Native Pollinator Garden Updates - Saginaw Chippewa Academy and Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum (15 June 2015)

Saginaw Chippewa Academy Native Pollinator Garden

Last week I shared a pair of photographs of the Native Pollinator Garden at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy.  Yesterday, I took the time to take some more photographs.  A lot had changed in a week. This first photographs shows the garden as it looked on June 8th.

Saginaw Chippewa Academy Native Pollinator Garden - 08 June 2015

Here is the garden exactly one week later on June 15th.

Saginaw Chippewa Academy Native Pollinator Garden - 15 June 2015

It's obvious from this photograph that there are more blooms than there were one week ago. The amount of violet-blue is a little deceiving.  The Ohio Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) flowers open at night and close up again by the middle of the day - the first photo was taken in the afternoon when any spiderwort blooms would have been closed up.  The big difference is in the number of Sand Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) flowers that are in bloom.  They create a large patch of yellow at the front of the garden that was not present one week before.

Ohio Spiderwort (foreground) and Sand Coreopsis (background)

 

Ohio Spiderwort

Sand Coreopsis

Fly and raindrops on a Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) flower

Raindrops on a Pale Indian Plantain  (Arnoglossum atriplicifolium) leaf

 

Small hoverfly on a Sand Coreopsis flower

Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum Native Pollinator Garden

After leaving the Saginaw Chippewa Academy I swung over to the Mt. pleasant Discovery Museum to check on their pollinator garden.  This garden is the youngest of the four pollinator gardens that we have established throughout the county.  It dates from July 2013 and this is only its second full growing season.  Here are three photographs from one year ago this week (18 June 2014).

Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum Native Pollinator Garden - 18 June 2014

Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum Native Pollinator Garden - 18 June 2014

Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum Native Pollinator Garden - 18 June 2014

Here are photos three photos taken yesterday from essentially the same vantage points.  There is a big difference in the amount of vegetation present.  A year has made a major difference in this garden.

Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum Native Pollinator Garden - 15 June 2015

Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum Native Pollinator Garden - 15 June 2015

Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum Native Pollinator Garden - 15 June 2015

 With a few exceptions, the plants in this garden are 2 or 3 times as large as they were at this point last year.  Like the garden at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy, the blooms in this garden are currently dominated by Lance-leaf Coreopsis and Ohio Spiderwort.

Common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Green bee on a Ohio Spiderwort flower