Bringing the Drama

I’ve been thinking lately how I need to follow up on a couple of past entries with new pictures. Ever since I first redid the plants in front of my house in late May/early June, I have been watering them every other day. The gardenia that I thought was going to die ended up having the strength to carry on, and now her relative, the other newly planted gardenia is now edging closer to the ledge. It’s a constant struggle.

Remember how checking out my hibiscus really late at night made for a tense moment? Now it is in full bloom. When we first did the plants, it was maybe 8 inches high. Now the hibiscus is almost 3 feet!

It had not been blooming, so I googled and found a solution that spreading some acidic plant food would do the trick. It took about a week but that plan worked, and the hibiscus is blooming!

The bees have not been around lately because the crape myrtle hasn’t been blooming for a while. However, with the new life of the hibiscus, I have found it attracts strange orange bugs.

I’m not sure what kind they are yet, but I think they eat other bugs like lovebugs. I know that picture is not one of an orange bug on the hibiscus, but it was the best picture I got this morning.

Then a couple of weeks ago I noticed these things in the mulch that seemed like fungus or something. I googled and found them to be harmless fungus called Bird’s Nest Fungus. I figured it was because while I was gone for Macca, it had rained a lot, and so the mulch didn’t really get a chance to dry out. It hasn’t really spread since though.

Finally, I had bought some small boxwoods to put in front of my house, but apparently the kind that I bought are not very good quality. They were $5 at Home Depot, and apparently the kind I got do not like a lot of sun. They have slowly gone from green when they were first planted to blonde. I’m not sure what to do, but I figure if they pass away I’ll replant with some new ones next spring that actually are not related to vampires.

The picture below is the crape myrtle tree in my front yard. It was one of the left over yard improvements from the previous owners that until this year really didn’t seem to flourish at all.

One morning last weekend I went outside to water the plants in the new flowerbeds about 9 am. It was later than when I water during the week, but one of my plants has been contemplating giving up on life, so I’ve been adamant about watering. So I’m out there and I notice a lot of activity around the crape myrtle tree. It’s an audible buzzing sound and I notice the tree’s flowers are covered in bees. Both bumblebees and regular bees just going about their business gathering nectar. I maintained my cool and kept watering my plants, but kept an eye on the bees. I’m not allergic to bees, but I figured being stung by over 100 bees would probably not be good. I thought about how I’d have to drive myself to the hospital and how long I’d have, etc. I remembered though the golden rules of wild animals “if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you” and “they are more afraid of you than you are of them.” I kept watering and was only a few feet from all the nectar drinking with my bright yellow hose, but nobody bothered anyone. I tried to take pictures but bees apparently are tough to capture on film. I did catch one of my new yard friends though for a closeup.

The bee activity has been going on for a week now. I get up to water the plants at 6 am, and there are no bees, but maybe one or two early risers. The majority of them get there about 8 or 9. The first time I noticed a bee in my yard was when a big bumblebee appeared to check out my oleander plant. I had no idea the crape myrtle tree would be such a hotspot.