“No flowers, no bees; No bees, no flowers. Blooming and buzzing, Buzzing and blooming; Married and still in Love.” ~ Mike Garofalo
Happy May! As my vines are attempting to grow back in some areas where parts of the fence remain, I wanted to take a moment to mention it. This post is in honor of my beautiful “bee wall” that once graced my property. Before its destruction on September 28th, it was something that surrounded my entire backyard for most of the year, every year. Basically, it was greenery that included flowers from several different vining plants that grew around my property long before I purchased it. While some of it was probably considered “invasive” by others, it was a very welcome addition to my property. I greatly appreciated the beauty and happily welcomed the incredible amount of bees that the flowers brought to my yard. It was one of the factors that helped me believe that starting a garden in my yard could actually work. That it could “bee” successful!
Prior to finally starting my garden here in 2019, I didn’t spend a great deal of time in the yard during the day, other than when I had to mow the lawn. Regardless, I absolutely adored the amount of color and privacy that it gave me. When I started my garden my appreciation for that wall grew exponentially, along with the wall itself. While the wall really was more spotty prior to building the garden, once I built the garden enclosure it filled in so beautifully. So many, many more, and different varieties started showing up. Also, while the wall previously consisted of only a type of bitter melon vine, it then added Virginia Creeper and muscadine grapes! This really seemed to make my garden even happier.
Once I completed my garden enclosure I started making the garden. It really was quite wonderful, small but mighty. Over the past three years, I grew many vegetables, herbs, and flowers within that enclosure, along that bee wall. All the while the bees were incredibly happy with that wall. Every day that I went outside to tend to the garden, I enjoyed watching the bees tend to the wall and to my vegetables. I am so grateful for that wall and what it offered to me, my family, and my garden.
Mind you, this “wall” consisted of a chain link fence that was covered on one side with fence cover. On the surface, without the vines, to anyone else, it was nothing spectacular but it did give me privacy. My backyard was my escape from the outside world-yet it offered me countless opportunities to interact with all sorts of flora and fauna on my own terms. It was my own little world back there. Sure, I imagine whenever my neighbors may have overheard me converse with the bees, the birds, snakes, or whatever other critter happened to listen, they must have thought I was nuts. That’s okay. It was precisely this interaction-especially over the past three years’ events of the world, that helped me from going nuts.
Now, since Ian, I am left without the wall. Without my fence. Without my privacy to be the weirdo that I am. Well, I am still the weirdo, I just cannot express it as freely as I could before. Unfortunately, I cannot immediately have the entirety of the fence restored. However, I am getting it done. Meanwhile, I am building garden bed “walls”, if you will, to help me to not only rebuild my garden but to serve as my privacy and give me back my place for expressing myself and interacting with the wildlife that is within my property.
The enclosure that I built previously is honored in another post here. This enclosure was completely destroyed. It’s okay. I built the entire enclosure with mostly pallets and other salvaged items. Although, it was done well regardless (see more about that here). The picture below was before the fence was covered in the “bee wall” vining. Now, however, there will be no enclosure going forward. I will still have fencing at some point. The back is actually going to remain at least partially open. It doesn’t matter anyway, because, despite my best efforts, plenty of critters got inside. So, might just as well forget those walls and focus on the proper walls necessary to build a new, improved bee wall! I will also, hopefully, bee able to utilize some of the chain link that was destroyed, as trellising. Not sure, but I am going to attempt it anyway.
Oh, so meanwhile, I decided to leave something in my yard to help the bees. Here in gorgeous Southwest Florida, we have what we lovingly refer to as “Florida Snow”. This is a beautiful ground cover that normally doesn’t have the chance to flourish in most of our yards. I am guilty of mowing it down beefore. This was before I knew better. When it appeared this year, after the storm, I left it. I have left it–at least in my backyard, for most of the time since the storm. Since the vegetables are not there to pollinate and the bee wall is gone, the bees need these flowers.
However, I really needed to be able to navigate around my yard better to be able to continue clearing debris and rebuilding my garden. So, grudgingly I started mowing it down. I was literally crying while doing it because I wanted to leave it for the bees. Then suddenly it hit me! Duh, this is MY yard! I would not bee hurting anyone at all by leaving as much of it as I want. So, I left most of it there. I only mowed a bit of a path for me and my garden cart to navigate around. Then I decided that I would leave those spots and then continue to grow Florida native flowers in them when the “snow” disappears. Totally love the idea. I already know the bees do too! I’ll even get rocks to put around the areas to make it look a little more intentional.
This Bee Wall was the inspiration for Let it Bee Garden. So many have tried to tell me to remove the vines. I even gave in to it on one occasion and participated in days of removing the vines and burning them. I absolutely did not want to do it. After that, I vowed to never again go against my own feelings, especially on my own property. I vowed, when I really appreciate something, to just Let it Bee…no matter what anyone else thinks of it. If it is of no harm to another then why not?