Mexican Petunia

“I Decapitated a Gopher”

ESPatch Nov 5, 2010 15 comments

There has been lots of brightly colored things hovering and flying around the Patch this week,

most gravitated toward my fragrant mist flowers and celosia that are now in full bloom.

This is an adult male hover fly,

Allograpta obliqua (Say)

These tiny flies have a stunning metallic sheen and are expert fliers. They can hover and even fly backward, an ability possessed by very few insects other than syrphid flies and Gary Numan.

Eyes of the male are holoptic (eyes meet along the dorsal length of its head), those of the female are dichoptic (widely separated). This species may be recognized by the yellow thoracic stripes and abdominal cross-bands, very tribal. Another unusual visitor to the mist flowers this week was this

common checkered skipper,

Pyrgus communis

which gets its name from the checkerboard pattern on its wings. It has really coppery metallic wings, and vivid black and white stripes which appear both on its antennae and on the fringes along the outside edges of its front wings.

Oh just one more…this one was tucking into a salvia leucantha bloom.

While I was messing around in my mist flowers, concentrating and holding my breath as I do in an attempt to steady the camera lens, I heard a noise right next to me. I thought it was the Naboo but as my vision adjusted to the deep shadows I saw these two yellow eyes staring back up at me, the eyes were in an upward roll as it yawned…I was just not prepared!

This neighborhood cat scared me to death, I instinctively muttered a few colorful words out loud (as I always do when this sort of thing happens), followed by the obligatory quick glance behind me to see if anyone heard me. I have no idea why I keep doing this, there is never anybody there…ever, why would there be?

I am in the privacy of my own back garden, crawling around in the undergrowth after all…what was I expecting? To turn around and see a Garden Conservancy-esk crowd in a semi-circle behind me all pulling a shocked expression and shaking their disapproving heads? Ridiculous. The cat was lurking under the cover of these Mexican petunias that are planted in a buried tub to keep them somewhat at bay.

My celosia are also pulling their weight on the insect attractant front…

One of the many reasons I have so much celosia in the Patch is to attract insects, and this plant pulls in them all…bees, hummers, skippers and many more find the plant totally irresistible, including butterflies like this very regal looking monarch.

My Mike Meyers are getting quite large as the year wears on…

My Meyer lemons are slowly but surely ripening,

and a mouth watering candy apple has fully ripened on my dwarf Barbados cherry, oh yes it is all happening!

My artemis powis castle moat is also flowing quite nicely around my King Tut papyrus and canna stock tank, after our recent bit of rain.

But the best thing of all this week came as a gift for the Frank Lloyd Write Fairy House –

A small present was dropped off for my eldest, she was delighted to open it and discover a fairy, small wheel-barrow and watering can. She made quick work of finding just the right place for each artifact, propping up the wheelbarrow upside-down like she has seen me do countless times, she immediately filled up the tiny watering can from one of our stock tanks.

Are those real fairies? Thanks Rock Rose, http://wwwrockrose.blogspot.com/ she has been checking on the house every day after school,

every fairy grove needs some maidenhair ferns.

Now onto some real bodily swelling:

I have had a real ‘Carry On’ with my gopher plants this week,

Carry On…

euphorbia rigida

My gopher plants have been needing a good pruning back for quite some time. The euphorbia family name honors Euphorbus, physician to the King of Mauritania, who used the latex sap from the plant for medicinal purposes, rather then as a general flesh irritant.

I went on an impromptu pruning frenzy to decapitate these plants, cutting them back to where I could see new growth appearing at their base…

“Houston we have a problem”.

“Go ahead Buzz”.

“ESP is out there performing the maneuver…without his gloves on!

This plant’s pruning wounds leak a milky sap which can cause skin irritation on contact, I naturally had to find this out the hard way.

The itchy, welting rash lasted two days, then my daughter got it from clambering up the compost pile! An activity that I keep reiterating as a highly dangerous venture.

“I warned ye about that devil sap ESP”!

“Thanks for that old clever-clog, spinster”.

I met this old clever-clog spinster recently behind one of my giant timber bamboos, she is short on words but lives to offer obvious and really annoying after-the-fact advice. She told me in a croaky, party animal voice that she had submitted her INS paperwork to the Naboo, wiped the Botox Ladies dribble from the side of her mouth, and gave the mole touching, posing witches a hessian bucketful of the finest Gulf Coast Toads as a token offering…I suppose this means she is taking up permanent residency in the Patch? That’s just what I need, another “About the…” page to write that no-one will ever visit or read, right Bob? http://dracogardens.blogspot.com/

Other rather odd observations this week:

A rather unusual artichoke looking growth has formed on my fatsia japonica, is this the start of the flower head?

This caterpillar would be right at home on a coral reef,

…and this old loquat leaf looks like a satellite image of an arid mountain range.

Great tropical colors are still emanating from this canna lily that is almost finished for the year.

Pampas grass plumes catching Autumn breezes,

and a couple of Bobcats, acting very strangely, I hope they have not been at the datura again!

Fall in the Patch…I have many times.

I thought I would finish with a design I have been working up for a client who wanted some color proposals for their recently refurbished home as well as a design of their back yard. The rear landscaping has to incorporate a large swale that runs the entire width of the property. I created a step down deck to break up the linear edge of the house and introduced a meandering and naturalized dry creek bed to take care of the swale and make a feature out of it. Naturally I threw in a couple of Alphonse Karr bamboos in there to soften the edges of the scene to hide some utilities…

Here are some before and after images:

Stay Tuned for:

“Cannibal Nectar”

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“Raining Beetles”

ESPatch Sep 9, 2010 15 comments

This week in the Patch has been alive with the rather flatulent sounding flying antics of these large bumbling beetles. Loads of them. The short journey to my garden shed has had me ducking, hopping, and occasionally screaming like a young girl as these beasts of burden try to desperately control their flight paths, occasionally dive bombing me like blundering wildebeests on the wing. When navigational and flying skills were handed out, these Figeater beetles (also known as the green fruit beetle or fig beetle)…

Cotinis mutabilis

…apparently missed the entire meeting, they probably just got “turned around” and then distracted by a fig or peach tree on the way. I witnessed one hit into my back porch with such velocity, I swear I could hear the wind get knocked out of it…it audibly wheezed, gathered itself, before going on it’s random way in a kind of stunned, sideways flying fashion…“I’m alright, I’m alright…meant to do that…doing okay now.”

They have turned up this week in plague-like proportions. Figeater beetles are oftenconfused with the green June beetle ,their appearance is quite similar, but the green June beetle is smaller and as the name suggests they are generally witnessed earlier on in the year. To make identification even harder, the only possible geographical crossover of both species occurs right here in the state of Texas. It is a member of the scarab beetle family.

I rather like these blundering iridescent beetles, as do my kids who have been running around catching them in their butterfly net…and those legs and front pincer feet (top image, brr) are as formidable looking as this science fiction splitting datura seed pod…

I have a tray strategically situated under this “ready to hurl” spiny seed pod. What an amazing sight, there must be hundreds of seeds here ready to go “Blah” on my decomposed granite pathway. It is ridiculous that I now consult my wife…“do you think I have the tray positioned in the right place?’ We both look at the seed pod from various angles and position the tray accordingly…“left a bit, yes, right there”… until we agree. I have already planted out a lot of these seeds in my hellstrip.

It is like we are playing one of those skill cranes at Dave and Busters!

“Aye, look at her, she is about tae have a core dump ESP, she’s gonna blow!”

“Ach, ah canna’ believe yer using Scotty’s fake Scottish accent and vulgarities, instead of mine now ESP!”

Poor William.

With the forecast of bad weather on the horizon I thought I should go ahead and get some plants in the ground for one of my clients. I pulled into a nursery, got a bunch of plants and as I approached my trusted steed to load up, I noticed that something was not as it should be…

I have no idea how or when this hole in my window appeared…as if my pick up wasn’t red-neck enough already. It now looks completely ridiculous with dwarf miscanthus grasses poking out the side and a huge Buddah’s belly protruding five feet beyond my tailgate (asomewhat disheveled turban naturally completing the scene). What made the situation even worse was that every time I went over a bump…well exactly.

So how do I try to start to summarizewhat has happened this past week in central Texas? We went from scorching dry conditions…

…to hurricane Hermine, and Hermine was not going to be satisfied until she had packed a punch with lots and lots and lots of rain. Oh, and did she deliver!

Some areas around Austin ended up at around the 8″ mark at the end of a night and day of sustained heavy rains. My pathways turned into running streams. I could hear the spirals of the hurricane hit my metal roof in waves whilst I was lying in my bed grinning like an insane Cheshire cat.

With every wave of rain my grin widened.

The noise of the storm brought with it the sound of tiny scampering feet (non-feline) followed by the inevitable late night, rather poltergeist sounding…

“Mommy it’s here!”

This midnight wandering is always followed by some predictable groaning…“No, no, no…Go back to bed, its late”…shortly before everyone immediately ends up in our bed…(the ESP / Walton’s ‘norm in a storm’ reaction)!

When this happens, my five year old daughter transforms immediately into a rugby union scrum-half, she proceeds to take full-advantage of her luxurious (I’m in my parents bed) position and for no apparent reason proceeds to repeatedly kick me in the kidneys until I am teetering on the edge of my side of the bed, bruised, battered and curled into a submissive fetal position. It does not matter how I react or try to anticipate her abusive nocturnal habits, over (subconscious) time, she always has me in a check mate position (the edge of the bed) by approximately 4am. (A number that is ironically comparable to the strategic chess / body moves it usually takes her to get me there).

She is a Russian Master!…Paige Nosleepnifcofv.

Naturally this is perfect timing on her part to totally ensure that I break all natural biorhythms, ensuring, once again, complete sleep deprivation. The ‘quacking-goose’ I-phone alarm goes off at precisely the moment that I fall back to sleep…6:00am – kindergarten…Ahhh.

Back to the Patch…

This little chap (I believe it is some type of squirrel treefrog) was enjoying all the wet weather in the bottom of this toy bucket.

My Celosia on the other hand had buckled over onto the sidewalk in the soggy conditions. I placed a few large rocks at their bases to support them. I am hoping they will regain their composure as we dry up a little.

The returning and reflected sun hit this gazing ball perfectly, illuminating the underside of the leaves of my Mexican lime tree that has made a pretty decent return after I cut it back to the ground after last winter’s freezes.

This Mexican Petunia immediately responded to having its large underground container filled up with the wet stuff.

I will leave you all to contemplate this rather mysterious scene from my garden…

It looks like a bunch of tiny red light bulbs devouring some paper wasps wings?

Inspirational image of the week:

The balconies of the “Cactus House” apartment building in Rotterdam were designed to maximize outdoor gardening space for tenants. The splaying stack of slabs creates big terraces for gardening and the irregular shape allows sun to enter from multiple angles.

The cactus house reminds me of my pine cone cactus:

I have been meaning to do this for a while…