Encouraging the Pollinators — Part 2
Enhancing the Environment
In Part 1, I was beginning to explain how come we recently received this nice Wildlife habitat sign from the National Wildlife Federation.
We stopped where our ancient gardener, Jose, had begun to teach me about soil rehabilitation and general plant care. You can read Part 1, here.
While Jose was trying to revitalize the back-most part of our garden, he was going around building cane fences to keep the dogs off certain areas. His cane fences were surprisingly sturdy.
The front garden
Our front terrace had a retaining wall running along the front. It was about two feet tall on the terrace and had a narrow wall bed on the top.
Upgrading the long strip of wall garden along the top of the front terrace wall and the wide flower bed at the base of this retaining wall was the next priority.
This strip faced due West and was probably the sunniest part of the garden and also the driest part.
The retaining wall to the next level was 5 feet tall. You can see the top 3 feet in the photo above. This photo was taken in the late Fall, so not many flowers were alive.
Here’s one taken in the late summer, with plants cascading from the top of the wall bed. In this photo, you can see the wall top bed and the retaining wall with the flower bed at the base.
Jose liked to plant an assortment of perennials and annuals in that little wall-top bed area for best show. The front was the first thing people would see, he reckoned. In the narrow bed on the top of the wall, he told me that Portulaca and various types of low-grow, cascading plants (which I now know were Sedums) would be ideal.
He really favoured Ivy Geraniums, also. This type of Pelargonium has a cascading growth habit which makes it perfect for places where you needed a trailing plant, like the wall top bed or containers.
He almost always planted tall sunflowers along the back wall. (And also in the back, in the vegetable garden)
He liked these because they provided food for wildlife and were very showy.
Here is a photo of one of his huge sunflowers in the back garden shown to be dwarfing our daily help, Esperanca, and a 14-year-old me, wearing “camera face”.
He really favoured Ivy Geraniums, also. This type of Pelargonium has a cascading growth habit which made it perfect for places you needed a trailing plant, like the wall top bed or containers.
Jose explained that while it was sunny most of the time, the Portulaca would close up on a cloudy day, and he wanted something else to provide extra colour. The Ivy Geraniums and the Sedums he planted would work perfectly. It is a pity that the silky, brilliant-coloured Portulaca refused to open on anything but a very sunny day. They are so beautiful.
In that climate, we were able to grow Dahlias and leave the tubers in the soil all winter, so Jose got some really tall ones for the row in front of his big sunflowers. Some of the larger plants needed to be staked to keep them from falling over. The cane support method that we used for the tomatoes worked well for the Dahlias.
Here is a photo of those cane supports on the tomatoes and runner beans.
Next, the tall and blousey Cosmos. Jose liked the Cosmos as a mid-row filler. They provided masses of light, spiky foliage dotted with pastel flowers. My photos do not do them justice, but you can imagine them planted en masse!
These were always in a multitude of pastel shades and, of course, self-seeded every year. We rarely needed to replant. (In those days, there was no monster Monsanto messing with seeds, so one really could collect seeds and re-plant them and expect to have them germinate.) The Cosmos looked beautiful in a wide swathe across the front. They grew anywhere from 3 to four feet in height.
Next, Jose planted Zinnias.
His Zinnias never got mildew and grew quite tall, up to 12–20 inches, producing masses of bright flowers. Mixed in with the Zinnias, Jose always planted some French and African Marigolds. These, he said, were good to keep insects from destroying the rest of the garden. I noticed that the big African Marigolds were usually full of chewed petals, so clearly, were very attractive to pests.
French Marigolds are a lot shorter than the African Marigolds, and come in many different colors, usually in yellow, gold, red and burgundy. I loved these small, bright flowers (still do), providing masses of colour and self-seeding generously.
Jose loved to plant Pelargonium × hortorum (upright type of Geraniums) in assorted spots in the flowerbeds. He liked the big colour pop you got from them. Jose sometimes planted geraniums around the outer part of the vegetable beds if he had any plants left over. Geraniums also overwintered, flowering well into December, and actually, Jose would gather armloads of them to decorate the front hall for Christmas.
Herbs
Jose loved to plant clumps of Lavender and Rosemary amongst his other flowers. These strong-smelling herbs, he said, were bound to deter rabbits from getting too cosy among the flowers! In Portugal, the Rosemary would grow into fair-sized bushes and could overwinter. Bunches of Lavender and Rosemary were also put into service as part of the outdoor Christmas decoration project.
In addition to Rosemary and Lavender, we always had a good planting of annual herbs such as Parsley, Borage and Basil in the Kitchen garden. My mother used Parsley and Basil a lot in cooking. She liked to use the Borage leaves chopped fine in salads. Once in a while, if she were feeling very ambitious, she would take the Borage flowers and candy them, the same way that Violet flowers are candied. A rare, but delightful treat.
I recently found out that Borage is a total Bee magnet! In our garden in Portugal, Borage grew beautifully and self-seeded like mad. Here, in Canada, in our garden, it is very obstinate, grudgingly growing into 6-inch plants and barely flowering.
Butterflies
We were blessed with many different Butterflies, which could always be found around the front garden. Those shown below were frequent visitors, but we had many other more exotic ones too. I love that the regular Butterfly visitors to our Canadian garden also visited in Portugal.
Danger, Will Robinson! (Apologies to Lost in Space)
We had tons of bees. At first, they worried me, but Jose assured me that these would not sting unless I provoked them. He explained that if they did sting, they would die, and that was a bad thing. (Their stings are barbed, and after a sting, they can’t withdraw the stinger. A good article on the subject here. )
He showed me how they gather pollen on their legs as they visited the various flowers. Jose was very pro bee, telling me that they were a huge help in plant pollination and, of course, also providers of honey!
Wasps
We had a lot of wasp nests in the garden, hanging in trees or lodged under the loose tiles on roofs. Jose frequently warned me not to disturb the wasps, and so did my Mother. The wasps, they explained, were not pleasant and would sting with the least provocation. Unfortunately, I was not as careful as I should have been and had assorted run-ins with these bellicose insects. One of the worst of such incidents occurred when I decided to try to straighten out a dislodged roof tile which happened to cover a large wasp nest. Well, at least I wasn’t allergic, but boy, was I stung. (Also in big trouble for climbing onto the roof!!)
In case you’re wondering how I managed to get on the roof, see the rough sketches below.
On our property, there were several small sheds and also a small house, probably meant for live-in servants. Our house was built on a small hill, and the sheds and small house were built into the side of the same small hill. On the one side, the small house roof was accessible because it was only 4 feet in height. On the steeper side, it was about 10 foot high. Fortunately, I only climbed onto the shorter side, which is where I had spotted the loose roof tile, and it was under that loose tile that the wasps had their nest.
Birds
Assorted birds also visited our garden. We had many of the songbirds that enjoy southern European climates, including the European Robin, Starlings, Blackbirds, Wrens, and Sparrows. We also had Jackdaws and cheeky Magpies.
Some pretty exotic birds would show up from time to time. Once a gorgeous male Peacock showed up, looking confused. It may probably have come from a nearby park where there were quite a few Peacocks. It didn’t hang around for very long.
Colourful little Budgerigars showed up quite frequently during the summer months. We figured they were escapees from people who kept caged birds as pets. Caged birds such as Canaries, Budgerigars and Parrots were popular as pets when I lived in Portugal.
One summer, my Mother, who was from South Africa, was super excited because a Hoopoe visited our garden. It hung around for a few days, then left. I recently found out that while Hoopoes are native to South Africa, where they overwinter, they like to spend the summers in Southern European countries like Portugal, so our Hoopoe sighting was not as unusual as we had thought.
We had a regular collection of Purple Martins that came and nested under the roof of our front porch. They would come in and carefully build new or repair existing mud nests in each of the four corners of the walls at the ceiling line. We would get dive bombed by them if we happened to be coming or going through the front door when they were coming or going from their nests.
Apparently, they winter in Africa and are quite regular visitors to countries like Portugal in the summer months. Jose loved the Martins, even though they made a right old mess on the front porch. He explained that they eat insects. Their diet consists mainly of beetles, moths, dragonflies, butterflies, horseflies, leafhoppers and wasps. It was sad about the butterflies, but the Martins did such a great job of controlling a wide variety of plant-destructive insects that we had to forgive them for the odd butterfly casualty.
One day, while Jose was clipping the hedge that ran along the top of the retaining wall along the front garden, I noticed some drainage holes in the wall. Jose pointed out that small owls made their homes in these drainage holes. He said they were great for helping to control the mouse population. I began to keep an eye out for the owls and was lucky enough to actually see them on more than one occasion. You cannot believe how cute they were. They made these adorable little mini hoots. My mother was always hoping to get a photo of them, but they were pretty stealthy. Later I found out that these tiny owls were most likely Burrowing Owls.
To be continued in Part 3
