Don’t panic, I have not buried anybody in my back garden. It is traditional that a deceased Naboo tribesman (right) is buried alongside all his tribal paraphernalia (left).

Have I not communicated that the Naboo are certifiable hoarders?

I am not trying to be morbid, but when I see an entryway planter to a restaurant looking like this…

I can feel the life-force drain out of me – what is this? (Apart from depressing).  A crypt with bits of a broken crypt scattered on top of it?

“Be strong Luke Strip-Mall-Walker”.

(whispers)…”I like the planter Sookie”…(whispers) “Me too Bill”.

All that is lacking here is an epitaph etched into the anemic concrete grave and perhaps a handful of mourners dressed in all-black surrounding it, staring at the floor and sobbing occasionally for dramatic blogging effect!

This cannot be a good first impression for customers walking up to a dining establishment, can it?…But you know what? I am a repeat customer regardless of this planter, in fact, this planter is the main reason I keep returning …I just have to see what is going on in this odd monstrosity!

As a patron, this scene has disturbed me for quite some time. The random selection of pots do move around occasionally, and I must say, this current layout has the concrete planter, seat, whatever, looking better then I have seen it for quite some time!  Oh yes, believe me, it has looked significantly “graver” (coughs), than this in the past.  To see the planting and broken pot shuffling activities in and around this planter, as a short, time-lapse movie would be riveting.  Zzzzzzz.

A few broken pieces of terracotta strewn here and there, a random hodge-podge of pots, (two are amazingly the same…could this be an attempt at repetition)?  Okay that was mean! And a few randomly positioned herbs complete this stark sarcophagus scene.  There must be a friendlier solution to this difficult, no irrigation, covered strip-mall scene?  I thought I would give it a quick go…

A lick of “Photoshop” concrete paint from a virtual paintbrush…dark at the base to visually elevate the structure then brown accents reflecting the door to the establishment make it a little less morbid.  A few small boulders, decorative pea-gravel and a xeric “oasis” planting scheme that is built-up and elevated toward the center, makes the structure and planting look a little more “intentional” and less flat.  A larger rustic planter in the background replaces the existing undersized one for a little more presence.

It is still a very, very odd structure, but at least it could be a visually warmer, more inviting one!

Talking of “Oasis” It is amazing what is going on up there:

Flying quickly back to the Patch:

A very trusting Neon Skimmer posed for me like a poorly waxed runway model this afternoon…are those tiny whitened teeth?  Brrr!

Libellula croceipennis

The surface of each eyeball is faceted with up to 30,000 individual ‘eyes’ called ommatidia.  If you zoom in to the above picture you can see them, (just keep clicking on the image).  These ‘eyes’ combine a surface lens with an internal cone-shaped crystalline lens which feed information and data to the tiny brain of the insect. This gives dragonflies multi-image vision and super-sensitive motion detection – moving objects pass from the view of one of the tiny lenses to another, making them practically impossible to catch.

Dragons possess 6 legs (like any other insect), but they are not capable of walking.  The creature has two sets of many-veined, long, rigid wings which beat alternately (when one is up the other is down).  This gives it excellent aerodynamic efficiency and precise flight control.

“Oh come on ESP!!!”

The wings beat 1,600 or more times a minute…no wonder they are often found resting on agave spikes!

Against all the odds of catching a dragonfly it has been a popular hunting activity in the Patch since they first appeared this year…

She is determined to prove my “you just can’t catch them” statement wrong…if successful, I would never, ever hear the end of it:  “Well daddy said you couldn’t…blah, blah, blah, blah… (repeat until):

There is one other popular activity I failed to mention, it involves tadpoles, buckets and copious amounts of mosquito spray…

Although it all looks rather uncomfortable, hand-catching tadpoles keeps her quiet for at least an hour.

Talking of net hunting, this Pride of Barbados really pulls in the butterflies, particularly the swallowtails, when it is in full bloom at this time of year.

Moving on…

Looking like striped sea-side rock or candy canes, (if you are American), the variegation on this Bambusa multiplex ‘Alphonse Karr Bamboo’ is quite something.  I have a bunch of new culms shooting up right now.  Each new segment on the same culm offers a completely new and uniquely striped design and color scheme.  This clumping bamboo makes an excellent privacy screen, getting up to about 15ft in height and remaining quite compact in its habit.  Interestingly, it also did better then my giant timber, Buddha’s belly and my Mexican weeping and black bamboos through our harsh winter.  The giant timber was hit the worst, especially this one, sadly my oldest one:

I am still in denial about it…I know I should cut these culms down, it is like I just cannot admit to myself that they are DEAD…DEAD,DEAD,DEAD! Perhaps thinking what I can use these culms for, might push me into getting my hook-saw out of my shed?  Perhaps an enormous bamboo chair? (These culms are each about 40 feet tall after all) or…

…how about a new water-wheel to harness all the rain that has been flowing down my decomposed granite pathways recently?  Mmm, could be a bit tasking for a complete novice?  I probably have just enough bamboo to construct a new Patch structure, a bit smaller then the one on the right naturally…wait, I have it!  Why had I not thought of this?

A Tiki-hut!

Not having ever built anything with bamboo before, and like my garden bench, http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/04/garden-benches/ there will naturally be no construction plans in sight.  This promises to be a somewhat interesting endeavor that has all the hallmarks of a potential future Darwin award, an award I am no stranger to: http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2008/05/wind-chimes-and-my-post-oak-a-darwin-award-nominee/

Even more disturbing then my dead bamboo…you guessed it:

Cactus Man “junior” apparently has a lazy right eye! I fear this could this be the result of in-breeding?

I still cannot believe that this opuntia paddle is:

a) Growing in almost the identical position and orientation as and where I murdered the original “Cactus Man”‘ RIP (along with his family and friends) with my naive face carving exploits: http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/10/halloween-2009/ Could he be reanimating himself to reap his revenge?

And…

b) This is the only paddle to develop these very animated eyes with absolutely no “help” from me this time whatsoever, this has to be a good thing…It is HIM I tell you!

Finally…

Lily Pads have officially taken over my pond!

Can somebody please tell me what this is?

I believe this is a weed, but I quite like it, well, at least enough to allow it (perhaps foolishly) to grow to maturity (about three feet). It has a very distinctive waxy, smooth stem, but those seed-pods are now beginning to concern me! …anybody?

The ESPatch putting another bright Moi Grande bloom in her lapel.

Everything is enjoying these frequent summer soakings.

Stay Tuned for:

“Kate Bush – Withering Sights”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late  (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

What do you see in the clouds?  Is that a mosquito he is trying to swat?

From what seemed like endless Texas blue skies to…

…sustained deep soakings, a few new rivers have materialized in the ESPatch this week, courtesy of Tropical Storm Alex.

I waded to my shed and launched an old punt boat that I had picked up in Cambridge some years back. It was a lot of fun punting around my decomposed granite pathways, the activity also gave me a whole new and unique perspective on my entire garden, in terms of flow and continuity… Oh dear.

Yes it felt like I was in Venice. I ran into the house for a striped tee-shirt, then down to my corner store to purchase a Cornetto ice cream…I had to make the most of this rare event after all…

As with any summer rains in Texas, they happen about as regularly as the appearance of the genie in this “lamp”.

“I grant you three wishes”.

Mmm, let me see, rain, rain and more rain?

Be careful what you wish for!

I have quite a few of these dead giant timber culms that have turned jet black as a result of last winters prolonged freezes, their colors now reflecting the colors on the background container…What are the chances of that!

…they look very Balinese in the rains!

The Hoja Santa immediately responded to the unexpected influx of moisture. I think they grew almost a foot overnight!  

Great shadow casting foliage for the shade…this is my “hosta” of Texas, (well, as you all know, everything IS bigger in Texas.)

Oh yes, I had a great time picking up the hobbits at the bottom of the steps and taking them on a leisurely punt around the garden paths…“Just a’ one Cornetto…give it too me, delicious ice cream from etc, etc”.

…as we floated around we witnessed a brand new Patch anole, an anole with pronounced spinal ridging, this is a Brown Anole, or at least I believe it is.

Anolis sagret, Norops sagrei

Some male brown anoles like this one are able to extend a crest of skin that runs down the length of their body along their spine. All of these techniques are thought to make the male anole look larger and more intimidating to any invaders he may come across, like me. People often refer to anoles as “chameleons,” though they are actually quite different than chameleons. True chameleons, which belong to the family Chamaeleonidae, are native to Africa, Madagascar, and India and have curly prehensile tails and independently movable eyes. Like chameleons though, anoles are able to change their body color in response to mood or temperature.  This anole had great Avatar coloration and spotting on it’s sides and legs.

We rounded another corner to see the first Moi Grande Hibiscus bloom getting ready to pop…

…a little further and we encountered a soft leaf yucca beaded with moisture, it looked like an advertisement for Turtle wax!  And still the rains came down.

After a few dark days, (a welcome break from the Day Star), the rains subsided, and the sun is once again intermittently coming out, it is a sauna out there!  With the sun came a burst of life, everyone was hungry after the three day hunker from the rains…an immediate feeding and growth frenzy ensued…creature hunting creature, bugs eating bugs, creatures hunting bugs…it was all going on, and it was all going on everywhere.

Climbing the ladder for success, this green anole had its free-fall dive all planned out to capture this swallowtail butterfly.

Butterflies have been all over my pride of Barbados recently, this is a Striated Queen butterfly

“Danaus gilippus strigosus”!

Along with the sunlight came the first Moi Grande hibiscus bloom…

…and it was a beauty! I have no idea how she seems to always match the bloom colors, but she does!

Along with these butterflies and blooms came some new moths:

This velvet curtain is know as a Southern Pink/crimson Moth

Pyrausta inornatalis

The tiny Southern Crimson Moth’s larval food is salvia, this one matched the purple on the amaranth foliage perfectly.

another bright character, a Crambidae or

crambid snout moth

One of the many visitors that my Agastache has brought in.

And finally…

A Hawkmoth perhaps? This was incredibly camouflaged nestled deep inside a rosemary.

“What big eyes you have”.

And yet another first in the ESP…

…a female Eastern Pondhawk.

Erythemis simplicicollis

Pondhawks are aptly named being fearsome predators, they catch butterflies and many other kinds of insects, and can often be found devouring them. The male of the species is blue and the female green.

The rains also created hundreds of these tiny translucent spores at the base of this iris.  It was a whole other ethereal world down in there!  A world where the mosquitoes fly in formations and can strip flesh from bone in seconds.

I managed to get these two shots in of these minute toadstools before running and screaming for the cover of the house, slapping myself as I ran.

Finally…

Rain in Texas at this time of year makes everyone feel like dancing.

Inspirational ‘moment of zen’ design of the week: Technology touches nature:

Description from Tomomi Sayuda:
Oshibe means stamen in Japanese which is where my inspiration came from. But Oshibe is also inspired by other optimistic elements of life: eggs, plants, light and the moon. This is a playful interactive lighting sculpture. When you put eggs on stamens, Oshibe plays tender ambient sounds and lights up. Each stamen plays a different sound. The sounds change according to the number and position of the eggs.

I am hearing Oshibe all around the Patch right now, I am!  Especially at dusk, in and around my pampas grasses.

“This confirms my hypothesis that the Naboo, although small in stature are huge in sound manipulation as a sophisticated form of communication between adjacent tribes”.

Stay Tuned for:

“Garden Coffins”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late  (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

I bet you are thinking…the great pyramids? Egypt? Dry dusty desert conditions? Uh oh, he is going to moan once again to us about the Texas heat once again, once again..zzz?

“How is that papyrus transplant I gave you doing in your stock tank ESP?”

“Well to be honest Cleo, it is making a slower recovery than normal for this time of year, it must have been the hard winter”.

But you would be wrong, no moaning, no iced turbans, not this time…this post is about the Sphinx.

I have waited in anticipation after reading the recent Grackle post http://the-grackle.blogspot.com/2010/05/veggies-tomato-monsters.html for the chance of witnessing one of these…

“Be careful what you wissh forrrr EESSPPP”

(Brrr!) Where did that come from?

Whoaaaa! And today I witnessed two monsters. I can see how this may confuse a predator, or at least make them crack up laughing!

The Men in Black should be hunting this thing down. Look at this “I want some more candy” face!  It should be in a Jim Henson movie.

“Get it off me, for the love of God, get it off m….arrrgghh”

“Gasp…Captain!…You did say it was your mission to seek out strange new life and new civilizations did you not?”

“look at what it has done to me?   I am hideous, my face, that…thing, ate my beautiful face!”

I believe in my last post I said something to the effect of:

“I have a pretty decent crop of tomatoes”…as we all know you should never ever say this out loud.  Almost as soon as the words exited my keyboard my tomatoes immediately went under siege.

“My tomatoes!…My Preciouses”!

It appears that every insect now has a one-track mind; to eat my tomatoes.

Lots of these…

…a few of these fruit miners…

…and then there is the creature responsible for this:

You could go your whole life without having to witness this image I know.

I noticed these large bales of nastiness, strewn all over my tomato plant foliage? What manner of rhino was depositing such filth!  I followed the piles, retching in an animated Jim Carrey fashion. Oh, and sepia does take the edge off this image, trust me…subtle right eye flicker. Whatever had eaten the faces off my tomatoes had also it seems, a very healthy digestive system.

I did not see it at first, it looked exactly like the stem of the plant, then I came eye to eye(s) with the beast, literally, it’s teeth gnashing away on a tomato leaf next to me like the disturbing “chatterer” from Hell Raiser.  It paused briefly to rear its head to look at me, as if to say “Ya, vat is d’ matter?” …(every caterpillar sounds like Heimlich, the always hungry German-accented caterpillar to me now, after watching the Bug’s Life movie).

“Vat? I VILL be a beautiful sphinx moth one day, you’ll see”!

These plump creatures of course turn into:

Sphingidae

Sphingidae is a family of moths more commonly known as hawk moths, sphinx moths and hornworms, oh yes these worms come from magnificent parents…

Here is one I caught a couple of weeks back in the Patch, they are verbena junkies!

They are called sphinx moths as the larvae tend, when resting, to hold their legs off the surface they are on, whilst tucking its head up underneath itself, resembling the ancient Egyptian Sphinx.

By chance this one even has a Giza pyramid leaf as a backdrop!

In this Larvae stage it is known as

Manduca sexta

or more commonly known as a the tobacco hornworm, it is closely related to and often confused with the very similar tomato hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata) However, the Tomato Hornworm has a black “horn,” while the Tobacco Hornworm bears a red one.

Here is a closeup of the hornworm’s bubbly busy little mouth that will quickly devour a tomato plant.  I found two huge worms today.  I cut my plants toward the top and put them both in a bucket with quite a bit of foliage and a few fallen and already damaged tomatoes.  One of the hobbits had grown quite attached to these worms…we carried them well away from my tomatoes, hoping they will have enough foliage to develop into the adult moths we all love.  I will be keeping a close eye on this bucket that is now hidden from birds view in a large clump of cast iron plants.  I have a horrible feeling that they may just embark on the rather long and treacherous voyage back to my plants.

The next morning we all made our way to the bucket only to find this, mountains of excrement and whole tomatoes? Wait, whole tomatoes?  Apparently only the finest tomatoes on the vine are good enough for these hungry green connoisseurs.

Moving on…

We have gone from cooling misters and hot temperatures…

to a solid drenching this week in central Texas.

So much rain in fact we had to call the emergency services out to rescue an anole stranded in this waterlogged horsetail reed container…

He seemed as grateful as a small lizard can be to be on dry ground.

Finally…

No Egyptian post would be complete without lots of gold.

This new dwarf miscanthus seed-head getting hit with the midday sun would make a great offering to a Pharaoh, especially one with an affinity for golden ornamental grasses?

Talking of grasses – I will leave you with this snippet of a breeze wafting through the ESPatch…it stars, yes, you guessed it…

Stay Tuned for:

“The Visitors”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late  (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

And I thought I leaned toward the nerdy side of plants!..If you have not seen this clip, it is a classic. If you are interested in plants, you will be mesmerized by the book, “The Secret Life of Plants” …It changed my perspective of all things green forever…it is an absolute must-read to pamper the inner nerd in you.

I have even purchased my own polygraph machine from the flea market just north of San Antonio.  I am currently in the process of recreating some of the experiments documented in the book.  What?

The plant “alphabet training” toward the end of the clip?…I showed it to my daughter who will be starting kindergarten in the fall with a horticultural threatening… “Hey, come over here and look at this… a talking plant that will be most likely be in the same class as you..oh, and look…it knows the entire alphabet already.”

I just received an incredulous stare followed my an exaggerated eye-roll, then a premature teenage “what-EVER!”

Now here is a plant that will not likely be attacked by a lab technician wielding a large bread knife…Milk thistle.

Silybum marianum

Another name for it is St. Mary’s thistle. I have allowed this plant to mature in the Patch to see if it would develop and bloom, and it has, in fact it has developed two! The medicinal benefits of milk thistle have been valued for more than 2,000 years. Written records show that as early as the first century, Romans were using the plant as a liver-protecting agent.

“Prepare thyself to be slain, thistle of milk”.

The plant was also frequently used throughout the Middle Ages, and it is in the herbal literature of this period that the medicinal properties of milk thistle seeds are first noted. Several scientific studies suggest that substances in milk thistle (especially a flavonoid called silymarin) protect the liver from toxins. The active ingredient of the herb, silymarin, is found in the ripe seeds of the plant. Milk thistle is native to the Mediterranean region, and is now found throughout the world.

This stout thistle usually grows in dry, sunny areas. The spiny stems branch at the top, and reach a height of 4 to 10 feet. The leaves are wide, with white blotches or veins. Milk thistle gets its name from the milky white fluid that comes from the leaves when they are crushed. The flowers are red-purple which true to its name, resembles a thistle.

“Aye, it does looks wee bit like a Scottish thistle, I’ll give ye that ESP”!

As I walked to my “everything but the kitchen sink” rainwater collection tank of buckets, cups and saucers, vases etc, etc.  I was greeted by an extensive web and this brightly colored little spider sitting proudly in the middle of it…

This is an Orchard Spider,

Leucauge venusta

This spider is super fast, and it will deliberately shake its web to try to scare you away. Oh and they will give you a bite if you really annoy them, a fact that I was only too well aware off as my camera lens was almost touching it. Orchard spiders are very similar to regular orb-weavers, they build their webs in strategic locations to catch flies, moths, and other insects. This spider web spanned the entire radius of my stock tank, catching mosquitoes no doubt.

Remember these?…

Well now they are these…

The blooms on my Threadleaf ragwort have long since faded, being replaced by seed heads that are attractive in their own way, a large seed head for such small blooms!

After I had taken these shots I gave one of the plants a swift slap, sending thousands of the tiny seeds into the air. Who could resist?

Staying on the subject of seeds for a moment, I love the way this unidentified plant holds it’s seeds in these tiny brown pouches, it is really quite effective.

I will find out what this Tinkerbell plant is and include it in a future post.

(Simultaneous ooo’s and ahhh’s)

I emptied out one of these small green pouches just to see its contents…

Amazing!

Now, time to gross you all out…yes it is that time folks, get your hurling buckets at the ready… this isn’t going to be pretty:

Are you ready?

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

This is insane, an emerging dragonfly…I think this is its back, the head sill being tucked up under the nymph head somewhere.  This has to be one of the most amazing transformations in the insect realm.  What makes it even more insane is that dragonflies spend most of their life in the water.  A dragonfly has a life span of between one and six years (depending on size), but very little of that life is actually as an adult dragonfly.  There are three stages of the dragonfly life cycle, the egg, the nymph, and the adult dragonfly. Flying adult dragonflies only live about two to four months.

Brrrr! You wouldn’t want to see this scene in the headlights, late at night on a country road.

Another bizarre scene that I have never witnessed before, sadly resides on my mountain laurel:

This is a new one for me, web-worms eating my mountain laurel seeds?

Well I hope you all get poisoned!

On a more colorful  traffic-light-note…

The tomatoes are beginning to ripen in the Patch…

…and it looks like a bumper crop this year!  I have planted a variety of tomatoes this year from plants obtained from the sunshine garden’s annual plant sale.

They are all doing pretty well.

As is my Buddah’s belly bamboo.  This bright bamboo has rebounded faster then all my giant timber bamboos from our harsh winter.  My giant timber bamboos have suffered.

This is also a first in the Patch, a Lauxinid Fly

Neogriphoneura sordida

on my one and only Mexican hat, Ratibida columnifera.

Captains Log supplemental:

I have finally collected together my favorite photographs from the Patch and put them under one roof:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/esphotography/

Inspirational image of the week, courtesy of my old friend and UK garden designer Paul Hensey at: http://paulhensey.blogspot.com/

Stay Tuned for:

“While the Neighbor’s Away…The Patch will Play”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late  (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.