ESPatch

"Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive."

ESPatch Jan 29, 2009 0 comments

Brrrrrrrr!
Well, the cold weather finally
made it here to Central Texas this past week.

It was so cold the other night it completely froze my bubble fountain!
Okay, so it wasn’t that cold, but in these shots of bubbling water the
camera does make the “bubbling” appear more like solid ice.
Can you spot the gorilla in the second image?
(Thanks sandowl).

Even my pond toad looks like he is cold. Either that or he is
having a heart attack. I hope he dosn’t ‘croak’ (ahem).

Staying with the pond for one moment:
Remember in my earlier post about cattails, more specifically, when they drained this pond to within a few inches? Well, can you believe it, they are at it once again!
I decided to leave a couple of the green stalks standing when I performed my last documented cattail cull – big mistake. This was the scene when I walked outside today. The stalk hanging over the pond was yet again lying horizontally and dangerously close to the water spout. Ground Hog day!
I got lucky this time, now where are my rubbish, and I do mean rubbish clippers?

And now for a plant with a name fitting for this recent cold snap…

Delosperma ‘sesotho pink’
or ‘Trailing Ice Plant’ situated in front of my “holey” rocks. (Vs 5-11).

Ice plant is a sparkling evergreen succulent from South Africa. One of the most drought resistant plants, in CA it is often planted along roadsides where it is fire retardant and an excellent soil binder. It takes the Texas heat well and needs very little water to keep looking good. The flowers are the most brilliant aspect of this plant, with the production of a great quantity of abundant and long-lasting magenta flowers that will cover a large area, hence the popular name “pink carpet”. . .roll on the spring!
I forgot to add – it is also attracts butterflies!

Picture from:
www.landscapedesignbymjm.com/plants.html

This Malephora ‘Red Rum’ (also an ice plant)
is in full bloom right now and spreading out nicely in my new middle bed. These two plants were
labeled the same but clearly have different petal shapes and hues.

Some more reds…

Now these will warm your cockles if eaten raw on a cold winters night. We have had a constant supply of these cayenne peppers over the last few months. They are also a great test of patience for young children…
“no, you have to wait for it to turn red, then you can pick it”.
(Repeat every day, five times a day, until the pepper turns red).

Looking like a vibrant orange jelly bean, this ornamental pepper is also still packing a punch in the heart of the winter.

Warning!
The next segment contains a human being devouring some raw zebra meat, be warned…continue at your own risk…

I have an agave under my Vitex tree in my front yard that has now got inch long spikes on it. I usually don’t worry about these needles as most of my agaves are in a bed that is strictly out of bounds and enclosed by moss boulders. This one is in the open, this one is at the exact eye level of my youngest, this one is going to get snipped. As I was going around this plant with my rubbish pruners, attempting to snip off the sharp needles, I remembered watching an episode of Bear Grylls http://www.beargrylls.com/ teaching some of his survival skills. The two images above are the remains of the tip of the agave after I had ripped out the needle from it’s base then pulled. I could feel the fibres releasing from deep within the leaf, it felt rather like small tendons snapping. Why am I doing this you ask?

Talking of tendons snapping…

(What? I did warn you) …here is Mr Grylls ‘fine dining’
in one of his favorite eateries! Brrrr!

Well If you should find yourself stranded in the wild, in an environment which is capable of growing Agave plants, this little survival tip may save your life, but I very much doubt it. Anyway I decided to give this a try, and I don’t mean eating rather tough parts of a decaying zebra. (Some more ‘Brrrring’ followed by an involuntary knee jerk).

Lecter: What became of your lamb err..zebra, Mr Grylls?
Bear Grylls: I ate it.
Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? Wake up
in the dark and wonder why you would devour such a thing on public TV?
Bear Grylls: No.

Here is a close up of the agave “needle” and here it is with the thread attached. I think I could get double this about of thread if I was more careful during the ‘extraction phase’. The thread was still very green and fresh so I decided to let it dry out a day or two…

Here is the end result; natures very own, and extremely strong needle and thread, even better the thread is already attached to the needle…no more fidgeting or good eyesight required.
It is probably a little large and thick for most modern garments, but hey, if your favorite attire is say a medieval tunic, or a hessian sack with a couple of holes cut out for your arms, you would be hard pressed to beat it for general darning purposes.

You could even perform some rudimentary stitching of wounds with it…

Look at these arteries on some decaying leaves on my shrimp plant. “Yes, Yes!”
Justicia brandegeana is native to Mexico.
It is often grown in tropical and subtropical gardens, and has escaped cultivation
and naturalized in peninsular Florida.

Here is a shrimp bloom shortly before I skewered it and threw it on the barbie. After
taking these shots I finally chopped the now 4ft leggy stalks back to the ground to
allow the plant to gather some energy for next years langoustine harvest. And why do
I hate my brand new pruners?
Well look at them now:

I had to put tape on the locking mechanism to stop it engaging every time I squeezed the handles together, aargghh, so irritating.
Now, because they are always in the open position they are no longer ‘pocketable’ for fear of them pruning something I most definitely don’t want pruned.

My first baby gophers are beginning to emerge, break out the cigars:

Gopher plant Euphorbia biglandulosa
This plant is already way ahead of the crowd, already sending up next years spiraling madness. I am going to need about ten of these plants in the spring, to line the perimeter of my new middle succulent bed. Has anyone propagated this plant? if so, please tell me how you did it?

Oxalis, Wood Sorrel…is in full bloom right now under my giant timber bamboo. I have burgundy and green.

World wide there are about 800 species of this little plant. The scientific name Oxalis comes from the Greeks and means “sharp” and the common name “Sorrel” means “acidic” or “sour”. Both refer to the taste of the plant.
Medical Uses: This plant can quench thirst and it has been touted for its ability to heal sores especially of the mouth, but old sores and “cancers” on the skin as well. It has also been used to cool fevers and treat urinary problems.

So, if you are feeling dehydrated due to your mouth sores, running an irritating low-grade fever, and frequently finding yourself ‘simply having to go,’ this is the plant you should consider mass planting.
One word of warning though (this is where it starts sounding like a tv Ad)… this plant contains oxalic acid which is toxic in very large doses! Oxalic acid can precipitate in the kidneys as calcium oxalate crystals, forming an estimated 80% of kidney stones…I knew I should have not devoured all my plants in one sitting just because I was tad thirsty.

Crassula arborescens
or Silver Dollar Plant, Beestebul, Jade Plant, Jade Tree, Money Tree is an introduced plant in Hawaii and has become naturalized.
It is also from S.Africa.
Like many succulents, they are slow growers. It may take 20 years to reach 3 feet in height, providing it lives through our hot august nights and occasional hard freezes in central Texas. In ideal conditions this succulent shrub can grow up to 10 feet tall! I had no idea these could get so big.

My side cactus and succulent bed is still looking quite full. The exploding sotol in the background has finally reached a mature size. The right picture will be the home of my future carved cactus ‘faces’. I have been ‘plumping’ these cactus up, (pulling off their expansion growths) to swell the base node before the carving, it is taking ages!
The verbena is clambering its way between my moss boulders, it has also bloomed sporadically all through the winter.

And finally…

My donkey ear pups that I propagated have lived on through the freezing temperatures whilst both their parents froze completely to the ground. I thought for sure these little guys would have turned to mush, having only been planted only a couple of months ago.

Stay Tuned For:
“Yo Ho Ho and a Barrow of Cactus”
All material © 2009 for east_side_patch. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

"Silent but Deadly"

ESPatch Jan 18, 2009 0 comments

Remember at the end of my last post when I said they had found methane “burps” on Mars, and that with this discovery, there is a high likelihood that microbial life may be possible?
Well, Alien life has been discovered, only much closer to home!

I found this ET hidden deep in the heart of one of my miscanthus grasses. I surmise it was relaying visual and telepathic data back to it’s mother ship. It really freaked us all out. We all hurried into the house, nailed the doors and windows shut, and immediately adorned our finely crafted foil hats, that we have on hand for such invasion occasions.

“I feel safer already.”

“click,click, That mountain laurel click, is in need of a good pruning, you would never see that sort of tardiness back on my planet, click!”

Red Wasp, Polistes carolina (Linnaeus) [Vespidae] I caught this one, cleaning itself on top of one of my gourds.

One of our common paper wasps is simply called red wasp or Texas red wasp.
This species is a dark red color with black wings. The paper wasp nest can be recognized by the paper nest that hangs from a single attachment point.
Adults in this family have the wings folded which gives them the appearance of having rather thin wings.

This wasp was somewhat intimidating, my hand was about a centimeter or two away from it as I took these shots, it just looks like it could pack a serious punch. I have never been stung by one (touch worm wood) so I don’t know. I learned that the males are incapable of stinging because the stinger on the females is a modified egg-laying structure (ovipositor) and it is not present in males.

Wasps feed on insects, including caterpillar pests, and therefore are considered to be beneficial insects.

I am ready for the imminent alien invasion armed with my
machete from the natural gardener!

While I was at the Natural Gardener this selection of ornamental cabbages caught my eye. Great winter color. I never seem to plant enough of them, close enough together to get a good effect. They look great crowded together like this. Next winter perhaps!

I did find this spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata)
on one of my “sparsely” planted cabbages. I love the way these polka
dotted little demons look, I had so many of these vibrant bugs last year.

Ialso took a shot of the four clumps of mature Bamboo ‘Alphonse Karr’ that I have been writing
about recently at the Natural Gardener.
Bambusa Multiplex ‘Alphonse Karr’
It makes a stunning living screen.

I walked out of the Natural Gardener armed with this gothic, bewitching Witch Hazel :
Chinese Witch Hazel, Chinese Fringe Flower ‘Burgundy’ (Loropetalum chinense var. rubrum)

I have planted it in front of my weeping bamboo for a dramatic color contrast…now to
see if it will make it through a Texas summer?

The witch hazel is said to have medicinal value. The inner bark, cooked into
a syrup, was used by Native Americans for coughs and fever. The Cherokee
tribes of North American made a potion of its leaves and bark and found it
soothing, cooling and astringent.

“My incessant chafing has waned”?

Finally,

Let us not forget about the Witchhazels purported “magical” powers.
Because of its unusual life cycle, witch hazel also seems to be responding to
an otherworldly force, operating on a different calendar than most plants.
My plant is in full bloom right now.
Folklore tells us that underground water and mines can be found by walking
an area carrying a forked twig of Witchhazel loosely in your hands until the
twig bends downward, pointing to where to dig for water. This type of water
divination is know as Virgula divina, or

Baculus divinatorius!
Has anyone any experience with this magical plant?

So far so good!
My succulent bed seems to be doing fine so far this winter. This bed had a bunch of leaves in it that I thought would help with insulating the plants from the cold. I am currently reading “Designing with Succulents” by Debra Lee Baldwin, a great book with equally great illustrations. I learned that all debris should immediately be removed from succulent beds because the leaves can trap in moisture and rot these plants, makes sense. Here it is after getting a sprucing, there are still quite a few things still blooming in here, some just about to.

There is also a lot of spreading taking place in here, as you can see. I will have to thin this bed out if they all make it through the winter.
Here are a few shots of some of the “bloomers.” I have absolutely no idea what the names are for these two plants so if anyone can help me out here.

These flowers on this unknown plant have bloomed sporadically all last year.

And this wavy cactus has gone ballistic over the last ten months. I half expected it to shrivel up, or gradually get smaller and disappear, but oh no, in fact it has tripled in size. It looks like a plant with a rare and exotic disease, very unusual.

Moving on to the new middle bed…

In goes a mediterranean fan palm Chamaerops humilis. I know I said that I was done planting until the spring, but this plant needs a head start. I have one of these at the front of my property. It seems to be quite slow growing (although books state it is quite fast) but in my opinion, it is well worth the wait. Here is a picture of one more mature:

They tend to have multiple trunks
surrounding the main trunk. These palms
make fantastic specimen plants and
are also extremely cold hardy and compact.
This will look great in this bed and provide
some dappled afternoon shade.

This fried egg was just about to crack open, then I had yet another leaf clean up. Is it just me or has this been a leaf drop of biblical proportions?
Somehow during my frantic raking I must have hooked this poor plant. I turned around and it was gone! It was a real shame because it was just about to bloom and was thriving. I looked for it for a while, then abandoned the search.

Most likely it ended up somewhere on the South face of my K2!
I recently cut back all my ornamental grasses and did my winter clean up…pulling the dead growth from my pampas, picking up leaves from my beds, cutting back my mexican bush sage, a general tidy up. The consequence of this was my already large brush pile went immediately onto steroids.
It is now completely out of control. I will get a shredder for a day soon and take care of this mountain once and for all. There has to be some great compost at the heart of this “hut”, after all, this cake has been baking in the sun for the last seven years!

Some other strange things that I spied this week:

Remember that “Rat Tailed Maggot” in my rainwater collection tank?
Syrphids are also known as flower flies or hover flies. Brrrr. Once again, very gothic.

Verbena still putting on a good electric blue and purple show in the middle of winter.

A jumping spider (Salticidae).
Jumping spiders are generally recognized by their eye pattern. They typically have eight eyes arranged in two or three rows. The front, and most distinctive row is enlarged and forward facing to enable stereoscopic vision.

Here is a close up! “I see a strength in yer eight eyes… one day you will be a queen”
Jumping spiders are known for their natural curiosity. If they are approached by a hand, instead of scuttling away as most spiders do, this jumping cheeky monkey will usually leap and turn to face the hand. Continue approaching and the spider may jump backwards while still eyeing your hand. The tiny creature will even raise its forelimbs to “hold its ground”. Because of this contrast to other arachnids, the jumping spider is regarded as inquisitive and interested in whatever approaches it. Hence how I got the lens so close to this one on a post on my back deck. He was standing his ground on the battlefield. He kept turning to face the camera!
William Wallace climbed down off his pedestal at the back of my yard and immediately shuffled over to recruit the little chap. (He has stone legs afterall)

A new form of “green” transportation
that Obama has already “pushed” (ahem)
through Congress.

And finally one for my family in Yorkshire…
Note: contains “colorful” language

Stay Tuned For:
“Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.”

All material © 2009 for east_side_patch. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

ESPatch

"Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive."

"Silent but Deadly"

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