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Happy gardening!

Tuesday 4 June 2013

Bees & Blooms in Brittany...

 
Some good news this end is that there have been numerous fledged Blue Tits, Great Tits and Long Tailed Tits appearing this week which has kind of made up for the horrors of my previous posting. I found some off-cuts from decking squares which seem to have made ideal material for re-cladding my nest boxes with - judging by the difficulty I had banging in the nails! I'm hoping that this should deter the Woodpeckers in the future... time will tell I guess.




It was great to see such glorious weather return here at the weekend and all the bees were out in abundance... and many flowers coming into bloom which have stayed in bud for much longer this year than previously due to the colder start... not sure they need much introducing... so hope you enjoy the photos I've taken, and hoping that good weather is with you also wherever you are in the world when you read this..
 
An interesting observation this end is the distinct lack of butterflies at the moment - we've quite a number of the Speckled Wood and the little Blue butterflies but not a great deal else... have other people found this too?
 
Whilst watching Chelsea Flower this year I learnt something new which I'd never noticed before... Chris Beardshaw talking about the name of Columbine given to Aqualegia (that bit I did know) but that Columbine infact means dove... if you look at the top of an Aqualegia flower it is like five doves all coming together - quite beautiful!  This is easier to see in some forms of this flower than others.
 
The bees infact take the nectar from the top of the flower as opposed to going inside as with others...

 








I'm not going to profess to be an expert on bees but much enjoyed the variety of bees that I photographed on the various clumps of Chives we have in the veg garden!  If anyone can tell me more about the species of bees shown here I'd be very appreciative!











What I've tried to show in these photos of the plants in our own garden is the variety that can be grown that really benefit not only bees but insects too!
This was a Foxglove which I grew from seed - bought from Nicky's Seeds - it's taken a couple of years to come into flower from sowing but worth the wait!



The Geranium Phaeum varieties we have in our garden are fantastic for bees - especially with their open blooms offering easy access to pollen.



These wonderful Wood Poppies - Stylophorum diphyllum are great for the honey bees - notice the heavily laden pollen sac on this one!






The poppies are also a real favorite for the honey bees - this variety "Patty's Plum" is a beautiful colour!







An interesting observation here in Brittany is the distinct lack of butterflies at the moment - we've quite a number of the Speckled Wood and the little Blue butterflies but not a great deal else... have other people found this too?    Enjoy the rest of the week... lots to do outside this week before we get thunderstorms forecast on Thursday and over the weekend :-(

2 comments:

Midmarsh John said...

Great to read that other bird families have managed to bring up their young. What a lovely variety of flowers you have there.

Miranda Bell said...

Thanks MMJ - we had thunderstorms for a good bit of yesterday and even more fledged babies in the garden today... they all seem to fledge either during lots of rain or just after - endless cheaping in the garden and woodland - it's just trying to photograph them with such a great leaf canopy now. All the rain and heat has caused growth to come on in leaps and bounds. Over the 10 yrs we've here almost I've collected all sorts of plants and cuttings so the variety is always increasing... just takes time to keep up with all the weeding!