• In the Garden

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Mysterious blooms bring bees back

posted by Terry OShaughnessy at 11h08

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Pilot lowers landing gear onto unknown territory. (Photo by Terry O'Shaughnessy)

Can anyone tell me what these flowers are? Pretty enough in themselves, they are more importantly attracting the bees back to my garden like mad. The other morning, I went out and could see at least eight to 10 bees busy flying in and out of these delicately deep pink flowers that seem to be a distant relation to orchids or Lady's Slipper, and are growing wild all around my yard.

Anyway you look at it, I'm very relieved. For a month or so earlier this summer, there were almost no bees in the garden – a state of nature that was beginning to worry me. I've let the edges of my property grow wild in an effort to feed and please the birds, bees and butterflies who are gracious enough to visit my garden, so I imagine these flowers are actually some sort of weed. But they are a very pretty sort of weed.

Of course, weeds are flowers too, aren't they? So I shouldn't judge. "One man's meat is another man's pudding," as the saying goes. All I really care about is that the bees came back. And soon they will be very happy they did, because a big patch of Japanese anemones are getting ready to explode into bloom. And these are the ultimate in bee snacks, apparently. When my anemone patch gets going, you can even hear the distant drone of bees gorging themselves when you get close enough.

But I'm very grateful to these unknown pink flowers that provided a potent enough appetizer to get my bees back in the yard for the feast that is still to come.