What's Blooming Bouquet from the Vegetable Garden

Joe's bouquets, whether weeds from the side of the road or pickings from the vegetable garden, are usually my favorites. Here just a little slice of May via a flowering cover crop, a brassica that bolted, sage and some unopened Verbena bonariensis, which actually overwintered in my garden this year.

The Naming of Things We Are Thankful For

Last year I gave thanks for my brother's turkey and roses, my nieces and their dresses (if these little gals think there's any chance that there will be dancing going on, they are going to change their clothes), most especially a year of wonder working as a horticultural intern at Brooklyn Botanic among some trees a century old and the beauty of some Camellias blooming in the cold. Because again it is the time to reflect on the graces of the year, I culled from some pictures throughout the year since last Thanksgiving, wanting only to choose images that defined for me something I could name and give thanks for in each month. There are only four images corresponding to four months above, from late November through February, the time through the darkest and coldest days until the first blooms of the year. That's as far as I got in one sitting.

To name those things above and give thanks: Top Left: November, For my garden neighbors, their plants seeding and for things that might wander into my garden. Bottom Left: December, For plants studied, remembered and revisited at Brooklyn Botanic. Top Right: January, For the year with Verbena bonariensis, my pollinator magnet and for prodigious self-sowers, the volunteers of gardens. Bottom Right: February, For all of the firsts of a lifetime, in particular this year, my first bike ride of winter and the first winter blooms. I could be briefer and just name my thanks for seeds, for decorative bark and the tree silhouettes of winter, what remains of the seasons growth that's interesting to look at when the tree canopy is bare and it's ridiculously cold outside, and for the promise of spring always evident in winter if you look for it.

Maybe later I will be inspired to wade through some more pictures to finish out all the months, but for now, it's enough to remind myself of the things that I'll need to keep in mind and seek out this time of year, the part that I find challenging to get through in good spirits. (And that's mostly because I am a wimp in the cold, overly sensitive to the weather and already missing the long bright days of spring and summer.)

A Skipper and a Native Bee

Skipper (possibly Fiery Skipper, Hylephila phyleus)

on one species in the garden today, Verbena bonariensis. The bloom that keeps on going and going and going. (and going and going and going maybe a little too crazy if you let it reseed, like I have, but I wouldn't want to miss the great pollinator show that comes with it.)


Metallic Green Bee, Agapostemon genus bee (female)


Native pollinator (metallic green bee) on Verbena bonariensis, Brooklyn

Work and the Garden

Some days you work hard in the garden and some days you sit around in the shade chatting half the day away on the topics of motorcycles, bicycles, sweet country roads and gnarly accidents, only to spend the rest of the day trying to capture your garden's pollinators with your phone camera. Yesterday, it was the latter for me and now I have a new pollinator to identify. I don't feel too bad about the slacking because the day before last was spent cleaning out and doing maintenance on someone else's yard, and because it's the days that I spend watching quietly in my own garden or talking with my neighbors that I learn and remember the most. I have the feeling that I will see this pollinator again. It seems to me that I have repeat visitors that must be nesting nearby. Right now I think it may be a kind of Cuckoo Bee that is wasplike in appearance, but further research is a must.

Luckily, I don't have to do any work identifying the butterfly below. It's a common buckeye, just like a tree I know and love. That Verbena bonariansis is at it again. Attracting pollinators like mad. Someday I may be sorry that I planted it and let it go to seed, but this year it wins first prize in the category of best garden volunteer.

Verbena bonariensis in January

Verbena bonariensis in January, originally uploaded by Sweetest Thursday.

Poking out of my garden plot. It keeps going and going and going.

Verbena bonariensis in December

Only time will tell if this Verbena bonariensis will be too agressive a self seeder for the bee bed in my vegetable plot. I've read that it can be prolific. For now at least I am enjoying how the seed head remains in December and it certainly served admirably as a pollinator magnet this season at Floyd Bennett. It was a bright spot in my day today and helped counter my disappointment at the loss of my remaining carrot crop to rodents.

Verbena bonariensis, pollinator magnet

The Verbena bonariensis in my bee bed at Floyd Bennett keeps going and going and going. There's no end to the bees and butterflies that visit. My nephew, the insect lover, is going to go wild for this photo which captures the probiscus dipping into the flower for food. He'll also be happy to know that we checked on the monarch caterpillars eating the milkweed near Plumb Beach. There are four still feeding on the plant as of yesterday.

Verbena bonariensis

Just beginning to bloom in my plot at Floyd Bennett. I hope this one is on the Herbaceous ID test. I might not know how to spell it, but it would be pretty sad if I couldn't ID something growing in my own garden. I like this plant because it's known to freely set seed, so I may have some seedlings next year to give away. One of the great joys of gardening I've learned is having some loot to pass on. It's nerdy, but true. It's a great joy to just give someone a cucumber you've grown.