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Texas Native Plant Week, 2015

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This week, October 18-24, 2015, is Texas Native Plant Week.

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So delegated each year, the third week of October is set aside for appreciation, recognition, and promotion of Texas native plants. Activities for the week focus on educating Texans–gardeners and others–on the importance of protecting native plants in the wild and gardening with our beautiful and diverse native plant species.

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If you don’t live in Texas, there are lovely native plants where you do live.  Learn about them, grow them in your garden, protect them in the wild, and teach others about their value: for wildlife, for a healthy environment, and for beauty.

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Check out the  links below for the  sponsoring organizations of Texas Native Plant Week, to learn more about what each offers in educational activities:

Native Plant Society of Texas

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of The University of Texas at Austin

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

National Wildlife Federation

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There are many reasons to go native in the garden: to benefit wildlife which is rapidly declining (with potentially catastrophic consequences), to conserve the valuable resource of water because native plants use less of it than traditional lawn and landscape plants.  Plus natives don’t require fertilizers or other chemical interventions which pollute waterways.

Also, native plants are just damn pretty.

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For 2014 Texas Native Plant Week I wrote a series promoting the use of native plants in the home garden.  If you’d like to read some of the reasons why you should switch to native plants as well as information about some of those native plants, check out the following links:

Texas Native Plant Week

Texas Native Plant Week–Rock Rose, Pavonia lasiopetala

Texas Native Plant Week–Turk’s Cap, Malvaviscus arboreus 

Texas Native Plant Week–Goldeneye, Viguiera dentata

Texas Native Plant Week–Seeds-N-Berries

Texas Native Plant Week–Autumn Stuff

Texas Native Plant Week–Garden Vignettes

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Plant natives!!

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Bloom Day, October 2015

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For the past few months, I’ve been remiss in participating in Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.  October seems a good time to break newly formed bad habits and join in again with this celebration of all things blooming.

I’m enjoying plenty  of Autumn blooms in my garden and so are various pollinators as they ramp up for winter dormancy.  Frostweed, Verbesina virginica, is loaded with bloom clusters,

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…and hosts a remarkable variety of grateful and busy pollinating buddies, like this honeybee and Grey Hairstreak butterfly, Strymon melinus.

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The Gregg’s Mistflower, Conoclinium coelestinum,  is also a favorite amongst the winged and antennaed crowd.

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But it doesn’t mind going it alone, either.

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Pairing beautifully with Gregg’s Mistflower is the Texas Craglily, Echeandia texensis.  This lovely and uncommon Texas fall bloomer is open for business as well, though the native bees have been too quick for me to capture any photographs of their hard work.

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Goldeneye,  Viguiera dentata, is flush with bright, sunshine blooms

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…and alive with constantly attending honeybees.

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What’s blooming where you live?   Show off your blooms, then hop over to May Dreams Garden for October’s blooming bonanza.

 

Bee Mama Missive: Beetles Bee Damned, Part II

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In my last post I promised an update on the Small Hive Beetle, Aethina tumida, (also known as SHB), infestation of our beloved Scar and Mufasa hives.  SHB can wreck honeybee hives by damaging comb and spoiling honeystores; they can be the death knell of weak hives.  We’ve had more of the SHB making themselves at home in our hives this summer, due (probably) to the wet spring.   Bee Daddy and I  are attempting to control their population and help our bee-gals gain the upper hand against these noxious creatures by setting non-chemical traps.  We checked the hives twice, once in late August and again, two weeks ago, and the Beetle Bee Gone traps continue to do what they’re supposed to do–trap beetles.  Yay!

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Scar, the weaker of our two hives, had very few beetles at last check–which is excellent.  Mufasa, though stronger, still had more beetles than I’d prefer, but significantly fewer than at the beginning of summer.

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We’re doing our part and the honeys are doing their part. Just as we were preparing to open up the hives, these girls were cleaning out the bee ‘hood.  They were removing some of the fuzz, beetles entrapped, from the hive.  I smoked the bees, then pulled out the  material so the girls could put their efforts toward more important work.

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Hmmm.  I wonder if I could get them to clean my house?

Both hives also had capped and uncapped brood and Mufasa was so flush with full honeycomb that we harvested one comb, though I haven’t had time to squish and drip the golden glory into bottles.  I’m guessing this haul is worth about 24-32 ounces.

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Once our autumn blooming season kicks into gear, the bees will be in honey flow mode and more of the gorgeous goo will be made for winter storage.

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We’ll pull some off for ourselves, leaving the bulk of honey for the bees to nosh during the cold and the dark of winter. Not that it gets that cold and dark in Central Texas, but yeah, we do have winter!

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All good news on the honeybee front for now!   I will check the hives again soon, but am confident that the SHB have declined and are no longer threatening our darling girls.

Go honeybees!