Bees and Roses

I found I only captured one bee in this photo but plenty of these tiny native bees were buzzing around the white blossoms on the multiflora rose in my side yard. It may not be a big showy rose but it’s one of the classic roses that all other roses were bred from. Still, It’s kind of a PITA in that as a non-native invasive plant it grows over native plants and crowds them out, and can take over a field by root and branch runners, practically needing a backhoe to remove a plant. But native bees seem to have grown accustomed and find it acceptable for pollen gathering. Birds eat the rose hips and take cover in among the dense branches.

Mine had grown huge, and grew fast each year, and it had grown over and into a place where I needed to walk, the sharp thorns unavoidable. This year I cut it back completely and it’s beginning to grow back already a month later. Not sure if I’ll keep it there. I may trellis and keep trimming it, but I have something else I’d rather see in that spot. That is, if I could actually remove what’s there.

This photo is from April 2024, from a lovely morning and I’d never used it.

About these photos

After a particularly rough winter spring has sprung all at once in my yard. These photos, and the ones I’ll be sharing of what’s blooming in my yard right now, are actually from April 2024 when I photographed all the same things that are in my yard blooming right now. This year I’m renewing my garden, clearing out the overgrown area I haven’t used for a few years and building out or renewing the flower beds and I’m barely taking time for photos.

I loved these photos and used very few that year. My little black cat Mimi, who’d shared my yard with me since 2012 and her life since 2007, was in her last months and I focused on her, and taking the most beautiful photos of her and everything growing and blooming was a balm to my soul in those months. That’s her in the light on the fresh green grass from the same day these dogwood photos were taken. Prescient, perhaps, is she looking into her future? So I share those photos as I remember her, that year and all the other springs we spent out there.

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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, visit my galleries of Photography on Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “Custom Prints” for availability and terms. I'll be more than happy to make a print for you.