Hoja Santa

“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

Stay Tuned for:

“Down the Rabbit Hole”

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

“The Leaf, the Witch and the Water-feature”

ESPatch Nov 25, 2009 15 comments

One rainy day, our children decided to explore our house in more detail, our eldest, was curious about the wardrobe in our empty back room.

She soon discovered that it was a portal to a snow-covered forest with a landscaped garden that featured a focal gas-light garden “room” in the center. It was here she met a faun, named Tumnus who, as it turned out, was a garden critic for an alternative world magazine. He invited her to his home, and overly manicured formal garden for afternoon tea.

He told her that the land is called Narnia and it is ruled by three ruthless witches, witches who ensure that it is always Winter.

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/about-the-esp-witches/

So that is where the ESP witches spend most of their time! no wonder I never see them, they are escaping the Central Texas heat in the frozen world of Narnia, those crafty witches.

“Are those farmers’ Almanac books Mr Tumnus?”

Lacewings and their larvae devour Aphids as if there were no tomorrow. Lacewings have a liking for the warmth and comfort of a house during the autumn and winter months, you can often find them indoors, lounging on lazy-boys, watching holiday specials. This one was being particularly vain, grooming and muttering how beautiful she was on my bathroom mirror, she needs to meet “The Lady”.

My burgundy Cannas and Hoja Santa are also proud of their looks right now. The recent rains have made them spring to new heights. I like how the Giant Timber Bamboo leaves look (right), in front of the Hoja Santa, such a great spiky/round contrast of foliage.

The texture and color on the burgundy Cannas make them a must-have in the Patch. I have a number of these containered, stately dark lords dotted around the ESP. I do like the way they look, and if placed in a sufficiently large “Texas” container, they do perform extremely well, even in our hottest months. I give my pots a good top dressing of home-made compost every year to replenish the soil as the continuous summer watering washes out the nutrients from the soil. These Cannas will die back to the ground with the first freeze, which should not be too far away.

This pilot risked an emergency landing next to a large stand of Hoja Santa, after almost hitting this satsuma tree.

Today was to be harvest day. I noticed a couple of bugs drilling holes into some of them, and realized they needed to be picked, immediately.

We counted 97! I am sure the tree will spend some time relaxing after being relieved of all this weight. I think we will be tired of satsumas after this harvest.

Reconstructing a pharoh…

Photograph: Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt, and National Geographic Society, 2005

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities has worked with CT scans to recreate what King Tutankhamun’s face would have looked like when he was alive. Three teams of forensic artists and scientists—from France, the United States and Egypt—each built a model of the boy pharaoh’s face based on some 1,700 high-resolution photos from CT scans of his mummy to reveal what he looked like the day he died nearly 3,300 years ago.

Giant Papyrus, King Tut or Egyptian paper reed. This one is about nine feet tall. My goal is to totally fill this tank up.

Cyperus papyrus

I started out with a single clump of papyrus and I have been dividing it around the interior of this buried stock tank for some time, long enough for some stubborn grass seed to blow in. I now have to go in about four times a year to snip this grass back, it is too embedded into these roots and stalks to extract it. Oh yes, this is almost as annoying as the grass that insists on growing tight up the side of my barrel cactus.

Arrrrrghhhhh!

These Artemisia hills behind my stock-tank “Tut” (try saying that one a few times) are in their prime right now. They will soon get too leggy and be ready for a good winter whacking back.

But for now this frosty waterfall of a plant remains quite fitting for this post’s Narnia theme.

Nearby, a “borrowed” scene courtesy of my neighbors distant and quite magnificent palms. You can make out the ESP property line fence in the foreground behind the pampas grasses.`The grass on the right…

is palm grass, or bristle grass, a native of India.

Setaria palmifolia

This plant has become a troublesome weed throughout much of the tropical and subtropical Pacific region, and it can be here in Austin. I know, I have first hand experience of this when I left one to go to seed a few years ago, my neighbor had about eight new palm grasses in no time at all! I now go around and cut off the seed-heads as they develop to ensure it does not become a problem. I love this tropical grass, it just requires a bit of taming…well worth the effort.

As I rounded the corner next to the Artemisia I was confronted by this hobbling gatekeeper who shuffled out from behind my copper canyon daisy. She demanded a candy toll before pulling open the squeaky metal gate, granting me safe passage to go to the pond and feed the fish.

Observations this week…

The water beads on this tiny succulent seem to be under some form of enchantment spell that enabled them to defy the laws of physics.

Giant Timber bamboo culms.

So after this season, the culm-count that have jumped the bed is up to two…but do I care?

The jaws of a gerbera daisy

And a pink daisy after a shower, or is it a jam, good enough to eat, tart.

My smoker barbecue pit this week turned into an ESP “campground” for no apparent reason other than it is there and it is a somewhat triangulated structure.

Another hider, so this is where flies go in a downpour. This hoverfly made sure it was staying totally dry as the rain came down.