The Garden is Buzzing

for Six on Saturday

The iris season is drawing to a close.

This week I’m enjoying my first-ever blooms on “Black Wings”.

And, probably the very last to bloom, the reliably late-flowering “Mary Geddes” has opened as well. This was a pleasant surprise, as she is distinctly overcrowded, having needed to be divided last year. Now I’ll be waiting until weather cools sometime in October.

Meantime I’ll enjoy any blooms I get from her, as Mary is a favorite of mine.

There have been roses scattered around the garden for weeks now. This week it’s the turn of the noID miniature rose by the back patio.

I wish I could add Nastarana here, but it is difficult to get pictures of it because I have so thoroughly encased it in chicken wire. It is, however, blooming beautifully, and has been for at least a couple of weeks.

In this garden, one of the best annual-to-short-lived perennial companions for the roses is dianthus.

And then there are the bees.

Bees are busy in the wild catclaw acacia (Senegalia greggii) which leans over the fence on one side of the garden.

And they are frenetically busy in the Opuntia blooms on the other side of the garden. This particular prickly pear has been trying to come on into the garden, pad by pad; but it is not as welcome as the catclaw, as it doesn’t provide any shade.

Still, anything that makes the bees so very happy has its place, I suppose. Can you see the bits of pollen they were kicking up?

Rowdy. I’m not sure how much pollen actually got collected. But the garden is indeed buzzing!

Thanks to Jim at Garden Ruminations for hosting Six on Saturday!

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