Friday, July 23, 2021

My Bee Flowers

First I want to thank those of you who left such lovely comments on my two remembrance posts. Definitely warmed my heart, especially the ones noting that they too had celebrated 50 years of marriage. I had a feeling I had readers who had made that milestone. Congratulations! Here - have some flowers, or at least pictures of flowers, which is my second thing. These winter over in their planter on my back deck and I think this is the third summer I've enjoyed these blooms. The first summer there were only two blooms, but now look how the plant has grown and has sent up multiple blooms.

I don't know what it is called because it came out of a packet of mixed seeds meant to produce plants that bees would be drawn to. The blooms unfurl ever so slowly over weeks . . .


But each bloom sticks around for weeks as well.

Although it looks like the stems all originate from the same basic plant, there are two different styles of blooms: one with a single layer of petals round the center and one with several layers of petals.



And several different distinct colorations. All delight me.

They DO draw the bees. Look at all the pollen covering this one. Does anyone know the name of this flower?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your yellow flowers are so pretty although I don't have any idea what they're called! We have 2 beehives & I'm sure those little guys would love buzzing around your flowers! Jan in WY

sylviaweir.wordpress.com said...

These flowers are a variety of Echinacia--also known as cone-flowers. I don't have any near my hives so I don't really know if bees are attracted or not. Bees also like ragweed as it is high in protein. Broccoli is also a popular plant for bees.

We just harvested three gallons of honey and have more to go later this week. We freeze the frames first for several days, then process it. I don't have an extractor so it is all done by hand. I also do comb honey--a lot easier to manage as I just plop the frames on a large cookie sheet, and cut the comb into squareish pieces.

I can talk a long time about bees. Here we have year round gardening---but also year round insects.

The Inside Stori said...

Beautiful and so darn cheerful!!!

Sherrie Spangler said...

Yellow flowers are always so cheerful!!! It's nice that they keep coming back.

The Idaho Beauty said...

Gosh, Jan and Sylvia, beekeepers both! I have a cousin who also keeps bees and last year sent me a sample of the honey she gets from them. It was very mild, like I've been looking for for years after becoming rather addicted to alfalfa honey when living in Walla Walla WA. The two processes for the honey are interesting.

Thanks Sylvia for all that information on my yellow flowers. I became familiar with cone flowers when I lived in WI, the type with the petals that hang straight down from the center. The seed packet, long gone, did have a list of what plants to expect and Echinacia sounds familiar. I had to smile at your comment about year-round gardening and also year round insects! I grew up experiencing 4 distinct seasons. When I lived on the west side of WA state where winter barely makes an appearance and my husband could be seen mowing the lawn in January, I'd complain that things didn't even have the good graces to die in winter to give us a break! And to be honest, spring is not my favorite season because yes, it heralds the re-emergence of all kinds of insects, not to mention the pollen I'm allergic to, and when I actually gardened, having to spend so much time weeding and tending to plants that actually never did very well - I'm not much of a gardener. Thus I'm very happy to limit my endeavors to these few pots on my deck!

The Idaho Beauty said...

Mary and Sherrie, aren't they just! I love the splash of yellow from several plants against the blues and purples. No matter what else is going on, I only need to glance out the patio door to raise my spirits and a smile. And yes, any plant that will keep coming back year after year on its own is high on my list of favorites. :-)