- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
First it was the California poppies. Then the lupine.
And now it's coreopsis, aka tickseed.
It's seasonal blooming at the Campus Buzzway, a quarter-acre wildflower garden planted last fall at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road at UC Davis.
A gift from Häagen-Dazs--in a project coordinated by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and the California Center for Urban Horticulture--the Campus Buzzway features blue and gold, the UC Davis colors.
Poppies and lupine starred in the garden earlier this year, and most have finished blooming. It's now coreopsis' turn.
Its spectacular neighbor, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden, will be the center of attention on Saturday, Sept. 11 at the public opening celebration. But the Campus Buzzway will attract attention, too.
Garry Pearson, greenhouse supervisor at UC Davis, unfolded three banners at the Campus Buzzway last week. The banners will be on display in the Campus Buzzway on special occasions.
The Sept. 11 opening of the gardens, set from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., is one of them.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
One of the many enduring features of the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the University of California, Davis, is the inclusion of fruit trees, garden vegetables and herbs, and plants bearing such delicacies as strawberries, raspberries, Oregon grape and elderberry.
The half-acre bee friendly garden, planted last fall next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the UC Davis central campus, will be dedicated at a public celebration on Saturday, Sept. 11.
Plans are now under way for the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. event. The garden, a gift to the UC Davis Department of Entomology, is designed to be a year-around food source for honey bees and other pollinators, especially the bees on the Laidlaw facility grounds.
And, the garden is scheduled to be a rich educational experience for visitors, who can learn the importance of pollinators, and glean ideas for their own gardens.
So far, the garden has produced almonds (a resident almond tree), strawberries, artichokes, cabbage, and herbs (basil, parsley, onion and mint). Fruit trees will one day yield apples, plums and persimmons.
That's in addition to the scores of other bee friendly plants, including tower of jewels, salvia, seaside daisy, and crimson clover.
"As visitors travel through Honey Bee Haven, they encounter a seasonal variety of blooming native and ornamental plants and fruit trees, which, together, provide a year-round food source for the honey bees," wrote the winning design team from Sausalito (landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki).
"Connecting each garden is a series of trails, each thematically named to support the interpretive storyline," they wrote. "Trellises define the entryways to most gardens and reinforce the passage to the next space."
We're often asked: Can we see the design plan? Can we download it?
Yes, it's online on the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility website. Here's the page housing the design and here's the direct link to the PDF.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
This spectacular plant attracts bees like a honey-laden hive does hungry bears.
The tower of jewels (Echium wildprettii), native to the Canary Islands, is a biennal; it flowers only in the second year and then dies. So, for the first year, it looks quite insignificant. The second year: it shoots up an amazing nine or 10 feet, ablaze with blossoms the color of rubies.
If you ever see a tower of jewels blooming, you'll remember it. One bloomed last year in the Storer Garden in the UC Davis Arboretum. it drew scores of visitors toting cameras.
The same will hold true when several towers bloom next year in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden planted last fall next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis.
Visitors to the haven will see the "tiny" Echiums during the public opening on Sept. 11. They won't see the regal beauty unfold until 2011.
Meanwhile, we're savoring the three towers in our own bee friendly garden. So are the honey bees, hover flies, bumble bees, carpenter bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
The scouts (bees) arrive as soon as the temperature hits 50 degrees. Then they head back to their hives to alert the foragers. You can almost hear them Waggle-Dancing: "Fine quality, large quantity--hurry, hurry!" By mid-morning, the towers are abuzz with bees. By mid-afternoon, the bees sound like jet engines.
A tower of bees.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The half-acre garden, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven planted last fall at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis, is not only bee friendly but it will be art friendly.
UC Davis entomologist-artist Diane Ullman and artist Donna Billick, who founded the Art-Science Fusion Program and teach classes on campus, are gearing up for spectacular additions to the haven.
At the entrance to the garden will be a two-column sculpture of decorated bee boxes; the first column depicting activity within the hive, and the second column depicting activity outside the hive.
Outside the hive? Think workers gathering nectar, pollen, propolis and water.
A hexagonal block beneath a sturdy almond tree in the garden will hold a giant bee sculpture--yes, let's put the beleagured honey bee on a pedestal! Ceramic art panels will adorn the sides. Billick is creating the giant bee sculpture. The Ullman-Billick classes are providing the rest of the art in the garden.
Bee friendly, art friendly, people friendly.
The haven will be a year-around food source for bees and other pollinators and an educational experience for visitors, who can learn the plight of the honey bee and the importance of having bees in our gardens. Plus, visitors will glean ideas on what to plant in their own gardens to attract pollinators.
The public celebration is in its early planning stages, but the date is set and all systems are green:
Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bee connected; save the date.
The grand opening of the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 11.
The honey bees already know it's there. They "celebrate" its presence every day.Now it's time for us to celebrate it.
It's a bee friendly garden where you can wander through Orchard Alley, waggle down Waggle Dance Way, hide out at the Honeycomb Hideout, ponder the Pollinator Patch, and snuggle up to the Nectar Nook.
The key goals of the garden are to provide bees with a year-around food source, to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees, and to encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own.
The winning design is the work of a Sausalito team: landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki.
The team zeroed in on sustainability and visitor experience. A series of trails connect the gardens. Trellises define the entry ways and reinforce the passage to the next space.
Identification labels will help visitors know more about the plants, or what they can plant in their own yards. Some of the plants there are salvia (sage), ceanothus, bush germander, seaside daisy, Santa Barbara daisy and tower of jewels.
Then there are almond, apple and persimmon trees, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, dill, basil, artichokes and eggplant. (Bees pollinate one-third of the food we eat.)
Yet to come: the amazing art work created by UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program classes, taught by entomologist/artist Diane Ullman and artist Donna Billick. A two-column hive sculpture will grace the front entrance. Billick is creating a gigantic bee sculpture to be placed on a hexagonal platform beneath an almond tree.
The design is online. The grand opening is in the design stage.
This is sure to bee-come a campus destination.