Tag: bees

How to Grow the Beautiful Rudbeckia

Growing the rudbeckia “Rising Sun” flowering perennial pollinator plant.

While dashing through the local nursery, I spotted this pretty yellow flowering plant. It was a Rudbeckia called “Rising Sun”. It had a couple of flowers and a few more buds. It went into my new little flower garden.

In a Nutshell

Rudbeckia is a perennial. It should be dug up and divided, once it is large, to propagate. It is easy to grow, after making sure it has plenty of water in the beginning. Grow in full sun, deadhead old flowers, and enjoy watching bees visit the flowers.

When planting, I added some bone meal and fish fertilizer along with compost to the hole. I do that generally for all transplants. I planted the new garden in May, so it was hot, but not horrible. I made sure to water the new plants every morning because we were getting no rain back then. I added mulch to help.

Flowering Rudbeckia plant
Rudbeckia plant

Because I went out every morning to water, it gave me the opportunity to view changes. It seemed to bloom with at least one new big yellow bloom each day! The plant grew and bloomed like mad, and is now just gorgeous.

Bees Love Rudbeckia

I was hoping to attract bees and butterflies and this plant is perfect. Each morning I see little bees crawling around the flowers. One day I saw a bee sleeping on one of the petals! He was resting or something because he was not moving, but he was not dead. On the photo above you can see a bee on one of the big flower’s petals.

Deadheading and Propagation

Rudbeckia needs to be deadheaded. As soon as I read this, I went out and cut off the old blooms. I brought them inside to see if I could get some seeds from the center when they dry fully. Deadheading helps the plant put energy into creating new blooms and not caring for the old, wilting ones. Many flowering plants benefit from this.

My Rudbeckia even survived us having a new roof installed. If you have ever gone through roof replacement, you know what a mess it makes. I was so worried about my garden and yard, but most things came through okay.

Rudbeckia spreads by rhizomes underground. In other words, when it gets too full, it can be dug up and split into two or more plants. This is one way to propagate. Every 4-5 years or so, or when the plant is really full and not growing as many flowers, it means it needs to be divided. This is similar to peonies. I remember doing just that to divide my beautiful peonies when I grew them in New Hampshire.

Also, apparently the rudbeckia can grow from seed. Each flower will drop little seeds from that center brown “eye”. So the flowers I cut will be saved to see if I can get seeds.

I would love to link to this info, but all the sites I visited had WAY too many ads! I won’t send my readers to them, but if you search for this info, you will find it elsewhere.

I’ve never grown the rudbeckia before, but I truly love it. At some point I will buy more of them to put into the landscape. This plant came from Lindley’s Nursery in New Smyrna Beach.

Keep reading my gardening stories…

Plant Flowering Things and Bees Will Come

Planting things that flower to attract bees to the garden.

We all want to feed the bees by having bee-loving flowers in the yard. But another good reason to have the bees come to your plants is to entice them to pollinate the vegetables growing in your garden. I would not be eating eggplant, tomatoes or watermelon (soon!) from my garden without the bees coming to pollinate the flowers.

watermelon growing on the vine in my garden.

If you are wondering which flowers to plant to attract bees, I know the feeling. The general answer is to simply plant things that will flower, and that includes vegetables and herbs. I have an excellent link that goes to the UF site, at the bottom of this page, for Florida residents who want to start planting for pollinators.

Bees like open type flowers that contain pollen. They also have flower color preferences. Read on…

All photos on this page are my own of bees visiting plants in my yard

Herbs

Don’t overlook herbs, which are quite simple to grow, when it comes to having flowers in the yard.

Dill is an excellent choice for the yard because it has big yellow flowers that do attract all kinds of things. Once the flowers are done, you will have a head full of seeds. Dill is easy to grow and needs very little attention. It also serves as a nursery for black swallowtail larvae. Fennel is very similar and just as good.

  • yellow dill flower with wasp
    Dill flower
  • green bee on onion flower
    Onion flower
  • purple spiderwort with bee
    Spiderwort

Naturally Growing “Weeds”

Spiderwort (the purple flower above) is everywhere near me, and it easily invades the yard. It is tough to remove because it grows in clumps, but the purple flowers are loved by insects. If you already have it, maybe let some grow around the vegetable garden.

We also have a lot of the white flowering weeds and many other things growing at the edge of the lawn. I’ve noticed how the naturally occurring growth is a big attractor. So why are we always removing it?

The green bee on the scallion flower (above) is probably the Sweat Bee, which is a common Florida green bee. I’m no bee expert and I am guessing. The striped bee on the dill is a paper wasp.

Rudbeckia For Garden Beauty and Bee Happiness

The “Rising Sun” Rudbeckia plant (aka black-eyed Susan) began small with only a few flowers and now it has twenty, with more buds opening! I love this plant. And the bees like it too. There is a little bee crawling on a yellow petal in the photo below. I also found one sleeping on one of the big petals. The flowers are long-lasting. I need to find out how to propagate this plant. This one came from Lindley’s Nursery in New Smyrna Beach.

Rudbeckia plant full of big yellow flowers that attract bees to the yard
Rudbeckia

While shopping at the plant nursery, I’m drawn to plants that already have bees all over them. It doesn’t mean that bees will immediately come to the same plant in my yard, but at least I know it’s possible. It can take a while for the bees to appear when the yard has been relatively bare of flowering things.

Last Spring I bought Marigold seeds and had quite a few flowers growing. I saved the seeds and planted them in my vegetable garden (and elsewhere) to have these beauties spring up. Marigolds are not big attractors, but I do see bees and butterflies on them. They are better known for their usefulness in keeping garden pests away – and that includes mosquitoes.

Yellow marigolds grown from saved seeds
Bee on yellow marigold
A bee on my yellow marigold

This pink flower is blooming on a Cosmos plant grown from seeds saved last season. I wish I had more of these growing in the landscape.

pink cosmos with bee

What Florida Bees Need

The University of Florida IFAS Gardening Solutions page “Gardening For Bees” has a wealth of information. Florida has a lot of bee species and some (29) that are only found here.

I learned that to keep bees happy year round, my yard should have at least three plants flowering at all times! This should not be difficult when trees, shrubs, weeds, and vegetable flowers are included. And of course we are talking about organic gardening where no pesticides are used.

bee on pumpkin flower
Bee on the Seminole pumpkin flower

According to the section about choosing plants to attract bees, the Florida article notes that bees prefer specific flower colors. Yellow, white, blue and purple flowers are best for attracting bees. This makes sense when you think about vegetables – yellow flowers on tomatoes, watermelon and squash, with white flowers on peppers, blueberries, and onions. You will notice that most of my “bees on flowers” photos on this page are yellow!

Each morning I can hear bees buzzing among the watermelon vines in search of the little yellow flowers. I do have a few watermelons growing on each of the vines, so the bees are doing their job. They are too quick and busy for me to get a photo!

Yellow flowers on watermelon vine

This little bee was having a rest on top of the puffy red-orange Gaillardia flower. He was not moving which helped me get this close up shot. According to the UF gardening site, bees can’t see red! What does this bright, puffy flower look like to the bee then?

Bee on red Gaillardia
Bee on the Gaillardia

I am only just beginning to fill my yard with pollinator plants. See the link below for more ideas.

I’m also learning about the plants and flowering weeds already growing nearby. My new philosophy is to let some of those weeds grow, like the prolific Richardia ground cover shown below.

Richardia Scabra ground cover
Richardia Scabra ground cover with little white flowers that bees love.

When I look at all these bee photos, which were taken over the past months in my yard, I’m amazed at the different varieties of bees. I need to begin paying closer attention as my flower offerings increase. There is always more to learn.

Perfect (Florida) Plants For Pollinators

Read more gardening stories here…

Black Mangrove Honey Made by Bees in a Remote Area

honey
Honey from Mosquito Lagoon – My photo

On a recent visit to Pells Nursery in Osteen, we came across some unique honey called “Black Mangrove” that comes from bees in the Mosquito Lagoon!  The Lagoon is widely known for it’s fishing, but I’ve never heard of honey coming from there. We had to buy it.

The Black Mangrove honey is darker in color and not as thick as other types I’ve had, but it’s delicious.  It’s made by Sun Splash Nursery of New Smyrna Beach.   They are an organic farm and the place is not too far from where I live now.  Their Farmer’s Market is open 8am till 3:30pm Monday thru Friday.  I must go there soon and see what they are selling for produce.  (Update – this place does not seem to exist!  We drove over and found nothing there.  Site must be old.)

Back to the honey.  Raw honey is far superior to store bought generic brands and I love to find new types to try.   This one also has an interesting story behind it.  The company has the right to access the islands filled with black mangrove trees in the Mosquito Lagoon.   All during the Florida summer they collect honey while the mangroves bloom.

We have fished out on the Intracoastal, and have heard bees buzzing on the islands. Now I will be able to picture them working away to make us their fabulous honey!  Below in my photo from another blog of mine (Seashells by Millhill), you can see what those mangrove covered islands look like.

mangroves
There are many, many islands like this out on the Intracoastal Waterway, which includes Mosquito Lagoon.

What a great idea to collect honey from that area! The Sun Splash company will ship their honey to customers, so click the link I provided above if you are interested in trying some for yourself.

Read an article by the Daytona Beach News Journal, written September 2016 about the owner and how he came to help out the bees (and himself) by putting beehives out on the remote Intracoastal islands.

As a side note, I noticed that the Sun Splash Nursery website also has a page containing gardening advice, which will be helpful as I plan my vegetable gardens.  I look forward to visiting their nursery soon.