by Mary Reid Barrow

If LRNow’s Native Garden Tour at the end of the month is a hot sunny day, you won’t miss the honeybees when you enter Dr. Tarek and Diana Zaki’s driveway in Alanton.

One day recently bees, galore, were happily buzzing above the little pond full of blooming water lilies in the center of driveway and dropping down for quick sips of water.

And that is just the start of the Zaki’s botanical wonderland. Walk around back, and the first thing you see is a row of blue and yellow bee houses, with hand painted bees, butterflies and flowers by Diana.

The bees not only have beautiful homes and a pond but they also nectar from a huge array of fruit tree and berry blooms and an assortment of native flowers on all sides of the waterfront yard.

Including the Zaki’s yard, you can visit seven flower and pollinator filled gardens in Alanton and nearby neighborhoods on LRNow’s Native Garden Tour. It’s from 9 a.m. to noon, Friday, June 26. The Tidewater Bee Club will have a table at the Zaki’s, and more environmental groups will be in other gardens.

Tarek, a retired orthodontist, and Diana, a master gardener, moved to their Alanton home 2003. The yard was pretty much a clean slate with most of the trees decimated by Hurricane Isabel. You’d never recognize it now.

Diana, a Master Gardener going on 20 years, is the native plant maven. The couple is pictured above in front of a beautiful oakleaf hydrangea near the bee pond in front of the house.

Look for Diana’s climbing aster, several varieties of ferns, swamp and common milkweed, coral honeysuckle, bee balm, butterfly weed, mountain mint and so much more.

Diana’s mother, Luella Moffett, tended a beautiful garden for over 40 years in Birdneck Point and lived with them for a time. The crinum lilies along one side of the yard also are an example of some of the old fashioned, hand-me-down plants that grow around the Zaki home.

“I definitely got my love of gardening and plants from her,” Diana said.

As for Tarek, he is fascinated with the way things grow, experimenting with grafting to produce more winter hardy fruits. He maintains a bed of native pawpaw trees whose fruit is just coming in.

He also grows loquats and many citrus trees, along with kiwis, raspberries, blueberries, even lemon blueberries, strawberries and more.

Vegetable plants along with plants that have re-seeded from the year before grow in raised beds and even in two decommissioned motorboat hulls with their keels removed. Look for the likes of tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, kale, mustard greens and even Oriental long beans as well as accompanying nectaring insects. A variety of mints grow in the transom of both boats.

Tarek said his fascination with beekeeping and plants of all kinds has nothing to do with being an orthodontist.

“My mother was an entomologist,” he said, “and I love nature.”

A small honey business also is a result of the Zaki’s botanical wonderland. They already have harvested 30 gallons of honey from their hives this year and they sell honey, bee pollen soap and honey scented candles from an honor box on their porch.

“We are really pushing the envelope here,” Tarek said. “But it’s so much fun. There’s nothing like it!”

For more information on LRNow’s Native Garden tour, visit https://www.lynnhavenrivernow.org/events/6925/ 

Visit www.ZakiBees.com for more information on their honey.