My 23rd fairy crown celebrates one of the great, hardy, late-summer-to-early-autumn perennials – sedum. Or should that be “stonecrop”. And the Latin name? Well, it used to be Sedum spectabile but now the big pink sedums have been renamed Hylotelephium spectabile. Let’s just call it by its cultivar name ‘Autumn Joy’. But wait…. that cultivar was originally the German variety “Herbstfreude”. Okay, you get the idea; DNA is analyzed; parental lines are revised; common names are confusing; and sometimes, the Germans got there first! But what else is in today’s crown? Well, the little coneflowers are browneyed susans, Rudbeckia triloba, a biennial. The fuzzy yellow spike is Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’. And the fruits are crabapples from my dearly-departed ‘Red Jade’ crabapple and wild, native Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) that likes to attach itself to my fence.
Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ has a very long season of interest. In August, the green, broccoli-like flowerheads start their colour transformation, turning a light rose. It was at this point that I photographed my granddaughter Emma “watering” them. That’s rough blazing star (Liatris aspera) with the purple spikes nearby.
The photo below is at the height of flowering in the August pollinator garden, but the sedum takes its time in opening the tiny flowers.
When they do open a few weeks later in September, the colour a deeper rose, the echinaceas have usually finished blooming.
In the background in my city garden is Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, which I blogged about in Fairy Crown #21 at the cottage.
Sedum flowers are irresistible to butterflies like the monarch, especially as they begin their southward migration.
Bumble bees and honey bees, below, love the nectar-rich flowers too.
Sedum time in Toronto coincides with the September flowering of Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’, below, a well-behaved, compact form of autumn goldenrod discovered by Delaware’s Mt. Cuba Center in 1985 and introduced to commerce a few years later. I purchased it years ago and have been patiently dividing it ever since.
It is popular with pollinators, especially bumble bees.
When you have friends with beautiful gardens, you’re sometimes gifted with their favourite plants. That’s what “pass-along plant” means, and the one below, browneyed susan (Rudbeckia triloba) was a gift from my pal Aldona Satterthwaite. It’s a biennial (green growth the first summer, flowers the next), so I’ll have to wait for its babies to pop up in my garden.
My crown also contains a few fruits from my garden, including the ripening fruit of native wild Virginia creeper….
…. and those from my ‘Red Jade’ crabapple, which sadly will need a replacement next spring. The birds will miss it terribly.
But instead of ending on a sad note, I’ll finish with a bouquet to remember the flowers of Fairy Crown 23.
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.
I’ve been meaning to write this blog for years, but it took a global pandemic – and the fact that this is National Pollinator Week – to spur me into action. Because in a pandemic we need essential workers, and on this planet there are no workers more essential than pollinators. Think of it: in all flowering plants not pollinated by wind (grasses and many trees are wind pollinated), bees, buterflies, moths, birds, beetles, ants and other insects are responsible for transferring pollen from a flower’s male anthers to the receptive female stigma, ensuring fertilization of the ovum, the creation of fruit and later the ultimate dissemination of seed. Without pollinators, the world as we know it would be as it was more than 135 million years ago: boring. No need for colour, since grasses and birches and pines don’t need to wear flashy hues to have the wind disperse the pollen the produce. No need for flower fragrance, since the wind doesn’t need to be lured to flowers like moths to a nocturnal species. And wind pollination is so wasteful! Look at how many male white pine cones fall to the ground in the evolutionary effort to pollinate the receptive female cones. (This is my dock on Lake Muskoka north of Toronto, by the way).
No, insect pollination was a giant step forward, beginning with plants that looked vaguely like modern magnolias, likely fertilized by beetles. (I couldn’t find any beetles so substituted honey bees on Magnolia grandiflora, below).
Bees evolved initially from wasps. The earliest honey bee ancestors emerged in Asia roughly 120 million years ago. Bumble bees arrived on the scene between 30 and 40 million years ago. Modern honey bees and bumble bees, like those below on globe thistle, are the descendants of an ancient lineage of insect pollinators
As gardeners, we sometimes forget that there was a time when the natural world did not revolve around us. It got along just fine without Homo sapiens. In fact, there are quite a few people who think earth fared much better without humans, but then consciousness and evolution have given us the ability to perceive our achievements and actions with feelings of pride tempered by a growing sense of guilt. Climate change, conservation, overpopulation – they are all serious issues today, but that’s not what I’m focusing on here. Instead, I’d like to write a little love letter to the workers in earth’s most essential essential service: pollinators. Goodness knows I’ve spent enough time courting them over the past three decades and more. Here’s one of my Toronto Sun columns from 1997.
And here’s a story I proposed and wrote on urban beekeeping for the now-shuttered Organic Gardening magazine in 2012.
Researching nectar- or pollen-rich flowers for beekeepers for that story and finding very little in current literature launched a multi-year focus on honey bees and their favourite plants. Out of it came a quite spectacular poster……
….. and the occasional magazine cover.
In time, I amassed such a large inventory of honey bee imagery (like the forget-me-not, below) that I decided to create an online photo library devoted just to them. If you’d like to have a browse, it is located here.
My beekeeping pal Janet Wilson out in British Columbia drove me to her hives in a blackberry thicket on a farm, and let me photograph her checking on the hives.
When I was on safari at Kicheche Camp in Laikipia, Kenya in 2016, I loved spending time with the camp’s beekeeper William Wanyika, and learning how he does his work.
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At Toronto Botanical Garden, I photographed the beehives and the student beekeepers….
….. and later that year I returned to photograph the honey harvest.
I enjoyed paying attention to nectar guides, the markings that plants have evolved to show pollinators exactly where to look for nectar and pollen. The European horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum), below, is an excellent example. Flowers with fresh nectar exhibit a yellow blotch; as the markings darken from orange to red, the bee knows that the flowers are old and no longer yielding nectar.
But as much as I appreciate the work that honey bees do, I have always understood that in North America, European honey bees (Apis mellifera) are very much domestic agricultural animals. They may be feral in places warm enough for them to overwinter, but in much of the continent they must be “kept”. Wild bees, or native bees, on the other hand, have co-evolved with our North American flora. Many of them are adaptable to a number of different plant species; they’re called “generalists”. Here is a montage I made of native North American bees and butterflies on native North American plants.
Other bees are “specialists”, requiring the nectar or pollen from one, or just a few, types of plants. The North American squash bee (Peponapis pruinosa) is one of those, spending its short life acquiring food from the flowers of native squash plants, like the one below.
On vacation in Arizona, I was interested in the specialist native Diadasia australis bees who forage solely on opuntia cacti, like this Engelmann’s prickly-pear (Opuntia engelmanii).
At home, I have come to know my local native vernal or spring bees, like the polyester bee (Colletes inaequalis), shown below on early-flowering willow (Salix).
But I’ve been bemused in the past few weeks by native bees paying no attention whatsoever to my native plants and instead finding their sources of carbohydrates and protein in the nectar and pollen of non-native plants, such as the bicoloured sweat bee Agapostemon virescens working the wine-red flowers of European knautia (Knautia macedonica) in my garden, below….
… and a plethora of native pollinators, including the Eastern tiger swallowtail, avidly foraging on my neighbour’s Chinese beauty bush, Kolkwitzia amabilis, below.
But some plants don’t need pollinators. While I was videotaping the June plants above, the birds were squabbling noisily over the first ripening serviceberries (Amelanchier sp.) nearby. (I photographed the one below on the High Line one June.) I was curious that in all my years observing my serviceberries and their clouds of tiny blossoms, I haven’t seen any pollinators attending the plants. How could I have such an abundance of early summer fruit? Scientists have shown that several species of Amelanchier have evolved “apomixis”, bypassing sexual reproduction, meiosis and cell division entirely – thus no need for insect fertilization. In apomicts, the ovum in the flower divides parthenogenically.
I adore bumble bees (Bombus species), and I’ve spent years trying to identify the ones I see in my gardens and even the species I encounter during my travels. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I have a large photo inventory of bumble bees online. Below is my favourite of all, the brown-belted bumble bee (Bombus griseocollis). Isn’t that the perfect name?
And I do have a soft spot for Toronto’s (un)official bee mascot, the bicoloured agapostemon (A. virescens), shown here foraging on purple coneflower in my garden.
Though many people dislike them for their wood-boring trait, particularly if it happens to their pergolas or sundecks, I love watching carpenter bees (Xylocopa virginica) using that strong tongue to bore into the corollas of certain flowers, like the Nicotiana mutabilis, below. Biologists call that “nectar robbery”, i.e. the bee is effectively bypassing the evolutionary pact between bee and pollinator to gain the reward without transferring pollen from one flower to another.
At the Toronto Botanical Garden, where I’ve contributed my photography as seasonal galleries, I spent a few seasons tracking pollinators on the plants, and made a musical video to celebrate them.
My city garden in Toronto was designed as a pollinator garden, too. It contains both native and non-native plants. I’ve shown this video a few times in my blog, but here it is again throughout four seasons.
And at my cottage on Lake Muskoka, I look upon almost every plant in my meadows, garden beds and planters as a chance to invite bumble bees, solitary bees and hummingbirds to sup on the mostly native plants I provide for them. (Please note that the vernonia should be V. noveboracensis).
So to celebrate National Pollinator Week, I would like to encourage all of you to think about your relationship as gardeners to the natural world. Should your garden really be all about you and what you like? Or do you agree with me that we should also consider that….
The first week of September seems to be its very own kind of mellow. Everything about it: lazy cicadas droning; bees buzzing, seeking the last nectar of the season; kids heading back to school, all polished and excited; that tang of autumn in the air, even as Indian summer thunderstorms threaten the quiet morning. And that’s just today. In my slightly messy front garden not far from downtown Toronto, the September-blooming perennials are at their peak.
The mini-hedge of ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum (Hylotelephium telephium ‘Herbstfreude’) is opening its thousands of tiny pink flowers, attracting many types of nectar-seeking bees, flies and butterflies before turning that lovely russet-red that carries it into autumn.
There is a nicely-behaved goldenrod, Solidago sphacelata ‘Golden Fleece’ that weaves its way gracefully through other flowers. (And some uninvited cousins that will have to be ejected.)
I love the magenta flower spikes of obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana), In richer, moister soil, it might spread aggressively and the flower stems might grow tall and flop. But in this garden, lack of extra irrigation keeps it at a reasonable height and its spread is welcome.
The bees love it, too, especially carpenter bees whose strong tongues can pierce the corolla to access or “rob” the sweet nectar. Later, honey bees and bumble bees will use these pre-drilled holes to acquire their own nectar. That is why Kamagra is called generic drug as the both are the online cialis same genre and group. Tubal/peritoneal elements like Endometriosis, Pelvic adhesion or inflammatory disease like http://davidfraymusic.com/events/belgrade-serbia/ cialis generika PID (brought on by Chlamydia), Tubal occlusion/dysfunction play the function of blockages leave couple eying for a surrogate mom is needed. Apart from that, the couple’s doubts about the use of viagra online cheapest cleared. 6.Price Is Just Right – price is the factor that brings people to the online pharmacies and cialis and you would enjoy buying medication the same way you enjoy shopping any other commodity. Hence before the consumption, please consult to your doctor and any elderly one who intake this pills and you have prior known discount cialis prices the cautions and side effects of this medication.
And it looks beautiful with the ‘Golden Fleece’ goldenrod as well.
The biggest perennial — and most problematic to me, for its eager spreading ways — is Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, shown here against the house behind a big drift of Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’, which has been generously blooming for several weeks. This robust, naturally-occurring hybrid of Helianthus pauciflorus var. subrhomboideus and Jerusalem artichoke, Helianthus tuberosus,is a wonderful plant for naturalistic gardens, provided you plan ahead for placement. At 6-feet (2m) plus, it needs to be back of border, not mid-prairie muscling out everything around it.
But the bees are awfully fond of it, too. So I may move it next spring — or I may not…..
