ESPatch

"Take a Walk on the Wild Side".

ESPatch Oct 21, 2008 0 comments

I must say to all the Austin bloggers who attended the event on Sunday, a big thank you, and again to Pam for organizing it, and your card!

We had a really fun time at the patch, so much so, we did not get round to taking a single photo of the shindig! not one! But I have had a lot of entertainment this week, looking at the pictures ever one else has snapped, and hearing all your personal accounts, and comments about both our gardens, on your blogs.

Oh and Annie, I saw your comment on Pam’s blog:

The remainder of the agave stalk only just
fit in here, if you catch my drift!

I will have to copy a few of your pictures taken on this day and place
them in my scrapbook for future reminiscing, if no one minds!

I must admit the “quickening” to the Austin “gathering” was
quite an intense time for me. I decided at the last minute to
do some intensive aesthetic fixes, mostly to my moonscape.
It just looked terrible! shards of glass here and there, a lot here,
and even more over there!

Ah Yesh! The Easht-shide-Patch
has enough glass shards
in there to kill even
us immortals.

It was the eleventh hour, no time for a “Custom Stone” delivery.
I rushed to H/Depot, which to my luck was having a moving sale,
and bought a brand new, plastic handled shovel, (I was not about to start shoveling gravel with my “half shovel”) .
My new shovel is heavier than my last one but I like that, and anyway, I was just looking for one that would not try to kill me like the last one did, using the extraction of a pampas grass as an excuse.

Here is the filled in moonscape, the gravel will form the base of my drainage for this future lavender bed. More on this experimental bed later.

“So much gravel he has, the force is strong in this bed, but lavender?
So brash is he.”

The transition of the Mexican bush sage into the lavender bed will happen via this new planting of various salvias. I am not sure how this will work aesthetically …the future will tell.

I caught this chap after our recent rains on our front stained concrete porch…I really tried to link to “the orb” song:
“The slug dub” (even though it is a snail) but with zero success. Great album though if you like ambient, atmospheric British accents talking about slugs and snails! you can get it on I -Tunes, the album is called “Orbus Terrarum,” it is a few years old but still a total classic.

Wet Hoja Santa, and giant timber bamboo. This is one of the few plants in my yard that we inherited. This plant always has done so well in this spot. Give it decent moisture and rich soil (just like the timber bamboo) …they both seem pretty happy in this bed.

Ahh, rain in the Lone Star State!

This downspout catches rain into a stock tank that I use for
manual watering, I usually incorporate fish emulsion from the
natural gardener into my watering regimen from this tank. The plants,
especially the newly planted ones seem to thrive on this.

On the subject of thriving, this Swallow Tail was laying some serious eggs on one of my fall asters, at least I hope that was what it was doing.

I was lucky to snap this caterpillar at a recent visit to the natural gardener. I would love an identification. The horns on this one were huge. I have never seen this variety on the east-side of Austin. Has anyone else?

Amazing dark color and amazing contrasting orange spots! It looks totally toxic, so I ate this one, and this is what happened to me:

I felt so bad.

Monarch Butterfly – Danaus plexippus

The Monarch is easily North America’s best recognized butterfly. Common throughout the U.S. and southern Canada, the Monarch is found just about everywhere there are open, sunny areas. The Monarch’s caterpillars feed almost exclusively on milkweed plants which contain toxins that render both the larva and adult butterflies extremely distasteful to predators.
Annually, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies from the eastern U.S. and Canada migrate to central Mexico – a trip of as much as 2,000 miles. There, they overwinter in protected areas in the mountains in a state of diapause, living off fat reserves much the same way hibernating mammals do. This one was a totally trusting – It is funny how some species of butterflies (and dragonflies, come to think of it) are really shy and spooky and some just simply seem not to really care.

Amazing display of fall aster at the Natural Gardener.

Staying with purple, this potato vine vein caught my attention with the sun shining behind it.

A new water feature, on top of a new hill. The glass chunk
really catches the westerly setting sun… it illuminates like a coal ember.

Amaranth in full flight.
Amaranth has an important future in U.S. agriculture. It is particularly well suited to the dry areas of the Western United States. Its outstanding nutritional qualities make it appealing to an increasingly health conscious American public. Processors could improve the taste of amaranth products by following the indigenous practice of popping the seeds prior to processing. Amaranth is a new crop with enormous potential for U.S. as well as Third World agriculture.

Giant elephant ear. This bulb got enormous last year due to the copious amounts of rain at regular intervals. Even with the addition of good, slow, deep soakings from the hose this year, it just never responded in quite the same way… just proves that there is no substitute for rain!

Shell Ginger at it’s fall peak. I love the jungle aesthetic of this plant.

Jane, your eyes remind me of shell ginger…so cool
and exotic.
Oh Tarzan, your eyes remind me of

Beady little ornamental peppers?

Tarzan loves ornamental peppers.

I do as well Tarzan.

Once again, a big thank you Austin bloggers for a truly memorable day, and I look forward to planting all of your seedlings and transplants.

Stayed tuned for:

A Scottish haunting: “Outerlands”.

"Costa Del Orbit"

ESPatch Oct 8, 2008 0 comments

As we approach the end of another year we all need to start planning that vacation we all keep promising ourselves, you know the short excursion to outer space?
The first space hotel is destined to open in a mere 4 years after all, yes, only 4 more years! I have mine booked already, have you? (kids under 3 orbit for free)!

The hotel, “Galactic Suites,” will allow travelers to enjoy a spectacular starry view from their hotel rooms, see the sun rise 15 times a day and take part in highly unscientific elementary grade, zero gravity, horticultural experiments. There were a few design kinks the company that is creating the hotel had to work out too, especially those involving water, and the gaudy plaid “tourist” attire fabrics requested by the programs first wealthy suscribers:

“They better have salted pecans on the flight,
thats all I can say Muffy”
“I hear you Skip”.

“It’s the bathrooms in zero gravity that are the biggest challenge,” company director Xavier Claramunt told Reuters. “How to accommodate the more intimate activities of the guests is not easy.”
They have found a solution to the problem of how to allow guests to shower however: a spa room where guests can float around in bubbles of water.
Oh and forget about “around the world in 80 days”, a guest in this hotel can neck a margarita whilst circumnavigating the world in 80 minutes.

The hotel was no more than a dream of Claramunt’s until a generous space enthusiast fronted the $3 billion needed to build the hotel. The trip isn’t cheap though, a three-day stay will lighten your wallet / purse to the tune of $4 million, according to Reuters. “We have calculated that there are 40,000 people in the world who could afford to stay at the hotel. Whether they will want to spend money on going into space, we just don’t know,” Claramunt told Reuters.

Virgin Galactic is on an even faster track, launching commercial space flights in 2009, Here is the Spaceport in New Mexico. Although seats on the first flights have been sold at a premium (starting at $200,000 for the first 100, after the first 500 passengers, seats will be booked with a deposit of US $20,000.
The first passenger flight is planned for 2010.

And this will be your experience:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IytjSl6voP0

From the new to the old. This decayed post oak leaf was an amazing lattice work on closer examination…it really reminds me of the structure on a dragonfly’s wing.

This was my bravest dragon to date. Hanging on to the summit of an agave spike, with the post oak as a backdrop. The word “dragon” comes from an ancient Greek word meaning “sharp-sighted one”.

“And now for something completely different from the
Carboniferous Period:”

Carboniferous Period forest
(from a display at the Chicago Field Museum).

In the Carboniferous Period, the time in Earth’s history from 360 – 290 million years ago, ancient dragonflies shared the land with early amphibians and the first reptiles. The forests were dominated by plants related to modern day horsetails and club mosses. Today’s trees and flowering plants had yet to evolve and the first dinosaurs would not appear for another 100 million years.

A dragonfly doesn’t see as much detail as a human can, but its eyes and brain are extremely sensitive to motion. They can detect movements separated by 1/300th of a second! To a dragonfly, a movie might look like a series of still pictures. If you have ever tried to catch one, no matter how close you are, this quickly becomes apparent.

Dragonflies are probably the best fliers on Earth. They can fly forward, backward and turn almost instantly. They can hover, turn while hovering and accelerate to full speed in a split second, then glide effortlessly.

Bare post oak leaf structure. Human blood vessels.

“I prefer z image on z right, if you catch my drift”.

“You can take our blood, but you will never take our FRREEEEDOM!”
William Wallace plays his bagpipes below the giant timber bamboo at the back of my yard, every full moon. The rest of the time he just quietly stands here, plotting his revenge on the English. He does occasionally challenge me to a rock throwing competition though.
“I see a strength in yee” he always recites before the challenge, which incidentally, I always win due to his tiny little stone arms and legs.

Fall Aster and a potato vine that just happened to appeared in this spot. I have three asters, such a happy looking plant, very psychedelic.

“Yeah, Aster, yeah, did you just
“fall” for me baby?… did you?

Fall Aster is one of the last flowers to bloom in the fall, putting on a grand display of flowers when all of the others are finished. The Greek meaning of Aster is “star” which describes the beautiful 1” blue flowers and yellow disk of this Texas Native.

Not only is the Aster beautiful, it is beneficial to wildlife as
wild turkey and other gamebirds will eat the seeds and
foliage in the winter. It is also a nectar source for butterflies
and bees.

Right side of property, agave and succulent bed. Post oak at the back.

Stay Tuned for:
“Take a Walk on the Wild Side.”

ESPatch

"Take a Walk on the Wild Side".

"Costa Del Orbit"

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