Sunday, November 29, 2009

Aster 'Miss Bessie', Bumblebees and Honeybees


More pictures from early November, when Aster 'Miss Bessie' was in full bloom and literally abuzz with insects. This aster is a great favorite of our native bumblebees. The petals look to me like lavender ribbons as the flowers age.


Not the clearest of shots, but I like how it shows the fuzziness of the bee and the light glinting off the cellophane wings.


Upside down is just as easy as right side up.



Honeybees love 'Miss Bessie' too.













Saturday, November 28, 2009

Camera Critters


I took the following pictures early in November, before the remnants of tropical storm Ida came through and beat down the asters. With the mums finished the bees and other insects had moved on to this:

Aster 'Miss Bessie'


Bees and butterflies aren't the only ones at the party. Lots of hoverflies too, which in my opinion are one of the most beautiful and photogenic groups of insects.

Look at those enormous chestnut-colored eyes



and the patterns and colors are so crisp.














Look at how tiny this particular hoverfly on the left is. He makes the little metallic green bee on the right (who is about the size of a honeybee) look enormous by comparison.



Other flies were nectaring too.


This guy is cute and a little bit grotesque at the same time.


There were still a few wasps flitting around, most too quickly to get their picture taken.



I don't know the name of this little insect, but he's certainly
colorful and would look more fierce if he was bigger.



To see more critters of all sorts, visit Camera Critters!


Thursday, November 26, 2009

Blooming Friday



Most of the flowers have finished now, except the garden never really finishes for the year.

Encore azaleas 'Autumn Amethyst' on a misty morning.

With the golden seedheads of Northern River Oats. I got a start of the oats from the ones down by the creek.



As the weather turns colder the foliage will take on more of a purplish hue.


In a sheltered spot in the woods I found a Ladies' Tresses still in bloom. It's a tiny native orchid.


'Rainbow Knockout' (which reminds me of pink dogwood flowers and another rose, 'Nearly
Wild') combines wonderfully with the still-purple seedheads of Muhlenbergia filipes.


A couple of the Winter Honeysuckles have already started to bloom. They will probably continue to bloom on and off until April.

For more Blooming Friday posts, visit Katarina at roses and stuff.


Monday, November 23, 2009

Down by the creek


The northern side of our property is bordered by Middle Creek, which joins Swift Creek shortly before emptying into the Neuse River near Smithfield, NC. The Neuse River has a large watershed in eastern North Carolina and eventually ends up at the Pamlico Sound. Here Middle Creek is about 40-50 feet wide, but after a major rain event it spreads out in an area 3/8s of a mile wide and covers much of the farm. Its headwaters are in the next county over, so I keep an eye on how much rain southwestern Wake County gets too.

This is a view on November 5th at the end of a trail that winds down to the creek, looking downstream. The tree laying across the creek is a big cherrybark oak that went down when Hurricane Floyd passed through.


We have had a rather dry year but not terribly droughty, so I was surprised to see the slough next to the trail and adjacent to the stream dry like this. This slough was created years ago by beavers and is populated by water tupelo (a beautiful red bright in the fall some years), red maples, willows and Hibiscus moscheutos. We frequently see turtles and wood ducks when the slough is full, which is most of the time. Prothonotary warblers, one of the most fearless of wild birds, like the slough too. I used to see prothonotary warblers at Jordan Lake when we went birding there and was delighted to see them here. Beavers are still active in the creek and we've had to dismantle a few of their engineering projects. I've even seen one and was rather surprised by its size.


This is the slough in April '08, filled with water.


While the Neuse River has been plagued by pollution problems and frequently looks muddy in Smithfield, Middle Creek is clean, not just by my estimation but by state water testing. Still, I was surprised by the clarity of the water. Perhaps the economic slowdown has halted development upstream.


A lot of musclewood (Carpinus caroliniana) grows in the floodplain here. You can see how it gets its name, how the fine barks looks like skin over rippling muscles. It's also known as ironwood. According to Gardening with Native Plants of the South, "The wood is so fine-grained and strong that it was once highly prized as timber for house foundations". Other common names include American hornbeam, blue beech and water beech. This is one of my favorite falls trees, especially in the fall. Its fall color was beautiful this year (but that's another post!).


This late in the year all I could find were the golden seedheads of Northern river oats (they cover the banks in some places) and this frost aster, but there are a lot of wildflowers by the creek during the year: marsh violets, hawthornes and wild crabapples in spring, and wild hibiscus, Joe Pye Weed, white turtlehead, Bidens, and wild Ageratum in summer and fall. In the floodway fields and sloughs that empty into the creek there are even more native flowering plants: Geranium maculatum, Amsonia tabernaemontana, lyreleaf sage, spreading bellwort, atamasco lily, Jack-in-the-pulpit, Jessamine, serviceberry, fringetree, American snowbell, highbush blueberry, Barbara's buttons, Virginia sweetspire, viburnums, Scutellaria incana, a species of Sabatia, elderberry, sweetbay (Magnolia virginiana) coastal pepperbush, swamp cyrilla, swamp azalea, turk's cap lily, downy lobelia, cardinal flower, gerardia (although I cannot find any this year, darn it!), Boltonia, several species of goldenrod, green coneflower, soapwort gentian, and hearts-a-burstin' (if the deer don't eat them before they can fruit). In addition to Northern river oats, sugarcane plumegrass is a very striking grass, and even broomsedge and teddy-bear paws (Scirpus cyperinus) has won me over.

We've had at least 7" of rain since I took these pictures, so I imagine the slough has water in it now!


 
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