Never Sleep in a Cactus Bed

ESPatch May 4, 2008 0 comments

Remember that extra wide trench?

As well as running electricity to a couple of GFCI boxes and water to the back end of the garden, this trench was also to serve as a cactus and succulent bed. The soil here needed better drainage so I decided to remove a couple of feet. I transported this soil to the opposite side of the garden and built up another ‘hill’ for future planting. I generated the shape of the bed, installed some weed edging and laid down weed suppressant material and a layer of pea-gravel in the trench. I then got a delivery of decomposed granite and wheelbarrowed it in from the front of the house. It is funny but like the Home Depot ponds, small areas of land also defy the generally accepted laws of physics – to fill in an area always takes 3X more soil than what you anticipate, or what was actually excavated out of it!

At least that is how it feels.

My decision to do a cactus and succulent bed was actually based more out of necessity than design – a friend of a friend of mine was moving and as luck would have it, he had a whole bunch of plants already in pots sitting at the back of his garden that he didn’t want, score! – I just needed full sun and the right soil to get them to a good start.

The bed in its first year (far right) – a top dressing of pea-gravel was laid on top of the decomposed granite.

Agave just planted Same Agave today in bloom Agave Americana Variegata

Cactus and succulent bed – 4th year

Moss boulders define the bed shape – Gopher Plants (Euphorbia biglandulosa) weave between them.
Succulents and Blackfoot Daisy’s have filled in the gaps between the main plants.
Dwarf Bottlebrush (Callistemonviminalis) ‘Little John’ and Pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia pulcherrima)
provide some contrasting warm colored accents.

Gopher Plants (Euphorbia biglandulosa)

Detail of the Agave Base

Dwarf Bottlebrush fireworks, and Pride of Barbados.

Rosettes of succulents form a dense mat between the agaves and cacti.

Cacti and succulents always offer the most unexpected surprises, in the most unexpected forms.

Stay Tuned for:

“I Built a Vine Tunnel, and a Troll moved in”

All material © 2009 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Fighting Lantana and Bermuda”

ESPatch Apr 30, 2008 3 comments

So here we go – my first blog entry!

My girlfriend (later to become my wife) and I moved into our first house about seven years ago in Austin, Texas. We were immediately drawn to its petrified long-leaf pine walls, high ceilings, and close proximity to downtown. The house had just been remodeled by two green architects so it was in really good shape – restored, using original materials, to its original Victorian look below. We had a couple of ‘energetic’ Springer Spaniels at the time so the back yard needed to be of a sufficient size – lucky for us it was – it even came with a towering Post Oak perfectly situated central at the rear of the lot. We bought the house – we moved in – we started painting – we finished painting – (we hated masking) – the usual.

And time passed.

And the lantana and ligustrums grew and grew.

Austin Texas – 1890

We believe this was the original owner.
And are those fields in the background?!

We quickly erected the obligatory chain-link fence and let out the dogs to explore their new domain, well at least part of it, 6th sense told them not to venture too deep into the darkened realm of Lantana. It rained one day and with the weeds and grass past my knees, I realized I needed a lawnmower,- quickly. And so my deep rooted (ahem) hatred for Bermuda grass was born.

And time passed.

And the lantanas and lugustrums grew and grew.

Now don’t misunderstand me – I don’t hate lantana (I do hate Bermuda) – in fact I have just recently planted some of the creeping variety, – there was just way too much of it, and all in the wrong place. Now for some reason my industrial “trimmer” style mower came off the factory line with a severe adversity to starting, and staying started! (not good when it is 100+ degrees outside). I began to realize that the merest touch of the plastic blade against the woody stem of a 4ft lantana was all that it took to obliterate it and send me spiraling into a heat indexed five minute, rope pulling, cursing frenzy. . . The lantana would simply have to go – only it turned out it wasn’t going to be that simple, in fact, it was going to be very hard indeed!

A Snails Pace – This went a lot slower than anticipated – about 3 Months slower – one stubborn tap-root at a time.

Anyone who has tried to dig up a mature lantana knows it is the job for a pick axe (or 2) and raw, primordial, aggression. I say primordial due to the seemingly endless grunts that are heard when trying to extract an intact 15ft tap-root (after your 5th extraction that’s how deep down they feel). We probably had 40 root-canals to go plus another 8 in the front of the house. We did initially try to transplant some of the plants in a more suitable location but they seemed not to like the transplant process one little bit – my experience with a lot of ‘woody’ shrubs incidentally. We eventually prevailed and celebrated the last Tap-root thrown onto the shrub pile – we were done! I thought naively – how difficult could the Bermuda Grass eradication be after this?

. . . . Quite difficult indeed as it turned out.

Oh and what is this on the Post Oak?…Staggering camouflage.

After clearing out all the lantana a rather strange thing happened. The space under the Post Oak suddenly became inhabitable, and I started to think about how this
terrain may be utilized. A rough plan was hatched which was centered around a water feature. The Bermuda Grass would just have to wait a little while longer – this was
way more exciting!

I found myself eager to work on something a little more creative than hacking out tubers. Initial layouts led to more refined plans that encompassed the back yard in its entirety. I became determined to carve the land roughly into the shape of the these sketches – subsequently an obsession was formed that remains with me today. I would spend the next five years making and learning from my mistakes, buying books and generally loitering around garden centers.

This blog will expose some of the funnier/scarier/and ridiculous stories of this adventure. I will also throw in some pictures and annotations as to what is currently cool, strange or bizarre in my yard. In fact here are some now. . . .

My Agave starting to bloom . . going up (about a 1ft a day!) detail of the flowers

Giant elephant ear growing fast! amazing form, tossing the caber!

More on the water feature saga and how it attacked me later!

sledge_hammer-0001.jpgfb0c220a-2563-4823-b582-f634649cf8b2Large-1

Stay Tuned for:

“I Used a Sledge Hammer on my Water Feature ”

All material © 2009 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Agaves

Never Sleep in a Cactus Bed

“I Built a Vine Tunnel, and a Troll moved in”

“Fighting Lantana and Bermuda”

“I Used a Sledge Hammer on my Water Feature ”

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