lilies

“Painful Extractions”

ESPatch Sep 25, 2010 19 comments

Say Ahhh! Or Ooo…

The blended rainbow colors forming on this dying giant timber bamboo culm are quite psychedelic at the moment…very Aurora Borealis. And just why am I staring meditatively at bamboo culms, performing deep breathing exercises?…Let me back up a little.

I have had a long and turbulent history with my two eldest barrel cactus. I had them in pots for the longest time as I prepped a fast draining bed in the Patch. The exciting day finally came, the bed was ready and so was I. I carefully extracted them from their pots, wrapped them in a very “ET” fashion in blankets and took full advantage of their exposure to tease out the Bermuda grass that had annoyed me for years. This grass embeds itself (as only Bermuda grass has a propensity to do), in the most inaccessible places known to man, in this case, tight in tight against the body of the barrel, behind the geometric spines…it was the perfect impenetrable fortress.

I spent time easing this grass out of the root ball with some rudimentary medical implements, and oohh was it satisfying. I looked like an unhygienic surgeon (complete with dirty fingernails), hunched over my “temporary operating platform” (my wheelbarrow), occasionally throwing my head back to manically laugh out loud as each individual blade lost its annoying stronghold on the root ball.

After relocating the barrels into their new home I was feeling pretty good, at least I was for a couple of months…then the unimaginable happened. I walked outside one morning to find more blades of Bermuda grass once again growing up from their bases, after all of my surgical diligence!

I had once again failed to eradicate my terminal enemy.

After all of our recent rains of late, I thought I would try one final desperate strategy…pliers! Why had I not thought of this before? I must say it worked very well with our softened soil, even though with each grass extraction, the back of my hand kept painfully impaling itself on adjacent smaller barrels as the Bermuda grass root would give way, though it was well worth the pain.

I have told you how much I HATE Bermuda grass at some point, right?!

There is only one thing I can think of that is worse, and perhaps more annoying and painful…

Naturally I am referring to the extraction of pampas grass. This particular pampas has been flogging flesh from my arms for a couple of days now, up to its extraction, and actually for some time after. Yes, that is my wheelbarrow handles poking out from under all of its hair, hair that insisted on wrapping itself around my exposed legs as I tried to push it. I know I know, I should have worn long pants, but it has been so incredibly humid! I had to take my chances.

I obtained a few lacerations prior to the extraction trying to get a good shot of this shy grasshopper who proceeded to shuffle round to the other side of the grass every time the lens approached it.

I played his game for some minutes before eventually giving up, all the while feeling the intent stare of…

“I wouldn’t dig around that grass if I were you, oh he’s started digging!”

…this nosy little anole. Very “human” eyes.

I struggled and punched (with gloves on naturally) the razor wig into submission in a trash can and dragged it out to the curb. With a final strand unknowingly encompassing my arm I walked away.

Inhale slowly through the mouth…hold….and exhale.

Moving On:

After the recent discovery of a rather large hole in the side of my camper, I decided to just take the whole thing off completely. This proved a little more taxing then I initially anticipated, mainly due to the weight. This could have easily been another Darwin Award, like the hanging of my wind chimes:

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2008/05/wind-chimes-and-my-post-oak-a-darwin-award-nominee/

but once again I got away without one.

Where she fell is where she lays, vividly reflecting my Celosia plants and my vitex in the front of the Patch, a very odd looking sight. I do like granite but not enough to bury my entire truck!

The good news is that once again I can get a scoop of the good stuff dropped directly into the back bed…I have missed this!

No sooner the camper was off, I was off to see if my old steed could still haul some of the brown gold. Some transmission slippage later, I was back in the Patch to touch up some of my pathways that had degraded over time, compounded by the erosion of the recent rains that have been transforming my walkways into small fast-flowing rivers on a regular basis.

And what a difference it made. What was once dirty looking granite is now looking like a new carpet that has had a Dyson running over it for 24 hours. I had no idea how bad it had looked until I laid out this new top layer.

It even has lines on it like a new rug.

This digger driver took immediate advantage of these new soft piles of granite, it kept him quiet for ages.

The other good thing about not having my camper on…

…you can sit on the tailgate and eat popsicles, oh and haul some serious cedar carcasses, courtesy of my friend Bob over there at Draco: http://dracogardens.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much for these Bob, they fit right in.

I like to use these twisted tree limbs to elevate Mexican gazing balls, which usually tend to get visually lost if just placed on the ground. They offer a great otherworldly, storybook aesthetic…you cannot beat that.

Within minutes of this ancient looking stump being positioned, this spiny Texas lizard was all over it!

Talking of ancient:

Fossils of this plant have been found on almost every continent on the planet. Cycads are often referred to as “living fossils”. And just how have Cycads been so successful? Well for a start, they are totally lethal! I had no idea.

The incidence of Sago Palm ingestion by pets has risen by over 200% in the last five years, due to the plants current popularity. Sagos apparently taste like Oreos to cats and dogs, a staggering 50 to 75 percent of cases involving ingestion of Sago Palm result in fatalities. This is remarkable considering how sharp they are, I had two blood spots on my knuckles just taking this shot! I would have never considered this plant poisonous, it just looks so benign, but all parts of this plant are toxic, particularly the seeds.

Talking of seeds:

I cut back my cone flowers aggressively a couple of months ago, and they have responded with new flowers.

In a similar hue, “whirling Butterflies” or Gaura are putting on their own dancing flower show right now.

As is my Barbados cherry, that was all but dead at the start of this year.

And behind it is…

my pokeweed. This plant is putting out a second set of berries right now, and to think that I was about to pull this plant out of the ground once again! This plant has been full of surprises since I first noticed it. Amazing how the stems turn from white to red as they mature.

The regular rains and cooler temperatures have really perked up these small sedums.

Even the gopher plants seem happier then usual.

And artemesia fills in the gaps. I have tried to time this plant so

a) it wouldn’t be too leggy and

b) it wouldn’t be too sparse for the upcoming Garden Conservancy Tour on the 16 Oct. http://gardenconservancy.org/opendays/events.pl?ID=393&SortBy=&State=

Mark your calendars, and I hope to see you in the Patch.

Stay Tuned for:

“Event Horizon”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant) 14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Haircuts and Sphingids”

ESPatch Aug 14, 2010 17 comments

“Look at that probosces…yeah baby, yeah”!

Sphingids are a family of moths, commonly known as hawk moths, sphinx moths and hornworms. They have been much studied for their flying ability, especially their ability to move rapidly from side to side while hovering, called ‘swing-hovering.’

It is thought that this evolved to deal with ambush predators that lie in wait in flowers. This bird loves the luminous night blossoms of the Sacred Datura plant, also called “jimsonweed” or “devil’s weed”, the blooms of this plant last only for one summer night and as such must work fast to attract pollinators, and what pollinators it attracts!

The large Manduca sphinx moths are not only essential pollinators of the night-blooming datura plant, but the plant’s surplus foliage supports the developing larvae of these sphingids. It’s called mutualism. The larva develops over twenty days and then molts to the pupa stage. The larva then drops to the ground and burrows into the soil where it constructs a pupal cell immediately before pupating.

The adult moths feed on nectar, this one was in a complete frenzy, it smacked into me twice while ‘swing-hovering’, before it audibly “ka-flumped” as it belly-flopped into this bloom. The body of this moth is about the size of a mouse (with a wingspan brrr) and I have to say it was quite disconcerting as it drunkenly careened into me at full velocity, pausing only for some freaky under-chin fluttering nonsense, every time the camera flash went off.

Needless to say, I only got these two shots in before wildly slapping myself around the neck area and running blindly (the flash had semi blinded me) for the safety of my house. I could hear “fluttering” immediately behind me as I stumbled.

I went out this evening, intending to stay out, to conduct some, temperate midnight mulching (as you do). As the light disappeared in the Patch, I switched on the lamp strapped to my forehead and entered a quiet and relaxed state of maniacal mulching. Mulching is great, it is not loud – no fear of waking the kids or the neighbors like a bobcat has a tendency to do, and applying it offers an instant visual gratification whilst smothering the weeds. At least it does if performed in the daytime…

…the added benefit of midnight mulching is the next morning, when you wake up and get to see your work in its entirety.

Now to the haircuts…

I could stand it no longer, the dreadlocks, the matted island hair, these mounds of straw had to be taken care of immediately…it was time for crew-cuts all round for my Mexican feather grasses.

I could hear them all moaning and complaining as I walked down the pathway to my shed to retrieve my shearing implements and the bib that I will position around each one’s shoulders as I move among them. Now is a good time to trim these grasses a little as a) if you are like me, you are probably completely fed up looking at their teenage mops and b) by cutting them back in August, it allows the plant time to recover and grow back for good winter form.

Ahhh, so much better, I can see their faces again…I must stop brushing up against that Jimsonweed!

You know it is hot when even the amaranth starts to wilt (right).

There was one lucky girl that did escape the barbers wrath…

That was because her hair was adorned with these lacewing jewels, that I just happened to see at the very last minute. Stalked eggs are typical of lacewings. The larvae are so hungry and ferocious, that if the eggs were grouped the first one to hatch would end up devouring its siblings.

I take it your siblings did not have the luxury of stalks FB?

Here are some more hanging from one of my sotols. The theory is that the stalks ensure a higher birth and survival rate, due to the fact that the larvae have to climb down the stalks.

“Facinating ESP”. Zzzz

While I was on my back with my face buried under foliage trying to capture a shot of these minuscule eggs I glanced over and saw this monster looming above me, in fact I only had to shuffle over a few inches to take this shot.

Ahhhh!

Cicada shells are almost as bizarre as the actual insect. Pam over there at Digging recently took a great picture of a cicada, riding it’s trusty steed: http://www.penick.net/digging/?p=8861 I am just glad this one did not decide to dismount as I took this shot, oh yes, I would have been sent running wildly into my house, clawing once again at my neck region…I wonder what my neighbors must think?

Moving on…

Purple heart has responded to our Texas august heat by saturating to even deeper shades of purple.

The foliage on my Madame Ganna Walska tropical waterlily is as interesting as the blooms and like the purple hearts, they are also very saturated at this time of the year.

I found this old tomatillo lantern on the floor underneath the mother plant…

…a plant that is threatening to take over an entire corner of the Patch.

Although quite beautiful, this is now the surface film of the sinking mosquito dunk (I featured a few posts back) that has developed in my “everything but the kitchen sink” rainwater collection “system”. I am not surprised this will kill mosquito larva, but really! I am now fearful of even using this water on my plants, even though the packaging stipulates it is completely safe.

Finally:

After I removed the mesh from my tomato plants a couple of months ago, I rolled it up tightly and stuffed it underneath my shed. Today, walking up to get my shovel to plant a new oleander, I noticed that a corner of it was poking out.

I investigated further and found this:

A Texas spiny lizard.

Sceloporus olivaceus

This poor chap had himself completely entangled. The above picture was taken after about ten minutes of careful snipping with some scissors. The hobbits were very excited to see one of these up close, considering how fast and shy these creatures typically are. The worst part of the snipping I saved till last, the neck and head, he kept attacking the ends of the snippers. A few final tighter snips and he was free, I cannot tell you how fast that creature took off!

I took the mesh immediately indoors.

I will leave you with this…the Gene Simmons of the butterfly world.

Stay Tuned (once again) for:

“Wilson”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.