Citrus

“Has he Been”?

ESPatch Dec 20, 2009 16 comments

This anole is currently living in our Christmas tree! I tried to get it outside but it just came right back in through one of our many gaps and holes in our walls. I suppose it was finding some “relative” warmth, or perhaps it is just getting into the Christmas spirit, hard to tell. I now spend as much time looking for the anole as I do admiring the tree ornaments. I could have sworn the other night I caught a glimpse of it, deep in the interior of the tree, adorning a small piece of cotton-wool on it’s pronounced chin, whipping a reindeer ornament with it’s tail with a look of Christmas glee on his lizard face…honestly I did!

Here it is making it’s way over the enormous cushion hill to our tree.

The poor anole looks like it might not make it to the holidays, lets just say he did not look well, he was also very skinny, I guess he is not finding too many bugs on our fake Christmas tree! I just hope that it doesn’t drop dead and fall into the presents under the tree. Now that would be unexpected Christmas present on Christmas morning for someone!

Moving On…

These old rusty Christmas bells are what is left of my desert trumpet vine flowers, this vine put on a stunning bloom show this year. In fact…

there is still one bloom left.

So strange that only one bloom still exists on the entire vine, and it is healthy and vibrant, even stranger that this singular bloom has its very own intellectual.

I have checked in on this inhabitant for the last four days. We discuss everything from philosophy to Tiger Woods. It seems this final bloom is this insect’s final vestige for the year, and it was not about to be up-rooted from it’s comfortable purple home.

I am not sure what this turtle-like bug is, but I am pretty sure it can not be as good for the plant as it is a conversationalist.

Talking of something that is not good…

Remember the “giant tongue” from my last post , well there have been some shocking developments on the grosser front. The cow tongue, it appears, has developed a propensity for lapping up red wine from the feeding trough, and judging from the color of it, magnums of it.

Ewww! Ewww! And a rather exaggerated lateral knee motion.

If you want to find out what plant this nasty, curled abomination originated from, you can find the answer hiding in here… http://www.eastsidepatch.com/visual-comparativies/ I think you will be quite surprised. I promise, no more images of this.

I was quite surprised at the details on this holly fern.

Cyrtomium falcatum

I think it may have contracted the plant equivalent of the measles. I turned over the leaf to inspect the pox further.

The leaves on the holly fern are very glossy with a leathery texture, waxy on the surface and lighter colored beneath. I was shocked to see the extent of the infestation.

NERD ALERT…NERD ALERT…

The closer macro inspection of the underside of the leaves revealed that the pox were actually the geometric reproductive spores of the plant. Remarkable. If you want to grow a few hundred holly ferns like I am about to attempt, this is what you do… collect the ripe spores on a piece of paper placed under spore bearing leaves. (Adjusts glasses). You can see a couple of spores on this leaf have already dropped off. Sow spores on damp peat moss in late winter. (they germinate best at a temperature of 68-70 degrees) this is going to be tough to achieve in my drafty “galleon ship” of a house (insert nerdy snort)!

The peat moss should be kept constantly moist and covered with glass or plastic. Once new plants are large enough to handle they can be transplanted into individual containers.

Staying in the same shady bed as the holly fern, my White Wood Sorrel is still putting out it’s ghostly blooms.

My Sorrels always have a growth spurt after I chop down all the Hoja Santa that usually cover them, they appreciate the little extra light.

Here is one of my hacked-back Hoja Santa plants, it is already trying to throw up new shoots, very primordial.

This kale was a freebie from the Natural Gardener. It was handed to my eldest hobbit who proceeded to take it home and plant it in my raised herb and pepper stock-tank with her tiny trowel. When our recent cold snap came she saw me shaking my head here, muttering obscenities over there, as I assessed the damage in the Patch, then she remembered her kale. Her face got serious then it had a look of deep concern as she made her way over to the stock-tank, eagerly peering over the edge.

Naturally the kale was loving the cold weather, there was a squeal of delight as she saw the plant had jumped in size. I saw these rain drops sticking to it and rather predictably started to photograph them to the background rap of “can we eat it yet?…can we eat it yet, Daddy, Can we eat it yet? (repeat 7.5 times), I even started to do some really bad Ali G “mouth” percussion to accompany the monologue just to keep me sane as I took these pictures!

The poor Botox Lady was getting “consumed” by this ice plant. I heard her from inside the house (as, I am sure the whole neighborhood did,) her absurd Austrian accent screaming out into the night air…

“Get it out of mine eyes! ESP, Get zit out, I can’t see”! mutter, mutter, mutter…ESP!

“Jimmy four fingers” … An arthritic rogue finger on my pine cone cactus demanded my attention this week, it tried to pinch my car-keys from my pocket as I tried to alleviate the eye suffering of the Botox Lady with my pruners. It was time to chop off some knuckles in an attempt to grow some more “fingers” in different parts of the Patch.

A nasty gangster affair, granted, but a necessity. I had no choice but to send a message to the rest of the finger-cones.

Here is the first knuckle that I snapped off…the cactus screamed at the loss of one of it’s core digits, like I remotely cared…wait! where is my thumb?

here it is re-planted in my middle succulent and cactus bed. “Fingers” (ahem) crossed, it will sprout roots and grow.

Noticed This Week…

Meyer Lemons, almost ready for the picking.

I have pulled so many dandelions this year, what odd plants they are, annoying, but quite odd.

Another odd-ball is this tiny succulent, it looks like some Ice-Queen’s headdress.

“Call that a headdress”?

Or perhaps not!

Inspirational images of the week, another modern Hobbit hole…

Great Building in Switzerland by Dutch architectural studio in cooperation with SeARCH Studio Christian Muller Architects.

I can see why you would need the fence around the top of it, staggering home with a take-out Christmas curry or a doner kebab from a local alpine lodge could be a little… errr… lethal?

“Merry Christmas!”

From us all here in the East Side Patch!

Stay Tuned for:

“Milk, Cookies and Spells”

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

“Wind in our Sails”

ESPatch Dec 5, 2009 12 comments

“Climb the rigging to the curtain rail”

“Secure the jib to the TV”

“Yarr, there is a squall coming”…

…and the squall has really been catching the mainsail in our living room. That’s right, our front room now resembles the “sailing” Monti Python building in The Meaning of Life, although I wish I could say, like them, we were sailing our building on the high seas of international finance.

Okay I’m exaggerating like I usually do…our house isn’t this big. It has though, developed an almost galleon ship expression on the inside. The polythene sheets nailed up to our walls have been under immense strain with the strong winds we have been experiencing of late.

The wooden “planks” strewn here and there just add to the nautical illusion, along with my new parrot from Pet Smart and the old telescope that I dug out out of my shed, that is now positioned in arms reach of my Lazy-boy. We also have these two old swaying chain lamps that fit in perfectly to the whole galleon scene, complete with cobwebs! Arrrrr, the Back Pearl it be.

Our front “room” even sounds like a ship at this point, groaning and flapping around. When the wind catches the “main-wall,” there is an audible sighing sound as the polythene bellows out then sucks back against the wall. When this happens I boom out “Tack” and lunge for my telescope. It is almost as if the walls are, are…breathing…

Aaahhhhhhh!

“HARD-A-PORT”!

Here is our home-ship catching the prevailing Arctic wind.

My wife took this picture late the other night, right after I had just finished watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Oh yes, watching a movie is now a character building experience, but a trilogy is potentially life threatening.

If you are not a regular reader to the East Side Patch, this damage was caused by a Chevy Tahoe, a vehicle that decided it should take an alternative route in preference to the boring monotony of the straight road that runs in front of our house.

It slammed in a possessed “Christine” fashion, straight into the front corner of our house:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/09/dude-wheres-my-car/

Here is the East Side Patch galleon ship as seen from the outside. I am thinking of getting a figurehead erected on the impact corner where the Tahoe hit, to commemorate the time that our house had internal “sails”. I am thinking of something on the lines of this…

What?!!

Do you think it would be a little “too much” if I secured and angled this eight foot high figurehead from the side of our house, hoisting her into position via an elaborate series of winches and pulleys? Visualize it, this corner of the house does look like the prow of a galleon ship after all, it would look great. Mmm, on second thoughts, the sight of this maidenhead may cause yet another accident.

“Resilient are these little Hobbits.“

Naturally there are always lots of chores to be done on a ship, chores like swabbing the decks? This was actually more like a Jack Ass stunt, he went careering through this water congregation point at high speed, then lost control and performed what can only be described as a double axel into an arabesque maneuver. Hence why he is out of frame…I just wish my camera had been on movie mode.

(photo courtesy of Mike Field)

The biting breeze in our sails carried our “house-boat” to a small island, we anchored and rode to shore in a small rowing boat, taking the opportunity to stretch our legs and observe some of the native wild flora.

This Fatsia japonica bloom is the largest one I think I have ever had. On our next warm day these flowers will be full of flies and many other insects. You can see the younger green blooms start off like unripe blackberries before exploding into these fireworks, complete with all the fine “sizzly” bits, that stand out in the deep shade.

“Hahah! You call these fireworks ESP”!

The oddest of spiky-salmon pink blooms, and one of the final flowers to develop late into the year. They sort of look like winter crystals.

Another end of year task, and one of my least favorite activities…

“The boring leaf scooping has officially begun”!

Lucky for me this year I have a helper to alleviate the mind-numbing monotony of this incredibly irritating and seemingly endless task. She actually likes to do it! Who am I to argue? Between the overhead Post oak and the embedded Bog Cyprus, a lot of scooping happens for the next month or so in the Patch. Are those some more Mexican limes she is protecting in her pocket?

Staying with citrus…these Meyer Lemons are trying their hardest to ripen before the winter fronts kick-in hard, they are almost there, j j just a few more days, I have moved this container up onto the back-deck of the ship. These will come in really useful when our house-boat takes to the high-seas once again…they will be really good for curbing scurvy on the voyage home, and, well, I am a “limey” after all.

Copper Canyon Daisy

We awoke this morning to a crisp and extremely cold day. Last night was clear and a hard freeze had reached into the island with icy fingers, touching plants here, nipping others there. Walking around it was clear, we had gone from a summer-end garden to a winter garden overnight…the casualties where numerous, I knew they would be. I was just hoping that the freeze had finally killed all my “Mother of Millions” plants, before they just engulf my entire garden. I will not be growing this one again, waaaay too scary.

Well, not quite, but lets just say it has looked an awfully lot better.

My cannas, my beautiful cannas. All have collapsed into a mass of slightly poached “soft” leaves.

As have the Hoja Santa, reduced to a bunch of old hanging handkerchiefs.

Though the leaves make great pixie-hats.

The amaranth’s foliage has also been nipped, accentuating the Santa seedpod colors, very festive for Christmas.

These seed heads will get to about a foot or so in length.

Even the sea froze.

Even more disturbing were these blood droplets, they were everywhere and in different parts of the island. Was this the work of the Naboo?

Or was my purple heart bleeding?

These mounds of seaweed are oozing purple blood. I decided not to cut it all the way back, allowing what is left of the plant some protection from the slushy top covering, it is looking like we are in for another freeze tonight. Perhaps this will spell the end of the…

Finally! We have all been nightly blood donors for the last few months.

Shadows from the ship’s Giant Timber Bamboo Rigging.

Sea-salted-succulents make for a delicious on-board snack.

We waited for the sea to unfreeze, then set on our long voyage back to our “pier” (ahem) and beam foundation, back to the Patch. It was good to finally be on our way, with the wind in our walls.

Inspirational Photo of the Week

Yes…plonk some of these giant baggies on your Hell-Strip and you will be the talk of your neighborhood. Perhaps not the best-liked, but the talk none-the-less. One or two of these bad-boys should ensure that no weeds will grow in your strip ever again, with the added advantage of gardening at waist height.

Just thinking out of the raised bed!

Talking of raised beds…imagine sleeping in here:

Metropolitan Home