" Friends of the Bees"

Help save the Honey Bees, she urged...,
originally uploaded by A Fanciful Twist.

As we garden this year, lets not forget our tiny friends the bees! They are in a serious crisis and so are we, If they continued to die! What do you think will happen to us! !

I commented and voiced my concerns before on this issue on my post: Please Help The Bee's Help Us! 3/8/2010 and once again this serious topic was back this morning on the Yahoo news page.

      ( Bees In more trouble than ever after bad winter ).

This is a subject that is not going away soon and I'll probably post my concerns more than once about it.. I hope those of you who garden will join me as a voice and friend of the bee by  planting the nectar rich plants that our bees love. Please post your results....But don't just stop there..there are so many more ways that we can help....Here are a few helpful links to get you started.

The following links that got my attention, but I'm sure there are many more out there to discover...North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPP) was established in 1999 and has worked since than to promote and protect our tiny friends, they are one of many I call the Friends of the Bees! checkout http://pollinator.org.. they have a guide that helps the gardener attract all the pollinators... bees, birds and bats.

Urban Bee Gardens:  This is a guide based in California but the concept applies every where. This website explains the importance of our pollinators, choosing the right plants, how mulching can affect the bee, and how our native bee and our honeybee  differ....Introduction Why Make yours a Bee Garden? 
  http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens

From the Daily green ...Gardening to Attract Honey Bees...

http://www.thedailygreen.com/going-green/tips/2790

High Country Gardens...Get your Garden Buzzing with a native mason bee nest. 

http://plants.highcountrygardens.com

Life on the Balcony: Is a blog by Fern Richardson who shares her expertise on container gardening and more...if you are a container gardener such as myself, visit Life on the balcony for tips on attracting bees to the container garden... select  Birds, Bees, & Butterflies in the category search  box. ...

http://lifeonthebalcony.com

Diana of the ( Voice in the garden ) has some awesome photos of a Honey bee colony rescue from a fallen Oak tree on her property. http://voiceinthegarden.blogspot.com

From Yahoo News page... The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Colony Collapse Disorder: http://tinyurl.com/usdaccd

The study in Public Library of Science One...

http://tinyurl.com/beepaper

It's the first day of spring!

It's the first day of Spring! ...But does it feel like it here in Michigan...Nope! ...Our weather forecasters here In Michigan warned us that we would have some cooler temps ahead!.... 
 

So..Thursday when the temps hit a high of 70! I took advantage of the warm weather and got outside where I  finally  got a little yard work done and took a few pictures.  
The Magnolia buds right corner: will soon have lovely soft pink flowers.

A make shift cage.. I made out of metal crates to stop the squirrels from destroying my potted Sedums.and a  view from the cage on the inside where dragons blood and other sedums are coming to life in safety.

The small flower plot ( below )   held Cosmos, Hyssop, Speedwell, Daisies and a few others that I can't recall at the moment....It also held a solar water fountain... a Mother's day gift to My Mom. Mom and I are garden partner's and we were both out tiding up the yard..happy to finally take advantage of a warm March day.

My cat Panni thinks that if she stays down low enough..we won't notice that she sneaked outside. .. I love the shadow of the tree branches in the shot.

One of two willow trees right)  that we planted in 22  gallon plastic totes....They will need replanting this spring...The totes are bursting with willow roots.

                                                                                                  


Rose hips on a rambling rose. This rose produces tons of  prolific bright red roses during the summer and is a show stopper in the front yard..We will  need  to trim it back a little ..for it has enough thorns to Kill the devil!  In-fact..I nick named it the Red devil. 

My chick-a-dee couple butch and Beatrice .. Played a pretty good game on me while I was trying to snap a photo of them with my point and shoot  Canon powershot SD1200 IS ...

Every time I raised my camera to shoot one of them, they would run to the other side of the feeder out of my focus...

This continued until my eyes were crossed..and after about an half hour, I was able to snap one of them. ..ha..ha.. Very funny".

Happy first day of spring and thank you for stopping by.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day 2010

Once again it's the 15th of the month, that means it's Garden blogger's bloom day.
Every 15th, participating blogger's post lovely blooms for My Dream Gardens bloom day event hosted by Carol.

I can't wait for these Tiger lilies on the side of my house to bloom this summer. There Hot orange colors are show stoppers for those that pass by.. and since I had no blooms of my own to display at home, I decided to take a few photos of whats blooming at my local Kroger supermarket.

They did not turn out as clear as I expected..."Oh well,  it's the thought that counts".

(1). A beautiful  group of orchids to the right of the screen:

( 2). Tulips and what I think were yellow daisies: bottom left:

( 3)  A sweet little Gerber daisy on the bottom right.                   

 Spring is in the air..I heard Robins in the trees and I'm finally feeling gleeful and much more positive today.  What can lift your spirits higher then sunshine and singing Robins.
   

                                                                                 

                                                                                            

" Please help the bees help us!

Bumble Bee head-on,
originally uploaded by Jim Nicholson.

Spring is on it's way and I have been reminiscing about my garden and a alarming issue that I first learned about two summers ago.

That issue was about and still is about, our nations bee crisis.. It is one that is wide spread, effecting both the U.S and Europe. These vital pollinators are disappearing! and scientist are scrambling to figure out why... Some of their findings in my opinion are well founded and make a lot of sense, although those who are responsible for this crisis I'm sure, would deny it.

I'm a amateur gardener...I like to grow vegetables and flowers and little did I know that a bee crisis was happening in my neck of the woods....

after reading some articles on this issue in a couple of garden magazines, I decided that I could help play a part in helping out these little creatures by choosing flowers that they would enjoy the most..such as...
Hyssop, Red Clover, Bee balm, Lavender, Purple Coneflowers, Sun flowers and Cosmos to name a few.

Squash, tomatoes, peppers, chives, radish, and a few carrots shared a place in a couple of containers. I was excited as I often am when I plant something and wait for it's turn out...

But my excitement turned in to disappointment...It would be a bad year for gardening, for the weather took forever to warm up here in Michigan and when it finally did.. there were No.. Honeybees to be found!

Bumble bees frequent the Honeysuckle and Wiegela shrubs.. showing little interest in anything else...
once and a while one or two would fly over to the other areas in the yard and I thought perhaps that just maybe there was some hope for my pathetic little garden, but I saw no changes in my vegetable production.

My squash would not flower and the buds fell off.. My cucumbers were nubs and the peppers, radish and carrots were stunted.

Every day when I found the opportunity I would sit for hours watching different areas of my garden for these Honeybees while taking notes in my garden journal.

It was mid summer when I begin to see a few and by a few I mean about Six!....Six Honey bees and about four native ( Mason bees). These numbers did not increase through out the whole summer! and neither did the plant population in my garden.

The only veggies that did fair well were my tomatoes.. Sweet 100's and Early girl.

It is possible that the weather and missing bees both played a part in my garden disaster..However if the weather had turned out perfect..I was still going to have a garden flop!.. evident by the lack of bees!

I had my first experience with our Honey bee crisis! and I'm currently studying once again what plants to grow in my garden this year to help out these VITAL little creatures..they are CRUCIAL to our SURVIVAL and our PLANET and I have included a few links so that you may learn more about this serious crisis! and how you can help because... They Need Us and We Need Them! ...

The web is full of helpful information on this subject... Here's a few that I found quite interesting and informative:  please visit the web pages below......

Why the Bees are Dying:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_5356.cfm

Why Make yours a bee Garden?
http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens

Bee Pollinator Partnership:
http://www.pollinator.org

Jessica of a Girl Growing Southern supplied this information:
Plant Diversity helps bees:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8467746.stm

Diana of the voice in the garden..http://voiceinthegarden.blogspot.com )  has some awesome photos of a Honey bee colony rescue from a fallen oak tree on her property.