Tag Archives: Wasps

Wendy Wasp

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On the west lawn at the Priory is a laburnum tree (L. anagyroides).  I’ve never been a big fan of laburnum; a small tree usually growing in suburban  front gardens that bursts into vivid yellow bloom in Spring – and then fades away again for the rest of the year.  But then I read ‘My Cousin Rachel’ and developed a little more respect for it.  (Incidentally, I’d say Philip was right and Rachel was evil.   No question.  If you’ve not read it, I’d urge you to do so and see what you think).

In half-hearted flower – Spring 2011

Anyway, the Priory laburnum.  It grows out of a bank, beneath the beech hedging, at a rather alarming angle. And for that reason alone (it doesn’t flower very impressively), I’m rather fond of it.
Look closely underneath the tree and you’ll notice that the lawn hasn’t been mown properly.  Good for nothing gardener, you might think.  And you’d be right – though for once I have an excuse.
There’s a wasp nest, you see.  As I discovered the other week when I mowed over it.  Suddenly there was a salvo, an eruption, an explosion of wasps about my head.  Being of a temperate and manly disposition, I shouted a word of warning to anyone who may have been in the vicinity and then strode quickly but calmly to one side (He shrieked like a twelve year old girl and trampled an elderly dog walker and toddler in his haste to get away – Ed).  I then had to wait two hours for the annoyed mown swarm to calm down so that I could gingerly retrieve the mower.  Remarkably, I didn’t get stung.
I’ve found by mowing around the nest we can live in waspish harmony.  A little bit of longer grass under the laburnum and hey, I don’t get hurt.  Good deal.
I’d always supposed that underground wasp nests were opportunistic affairs, you know an abandoned vole hole or a natural crack in the clay.  But then I took to studying the little yellow and black, needle-bottomed ones.  And …
… I could clearly see that they were carrying out crumbs of soil.  They might have inhabited an old hole but they were enlarging it.   Certainly the hole has been growing larger and larger …. what are they doing down there?  What are they making?  What are they building?  Perhaps it’s best not to know.
You don’t really get a sense of the waspishness of a wasp’s nest from these photos, so I’ve made a cinematographic presentation or, if you prefer, a video clip.  Wasn’t sure how to go about doing this (uploading and all)  so spent a very, very long time learning how to reformat, edit and the rest.  Don’t know whether it was worth the effort but I wanted to show the wasps in a way that photos simply can’t.  It was taken with my mobile phone – so the quality isn’t great.  Apologies.
Maybe I ought to slip in a big, lavish song and dance number next time?  Or a chariot race?  At least write a script; be nice to have some idea of what I was about to say.

And I got stung.  How one suffers for one’s art.

Hubris and Angelica. And Wasps.

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A few weeks ago, all puffed up and pleased with myself, I wittered on about my Crambe cordifolia flowering for the first time. (See “I’m So Excited…”).
It’s up.
Someone, somewhere rolled their eyes, yawned, looked at their fingernails and decided I needed to be taken down a peg or two.  Accordingly, the wind got up and when I arrived at work I found -
It’s down.

this.  Aarrgghhhh – my lovely Crambe.  Serves me right for not staking it.

It’s up.
After a little stomping about and shaking my fist at the sky, I hauled the Crambe upright (most of its root was still intact) and lashed it to a metal support.  For a day or two it didn’t look half bad and I thought it might just pull through.  But then, after weeks of virtually no rain, we had buckets of the stuff.
It’s down.
Aarrgghhhh – my lovely Crambe.  Most of the flowering stems had snapped under the weight of water.  I give up.  I mean what’s the point?  What’s the bleedin’ point?  You grow a big flower explosion of a plant and it keels over at the first whiff of wind and the first smidgen of rain.  Always said it was a rubbish plant.  Didn’t I?  Wouldn’t give it border room.  Rubbish, I say.

Pretty flowers, though.   Perhaps I will give it another chance next year after all.  Perhaps.

Next to the collapsed Crambe, at the back of  one of the Kidney Beds, is an angelica (Angelica archangelica).  And it’s a big plant;  I’m six-foot and it towers above me.

Told you.  What a good plant; big, robust and handsome.  And you’d need a water buffalo to flatten it.  I could do with several more to dot about – let the wind blow and the rain hammer down. No staking required.

I like its green flowers and how they shrug off their protective sheath …

… and slowly unfurl to resemble er, I don’t know what.  A space-station?  An exploding galaxy?

And I’m not the only one to like angelica.  Whilst bees aren’t bothered, wasps adore it.

I know many people hate and fear wasps and have their nests exterminated on sight.  Generally, I prefer not to exterminate things (I make an exception for people who don’t say thank you when I’ve held a door open for them).  Wasps are great  pollinators (and given the state of our honey bee population we need all the help we can get) and they also take insects pests back to the nest to feed to their larvae.  At this time of year they are too intent on collecting food to worry about me.  Even though I was sticking my big head and camera lens right in amongst them, they couldn’t have been less bothered.  There were several dozen buzzing about my ears but they let me be and I didn’t feel in the slightest bit threatened.
Not like when, as a child, I stuck a stick into a wasp’s nest to see what would happen.  I got stung; is what happened, several times.  Duh.  Good lesson learnt.  Never, ever, ever poke a stick into a wasp’s nest.  However much you may be tempted.  OK?  Ever.
In late summer as the cohesion of the colony disintegrates and they get drunk on  fermenting fruit, wasps can be (are) annoying and aggressive.  Especially if you’re out in the garden having a jam sandwich.  However, a couple of summers back we had a nest in an air brick right outside our back door.  Even though it was at face height, we had no problems with them all summer.  It was only in late autumn that my partner got stung.  For no apparent reason a wasp landed on his forehead and stung him.  Probably disapproved of the shirt he was wearing.  But hey, one sting all season from a nest next to our most used door didn’t seem too bad. (‘Sides it wasn’t me who got stung)!
The nests are almost always abandoned in autumn and not reused

A year later, wasps took over a bird nest box in our garden.  We watched fascinated as the wasp nest slowly but inexorably seeped out from the confines of the ‘box and grew.  And grew.  (Sadly I only took one photo of it and that in its early stages – above).  I’m sure many people would have had the nest poisoned but was there any need?  Truly?  We enjoyed watching this strange phenomena swell.  A little aghast perhaps as it was sooo strange, sooo alien but we enjoyed it nonetheless.   And with friends over and a glass of Chablis in hand it made a super talking point.   “Oooh, do come and see our ever-expanding, all enveloping wasp nest.  Do.”

So no.  Generally speaking, I don’t like to exterminate things.

Call me old-fashioned.

For those of you who remain unconvinced of the charms of Vespula vulgaris, the gardens are awash with butterflies.

Meadow Brown

Just walking along the mown paths in the meadow throws up all sorts of species.

Large Skipper

I’m not a butterfly expert by any means but I am making an effort this summer to try to learn a few of the more common ones.  This website has been a tremendous help.

Small Tortoiseshell feeding on nepeta

Terrifically rewarding that however many doubts and worries I may have about the garden at the Priory (and they are legion), it is attracting plenty of wildlife.

Tricky to photo as they do tend to fly off as you approach but a passable shot of a Common Blue.  They feed on vetches of which there are plenty in the meadow.  Pretty, eh?  And they don’t sting!