Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day – August 2010
So, this month I think I’ll dedicate to the insects, I’m in awe at the moment, there’s just so many.
Bees and Hoverflies are everywhere you turn…
The garden dances with the insects
Honey Bee???
Autumn looms… Mushrooms are appearing
A very impressive hoverfly, actually looks like a wasp!
Meadowbrown still proves difficult to get near…
The Gatekeepers also like the Scabious
As does the Comma! And if you look closely, check out how many Hoverflies there are!
A Gatekeeper takes a rest on a wall.
And finally a Red Admiral Arrives. Those ‘blobs’ are rain drops… Brilliant sunshine, but chucking it down… Yes I got wet!
The Scabious are certainly worth having in the garden. I sowed them last year thinking they’d be a quick fix annual. All have come back this year!
Comma on Buddleja
If you’d also like to participate, hop over to May Dreams Gardens
Gwirrel's Garden 
Lovely light in your garden and photos. I love the shots of the butterflies! ;>)
I adore insects too so this was a thoroughly enjoyable post with all the wonderful images of pollinators who love your gardenLaura
Your photos always have an ethereal quality, lovely.
Lovely photographs!
Such pretty pics! You have a great eye with the camera. That hoverfly is very cool. Happy Bloom Day and thanks for sharing. 🙂
Liz, your garden looks so pretty in the sunlight. You have some lovely colour combinations.Are your bees ok now? You certainly have a lot of insects.I did check the hoverflies in the photograph. It seems to be a good year for them……they keep getting trapped in my conservatory at the moment. I spend my life setting them free.Scabious are great plants. I planted some when we moved here, they come back again and again and again. Butterflies enjoy them, as well as bees.We had heavy rain the past two days. It has given the garden a good soak….hooray.Hope you have a good week…..
Hi Liz,Thanks for your comment on my critter post. Yes, your garden is dancing with lots of insect activity.I love your liatris.
The shot of the gatekeeper on the wall with his proboscis curled — pure perfection, Liz. I don't know if that one was a honeybee or not; it looked so close to some wasps I have seen. In any event, the honeybees would be smart to come to your garden. It is clearly the place to be right now if you're an insect or a pollinator. 😀
I was thinking about you yesterday as I failed magnificently to take decent photos of the insects in my garden!I've just had it confirmed that we've got harlequin ladybirds – NOT happy 😦 …..can't do anything about it now as I'm off on my jollies tomorrow! Sithee ina fortnight!
So many lovely photos!
Hi Carol,Thank you very much! We’ve been a bit low on the light recently, far too many dull days with neither rain nor sun… Just cloud.
Hi Laura,Thanks :)I am thrilled I’m getting so many insects, I’ve been trying to remember back to being a child and whether we ever used to have so many around the garden and I don’t think we did… Many gardens do not, and with the growing popularity of ‘low maintenance’ gardens our insects are going to struggle.
Hi Joanne,Thank you muchly 🙂 I’m glad you find them ethereal, such a nice way to describe them…
Hi Kalipso,Thank you, I’m glad you like them!
Hi Kate,Thanks, and also thanks for visiting my blog, much appreciated.
Hi Cheryl,Ha ha, thanks! I think most gardens look wonderful in the sun… Shame we haven’t been seeing a great deal of it over the past few weeks. Yesterday was a nice surprise – hot and sunny – and today is set to be the same.I don’t think the Bees are ok, no… I realised last night that I don’t think I saw a single White-tailed bumble and maybe no red-tailed either. Although it only seemed to be the White-tailed which were ill/sleeping/dying.I’m glad I have so many Hoverflies, not only because their larvae eat aphids but because it makes the garden feel so alive. Now I just need to attract Lacewings, I rarely ever see them.I hope you have a good week too. I’m busy counting down the days, nerve wracking or what?!!!
Hi Sue,Thanks for dropping by Sue, I love the garden ‘dancing’, after all, it’s what I set out for… Now I just need some more romantic grasses to sway in the wind… Oh and maybe a huge meadow field… Not asking for much there though! 🙂
Hi Meredith,Thank you! I think it’s getting to the time where they slow down a little, so can be easier to catch on camera. Although some of the ‘larger’ Butterflies were giving me a run around over the weekend and I’m still to catch a good photo of one of the three types of white we get…So far I seem to have done well for late summer/autumn… I just hope things keep going, and I need to work on the Winter and Spring aspects. I will always struggle on these seasons because the garden is tiered, during winter it doesn’t get any direct sunlight at all.
Hi Liz,What type of camera do you have? I might be able to give you some pointers on getting the insect shots? :)Like I say, I think most of us probably have, I’ve had some which look very much like Harlequins, but I also have some which I know for sure are not…Where’s tha off ti? Best not be sumwere reet nice, or ah’ll be reet put aahhht.Hope tha ‘as a gud time, and bring us back sum rock 🙂
Hi Kala,Thank you very much :)I was particularly surprised with the pink Gladioli bud photos, with the drops of rain and nice pretty bokeh in the background… Sometimes the camera just seems to create magic without me realising it and what’s on the screen is very different to what I see! Often for the better…
Lovely flowers and pictures with some butterflies.
Amazing shot of the Gatekeeper on the wall Liz. I just love his tongue sticking out, and all curly. Fabulous!
Oh, I love love love the middle shots with liatris, allium seedhead, and a bunch of other coordinating colors all arranged together! So pretty. It's so hard to get shots like that in my garden. Maybe when things are bigger?
Hi Akarui,Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving a lovely comment, it’s much appreciated.
Hi CV,Thanks! The gatekeepers this year are definitely the most ‘friendly’, it’s funny how things change from one year to the next. Last year the Speckled Woods were quite friendly, this year I’ve never seen more than one in the garden at any one time though… I wonder what happened to them all. Perhaps a hedge/grass/wasteland somewhere was chopped back and their caterpillars didn’t make it??
Hi VW,Glad you like the shot, that border has been a bit disappointing this year, it isn’t anywhere near as ‘full’ as it was last year… The Verbena Bonariensis suffered a lot in the harsh winter and I thought I had lost it, it’s only put up one stem (and another much smaller one) and the Verbena Hastatas also have far fewer stems. There’s a large gap in the centre, which I think was filled with Foxgloves and Cosmos last year. I have a Lupin to go in there for next year and I need to do some shuffling around – moving the Sea Holly and Hollyhocks. At least the Scabious (just to the right of the Liatris) and Yarrow have done very well, and have lots of flowers on them.But thanks to the narrow dof, you’d never realise all the problems!!! ha ha.Definitely, once your plants are mature I am sure you too will be able to take ‘compact’ shots. Patience in the garden is never a strong point of mine…