babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001-2013 the authors
Syndicate
Thank you! I welcome all suggestions. I'll have to do a search and see if either or both of these varieties is available to me somehow.
Whoops, forgot to mention something. I don't know if Quebec has the equivalent of the Alberta Invasive Plants Council, nor what the equivalent of the Weed Control Act is. I would, though, strongly suggest checking for equivalents.
At my housing co-op, we are dealing with infestations of two noxious weeds (creeping bellflower and scentless chamomile) one of which was brought in by someone intentionally because it was so "pretty" and the other which was windblown - and I expect that yellow clematis will be turning up soon, it is already choking out things along the Elbow River which is only a couple of blocks away. What is considered restricted or noxious varies widely from region to region. I was talking to someone and bragging that I had managed to naturalize some lupines (which border on being out of zone) and they were surprised that nurseries sold them here... according to them, they were considered noxious in Nova Scotia.
I guess you just have to remember that one person's attractive perennial is somebody else's weed.
[ETA: one of the interesting things on the Invasive Plants Council website is the advice to never sow packaged "wild flower" seeds unless the package lists all the possible seeds that may be included... that the people doing the packaging are not always taking into account the varied jurisdictions where their product is sold... that the words "wild flower" are a marketing designation, not a horticultural one, and just because it says "wild flower" does not mean it is suitable or free of seeds of plants that are invasive]
My supplier - Veseys - lists most (not all) the varieties:
Seaside Wildflower Mix: Great for coastal areas with sandy or rocky soils (but not pure beach sand). Tolerates some salt spray. Perennial and reseeding annuals include California Poppy, African Daisy, Lance-leaved Coreopsis, Gaillardia, Shasta Daisy, Dwarf Godetia, Corn Poppy, Clarkia, Blue Sage, Black-Eyed Susan, Lilac Godetia, Perennial Candytuft, Goldfields, Sweet Alyssum, Plains Coreopsis, Common Evening Primrose and Wild Thyme.
Bird and Butterfly Mix: Contains a mixture of twenty different reseeding annuals or perennials including Butterfly Flower, Bachelor's Button, Godetia, Coreopsis, Larkspur, Poppies, Gaillardia, Liatris, Flax, Rudbeckia and Salvia.
I planted both of these mixes last spring, I don't think any of them survived the winter. I just planted both mixes for this year, I'll check closely to see any weeds (didn't see any at all from these mixes last summer).
Unless the growing conditions there are radically different, you can pretty much be assured that the California Poppies will be back (one of my favourites, they don't attract a lot of bees or butteflies... but the orange blooms last for weeks) - probably too early for them to be sprouting yet, but look for leaves that look a little like carrot greens... I would think the corn poppy and shasta daisy are likely to come back too. I have tried quite a few of the others myself, but of those thyme and liatris are the only ones that have successfully overwintered or reseeded (although I grow liatris from tuber, not seed). I have been thinking about suitable plants a bit more, and if I get away from the focus on attracting bees, I can think of two others that are really nice. The first (well actually it is an entire family of plants) is sedum - I have multiple varieties in my yard, lots of low, spreading ones often referred to as Stonecrop (usually yellow blooms - there are lots of sub-varieties though, and the fleshy leaves are interesting even when it isn't blooming) and a late fall blooming variety that grows about knee high called Autumn's Joy... purplish-red flowers that look a lot like broccoli florerts... they dont flower till September, but are frost resistant and last into October, some colour at the end of the season). The nice thing about all the sedums is that they can easily be propogated from cuttings, stalks will almost always root themselves. If you know anyone growing them, try to see if they will give you a cutting. They are extremely reliable perennials and easy to propogate when you want more. The other flowering plant saponaria ocymoides which I purchased as a bedding out plant from Canadian Tire under the name Soapwort. Ugly name for a nice plant LOL... it is a spreading plant with masses of bright pink blooms. All of the sedums and the soapwort do fine in poor and/or rocky soil.
Jeez, going on and on, what can I say, I am a frustrated gardener, and the rule of thumb here is that anything you try to plant before Victoria day is going to get killed off by the weather... something our Central Canadian Overlords and Wet Coasters don't have to contend with. ROTFLMAO
It appears that nothing is coming back from that flower bed, sadly. That bed is right on the edge of the cliff at the back of my property, so if the weather didn't kill them, then the wind probably finished them off. There's nothing there. I re-seeded hese beds a couple of days ago - a full month early, as it's warm (8C) in the daytime now, and not extremely cold (-2C) at night. I just didn't want to wait any longer! Call me impatient. I hope everything grows, but you're probably right - anything I plant before Victoria Day will probably die or just fail to grow at all. Just in case, I've re-ordered (they're cheap seeds).
ps: how do you know so much??? I'm impressed!
Killing myself laughing here at the how do you know so much comment...
Unlike milder zones, gardening here is not a hobby, it is declaring war on the weather. Picked up a lot from the other people in the housing co-op who garden, and bought several regional specific gardening books (Calgary and region is large enough to support publishing a few books that don't assume that the people reading them live in a climate where you can put plants in the ground and then just water them occasionally and assume they will survive). Everything else is trial and multiple errors.
One trick I learned for the California Poppies is to buy a package of seed that just contained them (not a wildflower mixture), mark off an area and sow, then, in the late fall after they have died back, cover that area with a layer of gravel about an inch thick (just about anything but the gravel they sell for traction on icy roads, too much salt in that most times). They will have self seeded by that time, and in the late spring they will sprout through the gravel (and don't worry if you haven't seen anything in your bed yet, it is too early for them to have sprouted... usually don't see any evidence of them until late May or early June). The seeds are small enough and heavy enough that they will self-seed there through multiple seasons (the seeds just work through the gravel), while the other small seeds that get blown in (weeds mostly) aren't heavy enough to work through the gravel. It creates a self-replicating patch that doesnt need weeding. If you have any scrap wood lying around, you can make a small frame for the area to keep the gravel in place.
I may try that sometime - I'll save this for next year. There's a stockpile of gravel not far from here, but we can't get any for our personal use - it belongs to the Quebec Ministry of Transportation, and is reserved only for the road. There's no salt added - it was blasted and crushed right here, with nothing added to it.
We had a really mild winter, very little snow, and I got my hopes up that perhaps we can start growing things earlier this year.
I was thinking it might be good to make a database system that could help you choose what plants grow in your area and I found somebodies already started: http://nativeplants.evergreen.ca/search/advanced.php Seems like it might be decent in determining what might grow in your given situation. I'd be interested in knowing how helpful you find it to use.
Gee, they have wetlands, marshes, swamps, bogs, fens and ponds.... but nothing between prairie and alpine for those living in the foothils. Hmmm, do I detect a central canadian overload understanding of Canadian geography (hey, it isn't the only pony I've got, but it is pretty much my favourite).
It is a toronto based group that runs that website(right beside where the bees get groovy actually.) but it is the first thing that came up when i searched for a 'canadian plant database' Is anyone in aberta trying to keep track of the plants in the foothills in a similar way? Where do I go for western plant biasis?
bagkitty?
...perhaps you should take a closer look at some of those terms you list.
I've only ever heard the term fen used in combination with the word alpine, as in 'alpine fen'.
We overlords don't have any of those in Ontario.
Oh I did LTJ, and if you check, the difference between a fen and a bog is that the former is alkaline, the latter is acidic... otherwise they are just damp places that the website I was referring to seems to think worthy of distinct classification... the word fen itself is of Old English origins, with clear Germanic roots... If you dig a little deeper, you will discover that large areas of eastern England were historically "fenland" (since drained for agricultural purposes), hardly alpine. You will also find that there are fens in the Niagara Escarpment in Ontario
What I was decrying was the failure to separately identify the foothills (the Whaleback in Southern Alberta being the prime example) as a distinct geographical area with unique plant life, particularly along the eastern slopes of the Rockies.
ebodyknows: I would suggest the Alberta Native Plant Council website as a good place to start (their link tab is quite instructive) - they are currently featuring a nice piece on the (misnamed) prairie crocus (anemone patens) - and it is possible to purchase a related plant in most commercial nurseries and large retailers like Canadian Tire and Home Depot, the Pasqueflower (anemone pulsatilla).
Of the flowering native plants, I can only think of a few that are widely available for sale: blanket flower (gaillardia aristata), yarrow (achillea millefolium), Joe-Pye Weed (eupatorium purpureum), wild indigo (baptisia australis) (strangely enough, wild indigo also naturally occurs in yellow and white form) and the provincial floral symbol, the wild rose (rosa woodsii). There are, of course, a large number of other attractive flowering native plants from the mountains, foothills, parkland and prairie settings - but most are not commercially available, and many are threatened, endangered and/or protected under provincial law, so trying to "harvest" them from their natural setting is not really a good idea - not to mention that because of long tap roots required to deal with the arid environment, the ones in my most immediate area to not tend to survive attempts at transplanting them.
One thing that the site you linked to got me thinking about was the distinctions between native, naturalized, invasive and plants that were simply "in-zone". When I was responding to BoomBoom I was think of the last category (in-zone) while trying to make sure I didn't I suggest anything that was likely to naturalize and be invasive (and BoomBoom, if you are reading this, of the plants I have mentioned in this post, conditions your way are probably not dry enough for wild indigo, and yarrow has a tendency to become quite invasive... I wouldn't recommend it if you are in a setting where it would have a chance of escaping your garden).
I know a few gardeners here in Calgary who have gone with entirely native plants and have done very well, unfortunately this means a heavy emphasis on decorative clump grasses. I kinda like the "showy" in your face blooming stuff, so I tend to focus on plants which are "in-zone", which of course means that I have a lot of stuff in my yard that is European or Asian in origin... What can I say, I am a sucker for the wow effect of a saucer sized poppy bloom or the bright yellows of a heliopsis.
I read through Tips for Choosing Native Species and plants native to Quebec, but there's so many - I'll have a look-see and try to narrow down to Quebec saltwater coastline plants. It's an interesting website.
Thanks for sharing your experience insights bagkitty it is much appreciated. I guess I'm focused on the native plants as I'm just assuming there is a higher chance to be a relationship with the native pollinators. Without people like you sharing their experiences I'm not sure how to determine what in-zone plants will benifit native bees.
Hi, ebody. bumblebees have taken over an old wrens birdhouse here and brown gooey water is oozing out of the bottom. What is it? Do they urinate?
It is messier than when the birds were in there! I guess they rearanged the moss and bird stuff inside so there is only a small hole for entry.
I hope the brown drip is not some bee sickness.
Brian
I know some bumblebees scent mark flowers and their nests, but I can't imagine it would be in any volume that would drip, or even be noticeable to the naked eye. Is the old bird house in direct sunlight for any part of the day? Bumble bees store just a few days worth of food in wax pots... maybe the heat from direct sunlight melts the wax and the contents and it drips out? If so, I bet the bees move to a new location soon.
Let us know what it is, if you find out Brian. I've had bumble bees nesting all over the place over the years, and I've never noticed something like that.
As I understand it, bumblebees do make a sort of 'honey', but it is not stored in nice clean combs the way honeybees do it. My guess is that TP's correct, and it's wax and their dirty kind of honey dripping out.
I've only seen a few bees in my gardens, but no butterflies at all - and I've been on the Quebec coast since 1995. Are other folks noticing a scarcity in butterflies as well?
I've read bumblebees can store several ounces of honey but to have that great a volume at this time of year suprises me. I also don't imagine they would ordinarily keep it is such a way that it would drip.
In honey bees there are 2 types of a disease called nosema one of which causes dysentry. The bumble bee is known to carry a related disease named nosema bombi. However, I can't find any reference to dysentry being a sign/symptom.
Hopefully they do alright.
I am afraid that it looks like the bee disentry. I saw a big blue fly show interest. It is well shaded so I think their pots are fine. On a related note, Vancouver island is in bee quarantine. (No honey bees from the mainland are allowed here) But the provincial government want to change that. Aparently there are several bee diseases on the mainland that are not here. Aparently the island bee keepers are hopping mad about this. The last serious outbreak of bee diseases was due to an illegal hive snuck through onto one of the gulf islands, I think. I am not sure what commercial interest is pulling the bc lib chains. One thing I wonder about is orchard masons. There is commercial trade in them so hopefully none are being brought in from the mainland. Yesterday was the second hot day of the year here. I wasn't working. In my garden, saw masons, leafcutters, one with a green back and about 3 other types. Various types of wasps were on the go too, including some polinators. A few butterflys including the first cabbage whites. There were also a few balls of tiny spiders. (The ones where if you touch the web, they all run from the center and it expands like the universe at the big bang).
I have a pile of subsoil where little bees ans wasps are burrowing and there are insects that look like tiny termites running around. It is pretty dry so I am a bit confused about them. I know we have gazalions of termites here. The giant dampwood and the tiny black ones can be seen in the fall at the winged stage. (Hundreds of millions of the tiny black ones in september). Nobody notices!
The drip from the bumbles is splashing on a bag of cement I have below. I hope they recover. Natural selection can be real cruel and I think I have to let nature take its course. (and bleach the birdhouse as soon as they are gone). The little wrens use it the whole winter for the last 5 years. So it must be suitable to them.
Bumbles seemed to recover but now they seem gone and left a birdhouse full of hive, incl some unopened cells. Should I take it down and vent it to let more air in? Perhaps everything is dead or perhaps some little bees are still in cacoon.
Yesterday was hot and I saw neat interaction between bees wasps and jumping spiders. A NEW bee! Looks just like a yellow jacket but instead it visits flowers. It has a slightly shorter tail and the proof is in the legs that have pollen baskets. But so close a mimic! A big jumping spider made a grab for her and just missed. (on thyme flowers).
There is also a potter wasp building on the outside of my rock wall with MY cob. She was having a bit of trouble because a spider? wasp was coming too close.
She chased her away many times. (the ones that hunt along the walls and dart their long tail spike into spiders or maybe catapillars. Anyway, a couple of minutes later a small different type jumping spider edged up to the spider wasp and made a grab for her. Missed too. Back to rain today. Hope the potter is doing ok.
We have milliions of tent catipillars this year and lots of slugs due to very wet weather.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=233214&id=736625766&l=004e48a9ef shows a sneak attack on a potter wasp babies. I have never seen the potter wasps working on the outside of a wall before but it is easy to miss the little nests. I have seen similar nests (but more like pots) while taking old walls apart on the inside of the walls.
The bumble bees seemed to recover but did not make it. Sad. I drilled holes in wood for mason and other bees and there are definitely less masons than usual. Very cool spring. This year I tried something new, instead of drilling, I poked holes in a block of wet cob. All different sizes. Nothing happened for the longest time but it looks now as if a few of the wasp mimics have moved in. Some wasp mimics and masons are in one of the blocks of wood too. I expect some leafcutters later on too.
Really glad that it is working. The cob thing is a lot easier than holes in wood because you can just make the wet block, stick knitting needles and pieces of wire, and bars in of all different sizes and the bees can choose what they want. I will be putting in weeds and grasses and vines too if I can. I have seen tiny bees nesting in hollow old rasberry canes. Normally, I would have cut the canes and composted them. Bye bye bees!
On BBC news there was an article about how 3 species of bumble bee have disappeared in England.
They were talking about raseberry canes for bees on quirks and quarks last week. You're doing what the experts are doing.
Thanks Brian for all the good work.
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/quirks_20100626_34464.mp3 is one about the bees. They did not mention bees nesting in the rasberry canes but I have seen them do it. (They say raspberrys are a favoured flower).
I will do a video about the cob, now that I know that it works. I think people have got hung up on mason bees. Much of the info is about producing the perfect nest for the masons. Lets produce nests for everything! The good news about that is nature is variable. You do not need the perfect 8.3 mm hole or whatever.
Just get out that drill, and "drill baby drill" anything from 2 mm to 15 mm will work and everything in between! "Drill em deep" and drill em round.
And get out your knitting needles, pieces of wire and bike spokes and start making cob bee houses and clay bee houses. Put hollow wood and weed stems in your mud pies too. If you could make mud pies as a kid, you can do it still!
Brian
Still not many bees here, too cold for the flowers to blossom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1CwnYY64NU is the video about cob holes for the bees and about the raspberry canes as bee habitat and grape vines as bee habitat too. Maybe some of you will join in and make trial bee habitat during the rest of the year? Brian
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6685500&l=f7a303bdd6&id=736625766 is bees (with yellow jacket colouring) doing the wild thing. It is about the only time they stay still and it is only for about 3 seconds. The Drone is about twice the size of the female and he lays beside the blue flowers and then zooms up and ambushes her as she sips nectar. These guys are VERY quick in flight! First time I saw it, i thought it was a wasp attacking the little bee but he lets her go after 3 or 4 seconds.
Note: Melting wax attracts bees. This little girl flew into my kitchen yesterday. When I discovered it I took it outside but it seemed quite weak so I fed it some honey. It then spent a good spell on my hands and arms, peacefully making cleaning gestures before it finally took off. Nothing like the sweet tickle of honey bee feet or a light breeze of their wings. Hate to see the bee season coming to a close. Learned lots this year and I'm utterly awe inspired.
Will be giving some thanks this weekend as I eat.