There has been talk over at Spirit Cloth about stitching secret gardens and such -- a tiny woven piece from over a year ago is already growing into a secret garden with a butterfly and some flowers.
I love my birthday cards -- one girl always paints me wearing my crescent moon necklace.
I'm starting to collect a small amount of surplus seeds to package in origami seed packets. First up is beautiful nigella, Nigella damascena, next will be larkspur. Aren't the nigella seed capsules wonderful?
Nearly speechless over the passion flower, Passiflora caerulea.....ten petals, dozens of radial filaments with five anthers and three stigmas....I have tried to grow passion flower before but this is a first.
In order for our honeybees to become mite-resistant which is a huge problem for colonies everywhere, I'm giving up control. Weeds, vegetables, flowers and bushes all get to bloom and go to seed. Mint gets to grow wherever it wants and thyme, borage and oregano can follow along. I am not making any more white-sugar syrup to feed the bees and have removed most of the man-made foundation frames from inside the hive. Instead of using plastic chemical-laden "honeycomb" cells, they are drawing their own beeswax foundation in which to lay eggs and store food. The tiny hexagonal wax cells they draw on their own will be the size they need and not what the honey industry wants them to be. Mites don't like the smaller cells. Mites don't like peppermint or thyme. Mites don't like bees that have rewilded themselves into smaller, tamer bodies.
That is the plan -- we are rewilding ourselves here.
xx
beautiful secret garden cloth. a lovely variety of passion flower. i have the deep purple variety but this year my vine is not blooming. i have a feeling the trees are causing a bit too much shade.
ReplyDeletei read a different theory this week about why we are losing so many bees having to do with cell phones which confuse the bees....
Yes, those seed capsules are amazing, as is the passion flower! I like your secret garden...I guess I can look at my comfort cloth as my garden! And..."rewilding"...YES to that, for us all! I'm so grateful for your beautiful world (post) tonight, Thank you Peggy. xoNancy
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. Just what's needed perhaps. I'll bet the bee man that comes to the farm market,whose bees stayed healthy, never sprayed, never fed and just let what was needed grow itself. I'll have to ask next time I visit.
ReplyDeletewonderful post and photos. I love that you and the bees an the flowers are all rewilding yourselves!
ReplyDeletei will watch closely, the efforts of rewilding....
ReplyDeleteI really hope the new freedoms will keep the bees safer. I hadn't of course known about the honeycomb size being as important, or that plastic comb inserts were used at all.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed!
I saw Jude was thinking of making a stitch along cushion and was going to tag along too.
Love your little nine patch : )
Rewilding - yes. Earth mother knows what is needed.
ReplyDeleteHappy happy birthday! I hope it's a wild year for you (in only the good ways, of course!)
ReplyDeleteI love nigella, too & that it's called "love-in-a-mist" & blue!
Happy Birthday! Aren't hand-made cards from children the best. I love the one with your moon necklace. Your garden cloth is lovely. My garden cloth would have to be called my "sanctuary garden". In my very busy world that is what my garden/quilting are.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is a beekeeper and has done the same thing with his bees. Many in his bee group are still having problems with mites, but my husband's teenier, wilder bees haven't had a problem in the three years that he's been beekeeping. I will tell him about the mint and thyme--a little help from mother nature is a good thing :).
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