Oh come on…it could have been another episode of the  “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.”

Unfortunately this gulf coast Tiddalik that Kumo kindly decided to deposit in our saltillo hallway was not quite so lucky on the moisture front…

Bad Kumo!

I have been wondering why our postman has not been delivering our christmas cards of late!

Bad Kumo!

It has been a couple of crazy busy weeks in the Patch.  Between the highly polarized activities of moving large quantities of granite,Tejas black gravel and Christmas shopping, the strains of the festive period are beginning to show in us all.

Stockings have been hung,

the tree decorated, and now for the build-up to the big-day. This prolonged finger-drumming wait is taking its toll psychologically on the halflings:

“Is it Christmas tomorrow”?

No…

“Can we open our presents now”?

No…

“Is it Christmas tomorrow”?

No…

“Can we ope… Arrghh!

I decided it was time to pick satsumas before I completely lost my mind.

We only had two satsumas this year, they were huge and tasted thoroughly disgusting, their texture resembling potatoes more then fruit.

If my satsumas were potatoes then my pond filter cleaning was going to provide the gravy:

No wonder water was struggling to circulate through all of this, but I am not complaining, oh no, quite the opposite.

Whenever I clean this filter I harvest the finest sludge available to humanity.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2572458265/

I spread the gravy around the base of some lucky plants and trees with a maniacal grin on my face, to rot and wash down into the soil over the winter months. This has to be the best compost - 

fish excrement, mineral deposits, a pinch of salt and pepper and numerous other unmentionables all go into the complexity of this nutrient-rich soup.

Moving on:

Shock-pink celosia is putting on a gaudy winter display, I just hope enough of them will set seed to enable a harvest for next year.

Bees flood to this plant for a welcome mid-winter meal.

In stark contrast to the colorful celosia,

my hoja santa now bare a distinct resemblance to the Nazgû after the temperatures recently ducked to freezing, stripping the plants of their foliage.

Agave parryi would surely swing the balance of power in Middle Earth.

Another plant that is still putting on a good show is:

Podranea ricasoliana

This desert trumpet vine is attempting to completely engulf my neighbors wrought iron fence. Every time it makes contact with the ground, it takes root and forms another plant. Apart from the occasional bucket of water in the middle of August, this plant breezes through our tough and unpredictable central Texas weather.

Finally…

“Don’t tread on an ant he’s done nothing to you
There might come a day when he’s treading on you
Don’t tread on an ant you’ll end up black and blue
You cut off his head, legs come looking for you.”

It appears like I am in big trouble then…I cut down this dead limb on a mountain laurel at a clients house the other day and from the hole in the center rushed out hundreds of huge ants.  I had to wait a few minutes to allow the first few waves of workers to dissipate before venturing into the carnage with my camera.

Limbs, heads and torsos were strewn everywhere.

“Ach ESP, these things happun on the battlefield ye-ken…dunnai ye fret mun”.

These ants are

Camponotus sp.

workers feature greatly enlarged mandibular glands that run the entire length of the ant’s body. some species of Camponotus can release the contents of these glands suicidally, rupturing the ant’s body and spraying toxic substance from the head, which gives these species the common name “exploding ants.” The glue from the glands bursts out and immobilizes all nearby victims. I am so happy this did not happen to me, I could have been stuck out there for weeks.

Inspirational image of the week:

This week’s Inspirational image of the week comes from BERTHOLD haas who forges creative magic into rather large chunks of stone…

…In this case a carved limestone boulder fountain.

Stay Tuned for:

“Yule-Tidy all that up…Right?”

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

 Here is some new footage from over the summer and the latest score from the Neheughkian Quartet:

Merry Christmas from us all in the Patch!

After weeks of denial I knew it was time.

I ventured to my shed to get my murderous hook saw and immediately smelled the fear from all things living in the Patch. I grabbed the saw from a dimly lit corner of the shed and noticed some green “blood” caked to the teeth from the implement’s last tragic victim…I believe it was some mushy aloe.

I approached this bed accompanied with ranting and screams from the B. Lady: “Its ze veevled agave, he is going for ze agave everyone…didn’t I tell ze, didn’t I te…?”

This agave needed to come out before my weevil had more weevils that would inevitably consume the Patch and everyone in it.  I rolled down my sleeves, made peace with the plant and slowly started to amputate some of the lower limbs, not with the precision of a surgeon but more like:

Hey agaves are hard to cut!  With equally as many sinuous fibers – brrr.

After hacking off the lower limbs I dug out the agave and hauled it out onto a nearby pathway for a rather unpleasant and messy postmortem.

After the removal of a few more limbs I had opened a pathway to allow my saw to go through the heart of the plant.

Some frenzied sawing and facial expressions commenced.

I had a few brief conniptions as a result of a rather large and unknown brown spider that kept appearing then disappearing back into the middle of the plant. Then, as if on cue, I glimpsed what I had been looking for under one of the dismembered leaves.

“Stop it Vader! I already told you I will not pull your finger”!

I turned it upside-down and came face to face with the dreaded Darth Invader himself.

This was the culprit I had been searching for, the evil weevil…

Agave Snout Weevil

Scyphophorus acupunctatus

Many people believe that Agave americana is more susceptible to the weevil than other species, and may actually act as a weevil “magnet” to your garden however no agave may be totally immune to this evil weevil, even some species of Yucca have been attacked like Y. brevifolia and Y.elata.

Mary and Gary Irish suggest in their book: Agave,Yuccas and Related Plants: A Gardeners Guide (2000, Timber Press), that if one of your Agaves die from weevils, DON’T use its surviving pups in your landscape. Instead, try to locate pups or bulbils from an Agave that successfully flowered and may have had some genetic resistance to weevils and likely passed that resistance on to its offspring.

I did discover this poker-red chrysalis as I dug down where the agave came out, making sure I had not left any evils in the earth. I believe this to be a Mexican Tigermoth pupae:

Notarctia proxima

I put it back in the earth.

Going back to Agave americana for a moment:

The specimens that did survive the freezes have recently adopted another odd trait – the agave lean.   I suspect this can not be a good thing. I have wedged small boulders under a couple of them, but I fear the internal core rotting may worst than I initially anticipated, especially after I pushed on this one I have had for years in this container:

It wasn’t pretty…

…its head rolled over and a whole bunch of small flies flooded out of the stinking cavity.

The warmer weather has brought on insect hatches, the emergence of flies and the long dangly-leggy wasps that are now eagerly searching wooden decks and patios for suitable spaces to start new colonies. These wasps are causing some serious ducking mayhem on my back porch.

I try to set a good example, putting on a brave face as one comes straight at me a couple of feet above my head, but as its swinging legs get closer and closer I can feel my face starting to twitch, my arms wanting to manically flail around above my head…

I even let out a subtle audible noise the other day as one approached that strangely sounded very Hawaiian, it went something like “wha, ho-HAH”, the volume peaking with the end syllable and with the hanging legs of the wasp close enough to cast a shadow on my face.

This next creature caused my youngest halfling to face his own personal demons down at my main pond. I looked up after hearing his own audible conniption followed almost immediately by a retreating swagger away from the edge of the pond where he had witnessed the creatures, his hands moving in an erratic up and down motion against his chest. I shouted up the garden to him…“whats the matter”? he replied “there are spiders in the pond”…(he unfortunately hates spiders after prematurely witnessing the Harry Potter sequence)…naturally I had to investigate.

Water Striders live throughout North America. Water Strider is a common name for the Slender Water Bug. Its family is Gerridae. In Canada they call the Water Strider “Skater” and here in Texas they call them“Jesus bugs” (walking on water and all that)…and I had had a good spring hatch.

They are quite horrible giant-tick looking creatures, I can relate to his frantic over-reaction.

Moving on to green, a bit of brown, then greener ground again:

My beach vitex has recently sprouted new growth from a rather benign looking 6ft stem.

Even my little brown Barbados cherry has new growth breaking through:

I am so glad I waited before cutting this plant back to the ground.

The years first fresh canna leaves are pushing through…

and the sea oats are new and chartreuse.

Blue bonnets have started to bloom curbside, but the best thing that happened this week…

was the removal and hoisting up on the compost pile of this old pampas grass with only the minimal of lacerations.  I am getting pretty adept at taking these monsters down at this point,  (I am down to three now in the Patch). This plant was old and scraggly and besides I have been wanting a perimeter sabal texana for quite some time, it will create visual repetition down three adjacent back gardens.

I love the East Side.

A baby monster. Another one of these has also gone in at the front of the Patch.

Stay Tuned for:

“Swaying in the Tree-Tops”

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

I tickled this giant leopard moth

Ecpantheria scribonia

caterpillar into submission today with a feather, it screamed a tiny scream and thrashed it’s multiple legs,

before it submissively rolled into it’s customary protective posture, predominately displaying it’s brightly colored bands. Woolly bear or fuzzy bear caterpillars are often found in the fall and winter in Texas after they have left their food-plants in search of a dark and sheltered spot where they can hibernate as larvae for the winter, usually under a deep layer of leaves. When spring kicks in, these caterpillars will become active, feeding then fashioning cocoons out of silk and body hairs…

And what fine creatures these huge cocoons turn into…

The Great Leopard Moth.

Hypercompe scribonia

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The ESPatch has been very quiet of late, like it has had the wind knocked out of it with the recent harsh weather and is in a period of shock, denial and I hope complete recovery. Very few creatures are seen roaming the plains and I have witnessed distinct signs that the Naboo are once again heavily into their cannibalistic tendencies. Worst of all, the Botox lady has lost half her bottom lip to frost bite, she is totally devastated as you can imagine.

Remember this frozen scene?

These are my tropical Madame Ganna Walska water lilies, submersed under a rather thick layer of ice, not their preferred habitat of choice.

Oh yes, they came out the thaw looking a little shocked to say the least. While I pulled on the worst hit slushy pads, I happened to dislodge one of these sci-fi abominations…

“Number one, we need to try and establish communications…see what it wants, determine what its needs are”!

These very odd stems are affectionately known as, and casually referred to in the Patch nonchalantly as brains, as in…“Look dad, there is a brain!” “Oh yes, well spotted! 2 points for…” These reproductive lily pods rank up there as some of the strangest phenomena to grace the interior of the Patch pond, very primordial, and they never fail to induce a conniption when one unexpectedly decides to roll over the back of my hand. I cannot tell you how many times I have slapped and tore at my own hands when one accidentally alights on it.

Unwell, agaves.

Also looking very primordial right now are the remains of my agave americana.  The recent freezes really took a toll on these once magnificent plants. All of the foliage has been decimated but the singular vertical spike dictates that the plant’s core still is alive and kicking.  I trimmed back all of the soggy foliage to allow the plants to focus their energy on new foliage replenishment…these singular tusks, dotted all around the Patch look very odd, to say the least.

This one prematurely aged in the freezes.

At least the americana are doing better than my octopuses.

“Shaken, and most certainly stirred”.

No need for the gun here Roger! Out of all of the pups that I painstakingly planted from: http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2008/07/backyard-ocd/, very few have made it due to the last two years of harsh winter freezes.

I come across them dotted here and there, oozing onto the granite like beached mythical creatures.

Just when I thought that my Mexican lime tree could not get any brighter:

There is still some green in the branches so I am hoping I will not have to cut it back to the base like I did last year.

Even my satsuma is showing some strain this year, unheard of.

My Buddha’s Belly Bamboo also looks bad right now but it will quickly green-up come the spring’s warming temperatures.

On a brighter note…

all my small sedums breezed through the freeze with ease,

and the rising bluebonnets offer a visual reminder that color is once again around the corner. (Thanks Jenny).

And I am ready for spring.  My trusty steeds have been having quite the workout of late implementing this design scheme:

The front has been simply re-structured to match the new back aesthetic…

And the back has had a bit of a nip and a tuck…

…the back beds are now fully prepped and ready for planting. The circular feature is the future home of an Arizona ‘blue ice’ cypress, what else!  The two curved kidney beds will incorporate prostrate rosemary, a weaving line of bush sages and dotted dwarf miscanthus.

Last and most certainly not least:

Happy 6th Miss P. xxx

Stay Tuned for:

“Mad Birds and Englishmen”

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

Captain’s log…Winter Supplemental:

It is another world deep inside ice.

A temporary, volatile world trapped in space with cyclones, random leaves and dark cold skies.

Bubbles like frozen meteors, red matter…

are held suspended in the sky.

There is another world locked deep inside the ice, should you take the time to look.

Mr Tumnes? Mr Tumnes?

Oh, and with a bit of food coloring you can create your very own red hot meteors in the ice.

I just hope this poor sago will pull through better then the dinosaurs did when the last major one hit!  I have my doubts.

Stay Tuned for:

“A Day at the Races”

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