Turtlewoman

Good morning blog readers

I just watched a delightful video on YouTube: “Guerrilla Gardening UK Style” You can watch one version here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L8WTlqiwYdQ

However, you can actually see the best one here:

http://www.phoenixpermaculture.org/video/video/show?id=2008067%3AVideo%3A14328

I have often thought about this but have never done anything about it. Sounds like a lot of fun. Lots of people make and “distribute” seed balls. What fun! Guerrilla Gardeners actually go about the land – often in the dark – and plant or replant landscapes that are in serious need of beautification. I do think that if one is doing the work in broad daylight one is less likely to be stopped and questioned as you would look like you were supposed to be there doing the daily gardening routine.  So, I have decided to become “Granny Guerrilla: performing random acts of gardening with weapons of mass beautification” and I too will “distribute” my seed balls and plants like Johnny Appleseed but probably in broad daylight as I am most definitely not a night owl and I am most definitely a coward.

Sunflower in my garden.

This one sunflower – out of the 8 that I planted – has grown to be a bit over 6′ tall and is attracting pollinator bees (the kind that do not sting). YEAH!   My husband, Doug, had built bee boxes for these pollinators but then we had to wait until something in the garden flowered for the bees to come around.

This is a bee box for pollinator bees. It is placed on the NE corner of the house under the eaves. The bees are here but they cannot be seen in this picture.

Bee box close-up

Doug made 2 bee boxes. This is a close-up of the second one placed under the same eave a few feet from the first one. I wanted to make sure we had enough homes for lots of bees and thus two boxes. Doug used some old 4″ X 4″ he had in the bone yard (storage place for all the stuff you don’t want to throw away cuz you know you’ll need it someday:). He drilled the holes by sight and hung them. All in all it took 13 months to get him to begin and about 30 minutes to actually build the boxes from start to hanging finish. .  There are no bees here at the moment I took the picture. After all, it’s the middle of the morning and they are hard at work in the garden. You can learn more about these kinds of bees at:

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/Other/note109/note109.html

There are other web sites as well, just go googling and have a good time learning about these wonderful and beneficial insects.

Speaking of flying critters – we had a storm the other night and this beautiful creature took refuge at the top of my screen door under the eave for protection:

Luna Moth

I’m afraid the picture is a bit fuzzy. I learned how to use the macro setting on my camera afterI took this picture.  S/he was a full grown moth measuring between 4″ and 5″ wing tip to wing tip – maybe a bit bigger – I was guestimating.  S/he left us shortly after the storm was over.

Namaste, Lindy (AKA Granny Guerrilla:)