A whole hive on this one field thistle flower head (Cirsium discolor)

There are no plants in this photo but you won’t notice because WHAT’S UP, BABY SNAPPING TURTLE

Get in there. Common eastern bumblebee (I think), anise hyssop. #NativePlants #Bees

Here’s a thing I do that some people think is bonkers: When I find these guys, I move them to a nearby eastern black nightshade. There is usually one of these nearby; they’re ambitious growers. The farmer's market also has good tomatoes, but they don't have Carolina Sphinxes. #Gardening

Wild raisin’s berries look like a bad sunburn in late summer—but not alll at the same time! They’ll keep ripening at different rates all fall.

Some plants are just better at attacting insects for gardeners and hortulturalists standing around with cameras. #NativePlants

Clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum): The plant we keep giving awards to

I don't know if the plant cares about awards. But it sure does like attracting insects.

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Purple love grass spikelet. In the next few months, this (along with dozens of others) will open and create what looks like a purple haze hovering above the plant

Who says you can’t grow a nice flower in the shade? Great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) doesn’t mind shade and moisture. Like cardinalflower (Lobelia cardinalis), this one switches from male to female, though it’s more of a bumblebee plant (than a hummingbird one). #NativePlants

Exactly how long a tongue does a bee need to have to nectar on the nearly inch-long tubes of field thistle (Cirsium discolor)? #insects #nativeplants

Turns out plants sort of can hear music, and maybe play it, too. Sort of.

Can plants hear? Sorry scientists, I meant, "detect sound waves emitted by pollinators' wingbeats"?

Researchers measured if plants made their nectar sweeter when they "heard" pollinators nearby. They also checked to see if flowers vibrated in response to sound (sort of like eardrums do).

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Peck’s skipper. These butterflies are well known for nectaring in this sort of jet plane posture. It's nectaring on sage that I let bloom. #Insects #gardening

4-banded stinkbug wasp on clustered mountain mint. A solitary hunter and paralyzer of stink bugs nymphs #nativeplants #insects

I have to admit, before I wrote this, I did not realize I might have squash bees nearby. But if you build it they will come etc.

The brief, intense life of a zucchini flower

Squash flowers (along with watermelon and cucumber flowers) only bloom for a few hours. In that short window, we need bees to carry pollen from male to female flowers, or we won't get a harvest.

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4-banded stinkbug wasp on clustered mountain mint. A solitary hunter and paralyzer of stink bugs nymphs #nativeplants #insects

Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) has this little paintbrush that it uses to facepaint hummingbirds. But then at some point it switches from male to female (“Lieutenant Sexparts, retract anthers! Deploy stigmas!” etc.) and then the hummingbirds reverse paint the flower with pollen. #NativePlants

Male bumblebee sleeping under wild bergemot (Monarda fistulosa). After they do their duty, they’re often not welcome back to the nest, since they don’t contribute to colony upkeep (e.g., bring back resources). Nature’s beautiful and not for the feint of heart #NativePlants #gardening

Don’t freak out yet! This is a great digger wasp on narrowleaf mountain mint, and she’s a garden predtator. She wants to eat your crickets, grasshoppers, and kaytdids (we won’t talk about how). Males don’t even have stingers. Having said all that, WOW am I glad this beast is solitary #NativePlants

The smallest bee butt is still very cute. Spurred ceratina, a small carpenter bee, nectaring on scabiosa. #bees #gardening

Wrote about why squash (and most cucumbers) sometimes seem to have all flowers and no fruit. #gardening #growYourOwn

The brief, intense life of a zucchini flower

Squash flowers (along with watermelon and cucumber flowers) only bloom for a few hours. In that short window, we need bees to carry pollen from male to female flowers, or we won't get a harvest.

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Common eastern bumblebee on summersweet, Clethra alnifolia. Clethra’s a coastal species, and while people say it likes “well-drained” soils, it also does just fine in soggy, boggy soils #NativePlants #bees

Juniper berries (from eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana) are actually cones with a waxy blue coating. Either that or the botanists are messing with us.

A congress of…some kind of fly! (Plant is false sunflower, Heliopsis helianthoides, native across basically the entire right side of the U.S. map plus a good chunk of Canada) #insects #NativePlants

The only rubus (blackberry/raspberry genus) I feel confident in IDing, purple flowered raspberry (Rubus odoratus). At least, I feel confident when it’s in bloom. Apparently taxonomists have spilled barrels full of ink over how to classify the various species in this genus. #NativePlants

Can anyone tell me what this wasp is doing? Is it drunk? What’s it holding? (Plant is Canada wood nettle, a native relative of stinging nettle) #insects #Hymenoptera

This bumblebee’s likely grounded until he(?) dries off. (You try flying after being drenched while wearing your clothes. Not so easy, is it?) Plant is narrowleaf mountain mint (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium) #insects #NativePlants

Purple love grass working on making bird seed.

Garden predator—or maybe the actual predator from the movie is real and really small. (Eastern hammertail fly, lance leaf coreopsis seed head)

Pruinose squash bee irritably informing a bumblebee that other people also need to use the facilities. (Squash bees are solitary bees that pollinate mostly plants in the Cucurbita genus, which includes your pumpkins, zucchini, summer squash, etc.) #Gardening

Wrote about a plant whose flowers have always reminded me of a muppet that’s having a bad time #Gardening

Scarlet bee balm (Monarda didyma): The hummingbird flower with a messy haircut

Bees and butterflies like it too, but only if they have really long tongues or a tube for a face.

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Truly a banger Odanata (dragon/damselflies) year. This blue dasher landed on a stick my toddler was holding and then LET HIM WALK AROUND WITH IT while I flailed about trying to get photos