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| Two Mr. Lincoln roses were enough to drop-kick some fragrance into the room, but I included a secret weapon - posted below. |
The secret weapon added to the potency of the perfume - Fragrant Cloud.
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| Fragrant Cloud is another rose that will perfume a bouquet. Most of our roses are fragrant, but when they are not, I include Fragrant Cloud or Mr. Lincoln. |
I filled in with Shasta Daisies again. This is my first planting from last year, which has multiplied into 12 clumps by dividing them (very easy to do). Cutting the flowers will generate even more, just like roses and Crepe Myrtle.
Two Boosts for Roses in a Hot Summer
Roses need plenty of water, and mulch will help keep that moisture in the soil longer. A drought means two waterings per week.
For roses or any plant needing intensive care, I use several gallons of rainwater. They sell all kinds of additives to help plants, to protect against shock, for example. God already invented rainwater for that - a combination of newly formed water and usable nitrogen - and it is free.
Sassy's Laotian friends came across the street to see her and look through the garden. Most have fenced off gardens, but I have mulched walk-through gardening. Another new surprise is always popping up to show what fertile soil can do. For example, the Trumpet Vines decided to flower this year, providing a second favorite flower - with Hostas - for hummingbirds
A second boost is constant pruning. My pruning shears and the shovel are both near the front door. If I am making a bouquet for someone, I also look for dead wood to trim away, completed roses to trim away from the stems.
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| Ichneumon Wasps: every gardener sees them, but how many notice and value them? |
Creation Software Experiment
I try to imagine what makes an individual plant or animal distinctive. Variety seems almost endless. Witness the Ichneumon Wasp, a tiny beneficial insect, which is helping you in your garden, unless you suppress it with toxic insecticides. There are 100,000 species - and last I read - possibly more ichneumon species to be discovered.
The Snoring Bird: My Family's Journey Through a Century of Biology (Ecco, $30), by biologist Bernd Heinrich.
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| Ichneumon Wasp: beautiful, delicate, tiny - but a deadly tracker of pests. |
Finding and cataloging them was quite a chore by itself - I would stop at 50,000! I can imagine Little Ichabod saying, "Dad! Enough with the wasps!" But even better than their variety is the engineering and management of these delicate insects. How do they know how to flourish while attacking insect pests? They do not really "know" but they do accomplish specific tasks with remarkable determination. They follow roses into the vase when I am gathering flowers for neighbors, friends, and doctors.
Etymology
Ichneumon (ἰχνεύμων) means "tracker" in Greek. Cockatrice, a name for another mythical beast, derives from calcatrix, a Latin translation of this. The Ichneumon was one of the few who can look at a cockatrice without turning to stone.
Cultural significance
In the eighteenth century Ichneumon was regarded as an instance of the God-given balance in nature; in the nineteenth the possibility of using it as a form of biocontrol was briefly entertained. It was used as the symbol of the reformed Entomological Society of London in 1833.[1]
Put Down Your iPhone and Read Slowly and Carefully about Some of These Remarkable Little Wasps - Wiki
- Chemical Warfare
- Underground Warfare
- Tracking a parasite, killing, evading with "pot vapors"
Many species use polydnaviruses to suppress the immune systems of their host insects. Due to the wide variety in hosts and lifestyles, see subfamily pages for more detail.
The female ichneumonoid finds a host and lays an egg on, near, or inside the host's body.[8] The ovipositor of ichneumonoids generally cannot deliver a sting as many wasps or bees do. It can be used to bore wood and lay eggs on hosts deep inside, or reach hosts hidden inside leaf shelters. Upon hatching, the larva feeds either externally or internally, killing the host when it is ready to pupate.
Various ichneumonoids are used as biological control agents in controlling horticultural or forest pests.
An interesting example is the relationship between the species Ichneumon eumerus and its host butterfly Phengaris rebeli.[9] The butterfly larva is a parasite within Myrmica ant nests. The adult Ichneumon eumerus searches for ant nests and only enters when they contain P. rebeli caterpillars.[9] Once inside, they oviposit their eggs within the caterpillars and escape the nest by releasing a chemical which causes the worker ants to fight each other rather than the intruding wasp.[9] The wasp eggs then hatch inside the caterpillar and eventually consume and kill the host.
Ichneumon wasps FAMILY Ichneumonidae NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES 3300 While many species of ichneumon wasps are extremely tiny, others are very large (up to 1.5 inches or 40 mm!). All are slender with long antennae. Many females have a highly noticeable ovipositor; it is sometimes longer than the insect’s body. Ichneumon wasps can be yellow to black or have patterns of various colors. They use caterpillars, the wood-boring grubs of various beetles, and other insects as hosts.
Walliser, Jessica. Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Kindle Locations 1139-1144). Timber Press. Kindle Edition.
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| Dill - teeny, tiny beneficials need teeny, tiny flowers for the adults to enjoy. Fresh raw meat is normally for the hatchlings. |
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Tiny parasitoids, like the minuscule parasitic wasps on this dill, require exposed nectaries and shallow flowers to access nectar. Open nectaries, such as those present in members of the carrot family (Apiaceae), are among the most user friendly to the largest diversity of beneficial insects.
Walliser, Jessica. Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Kindle Locations 1519-1521). Timber Press. Kindle Edition.
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| Know your carrot family - here is a cousin of dill. Queen Ann's Lace evolved a bug painting to fool bugs into landing on it. Sure it did ↘😀- but how did QAL know how to form that little bit of make-up and pass it on to all royal heirs? Ask the faculty at Concordia, St. Louis. They know everything. No, they really do. |
That Is Why
I do whatever I can to keep the beneficial insects happy and protected. As I wrote before, Jessica Walliser expanded my knowledge of beneficial insects by connecting specific beneficials to their favorite plants.
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| Giant Hogweed and Poison Hemlock are also carrot family hosts of a zillion insects. Both are large and impressive, but horribly toxic. Thus the Lutherans with their ordinary size Means of Grace congregations were drawn to the giant, toxic Church Growth blobs and converted into Enthusiasts of the worst kind: third-rate generic Protestants, fourth-rate faux-Lutherans. Ask WELS/ELS and LCMS how they did this while denying/praising it at the same time. |
