The Month of Promise
Article by Monika Smith, Master Gardener
Jane’s Walk is an annual event in Glendale and each year some aspect of our unique and beautiful space is presented. This year, we focused on native plants and what makes the grounds around our Hall interesting! Eight people joined, from Braeside, Garrison Woods, Glenbrook, Willow Park, and Wood Willow, for a relaxing hour talking about native plants, ideas, sharing stories, and Naturally, Glendale plans.
The first plant to point out was the native Bebb’s willow (Salix bebbiana) also known as beaked and diamond willow, near the Hall, in front of the preschool. The shrub was full of bright yellow catkins and abuzz with honeybees (Apis mellifera), three species of bumble bees (Bombus spp.), other solitary bees and I think a male mosquito, which also needs nectar to survive (only the females require blood). Honeybees fly fast, over 24 km/h, and can travel a few kilometres. Bumble bees are big and loud and fly half the speed and distance. Other solitary bees also fly quickly. The nectar is food for all of these insects and also, when they visit other Bebb’s willows, they pollinate the female shrubs.
Warm weather brings insects out of dormancy. It only takes ten degrees to bring the eusocial honeybees out of their hives looking for food. For bumble bees, which are North America’s only social bee, only the queen emerges, usually from a hollow in the ground. Bumble bee hives can have up to 200 individuals in this part of the world but only the queen survives and hibernates in winter. When they emerge, they need nectar, fast. Perennial and annuals don’t flower for a while. (Crocuses are here; but not enough for the swarms of insects I found!)
We had a happy sighting of a mourning cloak butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) at the Bebb’s willow. It wasn’t looking for pollen, as it is more interested in sap from aspens and poplars and sugary residue from fallen fruit and aphids—their caterpillars eat the leaves of willows, wild roses, alders, birches, and poplars. Now I know why I had one in my yard. They need food, now! It’s a wide-ranging species found across colder areas throughout North America and Eurasia and South America and even Japan.
In my yard, I have a couple of silver buffaloberry (Shepherdia argentea) plants (they have thorns!) and russet buffaloberry (Shepherdia canadensis), which have awesome leaves. I have both male and female silver buffaloberries, so the lady trees have fruit! But just male russets. Both species of male trees were just full of tiny flowers; you have to really get close to see them. Foraging honeybees had found the shrubs, and the hive members showed up en masse. Only a couple of bumble bees were around.
Keep looking at flowering plants! You might be surprised just how many and what kind of insects need nectar and how many arthropods help pass the pollen around.
For more information about Naturally, Glendale, native plants or biodiversity, or questions and comments about gardening, contact Monika at [email protected].
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