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.

I thought I would share a recent design scheme that I worked up for a client.

The design proposal addressed three distinct areas of the existing garden:

Front of house…what was once a static lawn becomes a softened low maintenance bed of movement, courtesy of a perimeter planting of bamboo muhly grass and the introduction of an invisible water fountain as a prominent visual focal point on approach to the house.

Onto the back…

A wall garden: The intent here was to create an intense planting scheme close in to the house that would gradually fade out and “naturalize” into larger shrubs and palms as the planting went further up the hill. This area will have a deer fence enclosing the property.  The cascading prostate rosemary and trailing lantana softens the vertical wall, adding a little repetition before a looser planting scheme kicks in further up the hill. Small sedums and stone crop will be tucked into the stone crevices for additional wall planting sprawling interest.

Here is the hillside top garden:  Does anyone recognize that mock orange?  This scene incorporates boulders that already exist on the hillside, planting extends the view up the slope to offer the illusion that the garden continues…

“To infinity and beyond!” … (Buzz almost three light year )

Back inside the Patch…

It amazes me at how fast things have returned to life and stature after our tough-for-Texas winter, even my Barbados cherry (center) has made a decent return from a cut back stump!

As has My Mexican lime tree that I chopped down to just above ground level.

My pole beans have reached the top of their poles and the Hoja Santa is seriously on the rise, not surprisingly, considering I forgot I left the soaker hose running all night…oh yes, it liked that alright!

Here is a tale of the unexpected…

I bet this little amaranth only dreams of a soaker hose, let alone one being left on all night…poor thing.  I cannot believe a seed actually germinated in this ungodly environment…worse than a Hell-Strip…the road…THE ROAD!  I keep resisting the idiotic temptation to water pure tarmac, especially when I just know this plant is destined to lie under the wheels of a church / funeral going vehicle that consistently line my street. The watering police would have a field-day…

“You are accused of watering on a non-designated watering day”?

“Yes I had to, the plant is growing in tarmac.”

“So let me understand, you are watering tarmac on a non-designated watering day?”

“Oh just go ahead and arrest me.”

It seems like enough of my decomposed granite has been blown off my hell-strip by my hose that the road in front of the Patch can now harbor life…

“Fascinating.”

“Its life Jim, but not as we know it”.

“Have you thought about upgrading to an iPad Jim?  Your current tablet PC really is quite embarrassing”.

Live long and prosper little amaranth.

From a really parched amaranth to a refreshing purple Madame Ganna Walska water lily.

My water lilies are once again growing at a ridiculous rate, I thin them out… two days later the pond is completely smothered again, still, the leaves and spent blooms make for the best nutrient-rich composting material.

I started out with two plants for crying out loud!

Blooming pride of Barbados foliage looks even better when it is planted against a dark back-drop.

layered leaves don’t get any better.

And do blooms get any better then  Echinacea or purple cone flower, pity they do not last very long before they look like a blow-torch has hit them…oh wait, that would be the Texas sun, and it has!  Pass me an iced turban please.

More layered foliage, dark shade areas really help to create a sense of depth, emphasizing the foliage of the plants.

Hello Aloe Vera?

What was once brown and very mushy has now has bounced back with full vigor in the summer Texas heat.  But can I eliminate that irritating ivy weed? look closely, you will recognize it, you know the one, it finds its way into the spiniest of plants and is incapable of being pulled up from the roots, ever!  Oh yes, it is the bane of my entire gardening existence.  This is by far the most irritating character that resides in the Patch, even more obnoxious then the Botox Lady!  I feel as though I have been pulling it up, let me re-phrase, snapping it at the base, for more years then I care to mention, without incidentally making a real dent.

I am about to take another approach that involves a really small oil painting brush and an undiluted, super-concentrated round-up palette of immediate death.

I need to quickly Move on:

I made a new acquaintance today…

…who became a close friend…

Okay, that’s enough…Brrr, now you are being creepy…time to leave now, as must I.   

(Starts shaking hand)

Stay Tuned for:

“Moi Grande Rain Dance”

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

Oh dear…Oh dear…oh dear!

Winner of an IDSA Silver award:

Nano Garden is a vegetable garden for the apartment kitchen, using hydroponics, so you don’t need to worry about pesticides or fertilizers. Instead of the sunlight, Nano Garden has lighting which promotes the growth of plants. The amount of light, water and nutrient supply is also controllable, so you can decide the growth speed. It lets you know when to provide water or nutrients to the plants, which makes it easier to grow them. Moreover, Nano Garden functions as a natural air purifier, eliminating unpleasant smells.

Designer: Seul Ki Park

Credit: Hyunjung Lee, Jaeyong Park, Changjin Shon and Seulki Park of Hyundai Engineering & Construction (South Korea), and Ill-woong Kwon of Gromo (South Korea)

I wish I was, with the onset of our hot weather comes thoughts of coastal breezes…knotted handkerchiefs (have to be British)….

beaches, jerk chicken, huge fires, hammocks..zzz…ZAP!..My thoughts were quickly interrupted as a particularly aggressive mosquito took a pound of flesh from the inside of my ankle, always in the same place…the predominant capillary, no, I was most definitely still in central Texas.  On noticing that both ankles were covered in the blood sucking needles, I immediately went into a slapping frenzy… causing my poorly tied, (yet satisfyingly comforting), iced “urban” turban to fall onto the ground. I then began turning around, apparently to face my enemy?

There was no real reason to turn around at all, it was as though there might have been a huge mosquito sneaking up on me from behind, I just had to make sure… arrgh the scratching…the spittle, the itch, the scratching, the…

“What IS he doing big sis? Look….whats h’  doin’?”

“It appears he is performing some type of tribal dance, now where were we, ah yes, I was winning at Quidditch…”

Back on the sanctity of higher ground and with our industrial fan aimed directly at our ankles, we decided to engage in an activity that can keep my elder hobbit quiet for at least an hour and a half (pretty impressive)…shelling stuff, she loves it!  This time the shelling was to extract a pile of bluebonnet seeds that were kindly given to us by Rock Rose http://wwwrockrose.blogspot.com/ at the last GG get-together and plant swap.  Wow!…Did these small seedpods keep us busy.  It took an awful lot of shelling to even cover the bottom of the container we were putting them in. We continued to shell and shell, then we started to sing and shell…“She’ll be shelling all the seedpods when she comes, she’ll be shelling all the seedp”…etc,etc…What the shell?

Then we entered a quiet period which had a sort of resigned “this is going to take us hours” undertone…but we persevered…we prevailed, and with the lash of the whip and quite a lot of moaning toward the end (mostly from me) we had emptied every single seed into the pot. I had even worn a groove in my thumbnail!

My youngest kept running his fingers through the seeds in a sinister Fagin-like fashion, needless to say,  I was keeping my eye closely on him and his fiendish grin.  If these seeds were prematurely ejected out of their container, after all we had been through, they might not be the only thing to go flying off the back deck!  (A whole new ESP interpretation of the game :  Quidditch)!

The seeds look like pebbles on Brighton beach!

‘Go and get me a tub of pickled whelks George, be a love”!

Now if these chaps washed up onto the beach, there would be total mayhem!

The total count of my dragonfly larvae is now up to six in my small stock tank, all eerily bobbing around like low-budget special effects props.

Moving quickly on…

My Vitex tree has formed this dark tunnel, leading all the way back to my really attractive metal chain-link fence…(we used to have two old springer spaniels roaming around the Patch).

it adds just enough privacy from our front porch swing-seat to the sidewalk.

My hell-strip opuntia, yucca and  sago, warming up to our now summer like temperatures.

As the day star warms up in Texas, artemesia and purple verbena help to cool things back down.

The day star has its uses though.  My tomatoes are doing well this year (famous last words).

Also in the tomato family, though you most certainly want to steer clear away from eating any part of this one…

Datura getting ready to pop open up one of its lethal white linen napkins…don’t be wiping your gravy face with this, unless you want to end up acting ‘a wee bit strange’ like the platoon members at the end of this post!

Datura wrightii

Do not be fooled by the waxy icing-sugary beauty of this plant…Datura belongs to the classic “witches’ weeds,” along with deadly nightshade, henbane and mandrake. Most parts of these plants contain toxic hallucinogens, Datura has a long history of use for causing delirious states and death. It was well known as an essential ingredient of love potions and witches’ brews. The leaves,stem,root and fruits of datura contain a battery of tropane alkaloids, the most potent of which are atropine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine.  One autonomic response of atropine is the dilation of pupils, once considered to be a beautiful and mysterious look in Italian women. The word Belladonna or “beautiful lady” came about because sap from the closely related belladonna plant (Atropa belladonna) was used as eye drops to dilate the pupils. Today, doctors rarely perform any type of eye surgery without using atropine, one of the poisons in deadly nightshade, to dilate the patient’s pupils.

The large, trumpet-shaped flowers on the plant are sometimes tinged with purple like this one, and resemble huge morning glory blooms. It is one of the largest and most striking of all native wildflowers.

Datura can also be used to induce hallucinations, the plant can induce auditory and visual hallucinations, however, the hallucinations are sometimes fatal due to panic that overcomes the person.

Scopolamine in the plant takes away a person’s vision, (can’t be good).  As the person panics and attempts to run to safety, the person cannot see and frequently becomes involved in an accident and ends up in the hospital, which surprisingly is not such a good place to end up for a datura ingester. Why is that you ask?

Well, scopolamine induces respiratory depression at hallucinogenic doses, and the combination of anesthesia (administered in the hospital) and Datura is usually fatal due to combined respiratory depression.

Scopolamine was also one of the active principles in many of the “flying ointments” used by witches, sorcerers and fellow travelers of many countries and cultures from millennia ago ostensibly down to the late 19th century or even to the present day. Scopolamine and related tropanes contributed both to the flying sensations and hallucinations sought by users of these compounds.

Datura has been a popular poison for suicide and murder. From 1950–1965, the State Chemical Laboratories in Agra, India investigated 2,778 deaths that were caused by ingesting Datura.

Common names for the plant include Thorn Apple (from the spiny fruit), Pricklyburr, Jimson Weed, Moonflower, Hell’s Bells, Devil’s Weed, Devil’s Cucumber, and Devil’s Trumpet.

During mid and late summer the white, fragrant blossoms are frequently visited by large nocturnal hawk moths.  They are sometimes called sphinx moths because the alarm posture of the larva resembles the Egyptian sphinx.

I will finish with this humorous eye-witness account of the effects of datura:

“The James-Town Weed (which resembles the Thorny Apple of Peru, and I take to be the plant so call’d) is supposed to be one of the greatest coolers in the world. This being an early plant, was gather’d very young for a boil’d salad, by some of the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebellion of Bacon (1676); and some of them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows (grimaces) at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.

In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves — though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements, if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed”. – The History and Present State of Virginia, 1705

Finally:

My milk weed thistle is finally going to seed, and quite impressive they are.

There are a bunch of these seeds around the base of the plant, waiting for a gust of wind to send them on their next journey.

“Oh come on”!

Our Patch cabin has been full of pictures the past week that are now on display in Crimson Hair and Skin: 806 West Ave.

If you are downtown Austin please feel free to pop in and take a look.

Image of the week:

A typical night collecting moths at Pena Blanca, Santa Cruz County Arizona (18 July 2000). Photo by Howard Byrne.

I must try this in the Patch!

Stay Tuned for:

“Carry on up the Nile”

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

DISCLAIMER: Some of the plants discussed in this article contain very poisonous alkaloids which can be lethal if ingested in sufficient quantities. Native people, witches, and all manner of little goblin folk developed time-tested religious rituals using these plants that were passed down through countless generations.

Now these are some knotty dreads man, all matted and stuck together. The panicles on my Mexican feather grasses had created such a dense matting situation, that it was making their heads fall over.

They looked pretty bad all stuck together like island hair… mmm, what to do, what to do?  I picked my first test subject and just like…

I went to work, frantically snipping out all the seed heads with my prosthetic shearing fingers…

…unlike Edward’s reputable pruning results, mine were not so good, not so good at all (left), it just looked really unnatural. As I pondered what else I could do to remedy this situation, I grabbed one of the seed heads and pulled it, it easily came away from the plant….that was it!  I went to another grass, grabbed a small chunk and sure enough the seeds and a length of the panicle stalk came away from the plant. This technique ensured that the plant retained a more natural look while getting rid of the matted dreadlock situation… it worked a treat to lighten the entire grass (right).

Here they are back to their former glory once again.  I systematically went through all my grasses pulling their hair out.  I did get a little greedy on the amount that could be removed in a one extraction a couple of times, resulting in a small clump of the grass coming up out of the ground, oops!  No, there was a fine balance to be heeded in this hair-pulling activity.  By the time I was about halfway through my grasses I had the technique mastered, gathering the dreadlocks into clumps and working my way around the plant as though it were a scalp, I must have looked insane, especially when I started to lay out a cape (courtesy of my professional hair cutting wife) around each plant to catch any falling hair follicles, errr…I mean seeds!

I shoved these seeds into a large bucket as I went on, and on, and…

A couple of hours later, I had about four of these seed-bales filling up my trash can, there must have been millions of seeds.

Moving on…

Butterflies, moths, all manner of things a’ flutter were feasting this week on copious amounts of the sweet stuff.  This one it seems had the whole salty / sweet thing going on.  It stayed on my tee shirt for a few minutes (quite salty at this point).  I am guessing there was enough moisture on the garment from the feather grass thinning in our 101 degree (with the heat index) temperatures to extract something nourishing out of it?  Whatever it was getting from my garment, it was liking it.

More from the bench area…

Ever since I finished my bench the spaces to the left and right of it seemed somewhat lost, floating around in space.

“Roger that Houston, both sides of the bench, but can I say “gimbal lock” one last time?”

I decided to reflect the opposite bed to the bench and continue the same brickwork design to form a couple of small beds to finish these areas off, and to visually anchor the bench.

And the other side.

Must remember to move that first canna away from the dwarf Palmetto, it is getting a little crowded right there!  The brickwork really helps to make the bench a focal point and destination.

Are those more feather grasses?

“I have some rather disturbing news”…

The Cactus Man has apparently returned from the grave…he is re-animating!

“He is an opuntia ESP”?

I could not believe this when I saw it today.  It appears the deceased Cactus Man is attempting to re-create his face and re-animate himself on a new cactus paddle that has grown in exactly the same spot from the same plant where I originally him and his family.  Now what are the chances of that?

“About 4504 to the power of 10 ESP, now… can’t you see I am busy engaging the Borg?”

Data!

This was one tiny spider. I shot this blind with the camera.  I was amazed what shapes and translucent coloration the camera caught.

Sedum potosinum in decline, turning a rust color at the end of it’s bloom cycle.

Vines are on the move…

…pond-life is feeling good…

…and the pole-beans are on the rise.

Captains Log supplemental: Check out my new “ESP Design Services” at the top of my blog, and I hope you like the new sidebar.

ESP.

Stay Tuned for:

“Emergance”

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