Bee Waspish – July Flies By

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Rumour that Bees are in terminal decline is not borne out in my garden this year. The Bees seem very happy on the blue flowers and I am happy as it gives me an excuse to show some more blue photographs (of flowers!).

I hope my carrots will taste better than the pottery gnome variety. Gonsenheimer have not been grown in my garden before but as they are promoted as crack resistant I thought I would give them a go. The blurb says ‘a bunching variety producing heavy crops of smooth skinned, good flavoures bright orange roots.’  Just about what you need from a packet of Carrot seed. Sown now they can be harvested from end July until December.

What has got 6 legs, a head, 2 eyes and red wings and  is not a dice game of Beetle. It is the red lily beetle Lilioceris lilii that consumes large quantities of one of our favorite plants.

Monarda enmass

I used to think Beech trees grew on the beach but now I know a little better but not much. This is one of the UK’s most useful trees and deserves to be grown where ever space permits.

Your book shelves wont propagate themselves but with just a bit of help from Amazon……

It is mid July and the Roses have performed very well with an abundance of flower, scent and leaf growth. With the June flush over here are some quick tips to boost your Roses for the rest of the season.

There is a clematis for every season, every aspect and every place. The flower size and colour range is also wider than you may imagine. Update I have just bought (2.9.19) another clematis Madame Le Coultre for flowering june to august.

Our family now has a new favorite garden perennial plant. Ever since our ‘Jacob Cline’ Monarda (Monarda didyma ‘Jacob Cline’) came into bloom, it has been the most gorgeous flower we have tried in our landscape. Ruby-throated hummingbirds simply flock to its scarlet red flowers for nectar. This cultivar towers above the other perennials, as it stands about 4 feet tall. It requires some support in partial shade, so we use large, round, wire plant supports that were installed when the plants were just coming up for the spring; then, they grow up through these supports. Monardas grow best in half to all-day sunlight and do prefer a somewhat moist soil. ‘Jacob Cline’ is a powdery mildew resistant cultivar, which is a fungal disease that ruins the foliage of many monardas.

***North Carolina State University is doing research about eastern carpenter bee management on private property. You can help by providing feedback in their survey, which should take just 10 to 15 minutes to complete. This information will help them develop improved management options for the future. To participate in the survey, see Carpenter Bee Survey.

During pollinator week (June 20 -24), I spent time hunting for native bees in the South Carolina Botanical Garden. Native bees are powerhouse pollinators and of critical importance to plant life and our food supply. Over 4000 species are native to North America, with perhaps a thousand active in the Southeast, still a rather daunting number! But you must begin somewhere, so I set out with my camera to see who was in the garden!