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Showing posts with the label pollinators

Veronica 'White Wanda' - Northwind Perennial - August 2022

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My middle child is my gardening partner.  She has created a little garden of her own in the backyard and each time I take her to the nursery, she's picking up a plant or two to add to her little patch.  She's 'getting to know' some of these plants.  Some work, some won't.  The last time we went to Northwind Perennial Farm up in Wisconsin, she came home with this cool Lamb's ear .  This trip, she bought a few different things including this Spike Speedwell below.  The sign - you can see it in the photo below- calls this Veronica 'White Wanda' Spike Speedwell.  But....I can't find anything called White Wanda out there on the Web.  Plenty of 'White Wands' like this one at Walter's Garden .  But...maybe this is a Northwind creation - they named themselves?  ( Being a Marvel family, I'm not going to lie:  the name White Wanda kinda was a draw here... ) The sign above talks about this being a 'perfect height' for behind low-growing

Mason Bee House - Some Occupancies - June 2020

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This is the third season with our Mason Bee house/hotel in our yard.  I was gifted it for my birthday in April 2018.  Hung it that year and documented the population/residents in May of 2018 when some of the cavities were filled .  That first year, there were 14 tubes filled or packed with mud.  And eggs. I don't seem to have posted about the occupancy rate in 2019, but I'm happy to report that we're seeing a big jump in occupancy for 2020.  At the top of this post, you can see the bee hotel as it stands now.  I went ahead and made it easier on all of us with the annotated version of the photo below.  It shows 36 little red circles that are filled with mud.  I haven't done a scientific analysis, but it seems that the larger bamboo is NOT being used - rather they seem to prefer a mid-sized bamboo piece or hole. But...with 36 sets packed in, that's a more than a 100% increase in occupancy.  Now, there's lots of coverage about the decline of bees , but just