Bring That Provence Spirit in Your Garden

Have you ever been to Provence, France? We passed by it on the way to and back from Spain and the smell of the air there lingers in Lavender aroma. It was even in early Spring but the smell of freshly cut tops of the ball shaped lavender plants growing from the foot to the top of the mountains linger in the air.

I have them both in my backyard and front yard. This year, I'm thinking of letting go of the lighter one in the front yard because it got broken during a hailing day in July last year.

When it broke I just tied it all up with a plastic bag - but I didn't put any soil in it to make it grow roots. My bad - I should have but perhaps its not too late. I dare not untying it cause I just don't want to risk breaking it since its flowering now.

The flowers of the darker one in the backyard seem to make the honey bees look like stoned while sipping the honey. What do I know about being stoned - I've never been so but the honeybees do look like they are. Can you see it in their eyes? I'm no bee expert but if you have observed them bees up close and personal things just get clearer to you.

Listen to how crazy they are about these flowers.

This lavender plant have grown so huge because instead of trimming it down we just let it grow and trimmed the tops. Look at how thick some of its branches have become.

No, we do not intend cutting it down at all. We like it this way - just growing freely besides it's pretty old.

If you have a lavender plant, don't throw those tops away. I experimented in soaking them in water outdoors for a month or two and they've grown roots.
This is how I propagate them. It's cheaper than buying from the stores.

These were cuttings from March. It's always very very wet here so I just stuck them in a pot of soil, kept them wet and water from their tops when its not.

They've already grown roots so I've transplanted them on the side of the fence.

That's where the apple trees grow and they are being attacked by a legion of aphids year after year and even though the lady bugs mated, have even laid their eggs and are dwelling on them - the force of the ants just made them apple leaf muncher stronger.

I'm hoping that by planting lavenders in the fence, I'm sending reinforcement to the ladybugs - keep scrolling and you'll see what I'm talking about at the bottom of this post! Some of them baby plant from cuttings were budding and some already have blooming flowers. The one below was my first experiment and it's actually a few years old.

Aside from the bees I noticed a few other insects enjoying the lavenders.

One of them is this speckled bush cricket.

He was nipping on it - caught in the act!_{**sorry about the video I forgot to take it horizontally just like what @kus-knee said.}

Surely this is also a cricket but I can't tell what sort cause he just came out of his shell - that's why he looks so pale.

A lady bug's larva has also joined the party. He's nipping on the black insect that lives in each of the lavender's flower.

I have no idea what sort insect they are I just found out cause when I collected a few of the flowers to hang them upside down to dry and make a potpourri out of them. I saw a lot of them crawling out of the jars while I was filling it with the dried petals in the garden. I actually freaked out cause they look like scarabs creeping out of the dessert except for they are a dot size.

He'll probably morph here if he survives the spiders which webs I have to remove on the daily basis just to make sure my buzzing friends don't get tangled on them. I just throw the spiders on the conifers by the fence. They help kill mosquitoes, too you know.

As for the lady bugs, I find a lot of them nipping here, too in Spring. This is just one of those looking like asleep when I was giving this a trim.

This year, I actually bought a lot of them - lavender plants and placed them in front of our house. Some of those lavender plants died cause I was too busy I wasn't able to water them on a daily basis and the heat was extreme during those days I planted them there. Well, it's just a few but the rest are looking like survivors and are now food source for the bumblebees.

After each bud blooms on each stem, I normally cut them out to hang to dry but I always leave the taller stems out for them.

I cut the withered flowers not just to make potpourri out of them but for them to use it as their landing pads. I noticed that these guys loved hanging out on them during my coffee breaks in summery days. They would join me there as if teasing that I take shots of them just resting there.

One day, I took a closer look at this damselfly eating a bug out of the flower - it then folded its butt and licked its own feces. What? That's what I saw - sorry if you're eating. I didn't mean to make such a dump. I wasn't much into taking videos during those days because I didn't have a phone that takes clearer videos like I do now.

Yes, I love the fact that insects love them. What I love the most about it is that every time the wind blows on summery days and I am having coffee in the garden or just reading a book not being busy ~~ the scent of those lavender flowers just fill the air.. takes me back to old memories of my sweet childhood in my grandparents place. We used to do siesta in the afternoon when we were kids and I used to do that in a hammock and sometimes you get to wake up at the smell of a certain herb, roses and other fragrant flowers growing in my grandparent's yard. In the lavender's case - it makes me wonder what Provence actually smells like when all of those balled lavender plants there are in full bloom.

Have you got a lavender in your garden, too?
What do you love the most about it?
Have you got a plant that reminds you of a place you've been to?
Which plant is that?

_{I took all the pics with the Samsung Galaxy A3 2016 except for the dragonflies and that of the damselfly which I took with my Samsung Galaxy Note 1. The Korean character you see in the pictures is a product of testing the photo editor - it was because I was just getting acquainted with the phone back then. That's how you write my name in Hangul. Those of the Samsung Galaxy Note 1 are pictures I took before I even joined Steemit .}

_{EDIT :This blog is just about my Provence moment in my garden and the insect were provided by the heavens for your entertainment so since I got it clarified with someone in the chat that I don't need sources I edited and removed the one I put earlier on. Pardon me but am still confused about how to put sources despite that am here for almost a year.}

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