Someone mentioned how squirrels hate human hair, so all the hair out of my hair brushes and combs will go into the gardens. I also need to fix the motion sprinklers that go off when they sense something in the range. Another idea that I incorporated a long time ago, but later abandoned, was to fill the squirrels up with food (popcorn). It could help them to have less desire to dig in the gardens for food. Plus, they become more visible to the hawks and become a tasty meal for them.
When I get all this fixed, I am going to plant some plants that will draw honey bees to the garden. Some of these plants are herbs, which I can use. A friend mentioned that she has a wild basil plant and gets a lot of bees on that plant.
Some of the plants will be flowers. They also attract bees and some of them will also attract hummingbirds. What a pretty garden it will be with colorful flowers, bees, and hummingbirds around it.
There are a lot of bee plants available. Some of the plants that I will order the seeds for are; borage, bee balm, and Korean Hyssop.
Baker's Creek puts out a big catalog/magazine with a lot of information on plants, and there were some pages on plants that attract bees. One of those plants is California Poppy.
Here are a couple of links to articles on bees in the garden:
The honeybee population is disappearing and the thought is that the reason could be due to a chemical substance called 'neonicotinoids' which are used on plants to protect the plants from pests. Almost everything we eat depends on pollination, and if we don't have bees to pollinate our crops, eventually we will not have food to eat. Food that is made in a lab is not genuine food and can never replace what grows in nature.
Can we ever bring the bees back? I don't know, but I know we can try. If we could create an environment that is bee friendly, maybe we could watch the bee population come back.
Baker's Creek Seeds - www.rareseeds.com
