Blue Banded Bees

After a very mixed week, I was thrilled to find these critters buzzing around on my verandahThey are called Blue Banded Bees or Amegilla sp. and are native to Australia. They are, at the moment, all huddled on the tips of Lepiromia articulata which is in my watergarden. Its been pouring with rain for 2 days and they are all soaked  Another interesting thing that I discovered from aussiebee.com.au, was that they are great tomato pollinators, and are used in greenhouse tomato production. They are very active foragers and each visit about 1200 tomato flowers a day. I don’t have that many tomatoes but have got a few pots going. They are my 2nd round of tomatoes for the summer and are grown from the seeds of my first batch. I’ m loving the little         microcosm that’s developing here on my rooftop deck.

Watergarden

I have started to plant a sort of watergarden in an old metal tub that was given to me by a friend. Ive got a pot of Marsilea mutica, which is commonly called Nardoo. It looks like a 4 leaf clover and is found naturally in freshwater marshes. Ive got 2 tall reeds: Restio tetraphyllus , another Native plant found in sheltered coastal marshes, usually in deep sand. The base of the plant looks striped. Also Lepironia articulata , a native coastal rush. Lastly Saracenia "Evedine". This is a native of South Eastern USA. I have been trying to find a good home for this plant, but it keeps getting burnt! .Also, I got some Vietnamese Mint that I was having trouble growing, which I have now discovered loves being in the water. My next step is to get rid of all of the mosquito wrigglers in the water. Maybe I might buy some fish! Im having a bit of a hard time at the moment trying to manipulate photos, and change the layout on Blogger, but finding it all a bit frustrating! Im going to persevere, so hopefully in the future, my blog can look a whole lot better!