Sunday, April 20, 2008

A Day in my Cottage Garden

The bees are back! What a delight to see both mason bees and good old honeybees back in my cottage garden! This really excites me..as last year..sad to say..we only saw one..yes..only one..lone honeybee in the yard last year..it was so sad.




This year though..what a delight to find half a dozen of them so far in my yard! The plight of the honeybee has been of concern to me..and even though I do not raise honeybees... I have always found them to be amazing and wonderful little creatures.One day I do hope to be able to have a few hives of them.
I have spoken to Dr. Jamie Ellis of the University in Gainesville,FL/ Entymology dept.... and asked him what should backyard gardener's do to help the honeybee population to be able to come back?

He replied.."plant wildflowers!" "Plant as many natural wildflowers,native to your area that you can!" So..plant wildflowers I did! I created a lovely little cottage garden in my backyard..and so far every year it comes back better than ever! In fact today we tossed even more wildflower seeds into the little plot..so come next Spring there will be even more flowers!
--------------------------------
Here are pictures from the garden yesterday!
-------------------
The pansy,roses,and amaryllis,and geranium are in different garden areas than the cottage garden..the pansies grow in my little herb garden,the geranium grows in a pot by the back door as does the amaryllis..and the roses are in a rose garden.
All other flowers are from my cottage garden/wildflower garden.
------------------
I hope you enjoyed the photos!
And hey..plant some wildflowers in your yard this year! You'll be glad you did!
---------------
~The Garden Goose~

10 comments:

meg said...

I've missed the bees as well- all I've seen so far are wasps who have taken over my wooden bird feeder :-(

Anonymous said...

Well, we had a few honey bees last summer. We had more Japanese Beetles than anything and they had an appetite that could not be satisfied and they ate a lot. I squeezed hundreds of them.

I hope to get some more honey bees here this summer. I planted a lot of wild flowers last year and that managed to attract more than usual but the little white Dutch clover struggles to survive as there are no honey bees about to pollinate their flowers. So it depends on the sometimes fly or other insect to do what honey bees did all of my life time. Pollinate everything.

You have a most interesting blog.

vintage girl at heart said...

I just read an article about the decline of the bees.. very scary!! I love your flower photographs and plan to plant more of my own this year.
Good luck with your move!!!

Needled Mom said...

Beautiful garden flowers! So glad that your bees are back in numbers this year. They really do tend to cluster around wildflowers.

Tina Leavy said...

vintage girl..I'm not moving..just moving out the excess..ha. that probably feels like moving..but it isn't.
thanks to everyone that stopped by..so glad you liked the photos.

Chas said...

I love this blog a thon you have going... GREAT idea!
I haven't been by in a while, I will have to get by here and catch up on all I have missed.
Have a great day!
Love,
Chas

http://www.homesteadblogger.com/chas

Angelena said...

What beautiful pictures! I am planting more and more flowers this year for the honeybees. I always plant marigolds in the veggie garden, but I think I will be planting more flowers in the garden this year to help with pollination. Along with my other flower gardens.

Anonymous said...

it hasnt warmed up enough here in Montana (will it ever??) for the bees to start swarming..

Beautiful flowers tho, g. goose
gp in montana

Anonymous said...

What lovely flowers and what perfect photographs! Thank you so much for sharing these beauties with us.

Quinne said...

Hi Tina :) Everything is so pretty! Thanks for the tip on helping the bees, too. Love, Q