I saw the first Clethra bloom, a tiny bottle brush of pink, red, and white, then several more. Now the buds on two Clethras are opening at once.
"I will be overwhelmed by the Cinnabon fragrance!" but I was not. Instead I was struck by the vanilla of Joe Pye with notes of Cinnabon. Wine, coffee, perfume, and cigar critics write about notes, and they make sense. If someone can detect the fragrances and flavors, the experience is that much better.
Thanks to a brief shower and sunshine, the Rose Garden now has the atmosphere of fragrance selections at Walmart - candles, scented gadgets, and coffee creamers. There is nothing like working those areas as an underpaid employee, opening new cardboard boxes, bending over them and getting hypnotized by clouds of fragrances. Everything is fresh, but locked up in cardboard, the selling point of the product floating up. I detest powdered coffee creamer, but they know how to make it smell heavenly.
If I, with human scent limitations, can enjoy the Creation garden's perfumery, then how does it strike the insect population? In short, they go wild with activity, so driven by Bee Balm, Joe Pye, and Clethra that I can bump into bees with impunity.
Daisies are worked over, but Bee Balm and Joe Pye attract a concentration of Bumble Bees. I am trying to get photos of three working a bloom together. Smaller bees work at the same time, but bees do not fight over territory. They are more like Roombas, reversing when running into an obstacle.
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| Yarrow |
I do not have a Chaste Tree on the driveway side of the garden - just as well. They can grow tall but they are also easily pruned. When they are intertwined with other plants in the backyard, I pinch a leaf to check which is which. Chaste Tree is quite medicinal and attracts bees. Yarrow is similar in fragrance - Vicks VapoRub - and loved by pollinators.
The fragrance flowers and feeders mean that we get a parade of creatures moving from plant to plant - when the Military Gardening Group convenes on the front porch. The bees were working over the Butterfly Weed and Swamp Milkweed at our feet. Now those plants are building their seedpods. I quiz them on those features.
Every day is different. Some plants disappoint me and make me wonder what I did right. Others surprise and shock me with their growth.
One clearance rose finally leafed out, several weeks after the others. I now have one hold-out, Julia Childs. No plant has had more attention this year.
America seems stuck in a Groundhog Day scenario, with the recent idiocies being repeated and enforced. Walmart will force shoppers to wear face diapers? I will look for other vendors.
Some things will become abundantly clear in a month or so.
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| Chaste Tree has intense blue blooms and Bumble Bee groupiess to work them over. |
