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.

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.

I woke up this weekend morning like I always do…

Oh I don’t think so!…

Yes, that’s a little more like it!

I rolled over for a few more minutes of hobbitless blissful slumber, then something slowly started to creep quietly into my subconsciousness, something that immediately started to niggle at my quiet dream-state psyche, but what was it?  The niggle turned into some obligatory mouth forming of some “sleep-words” that apparently became grumblings that quickly mutated into a full-fledged nightmarish scream… “uuuuhhhh?…Noooooooo!”

“HELL-STRIP ESP? …You’re Not Done Soldier!”

Ahhhh!

One sleep-deprived bloodshot eye reluctantly snapped open, followed by a deep sense of digging foreboding,  for I now knew exactly what was in-store for me again today…yes, more digging in the now only semi-softened Hell-Strip in the Patch.

Oh who am I kidding?  I jumped out of bed with a smile on my face whistling for some reason the theme tune from “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, (perhaps in memory of some hard summer pick-axing I had performed in the same area last year before giving up)?

After a typically British breakfast of clogged arteries champions, and yet another mild (not had one of these since my Scotland trip) cardiac twinges, I felt fighting fit and ready for some Hell-Strip action.

“Yeah, Baby, Yeah!”

Here it is in all it’s compacted, weedy and irritatingly mounded glory.

I had a distinct sense of Déjà vu as I started nibbling away in the first corner. This side of the hell strip was a lot different in character then the one I gnawed out last weekend, this side was stodgy, heavy, black and clay-like. The clay would keep sticking to my shovel, which is heavy at the best of times, being of an all steel construction (anything else I snap in seconds, sometimes before I even leave the store), and my boots?..By the time I had finished this little triangle I was an inch taller! I slowly realized this was not going to be an afternoon job like the previous side of the hell strip.

“What a piece of work is a hell-strip, how un-noble in the weedy season,
how lacking in aesthetic faculties, in form and moving,
how dull and unadmirable in compaction, how like an … etc.etc.

My day laborers naturally joined me on the construction site armed with a bowl of milk to attract a neighborhood cat…that took about five minutes.  I welcomed the distraction.  And the digging and hacking continued.

The opuntia tree received a bit of an early pruning to allow me better access around it to my wheelbarrow. This is one of the few sago palms that escaped relatively “un-browned” through our freezing temperatures this year.  I think the opuntia acted like an umbrella protecting it.

If you are wondering what the mad color scheme is on our front door?  Well…

the pink fairy paid us a visit this week and granted us one wish…we decided that our old house needed a new lick of paint.

“Did he say the Blue Fairy Joe”?

“I don’t think so David.”

I think she wanted a wish that was a little more errr “magical?’

And the mounds continued to grow and grow.  There is another very peculiar law of physics that exist when digging out the earth in a hell-strip. As soon as it is lifted out of the strip, it apparently instantly doubles in mass.  In no time at all, I found I was quickly running out of areas to put it, the solution?  Some creative moundage around my front garden…perfect!  What started out as a “clean out the hell-strip” project had quickily morphed into full-on reconstructive surgery on my entire front of house…needless to say, my grinning at this point was beginning to take on “Here’s Johnny” (The Shining) proportions. Everyone ran into the house.

And the digging and hacking intensified.

I excavated this…

And dug out this…

This retainer wall has always disturbed me, with it’s straight lines mirroring the sidewalk, oh no, this had no place in my fluid master plan.

“Ach, ESP!  That wall was the only thing keeping the English oot! I canna believe ye wud knock doon the”…

Oh shut your pie-hole William.

The base of this mound is going to have an arc of moss boulders to replace the demolished straight wall, and the mounds will be covered in a good layer of decomposed granite before planting. The curves, even at this stage, create much more visual movement to the once static scene…if it will only stop looking less like a construction site!

Now, where did I leave the Aleve from last weekend?

In the Patch this week…

New growth in the pond, spring is knocking.

Blossom on a Meyer Lemon making the back-deck smell like spring.

Loquats forging ahead…

…and these strange holes have formed on my pine-cone cactus…are those eyes in there?  Brrrr… (back violently spasms followed my a series of small, almost comical, right knee movements).

Nessy emerging from the murky depths of my feeder pond for it’s annual scrubbing.

Inspirational “Concept” of the week:

In the designers words…

“Books are always considered as static objects in people’s mind, transferring through words, pictures and imagination they produce. To break this traditional impression, I embed some industrial design elements in this prose florilegium which name is “book on life”. People can plant whatever they like in the left side of the book, they should care for it and watch it grow. During this process readers do not only learn the meaning of life but they create life themselves. 8 small LED lights are fixed on the bottom of the plants, in the evening the book can be turned on to become a lamp with the unique light reflect from the leaves”.

Designer: Eric Zhang

Stay Tuned for:

“Planes, Trains and North Sea Ferries”

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

P5SXJNTD7VF7

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you”…

Closed

We often see them as we dig the ground… they are the charmers of children, these animated little martian probes.  Follow me on my nerdy journey (snorts) to find out a little more about these “Bakugans” of the insect realm.

The pill bug is the only crustacean ( lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and water fleas), that can spend its entire life on land, and I saw loads of them as I did my main leaf clean up in the Patch, to get it ready for the spring.

Some species of woodlouse in the genus Armadillidium are able to roll into an almost perfect sphere (hence the name pill bug) when threatened by predators, leaving only their armored back exposed. This ability, explains many of the woodlouse’s common names, names like pill bug,  roly-poly, armadillo bug, cheeselog, cheesy bug, doodlebug, potato bug, sow bug, roll up bug, chuggy pig or chucky pig, slater, gramersow and wood bug.

Woodlice need moisture because they breathe through gills, that’s right folks I said gills (right knee hits chin three times then immediately locks straight for three consecutive days).  This explains why you always fine them in damp dark places in the garden such as under rocks, logs and leaves. What an effective design…

Leg peeping out

Cylisticus convexus

They are usually nocturnal, and may venture over considerable distances during the night. On humid evenings, they can often be seen in large numbers with the help of a flashlight. They feed mostly on dead plant matter, although they have been known to feed on cultivated plants, such as ripening strawberries and tender seedlings. Woodlice then recycle the nutrients back into the soil. Pillbugs form an important component of the larger decomposer fauna, along with earthworms, snails, and millipedes. All of these animals return organic matter to the soil where it is further digested by fungi and bacteria, hence making nitrates, phosphates, and other vital nutrients available to plants. Although they may occasionally feed on roots, pillbugs do minimal damage to live vegetation and should not be regarded as pests.

Buckled over laughing…

A complete conniption!

“Man that feels better”

Picture curtesy of  http://www.backyardnature.net

The woodlouse has a shell-like exoskeleton, (also called the cuticle) which it must progressively shed as it grows.  The moult takes place in two stages-the back half is lost first, followed two or three days later by the front.

This photograph was taken as I freaked out as it climbed over my fingers after righting itself.

Pillbugs are also of importance in sites such as coal spoils and slag heaps, which face heavy metal contamination. They are capable of taking in heavy metals such as copper, zinc, lead and cadmium and crystallize these out as spherical deposits in the midgut. In this way, they remove many of the toxic metal ions from the soil, promoting the restoration of contaminated sites by accelerating topsoil formation. This in turn favors the establishment of plants that stabilize the soils by root formation. Stabilized soils reduce problems of toxic dusts and the leaching of metal ions into the ground water. Who would have thought these little guys in their own little way are doing something for the bigger cause!

Most pill bugs live for up to two years.

Moving on…

The Winter Garden taken from up the rotten Post Oak ladder. (A Darwin award waiting to happen)… “Man tragically dies in attempt to obtain shot for garden blog post.”

Here is the Patch after the leaf and general clean up, all ready for the spring. You can really see the bamboo damage from the last cold snap. The hardscaping really becomes visible at this time of year, taking center stage from the plants for a change.

This clean-up was expedited due to the fact that I had twenty four hours before the local scouts for the Garden Conservancy Tour were to set foot in the Patch (Thanks Linda).  The ESP is to be on the 2010 tour in Austin in October.

Looking back the other way, look at that sago palm damage!  And more bamboo damage (top left / right).

Other slightly out of focus photos this week…

A Snail Haven… (Ahem)

Painted yellow margin on an Agave Americana.

Inspirational image of the week:

Stay Tuned for:

“Journey to the Center of the Patch”

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