“Honestly officer I have only had a few ales” (Withnail and I, 1997)
The beers I am referring to are my root beer plants…Hoja santa, the name hoja santa means “sacred leaf” in Spanish and ancient Naboo. I really like this plant but watch out, it has the most amazing root system that will run staggering distances underground. I have even had it travel under an expanse of concrete to emerge in an island bed. Oh yes, give this plant plenty of room to maneuver! It will spread for many years, over an extensive area, and I do mean extensive.
This is the scene over the fence right now in my neighbors side yard…errr…oops!
These plants were already in the ground when we purchased our house so I cannot be blamed for this invasion, and I actually really like it.
By the end of the summer these plants will totally fill this entire area, on both sides of the fence…Score! Lucky for me this house is a rental property with a garden that nobody has ever tended, so these root beer plants really help to extend the visual boundary of the Patch, and in addition, help hide the adjacent house.
This week the insects and butterflies have been filtering back into the ESPatch as we have started to warm up...
Checkered White,
Pontia protodice
This one is a female tucking into some verbena nectar. Whites are not terribly common around Austin, this is the first one I have managed to capture in the Patch, and it was a beauty.
In the spring the Checkered White shows up for a brief time. The female has many dark gray markings, which gives the “checkered” appearance. Whites have a spicy palette, they love mustard plants, pepper weed, pepper-grass, radish etc, you get the picture.
As busy as a bee? They are working overtime right now…
…this one lingered on an African hosta for hours today.
This grey hairstreak
Strymon melinus
also took advantage of the hosta blooms.
See if you can guess what bloom the next image will end up being…
This disturbing scene reminds me of that disgusting alien/dog scene from the movie “The Thing.” I know you remember that one, I will spare you a graphic picture…this time.
“Ach, a canna look at it mun, tae many bad memories ye ken.”
Who would have thought these writhing intestines would end up looking like this! K-Boom!…Dwarf bottle-brush blooms.
This red also caught my attention, its wizened carcass encapsulating an amazing red mountain laurel jewel.
On a fresher note the Inland Sea Oats are just starting to form their seed heads…
…and my sago returns from the dead. I had to cut all the fronds on this sago after last winter’s freeze, a freeze that has claimed the life of my treasured Mexican lime tree.
There it is in all of its brown and crusty, leafless glory on the right.
“The tree of limes, has been destroyed!” (Naboo elder addressing kinsmen)
The only growth that has emerged is located low down on the tree’s trunk…not a good sign. I reluctantly trudged to my shed for my hand saw to perform the sad decapitation. I decided to leave the root-ball and this new growth at the base for scientific purposes only…just to see what it will do, I am curious.
On a brighter note, I do have some tiny new growth pushing up on my pine-cone cactus. You can see from the “shedding anole” look, that this cactus has also endured an acute hardship this past winter.
Other notables this week…
Declining purple iris looking veryart nouveau, the cobweb completing the old-fashioned scene.
I have no idea what these tiny musical notations are! Do you? I would love to know.
These pearly-white orbs were hanging from one of my Giant Timber Bamboo limbs, they were so tiny my camera could not understand what I was trying to capture…amazing…some form of tiny chrysalis perhaps? I tried tapping them with a glockenspiel hammer, not a sound.
This soldier fly was getting ready to dive into my compost bin below to lay it’s nasty but compost-necessary eggs...(knee completely dislocates sending left foot sideways and up into a high trajectory into side of skull).
Fatsia japonica going completely berserk, I was surprised these plants came through the winter totally unscathed, in fact I think they liked it.
As I think did this Sedum potosinum. This small plant would fit right into the alien bioluminescent world of Pandora.
Finally…
The waves continue to build on my feather grasses…
“I would bait-up and drop a line of pots immediately in those feather grasses ESP, let them soak for 48 hours”
I followed the crew of the Cornelius Marie’s advice and landed the strangest looking opilio crab manipulating in his pincers a bakugan of all things!
Staying in the water, I was clearing out some oxygenation plants from my pond when I saw this shiny gastropod slithering along on top of a lily-pad. The largest water snail I have witnessed to date, measuring a staggering three inches in length…
what?
Oh yes, there is no escaping one last image of my favorite combination of late…Gaura surfing a feather grass tsunami.
Stay Tuned for:
“Chicken and Hell-Strips”
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