Bogieblog

Bumble Bees are a Humming

I have a friend in NY (not in city) that was bemoaning that bumblebees are disappearing and she doesn't have any in her gardens. She has way more garden space, variety and blooms than I have, but this year is a stellar bee year for me (last two years, not so much). The two large rhodies are humming all day with bees everywhere, and have been that way for a week or more. I can hear them from 10' away. I had just got done mowing Monday afternoon so didn't have my readers on. I just haphazardly started taking pictures hoping I got something in them.

Even though the baptisia isn't in full bloom yet, and the flowers not really open enough for a big-azz bumblebee to get in there, this bee decided there were advantages to foraging alone.

Although I know that honey bees have had their difficulties for the last several years, in my experience (which may or may not be typical), bees and other insects ("good" insects or not) go in cycles. Some years are plentiful and others scarce. Hopefully in my friend's case, next year will be a year that she has lots of the pollinators again.

Even though the baptisia isn't in full bloom yet, and the flowers not really open enough for a big-azz bumblebee to get in there, this bee decided there were advantages to eating alone.

Weather and Flora

The weather over the last month has been wacky and affected a lot of the outdoor plants. First we had a freeze (not a frost) the middle of May or so. The Japanese Maple got bit hard as did some other pants. The Rose of Sharons and Burgundy Bell maple were just getting leaf buds, which were totally destroyed (they are starting to leaf out again though). Japanese maple then Burgundy Belle pictures taken 5/22/23.

Then, last week we went from being in the 60's to two days in the 90's, which caused stress to hostas, lupines and other pants. Doesn't help we didn't get any measurable precipitation for nearly 3 weeks.

We got wild storms Friday night where 5 buildings and a person were hit by lightning in the general vicinity (2 of those happening in the adjacent town of Antrim) and there was also a brush fire started by lightning. Unfortunately, we only saw about 1/8" of rain out of it. (following is from SWNH FB page)

But, I took pictures of flowers that were not affected by the freeze on Friday afternoon just before the storms hit. First are the Rhodies at their peak. The purple ones out fron are again stunning. I manipulated the red rhodie pic to more accurately show the color as phones/cameras want to make them pinker than they truly are.

Although most lupine plants were badly wilted from the lack of rain, this one managed to bloom. And, with cooler temps and the little rain we did get, the other lupine plants were looking better onsaturday.

Columbine

Variegated Weigala (I cannot get the pink to stand out as it does when personally viewing

I have been impressed by  "Fruit Punch pinks" in the south side garden. I bought and planted them in early May and they have been blooming non-stop - even shrugging off the freeze and the fact that I haven't watered them since planting.

Yesterday the high was 61 - at 12:01 am. The daytime temp was 51-53 and heavily overcast so no solar heat gain. The main floor pellet stove ran once yesterday afternoon and is running right now (5:30 am). It will be cool and heavily overcast for another couple of days, so it will most likely run  a few more times before it is time to put it to rest for the season.

The baptisia is just starting to flower so should come into its own in a week or so .I also saw a miniature root beer iris bloom yesterday, but failed to get a picture.

So despite the wild swings in weather, it seems that I am having a fairly good year for color in the gardens.

Sunbathing

Wednesday, I caught Rainey and Spot sunbathing in/next to the living room window. It was cool and windy, but they were nice and warm.

I moved a lot of plants out to the back porch, so Spot is enjoying getting to stretch out. I had also dropped the curtain panel on the big window pane to let in the solar gain and the cats like to lay on the extra padding it provides.

That night I had to bring in most of the plants as we had a frost warning (got down to 28*). I finally got to put them back out late yesterday morning as our temps should be fine from here forward

The creeping phlox are finally in full bloom. If you remember, last week only the bright pink phlox were blooming (they get more sun). I was happy the bright pinks lasted log enough to get a picture of all together.

An 8-10' branch from the neighbor's lilac came down over the winter. Weirdly it still leafed out and bloomed anyway. While cleaning up his yard last weekend,  I took a couple of snips from it before tossing the rest into his brush pile (the vase is 10" tall for scale). Yes, they smelled as good as they looked. 

Both the blooms and leaves stayed fresh a good long time too. Most of the week they took massive amounts of water so I filled the vase several times a day. I emptied the vase yesterday evening. I could have kept them another day or two as the leaves were only half wilted, but decided to stick the branches into the ground by the shed and see if they do anything. Probably not, but you don't know unless you try.

Flowers from Week of 5/07/2023

Finally getting more than daffs, wild violets and dandelions in bloom. First are the tiny flowers: flowering almond, bleeding heart and forget-me-not

Finding this bleeding heart made a liar out of me on a forum I frequent. I had stated that the bleeding heart I planted in the shade garden many years ago did not survive. All I can say is when they took out the swamp next door, it opened the area to more sunshine, and maybe that is what this little 6-7" plant needed to come out of dormancy.

I did enhance this picture (which I rarely do) by darkening it a bit since the sunshine washed out the colors.

The hot pink phlox always busts out before the ones above it because it gets more sun

The crabapple doesn't always put on a good show, but it is this year. The first pic is from my back porch and the second pic is from my front yard.

And as an aside - it is so irritating that I have to input pictures several times before they take. They either just show a picture symbol, tell me no pictures are selected (which is obviously not true when they are highlighted right there in the choose window), or don't bother showing at all. So I have to delete the code and try again. And if I try to do more than 2 at a time, forget it. Just the 2 crabapple pics took 3 tries - argh!

Spring Blooms

Just a few blooms from the roadside garden

While I was looking at those, I noticed some burned limbs on the Coppertina Ninebark. Unfortunately I didn't have my phone with me so removed a lot of them before going to grab it to take pictures. I'm guessing this happened when the transformer blew since the ninebark is close to the pole (not touching - I'm assuming the charge came thru the roots and out thru the limb ends, thus crisping them).

As can be seen in the top picture, other parts of the shrub are doing well, even just below the burns, so it should recover nicely.

First Flowers of 2023

Spring is finally sproinging with daffodils and hyacinth starting to show their colors. In order: backyard daffodils, shrub garden hyacinth, roadside garden dafs

These were taken earlier last week. I should have gotten some updated pictures yesterday as more have come up - but I didn't, so this is what you get. It is raining today, so they will either be flattened or  at least not be in the mood to be photographed until it dries out again.

Rehoming a Building

Finally got rid of the old metal shed that I wasn't sure would make it thru the winter. I wasn't sure if I would be able to give it away. I figures I would end up advertising it for someone who wanted the metal for scrapping and then I would have to take care of the base. A local guy was looking for a shed to hold his mowers and such as he was converting his old metal shed into a chicken coop. He came and looked, was super happy when I confirmed the base would go with it (but not the ramps), and said he would take it. A week ago Saturday he had a tow company show up at 10 am with a flatbed. They winched it onto the bed and headed off with it in 30-45 minutes.

At 11:45 the guy texted me this picture of the shed at its new home

He placed it in a combination garage foundation / retaining wall. They bought a house that had been partially restored from a fire, but the garage has not been rebuilt. It is a win/win!

New Addition to the Yard

This thing has been ready since late August

In early November I put a tarp over it to make leaf clean up easier and in case there was snow before the shed could be installed

Thursday night I removed the tarp. Sounds like an easy job but it had rained heavily the day before so it was holding a lot of water. I managed without soaking myself too bad though.

Friday morning at 7am the truck showed up and I told the driver where the shed was to be placed. I also asked about swapping the 2 end walls and he said it was no problem. The reason that is important, was the orignal plan was to have the double doors on the west side and the single window on the south side. But when he said the end walls could be swapped, I changed the orientation so the double doors are on the south side and the single window on the west side.

At 8:45, the shed base was complete, level and in place. And all the other parts were in place for easy asembly

At 10 AM, it was starting to look like a shed

The next two pictures were taken about 3 PM, but they were done just before noon (I know because I had just joined my noon meeting when the guy tapped on my door and said it was ready for the walk thru)

Now I just have to put stuff in there - probably won't happen this weekend as it is supposed to rain. As long as I get my mowers in there, plus a few other tools from the metal shed, it is fine until spring. If the metal shed collapses on the bagged mulch/soil/compost/empty planters, that wouldn't be a big deal. I need to make a plan before I start moving that type of stuff - and I'll probably still have to move everything around a couple of times before I'm happy with the placements.

Frozen Rose

I've had 8-10 frosts since the beginning of the month. Until this past week, most of them were light. But starting on Wednesday, we were having hard frosts every morning. Thursday morning, I happened to think to take pictures of the Frida Kahloe rose and buds with frost on

Yesterday afternoon I checked on the rose and the flower is still good and smells great. I will be interested to see if the buds open with the warmer weather this weekend.

Well, I would give you those pictures but Typepad won't display them after upload. Maybe it will cooperate if I update later

UPDATE: Here are the pics - well, just click on that link above the picture of the buds and you'll get to see the flower picture. That seems to be the best that Typepad can do for me.

Burgundy Belle Maple and Other Autumn Showings

Last year the Burgundy Belle maple at the corner of the house did not have a good showing. The weather had been challenging, so I couldn't blame it. This year, despite drought, and my not watering, she is looking gorgeous.

This first picture was taken on thursday when I got home from the evening dump run. The sun was close to setting and really made the leaves fiery. Plus it lit up the junk maples in the background in such a way for them to make a pretty backdrop (they normally go from green to yellow to brown in about 2 hours).

While out there I noticed that the tree next to the shed had shed enough leaves to see what I beleive to be a bald faced hornet nest (also called white faced hornet). The nest is in disrepair - I'm guessing the robins that nest in that tree might have taken exception. Or, the catbirds that tore a bald faced hornet nest over my front door a couple of years ago took care of this one (athough the catbirds did a much more thorough job a couple of years ago than this one seems to be)..

 

Pictures of individual Burgundy Belle leaves were taken yesterday

Also yesterday, I noticed the turtle heads that had been covered by the sweet autumn clematis finally got into the clear and are blooming. Other flowers are also blooming in that garden.

And hey, not blooms, but added color in the yard - I covered the shed pad with a tarp last Sunday to keep most of the leaves off

Also last Sunday I reinstalled the fence that I had removed for the tree work.

Reinstalling the fence posts was a chore. Those are 8' long and 2' goes into the ground. I was on a 6' ladder trying to sledge hammer those suckers. Since the ground is uneven, I was only confident to be on the step that is about 4' from the ground, so a lot of the work of sledging was above my shoulder height. I was sore for a couple of days, but obviously got it done.