“Ah, ha ha ha ha ha, look at your garden now ESP, even the ghost plants are dying…Ah, ha ha ha ha ha.”

Oh very funny Ernie.

Oh wait they have!

This used to be a proud stand of

Graptopetalum paraguayense, 

here it is in the good old days when we used to get rain:

and here they are now looking like the Fallen Trees at Tunguska:

Another one bites the dust…and another one down, another one down…blah,blah,blah,blah,dust.

From ghost plants to ghost ants…

Really, these are ghost ants, 

Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius)

they have clear abdomens and turn the color of whatever they eat.

Funky.

In Malaysia they are known as “corpse ants” because of the unpleasant odor they secrete when crushed.

There are an increasing amount of corpses down at the bottom of my garden, I am sad to say that my already large compost pile has got a little larger of late, especially considering that I only hand water once a week at this point,

a fact that this gopher plant did not seem to care for one little bit.

The cactus man even needs a little eye moisturizing lotion at this point, his pained expression summing up the summer.  I won’t even mention how the Botox Lady’s appearance has deteriorated in the heat….

Shocking, I know.

As you would expect, the cactus man and his family are weathering the dried up tide well.  Look at his head now…quite surreal.

It is interesting that his cousins located in my hell-strip appear a lot more stressed out than him…

…so much stress in fact, that veins are now standing out on the shrunken paddle heads.

It appears that even opuntia is not totally immune to the effects of our prolonged drought and our 2oooth consecutive days of above 120 degree temperatures…well that is how it feels. [Insert the general weather moaning you are accustomed to here].

Now this could make for a terrible camping accident.

Even this pine cone cactus seems to be conserving its energy, very little new growth this year.

Yucca and sotol are still looking good, they are the stars of the drought, though I have noticed some whitening of the leaves…it is not the weevil…it is not the weevil…it is n….

I rather like the new look.

This is one severely parched Patch. I really need a substantial nursery trip to fill in all my bare areas.

But I will wait, bide my time…

just a little longer, (drumming fingers) until our hot weather dissipates once and for all.

The front of the Patch has received only a couple of waterings over the last three or four heated months, a true testament to some extremely adapted-tough and native plants.  It has done relatively well with only my gaura and artemesia, oh and some blackfoot daisies and the odd loquat kicking the dried-up bucket (though I have not fully given up hope for my artemesia Powis Castle just yet).

On a lighter annoying note:

My Mexican feather grasses are looking really good now, especially flattened in front of one of those bare patches I mentioned.

 Oh and do not get me started on this mess again, this is only a weeks-worth of squirrel-nut debris…deep breath…and relax.

I recently came across these detailed illustrations by Si Scott Studios.…amazing detail:

Stay Tuned for:

“Counting Sheep”

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

Oh yes, we’re under starter’s-orders and we’re off to a very classy start…poor Ron, a mandrake looking root AND an elephant butt comparison shot. I am not sure which is scaring him most?

We have had yet another week of hot temperatures in central Texas in tandem with some ridiculous humidity. My belt buckle (in reaction to the latest install I am executing) retracted one notch by Friday and my already full laundry basket is now officially out of control, yes best keep pulling that face Ron, I do every time I have to shimmy by it.  It seems like the recent humidity has also triggered the Texas “barometer plant” to flush out its purple blooms all over town. Texas sage or…

Leucophyllum frutescens

also called purple sage, texas ranger, silverleaf, white sage, ash bush and sensia. Purple sage comes from shrublands on limestone slopes in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico.  This is one tough plant, it can face droughts, freezes, high winds, salt spray, hungry deer, and blazing heat and keep right on performing beautifully. It can also apparently make for a good container plant, though I have no personal experience with it in this capacity…do you?

The plant does have a tendency to get very large and leggy.  I keep both of mine trimmed extremely tight to promote a denser habit and I remove their lower branches for better form.

I grow other plants like Mexican bush sage and rosemary to obscure and detract from this plants lower ‘bare’ areas.

And when they do bloom their soft purple blooms…

all manner of insects take advantage. The flowers are really unusual looking set against the silver backdrop of the foliage.

Some major events happened this week in the Patch:

Training wheels came off…

…and we got a new addition to the family:

Mmm, not quite,

but I can see some similarities.

Meet Kumo.

Like me he has an infinity for Mexican feather grasses,

and he is keeping the halflings very, very busy. I cringe every time his dashes across my central bed which houses my barrel cactus.

Damianita

Compositae Chrysactinia mexicana

seems to thrive in the current furnace, as you can see it is already on its second wave of blooms. This is a great native evergreen plant with a low mounding growth, the plants aromatic foliage is also a deer and rabbit deterrent.

Bristly sunflowers have also started to unfurl and spring into action.

attracting their usual band of garden outlaws:

Sunflowers are sometimes planted as trap crops for Stink/leaffooted bugs, providing superior food plants for the bugs while also attracting their natural enemies.

Umbrellas in combination with a sprinkler have been novelty items this week. Okay if you insist – just one more insect. This one would be perfect for Halloween.

Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle,

Labidomera clivicollis

Interesting visitor considering I have no milkweed.  Does anyone have any experience with swamp milkweed here in Austin?  This beetle comes in a quite a few color variations and looks like a really large ladybug. If you are interested in insects, bugs, snakes etc you should most certainly check out the great photography in this fine Missouri blog:  http://mobugs.blogspot.com/

Life in my swamps and ponds has gone berserk of late. I thinned these water lilies out only a week ago and now look at them! They do make for fantastically nutritionally-rich compost bin fodder though, I am not complaining.

How they continue to fly like this never ceases to amaze me, though I can guess who is probably in charge of navigation.

Inspirational Image of the week:

Stay Tuned for:

“Oh Yucca”

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

(Minority Report spider robot swarm)

“I confirm 28 warm bodies… What do you think – four spiders, one per floor?”

“Let’s do eight – I gotta eat!”

Futuristic daddy long legs or harvestmen.

In the good old days it was believed if you killed a daddy long legs it would rain the next day (unless you live in central Texas, naturally).  Another rather implausible myth was that if this creature were picked up by seven of its eight legs, the free leg would point in the direction of lost cattle.

“But it really works m’ lord.”

“Baldrick, your brain is like the four headed, man-eating haddock fish beast of Aberdeen”
“In what way?”
“It doesn’t exist “

Harvestmen are fascinating creatures, the name Harvestmen comes from their being seen in late summer and fall at harvest time.  Although seen during the day they are primarily night prowlers and solitary in habit. I disturbed three or four in a brick pile, all of them took off for dark cover, but this one paused on a wood plank where I got a quick photo-shoot. The common name, daddy long legs, is also used (and often confused) with crane flies.  This creature is not even a spider but belongs to a large group of jointed animals with eight legs, known as the Opiliones, they do not spin webs or build nests and they also only have only two eyes like a human.

You can just make out an eye protruding from a small pedestal above its torso in this picture. Obviously the most striking feature of these creatures are its long legs which they also employ as a defense mechanism. Their legs detach easily from the body and will continue to twitch for quite some time after amputation, confusing and distracting a would-be predator.

This twitching continues because there is a pacemaker-like organ located in the ends of the first long segment of their legs. This “pacemaker” send signals via the nerves to the muscles to extend the leg and then the leg relaxes between signals…an ingenious mechanism.  Harvestmen are beneficial insects and have a wide ranging diet which includes, aphids, beetles, caterpillars, earthworms, flies, mites, small slugs, snails and spiders, and extends to fecal matter and fungi, (subtle knee rumblings).  After each meal it cleans each leg, drawing them, one at a time through its jaws. Brrr.

Quickly changing the topic…

Burgundy canna and rusted steelwork makes a great combination.  The Variegated Japanese pittosporum (left) is one of my favorite shrubs for shade / part shade.

Here it is getting hit with a sprinkler (mainly for the benefit of the loquats that are beginning to droop and brown with our lack of precipitation). I kept seeing these two little people darting here and there, in fact everywhere I moved the sprinkler.

Here they are, off the trail checking their maps under my Afghan Pine, a dangerous thing in the Patch.

The glass monocled cactus-man looked on with his most worried of expressions (with a hint of annoyance), his new crowning top paddles making him look more deranged then ever.

We had a carrot harvest this week and although they looked pretty good, I am sure an

would have been sweeter and much less bitter on the taste buds. What were they lacking? Did I leave them in the ground too long?

Another oddity this week courtesy of these datura seedpods:  what are the function of these hanging strands?

This bi-colored oxalis or commonly called shamrock plant is throwing out pink blooms right now.

The real Irish shamrock plant:

Trifolium dubium

is a clover relative and is tradititionally worn on the lapel on St Patrick’s Day.  There is an old practice of dunking the plant into the final drink of the night, and throwing the leaves over the left shoulder before knocking back the dregs of ‘Patrick’s Pot’.

Observed this week:

Pride of Barbados is once again on the rise and this

veiled butterfly iris is producing lots of blooms at the moment.

A broken gourd makes for an interesting impromptu headdress,

and the tiniest glimmer of life emerges from this potted sago.

Anole getting ready to plunge onto some prey.

And finally:

The royal Patch trumpets have been waking us up in full cry every morning this week before dawn.

Stay Tuned for:

“Spores”

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.