Greenhouse seedlings and new buds

In an effort to learn to ID my wildflowers before they bloom, I am attempting to grow some of them in our greenhouse.  I am not known for my green thumb, so this should be a fun adventure.

Our seeds come from a great company called Applewood Seed, based in Arvada, CO.  They have been extremely helpful in choosing which wildflowers would work best for low-maintenance plots in Kentucky.

And their seed bags are delightfully colorful:

Here's what the butterfly seed mix looks like:

 And here's the three planted wildflower seed mixes:

We'll see how this works out...

In the meantime, the Operation Pollinator plots are full of buds!  The lance-leaf coreopsis looks ready to burst into bloom within the next week!

The purple coneflower is a long way from its dominant period, but I spy a single flower bud!

And the plots overall are looking pretty darn verdent!

There were even a few friendly predators living nearby, though I haven't seen very many pollinators out yet this year.

I am about to leave on a business trip to Syngenta's headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, so there won't be any regular updates on bloom progression for a few weeks.  My very hardworking undergraduate technician will be taking lots of pictures and keeping me updated, and I'm very jealous that I won't be here to see the first wave of blooms.  I will make sure to take lots of pictures as soon as I get back!

Pinning pollinators

It's tough work, folks.  And hard on my old eyes.

To take a break, I've been learning how to make .gifs!

All of these pollinators came from a single day of collecting!  The big box on the top right contains the pollinators collected from the bee bowls in my "diverse bee" wildflower mix.  I'm still working on pinning the other three treatments.

All of the small boxes contain pollinators collected off of either lance-leaf coreopsis (top left quarter), black-eyed Susan (bottom right quarter), or plain coreopsis (bottom left quarter).

I'm not a big fan of pointing (I get glue everywhere and it obscures all the important details for identification!)...

 ...so I've been going through A LOT of 00 pins as I prep my tiny solitary bees for ID.

It can be tough to see all of the necessary details for identification without posing, so I work with every individual insect to make sure I can see wing veination, tongues, legs, and a bunch of tiny sutures in the exoskeleton before I let the insect dry out into its permanent position.

I also take personal pride in the fluffiness of my bumble bees.

Because there's nothing more shameful than a stringy-haired bumble bee.

Lexington Herald Leader Article!

Thanks to everyone for all the ongoing support!

My research and Operation Pollinator appeared in yesterday's Lexington Herald Leader, and I've been getting a lot of positive feedback from the community here at UK and throughout Kentucky.

Here's the link:

UK student plants golf course gardens to increase bee, butterfly populations

Knowing that my work may actually impact conservation awareness (and maybe even practice!) makes all of this worth it.

Thanks again!

First Blooms for Operation Pollinator 2013!

The Operation Pollinator plots are up an running!  I am very relieved--I thought that our long winter and cold spring had truly wiped them out.

The very first blooms up this year are from Eastern Columbine.  Lovely foliage, unique flowers, and the first red bloom I've seen in Operation Pollinator.

The bergamot continues to look great.  I think this could be this hardy plant's big year!

A few other plants that I don't remember from last year, but which don't look particularly weedy to me:

If anyone has any guesses on these plants, I'd appreciate the ID help!

Weeds in the Operation Pollinator Plots

A few weeks of warm weather have sped up the development of the OP plots.  I'm hoping to have at least a few blooming species within the next month, but for now the only things blooming out there are weeds.

You've probably seen the purple field invasion in the last few weeks.  These pictures aren't from my plots, but from a nearby fallow field.  Here's the purple painted culprit:

Purple deadnettle.  Sounds like a good name for a metal band.  According to the internet, you can eat this stuff!

Another likely suspect for the purple fields is henbit.  This weed can be a major problem in turf systems:

I've also seen quite a few violets in my plots.  This weed is very persistent, so I hope my plants start to crowd it out soon:

Finally, there are a handful of what I think is field pennycress.  Can anyone give me a positive ID on this plant?

And then there are these beasts.  These jerks really were in my plots.  You can see the bergamot foliage in the background.

Interestingly, there are many, many more dandelions in my control plots than in the other three wildflower mixes.

A good sign?  Another good sign is that the bergamot is coming on really nicely, even in sites that were struggling last year, like this one:

Can't wait until we start to see blooms!

Golf Course Management Features Operation Pollinator!

I am a very, very lucky entomologist, folks.  Golf Course Management, a trade journal published by the United States Golf Association, featured an article I wrote about Operation Pollinator.

This is big, big news for me, because every registered golf course superintendent in the US is subscribed to GCM.  That's about 16,000 people.  We've been getting some really positive feedback, and it feels fabulous.

Here's the link:  http://gcmdigital.gcsaa.org/i/118283/112

Yay!

Springtime for Operation Pollinator

We've had a very long winter here in Kentucky.  It's been chilly and wet all year, but we're finally starting to get some warm springtime weather!

This time last week, we had two straight days of snow.  Later this week we're supposed to have several days above 60F. I'm not going to question it.

The springtime weather drove me out to my Operation Pollinator plots to see how things were progressing.  It was wishful thinking on my part, but I hope to see some more recognizable wildflowers coming up in the next few weeks.

Currently, Operation Pollinator is looking pretty bedraggled and grassy.  There were only two plants that I thought might be early wildflowers coming up.

Does anyone know what this is?  Might be early bergamot coming up.  It looks mint-y to me.

This stuff was also coming up.  Lance-leaf coreopsis?  Might also be plantain or sorrel.

I've got my hopes up for more wildflowers showing up soon.  Can't wait to share all my new Operation Pollinator adventures!