Bees and Partridge Peas

Every day, I count my lucky stars when I go into the garden and see the buzzing bumblebees in the partridge peas (Chamaecrista fasciculata).

I started with just a few partridge pea seeds - from Kansas Native Plants, I think - and now I have more partridge pea plants than I could count. They do self-seed with abandon, but it's easy to pull any excess volunteers and they're so beautiful and helpful to beneficial insects that I love them regardless.

Partridge Pea - One of the Best (Self-Sowing) Annuals in my Garden

The bumblebees fly up into the partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) flowers and then vibrate with a high-pitched buzz... presumably to harvest the pollen? It's fun to observe!

Pollination results in the formation of these long seedpods. When the pods ripen, they turn a dark reddish color and split open to release their seeds, some of which will ideally sprout to create next year's partridge peas.

I scattered ~ 130 seeds outdoors in autumn 2015 from Kansas Native Plants. Last spring, I only had a few plants germinate, but this year I have dozens of plants. I harvested some of the seeds to scatter around the garden and let other seeds fall naturally to the ground beneath the plant. Some seedlings have sprouted in the lawn too, but they don't seem to flower (so far) with regular mowing and are easy to pull, so I'm not too worried about this plant becoming a lawn weed. 

Partridge pea is native to Tennessee and throughout much of the rest of the Central and Eastern U.S.
The only place I've seen it growing wild (and it might actually have been planted there) was alongside a parking lot in a South Florida nature preserve.
These plants are growing in full sun on unamended, compacted clay soil with very little supplemental irrigation. (I think I've watered them by hose a few times so far this year.)  As you can see, they appear to be thriving.

Per the USDA:

[Partridge pea] seed is one of the major food items of northern bobwhite and other quail species because it remains in sound condition throughout the winter and early spring. Partridge pea was found to be one of the most important fall and winter foods of bobwhite quail in Alabama. Partridge pea seeds are high in phosphorus content and protein value, and low in crude fiber and lignin making digestibility generally high.

Seeds of this legume are also eaten by the greater and lesser prairie-chicken, ring-necked pheasant, mallard [and] grassland birds.

Partridge pea often grows in dense stands, producing litter and plant stalks that furnish cover for upland game birds, small mammals, small non-game birds, and waterfowl.

Partridge pea is considered an important honey plant, often occurring where few other honey plants are found. Nectar is not available in the flowers of showy partridge pea but is produced by small orange glands at the base of each leaf. Ants often seek the nectar and are frequent visitors. The common sulfur butterfly lays its eggs on the leaves, and the larvae use the leaves as a food source.

Partridge pea is considered an excellent species for planting on disturbed areas for erosion
control and improving soil fertility. It establishes rapidly, fixes nitrogen, reseeds, and slowly decreases as other species in the seeding mix begin to dominate the site. Nitrogen fixation is greatest during the flowering stage. To help prevent weed establishment and control soil erosion along county roadsides in Iowa, partridge pea is often included in the seed mix with other forbs and grasses.

Per the North American Butterfly Association:

Cloudless Sulphur, Sleepy Orange, and Little Yellow caterpillars all use Partridge Pea as a food source. All three of these butterflies range widely over the southern U.S., with Little Yellow’s range being restricted eastward.

Partridge Pea is also used as a food source by Ceraunus Blue caterpillars which are common in far southern regions, usually late in the summer; found all year long in southern Florida and the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas.

Gray Hairstreak caterpillars also include Partridge Pea as a caterpillar food plant in addition to countless other plants.

A Sunflower Taller than the House!

Well, that's the way it looks in this photo 😉

The goldfinches have feasted on these seeds.

Sunflowers are cheerful bee magnets.  

All of the sunflowers in this post are volunteers from seeds the birds missed last year.
As you can see from the photos above, some of their blooms have already faded to the seed stage, but other buds have still not opened yet.
To keep the party going longer, I added some 'Velvet Queen' sunflowers from Southern Exposure.
Those are still in the seedling stage, but they are growing fast and strong!

Here's another great plant for attracting bees - Biokovo cranesbill geranium!

Almost three years ago, I published a blog post extolling the virtues of perennial cranesbill geraniums as groundcovers.

At that time, I did a little kvetching about the fact that the cranesbill geraniums didn't seem to do a great job of attracting pollinators (which is always a high priority for me).

Well, I've added more cranesbills and they've expanded their territory and this year, for the first time, I noticed the 'Biokovo' variety of Geranium x cantabrigiense attracting a lot of bees - both bumblebees and honeybees!

The other cranesbills that I have - 'Rozanne' and a couple cultivars of Geranium sanguineum - don't seem as attractive to the bumbles or the honeybees, but they do seem to generate some interest from teeny-tiny pollinators (probably some sort of hoverfly or tiny wasp).

Anyway, there's no way that my camera is good enough to capture a video of the hoverflies, but I was able to shoot this short film of a bumblebee buzzing his way among 'Biokovo' flowers.

Enjoy!

PS - Over time, I've changed my mind on a lot of groundcovers (and other plants). but I still think cranesbill geraniums -- especially the 'Biokovo' cultivar -- make excellent groundcovers, at least in my Tennessee garden!

Pollinators Galore!

It's June and the pollinators are buzzing.

The last two posts on lavender and blanket flower have covered some of the buzz, but there's more to come...

This could be a bumblebee, but I think it's a carpenter bee on hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis)

Bumblebee on creeping germander (Teucrium chamaedrys 'Prostratum')

Some sort of tiny bee or maybe an ant on 'Natchez' crape myrtle - just starting to bloom on June 2nd.

Small bee on yarrow (Alchillea millefolium 'Paprika')

Fly on yarrow

Hoverfly on wildflower (I believe this is daisy fleabane - Erigeron annuus)

Small bee (I believe) on 'Carefree Beauty' rose

Indian pinks (Spigelia marilandica) are flourish this year as never before. In previous years, an herbivore (rabbit?) would nibble them down to the nubs repeatedly. Last year, they didn't get to flower at all, and I thought the rabbit had nearly killed two of the three clumps. But they eventually all came back and seem to be flourishing -- this is a clump that I thought was toast just a month ago. It doesn't quite fit with theme of this post as I haven't seen any pollinators on it yet, but it should attract hummingbirds with its long, tubular, red flowers with yellow throats.

Look closely and I believe you'll see two hoverflies mating on the leaf of this 'Golden Jubilee' Agastache foeniculum

Bumblebee hanging on to Agastache foeniculum (anise hyssop)

Which is fuzzier - the bumblebee or the 'Fuzzy Wuzzy' lamb's ear (Stachys byzantina)?

Small bee on Coreopsis lanceolata (lanceleaf coreopsis)

No pollinators in sight here, but the seedpods swelling suggest that something has succeeded in pollinating this redwhisker clammyweed (Polanisia dodecandra). Recent research from the University of Alberta suggests that redwhisker clammyweed provides both nectar and pollen resources for pollinators.

Rabbit.
Perhaps the culprit in the destruction of the smooth asters (Symphyotrichum laeve)?

Where there be pollinators, there be spiders...

Can you spot the spider here?
(The spider's camouflage is enhanced here by my inability to focus correctly. Sorry about that.)

The small bee on the Mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera) in the foreground is packing a lot of pollen on its legs!

Which plants are attracting the most pollinators in your garden?

Bumblebees love lavender!

Ya can't argue with evidence like this...

PS - If you'd like to read a detailed write-up on lavender instead of watching the video above, you can find my 2015 paean to lavender here.

Class of 2016 -- Coreopsis lanceolata, lanceleaf coreopsis

Lanceleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) started to bloom on May 11th.

Why I'm growing Coreopsis lanceolata in my garden...

1) Lanceleaf coreopsis is native to Tennessee and throughout much of the Eastern U.S.

2) Missouri Botanical Garden says it can grow in full sun and tolerate deer, drought, heat and humidity. (I've got all of those in abundance!)

3) I found an 1890 (!) article in The Garden magazine saying that C. lanceolata grew "exceptionally fine" on heavy clay soil during wet summers.

4) Michigan State University says that lanceleaf coreopsis flowers are very attractive to bees and other beneficial insects.

5) The Missouri Prairie Foundation says that C. lanceolata seeds provide food for finches.

Do you grow lanceleaf coreopsis? If so, what has been your experience with this plant?

Ah, to Bee in Paris!

This is the beehive that sits on a balcony on the 7th floor of the Hyatt Paris Madeleine. The hotel conceptualized and created a mascot called Maddie the Bee to try to make bees seem less intimidating to children. As you can see, Maddie is very French -- she is even wearing a beret. (Photo courtesy of Hyatt Paris Madeleine)

Ah, Paris.

City of Love.

City of Light.

City of honeybees on 7th floor hotel balconies.

Well, perhaps the last description is not so well-known, but it is accurate, at least in the case of the Hyatt Paris Madeleine, a charming boutique hotel with its very own honeybee hive right in the heart of Paris.

Whenever I travel, I always try to stay someplace that demonstrates some commitment to the environment.

The Hyatt Paris Madeleine recognizes that honeybees are in trouble and so it has installed and maintains this hive to show support for the bees.

I also like the fact that the hotel hosts an event where local elementary schoolchildren can watch a beekeeper harvest the honey and ask any questions they may have about bees or beekeeping.

The beekeeper at the Hyatt Paris Madeleine makes a point during the honey harvest. (Photo courtesy of Hyatt Paris Madeleine)

Laura, who works in communications at the Hyatt, very kindly gave me a tour of the beehive area. Although she assured me that these are sweet-natured bees, I got to suit up in the white pullover and helmet that beekeepers wear. (Sorry I forgot to ask for a blogger-as-beekeeper photo.) Then we stepped gingerly out on the small balcony and I shot this video of the bees buzzing in and out of their hive.

(The suit seemed unnecessary. The bees did not seem at all perturbed by presence. In fact, they ignored me entirely.)

Later on, I got a chance to sample some of the latest crop of honey and was very impressed. I have to say that it's among the most floral and 'perfumed' honeys I've ever tasted. I'd even go so far as to call it a 'romantic' honey -- the bees have managed to imbue it with the spirit of Paris!

A jar of the 2015 honey crop from the hive Hyatt Paris Madeleine. This little information card in all the rooms not only gives guests a chance to save water and detergent (by refraining from having their sheets laundered every day), it also makes sure they learn about the hotel's beekeeping program and hopefully sparks a conversation on the rationale and importance of such an initiative.

Laura mentioned that the chef in the Hyatt's on-site restaurants, Cafe M and Chinoiserie, incorporates the hotel's honey each year into a special dish/dishes. Last year, the honey showed up in a poached peach desert alongside lime blossoms and red currants. This year, the chef incorporated the honey into a sorbet (shown below).

This seasonal sorbet incorporated honey from the Hyatt Paris Madeleine's own beehives.

Beyond the bees and the honey, the Hyatt Paris Madeleine is still a pretty sweet hotel. The rooms are modern and spacious (for Paris). There's even a little spa in the basement with steam room (they call it a 'hammam') and dry sauna, plus a small relaxation room for chilling out with ambient music.

And I got a kick out of learning that the glass ceiling in the hotel atrium was designed by the workshops of Gustave Eiffel.

This is a view from the lobby looking toward the atrium. You can glimpse the glass roof designed by Mr. Eiffel's studio. (Photo courtesy of Hyatt Paris Madeleine)

You may have heard of Mr. Eiffel. He's well-known for a certain eponymous tower (visible from certain rooms at the Hyatt)...

Mr. Eiffel is actually better known for his tower (seen here in the distance from a room at the Hyatt Paris Madeleine) than for the hotel's atrium. (Photo courtesy of Hyatt Paris Madeleine)

From a practical standpoint, I should note that the Hyatt Paris Madeleine is very well-situated. It's near to several Metro stations (especially the Madeleine and Saint-Augustin stops) and I had no trouble walking from the hotel to the Tuileries garden, the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay or the Opera Garnier.


Disclosure: Hyatt Paris Madeleine arranged for a press visit so that I could gather material for this review. That said, the opinions expressed here are my own.

Lovely Lavender is a Bee Magnet!

Lavandula angustifolia (syn. L. officinalis) 'Hidcote', English lavender

One of my favorite plants in the June garden this year, 'Hidcote' English lavender seems to be thriving in its second year in the garden.

I picked 'Hidcote' because it is supposed to have some of the greatest cold tolerance of any lavender. It was basically evergreen last winter, although there was a bit of foliar discoloration (purpling) and wilting toward the end of the winter.

I followed the pruning instructions kindly provided in this excellent YouTube video by Sarah Bader from Lavender at Stonegate, which seems to have promoted a nice dense habit on the plant. I plan to do another major pruning this year right after the lavender has finished blooming in order to promote dense regrowth for next year.

As regular readers of the blog know, I have pretty heavy clay soil and I rarely do serious amending, so I was worried as to whether lavender could survive here. For instance, one Dave's Garden reviewer from Idaho who praised the plant said that lavenders require "hot, dry, rocky, sandy soil" and another in Kentucky described growing lavender on "sandy, lean and very well-drained soil with pea gravel on top."

Well, I didn't do any of that. I just plopped three lavender plants into my regular clay soil, that I may have amended (can't recall) with some soil conditioner. So far, they all seem to be fine, having survived an unusually cold winter and a very wet spring. Oh and despite the fact that NCSU says they "require" perfectly well-drained soil and full sun, my lavender plants are also getting a considerable amount of shade (morning shade from the shadow of the house, afternoon shade from a couple of big crape myrtles).

I'm not saying any of this to brag. For all I know, my lavenders are at Death's door and just putting on a brave show of it. But for now, they seem to be thriving, despite the fact that I've placed them in less-than-ideal circumstances. I'm sharing this fact so you all can know that if I haven't killed lavender (yet) then it may be tougher and more versatile than some books and other gardening sources suggest.

OSU hints at this adaptability, indicating that L. angustifolia may actually be able to tolerate partial sun, as well as "various soils and soil pHs."

One of my favorite things about lavender is just how popular it is with bees - especially bumblebees. All day long and well into evening, I usually can count on spying around 6 to 8 bees busily harvesting nectar and pollen from the flowers.

A study at the University of Sussex confirmed that bees are highly attracted to lavender flowers.

My camera isn't all that great at capturing the speedy bees as they bumble their way through the lavender flowers, but I tried my best to snap some shots that would give you an idea of lavender's appeal to our fuzzy, buzzy friends:

PS - If anyone has advice on harvesting lavender for use in potpourris or cooking, I'm all ears!

Travel Report -- Sweet (Bee) Dreams in Berlin at the Ritz-Carlton and the Scandic on Potsdamer Platz

Rooftop beehives at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin, with the Tiergarten park in the background

In September, I took a trip to Germany and the Netherlands. Over the next few posts on Garden of Aaron, I'll be sharing some of my garden related experiences and memories from the trip.

But first, any travel involves finding a place to sleep. Personally, as a gardener, I try to find places with an eco-friendly sensibility.

In Berlin, I found two hotels that actually maintain their own beehives and produce their own honey - the Ritz-Carlton and the Scandic, both of which are on or near Potsdamer Platz.

Wikipedia has a great entry on the history of Potsdamer Platz, once the busiest public square in Europe. Destroyed in WWII and subsequently divided by the Berlin Wall, Potsdamer Platz became a desolate no man's land.

But after the Cold War ended and Germany reunified, the platz sprang back to life. For a while, it was the biggest construction site in Europe. Heavy investment has transformed it once more into a showcase for modern Germany.

All of which is to say that from a traveler's perspective, Potsdamer Platz is interesting, historical (you can still see remnants of the Berlin Wall) and convenient from a transit perspective.

When I started researching eco-friendly places to stay in Berlin, it was the beehives at the Ritz-Carlton that first caught my eye. Installed in 2011, the seven beehives house up to 400,000 (!) bees in the summer -- fewer in winter -- who collectively produce 250 to 400 kilograms of honey each year. Some of that honey shows up at breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, while jars of the sweet stuff can be purchased as souvenirs at the hotel's gift shop. Some of the honey even makes its way into the hotel's delicious signature lavender-honey cake!

Signature lavender-honey cake at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin

Where do the bees gather their nectar and pollen in the midst of a giant urban area? Well, Potsdamer Platz is nearby the Tiergarten, a large city park. I also noticed quite a few bees buzzing around inside the display cases at local bakeries and donut shops. Coincidence? :)

The restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin incorporates ingredients from approximately 5 acres of land that are farmed exclusively for the hotel. The farm is in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region, a couple of hours north of Berlin. In season, the farmer (who is also the supplier for the Ritz-Carlton Berlin's organic lamb meat) grows more than 60 kinds of organic and bio-certified vegetables and herbs for the hotel, including pumpkins, onions, carrots, cabbage, Jerusalem Artichoke (known locally as topinambur) and lavender.
(Photo courtesy of Ritz-Carlton Berlin)

The beehives are just one of the many environmental initiatives at the Ritz-Carlton Berlin, which recently became the first five-star-superior hotel to win certification from the EU's Eco-Management and Audit Scheme. The hotel managed this feat by taking a number of eco-friendly steps, including installing energy-saving LED lights, using environmentally-friendly cleaning products and reducing water usage.

I was impressed to hear that the hotel partners with a recycling program to transform its paper waste into school notebooks. The hotel provides approximately 25 tons of paper materials every three months that are then processed into more than 1,300 notebooks, which are distributed to welfare organizations in Germany and abroad.

**********

After a couple of nights at the Ritz-Carlton, I checked out and walked ten minutes to my next hotel, the nearby Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

This was my first time staying at a Scandic hotel. Headquartered in Sweden, Scandic is a Nordic company with hotels in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland.

The company has a long track record of supporting sustainability initiatives over the past two decades. One thing I really liked and don't think I'd ever seen at another hotel was the way the hotel had subdivided the in-room wastebasket to allow for easy separation of organic and paper wastestreams.

The cheerful and clever subdivided wastebasket at the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

To reduce packaging waste, you'll notice that the hotel has done away with the innumerable little bottles of shampoo and body soap that you find in most hotels and replaced them with refillable pump bottles in the shower.

Refillable pump bottles of soap and shampoo in the shower at the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz

As a gardener, I loved the way that the hotel incorporated nature themes throughout its decor. For instance, this translucent panel between the shower and the bedroom is decorated with a leaf motif that glows when the bathroom light is on.

These nature motifs continue in the hallways, where murals (giant decals perhaps?) adorn the walls at the ends of the corridors. Piped in nature sounds such as birdsongs (motion-activated like the lights) provide a soothing soundtrack. I believe there are also ambient nature sounds in the elevators.
 

You'll even find the nature theme continued on some of the lampshades in the guest rooms at the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

Clearly the Scandic has less Old World luxury than the Ritz-Carlton. Still, I was impressed with the Scandic's trendy modern design. I liked the wooden floors for instance, and the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz seemed really new and clean. Here's another eco-friendly design choice -- a dual-flush toilet designed to reduce water usage. I like how the Scandic shows that you don't have to sacrifice beauty when you emphasize eco-friendly design. Personally I think it would be nice if every toilet in hotels (or homes) offered the dual-flush option.

I didn't get a photo of it, but like the Ritz-Carlton, the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz also produces and sells its own honey. Some of that honey also ends up on the breakfast buffet, which was included in our room rate and featured a selection of packaged and fresh organic products (which are typically labeled as "bio" in Europe).

So if you're a gardener or just a traveler who wants to support and encourage eco-friendly business practices while still enjoying a comfortable and convenient stay, I'd have no qualms about recommending either the Ritz-Carlton Berlin or the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz.

(Well, maybe one qualm. In an effort to save energy, I believe the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz turns off its air conditioning between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. We had a little bit of a warm spell during our time in Berlin and I did find it a little hard to sleep at night. I'm a little concerned that the room might become a sauna during a Berlin heatwave... Clearly I'm not the only one who had concerns over this practice. Reviews are generally very positive on Tripadvisor, but the few negative reviews generally reference the lack of nighttime A/C as the reason for giving a poor rating.)


Starting next week, I'll be sharing photos from my visits to German gardens. Stay tuned!


Full disclosure: Both the Ritz-Carlton Berlin and the Scandic Berlin Potsdamer Platz allowed me to stay in their hotels on a discount media rate. That said, all of the opinions expressed in this review are still my own.