Tag: pollination

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06/23/2022

The second Coryphantha sulcata seedling seems to have died, but the original is getting longer.
Another two spotted bumblebee (Bombus bimaculatus) visited the mealy blue sage today!
There was only one but I took a lot of angles. You can see the two spots if you zoom in.
In flight you get the best view of spots.
I liked the pollinating wasp zooming through in this picture.
Baby mantis!
I believe this is a baby red yucca, as that’s what I planted here, and it seems too sturdy to be grass.
A big ol mydas fly in the backyard!!
The native clematis likes its new sunnier spot about 20 ft to the west. It already has two or three new leaves!
I weeded the strawberry/honey berry bed but got called in for dinner when there was still a patch left. Maybe tomorrow.
I found a second pale zig zaggy spider in the backyard. Looking at it closer, I think it’s the wrong pattern and shape for Argiope aurantica, the usual banana spider.
Filling up the bird bath intrigued the dog.
African blue basil has flowers!
One of the many marigolds in the raised beds (we mixed the old seedheads and plants in over the winter) is beginning to flower!
The corn is going to town! A vaquero bean is flowering!
A fine little bell pepper!!
Cooling off after gardening with the mysterious Paper Protozoan. Note the hairy flagellum sticking out.
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06/21/2022

Gram guards the rooting juniperleaf.
There’s a new pollinator garden on campus!!
Very pleased at least one of the partridge pea seeds I sprinkled last year made it up.
Paper wasps made a nest on the debris of the invasive clematis.
A small lynx spider eats a fly
Just noticed that the long true bugs have little flat pom poms on their antennae.
A second individual. I think you have to see them from the right angle to get a good view of the antennae spots.
Dog
A helpful cat saw this wasp (maybe a spider wasp?) In the aloe and knocked the pot over.
I took it outside and shooed the friend off. No dinner in the house for it. Only cat.
I spotted a plume moth hiding on rain barrel stand.
Potatoes in straw bale getting big. Hope roots are too.
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06/12/2022 a walk in the park

Just a bit of prairie here at Ruby Grant Park in NW Norman.
Oh wait! A box turtle!!
It is good pollinator habitat and good prairie too. I heard one Eastern Meadowlark singing and at least one Dickcissel.
A weevil on green milkweed pods.
A family of baby milkweed bugs on green milkweed pods. We looked but didn’t find any Monarch butterfly caterpillars.
Sideoats grama grass.
Abby has suggested this is bottlebrush squirrel tail grass.
It has very exciting seedheads!
Thanks to Mom and Abby for identifying this as Apocynum cannabinum, or dogbane.
There was a lot of it along the trail and we saw the dogbane beetle that eats it too!
Possibly prairie acacia?
A non native lady beetle on the acacia.
Really great stands of Rudbeckia amplexicaulis here!
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05/13/2022 world’s most adorable banana spider and other friends

The featured adorable tiny baby banana spider (Argiope aurantica). They are also known as garden spiders. That’s more common, but I prefer banana spider.
A tiny spider has caught a stilt bug. Mom, do you remember what these ones with the messy webs were called? The plant is a native Euphorbia.
Here’s an ant and a living stilt bug. I think it’s a Maximilian sunflower leaf they’re on, but I don’t know why I would have put one in this little pot. We’ll see.
A bombyliid bee fly on the coreopsis out front.
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Corn on the cob, third time’s the charm?

Yesterday morning I picked half a dozen sweet corns and Wes buttered them up and roasted them in foil. The front one we threw out because of too few kernels from incomplete pollination.
Steak and corn.
While taking the husks out to the compost pile, I was relieved to see that my mysteriously dying frostweed is resprouting at the base.
Steak, a roll, a baked potato, and corn. Very classic.
Everything buttered up extra. It was pretty good but nothing to write home about. First year I picked way too late (hard and rubbery), last year didn’t pollinate, so I’m counting this as a win.
After dinner, the Chef found this fine friend on the porch.
The stealthy bagworm (a moth caterpillar). So invisible in its natural habitat of Rubbermaid tub lid!
Here it was walking so you can see its head.