A Gardener's Notebook » Insects

A Gardener’s Notebook in Troy-Bilt’s newsletter, “The Dirt”

Douglas E. Welch — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:00:52 +0000

As part of my work with Troy-Bilt, I regularly write for their monthly newsletter, The Dirt. This month, my article is entitled “Inch-by-Inch” and appears below in it’s entirety.

Read the entire newsletter

If you would like to subscribe to The Dirt, visit the Troy-Bilt web site and subscribe.

Your garden – inch by inch by Douglas Welch, A Gardener’s Notebook

Often we look at our garden plant by plant – which is doing well, which is doing poorly, which one needs to be moved. At other times, we try to take in the big picture. We map, we plan and try to create one seamless whole. There are times, though, when inch-by-inch is the way we see it, and it brings a unique viewpoint.

The Edging

: Wine bottle edging in the garden (Photo credit: dewelch)

Several weeks ago we started a new edging project in the garden. Beginning with the smallest rose bed, we decided to use old wine and glass water bottles to surround the bed. The previous limbs we had used were now several years old and had deteriorated almost completely. I did a bit of research online, including looking for images of bottle edging, to make sure we wanted to proceed. It certainly seemed worth a try. We would do this small bed first and then decided if we wanted to continue it in others.

Of course, doing an edging project like this means getting “down and dirty” with your garden – usually on your hands and needs. You notice immediately how the soil differs inside the bed to the hard, compacted soil of the surrounding paths. You get a clear view of the quality of the soil in the beds as you dig the trench alongside.

You notice insects – good and bad – weeds, and maybe even the rust that is forming on the lower leaves of the roses that you hadn’t noticed before. Oh, oh, are those aphids?!? Ah, but you also notice the lady larvae and adults ready to eat them up. Your garden takes on a different meaning on this micro scale. You don’t notice the thistles and bindweed as much, but the blackspot and Japanese beetles really catch your eye. You don’t notice the bad pruning on the box hedges, but the quality of the soil as it sits in your hand makes you sit in wonder for just a moment.

A project

If all this sounds very foreign to you, I am going to charge you with a project the next time you are in your garden. Take a 1-meter-square area of your garden and mark it off in some way. Use a piece of rope or string to outline the area. If you have seen archaeologists working in movies or on TV, think about what their digs look like. While this 1 meter can be a patch of lawn, consider placing it over the junction between a bed and the lawn. You’ll get better results in your experiment.

Now that you have marked out the area, sit down – better yet, lie down on your belly – and start to take note of every living thing you see there. First off you’ll see the grass, the daylilies, the small weeds. Then look deeper. You’ll see ants, aphids, beetles and a host of other insects. Keep looking. Now there are worms, spiders, sow bugs, spider mites and more. I can guarantee you that you will notice more than you ever thought possible in your small 1 meter area and all of it is there, teeming with life, every day.

I know that, for me, observing my garden in this macroscopic way brings a deeper appreciation and deeper understanding of my garden when I look out from my back door each morning, coffee cup in hand. I never see just the paths and the plants anymore. In my mind I see it all – everything that exists down there among the roots, as well as everything on the surface.

It is quite amazing how a small garden project can lead you down the merry path of deep thoughts, but, then again, isn’t that one major reason we garden in the first place?

This post is part of my paid work as part of Troy-Bilt’s Saturday6. The opinions are solely mine.

A Gardener’s Notebook in Troy-Bilt’s newsletter, “The Dirt” is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

Photo: Bees Up Close

Douglas E. Welch — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 22:55:02 +0000

It took some time to make peace with honey bees. I grew up with yards that were more clover than grass, so summer days often involved accidentally stepping on bees in the yard while we played. Along with that we had nasty mud dauber wasps that seem to sting you for no other reason than just being there. Add to that the ground dwelling bees that would sometimes well up when you were mowing the yard and it tended to make you a bit scared of anything that flew and sort of looked like a bee or wasp.

I have learned over the years, though, how to identify a honey bee (and our somewhat bumbling huge carpenter bees) here in California. I am often showing people the difference between the gentle honey bee and the aggressive food scavenging yellow jacket wasps. I am always telling people that a honey bee doesn’t want to sting you because stinging means that it will die. Wasps, on the other hand, can (and do) sting multiple times without too much ill effect.

I have walked through clouds of honeybees who have been naturally swarming near trails and such and find them a docile, if acoustically intimidating, companion. Their buzzing can get quite loud in mass and I think this scares a lot of people, too.

I don’t have room for honeybees here in my yard, but I think in different circumstances I might become a beekeeper, tending my flock for the benefit of us both.

Photo: Bees Up Close is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

Photo: Passiflora, passiflora fruit and Gulf Fritillary caterpillar

Douglas E. Welch — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 02:23:38 +0000

I felt so lucky to find this picture along our walk. Here you have 3 major components of the passiflora life cycle — the alien-looking flowers, the resulting fruit and even a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar (there on the right above the green fruit), which feeds almost exclusively on passiflora.

I hadn’t noticed the caterpillar initially as I was taking other pictures, but as I was framing a shot, there it was.

Click for larger version

From Wikipedia…

The Gulf Fritillary or Passion Butterfly, Agraulis vanillae, is a striking, bright orange butterfly of the family Nymphalidae, subfamilyHeliconiinae. These were formerly classified in a separate family, the Heliconiidae or longwing butterflies, and like other longwings this species does have long, rather narrow wings in comparison with other butterflies. It is not closely related to the true fritillaries. It is a medium to large butterfly, with a wingspan of 6–9.5 cm (2.4–3.7 in). Its underwings are buff, with large silvery spots.^[1] It takes its name from migrating flights of the butterflies sometimes seen over the Gulf of Mexico.

Read more about the Gulf Fritillary on Wikipedia

I have harvested some of the seed pods from these plants and, while they have grown, the caterpillars eat the leaves almost as quickly as they grow. I need to find a better spot where the vines can out pace the insects, I guess.

Photo: Passiflora, passiflora fruit and Gulf Fritillary caterpillar is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

Building a Native Bee Box

Douglas E. Welch — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:03:01 +0000

My friend, Keri, has created an excellent “Bee Box” for her garden. Read the entire article at her site.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for over a year, build a nesting box for native bees and other insects. My friend Doug Welch from A Gardener’s Notebook had sent me various plans and ideas. I had a wooden wine box with a sliding lid and it seemed perfect.”

Read Building a Native Bee Box via AnimalBytes

Building a Native Bee Box is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook

No related posts.

Bees are swarming and being captured all over Los Angeles (with video)

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:33:46 +0000

A recent blog post at the BackWards Beekeeping site included some photos and this video about capturing a recent swarm.

Read “Your Bee Rescue Hotline at Work”

Bees are swarming and being captured all over Los Angeles (with video) is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook