Bee Hotels
There’s been a lot of talk of insect/bee hotels lately. I’ve been seeing them in most of the botanical gardens that I’ve visted over the past few years. This one was featured at one of the arboretums in Paris.
It’s very cute and looks lovely in the garden. While I’ve always thought about building one, I’ve never gotten around to it. Lately, studies have shown that they’re not as beneficial as once thought. It’s much more effective to produce more natural habitats for them. We have a few large brush piles in the woods where lots of these types of bees and other insects can live. We leave dead trees standing if they’re not a hazzard to us or the house. There are lots of things you can do to help native bees without providing apartment complexes for them. Now I don’t feel so bad about never making one.
Have you spotted any native bee hotels in local gardens?
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Harvesting Poppy Seeds
I grow a lot of breadseed poppies here, they seem to spring up every summer. They bloom beautifully, so I only pull the ones that are in locations where I simply can’t allow them to grow. The rest of them get to grow wherever they germinate, which seems to be everywhere. This year I’ve had more than I’ve ever had in the garden.
Now that’s they’ll all finished blooming, the seed pods are starting to dry off. Since there are so many, I don’t want all those seeds falling on the soil and germinating next year. I’m harvesting as many seed heads as I can and saving them to use this winter.
It looks like I’ll get about 6 cups of poppy seeds for baking (I’ll save a few Tablespoons for planting). I’ve never really been a poppyseed kind of a person, for baking and such. Now that I have a lot, I plan on making a few things.
Do you have any great poppyseed recipes to recommend?
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Ideas, Ideas
When I was in Philadelphia a few weeks ago I visited Terrain. I find this space to be very inspirational, the non polished surfaces, the way they organize things, the plants, paint; all of it.
What sorts of spaces do you find inspiring?
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Local Garden Tours
I’m lucky that we have a lot of local garden tours during the summer months. My local garden club features a different garden each Friday, which is a nice way to do it. After hitting the bank, the grocery store, and the farmers market, I visit the garden of the day. We also have several land trusts that have garden tours, I always try to make the Georges River Land Trust Tour. This year there were 5 gardens on the tour, each lovely. Here’s one that I saw 5 years ago or so, and was happy to visit again.
The espaliered fruit trees, the little handmade greenhouse, large trees, flowers, vines, and vegetables, it all works beautifully well. It’s well done, but not overdone. After seeing lots of gardens, you can definitely tell the difference in a garden when it is created by someone that loves to garden versus someone who likes gardens and hires someone else to do the work. Gardens created over years have a wonderfully settled feel, they feel real, transparent, you can see the personality of the gardener coming through.
Do you visit local gardens on open days? Have you gleaned any good ideas for your garden?
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So Long Samson
Yesterday morning found me at the vet with Samson, our 15 year old orange cat. His kidneys failed this past weekend and thus we had to say goodbye. It wasn’t a huge surprise, we found out this spring that his kindeys were starting to weaken. With supplements he gained an extra few months of life.
We adopted him and his sister Soafie as kittens many years ago and he’s been a wonderful member of the family for the past 15 years. He was Lucy’s favorite cat (Lucy was the lab mix that the gardens were named after) and a favorite of most people he met.
He was the typical orange male cat, friendly and loving, always willing to give love and accept love in return.
It’s always sad to say goodbye to our furry family members, but it’s nice to know they have lived long happy lives. So Long Samson.
