20 April                   Bee Flowers, ‘Weed’ Carpets


 

Mid-April - white wild cherries emerge from dappled light on delicate tree shapes. Fresh greens and pinks of young leaves begin to mask the houses, and showers are in the offing.



 There will be more cherry flowers here and native trees in young leaf next Spring and beyond... the whips we all planted as part of the village project a couple of years back are now human height, and flourishing first flowers. Plant power is pushing apace.



Here,  a Peony pushes up through an old snail shell in the way of upward progress towards the light!

 

Wildlife Gardening Tips:




 

Rather than have blank bare soil gaps between the big flower promise to come, I let blanket self seeders get on with it: they make good Winter/early Spring green ground cover and end of March, nectar flowers start opening for early insects (4 -Honey Bee). Right now, Forget-me-not and Honesty are in full flower. When they have made some seed they can be hauled out to make room for the surrounding perennials - later flowering. Leave a few old seed stems of Honesty for their silvery discs to flutter and glitter in Autumn and Winter light. (Honesty seedlings produce flowers in their second year.) 

 








Meanwhile shrub and tree flowers are in waiting or just in flower (7 Lilac and Choisya ‘Sundance’) whilst Winter blossom (8 Japonica) and Rosemary still hang on attracting Honeybees and Bumble Bees - great and small. Big Bumble Queens (8) right now are looking for and selecting their nest sites – any dark holes between wall stones (9) and under dense twigs are closely inspected. 

 






The lucky ones are emerging from their hotels(10 Red Mason Bee), while others are looking for free shelter and a free meal (11, 12 – wasp and spider).

 

Our Bee Event in March was a feast of information for the Wildlife Gardener... 

Here are some of the tips from our speaker

Richard Rickitt, more will follow later!

 

What to Plant for Bees


  Credits: 1-12 Nicolette Scourse. 13, 14 Richard Rickitt


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