Halloween was met once again in the Patch with a lot of enthusiasm, though it did require some last minute costume design decisions:

Was it to be Harry Potter this year?

Or perhaps a dandy pirate?

I even had an interview with a vampire on the actual night:

But the scariest thing that happened to me on Halloween happened during daylight hours while I was removing a big circular carpet of this dense groundcover.

Now everyone who is a regular reader to the Patch knows of my (ahem) “deep-rooted” hatred of Bermuda grass, but the removal of this Asian Jasmine

Trachelospermum asiaticum

offers up a myriad of spine-tingling horrors that makes Bermuda grass removal seem suddenly quite “tame”.

If left to its own devices this plant will cover very large areas in its quest to slowly but surely take over an unsuspecting property, the local neighborhood and eventually the world.

I read somewhere that you can even use a glyphosate product, half strength, over the top of it to control weeds and it will still be okay – though don’t hold me to this.

It will circumnavigate low walls and structures to crawl into adjacent areas to further spread it’s aggressive green wings.

It also has to be one of the most horrible plants to remove from a landscape, think roaches…roaches…and many more unmentionables, all lying-in-wait to run up your legs, get into your gloves and generally make you extremely paranoid. Think grown men dropping shovels and performing ridiculous sideways dances while frantically beating their legs with flailing arms.

(Note to self: Never ever wear those shorts with the ripped hem and the hanging-down bit of fabric whilst removing this groundcover again)

Oh yes, I had multiple phantom leg roaches, then a real one just had to run over my shoulder…brrr (involuntary sideways jaw movements followed by left knee elevation etc…etc).

I have developed a technique that aids the removal of this plant…digging it out does not work, pulling on it is futile, but slicing and rolling it back on itself like a carpet works quite well. It is by no means perfect or remotely pleasant, but it works better than anything else. This particular carpet removal had a couple of “what is that?” moments, first we uncovered a bunch of rib bones, yes rib bones, then this emerged from the dark undergrowth:

This was just a little too realistic at first glance.

The foot was followed by:

a furry toy masquerading as dead animal. The next time I have a large amount of this groundcover to remove?

I will be better prepared.

Halloween week would not be complete without some spiders, now would it?

And I naturally encountered quite a few lurking under the jasmine, and under rocks.

Lets get started with the plastic-looking woodlouse hunter,

Species Dysdera crocata

The “two-tone” look, with the abdomen much lighter than the cephalothorax, is really quite striking… (pushes up thick glasses on nose bridge, emits a tiny snort).

Woodlouse hunters are often seen in the autumn in basements and other cool areas of homes; presumably they are looking for winter shelter. These spiders have very large fangs which they use to pierce the armored bodies of woodlice and beetles.

Next on my shovel is a Wolf Spider –

Schizocosa avida

Wolf spiders are members of the family Lycosidae, from the Greek word “lycosa” meaning “wolf” as their method of hunting is to run down their prey. They are robust and agile hunters that rely on good eyesight, well, having eight of them arranged in three rows helps.

And last but not least, what I believe to be a velvety Black House Spider,

Badumna insignis

Okay, okay…I get the hint!

Moving On:

Mist flowers are the stars this week in the Patch, from the blues…

…to the fragrant, they are putting on a fine show right now and attracting a multitude of insects.

It is also the time of Celosia,

pampas grass,

and the Austin Celtic Festival:

A fallen warrior trying to impress a nonchalant maiden.

“My name IS William Wallace, now, go get me some Cotton Candy”!

I also want to shout out a big thanks to all my Austin blogging friends who showed up for the “Patch A GoGo” happy hour.

Finally, I would like to share a design that I have recently executed for the Mary Lee Foundation on South Lamar in Austin:

http://www.maryleefoundation.org/who-we-are/history/

I worked with a local architect Jiří Hájek from HÁJEK & Associates, Inc. and Steven Zack, the coordinator for the project from the foundation to develop a wish-list of design criteria for the space. The goal for the garden was to create an interesting, organic space that offers a variety of destination points with multiple ways to get to them. Seating and social gathering places are intrinsic to the final design. The scheme incorporates “character-areas” each offering a range of different visual and tactile experiences and stimuli.

Stay Tuned for:

“The Wheels of Change”

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

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.

agave parryi truncata

Still no rain, lots of dust, and a summer cold for me…there, moaning all done for this week’s post.

This sad little gulf coast toad looks exactly how I feel at this point in the drought, I gave him a good dowsing with the watering can and quickly got him into some shade. I have been noticing quite a few dead toads around lately. I think the damp shady places that they rely on during the day have, like everything else,

turned to dust under the death rays.

WARNING…WARNING…

…never attempt to extract giant timber bamboo unless under the supervision of an adult.

I have been putting this task off since last winter when this huge giant timber bamboo got hammered by our hard freezes. Although it was pushing up new culms I was not prepared to go through this mess again. No, there was only one thing for it.

This monster almost got the better of me, and I am very determined when it comes to extracting plants that need to be extracted.

It was the most stubborn root-ball I have ever had the displeasure of meeting.  I started to work around it with my heaviest pointed shovel but I could get no movement out of it at all, it was like concrete, it was horrible. As the pace and the sweat quickened, the cut culms began to look more and more like octopus suckers, clinging to the soil…pick axe, rockbar, pick axe, shovel and then naturally…

Snap!  The force and speed of this breakage had me pirouetting out over the cut culms, which in-turn had me stumbling uncontrollably (zombie-like) into the adjacent hoja santa plants which were already quite unhappy.

Shovel #2.

Half an our later and lots of other creaking from shovel #2 and I finally heard some popping, music to my ears…I had beached the whale.

 Just what I need, another bare patch in the patch.

Moving along:

Texas sage is once again offering up more false promises or rain.

 and the inland sea oats are now in full fall color.

Celosia is pretty scarce in the Patch this year, most of it just wilted away like greens in a warm salad, this stand is my final hope for seeds this fall. These plants have been receiving supplemental water from my neighbor who is working to keep his struggling post oak alive.

I did notice a big change in the light quality this week, I think the summer (if not the drought) is finally fading behind us…and good riddance.

Here are a couple of gross things to ponder…

relax, this one does not seek shelter in houses. This is a female

Arenivaga

(arena meaning sand and vagus meaning wandering)

It is a genus of sand cockroaches, what a primordial looking creature…brrr.

And this next one was taken on an iPhone by my wife:

Scutigera coleoptrata

or a house centipede.

They are secretive,very odd looking and move with strange darting motions, and because of this homeowners typically fear the house centipede. Should you come across this very shy creature you might very well be inclined to immediately take your slipper to it, but these are actually beneficial in your home since they rid you of other pests like spiders,bedbugs,termites,cockroaches silverfish,firebrats,carpet beetle larvae ants and other household arthropods.

I found this pest lurking under the bed,

Kuminus Fangstratus

a vicious nocturnal creature.

Finally:

Apart from the Texas Sages, oleander and my mist flowers are about the only thing that are both blooming and still looking good, talk about plants that can weather the storm (or in this case the lack of it).

These Poecilognathus – a kind of bee fly (Diptera: Bombyliidae) covered the pale blue blooms. (Thanks for the ID meredee)

As there is not much to do in the garden but wait, (and cut down dead bamboo). I decided this week to give my own pathways a quick replenishment of the golden soil.

I do this every few years as the granite degrades and packs down.

After a hard day’s work there is nothing better than playing the smurfs next to her now sleepy Kuminus Fangstratus.

Inspirational image of the week:

Car Part Sculptor by James Corbett.

James Corbett is a renowned eco friendly artist and is known to create awesome sculpture from waste auto parts.

http://www.jamescorbettart.com/default.html

Stay Tuned for:

“French Fork”

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

“Planetary surface topography now visible on main viewer captain.”

“Magnify…”

“More detail is now coming in sir, it appears that the planet’s surface has suffered major trauma, probably the result of a sustained hard freez…”

“Spock, this is the dead leaf of a frost-bitten agave Americana, isn’t it?  I should know, I just pruned one back on the hydroponic deck…look at my face!  And besides we are still in space-dock.”

“Your logic is of sound origin captain.”

I have not had too much luck with agaves of late it seems.

All of my mature Americana agaves will ultimately pull through, but I have lost a lot of younger ones in pots. Well hasn’t everyone?  I see the remains of their sad bodies drooped all over Austin like sad drunks – flopping over retainer walls, buckled over and grumbling nonsense in hell-strips, most should now be cut back to their short and curlies to stimulate new growth. As if the frost was not quite enough, I believe I have another, much “graver” agave issue…

Remember this Nazgûl?

Well things have got worse.

…the dreaded Agave Weevil.

“Why, you little…”

What started as small brown scratch marks last year, has turned into ominous black holes and now dark cavernous pits. This borer has gone to the center of the plant and the terminal damage has already been inflicted.

“Scyphophorus acupunctatus!”

This creature ultimately tunnels into the base and root system of the agave.  Adults chew into the lower leaves of agave and introduce a bacterial rot that is believed to be necessary for larval development.  They lay eggs into these holes and the larvae then burrow deep into the plant’s heart carrying the bacterial rot with them.

Image by: Machele White

Adults are dusty black weevils about an inch long, with a long snout, they do not have wings. The larvae are whitish grubs without legs.

To help prevent this from happening to you:

If you notice an adult innocently whistling and lurking around one of your agaves with it’s dark collar turned up, immediately apply diazinon granules to the soil around the base of your plants every two weeks mid-May through June. Remove and destroy infected plants as soon as damage is evident. Remove larvae and adults from the soil around the area where the plant was removed, and do not replant another agave in a hole where a plant has died from this borer, chances are it may happen again.

Moving more happily on:

One of the ESP’s “borrowed’ scenes.  I love the way the Texas red bud looks set against the contrasting foliage of Texas sabal major (with an understory planting of Texas sabal minor to continue the foliage theme all the way down to ground level) – a very tropical planting scheme, and one that is totally frost-proof.  The pink emerging blooms of the red bud are punched out set against this dark olive backdrop.

The tropical look is further enhanced by the use of decomposed granite that hints at a beach. This would make a stunning scene against a pool setting…note to self.

Everything is emerging fast with spring officially in the air,

even this tiny sotol in my circular bed seems to finally moving into it’s gangling adolescent phase. All manner of plants are popping up in here, some known, some volunteers and even some mysteries waiting to be solved.

“What is that pass-along plant from Bob at Draco gardens that is growing over that Texas holey rock to the south-east of the sotol Watson”?

“I believe it to be

phacelia congesta

or blue curls, it is a great plant with great blue flowers…

it is also a prolific seeder, usually found in large colonies”.

A great plant and easy to keep in check by pulling up the unwanted small plants.

My frost stripped satsuma is making a new and really fast foliage rally (as it always does), and my gopher plants, with their strange flower heads are once again showing-off.  These signs of spring in the Patch always coincide with our now annual family outing to the Sunshine Gardens plant sale, and this can only mean one thing, actually quite a few things…

…tomatoes, peppers, basil and fennel to name a few.  I knew that the soil from all of my dead aloes and agaves would go to a good home.

The milder weather also brings some of the years first flies:

and this one, that alighted on my wife’s knee was an absolute whopper…Brrr

Finally:

I will leave you with this front garden design that I am about to install for some very good friends of mine around the corner from the Patch in East Austin. The client wanted some ‘loose’ privacy from the street and to retain their existing pathways and eliminate their weedy grass, (I seem to be doing a lot of this of late). It is a low cost design scheme with the minimal of plants that packs a punch in all the appropriate places.

Before picture.

My goal here was to create loose privacy looking from the house to the street and to open up the entryway into the property to make it more inviting. The small existing pathway was visually widened by using gray shingle which complements the color scheme of the house, breaking up the linear pathways. Boulders were also chosen for their complimentary gray color with softening plant selections to integrate the gate and hardscaping. If you are thinking you have seen that gate before you are of course correct…it is the same as the one in the Patch, a prop from the “Spy Kids” movie.  These are the great folks that gave me it!

Oh just one last story:

A recent visit to the now famous sarcophagus restaurant yielded another priceless moment that almost rivaled the infamous “nose boulder” incident of last year http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/07/12865/ .

On entering the establishment, our usual family chair shuffle ensued with the accompanying condiment knocking over glitches, the shuffle moving each of us from one chair to another until we were all comfortable psychologically. All was relatively normal, a waitress came, took our order, our youngest played “Plants Vs Zombies” to keep him quiet before the food arrived, I looked on enviously…etc.  Suddenly my eldest decided that she needed to go to the rest room, she left the table and came back a while later with some interesting information that would normally not be shared in a dining environment, but she is six.

“Did you wash your hands?”

“Of Course”

“Everything Okay?”

“Muhhuh”…Oh, and there was a paper thingy on the door, it spelled…o..u..t..o..f..

“Order?”

Yes! (Accompanied with a how did you know? Look)

Is that the one you used?

“Yes, but the handle was broken and it was full of water, it was DISGUSTING!”

I really hope nobody from that restaurant ever finds this blog.

Stay Tuned for:

“The Evil Weevil”

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