All the Pretty Little Flowers 4: The Residents

Now we’ve talked a lot about how important wildflowers are in general for all kinds of lovely critters, so here they are.

Teensy tiny bees. The flower has at most a diameter of 15-20 mm. The bee is the size of my pinky finger nail.

A very fat fly. Probably one of those that try to eat us alive.

This one dressed all up for the occasion.

Yes, there’s also spiders.

And pretty birds ;)

Mushroom Hunt Pictures: Bellflowers

Not done with these pictures yet. Just very busy and tired.

A Few Pretty Butterflies

From Avalus.

All the Pretty Little Flowers 3: The Downstairs

Poor PZ is still mowing his lawn. Around here Mr regularly sighs “I need to mow the lawn and then we do something else. I like that. I think we will make some hay later in summer in preparation of the degus. For now it’s a pretty wilderness.

Though we should not use that area for feed as there are many raspberries starting their career there right now.

[Read more…]

Jack’s Walk

Ahem… (singing) Just me and my Shadow, walking down the avenue (not the old, but the new).

Jack wanted to stop for a rest today, and it seemed the perfect time to snap a pic of our footwear. Jack is sporting his usual handsome greying toes, and I am wearing my feelings on my feet instead of my sleeve.

Storks on the Hunt

Avalus is doing some fieldwork with his new camera and he’s spied this flock of storks. He tells me that they’ve been around for awhile and hints that we may see them again.

All the Pretty Little Flowers 2: The Slopes

As you may recall, our house is built on pretty steep terrain. The ground floor windows in the front are the first floor in the back. From there you have another treeish metres height difference to the garden. last year we had the stairs remodelled, since the old ones were rapidly becoming accidents waiting to happen. The slopes on either side are still steep and this year we started to stabilise the left hand side so we can put a lamppost on top.

The small area created at the top has been sown with “butterfly meadow” and “wildflower mix”. You can buy these seed mixes easily in Germany as many people are trying to bee more friendly. I also always toss a few handful on the rest of the area, which remains in pretty disarray.

The dark side of the pumpkin patch. That area is more or less permanently in shade and this year we just didn’t have the nerve to look for something that would thrive there after the slugs ate the first round of plants. Suggestions welcome. But you can see the structure well.

The pumpkin/squash/courgette patch. they are coming along nicely with several promising plants already. Only I never know what is what. You can also see the bane of my gardening existence: Horsetail. A plant that survived the dinosaurs. Common gardening advice is “nuke it from orbit”. It spreads through rhizomes that are also very fragile and will snap quickly so you’ll never get them all out. But you can make some wonderful fertilizer out of it: put the plants into a bucket with water and let it rot. Stinks like hell, but 100% organic, free and efficient.

[Read more…]

All the Pretty Little Flowers 1: The frontyard

Pz has been raging and ranting about lawns and lawnmowers and I wholeheartedly agree. It also prompted me to do a bit of bragging about the sheer beauty of not having a lawn. Let’s start with the front yard, which was carefully weeded when we bought the house. Here’s another aspect of those lawn and front yard regulations: To keep them up to “standards” you need time to do it or money to hire somebody else to do it. I quickly reduced weeding to an absolute minimum. Nobody touches a dandelion in MY front yard. One thing that happened quickly was that wild strawberries overtook most of the ground. They do many things at once:

First, they protect the ground from drying out.

Second, they provide flowers for pollinators.

Third, they taste so good.

In spring I built a plant tower in an empty space that had previously been occupied by some useless evergreen bush that got thankfully eaten by caterpillars. I also planted some regular strawberries there.

Guarded by my little dragons

If you want to make bees happy, plant lavender. It will also make you happy. Lavender is low maintenance, just cut off the dry stalks in autumn and ok with dry weather. I don’t know if it can survive Minnesota winters.

Probably no German frontyard is complete without a hydrangea. They are lovely, but high maintenance (needing much water, cutting, right ground) and absolutely no good for insects. Like most plants here they are a leftover from the previous owner. I figure that with so many bee friendly plants around I can afford a couple that only look nice.

I have no idea about most of the plants that grow here. They were already well established when we moved in. Some of them have already bloomed long ago. I basically get flowers from March to October.

Also one corner has been taken over by some wildflowers. I like them, the insects like them. We’re good.

Oh, and btw, the next door neighbour has a lawn (I’m not criticising her, she’s 90 and still living all alone). It’s a sad brown area right now and the grass always creeps into my yard which means that I have to do the weeding there.

A Wee Bit of Bee Butt

Story and pictures by Avalus

I noticed earth-bees emerging and vanishing between two stone plates in the paveway in the garden, so I crouched down and waited for the next bee to come out. But the inhabitants were not that sure about the sudden appearance of a strange black block in front of their door and so cautiously just poked their heads out only to retreat again. (first picture and the detail cut out, with a head of a bee eying me suspiciously visible) Then after five minutes or so one of them had enough of the paparazzi, moved out and took off just as I moved in a more comfortable position and so I nearly missed her. As you can see, I just captured her butt :D.

Mushroom Hunt Pictures – A Seriously Tiny Spider

Behold below the fold. [Read more…]

Mushroom Hunt Pictures – Another Bumblebee

Mushroom Hunt Pictures – A Beetle on a Lookout

Mushroom Hunt Pictures – Roadside Desert

Death and destruction on the roadside. A parched strip of land, baked by the sun in the summer, destroyed by salt runoff in winter. But silverweed endures and sends its creeping stolons across it.

I did not notice the dead moth until today. But it fits the scenery just fine.

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All the Pretty Little Flowers 4: The Residents

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Mushroom Hunt Pictures: Bellflowers

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A Few Pretty Butterflies

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All the Pretty Little Flowers 3: The Downstairs

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Jack’s Walk

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Storks on the Hunt

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All the Pretty Little Flowers 2: The Slopes

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All the Pretty Little Flowers 1: The frontyard

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A Wee Bit of Bee Butt

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Mushroom Hunt Pictures – A Seriously Tiny Spider

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Mushroom Hunt Pictures – Another Bumblebee

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Mushroom Hunt Pictures – A Beetle on a Lookout

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Mushroom Hunt Pictures – Roadside Desert

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