Bees

“Blast from the Past”

ESPatch Jul 28, 2013 10 comments

I found some old photographs while I was in Scotland…and took pictures of them.

This is me, on one of the many occasions my sister took advantage of the fact that I did not really mind being taken advantage of.

Note: Mud-pie bucket…fantastic!

Sweet big sis…mostly ;-)

My sister had an affinity for training animals at a young age.

This was our first dog, “Amber”.

My dog encounters unfortunately involved receiving a lot of puncture wounds.

Amber apparently did not care too much for having her juicy bones removed involuntarily from her jaws by a small child uttering complete gibberish.

I cannot blame her.

trip_to_beach

I had to include this photo with my cousins just because it communicates the “tolerance and general demeanor” of the average British seaside excursion…(character-building stuff a trip to the seaside : no iPhones /iPads back then).

Ah yes, I remember the days as if yesterday…freezing-cold North Sea water, crunchy sand-filled sandwiches, windbreaks, flasks of tea, and the ever-present sensation of always being just a little “too cold”, even on the hottest days of summer,

a sensation I cannot say I have ever had in our Texas summers…

…”Only one more planting-bed to go honey”.

I think I must have been auditioning for a part in The Nutcracker in this one.

Note: Background windbreak.

Moving Less Nostalgically Along:

Back in the Patch:

More rain storms this week…and it is almost August!

This storm front arrived packing a serious light show, thank goodness this bolt missed my post oak on the left.

The barometer sages

Leucophyllum frutescens

had correctly predicted the weather change once again. It is said that heavy pruning can diminish the blooms on these plants, but I have never noticed any degradation and I keep these two pruned tightly to reduce legginess and central splaying.

These two will be getting an aggressive haircut as soon as they finish showing off,

and the plants are not completely covered in bees and hoverflies.

Other observations this week:

Blue Dashers and many other dragonflies are busy posturing and performing some quite “risky” meter high antics.

The waxy Moy Grande (Texas Star Hibiscus) has thrown out some massive blooms this week.

On a contrasting note:

Remember these fine “cowboy toilet paper,” mullein?

Well they are not so fine any more.

If this is what happens to them in the summer it must have been an inconvenient and a rough

(and I do mean “rough” ahem)

few months for the cowboy on a strict bean diet.

Enough said.

Now onto some critters:

Stepping into this sandal would have also been an uncomfortable experience.

This is a great leopard moth caterpillar and it cast a long shadow as it quickly crossed our carpet the other night.

It was huge.

Some friends of ours found this rhinoceros beetle,

Dynastinae

They are also called elephant beetles, Hercules beetles, or Atlas beetles some of which are among the largest beetles on Earth.

This one is a male as it is sporting the “tusk” which is used for fighting both over females and for feeding sites and rites on trees, logs, and crops.

In spite of their fierce appearance, these beetles are harmless and feed only upon plant material.

Finally:

Laziness, procrastination, heat and an unwillingness to wield my pick axe resulted in a great result this week.

After my strange yucca tumbling and sawing of the trunk at the base, it was my intention to dig out the tap root and replace the plant with something else. I even tried a shovel on it a few times but it wasn’t moving, so in the ground it stayed.

After the rain I walked past the stump and yes there it was, not one, not two but numerous new yuccas on the rise.

…In fact, a scary amount.

I am looking forward to seeing what will happen here.

Stay Tuned for:

“Design Up-Front”

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“Megasporophylls!”

ESPatch Jun 6, 2013 7 comments

school-out-for-summer “School’s out for Summer!”

And what better way to celebrate than a trip to Dave & Buster’s right after school.

As we approached the front door I naturally began eyeing up the two mature sago palms…hmm, I wonder?

After writing my previous post about my own strobilus exploits my awareness has been heightened to these ancient plants. I have stopped and peered into the hearts of multiple plants on my travels the past few weeks to look at their…ahem, organs.

I had seen numerous strobili but, as yet, no females / seeds.

I could see from the cone that the left hand sago was a male but I could not see anything in the right hand plant.

I held my breath, heart racing (okay not really)…

and…

There it was, sago palm coral, a heart of seeds.

It takes a couple of months for the seeds to develop and ripen in the feathery scales of the megasporophylls and about twice as long to learn how to pronounce and spell it.

As the female cone begins to disintegrate it releases all the seeds across the ground under the mother sago.

Now I need to cut off my own strobilus and buy a trench coat and trilby for dramatic effect, (not necessarily in that order) for the subversive nocturnal act that I now feel compelled to perform in front of D&B.

“Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, what’s going on ‘ere then?”

I think I will stand less chance of getting apprehended if I perform the pollen shaking deed during the hours of darkness. The tricky part is going to be collecting all the seeds after pollination…

…”No, no, you don’t understand officer, you see I pollinated this plant some time ago and I was just climbing back in here to collect some of the seeds, you see cycads ar…”

I started to plan a better response in my head as we entered the building.

We played our usual games, won our usual 6K tickets and exchanged them for the usual array of cheap Chinese products that usually stop working somewhere between exiting the establishment and the opening of my car door in the parking lot, but they had fun, they were on summer vacation.

Moving On:

My potential annual Darwin Award activity took place last week on the roof of my house as I cut off some post oak limbs that had been scraping and banging above our heads every time there was a breeze. I was also not delighted to find an enormous and foul smelling pile of raccoon excrement waiting for me under the eaves, directly above the blocked gutter.

Well that’s just great.

My boots had zero traction on the metal roof so to get to the offending branches required a rather painful shimmy backwards down the length of the roof. I always choose an overcast day to get up here to avoid getting branded by the corrugated metal roof.

I should have taken some pictures up there.

A tiny grasshopper watching my rooftop kerfuffle.

Lots of humidity and lots of blooms this week,

tropical looking shell flowers emerging from the husk.

Shell-flower,

Alpinia zerumbet

is commonly called shell ginger or shellflower due to it’s shell pink flowers and buds that look like sea shells.

They remind me of the Coquina Clams she obsessively collected at South Padre Island:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2011/06/across-the-gulf/

Say ahh.

Opuntia in full swing,

and a new one for the Patch:

white shrimp plant,

Justicia betonica, J. pallidior

pink tubular blooms will eventually emerge from this spike of white calyxes.

This plant is zoned for 9, 10 & 11 so fingers crossed.

Coneflowers are popping up,

great against a dark foliage backdrop.

And the sunflowers

continue to attract a host of pollinators.

Talking of which, I have some business to attend to.