Some rather exuberant New Years firework antics succeeded in igniting the same sago palm as last year, (somewhat of a tradition at this point).

This year, the pyrotechnics also successfully singed a few of my ornamental grasses:

Our “Grand Finale” firework that was placed ceremoniously and somewhat precariously on top of a bucket on top of a trashcan provided quite the spectacle. I was intending to take some pictures of it but the firework simultaneously ignited four of my Mexican feather grasses and had us grabbing buckets from my “everything but the kitchen sink” water collection “system” to extinguish the fires before they reached the Barbados cherry and butterfly iris.

I will keep an eye on these blackened grasses, they may respond well to the singeing.

An exciting week this week in the Patch…

…yes folks, snort, I am proud to announce 

that we have finally moved onto the “medium-fine” silicon carbide abrasive rock tumbling phase,

though not before she had another sneak-peek at the now shiny rocks.

Next week the polishing process begins,

I am already having difficulty sleeping in anticipation.

Moving more honestly on:

Now here is a strange thing:

I have been trying to figure out what these pine-cone cacti reminded me of for a long time.

Tephrocatus articulatus var. diadematus

This week if finally dawned on me, and it was very obscure.

It was the poor maintenance robot in the film AI that was destroyed in the Flesh Fair!…Phew, now I can sleep soundly once again,

Or can I?

As you may know, I have been trying to protect my soft leaf yuccas from the horrors of the

“evil weevil”

by administering copious amounts of diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the base of the plants, it appears to be working.

Unfortunately my yuccas have now developed another issue,

and it isn’t pretty. Several fungi, including Cercospora, Cylindrosporium, and Coniothyrium may cause leaf spotting like this in yuccas but thankfully they do not cause the widespread death of leaves.

I am sure this one contracted the yucca equivalent of the “Phage”  in the summer months when it received some overhead watering…remove affected leaves and discard.

This week has had me and my (in-house) pajama crew cleaning up insane amounts of leaves.

We gathered them up in buckets, transferred them to trashcans and piled them up wherever we could find space. I hate picking up leaves.

One personal pet peeve is cleaning out the hearts of the sagos,

this activity ranks on my irritation scale at a steady 9.5

It is really nice to have my pathways clear once again though.

Finally:

King Tut papyrus is still holding up well in one of my stock-tanks,

not bad form for January.

Rosemary is also doing a great winter job,

feeding the honey bees,

with it’s tiny flowers.

Sweet peas are on the boil,

and pink shrimps are ready for the barbie,

and my artemesia is once again looking healthy.

Driving around the Mueller area the other day, I saw this:

I initially thought these were dwarf conifers. When I realized it was in fact gray santolina or lavender cotton, I swung my steed around and snapped these shots.

Santolina chamaecyparissus

It reminds me of Scottish “heather” in a mass-planting like this. I will try and get some shots of it in bloom next summer…if I remember.

Photograph: Linda Engstrom

And to finish I am happy to report that Kumo is making a speedy recovery after his stomach surgery.

He is now stumbling and walking into things wearing his

collar of shame. 

Talking of dwarf conifers…

Inspirational image of the week:

Photograph from Foxhollow Garden, Dorset, England.

Stay Tuned for:

“Igniting the Cattails”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Ah, ha ha ha ha ha, look at your garden now ESP, even the ghost plants are dying…Ah, ha ha ha ha ha.”

Oh very funny Ernie.

Oh wait they have!

This used to be a proud stand of

Graptopetalum paraguayense, 

here it is in the good old days when we used to get rain:

and here they are now looking like the Fallen Trees at Tunguska:

Another one bites the dust…and another one down, another one down…blah,blah,blah,blah,dust.

From ghost plants to ghost ants…

Really, these are ghost ants, 

Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius)

they have clear abdomens and turn the color of whatever they eat.

Funky.

In Malaysia they are known as “corpse ants” because of the unpleasant odor they secrete when crushed.

There are an increasing amount of corpses down at the bottom of my garden, I am sad to say that my already large compost pile has got a little larger of late, especially considering that I only hand water once a week at this point,

a fact that this gopher plant did not seem to care for one little bit.

The cactus man even needs a little eye moisturizing lotion at this point, his pained expression summing up the summer.  I won’t even mention how the Botox Lady’s appearance has deteriorated in the heat….

Shocking, I know.

As you would expect, the cactus man and his family are weathering the dried up tide well.  Look at his head now…quite surreal.

It is interesting that his cousins located in my hell-strip appear a lot more stressed out than him…

…so much stress in fact, that veins are now standing out on the shrunken paddle heads.

It appears that even opuntia is not totally immune to the effects of our prolonged drought and our 2oooth consecutive days of above 120 degree temperatures…well that is how it feels. [Insert the general weather moaning you are accustomed to here].

Now this could make for a terrible camping accident.

Even this pine cone cactus seems to be conserving its energy, very little new growth this year.

Yucca and sotol are still looking good, they are the stars of the drought, though I have noticed some whitening of the leaves…it is not the weevil…it is not the weevil…it is n….

I rather like the new look.

This is one severely parched Patch. I really need a substantial nursery trip to fill in all my bare areas.

But I will wait, bide my time…

just a little longer, (drumming fingers) until our hot weather dissipates once and for all.

The front of the Patch has received only a couple of waterings over the last three or four heated months, a true testament to some extremely adapted-tough and native plants.  It has done relatively well with only my gaura and artemesia, oh and some blackfoot daisies and the odd loquat kicking the dried-up bucket (though I have not fully given up hope for my artemesia Powis Castle just yet).

On a lighter annoying note:

My Mexican feather grasses are looking really good now, especially flattened in front of one of those bare patches I mentioned.

 Oh and do not get me started on this mess again, this is only a weeks-worth of squirrel-nut debris…deep breath…and relax.

I recently came across these detailed illustrations by Si Scott Studios.…amazing detail:

Stay Tuned for:

“Counting Sheep”

All material © 2011 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Sago fronds are unfurling,

feather grass panicles are forming,

swaying in the spring breezes.

Colorful paper wasps

Polistes exclamans,

are going about their business,

as are the flies (ahem), ensuring no shortage of numbers for the summer.

The “Frog Prince” is sitting proudly once again atop his sea of green inland sea oats.

Yes it is now certainly spring – and it sure is turning out to be a warm one.

It seems I am always performing the most hideous of activities in the most hideous of hot humid weather, and 90+ temperatures this week definitely made extracting three giant timber bamboos and a Mexican lime tree a slightly moist activity to say the least!

Still, I shouldn’t complain, it would have been much worse if the mosquitoes were out, sucking blood from the vein. I knew I only had a short window after receiving my fist hit on the ankle a few days back.

First I tackled my Mexican lime tree. I have had a good run with this citrus tree and some bumper fruit crops, but after being cut back to the ground last year (and requiring the same treatment this), it would have developed into a gnarly looking – more cut back limbs than actual tree aesthetic…so out she had to come. I could see new growth emerging at the base – I quickly averted my gaze and began humming my happy tune as I hacked at the base, killing it.

My stomach sank as I moved onto the giant timbers, remembering how I snapped two wooden shovels and a pick axe a few years ago only trying to divide one (which was a total success but I would never recommend or repeat the activity).

Here is a blast from the posting past in the Patch:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2008/05/there-is-a-monkey-in-my-giant-timber/

In fact this was the reason I now only use metal shovels, and even now, the forces required to extract one of these root-balls puts a considerable strain and a potential Darwin Award bend on the metal implement.  Two plants came out with the normal amount of sweat and swearing but the third was a bigger specimen, and it was not coming out without a fight…

…”Aye noo yer talkin, ESP. I could make spears out of those culms, twice the length…”,

Enough William.

Strange formations, tap roots and lateral culm shoots make sure the extraction will test you and your shovel. Working around in a circular fashion around these formations is the only way to get under the plant to start snapping the roots or lower back tendons, depending which go first.

Having a really annoying soaker hose to deal with also does not help matters any. This one took me half an hour before I beat it into submission, or was it the other way round? And just why was I removing these giant timber bamboos?

Well they get huge, do not do well in the hard freezes, and are generally a huge mess to cut down and clean up. I have reduced my population now to three in the Patch.

While I was hacking away in this bed I did happen to disturb some squirming creatures and took a welcome break to try and shoot them, with my camera that is – (almost any distraction is most welcome when digging out bamboo).

Texas Brown Snake

Storeria dekayi texana

Hatchlings are the size of an earthworm, and even adults are no more than 13 inches long and can be found just about anywhere there is a cool dark moist bit of soil like nicely mulched landscaping, which is where they are commonly seen.

Texas Brown Snakes eat a wide variety of suitably sized insects and other invertebrates, including snails and slugs, making them our gardening friends.

Other creatures observed this week include:

Fiery Searcher Beetle – Yikes!

Calosoma scrutator (Fabricius)

or more commonly known as the “caterpillar hunter.”

I said caterpillar!  (RIP Steve).

This has to be one of the most incredibly bright beetles I have witnessed to date in the Patch, they are also large and fast (think roach like movements) brrr.  Ground Beetles (Carabidae) are mostly shiny black, but some, including this fiery searcher, are brightly metallic in color. Their most common prey include tent caterpillars, gypsy moth caterpillars, and other forest caterpillars.

The caterpillar hunter spends the day searching for insects and their pupae, a single beetle may consume 7-10 caterpillars each day. Adults may live up to two or three years.

I followed this one around for some time hoping it would rest for a second…it finally did,  settling in this crevice between two of my moss boulders.

“I can totally relate”.

While venturing into my shed to get my shovel to take out my bamboo I caught this little anole in the middle of a movie shoot, apparently it was a remake of the 1922 film Noir movie: “Nosferatu”. As I exited the shed I was screamed at by the director to stop making clanking shovel sounds and to : “CLOSE THE ********SHED DOOR”!

Naturally I obliged. I cannot bring myself to venture back in there until they wrap.

I understand that this Largus californicus was the director with his “all-seeing” eye strategically positioned on his back,

and this baby grasshopper was apparently an extra.

Finally…

The first butterfly iris blooms have emerged…

my Japanese maple is putting on an amazing show, as are all the colors of verbena:

Pink, reds and purples to name a few.

The gulf coast toads have also made their croaking presence felt in these recent warmer days, taking orders from their frog-prince,

and filling the Patch and surrounding area with their extremely loud vocal shrills.

I think we really need to stop playing this infernal “Plants vs Zombies” – phone app, immediately, starting tomorrow, or next week, okay, perhaps next month?

Finally:

I know what he wants when he grows up.

Stay Tuned for:

“The Good Life”

All material © 2011 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Captain’s log…Winter Supplemental:

It is another world deep inside ice.

A temporary, volatile world trapped in space with cyclones, random leaves and dark cold skies.

Bubbles like frozen meteors, red matter…

are held suspended in the sky.

There is another world locked deep inside the ice, should you take the time to look.

Mr Tumnes? Mr Tumnes?

Oh, and with a bit of food coloring you can create your very own red hot meteors in the ice.

I just hope this poor sago will pull through better then the dinosaurs did when the last major one hit!  I have my doubts.

Stay Tuned for:

“A Day at the Races”

All material © 2011 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and punishable by late  (and extremely unpleasant) 14th century planet Earth techniques.