k, thanks guys for the info. Can you place those breathable weed barriers with lotsa mulch on top of that close around plants like Pawpaws that sucker to stop the suckers from breaking through? Guess I could be persistent and just cut suckers off to maintain a better tree form but was just curious

Here in our yard, in Madison, Wisconsin, the blueberry shrubs were not completely pollinated this spring, and so our crop will be reduced somewhat. I would guess that about 70% of the flowers were well pollinated, and the remaining 30% were either partially pollinated or not pollinated. The green fruit is about 3/16 to 1/4 inch diameter now. It is easy to see the difference between flowers that were pollinated and those that were not. We are having some exceptional weather this year, lots of rain, lots of overcast weather, and very little sun. We do have bumblebees, and they look healthy to me, but they were not very active when the blueberry shrubs were in flower.

Only in corn, among commonly grown vegs, will the cross pollination be obvious in the fruit itself resulting from the cross pollination - what we eat in corn are the seeds, and the endosperm (the milky part of the kernel) contains products of both the parents. This is why some varieties (the supersweets) need to be isolated. In squash and cucurbits the fruit (outside the seeds) is entirely the product of the parent plant ( Mom :-) ), and characteristics of the pollen plant (Dad ) should not be detectable. The only contradiction I've experienced was in peppers, where the zip in a hot pepper pollinator was detectable in a sweet pepper fruit - the capsaicin had apparently diffused out of the seeds into the membranes and flesh at the stem end of the fruit. The base of the pepper was mild and sweet, but the "shoulders" were quite zippy! I have been careful to plant my hot peppers well away from the sweet bells since then! :-D

Thank you to all of you for your wonderful photos and input on this topic! Because of your input and ideas, I have ordered a few more plants for late summer/fall planting that I hope will be established enough by next season to provide food for pollinators: Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' (the perennial one) Silphium perfoliatum Hardy hibiscus (said to be attractive to both bees and hummers) Echinops 'Blue Glow' Solidago 'Fireworks' (I already have 'Little Lemon') Calamintha nepeta Nepeta 'Joanna Reed' (said to be sterile and constantly blooming, just like Six Hills Giant) Aster 'Edo Murazaki' Aster 'Raydon's Favorite' (to add to Bluebird, Fanny, and October Skies) Vitex 'Abbeville Blue' Agastache 'Blue Fortune' (I already have this but it can't hurt to add a couple more!) Another Helenium 'Mardi Gras' I am going to try to grow the Eryngium mentioned above by seed next year. Thank you all again for the great observations and inspiration!