Colorful Blooming Plants for Bees, Butterflies, and Me

My focus has been on growing vegetables in the yard, but now I am focused on adding blooming plants.

I still don’t have a car, so getting out is tough. My son took me to a local nursery and I used a gift card (from Christmas – it’s September!) to buy some flowers.

I gravitate to the bee covered flowering pots at the nursery, but once the plants are home, it’s a wait for my bees and butterflies to find the flowers.

I chose red, orange, yellow and “blue” flowers. The bumblebees like small yellow flowers and tall spikes. They come every day to my Holy Basil (Tulsi) which has very tiny flowers (pictures below). However, some also like the big open pumpkin flowers. It’s best to have a variety.

The Following Morning

I get out into the garden as early as possible because of the heat. My goal this morning was to get the Vegega bed filled with dirt. I always scout out the gardens in the morning. When I went to the back area, I discovered that both recently planted plants- were torn completely up out of the ground!!!!!

The blue Agastache and yellow lantana were lying on the ground with their roots exposed! The big planting holes were empty. (I was too mad to take pictures.)

Re-planting and Moving On

The good news is that both re-planted plants are now doing fine. The yellow lantana has not bloomed again, but I’m sure it will. I had made the mistake of adding fish bone meal into the potting holes. I’m betting the raccoons smelled it, and dug to find the “fish”. The plants were simply in the way. Lesson learned.

Gardening means dealing with pests of all kinds. For me, the Raccoons cause the most trouble. They are often destructive without purpose – as far as I can tell. They steal tomatoes and rip holes in them, but don’t consume them! They pull peppers off the plants, and dig up seedlings. Last year they stole one of my watermelons off the vine.

In the meantime, here’s what else is blooming in the yard:

Thank you For reading