Mexican Bush Sage

“Patch Panic”

ESPatch Oct 18, 2012 6 comments

Ach!

Scotty, as it turned-out was correct…she couldnae take nae mere.

I found this fruit-laden limb resting on the ground the other day and swiftly went in with a plank of wood as a support before any of the fruit spoiled. Messing around under the tree, trying to lodge the plank into position,

I looked up and saw this monster (picture taken post event) staring down at me over the side of a leaf, looking like it was about to fall.

Acanthocephala femorata

or Leaf-footed Bug.

As irrational panic grabbed me, pushing me vertical, I found myself entangled in a rolling world of satsumas that had now engulfed my entire head.

Was it on me? Was it on me?

The proboscis, the proboscis!

I let out my customary muffled groan usually reserved for nightmares and

only narrowly avoiding the adjacent barrel cactus (which incidentally is still developing more blooms), scrambled out sideways and up to my feet, all the while frantically shaking and slapping at my clothes.

I looked around for the massed crowd that surely had come out to witness my ridiculous spectacle, but as usual there wasn’t one.

Talking of massing crowds, this is one you certainly want to avoid.

Your days are numbered my writhing foes.

“What is wrong with siphon tubes ESP?”

Mosquito larva live in the water between 7-14 days and wriggle to the surface to breathe through their siphon tubes, yes I said siphon tubes…brrr. The larvae will shed their skin four times growing larger after each molting, on the fourth molt the larva changes into a pupa.

I hate mosquitoes and their tubes.

Sweet olives are filling up the Patch with their fragrance this week.

Bees are hard at work in the golden hearts of the Walska, and

in the celosia that has turned a deep shade of fuchsia.

I have a number that are laying flat on the ground turning up at the end. Celosia as a ground cover!

My palm grasses have got very large after our recent rains,

providing great ribbed foliage. Here you can see the tiny sharp hairs that make these leaves very sharp in one direction.

Moving along:

Whale’s tongue, snaking gopher and a few disturbing pine cone cactus fingers offer a very unusual look in the same hue.

These gophers are soon to have their heads cut off, new growth is already visible at the base.

The tribal war-paint on this head should be sufficient to deter any predators attacking this giant swallowtail caterpillar.

Well, perhaps all except one.

I have a bunch of these cleverly disguised bird droppings currently chomping away on my Mexican lime tree. The caterpillars will grow to about 2 inches before changing into a chrysalis. As these are fall caterpillars they may stay in the chrysalis stage over winter and emerge in the spring.

This agave somehow works with the industrial hardware around my gas meter.

In front of it my somewhat lanky Salvia leucantha keeps on blooming, it is currently

full of these little Beet Webworm

Spoladea recurvalis

moths, whose larvae most likely hosted on my celosia or wormwood.

Inspirational image of the week:

Lots of wine bottle corks lying around?

Studio 1am http://www.studio1am.com/ has come up with an innovative use of recycled cork…jewelry. Discarded corks are ground up and formed into blocks using environmentally-friendly adhesives. Designer Donna Piacenza then cuts each cuff from a single block of cork, which can then be used to store the jewelry, or simply as a display piece, with a beautiful ‘C’ shape hollowed out where the cuff fits.

Stay Tuned for:

“Hexing Herbs”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Notre Dame it’s got Cold”

ESPatch Oct 7, 2012 4 comments

One final fling around the water park before the cooler temperatures descend over central Texas.

A water park that comes to life with an amazing light show as the sun goes down.

There are also lots of plants providing great fall color in the Patch,

they may be leggy (pruning negligence on my part) but these Mexican Leucantha still pack a snaking purple punch.

Salvia and the first celosia seed heads are starting to form,

these will be turning little fingers pink when I bribe my halflings with some extra allowance to harvest the seeds.

Thryalis is also putting on a fine performance at the back of my post oak,

head high, they are attracting shiny tiny hover flies / flower flies.

Allograpta obliqua

Flower Flies resemble wasps and bees. Despite their tribal markings, they are totally harmless and beneficial pollinators of flowers.

The larvae are also partial to aphids.

There are a lot of yellow flowers currently in bloom, it has been a bumper year for bitterweed all over Austin this year. Bitterweed is a yellow-flowered annual weed that thrives in poor soil and turban defying Hell-strip temperatures. Bitterweed poisoning is a major problem for sheep in the Southwest, it is a member of the sunflower family and is closely related to Colorado rubberweed both in appearance and in the rather nasty effects it can have on sheep if ingested.

Luckily for me, I do not have any sheep in my Hell strip, an occasional lost chicken perhaps, but no sheep. I like the free-form meadow aesthetic this cheerful plant creates and it works well set against a backdrop of bamboo muhly, another Hell-strip veteran.

“The bells, the bells…Esperanza.”

One more that is in the process of turning yellow:

Satsuma. The fruit this year are particularly large. I wonder if this little tree will beat the previous fruiting record of 97 set in 2009?

http://www.eastsidepatch.com/2009/11/the-leaf-the-witch-and-the-waterfeature/

There may well be a blogging competition in here; guess (or be the closest) to the exact number of satsumas? And no, the winner will not inherit our house elf.

Other things observed this week:

Bluebonnets are on the rise,

and the mysterious “brains” have been spotted, floating once again in the pond.

“ackack-ackack“

Interestingly these have not yet “grown” the disturbing spinal column that I usually see dangling on the underside of them.

This just in…

Remember this?

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

Well at the persistent and repetitious “aww can we go to that new place, you know the one where the other one was, can we?” monthly monologue from my elder halfling, we finally broke down and took her to the newly reopened restaurant. I say this somewhat lightheartedly as I really had my own hidden agenda for going there, and it wasn’t the food.

I wanted to see for myself if new ownership had decided to tackle the now infamous, sarcophagus restaurant planter.

And to my amazement they had!

I got out of our vehicle, heart pounding, and rounded the familiar strip-mall corner (mild panic attack) only to come face to face with a healthy and centrally planted loquat…a loquat! Squeals ensued followed by a considerable amount of shushing and hand waving on my part in case the front of house was listening to us just inside the establishment doors.

A pleasant end to a rather long, drawn out story I thought to myself, then I remembered the The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and started craving shellfish.

Finally:

I will leave you with some before and after visualizations of the latest ESP design:

A silver and gold approach eats into the hell-strip, widening and softening the property entryway. Two ‘blue ice’ cypress sentries stand guard flanking the gate.

The small box store pond was not at all fitting with the scale of the grounds, it was also situated opposite the front door, a natural entry-place to the garden. I replaced this with a wide and inviting limestone edged pathway that draws the eye down into a seating area and up around the second tier planting beds.

Here is the left side of the same bed with a meandering pathway leading up to a second tier shade bed.

Here is something to sleep-on courtesy of my friend Bob over at: http://dracogardens.blogspot.com/

Sweet dreams.

Brrr…and a bit more Brrr!