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Daily gardening tip · Southern hemisphere · Monday 7 September 2026 · early spring

Provide Safe Water for Emerging Bees

As early spring warms up the garden, waking bees need a safe place to drink water without drowning.

Provide Safe Water for Emerging Bees
10 minuteseasywildlife
  1. Collect a few shallow dishes or terracotta saucers.
  2. Fill each dish with a single layer of clean, small pebbles or gravel.
  3. Pour water into the dishes, leaving the tops of the pebbles dry.
  4. Place the dishes on the ground in sunny spots near your flowers.
  5. Refill the dishes every few days to keep the water fresh.
A garden in early spring

Why it works

Bees need water to dilute honey and cool their hives, but they cannot swim. The pebbles act as landing pads, allowing the insects to stand safely above the water level while they drink.

Dunce-Nettle

Plant of the day

Dunce-Nettle

Cirsium muticum

A tall, biennial thistle native to North American wetlands. It features deeply lobed, spiny leaves and produces purple-to-pink flower heads that lack the sharp involucral spines typical of other thistles, hence the name 'muticum' (blunt).

Read about it →

Gardening news

Gardening news

HTA calls time on ‘crisis’ approach to drought

The UK gardening industry is calling for a new way to plan for dry weather, warning that water limits severely hurt gardening businesses even though they use less than 0.2 percent of the country's water.

The Dirt · 2026-09-03
New research

Cameras Track Birds Robbing Nectar from Hawaiian Flowers

Researchers used motion cameras to observe birds taking nectar from endangered Hawaiian flowers without pollinating them. Shorter-billed birds bypass flower openings and pierce the base, which drains nectar but still allows the plant to produce seeds. Understanding these interactions helps conservationists protect native plants and their animal partners.

washington.edu · 2026-08-31
On this day

Birth of French Naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc Comte de Buffon

French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was born on 7 September 1707. He served as director of the Jardin du Roi in Paris and expanded its living plant collections. His extensive writings laid early foundations for ecology and natural history.

en.wikipedia.org

Written for the southern hemisphere. Gardening north of the equator? See the northern edition

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