Garden Centre

Sunday, January 27, 2008

The flowers I’m not picking ...

From last week’s cold snap – this frosted polyanthus is today shining like summer has arrived – despite being touched by ice only five days ago. Today, of course, the sun is shining and there have been two bumble bees (white-bottomed ones which I’m guessing are B. hortorum) buzzing drunkenly around the garden as if it’s June already.

The bumble bees ignore the polyanthus, of course. Their favourite lurking ground is inside the flowers of the winter clematis, which then wiggle around on the plant as if they are bells being rung, and the bees also visit the winter jasmine, but they ignore everything else that’s in flower.

We put out logs last year for the solitary bees that we finally identified – these bees, which are great pollinators, nest in cavities in wood. In nature these are formed by beetles that live in the wood as larvae, then tunnel out as adults – so the beetles leave behind a ready made nest hole for bees and wasps that prefer to nest in cavities. Because solitary bees are great pollinators, because only the females sting (and feebly, at that, and usually only if you actually handle them roughly), because they don’t ‘gang up’ and swarm gardens, preferring to hang about on their own, I’m really keen to have more of them. It is said to be easy to recreate these ready-made nest holes. Simply drill timber with holes that slope slightly upwards (this stops them flooding with rainwater in bad weather and drowning the bee or its larvae) and watch the bees take up residence. Well, we did, but whether they bees will move in is anybody’s guess. I shall keep a close eye on the bee logs this year.

Labels: bees, winter flowers, winter interest, winter plants

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:36 AM

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