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!