More Than Anything, I Must Have Flowers, Always and Always-- Monet

Wait. So this Monet was a butterfly?

What kind?

Or maybe he was a honeybee?

Pervious or Impervious? (Are you)

I don't know if the pavement is permeable (almost anywhere else I'd wager no), but I do know the green roof is, and every time lately I'm in the Bronx and at this site, it seems it pours. (I knew that impervious was a word, but I didn't know that pervious was. Huh.)

Think Small

                                                  Sedum alba blooms on a greenroof in Union Square

It's a big city. This is a tiny piece of it.

The Tenses

                                                                                         The Past

                                                                                   The Future

                                                                        and here in the moment

In gardening, it seems time is not linear and you can experience it all in a day. This was a little bit of one of my days at work weeding this week.

It's Not Really All About Flowers

Or is it?

For some things, it most definitely is. I spent the day on a rooftop in the Bronx, weeding out the troublesome ones and admiring others, with the song of a mockingbird, these sweet sedum flowers and the pollinators for company. Not a bad way to spend a day.

Pulchellum?

I think it's Sedum pulchellum. It's pretty in pink, or according to this source, as its name indicates, it sits beautiful. (In this particular case up high in the skyline of Manhattan.)

It's high time for a real camera. There are tiny lives to capture in bloom and this cameraphone ain't cutting it. So far, the greatest thrill of working in these unique spaces up in the skyline is that they are alive.

All This Needs is Some Animal Figurines

and I'd believe it was one of those wee terrariums that are so popular now and not a test plot up on a roof in the Bronx. But perhaps what's really needed are some matchbook cars for taking a cruise around the rocky terrain.

The Roof or The Reef?

This roof in the Bronx isn't so much green as it is hued in the most amazing colors. There were purples and blues as well as these screaming oranges and reds and most things in between. Something about those sedums makes them look like they'd be comfortable living their lives in the sea off some tropical island, yet these plants are quite happy growing in quite the opposite environment, where it's dry and between gravel.  Do I have room in my life for some new favorites?

On Sedum, in a Garden in Brooklyn

Bees on sedum, Brooklyn Botanic

Last year in mid-September, it was the honey bee I noticed at Brooklyn Botanic digging on the sedum. This year, the bee again, but so much more. For instance, the wasp below. At this time of year, those things that are blooming, (for me garlic chives, goldenrod, aster and verbena bonariensis, among a few others) are swarming with hungry insects and it's an excellent time to get to know a few.

Below is a thread-waisted wasp, perhaps Prionyx parkeri. It feeds on nectar as an adult, but it is also a hunter of grasshoppers, which it feeds to its larvae. Now I know that grasshoppers are sweet-looking and that my nephew probably loves them, but it is also an herbivore. So this wasp, a predator of a plant-eater is a good guy in the garden.

Thread-waisted wasp on sedum, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

Bees, Sedum

It's always a treat to come upon any plant buzzing with bees. Today, in the afternoon, that plant was a sedum. Both in the rock garden and the rose arc border, this plant was the bee show. They like this sedum. Me too.