Zucchini and Spiraea

I’m chuckling now as I read this. When was it that I unlearned how to spell? My mother the school teacher would turn in her grave. pollenization? zuccini? Ah well. The visual artist in me cares not a wit, or is it whit?

Anyway I have not grown zucchinis for many years and I wondered how it is that some of the blossoms were attached to baby zukes and others were just on a stem. And so I researched and got my answer. Only the females “give birth” to babies! But all the flowers are edible. Then I started worrying that the bees might not find their way to the flowers to do their pollenating. Maybe the deer netting would keep them out! Silly me. But there are youtube videos on how to pollenate them by hand. . .of course, there’s videos for everything these days! So now I know how to imitate a bee even if I still can’t spell correctly.

Meanwhile the bank of spiraeas are showing off. Examining them closely you see at least 4 different flower formations as they simultaneously display the stages from buds to flowers to seeds. And there’s no need for a human intervention to do the job of pollenating here. The busy bumblers are on the job all day.

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