Hi. This is the Rusty Patch Garden. On a small plot in a small town, I grow native plants and pull invasive ones. It is rather like surviving cancer, which so far I have – despite Lynch Syndrome, a genetic mutation that caused one cancer and is likely to cause more. I see invasive plant species as a kind of cancer – growing where it is not wanted, faster than is survivable.
But when you just pull or mow invasives without planting natives, it’s like knowing you don’t want to die without asking why you want to live. I think just about every cancer diagnosis comes with the thought, what is important? Pulling invasives/treating cancer says: not this. Planting native plants/choosing what is important says: yes this.
This garden is built to create a home for the Rusty Patched Bumblebee, a once-common native bee that hasn’t been seen in Ontario since 2009. I read A Garden for the Rusty Patched Bumblebee by Lorraine Johnson and Sheila Colla, and I have thought about this bee ever since. I’ll let you know if she ever comes home.
Important note: not all the plants shown are native. I have rose, feverfew, cosmos, valerian, and more. There are even invasives: creeping buttercup, japanese spirea, dames rocket. Native plants are wonderful and provide habitat and nourishment, but non-natives and invasives are opportunities not to be passed up when survival is on the line.
Please choose a favourite creature and leave a comment about it. I am deeply curious about what you are curious about.
I believe this is a mother chipmunk, because there are new shiny babies about. I think the end of her life may be coming, so good food is plentiful for her at the Rusty Patch.
See what I mean about the shiny baby? Compare the fur, the body composition, etc. Getting these photos of the chipmunk of the rock was a lovely moment. I do not want the animals to be habituated to humans, but I also appreciate that they don’t fear me or the camera – except of course it is very easy to startle them, unfortunately. Relatable.
It’s squirrel mating season, apparently. Did you know black squirrels are Grey Squirrels? They have melanism, a recessive trait that actually got selected for because of humans. Squirrels that are black are much easier to see on pavement, therefore they are hit by cars much less often than grey squirrels, so this recessive trait became incredibly common. It also seems to have made black squirrels much more bold. There are arguments that the melanism becomes dominant because of the advantage that black fur gives you by warming you in the winter, but squirrels aren’t exposed to direct sunlight much in dense Ontario forest canopies, so who knows really.
But I think black and grey squirrels mate with each other just fine. I’ve also seen brown-ish squirrels but I don’t know anything about them yet.
In a native plant group,some suggested that ferns are ‘deer resistant’. I laughed and cried. There’s no such thing, really. A friend told me they pulled the heads off her coneflowers and spit them out because they didn’t like them – that’s deer resistance.
The first bird is a female Red Winged Blackbird. Part of my goal in writing about the amazing beings in this hyperlocal ecosystem is to bring justice to the female creatures that are named after the characteristics of the males of their species. What this does is invisibilize the females so we don’t learn to identify them. I’ve also noticed that when I use an app to identify a creature, it rarely tells me if it is male or female, but that information is actually really important in an ecosystem.
There are lots of juveniles in the Rusty Patch lately, including the mallard duck shown above.
These are basically all insects that I think are flies. I still have so much to learn about insects, it’s just astonishing. So if I get an ID or category wrong, I really do want to know and welcome correction. I saw lots of Flower Flies mating so I think there’ll be an explosion by the time the Asters and Goldenrods bloom, which I absolutely cannot wait for as they are among my favourites. So funny to watch.
The last two are very impressive mimics! The first looks like a bumblebee but it is a fly, and the second looks like a hornet!
Speaking of mimics, it’s the year of the Robber Fly in the Rusty Patch Garden, apparently. These flies are excellent predators and often catch prey mid-flight. The last one is a Bee Mimic Robber Fly. Did it fool you? It caught an Eastern Bumblebee, the insect it is a mimic of. Does it know what it looks like? You can recognize Robber Flies by their Gonzo noses.
Beetles, etc.
BEES! Did you know there are so many kinds? Many don’t look anything like you’d expect. I especially appreciate the first one, a metallic green Sweat Bee.
It’s a moth moth moth moth world.
The first photo in the above gallery is probably one of my favourites. I caught the Northern Crescent Butterfly as well as the small solitary bee midflight right above it. Also note the Admiral Butterfly on the bottom right – it’s had a few nibbles taken from it.
Some Damselflies for your pleasure. I especially enjoy how very pissed off they look when you catch them head-on.
And the dragonflies are very much enjoying the Rusty Patch. I don’t think they lay their eggs here and they like to do so in water, but they definitely got the memo about the sweet sweet biodiversity here. Please remember, these these photos are taken within about 1/3 acre. Native plants are really magical – if you plant them, your insect kin will come.
Lest we forget the spiders among us.
Some wasps and hornets to entertain you and threaten non-believers.
If you have slugs, it means you are lucky enough to have a moist environment.
Happy to report this beetle figured its shit out and went on its way.
This mosquito was so glutted with blood it literally couldn’t fly away. It sat on this grass for about twenty minutes, probably snacking on the blood for energy before flying away to feed its brood.
I bought some Pearly Everlasting from one of my native plant sources – this one was online, onplants.ca, and I mentioned that because I think it came with the eggs for the Painted Lady butterfly, because only a couple days after the plants arrived, they had a bunch of these caterpillars all over them. Very easy native garden win. Caterpillar poop is called frass, see how big that is? Imagine pooping that much. Come on, really picture it.
And the beautiful and deadly Common Blue Mud Dauber is back, just as the Swamp Milkweed begins to bloom – that was their domain last year. This Mud Dauber extricated itself shortly after this photo. The other day they were flying up to the shallow dish of water I leave out for the creatures, taking sips, and flying off. The males are smaller and can’t sting, since stingers are modified ovipositors, which only females have. They are not aggressive at all, just large and scary.
Spotted in the Rusty Patch Garden: caninae. Individual name: Milwaukee. A very good dog indeed.
OKAY BYEEEEEEE
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