Tuesday, June 10, 2008

THE GARDEN IS BUZZING

As a child I always used to think that my mothers habit of letting her garden run riot was very 'untidy'! Now I am older I can see what she was achieving, especially in this day and age of everyone wanting a 'natural area' in their garden. I guess she was just ahead of the curve. When we arrived in Cornwall her garden was looking spectacular in its usual riotous way.


The palate of colours is endless with the splendid pink
fox-gloves Digitalis purpurea proving quite irresistable to every bee for miles around. As children I remember we used to wear the fallen blooms on the ends of our fingers! As you can guess from the scientific name, it does yield the heart stimulant drug digitalis. And the plant is very poisonous so our habit of wearing the blooms was probably not the best thing to have done!








I shall not even attempt to try to identify the numerous insects that enjoy the endless array of nectar sources other than by the simplest of common names that I learnt as a child and now know to cover numerous species under one not very accurate umbrella. After all this is not meant to be a science lesson, just a shared pleasure in a beautiful piece of ground.







I have to thank my husband for getting these beautiful photos of a bumble-bee entering the fox-glove flowers. He indulged my request for this specific shot and sat in the middle of the garden until he got it! Even when he stood on an ants nest he didn't give up! That has to be the true definition of love!!






The rest of these pictures are just a continuation of the theme of flowers and their various pollenators. This little bee is working a scented geranium species.



This little metalic green hover fly was really vivid but it was incredibly difficult to capture as the sun was so bright, so you'll just have to take my word for it!






Another favorite plant of mine is one that is affectionately known, in our family, as 'they don't grow that big!' It too seems irresistable to all things buzzing, from hover flies









To this beautiful big bumble-bee with her leg sacks stuffed full of pollen.









Finally a tiny little newly emerged cricket who was almost perfectly camoflauged on this potatoe plant leaf.

Photo Credits - Dominick V and CJT

2 comments:

Rambling Woods said...

Bees have leg sacks. I didn't know that...

Celeste said...

Michelle - The worker bee has a “pollen sack” on each hind leg. The bee rubs its’ back legs together to compact the pollen it has collected down into the “sack”. - Isn't nature awesome :)