on this plant at the University of California Botanic Garden at Berkeley.
One of the most popular “filler” plants of the past few decades is also popular with bees and butterflies! I’m referring to my pollinator plant for Feb. 25th, the tender South American perennial Verbena bonariensis.
On Feb. 26th I paid homage to my very best plant for attracting ruby-throated hummingbirds, Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Bloom’, as well as the purple hybrid ‘Amistad’. By the way, if you want to design a garden for hummingbirds, have a look at my blog called Planting a Hummingbird Menu.
Who was “Joe Pye”? A native American herbalist, it’s believed. We don’t really know but on Feb. 27th, I celebrated a few native N. American species and cultivars of Joe Pye weed and the genus Eutrochium (formerly Eupatorium). Below, a monarch butterfly enjoys E. maculatum ‘Gateway’.
My last plant for February was the black locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia), with its fragrant, bee-friendly June blossoms.
