Garden Visitors

One of the few visitors to my garden this year--is he eating a pollinator?!

As I've described in previous posts, pollinators are sadly missing from our garden this year. I have seen only the occasional bee, and the mountain mint, which attracted such a wonderfully diverse group of pollinators when we grew it ten years ago in Georgia, has abundant flowers but few visitors to those flowers. St. Tammany Parish has a mosquito spraying program; I hear the truck at night sometimes, going up and down the streets in our area, spraying pesticide. I wonder if the mosquito control program is affecting more than mosquitoes. We also had a late freeze in March.

I like to walk around my gardens to see what kinds of pollinators I can observe and photograph. The most I've seen so far this season are a few dragonflies, some unidentified spider-like creatures, a few pesky worms on my tomatoes, and the rare bee. I'll be recording my observations here in the months ahead.

I think this is a harlequin ladybird in its larval state. I discovered it skittering on a spade I had left on the patio.