Hell-Strip

“Bottom of ze Barrel”

ESPatch Feb 5, 2010 10 comments

“foul is fair and fair is foul.”

I caught the ESP witches milling around this frost bitten shrub this evening on top of one of my mounds, (and YES, those are my citrus trees in the background!) Something had prematurely brought this foul trio down from out of my post oak. My heart immediately sank for I knew exactly what this signified…something or someone had once again died in the Patch, it was too early for the witches to stockpile gulf coast toads after all. I instinctively grabbed my wrist, and was relieved to find that yes, I still had a pulse… phew.

I decided to consult my own seer to see if she could shed some light on what had happened…

Esmeralda gazed deep into her sparkling rubber ball and pronounced in her overtly charismatic accent…

Must it always be a ridiculous Romanian accent? That is Romanian right?

I naturally added more coins for more wisdom, but as usual, Esmeralda’s impressive worldly advice wasn’t pertinent to anything at all that was going on in my life, or anyone else’s “journey” for that matter. I grumbled under my breath and read the random (most definitely not Romanian) “Engrish” phrases on the rear of the dispensed fortune card. One particular line towards the end caught my immediate attention…

“Death, ‘ries’ waiting at the bottom of ze barrel”.

On reading this, I immediately grabbed my camera and canteen and ventured down the steps into the Patch.

With Esmeralda’s cryptic, generic fortune telling, I strangely knew exactly where to start looking for a death in the Patch. My fears were confirmed as I honed in on this little barrel cactus after noticing a small something suspended in it…

…and no it wasn’t Bear Grylls, though it did “bare” (ahem) a remarkable sleeping resemblance…

Yes, this will make it into the “looks like” page of the ESP: http://www.eastsidepatch.com/visual-comparativies/

I climbed in closer, and realized that the suspended beast was a poor baby anole, laid to rest on a bed of thorns. My immediate thoughts wandered to the Naboo tribe, they had been awfully quiet of late after all… never a good sign. I came to the conclusion though that this poor little chap must have froze during our last freeze, his tiny feet were still defiantly gripping tight to the cacti spines.

“RIP, young anole of the barrel”.

I suppose the inherent armory of the barrel cactus had prevented anything from already snacking on his corpse, including Bear Grylls (well you know he would, given half a chance).

“You know me too well ESP, aang, aang, aang, aang.”

And RIP to this abomination, lurking in a brand new, yes, a brand new tray of purchased cherry tomatoes. More of a disgusting Santa beard than a tomato. Brrr!

Moving quickly on…

“Houston we have a go for launch”.

Engage the advil boosters…
for today, the conditions were perfect to hit my hell-patch.

I have been waiting for the right time…a long deep soaking from the rain, a nice cool sunny day with which to dig, and today fitted the bill perfectly. The ground in this strip is usually baked so hard it would require a pneumatic drill to even make a dent in it, but not today, oh no, today my pick axe lay off to one side, I didn’t reach for it once, today my shovel went through this soil like butter. Okay not quite, but you get the general picture.

The grade needed to be brought down quite a bit to get rid of the mounding and to allow for a decent future layer of decomposed granite. It was a royal pain working around this desert willow tree. The kid-size mattress in the background I curled up on every thirty minutes or so for a quick rest. That turned some local heads I can tell you.

I also went around the perimeter with a trowel to make sure it was clear of any hanger-on weeds, of which there were plenty.

Then a good over-lapping layer of weed barrier…

…a few bags of decomposed granite thrown over the seams and a few temporary rocks to stop the weed barrier from blowing away and I was done, at least for now. It will stay like this until another delivery of moss boulders and decomposed granite is in my future…Esmeralda? My plan for this hell-strip is a mass planting of transplanted and divided bamboo muhly to soften and hide the rectilinear shape, and some soft leaf yucca dotted around to create sharp, vertical contrast. I will cut holes in the fabric when I settle on the planting arrangement and drop in the plants. I will also hide the straight lines by creeping some of the rocks up onto the sidewalk before I back-fill it all with the granite.

Start to finish in these perfect conditions: five hours, that was the good news. The bad news is that…

…I still have the other side to go, and my right leg is now not quite right! Now, where are those epsom salts?

Other Patch notables this week:

Agave americana displaying a sharp array of teeth and great coloration.

Gopher plant getting ready to bloom…

…and a visitor rolls into the Patch.

Some fresh sand in the sandbox, life is good, at least it was for this hobbit until she was then dangled over our fish pond to clean off her feet in the icy water. Oh yes, she really liked that.

Image of the week:

One of my recurring nightmares.

Stay Tuned for:

“Hell Raiser, Star Chaser”

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

“Silence is Golden”

ESPatch Nov 6, 2009 21 comments

Continued… As I leaned forward, duct tape at the ready, her botoxed lips reverberated with every exhale, showering me with an extraordinary amount of saliva. She was still fast asleep, or so I thought, but I began to worry…would the adhesive work with such an abundance of moisture? I soldiered on, ever closer. It seemed the whole garden fell silent, it was if every creature in the ESP was completely stationary, waiting to see what would happen next…

The brown-nosers didn’t twitch a nasal hair, the carver bees put down their chisels in the fragrant mist flowers, burying their heads in the pollen filled flowers as if not daring to watch the scene unfold.

This newly hatched dinosaur could not believe what he was witnessing as his first visual scenes fresh out of his egg, an egg sac that was still at this point…

attached onto his hind leg, this poor little anole was having to drag it around with him.

“Huh? What? Oh do not even think about it! Izzard ESP…Izzard“!

The Paper wasps high up in the adjacent amaranth decided to just turn their backs, the suspense was also too much for them it seems.

Just as I was about to strike with the tape, the Botox lady’s large, cat-like eyes opened wide! Uh Oh!

She opened her mouth in retort, and just before she screamed out in her loud Austrian accent, I had an uncustomary moment of pure clarity…yes…it might just work… I leaned in and whispered into her sea-shell ear four words that immediately got her undivided attention…“Shhh, Its bulk collection day,” which coincidentally was the same day as the shoot!

She was so quiet during the CTG film shoot, nobody knew she was even there, not even Linda!

Not a single lip-flapping, saliva spitting, napkin mopping lip-peep!

Silence IS Golden.

Other strange happenings in the Patch this week:

“Captain, it appears we have a Euclea delphinii – Euclea , on the starboard bow”

Spiny Oak-Slug Moth

This is a stinging caterpillar, it looks like it would be! This caterpillar looks like it would be as happy on a coral reef as it would be on a variety of trees. Amazing patterns and shapes, I found this “kling-on” resting on top of my recycling bin, situated under a large Post Oak tree.

“Sounds like my kind of caterpillar eh Eddie.”

The larvae in this group are unique in that they are leg-less. Many have stinging spines. These have to be among some the most beautiful caterpillars out there! They also come in a rainbow of different colors and designs, this one just happens to be lime green and orange.

Image taken from rustyblackbird’s photostreamunder the creative commons attribution-non-commercial-no derivative 2.0 licence

Here is the small moth the larvae grows into. I have still yet to see one in person.

“”Who loves ya, baby? You know this next one is my favorite ESP”…

Cigar Plant,

Cuphea ignea

The species name ignea is Latin for fire.

The cigar plant is native to Mexico and the islands of the West Indies. It is a relatively fast grower and requires little attention. It is also a party place for all manner of butterflies and hummingbirds, they love these tubular flowers. I like the foliage, (imagine that), they are very tropical, with an abundance of leaves that grow all the way down the plants stem, for an added layering effect.

Here is my Barbados cherry, also providing some color right now with all it’s red berries…although they never last very long on the plant, at least, not in the Patch…

The shiny red ones are harvested it seems as fast as their color changes. The Artemisia, Powis Castle, hill in the background has really filled in with the recent rains.

I caught this minute translucent spider throwing up his huge arms in aggressive indignation on the approach of the camera lens, on one of my Jewels of Opar? (Oh yes, I will find a way of getting this plant into yet another post).

Look at that peeping eye! Now this has to be the smallest stink-eye caught on camera, ever! Oh you can beat it? Oh and is that really an eye?

Here he is scurrying away at high speed from the camera. He actually shot a Spider-Man line of silk to expedite his escape to an adjacent branch.

My fragrant mistflowers have finally started to decline after an illustrious display of grandeur this year, I guess conditions have been just about perfect for this plant.

I still think the plant is aromatically challenged though Pam :-)

This Mexican Lime tree has also been a solid producer this year, we have had limes from this tree all summer long, and there are still plenty ripening as you can see. This tree has really grown a lot this year, it is actually starting to finally look like a mature citrus tree…almost!

Purple in the Patch. Anyone know what the dark purple plant with the broad leaves is in the foreground?

Moving around to the front of the ESP…

Sago and Opuntia climbing to new heights, oh yes I will have my Opuntia tree, won’t I Germi? I recently planted these three Agave americana pups around this scene to add a splash of spiky drama. The soil in this part of the patch is particularly nasty, I thought these guys should be able to handle the adverse conditions, and wanted to get them started. The color and form of the agaves should work well with the darkness of the sago in the background. This hell-strip will eventually be dug down a little and the soil replaced with decomposed granite, one bit of the hell-strip at a time, that is what I say!

“I find myself completely disagreeing with that final statement ESP. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to finish the hell-strip first, then progress to the rest of the garden, and I do like to think of myself as having a bit of a red thumb”.

Stay Tuned for: