- Author: Thomas Tucker
If you grow Staychys lanata ‘Lamb's Ear' or Verbasum thapsus ‘mullien' in your garden and you notice bare trails on the leaves, strips about 2 “ long and .01 “ in wide, you are supporting Carder Bees.
Carding refers to the teasing out or carding of wool or cotton with a comb like tool. The female Carder bee has five sharp teeth on each mandible for this task. She strips the long fibers from the plant leaf to construct her nest. Verbascum and Staychys leaf material is ideal due to its strength. Verbascum was called beggars cloth in England in the olden days when it was used to line shoes that had holes in them. It also provided warmth when stuffed under clothing.
Anthidium, or Carder Bees, are solitary bees that build their nests in preexisting cavities in walls, soil, wood, or stems. When the female finds a suitable nest site she will begin to gather the plant material. Walking backwards, she shears off hairs with her mandibles. These hairs are formed into a ball that weighs almost the same as the bee. This flock is tucked under the thorax between the front two pair of legs and flown back to the nest site. It takes six or seven loads to make one cell.
The nest will be in the form of a tunnel. She will stick a tuft of material to the back of the tunnel. The walls are covered with curtains that are made by holding the plant material against the top and using her mandibles to card it by pushing in her jaws and then opening them to tease out the fibers. A little saliva will glue the curtains in place. The cell will be lined in about forty minutes.
At this point it is time to provision the cell. Before leaving she puts some flock at the entrance to protect against earwigs and ants. It will take about 20 trips to provision each cell. Pollen and nectar are mixed into a viscous liquid where the egg will be laid half submerged. Food gathering takes about seven and a half hours per cell. This and the forty minutes to line the cell has taken up to eight hours plus. She will overnight in the entrance facing inward with her abdomen curved downward. This Carder Bee will repeat these tasks each day, weather permitting, until her egg supply is depleted. The terminal plug consists of bits of organic and inorganic matter. In twelve to eighteen days the eggs will hatch. At twenty three days the larva will spin a cocoon. Adults emerge either later that summer as the second generation of a bivoltine life cycle or over winter as prepupae and emerge the following spring.
The Anthidium male is unusual in the bee world in that they are larger than the female. They aggressively guard a territory around the female to protect her. A very speedy flier that will challenge almost anything that moves. Anthidium are often mistaken for wasps. Look for them in your garden. They are good pollinators.
- Author: Marshall Foletta
Until recently I figured that my water supply was safe. While I preached conservation as the socially responsible thing to do during our extended drought, I assumed that my own well would allow me to remain self-sufficient and well-watered.
But last week I talked to friend with a small horse ranch in the Briones Valley near Martinez. His well, he lamented, was beginning to fail. It had never been all that productive—at 6.5 gallons a minute or roughly 10,000 gallons a day, it barely served all his personal and ranching needs. But after three years of drought, the well's flow had fallen to less than a half gallon a minute—only 500 gallons a day.
Groundwater typically fills about 40% of California's water needs. During droughts, when other water sources run dry, that figure usually rises to about 60%. In the past, the increased pressure on underground water sources has been accepted as a necessary short-term measure with few negative consequences. But our extended drought has placed unusual pressure on our aquifers and water basins and produced a record number of failed wells. As a result, well drillers in the Central Valley are in high demand—and the wells they are drilling are going deeper and deeper. Farmers, anxious to ensure their water supply for the years to come are regularly drilling more than 1000 feet. At about $225/ft, a completed system can cost more than $300,000.
Some counties have begun to respond. Orange County has regulated ground water usage for some time. San Luis Obispo County recently imposed a moratorium on new development and irrigation projects impacting groundwater. And in Sacramento, legislators are debating a bill that would empower local authorities to conduct inspections and impose pumping restrictions. If the measure is passed, California will be taking a perhaps long overdue step—we are the only state that does not require users to post water logs so that public officials and scientists can track the pressure on our aquifers.
A team of scientists from UC Irvine recently confirmed what my rancher friend described—California's underground water supply has fallen to critical levels. Using satellite imaging they concluded that between 2003 and 2010, the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins lost about 30 cubic kilometers of freshwater—that's enough water to fill Lake Mead. In 2012 and 2013, these same basins lost an additional 20 cubic kilometers—enough water to meet all of the state's household and industrial (not agricultural) needs.
I'm sort of embarrassed that it took a friend's well running dry for me to get the message—especially since scientists have been warning us about ground water use for some time. But I'm paying attention now—and sleeping a little worse at night.
- Author: Toni Greer
Beauty is a very subjective thing. Some see beauty in the garden as similar plant size, color and shape. Some see beauty in the butterflies, bees and hummers that reside in their garden. And…some, like myself, see beauty as an ever changing organic thing. I love color in the garden!! It could be tones of one single color or a vibrant mix of colors. Short, tall, fat, wispy and elegant draws me in.
I love pathways, for they lead to such expectation, surprise and awe. The pictures are from the Mendocino Botanical Gardens during a recent visit.
As I stood facing the bench and Memorial Plaque, ultimately I decided to take the path that went straight. The trees, the beautiful trees, Rhoddies and quiet sounds of the ocean led me down this path. With the tree Rhododendrons, tree Camellias and other hidden gems of color and shape, I didn't know where to look first.
Bright green, soft green, chartreuse, red, pink, white and on and on! A pop of red amongst the purple, white and green drew my eyes into this bed. I'm not one that likes symmetry. I love unconstructed and free-flowing as in nature. I guess that says something about my personality that I would have to agree with.
The variegated Rhododendrons and Tree Camellias were fascinating. Walking beneath the archways created by the Redwoods were Heavenly. I've had a profound love of Redwoods since I was 13. Their strength, beauty and tenacity are unlike any other botanical, even my Grandma Elizabeth's Violets and Jade!
For you, beauty in nature may be the Painted Desert, the Sierra, Smokey or Ozark Mountains. For me, it's our breathtaking North Coast.
- Author: Tina Saravia
One day, I was hosing down my 5 foot tall Brussels sprouts (Brassica oleracea) with a strong jet of water to knock off the aphids. When I thought I'd done sufficient damage on these creatures, I set the hose down. Then I noticed a couple of small, roundish bugs with some orange striping on them.
I went inside the house to get my bug cheat sheet. It's got pictures of good bugs and bad bugs. But nothing matched these cute little creatures - think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, according to an imaginative husband.
I started taking pictures and did some research on the UC IPM website - still no luck.
So I asked the experts — Looks like I got some stink bugs. They're bad bugs. They needed to be hand-picked right away.
But there's more to the story. They are probably harlequin bugs, but there's a possibility that they may be Brown Marmorated stink bugs. The nymphs of these bugs are very similar looking at this stage.
Harlequin bugs suck fluids from plant tissues, they can be controlled by hand picking them. They also have parasites and predators that help control them.
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDEN/VEGES/PESTS/harlequinbug.html
The brown marmorated stink bug, on the other hand, is a serious pests of many fruit and fruiting vegetable crops. They can go inside a building and become a nuisance and emit an offensive odor if disturbed or crushed.
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74169.html
The best way to find out what I have is to raise them to adulthood. Armed with a used plastic drinking cup, I started picking them off carefully and placing them in their new home. I put a little piece of the leaf of the Brussels sprouts, and a tiny cup with water.
Within a week, 9 (the smaller ones) of the 11 bugs were dead. So I went to a collect a few more. Another week goes by, most of them are still alive. But even better, a few of them are fully grown. They can be positively identified, at last, as Harlequin Bugs. They're even prettier when fully grown.
We are all so relieved that they were not the peskier brown marmorated stink bugs. But I will be on the look-out. They better watch themselves.
- Author: Launa Herrmann
Recently, I learned about a cleverly disguised predator of pollinators. In fact, both the bee and the butterfly easily succumb to its charms. This insect, commonly referred to as the orchid mantis (Hymenopus coronatus), is native to Asia's southeastern rainforests, primarily Indonesia and Malaysia.
In my own garden, I'm always on the lookout for a praying mantis (mantis religiosa). I find this insect fascinating with its ability to change color and a name derived from the “prayer posture” it assumes as if its hands are folded in gratitude for each meal. Yesterday, after I discovered one clinging to the support stake I had hammered next to a dahlia, I couldn't help but wonder how many butterflies and bees this local “impersonator of plant stems” had devoured that day.
A couple tidbits about this family of camouflaged Carnivora include:
- Adult females are known to eat the male during and after mating
- The mantis is equipped with a triangular head that rotates 180 degrees to scan its surrounding for prey.
- An orchid mantis is known to attract more pollinators than flowers since its color is indistinguishable from the 13 species of wildflowers in its natural habitat according to biologist James O'Hanlow at Macquaire University in Sydney, Australia.
- The front legs of the orchid mantis are toothed in shape yet cleverly disguised as the inviting petals of a flower.
To view additional photos and learn more about the orchid mantis, visit these websites:
