Ruud Kleinpaste: Summer things in the garden

Yes, I realise it won’t be summer for another week or so, but the following observations are just a few Gardeners’ Tips to muck around with: 

Ancistrocerus gazella is an introduced “potters wasp” from Europe. It got here decades ago and is a really cute predatory wasp that does some great things in your quarter acre paradise. This little wasplet makes nice nests inside hollow tubes and then it goes on the hunt for small caterpillars, usually the leafrollers that silk your leaves together and chew from within their leaf-silk tent. 

Ancistrocerus paralyses the caterpillars, lays an egg on them and cements the quarry and its own potential baby inside the carefully chosen tube. Of course, the caterpillar will become food for the ectoparasite, and this helps to reduce the chewing damage on your roses, perennials and other plants. 

Here’s a tip: create a bunch of small-diameter bamboo tubes as a choice of real estate for these wasps to live in. The accommodation runs a little bit like that of the mason wasp (who gets their kids —larvae— to feed on paralysed spiders). 

Frustrated Cucurbit growers (cucumbers, melons, marrow, courgettes, you name it) often complain at this time of the year that their plants simply don’t set fruit at all; in fact, the plant almost exclusively produces male flowers and hardly any female flowers! 

Yep, common complaint. If there is a scarcity of pollinators the plant “thinks” there isn’t enough pollen/there are not enough pollinators to fertilise the female flowers, so it creates more male flowers to “compensate”. 

A remedy that works toward solving the problem is to have a lot of Pollen and Nectar plants surrounding the cucumber/melon, etc, so that a heap of pollinating insects are constantly patrolling the area. The first female flower will then almost certainly get her turn, and the plant “knows” it’s okay to produce more female flowers. 

If you can achieve that from mid-spring onwards, all will be well! 

Talking about pollinators, have a look out for the Wool Carder Bee! It’s another introduced pollinating insect from Europe, and it has some quite amazing behaviours. 

It loves to hover and fly around the Lamiate flowers in your garden, stuff like Salvias, and lamb’s ear. These types of plants are its favourite food, and it defends its patch fiercely by chasing away other pollinators – bees, bumble bees, and even wasps! It does so by dive-bombing these “interlopers” with almost Top Gun-like sorties. They will even squeeze bees and bumble bees between their abdominal segments, festooned with spikes! Gruesome stuff, especially when then mortally wound these bees. 

When wool carder bees start nest building, they scrape off the fine, light-coloured hairs off the leaves of certain plants (remember lamb’s ear!) and work these fibres into the most delicate, soft and insulating ball that acts as nest nurseries for their larvae and pupae in development. 

Their name (wool carder bee) tells the story of their ability to cut off the hairs and fibres and use those resources to create brilliantly designed nests for their babies. 

When you point all this activity out to the kids, you’ll find they will be busy observing aerial battles and dogfights, right in your back yard! I think it’s worth-while to plant some lamb’s ear, just for the entertainment value alone. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be the road climb passes our man in the garden.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Good morning, Good morning Jack. I loved I loved this
morning's program with with everything you did on the first lot.
I loved it. It was great. And thank you for
your card.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
To thank you for your Yeah, they're very good. Now
it's on the private place and the mental place at
our place, so thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
And Julie here.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hey, things are heating up obviously, and there are a
few that's not officially what summer for another week or so?
Is it according to the.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Route twenty Mber four three, Yeah, of.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Course, yeah, it's on my calendar as well. But there
are a few summary bits and bobs you're noticing around
the garden already.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well, this is the place. This is the time when
I really love to be outside like an sister. Serious.
Gazella is a is a I love the name is
a potter wasp that came out of out of Europe
and it's a beautiful thing, little little thing that that
basically is always around in your garden and does quite
a bit of pollinating, which is really cool. I'll leave

(01:13):
it at that. You can see the picture on the
thing that we sent to Libby, so let's be on
the website. The second thing is the problem that you
get with the gardeners, say, I don't get enough cukurberts
growing at the moment that there's cucumbers, melons and things
like that, And it's probably because the plant thinks the
plant things. You realize that there isn't enough pollen here.

(01:36):
But the truth is, of course, that there is not
enough pollinators there to make the plant think there is enough,
not enough pollen. Da da da da. So what you
do is get a lot of pollen growing around your kukuberts.
And I've got this wonderful plant called origin and the
blue dwarf. It's a really beautiful thing as you can see,

(02:00):
that would attract so many pollinators that then there will
make a lot of female flowers going and that means
you're getting fruit simp right, simple, Okay, that's it. And
then finally, and that is something for the kids to
look at, especially if they're a bit older, you know anyway,
is the old the old wool carder bee that fights

(02:25):
for its pollen, and it fights by literally attacking bees
which are a lot larger than these things and bumblebees,
and they squeeze them literally and bringing them, dive bombing
them and bringing them down to earth. That is an
unbelievable site. You should see that. It's better than watching TV.
I bet you it's brilliant. Well, they dive for by

(02:50):
going really fast on a bee, then squeeze with the
with their abdomen, squeeze the bee in two places and
the bee suddenly gets a smack that it can't fly
anymore and goes you boom. It's it's amazing. So the
go and they go for Lamb's year. They go for
all sorts of stuff that they like, lavender, et cetera,

(03:12):
et cetera. But they add the most beautiful fighters on air.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I love her good nice. Hey. I'm growing Kokerbert's for
the first time at my place this summer. But I'm
I think I've got them slightly too close to the
to the tomatoes because they're obviously well, they're just reaching
for each other the whole time. They want to be made.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Oh you know that should know that shouldn't be too problematic.
As long as they're pollinators in the area, you will
have you'll be fine with the ku kurbets.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Okay, so my cucumbers and my it doesn't matter if
my cucumber plant and my tomato plant ends up sort
of making friends with each other and the vines wrap around.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Each other and the hold hand. Okay till Marcus will
be high enough to let it go.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, very good. Okay, Hey, thank you so much. Rude
catching in next week, I pass in the garden for
us this morning.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
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