Tuesday, July 28, 2020

rudbeckia returns


For the first time, a rudbeckia plant has survived a winter and reappeared!
This is one of the four rudbeckia plants I ordered from a nursery last year. This year it has already struggled through insect attacks that left many leaves tattered and many petals half-eaten before the blooms had even opened. But, as you can see:
the overall effect is one of Triumph and Beauty!


Each of the four was planted in a different place, in hopes in increasing chances of survival. This one was planted in a small bed right by the gate to the barn paddock. Whenever I walk past, I check to see if there are insidious insects chewing on the flowers, and if so, I knock them off. But this past week, there have been tiny bees working away at pollen collection!



Every morning I've thought, "I must go back for the camera," but by the time I've done even the slightest task - such as turning on the hose and passively watching it fill the goats' water buckets - there is sweat literally dripping from my hair, and my clothes are sticking to my entire body. When I get back into the cooler house, the camera is no longer on my mind.


Until today! Today I chanted "camera, camera, camera," as I walked back to the house. Went in, pulled off the leather gloves that were sticking to my fingers, grabbed the camera and went right back out.


One of the little goat-combing folding chairs was conveniently at hand, as I had used it last night to avoid 20 minutes of leaning while doing barnyard macrame on the lower part of a stock panel. So this morning I pulled that little folding chair right up to the rudbeckia and started making bee portraits.



A nearby patch of bee balm was hosting a group of big furry bumblebees, but the rudbeckia was providing an exclusive pollen party for a number of tiny bees from what I think is the family Halictidae - and that, my friends, is as far as I am willing to go on the bee id's. I started to look into it, but it's a huge family, and I have to save some of my small memory bank for remembering whose hooves need to be trimmed and whether or not I've paid my bills this month.

Besides, no name is needed. I'm happy just to see these amazing little creatures.



And these amazing flowers.



~~~~~

14 comments:

  1. Beautiful! Congratulations! I've never seen bees that color -- are they honey bees (if not, why are they collecting pollen?) Also, not being much of a gardener, I've never seen those flowers before -- thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Cam! These bees don't make honey, but I guess a bee's gotta eat...or feed it's babies :)

      Delete
  2. Wonderful pictures. Those flowers are an amazing color too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In some light they look quite brown, which is what I was hoping for - other times they look a deep burnt orange, which is also very pretty. I'm so happy the plant came back!

      Delete
  3. Wow - rudbeckia is beautiful! (as are your photos)

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a gorgeous color. My rudbekia is plain old yellow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plain? What?? I believe you mean "the golden tone of optimism"!

      Delete
  5. Beautiful flowers! And those bees - so happy to see them. Bees are so endangered now and it's wonderful to see them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. They are truly glorious flowers! I'm glad that you remembered to get your camera!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow! You got some great pictures. Haven't seen that variety of bee before. Wonderful! It's been so very, very humid here for weeks now. Ugh!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Beautiful halictids - tiny jewels, aren't they?!? That is the ruddiest rudbeckia I've ever seen - lovely color!

    Thank you (I think) for pointing me to Peter Brathwaite's incredible series on black portraiture. I'm not on Twitter, but find your twitter feed absolutely fascinating. Unfortunately it's now way past bedtime...

    Cheers,
    Chris from Boise

    ReplyDelete
  9. The flowers look gorgeous and the photography is beautiful. Thanks for sharing,
    Laila

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad you enjoyed the photographs - thank you so much for you comment, Laila!

      Delete

Thank you for leaving a comment! I enjoy reading each one, and will usually reply either here or on YOUR blog!

Due to spam, Anonymous comments are blocked. I'm hoping to avoid the annoying Word Verification gizmo! If you find you cannot leave a comment, please email me so we can try to sort it out.