Bees

“Patch Panic”

ESPatch Oct 18, 2012 6 comments

Ach!

Scotty, as it turned-out was correct…she couldnae take nae mere.

I found this fruit-laden limb resting on the ground the other day and swiftly went in with a plank of wood as a support before any of the fruit spoiled. Messing around under the tree, trying to lodge the plank into position,

I looked up and saw this monster (picture taken post event) staring down at me over the side of a leaf, looking like it was about to fall.

Acanthocephala femorata

or Leaf-footed Bug.

As irrational panic grabbed me, pushing me vertical, I found myself entangled in a rolling world of satsumas that had now engulfed my entire head.

Was it on me? Was it on me?

The proboscis, the proboscis!

I let out my customary muffled groan usually reserved for nightmares and

only narrowly avoiding the adjacent barrel cactus (which incidentally is still developing more blooms), scrambled out sideways and up to my feet, all the while frantically shaking and slapping at my clothes.

I looked around for the massed crowd that surely had come out to witness my ridiculous spectacle, but as usual there wasn’t one.

Talking of massing crowds, this is one you certainly want to avoid.

Your days are numbered my writhing foes.

“What is wrong with siphon tubes ESP?”

Mosquito larva live in the water between 7-14 days and wriggle to the surface to breathe through their siphon tubes, yes I said siphon tubes…brrr. The larvae will shed their skin four times growing larger after each molting, on the fourth molt the larva changes into a pupa.

I hate mosquitoes and their tubes.

Sweet olives are filling up the Patch with their fragrance this week.

Bees are hard at work in the golden hearts of the Walska, and

in the celosia that has turned a deep shade of fuchsia.

I have a number that are laying flat on the ground turning up at the end. Celosia as a ground cover!

My palm grasses have got very large after our recent rains,

providing great ribbed foliage. Here you can see the tiny sharp hairs that make these leaves very sharp in one direction.

Moving along:

Whale’s tongue, snaking gopher and a few disturbing pine cone cactus fingers offer a very unusual look in the same hue.

These gophers are soon to have their heads cut off, new growth is already visible at the base.

The tribal war-paint on this head should be sufficient to deter any predators attacking this giant swallowtail caterpillar.

Well, perhaps all except one.

I have a bunch of these cleverly disguised bird droppings currently chomping away on my Mexican lime tree. The caterpillars will grow to about 2 inches before changing into a chrysalis. As these are fall caterpillars they may stay in the chrysalis stage over winter and emerge in the spring.

This agave somehow works with the industrial hardware around my gas meter.

In front of it my somewhat lanky Salvia leucantha keeps on blooming, it is currently

full of these little Beet Webworm

Spoladea recurvalis

moths, whose larvae most likely hosted on my celosia or wormwood.

Inspirational image of the week:

Lots of wine bottle corks lying around?

Studio 1am http://www.studio1am.com/ has come up with an innovative use of recycled cork…jewelry. Discarded corks are ground up and formed into blocks using environmentally-friendly adhesives. Designer Donna Piacenza then cuts each cuff from a single block of cork, which can then be used to store the jewelry, or simply as a display piece, with a beautiful ‘C’ shape hollowed out where the cuff fits.

Stay Tuned for:

“Hexing Herbs”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Just Leaf it Alone”

ESPatch Jan 8, 2012 14 comments

Some rather exuberant New Years firework antics succeeded in igniting the same sago palm as last year, (somewhat of a tradition at this point).

This year, the pyrotechnics also successfully singed a few of my ornamental grasses:

Our “Grand Finale” firework that was placed ceremoniously and somewhat precariously on top of a bucket on top of a trashcan provided quite the spectacle. I was intending to take some pictures of it but the firework simultaneously ignited four of my Mexican feather grasses and had us grabbing buckets from my “everything but the kitchen sink” water collection “system” to extinguish the fires before they reached the Barbados cherry and butterfly iris.

I will keep an eye on these blackened grasses, they may respond well to the singeing.

An exciting week this week in the Patch…

…yes folks, snort, I am proud to announce

that we have finally moved onto the “medium-fine” silicon carbide abrasive rock tumbling phase,

though not before she had another sneak-peek at the now shiny rocks.

Next week the polishing process begins,

I am already having difficulty sleeping in anticipation.

Moving more honestly on:

Now here is a strange thing:

I have been trying to figure out what these pine-cone cacti reminded me of for a long time.

Tephrocatus articulatus var. diadematus

This week if finally dawned on me, and it was very obscure.

It was the poor maintenance robot in the film AI that was destroyed in the Flesh Fair!…Phew, now I can sleep soundly once again,

Or can I?

As you may know, I have been trying to protect my soft leaf yuccas from the horrors of the

“evil weevil”

by administering copious amounts of diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the base of the plants, it appears to be working.

Unfortunately my yuccas have now developed another issue,

and it isn’t pretty. Several fungi, including Cercospora, Cylindrosporium, and Coniothyrium may cause leaf spotting like this in yuccas but thankfully they do not cause the widespread death of leaves.

I am sure this one contracted the yucca equivalent of the “Phage” in the summer months when it received some overhead watering…remove affected leaves and discard.

This week has had me and my (in-house) pajama crew cleaning up insane amounts of leaves.

We gathered them up in buckets, transferred them to trashcans and piled them up wherever we could find space. I hate picking up leaves.

One personal pet peeve is cleaning out the hearts of the sagos,

this activity ranks on my irritation scale at a steady 9.5

It is really nice to have my pathways clear once again though.

Finally:

King Tut papyrus is still holding up well in one of my stock-tanks,

not bad form for January.

Rosemary is also doing a great winter job,

feeding the honey bees,

with it’s tiny flowers.

Sweet peas are on the boil,

and pink shrimps are ready for the barbie,

and my artemesia is once again looking healthy.

Driving around the Mueller area the other day, I saw this:

I initially thought these were dwarf conifers. When I realized it was in fact gray santolina or lavender cotton, I swung my steed around and snapped these shots.

Santolina chamaecyparissus

It reminds me of Scottish “heather” in a mass-planting like this. I will try and get some shots of it in bloom next summer…if I remember.

Photograph: Linda Engstrom

And to finish I am happy to report that Kumo is making a speedy recovery after his stomach surgery.

He is now stumbling and walking into things wearing his

collar of shame.

Talking of dwarf conifers…

Inspirational image of the week:

Photograph from Foxhollow Garden, Dorset, England.

Stay Tuned for:

“Igniting the Cattails”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.