lilies

“The Rock”

ESPatch Apr 20, 2011 4 comments

Shocking…I know!

I rounded the corner and my jaw dropped and cracked against the side of the concrete tomb-planter. I had an intuitive feeling something may have changed with it as I reached for my camera, leaving the house.

Read about the continuing saga of the restaurant sarcophagus here :

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/07/%E2%80%9Cgarden-coffins%E2%80%9D/

and here:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2011/01/19157/

I am not holding my breath for these plants’ survival, but I was happy to see that someone had actually cared enough to try to brighten things up. Oh yes, the sarcophagus planter has had a new lease of life, and it is looking better then I have ever seen it, ever! A veritable garden of Eden compared with some of its previous incarnations.

I actually got busted by the restaurant’s front of house staff taking the above picture, the youngsters seemed very “amused” that a patron (must surely be a tourist) was actually nerdy enough to take some pictures of it, if only they knew!

Now to something completely different…

I am currently working on an installation on the top of Mount Bonnell in Austin. I turned up early one day last week to direct a delivery of 15 yards of decomposed granite. While I was waiting for the truck, I spotted this tarantula

Aphonopelma sp.

by the side of the driveway, and it was a great specimen, I watched it for quite some time, until I forgot how close my hand was to it, and just how fast, despite their size, these spiders actually are.

I knew it wanted nothing to do with me but still, when it got spooked and suddenly jumped laterally a few feet and landed with a thud beside me, I have to say I had a full-on conniption.

Lucky for me it was early morning, limiting any witnesses to my over-the-top elaborate “Matrix” recoil…it has to have been my most spectacular to date. My camera finger even clicked a final shot in mid-recoil panic. These spiders are big (over three inches), bites of Texas species are generally not serious to humans. When disturbed, tarantulas maneuver to face the threat and will raise up on their hind legs and stretch out their front legs in a threatening posture. When disturbed they also may rapidly brush the top of their abdomen with their hind legs which dislodges urticating hairs from the spider abdomen which irritate the eyes or skin of an attacker.

You can just make out my trusty steed, as I landed on my back, capturing mostly sky.

Digging on the same property I also unearthed this…

No this…

Brrr!

Back in the Patch:

Unbelievable hot weather and drying hot winds have wreaked havoc this weak in central Texas, wild fires have been rife and I even ran a sprinkler as precipitation is already so low.

It was warm enough to have my halflings pressure me into purchasing a new Patch pool, which was naturally an instant hit.

The new pool even took her mind off her loose teeth which she is now obsessed with.

She got right up in my face the other day (as she does knowing it “bothers me”) on my back deck and said “look at this daddy”, she then proceeded to push her tongue into her ridiculously loose tooth, forcing it into the aesthetic realm of Stephen King novel, tilting it forward and sideways, all the while “smiling” in my general direction.

On this particular occasion I think she pushed it a little too far.

Horsetail reed is always so colorful this time of year, looking like glazed pottery that…

Okay, like I fooled anyone!

These black swallowtail caterpillars

Papilio polyxenes asterius Stoll

make quick work of these young fennel plants. I plant fennel every year just for these colorful and hungry visitors.

These parselyworms or caterpillars can reach 2 inches in length and are smooth and green, marked with black bands and yellow spots.

The orange horns (osmeterium), are an intricate defense mechanism and are usually concealed. If the caterpillar is disturbed, it rears up and reveals these orange fleshy organs that release a foul odor. I tapped this one gently with a feather grass stalk to get the desired effect. I did not witness a whiff of the bad stuff though.

Staying with feather grass a moment,

The recent windy weather has had the Patch once again feeling like the high seas, these grasses add so much movement to a landscape.

They are currently in their fuzzy phase, it is always something with them, you have to be prepared to work with this particular grass to keep it looking its best. These fuzzy panacles are about to stick together and form some serious knotty dreads which will need to be “combed”. This combing also dramatically reduces the amount of self-seeding this plant has a propensity to do.

Moving on:

Evergreen wisteria breaking like a wave behind my bench…“Hold your breath son”!

Finally:

Madame Ganna Walska displaying a crazy pine cone root structure, it is amazing how little organic matter these water lilies require to cast-off a root anchor.

Pond life is currently in full force, gulf coast toads, lilies and burgundy canna dictated filter maintenance this week, new young fish have been spotted and water striders are present in unusual proportions.

Organ-like star gazer lily seed pods have developed strange alien embryos:

“Game over man!”

(obligatory Lector noises, naturally)

Jungle canna,

and larkspur color in the Patch along with some cilantro that has gone to seed.

Sand cherry, flashing mauve leaf undersides in the breezes.

Stay Tuned for:

“Daddy Long Legs”

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

“Swaying in the Treetops”

ESPatch Mar 20, 2011 14 comments

I have a couple of vivid memories of being ridiculously high up in the top canopy of mature Scottish fir trees as a child…(referring to my vertical elevation naturally). One was as a “Danny, Champion of the World” pheasant pilferer, trying to hide from two black labs, a land owner and a cocked 12-bore shotgun, but I better not focus on this story, he may still be alive.

These mature Douglas firs were quite enormous, and you go through a few phases when attempting to climb them. I was up there, usually with a couple of my friends, on a perilous mission with a purpose…to topple down the nests of crows.

Crows are a farmer’s enemy, especially around this time of year…lambing season. I will spare you all the gory details but these birds will target new-born lambs, swoop down and peck out their favorite delicacies…

and

…as soon as they are born.

For this reason their numbers were always being checked by the shotgun and farm-kids willing to risk life and limb to get to the very top of these mammoth trees to topple down their nests. These birds nearly always nested all the way to the final, skimpy top branches of these firs and as such, made this a character building activity to say the least.

The main tool for getting through the branches of these dense trees, even on a nice warm day, was the ubiquitous fur-hooded anorak, a garment that became synonymous with the nerdy activity of train-spotting in the UK, something I incidentally and surprisingly, did not participate in…ever, I didn’t…no really I…

After some “shinning” (basically using thighs and arms to grip the trunk to get up to the first branches of the lower canopy) the pushing up through the extremely dense foliage would commence. The slippery material and protective hood of the nerdy anorak allowed the tree-climber to push through the dense lower canopy of the fir with ease.

This phase and vertical push would last for quite some time and at this stage you would lose sight of all your friends scaling adjacent trees. About 30-40 minutes later, climbing due north, sweat streaming from inside hood, darkness would eventually give way to light as the upper canopy was traversed.

It was an amazing feeling when the “breakthrough” would happen, the light would suddenly flood-in, hoods were pulled back and the environment and view would open up into something quite spectacular….the tops of trees – no more claustrophobia and ohh for that breeze. No longer capable of seeing the ground, the view across the tree-tops was amazing, it was the life of a forest that few get to witness. Holding on to the very top of one of these fir trees was really something, and the movement with the wind like a fairground ride. A good gust would make you feel that the now thin trunk would snap as you would sway 6-8 feet on a gust. I just wish the Flip camera had been around at this point in time to capture the experience, but alas, getting a video camera of that era up there would have inevitably resulted in a Darwin Award.

Nests were demolished, but that was not the real reason I kept venturing back up there into the tree-tops.

Designer: Shawn Soh

Lots of things happening this week:

St Patrick’s day has been and gone,

though for some it was hard to understand what all the fuss was about.

I first found a dead one,

then a day later – a live eight-spotted forester:

Alypia octomaculata

‘Octomaculata’ means ‘eight spotted’ this moth is often mistaken as a butterfly as it is often seen during the daytime visiting nectar flowers. The larvae of the moth feed on Virginia Creeper, Peppervine and grapevines, they burrow in pulpy wood or other protective places to make their cocoons and look like this:

Eight-spotted forester caterpillars are present from spring to early fall. They produce one to two generations per year and are found in Newfoundland and Quebec to Florida, west to Texas, north to Saskatchewan…One cool looking moth and a first in the Patch. As is this…

It appears that my tropical Madame Ganna Walska lily (left, serrated edges) has hybridized with my hardy water lily (right, no serrations).

Pam at Digging : http://www.penick.net/digging/

This fine specimen (with serrations) has your name on it for your up-coming blogging get together.

Nothing heralds in the spring better then the…

…Spring Starflower,

Ipheion uniflorum ‘Rolf Fiedler’

Ipheion is a small genus in the Alliaceae family that is mostly from Argentina and Uruguay. A member of the onion family this small plant delivers sporadic early spring blue blooms. It offers fragrant flowers with almost grass-like foliage that smells like garlic when crushed. Some folks feel Rolf Fiedler is really Tristagma peregrinans P.Ravenna but this plant has not been verified by anyone except for the person who named it, (I gather Rolf).

Who is this renegade Rolf Fieldler?

Finally…

Datura is once again on the move,

…as are the anoles,

aloes are sending up shoots,

and hell-strip bluebonnets are brightening up the curb.

Fresh new burgundy cannas have broken through the soil,

soiled noses and faces wiped,

and a concession just for my daughter…you cannot ever say again that I do not have flowers in the Patch!

How gaudy are those!?

Stay Tuned for:

“Another Grass Bites The Dust”

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

No post about forests or trees could ever be complete without this: