Ladybugs making more

I see more bees than ladybugs in my yard, but here’s a couple of Asian ladybugs trying to fix that. And now that the ladybugs have shown up, you might want to look too, and if you find them, you can report them to the Lost Ladybug Project. If you’re having trouble finding ladybugs, they […]

Bees of Spring

There’s a fairly bare, hard-packed stretch of dry soil that serves as a path up the hill in my yard, where I often see little brown bees zooming back and forth close to the ground. This year I finally slowed down enough to get some pictures. And I found a whole community of bees.

Flowers don’t punt

It’s a while since I punted. I was up late, reading, and suddenly it just didn’t seem important to scrabble out a post before midnight. What can I say?

Feed your bees

A very nice article I read today confirms something I observed last year: native pollinators prefer native flowers. Since there’s so many different kinds, from bees to syrphid flies, you need many different flowers over the course of the seasons to feed them. You can find lists of suggested plants, but the easy way is […]

Black swallow-wort

Behold the enemy. These are the weeds I should be digging. Just as the maple sprouts start to get scarce, the Black Swallow-wort pokes its evil head above the ground. That bit of hot weather over the weekend seems to have flushed them out, too. Thank goodness it’s cool and springlike again. Makes spending an […]

Flower power–wow!

Yesterday my tulip patch were all green buds, with only a hint of color. Today, thanks to our spring heat wave, they just exploded. These are my favorites, bright yellow with red flames, a small part of a mix of Darwin hybrids, which have been coming back, better and better every year.

Fruit flies vs worm bin

While I still haven’t completely eliminated the fruit flies from the worm bin, I’m controlling them better. What’s really going on is the worms don’t eat the food scraps, they eat the tinier organisms that are eating the scraps. Meanwhile, fermenting food scraps are exactly the sort of thing fruit flies love. So I need […]

Hold still, daffodils

Bumblebees are buzzing me. Do they hold still? No. Mysterious little brown bees are patrolling the ground. Do they hold still? No. They’re so quick, I’m not even sure they’re bees. Where can I get a picture? Daffodils. They hold still.

Species tulips

The first tulips are showing up, little guys that are closer to the original species than the big bright hybrids. Supposedly, they’re more robust, and here’s a couple that have worked for me. Like for instance these little pink and white ones here. It’s been a while since I planted them and left them to […]

Good old golden daffodils

Here you go: the obligatory spring bulbs, and you can’t get much more obligatory than golden yellow daffodils. The garden just isn’t complete without them.