The other day as I watered the garden patch, I pondered why squash plants were not considered to be some elaborate, sought after plant for flower gardens. The leaves are attractive, the blooms are exquisite and the plants are relatively easy to grow. Then as an added benefit, you get squash to eat! It seems to me that everyone should plant squash! In fact, even though I have two rows in the vegetable plot, I opted to plant a dozen more plants in front of the moonflower fence! I figured the bright yellow blooms would look right nice with the backdrop of large, white moonflower blooms!
Then a day later, the blooms caught my eye again. This time, it was because a bee was busying itself inside the blossom. The fat, little bee was collecting so much pollen that it appeared to be covered with gold dust! The once solid black bee had on pollen pants! Seeing this gave me another reason to love squash.
Our pollen-collecting bees (of all types) are being put in danger on a daily basis and I am not referring to the so-called "murder hornet" (don't even get me started on the media hype about that!). People are putting the bees in danger by using so many insecticides. Yep, I am in a tizzy about the caterpillars on my four o'clock leaves but I am sure not going to douse everything with insecticides. The sprays are not discriminate to the point that they kill only certain "pests" and not the beneficial insects. I figure if the caterpillars stay on the four o'clock leaves perhaps they will forgo the tomato plants. Also, I am depending on the lizards, wrens and ground wasps to do their jobs! That way, I can enjoy watching the bees pollinate my lovely squash and the bees will not be in peril.
Eons ago, my oldest son had a little book that he absolutely loved! I did, too, as it was an easy teaching tool. He started "reading" the book at the early age of three! Or so I thought. Since I read the book to him daily, he had picked up on the core words and then memorized the whole book. "Sun Up" is an excellent teaching tool for those who wish to help their little ones learn to read but, as a word of experience, be careful that they are actually reading! My little fellow proudly told me that he could read the book and I was astounded to hear him go through each page without stumbling over a single word! Amazing! Three years old and he was reading! Nope, he was reciting from memory. Which, in its own right, is astounding. A three year old with the gumption to memorize a story is something else again. I was just as proud of him for that feat!
The book came to mind this morning as the old dog, Mr. PJ, and I were headed to the pier. Just in the edge of the marsh were few daisies blooming. The sight of the bright yellow blossoms brought a smile to my face but photographing them proved difficult. The daisies were all facing the east and the only access I had to them was from the north or west. It took a bit of climbing in the marsh to get my picture! But then a thought....did you know that most flowers face the sun? When the sun is rising, the flowers face the east but as the day progresses the blooms follow the sunshine until at sunset, they face the west. Perhaps you have noticed but do you know why? In a sense, the plants are smart. Flowers are the part that produce seeds to make new plants. Without pollination, the seeds would be no good so the blooms depend on bees and other insects to pollinate them. Insects do not have a method of keeping warm so they seek out warmth where they find it. If a flower is facing the sun, its face will be nice and warm. Not only will the bees flock toward the warmth, the sunshine also heightens the scent of the bloom which calls more insects! Pretty clever, Little Daisy, pretty clever, indeed! (If you look closely at the bottom photo, you will see that one little honeybee was already hard at work!)
