Wildlife Wednesday January 2016: The Prequel

To kick off a new year of Wildlife Wednesday posts I'm heading to the archives for interesting wildlife photos from back before I began linking with My Gardener Says to make Wildlife Wednesday a regular feature on my blog.

First, a look at a wildlife photo from my garden last month.  Bees on the Rosemary Gorizia flowers.  Or is that all there is to see in the photo?  A closer looks shows what appears to be a bright green ladybug on the stem behind the bees, but is most likely a Cucumber Beetle.  I didn't even see it there until I looked at the photo.  We don't grow cucumbers or squash, just a few herbs.

Welcoming winter blooms in mild February

A mild winter with above-average temperatures means some plants have continued to bloom in the garden this February.

White lantana has not gone dormant this year and is covered with blooms this week.

Sage Confetti Inspired by The Whimsical Gardener

There are always ideas for blog posts floating around in my mind waiting until something special nudges the idea into place.  That's what happened when Cat over at The Whimsical Gardener blog wrote a beautiful post about nature's confetti in the fall.

As she often does she inspired me to think about my own yard in a different way. It turned out to be a very special request because I've often thought of sharing these pretty dropped blossoms from our native Texas sage.

Texas "Barometer Bush" shows off rare blooms

"The sage in bloom is like perfume--Deep in the Heart of Texas"

Blooming Memories

Sometimes an otherwise ordinary plant is valued for a special reason not even related to the plant itself.  For me, it is my Pittosporum (Pittosporum tobira) which evokes memories of another place and time.  It isn't among my favorites in the landscape -- until it blooms, as it is doing now.
 

There's a bee in my (Blue)bonnet!

Pollinators in the form of bees have descended on our bluebonnet patch.  We've had a shortage of pollinators around here for a few years so this working bee was a welcome sight.

This one little bee was buzzing about by herself and the phrase "bee in her bonnet" came to mind.  The phrase is quite old with an early version first written in 1513.  There are a number of meanings assigned to the phrase.  One definition says it refers to "a state of agitation".  Another is "an idea which is fixed in one's mind". 

The second definition would certainly apply when it comes to my garden this spring.  After two years of drought and three years of planning, we've been busy as a bee trying to finish several big projects before the heat of summer sets in.  The garden has been on my mind a lot these last few weeks.

The bee apparently gets a little help from the flowers, which provide color-coded signals telling the bee which ones to visit.  A Bluebonnet is made up of many individual flowers on each stalk and each flower needs to be pollinated to form a seed pod.  When the young flower is ready to be pollinated, the center is white, the color which attracts bees most.  As the centers turn pink and finally red with age, the bees tend to ignore them.

It's believed this encourages bees to visit flowers that have more viable pollen since the bees prefer the white centers.       

Guess you could say I have a bee in my bonnet since there is a lot to do in the garden this spring.