Once the plants are all in the ground and happy, and all the plant species are accounted for, we wait for the flowers to bloom. As soon as the plants bloom, we hit the ground running...actually hit the ground ready with our vacuums! One of my favorite plants, the Cumberland Rosemary, was the first to bloom this season. Very exciting for both bee and plants folks. This beautiful purple flower, from the mint family, is a source of nectar for early emerging bees like one of Dr. Russo’s favorites, the Osmia genus also known as Mason Bees. Please ask her why…I’d bet her answers include the words “so cute” and “chonky”. From left to right: 1) Cumberland Rosemary flowers. 2) Grad student Amani Khalil sampling with insect vacuum at the UT Arboretum site. 3) Osmia taurus. Taurus mason bee.
0 Comments
When Dr. Russo isn't receiving bee identification pictures, she gets bombarded with plant pictures from the field. This “whorly weed” is a perfect example. Solidago, said whorled weed, really thrived right on top of a lot of our asters. It’s essential to pull weeds from our plots as they compete with our plants, but a gentle touch is also crucial so we don’t damage our study plants.
Entomology one day, and botany the next. The wild world of bee ecology! Happy to share some planting success! After a lot of well wishing and a lot of TLC, these babies look pretty happy. These plants are thriving and surviving in this heavily tilled field of mostly clay. If anyone reading this believes they cannot keep a plant alive, let the plots here be your inspiration. They are in full sun and are watered by Mother Nature and sometimes our helping hands (which you can see evidence of in these pictures). Also the scenery is amazing. Easy to see why this is my favorite site. Springtime feels like the “make or break” month with our perennials. Just when I’m about to give up on plant and declare it DOA, I see a new growth emerging! Just take this beautiful baptisia emerging from a fire ant mound at our semi-natural site the UT Arboretum! Yes, it does look like asparagus, and no we didn’t use a control agent against the ants. They vanished and allowed our beloved baptisia albescens to flourish. Baptisia albescens, Spiked Wild Indigo. Native perennial, gearing up to start it's second year! Here's great example of one of our plots, the "combination" family plot coming back strong! We have two plants from the aster, bean, and mint family represented here.
Thanks to the folks at Overhill Gardens, our beautiful native Tennessee perennials are here!
Here’s a picture of a few of our selected plants in the back of the lab vehicle ready to put in the ground. We’ll use some of these plants as replacements for plants that didn't survive least year and a few will go to the new site as the OCU. |