There Were No Fences

Chapman's goldenrod - September 24, 2019 Rudbeckia hirta - September 24, 2019 Nature is resilient to our mistakes, but it only goes so far. It has been about a week since the total collapse of my pollinators and some of them have returned. The tiny sweat bees, for example, have returned but in far fewer numbers than were here before. A single deltoid scarab beetle and aa grass skipper were here today as well, but my aster-type blooms are still mostly being visited by lovebugs.  Disparage these insects all you want, but they are doing the job that was once done by at least a dozen species of bees and without them I'm not sure anything right now would get pollinated.  I have the luxury of being able to garden most days of the week - my teaching schedule puts me in the classroom right now only two days a week and even then, I have a few hours in the morning to take in what is happening in my landscape.  It has been a very slow road to recovery here. I trust that wh...

Today's Wildflower Planting - September 15 2019 A solitary bee - Chapman's goldenrod My first wife often made derogatory remarks about me going out to "stare" at my native plant garden. Fact is, I do that all the time - every day for as long as I can and still get some work done. It's what brings me joy and peace of mind - and more importantly, it has taught me a great deal about the plants I've been writing about these past 3+ decades here in Florida. Observations will always tell you more than books and the thoughts of "experts".  With the development of my wildflower garden and the burst of flowers that have appeared over the past few weeks, these goldenrods and all the other wildflowers brought a huge number of pollinators to my front yard and an amazing diversity of species. It was a testament to the power of native plants and their ability to support life, even in the relatively sterile landscape of my new surroundings. Sometime in th...

Pine lily - Lilium catesbaei Flyr's nemesis - Brickellia cordifolia My landscape continues to develop here in Holiday. Each day brings something new and I believe that this is what landscaping with native plants gives to us - a never ending progression of flowers, pollinators and change. The mostly "tropical" plants used so commonly in my part of the world are static. They often provide nothing in terms of ecological value, but they are static things that bring no sense of changing seasons and nothing new to look forward to. When folks tell me that Florida has "no seasons", I know that they have not surrounded themselves with native plants. I mark the seasons with my plants and they never fail to tell me what time of year it is. Today, my time of year is punctuated with two of my favorites - the amazingly beautiful pine lily ( Lilium catesbaei ) and the equally beautiful Flyr's nemesis ( Brickellia cordifolia ). Both of these are listed species and...

Eggs and newly emerged larvae of eastern black swallowtails Newly hatched caterpillar of giant swallowtail Newly emerged white peacock butterfly caterpillar When I moved from my former home in Seminole, I took a few pieces of water bacopa ( Bacopa monnieri ) with me. It is not always an easy plant to find at a native plant nursery and it is easy to transplant. To be honest, I simply pulled up about half a dozen runners, each about 2 inches long, from my former created wetland, kept them moist and pushed them into the ground in my new wetland in various places.  This was important to me because water bacopa is the best larval host plant for the white peacock butterfly and I was determined to have this butterfly living with me in my new home. Over the past 9 months, the bacopa has spread across pretty much every square inch of the wetland surface and has even begun creeping over the edges into the leaf mulch beneath the native azaleas I planted outside the wetland itself...

Ground-nesting bee nest hole Over the past months, my wildflower garden has been rapidly developing and is a major attraction for all types of bees and other pollinating insects, but until yesterday I saw no indication that any of the ground-nesting bees were using the bare soil to create nest holes. I've been looking, so I'm pretty confident that this hole I discovered yesterday is a new development. The small circular hole was obvious. The yellow sandy subsoil was tossed up in pellet-like piles off to the side. To date, I have not seen the bee that excavated it, bit I know from experience that it is a bee and that my landscape is finally on the path to creating life, not just sustaining it with nectar and pollen.  Bare soil is critical to the overall equation that results in the creation of a living landscape. It is never enough to simply feed adults if they can't produce offspring as well, and a great many of the bees that are visiting my wildflowers are solitary sp...

Littlehip haw - Crataegus spathulata May haw - Crataegus aestivalis Summer haw - Crataegus flava I have a special love of hawthorns ( Crataegus spp.) that I cannot trace back to any one instance or event in my life. It could be that my love of all things related to the ancient Celts had something to do with it. The Celts found magic in hawthorns. The folklore surrounding hawthorns is widespread. Other European cultures associated haws with May Flowers - Mary's Flowers - and they hung them on their doorways to bring good luck and to protect it from evil spirits. It may be that my love of this genus started to "blossom" in full after I moved south from my earlier life in the Midwest. Up north, there are just so many flowering trees in the rose/apple family to use in one's landscape and I've loved roses from early childhood. With my move to Florida, I soon discovered that the vast majority of roses that I was familiar with could not be grown here with a...

Pinebarren Frostweed Greeneyes Pine Lily I have a good friend of mine that meets conflict by stating that all she wants is peace and beauty. She has no time for anything else, but in landscapes as well as in relationships, we can't have peace and beauty without putting in a great deal of work. Landscapes don't happen by divine accident. Beauty doesn't come without forethought. Peace doesn't come until after we've put in a great deal of work. All of us find our own beauty in the things we surround ourselves with. Aesthetics is in the eye of the beholder and few of us are willing to keep a landscape devoid of the beauty we seek. It has never been my intention to denigrate someone's sense of beauty. As my landscape develops, I spend more time in it as it brings me joy to see flowers opening and pollinators visiting them. Each is beautiful to me and I could care less if my neighbors also find it beautiful or if they consider it an eyesore to the sea o...