Although the tree mallow (Malva or Lavatera arborea) is quite a scruffy plant, its flower are stunning.
Tree mallow flower
They’re easily as beautiful as the flowers of more exotic hibiscuses, to which they are related.
Not only are the flowers beautiful, and loved by bees, but the tree mallow also presents them very carefully. The tightly wrapped, pointed buds open into the flower for just a few hours.
Mallow flowerbud – tightly wrapped and pointed
The tree mallow then re-wraps the petals into a tidy little tube, before dropping them on the ground.
A finished mallow flower that is being rolled back up again (no point at the tip and the sepals pushed back)And this picture shows all stages – unopened bud, fully open flower, re-furling flower, and the more bluey coloured petal tubes are just about to drop.
Several of the tree mallows in my garden died this winter – the temperature was never very low, but there were enough cold nights to wear the mallows out. For me, if the temperature is lower than +3C (i.e. not even an official frost) for more than a few nights in close succession, the larger plants will give up. First they droop their leaves, as though to protect the buds; but if conditions don’t improve, they die.
Nevertheless, there are always lots of up-and-coming youngsters ready to take over. And they grow from a couple of inches to full tree size, covered with flowers, in just a few weeks.
Incidentally, rabbits love mallow leaves and they’re said to be soothing for their digestion. They’re also edible for humans, but I’ve never tried them. Even the seeds are edible too.
Coming home recently, on a cold dark day, I saw one of these seed pods on the path. I noticed it enough to think “that’s a large pine seed”. But was more focused on getting into the warm, and didn’t really pay it any heed.
Mystery seed pods being brought by the birds
However, the next day, I saw another of these seed pods outside my window, and I thought I should go and see what they really were. I found about a dozen. They were perplexingly familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what they were. They reminded me of date stones, but also of pine seeds.
It bugged me, because I felt I should know what they were. And then, suddenly, the cogs of my brain turned and I realised that I was looking at…
Monkey puzzle seed cases with their sharp spines still intact (looking a bit like weird mice or reptile sculptures)
Monkey puzzle (Araucaria araucana) seed pods.
Puzzle solved:)
I’m pretty sure these pods are being brought by the birds – particularly jackdaws and magpies – who sit on the roof eating the nuts and spitting down the empty seed cases. Clever birds.
The first plants to flower in the fruit garden are the gooseberries. They’re just coming into full flower now – which is about usual; anytime after the first week of March will see the first flowers opening here.
Gooseberry flower
The flowers are quite discreet and un-showy. It always surprises me that there are enough insects around to pollinate them; but there always are. Mostly, the gooseberries seem to be pollinated by little solitary bees. That in itself seems reason enough to grow the bushes, just to feed the solitary bees. But I also love gooseberries, so it’s a win-win situation.
Gooseberry flower bud just about to burst open.
I couldn’t get a picture of the bees on the gooseberry bushes. The bees are very frenetic zooming all around the bush and barely settling on a flower before they dart off again. But, frequently, they move away from the bushes and settle on a fence post or something, seemingly to sun themselves, and to fight with other bees of the same species if they come near.
Here is one of the bees – the white on its face is a fluffy moustache. I think it is a red mason bee (Osmia bicornis) but am not at all certain. (It is sitting on the leaf of a strawberry tree.)Here’s another of the bees. It is sitting on a one-inch stake, alongside some very weathered cotton twine, so that gives a good idea of how dinky it is
I read once that God created gooseberries for where grapes wouldn’t grow. But I can’t find that quote again now. It seems quite apt. And although gooseberries tend to be thought of as very tart, if they ripen long enough on the bush they can become very sweet – certainly sweet enough to eat straight from the bush just like a grape.
Also in full flower now is the gooseberry’s relative, the flowering currant (Ribes sanguinium).
Flowering currant in bloom
In contrast to the gooseberry, the flowering currant flowers are showy, strongly scented, and very abundant. The flowering currant also differs from the gooseberries in its pollinators: the flowering currant bushes are buzzing with honey bees and bumble bees.
Flowering currant and honey bee
Again, that seems reason enough to grow the bushes, just to feed the bees (well, the wild bees anyway – I’m ambivalent, at best, about farmed honey bees). But again, I love the bushes: they’re the first bright show of colour after the long, dark days of winter. So, they’re another win-win shrub.
Another ribes flower, another bee
Incidentally, the flowering currant is quite late to flower here this year, possibly because the winter has been so mild. It can come into flower at anytime from mid January to early March in this area, depending on the weather conditions.
Checking to see whether the russet apples were ready for picking, I noticed several apples that were being eaten by woodlice.
Woodlice eating a russet apple
I took this to mean that the apples needed picking, although they aren’t totally ready yet: leaving them would mean more would be eaten by things other than me.
I pulled off and threw aside the apples that were clearly infested with woodlice, and started picking the rest.
I was super surprised to find that almost every apple, even those that looked perfect, had a woodlouse up their rear end (I can’t find a proper term for the bottom end of an apple).
A woodlouse nestled in the bottom end of an appleA too-big woodlouse trying to squeeze in to the bottom end of an apple
I suppose that these bottom-end woodlice are eating the remains of the flower. But I don’t trust them not to keep on eating. So I laid all the apples out bottom end up in the bright sunshine and gradually, all the woodlice moved out.
Woodlice are “supposed” to only eat “dead” material. But that begs the question of when is plant material “dead”. Clearly, the woodlice are eating fresh apple flesh – not just limiting themselves to “decaying” or damaged material. Funnily enough, there is no actual consensus on this either (just like there’s no definitive name for the bottom of an apple) – what is dead and what is living in the plant world is quite nebulous. I know for sure that woodlice eat plenty of things which are lush and juicy and in no ways (to my eyes) “decaying”. But maybe, although they still seem to be alive, those things are, in reality dead – certainly the flesh of an apple is on a one way journey and won’t ever come back to life…
Sometime ago, I bought an Arbutus unedo tree / shrub (also known as a Strawberry Tree).
That little plant from the “unwanted” corner of a local nursery has thrived in the light soil and relatively mild weather here. It is now a handsome and sturdy shrub about 6ft in all dimensions – height and spread.
Each year, it flowers profusely from around early August. There are still even a few flowers forming now, in early March. But August through to December is the main flowering period.
From August through October there are enough bees around to ensure the flowers are pollinated (and the bees, especially bumble bees and carder bees love this shrub). Each year, there are a good number of tiny little fruits begin to grow.
However, there has never been a fruit grown to maturity – not a single one. Until this year.
Tiny Arbutus fruitlets forming – and some gaps where they’ve disappeared
As the winter progresses, all the tiny fruitlets that start growing just disappear. Completely vanish. I’ve searched to see if they’re on the floor, maybe broken off by the winter winds, but I have never found one.
A flower stem with all the fruitlets gone
So, I wonder whether it is the earwigs that are stealing these little fruitlets. Earwigs are abundant here. They eat plenty of other flowers and buds. I even find them in the Strawberry Tree flowers.
An earwig lurking inside an Arbutus flower
Maybe I am maligning the earwigs, but I can’t think who / what else would be doing this.
Ironically, this year a single fruitlet has made it through to spring and started to fatten up. But no sooner was it looking hopeful than some kind of stitcher moth caterpillar found it and stitched it up! Never mind, it’s still a beautiful shrub and maybe it will have better luck next year.
This year’s one surviving fruit (complete with the web of a moth caterpillar stitched to the back of it)
Several times this year, I’ve noticed that ants (Lasius niger) are covering their aphid “farms” on the currant and gooseberry bushes with soil.
A clump of soil that ants have carried up a blackcurrant bush. Inside is an “aphid farm”.By moving the soil, inside you can just about see the tiny grey-ish aphids (Aphis schneideri), just under the leaf stalk.
This isn’t something I remember noticing before and I meant to look it up, but kept forgetting so to do. Now, I finally got round to it, but from a quick look, it isn’t something that seems common.
As expected, this year has been especially bad for aphids on all my fruit bushes and trees. Unfortunately for the ants, after all their hard work, and for the aphids, these soil covered “farms” are being squished like all the others.
A more welcome “pest” is the magpie moth (Abraxas grossulariata) – a beautiful caterpillar which is followed by an equally beautiful moth. They particularly like to feed on currant and gooseberry leaves. I leave these to their own devices: apparently, once upon a time, they were sufficiently abundant to be a “pest” but it’s hard to imagine that these days.
While picking gooseberries this morning, I noticed several white blobs on some of the stems. First of all I thought they were bird droppings. But I noticed that the ants were very interested in them, so I looked closer and realised they were some kind of scale insect. I’m used to scale insects on pine trees, but hadn’t seen them before on the gooseberries. So, I snipped a branch off and brought it back to find out more about these creatures.
This is one of the blobs. You can hardly see the mother scale insect, she’s pumped out so much “woolliness”!
My plant pest book suggested that these are woolly vine scale insects (sometimes called woolly currant scale insects) and Google seems to confirm that.
Next, I took a toothpick to look inside the “wool”. It has a texture something between candyfloss and soft marshmallow. Inside were lots of little brownish dots. These could be eggs, but I think they are actually further developed than that and what I’m seeing is hundreds of new scale insects ready to invade.
Inside the scale insect’s wool are hundreds of babies.
I went back to the gooseberry bushes to see if I could spot anymore white blobs. Happily I couldn’t. A small infestation like this is of no consequence. But obviously if all those little brown dots grew up and re-infested the bushes, that wouldn’t be a good situation. Books and online sources provide advice about the use of pesticides to control the scale insects. But most seem to agree that, where possible, it is better to just physically rub, crush or wipe off the blobs as and when you see them and nip the problem in the bud, so to speak.
An ant investigating the woolly scale insect mass of babies
Once again, it’s thanks to the ants that I noticed this problem. The ants really are a double edged sword.
While many of the fruit trees and bushes in the garden are a magnet for bees, I never see many (or maybe not even any) bees on the redcurrant bushes. I occasionally see wasps visiting, and sometimes little flies. But the only insects I see regularly visiting the redcurrant flowers are ants.
Ants on redcurrant flowers
I’ve always thought the ants must be helping with pollinating the currants. But, reading around the subject, it seems they might not be very useful as pollinators at all. However, I always have plenty of fruits set, so I’m still inclined to think the ants are helping, at least somewhat.
Less helpful are the ants’ aphid farming activities. Spring has come so early and been so warm this year that not only are the redcurrants already setting fruit, but the aphids are already reproducing rapidly. And the ants are busy stroking and defending “their” aphids.
Ants with some of this year’s newly emerging aphids on redcurrant (Aphis schneideri, I think)
The only thing that is slightly helpful about the ants’ affinity for the aphids is that their presence helps to highlight where the aphids are hiding. I rub the aphids off as and when I see them, but given what an early start they’ve made, I think this might become a bumper year for aphids.
It’s easy to overlook the flowers of many trees, particularly conifers. This Lawson Cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana) is flowering particularly well. In the bright sunshine of the mini summer-in-February we have just enjoyed, it was looking beautiful.
Lawson Cypress in flower
Closer up, you can see the red of the male flowers, and the less conspicuous greeny-grey of the female flowers that may become cones
In the centre of this shot is one of last year’s cones ripening – it’s the size and shape of a large pea
And here are two two-year-old cones, fully ripened and turned woody and brown
The speed and dexterity of the leafcutter bees amazes me. They cut so precisely, always leaving a perfectly smooth edge and I’ve never seen one drop the leaf piece it has cut. (They are too quick for me to photograph in action – I can only show the results.)
This year, the leafcutter bees have taken a particular shine to a young cherry tree – there are other cherry trees around, but they’ve been ignored and the bees are just working this one tree. Leafcutter bees are notorious for clipping out pieces of rose leaves. There are wild roses near to this cherry tree, but they’re being ignored too.
Leafcutter bees are of the genus Megachile: mega – big; chile – from the Greek for lips: so they could also be called the big-lip bees, but I’ve never heard that;)
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