One Redeeming Quality

   Carpenter bees are some of those critters that can be a downright nuisance.  Those gals (yes, it is the females that do the damage) can bore their way through any piece of wood.  It is hard to stop them once they make up their minds that your house is their house, too.  The female will start boring a tunnel into any chosen piece of wood and keep going until she has decided that she has enough nurseries for her babes.  That long tunnel was built with little side chambers to house an egg and pollen/nectar ball.  She does all the work herself with no help from her mate.  In fact, she is a loner and does not have a hive of worker bees to help her.  She does it...ALL.  Sometimes if she lives long enough, she will reuse her tunnel but, more oft than not, she dies from the toll that this work takes on her.  

  I was out working in the Small Gardens this morning when I noticed that dozens of carpenter bees were busy in the Mexican Hydrangeas.  The flower heads were literally crawling with bees.  These were bees that had just become adults and were out foraging for pollen and nectar.  They will keep busy between now and time to settle in for the winter.  Come spring, they will crawl back out of the tunnel and then start hunting mates.  The cycle will start anew with one lucky female claiming the old tunnel if the original female has died while the others will start drilling their own.

  With all the damage these bees can do to wooden structures, it is a good thing that they are important pollinators.  That is their one redeeming quality...other than the fact that they are extremely slow to sting.  Back when I was a kid, Granddad showed me how to find and plug the tunnels to make it harder for the bees to do too much damage.  If the female had to keep starting over with her tunnel, she would usually move off to a dead tree and leave the house alone.  I guess, I had better be on the lookout for those small round holes being drilled into the house, shed and greenhouse.  Let me find some plugs!  Not that it is going to do much good but, at least, it makes me think I am saving the Little Bayou House from collapse!

A Bit Smelly But Lovely!

   For as long as I can remember (and that is a long, long time), there has been a bunch of plants that just pop up randomly in the yard.  I never know where new ones might sprout and the old ones never seem to die.  They go dormant in the winter but, come springtime, they start growing with a vengeance.  The plants must be relatively hardy as I do nothing in the way of care for them and will actually cut them down with the lawnmower, to make matters worse. Still, these plants grow.  And grow.  They are sort of like the kudzu of the Bayou but without the overpowering part.  For years, I had no idea of what the plant was called.  My sweet Aunt Marie gave me the first start when I first moved to the Bayou from the farm across the road.  I actually never think she told me the name of the plant.  We both loved gardening so sharing plants was the thing to do...names or no names.

  Well, the sharing has continued even though I am the "Old Lady of the Bayou" now.  Recently, I asked Darling Daughter if she would like a start of the plants and she was elated.  "Yes!  I love plants!"  Oh, the tradition continues which makes me so happy!  Well, I started thinking it was a shame to give an "unnamed" plant to someone so a bit of research started.  With the magic of the Internet, I was able to identify the plants!  These hard-to-kill, smelly, yet lovely things are Clerodendrum Bungeis.  Since that is a bunch for an old brain to remember, I found the common names of these things.  Rose Glory Bowers, Cashmere Bouquets or Mexican Hydrangeas are all listed as common names depending on region.  Personally, the Mexican Hydrangea fits wonderfully as the plants grow similar to hydrangeas that we are accustomed to seeing in gardens. 

  Tomorrow will find me digging some of the smaller plants, potting them and preparing them for a jaunt to Darling Daughter's place.  I am sure that my son-in-law will be on "plant retrieval" duty some time this week as there are still tomato plants awaiting their transport, too.  Goodness, it is nice to know that I can share things from the garden!