“Bark at the Moonflower”

ESPatch Jun 6, 2011 18 comments

Oh yes, we’re under starter’s-orders and we’re off to a very classy start…poor Ron, a mandrake looking root AND an elephant butt comparison shot. I am not sure which is scaring him most?

We have had yet another week of hot temperatures in central Texas in tandem with some ridiculous humidity. My belt buckle (in reaction to the latest install I am executing) retracted one notch by Friday and my already full laundry basket is now officially out of control, yes best keep pulling that face Ron, I do every time I have to shimmy by it. It seems like the recent humidity has also triggered the Texas “barometer plant” to flush out its purple blooms all over town. Texas sage or…

Leucophyllum frutescens

also called purple sage, texas ranger, silverleaf, white sage, ash bush and sensia. Purple sage comes from shrublands on limestone slopes in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico. This is one tough plant, it can face droughts, freezes, high winds, salt spray, hungry deer, and blazing heat and keep right on performing beautifully. It can also apparently make for a good container plant, though I have no personal experience with it in this capacity…do you?

The plant does have a tendency to get very large and leggy. I keep both of mine trimmed extremely tight to promote a denser habit and I remove their lower branches for better form.

I grow other plants like Mexican bush sage and rosemary to obscure and detract from this plants lower ‘bare’ areas.

And when they do bloom their soft purple blooms…

all manner of insects take advantage. The flowers are really unusual looking set against the silver backdrop of the foliage.

Some major events happened this week in the Patch:

Training wheels came off…

…and we got a new addition to the family:

Mmm, not quite,

but I can see some similarities.

Meet Kumo.

Like me he has an infinity for Mexican feather grasses,

and he is keeping the halflings very, very busy. I cringe every time his dashes across my central bed which houses my barrel cactus.

Damianita

Compositae Chrysactinia mexicana

seems to thrive in the current furnace, as you can see it is already on its second wave of blooms. This is a great native evergreen plant with a low mounding growth, the plants aromatic foliage is also a deer and rabbit deterrent.

Bristly sunflowers have also started to unfurl and spring into action.

attracting their usual band of garden outlaws:

Sunflowers are sometimes planted as trap crops for Stink/leaffooted bugs, providing superior food plants for the bugs while also attracting their natural enemies.

Umbrellas in combination with a sprinkler have been novelty items this week. Okay if you insist – just one more insect. This one would be perfect for Halloween.

Swamp Milkweed Leaf Beetle,

Labidomera clivicollis

Interesting visitor considering I have no milkweed. Does anyone have any experience with swamp milkweed here in Austin? This beetle comes in a quite a few color variations and looks like a really large ladybug. If you are interested in insects, bugs, snakes etc you should most certainly check out the great photography in this fine Missouri blog: http://mobugs.blogspot.com/

Life in my swamps and ponds has gone berserk of late. I thinned these water lilies out only a week ago and now look at them! They do make for fantastically nutritionally-rich compost bin fodder though, I am not complaining.

How they continue to fly like this never ceases to amaze me, though I can guess who is probably in charge of navigation.

Inspirational Image of the week:

Stay Tuned for:

“Oh Yucca”

All material © 2011 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Close Encounter”

ESPatch May 20, 2011 16 comments

Echinacea…

the story book flower.

mother nature must have been hitting the datura hard when she dreamed up this plant.

She also did pretty good on the frosty white and tropical coloration of this butterfly iris (also known as Peacock Flower, Bicolor Iris, Evergreen Iris, Spanish Iris and African Iris, phew!):

Dietes bicolor

This little beetle was hiding under one of the plant’s veils.

This plant has been throwing out blooms for some time now…(full sun), it will be divided in the fall.

“uh oh!”

This “Man in Black” pulled up in one of the innocuous grey vehicles the other day, for some reason he kept inspecting the ground below my opuntia tree which is in full bloom right now. As dusk fell he proceeded to venture deep inside the dangerous Naboo territories of my back garden.

I have absolutely no idea why.

“I knew it all along Scully, didn’t I tell you those Mexican gazing balls were in fact beacons”.

“We mean your species no croak…harm”.

FLASH!

Santolina is in top frosty form right now. I always seem to worry about this plant at various times throughout the year, it gets leggy at times and occasionally browns in sections just to give me a scare. This slow growing plant requires some periodic pruning attention, but the results are well worth it. I need more of it.

Here is another one decorating a tree fern.

This evergreen wisteria

Milletia reticulata Benth

has more Gothic blooms on it this year then I have ever seen. It is covered in these old-suit-in-the-back-of-the-closet purple smelling blooms.

I like it. The heavy aroma fills up a good part of the Patch at this time of year. This plant, being the eldest always blooms first and it will keep on producing well into the summer, my other wisterias pick up the hard-to-describe smelling baton a little later.

I made the fatal mistake of planting this one on a metal support which it has consumed and is now proceeding to drag skyward…word of warning.

This beach vitex has almost made it half way round this stock tank, a couple more years should do it. It has also started to bloom.

This plant is a major problem in many coastal regions where it flourishes and smothers native plant species.

Polihale Beach, Kauai. Image by Forest & Kim Starr.

The same stock tank is also currently full of toad spawn,

wrapping the emerging water lilies shut…Madame Ganna Burrito.

Finally:

Feather grasses catching the breeze.

Gaura or aptly named “Whirling Butterflies”.

I am still trying to get to the bottom of these Datura seedpod strings that are touching the ground. What are they? Why are they there?

Stay Tuned for:

“Rikky Ikky Ivy”

All material © 2011 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.