The Backyard Science group regularly publishes The Daily Bucket, which features observations of the world around us. Insects, weather, meteorites, climate, birds, flowers and anything natural or unusual are worthy additions to the Bucket and its comments. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to as we try to understand the patterns that are unwinding around us.
Hey, all! Been a while since I last bucketed so I thought I'd throw one out there. Over the summer, I wrote a few buckets about the little ecosystems to be found on certain types of plants. Here was one on
goldenrod and another on
fleabane. This one is on a plant I deliberately released in my garden, rightly or wrongly, called mountain mint.
In years past, when my gardening enthusiasm outran my common sense, I loved to buy new plants with no idea where I would plant them, what conditions they liked or what I might do if they especially liked the conditions I gave them. This led, as you can no doubt imagine, to an eclectic mix of delicate darlings and rabble rousers rubbing shoulders indiscriminately, much as I imagine a Democratic convention must function. Or perhaps the yearly Kos gathering.
It was pretty, though!
I believe I was fortunate in that I never allowed a true plant thug to have garden space once it announced its real agenda. Yes, I was beguiled by members of the mint family but I managed to keep the peppermint in a pot and let the beebalm, a lesser varmint, populate the garden. Beebalm can also display thug tendencies but the roots stay shallow so it's easily ripped up and it attracts hummingbird moths, for which trait I would give it acres if it asked.
Some plants are such out-of-control shitheads, pardon my language, that the only real solution is herbicide and a flamethrower. A relative of mine attempted to gift me with the smallest cutting of Bishop's weed, a lovely variegated groundcover with the land lust of Attila the Hun. I declined and believe I was not seen to smirk a year later when she attempted to eradicate it from her own garden. I loaned her my flamethrower and haven't gotten it back yet.
There are, however, certain plants which capture the heart in spite of their vices. Who can resist colorful columbines, with their proclivity for seeding entire plots of land no matter how assiduously you deadhead them?
Columbine Plantation
Another garden thug came home with me one day and has stayed, in spite of all its faults and my better judgement - mountain mint. I believe my variety is the slender-leaved mountain mint, Pycnanthemum tenuifolium, though I'm not positive as the plant tag is long gone and wasn't terribly specific to begin with.
Aw, the delicate darling!
Yep, it's a mint, with all that implies, and yep, I turned it loose in the back garden with no supervision whatsoever. I knew the plant tended to grow in clumps rather than racing underground via runners from Hell. I thought that would be enough to save me.
Or not
Sigh. Who knew the mint family could also run to prolific seeders, like columbines? To its immense credit, mountain mint is actually quite easy to pull up when young. If you were actually trying, you could keep it under control with a simple monthly weeding and perhaps deadheading once a year. I wasn't trying (obviously). Yeah, look at that. It goes on like that for most of 30 feet, back to those trees, a big space in any garden.
Ah, but here's why I wasn't trying. Mountain mint is one of the best nectar plants for wasps and bees that I have ever seen and I mean that literally. Oh, sure, I have lavender plants all over the place, annuals on every corner, even flowering shrubs, but I have never seen the sheer volume and diversity of pollinators in one place as I've seen on this plant.
Here's a sampling of the flying population I found in my mint patch. Mind you, my pictures are only showing individuals. With one exception, the honeybee, there would be multiples of every one of these, every day. The sound of buzzing wings alone was amazing!
First, the common honeybee. Well, her butt anyway. Surprisingly, to me, with all the other bees around, these ones actually weren't so common. I'm not sure if it was due to a lack of bees or a lack of interest, but there weren't many.
Next, the honeybee is joined by what I believe to be a four-toothed mason wasp. Great paint job! Mason wasps capture small caterpillars and stuff them in cavities in wood or between rocks, lay an egg on them, then seal the hole shut with mud. When the egg hatches, the larvae has a meal at the ready. Potter wasps are related but they build the entire cavity out of mud, not use found cavities. The structures look like little pots ergo the name.
A giant golden digger wasp and smaller hornet put in an appearance. The digger wasp is about 2 inches long and looks formidable. People visiting during the season were seen to leave the area quickly after spotting one of these, though I found them to be quite shy and never aggressive. Not that I'd try picking one up!
A similar wasp is the one below which I believe to be the great black wasp, though there is another one, the blue cricket hunter, it can be confused with so I'm not sure. If anyone can give me a positive ID, I'd appreciate it. It's a tiny bit smaller than the golden digger.
Another lovely pollinator is my favorite new bee, the tri-colored bumblebee. Yes, I've mentioned this one before and, no, you don't have to say "ad nauseum". ;) The mint patch is where I could reliably find these pretty little bees all summer. They also seemed enamored of my marigolds and lavender. Since I like them so much, you get 2 pictures.
There was even a butterfly, though this is the only one I found. With all the predatory wasps around, I'm not terribly surprised.
Lastly, here are a few photos of other unique wasps or bees I saw that I haven't identified yet. Any leads on ID would be great!
Unknown #1 - possibly a type of potters wasp
Unknown #2
Unknown #3
Unknown #4
So there you have 11 unique species of insect all linked by one plant. And that is by no means all of them, just the few I casually took photos of while wandering by. There were probably several species of spiders, other predatory insects which rely on the pollinators rather than the pollen, and moths and butterflies and caterpillars I simply wasn't around to catch. I also regularly saw small birds rummaging around in the mint patch, including my wonderful bluebirds.
A mint patch snack?
All in all, this is one thug I'll gladly cede garden space to. It's earned its place.
"Spotlight on Green News & Views" is posted every Saturday at 1:00 pm Pacific Time and Wednesday at 3:30 on the Daily Kos front page. It's a great way to catch up on diaries you might have missed. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.