The spiraling seed heads on this miscanthus do look electrifying,

but the title of this post is in celebration of finally losing these:

For years now I have had two heavy gauge and extremely annoying extension cords running from a GFCI circuit on my back deck all the way down the side of my property to my ponds. Today this was all going to change,

Today I have the electricians coming!

Luckily for me when I first started to carve into the Patch to create planting beds, I laid conduit in preparation for this historic day. Here is the trench way back when:

Is that some grass I see?

A secondary trench was dug inside this one to take the pvc pipe down toward the end of the garden.

and here it is today all prepped and ready for the fixtures. These GFCI outlets come with a light fixture already attached to the top of them so I wasted no time in getting some eerie colors working in the Patch. Next step is to illuminate my post oak tree, more on this later.

Talking of eerie, the “brains” (as we commonly refer to them) have returned to the pond,   This year in larger numbers than ever.

They really have an effective design…the “brain” provides flotation whilst assuring the the “brain-stem” roots always hover vertically allowing them to catch onto something and root. Ingenious.

Could this be a baby Walska?

Something even more disturbing:

While I was laying some mulch down I caught the unmistakable, unhealthy aroma of a stink horn…and judging from the intensity of the stench it was a bruised one…which is never a good thing at any time.

Eyes darted here and there, scouring the earth for the evil monstrosity…where was it…where was it?

Had I knelt on it? Tell me I hadn’t knelt on it. I knew it must be close to me. I looked behind me to see Kumo proudly holding it in the corner of his mouth like a rotting cigar. Before I could even get out of the planting bed [LEAVE IT] he had scampered over and dropped it in the middle of his favorite flattened feather grass. [LEAVE IT!] He paused, looked at me, then got on his back and started to roll around on it. [Oh for heavens sake].

Bad, stinky Kumo!

Moving On:

Temperatures are now very pleasant in Central Texas, just right for dangling your toes in the pond. My goldfish seem to think they are Garra rufa, exfoliating feet and toes to the delight and squeals of the halflings.

Brrr!

There is a hazard to dangling one’s toes in a fishpond though…

rogue strands of oxygen weed.

This week has seen a steady flow of migrating Monarch Butterflies filtering through the Patch,

their favorite ports of call are butterfly weed Asclepias tuberosa (naturally) and some blue mist flowers I have in my front garden.

Oxalis has reemerged in the cooler weather and is flowering once again.

A moment of zen under the Mexican weeping bamboo.

Talking of weeping, my pecan trees are currently engaged in yet another rather annoying activity…this time dropping sweet sugar-water all over the place.

My new barbeque pit!

In the late afternoon sun you can actually see the sticky rain falling. 

This sparkling dandelion seed head was adhered to these leaves by the sugary substance.

Finally:

You didn’t think you could escape without seeing at least one very odd bug did you? 

Common Bagworm

Psyche casta

Bagworm moths build houses from all kinds of materials.  Each species designs and builds its own particular type of architecture, it is these structures that allow them to be identified. The Common Bagworm climbs on to plants and trees, but harvests wood from houses and sheds as well.

Inspirational sketch of the week:

http://www.morstudio.co/projects/entries/?id=5

Stay Tuned for:

“Little Monsters”

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

“Golden brown texture like sun
Lays me down with my mind she runs
Throughout the night
No need to fight
Never a frown with golden brown”

Japanese maple, cattail, inland sea oats and Mexican fire bush.

The song holds up a lot better than the 80′s video, naturally, though part of it does make me reminisce about summer iced turbans.

Never a frown from me either!

The golden browns emitted from these inland sea oats at this time of the year is quite something, this plant just keeps on going, it looks fresh in the spring and just keeps looking better into it’s autumn and winter years.

Chasmanthium latifolium

Chasmanthium latifolium or Uniola latifolia has many names including Nothern Sea Oats, Inland Sea Oats, River Oats, Creek Oats, Wild Oats, Indian Woodoats, Broadleaf uniola, Broadleaf sea-oats and broadleaf spike grass.  This showy perennial is one of the first native grasses used for landscaping purposes.  This great ornamental grass grows in shade or sun, though it prefers partial to full shade, hence the name Woodoats.  It is tolerant of all soil types, mine grow well under the fringe cover of my large post oak.

I have a small dedicated bed for this plant but I have never found it difficult to control, if it pops up somewhere it shouldn’t, it is quite easy to pop the offspring out of the ground.  If you have a west facing garden this plant will supply plenty of light smoldering and movement throughout the winter months…a must have ornamental grass.

The seeds of this grass, when mixed with pond water “stock”, a little rosemary for flavor, and some datura seeds have also been made into countless winter “stews” that should it be devoured,

imparts a profound effect on the diner.

This poor little anole ingested a little too much of the lethal stew.

Yet another Pompeii victim found Patch petrified.

Moving on…

I followed this butterfly around way longer than a rational person probably should, but I was determined to get a shot in.  This butterfly was extremely small as you can see from the size of the decomposed granite it alighted on.

Dainty Sulphur (Nathalis iole)

or Dwarf Yellow.  It finally landed on this rosemary where it stayed still long enough to get a couple of shots in. These butterflies are present year round in peninsular Florida and South Texas.  After overwintering as adults in the South, some migrate north in spring and summer, every summer they re-colonizes through the Great Plains to southeast Washington, southeast Idaho, Wyoming, and Minnesota.

Intruder Alert…Intruder Aler…

I had a mechanical looking assassin perpetrate the perimeter defenses of the Patch this week…

I naturally called on the services of my resident private eye to investigate the breach further…Like Dr. Watson, he was right on the case with his discerning right eye!

“He needs the abrasive silica qualities of horsetail reed to improve the optical resolution of that lens!”

There are some mighty strange insects in Texas, and this mechanical looking cannibalistic bug has to rank high up on the list.  This is off course an assassin bug, or to be more precise, a wheel bug. Its name derives from the prominent crest, which resembles a cog or gear. This is the only insect species in the United States with such a crest.

Arilus cristatus

It is the largest species of assassin bug in Texas, and this one was a monster.  Okay granted, it was lying dead on my back porch steps casting a long film noir shadow, but it was still a large and very formidable bug. The assassin bug slowly prowls with slow, and almost robotic movements across leaves looking for a victim to drain, and I have no shortage of leaves as you know…

I really don’t want to talk about it.

When it finds a suitable meal, it spears it with its long and very sharp hypodermic beak, whilst pinning down its victim with its long front legs. It then injects enzymes through this beak, paralyzing it, within 30 seconds its preys internal body parts essentially turn into runny porridge, it then proceeds to drain all of the victim’s bodily fluids through the same straw beak.  Brrr.

“Yes…yes…draining…beak”

Oh stop it Jeff!

The wheel bug can be more than 3.5 centimeters (1.4 inches) long, and its perfectly capable of taking on a bigger grasshopper.

There are nearly 3,000 species of assassin bugs. While they come in a wide variety of colors and sizes, they all are recognizable by their geometrically shaped abdomen, their tiny head and the long beak folded under their thorax. Because assassin bugs consume so many insects, they are widely viewed as beneficial insects and can keep your garden and your shrubs free of pests.

The bite of a wheel bug is painful and may take months to heal (sometimes leaving a small scar), so caution is advised when handling them…after all, who wants a mechanical looking bug sucking out your internals through a straw-beak, oh no, not me.

Back into the garden:

This has to be the largest Fatsia Japonica bloom I have ever had, and the flies have already found it even though it has not yet fully opened up.  This will be a mass of insects when the flowers fully open.

Although it is attracting them quite well already.

Celosia continues to perform, appropriately adding some fire and brimstone to my extremely parched Hell-Strip.

Finally:

These agave parryi kept me on my toes as I attempted to extract yet more leaves that always insist on burying themselves deep into this plants lethally protected heart. I am not sure why I think I will never get flesh punctured performing this sort of picking activity without gloves.

Kindergarten’s out for Christmas!

Stay Tuned  for:

“I Caught a Live One!”

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

It has been a crazy week in the Patch this week, lots of pruning, lots of pea gravel laying and a few more floggings from my pampas grasses, naturally.

The Botox lady has got herself all dolled up for the Garden Conservancy Austin Tour tomorrow.  She has had her hair fixed, and has even started to wear this ladybug as a beauty spot!

“Ya!  Yoo-Hoo ESP…over zere, over zere…you like mine hair ya?  Notice something else?  Oh and look at ze asters, look at ze asters, have you seen ze asters ESP”?

Oh yes, the build up to the tour has made her even more obnoxious then usual, if that is even possible, I hope she tones it down on the big day!

Oh you complete and utter asters!

You just had to do it didn’t you!  I am hoping these blooms hang in there until Saturday. The hardest part of the week has been the weeding and clearing out of leaves in ridiculously inaccessible areas, requiring insanely strange contorted poses to even reach them. Doing thousands of these oddly positioned squats over the last few days has made my legs feel like they are dropping off…

…as this grasshopper can surely appreciate. This find gave me the opportunity to closely check out the spines on the legs…oh yes a kick from this chap would most certainly draw blood…(draws finger across teeth)

This anole could not even look at the dismembered bodily carnage, perhaps he even perpetrated the dismemberment and was hiding under this leaf while he consumed the more delectable parts.

Check out that huge Jurassic right foot, complete with talons!

Like a grazing antelope this huge “Obscure Bird Grasshopper” was most certainly alive, gnawing his way through one of my satsuma leaves, it ate half of a leaf as I took these images.

Where is…

when you need him?

Amazing eyes on these creatures.  While I was clambering around under this satsuma thinking about how sharp the spines on the dismembered leg were and how my fingers were now almost touching the real thing, I rounded a small limb to get a better angle and came face to face with this disgusting fellow…

and it was one of the biggest giant swallow tail larvae I recall ever seeing. It blocked out the sun. There was snow on its peaks.

Papilio cresphontes

Fruit farmers often call these caterpillars orange dogs or orange puppies because of the devastation they can cause on their crops.

Judging from the size, this one must be really close to changing into a chrysalis. Oh yes, who would want to eat this?

Moving On:

This back area of the Patch has always been a sort of no-man’s land, so I decided to move this old and cracked container from behind a stand of giant timber bamboo where it was mostly obscured and give it a new purpose in life.

I elevated it on a couple of breeze blocks to give it a little more presence before…

filling the area in with granite. Well what did you expect?

I have been up-pruning this pittosporum / mock orange on the right for quite a few years, the small agave vilmoriniana (yes I am STILL planting those pups) planted all around the pot will get quite large and fill in this scene over the coming years.  The blues of the container and the Mexican beach pebbles goes well with the adjacent silvery-blue hues of the foliage, the inside of the container referencing the brown color of the granite and background trellis.

The browns on my Mexican weeping bamboo have also began to stand out recently.  Note: Never place a rotating hose next to a weeping bamboo, the annoyance factor as strands of bamboo get caught up in it as it rotates are completely off the scale.

As have the now crispy brown seedpods from my pride of Barbados plants, very Halloween looking.  I planted a lot of seeds from these plants this year, mostly in the hell-strip.  Staying with seeds and Halloween:

The seedpods on my celosia are swirling to now comical lengths. Walk down my sidewalk in the dead of night and you may just feel the touch of these slender seedpod fingers trailing over your shoulders.  Brrr.

What a firework display.

Another firework, a tiny sparkler sedge courtesy of Pam at Digging http://www.penick.net/digging/

Moving on to some greens…

A hoja santa leaf catching some fall rays…

…and somebody is really looking forward to selling some fresh limonada at the tour tomorrow.

Me? Lets just say weeding and collecting leaves will not be high on my priority list for the next few months!

I hope to see you in the Patch tomorrow, and a big thanks in advance to my illustrious band of volunteers who will be helping me throughout the day. I did decide to do a quick “Plan of the Patch” in preparation for the tour, this should help me remember those plants that I can never seem to remember:

Stay Tuned  for:

“All Quiet on the Eastern Front”

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

Now to some very serious business…Grab your sowesters, make a fresh cup of Horlicks, and try to enjoy another uplifting and jolly episode from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner…Part three

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.