One of the Flower Beds September First

Late Summer Flowers is the name of one of my favorite garden books. If you plant enough flowers for this season, it will become your favorite, too.

Just outside the livingroom door we have comfortable chairs where we have our first coffee in the morning. Then, late in the afternoon we return for something cold to sip and watch the activity. This is what we see from our little 10-foot deck.
Stepping across the "grass" (mowed weeds, er wildflowers and native grasses) this is the 7 to 8 foot tall flowering white Crape Myrtle Natchez, Tatarian Aster and a yellow flowering native that I bought from Wild Things Nursery. Marilyn Stewart is getting back to me on its name.
From the side or end of the bed, you can recognize Salvia Guaranitica Black and Blue, Purple Majesty Millet, and Tatarian in the foreground. In the center in front of the tall (giant) plants - French marigolds, Sedum Autumn Joy and Salvia Lady-In-Red.

A close up of Sedum Autumn Joy between the pale green stage and the pink-rust flower stage.

The bed is mostly perennials with some annual zinnias, marigolds and salvias. Every plant is for the pollinators - skippers, bees, dragonflies and butterflies.

This end is Tithonia and zinnias - the sunny, hot side of the bed.

Pollinators = Pollination = Seeds

Joe Benton of Oklahoma State University Extension wrote a column about saving seeds that had some fascinating tidbits in it. Benton is an extension educator for Pottawatomie County.
Benton said that we should collect seeds from non-hybrids because hybrids do not come true from their seed.
The best candidates for seed collecting include: beans, broccoli, dill, corn, chives, leeks, muskmelon and garlic. They are bee pollinated except for beans which are self-pollinated and corn, which is wind pollinated.

Maybe you knew all that, though I did not.

Here are a other few facts that were new to me.

"Most flowers are pollinated by bees, butterflies and moths.

Bees can't see red, so the flowers they pollinate tend to be yellow, or sometimes blue. Some of these have ultraviolet landing patterns which they see also.

Butterflies see well, and red, but have a weak sense of smell. So most of the flowers they pollinate have little or no fragrance.

Moths are nocturnal, so the flowers they pollinate are often whites or colors seen more easily at night. Moths also smell well, so they pollinate strongly fragrant flowers easily found at night."

Who knew?

News of the Natural World

There is a lot of news of interest to nature and outdoors-types in Science Daily today.


BEES - First there are new reports about the sudden lack of honey bees to pollinate fruits and vegetables. Science Daily reports that "in the United States, half a million to a million colonies out of a total 2.4 million colonies have died this winter."

Habitat loss and disease in Europe together with a 50% drop in managed honeybee colonies in North America created a global phenomenon known as the ‘pollination crisis’.

Cornell and other research universities are making plans to investigate the cause and the federal government is considering investing tens of millions of dollars for competitive grants to programs targeting honeybees' health. Medicare for bees but without the paperwork.

SPIDERS - Entomologists at Louisiana State University report that brown widow spiders are becoming more common in Louisiana. They are as poisonous as the black widows.
brown widow-Dr. Chris Carlton, Louisiana State Arthropod Museum
The brown widow spider has a yellow-to-orange hourglass marking on the underside of its abdomen and hangs out in brush piles.

CARROTS - The seed catalogs are full of carrots in yellow, orange, red and purple but they have not caught on with the grocery buying public, no less the restaurant eating public.
Now that scientists have released study results that indicate these rainbow carrots have more healthful properties than tomatoes and other vegetables, maybe a demand will be created.
Specifically -
Xanthophylls in yellow carrots linked with good eye health.
Lycopene in red carrots is believed to guard against heart disease and some cancers.
Anthocyanins in purple carrots are considered to be powerful antioxidants that can guard cells from the destructive effects of free radicals.

More pressure to eat your carrots. Fall seems to be the best time to plant carrots in zone 7. Next time you see seeds pick some up to plant in September when the remnants of the summer vegetables come out.