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Author Topic: Vitex at Springdale Farmer's Market  (Read 3741 times)

Offline MrILoveTheAnts

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Vitex at Springdale Farmer's Market
« on: July 09, 2008, 05:26:33 pm »
Went to the Sprindale Farm Nursury in Cherry Hill earlier today. It was a partially cloudy day though so there weren't to many honey bees. There were loads of bumblebees, carpenter bees, and assorted others.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/Vitex.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/Vitex2.jpg

Hummingbird Moth
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/Vitexhummingbirdmoth.jpg

Bombus
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/VitexBombus.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/VitexBombus2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/VitexBombus3.jpg

A Carpenter Bee I'm not very familiar with.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/Vitexmysterybee3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/Vitexmysterybee2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/Vitexmysterybee.jpg

A Sweat Bee
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/Vitexsweatbee.jpg

Also saw a Scoliid Wasp out on some of the other plants there. They're a beneficial insect, larval forms feed on grubs underground while the adults take on a sugar based diet above.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Bees%202008/Scoliidwasp.jpg

A flower fly actually had me fooled for a moment that it was a honey bee.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Plants/Flowerfly2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Plants/Flowerfly3.jpg

Also saw a colorful butterfly there.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Plants/ColorfulButterfly.jpg

Offline Amanda

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Re: Vitex at Springdale Farmer's Market
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2008, 05:33:13 pm »
Those are really great pictures!  Thank you for sharing.
~Amanda

Offline Vetch

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Re: Vitex at Springdale Farmer's Market
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2008, 06:20:09 pm »
That vitex plant puts mine to shame - need to get the water and fertilizer back on those plants more often.

Offline MrILoveTheAnts

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Re: Vitex at Springdale Farmer's Market
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2008, 06:22:23 pm »
To be fair I'm told it's 8 or 9 years old. And may have been trained to look like a tree. I'm curious if anyone else has such a tree. I think they're an Asian import so I don't like promoting them to much over native trees. But I just don't see anything else blooming now and I even own one myself.

Offline poka-bee

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Re: Vitex at Springdale Farmer's Market
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2008, 07:09:52 pm »
Great pics!  I've always called the flower fly H Bee! Never knew what it really was!!  Don't know how I figured out that they don't sting but as long as I can remember I've been catching them making others squirm..specially the bully boys in 2nd grade...they called me a bee witch & ran screeching & crying like girls when I tossed some at them!! :evil:  After that all I had to do was hold my hand like it had something in it & they would leave whomever they were picking on alone!  Still don't like bully's.. :-x  I'm so glad you had that picture in there!  A lifelong question answered!  Jody
I'm covered in Beeesssss!  Eddie Izzard

Offline KONASDAD

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Re: Vitex at Springdale Farmer's Market
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2008, 10:51:33 am »
Knowing absolutely nothing about this plant, I googled. Here is a really neat link w/ loads of great info about [plant w/ some neat photos too.
http://www.plantanswers.com/vitex.htm
"The more complex the Mind, the Greater the need for the simplicity of Play".

Offline Keith13

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Re: Vitex at Springdale Farmer's Market
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2008, 11:03:33 am »
regarding the vitex we have them down here they grow to well over thirty feet high with a spread of about thirty feet as well.  they make a nice tree really

I saw a Flower fly the other day I had no idea what it was at the time but after your pics now I know. Learn something new everyday

Your pics were very good. nicely done :)

Keith

 

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