I was hoping to take some photos of various Hebes to continue Christina’s discussion about plants which are naturally ‘pruned’, but the weather is slashing wind and horizontal rain today. I have some photos from the frost a couple weeks ago instead.
We don’t have many frosts a year, so I’m always excited to rush out early and see it before it melts away. This particular morning there was a half inch layer of ice on the dog’s water dish, and a bright sun making everything sparkle.
My tulips are up. I’m especially happy with these because they are the ones which I’ve dug up and chilled each year for the last 3 years. I know this because all the new bulbs are still small leaves, whereas these red ones are all blooming. I think this is because my fridge has glass doors, so they probably had more light than they should have had during the chilling process.
Continue reading “Winter Tulips and Honeysuckle in a Vase on Monday”
While I was busy harvesting Tomatoes and Corn and Kumara the bees were harvesting pollen to feed new bees and nectar for honey to keep them going through the winter. Continue reading “Plants for Bees in Late Summer and Autumn”
Work has kept me away from the garden and the blog over the last few weeks, and I’ve returned to a brutal storm with wind tearing branches away and the rain gauge showing around 4 inches of rain ( 120 mm ) most of which has probably fallen in the last week. I assume that the bees are hunkered down like I am inside. Continue reading “Flow Hive ready for Winter”
This little pink Chrysanthemum is the only one I have been able to find until this year – I’ve just found a yellow one and ordered it. I’m envious of all the lovely Chrysanthemums that seem to be available outside of NZ.
Continue reading “In a Vase on Monday – Autumn Roses and Chrysanthemums”
Artichokes, scarlet runner beans, pumpkin, zucchini, tomatillos and other vegetables, herbs, and flowers were full of bees in January.
Scarlet runner beans are so pretty and useful. This year I collected the mature beans to try as dried beans, since they get past it so quickly. The dried beans are very pretty, but I have yet to taste them.
Oregano flowers are extra popular.
Each month I’ve tried to photograph the most popular flowers for bees and bumble bees. Summer was a blur of growing and harvesting which is slowing now so I can post some of them.
Soldier poppies, California poppies and some of the later perennial poppies continued into December and later and were often full of bumble bees which blended so well and buried themselves so deep they often looked like part of the flower.
Salvias, Tithonias, and Dahlias are the stars of the Autumn garden. The bees love them, so I took only a few of the Salvia mexicana and mixed them with purple Salvia officinalis and variegated sage leaves. Continue reading “In a Vase on Monday – Salvia”
A few unknown Dahlias and a Gertrude Jekyll Rose in a jam jar – we’re going through the new pear and cinnamon jam very quickly.
This is a very simple vase, and is again ‘found flowers’. They had to be cut as the hydrangea was smothering a small Nikau Palm, one which got eaten by cows last year around this time. And I don’t think these ones are attractive to bees. Having read that one bee hive visits about 225,000 flowers per day I am being careful to leave all I can for the bees.
Continue reading “Fading Hydrangeas on Daylight Savings Monday”
Absent Gardener 