A Pollinator Party!

Blunt mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) is one pollinator party plant! It is literally buzzing with all sorts of bees, wasps, flies, beetles, and miscellaneous bugs. I planted it for the silvery loveliness of its bracts when it blooms and also got great plant TV.

The more I learn about wasps, the cooler they get. I took these pictures standing in the middle of my prairie patch, surrounded by mountain mint and echinacea in full flower. All of it crawling with insect life that had utterly no interest in me.

This beauty is an elegant grass-carrying wasp. She hunts tree cricket nymphs, adults, and katydids for her larvae. Each larvae has a plush cell partitioned by long pieces of grass. She’s getting a well-deserved snack.

In dapper black and white is this fraternal potter wasp. They build a jug-shaped mud nest for each egg and then stock it with caterpillars. She hunts for cankerworms and inchworms in the family Geometridae, commonly regarded as pests. The adults nectar on flowers.

I also found a handful of jagged ambush bugs guarding their turf. This one was lucky enough to snag an easy lunch. To me, they are a little dinosaur-like in their camouflage and super cute.

What pollinators are buzzing around your flower beds?