Bug Squad

My late father, who called me "Katydid," loved poetry. Decades after he passed, a cousin gave me a set of his books from his childhood home. One was "The Early Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes," published in 1899 by T. Y. Crowell and Company. In it is a poem, "To an Insect," and it's about katydids.

It was a pomegranate kind of day. Red, bright and wonderful. The papery-thin reddish blossoms in our yard draw both beneficial and pestiferous insects. Honey bees are there for the pollen and nectar; ladybugs are there for the pesky aphids.

The honor is so well deserved.

If you're looking for a good bee plant that offers a little bit of an obstacle, try the violet trumpet vine (Clytostoma calystegioides). It's one of the UC Davis Arboretum All-Stars.

Our yard is filled with such bee friendly plants as salvia, lavender, catmint and rock purslane. Lately, however, the honey bees have taken a liking to the sugar-water mixture from our hummingbird feeder.