Bumblebee Landscape and Garden Design

elderberry corner 🌱

A small grayish butterfly, a red-banded hairstreak, nectaring on wild white asters.

A cutie

🦋 #insects
🌱 #nativeplants

A vast and sprawling mass of spotted bee balm (and a few other late season flowers).

Mid-October and stepping from inside to out is such a pleasure because of the heady floral-herb scent exuding from the spotted bee balm.

🌱 #nativeplants
🌻 #flowerreport

Two Pawpaw trees (Asimina triloba) stand next to the pedestrian sidewalk in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The trees have leaves that are turning yellow. It's a rainy, misty, evening.

Winterberry Holly stands next to the pedestrian sidewalk in the suburbs of Philadelphia. There are a lot of red berries on the plant. It's a rainy evening.

Oakleaf Hydrangea and Threadleaf Bluestar are planted next to a home. Leaves are turning red and yellow. There's a turquoise birdbath in the photo.

Pawpaw, Winterberry, Oakleaf Hydrangea, and Threadleaf Bluestar are trying on their autumn clothes. 🌱 #nativeplants

late season forked bluecurls

🌱 #nativeplants
🌎 #ecoregion65

These asters are really showing off, what a beautiful display! What native plants are giving you a good show right now?

Boneset is a pollinator MAGNET. Between boneset, ironweed, goldenrod, and aster, you can attracts dozens of individuals from hundreds of different species to your yard every August and September! Planting natives that bloom in Spring and Summer will bring them, too, but Fall seems to be the busiest!

a panicle of small, bright yellow composite flowers on a slim flowering branch of the goldenrod's main stem (blurry in the background). the dozens of flowers each have half a dozen (give or take a few) oval ray florets with a few tiny disk florets in the center. beneath the rays, the involucre are light yellow-green.

the top of an oldfield goldenrod, a pyramidal panicle of small, bright yellow flowers, leaning against the branch of a neighboring small tree. the panicle is more coherent nearer the tip, but there are several arching branches weighted down by flowers a little lower on the stem too; the one from the previous pic is on the bottom left & a lil bit blurry. at the very tippy top of the tallest panicle, the yellow flowers are turning brown and going to seed.

almost all of the goldenrod-- only the very bottom is out of view! its main stem leans to the right and rests against the thin branch of neighboring small tree, causing the pyramidal panicle of bright yellow flowers to bend downwards where it contacts the tree branch. this goldenrod would be around head-high if it were standing straight upright. for most of its height, its smooth reddish stem bears alternate long, green leaves with rounded tips, many of which have a few little mini-leaves growing from their axils. the leaves get shorter as they go up the stem. the goldenrod is growing in tall grass in a savanna, with many other goldenrods in the background, along with short sumac trees. low.on the far left there are a few light blue aster flowers.

🌻 oldfield goldenrod 🌿
Solidago nemoralis

#nativeplants #ecoregion71 #flowerreport #bloomscrolling #bloomsky

Tom Kimmerer (@tomkimmerer) There are a few trees that I seek out each year to enjoy a spectacular autumn display. One of my favorites is sourwood, Oxydendrum arboreum, a southern tree in the understory of poor woodlands. Its co...

Sourwood, Oxydendrum arboreum, with its blazing red foliage and yellow racimes of capsules is one of the most spectacular autumn trees in the southern Appalachians. It also makes wondeful honey. More at Our Trees.

Fantastic @therevelator.org piece by Grace Dougan about #punk and IMPACT. #MusicMatters #JoyAsAnActOfResistance

"It’s about showing up, using what you have, and trusting that a better world begins at the street level. ...

Punk doesn’t promise perfection. But it offers something else: persistence."

A possum in a beret with a paintbrush screams in front of a canvas with a possum in a pile of leaves. The words say bad art for good an art + community event and the possum is saying “make the world better with art!” And free beer snacks and art supplies, and Indy hall November 10th 6:30

We’re BACK BABY.

At Bad Art for Good, we’re gonna get together and make some art to make things better.

How can art make things better? Creating makes us feel good! Art moves people! And we need a LOT of people to move right now!

RSVP luma.com/w8v2xk5i

Teddy is adorable! We've just adopted a little tabby, too, brown instead of silver. They must have printed her before Teddy, though, she's got no white.

a medium-sized composite flower with around two dozen pale purple ray florets and several dozen bright yellow disk florets tightly packed together in the middle. the disks in the very center have yet to open, but those nearer the edge are open. they have five pointed lobes & an upright style, all very bright yellow.

towards the lower right, an annual water aster flowerhead in bloom on a branch of an airy panicle near several flowerbuds. the blooming flower is seen from the side, on the plane formed by the pale purple, spread-mostly-flat rays. a profusion of bright yellow disks rise above the rays; below, long green phyllaries line the base of the flower, pale green with a darker green streak down the middle. in the top left, one flower has already developed into a puffy seedhead like a dandelion.

an annual water aster hiding within a swampy, densely vegetated ditch, surrounded by thick frostweed stems. the aster's thin green stem leans sideways, branches many times, & bears linear, green, grass-like leaves, and loose panicles of light purple and yellow flowers.

🌸 annual water aster 🌿
Symphyotrichum divaricatum

#nativeplants #ecoregion71 #flowerreport #bloomscrolling #bloomsky

Resurrecting fallen giants - Value in nature When waves of colonists were fleeing Europe following the ‘discovery’ (I know, very much previously discovered!) of the New World, they escaped more than just religious oppression. They left behind...

Just posted: 'Resurrecting fallen giants', a short piece on the past and future of the American of the nearly-extinct American chestnut.

mscaterino.pika.page/posts/resurr...

⏰ Last chance to register!

Don't miss Doug Tallamy's Next Steps for Nature webinar - tomorrow, October 16th at 7 PM ET / 6 PM CT / 5 PM MT / 4 PM PT.

Get real-world solutions to common challenges in native plant gardening.

👉 Sign up now: wildones.org/next-steps-f...

A yellow-crowned night heron displaying its feathers dramatically while perched on a branch.

Yellow-crowned night heron by birth, icon by choice. ✨

📷: Alice Greely Nelson

A stylized drawing of a crown with an "X" through it. The text below it reads "No Kings". The background is a field of yellow flowers with mountains in the background.

Join Us Saturday, Oct. 18 to Tell Trump: No Kings!

Together, we can reject Trump’s gutting of critical government agencies and laws responsible for protecting endangered species, other wildlife, and wild places across the country.

Find an event near you ➡️ bit.ly/46RzcLd

#NoKings #NoKingsRally

Same!

more food forests in MD and DC (as well as the above 3)

Leave the Leaves! One of the most valuable ways to support pollinators and other invertebrates is to provide them with the shelter they need to survive the winter. Thankfully, all you need to do is do less yard work.

It’s time for one of the easiest things you can do for wildlife: just #LeaveTheLeaves! Leaves are vital homes & winter shelter! 🐝
🍂 Follow our easy tips & meet the animals you’ll be saving ➡️ xerces.org/blog/leave-t...
🪧 Get your own yard sign, now available in English & Spanish ➡️ xerces.org/gifts

love your glasses!

The local persimmon is the fall foragers fruit of choice The American persimmon was prized for centuries but it has fallen out of favor in recent decades.

You may not find an American persimmon at a store, but you'll find it in forests across the watershed during fall. Anyone up for some foraging?

www.chesapeakebay.net/news/blog/th...

a portion of a sprawling, loose panicle with small composite flowers. they have a little over a dozen relatively short, white, rounded ray florets and around a dozen very pale yellow, practically translucent disk florets each with five pointed, spreading lobea & a tall style exserted through a tube of fused stamens. as the style pushes through the stamens, it dislodges yellow pollen. once the pollen is out of the way, the pale purple style becomes visible. the half dozen or so flowers here are supported by a thin green branching stem with tiny leaf bracts. there are some of the plant's leaves in the background, sorta blurry though.

looking at the same racemous panicle of small white composite flowers from the side & a little further back. at the bottom of each flower there are rows of linear phyllaries, pale green at the edges & dark green along their midline until the tip, where the dark green portion expands to fill the full width. the white rays angle backwards, spread well beyond flat; the styles of the disks stick out at angles within 45° of straight forward.

a calico aster growing on a mossy creekbank, fallen over and dangling over the water. its long, lance-shaped alternate leaves are largest near the base of the green stem, becoming smaller further up the stem. the stem branches occasionally, with loose panicles of small, white flowers developing mostly on the branches.

🌼 calico aster 🌿
Symphyotrichum lateriflorum

#nativeplants #flowerreport
#bloomscrolling #bloomsky

Get Involved We respect your time as a volunteer. Every action you take with EVP is backed by research, and we regularly brief you on the impact of your efforts.

I’m reposting this everywhere too.

For the smaller elections not getting as much attention - Fairbanks mayor, New Orleans mayor and city council, our friends at @environmentalvoter.bsky.social have phone banks!!

www.environmentalvoter.org/get-involved

Meanwhile, in Jenkintown, a reminder to leave leaves for lightning bugs.

Thanks @sarahmackattack.bsky.social

Food forests in the DMV area:
forested.us in Bowie, MD
The Emerson Street and McClanahan Food Forest in Hyattsville, MD
Langley Forest Garden in DC at Langley Elementary and at Capital City Public Charter School

Clouded sulphur I think? (Definitely a sulphur). Some native host plants include Tick Trefoil (Desmodium canadense), wild Indigo (Baptisia tinctoria), Wild Senna (Senna hebecarpa), Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis) and Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris)

A newly hatched monarch butterfly stretching wings on some liriope.

Please enjoy this fresh new butterfly.

Forked blue curl blooming next to brown eyed susan.

Late boneset blooming before spent swamp milkweed seed pods, matted with old silk.

A very tiny insect perches on the white ray of a wild field aster.

Sun casts little field aster-shaped silhouettes as it shines through the yellow rays of a ten-petal sunflower.

morning sun garden scenes

🌱 #nativeplants
🍂 #fall