Cactus

“Frost Bitten, Twice Shy”

ESPatch Jan 11, 2010 10 comments

Oh yes we remain gripped in a Harry Potter craze in the Patch, can you tell?

Only this time the craze requires copious amounts of Ibuprofen upon completion of a reenactment.

The latest, and repetitive request in the ESP is to be repeatedly “flown” around the decomposed granite pathways whilst “the flyer” is playing a strategic fantasy game of Quidditch. I call it Rubbish Quidditch because apart from the obvious, there are no hoops to score a goal through, and my Nimbus 2000 broomstick does not seem to function like it does in the movies.

Unfortunately for us, this hobbit is getting to the size that this activity can give the parental unit an immediate hernia. It is ridiculous to watch though. See for yourself… Oh, and who said that the golden “snitch” is hard to catch, pah! – not in Rubbish Quidditch, it is the size of a gazing ball:

Music by the EastSidePatch Recording Studios, Austin, Texas. :-)

This player got a rogue bludger that knocked her out of the Quidditch field into this Variegated Pittosporum / Variegated Mock Orange. This shrub is about five years old, I keep it pruned up high.

Only another thirty five years to go until it hopefully turns into a monster like the one at Zilker Botanical Gardens.

This is a Pittosporum right?

“Raaarrgh”

Monsters, or “motners” as he calls them, are also not far behind Harry on the popularity scale, especially ones with strange hand shadows that is…

She found this sago stump in Zilker Botanical Gardens, here in Austin, I don’t even know what she had in her other hand, but she was having some eerie fun playing with her dinosaur claw shadows as you can see in the video, it really was quite effective, very film noir.

I love this ornate gate at Zilker.

Back in the now recuperating Patch…

It was time to access the true extent of the damage of the recent and continuous hard freezes we have experienced, damage that is only now showing its true devastating impact on our gardens. What was once a vibrant gerbera daisy is now a small and truly representative messenger of the damage the patch has endured. The frosts have hit a number of plants worse than others, though I think the damage looks worse than what it actually is (he says hopefully). I am just happy that CTG did not film the Patch this week, though it would have been rather funny with Linda’s calming voice: “ESP gardens with a keen eye for contrast, he loves the challenge of incorporating errr dead or decaying plants along side healthy ones and is never scared to adopt soft, decaying succulents in a mass planting scheme.”

My fingers are crossed for this Mexican lime tree that bore so much fruit this last year. The leaves, or what is left of them, are now looking like dead dragon scales. The trunk is still green so I think although it looks really bad, it will pull through.

All of my bamboos have taken a harsh cold beating also, here is my sad Buddhas Belly, looking as crispy as some Oscar Meyer’s bacon. Like the lime tree, the culms are still green which gives me some glimmer hope, hope that I do not share for my poor dwarf bottle brush shrub in the foreground of this picture.

Even my Giant timber foliage have turned a distinctive shade of silver, a first in the Patch.

My artemisia looking sufficiently “cool” with this winter sunlight hitting it. After the frosts and then all the rain it perked right back up. I left it a little while longer then took a deep breath and walked to the shed to get my pruners. I hate to cut this plant back because it is like Jekyll and Hyde. It looks fantastic most of the year until it comes to pruning time. I find that to get the desired look for most of the year you have to be quite brutal in the cut-back department a couple of times a year. When this plant gets leggy it really does get leggy and then it tries to hide the fact that it is even leggy at all. The above mound of wormwood consists of a mere six plants.

“Oh yeah…Looking good now ESP”

I told you it was a Jekyll and Hyde plant, look at it now. I just won’t look this way for a few months until it fills back in!

Now what did I do with my blinkers?

Even the sago palms did not escape totally unharmed, Jack Frost picking off what he wanted.

“I will have THAT sago palm leaf, and THAT one…some of that, and a little bit of that, or my name is not Jack irritating Frost.”

The rosemary did not even flinch, this one seems to thrive on the cold, blooming, at least a little, once again right now.

I not sure this little plant was going to pull through, then it greened up with central new growth. Now if I could only identify it! It is like a tiny sotol.

My ghost plants have shrunk back to the bare minimum, mostly stalk – very little plant, but they live, they live I tell you.

All the ivy has turned burgundy green, it really looks great at this time of year.

My pine-cone cactus fingers are now broken and appear to be pointing and gesturing as if they are trying to tell me something.

“Pssst..ESP, treasure from the Black Pearl they be pointin’ too”!

“They better not be imitating my nose?

Finally, and I could not believe this early-year sunbather…

a winter dragon metaphorically hanging on for its’ life after the frosts. This old man has one foot in the grave judging from his lackluster complexion and dull eyes. But here he his proving that warm weather life can still endure. I have my fingers crossed for some life returning to all my warmer weather green dwellers in the spring.

Inspirational image of the week:

A word from the designer:

Stay Tuned for:

“Put the Petal to the metal”

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

“2010”

ESPatch Dec 29, 2009 10 comments

2010 started eerily in the Patch…

I walked outside this morning only to find this other-worldly mist sweeping in, and it was dense. The other thing odd about this morning was that it was very quite, unusually quite in fact. I clambered further into my timer bamboo for a better look at this strange phenomena.

I peered through the giant timber culms and heard a muffled sound, I squinted into the dense fog then recoiled as I witnessed my neighbor being attacked by something over the garden fence, something hideous…something that came from…from….inside

The Mist!

Eeek, Eeek, Eeek!

Okay, so the mist actually turned out to be nothing more than steam emanating from the washing machine duct, and my neighbor? Well that was the last I saw of him.

The Giant timber near the house has climbed to a significant height, you can really see it this time of year when the surrounding pecans have died back. Have I told you how I can’t wait to get rid of these trees, and that stubborn sticker on the stock tank?

This Timber Bamboo is already prematurely celebrating it’s win over the Pecans by proudly displaying this victory belt around the mid-drift of it’s culm.

Another bamboo patch…

My Buddha’s Belly Bamboo.

Bambusa tuldoides ‘Ventricosa’

Apparently this bamboo only develops the sought after Buddha bellies if it is root bound in a container, well not this one. I do not know what sort of neglect and torture I have inflicted on this plant underground but I have about 64.2% belly culms, (adjusts nerdy glasses) the rest straight. Not bad considering it is planted in the ground. This bamboo has grown a lot in the last year, although all the new culms this year have been frost-nipped and are doubled over. I think this is due to the fact that this bamboo is still an infant, albeit a twenty foot one, (something that makes me shudder with a slight twinge of a neck crick).

Guess what we did this week?

The ground was once again covered in a blanket of seed snow.

Yes, cattail wands were once more frantically casting their seedy spells all over the Patch, streaming tiny seeds up into the thermals…

…and a few others in less welcome places.

“What were the clouds like when you were young”?

The seeds provided all manner of play, when the spells had all been cast, then the shoveling and “cauldron” concoctions were started. I took advantage of the distraction to wander freely around the garden to see what else was happening. The relative peace!

Sedum reflexum

Sedum reflexum ‘Blue Spruce’ (thanks Pam), this little succulent is spreading very nicely in my cacti & succulent bed.

I tuck this plant in wherever I can, usually it ends up between my moss boulders where I invariably trample on it as I am contorting myself into some ridiculous shape to reach “that” dandelion all the way back there, (well that is where they always are, all the way back in there)!

Dandelions I have found, also love to co-exist right up against the spiny fat belly of a barrel cactus or any other flesh ripping plant for protection, like this sotol, “gently does it…easy…just a little more…almost there”…then Snap, you are left only holding only the top of the weed. Aarggh! The recoil motion invariably causes the the back of the “pulling hand” to adhere to an adjacent barrel cactus followed by ten minutes of highly colorful language, twenty-seven if I am alone. I have come to the conclusion, dandelions are smart.

Now where was I? Yes sedum…trampling, anyway this little plant always seems to bounce right back no matter the abuse, a great plant for filling in those small “detail” cavities in the garden.

Moving On…

The life-force continues to coarse through the ivy veins, despite the freezes we are enduring.

Seed-pods on my Thryallis, does this plant ever stop doing something?

Great winter color on the ornamental grasses.

And yes my Artemisia is officially out of control, almost time for the chop.

Question: is there a correct time to cut back this plant? I usually just wait until it is so leggy I cannot stand it anymore.

Even in the depths of winter this lantana is still throwing out spring-like blooms, it’s leaves turning from green to a frost bitten deep maroon now.

Finally…

Here are some winter games in the Patch recorded on my new “Flip”.

The music I created in GarageBand, it features sampled snippets of my oldest hobbit when she was little, finding her very first bug in the garden, and it wasn’t the featured ladybug that caused my youngest’s conniption in the video.

“Ewww”!

Inspirational image of the week:

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, just as this 3D effect rug called John Deere tractor. Designed by Permafrost, manufactured in Sweden and wool from New Zealand. The inspiration behind this rug came from a common image of rural America, the John Deere tractor.