It is that time again…

…the time of cattails,

Typha latifolia

a little later than usual,

but the furry corn dogs are finally ready, and so were my halflings.

Cattail spells were cast on long wands, sending fluff floating high into the sky,

only to rain down into eyes,

and onto the end of long Anubis noses.

Next years crop of cattail wands is going to be a lot larger as I have now introduced another bog tank dedicated to this versatile marginal plant.

While all this activity was going on I decided to ignite a corn dog myself (as you do) to see just how good of a tinder these plants actually make.

This time I made sure I was not in close proximity to any of my ornamental grasses.

Moving along:

I checked on the two tiny plumosa ferns that I planted against my gate a few weeks back.

One has wasted no time climbing up the iron frame. These two plants will eventually cover and soften this arched gate,

like the entrance to a Hobbiton domicile…

well, that is the goal at least.

This plumosa in another part of the Patch has been strangling this Tikki torch for quite some time. I decided to unravel it,

then re-ravel it onto a more permanent structure.

My rosemary bushes are in full form at the moment, most of them are blooming or just about to.

Can you have too many?…

I know I have, and they are huge, great for an entryway.

Winter foliage color provided by a purple leaf sand cherry,

Prunus x cistena

and my ever-spreading desert trumpet vine, also known as Port St.John’s Creeper or Port St.John’s-klimop.

This vine looks great when most things don’t.

Just as she was making a new friend the hatchling’s rather large mother returned…

Hand sanitizer!

Finally:

Getting smoother now…

I am proud to announce that we have now entered the 3rd stage (pre-polishing) rock tumbling phase (snort), this phase apparently lasts between 7 and 10 days,

A little more enthusiasm is in order here Hermione?

Stay Tuned for:

“You Can’t Handle the Tooth”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Some rather exuberant New Years firework antics succeeded in igniting the same sago palm as last year, (somewhat of a tradition at this point).

This year, the pyrotechnics also successfully singed a few of my ornamental grasses:

Our “Grand Finale” firework that was placed ceremoniously and somewhat precariously on top of a bucket on top of a trashcan provided quite the spectacle. I was intending to take some pictures of it but the firework simultaneously ignited four of my Mexican feather grasses and had us grabbing buckets from my “everything but the kitchen sink” water collection “system” to extinguish the fires before they reached the Barbados cherry and butterfly iris.

I will keep an eye on these blackened grasses, they may respond well to the singeing.

An exciting week this week in the Patch…

…yes folks, snort, I am proud to announce 

that we have finally moved onto the “medium-fine” silicon carbide abrasive rock tumbling phase,

though not before she had another sneak-peek at the now shiny rocks.

Next week the polishing process begins,

I am already having difficulty sleeping in anticipation.

Moving more honestly on:

Now here is a strange thing:

I have been trying to figure out what these pine-cone cacti reminded me of for a long time.

Tephrocatus articulatus var. diadematus

This week if finally dawned on me, and it was very obscure.

It was the poor maintenance robot in the film AI that was destroyed in the Flesh Fair!…Phew, now I can sleep soundly once again,

Or can I?

As you may know, I have been trying to protect my soft leaf yuccas from the horrors of the

“evil weevil”

by administering copious amounts of diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the base of the plants, it appears to be working.

Unfortunately my yuccas have now developed another issue,

and it isn’t pretty. Several fungi, including Cercospora, Cylindrosporium, and Coniothyrium may cause leaf spotting like this in yuccas but thankfully they do not cause the widespread death of leaves.

I am sure this one contracted the yucca equivalent of the “Phage”  in the summer months when it received some overhead watering…remove affected leaves and discard.

This week has had me and my (in-house) pajama crew cleaning up insane amounts of leaves.

We gathered them up in buckets, transferred them to trashcans and piled them up wherever we could find space. I hate picking up leaves.

One personal pet peeve is cleaning out the hearts of the sagos,

this activity ranks on my irritation scale at a steady 9.5

It is really nice to have my pathways clear once again though.

Finally:

King Tut papyrus is still holding up well in one of my stock-tanks,

not bad form for January.

Rosemary is also doing a great winter job,

feeding the honey bees,

with it’s tiny flowers.

Sweet peas are on the boil,

and pink shrimps are ready for the barbie,

and my artemesia is once again looking healthy.

Driving around the Mueller area the other day, I saw this:

I initially thought these were dwarf conifers. When I realized it was in fact gray santolina or lavender cotton, I swung my steed around and snapped these shots.

Santolina chamaecyparissus

It reminds me of Scottish “heather” in a mass-planting like this. I will try and get some shots of it in bloom next summer…if I remember.

Photograph: Linda Engstrom

And to finish I am happy to report that Kumo is making a speedy recovery after his stomach surgery.

He is now stumbling and walking into things wearing his

collar of shame. 

Talking of dwarf conifers…

Inspirational image of the week:

Photograph from Foxhollow Garden, Dorset, England.

Stay Tuned for:

“Igniting the Cattails”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Finally Christmas!

This pyramid candle really helped to bridge the long wait for Christmas having tiny gifts embedded into it. The prospect of retrieving some “Pharaoh’s treasure” fueled her imagination for hours…okay 4.5 minutes.

“Daddy? How long do candles take to burn?”

“Hmmph?…Zzzz”

The first eardrum shattering 7am squeals started when they both ripped open some junior golf clubs from their grandparents in Scotland.

She could not wait to try them out on the range a couple of days later.

He got a retro post-apocalyptic phaser,

that made the most annoying obnoxious sounds imaginable. (The psychologically damaging part of the holidays)

What was I thinking? Oh yes…cool design.

This made him very happy.

She got her…

La La Loopsie doll,

a not-so-Easy Bake oven,

and her long awaited rock tumbler that has been tumbling a bunch of rocks since Christmas day. It takes a month to turn sharp raw stones into polished gems.

We took a sneak peak at them five days into the coarse abrasive phase (naturally), and already the stones were significantly smoother.

Even Kumo got a prime steak chop on Christmas day!

He devoured most of it before frantically running around with a really desperate expression on his face, looking for a place to bury the remainder.  For dessert he apparently opted for a large chunk of plastic attached to a string, this gastronomic episode sadly landed him in hospital requiring an hour-long stomach operation.

Poor Kumo.

He is still in the hospital and doing a little better, we all have our fingers crossed that he will pull through and make a full recovery.

Moving Sadly On:

Rosemary is looking particularly healthy and festive after finally getting some rain,

and so are the weeds. This green clump seemed to spring up overnight.

I planted a couple more Plumosa Ferns at the base of my steel gate a few weeks back,

and they have almost doubled in size with the recent moisture.

A visually frosty and festive scene courtesy of a neighbors China-berry and my Blue Ice cypress

Cuppressus arizonica var. glabra ‘Blue Ice’

And now we are having clear crisp days,

days perfect for…

lighting large fires with my new

“Bear” knife and magnesium striker.

Fires that keep the wild ESP cats at bay.

It has been a busy two weeks off school for the halflings,

I immediately got them to work on gathering seeds from this year’s rather poor crop of celosia.

It is tedious work but the challenge of getting the emptied husks into a bucket on the floor helped relieve the monotony, or so I thought.

“I am Sooo tired of shelling celosia”?

“Me too sis, I am ready to annoy everyone with my phaser again”.

Hey you two…did I say we were on a break?!

Finally:

A new “visitor” dropped into the Patch pond cypress tree this week…

Oh stop it!…It is an owl…just an owl!

Stay Tuned for:

“Just Leaf it Alone”

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

Happy New Year from us all in the Patch!

River Walk : San Antonio

And have a great “Bells” to all my family and friends in the Scottish borders:

“I Think I Jinxed Myself” should perhaps be a more fitting title for this particular post!  Little did I know when I titled this post last week that I would a) wake up to a flat tire on my trusty steed b) end up having to buy a “new” tire c) find out a few hours later that the “new” tire also had a hole in it, and d) have to replace the “new” tire with another new “new” tire.

“The Wheels of Change” indeed.

Things are changing finally in Central Texas, nighttime temperatures are now occasionally dipping, something

my opuntia tree seems to be enjoying.

I have been hacking at this one’s lower limbs for quite some time to get it shaped up into a more vertical stature…

…it bares the cauterized war wounds of many an ancient battle with my trusty hook saw.

It does not matter how much you hack at this little asparagus fern, (which, like a lot of others, is not actually a true fern)

Asparagus setaceus / Asparagus plumosus

or Plumosa Fern

it always comes back.

Don’t be fooled by this fern’s delicate disposition, it is as hard as nails and tolerates anything the Texas weather throws at it. You can let it creep around other plants like I now do to offer contrast to broader leaf plants like this burgundy canna lily, (a pairing that works very well together) or you can be a little more ambitious with it as I was some years ago…

I planted two tiny plants against these bamboo poles, a couple of years later they resembled conifers.  The plant will grow in full sun to shade and it will spread, so watch out where you plant it.  It is also toxic and has thorns but other than that I personally like it. It would work really well if left to its own devices to climb over ornamental gates etc.
The onset of all my fragrant mist flowers and my

Barbados cherry blooming has created an eruption of these tiny sryphid flies in the Patch:

Allograpta obliqua

These aphid consuming, beneficial little hover flies are all over the place at the moment,

Also still blooming are the fall asters,

yellowbells,

and this shiny little ice plant that receded to almost nothing this summer but is quickly returning from between the rocks.

Moving On:

Remember my flatulent stock tank that burped and threw up on me last March? My halflings affectionately refer to this particular tank as “the poop-pond” due to it having Dillo Dirt in it.

I planted it up with small clumps of horsetail reed and threw in a couple of dwarf papyrus for good measure and said “let the battle begin”.

Eight months later and it has exploded, filling the entire tank. I would say this battle is well under way with perhaps the dwarf papyrus having the slight advantage.
Finally…

a front make-over:

Large sweeping pathways were created around both sides of this house for functional access and to visually draw attention to, and emphasize the grand entryway of the property.

Lots of Asiatic jasmine ground cover was removed (stay calm, stay calm, deep breaths, (subtle knee murmur)) along with the existing shrubbery that was getting rather long in the tooth.

In its place came a weed suppressed base of grey Tejas black gravel and a fresh new planting scheme, heavy on the prostate rosemary to cascade over the elevated retainer wall, the intent being something like this:

A mass-planting of bamboo muhly softens the edges of the walkway and more burgundy cannas are used in sunken stock tanks next to the entryway to pick up on the house trim color.

Stay Tuned for:

“Poking around the Pokeweed”

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