Alexa

Two bumble bees napping on a pink zinnia.

Bee Naps (2025)

Your 49 seconds of Zen for today: Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bee slumber party on goldenrod up in the Grandby Valley north of Grand Forks, BC. 🐝

I have a MILLION tomatoes right now - BUT THEYRE ALL STILL GREEN WTH

People like robots when they’re authentic #letrobotsberobots

A Nevada bumble bee (Bombus nevadensis) feeding on an heirloom sweet pea flower. Found in an urban garden in Portland, Oregon. This native bee is extremely adorable, large, fuzzy, stylish with a black dot on its yellow thorax.

A Nevada bumble bee (Bombus nevadensis) feeding on an heirloom sweet pea flower. Found in an urban garden in Portland, Oregon. This native bee is extremely cute, large, fuzzy, stylish with a black dot on its yellow thorax.

THE BIGGEST BUMBLE BEE I EVER DID SEE!

The Nevada Bumble Bee I believe… was visiting my sweet peas the other morning 🐝

#bees #pdxgardens #gardening

I’ve just never seen them so beefy. I also think some are mutants? Idk but it’s freaking me out and I’m going to be drowning in them soon

My tomato plants are scaring me

I’ve just created a #pdxgardens feed, I didn’t find an existing one on my own. If anyone else knows of one existing (and if I need to niche-down) lmk!

Any other Portland OR gardeners?

A photo taken from inside a cherry tomato plant, looking up towards the clear blue sky. The view shows green unripe tomato, tangles of leaves and tomato vines, making the viewer feel like a small bug in a nightshade forest. Grown in an urban garden in Portland Oregon.

#pdxgardens

Clarkia unguiculata, or Mountain Garland Clarkia or Diamond Clarkia - a native plant that flowers in early summer. Perfect cutouts in the leafs of the flower indicate a leaf cutter bee came by. Grown in Portland Oregon, in an urban garden, zone 8/9.

Can you spy the handiwork of the leaf cutter bee? A true artisan.
🐝
Mountain Garland Clarkia / Clarkia unguiculata
#bloomscrolling

It makes a difference :)

The mommy and babies would stop by my garden around 9pm every day

Rumor has it they were squatting in one of the houses down the road…

A year ago my calendar with remind me in the evenings: “LFBS”

Look For Baby Skunks

Slugs for sure - thankfully on the west coast spotted lantern flies haven’t invaded… yet… however there are unconfirmed sighting this year!!! 😰

I am fighting for my life to get my zinnias to grow!!!

Every time I turn my back on a seedling, someone eats it! 😭 I think it’s a pill bug population boom. Soon it’ll be too late for me to have any flowers.

Does anyone have any suggestions??? #gardening

The app “seek” might be what you’re looking for - it’s by iNaturalist, but more beginner friendly and attempts to ID plants/bugs via the camera app. Not always accurate but can help!

Change starts small!

Babies eating babies

Beautiful

A close up photo showing a yarrow stem with a lady beetle larva - the larva is “1st instar”, maybe a day or two old at most. It is so small, about the size of an aphid - which they eat - and all black. As it grows it will get color.

I’ll check that podcast out!

It’s been fascinating, they move around so fast despite being so small - I’ve never observed them so young. They are basically the same size as aphids at this stage

The tiny native lady beetle sitting on the flower head of western white yarrow. Providing both native plants and other strategically planted flowers, like calendulas, can help establish habitat for predators bugs. Grown in an urban garden in Portland Oregon.

#nativeplants #gardening

Year 2 with the native yarrow in my yard and this year it’s covered in the native western polished lady beetle.

Surrounding the plant is other natives and ornamentals, including calendula planted there as a “trap crop” - covered in aphids for these guys to feed on.

Freshly hatched ladybug larva - they look so tiny, are all black, on top of their now empty, white eggs.

A larger, more developed ladybug larva with its classic black, white and yellow pattern. Climbing all over the native yarrow.

On the left, freshly hatched ladybug larva. Super small!
On the right, an older larva - crossing my fingers it’s the native species but not sure how to identify it.

REALLY hoping the eggs I’ve been watching hatch are the native ladybugs - I did find a few invasive ones. But I’ve found dozens more of the native kind… we will watch as they grow up!

TW: blurry bug pictures

A photo of a single flower head, globe gilia. A poofball of petals, formerly blue but now white after sitting in a vase for a week. Blue pollen sits at the tips of the petals in an incredibly satisfying way. A native plant great for cut flower displays, grown in and urban garden in Portland Oregon.

The west coast native plant, Globe Gilia, is a beautiful cut flower. Lasting at least a week in the vase, but stays beautiful as it fades.

The blue color dwindles from the petals, and the blue pollen collects at the tips.

Overall it’s very neat and drops almost no pollen or petals
#nativeplants

A photo of the native plant, Globe Gilia before it blooms. Like spikey green balls, soon to turn into blue poofs. Native the west coast, grown in Portland Oregon. A native bee favorite.

Here is what it looks like before blooming. I’m obsessed with the geometry.

Globe gilia at the end of its vase life, the petals fade to white and on the tips of the petals are blue dots - looking otherworldly! The blue dots I believe are pollen that can be brushed off. But overall it’s a very “neat” cut flower, dropping very little pollen and keeping its shape.

#bloomscrolling #nativeplants #gardening

An underrated cut flower, it looks beautiful before blooming and even more beautiful as it dies in a vase!

Most importantly, it’s cat friendly.

A photo of a native flower patch, pink Diamond clarkias, globe gilia, and common madia. From an urban garden in Portland Oregon, zone 8b / zone 9a.

#bloomscrolling #nativeplants #gardening

It’s established that Globe Gilia is great for the bees - but it’s also great for me:

It’s a wonderful filler in the garden, spreads easily by self seeding, very pretty leafs.

It handles dog piss no problem!!!

A picture of a native metallic green sweat bee on a the native globe gilia flower. Located in an urban garden in Portland Oregon.

#nativeplants #bees

I BEElieve this is a metallic green sweat bee enjoying a globe gilia from last summer

🐝🪻

A diagram created by Oregon State Extension office, from the following website: https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pub/em-9363-native-plant-picks-bees Globe Gilia, a native plant to Oregon and the west coast, supports a huge diversity of bees!

In fact - you could say this native plant is one of the most popular flowers for native bees!

The following diagram is from @extension.oregonstate.edu

extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pub/...

Globe Gilia, a native plant to the west coast / pacific coast. Also known as Blue Head or Blue Field Gilia. It looks like a blue poof, often with multiple flower heads. Shown in this picture is a globe gilia starting to flower in Portland Oregon, zone 8b / zone 9a. Native pollinator favorite

#bloomscrolling #nativeplants
#gardening

Globe Gilia - one of the first flowers blooming in my Portland garden this year and one of my favorites for many reasons!

No sense in nonsense