Garden Pic Wednesday: Insect Hotel

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This morning I spent 2 hours from 10 to 12 using the leaf blower set on the vacuum/mulch setting to clean up Bay & Maple leaves and turn them into mulch to spread around on the beds to provide a little protection from the 4 night freeze we're having this week. All my asparagus fern suffered freeze-burn from the last round and I trimmed all those branches off yesterday. It will come back, though. It's tough as a nut. I'm concerned my Amaryllis bulbs in my two front pots might not---we'll see. The previous freeze totally burnt their leaves off, but they're a bulb--it's possible they'll rise again. Other Amaryllis in the ground in another bed are fine.I

Today's Garden Pic is my new "insect hotel" I was working on yesterday:
It's still a work in progress as I decide how to fill the spaces. This is an out-of-the way location in my woodsy themed bed in the far corner of our back yard. It's resting on blocks, which will make it a great place for Box Turtles to hide. (They love hiding in the pine needles.). The idea is to fill the various spaces of a variety of habitat materials. Sticks and pine cones are plentiful. I also need to get some PVC pipe to fill with sticks to put in there to attract Lady Bugs & small clay pots.  I'd prefer wasps use this locale for nest building. Last year they put a nest on the side of a pot out front. I left them there, but this spring I'll be wiping down the outsides of those front pots with Avon Bath Oil, which deters that sort of thing.
And, as I said yesterday, Carolina Wrens might like nesting in a thing like this.


Be sure and stop back tomorrow to see what's up for Mama Kat!

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