My First Bumblebee

Bumblebee of Garberia - Not My Home... Yet...

Lakeside Sunflower

Like an expectant parent, I've been waiting patiently these past 9 months for the arrival of my first bumblebee. It arrived a few days ago and yesterday I found it busily pollinating my small patch of lakeside sunflowers (Helianthus carnosus). Bumblebees hold a special place in my heart for a number of reasons, and its arrival signaled to me that things are starting to be "right" in my new landscape. Over these past 9 months, my wildflower planting has been developing and plants that I first added are reaching maturity. The lakeside sunflower was added several months ago, but they have grown quickly from the small seedlings I had in pots to the multi-stemmed flowering plants that they are today. Like everything in the aster family, they attract the attention of a great many different pollinators. Yesterday, they brought in my first bumblebee.
As I watched, the bumblebee went from each flower head to the next. It didn't miss a single one as it foraged among the many different flowers in my garden, but it wasn't the least bit interested in anything else. The other flowers have been "abuzz" with smaller bees and pollinating wasps, but those blooms were ignored by my bumblebee. It was deeply intent on the heads of sunflowers. As other smaller bees arrived, it ignored them. While small bees constantly juggle for position in the heads of my flowers and disrupt each other, the bumblebee stayed put in each head until it was satisfied. It was amazing to watch. When it was finished, it left. I can only hope it will continue to return - and bring some friends.
I have left a small area of lawn debris to rot, hoping it might someday provide a nesting place for them. It would thrill me to have my own colony here - and, perhaps someday that will happen. I've left bare soil areas in other places in my landscape for the burrowing species and I've left pieces of natural wood in others for things like carpenter bees to colonize, but bumblebees are specialists when it comes to habitat to rear their young. Someplace, not too far away, there must be such a place for yesterday's visitor as they generally do not forage as far from home as some bees do.
A pollinator garden has to provide habitat for nesting as much as it needs to provide a variety of flowers to provide food. As I watch the progression of the flowers in my landscape, it never fails to make an impact on me that different pollinators visit different flowers to very different degrees. Right now, my Chapman's and Carolina goldenrod (Solidago odora var. chapmanii and S. arguta) are covered by small bees and a species of pollinating wasp that I have not seen before. The honeybees seem to prefer my butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) more than the other pollinators do, but butterflies that stop by use it more than the others also. The deep-throated pink beardtongue (Penstemon australis) is ignored by most, but a single species of small bee works its way into those throats and seems to serve as its only real pollinator.
It is never enough to plant just a few species of flowering plants in a pollinator garden. It "takes a village", so to speak. As this summer season progresses on to fall and then to early winter, I will have new and different plants in bloom.  A few, like the Spanish needles (Bidens alba), that I've left in a few corners will bloom into the winter, but a well-designed landscape for pollinators needs more than that. The diversity I've purposely planted will create a progression of different blooms of different flower shapes and colors and this will maximize this little plot of land's ability to feed the greatest number of pollinators possible. I expect my garberia (Garberia heterophylla) to play its part in late October and maybe the bumblebees will stay to use it.
The landscape also must feed the caterpillars of butterflies and moths. I've done my best to add these plants as well. I've added the native grasses that some of the grass skippers will require. My water dropwort (Tiedemannia filiformis) has flower buds now and I trust it will draw the attention of eastern black swallowtails when the flowers open in a few days. Most of my milkweeds have been eaten to the ground by monarch caterpillars. I've added 5 native species so far and hope to germinate the seed I recently collected from the few-flowered milkweed (Aslepias lanceolata) that I stumbled on about a month ago. The two native senna species have yet to bloom, but they should attract sulfur butterflies when they do. I still await the white peacocks (which I sometimes see in my neighborhood) finding my water bacopa (Bacopa monnieri). It remains a mystery to me why the lush carpet of this plant in my created wetland remains intact.
My landscape is a testament that even a small yard surrounded by a nonnative and gravel desert can provide for the living world. I cannot convert every inch to my plantings as this is not my yard - it is rented, but it doesn't have to be more extensive than I have planted. It just has to be well planned and purposeful.