A noun. A verb. A blog.
Helen insists on saying, “Lo and bee-hold!” I however, would not stoop so low. Sarah here. I’ve been talking this morning to Damian Grounds of HelpSaveBees about how much we like seeing the bees diving into our funnel-shaped flowers. By coinky-dink, Helen was at that moment in the process of photographing bumblebums in a nearby […]
Look who’s hanging out at my place! Spiderlings! Isn’t that a great word? On the weekend, I found this little cluster of what appeared to be eggs. Then I noticed the eggs had legs. A (gentle) poke with a twig sent the whole bunch scurrying into square dance mode. They’re very pretty; yellow, with a […]
After yesterday’s heartless post on the subject of aphids and leafrollers, it’s incumbent of me [oops, I mean: on me] to say: not all bugs are bad bugs. Not even bugs with bad-boy reputations. Even in this day of catastrophic bee decline, Google carpenter bees, for example, and 99% of the results will be about […]
It has been a wet few days. The roses have been slurping up that water and their growing tips and buds are nice and juicy. Mmmmm, say the bugs, the rose buffet is now open! Not for long, bugs. First, meet the leafroller – larva of one of a number of common moths. Leafrollers produce […]
Witness here the final moment of a pretty but destructive Lily Leaf Beetle (Lilioceris lilii), an imported pest now chewing holes in your leaves and buds — and not only of lilies. [Update: What I should have said, two years ago now, was that although it likes lilies best, the lily leaf beetle will nibble […]
This week, Nova Scotia garden blogger Jodi of bloomingwriter wrote about her experience freeing a hummingbird trapped in her barn. It reminded me of a similar thrill of mine. One summer at our place on Ile d’Orléans, in the St. Lawrence River just outside Québec City, the (francophone) kids next door were collecting Monarch caterpillars […]
I dropped into the Don Valley Brickworks for Doors Open this week and met with a group of bee-keepers who were there with their bee hive display — It’s an odd feeling to be standing near several people wearing blinding white bee-keeper outfits! You certainly can’t miss them in a crowd. They showed a 2 […]
There aren’t many native sugar maples on our street. Most are Norways. So I like to check in with our sugars from time to time, as you would an elderly neighbour. About a week ago, I was horrified to note that the trunk of one across the street, whose rich leaf colours I’d photographed last […]
When skunks and other critters begin to forage this way in your garden, they’re actually doing you a favour… by ridding you of white grubs. That’s little consolation when you see the damage they do by digging, usually in what in most small city gardens passes for a lawn. Though the foragers will dig among […]
There’s no two ways about it. The most beneficial bugs for your garden are often the least, well, good-looking. Spiders, centipedes; it’s all those legs! All that unpredictable scurrying! All those alien body parts. Nevertheless, I repress my instinctive shudder when they appear because I know they really do provide a useful service: pest control. […]