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)

This week I have found many new and old visitors alike taking a flutter or a crawl down the winding decomposed granite pathways in the Patch, and I am not referring to the after-effects of ingesting Leah’s sangria, though I could be.

There are hunters and predators lurking everywhere, under and above leaves, in the sky and on the ground,

Hard to spot hunters hunting down the tastiest foliage, like this…

Texas Spotted Range Grasshopper,

Psoloessa texana

you have to look really hard to spot this grasshopper, even it’s eyeballs are camouflaged!  I only ever witness this beast if I happen to disturb one, then I have to follow the enormous jump and endure the subsequent heat and mosquito ravaged hunt in a general vicinity to find it again. They have remarkable colored “flashes” on their legs, that I have still yet to capture on camera. The wings look exactly like leaf skeletons.

“Croak…I love grasshoppers…burp!”

The Gulf Coast toads have been busy in my feeder stock-tank the last few weeks…

…laying strings and floating mountains of toad spawn.  I always keep a close eye on the amount of toad spawn in my above ground stock tank pond after my “Primordial Soup” escapade a couple of years back. I still harbor night terrors from that episode and the flatulent machine I rented that was supposed to help alleviate the situation:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2008/08/primordial-soup/

And look…

A baby Jewels of Opar! (at least I think it is). Unfortunately it chose a really bad spot to germinate on one of my pathways, I will relocate it when it gets bigger. Considering how many seeds this plant sent out last year I have only seen three new plants so far and they are in wildly different areas of the Patch!

“All this talk of things eating things has made me hungry!”

(Watermelon courtesy of Pam at digging: http://www.penick.net/digging/). I think we can safely say this melon was a total hit with this “Harry” Pam! Needless to say a whole bunch of seeds came spluttering my way seconds after the shutter closed.

This one goes out to you…

“…your the Pam, your the Pam!” :-)

More tiny eggs are turning up on my Mexican lime tree that, incidentally is making a valiant growth effort after I had to take the wood-cutter’s axe to it after the winter freezes. The Giant Swallowtail butterflies swarm citrus trees, giving them their other common name: “Orange Dogs”. The larvae are bird dropping mimics, and retain this nasty presentation into maturity. Because of their camouflage, they can often be found feeding right out in the open on their host plants. I have a bunch of their larvae at various stages of excremental development…

Papilio cresphontes larva

Yes, not the most aesthetically pleasing of creatures I agree, but a very effective deterrent for any would-be predators, after all who would want to eat ….?

I bet Andrew would also love to get his chops into a few of these brightly colored caterpillars lined up on a skewer!  This is the strangely named Io moth caterpillar, I found it lurking in leaves under my ivy.

Automeris io

The feet are very animated.

The larvae start off orange and as they develop turn bright green. The caterpillars are covered in black-tipped spines that cause a lot of pain if touched. It is reported that the Naboo use these spines as poisoned blow-darts on occasion, but that is another story.  The spines have a poison that is released with the slightest touch. The green caterpillars have two lateral stripes, the upper one being red and the lower one white. When the caterpillars are ready, they spin a flimsy, cocoon made from a dark, coarse silk. Some larvae will crawl to the base of a tree and make their cocoons amongst leaf litter on the ground, while others will use living leaves to wrap their cocoons with. The leaves will turn brown and fall to the ground during autumn, taking the cocoons with them. Look at what they turn into!

Here are the adult moths female top, male below. (picture courtesy of Wikipedia).

Amazing looking nocturnal moths!

Equally amazing are the

Gulf Fritillary or Passion Butterflies that are now showing up in the Patch

Agraulis vanillae

It is orange with black markings on the tops of the wings. Underneath it has silvery white spots. This one being a lighter orange is a female.  I love the contrast topside to underside of these birds, they look like totally different butterflies. Plant a passionflower and watch them turn up!

Incredible coloration.

The Texas Spiny Lizard

Sceloporus olivaceus

is a common resident of most of Texas. It spends a great deal of time on fence posts and in trees like this one in my post oak, searching for food, but can be encountered on rocks or on the ground. This spiny lizard can grow to almost 1 foot in length!

Picture from Wikipedia: pretty fancy!

Colors and patterns typically serve to be adequate camouflage against the bark of trees in its chosen habitat.  Their scales have a distinctly spiny texture to them, and their long toes and sharp claws are suited to climbing.  I have seen more of these spiny lizards this year then I have ever seen before, not sure why?

Unlike anoles who appear to enjoy getting their faces into the camera, these spiny lizards are really easily spooked and extremely fast.  This one “galloped” away and up into my post oak before I could say…

“My beans are finally at the top of the poles, and flowering!”…Or…

“Lots of new growth on my purple hearts and fountain grass!”

The Patch is entering the dog days of summer once again,

my fingers are crossed for a more lenient one then last year.

For now the sun is setting in the Patch so I bid you a warm Walton’s goodnight.

“Night Jim Draco Bob, night Pam, night Jenny(s) (RR the kids loved doing the wooden puzzles), night Les, night Daphne, night Germi (it was great to meet you), night Linda, night Meredith, night Texas Deb, night Diana, night Laura, night Cheryl, night Katina, night Ellie…etc,etc.

Stay Tuned for:

“Shaken not Stirred”

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

Go England!

Check out the Patch write up at: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/greengarden/award_sanbernard.htm

Gross Post Alert!…Gross Post Alert!

The stench inside this cavern I cannot put into words, for fear of involuntary retching over my laptop keyboard once again just remembering it (mops side of mouth with Kleenex). It really was the most diabolical combination of fermented sweet and sour, and I am not talking about a kimchee – esque aroma, (which I love) oh no! Let me try and explain it, just to get you in the appropriate gag arena: Imagine a sickly sweet pumpkin pudding aroma, combined simply with fizzing rotten chicken (description courtesy of my oldest hobbit, minus the fizzing), it also had the texture of moist bread! (Burp… starts to look around worried).

This nasty cavern, (caverns being a popular post-topic recently in the Patch), was created as I started to examine this thing of immaculate beauty…

My largest

Colocasia

or giant elephant ear. Granted it is looking more like the painful stump of an elephant’s foot right now, but not for long, not for long at all!

I have left this tuber in the ground for the past four years, no problem, but this year’s prolonged cold winter temperatures had apparently taken their squishy toll. I prodded it, my hobbits prodded it, it started to ooze flesh, this could not be good. Then we all prodded it some more. Remember the infamous scene in poltergeist when the paranormal investigator started to touch his face, then proceeded to dig in his fingers and pull off his face?

Well that’s how we got started with this Taro…A prod led to a poke that led to a gouge that…

led to a push…

That led to the Taro finally “giving way” in a scene reminiscent of the horrible resuscitation scene from “The Thing”.

I think we all remember what disgusting “thing” happens next! I digress. When the head of the taro rolled back everyone recoiled and “ewwed” simultaneously, turning our faces away from the smell that hit us like a tsunami of flatulence. A stink horn is a terrible thing (right G?) http://thegerminatrix.com/?p=637 but this rank atrocity came pretty close as far as tickling ones stomach release valve.

“It’s just a rotten Taro ESP, nothing to be scared about”.

If you say so scary Kane! Brrrr

A couple of hours after the decapitation, I reluctantly revisited the carnage and found these tiny iridescent

Dolichopus

flies having a great time, their wings flicking back and forth in sick excitement.

These tiny, tiny flies are really interesting visually, looking like molten metal, their segmented bodies are really quite amazing. This one is about to make a left turn apparently.

Enough nastiness…

What!

Okay I promise that is it on the gross front…

Today was the day to move a rather large rock, a rock that has stayed where it fell from a truck that delivered a large delivery of decomposed granite some time ago.

The rock was wiggled and pried, rotated and shuffled down the slope until it came to rest and leveled in a more appropriate location…Thanks Bob at Draco! http://dracogardens.blogspot.com/ (and “PP” for the pry-bar and strategic leveling).

…right in front of my beautiful gas meter. While I was messing around in this part of the Patch I decided to relocate a plant or twelve, the agave and agave parryi var. truncata all coming from this container:

None of these plants were doing particularly well, buried in the shade of the vines that are slowly coming back into the land of the living.

This area took a real beating when the hole where the Tahoe hit http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/09/dude-wheres-my-car/ was being repaired, it received a lot of foot traffic and compaction as the house was repaired and repainted. Here it is the area planted up, the bed also has Mexican bush sage pushing through that will soften the scene and provide good contrast with the agave’s as they mature. The two silver Agave , known as Parry’s agave or mescal agave, are slow-growing agave’s native to Mexico (Sonora), hopefully these will reach their full potential in their new, more sun-loving home.

An old ceder carcass is added for a “Waltons” moment.

Now to wait for the scene to fill-in. There is also a line of tiny transplanted feather grasses in front of the moss boulders, well it wouldn’t be the Patch without them after all!

While all this transplanting and rock shuffling was going on, my Hobbits were being way..way too quite…

They had found my last trowel, (my favorite trowel has been missing for the last couple of weeks), I surmise that somehow it has found it’s way to “Davy Jones’ Locker“ at the bottom of my stock tank fish-pond. Mmm…Now I wonder who would do such a thing?

Apparently the hole was to house a pill bug and this snail, a few leaves were thrown in then the hole back filled.

The raggedy pram makes it into yet another shot. After the hole was filled in, my oldest hobbit went to the back garden to check on her new container garden that she has taken over as manager…

…and things seem to be growing very well. This is all hers!

Moving on…

Snail, cactus and verbena…

Here is the same purple verbena in full flight…

attracting once again the zombie / Thestral eyes of this swallowtail butterfly.

“I see the swallowtail too Harry”

Looking like a glittering harlequin’s hat, the blooms on this ghost plant are really quite involved… when you get up close.

This paper wasp is looking pretty sharp, color coordinated on the blooms of this gopher plant…

and my Mexican lime lives, it lives I tell you! This is the first bit of green it has developed at the base of the trunk. I knew she would pull through!

Tiny seed pods are now replacing the fading blooms of the mountain laurels.

The ESP is jumping further out of winter everyday, the survival of my Mexican lime tree and my Barbados cherry has made my week, even both of my dwarf bottle-brushes are steaming back to life. Although spring usually lasts a matter of hours in Central Texas, I plan to make the most of it…an iced turban will be in my future soon enough after all!

That little sotol in the middle of my circular bed is finally starting to develop a presence!

And finally:

I told you I was not finished with these four “nervous” daisies quite yet.

Inspirational Images of the week:

Anybody visiting Zilker Gardens in Austin last weekend for the plant festival, probably noticed this crazy Texas red bud specimen…

MacCrimmon’s Lament [Song]…Mac Umber

Stay Tuned for:

“If you Mock Orange Me, I’ll Satsum ya!”

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

Oh yes we remain gripped in a Harry Potter craze in the Patch, can you tell?

Only this time the craze requires copious amounts of Ibuprofen upon completion of a reenactment.

The latest, and repetitive request in the ESP is to be repeatedly “flown” around the decomposed granite pathways whilst “the flyer” is playing a strategic fantasy game of Quidditch. I call it  Rubbish Quidditch because apart from the obvious, there are no hoops to score a goal through, and my Nimbus 2000 broomstick does not seem to function like it does in the movies.

Unfortunately for us, this hobbit is getting to the size that this activity can give the parental unit an immediate hernia. It is ridiculous to watch though. See for yourself… Oh, and who said that the golden “snitch” is hard to catch, pah! – not in Rubbish Quidditch, it is the size of a gazing ball:

Music by the EastSidePatch Recording Studios, Austin, Texas. :-)

This player got a rogue bludger that knocked her out of the Quidditch field into this Variegated Pittosporum / Variegated Mock Orange. This shrub is about five years old, I keep it pruned up high.

Only another thirty five years to go until it hopefully turns into a monster like the one at Zilker Botanical Gardens.

This is a Pittosporum right?

“Raaarrgh”

Monsters, or “motners” as he calls them, are also not far behind Harry on the popularity scale, especially ones with strange hand shadows that is…

She found this sago stump in Zilker Botanical Gardens, here in Austin, I don’t even know what she had in her other hand, but she was having some eerie fun playing with her dinosaur claw shadows as you can see in the video, it really was quite effective, very film noir.

I love this ornate gate at Zilker.

Back in the now recuperating Patch…

It was time to access the true extent of the damage of the recent and continuous hard freezes we have experienced, damage that is only now showing its true devastating impact on our gardens. What was once a vibrant gerbera daisy is now a small and truly representative messenger of the damage the patch has endured. The frosts have hit a number of plants worse than others, though I think the damage looks worse than what it actually is (he says hopefully).  I am just happy that CTG did not film the Patch this week, though it would have been rather funny with Linda’s calming voice:  “ESP gardens with a keen eye for contrast, he loves the challenge of incorporating errr dead or decaying plants along side healthy ones and is never scared to adopt soft, decaying succulents in a mass planting scheme.”

My fingers are crossed for this Mexican lime tree that bore so much fruit this last year. The leaves, or what is left of them, are now looking like dead dragon scales. The trunk is still green so I think although it looks really bad, it will pull through.

All of my bamboos have taken a harsh cold beating also, here is my sad Buddhas Belly, looking as crispy as some Oscar Meyer’s bacon. Like the lime tree, the culms are still green which gives me some glimmer hope, hope that I do not share for my poor dwarf bottle brush shrub in the foreground of this picture.

Even my Giant timber foliage have turned a distinctive shade of silver, a first in the Patch.

My artemisia looking sufficiently “cool” with this winter sunlight hitting it. After the frosts and then all the rain it perked right back up.  I left it a little while longer then took a deep breath and walked to the shed to get my pruners. I hate to cut this plant back because it is like Jekyll and Hyde.  It looks fantastic most of the year until it comes to pruning time. I find that to get the desired look for most of the year you have to be quite brutal in the cut-back department a couple of times a year. When this plant gets leggy it really does get leggy and then it tries to hide the fact that it is even leggy at all.  The above mound of wormwood consists of a mere six plants.

“Oh yeah…Looking good now ESP”

I told you it was a Jekyll and Hyde plant, look at it now. I just won’t look this way for a few months until it fills back in!

Now what did I do with my blinkers?

Even the sago palms did not escape totally unharmed, Jack Frost picking off what he wanted.

“I will have THAT sago palm leaf, and THAT one…some of that, and a little bit of that, or my name is not Jack irritating Frost.”

The rosemary did not even flinch, this one seems to thrive on the cold, blooming, at least a little, once again right now.

I not sure this little plant was going to pull through, then it greened up with central new growth. Now if I could only identify it!  It is like a tiny sotol.

My ghost plants have shrunk back to the bare minimum, mostly stalk – very little plant, but they live, they live I tell you.

All the ivy has turned burgundy green, it really looks great at this time of year.

My pine-cone cactus fingers are now broken and appear to be pointing and gesturing as if they are trying to tell me something.

“Pssst..ESP,  treasure from the Black Pearl they be pointin’ too”!

“They better not be imitating my nose?

Finally, and I could not believe this early-year sunbather…

a winter dragon metaphorically hanging on for its’ life after the frosts.  This old man has one foot in the grave judging from his lackluster complexion and dull eyes. But here he his proving that warm weather life can still endure.  I have my fingers crossed for some life returning to all my warmer weather green dwellers in the spring.

Inspirational image of the week:

A word from the designer:

Stay Tuned for:

“Put the Petal to the metal”

All material © 2009 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by  late  (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.