Pink purple #DamesRockets are blooming, all around our gardens. Often mistaken with phlox. Phlox has 5 flower petals. Dames rockets have 4. It's an established invasive on Vancouver Island. I leave it as it's not choking out other plants & pollinators love them. I remove many other invasives.
Oriental poppy with an honest to goodness honey bee at work.
In recent years, honey bees are few and far between around here. I’m sure that most of the pollinating on my fruit trees is done by smaller, native bees.
One year ago, we converted a small piece of boring grass in front of our institute into a wildflower meadow. Now it's blooming for the second time, attracting many insects, and improving the biodiversity and the micro climate around our institute.
If you find yourself in the greater Seattle-Tacoma area this weekend and you're interested in cool plants, come to Blue Poppy Day at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden. Meconopsis 'lingholm', the Himalayan blue poppy, is renowned for its incredible color--and is famously difficult to grow. This place has just the right conditions, and they have thousands! They also have hundreds of species of rhodies in bloom. #gardening #bloomScrolling #PNW #seattle #Tacoma https://rhodygarden.org/events/blue-poppy-day-2024/