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.

I thought that I would start this post of with a cheerful yet strangely (in these days) controversial “how life started”, shortly before diving into significant amounts of death and continued moaning.

This little anole looks exactly how I feel.

This unfortunate chap was fried in the bottom of my “everything but the kitchen sink” rainwater collection “system”, which has been bone dry for quite some time, in fact it now functions more like a convection oven. I try and check for stray anoles in this tank as much as I can but this one slipped through my vigilance net apparently right onto the scorching galvanized steel griddle base, he did not stand a chance with our Austin temperatures currently comparable to the aftermath of  Mount Vesuvius’s eruption.

After hearing about some compost piles spontaneously combustion in our area this week…(yes that is how hot it is), I no longer venture close to mine, just in case. I know how much nitrogen is in there!

Maggie and Jim, (my neighbors on the other side from poor Ernie), recently emptied some greens into their compost barrel, it was a terrible affair.

This fatsia japonica also self-combusted this past week. I believe the reflected heat from the stock tank made it croak…all my other aralias are coping just fine.

There is still life at the base so my hopes are tentatively high for a full recovery, which is more than I can hope for from my feeder stock tank.

Shortly after topping up this sunken tank that I use to dechlorinate water before I siphon it into my main fish pond, I noticed that it was no longer retaining its contents.

On closer inspection I noticed that it had developed holes in the rust around its perimeter which is really annoying as now I have to dig it out and replace it.

It appears that our Austin tap water, will, over a few years, disintegrate galvanized steel stock tanks, well, that is my theory, any thoughts? My main pond, receiving predominately dechlorinated water is still devoid of any rust and subsequent degradation, it is eight years old and still going strong. This tank will spend its autumn years as another bog pond, well, can you have too many?

While I scurried around the tank hunting for the leak,

I came face to faces with these two gulf-coast toads under a lily pad.

In the heat of the midday sun even the small chain-link leaves on my pride of Barbados close up to reflect the suns deadly rays.

Here it is behind a stressed out sago, still it is not all doom and gloom…

…grasses, yucca, sages and laurels don’t seem to care about the weather. While I was in this neck of the Patch I decided I would replenish the protective ring of Diatomaceous Earth around the base of the soft leaf yucca, in case, along with everything else, it had dried-up and blown-away.

Everone knows that there is nothing soft about soft leaf yucca, and trying to apply a ring of very fine powder around the base of one, in a 111 degree temperatures, ranks up there on the arm stabbing annoyance scale with pruning sotols.

Arm Stabbing Annoyance Scale:

So what is this Diatomaceous Earth anyway?

It is fitting that we started with evolution, skeletons and lots of dead plants as Diatomaceous earth is actually made from fossilized water plants, specifically, unicellular algae-like plants called diatoms.  It is believed that 30 million years ago the diatoms built up into deep, chalky deposits of diatomite.

Here are some live ones from Antarctica: 

Photographer: Prof. Gordon T. Taylor, Stony Brook University
Credit: NSF Polar Programs

Photo: wikipedia:

The diatoms are mined and ground up to render a powder that looks and feels like talcum powder. It is a mineral based pesticide. The fine powder absorbs lipids from the waxy outer layer of insects’ exoskeletons, causing them to dehydrate and die.

I am using it to protect my agaves and yuccas from the terror that lies below the nose of the evil agave snout weevil, and so far it appears to be working.

I was really happy to find (in-between the puncture wounds and the foul language) that my yucca has had some babies, quadruplets in fact. These will be moved to new pastures as soon as my metal shovel cools down enough to be handled.

Moving on:

It arrived in a small UPS box that was eagerly ripped open like a Willy Wonka chocolate bar by some little hands, excitement was high with the prospect of discovering precious materials, gems and all manner of other imaginary bounties.

Their junior metal detector had finally arrived.  They wasted no time in getting out into the garden (as you can tell from his attire) and within minutes, armed with my garden trowel, dug out a penny.  Thus began a treasure hunting obsession and I am sure the demise of my decomposed granite pathways – good thing that I plan on replenishing them in the next few weeks.

It could only be a matter of time before the jackpot was hit, surely.

So far the prospectors have successfully found…

mm, not quite…

but it is treasure to them.

Inspirational (if rather odd) Image of the week:

This garden shower by Viteo is an upside down shower. You connect it to your garden hose and by stepping on it 4 meter high water jets cool you down.  I want these as weight activated stepping stones all the way down to my shed in preparation for next year’s summer…ahhh.

Stay Tuned for:

“ Flying Walnuts”

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

Echinacea…

the story book flower.

mother nature must have been hitting the datura hard when she dreamed up this plant.

She also did pretty good on the frosty white and tropical coloration of this butterfly iris (also known as Peacock Flower, Bicolor Iris, Evergreen Iris, Spanish Iris and African Iris, phew!):

Dietes bicolor

This little beetle was hiding under one of the plant’s veils.

This plant has been throwing out blooms for some time now…(full sun), it will be divided in the fall.

“uh oh!”

This “Man in Black” pulled up in one of the innocuous grey vehicles the other day, for some reason he kept inspecting the ground below my opuntia tree which is in full bloom right now.  As dusk fell he proceeded to venture deep inside the dangerous Naboo territories of my back garden.

I have absolutely no idea why.

“I knew it all along Scully, didn’t I tell you those Mexican gazing balls were in fact beacons”.

“We mean your species no croak…harm”.

FLASH!

Santolina is in top frosty form right now.  I always seem to worry about this plant at various times throughout the year, it gets leggy at times and occasionally browns in sections just to give me a scare. This slow growing plant requires some periodic pruning attention, but the results are well worth it. I need more of it.

Here is another one decorating a tree fern.

This evergreen wisteria

Milletia reticulata Benth

has more Gothic blooms on it this year then I have ever seen.  It is covered in these old-suit-in-the-back-of-the-closet purple smelling blooms.

I like it.  The heavy aroma fills up a good part of the Patch at this time of year. This plant, being the eldest always blooms first and it will keep on producing well into the summer, my other wisterias pick up the hard-to-describe smelling baton a little later.

I made the fatal mistake of planting this one on a metal support which it has consumed and is now proceeding to drag skyward…word of warning.

This beach vitex has almost made it half way round this stock tank, a couple more years should do it. It has also started to bloom.

This plant is a major problem in many coastal regions where it flourishes and smothers native plant species.

Polihale Beach, Kauai. Image by Forest & Kim Starr.

The same stock tank is also currently full of toad spawn,

wrapping the emerging water lilies shut…Madame Ganna Burrito.

Finally:

Feather grasses catching the breeze.

Gaura or aptly named “Whirling Butterflies”.

I am still trying to get to the bottom of these Datura seedpod strings that are touching the ground. What are they? Why are they there?

Stay Tuned for:

“Rikky Ikky Ivy”

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

I have recently posted about daddy long legs and tarantulas, so it was timely apt to find this colorful spider wasp this week at a client’s house, its abdomen and head matching these Mexican beach pebbles almost perfectly.

Genus:

Pepsis

or more commonly known as tarantula hawks or wasps.

This female (curved antenna) was stunning. (do not look at the mouth part, do not look at the mouth part, do not…) I dare you to zoom in…Brrr!

“Yes, yes, look at the mouth, look at the mouth, it has beautiful twitching mouth parts”.

Okay, that’s quite enough Jeff, how are the nails holding up by the way?

Females seek out tarantulas and their burrows, they then paralyze them and bury them in a burrow, laying a single egg in the spider’s abdomen. On hatching, the young larvae feed on the paralyzed spider, quite disgusting but extremely effective. These fearless wasps enter a tarantula’s burrow and may risk death in the ensuing fierce battle. The wasp usually wins even though the tarantula has poisonous fangs and is much larger than the wasp.  Tarantula hawks are also more benignly seen foraging for nectar on milkweed flowers.

This one may have had such a battle, one of its wings clearly bent out of shape.

Sorry Ron!

Back in the Patch:

Multi-colored cornflowers are putting on a good show this year,

and one of my favorites, jewels of Opar is once again putting out some multi-colored precious gems.

Talinum paniculatum

Foliage is also filling in nicely, hoja santa and fatsia Japonica make good companions with the Japonica providing winter interest and the hoja santa height in the summer months.

I witnessed the first dragonfly larvae and the first dragonflies this week,

The first flame skimmer found the best perch around my main pond, and it was determined not to move and give up its position,

even if it meant its wing-tips brushing my camera lens.  While I was quietly shooting this dragon there was suddenly a big splash on the other side of my inland sea oats, I peeped around and saw my neighbors cat once again flailing its way across my pond, the orchestra soared in, the Patch grackle hissed and danced, the cat was clambering desperately on top of my Madame Ganna Walska water lilies and generally causing total mayhem for a few seconds, a total Peter and the Wolf moment. Then all fell quiet once again.

This is one embarrassed feline that never seems to learn that fishing is a dangerous sport when precariously perched on the edge of a stock tank.

The pond is also entertaining tadpole hunts, she spends ages collecting and chatting to them.

Another self initiated science project in progress in the Patch involves a large garden snail and some carrots (I knew my carrots would come in useful for something other then for human consumption, which trust me, was not an option).  After we told her some time back about Gordon Ramsay preparing and eating his own snails out of his garden, she could not wait to give it a try.

The crazy culinary artist at work.

For the past few days she has been feeding her future ‘petite’ escargot dish with carrots to ensure that the snail was completely ahem, “cleaned out”.

She was delighted the other day to find that the snail’s number 2s were finally an orange color, oh yes it was a momentous occasion, the church bells were ringing, a small street parade etc, it was finally ready, and so was she, she took the snail indoors and then proceeded to…more on this escargot saga next week.

Finally:

Installment One:

I have just completed a design and install on top of Mount Bonnell in Austin, too big to cover in one post.

I have decided to break it up into a few installments like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, here is the first:

This was a most challenging project logistically a) it being on the top of Mount Bonnell with extremely tight access and steep grades for large trucks to circumnavigate b) below a couple inches of soil there was Mount Bonnell and an elaborate labyrinth of sprinkler pipes and low voltage lighting wires to avoid d) the design and install was on a tight schedule (just for a little added pressure!)

A sample of what was lurking below a thin layer of topsoil. This rock took me a half hour to extract…This one was actually deep enough that I could have planted on top of it but I decided the future night terrors would not be worth it: zzz..mumble…rock below…zzz…planted on top of it, roots sure to be stunted…(eyes fly open).

Oh no, it had to come out.

It started with a sketch, which matured into a plan highlighting the areas I was going to tackle in the allotted time frame. The major areas of focus were curbside and up around the house that had some overgrown plantings and structures that had been installed some years back and were now redundant or simply overgrown. My main intent was to provide structure and definition to these areas.

Before shot (bottom right) and rendering of one area of the proposed new design scheme. These chairs were never used by the home owners, the area was too far from the home and the seats were positioned on a downward slope of loose shingle. I found this rectangular intersection very odd with the more organic nature of the surrounding area and lines, my goal here was to naturalize the area.

Materials were cautiously delivered with trucks narrowly missing live oak limbs by centimeters, (a most stressful time). Large limestone boulders were maneuvered into position to function as a more naturalistic retaining wall and to level the grade for the future urn. Existing metal siding was removed naturally (thanks Bob) and the area was cleared out. With the opuntia now pruned up, decomposed granite went down, deep against the boulders, swallowing out up the slope.

Bricks were laid, the urn was positioned and plants planted, (prostrate rosemary and trailing lantanas). The urn references the Mediterranean architectural style of the house, the color matching the dark trim. The granite will also lighten in time as it dries out, matching the house color. The large limestone boulders now join up a few side planting beds turning once separate areas into one singular sweeping bed, the rear of which I planted with a line of needle palms.

Rhapidophyllum hystrix

These palms grow very well under live oaks and will get to about 6ft quite quickly if offered some additional irrigation. They are also very rugged and cold tolerant.

Here are the before and after renderings of the other two side beds:

Stay Tuned for:

“The Emperor’s New Tools”

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 supplemental: